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Coleridge’s way with words

Why should we commemorate Samuel Taylor Coleridge? The obvious reason is his high status as a poet, but a better one might be his exuberance as a wordsmith. As a poet, after all, he is widely known for only two relatively short works: ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ and ‘Kubla Khan.’ While the academy would no doubt add four or five others prized by specialists, the total number is still small. On the other hand, Coleridge’s creative output as a word worker—inventing, importing, adapting, and generally messing about with language—is enormous, his impact incalculable. His collected works now fill 50 volumes in the standard scholarly editions, and his mastery of the arts of language is evident in every one of them.

Coleridge in the OED

Since his prose had a respectable following in the nineteenth century, when much of his informal writing (letters, notebooks, and marginalia) also found its way into print, his works were a mainstay of James Murray’s NED (New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; a forerunner of the Oxford English Dictionary [OED]). Even today, with the whole of the twentieth century to account for on top of Murray’s labours, the OED ranks Coleridge 55th of its top 1,000 sources, which is to say he is very frequently quoted. More to the point, as an innovator in diction, he ranks 35th by providing ‘first evidence for word’ in 619 entries, and is arguably top-ranking among modern literary figures. Though Chaucer, Shakespeare, Lydgate, and Browne stand ahead of him, they represent much earlier periods and normally count as pre-modern or early modern.

Coleridge took liberties with words in various ways and for various motives—intellectual, aesthetic, social. His letters to like-minded friends bubble with puns. Wordplay was something of a competitive sport for him. Thus, if Donne had offered the word omni-pregnant (pregnant with everything) to the language, he could top it by describing himself—a notoriously fertile thinker but bad finisher—as omni-pregnant but nihili-parturient(producing nothing). He certainly delighted in multilingual jokes and learned allusions. The most striking proofs of his way with language are coinages. The index to the full-scale edition of his marginalia includes over three columns, in fine print, of coinages, and another half-column of words which are to this day not in the OED. The word marginalia was itself Coleridge’s introduction, taken from Latin in what I think may have been a spirit of tongue-in-cheek grandiosity. The OED credits Blackwood’s magazine ahead of him, but that Blackwood’s article was contributed by Coleridge himself under a pseudonym.

Obscurity and verbal precision

Coleridge’s reputation for obscurity notwithstanding, verbal precision was important to him, and if the mot juste did not present itself, he was well equipped to make one up. He had a good classical education (with some Hebrew), an excellent working knowledge of German and Italian, and at least a reading knowledge of French; he read a great deal of language theory, which gave him a passing acquaintance with other languages from outside Europe. Many of Coleridge’s alleged coinages have a scholastic, even pedantic effect and never achieved common use—aureity, mesothesis, esemplastic—but others, such as bisexual, boastfulness, clerisy, dream world, dynamic, factual, motiveless, pessimism, and a whole slew of terms derived from psychology (psychoanalytical, psychologically, psychologize, psychosomatic) caught on.

When you study these introductions in context, it’s clear in almost every case that they could not have been generated out of laziness or an incapacity to find a more apt existing term. One of the winners, the clunky but useful desynonymize, reveals the reason: Coleridge was trying to sharpen the meaning of words that had been so blunted by use as to become practically interchangeable. A new word could be tailored specially for the job it had to do, free of the unwanted accrued associations of its alternatives. In ‘Kubla Khan,’ for example, his source (Purchas) might have offered a ‘palace’ with ‘a stately garden,’ but what Coleridge gave us was, for the first time on record, a ‘pleasure dome.’ English already had housemate and yokemate, but when Coleridge advised a young lady about marriage, he formulated, by analogy, the infinitely more important soulmate.

Much as he loved individual words and much as he enjoyed generating new ones, Coleridge understood that words, in any language, were of secondary importance to syntax. They needed to be deployed with care, with strict attention to context. Poetry he defined simply as ‘the best words in the best order.’ In the debate started by Wordsworth on the subject of poetic diction, he successfully argued against his old friend, demonstrating in Biographia Literaria not only that Wordsworth’s policy of seeking to reproduce ‘the real language of men’ had been misguided in the first place, but that Wordsworth was the great poet he was precisely because he did not practice what he preached. (We owe the phrase practical criticism, too, to Coleridge.)

Coleridge’s dexterity with language sets an inspiring example best honoured, I suggest, not merely by using the words he gave us, but by internalizing and imitating his way with words in general.

A version of this blog post first appeared on the OxfordWords blog.

Image Credit: “O sleep, it is a gentle thing’ by Thalita Carvalho. CC BY NC 2.0 via Flickr.

