November 2011 – Page 5 – the coffee philosopher

Posted on November 6, 2011November 4, 2011 by the coffee philosopher

Nietzsche In America

Well, there’s a new book out about Nietzsche and the history in Nietzsche in America (intellectually, of course, not physically; he never visited America). The book is called American Nietzsche.

I didn’t know this, though I’m glad to read it, but Nietzsche was, apparently, much influenced and inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson. I bought his collected essays when I lived in Atlanta. Reading it, I was much surprised by the influence of Kant on Emerson. I lost that particular copy during one of my many moves, but luckily now have a nice, leatherbound edition that I picked up at a used bookstore (though it looks nearly new).

Nietzsche is one of those authors who is everything to everyone. I, of course, am a liberal (with a lot of caveats) and I love Nietzsche. But his influence on right wing politicians, fascism, and nazism is well known.

It would be easy to blame the affection of Hitler for Nietzsche on misunderstanding (and he was deeply misunderstood by Hitler, which was partly Nietzsche’s sister’s fault; I’m not going to explain this, if you want to know more, just google it), but it would also be simplistic. Nietzsche, let us say, is not bereft of intellectual and spiritual violence within his oeuvre.

If you’ve took any philosophy courses in college or hung out with anyone who took a philosophy course in college, you probably had a love affair with Nietzsche.

He was one of those writers whose books were hidden in our backpacks at high school, nestled next to Marx and Ginsberg. Like Marx and Ginsberg, he was also deeply misunderstood by us, but what the heck, we were sixteen. We mostly just quoted from the aphorisms you find in the middle of Beyond Good and Evil (“That which does not kill me, makes me stronger,” anyone?).

In college, we started to understand him. But then later, you get a little embarrassed by him. He’s not a rigorous, systematic thinker. And you know that he’s the favored philosopher of pretentious college students who don’t read any other philosophers. So you put him down for fear of being mistaken for them.

Then you pick him up again. And you read him again, and you get a new appreciation for him and the depth of his own learning and understanding. You don’t forget his limitations, but you see stuff you didn’t before. You take the time to read him more systematically and see he’s a little more of traditional philosopher (rather than just a reciter of pithy ideas) than you had thought. So maybe you don’t fall in love again (or maybe you do), but at least you fall in “like.”

Posted on November 6, 2011November 4, 2011 by the coffee philosopher

Jung

I went to Paris when I was eighteen. I met a guy there – a young man, though older than I – who was generally uneducated but with a weird autodidactic streak. He had read volume after volume of Carl Gustav Jung, but had no idea that ‘Jung’ was (approximately) pronounced ‘yung,’ instead pronouncing it with a hard ‘j.’

I thought of him when I saw this article on the meaning and place of Jung in contemporary thought.

While Freud, if also dismissed and sniffed at as a pervert of limited inspiration, is at least still placed within the realm of psychology as something approximating a science.

Meanwhile, Jung is relegated to the realm of spiritualists, mystics, and comparative religion.

Of course, I’m not sure that article helped matters much, but focusing on Jung’s religious beliefs (obsessions?).

Posted on November 5, 2011November 4, 2011 by the coffee philosopher

In Defense Of Studying The Classics

Miranda Frum in defense of classical studies against that intellectual giant, Rush Limbaugh, published in the Huffington Post.

Dear Mr. Limbaugh,

I see you have let your own educational insecurities shine through in your latest rant in which you “bravely” attempted to decipher the “sad-sack story” of a Classical Studies scholar. Bravo. If only you had taken a philosophy course about the Sophists, you might have been better at debating your point. Unfortunately, your rhetoric fails you and you blunder through your argument, proving the limited grasp you have on the concept of higher thinking.

You reference a picture you came across on the Internet (I believe, sir, that is called a ‘meme’). The picture shows a letter written by a Classics student, whom you assume is a woman (thus also managing to offend feminists and male Classical scholars worldwide), detailing the lack of prospects “she” has, even though this person has a degree and understands Latin. This is heartbreaking, but it’s not necessarily news. Nor does “she” speak for the numerous individuals currently studying Classics. These students know there is no money guaranteed from obtaining a degree in Classical Studies. They study Classics because they want to understand the roots of Western thinking (quite patriotic of them, isn’t is Mr. Limbaugh?), or they love the stories and works of great thinkers (works conservatives used to encourage others to read). They take Classical Studies for the same reasons other students study history or political philosophy — to widen and inform their thinking, and to better understand they world they live in.

“What the hell is Classical studies? What classics are studied? Or, is it learning how to study in a classical way? Or is it learning how to study in a classy way as opposed to an unclassy way? And what about unClassical studies?”

All right Mr. Limbaugh, I’ll tell you. I was a Classical Studies student; I’m no expert, but I took the courses. Classics is a branch of the humanities that examines language, literature, philosophy, history, art, culture, and archaeology of the ancient Mediterranean world. You know, the Greeks. The Romans. The guys who the Founding Fathers were crazy about. The guys who inspired… democracy. THOSE GUYS. The students who dream of having a Classics-based job understand that most of them will be in school for a majority of their lives and will have to be professors; others will take this knowledge into other fields with them — politics, physics, archaeology, medicine (it’s less socialist than you think Mr. Limbaugh), they can extend their education in terms of modern politics, writing, physics, and medicine. Those who believe in instant wealth if they study Classics are idiots — the exact same idiots in other classes who fully expect that a job and a $500,000 a year paycheque are in their immediate future.

