I would like to analyze a most unique phenomenon: the house party. Specifically the house party as it is found amongst circles of reckless and wild college students who are still committed to Christian values. This is a most unique phenomenon indeed! 


The house party makes a lot of sense in an amoral vacuum. People want to get sloshed and hook-up, and so they gather en masse during their free weekend nights at people’s houses to do so. And just in case anyone might be distracted by say, a conversation, they play really loud music to maintain focus on the task at hand.  


House parties are so much a part of college culture, though, that even when drunkenness and licentiousness are theoretically taken out of the equation by commonly held moral standards, as can be found at certain Christian universities, there is still a powerful urge to have and attend house parties. I have been to many and let me just say they can be weird. Often what happens is large amounts of people cram (and I mean CRAM) into small rooms where they drink, listen to loud music, say hi to everyone but actually speak to no one, wiggle and squeeze around for 2-3 hours, and then leave. Maybe in one corner there will be a beer pong table with an hour-long wait, and maybe in another someone will find enough room to perform interpretive dance for a few minutes before the wreathing mob swallows them up again. If this is what we call fun, then I bet being a canned sardine is absolutely wild. At those parties the people I envied the most were definitely the chainsmokers on the front porch. 





I think I should probably clear this up, I am not writing a systematic denunciation of house parties, because I have also been to some parties that were done very well where I had a fantastic time. I maintain passionately that there is absolutely a place in life for crazy house parties, but I think it is very important to consider the motivations and criteria for a good house party in a moral context. What should a house party look like when divorced from hook-up culture? Somehow this question gets incredibly overlooked. Probably because there is often a contentment in the spiritual life to merely be not doing something wrong. But rarely is the question asked what should I be doing instead of something bad? Once I remove my bad tendencies what should I replace them with?  


A philosopher such as Dietrich Von Hildebrand would have an important insight into this situation. Throughout his corpus of writings he places emphasis, perhaps more than any other philosopher, on the positive obligations of the moral life. In his spiritual classic Transformation in Christ he devotes a chapter to discussing how the Christian may go about ordering all things in his life in relation to Christ. 


“It is not sufficient to confront everything with Christ, and, having decided that a given thing does not contradict Christ, to abandon oneself to that thing without further qualification… Our primary devotion and self-consecration to Christ should manifest itself in every phase of our service to some genuine good or in dealing with some noble task, enriching the immanent logic of the theme with a new aspect” (3). 






And this can only be accomplished through openness to the world of values. 

“We must seize the offer of God contained in that gift-like descent upon us of a high value, and, yielding to its attraction, ascend to a new point of vantage, where we shall be past many things which have previously confined us within the zone of the petty... Above all, whenever a high human good exercises its releasing effect upon us, we must consciously evoke and experience its manifold relations to God” (5). 


As Hildebrand says the point of avoiding superficial and meaningless activities, is to do things that are worthwhile and meaningful. I think a house party provides an excellent context in which we can see the vivid difference between simply avoiding doing something wrong, and actually trying to do something right. Because a house party where the former mindset is taken will probably result in the awful situation described above. 


  



But if one approached a house party from the standpoint of appreciating that which is valuable in itself, a different situation would unfold. Instead of a lackluster imitation of a frat house, there might be a consciously determined objective, such as appreciating the presence and company of the rest of the people who are there. The setting might be designed so that you could actually hold a conversation over the music. It might be realized that if there are too many people then you actually can’t appreciate them at all because you can barely move. People might try to organize activities other than 4 person games of beer pong. Drinking might be seen as a way to enliven the atmosphere as opposed to the main objective for the evening.


I’m not saying that these things never happen, because they often do, and I think most people can attest that the best time at a party is when there isn’t blasting music, when you can actually move and hold conversations, when there are fun things to do, and above all, when it is possible to really enter into the presence of the people you are with and appreciate their value, and their company. In such an atmosphere there is a very real opportunity for the communal mirth to soar and become infectious, imaginative… even wild. I do not think it would even be a stretch of the imagination to say you could really appreciate and be grateful to God in these moments, and that that would make it all the better, all the more intense. 





