Heroic imagery

The great struggle for our civilization is immanently winnable on the military front. The most dangerous and vulnerable front, however, is the psychological front here in the states themselves. As I am a firm believer, therefore, in the power of imagery to sway imaginations, I consider this movie “United 93” to be brilliant. We’ve seen anti-American and anti-heroic movies spew forth from Hollywood; everything from “Syriana” to “Sin City.” Where in all that is the character of the hero, the man or woman willing to lay down their life for what is right and good and true? The fictional character of Batman in “Batman Begins” was one such hero in an ocean of depressing and demoralizing films. So to was the story of “Cinderella Man.” But the first was a cartoon character, the second a character from an earlier era in American history. With the movie “United 93” heroes of the present age are depicted. This is exactly what is needed right now. Not only must the image of heroism be championed to combat the negative rewriting of history surrounded the events of 9-11, but it must be championed lest we, like the character Unferth in the Beowulf epic, lose heart, quail, and retreat. At this point in our history the enemy is at the gates. And if, through fear and cowardice, our shield wall breaks now...

On the Study of History

An exchange with one of my recent grads.

You told us the importance of studying history and it's significance in every knowledgeable persons education. I was recently asked by a fellow student why I would major in a study which is not about true "facts". He went on to say that the winners write the history books therefore we are given skewed and twisted accounts of what actually happened. Basically we cannot read a primary historical text and know for sure if what is said happened or if we are getting a distorted version. I knew this was dangerous logic and that just because you do not witness an event does not mean you cannot be sure it happened but I was not entirely sure what to say at the time. I tried to remember what you had said to us way back in the dark ages of 11th grade but alas, my memory grew clouded.
Your friend is essentially dodging the issue. It isn't that the logic is poor (which it is) but that is a pseudo-intellectualism that borrows the trappings of logic in order to avoid addressing the issue. Sure history is written by the winners. To say otherwise is assinine. How could losers write history? They're all dead!!! One might just as easily ask why study music since we only know the music written by musicians, or why study math since only mathematicians show it to us. Foolishness. But if we say "oh, the winners write history" we can effectually avoid having to memorize dates, names, events, avoid studying the scope and drama of human existence, avoid the rigor of getting our facts right. Essentially your friend is acting like a lazy slob who chooses to look smart instead of being smart. (Tell him I said so).
It isn't important that the winners write history but that there be around winners who can write at all. It is a consummation much to be desired that those same winners who can write take interest in the passing of human events enought to chronicle what happened.
Why should it be important?
Well, first see my blog entry on Anselm and the nature of education.

In brief, every study we engage in is really a study of ourselves. We learn about ourselves (gnothi seauton) so that we might know more about that which we most closely represent; namely the divine. The study of any discipline is only superficially about the subject matter (numbers, or history, words, or notes). Primarily it is a study of who we are and how we relate to the world around us. Simone Weil states that studying anything teaches us to be aware of our surroundings, to "pay attention." Indeed, the strictness of history forces the student to look at what really is there, not what they want to be there. Did Custer really get slaughtered by the Indians? Were the Crusades really against the Muslims? Was the potato famine really a disaster for the Irish? By doing so we learn the discipline of looking at things around us and letting them speak to us. We learn our own capacity for error, insight, accuracy and sloth. These things are important no matter what course of study we choose, but history particularly teaches us these things.
Second, sure there are bad historians; twisters of facts, fabricators of data, charlatans of academia; but ought that not be more incentive instead of less for good men, honest and intelligent to enter the field? Every story is an interpretation and as history is story it too is interpretation. But interpretation does not imply falsehood. I interpret that the sun is rising in the morning. Is the sun rising? Yes. I interpret that the ground is hard when I slip on the ice and fall down. Is it hard? Yes. Just because our interpretation corresponds to reality doesn't mean that the interpretation is erroneous. Good historians do all they can (barring the limits of their cultural background, personal predilections, and natural comprehension) to convey the meaning of the events accurately. In fact, one who does interpret the events is normally a better historian than one who purportedly does not because he can more thoroughly convey to his audience the sense of what really was. Everyone interprets events. As soon as we open our mouths we are interpreting by the mere act of choosing this word and not that one. So those who claim to not interpret history really are interpreting and should be watched, very carefully.
Third, "the farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see." Churchill was correct in this. The man who knows history v. well knows that what is happening currently, and what might happen eventually, are events that follow a pattern. Lack of knowledge about how the Nazis gained power only hobbles a man into believing that expediency outweighs legality. Knowing that appeasement has never ever ever ever ever worked against tyrants prevents one from thinking that Sean Penn has a rat's chance in Hades of stopping Saddam Hussein. "those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat" says Tocqueville, and he was right. Moreover, to paraphrase Boethius, the insight into the patterns of history allows one to see the workings of the Pattern Maker. How does God operate in the carnage and joys of human life? Historical study grants a window into the mind of the Maker.
Fourth, historical study ought to be engaged in because it's simply so much fun. Essentially those who do not acknowledge history as worth while have failed to make the effort to see what is good in the study. Essentially, history is a lot of fun; all those slaughterings, torturings, diseases, empire-buildings, marriages, betrayals, skullduggeries, survivals, struggles, journeyings, oratoryings, artifactings, partyings, and livings that people have done for who knows how long are a riot to read and think about. It gives delight to see and makes one happy to think about and as such makes one a little bit more godlike; as God delights in watching us scuttling betwixt heaven and earth, so too we delight in seeing the panorama of history laid out before us. Your friend has not only denied himself a real joy, he has denied himself the opportunity to become more like God.
Yes, history does repeat itself but why do we really study history? Why is it so essential for every humans education? Was Winston Churchill right when he said "The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see"? What does really mean? I think it was Boetheus who said that we do not realize the true worth of our goods until they are gone. ... Please remind the current students of how blessed they are to attend their school and to really take advantage of the rich education which can't find anywhere else. You and the other teachers are such an invaluable resource and so kind share your knowledge with your students even when they are hundreds of miles away.
Ah... you tell them and you tell them, but do they listen? No. C'est la vie.

