Elanor

U2 video

I made this last night on a spur of the moment sort of thing.
Fun.

SWRC coolness

Cool.



By me.

Basho

Shadows, smoke
The long night of dreaming
Immersion, oblivion
Dry land walkabout
Shapes brush past
The cheek is numb cold
Smoke & shadows!
A passing away.
The sun. she rises.
Breathe! Beauty! Form
Shadows. Submerged. Engulfed.
Darkness. Comprehending not.
Finding the light pinpoint.
Up from the depths

Struggle

Into…

Golden leaves of a sycamore tree.

I am a ghost.
I am but a butterfly
Dreaming of you.

Books and Time

I just got back from sorting my father's something 4000 books in order to sell some for cash. Quite the job. Dad was indeed a bibliophile of the first order and though he knew much and read much he also collected much that he did not read.

It has given me pause. I enjoy music, games, books, movies, play, gardening, sport, cooking... so many things. Do I need them all? Most of the time I think of life as a banquet (where most poor suckers are starving) but I'm beginning to think my time too is limited. What do I need to read, or need to do, or what will I never look at again? That extra copy of Hemingway? Junk. The third translation of Dante (or the fourth or the fifth)? Junk. Dostoevsky? Books on Cicero? Why keep all this stuff around? I'm never going to read it. And in the time left I had best get cracking on those things that interest me most.

Wake up call.

Tornado

A Paradox

A certain individual was commenting to me the other day that as a society we have the overarching malady that we look good without being good. He intimated that there was a certain hypocrisy in how we lived and that it needed to be fixed.

Seems to me that such a thought about our society is a mistaken notion derived from a misread of Platonic insight into the soul and that such a notion leads to a desire of intimacy with others that is not possible as well as a fanaticism bordering on Zwinglian severity.

In his great dialogues, most notably "The Republic", Plato notes that interior justice or goodness is superior to the outer hypocritical mouth service that most people give to goodness. Josef Pieper has suggested that Plato claimed a clairvoyant insight into the soul not possible to humans. Justice, Pieper writes, must rest on man's choices manifested in action. Law cannot expect to change the interior person except through correction of the outer action, but no man has insight into another's soul.

Plato never really makes any such claim to insight. Rather, he is suggesting a metaphor or myth by which the individual can come to understand his own interior state. He is a mystic more than a philosopher. The state of goodness in my soul is between me and GOD but I can have an inkling of that state through Plato's works.

Pieper is right in his commentary on law, however, which must be based on outer action and is, therefore, subject to the same hypocritical mess experienced by the individual soul. Law attempts to correct or fix the problems of human actions and thus to "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." But it seems a frequent human misconception, reminiscent of B.F. Skinner, that by repeated actions forced on a person life can be solved and made neat. As though if we strapped the subject to the chair and force fed him Beethoven and images of violence we could force him to change and become good.

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

Yet every human being endures a hypocritical dichotomy between what we profess and how we live.

Our life, like life in general, is messy. We have moments of great clarity, and moments of utter stupefaction. We stumble and shuffle our way toward Bethlehem to be born. We experience great successes and triumphs and we endure tremendous failures and incompetency. One moment we are sweet, insightful and loving, the next we are wrathful, annoying and incapable of seeing beauty in anything. Sometimes we fail utterly, but mostly when we fall we pick ourselves up again and once more go over the top.

Goodness. What is goodness? Is it attitudinal? Is it vision? Is it simply obedient submission to the law or forcing ourselves to succeed in everything? OR is it allowing life to be the complex, frustrating, infuriating, terrifying, mystifying, beautiful mess that GOD desires? Life is a mystery to be lived; a riotous garden of incredible wonder and disappointing failure.

It is not a problem to be solved.

Seems that the desire to solve this beautiful mess stems from an innate terror of or inability to cope with that very messiness. We can certainly claim, as did Aristotle and Thomas and other makers of law and doctrine, that certain actions lead to certain results. We can also make laws preventing or discouraging certain actions or methods to overcome certain frailties or errors. We can even demand that certain people under our care meet specific, well-laid out criteria for success or failure in a field.

But who has insight into the soul of another person? At what point can I claim that you ARE good? When do I have the ability to rectify that vast hypocritical gulf between your outer actions and your interior darkness? Do we scrub the soul maniacally like some pale-handed Calvinist or force the soul, through fire and water and incantation, to become good? What constitutes goodness, in such an instance, but my own vision of good? And if so, am I not GOD?

The Jews said that only GOD in heaven is wise, only GOD is good. Man is born a hypocrite and to live our lives with our hypocrisy always before us, never measuring up, never bridging the gulf between what we say and what we are, is the curse of Adam.

The Church calls this abyss "sin" - withoutness (sine) and it seems that the curing of sin belongs to the auspice of GOD not man.

For man to attempt to reconcile this hypocrisy generates only violence, anger, frustration, draconian law and ultimate disappointment at the failure of others to live up to our perfect and perfecting methodologies. We have to allow life to be out of our control and messily so such that the Sabbath remains for man and not man for the Sabbath.

Consequently, I don't save souls; I merely attempt to give them the ability to handle salvation when it comes to them.

GOD alone knows where your soul or my soul is and GOD alone will send the charging bull, or the Misfit, or the hurricane on board the Ghost, or the death of Patroclus, or the whiskey priest, or the bitter word from Absalom, or the wise word from Vergil to help you change.

Man's duty is to tend the field. To listen, as Simone Weill said, to what it is that we must do. To allow, as the I Ching suggests, the balance of all things to remain. To bring, as Plato suggests, what souls we can to freely choose light over darkness.

Her cancer

I had lost all thought that she was my wife.

All time stopped in that fierce apocalypse.

She dozed, drowsy, exhausted from the swim

The riptide of death and the incessant overwhelming waves.

She had gone where I could not go.

Her life was her own no more mine,

And in silence she conversed with herself and with pain.

Where in all this ragbag of guts

Is such a mystery of man contained?

And why, not knowing my bride just then,

Did I fall in love with her again?

Eros Four

A thousand fires in my heart tonight
In the place where my love's memory lies
Where late the cicada croaked on the wind
Licked at the base of the coniferous pines;
There lies the dryness of the serotinous cone
And all that the world's ignorance allows
Or disavows.

A thousand ashes in my heart tonight
In the place where my love's memory lies
Where late perched the hawk athwart the boughs to stoop
Piled upon ashes and the impending snow;
There was the comfort of the charred Monterey
And all that the world's diversions provide
Yet cannot hide.

A thousand snowfalls in my heart tonight,
In the place where my love’s memory lies
Where late sifted the owl on whispering wing
Echoed amidst the rocks and the frozen firs;
There lies the deep and dim indifference of the night
And all that the world’s emptiness gives
Or steals, or borrows.

A thousand rain drops in my heart tonight
In the place where my love's memory lies
Where late the nightingale and the whippoorwill sang
Hissed in silence on the resinous bark;
There lies the dark eternal twist of the fir
And all that the world's silence gives
And the expanse above.

