( Originally written and posted on MySpace on February 18, 2009 )
Caesar's Greatest Ambition
Plutarch's life of Julius Caesar concludes with a vivid account of his assassination. Most memorable, though, in Plutarch's account is this outline of what was probably Caesar's greatest ambition:
" Caesar was born to do great things, and had a passion after honor, and the many noble exploits he had done did not now serve as an inducement to him to sit still and reap the fruit of his past labors, but were incentives and encouragments to go on, and raised in him ideas of still greater actions, and a desire of new glory, as if the present were all spent. It was in fact a sort of emulous struggle with himself, as it had been with another, how he might outdo his past actions by his future. In pursuit of these thoughts, he resolved to make war upon the Parthians, and when he had subdued them, to pass through Hyrcania; thence to march along by the Caspian Sea to Mount Caucasus, and so on about Pontus, till he came into Scythia; then to overrun all the countries bordering upon Germany, and Germany itself; and so to return through Gaul into Italy, after completing the whole circle of his intended empire, and bounding it on every side by the ocean. "
Undoubtedly, Caesar had no realistic concept of the population of the Scythians and Teutons. His expedition would have most probably become bogged down and sunk into disaster long before he reached the Schwarzwald. One thinks of Napoleon's debacle in Russia or the similar defeat suffered by his emulator Hitler. (Even when a child I wondered what people could mean when they said that Hitler wanted to conquer the world. On the globe, Germany looked much too small to do any such thing.)
Demographics is destiny. Edward Gibbon in the concluding chapter to his history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire states that the Romans quite obviously underestimated the numbers of the barbarians. Gibbon finds " the principal and immediate cause of the fall of the Western empire of Rome " to be the admittance into the empire, south of the Danube, of over a million Goths, on the condition that they would swear an oath of loyalty to the emperor. Only a generation later, of course, the Goths rose up and sacked the city of Rome itself. That was the beginning of the end.
One of [ my ] motives in reading through all of Gibbon's lengthy work, which took several decades, was having heard again and again that the cause of the fall of the Empire was taxation. This was a favorite claim made by Ronald Reagan. After reading all of Gibbon, I found little or nothing about taxation, but much about the demographic factor. The barbarians simply began to outnumber the Romans and had no desire to assimilate and become Romans. That reminds me of the fact that President Reagan, in 1986, approved an amnesty for three million illegal aliens then in the U.S.A. That was the beginning of the end of any effective conservative or Republican resistance to mass immigration, whether legal or illegal. It will prove also to have been the end of the historic nation of America. Most conservatives do not know what it is that they should conserve. For lack of that knowledge, they will lose it all.
( Originally written and posted on MySpace on February 8, 2009 )
Some Thoughts Occasioned by the Gospel According to John
For the past several years, I have read through the New Testament once during the year, either in the King James Version or the New Revised Standard Version. Last night I finished reading again the Gospel According to John. This has always been the most moving of the gospels for me. It is a gateway to the rest of the New Testament, especially to the books of Jude and Revelation, and also has its own interesting characteristics.
It begins with an abstraction, unlike the other gospels: " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. " According to the gloss in the Scofield edition -- an edition which, by the way, I do not recommend for a number of reasons -- "the Word" is Logos in Greek and means either "a thought or concept" or "the expression or utterance of that thought."
John may begin with an abstraction, but it has many vividly concrete images. One thinks particularly of the details of the interrogation and crucifixion of Christ, and also of Doubting Thomas wanting to verify to himself what he sees by inspecting the wounds of Christ. Dramatically and vividly at the center of this gospel stands Christ's diametrical opposition to the Pharisees, the defining moment expressed in John 8:44. The Pharisees and the Sadducees we still have with us.
John ends with a concrete image, but one that we cannot visualize: " And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen. " The gloss in the Scofield edition tells us that here "the world" means the earth, not the cosmos. Even the earth alone covered over with books telling of all that Christ did is something that we cannot visualize.
Those books taken together would comprise an unparalleled library. At this point. one recalls a story by Jorge Luis Borges: "The Library of Babel." In the posters one finds in libraries, Borges is often quoted as having written that "I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library." (At this point, I think of the personnel in libraries and Jean Paul Sartre's famous observation "Hell is other people.") Still trying to visualize that world of books, one is reminded of the akashic records, the records to which Rudolf Steiner turned when he made the great leap from Nietzsche to Theosophy and wrote the work known in English as Cosmic Memory.
( Originally written and posted on MySpace on January 4, 2009 )
Vindication for Ignatius Donnelly ?
