Ogre’s Politics and Views

The Listening Heart: Vocation and the Crisis of Modern Culture, by A.J. Conyers (217 pgs). Spence Publishing Compnay, Dallas, 2006.

From the inside flap:

A culture built upon the ideology of individual choice will be a culture of alienation, loneliness, and violence.

Gee, does that sound like any culture you might know?

Those who read this site regularly might be thinking that Ogre disagrees strongly with the premise of this book — after all, Ogre supports freedom for the individual above all else. But this book makes an excellent point — that when the individual see themselves as more important than anything else, the culture disintegrates. And that’s certainly what’s happened to Western Culture since the 60s or 70s when the individual started being more important than anything else.

Who is this book for?

[those] who saw in the 1960s not a liberating new epoch, but the working-out of a certain decadence that had been predicted for many years, even centuries. These dissidents of the modern spirit see in the fashions and moral irresponsibility, in the cult of self-destruction among the young and the selfish flight of the old from family responsibilities; in the flagrant violations of ancient taboos in everyday speech; in the loss of courting and romance, frequently now reduced to animal coupling without ceremony, promise, or rite; and in the unwillingness to say that even the most perverse forms of sexual behavior should be censured, the shape of a culture that is dying.

Whew. I’m thinking the author had me in mind when he wrote this one. This book is another excellent read.

The author throughly tackles the meaning of the word “vocation” — and it’s not what it means today. He goes on to outline truly what it is about our culture that is making it self-destruct — and how it can actually be repaired. Personally, I’m not so sure a culture’s decline, once started, can be reversed, but it’s nice to read about what’s really going on, so if nothing else, you can reverse it in your own life and in those around you.

Much of the book is a history book — describing the culture over the ages, including motivations for doing certain things by different peoples. If you have been raised in the culture of today (”ME”), this information might be a shock to you. I, as many others like me, were told when I was young, “You can be president if YOU want to.” After reading this book, I now see so many things wrong with that statement.

As you might be able to tell, the solutions outlined are NOT government solutions — they cannot be. But government certainly encourages these problems and the decline to continue. If you have time, I strongly suggest you read this book. I’m willing to bet anyone who reads it will at least learn something new about the culture, at best completely change their view on jobs, careers, and “vocation.”

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