My Riches
by Emily Tolman
Mine is the gold of sunset,
The glory of the dawn,
The splendid star that shines afar,
The dew-bejewelled lawn.
Mine are the pearls and opals
That fall from wayside spring,
The silvery notes from thrushes' throats
Through woodland aisles that ring.
Mine is the rare embroidery
Of lichen on the wall,
The airy grace of fair fern-lace,
Meet for a prince's hall.
Softer than Persian carpet
The moss beneath my feet,
In dewy dells, where floral bells
Toll out their perfume sweet.
Banks cannot hold my treasure;
It needs no lock nor key;
None 'neath the sky so rich as I,
Who hold the world in fee.
Saturday, July 25, 2015
None 'Neath Sky so Rich as I
Friday, July 24, 2015
Music on My Mind
Johanna Kurkela, "Kuolevainen". 'Kuolevainen' means 'mortal'; you can find lyrics and translation here.
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Cedar of Lebanon
Today is the Feast of St. Sharbel Makhlouf (1828-1898); he is commemorated by Maronites on the third Sunday of July (his properly Maronite commemoration) and on the 23rd (his commemoration according to Rome's general calendar), and which of the two is emphasized more seems to vary according to the Maronite parish. As it happens, I was at a Maronite liturgy both last Saturday evening for the Vigil and today at two different Maronite churches, so I caught both commemorations.
St. Sharbel, or Charbel, was the son of a mule-driver who used to sneak away to pray at the monastery of St. Maron in Annaya, Lebanon. He eventually became a Lebanese Maronite monk there, but after some time there he decided to go further and become a hermit (this requires special permission, which he received). He was a hermit for twenty-three years, and gained a widespread reputation for hospitality and holiness.
Annaya
Cedars grow tall on Liban hills,
life rooted deeper than human will;
flame is bright over muddy grave
of a hermit-saint who hid his face;
the heart is kissed by burning light
as cedar soars to sun and sky,
is charged with day without a night,
and burns but is not burned.
St. Sharbel, or Charbel, was the son of a mule-driver who used to sneak away to pray at the monastery of St. Maron in Annaya, Lebanon. He eventually became a Lebanese Maronite monk there, but after some time there he decided to go further and become a hermit (this requires special permission, which he received). He was a hermit for twenty-three years, and gained a widespread reputation for hospitality and holiness.
Annaya
Cedars grow tall on Liban hills,
life rooted deeper than human will;
flame is bright over muddy grave
of a hermit-saint who hid his face;
the heart is kissed by burning light
as cedar soars to sun and sky,
is charged with day without a night,
and burns but is not burned.
Thursday Virtue: Moderatio Exteriorum Motuum
There is no good English translation for the Latin word modestia. Indeed, it is difficult to explain what it is in the first place. It suggests moderation, but not all kinds of moderation are modestia; perhaps the best way to think of it is as moderation in how one presents oneself externally.
In his influential work, De Officiis, Ambrose of Milan argues that modestia is one of the most important duties/responsibilities (officiis) of youth; he takes it to be the restraint of oneself in word and action, giving as examples chastity, humility, sobriety, silence, and the like. One of the kinds of modestia he notes is that concerned with gesture and gait of body:
Since there is an intimate relation between our bodies and our souls, there is a relationship between our outward movement and our character, with the former serving as a sign of the latter. Ambrose is rather brutal in his assessment; he gives specific examples of people he has known who showed their arrogance or faithlessness in how they walked and moved their hands. One of the Ambrose's concerns is our tendency to posture and preen, to treat our body as if it were a way to manipulate other people. Another is that our lack of priorities often shows up in how we move -- our hastiness, our self-importance, our lack of respect for ourselves and our position. Our movements should be simple and plain, appropriate to our situation and our station, communicating the spiritual beauty of our characters through the natural ease and dignity of our use of our bodies. Conceit and deceit, arrogance and artifice, are especially to be avoided.
Aquinas follows Ambrose in accepting that there must be such a virtue (2-2.168.1), again, because denying that morality includes this sort of thing in its scope is to falsify the relationship between soul and body. Morality is concerned with the direction of action by reason; and our physical movements are directions capable of being directed by reason. Thus there is a virtue of moving rationally. It is a subjective part (particular kind) of modestia, which is a potential part (close cousin) of temperance -- the difference being that temperance, the more important virtue, is concerned with internal matters.
There are two things we need to keep in mind in order to achieve this modestia of movement: we need to make our movements appropriate to the people with whom we deal (including ourselves), and we need to make our movements appropriate to the situation in which we find ourselves. Thus Aquinas identifies two elements to this moderation of external movements: ornatus, which concerns the former, and bona ordinatio, which concerns the latter. (He gets the terms from Andronicus of Rhodes.)
This all might sound a bit odd as a matter of ethics, and again, we have no actual word in English to describe the virtue in question. However, a little thought shows that there must be something to it. One of our most basic notions of 'good behavior' consists entirely in the kind of moderation of physical movement covered by good behavior. We see this especially in how we train children, but we occasionally express the same sort of approval and disapproval in how we regard adults, and our annoyance and social penalizing of jostlers, those who invade people's personal space or take up more room than they need to, those who rush around, those who flail wildly, those who cannot keep their hands to themselves. And it is unsurprising, really: how we move is one of our forms of communication, and we get exasperated at people who move in such ways that they act as if they were the only person who mattered, or as if they were trying to dominate others or the situation. Like Ambrose, most people recognize that you can move in ways that force others to adapt and that communicate exactly the wrong things; and, like Ambrose, most people get exasperated at the kinds of outward movements suggestive of arrogance or pretense. Nobody, whether Ambrose or Aquinas or anyone else, considers the virtue in question to be among the most important virtues; but that there is something about moral life involved can hardly be put into question.
In his influential work, De Officiis, Ambrose of Milan argues that modestia is one of the most important duties/responsibilities (officiis) of youth; he takes it to be the restraint of oneself in word and action, giving as examples chastity, humility, sobriety, silence, and the like. One of the kinds of modestia he notes is that concerned with gesture and gait of body:
Modesty must further be guarded in our very movements and gestures and gait. For the condition of the mind is often seen in the attitude of the body. For this reason the hidden man of our heart (our inner self) is considered to be either frivolous, boastful, or boisterous, or, on the other hand, steady, firm, pure, and dependable. Thus the movement of the body is a sort of voice of the soul.
Since there is an intimate relation between our bodies and our souls, there is a relationship between our outward movement and our character, with the former serving as a sign of the latter. Ambrose is rather brutal in his assessment; he gives specific examples of people he has known who showed their arrogance or faithlessness in how they walked and moved their hands. One of the Ambrose's concerns is our tendency to posture and preen, to treat our body as if it were a way to manipulate other people. Another is that our lack of priorities often shows up in how we move -- our hastiness, our self-importance, our lack of respect for ourselves and our position. Our movements should be simple and plain, appropriate to our situation and our station, communicating the spiritual beauty of our characters through the natural ease and dignity of our use of our bodies. Conceit and deceit, arrogance and artifice, are especially to be avoided.
Aquinas follows Ambrose in accepting that there must be such a virtue (2-2.168.1), again, because denying that morality includes this sort of thing in its scope is to falsify the relationship between soul and body. Morality is concerned with the direction of action by reason; and our physical movements are directions capable of being directed by reason. Thus there is a virtue of moving rationally. It is a subjective part (particular kind) of modestia, which is a potential part (close cousin) of temperance -- the difference being that temperance, the more important virtue, is concerned with internal matters.
There are two things we need to keep in mind in order to achieve this modestia of movement: we need to make our movements appropriate to the people with whom we deal (including ourselves), and we need to make our movements appropriate to the situation in which we find ourselves. Thus Aquinas identifies two elements to this moderation of external movements: ornatus, which concerns the former, and bona ordinatio, which concerns the latter. (He gets the terms from Andronicus of Rhodes.)
This all might sound a bit odd as a matter of ethics, and again, we have no actual word in English to describe the virtue in question. However, a little thought shows that there must be something to it. One of our most basic notions of 'good behavior' consists entirely in the kind of moderation of physical movement covered by good behavior. We see this especially in how we train children, but we occasionally express the same sort of approval and disapproval in how we regard adults, and our annoyance and social penalizing of jostlers, those who invade people's personal space or take up more room than they need to, those who rush around, those who flail wildly, those who cannot keep their hands to themselves. And it is unsurprising, really: how we move is one of our forms of communication, and we get exasperated at people who move in such ways that they act as if they were the only person who mattered, or as if they were trying to dominate others or the situation. Like Ambrose, most people recognize that you can move in ways that force others to adapt and that communicate exactly the wrong things; and, like Ambrose, most people get exasperated at the kinds of outward movements suggestive of arrogance or pretense. Nobody, whether Ambrose or Aquinas or anyone else, considers the virtue in question to be among the most important virtues; but that there is something about moral life involved can hardly be put into question.
Bringing Starry Wisdom Down
The Fellowship of the Dead
by George Boole
Fellowship of spirits bright,
Crowned with laurel, clad with light,
From what labours are ye sped,
By what common impulse led,
With what deep remembrance bound,
'Mid the mighty concourse round,
That ye thus together stand,
An inseparable band?
