In a 2017 lecture at the Eliot Society, Michael Hanby argues that our current civilizational crisis can be understood as a “new totalitarianism,” one in which no one knows he is being coerced, but in which certain ideas can no longer be thought and certain truths can no longer be perceived. This totalitarianism is new in that it advances not by obvious violence or control, but by negating and disallowing every form of transcendence. Any given order that precedes one’s choosing is dissolved. This leads, Hanby says, to a disintegration of culture. What is needed is the renewal of the Christian mind and the recovery of Beauty. Hanby uses Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town as an example of Beauty that wounds us to make us see what is good and true and beautiful, and he calls for Christian artists-as-prophets who will show us visible manifestations of the mysterious inner depth and unity of reality.
This lecture is provided courtesy of the Eliot Society
32 minutes
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