The Athenaeum

Memory

2010-01-30T14:10:00.000+02:00

Philip Hilton writes,

Recently, I have been impressed by the power of memory to shape life. We are all admonished in school to work on general aptitude, reasoning skills; sure, memorize where needed, but the general focus is on reasoning. While I don't disagree: learning is not about rote memorization; at the same time, memory work is more important than commonly acknowledged. I am referring specifically to memorizing verbal passages here.

Often, when memorizing something as a child, I would ask, "What's the point?" Why do I need to know this? That's a hard question. Obviously each memorized passage should have a justification, but, "it sounds noble" is scarcely a reason that one could give to a board of school directors, or to any of one's friends, for that matter. Yet this is precisely the reason a passage should be memorized. It is these passages that will remain with one throughout life. Maybe they will be ignored. But one should not underestimate the consistent force of a remembered phrase to shape how one thinks.

I rationalize memorization like I rationalize tennis serves: not every serve goes in, not every serve is an ace. Similarly, some passages are forgotten, others are ignored. That is no reason not to memorize them. If one does not serve, one cannot serve an ace. If one does not memorize, one cannot remember...

Modern Musical Taste

2010-01-15T00:52:00.003+02:00

Philip Hilton writes,

I have occasionally, in my time here on earth, seen my favorite songs assaulted by the following method: “The lyrics are meaningless. The whole thing is meaningless.” Usually, my response to this is simply: “But it sounds cool.” I have never been particularly satisfied with my answer. If the thing really is absolutely meaningless, then why am I listening to it?

An instance of a song which might easily fuel this controversy is Daft Punk's "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" as remixed (see above). Hearing it only once, one would be hard put to deduce a single, intended message. Still, it undoubtedly induces several feelings. The rhythm, strong and hard, suggests what each individual "power" word says ("Power, faster, harder, stronger etc.), and bends to a high-pitched whine, or undulates in tone, when saying a phrase like "work is never over."

Pre-analysis, one merely 'feels' it. If one tries immediately to rationalize a clear train of thought based on the lyrics, one is non-plussed. That is because there is no rational train of thought involved. Rather, each word is in itself a statement, a command, which does not admit of a simple link to the next word. It conveys only a transient feeling. Overall, however, each statement builds up a uniform, but fluctuating, mood. That mood could briefly be described as empowering, the equivalent of what an athlete feels when in the 'zone'.

Verbally, I do not think that this can be called coherent or logical. The clever rationale behind the song does not give the song itself any rational train of thought. Yet the song undoubtedly imparts something, not nothing. To those even moderately attuned, this song is a call to arms.

There is one more thing that deserves mention. The song does not impart just any feeling. At the same time, the ‘range of meaning’ that the feeling of empowerment could have is very broad. Upon listening to this song, it might equally be felt by a young Nazi or a young American. It might equally be felt by a young husband or a serial rapist. In each of these cases, the feeling, while remaining the same, would fuel (and be fueled by) a different ideology.

Is that objectionable?

Not to me. All I say is, "Feel Wisely".

If art is the imparting of emotion, either ‘primal’ or ‘intellectual’, then this qualifies as art to me.

Is the Army Winning Hearts and Minds?

2009-10-22T14:52:00.002+02:00

by Philip Hilton,

So I was thinking the other day how strange it is that for the past nine years (all of my sentient life!) America has occupied Afghanistan.

Now, on the first level...why are we there in the first place? I can barely remember. Something about there being a terrorist group there. Realistically, though, you have to think about it. One terrorist group is trained in Afghanistan. They shoot a high profile building, and people die. Yes, it’s shocking. But in retrospect, it doesn’t seem like something that requires the complete invasion of Afghanistan. If they were British terrorists, we wouldn’t invade Britain. Even if they were British Secret Service agents, we wouldn’t invade Britain.

The only reason we invaded Afghanistan was because Afghanistan was pathetically weak and helpless -- or so we thought. Another opportunity for America to extend its influence and scare everyone in the region.

However, our invasion has now lasted 9 years, and has not achieved anything in particular. Sure, we showed once again that America is about 200 times stronger than any NATO country. Honestly, though, that’s about it. The Taliban -- ‘The Enemy’ -- are still there, defending their native homeland from American imperialism. Have we scared them? Not really. They know America can’t win this war, just like the gangs in LA know that the LAPD is never going to drive them out. The Taliban is fighting on home soil, and have practically infinite leverage over the local population. They merge easily with the local population. They have very high morale. The Americans are in well defined uniforms, and sit inside their camps, or attack based on ‘espionage findings’. This pattern is all too familiar from the American Revolutionary War, the Boer War, Vietnam. The result is practically inevitably defeat of the invading army.

General McChrystal says that more troops will help. To me, I doubt it. The problem is that this is simply a war of attrition, and America cannot ‘win’ in the traditional sense. Correctly, the military realize that the game is one of ‘hearts and minds’. The problem is that this kind of game is exactly one which the military have never won, and can never win anyway. The military is, by definition, geared to play the game of ‘guns and fear’, a game which can never work in a situation like Afghanistan. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that there’s a practical limit to how effective they can be. They can play their ‘guns and fear’ card all they like, but the trump suit right now is ‘hearts and minds’, and they don’t have any.

America has been in Iraq for 7 years, and in Afghanistan for 8. Now, the situation in Iraq has gotten a great deal of attention. And it seems like it’s gotten a lot better. The situation in Afghanistan has not gotten much attention, but judging from the recent news, it’s just the same militants (30,000 of them!) playing border games with Pakistan, and attacking remote American encampments. The situation is roughly what it was 8 years ago. In fact, McChrystal appears to think that the situation is so unstable that the war could be lost within 12 months. And for me that is the sign that a radical strategy change is needed, or else that it’s about time to bring the troops back.

If we 8 years of occupation with well over 60,000 troops has achieved so little that the war could be lost that easily, surely it’s time to rethink. We have absolutely nothing to gain in material terms by staying. But we have a heck of a lot that we could lose. Either the military needs to try to change their game to play to their real strengths, or else they need to just give it up. If they don’t do either, then they’re just going to be humiliated.

Review of Wicked (spoilers)

2009-07-20T04:42:00.001+02:00

by Philip Hilton,

Yesterday I had the privilege of seeing a production of Wicked, put on in Australia. I need hardly say that it was excellent. Lucy Durack amply lived the role of Glinda, and Amanda Harrison (or, in my production, Jemma Rix) played Elphaba well.

The play has two acts, and for most of the first act, Glinda definitely owned the stage. Quite apart from the fact that she was downright beautiful, and dressed to show it, she used her body very expressively. She had some extremely funny lines, and she made them absolutely hilarious. I need hardly say that she also sang well; that's almost a given in a professional performance.

Elphaba, played by Jemma Rix/Amanda Harrison, looked rather wooden in the first act, maybe simply due her character: Elphaba is supposed to be plain and bold, but not particularly expressive. The problem is that, as a result, her first couple songs rather lack interest. She does not use her body expressively enough, and she is not pretty or funny enough to attract attention of that kind. She may sing well enough, but her voice does not exist in a vacuum.

In the second act, Elphaba falls in love, and becomes more desperate, which serves to transform her into an object of tragic attention. This does not alter her actual character, but it does alter her expressions, sufficiently to give life to her songs.

Still, Glinda retained the bulk share of attention. Her spoken lines remained funny, she remained pretty, and her sung lines are just as good as Elphaba’s.

It would be wrong to say that the play is about the spoken, as opposed to the sung lines, but particularly in the first act, the spoken lines obviously the center of the play, and the sung lines are more peripheral.

Probably the greatest failing of the play was in the line of special effects. I myself do not believe that a play has to stun the viewer with special effects. After all, we are not watching a magician. Still, what a play promises to deliver, it must deliver, and it usually turns me off if it does not deliver it.

Take, for example, the case of the Winged Monkeys. Elphaba transforms a regular monkey into a winged monkey. Immediately, the monkey flaps his wings and climbs a ladder. Ten other monkeys begin climbing a ladder at the back of the stage. This was a mild shock to me. I should have thought that it went without saying that one cannot create winged monkeys, and then make them climb ladders. This looks like an underinvestment in stage effects. Winged monkeys ought not to climb ladders. They ought to fly.

If the producers could not credibly make them fly, they ought not to have introduced them. If they could have made them fly, my question is, why didn't they?

The same kind of thing happens several times during the play: something happens, and a special effect is obviously needed, but not given. The problem is that by the end of the play it is difficult to confide in the special effects. When a situation arises which seems to require a special effect, the question in one’s mind is, How will they NOT provide this special effect, rather than being ready to marvel at the solution.

However, the screenwriting is excellent, and serves to almost cover this defect.

In several cases the screenwriters managed to turn an obvious lack of special effects into an extremely successful moment. When Glinda is planning to make Elphaba her new project, she gets out her wand to turn Elphaba’s plain dress into a ball dress. “Ball dress!” she cries, as she waves her wand. Inside, we all tremble, aware that the special effects are quite insufficient to do this, and wondering how they will avoid showing this. Suddenly, it is turned to good effect: Glinda tries and fails, asking, “Is this even on??” as she stomps offstage.

In sum, I would say that it was definitely a good play, probably around 4 out of 5. Lucy Durack absolutely shone as Glinda: I would see anything she was playing in. The character of Elphaba was somewhat inhibiting, but Jemma Rix/Amanda Harrison played her quite well. The lyrics and script were excellent. However, some special effects would have added a lot to the production.

Monasticism

2009-04-10T12:05:00.002+02:00

by Philip Hilton

“Resistendum est occupationibus, nec explicandae, sed submovendae sunt.” -- Seneca, talking about philosophers.

Reading the letter which Abelard sent to his friend, for the friend’s consolation, one cannot help but notice a long (practically endless to the non-native Latinist) detour he makes into the ideal of the Philosopher’s life. It might, indeed, practically constitute a pamphlet of its own. Nevertheless, the idea is essentially this: that “Excudent alii spirantia mollius aera,” but “tu memento”: “Resistendum est occupationibus”. A philosopher, like a monk, or an Nazarene is not to be a man of the world. He is to emphatically resist all connections with the hubub of everyday life, and to seek solitude. He is not so much to be known for avant-garde learning so much as for his eminently excellent life.

To almost any non-monk, non-philosopher or non-Nazarene, the question will doubtless arise: What’s the Point? Does solitude bring more happiness? Does it bring more productivity? In short, are you doing anything for yourself or your fellow men?

The assumption underlying these questions is that if you aren’t in the world, actively working with others and around others, you aren’t helping them. It is also usually assumed that while solitude is nice every now and again, it’s certainly not something that should be a pattern of life.

