LINK: If you only watch one Ingmar Bergman parody today, make it this one
(via Slate)
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
30.7.07
QUOTE: From Moreover:
"In literature, the same levelling spirit ousted much of classic English and American literature from the nation’s classrooms, to be replaced by whatever seemed immediately “relevant” to the lives of students. Instead of John Donne or Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Blake or Henry David Thoreau, students in high school were reading stories about teenagers and their problems. There are even essays in the "literature" textbooks written (allegedly) by teens, as well as articles about contemporary social issues and how to solve such urgent problems as completing a job application.
The young must have heroes; they must have stories that stir them. When the schools strip the history and literature curriculum of significant ideas, people and writings, replacing them with fluff and contemporary concerns, then the future of our culture is jeopardised. Unfortunately, such acts of cultural vandalism leave our youngsters with nothing but the popular culture and its vacuous icons."
"In literature, the same levelling spirit ousted much of classic English and American literature from the nation’s classrooms, to be replaced by whatever seemed immediately “relevant” to the lives of students. Instead of John Donne or Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Blake or Henry David Thoreau, students in high school were reading stories about teenagers and their problems. There are even essays in the "literature" textbooks written (allegedly) by teens, as well as articles about contemporary social issues and how to solve such urgent problems as completing a job application.
The young must have heroes; they must have stories that stir them. When the schools strip the history and literature curriculum of significant ideas, people and writings, replacing them with fluff and contemporary concerns, then the future of our culture is jeopardised. Unfortunately, such acts of cultural vandalism leave our youngsters with nothing but the popular culture and its vacuous icons."
CERTAINTY AND DOUBT:
Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
-Luke 1
Jesus asked the boy's father, "How long has he been like this?" "From childhood," he answered. "It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us." "'If you can'?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes." Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"
-Mark 9
Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
-Luke 1
Jesus asked the boy's father, "How long has he been like this?" "From childhood," he answered. "It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us." "'If you can'?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes." Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"
-Mark 9
28.7.07
QUOTE FOR THE EVENING: Now with some explanation at the end!
"When I peruse ancient history I become convinced that the evil that afflicts us is not typical of our age; it is old, yes, even perpetual; no matter how often it is cut off, it always springs up again. Already a long time ago ecclesiastics both in the East and in the West began to build themselves a religious kingdom, and their undertaking was further by the carelessness of princes who preferred to leave a matter they thought was difficult to someone else's conscience rather than to burden their own. Hence the unfortunate separation of Church and State (Hinc reipublicae et ecclesiae infelix divrotium), each one having its own affairs. This is the same method that was followed by him who is now after kings' blood and treads the necks of those whose knees he used to embrace.
The fact that obscure matters are discussed subtly, that opinions are formed on the basis of which side one has become attached to and that dissenters are not tolerated is not a new evil, nor one that is typical of a particular nation. A long time ago a rather unnecessary controversy on the emanation of the Holy Ghost divided the Greek Church from the Latin. We see how Germany is divided by the same conflicts we have and by others besides. They who have caused these disorders will never settle them. Unless the authority of princes mediates between the conflicting parties, the situation is desperate.
This is what the most illustrious States do; they do not undermine the ancient faith, they do not cancel the dogmas of the ecumenical synods, they do not revive Pelagius, they do not turn a blind eye to Polish vices. They are Christians, they remain Catholics, they do not cease to be Reformed (Christiani sunt, catholici manent, reformati esse non desinunt)."
-Grotius, Ordinum Hollendiae ac Westfrisiae Pietas
SO: nothing like putting up a long quote that says some controversial things and not explaining why, huh? Four thoughts:
1. Grotius' unwillingness to recognize the partiality and sectarianism of the time as anything new is important. Earlier in the work, he is careful to separate the differences that arise within orthodoxy from those that arise without. The fact that people disagree sharply on religious matters in 1613 is nothing new--is not, even, solely a result of the Reformation. There is nothing new under the sun, Grotius reminds the reader, and the notion that any set of intractable problems can be solved once and for all is mistaken; one needn't stretch too far to see the conservatism in that statement (even if it is a liberal-conservative, Reinhold Niebuhr-ish sentiment).
2. On the question of Church and State: well, I think in part the translation misleads (hence I included the Latin). What drives the church-state (or republic-ecclesiastical) problem is the fact that people charged with certain responsibilities walk away from them because they find them to be too difficult. The state, for Grotius, is and has to be the guarantor of toleration within orthodoxy. The task cannot be left, as he says, to divines, for the simple reason that they are too much devoted to the certainty of their answers; it is precisely because the prince cares less about which specific theological vision is correct (so long as it's orthodox) that he can provide a counterweight to the supporters of a particular religion who wish not merely to exclude, but to punish, those who are viewed to be wrong.
3. As to whether his position on the church-state question is tenable: I think it's the only position available to him in his historical context. It simply was the case that the Calvinists were determined to use the apparatus of the state to persecute the Arminians, and this in spite on a tradition within the States of treating both as perfectly orthodox opinions. (parenthetically, as a historical matter, it's the Stadtholder's willingness to side with the governmental claims of the Calvinists (after the Synod of Dordt) that leads to the imprisonment or execution of a number of Arminians, Grotius included.) But it's also the case that Grotius musters a good deal of historical evidence (here, and even more in De imperio) that the Church has always had a willingness to cede to the authority of princes.
As to whether church and state should be separate now, well, that's a different (and more complicated) question. But it's worth noting that so long as there are believers who care about this world, there will be an interaction between the two. Pure separation is a myth.
