Reading well. Good afternoon, i Michelle Easton president of the center for conservative women. I want to thank you all for coming and welcome you to october, conservative Womans Network lunch, cwm, a special thank you as well to the heritage foundation, bridget was a collation for the relation they have been putting on this monthly luncheon with outstanding conservative women for almost 20 years and its a real pleasure to come here once a month. Today am pleased to introduce the october speaker, karen swallow prior. She will be discussing her new book, pull it appear, it is a little one but a good one, it is called on reading well, finding the good life through great literature. In her book she tweeted a number of great books of western literature and explores in each one a single virtue like justice, faith, love and the result, i tell you in a test personally, that you understand the virtues better and you want to practice them in a better way. She is professor of english at Liberty University and won multiple teaching awards, culture, literacy, and ideas and had her articles of many, many places, christianity today, the atlantic, Washington Post and many others. In addition to reading well, shes the author of another great one, literature and the soul of me. In which she tells a story of how her deep love of reading overf time, with that she slowly meandered to a deep love of god. That is a wonderful book as well. Another book was fears convictions, the extraordinary life of the abolitionist. Karen gives frequent lectures and has spoken of in germany across the nation. She is with the ethics and Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist convention, senior fellow with Liberty University center for apologetics and cultural engagement, a senior fellow with the Trinity Forum and a member of the phase advisory of the Humane Society of the united states. She completed her phd at the atte university of new york buffalo. My husband is from buffalo. In her undergraduate study at new york. Karen and her husband live in beautiful rural virginia with many dogs, horses and chickens. Please join me now in welcoming karen swallow prior. [applause] i am going to begin with a brief reading from the introduction to my book and then i will talk a little bit more about what the rest of the pages contain. My first book, literature and the soul of me is a love story. The story of how my deep love of reading slowly meanders into a deep love of god. I reach out in the pages of books of how reading indiscriminately, i read spiritual lessons i never learned in church or sunday school as well as emotional and intellectual election i wouldve never encountered the realm of my lived experiences. Most importantly by reading about all kinds of characters created by all kinds of authors i learned how to be the person god created me too be. A central theme of books is reading promiscuously. This is drawn from one of the books that proved most formative to me, john miltons, this was published in 1644 the poet most famous for his epic poem paradise lost makes an argument that would become a Building Block for the modern notions of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. In the track milton invades against parliamentary licensing orders requiring all publication to be approved by the government before being printed. A legal concept that would later be called prior restraint. Significantly it was miltons only political faction that was in power at the time, his own people whom he thought to be in error and persuade to reject censorship. She makes a deeply theological argument, one that christians today, particularly t those nervous prone with the centering spirit would do well to consider. Grounding in protestant doctrine as well as a polarized political situation surrounding the civil war, he associates censorship with the Roman Catholic church and finds in his reformation heritage, a deep interdependence of intellectual, religious, political and personal liberty. All of which depend on virtue. Because the world contains both good and evil milton says, the virtue consist of choosing good over evil. He distinguishes between the innocent who know no evil and the virtuous who know what evil is and elect to do good. What better way to learn the difference between evil and good than to Gain Knowledge of those through reading widely. Since therefore the knowledge and survey advice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human virtue and the scanning of air of confirmation of church, how can we more safely and with the stager scout into the region of skin and falsity them by reading all in hearing all manner of reason. This is the benefit which had a book promiscuously read. But it is not enough to read widely. One must also read well, one must read virtuously. The word virtue has various shades of meaning money and which unfold in the pages of this book, but in general virtue can be civilly understood as excellence. Reading well in itself an act of virtue or excellence. It is author habit that cultivates and c in return. Literature embodies the virtue first by offering images of virtue action and second by offering the reader bike practice and exercising virtue which is not the same of actual practice of course but is nonetheless a practice by which habits of mind, ways of thinking and proceeding are crew. Reading virtuously means first, reading closely. Ns being faithful to the text and context, interpreting actively and insightful. For you. Indeed there