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Looking forward to ESEB 2015

My first experience of an academic conference as a biology books editor at Oxford University Press was of sitting in a ballroom in Ottawa in July 2012 listening to 3000 evolutionary biologists chanting ‘I’m a African’ while a rapper danced in front of a projection of Charles Darwin. It was, to say the least, a memorable introduction to the conference circuit and left me with an enduring sense of anticipation and excitement about the annual cycle of evolution conferences which has yet to disappoint.

Oxford University Press (in the person of my senior editor Ian Sherman and, more recently, also myself) has been attending and sponsoring conferences in this field for some years, and they are always exciting and fruitful occasions, both for us and for the academic communities with which we work. It’s always a huge privilege to be able to meet and talk with the leaders of the field and to learn about their most cutting edge research. Conferences provide us, as publishers, with a unique opportunity to meet many of our readers and authors face to face rather than through the filter of a computer screen, to hear feedback about our publishing, and to inspire and develop our new publishing ventures.

This year, we are very much looking forward to attending the European Society of Evolutionary Biology’s 2015 conference in Lausanne in the second week of August. While it may not be featuring any Darwin-inspired rappers, the conference programme reveals a fascinating schedule of talks discussing the big questions of evolutionary biology, and including a recurring focus on the evolution of sex, which John Maynard Smith referred to as ‘the hardest problem in evolutionary biology’.

It seems very fitting that the 2015 winner of the John Maynard Smith Prize, Matthew Hartfield from the University of Toronto, should be speaking at the conference on this very subject: Mathematical adventures in sex and disease evolution, and that it is also the subject of the ESEB Presidential Address by Laurent Keller: Supergenes, sex, and sociality. The exciting programme has been put together by a team led by chairman Nicholas Perrin, professor in ecology and evolution at the University of Lausanne (the local hosts of the conference), and, along with Leo Beukeboom, author of our recently published book The Evolution of Sex Determination.

Conferences provide us, as publishers, with a unique opportunity to meet many of our readers and authors face to face rather than through the filter of a computer screen

The evolution of sex recurs again as the subject of one of the conference’s nine symposia, with the others being on social interaction, interspecific interactions, genome evolution, plasticity, epigenetics and behaviour, microbe evolution, selection/adaptation, speciation, and an open symposium.

The programme also includes six fascinating keynote lectures: Judith Mank from University College London on The genomic basis of sexual dimorphism, Jane Reid from the University of Aberdeen on Dissecting the evolutionary ecology of reproductive strategies in the wild, Kevin Foster from close to home at the University of Oxford on Social evolution in microbes: from model systems to the microbiome, Dan Tawfik from the Weizmann Institute of Science on How do proteins evolve?, Hopi Hoekstra from Harvard University on Digging for genes that affect behaviour, and the 2014 winner of the John Maynard Smith Prize, Laurie Stevison from Auburn University, on The timescale of recombination rate evolution in great apes.

When not attending the wide range of interesting talks available, conference delegates will have the opportunity to explore the beautiful city of Lausanne on the shores of Lake Geneva, and take part in field trips such as a trip on the lake in a Belle Epoque era paddle steamer, a hike up the nearby mountain Rochers-de-Naye, and an enticing sounding wine-tasting trip to the Lavaux vineyards. Overall, this sounds like a conference that will be remembered and enjoyed by all for its academic, social, and cultural opportunities.

We encourage all conference delegates, when not talking, listening, exploring or drinking wine, to come along and visit the OUP stand, browse through what we have to offer, and introduce yourselves to myself and Ian. We’d love to talk to you about your research and hear your opinions on the future directions of the field and its literature. And if anyone can explain their research through the medium of rap, that’ll be an added bonus.

Featured image: View over the roofs of Lausanne, Switzerland by Christian Mehlführer. CC-BY-SA- 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

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Cecil the lion’s death is part of a much larger problem

Effective wildlife conservation is a challenge worldwide. Only a small percentage of the earth’s surface is park, reserve, or related areas designated for the protection of wild animals, marine life, and plants. Virtually all protected areas are smaller than what conservationists believe is needed to ensure species’ survival, and many of these areas suffer from a shortage of staff with sufficient pay, training, and equipment to do their jobs well. How can rangers carry out regular patrols when their vehicles are in disrepair or their budget has insufficient funds to obtain fuel for them?

There are also challenges that protected area staff have with the people living near parks and reserves. Often the positive aspects of protecting species accrue largely to the tourists that enjoy the spaces and the national coffers that benefit from gate entry fees. In contrast, local community members are likely to have their crops destroyed and family members injured by animals that leave the unfenced protected sites in search of living space or an easy meal. Community programs are increasingly being put in place to improve the strained relationships between local people and protected areas, but such programs rarely have sufficiently robust budgets to enable the benefits that wildlife conservation should bring to outweigh the costs suffered from work days lost to injuries, the loss of loved ones, and property and crop damage. “Good relations” with local community members may involve protected area staff turning a blind eye to illegal activities or allowing such activities to occur in exchange for some of the fish and game meat that is poached.

