“So, what do you think about this?”

The 30 seconds of silence resounding after my professor posed this question to our class could have lasted an hour. Yes it was refreshing to not be in the typical lecture mode, but did I, or any of my classmates, have any thoughts to really contribute? 

After the 30 seconds is up, the professor usually extends a friendly reminder that all thoughts are welcome in the “safe space” of our classroom and that even erroneous and blatantly stupid ideas will be received with welcoming arms. No matter how assuring this plea for conversation may be, the class remains silent. What is going on?

The more and more I watch my classmates draw blanks with this question, the more and more I wonder at my professor’s dejected disappointment. A group of friends in a class has no problem conversing amongst each other before class, but the second we are asked to evaluate something in this way, there is an impenetrable silence. What contributes to this silence and what I believe to be the cause of it, is not shame nor indifference but inability.



“The man who is not struggling or the man who is completely carefree does not exist. This is our human condition, this is what it means to be a man, this is our fate” (3). 
I think it is here, in his introduction to Man in the Struggle for Peace, that Charles Malik gives us the answer to our silent class discussions. We have forgotten that we are men.


Man is uniquely capable of this kind of response that is being asked of my professor, namely, the ability to think critically. Humanity is set apart in this ability by nature. It gives us our highest degree of existence that separates us from all other living things. It is this rational capability that allows man to reach all new heights. He is able to think outside of himself, that is in a transcendent way. His work-a-day world is no longer consumed by himself but has an ability to bear value outside of himself. It is unique that man can go to an 8 to 5 job and do it out of love. He can sacrifice his time and energy for the sake of providing for those whose care he is entrusted with. No other being can do this. 

It is not that modern man, especially us millennials, are incapable of this same transcendent thought that has been hallowed throughout the ages as uniquely personal. Rather, I believe it is that we have forgotten that we are made to do it. We don’t read a philosophical text or otherwise in  order to critically evaluating its work. We read it to understand what it is saying. In this investigation, we have forgotten to look for the why and the how.

And now you may be wondering why and how have we gotten to this place. Here, I could proceed to say this is the shortcoming of our education system or that it is the fault of modern advertising to short term pleasure, but the point here is not to place blame. The point here is that until man learns to wrestle, he will find no peace. 

Two of my younger brothers competitively wrestle and I would not say that watching them makes me confident that peace can come out of any sort of wrestling, physical or rational. But, this aspect of the wrestling of man is what is foundation to human nature for Malik, especially in man’s destiny to peace. 

Malik says, “He cares and struggles because he is free; because, that is, he can always be one of a number of possibilities, and in being one, he has thereby for that occasion categorically excluded all the rest” (6). At the heart of man is this great freedom. This freedom opens up the world of possibilities to man. If we do not encounter our own freedom, then we very much so do not realize our world of possibility before us. When this freedom is lived as an open door, an infinite number of possibilities arise for man. And this is where Malik says there is the struggle. 

I think all of us college students have either been or have encountered a peer who changes their major constantly. One day it is psychology, the next it is English, then it is education. I think what Malik is explaining in this great capacity of man to struggle is what is at work for the indecisive freshman. The world of possibility has been opened in this opportunity of education. And so, the student must decide which major will bring him peace. 

In the case of the student, one can only wonder what happens when the major is chosen almost whimsically, when it is not the fruit of such struggle. I think what happens is that the person then finds no aspect of their own humanity coming alive in their study. They are not finding peace. Malik says it is in this choice of one thing after struggle, that man can find peace. If man does not assent to the “struggle” of thinking through his infinite number of “open doors”, then he will never find peace. Peace comes as the gift of a willingness to wrestle. Peace is the satisfaction of finding what will make me come alive. 

If professors want answers to their class discussion, if we desire happiness in our 8 to 5 job, if we want to find peace at all, we must learn to struggle. 

Investigate. Reflect. Discuss. Repeat. 

This is the rhythm of wrestling and what a tragedy it would be if we did not give it a shot. 

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1) Image One.
2) Image Two.
3) World Youth Alliance, “Track A Training”, 18. 
4) Image Three.
5) Image Four. 
6) World Youth Alliance, “Track A Training”, 18.

