We have the most leisure and are the most stressed group in human history. The problem with our leisure is that it is structured, planed, scheduled, organized. It is just another version of work. ‘Ain’t never going to the Bahamas again, just scheduling the air travel alone is too stressful.
The solution is dirt simple. Just sit quietly with yourself and no distractions for one hour each day. Ok, I can actually hear the eyes rolling. Yes you have the available time. Put your phone down, turn off the TV.
You can read this article and intellectualize the observations, sounds great! But you have to engage the process. Be brave!
Adding this book to my reading list. I do wonder how we could return to the two ways described without a collapse of some sort - it may be good for us.
Also, “the modern world shaping us into a worker” sounds a lot like the accusations in Exodus 1.
We cannot recover "intellectus" until we allow that there is a "given-ness" to the cosmos and that man is a receptive creature. In his hubris he rejects receptivity. The feminine nature ought remind us of receptivity, but we have spurred that truth. Now we do not know who we are.
“Pieper’s argument is that human knowing has always involved both — but modernity has effectively forgotten intellectus exists at all, collapsing all knowing into ratio, into work. To know something, in the modern view, is to have earned it through effort. The idea that truth might simply give itself to a receptive mind sounds, to modern ears, like mysticism at best or laziness at worst.”
I too am concerned that intellectus is being slowly and progressively delegated to AI. I am intrigued as to what king of generation it will give. Time will tell
Interesting article, Sean, will be waiting for the subsequent parts. The misery of the modern man is a question I too grapple with.
Should we say here in Substack many of us are rediscovering the lost art of contemplation? )
I would reckon so! We’re the rare spot in the internet that is striving to do so in earnest haha
"In other words, the modern world is reshaping the soul of human nature by reducing him into a worker." -- succinct
Thank you!
We have the most leisure and are the most stressed group in human history. The problem with our leisure is that it is structured, planed, scheduled, organized. It is just another version of work. ‘Ain’t never going to the Bahamas again, just scheduling the air travel alone is too stressful.
The solution is dirt simple. Just sit quietly with yourself and no distractions for one hour each day. Ok, I can actually hear the eyes rolling. Yes you have the available time. Put your phone down, turn off the TV.
You can read this article and intellectualize the observations, sounds great! But you have to engage the process. Be brave!
This is well said Allen. And Pieper would agree. The “leisure,” of today’s world is not leisure at all
Adding this book to my reading list. I do wonder how we could return to the two ways described without a collapse of some sort - it may be good for us.
Also, “the modern world shaping us into a worker” sounds a lot like the accusations in Exodus 1.
I like the invocation of scripture, as I agree the “worker,” temptation gestures at some sort of universal temptation beyond the modern ethos of today
Small book but big ideas. It’s worth several reads and it’s a must for real educators.
Couldn’t agree more!
We cannot recover "intellectus" until we allow that there is a "given-ness" to the cosmos and that man is a receptive creature. In his hubris he rejects receptivity. The feminine nature ought remind us of receptivity, but we have spurred that truth. Now we do not know who we are.
Thank you for this excellent piece.
“Pieper’s argument is that human knowing has always involved both — but modernity has effectively forgotten intellectus exists at all, collapsing all knowing into ratio, into work. To know something, in the modern view, is to have earned it through effort. The idea that truth might simply give itself to a receptive mind sounds, to modern ears, like mysticism at best or laziness at worst.”
I too am concerned that intellectus is being slowly and progressively delegated to AI. I am intrigued as to what king of generation it will give. Time will tell