These collected essays by Alice von Hildebrand, entitled Remnant of Paradise, are truly a labour of love and a tribute to her legacy as a philosopher, teacher, friend, and mentor. The care and love which has gone into selecting these essays and especially gathering the recollections of such a diverse group of friends and admirers by John Henry Crosby and colleagues in the Hildebrand Project is evident. In the introduction, Crosby emphasizes the vividness of von Hildebrand’s presence – both in-personal conversation and in a lecture format. These essays capture at least a sense of that vividness and energy. They also convey echoes of what must have been von Hildebrand’s presence in the classroom – conveying complex ideas in simple language with engaging analogies and connections drawn between timeless truths and challenging cultural contexts. For example, in her first essay, von Hildebrandt emphasizes the significance of her own encounter with the works of Blaise Pascal, providing a telling anecdote of herself as a young girl strolling along the Brittany seashore reciting sections of the Pensées from memory. The occasional nature of reflections in these essays across a wide array of topics provides some of the same sense of spontaneous reflection as that of her early philosophical mentor.
The selection of the essays and personal recollections – by friends, students, and admirers – also successfully navigates a tricky dilemma. Part of von Hildebrand’s stature and legacy is of course inextricably tied to her marriage to the philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand. Alice, thirty-four years younger than her husband, lived for forty-five years after his death, serving as custodian and guardian of his legacy for almost half of her long life. This collection appropriately nods to that important aspect of her life and career – for example in the inclusion of her description of her meeting with Pope St. John Paul II, which references her role as the guardian of his legacy. However, the primary focus is to provide a broader vision of Alice and her own work. Although von Hildebrand herself was committed to paying tribute to her husband’s memory, she clearly earns her own laurels in this collection. The editors do an excellent job of maintaining a clear focus that the collection is intended to be a celebration not of the keeper of Dietrich’s flame, but of Alice’s work and writing as a philosopher and commentator in her own right. This focus is emphasized not only in her essays selected but also even more in the reflections on her life and encounters with her – which focus on her own apparently vivid personality and presence.
Turning to the substance of the essays themselves, the most striking aspect that unites them is von Hildebrand’s’ capacity to step outside the cultural and intellectual mainstream to come at issues ‘slant’. This approach is most compelling and illuminating in her reflections related to issues of everyday life too often ignored or uncelebrated in our own cultures. For example, the collection includes essays by von Hildebrand that celebrate the special spiritual gift of widowhood, the ‘joy of old age’, the gift of tears, and even the joy of indebtedness. In a culture obsessed with youth, appearance, autonomy, and the pursuit of self-fulfilment through romantic love, her perspective offers a compelling cultural antidote. In ‘Mary, Queen of Widows’, von Hildebrand focuses on the unique relationship, modeled on Mary, that widows can have with God – a dependence in a special way for God’s help. In the same way, in her essay ‘The Blessings of Old Age’, von Hildebrand critiques the cultural forces that call for obscuring or hiding the effects of old age, and instead redirects the reader’s focus to what the wisdom of old age uniquely allows older people to accomplish – ‘in arts, in literature, in philosophy, in works of high spirituality’ (p.51). In ‘The Joy of Being Indebted’, von Hildebrand plays upon the cultural fear of bankruptcy in order to contrast our secular desire for autonomy and control with the joy that comes from realizing our total indebtedness – and then our total dependence – on God. This indebtedness does not turn us into misers but actually makes possible a practice of gratitude towards others as well.
While at her best in this type of spiritual writing which approaches from an unexpected angle, von Hildebrand’s essays are less compelling when they move into a more polemical vein – especially in her discussions of feminism. In essays throughout this collection, she repeatedly denies and criticizes contemporary feminism because of her rejection of the work of Simone de Beauvoir. While de Beauvoir is undoubtedly a significant influence on some feminist thought, feminism has grown and developed far beyond the publication of the Second Sex in 1949. One wonders if Hildebrand might have found more productive conversation partners in other feminist approaches such as the ethics of care of Carol Gilligan or feminist virtue ethics. Von Hildebrand’s rejection of this narrow view of feminism at times leads her to respond with very strong ontological claims of gender essentialism, which depart from a more traditional theological anthropology. For example, she argues that man, homo, is complete only when a man and a woman are bonded together in an ‘essential union’ (p.7). Given the Church’s traditional emphasis upon celibacy as a higher state, this reading of gender and being is surprising (see, e.g., Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II Q.180 a. 3). In addition, despite the struggles and challenges in her own academic career, in her essay ‘The Discrimination Complex’, von Hildebrand seems to miss that many feminist concerns relate to historical structural inequalities that directly impact women’s lived reality – not simply a reading of women’s role according to scripture (although, of course, scripture has historically been mis-used and mis-read to limit or condemn women, a complaint that von Hildebrand herself raises).
Despite these concerns, the collection succeeds in what seems to be its primary goal: a celebration of friendship. The title is taken from von Hildebrand’s own writing, used as the epigraph: ‘Friendship is the remnant of paradise’. Not surprisingly given the love evident for von Hildebrand in this collection, one of the most poignant essays in this collection is on the ‘canons of friendship’. In my undergraduate ethics classes, the question of true friendship, including marital friendship, is one that deeply resonates with my students who are struggling through the isolation and autonomy of late modernity, desperately looking for lasting friendship in a culture characterized by ‘an epidemic of loneliness’. In one of the most inspiring essays, von Hildebrand sensitively and delicately considers the bond of mutual care and love and forgiveness which unites friends while also the danger of friends who depend too much on or take advantage of others – breaking the bonds of mutuality as much as those who depend or give too little. Clearly, she was able to be such a friend and inspire others likewise.
