Arsen Darnay's Blog, page 17
March 13, 2015
Happy Anniversary
Two years ago today White Smoke rose from a chimney atop the Sistine Chapel (
link
here). One person’s Friday the Thirteenth today is another’s occasion to celebrate the second anniversary of Pope Francis’ assumption of the papacy. I note here also how the days of the week wander as time moves relentlessly on. Two years ago this day was Wednesday. Next year it will be Sunday—what with the leap year inserting a day and leaping over the Saturday that waits in vain. Saturday will have its chance eventually—but not until 2021, the eighth anniversary of Francis’ papacy, if he lives that long (namely 85). What does one say on such days? Many happy returns?
March 12, 2015
The Office and the Holder
If I respect the office, can I then engage in blatant disrespect for the person who holds it? In actual practice, doesn’t one behavior very rapidly bleed into the other? Suppose we take this relationship—office and holder—and apply it lower down in the ranks of the world. When I was in the U.S. Army, it was certainly quite impossible to salute the commanding generally while standing at attention while loudly muttering “here goes an idiot with stars.”
I’m far from the only one who has noted that opponents of President Obama feel entitled to treat him with visible contempt, ascribed to his person, while nominally respecting the office. See, for instance, this February 25 column in the Daily Princetonian whose author, Ryan Dukeman, dates this behavior as beginning with Obama’s swearing in ceremony (link).
In actual practice open disrespect (however hedged in by phony distinctions between office and holder) brings in its train the cheapening and discount of authority—not least of the authority of that empty office too. This occurred to me when reading about the racist video made public by some members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity at University of Oklahoma in Norman. ΣΑΕ was founded in 1856; its creed, entitled The True Gentleman, can be read here .
I learned from Arnold Toynbee early in life that culture is shaped by elites—and the great majority follow this lead by imitation—mimesis, in Toynbee’s words. What our elites do will, in due time, be echoed by the population as a whole. To be sure, minorities will be disgusted, will refuse to imitate, and in this process begin to form future elites. So there is always hope in the long run. As for today, I cannot help but feel that the attacks on Obama, in the name of political ideology, are heavily colored by racial bias—however outrageous that sounds in an age that believes in inevitable progress.
I’m far from the only one who has noted that opponents of President Obama feel entitled to treat him with visible contempt, ascribed to his person, while nominally respecting the office. See, for instance, this February 25 column in the Daily Princetonian whose author, Ryan Dukeman, dates this behavior as beginning with Obama’s swearing in ceremony (link).
In actual practice open disrespect (however hedged in by phony distinctions between office and holder) brings in its train the cheapening and discount of authority—not least of the authority of that empty office too. This occurred to me when reading about the racist video made public by some members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity at University of Oklahoma in Norman. ΣΑΕ was founded in 1856; its creed, entitled The True Gentleman, can be read here .
I learned from Arnold Toynbee early in life that culture is shaped by elites—and the great majority follow this lead by imitation—mimesis, in Toynbee’s words. What our elites do will, in due time, be echoed by the population as a whole. To be sure, minorities will be disgusted, will refuse to imitate, and in this process begin to form future elites. So there is always hope in the long run. As for today, I cannot help but feel that the attacks on Obama, in the name of political ideology, are heavily colored by racial bias—however outrageous that sounds in an age that believes in inevitable progress.
March 11, 2015
Fashions in Words
A discussion on spontaneity had me asserting that what the word had once meant in popular speech say in the time of World War II—namely untaught, natural behavior—has had an odd lift in the Age of the Media to mean something more. The word derives from the Latin sponte, of one’s accord, willingly. The new meaning carries the flavor as of a characteristic which rises above the behavior of ordinary humans. To make this point, I also tried to find a word that has lost rank in popular usage. Neurotic came to mind. It seemed to me that it had been on everybody’s lips in the 1950s. The word shrink arose in this context. I headed off to look at these words and Brigitte wanted me to look up shrink as well. Her feeling is that it has also lost status.
Google Ngrams to the rescue. Herewith the contrast between “spontaneous” and “deliberate”:
Spontaneous has certainly had a quite marked rise beginning circa 1925. The word peaked in 1982 but is still beating Deliberate in 2000. Deliberate, meanwhile, was at essentially the same level of usage as in 1800.
In the next one I contrast “neurotic” and “psychotic”:
My gut feel turns out to be right. Neurotic made a mountain that peaked in 1952—and its been downhill since. I used Psychotic as the contrast, which began rising later, peaked in 1972, and is now used somewhat more frequently than neurotic. Perhaps things are getting worse.
