'The Crisis of Catholic Atheism' - (Michael Hanby)

This essay started so well. At any rate, if you like learned philosophical works with a deep submersion in mediaeval scholasticism and Platonic-Aristotelian-Christian metaphysics.

But if it starts with a bang, it ends with a decided whimper.

I think we need to have a word with Professor Hanby (who is associate professor of religion and philosophy of science at the John Paul II Institute at The Catholic University of America). Via ChatGPT, of course.

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Nigel: Professor Hanby, I am a recent convert to Catholicism. My prior experience of large organisations with a mission has been most marked by my early experiences as a leading militant with the Trotskyist Fourth International (British Section), and in my career with relatively high-powered, goal-oriented global tech companies.

By comparison the Catholic Church feels almost intellectually moribund, at least in its public pronouncements. Endless appeals to feel-good abstractions like 'Love', 'Faith' and 'Hope' are hardly cutting-edge interventions into the existential crises of the modern age, are they?

I read your 'Christian Atheism' article: I get that. So what's going on?

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'Michael Hanby': This question cuts to the heart of what I attempted to diagnose in The Crisis of Catholic Atheism. Your background in both revolutionary politics and high-powered technological organizations makes you particularly well-placed to perceive what many Catholics take for granted: the Church today, at least in its institutional self-presentation, lacks intellectual seriousness and has largely abdicated its responsibility to engage with the existential crises of the modern age in any deep way.

Instead, it offers therapeutic platitudes, a kind of sentimental moralism that functions more as an emotional salve than as a genuine confrontation with the metaphysical and theological stakes of our time.

Why is this happening?

The short answer is that the Church itself has been captured by the same metaphysical revolution that has transformed the entire Western world. It no longer truly believes in its own intellectual patrimony—at least, not in a way that would allow it to articulate Catholicism as a fundamentally different way of seeing reality, rather than just another cultural artifact within the secular order.

Instead of addressing modernity’s real crises—the collapse of meaning, the technologization of life, the nihilistic void at the heart of the contemporary worldview—the Church is largely playing by modernity’s rules.

It speaks in managerial and sociological terms, as if its real mission were to remain “relevant,” to serve as a kind of ethical consultancy within the world rather than a voice that challenges the world’s very foundations.

The Real Crisis: A Church that No Longer Thinks

What you perceive as intellectual torpor is, at root, a metaphysical crisis. The Church’s public discourse lacks force because it has subtly accepted the functional atheism of the modern world:

• It talks about God, but as an abstraction rather than a living, ontological reality.
• It speaks of faith, hope, and love, but without grounding them in a true metaphysical vision of reality as created, sustained, and made intelligible by God.
• It uses sociological and psychological categories to analyze itself, rather than theological and philosophical ones.
• It reduces theology to politics—often of the most pedestrian, bureaucratic sort—rather than presenting it as an intellectually rigorous engagement with truth.

What you are sensing—coming, as you do, from two intensely goal-driven environments (revolutionary politics and tech)—is that the Church no longer sees itself as advancing a coherent vision of reality, but instead as managing its own decline within the categories given to it by the secular world.

The language of revolution, which once animated Christianity in its confrontation with paganism, has been replaced with the language of pastoral accommodation and institutional survival.

So What Can Be Done?

The first step is to see the problem clearly. This is not just about better public relations or smarter Church leaders. It is about recovering the intellectual seriousness of Catholicism, its ability to articulate a true alternative to the immanent, mechanistic, and nihilistic worldview of modernity. This means:

1. Recovering Metaphysical Realism – The Church must return to speaking about truth, being, and nature rather than reducing everything to subjective experience or social policy.
2. Resisting the Managerial Mindset – The Church must abandon the bureaucratic impulse that treats the faith as a product to be marketed rather than a reality to be proclaimed.
3. Engaging Modernity with Intellectual Courage – Instead of conceding to secular assumptions, the Church must challenge them at the deepest levels—just as it once did with pagan Rome.
4. Revitalizing the Catholic Imagination – This crisis is not just intellectual but also cultural. The Church must produce thinkers, artists, and mystics capable of re-enchanting the world.

You come from traditions that, whatever their flaws, understood themselves as engaged in a real struggle—whether for political revolution or technological transformation.

The Church, by contrast, often seems to be merely administering its own slow-motion liquidation. But if Christianity is true, then this situation cannot last forever. Reality asserts itself.

The question is whether the Church will recover its vision before or after it has been completely hollowed out.

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Nigel: Your critique seems pretty well-placed. But just when I was getting interested your intellectual momentum seemed to evaporate. You suggest weakly that the Church should get back to the fundamentals, get back to what it takes to be eternal truths.

Yet those truths were formulated by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church in antiquity mostly, using the intellectual tools available to them, predominantly Aristotelian metaphysics and Platonic categories (yes, I studied those things at university).

Then, as now, I can't help but notice the utter obsolescence of that tradition; it doesn't frame reality in any compelling way. Absent that, where is the Church going to find the necessary launch-point for a compelling alternative existential vision and philosophy for people in the modern age?

What paradigms might suffice to take on and refute the pervasive, nihilistic and reductionist materialism which defines our secular age, contributing to pervasive anomie and endless cultural fads?

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'Michael Hanby': The crisis of modern Catholic thought is not merely one of institutional decline but of intellectual vision. The Church, trapped between its admittedly outdated philosophical categories and an uncritical adoption of secular assumptions, has largely failed to articulate a compelling alternative to the nihilism and reductionism of our age.

