Our Anglican tradition, and a bit with a possum

St George's Anglican Church in Lisbon

As I prepared to write this article, I went to pour a glass of wine. When I returned to my study, my television had turned itself on. In a black and white movie, the actor was playing a violin, surrounded by children singing, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. I immediately retold the story to my local padre, an Anglican priest and army chaplain who leads our RSL services. He remarked that it was clearly a sign that I must not be a doubter and that I must tell my story truly and well.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Our Anglican tradition, and a bit with a possum.

Our Anglican tradition, and a bit with a possum | @FlaneurPolitiq

Identity politics has infiltrated the Anglican tradition. The meaning of the stained-glass window depicting Sir Galahad is disappearing along with veterans.

Christians are disappearing.https://t.co/4nAaELoiyA

— The Spectator Australia (@SpectatorOz) January 6, 2025

Learning About Buddhism from Dr Sax: Jack Kerouac's Surprisingly Erudite Biography of the Buddha

 

Jack Kerouac. Photo by Tom Palumbo [CC BY-SA 2.0].

Wake Up by Jack Kerouac
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I began reading this book back in 2016 but it was out of my depth back then and is only now something I can appreciate after much reading and research. Jack Kerouac has been a bit hit-and-miss for me. I loved On the Road and I didn't like Doctor Sax so much. But this biography of Gotama Buddha was as surprising for me as it was for Robert Thurman who penned the introduction to this Penguin Modern Classic.

I didn't know what to expect and although I had it bookmarked well into the main text, it had been so long I had forgotten everything I'd read so I had to start over. I find it interesting that some books, Like Tolstoy's War and Peace, I can pick up at any time and continue on as if I hadn't put it down so long ago. (Of course, one can do this for years it is so bloody long!) But this one I had completely forgotten so I began it all over again.

I was surprised by the style of the introduction by Thurman. It is very thorough, but he also doesn't hold back on his sense of surprise and wonder at Kerouac's expertise. I, too, am in awe. (Especially after reading Doctor Sax, one of Kerouac's less than appealing attempts at stream of consciousness writing!)

I have read some works that cover the basics, such as the Dalai Lama's How to Practise, Herman Hesse's Siddhartha (yes I know it is a fictional history of one of Gotama's contemporaries), and also to some extent Osho's Empty Boat, but I did not expect to receive so much "direct knowledge" from Kerouac!

I was introduced to Taoism and Buddhism by a friend in Shanghai in early 2019. I was fascinated by the similarities with Stoicism but also with Confucius' teachings. After commencing the Shiva Sutras and Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, I have also had some discussions with a colleague about Hinduism. He refers to Buddhism as "the daughter of Hinduism". This is an appropriate description, as I am learning while reading Karen Armstrong's Buddha right now. 

What I find most interesting is the concept of "perception" which appears equally important in Stoicism. The bottom line is that our ability to perceive is based on our senses which are subjective and we perceive objects according to our pre-programming. Transcending this knowledge requires other types of knowledge if we are to be at peace with oneself.

While I am still grappling with many of these ideas, I found the following helpful from Kerouac (2008, p. 88):

Perception is our Essential Mind; the sun's brightness or the dim moon's darkness are the conditional ripples on its surface... the phenomena that the sense-organs perceive does not originate in our Essential Mind but in the senses themselves.

The senses are changeable in that we can see space or a wall, lightness or darkness. But our Essential Mind is "neither changeable nor fixed" (p. 90). And from p. 91: 

Do not be disturbed by what has been taught, but ponder upon it seriously and never give yourself up either to sadness or delight.

I am grappling with the idea of perceptions from the senses in that this empirical knowledge is an illusion, like ripples on the sea, but our Essential Mind is pure. Or (p. 92):

...it is the eyes, not the intrinsic perception of Mind, that is subject to false mistakes.

So what is this Essential Mind? It is not any one perception of our individual senses, but some kind of whole:

There is neither Truth nor Non-Truth, there is only the essence. And when we intuit the essence of all, we call it Essential Mind.

I have many more notes on this work, but it has enlightened me to much of Buddhism that I did not know. In particular, the sense of individualism was surprising (p. 137):

...prepare quietly a quiet place, be not moved by others' way of thinking, do not compromise to agree with the ignorance of others, go thou alone, make solitude thy paradise...

And to echo James Allen's idea of conquering oneself, Kerouac writes of the Buddha:

As I am a conqueror amid conquerors, so he who conquers 'self' is one with me.

If I am learning anything from my philosophical and theological studies over the last three decades, it is that I am increasingly a Transcendentalist in the fashion of Ralph Waldo Emerson and his "Self-Reliance", and also his idea of finding one's "nature". 

But all of the philosophies and religions I am familiar with have, outside of the theological questions they address and the answers they provide, a requirement for self-knowledge. Kerouac's biography of Gotama Buddha demonstrates just how difficult that can be. 

If only we could "Wake Up".

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Are you a scholar or a subject matter expert? Some thoughts...

Lord Shiva Statue in Murdeshwara (Photo by Vivek Urs / CC BY-SA).

Recently I've been struggling with academic seminars where people are subject matter experts in health or refugees or some other specific topic. Not that there's anything wrong with this, but it struck me how little scholarly content there is now in "academic" presentations.

I have always had an interest in the use of the general versus the particular and how scholars often use these approaches interchangeably to suit their purposes. I am fascinated by such rhetorical tactics but I must admit that I have not seen much of this sort of debate in academic circles for some time. Is it a case of the short-termism that has arisen in academia?

Reading the Siva and Yoga Sutras had me thinking back to the concept of "varieties of particularism" that I developed in my doctoral thesis. Strange as it may sound, the idea came to me in a dream. To explain the concept (and to remind myself), I quote at length from my thesis (de Percy 2012, p. 28, Box 1.3):

A major finding of this research is that, in an era of technological convergence, providing a single technological solution to solve various connectivity problems is slower in addressing the diverse connectivity-related issues associated with various communications technologies in the near term. Similarly, grand, long-term approaches overlook regional and local opportunities and, in the pursuit of standardisation or quality/equality of service, ‘lock-in’ users to a technological solution designed to solve yesterday’s communications problems. Over time, the process of central control prevents the development of community expertise, or cultural capacity (see Hughes 1993), which leaves citizens as passive recipients of communications services, rather than being an integral component of these systems.

