Wyatt Graham

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Books

Byung-Chul Han’s “Burnout Society”

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Byung-Chul Han argues that burnout is a pathology of a society that focuses on achievement and activity.

Further, burnout follows from this sort of society that has moved away from a disciplinary society in which the primary motivator was external punishment or prohibition to an achievement based society in which we feel as though we have limitless possibility.

We can do. That is the attitude many in the West share. And because we can do, we motivate ourselves by this sense of freedom to continue and repeatedly make and create.

We have no end point. We reinvent ourselves. We work harder under the imperative or compulsion to do more. This sense of freedom means that we are not forced into such activity, but we feel enabled or freed up to act as we wish.

However, society also has to reckon with its massive mental health pandemic.

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Thomistic Common Sense by Réginald Gerrigou-Lagrange: A Brief Review

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I enjoyed Thomistic Common Sense, although I found Garrigou-Lagrange’s organization slightly annoying; and since I was unaware of some of the people he argues with, I often felt a bit apathetic to the whole debate.

That said, where Garrigou-Lagrange exceeds is defining exactly what he means by claiming with Thomas Aquinas that the formal object of the intellect is being. [Read more…] about Thomistic Common Sense by Réginald Gerrigou-Lagrange: A Brief Review

Begotten or Made? by Oliver O’Donovan: A Review

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This is one of the most significant books that I have read. Begotten or Made? has changed how I think about human activities like artificial procreation, abortion, and transexual surgery. 

In this book, O’Donovan taught me almost nothing new but showed me how old and stable truths of Scripture—which we call Nicene Orthodoxy—applies to some of the deepest questions of human experience. 

For this reason, Begotten or Made? has significantly deepened my faith. I can think of only a few books that have done the same. And it was not because of something novel, as I noted, but because of something old.  [Read more…] about Begotten or Made? by Oliver O’Donovan: A Review

Stephen Wolfe’s Christian Nationalism: A Review

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Canon Press published Stephen Wolfe’s The Case for Christian Nationalism at an opportune time. After two and half years of COVID, people are ready to resist the state’s imposition on their freedoms. Yet the book has undergone its fair share of controversy. Accusations of racism and kinism or at least an association with it have arisen. I do not fully understand the details of these accusations, and it may be that by the time my review comes out such matters will come to light.

My goal in this article is to review the book Christian Nationalism because it represents a conclusion that many people have intuited over the last decade. As Christians struggle to resist societal pressures and reassert the faith, they have developed an under-defined notion of Christian Nationalism, one likely borne out of the realization that Christians now live in a society that no longer privileges Christian moral norms.

Put more simply, a lot of people feel that the Canada or the USA of their youth no longer exists. The moral structure of their country, the Christian baseline for discourse, and more besides has been replaced with something else. Should we then find ways to survive these transitions as pilgrims or attempt to re-establish a Christian national consensus? [Read more…] about Stephen Wolfe’s Christian Nationalism: A Review

On the Obligations of the Four Cardinal Virtues and the Grace of the Three Theological Virtues

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After the assassination Julius Caesar, Cicero wrote “On Obligations” to his son Marcus, who was studying in Athens. He obviously meant it for the public as well, but it has the sense of a father writing to a son.

It might be the most important book on ethics in the West, at least until recent years. Yet it’s recent decline in popularity does not gainsay its classic status or the reason why it become a classic—classics become so because they have a sense of excellence.

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