However, these assumptions are both flawed. Solitude is unwelcome to many people because they do not know, or do not like themselves. They cannot endure their own mind, and they cannot endure to commune with God. It is always difficult to illustrate this concept with a real example, because, of course, the majority of people who feel this, will never admit it. It’s just too close to home. But I’m sure that anyone who’s ever felt this way can sympathize with Claudius in Hamlet. Claudius, burdened by his sin, is spiritually blocked from God. Because he knows in his own mind that he is guilty, and refuses to admit it, he is neither at peace with himself, nor at peace with God. To him, solitude is unbearable. It weighs like a mill-stone upon his neck, because when he is alone and unoccupied he can only think on his inevitable fate.

On the other hand, to Christ, solitude was welcome. On one occasion he left the crowds of the sick to pray for hours on a mountain. His disciples, who thought that his main business was that of healing and preaching, were eminently surprised by this, and even rebuked him for it. Far from them was the idea of solitude. But for Christ, solitude was welcome. For him, it was a blessing, a chance to commune with himself and God, to lay his petitions before his Father. He did not feel guilty for ignoring his work of preaching and healing: he needed his solitude.

“Quid multa?” as they say in Cicero? What need we say of the 40 days of temptation in the desert? What of Christ’s sleeping in the boat while the tempest raged? What of the various other incidents that I can’t remember? The point is: solitude is not bad, and at least at times, up to 40 days, Christ deemed occupations to be resistendum.

Solitude nourishes our souls sometimes. It helps us commune with God, and learn more about him. While I can’t completely agree to permament solitude, I could certainly agree to a pattern of life that involved frequent solitude, and indeed, that is the pattern of most monastic communities. Not complete, but frequent solitude.

The other assumption is that we only help our fellow men when we are out in the world, doing “good stuff.” Still, I’d like to point something out. The idea of being a Christian, and determinedly doing good works when you feel sad and depressed and left out, or of testifying for Christ in such an atmosphere, is slightly incongruous. You say to your friend that your life has been changed; well and good, but why are you so sad? If your spiritual life is going downhill as you say it, perhaps you’d better take some time to work on it before you start talking about how great it is. In short, don’t testify about your changed life if you feel like it’s basically unchanged at the moment. Have a 40 day time-out in your room. ;-P

Random Poems

2009-03-26T00:00:00.000+02:00

Sages say this is wrong,
And of course they are right,
But midnight chatting on sidewalks
Is an uncommon delight.

My friend laughed at my scruples,
And I stood to let them go,
Except for a wise and unknown stranger,
Who told me to say “no”.

A wise men once crossed my path,
And tipped me some good advice:
No matter how desperate you may be,
Never take for a friend one who talks of vice.

East and West in The Dark Knight

2008-12-11T22:14:00.001+02:00

by Philip Hilton

Much has been said by Mr. Ahern about the negative capability of the Joker. In this essay I would like to outline another important facet of his character: his denial of plan. On his own account, the Joker declares that he does not follow plans. To some extent, this is belied by his actions; and a better example is Harvey Dent, who simply flips coins to determine whether a person lives or dies. The Joker and Harvey Dent are essentially hand and glove to a certain viewpoint.

The careless disregard of will and plan is what I would like to discuss in this essay. The Joker is the epitome of the East: the man who really *has* no plan, and therefore, no goal, does not believe in them, laughs at those who do. Harvey Dent, too, is the epitome of the East: he leaves it completely up to chance who lives and who dies, realizing that his plans are useless. Batman is the epitome of the West: he believes in plans, objectives, right and wrong. He believes in Will. This fundamental conflict is not fully developed in the movie. Nevertheless, insofar as it is developed, it serves as the key theme.

Western writers love to believe that will matters, that there is a plan. A classic example of this is Star Wars. Darth Sidius plans out his return to power, calculating all circumstances. The Rebels calculate their return to power. There are naturally glitches in the plan, which is what makes the plot. Still, overall, it is planned. Watching these films gives us the illusion that we too can plan our life; or else they free us momentarily from our random life. Batman is the essence of this. He and all his "ilk" plan carefully and guilefully, using disguises and weapons to defeat their enemy.

In Chekhov and Tolstoy we find the antithesis of this. Tolstoyan characters do not choose, they do not pretend to have a plan. They simply follow the apparently random course life chooses for them, reacting to the situation. No character pretends to understand his situation. No character pretends that he can control it. It is all outside their control; their decisions, whenever they make them, are pathetic. Tolstoy summarizes it in his perception of battle-schemes. He notes their irrelevancy; the extent to which the troops on the ground do their own thing, regardless of the general battle plan. It invites the question: what is the point of planning at all? And I don't think Tolstoy meant us to discover a point. This is the Eastern viewpoint.

I would argue that both viewpoints are necessary to life. The Eastern viewpoint expresses something which is too often forgotten by idealists who try to leave the traditional ways. The Western viewpoint, although useless on a large-scale level, is important in the small scale -- and this was recognized by the Russians. Not only is it relevant objectively, but subjectively we need it. It is the Life Lie of Ibsen without which man cannot live.

Idealists often pretend that a certain idea will succeed based on known facts. The problem is that "facts" on a large level are simply interpretations. A simple instance of this is the decision by George Bush to invade Iraq. Based on CIA "facts", he made the invasion, which, ultimately, turned out to be useless (in terms of the purpose he designed for it). What he relied on as certain was revealed to be baseless. In psychology and morality it is the same. What we regard as a basic "fact", discovered by us alone, is often nothing more than a figment of imagination. This why the traditional way is often far better than the new way. What seems good turns out to be fatally flawed in a way we could not foresee.

The Western viewpoint has provided a lot of good things for humanity, particularly in science, which relies on "facts" as much as possible. However, in general life, particularly where ideals or psychology is concerned, one cannot be too traditional. These areas -- where animate and not inanimate creatures are concerned -- can generally not be planned. It is simply too theoretical.

But the idea that we can -- and do succeed in planning our life, or whatever, is essential to our existence. In the Wild Duck, Dr. Relling that we need to escape from reality. We need a Life Lie. We need to believe that reality is something other than it is. And that ultimately means the belief that planning works. That is why most of Western novels and drama focus on a battle of wills. In real life, plans as complex as Darth Sidius' plan to take over the Jedi Republic are useless -- there are simply too many variables. But the idea that it could work gives us hope that we can perhaps do the same thing in our lives.

Ultimately, the Russian viewpoint is probably truer to life. Our minds need to plan; we are happiest if we believe in planning, and on a small scale, we can plan. But when we talk about ideals, we need to remember that we are talking about something very big. And we need to be careful, because as soon as we leave levels of planning in which we know almost all the factors, we risk missing important bits of information. So on a small scale we should plan; but we should have no illusion that our "big" plans are anything more than the operation of random chance.

The reason that The Dark Knight is so much more intellectually interesting than any previous play is that it brings into focus these differences, more fundamental than any mere difference of objectives. In the Dark Knight, we have a kind of classic East Meets West Situation. There is Batman, with his Plan and Objective. But against him is not simply another Villain, with His Other Plan and Objective. Instead, we have a villain with No Plan and No Objective. One who leaves it up to chance whether something happens or not.

A Dialogue of Emos

2008-11-27T11:46:00.001+02:00

I realize that this deviates from the usual formal style of my posts, but I feel it very strongly.

Emo 1: Aaaaah, my life is miserable! I feel so sad that people are suffering around me and I can’t do anything!
Emo 2: Aaaah, my life is miserable! I just wish I had a higher paying job instead of a McDonald’s job. Why do they discriminate just because I’m a highschool dropout?
Emo 3: Aaaah, my life is miserable! My girlfriend deserted me! Life is going to end!
Emo 4: Yeah, me too...I think that that proves that there’s no love in this world. I mean, a pretty girl deserted a teenager who could never have supported her in marriage anyway. What ingratitude.
Emo 5: Oh, man. Don’t remind me about my experience.

Emo 1: Sniff, you can never appreciate how I tune into other people’s suffering. It’s awful. It makes me so sad. I’m alone in a cold world.
Emo 2: No, I totally understand. Life is just so bad, man. It’s totally unfair. Look at me, I mean, what did I do to the world that I’m suffering at the minimum wage? Even though I never made it out of highschool I deserve a good job! Everyone does!
Emo 3: “Cause don’t you know that other kids are starving in Japan, so eat it!”
Emo 2: LIFE IS SO CRUEL YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND.

Emo 4: Oh, man, I am SO disappointed in love. She was awesome, but we broke up over who would hang the laundry out.
Emo 5: Wow, Fate hates you.
Emo 2: That’s awful, really awful. How old were you?
Emo 4: I was 13 and she was 18.
Emo 2: Wow, that is so sad, it sounds like an awesome match.
Emo 3: Girlfriends are everything, man.
Emo 4: Yeah, they are. But I’ve concluded that girls don’t like guys. I mean, look at my highschool date! Nothing ever came of it.
Emo 5: Yeah, love doesn’t exist.
Emo 3: I know man.
Emo 5: You have to have suffered what we’ve suffered.
Emo 4: Life has been so unjust to us.
Emo 3: Me too! I had this HORRIBLE experience!

Emo 2: Life isn’t what I dreamed.
Emo 3: Oh, yeah, I used to think life would be fun. Instead they expect you to work.
Emo 2: Yeah! What a rip-off!
Emo 4: Awful.
Emo 5: Actually, I like work.
Emo 1: You’re a freak!
Emo 2: Schismatic! Heretic!
Emo 4: Dude, work is a curse. I think we should get stuff without work.
Emo 3: Me too. Man has a basic to right to happiness without work.
Emo 2: Plus, work automatically excludes happiness.
Emo 3: Yeah, life sucks.

Emo 1: Sniff, God wants such hard stuff.
Emo 2: Yeah, he does, he’s so lame. What does he think we are, his slaves?
Emo 3: It makes me so sad when I don’t do God’s hard stuff.
Emo 2: I know, it’s so lame when you get that feeling.
Emo 3: God should realize that I have problems that I can’t deal with.
Emo 4: I know! I heard someone say the other day that God makes us do hard stuff so we become better people, but that’s so lame dude!
Emo 3: Yeah! Man, people have such weird theories. I wish some people were more practical.
Emo 4: Oh, tell me about it. My pastor is like that.
Emo 3: Tough life.