Spirituality and Religion

So the question to ask is, what is the difference btwn religion and spirituality?

Spirituality has to do with the spirit; it is the innate quest in every human for the source of being in which his own being, or spirit, participates. Spirituality has to do with the desire of becoming seeking Being. Thus everyone by nature engages in spirituality and this engagement is identical in every person. Spirituality is always the search for the source of Being. Thus the phrase "authentic spirituality" as used by the Church means an honest desire to find the source of our being (as opposed to going through the motions).

Religion has to do with the manner in which the individual expresses that search. Thus religion is an outward visible sign of an interior and invisible desire. Religion comes in different forms, each form either more or less conducive to the spiritual quest natural to man. Catholicism is the most authentic religion b/c it most readily facilitates that quest innate in every human being.

The weakness lies in the fact that spirituality without religion has no form or expression to it; it's just longing and good feelings. But another weakness exists in the forms of religion, some of which strangle the authenticity of the quest, others give little or no direction to the search and some obfuscate the search with too much doctrine and legalism.

The solution seems to be a balance between orthodox fidelity to the doctrine of the Church and honest desire for the good which frees one from becoming a guardhouse lawyer for the Church.

Books on Islam

Here's a great book on the problems in the Islamic world. Author is David Pryce-Jones. Probably the most thorough treatment of the issue I've yet come across. Also look at "What Went Wrong" by Bernard Lewis. Also try Fouad Ajami's "Dream Palace of the Arabs." When finished read also Dore Gold's "Hatred's Kingdom." Necessary reading. Or you could read the much touted recent book by Karen Armstrong which proclaims Islam to be a religion of peace. Right. "What big teeth you have, Grandimam."

Anselm and the aim of education

In his Monologion Anselm states

The name “wisdom” does not suffice to show me that through which all things were made from nothing, and through which all things are preserved from returning to nothing. The name “essence” cannot express that which is far above...and beyond...all things. ...The supreme nature is ineffable, because it simply cannot be made known as it is by means of words. But a claim about the supreme nature, if one can be made that is dictated by reason and is stated indirectly –in a riddle, as it were- is not false.
On must work through something other than it. ...what one gets closest to knowledge of it through, is that which most closely resembles it...and the greater the resemblance and excellence, the more it helps and teaches.
Now... every essence is simliar to the supreme essence in so far as it exists... and...the rational mind (is) that which comes closest to the supreme essence in virtue of its natural essence. So then, the rational mind may be the only created thing that is able to rise to the task of investigating the supreme nature, but it itself is... that through which it may come closest to finding something out about it. ...the efficacy of the mind’s ascent to knowledge of the supreme nature is in direct proportion to the enthusiasm of its intent to learn about itself.
The mind, therefore, might be most appropriately called its own mirror. The mirror in which it
sees the reflection of that which famously, it cannot see “face to face.”
(Monologion 65 and 66)

Education is, then, like a mirror by which we see ourselves. Each study, whether it be math or science, language or history is not primarily to learn the subjects per se. Nor is it simply a practical exercise by which we perfect our skill to earn more. Rather, each study, contemplation, struggle with a discipline shows back to us something of who we are. We study science or math and learn our own limits and successes; our connection to scientific or mathematic principles; our place in them amidst the greater plan of the universe. We study language or history and learn our own facility for or weakness in each; the cultures of other men which reflect back to our culture; the capacity we have for loving or not loving a language, people or event; our own comprehension or lack thereof for language and history’s representational power and approximation of the truth. When we study anything we study ourselves. “Gnothi seauton,” said the Greeks, “Know Thyself.” Man is a riddle; a metaphor; a circumlocutory means by which we discover who God is. When we study ourselves we learn more about the source of our own being who is God. Thus by the struggle with subjects, even subjects we dislike or for which we have no natural propensity, we acquire a knowledge of who we are as individuals, and when we do this we peer into a mirror in which we see the reflection of Him Whom we cannot yet see “face to face.”

On Mill Locke Hobbes Smith and the Founding of America

Last semester we read Mill's Utilitarianism and his On Liberty, and they seemed to be very problematic in their utilitarian views. I've also recently been looking into Adam Smith and David Hume and their utilitarian views. My problem with utilitarianism is that there's no way that it can prove a fundamental moral code, and degenerates into something entirely relative. Truth is in the intellect of the perceiver. It sounds far too much like the materialism of Protagoras and some of the other pre-socratics. What I was wondering is doesn't this seem to pose a problem for America, because this was the major line of thinking at the time, and I know these thinkers influenced the founders of our nation. And if these are the principles that our nation was founded upon, then wouldn't it make sense that we have a very strong tendency towards relative morals with the removal of religion from the state? Also, utilitarianism seems to be supposed upon the idea of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. Mill seems to try to reconcile this idea with an absolute good by being very careful in how he says things, but it seems that he fails. If this were true, it would seem to explain the ideas behind capitalism and America's tendency towards, although not entirely, greed and selfishness. I was wondering what you would have to say about this, because it seems that these ideas somewhat undermine the notion we have of our own country. I'm not sure what I think about it, and I was curious to see what you would have to say.

