The Classical Mind Newsletter for December 23, 2023
Our Favorite Reads of 2023, Kierkegaard on Despair, "The Annunciation" by Scott Cairns, Art and Virtue, Board Games as Art, Some Honorable Mentions
Housekeeping
As we enter into a new year, consider telling your friends about the Classical Mind!
Apologies for releasing this a day late. My family and I were traveling on Friday and I was unable to put some of the finishing touches on this post.
In the spirit of Christmas, we are not putting any parts of this edition of the newsletter behind a paywall.
Our next episode will be the listens choice book, Nicomachian Ethics. It will be released on the second Tuesday of 2024.
Junius’ Top 10 Books from 2023
De Doctrina Christiana, Augustine
Children of Memory, Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, Catherynne M. Valente
The Girl Who Soared over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Half, Catherynne M. Valente
The Dark is Rising, Susan Cooper
Leviathan, Scott Westerfeld
Goliath, Scott Westerfeld
Behemoth, Scott Westerfeld
Apology, Plato
The Neverending Story, Michael Ende
Wesley’s Top 10 Books from 2023
The Noonday Devil: Acedia, the Unnamed Evil of Our Times by Jean-Charles Nault
Pierced By Love: Divine Readings in the Christian Tradition by Hans Boersma
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Conferences by John Cassian
Mary Through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture by Jaroslav Pelikan
The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory by Abigail Favale
Works of Love by Soren Kierkegaard
Christian Proficiency by Martin Thornton
The Case for the Psalms: Why They Are Essential by NT Wright
The Art of Reading Scripture edited by Ellen F. Davis
We talked about this in the chat, but what are some of your favorite reads from 2023?
Kierkegaard on Despair
It’s the holidays….so let’s talk about despair. At The Nation, Clare Carlisle walks us through Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard’s theory of despair. I’m a big Kierkegaard fan (maybe a future Classical Mind entry should be done on him!) and found this to be an excellent read. For Kierkegaard, the ultimate cause of despair is to lose oneself and this is a tendency we all have. We might here think about the diagnosis Lady Philosophy gives Boethius in Consolation of Philosophy. Just as Lady Philosophy calls Boethius to remember who he is, so Kierkegaard calls us to remember who we are in his masterpiece Sickness Unto Death. To be a human person, according to Kierkegaard, is to be made up of various parts which express themselves in a series of opposites—infinite/finite, eternal/temporal, freedom/necessity—that come with being an embodied soul. To be a self, however, requires a further step:
To be a self, a human being—who is already a composite of relations—must develop a relationship to itself. This involves both consciousness and desire. Relating to ourselves means being aware (or unaware) of ourselves and wanting (or not wanting) to be ourselves. It also means recognizing that we did not cause or create ourselves. We are brought into being and sustained in existence by something other than ourselves—and this “something other,” at least in Kierkegaard’s view, is God.
Despair is the result of disconnection from self. In many ways, his vision of this disconnection overlaps with St. Augustine’s description of sin as disintegration. There is no longer a unifying center or sense of coherent identity; each of those seemingly conflicting parts of who we are begin to pull us in their own direction. And so we are called to recover ourselves: “being a self means needing and longing to find yourself, to become yourself—and this means reaching out, across the abyss, in search of God.”
“The Annunciation” by Scott Cairns
Deep within the clay, and O my people very deep within the wholly earthen compound of our kind arrives of one clear, star-illumined evening a spark igniting once again the tinder of our lately banked noetic fire. She burns but she is not consumed. The dew lights gently, suffusing the pure fleece. The wall comes down. And -- do you feel the pulse? -- we all become the kindled kindred of a King whose birth thereafter bears to all a bright nativity.
Art and Virtue
In “The Art of Virtue and the Virtue of Art”, Margirita Mooney Clayton explores what it means for an artist to be a co-creator with God. I have recently been listening to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion read by Andy Serkis and the creation myth of his world heavily emphasizes this idea of co-creation. The connection between art and the activity of God lends an often-overlooked moral dimension to art that runs counter to the modern, post-Romantic impulse to see art merely as a mode of self-expression. “By bringing new things into being, humans co-create with God. Yet apart from virtue, the power to bring new creations into being will be disordered” but “By co-creating with God, we imitate his goodness, participate in his governance, and bring more of creation into the divine unity.”
Board Games as Art
In “The Personal, Political Art of Board-Game Design”, Matthew Hutson traces the evolution of tabletop gaming from the relatively simple (Monopoly) to the options available at your local comic book store which includes not only more advanced “board games’ but also collectible card games like Pokemon, Magic: the Gathering, Yu-gi-oh, and party games like Codenames. As game designers seek to arrange, combine, and invent various game mechanics, they are not only building their own worlds, but also casting light on our own.
What are some of your favorite board games? My wife and I love good two player games. Some of our favorites this year have included Carcassone, Critters at War, Doomlings, A Little Wordy, Monopoly Deal, Next Station: London, Paperback, and Qwixx.
Our favorite board games are: Spirit Island, Root, Wingspan, and Lost Ruins of Arnak. We’ve got quite a collection!
Favorite board games are currently Risk and Catan. I’ve never heard of most of the games on your list and ended up adding Doomlings to our list of games to try ☺️