Alasdair MacIntyre Archives

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The Weekly Wrap: May 25-31

AI Laziness

A romantic novel in which the AI prompt was never edited out. A White House report on health citing non-existent sources. An article with summer book recommendations in which some of the authors existed but not the books attributed to them.

One might argue that each of these expose the flaws of AI. I suspect what they really expose is the flaws of the particular humans using this tool. Laziness that doesn’t carefully line edit, that doesn’t verify sources, and that doesn’t confirm the existence and availability of books. Similar to computer programming, AI is only as good as the prompts given it. “Garbage in, garbage out.”

Actually, AI has become quite good. A college professor friend now considers AI capable of writing at a professorial level. He shared examples of using AI in various forms of analysis of large amounts of material.

But one thing both of us are agreed upon is that AI offers a dangerous temptation to let it do our thinking for us. It may be a student writing a paper or an author cranking out a steamy novel. What we are doing when we let AI think for us is denying the intrinsic worth of thinking. For many of us, hammering out our ideas in writing serves to clarify thought.

Lest you think I am an AI Luddite, I do believe AI may be a helpful interlocutor in the process. I might ask AI to evaluate an argument for weaknesses or to raise counter arguments. It strikes me that when the chance to do this with real people is unavailable, this could be quite helpful. However, I am still thinking, and indeed, am forced to think harder and better.

I guess what it comes down to is that the ability to think and reason and create from our thoughts is one of the things that makes us human. I’m just not willing to give that up. I’m not ready to slack on the hard work of being a thinking human.

Five Articles Worth Reading

Alasdair MacIntyre, the philosopher, died recently. Charles Matthewes reviews his life and work in “Remembering Alasdair MacIntyre.”

“In a nation known for its relatively poor health, nearly everybody seems to be thinking about how to be healthy….” This line in “The Perilous Spread of the Wellness Craze” captured my attention. Sheila McClear explores the connection between our health care inequalities and the explosion of the wellness industry.

Nick Ripatrazone explores the decline of literary criticism in “The Art of the Critic.” Specifically, he argues for the importance of criticism as a benefit not only to audiences but to writers.

Geraldine Brooks is popular with many readers. Her husband died in 2019. In this interview, “Geraldine Brooks Is a Widow Now,” she talks about loss, grief, writing, and her Jewish faith.

Finally, the summer can be a great time to break out of our reading ruts. The New York Times Book Review has published a “Summer Reading Bucket List” of ten literary “to-do’s,” challenging us to see if we can check off five. The even include a copiable checklist!

…And a Video Worth Watching

The Covenant of Water was one of my favorite books of 2024. I have Cutting for Stone on my reading stack. On Thursday, physician and author Abraham Verghese gave the commencement address at Harvard. One of his pieces of advice for students was to commend the importance of reading novels. As an immigrant to the U.S., he also had some thoughtful and challenging critiques of our current political scene. In case you haven’t seen the video, it is worth watching, especially if you appreciate his writing.

Quote of the Week

G. K. Chesterton was born May 29, 1874. I’ve often appreciated his wit and turn of phrase. This one has some good advice:

“Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.”

Miscellaneous Musings

Regular followers of this blog may have noticed that I have been posting two reviews a day this week. One of these has been of a children’s book published by IVP Kids. What a joy. I’ve loved the combination of brilliant illustration, good writing, and especially the inclusive character of these books. The first book I reviewed, Jesus Loves the Little Children, typified this approach showing pictures of children from every culture as well as children with disabilities. The reason for the extra reviews? I wanted to review these books, compliments of IVP Kids, before passing them along to our church’s Little Free Library, which we’ve just set up.

I was thrilled to visit the new Barnes & Noble store in Dublin, Ohio. When I walked in, it took my breath away–it was huge and overwhelming at first. And it was packed. But I like how the different sections were set apart from each other, many with comfortable seating. Not only that, the cafe was huge. But there was one drawback: the checkout and service counter was smaller than in the old store. And the lines were long.