In conclusion, I have found that house parties can be approached with very different attitudes, having very different results. Reflecting upon this, I think people, especially Christian college students would do well to actively consider what their intentions are in having and attending house parties and put careful thought into executing those intentions as opposed to trying to achieve a broadly conceived notion of “a good time” that mainly stems from hedonistic practices. However, I think that the diverse experience of house parties also illustrates the very important point to man’s moral life, a point that Hildebrand was so keen on, that to yearn for and seek after the good has an immense priority over avoiding the bad. And this can only be done when one has an adequate perspective of that which is truly valuable, a reverence for value, and a desire to see all things insofar as they relate to Christ. Lastly, when this is done properly, life is more robust, is lived more fully, and is more vivacious than it could ever be otherwise.


Let the truly wild house parties commence. 


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(3) Dietrich von Hildebrand, Transformation in Christ, pg. 93
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(5) Dietrich von Hildebrand, Transformation in Christ, pg. 103 
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I am 23 years old and am aware that I have this great potential within me. I have found the “be whoever you want to be” motto of my grade school days a flop, but I haven’t given up on the heart of its message. I am a person and so full of possibilities. What will help me realize them? 

Karol Wojtyla describes three qualities of love. Love as attraction, love as desire and love as goodwill. These qualities he uses to describe the love between man and woman. If we think in terms of Dietrich von Hildebrand’s scale of values there is an analogy to the subjectively satisfying, the objective good for me, and the values which are good in themselves. Hildebrand’s scale of values as qualities of love will be helpful to see love in the context of many different relationships. Here are examples for each. First, I am concerned for my sister when she is sick and I bring her to the doctor. This is love as goodwill and a value response. Second, I am stuck on how to do research for my thesis and I ask my teacher. This is a type of love as desire and an objective good for me. Third, at dinner, my friend is hilarious. This is a type of love as attraction and subjectively satisfying.
These categories allow us to see that love is not only a good outside of me, but something good for me, and even pleasing to me. I want to challenge our generation to think about and work towards love, and allow its pieces to come together in our lives. This might be a slow and messy process, but if we never try we will never succeed.

Let’s aim for the heights. Love as goodwill is the highest quality of love. It is a value response. It is where we are at our greatest potential in loving another, and the receptivity of this love is when we are most deeply loved. Other qualities can exist simultaneously, but love as goodwill is when the great potential within me is being realized. As Wojtyla explains, “It is not enough to long for a person as a good for oneself, one must also, and above all, long for that person’s good” (2). When we consider those we’ve been given to love, we may find that we naturally love them in this way. For example, your friend is at a job interview and you think to yourself, “I hope she does well.” This hope doesn’t have to do with a benefit for you, but for your friend. In this example you have the goodwill of another in mind without a direct correlation to your good. This is a small form of love as good will and a value response.


Love as goodwill can have a powerful effect when it is present in a relationship and when it is absent. Let’s first look at an example of its absence….

In the mid 20th century, there were religious houses with over 100 novices (sisters-in-training). Some of these novices were encouraged to stay because being a sister is a good, or because it is a good to have more sisters for the community. With only one director over so many novices, formation became less personal. When the personal is lost, so is love as goodwill. In these cases, the novices weren’t being loved for their own sake when their personal good could not be considered. The response they received from their superior was a response of love for the community and even a value response to the beauty of religious life, but love as goodwill was lost.

Here I come, over fifty years later. I am one of about twenty novices in a religious community. Each week I meet with my superior and consider how this life is corresponding to who I am. My director knows me personally. She lives with me, works with me, eats with me, play sports with me. I am a person to her.


This personal relationship, contrasted to the experience of the novices in the 1950s, more easily facilitated love as goodwill. When the person in front of us is deeply known, it is easier to put love as goodwill in front of all other loves. When this love is chosen, we get a taste of “the fullest realization of the possibilities of man” (5).

Sister asked me, “Have you ever considered any other vocations?” This question would have been rare for a novice fifty years ago. What is this love I was receiving that many did not? This is love as goodwill. My specific good was being valued as the highest good in the decision.