I did not attend the women's march held in Washington DC. However, I along with millions of others throughout the world was bombarded with the resulting media firestorm. The ideals that were displayed in our nation’s capital served to ignite voices, both positive and negative, in what has proved to be an emotionally charged topic. The organizers of the march heralded the message  that, "The Women's March on Washington will send a bold message to our new administration on their first day in office and to the world that women's rights are human rights. (2)" 

I don’t want to talk about everything that happened that day. I do however want to address the last five words of the quotation above. “women's rights are human rights.” If this was indeed their goal, I do not believe they were successful. From what was communicated through social media the Women's march served not to establish that women's rights are human rights, but to reduce the woman to here sexuality and her human rights to her sexual rights. In this reduction, along with other points, human beauty suffered an attack. Perhaps you don’t agree with me. It’s hard to argue otherwise when you see the signage which was paraded around and the hats that were proudly donned .

  


Am I a puritanical Conservative? 

Am I just a catholic who hates sex? 

Do I not believe in women's rights? 

No. 

The body of the human person should never be exploited in such a way as was done that day. It is for this reason that I speak out in defense of beauty. 

For point of contrast I want to draw your attention to the nudes of ancient art work.[a][b] What is it that differentiates, Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus” or “Venus de Milo” from the woman wearing genitalia? How is it possible to condemn one and label the other “beautiful”? 

In the opening line of his Aesthetics, Dietrich von Hildebrand says of beauty, “Some things can be approached only with great reverence, for it is only then that they disclose themselves to us as they truly are. One of these is beauty.(4)"

My criticism of the Woman's March lies in the reduction of the female to her parts. Composite of body and soul the woman cannot be reduced to her sexual organs, nor can men for that matter.  The human body reveals the mysterious individuality and personhood of the person.  I can talk about myself in a compartmentalized fashion, for instance my hand is “Catherine’s hand”. But the hand is belonging to myself as person. You wouldn’t point to my hand and call it “Catherine”, because I am not reducible to my hand. At the same time you couldn’t say my hand is not mine, because it is a part of me. If I’m beginning to lose you in this hypothetical line of thought.. let me clarify and save those of you that may be drowning. I am more than a part of my body. I am Catherine. I am a human person.  

The human person does not refer merely to the body, but to the union of body with soul. The human body reveals the mysterious nature of the person. Others encounter us through our bodies and make judgments about who we are as persons based upon that knowledge. Because our body is a part of our personhood, portrayal of the body demands respect for the mysterious nature of our personhood. 

The beauty of the human body cannot be sensuousness. It must be seen as intimately bound up in the person. The physical can lead us to the incomprehensible value and inherent beauty of the person. It’s beauty then becomes personal. Unfortunately, the Women’s March exploited the beauty of the female body. Dietrich von Hildebrand commented  upon the same type of actions saying, 

“The beauty which a body can possess is as such completely independent of every kind of sensual charm, and that every attempt to reduce beauty to this charm is utterly absurd. (5)”

In the examples of “Venus de Milo” and “The Birth of Venus”, the female body is rendered with respect revealing not just the bodies of woman, but woman as person. There is a subject to the art , not an object. Both are wholistic, that is to say not merely highlighting one part of the body.
  

There is nothing inherently wrong with portrayal of the body in art. However, what cannot be lost in the process is the person. The human body is beautiful and should be delighted in. Classical artwork was not aimed at reducing the human body to merely a body. Rather, it captures the human person in such as way that it raises the mind upward, beyond the material to the spiritual. 

If we truly believe that women's rights should be human rights then we should reject all attempts to reduce women to their sexual organs. The female body deserves the respect and reverence due to all human persons. The beauty of the whole person ought to be promoted. Genitalia paraded through the streets of Washington DC in the name of women's rights is an defilement of the person. Each of us, male and female, should stand up in protest for authentic human rights and for authentic beauty.  


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1. Image One. The Birth of Venus

2. Women’s March National Facebook Page

3. Image 2

4. Aesthetics, Dietrich von Hildebrand, pg. 1

5. Aesthetics, Dietrich von Hildebrand, pg. 147

6. Image 3. Venus de Milo

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What he means by this is that like the family, a small community has the ability to broaden our horizons and bring us into contact with the rough and tender heart of humanity. 


I spent many years of my youth dreaming of what lay beyond the confining borders of my hometown. I can't tell you the number of times I've heard my friends say, "I can't wait to get out of here!"

But why do the angsty youth of Altoona or Hollidaysburg feel such an urge to escape Central Pennsylvania? 