is something in the reform of reading the shape of a action itself. The attentiveness necessary for deep reading that you practice in reading Literary Works as opposed to skimming through them is as decision to set aside time to read so many other choicest competing with our attention. If, like me, you live long enough to experience life and reading before the internet, perhaps you have now found your Attention Span turned in your ability to sit and read for an hour or more no. That kind of mind a bit disappointed major of the digitized world and demands of the flashing devices are well documented. It explains the shallots with the internet is doing to our brain that the linear mind is being pushed aside by a new kind of mind that wants and needs to taken a lot of information in short disjointed, often overlapping areas. Our brains work one way when trained to read in a pattern and in another way and continually bouncing from tweet to tweet, picture to picture and screen to screen. These effects on the brain are amplified by Technology Developers who intentionally build qualities into programs in order to increase User Engagement as some Industry Leaders have acknowledged. Whether you feel you have lost your ability to read well or that you never had it at all, be encouraged, the skills required to read well are no great mystery. Reading well is simple. Its not easy. It just takes time and attention. The virtue or excellence of literature cannot be understood apart from its form. To read literature virtuously requires attention to the form whether the form. Be a poem, novel, short story or play. To attend to the work is by its very nature and experience. The content of literature work is what it says is how it set. Unfortunately, we have conditioned today to focus on content at the expense of it. When we read or watch a film or work apart from we look for themes, gripping plots, relatable characters and support the often neglect of form. Part of this tendency is the fruit of a culture influenced by utilitarian emphasis on function and practical use at the expense of beauty and structure. Yet, we know from reallife relationships and experience of how something is communicated is just as important as, if not more important than what is communicated. Form is what sets literary text apart from informational text in the same way that paint differs from paint that covers the wall. Same material from a different form. Exploration in these pages of a dozen or so great works of literature attempts to model what it means to read well by examining the insights about virtues that the virtues these works offer. I have selected some of my favorite Literary Works, those that might help us understand the classical virtues, the heavenly virtues. Sometimes the virtues are shown through positive examples. Sometimes, perhaps more often given the exploratory nature of great literature by negative example. Literary characters, either waya they have a lot to teach us about character. Yet, to read well is not to scour books so less its on what to think. Rather, to read well is to be formed and how to think. In an experiment in criticism, cs lewis argues that to approach literary work, its nothing but a desire for selfimprovement is to use it rather than receive it. Great books do offer important truths about life and character, lewis cautioned against using books merely for lessons. Literary works are, after all, works of art to be enjoyed for their own sake, rather than merely used for personal benefit. S to use literature rather than receive it, it facilitates and does not add to our life. Reading well adds to our life, not in the way from Hardware Store to of adds to our life, our tool does us no good once lost or broken but rather in the way of friendship adds to our life, altering us forever. I wanted to read from the introduction, give you an idea of what i mean by reading well and then what i do and the rest of the book, its 12 chapters as i examine one of the classical virtues in relationship through the lens of a particular work of literature so i want to talk about virtue in general because its something we dont talk about a lot, we may not even know what the virtues are or what they mean and we have such a legacy and heritage from ancient philosophy, early church authors and on about temperatures. As i said in the introduction, the simplest definition of virtue is excellence. We could talk about what aristotle does about different kinds of beings that exist and take for example, a pair of scissors. A pair of scissors is excellent if it does what it was made to do well. Sports car is excellent when it goes fast. In order to know what constitutes excellence for anything we might be talking about, we have to have an understanding of its purpose so here we arrive at the problem we have in the 21st century. We today, secular culture, not only do we not agree on what the purpose or meaning of human life is, we often think there isnt even such a thing, there is no purpose or meaning. This is really the reason why we have lost this treasure trove of virtues because to understand virtue depends on our understanding our purpose is as human beings. We have to recover that as well and perhaps by talking about virtue, we can maybe make our way backwards. I do draw on the book, a very important book by mcintyre where he treats his virtue before it disappeared and how and why it is we live in a culture that he describes in living after virtue. Of all of the writings and philosophy