Mortal! well hast thou divined
What the chains that strongest bind;
For the free unfettered soul
Bows to no enforced control;
Sympathy of feelings shared,
Deeds achieved, and perils dared,
These to spirits are—beyond
Time and place—the noblest bond.
All who felt the sacred flame
Rising at oppression's name,
All who toiled for equal laws.
All who loved the righteous cause,
All whose world-embracing span
Bound them to each brother man
Are upon the spirit-coast
An indissoluble host.
All who with a pure intent
Were on Nature's knowledge bent.
Watched the comet's wheeling flight,
Traced the subtle web of light,
And the wide dominion saw
Of the universal law.
In this land of souls agree
With a deep-felt sympathy.
All that to the love of truth
Gave the fervour of their youth.
Then for others spread the store
Of their rich and studious lore,
Bringing starry wisdom down
To the peasant and the clown.
Are with us in spirit-land,
An inseparable band.
Whether they were known to fame,
Whether silence wrapt their name,
Whether dwellers in the strife
Or the still and cloistered life;
If with pure and humble thought
For the good alone they wrought.
When the earthly life is done,
In the heavenly they are one.
And their souls together twine
In a fellowship divine,
And they see the ages roll
Onward to their destined goal,
Dark with shadows of the past,
Till the morning come at last.
And an Eden bloom again
For the weary sons of men.
This George Boole is the George Boole, best known for his work on differential equations and on algebraic logic. Boole, who was a mostly self-taught polymath, was an avid reader of poetry and occasionally wrote it for relaxation. This particular poem was published well after George Boole's death, in Mary Everest Boole's The Message of Psychic Science to the World (which was privately printed in a small run in 1883 but published for general readership in 1908).
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
The Mencius, Book II
Book II.A (Gong Sun Chou I)
Much of Book II seems focused on Mencius in the state of Qi, where he spent several of his years. Most of the discussion that is given some explicit link to society is linked to Qi in some way, and II.B will end with Mencius leaving Qi.
Book II.A opens with a common theme throughout the work, Master Meng opposing common conceptions of success. Gong Sun Chou proposes two famous statesmen from the history of Qi: (1) Guan Zhong, a reforming Prime Minister who, by restructuring the revenues of the state and introducing new kinds of taxation, massively strengthened the state, making it possible for his king, Duke Huan, to rise to become hegemon of the feudal states loosely allied to the Zhou. (2) Yan Ying, also known as Ping Zhong or Yanzi, sometimes considered the most brilliant politician of the Spring and Autumn period; he is mentioned favorably by Confucius in the Analects for his humility despite the success of his plans and his position as advisor to three successive kings of Qi
Mencius replies by telling a story of Zeng Xi, the disciple of Confucius, who was asked specifically about these two. Zeng Xi repeats Master Kong's approval of Yanzi, but is offended at being compared with Guan Zhong because he accomplished so little despite having so much to work with. Gong Sun Chou is surprised at this assessment, noting that Guan Zhong made his prince a leader among leaders; but Master Meng replies that one could go much further: to make the King of Qi the King is "as easy as turning over one's hand" (p. 74). Gong Sun Chou points to the famous Chinese hero, King Wen of Zhou; even he did not manage to accomplish this. But Mencius is entirely admiring of King Wen. The difference is that while becoming the King is easy, not everyone starts in the same place. King Wen started at a time when aristocratic traditions were strong; there were many competent statesmen elsewhere in those days; and he had almost nothing to start with. The task may be easy but that does not mean that it does not take time, and King Wen, who famously lived to the age of a hundred, did not have the time given all of the difficulties he faced rising to power. But the modern day is not like this; Qi already has the territory, it already has the population, and all it requires is humane government to become the foremost power in China -- the people, who have suffered greatly, are practically crying out for it and, as Mencius says, it is easy to feed the starving and give drink to the parched.
The conversation with Gong Sun Chou continues in II.A.2, in which Mencius contrasts two extremes, of focusing too much on the external act and of focusing too much on the internal impulse, and emphasizes the importance of cultivating both properly. Thus we get the story of the Man from Sung (a proverbial expression for a stupid person):
II.A.6 is one of the most famous passages in the book. Master Meng argues that the principles of morality are found in human nature itself, in what he calls the shoots or sprouts. We see that these are in human nature by considering the case of a child falling into a well, and recognizing that human beings in such a case would be moved to compassion, but not because of any prior regard for profit or reputation. Analogous argument can be given for the sense of shame, the sense of responsibility, and the sense of right. Each of these shoots, properly cultivated, grows into a virtue. Thus we have the following correspondence:
The meanings given are all rough and approximated out of different common translations. The four virtues listed are four of the Five Constant Virtues based on Confucius's discussion of good character at Analects 17.6. The virtue that is missing here is xin, meaning something like fidelity, sincerity, integrity; the standard Neo-Confucian interpretation of this absence, if I understand it correctly, is that xin is just the virtue of having the other virtues with proper commitment.
The question often arises as to how the Confucian virtues relate to the Aristotelian virtues; a common view seems to be that Aristotle's phronesis or prudence is fairly close to the Confucian zhi or (occasionally) yi. I will not go into a full discussion of this here. But given Mencius's accounts both of the shoots and the cultivation, it seems to me that all of the Five Constant Virtues have a relation to character analogous to phronesis in action, and thus if one wanted to synthesize them, the route that would make the most sense is to see each of the five as expressing an aspect of phronesis.
The rest of this part focuses on the importance of humanity to self and others (II.A.7), the importance of being willing to learn (II.A.8), and the importance of moderation in how one relates to imperfect and sometimes awful human beings (II.A.9).
Book II.B (Gong Sun Chou II)
Many of the sections in the early part involve Mencius answering criticism of himself for his actions in the service of the state of Qi. In II.B.2, Mencius is getting in trouble for not showing the the king of Qi proper respect; he responds that he is the man in Qi who most respects the king, because he is the only one who insists on telling the king what he must do to be virtuous. When impatiently told that this is not the issue, but his failure to conform to proper rites, Mencius responds that since rank, age, and virtue all have their proper claim to be recognized with respect, the king should consult those with the latter, and not peremptorily summon them, as if age and virtue were somehow less important to the kingdom than rank.
Beginning with II.B.10, we get a series of sections discussing what happened when Mencius resigned his position and left Qi. A common theme is that Mencius will not remain for any price; he came to advise the king and was not heeded, so there is no point in his staying.
to be continued
Much of Book II seems focused on Mencius in the state of Qi, where he spent several of his years. Most of the discussion that is given some explicit link to society is linked to Qi in some way, and II.B will end with Mencius leaving Qi.
Book II.A opens with a common theme throughout the work, Master Meng opposing common conceptions of success. Gong Sun Chou proposes two famous statesmen from the history of Qi: (1) Guan Zhong, a reforming Prime Minister who, by restructuring the revenues of the state and introducing new kinds of taxation, massively strengthened the state, making it possible for his king, Duke Huan, to rise to become hegemon of the feudal states loosely allied to the Zhou. (2) Yan Ying, also known as Ping Zhong or Yanzi, sometimes considered the most brilliant politician of the Spring and Autumn period; he is mentioned favorably by Confucius in the Analects for his humility despite the success of his plans and his position as advisor to three successive kings of Qi
Mencius replies by telling a story of Zeng Xi, the disciple of Confucius, who was asked specifically about these two. Zeng Xi repeats Master Kong's approval of Yanzi, but is offended at being compared with Guan Zhong because he accomplished so little despite having so much to work with. Gong Sun Chou is surprised at this assessment, noting that Guan Zhong made his prince a leader among leaders; but Master Meng replies that one could go much further: to make the King of Qi the King is "as easy as turning over one's hand" (p. 74). Gong Sun Chou points to the famous Chinese hero, King Wen of Zhou; even he did not manage to accomplish this. But Mencius is entirely admiring of King Wen. The difference is that while becoming the King is easy, not everyone starts in the same place. King Wen started at a time when aristocratic traditions were strong; there were many competent statesmen elsewhere in those days; and he had almost nothing to start with. The task may be easy but that does not mean that it does not take time, and King Wen, who famously lived to the age of a hundred, did not have the time given all of the difficulties he faced rising to power. But the modern day is not like this; Qi already has the territory, it already has the population, and all it requires is humane government to become the foremost power in China -- the people, who have suffered greatly, are practically crying out for it and, as Mencius says, it is easy to feed the starving and give drink to the parched.
