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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I am convinced that Leo Sayer was channelling Nietzsche in 1974!

Leo Sayer in 1974. I say he was channelling Nietzsche! [Image via YouTube]

The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This work is where most of Nietzsche's ideas begin. The poetry was unexpected, even though poetry is "the gay science". I routinely reflect on La Rochefoucauld's Maxims, and The Gay Science follows a similar structure. Based on my own reading, I also see elements of Voltaire's style. La Rochefoucauld's influence on Nietzsche has been acknowledged by numerous scholars, such as Brendan Donnellan, but also to Voltaire. 

Writing in the New Republic, Jacob Soll includes Nietzsche as an extension of Voltaire in terms of the critique of religion, which interestingly extends into a critique of socialism. (In the Marxian tradition, religion is the "opiate of the masses".) Borrowing from Mortimer Adler, my approach to reading Nietzsche is to read it myself, and later to look toward critiques of his work, so I am pleased that my connections between La Rochefoucauld and Voltaire do not stray from the mark. Nevertheless, my comparison was based purely on Voltaire's Dictionnaire philosophique and La Rochefoucauld's Maxims, rather than an in-depth study of either. 

In many ways, Nietzsche sets out the work as a dictionary of his ideas, not so much in the style of aphorisms, but certainly as a form of developing his own ideas in the style of a list of definitions, ideas, critiques, and polemics. Having said that, Nietzsche points out so many things that remain relevant today, including working for the sake of work, the "non-voluntariness in forming opinions" in academia, and even Rousseau's idea (apparently Nietzsche disliked Rousseau's work) of experience being "dearly bought and hardly worth the cost", nationalism, and the idea that science is not rational but merely a form of metaphysics where we attempt to measure things that are for the most part immeasurable, just to name a few. I also noticed echoes of Nietzsche in the work of Anton Chekhov and Albert Camus. 

But to return to Jacob Soll, who suggests that, in the US, the Enlightenment has been more or less abandoned, provides an interesting counter-point to what routinely appears in political debates in Australia. For example, the Enlightenment is often reified as the benchmark for all things good, yet, much like the US, there seems to be a disconnect with the great thinkers of the Enlightenment. (Soll, in effect, includes Nietzsche as an extension of the Enlightenment heavy-weights.) What this indicates to me is a weakness in my own understanding based on the glossed-over ideas of the Enlightenment that are too often taken-for-granted. I need to read much more and not just the philosophers, and Nietzsche points out Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer (that "pedantic Englishman") as worthy of further critique. 

Rather than suggesting we do what the social sciences try to do now by emulating the natural sciences, Nietzsche suggests we should, in effect, refer to the social sciences as "the unnatural sciences". Which brings me to an interesting observation. The Delphic Oracle's motto, "Know thyself" is based on the idea that knowledge (as Nietzsche suggests) is simply about attaching something we do not know to something we already know. So rather than seeking to understand, we seek to know. This subtle yet powerful difference seems to link to the Dionysian approach that Nietzsche develops in his later works. In many ways, it is also a critique of the natural sciences, especially Newton ("If I have seen further it is by standing on the sholders [sic] of giants"). In the current era, everything must be measured or it is not valued (and to quote Galileo, "Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so" - see also the Canadian designer, Bruce Mau). 

Nietzsche provides one of the best critiques of these ideas, and in ways I would never have dreamt of in a lifetime of thinking. He also has his usual go at Aristotle, Socrates, the Stoics, yet seems to agree with Epicurus, and introduces Zarathustra, but I think I have only seen the tip of the iceberg. I intend to read Thus Spoke Zarathustra for my next Nietzsche reading, but I can only imagine how much I am missing as I have not the complete grasp (is it even possible?) of the many influences that Nietzsche draws on. 

It would seem logical that to read Nietzsche, one might begin at the beginning and work through in chronological order. Then again, I would have lost so much had I read this book early on, as many of Nietzsche's ideas remain largely undeveloped, at least in terms of how he converses with the reader. Interestingly, Nietzsche suggests that we only know something when we are able to discuss it. But this is simply the herd instinct monopolising our intellect. If we seek rather to understand than to "know", we may well not be able to communicate it at all. 

I think this is what Nietzsche captures best in this work, and I would hazard a guess that his poems pick up on this theme, and his epilogue (mirrored in the final poem) invites us to "dance". It doesn't matter if you do not understand the Minstrel, but the more you can hear the music and the melody, so much better can you... dance. I can dance!

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Romans? Lend me your ears: or, Nietzsche: The Neo-Con Flâneur

Marble sarcophagus with the Triumph of Dionysus and the Seasons; Roman, circa 260-270 CE; Metropolitan Museum, New York [Public domain] via Wikimedia.

Twilight of the Idols/The Antichrist/Ecce Homo by Friedrich Nietzsche

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The first interesting thing I discovered about Nietzsche is something I suspected when I read Beyond Good and Evil: Nietzsche "learnt much from La Rochefoucauld" (p. viii). And to start off with first principles, Nietzsche makes an interesting observation: morality is "a misrepresentation of certain phenomena, for there are no moral facts whatever (p. xi). I have now come to terms with the idea of Dionysian "chaos" versus the Apollonian "order". Interestingly, this struck me last night at the Canberra Symphony Orchestra's performances of Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, op. 16 (with acclaimed Australian pianist Tamara-Anna Cislowska as the soloist), and Shostakovich's Symphony No. 9 in E flat major, op. 70. My friend and colleague, a sociologist, who invited us to the concert, has often spoken of these two opposing approaches. But until now, I have been ignorant to the depth of meaning that is so readily missed when one's antennae are not properly directed. And so, Nietzsche sees art as "Dionysian. It is amoral". "Christian art" is an oxymoron, yet Islam is "a virile religion, a religion for men". Nietzsche sees Christianity and alcohol as "the two great means of corruption" (p. 160). A central message (one of too many!) is that, "where the will to power is lacking, degeneration sets in" (p. 97). Nietzsche blames Saint Paul for destroying Rome, and Luther for destroying the Renaissance. Well I never! Kant perpetuated some of the decay, but Goethe, the antipodes of Kant, "disciplined himself into a harmonious whole, he created himself" (p. 81). Further, and while Nietzsche may well have predicted the World Wars, he may also have predicted the decay of our current institutions. Nietzsche argued that we have forgotten the purpose of our institutions (something that would seem apparent in my understanding of theories of institutional change), in effect, institutions require:

...a sort of will, instinct, imperative, which cannot be otherwise than antiliberal to the point of wickedness: the will to tradition, to authority, to responsibility for centuries to come, to solidarity in long family lines forwards and backwards in infinitum. If this will is present, something is founded which resembles the imperium Romanum: or Russia, the only great nation today that has some lasting grit in her.

In speaking of first principles, Nietzsche appears as a Neo-Con Flâneur (p. 72); yet he does not mince words:

First principle: a man must need to be strong, otherwise he will never attain it. - those great forcing-houses of the strong, of the strongest kind of men that have ever existed on earth, the aristocratic communities like those of Rome and Venice, understood freedom precisely as I understand the word: as something that one has and one has not, as something that one will have and that one seizes by force.

I can't pretend to know everything about Nietzsche, and I doubt I can commit to further study beyond a once-reading of the majority of his work. But something has changed in me as a result. I will blog about Ecce Homo in a subsequent post, as I am reading it in a separate book with an easier-to-read type-font, but from Nietzsche's autobiography, he arose from illness (and, paradoxically, to return to it soon after) to suffer no longer from "'ill-luck' nor 'guilt'". He "is strong enough to make everything turn to his own advantage" (p. 176). In this way, Nietzsche is much like Marcus Aurelius: Amor Fati. And no longer can my response be "merely" academic: I feel a weight of centuries lifting, I see why our institutions are crumbling, I fear the solution will not be forthcoming until the next major crisis disrupts human society yet again; I know that this will all be forgotten by future generations. And so time will march on. But Nietzsche does not leave me pessimistic, nor does he leave me disturbed as Viktor Frankl does. He leaves me free. Is this too dramatic? Read what I have read and tell me. I am all ears.

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Beyond Good and Evil: or, Breathing is a Virtue

Quatre danseuses et Nijinski (Four Dancers and Nijinsky) by Adolf de Meyer, circa 1914.
Public domain via Wikimedia.

Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future by Friedrich Nietzsche

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The other evening, a few pages from the end of this work, I fell asleep listening to Alan Watts lecturing on virtues. I find it difficult to articulate the connection to Nietzsche, but what I comprehended as I awoke, while being in a state not dissimilar to that of Debussy's faun, was this rough recollection:

You cannot be virtuous. If you become virtuous and you are aware of being virtuous, then you are prideful and thus no longer virtuous. Virtues are not self-conscious, and you cannot consciously be virtuous. Breathing is a virtue. You don't think about it, you are not responsible for it, it happens 'un-self-consciously'. That is virtue.

I understand that Alan Watts was discussing elements of Eastern philosophy, but Nietzsche mentions Eastern philosophy numerous times. Following Mortimer Adler's guidance in How to Read a Book, I now take notes in pencil in the margins of my books. This rather short book is full of notations; Latin, French, Greek, German, and Italian words and phrases; class consciousness, waiting too long to display one's genius, "the herd"; the Will to Power; morality; and so on. Too much to summarise here appropriately. But I read in Nietzsche a critique of mediocrity, and it provides me with an awakening to the class-based cringe that has been highlighted by my reading and study over the years. Alan Watts said something like being self-conscious won't help one to be virtuous. Benjamin Franklin wrote that although he worked to consciously improve himself, using his 13-week virtues checklist, he was aware that he could never be perfect. If I take into account Nietzsche's critique of the herd morality and religion, and the privilege of rank and the position adopted by others in relation to my lowly class-based existence (which doesn't manifest itself in any meaningful way outside my own head), then the idea of "beyond good and evil" makes some intuitive sense. Nonetheless, I am far from articulating Nietzsche's ideas beyond what I can grasp from a handful of his work. I may take some solace in that Franklin couldn't be virtuous, that Adler tells me there is nothing wrong with interpreting my reading without the aid of others, that Nietzsche writes much like La Rochefoucauld, and that he thought the Stoics were wrong. This is interesting because the Stoics advocated "living according to one's nature". As it is so natural, then how can one "will" oneself to live in a way that is predestined? This is one of the most helpful explanations of the deductive method! On flicking back through my notes, two things are noticeable. First, the race elements the Nazis picked up on (thanks to Nietzsche's sister, I believe). This is no worse than Jack London, writing not that long after Nietzsche and I encountered parts that wouldn't fit with Nazism. Second, the attitude towards women. This was written before universal suffrage, but clearly, Nietzsche was no John Stuart Mill. Indeed, Nietzsche was a critic of utilitarianism. I will finish with this quote on scholars and artists (I had heavily underlined it while reading - there is always a pencil on hand these days), one that brings together in Nietzsche's words what I felt in my "faunish" moment while listening to Alan Watts (pp. 142-3):

One finds nowadays among artists and scholars plenty of those who betray by their works that a profound longing for nobleness impels them; but this very need of nobleness is radically different from the needs of the noble soul itself, and is in fact the eloquent and dangerous sign of the lack thereof. It is not the works, but the belief which is here decisive and determines the order of rank - to employ once more an old religious formula with a new and deeper meaning - it is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about itself, something which is not to be sought, is not to be found, and perhaps, also, is not to be lost. -The noble soul has reverence for itself.