Shrink comes from head-shrinker, slang for psychiatrist. Plotting its use using Ngram is not much use because the short version can mean anything from physically shrinking something or the slang phrase, which may not be much used in written documents. Since 1940, however, that word has lost about 7 percent of its usage, so Brigitte’s feel is also justified.
Google Ngrams to the rescue. Herewith the contrast between “spontaneous” and “deliberate”:
Spontaneous has certainly had a quite marked rise beginning circa 1925. The word peaked in 1982 but is still beating Deliberate in 2000. Deliberate, meanwhile, was at essentially the same level of usage as in 1800.
In the next one I contrast “neurotic” and “psychotic”:
My gut feel turns out to be right. Neurotic made a mountain that peaked in 1952—and its been downhill since. I used Psychotic as the contrast, which began rising later, peaked in 1972, and is now used somewhat more frequently than neurotic. Perhaps things are getting worse.
Shrink comes from head-shrinker, slang for psychiatrist. Plotting its use using Ngram is not much use because the short version can mean anything from physically shrinking something or the slang phrase, which may not be much used in written documents. Since 1940, however, that word has lost about 7 percent of its usage, so Brigitte’s feel is also justified.
Has the Shrink Shrunk Spontaneously?
A discussion on spontaneity had me asserting that what the word had once meant in popular speech say in the time of World War II—namely untaught, natural behavior—has had an odd lift in the Age of the Media to mean something more. The word derives from the Latin sponte, of one’s accord, willingly. The new meaning carries the flavor as of a characteristic which rises above the behavior of ordinary humans. To make this point, I also tried to find a word that has lost rank in popular usage. Neurotic came to mind. It seemed to me that it had been on everybody’s lips in the 1950s. The word shrink arose in this context. I headed off to look at these words and Brigitte wanted me to look up shrink as well. Her feeling is that it has also lost status.
Google Ngrams to the rescue. Herewith the contrast between “spontaneous” and “deliberate”:
Spontaneous has certainly had a quite marked rise beginning circa 1925. The word peaked in 1982 but is still beating Deliberate in 2000. Deliberate, meanwhile, was at essentially the same level of usage as in 1800.
In the next one I contrast “neurotic” and “psychotic”:
My gut feel turns out to be right. Neurotic made a mountain that peaked in 1952—and its been downhill since. I used Psychotic as the contrast, which began rising later, peaked in 1972, and is now used somewhat more frequently than neurotic. Perhaps things are getting worse.
Shrink comes from head-shrinker, slang for psychiatrist. Plotting its use using Ngram is not much use because the short version can mean anything from physically shrinking something or the slang phrase, which may not be much used in written documents. Since 1940, however, that word has lost about 7 percent of its usage, so Brigitte’s feel is also justified.
Google Ngrams to the rescue. Herewith the contrast between “spontaneous” and “deliberate”:
Spontaneous has certainly had a quite marked rise beginning circa 1925. The word peaked in 1982 but is still beating Deliberate in 2000. Deliberate, meanwhile, was at essentially the same level of usage as in 1800.
In the next one I contrast “neurotic” and “psychotic”:
My gut feel turns out to be right. Neurotic made a mountain that peaked in 1952—and its been downhill since. I used Psychotic as the contrast, which began rising later, peaked in 1972, and is now used somewhat more frequently than neurotic. Perhaps things are getting worse.
Shrink comes from head-shrinker, slang for psychiatrist. Plotting its use using Ngram is not much use because the short version can mean anything from physically shrinking something or the slang phrase, which may not be much used in written documents. Since 1940, however, that word has lost about 7 percent of its usage, so Brigitte’s feel is also justified.
March 10, 2015
Don’t Mess With Tradition
The U.S. Constitution is, surely, a well-known document across the world and, surely, there is a translation of it into Persian. No doubt that the powers-that-be in Iran fully understand what our President’s treaty-making powers are and, also, the extent to which they are hedged in. Those powers are put into this sentence (Article II, Section 2): [The President] “shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided that two thirds of the Senators present concur.”
Well, evidently 47 Republican Senators here don’t believe Iran is fully in the picture. They have written an “open letter” to “the Leaders of the Islamic Republic,” which begins thus:
It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system.
The genius behind this letter is one Tom Cotton (R-AR), a junior senator. Its significance is that it represents an unprecedented action by a nominally conservative group in Congress to engage in foreign affairs directly—which is clearly what this letter ( link ) is trying to do.
I was still a young man in the Army when I learned (taking college courses on the side from a University of Maryland extension operating in Baumholder, Germany) that political designations can and do lose their meaning over time—thus that “liberal,” once heavily Tory, you might say, can come to mean something way-way to the Whig.
