Reading books like Robert Nisbet's History of the Idea of Progress I am often, as in a nightmare, briefly visited by a great fear of Western Civilization, of the believers and unbelievers alike--Ideas bespeaking accordant progressions from Augustine or Hesiod--who seek to preserve it, and of the over-articulation of finding in an infant's golden tooth the advent of a golden age and proof of Revelation. I feel for a moment like Yeats' old peasant "[whose] life was ebbing out with no achievement remaining and no hope left him . . . 'The fret is over me,' he repeated, and then went on to talk once more of God and heaven. More than once also he said, waving his arms toward the mountain, 'Only myself knows what happened under that thorn-tree forty years ago'; and as he said it the tears upon his face glistened in the moonlight."
Nolite turbare magica fila mea.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
splitting hairs
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9 comments:
I favor TH Huxley (who did not care for the classics) OR Matthew Arnold (who wants to belle-lettres, Latin, greeks, etc) depending on the season. Academia could do worse, however, than require young Biffs and Bunny's at Techie State to peruse a bit of Aristotle, at some point, or at least ...Matt Arnold (though I am tempted to agree with TH that students study french, or German--even italiano or spanglish-- and modern history instead of the two or three years of Latin grammar and Thucydides, etc that they formerly endured).
As long as they're all playing football and hitting the weights, I'm ok with the status quo.
They need some academics, Frater RW: at least the Theory of Professional Athletics, or Sports Apparel Marketing 101, etc.
Alas, catholics don't seem entirely innocent in regards to the creation of Sports, Inc. Some of the old Ivy League pedagogues (Charles Eliot, for one) opposed football and most sports (excepting maybe rowing or something). Knute Rockne, et al were mostly from the catholic schools weren't they.
The Notre Dame types supported the introduction of sports into colleges, and parochial schools; the old irish policy seems to have favored pugilism, rather than Parnassus. Then, most irish priests probably said a few paternosters that that they didn't help in the creation of a Yeats.
The possibility that sports can become an ", Inc." doesn't change the value they have for youth and even beyond youth--fun, courage, camaraderie, self-knowledge, appreciation of genuine skill, stuff like that. I don't come from a hardcore Irish Catholic ND-style sports tradition but I don't begrudge them their obsession. I hate college sports, but that's mostly because of the absolute dominance of coaching/recruiting and from having been in a bar with Ohio State fans in town for the Fiesta Bowl.
Take a look at Run of Play's post on Arsene Wenger and tell me you can't see the beauty.
I call it a tonic against the Puritan millenarian progressives.
in a bar with Ohio State fans in town for the Fiesta Bowl.
Yess. Tempe-town in the Fall's a fine example of football-fever. Worse: Boulder when Cornhucksters crawl into town. Ph*ck.
fun, courage, camaraderie, self-knowledge, appreciation of genuine skill, stuff like that.
And Sports sells mega-gallons of beer, tons of dodger-dogs, caps, t-shirts, cheerleader calendars, and provides casinos with revenue as well (not to say stadium contractors). Alvin Plantinga works for JC, Notre Dame, and Bud, Inc. too. :-|
The Mav-P??
Wow. It's going to take a few months of sundays and big helpings of Frosted Hosts to eradicate that bad joss, Rimwellsan. The MavP. may not be a completely incompetent filosophe, but like his crony von Feiser, he has a tendency to code switch--sort of between like Aynnie Rand and Aquinas (tho' with a bit of Frege-lite to impress 'noobs).
I'm not so down with Herr Heidegger really, but any varsity dweeb who perused the cliffsnotes to Existentialism 101 should question the MavP's translation of Dasein as mere "human being" (usually given as...Existence, or, Being itself). He sounds like he's back to his Randian side with his Heidegger-bashing (tho' like Feser, really he's even too rightist and racist for the Randians, I suppose).
I only read what had been excerpted by the Heidegger guy, thinking the question, "So why doesn’t he speak the truth, and nothing but the truth, without exaggerating?" was very interesting if it was asked in a certain way--if it was asked rhetorically to set up a discussion of the "risk of ostentation," for example. But, reading the actual post, it looks like he might just be complaining about actual exaggeration, which is a shame. "Code switch" is a pretty interesting way of putting it and more interesting is the conservative tendency to do it. Something in his last paragraph, in his willingness to allow "I believe" to exceed its propositional aspect makes one wonder why other propositions aren't allowed the same treatment. But maybe I'm just misreading.
For all their Thomistic or Burkean conservative-pandering, MavP and his cronies generally affirm the mafia Khrist, really ( machiavellian, etc). St. Lucky Luciano. Or so it seems.
Given that many GOP/rightists approve, at least implicitly of La Cosa Nostra or Meyer Lansky-ish tactics (mo' or less), others might see fit to affirm other varieties of anti-rationalism, whether Heidegger or Nietzsche, even Marx. Heidegger's QCT intrigues me slightly, at least once sort of parses his jargon .
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