4. The claim of the last sentence is quite bold: Grotius claims the Reformed tradition to be not merely orthodox, but Catholic. This is right, for two reasons: first, as he ends the work, Grotius quotes multiple times from the exceptions to the usual manner of electing Bishops granted to Holland by the Council of Trent (the Netherlands were still Catholic at that time, after all). When Grotius speaks of the means of election of any pastoral figures, he claims that the now-Protestant Netherlands maintain fidelity with their old, given traditions. Second, the claim goes to the heart of Christian unity: it is not merely that all orthodox believers are members of the invisible, universal church, and thus 'catholic,' but that a Protestant of the Reformed tradition has the ability to draw freely from the entire history of the church (Ambrose and Augustine's followers are brought regularly into the earlier theological discussion). The differences on matters of dogma or theology may make it the case that believers congregate in different places, but so long as those beliefs are orthodox, the differences do not matter: all are Catholic. I'm not sure I'd follow him entirely that far, but it's an important argument for someone to make.
"When I peruse ancient history I become convinced that the evil that afflicts us is not typical of our age; it is old, yes, even perpetual; no matter how often it is cut off, it always springs up again. Already a long time ago ecclesiastics both in the East and in the West began to build themselves a religious kingdom, and their undertaking was further by the carelessness of princes who preferred to leave a matter they thought was difficult to someone else's conscience rather than to burden their own. Hence the unfortunate separation of Church and State (Hinc reipublicae et ecclesiae infelix divrotium), each one having its own affairs. This is the same method that was followed by him who is now after kings' blood and treads the necks of those whose knees he used to embrace.
The fact that obscure matters are discussed subtly, that opinions are formed on the basis of which side one has become attached to and that dissenters are not tolerated is not a new evil, nor one that is typical of a particular nation. A long time ago a rather unnecessary controversy on the emanation of the Holy Ghost divided the Greek Church from the Latin. We see how Germany is divided by the same conflicts we have and by others besides. They who have caused these disorders will never settle them. Unless the authority of princes mediates between the conflicting parties, the situation is desperate.
This is what the most illustrious States do; they do not undermine the ancient faith, they do not cancel the dogmas of the ecumenical synods, they do not revive Pelagius, they do not turn a blind eye to Polish vices. They are Christians, they remain Catholics, they do not cease to be Reformed (Christiani sunt, catholici manent, reformati esse non desinunt)."
-Grotius, Ordinum Hollendiae ac Westfrisiae Pietas
SO: nothing like putting up a long quote that says some controversial things and not explaining why, huh? Four thoughts:
1. Grotius' unwillingness to recognize the partiality and sectarianism of the time as anything new is important. Earlier in the work, he is careful to separate the differences that arise within orthodoxy from those that arise without. The fact that people disagree sharply on religious matters in 1613 is nothing new--is not, even, solely a result of the Reformation. There is nothing new under the sun, Grotius reminds the reader, and the notion that any set of intractable problems can be solved once and for all is mistaken; one needn't stretch too far to see the conservatism in that statement (even if it is a liberal-conservative, Reinhold Niebuhr-ish sentiment).
2. On the question of Church and State: well, I think in part the translation misleads (hence I included the Latin). What drives the church-state (or republic-ecclesiastical) problem is the fact that people charged with certain responsibilities walk away from them because they find them to be too difficult. The state, for Grotius, is and has to be the guarantor of toleration within orthodoxy. The task cannot be left, as he says, to divines, for the simple reason that they are too much devoted to the certainty of their answers; it is precisely because the prince cares less about which specific theological vision is correct (so long as it's orthodox) that he can provide a counterweight to the supporters of a particular religion who wish not merely to exclude, but to punish, those who are viewed to be wrong.
3. As to whether his position on the church-state question is tenable: I think it's the only position available to him in his historical context. It simply was the case that the Calvinists were determined to use the apparatus of the state to persecute the Arminians, and this in spite on a tradition within the States of treating both as perfectly orthodox opinions. (parenthetically, as a historical matter, it's the Stadtholder's willingness to side with the governmental claims of the Calvinists (after the Synod of Dordt) that leads to the imprisonment or execution of a number of Arminians, Grotius included.) But it's also the case that Grotius musters a good deal of historical evidence (here, and even more in De imperio) that the Church has always had a willingness to cede to the authority of princes.
As to whether church and state should be separate now, well, that's a different (and more complicated) question. But it's worth noting that so long as there are believers who care about this world, there will be an interaction between the two. Pure separation is a myth.
4. The claim of the last sentence is quite bold: Grotius claims the Reformed tradition to be not merely orthodox, but Catholic. This is right, for two reasons: first, as he ends the work, Grotius quotes multiple times from the exceptions to the usual manner of electing Bishops granted to Holland by the Council of Trent (the Netherlands were still Catholic at that time, after all). When Grotius speaks of the means of election of any pastoral figures, he claims that the now-Protestant Netherlands maintain fidelity with their old, given traditions. Second, the claim goes to the heart of Christian unity: it is not merely that all orthodox believers are members of the invisible, universal church, and thus 'catholic,' but that a Protestant of the Reformed tradition has the ability to draw freely from the entire history of the church (Ambrose and Augustine's followers are brought regularly into the earlier theological discussion). The differences on matters of dogma or theology may make it the case that believers congregate in different places, but so long as those beliefs are orthodox, the differences do not matter: all are Catholic. I'm not sure I'd follow him entirely that far, but it's an important argument for someone to make.
27.7.07
VARIOUS: as it's late:
*I pass this along as a warning about what can happen if you own too many books.
*From an email I wrote to a friend who's been having some romantic difficulties: "The odds for all of us finding someone are low, but no less unlikely for that (a sentence only a humanities person could write)"
*Via Profgrrrrl, I took one of those online personality tests. I ended up as an INFP, which put me alongside such celebrities as (amongst real people) Mr. Rogers, William Shakespeare, and the Virgin Mary.
