∞
College Football and Moral Education
Lately I've been pondering the significance of college sports. In the United States, nearly every college or university devotes significant resources to athletic facilities, coaches, and teams. It's so prevalent, we don't think of how peculiar it is that we have so closely united academics and athletics. Plenty of theorists of education have suggested that there is a natural connection between playfully educating the body and educating the mind, but it is not always obvious that there's a natural link between having a basketball team and having a strong math department, for instance.
Whenever I read an article in the local paper about a local talented high school athlete who has signed with a college sports team, I wonder why we don't report that a local talented debater, chess expert, or math student just made it into Harvard or the University of Chicago on the basis of her talent. It makes me wonder: Do we not care about intellectual ability as much we care about physical prowess?
In 1908 Harvard Philosophy professor Josiah Royce published an essay entitled "Football and Ideals." The essay is over a century old, but the topic and the ideas sound like they could have been written yesterday. Royce writes, "Football is at present a great social force in our country. It has long been so. Apparently it is destined to remain so." So far, this is correct.
In Royce's time football was still largely a college sport. (The NFL was founded twelve years later.) Just as college sports in the United States do today, it drew big crowds. Just as in our time, football had its scandals: severe injuries among players; hooliganism among the crowds; and unethical behavior among players off the field and among fans and gamblers.
And just as in our time, supporters of the sport claimed that football did more social good than harm.
In his essay, Royce takes all of this seriously. Any social force this great deserves to be examined, Royce says, in order to determine what social goods it provides, and at what cost. Only a few play, but all of us are affected by the sport. He puts it like this:
We often hear this expressed in similar terms today when proponents of college sports say that participation in sports fosters virtues like teamwork, or school spirit.
I think participation in athletics actually can do even more than this. As an educator, I have noticed that college athletes are often some of my most disciplined students. In general, they wake up early, take care of their bodies, and get their work done. There are exceptions, of course, but this has been the case with most of my student-athletes, anyway. Perhaps this is because I teach philosophy, and the weak students shy away from it because it is a difficult subject with no obvious cash value for their lives. In any event, my student athletes generally keep up the "student" part of that title fairly well. Being an athlete can provide numerous benefits for a student.
But this is only a small part of the question, isn't it? Royce reminds us that the question we are asking is not "Does playing football help the student-athlete?" but "Does football on campuses make us and our communities better?" In other words, this is not a question about the athlete but about the spectators. It is really a question about us.
This question is not a soft, squishy, depends-on-what-you-mean question. Royce has something very specific in mind: does the example of others' athleticism make you more ready to "go and do likewise," or does it merely thrill you? Or does it even sap your desire and ability to demonstrate similar excellence and loyalty?
Royce says that "if a man has only taught you to cheer him, he has so far only amused you," and if football has only allowed you to "let off steam" without making you "more practically devoted to your own tasks," then it has not made you better but possibly it has even stripped you of your moral strength.
This requires honest self-assessment. When you watch football, or other athletic contests (like the World Cup) are you becoming a better person, one more able to devote yourself to the tasks that strike you as worthy of your energies? Are you developing a deeper loyalty to others, and deeper respect for the loyalties of others, or does fandom in fact make those goals more difficult to attain?
Note that this is not a critique of football as a game, nor even of college sports as an institution. It is a critique of the spectators, and of the effect sports have on us when we watch them. Are they making us more fit for life together, or are they in fact making us less so?
I will not try to answer that question for now. Royce's conclusion, in his time, was that the conditions of spectating made football unfavorable "to the best moral development of our youth." College sports may be great for the players, but not for those who do not play, he said.
It's not obvious to me that things are now as they were then, but it is obvious to me that football has become a greater social force than it was in Royce's time a century ago. If so, it merits our constant examination. And if we are honest, and good, we will not be content with vague observations about building teamwork in the players. After all, the players never play alone, but always with a crowd. It is not just two teams who play a football game, but those two teams play together with the combined energies of the crowd, and each influences the other.
This should be obvious to us from the simple fact of team selection. Coaches select players from the general body of students (or potential students) in order to win games for the school, not in order to help those select few become better people. At many high schools and colleges, coaches are considered teaching faculty. But there is this important difference between sports teams and academic classes: academic teachers are not permitted to choose which students they will educate, but coaches generally have free rein to eliminate from their tutelage any whom they choose. So while college sports may be similar to classes (inasmuch as they purport to teach) they differ significantly in this respect.
For myself, I am not opposed to college sports. If anything, I would like to expand them to include all students as players, not merely as spectators. After all, if there are moral benefits to playing sports, then why would any institution of higher education not want to urge all of its students to gain that benefit by playing?