In his study of electricity systems in Germany, the US and the UK, Hughes (1993 : 405) found that local conditions resulted in distinct technological styles, defined as ‘the technological characteristics that give a machine, process, device or system a distinctive quality’. Hughes defined the local conditions external to the technology as cultural factors: ‘geographical, economic, organizational, legislative, contingent historical, and entrepreneurial conditions... factors [that] only partially shape technology through the mediating agency of individuals and groups’. However, electricity systems are passive networks where users have limited choices about how the network is deployed or used, whereas modern communications systems provide suppliers and end-users with a variety of choices about the means of delivery and the use of such networks respectively. For the purposes of this thesis, the various ‘cultural factors’ (as defined by Hughes) and the various connectivity requirements of users present particular circumstances which must be taken into account to enable greater penetration of a particular technological function.

In the absence of a term to describe the connectivity problems dictated by the varieties of particular individual, organisational, geographic, demographic and infrastructure situations that policy makers may need to address (while attempting to predict the current and potential uses of communications technologies in such various conditions), the term ‘varieties of particularism’ is adopted here to encapsulate these diverse circumstances. The term is borrowed from moral philosophy where it is used to explain a form of morality where particular circumstances dictate particular approaches to morality, on a case-by-case basis, as opposed to a single moral principle that dictates all action (see Sinnott-Armstrong 1999).

During the present period of institutional disruption (created by technological convergence), attempts to address these varieties of particularism have been referred to elsewhere as technological neutrality, where the technology used to achieve a particular function is left to supplier or consumer choice, rather than being predetermined or directed by the state. In Australia, however, the policy preference for delivering communications technologies over time has been to offer centrally-controlled, limited technologies in an attempt to create a sense of universal, standardised service. Canada, on the other hand, has attempted to achieve universal service through a mix of technologies devised and deployed at the regional and local levels to work within the regional and local varieties of particularism. Further, Canada’s approach provides greater access for citizens to the political process at the provincial and local levels, whereas state and local politicians in Australia have limited ability to influence centrally-controlled communications technology systems. This leaves citizens waiting until the federal government enables the deployment of infrastructure, as is occurring with the NBN today. 

Hughes (1993: x) found that the policy issues in deploying electricity networks were more regional than national in three different national contexts. The present study finds that the same principle applies to communications networks. Therefore, a major explanation for the divergent communications technology outcomes in Canada and Australia, and indeed, for Canada’s faster speed in achieving greater penetration of new technologies over time, is that decentralised institutions are better able to address the regional and local varieties of particularism, hence providing greater citizen involvement in the policy process and faster penetration of new communications technologies.

The above was a major finding, but it was readily dismissed by subject matter experts at the time who continue to provide political explanations for shortcomings of the NBN. Technical experts using politics as an excuse. Where is the scholarly thought in such explanations?

Consider scientific reasoning in the utility of the universal versus the particular (or in this case, local) from Shapin (1998, p. 5):

...post-Popper philosophers were willing to acknowledge that the production of scientific ideas was thoroughly bound up with the psychologically idiosyncratic and the culturally variable, they nevertheless insisted that the context of justification - the transformation of idea into knowledge - was a matter of context-free reason and logic.

Context-free reason and logic. And here is the first issue with being a subject matter expert rather than a scholar. See how I did that? Above I argued that the particular was more important than the universal in communications technologies, but now I am going to argue that the universal is more important than the particular. Let me explain.

This is rather abstract but there's something in the argument by Stilpo of the Megarian School about the universal being separate from the individual and concrete and the Siva Sutra 1.16 about the Great Point and the One Reality which is our consciousness and universal. There's also something from James Allen (2007, p. 24) about our environment being our mirror, whereas Sutra 1.16 admits that environment can help or hinder the process of union with the divine (see Worthington 2016, pp. 27-28).

In my "varieties of particularism" explanation above, I used the techniques of scientific method in a quasi-experimental, most similar systems design comparison of Australia and Canada holding communications technology outcomes as the dependent variable with institutions as the independent variable. I also adopted a consistent method of process tracing to compare the two countries over time. I used context-free reason and logic to arrive at a conclusion. I did not have a preconceived conclusion, although I did have a hypothesis that I tested using the above approach.

Now consider the subject matter expert. All of my work is poppycock and if only the Coalition had kept the original NBN model introduced by Labor then all would be well.

Subject matter experts have their place and some subject matter experts have their place in the academy. But I am increasingly concerned that we are all being forced to become subject matter experts who can provide a simple answer to a complex problem for people who are not subject matter experts.

My point is that the bureaucratic pressures of the contemporary academy are influencing our thinking, and it is hard to resist. The three-minute thesis competition is the antithesis of scholarly behaviour. Three minutes? Please! In an era of complexity, such parsimony, or "Occam's Razor", if you will, is tantamount to the stupidity that we are seeing played out in daily global politics.

There are parts of me that want to excel and other parts that want to rebel against the system. But what am I bucking against? I keep thinking there is no temporal aspect, the past has been forgotten, the classics are but facsimiles of misinterpretations, and that scholars are pretending to be journalists. So what is it to be a scholar?

When I went searching for the "scholarly tradition", all I could find were references to Confucianism. Interestingly, the Scholarly Tradition is what Confucianism ought to be known as, but the European neologism has stuck!

I then turned to the Enlightenment Tradition, and I was surprised to find I have been fooled by the myth of the "hidden hand" (Anchor 1979, p. xii):

This myth assumed that there was a basic harmony of interests among men in the long run, and it was only necessary to release everyone to pursue freely his own self-interest in order to realize a harmonious social order, similar to that which reigned in nature... that unity resulted "naturally" from diversity...

As I tend to do, I favour Rousseau's approach (Anchor 1979, p. xvii): 

...if a man wanted a better life than he had, he could not depend upon some transhistorical agency to provide it for him; he would have to create it himself, in pain and suffering, and on behalf of a morality that honored the inner man as well as the outer.

Here I find myself getting closer to my issue with the bureaucracy. How do I honour my inner self? Is it even relevant if as a political scientist I ought to be using "context-free reason and logic" in my work?

I turn now to Emerson and the Transcendentalists:

They were critics of their contemporary society for its unthinking conformity, and urged that each person find, in Emerson’s words, “an original relation to the universe”... The transcendentalists operated from the start with the sense that the society around them was seriously deficient...

This is what I see. In architecture, the gig economy, in medium to high density living, in food production, in having to physically be at work to ensure one's mental health. I see unthinking conformity and unoriginality. 

I went on one of my most comprehensive journeys of self-discovery recently and found three things I value most: love, freedom, and learning (Dilectio Libertas et Doctrina). I think I can honour my inner self using these values as a guide.

But I can also use reason and logic to change, either myself or my perception. If success is being promoted in the current academy, then I will have to stop honouring my inner self. If I want to honour my inner self, then my perception of success must change. I have the freedom to choose!