My own bible on what conservativemeans is Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind. Early in that book Kirk places six canons of conservative thought. The sixth one states:
Recognition that change may not be salutary reform: hasty innovation may be a devouring conflagration, rather than a torch of progress. Society must alter, for prudent change is the means of social preservation; but a statesman must take Providence into his calculations, and a statesman’s chief virtue, according to Plato and Burke, is prudence.
Later in the book, Kirk develops the meaning of Providence (properly with a leading cap) to mean respect for tradition which, in his view, is an imperfect but largely reliable structure that captures the higher intentions Providence implies. Now it is clearly a rather “hasty innovation” to produce the impression that Congress is an active participant in treaty negotiations—and that, in treaty negotiations a sovereign entity, like the United States of America, can and should present contrary positions to the negotiating partner, as in speaking out of both sides of the mouth.
A mere 21 years have passed since Russell Kirk died in 1994—and already one is mentally tempted to rewrite the title of his book (looking at today’s conservatives) as The Conservative Mindless. Not Kirk’s fault. Indeed he foresaw that “hasty innovation” can turn into “a devouring conflagration.” And one of those conflagrations, sooner or later, will produce the Man on Horseback chasing the Tom Cottons of this world into hiding—and even that horse is not too far away as the oil runs out.
Well, evidently 47 Republican Senators here don’t believe Iran is fully in the picture. They have written an “open letter” to “the Leaders of the Islamic Republic,” which begins thus:
It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system.
The genius behind this letter is one Tom Cotton (R-AR), a junior senator. Its significance is that it represents an unprecedented action by a nominally conservative group in Congress to engage in foreign affairs directly—which is clearly what this letter ( link ) is trying to do.
I was still a young man in the Army when I learned (taking college courses on the side from a University of Maryland extension operating in Baumholder, Germany) that political designations can and do lose their meaning over time—thus that “liberal,” once heavily Tory, you might say, can come to mean something way-way to the Whig.
My own bible on what conservativemeans is Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind. Early in that book Kirk places six canons of conservative thought. The sixth one states:
Recognition that change may not be salutary reform: hasty innovation may be a devouring conflagration, rather than a torch of progress. Society must alter, for prudent change is the means of social preservation; but a statesman must take Providence into his calculations, and a statesman’s chief virtue, according to Plato and Burke, is prudence.
Later in the book, Kirk develops the meaning of Providence (properly with a leading cap) to mean respect for tradition which, in his view, is an imperfect but largely reliable structure that captures the higher intentions Providence implies. Now it is clearly a rather “hasty innovation” to produce the impression that Congress is an active participant in treaty negotiations—and that, in treaty negotiations a sovereign entity, like the United States of America, can and should present contrary positions to the negotiating partner, as in speaking out of both sides of the mouth.
A mere 21 years have passed since Russell Kirk died in 1994—and already one is mentally tempted to rewrite the title of his book (looking at today’s conservatives) as The Conservative Mindless. Not Kirk’s fault. Indeed he foresaw that “hasty innovation” can turn into “a devouring conflagration.” And one of those conflagrations, sooner or later, will produce the Man on Horseback chasing the Tom Cottons of this world into hiding—and even that horse is not too far away as the oil runs out.
March 9, 2015
Existential and Spiritual Judgement
The question, What are the religious propensities? and the question, What is their philosophic significance? are two entirely different orders of question from the logical point of view; and, as a failure to recognize this fact distinctly may breed confusion, I wish to insist upon the point a little….
In recent books on logic, the distinction is made between two orders of inquiry concerning anything. First, what is the nature of it? how did it come about? what is its constitution, origin, and history? And second, What is its importance, meaning, or significance, now that it is once here? The answer to the one question is given in an existential judgement or proposition. The answer to the other is a proposition of value, what the Germans call a Werturteil, or what we may, if we like, denominate a spiritual judgement. Neither judgement can be deduced immediately from the other. They proceed from diverse intellectual preoccupations, and the mind combines them only by making them first separately, and then adding them together. [William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture 1]
I read this paragraph the first time ever on my first day in college—while waiting for the opening ceremony of our Freshman year to begin. I understood it, no doubt about it, but not the way I do now. Here is the methodological answer to many puzzles that involve matter and mind, body and soul, and so on. There is experience, and who can deny it. Then there is a judgement made of its meaning. And the “examined life” is a fusion of these two.
