Reflections - Week 9

(Making like Wollstonecraft: Contemplation on a boat).

Reflections: Week 9

Letters written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Mary Wollstonecraft

Candide, Voltaire


Letters written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark

While reading this book I wondered how it was received (if at all) by Swedes and Norwegians… despite Mary Wollstonecraft’s poetic depictions of the Scandinavian landscape, she does not paint its inhabitants with a complimentary brush… Here are but three examples of many (all within the first 15 pages of the book) that might be quoted to show this:
p. 7. “I did not immediately recollect that men who remain so near the brute creation, as only to exert themselves to find the food necessary to fructify the faint glimmerings of mind which entitles them to rank as lords of the creation.

p.11 “…my host told me bluntly that I was a woman of observation for I asked him men’s questions.”

p. 14 - “The politics of the place being on a smaller scale, suits better with the size of their faculties; for, generally speaking, the sphere of observation determines the extent of the mind.”

However, Wollstonecraft does behave well towards those she meets and “exercises her understanding” (p.70) as one probably should when abroad. The fact that she’s not always tactful in her descriptions makes for interesting and entertaining reading. Her whole being is exposed in this book and her feminist, economic and political commentaries are not hard to ascertain.

This is an autobiographical travelogue, though. It’s presumed that she wrote in this genre to lessen the impact of the rebellious ideas that she “slips in”. Stating some of what she intimates in Letters from Denmark point blank in a straight-up autobiography might have made her even more reviled by her contemporaries than she was to become (although it’s hard to imagine that that could be possible).
For instance, she is critical of people whose single-minded pursuit is the acquisition of money: “The captains acquire a little superficial knowledge by travelling, which their indefatigable attention to the making of money prevents their digesting…" On this note, she was certainly an idealist, considering that she remained enamoured of Imlay despite his avarice and his neglect of her. Here, her polar personality slip into the Romantic, where Passion overpowers Reason.

Wollstonecraft seems to soak up her surroundings, making poetry out of landscapes that touch her soul…p. 16 “Eternity is in these moments: worldly cares melt into the airy stuff that dreams are made of; and reveries, mild and enchanting as the first hopes of love, or the recollection of lost enjoyment, carry the hapless wight into futurity…”
p. 34 - “I contemplated, fearless of idle questions, a night such as I had never before seen or felt to charm the senses, and calm the heart. The very air was balmy, as it freshened into morn, producing the most voluptuous sensations. A vague pleasurable sentiment absorbed me, as I opened my bosom to the embraces of nature; and my soul rose to its author, with the chirping of the solitary birds, which began to feel, rather than see, advancing day.”

Her contemplation of nature and the ravaging effects of greed bring forth ideas that tend to flow from one to another. In this sense she is seeing beyond the horizon but understanding that wherever it begins, the sky must end. p.68 - “Imagination went still farther, and pictured the state of man when the earth could no longer support him. …do not smile: I really became distressed for these fellow creatures, yet unborn." Nature is indeed the “nurse of sentiment” for Wollstonecraft. Very much like (well, it’s kind of a stretch, but bear with me!) a yodeler in the Alps hears the echoes of his yodels, Wollstonecraft metaphorically sends out her being into nature which acts as a kind of filter when her senses pick up and process the environmental stimuli. Her perception of nature is augmented by her projecting her own soul onto it.

Wollstonecraft’s curiosity of nature seems to match the meanderings of her mind. She is full of interesting ideas. For example, she notes that the Norwegians have a knack for languages which “prevents the cultivation of their own, and, consequently, limits literary pursuits.” An interesting conjecture. She might have been admiring of what was happening in America at that time, where American English was forming. It was the common people (rather than the aristocracy) that were shaping and defining their language, and this is the very language that Noah Webster (yeah, that Webster) was codifying. He claimed at the time that Americans were speaking the most pure English known. Compared to Europe, where speakers of the “same language” might have had great difficulty understanding each other, America was getting it done right. Melting pot from the start.
Wollstonecraft was, however, not so admiring of other goings-on in America - possibly from Imlay’s accounts of his travels there - and she was especially critical of the unbridled commerce that was rapidly expanding there. (p. 86/87): “England and America owe their liberty to commerce, which created a new species of power to undermine the feudal system. But let them beware of the consequence; the tyranny of wealth is still more galling and debasing than that of rank.” If only she could see us now! Surely she supported ideas of the Rational Enlightenment upon which America was founded but I wonder what she would have to say about the state of affairs as they are today. The superstition of religion or the devouring reality of Capitalism - which one would you choose?

Also, I found the reasoning behind her belief that man originated in cold climates remarkable… p. 29 - “[man was] led to adore a sun so seldom seen… Man must therefore have been placed in the north, to tempt him to run after the sun, in order that the different parts of the earth might be peopled.”

p. 61 “What a long time it requires to know ourselves; and yet every one has more of this knowledge than he is willing to own.” Contemplation brings one to question further and to conclude that more contemplation is needed...

CANDIDE

This book is far more brutal than what I remember the opera being. After reading it, I was not surprised to learn that it wasn't until the 1960s that the book was uncensored in French high schools (although I was very surprised to learn that France, at one point, had censors!)

My first impressions of Candide were that it is a critique of greed and globalization… It reminded me of a Kurt Vonnegut book where time and space collapse on themselves. Very much like Slaughterhouse Five, though, Candide is critical of very real issues and actions. Both books are “ridiculous” in a sense but are social commentary to very real events; “so it goes”; “best of all possible worlds”… It's ludicrousness also reminded me of PP ... learning and growing along the way.

Here are among my favourite lines:
p. 4* - “Note that noses were made to bear spectacles, and hence we have spectacles…”


p. 9 -“…It was an Avar village that the Bulgars had burnt down in accordance with the principles of international law.”

p. 15 - Reversal of Rousseau - “Men must have a corrupting effect on nature.”

p. 16* - “..Pangloss prevented him, demonstrating that the harbour of Lisbon had been purposely created for the Anabaptist to drown in.”

p. 37 - “Heaven will thank you for showing such charity, and you will be saved.”

p. 43 - “Los Padres own everything while the people own nothing. It is a masterpiece of reason and justice. If you ask me, there is nothing as divine as Los Padres, who are waging war on the Kings of Spain and Portugal here in the Americas, while in Europe they are these kings’ confessors. And they kill the Spaniards here, while in Madrid they send them to Heaven. It’s enchanting!”

p. 88 - “…in this country it is good to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.”

p. 116 - “Pangloss declared that he had always suffered horribly, but having asserted that everything was going wonderfully, he would continue to assert it, even though he did not believe it in the least.”

p. 118 - “Work keeps three great evils at bay: boredom, vice and want.”

p. 119 On this page, The Message: Shut up, stop reasoning and get to work.
Hmm…great advice. I have to go! Bye bye!

Reflections - Week 8

Reflections: Week 8

Macbeth, William Shakespeare (c. 1605)

Pilgrim's Progress (Part I), John Bunyan (1677)

The Basic Political Writings, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1750, 1754).

JJ ROUSSEAU

The Reveries of the Solitary Walker

One can't help but sympathize with Rousseau (JJR) while reading his end-of-life reflections. In his Confessions he considers his "sensitive heart" both a gift from Heaven and "the source of all the misfortunes of [his] life..." The ambiguity of this character does not end here and makes him and his life intriguing. While reading his Reveries, I had no idea of his life story and wanted to know exactly why he was so down on life, relationships and this entire planet (except for, maybe, plantlife): “Finally, feeling that all my efforts were useless and that I was tormenting myself to no avail, I took the only course which remained - that of submitting to my fate without railing against necessity any longer”. From what I gathered, he'd become disillusioned with how his fellow "thinkers" (and his fellow humans) regarded him and his writing. His perception of how he was perceived was consistent with his belief that the world is preocupied with and deceived by appearances.

