There are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity.

“Thoughtful Christians rightly lampoon the vagueness and insipidity of secularist slogans like “Love is love” and “Be yourself.” And yet, to “love learning” is just as vague. Love learning what? When a certain student does not do his math homework and spends Latin class flirting with the girl beside him, the problem isn’t that he “doesn’t love learning,” it’s that he doesn’t love learning math and Latin, or that he doesn’t love his teacher enough, or his parents. He absolutely loves learning other things, though, like how to make a TikTok video that will go viral, or what sort of attention the opposite sex will most readily respond to. I can absolutely promise you the boy wants knowledge.”

-from my The Love Of Learning Is Not A Virtue, my latest for CiRCE

“It is easier to be wise for others than for ourselves,” said La Rochefoucauld.

The new episode of Proverbial is available now.

“Having abandoned the Incarnation, we now regard physical contact between persons as either sexual, violent, or an indication of sickness (a doctor touches his patient). However, dancing offers us physical contact with others which is generous, structured, mannered, and lively. A traditional dance neither incites sexual passion nor denies the sexual nature of the dancers. Rather, dancing sublimates our sexual nature to something higher than itself; when the dance is over, we understand our bodily natures more clearly, having trained ourselves to physically, actively respect the bodies of our fellows.”

-from my latest for CiRCE

It is not a story I have often told, but I suppose a few readers of this blog may be familiar with “the bird story.” This week on Proverbial, though, I have made a record of it.