Ignatius Donnelly, to the extent that he is remembered at all, is frequently dismissed as a "crank" because of his authorship of Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (1882), although his Caesar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century (1891) has won some recognition among literary historians as an early example of the dystopian novel. Another of Donnelly's works may, however, be well worth reading again; i.e., Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel (1883). According to Ragnarok, the earth was struck by a comet at some 10,000 years B.C. , the time when the lost continent of Atlantis, according to Plato's account in his Critias, sank under the Atlantic Ocean. This impact of the earth by a comet also brought about a minor ice age, according to Donnelly, causing the loss of advanced civilization. Memories of the great cataclysm linger in the guise of various myths.
All of this has been dismissed as unsubstantiated speculation, total nonsense, but it may prove to be not as nonsensical as commonly supposed if verification is found for an hypothesis offered by University of Oregon anthropologist Douglas Kennett and others in a January 2009 issue of Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Kennett and others investigating the phenomenon of heavy deposits on earth of "nanodiamonds," microscopic particles present in comets, hypothesize that the earth was struck by a comet, or suffered the impact of a comet exploding near the earth, approximately 13,000 years ago. This would account for the 1,300 year-long ice age which followed, a sudden climate shift which was the cause of the extinction of the mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers as well as the decline of the Clovis culture.
Anyone reading this who is an Ohioan will likely be familiar with the Serpent Mound site. A giant earthworks produced by the Mound Builders, the site seems to represent a sinuous snake with jaws open in an attempt to devour an egg. A reading of Ragnarok would suggest that this earthworks reflects a distant memory of the cometary impact in which the comet represents the snake and the egg about to be devoured is the earth. The tradition of a spherical earth might have been handed down as oral tradition to the Mound Builders. The earthen "egg" itself is round, not oblong.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Alexander the Great Meets the Gymnosophists
( Originally written and posted on MySpace on February 13, 2009 )
Reading ancient history may often seem to be drudgery, but there are two historians who lighten the burden: Gibbon and Plutarch. Gibbon’s long history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire is enlivened with his wit, while Plutarch has his own special method in approaching his subject. He writes the lives of the noble Greeks and Romans, not their histories. In his words, following the translation of Dryden, he affirms:
It being my purpose to write the lives of Alexander the king, and
of Caesar, by whom Pompey was destroyed, the multitude of their
great actions affords so large a field that I were to blame if I
should not by way of apology forewarn my reader that I have chosen
rather to epitomize the most celebrated parts of their story, than
to insist at large on every particular circumstance of it. It
must be borne in mind that my design is not to write histories,
but lives. And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish
us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men;
sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest,
informs us better of their characters and inclinations, than the
most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest
battles whatsoever. Therefore as portrait-painters are more exact
in the lines and features of the face in which the character is
seen, than in the other parts of the body, so I must be allowed to
give my more particular attention to the marks and indications of
the souls of men, and while I endeavor by these to portray their
lives, may be free to leave more weighty matters and great battles
to be treated of by others.
One of the intriguing episodes which Plutarch relates regarding Alexander the Great is the conqueror’s encounter with the philosophers of India. (It is also Plutarch who tells the delightful tale of the encounter between Diogenes and Alexander, which is much more widely known.) The Indian philosophers, called gymnosophists, seemed to be as much Sophists as fakirs. E. Cobham Brewer, in his Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, defines them as "A sect of Indian philosophers who went about with naked feet and almost without clothing. They lived in woods, subsisted on roots, and never married. They believed in the transmigration of souls. Strabo divides them into Brahmins and Samans. (Greek, gumnos, naked; sophistes, sages.)" The philosophers successfully answer a series of questions which Alexander puts to them as follows:
In this voyage, he took ten of the Indian philosophers prisoners,
who had been most active in persuading Sabbas to revolt, and had
caused the Macedonians a great deal of trouble. These men, called
Gymnosophists, were reputed to be extremely ready and succinct in
their answers, which he made trial of, by putting difficult
questions to them, letting them know that those whose answers were
not pertinent, should be put to death, of which he made the eldest
of them judge. The first being asked which he thought most
numerous, the dead or the living, answered, "The living, because
those who are dead are not at all." Of the second, he desired to
know whether the earth or the sea produced the largest beast; who
told him, "The earth, for the sea is but a part of it." His
question to the third was, Which is the cunningest of beasts?
"That," said he, "which men have not yet found out." He bade the
fourth tell him what argument he used to Sabbas to persuade him to
revolt. "No other," said he, "than that he should either live or
die nobly." Of the fifth he asked, Which was eldest, night or
day? The philosopher replied, "Day was eldest, by one day at
least." But perceiving Alexander not well satisfied with that
account, he added, that he ought not to wonder if strange
questions had as strange answers made to them. Then he went on and
inquired of the next, what a man should do to be exceedingly
beloved. "He must be very powerful," said he, "without making
himself too much feared." The answer of the seventh to his
question, how a man might become a god, was, "By doing that which
was impossible for men to do." The eighth told him, "Life is
stronger than death, because it supports so many miseries." And
the last being asked, how long he thought it decent for a man to
live, said, "Till death appeared more desirable than life." Then
Alexander turned to him whom he had made judge, and commanded him
to give sentence. "All that I can determine," said he, "is, that
they have every one answered worse than another." "Nay," said the
king, "then you shall die first, for giving such a sentence."