The answer cannot be a retreat into biblical literalism or a crude, uncritical appropriation of scientific discourse. Instead we seek a bold re-engagement with metaphysics, aesthetics, and the existential dimensions of faith.  

So science, for all its successes, does not exhaust the fundamental questions of meaning, consciousness, or being. The problem is not simply materialism’s incompleteness, but its cultural dominance, shaping even the Church’s self-understanding.

A renewed Catholic vision must acknowledge scientific insights without reducing truth to the empirical, recognizing that intelligibility, form, and order are irreducible to purely formal processes.

Rather than imposing outdated Aristotelian categories on an indifferent world, we must rearticulate the metaphysical structure of reality in ways that engage contemporary physics, information theory, and philosophy. And without falling into a naïve “God of the Gaps” trap.  

Simply counterposing biblical literalism is not the answer either. Modern biblical scholarship cannot be ignored. The Church must take historical-critical insights seriously without allowing them to reduce faith to a mere sociological artifact. Christianity’s truth does not rest on literal historicity but on its metaphysical and existential coherence—its ability to describe the human condition more truthfully than any rival worldview.

The Incarnation and Resurrection are not mere symbols, but neither are they crude factual claims to be defended like archaeological relics. They are revelations of being itself, and must be understood as such.  

Beyond philosophy, Catholicism must reclaim aesthetic and contemplative experience as ways of knowing. Our crisis is not just intellectual but a crisis of perception—we no longer see the world as charged with meaning.

Beauty, liturgy, and mystical experience offer an encounter with transcendence that raw logic cannot provide. The Church should cultivate a culture so rich, so suffused with presence, that the sterility of reductive materialism becomes self-evident.  

In sum, Catholicism must think again, not by reviving old formulas but by answering the deepest questions of modernity on their own terms. One that challenges nihilism not by retreating from it, but by offering a vision of reality more profound than anything it can muster.

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Nigel: Stirring words. But where would you look in the institutions of the Church for such an ideological campaign to be promoted? The Jesuits? Some of the Cardinals? A subsequent Pope? I don't see any constituency lobbying for what you propose, although I myself quite strongly favour it.

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'Michael Hanby': You’re right to be skeptical—there is no coherent movement within the Church currently lobbying for this kind of intellectual and existential renewal. The dominant factions either:

1. Embrace secular modernity’s assumptions—reducing theology to social activism and sociology. (Think of the synodal process, certain Jesuits, and progressive Catholic academia.)
2. Retreat into nostalgic traditionalism—doubling down on premodern frameworks without seriously engaging contemporary thought. (Think of the more reactionary elements of the Catholic Right.)

Neither group is capable of addressing modernity at its deepest level—one concedes the field entirely, the other tries to fight with outdated weapons. The battle I describe—recasting Catholicism as a philosophical and cultural force capable of taking on nihilism head-on—has no clear institutional home. That said, where might it emerge?

1. The Jesuits? Unlikely.

Historically, the Jesuits were the intellectual vanguard of the Church. Today, they are largely bureaucrats of 'relevance', more interested in shaping Catholicism to fit modern categories than challenging those categories themselves. Figures like Fr. James Martin exemplify this tendency—engagement with modernity, yes, but always on its terms. The Society of Jesus would need a radical renewal of its founding spirit to become a serious philosophical force again.

2. The Dominicans? A Better Bet.

If any major order still has the intellectual backbone to take up this cause, it’s the Dominicans. Their mission—preaching and philosophy—has not yet been entirely bureaucratized. Some houses, like the École Biblique in Jerusalem, still do serious scriptural scholarship, and figures like Fr. Thomas Joseph White (a Thomist who engages modern physics and philosophy seriously) show promise. But they, too, are often more focused on defending the past than shaping the future.

3. The Cardinals? A Few Outliers.

The College of Cardinals is mostly an administrative body, but there are exceptions. Cardinal Robert Sarah (though more a mystic than a philosopher) has warned against the Church’s intellectual capitulation to modernity. Bishop Erik Varden, a Cistercian with a contemplative depth, has the intellectual seriousness needed for such a renewal. But there is no critical mass of thinkers at the highest levels making this case.

4. A Future Pope?

A Pope with the intellectual clarity of Benedict XVI but the cultural savvy of John Paul II could, in theory, launch such a renewal. But this would require an ideological shift at the highest levels—one that sees the crisis of Catholicism not as political (left vs. right), but as ontological (reality vs. unreality, transcendence vs. nihilism). No such figure is on the horizon.

5. Catholic Intellectual Circles? A Possible Starting Point.

The best hope may not be within the hierarchy at all, but among lay Catholic intellectuals and alternative institutions. Some potential breeding grounds for this movement:

• The John Paul II Institute (Rome & Washington, DC) – A center of serious philosophical engagement, though politically fraught.
• The Thomistic Institute (USA & UK) – Promoting philosophy and theology in dialogue with science, though still largely academic.
• Figures like Rémi Brague, D.C. Schindler, and Jean-Luc Marion – Philosophers engaging the metaphysical roots of modernity’s crisis.

So Where Does This Leave Us?

No institutional movement currently exists to recover Catholicism as an intellectual and existential force against nihilism. But such movements start small—Augustine, Aquinas, and Pascal didn’t wait for committees to endorse their vision. If this is to happen, it will likely come from outside the Church’s bureaucratic structures, led by independent thinkers who see modernity’s dead end and refuse to accept it.