Is it the remnants of the railroad tracks that stretch across town that bother us? The Italian grandmothers swapping recipes as they exit Mount Carmel church? Or the hustle and bustle of squirrels and birds as we rode our bikes past Canoe Creek? No, these qualities never bothered us, mostly because we never noticed them ... until it was too late. Until we decided that what really bothered us was the people. We were sick of the kids at school, the clerks at Sheetz, and the police officers who confiscated our skate boards. We were sick and tired of the same old people and, therefore, vowed that as soon as we could fly our mothers' coups, we'd pack our bags and shake the dust of small town life from our boots.   

We imagined that once we settled into a big college, a big city, a big society, we would finally be satisfied. We could choose our friends and only make the choices in life which would bring us the most comfort, happiness, and pleasure. And in doing all this we would have finally broadened our minds and been introduced to more diverse people and a much larger world than the one we found in our small hometowns. Right? 

Wrong. 

Chesterton explains our blunder: people seek the large cities with their large ideas because they wish to meet people different from themselves. Those of us from small hometowns tend to assume that our next door neighbor is made in the same mold as our mother, standing by the same cliched, traditional values. Likewise, we deduce that our neighbors all bear one personality, the personality of the town: boring, outdated, biased towards a particular religion or political party. 

We leave in search of diversity and variety. 

But Chesterton warns us that if we do not first learn to appreciate the clans we were born into, our quest to broaden our minds may lead us to a dreaded narrowness: the narrowness of large society cliques. Chesterton observed that larger societies are much more prone to produce cliques, whereas the smaller society resembles the clan. 

"The men of the clan live together because they all wear the same tartan or are all descended from the same sacred cow; but in their souls by the divine luck of things, there will always be more colours than in any tartan." (2) 

Men of the clique, on the other hand, prefer each other's company because they have the same kind of soul, and this narrowness allows for a cowardly contentment. Their dinner conversations are always pleasurable and never uncomfortable. It is for this reason that our cliques have not broadened our minds.  Sure, we talk of politics, wars, fads, and religions, but for the most part we agree: no feathers are ruffled, and we can maintain our self-indulgent friendships undisturbed. 

Now I'd like to take a moment to iron out the wrinkles on your forehead. 

Chesterton does not admonish those of us who wish to move to Denver, Colorado for the rocky mountains or to New Orleans for their spicy gumbo, or those of us (including myself) traveling abroad next semester. He is defending the family by comparing its attributes with those similar ones found in small communities. Perhaps if men learn to appreciate the advantages of their hometowns, they'll understand why the institution of the family ought to remain the backbone of our societies.    

Whether or not you are revolting against the family or the small village, you are ultimately revolting against mankind. 

No where else on this earth will you meet a more diverse group of people. Why? Because your family and your next door neighbors were not of your choosing. These are not the people of the clique whom you have hand selected.  

To truly broaden our minds and to experience the variations and discrepancies of humanity, we need only to look to our fathers, our sisters, our uncles, or the little old lady next door.  

We choose our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door-neighbor. (11)


Our neighbors, our brothers and our sisters, come to us as they are; "clad in all the careless terrors of nature: they are as strange as the stars, as reckless and indifferent as the rain." We must learn to make compromises and adjust to these unpredictable conundrums--you never know what's going to come out of Grandma's mouth.  

Ultimately, our families and our small communities allow us to look humanity square in the face. Mankind with all its many faces, personalities, ideologies, and philosophies is present under our roofs, across our streets, and even down at the post office. 

Your neighbor is an example of the depth of humanity.  There is a reason why Scripture speaks not of one's duty towards humanity, but of one's duty towards one's neighbor.   


Our duty to love our neighbor is a serious operation because, like our families, we must love our neighbors simply because they are there.  I must make an active choice to swallow my pride, roll up my sleeves and face the toothy grin of the crazy old man next door.  God must have placed him on the other side of my property line for a reason, perhaps to broaden my mind as well as my heart.  

All in all, if what you're looking for is "a change," Chesterton and I suggest jumping over the fence into your neighbor's yard.  But hopefully now you know, "if your friend says he is fleeing from his hometown because it is dull; he is lying.  He is really fleeing because it is a great deal too exciting." (3) 





(1) pg 10 
(2) pg 11 
(3) pg 16 


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"On one hand, they could be the first humans to set foot on another planet.  On the other, they'll die there." (1) 

These were the haunting words of Jessica Contrera, a reporter from the Washington Post, after news was released February 16th that Mars One, a Dutch non-profit, had found its final 100 candidates hoping to be sent on a one-way mission to terraform Mars. For real.  