"Not so, O king," replied the gymnosophist, "unless you said
falsely that he should die first who made the worst answer." In
conclusion he gave them presents and dismissed them.
Reading ancient history may often seem to be drudgery, but there are two historians who lighten the burden: Gibbon and Plutarch. Gibbon’s long history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire is enlivened with his wit, while Plutarch has his own special method in approaching his subject. He writes the lives of the noble Greeks and Romans, not their histories. In his words, following the translation of Dryden, he affirms:
It being my purpose to write the lives of Alexander the king, and
of Caesar, by whom Pompey was destroyed, the multitude of their
great actions affords so large a field that I were to blame if I
should not by way of apology forewarn my reader that I have chosen
rather to epitomize the most celebrated parts of their story, than
to insist at large on every particular circumstance of it. It
must be borne in mind that my design is not to write histories,
but lives. And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish
us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men;
sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest,
informs us better of their characters and inclinations, than the
most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest
battles whatsoever. Therefore as portrait-painters are more exact
in the lines and features of the face in which the character is
seen, than in the other parts of the body, so I must be allowed to
give my more particular attention to the marks and indications of
the souls of men, and while I endeavor by these to portray their
lives, may be free to leave more weighty matters and great battles
to be treated of by others.
One of the intriguing episodes which Plutarch relates regarding Alexander the Great is the conqueror’s encounter with the philosophers of India. (It is also Plutarch who tells the delightful tale of the encounter between Diogenes and Alexander, which is much more widely known.) The Indian philosophers, called gymnosophists, seemed to be as much Sophists as fakirs. E. Cobham Brewer, in his Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, defines them as "A sect of Indian philosophers who went about with naked feet and almost without clothing. They lived in woods, subsisted on roots, and never married. They believed in the transmigration of souls. Strabo divides them into Brahmins and Samans. (Greek, gumnos, naked; sophistes, sages.)" The philosophers successfully answer a series of questions which Alexander puts to them as follows:
In this voyage, he took ten of the Indian philosophers prisoners,
who had been most active in persuading Sabbas to revolt, and had
caused the Macedonians a great deal of trouble. These men, called
Gymnosophists, were reputed to be extremely ready and succinct in
their answers, which he made trial of, by putting difficult
questions to them, letting them know that those whose answers were
not pertinent, should be put to death, of which he made the eldest
of them judge. The first being asked which he thought most
numerous, the dead or the living, answered, "The living, because
those who are dead are not at all." Of the second, he desired to
know whether the earth or the sea produced the largest beast; who
told him, "The earth, for the sea is but a part of it." His
question to the third was, Which is the cunningest of beasts?
"That," said he, "which men have not yet found out." He bade the
fourth tell him what argument he used to Sabbas to persuade him to
revolt. "No other," said he, "than that he should either live or
die nobly." Of the fifth he asked, Which was eldest, night or
day? The philosopher replied, "Day was eldest, by one day at
least." But perceiving Alexander not well satisfied with that
account, he added, that he ought not to wonder if strange
questions had as strange answers made to them. Then he went on and
inquired of the next, what a man should do to be exceedingly
beloved. "He must be very powerful," said he, "without making
himself too much feared." The answer of the seventh to his
question, how a man might become a god, was, "By doing that which
was impossible for men to do." The eighth told him, "Life is
stronger than death, because it supports so many miseries." And
the last being asked, how long he thought it decent for a man to
live, said, "Till death appeared more desirable than life." Then
Alexander turned to him whom he had made judge, and commanded him
to give sentence. "All that I can determine," said he, "is, that
they have every one answered worse than another." "Nay," said the
king, "then you shall die first, for giving such a sentence."