The conversation with Gong Sun Chou continues in II.A.2, in which Mencius contrasts two extremes, of focusing too much on the external act and of focusing too much on the internal impulse, and emphasizes the importance of cultivating both properly. Thus we get the story of the Man from Sung (a proverbial expression for a stupid person):
There was a man from Sung who pulled at his rice plants because he was worried about their failure to grow. Having done so, he went on his way home, not realizing what he had done. "I am worn out today," said he to his family. "I have been helping the rice plants to grow." His son rushed out to take a look and there the plants were, all shrivelled up. There are few in the world who can resist the urge to help their rice plants grow. There are some who leave the plants unattended, thinking that nothing they can do will be of any use. They are the people who do not even bother to weed. There are others who help the plants grow. They are the people who pull at them. (p. 78)
II.A.6 is one of the most famous passages in the book. Master Meng argues that the principles of morality are found in human nature itself, in what he calls the shoots or sprouts. We see that these are in human nature by considering the case of a child falling into a well, and recognizing that human beings in such a case would be moved to compassion, but not because of any prior regard for profit or reputation. Analogous argument can be given for the sense of shame, the sense of responsibility, and the sense of right. Each of these shoots, properly cultivated, grows into a virtue. Thus we have the following correspondence:
| Shoot | Rough Meaning of Shoot | Corresponding Virtue (Common Translation) | Rough Meaning of Virtue |
| Sense of Compassion | ce-yin: ache for the pain of others | Benevolence | ren: humanity to self and others |
| Sense of Shame | xiu-wu: distaste for badness | Righteousness | yi: accordance with role and duty |
| Sense of Responsibility | ci-rang: deference to others | Propriety | li: maintaining appropriateness of behavior |
| Sense of Right | shi-fei: approving and disapproving | Wisdom | zhi: knowing how to act |
The meanings given are all rough and approximated out of different common translations. The four virtues listed are four of the Five Constant Virtues based on Confucius's discussion of good character at Analects 17.6. The virtue that is missing here is xin, meaning something like fidelity, sincerity, integrity; the standard Neo-Confucian interpretation of this absence, if I understand it correctly, is that xin is just the virtue of having the other virtues with proper commitment.
The question often arises as to how the Confucian virtues relate to the Aristotelian virtues; a common view seems to be that Aristotle's phronesis or prudence is fairly close to the Confucian zhi or (occasionally) yi. I will not go into a full discussion of this here. But given Mencius's accounts both of the shoots and the cultivation, it seems to me that all of the Five Constant Virtues have a relation to character analogous to phronesis in action, and thus if one wanted to synthesize them, the route that would make the most sense is to see each of the five as expressing an aspect of phronesis.
The rest of this part focuses on the importance of humanity to self and others (II.A.7), the importance of being willing to learn (II.A.8), and the importance of moderation in how one relates to imperfect and sometimes awful human beings (II.A.9).
Book II.B (Gong Sun Chou II)
Many of the sections in the early part involve Mencius answering criticism of himself for his actions in the service of the state of Qi. In II.B.2, Mencius is getting in trouble for not showing the the king of Qi proper respect; he responds that he is the man in Qi who most respects the king, because he is the only one who insists on telling the king what he must do to be virtuous. When impatiently told that this is not the issue, but his failure to conform to proper rites, Mencius responds that since rank, age, and virtue all have their proper claim to be recognized with respect, the king should consult those with the latter, and not peremptorily summon them, as if age and virtue were somehow less important to the kingdom than rank.
Beginning with II.B.10, we get a series of sections discussing what happened when Mencius resigned his position and left Qi. A common theme is that Mencius will not remain for any price; he came to advise the king and was not heeded, so there is no point in his staying.
to be continued
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
The Apostolic Doctor
Today is the Feast of St. Lorenzo da Brindisi (1559-1619), Doctor of the Church. He's a hard one to find in English; translations have been done, but because he's not an especially widely known saint in the Anglophone world, they go out of print quickly or else end up being extremely expensive. He was born Cesare Giulio Russo, and was famous for his language skills: he knew Greek and Hebrew, and was conversationally fluent in Italian, Latin, German, Spanish, French, and a few others. Part of this was native talent, and part of it was that he used them all extensively, since he both traveled widely as a Franciscan preacher and was appointed to a number of diplomatic missions by Rome. His sermons on the Virgin Mary have always been especially highly praised. He was beatified by Pius VI, canonized by Leo XIII, and named Doctor of the Church by John XXIII.
Some links on Lawrence of Brindisi:
St. Lawrence of Brindisi, Apostolic Doctor
The 'Woman Clothed with the Sun' according to St. Lawrence of Brindisi
"Hail, Full of Grace": Sermons of St. Lawrence of Brindisi
Some links on Lawrence of Brindisi:
St. Lawrence of Brindisi, Apostolic Doctor
The 'Woman Clothed with the Sun' according to St. Lawrence of Brindisi
"Hail, Full of Grace": Sermons of St. Lawrence of Brindisi
Monday, July 20, 2015
Love, Hide Thy Face
Summer in England, 1914
by Alice Meynell
On London fell a clearer light;
Caressing pencils of the sun
Defined the distances, the white
Houses transfigured one by one,
The “long, unlovely street” impearled.
O what a sky has walked the world!
Most happy year! And out of town
The hay was prosperous, and the wheat;
The silken harvest climbed the down:
Moon after moon was heavenly-sweet,
Stroking the bread within the sheaves,
Looking ’twixt apples and their leaves.
And while this rose made round her cup,
The armies died convulsed. And when
This chaste young silver sun went up
Softly, a thousand shattered men,
One wet corruption, heaped the plain,
After a league-long throb of pain.
Flower following tender flower; and birds,
And berries; and benignant skies
Made thrive the serried flocks and herds.—
Yonder are men shot through the eyes.
Love, hide thy face
From man’s unpardonable race.
* * *
Who said “No man hath greater love than this,
To die to serve his friend”?
So these have loved us all unto the end.
Chide thou no more, O thou unsacrificed!
The soldier dying dies upon a kiss,
The very kiss of Christ.
Links of Note, with Some Notation
* This discussion of how Justice Kennedy's comments about Confucius's view of marriage in the Obergefell decision touched off a discussion of the subject in Chinese media was somewhat interesting. Unfortunately, it is marred by dishonesty; as anyone can see who actually reads Scalia's dissent, Scalia has no "inflammatory response to Kennedy’s use of Confucius" or a "rebuttal to Confucius", since Scalia does not at any point address Kennedy's use of Confucius. The fortune cookie comment is explicitly about the first sentence of Kennedy's opinion, in a footnote where its context could not be mistaken, which itself comments explicitly on extravagant language used in the opinion, not on the sources cited. This is an excellent example of how not to criticize a text: the author makes an association that has no actual evidence in the text, treats the association as the point of the text, and then criticizes the text for the association that does not actually exist in the text. And, again, there is no excuse whatsoever for this misbehavior; we aren't talking about a case in which the context could be confused, since the comment is cordoned off into a footnote, which explicitly quotes the sentence to which the comment is directed, to a remark on the language Kennedy uses in the opinion. Moreover, one looks in vain for other people who have read the decision making this same error. And to call something a "rebuttal to Confucius" or an "inflamatory response to [a] use of Confucius" or a "mocking dismissal" of Confucius, when the text does not even mention Confucius, nor indeed appear to have anything to do with Confucius except in the critic's own imaginative association of Confucius with fortune cookies, is nothing short of a mendacious characterization of the text.
* Speaking of which I had intended a while ago to point out Brian Beutler's comment on the decision, which is the only place that I've seen that correctly notes the fact that Kennedy's decision has very little connection to the actual work and argument of gay marriage advocates: it gets the result they were looking for, but on very idiosyncratic reasoning that they are now stuck with because it's the thing they now have to work with, despite the fact that it does the sort of thing that many gay marriage advocates have repeatedly argued against -- committing the gay community to a standard template of relationship derived from heterosexual marriage rather than gay and lesbian experience, for instance -- and downplays and muddles the arguments (particularly the equality argument) that have been the primary thrust of gay marriage advocacy.
* The most difficult English poem to read out loud. I can handle most of it without much problem, but "Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet" trips me almost every single time, as does "Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant". There's just an itch to harmonize those vowels.
* A review of a life of Vaclav Havel.
* Texas is the only state with an actual gold reserve. (Other states invest in gold certificates or the like, but Texas actually has the bullion.) It's locked away in a vault in Manhattan, so it's not surprising that some Texans want it closer to home rather than to trust to Yanks and banks. Gold depositories are expensive, though, and the Texas legislature is in a perpetual state of worrying about unnecessary costs, so I don't think it's likely to return to Texas soil anytime soon.
* Mapping Metaphor
* Craig Warmke, Modal Intensionalism
* An essay on the complexities of Lewis Carroll. But it only touches the surface; the man was many-sided in every way.
* Carlos Colorado on the beatification of Oscar Romero. I've long been in favor of Romero's canonization -- not, of course, that it matters whether one is in favor of it or not, since it's not a popularity contest. An archbishop who is shot literally before the altar while saying Mass is a martyr; all the usual objections to it turn out not to have much to them.
* Philosophers' Carnival #177.
* An interesting discussion of arthāpatti and upamāna in Indian epistemology.
* Bolos and Scott, Reformed Epistemology, at the IEP.
* Thomas Stark tries to understand Cardinal Kasper in terms of adapted Hegelianism. I've noted before that Kasper seems to be responsible for the too-common Hegelian misreading of the triplex via, so add that to the evidence.
* An interesting article on the tomb of Queen Esther in Persia.
* Robert George defends Peter Singer; very broadly speaking, of course.
* Thomas Aquinas's discussion of the parts of the Mass at Sent. IV d 8 exp. text, at "New Liturgical Movement".
* A lot of interesting women-in-philosophy articles, free until the end of the year.