There are two components of love as goodwill. First, how the good of the other is oriented in the lover’s mind. Second, how the lover’s will is motivated by the good of the other.  Karol Wojtyla explains in Love and Responsibility that goodwill is “not ‘I long for you as a good’ but ‘I long for your good’, ‘I long for that which is good for you’” (6). It may be helpful to read the quote a couple times to understand the distinction. What Wojtyla is saying is that each person has a specific good. In order to love, I must reach beyond how the person is a good for me, and even beyond the person being a good in herself. I must acknowledge that the one I love has a specific good that I do not know. This is the beginning of love as goodwill and this love has a powerfully positive effect on us.

My superior did not sit with me thinking, “Emma is good.” This response is stagnant. Instead she allowed her mind to go deeper into love, and her words and attitude toward me communicated “Emma has a specific good.” The creativity and truth in this frame of mind moved me to begin the quest to discover this specific good for myself. With love as goodwill, the recipient of love finds freedom to realize this specific good. Only I have the ability to realize my specific good. Only you have the ability to realize your specific good. Love as goodwill from another is powerful and necessary for “the fullest realization of the possibilities in man” (7).

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1. Karol Wojtyla, Love and Responsibility, 82.
2. Ibid 83.
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4. Image 3
5. Ibid 82.
6. Ibid 83.
7. Ibid 82.

Have you ever heard a book where there was a blatant  “moral of the story”, and you were really turned off by it? It could have been the lack of subtlety, you may have felt like you were being preached to, or perhaps you just wanted to appreciate a story for its own sake. These are all - at least in my mind - reasons why allegory sucks. 


Allegory is a story with a definite meaning behind it, where the author constructs the characters and the plot after a deliberate fashion because he wants to convey an idea, or a philosophy. 


Allegory is, in a sense, fake literature. Real literature is, like all art forms, motivated by its own inner beauty. An author is a real artist when he is inspired purely by the attraction of his story. Notice how almost all authors say that they didn’t feel as though they invented their story, but discovered it, it “came to them” in a moment of inspiration. 


This kind of writing echoes the human process of understanding reality. Reality is a curious mix of ideas and real things. Men have been trying to understand this dynamic for many years, it is called the problem of universals: two different physical objects are also the same thing, they have the same idea behind them, like trees. This problem will always remain mysterious, however it is impossible to deny there is a component of being which is not just material but which can be apprehended by human intellects, allowing them to see patterns, and form systems of thought. 


The goal of human apprehension is to properly understand the ideas that are incarnated in the world around us. And yet, too often we get caught up with the ideas and opinions that we already have in our head. We want to know more than we actually know and so we try to interpret reality by what we already know instead of letting it present itself to us, instead of giving reality priority over our own ideas (which are supposed to come from reality). In this sense, we are actually falsely prioritizing our ideas. This is the case with scientists who try to interpret human consciousness as nothing but electromagnetic impulses in our brain, or selfless love as nothing but the manifestation of the urge to reproduction. They ignore the phenomena at hand, the ideas which are actually real, and instead favor their own ways of interpreting things, they adhere to their own arbitrary philosophy. Instead of letting their philosophy be influenced by their most fundamental experiences. 






That which is real has priority over our own interpretations and ideas. Which is precisely why real literature is always better than allegory. Allegory is, again, creating a story or a reality to match an idea, a philosophy. It places priority on the idea in the mind over the real incarnate idea.Genuine literature allows oneself to be inspired by that which has the character of goodness or beauty. That which the author understands as real, and good. Genuine literature respects that which is prior; the author writes that which he is inspired by. As Peter Kreeft says, “In an allegory the philosophical frame becomes the story. The plot and the characters are only there for that reason: they are used as means to illustrate the philosophy, that is why we do not love the characters or care about them much as individuals. They are lost in their archetypes. In non-allegorical stories, the philosophy serves the story as a frame serves a picture.” (3) 


It isn’t that genuine literature has no philosophy in it, it is that philosophy must be derived from genuine literature just as ideas are derived from reality. Real literature, incarnates ideas the same way ideas are incarnate in reality. As Kreeft says again, “All literature incarnates some philosophy. Thus all literature teaches. In allegory, the philosophy is taught by the conscious and calculating part of the mind, while in great literature it is done by the unconscious and contemplative part of the mind which is deeper and wiser and has more power to persuade and move the reader.” (4) 


Thus I can actually learn more from a genuine work of art than from an allegory, because the author or artist presents us with a kind of reality from which I can derive ideas, instead of yelling ideas at us through the allegory. 