It would seem that it is "beyond good and evil".

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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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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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On Naturalism: Guy de Maupassant and literary cloning of humans

Christ Walking on the Water (circa 1880) by Julius Sergius Von Klever. Public Domain via Wikimedia. In Bel Ami (1885), a similar painting by the fictitious Hungarian painter, Karl Markovitch, plays an important metaphor. 

Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


In his review of the 2012 movie version of this novel, New York Times reviewer Stephen Holden refers to Georges Duroy as:

...the coldblooded social climber who seduces his way to the top of Gallic society in Guy de Maupassant’s 1885 novel, Bel Ami, is one of the nastiest pieces of work in French literature.

Sure, Holden says this so he can point out how lame Robert Pattinson (of Twilight fame, apparently - I wouldn't know, I can't stand teeny-bopper nonsense. Besides, Georges had a moustache, maybe Pattinson was too young to grown one) plays the part of this cold-blooded social climber. Yet Georges reminds me of almost everyone I work with, and everyone around me, including myself. Or at least how everyone wants to be. For he has a major chip on his shoulder, one borne by being of a peasant family. But Guy de Maupassant is regarded as a "naturalist", in that he tried to depict human nature as it really was, rather than an idealised or "Disney-fied" version that late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century humans have plastered over their collective vision. I got the feeling that Duroy was not as bad as all that. He was parts of me and parts of those around me. His depictions of envy and the "chip on the shoulder" talented peasant boy who was wrenched out of his comfort zone by the army resonates deeply. And those around Duroy remind me of how I see many others. Maybe my empathy for Duroy holds up a crystal-clear mirror to me. Not something to celebrate, but certainly a reflection to reflect upon. And I think that is why this novel is so very good - it really does depict human nature. The good guy doesn't win in the end, the bad guy doesn't win either, but the scheming Duroy, self-made not through hard work but purely through social climbing, and climbing on the social climbers around him - it was like watching real life, but not where one could sit in judgement (as we tend to do), because deep down, we know that we are one of these very characters, too. This is only the second book I have read by Guy de Maupassant, and my earlier discussion of the collection of short stories in A Parisian Affair had me thinking of Hemingway. It is interesting that I am presently half-way through Albert Camus' The Stranger, and the translator's introduction mentions the similarities between Camus' style and Hemingway, and how his "American" translation brings back some of what Gilbert's "English" translation lost. How much have we lost in the translation of Bel Ami? It would seem like not a thing. How would it be possible for this novel to be any better? I am pleased novels like this are few and far between, or I would quickly become tired of reading. And the biggest lesson I have learnt from this novel? Nietzsche's idea of "beyond". Beyond morality. Nietzsche, I think, meant what Guy de Maupassant does: strip away the veneer of morality and tell the story like it is - no embellishing the facts with morals, no pointing out vices and virtues. Only then, it would seem, can we truly reflect upon ourselves, can we truly see ourselves as we are, without the bias of morality. As Nietzsche suggested, many so-called virtues are weaknesses. Not because he was the "Antichrist", but because if we look at ourselves in the mirror of life, we can only see the vices and virtues we choose to see: "Oh, OK, I get it, I eat too much, but at least I am not a liar..." [never mind that we are disgustingly jealous but can't see this while it is in the very act of taking out our own eye]. This is how I interpret Nietzsche's meaning, and Guy de Maupassant, the great naturaliste, makes this clear to me in this wonderful story.

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The Inner Civil War of Right and Wrong, Life and Death, and Being and Time, or: How I pine for the me who knew everything

Cypher in The Matrix: "Ignorance is bliss".

I am constantly annoyed by the pro-science Atheists who think that religion causes war. Since when was Dr J. Robert Oppenheimer, a priest? After much reading and reflection, I find myself unable to implement any philosophy of life without taking a leap of faith. Or, to use the analogy from The Matrix, now that I have taken the red pill (education) and I cannot go back, the way forward insists that I have faith in the victory of one side of my inner civil war. But which one?

An important place to begin in philosophy is this: a clear perception of one’s own ruling principle (Epictetus 1.26.15).

I have been reading in ever-decreasing circles lately that begin and end, like my days, with Stoicism. In Ryan Holiday's The Obstacle is the Way, drawing on Epictetus (Discourses 1.26.15), and later Marcus Aurelius (Meditations 12:22), how we perceive the world is the critical first step in practising philosophy.

It's all in how you perceive it. You're in control. You can disperse with misperception at will, like rounding a point (Marcus Aurelius 12:22).

In my reading, this is repeatedly referred to as "right perception". Some translations equate this with "right thinking", but thinking and perceiving are not the same. For example, I could conduct a thought experiment where I might deliberately think differently about something, whereas the only way I can "perceive" something differently is to either have a fundamental change of base character or otherwise to deceive myself in a stupid way. So "right perception" becomes key.

The trouble is that now I enter unfamiliar territory with the likes of, in reverse chronological order, Heidegger, Camus, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer. I could come forward (or go back) to Harold Bloom and Joseph Epstein, too, but I will leave that for another time. There are others but this is where I am at right now.

What I still find surprising is that the thoughts I have have been had by others, even two thousand years ago, and reading reveals this time and again. I think I read this from Epstein, but I cannot be sure until I find it again.