Poachers include criminal crews that work to supply markets in Asia with rhino horn and ivory, and ordinary people who once lived in what are now protected areas, but who have not found alternative means by which to make a living wage or feed their families. In some countries, licensed and unlicensed big game hunters also enter protected areas in the hopes of securing trophies.

Zimbabwe, which gained its independence from Britain in 1980, was one of the first countries in the world to try to actively address the many difficulties that the formal protection of wildlife often causes local people. In the late 1980s, it created the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) program. CAMPFIRE has become a model for other countries in Africa and beyond, but also has generated some controversy. CAMPFIRE was created based on the notion that subsistence farmers, fishers, and herders have been the primary losers, especially in poorer countries, when formal parks and reserves are created using the “Yellowstone model.” The Yellowstone model is the main way in which protected areas have been created worldwide since the park it was named for was established in 1872 in the United States. Under the Yellowstone model, local people are displaced, with no or inadequate compensation for loss of access to resources, to create spaces exclusively for wildlife. In the CAMPFIRE program, communal areas are designated in which local people are granted a certain degree of land rights and encouraged to sustainably exploit the animals, plants, and waterways with which they share the lands.

Cecil the lion died on 1 July 2015 after being lured out of a national park in Zimbabwe by a recreational big game hunter from the United States. (Cecil the lion at Hwange National Park in 2010. Photo by Daughter#3. CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr.)

Although hunting licenses for big game are one way for local people in some areas to obtain a degree of benefit from wildlife protection, as Cecil the lion’s death at the hands of an American visitor to Zimbabwe has dramatically and tragically illustrated, obtaining a license may not guarantee a legal hunt. Even a call for an end to big game hunting could harm wildlife more than help it because funds from hunting licenses support conservation initiatives, including habitat protection. Habitat loss is a greater threat to most species than hunting, legal or otherwise.

There is no “one size fits all” response that can be expected to protect species across large areas. A hunting ban has been in place in Kenya for decades. Yet, the ban has only slowed illegal hunting practices, not eliminated them. Kenya has ongoing struggles with elephant poaching due to continued high demand for ivory, largely from Asian countries and especially China. African elephants are threatened, not endangered, and African countries with somewhat larger elephant populations still cull (legally kill) them.

Between 1966 and 1994, more than 16,000 elephants were culled in Kruger National Park in South Africa and some of the meat was canned and sold. Kruger is a premier park, South Africa’s largest, and one of the oldest on the continent, yet the elephant population there at times was deemed too large for the environment to support. “Excess” elephants cannot simply be transported to other areas, due to elephant family structure and the fact that younger elephants without proper guardianship have been found to develop severe behavioral problems, including aggression against other species.

Endangered rhinos are killed illegally to meet demand for their horns, which are used in parts of Asia for medicinal practices lacking scientific support. Efforts to protect rhinos by removing their horns to make them worthless to poachers, as has been undertaken in Namibia and elsewhere in southern Africa, has not put an end to rhino killings; often the animals are shot when they are in dense brush where their lack of horns is not evident until after the rhinos have already been needlessly killed. The consequences of ineffective protection can be permanent. The Western Black Rhinoceros was declared extinct in 2011 and the Northern White Rhinoceros population is believed to have only five members remaining.

Wildlife monitoring programs can help animal populations, but require a long-term commitment, considerable funding, and expertise. Cecil the lion was part of a long-term study by a research team from the University of Oxford, but this fact apparently was not known by the hunter who shot and killed him. Cecil’s death may lead to increased infighting among remaining larger male lions seeking to assert their dominance. Additionally, there may be multiple unanticipated changes within Hwange National Park’s wildlife community.

Although the deaths of ‘charismatic’ species such as lions make the headlines, poaching occurs across a wide range of wildlife species. The effective conservation of Africa’s wildlife is complex. It includes addressing non-Africans’ demand for wildlife products, strained community relations, gaps in research, monitoring, and enforcement, and, perhaps most importantly, the insufficient education of the general public on these issues.

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Many forms of doing: a surprising source for pluralism about agency

Since roughly the middle of the last century, there has been a thriving philosophical debate about the nature of action. What is it that makes us agents rather than patients? What makes us responsible for the things that we do rather than the things that happen to us? And what kinds of capacities do such agents have to have to bear different kinds of responsibility – is it enough just to have desires of which one is aware, or does one have to be able to choose between them, or does one further have to be able to judge those desires by principles anyone could share? The thread that generally holds this discussion together is the idea that whatever the correct answers are to these questions, they are the correct answers for all agents; there is fundamentally only one form of agency. But what if this assumption were wrong, though wrong in an instructive and tractable way? What if there were multiple forms of agency in human life, but not so many that they couldn’t be identified and related to each other in visible and significant ways? Surprisingly (given his reputation as the purveyor of identities that swallow up all differences), it turns out that Hegel has such a pluralistic philosophy of action.

