Forgetting to Remember Old Lessons Hard-Won, or: Read Emerson Now

Ralph Waldo Emerson's Study, circa 1888.
Photo: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Nature and Other Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Finding the time to focus on this book has eluded me until recently. I find Emerson difficult to read at times as most of his essays read like transcripts of speeches (indeed, some of them are). He exudes "positive thinking" in the Norman Peale sense of the phrase, but with a transcendental bent that keeps on giving its spiritual encouragement. In each of Emerson's essays there is a gem of absolute truth, just waiting for us to confirm in our own experience (as he would probably say). But these gems tend to be packed away in wads and wads of cotton wool. It is not until the final essay (or, more correctly, speech), "The American Scholar", where the reader reaches the summit and can look back on a trail of wisdom marked by that same cotton wool. Emerson's ideas of self-reliance and the worthiness of the American ideal (in opposition to Continental ideas in particular) I suspect provide lessons for Australians that are just waiting to be learnt. America's cultural cringe has long disappeared from living memory and it may well be time for Australia to reach the same heady level. There is too much in such a short book to cover in detail, and each essay's gem must be mined laboriously (and as Emerson might say, there is nothing wrong with scholars doing a bit of physical labour). But two authors mentioned by Emerson stick in my mind. First, Thomas Carlyle (his work, too, I am stuck on due to a lack of focus and will get back to it now), mentioned in the cover blurb as someone Emerson met during his travels to Europe, and Swedenborg, and his ground-breaking "Heaven and Hell". Emerson comes close to enunciating how one might find one's "nature" (in the Stoic sense of the word) as a starting point for action. For this alone it is worth knowing. But also, his statement about the role of colleges (p. 154) has given me a way to re-align my teaching strategy. The travails of the present really were no different to the past; we seem rather to have forgotten to remember old lessons hard-won.

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SkyMuster or ADSL: Whither Gunning's connected future?

When will we know?  Times ticking away...
Picture Credit: Pixabay-geralt CC0

Good news! Today I received an email from the the Member for Hume's office, which read the following: "There is no ADSL switch off for FW [fixed wireless] or Satellite services". Updated 19th October 2017.

There has been much talk about the future of ADSL in Gunning, but little is known about the future state once SkyMuster is introduced. Will the ADSL services be cut off? We don't know. When might this happen? We don't know.

I am a firm believer that our rights as citizens are meaningless unless we "actualise" them, so I decided to write to my local representatives and ask them.

My letter to the Mayor and Councillors of the Upper Lachlan Shire Council asking for clarification of this matter is below:

Dear Mayor and Councillors,

I am writing to ask Council to provide some clarification about the future of internet services in Gunning. While I am aware that this is a federal issue, poor internet services do have an impact on economic development in villages like Gunning. There is also a precedent for councils to negotiate better internet connection services with NBN Co.

In the above article, Bellingen Shire Council in NSW was able to obtain a modification to NBN Co's technology used to deliver internet services in their shire.

There is much confusion about the services that NBN Co will be providing to the village of Gunning. At present, many residents enjoy a high standard of internet services, with Telstra, for example, offering ADSL connection speeds of approximately 17mbps and data download limits of up to 1,000GB for around $120 per month. This far exceeds what most users require, and as a heavy internet user for my work purposes, the service as it is now is more than adequate.

However, it is my understanding that when SkyMuster's satellite services become available in Gunning, the ADSL services will be switched off, and residents will be forced on to SkyMuster's inferior satellite service. This will mean a less-reliable service, with speeds of around 7mbps and monthly download limits of around 120GB at about $160 per month. But these figures are misleading in that 60GB of the download allowance is only available between 1am and 7am. This would mean that many residents in the Shire will not have adequate internet services, especially for those who rely on a reliable internet connection for their employment.

There is an issue here in that Gunning residents (and other residents in the Shire), will have contributed to the cost of the NBN through federal taxes, but may end up with an inferior and costlier internet service than that which is already operational.

I am asking Council to provide some clarification on the future of ADSL services in Gunning, and, if it is the case that SkyMuster services are to replace ADSL in Gunning and other villages in the Shire, that Council lobby NBN Co to ensure that the rollout of the NBN, and SkyMuster in particular, does not disadvantage Shire residents in relation to currently available services. This situation presents Council with a problem for employment and the local economy, issues which are clearly within local council's responsibilities for economic development.

Nevertheless, if ADSL services are not to be switched off, I ask that Council confirm this with NBN Co, and advise residents accordingly, to alleviate the current uncertainty over the future of internet services in the Shire.

Yours faithfully,

Dr Michael de Percy.

Hopefully I will have something to report back soon!

I ought? I owe it to Whom?

The Great Day of His Wrath by John Martin, circa 1851. Public Domain via Wikimedia.

The Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The word ought has its origins in the word owe. Whether or not this relationship survives translation I don't know, but why let semantics get in the way of a good idea. Reading Beyond Good and Evil before attempting this follow-up work would be the more logical option. But I doubt one can simply dip one's toe in to Nietzsche anyway - it is a case of diving in head first and trying to make sense of the turmoil. Nietzsche's racism reflects the tone of the times, and there is plenty of conflicting views to support the argument that his sister re-construed his work to fit comfortably with the Nazis. But in the end I felt Nietzsche's racism was as relevant to Nazism as Jack London's. It is interesting that he seems to support women's rights (remembering that J.S. Mill's On the Subjection of Women was published 18 years before), planes the edges off his Orientalism with Buddhism and Brahmanism, and doesn't appear so overjoyed at the "death of God" as Atheist's gleefully point out. Indeed, Nietzsche makes a point of saying that science is a more advanced form of the "ascetic ideal". The back cover of the work sums up Nietzsche's thesis as "culture and morality, rather than being eternal verities, are human-made". This is an oversimplification that reduces the depth of his work. Far be it for me to be an apologist for Nietzsche - the "intellectual" gatekeepers would never let such work be published today - but the brilliance is in its originality. To comprehend the thesis adequately, prior reading of Buddhism, Luther, Brahmanism, Kant, Spinoza, Goethe, Feuerbach, and Schopenhauer would be helpful but is not essential. However, a knowledge of the classics (at least Plato) is important. Nietzsche final words are that "man will wish Nothingness rather than not wish at all". I immediately thought of the maxim "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail". Probably the most useful idea from this work is that one needs to go back to first principles in establishing a philosophy - does or can truth exist? - (and even if we don't care to consciously develop a philosophy, the shepherds of the "herd mentality" will provide one for us without our knowledge or consent), and Nietzsche does so by regularly referring back to "Heracleitus" and Hesiod. I have already picked up the scent of the pre-Socratics and their importance in understanding the human-created chasm between philosophy and religion (and more recently, but less convincingly, between science and religion), and Nietzsche confirms this clue. Rather than the über-power of pre-Enlightenment Christian church and its priesthood driving the herd, Nietzsche foresaw ("forsooth"?) the pluralism of modern asceticism (which annoys me on Facebook, Twitter, and the news media any time I look). Admittedly, he was optimistic about this future, but then he didn't know what "the Internet" would say about him (how I loathe that saying!). So why don't I see the ascetic for what it is and just get off Facebook once again? Well. it's the guilt, you see. But you can't blame me - I didn't create it (Facebook or the guilt).

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