Amongst fictional people, in descending order of seriousness: Anne of Green Gables, Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes, and E.T.
*I pass this along as a warning about what can happen if you own too many books.
*From an email I wrote to a friend who's been having some romantic difficulties: "The odds for all of us finding someone are low, but no less unlikely for that (a sentence only a humanities person could write)"
*Via Profgrrrrl, I took one of those online personality tests. I ended up as an INFP, which put me alongside such celebrities as (amongst real people) Mr. Rogers, William Shakespeare, and the Virgin Mary.
Amongst fictional people, in descending order of seriousness: Anne of Green Gables, Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes, and E.T.
25.7.07
LINK: Maybe it's just that I've mastered the art of living without regret (or possibly the art of living without embarrassment), but when I tried to come up with a list of books I'm embarrassed not to have read (following the exercise proposed by Alex Massie and continued by Megan McArdle), and I got:
Anna Karenina
Jane Eyre
...and that's pretty much it.
A number of things which would otherwise be on this list get categorized in a different manner. The list of writers I will get to eventually is manageable at this point in my life (possibly because I've read a lot, more likely because of how many have moved into the second category), and includes Cervantes, Goethe, maybe Thackeray and, uh, probably the other Shakespeare tragedies I've not yet read (I will perhaps out myself as a philistine by saying the comedies all run together in my memory, The Tempest possibly excepted). Then there is another category of people I have basically no desire to read--Proust from Massie's list and Dreiser from McArdle's would be on there, as Saul Bellow (though I may read him eventually), Nabokov, and perhaps others.
I suspect this feeling derives, in part, from the fact that, as a graduate student, I frequently run into people who have read lots of things I haven't (and I've read lots of things they haven't). As a consequence, I'm used to having to explain to people who Grotius was (though still not very good at it), and having people explain things to me I'd otherwise not have time to read. This is one of the fringe benefits of grad school, I think: I'll get a better exposure to Simone Weil, Jane Addams, John Milton and the Confessio Amantis than I otherwise would because I know people who are all working on those (and occasionally find otherwise worthwhile things to read because of these connections).
Anna Karenina
Jane Eyre
...and that's pretty much it.
A number of things which would otherwise be on this list get categorized in a different manner. The list of writers I will get to eventually is manageable at this point in my life (possibly because I've read a lot, more likely because of how many have moved into the second category), and includes Cervantes, Goethe, maybe Thackeray and, uh, probably the other Shakespeare tragedies I've not yet read (I will perhaps out myself as a philistine by saying the comedies all run together in my memory, The Tempest possibly excepted). Then there is another category of people I have basically no desire to read--Proust from Massie's list and Dreiser from McArdle's would be on there, as Saul Bellow (though I may read him eventually), Nabokov, and perhaps others.
I suspect this feeling derives, in part, from the fact that, as a graduate student, I frequently run into people who have read lots of things I haven't (and I've read lots of things they haven't). As a consequence, I'm used to having to explain to people who Grotius was (though still not very good at it), and having people explain things to me I'd otherwise not have time to read. This is one of the fringe benefits of grad school, I think: I'll get a better exposure to Simone Weil, Jane Addams, John Milton and the Confessio Amantis than I otherwise would because I know people who are all working on those (and occasionally find otherwise worthwhile things to read because of these connections).
WHOA: I see from VeloNews that Michael Rasmussen has been fired from the Rabobank Tour de France team. 'Huge' is the word here; they're now down two teams and the guy who was in the lead. This is bigger than 1998; bigger than the Operacion Puerto scandal last year that knocked out a number of well-regarded riders from the late 90s-early 00s. I like Alberto Contador as much as the next person (who's heard of him), and it would've been good to see him win this year entirely of his own merits (since cycling is desperately in need of an Albert Pujols-equivalent: a guy who can excel even though it's clear he hasn't used any PEDs), but this is just really awful. If next year's race is much, much smaller, I wouldn't be surprised.
UPDATE: Chris reminds me in the comments that Contador was caught up in Operacion Puerto, but was cleared. That makes him a somewhat more complicated figure, but I don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing (David Millar appears to have redeemed himself after his two year suspension for doping, so second chances and all that).
UPDATE: Chris reminds me in the comments that Contador was caught up in Operacion Puerto, but was cleared. That makes him a somewhat more complicated figure, but I don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing (David Millar appears to have redeemed himself after his two year suspension for doping, so second chances and all that).
24.7.07
QUOTE FOR THE EVENING: I've been working on a paper for an upcoming conference (on Rational Theism in the Public Sphere), and I find myself returning to the idea (contra Rorty) that the names that are attached to things sometimes don't matter very much. Part of the impetus for this is from 1 Peter: "Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us." So far as I can tell, the implication of the verse is that it's not the name attached to the action that matters--it's what the action is*. But on this topic, Grotius, from Meletius:
"The Christian, therefore, unlike all other people, does not consider plundering justified on the excuse that it is called war, or theft because it passes under the name of interest. He judges things by their nature, not by what they are called or their frequency of occurrence. He furthermore excludes nobody from his love, even though he acknowledges there is a special bond between those who profess the same religion and for whom our love for that reason is bound to be greater and more spontaneous because there are common ties. Nor does he, like Aristotle, set barbarians apart from Greeks as though they were a different species or subject them to injuries or even servitude. But nature persuades him that these people too are humans and should therefore be considered brothers."
*or it might be better to say that the name is affixed to actions and dispositions quite apart from what a particular person might call it (I believe the technical term for this is 'moral realism'). This is not to deny the importance of naming, but rather to say it's from the correspondence between the named thing and the name given that a description gains its meaning and power (rather than something inhering in the power to name itself).