“Only profound indifference remains about the fate of my true writings and of the testimonies to my innocence.” It's hard for me to believe that someone could care so little, as stated above, and yet write so much. He clearly enjoyed the creative process of writing for writing's sake: “They will not take away from me the pleasure of having written them, nor the solitary meditations whose fruit they are and whose source can be extinguished only when my soul is” but he seems to have wanted people to view him as he truly was and as opposed to how he was popularly perceived. Maybe he was not so indifferent.

The most memorable lines in Reveries: “If there is any study still appropriate for an Old Man, it is solely to learn how to die; and this is precisely what we study least at my age. At this point, we think of anything but that. All old men having on to life more than children and leave it with more reluctance than youngsters.” ... “They have not dreamed of acquiring anything during their life that they might carry away at their death.” Of the readings we've covered so far this semester, we have looked at theories focusing on how one should live, but not specifically on how one should die. This seems to be an important issue given that we all meet this very end. Are these lines both in defence of religion and against desires and acquisitions? If so, it would be consistent with the theories of Budhism, Stoics, Hindus (among many others) that eliminating want will keep you from projecting your present self into the future... there will come a time when that projection is unrealistic because you'll be facing a wall of death.

“What kind of a support are illusions which delude me alone in the whole world? The whole present generation sees only errors and prejudices in the sentiments with which I alone nourish myself. It finds truth and evidence in the system opposed to mine.” ... “Shall I place more trust in my declining reason, thereby making myself unjustly unhappy, than in my full and vigorous reason, thereby getting compensation for the evils I suffer without having deserved them? … While meditating on these matters, I knew that human understanding, circumscribed by the senses, could not embrace them in their full extent.” To me these musings speak to the complexity of authenticity and its perception by others. This is not to say that Rousseau's ideas are correct and that others should buy into them but it does show how superficial his contemporaries were in judging him as they would understand "by the senses" and would misinterpret his writings, perhaps to the benefit of their own agendas.

The Basic Political Writings

I don't know much about anything, but I probably should seek the shelter and shade of trees as often as I can. Doing so benefited the Buddha, Newton and Rousseau with life-changing epiphanies. It was under a tree that JJR had the revelation that man is born good and is then corrupted by society. The profound experience was felt to his core and he spent the rest of his life trying to articulate his insight.

A good friend of mine was swept up by such inspiration once, while traveling abroad... With some alacrity, he was crossing a continent to be on time for a "date" but was seized with a creative force that he couldn't ignore, and for the next week or two wrote a screenplay that became the seedling to a movie he later produced. Even though (to say the least) his date was not pleased, my friend has no regrets and gives much credit to his divine inspiration. After reading Rousseau's reflections, I wonder whether he felt the same way about his philosophical creations, or at least the way he handled their publication. Was he happy with how he handled his public affairs? Did he have regrets as a result of his exile? I wonder if he would do it over again and have himself subjected to all the torment he endured for the sake of being authentic. What price would I be willing to pay to remain my authentic self?

From what little Rousseau I've read, to summarize his basic writings in a sentence or two, one can say that man stepped beyond the boundaries of Nature when his use of reason was set off and he was set free. Consequences of this include ideas of property, inequality and what Rousseau describes as love for self. He wrote a lot on the education of children but gave up (five times) the chance of getting first-hand experience in raising children. I question that he should be faulted for this. Who am I to judge and who can know what his life was like when he left his five newborns at an orphanage? Do not mix the artist with his art, as this might detract from the enjoyment of art (depending on one's sensibilities).

Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts:

In his discourse on the Arts and Sciences Rousseau gives historical examples contending that the study of the arts and sciences, as they are studied today, leads man to deviate from a "natural path". He gives evidence that probity is indeed the daughter of ignorance. “Ever since learned men have begun to appear in our midst, good men have vanished. Until then the Romans had been content to practice virtue; all was lost when they began to study it.”

As someone who was, for a short period of two years, employed as a scientist (see blog of "Week 10"), I can't wholly disagree with JJR. My first response to his discourse was that he was being a bit harsh and unreasonable. Was it because he was writing to win an essay contest that he had such forceful views? Surely he doesn't mean everything he wrote although there are seeds of truth in his writing. Did he think that one has to exaggerate his thoughts in order to be heard?

Another reaction to his writing (this example from Part One of his Discrouse on Inequality) is that I thought some of his arguments very "black and white" blind to the complexities and intricacies of life. (p.51) “…the following difficult problem: which was the more necessary: an already formed society for the invention of languages, or an already invented language for the establishment of society?” Admittedly I am taking this line right out of context and he does not believe that either was the case, but the example exemplifies JJR's oversimplification of an issue.

On p.8 he shows foresight in anticipating new "languages" spoken by men as a result of their various specializations. “Because the most skillful among them excel in their specialty, they view themselves as the wisest of men. To my way of thinking, this presumption has completely tarnished their knowledge.” Such presumtion comes from one's ego and is an effect of - if not the beginning of - inequality.

If the desire to practise the arts and sciences stems from one's ego, “...the sciences and the arts owe their birth to our vices; we would be less in doubt about their advantages, if they owed it to our virtues.” JJR would argue that to be authentic is “…to commune with oneself and, in the silence of the passions, to listen to the voice of one’s conscience…That is the true philosophy; let us know how to be satisfied with it.” Unfortunately, based on his Reveries of a Solitary Walker, he fleshes out his thoughts in this respect but I question whether he came to know how to be satisfied with it.

Discourse on the Origin of Inequality

p. 27 - “Once people are accustomed to masters, they are no longer in a position to get along without them.”

The preface develops and describes the kind of republic that Rousseau would have liked to be born in. Even though Rousseau seems to be talking about 18th Century Geneva as an ideal state, I thought he was being ironic and sarcastic, especially with the capitalization of his fawning salutations to the city's leaders: "MAGNIFICENT, MOST HONOURED AND SOVEREIGN LORDS..." (C'mon, now.)

“Of all the branches of knowledge, the most useful and least advanced seems to me to be that of man.” Man does seem to think little about himself in the internal, reflective sense. Perhaps due to man's fixation on "appearances", as a result of society, his thoughts bend toward the external and remain there.
That's great but sometimes it is hard to reconile some of his thoughts with others...p. 42- on illness “If nature has destined for us to be healthy, I almost dare to affirm that the state of reflection is a state contrary to nature and that the man who meditates is a depraved animal.” I know my confusion stems from my ignorance of Rousseau's philosophy, but I think one must keep in mind the following in reading his works: “reason is what engenders egocentrism, and reflection strengthens it. Reason is what turns man in upon himself”. This type of "turning in" is probably not the kind that Rousseau would advocate. This kind would constitute an implosion not a liberation which is more in line with what he talks about in his Reveries.

Basically, I found his writing fascinating but was not able to devote as much time to its study as I would have liked. Other bits that caught my attention:

p. 35 - “…two principles that are prior to reason, of which one makes us ardently interested in our well-being and our self-preservation, and the other inspires in us a natural repugnance to seeing any sentient being, especially our fellow man, perish or suffer.” (compassion, empathy, pity).