Let's not be too hasty (as the ents would say). Sure John Stuart Mill of his own free will after half a pint of whiskey was particularly ill; he did influence the framers of the Constitution who saw, clearly I think, that the majority of people are in fact utilitarian. Most people operate in terms of the cost/benefit analysis (how much will this cost me? What will I get out of it?). Most human beings weigh their lives in terms of the credits and debits and how much pain they will have to suffer. That's a fact. But that fact doesn't negate the fact that there is a greater reason for doing things. Nor does it negate the goodness of a system of government that takes into consideration this fact of human nature. The founding fathers did read Mill, and Hobbes, and Locke and many others (they were quite well read; fortunately for us. Imagine a nation being formed today by the Kanye Wests and Barbara Streisands among us). So our system of government does account for the utilitarian aspect of human nature; "if men were angels no government would be necessary" and attempts to incorporate that profit analysis as a motivating factor for doing the good. People will do the good when they perceive some benefit from doing so. Create a system of government that accounts for that and you've got a good thing.

Similarly Adam Smith with his economic views had something when he claimed that wealth promoted virtue. He was, of course wrong, b/c the wealthy and powerful can be just as dastardly as the poor and squalid, and they have more ablty to do so. But wealth and prosperity can be great motivating factors for achievement, production and self-analysis. Moreover, as most every philosopher has noted, it is easier to be good when you don't have to worry about grinding poverty (think Cephalus at the beginning of the Republic). Absolute power may corrupt absolutely, but absolute poverty is a bitch. Capitalism, therefore, keeps people happy b/c they have access to the basic needs that support life and allow for pursuits that are conducive to happiness. As Michael Medved pointed out yesterday, those in poverty in America are in poverty b/c they have made certain choices about their lives, not b/c jobs and wealth are unattainable. That's a remarkable observation about the capitalist system; that it allows the individual to choose poverty or wealth rather than having poverty or wealth thrust upon 'em. The Founding Fathers recognized that the ablty to attain wealth and position in the world was an essential of freedom, and thus a staple of democracy. They made a point not to disenfranchise the children of criminals and traitors, they broke up the laws of primogeniture (wherein the first born gets all the inheritance), they secured the ownership of patents, property, and trade, they allowed communities to set taxes and fees for themselves. Radical stuff, that! And all based on the idea that wealth nourishes freedom which allows happiness.

The Hobbesian effect on the Constitution is that "oceans of blood" have been spilled. They did not discount that there are among us violent, mercenary, savage men who will use everything at their disposal for self-promotion and domination of others. Considering this, though, they created a governmental system very unHobbesian; no king, no terror police, allowing popular vote. What they did incorporate was a strong nod to law and a system of law that could best reduce the violence of which men are capable.

The Lockean influence is that they saw rights as inherent, or inalienable in men due to their mutual creation by a Being superior to them. They also held that those rights are forfeited by the depriving others of their rights. Thus a system of law was needed. But more importantly a system of government was needed whose purpose was not to increase cost/benefit security (like Mill) or decrease human nastybrutishshortishness (like Hobbes) but to secure the rights of individuals. I think that's a pretty radical turn considering the way they could have gone (rampant atheistic materialism or totalitarian authoritativism). Furthermore, Locke, being the practical thinker he was, saw rights of individuals as tied up most closely with the access to property. Thus the government that secured property beyond the grip of even the ruler of the country was the best form of government and the most free (which is why I hate this new business of eminent domain).

In sum, the founding of the United States is based on Mill, but also on Hobbes, Hume, Smith, Locke, the Bible, English Law, Roman precedent, and Greek philosophy. In some ways, it is the product of a philosophical system distinctly American; the melting pot of ideas. Mostly, though, we as humans have always had a tendency to consumerism, relativistic thought, atheism, self-indulgence, violence, and vice. That's just how we are. We are also capable of great good, generosity, happiness, thought, art, politics, creation, and fructification of joy. The Europeans , the Asians, the Native Americans, and the Africans are no less (and perhaps more) guilty of this than we are. The American system of government is great, not b/c it makes men into angels, but because it minimizes our destructive tendencies as much as possible and appeals "to the higher angels of our spirit" as Lincoln would say.

Still More on Hamlet

I guess it seems like if we are to place such an emphasis on her innocence and lack of knowledge of the world, then how do we hold her accountable for her actions in the work?
Innocent people can wreak havoc by their mere innocence. Shakespeare seems to have had a problem with pure innocence even while he lamented its vulnerability. The innocents of the world need protecting, are a hobble to those who protect them, often do not know the very damage that they cause. I think this last is very apparent in the denial scene.
For example, her denial of Hamlet - what do we do with that? Do we dismiss it as merely the struggle she faces in owing loyalty to her father's wishes? Or is she culpable for destroying Hamlet's trust in her and their relationship?
Both. She doesn't realize that her denial of Hamlet is going to be received as severely as it is or that her own father is capable of dangerous politics. She is obedient to him to try to win his love, but loses the love and friendship of Hamlet as consequence. She's culpable to the degree that she chooses her fool father over the madman (who even she seems to think is mad).