Specifically (and this is not so surprising, of course), Hegel thinks that there are three: one that is oriented by specific desires deeply embedded in the local contexts of life; one that is more goal-directed, seeking out new and wider contexts when necessary to provide better resources for achieving those goals; and one that commits itself to achieving the goal of all goals – the “Good” – through putting its shoulder to the wheel of the larger institutions that attempt to promote and balance the satisfaction of different desires and achievement of different goals.

“The Philosopher Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel”, by Jakob Schlesinger. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

And, Hegel thinks, with each of these different ways of practically orienting oneself to the world comes a different fundamental value. The desire-based form of agency fundamentally values security, a kind of right to be left alone in those local contexts in which those desires have their fullest strength and validity. The goal-based form of agency fundamentally values welfare, understood in a formal sense as the achievement of goals. And we have already seen the relevant value for the third form – the Good itself, understood as a state in which rights claims to security and welfare claims to support are made consistent with each other in a global normative distribution.

Hegel calls these three different ways of being an agent different forms of accountability (Zurechnungsfähigkeit). This means at least two related things. First, it means that they are different ways we have of holding ourselves and each other responsible. Hegel thinks that participants in the desire-based form hold themselves and each other responsible only for consequences that actually cambe about and that they actually foresaw; participants in the goal-based form hold themselves and each other responsible for the kinds of consequences that usually attach to the essential type of the action in question; but participants aiming at the Good hold themselves and each other for the whole network of consequences and all effects on rights and welfare.

Second, this means that the three forms of agency are different ways to be somebody recognizable, visible, and worthy of respect in both public and private life. For Hegel, this meaning was tied to social types: farmers and soldiers, artisans and workers, civil servants and merchants. It would be too hard to “be somebody” just by, e.g., following one’s desires. One needs images, narratives, exemplars and other forms organized by social types to mediate the requisite recognition.

The question for contemporary philosophers of action is: are there still a tractable number of ways of acting, and is there sufficient connection with social types sufficient to make any of this visible? For one great benefit of such pluralism would be that it would allow us to tell when we were talking past each other or being unreasonable in our expectations of each other as a result of performing or participating in different forms of agency, and a second great benefit would be our ability to recognize ourselves and each other as (at least occasionally) succeeding at being somebody who counts in these relevantly different ways. But without visibility and a tractable number, these benefits are lost.

Featured image credit: “Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) mit Studenten. Lithographie”, from Das Wissen des 20.Jahrhunderts. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

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On spatial strategies of narration

Tim Cole’s article “(Re)Placing the Past: Spatial Strategies of Retelling Difficult Stories” in the most recent Oral History Review raises some really intriguing questions about the function of space and distance in oral history interviews. Cole graciously agreed to answer some of our questions over email, which we’ve reproduced here for your enjoyment.

How did you get turned on to the topic of space in oral history?

My graduate training was in geography, so although I teach in a history department, I think like a geographer. Whatever source I am working with, questions of space and place are always in the back of my mind. Originally I worked primarily with textual sources on a series of books and articles on the spatiality of the Holocaust. More recently, I have turned to oral history, as my focus has shifted from those “doctors of space” (following Henri Lefebvre) who reshaped cities and the European continent through so-called “bystanders” or neighbors, to Jews and their own place-making practices. Working on a new book that focused on Jewish experiences, I started to notice what I call “spatial strategies of narration” in the oral histories that I was working with.

In your article, you discuss these “spatial strategies of narration” that narrators use to “literally [replace] the past.” Can you talk about the process of locating and analyzing these spatial changes?

I had been attuned to the idea of changing narratives through earlier work I had done around one family’s disparate endings in diary, memoir, and letter accounts in Traces of the Holocaust (2011), as well as the important work of Mark Roseman, who discusses examples of changed narratives in A Past in Hiding (2000). Looking back, what surprises me now is that I did not make more of the ways that these changes were spatial given my geographical training! As I started to work with a larger number of oral histories, I found that there were some similar patterns of changing narratives that became apparent, and that these—like my own earlier work and Roseman’s—involved literally putting “self” somewhere else. Earl Greif’s reflections in his memoir triggered my thinking here and I revisited his oral history in the light of this. I suppose that once I’d begun to pay more attention to where survivors put themselves and others in the narrative, I started to see some suggestive patterns emerging elsewhere. It is striking that geographers have largely remained absent from the interdisciplinary community that works with oral history. My sense is that there may be work for geographers to do in alerting oral historians to the ways that space and place operate in oral history narration. My hope is that this article might be part of that broader conversation.