* Speaking of which I had intended a while ago to point out Brian Beutler's comment on the decision, which is the only place that I've seen that correctly notes the fact that Kennedy's decision has very little connection to the actual work and argument of gay marriage advocates: it gets the result they were looking for, but on very idiosyncratic reasoning that they are now stuck with because it's the thing they now have to work with, despite the fact that it does the sort of thing that many gay marriage advocates have repeatedly argued against -- committing the gay community to a standard template of relationship derived from heterosexual marriage rather than gay and lesbian experience, for instance -- and downplays and muddles the arguments (particularly the equality argument) that have been the primary thrust of gay marriage advocacy.
* The most difficult English poem to read out loud. I can handle most of it without much problem, but "Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet" trips me almost every single time, as does "Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant". There's just an itch to harmonize those vowels.
* A review of a life of Vaclav Havel.
* Texas is the only state with an actual gold reserve. (Other states invest in gold certificates or the like, but Texas actually has the bullion.) It's locked away in a vault in Manhattan, so it's not surprising that some Texans want it closer to home rather than to trust to Yanks and banks. Gold depositories are expensive, though, and the Texas legislature is in a perpetual state of worrying about unnecessary costs, so I don't think it's likely to return to Texas soil anytime soon.
* Mapping Metaphor
* Craig Warmke, Modal Intensionalism
* An essay on the complexities of Lewis Carroll. But it only touches the surface; the man was many-sided in every way.
* Carlos Colorado on the beatification of Oscar Romero. I've long been in favor of Romero's canonization -- not, of course, that it matters whether one is in favor of it or not, since it's not a popularity contest. An archbishop who is shot literally before the altar while saying Mass is a martyr; all the usual objections to it turn out not to have much to them.
* Philosophers' Carnival #177.
* An interesting discussion of arthāpatti and upamāna in Indian epistemology.
* Bolos and Scott, Reformed Epistemology, at the IEP.
* Thomas Stark tries to understand Cardinal Kasper in terms of adapted Hegelianism. I've noted before that Kasper seems to be responsible for the too-common Hegelian misreading of the triplex via, so add that to the evidence.
* An interesting article on the tomb of Queen Esther in Persia.
* Robert George defends Peter Singer; very broadly speaking, of course.
* Thomas Aquinas's discussion of the parts of the Mass at Sent. IV d 8 exp. text, at "New Liturgical Movement".
* A lot of interesting women-in-philosophy articles, free until the end of the year.
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Fortnightly Book, July 19
I continue with the second of the three volumes of Burton's The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night in the Heritage Press edition. This volume takes us from the 273rd night to the 738th night, so it not only gets us past the first year of nights, but past the second year as well. The three volumes of this edition have continuous page numbering throughout, so this volume starts on page 1337 and ends on page 2650. It's likely to be another three-week 'fortnight'.
This part of the Nights has a very large number of minor tales, but it is notable especially for the fact that it has the most famous series of tales in the entire collection: The Voyages of Sinbad (or Sindbad, as it is in Burton's edition). These tales were originally an independent cycle that were assimilated by the Nights; and they are easily the most recognizable stories in this massive crowd of stories.
This part of the Nights has a very large number of minor tales, but it is notable especially for the fact that it has the most famous series of tales in the entire collection: The Voyages of Sinbad (or Sindbad, as it is in Burton's edition). These tales were originally an independent cycle that were assimilated by the Nights; and they are easily the most recognizable stories in this massive crowd of stories.
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park
Introduction
Opening Passage: The book has both an introduction and a prologue as well as an opening to the story proper, so I go with the first paragraph of the Introduction, bland as it is:
Summary: Catastrophe consists of the accumulation of errors. One of the things that works well for Jurassic Park as a story is that Crichton does a good job in showing the compounding effect of error, which in itself is something human beings find fascinating. In the course of doing so, he depicts one way in which such a compounding of errors can occur: arrogance, which leads to a refusal to take proper steps to prevent errors and correct them. And, negatively, of course, I suppose that gives us one of the important aspects of humility: it leads you to take your capacity for failure seriously enough to avoid failures that magnify other failures.
The basic story, of course is fairly straightforward: John Hammond is building a park on an island, using genetically reconstructed dinosaurs. There are plenty of indications throughout that something is not right: Dr. Wu mentions in passing that they have to help some dinosaurs out of their eggs; the dinosaurs all have a slight rotten-fish smell to them, despite the fact that the herbivores should not have that kind of smell; there are several "worker accidents"; there is evidence that some dinosaurs are turning up on the Costa Rican mainland. And those are just some of the things that are out in the open. It is the signs of wrongness that people aren't noticing that will turn out to be truly dangerous.
In a lighter, fast-paced novel like this, it is a bit difficult to determine what is just thrown in as a detail and what is supposed to link up to the larger themes. For instance, we learn some things about the family situation of Tim and Lex -- their parents are separated and getting divorced, and while there's not a lot of discussion, it does get quite specific. Is it just something used to help give a sense of the time passed as Grant and the kids try to get back to the compound? It could be. On the other hand, it is hard in context not to see it as another case of accumlation of errors. Likewise, the quasi-chapter headings are mostly descriptive, but it's difficult not to see an irony in the fact that all of the sections occurring in the control room are titled 'Control' and that they start coming thick and fast at the point where it is clear that things are out of control.
To go with this re-reading of the book, I re-watched the famous movie based on it. There are certain things that the book does better than the movie. I remember the movie when it first came out, and remember comparing it to the book at the time; one of the things that struck me then, and still strikes me, is that the book does a much better job at showing the ignorance that laces through everything in the park: there are signs of unknowns that have been disregarded on almost every page once we actually get to the park. On this time around, I saw that the book also does much better at conveying the fact that the problem with the park was not just an illusion of control, although that was part of it. Even the dinosaurs are not the real thing. A good example is in the case of the dilophosaur, which is depicted in both book and movie as spitting venom. This is in fact entirely fictional. The book signals this by the fact that it's explicitly stated to be an unexpected discovery and by stating that the biologists studying the animals had not even been able to figure out how they do it, since they don't seem to do it by any normal methods (from which it logically follows that the behavior could not have been predicted from prior paleontological knowledge, since there is nothing that could have signaled it in the fossil record). It is put in as an imaginative example of just how much prior knowledge could fall short of such an undertaking. The movie does not, leading an entire generation of moviegoers into thinking that dilophosaurs spit venom.
But despite the things that the book does better, I think this is a case where, overall, the movie is better than the book. There are things that are just different and I don't think are necessarily worse; the book, for instance, starts much more slowly and indirectly, and this fits well with its structure, while the movie does a very good job of getting us caught up quickly, which does better for a cinematic structure. But the movie tells a somewhat better story, because it makes it more about the human beings and what they do or fail to do.
It also has much better characters. Most of the characters in the movie are more likable than their book counterparts, but I will note one in particular. The John Hammond of the book and, for that matter, of Crichton's original draft of the movie, is extremely unlikable and arrogant, who seems incapable of human sympathy. That from David Koepp's final draft is much more human, and, of course, Richard Attenborough plays the role for everything it is worth. It was a masterstroke to make Hammond not obviously arrogant but instead an enthusiastic and charming grandfather who actually cares for his grandchildren and wants to bring something exciting and wonderful to the children of the entire world. We get a more powerful lesson on the nature of hubris, a richer character, better interactions with other characters, and a greater sense of how we, ourselves, could fall into the same trap. We don't want him to fail even when we see that he must. And the Hammond we get in the movie is someone who is much more involved in his park, much more aware of what is going on, and thus there is less room to fall into the error of thinking that we ourselves could have avoided the catastrophe. This one change alone makes almost everything better. And the death of Hammond in the book was always one of the least satisfactory things about the story; the death of his dream in the movie is massively more affecting.
The curve above (which are shown in their first twelve steps), which people have often found intriguing, is never named in the book; but it is a fitting one, since it is one of a family of fractals called 'dragon curves' -- this one is called the Harter-Heighway dragon. There's a good explanation of how it is drawn here.
Favorite Passage: This is not really a book in which any particular passage stood out as especially funny, or interesting, or exquisitely crafted. But I thought that this one was a fairly good depiction of a common response to rational argument:
Recommendation: Recommended; it's definitely worth reading at least once.
----------
Quotations are from Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park, Ballantine (New York: 1990).
Opening Passage: The book has both an introduction and a prologue as well as an opening to the story proper, so I go with the first paragraph of the Introduction, bland as it is:
The late twentieth century has witnessed a scientific gold rush of astonishing proportions: the headlong and furious haste to commercialize genetic engineering. This enterprise has proceeded so rapidly--with so little outside commentary--that its dimensions and implications are hardly understood at all. (p. ix)
Summary: Catastrophe consists of the accumulation of errors. One of the things that works well for Jurassic Park as a story is that Crichton does a good job in showing the compounding effect of error, which in itself is something human beings find fascinating. In the course of doing so, he depicts one way in which such a compounding of errors can occur: arrogance, which leads to a refusal to take proper steps to prevent errors and correct them. And, negatively, of course, I suppose that gives us one of the important aspects of humility: it leads you to take your capacity for failure seriously enough to avoid failures that magnify other failures.
The basic story, of course is fairly straightforward: John Hammond is building a park on an island, using genetically reconstructed dinosaurs. There are plenty of indications throughout that something is not right: Dr. Wu mentions in passing that they have to help some dinosaurs out of their eggs; the dinosaurs all have a slight rotten-fish smell to them, despite the fact that the herbivores should not have that kind of smell; there are several "worker accidents"; there is evidence that some dinosaurs are turning up on the Costa Rican mainland. And those are just some of the things that are out in the open. It is the signs of wrongness that people aren't noticing that will turn out to be truly dangerous.
