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John Crosby

Joined: Nov. 25, 2011

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Most recent posts by John Crosby:     (See all of them)

Solidarity

Feb. 8 at 8:00am | Comments: 2 | Most recent comment: Feb. 14 at 6:57am

Editor’s note: What follows is the last of a 10 part series on the personalist philosophy of Pope John Paul II written some years ago for Lay Witness Magazine. We asked and received permission to re-publish the series here, to give fresh occasion for discussion of timeless truths. "Solidarity" was not only the name of the famous Polish labor union which, inspired by the person and teaching of Pope John Paul II, precipitated the non-violent collapse of Communism in...

Embodiment and Morality

Feb. 1 at 8:00am | Comments: 0

Editor’s note: What follows is the ninth of a 10 part series on the personalist philosophy of Pope John Paul II written some years ago for Lay Witness Magazine. We asked and received permission to re-publish the series here, to give fresh occasion for discussion of timeless truths. In our last installment we got acquainted with Pope John Paul II's teaching on the embodiment of human persons. We saw how strongly he affirms the destiny of the human body...

Embodiment

Jan. 25 at 8:00am | Comments: 1 | Most recent comment: Jan. 25 at 9:19pm

Editor’s note: What follows is the eighth of a 10 part series on the personalist philosophy of Pope John Paul II written some years ago for Lay Witness Magazine. We asked and received permission to re-publish the series here, to give fresh occasion for discussion of timeless truths. I began my last installment by saying that personalist philosophy can go astray in different ways, and I proceeded to show how in the contemporary world it commonly goes astray by...

Self-Donation

Jan. 18 at 8:00am | Comments: 0

Editor’s note: What follows is the seventh of a 10 part series on the personalist philosophy of Pope John Paul II written some years ago for Lay Witness Magazine. We asked and received permission to re-publish the series here, to give fresh occasion for discussion of timeless truths. Personalist philosophy can go astray in different ways; in the contemporary world it commonly goes astray by becoming too individualistic. This happens when I think of persons too much in terms...

On a certain self-love

Jan. 14 at 11:54am | Comments: 13 | Most recent comment: Jan. 18 at 11:38am

According to the conventional wisdom, it is easy to love oneself and hard to love others, and it is easy to hate others but impossible to hate oneself. But I have in mind a certain self-hatred that afflicts almost everyone, and a certain self-love that is every bit as difficult as the most generous love of others. Pope Benedict was pointing to this natural self-hatred and this difficult self-love when he wrote: “Is it good that I exist? Is it...

Latest comments by John Crosby:     (See all of them)

Re: Persons Are Unrepeatable

Jan. 5 at 5:43pm | see this comment in context

Tim Cronin, Jan. 5 at 12:03pm

The beloved one is unique because he or she is the beloved of someone, his or her beloved one. This o the only identity that makes him ore her unique: it is a relational identity.

This does not sound right. Whoever loves another is drawn to the other in the consciousness that the other is unrepeatably beautiful. This means that the unique beauty of the other grounds my love: but this is the opposite of saying that my love grounds the uniqueness of the beloved person. You eliminate the uniqueness of a person as a motive for loving that person, if you make this uniqueness a result of loving that person. The idea that a person, considered apart from being loved, is replaceable by any other, and that he is constituted as unreplaceable only by being loved, is incoherent. What one really wants to say, and what is quite coherent, and indeed very true, is that a person flourishes in his or her unique personal identity, he or she manifests it fully, only in the giving and receiving of love.

Re: Persons Are Unrepeatable

Jan. 1 at 10:26pm | see this comment in context

I think Jules and Katie are right to resist the view that dissolves a person into his or her relations to others (not that Tim Cronin means to say this).  If you go too far in reducing persons to their relations to others, then how can you make sense of the personhood of a human embryo, which has as yet no conscious relations to anyone?  I-Thou relations are indeed essential for the full flourishing of a person, but if they are essential for the very being of a person, then embryos are not persons. Furthermore, in our enthusiasm for I-Thou relations we have to take care not to make non-sense of authentic self-love.  There is such a thing as accepting oneself or hating oneself.  There are relatively few people, I think, who achieve a well-ordered self-acceptance.  This means that the relations by which a person establishes himself or herself are not just relations to others, but to oneself as well.  We should, I suggest, affirm a polarity of self and other, and take care to avoid a reduction of self to other.  This has nothing to do with the individualism that Tim Cronin rightly opposes.

