How to Avoid the Frenzy of Contemporary Events

A contemplative politics entails a two-part movement, one that parallels Thoreau’s injunction to be wary of trivia and devoted to eternal truths. The first involves an askesis, a kind of self-discipline, that refuses attention to the buzzing alerts and urgent headlines that threaten to macadamize our minds. A helpful guide in this endeavor is the French mathematician and theologian Blaise Pascal, who shows how a confidence in God’s providence can free us from seeing the news as a series of reports on existential crises and can enable us to cultivate a holy apathy, a sancta indifferentia,…