Dear Banjo,

Thanks for the kind words.

>> I too found you somewhat "heavily burdened with religion"<<
This somehow reminds me of when - soon after arriving in Australia - I asked a Scottish colleague, and friend, whether he sometimes walked around in a skirt. His reply was something like “Since you probably don’t yet know the difference between a skirt and a kilt, I shall not take it as an offence; only please never ask a Scot such a question again.”

Your quotation marks in “burden” are obviously a reference to my, clearly imperfect, translation of the “technical“ term “nábožensky zatížený” used by the Czech Communists to describe Christian class enemies, professors and other educated people who e.g. found inspiration in reading (to keep to French authors) Jacques Maritain, Gabriel Marcel, Joseph Maréchal, later also the aforementioned Teilhard de Chardin. They usually would not use the term in connection with ordinary or “simple village” folk who - according to the marx-leninist simplified understanding of religion - were supposed to be susceptible to religion anyhow, and posed no threat to their aim at reeducating the new generation.

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Dear George,

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"Burdened with religion" is fine for "nábožensky zatížený" so far as I can judge. It seems that a possible alternative could be "religiously loaded" but that sounds too much like a revolver or a shotgun which does not quite fit your image, George.

I can well imagine that the communists considered that Czech intellectuals who found inspiration in authors such as Jacques Maritain, Gabriel Marcel, Joseph Maréchal and Teilhard de Chardin were, in all likelyhood, "nábožensky zatížený".

There must have been a well-informed elite communist intelligentsia infiltrated on the university campuses and other intellectual circles of society.

However, it seems difficult to imagine that they went unnoticed.

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Dear Banjo,

I am not sure I understand what you mean by “well-informed elite communist intelligentsia infiltrated on the university campuses“.

“Reactionary” university staff and high school teachers (In Slovakia a great part of them Catholics, who in Prague were only a small minority among the “reactionaries”) were removed soon after the Communist seizure of power in 1948. The official name was “cistky”, something like “cleansings”. Committees consisting of semi-educated (with a few exceptions) “revolutionaries“, usually on a much lower intellectual level than those they scrutinized, decided about who could stay and who not. No “infiltration“, just forcible, revolutionary if you like, power takeover.

At the time when I was at the University, the “cleansings“ had long been accomplished. Nevertheless, students (of mathematics and other science-related fields) could somehow sense who even among those remaining was not “politically correct”: After all, it was easier for a mathematics lecturer not to offend against the official ideology without prostituting himself, than this would be for a philosophy or history lecturer. [In Prague religion played only a marginal role - my reference to Maritain, etc. concerned more the intellectual milieu in Bratislava which had practically no pre-Communist tradition of anti-clericalism or anti-theism.]

>>it seems difficult to imagine that they went unnoticed.<<
Those who pulled the strings were very much noticed. In 1960s we all had learned to live very carefully: what one said to whom, although I did not make any secrets of my regular church attendance (of course, I didi not advertise it either). That was the only “resistance“ that for us, Christians, was possible and meaningful - a passive, anonymous, no-personal-contacts-with-priests, taking part in a crowd (Charter 77 came much later).

Believe me, it is very difficult to explain in a few words the atmosphere of a totalitarian system that penetrated everything, and the associated arts we all had to learn : “the art of carving out one’s own private existence”, “the art of reading between the lines”, “the art of sensing out whom you could talk to more or less openly”, etc.

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Dear George,

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Thank you for those explanations. I had overlooked the fact that, as you say, the communoist seizure of power dated back to 1948. Obviously there was no need for infiltration by the time you arrived at university. It had all been accomplished well beforehand.

My question was in relation to the French authors you cited. It had occurred to me that one would need to have a fairly broad academic culture and "intellectual level" (to employ your expression) in order to identify those particular French authors as being "politically incorrect" at the time.

Hence my comment regarding the possible existence in Prague of a well-informed elite communist intelligentsia.

No doubt I was lead in error by the fact that I had in mind the French model where much of the enthusiasm in France for the Russian revolution was driven by the left bank Parisian intelligensia (Sartre, de Beauvoir, Camus, Merleau-Ponty and company) and not "semi-educated (with a few exceptions) “revolutionaries“, usually on a much lower intellectual level than those they scrutinized".

Anyhow, I do not wish to labour the point. You already indicated that this subject brings back unpleasant memories so let us talk about something else.

(Continued ...)

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Dear George, (continued)

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One thing I realised when my children had finished their studies and it was too late, was that it had not occurred to me that I should alert them to the importance of developing a critical mind.

I would be interested in having your thoughts on this question. It seems to me that you have a fairly sharp critical mind when it comes to replying to what are often aggressive posts directed to you here on OLO.

You also clearly mark your distance from those who interpret religious literature literally. I do not know if you adhere unconditionally to all the official dogma of the Catholic church. The impression you give me is that it is possible you do not.

However, I cannot recall having ever read anything from you that could possibly be interpreted as expressing doubt or criticism of your Catholic faith.

Do you consider that you have a critical mind? If so, are there any subjects you consider "out of bounds", excluded from the field of criticism for whatever reason (such as your faith, for example)?

I now have grandchildren in the range of six to ten years old and have the opportunity of opening-up vistas for them which I failed to open-up for my children.

In fact, I neglected the subject of criticism completely for my children and often have occasion to regret that they are totally incapable of accepting the slightest criticism. At best, they see it as purely negative, at worst, as an agression.

Quite stupidly, I had never envisaged this possibility and presumed that my children would naturally and automatically seek to submit themselves to criticism as I always have, treating it simply as a convenient and practical system of verification and rectification, similar to consulting a dictionary.

I should welcome any reflections you may accept to share with me on this subject.

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Dear Banjo,

I named the French authors just to convey to you what I meant by the Catholic intellectual milieu in Bratislava (as a matter of fact, only Maritain was translated into Slovak, the language spoken there). “Politically incorrect” (the official term was “reactionary“) were the professors etc to be purged, not the French authors, whom the “purging Committees“ probably never heard of.

Your second post is a compliment and challenge, that I shall try to address it to the best of my abilities.

You are asking (a) some personal questions, that I shall come to later, and also (b) with respect to your children, you speak of "automatically submitting oneself to criticism" treating it as a "system of verification and rectification, similar to consulting a dictionary". I did not understand the relation between CRITICISM ("expression of disapproval of someone or something based on perceived faults or mistakes" in my dictionary), and consulting a DICTIONARY.

One usually consults a dictionary with an a priori acceptance of its authority either on facts or on generally agreed upon definitions and interpretations (like me quoting the dictionary definition of "criticism"). On the other hand, one should listen to criticism in order to broaden one's own perspective on the matter, and only sometimes dismissing or accepting it completely, i.e. sticking to one's own initial position or completely changing it, respectively. These, I think, are the two extreme reactions to criticism, and a reasonable person usually reacts to reasonable criticism by amending his/her initial position to something between these two extremes. Yes, it depends on what you call "reasonable", but still.

Before I continue, let me say that I admire the way my father brought me up - as far as critical approach to one's own world-view is concerned - but am not that happy with what I managed to achieve in raising my daughter's interest in world-view matters beyond the banal. (ctd)