Bread and circus to fight the boredom

"If you want to make man better you just need to educate him. All man needs is the right information. If you tell man what truth is, and you tell him what is bad he will do the right thing." This mentality comes from the "enlightenment" of the French Revolution. Our secular society often embraces this errant philosophy, claiming that societies' problems can be solved with better education while completely disregarding the spiritual aspect of the person. Our Church teaches that man has a darkened intellect, a weakened will, and that he tends towards doing evil. Man can know what is right and good, and still choose to do what is wrong. Simply addressing the intellect (with secular godless philosophies) is not enough to make man better. "Information" is not enough.

The Industrial Revolution views man as simply a cog... a part to play in society. To make society successful you must make successful cogs. Man ends up being so specialized in one field that he fails in other fields, especially in spiritual matters. Man needs many things (intellectually and spiritually) and to treat him like a line in production is to treat him like an animal.

The human mind was not made by God to be narrow. We are spiritual as well as physical. Study is a form of work that we can use to expand ourselves on many subjects, but knowing information for the sake of knowing is not enough. Studying should help you to become more than a simple animal. Studying should help you to become more virtuous. Studying should allow us to work in a way as to focus on God.

For deeper take on this subject please see the Audio Sancto sermon titled: Studying for Sanctification