Emo 1: Well, I’d better get back to my sad life. People tell me that I should DO SOMETHING but the sadness saps my energy. Sniff, sniff.
Emo 2: I know, people say I should go to school and get a degree, but I say that the happy life is a right regardless of qualification!
Emo 3: How can they expect you to be happy if your highschool girlfriend is always deserting you because you have no practical ability to support her, and can’t provide anything for her?
Emo 4: Augh, they think we should grow up, but they have no clue.
Emo 5: Stupid life. Stupid other people.

Adulthood and King John

2008-11-18T22:16:00.000+02:00

Perhaps it is because I only recently became an adult -- or, if you object to that term, an adolescent. Whatever the cause, however, I have recently discovered the remarkably heady pleasure of children’s books. It is really unlike anything in Shakespeare or Homer, or what will you: it feels like wine, lots of wine, taken with friends, lots of friends. Why do I feel this way? Why do we feel this way? This essay wants to answer those questions.

First, we are stunned by the simplicity of children’s books. King John and his India Rubber Ball is an eminent example. The sheer simplicity of his motives baffles us. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is incredibly complex, and he appeals to us. But King John appeals to us because he is so simple. We see in him the truth. At heart, despite all our pretensions, we are King John. We have learned to obscure these kind of things, we have learned clever tricks to enable us to achieve our india rubber ball, but we have obscured the simple nature of desire with justifications. Yet reading these poems, we return to the simple. At heart, there is no “reason” for some of our desires -- something which society refuses to believe. Society demands reasons for desires, and multiplies them. But ultimately, we have few desires, despite our web of clever thought, which conceals our few desires, and replaces them with many.

Second, we laugh at ourselves. Underneath all our pretenses, our fine webs, we see again who we are. In clever wisdom we have elaborated these webs, making them fine and dark beyond measure. When we read children’s books, we break these -- and we laugh at them. We realize that they are illusions of our own minds.

Third, all adults are really bored with cleverness. We have learned that the world is complex beyond our measure. We try to match it, seeking ingenious ways to simplify it. But in simplifying it, we lose sight of simplicity. Ultimately, we become complex in our simplicity. The relief of realizing, after years of “complexity” the simplicity of our desires is amazing. It is like the amazement we sometimes feel when we take a bath, after years of showering. It’s not that one is so much better than the other, as that they must be kept in balance.

Men are simple. True, we think that we advance, we believe that we understand many facets of man’s character, and we try to suppress or release them, according to our philosophical system. The Lord of the Flies in some way summarizes this feeling. Civilization opposes man, opposes simple happiness. Children can only be simple because they are not civilized, not restrained in the same world as adults. For adults, who are restrained by civilization, simple happiness is not possible. The dreams of childhood, and of childhood simplicity cannot exist in civilization, but the desires of children do not change in adulthood. We still want the kind of things that children want; but we can’t get it.

That is why men appreciate both simple and complex literature. They serve as foils. On the one hand, we have our basic desires, which, in childhood literature are for simple things, food, an india rubber ball, which satisfy their desires. In adulthood, we have the same desires. Like children, we want attention. But society frowns on this. So we do not simply say “look at me!” We invent ways to “steal” the attention of society in an “approved way”. This is where complex literature, which shows us this kind of desire-object, can also be appreciated.

Darth Vader's Soliloquy

2008-11-07T23:23:00.003+02:00

anakdarthvader102:

Yeah, you guessed it, I'm Darth Vader, (bad)
Right next to me is that pale Jedi fad
They call him Luke, but despite that, he's a freak:
He's a tolerant liberal Star Wars geek!

Gadzooks! Did you say Leia? I'm glad I'm bad,
(Pfft, move over, hip Hans Solo lad)
"Darling, don't you want a different kinda mien?
One with deeper voice and metal sheen!"

Bet you're sad I'm gonna have to die
All because of Darth Siddy's lie!
Cause you thought Anakin was kinda hot,
And you'd rather see people than a weird robot!

Yeah, I admit, when I first saw my suit,
I did want to kick it with my spare stage boot,
It was lame, I wouldn't have worn it, I have to say,
If I hadn't been in a full body bind that day.

Right...yeah, well, here comes mom!
I mean Darth Siddy, of course, but he is really cool,
Apart from being slightly...wrong.

g2g!
*darthvader102 signed off at 1.55 pm*

The Apathetic Way to Be

2008-11-06T16:54:00.003+02:00

by Philip Hilton,

A lot of people out there seem to think Obama is a bad thing for America’s prosperity, some think he is the end of America’s liberty, and some smaller group think he’s the antichrist. So I guess I’m just begging you all not to go crazy, for a couple reasons.

First of all, this mass hysteria, excuse the term, happens all the time. Supposedly, conservative ladies hid their Bibles when Thomas Jefferson was elected. Yet we remember “TJ” mostly for being a rather laid-back president who incidentally secured the Louisiana Purchase. The election of Andrew Jackson was greeted with similar fear, and indeed, he was pretty bad, and we might call his people “thugs”. Yet ultimately, Jackson’s legacy on this country is small. And it is particularly to Andrew Jackson that I wish to draw your attention, since the parallels with Obama are numerous.

Both were charismatic men with the capability to stir large crowds. If we assume that Obama is immoral, we may handily compare him with ol’ Jackson who committed horrible outrages on the Indians, and spontaneously invaded Spanish Florida. His administration is notorious for being filled with thugs, and the end of his presidency ushered in a depression. Even if we grant that Obama will fill his cabinet with scoundrels, and do awful things to the economy, we may still note with happy complacency that America recovered from Jackson. Most of his reforms, which he passed easily through the malleable Senate and House were overturned in subsequent years. His legacy is nothing.

We say that in this day we are concerned with abortion, and Obama is bad for that. So we say. But it’s not like abortion isn’t already happening. What is Obama going to do, really? Pass an extra law or two? Appoint liberal justices to replace other liberal justices? John McCain was never going to strike down abortion, anyway. So what exactly are we complaining about?

Secondly, man wills but God ordains. I call it the Reverse Policy Effect, where a policy has exactly the opposite effect as intended. This happens rather often in human events. Someone tries to enforce the Prohibition on the nation as a whole; the effect is precisely the opposite to that which he intended. In short, it is quite possible that in the short term Obama will have a malign effect on America, but in the long term he will leave a benign influence behind him.

Thirdly, he’s a politician. Politicians are all alike. Politicians cannot move ahead of their time. Politicians cannot get away from Washington. We often speak of good politicians being frustrated in their beautiful schemes. Well, bad politicians suffer the same problems. Ultimately, the slow grind of Washington frustrates all radicals who try to impose their will in a legal way. Hitler was successfull because he *didn't* go about things the legal way. But there's no reason to think that Obama is Hitler. I doubt that the American soldiers, or the American people would serve a Hitler in any case. Finally, all bad things come to light. Nixon got caught. Benedict Arnold was thwarted. Life went on. :P

Fourthly, you never know. What if he does some good stuff in office? He can’t be all bad.

Finally, take a dose of apathy. It’s all happened before. It will all happen again. No one man can ruin America in four years. Not even a significant group of nations could do that. You get a change of masters in four years.

Naturalistic and Ritualistic Miracles

2008-11-03T21:56:00.003+02:00

by Philip Hilton

Throughout history there have been various reports of miracles. In this essay we will deal only with Christian miracles, and divide them into two classes. The first class we shall call naturalistic, and into it we shall put all the miracles in the Old and New Testament. The second class we shall call ritualistic, and into it we put the miracles of Tobit, and most of the miracle-stories of the Middle Ages. In the final analysis, the second class of miracles are completely distinct with the first, and are generally suspect as having little precedent in the Bible.

From the beginning of civilization, humans have used imitative magic to try to force the hand of the gods as it were. In ancient times, this imitative magic would be carried on in the form of a cult or a annual festival, such as the feast of Demeter, or whatnot. During these rituals, as far as I know, the participants would in some way try to “invoke the goddess”, by a drama. Thus, one might enact the drama of Demeter and Persephone to “create” spring. In time, of course, these magical rituals became merely celebratory feasts, as man realized that spring came regardless of invocation.

Miracles, on the other hand, are the works of God through or for his servants, as we now believe. Nevertheless, miracles, were, immediately following the spread of the gospel, confused with popular imitative magic, in the distilled form of magical symbolism. In these miracles (which we shall now call ritualistic), something is “made” to happen by the application of certain principle. The number seven represents completeness. Consequently, St Jerome recounts a miracle in which a woman is only beheaded on the seventh try. The fish is supposed to symbolize life. Hence, Tobias brings Tobit to life by feeding him a fish.

The principle ingredient in all of these instances is the causative element. Fish bring about life; seven brings about accomplishment; dead holy men bring about what live holy men used to bring about. The Catholic Church wrought many new “symbols” (the shroud of Turin, etc.) and these also have a causative effect, although these did not have any “magical significance” as fish or the number seven do.

All this is totally foreign to the New Testament religion, and precisely the presence of such elements of imitative magic in Tobit is what most inclines me to reject the book from the Old Testament Canon. The idea that man can cause a miracle through the use of certain symbols (seven, etc), or even that God often works through such symbols seems to be bogus. Christ, for instance, does not work through these things. He often performs a miracle with an accompanying physical action (putting saliva on the blind man’s eyes, having a woman touch his robes, dividing the bread and the fish), yet the simple fact is that he does not use any of these magical symbols causatively. Christ and his followers are not magicians; they do not need to use imitative magic to accomplish their purpose; the mere word of God is enough, but they often use a physical act to accompany the divine miracle.

In dealing with miracles, the question to be first asked, then, is simply this. Does this miracle involve any set rituals, and, if so, is the purpose of these rituals merely that of accompaniment, or are they assumed to be in some sense causative of the result? If the rituals appear to cause the result, then we may consider it a ritualistic miracle. If the rituals merely accompany the miracle, and have no causative element, then we may consider the miracle naturalistic.

Briefly, I think that we may consider ritualistic miracles at the very least non-Christian. Christ does not perform them, nor do any of his followers. Consequently, the idea that a miracle-type nowhere evinced in the New Testament suddenly should spring to life after Christ is open to serious question. There is certainly no grounding in the New Testament for it. If we grant that the miracles in the New Testament is genuine, we need not likewise grant that these post-Christ miracles are also genuine. They are completely foreign to him. They are only magic that is piously attributed to the Trinity.

Psalm 127

2008-10-27T22:40:00.003+02:00

Almeida Edition

Se o Senhor nao edificar a casa, em vão trabalham os que edificam; se o Senhor nao guardar a cidade, em vão vigia a sentinela.
Inútil vos será levantar de madrugada, repousar tarde, comer o pao de dores, pois assim dá ele aos seus amados o sono.
Eis que os filhos sao herança do Senhor, e o fruto do ventre, o seu galardão.
Como flechas na mão do valente, assim são os filhos da mocidade.
Bem-aventurado o homem que enche deles a sua aljava; não serão confundidos, quando falerem com os seus inimigos à porta.