"The Christian, therefore, unlike all other people, does not consider plundering justified on the excuse that it is called war, or theft because it passes under the name of interest. He judges things by their nature, not by what they are called or their frequency of occurrence. He furthermore excludes nobody from his love, even though he acknowledges there is a special bond between those who profess the same religion and for whom our love for that reason is bound to be greater and more spontaneous because there are common ties. Nor does he, like Aristotle, set barbarians apart from Greeks as though they were a different species or subject them to injuries or even servitude. But nature persuades him that these people too are humans and should therefore be considered brothers."
*or it might be better to say that the name is affixed to actions and dispositions quite apart from what a particular person might call it (I believe the technical term for this is 'moral realism'). This is not to deny the importance of naming, but rather to say it's from the correspondence between the named thing and the name given that a description gains its meaning and power (rather than something inhering in the power to name itself).
23.7.07
LINK: Two things worth commenting on in this Megan McArdle post:
First, as a disclaimer before she describes the art exhibition she attended and liked:
"I'm afraid that when it comes to writing about art, I'm about as talented as I am at . . . all right, I'll say it, "dancing about architecture". Possibly, this is because I know nothing about art history or theory; I am prone to form violent aesthetic attachments to things for reasons I couldn't even begin to explain."
I suspect everyone forms their aesthetic attachments for reasons they can't explain very well. At least in my case, I can tell you what I like, and the formal, structural features that make it good (if it's art, or literature, or political theory). But none of that, so far as I can see, explains why I have an attachment to these things. So I can point to a picture of, say, Poussin's Holy Family on the Steps:
and say, notice how the shape of the figures leads the eye naturally to the baby Christ, the way the line is emphasized by Jesus' and John the Baptist's arms, the use of simple primary colors in the foreground, and muted browns and greens in the background, the way Joseph is obscured in shadow:* all true, and certainly contributing factors (if not an 'explanation' of sorts) in my liking the work. It's harder for me to explain why I always feel 'blah' about reproductions of the painting, but why seeing it in person (at the Cleveland Museum of Art) is one of the truly great art experiences I've had in my life,** and I suspect that possessing even more aesthetic theory would not get me any closer to explaining it.
Also:
"The only downside was all the people. I found it impossible to enjoy the sculptures while they contained a steady supply of tourists nodding politely as they sped through--got to catch the Picasso before we head over to the Phantom matinee!--and only barely bearable to enjoy them in the presence of other people who were, like me, ambling slowly around and through the space in order to take it in from every angle. That sounds snobbish, I suppose, but it isn't meant to be; there's no reason that anyone else should share my aesthetics, and usually they don't. But it was hard to enjoy the sculptures while they were filled with people who obviously didn't particularly care for them."
Which is undoubtably true. A museum experience is highly dependent on the people who are around you, which is unfortunate. It also compounds the oddness of looking at art in a building dedicated to holding a great deal of it: most everything in any halfway decent collection wasn't intended to be an en masse cultural experience, and approaching it in this way will always be somewhat unusual.
I remember the excitement*** of getting Caravaggio's Crucifixion of St. Anthony (here) to myself for about 20 minutes. The curators of the CMA were nice enough to place it in a room at the end of a particular wing, so I had little company, and I had enough time to look at it, notice its formal qualities, the way the placement of the light changed how I saw it, etc etc. But then, if I had regular museum visits like this, I suppose they wouldn't be as special.
*chance to bring back one of my favorite lines from my old art history professor: "Joseph always looks so bemused, doesn't he? After all, it's not his child"
**a short list: St. John the Evangelist on Patmos and Woman Weighing Pearls at the National Gallery, Supper at Emmaus at the Louvre, the Ste. Chapelle, St. Denis, the Well of Moses, the Rembrandt etchings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the soon-to-be-mentioned Caravaggio.
***and I do mean excitement. I had no idea they had Holy Family on the Steps, which was surprise enough; to get this too did require a moment of calming down before proper appreciation could begin.
First, as a disclaimer before she describes the art exhibition she attended and liked:
"I'm afraid that when it comes to writing about art, I'm about as talented as I am at . . . all right, I'll say it, "dancing about architecture". Possibly, this is because I know nothing about art history or theory; I am prone to form violent aesthetic attachments to things for reasons I couldn't even begin to explain."
I suspect everyone forms their aesthetic attachments for reasons they can't explain very well. At least in my case, I can tell you what I like, and the formal, structural features that make it good (if it's art, or literature, or political theory). But none of that, so far as I can see, explains why I have an attachment to these things. So I can point to a picture of, say, Poussin's Holy Family on the Steps:
and say, notice how the shape of the figures leads the eye naturally to the baby Christ, the way the line is emphasized by Jesus' and John the Baptist's arms, the use of simple primary colors in the foreground, and muted browns and greens in the background, the way Joseph is obscured in shadow:* all true, and certainly contributing factors (if not an 'explanation' of sorts) in my liking the work. It's harder for me to explain why I always feel 'blah' about reproductions of the painting, but why seeing it in person (at the Cleveland Museum of Art) is one of the truly great art experiences I've had in my life,** and I suspect that possessing even more aesthetic theory would not get me any closer to explaining it.
Also:
"The only downside was all the people. I found it impossible to enjoy the sculptures while they contained a steady supply of tourists nodding politely as they sped through--got to catch the Picasso before we head over to the Phantom matinee!--and only barely bearable to enjoy them in the presence of other people who were, like me, ambling slowly around and through the space in order to take it in from every angle. That sounds snobbish, I suppose, but it isn't meant to be; there's no reason that anyone else should share my aesthetics, and usually they don't. But it was hard to enjoy the sculptures while they were filled with people who obviously didn't particularly care for them."
