Sanity in an American City

“To live sanely in Los Angeles (or, I suppose, in any other large American city) you have to cultivate the art of staying awake. You must learn to resist (firmly but not tensely) the unceasing hypnotic suggestions of the radio, the billboards, the movies and the newspapers; those demon voices which are forever whispering in your ear what you should desire, what you should fear, what you should wear and eat and drink and enjoy, what you should think and do and be. They have planned a life for you – from the cradle to the grave and beyond – which it would be easy, fatally easy, to accept. The least wandering of the attention, the least relaxation of your awareness, and already the eyelids begin to droop, the eyes grow vacant, the body starts to move in obedience to the hypnotist’s command. Wake up, wake up – before you sign that seven-year contract, buy that house you don’t really want, marry that girl you secretly despise. Don’t reach for the whisky, that won’t help you. You’ve got to think, to discriminate, to exercise your own free will and judgment. And you must do this, I repeat, without tension, quite rationally and calmly. For if you give way to fury against the hypnotists, if you smash the radio and tear the newspapers to shreds, you will only rush to the other extreme and fossilize into defiant eccentricity.”

-- Christopher Isherwood, “Los Angeles” from Exhumations (1966)

A Confrontation Between Eugenios Voulgaris and Voltaire

By John Sanidopoulos

Archbishop Eugenios Voulgaris (1716-1806) was the greatest Greek scholar of the 18th century, whose fame crossed the borders of Greece into Europe. In 1771 he left Constantinople and settled in Leipzig, due to a disagreement with Ecumenical Patriarch Cyril Loukaris.

King Frederick IV of Prussia admired the knowledge and wisdom of Voulgaris, and called him in 1772 to his court in Berlin to discuss such metaphysical questions as "Is there a hell?" and "Does paradise exist?". There, Voulgaris met Voltaire (1694-1778), a deist and rationalist who was among the famous thinkers of the French Enlightenment, and they discussed many theological and philosophical issues.

The Intolerance of Tolerance

The Intolerance of Tolerance

Gregory Koukl

Probably no concept has more currency in our politically correct culture than the notion of tolerance. Unfortunately, one of America's noblest virtues has been so distorted it's become a vice.

There is a modern myth that holds that true tolerance consists of neutrality. It is one of the most entrenched assumptions of a society committed to relativism.

The tolerant person occupies neutral ground, a place of complete impartiality where each person is permitted to decide for himself. No judgments allowed. No "forcing" personal views. Each takes a neutral posture towards another's convictions.

This approach is very popular with post-modernists, that breed of radical skeptics whose ideas command unwarranted respect in the university today. Their rallying cry, "There is no truth," is often followed by an appeal for tolerance.

Archbishop Christodoulos on the Future of Europe

By His Beatitude Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens and All Greece

Address to the University of Iasi - "Futurum" June 2003

Right Honorable Chancellor,
Honorable Professors,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
My very dear youths, our pride and hope,

I am deeply moved as I speak to you in your University today, in this town where, during the years of slavery, a Greek School flourished. At that time we spent together stony years, years of persecution and of death, years of suffering. Freedom remained hidden like embers smouldering in the souls of your forefathers, and of the Greeks who lived here with you and thanks to your hospitality. In those years learning was a rare good and the price to be paid for it was high, sometimes with persecution, sometimes even with one’s own life. Those years have left memories deeply engraved, as if by a penknife, on the marble of our hearts. May our address today be considered a homage to the memory of your forefathers, who wrapped the Greek School in the cocoon of their affection.