His solution is to meet such attitudes with “sober-minded sagacity”—something which this book does brilliantly. I learnt from more experienced colleagues about how to make teaching and module design engaging and innovative as well. I've probably struggled most in teaching about the perpetual virginity of Mary, but also in practical terms the Catholic teaching on artificial insemination is one of the hardest. Phillips nonetheless aims to “own” this indigestible concept and give it a place of honor in the political and religious lexicons.

Obedience is Freedom by Jacob Phillips | Waterstones Obedience is Freedom by Jacob Phillips | Waterstones

The book’s title may seemOrwellian in tone, yet Phillips’ argument is precisely the opposite—there is nothing Orwellian or sinister about obedience and freedom. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. He argues that through adherence to premodern values, and by respecting established codes and rules of behavior, we can aspire to a “more enduring and genuine freedom than that offered by today’s self-fulfilment paradigm. Whatever one thinks of national defence, there is a vivid contrast between maternal vitality and teenage posturing. By giving into our whims, by indulging our weaknesses, we risk becoming like the mutineers of the HMS Bounty, who drank saltwater and went insane, drifting in a vast and meaningless expanse.

Age-old values like duty and discipline, Phillips argues, offer “freedom from the entropy of meaninglessness”.

Obedience is Freedom by Jacob Phillips, Paperback | Barnes Obedience is Freedom by Jacob Phillips, Paperback | Barnes

He is personable while maintaining a respectful distance from others; he believes in moderation in all aspects of his behaviour without feeling entitled or engaging in excessive introspection. He seeks to show you them instead, by demonstrating, for example, how discipline is integral to the writing of a poem. He believes, exaggeratedly, that many of those who were at Greenham would now be “cancelled or endlessly trolled as conservatives or reactionaries. It is to say that the degree to which natality is celebrated in a culture is a vital barometer of how responsible that culture is.Pornography is existentially emptying, leaving everyone with a “permanently scorched vision” and a deeply dispiriting notion of the universe as a mechanistic eternity of grinding lumps of flesh, short-lasting sensations, and cold-eyed transactions. I'm the strategic lead, so I'm responsible for the direction of the centre, its overall performance, and less enjoyable stuff like staffing and budgets etc.

Obedience is Freedom - Jacob Phillips - Google Books Obedience is Freedom - Jacob Phillips - Google Books

The geezer is self-assured because he is humble; he accepts his place in life without regret and respects others and the role they play. These virtues are nonetheless indispensable threads in a web of reciprocity uniting individuals who would otherwise sheer off randomly into social outer space, occasionally as brilliantly as comets, but just as aimless and lonely.We find ourselves like the escapees who jumped from the Mutiny of the Bounty and gave way to the urge to slake their thirst by drinking from the ocean. Laws can be absolute, depending on one’s moral and metaphysical views, but their qualitative implications will vary. Instead, Phillipsoffers a diagnosis of contemporary society, which emphasises“transience, optionality, re-invention” rather than “permanent, unconditional attachment like that of parent and child. An MA module entitled 'Reason and Revelation' was the most memorable bit - engaging in a close reading of texts by all the great masters of 19th and 20th century theology on the nature of revelation.

Jacob Phillips - Catholic Profiles An Interview with Jacob Phillips - Catholic Profiles

You could also say that freedom is obedience to natural law which is the theological idea that God created us with a sense of what is objectively right and wrong. Allegiance, loyalty, deference, honor, respect, responsibility, discipline, and duty have all been ironized and outmoded in our civilization, which is simultaneously paedomorphic and senile. Fusing literary insight with philosophical discussion and cultural critique, Phillips demonstrates that in obedience lies the path to true freedom. But while Dickens indeed hated injustice, Phillips insists that he “was no hater of hierarchy” nor of capitalism—just of their abuses. Still, when relationships devolve, as many will, into conflict and indifference, this “freedom” can grow constrictive.Jacob Phillips, in his brilliant and unusual new book, seeks to challenge this dominant expectation. This was a protest site set up by women to protest against the presence of nuclear weapons on British soil. The title of Jacob Phillips’s new book Obedience Is Freedom might remind one of the Oceanian slogans “War Is Peace” and “Ignorance Is Strength”, but Phillips’s aim is to convince you that the statement is not paradoxical. The virtue of obedience is seen as outdated today, if not downright toxic and yet, are we any freer than our forebears?