Which is undoubtably true. A museum experience is highly dependent on the people who are around you, which is unfortunate. It also compounds the oddness of looking at art in a building dedicated to holding a great deal of it: most everything in any halfway decent collection wasn't intended to be an en masse cultural experience, and approaching it in this way will always be somewhat unusual.
I remember the excitement*** of getting Caravaggio's Crucifixion of St. Anthony (here) to myself for about 20 minutes. The curators of the CMA were nice enough to place it in a room at the end of a particular wing, so I had little company, and I had enough time to look at it, notice its formal qualities, the way the placement of the light changed how I saw it, etc etc. But then, if I had regular museum visits like this, I suppose they wouldn't be as special.
*chance to bring back one of my favorite lines from my old art history professor: "Joseph always looks so bemused, doesn't he? After all, it's not his child"
**a short list: St. John the Evangelist on Patmos and Woman Weighing Pearls at the National Gallery, Supper at Emmaus at the Louvre, the Ste. Chapelle, St. Denis, the Well of Moses, the Rembrandt etchings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the soon-to-be-mentioned Caravaggio.
***and I do mean excitement. I had no idea they had Holy Family on the Steps, which was surprise enough; to get this too did require a moment of calming down before proper appreciation could begin.
QUOTE: From an interesting post by Eve Tushnet on fanfiction (not that I write, or read, nor do I agree entirely with the quote, but, well, that's why it's interesting to me):
"I submit that our need--and I think it is a basic human need, though perhaps a need that originated in the Fall--for "films about the evening sky" rather than just going outside and looking is significantly creepier, more alienating, and more like "cheating" than the fact that some films about the evening sky are set in Hogwarts, or Gotham City. In fact, fanfiction strikes me as significantly less creepy than the "usual" audience stance (not convinced it is usual--didn't most of us, when we were too young to be fully conformed, tell ourselves stories based on the stories we loved?). We're trained to think of audience-hood as passive, a consumer role; that passive role can often become willingly putting on corrective lenses made by mad optometrists. In fanfiction, by contrast, you don't "lose yourself" in art, nor do you lose the world you see. Instead, you (...sometimes, anyway) try to use whatever media flotsam inspired you as a provocation to delineate more clearly what you actually see when you look at the world. Which bits of the source spoke to you and which were lame or irrelevant?"
"I submit that our need--and I think it is a basic human need, though perhaps a need that originated in the Fall--for "films about the evening sky" rather than just going outside and looking is significantly creepier, more alienating, and more like "cheating" than the fact that some films about the evening sky are set in Hogwarts, or Gotham City. In fact, fanfiction strikes me as significantly less creepy than the "usual" audience stance (not convinced it is usual--didn't most of us, when we were too young to be fully conformed, tell ourselves stories based on the stories we loved?). We're trained to think of audience-hood as passive, a consumer role; that passive role can often become willingly putting on corrective lenses made by mad optometrists. In fanfiction, by contrast, you don't "lose yourself" in art, nor do you lose the world you see. Instead, you (...sometimes, anyway) try to use whatever media flotsam inspired you as a provocation to delineate more clearly what you actually see when you look at the world. Which bits of the source spoke to you and which were lame or irrelevant?"
22.7.07
BLEG: I'm housesitting right now, and something keeps beeping. There are two types of beeps: singular beeps, and two beeps spaced by about fifteen seconds of silence. They exhibit no other pattern of behavior I can discern (i.e. it doesn't beep every five minutes, or when the central air kicks on). However, the beeping is beginning to drive me crazy. I've done a thorough investigation of the house, and none of the things that might beep (answering machine, smoke detectors, dishwasher, computers) are doing it.
Any ideas?
UPDATE: I hate to put a stop to the speculation in the comments, which I find sort of entertaining, but a little further investigation makes me 95% sure it's one of three or four surge protectors/back-up power supplies in the office, which explains why the beeping didn't occur at regular intervals. Unfortunately, this means I can't really turn them off. Fortunately, now that I know what it is, it drives me significantly less crazy.
Any ideas?
UPDATE: I hate to put a stop to the speculation in the comments, which I find sort of entertaining, but a little further investigation makes me 95% sure it's one of three or four surge protectors/back-up power supplies in the office, which explains why the beeping didn't occur at regular intervals. Unfortunately, this means I can't really turn them off. Fortunately, now that I know what it is, it drives me significantly less crazy.
19.7.07
LINKS: I'm a little too tired to post more substantively, so the sublime and the ridiculous (I leave it to you to judge which is which):
*Jeff Tweedy playing "Acuff-Rose" (from the extras to I Am Trying to Break Your Heart)
*The justly legendary video for Yo La Tengo's "Sugarcube". The only bad part is that it's sort of hard to hear the song.
*Badly Drawn Boy, "Once Around the Block"
*Jeff Tweedy playing "Acuff-Rose" (from the extras to I Am Trying to Break Your Heart)
*The justly legendary video for Yo La Tengo's "Sugarcube". The only bad part is that it's sort of hard to hear the song.
*Badly Drawn Boy, "Once Around the Block"
LINK: Panic on the streets of Boston? I still don't think the Yankees will come back (it's not that they're good; it's that Boston is now that bad), but still, it's nice to see a little nervousness set in.
RE: CHRISTIANS, DOSTOEVSKY OR AUSTEN:
Camille's comments in the post below the one below are quite good. There's a lot to be said for the importance of hope and future happiness, especially as elements of theology; and what looks to less charitable eyes to be everyone's-basically-alright can become a fine model of what sanctification looks like in a life, as those longstanding weaknesses and shortcomings give way with the help of age, maturity, and the community that surrounds you. I still, in the end, think Dostoevsky superior as a Christian novelist (he pushes a little bit further toward the uncomfortable center of things, and himself has some worthwhile figures of this-worldly redemption and the positive effect of community (Sonya and Dunya in Crime and Punishment, Alexei to the children in The Brothers Karamazov), but they are both worthwhile reading (for what can be gained from them ethically, and just for the sheer joy of reading them). I prefer Dostoevsky, though I'm not sure I would want to live in a world where there was no Austen to counterbalance him (and I think the reverse is true); fortunately, I'll never have to find that out.
