something that a speaker who spoke here at our first symposium five years ago, he left here thrilled with having been here, and he proceeded to send me dissertations on how we could improve the symposium. i greatly enjoyed reading those. he is a man of great ideas. he said, we need more interaction between speakers and the audience. not only will we have a question and answer time, but because of the suggestion, we will have time out in the lobby. we will allow all, a minimum of 20 minutes. >> [inaudible] >> we are doing it formerly this time.

i have appreciated speakers. after a symposium, they send notes of improvement. each year, we try to perfect the ideas they bring to us. let's now have a seven minute break and reconvene. thank you. . .

>> i am a psychiatrist and many of the disorders i heard referred to today throughout the day, i refer back to my profession of psychiatry. the pleasure principle, where a feel-good society and man's chief end became not to glorify god and enjoy him forever, but to feel good and have fun. long-term pleasure was better than short-term pleasure to be sure, but the pleasure principle started to rain at that time after sigmund freud. moral relativism, while he may not have invented that idea, see

to it -- he certainly got it into our culture. we have a lot to the rank him for -- thank him for. [laughter] he attacked authority. parents were severely criticized and blamed for everything that was wrong in your life -- it was your parents fall. the clergy was unseated under freud, and the therapists became the new priesthood. that left, i think, are clergy and our churches at bay. it left them exhausted, confused, with no one paying much attention to them. it was a new thing really in our society. that is my addendum and footnote

that i would make to some of the speakers we heard today. my questions go like this. what about the future of our culture? what about -- the title is "the future of american culture." i thought most of you really went out on that point -- wimped out on that point, saying it is too hard to predict. there have always been pro phets. ending with our present financial meltdown -- it was very for economists to get up and say, it is just too hard to predict the economy, you just cannot do it. we have been in touch for economists -- my family -- for many years, who were saying exactly what happened was going to happen.

instruments of mass destruction, perhaps not by an economist. >> can you get to the question? >> the question is have any of you studied the frankfort school? where their profits at the time that were predicting the tremendous influence on our culture? >> excuse me. that is enough. professor elshtain. >> it was a group of terrorists, primarily german, who attempted to put together marx and freud to come up with a critical theory that would enable them to, in our current language, the construct much of what was going on in culture at the time. i would be loath to see any of

them as prophets, and i would not put them in the same breath as the huber profits -- as the hebrew prophets or civic pro phets. i do not think they saw themselves in that light either. they saw themselves trying to pennant -- penetrate it the dynamics that move persons and cultures and come up with some sort of mix. i cannot think of a single instance where they laid out an idea of a better society, other than one that was somehow less repressed. and less oppressed in the marxist sense. i would not put them there.

let me say something about the future of american culture. it strikes me that -- it is very difficult to talk about the future of anything, and less to understand -- unless you understand the present. a good bit of weight of the discussion today has been on how we get a handle on what is happening in american culture today. how do we understand it? what are the categories and terms that we bring to bear on the school of thought called "russian realism" associated with reinhold labor -- "christian realism"which says you have to delay possibilities. i cannot resist one brief footnote. i want to redeem our friend sigmund freud a little bit, in

the sense that he did argue that the highest qualifications for several -- for psychoanalyst was to have a good moral character -- for a psychoanalyst was to have a good moral character, to have some way to calibrate the right and wrong of things. he also, in his cultural writings, he struggled with the issues -- we may not like the way he did it -- he struggled with an issue that has come up all day long, the question of limits. how do you articulate limits? limits to what individuals should do, even if they can do. limits, internal to human nature itself -- we cannot just do anything. we ourselves are finite and limited creatures. that was an issue that he grappled with the.

it is not such an easy one to grapple with. i want to put that on the table. i think those ridings are very worth reading for those who have -- writings are very worth reading for those who have an interest. >> history is the best predictor of the future. he who does not learn from history is condemned to repeat it. jeremiah 6: 16 -- stand you in the way and ask for the good path. you shall find rest for your souls. that speaks so much truth. there is the prediction of the future as we looked at the past and present. you have a comment. >> the frankfurt school. adding to jean's thought, it was

primarily critical in structure. you cannot combine marx and freud ultimately. there were operating from completely different views of human nature. nevertheless, i bring this up because it can be valuable alfor christians to become more adept at using the critical insight for those who do not share any of their views of the world. one of the most interesting books to come out of that school was called "the dialectic of enlightenment." the way enlightenment leads to totalitarianism -- you do not have to agree with the premises they enter in, but to take it as a critical study, looking at the