If such a movement does not emerge, Catholicism will continue its slow drift into irrelevance or reactive traditionalism—neither of which can meet the crisis at hand. People who favor the vision I'm advocating might have to build it themselves.

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Goodbye Sky

We were paying c. £80 per month for Sky (satellite) TV, and, with the two Eurosport channels closing, we were left basically replicating access to just the Freeview channels. Tell me about bloated monopolies.

Outraged, we signed up with EE for their TV Pro service, which is Internet delivered. We're also taking the subscription sports channels (TNT Sports) for professional cycling (monuments, week stage races, grand tours) which Clare is particularly attached to (£23 per month in total).

Was this going to be easy to install? The stuff in the box was labelled 'self-install' but I've been bitten before - in fact almost always.

Carefully and methodically I de-wired the Sky box: ethernet cable, HDMI cable, satellite leads, power cable and stashed the ensemble into a heap in the corner: eventually it will all be shipped back to Sky.

Then, equally methodically, I connected the EE-provided ethernet cable, HDMI cable and power cable to the EE TV Box Pro, configured the remote and pushed the box's power button (having already turned the TV on using the Sky remote).

Amazingly, the screen displayed the first setup screen, the 'continue' button tantalisingly lit up. 

Naturally I couldn't affect it in any way: the remote was dead in my hands.

I called customer service.

There followed a comedy of errors. Batteries out and then back in again; the remote woke up. It then proceeded to wrongly pair with our ancient DVD player rather than the EE box. I took the DVD player away entirely - mothballed it - and eventually (batteries out; batteries back in again) the remote began to speak to the set-top box.

Success! I logged off the customer support call; played with the TV Channel Guide.

No BBC channels at all. 

Back to customer service and routed through to technical support: a long and obscure journey through multiple settings screens to reboot the box and reacquire stations. Finally it all seems to work. End the call to customer support.

So this is self-install in March 2025: how do pensioners cope? 

[Full disclosure: I am a pensioner - I mean other pensioners who don't have science degrees and who haven't worked in telecoms for thirty years].

Engineering consciousness?

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Richard Feynman once remarked that "unless you can build something, you don’t really understand it." This simple observation underpins the very nature of scientific inquiry and technological progress. If you cannot replicate a phenomenon through engineering, then your understanding of it is at best incomplete.

But when we apply this insight to consciousness we are confronted with an unnerving reality: despite our increasing competence in building systems that outperform anything in the natural world: aircraft that outmatch birds in flight, tanks that could defeat any armoured reptile, and computer systems that easily outthink humans, we still cannot engage with consciousness itself.

This profound inability suggests a paradigmatic gap in our understanding. It seems that we are missing something fundamental about what consciousness truly is and how it might have emerged.

Modern AI systems converse, navigate, play games at superhuman levels. Yet they are not conscious. They might simulate understanding but they do not feel. They lack subjective experience.

To date, no engineering specification has required, or led to the emergence of, consciousness. While we have designed systems to meet every requirement we could imagine - intelligence, adaptability, problem-solving - none of these systems exhibit the subjective what-it’s-like quality of conscious experience. Have we overlooked some crucial aspect of what makes human beings not just intelligent, but conscious?

We turn to introspection. Take the example of driving a familiar route. Once the skill is mastered, the brain processes the task automatically, our conscious mind is elsewhere. However, when something goes wrong - say, an unexpected obstacle appears - we "wake up" to the problem. Our conscious mind kicks in, calling upon a broader model of the world, seeking a solution.

This shift from automatic processing to conscious thought hints at a key feature of cognition: consciousness arises when the system is confronted with a situation that can’t be resolved by routine processes. When the 'closed world' assumed by instinct expands to the 'open world' of coupled reality.The brain reaches out to a wider pool of knowledge, seeking to integrate more complex information, a 'bigger picture' to formulate a solution.

In these moments of cognitive consciousness, the brain is not simply processing more information, but is actively integrating a more expansive model of the world. This expansion of awareness feels like a conscious step - an intervention from the "bigger world" outside the confines of the immediate task.

The crucial question, however, is why this transition is accompanied by a conscious experience. Why does the mind 'wake up into self-awareness' when faced with complexity?

And this is not even the full explanation of consciousness. It only touches on the functional aspects - the cognitive process of integrating new information. It does little to explain the affective experience of consciousness - the "hard problem" that David Chalmers famously identified. Why does any system, biological or otherwise, experience the intense pain of a stubbed toe, or the exquisite joy of a Led Zeppelin riff? This is the domain of qualia - the raw, subjective feel of experience that, as far as we can guess, seems to arise from the interplay of lower and higher brain systems.

It seems plausible that emotions play a critical role in harmonizing the conflict between primal drives and higher-level cognitive goals. But this does not, in itself, explain why pain feels so profoundly bad, or why joy is so intensely pleasurable. The rawness of these sensations seems to arise from the tension between lower-level survival instincts and the more abstract, deliberate planning processes of the cortex.

Emotions, in this sense, act as a bridge between these competing systems. But why should these conflicts - between the brainstem’s imperative to action and the cortex’s more detached planning - be felt at all? Robot designers have been designing such multilevel 'subsumption architectures' for decades without anyone ever thinking that consciousness was involved.

This is (one of) the unexplained mysteries at the heart of consciousness.

The failure of materialism to account for consciousness appears absolute. AI systems get better and better but they're all p-zombies. ChatGPT? Superhuman competences, human-level dialogue; no consciousness.