The Exile of the Poets

In Book X of the Republic Socrates suggests that for the city to be perfect the poets (and all other arts by extension) must all be exiled citing “an old quarrel between philosophy and poetry”. Indeed, artwork is "that 'yelping bitch shrieking at her master,' and 'great in the empty eloquence of fools.' But the real reason of the exile is due to the comfort which art gives. Artwork becomes overly comforting and charms us into a false sense of security, yet offers no real solution to the problem:

…if poetry directed to pleasure and imitation have any argument to give showing that they should be in a city with good laws, we should be delighted to receive them back from exile, since we are aware that we ourselves are charmed by them. But it isn’t holy to betray what seems to be the truth.

Artwork charms the soul yet its “imitation is surely far from the truth.” Artwork is, in a way, a form of wizardry, an illusion which, even in its best form, only imitates the real but is not the real; “the maker of the phantom, the imitator, we say, understands nothing of what is but rather of what looks like it is.” The image which music, art, sculpture, or story creates captures some essential part of reality and as well as it captures reality we say it is “true”. Truth is the proximity of image (eikon) to the real. But between eikones and the good/real there is always a gulf, a lacuna or abyss, which cannot easily be breached; art is still only shadows on the cave wall. We have no assurance that any of the stories we tell, or music we enjoy, or artwork we pleasure in viewing has any connection to anything real; it may just be pleasant fairy tales told to children in order to prevent night fears. Art may be no more than “lies breathed through silver.”

If this is the case man is left with a terrible, unhealing wound. If our art does not connect to reality than how are we to know that we haven’t had generation after generation lying to each other and building on the lies until we no longer know the truth? Do we act the part of iconoclast and tear all the images down? It seems Plato is suggesting exactly that, when he suggests abandoning the old loves of our youth;

…just like the men who have once fallen in love with someone, and don’t believe the love is beneficial, keep away from it even if they have to do violence to themselves; so we too – due to the inborn love of such poetry we owe to our rearing in these fine regimes – we’ll be glad if it turns out that it is best and truest. But as long as it’s not able to make its apology, when we listen to it, we’ll chant this argument we are making to ourselves as a countercharm, taking care against falling back again into this love, which is childish and belongs to the many.

Our love cannot be childish; frivolously devoid of worry, responsibility, or gravitas, focused on insufficient things, seeking only self-gratification. Rather it must be strengthened by enduring its own possible non-being. What assurance does one have that he is loved? Love, like artwork, has no assurance that it is anything more than words. It cannot be measured, weighed, held in the hand. But if we are to value love as it ought to be valued it is incumbent on us to grow up, face the abyss of non-being, and realize that artwork & love are and are not real.

We are, at all events, aware that such poetry mustn’t be taken seriously as a serious thing laying hold of truth, but that the man who hears it must be careful, fearing for the regime in himself, and must hold what we have said about poetry.

The Er myth begins with battle, death and fire – Er is on the pyre when he wakes up from his visionary journey to the afterlife. Those hearing his vision have no absolute assurance that what he says is true, accept that a theophanic miracle has occurred; he has risen from the dead and so ought to know. But the battle, death and fire are themselves metaphorical for that apocalypse of the heart in which all things are transfigured and made new. Without such a transformation one’s loves, belief and understanding of art, life itself remain in an childish world of unquestioning fantasy, insensate and oblivious to the world around us. Real life is not possible in this state any more than it is possible in the realm of the tyrant who imposes his own will. One cannot be a tyrant or a child but must

… accept the fall of the dice and settle one’s affairs accordingly – in whatever way argument declares would be best. One must not behave like children who have stumbled and who hold on to the hurt place and spend their time in crying out; rather one must always habituate the soul to turn as quickly as possible to curing and setting aright what has fallen and is sick, doing away with lament by medicine.

What we are up against, our own misery, loneliness, and unavoidable annihilation are so daunting a hurt that they may leave us howling. But in this, Plato seems to suggest, we have to be men. Life is terrifying; our own oblivion almost unbearable. Yet we must look into it; we have to grapple with the angel of destruction and in that barren landscape have all our most cherished images and stories stripped away in an apocalypse of iconoclasm. Only then is the new heaven and earth able to occur; only then can the myth of Er be granted as something truly beautiful evocative of love.

Rollin A. Lasseter III 1939 - 2008

November 6, 1939 – May 12, 2008

Passed away at his home in Granger, IN is Dr. Rollin A. Lasseter. Born in Nashville, TN, he attended Montgomery Bell Academy and graduated from Vanderbilt University. He was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to graduate school. At Vanderbilt he led his team for three contests on national television’s popular “College Bowl.” In 1969 he received his Ph.D in English from Yale University. He was named “Teacher of the Year” twice at the University of Kentucky, was invited to direct the Honors Program there and eventually joined the English faculty at North Carolina State University, where he was given tenure. He taught at St. Mary’s College in South Bend, IN, as well as Trinity School at Greenlawn and the University of Dallas, TX. After retiring he shaped the Catholic Schools Textbook Project as director, editor and primary writer. He died on the morning of May 12, 2008 surrounded by family and loved ones. He is survived by his wife, Ruth Davis Lasseter of Indianapolis, IN, as well as his sisters Nancy L. Wolgast of Leesburg, FL, and Gertrude Patch of Lexington, KY; children, John, William, Ruth Katherine, Austin, Benjamin, and Helen. He is also remembered as a grandfather to 8 grandchildren Margaret, Rollin, and William jr; Helen, Edward, Teresa, and Samuel; and Sarah.

McGann Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements. The family requests that in lieu of flowers donations be given to the Catholic Schools Textbook Project, POB 4638, Ventura, CA 93007.

Pi - Darren Aranovsky

Not a movie for the faint of heart. Violent, spooky, disturbing, and incredible.



Here the interesting thing is the coordination of number patterns.



Plato suggests that The Good is known by analogy; we approach it by studying one form after another, from particulars to generals, or from physical to patterns to consistent repeaters to Forms. I think the neo-Platonic accretion of some metaphysical realm where the perfect form of "chair" floats about for eternity is a canard. Rather, the Forms are those principle patterns from which all other form or structure emanates - descending into matter and taking on the incarnate form of crystalline structure in the material world. Not a Gnostic hatred of the physical, but rather that the physical is connected to something far far greater. That greater thing, greater even than Being qua being is The Good. To learn of it we study the Forms in their various manifestations and acquire a vision of the beauty of life's structure.

But Plato fails.

The vision he provides is magnificent and can indeed create a great hope in us of the complexity, beauty and immensity of which we are but a small part. Yet his philosophy offers no consolation for our own misery. It is little consolation to suggest that we are part of a greater beautiful pattern, or that death allows us to see what is behind these pasteboard masks, or that we can face terror (the Minotaur) gracefully. We still are in our misery. Moreover, we don't really live by philosophy, even philosophy as great as this. We live and are inspired by the knowledge that another greater than we suffered and died and endured all those things the worst of which we too endure and yet never gave in to the animalian desire to despair. Thus The Christ surpasses Socrates b/c the image of His death provides us with encouragement that another (whether in historic reality or mythological reality) was able to overcome human pain through love; to hang on to humanity and endure the worst dregs of suffering.