If I were to be a subject matter expert in, for example, transport and telecommunication policy, then I would not need to travel on this journey of self-discovery. Instead, I choose to use reason and logic to dispel the myth of the "hidden hand" as a justification for the way I choose to work. I can also choose to work in accordance with my own sense of purpose.

Would a subject matter expert need to think through all that? Could a subject matter expert, using their knowledge of a particular subject, encourage transformative experiences in their students? Could they guide a student in honouring their inner self? Or would it be in accordance with their expert opinion?

I would rather be a scholar.

References

Allen, J. (2007/1920). As A Man Thinketh. Mineola, NY: Dover.

Anchor, R. (1979). The Enlightenment Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press.

De Percy, M.A. (2012). Connecting the Nation: An historical institutionalist explanation for divergent communications technology outcomes in Canada and Australia. Doctoral Thesis, The Australian National University, Canberra. DOI: 10.25911/5d514f57acdb6.

Shapin, S. (1998). Placing the View from Nowhere: Historical and Sociological Problems in the Location of Science. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 5-12.

Worthington, R. (2016). A Study of the Siva Sutras: Finding the Hidden Self. Allahabad: Himalayan Institute India.

Perception in Stoicism, Buddhism, and New Thought: Creating an inner life through imagination

Drinking tea and reading books and enjoying the life of the mind. Photo by Dr Michael de Percy.

Mastering Your Inner World Neville Goddard Explained: Manifesting with Ease by Rita Faith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There will be no more academic snobbishness from here on in. Reading this book, it hit me like a thunderbolt, bringing back a bunch of lessons from earlier readings and confirming so many life experiences. I've noticed the difference already with some simple techniques that make life so much better. Is it the book, the techniques, the confirmation of naturally acquired skills? I don't know. But here is my attempt to explain.

I am at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in early 1993. The ropes test. 6 metres up and down then up and down again in patrol order (rifle and webbing). Not my greatest strength and I am on "sluggers" or remedial physical training until I pass. I am talking with a colleague about it, that last "bite" on the rope that we struggle to make. We decide that we should just do it. Take that last bite. The body won't let us down. Wrong. And the blisters are worse than the thump on the ground from 6 metres up. No shame though, I gutted it out.

That  night, I dream about the ropes. While everyone else is eating dinner tomorrow night, I (along with the other sluggers), will get another crack at the tests we haven't passed. All night I toss and turn and I am up the rope and then down and then up again and then down and it all flows. The dream repeats, repeats, repeats, repeats... zzzzzz.

The next day I pass and I never fail the ropes test again. It was a purely mental issue from an earlier experience with the rope obstacle on an obstacle course and an arsehole I have since cursed and forgiven and now whatever. I was just a boy. A feeling of cowardice and not good enough and immorality in that sense of the bayonet as a moral weapon and I was immoral. So much conservative crap that did more for that arsehole's ego than my motivation. Life experiences have proven the opposite and I have learnt to be much kinder to myself.

Recent experiences with Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) have revealed a bunch of parts of me that I wasn't aware of. I have learnt to recognise the various parts of me, the good, the bad, the evil, the off with the daisies naive kid, the arsehole dirty fighter, the whole shebang. They are all part of me and they won't go away. But my imagination has been fired up to see the Council of Me, the various parts that run riot if the conscious me doesn't acknowledge them and keep them under control.

It all sounds hokey. I felt this recently when I decided that I needed to find my inner compass. I found the website Wanderlust and an exercise by Melissa Colleret to do just that. It felt hokey, but I came up with three of my core values that echo past exercises I have done. Love, Freedom, and Learning: Dilectio Libertas et Doctrina.

I realised that I have been manifesting my entire life. Be an army officer; be a theologian; be a politician (oh no, not for me! Well saved!); be a political scientist; live the life of the mind; live in the country but work in Canberra (my favourite city in Australia); live in a federation house (and other things too personal to mention). I remember after graduating from Duntroon how it struck me: Now what? It makes me think of a quote attributed to the actor, Lily Tomlin:

I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realise I should have been more specific.

I've been trying to practice Stoicism for the last four years, and along with every other endeavour of my idealism, I have trashed my ideals. My enthusiasm for Stoicism has not been able to overcome its shortcomings. Are we really to resign ourselves to our circumstances? Imagine if I'd done that when I was stuck in a job that was so bad, I contemplated the main problem concerning philosophy, a la Albert Camus.

Often, when teaching leadership classes, I get to re-live my shortcomings. For example, James Clawson's work separates the "what do I want to be" from the "how do I want to feel" (the Internal Life's Dream - LDint - versus the External Life's Dream - LDext - otherwise known as "Resonance").

I have found my calling and I am living in accordance with my inner compass (even when I felt I wasn't).  Nothing hokey about any of that.

But the Stoics don't feel too much. And, like Buddhists, they focus on managing their perceptions or impressions. And here is the common ground I have found with Goddard's ideas:

Imagination is God and God is imagination.

And finally I arrive at Rita Faith's book. It isn't hokey. Neville Goddard was an inspiration to Wayne Dyer. So you don't like Hay House? Well Dyer's PhD supervisor was Abraham Maslow. You know, the first theory you learnt at uni and the theory you tried to fit into all your first year essays because it was the only one that made sense? Yeah, him.

As I finished reading Faith's work on Goddard, I was half way through Jack Kerouac's Wake Up, a biography of the Buddha. I've been thinking a lot about Herman Hesse's Siddhartha. (I am still trying to work out whether Hesse was writing about Buddha or a parallel to Buddha. I suppose it doesn't matter.)

The Britannica entry on Herman Hesse's Siddhartha reads as follows:

Despairing of finding fulfillment, he goes to the river and learns to simply listen. He discovers within himself a spirit of love and learns to accept human separateness... As Siddhartha grows older, a fundamental truth gradually becomes apparent both to him and to us: there is no single path to self-growth, no one formula for how to live life. Hesse challenges our ideas of what it means to lead a spiritual life, to strive after and to achieve meaningful self-growth through blind adherence to a religion, philosophy, or indeed any system of belief.

There was my connection. The aptly named Rita Faith tells me that Goddard says I have to die to my former state of mind. I have to imagine not how I will achieve what I want to achieve, but how I will feel (there's that Clawson again) when I have achieved it.

The Law of Attraction and other New Thought self-help books go back to the 19th century. The latest iteration by Rhonda Byrne, The Secret, has some major issues. For starters, Wayne Dyer wanted nothing to do with it. Second, Neville Goddard didn't think it was a secret at all and (apparently) he taught for some forty years never charging for his lectures, only asking for a contribution to his travelling expenses.