I'm confused about the nunnery scene: Hamlet moves from debating with himself to recognizing Ophelia and having a moment of joy. He puts back on a mask of jollity calling her "nymph" and joking that she is divine....Why is this joy a mask? It seems like he is seeking out that peace he used to be able to find in Ophelia - the line following "nymph" seems to be sincere. I can't recall anywhere else in the play where Hamlet reveals that much of himself to a character...he bears his soul to the audience alone, and maybe he confides a little in Horatio (especially at the end of the work, although before that it seems to be mere details of his plot against Claudius). But it seems that Ophelia is the only one Hamlet trusts at this point, and after she returns the letters he realizes that even this trust in her has been corrupted. And then the mask of madness and words appears.
Unfortunately, the mask of madness and words exists from the outset. Part of what Shakespeare is conveying throughout the play is that what we (the audience) percieve to be real (the bearing of Hamlet's soul in the soliloquoys, the love btwn Hamlet and Ophelia, the duel at the end of the play) is itself a mask; it's a play put on by actors who do not express their feelings, who do not fall in love, who do not fight and die. This level of interpretation is complex b/c it involves the interaction btwn the audience and the truth through the story portrayed by the actors using words. That's a lot of levels to get through to see what's "really" happening. The big question raised, then, is "when do we humans ever 'take off the mask'?" Are we ever fair? Are we ever honest? Even in our prayers, our thoughts, our reflections in private we wear a mask of images and ideas that can obscure who we are and what we truly think. Pray can become rote; thoughts can become guarded; reflections can become bent. Our very existence as humans is itself a conundrum b/c we cannot interact with anything (even God) without the panoply of words; and (as the deconstructionist point out) words themselves are by their nature deceptive. If we stick with the story alone and skip over the problems of human nature and the whole thing being a big lie portrayed by professional liars, concentrate on the story and characters alone, we are still stuck with the problem that Hamlet wrestles with; all words are a mask. The minute he opens his mouth he is putting on a show or front or character, even to Ophelia, and what he thought before was honesty was in fact only a facade. What motivates him? Joy? Desire? Humor? Friendship? Longing? Sexuality? Even the seeming honest expression of joy at her presence becomes a tool for manipulation and getting his way "Nymph in thy orisons be all my sins remembered" = a tease which is calculated to delight the one who gives him joy.
C.S.Lewis treats of this inability to get beyond the mask in his fiction work "Until We Have Faces." So too does Walker Percy in "The Message in the Bottle" and Michael Edwards in "Towards a Christian Poetics." Always between us and others we have the word which acts like a mask. It conjures in the mind of another ideas, emotions, images which we want to be there. The risk which anyone aware of this activity runs is btwn becoming manipulative like a dragon or sorcerer and becoming a steward of the free choice in others (like a wizard). The mask of words, the limitations of the physical world, or inescapable; we are always something at their mercy. But if we are able to discover what we are about we stand more of a chance of lessening that helplessness and using words to benefit; either our own benefit or the benefit of the good.
This is what Hamlet really seems to be struggling with throughout the play. Now that he's "seen behind the curtain" words have lost their meaning; the mask cannot be removed, but all has become mask. He is then faced with wizardry (to be) or dragonishness (not to be). Words have connection to being but what is that connection? when we use words are we participating in or denying being? And does all conversation now bereft of real meaning become a cacaphony of words, words, words? There are glimpses of hope through the darkness of this play (the flash of romance btwn H & O, the humor of the players, the ending of the work) but mostly it is a dark and terrifying work in which all the world has become a "pestilential congregation of vapors," Denmark has become "a prison," love has become "stewing in the incestuous sheets," and Hamlet, the only one who seems to have seen beyond this world, teeters on the brink of suicide. That's pretty grim.
What then does one make of the Fortinbras speech. "From this time forth, my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth." It's a frequently overlooked soliloquoy but I marvel at it. I think the realization that so many men are going to die for nothing seems to prompt Hamlet out of his quandary. Maybe our lot in this world is only to die? Maybe our lot in this world is to try and accomplish something before we die? Maybe our lot in this world is to have "bloody thoughts" only? Or maybe this speech sends Hamlet into a deeper darkness which seeks to enact its will on others and not just himself. he then stands in peril of tremendous disaster. And what could possibly prompt him to say, then, "We defy augury..." and "...the rest is silence." Does something happen btwn the Fortinbras speech and the defy augury speech that changes him?