Part One
Rousseau uses as a "base" his idea of man in his natural state: (p.40) - “I see him satisfying his hunger under and oak tree, quenching his thirst at the first stream, finding his bed at the foot of the same tree that supplied his meal; and thus all his needs are satisfied.”

p. 40 - “Nature treats them [children] precisely the way the law of Sparta treated the children of its citizens: it renders strong and robust those who are well constituted and makes all the rest perish…”

p.44 - animal as a machine (Descartes!) “…whereas man contributes to his own operations”… “and thus dissolute men abandon themselves to excesses which cause them fever and death, because mind perverts the senses and because the will still speaks when nature is silent”.

p. 45 - THE FACULTY OF SELF-PERFECTION. … "Is it not that he thereby returns to his primitive state, and that, while the animal which has acquired nothing and which also has nothing to lose, always retains its instinct, man, in losing through old age of other accidents all that his perfectibility has enabled him to acquire, thus falls even lower than the animal itself?”

p. 46 - “an animal will never know what it is to die; and knowledge of death and its terrors is one of the first acquisitions that man has made in withdrawing from the animal condition” - the complexity of the modern man is then further complicated by his denial of death!

p. 48+ - on language… only conjecture (as he states in the preface) - so why does he go into such detail if this is just an hypothesis? I’m surprised at the presumption of how he believes civilized man came to be… he could be way, WAY off, although the point he is trying to make is clear.

p.52 - comparison of the suffering in savage and civilized life.

p. 54 - “with all their mores, men would never have been anything but monsters, if nature had not given them pity to aid their reason”… “reason is what engenders egocentrism, and reflection strengthens it. Reason is what turns man in upon himself”.

Pilgrim's Progress
"The origin of the religious temperament can be traced in clear outline to the child's feeling of helplessness." (Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents)

The irony that Pilgrim's Progress (PP) was written in a children's genre was not lost on me; in order to buy into Bunyan's belief system you must shed any knowledge acquired after the age of about four. I don't want to come off as being anti-religion, but what would aliens think of humanity's penchant for playing make-believe? To believe (and to want to believe) in the extreme form of religion that Bunyan advances requires a suspension of reason that children naturally possess. Anyway, thinking of all this reminds me of the oft-repeated Atheist repartée: Instead of being born again, why not just grow up?

Nevertheless, I enjoyed PP and read it with the eyes of a child. I felt like an adventurer in a fantastic "Alice-In-Wonder" land where reason does not always apply. I noticed that at one time it was considered the most widely read English book, after the Bible. Was its popularity due to its ability to teach (indoctrinate) young children?

On that note, memorable was the brutality Christian and Hopeful are subjected to for (merely) trespassing near Doubting-Castle, on Giant Despair's land (p. 110). What terrible images to subject a child's imagination to, and what insidious treachery to instill the fear of God into a kid so as to keep him on the straight and narrow. This is reminiscent of a section of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man where a priest describes eternity and hell to a congregation of young school boys:

-- Last and crowning torture of all the tortures of that awful place is the eternity of hell. Eternity! O, dread and dire word. Eternity! What mind of man can understand it? And remember, it is an eternity of pain. Even though the pains of hell were not so terrible as they are, yet they would become infinite, as they are destined to last for ever. But while they are everlasting they are at the same time, as you know, intolerably intense, unbearably extensive. To bear even the sting of an insect for all eternity would be a dreadful torment. What must it be, then, to bear the manifold tortures of hell for ever? For ever! For all eternity! Not for a year or for an age but for ever. Try to imagine the awful meaning of this. You have often seen the sand on the seashore. How fine are its tiny grains! And how many of those tiny little grains go to make up the small handful which a child grasps in its play. Now imagine a mountain of that sand, a million miles high, reaching from the earth to the farthest heavens, and a million miles broad, extending to remotest space, and a million miles in thickness; and imagine such an enormous mass of countless particles of sand multiplied as often as there are leaves in the forest, drops of water in the mighty ocean, feathers on birds, scales on fish, hairs on animals, atoms in the vast expanse of the air: and imagine that at the end of every million years a little bird came to that mountain and carried away in its beak a tiny grain of that sand. How many millions upon millions of centuries would pass before that bird had carried away even a square foot of that mountain, how many eons upon eons of ages before it had carried away all? Yet at the end of that immense stretch of time not even one instant of eternity could be said to have ended. At the end of all those billions and trillions of years eternity would have scarcely begun. And if that mountain rose again after it had been all carried away, and if the bird came again and carried it all away again grain by grain, and if it so rose and sank as many times as there are stars in the sky, atoms in the air, drops of water in the sea, leaves on the trees, feathers upon birds, scales upon fish, hairs upon animals, at the end of all those innumerable risings and sinkings of that immeasurably vast mountain not one single instant of eternity could be said to have ended; even then, at the end of such a period, after that eon of time the mere thought of which makes our very brain reel dizzily, eternity would scarcely have begun.

Wow! Imagine the effect this had on any young person!

The oppresiveness and fear does not end there, though. The twisted message (albeit sweetened by a nice story of adventure) stays strong in its insistence that one's thoughts are carefully monitord by our loving Lord and that (at the end of the day, at the day of judgment) one's thoughts have more weight than one's actions. P.36 “Why, I thought that the day of Judgement was come, and that I was not ready for it: but this frightened me most, that the Angels gathered up several, and left me behind; also the pit of Hell opened her mouth just where I stood: my Conscience too within afflicted me; and as I thought, the Judge had always his eye upon me, shewing indignation in his countenance.” He was afraid of being Left Behind.

On p. 65 Satan is blamed for man's natural use of his Reason. "Christian made believe that he spake blasphemies when 'twas Satan that suggested them in his mind." ... "which [Christian] verily thought had proceeded from his own mind." What better way to explain the natural thoughts of a faithful man? Blame... Satan! The words "thought control" come to mind here but Bunyan cannot be criticized for being inconsistent as this idea is again revisited in expounding on the sin of questioning or unbelieving. Basically, it is a sin to question. Never mind neglecting, shunning and looking down on your fellow humans (which happens throughout PP), but beware of lustful thoughts!
p.40- “I walk by the rule of my Master, you walk by the rude working of your fancies”. Well, I guess this is called free will and it seems preferable to me to obey oneself over a wrathful demagogic God. But, comfort for the weak: (p.45): “keep in the midst of the Path and no hurt shall come unto thee”.

Macbeth

My pre-class thoughts:

Whenever did "hurly-burly" not describe the state of the world? That expression sums up Britain circa 1600. A time of changing monarch's, backstabbing traitors and greed. Shakespeare would feel right at home in the 21st Century.

Macbeth's first advancement is that of being granted the title "Thane of Cawdor" (and it's no coincidence that that previous Thane was a traitor). Macbeth holds this title temporarily, but remains a traitor to the end, when the story really comes to a head. (sorry). As he rises up the ranks and sets his sights on the possibility of kingship, he lives by a Machiavellian code, a code stating that men of greatness (those in charge of states) do not have to abide by the mores of individual men. He gets help in this from his wife who appeals to Macbeth's passion, not his reason, as his reasoning would advise him not to murder the king. Like Eve tempting Adam to share her Fall, Lady Macbeth coaxes her husband by questioning his manhood. In Act I Scene 5 (40-41), Lady Macbeth calls on the spirits to unsex her, and asks them to give her cruelty and “thick blood”... How often in literature do we see a man trying to tempt a woman, thus causing her downfall? Not very often. Will the converse of this ever become cliché?

