Monday, August 18, 2025

Diabolical modernity

Satan tempted Christ to avoid the cross, and offer us instead the satisfaction of our appetites, marvels or wonders, and political salvation – exactly what modern market economies, science, and liberal democracy promise us.  In my latest essay at Postliberal Order, I discuss Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s analysis of the diabolical, and the light it sheds on the character of the modern world.

Posted by at

7 comments:

  1. Vini TadeoAugust 18, 2025 at 12:30 PM

    Judging by the title, I can already expect this to be good! Can't wait to get home after work and read it through and through!

    Thanks, Ed!

    ReplyDelete
  2. MaolsheachlannAugust 18, 2025 at 3:14 PM

    I think the liberal would argue that liberalism doesn't propose values but is purely procedural. Democracy is there to in fact discover what people want; science to achieve it most efficiently; the market because people are willing to pay for what they actually want.

    I don't believe this is an honest characterization, but it's hard to argue against.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousAugust 18, 2025 at 4:01 PM

    The government should absolutely provide for those let down by the free market economic order. The U.S. is the ONLY first world capitalist country where many people don’t have a government run healthcare option available, thus leading them to have to choice between going bankrupt or getting medical care. The average American is one serious injury or illness away from total poverty.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousAugust 18, 2025 at 4:56 PM

    When you say”Western Civilization” what is the criteria to be part of Western Civilization? What characteristics exclude a country or People from being part of “The West”?

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousAugust 18, 2025 at 7:16 PM

    Neither revelation , natural law nor the magisterium requires we live in a democracy.
    Why not a benevolent dictatorship? Isn't virtue more important than freedom?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousAugust 19, 2025 at 6:47 AM

      Seriously? Good Lord. Virtue presupposes freedom, for starters. And the Catholic Tradition, from Aquinas on, is opposed to concentrated state power and supports democratic institutions.

      Delete
  6. Vini TadeoAugust 18, 2025 at 9:03 PM

    "Not that Boulter’s or Geuss’s characterizations of modernity are terribly novel or idiosyncratic. The features they identify are widely acknowledged, even if not always described in exactly the way these two writers do. But it is striking that the three features they take to be definitive of the modern world correlate exactly with the three temptations by which, on Sheen’s analysis, the Devil attempted to draw Christ away from the cross, away from redeeming us by way of suffering. In the light of Sheen’s analysis, modernity can be seen as appealing to us in precisely the diabolical way Satan urged Christ to appeal to us."

    Not only to plausibly link Fulton Sheen's analysis on the demonic activity -- and even to find parallels of the same problem not only in modern writers -- but also on a deeper analysis with the false goods that tempted Jesus... Ed, you're an intellectual treasure for this world. Period. But wait, there is more, as Ron Popeil would say:

    "Moreover, while modern people may occasionally speak sentimentally of the cross, its substance is anathema to them. As Sheen emphasizes, even in the Church today, mortification, asceticism, self-denial, and the “spirit of discipline” in general have been set aside. The remaining imperfections and disappointments of modern life are not endured patiently or acknowledged as inevitable in a fallen world, nor are they accepted as a penance, but instead are endlessly complained about and attributed to persisting injustice.

    "The modern world does not want a suffering Christ who commands us to take up our own crosses. It wants the satisfaction of every desire. It wants bold and wondrous actions. It wants political power to secure these other wants, and to dominate and neutralize any who would deny them to us. It wants what Sheen characterizes as diabolical “short cuts” around the cross."

    For some reason, these last passages kindly reminds me of TLS (even though the seriousness of the essay you wrote is very different from the tone on the book, in some parts) because the courage to say what must be said remains exactly the same as it was back then.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)