The Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness: CPB

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

"We're Rubbish, Even Though We Are As Gods": CPB

 

" 'Look, we are all crappy superheroes,' because personal computers and mobile phone devices are things that only Batman and Mr. Fantastic would have owned back in the sixties. We've all got this immense power and we're still sat at home watching pornography and buying scratch cards. We're rubbish, even though we are as gods.”—Alan Moore

A Matter of Belief: CPB

Hub: Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love... true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn't matter if it's true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in. --Secondhand Lions

 

“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.”

― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

 

“I believe in the power of the imagination to remake the world, to release the truth within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen.”

― J.G. Ballard

 

“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.”

― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

 

“I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination.”

― John Keats

 

“It might be a good idea if, like the White Queen, we practiced believing six impossible things every morning before breakfast, for we are called on to believe what to many people is impossible. Instead of rejoicing in this glorious "impossible" which gives meaning and dignity to our lives, we try to domesticate God, to make his mighty actions comprehensible to our finite minds.”

― Madeleine L'Engle

A Few Words From David Bentley Hart: CPB

 There is a tacit contempt for those whose experience and beliefs don’t fit in to the modern world as neatly as they ought to. And that includes not just people of the past, but people of other cultures who haven’t embraced western modernity, either because of material privation or because of cultural resistance.

It is an odd belief, that somehow we know more about reality and that therefore we realize there is no spiritual dimension to reality – because, what?  Because we have functioning capitalist societies that are only occasionally on the verge of complete collapse?  Or because we understand the molecular architecture of cells better?

**************** 

I think it would be wiser perhaps to ask if a life lived where most of us can’t go through a whole day without the television or surfing the net – if perhaps we’re the ones who have declined into a kind of barbarism where the spiritual senses are concerned. Maybe we’re the ones who are farther removed from reality, even though we have a society where scientists have provided us with such a rich and wonderful sense of certain physical truths.

--David Bentley Hart

Poetic Diction: Off of the Wishlist and into the Library

 

I have always been assured by whatever text I've read about it that "Poetic Diction" is THE Owen Barfield book to read. I have enjoyed and fairly grasped his arguments in "Saving the Appearances" and "Studies in Words," and I was looking forward to a similar experience. I was grimly surprised.

Seldom have I felt like such a hill-country hick while reading a book, the technicality of it was so far above my pay grade. It assumed a familiarity with the works of other famous critics and their theories, had chunks of untranslated Greek (familiar, I'm sure, to Tolkien and Lewis) , and flowed on in sentences crammed with double-jointed terms that soon had my head spinning. 

I closed the book in a sort of a daze. I was little wiser than when I had begun. I think I only truly understood two sentences, near the beginning, and that instinctively: "Meaning includes the whole content of a word, or of a group of words arranged in a particular order, other than the actual sounds of which they are composed. Thus, this book is concerned with a realm of human experience in which such an expression as 'prophets old' may, and probably will, 'mean' something quite different from 'old prophets'."

The difficulties, I am convinced, lie in my own lack of powers. It will probably repay multiple readings with closer attention, like a musician trying to master a complicated passage of music. It might even behoove me to try translating it for myself into words of one syllable. In the meantime, here is what the all-knowing Wikipedia has to say about it:

Barfield's book Poetic Diction begins with examples of "felt changes" arising in reading poetry, and discusses how these relate to general principles of poetic composition. But his greater agenda is "the study of meaning". Using poetic examples, he sets out to demonstrate how the imagination works with words and metaphors to create meaning. He shows how the imagination of the poet creates new meaning, and how this same process has been active, throughout human experience, to create and continuously expand language. For Barfield this is not just literary criticism: it is evidence bearing on the evolution of human consciousness. This, for many readers, is his real accomplishment: his unique presentation of "not merely a theory of poetic diction, but a theory of poetry, and not merely a theory of poetry, but a theory of knowledge". This theory was developed directly from a close study of the evolution of words and meaning, starting with the relation between the primitive mind's myth making capacity, and the formation of words. Barfield uses numerous examples to demonstrate that words originally had a unified "concrete and undivided" meaning, which we now distinguish as several distinct concepts. For example, he points out that the single Greek word pneuma (which can be variously translated as "breath", "spirit", or "wind") reflects the original unity of these concepts of air, spirit, wind, and breath, all included in one "holophrase". This Barfield considers to be not the application of a poetic analogy to natural phenomena, but the discernment of an actual phenomenal unity. Not only concepts, but the phenomena themselves, form a unity, the perception of which was possible to primitive consciousness and therefore reflected in language. This is the perspective Barfield believes to have been primordial in the evolution of consciousness, the perspective which was "fighting for its life", as he phrases it, in the philosophy of Plato, and which, in a regenerate and more sophisticated form, benefiting from the development of rational thought, needs to be recovered if consciousness is to continue to evolve. 

