Friday, November 28, 2014

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 47


This week has seen a sudden upswing in book sales, mostly of the Just Third Way Edition of Fulton J. Sheen’s Freedom Under God.  There also seems to be a spurt in the works of Robert Hugh Benson, the unique novels of John Henry Newman, and even those touching on the subject of widely distributed ownership of capital listed on the Distributist Books and Media website.

As the end of the year draws near, it seems that more people are focusing on learning about the root causes of much of what is going on, so that they can start to act, rather than merely react.  It may be that 2015 will be the “Year of the Just Third Way,” culminating in our participation in the World Meeting of Families next September.  The signs are there:

• Guy Stevenson, whom we labeled “The Fulton Sheen Guy” in a blog posting last year (and which seems to have stuck), appeared on Al Smith’s Hungry for More show this past Wednesday.  Some of us did not have a chance to see the show live, but it’s available in the archive.  Guy gave CESJ a few good plugs, even mentioning Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen, and you’ll notice the “subtle” mentions of the Just Third Way Edition of Fulton Sheen’s Freedom Under God.  Just a few tips: Guy, you should look directly into the camera lens, and not at yourself on the monitor, ditch the “finger quotes”. . . . and you looked better with the mustache, so there are two good reasons for keeping your eye on the birdie.

• Almost by coincidence, we are working on a paper that includes some research from Fulton Sheen.  Sheen’s first book, God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy (1925), was a profound argument in favor of the restoration of reason as the foundation of faith.  When Sheen wrote, the problem of “fideism,” that is, basing matters on faith alone rather than on reason illuminated and guided by faith, was a growing problem not only in organized religion, but in all of society.  In civil society, for example, there was the theory of the “living constitution” by means of which sovereignty was shifted from the human person, to the State, as chronicled by William W. Crosskey in Politics and the Constitution in the History of the United States (1953).  This was also a concern of G.K. Chesterton in many of his books, and Msgr. Ronald Knox in Enthusiasm (1950).  Sheen was, in fact, known as “the American Chesterton.”  Not surprisingly, Chesterton wrote the introduction to God and Intelligence.

• Sales of CESJ’s latest “Paradigm Paper,” The Political Animal: Economic Justice and the Sovereignty of the Human Person, are still doing well, with a small burst of sales in November.  The Political Animal, like all CESJ publications, is available in bulk at substantial savings.  With the 20% discount applicable to bulk sales (i.e., ten or more copies of a single title), a full case of 50 is $400, plus shipping.  Enquire at “publications [at] cesj [dot] org” for details and cost of shipping bulk/wholesale orders.  Individual copies are available now on Amazon, and on Barnes and Noble. Please note: CESJ does not sell retail.

• CESJ’s short paper on “The Business Cycle: A Kelsonian Analysis,” has been submitted to the American Journal of Economics and Sociology.  The article examines the restoration of Say’s Law of Markets from a slightly different perspective, and notes some of the contradictions inherent in Keynesian economics, particularly the “money multiplier” developed and promoted by Richard Kahn.

• As of this morning, we have had visitors from 48 different countries and 49 states and provinces in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past two months. Most visitors are from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, India, and Australia. The most popular postings this past week were “Aristotle on Private Property,” “Halloween Horror Special: The Faith that Ate Reason,” “In Your Face,” “Poverty and Freedom,” and “Thomas Hobbes on Private Property.”

Those are the happenings for this week, at least those that we know about.  If you have an accomplishment that you think should be listed, send us a note about it at mgreaney [at] cesj [dot] org, and we’ll see that it gets into the next “issue.”  If you have a short (250-400 word) comment on a specific posting, please enter your comments in the blog — do not send them to us to post for you.  All comments are moderated, so we’ll see it before it goes up.

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