Whenever I read an article in the local paper about a local talented high school athlete who has signed with a college sports team, I wonder why we don't report that a local talented debater, chess expert, or math student just made it into Harvard or the University of Chicago on the basis of her talent. It makes me wonder: Do we not care about intellectual ability as much we care about physical prowess?
*****
In 1908 Harvard Philosophy professor Josiah Royce published an essay entitled "Football and Ideals." The essay is over a century old, but the topic and the ideas sound like they could have been written yesterday. Royce writes, "Football is at present a great social force in our country. It has long been so. Apparently it is destined to remain so." So far, this is correct.
In Royce's time football was still largely a college sport. (The NFL was founded twelve years later.) Just as college sports in the United States do today, it drew big crowds. Just as in our time, football had its scandals: severe injuries among players; hooliganism among the crowds; and unethical behavior among players off the field and among fans and gamblers.
And just as in our time, supporters of the sport claimed that football did more social good than harm.
In his essay, Royce takes all of this seriously. Any social force this great deserves to be examined, Royce says, in order to determine what social goods it provides, and at what cost. Only a few play, but all of us are affected by the sport. He puts it like this:
"Football must be estimated as to its general relations to the welfare of society, just as Standard Oil, or just as the railway management which results in killing a larger proportion of railway passengers in our country than in other countries, must be estimated; it must be judged by non-experts, precisely in so far as it influences their great common social concerns."Royce was in one sense a non-expert inasmuch as he was a professor, not a college athlete; but in another sense he was an expert because he had devoted much of his research to this question of ethics and the common good. Royce held that the aim of our moral lives is the fostering of loyalty, and that we can see this in a range of social institutions. He wasn't arguing that we should aim for small and local loyalties, though, but for loyalties that, though they begin and are expressed locally, develop into a broad agape-like loyalty that includes all people.
We often hear this expressed in similar terms today when proponents of college sports say that participation in sports fosters virtues like teamwork, or school spirit.
I think participation in athletics actually can do even more than this. As an educator, I have noticed that college athletes are often some of my most disciplined students. In general, they wake up early, take care of their bodies, and get their work done. There are exceptions, of course, but this has been the case with most of my student-athletes, anyway. Perhaps this is because I teach philosophy, and the weak students shy away from it because it is a difficult subject with no obvious cash value for their lives. In any event, my student athletes generally keep up the "student" part of that title fairly well. Being an athlete can provide numerous benefits for a student.
But this is only a small part of the question, isn't it? Royce reminds us that the question we are asking is not "Does playing football help the student-athlete?" but "Does football on campuses make us and our communities better?" In other words, this is not a question about the athlete but about the spectators. It is really a question about us.
This question is not a soft, squishy, depends-on-what-you-mean question. Royce has something very specific in mind: does the example of others' athleticism make you more ready to "go and do likewise," or does it merely thrill you? Or does it even sap your desire and ability to demonstrate similar excellence and loyalty?
Royce says that "if a man has only taught you to cheer him, he has so far only amused you," and if football has only allowed you to "let off steam" without making you "more practically devoted to your own tasks," then it has not made you better but possibly it has even stripped you of your moral strength.
This requires honest self-assessment. When you watch football, or other athletic contests (like the World Cup) are you becoming a better person, one more able to devote yourself to the tasks that strike you as worthy of your energies? Are you developing a deeper loyalty to others, and deeper respect for the loyalties of others, or does fandom in fact make those goals more difficult to attain?
Note that this is not a critique of football as a game, nor even of college sports as an institution. It is a critique of the spectators, and of the effect sports have on us when we watch them. Are they making us more fit for life together, or are they in fact making us less so?
I will not try to answer that question for now. Royce's conclusion, in his time, was that the conditions of spectating made football unfavorable "to the best moral development of our youth." College sports may be great for the players, but not for those who do not play, he said.
It's not obvious to me that things are now as they were then, but it is obvious to me that football has become a greater social force than it was in Royce's time a century ago. If so, it merits our constant examination. And if we are honest, and good, we will not be content with vague observations about building teamwork in the players. After all, the players never play alone, but always with a crowd. It is not just two teams who play a football game, but those two teams play together with the combined energies of the crowd, and each influences the other.
This should be obvious to us from the simple fact of team selection. Coaches select players from the general body of students (or potential students) in order to win games for the school, not in order to help those select few become better people. At many high schools and colleges, coaches are considered teaching faculty. But there is this important difference between sports teams and academic classes: academic teachers are not permitted to choose which students they will educate, but coaches generally have free rein to eliminate from their tutelage any whom they choose. So while college sports may be similar to classes (inasmuch as they purport to teach) they differ significantly in this respect.
For myself, I am not opposed to college sports. If anything, I would like to expand them to include all students as players, not merely as spectators. After all, if there are moral benefits to playing sports, then why would any institution of higher education not want to urge all of its students to gain that benefit by playing?
