If you want a book which can shed light on the trajectory we are on, from a philosophical view point, try 10 Books That Screwed Up the World: And 5 Others That Didn’t Help by Benjamin Wiker.
It is also available as an audiobook which you could listen to also on your Kindle.
This is a book pretty much everyone can read. It might be good for bright highschool age students, but for sure give this book to every college student and seminarian and priest you know. No, really.
Wiker (pronounced like the letter Y + ker) also has others I haven’t yet read:
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If you have four years to read the book, and criticize the list of books covered, go to Thomas Aquinas College…..
The “path” has become a highway of uncivilized lemmings, taught by elitist readers of the list or media whose brains have gone south unconscious 0f making the return trip to reason. Tsunami of poison to the young and impressionable, a contagion.
Hope through prayer and public sector examples of virtues? Currently, it seems like the dark age of history with the finger-pointing and name-calling of the influential loud and ignorant.
May I comment on a book not mentioned here that I believe to be culturally very relevant? I just finished reading George Orwell’s Animal Farm. What a funny book! I wasn’t prepared for that. I loved it. According to the foreword, Orwell remained a committed socialist. What he was satirizing through his “fairy story” was Stalinist Communism. That’s odd to me, since socialism just seems like a milder form of communism. Seems like Orwell should have seen that the strengths and foibles of human nature make either system a poor choice for human societies.
Wonderful! Father I just told a dear friend of mine about “10 Books That Screwed Up the World: And 5 Others That Didn’t Help” It is a great book!
It talks about how ideas influence society. He does a fairly in-depth analysis on different ways of thinking and how simple maxims (such as cogito ergo sum) have affected society.
Often times a Catholic may look around and say “how did all this confusion happen?” This book explains that. There was a time when I thought the sexual revolution of the 1960’s screwed up the world… but such a screwing up began in the 16th century (maybe even as long ago as Ancient Greece with the Sophists… but you’ll need to read “10 Books Every Conservative Must Read” to find out more!)
The book shows how morality, science, God and politics have all been screwed up and perverted. Science the way it should be and science the way liberals wanted it to be; Remember science is suppose to show reality the way it is…not the way we want it to be. A true eye opener, just a wonderful read.
The sad thing is that the Holy Catholic Church once was the true road block to much of liberal thought… but liberalism has snuck in! Liberalism destroys order… but what liberals forget is that there is a natural order that humans have within them. Here is an example… religious orders that accepted and promoted liberalism are dying and dying fast… why? Because as Boethius says… everything is going towards the Good – that Good being Almighty God… to love God and to be a Catholic means to be conservative (to recognize God’s order)… but our dear liberals will find that soon enough- we cannot create our own reality, we cannot wish away God. Liberalism is not a true representation of reality… a heterodox nun may WANT to be a priest but she never can in REALITY be a priest… in her delusion (which she wishes is reality) she can be. (Cogito ergo sum- I think therefore I am- I think a woman can be a priest therefore a woman can be a priest.) It is important that we pray for our liberal brethren that they, with the help of our Lord Jesus, overcome their confusion.
Thank you Father by posting about this wonderful book! As always I shall keep you and your readers in my prayers.
Uh, Father, could I have that book when you’re done with it? :^)=)
Doctor Wiker co-authored a couple of books I have on my shelf: Answering the New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins’ Case Against God (with Scott Hahn) and A Meaningful World: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature (with Jonathan Witt). 10 Books is on my Amazon wish list.
I have a particular interest in prominent conservative Catholic writers. (I recently read Nearer My God by William F. Buckley, Jr., which I found good in some respects.) I’m particularly interested in those who have openly opposed Ayn Rand, as Dr. Wiker apparently has in 10 Books Every Conservative Must Read. (Also noteworthy here is Fr. Sirco’s article on Rand over at the Acton Institute: Link.)
I’ve heard many good things about Fr. Richard Neuhaus (Article 1, Article 2). Does anyone have a recommendation on whether a good place to start for a general perspective on Catholicism and Conservatism would be Dr. Wiker or Fr. Neuhaus?
These books remind me of “100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken Is #37)” by Bernard Goldberg. And that was written in 2005, before Al Franken was doing it full-time!
Dr. Wiker also co-authored Architects of the Culture of Death with Donald De Marco, which outlines the biographies and philosophies of such names as Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, Kinsey and Sanger. While I’ven’t read 10 Books, it sounds like a good compliment to Architects, which I highly recommend.
Father, don’t forget the book you contributed to with John Zmirak, Peter Kreeft, Fr. Longenecker, et al., “Disorientation: How to go to College Without Losing Your Mind.”
It’s a very good overview of the lethal -isms that have poisoned the modern Western mind.
America’s Real War, by Rabbi Daniel Lapin was very informative as well. Many faithful Catholics have an interest in Judaism to some extent, and this book is a good introduction. The premise is one that most reasonable people share, ie, that people who practice Christianity and Judaism seriously and faithfully make better citizens and make for a better culture. Rabbi Lapin also points out that the Jewish people do better where the culture is faithfully Christian, not predominantly secular.
What a superb book!
It’s also available as an audiobook. That’s how I “read” it.