Which brings me to Camus. His first principle of philosophy was whether one should commit suicide or not. I see this mostly as a decision to live or not to live. The Stoics had a similar view of choosing to live or not. I recall when I was nineteen years old, when my repetitive job was so boring, and I thought to myself, "this cannot be all there is to life". I chose, metaphorically, to live.

Nietzsche took this further, expanding on Schopenhauer's ideas. But Nietzsche declared that God was dead, and we had killed Him. This left a great void. Where do our first principles come from if there is no God? I have grappled with this for decades, but settled my theological comprehensions deeper and deeper over time. If there is no God, then there is no point.

So, if we take our own beliefs as a starting point, then Heidegger presents a further clue: We are what we do. Not what we talk about doing. But there is more to Heidegger.

Yesterday, I read Simon Critchley's eight-part blog article on "Why Heidegger Matters". Of course, I have much reading to do to command the literature, or to master the philosophical lessons, but my thinking is leading to somewhere useful.

It struck me how much of what Heidegger wrote follows my own "perception" of the world. While the Stoics spoke of "right perception", Heidegger suggests we are "thrown" into the world. Again, the strange occurrences of things happening at the right time gives me a sense of "flow" rather than "throw". This particular topic miraculously appeared on ABC Radio National last night as soon as I had changed the radio station out of boredom with ABC Canberra. The topic was Epicurean versus Existentialist views on death.

This throws up two issues, assuming my idea of "perception" is how I perceive the world to be and derive my meaning from my life in that perceived world. First, there is "right" as in what does one mean by the "right" way to perceive something? Is there a general or universal idea of what is "right", or is this something an individual judges for themselves? I think that, should an individual make their own judgement, which is what Heidegger seems to mean by "freedom" (loosely - I think!), then "right" perception would be what I thought to be "right" for me.

If I were to encapsulate Stoicism, James Allen, Benjamin Franklin, and various religious works I can subscribe to, collectively, a sense of "right" - which I see as congruent - then my idea would be that my sense of what Heidegger was saying, in that life is finite and who I am is what I do, then I have the recipe for constructing "right" perception, with which to practise Stoicism properly, at least according to me.

But this leads me to my second problem: Can "right" change with "time", or with circumstances through "being"? What if one measured one's virtues against a preconceived notion of "right perception", only to get to one's deathbed (a Stoic measure) to find that their perception was wrong?

So, deciding upon one's idea of "right" and how to determine the idea, whether this means "right" according to a universal principle or "right" as in what is "right" for me, is a skill that ought to be a priority from a young age. This negates much of the Atheist scientists' view of the world. They annoy me with their "I know everything" pessimism and the assumption that humans, being inherently social animals who pretend to deny their instincts in the name of "science", have no answer for the two big questions (some of what follows is borrowed and paraphrased from The Daily Stoic):

What do I really want? What am I actually after here?

These are difficult questions, and mostly the answers are sought in the middle of an internal struggle. Martin Luther King Jr said:

There is something of a civil war going on within all of our lives.

So we have contradiction and inconsistent wishes that have us working against ourselves. The Stoics said this is the result of screwed up judgements or biased thoughts. The "civil war" King spoke of was a war, in each individual, between the good parts of their soul and the bad.

To quote somebody from my past who I cannot recall, but whose words have never left me, I find that the pursuit of knowledge, which is part of my day job, is admirable but incomplete. My past friend or colleague said it best:

Knowledge gets us part of the way but faith fills the gap.

And so, as I turn to James Allen as part of my daily reflection, there are echoes of two important religious teachings:

Whom Allah doth guide - he is on the right path (Qur'an 7:178) [and] The foolishness of a man twists his way while his heart frets against the Lord (Proverbs 19:3).

There is so much more for me to do. So much more to read and learn. And while it appears to be within grasping distance each day, I know that the only certain goal is death (hopefully not too soon!) and I can never know everything. Serendipitously, Allen brings it all together in a program for living:

To follow, under all circumstances, the highest promptings within you; to be always true to the divine self; to rely upon the inward Voice, the inward Light, and to pursue your purpose with a fearless and restful heart, believing that the future will yield unto you the need of every thought and effort; knowing that the laws of the universe can never fail, and that your own will come back to you with mathematical exactitude - this is faith and the living faith.

One cannot know what one doesn't know. But one can know how much one doesn't know. Regardless, the end is death. But once one has taken the red pill, there is little one can do. Sometimes I pine for the me who knew less. At least then I knew everything.

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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Wilde's World: Bringing Order to Chaos, one critic at a time

Apollo and Tityos, Lower tier, side A of an Attic red-figure calyx-krater. Metropolitan Museum of Art [CC BY 2.5] via Wikimedia.

The Critic as Artist: With Some Remarks Upon the Importance of Doing Nothing by Oscar Wilde