Camille's comments in the post below the one below are quite good. There's a lot to be said for the importance of hope and future happiness, especially as elements of theology; and what looks to less charitable eyes to be everyone's-basically-alright can become a fine model of what sanctification looks like in a life, as those longstanding weaknesses and shortcomings give way with the help of age, maturity, and the community that surrounds you. I still, in the end, think Dostoevsky superior as a Christian novelist (he pushes a little bit further toward the uncomfortable center of things, and himself has some worthwhile figures of this-worldly redemption and the positive effect of community (Sonya and Dunya in Crime and Punishment, Alexei to the children in The Brothers Karamazov), but they are both worthwhile reading (for what can be gained from them ethically, and just for the sheer joy of reading them). I prefer Dostoevsky, though I'm not sure I would want to live in a world where there was no Austen to counterbalance him (and I think the reverse is true); fortunately, I'll never have to find that out.
LINK: this Lindsay Robertson/Ben Mathis-Lilley piece is one of those odd moments where people I sort of knew in real life turn out to know people I've heard of from the internet. Weird.
18.7.07
JANE AUSTEN CHRISTIANS AND DOSTOEVSKY CHRISTIANS:
I have a rule of thumb when I confront an author who writes on theology, and their status as a Christian is either unclear to me (if you have longstanding opinions on Lactantius, I tip my hat to you), or held suspect (*cough*Hugo Grotius*cough*): a defense of the resurrection of the body is a pretty sure sign you're dealing with someone within orthodoxy. On this point, I am indebted to Peter van Inwagen, who pointed out in one of his occasional essays this very rule: bodily resurrection differentiates Christians from humanistic materialists (for whom their is only body) and the west's neoplatonic tendencies (for whom only the soul is real or important). It is a good point of doctrine for this purpose because it, like (for example) the Trinity, is a difficult concept to grasp, at the point where the metaphors we use to apprehend the reality begin to break down. So far as it goes, I've found this rule of thumb to be a good one.*
This brings me to the question of whether Jane Austen or Fyodor Dostoevsky makes for a better exemplar of Christian (ethics? morality? life? this part is always left a little unclear). The impetus for pondering this question arises from this American Scene post which linked to this other post, both of which clearly preferring Austen. Now, I enjoy her very much as a novelist, but the thrust of the post I was planning to write was that the judgment that she's a better Christian novelist is certainly wrong: the characters she writes about are, for the most part, just a little too good. If they have flaws, they are decidedly minor (Mr. Darcy: that rich, handsome man, is also rude and socially inept!), and mostly run to wanting to get married to collect and inheritance, or threatening the family's social standing by marrying poorly. We want to believe these are the sort of people we are, but a Christian (especially evangelical) 'sin-and-redemption narrative' (oh, that pesky narrative) should indicate to us that we should hold off on that self-congratulation. We do not all murder pawnbrokers, or dissipate our lives on drink and women, but we all have serious problems that are beyond our capability to solve.
But this, I can see, hangs quite a bit on how much you're prepared to accept the evangelical sin-and-redemption story. However, when I read David Copperfield, and one of the major characters dies, it did occur to me that death almost never visits any of Jane Austen's novels. I think this is the key difference. There is nothing quite like the reality and significance of death for Christianity; we know what it is and why it is. Here I do not mean to argue for a death-centric Christianity (no one likes to be that morbid, I hope); but it is always there. It is the cross at the front of the church, the way the Pieta or Crucifixion scene affects us; for those who do not take the Reformed view of sacraments, it is quite literally there during communion, and for us, it's there still (question: what's the last thing you think about before you take communion?).
In Dostoevsky's novels, death is there: not always front and center, but real, and weighty, and able to crush the living who take it too lightly. It's unpleasant, but, I think, true. Jane Austen has many wonderful qualities as a writer and may be a good guide to a number of situations one finds oneself in, but I think Dostoevsky's craft is superior here.**
*Grotius, for those who care, places the resurrection of the body amongst the indisputable dogmas of Christianity in Ordinum Hollandiae, and places great emphasis of Christ's return on Easter Sunday to be as more than just spirit in De veritate.
**I sheepishly admit in a footnote I think this is somewhat unfair to Austen. I am fairly certain Dostoevsky is trying to be an explicitly Christian novelist; I am also fairly certain Austen is not. It doesn't strike me as any defect on her part that she does not exceed one who sets out to do the thing she doesn't really try to do.
I have a rule of thumb when I confront an author who writes on theology, and their status as a Christian is either unclear to me (if you have longstanding opinions on Lactantius, I tip my hat to you), or held suspect (*cough*Hugo Grotius*cough*): a defense of the resurrection of the body is a pretty sure sign you're dealing with someone within orthodoxy. On this point, I am indebted to Peter van Inwagen, who pointed out in one of his occasional essays this very rule: bodily resurrection differentiates Christians from humanistic materialists (for whom their is only body) and the west's neoplatonic tendencies (for whom only the soul is real or important). It is a good point of doctrine for this purpose because it, like (for example) the Trinity, is a difficult concept to grasp, at the point where the metaphors we use to apprehend the reality begin to break down. So far as it goes, I've found this rule of thumb to be a good one.*
This brings me to the question of whether Jane Austen or Fyodor Dostoevsky makes for a better exemplar of Christian (ethics? morality? life? this part is always left a little unclear). The impetus for pondering this question arises from this American Scene post which linked to this other post, both of which clearly preferring Austen. Now, I enjoy her very much as a novelist, but the thrust of the post I was planning to write was that the judgment that she's a better Christian novelist is certainly wrong: the characters she writes about are, for the most part, just a little too good. If they have flaws, they are decidedly minor (Mr. Darcy: that rich, handsome man, is also rude and socially inept!), and mostly run to wanting to get married to collect and inheritance, or threatening the family's social standing by marrying poorly. We want to believe these are the sort of people we are, but a Christian (especially evangelical) 'sin-and-redemption narrative' (oh, that pesky narrative) should indicate to us that we should hold off on that self-congratulation. We do not all murder pawnbrokers, or dissipate our lives on drink and women, but we all have serious problems that are beyond our capability to solve.