In recent books on logic, the distinction is made between two orders of inquiry concerning anything. First, what is the nature of it? how did it come about? what is its constitution, origin, and history? And second, What is its importance, meaning, or significance, now that it is once here? The answer to the one question is given in an existential judgement or proposition. The answer to the other is a proposition of value, what the Germans call a Werturteil, or what we may, if we like, denominate a spiritual judgement. Neither judgement can be deduced immediately from the other. They proceed from diverse intellectual preoccupations, and the mind combines them only by making them first separately, and then adding them together. [William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture 1]
I read this paragraph the first time ever on my first day in college—while waiting for the opening ceremony of our Freshman year to begin. I understood it, no doubt about it, but not the way I do now. Here is the methodological answer to many puzzles that involve matter and mind, body and soul, and so on. There is experience, and who can deny it. Then there is a judgement made of its meaning. And the “examined life” is a fusion of these two.
March 8, 2015
Locating Identity
One of my personal Eureka moments came many years ago when I discovered the mitochondria, the tiny structures that produce the energy used within our cells. Mitochondria have DNA of their own—separate from the DNA in each cell’s nucleus. In humans, and most other species that have mitochondria, these structures are passed on to offspring exclusively from the mother. Hence, tracking mitochondrial DNA, we can search ever backward in time tracing the maternal line. We haven’t found Eve yet, but it may be possible. Adam is quite untraceable.
This came to mind yesterday when I read about claims (still not fully accepted) that the caterpillar and the butterfly that it becomes may be of two different species that once joined forces for a kind of biological tour de force. My mitochondrial encounter years ago suggested to me that bodies are chemical civilizations—imperfectly uniting quite diverse strands of living things—and indeed coexisting only because they are a kind of community of separates rather than a seamless whole. Humans can only digest, for instance—and therefore live—because we host a diverse community of bacteria.
Our bodies, of course, do not remain the same even from day to day. Yesterday we retrieved all or most of our photo albums. Some of them have photos that go back to the nineteenth century. Pictures of ourselves show the enormous changes that have taken place in our own bodies—which in turn, all these impressions, shaken well in a blender, made me wonder what identity means—and how it might be located.
Amusingly that word, identity, derives from the Latin phrase idem et idem, best translated into our own “same-old, same-old.” Thus identity is sameness. But in the physical world nothing is ever, strictly speaking, the same—not even that hard, attractive spoon I use to stir the coffee which, by chance, we “abstracted” from a house we rented in Florida three years ago. Even that spoon has lost some mass in the meantime.
If we cling strictly to a materialistic explanation of identity, it turns out that the best explanation for identity is statistical. I am statistically much the same today as yesterday, and never mind the 50 to 70 billion cells that died since 10:23 yesterday, which—thanks to Summer Time’s arrival (even time changes)—is 11:23 today.
Approximation must suffice to locate identity in time and space; to locate it absolutely we must leave the reservation and, having reread Plato’s Phaedo, we must start to feel familiar with the concept that the human self is immaterial and indestructible; its relationship to DNA, cellular or mitochondrial, is rather loose and tentative. Which suggests the happy thought that when our next caterpillar breaks is chrysalis and emerges as a butterfly, a single gorgeous soul will flutter away even if generated by two species in cooperation.
This came to mind yesterday when I read about claims (still not fully accepted) that the caterpillar and the butterfly that it becomes may be of two different species that once joined forces for a kind of biological tour de force. My mitochondrial encounter years ago suggested to me that bodies are chemical civilizations—imperfectly uniting quite diverse strands of living things—and indeed coexisting only because they are a kind of community of separates rather than a seamless whole. Humans can only digest, for instance—and therefore live—because we host a diverse community of bacteria.
Our bodies, of course, do not remain the same even from day to day. Yesterday we retrieved all or most of our photo albums. Some of them have photos that go back to the nineteenth century. Pictures of ourselves show the enormous changes that have taken place in our own bodies—which in turn, all these impressions, shaken well in a blender, made me wonder what identity means—and how it might be located.
Amusingly that word, identity, derives from the Latin phrase idem et idem, best translated into our own “same-old, same-old.” Thus identity is sameness. But in the physical world nothing is ever, strictly speaking, the same—not even that hard, attractive spoon I use to stir the coffee which, by chance, we “abstracted” from a house we rented in Florida three years ago. Even that spoon has lost some mass in the meantime.
If we cling strictly to a materialistic explanation of identity, it turns out that the best explanation for identity is statistical. I am statistically much the same today as yesterday, and never mind the 50 to 70 billion cells that died since 10:23 yesterday, which—thanks to Summer Time’s arrival (even time changes)—is 11:23 today.