on virtue, i do draw aristotle the most, i think he gives us the wisest picture of what virtue, each virtue is the sense that he describes it as a mean between two vices and those vices are each an extreme, an extreme of access and efficiency. Virtue is in the very middle, the golden mean of those two things. Ill give you few examples, i think its so helpful particularly in a culture today, which is so polarized, i dont know if you have noticed this its not getting better. I think the idea of virtue, its ours been a good idea i think its so upper for us in this particular political and cultural and cultural moment where we define polarization. To give a couple of examples, courage is a good example to use and talk about this golden mean, i think we tend in our lives culture where we think more is better if its something good, more must be better. That is not what virtue is. I think we think of courage as something that you can never have too much of but aristotle says otherwise. Excess of courage actually becomes rations because you can be bold or rash but if its not moderated by all other preachers and by being connected to good, then it is not encouraged, its just rashness. I think we see a lot of that in the world today, they just think if somebody does something bold, that must be courageous. But its not virtuous courage it is to extreme and also if its not adhered to the other virtues. Opposite his cowardice but i think what we need, we have enough boldness and rashness today and reclaiming what virtue really is would help us understand what virtuous courage is. A couple of other examples, temperance, this word was used in a lot of different ways, we can talk about temperance in terms of our emotions and feelings, aristotle used it very strictly in the sense of tempering our physical appetite or desire for food, and sex and drink. Whether our own human life or the human way. Temperance is not, again, this is an example of our tendency to go toward the stream, we think of temperance today largely as restraint, withholding but thats not virtuous. Temperance, according to aristotles putting our natural and good desires in proper order because it is good to desire food, just not too much. Or too little. It good to desire drink because if we dont satisfy our thirst, we will die. And desire sex is good, too. All this has to be put in proper order. Asceticism or eating disorder, post practices that deny our good healthy appetites are priceless just as indulgent in them too much or desiring them too much is also a vice. Does have to do with the desire so its not just, according to aristotle, if you desire something and deny it to your self, which we do that a lot, you have not yet obtained the virtue of temperance because thats when you actually have all of your desires in line with that healthy golden mean. Its a good one. Another example that shows us how are virtue is a golden mean is patients. Patients as the habit of beari bearing, suffering well. If you are alive and in this world, youre going to suffer. Theres no choice in thee matte, we must all suffer and the only thing we can choose when we suffer is whether or not we will bear that suffering well. So the way it is a need, virtuous need is that basically suffering as a result of evil, there are all kinds of different suffering from sitting in traffic as a form of suffering, i know. So we have to be patient but to be patient is two and or evil without committing evil in return. We need to endure and i want to be careful, move up in the last revising this book, clarifying because patience is a virtue that can be recognized in people who are suffering can be told to be patient with her abuse women, whether we might talk about but there can come a time of enduring suffering and not doing anything about it or not seeking justice can actually not be virtuous because you are actually committing evil by letting it go on too long. Its kind of complicated but we have to be careful, again, these virtues can be distorted and misused and recognized in a think patient is one. I cite this story, a patient whose husband texture all of these biblical things think hes married to other women and taking her children shes rewarded in the wind, thats not virtuous. A final example of virtue to talk about a little bit is humility. This is again another one for in our tendency with extremes today, we think more is better. We think someone who is humble, exceedingly modest, we think that showing more humility. Humility again, its a golden mean. Its accurate selfassessment so esteeming oneself neither too little nor too much, its not humble to think nothing of yourself because thats not an accurate selfassessment. My secular view or a christian view where you are a child of god, you must understand and assess yourself correctly. Not regard yourself too little or too much. Those are just a few examples of virtues, i have a whole section on the theological virtues which are a little bit different because the other virtues are natural and obtainable by all human beings they are also actually originating with god and we can practice them, obtained them only from god and once we have them, like the other preachers, we can practice them and develop them and those are coming directly from the bible. So just briefly, before i open up to questions, i thought i might it might be helpful to talk about one of the chapters, one of the works of literature and the virtue i talk about chapter to give you an idea how the whole works and i