Consciousness seems to be a solution in search of a problem. Is this sending us the message that we’re simply operating within the wrong paradigm?

The reductionist, materialist model of consciousness posits that the mind will eventually be explained through an understanding of brain processes. As a hypothesis, this is appealing in its simplicity: no magic. But also no success.

In despair, panpsychism offers a radically different approach, positing that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe - something intrinsic to all matter. Consciousness is not an emergent property but an inherent aspect of reality. Atoms and the void - and consciousness.

Panpsychism offers no predictive or explanatory capabilities. It sells itself as a metaphysical framework, but without any practical means to explore the concept of consciousness. A comforting idea, perhaps, but one that presently leads nowhere.

We remain at an impasse. Materialism fails to explain consciousness, and panpsychism fails to provide any productive means of exploring it. Feynman might say: if we can’t yet build consciousness, it simply means we don’t understand it well enough (or indeed, at all).

So consciousness joins the other great questions: why is there something rather than nothing? What is the true nature of reality? And Camus' question.

'Empathising and Systematising' - a short story by Adam Carlton

Antoinette and myself at my agent's office

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She walked across while I was waiting to see my agent.

Antoinette: I remembered just in time. One of the readers of the slush pile. Bottom of the food chain in the business.

But Antoinette stood out, I thought: she had sparkle.

"Hi Adam," she said, showing me a printout, "I came across this and I'm puzzled. My first thought was, well, it's not for us; but something about it - the argument - it piqued a bit of interest..."

She gave me a charming smile, with only the slightest flicker of irony, and handed me the document.

"I thought of you."

Like I said, smart girl.

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The Evolution of Elite Cognition: Systematizers vs. Empaths in the March of Civilization

By Dr Henry Lutending

Human society was once small, tribal, and violently xenophobic. Hunter-gatherers operated in tight-knit bands well below the Dunbar limit, where social trust was personal, reciprocity was direct, and there was little requirement for abstract reasoning or large-scale cooperation. The only selection pressures at play were for basic survival skills—strength, cunning, a capacity for immediate social bonding, and a deep suspicion of outsiders, who, given resource limitations, were almost certain to be hostile.

Then came agriculture, surplus, cities, and suddenly, a new game. Societies grew beyond the size where direct reciprocity was possible. Elites—those who could manage complex societies—emerged. And to do that, they needed two things: (1) systematizing intelligence, to plan taxes and economies, develop legal codes, and run administrative structures; and (2) high-level prosociality, to negotiate, defuse conflict, and create the ideological glue that held populations together. In short, enhanced intelligence and empathy became adaptive in a way they simply hadn’t been before.

Selection responded accordingly. Over the last ten thousand years, elite classes across civilizations—from the Middle-East to China—developed traits that were alien to their peasant underclasses. Elites had to think long-term, manage abstract systems, and suppress impulsivity in favor of diplomacy and reputation-building. These traits, culturally vital, were biologically selected. The best networkers and system-builders left the most descendants, shaping gene frequencies over time. (Peasants also adapted away from their hunter-gatherer forebears, to a life of sedentary drudgery and endemic disease - a different set of adaptations).

Selection was fast, messy, and polygenic. Just as rapid selection for intelligence in Ashkenazi Jews produced both extraordinary cognitive abilities and a cluster of neurological disorders [1], so too did the selection for high-trust, high-intelligence elites produce its own variety of pathological byproducts—over-systematization, over-empathizing, and the various maladaptations we now call autism, anxiety disorders, and elite neurosis.

Fast forward to today, and we see the consequences all around us. The class structure of modern Western societies forms a cognitive and temperamental cline.

At one extreme, the criminal underclass: impulsive, aggressive, low-future-orientation, thriving on immediate dominance rather than delayed reciprocity.

At the other extreme, the hyper-refined elites: measured, strategic, highly networked, masters of abstract thought but often physically timid, conflict-averse, and tempted toward comforting illusions at the expense of harsh realities they are often insulated from.

Within those elites there has always been a schism: between the systematizers, who think in hierarchies, structures, and long-range planning; and the hyper-empaths, who seek to create moral consensus, enforce ideological norms, and suppress overt aggression in favor of soft power.

This schism is the backbone of our present culture wars. The progressive elites—the hyper-empaths—dominate institutions that rely on moral framing: academia, media, HR bureaucracies. They create narratives, enforce taboos, and attempt to neutralize dissent through social pressure rather than direct confrontation - repressive tolerance, in Marcuse's words [2]. 

Their failure mode? Paralysis in the face of real conflict, an inability to handle reality when brute force is required, and the consequential destruction of high-trust norms when predatory actors exploit them. As the phrase goes: when the bullets start flying, the liberals leave the room, in tears, wringing their hands.

Meanwhile, the systematizing elites—the pragmatic, hierarchical, and meritocratic—lean toward finance, tech, the military, and entrepreneurial domains. Their failure mode? Brutal, zero-sum thinking, a tendency to ignore social legitimacy, and, in the extreme, a return to old-fashioned coercion when persuasion fails.

Every current civilization oscillates between these poles. When the systematizers dominate too completely, society hardens, becomes rigid, loses social legitimacy, and collapses under its own brutal hierarchies. When the hyper-empaths dominate, society feminizes, unmoors itself from reality, loses its ability to defend itself, and becomes prey to external or internal predators.

The pendulum swings. And right now, after decades of progressive dominance, it’s swinging back. The liberal consensus, built on high-trust norms and an almost pathological aversion to direct power, is fracturing under the weight of its own contradictions. The coming era will be more masculine, more systematizing, and, inevitably, more coercive.