At least twice (that I can think of) Macbeth gives in to temptation and makes an immoral choice that is later mirrored by someone who choses the higher road:
1) “Merciful powers, restrain in me the cursed thoughts that Nature gives way to, in repose.” Banquo is tempted by the same thoughts as Macbeth but he casts them aside; Nature endows us with Reason (and free will!) that allows us to discriminate between right and wrong.
2) Macbeth is weak-willed and allows Lady Macbeth to damage his manly ego with her doubting his masculinity. But when Ross tells Macduff that his family has been killed, and Macduff's eyes are dimmed with tears, he is urged by Ross to take the news “like a man”. Macduff does so, but only after he "feels it like a man”. Macbeth is, in the end, less potent and less manly (if I may say this without sounding sexist) for caving in to his wife's jeering. There is a time for tears and a time for war, turn turn turn.

King Macbeth, to his detriment, cannot in good conscience live as Machiavelli would recommend. Not only can he not pull it off, he cannot hold his self together and keep his guilt from devouring him from the inside. He becomes, like the citizens of his country, unable to eat or sleep peacefully.

I can see the parallels and can also question whether a heavy-handed ruler like Macbeth (and like Machiavelli's Prince) would be able to maintain rule when other leaders (never mind the people) grow to see through tyranny and despise the ruling tyrant.

Guilt
No matter how one tries to justify his actions, guilt finds a way of wreaking havoc and creating imbalance… Macbeth’s inability to sleep and eat (and this strangely being passed on to the people of Scotland!) as a result of his tormented mind. It takes root in the physical – not only his own body, but that of the country he rules. This is seen in a few instances throughout this course, which brings into question the Descartian mind-body dichotomy. Frankenstein does not fall ill after every calamity just by coincidence any more than Macbeth's inability to eat and sleep come from acute mountain sickness.
Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking is a sure sign of the agonizing guilt she is experiencing. As much as she justifies her and her husband’s actions as right, her subconscious cannot escape the evil that is eating her through the core.

Witches
I saw the witches as representing Macbeth’s subconscious. Therein lies the mixture of intuition and evil that Macbeth is predisposed to. It offers him a glimpse of the future, to his loss.
Rationalizing skewed his Reason: Macbeth tries to rationalize his evil deeds. By merely entertaining the possibility, the seed is planted and his mind works in favour of his desire.

His mind finds a way to rationalize his darkest desire. Just like you might see yourself doing something you know is wrong, you convince yourself in the moment of your doing it that it is right or that there is some value in it… this is your mind skewing Reason.
Macbeth dissociates himself from guilt, whereas it devours Lady Macbeth. He is too busy to consider his guilt anyway, but the fact that he cannot sleep and eat hints at his inner anguish.

Reflections - Week 7

October 20, 2010.

Reflections: Week 7

The Prince, Machiavelli. Written 1513; Published 1532
The Praise of Folly, Desiderius Erasmus (Gerrit Gerritzoons). Published 1509.


"We have replaced decency with reason" (Koestler, Darkness At Noon)

“Like most religions, reason presents itself as the solution to the problems it has created” (J.R. Saul)


I can see why Machiavelli’s name is associated with cold calculations in conflict but does he really deserve the negative connotations associated with the mention of his name used as an adjective? After all, The Prince was written to save his country from invaders and he wanted to help his fellow Italians, no? It’s not as if acts of savagery only started to occur after this book was published. Although, many of the statements in The Prince are delivered in such a way as to make the author seem cold and uncaring, I think he can be forgiven for this. Wars, along with all of its atrocities, were happening, and were to continue, regardless of what Machiavelli wrote; it could be that his advice amounted to a utilitarian argument for seemingly cold and unjust behaviour by a Prince.

In The Prince Machiavelli appeals to Lorenzo de Medici in the hopes of getting back into the game of Italian politics (he was in exile at the time) and is offering his answer to the political instability of the day. To me there is something mercenary in his intentions but I wonder what legacy his book had on wars since its publication in 1532. Henry VIII declared himself supreme head of the church in 1534. He acted more like an Italian prince than an English king. I wonder if Henry VIII had a copy - probably; he was very well read. I would not be surprised to learn that regions governed by leaders who followed Machiavelli’s tenets were more peaceful as a result of heavy-handed rule. Limp-wristed rulers, although painted as nice people, may not be the best thing for their citizens in the long run, especially if the leaders’ weakness makes them a target by forces from the outside. Of course, this could be totally false if The Prince was written as a satire. It’s ironic to think that the qualities we associate with Machiavelli might be completely unwarranted, especially if Rousseau (among others) is right in writing that Machiavelli was “a proper man and a good citizen”.

My impression was that Machiavelli, in The Prince, applies Reason to war. Although his arguments are sound, there is little room for morality which makes me wonder how moral a state should actually be… For an individual to have morality is one thing, but what about the state? Is this a bastardization of reason? I imagine his excuse would be that different standards of morality apply to both state and the individual.

The methods of applied reason are such that for every question there is one right answer. Machiavelli's solutions seem sound, but just like his reason does not take morality into account (along with other complexities of humanity), I can't help but think that the solid pillar he builds with Reason is overly-simple and that the multitude of factors that are at play in wartime - ones that Machiavelli does not mention in The Prince - can collectively cause his rock to crumble.

Machiavelli coolly talks about liquidating whole populations for the maintenance a princedom but it's nothing personal for him, his aim is merely to communicate a recipe for a stable state and his sound arguments are based on history.

I am reminded of the documentary Fog of War. In this clip you have Robert McNamara talking about the lessons he learned in his involvement in war. He was a player in destructive operations both in WWII in Japan and, (in Vietnam), the Vietnam War (never mind his equally destructive involvement with the World Bank!) Here is a man whose legacy might bring about a new pejorative term: "McNamarian", but what struck me in the docu was that McNamara seems like a decent guy even though he was so involved in horrendous events. Just as Machiavelli takes morality out of the equation of reason, McNamara divorces himself from any responsibility for his wartime involvement. He is talking for the state, not for any individual. Like he says in the movie clip, "I was part of a mechanism that, in a sense, recommended [the firebombing of Tokyo]".

Another interesting thought - "There is simply no comparison between a man who is armed and one who is not" (Chapter XIV), as if being armed will ensure security. Thinking of Afghanistan, this rule no longer applies although it seems to be advice that nations have adopted in recent history. Is The Prince in G. W. Bush's extensive personal library?

The Praise of Folly

“Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched” (I don't know)

Erasmus was a questioning Catholic. His reading of the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians is the basis on which he judges the society of his day. A priest, but also a humanist, Erasmus would contend that his society has been lead astray from the original teachings of the church.

The Renaissance was as a turning point in European history, a time when serious critiques of society were rearing their heads. Erasmus was highly connected within the church and therefore was relatively safe from excommunication. He chose a very “safe” way of writing his critique and does so using the voice of a ‘woman’. Just like a boss whose first warning regarding an employee's untidy appearance or laziness is done jokingly, so is Erasmus’s approach in criticizing the church – he does it through the mouth of the Goddess Folly.

But what is folly, exactly? Here is a brief “History” of Folly: There used to be parades of folly where a “Goddess of Fools” was elected; In literature, fools are common (Rabelais, Don Quixote, Shakespeare (e.g. King Lear)). Through the mouth of the fool, we not only hear the follies of the world, we also hear Truth. Court Jester/fool is the only person who can say the truth to the king (usually truth that the king cannot bear to hear from anyone else.) The great secret of the success of the fool is that he is not a fool at all.

An interesting point brought up in class: For secular stories, there is a tendency to attach them to past myths. The mythic fall of man as an act of folly – this echoes back to Eve, someone not exactly positively viewed by the church. But just as what is considered a "fall" for Adam and Eve is actually a Rise (I consider the endowment of Reason and Free Will over Ignorance an improvement not a setback), this critique of religion in the Renaissance was a necessary evil. It was bound to happen as society at the time was becoming unhinged.