And more recently, Mark Manson has called "bullshit" on The Secret. And then it takes an interesting turn:

Call me crazy, but I believe that changing and improving your life requires destroying a part of yourself and replacing it with a newer, better part of yourself. It is therefore, by definition, a painful process full of resistance and anxiety. You can’t grow muscle without challenging it with greater weight. You can’t build emotional resilience without forging through hardship and loss. And you can’t build a better mind without challenging your own beliefs and assumptions.

Call me crazy, but isn't that what Goddard said? Isn't that what Rita Faith says, too? You have to actually DIE to your former self, not think it positively away with other positive delusionals!

Here is the key takeaway from Faith's short book. We can manage our impressions (or perceptions). For the Stoics, events are facts neither good nor bad, only our reaction to our impressions of these events is good or bad. To the Buddhists, as far as my reading takes me, our impressions of the world are the cause of our suffering. What if there was another way? And what if it wasn't a secret?

The Stoics leave out the how of managing our impressions. I still use Stoic philosophy, but as Seneca would have said, if Epicurus tells me something good I should use it. Rita Faith is telling me something good and I'm using it.

For all the times I have dwelt upon negative thoughts, becoming jaded at being overworked or overworking myself out of some sort of fear or self-doubt, or been afraid to be happy about something in case I jinx it, I can finally call bullshit.

There is no single way, religion, or philosophy. Human separateness (from Hesse), and individualism as a reaction to my senses (from Kerouac), versus re-programming my senses, or dying to my former state of mind, has provided me with a way to use my imagination to control my inner world. The Stoics tell me to do this, but they don't tell me how.

It's not the kind of delusional positive thinking that I abhor. It's like the law of attraction but it is also more like the experiences I have had when all of my mind and energies were focused and brought to bear on some purpose. And it can be done with memories, too. The idea of revision is to go back and reimagine the past. Not the events per se but the feelings.

It struck me that during one of my EMDR sessions, I recall an event as a kid in Western Sydney. I am in a fight with another kid. The mother of the kid I am fighting and her friend are standing by, telling the other kid how best to hurt me. 

I had mostly forgotten about the experience, but I remember a moment of clarity that makes me laugh. The mother's friend had mini-fox terriers. I looked at them and thought "wow they are cool dogs!" I have two of my own mini-foxies now! And so the memory is revised. No longer crapping on about a crappy situation, but grateful for my mutts and the revised memory.

And every day I think about how I will feel when I accomplish the things I aim to accomplish. Not how I will accomplish them. And much like giving myself time to think really works, giving myself time to feel works remarkably well, too. I am delighted that this book fills some gaps in my knowledge. Or, in the words of my sister:

Learning is cyclic, not linear. There are never any gaps, just the right timing and prior knowledge to build upon.

And all this from a 46-page page quick-read at AUD$3.99 via Kindle!

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Lessons from the Dalai Lama: Practise the Logic

Potala Palace, Lhasa, Tibet. Photo: Antoine Taveneaux [CC BY-SA 3.0] via Wikimedia.

How To Practise: The Way to a Meaningful Life by Dalai Lama XIV

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It was with some trepidation that I thought I might adapt some of the Dalai Lama's ideas about "practice" to my own daily routine. I find the Dalai Lama to be more than charismatic; there is something about him that permeates the television. I was rather pleased when I read (p. 223):

Though my own knowledge is limited and my experience is also very poor, I have tried my best to help you understand the full breadth of the Buddha's teaching. Please implement whatever in these pages appears to be helpful. If you follow another religion, please adopt whatever might assist you. If you do not think it would be helpful, just leave it alone.

So, I have decided to adopt some things, and to leave others alone.

Things to keep:

I am impressed by the extent that Stoicism mirrors Buddhism in terms of logic and practice. I wonder to what extent Zeno of Cition (the founder of Stoicism) was influenced by Buddhist thought? Buddhism had reached the Seleucid Empire, and Zeno was apparently of Phoenician decent, so it is quite possible. 

According to Leesa Davis and Matthew Sharpe of Deakin University, it is not uncommon to see parallels between Stoicism and Buddhism, but there is not much in Western academic literature about it. I suspect this is because the boastfulness of "Western" thought would crumble once facts overcome pride. But I digress.

First, the "practice"of Buddhism is about changing ourselves (p. 9):

Individually we have to work to change the basic perspectives on which our feelings depend. We can only do so through training, by engaging in practice with the aim of gradually reorienting the way we perceive ourselves and others.

For the Stoics, this is based on the logic of what we can and cannot control (see Epictetus' Enchiridion), and then managing our impressions (or how we judge external events). Marcus Aurelius, often referred to as a "cosmopolitan", extended this to how we treat and respond to other people, reflected by the Dalai Lama, thus (p. 10):

The essential objective of daily practice is to cultivate an attitude of compassion and calm - a state of mind particularly crucial in human society today for its power to yield true harmony among nations, races, and people from diverse religious, political, and economic systems.

Second, the Dalai Lama confirms my approach to daily reflection, echoing Benjamin Franklin's Book of Virtues (p. 40):

Examine your motivation as often as you can. Even before getting out of bed in the morning, establish a nonviolent, nonabusive outlook for your day. At night examine what you did during the day.

The idea of examining my motivations is new to me, in that I rarely do this deliberately and certainly not every day.  Yet the idea of reinforcing the logic of the philosophy/religion is key. In my practice of Stoic philosophy over the past two years, I have found that if I do not constantly return to the logic, I act unconsciously, thus the maxim on my desk reads "avoid unconscious reaction, find the logic, create good habits".

The Dalai Lama says something similar, echoing Socrates (p. 38):

It is important to diminish undisciplined states of mind, but it is even more important to  meet adversity with a positive attitude.

I find here some divergence from Stoic practice. Arguably, this highlights some of the weaknesses of the Stoic idea of the "common good". The Dalai Lama is more utilitarian in his outlook (p. 39):

...ingesting [others'] negatives is not much of a problem for me, but it lessens their problems. I do this with such strong feeling that if later in the day in my office I hear of their atrocities, although one part of my mind is a little irritated and angry, the main part is still under the influence of the morning practice; the intensity of the hatred is reduced to where it is groundless.

Moreover, he sees hope as important, whereas the Stoics would see hope and fear as want and worry; things to be abandoned as beyond our control and therefore not worth pursuing. But for the Dalai Lama (p. 39):

Under no circumstances should you lose hope. Hopelessness is a real cause of failure. Be calm, even when the external environment is confused or complicated; it will have little effect if your mind is at peace.

Both Buddhism and Stoicism agree that anger is useless. This quote from the Dalai Lama could equally apply to the Stoics (p. 41):

Analyze your life closely. If you do, you will eventually find it difficult to misuse your life by becoming an automaton or by seeking money as the path to happiness.

