Happy Friday,
Listen and understand. What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.
Jesus, Matthew 15
Many assume the 3rd-century Christian ascetics moved into the desert to escape society’s corruption. Not really. They recognized society’s temptations but feared most the pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth—i.e., the Seven Deadlies—that they knew lay deep in their hearts. Most of the Desert Fathers who “escaped” into the wilderness did so to be undistracted in their efforts to face the evil within.
On a Related Note: Evil is real, but that does not mean we need to fear it. It can lead us astray and, in some cases, cause us to suffer, so indifference is not the goal. But evil can only truly harm us if we react badly to it—e.g., by fear, worry, discouragement, refusal to forgive, bitterness, etc. Real harm does not come from external circumstances. As Jesus said, “There is nothing outside a man which by going into him can defile him; but the things which come out of a man are what defile him!”
Without Comment: 1) Per this WSJ article, after recalling more than 11,300 academic papers it published because of “wide-scale research fraud,” Wiley is closing 19 academic journals; 2) Per this World Bank piece, the global median income is $5K/year; 3) Per this Pew survey, the share of Americans who think abortion should be legal has risen 4 percentage points since 2021; 4) Per this WSJ article, 56% of people now say a four-year degree isn’t worth the cost; 5) Per this study, half of all Masters degrees have a negative ROI; 6) In this 2023 Pew Study, nearly half of all parents indicated it was “not too” or “not at all” important that their children had children of their own, but only 2% showed similar indifference when asked how important it was that their children had a successful career; 7) Per this piece, many now know the NYT almost exclusively for its games—e.g., Wordle, the Crossword, etc.; 8) Per this study, the percentage of “nones”—i.e., those who do not claim membership in any religious tradition—appears to have stopped growing in general and started to fall among younger generations; 9) The Chosen—which has been viewed by 200 million people—recently passed Baywatch as the most widely translated show in history; and 10) Per this NYT piece, France has issued scratch-and-sniff baguette postage stamps ahead of the Olympics.
Miscellany: 1) The cicadas have arrived in big numbers where I live. And while I’m not a fan, I’m thankful they don’t bite, sting, eat like a locust, smell bad, or slime up the place. (Maybe I am a fan.); 2) ChatGPT-4o is here and is stunning. I still don’t trust it—i.e., I still think of it as an intern with a high IQ and low EQ. But its EQ is improving.
WOTW: Nominees include smellmaxxing (the social-media-fueled trend in which teenage boys—AKA “young scent hounds”—wear high-end cologne), placelessness (a term meant to lament our growing lack of geographical rootedness), the Oxford Comma (which is now being discussed among those previously unaware of punctuation politics), and Silver Tsunami (which a head-hunter used to refer to the wave of Boomer retirements). Full honors go to subsidiarity—the view that “social and political issues should be dealt with at the most immediate or local level possible.” I first heard it six months ago and now hear it all the time.
Quotes Worth Requoting: Given my earlier reference to the 7 Deadly Sins, I can’t resist citing Charlie Munger, the late Vice Chair of Berkshire Hathaway, who said, “The world is not driven by greed. It’s driven by envy.” I’ve also been reading Arnold Toynbee. In addition to claiming that “Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.”, he also contended that, “Of the twenty-two civilizations that have appeared in history, nineteen of them collapsed when they reached the moral state the United States is in now.”
Bono and Peterson: This 20-minute Bono & Eugene Peterson piece on the Psalms is eight years old, but it still packs a punch. We need the Psalms. In fact, we need to rehearse them until we know them like a favorite song and can flip to the right one at a moment’s notice. (As an aside, we will be rolling out ten weeks of five-minute devotions on the Psalms starting June 3. Sign up here.)
The Tao: In Can the Tao Save Western Civilization?— a long but important NR piece—Hunter Baker explains what C.S. Lewis was thinking when he wrote The Abolition of Man and That Hideous Strength. I’m heartened that Lewis’s thinking here is being rediscovered and thankful that Baker took to unpacking it. BTW, Baker—who is the Provost at North Greenville University—has both a PhD and a law degree, which means he’s introduced by naming four occupations: “Dr. Hunter Baker, Lawyer.”
Question: Do you think many people realize that graduation ceremonies are called commencement exercises because they mark the moment a student has finished their initial training and is now prepared to commence with their real education—and that it is to be a rest-of-their-life project?
Closing Prayer: May the Father of the true light—who has adorned day with heavenly light, who has made the fire shine which illuminates us during the night, who reserves for us in the peace of a future age a spiritual and everlasting light—enlighten our hearts in the knowledge of truth, keep us from stumbling, and grant that we may walk honestly as in the day. Thus we will shine as the sun in the midst of the glory of the saints. Amen (Basil of Caesarea, 330 – 379)