I like the writing of Amor Towles. And I love bookstores, in case you haven’t noticed. I enjoyed this brief video clip of Towles supporting BINC, a national foundation supporting independent booksellers.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: The Month in Reviews: May 2025

Tuesday: Ian Harber, Walking Through Deconstructioin

Wednesday: Josephine Quinn, How the World Made the West

Thursday: Brian Goldstone, There is No Place For Us

Friday: Terence Halliday and K.K. Yeo, eds., Justice and Rights

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for May 25-31, 2025!

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page

Saint Benedict (detail from a fresco by Fra Angelico)

The other day I expressed on my Facebook page my disenchantment with the choices on offer in our presidential and senatorial races and that I may, for the first time, have come to the place where I cannot in good conscience vote for any of the presumptive candidates in these races. I struggle with this because I have always voted since I was 18 (shortly after the amendment that gave 18 year olds the right to vote).

One of the comments to this post pointed me to the writing of Rod Dreher, who for several years has been writing and talking about what he calls the ‘Benedict Option.’ The Benedict he has in mind is Benedict of Nursia, who in the early sixth century AD fled what he saw as the decadence of Rome and formed a monastic order that preserved everything from the practical skills of farming to literacy, morality, order, learning, and a vibrant faith while these were lost in the collapse of Roman culture.

Dreher, drawing on philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, contends we may be in a parallel situation to the late Roman empire in the West, and particularly in the United States. He sees much of the church as having been assimilated to the wider culture, it’s theology reduced to what sociologist Christian Smith has described as “moral therapeutic deism.” And he believes that the only way the church can preserve both its own identity, and preserve “the good, the true, and the beautiful” is a form of strategic withdrawal into the equivalent of Benedict’s monastic communities. In his original post, he gives two examples of religious communities, both in remote locations, which have done just this. He also advocates for the disengagement of the church from all but the most local of politics.

My initial reaction to this proposal is to push back against it. I come out of an ethos of Christians living as ‘salt and light’ in society, of being ‘in’ but not ‘of’ the world. I have always preferred conversation to confrontation or cloistering. I’ve seen numerous examples of people of faith whose “faithful presence”, to use James Davison Hunter‘s phrase, has transformed neighborhoods, businesses, and institutions. I’m not ready to give up on that.

What Dreher does emphasize is that the current state of Christianity in America is in a parlous state, often more captive ideologically, morally, and politically to the culture than to the gospel. Both youth and adults often lack substantive formation in belief and practice and their world views are often shaped more by YouTube, social media, and talk radio (and TV). We are often far from being the “Christian counter-culture” John Stott described in his exposition of the Sermon on the Mount. At best we are a subculture.

Do we need to withdraw to save our souls? Are “the barbarians at the gates”, where it is time to flee to the hills? While I don’t think such a time has come, Dreher’s proposal is a challenge to our congregations and parishes and the place these have in the lives of people of faith. Often, these are at the periphery of life. Almost everything else in our lives get greater attention from the condition of our lawns to the fitness of our bodies to the academic and athletic success of our children. Should it then surprise us to find our faith and practice so flabby?

I would propose an alternative to the ‘Benedict option’, one that might be called ‘the Redeemer option’ after Redeemer Presbyterian Church, operating in the heart of New York City. On its website, the church articulates its vision in these terms:

“As a church of Jesus Christ, Redeemer exists to help build a great city for all people through a movement of the gospel that brings personal conversion, community formation, social justice, and cultural renewal to New York City and, through it, the world.”

This is a congregation characterized by theological integrity, intellectual rigor, artistic excellence, and a robust engagement with the needs and culture of New York City. While I will not deny the importance of the monastic tradition in the history of the church, I would contend there is another tradition, from the first “urban Christians” to their contemporaries in our great urban centers nurturing both a vibrant life and cultural engagement in supposedly ‘decadent’ places. Might not the call of our time be just as much ‘the Redeemer option’–a counter-culture of the people of God in the city?