Quotes from Rod Dreher

Thus does the Myth of Progress become a justification for exercising dictatorial power to eliminate all opposition. Today, totalitarianism amounts to strict, forced regimentation of the Grand March toward Progress. It is the method by which true believers in Progress aim to keep all of society moving forward toward utopia in lockstep, both in their outward actions and in their innermost thoughts.

Both contemplation and action are necessary to human flourishing. The

modernity's big lie: that humans are nothing more than ghosts in a machine, and we are free to adjust its settings in any way we like.

I now see clearly that our intellect cannot be satisfied until that truth enlighten it beyond whose boundary no further truth extends. In that truth, like a wild beast in its den, it rests once it has made its way there—and it can do that, or else its every wish would be in vain. —Paradiso IV:124–129

Arendt said of some writers who glorified the will to power,

Many Christians will see through these lies today but will choose not to speak up. Their silence will not save them and will instead corrode them, according to Mi?osz.

Legend has it that in an argument with a cardinal, Napoleon pointed out that he had the power to destroy the church. "Your majesty," the cardinal replied, "we, the clergy, have done our best to destroy the church for the last eighteen hundred years. We have not succeeded, and neither will you.

old Russian proverb, beloved by Solzhenitsyn: "One word of truth outweighs the whole world.

A Christian who practices asceticism trains himself to say no to his desires and yes to God.

The truth has power to end every tyranny.....They stood up for truth and justice not out of an expectation of achievable victory in their lifetimes, but because it was the right thing to do. You don't have to be a grizzled Cod Warrior to see that a notion of progress that depends on labor camps, police informers, and making everybody equally poor to achieve justice and equality is phony.

You cannot be both good and neutral, because to refuse desire is to refuse life. The goal is not to remove desire but to purify it.

Father John told the mourning priest, "Join your grief with the grief of others, and then you will find it easier to carry.

God has distributed his graces in such a way that we really need each other," said the priest. "Certainly there's the old man within me that craves individualism, but the more I live in community, the more I see that you can't have it and be faithful, or fully human.

A dead thing goes with the stream, but only a living thing goes against it," said G. K. Chesterton. That

vivir «tras la virtud» no significa solo habitar en una sociedad llena de discrepancias a la hora de considerar virtuosa tal creencia o conducta, sino en una que además cuestiona que la virtud exista. En la sociedad de la posvirtud, los individuos están dotados del mayor grado de libertad de pensamiento y acción y la sociedad se convierte en «una colección de desconocidos que persiguen su interés bajo un mínimo de limitaciones».

than the Communist Manifesto. The political religion that murdered tens of millions, imprisoned and tortured countless more, and immiserated the lives of half of humanity in its time, and the defeat of which required agonizing struggle by allies across borders, oceans, political parties, and generations—this hateful ideology is romanticized by ignorant young

This is how we must approach our jobs: as opportunities to glorify God.

That, and the way those who take away freedom couch it in the language of liberating victims from oppression.

Nuestra situación es alarmante, es verdad, pero no nos podemos permitir el lujo de tirarnos de los pelos. Esta crisis esconde una bendición, solo tenemos que abrir bien los ojos. En el Antiguo Testamento, Dios se valía del castigo para pedir a su pueblo que volviera a Él, así que no es de extrañar que esté dando un toque de atención similar a una Iglesia y un pueblo cargados de egoísmo, hedonismo y materialismo que le han dado la espalda.

And so a population that has been wholly propagandized by a totalitarian state, and demoralized by hedonistic consumerism, will hardly be in a position even to imagine opposition to its command-and-control strategies.

La pérdida de la religión cristiana es la causa de la fragmentación que Occidente lleva padeciendo de un tiempo a esta parte y que se está acelerando últimamente. ¿Qué ha pasado? Podemos destacar cinco hitos históricos que han sacudido la civilización occidental a lo largo de los siete últimos siglos y que la han despojado de su fe ancestral:

The contemporary cult of social justice identifies members of certain social groups as victimizers, as scapegoats, and calls for their suppression as a matter of righteousness. In this way, the so-called social justice warriors (aka SJWs), who started out as liberals animated by an urgent compassion, end by abandoning authentic liberalism and embracing an aggressive and punitive politics that resembles Bolshevism, as the Soviet style of communism was first called.

Este es el momento en el que Occidente pasó del estadio que el sociólogo Zygmunt Bauman llamó «modernidad sólida» —un periodo en el que el cambio social aún era relativamente predecible y manejable— al de «modernidad líquida», nuestra condición actual, en la que los cambios son tan rápidos que las instituciones sociales no tienen tiempo para cuajar y consolidarse19.

The old, hard totalitarianism had a vision for the world that required the eradication of Christianity. The new, soft totalitarianism does too, and we are not equipped to resist its sneakier attack. As we know, communism was militantly atheistic and declared religion to be its mortal enemy. The Soviets and their European allies murdered clergy and cast an uncounted number of believers, both ordained and lay, into prisons and work camps, where many suffered torture.