From "Terminus"

As the bird trims her to the gale,
I trim myself to the storm of time,
I man the rudder, reef the sail,
Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime:
"Lowly faithful, banish fear,
Right onward drive unharmed;
The port, well worth the cruise, is near,
And every wave is charmed."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

For the Love of the Game

Baseball is the reason that America was invented.

Socrates

As an undergraduate classics major, I translated Plato's Apologia. When I completed the translation I sat back and asked myself, "How is it possible that no one created a religion around this man?"

Wrong time, wrong place. Otherwise, we'd have churches of Socrates throughout the world. Only it wouldn't be Socrates, but some evangelist's pious misrepresentation of his teachings and significance.

Thank God, I say, thank God! For if he had not been spared such misplaced adoration, we would have lost him forever.

The People, Yes, The People

The totalitarian tendencies of the one-dimensional society render the traditional ways and means of protest ineffective--perhaps even dangerous because they preserve the illusion of popular sovereignty. This illusion contains some truth: "the people," previously the ferment of social change, have "moved up" to become the ferment of social cohesion. Here rather than in the redistribution of wealth and equalization of classes is the new stratification characteristic of advanced industrial society.

Herbert Marcuse, ODM, 256.

Van Gogh's "Theology"

As articulated by Norman O. Brown: "The movement of energy on the earth--from geophysics to political economy, by way of sociology, history, and biology--all manifests that universal effervescence of superfluous prodigality which is best honored as a god or as God. Science becomes religious in deference to the awesome facts." Dionysus in 1990.

A History Lesson

Walter Kaufmann Revisited

I was a sophomore in college in September 1980 when Walter Kaufmann passed away. I wore a black armband in remembrance.

I often feel that, before anyone engages in a conversation about religion, they should first read Kaufmann's Critique of Religion and Philosophy and The Faith of a Heretic. At that point, an intelligent discussion can proceed.

Dear Theo

In my early twenties, upon the insistence of my oldest brother, I checked out from my local library a copy of Dear Theo, the letters of Vincent Van Gogh to his brother (as collected and edited by Irving Stone; the complete collection is now available online here).

I did not sit down and read the letters straight through. I found that, whenever I picked up the book, it was like grasping hold of a live wire and I rarely got away without a shock. So, instead, I dipped into the volume from time to time (and, when I would visit my brother in Philadelphia, I would occasionally consult his copy). I knew then, without a doubt, that the letters belonged to world literature; some of them, to world religious literature.

While in Paris in September (2014), I began to work my way through the Penguin Classics edition of Van Gogh's letters (published in the mid-1990's). Like Stone's Dear Theo, the Penguin edition offers a selection, but one that reflects a scholarly (rather than a novelistic) perspective. I value both--but prefer Stone's Lust for Life to his Dear Theo because the former does not purport to be Van Gogh's "autobiography."

Although it is possible to read the letters apart from the artist's work, I think that they need to be viewed as part of the artist's total oeuvre; over a ten year period, Van Gogh created an amazing portfolio of words and images. When one encounters him in both media, his genius is made visible.

Heidegger In Black

More bad news from the Heidegger front: Peter E. Gordon's review essay in the NYRB, October 9, 2014.