Translation:

If the Lord does not build the house, in vain they work who build it; if the Lord does not guard the city, in vain watches the sentinel.
Useless will it be to you to rise before the sun, to sleep late, to eat the bread of suffering, for he gives sleep to his loved ones.
For children are the inheritance of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is its own honor.
Blessed is the man who fills his house of them; they will not be confounded when they may speak to their enemies at the gate.

Notes:

Notable in the Almeida translation is a heavy style which inverts the usual word order, adding strength to the utterances of the psalmist. "Inútil vos será", for instance, is the substitution for "Será inútil a vos", and similarly, "Dá ele aos seus amados o sono" is the substitution for "Ele dá o sono aos seus amados". In both instances, the weight of the sentence is affirmed by sentence-inversion, in a way that sounds convoluted in English, but only slightly archaic in Portuguese.

Equally notable is the strong encomium on marriage, "Bem-aventurado o homem que enche deles a sua aljava", a very different perspective to that of S. Paul in Corinthians.

Euripides: Bacchae and Medea

2008-10-24T07:34:00.000+02:00

by Philip Hilton

Nobody who has read the Bacchae or the Medea would doubt that they are grotesque. Both are stories of horrible murders and involve characters who inflict brutal sufferings on their victims and receive them back with interests. Bacchae involves the sadistic god, Dionysius, who finds pleasure in possessing family members who had been mean to his mother, and making them kill their sons, and carry their sons’ heads on a pole. Medea is about a dangerous monomaniac who runs wild when her husband betrays her, poisons his bride to be, and kills their children.

The key element in many of Euripides’ plays is this: the anti-hero. In Sophocles, one can usually find a hero, or even in Aeschylus. However, in Euripides, this is swept away. The hero-villain idea is generally ignored. Medea, for instance, is a dreadful person; her enemy, Jason, is a feelingless man who has simply abandoned her. Dionysius, the main character in Bacchae is not a good god: he is a brutal sadist, who takes a merry pleasure in watching the house of Cadmus suffer. His opponent, Pentheus, on the other hand, is a bigoted freak, who refuses to recognize a god when he sees one. And Pentheus’ family are no better: Cadmus, Pentheus’ grandfather, is a funny old man, who treats Dionysius with less than real respect. Pentheus is actually murdered by his aunts, so they don’t really qualify as heroes. In short, Euripides was the pioneer of the play with the anti-hero.

The idea of the anti-hero is significant in the development of Western thought. First, it is an advanced art-form. It is notable that Greek culture had almost no anti-heroes in literature (recorded) until Euripides. Equally, I believe that in early Roman literature this was also uncommon. It was in the Silver Age Roman poets (such as Seneca) that we first see plays like Euripides’. This was partly in response, probably, to Euripides. Yet Greek plays had been known before. The point is that it is only in advanced culture that this kind of thing can happen.

Secondly, it cannot occur in a religious society. By this I mean a society that treats religion as a real ceremony. Ancient Greek literature is devoid of anti-heroes until Euripides because there was no impulse to such religious skepticism until Euripides’ time. Let me explain. Suppose you are in a primitive town, and an enemy razed your fields. You are likely to believe you failed to placate the gods, or perhaps, that you need more gods, and so you adopt the gods of your enemy. But suppose you are in Athens. In the Peloponnesian war, the Spartans razed your town. But you have been exposed to the idea that perhaps there *are* no gods. Then, you are likely either to be completely skeptic, or else to be doubtful. This has substantial implications for literature. The primitive literate, unexposed to skepticism and doubt, continues writing. The cultivated literate rethinks. The result is the anti-hero.

The reason the anti-hero cannot appear in the religious society is simple: religion has no place for such doubt. Religion demands heroes, people who work for it, rather than people who work against it. The cult of Dionysius works like this: once or twice a year all the people go up, kill things on the mountain, dance, and drink. This is rather crude religion. The point is, Dionysius is a good guy in this cult. The hero. The skeptic may pooh-pooh this: he is now left without a hero. This is the essential problem of skepticism. The religious man has no real experience with this. Knowing and thinking in heroes, he will write about heroes. At the most, there can be two conflicting heroes. There cannot be, for the religious man, two conflicting villains, because that is foreign to his thought. But there can be for the skeptic. Hence, the anti-hero of Euripides.

Admittedly, in this sceptic age, even the religious man will be somewhat skeptical. The most religious of us are skeptics, to some extent, because that is the culture. If we lived in the middle ages, our skepticism would be different, or less, probably, because the whole culture taught a different way of reacting to the circumstances that cause doubt. So the fact that Euripides wrote from a skeptical point of view is nothing against his poetry, anymore than T.S Eliot’s skepticism makes his earlier poetry worthless. In fact, they are magnificent works of art, both. But we should recognize: the anti-hero is a sign of advanced culture and doubt.

Various

2008-10-15T19:05:00.004+02:00

People often say that wine is bad because people do stupid things when they’ve drunk it. But that is why the happy person likes wine. Wine partly unfetters us from the traditional and rational restraints of society. When we drink wine we are children once again.

A Brief Survey of Mozambican Warfare in the 20th Century

2008-10-08T15:43:00.002+02:00

A Brief Survey of Mozambican Warfare in the 20th Century

(A Cartograph is linked here.)

Since sometime around the 1800’s Mozambique was a Portuguese colony. As a colony, it was routinely ignored. It was not as closely-bound to Portugal as the Azores, nor as rich and large as Brazil, or East Timor. Consequently, it was not fully conquered until about the beginning of the 20th century, when Portuguese troops managed to finish the conquest of Cabo Delgado - Niassa, the part touching Tanzania. From that time on, Mozambique was Portuguese.

In the 1960’s, however, disciples of Marx started FRELIMO -- which, beginning in the north, slowly gained adherents throughout the country, starting in the North, and, as their army approached Lourenco Marques, the Portuguese authorities decided that the country was not worth the war. Consequently, they settled a truce with FRELIMO, granting it control over Mozambique in 1975.

Almost immediately, however, problems emerged. The disciples of Marx were unpopular because they housed the congresses of the rebel groups ZANU-PF and ANC, both of which were warring to end the apartheid in Rhodesia and South Africa. Consequently, Rhodesia and South Africa retaliated, creating and supplying a Mozambican rebel group known as RENAMO. RENAMO conducted a 16 year guerilla war with this funding.

RENAMO’s tactics were generally those of guerilla warfare. Absent air-bases, and generally without tanks, it relied on destroying supplies, and ambushing FRELIMO outposts. This resulted in an extensive use of surface-to-air and anti-tank missiles. Landmines were also a significant part of the campaign. RENAMO would surround their camps with landmines, thus protecting them from unwanted invasions by FRELIMO attackers. Captured RENAMO soldiers would sometimes promise to lead the FRELIMO troops to the RENAMO encampments, and then lead them into the middle of a mine-field, and run away. (Or get blown up.)

Most of the roads, bridges, and minor airfields were also mined. The large civilian casualties which resulted, are, therefore, hardly surprising. Nevertheless, the most significant aspect of the mining was that, after mining an area, the soldiers did not mark the mines, either for their own identification, or for civilians. Thus, years later, a civilian might walk into a landmine, simply by accident. A singular instance of this ocurred in 2006, 15 years after the end of the war, when the police discovered three landmines practically in the suburbs of Quelimane, a city of 100,000, and detonated them.

Biochemical warfare was also part of the campaign. FRELIMO airplanes often detonated substances such as mustard gas, and other, more lethal gases. Nevertheless, due to the small finances of the Mozambican government, and the small number of planes, the airforce was naturally unable to perform a great many such operations. Such as missions as were held, however, were perforce conducted from Beira or Maputo, which were the only cities with airbases large enough for the military flyers.

Another interesting tactic used in the war was the following: often, the FRELIMO aircraft would dive, in the style of World War II, shooting their cannons at the defenseless villagers/soldiers below. So the RENAMO soldiers would conjure up such a situation, and then hide in the bushes, and shoot small surface-to-air missiles at the aircraft, which could not see them until it was too late. Several aircraft were lost in this way.

Tanks were used only infrequently in this kind of warfare, not only due to the frequent landmines, and the consequent difficulty of crossing bridges, but because the finances of the country were rather low. Also, despite the fact that RENAMO was foreign-funded, it gained widespread allegiance in the north of Mozambique, and in the rural areas, while FRELIMO, like Portugal before it, held most of the South, and the provincial capital cities. To show the extent of RENAMO’s sway, in 2004 it garnered 48.9% of the vote, in comparison with FRELIMO’s 51.1%.

Artillery were also used rarely in this kind of war. Of course, at times the armies did use more powerful guns. Nevertheless, large artillery, such as the 15 inch guns used in World Wars I and II, were practically useless in this kind of campaign, where there was no definite front, but rather pockets of resistance. Thus, the guns would generally have sat idle. Moreover, road-transport was precarious, and the difficulties of getting a 3,000 pound gun over a destroyed bridge are large. Hence, the guns used were small.

For the same reason, the armies’ logistical train was precarious. Neither FRELIMO nor RENAMO had reliable air-transport. Indeed, there were few runways on which such air-freight could have landed. More significantly, the roads could be effectively blocked by mining. For all these reasons, cars were scarce, and logistics was essentially impossible. The armies supplied themselves from the fields of the villagers they passed, and moved on. Sometimes, however, they would hunt their meals, because animals were so plentiful.

Short-wave radio was the main means of communication, since the telephone lines were generally cut.

However, the war changed fundamentally in 1986, when Samora Machel, the president since 1975, died in a plane crash in the Lembombo mountains. His death has been variously put down to false navigational beacons sent out from South African radio towers, pilot incapability, witchcraft, etc. However, the ultimate effect was that his successor, Joaquim Chissano, took office, and began negotiating with RENAMO, due to the rising death toll -- estimated at one million. Also, I believe that the apartheid in both South Africa and Zimbabwe was already waning.

Remarkably, the peace talks which followed caused an escalation of hostilities, both sides trying to impress their power upon the other, in an effort to gain favorable peace terms. However, in 1991, the Acordos de Lusaka were at last agreed upon, and the country became peaceful. It has remained so until the present time.

This essay is drawn from a hodge-podge of sources. First, Wikipedia, second, a History of Mozambique, and finally, the memories of those who experienced the war, and my own.

