Tag: Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) was an American Trappist monk, theologian, author, and social activist who became a prominent voice in 20th-century Catholic spirituality. Living at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky, his extensive writings spanned interior prayer, mysticism, pacifism, racial justice, and pioneering interreligious dialogue with Zen Buddhist and Taoist scholars.

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“[In] an evolved society there are no innocent victims of propaganda. Propaganda succeeds because men want it to succeed. It works on minds because those minds want to be worked on. Its conclusions bring apparent light and satisfaction because that is the kind of satisfaction that people are longing for. It leads them to actions for which they are already half prepared: all they ask is that these actions be justified. If war propaganda succeeds it is because people want war, and only need a few good reasons to justify their own desire.”

— Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (1966)

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Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton’s hermitage

Autobiography is always negotiating two or more voices, speaking from separate and distinct moments in time. We can see this in what is perhaps the earliest example of modern autobiography, St Augustine‘s Confessions, where a present-day narrator attempts to reconstruct a previous life. In this way, autobiographical writing attempts to collapse the distance between childhood and adulthood, innocence and experience, and past and present.  (more…)