orthogeeks

From St. Katherine’s College Forum: ‘Civilizing the Heart: C.S. Lewis on Education‘ is well worth listening to. It should come as no surprise that we’re down with the idea here, that the actions that people repeat form their deeply felt affections towards various things. Indeed, also that the things we experience become impressed upon our souls. For many of us, video games, popular music, science fiction and fantasy literature, movies and T.V. shows and Anime form a great deal of that ‘inform-ation’ (in the sense Aristotle punned it) – and the times we re-read, hit the repeat button, pressed rewind, or started up that favorite game again? They trained the dispositions of our hearts, certainly. Not always for the better, perhaps, but if one wants to know what people actually feel about the world, these are the places one must start.

As an aside, This is another reason to be cautious for what you watch, read or play both in terms of quality and content; this formation does not cease but continues in us as long as we live (at least on this side of the grave, to my knowledge). To this end, we hope that this discussion here will aid in that process. We are not children here, so I think Father Chris will agree that we’re not here to instruct so much as to inform and discuss, to give opinions based on our beliefs and experiences, and to see what others convictions are and why they hold them.

Along with this Lewis argues for a ‘proper affection towards’ something, which is a way of defining an objective morality. The speaker talks not so much of ‘a one particular proper way’ to feel or think about something, but rather ways which are ‘right’ and other ways which are ‘wrong’. As a programmer, I’m much familiar with the ‘many wrongs, many rights’ approach.

Thoughts? Ideas?