Description
Book SynopsisThat the United States is currently in the midst of a serious crisis, even an ideological civil war, which is part of the general and prolonged crisis of Western civilization is obvious to any thoughtful observer. One of the most perceptive observers of the development of this crisis was Gerhart Niemeyer. As a fugitive from Nazi Germany, a devout Christian, and a political theorist who had mastered the philosophical tradition and the Communist worldview, he was particularly well equipped to discern the ways in which the various modern ideologies insidiously erode the substance of truth and order in contemporary society and to seek remedies in the return to the ontological and spiritual roots of order in the Western tradition.
The writings collected in this volume, many of which were previously unpublished, are chosen from Gerhart Niemeyer’s essays, conference talks, and letters. The first part, intended to introduce the reader to Niemeyer on a more personal level, includes an unpublished essay describing his experiences in Nazi Germany and in the America that he encountered on his arrival in 1937. Several letters and other short works provide a sense of his character and his deeply Christian view of human life, both of which were essential to his grasp of truth.
The second part, “The Loss of Truth,” consists of thirty-seven essays that focus on the destructive effects of ideologies and other manifestations of disorder in the modern world. Several essays provide a sampling of his expert analysis of Communism and the ideological world-view of the American Left, while others discuss the spiritually stifling effects of the modern bureaucratic state and the ideological disorders that have crept into contemporary culture and the understanding of Christianity. Many of these essays are taken from Niemeyer’s National Review column “Days and Works.”
The character of Niemeyer’s search for “The Recovery of Truth” appears in the subdivision of the thirty-four essays of the third part under the topics of political theory, education, Conservatism, and Christian faith. Although these essays also consider the loss of truth, they are concerned primarily with the quest for its recovery through faith, divine grace, and a clear-eyed understanding of reality. This section begins with his 1950 work “A Reappraisal of the Doctrine of Free Speech” in which he lucidly analyzes the pitfalls of free speech in an ideological age. Among the other essays included here are works that attest to Niemeyer’s concern for a spiritual renewal in education and his profound respect and admiration for Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, and, perhaps above all, St. Augustine.
The book includes a bibliography of Niemeyer’s previously published books, pamphlets, essays, and reviews.
Table of ContentsIntroductionAcknowledgmentsPart I. Niemeyer, the Man 1. From Europe, With Love
2. Letters
3. What, to a Christian, is the Meaning of a “Changing, Technologically Oriented, Frustrated, and Fragmented World”?
4. The Hospice Movement and the Problem of Death (excerpts)
5. How to Talk to Mature People About Death
Part II. The Loss of Truth 6. This Terrible Century
7. Forces that Shape the Twentieth Century
8. Loss of Reality: Gnosticism and Modern Nihilism
9. Variations on a Theme
10. Ideologies, Political Theories, and Societies
11. The Communist Mind (excerpts)
12. Will the Soviet Reality Please Stand Up? (excerpt)
13. The Tourist’s Soviet Russia
14. Ethics and Politics in Communism (excerpts)
15. The “Autonomous” Man
16. Confrontation of Opinions or Dialectic Discussion?
17. E Nobilissima Visione Regna Inferna
18. Beyond “Democratic Disorder”
19. Two Socialisms
20. Anti-Communism Old Hat?
21. Common Sense
22. Counterculture?
23. Moral Dishonesty?
24. Rulers Without Power
25. See No Evil
26. The Reality of Totalitarian Despotism
27. What Happened to Morality?
28. Language and Action
29. Modern Politics
30. Of Human Dignity
31. States Without Citizens
32. The State and the Citizen
33. The Evil Society
34. Aliens In Their Own Nations
35. Toward Totalitarian Simplicity?
36. Public Interest and Private Utility
37. Structures, Revolutions and Christianity
38. Systems of History and Public Policy Goals (excerpts)
39. The Church and the Ideological Temptation
40. A “Church” Without a Name? (excerpts)
41. Beyond Institutions of Power and Patterns of Profit (excerpts)
42. On Authority and Alienation: A Meditation
Part III. The Recovery of TruthPolitical Theory 43. A Reappraisal of the Doctrine of Free Speech
44. Stewardship—Theory and Practice
45. What Price Politics?
46. Humanism, Positivism, Immorality
47. What Price “Natural Law”?
48. The Loss and Recovery of History
49. Foreign Policy and Morality: A Contemporary Perspective (excerpts)
50. Risk or Betrayal? The Crossroads of Western Policy
51. National Self-Defense and Political Existence
52. Nations, Myths, and Mores
53. Ideas Have Also Roots
54. Limits of the Law
Education 55. The Commitments of Political Education
56. Crisis and Renewal
57. The New Need for the Catholic University
58. Christian Studies and the Liberal Arts College
59. Letter to Rev. James T. Burtchaell, C.S.C.
60. The Glory and Misery of Education
Conservatism 61. Russell Kirk and Ideology (excerpts)
62. The Prophetic Calling of Solzhenitsyn
63. Conservatism and the Modern Age
64. Conservatism and the New Political Theory
65. The Burkean View of Politics
66. Review of
Conservatism in America by Clinton Rossiter
67. Is There a Conservative Mission?
68. Too Early and Too Much
Faith 69. Two Commencement Addresses
70. The Recovery of “The Sacred”?
71. The Church, the Shepherds, and the Spirit of Our Time
72. Christianity in Public Life: Real vs. Counterfeit Hope
73. The Politics of Hope
74. Guilt and History
75. Reason and Faith: The Fallacious Antithesis
76. History and Civilization
EndnotesPublications by Gerhart NiemeyerIndex