"Not so, O king," replied the gymnosophist, "unless you said
falsely that he should die first who made the worst answer." In
conclusion he gave them presents and dismissed them.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Chamberlain, Trinity, Book of Acts
( Originally written and posted on MySpace on March 14, 2009 )
Chamberlain on the pre-Christian Trinity
C. I. Scofield has a lengthy gloss on I Thessalonians in which he discusses man as a trinity of body, soul, and spirit. The distinction between the latter two seems less than natural to those who have been influenced by the modern world outlook which is based on Cartesian dualism. Houston Stewart Chamberlain points out in his Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, first published in English in 1911, that the trinity is pervasive in Indo-European thought, that it precedes Christendom. The following is a relevant passage from Chamberlain's Foundations:
" As an excellent example of mythology which grows from external experience I should like to mention especially the conception of the Trinity. Thanks to the influence of Hellenic sentiment, the Christian Church (in spite of the violent opposition of the Jewish Christians), had, in the moulding of its dogma, steered successfully past that most dangerous cliff, Semitic monotheism, and has preserved in her otherwise perilously Judaised conception of the Godhead the sacred " Three in Number " of the Aryans. It is well known that we continually come across the number Three among the Indo-Europeans : it is, as Goethe says,
die ewig unveraltete, Dreinamig—Dreigestaltete.
" We find it in the three groups of the Indian gods, at a later time (several centuries before Christ) developed into the detailed and expressly stated doctrine of the Trinity, the Trimurti : " He, who is Vishnu, is also Civa, and he, who is Civa, is also Brahma : one being but three Gods." And the conception can be traced from the distant east to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, where Patricius found the clover leaf as the symbol of the Trinity among the Druids. The number Three was bound at an early time to impress itself upon races that were inclined to poetry and metaphysics, for it and it alone is not a chance number (like five or ten which are derived from the fingers) nor a pedantically calculated number (like seven, which is derived from the so-called seven wandering stars), it expresses a fundamental phenomenon, so that the conception of a Trinity might rather be called an experience than a symbol. The authors of the Upanishads had already recognised that all human knowledge rests on three fundamental forms —time, space, causality—and that not a triplicity but (to quote from Kant) a " unity of apperception " results therefrom ; space and time also are inseparable unities, but possess three dimensions. In short, the threefoldness as unity surrounds us on all sides as an original phenomenon of experience and is reflected in all individual cases. Thus, for example, the most modern science has proved that without exception every element can take three—but only three—forms : the solid, the fluid, the gaseous ; and this only further shows, what the people long ago knew, that our planet consists of earth, water and air. As Homer says
Everything was divided into three."
Chamberlain himself was quite an unusual thinker. Born in England, he moved to Germany, married the daughter of the composer Richard Wagner, and became a successful author writing in German. His Foundations was first published in German in 1898 as Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. (He reminds one of Joseph Conrad, born in Poland, who moved to England and became a famous novelist writing in English.) Chamberlain's Foundations is actually a cultural history of the entire Western world, the nineteenth century which he looked upon being for him the contemporary world. In this magisterial work, Chamberlain shows how Western civilization came into existence.
( Originally written and posted on MySpace on February 28, 2009 )
Memorable Scenes from the Book of Acts
The book of the Acts of the Apostles is a book of many memorable spectacles. First and foremost, of course, is that great scene in the second chapter wherein the Holy Ghost descends upon the Apostles. Reading this again, one can begin to understand why today's Pentecostalists base their church upon it. Next there is the martyrdom of Stephen and the conversion of Paul into Saul. Some spectacles seem to be almost out of a motion picture: liberation from prison by an earthquake, shipwreck upon the island of Miletus. More meaningful in Acts are the great confrontations. These include Paul's meeting with the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers at the Areopagus in Athens. Even more vivid, however, is the meeting with an outraged merchant of Ephesus, Demetrius, who crafts and sells silver images of the goddess Artemis (or Diana). This scene is reminiscent of Christ's encounter with the money-changers in the Temple. Demetrius and his fellows obviously believed that Christianity would be bad for their business.
The original idol of Diana of the Ephesians was believed to have fallen from the sky, a typically pagan form of revelation. Even simple meteors, much less artifacts falling from the sky, could change the course of history. Thus, Plutarch in his life of Lucullus tells how just before his forces were ready to go into battle, "on a sudden the sky opened, and a large luminous body fell down in the midst between the armies, in shape like a hogshead, but in colour like melted silver, insomuch that both armies in alarm withdrew." Most significant of all, however, was the famous Black Stone, a meteorite fixed in the wall of the Kaaba at Mecca. The Kaaba, according to E. Cobham Brewer in his Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, is a cubical stone house "said to have been built by Abraham on the spot where Adam first worshipped after his expulsion from Paradise. In the north-east corner is a stone seven inches long, said to be a ruby sent down from heaven. It is now black, from being kissed so often by sinful man."