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oscar Wilde's aesthetic philosophy is set out as a dialogue between Ernest (isn't it always?) and Gilbert (didn't Gilbert and Sullivan fund his lecture tour of the United States?). Of course, Plato used this method to convey his philosophical teachings. Here, Wilde uses the dialogue format to convey his aesthetic philosophy but touches on ethics, virtues, pedagogy, and spirituality. However, with Plato, I expect a dialogue. With Wilde, I couldn't help but think of the poor actors who had to remember all of lines! But of course, this was not meant to be a play. Wilde's interlocutors encompass many of the great thinkers, poets, and critics of the late 1800s, including Darwin, Matthew Arnold, Walter Pater, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Robert Browning, and many other of his contemporaries, almost all of whom I had to look up. Dante, "Lionardo", numerous great French and Italian Renaissance and Ancient Greek and Roman all feature in the work. I was pleased to find that my reading is holding me in good stead, but there is still so much to catch up on. Wilde's own reading must have been vast, yet why wouldn't it? He studied the classics at Trinity College, and later won a scholarship to Magdalen College at Oxford. Regrettable me, poor sod, with a large chip on my shoulder, have to wait until death is in my region before I get my act together! Would I be so bold as to recall that "the dullness of tutors and professors matter very little when one can loiter in the grey cloisters of Magdalen, and listen to some flute-like voice singing in Waynfleete's chapel"? Oh, poor Oscar! That he was a genius is obvious, and there are many lessons to draw from this work. For instance, I am learning to "draw" at the moment, and it is a truism that "in every sphere of life Form is the beginning of things... Start with the worship of form, and there is no secret in art that will not be revealed to you". Based on my own reading, and avoiding the myriad things written by others, there is an element of tongue-in-cheek-edness about the role of the critic. For instance, "without the critical faculty, there is no artistic creation at all, worthy of the name" and "criticism demands infinitely more cultivation than creation does", culminating in:

Each new school, as it appears, cries out against criticism, but it is the critical faculty in man that owes its origin. The mere creative instinct does not innovate, but reproduces.

In effect, criticism leads to change. And critics do not need to read or view everything to criticise, for:

To know the vintage and quality of a wine it is not necessary to drink the whole cask.

In the other extreme, the artist's finished work then takes on:

...an independent life of its own, and may deliver a message far other than that which was put into its lips to say.

That is not to say that "the critic" is anybody who opens their mouth to pour scorn on the creative spirit. Indeed, the critic is not:

...the nuisance of the intellectual sphere... the man who is so occupied in trying to educate others , that he has never had any time to educate himself... [Indeed,] self-culture is the true ideal man.

There is likely much packed into Wilde's philosophy that is not explicitly stated, and I can hear echoes of Nietzsche in Wilde's statement that all art is "immoral". Most of Nietzsche's work pre-dates Wilde's Critic as Artist, so it is not improbable that there was some influence there. And finally, criticism will allow (drawing on Goethe) a cosmopolitan society, free of racial prejudice. From what I have read of others' interpretations of Wilde, he seems to propose the very opposite of Nietzsche (with God in absentia): That Apollo (order/criticism) must triumph over Dionysus (chaos/creating).

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Lessons from Camus' The Plague: or, Doing one's duty in the present moment

Marcel Duchamp's Fountain at Tate Modern. [Public Domain, photo by David Shankbone, London].

The Plague by Albert Camus

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This literary work by Albert Camus might be rewarding if read simply as a novel. But to comprehend the work in the context of his philosophical "book-length essays", The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel (which I am yet to read), and his other famous novel, The Stranger, requires an understanding of Camus' philosophy of the absurd. While Camus refused the label of existentialist philosopher, it is clear that he develops a philosophy of the absurd in the three of the above works I have read thus far. 

I suspect that a reading of The Rebel and also Nuptials will provide further insight into his ideas, but much like reading Nietzsche, I think one could develop a sense of Camus' ideas no matter where one starts. I enjoy referring to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy when trying to comprehend philosophical works, but I follow Mortimer Adler's advice to read the work first, so as to form my own impression, before immersing myself in the interpretations of others'. This particular edition of the novel is helpful in that it contains an afterword, rather than an introduction, by the late Professor Tony Judt.

Whenever I think of absurdity, I tend to think of the Dada Movement. But the ridiculousness of Dada served the purpose of mocking the bourgeois, so it does not relate so much to the absurd in the philosophical sense as it does "absurd" in the sense of "ridiculous". What I gather from my reading is that the absurd relates to the absence of any meaning of life. It is irrational in that you cannot reach, by reason, the meaning of life other than that you live and then you die. 

There is an element of Nietzsche's "God is dead", too, in that Camus attacks religion, no, challenges religion, in its attempt to provide meaning to life (or the after-life). As the title suggests, this novel is a fictional story about the plague striking Oran, Algeria, and the lives of a group of men who are caught up by the inevitable quarantining of the city. In his afterword, Tony Judt tells of how Camus relied on his personal experience of Nazi-occupied France (Camus was a reluctant hero of the French Resistance) as a basis for his story, and how as soon as the tragedy is over, people simply pick up from where they left off and seem to forget the lessons learnt from the trauma.

Without giving too much of the plot away, nor the interesting use of the narrator, the non-religious protagonist simply does his duty. In doing so, we see a human Sisyphus at work. It probably didn't help being sick myself while reading this, and wondering if each time one of the pets scratched themselves I might be in for a dose of the plague, but like all of Camus' work I have read thus far, it leaves me with a strange sense of resignation. I was going to say hope, but this is where Camus disagreed with Sartre and the existentialists: he saw them as "deifying" the knowledge that there was no god (or God or gods), and turning existentialism into its own form of religion, much like the anti-religionist non-scientist science-lovers do on social media these days.

Something that strikes me with Camus is the absence of hope. If one doesn't like it, then one can always end it. And here I draw parallels with the Stoics. There is always that macabre option. But if we choose to live, we can only live for the present moment. What appears again and again in The Plague is a sense of duty. Not so much for a cause, but to do what one does because that is what one does. To live in the present moment, for the future is death, and the past is beyond our control.

Yet this doesn't mean we adopt a hedonistic approach to life, but rather that we do our duty, in accordance with our nature. Of course, these ideas are difficult to comprehend without a thorough reading of Camus, Nietzsche, and the Stoics; even so, it is still difficult to articulate the concept. Camus' use of the novel to explain these concepts is powerful, in that through metaphor, we can come to understand his non-philosophical philosophy.