In a lighter, fast-paced novel like this, it is a bit difficult to determine what is just thrown in as a detail and what is supposed to link up to the larger themes. For instance, we learn some things about the family situation of Tim and Lex -- their parents are separated and getting divorced, and while there's not a lot of discussion, it does get quite specific. Is it just something used to help give a sense of the time passed as Grant and the kids try to get back to the compound? It could be. On the other hand, it is hard in context not to see it as another case of accumlation of errors. Likewise, the quasi-chapter headings are mostly descriptive, but it's difficult not to see an irony in the fact that all of the sections occurring in the control room are titled 'Control' and that they start coming thick and fast at the point where it is clear that things are out of control.
To go with this re-reading of the book, I re-watched the famous movie based on it. There are certain things that the book does better than the movie. I remember the movie when it first came out, and remember comparing it to the book at the time; one of the things that struck me then, and still strikes me, is that the book does a much better job at showing the ignorance that laces through everything in the park: there are signs of unknowns that have been disregarded on almost every page once we actually get to the park. On this time around, I saw that the book also does much better at conveying the fact that the problem with the park was not just an illusion of control, although that was part of it. Even the dinosaurs are not the real thing. A good example is in the case of the dilophosaur, which is depicted in both book and movie as spitting venom. This is in fact entirely fictional. The book signals this by the fact that it's explicitly stated to be an unexpected discovery and by stating that the biologists studying the animals had not even been able to figure out how they do it, since they don't seem to do it by any normal methods (from which it logically follows that the behavior could not have been predicted from prior paleontological knowledge, since there is nothing that could have signaled it in the fossil record). It is put in as an imaginative example of just how much prior knowledge could fall short of such an undertaking. The movie does not, leading an entire generation of moviegoers into thinking that dilophosaurs spit venom.
But despite the things that the book does better, I think this is a case where, overall, the movie is better than the book. There are things that are just different and I don't think are necessarily worse; the book, for instance, starts much more slowly and indirectly, and this fits well with its structure, while the movie does a very good job of getting us caught up quickly, which does better for a cinematic structure. But the movie tells a somewhat better story, because it makes it more about the human beings and what they do or fail to do.
It also has much better characters. Most of the characters in the movie are more likable than their book counterparts, but I will note one in particular. The John Hammond of the book and, for that matter, of Crichton's original draft of the movie, is extremely unlikable and arrogant, who seems incapable of human sympathy. That from David Koepp's final draft is much more human, and, of course, Richard Attenborough plays the role for everything it is worth. It was a masterstroke to make Hammond not obviously arrogant but instead an enthusiastic and charming grandfather who actually cares for his grandchildren and wants to bring something exciting and wonderful to the children of the entire world. We get a more powerful lesson on the nature of hubris, a richer character, better interactions with other characters, and a greater sense of how we, ourselves, could fall into the same trap. We don't want him to fail even when we see that he must. And the Hammond we get in the movie is someone who is much more involved in his park, much more aware of what is going on, and thus there is less room to fall into the error of thinking that we ourselves could have avoided the catastrophe. This one change alone makes almost everything better. And the death of Hammond in the book was always one of the least satisfactory things about the story; the death of his dream in the movie is massively more affecting.
The curve above (which are shown in their first twelve steps), which people have often found intriguing, is never named in the book; but it is a fitting one, since it is one of a family of fractals called 'dragon curves' -- this one is called the Harter-Heighway dragon. There's a good explanation of how it is drawn here.
Favorite Passage: This is not really a book in which any particular passage stood out as especially funny, or interesting, or exquisitely crafted. But I thought that this one was a fairly good depiction of a common response to rational argument:
"Malcolm's models tend to have a ledge, or a sharp incline, where the drop of water will speed up greatly. He modestly calls this speeding-up movement the Malcolm Effect. The whole system could suddenly collapse. And that was what he said about Jurassic Park. That it had inherent instability."
"Inherent instability," Gennaro said. "And what did you do when you got his report?"
"We disagreed with it, and ignored it, of course," Arnold said.
"Was that wise?"
"It's self-evident," Arnold said. "We're dealing with living systems, after all. This is life, not computer models." (p. 246)
Recommendation: Recommended; it's definitely worth reading at least once.
----------
Quotations are from Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park, Ballantine (New York: 1990).
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Thursday Vice: Discord
Discord becomes particularly recognizable as a vice opposing the virtue of charity; and like most such vices, discord does not have a long or elaborate historical record of being discussed, although it does have a fairly clear account. The virtue of charity, Aquinas argues, has several faces: love, joy, peace, mercy. Each of these active expressions of charity is opposed by a vice -- love by hatred or odium, for instance, or joy by envy (when concerned with others) and sloth (when concerned with self). Peace, which is well ordered concord, is opposed by discord or dissensions. In particular, Aquinas says (2-2.37), "a man directly disaccords with his neighbor, when he knowingly and intentionally dissents from the Divine good and his neighbor's good, to which he ought to consent." Discord is concerned with the internal -- while it can be externally expressed, it is entirely possible for it never to be so, instead silently poisoning relations in ways others cannot see -- and as such it is distinct from strife and similar vices, which involve various kinds of external opposition.
Human beings easily come to disagreement, and this disagreement can cause a sort of incidental discord. This is not necessarily a moral wrong; indeed, it can sometimes be a good, when there is a concord that is ill ordered and harmful. But discord as a vice arises when one tends to break up the unity created by people coming together to seek divine good and the good of neighbor. What the vice of discord is doing is destroying the possibility of virtuous friendship -- friends do not necessarily share the same opinions, Aristotle noted, but they are united in pursuit of good. The highest friendships are those involving the highest good, those sought by virtues; since charity is by nature a kind of virtuous friendship, it is this kind of virtue-welded union of wills that discord destroys and prevents.
Discord is not a capital vice; that is, to say, it does not have any especially notable tendency to encourage the development of other vices. It is, however, a daughter vice, being the kind of vice that can naturally arise in the wake of a capital vice. We often find it as a vice resulting from other vice. The two vices that make good candidates for being discord's special capital vice are vainglory and envy; it clearly has links to them both. Following Gregory the Great, Aquinas judges that it is more properly associated with vainglory. Discord is an active disunion of wills, and this tends to happen when someone is privileging his own will over that of anyone else's; that is, discord is a way of going one's own way and refusing to go along with others, which is precisely the self-oriented disorder that one would associate with vainglory. The connection with envy lies in the fact that it, like envy, is a sort of revulsion from someone's good; but unlike envy, this revulsion is quite clearly due to an excessive regard for one's own good, which discord shares with vainglory.
Human beings easily come to disagreement, and this disagreement can cause a sort of incidental discord. This is not necessarily a moral wrong; indeed, it can sometimes be a good, when there is a concord that is ill ordered and harmful. But discord as a vice arises when one tends to break up the unity created by people coming together to seek divine good and the good of neighbor. What the vice of discord is doing is destroying the possibility of virtuous friendship -- friends do not necessarily share the same opinions, Aristotle noted, but they are united in pursuit of good. The highest friendships are those involving the highest good, those sought by virtues; since charity is by nature a kind of virtuous friendship, it is this kind of virtue-welded union of wills that discord destroys and prevents.
Discord is not a capital vice; that is, to say, it does not have any especially notable tendency to encourage the development of other vices. It is, however, a daughter vice, being the kind of vice that can naturally arise in the wake of a capital vice. We often find it as a vice resulting from other vice. The two vices that make good candidates for being discord's special capital vice are vainglory and envy; it clearly has links to them both. Following Gregory the Great, Aquinas judges that it is more properly associated with vainglory. Discord is an active disunion of wills, and this tends to happen when someone is privileging his own will over that of anyone else's; that is, discord is a way of going one's own way and refusing to go along with others, which is precisely the self-oriented disorder that one would associate with vainglory. The connection with envy lies in the fact that it, like envy, is a sort of revulsion from someone's good; but unlike envy, this revulsion is quite clearly due to an excessive regard for one's own good, which discord shares with vainglory.
Transfigured Stretched the Squalid Street
Transformation
by Rosamund Marriott Watson
Far from country lanes and leas,
O’er pavements foul with stain and spot,
I hastened, holding—half forgot—
In careless hands, a clustered knot
Of rosy, frail anemones.
The sun shone round them, gold and rose,
And sudden wonder dawned on me,
For that mean by-way seemed to be
More fair than isles of Arcady,
Or splendours of eternal snows.
Transfigured stretched the squalid street,
With all its tawdry shops arow:
I felt the cowslips round me blow,
The cold spring twilights clear and slow,
The dews of dawn about my feet.
O wonder-wealth without alloy,
Breath from the far-off fields divine!
The spring sun sheds his amber wine,
And makes the viewless glories mine,
The earth’s illimitable joy.
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Sacramental Armaments
Today is the Feast of St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Doctor of the Church. From his Breviloquium (Part VI, Chapter 3):
[Bonaventure, Breviloquium, Monti, ed., The Franciscan Institute (Saint Bonaventure, NY: 2005), pp. 220-221.]