∞
Melville on Religion
Offered without comment:
“As Queequeg’s Ramadan, or Fasting and Humiliation, was to continue all day, I did not choose to disturb him till towards night-fall; for I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody’s religious obligations, no matter how comical, and could not find it in my heart to undervalue even a congregation of ants worshipping a toad-stool; or those other creatures in certain parts of our earth, who with a degree of footmanism quite unprecedented in other planets, bow down before the torso of a deceased landed proprietor merely on account of the inordinate possessions yet owned and rented in his name.”
“As Queequeg’s Ramadan, or Fasting and Humiliation, was to continue all day, I did not choose to disturb him till towards night-fall; for I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody’s religious obligations, no matter how comical, and could not find it in my heart to undervalue even a congregation of ants worshipping a toad-stool; or those other creatures in certain parts of our earth, who with a degree of footmanism quite unprecedented in other planets, bow down before the torso of a deceased landed proprietor merely on account of the inordinate possessions yet owned and rented in his name.”
Herman Melville, Moby Dick. (New York: Signet, 1980) 94, ch 17, “The Ramadan.”
∞
Newspapers, Sports, and Healthy Societies
Everywhere I've lived I've subscribed to the local newspaper. I do so because I think it's important to be informed about what's happening in my community, and because buying the local paper is like a voluntary tax you pay when you love democracy. It funds investigative reporting about local politics, which, while imperfect, is one of the keys to fighting corruption.
I have caught some of de Tocqueville's enthusiasm for the way journalism can pump the lifeblood of a free society. Subscription to one's local paper is an act of patriotism. It is a commonplace of contemporary life in the United States to say that our freedom is won and preserved by soldiers. But this is, at best, only partly true, and history shows that armed men can both help and hinder freedom. Armies may be helpful, but there are other services that are more essential to freedom: lawyers, educators, and journalists.
But my idealism concerning journalism contends with my cynicism. Publishers of news are, after all, publishers; and publishers must pay their bills, too. They've got to sell ads, which means they can't risk offending those who buy ads. Right now we are in one of those times when there are a very few companies that own very many of the news outlets, and it's hard to imagine that doesn't affect both the slant of news stories told and the way those stories are selected and omitted in the first place. And they've got to print what we want to buy.
All this is a prelude to something else I have in mind to write over the next few days, about the relationship between sports and education, a question at least as old as Plato's Republic. I begin here by noting the role sports play in our news. How much of television news is devoted to sports? On any given day, a third of my local newspaper reports local and national and international sports stories.
This raises several questions for me. Why does this hold such fascination for us? And is our fascination with sports healthy?
Since some of what I will say about sports will seem critical, let me point out that I'm not opposed to sports. I'm a member of a society devoted to philosophy and sport, and I love outdoor recreation. I swam for the varsity team in my high school; I played club ultimate in college; I encouraged my kids to play various sports like flag football, gymnastics, little league, and soccer throughout their youth; and I am now the faculty advisor for my college's martial arts club and I am a U-19 recreational league soccer coach in my city. Sports are important; but that does not mean that all the attention we give to sports is well given.
So, once again, I begin with noticing the attention our newspapers give to sports. Plainly we need our journalists to attend to judges and legislators, to governors and police departments, because all of those are public offices endowed with public trust. Journalists are one of the main ways we prevent the violation of that trust. So what about sports? Is the presence (we could even say the domination) of sporting news merely a distraction from the real work of journalism? Is it a necessary evil to get us to buy the paper and to support the important democratic work of reporting?
One could argue that we need newspapers to watch athletes and coaches and owners of athletic teams to ensure that their influence on society is not unjust. But this cuts both ways: were it not for the attention we already give to sport, the influence of athletes, coaches, and owners would be minimal. The fact that newspapers report so much about sport is the symptom; we ourselves, and our attention to sport are the cause. It is not something called "sport" that is at issue here, nor the leaning of the journalists, but rather, the attention we ourselves pay it. If newspapers are physicians of our civic life, then we are the patient; and the doctor can only do so much to make us healthy if we will not do our part, too.
I have caught some of de Tocqueville's enthusiasm for the way journalism can pump the lifeblood of a free society. Subscription to one's local paper is an act of patriotism. It is a commonplace of contemporary life in the United States to say that our freedom is won and preserved by soldiers. But this is, at best, only partly true, and history shows that armed men can both help and hinder freedom. Armies may be helpful, but there are other services that are more essential to freedom: lawyers, educators, and journalists.
But my idealism concerning journalism contends with my cynicism. Publishers of news are, after all, publishers; and publishers must pay their bills, too. They've got to sell ads, which means they can't risk offending those who buy ads. Right now we are in one of those times when there are a very few companies that own very many of the news outlets, and it's hard to imagine that doesn't affect both the slant of news stories told and the way those stories are selected and omitted in the first place. And they've got to print what we want to buy.