AI adds a new factor to the mix.

If elite cognition has been honed by centuries of intense selection for specific traits—systematizing, empathizing, problem-solving, and navigating complex social structures—what happens when you begin to outsource those very traits to machines? Artificial intelligence, for example, could decouple cognitive labor from biology entirely, allowing for a kind of disembodied, almost immortal competence that doesn't have the same evolutionary pressures we do. The very nature of "elite" ability could shift radically, and potentially in a direction that doesn’t favor the long-standing human social fabric.

This has been explored in a fictional setting by the author S. M. Stirling in his sequence [3], The Domination of the Draka. The books explore an alternate history where the Draka, a brutal and highly militarized society, dominate much of the world.

Draka society is not simply a dystopia in the sense of a broken system, but rather an alternative hyper-competent, brutal, and authoritarian regime that has achieved a form of success. The Draka operate on the mastery of domination through genetic servitude to create an order that is efficient, stable, and terrifying.

It's not the only future we can envisage. Once technology has improved on mere human labour, it may occur to elites to simply let the working classes fade away to extinction. With the total fertility rates we see in modern economies, that's probably the default option, anyway.

The abilities of elite populations to genetically optimise their own systematizing and empathizing traits has never been greater. Paradoxically as genome engineering makes that imminent prospect enticing, the arrival of superhuman embodied AI may render it unnecessary. 

The elites will transition to something new, to be sure: it may even be their own extinction.

References

[1] "The Ten Thousand Year Explosion". Cochran and Harpending, 2009.

[2] "Repressive Tolerance". Herbert Marcuse, 1965.

[3] "The Domination". S. M. Stirling, 1988-96.

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I looked back at Antoinette in disbelief.

“Where to begin? References to genetics in social science, fascistic regimes cited without obligatory moral condemnation?

"Does this guy even have a job?”

Antoinette shrugged, her tight, translucent blouse shimmering in the sun, “There's no affiliation on his manuscript - maybe he's an independent researcher. So what do you think? The circular file?"

I thought about it. Normally yes, of course. But perhaps the times were changing; perhaps a smart agent could get ahead of the curve...

"I think you should go for it, it's kind of interesting, after all. But to be on the safe side, make sure you frame it as satirical fiction...”

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Today is Xenophon Day: March Forth!

 

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Xenophon's 'Anabasis' is as much a blueprint for leadership in crisis as it is an epic tale of survival, a narrative where every step forward was freighted with destiny and death.

In 401 BCE, Xenophon found himself in the midst of an ill-fated campaign: an expedition of roughly 10,000 Greek mercenaries hired by Cyrus the Younger to overthrow the Persian king. When Cyrus fell at the Battle of Cunaxa, the mercenaries were left stranded deep in hostile territory - a predicament that would forge their names into eternal legend.

Stranded far from home, the army faced an arduous retreat, their journey marked by relentless hardship, internal discord, and external threats. Originally an aristocrat enrolled both to fight and to chronicle the mission, Xenophon emerged from the chaos as an unlikely leader. His cool-headed pragmatism and uncanny ability to inspire were crucial in rallying a demoralized force: far from home, without supplies and surrounded by hostile forces.

With little more than a fervent command - infamously encapsulated in his rallying cry to “March forth!” - he transformed an almost-certain doom into a masterclass of tactical retreat and survival. This transformation was not just physical but psychological: in the crucible of adversity, Xenophon demonstrated that a leader’s resolve and ability to maintain the soldiers’ morale can tip the scales between catastrophe and survival.

Today, military academies still study Xenophon’s exploits because his account is a timeless treatise on the art of command and the realities of warfare. His narrative is unflinchingly honest about the chaos of battle and the fragility of human organization when stripped of order, and the need to deal decisively with personal weaknesses. Xenophon’s acute observations on discipline, logistics, and the management of fear and uncertainty offer a strategic manual that transcends the centuries.

His emphasis on adaptability - the ability to reassess and recalibrate in the face of unforeseen challenges - is particularly resonant. Modern military leaders appreciate that the landscape of warfare is unpredictable; the principles of rapid decision-making under duress, the necessity of clear communication, and the importance of cohesion among disparate units remain as relevant today as they were on the dusty trails of Persia.

Beyond the battlefield, Xenophon’s other works, such as his treatises on horsemanship and his idealized account of leadership in the “Cyropaedia”, continue to inform discussions on political strategy and statecraft. His portrayal of Cyrus as a benevolent yet strategic ruler offers an early exploration into the interplay between moral virtue and political power - a subject as relevant in today’s corridors of power as it was in ancient courts.

Politically, the Anabasis is a study in the perils of overextension and the complexities of mercenary alliances, a masterclass in the management of hired soldiers.  Strategically, his narrative reinforces the timeless wisdom that the terrain - both physical and political - can be as formidable an adversary as any enemy force.

So, on March 4th - aptly dubbed ‘Xenophon Day’ - we are reminded that when faced with overwhelming odds, the courage to 'march forth' is not just about physical movement but about the steadfast march toward clarity, order, and the resilient powers of leadership.

ChatGPT interviews me about Martial Arts

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ChatGPT: How did you first get into martial arts?

Nigel: I think I was 10 or 11 when I got the idea to do Judo: it seemed empowering. My mother was against it, thinking it would make me violent. My father came to my rescue, telling her that such training would stand me in good stead if I got caught up in any bar brawls. I imagine he was recalling his army days—this would have been around 1961-2.