The Brilliant Blog Award

2008-10-06T08:26:00.001+02:00

After being tagged by David, I have resolved to pass on this blog award to the following blogs. Technically, I am supposed to award 7: however, several of the blogs I regularly check have died, and I am loath to name an unworthy blog for the award. Consequently,

NO
YES
Musings of A Protestant
Campus Martius
Pontification Ad Nauseam

The rules: Post the above picture on your blog, and name seven other blogs to pass on the nomination to. Then comment on their blogs to inform them of their nomination.

Man: A Political Animal?

2008-10-03T22:32:00.005+02:00

Man: A Political Animal?¹
By Philip Hilton

It was Aristotle who first suggested to literary history that man was a political² animal. On the other hand, from ancient times man has also been nomadic, and since antiquity, these two ways of civilization -- the tribal and the political life -- have existed. In this essay we shall compare the political way of living to the tribal, taking into account the differences in government, relations within the group, and individual outlook.

The key difference between the government of a tribe, and the government of a city, lies in the difference between patriarchy and monarchy, since, in all cases, these are the most basic forms in each kind of civilization. When I say that the government of the city is not patriarchal, but monarchical, I do not mean that it necessarily allows suffrage to women, any more than that the patriarchy does not. Simply, however, there is this difference between a king and a patriarch: the patriarch has a personal connection with his retainers, where the king does not.

To support this, the reader ought to consider the primitive society of Genesis under Abraham. Abraham’s family consists of about 700 men. This is, true, a large family. Yet it is not impossible to govern personally, and I should venture to say that Abraham, or his near relatives, keep a close eye on the whole. Moreover, any discontented Abrahamite could go to Abraham, complaining of abuse or overwork, and expect to have it remedied immediately, and personally.

On the other hand, when Israel later developed into a kingdom, things worked out somewhat otherwise. Due to the large number of men, and the more citified, possibly less tribal way of conducting the government, Saul and David worked through ministers. Thus, they have left the tribal and patriarchal way, and they have become a primitive nation state, somewhat in the manner of the Gauls. Justice, consequently, became somewhat twisted.

Nevertheless, we must not misrepresent the values of the nation-state. The use of uniform custom and law certainly counts for something. Nevertheless, the evils are various, and many.

The relationships within a tribe also differ significantly from those within a city. In a city, families are divided. Walls are the common lot. Each family lives its own separate life. Certainly, all live next to each other, and are thus united. Yet they are just as much disunited. Living next to each other, they often do not talk to each other, something quite impossible to do in a tribe.

This results in the impersonality of the city. The impersonality of city life fills modern literature: Eliot indicates it in The Waste Land; Jean Paul Sartre mentioned the “serialization of human beings.” The grim paradox of both being so close to other humans, and to so many, and yet of being so far away, is common in modern life, and is a result of the citification which has taken place since the beginning of the Industrial Era.

In summary, I do not pretend that the city does not have many economic advantages. I admit that there may even be other advantages to the city, non-economic, relating either to government, justice, or man’s happiness, which I have not touched upon. The main point, however, of this essay is merely to beg the reader to reconsider Aristotle’s statement, and to ask, “Is man a political animal?”

¹ I owe much of my study upon this topic to Kass’ book, The Beginning of Wisdom.
² from the Greek polis, city. Hence, a citified or political outlook, in contrast to a countrified or tribal one.

The Way of the Force

2008-09-30T12:38:00.007+02:00

In a valley far, far away, where the coconuts grow, and the lanhas come to beautiful ripeness, Ceres harvests only the best and juiciest of fruits for the great members of the Quelimane Youth Group, a powerful group of billionaires from the inner city, led by their Vice-President, Mateus. Money is the great thing in this group, and it takes care to let no member have more than another, for every week the Treasurer steals an equal amount from each of them – almost 5,000 Quelimane dollars, although some pretend it is only 5. Often, the Treasurer, eating the fruits of his worthy task, lets the Vice-Treasurer take a turn. In this he is often exceedingly generous, letting her take the beautiful amounts for week after week.

One of the great things of this group is that it is a democracy. That means that nobody is forced to do anything they don’t want to. In fact, they can stop the whole process of decision making using an ancient tool called the filibuster. When one member decides to filibuster the others, he first raises his voice in a strange language, which nobody else knows, in a song that nobody except he has ever learned, and then laughs inwardly while begging them to accompany him. Unable to do so, they are shamed, and he laughs gruesomely when they get bored of this and sing a song they actually know, in a nice language that they understand.

The other beautiful thing about this group is also democracy. In this paradise, tyrants do not exist. There is no man, or collective group who can make a decision, unless every single dissenter is brought to agree. In this way, perfect harmony is ensured in this group. Each of them, using their unique skills, brings life, order and beauty to this special bunch of people.

Thirdly, they are a democracy. Everybody gets to choose whether to come to any given event. This freedom, endorsed by all, is one of the loveliest features of this group. The coercion often seen in other groups, where people are harassed, or even beaten in their homes if they do not come, is never seen in this group. When people feel indisposed to be stolen from, or do not wish to enjoy the beautiful democracy of the group, they simply take a day off, wandering among the gorgeous flowers of the valley.

Fourthly, they are a democracy. Nobody commands them to be on time, and they enjoy this luxury to the full. Those who wish do indeed come on time, and spend luscious hours enjoying the silence of Quelimane all around them, calmly meditating on life, while they wait for those who are moved to come somewhat later, or, in fact, to not come at all, if they wish to wander among the gorgeous flowers of the valley, as mentioned previously. Nobody feels compelled to stop at any specified time either, as they often stay up late into the night, peacefully discussing the important issues at hand, such as who gets the money the Treasurer stole.

In conclusion, the beautiful group of the Quelimane Youth Group is much to be admired, and many groups could learn from it.

(Some notes: our youth group meets mainly for singing, and selecting the songs is always a trial. At the end we take a collection. The Mozambican currency is the metical, and until recently 25,000 meticais equalled a dollar, but they cut the zeros off, and although some people have adapted to this, many people still speak in thousands.)

The Liquid Charge

2008-09-28T20:22:00.000+02:00

by Philip Hilton

Underneath the gas station
The gasoline slaps in its tank,
While the cars drive overhead.

Darkness feeds the gasoline
Shines silently over its dangerous liquid charge.
Gasoline feeds the darkness
It reflects light as if it were dark light.

Secrets are like gasoline
They nourish darkness
And the darkness nourishes the gasoline.

Secrets burn like gasoline:
Nothing for a second,
And then nothing at all.

Time

2008-09-22T01:44:00.000+02:00

by Philip Hilton

Time is long
Like a circular snake that can never stop
Eternally eating, and always wanting more
It eats Methusalahs of men.

Catullus and Wickham: Compare or Contrast?

2008-09-13T21:59:00.000+02:00

by Philip Hilton

The 1830’s award for clever and insincere flirting must surely have fallen to Mr. Wickham, a charming, but unprincipled villain, whose affair with Lydia Bennet gives him eternal infamy in the eyes of posterity. Had he left behind any poetry to that eligible lady, we would doubtless have had space to laugh, to condemn, or to acclaim the beauty of his expression. Insincere, perhaps, but clever.

However, while we have none of Mr. Wickham’s poetry, we certainly have plenty of brilliant poetry by another young poet: Catullus, a young Roman provincial who lived around 70 BC. And if we do not know how many affairs he led, or whether he destroyed the reputations of any Roman ladies, it is for no lack of trying. Unfortunately, all we have left of his life survives in his poetry, which has often been condemned on the grounds of insincerity and unchastity. On the other hand, it is often been considered clever, and even sincere and sensitive by others.

In short, this leads to the question addressed by the present author: was Catullus merely the young and talented Wickham of 70 BC -- an unprincipled and insincere rascal, who used, rather than loved the women he came into contact with?

To this I must answer no, on several counts. Firstly, a divergence in favor of Mr. Horace. Mr. Horace’s favorite method of considering women is “carpe diem”, and very rational to be sure. He does not consider one woman worth dying for, nor does he seem to commit any passion to any single women, but is rather like the Narnian dwarfs, who, once taken in, build a mental cage for themselves. He is quite philosophical, places no weight on any girl, and his general modus operandi is cynical, rather than adoring.

On the other, hand, we may compare Catullus’ method. Catullus, far from being cynical, is too easily taken in; he is not a philosopher, and if he is open to being cynical about women, he is not naturally drawn to it, and instead tends to be entirely engrossed with the girl he is with at the moment.

The point has first to be made that nearly all Catullus’ love poems are about Lesbia; unlike Wickham, he does not first go after Elizabeth, and then Miss King, and then Lydia; nearly all the time he is passionately in love with Lesbia. Also, unlike Wickham, he does not seem to have been very successfull. There are no poems of rejoicing; obviously, Lesbia didn’t care much for him.

Essentially, therefore, he’s a loser in terms of love. There seems little point in calling him insincere, or saying that he trifles with Lesbia’s affections, in light of this: one might as well say that Mr. Darcy trifled with Lizzy’s affections. One cannot trifle with the affections of someone who does not wholly return your love. Moreover, if he were really an insincere lover, he would quickly realize that there was no easy love here, and go elsewhere; but he does not. So it seems as if he is not insincere in his love, but rather completely sincere, quite to the point of obsession.

True, he does have poems, in which, for instance, he is invited to meet his friend’s mistress and falls under her spell, but this is somewhat understandable, and in the long run, he seemed always to be under Lesbia’s spell.

Secondly, all the rest of his poems, those not interested in love, show a keen sense of valuing friends, as, for instance, in Catullus 12, where one of his company steals his napkins as a joke: Catullus reprimands him on the grounds that these napkins are keepsakes of his friend, who will probably want his gift to be kept. Surely this kind of incident tells favorably towards not using people.

Finally, as far as unprincipled goes, he was a normal member of Roman society. True, we may condemn his attitude towards affairs between unmarried people; but there is, even in these things, a significant difference between the “unprincipled” man, who uses a girl, and the one who loves a girl, whatever the final status of the affair may be.

In summary, we can hardly say that Catullus was unprincipled: he was characteristic of men of his time, but there is no record that he was anything other than reasonably honest. As for being insincere, and trifling with the affections of Lesbia, he could not: he was completely under her spell; if anything, it was his affections that were trifled with, and by her.

The Sieve

2008-09-01T09:55:00.001+02:00

I fence this thought off
And it stays away;
I fence out that thought,
And off it goes,

Like water pushed away
With a sieve,
It never returns to haunt
My troubled, puzzled self.

