There are reports, images and videos emerging gradually from the recent back-to-back “superstar” conferences in London recently.
Australia’s Professor Tracey Rowland’s article, “A Week at Canary Wharf”, in the always topical Catholic World Report captures very well the “vibe”, the promise and the adroitly skimmed philosophical and theological differences that were evident in the ambitious Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) program.
The “vibe” was a refreshing one, to question the bullying dominance of many of the secular liberal and illiberal narratives and practices in the Western world.
Booked out under the modern “tent” of the conference centre were about 4,000 participants including classical liberals and libertarians, traditional Catholics, varieties of Christians, secular feminists, Jewish scholars along with academics, podcasters, church employees, business leaders and politicians who belong broadly to a “resistance movement”.
The concept of the ARC originated with the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and former Australian deputy prime minister John Anderson.
ARC says of itself that “it emerged as a response to what its founders see as a crisis in Western values and institutions, aiming to provide a cohesive and hopeful vision for the future”.
It became obvious that just like a large family wedding or school reunion, an enormous and generally good-willed event can harbour incongruous personalities indeed.
As Professor Rowland remarks: “Anyone with a knowledge of intellectual history could discern the fault-lines among the presenters.”
There was something of the spirit of St Paul at the Areopagus about the ARC event (Acts 17:22-23). Floating about were many biblical “memes” and there was a genuine appreciation of Christian speakers who, along with others, were reaching out for the “greater good” and even God.
Favourite Christian speakers for Professor Rowland were the now Orthodox writer and editor, Rod Dreher, the Orthodox Coptic Archbishop of London Angaelos, Dr Ian Oswald “Os” Guinness (theologian, author and descendent of the Guinness brewery family), and global Catholic evangelist Bishop Robert Barron.
As Tracey Rowland observed of the influential Jordan Peterson who has touched the lives of so many and received what she called “a rock-star” welcome, “His speech was focused on the concept of sacrifice, but he stopped short of any endorsement of a belief in ‘the’ sacrifice as Catholics understand Calvary and the Eucharist.”
She observes wryly of Peterson’s importance and his halting faith “at the gates of the Church” … “it is nonetheless true that he has become a ‘gateway drug’ to Bishop Barron’s Word on Fire (WOF) podcasts”.
Quite apart from the formal speeches and their merits, something more substantial seemed to accompany the ARC and WOF conferences. That something was people, many from Australia, linking up with like-minded people.
The real “gold” of the Canary Wharf experience were the informal and sometimes quickly organised dinners, drinks and very “Middle-Earth” chats around a pint that sprang up all over London town.
It seemed that there was very little sleep taking place during the week as men and women of different ages delighted in meeting their heroes or in talking with others about the culture of life, about education, about initiatives in their countries, about their concerns about short-term fixes to the environment or simply about being Catholic in a generally hostile or indifferent society.
While well-funded and impressively designed conferences are good, I suspect that these conversations and the real human interaction and friendship are even better for civilisational change.
None of us has direct control of what Os Guinness calls the “civilisational moment” – that way either folly or totalitarianism lies. A real meeting of minds, even if it takes place around a tussle of words and ideas and the wreckage of a dinner table, is a sign of cultural renewal in a world of virtual messaging and AI-generated images.
It was G.K. Chesterton who explained that his admiration for the great English essayist and lexicographer Dr Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) was his mastery of human conversation and common sense. Chesterton even wrote a play about Dr Johnson called the Judgement of Dr. Johnson.
For Chesterton, Johnson’s mastery not only came because of his brilliant grasp of the English language but because he “argued for victory”, which for Chesterton meant he always “fought for the truth”.
The human conversation that “fights” to find the deep and lasting things is not based on utilitarian goals at all. True conversation involves careful listening and discretion, charity and imagination, a desire for wisdom and honesty.
In a wonderful essay about the importance of meaty conservation, English literature professor Mitchell Kalpakgian reports what Johnson said of lively conversation to his colleague, friend and protégé James Boswell:
“There must, in the first place, be knowledge, there must be materials; in the second place, there must be a command of words; in the third place, there must be imagination, to place things in such views as they are not commonly seen in; and in the fourth place, there must be presence of mind, and the resolution that is not to be overcome with failures.”
Thank you, Dr Johnson – what a helpful checklist for us today!
The Thomas More Centre itself invites and thrives on these elements of conversation. To that end we work to invite people to grow in knowledge, in developing the “command of words”, in nourishing imagination and fostering the virtues that withstand the daily struggles with failure and small victories.
Please consider supporting our events, interviews and our social media – let’s expand the conversation.
Anna Krohn
Executive Director
Thomas More Centre