Rather than attempting to find meaning in life (which is absurd because there is none), we can exist in the present moment and do our duty. And while this may sound nihilistic, there is a sense of peace one can gain by acknowledging that all we can control are our impressions of external events, and then how we react to the things we cannot control. As Camus observed in The Myth of Sisyphus (p. 64):

...integrity has no need of rules.

It would seem that there is some relation to Stoicism, in that personal decision and choice is a central theme. 

But that is just my take on it. If you would rather just read an excellent novel, then this is it. If, of course, you can not wonder about the absurdity of it all after reading it.

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Ask not "What is the Meaning of Life?": The question is being asked of you!

Still-Life with a Skull (vanitas painting) by Philippe de Champaigne, circa 1671. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I mistakenly read Frankl's sequel to this book back in December 2016. In Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning, Frankl focused on the "existential vacuum" and psychological concepts in some detail. I barely recall this work and when I looked at it just now, the lack of pencil markings in the book means I cannot recall the parts that resonated, or the ideas I wrote about in my (rather short) review of the sequel, I also discovered that the key concepts relating to logotherapy were outlined, but I had no recollection of logotherapy, Frankl's "Austrian School" of psychology. Man's Search for Meaning is in two parts. The first part outlines Frankl's experience as a prisoner at Auschwitz and other concentration camps during World War II. He does not go into the detail of the horrors there, but focuses on how people coped or didn't cope with suffering. The word "suffering" is important in that, if one has no choice but to suffer, then suffering can give purpose to life. In the second part, Frankl outlines his logotherapy in some detail. How does logotherapy fit in with Freud and Adler? Freud focused on man's (sic) will to pleasure; Adler focused on man's (sic) will to power (obviously drawing on Nietzsche); whereas Frankl draws on man's (sic) will to meaning as a central element of human behaviour, happiness, and self-actualisation (somewhat in the Maslow sense of the word, but Abraham Maslow is not mentioned). Some quotes are worth noting:

...unnecessary suffering is masochistic rather than heroic (p. 148). 

Live as if you were living for the second time and had acted wrongly the first time as you are about to act now (p. 151). 

...happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue (p. 140). 

...man (sic) is ultimately self-determining... [He] has [good and bad] potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions (p. 135). 

Nietzsche: ""He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how" (p. 109). 

...suffering may well be a human achievement (p. 108). 

...only the men who allowed their inner hold on their moral and spiritual selves to subside eventually fell victim to the camp's degenerating influences (p. 78).

I found this book disturbing: enlightening, enraging, sad, hopeful, empty, full, academic, spiritual, contradictory, confronting, conservative, even judgemental. But it made me think deeper than I may have thought before. And there are techniques, too, for dealing with "anticipatory anxiety" - "hyper-intention" and "hyper-reflection". (Put simply, the paradox that the harder we try to make something work, the more we psych ourselves out. In certain cases, one can use this paradox to have a positive effect. Frankl gives the example of a man who sweats profusely, and the more self-conscious he is, the more he sweats. Frankl has the man say to himself "I will show them how much I can sweat!" and paradoxically, he doesn't sweat at all.) This paradox serves another purpose in the pursuit of meaning:

What is called self-actualization is not attainable at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he (sic) would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is only possible as a side-effect of self-transcendence (p. 114).

This leads to what I think is Frankl's most important lesson:

Ultimately, man (sic) should not ask what the meaning of life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked (p. 113).

From what I can gather, in Man's Search for Meaning, Frankl outlines how his experience in the concentration camps helped him refine his concept of logotherapy, something he had written about and was writing about before he was taken prisoner. He mentions modern problems concerning the "existential vacuum", in particular, "boredom". But it is not until Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning that this is covered in more detail. I say as far as I can work out because there is a lot to comprehend in these two books, and the disturbing nature of the original (now classic) work continues to haunt my sleep, let alone coming to grips with the details of logotherapy that I was quite able to overlook through my ignorance and poor reading technique the first time around. As Epictetus said: if you would learn, be prepared to look the fool. A key lesson learnt from this experience is in comparing my current reading technique to what I was doing back in 2016; the improvement is palpable. Mortimer Adler was right and I am glad I overcame my resistance to marking and taking notes in my books. Another lesson is that a single reading of a book may not be enough, especially when subject matter that is new to me is readily over-looked. Yet, much like asking myself "What is the meaning of my life?", I need to ask myself "What is the point of my reading?". The answer is rather simple: it is to learn. Maybe I can draw on the hyper-intention paradox technique: I can tell myself that my life has no meaning and wait for meaning to appear. Or better yet, I can live the rest of my days as if it really were a second chance, and let my learning allow happiness to ensue. The real paradox is that it has been happening already without me even trying. And while I doubt I can understand Frankl until I have finished reading Nietzsche and made a start on Wittgenstein, there is enough in this book (in particular, the quotes outlined above), to keep me going for some time.

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I think, therefore, I am... Hey, what's that shadow?

Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre meet Ernesto Che Guevara in Cuba, 1960.
Photo: Public Domain.

Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy by William Barrett

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book provides an overview of existentialism. Originally written in 1958, Barrett was bringing the tradition of existentialism (those leading to Sartre) to the United States. That the book is set in the midst of the Cold War is obvious, and when released again in the 1990s, the book's setting had not yet (albeit imminently) changed. But there were many lessons to be learnt and the book achieved for me what I really needed: an overview of existentialism and the works of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre all in one place. I needed this to make sense of other works I am still engrossed in, and this book fulfilled the role admirably. I will get to the works of these aforementioned existentialists, plus Wittgenstein, but not yet. 