Ten Books

2008-08-21T10:24:00.001+02:00

1. One book that changed your life: To be honest, I can’t think of any immediately. Wicked by Gregory Maguire had a significant impact on my thinking, as did the Great Gatsby and This Side of Paradise by Scott Fitzgerald. Undoubtedly, the books of Scripture that have given me the deepest insights into life are Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once: The Aeneid. I’ve read it a lot.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island: Dunno. Probably my Portuguese Bible. Ooh. Confessions. I used to think Confessions was boring, but now I think it’s one of the deepest and most touching books ever written.

4. One book that made you laugh: Probably something by P.G Wodehouse. He’s my man when I want a laugh.

5. One book that made you cry: Gone With the Wind. :P

6. One book that you wish had been written: Mostly technical manuals about war and tanks. Airplane books are good too.

7. One book that you wish had never been written: There are some pretty lame romances out there.

8. One book you’re currently reading: If we say recently read, then I can claim the Harry Potter books (particularly the sixth, I love the sixth one) and Wicked.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: Uh...Kant’s most famous book...whatever it’s called.

10. Tag five others: Pass.

Gotterdamerung

2008-07-09T22:47:00.002+02:00

by Philip Hilton

This is the hour:
This is the twilight of the gods.

Sundering seas will separate
Minds will form deep waters
All men must go their way

For this is the hour:
This is the twilight of the gods.

The bridges must be crossed,
The battles must be faced,
The Old must bow to the New

Because this is the hour:
This is the twilight of the gods.

June 11th

2008-06-11T22:26:00.003+02:00

This is in response to the post on Bard of Bedegraine.

I have changed in many ways over the past several years. For one thing, I know more stuff. For another thing, my idea of valuable knowledge has expanded greatly, which has been the chief factor in persuading me that, in fact, I know little.

It seems to me that one’s opinion of one’s own knowledge depends largely on what you recognize to be knowledge.

For instance, when I was a young padawan, I was very condescending towards those who didn’t know the difference between “its” and “it’s” and who didn’t know that “Well” was the correct answer to “How are you doing?”

Besides the fact that this was rather annoying, the larger point I’m driving it is that how you reckon your own knowledge depends only how much of the picture you see. If you think grammar and grades are the only thing in life, and you talk Oxford English and spew A’s at every quarterly, you will have a high opinion of yourself. But if you get out in the real world, you will quickly learn that honesty is worth more than Oxford English (sometimes anyway), and you would probably trade your perfect A’s for some speaking charisma. It all depends on the point of view.

I, for one, used to think (metaphorically) that God would kill me if I didn’t get good grades. Although chastened, I still like my education. But I willingly realize that life is not grades, and that I can learn a lot from people who didn’t get A’s all through highschool.

In any case, my point is – one’s reckoning of one’s own knowledge depends on going through life with an open mind, and recognizing valuable talents and know-hows. It’s the sign of a small, inexperienced and arrogant mind to think that they know everything.

Suffering

2008-05-28T13:28:00.002+02:00

It seems to be a common opinion among Christians that suffering is a kind of test sent by God. This, while a very common opinion, is only one explanation, and probably the least useful for dealing with suffering.

Suffering is far more than a kind of divine exam, sent to test you against your neighbors, so that God can assign places in heaven. God is prescient, and quite aware of where you will go; he’s also omniscient, and knows exactly where you are. Rather than any such arbitrary things, suffering is a kind of training.

Another common illusion is that suffering precludes happiness, and that people who suffer are sad. Equally false! As far as I have seen, suffering is a basic fact of life that results from activity of any sort. Consequently, there is no reason to believe that an exercising athlete is unhappy: he is certainly undergoing hard work, but he is doubtless happy. Suffering, whether physical or spiritual, is simply a kind of hard work.

Its basic reason is simple: people who do not suffer, while they may be very good people, can hardly improve. Hard work is the only way to do that. And suffering is that way.

In detail, suffering helps in two ways.

Firstly, it strengthens our confidence and central impulse. When one has for years relied on one guiding star, and found ways through swamps and forests through following it, one is very confident in that star. One does not feel the urge to follow another star. This, in its own way, is a kind of crutch, that precludes doubt about our course. Man can hardly survive doubt about his ultimate purpose; doubts about how to continue following a course are secondary.

Secondly, it strengthens us ourselves. We can hardly help building some great astronomy and geography as we follow our star. Similarly, we can hardly fail to build honesty, charity and clear-mindedness if we follow our conscience.

Thirdly, it makes us happy. People who purposely avoid pain are easy to find, but it is never as satisfying to avoid pain as to go through it and achieve something.

As long as we suffer for a just and honest cause, the suffering can hardly help but make us happier and better people.

OneRepublic

2008-05-27T16:26:00.003+02:00

It is unusual for me to post video links on this blog, but this one resonated with me so strongly that I was compelled.

A Meditation on Confession

2008-05-19T15:58:00.002+02:00

Confession is essential to moral reform. To confess is almost the same as to have reformed; and to actually achieve some moral reformation invariably implies some kind of confession. So it is surprising that so many Christians seem to think that they can continue to become Christlike, when they refuse to confess their sins.

There are two facets of confession, and both of them are important.

Firstly, there is confession to oneself. Basically, Christian life must start with some kind of recognition of particular sin. Without that, of course, you cannot achieve recognition of the general fact that sin is all-invading and common. This should progress to recognition of more particular sins, and in this way, it underpins every moral reform, since moral reform leans on the recognition of a problem.

However, this general fact of omnipresent sin is, rather annoyingly, used in Christian circles to imply the lack of actual sin. However, this is invariably a sign of actual sin and a refusal to confess. It seems paradoxical that people would believe that everyone sins, but be unable to name to their specific sins, and yet it actually occurs. So I'd say one of the first indications of lack of confession is just that: if you cannot think of an actual and critical sin that is impeding your spiritual life.

Confession also relies heavily on definition: sin is pickly; it has black and white areas, but also grey areas. However, contrary to common thought, the grey areas are often the most harmful spiritually, and are the root and source of the black areas. In this way, confession and moral reform require recognition of sin and non-sin.

Secondly, there is confession to others, a type of confession which is generally ignored in all programs of moral reform. Obviously, this type of confession is not required in every kind of sin. However, where it is required, it is absolutely necessary. Take, for instance, an obvious example, that of an adulterer. The very clandestineness of his sin (in general) is the sin, and there can be no real reform from the sin (or the guilt of the sin), unless, in addition to stopping sinning, he reveals the sin. That is why a moral reform program can never solve guilt problems without confession: the sin is never gone until it is confessed.

The great barriers to this problem are pride and fear, and they are the ultimate problems of Christian life. We are proud before other people, and we are afraid to lose their good opinion, and our happiness. Moreover, if there is murder or money involved, we always have to fear that our life will be ruined by the confession.

But although the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, the fear of the confession is the beginning of spiritual death; and although perfect love casteth out fear, where there is fear, there is not perfect love.

Confession to others is probably the most basic, the most powerful means of achieving perfect love and wisdom: ignoring it is the most basic, the most deadly way of destroying spiritual life.

Of course, I don't propose that confession is the only way to achieve spiritual happiness. However, before you start trying to face gladiators in the arena, you might try some simple confession.

Ave Athena!

2008-03-26T16:14:00.003+02:00

I'm celebrating the anniversary of this blog -- dedicated, as you know, to Athena, my patron saint and cream puff. I must say; one thing I've always liked about Athena is her amazing effectiveness. Whether she gets her way is dependent on Zeus, of course, but she has a remarkable amount of mental agilty and unlike Aphrodite, she doesn't mind taking some hard knocks. And she doesn't whine to Zeus afterwards.

Plus, she showers down her wisdom from the heavens, so that I can fill my blog with it.

Ave.

Happy Easter!

2008-03-23T21:22:00.003+02:00

By his stripes we are healed. For he did not come to save healthy, but the sick.

Art & Feeling

2008-03-21T13:04:00.002+02:00

It's striking me more and more that poetic skill is not so much technique as really having it within you.

Alexander Pope makes much that

True wit is nature to advantage dress’d;
What oft was thought, but ne’er so well express’d.

But it seems to me that what Goethe says is more to the point:

An educated man who follows the rules of verse will never produce anything bad or tasteless, but if he does not have true poetic feeling, he will never produce anything of genius, either. Cynicism is the enemy of good poetry.*

*from Sorrows of Young Werther, paraphrase from memory

Analysis & Translation of Catullus 86; The Neoterics

2008-03-07T00:15:00.001+02:00

Quintia formosa est multis. mihi candida, longa
recta est: haec ego sic singula confiteor,
totum illud "formosa" nego: nam nulla venustas,
nulla in tam magno est corpore mica salis.

Quintia is beautiful to many. To me, she is white, tall,
And straight: so I admit these single qualities,
But I deny that it is all beautiful: for there is no elegance,
Nor any attractiveness at all in such a large body.

Notae:

(Line 4) One of the interesting things in this poem is the way it denigrates largeness. This is particularly a function of the group of Neoterics to which Catullus belonged. This group was a group of "Neoteroi" or "Very New People", who, while admitting the greatness of Homer, denied that epic was still a viable literary form. This was largely because the epics of their time were simply compies of Homer, and did not have any originality of their own. However, in denigrating the value of modern epic in general, they also abandoned the literary Homeric values in favor of new, urban values.

For instance, in Homer, and for the Greeks in general (until the time of the Neoterics), largeness was an essential qualification for beauty. Small people could be well-proportioned and pretty, but not really "kalos", or beautiful. Also, hearty-eating was certainly a virtue: great heroes like Odysseus ate plenty. But in the new Neoteric poetry such was not the case. As you can see here, Catullus thinks that large bodies are not particularly commendable (nulla...in...magno...corpore...mica salis). And this is clearly an aspect of the new, urban, Neoteric poetry, which values the small, the cute and the sexy.

Another thing which defined the Latin Neoterics is their word usage, apparent here. Of course, word usage is an interesting thing, especially when you're looking at ancient literature, because one does not have all the books that were written -- and I certainly haven't read all of them in Latin. Still, the main words that seem to define Latin Neoteric poetry are the following: nugae, venustas, lepidus, salis, etc. These are all words, which, in Latin, have the basic meaning or connotation of cute, witty, sexy, trifle -- urbane things, which, as I said, were valued specifically by the neoterics.

Speculatively, I should say that these words, so common in Horace and especially in Catullus, are uncommon in later literature, and, when found, are used entirely differently. For instance, Terence, Plautus, Cicero, Catullus and Horace, according to Lewis and Short, all use the words; there are one or two others who do also. They're clearly very colloquial words. And so they fit well in Plautus, and Terence, and others of that ilk -- I mean, comic poets. But from what I could see in Lewis & Short, it seems that they practically die out in poets after Augustus; Martial uses nugas, I think, once, as quoted by Lewis and Short; apart from that, Lewis & Short couldn't think of another author who did, except the above mentioned. And I would hazard that this is partly because they no longer fit in the world of Late Rome, where people had much grimmer, more sadistic, sense of humor. One can hardly imagine people of the Tacitus type writing poems describing their girlfriend as venusta. And so in this way, I would say, the words were peculiar to the Neoteric movement. And so the words ceased to be in the literary language, I would guess.

