the dismal science

The markets, the government, the working–man’s wages, to
      think what account they are through our nights and days
To think that other working–men will make just as great
      account of them, yet we make little or no account.

The vulgar and the refined, what you call sin and what you
      call goodness, to think how wide a difference,
To think the difference will still continue to others, yet we
      lie beyond the difference.

To think how much pleasure there is,
Do you enjoy yourself in the city? or engaged in business?
      or planning a nomination and election? or with your
      wife and family?
Or with your mother and sisters? or in womanly housework?
      or the beautiful maternal cares?
These also flow onward to others, you and I flow onward,
But in due time you and I shall take less interest in them.

Your farm, profits, crops—to think how engross’d you are,
To think that there will still be farms, profits, crops, yet for you
      of what avail?

                                          —Walt Whitman, from ‘To Think of Time’

there’s always money in the banana game

NH Man Loses Life Savings on Carnival Game

 

But tell me, by Jupiter, what part of man’s life is that that is not sad, crabbed, unpleasant, insipid, troublesome, unless it be seasoned with pleasure, that is to say, folly? For the proof of which the never sufficiently praised Sophocles in that his happy elegy of us, ‘To know nothing is the only happiness,’ might be authority enough…

‘aquinas amongst the analytics’

I can identify with this:

My formal education in philosophy was entirely in the analytic mold and I am grateful for that since it introduced me to the power of analysis and rigorous argumentation; but that mold is also a somewhat shallow one. This is not to do with the issue of religion per se, but rather with the narrowing of intellectual sources. When people were trained in classical culture, or literature, or history, or the arts, and especially if they had been introduced to unfamiliar and seemingly strange ways of thinking, their imaginations were more developed and they were less inclined to take the ruling ideas and values of their own time as obviously correct. My first philosophy classes were taught by David Hamlyn and concerned the pre-Socratics. Their strange and oracular remarks immediately ignited my imagination and I still return to them when jaded by the often flat and featureless forms of contemporary philosophy. Among analytic philosophers those I most admire have imagination and are open to diverse sources of insight into human nature and reality: Anscombe, Kripke, McDowell, MacIntyre, Nagel, Putnam, Taylor, Williams – each draws, not always announcedly, on sources outside the brief and narrow canon of analytic philosophy.

My very first philosophy class was an upper–division philosophy of science course I managed to weasel my way into as a sophomore transfer student. The professor was a rarity in two respects: He was a Republican, and—as he put it—the last logical positivist standing (likely not true, though probably true enough). While logical positivism proper didn’t make much of an impact on me, the analytic method did. (My first philosophy paper was a of inductive reasoning.) If it weren’t for an adolescence steeped in Plato (with forays into other thinkers, Kierkegaard especially), I probably could have been completely absorbed within the typical borders of that tradition. It is impressive, seductive, and highly effective. Philosophers and theologian–philosophers who dismiss analytic philosophy in some sort of vague fashion do so at their peril. In fact, I find it hard to take them very seriously, suspecting—perhaps unfairly in some cases—that their dismissals are an excuse to not have to learn the disciplines of analytic thought— especially formal logic. (I think formal logic is often overrated as a philosophical tool, but learning it is a tremendous asset— it expands your mental horizons.)

I have some stuff that’s been on the back–burner for way too long regarding metaphysical Aristotelianism in analytic philosophy; it probably won’t see the light of day any time soon, but the fact that it is a feature of the ‘scene’ shows that the possibilities of analytic thought are far wider than its detractors imagine.

written reflection

I am a confrontational conversationalist; I love to aggressively declare my case, proclaiming rather than couching. When I write papers, I am much milder— though I still despise hedging, even when I catch myself having indulged in it.

That said, when I look back at the majority of my blogging, I cringe. To a stranger, I likely come off as unbearably pompous and declaring things far beyond any likely hope of justifying my strongest claims. Just so. I would not pretend that I can thoroughly justify my strong claims, but I believe them all the same; at least, that is, at the time I write or say them. … Were I in politics, I would be accused of flip–flopping (though I cannot think of a case in which I have returned to a former position); indeed, it would be very easy to accuse me of hypocrisy, because I regularly fail to live up to my own conclusions.

Typically, I love argument (and I always blog with the chance for argument in mind), but I read my blog entries and they come off* as being from a person who brooks no dissension. Those who love to win are often accused of wanting to be right at all costs; I want to be right at all costs, but that naturally includes admitting and adjusting when I am wrong.