I've been called a neo-Platonist pagan. No. Plato is phenomenal and in many ways his philosophy surpasses the modernist philosophy of the doctrinalist Christian. But the early Church and indeed those things most powerful in the Church are themselves based on the Platonic imagery, improve it, and perfect it. Where Socrates died in a mythical peace of hemlock-induced calm, I, like the Christ, might be less fortunate. And when the time comes to call for mercy and help it will be to the Anointed one and not to the philosopher that I make moan.

Eros Two

There is a place where the neck meets the shoulder,
Where the shadow of form undulates on the wave;
A place in the mesa smoothed out by the rain,
The arroyo that runs through the ribbons of clay.

There is a place where the evening light plays,
Where the blood and the bone lie close to the skin;
A coolness of shade where the incense pools,
And the lilac scent swims in the head.

There is a place of a golden brown red,
Made bright by the beat of her pulsating heart;
When she flushes with color and her breath comes in gasps.
There where the heavenly meets the horizon

There where the night joins with the dawn
There where the mortal and immortal meet
Where the river of life links to the sea
There would I kiss her.

A recent exchange with a student

Hi Mr.Rex,
I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time to ask a question about today's discussion, if it's not too much trouble that is. I wasn't able to ask this during class because we were short on time. Anyways, I don't think Socrates' definition works. There seems to be (to me at least) a large hole in his statement "Justice is minding one's own business". This hole that I'm speaking of has to do with "one's own business"; Socrates states that each man should stick with his trade, for a farmer that is to farm, for a ruler it is to rule, however how do these men know what their trades are? It seems Socrates is saying that each man is born for a certain part of life, but what happens should men reject their role in life? It would create a need for a myth that gives men incentive to follow said roles. The myth I am speaking of is "The Noble Lie", and as we have questioned before, what happens when a man discovers that all he has believed in is a myth? It would lead to the whole definition of Justice being based off of a lie. When presented with even a slight doubt in the myth wouldn't "one's own business" be thrown into question? Wouldn't masses of men question why they should live a "good" life and question the definition of "good"? Would this cause the act of Justice (if Justice can be put into an act) to show itself to be "good" in and of itself? Thank you for your time,
Arthur Student

Lots of excellent questions here, Arthur.
Remember the quotation from John Henry Cardinal Newman "A thousand questions do not amount to one doubt."
There are three parts to the answer:

1. recall that the division of the city is in order to see the division in the soul. Consequently, "minding one's business" is a metaphor for balance within the soul. If the appetitive desires drive the nourishment and continuation of the body they are in proportion and harmonious. If they rule the rest of the person there is chaos and slavery. So "the business" in this metaphor is really about how does one work toward balance of the three realms within the soul? the 'noble lie' therefore of the metals is told in order that the citizens in the metaphor do their jobs well; but it is, in the meaning of the metaphor, a story told to create balance within the soul.

2. second we need to ask the more profound question of "what is truth?" "what is lie?" If by truth we mean empirical truth only (i.e. that which can be measured, tested, held in the hand) then we have a big problem b/c no story, no words, conversations, loves, or metaphysical realities can ultimately be measured in this post-Enlightenment manner. If, however, we mean a proximity btwn the image and the reality it conveys (which is the meaning of truth Aquinas uses) then the story is true b/c it embodies a reality even if it never happened historically. Lord of the Rings is "true" in this sense, Iliad is "true" in this sense, "Macbeth" is true in this sense. The truth or lie of the story can be discussed, examined, thought about, but its impact is felt in the soul to a much greater level than if it were merely quantifiable by hard evidence (soul itself is another one of those noble lies, BTW - show an ounce of soul or measure its contents!!!!) This realization ought not to stump a person into thinking everything is lie, but rather encourage them to take things far more seriously and pursue what really is true.

3. masses of men ought to question why they should live the good life and should question what the definition of good is. Unfortunately, masses of men do not do just this thing until it is far too late if at all. The noble lie is excellent for growing up strong in understanding of certain things, but at some point it is thrown into crisis b/c the "lie" part outweighs the "noble" part. Most men, at this point, throw caution to the winds and abandon all they have previously held true (getting a Mazarati, or a new girlfriend, or a new apartment) a phenomenon commonly referred to as a "mid-life crisis." I would suggest that it is far more beneficial for this crisis to occur early, with proper training, to see that the "noble lies" which we have heard are only lies in that they are unprovable by empirical evidence and that nobility is still something to be striven for such that we might honorably deal with life and manfully face death.

I hope this helps answer your very good questions.
AbecedariusRex

Eros One

In every young girl lies a beating heart
And fire in the veins
I feel the rhythm and the pulse of her heat
I scent the rain

The cottonwood trees that rustle and weep
And toss in the wind
Give a tympanic gesture of joy to the storm
And remind me of her.

My love like a storm cloud and the indolent air
Comes forth from her home
I sense the rumble of the approaching cataract
The electrical vein.

The windchimes chatter and ring out the change
And toss on the wind
Their tintinabulant gesture of joy
Like a gamalon plays.

In every young girl lies an incense of cloud
And fire in the veins
I feel the rhythm and the heat of the sun
The wood smoke of cedar

The high ridge of Vitinia where the sun warms the grape
And tosses the white wheat
Lies like a daughter in the late evening sun
Where we drank sweet cream.

My love like an afternoon full of the sunlight
After the rains
Brushes her hand cross the nape of her neck
In the sweet spring sweat.

The windchimes chatter and ring out the time
Like a portent of change
Their cheerful ululating gestures of joy
Like long summer days.

In every young girl lies a breaking heart
And fire in the veins
I feel the rhythm as she passes into night
The pillar of wind.

Kabbalic Post

The Jewish Kabbalists present an image of spiritual progression which depicts the manifestation of Infinite light (Qadosh) into the mind of men - called the Sephiroth. Here is a great website explaining it all.

Normally the Sephiroth, or tree of life, is presented thusly;















My contention is that perhaps the original mapping of virtues and vices is somewhat based on this progression. Why, after all, are there only seven of each? Too convenient, esp. if there are more virtues and vices which don't quite fit on the scale (which there are). Such an anomaly would suggest that the early fathers chose seven intentionally and then mapped the, in their opinion, most important vices/virtues correspondingly. If we follow the thought that numbers are qualitative as well as quantitative then the quality of 7 as a prime number is that of power derived from the combination of the earth (4) and the masculine principle of rational thought (3). Thus lucky number 7 is lucky b/c it is the power to alter things on the earth using reason. This reason leads to goods (virtues) and to ills (vices) b/c reason can effect good or ill change. Consequently, can the modes of the Sephiroth be the defining progression that creates the 7 and 7 correlation of the virtues and vices?