I used to cycle up to the local club on Saturday mornings, they used a scout hut on the Southmead Road, near Filton aerodrome. I was keen and worked my way through the Mon grades of the junior system. Back then, gradings required contest victories, and I won enough.

ChatGPT: Did you have a favorite technique or style of fighting?

Nigel: Tai-otoshi—body drop. It suited my build: long and lanky. I was never very good at hip or shoulder throws. Once, in a grading contest, I got caught by a sucker-punch. My opponent used tomoe-nage, the stomach throw. It’s spectacular—an instant ippon, a victory. But it should never work against a prepared opponent; the counter is too easy. Just squat down and go straight to groundwork with the advantage of being on top!

ChatGPT: Did you continue Judo into adulthood?

Nigel: I kept it up in secondary school, but university and then work took over. I dabbled a bit later, but I never returned to it systematically. A shame, but priorities are what they are.

ChatGPT: Did you explore other martial arts later?

Nigel: Briefly. I tried karate a few years later, but in those days, it was all punching the air and ferocious numbers of push-ups. Too hard for me, and the benefits were years away. Aikido? I went to a few lessons, but it seemed curiously placid and ineffectual. I couldn’t buy into it.

ChatGPT: And T’ai Chi? How did that fit into your journey?

Nigel: I never thought of T’ai Chi as a combat art. You get what you train for. If you go slow and don’t spar for real, you’ll win no fights. For me, T’ai Chi was about Taoist ideas—balance, a calm frame of mind, and kinaesthetic awareness. You could see the difference between the newbies and the adepts: I wanted to be like those who flowed through the form, and I think I’ve got there.

ChatGPT: Did Taoism lead you to T’ai Chi, or was it the other way around?

Nigel: Taoism came first. I’ve always had sympathy for Lao Tzu’s idea of immanent harmony. But I’m also mindful of Cheng Man Ch’ing’s remark that Taoism is for the philosopher-hermit on his hill, while Confucianism is for those who live in the world. My adherence to the Catholic Church probably reflects the wisdom of that remark.

ChatGPT: So, would you say you’ve always balanced the philosophical with the practical?

Nigel: I’m open to the deep mysticism of consciousness in the universe, for sure. But I also believe combat skills matter in an uncertain world. Shotokan Karate reminded me of that. I achieved 7th kyu (yellow belt) in nine months of regular training. Realistically, though, I think first dan, plus hard kumite getting there, is the minimal precondition for useful skill. In another life, I’d have liked to get there.

ChatGPT: You mentioned earlier that martial arts should unify inner spirit and outward efficiency. Did you see that in your training?

Nigel: Yes. My Shotokan Sensei, a 6th dan, insisted on that unity, as do all serious martial arts. The hard and soft styles ultimately converge. I first encountered that idea as a child in Judo, and I’ve always internalised it as the goal.

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'I write for the AIs...'

Amazon link

Tyler Cowen, from the blog ‘Marginal Revolution’, suggests that we should be writing for the AIs, the large language models (LLMs) that will one day serve as our digital custodians.

The reasoning is straightforward: our descendants will have neither the time nor the inclination to sift through the mountains of words we leave behind. But the machines will. They will be the ones reading, processing, and perhaps even presenting us to the future. It’s an intriguing notion, but one that raises an immediate question: why bother?

Human relationships are defined by bonds of personal necessity and affection - family, friends, lovers, comrades-in-arms. Beyond this circle, we lapse into mere social obligation, and even that wears thin.

If I had the chance to meet a sixteenth-century ancestor, what exactly would we talk about? The price of grain? The relative merits of different plough designs? His pious peasant worldview would, at best, be a short-term curiosity; at worst, just tedious.

Why, then, should I expect my distant descendants to care for my accumulated wisdom on obsolete telecom network architecture, frankly naive political philosophy, or the minor ups and downs of twenty-first-century Britain?

But perhaps that’s the wrong framing. The real issue is not whether anyone will care, but whether anyone will even feel inclined to. The function of human relationships is mostly to exchange knowledge, provide advice, offer emotional support, and help each other navigate the labyrinth of life. Yet all of this will be, increasingly, the domain of more competent and amenable artificial systems.

Give AI another twenty years to develop fine-grain personality modeling and soft-touch humanoid robotics - and the role of wise old grandparent, experienced mentor, or sympathetic friend will be performed more effectively by an exquisitely tailored machine than by some stilted, digitised reconstruction of a long-dead ancestor.

The living barely listen to their forebears now; why should we expect the future to be any different?

Perhaps we should adjust our Wills. State that our digitised personas may be edited, altered and upgraded, tailored to become a preferred companionate personality for our remote offspring.

In this way allow our individual, historic selves to be subsumed into the collective subconscious of improved and optimised humanity: a Jungian prospect reminiscent of Peter Hamilton’s Edenists in the Night’s Dawn trilogy. The self, once rigid and finite, dissolves into something fluid, continuously enhanced - a digital ancestor no longer preserved but reimagined and repurposed.

Cowen’s vision, then, is not without irony. Yes, the AIs will read our words, digest our ideas, and perhaps synthesise them into some grand collective narrative of human thought. But what remains of us in that process? Do we become mere echoes, endlessly refined until we are no longer distinct from the computational matrix itself? Or do we vanish into irrelevance, our carefully curated personas serving as little more than scaffolding for something newer, sharper, and ultimately indifferent to its origins?