It isn’t that allegory has no use, it certainly can be useful, Jesus used parables in the Gospel after all. But, I  wouldn’t call it art, and I personally find that I can learn more from a good work of fantasy, like Lord of the Rings, than from any amount of moral anecdotes. 






It’s very important that human persons never get too caught up in their own heads, a perennial error of the fool and the philosopher alike. Life is more real than any of our systematic attempts to organize and interpret it in our minds. The theories of the philosopher, the microscope of the scientist, the blueprint of an architect, and even the calloused hands of the manual laborer can all be worldviews, lenses through which a person sees reality. Everyman has a philosophy, ideas that they use to understand the world around them, but it becomes problematic if the ideas in our mind ever occupy a more prominent spot than the reality they are formed off of. I find that reading real literature is a fantastic way to maintain an appreciation for the real, as opposed to the artificial. 




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(3) Peter Kreeft, The Philosophy of Tolkien, 24
(4) Peter Kreeft, The Philosophy of Tolkien, 23
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I was scrolling through Instagram yesterday morning (nothing new here folks), when I stopped on a clearly staged photo of steaming french press coffee being poured into a porcelain mug. The caption was described a hectic busy lifestyle and the need to slow down and enjoy the little things. To summarize: self-care. 

My immediate reaction: aw-girl there is no way I can just take a day off to drink coffee and enjoy the quietness from my home. My to-do list would run into the ground. What you call self-care, I call self-destruction. 

How I long for a day off. 

But that simply isn’t possible. I started the semester off and got myself involved with just about everything. Senior spring is kicking my butt. If it weren’t for my faithful passion planner nothing would ever be accomplished and I would for sure be in tears in some odd corner of the library. 

Reflecting on the Instagram post, perhaps I do need to start practicing some self care. Is a slow morning with coffee what I need to recharge? In a moment to moment scheduled life, how do I find the time? 

Am I living for steaming cups of black gold? There has to be something better than coffee. Was not the human person made for more? 

Being the philosophy student that I am, my natural instinct is to turn to where I spend a majority of my time - books. Not just any books, but the books of the philosophers who have shaped how I think, live, and act. Namely, Dietrich von Hildebrand and Edith Stein.  Both are personalists. That is to say, focus their writings, on the value of the human person. You probably already know this if you’ve been reading Truth from the Heart. What do these great thinkers say about “recharging”?


One of the single most important “discoveries” in my opinion is the heart. The heart is more than the anatomical center of man pumping blood through his veins. Analogously, the heart for Dietrich, is the center of man were we respond to values. In our response to value we learn how to be human.. Not that we weren’t before, but we live our capacity to its fullest potential and discover cavities of ourselves we didn’t know existed. 

In one place Dietrich talks about the transformation that comes through value saying, “The soul grows wings--that is, the deepest inner transformation takes place--only if there is a real penetration of values and a real self-forgetfulness is achieved” (3). 

I don’t need to learn self-care. I need to learn how to respond to values. 

In drinking a fresh cup of coffee am I responding to value? Strictly speaking, no. Coffee I enjoy for it’s effect on my brain, the comfort of holding it in my hands, and for that sweet bitter taste. Some of you might not like coffee. While on a personal level I abhor you for this, there is actually nothing wrong with that. Coffee is subjectively satisfying and is a good because of that. Outside of your subjective pleasure, coffee has no concrete value. 

If not coffee, what about sleep? Maybe if I indulged in my time asleep I would be responding to value? This also isn’t exactly what Dietrich has in mind either. Sleep is only good in certain proportions. It is good for each of us, but only has goodness when done at the right time and is not over done. 

Although sleep and coffee are both goods, they don’t adequately encapsulate the values which cause the soul to grow wings. Values are goods in and of themselves. Although they have no need of our response, values offer us so much when we open ourselves up to them with reverence and allow them to impact our lives. An encountering value and responding to it appropriately moves us from lower human desires (i.e. coffee and sleep) and move us to transcendent spiritual desires fitting of our human faculties.


Our attitude towards value needs to be one of receptivity and reverence. Receptivity can only be achieved when we allow ourselves the silence and space to encounter values. How am I going to notice the value of the thousands of students I walk past everyday if I’m lost in my own thoughts hastily going through a to-do list? I won’t. 

