Justice: The Soul's Astonishment
By Samuel J. Mikolaski
Can your soul be astonished? More to my point: Can our American souls be astonished?
Here are reflections directed to 2012 presidential candidates, notably those who still retain a values-based outlook on life and wonder how they can be elected or govern if, as Christians, they are accused of imposing their faith on a nation now being defined as "post-Christian."
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"Plato's appeal to a reality beyond us is what today's radical class rejects. There is, Plato says, an intelligible world which transcends the world of our perceptions, which can be grasped only by reason -- a world of which our physical world and concepts are imperfect copies. When we awaken to that world, our souls are astonished to be confronted by transcendent universals. This happens by a process of recollection, a memory of things our souls once saw while following God -- i.e., pursuing truth. These universals are not taught, says Plato; they are recollections, deeply embedded instincts which through inner longing invite us to transcend our imperfections and move from the perceptual to the intelligible realm."
"Here Plato hints at the disaster of our modern reliance on what is purely behavioral: if there is not recollection -- reflection on that which is beyond us -- then we define ourselves purely in the terms of motor affective responses, of conditioning and brainwashing. This is where the contemporary radical intellectual class are and want to bring us, along with the assumption that they are at the top of the pyramid, privileged to dictate what is best for all: here is a real brain, so let's follow him."