All this is a prelude to something else I have in mind to write over the next few days, about the relationship between sports and education, a question at least as old as Plato's Republic. I begin here by noting the role sports play in our news. How much of television news is devoted to sports? On any given day, a third of my local newspaper reports local and national and international sports stories.
This raises several questions for me. Why does this hold such fascination for us? And is our fascination with sports healthy?
Since some of what I will say about sports will seem critical, let me point out that I'm not opposed to sports. I'm a member of a society devoted to philosophy and sport, and I love outdoor recreation. I swam for the varsity team in my high school; I played club ultimate in college; I encouraged my kids to play various sports like flag football, gymnastics, little league, and soccer throughout their youth; and I am now the faculty advisor for my college's martial arts club and I am a U-19 recreational league soccer coach in my city. Sports are important; but that does not mean that all the attention we give to sports is well given.
So, once again, I begin with noticing the attention our newspapers give to sports. Plainly we need our journalists to attend to judges and legislators, to governors and police departments, because all of those are public offices endowed with public trust. Journalists are one of the main ways we prevent the violation of that trust. So what about sports? Is the presence (we could even say the domination) of sporting news merely a distraction from the real work of journalism? Is it a necessary evil to get us to buy the paper and to support the important democratic work of reporting?
One could argue that we need newspapers to watch athletes and coaches and owners of athletic teams to ensure that their influence on society is not unjust. But this cuts both ways: were it not for the attention we already give to sport, the influence of athletes, coaches, and owners would be minimal. The fact that newspapers report so much about sport is the symptom; we ourselves, and our attention to sport are the cause. It is not something called "sport" that is at issue here, nor the leaning of the journalists, but rather, the attention we ourselves pay it. If newspapers are physicians of our civic life, then we are the patient; and the doctor can only do so much to make us healthy if we will not do our part, too.
∞
A Lenten Meditation from Merold Westphal
“If Christianity is Platonism for the masses, scientific objectivity is Platonism for the enlightened elites of modernity.”
Merold Westphal, Suspicion and Faith. (New York: Fordham UP, 1998) p. 227
∞
We can begin by directing more funding to universities. We need bright engineers who have the freedom and funds to investigate how to make more efficient solar and wind energy.
We also need bright students in the humanities who will help us form the best policies to make sure we use our technology well. After all, a democracy can live without engineers, but it cannot survive long without reporters, teachers, and lawyers.
We know that money spent on education pays a perpetual dividend to both the person educated and her whole community.
We can also encourage the creation of new and important prizes. Why should we not have more prizes like the Nobel Prizes? And why shouldn't such a proud and wealthy nation fund some of those prizes? You've got the ear of the world for a little while longer. Use that opportunity well, and urge us to put our private funds into prizes for people who advance the causes that matter most to humanity: growing good food, creating and preserving clean water, protecting the species God told us to care for, healing the sick, liberating captives, and making us better producers and consumers of energy.
I am grateful for people who willingly take on the burdens of public office. I don't imagine it is easy. You remain in my prayers.
David
Hope And The Future: An Open Letter To The President
Dear President Obama,
I know you've got a lot on your mind right now, and I don't envy you the burdens of your office. I pray for you often, asking God to give you the wisdom to make good decisions and the strength to carry them out.
I have two requests for you today. The first is, please don't give up on hope. In your first campaign you spoke about hope a lot, and I think you know that meant a lot to people everywhere. We all want hope, especially hope that we feel we can believe in. We will often settle for unreasonable hopes, but we prefer hopes that seem grounded in possibility rather than in wild fantasy. For a while there you sounded like you had both hope and reason for hope. When I think about the office you occupy, I imagine there's a lot that works to rein hope in, to tame hope and to break it. You start out with big ideals, and then everyone reminds you that limited resources will be made to seem even scarcer by partisan quarrels until there's nothing left to spend on dreams. But let me tell you this: we need you to make lots of small decisions, but we also need some big dreams, some reasonable hopes. We need someone who will climb the steps to the bully pulpit and preach a sermon that reminds us of "the better angels of our nature." Don't just make the little decisions; remind us of the great hopes that have lived in our nation.
The second request is related to the first: I'd like you to help us to nurture the reasonable hope that we can find new ways of making energy. There are powerful sermons being preached about building more oil and tar sand pipelines so that the old ways can be maintained. But those are sermons without hope, the sermons of a creed doomed to perish in fire and smoke of its own burning, the platitudes born of a faith in a limited and dwindling resource. They are the cynical homilies of those who pass the collection plate and who think the worst thing they can lose is our regular tithing to the god of petroleum.
We need a reformation in that way of thinking.