There is a definite change in tone after p. 45. After this, Erasmus hones his polemic toward the church and targets social institutions that matter. One might consider the first part of the book a warm-up. In it, Erasmus is setting the stage and getting the reader engaged and in agreement with him. He gets the reader on the wagon, so to speak, all the while implicating the reader and his society.

How dare he? Erasmus covers his butt by blaming folly, that irrational woman! On p.62, Folly speaks: “But here I meet with a great noise of some that endeavour to peck out the crows' eyes; that is, to blind the doctors of our times and smoke out their eyes with new annotations; among whom my friend Erasmus, whom for honour's sake I often mention, deserves if not the first place yet certainly the second”, (removal of italics, my own). It could be that after many treatises appealing for change in the church that were ignored, Erasmus finally wrote this satire, since all else failed. Erasmus knew exactly what he was doing and what he wrote, along with its implications. Have you seen portraits of him by Holbein?

Of course Erasmus took his words seriously!

Here is a pair of equalities brought up in seminar (although presented far more eloquently, and I think with a different point...): Passion=folly, crucifixion=passion... so therefore folly=crucifixion? QED. On page 67 Erasmus does refer to Jesus as a fool, "And Christ himself, that he might the better relieve this folly, being the wisdom of the father, yet in some manner became a fool when taking upon him the nature of man, he was found in shape as a man."

Had Catholicism listened to Erasmus, perhaps there would have been no break-up of the church; No reformation or counter-reformation… but who knows where that would leave us today.
Folly is Natural; it is in our nature. How is this related to Passion and Wisdom? Your homework tonight is to think about that. The more I read the more I see dualities dissolve. To say that Folly is part of Nature is enough; its roots and branches are found in both Wisdom and Passion.

Reflections - Week 6

Reflections – Week 6

Descartes 1596 – 1650 – A Discourse on the Method

Rumi 1207 - 1273 – Love is a Stranger

Christine de Pizan 1365 - 1434 – The Book of the Duke of True Lovers

I’m happy to report that my academic future has never been brighter: In seminar this week, our guest lecturer on Descartes stated that confusion is the beginning of knowledge. The session itself was fantastic and provided much insight into Discourse and the times in which it was written.

Since the lecture, I’ve had to revisit a lot of what I had already written for this blog prior to class. Much of what I'd written was based on shaky foundations. However, after much contemplation alone in my room, I decided not to make like Descartes and start afresh. Rather, I will split the first part of this blog (regarding Descartes) into two parts: The first with my pre-lecture comments and the second with some more "accurate" information, garnered from the lecture.

In starting my reading of A Discourse on the Method I could not help but admire Descartes’ courage on several levels. On theology, for instance, he supports as fact that “the revealed truths that lead to [heaven] are beyond our understanding” and that he “would not dare to submit them to [his] own puny reasoning powers”. (How humble). On the topic of philosophy, he modestly states that he’s not so presumptuous as to hope to succeed better than others. But what is most impressive is how he concludes that much of what he believed in is actually based on shaky foundations. (His reasoning here is that over the years, centuries, millennia, regarding any number of given topics, scholars and experts have come to adopt “facts” that are not entirely true, and therefore have given a false picture of what may be generally regarded as true. These falsities, one on top of the next, are like rotten wood supporting a home that can cause the crumbling and eventual downfall of that home (a metaphor)). Not only does he conclude this, but he acts on it. He resolves to start anew, to study and look at the world in a new way, and to instigate the precepts he has formulated so as to come to something sure, something concrete - concrete to build his own foundations.

What distress and sense of feeling lost this must have caused someone as educated as Descartes! He must have felt the same way as though he had totally discarded his faith in God. Not that he should have, but it seems to me to be of importance that he did not. Near the end of Part 1, 8-9, Descartes asserts his belief that philosophy and “other disciplines” (theology not included, apparently) are on unstable ground. Curiously, his religion doesn’t seem to warrant such inspection or censure.

Whatever humility I saw in him was somewhat diminished when I read that he had found proof of the existence of God and of the immortal soul. These are quite lofty claims and I am skeptical and doubtful, just as Descartes method suggests I should be. Descartes sheds quite a lot of his educational past before philosophically starting fresh but seems to keep very close to his vest the belief that god exists. (Although he would not have claimed to have proof for the existence of God, he has a strong belief in him… could his formulation that God exists be a form of “wishful thinking” as it is proposed to have been for many other religions?). I dunno, but at first glance, if Descartes can use Reason to assert that the thought “I exist” is impossible to doubt, and to conclude from there that God exists, then this has to be a good example of the perversion of Reason.

Wait. Maybe if I type out his reasoning, (no doubt without doing Descartes justice - I’ve not read his other works and have only just read his Discourse), this will allow me to somewhat understand his thinking so I can concede that perhaps there is something to it. Just like Plato, Descartes is dubious of the senses and declares that he will not believe in anything they tell him (Part Four, 32). He goes a step further and “rejects as false all the reasoning that [he] hitherto accepted as valid proof”. On the words “I am thinking therefore I exist”, Descartes “thereby concludes that he is a substance whose whole essence that resides only in thinking and which in order to exist has no need of place and is not dependent on any material thing”. From this he concludes that this “I” is the Soul and that it is separate from the body.

Descartes appreciates that there is greater perfection in knowing than doubting. By the fact that he doubts, he recognizes his imperfection and can visualize perfection. From there, how does he conclude that there must be a perfect being (God) allowing him to recognize his own imperfection? I don’t know his philosophy well, but it seems to me that he did not properly apply his precepts on this one; (Precept #1 - “…carefully avoid both prejudice and premature conclusions”).

“I was certain that none of those things which manifested any imperfection was in Him, but that all the others were. In this way I could see that doubt, inconstancy, sadness, and such things could not be in Him, given that I would have been myself very glad to be free of them… because I had already recognized in my own case that the nature of the intellect is distinct from the nature of the body and considering that all composition is evidence of dependence, and that dependence is manifestly a defect, I concluded that it could not be one of God’s perfections to be composed of these two natures, and that, as a consequence, He was not so composed; but that, if there were in the world any bodies or other intelligences or other natures which were not wholly perfect, their being must depend on His power, in such a way that they could not continue to subsist for a single moment without Him.”

The above quote, on second reading, is very reminiscent of Augustine’s “house divided”. Here Descartes describes the duality of man; one part being superior to the other. The other thing I wonder about is the “perfection of God”. Wouldn’t a perfect, omnipotent being, who encompasses All, be able to experience sadness (if He fancied it), for example? The God in Genesis and throughout the Old Testament is full of human emotions, and not always the most praiseworthy emotions. If anything, to be able to experience all possible sensations (to be capable of something, regardless of what it is) is closer to Perfection than to be somehow excluded from (not being capable of) feeling certain sentiments. Is Descartes’ belief more inline with a Platonic God or a Catholic God? My reaction is that it is Platonic since the God he talks about doesn’t really seem anthropomorphic. Moreover, in Part 4, he stresses his belief that there is a realm independent from the real world that informs us.

In terms of Descartes and the heart, I don’t think he had it quite right as far as the blood’s consistency changing from the heart to the extremities. Again, he implies that because the workings of the heart are independent of what we think, the body and soul are separate. The body is a mechanism, a machine. At this point in my reading, I wondered what Descartes’ reaction would have been had he been presented with Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection; might he have accepted religion as a human adaptation? It’s probably not the most relevant thought, but it did pop into my mind as ideas tend to do. Descartes analyzes his thoughts in a way that I don’t wholly understand and would like to know more of. The heart functions as it does due to adaptations along the way, adaptations that the human mind was never conscious of. The theory of the functioning of the heart from his day has been revised; perhaps his own theories too. But what is Descartes legacy? How seriously is his philosophy taken today and what ramifications did it have at publication?