• • •

Blogging is speech without reaction. Few bloggers write as if they are crafting essays (despite the length of their posts); rather, blogging is speech, the longer entries resembling an impromptu dinnertime monologue. Of course, reaction accessible to the blogger is possible, but the great majority of readers will react only inwardly—and maybe socially—with the blogger getting a thin slice of reaction to their speech at best.

I worked for a man who called himself a frustrated preacher; he had gone to seminary, but found himself to be a poor fit for ministry in his denomination, but still felt a need to preach. As such, when he did get an opportunity, formal or informal, to do so he would—unless he was carefully self–restraining—drown himself and his listeners in a torrent of words.

This is my everyday.

Since moving to the Philly suburbs from Louisville, I’ve led a very solitary life— by my own standards, at least. So, blogging often becomes my only outlet for that building pressure of words†… and so they come out, sensibly or not, with the right flip of the psychological switch.

* In our age, at least; I like to flatter myself by simply believing that I hearken back to an earlier rhetorical age.

† I suppose ‘words’ suggests things fairly trivial, but in my mind words are logoi first, and symbols second. Trivia (and jokes) are what Facebook is for.

on tradition

Robert Craft: Do you have a special theory of, or meaning for, tradition?

Igor Stravinsky: No, I am merely very prudent of the wrod, for it now seems to imply ‘that which resembles the past’— the reason, incidentally, why no good artist is very happy when his work is described as ‘traditional’. In fact, the true tradition–making work work may not resemble the past at all, and especially not the immediate past, which is the only one most people are able to hear. Tradition is generic; it is not simply ‘handed down’, fathers to sons, but undergoes a life process: it is born, grows, matures, declines, and is reborn, perhaps. These stages of growth and regrowth are always in contradiction to the stages of another concept or interpretation: true tradition lives in the contradiction. ‘Notre héritage n’est précédé d’aucun testament’ (Our heritage was left to us by no will). [— René Char]

— Memories and Commentaries [emphases added]

patronage

In the main, however, the need for new cantatas, string quartets, symphonies, is wholly imaginary, and commissioning organizations, like the Ford and the Rockefeller Foundations, are really only buying up surplus symphonies as the government buys up surplus corn. In fact, the need for such music is so hopelessly non–actual that the commissioners are now obliged to try to buy the need for the symphony as well as the symphony.

Great, i.e., immortal, music creates its own need…

— Igor Stravinsky, quoted in Memories and Commentaries (Stravinsky, with Robert Craft) [emphasis added]

the fountainhead of anarcho–tyranny

Moldbug is fascinating to me as someone who a lot of—as Rumsfeld put it—unknown unknowns. The results in him being quite right where he is right, but really wrong where he is wrong. His knowledge of history—and ‘deep history’—is solid, but the philosophical/theological dimension is missing. In any case, imagining the reactions of the audience at what was a left/libertarian gathering of Silicon Valley types (beyond what can be heard) is entertaining.

The basic subject of this talk—that the US government is really run by the permanent bureaucracy—and from its bottom—is one of those things which should be manifestly obvious, even on the mundane levels that most of us really interact with government. While it is less true about law enforcement (though still true), he mentions the military as the other of the two government agencies still governed from the top, down. This is because the military is the last vestige of aristocracy in democratic states; defenders and detractors of the military throughout the last 400 years of revolution have recognized this. Of course, the successes of revolutions have only come after the end of the democratic military experiment, and top–down order being restored*… or from movements which were top–down from the start: the Bolsheviks (though some of their then–allied parties were not subjected initially to Red Army discipline) and Cuba† being two good examples.

I found it interesting that he mentioned Hutchinson’s Strictures on the Declaration of Independence, as I was just talking about it last week or so.

The situation we have—that of bottom–up government by bureaucracies granted broad power—is exactly the source of what Samuel Francis called anarcho–tyranny.

* The War of Independence is another good example, where the situation was dire until a decent amount of the various state militia were actually able to form a coherent fighting force. While the remaining independent militia played an important role as guerrillas, guerrillas do not create states; if and when the colonial power/former government leaves/falls, a guerrilla insurgency ends in chaos or another, more organized, power filling the vacuum (a military dictatorship, an organized counter–insurgency, becoming the puppet of a neighbor, etc. …). Cromwell, in this, as in much else, set the pattern.