But this, I can see, hangs quite a bit on how much you're prepared to accept the evangelical sin-and-redemption story. However, when I read David Copperfield, and one of the major characters dies, it did occur to me that death almost never visits any of Jane Austen's novels. I think this is the key difference. There is nothing quite like the reality and significance of death for Christianity; we know what it is and why it is. Here I do not mean to argue for a death-centric Christianity (no one likes to be that morbid, I hope); but it is always there. It is the cross at the front of the church, the way the Pieta or Crucifixion scene affects us; for those who do not take the Reformed view of sacraments, it is quite literally there during communion, and for us, it's there still (question: what's the last thing you think about before you take communion?).
In Dostoevsky's novels, death is there: not always front and center, but real, and weighty, and able to crush the living who take it too lightly. It's unpleasant, but, I think, true. Jane Austen has many wonderful qualities as a writer and may be a good guide to a number of situations one finds oneself in, but I think Dostoevsky's craft is superior here.**
*Grotius, for those who care, places the resurrection of the body amongst the indisputable dogmas of Christianity in Ordinum Hollandiae, and places great emphasis of Christ's return on Easter Sunday to be as more than just spirit in De veritate.
**I sheepishly admit in a footnote I think this is somewhat unfair to Austen. I am fairly certain Dostoevsky is trying to be an explicitly Christian novelist; I am also fairly certain Austen is not. It doesn't strike me as any defect on her part that she does not exceed one who sets out to do the thing she doesn't really try to do.
17.7.07
NOT-ENTIRELY-RANDOM QUESTION: Does any significant character die in the course of a Jane Austen novel? I haven't read all of them, and my memory of the ones I read awhile ago is incomplete, so I figured I would throw it out there.
This does relate, in case you're curious, to the Jane Austen Christian-vs-Dostoevsky Christian question
This does relate, in case you're curious, to the Jane Austen Christian-vs-Dostoevsky Christian question
15.7.07
QUOTE FOR THE EVENING: I find it hard to believe, working my way through David Copperfield, that anyone could assign this book to someone young--I can't imagine they'd know what to do with, say, David and Dora; but I'll perhaps have more to say about this later. In the meantime, it's uncanny how much the life of a legal apprentice resembles grad school:
"My rooms were engaged for twelve months certain: and though I still found them dreary of an evening, and the evenings long, I could settle down into a state of equitable low spirits, and resign myself to coffee; which, it seems on looking back to have taken by the gallon at about this period of my existence."
"My rooms were engaged for twelve months certain: and though I still found them dreary of an evening, and the evenings long, I could settle down into a state of equitable low spirits, and resign myself to coffee; which, it seems on looking back to have taken by the gallon at about this period of my existence."
12.7.07
LINK: I have had this song by Sloan running through my head all day. Somewhere Becky is saying "I told you so."
9.7.07
TOTALLY RANDOM QUESTION: Why is Alec Baldwin famous? He's hilarious on 30 Rock, and I remember him doing fairly well in The Hunt for Red October, but I'm at a loss for how it was that he became popular originally (IMDB produced a list of things I think I had heard of, but none I really recognized). Most likely, this is a function of my age (since I only barely remember going to see Red October). Anyone?
5.7.07
QUOTE FOR THE EVENING: A conversational back-and-forth with a friend reminded me of the following, from Fitzgerald's "One Hundred False Starts"*:
"Once, not so long ago when my work was hampered by so many false starts that I thought the game was up at last, and when my personal life was even more thoroughly obfuscated, I asked an old Alabama negro:
'Uncle Bob, when things get so bad there isn't any way out, what do you do then?'
The heat from the kitchen stove stirred his white sideburns as he warmed himself. If I cynically expected a platitudinous answer, a reflection of something remembered from Uncle Remus, I was disappointed.
'Mr. Fitzgerald,' he said, 'when things get thataway I wuks.'
It was good advice: work is almost everything. But it would be nice to be able to distinguish useful work from mere labor expended. Perhaps that is part of work itself--to find the difference. Perhaps my frequent solitary sprints around the track are profitable..."
*There are five or six of the essays in the Cambridge volume My Lost City that strike me as almost perfect ("What I Think and Feel at 25," "'Wait Till You Have Children of Your Own!'" (though he's mostly wrong in this one), "How to Waste Material," "One Hundred False Starts," and some combination of "The Crack Up," "Pasting It Together" and "Handle With Care"), thus they keep on reappearing
"Once, not so long ago when my work was hampered by so many false starts that I thought the game was up at last, and when my personal life was even more thoroughly obfuscated, I asked an old Alabama negro:
'Uncle Bob, when things get so bad there isn't any way out, what do you do then?'
The heat from the kitchen stove stirred his white sideburns as he warmed himself. If I cynically expected a platitudinous answer, a reflection of something remembered from Uncle Remus, I was disappointed.
'Mr. Fitzgerald,' he said, 'when things get thataway I wuks.'
It was good advice: work is almost everything. But it would be nice to be able to distinguish useful work from mere labor expended. Perhaps that is part of work itself--to find the difference. Perhaps my frequent solitary sprints around the track are profitable..."
