methylethyl

Bits and bobs from my reading heap: 

"The cultivation and expansion of needs is the antithesis of wisdom. It is also the antithesis of freedom and peace. Every increase of needs tends to increase one's dependence on outside forces over which one cannot have control, and therefore increases existential fear." 

-E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

"Intellectuals are most easily reached by propaganda, particularly if it employs ambiguity. The reader of a number of newspapers expressing diverse attitudes-- just because he is better informed-- is more subjected than anyone else to a propaganda that he cannot perceive, even though he claims to retain free choice in the mastery of all this information. Actually, he is being conditioned to absorb all the propaganda that coordinates and explains the facts he believes himself to be mastering. Thus, information not only provides the basis for propaganda but gives propaganda the means to operate; for information actually generates the problems that propaganda exploits and for which it pretends to offer solutions. In fact, no propaganda can work until the moment when a set of facts has become a problem in the eyes of those who constitute public opinion. 

-Jacques Ellul, Propaganda

On the Council of Florence in 1439: 

"Catholics presented rational arguments for their positions, and the Orthodox responded by citing apostolic Tradition. It was 'the constant conviction of the Latins that they always won the disputation, and of the Greeks that no Latin argument ever touched the heart of the problem.' Even today, when Orthodox Christians reject Western Christian beliefs, it is because they violate apostolic Tradition, not because those teachings are irrational by some Orthodox standards of reason."

"Augustine was trained and educated as a philosopher and rhetorician. Later, as a bishop of the Church, he tried to resolve theological questions by the application of reason and logical deduction. Lacking a formal theological education, Augustine relied on his philosophical training. He believed that truth could not conflict with reason because God is the source of both. Therefore, he concluded that deductive reasoning can be utilized in the service of theology.  ...   Augustine initiated the trajectory that ultimately resulted in the schism between East and West. He sowed the seeds of a different phronema, which over ensuing centuries gradually grew in the West due to his immense influence. Relying on his training in philosophy, he arrived at his own divergent conclusions to some theological questions, many of which had already been resolved by important church councils and notable Greek Fathers." 

-Jeanne Constantinou, Thinking Orthodox

"The loftier meaning is therefore more fitting than the obvious one. It commands those participating through virtue in the free life also to equip themselves with the wealth of pagan learning by which foreigners to the faith beautify themselves. Our guide in virtue commands someone who 'borrows' from wealthy Egyptians to receive such things as moral and natural philosophy, geometry, astronomy, dialectic, and whatever else is sought by those outside the Church, since these things will be useful when in time the divine sanctuary of mystery must be beautified with the riches of reason. ...  Those who treasured up for themselves such wealth handed it over to Moses as he was working on the tent of mystery, each one making his personal contribution to the construction of the holy places. It is possible to see this happening even now, for many bring to the Church of God their profane learning as a kind of gift. Such a man was the great Basil, who acquired Egyptian wealth in every respect during his youth and dedicated this wealth to God for the adornment of the Church, the true tabernacle." 

--Gregory of Nyssa: the Life of Moses

There is a common thread here I've been trying to tease out (perhaps I imagine it): the right and wrong use and orientation of wealth, desire, information, learning...   maybe, material resources, learning, intelligence, information, desire, all of these have their proper place when when oriented properly toward God. But as soon as we regard them as goods and ends in and of themselves, tools that can be used on their own, they become perverted and lead to bad things.