Medieval Civilization: Millennia in Microcosm Week 153

Join us for a penetrating discussion of Kenneth Smith’s philosophical meditation on the tragic dynamics of sin, ego, and civilization’s ironic collapse. In this session, we’ll explore the etymology of sin as a “splitting-off” — a rupture from wholeness — and its deeper form, hamartia, as a failure to grasp what is spiritually essential. Smith contrasts the unifying power of spirit with the slicing edge of ego, revealing how civilizations and individuals alike unravel when they elevate cleverness and desire over truth and order. Drawing on Aristotle and Kierkegaard, he unpacks paradoxes at the heart of moral life: how self-denial leads to fullness, and how cultures built on revulsion to ego can mutate into its most sophisticated forms. We’ll trace how classical Athens, early Christianity, and the modern West each reach their peripeteia—their fateful reversal—becoming what they once condemned. This is a conversation about blindness, irony, and the spiritual cost of forgetting what truly matters.
C: Selfless Love and The Encompassing https://kennethsmithphilosophy.com/end07.php