Third, the idea of choosing how we react to external events lends some credence to the idea that, with practice, we can control how we react to our emotions, and not encourage emotions that are not useful (or at least prevent useless emotions based on our misjudged perceptions) (p. 42):

Regularly evaluate the possible negative and positive effects of feelings such as lust, anger, jealousy, and hatred. When it becomes obvious that their effects are very harmful, continue your analysis. Gradually your conviction will strengthen. Repeated reflection on the disadvantages of anger, for example, will cause you to realize that anger is senseless. This decision will cause your anger to diminish gradually.

Here is confirmation of the idea of finding the logic, and for me, it necessitates what religious and philosophical practice has preached for centuries. 

The key point is that once we have found the logic, when we can believe that the logic is true, there is no switch that enables a rational re-alignment of our behaviours from then on. The belief in the logic has to be reinforced, over and over again, through daily practice, so that we achieve what Paul Colaianni in The Overwhelmed Brain says is "congruence" (p. 29):

...aligning your intentions with your behavior (congruence).

This is no easy task and it requires reflection (morning and night at a minimum), judgement (of ourselves, not others),  and practice (the doing). But unless we can recall the logic (memorise it) and believe in the logic (in effect, remembering the logic and remembering to believe in it), then congruence readily remains aloof.

Things to consider:

The idea of "the middle way" was interesting, and echoes to some extent Aristotle's idea of the "golden mean" of virtue. But that is a rather flaky comparison. For example, the Dalai Lama writes of three categories of non-virtues (physical, verbal, and mental), and that virtues are the opposite of non-virtues. The non-virtues are:

• Physical: Killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct.
• Verbal: Lying, divisive talk, harsh speech, and senseless chatter.
• Mental: Covetousness, harmful intent, and wrong views.

But the idea of the "middle way" is more about a sense of logic. This is difficult to achieve and explain, but it is basically a process of being (p. 169): 

...pulled from one side to the other... [between] how phenomena arise in dependence on causes and conditions... [and how] persons and things appear to be so solidly existent, to exist in their own right, to exist inherently... the true middle way takes time to find.

Things to leave alone:

Of course, I have my own religious beliefs, so the religious practices of Sutra and Tantra are not for me. Not that it wasn't useful learning about Buddhist religious practice, and the Dalai Lama did this with such humour, at one point I burst out laughing (p. 124):

A yogi's meditation transforms [sex, delicious meat and drink, even human excrement and urine] into real ambrosia. For people like us, however, this is beyond our reach. As long as you cannot transform piss and shit, these other things should not be done!

Generally, the Dalai Lama suggests that a Buddha has no use for alcohol, drugs, or sexual intercourse (p. 195). There are many parallels between various religions, and the Dalai Lama does not shy away from speaking at or to other religions.

Reflections:

One thing I found interesting counters a critique by a Salvation Army preacher I once heard. He said that the Buddhist idea of meditating on nothing was dangerous, as the emptiness enabled the devil to enter. But the Dalai Lama says that a Christian could focus on Jesus. The idea of nothingness and emptiness are not the same, and that preacher knew enough to be dangerous.

The Dalai Lama speaks of ignorance thus (p. 44):

...ignorance is not just lack of knowledge but a consciousness that imagines the exact opposite of the truth; it misapprehends what is actually so. There are many levels of misperception, as in failing to understand what to adopt in practice and what to discard in daily behavior.

The biggest lesson for me is the importance of daily practice, especially as a way to cement a belief.  Religions and religious practice make sense in this regard. I don't mean that one should adopt a belief and force it upon oneself (or, indeed, others!). Rather, if there is a logic that one agrees with, then one must believe that logic.

The point is that unless we can turn to our logic in assessing events which we cannot control (in the Stoic sense), then how can we expect to behave rationally? If I have learnt anything from this journey into Buddhist theology and practice, logic and rational thinking rely on belief. But this is an examined belief, not one given to us, and it must be practised.

What I like most about the Dalai Lama is that he invited me to do so with this book and I am all the richer for it. And wouldn't it be wonderful if Stoicism has a direct link to Buddhism? The East-West divide perpetuated by ignoramuses would come crashing down in an instant!

The Republic: Religion rules, recipes for today's kitchens, and ¿Qué?

The Allegory of the Cave, Book VII. By Corpalma, 2011 [CC BY-SA 3.0] via Wikimedia.

The Republic by Plato

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Three things struck me about The Republic. The first is the incorporation of theology into philosophy. For all the goings on about religion in recent times and the apparent "victory" of science, Plato's philosophy begins and ends with Heraclitus' God. Almost none of the philosophy makes sense without the soul or a higher purpose for humans, and an intelligent deity that has ordered it all to be so.

Second, The Republic is a handbook for politics. Hardly an idea has escaped tyrants or politicians. Parts of the work are basically a program for political action. Of course, the examples provided from ancient times are not necessarily the equivalent of the polis today, but there is certainly an element of prediction that cannot be ignored. 

And third, the art of translation has a significant influence on the readability of classic texts, and this translation by Desmond Lee is fascinating. Lee includes extensive notes throughout the text. Many of the notes relate to the various translations by others, and Lee often admits when he is not sure of his translation. 

After reading Benjamin Jowett's translation of Meno, I was disappointed with how annoying Socrates appeared in the dialogue. Nonetheless, the dialogue in The Republic is so contrived as to make me wonder why bother having the interjections from the audience (who always agree with Socrates even when the logic is obscure?). 

Of course, dialogue is a literary and political device, but the differences between the various translations are significant, as they are with Homer's epic poetry. My marginalia is too extensive to write up in this space, but I have kept notes on pedagogy, the reliance on God to make sense of the philosophy, numerous other readings to complete, and Plato's various ideas that make this work timeless. 

One quote relating to teaching struck a chord (p. 300):

The teacher fears and panders to his pupils, who in turn despise their teachers and attendants.

As did the many references to democracy leading to tyranny brought about by a popular champion. Once again, I find that a complete reading reveals so much of my education that did not make a direct link to the original source. 

The allegory of the cave appears in almost any undergraduate degree in politics, but in such a cut-down version as to make the entire idea in relation to the allegory of the Sun and the Line and the division of knowledge into its levels of "truth" disappear. It makes we wonder how much has been lost by perpetually drawing on secondary sources in education. 

Again, translation fascinates me and I regret not having learnt more than one language when I was young, so I can only trust that Lee's translation does the original work justice (no pun intended). If I had known the impact a complete reading of this work would have on me, I would have attempted it much earlier. 

Having said that, without having read Homer, Hesiod, Heraclitus, and the Stoics, I think much of The Republic would have gone straight over my head. I have since commenced reading The Laws while I am in sync with Platos' dialectical dramatisation.