More on Hamlet

We must acknowledge the part Ophelia has to play within the work.
Ophelia always struck me as the innocent destroyed by a corrupt world. Shakespeare seemed particularly concerned with how evil destroys innocents (Little MacDuff killed by the criminals, Mercutio killed by Tybalt, Othello and Desdemona destroyed by Iago). He must have seen in his day the slaughter of innocents must have been frequent occurrence (as it is, shockingly, in our enlightened age too) His plays raise a huge problem of how innocence is to survive in a world fueled by brutal cynicism and underhanded skulduggery. How, after all, are any of us to seek revenge for wrongs done us and yet "taint not our minds". A diabolic problem requiring some Maxwell's demon for its solution.
...we learn the most about her through her relationship with Hamlet.
But through Shake's mastery she isn't just Hamlet's foil, either. We can say that she's just the "straight man" in order to see more about Hamlet. What kind of girl would a man like Hamlet love? What kind of woman would have so strong a friendship with her brother? What kind of woman would be able to stand up to Hamlet's ravings as she does? What kind of woman would have a love for her daddy despite his buffoonery? She is both intriguing and amazing, but also pathetic and pitiable. Not the feminist strong dykewoman so loved by modern women professors but a sweet, beautiful young girl as yet untouched by the cruelty of the world. One could ask whether she is at fault for what happens to her. Why doesn't she see the intrigues of the court? Why does she think so highly of her dad? Why does she love a young man who cannot give himself to anyone b/c of his own responsibilities and self-preservation? Look at that whole "Get thee to a nunnery" exchange. Why does Hamlet warn her off as vehemently as he does? What has he seen in her that he so desperately wants to shield? If "nunnery" is another word for whorehouse (which it seems to have had that double-entendre for Elizabethan audiences; like "sugar shack" for us) is Hamlet suggesting that what she needs is immersion in experience in order to survive the terrors of the world? Is his message more than just a warning to flee the court to a place of security? Is it ironical in that "nunnery" is also a religious group cloistered from the world and safe in the pursuit of holiness? I think yes to all those questions.
...taking off his mask for her alone...Hamlet's unending restlessness seems to be a bit calmed in her presence.
True, though Shakespeare does the fascinating trick of implying that this release of the tension of the mask with Ophelia has occurred but can no longer occur in the context of the play. "I loved you... you were wrong, I loved you not!" Hamlet suggests that yes, he did love her and did lead her to believe that the love was sincere; but that was in the carefree days of youth, before college, before his father was murdered, before he had to don this facade in order to survive. Because of the necessity placed upon him to live in Denmark under a shadow he cannot any longer allow her to think that he loved her or allow her to persist in loving him. therefore, "I loved you not." There's an interesting linguistic play on time in this exchange with Ophelia which we see also in the scene with Polonius and later in Hamlet's pre-duel speech.
With Ophelia it is "I did love you once (in the past)" (perfect tense) yet "I loved you not (b/c I did not know then what I know no about you)" but then "get thee to a nunnery" (b/c I love you too much to see you destroyed in the future). All this, of course in a tragic scene immediately following the debate to kill himself. Hamlet first greets Ophelia in this scene with joy "Soft you now, the fair Ophelia - nymph in thy orisons be all my sins remembered. How does my lord? I thank thee well." Hamlet moves from debating with himself to recognizing Ophelia and having a moment of joy. He puts back on a mask of jollity calling her "nymph" and joking that she is divine. Then she tries to return the "remembrances" as she has been instructed by her foolish father. This shocking change in character could not have gone unnoticed by Hamlet. What, she has doted on him without ceasing and suddenly wants to return his mementos to him? So Hamlet dons an even more concealing mask and denies that the mementos are his. Yet he is obviously stunned with her sudden duplicity; "Ha ha are you (honest) for real?" and then he's off playing the madman. Yet he is well aware that daddy (father; God) is listening. Most of his show with Ophelia is a power play against Polonius and the King (whom he undoubtedly suspects), yet a deadly one in which Hamlet is forced by circumstance to use the girl he loves as a tool to strike back at P&K while still retaining his mask of madness. Unfortunately, it is a mask which Claudius sees through "Love? His affections do not that way tend. Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a little, was not like madness. There's something in his soul o'er which his melancholy sits on brood, and I do doubt the hatch and disclose will be some danger..."
With Polonius we see "what do you read my lord? words (in the past), words (in the present), words (in the future)" and when asked "what is the matter, my lord?" Hamlet intentionally miscontrues the meaning to be a conflict "Between who?" Yet his response is pregnant of the problem which he faces; Hamlet no longer sees the meaning which words convey. Words have become empty tools to be bandied about and used as scutcheons. Was this b/c of the vows betrayed by his mother? B/c of the skepticism of college? B/c of the insight into what a piece of work is man? Or D all of the above? One way or the other, when he finally explains what he's about he makes this most cryptic and confusing statement "...for yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward." Though his statement seems merely madness, "yet there is method in it." Polonius (who is old) could grow young (as old as Hamlet) if he could go back in time; but also, Polonius (who is a fool) could grow wise (like Hamlet) if he could go back in time (and do it right)

On Hamlet

One of my students wrote this.

We were discussing Hamlet in my English seminar the other day and my professor began to make the case that Hamlet is merely a power hungry individual who toys with everyone in the play for an egotistical boost and an intellectual advantage. He also turned Ophelia into this ditz who we apparently shouldn't lay any blame on - apparently she's a droid who isn't responsible for her actions because she is at the mercy of her father and the king. Ultimately, the professor classified Hamlet neatly as a modern relativist (based on the "nothing is good or evil but thinking makes it so" line). I think it would be much more fair to say that Hamlet is struggling between the subjective tendencies in Renaissance thought (results of Wittenberg?) and his conception of objective ideals and virtues. What say you?

