Holy Crap Paradox, I love you so much!

[Abe Sargent]

So here's your context.

I am 39. After I got my first Masters, my MPA, from WVU, I was hired at Eastern Michigan U for an Area Complex Director role there. I remained there for 6 years. EMU was formerally a Normal School, and has a nationally admired education program, and fofered free tuition. One of my great regreats os that I didn;t get my Doctorate in Education while I was there. I left for a one year Masters in Philophy in London, I left for financial reasons. Then i went to Wayne State and was tehre for 3.5 years. Again, they paid for tuition, and I could have gotten another Masters there for free. But I didn;t I was fired, and then went to Seminary to get a MTS degree outside of Philadelphia. I arrived at Fairfield in a similar role to my previous ones, and left the Jesuit School after 2.5 years, with teh first one finishing up my degree.

I recently arrived in Mobile at Spring Hill College, another Jesuit school, with a promotion as the Associate Director of my office. Once again, tuition waivers are on teh table. So I immediately enrolled in the MA in Theology program here, and am taking my first class this semester.


My first class is on the Catholic traditions of War and Peace, including the Just War tradition. The first text I just finished is Ronald Musto's The Catholic Peace Tradition. Musto's expertise is in the Catholic Church of the times covered by CK and EU games. So those chapters in his book are quite extensive and heavily cited and researched.


He spent a considerable going over the concept of Just War that dominated the Christ era for a long, long time. And I have to admit that I loved it. Because it synergized perfectly with the various mechanics of the game. Just perfectly. In the tradition, we have this concept of three things required to wage Just War, and you had to abide by it or else Christian vs Christian spills the blood of Christ. So you cannot do it for the selfish gain of territory or cash or praise or stuff. It has to be for a righteous cause, that only that is taken, and that is waged with without hitting infrastructure, hurting churches, people, and more. And if you don't, the number of times the Papacy leveled the full weight of their bully pulpit against these states is incredible, even against ostensible allies of the individual pope.

I could go into heavy detail, but I won't belabor you. Suffice it to say that all of the various mechanics of EU in particular with war, peace, badboy, and more really line up with the thought of the time just perfectly.


I have a new appreciation for this series of games and the folks who run them.

[Izulde]

That's awesome.

[Brian Swartz]

Seconded. Very interesting stuff.