If we humans have an innate longing for beauty, why is it so difficult? Is beauty simply a matter of personal taste or must we be educated to recognize and to appreciate what is beautiful? Why should we seek beauty if it is not useful? What is art and how is it related to beauty?

With special guest: Mary O'Reilly

Everyone wants to live an enriched life. Yet, cutting back on social media is difficult. Any resolution to limit time spent on the smartphone will quickly fail unless paired with a plan to use that time for nobler things. If we are free from our phones, what are we free for? Why does it matter what we do with that time? How can beauty help us to fill the void?

By nature, humans want to be part of a community. Social media presents itself as a way to fulfill that desire and to bring us closer together. What does social media really do for us? Does it set us free or keep us looking at shadows on the wall of Plato’s cave? Can we use social media in moderation or does it, like Sauron’s ring, overpower us to consume us? Does the need to post a photo of a sunset prevent us from fully experiencing the sunset? What do we miss if we are driven by fear of missing out?

All humans want to be loved. Smartphones and the Internet are tools that promise to connect us to one another. Rarely do we stop to ask ourselves: do we use these tools, or do they use us? Do smartphones lead to a breakdown in communication? Do they play to our insecurities? What are the greatest dangers of smartphones? What must we do to prepare ourselves to use smartphones well? How can we cultivate a proper spirit of detachment? How can we protect ourselves from misusing smartphones and from being used by them?

From a very young age and without our realizing it, we humans learn to speak. What is language? Is language a tool used simply to express thought and reality, or does language shape reality? Can we create meaning? Should we be concerned with the misuse of language? How does our command of language affect our ability to participate in public or political discourse? Have we gotten better or worse at describing reality?

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Why must absolute Truth be the first principle of a classical education? How does modern education relativize theology, philosophy, and literature? What are the essential questions that make us human? What is classical education’s answer to the modern sense of ‘find your own way’? Why does classical education reject progressivism? What has Logos to do with a Catholic classical education? Why is classical education an integrated education? In a Catholic classical education, what does it mean to put first things first?