Bonaventure was the second Doctor of the Church (after Aquinas) to be explicitly designated as such by a Pope. (The first eight Doctors of the Church achieved and established the title by a much more piecemeal process of liturgical development; their title was extended to Aquinas and Bonaventure by papal authority.) I've noted before that Bonaventure's real name was Giovanni di Fidanza -- 'Bonaventura' is a nickname that means 'Good Fortune'. We don't know why he was nicknamed Lucky, but Bonaventure himself tells us that as an infant he was cured of an illness by St. Francis of Assisi, and late tradition suggests that he was given the nickname by St. Francis himself.
Since this army [of the Church] consists of elements that are subject to weakening, in order that the ranks be perfectly and permanently strengthened, it needs sacraments to fortify, relieve, and replenish its members: to fortify the combatants, relieve the wounded and replenish the dying. Now, a fortifying sacrament strengthens either those just entering the combat, and this is Baptism; or those in the midst of the fray, and this is Confirmation; or those who are leaving it, and this is Extreme Unction. A relieving sacrament alleviates either venial sin, and this is the Eucharist; or mortal sin, and this is Penance. Finally, a sacrament that replenishes does so either on the level of spiritual existence, and this is...Orders, which has the function of administering the sacraments; or on the level of natural existence, and this is Matrimony, which replenishes the multitude of humanity in their natural existence, the foundation of everything else....
And so Baptism is designed for those just entering the fight, Confirmation for those engaged in combat, the Eucharist for those refreshing their strength, Penance for those rising from their sickbeds, Extreme Unction for those who are departing, Orders for those who break in the new recruits, and Matrimony for those who provide these recruits. And so it is evident that the sacramental remedies and armaments are both sufficient and orderly.
[Bonaventure, Breviloquium, Monti, ed., The Franciscan Institute (Saint Bonaventure, NY: 2005), pp. 220-221.]
Bonaventure was the second Doctor of the Church (after Aquinas) to be explicitly designated as such by a Pope. (The first eight Doctors of the Church achieved and established the title by a much more piecemeal process of liturgical development; their title was extended to Aquinas and Bonaventure by papal authority.) I've noted before that Bonaventure's real name was Giovanni di Fidanza -- 'Bonaventura' is a nickname that means 'Good Fortune'. We don't know why he was nicknamed Lucky, but Bonaventure himself tells us that as an infant he was cured of an illness by St. Francis of Assisi, and late tradition suggests that he was given the nickname by St. Francis himself.
The Mede Is at His Gate!
Vision of Belshazzar
by George Gordon, Lord Byron
The King was on his throne,
The Satraps throng'd the hall:
A thousand bright lamps shone
O'er that high festival.
A thousand cups of gold,
In Judah deem'd divine --
Jehovah's vessels hold
The godless Heathen's wine!
In that same hour and hall,
The fingers of a hand
Came forth against the wall,
And wrote as if on sand:
The fingers of a man; --
A solitary hand
Along the letters ran,
And traced them like a wand.
The monarch saw, and shook,
And bade no more rejoice;
All bloodless wax'd his look
And tremulous his voice.
'Let the men of lore appear,
The wisest of the earth,
And expound the words of fear,
Which mar our royal mirth.'
Chaldea's seers are good,
But here they have no skill;
And the unknown letters stood
Untold and awful still.
And Babel's men of age
Are wise and deep in lore;
But now they were not sage,
They saw -- but knew no more.
A captive in the land,
A stranger and a youth,
He heard the king's command,
He saw that writing's truth.
The lamps around were bright,
The prophecy in view;
He read it on that night, --
The morrow proved it true.
'Belshazzar's grave is made,
His kingdom pass'd away,
He, in the balance weigh'd,
Is light and worthless clay;
The shroud his robe of state,
His canopy the stone:
The Mede is at his gate!
The Persian on his throne!'
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
The Mencius, Book I
After Master Kong himself, the most important reference-point for Confucianism is Master Meng, or Mencius, in the latinized form. According to tradition, he was the student of Confucius's grandson, Zisi (son of Boyu, who is mentioned in the Analects). Because a number of his students were feudal lords, he serves as a point at which the influence of Confucius becomes massively amplified. His sayings, which are mostly short discourses, are collected in the Mengzi, one of the four primary books of Confucian thought.
One of the oldest disputes about the Mencius is whether Mengzi himself actually wrote it; over the many centuries, both sides have been argued so extensively by the many Confucian scholars and commentators who have discussed the issue that there is little for modern scholars to add to the debate.
In the Chinese, each book of the Mengzi has a title, but it is purely a convenience for reference rather than anything informative: it comes from the first sentence of the book and is usually the name of the person with whom Mencius happens to be talking at the beginning of the book.
You can read the Mencius online at the Chinese Texts Project, in James Legge's translation. As for myself, I will be using D. C. Lau's translation from Penguin, just because it happens to be the copy I have on my shelves.
Book I.A (Liang Hui Wang I)
Book I is unusual in the context of the rest of the work in that it seems to be arranged in at least a roughly chronological order; as such it is a major source for the life of Mencius himself.
We begin with Mencius interacting with King Hui of Liang (or Wei). King Hui himself gives a historical rundown of his very troubled career at I.A.5; his first comment to Mencius in I.A.1, asking how Mencius can profit his state, should be read in that context. Lau in his introduction gives the key dates for events King Hui mentions:
341 BC -- Defeat by the Kingdom of Qi
This was followed by a period of twenty years in which he suffered repeated defeat by the Kingdom of Qin.
323 BC -- Defeat by the Kingdom of Chu.
319 BC -- Death of King Hui
Thus King Hui is at the end of a disastrous career, in the last few years of his life, and is attempting to get himself out of a terrible situation. Master Meng points firmly to what he sees as the problem: it is precisely this thinking in terms of profit rather than in terms of humanity (ren) and rightness (yi). If everyone thinks of profit alone, nobody is ever satisfied, and nobody actually works with anybody else for the good of parents or rulers. In I.A.2, King Hui is in the midst of his wealth and asks if it can be enjoyed by worthy people; Mencius replies that it is only worthy people who actually enjoy them, because delight is something shared with others. King Hui insists in I.A.3 that he has done well and has just had bad luck, but Mencius is not impressed: his misfortune is actually the effect of his own actions. Perhaps he has done better than other kings, but that's not a high standard. A true king regulates things so that his people have plenty to eat, and that everyone has a little something to contribute to that plenty, and that they are well educated so as to fulfill their responsibilities; if that were the case, he would not have problems:
When King Hui asks in I.A.5 how he can wipe away the shame of his many defeats, Mencius insists again on the importance of benevolence. This is not an abstract ideal. Other kings go around harassing their people, destroying their ability to survive, miseducating them. A king who actually makes sure his people can eat and do their work properly and who teaches people to uphold their responsibilities to their families, creates a wealthy and tightly-knit people who will be able to accomplish things that could not otherwise be accomplished.
After King Hui's death, he was succeeded by King Xiang, and Mencius seems to have been so thoroughly unimpressed by him (I.A.6) that he left for another state. The next conversation (I.A.7) is with King Xuan of Qi, who had just recently ascended the throne. The discussion is quite long because King Xuan seems to be extraordinarily reasonable and willing to discuss his own mistakes and failings. Mencius encourages him to recognize the fact that his ambition to make his state and reign great are not achieved by tumultuous wars against foreign enemies but by actually working to make the state of Qi the best place in China to live. If it is the best place for scholars, scholars will come. If it is the best place for farmers, farmers will come to farm. If it is the best place for people to care for their families, they will go to it in order to care for their families.
Book I.B (Liang Hui Wang II)
The work continues with the promising King Xuan. Mengzi hears that King Xuan deeply enjoys music, and takes this as a sign that good can be done in Qi. But when he talks to King Xuan about it, the king, embarrassed, is forced to admit that he doesn't actually like the kind of traditional music people like Mencius are always talking about -- he likes the new, popular tunes. But Mencius says that this doesn't make much difference: a king who enjoys music is a king who can understand that his delights must be shared with others, because music is a communal thing: the delight of it is not something that is kept to oneself. And that is the key to good kingship: when the king's furthering of himself is at the same time a furthering of the people.
The point is raised again in I.B.2, when King Xuan and Mencius discuss why the people think his private park is too big when other kings have had private parks that people did not think too big -- perhaps even thought too small to be worthy of their king. And Mencius insists that it is because all the rules concerning are rules to keep people out of it, and they are so harsh that the people could hardly avoid seeing it as anything other than an immense trap in the middle of their kingdom.
I.B.10 and I.B.11 are concerned with the war between Qi and Yan, in which Qi is victorious; we learn later in the book that Mencius had only intended to stay a very short time in Qi, but found himself stuck when the war broke out. The rest of the sections are, according to Lau, the likely itinerary of Mencius when he left after the hostilities: that is, he stopped briefly in the states of Zou and Teng on his way to Lu.
to be continued
One of the oldest disputes about the Mencius is whether Mengzi himself actually wrote it; over the many centuries, both sides have been argued so extensively by the many Confucian scholars and commentators who have discussed the issue that there is little for modern scholars to add to the debate.