Indeed, there are uses for Classical Studies in all aspects of life. Workplace politics are much less stressful if you can think to yourself, “Well, at least this isn’t the Roman Senate, and the jerk who steals my lunch from the communal fridge isn’t plotting my assassination! Whew!” Or, if you are wondering “Why on earth did the United States choose democracy over a monarchy?” Classical Studies has your answer. Classical Studies explains the basic concepts of math (I’m assuming then the Pythagorean theorem wasn’t easy for you, Mr. Limbaugh, just as you assumed the Classical Studies student was a woman. It hurts, doesn’t it?) as well as science.

You pointed out that there will be no degree to change a useless person into a useful person. This is true. There are hundreds of useless engineers, writers, politicians, historians, and mechanics. There is also at least one too many useless broadcasters.

Posted on November 4, 2011November 4, 2011 by the coffee philosopher

Nice Try, Rick

Rick Scott’s spokesman makes a cheap and pathetic effort to explain away how the Governor of Florida, Rick Scott (R-Medicarescamartist) didn’t seem to know what Tampa Bay was.

Posted on November 4, 2011 by the coffee philosopher

Check Out My Review Of ‘Push Open The Window’

My review of ‘Push Open the Window’ is now available at The Rumpus.

Posted on November 4, 2011November 3, 2011 by the coffee philosopher

Art and Beauty

I just wanted to draw attention to this interview in order to highlight this quote:

Artists are not necessarily intellectuals. Intellectuals produce ideas. Artists produce beauty.

Obviously, I am taking this out of context, but even within the context, it doesn’t address the final sentence.

Do artists necessarily create beauty? Is there no great and compelling art which is not beautiful? Political art, art that comments on civilization’s failings. Are they then not the work of artists, at all, but of intellectuals trading in ideas disguised as art?

I don’t have the answer, but I firmly believe that if you limit the function of art to creating beauty, you are putting very unsettling limits upon it, indeed.

Posted on November 3, 2011November 3, 2011 by the coffee philosopher

Norman Spinrad

Norman Spinrad is a sci fi author who you probably haven’t read unless you read a lot of sci fi. Not that he’s not good, but he hasn’t been much of a crossover writer for a long time (crossover, in the sense of Ursual K LeGuin or Margaret Atwood crossing out of the genre trap into literary respectability or J.K. Rowling into widespread, if undeserved, fame).

While digging through the basement of my favorite local used bookstore, I picked up a book of his called Agent of Chaos. It was fast paced, decently written, leavened with an anarchist philosophy that was heavy handed, but not didactic. It was a slim, old fashioned sort of pulpy paperback that they just don’t make much of anymore. Love that kind of stuff.

After finishing it, I downloaded to my Nook a copy of Asimov’s Science Fiction, which is still a nice, pulpy magazine (at least in its physical format). I did so simply because it had a story by Spinrad.

I like the idea of Spinrad. He writes politically tinged (charged?) sci fi, he lives in Paris now and sometimes publishes in French. He is a former president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. And one of his novels was denounced on the floor of the House of Commons.

This particular story was very different, though, from Agent of Chaos, which is an old fashioned space opera at its heart. An odd story about the songs of whales and other cetaceans and a sort of eco-fable. Not sure what I thought about it. I certainly agree with its sentiments, but not exactly what I was looking for.

Posted on November 3, 2011 by the coffee philosopher · 2 Comments

Deviled Egg Day

Did you know that today is National Deviled Egg Day?

Me neither.

I mean, I like deviled eggs well enough, but it just doesn’t come up that often in my life.

Posted on November 3, 2011November 3, 2011 by the coffee philosopher · 1 Comment

Aegypt

Percolating around my brain was a frequently mentioned book (or at least frequently mentioned in the articles and reviews I read) was a series of books by John Crawley known as Aegypt.

I just finished the first, called sometimes Aegypt or, as Crowley preferred, The Solitudes (also the name of a long poem that the main character, Pierce Moffett, is supposed to review).

I am not sure what to think of it. I enjoyed. I will read the next book in the series (I already am, in fact), but I also don’t feel a strong urgency to power through them. Hard to explain. Good, but not compelling, perhaps?

What I do like about it is that is a book of arcane and occult conspiracies (Rosicrucians, alchemy, etc) for people who enjoy reading about arcane and occult conspiracies but absolutely do not believe in them. Which pretty much describes me.

The book is sometimes called a fantasy, but it isn’t. Or least the first book wasn’t. It’s more like reading a book about someone writing the kinds of novels that Umberto Eco. That’s a little convoluted, but that’s okay. Aegypt is also about a historian writing a history, which is kind of like a novel written by someone else, which we also read parts of in Aegypt, as well as both the historian’s and novelist’s process and life during the writing of their respective books. Makes sense?