Over 200,000 people applied, but the final twenty-four are being chosen as carefully as the disciples of Christ. The plan is to train 24 finalists, sending only four on the first trip in 2024 and sending four more every two years after that. Anyone over 18, regardless of background, was welcomed to apply, because Mars One believes its greatest need is not to find the most intelligent or most skill-refined people - but rather, the people most dedicated to the cause. Mars One is even considering allowing the world to vote for who gets to go first.  

Naturally, there are skeptics criticizing the movement from all sides. Some say technology has barely advanced enough for a safe and successful Mars mission.  Some don't believe that they'll ever raise enough funds - and others think that the money needs to be spent on Earth. Still others think the entire Mars One mission is just a corporate hoax for advertising or other ulterior motives. But no one has been able to definitively say that it's impossible, and Mars One's original 200,000 applicants seemed to agree.  

So why does the trip have to be one-way?  

According to the entrepreneur behind Mars One, one-way is cheaper and more doable in terms of technological advancements expected to happen by 2024. Most importantly, however, Mars One needs to know its astronauts are going to give everything without hesitation.


Now, if the people at NASA are working on a Mars colonization - which they aren't, at least not publicly - it most definitely would be exclusively NASA astronauts with doctorates in astrophysics who take the trip. However, people from all statuses and backgrounds have applied for the Mars One team. Geographically, 38 of the final 100 chosen (about split between men and women) selected are from the United States, with a majority of others from mainly Canada and Australia. Age-wise, two candidates were 18 upon the 2013 application while the oldest was 60. By education, the group ranges from those with no degree to those with MDs and PhDs. Some are still in school, some are pursuing careers, and a few are unemployed. (2) 

According to Mars One sources, the finalists will be trained in the simulated Mars habitat Outpost Alpha, likely in the Arctic. Here they will learn how to operate and troubleshoot electrical equipment, along with medical techniques, dental skills and space agriculture. (3) While Mars One considers this to be a good test of whether the team is psychologically suited to adapt to interplanetary isolation, I imagine nothing can prepare them for the moment when they leave Earth forever.  They'll lose everything from heat lighting to Chinese New Year to the smile wrinkles on their aging parents' faces. Everything - except each other. 

Their application videos reveal that these people aren't insane, nor are they suicidal.  Some want their names carved boldly into history. Others seem strangely selfless - with the paradoxical desire to inspire those on Earth by leaving them forever. One particular finalist I'm fascinated by is a data architect named Daniel Carey, who revealed in his interview video that he plans to leave behind his wife and two children who are in their early 20s. At first glance, he's not unlike the character from Elton John's Rocket Man. However, there's more to the picture: Carey believes this material expansion of human living space is necessary if we're going to survive in the long term. When interviewed by the Washington Post, his wife, Ann, was sympathetic but skeptical.  

"How do you ask someone who you love to give up something that is important to them?" she said. "And on the other hand, how can they love you if they are willing to leave you to go do this thing they are dreaming about?" (4)

She raises an interesting ethical question that I think needs to be explored extensively. It may seem easy to condemn Carey for his decision to abandon his family. On another hand, he genuinely believes that if he is selected, he has the moral obligation to go. He considers his potential sacrifice akin to that of the military. (5) He believes his life has a greater destiny that transcends the earth and the people he loves. While this desire to extend our human destiny beyond the limits of time and space is intrinsically good and true, I feel Carey's practical application of it is misaligned, and here's why.  

Growing up, I used to fantasize about being an astronaut and leaving the atmosphere. I'll forever be in a Treasure Planet phase where I dream of solar-sailing through the cosmos. I'm entranced by science fiction, especially from authors Ray Bradbury and Douglas Adams, particularly because of the unique perspective of reality sci-fi stories give me. As the late Adams so ingeniously observed:

"The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be." (6) 

Additionally, the miracle of the human being lies in the fact that there are also unseen universes within ourselves to explore.  From the cell to the mind, there are mysteries within ourselves which cannot be answered through the material colonization of land.  What we truly desire in all our seeking - manifested in a desire for material conquest - is to know where we came from, where we're going, and ultimately, why.  