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Plato finds God, modern philosophers ignore Him, ego ruins Socratic method

Discourse into the Night, from William Blades' "Pentateuch of Printing with a Chapter on Judges” (1891). [Public Domain] via Wikimedia.

Meno by Plato

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This short dialogue on the issue of virtue (arete) and whether it can be taught is apparently one of Plato's works from his second literary period, written after Book 1 but before the remaining books of The Republic. The introduction to this version is by the translator, Benjamin Jowett.

There are few references to other works in the modern academic tradition, but Jowett makes particular mention of Meno in relation to the works of Descartes, Locke, Bacon, Hume, Spinoza, and Berkeley. I found this interesting as I have been exploring deductive versus inductive methods of research in recent times. Plato tends to be deductive, in moving from general ideas and principles to specifics, whereas the inductive method draws on specific cases to lead to general principles. Karl Popper was not a fan of induction, it seems.

That Plato draws on Pythagoras and Heraclitus is obvious, but Jowett points out that there is no explicitly stated link. Most interesting was Plato's finding (through the words of Socrates, p. 75):

Then, Meno, the conclusion is that virtue comes to the virtuous by the gift of God.

That this is an early work makes sense. I frequently adopt the Socratic method in my teaching (as does much of academe even if implicitly) and a few times I have received feedback that sums it up thus:

The Socratic method sucks. I hate it.

By the end of this work, I couldn't help think that Socrates was being egotistical. Sure, he tried to shock people to realise their ignorance, but in this case, and as important as the idea is to so many philosophers, but in particular, Heraclitus, I thought the finding was quite a cop-out. All that posturing to say what Heraclitus had said more eloquently?

The big lesson for me is that the Socratic method, when practised by the un- or under-practised, could easily come off as it does in Meno. I am half-way through a cover-to-cover reading of The Republic at the moment, which seems better polished and far less obtuse. It may well be that Desmond Lee's translation is better than Jowett's. But clearly, if I am to be better at using the Socratic method, I must take into account how an amateurish use of the method may come off as egotistical with my students. I can recall the instances where this may well have been the case.

But the idea of deduction versus induction and Jowett's comments on Plato in relation to other philosophers ranging from Descartes to Spinoza are worthy of further exploration.

Additionally, Jowett states that modern philosophy no longer asks the sort of questions asked by Plato (p. 29). I think this explains why Nietzsche's madman shouts in the market place (The Gay Science, section 125, p. 90):

God is dead! ... And we have killed him!

Here Plato has Socrates tell us that virtue is a gift of God, which I can see means that to be virtuous requires one to find God. Rather than the shopkeepers telling Nietzsche's madman that they didn't know we had lost Him, and in spite of Plato's unrefined use of the dialogue (compared to his more advanced, later use), it would seem that modern philosophers are the crowd looking on and laughing at Nietzsche's madman (or, if you prefer, Huxley's self-flagellating Savage), while all the time they have forgotten their very origins. 

But best not to be egotistical and amateurish.

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Hesiod's Misogyny (err... Theogony) and his Unhelpful Contribution to Internet Bulletin Boards (Works and Days)

Dance of the Muses on Mount Helicon, 1807 by Bertel Thorvaldsen  (1770–1844) [CC0 1.0]

Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days are interesting in the context of other classic works and provide an interesting understanding of the genealogy of the ancient Greek gods and the agrarian life of the time. This is a work of poetry translated into prose and there are some issues.

The first thing that struck me was the misogyny of Theogony. Women (pp. 20-21) were sent down by Zeus as a curse to men:

No fit partners for accursed Poverty, but only for Plenty... a bane for mortal men has high-thundering Zeus created women, conspirators in causing difficulty.

The misogyny doesn't stop there. In Works and Days, the mythological Pandora (echoing Eve in Genesis), releases evil upon the world (p. 39). Not by opening a "box" as Erasmus mistakenly conveyed, but by opening a clay storage jar (p. xiv).

La Rochefoucauld's maxims often talk about love as an illness that is difficult to cure, no doubt echoing Hesiod (p. 21):

...the man who gets a good wife who is sound and sensible, spends his life with bad competing constantly against good; while the man who gets the awful kind lives with unrelenting pain in heart and spirit, and it is an ill without cure.

In Works and Days, Hesiod provides advice to living the agrarian life. Virgil seems to echo Hesiod in his Eclogues and Georgics. But Virgil is reflecting back on the simple life, whereas Hesiod reminds me of people offering advice on an internet bulletin board (p. 56):

I will show you the measure of the resounding sea - quite without instruction as I am either in seafaring or in ships; for as to ships, I have never yet sailed the broad sea...

Of course, in true bulletin board style, Hesiod goes on to instruct others in how and when to sail.

This is an important historical work and well worth reading. But while there are instances of timeless proverbs (which have tended to reappear through history), I don't think I will be taking on too much of Hesiod's advice any time soon.

The Wit and Wisdom of Desmond Tutu

Desmond Tutu. Photo by Elke Wetzig (Elya) [CC-BY-SA-3.0] via Wikimedia.

Believe: The words and inspiration of Desmond Tutu by Desmond Tutu

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This short book includes an introduction by Desmond Tutu and a short biographical essay by Mike Nicol. The quotes are interesting and inspiring. It is a little like the Dover Wit and Wisdom series of books, although somewhat shorter. The most interesting quote concerns Ubuntu, "a central tenet of African philosophy:

A person is a person through other persons.

Many great thinkers influence these quotes, including Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Jeremy Bentham,. John Stuart Mill, and George Santayana. But my favourite quote (which echoes Mill) is:

Differences are not intended to separate or alienate. We are different precisely in order to realise our need of one another.

Although this is a very short book, I am glad I picked it up at my local second-hand bookstore and it has taught me a little about Desmond Tutu and courage and compassion in the face of terrible oppression.

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On the trail of the Christian use of the Delphic maxim "Know Thyself"

Saint Teresa of Avila's Vision by Peter Paul Rubens, 1612-1614 [Public Domain via Wikimedia].

The Interior Castle by Teresa of Ávila

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It took me some time to get through this masterpiece by Saint Teresa of Avila. Written in 1577 during the Spanish Inquisition, I found it difficult to get through the self-effacing humility of the good saint and had to take several breaks. 

One of the blessings/curses of the Dover Thrift Editions is that the books are deceptively small, and while this book is only 168 pages, the pages are dense in words. It is a blessing that the books look short, and a curse because they aren't. Yet they are very affordable and the deception encourages me to read books I would otherwise put off for later. Like Karl Marx's Capital, sitting near me (and almost as long as Tolstoy's War and Peace at some 1,361 pages.). 