A little while ago, Hank Greenspan wrote a piece about examining changes in interviews with Holocaust survivors to glean deeper meanings and complexities. What differences do you see in your approaches or methodologies?

I admire Hank and his work, especially given his emphasis on multiple interviews over a long period of time, rather than a single interview. As he suggests, this allows for more complex and multiple narratives to emerge. That sense of change over time is something that I see in both Earl Greif and Regina Laks Gelb, who are largely featured in my article. I suppose what I would want to add to the historian’s concern regarding change over time is to add a geographer’s concern with place. Hannah Pollin-Galay is doing some interesting work here, thinking about the differences between interviews undertaken with survivors living close to—and distant from—the site of persecution. Like Hank, she uncovers more complex stories of the past in the process.  I’m interested in the stories that people tell in different places, but I’m also interested in the ways in which people place themselves within different places in the story So I want to think about narrative strategies as well as the time and place of the interview.

Retelling is difficult because many stories are not only hard to retell, but also hard to listen to.

In your article, you suggest some of the narrations “reposition themselves and others within them in order to negotiate difficult stories.” Jennifer Helgren  recently discussed the fact that many of her interviews told her very little about the past she was investigating, but much more about the present anxieties of her interviewees. Do you find similar changes reflected in the interviews you discuss?

As Jennifer suggests, histories do move between past and present, and—I’d add—between here (the place of retelling) and there (the place of past experience), which in many cases are not the same. However, with Holocaust survivors, I think there is oftentimes a such a chasm between now and then, and here and there. This means that—and this is something Hank has written about—retelling is difficult because many stories are not only hard to retell, but also hard to listen to. That is where spatial strategies emerge, of repositioning self and others to make a story not only easier to retell, but also easier for others to hear in a very different time and place. Spatial strategies enable individuals to navigate their relationships with past participants and present listeners as well as themselves.

Towards the end of your article, you cite Anzac Memories and “strategies of containment.” Since Al has a piece in 42.1 where he revisits Anzac, I wonder if you have any comments on it, particularly as it pertains to your piece and/or your scholarship.

Al’s reflections chime with some of my own work in this article as well as Mark Roseman’s work—who Al footnotes—and Hank’s own reflections on multiple interviews. There is, of course, a place for working with a single interview, which remains a normal practice in oral history, but there is much to be gained from the comparative lens allowed by multiple interviews (as Hank has done) or examining textual sources (as Al, Mark and I have done). Working with these additional sources provides a way of looking at the interview with a new set of questions, while also being attentive to dissonance and its meaning. In his article, Al writes that, “Our opportunity in oral history is to study both the unchanging past and the changing uses and meanings of the past in the present.” One way to access those changing uses and meanings is through adopting an intentionally comparative approach.

Is there anything you couldn’t address in the article that you’d like to share here?

The article feels like very much a beginning of exploration and a work in progress. I would have liked to have drawn in more examples from more interviews, but decided to focus in on a few to enable me to say something about spatial strategies of retelling. I think that there is, as I hope I show, evidence of spatial strategies being adopted, but I don’t want to suggest that is all that is happening! There is so much more going on in oral histories than simply this. I hope the book that I am completing at the moment, Holocaust Landscapes, will show the value of paying attention to how survivors narrate the past in a variety of ways, helping us to better understand—to borrow Al’s words again—“the unchanging past and the changing uses and meanings of the past in the present.”

Image Credit: “Berlin Holocaust Memorial” by Patrick Down. CC BY NC 2.0 via Flickr.

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The AA talking cure

80 years ago in the summer of 1935, Bill Wilson, a stockbroker from New York City, and Dr. Bob Smith, a surgeon from Akron Ohio, both formerly hopeless alcoholics, shared their “experience, strength, and hope” with each other in Dr. Bob’s living room, and Alcoholic’s Anonymous was born. Today, 2 million people in 170 countries continue to do exactly what Bill W. and Dr. Bob did.  Formerly hopeless drunks sit in church basements and in clubhouses, and share their stories with each other, not with ministers, addiction experts or psychiatrists, but with fellow alcoholics. We speak with each other about “what it was like, what happened, and what it is like now.” The meetings are called the fellowship and consist almost entirely of being together with fellow alcoholics and sharing our “experience, strength, and hope.” Insofar as A.A. works, this is how it works. It is a talking cure.