Now, having said all that, these are just my gut reactions to my first reading of Descartes’ Discourse and I understand that it was meant for a more general audience compared to his Meditations which give a more detailed and systematic account of his thinking. I am not so arrogant to presume that I can topple Descartes’ reasoning; (that kind of arrogance is akin to stating that I’ve found proof of God’s existence (a joke)).

Near the middle of Part 4 (36), Descartes’ faith in mathematics shines through. As many learn in elementary school, the Cartesian grid is a flat plane where geometry can be applied. Of course this is a total abstraction in a 3-dimensional world and triangle angles adding to 180 degrees only applies on a flat Cartesian grid as discussed in Discourse:

Ok, that aside, Descartes systematically spells out how desires reduces one’s ability to achieve happiness and explains a way to shed desires, much like a Stoic would: “…to change my desires rather than to change the order of the world, and in general to settle for the belief that there is nothing entirely in our power except our thoughts”. He then goes on about how difficult it is to change one’s thinking in this way (as the B. Gita and Aurelius’ Meditations also suggest).

In Part 5, Descartes mentions everything he has been able to show based on his reasoning. The long list includes “the laws of nature”, showing that even if god created many worlds, “there could not be any in which the [laws of nature] could fail to be observed”. I must be missing something vital here, because I don’t understand how he can make such a claim even by following his own precepts.

Descartes regarding animals, their inability to speak and their total lack of reason made me wonder why he thinks that speech is dependent on reason. To me, that would suggest that communication is dependent on reason too. Animals of all sorts communicate (bees, for instance, by the way they fly and birds through song).

What became clear after the seminar was that many parts of the discourse are cryptic because he wanted to save himself from the Catholic church. Why did he not think that the church would not catch on, though? I suppose they did, and his book was banned, but at least he was not put on trial.

So, other "class notes" and reflections [not the most interesting reading; I apologize]: Descartes rejects philosophy and his culture realizing that people cannot agree anything that is important. The book of the world offers no certainty except “2+3=5” (mathematics - people don't generally go to war for this but they might for the sake of upholding the belief transubstantiation).

Let’s symbolize a problem as “10”. 10= 5+5; but what is 5? 5=2+3;… 2=1+1; 1=1/2+1/2 (the smaller you get, the more complex the system becomes, since at "half plus half", you must not only know addition, but must now explain division etc…). This is a regression that gets more and more complicated.
Descartes believes that by reasoning through a problem, by dividing it up into smaller pieces, you will eventually reach something self-evident, like "1+1". He is striving towards a body of knowledge that is similarly self-evident; He wants to apply the reasoning of 1+1 (unity) to the other disciplines. Paragraphs 19-20 - Math the only certainty; Trust in the method - trust reasoning. This is the heart of the method. Similarly, Locke, in a non-mathematical way, divides country into province, cities, neighbourhoods, home... all the way down to the individual. To the "I". Descartes always focuses on “I”… I, I, I in both Discourse and Meditations. His first precept, expressed differently: You all have to become “epistemically autonomous” as an individual. Basically saying Descartes cannot teach you the method, you have to discover it on your own.

Descartes demonstrates that even if God exists, He cannot tinker with his reasoning. He foresaw the future in his method: Medicine - no pain; Politics - no conflict; Machanics - no sweat = PARADISE. Milton wrote that humans can regain paradise only through Christ; Descartes - Paradise on earth, through human Reason.

From Transcendence - Plato (Augustinians) or God, to Immanence - Centre of Truth: I, Self, Ego. (Taking place within the mind; remaining within).

The third precept: “positing an order” - Hypothesizing- a conjecture! How can Reason say that which we do not yet understand? This is where imagination comes in! I doubt for the sake of certainty - to see if there might be truth or not. Hypotheses/conjecture-making requires imagination, freedom AND to have freedom, you need a mind separate from the mechanical body.

...And so my notes end. I admit I am confused but feel sure that Descartes will be revisited sometime in the future. Until then I don't feel confident developing the above ideas. I know they seem scattered and are certainly not 100% accurate. For me to develop them into an essay from my limited understanding would be to pave a road over marshlands: cracks will appear before long.
My notes and thoughts on Rumi and Christine de Pisan follow, but they are more or less in "note form". Generally, having the books in front of you will be useful as I reference specific pages in the books.


On to Rumi.

There does seem to be a paradox here: Rumi’s poetry is so passionate, but not in a sensual sense the way that Sappho’s poetry is. Rumi’s passion comes from his profound love for God, a spiritual entity; his passion is not one of the senses, but one of the heart. This does not mean that this passionate love is always to God - he recognizes that it can be destructive to reason - p.31: “Though reason is learned and has its honours, it pawned its cap and robes for a cup of love.” p. 53 “Love is reckless; not reason. Reason seeks a profit. Love comes on strong, consuming herself, unabashed.” “Religion seeks grace and favour… but those who gamble these away are God’s favorites.” - His advice: Love recklessly, passionately!

The reverence with which Rumi spoke of God was not the only thing that reminded me of Augustine. In Be Lost in the Call, God replies to David, “O, prisoner of time…”
I wonder if Augustine regarded his dead friend (the one who I suspected to be his lover) the same as Rumi did Shamsi. Rumi speaks of Shams of Tabriz very affectionately but this is not uncommon for Sufis. In a sense they were both seekers and lovers of higher spirituality, so they may be considered “spiritual lovers”. Apparently there is no real evidence that they had anything but a purely intellectual love affair. Not that there would have been anything wrong with an affair of a different type.

It is taught that one should love one’s master but if this love is too strong it might impeded the student’s “annihilation in God”. After Shamsi vanishes - was he murdered? Did he leave for Rumi’s own spiritual development? - Rumi came to write thousands of couplets describing unitive experiences where he gets back in unity with Shamsi. Annihilation in God following annihilation in the master.


The Ruby p. 14-15. First 2 stanzas could describe passionate love, but I think this is the love of divinity, not of love for a (sexual) partner. “Before the stone becomes a ruby, it is its own enemy. Not one but two exist” DUALITY ends at unity (the one and the many?)
The stone shines only inward, its shining is hidden although the “pit” of the stone is a ruby. “If it says ‘I’, it is all darkness” - Ego; (not divine Ego). “Always see infinite life in letting the self die” - Renewal.

The Root of the Root of Yourself p. 16-17. Seeking union with the Beloved (one’s primal root) - this is “Love”. “Once you get hold of selflessness, you’ll be dragged from your ego.”
“You were born from a ray of god’s majesty and have the blessings of a good star. Why suffer at the hands of things that don’t exist?” Comparing the simplicity, mystery and distance of god’s grace while pointing out what is corrupting is very near at hand, earthly.
From the last stanza, this poem praises Shams or Tabriz. Shams “worked” on Rumi’s soul with him; as the student needs someone to work with him to break down barriers in his spiritual path, Shams was critical in Rumi’s development as a spiritual seeker (and poet).

Love is a Stranger p.18-19. Bottom of p. 18, shows the naturalness and effortlessness of returning to the depths of yourself to make your “prison a palace”.

On the Deathbed p. 23. At the beginning - a conversation between body and soul? “While the tyrant… blood money.” Is this a comment on denying death when all is well?

The War Inside p.26. A “house divided”? Here, is he begging to be fixed? Begging to be shown the way by someone - by Shams?

Clothes Abandoned on the Shore p. 30. Is this poem a reminder of our true essence?