I found a few things about Interior Castle confusing. St Teresa writes there are seven mansions that the soul passes through (one chooses to enter the crystal castle from the wilderness). As one enters the first mansion, some of the critters get in with you. You can see both the light of the innermost mansion, yet you can still see the dark. 

St Teresa tells of the experiences of the soul progressing to the seventh mansion where the soul is at one with God. Although the development of the soul as it progressed was obvious, I am still in the dark as far as knowing which mansion one might be in at any given time, if at all. 

St Teresa writes for other nuns, and while I understand that this is a modern translation, it is interesting how she frequently asks the reader to excuse her stupidity in being unable to explain things. 

Clearly, the book was not written in one sitting, and often St Teresa admits that she cannot recall what or if she mentioned something in a previous chapter, and that she would not re-read what she had written. This is clearly not a first draft, however, and this edition includes footnotes that indicate what was a marginal comment, with alternative wordings, additions, or omissions from one of the two "learned men" St Teresa had correct her drafts. Such caution was prudent during the Spanish Inquisition, indeed. 

For many pages I made no notes, and then numerous notes in a handful of pages. St Teresa covers the importance of self-knowledge, of learning, of humility, and raises an interesting question of the soul versus the spirit. While she does not give a definitive comparison, she suggests that the soul and the spirit are closely intertwined, but are not necessarily the same thing. I have often wondered about this difference. 

One could argue that the ideas of Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, James Allen, and Stephen Covey came from this work. St Teresa confirms the theme of Candide, Franklin's virtues, James Allen's "he who conquers self conquers the universe", and Stephen Covey's "Circle of Influence" as principles for living the interior life. 

I read this book because of the title, hoping to find something more about the "inner citadel" the Stoics spoke of, and others who have used "interior castle" to mean something similar. St Teresa puts a different bent on the Stoic idea, but one can see the influence of the Stoics on Christian thought. 

There are two main lessons St Teresa has confirmed for me. First:

...try to be least of all... and your foundation will be so firmly laid that your Castle will not fall.

And second:

...unless you strive after the virtues and practice them, you will never grow to be more than dwarfs.

Further, St Teresa provides a quote which goes a long way to explain what I refer to in my leadership teaching as the "duty cycle" that prevents people from realising their goals:

...the devil sometimes puts ambitious desires into our hearts, so that, instead of setting our hand to the work which lies nearest us, and thus serving Our Lord in ways within our power, we may rest content with having desired the impossible.

Finally, a friend once asked about the Delphic maxim "Know Thyself" and that, despite having been told by others that the phrase appeared in the Holy Bible, it doesn't (and it really doesn't), this is the earliest Christian reference to the Delphic maxim I have encountered to date. Whether this was a result of the work of the Toledo School of Translators is something I hope to investigate further.

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The Extroverted Introvert Escapes into a Prison (and other stupid things)

Window from church into anchorite's cell, All Saints, Staplehurst. [CC0] via Wikimedia.

The Magician of Lublin by Isaac Bashevis Singer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a delightfully sad book that deals with promiscuity, money, loneliness, extroverted insensitivity, and theology - quite the combination. Published in 1960 but set in late 1800s Poland, and translated from Yiddish, it reads like a risqué nineteenth century novel. 

Milton Hindus' 1960 review in the New Yorker does a much better job at capturing the essence of the novel, and I like the idea that the hero, the magician and escape artist Yasha Mazur, "escapes into a prison" of his own making. 

But I was constantly reminded of Epictetus' idea that nothing is either good or bad, except our own choices. Who hasn't lived to regret the choices of the past, when all seemed so banal until the banal things we didn't know we cherished were compromised by our own stupidity?

Yasha exemplifies the chaotic choices of the extroverted introvert, and gives us a glimpse into the damage that one can cause in the pursuit of pointless selfishness. It is all well and good to read such things when one has finally calmed the hell down. 

If only one could travel back to their selfish younger selves and hand them a bag full of books to read. But life isn't like that, and no doubt my selfish younger self would have spat in my face. 

Yasha does that to almost everyone, and like all selfish people, punishes himself so badly that he punishes the few remaining people who still love him, gaining fame through his sagacity earned at the expense of others. At the end of the novel, I was hoping that Yasha would see the light, but no. Selfish prig. 

Without giving too much away, I read up on "anchorites" last year and the concept makes my skin crawl. But in a way, Yasha gets his just deserts. 

We can learn from Singer that our choices, rather than our circumstances, are right or wrong. We can learn from Yasha what our life could be like if we pursue selfishness to its logical conclusion.

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Nietzsche and the Death of Socrates

Dionysus. Photo by Wouter Engler [CC BY-SA 4.0] from Wikimedia Commons

The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It is not without significant trepidation that I approach this otherwise short work. The cover blurb tells me this is a "challenging work". Never truer words written. I was comfortable with the basic premise of Nietzsche's later work (written after 1888) - I understand this book represents the starting point for much of Nietzsche's later Apollonian (order) versus Dionysian (chaos) modes, but I was still not convinced about his critical position towards Socrates. How little I knew. 

There is too much in this work to make coherent comment, but suffice to say if one were to start reading Nietzsche, start with this one. Although it might not make so much sense unless one jumps in later when his ideas are more fully developed. Maybe. The thought that wouldn't leave me alone while reading this was Edward de Bono's idea about the Greek Gang of Three (Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle). This really challenged my thinking. At the same time, I can't help but think of the Socrates who was also a soldier and was learning to play music just before he drank the hemlock, whereas Plato as far as I know didn't do anything else and was keen to ban certain types of music. 

So lumping them altogether al la Edward de Bono might be clever but I am not convinced. I am also not convinced that de Bono (and yes, I am a fan of de Bono) was all that original. This is one of the great wonders of reading the original texts. I did identify with the varieties of self-consciousness versus meta-cognition issues that consistently arise in the work. But I was unprepared for the onslaught of the Fans of Shakespeare that dominate my thoughts recently. To have Carlyle, Bloom, Nietzsche, and then before I have even written this, Oscar Wilde, tell me how important Shakespeare is, and I realise once more how far behind I am in my reading.

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Nietzsche in: "I Smell a Decadent"

The School of Athens [featuring Zoroaster] by Raphael, 1590. Public domain via Wikimedia.

