{"id":42136,"date":"2013-10-30T09:26:55","date_gmt":"2013-10-30T14:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.austincnm.com\/?p=42136"},"modified":"2013-10-30T09:26:55","modified_gmt":"2013-10-30T14:26:55","slug":"j-budziszewskis-new-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2013\/10\/j-budziszewskis-new-blog\/","title":{"rendered":"J. Budziszewski’s New Website"},"content":{"rendered":"

My blog post ideas, particularly recently, come primarily from the books, articles, and other blog posts I read.\u00a0 What I describe to my wife as “taking notes” involves an hour with a random book\u00a0held open to a random chapter or passage\u00a0while I type\u00a0into my laptop the words I would otherwise underline or highlight.\u00a0 There are many books from which I might jot down a couple sentences or a paragraph, and some where I type verbatim nearly the entire chapter.\u00a0 Dr. J. Budziszewski’s book “The Line Through the Heart” falls into the latter category.\u00a0 Given my interest in troubleshooting cultural maladies, in my opinion he takes C. S. Lewis to the next level.<\/p>\n

I had the fortunate experience a couple years ago of getting my book signed and shaking his hand during his office hours at UT.\u00a0 By a miracle he had my e-mail address on his distribution list for announcing his new website.\u00a0 Because he is one of my greatest heroes in understanding how human nature plays out in contemporary culture (I’ve quoted his book multiple times in my previous posts), I want to give a shout out to\u00a0this new source for reading his brilliant insights.<\/p>\n

From his website introduction:<\/p>\n

\n

I have been teaching since 1981 at the University of Texas at Austin, where I am a professor of government and philosophy. My academic focus is the ethical basis of politics. No, that doesn’t mean that politicians are virtuous. It means that choices concerning right and wrong, good and evil, are inseparable from political life — so, among other things, whether the politicians and citizens are virtuous makes a difference. I think and write mostly about classical natural law; conscience; moral character; moral self-deception; family and sexuality; religion and public life; authentic vs. counterfeit versions of toleration and liberty; and the unravelling of our common culture.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And one of my favorite passages from his book (chapter “Natural Law as Fact, as Theory, and as Sign of Contradiction”):<\/p>\n

\n

We are not just knowers, but seekers, who spontaneously incline toward certain realities other than ourselves.\u00a0 When I say that this inclination is spontaneous, I do not mean that it is arbitrary, because that is not the way that we experience it.\u00a0 One way of saying this is that we do not merely experience ourselves as drawn to things; we experience the things themselves as being such as to draw us.\u00a0 Our word for their being so – and there is such a word in every language – is “good”; goodness is the quality of being such as to draw us.\u00a0 So another way to express what I am saying is that we experience certain things as good, and experience ourselves as drawn to them because of their goodness; we are designed to be so drawn.\u00a0 With an air of demystification, subjectivists like Thomas Hobbes tell us that it is the other way around.\u00a0 They deny that we are inclined toward things because they are good.\u00a0 Instead, they say, we call them good because we happen to be inclined toward them (as we may happen to be inclined to different things tomorrow).\u00a0 Goodness is merely a name, and inclination does not point outside itself after all; it just is.\u00a0 But this is not just bad theory, it is a bad description of the experience.\u00a0 If you ask a man “Why do you love that woman?” he does not normally reply by telling you about himself – “I just do” – but by telling you about her – “Because she is wonderful.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

His website is “The Underground Thomist<\/a>” and I’ll be shamelessly stealing his thoughts from this new venue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My blog post ideas, particularly recently, come primarily from the books, articles, and other blog posts I read.\u00a0 What I describe to my wife as “taking notes” involves an hour with a random book\u00a0held open to a random chapter or passage\u00a0while I type\u00a0into my laptop the words I would otherwise underline or highlight.\u00a0 There are… [Read More]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[90,92],"tags":[924,2049,2050,601],"class_list":{"0":"post-42136","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-faith-blog","7":"category-news","8":"tag-blog-2","9":"tag-budziszewski","10":"tag-natural-law","11":"tag-politics","12":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":17037,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2012\/05\/the-pitfalls-of-mercy\/","url_meta":{"origin":42136,"position":0},"title":"The Pitfalls of Mercy","author":"Matt Sullivan","date":"May 28, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"\"For what greater sin can there be than to despise your Creator for that which should make you love Him more?\" - Bernard of Clairvaux According to Catholic tradition, the seraphim are the highest order of angels, most proximate to God and endowed with the greatest wisdom and love.\u00a0 Like\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/pitfall-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":24434,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2012\/10\/the-no-harm-no-foul-mentality\/","url_meta":{"origin":42136,"position":1},"title":"The “No Harm, No Foul” Mentality","author":"Matt Sullivan","date":"October 10, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"A common attitude of our culture is what one may call the \"no harm, no foul\" mentality, which uses the rationalization \"why not do it if it doesn't hurt anyone?\" to justify an ever-growing variety of interactions between consenting adults, mostly of an explicit nature.\u00a0 The basis of this attitude\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Faith"","block_context":{"text":"Faith","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/faith-blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/daffy-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":40712,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2013\/08\/must-hell-really-be-eternal\/","url_meta":{"origin":42136,"position":2},"title":"Must Hell Really Be Eternal?","author":"Matt Sullivan","date":"August 23, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"She opened Her hands once more, as She had done the two previous months.\u00a0 The rays [of light] appeared to penetrate the earth, and we saw, as it were, a vast sea of fire. Plunged in this fire, we saw the demons and the souls [of the damned].\u00a0 The latter\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Faith"","block_context":{"text":"Faith","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/faith-blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Picture courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/lava2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":16985,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2012\/06\/on-passing-judgment\/","url_meta":{"origin":42136,"position":3},"title":"On Passing Judgment","author":"Matt Sullivan","date":"June 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Few verses in Scripture have been cited by contemporary culture as commonly as Matthew 7:1, \"Judge not, that you may not be judged\" (RSV).\u00a0 This excerpt has been used by non-Christians to beleaguer those standing up for the \"big five\" non-negotiables of the Catholic Church (abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Golden_Gavel_-_Justice_Done1-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":180704,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2015\/12\/review-new-testament-basics-for-catholics\/","url_meta":{"origin":42136,"position":4},"title":"The Story of the King and His Kingdom (Review: “New Testament Basics for Catholics”)","author":"Lindsay Wilcox","date":"December 1, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Thanks to a few years of Bible studies, I could easily tell you that the \"plot\" of the Bible is the fulfillment of the covenant between God and his people. Now I can tell you that the New Testament has its own \"subplot,\" so to speak. A few summers ago,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Faith"","block_context":{"text":"Faith","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/faith-blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"A review of \"New Testament Basics for Catholics\" at AustinCNM.com","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/acnm-newtestamentbasics-550x367.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/acnm-newtestamentbasics-550x367.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/acnm-newtestamentbasics-550x367.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1941644,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2019\/07\/book-review-of-abuse-of-trust-healing-the-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":42136,"position":5},"title":"Book Review of Abuse of Trust: Healing from Clerical Sexual Abuse","author":"Shawn Rain Chapman","date":"July 30, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 In the current wave of the abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, it has been hard to know what to do. I have taken it on faith that the church eventually would survive this crisis and make the necessary changes to protect children and adults from abuse, because I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}