I can empathize with the burning curiosity that drives the decisions of the Mars One finalists. It ruminates from the depths of our entire being. As Dietrich von Hildebrand says in Aesthetics, 

"Even our soul itself becomes more beautiful when beauty meets us, takes hold of us, and fires us with enthusiasm." (7) 

It's an instinctual desire to be a steward of the universe. I remember being a small child in a planetarium and realizing the stars were in me and I in them - that I, an infinitely important speck, was suspended in space on an adorably tiny blue marble. Space exploration is a manifestation of the natural human desire to tear the veil and expose our blinded eyes to the physical truths of reality. As the American astrophysicist, cosmologist, and author Neil Degrasse Tyson says, 

"Not only are we in the universe, the universe is in us.  I don't know of any deeper spiritual feeling than what that brings upon me." (8) 

Valid a force as it is, scientific curiosity can consume us if we lose sight of humanity in the process. And when people aren't the priority - when science is depersonalized - when science sees men as mere props in the greater scheme of progress - it fails to fulfill its ordained purpose of benefiting mankind. Mahatma Ghandi said that one of the "Roots of Violence is "science without humanity." (9) 

I want to be able to justify the manned exploration of Mars. 

I think it's a glorious idea in theory, but unfortunately it looks quite different in Mars One's practice. Even though Mars One uses rhetoric to describe the mission as being "for mankind" (10), its harsh one-way policy has slighted the value of the individual human person. It's also likely, according to predictions from various scientists, that the first few batches of "missionaries" will perish soon after landing, with only a few survivors to keep forging the colony ahead. (11)  

As St. John Paul the Great wrote, the sacrificing of human life "under the pretext of scientific or medical progress, in fact reduces human life to the level of simple 'biological material' to be freely disposed of." (12) Under the condition that they abandon all other human relationships for the sake of curiosity, the Mars One team will become slaves to the experimental mission until the day they die. But human life, not land colonization, is the most infinite and sacred good. Human life must never be regarded as a machination or instrument for a supposed greater end. No ends justify the sacrificing of human life as a means. As Dietrich von Hildebrand writes:

"Love embodies the life of all virtues and expresses the most inmost substance of all holiness." (13) 

Science ought to be used to bring us to a greater awareness of the reality of ourselves and the people we love, not detach us from them. As the British comic actor Charlie Chaplin said:

"More than machinery, we need humanity; more than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness.  Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost." (14) 

And how can anyone truly decide what kind of person should be allowed on the Mars One team?  

Some have said to send the single or terminally ill. But just because a person is single or terminally ill doesn't mean they aren't needed desperately here on Earth. Every one of the Mars One applicants has a life worth living here on Earth, and humanity can benefit infinitely more from their presence than from their absence. Albeit, many Mars One applicants justify their absence, saying that this interplanetary expansion of living space will ultimately inspire human beings to reflect on the possibilities in their own earthly lives.  

However, until some pressing demand or crisis on Earth demands that we terraform Mars, we ought to first and foremost revere and nurture Earth and all her people like it's the only chance we'll ever have for survival in this universe. And while we're certainly here to be stewards of the universe - to learn all its devastatingly breathtaking realities and revel in its unanswered mysteries - we must primarily be stewards to the people we encounter in our lives. Inspiration is not necessitated by an obscure material expansion of territory, but rather in the gift of our intimate and unrepeatable presence to the people around us. As the Doctor says in Doctor Who, 

"In nine hundred years of time and space, I've never met anybody who wasn't important." (15) 

Any science that demands otherwise is counter-intuitive and self-defeating to the intrinsic nature of science.  

We must acknowledge that our existence as human beings is both one of power and one of feeble dependence - of stars and earth.  As Dietrich von Hildebrand writes, 

"Humility involves the full knowledge of our status as creatures, a clear consciousness of having received everything we have from God." (16)

There will always be further material terrain to colonize, but until we learn to live in unity within our countries, homes, and selves, mankind will follow a trail of tragic dissatisfaction and fall short of our ultimate great leap - the leap to each other.  

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 Julia Premus
I can't seem to read enough Ray Bradbury.  When I'm not reading, I'm playing violin, Super Mario, or Super Mario songs on violin. 






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(1) Contrera, Jessica. "Would you leave your family behind to be the first human to set foot on Mars?" The Washington Post. 11 February 2015. Print.