Here is my answer:

Ophelia is no drone. She's probably one of the most pathetic female characters Shakespeare ever constructed (more than Cordelia from Lear though less than Desdemona in Othello); the victim of her father's clownish intrigues and a genuine love for the young Hamlet. Ophelia is still unbroken by the world. She loves her daddy and brother (though she finds the one a nuisance and the other a lecturer). She has had mild flirtations with Hamlet (though they are only the first buddings of love in a young girl). That's why her "breaking" is so severe. She loses brother, father, lover all in one swoop and sees love as nothing but treachery and horror.
I see nowhere in the text that can justify reading her as a character to be ignored and take great hackle raising at the suggestion. Nor do I see in the text suggestion of the ego-boosting bullhockey that is suggested as an interpretation of the Hamlet character. He does play one character off of another and does use words to manipulate others, but the tension of the play seems lost on anyone who wants to read this as mere power struggle. Hamlet is disenfranchised; heir to the throne, yet his immediate sire has been cacked, he is next in line for cacking. Powerful people want his head.
His own mother has been rolling in the hay with the chief of these thugs thinking no more about the results of her actions than that she is again in love (or lust). "At your age the blood is cooled; it obeys the reason," says H. Would it were so. Humans are no damn good and often do things without any reason at all, save their only desperation and desire. Gertrude is desperate for love and probably desperate to save her own smoothe white neck so she makes the beast with two backs with the man who accedes to the throne. Problem; he's also her brother (as brother in law was considered brother in Renaissance England). That's a problem.
Hamlet, I think, is one of the best drawn Shakespearean characters; a young man so ripped up and twisted about by the "modernity" of the late Renaissance (an age that had fallen into despair not far removed from our own) that he no longer can see goodness as unadulterated with evil. Everything is questioned. Everything is probed. And everything is found to be no more than illusion; an artist's trick to make us happy little gerbils in the cosmic wheel (remember this was the age of intensely brutal wars, court intrigue and the use of perspective in art; a technique designed to deceive the eye into thinking the one dimensional was three dimensional; the unreal was real). He returns home b/c he heres of his father's "untimely death" where he has strong suspicions that "all is not right in the state of Denmark". But Hamlet is already ill-prepared to deal with the Byzantine intrigues he must face (intrigues very similar to those of Elizabethan England); he can't stand the sycophants, the violence of Claudius, the buffoonishness of Patronius, yet he is a player in this strange dance of death which is The court of Denmark. How else is he to survive?
Then comes the ghost. Is he a ghost? Is he a demon? Is he a figment of Hamlet's mind? The guards see him. Horatio does not. He speaks only to Hamlet. Why does he take the form of Hamlet, sr.? Is this the ripping of the veil of reality which Hamlet has so dreaded from his studies at Wittenberg? What comes forth but a creature that commands him to seek blood and yet taint not his soul? How does one do that? How do you seek vengeance and yet remain dispassionate from the world? How do you involve in the world and yet remain aloof?
Too many questions. Words. Words. Words. The cacaphony of questions, conversations, lies and evasions, flatterings, condemnations, plottings, billings and cooings of love... All lose their meaning for Hamlet and he hears nothing but the roaring din of words.
Thus at the very end come two vital moments. One where Hamlet says, just before the duel "we defy augury. There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be not now yet it will come; if it be not to come yet it is now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all." This magnificent moment where, in the face of struggling with all these questions and doubts, Hamlet realizes that the solution is to make oneself ready for what will happen and then place trust in Providence. This leads to the second powerful statement where Hamlet reaches his epiphany. As he is dying he says, "Horatio, what a wounded name. Absent thyself awhile in felicity and draw thy breath in pain to tell my tell. The rest is silence." He commands Horatio to tell the world about what he has seen. And what he has seen is that the rest of the next world is an end to all that din that makes up human life. Heaven is singing and party and joy; but at base heaven is a deep, undending silence to all the chaos and worry of this life.
Thus the play is one of intense terror, powerful introspection and social critique, and ultimately of great joy. Hamlet finds a way out from his pain by acceptance of the divine will and earns the benediction of Horatio who says, "good night, sweet prince. And may choirs of angels sing thee to thy rest."