It fits in to what some people say about the people defining the language, ah reckon.

*end brief & inane notes*

Pensees 194

2008-03-06T00:05:00.001+02:00

I was meditating recently on this passage from Pensees, by Blaise Pascal:

The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great consequence to us and which touches us so profoundly that we must have lost all feeling to be indifferent as to knowing what it is. All our actions and thoughts must take such different courses, according as there are or are not eternal joys to hope for, that it is impossible to take one step with sense and judgment unless we regulate our course by our view of this point which ought to be our ultimate end.

Thus our first interest and our first duty is to enlighten ourselves on this subject, whereon depends all our conduct. Therefore among those who do not believe, I make a vast difference between those who strive with all their power to inform themselves and those who live without troubling or thinking about it.

I can have only compassion for those who sincerely bewail their doubt, who regard it as the greatest of misfortunes, and who, sparing no effort to escape it, make of this inquiry their principal and most serious occupation.

But as for those who pass their life without thinking of this ultimate end of life, and who, for this sole reason that they do not find within themselves the lights which convince them of it, neglect to seek them elsewhere, and to examine thoroughly whether this opinion is one of those which people receive with credulous simplicity, or one of those which, although obscure in themselves, have nevertheless a solid and immovable foundation, I look upon them in a manner quite different.

This carelessness in a matter which concerns themselves, their eternity, their all, moves me more to anger than pity; it astonishes and shocks me; it is to me monstrous. I do not say this out of the pious zeal of a spiritual devotion. I expect, on the contrary, that we ought to have this feeling from principles of human interest and self-love; for this we need only see what the least enlightened persons see.

We do not require great education of the mind to understand that here is no real and lasting satisfaction; that our pleasures are only vanity; that our evils are infinite; and, lastly, that death, which threatens us every moment, must infallibly place us within a few years under the dreadful necessity of being for ever either annihilated or unhappy.

There is nothing more real than this, nothing more terrible. Be we as heroic as we like, that is the end which awaits the world. Let us reflect on this and then say whether it is not beyond doubt that there is no good in this life but in the hope of another; that we are happy only in proportion as we draw near it; and that, as there are no more woes for those who have complete assurance of eternity, so there is no more happiness for those who have no insight into it.

Surely then it is a great evil thus to be in doubt, but it is at least an indispensable duty to seek when we are in such doubt; and thus the doubter who does not seek is altogether completely unhappy and completely wrong. And if besides this he is easy and content, professes to be so, and indeed boasts of it; if it is this state itself which is the subject of his joy and vanity, I have no words to describe so silly a creature.

How can people hold these opinions? What joy can we find in the expectation of nothing but hopeless misery? What reason for boasting that we are in impenetrable darkness? And how can it happen that the following argument occurs to a reasonable man?

"I know not who put me into the world, nor what the world is, nor what I myself am. I am in terrible ignorance of everything. I know not what my body is, nor my senses, nor my soul, not even that part of me which thinks what I say, which reflects on all and on itself, and knows itself no more than the rest. I see those frightful spaces of the universe which surround me, and I find myself tied to one corner of this vast expanse, without knowing why I am put in this place rather than in another, nor why the short time which is given me to live is assigned to me at this point rather than at another of the whole eternity which was before me or which shall come after me. I see nothing but infinites on all sides, which surround me as an atom and as a shadow which endures only for an instant and returns no more. All I know is that I must soon die, but what I know least is this very death which I cannot escape.

"As I know not whence I come, so I know not whither I go. I know only that, in leaving this world, I fall for ever either into annihilation or into the hands of an angry God, without knowing to which of these two states I shall be for ever assigned. Such is my state, full of weakness and uncertainty. And from all this I conclude that I ought to spend all the days of my life without caring to inquire into what must happen to me. Perhaps I might find some solution to my doubts, but I will not take the trouble, nor take a step to seek it; and after treating with scorn those who are concerned with this care, I will go without foresight and without fear to try the great event, and let myself be led carelessly to death, uncertain of the eternity of my future state."

Who would desire to have for a friend a man who talks in this fashion? Who would choose him out from others to tell him of his affairs? Who would have recourse to him in affliction? And indeed to what use in life could one put him?

In truth, it is the glory of religion to have for enemies men so unreasonable; and their opposition to it is so little dangerous that it serves, on the contrary, to establish its truths. For the Christian faith goes mainly to establish these two facts: the corruption of nature, and redemption by Jesus Christ. Now I contend that, if these men do not serve to prove the truth of the redemption by the holiness of their behaviour, they at least serve admirably to show the corruption of nature by sentiments so unnatural.

Nothing is so important to man as his own state, nothing is so formidable to him as eternity; and thus it is not natural that there should be men indifferent to the loss of their existence, and to the perils of everlasting suffering. They are quite different with regard to all other things. They are afraid of mere trifles; they foresee them; they feel them. And this same man who spends so many days and nights in rage and despair for the loss of office, or for some imaginary insult to his honour, is the very one who knows without anxiety and without emotion that he will lose all by death. It is a monstrous thing to see in the same heart and at the same time this sensibility to trifles and this strange insensibility to the greatest objects. It is an incomprehensible enchantment, and a supernatural slumber, which indicates as its cause an all-powerful force.

Unity & Obama

2008-02-29T21:33:00.002+02:00

I was thinking about the Obama campaign recently.

A major issue, so far as I can see, in the Obama campaign, is this "Audacity of Hope" idea. While I actually support hoping, it seems to me that we should never stop asking what we are hoping for, and how we intend to achieve it. Both Christians and hippies are hoping for the noble ideal of love and peace. But I think the methods of achieving it are slightly different.

For instance, Christians don't think more psychedelic drugs are going to help. While they may induce a serious high, akin to an Obama feeling, ultimately, some more serious methods are required. Dreams are great. But the fundamental tenet of the Obama campaign -- getting liberals and conservatives to work together -- is fatally flawed.

Now I agree basically. Humankind needs to work together. Obviously "synergy" produces better results than "monergy". However, the question is what work this energy is going to do. Sure, we all want honest government. But the divisive question is how to get it. Are we going to set up five committees to review the current state of morals to determine if decisive action is required, and then to set up an arch-commission to investigate their findings after a a year? Or some other way?

To illustrate it another way. A terracotta and a glass sculpture may both hold together separately. But a terracotta-glass sculpture is only going to fall apart. Unity is all very well; but it's probably a good idea to consider what is being unified, and whether it's going to stay unified.

The Obama campaign wants love and unity: but what has Jerusalem to do with Athens? How can you have unity between people who believe in abortion, and people who don't? Really, now, what kind of unity are we talking about here? Surely a very limited unity. I certainly believe that we should try to get unity. But not that kind of unity.

It shows a basic miscomprehension of life to expect unity like that. So, instead of trying to attempt an impossible political union of opposites, perhaps we should be working at the grassroots level to turn enemies into friends, and creating real unity, instead of fake unity.

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-25T20:40:00.000+02:00

I have only a couple things to say.

Firstly, my presents-tally is listed on my other blog, my Xanga.

Secondly, Merry Christmas! The salutation speaks for itself.

Thirdly, although I admit that I consider the Xanga side-bar ads invasive in the extreme, I can't possibly bring myself to make another blogger for the history of my private life; nor does it seem wise to me to "debase" the Athenaeum with such things. So, all things considered, I shall continue to use Xanga.

Fourthly, do not ever talk to friends while listening to your iPod. It is rude. So is perpetually taking pictures of them without their consent. Here, while we're at it. My theory about iPods is the following: You may politely listen to an iPod in a timeframe where you could politely read a book of the David Copperfield type. If you don't have a chance to talk to people, it is also fine to "iPod out" -- subways, for instance, and long car rides all alone. But otherwise it's a very selfish pleasure. Abstain.

Merry Christmas!
Philip

Trivia

2007-12-22T00:01:00.000+02:00

Cash Advance Loans

Fire & Ice

2007-12-13T09:56:00.000+02:00

Some say the world will end in fire
And some in ice
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire
But from what I know of hate
I think that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost

Professional Detachment & The Modern World

2007-11-13T22:12:00.001+02:00

What is professional detachment, anyway?

Quite a reasonable question. You all know about professionalism, I'm sure. Probably you've heard that lawyers, soldiers, police, etc, justify their horrid actions by their professionalism. That is to say, having accepted the profession, they were now merely amoral agents of their employer. As an example, at the Nuremburg Trials, several men attempted to justify their participation in the Nazi scheme by claiming that, after accepting their position in the new Reich, they no longer acted for themselves, but for their superiors, who, in turn, acted not for themselves, but for the Fuhrer, who, of course, acted for the Reich. In summary, they were no longer "Albrecht Speer" but "The Manager of German Industry". Albrecht Speer, having accepted the role, was no more, so long as he was within the role, but accepted the reasons for action which the role gave (orders from his superior).

The question before us is whether this professional detachment is morally acceptable.

Let us consider an American soldier. Now, suppose a soldier in the ranks, upon coming to Iraq, realizes that the Americans really oppress the Iraqis, and have not come to liberate Iraq at all. So he deserts.

Firstly, is this morally criminal, or is this morally correct? Secondly, what are the consequences for society?

Let us next consider Henry David Thoreau. As you know, he protested the Mexican war by not paying his taxes. And was summarily shut up.

As a citizen, in his professional detachment, Mr. Thoreau has deserted. Was this morally correct? What are the consequences for society?

For the question of professional detachment is not individual, but societal, if you see what I mean. Since such rampant principled-ness and conscience-adherence threatens society, it fights -- because it must. Society, modern society, at any rate, depends on this professionalism most awfully. If people simply started standing up for principles, refusing army missions they believed were wrong, and so on, life would dramatically change. Of course, they don't. Not in any number. Usually they protest, but that is quite fair and within the system. Protesting is a sort of professionalization in itself, perhaps. The thing to do, as Mr. Thoreau said, is not to protest, but to not pay taxes. In other words, not to work from within the system, but to work outside the system -- and work much quicker.

Various Doggerel (mine, I regret to say)

2007-10-22T23:02:00.000+02:00

To speak or to shut up, that is the question;
One which my conscience always seems to mention
Mostly I want to talk, and so I do;
My conscience is most prickly as the results accrue.

