Whose Death Is the World's Desire

The Hunting of the Dragon
by G. K. Chesterton 

When we went hunting the Dragon
In the days when we were young,
We tossed the bright world over our shoulder
As bugle and baldrick slung;
Never was world so wild and fair
As what went by on the wind,
Never such fields of paradise
As the fields we left behind:

For this is the best of a rest for men
That men should rise and ride
Making a flying fairyland
Of market and country-side,
Wings on the cottage, wings on the wood,
Wings upon pot and pan,
For the hunting of the Dragon
That is the life of a man. 

For men grow weary of fairyland
When the Dragon is a dream,
And tire of the talking bird in the tree,
The singing fish in the stream;
And the wandering stars grow stale, grow stale,
And the wonder is stiff with scorn;
For this is the honour of fairyland
And the following of the horn; 

Beauty on beauty called us back
When we could rise and ride,
And a woman looked out of every window
As wonderful as a bride:
And the tavern-sign as a tabard blazed,
And the children cheered and ran,
For the love of the hate of the Dragon
That is the pride of a man. 

The sages called him a shadow
And the light went out of the sun:
And the wise men told us that all was well
And all was weary and one:
And then, and then, in the quiet garden,
With never a weed to kill,

We knew that his shining tail had shone
In the white road over the hill:
We knew that the clouds were flakes of flame,
We knew that the sunset fire
Was red with the blood of the Dragon
Whose death is the world’s desire. 

For the horn was blown in the heart of the night
That men should rise and ride,
Keeping the tryst of a terrible jest
Never for long untried;
Drinking a dreadful blood for wine,
Never in cup or can,
The death of a deathless Dragon,
That is the life of a man.

Links of Note

 * Eliyahu Rotenberg, Some Thoughts on the Philosophy of Law in Judaism, at "Ignatius of Zion"

* Katie Curtis, The Creative Retrieval of Aquinas in W. Norris Clarke, at "Chasing Logos"

* Chester H. Sunde, Psy.D., Plato Never Said 'Forms'

* Chris Fraser, The Limitations of Ritual Propriety: Ritual and Language in Xunzi and Zhuangzi (PDF)

* T. Benjamin White, I Read the Steinbeck Werewolf Book So You Don't Have To, at "The Composted Book Review"

* Hillel Wayne, Points are a weird and inconsistent unit of measure, on typographical points, at "Computer Things"

* Denis Kambouchner & Louis Rouquayrol, Descartes' Ethics, at the SEP

* Ahmed Alwishah & David Sanson, The Liar Paradox in Arabic and Islamic Philosophy, at the SEP

* B. A. Clarke, Pre-decimal Currency Was Mostly Fine, at "Clarke's Corner"

* Rob Alspaugh, The Point of ST I-II Q8 a2, at "Teaching Boys Badly"

* Casual Physics Enjoyer, The Particle Comes Alive, looks at the physics of particles in fluids

Magnifica Humanitas

 Pope Leo XIV recently released the encyclical letter, Magnifica humanitas. It explicitly positions itself as a sequel to Pope Leo XIII's Rerum novarum, but is also, I think, a deliberate sequel to Pope Francis's Dignitas infinita. Unfortunately, it has a lot of the problems that seem endemic to Church documents these days -- the things that suggest that perhaps it should have been thought through a bit more carefully. The claim that Nehemiah "did not impose solutions from above" is baffling; Nehemiah spends a significant part of the book giving orders, rebuking nobles and officials, and appointing people to be in charge. It is true that he works to reforge the community identity of the Israelites, and it is true that the Israelites respond well to his plans, which seems to be what is primarily in view, and I very much like the appeal to Nehemiah (who provides a good example of a laity-driven approach to reform), but the characterization of Nehemiah's work seems oddly selective.This is a recurring problem, as, again, has been common in Church documents recently.* Some people have noted that the writing, ironically, has a lot of stylistic similarities with results of AI programs, probably not because AI was used but because AI also tends to slide into this vaguely inspirational now-this-now-that committee-speak, of which Church officials have been the masters for years now.

Nonetheless, the encyclical is a nice summary of the social teaching of the Church. And contrary to the way it is sometimes being presented, it is largely positive about AI research, and just lays down exactly the sort of moral principles for such research that one would expect it to give. As some have noted, it doesn't even call for a ban of autonomous weapons systems -- it just insists that they "must be subject to the most rigorous ethical constraints, to guarantee respect for human dignity and the sanctity of life and to avoid a race to develop such arms" (section 197). This is remarkably weak.