On Happiness

In Boethius’ great work “The Consolation of Philosophy” Lady Philosophy states that
“happiness is the highest good of rational nature”
– Consolatio Philosophiae Bk II, iv
This is not true for animals whose highest good consists in existing. Nor is it true for the angels whose highest good consists in service.
Why? Rational souls perceive the good and choose by will, not instinct or duty. Animals are what they are by instinct; they neither choose to improve their condition by seeking higher good, nor do they denigrate their condition by choosing against their nature. For animals the greatest good is to be an animal. Cows are cows, eggs is eggs, and chickens are chickens. Angels are what they are by one, ineffable choice backed by a pure intellect which sees truth not by the slow and laborious acquisition of such but in one, all-encompassing flash of the essence of the thing. Thus their greatest good is not happiness, but service of the good. Rational souls, on the other hand, acquire knowledge through slow labor. Thus our will occurs not all in one fell instance but in ever increasing and hopefully improving instances. The rational soul knows the good by choice. It loves by choice that which it comes to know. It serves by choice that which it comes to love. This is the natural telos, or end purpose, of man. Added to this is the gift of the supernatural telos of man which is to be with God in heaven. This blessedness, or beatitude is a gift given to a person worthy of reciprocal love. Like the romantic relations between a lover and his beloved, the reciprocal love of God comes as a gift freely given to man who has freely chosen to make himself worthy of love. Similarly, the happiness that comes as gift in human relationships is the pattern for the happiness, or beatitude which comes from the romance with God. Thus Lady Philosophy also says that
“Submitting to His laws and obeying His governance is freedom.”
– Consolatio Philosophiae Bk I, v.
For rational souls this freedom is not duty or instinct but choice; freely given love, freely accepted gift of reciprocal love. Thus happiness is the free choosing of the good.
This raises a secondary question, namely whether happiness consists merely in the choosing of the good or the having of the good. If we look at natural examples we note that the man who chooses the fine food experiences a modicum of happiness when he chooses, but his happiness is not complete unless he actually receives and consumes the fine food. Otherwise his choosing remains incomplete because he suffers want. He does not fulfill or attain his desire and so remains unhappy. Similarly, a man who chooses to love a woman may possess some modicum of happiness in the choice itself, but more often than not he suffers intensely after his choice by not having the company and love of the woman he chooses. His choosing remains incomplete because he suffers want. He does not fulfill or attain his desire and so remains unhappy. The attainment of happiness, it would seem, is not solely derived from the choice but from the attaining or fulfilling of desire for the thing. In the realm of complete happiness which derives from that which is permanent rather than mutable the choice of the permanent is insufficient. One must attain the immutable and thus fulfill the desire for the immutable in order to be sufficiently happy. How then does one do this? How does one attain a reciprocal response. As said before one can’t “attain” such reciprocation in the way we attain a burger, or attain good health. There is no formula which ensures the giving of love. Yet in the romantic sense we can attain the free gift of reciprocal love; as the lover can attain his beloved’s consent, or the friend can attain the friendship of another through the showing of friendship. Our choice to pursue a knowledge of the good, not for grades, or prestige, or filthy lucre, but out of a sincere desire to know is rewarded with gaining a knowledge of the good made more intimate by deeper involvement. Our knowledge of the good prompts us to be drawn erotically toward the good which, though powerful, proves to be not an inexorable draw but one which we can choose to accept or reject. We fall in love with the good which we perceive first in lesser goods, then increasingly greater goods, until we love The Good itself. Our choice to love The Good itself prompts us then to serve That Good. Again, we choose to serve and are not made slaves, but like the medieval knight for his lady we put ourselves into the service of The Good, and thus “win” its love. Thus the scripture passage in which Our Lord says
“Whoever loves me will do my will, and my Father will love him and We will come to him.”
We cannot achieve happiness by good works alone, which are hollow actions without the love that prompts them, but neither can we achieve happiness by merely knowing or merely loving The Good. The three states of knowing, loving, and serving are intimately united. Without knowing one cannot love or serve for one cannot love what one does not know, yet without love and service, our knowledge of The Good remains vague, sterile, and cold. Claims of loving The Good without any real knowledge of what we are loving prove a shallow love and a service which often goes awry. Without knowledge and love, however, the actions of service are a facade; a farce designed to deceive or trick others and ultimately to trick God Himself into giving His love. Something akin to the false lover, or “player”, who knows the lies and tricks that worm into another’s heart and seduce their love but who has no intention of actually loving. This is the Pharisee who is “like a whited sepulcher” and “full of dead men’s bones.” Our freedom and happiness come not as a Pharisaical tricking or seducing of God, but as the natural consequence of reciprocal love.

What binds the atom?

What binds the atom to us?
Or us to the atom?
Where in the molecule’s matrix
Resides the eternal me?
When in the sun’s perpetual burning
Did my mortal flesh emerge
To tread the earth and make a noise
And interact with you?



I caught a raindrop
Slipping from the wet awning.
It was you, my love.

The maples’ golden glory,
So many bare of leaves.
Do our memories similarly stay?

Against the grey sky
A uniform wet canvas
You were the blue brush stroke.

When the sun’s long, langorous rays
Gild the wet parking lot in russet gold
I think of your laughing face.

Heaven must be a fiery place
A swimming in light and warmth of love
Heaven must be a beating heart
A return to the cocoon of the womb.

I ran my hand along your silky forearm
Bare, there, upon the morning pillow.
And each sweet soft silvery hair I touched
Sang of your gentle sleeping.

Bull Leaping

Last night I was considering the myth of the Minotaur. Surrounded by the labyrinth, darkness, down there in the cold; isn’t he a bit of a dragon after all? Flesheater? Unhuman? Half man half bull? If the bull is a divine creatures wouldn’t Pasiphae’s lust for it be a lust for a god, not bestiality? Why if they worshipped bulls would lust for the bull be “wrong”? Not the human thing, perhaps? But Zeus raped Leda in the form of swan; was that “wrong”? It seems it was wrong but more b/c of the terror of man joining with the divine. The bull is the divine power, potency, masculine strength. To “leap the bull” was the avoidance and flirtatious playing with that power; a power connected to the divinities of Orion and Taurus. Pasiphae’s lust for the bull and her subsequent hideous sexual union with the bull conceives a creature of both worlds; divine and human. But a monster. A cannibal that has ice for veins. He lives in the darkness and never gets out. So what is the myth saying? The labyrinth, though constructed by Deadalus to contain Minos’ monstrous bullchild, twists, turns, snakes about like the sinewy rills of the maze; the labyrinth of the mind; the gnomonic spiral of existence. So what? Do we not travel down that spiral in order to find truth? Spirallic structure is representative of the mind’s twists and turns in the search for the truth. What is the truth? That at the heart of things is a monster? Or is it that if we go searching in the darkness we might find a monster; a demon; some realization about ourselves as mortal/divine cannibals of each other which might not be easy to handle; a terror that threatens to consume us while we’re down there in the dark. And the only thing that gets us out is the thread of connection to the light; the clue laid down by one whom we love and who loves us. Ariadne’s concern for Theseus saves him from a cold and lonely death. Rosie’s love for Sam saves him from despairing at the loss of Frodo. We must come out from our dark and sinewy speculations on things and see the world in its wholeness through the prism of love; like in the last scene of the movie Pi; maybe there is no truth in the fragments of mathematics that make up the world; there is only truth in the wholeness of numbers together which walks the earth as incarnate man.