Because national security is not just about defending ourselves with bullets and bombs, and it's not just about making sure we have enough oil. In the long run, national security has to mean that we have taken good care of the land, so that it is still worth inhabiting. That, in turn, means we have nurtured our hearts and minds and cultivated our virtue. What, after all, does it profit a nation to gain the world and lose its soul? We are a nation of innovators, not just custodians of the status quo. We began as an experiment, and it is in experimentation and new thinking that our hope now lies.
I know you've got a lot on your mind right now, and I don't envy you the burdens of your office. I pray for you often, asking God to give you the wisdom to make good decisions and the strength to carry them out.
I have two requests for you today. The first is, please don't give up on hope. In your first campaign you spoke about hope a lot, and I think you know that meant a lot to people everywhere. We all want hope, especially hope that we feel we can believe in. We will often settle for unreasonable hopes, but we prefer hopes that seem grounded in possibility rather than in wild fantasy. For a while there you sounded like you had both hope and reason for hope. When I think about the office you occupy, I imagine there's a lot that works to rein hope in, to tame hope and to break it. You start out with big ideals, and then everyone reminds you that limited resources will be made to seem even scarcer by partisan quarrels until there's nothing left to spend on dreams. But let me tell you this: we need you to make lots of small decisions, but we also need some big dreams, some reasonable hopes. We need someone who will climb the steps to the bully pulpit and preach a sermon that reminds us of "the better angels of our nature." Don't just make the little decisions; remind us of the great hopes that have lived in our nation.The second request is related to the first: I'd like you to help us to nurture the reasonable hope that we can find new ways of making energy. There are powerful sermons being preached about building more oil and tar sand pipelines so that the old ways can be maintained. But those are sermons without hope, the sermons of a creed doomed to perish in fire and smoke of its own burning, the platitudes born of a faith in a limited and dwindling resource. They are the cynical homilies of those who pass the collection plate and who think the worst thing they can lose is our regular tithing to the god of petroleum.
We need a reformation in that way of thinking.
Because national security is not just about defending ourselves with bullets and bombs, and it's not just about making sure we have enough oil. In the long run, national security has to mean that we have taken good care of the land, so that it is still worth inhabiting. That, in turn, means we have nurtured our hearts and minds and cultivated our virtue. What, after all, does it profit a nation to gain the world and lose its soul? We are a nation of innovators, not just custodians of the status quo. We began as an experiment, and it is in experimentation and new thinking that our hope now lies.
We can begin by directing more funding to universities. We need bright engineers who have the freedom and funds to investigate how to make more efficient solar and wind energy.
We also need bright students in the humanities who will help us form the best policies to make sure we use our technology well. After all, a democracy can live without engineers, but it cannot survive long without reporters, teachers, and lawyers.
We know that money spent on education pays a perpetual dividend to both the person educated and her whole community.
We can also encourage the creation of new and important prizes. Why should we not have more prizes like the Nobel Prizes? And why shouldn't such a proud and wealthy nation fund some of those prizes? You've got the ear of the world for a little while longer. Use that opportunity well, and urge us to put our private funds into prizes for people who advance the causes that matter most to humanity: growing good food, creating and preserving clean water, protecting the species God told us to care for, healing the sick, liberating captives, and making us better producers and consumers of energy.
I am grateful for people who willingly take on the burdens of public office. I don't imagine it is easy. You remain in my prayers.
David
∞
"Hit The Road, Philosophy"
My latest article, written with John Kaag, at Times Higher Education. Here's a sample:
"If philosophy is, as the name suggests, about loving wisdom, then it shouldn’t be something that is practised by only an erudite few. The argument that wisdom is valuable for everyone, and the life spent pursuing it is itself a good life is not some sort of Pollyanna idealism, but a pragmatic hope that philosophical reflection (what academic and novelist David Foster Wallace simply called “choosing what to think about”) can and does give life meaning."You can read it all here.
∞
"Don't Be Afraid To Hire Someone Better Than You."
My latest article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, about the best hiring advice I've ever received.
∞
Minnesota Canvas
I just returned from teaching a monthlong tropical ecology class in Belize and Guatemala. As I flew from Minneapolis to Sioux Falls, I saw this view of the farms below. Farmers and engineers have made firm lines according to the compass points, dividing the land into neat checkerboard squares of farmland bordered by dirt roads. Every section has its woodlot, a dark quadrilateral on a white snowdrifted landscape.
Ignoring the lines laid down by us, the wind has painted over this right-angled landscape. The snow and the soil show where the wind has steadily brushed across the state, patiently unmaking what we have done.
Ignoring the lines laid down by us, the wind has painted over this right-angled landscape. The snow and the soil show where the wind has steadily brushed across the state, patiently unmaking what we have done.
∞
The Place Where I Live - In Orion Magazine
Here is a short piece I wrote for Orion Magazine, along with a few of my photos from around Sioux Falls. It will appear in the print edition later this year.