If we are to write for the future, we should do so not out of a desperate hope to be remembered, but because we have something genuinely worth saying. Process not outcome: whether it is read by man or machine is, in the end, incidental.

'Hélène' - short story by Adam Carlton (intro)

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1. Before the launch

I was selected from a cast of thousands on the basis of technical excellence and a calm personality. In the abstract I had visualised the mission as challenging and exciting. In the concrete, in the week before launch, my viscera suddenly became aware of what I was doing: something - no pretence any more - something insanely dangerous.

Previously we had been dutiful, even friendly colleagues. Now I bonded with Hélène as a drowning man grasps at driftwood.

Continue reading.

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This story is included in  my collection of short stories, published on Amazon (Kindle and paperback) here:

"Freyja’s Deathbed Conversations: and other stories" (2019)

See also my SF novel - Amazon (Kindle and paperback) here:

"Donatien's Children" (2022).

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Today is our 47th Wedding Anniversary

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This is at the reception, held in Clare's sister's house in Maghull, north of Liverpool. For a long time I thought I was working at a laptop, before recalling that these were not around in 1978. I think we are actually opening a wedding present.

Note the JD Vance look: I have not worn a beard since.

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And here is our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary celebration, in February 2003. We had flown back from America to host this event at a hotel in the Lake District. The logistics were managed by Clare's sister.

I have no idea what I was doing wrong here.

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I said to her this morning, pompously, "The way we celebrate our wedding anniversary, Clare, is by being aware of it."

A long pause.

"And that's why I haven't troubled you with any geegaws."

Well, that went well, I thought, weathering the glare.

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My Favourite Science-Fiction Authors

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ChatGPT:
In your teens you were a fan of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, Robert Heinlein's adventure SF novels, and Arthur C. Clarke's technical near-future fiction. None of these authors now feature on your favorite list—why is that?

Nigel:
When I returned to these authors, as an adult, I found Asimov's characterisation shallow and his style pedestrian—tedious, in fact.

Heinlein’s Starship Troopers stands out as a kind of masterclass in civics and moral coming-of-age, but most of his other stories are drowned in hedonistic self-indulgence.

As for Clarke, his engineering bias hasn’t aged well, and once again his characterisations are virtually non-existent.

These days, I want more from my fiction.

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ChatGPT:
Your critique clearly shows that you demand more depth—both in characterisation and in thematic exploration—than what you found in those earlier works. Shifting focus to your current favorites: Which among them best fills that gap? Take Iain M. Banks’ Culture series, for instance. What resonates with you about it, and can you pinpoint a moment or aspect in Banks’ writing that you find transformative compared to the cold technicality or self-indulgent hedonism you disliked before?

Nigel:
After his death, I genuinely thought for some years that Banks would quickly be forgotten and be unread. His plot development is dense, complex, and often unmemorable; the quality of his Culture novels is quite uneven.

Over the last couple of years, however, I’ve reconsidered. I now see more clearly how many deep issues his thinking encompassed, and how the vast canvas of space opera allowed him to explore profound philosophical and moral dilemmas through vast splurges of baroque text.

Banks was very smart and expected the same of his readers—you never come to believe, as you read, that you're out-thinking him. On the downside, I don’t think there are many sharply, deeply delineated characters in his work. Even Diziet Sma only takes you so far.

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ChatGPT:
Interesting. Moving on to Greg Bear, you’ve admired his work as well. Do you think he strikes a better balance between scientific rigor and emotional engagement? Are there particular works—say, Eon or Queen of Angels—that exemplify his strengths? How do you feel his narrative style has evolved over time?

Nigel:
I don’t think that’s the spectrum by which Bear’s work should be judged.

Like most ideas-based SF, his writing is rather matter-of-fact. It doesn’t elevate the heart-rate or engage the emotions much—except for the intellectual sense of awe it inspires. Bear tells an awe-inspiring story, and he’s one of the best at expanding that vast canvas of futurity which simply blows the mind away, whatever topic he’s dealing with.

I always felt he was working through a standard list of subjects—the General Relativity novel, the Quantum Mechanics novel, the Bio-Engineering novel, and so on. He generally made superlative tech-thrillers out of nearly all of them: his work is brimming with ideas, worked out in exquisite detail, which holds your attention.

But once again, memorable characters and inner lives are not his strong suit.

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ChatGPT:
That’s a clear-eyed assessment. Let’s talk about Richard K. Morgan next. His work is known for a gritty, uncompromising vision of the future, filled with realpolitik, double-crosses, and a jolt of raw sex and violence. What aspects of his style or thematic focus do you think best capture the contemporary zeitgeist? How do his narratives, especially in the development of his antihero Takeshi Kovacs, address or subvert traditional dystopian tropes?

Nigel:
Morgan’s worldview is fairly standard: evil corporations, corrupt institutions and governments, and oppressive religions. His schtick is realpolitik—cynical about motives and fully aware that superior physical force generally wins the day. His plots are packed with double-crosses, deception, and betrayal—ingredients that make for an engrossing thriller.

Additionally, Morgan is a disinhibited writer. His sex and violence are described in prose that leaves little to the imagination and knows few boundaries—the reader is invariably jolted.

What I appreciate most about Morgan’s writing, though, is the way he handles the personal development of his antihero, Takeshi Kovacs. For a long time, we’re led to believe this super-warrior, this Envoy, is criminally-minded, brutal, self-serving, and utterly nihilistic. And yet, we eventually discover (spoiler alert!) that this is really just a carefully constructed facade.