In some sense it seems that we need the silence of self-care as a prerequisite to encounter the world of values. The silence itself is not what provides the wholeness for which we are looking. It disposes us to better encounter them with reverence. 

Do not stay on the level of the subjectively satisfying. Don’t stay with self care. To stay on that level is to stay on the level of a man who is heedless and thoughtless. Dive into values and feel your soul grow wings. 



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3. Dietrich von Hildebrand, Liturgy and Personality, pg. 6
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I was walking to class and a friend came to me and said, “you look really good today.”  I was a little defensive. I didn’t like the thought of being valued for merely how I look especially by a guy. As the day went on I thought about my reaction. Why didn’t I like what he said to me?

I had uncertainty in my beauty as a woman, and I discovered I had a question. Was the source of my beauty in its effect on other people or a quality I possess? When a friend tells me I look good, I say to myself, “my beauty exists!” but I immediately feel the limitation of receiving knowledge of my beauty’s existence from the outside without an internal correspondence. My reaction to the complement show me that I am not satisfied with my beauty being merely an effect on another.

 “There is unfortunately a widespread prejudice with regard to all values; one says that they are not qualities of an object, but only feelings or effects that an object evokes in us” explains Dietrich Von Hildebrand in Aesthetics (1). Beauty may evoke a feeling, joy may intensify as I drive and all the sudden see the mountains and the sun rising above them, but the beauty does not originate in my joy. It originates in the mountain. Beauty is a quality of the mountain.

This is the difference between objective and subjective beauty. Let’s look at more examples from Von Hildebrand (2). He talks about colors. We do not usually say that colors are beautiful for me, but that colors are beautiful. The importance of the color does not find its origin in its pleasant effects on me. The importance of the color is in itself. It is not limited to its effect on me. The color yellow is important in itself even if I have some unique repulsion to it. The same is true of a woman’s beauty. Her beauty is important in itself. It is not dependent, nor should it be reduced to the pleasurable effects it has on another person.

This is liberating for women. Our beauty is objective. It is a quality we possess and is not dependent upon its pleasurable effects on others. This means my beauty cannot be detracted based on me having a less pleasurable effect on a person. It may be detracted by choices I make against my beauty, but it cannot be detracted merely because I am having an unpleasable affect on a person.

We can see the effects of subjectifying women’s beauty in our culture. Women constantly changing based on pleasing others with no objective criteria. I’ll act this way to be pleasurable here, I’ll talk this way to be pleasurable here, and soon we’ve wasted weeks or months making judgements in preservation of a reduced beauty. Seeking it from an outside source, unaware that it is a quality we already posses, and we possess it in every aspect of our person.

I concluded that what I had separated, my physical appearance and my heart, my friend saw as a totality. This is Emma and she, Emma, looks good today. I moved from defensive to excited. Someone was seeing me as a whole person. I am everything I am and this includes my physical appearance. My beauty is a quality of who I am, and it penetrates every aspect of me from my physical to spiritual nature. This compliment was given as a response to the effect my beauty had on my friend, but with an understanding of my objective beauty I am able to receive it without anger. The compliment doesn’t get me excited because my beauty is finally coming into existence. It gets me excited that someone is able to respond to my value. I am objectively beautiful.

I am not the only one who holds this objective characteristic, nor do I hold it to the highest degree, but in any event I am beautiful. What it means that I am beautiful goes beyond how I look on a particular day, but it encompasses all of me. It also isn’t something I could’ve created, even if I did put together a nice outfit. There is something deeper about my beauty that is not created by me. This beauty is brought to light when I say yes to an opportunity for patience, and emphasized it with a little mascara. Most of us agree women are beautiful, but not all of us agree that the depth of this beauty is uncreated.  



“You look good today” was the compliment I received from a friend who knew me well. This moved me to reconcile the question, “Am I beautiful?” I was not content to limit my beauty’s existence to his affective response. Thanks to this Fellowship I’ve begun to grasp it is a quality I possess.

I am objectively beautiful, and particularly as a woman, I believe this is so. 