† Che and the brothers Castro created a revolutionary army from what was more or less scratch, and in record time; the military and political genius of the Cuban revolution is underestimated in the American consciousness— the reality of Cuba’s present obscures its past. Learning about the history of the revolution from Las Mercedes to the final mass surrender of the Cuban army five months later was revelatory for me.

1,700 years ago

 

from dawn to decadence

The strange coincidence of the death of Jacques Barzun and the coming ‘superstorm’ of Hurricane Sandy just occurred to me.

Sandy is likely to leave me without power for at least a day or two, and maybe without other services as well (we’ll see). In 2008, Hurricane Ike rushed up through the Gulf Coast and hit hard enough all the way up in Louisville, KY that I not only lost power, but it continued to be lost for over two weeks because of the strange fact that we lived in a tiny, isolated patch of the grid— not even our whole apartment complex was out more than a few days. (All this was exacerbated by all the crews that had been sent down South.) In those days, I not only learned what the watches of the night are, I also read (among other things) Barzun’s From Dawn to Decadence, a strange tour de force, intermittently thrilling and solipsistic. Even some of Barzun’s eccentricities were compelling; I still like his replacement of ‘technology’ with ‘techne’ (‘The word is short and exact; technology is neither’)— but, it is the sort of thing which can be respected and justified in a ninety year old man of letters that would be precious in my twenty–something hands. Despite the unrelenting pace of Barzun’s trip through five hundred years of cultural history, the book retains a remarkable amount of consistent organization.

Other than that barrage, all I’ve read of Barzun are some scattered essays, so perhaps my idea of From Dawn to Decadence as his Summa is unfair. In any case, it is a product of a lifetime with books—and one that began in a culture that could see value in such a life—that may not be replicable in the near–future. More’s the pity.

I won’t be reading From Dawn to Decadence during this storm, though; I have enough in the batting order.

sundries

• I actually haven’t forgotten (!) my project on the New Right, having recently finished a book written by an adherent of the Faye–wing, Andrew Fraser’s The WASP Question. It’s a strange mish–mash of ideas and wild–eyed prophecy, alternately very interesting when it adheres to matters of law and legal history (Fraser taught in law schools for a time), cringingly malinformed (much of his discussion of theology and religious history falls under this category*), and highly inconsistent and strange. It was an interesting read, though not very illuminating, as Fraser seems to be a party of one to a degree unusual even for the political fringe.

• I feel far more investment in my game nights or watching baseball than I do the presidential election, but the collapse of Obama over the past week has been amazing. Since the morning after the debate (before new data could really be adjusted), Obama’s chance of winning has decreased some thirty percent on Nate Silver’s model, from 87.1% to 61.%; if he loses, it could be a historic collapse for a presidential candidate this late in the race.

• On the other hand, there is a realistic scenario where Obama wins the electoral college and Romney takes the popular vote. While the role–reversal from 2000 should provide some humor, the more significant outcome of that would be a decrease in the medium–term probability of a constitutional amendment passing that would put the US on a strict popular vote system for the chief executive. I am in favor of such an outcome. Cue the blustering about ‘a mandate’.

• Speaking of baseball, the Reds’s bad luck and offensive collapse in the NLDS has left my fellow Reds fans more understanding of my position that there should not be any playoffs in baseball at all, other than a World Series between the AL and NL regular season leaders. Regular season head–to–head records should suffice to break most ties; otherwise, an additional three game series would be acceptable. That said, go Tigers.

• Coursera and its ilk are going to hasten the bursting of the education bubble. Of course, the banks and universities will get the bailouts, rather than the students bamboozled into taking out loans to get worthless BAs.

• I’ve been overtaken the past few weeks with a desire to radically reduce the amount of stuff in my apartment. On the other hand, I am married. Perhaps this is the military brat coming out in me, but all I’ve been able to think of is how much we would have to move when we (eventually) do. (There is no reason we would be moving right now, though I would be happy for one to come along at any moment.) I did manage to convert this impulse into a few boxes of books and one large box of clothes being donated, however.

• I saw Looper this week. It was surprisingly well–done, the first sci–fi flick in a while to work. It’s not great or anything (so you can wait for the DVD), but it avoids the tackiness and bombast the genre has suffered from recently. Also, it isn’t a comic book movie. (I’m glad that Christopher Nolan is finally done with Batman.) Moon remains my favorite sci–fi effort of the past five years.

• Why isn’t it Thanksgiving, already?

* Some readers may be interested to know that he substantially follows the narrative of Orthodox England, with the good & bad that implies.