thought i would talk about the virtue of justice, which ia examine throuh charles dickens, a tale of two cities. Justice, the hardest virtue for me to research and wrap my mind around and write about because unlike the other virtues, justice, all the other preachers have to do with one individual person and you obtaining and practicing these virtues. Justice is a virtue related to an individual, we can be just people, not just people but justice is also a virtue of another community. That makes it complicated that there is individual attainment of the virtue of justice and also society, Culture Community can attain or not attain political social justice which i dont mean social justice but justice in its societal communal way. Essentially, justice is the right ordering of relationships within our community so as individuals, we need to desire that right ordering and if we are just individuals, we want our society to attain and protect that right ordering. So in a tale of two cities, we see again this propensity that we have as humans to gravitate toward the extreme because the center of illusion at the center of the story from with her reaction too many years of injustice perpetrated upon the poor and oppressed by those in power, by the aristocracy and it was a horrible and terrible thing. The french revolution came about in order, theoretically, hopefully, i thought to correct that injustice but as we all know, as a result, what happened was not a restoration of justice but simply an extreme that went in the opposite direction and further injustices wereus imposd once those who have been oppressed became in power, they perpetrated similar, perhaps even worse injustices on those who had oppressed them. So what we see in a tale of two cities is an example of how injustice is not with the correction of justice but injustice in the opposite. Interesting part is that dickens, a tale of two cities obviously so dickens was also, he was writing about his own country, england, a century, this entry following the french revolution and he was basically trying to convince his own country people of the committee the same kind of error of excess they saw in the french revolution. So two players in the novel, and i wrote about this chapter in a way where i was hoping we could see in our moment where we see cries of injustice everywhere and we need to be concerned about it, yet theres also this tendency, natural human tendency we have to correct injustice not with justice but with further injustices. I think theres a a third layer we can add to this brilliant telling that dickens is of the french revolution for his time and i tried to retell it for our time and display in doing that, the virtue of justice. I would love to take questions from you. Thank you. This book, i would imagine that we would want to read now. I would hope so. All the things that readers do so i just love this book and look forward to questions. They will be for sale for 20. I rode the train for hours to get here. If you will raise your hand, stand up maybe. Thank you. My name is haley, i go to georgetown and have worked as a fellow, my questions about aristotle i read it a couple of times but obviously im not a scholar. One of the things he talks about is emulating who is a good person and following their behaviors to practice and sometimes i find that is subjectivism and who you think is virtuous, how do you respond to that . Thats a great question. Of course i sort of adhere to that model because im saying in literature, we can find characters who are models to emulate, or not because i think it can work so i think that is a wise approach but i think aristotle tempers that and i also put temper thought by pointing out, he basically defines what the virtues are, its an objective oldfashioned way of approaching things to say how is it defined, this is what looks like and heres what it does not look like. Some in the idea of something being a moderation between two extremes but i think that is the beauty of it because what looks like courage in one situation may not be courage in another. The first virtue i talk about is probably the best answer to your question, its one of the cardinal virtues, the queen of the virtues and its prudence. Its a form of wisdom, there different kinds of wisdoms. Then there is prudence which is applied wisdom. I call it wisdom on the ground. Theres a lot of wisdom out there and a lot of people on the internet love to share with me. [laughter] like this is how it should be or should go about this. But it doesnt always work in real life and again, thats not relativism, it prudence which is a form of wisdom, to try to figure out a great theoretical but then maybe have to be tempered and modified in a real situation, thats prudence. So i think prudence is where we look at a role model also look at what the other virtues are and what it is. An oldfashioned book that no one has ever heard of probably, the film is great. If you take a class with me, he will read it. The history of tom jones definitely a few of us remember that one. So fun. Its a long novel but it is a wonderful one. And it teaches prudence. My name is caitlin, i am a former intern and im delighted to get to talk with you today. Thank you so much for this wonderful book. I studied literature and ethics so im grateful for the work you are doing to cover the moral language weve lost according to mcintyre. I have a twopronged question for you on the virtue of chastity, you mentioned john paul the second which was