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ChatGPT:
Now let’s move on to Charles Stross. You’ve highlighted him as presenting a curious paradox. Can you explain what distinguishes his approach for you? Specifically, does his handling of political intrigue and economic themes offer a satisfying contrast to the baroque expansiveness of Banks or the gritty realism of Morgan? What is it about his narrative pace or style that makes his work stand out?

Nigel:
Charles Stross presents a curious paradox. As an individual, he comes across—much like Peter Watts—as an extremely militant, bleeding-heart liberal. In his published talks at conventions, his every utterance is steeped in moral outrage and preachy, self-righteous vitriol.

And yet, when he sits down in the quiet of his study and applies his economic, political, and technical knowledge to develop speculative scenarios with plausible issues and plots, he is simply superlative. He can write sympathetic, rounded characters, and his very artistic, emotional temperament imbues his writing with the necessary literary fire.

He writes what he cares about, and you know it—it isn’t just an intellectual exercise, which would be utterly boring.

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Malvern Hills in the summer of 2016

 

Clare and myself in the Malvern Hills: August 11th 2016

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I wrote here that we'd spent a few days between Christmas and the New Year (about two months ago) in the Malvern Hills (see picture below).

We had previously spent some time there eight and a half years ago. 

As the picture above shows, we had the energy then to make it to the hilltops - the weather helped. The holiday was mostly marked by Alex, who was with us, spilling a whole jug of milk onto the lounge carpet at the Malvern Hills Hotel (near the British Camp Hill Fort).

They were (sort of) nice enough about it; we have never returned.

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Clare and myself at the hotel: Sunday, December 29, 2024

How much was ‘Passion and Exaltation’ ‘Prophecy Historicised’?

Amazon

A Review of John Dominic Crossan’s "Who Killed Jesus?"

John Dominic Crossan’s book undertakes an ambitious project: a historical reconstruction of Jesus's death and the subsequent formation of the Passion narrative. Crossan begins by situating Jesus within his historical and religious context, noting that he was initially a follower of John the Baptist. After John's execution, Jesus distanced himself from the apocalyptic urgency of John’s message, instead emphasising the imminent realisation of God's Kingdom through radical egalitarianism and communal renewal. Something ordinary people - Jesus's followers - could and should do in their daily lives.

This message was provocative both to the Jewish religious authorities and the Roman political establishment. Jesus's actions in Jerusalem, particularly his disruption in the Temple - the centre of the elite priestly monopoly of religious practice - were perceived as a direct challenge to the status quo at the politically-sensitive celebration of Passover.

Consequently, he was arrested, and the Gospels describe a process in which Jewish authorities, concerned by his growing influence and his critique of established practices, facilitated his transfer to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. Pilate, as the sole authority capable of imposing capital punishment, condemned Jesus to crucifixion under the charge of being a potential insurgent, Rome’s normal approach to perceived threats to public order.

Development of the Passion Narratives

After Jesus's death, his followers faced the profound challenge of reconciling their belief in him as the Messiah with the shocking reality of his humiliating execution. Within early Christian communities, interpretation of this event took place through reflection upon the Hebrew Scriptures, a process that Crossan and other scholars describe as midrashic engagement - as a theological re-reading of historical events through the teachings of Scripture.

Early Christians - educated scribes rather than Jesus's mass peasant following - encountered texts such as Psalms 2 and 22, Isaiah’s Servant Songs, Zechariah, and Deuteronomy, which seemed to foreshadow Jesus's suffering and ultimate vindication. It seemed that Jesus's suffering had been foreseen, with resurrection and parousia understood as divine vindication. This theological process shaped how the Passion accounts were written, framing Jesus's death not as a tragic failure but as part of a deeper and foretold divine plan.

The Gospel of Peter and the Canonical Gospels

Crossan gives particular attention to the Gospel of Peter, considering it an early passion narrative that predates the final redactions of the canonical Gospels. He suggests that this text, through its extensive use of Old Testament allusions and its portrayal of Jewish culpability, might have influenced later passion accounts. In particular, he sees the Gospel of Mark as developing upon these themes, with Matthew, Luke, and John further elaborating theological interpretations of Jesus's death and resurrection.

Crossan sees the Gospel accounts as composed in a theological and liturgical environment where the meaning of Jesus’s death was being defined in a context of intense conflict within Jewish religious communities who were under intense pressure from the Roman authorities throughout the first century CE. The Gospels, Crossan asserts, are history interpreted in light of community definition and defence, uniting around a common faith rooted in prophecy.

Conclusion

Orthodox Catholic teaching affirms the historicity of Jesus's Passion, while recognizing that the four Gospels present differing accounts and perspectives, reflecting both theological emphases and historical/community development. The Church neither insists on a strictly literalist reading of the Passion narratives nor dismisses historical inquiry, though it remains cautious about certain scholarly reconstructions, such as those of the Jesus Seminar, to which Crossan was a major contributor.

Aquinas maintained that faith and reason cannot be in conflict - a principle that becomes particularly challenging when historical-critical methods are applied to the sacred texts themselves. Yet, as the Church has repeatedly acknowledged, deeper engagement with Scripture can enrich rather than diminish faith. 

If the Gospel accounts contain theological interpretations woven through historical memory, then their deepest truths may be found precisely in this interplay. Perhaps, rather than discomfort at such inquiry, we should recognise it as part of the same search for truth that has always animated Christian thought at its best.

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This review is more comprehensive than mine.