Chamberlain on the pre-Christian Trinity
C. I. Scofield has a lengthy gloss on I Thessalonians in which he discusses man as a trinity of body, soul, and spirit. The distinction between the latter two seems less than natural to those who have been influenced by the modern world outlook which is based on Cartesian dualism. Houston Stewart Chamberlain points out in his Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, first published in English in 1911, that the trinity is pervasive in Indo-European thought, that it precedes Christendom. The following is a relevant passage from Chamberlain's Foundations:
" As an excellent example of mythology which grows from external experience I should like to mention especially the conception of the Trinity. Thanks to the influence of Hellenic sentiment, the Christian Church (in spite of the violent opposition of the Jewish Christians), had, in the moulding of its dogma, steered successfully past that most dangerous cliff, Semitic monotheism, and has preserved in her otherwise perilously Judaised conception of the Godhead the sacred " Three in Number " of the Aryans. It is well known that we continually come across the number Three among the Indo-Europeans : it is, as Goethe says,
die ewig unveraltete, Dreinamig—Dreigestaltete.
" We find it in the three groups of the Indian gods, at a later time (several centuries before Christ) developed into the detailed and expressly stated doctrine of the Trinity, the Trimurti : " He, who is Vishnu, is also Civa, and he, who is Civa, is also Brahma : one being but three Gods." And the conception can be traced from the distant east to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, where Patricius found the clover leaf as the symbol of the Trinity among the Druids. The number Three was bound at an early time to impress itself upon races that were inclined to poetry and metaphysics, for it and it alone is not a chance number (like five or ten which are derived from the fingers) nor a pedantically calculated number (like seven, which is derived from the so-called seven wandering stars), it expresses a fundamental phenomenon, so that the conception of a Trinity might rather be called an experience than a symbol. The authors of the Upanishads had already recognised that all human knowledge rests on three fundamental forms —time, space, causality—and that not a triplicity but (to quote from Kant) a " unity of apperception " results therefrom ; space and time also are inseparable unities, but possess three dimensions. In short, the threefoldness as unity surrounds us on all sides as an original phenomenon of experience and is reflected in all individual cases. Thus, for example, the most modern science has proved that without exception every element can take three—but only three—forms : the solid, the fluid, the gaseous ; and this only further shows, what the people long ago knew, that our planet consists of earth, water and air. As Homer says
Everything was divided into three."
Chamberlain himself was quite an unusual thinker. Born in England, he moved to Germany, married the daughter of the composer Richard Wagner, and became a successful author writing in German. His Foundations was first published in German in 1898 as Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. (He reminds one of Joseph Conrad, born in Poland, who moved to England and became a famous novelist writing in English.) Chamberlain's Foundations is actually a cultural history of the entire Western world, the nineteenth century which he looked upon being for him the contemporary world. In this magisterial work, Chamberlain shows how Western civilization came into existence.
( Originally written and posted on MySpace on February 28, 2009 )
Memorable Scenes from the Book of Acts
The book of the Acts of the Apostles is a book of many memorable spectacles. First and foremost, of course, is that great scene in the second chapter wherein the Holy Ghost descends upon the Apostles. Reading this again, one can begin to understand why today's Pentecostalists base their church upon it. Next there is the martyrdom of Stephen and the conversion of Paul into Saul. Some spectacles seem to be almost out of a motion picture: liberation from prison by an earthquake, shipwreck upon the island of Miletus. More meaningful in Acts are the great confrontations. These include Paul's meeting with the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers at the Areopagus in Athens. Even more vivid, however, is the meeting with an outraged merchant of Ephesus, Demetrius, who crafts and sells silver images of the goddess Artemis (or Diana). This scene is reminiscent of Christ's encounter with the money-changers in the Temple. Demetrius and his fellows obviously believed that Christianity would be bad for their business.
The original idol of Diana of the Ephesians was believed to have fallen from the sky, a typically pagan form of revelation. Even simple meteors, much less artifacts falling from the sky, could change the course of history. Thus, Plutarch in his life of Lucullus tells how just before his forces were ready to go into battle, "on a sudden the sky opened, and a large luminous body fell down in the midst between the armies, in shape like a hogshead, but in colour like melted silver, insomuch that both armies in alarm withdrew." Most significant of all, however, was the famous Black Stone, a meteorite fixed in the wall of the Kaaba at Mecca. The Kaaba, according to E. Cobham Brewer in his Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, is a cubical stone house "said to have been built by Abraham on the spot where Adam first worshipped after his expulsion from Paradise. In the north-east corner is a stone seven inches long, said to be a ruby sent down from heaven. It is now black, from being kissed so often by sinful man."
Friday, September 21, 2012
Uncut Spinoza
( Originally written and posted on MySpace on March 24, 2009 )
Last week I went to a book sale held at the local public library. Set off to the side were "collectibles," more expensive items. Among these were 15 of the 30 volumes comprising the Universal Classics Library, published by M. W. Dunne in 1901. These are sumptuously bound works, printed on watermarked paper, which were printed in different editions, at least one of which, the "de luxe," was numbered. The 15 volumes were part of the de luxe edition.