really neat, a lot of evangelicals read so you mentioned that john paul the second said even a husband and wife are supposed to practice chasity with regard to each other, not just not committing adultery but also chasity in their own relationship. It wasnt an idea talk to me growing up as an evangelical southern fostered buses, what you think a husband and wife can practice this in relation to each other and you think the use of contraception can be now forming our consciences . Start with the easy uncomfortable questions. One of the things what i say about chasity in the book coming from my background in your back room, evangelicals, especially baptist talks about abstinence, which is not the same thing as chasity. Abstinence is so negative and chastity is a positive thing and we are all called to practice chasity regardless of our situation, whether we are sing single, married, whether we struggle with this or that, we are all to practice chastity. The closest susan symptom is fidelity. Within the marital relationship, a husband and wife practice that in so many ways, not just in the space barr intellectual ways, emotional ways we talk about Emotional Affairs and pornography problems and all because of other things that might not result in actual adultery but are not examples of chaste behavior toward one another. The novel that i discussed in this chapter is ethan, its a late 19th, early 20th century buddy, this consummation of this relationship most likely in the novel, its a great novel. There is perfect justice. But the whole points are that chastity is not just about the physical act. Ut begins in the mind and heart into the emotions and i talk about it in terms of lust of the eyes, lust of the pride of life and all the things that can result in unchaste behavior. So in terms of your second question, i do think the contraception mentality has harmed marriage, the institution of marriage and our understanding of marriage and has contributed to an idea that marriage is about to sexual partners together throughout life and here we are. So i think that evangelicals and baptists have a lot to learn from popes. Can you hear me like this . Okay, sorry. On intern here at the heritage foundation. My question is guarding aristotle and going off her question, chastity not chasity, temperance is defined as natural order of desires. Would you say regarding chastity, sort of a middle ground between, its very much in the gray zone where we determine it by field rather than by a mathematical formula of black and white. Chastity . Yes. In general. Yes, again in some sense, all of these virtues are defined by the extremes and extremes change. So for one basic concrete example, if at one time a woman who allowed her ankles to shop would have been considered unchaste in some respects. We are totally okay with that now and by those standards, i think its okay to be okay with that. But in a different time if that was the norm, then it probably contributed to unchastity. Again, there are objectives and moral standards but they are contextual, thickened change from culture to culture. Again, i think this is right up virtues are so helpful and important to us because we tend, we want to go with rules or do we want to go with anything because as a culture . I think most people we gravitate toward one of those so we dont filtrate any of these beginning with prudence in fact another thing i do throughout the book, they are all connected with one another. You cannot have one virtueca without the others. Anyone else . I have one. Youve been teaching students literature for many, many years now. What about the changes you see in students getting to college and their preparedness, how do you talk about this . All right. Well, ill talk about a few Different Things and maybe i will connect them, maybe not. I will say starting at the most superficial thing, i would say in the past five or ten years, sort of the middle, somewhere in the middle of teaching career, students went to ebooks and digital reading, i said i dont allow ebooks, we are going to flip through pages and underline things. Ill have to do that anymore. Nobody wants ebooks anymore. English majors, they want the actual physical book. I think weve reached saturation points, at least temporarily. Thats encouraging to me. I understand theres a place for ebooks but its not how i run my classroom. The same with a laptop, i used to give them a lecture, dont use your laptops in class, take your notes by hand because it shows that you will retain it more. The students, with their composition books just like i have and they take the notes by hand and bring their books so yeah. [laughter] and this is why i think this book has been, i wanted it to be well received but it is more enthusiastically received than i expected. Theot internet all the time, i confess. Im a social media object. Addict. Weve all reached a saturation points, even if we want to use social media technology, we need to counter balance it with this sustained attention in reading books. Particularly my own evangelical admmunity, excellent reception of his book by theologians, im so excited about that. Another thing i would say that changed with students is my mom. [laughter] shes so modern with her iphone. In her facebook. [laughter] this is a little bit more of a negative but we get more and more students, again, talking about brush majors who want to be writers. Yay but dont want to be readers. I think there are a lot of reasons for that but you really cannot