In the Chinese, each book of the Mengzi has a title, but it is purely a convenience for reference rather than anything informative: it comes from the first sentence of the book and is usually the name of the person with whom Mencius happens to be talking at the beginning of the book.
You can read the Mencius online at the Chinese Texts Project, in James Legge's translation. As for myself, I will be using D. C. Lau's translation from Penguin, just because it happens to be the copy I have on my shelves.
Book I.A (Liang Hui Wang I)
Book I is unusual in the context of the rest of the work in that it seems to be arranged in at least a roughly chronological order; as such it is a major source for the life of Mencius himself.
We begin with Mencius interacting with King Hui of Liang (or Wei). King Hui himself gives a historical rundown of his very troubled career at I.A.5; his first comment to Mencius in I.A.1, asking how Mencius can profit his state, should be read in that context. Lau in his introduction gives the key dates for events King Hui mentions:
341 BC -- Defeat by the Kingdom of Qi
This was followed by a period of twenty years in which he suffered repeated defeat by the Kingdom of Qin.
323 BC -- Defeat by the Kingdom of Chu.
319 BC -- Death of King Hui
Thus King Hui is at the end of a disastrous career, in the last few years of his life, and is attempting to get himself out of a terrible situation. Master Meng points firmly to what he sees as the problem: it is precisely this thinking in terms of profit rather than in terms of humanity (ren) and rightness (yi). If everyone thinks of profit alone, nobody is ever satisfied, and nobody actually works with anybody else for the good of parents or rulers. In I.A.2, King Hui is in the midst of his wealth and asks if it can be enjoyed by worthy people; Mencius replies that it is only worthy people who actually enjoy them, because delight is something shared with others. King Hui insists in I.A.3 that he has done well and has just had bad luck, but Mencius is not impressed: his misfortune is actually the effect of his own actions. Perhaps he has done better than other kings, but that's not a high standard. A true king regulates things so that his people have plenty to eat, and that everyone has a little something to contribute to that plenty, and that they are well educated so as to fulfill their responsibilities; if that were the case, he would not have problems:
When people die, you simply say, "It is none of my doing. It is the fault of the harvest." In what way is that different from killing a man by running him through, while saying all the time, "It is none of my doing. It is the fault of the weapon."
When King Hui asks in I.A.5 how he can wipe away the shame of his many defeats, Mencius insists again on the importance of benevolence. This is not an abstract ideal. Other kings go around harassing their people, destroying their ability to survive, miseducating them. A king who actually makes sure his people can eat and do their work properly and who teaches people to uphold their responsibilities to their families, creates a wealthy and tightly-knit people who will be able to accomplish things that could not otherwise be accomplished.
After King Hui's death, he was succeeded by King Xiang, and Mencius seems to have been so thoroughly unimpressed by him (I.A.6) that he left for another state. The next conversation (I.A.7) is with King Xuan of Qi, who had just recently ascended the throne. The discussion is quite long because King Xuan seems to be extraordinarily reasonable and willing to discuss his own mistakes and failings. Mencius encourages him to recognize the fact that his ambition to make his state and reign great are not achieved by tumultuous wars against foreign enemies but by actually working to make the state of Qi the best place in China to live. If it is the best place for scholars, scholars will come. If it is the best place for farmers, farmers will come to farm. If it is the best place for people to care for their families, they will go to it in order to care for their families.
Book I.B (Liang Hui Wang II)
The work continues with the promising King Xuan. Mengzi hears that King Xuan deeply enjoys music, and takes this as a sign that good can be done in Qi. But when he talks to King Xuan about it, the king, embarrassed, is forced to admit that he doesn't actually like the kind of traditional music people like Mencius are always talking about -- he likes the new, popular tunes. But Mencius says that this doesn't make much difference: a king who enjoys music is a king who can understand that his delights must be shared with others, because music is a communal thing: the delight of it is not something that is kept to oneself. And that is the key to good kingship: when the king's furthering of himself is at the same time a furthering of the people.
The point is raised again in I.B.2, when King Xuan and Mencius discuss why the people think his private park is too big when other kings have had private parks that people did not think too big -- perhaps even thought too small to be worthy of their king. And Mencius insists that it is because all the rules concerning are rules to keep people out of it, and they are so harsh that the people could hardly avoid seeing it as anything other than an immense trap in the middle of their kingdom.
I.B.10 and I.B.11 are concerned with the war between Qi and Yan, in which Qi is victorious; we learn later in the book that Mencius had only intended to stay a very short time in Qi, but found himself stuck when the war broke out. The rest of the sections are, according to Lau, the likely itinerary of Mencius when he left after the hostilities: that is, he stopped briefly in the states of Zou and Teng on his way to Lu.
to be continued
Monday, July 13, 2015
A Fly Under the Lens
As for what you say in your esteemed letter concerning temptations against the Faith, pay no attention to them. They are not real temptations. Your faith is immovable and secure in the depths of your soul: it was infused in your Baptism and has been fortified by other Sacraments. This does not prevent these fears and a certain trepidation from arising on the surface of the soul, as also doubts that are not real but apparent: things that God allows as trials to the souls most dear to Him, so that they may be more active and vigilant in His love and may purify themselves by means of tribulation. I do not consider them in the least dangerous or to be made account of. On the contrary, the more you despise them and treat them as movements of the imagination and sensitive nature (as they really are), the more easily they disappear of their own accord or become weakened. If you take these things seriously, and give them an importance they do not possess, it is easy to become disturbed and fearful: and fear and sadness have the effect of a lens that enlarges a fly until it appears an elephant. Nay they do more, for a soul filled with vain fear sees what does not exist.
Bl. Antonio Rosmini, Letters, on Chiefly Religious Subjects, p. 639.
Sunday, July 12, 2015
Fortnightly Book, July 12
Having driven through a third of the Arabian Nights, I am very much in need of something that can be handled easily with a light stroll: something lighter, quicker, and, of course, shorter. A re-read rather than a new read would not be amiss, either. So the next fortnightly book is Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, the book that touched off Crichton's juggernaut decade in the 1990s.
There's a chance that this might actually be a one-week 'fortnight', which, if so, would actually be helpful in terms of scheduling, as I enter the busier last half of summer; but given that I have several things to do this next week, I make no promises.
There's a chance that this might actually be a one-week 'fortnight', which, if so, would actually be helpful in terms of scheduling, as I enter the busier last half of summer; but given that I have several things to do this next week, I make no promises.
Saturday, July 11, 2015
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (Volume I)
Introduction
Opening Passage:
Summary: The Arabian Nights is a very, very complicated story about sex. The frame narrative is precisely about this. King Shahryar and his brother Shah Zaman, though extraordinarily powerful men, both discover that their wives are cheating on them, and in the most shameful sort of way. Devastated, they set out to discover if anyone else has been so cuckolded. They soon discover a woman married to a Jinni (genie), who uses the threat of her dangerous husband to force men to have sex with her. Astounded at the discovery that you can have all the power of a Jinni and still be betrayed by a woman, King Shahryar returns to his seraglio to kill all the concubines and their slaves, and makes a very fateful decision: Since there are no chaste and faithful women anywhere, he will marry a virgin each night and have her head cut off in the morning, thus eliminating forever any danger that he will ever be cheated on. This goes on for three years, and, needless to say, makes the king considerably less than popular with the people, and the Wazir is no longer able to find any maidens because anyone with a virgin daughter has fled the country. Well, almost everybody. The Wazir has two daughters, Shahrazad and Dunyazad, and while the King out of affection for the Wazir has exempted them from the search, Shahrazad has had about enough of this endless slaughter of virgins, and insists that she will stop it or die.
The psychological insight in Shahrazad's plan is quite impressive. It's not just the stories, although they are quite important. The basic format for each night is that the King and Shahrazad have sex, and then they will sleep; when they awake (it is very nearly universal in societies not ruled by electric lights to wake in the middle of the night), Dunyazad asks Sahrazad to tell a story, which she will do until she has to leave off. The king decides he wants to hear the rest of the story, or sometimes the story she briefly mentions as being even more interesting than the story she just told, and they start the cycle again. A thousand and one nights of sex and entertainment is enough to make any man merciful, no matter how paranoid he might be about women.
This first volume takes us to the 272nd night, so it's almost a year's worth of storytelling; the sections are not all equal because, for obvious reasons, Shahrazad cannot control how much time she has to tell the tale. The stories themselves are of varying length. Some of them are scarcely more than anecdotes. This volume has the longest of all the tales of the Arabian Nights, The Tale of King Omar bin al-Nu'uman and His Sons Sharrkan and Zau al-Makan, which is practically a book in itself, extending from the 45th night to the 145th night, and making up more than four hundred pages in my edition. It's an interesting experience reading it, since it is a chivalrous romance that is Muslim, not Christian.
Everyone bogs down sometimes in the Nights. Judging from the comments in his notes, Burton seems to have found the tale of the brother and sister in the Tale of King Omar very tedious. I didn't have a problem with it, although I thought it less interesting than the tale of Princess Abrizah that makes up a considerable portion of the beginning of the Tale of King Omar. But I bogged down myself in the Tale of Aziz and Azizah, which is also a sub-story in the Tale of King Omar. My favorite stories in this volume were the beast-fables (from the 146th night to the 152nd night), an assessment with which King Shahryar apparently agrees, since they are his first request, and the first tales to which he responds not just with curiosity but with enthusiasm. I also liked the Aladdin tale, The Tale of Ala al-Din Abu al-Shamat. That tale and the Tale of the Fisherman and the Jinni were the most familiar of the tales; I remember very simplified and cleaned-up versions of Aladdin and the talisman from when I was child, and the Fisherman and the Jinni will ring familiarly to anyone who has read Tim Powers's Declare.