Most people have encountered one or more of these volumes in their public library. Quite obviously, the sets were sold to the affluent when they were first published. I noted that every single one of the 15 volumes had uncut pages. Not a single volume had been read. Obviously, the volumes had originally been bought for purposes of display. More than a century had passed without their having come into the hands of a reader.
The topics of the volumes also seemed to be selected to appeal to the newly rich. Two volumes are the letters of Lord Chesterfield, two the diaries of John Evelyn, and no less than eight volumes the memoirs of various French courtiers of the 18th century. Only the philosophers included seemed to be unusual: Descartes, Spinoza, Schopenhauer.
I bought the single volume of Spinoza. It was the most modestly priced volume at only $6, the one that I felt that I could afford. The most expensive were those which had more appeal to the newly wealthy who are sine nobilitate. Although I have read this volume of Spinoza before when I encountered it in a library collection, I have decided to read it again.
These uncut volumes reminded me of the richly bound leather volumes I have seen in some local antique shops, which one may buy by the foot. The volumes I have seen were all in Danish and on sale in Arkansas! Obviously, they were being sold solely as items of decor. One must wonder who would buy such volumes by the foot to decorate their living rooms. Would they anticipate having visitors so uninterested in books as to be unlikely even to gaze upon the titles?
Last week I went to a book sale held at the local public library. Set off to the side were "collectibles," more expensive items. Among these were 15 of the 30 volumes comprising the Universal Classics Library, published by M. W. Dunne in 1901. These are sumptuously bound works, printed on watermarked paper, which were printed in different editions, at least one of which, the "de luxe," was numbered. The 15 volumes were part of the de luxe edition.
Most people have encountered one or more of these volumes in their public library. Quite obviously, the sets were sold to the affluent when they were first published. I noted that every single one of the 15 volumes had uncut pages. Not a single volume had been read. Obviously, the volumes had originally been bought for purposes of display. More than a century had passed without their having come into the hands of a reader.
The topics of the volumes also seemed to be selected to appeal to the newly rich. Two volumes are the letters of Lord Chesterfield, two the diaries of John Evelyn, and no less than eight volumes the memoirs of various French courtiers of the 18th century. Only the philosophers included seemed to be unusual: Descartes, Spinoza, Schopenhauer.
I bought the single volume of Spinoza. It was the most modestly priced volume at only $6, the one that I felt that I could afford. The most expensive were those which had more appeal to the newly wealthy who are sine nobilitate. Although I have read this volume of Spinoza before when I encountered it in a library collection, I have decided to read it again.
These uncut volumes reminded me of the richly bound leather volumes I have seen in some local antique shops, which one may buy by the foot. The volumes I have seen were all in Danish and on sale in Arkansas! Obviously, they were being sold solely as items of decor. One must wonder who would buy such volumes by the foot to decorate their living rooms. Would they anticipate having visitors so uninterested in books as to be unlikely even to gaze upon the titles?
Cognitive Dissonance at "The Nation"
( Originally written and posted on MySpace on May 31, 2009 )
The Nation is a weekly review which is firmly planted on the left. [ I } read it only because [ I get ] a special academic discount. Obviously, someone must subsidize it. Why people who are affluent enough to have money to give away, choose to give it to The Nation is a minor mystery. There are obviously "values voters" on the left as well as on the right.
Once in a long while, writers at this weekly show some signs of ideological stress. Such appears between the lines of a lengthy essay review in the June 8, 2009, issue, the "Spring Books Issue." Chosen as the cover story, where it is entitled "William Deresiewicz on Literary Darwinism," it is a review of several new books about the new school of Darwinian literary criticism. Among titles reviewed are Jonathan Gottschall's The Rape of Troy: Evolution, Violence, and the World of Homer and his more theoretical Literature, Science, and a New Humanities.
This obviously presents a dilemma to the reviewer. He settles for arguing that Darwinian literary criticism is not really relevant to literature. Writing in The Nation he cannot damn Darwinism, a deed which might lead some people to place him in the company of people on the Christian Right. On the other hand, he realizes that findings of Darwinian literary critics as well as the findings of evolutionary psychology in general are not supportive of the left's concept of humanity. This is because the left wants everything human to be an outcome of culture, not nature. Leftists can create a new culture, a new society, to remove all and any flaws of humanity. They do not want to contend with anything based in heredity.
Deresiewicz does have one very sound observation to offer:
" The humanities, meanwhile, are undergoing their own struggle for survival within the academic ecosystem. Budgets are shrinking, students are disappearing, faculty positions are being lost, institutional prestige has all but evaporated. As the Darwinians are quick to point out, a lot of this suffering is self-inflicted. In literary studies in particular, the last several decades have witnessed the baleful reign of ' Theory, ' a mash-up of Derridean deconstruction, Foucauldian social theory, Lacanian psychoanalysis and other assorted abstrusiosities, the overall tendency of which has been to cut the field off from society at large and from the main currents of academic thought, not to mention the common reader and common sense. . . ."