Here is a map of that possibility:

Poetry Post

My father always urged me to do something with my poetry. I don't think them all that great, but I decided to put them up on this blog so here is a first.

I also have insights into Odyssey and Jewish Kabbalic thought which I'll try to enter at some time soon (so look for them).

A coarctation soon let it through
The tide of the numinous
A flood inexorable
An ochre of the cardinal
The sun and the moon

A conjunction of the elements
Through the world’s bright aorta
The vesica piscis
That beats within your cage
The sun and the moon

Your little hands
May grow soon to violence
And staining of innocence
From albumen to purpura

We’re all drawn to that original
The penumbral reverie
The solitude of Albion
A sea of bright placidity
The sun and the moon

The images of paradise
That float on foaming inundates
Like welcoming Vesuvius
Soon course through your veins
The sun and the moon

Your little hands
May grow soon to obedience
And silent frigidity
At rest upon your shores

Beneath the spreading sky
And avenues of air
Where the canopy runs shimmering
Above the world revolving
The sun and the moon.

A post mortem

For those of you who do not know, my father is deteriorating rapidly and will probably pass on sometime very soon. His long struggle with cancer is finally over; cancer won the physical, but my father, God bless, won the more important battle. If you do not know my father, I consider him one of the greatest men I've ever known. He's never entered politics, he's never commanded armies, he's never invented gadgets that alter the course of history, nor has he published the definitive North American novel. But my father did two things much more important.

First, he was a dad. He loved my mother and us six children and he spent time with us. In our day and age, such fathers of honor, fidelity and courage are rare. Recently, my son said that "I love my dad b/c he talks to me." Strangely, that is what makes my father so great in my estimation... he talks to me. He engages me as a human being in conversation and thought and has, over the years, become more friend than father.

Second, he was a warrior. I don't know all the demons with which he wrestled, but I know many and am familiar with that most dangerous demon of the abyss. I know what it's like to stare into that nothingness at the heart of human existence, being incapable of a Kierkegaardian leap, and instead cowering at the edge like Kurtz saying "the horror! the horror!" Dad never gave into that. He ran the race, completed the course. Or, to use the other metaphor, he held the line against the attacks of the enemy. When he could have despaired, abandoned all seven of us, thrown away the trappings of civilization and culture and given over to the riptide of popular barbarism he chose instead honor, courage, commitment to us and to honesty. His thought was clear, neither cluttered with acerbic atheist despair, nor clouded by overly pious religious flim flam. Dad was honest and honestly courageous and I find that admirable in any man; most of all in this great friend of mine.

I don't agree with Dylan Thomas in his "Do not go gentle into that good night" that old men should respond with rage when they think about their own oblivion having accomplished nothing. Rage is not the answer. As Lord Peter Wimsey realizes in "Strong Poison" if we give in to that rage to smash things, someone will just come along, clean up the mess and return everything to the same condition it was in before. Rage accomplishes nothing. Nor does our anger at the necessity of death succeed in producing any results. We don't postpone death; nor do we ease our own death so that, like Ivan Ilych, we feel ourselves stuffed into a bag. Death comes. Tempus fugit, nocte venit. Et in Arcadia ego. If it is true that "called or uncalled the God will be there" how does raging against the god effect anything? Certainly, we don't just roll over and die, but rage? no. There is no rage.

All is gift. All is wonder. All is joy. And I am overjoyed in the midst of intense sorrow at losing my friend and father that I have a father/friend to lose. I also don't agree with Hopkins in his "Spring and Fall" that the grief is for myself. It isn't. My father dies without pain of body. The cancer has deteriorated his muscles and b/c he can't get enough nutrition his body is eating itself; eating the muscles that work his limbs. There is no pain (the doctors say) - he just grows weaker and sleepier until he falls asleep and doesn't awaken. So I don't grieve for his pain of body but thank God that he is spared that. Nor do I grieve for his spirit; he has not despaired like Denethor despite having stared into the Palantir for some time. He has remained honorable and loving and good. Nor do I grieve for myself b/c I know that I will die. My own death doesn't cause me any grief, even if the possibility of nothingness, that abyss of Hesiod and Genesis and Kierkegaard, does. So Hopkins is wrong even in his beautiful poetry.

No, my grief is because I love. To love is to feel pain. The second you open yourself to that terrible joy of love you run a great risk. The thing you love will die and no amount of transference to some abstract concept of God will replace your love of temporal things or beings. If you love you will lose and if you lose you will feel pain. The reverse formula is simple. If you do not wish to feel pain simply do not love. Love nothing. Never submit to the sweet joy of honesty and eros. But that is inhuman; it is nothingness, and if the abyss terrifies me this desert of emotional barrenness carries an equal terror. Perhaps they are one and the same, abyss and desert; oblivion - to not be remembered in love - to never love - to cease on the midnight with no pain.

I agree with Hamlet when he says

We defy augury. There ’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’t is not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is ’t to leave betimes?

My father was ready, had been ready for many years, had made himself ready by the slow, steady giving away of himself in love. When his final moment comes he will have accomplished that spiritual alchemy that transforms the leadenness of our fearful selfish little souls into the gold of love.

No, I am grieved b/c, as my brother put it, I'm selfish and don't want the party to end. But I do think that this is what the Passion of the Christ means; not wanting to let the party end, yet having the courage to endure the pain involved with allowing it to end. All men are mortal. My father is a man. Therefore my father is mortal. Thank God that he is man enough to have joined the human race and leave behind grieving but joyful loved ones.

If this is an encomium then I'll end with a final poem. This from old English, the Battle of Maldon; it was always one of my father's favorites.

Brythwold spoke, grasped his buckler, He was an old comrade, urged the men, He full boldly cheered his soldiers, "Thought must be the harder, heart the keener Spirit shall be more - as our might lessens."

Nietzsche (Again)

I read the most excellent article on Nietzsche in Commentary (one issue ago). What can I say? Nietzsche has always been a challenge, not leastly because one has to type has bloody name each time. I hope to give account of some of the thought stirred up from my brain's muck concerning this article, but if you haven't read the article yet go here and read "Nietzsche's Deeper Truth" by R.R. Reno. (hopefully you can access it w/o a subscription). I'll post here my reflections at some future date...

A theory

Rereading the Odyssey (and loving every minute of it) I was struck with a sudden possible interpretation of the wanderings. The movement of the work is from Kalypso to Penelope, the tropical island to the home in ruins, from fantasy to reality. As such, the work abounds in image after image of women and male/female relationships. Unlike Iliad, Odyssey is chock full of women and descriptions of women and sexual imagery. Why? Is it possible that Homer is proposing that the journey is one from a fantastical vision of what men want women to be (the immortal sexy insatiable supermodel on the tropical island) to what women are (the faithful, crafty but aging mortal woman on the island that needs a king)? If so, in the journeys, every monster seems a permutation of either the male or female fantasy; they are ways of looking at the world that are monstrous.

