This is an edited version of a conversation between Eva Brann, the longest-serving tutor at St. John’s College, and Hamza Yusuf, President of Zaytuna College, recorded in March 2019. You can listen to the full podcast here. Hamza Yusuf: We’re really fortunate today to have with us, I think, one of the treasures of our [...]
“How is this relevant?” someone might ask about some venerable work from the tradition, such as the Aeneid or King Lear or Aristotle's De Anima. The one doing the asking might seem to be in possession of a burning truth about the uniqueness of the present moment, but the more we commit the past to [...]
Plato, through the drama of the “Timaeus,” reminds us of the dangers of being human as well as the dangers of philosophy. Danger and safety, perhaps the most central terms of the Platonic dramas, become central because of Plato’s care for what we do and what we suffer. And whoever thinks another a greater friend [...]
On Veterans Day, we honor our surviving warriors. We rightly give thanks to those who have sacrificed their personal peace for the survival of the nation. And we rededicate ourselves to fulfilling the pledge “to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan.” War endures. The oldest [...]
Perhaps now more than ever the young people in our care need to be guided to read and understand literature that addresses suffering. We educators have the duty to introduce our students to fellow wayfarers, those life-long literary companions who can re-appear with true comfort when it is inevitably needed. As a teacher of literature, [...]
The removal of intellectual life from the world, the withdrawn person’s independence from contests over wealth or status, provides or reveals a dignity that can’t be ranked or traded. This dignity, along with the universality of the objects of the intellect—that is, that they are available to everyone—is what opens up space for real communion. [...]
What does courage actually look like? Why is it that many who can face mortal dangers in battle lack the other virtues? How do you account for a man like Cicero, whose voice trembled at the beginning of every speech and who never distinguished himself in battle, yet who stood up to Catiline and saved [...]
Pope Pius XI’s "Divini Illius Magistri" is a manifesto for modern parents seeking to reclaim their rights as the primary educators of their children. Families and educators alike would do well to study and heed the pontiff's timeless wisdom. As far back as 1961, English historian Christopher Dawson was diagnosing a “crisis in Western education.”1 [...]
Hidden behind our need for financial support is the profound reality of what our college's education confers upon our students—the tradition that has formed the greatness of the Western world, the great questions, the faith enduring for 2000 years through many different cultures and regimes. The great heritage of our civilization has been imperiled, and [...]
Does Confucius' goal of a peaceful and prosperous society built upon learning, virtue, and the Way go beyond reasonable expectation? The question is worthy of discussion. The Master said, To be silent and understand, to learn without tiring, never to weary of teaching others—this much I can do. (p.48, 7.2) Reading The Analects of Confucius (all [...]
American history is a subject that has suffered from bad teaching, and public education in general is profoundly deforming in so many ways these days. This is why John Niemann, a veteran teacher at classical schools in the Twin Cities, saw a need several years ago and met it with the Saint John Paul II [...]
The pursuit of ideological history always ends with the installation of a new elite, a new ruling class, a new set of exploiters. Instead, historians should practice good history and humane learning, avoid the temptations of ideology and “relevance,” and defend the universities. In 1969, the American Historical Association broke down into hostile wings, one [...]
Last week, my wife, a painter-friend of ours, who wishes to be anonymous, and I did the Friday night walk down Canyon Road, the site of numerous galleries in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a small town that is the third-largest art market in the United States. Halfway down Canyon Road, we stopped in at a [...]
Many educators today have fostered a false enlightenment, a so-called "wokeness," that actually closes off inquiry and darkens the mind. But surely a recognition of this spiritual destitution will convince more and more people to look for real alternatives. Last week, a great friend of ours said that “the moment is good” for Wyoming Catholic [...]