Et in Arcadia ego

Loss. I'm struck today by the idea of loss. Why do we as men need to lose in order to learn? I once had a nubile young filly of a student ask (after one of my more lugubrious lectures on the sorrow of “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”) why we couldn’t just be happy? Why were loss and pain necessary? Couldn’t we just go through life being happy and cheerful and kind? A good question. Wrong. But a good question, and perhaps more profound than she conceived.
When I was a freshperson in college I failed my first class. I was an arrogant goober at the time (not that that has changed too much) with ridiculous visions about college as a place of higher learning, where intellectuals equally concerned with virtue, thought, and looking good would sit about sipping cappuccinos in the sunny vestibules of the Georgian windows of the Wren building and discuss the forms of Plato. What a dope I was. Anyway, this math class I was taking began at 8AM. And interesting? If you can imagine a bowl of old socks you get an idea of how exciting this class was. I was number 382 in the class, I believe, and well, I stopped going to class. After about 3 weeks of not showing up to class I jokingly asked a classmate of mine “So, when’s our next test?” “You mean when was our last test?” he replied. The next morning, after my skin had recovered from the alabaster shade it had acquired from this conversation I raced down to the class and tried to explain to the teacher that I had been sick yesterday when the test was taken. I needed to have a note from the nurse to confirm that. But I was too sick to come to the class so how could I have gotten to the nurse? Too bad. Rules is rules. So I trucked over to the registrar to drop the class (it being the last day for drop/add). You need a signature of the professor from whose class you are dropping, by the way. After hoofing it to the math building to find the professor whose coveted signature I so craved I climbed the three flights to his office and found him gone home early for the day. So I made it a point to attend every class after that even if I fell asleep in each one (which I didn’t; only 85% of them), to take every quiz even if I didn’t do so hot on them, and to turn in every assignment (both of which I was able to complete). My plan seemed irreproachable and guaranteed of success. As a note to anyone reading, when your jaw hits the floor after reading your posted class rank at the end of a semester, it’s best not to try to walk out the door before you pick it up lest you tread on your own incisors and put a hole in your foot. There’s a giddy sort of feeling that sets in as you walk out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the math building knowing that you have ruined your entire career as a mathematician in college and will now be condemned to aeons of remedial math 101 classes. It was particularly hard to walk past the Wren building where hordes of good-looking J.Crew models hung out in the Georgian windows sipping their cappuccinos and laughing at me behind their Plato texts. That was particularly hard. The odd thing about failing a class; it completely liberated me as a scholar. After I failed that first class I thought I could do anything. That loss turned my vision of learning completely around; without it I wouldn’t think or act about education today nor have any of the lenience I have on students currently struggling under my tutelage to aspire to some level of rhetorical eloquence.
But enough of me. What do you think of me?
Seriously, I am intrigued by the idea that, as humans, we don’t learn without loss & pain. Studying itself is a form of loss & pain (anyone taking a physics course will agree with me on this). We learn from physical pain. We learn from the loss of loved ones. We learn from tragedy and horror and sorrow. We don’t learn near so much from happy stories, or happy experiences, or happy moments. Life isn’t about the moments that take your breath away; but maybe it’s about the breaths that take your moment away. In other words, maybe our learning must be through pain b/c we’re such naturally arrogant beanie-weanies. It’s always our moment, our popularity, our thoughts, our desires, our needs and wants. To hell with anyone else. I want what I want. The world will bend to my will; and you poor slobs that think you’re important will just have to love me and despair. Learning, true learning, comes not through the gratification of our vision of the world, but through a molding of our vision of the world to conform with that which really is; the truly real. So in order to effect such conformation we have to have the ego stripped away like onion layers; battered, beaten, shaken up, not stirred. Our knowledge of the truth is only made real when we stand without armor in the immensity of the real and perceive our own smallness and insignificance. We are no more than number 382 and our petty little sicknesses and whinings matter little in the classroom of the truth.
But my real amazement at this phenomenon is not so much at the how but at the why? If it is pride that necessitates the learning through pain, why would we be made such? B/c of fallen nature? But even that term “fallen nature” is a language by which to talk about something inherent in our being as humans. What is that thing? Pride? That too is a way of talking about this thing inherent in us as humans. Why is it that we can’t “all just get along” or we can’t just be happy and kind and cheerful? I know the end mechanics of such a Donna Reed education (by the way, Donna Reed kicks tail on any beautiful woman popular in cinema today. Look at her! She was a beauty in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” All the longing, desire, hope, erotic draw about which Plato rhapsodizes is there in Donna Reed!!!)... the end mechanics of continued prosperity, or the how, is that we become complacent, more desirous, insensitive to the world and its suffering. But the why? Why are we this way? What miserable beings we must be that we can’t even answer the reason why we can’t answer this question.