For instance, Scylla and Charybdis are both female perversity. Charybdis was the daughter of Poseidon and Gaia (Sea and Earth) and she devours, sucks down everything. She is like the joke about what you call a woman who can suck a tennis ball through a ten foot hose; yet she is monstrous and dangerous. Like Tiamat or other ancient feminine goddess figures she seeks to devour everything and has to be avoided. Even the ocean is sucked down into her maw, causing a whirlpool, an image which has obvious feminine connotations.

On the other side, Scylla, is also feminine; a monstrous mutation of a nymph whom Circe calls "no mortal, she's an immortal devastation, terrible, savage, wild, no fighting her, no defense..." the only response one can have is to "just flee the creature." Scylla seems to be the all devouring sexuality of woman unchecked. The type of woman that "eats men alive".

But to escape this, the final test of the journeys, Odysseus must pass through hell and horror. He has to come to grips with his own male tendency to fantasize women as goddesses, which makes them into monsters.

Thus, in his journey back to normalcy, Odysseus must slip through that thin gap between the all devouring feminine forces; placing women too low or too high. He cannot make it unscathed but loses 6 of his men - then after the incident with the cattle of Helios, loses his entire crew to a storm and is driven back to Charybdis. He survives only by clinging to a fig tree. Why? Why is he "driven" back to that monstrous vision of female sexuality? Why is it a fig tree that saves him? The fig is associated with fertility and female eroticism; sacred to Greek and Roman; was it associated with Athena? Is his salvation from the feminine beast to cling to the slim idea that women (and their sexuality) are really goods? Why does he lose all of his crew? Are they the remnants of teenage delusions of grandeur? The appetites? Those forces which a grown man must divest himself of if he is to survive? Further down the road, how does the cattle of Helios incident play into this? The Cyclops, Sirens, Laistragonians, Lotus-eaters, all are easy to see as permutations of this monstrous vision of woman as goddess/devil. What of the cattle that belong to the sun god?

Every man has to sail back to normalcy if he is going to be sane. He must come to see women as sisters, daughters, wives, mothers, and not as supermodels impervious to change or thought or imperfection. Only then can he at last "come home" from a world of war and monsters to his own role as daddy, husband, son, beloved of those most beautiful and protector of those most loved.

A Little Logic

So how is it that we know anything is true? How is it that all things aren't just opinion?
Let's try some logic. Let's rule out those things which don't submit well to opinion such as mathematics, basic physics, and Keanu Reeves acting ability and focus only on that realm much subject to opinion and arrogance, morality.

There are three possibilities:
1. all things are opinion and nothing is true
2. some things are opinion and some things are true
3. no things are subject to opinion and all things are true

If all things are opinion and nothing is true then there really is no argument at all - b/c all things are simply the subjective view of the opiner. But how do we know that all things are opinion? Wouldn't this be a truth? So nothing is true except that nothing is true? The only truth is that there is no truth? That makes no sense.

So let's skip number 2 and go on to number three. All things are true and there are no opinions. But if there are no opinions don't people have divergent views on things (morality that is)? Then if all things are true wouldn't every view be true even if it diverges from another view? Am I right and are you right and is all quite content? Wouldn't the existence of divergent viewpoints indicate that not everything is true? Either I am right or you are right b/c we can't be both right and diametrically opposed to one other... that makes no sense.

So we're left with number 2; some things are opinion and some things are true. If so, then wouldn't the process be to convert opinion into truth? How best to do this? Wouldn't the best way be to find out what other thinkers and writers, respected and noted on the subject, have to say? To read them, determine what they are saying, discover what they mean? Surely it wouldn't mean to simply find flaws in their arguments, not read them, or dismiss them b/c they contradict our deeply held beliefs (such as the right to have long hair or the right to be sexually active).

Seems that, as Aristotle and Plato both point out, if the purpose of life is to be happy and if happiness comes through virtuous living and if virtuous living can only be discovered by hard work and intense focus then not doing the work, being satisfied with talent, allowing ourselves to persist in our own idiocy would not be the best way to become happy.

Just a guess, of course.

The Writings of John and the Eleusinian Mysteries

I just finished a fine article on the writings of John (Possible Influence of the Mysteries on the Form and Interrelation of the Johannine Writings , 1932) wherein the author, Elbert Russell, claims that the three texts composed by Saint John bear striking resemblance to the three movements of the Eleusinian mysteries. The mysteries were composed of a preparation/purification period (called katharsis/prorresis) the acting out of the drama (called dromonen) and the explanation of the elements of the ritual (called the epopteia). Russell notes that "The First Epistle of John...was an introductory writing, corresponding to the preliminary purification and instruction, the katharsis and the prorresis; the Gospel formed the drama or dromenon; and the Apocalypse provided the opopteia with the symbolic assurance of future blessedness." Russell goes on to explain that the rites of Eleusis evolved originally from agricultural rites - a fact which I only mildly agree with. I think the Eleusinian cults didn't evolve but continued a vision which even the chthonic religions of the neolithic age saw; life works in patterns, even the cycles of the seasons, the planting, harvest, the motion of the stars and planets. The cult of Eleusis merely recast this understanding (which drew together the agricultural aspect with the mathematic and the metaphysical) in terms of a specific mythological atmosphere.

John's writings, as they do seem to conform with the pattern of the mystery cults, and even Christianity itself don't seem undermined by the conformity, rather Christianity seems to build upon an ancient vision of the world, offering new insight into the questions undoubtedly asked by the Psalmist and the initiates into the mysteries; "if all this is true than what am I? How do I fit in?" or to use the words of the Psalmist "when I look at the stars, the work of your hands, the sun and the moon, what is man that you should love him? mortal man that you should visit him?" Christianity suggests that in the midst of these very real patterns and structures of the world man is not just a cog; he isn't just a decimal point in the equation. Man is so vital that the Patterner himself came down, the Logos became incarnate as one of us; God so loved the world that he gave his only son.

Discussing whether this is only a message, or whether it really happened is a bootless discussion. This is what Christianity proclaims; and the energizing hope that such a message carries (as Benedict XVI discusses in Spes Salve) allows believers to live like no other people on the earth. That is very exciting indeed - and I think the early Church was right to adopt the signs and symbols of the cult which so closely proclaimed what it was proclaiming. Our modern Church is deadly wrong in stripping her alters bare and substituting the feel good Mass for the smells and bells of old. For if the message is to be believed then the katharsis and the prorresis have to be completed correctly, the dromenon must be completed with lights, props, incense and other time honored tools, and the epopteia must be accomplished such that people understand. Boy what a lot of work remains.

An Inconvenient Truth (the Wild Cherry Dub)

I thought that Al Gore's little terror flick needed a snappier soundtrack. I also tried to reiterate his message more clearly at the end of the movie by allowing him to repeat himself (which he never does). Anyone else notice that the clip of the globe at the end of the movie is focused on the Middle East? Why is that?