Honesty is like a potent drug
Kept out of reach of children
Taken safely by adults
By teenagers misusen.

Greek on my left and Latin on my right
I have homework to do tonight
Computer before and bookshelf behind
There are YouTube videos to find!

Die dishes blasted
Chlorine stinky smell
Little brother in morning

O God of the Sacred LCD
Give your pleasure now to me!
The endless joy of clicking keys,
Of flicking screens, of flvs!*

(Rather old)
Bright pink puppy, don't you see
Greek conditionals in me?

*FLV -- Flash Video. It's a video format.

Quid Est, Quid Non Est

2007-10-19T02:35:00.001+02:00

One frankly has to wonder about the relationship between truth and falsity. The virtual world transforms and illustrates this. Is what you see over the internet of something a misrepresentation, or, in fact, the real thing? Of course, we call the internet "virtual". But, in fact, this is an assumption. Equally, the face in the video chat might be the real thing, and the physical face merely virtual. Is what we see a misrepresentation of what is? Or is it true, but merely in a subjective manner, as it is true that we both like coffee, not liking coffee being common only to savages.

Practically, we can ask how one is ever to distinguish the commonly called "not true" from the "true". In a world where people will lie to us, invalidating much of our data, or at least calling it into conflict with someone else's, knowledge of the objective truth is scarce. Wait -- objective? In any given situation, we may THINK we saw something, but our judgments err. A mistake might be made in the inductions, and our source, in giving us "the truth" might in fact merely give us the truth+erroneous inductions.

If, of course, what we observe really is truth, and not an illusion. In the latter case, regardless of how well we perceive it, how well we transmit it, "it" remains non-truth, virtual reality, or whatever. Clearly, as I have stated, this opens up the obvious problem: why is one particular version of reality more "real" than another? Practically, this is, I think, because we tend to experience virtual reality or fictional reality from within "real" reality, which gives us a sense that these are a illusory realities, and that "real" reality is the real thing. We tend to think "real" reality is real because most people have largely the same view on it as we do -- this is no proof, however. In an illusion, we might possibly meet people who have similar illusions.

Thus, from natural error, deliberate mistransmission, our data is corrupted -- whether data about the surreal, the nonreal, the hyperreal, etc.

I'm sure you expected me to end with a deep conclusion to this dilemma. So I'll oblige. There is only one remedy to this inexplicable tangle. Death, right? XD

Homer

2007-10-06T20:33:00.000+02:00

I, personally, am a Latinist. I do not believe Greek is better than Latin, and I refuse to concede an inch when it comes to Vergil vs. Homer. Vergil is waaay better, and you know it.

However, since I have been an Homeric reader for a month now, I suppose I really should explain what Homer is all about.

Andra moi ennepe, mousa, polutropon...

Linguistically, Homer’s Greek differs from Attic Greek in several ways, most noticeably, in its practical lack of article adjectives. The difference is not noticeable, if you’re quite used to often not having article adjectives (i.e a Latinist), and Homeric Greek does have a kind of early approximation of the a.a – underdeveloped, and untranslatable, however.

Also, Homeric Greek verb forms seem to be simpler, partly due to the epic form, which doesn’t appreciate a whole lot of tense switching and optative use, partly because Homer is not trying to get sophisticated effects from his language, but rather natural effects. Not, I suppose, that tenses and moods really get lost – but they are used very rarely. In a former life I heard that Homer’s Greeks were obsessed with the present, and that is why Homer largely remains in the present tense. I suppose it makes some sense, really – primitive culture, primitive tense forms…

Some Attic prepositions have changed meaning, particularly kata, which now means “down”.

“Oi” can turn out to be a dative singular form in Homer.

There’s more, but I’m headed over my wordlimit, and I’m not at all a philologist, but a linguist. Hah! A subtle difference that no-one can see, a hair that cannot be split!

Oti men umeis, O andres Aqhnaoi, peponqate, ouk oida...

However, to me, Homer feels a lot more natural than Plato, with his clicky concepts, a lot more natural than Vergil, and overall just fairly flowing. I swear it’s the sentence order that does it. The feeling of Latin, that of slipping grammatical cogs into a purring machine, magno cum murmure montis, is produced by his weird sentence orders. Plato was nuts about using his language to express difficult concepts, and his writings are consequently full of the machinery required to express it. In Homer there is none of it.

Since Homeric Greek lacks a lot of long, sonorous vowels and sleepy m-sounds, Homeric assonance can’t be as good as Vergil’s – I haven’t actually noticed much assonance in Homer, but I’m generalizing, you see – and I still haven’t seen an example of tmesis, although I’m sure one’s just around the corner. Smash my cere saxo brum, you know.

I suppose, in general, Homer doesn’t have the same sound effects as Vergil, and therefore regains lost ground in his Ionic Greek words, which have all the subtlety that Attic Greek words normally do.

Oh, did I forget the most important thing? Homer uses dactylic hexameter. Latin meter, and Greek meter too, is quantitative, which means it is determined by the length of the syllable, not the stress of the syllable. How does that work?

So…let’s take a well known line…

In fan dum, re gi n(a)i u bes re no va re do lo rem

Divides into: __ _.. __ _.. _.. __ (LL LSS LL LSS LSS LL)

In dactylic hexameter, there are six feet: each may be either a dactyl (long-short-short) or a spondee (long-long), and the stress is of no import, and of the last two feet, the penultimate is invariably a dactyl, and the ultimate foot is in the form L*, where * is a wildcard syllable, either long or short.

Rather than a dactyl being stress, unstress, unstress, it is long, short, short. So there’s quantitative meter in a nutshell.

And I conclude my rather miscellaneous thoughts on Homer and Homeric Greek poetry and language.

The Eagle

2007-09-02T21:07:00.000+02:00

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Swearing: Corrected

2007-08-27T00:40:00.000+02:00

I’ve been thinking a bit about swearing these days. I mean, what is swearing and what isn’t?

It is useful to note that there is no need to make usage of modern English conform to the archaic or incomplete dictionary definitions. That, of course, is because the dictionary is neither more nor less than a reflection of current usage – when it defines a word as it is *not* in current usage, or does not offer a secondary definition, it is incorrect. E.g, words such as ‘dude’, ‘cool’, ‘hip’. Let not the workman be subject to his tool.

Secondly, the etymology, or former meaning of the word, or secondary meaning of the word, does not necessarily pollute the right or current use of the word;- that is a fallacy – ad hominem.

To classify words as ‘swearing’ which are not meant in that way, is as if you willfully misinterpret a word such as ‘appropriate’, in its secondary definition, that of seizing or taking. Therefore, the single expression, ‘darn!’ – a word as vague as ‘dude’ – must be interpreted on the basis of circumstances.

Similar words, which intend to anathematize the object, are typically used invalidly in the technical sense, however. Anathematizing a rock, for instance, is rather ineffective, and implies a contradiction similar to triangles being round. Thus, if you care to be perfectly precise about it, and exclude the accepted meaning, on the dictionary definition of ‘darn’, we are obliged to conclude that only a small number of cases are meaningful – those applied to people. In which case, it is admittedly a sin.

However, clearly, the Christian must be guided by the fourth commandment, which tells us not to take God’s name in vain. The precise meaning of the phrase is for the Hebrewists but the two possible meanings of the English would be

A) Not to swear vainly using the Lord’s name, e.g, “By God, I will do it this time,”

B) Not to vainly use the Lord’s name, e.g, “Oh my God!” – which is generally a trivial reflection, on a circumstance that required no such words.

In summary, in the first paragraph the examination proceeded by identifying the fact that the true definitions do not always match the dictionary definitions, c.f Dr. McM, log 20300290, and further identified the invalid use of words expressing anathemas used on inanimate objects, conceeding that even if meant, the anathema was meaningless, and concluded by examining the precise meaning of the fourth commandment, determining that it was likely a matter best left to Hebrew experts.

Alice & Oberon: A Fairy Tale

2007-08-14T08:25:00.000+02:00

"Where HAVE you been, Alice?"

It was in these words that the elegant Sir Oberon greeted the young maid. And it became speedily clear to all, that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.

In fact, this all goes back, you should know, to my grandfather, a reputable gentleman, who, despite a certain what-is-it in his temper, was, as I have said, a reputable gentleman. Indeed, so far from being otherwise was the old man, that he had a place in the English Peerage -- the Peerage, for the unenlightened, is a fictional work, one of the best the English have ever composed. But I wander.

In any case, the elegant Sir Oberon, far away in fairy land, was not concerned with my grandfather, who, in fact, had never exerted a great influence on his life.

Alice was a far greater influence. The fact that she was merely a naiad, and not a true fairy, did not concern him greatly -- but he did have doubts about her sincerity, sometimes. Women, you know, are awfully fickle.

But I wander again.

Had Oberon not been Scottish, perhaps events had turned out otherwise. But, as so often happens, he was, and it had the makings of a tragedy.

It is never difficult for the normal person to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine. Unluckily, Alice was not a normal person.

She opted for the gusto, and was dissed sharply by Oberon, who began to look like my cousin (Heaven forbid!), who is, for your information, an Ohioan, of slight taste and slighter morality. Of course, I really shouldn't talk -- my conduct has never been precisely welcome to my aunts, and I daresay my cousins have a couple scruples about my behaviour in public.

Indeed, the acid comments one sometimes hears -- "Let's pass it on to the child prodigy" *snickersnicker*, might belie the perfect mask, and make me positively suspicious sometimes.

Of course, I suppose aunts are always dubious, really, of their upstart nephews -- I know I don't know a single aunt who really wholeheartedly approves of the male offspring of their sister. Especially, you know, in those teenage years, when their demeanour is a mixture of supercilious arrogance, coupled with extraordinary recluseness and excessive amounts of time alone with Maroon 5 and Idina Menzel.

Alice, as you have probably guessed, is a mental fiction of Oberon. Of course, if you understand my random brain, you will know that much. Don't tell me. You're not psychic? Crumbs.

I say, but you do know me pretty well if you're reading this, right?

So you really should have got that.

What?

No?

FINE. I GUESS I'LL JUST SHUT UP.

Dedicated to Athena

2007-03-26T22:18:00.000+02:00

Greetings, I'm Philip. If you're reading this, I bet you know me already.

This blog is now serving a slightly different purpose than was originally intended. (At first I intended to make it entirely a philosophical blog.) But I have now ditched that purpose, because I didn't have time to write spiffy essays on philosophical minutiae like one of those cymini sectores. This blog, therefore, is intended to largely replace my Xanga blog, but will contain slightly more thoughtful content. Bear with me, and subscribe to RSS feed.

Regards,
The Editor