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Fr. Peter Totleben, O.P. Profile picture
@FrTotleben92742
Feb 25 • 6 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
This shows you the kind of books that this guy reads and how he reads books. If you read a lot of business, or self-help, or personal improvement books for information, then yes, an AI model does render this kind of reading obsolete.
But a part of reading significant texts is that the ideas in them cannot be reduced to information and its application. So, in reading a significant text you learn to enter into a dialogical relationship with the text.
And the insights that result from that dialogue, as well as learning how to have that kind of a dialogical relationship -- AI cannot do this for you.
Imagine trying to distill the key insights from "The Brothers Karamazov" or "The Republic" and developing a plan for how to implement them -- that's not why you read these texts.
And, when you learn to develop a dialogical relationship with significant texts, you begin to develop a dialogical relationship with other kinds of texts as well -- reading them critically in a way that other readers do not. An important advantage in a knowledge economy!
So once you realize that you don't read books in order to download information into your brain the question of whether AI is a more efficient way than books to download information into your brain becomes moot.

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More from @FrTotleben92742

Fr. Peter Totleben, O.P. Profile picture
Feb 21
Sometimes you see a debate about the so-called "two ends" of the sexual act, the unitive and the procreative, and which one takes priority. Let me suggest that this question is poorly put.
An action cannot have two (really distinct) ends, therefore the sexual act does not have two (really distinct) ends. The sexual act has only one end, and when we say that it has a unitive and procreative end, we are not naming two really different ends of the sexual act.
Rather, unitive and procreative differ only in notion; they describe the one end of the sexual act in two different, yet complementary ways. The sexual act is unitive and procreative at the same time, because being procreative is precisely the way that the sexual act is unitive.
Read 11 tweets
Fr. Peter Totleben, O.P. Profile picture
Feb 13
Once you strip away the rhetoric, Francis' position in his immigration letter is, "Governments have the right to regulate immigration and enforce immigration laws, but the only morally legitimate enforcement action is to deport serious criminals who are in the country illegally."
He also seems to suggest that human dignity and the universality of the command to love our neighbor imply that the government has equal obligations towards the well-being of non-citizens who are in the country without authorization as it does towards its own citizens.
But the first of these seems open to the critique that it really does vitiate the rule of law and incentivize further illegal immigration -- almost creating an open border. (Especially since elsewhere Francis pretty much says that anyone who wants to immigrate should be welcomed)
Read 12 tweets
Fr. Peter Totleben, O.P. Profile picture
Feb 13
Some people claim that conservative Catholics treat Francis differently than JP2/Benedict, allegedly because Francis disagrees with them, while JP2/Benedict agreed with them. I don't think this is true. I think they show the same attitude, but under changed circumstances.
The response of supporters of Francis' recent letter illustrate one reason why. You will notice that there is very little exposition of Francis' arguments (such as they are) or an explanation or defense of Francis' position with arguments.
The defense of Francis' letter seems to be pretty much: "Not only do you have to obey it because the Holy Father said so, but of course it is true and well-argued, because the Holy Father wrote it."
Read 14 tweets
Fr. Peter Totleben, O.P. Profile picture
Feb 11
Many people are avoid the real issues with Vance's position on immigration, because addressing it seriously raises hard and uncomfortable questions, especially for those who take Catholic social teaching seriously, and don't reduce it to slogans or weaponize it for their politics
The animating cause of Vance's politics--the through line of it all from "Hillbilly Elegy" onwards--is the threat that the economic decline and social-cultural disintegration of the working class, especially in the Rust Belt and Appalachia, poses to social solidarity.
This cause drives his opinions on many other issues: natalism, the family, protectionism, trade . . . and immigration.
Read 17 tweets
Fr. Peter Totleben, O.P. Profile picture
Feb 5
There are three obvious errors with this proposal.
First, from the fact that to theologize is not to catechize, it does not follow that you do not need to know theology in order to catechize.
But, really, the latter presupposes the former. A catechist needs to have an intellectus fidei in order to present the faith in an orderly coherent way.
Read 16 tweets
Fr. Peter Totleben, O.P. Profile picture
Jan 21
Before this error creeps up too often, when "Gaudium et Spes" and "Veritatis Splendor" say that "deportatio" is illegal, they are not referring to repatriation. According to the dictionary (and its references to Roman Law), "deportatio" is displacing people from their native land
So, in condemning "deportatio," the Magisterium is thinking of things like the displacement of the Jews, or various displacements that occurred in Europe right after World War II, or things like ethnic cleansing.
This should be obvious. The Church teaches both that people have a right to migrate both for asylum and economic reasons. But also that the welcoming country has the right to regulate immigration for economic and cultural reasons. This obviously entails a right to repatriate.
Read 11 tweets

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