A fair number of people get and stay sober through the fellowship alone. There is also the well-known 12 steps which is the program. The program consists of doing the 12 steps with a sponsor (someone who has already done them with his or her sponsor). The steps involve focused, deliberate work on one’s self, one’s character, one’s weaknesses and strengths, stressors, and triggers, as well as on strategies and practices to help one heal and maintain sobriety. The steps, like the fellowship, consist almost entirely in thinking and talking with another alcoholic (when one reaches the stage of making amends to those one has harmed, this requires action, but often this too is largely verbal). The 12 step program starts with a declaration of powerlessness over alcohol and culminates with a vow to help any and all other suffering alcoholics. In between, there are steps that involve “a searching and fearless moral inventory,” admitting to God and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs, as well as “turning our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him,” which make some wonder about whether AA is a religious program.

Insofar as AA works, this is how it works. It is a talking cure.

There is no doubt that AA was developed by Christians and directly inspired by the Oxford Group, a 19th c. American Christian men’s group that both Bill W. and Dr. Bob had independently gone to for help with their alcoholism, and which emphasized confession and spiritual perfection. The fact that AA embeds Christian practices of self-examination, confession, and making amends does not entail that these are not wise practices. That said, in the southeastern USA, where I live, The “Lord’s Prayer” (the Protestant version “kingdom, power, and glory”, not the Catholic version) is said at the close of many meetings. But in my experience even very religious people will insist that AA is a spiritual program, not a religious one, and that agnostics and atheists are entirely welcome. Whether members speak about God is largely a matter of local culture. God-talk is fairly common where I live in Durham NC, and even more so in Nashville, Tennessee, closer to the buckle of the American Bible Belt. In NYC, and Connecticut, and in the UK, Hong Kong, Thailand, God or Higher Power talk is rarer and functions more as common code for such things as one’s home group; the 80 years’ worth of AA wisdom, something that is beyond my own individual will-power, which try as I might, was not enough to get and keep me sober.

In the first decades of AA, Bill Wilson was asked by some Buddhists alcoholics, atheists by Abrahamic standards, whether they could revise the steps, replacing “God” with “Good.” In 1957 Wilson wrote “To some of us, the idea of substituting ‘good’ for ‘God’ in the Twelve Steps will seem like a watering down of A.A.’s message. But here we must remember that A.A.’s Steps are suggestions only. A belief in them, as they stand, is not at all a requirement for membership among us. This liberty has made A.A. available to thousands who never would have tried at all had we insisted on the Twelve Steps just as written.” (Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age pg. 81). This suggests that AA is first and foremost a communal solution to a problem that many alcoholics tried to solve of their own but couldn’t.

One piece of genius of AA is the 12 traditions. The 12 traditions were not fully formulated and published until 1946, and provide the only structure for what is otherwise a model of an egalitarian anarchist commune. The traditions include such principles as, “The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking,” that “there are no dues or fees for AA membership,” and “Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional.”

These traditions mean that there is no financial obstacle to attending AA. At the end of a meeting, if one has a dollar, then one puts it in a basket to buy coffee and cookies and pay rent; otherwise not. This also means that people who would not normally meet, people of every profession, economic status, ethnicity, sex, gender, sexual orientation, and age gather together to “solve our common problem.” There is a great beauty in choosing to heal among people of every kind, to love and be loved across every boundary that typically separates people and grounds disdain and prejudice.

There is a great beauty in choosing to heal among people of every kind

In the 1880’s, when Freud and Breuer discovered the “talking cure” while treating their hysteric patient Anna O, the psychoanalytic talking cure was entirely professional and asymmetric. Freud and Breuer were psychiatrists and Anna O. was a mentally ill patient. In AA, the patients treat their fellow patients. The AA talking cure is entirely unprofessional and symmetric.

One might wonder about the wisdom of non-professionals treating their fellows for what even AA says is a serious disease. There is at present a large controversy over whether and how much control an alcoholic has. The phenomenology of addiction almost always involves experiences of craving, obsessive thinking, and a bewildering disconnect between resolutions to stop drinking and then getting drunk. There is some evidence that long-term alcohol use harms midbrain pleasure centers. The alcoholic wants or needs what they no longer like, what they no longer get any pleasure or relief from. Suppose this is true, the question remains how does the alcoholic get healthy, where and how do they regain leverage over their life and live as they intend? There is abundant evidence that alcoholics have some control over their lives. Knowing that one needs help, that one cannot do this on one’s own is an expression of agency (see Margaret O’Connor). For many of us, especially for those of us for whom drinking is embedded in a whole life style, a way of being our self, the AA talking cure is an excellent, time tested way of regaining self-respect, and developing tools to sustain a sober life, often a happy sober life. Thanks to Bill W. and Dr. Bob for sharing your “experience, strength, and hope” eight decades ago, and gifting us with the AA talking cure.

Feature image: AA Hood Ornament by Mark Engelbrecht. CC-BY 2.0 via Flickr.

