Elevation
Alain Finkielkraut’s conversation with Rémi Brague and Guillaume Cuchet, recorded on 9 October under the title ‘Does Catholicism still have a future in France?’, is illuminating and instructive for all sorts of reasons. Memorable not least is Brague’s remark:
‘A Christian thinks that the truth is preferable to an illusion, even to the kind of illusion that, as Pushkin said, elevates us.’
The only ladder worth climbing is the one that makes us descend into the embodied truth about ourselves. To aspire heavenward, we need to have our feet on the ground, even if it happens to be a dungheap.