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(1) Dietrich Von Hildebrand, Aesthetics, 17.
(2) Ibid, 16.
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I am very nostalgic for fall, and it makes me think of how much I enjoy Pumpkin Spice Lattes. Perhaps the reader is aware fall air conditions the taste buds to be sensitive to certain admixtures nutty, spicy, and sweet, perfectly encapsulated in that sublime seasonal libation? 

Problem though: I’m a guy. And the Pumpkin Spice Latte has become the sovereign possession of that ever-expanding phenomenon, the “basic white girl.” And there are those who think that when this indomitable creature makes such a claim, it becomes uncouth for any man to partake of it.

I once encountered just such a viewpoint. A small group of gentlemen had formed in the social center on Franciscan University’s campus and we had but recently polished off our Saturday noon meal (which means breakfast in the college student’s tongue). Being that we were in no rush, were feeling both lazy and satisfied, it was a fall day, and a lull had entered the conversation, I thought I knew the next logical step. So I inquired of the group, “So are we doing this or what?” A couple of them knew what I meant and slowly grinned, but others looked at me quizzically so I spelled it out for them, “Are we grabbing some PSL’s?” That was when the philosophical debate broke out.



“You can’t do that, you’re a guy, and Pumpkin Spice Lattes are a white girl thing.” 

If this was a pearl of wisdom then it was truly being thrown in front of swine. About half of us hastily disregarded it and indulged ourselves in the aforementioned beverage. Thereupon we disputed the principle which my friend had referenced. That principle is this: if some activity or thing has been taken up by the popular culture, or a certain group, then to partake of that activity or thing is somehow to lose one’s identity in the face of the mob, to be swept along by a current instead of resolutely standing one’s ground. In other words, he equated my purchase of a Pumpkin Spice Latte with, “giving in.” 

I can’t deny that what he described does in fact occur, sometimes people do things just to go with the flow. I’m sure this has a lot to do with the popularity of Pumpkin Spice Lattes and a great many other things. I don’t think it takes a lot of thinking to realize, that if a majority of a person's actions are done to fit in, then they don’t really have a genuine personality. However, using a similar line of thinking we can also say that if one avoids a certain activity or thing for no other reason than that it is popular, this also displays a lack of genuine personality, because it is equally reactionary. In both instances one determines one’s activity as a reaction (either for or against) what other people are doing. The motivation of “being different” is often just as disingenuous as “fitting in”. This is a test of personality that hipsters and “basic” individuals alike may fail. 

In order to appreciate what makes a true personality, one has to factor an entirely new element into the discussion, the strengths of one’s inner convictions. As Dietrich Von Hildebrand says, 

“A person is a being who ‘possesses himself,’ who does not simply exist but who actively achieves his being.” (1)  

Von Hildebrand would additionally argue that the convictions which make up a true personality cannot be self-centered. A person who is in love with himself would have a pretty wretched personality. Whereas a person whose convictions are for things greater than himself and outside of himself, and who possesses those convictions not because of societal pressures, but because of the goodness of the things he or she loves, has a genuine personality. 

“A man is rich in values, is a personality, in the highest sense of the word, to the degree that he perceives values, that he possesses a spiritual vision clear and open to the fullness of the world of values” (2)

To be a personality, then, is to be a lover,  and to be a lover of what is genuinely good: art, music, beauty, nature, adventure, vitality, and above all, other persons.

This is precisely the reality that my debate with my friend reminded me of, and why I now associate Pumpkin Spice Lattes with being a lover of values. Because if one is truly a lover, say, of nature, especially in the fall, and a Pumpkin Spice with extra nutmeg serves to facilitate their response to that value (there is nothing at all about having a center of warmth and comfort lodged in your hand, a rich and girthy flavor lingering in your mouth, and a robust vibration of caffeine in your veins that doesn't enhance the experience of the fall season) then this truly flows from a genuine personality, and participates in a genuine love.



To be a personality is to be a lover of genuine values. And while it is quite clear that to be determined by popular culture is not at all indicative of a personality. I think that it is actually possible that in the case of pumpkin spice lattes, all the “basic white girls” actually might be onto something. 


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(1) Liturgy and Personality, Dietrich Von Hildebrand, pg. 15
(2) Liturgy and Personality, Dietrich Von Hildebrand, pg. 36


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