The Pull of Love p. 31. Hallaj’s words, his unity with the divine: A piece of this cloth, a sip of this wine, can turn one’s reason inside out. It moves one’s world. This exemplifies the power and the mystery of god. “It’s right that this separation he helped me feel lurks like a monster within my heart. Yet heaven’s wild and unbroken colt was trained by the hand of his love. Though reason is learned and has its honours, it pawned its cap and robes for a cup of love…” Poem ends with the idea, again, that once you grab hold of selflessness, your ego will be dragged away. Once in tune with this love, you will not want to leave but will surrender yourself to it. Another interpretation is that the "coat" that is being grabbed hold of is a symbol of wealth and once one fastens himself to it, it will not let go of him.

What I really liked about this poem is the end. In the last stanza there is an abrupt change from action to and narration and the poem ends as if no more can be said using words. On that note, a few of the poems end with the mention and praise of Shams, quite out of the blue, as to press the point that continuing would be futile because the idea is beyond words.

p. 37, 38. The idea of one being scattered. Is this not a reminder of the multiplicity of duality? Of the distance from unity?

Song of the Reed p. 50-52. First 10 lines - an expression of love as his foundation and the desire to return to unity, oneness, the divine.
p.51 - comments on attachment and greed; the never-ending nature of human desire.

Love is Reckless p. 53. “Love is reckless. Not reason. Reason seeks a profit. Love comes on strong, consuming herself, unabashed.” Comparing “reason” and the passion of love. Love is unstoppable and although it has the power to “take over” and probably to blind, it does not seek a profit. True love is to give it, to return it, to live for it. Put in this light, regardless of what negatives might come out of the passion of love, it is better than reason. Reason, if seeking profit, takes one to meaningless, empty ends. The last stanza is indeed a suggestion to love recklessly and passionately.

When a Man and a Woman Become One p. 54-55. Timelessness of unity with the Beloved.

I Am Not.. p. 56-57. “I have put duality away and seen the two worlds as one. One I seek, one I know. One I see, one I call. He is the first. He is the last. He is the Outward. He is the Inward.”

When Names Did Not Exist p. 58. A description before “the Fall”. It is this state - the divine Ego - that we want to reunite with…
A World With No Boundaries p. 61-63. On p. 62, he talks of our mission in this life: “This is the time of union, the time of eternal beauty. It is the time of luck and kindness; it is the ocean of purity... The morning of happiness has dawned. No, it is the light of God.”
p. 63 - describes the nature of the True Self.

The Inner Garment of Love p. 69-71. “Where is intimacy found if not the give and take of Love?” Rumi is commenting on the fact that seekers, those who KNOW the power of the divine and who strive towards unity with the Beloved, are able to transmit love to one another at a deeper level. Love begins when you give up your will. Sacrifice this will.
“Give your heart to this, the rest is second-hand” The artificiality of mundane earthly things, disconnected from the divine.
“Embrace that entity to which nothing can cling”- Almost a contradiction!
“Both the rose and the thorn appear together in spring, and the wine of the grape is not without its headaches.”
LAST THREE STANZAS ON PAGE 70 - Don’t wait to Love; be fearless!
“Don’t be impatient bystanders on this path. By god there is no death worse than expectation”
“Set your heart on hard cash … listen … if you are not a slave:
STRIVE: “Don’t falter on the horse of the body; go lightly on foot… The Body is a Rose p. 72-73. This poem really outlines the growth of the human soul and the transience of its forms - plant à animal à human à angel… “while the body may age, the soul becomes young.”

Empty the Glass of Your Desire p. 74-75. Illusions of the material world: “And three pitiful meals a day is all that weapons and violence can earn. At night when the Beloved comes will you be nodding on opium?”
“When the earth is this wide why are you asleep in a prison? Think of nothing but the source of thought. Feed the soul, let the body fast.”
“Abandon life and the world, and find the life of the world” - Know that the world, what there is to discover, is SO much greater than you are. So much bigger than you are.
The Grave is a Veil p. 84. “The veil is a grave before the gathering of paradise. When you see that lowering down, think of rising. What harm is in the setting moon or sun? What seems a setting to you is a dawning.”
“Though it may seem a prison, this vault releases the soul. Unless a seed enters the earth, it doesn’t grow. Why are you doubting this human seed? Unless the bucket goes down, it won’t come up full.”


Rumi often mentions that once you have experienced this unity with the Beloved you will want to remain there and will perhaps strive to remain there for the rest of your days. “Look into your heart and see the splitting moon within each breath. Having seen that vision how can you still dream? When the wave of “Am I Not?” struck, it wrecked the body’s ship”. (from A World With No Boundaries).

Chrstine de Pisan

Does she start the book belittling it? - “my mind is occupied with other matter the which is more pleasing to me…” (p. 1) What's on her mind!?

p.26 - “give me a sleeve from off one of your bodices…” Is this an exaggeration and a mockery of chivalry? Although she answers positively to his request, her answer prefaced with a statement that he should choose another lady. (Ambiguous!) …Is this lover is being played for a fool?
p. 32 - a joke? He tries to be humble by saying that he should not brag of his (jousting) exploits but adds that he did perform very well and that his “lady” saw this and greatly praised him for this … (p. 69, he signs his letter to his mistress: “Your very humble and obedient slave”)
p.53/54 - a bit much… exaggeration. “…a speedy death has been my only desire…”
p.59 - cousin tells princess that he is close to death by reason of love.
p.73 she requests, in a letter, that he keep their involvement secret.
p. 88 - She swears that if she even suspects that his motivations are not chivalrous and his intentions pure, then she will never see him again.

Observations/Questions:
(the lady has ALL of the power in this relationship. Is the Christine de Pisan mocking chivalry and empowering women? Is this comedy for women or is she actually suggesting that women employ these techniques (as she does in other works of hers)?)

It seems as though Christine de Pisan is making a mockery of men - how pathetic this lover seems! It would be a sad man who reacts this way to a woman’s love, as if he has nothing else in life other than her. Not to belittle love, but there is no reason to want to die for months on end because you’ve been rejected.

Was C de P writing this way to show how far away the ideal of chivalry was to reality? I can’t believe that men actually behaved this way at a time when there was such disorder? Black Death decimated much of Florence (1370s), mercenaries were employed in the fighting of city states, there was an economic collapse…although all of these did help spark the Renaissance in Italy…

Reflections: Week 5

October 6, 2010

LS800

Lucretius, On the Nature of Things c. 55 BCE

Augustine of Hippo, Confessions 398 CE

Hildegard von Bingen, Canticles of Ecstacy (CD) c. 1150 CE

This week’s books contained a series of surprises for me. To start, I had no idea it was Lucretius who wrote On the Nature of Things (I always associated the title with David Suzuki); St Augustine of Hippo had a far greater effect on the world over last 1800 years than I ever could have imagined; and Hildegard von Bingen was not the feminist trailblazer that I had assumed (she compared her lower-class sistren to farm animals to justify not allowing them to sing with her in the church).

Augustine was a self-centered fantasist and an earth-centered ignoramus: he was guiltily convinced that god cared about his trivial theft from some unimportant pear trees, and quite persuaded - by an analogous solipsism - that the sun revolved around the earth. He also fabricated the mad and cruel idea that the souls of unbaptized children were sent into “limbo”. Who can guess the load of misery that this diseased “theory” has placed on millions of Catholic parents down the years, until its shamefaced and only partial revision by the church in our own time?

