ECM and I have a disagreement about David Warren. I don’t think he’s analytical and evidential enough, and ECM thinks that he’s an excellent writer of essays. Please read this short essay on the proper role of pleasure, and then leave a comment explaining which of us you agree with.

Excerpt:

The building and rebuilding forces of our society — essentially church and family — are by now almost everywhere under organized legal, legislative, and propaganda assault from the sterile vanguard of the atheist Left. The poison mist of “political correctness” swirls over our psychic landscape, and the great joyous and unifying truths which animated Western Christendom continue to be supplanted, both practically and symbolically, by the envious Big Lies of the political “activists.”

(Hope that didn’t sound too wishy-washy.)

It’s very wishy-washy – filled with mystical language and untestable assertions! How am I supposed to use all this flippant flowery flibbertigibbet to bash my atheist enemies into goo, and then steal their gold? It’s no use at all!

Anyway, Warren diagnoses the problem as being a lack of moral and spiritual education, which has been replaced by hedonism, and he illustrates his point using the example of gluttony.

But nature, in herself, cannot save us. We are not mere animals needing only nature’s call. That part of our nature which rises to the fully human requires some degree of emotional, moral, intellectual, and yes, spiritual education — which begins at home, with a mom and dad.

Let us consider this morning the perfect example for après-Christmas: “gluttony.”

I suspect you will all agree with me that David Warren’s head is filled with metaphors and feathers. So, take a look at the essay yourself and tell me what you think.