For now, I shall have to take their word for it. 

Connection to Beauty: CPB

 

“Caring too much for objects can destroy you. Only—if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn’t it? And isn’t the whole point of things—beautiful things—that they connect you to some larger beauty?”

—Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

The Conditional Self: CPB

[Scabby, If Not Skinny]

Not only are selves conditional but they die. Each day, we wake slightly altered, and the person we were yesterday is dead. So why, one could say, be afraid of death, when death comes all the time? It is even possible to dislike our old selves, those disposable ancestors of ours. For instance, my high-school self — skinny, scabby, giggly, gabby, frantic to be noticed, tormented enough to be a tormentor, relentlessly pushing his cartoons and posters and noisy jokes and pseudo-sophisticated poems upon the helpless high school — strikes me now as considerably obnoxious, though I owe him a lot.  --John Updike

The Passcode of Memory: CPB

Gold tablet written in ancient Greek found in a womanʹs grave – VI century B.C. – in a large necropolis near Hipponion (Vibo Valentia) in southern Italy, with a message to the dead:

Here is the passcode of Memory.  When you die

you go to the vast halls of Hades; a spring is on your right,

and by it stands a shining cypress tree

where the descending souls of the dead refresh themselves.

Stay away from that spring!

Further on you’ll find refreshing water

flowing from the lake of Memory.

Guardians stand by.

They will ask you sharply,

what you seek in the dank shadows of Hades.

Say: ʺI am a child of Earth and starry Heaven

and I’m parched perishing with thirst.  Give me now

refreshing water to drink from the lake of Memory.ʺ

They’ll speak to the king of the underworld,

then they’ll give you to drink from the lake of Memory,

and you, having drunk, will go along the holy road

famous initiates and mystics travel.

 

The Giving of Presents: CPB

 

“Giving anyone anything takes courage, since so many presents backfire. A gift conspicuously at odds with your tastes serves only to betray that the benefactor has no earthly clue who you are.”

― Lionel Shriver.

The Second Friend: CPB

“The First [Friend] is the alter ego, the man who first reveals to you that you are not alone in the world by turning out (beyond hope) to share all your most secret delights. There is nothing to be overcome in making him your friend; he and you join like raindrops on a window. But the Second Friend is the man who disagrees with you about everything. He is not so much the alter ego as the antiself. Of course he shares your interests; otherwise he would not become your friend at all. But he has approached them all at a different angle. He has read all the right books but has got the wrong thing out of every one. It is as if he spoke your language but mispronounced it. How can he be so nearly right and yet, invariably, just not right? He is as fascinating (and infuriating) as a woman. When you set out to correct his heresies, you will find that he forsooth has decided to correct yours! And then you go at it, hammer and tongs, far into the night, night after night, or walking through fine country that neither gives a glance to, each learning the weight of the other's punches, and often more like mutually respectful enemies than friends. Actually (though it never seems so at the time) you modify one another's thought; out of this perpetual dogfight a community of mind and a deep affection emerge.”

― C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy

The Limits of Subversion: CPB

Subversion requires limits to violate. --Camille Paglia

Who Has Seen the Wind?: CPB

Who Has Seen the Wind?

 

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you.

But when the leaves hang trembling,

The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I.

But when the trees bow down their heads,

The wind is passing by.

 

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Thinkers, Doers, and Talkers: CPB

"Thinkers think and doers do. But until the thinkers do and the doers think, progress will be just another word in the already overburdened vocabulary of the talkers who talk."

- FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

 

The Futility of Vengeance: CPB

“We cannot build the future by avenging the past.”

― T.H. White, The Once and Future King.

Somebody Always Leaves: CPB

 

“Why can't we get all the people together in the world that we really like and then just stay together? I guess that wouldn't work. Someone would leave. Someone always leaves. Then we would have to say good-bye. I hate good-byes. I know what I need. I need more hellos.”

― Charles M. Schulz

There is a proliferation of memes today, illustrated with Peanuts characters, full of rather sickly sentiment that seems to me quite foreign from Schulz's work. The original Peanuts - the real Peanuts - unstained by nostalgic glow, is Charlie Brown with his sleepless nights of worry, Snoopy with his sometimes callous hedonism, Linus with his philosophical quandaries, and Lucy with her crass pragmatism. They could, for scattered moments, shine gold, but it was their struggles, their humanity that endeared them to us, not easy, encouraging, greeting-card words. 

