THIS is the second of a series of four essays by Thomas F. Bertonneau on T.S. Eliot’s writings on the decline of higher education. The first part is here.

T. S. Eliot, Culture, and Higher Education, Part II

Thomas F. Bertonneau

When the reader encounters in T. S. Eliot’s Notes towards a Definition of Culture (1949) references quoted from Harold Laski to such things as the building of a “new civilization” based on “social justice,” he might excusably muse to himself that he has the feeling of having met with these phrases before – only before would not be exactly right because he will have met with them recently in the twenty-first century whereas Eliot wrote his Notes sixty-three years ago.  The Notes – which figured along with books by Nicolas Berdyaev, José Ortega-y-Gasset, and three others in a seminar that I taught in the fall semester of 2012 – put in order a number of disconcerting intuitions that plagued Eliot with redoubled urgency after the Allied victory of 1945.  (more…)

DANIEL S. writes:

The southern African nation of Angola has reportedly outlawed the practice of Islam within its borders, declaring it not a religion, but a subversive cult. It is also being reported that several mosques and minarets were demolished.

If this story is confirmed, it will be interesting to see what international reaction will be. (more…)

T.D. writes:

JAMES N. writes:

With regard to the “Negro Question:” Everything we have believed is wrong. All of it, without exception.

Anyone who, in 1963, was a supporter of “civil rights,” knowing how society would change by 2013, would have predicted – paradise. They would have predicted – did in fact predict – that if we followed their counsel, things would be better. Maybe not all better, maybe not completely better – but better than they were in 1963.

What a disgusting farce. Things are not only worse, they are much, much worse. And Philip Chism is the messenger, bearing the message that is the refutation of every … single … thing that white “people of good will” believed, that Colleen Ritzer undoubtedly believed.

“I hate you all.” That’s the answer to 50 years of struggle. I hate you all.

White America. He’s talking to you.

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  MY fundraising goal has been met!! I am thrilled. Thank you to all who contributed, including those who gave a few dollars and those who gave much more. I will continue to annoy my enemies without interruption. Thank you also for your kind letters. I appreciate your support more than I can say. I also realize that in spite of their sophistication and razor-sharp intelligence, my readers have a simple, earthy, Pavlovian side. When they see an image of a thermometer, they instinctively want to get the mercury to the top! Thank you again. [thermometer height=200]

DIANA writes:

The newest viral video is yet another example of Hunger Games America. That is my new little personal invention: Hunger Games America, or HGA. Some have BRA, I have HGA. It’s the America where butt-kickin’ babes rule and sensitive boys let them do the heavy lifting.

It makes my head want to explode. The U.S. invented the notion of popular culture, and the complete degradation of popular culture in the U.S. says something deep. I’m not saying the old days were sheer genius – but Hollywood films did reflect something real, albeit in a funhouse manner. Today’s popular culture has jumped the shark – a whole school of sharks.

So here’s the video, and a Times article on it.

When I see stuff like this, I become enraged, and all I can do is write to The Thinking Housewife!

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KOLIA KARAMAZOV writes:

I’m really glad to see that you are close to reaching your fundraising goal. I’m not rich, but I’ve no family and no wife to pay for, so I don’t need much money and thus I am sending another donation to you. My mother would tell me that in order to have a wife someday, I have to save money now. But I think I have better chance to end up with a wife if I can get a woman to read your website. :-)

Anyway, as Christmas approaches, it’s the right time for a donation. All I give now, I won’t spend during the consumerist orgy that will start soon.

I know you don’t need additional reasons to continue your work, but here is one anyway: the seeds you plant and water are growing into plants, fruits and flowers. Here is one of them. That’s the blog I began last January.

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A reader made a very good and obvious suggestion regarding the American Traditionalist Society. He recommended that readers start forming chapters. You know what the issues are. You want to find other people like you. There are distinct advantages to not being part of a public, controversial organization. Organizing away from the public sphere of the Internet, at least initially, may be a better way. Several readers have volunteered to help. Perhaps we could create a directory of names that would allow people to find others in their area. This is a big country.