∞
The Music of the Spheres: The Sun Is A Morning Star
Students in my Ancient and Medieval Philosophy class are required to spend at least four hours outdoors, gazing at the skies.
That may sound odd, but it arises from my conviction that philosophy needs labs. I call it my "Music of the Spheres" project, in which I invite them to consider what it would have been like to be Thales (who was one of the first to predict a solar eclipse), gazing at the night sky and thinking about the laws that seem to guide the motions of the celestial bodies.
The students are given specific instructions and they must come up with a clear research project that can be accomplished using only the tools available to ancient astronomers.
For me, the best part of the class comes at the end when I read their work, and I get to see their offhand comments, like this:
If you don't know what planets are visible right now; if you can't quickly identify a few constellations; or if you aren't sure what phase the moon is in, why not go outside and have a look? And why not share the moment with a friend?
The heavens are not yet done revealing themselves to us, and "the sun is but a morning star."
 |
| The Morning Star, Good Earth State Park (SD), December 2013 |
That may sound odd, but it arises from my conviction that philosophy needs labs. I call it my "Music of the Spheres" project, in which I invite them to consider what it would have been like to be Thales (who was one of the first to predict a solar eclipse), gazing at the night sky and thinking about the laws that seem to guide the motions of the celestial bodies.
The students are given specific instructions and they must come up with a clear research project that can be accomplished using only the tools available to ancient astronomers.
For me, the best part of the class comes at the end when I read their work, and I get to see their offhand comments, like this:
"I saw the Milky Way and its Great Rift for the first time."My heart leapt when I read that one. This next one didn't make my heart leap, but it did make my heart glad, because it too is an important discovery:
"Stargazing is much more fun with a friend."We live beneath these skies but so rarely do we lie on our backs beneath them and gaze upwards. Rarely do we lift our eyes to the heavens to see what is there, and when we do, we are quick to turn away in boredom, as though it were a small thing to gaze into the greatest distances.
If you don't know what planets are visible right now; if you can't quickly identify a few constellations; or if you aren't sure what phase the moon is in, why not go outside and have a look? And why not share the moment with a friend?
The heavens are not yet done revealing themselves to us, and "the sun is but a morning star."
∞
I spent my twentieth year of life in Madrid, Spain, studying Spanish philology. Studying abroad is like laboratory work in a science class: the experience often teaches much more than lectures or readings could ever do. Many of the lessons are unanticipated, and depend on the interaction of student and environment.
One day in February, for no particular reason, I wanted to eat strawberries. A few blocks from my flat there was a market, so I walked there and searched for fruit stands. Finding one but seeing that they had no strawberries, I asked the proprietor, "Do you know where I can find strawberries?"
"Of course," he replied. "Right here."
"But you don't have any," I observed.
"Of course I don't," he said.
I was confused. "But you said I could find strawberries right here."
"You can," he replied. "But not until June."
This took a little while to sink in. I was accustomed to going to a supermarket at home in New York and buying any fruit I wanted at any time of year. Now I was being told what should have been perfectly clear: fruit is seasonal.
At first I was disappointed, but it took only a few minutes before I realized that this wasn't such a bad thing. It meant that the strawberries, when they arrived, would taste that much sweeter. The disappointment of having to wait would be repaid by the delight when they did arrive.
The experience didn't reform me, of course. I love eating my favorite foods year-round, despite not having harvested them and usually without knowing where they came from.
But it did make me appreciate some of the rhythms of life around me. The first part of Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac, and most of Thoreau's Walden - two of my favorite books - follow the cycle of the seasons in the northern part of the United States. Their understanding of nature is one that allows nature to undergo its habitual changes. They might even say that what they know about nature arises from attention to just those changes. Phenology, the attention to when and how things appear and disappear throughout seasons, is one of the most important parts of learning to see the world. If I may speak an Emersonian word, phenology attunes us to the music nature wants us to hear. To speak less mystically, it accustoms us to natural patterns, and much of what the naturalist wants is to learn those patterns so well that we can then see when nature departs from them.
What are the calendars in your life? Technology has made many of them seem unnecessary, but I suspect that they give us much more than we know, just as my experience in Spain gave me unlooked-for lessons. We should be careful not to insist that others delight in the absences or disciplines we delight in; what may be a delightful, self-imposed fast to us may be devastating to someone who is genuinely hungry. When we choose them for ourselves, school calendars, planning one's garden, the liturgical calendars and holidays of the world's religions - each of them can offer us rhythms of both discipline and delight as we make ourselves wait for the strawberries to ripen, the hummingbirds to return, the exams to end, the candles to be lit.
