Today was interesting.
Started off this morning with a talk on the Church's stance on Democracy by George Weigel and what he calls the "disentanglement of the Church", that is, the fact that the Church no longer runs temporal State affairs and that this has helped the Church. To be honest, it was a good lecture and there were many notes, but it was stuff I had heard before, though not all of it, but a lot of it.
After the coffee break there was another talk by George Weigel on 14 Theses on the Church and the State. This one was much more substantial I found and had much great content.
Listening to that lecture it made me realize more indepthly why he has this course. He sees the problem, that people are not engaging ideas. A proper tolerance (which is something I argued in my paper for the application) is meant to be an accepting of people while engaging their ideas. This is not what is happening in Canada and so our society is falling. Anyways, the point of this course (or at least one of the central ones) is to help those who are still in a position to learn to have the tools necessary to engage the culture and to see that engaging it is necessary. Things are engaged more in the US then they are in Canada and that can be clearly seen by the number of think tanks that exist in the US, while I can think of only a couple that exist in Canada. Ideas shape societies, and when Ideas aren't entering a dialogue, then it becomes basic assertion of will, which is not what Democracy is about. We need to engage the Canadian culture more, we need more think tanks and we need to renew the proper idea AND purpose of the University (that the University is a place for an exchange and growing in understanding of ideas, not a trade school).
Then we had a quick lunch and then it was off to Auschwitz. I'll be honest, I tried to get out of it, only because going there once is plenty enough. I don't really have much to say about it. After going there, I am still thinking that once was plenty, and that 2 times there is more then enough. It is a tough place to be.
That's it for today!
God bless
Harrison
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1 comment:
Another great update.
When you listen to a guy like Weigel, you really appreciate having someone like Patricia Rooke around. She's of a similar calibre (though not profile) and says a lot of the same things. I like Weigel especially because his is a socio-political commentary, falling under my small field of limited expertise: Political Science. I must say however that his book "God's Choice" was a jumbled, awkward mess. But that's my opinion!
I never went to Auschwitz when I was in Krakow. I didn't need to. I can't imagine going twice. Je me souviens, d'accord??
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