SAM writes:

Black hip-hop entrepreneur Russell Simmons claims that Obamacare has “already saved the lives of millions.” This is the kind of magical thinking that abounds among black public figures. Obama can do anything and he is a saint, and if it appears that he can’t, it is because sinister occult forces of racism are stopping him from doing it. This message is constantly parroted by black figureheads like Spike Lee and Oprah Winfrey and Michael Eric Dyson, and is believed by a significant plurality of the black population. And yet white Americans continue to wonder why black America is  implacably hostile to the culture of the majority.

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THE murder of schoolteacher Colleen Ritzer by 14-year-old Philip Chism, the black teenager who was allegedly angered by his parents’ divorce, was much more brutal than initially reported, according to newly filed indictments in the case. You can read about it at The Daily Mail. [Warning: This is disturbing content.] After raping Ritzer, slitting her throat and mutilating her with a tree branch, Chism left a note next to her body that said, “I hate you all.” He stole her IPhone, credit cards and underwear.

Chism’s note conforms with my theory that he was overwhelmed with niceness when he moved to the largely white school and hated people for it. I’m not suggesting this is why he killed Ritzer but that he was alienated from, and hostile to, the school he was attending.

Note the way this report keeps harping on the lack of a “motive,” as if there could possibly be a good reason why he did it. The killer left a note explaining his motive. How much clearer could he be?

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THE FRENCH are now subject to the same relentless scolding by successful blacks — the very people they have elevated to positions of stature — that Americans have been experiencing for many years. See Tiberge’s latest report at Galliawatch.

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LINDSAY writes:

I have sent another donation to you today. Upon sending the first one a few days ago, I failed to read the entire post until after donating. Returning to finish reading, I found that you intended to decrease your involvement with the site. Here I am again to reiterate my support. The import of The Thinking Housewife cannot be overstated in words or dollars.

My previous communications to you, for privacy and brevity’s sake, did not do justice to the impact of your writings on my life. Mine was more than just a mother needing encouragement. I knew that family and children should come before self but in the cold reality of everyday life, that knowing was becoming numbed.

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SAM writes:

I want to comment on this slapdash article by the political philosopher Michael Ignatieff in The Atlantic.

The article is written as a brief defense of Machiavelli’s amoralist position in politics. But the defense is revealing less for its content than for the way in which it provides a window into the inner world of the secular liberal intellectual. I know of no way to describe that world except to say that it is a dream world; an ideological hallucination.

The article begins by describing Obama’s decision to kill Osama Bin Ladin. Ignatieff writes of this:

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DIANA writes:

I realize that compared to the health debacle, the obesity epidemic, the national debt (do we ever hear about that anymore?), the immigration crisis, the pizza crisis, and the lavalike flow of LGBTQRSTUV “rights,” this may seem trivial, but since the movie Catching Fire is setting the world alight, I thought a brief word was in order.

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ALAN writes:

“Nature’s verities offer certainty and tranquility,” Ozark farmer, nature writer, conservationist, and St. Louis newspaper columnist Leonard Hall wrote more than thirty years ago.

There is much truth in those words. Lawrence Auster wrote about the beauty of an autumn day in New York.  Laura Wood has written about the beauty of flowers, the splendor of the night sky, and the astonishing occurrence of a bird knocking at her door.

Those things reminded me of a story told by Louise Dickinson Rich. She lived in the deep woods of Maine and wrote at length about their beauty and challenges. There was a big Russian fellow there who worked as a lumberjack.  He worked alone because he liked it that way and it was said that he was impossible to get along with.  One day while walking through the woods, she saw him sitting alone except for a group of chickadees that surrounded him.  She wrote:

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  FIFTEEN women comprised the first female group to go through infantry training for the Marines. Four passed the course and one of them ended up with debilitating stress fractures, probably from carrying heavy equipment. Read the comments about it all at Marine Times for a nauseating glimpse of those who view this as a great milestone for women and who pay no attention to the high failure rate. You would think war was a game.

      I am closing in on my goal. Please donate here. Thank you for your support.