Searching For Winter Strawberries
 |
| A late October strawberry in my garden |
One day in February, for no particular reason, I wanted to eat strawberries. A few blocks from my flat there was a market, so I walked there and searched for fruit stands. Finding one but seeing that they had no strawberries, I asked the proprietor, "Do you know where I can find strawberries?"
"Of course," he replied. "Right here."
"But you don't have any," I observed.
"Of course I don't," he said.
I was confused. "But you said I could find strawberries right here."
"You can," he replied. "But not until June."
This took a little while to sink in. I was accustomed to going to a supermarket at home in New York and buying any fruit I wanted at any time of year. Now I was being told what should have been perfectly clear: fruit is seasonal.
At first I was disappointed, but it took only a few minutes before I realized that this wasn't such a bad thing. It meant that the strawberries, when they arrived, would taste that much sweeter. The disappointment of having to wait would be repaid by the delight when they did arrive.
The experience didn't reform me, of course. I love eating my favorite foods year-round, despite not having harvested them and usually without knowing where they came from.
But it did make me appreciate some of the rhythms of life around me. The first part of Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac, and most of Thoreau's Walden - two of my favorite books - follow the cycle of the seasons in the northern part of the United States. Their understanding of nature is one that allows nature to undergo its habitual changes. They might even say that what they know about nature arises from attention to just those changes. Phenology, the attention to when and how things appear and disappear throughout seasons, is one of the most important parts of learning to see the world. If I may speak an Emersonian word, phenology attunes us to the music nature wants us to hear. To speak less mystically, it accustoms us to natural patterns, and much of what the naturalist wants is to learn those patterns so well that we can then see when nature departs from them.
What are the calendars in your life? Technology has made many of them seem unnecessary, but I suspect that they give us much more than we know, just as my experience in Spain gave me unlooked-for lessons. We should be careful not to insist that others delight in the absences or disciplines we delight in; what may be a delightful, self-imposed fast to us may be devastating to someone who is genuinely hungry. When we choose them for ourselves, school calendars, planning one's garden, the liturgical calendars and holidays of the world's religions - each of them can offer us rhythms of both discipline and delight as we make ourselves wait for the strawberries to ripen, the hummingbirds to return, the exams to end, the candles to be lit.
∞
Thoreau writes that not many people know the art of Walking. I am trying to learn it, and I think part of it involves learning to see what is there. My friend Scott Parsons has helped me to see better by teaching me to draw, since the pencil forces me to pay attention to what I actually see rather than just what I think I see.
Lately I have been trying to walk more - that is, to Walk more - in and around my city, Sioux Falls. I find, as I step off the sidewalks and walk a little more transgressively, the city is transformed. The habits of sidewalks and cars speed up the world around us until much of it vanishes in a blur.
Thoreau recommends trans-gressing, that is, stepping across paths and fences rather than letting them herd us to the destinations that habit and tradition and fetishized commerce want to lead us. Once he wrote that we should sometimes bend over and look at the world upside down. Sometimes this is all the "transgression" that is needed to overcome the aggressive habits that constrain us in daily life.
Another tool I have used lately is the camera, peering down its glassy pipe at single, simple things, trying to break up the landscape by gazing intently at just one point. Or, at times, using the lens to draw the world together, to see how much I can gather into its frame.
When I first moved to Sioux Falls almost ten years ago I thought it was a homely place, a city that did not care for design or good planning or beautiful architecture. Slowly, one frame at a time, I am changing my own mind. As I Walk through and around it, I am coming to see that it is, at times and in places, quite a lovely place to live.
Walking In Nature - In Sioux Falls
 |
| Cardinal in Tuthill Park, Sioux Falls |
Lately I have been trying to walk more - that is, to Walk more - in and around my city, Sioux Falls. I find, as I step off the sidewalks and walk a little more transgressively, the city is transformed. The habits of sidewalks and cars speed up the world around us until much of it vanishes in a blur.
 |
| Whitetail deer, east Sioux Falls |
Thoreau recommends trans-gressing, that is, stepping across paths and fences rather than letting them herd us to the destinations that habit and tradition and fetishized commerce want to lead us. Once he wrote that we should sometimes bend over and look at the world upside down. Sometimes this is all the "transgression" that is needed to overcome the aggressive habits that constrain us in daily life.
 |
| Ice on a single blade of grass on the Augustana College campus |
When I first moved to Sioux Falls almost ten years ago I thought it was a homely place, a city that did not care for design or good planning or beautiful architecture. Slowly, one frame at a time, I am changing my own mind. As I Walk through and around it, I am coming to see that it is, at times and in places, quite a lovely place to live.
∞
Augustine once said that a key to his conversion was when he met St Ambrose. Augustine had regarded the Bible as full of flawed and problematic texts. As Augustine put it, "by taking them literally, I had found them to kill."(1) Ambrose taught Augustine that the texts of the Bible may have more than one sense. The scriptures might speak to him in more than one way. When he heard this, and heard it from a man who thought it important to study science and the liberal arts, Augustine found his spiritual home in Christianity.