Approximation must suffice to locate identity in time and space; to locate it absolutely we must leave the reservation and, having reread Plato’s Phaedo, we must start to feel familiar with the concept that the human self is immaterial and indestructible; its relationship to DNA, cellular or mitochondrial, is rather loose and tentative. Which suggests the happy thought that when our next caterpillar breaks is chrysalis and emerges as a butterfly, a single gorgeous soul will flutter away even if generated by two species in cooperation.
March 7, 2015
The Caterpillar-Butterfly Problem
We spent part of the afternoon reading about the mind-body problem (in Times Literary Supplement, “Consciousness myth,” Galen Strawsom,
link
). This afternoon I came across another rather interesting problem—a kind of radical dualism between the caterpillar and the butterfly. A quite excellent outline of this issues is presented on the blog Gypsy Scholar
here
. What with our own extensive relations to both, caterpillars and butterflies, at least a reference to this matter is appropriate here—especially with snow inches deep on the dormant grass.
Mirth and Seriousness
The pleasure of reading the Father Brown stories arises because they combine two inner qualities that make life worth living no matter what is “going down.” (Odd to think that things are always “going down” and never “going up” unless what’s going up are rockets.) Based on my authoritative The Complete Father Brown, G.K. Chesterton wrote 51 of these. Alas I’m now reading number 49, and therefore, for a while, I’ll be done with them. I’ve been at this now since last July when I discovered the volume in an old box in the attic; it had last been open during our previous move; that move “went down” in 1989.
Now the two qualities that makes me turn to Father Brown are seriousness combined with sense of humor. And these two qualities, when possessed and cultivated, make life worth living because seriousness requires a rational view of reality and a sense of humor lifts us above it into another region then the one where we’re obliged to live. That last is surely very true; yet it is almost blasphemous that in the endless tomes of humanity’s theologies I’ve never yet seen reference to God’s sense of humor—although it’s everywhere on display.
No matter what happened during the day, no matter the news—which tends to be deadly seriousness about things so trivial (like Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server) as to be comical—no matter how ill-wrought a seemingly promising new “series” on TV turns out; no matter the weather forecast, it has been a great pleasure and relief to make for bed with the last thing before sleep takes me away being one of the truly astonishing “mysteries” our friend in clerical garb, with his careworn umbrella, will solve somehow while never relinquishing even an ounce of his humility.
Now the two qualities that makes me turn to Father Brown are seriousness combined with sense of humor. And these two qualities, when possessed and cultivated, make life worth living because seriousness requires a rational view of reality and a sense of humor lifts us above it into another region then the one where we’re obliged to live. That last is surely very true; yet it is almost blasphemous that in the endless tomes of humanity’s theologies I’ve never yet seen reference to God’s sense of humor—although it’s everywhere on display.
No matter what happened during the day, no matter the news—which tends to be deadly seriousness about things so trivial (like Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server) as to be comical—no matter how ill-wrought a seemingly promising new “series” on TV turns out; no matter the weather forecast, it has been a great pleasure and relief to make for bed with the last thing before sleep takes me away being one of the truly astonishing “mysteries” our friend in clerical garb, with his careworn umbrella, will solve somehow while never relinquishing even an ounce of his humility.
March 6, 2015
Sparrow in Flight
To those challenged by lack of patience we recommend hanging a bird-feeder. Ours made it out there, visible from the dining room, thanks to John Magee’s height and dedication to help feed the avian population during hard times. We’ve learned that by the time you get the camera, the bird sitting on ours will have flown away. To be sure, the first birds that found us were chickadees. They come swiftly, take a seed, and are then immediately back on the big bush to eat it. We decided to be patient. One of these days. Our camera is parked on the dining room table. In due course came cardinals, first the female, then her mate. Then sparrows in numbers. They are quite contentious. Finally even mourning doves showed up; they found that they were too big to eat comfortably at our restaurant, but the sparrows spill seed carelessly enough so the doves too have managed to get some food from the snow below.
The current picture, captured by Brigitte, is thus far the winner for March. It actually captures a sparrow in flight—and two others already feeding. A close look at the photo shows the flyer’s wings, moving to become almost invisible. They are really moving to become even barely perceptible. Indeed, we didn’t even discover the flying sparrow until I’d put the photo on the machine and cropped it to enlarge the relevant display.
The image of the Chickadee comes from Wikipedia ( link ). The light conditions, and our little camera, are not up to taking so sharp an image, although we have one or two showing tail feathers and chickadees resting on the bush (the name of which eventually, after I learn it). At this time of year, we get busy preparing for Spring. A rather attractive humming bird bar, a Christmas present, is awaiting to be hung. And on our recent visit to English Gardens we at least fingered a package that promises to draw, with its content, both humming birds and butterflies. We shall see...
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