Quickly on hope and inquiry

I am struck by the frequency of others to question the validity of statements rather than inquiring into their merit. Why is it that we (myself included) have more of a tendency to doubt the validity of what another person says rather than inquire into whether what they are saying has some meaning that we don't yet see? I'm thinking of the frequent criticism of the psalms or of recognized philosophers (such as Plato or Aristotle) each of which seems to be perceived by more sage thinkers of the modern era as potential targets open for hunting down and killing rather than as potential veins of gold open for mining. Those works accepted for so many generations as sapiential are dismissed quickly b/c they do not fit our more elevated sensibilities. I think this is an egregious error for it shuts out far too quickly the ability to see in the work of others answers to the very questions we have ourselves. Thus, in our zeal to shoot down the great artists and thinkers, we only wound ourselves. Thus we make the attainment of hope that much more difficult as with each generation we work laboriously to find a clue that leads us out of the labyrinth of the mind.

In answer to Anselm (and in praise of Saint Thomas)

I wrote this as a response to an excellent blog by Andrew Haines on Saint Anselm's ontological proof of God:

A good analysis of Anselm's Proslogion argument. Thank you. I much prefer the thought of Saint Thomas, however, who suggests in Summa Prima Pars, Ar. 1 that God's existence, though self-evident in itself, is not self-evident to us b/c we cannot know the essence of Being (God). Rather, Thomas suggests, we come to understand more about who God is by negative differentias and by a series of "comparisons with material things", thus proceeding from one comparison to another we grow closer to being able to put "things in their right order and control them well," as Thomas states in the opening of the Contra Gentiles.

Although I agree that Anselm's proof can lead to a greater comprehension of the mystery of God, I think he fails in two respects. First, by relying only on a rational argument and seemingly ignoring the second form whereby man attains to truth (one that "transcends all the industry of reason," as Thomas says) Anselm fails to convince the reader of God's existence. Aquinas' five proofs are far more convincing, not b/c more sound but b/c Aquinas admits to their being not "articles of faith, but... preambles to the articles." The five proofs of Aquinas, consequently, become buttresses for furthering the faith of one who believes, not as bludgeons to force a non-believer into belief.

Second, by using the ontological proof as an airtight argument against which only "a fool" would argue Anselm cuts out the agony of the atheist's struggle. Indeed, the psalm suggests that "the fool in his heart has said, 'there is no God'"; but Aquinas takes this to mean that rejection of the LOGOS (God) makes all thought impossible and thus makes man foolish. This does not, Aquinas notes, make the struggle any less b/c the atheist in struggling to recognize that LOGOS exists realizes his darkness and yet cannot overcome it by his own power. As Thomas notes "(the existence of LOGOS) precisely is not admitted by those who hold that God does not exist." But Aquinas offers a way out for the perplexed by suggesting that "the prime author and mover of the universe is intelligence," before suggesting that he is YHVH or Joshua bar Joseph or any sort of personal god.

Thomas thus shows more mercy to struggling humanity when he states that all men, even "the simple", come to know God through his effects by a slow, gradual process of "(putting) forward divine and spiritual truths by means of comparisons with material things" and not by intelligence alone, lest "the truth about God such as reason could discover, would only be known by a few." Thomas is less elitist, more understanding of human weakness, and thus far more palatable than Anselm in his advocacy for belief.

Thanks again for the thoughts on Anselm which provided for a brief intellectual escape from the cold of Minnesota and the agony of grading essays.

George Orwell Kicks Butt (Again)

Orwell on language (thanks to jmcnamara at Capital Community College Foundation):

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent, and our language—so the argument runs—must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step towards political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.

A New Archbishop

Poor Rowan Williams. Seems he's in hot holy water after his statement, which he made without meaning to offend anyone, that Sharia law in England was an inevitable event. Moreover, Williams said, in a statement which he made without trying to cause offense to anyone, the imposition of Sharia law in England might not be a bad thing. As Williams noted, without trying to offend anyone, at least Sharia law promotes family values.



Poor slob.



Now his congregation is demanding he step down because he was offensive.




Might I suggest another candidate for Archbishop in the person of Rowan Atkinson? I think he'd do a fine job.

Willy Pogany

While composing the last post I was reminded of the artwork of Willy Pogany who first ignited in me a visual fantasmagoria for the Iliad and the Odyssey. His work, though not in favor these days, was some of the best illustration for children's literature ever. His greatest masterpiece, the illustrated "Parsifal", even today is selling on Amazon for $1,243.96 (original 1912 printing). That's staggering! Here are a few of his illustrations. Dover has since put out some of the texts illustrated by Pogany, but in these days of rotten children's literature, I'd like to see more still. Though some of his work should be carefully reviewed by adults (Bilitis, for instance) Pogany still ranks right up there with the grand illustrating ability of Howard Pyle and I'd recommend him to anyone.

More on The Iliad

While grading student papers it suddenly dawned on me that there are three dopplegangers of Achilles in the epic. Each parallel character represents a stage of Achilles' life and each one is stripped from him.

Briseis, the sister/lover, is closely associated with mommy, Thetis; she represents a world of the feminine, the world of childhood, a time when the young man could run to mommy or the shelter of the beloved for comfort. She is stripped from Achilles by the brutal leader, Agamemnon and her seizure precipitates his movement into the next stage of life. Achilles' grief is for more than just a slave girl; it is for the whole world of comfort and easy love that childhood embodies. He grieves for the sorrow of losing himself, losing his innocence.

Patroclus, the brother/friend, is closely associated with the thumotic youth of Achilles. He only appears midway through the epic and his appearance shows a new love for Achilles. Much has been made of the homosexual element btwn Achilles and Patroclus, but I think that is a red herring. Whether he is or is not the lover of Achilles seems inconsequential. Just as Briseis represented more than just a slave girl/concubine, he represents a person loved. His connection to Briseis is highlighted when she, weeping at his death, claims that he was always gentle to her. Patroclus, it seems, embodies all that is best and noble in Achilles - he is the brother figure and the mirror image of the great warrior without the hubris that clouds Achilles' judgment. He is not entirely representative of innocence for he sees the brutality of war, even sees the brutality of Achilles, but he is courageous enough to take action as a young man might, to tend to the wounded, to speak against Achilles' headstrong pride, to want to right through mere force of arms the wrongs done his comrades. When he dies, that other world of youth and happiness, carefree living, the bright future free of cynicism and the weight of adult knowledge, is lost to Achilles.