The Shadow Library: Gaudy Shadows

The Optimism of Ugliness: CPB

The faith of Stevenson, like that of a great number of very sane men, was founded on what is called a paradox—the paradox that existence was splendid because it was, to all outward appearance, desperate. Paradox, so far from being a modern and fanciful matter, is inherent in all the great hypotheses of humanity. The Athanasian Creed, for example, the supreme testimony of Catholic Christianity, sparkles with paradox like a modern society comedy. Thus, in the same manner, scientific philosophy tells us that finite space is unthinkable and infinite space is unthinkable. Thus the most influential modern metaphysician, Hegel, declares without hesitation, when the last rag of theology is abandoned, and the last point of philosophy passed, that existence is the same as non-existence.

Thus the brilliant author of "Lady Windermere's Fan," in the electric glare of modernity, finds that life is much too important to be taken seriously. Thus Tertullian, in the first ages of faith, said "Credo quia impossibile."

We must not, therefore, be immediately repelled by this paradoxical character of Stevenson's optimism, or imagine for a moment that it was merely a part of that artistic foppery or "fuddling hedonism" with which he has been ridiculously credited. His optimism was one which, so far from dwelling upon those flowers and sunbeams which form the stock-in-trade of conventional optimism, took a peculiar pleasure in the contemplation of skulls, and cudgels, and gallows.

It is one thing to be the kind of optimist who can divert his mind from personal suffering by dreaming of the face of an angel, and quite another thing to be the kind of optimist who can divert it by dreaming of the foul fat face of Long John Silver. And this faith of his had a very definite and a very original philosophical purport. Other men have justified existence because it was a harmony.

He justified it because it was a battle, because it was an inspiring and melodious discord. He appealed to a certain set of facts which lie far deeper than any logic—the great paradoxes of the soul. For the singular fact is that the spirit of man is in reality depressed by all the things which, logically speaking, should encourage it, and encouraged by all the things which, logically speaking, should depress it.

Nothing, for example, can be conceived more really dispiriting than that rationalistic explanation of pain which conceives it as a thing laid by Providence upon the worst people. Nothing, on the other hand, can be conceived as more exalting and reassuring than that great mystical doctrine which teaches that pain is a thing laid by Providence upon the best. We can accept the agony of heroes, while we revolt against the agony of culprits. We can all endure to regard pain when it is mysterious; our deepest nature protests against it the moment that it is rational.

This doctrine that the best man suffers most is, of course, the supreme doctrine of Christianity; millions have found not merely an elevating but a soothing story in the undeserved sufferings of Christ; had the sufferings been deserved we should all have been pessimists.

Stevenson's great ethical and philosophical value lies in the fact that he realised this great paradox that life becomes more fascinating the darker it grows, that life is worth living only so far as it is difficult to live. The more steadfastly and gloomily men clung to their sinister visions of duty, the more, in his eyes, they swelled the chorus of the praise of things. He was an optimist because to him everything was heroic, and nothing more heroic than the pessimist.

To Stevenson, the optimist, belong the most frightful epigrams of pessimism. It was he who said that this planet on which we live was more drenched with blood, animal and vegetable, than a pirate ship. It was he who said that man was a disease of the agglutinated dust. And his supreme position and his supreme difference from all common optimists is merely this, that all common optimists say that life is glorious in spite of these things, but he said that all life was glorious because of them. He discovered that a battle is more comforting than a truce. - GK Chesterton

My Commonplace Book

Commonplace books (or commonplaces) are a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into books. They have been kept from antiquity, and were kept particularly during the Renaissance and in the nineteenth century. Such books are similar to scrapbooks filled with items of many kinds: sententiae, notes, proverbs, adages, aphorisms, maxims, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, prayers, legal formulas, and recipes. Entries are most often organized under subject headings. - Wikipedia.

I have been keeping a document on my computer for several years now that has served as my commonplace book. As the definition says, the better sorts of these things are organized by subject. Mine have just been copied down as they came my way.

I've decided to start transcribing it here, piece by piece. They are mainly longish quotations, poems, and the occasional observation that struck me as being noteworthy. Many I agree with; some are appalling. But all, I think, are worth considering.

I shall mark each entry in its title as CPB, and label it by subject and author (when known).  I hope readers will find it an amusing stroll through my mind and interests. 