When I read John Stuart Mill in detail I couldn't help but recognise fragments of my education materialising almost as if I had written them in On Liberty. Elements of Stoicism remind me of things I had discovered (apparently) independently but more likely acquired through osmosis through my education. Thinking of myself as a frustrated post-modernist who can only really comprehend empiricism and positivism, I welcomed the familiarity of Heidegger's work, again, as if I had heard it before. But what really struck me was the eloquence of Barrett in saying what I was just saying to my students in my lecture today: you have to understand ideology and philosophy to understand politics. Barrett says it thus:

...anyone who wishes to meddle in politics today had better come to some prior conclusions as to what man [sic] is and what, in the end, human life is all about. I say "in the end" deliberately because the neglect of first and of last things does not - as so-called "practical" people hope - go unpunished, but has a disastrous way of coming in the back door and upsetting everything.

Barrett also highlights a problem for Americans that any typical group of Australian political science lecturers will tell you could easily still apply to Australians:

The [Australian] insisted that all international problems could all be solved if men [sic] would just get together and be rational; Sartre disagreed and after a while discussion between them became impossible. "I believe in the existence of evil," says Sartre, "and he does not." What the [Australian] has not yet become aware of is the shadow that surrounds all human Enlightenment.

The final words indicate the extent of this darkness surrounding the light, and in these words I see my frustration in the background of my positivist and empiricist viewpoint: put simply "he [sic] must first exist in order to logicize". While I doubt I can ever change my habitual viewpoint, particularly this late in the game, I have just purchased a copy of Walter Kaufmann's edited collection, Existentialism: From Dostoevsky to Sartre, which recaps a number of works I have read previously (such as Notes from Underground and Camus' Myth of Sisyphus, but it also includes numerous works by Heidegger, Nietzsche, Jaspers, et al. which are essential reading. 

It is as if I have just stepped off the MTR at East Tsim Sha Tsui station in Hong Kong. I must walk now to Tsim Sha Tsui station (proper) to get back on the main line, but I know I will have to walk to East TST to venture back into existentialism again sometime soon. The branches of my literary journey do get tangled at times, but at least now the basics are starting to reveal themselves more clearly, even if I am noticing the darkness in the background.

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On the Usefulness of Philosophy: or, It is stupid to want to abolish bad weather

A Philosopher Lecturing with a Mechanical Planetary (1766).
Joseph Wright of Derby [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was an airport buy and a flight read. De Botton covers Socrates, Epicurus, Seneca, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche in an effort to point out that:

Not everything which makes us feel better is good for us. Not everything which hurts may be bad.

In effect, to regard "distress" as "bad" is "almost as stupid as the will to abolish bad weather". This was useful reading, and works in well with my reading of Seneca, Montaigne, and Nietzsche, and provided a helpful overview to my current reading of Epicurus, and also Tina Gilbertson's now-read Constructive Wallowing. Two quotes struck me:

A man's peace of mind does not depend upon Fortune - Seneca (p. 97)

and

I have begun to be a friend to myself - Seneca citing Hecato (p. 103).

This was an easy read but made easier by my familiarity with the other authors. Had I read this without that understanding I have developed over the last year, I would have missed much. Yet I think it is a good overview of why:

The unexamined life is not worth living - Socrates.

De Botton's work also provides an interesting introduction to the use of reason and choice to overcome what distresses us.

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The Myth of Sisyphus

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Camus gives words and thoughts and theories and literary examples to my own primitive discoveries about work and suicide. I remember waking one morning, at age 19, and thinking: "If this is all my life will ever be, then today I must either change it or end it". If I had to roll that rock up the hill one more time then that was it for me. I don't write this gratuitously or intend to treat suicide glibly, but in the context of Camus' "philosophical suicide", my experience of the absurd has informed much of my philosophy for living. I have often thought that if God does not exist, then there is no point in living. Camus twists around varieties of my thoughts, but he does so referring particularly to Nietzsche (that most famous of God's "assassins") and antitheses of my understanding. This is a short book and it seems to be an abridged version of a much larger work. Nevertheless, it is sufficient to point out a number of my reading deficits. This may require a second reading once I complete Kafka's The Castle, and much of Nietzsche. Camus broaches many topics that tend to be completely avoided by almost any person to whom I have ever spoken. It would seem that once again Continental philosophers have a monopoly on saying what everyone is thinking but were too afraid to say. Two quotes resonated with me:

On the futility of suicide, from p. 6:

I have heard of an emulator of Peregrinos, a post-war writer who, after having finished his first book, committed suicide to attract attention to his work. Attention was in fact attracted, but the book was judged no good.

And on death as a work in progress, from p. 111:

If something brings creation to an end, it is not the victorious and illusory cry of the blinded artist: 'I have said everything', but the death of the creator which closes his experience and the book of his genius.

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On Criticism: Pope. Spawn of the Glorious Revolution

Pope's Villa at Twickenham by J.M.W. Turner (1808)
Public Domain via Wikimedia.

An Essay on Criticism by Alexander Pope

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There are a number of famous phrases in this essay:

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

A little learning is a dang'rous thing.

For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

And I learnt a new word: "coxcomb" - an archaic term for a dandy. Pope draws on numerous place names as synonyms for The Ancients, so Aristotle is "the Stagirite"; Virgil is "the Mantuan Muse"; and,

To copy nature is to copy them.