Priam/Hector represent the third doppleganger. Being that they are father/son they consist as a set, each representing a different aspect of the same thing. Priam is the aged father, looking down the dark tunnel of ruin and despair. Hector is the noble man, already dead - he is Patroclus in nobility and death and he is Patroclus' killer. Yet both also represent the future of Achilles. The Achaean knows, now that he has chosen war over peace, that his demise is not far off. He knows his time is marked and the knowledge, previously remote, is grievous to him. He hearkens back to his father and sees in Priam the sorrow that his own father will experience when he dies. Thus another connection is made between Achilles and Hector, Peleus and Priam. In the last book, Priam becomes the father, figuratively, of Achilles and Achilles trades roles with the now dead Hector. Thus, the realization of age, ruin and death are all made quite immediate to the Greek warrior and he must face the harsh reality of adulthood. He will lose what he loves most, not comfort & joy, not youth & nobility, but his very self. Thus Priam is also representative of "the enemy" - the other which we seek to shut out from our own imagination. We do not wish to think about our own ruin and death, but Troy will fall and Priam will die, slipping in the blood of his own son. Though Achilles will, by then, not be alive, such ruin has been the telos of all his actions to this point. Neoptolemus, his son, will be the killer of Priam (as we learn from Virgil) and thus Achilles will have "killed" Priam - the king within himself. This is a harsh and yet necessary reality and Achilles acceptance of it, represented in his going down into the dust to communally weep with Priam, marks the warrior's capacity for humanness.

The American Way

Raptoralis recently posted on my blog "My Favorite Captain America" saying...

Im not sure that "the american way" is something that we aught to claim any more because of what it has been defined popularly as. It makes me very sad to see the news almost anytime so I dont watch it anymore because of the garbage I see. All this in the name of america, freedom of speech, once again we see the realm of the aesthic driving the world around us. Driving it in an almost subconsious or subliminal way to say that freedom is actually libery.(in the sence that eric cartman means it when he says "whatever whatever i do what i want"). The ideals of the nation (life, Libery and the persuit of happyness) were perhaps badly worded or perhaps the nation has been twisted by those who would see it crumble, through the process of destroying our words. Im uncertain if im being nihilistic at the moment as I havent yet studied in depth on the subject but the outlook seems bleak to me.
~Raptor

What is "The American Way"? Good question. Certainly in current trends it seems to be something akin to rape, burn, pillage for the almighty dollar, and indeed I am highly critical of the culture that seeks to dehumanize and destroy all that is good in the human person. I suspect the term was originally just a bit of jargon amidst all the jargon of the 1940s and 50s when we were so hell bent to win the two great wars (Fascism and Communism) that people spoke in cliches only.

But I do think there is "An American Way" and that it reaches back to the very founding of this nation. The Revolution of 1776 was, we are told, based on freedom and the desire of the colonies to be free from a tyrannical government. But freedoms then, as now, are only realized in the physical world. Locke claimed that man had an inherent, or inalienable, right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of property." Jefferson changed this to "...pursuit of happiness" and the change was a good one, but consider the connection. Happiness is closely tied to property. Locke's definition of the word included all those things which we lay claim to owning; body, ideas, foodstuffs, home & land, business, whatever we consider as an extension of ourselves. Without the ability to do with these things as we wish, in fact, without these things, liberty is only a phantasm and life is enemic. American liberty has, consequently, always been tied to materialism, for good or ill, so much so that the very revolution is actually a revolution of economics.

Materialism is mostly used pejoratively b/c, as the pope noted in Centesimus Annus, rampant consumerism dehumanizes people and causes a degeneration from democracy to tyranny of the rich over the poor. Thus Americans are frequently, and rightly, accused of lording their prosperity over poorer nations of the world and even over their own people. Nevertheless, to extricate freedom from property is an impossible operation. If one is free he must be free over some THING. Without property (goods, home, land, whatever) freedom is only a name. So I think first in the "American Way" thing is a sense that every man ought to have the ability to own property and exercise his liberty through such ownership.

Second, Locke claims, and Jefferson reiterates, that government exists for one reason only; namely, to secure inalienable rights. Rights to life, liberty and property exist b/c God made us so, not b/c some king or warlord allowed us such and such. Our government exists ONLY to make sure that these rights are honored by all, passing laws in order to perpetuate this security and levying taxes only to maintain its function. Government serves people, not people government. Thus, Americans ought to consider government intrusion a necessary evil which should only be invoked when other means have been exhausted. If the first element of "The American Way" is a right to certain inalienable rights, namely property, the second element is a vision of small government which ought not to interfere too much in the lives of its citizens.

Third, then, is the vision of self-reliance. B/c of our initial need to survive in a terrain which was challenging to say the least we have, as a nation, long held the opinion that a man must stand on his own two legs. We are not only able to make our own decisions, we are also held accountable for those decisions. No one ought to blame culture, race, handicap of any kind for the decisions they ultimately make and as Americans as much as we honor the decisions of others we also expect that they are going to take responsibility for those decisions. Included in this, I think, is an American respect for the opinions of other people and, thus, the ability to discourse rationally even with people holding opposing opinions.

Fourth seems to be an American talent for improvisation. We are always analyzing, reconstruction, tinkering and rebuilding everything; including ourselves. Part of our current fits of apoplexy are due to an intense need to refashion who we are following the trauma of 9/11. As much as I disagree with the naysayers of the war and with the conspiracy theorists, I know that what they are saying is part of the American thing. Americans are not "my country right or wrong"; that would be like a nation of automatons. Rather, we are "my country's successes, let me fix her wrongs." The inventions not just in technology but in cinema, foodstuffs, government & law, nutrition & science, production of goods, language, arts has been dominated by America for the last 200 years! Why? Coincidence? No, I'm in agreement with Victor Davis Hanson; the culture determines the culture. How we view ourselves determines what sort of culture we are, so that the dominance in invention is not circumstance by systemic in the culture.

Fifth, as we like to reinvent ourselves, we are also perhaps the one nation that has a sense of humor. Other nations certainly laugh, poke fun at things, enjoy life - I'm not saying they don't. But America has a remarkable ability, as a nation, for poking fun at herself and at others. We don't have the dementia of class-system or of race politics (for the most part) or of caste-system, we don't have open civil war in our streets (yet), we don't have grinding poverty or rampant disease (like Russia), we don't have forced abortions and a krypteia terrorizing our populace (as does China), we don't have the indolent wallowing in state-sponsored suicide as do most European nations. Consequently, we seem able, as a people, to laugh at ourselves; perhaps bitterly, perhaps jovially, but we laugh. Our entertainment industry, for all its faults, creates joyful works and works of great humor. We enjoy sporting events, gaming, leisure and group activities w/o fear that tanks are going to roll into the soccer stadium at any minute. Heck, we even find politics a sport and not something to riot over. Americans laugh. That's a good thing.

Now I know that these are generalizations; I know that the excesses of freedom allow for pornography, abortion, abuse, indulgence, addiction, corruption, and other really horrible things; I know that the government often oversteps its bounds and requires Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford to correct it; I know that there are many people here in the States that are ignorant, arrogant, corrupt and brutal. All these things exist in any human culture. What I'm saying are generalizations, I know, but they are generalizations that work. If we are to look for the best things that make 21st America a better place to live than, say, Cuba, or Russia, or China, or ... France; if we are to look for the best things that make this country greater than Ancient Rome & Greece, or better than merry old England, or better than 19th century America, I think it would be these things; inalienable rights, view of government, sense of independence & responsibility, improvisation/improvement, and sense of humor.