The stories are very cynical. Men and women alike will betray you. Whatever Allah has written on your forehead will come to pass, no matter how much you attempt to evade it. No one can avoid their Lot, no matter their forethought. People die, are enslaved, are tortured, are imprisoned, are forced to flee. If you come across anyone showing visible religious devotion, you can be sure that they are out to destroy you. (This played to very interesting effect in the Tale of King Omar, in which the Christian witch Zat al-Dawahi is able over and over and over again to destroy even entire Muslim armies simply by turning their own religion against them, and gulling them all by an elaborate pretense of devotion.) This cynicism is perhaps one reason why Burton's edition has become the gold standard of all editions; the Nights need an editor and commentator as cynical as they are.
But we are not through it all yet, by any means, and we know that the frame narrative will end happily enough.
Favorite Passage:
There is something just perfect about this detail in the story of the Fisherman and the Jinni, in which a Fisherman pulls a jar with a genie out of the sea and the genie, having been stuck at the bottom of the sea for hundreds of years, is so out of date that his affirmation of Islam is, "There is no God but God, and Solomon is His Prophet!" It tickles me. And it's made even better by the fisherman's "Wait, what?" reaction.
Because this is just the first volume of a three-volume edition that I will (eventually!) be completing, I will only do the usual 'Recommendation' section at the end for all three volumes.
Opening Passage:
In the name of Allah, the Compassionating, the Compassionate! Praise be to Allah, The Beneficent King, The Creator of the Universe, Lord of the Three Worlds, Who set up The Firmament without Pillars in its Stead and Who stretched out the Earth even as a Bed; and Grace, and Prayer-Blessing be upon Our Lord Mohammed, Lord of Apostolic Men, and upon His Family and Companion-Train; Prayer and Blessings Enduring and Grace Which unto The Day of Doom shall Remain. Amen! O Thou of The Three Worlds Sovereign!
And afterwards. Verily the works and words of those gone before us have become instances and examples to men of our modern day, that folk may view what admonishing chances befel other folk and may therefrom take warning; and that they may peruse the annals of antique peoples and all that hath betided them, and be thereby ruled and restrained:--Praise, therefore be to Him who hath made the histories of the Past an admonition unto the Present! Now of such instances are the tales called "A Thousand Nights and a Night," together with their far-famed legends and wonders.
Summary: The Arabian Nights is a very, very complicated story about sex. The frame narrative is precisely about this. King Shahryar and his brother Shah Zaman, though extraordinarily powerful men, both discover that their wives are cheating on them, and in the most shameful sort of way. Devastated, they set out to discover if anyone else has been so cuckolded. They soon discover a woman married to a Jinni (genie), who uses the threat of her dangerous husband to force men to have sex with her. Astounded at the discovery that you can have all the power of a Jinni and still be betrayed by a woman, King Shahryar returns to his seraglio to kill all the concubines and their slaves, and makes a very fateful decision: Since there are no chaste and faithful women anywhere, he will marry a virgin each night and have her head cut off in the morning, thus eliminating forever any danger that he will ever be cheated on. This goes on for three years, and, needless to say, makes the king considerably less than popular with the people, and the Wazir is no longer able to find any maidens because anyone with a virgin daughter has fled the country. Well, almost everybody. The Wazir has two daughters, Shahrazad and Dunyazad, and while the King out of affection for the Wazir has exempted them from the search, Shahrazad has had about enough of this endless slaughter of virgins, and insists that she will stop it or die.
The psychological insight in Shahrazad's plan is quite impressive. It's not just the stories, although they are quite important. The basic format for each night is that the King and Shahrazad have sex, and then they will sleep; when they awake (it is very nearly universal in societies not ruled by electric lights to wake in the middle of the night), Dunyazad asks Sahrazad to tell a story, which she will do until she has to leave off. The king decides he wants to hear the rest of the story, or sometimes the story she briefly mentions as being even more interesting than the story she just told, and they start the cycle again. A thousand and one nights of sex and entertainment is enough to make any man merciful, no matter how paranoid he might be about women.
This first volume takes us to the 272nd night, so it's almost a year's worth of storytelling; the sections are not all equal because, for obvious reasons, Shahrazad cannot control how much time she has to tell the tale. The stories themselves are of varying length. Some of them are scarcely more than anecdotes. This volume has the longest of all the tales of the Arabian Nights, The Tale of King Omar bin al-Nu'uman and His Sons Sharrkan and Zau al-Makan, which is practically a book in itself, extending from the 45th night to the 145th night, and making up more than four hundred pages in my edition. It's an interesting experience reading it, since it is a chivalrous romance that is Muslim, not Christian.
Everyone bogs down sometimes in the Nights. Judging from the comments in his notes, Burton seems to have found the tale of the brother and sister in the Tale of King Omar very tedious. I didn't have a problem with it, although I thought it less interesting than the tale of Princess Abrizah that makes up a considerable portion of the beginning of the Tale of King Omar. But I bogged down myself in the Tale of Aziz and Azizah, which is also a sub-story in the Tale of King Omar. My favorite stories in this volume were the beast-fables (from the 146th night to the 152nd night), an assessment with which King Shahryar apparently agrees, since they are his first request, and the first tales to which he responds not just with curiosity but with enthusiasm. I also liked the Aladdin tale, The Tale of Ala al-Din Abu al-Shamat. That tale and the Tale of the Fisherman and the Jinni were the most familiar of the tales; I remember very simplified and cleaned-up versions of Aladdin and the talisman from when I was child, and the Fisherman and the Jinni will ring familiarly to anyone who has read Tim Powers's Declare.
The stories are very cynical. Men and women alike will betray you. Whatever Allah has written on your forehead will come to pass, no matter how much you attempt to evade it. No one can avoid their Lot, no matter their forethought. People die, are enslaved, are tortured, are imprisoned, are forced to flee. If you come across anyone showing visible religious devotion, you can be sure that they are out to destroy you. (This played to very interesting effect in the Tale of King Omar, in which the Christian witch Zat al-Dawahi is able over and over and over again to destroy even entire Muslim armies simply by turning their own religion against them, and gulling them all by an elaborate pretense of devotion.) This cynicism is perhaps one reason why Burton's edition has become the gold standard of all editions; the Nights need an editor and commentator as cynical as they are.
But we are not through it all yet, by any means, and we know that the frame narrative will end happily enough.
Favorite Passage:
Now when the Fisherman saw the Ifrit his side muscles quivered, his teeth chattered, his spittle dried up and he became blind about what to do. Upon this the Ifrit looked at him and cried, "There is no god but the God, and Sulayman is the prophet of God"; presently adding, "O Apostle of Allah, slay me not; never again will I gainsay thee in word nor sin against thee in deed." Quoth the Fisherman, "O Mérid, diddest thou say, Sulayman the Apostle of Allah; and Sulauman is dead some thousand and eight hundred years ago, and we are now in the last days of the world!..."
There is something just perfect about this detail in the story of the Fisherman and the Jinni, in which a Fisherman pulls a jar with a genie out of the sea and the genie, having been stuck at the bottom of the sea for hundreds of years, is so out of date that his affirmation of Islam is, "There is no God but God, and Solomon is His Prophet!" It tickles me. And it's made even better by the fisherman's "Wait, what?" reaction.
Because this is just the first volume of a three-volume edition that I will (eventually!) be completing, I will only do the usual 'Recommendation' section at the end for all three volumes.
Robert Hugh Benson's Fiction
Catholic World Report has a good article on the fiction of Robert Hugh Benson. I haven't read all of it, by any means, but I have read Lord of the World, The Dawn of All, The Necromancers, By What Authority?, and Come Rack! Come Rope! In overall terms, Lord of the World and Come Rack! Come Rope! are the best of those, although I think I liked the characterization in By What Authority? better than in Come Rack! Come Rope! (Mary Corbet, the flippant and gaudy lady-in-waiting who turns out to have more sense in her head, and more goodness in her heart, than almost everyone else around her, was especially good).
The description given in the article of The Dawn of All is somewhat misleading, since it doesn't at all convey the essential point of the story, which is that victory in the world does not really change anything about the task of the Christian. Be the victory ever so great -- and in The Dawn of All it is taken to the very farthest limit -- the Christian faith is still the faith of martyrs, and if your faith does not involve a willingness to die for Christ, it is not the faith. That the Christian faith is the faith of martyrs seems actually to be a common theme throughout Benson's work.
The description given in the article of The Dawn of All is somewhat misleading, since it doesn't at all convey the essential point of the story, which is that victory in the world does not really change anything about the task of the Christian. Be the victory ever so great -- and in The Dawn of All it is taken to the very farthest limit -- the Christian faith is still the faith of martyrs, and if your faith does not involve a willingness to die for Christ, it is not the faith. That the Christian faith is the faith of martyrs seems actually to be a common theme throughout Benson's work.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)