What seems to be the intended point -- it could be clearer, but a number of things converge on this interpretation -- is that matters like the ethics of AI research require a significant amount of initiative on the part of the laity in general, distinct from any direct interference by the clergy; it thus reiterates the general principles that the laity need to keep in mind when dealing with any matter, like AI research, that can affect our understanding of human dignity. Read in that light, it does this very well. I just wish we were out of the era of throw-everything-in-somehow document-writing.

----

* One of the more interesting ones here is when it says that "the 'just war' theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated" (section 192), but all the things it explicitly rejects are common modern modifications of the traditional just-war view, while it repeatedly says things that have commonly been said in traditional versions of just war theory. (For instance, one might think that it was proposing a pacifist approach, but then it goes on to give, sections 197-200, a discussion of how military decisions in war should be made, which explicitly appeals to principles of just war theory!)

Two Poem Drafts

 Nightfall

The evening, creeping now
on shower-watered fields,
builds in depth; the sun bows;
wonderfully to night it yields.

I sit alone in shadowed room,
still as stone, and wait
as fate is woven on the loom
with gloom; and there I ruminate.

The outer black, a sheet
like doubt, now covers all
and falls the night, complete,
against all light a wall.

The clouds are hiding stars,
the wide world is hid away,
yet night neither hides nor mars
the glory of light of day.

A dawn will come, will burn,
upturn the rule of shade,
and I will coolly yearn
and sigh for hope remade.

Connection

On page unmarked I mark a line;
I draw it straight and true
from mine to yours and yours to mine,
made even, as is due.

In silent air I draw a word
to reach through time and space
and on your ear alight, thus heard
with harmony and grace.

By light I speak, from eye to eye,
with glistening tear and hue;
to make a circuit, photons fly
between my heart and you.

I fold the world and make it small
to hold us both in bound;
within this O, I compass all:
here infinity is found.

The Power of Ideas

 It is the business of education to wait upon Pentecost. Unhappily, there is something about educational syllabuses, and especially about examination papers, which seems to be rather out of harmony with Pentecostal manifestations. The Energy of Ideas does not seem to descend into the receptive mind with quite that rush of cloven fire which we ought to expect. Possibly there is something lacking in our Idea of education; possibly something inhibiting has happened to the Energy. But Pentecost will happen, whether within or without official education. From some quarter or other, the Power will descend, to flame or to smolder until it is ready to issue in a new revelation. We need not suppose that, because the mind of the reader is inert to Plato, it will therefore be inert to Nietzsche or Karl Marx. Failing those, it may respond to Wilhelmina Stitch or to Hollywood. No incarnate Idea is altogether devoid of Power; if the Idea is feeble, the Energy is dispersed, and the Power dim, the indwelling spirit will be dim, dispersed and feeble -- but such as it is, so its response will be and such will be its manifestation in the world. 

[Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker, HarperCollins (New York: 1987) pp. 112-113.]

Be Skillful Money-Changers

 The Mosaic philosophy is accordingly divided into four parts — into the historic, and that which is specially called the legislative, which two properly belong to an ethical treatise; and the third, that which relates to sacrifice, which belongs to physical science; and the fourth, above all, the department of theology, vision, which Plato predicates of the truly great mysteries. And this species Aristotle calls metaphysics. Dialectics, according to Plato, is, as he says in The Statesman, a science devoted to the discovery of the explanation of things. And it is to be acquired by the wise man, not for the sake of saying or doing anything of what we find among men (as the dialecticians, who occupy themselves in sophistry, do), but to be able to say and do, as far as possible, what is pleasing to God. But the true dialectic, being philosophy mixed with truth, by examining things, and testing forces and powers, gradually ascends in relation to the most excellent essence of all, and essays to go beyond to the God of the universe, professing not the knowledge of mortal affairs, but the science of things divine and heavenly; in accordance with which follows a suitable course of practice with respect to words and deeds, even in human affairs. Rightly, therefore, the Scripture, in its desire to make us such dialecticians, exhorts us: Be skilful money-changers rejecting some things, but retaining what is good.

[St. Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 1.28]

'Be skil(l)ful money-changers' is a saying commonly attributed to Jesus by the Church Fathers, although it's an agraphon, i.e., something not attributed to Him in the Gospels; it was particularly popular among the Alexandrian Church Fathers, who use it in different kinds of contexts as an exhortation to distinguish the true from the counterfeit.

Memory, Composition, Improvisation

Ben Laude has a nice breakdown of a famous scene from the movie Amadeus:

 

Memory, composition, and improvisation is a good way to look at talent, because they are the elements of excellence in every intellectual and cultural field.