aspects of maternity that often do not get that kind of serious questioning. sometimes, you have to learn to handle these things the way you handle nuclear materials. you're not touching it directly, but manipulating it around. it can still be extremely useful. >> as another footnote -- there is another book that came out of that school about the family. unfortunately, the way the family was characterized was that we were in danger of losing the authoritarian family. that should not be permitted to happen. one in which the father is absolutely dominant and so on. authoritarian was the characterization. for a democratic society, you can read that and say, there is a problem with the question of authority in contemporary, american culture. authority in relation to parents

and children, teachers and so on. i agree with bill. there are things we can learn from these studies that might help illumine some of the problems of our own culture. >> another question. >> i would appreciate hearing from as many of you as would care to expand. voices have been telling us we should leave reagan in the past. i would like to hear from you as to what you would say would be his main contribution to the future of american culture. >> whose? >> reagan. >> the big guy over your shoulder. [laughter] >> that one. >> who would like to tackle that? >> i think one way to get at this is -- recapitulate a little

bit of what i said. there is -- allan carlson and others brought this up -- there is a certain, or did mean for putting it this way -- there is a certain narrative of maternity that sees the progress from the traditional family to the state-run, custodial or rearing of children, and the inevitable track of history. inevitably moves in the direction of a greater integration and consolidation of a world governed by experts. this is actually the dialectic of enlightenment. to fight that, one has to have an alternative vision of the human person, of the nature of freedom, of the ways in which we can organize ourselves in smaller, more natural units of various sizes.

we have to have a counter- narrative. reagan was extremely effective in laying the groundwork for that. there is a whole different vision that he offers. i think we can and should build on it. >> allan, a comment? >> i will say something nice about you. your emphasis on faith in america renewing itself from the bottom up -- i think reagan had a very great faith in that. he came out of a small town, not far from my regular home. a faith in the common people and the ability of america's small platoons to still have the energy and ability to find a new interest to old problems -- find new answers to old problems.

he had such a down-home understanding that americans have that capability. europeans really do not. togo -- alex to don't build -- when the british see a problem -- when the americans see a problem, they create a committee to solve it. there is still an element of america that reagan had a strong faith and confidence in. >> hardley? >> he would put us in touch with primary things that will not be extinguished. he had a remarkable knack to speaking to the multitude and making these principles accessible. we could go on about the teachings of freedom. a couple of points come back to me. the first inaugural address -- he had a fine passage speaking about the heroism of ordinary

life -- the single mother who could give up her children. she could give them options, instead of following her own self-interests. she keeps the family together. we see that all the time and there is no discounting the courage and heroism of that. there is a curious and interesting political style that people may forget. in the days of kennedy, the mark of their wisdom was that they would lead to the press that this was just our first position, but wink, wink, we know we have to settle for something. the bargaining would begin. what's interesting about reagan is that -- ok, we might lose -- but let us have a vote and see where we are. let's face this down. we can bargain about it, but let's face this down and do not

be afraid of facing the christians. be not afraid. step in. we talked about the story at lunch told by a friend in the cabinet. some people had come to introduce youngsters to the homosexual life. he's an people deceit frank carlucci -- he sent people to see frank carlucci to put an end to it. people have first amendment rights is what he said. he does not give a damn about those first amendment rights. he wants this to end. reagan later said, you know, if

people do not want to take the heat, why are they in this business? he did not care what the newspapers said about him. if you do not want to take the heat, find some other line of work. you are in it, it is in the territory. >> i would add another scripture -- without hope, we are most miserable. ronald reagan gave us hope. we still see and feel that hope together today. we are inspired by the hope that he gave us. all right, a question over here. >> ronald reagan is known for a lot of successes. what role did he set that he did not accomplish? -- what goals did he set that he did not accomplish? what can we do to accomplish those? >> with his own admission, he

did not succeed in disciplining the state. it grew only slightly on the non-military side during his tenure. he did not bend the cost curve permanently downward, nor did he constitutionalize the modern federal government as he had hoped to do, i think. he did not succeed in reversing the regime of abortion and in many of his cultural goals. but he was cheerful, because he knew he had accomplished a few very great things in regards to rebuilding america's fences, strengthening the economy, and the weakening of the communist countries. he left tasks on finished --