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The symbolism of sweetness

Given the evolutionary origin of religion among humans, it is no surprise that symbolism would often be attributed to sweet foods. Across many cultures, sweetness prevails as a positive symbol, representing joyous occasions and victories. In recognition of these sweet symbols, we’ve compiled our favorites from The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets into a gallery we hope you’ll enjoy perusing as much as we enjoyed creating it.

Kuri Kinton

Kuri kinton is a classic Japanese New Year dish of mashed sweet potato with chestnuts in chestnut syrup and mirin. The beautiful golden color of the dish symbolizes wealth. (Photo by kazuh. CC BY 2.0 via Flickr.)

Hamantaschen

Hamantaschen, the triangular filled cookies baked for the Jewish holiday of Purim, are formed in the shape of the Persian vizer Haman’s three-cornered hat. By eating this symbolic hat, the evil Haman is destroyed. (Photo by Meaghan O’Malley. CC BY 2.0 via Flickr.)

Poppy Seeds

Poppy seed-based sweets symbolize abundance and fertility, and thus are very popular for festive occasions like Easter or weddings, but most of all for Christmas or New Year’s Eve, when the tiny seeds augur a plentiful harvest in the new year. (Photo by Martina Rathgens. CC BY 2.0 via Flickr.)

Lotus Seeds

Lotus seeds, a traditional symbol of fertility, are often made into a sweet paste to fill dumplings and buns. (Photo by Jason Lam. CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr.)

Gugelhupf

Gugelhupf by the mid-1800s became a symbol of middle-class status with its light, egg-rich crumb, its rosewater flavoring, chopped almonds, and elaborate shape lightly dusted with vanilla sugar. It is also an accepted symbol of friendship, hospitality, mutual esteem, and a part of popular culture throughout Alsace. (Photo by Katrin Morenz. CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr.)

Apples in Honey

In Jewish tradition, a child dips a piece of apple in honey on his or her first day of school to symbolize the sweetness of knowledge. (Photo by Robert Couse-Baker. CC BY 2.0 via Flickr.)

Sugar Skulls

Though rarely ever eaten, small sugar skulls made from a process known as alfeñique have become the primary symbol of Dia de los Muertos. (Photo by Jorge Nava. CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr.)

Lussekatter

Lussekatter, originating in Sweden, celebrate Saint Lucia Day. They are baked in the shape of either crowns or rolls called “cats”—coiled dough with a raisin dotting the center to symbolize the blinding of the martyr St. Lucy by her Roman captors. (Photo by Magnus D. CC BY 2.0 via Flickr.)

Anguila

Anguila, magnificently stuffed with sweet potato, almond paste, and egg yolk with syrup, and ornamented in the style of Toledan filigree, symbolizes power and wealth. It appears at Christmas surrounded by marzipan figurines and turrón. (Photo by Manuel. CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr.)

Angel Food Cake







The Piñata

The piñata came to symbolize the battle between good and evil. Breaking it open with a decorated stick, participants were rewarded with candies for having vanquished evil and temptation. The shape of the original piñata with its seven-pointed star, one for each of the seven deadly sins, had symbolic value; the candies, fruit, and toys represented earthly pleasures. Thus, the game symbolized blind faith (the blindfolded player) conquering evil. Second, the colorfully decorated pot is a symbol of hope as it hangs overhead—in the heavens. It is only by breaking the pot with virtue (the colorfully decorated stick) that the hope for a reward for good acts can be realized. Finally, as the vessel that holds all good is broken, everyone enjoys the blessings, the reward for leading a good life. (Photo by David Stanley. CC BY 2.0 via Flickr.)

Headline image: Photo by muklinika. CC0 via Pixabay.

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How much do you know about the history of myth? [quiz]

Myths have been applied to the arts and sciences for thousands of years and been used in seminal works by prominent figures such as Sigmund Freud, Claude Levi-Strauss, and Roland Barthes. Myths have also shaped societies and ideologies over the years, from nationalism to fascism, and helped forge the careers of infamous politicians.

How much do you know about the history of myth? Test your knowledge in the following quiz, based on Robert Segal’s Myth: A Very Short Introduction.

Quiz image and featured image credit: “Parthenon”, by gaelipani0. Public domain via Pixabay.

In the new edition of Myth: A Very Short Introduction, Robert Segal not only considers the future study of myth, but also considers the interactions of myth theory with cognitive science, the implications of the myth of Gaia, and the differences between story-telling and myth.