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  • Re: Two new items for my case against "unprincipled forgiveness"
  • By: Tim Cronin

  • Hi Katie, In John Milbank's "An Essay Against Secular Order" he talks about the reality of forgiveness. He says that without forgiveness being accepted and realized it does not have a true reality. Neither does forgiveness have a true reality if it is merely formal. Receiving forgiveness involves a complete realization of consciousness of egocentricity. This involves a suffering on the receipient of forgiveness. It also involves a suffering on the forgiver through the re-establishing of the bonds of the relationship. -Tim

    Jun. 13 at 3:11pm | See in context

  • Re: Mercies hurt
  • By: Samwise

  • The Eustace reference works well!

    I have heard Mark-- on the radio-- speak about Uncle Andrew too.  Together, Eustace and Uncle Andrew make for some of the most off-putting characters in Narnia, and can annoy readers to the point of wanting to imitate Edmund (of all people).

    On the radio, Mark pointed out the unrepentant nature of Uncle Andrew, exhorting listeners to  have "child-like faith' instead.  It was a good reminder that ingenuity and IQ are not all we're meant for.

    Jun. 12 at 11:42am | See in context

  • Re: The Least I Need to Do
  • By: CATHY ECHANIZ-BECK

  • Not in particular, Devra.  It's kind of fuzzy to me, too. :)  Just a general sense I had, of Ivan's feeling guilty and wanting to do better.  Ha!  I should re-read that one; it was good! 

    Jun. 11 at 11:55am | See in context

  • Re: The Least I Need to Do
  • By: Katie van Schaijik

  • I love the reminder that turning away from serious vice is "the beginning of freedom".

    The next big liberation, in my experience, is from illusions of rectitude and self-sufficiency. It's the willingness to face and absorb the truth about ourselves—especially our impotence to save ourselves, or even to live well.  

    It's painful, but definitely freeing.

    Jun. 11 at 11:53am | See in context

  • Re: The Least I Need to Do
  • By: Devra Torres

  • I'm not sure, but maybe.  Ivan Ilyich had his lists of "thou shalt not's," but they all had to do with what was and wasn't done in his social circle.   There's something like that in Anna Karenina, too, about how Vronsky stuck to his principles, which were "Never lie, except to a woman," and "Never fail to pay a debt, unless it's a gambling debt," and so on.  Crime and Punishment is pretty fuzzy in my mind, Cathy: is there some part in particular you're thinking of?

    Jun. 11 at 10:39am | See in context

  • Re: The Least I Need to Do
  • By: Marilyn Prever

  • Was it the one about the dying man who couldn't take the first step, which was to admit he was not a good man ad to ask for mercy.The Death of Ivan Ilyich or something like that?

    Jun. 11 at 9:01am | See in context

  • Re: The Least I Need to Do
  • By: CATHY ECHANIZ-BECK

  • Dev, 

    Were you thinking of Crime & Punishment by Tolstoy??

    Cathy 

    Jun. 11 at 8:26am | See in context

  • Re: Two new items for my case against "unprincipled forgiveness"
  • By: Katie van Schaijik

  • One of my favorite scenes in one of my favorite movies, On the Waterfront, is Terry and Edie's first date. Terry tells her his philosophy of life. It's every man for himself. Get the other guy before he gets you.

    She lives in a different world—a world where people are part of each other, where they care about each other, help each other, and call out the best in each other. She's asking for his help. He's drawn to her world, but finds her naive. He wants her to drop her pursuit of justice for her brother. Forget it. Move on. Enjoy life. Don't risk trouble.

    The conversation ends abruptly when he bursts out in frustration, "What do want from me, Edie?"  She replies, passionately: "Much more. Much, much, much more."

    Cardinal O'Brien sounds to me a lot like Terry. "I said I'm sorry. What more do you want?" The Vatican sound more like Evie. "Much much more."

    Much more from you and much more for you.

    Jun. 9 at 1:49pm | See in context

  • Re: It's Here!
  • By: Katie van Schaijik

  • Got it. Thanks, Devra!  Can't wait to read it.

    Jun. 7 at 8:42am | See in context

  • Re: Interview with Hannah Arendt
  • By: Katie van Schaijik

  • Rhett, I'm with you in lamenting that maddening gap between the depth and delicacy of the insight you think you have and the clunky unspecialness of what comes out when you try to put in it words.

    That's the negative experience of writing your thoughts. The positive experience is when you've struggled and struggled to say something, realized you're missing something key, and then suddenly seen what it is—something you wouldn't have seen if you hadn't made the effort to put it to paper, or screen.

    Jun. 6 at 9:44am | See in context

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