The Nation is a weekly review which is firmly planted on the left. [ I } read it only because [ I get ] a special academic discount. Obviously, someone must subsidize it. Why people who are affluent enough to have money to give away, choose to give it to The Nation is a minor mystery. There are obviously "values voters" on the left as well as on the right.
Once in a long while, writers at this weekly show some signs of ideological stress. Such appears between the lines of a lengthy essay review in the June 8, 2009, issue, the "Spring Books Issue." Chosen as the cover story, where it is entitled "William Deresiewicz on Literary Darwinism," it is a review of several new books about the new school of Darwinian literary criticism. Among titles reviewed are Jonathan Gottschall's The Rape of Troy: Evolution, Violence, and the World of Homer and his more theoretical Literature, Science, and a New Humanities.
This obviously presents a dilemma to the reviewer. He settles for arguing that Darwinian literary criticism is not really relevant to literature. Writing in The Nation he cannot damn Darwinism, a deed which might lead some people to place him in the company of people on the Christian Right. On the other hand, he realizes that findings of Darwinian literary critics as well as the findings of evolutionary psychology in general are not supportive of the left's concept of humanity. This is because the left wants everything human to be an outcome of culture, not nature. Leftists can create a new culture, a new society, to remove all and any flaws of humanity. They do not want to contend with anything based in heredity.
Deresiewicz does have one very sound observation to offer:
" The humanities, meanwhile, are undergoing their own struggle for survival within the academic ecosystem. Budgets are shrinking, students are disappearing, faculty positions are being lost, institutional prestige has all but evaporated. As the Darwinians are quick to point out, a lot of this suffering is self-inflicted. In literary studies in particular, the last several decades have witnessed the baleful reign of ' Theory, ' a mash-up of Derridean deconstruction, Foucauldian social theory, Lacanian psychoanalysis and other assorted abstrusiosities, the overall tendency of which has been to cut the field off from society at large and from the main currents of academic thought, not to mention the common reader and common sense. . . ."
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Kalki Avatar, according to the Dabistan
[ Originally written and posted on MySpace on April 14, 2009 ]
Somewhere I recall reading about a bumpersticker -- it must have been in fine print, given the length of the message! -- that ran something like this: " The good news is Christ is returning. The bad news is this time he's hopping mad! " This message came to mind when I read the following description in the Dabistan of the Kalki avatar:
" The tenth Avatar is to occur at the expiration of the
Kali-jug, for the purpose of destroying the Mlechas, or
enemies of the Hindoos. The Kalki Avatar is . . . .
to be of the Brahman caste. He will destroy
the corruptions of the world, and all the Mlechas, that is,
Muhammedans, Christians, Jews, and such like, are to be
entirely extirpated . after which the Satyog, or golden age,
is to return. "
According to the Hindu belief, the golden age preceded the existence of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. This reminds me of the parochial high school students who were sent to the library to research the Middle Ages. Sometimes they had to find out about clothing in the Middle Ages. Sometimes it was eating utensils, or even jewelry, always during the Middle Ages. That was the golden age before the modern age of evils such as science, contraception, and Lutherans.
The enumeration of the ten avatars, which ends with the advent of Kalki, last and greatest of the avatars, is followed by an explanation of why avatars exist. The rationale for avatars seems to be the same as that for angels in the Abrahamic faiths, the need for intermediaries between a transcendent deity and his creatures.
" They moreover maintain that the contingently-existing
inhabitants and beings of earth are unable to penetrate into
the presence of the necessarily-existing sovereign, and that
the essence of the Creator is too exalted for any created
beings to attain to an acquaintance with it, notwithstand-
ing the high knowledge and piety with which they may
be adorned. It therefore seemed necessary to the Almighty
God to descend from the majesty of abstractedness and
absolute existence, and exhibit himself in the various
species of angels, animals, man, and such like, so as to
enable them to attain to some knowledge of himself.