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Portrait of a lady – Episode 25 – The Oxford Comment

Much mystery surrounds Elizabeth I, the last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. It’s said that the beloved Queen, for centuries immortalized in private letters and state papers, portraits and poetry, remains more myth than memory in the canon of British history. How, then, can we begin to uncover the personal and political dimensions that made up Elizabeth’s life? And what is it like—as writers, students, and scholars of history—to attempt to understand a legend of the royal kind? Estelle Hallick, an Associate Publicist in our New York Office, sat down to chat with Susan Doran, author of Elizabeth I and Her Circle, and her daughter, playwright Bathsheba Doran, about the bravery of navigating the past, the difficulties of the writing process, and the desire to understand something bigger than ourselves.

Image Credit: “Queen Elizabeth” by Sara Levine. Used with permission.

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A rare treat in Berlioz’s The Trojans

The San Francisco Opera has undertaken the enormous challenge of mounting Berlioz’s The Trojans. It consists of two complete operas, The Capture of Troy and The Trojans at Carthage. They are being performed together, which is most unusual, but is how Berlioz envisioned it. The forces involved are enormous. In this production there are 72 instrumentalists in the pit and 23 backstage including 4 trumpets. There are 18 principals, 97 choristers, 18 dancers and acrobats, and 10 supers. The performance time is more than four hours.

Naturally in a production of this scale not every performer and each staging element can be of equal quality. That said, the overall level was extremely high. Particularly outstanding were the orchestra and chorus under the leadership of Donald Runnicles. His conducting was sensitive and musical, and his forces responded in kind–fulfilling the demands of the very areas in which Berlioz’ writing seems the strongest. That the instrumental writing is brilliant is not surprising coming from one of the great orchestral colorists. Less expected is the superb choral writing, which constitutes one of the most evocative elements of the piece.

Among the singers, Susan Graham’s artistry as Dido shone the brightest, particularly in her lament after Aeneas’ departure. Not only does she sing with great feeling and moving beauty, but she uses her body to effectively bring to life the wide range of emotions this piece demands. Surprisingly, the other memorable vocal performance was René Barbera’s beautifully lyrical rendition of Iopas’ entertainment for Dido and Aeneas.

The evening I heard the opera, Aeneas was sung by Corey Bix, a last minute replacement for Bryan Hymel. It appears that this may have been his first time performing this demanding role, and he did well, especially in his love scenes with Dido. However, his most important aria, in which he is torn between staying with Dido and leaving to fulfill his god-given mission of founding Rome, was disappointing. He was stiff, and his singing was neither attractive nor expressive.

The star of the first opera was, without doubt, Anna Caterina Antonacci in the role of Cassandra, whose tragic fate it is to forsee the future, but never to be believed. She held the center solidly with excellent singing and physicality. However, her face was strangely passive. I wonder if it was a purposeful, if not entirely satisfactory, choice to convey Cassandra as a visionary?

Much of the physical production was stunning; kudos to set designer Es Devlin. The opening of the second opera set outside of Carthage was particularly gorgeous. I both enjoyed and understood the dramatic logic of the model of Carthage, which occupied the center of the stage. What confused me was its use in the later acts: first flying upside overhead and then divided in half lying to the sides of the harbor. In the latter case I could theorize that it represented Aeneas’ divided loyalty, or, perhaps, Dido’s broken heart, but the need to theorize pulled me out of the drama.

The first opera, which takes place in and about Troy, was set in 1855. According to the program, “Troy resembles the battle of Sebastopol in the Crimean War. The Trojan soldier costumes are military uniforms from the various nations involved in the Crimean conflict. It is a strong statement on how humanity is destined to repeat its mistakes through history.” Maybe. There certainly were some odd tensions between the ancient mythology and the updating. The report that the high priest Laocoön was destroyed by serpents who rose out of the sea to silence his suspicions about the horse, seemed unlikely in a nineteenth century context. More difficult still was the way it turned the ending scene, in which the women of Troy commit mass suicide to preserve their virginity, into an anachronism. Perhaps it was to minimize this mismatch of behavior and period that in this production only Cassandra kills herself. It did enhance the parallel with Dido’s later suicide, but drained away much of the horror of the savagery of war.

The second opera was set in ancient Carthage. The disconnect between the two operas was disconcerting and hampered our ability to appreciate the two operas as a whole. I do, however, give the director, David McVicar, and the designers credit for introducing elements in its Finale, such as the giant male torso constructed in the same style as the Trojan horse and the piles of nineteenth century detritus on the sides, which although, curious in themselves, attempted to bridge the gap.

Without a doubt, the production was a success both musically and dramatically and gave us the chance to taste Grand opéra in all its glory. At the same time, however, it raised the issue of how one can update a work to make it feel more relevant without raising extraneous questions and creating confusion. Or perhaps the issue is a more fundamental one. Can we perform an opera as originally conceived and trust that, if the issues in it are clearly delineated, the audience will find its relevance?

Featured image: Scene from San Franciso Opera’s The Trojans. (c) San Francisco Opera.

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