Ecce Homo by Friedrich Nietzsche

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Nietzsche's autobiography is bewildering. The title, Ecce Homo, means "Behold the Man" in Latin, and is ascribed to Pontius Pilate when he presented Jesus to the mob. The title is clever in that Nietzsche, in concluding, is "Dionysus versus Christ" (p. 143). But this seems to me to be misleading when the subtitle (which is absent from this Dover version), reads "How One Becomes What One Is". Without the subtitle, one might justify an off-handed rejection of Ecce Homo as little more than vanity given too much regard by posterity. Indeed, I wonder had Nietzsche written this today, would he have ever been known? At times I felt that Nietzsche was of a privileged class and was able to publish at will, but this is not entirely the case. Nietzsche's father, a Lutheran pastor, had worked for the state and, following his premature death, this qualified Nietzsche for a scholarship. Hardly peak bourgeoisie, yet Nietzsche was a polymath; surely symptomatic of genius. If the subtitle is considered during the reading, then "how Nietzsche became Nietzsche" is less troubling to the modern mind. At the same time, Nietzsche goes out of his way to tell us that the effeminate, decaying, degenerative way perpetuated by Christianity is a denial of nature, of the body, of the present - so why would he be all meek and modest? Hence my bewilderment. Believe "neither in 'ill-luck' nor 'guilt'" - this is the opposite of a decadent (it is Nietzsche) (p. 13). "Unselfishness" and "neighbourly love" are conditions of the decadent, these are signs of weakness; pity is not a virtue (p. 18). Nietzsche tells us how he has never felt bad about himself, no guilt, no self-flagellation. The basic argument is that Christianity has poisoned us against ourselves - not faith, not God per se, but the religion of Christianity. Undoing this decadence is therefore essential. But atheists find no solace, either: Socrates is no role model. Nietzsche hints at Heraclitus as one of the few who understood (at least through the Stoics) (p. 73). This is interesting in that Heraclitus had a particular view of God and the gods that one steeped in the atheistic view of Nietzsche will struggle to comprehend. The most important words from Ecce Homo outline Nietzsche's philosophy for living: amor fati (p. 54):

My formula for greatness in man is amor fati: the fact that a man wishes nothing to be different, either in front of him or behind him, or for all eternity. Not only must the necessary be borne, and on no account concealed,- all idealism is falsehood in the face of necessity,- but it must also be loved...

Nietzsche writes disapprovingly of equal rights, particularly for women (p. 65), yet, at the same time, in addition to his view of the "opiate of the masses", betrays a Marxian loathing for the decadence of the "false economy" of "the division of labour" (p. 76). He goes on to address the problem of our current times: the "large number of young men... all in... [a] state of distress" because of the false "calling" to vocations that are unnatural and lead to a "feeling of emptiness and hunger" (p. 87). With so much going on, it is unlikely that a reading of Nietzsche's work in its entirety is enough to comprehend his insights from the rabbit hole of the human soul. But if I have taken away just one thing from Ecce Homo, it is a deeper understanding of the concept of amor fati. Its opposite can be seen in those who reject the body (interesting that Nietzsche says he can "smell" the decadents), where the golden arrow of consumption masks much of the truth (that many could not face if it were revealed, but can happily consume while it is well-masked), and I take it that Nietzsche meant both the corporeal and spiritual aspects of the analogy. But I will let Nietzsche have the last word:

...that which is necessary does not offend me. Amor fati is the core of my nature.

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Schopenhauer on Religion: Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet

Krishna teaching Arjuna, from Bhagavata Gita.
House decoration in Bishnupur, West Bengal, India. By Arnab Dutta (2011) CC BY-SA 3.0

The Horrors and Absurdities of Religion by Arthur Schopenhauer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have second-hand knowledge of Schopenhauer's "the will to live is consecrated in the act of procreation" thesis, and while it makes a brief appearance, much of this collection is focused on religion. The "On Various Subjects" section reads a little like La Rochefoucauld's Maxims, and makes some interesting assertions about genius (it is OK to make mistakes, just your masterpiece ought to be inimitable); on the farcical nature of higher education (perception must precede concept, not the other way around); an early statement concerning animal rights (p. 77); and that great works have to wait until enough idiots agree that it is great - such insight is possessed by the majority in the same way that a "castrate possesses of the power to beget children". Now to religion. Some of my favourites:

All religion is antagonistic towards culture; 

The absurdities of dogma... arise from the need to link together two heterogeneous doctrines as those of the Old and the New Testaments; 

Hatred and contempt are decidedly antagonistic to one another and mutually exclusive (p. 52);

The more prudent rulers enter into an alliance with [priests]; and

Faith and knowledge are totally different.

The latter explains the dialogue On Religion, which, although I understand Schopenhauer was atheistic, appeared on the surface to be bombastic, but might otherwise resonate with court judges who have been confronted with decisions concerning the existence of God, and have deferred on the grounds that, in effect, "faith and knowledge" are different. Nevertheless, there is in this work the attitude (of The Enlightenment) that rational individuals cannot possibly believe in God. I have heard this sentiment expressed by senior academics, in addition to the buffoons who drool over the Facebook echo-chamber "I F***ing Love Science" which confirms empirically that God does not exist because it has 25 million "likes" (see quote above about "castrates"). That said, there is little to surprise the modern reader, but Schopenhauer was one of the few Western students of India, Hinduism, and Buddhism, and his insights demonstrate that the glory days Conservatives dream about did not really exist in the nineteenth century, the counterfactuals were simply hidden from majority view. But to disclose the real gem in this work, I found another piece to the riddle of Benjamin Franklin. One of his "virtues" is "moderation". This is not a riddle in itself, but when "temperance" is also one of the virtues, what is so special about moderation that it should stand alone? Schopenhauer explains in the essay On Ethics by setting out some of the differences between Eastern and Western virtues and vices. For Schopenhauer, "virtues are qualities of will", which means that cowardice cannot be a vice if we have the "will to live"! The Platonic virtues closely align with Franklin's,one of which Cicero translated as temperantia, which is"in English moderation". Schopenhauer states:

[Moderation] is a very vague and ambiguous expression under which many different things can be subsumed, such as prudence, sobriety, keeping one's head.

Prudence. Cautious. To Franklin, "avoiding extremes". "Sobriety", therefore, belongs with "temperance". But "prudence" and "keeping one's head", then, belong to moderation. Whether "keeping one's head" is the same thing as to "forbear resenting injuries so much as one is able" remains to be seen, but I daresay Schopenhauer and Franklin were conversant in the literature on virtues, and eventually I will solve the riddle. But what of Schopenhauer? Religion is something we believe because we are indoctrinated as children, but as humanity "grows up", religion must inevitably die because it doesn't make sense (irrational). Yet the final paragraph tells the story of adolescents throwing out the baby with the bathwater - Aesop's fables are too childish because everybody knows foxes, wolves, and ravens can't talk! Thus, Schopenhauer ends with a real noodle-baker (about the boy who was too grown up to read Aesop):

Who cannot see in this hopeful lad the future enlightened Rationalist?

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