unfinished. he was cheerful because he thought others could carry on after him. the problem with the contemporary republican party, and to some extent the contemporary movement, especially its political leaders, is then not -- is they have not studied his example. they regard him as a hero and they pay a certain lip worship to his name, but they have not done what he did, which was to study, write, and think his way through to where he could actually be a conservative statesman. >> question over here. >> this is to the panel. in much of academia today, we are taught that pursuing reason is the act of putting aside our dogmatism and bias from our own

paradigm and world view and critically thinking in a scientific manner toward achieving a new paradigm which may or may not lead to truth. truth is what we believe is very until the necks scientific revolution comes along. as you have shown, this has began to permeate our culture and is beginning to us -- beginning to affect the state of faith in our society. what is the alternative approach in reconciling the academic approach of science and truth within academia? but it seems to me that in many formulations, -- >> it seems to me that in many formulations there is a profound and deep misunderstanding of science itself. there are many scientists who have no problem at all reconciling science and faith. their understanding of science is that they are, in fact,

moving ever deeper into discerning the laws of the universe -- that which makes the natural world what it is, in the physical world what it is. they are struck by the patterns and complexities they find. it is going deeper into things. in much of the current debate being propounded by the so- called new atheists and so on is really rather bogus, because it sets up is very simplistic antagonism between reason and faith, science and faith, with the understanding quite impoverished. there is a difference between reason capacious we understood -- capaciously understood.

there are a variety of tax and of variety of ways that speak of beliefs as a way that we understand. in order to -- i believe in order to understand, not to shut my mind it down. you can point to these monumental tributes to reason like st. thomas aquinas. unless you are silly enough to think that this was not just the outpouring of rationalism, you can see the way in which profound faith can yield profound reason. i would just question always of the way in which reason is being understood, science is being understood, because i think that helps us to avoid falling into the trap of seeing these as opposites. as a person of faith, you simply

have to leap into the darkness and believe in an act of irrationalism. that is not true. >> take science as its own profession. the scientists profess not to be able to speak to questions of moral judgment. they say there are no moral truths that reason can discern. there are no moral truths that scientists discern. when the nazis were doing some other experiments during the war, if you want to know what kind of temperatures in the atlantic could be sustained and the atlantic by a body, you just dunk a few. their work embryo is slated to die -- were embryos slated to die. we understand there are rules in this. the obama administration wants to remove the historian of

embryos -- the destroying of embryos. they are saying we should have no more moral inhibitions or concerns in scientific research. >> next question? >> i was listening to all of you mention the four major players during reagan's era. including helmut kohl and margaret thatcher. two of those have their background in theater or in movies. john paul ii also wrote a play "the jeweler's shop." they grew up at a time learning in reading and experiencing --

learning and reading and experiencing an era and that is somewhat different than what we are experiencing now with what dr. arkes mentioned -- the moral principles. they were very foundational in their lives. and they listened to others to reinforce that. how much did their experience and their theatrical experience help them to project these moral principles that work emanating up from the populace, not just in the united states, but seemingly, at that time, around the whole world? thomas did not connect with the tea party movement -- how much does that now connect with the tea party movement? do they really need a leader?

>> all right. go ahead. >> i can speak about john paul. i do not often engendered people who know about his background in the theater -- often encounter people who know about his background in the theater. it was the people who had been found out -- if they had been found out, it would have been a quick trip to the concentration camp. he wrote plays. "adam's brother" -- terrifically interesting plays. he also wrote essays about theater and drama. one thing he emphasizes in those beessays is the evocative, moral power in words and the way

they can be used for good or ill. words that constitute not a set of privatized things that we share, but as a way you can call people into being and remind them of a cultural legacy and purpose. he observes the process were by polish culture is being destroyed under the nazis and the communists. others may be able to speak better to reagan. for john paul, there certainly was a drama being played on a grand stage. the moral forces of good against those that and destroyed moral good in the world. someone else can address the tea party movement on this. it is not clear to me that there is that kind of singular vision coming through. that may happen at some point.

we underestimate the power of words. we use words so cheaply now. you can see this in so many of our politicians. something they claim one day, they will take away to good days later. -- two days later, as if it did not matter that they made the earlier claim. words have lost their meaning. john paul is about -- was about restoring the meaning to words and how we use them and that evocative power. >> a quick comment about ronald reagan on that point. he grew up in the cornfields and dixon, illinois -- corn fields in dixon, illinois. he participated in all the plays and competitions. the spoken word was extraordinarily