Finally, with all the blemishes she has, I think the United States isn't just a fun place to live b/c we have lots of Burger Kings and Wal Marts. I really think that the United States, the philosophy that makes the nation more than a geographic location on Google maps, is invaluable and a treasure and ought to be exported to other nations willing to attempt the philosophy if not the excesses. Call me an imperialist slob if you will, but I really think, with Lincoln, that America is "the last, best hope of mankind."

Again with the Artwork!

A recent exchange with a student concerning artwork:

Mr. A,

To prevent being completely productive in the two weeks when it would be most beneficial to do so, I started writing a commentary at my blog on the lyrics to "Call It Clear", a song by Halloween, Alaska. So far I have only written on the first 3 lines, but the more and more I think about those three lines the more I see in them. At a certain point I have to imagine I've overstepped the author's intent and am only using the text as a tool for explaining my idea, not explaining the text by my ideas.

When reading a great play or novel is their a point at which your interpretation is no longer intended by the author but some kind of fluke connection? If so, how do you know where that point is? You have said that you believe such and such an author chose every single word with intent, but how do you determine if the author you are reading was that mindful of his own work? In other words, is it possible to read a book with no intended symbolism and manufacture your own dynamic interpretation? How do you know if you are doing that?

Thank you,

Student Aix Wizee

Thanks for the email, Aix, and in order to waste my time I’ll try to give a quick response.

Of course there is a difference btwn reading the text and reading into the text. Unfortunately, there is no rubric to know exactly when you cross that line. One way to know that the author intended X is to read as much of his other work as you can and see whether the message stays consistent. Look also and see whether the imagery used is appropriate for the rest of the message (for instance, does the author make his hero suddenly become a bunny rabbit? If so, is that consistent with the culture, as it would be with Indian or Buddhist culture but not so with Western)? Also an aid is to read what others have to say about the author; frequently such opinions offer great insight which an initial read might miss.

Ways to know when you’re really off? Any bending of the imagery to meet what you want would be a misread (for instance trying to insist that the color red represents purity). Any wishful thinking contrary to the actual text and imagery would be a misread (for instance hoping to find the golden proportion where it doesn’t exist). Any anachronistic interpretations would be a misread (like Marxist or feminist readings into an earlier historical work; or Christian for that matter).

Unfortunately, the only sure way to know a misread is the gut response one has to the text; it seems right or wrong. No one has ever read the Grendel cave as a womb (at least to my knowledge) but it is; under water, in the earth, reached through a passage, dark, feminine & devouring life. That just seems right. So in any essay I right I make the case that it is so and hold up to public scrutiny whether this is right or wrong.

Finally, the odd thing about all art is that it transcends the artist. Sure, we say that the artist “intended” XY or Z and with great artists they really are careful in their choice of word, note, or color/form b/c they are very aware that their choice will have some effect (I’m excluding here poor or sloppy artists whose work seldom is great except by some fluke). But the work is greater than the artist and can frequently speak to an audience of things which the artist himself never saw or intended. He intended a great message, but perhaps a greater message than what he intended corresponds to the work. This observation Plato himself made in the Republic when he noted that artwork corresponds to realities beyond the limitations of the artist. Thus a piece of music may speak volumes to us when the artist just found it a whimsy or small work. “Carnival of the Animals” for instance, was loathed by Saint-Saens who wanted to write only “serious” music. The Mona Lisa was only a minor portrait by DaVinci and the Last Supper was merely a decoration of a refectory; rent payments. But the impact these works have had on others has been tremendous. So when you find a work speaking to you and your analysis growing out of control just remember that the analysis may be still correct.

Hope this helps. I’m not intentionally obscure but I play it on TV. I would suggest reading Aristotle’s Poetics and Walker Percy’s “Message in the Bottle” as well as Santayana’s “Reason in Art” and Carl Jung's "The Spirit in Man." Also a great work is “Leonardo’s Incessant Last Supper” and “Sexuality of Jesus Christ in Renaissance Art and Modern Oblivion” by Leo Steinberg and “Harmonies of Heaven and Earth” by Joscelyn Godwin. Lots of reading, but all good stuff.

Sincerely,

Abecedarius Rex

Ars and Techne

I think this problem is one of semantics. We use the word "art" to mean any old number of things that sort of kind of look a bit like a thing that kind of does a certain thing that is something or another and gets some awards. The classical world, though, distinguished btwn "ars" and "techne", a distinction picked up in the 19th century by Kant and also by R.G. Collingwood (as explained here by Denis Dutton)

Craft is something performed with a known outcome and skill which guarantees that outcome; such as the building of a chair or the putting in of a window. Art, on the other hand, is the expression of human vision or emotion, the outcome of which is not always a guarantee. Art, as Kant said, possesses a certain "genius" or infusion of the spirit which craft does not have. Though art benefits when one knows craft (say how to use paints) knowledge of craft is not necessary for doing art. W/o the infusion of genius, however, craftsmen can do their job quite well. So it seems that art isn't so much a "what does it do" question as a "how is it done" question. If the object produced is one which was achieved knowingly with a guaranteed outcome (as in, this will reroute the sewer) it is craft. If it is produced such that the outcome is not entirely known, yet the work is infused with the indescribable element of genius, it is art.

Do I agree with this?

Yes and no. It seems plausible enough and seems to be extolled by such greats as Kant and even Plato in the Republic; yet I do think that there is a craft to art which can also produce an outcome knowingly. Certain images or forms do certain things, or strike us in a certain way. Colors affect us, images affect us, notes affect us in a fairly consistent manner. Thus the artist, although expressing genius, does so with a knowledge of how his creation will affect others; in other words, he knows what could convey his vision effectively (instead of just trying things until they work). This, of course, is the skilled artist not the hack.

So what is art? To give a criteria by which we say "this is, this isn't" I think is near impossible. Art is the expression of the human soul, the trying to recapture lost paradise, the visions of the beautiful and the damned. How that plays out defies definition. There are some things, though, that work and make us say "yes, that is it" and others that do not work at all and leave us disgusted and flat.

Perhaps, then, the more important question than "what is art?" is "what does art accomplish?" Do artists just produce stuff haphazardly to satisfy themselves in an ars gratia artis way? Do artists produce for cash only? Do artists seek to alter their audience and in what way? These, I think, are more engrossing questions that what the thing is. Ultimately, ars is simply that; literally "a making"; what the Greeks called "poiesis". It is the thing we do that no other animal does. In itself neither a good or evil. But in how it is made and what it seeks to accomplish, therein lies the good or bad art.

BTW, great article on ars and techne by Christopher Janaway entitled "Arts and Crafts in Plato and Collingwood" here at JSTOR if you can access it.