After reading a few articles by and about Harold Bloom, having almost finished John Ruskin's On Art and Life, and having made a start on Oscar Wilde's The Critic as Artist, I have gained an appreciation for the work of the critic. Pope points out that Aristotle was a critic of Homer, and Maevius, known for his criticism of better writers (and of Augustus Caesar's vintage), was well-critiqued by both Virgil and Horace. Pope provides advice for the genius, too:

Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet, And mark that point where sense and dulness meet.

and

One science only will one genius fit; So vast is art, so narrow human wit.

Our talent requires constant effort, and spreading ourselves too thin means:

Like kings we lose the conquests gain'd before.

Reading is important (especially to "know well" the Ancients), and we should:

Read them by day, and meditate by night.

I could feel Mortimer Adler lurking in the background, and a return to How to Read a Book revealed Pope's sentiments (p. 11):

There have always been literate ignoramuses who have read too widely and not well.

As Pope said:

The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head.

But Pope also touches on the problem for converting sound reading into writing (which is increasingly my problem):

That on weak wings, from far, pursues your flights; Glows while he reads, but trembles as he writes.

Adler spoke of "coming to terms with the author", and Pope seems to be Adler's inspiration:

A perfect judge will read each work of wit With the same spirit that its author writ

Yet Pope draws on the folk tradition, too, especially in relation to the "father" of all sins, pride, "the never-failing vice of fools"; and Socrates' notion of the more we know, the more we know we don't know much ("New, distant scenes of endless science rise!"). In effect, Pope argues that pride prevents reason. If pride can be driven away, then we can use feedback from friend and foe alike to correct our faults. The Stoics, too, can be seen in the background, with echoes of Epictetus' (Discourses 3.24.17) warning that happiness and yearning for something one doesn't have are incompatible, in effect, perfectionism is desiring the impossible, reflected in:

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.

Nietzsche gets a guernsey, too, or, should I say that Nietzsche draws on Pope's Dionysian-ness ("Dennis of the Grecian stage"). There is so much in this essay that a second and third reading will be rewarding. And not just for lessons in literature and history - geography, too. As it turns out, London's Duck Lane (not the current Duck Lane, which Google Maps shows is an alley), now known as "Little Britain", was in Pope's time an area for second-hand booksellers, and before that an area for publishers, too. There is so much in Pope that is familiar, much like John Stuart Mill's On Liberty (which is like reading my own mind, the content is basically the liberal arts curriculum of a modern education). But the difference is that Pope's work requires a more thorough reading of the Great Books. While I have much more to learn about the classics, it is clear that the more familiar one is with them, then the more rewarding a reading of Pope will be.

And what about the Glorious Revolution? The Westminster political system begins with the end of the old regime in 1688, thanks to William of Orange. Alexander Pope was born in 1688. So there you go.

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Appreciating Ted Hughes

Hawk Roosting: Feet or foot? Photo: Summerdrought [CC BY-SA 4.0] via Wikimedia

Lupercal by Ted Hughes

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When I sat down to write about my first reading of this collection of poetry, I drew a blank. I knew nothing of Ted Hughes until he was mentioned in a comment about my reading of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, along with Sylvia Plath. I'd heard of Plath! 

I didn't hate the poetry, nor did I like it. But it seemed strange. I knew it was about animals, but that was the extent of the experience of my first reading. So I took to some research and made some enlightening discoveries.

Hughes was the UK's Poet Laureate, just like Alfred, Lord Tennyson. There had to be something I was missing.

In an interview with The Paris Review from 1995, Hughes mentions a number of issues concerning "The Art of Poetry", such as the differences in drafting verse in handwriting versus typing. In response to the question "Is a poem ever finished?", Hughes mentions a struggle he has had with the singular or plural in the middle of the poem, "Hawk Roosting". Neither worked satisfactorily.

So I start there:

My feet are locked upon the rough bark.

It took the whole of Creation

To produce my foot, my each feather:

Now I hold Creation in my foot

And he's right. Swap feet for foot and back again, and neither works grammatically. But it works as it is in the poem.

I tried another poem, "Urn Burial". On the first reading, my mind was clouded by seeing some of the oldest remnants of human urn burials in Bahrain on a visit during my sabbatical in 2009. All I could picture were the skeletal remains curled up in the large stone urns. No animals in sight.

Then, like a 3D picture, the symbolism became clear: Oh, it's a weasel! (It even reads "weasel", but I was off in another dimension.) It started to make sense.

This was not entirely my own doing. I had to digress with Hughes' ars poetica, "The Thought Fox". Hughes basically tells me how to read his poetry. It's very clever, but maybe a little more academic than I was expecting.

Hughes' fascination with animals came from his childhood experience. His older brother, ten years his senior, loved to hunt. Hughes acted as his older brother's retriever and this continued for something like twenty years. Hughes is also famous for his children's books.

Like many readers these days, I had fallen victim to the general decline in reading poetry for fun. (Except epic and didactic poetry such as Homer, Virgil, and Hesiod.)

This year I have read Frank O'Hara, Sir Walter Ralegh, T.S. Eliot, and Alfred Lord Tennyson, and I am now a convert. I also read Nietzsche's The Gay Science and I am currently reading Harold Bloom's The Anxiety of Influence, both works about poetry. It makes more sense to read poetry more than once, and with some study in between. (Hughes said this in his Paris Review interview, too.)

Had I not read up about Hughes, I would have been none the wiser. And I would certainly be missing out.

The icing on the cake was the name of the collection, Lupercal, is derived from an ancient Roman pastoral or fertility festival, Lupercalia, held annually on my birthday. This made more sense of the numerous classical references that had confused me in my first reading. (The birthday bit gave a surprising personal connection!)

Perhaps I am now a Ted Hughes fan.

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