- Christopher Hitchens

“To such heights of evil are men driven by religion”

- Lucretius

[My views prior to the class]: “I must say that I did not think much of St Augustine’s Confessions. I thought that the book was long, too drawn-out and repetitive and was the autobiography of an uncompromising religious enthusiast who never would have found peace without the crutch of god. I found it ironic that he was using the very techniques of rhetoric that he criticized the Sophists for using to convince others (and convince himself?) that he had found the one true god.

“Compared to other works we have covered, I found Mencius’, Lucretius’ and the Stoic’s more nature-based outlook on life much more realistic and relevant to homo sapiens. Augustine’s outlook is fascinating because it shows how misguided humans can get even when practicing “reason” and applying arguments that are seemingly sound. The difference between Aurelius and Augustine, in my view, is that Augustine’s foundation is made of sand while Aurelius’ foundation is somewhat more concrete. However, having said that, the story provided interesting insights into how one lived in the 4^th century.”

From the class, it was a shocker to learn the extent to which his work - particularly Confessions - had an impact on the western world, an impact that still reverberates to this day. His ideas were highly influential in the Reformation, in psychology and the psychology of addiction as well as political science. His theory of evil, too, is apparently the all-time most influential theory on the topic. It made me feel small for jumping to conclusions about the book and seeing our presenter's enthusiasm for this book almost makes me want to reread it.

The main difference between Augustine’s conception of god and Timaeus’ Demiurge and the Gita’s Krishna is that Krishna and the Demiurge are less involved with the lives of humans. Somehow, I don’t think the Demiurge, the creator of the universe in its entirety, would care if I stole a few pears from a tree as a teenage prank. With Krishna, everything has been written and the outcome of one’s life and fate is predetermined so, again, Krishna is merely a witness to events unfolding. She provides guidance and prescriptions on how to live life from a distance and states consequences to living certain ways. However, neither she nor the Demiurge are wrathful in the same way that Augustine’s god is. Neither laughs at his human creations as Augustine sees his god doing (examples on pps. 107, 121, 134). Augustine’s god is far more irritable, chastising and constantly in the individual’s thoughts.

On that note, St Augustine seems a little insecure. At least three times he talks about god laughing at him and he himself (Augustine) wishing to make laughingstocks of astrologers. To me it seems rather immature, petty and frankly pathetic for an elderly cleric to want to do this and to be so loving toward a god who would laugh at him for being human. The idea of insecurity also crossed my mind when I read part 4 of Book IV and the account of his close friend (“lover?”) dying. Was Augustine insecure in his sexuality? The language he uses with respect to his friend is the language of sensual love, not brotherly love.

I can’t understand why Augustine’s unending questions on metaphysical topics. He would be the first to admit, for example, that god is all-powerful and that his creations, taken as a whole, are beyond the scope of human understanding. So why does he try to understand them and explain them with human reasoning? Why not just have faith and admit that not everything can be conceptualized by the human mind? For example, with respect to Augustine's exploration of "time" in Genesis (the puzzle being that “temporal” and “eternal” do not mix). The idea of an all-powerful eternal god is a far bigger puzzle than that of understanding how such a god can create a temporal universe. Augustine explains all by stating that the act of creation is both “instantaneous and eternal”. This is acceptable because god’s eternalness remains unsullied by ‘time’ ('time' being something that only humans suffer).

Another example, part 1 Book VII, Augustine tries to fit God into his conception of the universe. I found it incredible that Augustine could be so hung up on such a relatively small-time intellectual inconvenience while unquestioningly embrace the far more astounding claim that there's a god in the first place. To conceptualize and place a spirit that is a mental construct (and for which there is no evidence) is one thing, but to accept that idea unquestioningly is another. "That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence." (Augustine did not say this.)

The concept of Original Sin seems to be one more layer of guilt to be thrust onto the believer; one more way to remind us that we are deficient and inherently not Good. The metaphor that each of us is a "house divided" is appropriate and summed up in Romans 7:18-20: "I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the disire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I d not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it." From this, one can see what is meant by "house divided". Another aspect of original sin that makes me question religion is that parents transmit their sins to their children. The idea itself is so cruel. Deuteronomy 5:8-10: "...for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." Hmmm, all the more reason to love this god. I'm not that religious myself and don't keep up with edicts issued by the Pope, but would suspect that much PR has been done by the church to distance themselves from this believe. I could be wrong, though. Apparently the church did not officially pardon Galileo until 1992. I would like to learn more about Original Sin, though... as well much else that Augustine wrote about. I'm fascinated particularly with how his writings had such an historical effect. How did his writings end up changing anything beyond church doctrine? How might our world today be any different if Augustine had not lived? Was he partly responsible for the onset of Europe's decline in the middle ages?

I really liked Augustine’s idea of time and how it is “stretched” for humans as a result of their distance from god. I thought of Brahman at this point because Brahman resides where timelessness and oneness exist. Also, if one is truly living in the present, there is no time, there is only “now". From the last few weeks it seems clear that many sages over the ages are in accord with the idea that there is something spiritual about living in the present. It is "there" where desires cease to exist and where anger and other negative feelings disperse. It is a "natural" state of being, where one truly is living on earth rather than a mental world, past or present.

This is an interesting place to end before next week’s class which will include a study on Rumi’s poetry. Augustine exits the world at the start of Europe's descent into dark days. The East, meanwhile, is flourishing with the development of Islam and the study of astronomy, medicine and math.

I read a lot of Augustine’s book with Hildegard’s Canticles of Ecstasy playing in the background and through the music could appreciate Augustine’s deep connection with god. Hildegard's poetry goes hand in hand with her music as the music soars to the heavens and takes the musical form of a cathedral that was built to awe, to reach to the heavens and to glorify god. Not to say that her poetry is not beautiful but her music adds so much to it. It is angelic in its own right and its twists, turns and leaps seem to contour the spires of a cathedral. However, when I think of the ascetic lifestyle adopted by Augustine after the debaucheries of his youth, I think a Gregorian chant is more appropriate. Chants of that type is the style of music he would have heard in his day and, compared to Hildegard’s compositions, Gregorian chants are far more restrained, narrow and repetitive.

The idea of language and its limitations was brought up in class. In a recent blog I mention how in some of us there seems to be an inherent ability to understand the meaning of music or at least to attach meaning to it in a way that cannot be done using words. In so much of what we hear and read in the media, there is a dumbing down of language. News "on-the-go" provides us with 15-second or 15-word news items meant to sum up an entire story. Let’s take a recent headline as an example - “NY bomber gets life in prison”… not factual, is it? The title implies that a bomb exploded and that people were blown up. I suppose the internet has newspapers cutting corners and needing to save ink, never mind the fact that “Would-be NY bomber gets life in prison” is a mouthful. What does this make of other titles where western soldiers are instigators? “Drone attacks insurgents” (people die, possibly civilians), “Bombers in Afghanistan attack Taliban stronghold”… just a thought. Now I'm off-topic.

Perhaps the church wanted men to be ascetic and to deny themselves the pleasures of the body because the body is the source of the transcendental experience. From the experience of playing music, the feeling of oneness comes from living in the moment, from being in a zone, a space that excludes the past the future and at times the present. When one concentrates so hard there is no room to consider anything but the present. All of one’s senses are wholly engrossed in the moment and in what one is doing. This feeling can be explained without religion. It can be understood physiologically, just like Hildegard’s visions are explained today as the result of possible migraines, theta brainwaves are often credited for producing a numinous, mystical feeling.

In Hildegard’s case, her migraines, which may have caused her visions of the divine, may have produced so much pain or overstimulation that she was thrown into a state where theta and beta brainwaves provided her with her visual and musical inspiration. Whether it did or didn't doesn't really matter though, or does it?