they are enamored with the idea of writing but dont necessarily know the kind of foundation thats pretty much necessary provided by reading and reading well. So that is a concern i have. Thank you. Im an intern here at heritage t undation, i just graduated from Christian University recently. You mentioned a few virtues said came straight from god. How does your faith impact how do you believe other people who write literature of faith f can tell a story with characters that are virtuous that may be others dont have that faith couldnt show. I have gone to christian film festivals and things were on the flipside, christian narratives are all often confirmed as being too preachy, only about using the story from paul purpose instead of receiving like the quote you sent. What recommendations would you give christian writers who want to incorporate the virtue in thh stories to relational perspective that they can offer without only using it like that . Thats an important critique that christians need to hear and understand. When i talk about these books and the bridges that can be seen in them, i dont claim anywhere at this is the theme of the book, that this was what the message was that he was trying to convey. Literature doesnt really do that, its much more complex and has many more things that it addresses so im providing kind of a lens to take a look, we can read this, most people would never, its about hope, i say. I dont think thats really i mean, its there but its not that im violating the text but im not saying hes not what you write about the theological virtue of hope because is not a christian but im think we can still see it. Christian artists need to look at the examples and role models that are already there of great literature and great film and read mystery manners where she talks about these things and i mean, the purpose of art is to be art. If its good art, the human lessons will come out of it but let art be art. But it be good art. Dont let the message overwhelm the arts because it becomes a sermon. Theres nothing wrong with sermons, i give them every weeke but we have to understand what it is we are doing and if we are trying to do art, we need to art and do it well. As Francis Schaeffer says in his little booklets, art in the bible that the world you will, if you have a strong push in worldview and you are an artist and you work on your art, it will come up in the same way that a carpenter whos a christian and is ethical and lives a christian life, his work will demonstrate belief. He doesnt have to like make the fairway into a form of a god. [laughter] he just has to be a good carpenter and lived his life and run his business and thats what christian artists need to do. Anyone else . Its a great book. I love the illustrations, very comfortable, its great. I do want to give a shout out, i hired an artist to do the cover, it wasnt in the publisher, to do the inside illustration because i wanted the book to be beautiful. It was more beyond just what the publisher did. This is a nice mug. G. Thank you. We have been discussing this. Thank you for having me. You can head out these doors, take a left and their double doors here. We are showing thats as well. Thank you so much. Left. [applause] [inaudible conversations] this weekend on book tvs afterwards, abc news chief White House CorrespondentJonathan Carl provides a behind the scenes look at the Trump Presidency with his new book, front row the trump show. He knows the reporters, he reads the stories, he watches the news coverage, he wants privately called, the greatest invention to mankind, tivo, he has all of his shows on dvr and he watches and sees house hes being portrayed. I recalled him at one time, phil walker was the Washington Post, a good reporter, the president made reference to a story that still had written before the new york primary. About the Staten Island ferry and filth basically went and interviewed people on the Staten Island area and found a lot of people really liked donald trump. He wrote the story about it. I didnt even see the story. Trump not only sought the story and writing, its no a couple of years earlier and he becomes president , go through all of this and he sees phil walker, not exactly a household name great reporter, we all know him but he said yes, that story you wrote about the ferry, its a wonderful story. Mind blowing. You can see the entire interview between abc news chief White House CorrespondentJonathan Carl and former White House Press secretary mccurry sunday 9 00 p. M. Eastern matisse fence book tv. Television has changed since cspan began 41 physical but our Mission Continues to provide an unfiltered view of government, already we brought primary election coverage, the president ial impeachment process and now the federal response to the coronavirus. You can watch all of cspans Public Affairs programming on television, online or listen on our free radio up and be part of the National Conversation through see spencer daily Washington Journal Program or through our social media scene, cspan, created by private industry, americas Cable Television company is a Public Service and brought to you by your television provider. No pamela paul, editor of the New York Times book review. She discusses her book, how to raise a reader. Good afternoon, everyone. Sorry we are running a little bit behind today. On behalf of the American Enterprise institute, i would like to welcome to the conversation we are going to have. Her recent book how to raise our leader