They therefore assert, that for the purpose of satisfying
the wishes of his faithful servants, and tranquillizing their
minds, he has vouchsafed to manifest himself m this abode,
which manifestation they call an Avatar and hold this to
be no degradation to his essence. . . . "
Somewhere I recall reading about a bumpersticker -- it must have been in fine print, given the length of the message! -- that ran something like this: " The good news is Christ is returning. The bad news is this time he's hopping mad! " This message came to mind when I read the following description in the Dabistan of the Kalki avatar:
" The tenth Avatar is to occur at the expiration of the
Kali-jug, for the purpose of destroying the Mlechas, or
enemies of the Hindoos. The Kalki Avatar is . . . .
to be of the Brahman caste. He will destroy
the corruptions of the world, and all the Mlechas, that is,
Muhammedans, Christians, Jews, and such like, are to be
entirely extirpated . after which the Satyog, or golden age,
is to return. "
According to the Hindu belief, the golden age preceded the existence of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. This reminds me of the parochial high school students who were sent to the library to research the Middle Ages. Sometimes they had to find out about clothing in the Middle Ages. Sometimes it was eating utensils, or even jewelry, always during the Middle Ages. That was the golden age before the modern age of evils such as science, contraception, and Lutherans.
The enumeration of the ten avatars, which ends with the advent of Kalki, last and greatest of the avatars, is followed by an explanation of why avatars exist. The rationale for avatars seems to be the same as that for angels in the Abrahamic faiths, the need for intermediaries between a transcendent deity and his creatures.
" They moreover maintain that the contingently-existing
inhabitants and beings of earth are unable to penetrate into
the presence of the necessarily-existing sovereign, and that
the essence of the Creator is too exalted for any created
beings to attain to an acquaintance with it, notwithstand-
ing the high knowledge and piety with which they may
be adorned. It therefore seemed necessary to the Almighty
God to descend from the majesty of abstractedness and
absolute existence, and exhibit himself in the various
species of angels, animals, man, and such like, so as to
enable them to attain to some knowledge of himself.
They therefore assert, that for the purpose of satisfying
the wishes of his faithful servants, and tranquillizing their
minds, he has vouchsafed to manifest himself m this abode,
which manifestation they call an Avatar and hold this to
be no degradation to his essence. . . . "
Friday, September 7, 2012
More Snippets from Hebraic Literature
[ Originally written and posted on MySpace on August 9, 2009 ]
Hebraic Literature is one of the volumes in the "Universal Classics Library," published in 1901 by W. M. Dunne in various editions. Single volumes from the set of 30 are frequently held by public libraries. [ I ] recently bought [a] copy at a local library book sale. Although the book was published in 1901, its pages were still uncut, as was the case with other volumes of this set which were for sale.
The volume Hebraic Literature was edited and annotated by Maurice H. Harris, a Reform rabbi, and includes selections from the Talmud, Midrashim, and Kabbala. Here and there, Hebraic Literature has passages that are remarkable and puzzling.
Consider the following from page 191:
" Most donkey-drivers are wicked, but most sailors are pious. The best physicians are destined for hell, the most upright butcher is a partner of Amalek. Bastards are mostly cunning, and servants mostly handsome. Those who are well-descended are bashful, and children mostly resemble their mother's brother. Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai bids us "kill the best of Gentiles" (modern editions qualify this by adding, in time of war), "and smash the head of the best of serpents." "The best among women," he says, "is a witch." Blessed is he who does the will of God!
Sophrim, chap. 15, hal. 10. "
One can understand calling butchers the partners of Amalek, but what can be the meaning of asserting that the best physicians are destined for hell or that the best among women is a witch? Many of the foremost rabbis, most famously Maimonides, distinguished themselves as physicians. This passage reminds one of some of the sayings attributed to the Cynics, such as Diogenes.
The following, even more paradoxical, is taken from page 181:
" Rabbi Shemuel says advantage may be taken of the mistakes of a Gentile. He once bought a gold plate as a copper one of a Gentile for four zouzim, and then cheated him out of one zouz into the bargain. Rav Cahana purchased a hundred and twenty vessels of wine from a Gentile for a hundred zouzim, and swindled him in the payment out of one of the hundred, and that while the Gentile assured him that he confidently trusted to his honesty. Rava once went shares with a Gentile and bought a tree, which was cut up into logs. This done, he bade his servant go to pick him out the largest logs, but to be sure to take no more than the proper number, because the Gentile knew how many there were. As Rav Ashi was walking abroad one day he saw some grapes growing in a roadside vineyard, and sent his servant to see whom they belonged to. "If they belong to a Gentile," he said, "bring some here to me; but if they belong to an Israelite, do not meddle with them." The owner, who happened to be in the vineyard, overheard the Rabbi's order and called out, "What! is it lawful to rob a Gentile?" "Oh, no," said the Rabbi evasively; "a Gentile might sell, but an Israelite would not."
Bava Kama, fol. 113, col. 2. "
The following is Rabbi Harris's annotation: " This is given simply as a sample of the teaching of the Talmud on the subject both by precept and example. There is no intention to cast a slight on general Jewish integrity, or suggest distrust in regard to their ethical creed. "
One can see how training in argumentation re the Talmud would be a good exercise preliminary to the study of the jurisprudence of the gentiles.
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