*There are five or six of the essays in the Cambridge volume My Lost City that strike me as almost perfect ("What I Think and Feel at 25," "'Wait Till You Have Children of Your Own!'" (though he's mostly wrong in this one), "How to Waste Material," "One Hundred False Starts," and some combination of "The Crack Up," "Pasting It Together" and "Handle With Care"), thus they keep on reappearing
2.7.07
QUOTE FOR THE EVENING: Hawthorne has been another new acquisition for me; somehow, I was not assigned The Scarlet Letter in high school. From what I gather of its general reception, this is possibly the only reason Hawthorne is available to me as an adult. He gets a reputation for a stereotypical New England Puritan sternness, but so far as I can see, the reputation is entirely undeserved. From what I've read (The Blithedale Romance and a number of the short stories) he comes across as possessed of the typically American sense of grim humor and satire.
I do some injustice to him by quoting the following pieces of The Blithedale Romance; he's working his way to the moral and resolution of the story, and so has serious work to do. Nevertheless, I find them both striking, so here we are.
Coverdale is, as he explains, returning to Blithedale after some time away; both parts of the passage concern alienation in some way: Coverdale's inability to focus on what is in front of him, becoming instead the nature-observer (who nevertheless cannot stray far enough away from his experience; every piece of nature becomes allegorical for what he is doing and feeling at that moment):
"The pathway of that walk still runs along, with sunny freshness, through my memory. I know not why it should be so. But my mental eye can even now discern the September grass, bordering on the pleasant roadside with a brighter verdure than while the summer heats were scorching it; the trees, too, mostly green, although here and there a branch or shrub has donned its vesture of crimson and gold a week or two before its fellows. I see the tufted barberry-bushes, with their small clusters of fruit; the toadstools, likewise,--some spotlessly white, others yellow or red,--mysterious growths, springing suddenly from no root or seed, and growing nobody can tell how or wherefore. In this respect they resembled many of the emotions in my breast. And I still see the little rivulets, chill, clear and bright, that murmured beneath the road, through subterranean rocks, and deepened into mossy pools, where the tiny fish were darting to and fro, and within which lurked the hermit-frog. But no,--I never can account for it, that, with a yearning interest to learn the upshot of all my story, and returning to Blithedale for that sole purpose, I should examine those things so like a peaceful-bosomed naturalist. ..."
The other is his genuine inability to believe in the veracity of his own memories. It would, somehow, be easier for him if there were no Blithedale, and it was just a fevered product of his imagination, than that it was a place he was once tied to intimately:
"Drawing nearer to Blithedale, a sickness of the spirits kept alternating with my flights of causeless buoyancy. I indulged in a hundred odd and extravagent conjectures. Either there was no such place as Blithedale, nor ever had been, nor any brotherhood of thoughtful laborers like what I seemed to recollect there, or else it was all changed during my absence. It had been nothing but dream-work and enchantment. I would seek in vain for the old farm-house, and for the green-sward, the potato-fields, the root-crops, and acres of Indian corn, and for all that configuration of the land which I had imagined. It would be another spot, and an utter strangeness."
I do some injustice to him by quoting the following pieces of The Blithedale Romance; he's working his way to the moral and resolution of the story, and so has serious work to do. Nevertheless, I find them both striking, so here we are.
Coverdale is, as he explains, returning to Blithedale after some time away; both parts of the passage concern alienation in some way: Coverdale's inability to focus on what is in front of him, becoming instead the nature-observer (who nevertheless cannot stray far enough away from his experience; every piece of nature becomes allegorical for what he is doing and feeling at that moment):
"The pathway of that walk still runs along, with sunny freshness, through my memory. I know not why it should be so. But my mental eye can even now discern the September grass, bordering on the pleasant roadside with a brighter verdure than while the summer heats were scorching it; the trees, too, mostly green, although here and there a branch or shrub has donned its vesture of crimson and gold a week or two before its fellows. I see the tufted barberry-bushes, with their small clusters of fruit; the toadstools, likewise,--some spotlessly white, others yellow or red,--mysterious growths, springing suddenly from no root or seed, and growing nobody can tell how or wherefore. In this respect they resembled many of the emotions in my breast. And I still see the little rivulets, chill, clear and bright, that murmured beneath the road, through subterranean rocks, and deepened into mossy pools, where the tiny fish were darting to and fro, and within which lurked the hermit-frog. But no,--I never can account for it, that, with a yearning interest to learn the upshot of all my story, and returning to Blithedale for that sole purpose, I should examine those things so like a peaceful-bosomed naturalist. ..."
The other is his genuine inability to believe in the veracity of his own memories. It would, somehow, be easier for him if there were no Blithedale, and it was just a fevered product of his imagination, than that it was a place he was once tied to intimately:
"Drawing nearer to Blithedale, a sickness of the spirits kept alternating with my flights of causeless buoyancy. I indulged in a hundred odd and extravagent conjectures. Either there was no such place as Blithedale, nor ever had been, nor any brotherhood of thoughtful laborers like what I seemed to recollect there, or else it was all changed during my absence. It had been nothing but dream-work and enchantment. I would seek in vain for the old farm-house, and for the green-sward, the potato-fields, the root-crops, and acres of Indian corn, and for all that configuration of the land which I had imagined. It would be another spot, and an utter strangeness."
1.7.07
SUNDAY MORNING POST: While I'm elsewhere for a couple of days, a little youtube: Tricky's "Christiansands", a further piece of evidence that any song that samples Slick Rick's "La Di Da Di" will be pretty good.
See also the live version, which is a better performance, but lacks the (crucial) last verse.
See also the live version, which is a better performance, but lacks the (crucial) last verse.
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