The Ankh-Morpork Archives: Volume I

"A hardback guidebook to Ankh-Morpork's Guilds, institutions & environs containing an anthology of text & illustrations from previous Discworld diaries - revamped & redesigned for the new visitor to Discworld's premier city! Written by Terry Pratchett and produced by Stephen Briggs, with artwork by Paul Kidby!" - https://www.discworldemporium.com/

The second book I'm allowing myself this month. By the time I became aware that there were Discworld Diaries they were almost at the end of their run. I thought I would have to make do with what was revealed of them in "The Discworld Companion". There were copies available online of course, but they were already going for fairly high prices, certainly out of my limited range. But the publishing of these Archives remedies my lack. 

"Lavish coffee-table book" pretty much describes this volume and a good deal of its beauty is attributable to Paul Kidby, who has come to be my favorite artist when it comes to interpreting the Discworld. The art is second only (for me) to being able to read 'new' Pratchett on his fantasy world again. I can hardly wait for Volume II when it comes out in February 2022. 

The Nature of Middle-Earth: The Last Book of the Legendarium?

 

I ordered this book late on the evening of August the 31st and received it at 2 PM on September the 4th.  In the meantime I looked at several video reviews on YouTube in anticipation, trying to get a hint of what to expect and an idea of who Carl F. Hostetter (the editor) was. 

I found out plenty. Hostetter is a computer scientist employed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and has been involved with the study of Tolkien's languages and publication of articles on Tthat topic. In the course of his studies he became the "pen-friend" of Christopher Tolkien, who engaged him (and others) in the editing and publishing of his father's writing on the languages of Middle-Earth. In the study of Tolkien's papers Hostetter conceived the plan to order and publish various short (but interesting) bits of work that Tolkien had jotted down after LOTR was finished and when the author was considering getting "The Silmarillion" in order. Some Hostetter had already published in magazines dedicated to such matters; now he saw a way to draw these obscure pieces together along with previously unpublished material into one available volume. Christpher approved. He was able to show the nearly completed work to Christopher before he passed away last year.

His bona fides, thus far, are impeccable. But what won my eccentric approval and acceptance was that he had read "The Dark is Risng" at the age of 11 (just like me!) which led to his reading "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" (which is similar but the opposite to my experience). He is only about two years younger than I and thus I can see him as a sort of parallel life, a much more successful road not taken.

But to continue. Soon after I got the book and started devouring it in a rather piecemeal fashion, skipping around and flipping the pages to get the feel of it. The "Nature" of the title refers not only to the flora, fauna, and land of Middle-Earth, but also about its philosphy or essence. The book is divided into three sections. I settled down at 5 PM to do some serious reading until by 10 PM I had finished the first section of the book, "Part I: Time and Ageing". This is definitely the driest and most abstract section of the book, dealing mainly with Tolkien trying to match up the lifespan and development of the Elves with the age of the earth. There is much math (revealing a hitherto unsuspected aspect of Tolkien's creativity). I set the book down and tried to go to sleep.

I was up again by 6 AM and was soon back into it. "Part II: Body, Mind and Spirit" deals with descriptions of Elvish appearance, beauty, gender, fate, freewill, telepathy, spirit, reincarnation and death. We learn that male elves are not the androgynous figures popularized by modern media, that Aragorn (being of Numenorean descent) has no beard, that Elvish pregnancy lasted about 8 years (and was a joy to the mother, being unburdened by human pains)  and that Elvish children were unusually well-behaved and played finger games.

The third section, "Part III: The World, the Lands, and Its Inhabitants" deals with which most of us would consider "nature". Here is where for the first time I was sure that the talking Eagles were manifestations of embodied Maiar, that Elves eat meat, and contained the most detail about Numenor that I ever heard, including the men's special relationship with the bears of the island (I can't help but think this might somehow be connected to Priscilla's attachment to her teddy bears). 

There are two appendices, one a glossary and index of Quenya terms, but the other (more interesting to me) on metaphysical and religious themes, relating Catholic and philosophical ideas to their expression in Tolkien's work under guise of Elvish beliefs.

I finished the book at 5 PM today. I had taken breaks to do various duties and to rest; I did not particulary want to be finished. "The Nature of Middle-Earth" is almost solid 'lore' (much of it in tiny chapters of two or three pages) and little or no narrative. This book is touted to be the 'final' writings of Tolkien on Middle-Earth, not only being the last work he did on the legendarium but the last that there is to be published, and so the end of a long journey I started on in 1977 with "The Silmarillion", reading Tolkien's posthumous publications. There may be more of Tolkien's scholary philological work (I myself wouldn't mind an omnibus volume of Finn and Hengest, The Old English Exodus, and Ancrene Riwle) but no more of his Middle-Earth. There will be "no more shows like this show."