In recent years authors like Norman Wirzba, Bill McKibben, and Scott Russell Sanders have written about the relevance of Biblical texts for thinking about ecology. To me, they have been a little like St Ambrose. I've found one passage in Sanders to be quite helpful personally as I think about the management of my little suburban fifth-acre plot.
In his A Conservationist Manifesto, Sanders writes about the story of Noah and the Ark. He remembers that Noah was given the task of saving not just himself but every other species as well. And once they were on the ark, it was his job to care for the animals and to keep them alive. Sanders talks about books, and communities, and practices that can be like small arks in our time. One such "ark" may be the little plots of land we maintain around our homes:
*****
(1) Augustine, Confessions. Henry Chadwick's translation. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998) p. 88.
(2) Scott Russell Sanders, A Conservationist Manifesto. (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2009) p. 16.
*****
All of these images were taken by David O'Hara in the fall of 2013. You may use them elsewhere but please mention where you found them and give credit where it is due. Thanks.
My Backyard Ark
Augustine once said that a key to his conversion was when he met St Ambrose. Augustine had regarded the Bible as full of flawed and problematic texts. As Augustine put it, "by taking them literally, I had found them to kill."(1) Ambrose taught Augustine that the texts of the Bible may have more than one sense. The scriptures might speak to him in more than one way. When he heard this, and heard it from a man who thought it important to study science and the liberal arts, Augustine found his spiritual home in Christianity.In recent years authors like Norman Wirzba, Bill McKibben, and Scott Russell Sanders have written about the relevance of Biblical texts for thinking about ecology. To me, they have been a little like St Ambrose. I've found one passage in Sanders to be quite helpful personally as I think about the management of my little suburban fifth-acre plot.
In his A Conservationist Manifesto, Sanders writes about the story of Noah and the Ark. He remembers that Noah was given the task of saving not just himself but every other species as well. And once they were on the ark, it was his job to care for the animals and to keep them alive. Sanders talks about books, and communities, and practices that can be like small arks in our time. One such "ark" may be the little plots of land we maintain around our homes:
"Every unsprayed garden and unkempt yard, every meadow, marsh, and woods may become a reservoir for biological possibilities, keeping alive creatures who bear in their genes millions of years; worth of evolutionary discoveries. Every such refuge may also become a reservoir for spiritual possibilities, keeping alive our connection with the land, reminding us of our origins in the green world."(2)Lately I've been surveying my yard more closely, looking to see whom I'm sharing it with, and how. I've been trying to do some phenology, like Thoreau did. I also wander my garden with lenses: a hand lens for close inspection; my phone camera and my SLR for keeping records of what lives and grows there; and I've recently set up an infrared game camera to see who passes through at night. For the curious, I've posted some photos below of what I've seen there.
*****
(1) Augustine, Confessions. Henry Chadwick's translation. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998) p. 88.
(2) Scott Russell Sanders, A Conservationist Manifesto. (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2009) p. 16.
*****
All of these images were taken by David O'Hara in the fall of 2013. You may use them elsewhere but please mention where you found them and give credit where it is due. Thanks.
∞
What Are Philosophy's Flaws?
Last week I suggested to one of my students that she would make a good philosophy major. A few days later she came to my office and asked me, "What are philosophy's flaws?"
She wanted to know, she said, because she was thinking seriously about studying more philosophy, and for her, thinking seriously about something means considering something from all angles. She knows that ideas give birth to other ideas, and to practical consequences.
I don't think I gave her a very good answer at the time, but I've continued to think about it because it strikes me as a good question asked for a good reason.
Not long ago I was re-reading the Stoic philosopher Gaius Musonius Rufus. Of the four major Roman Stoics, he's probably the least well-known. Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius all left substantial writings, but Musonius did not.
Rather, Musonius is known chiefly through the notes his students left behind. In fact, this is one of the reasons I like him so well: whatever became of his writings, his life made a difference for his students. His teaching mattered so much that they refused to let his life vanish from history.
There's another reason I like Musonius: he insisted that philosophy is for women, not just for men. Since the student whom I invited to study philosophy is also a woman, I want to try to give a better answer to her question by turning to Musonius now.
Once, when Musonius made the bold invitation for women to join the Stoic philosophers, someone asked him: won't studying philosophy make the women obstinate, independent, and opinionated?
He replied that in fact, it might do just that. Musonius recognized that the question was a question about the same thing my student was asking about: philosophy's flaws. Philosophy often makes us better thinkers, but it can also make us obnoxious to our neighbors when we care more about the ideas than about the people whose lives are connected to the ideas.
Musonius then quickly pointed out that the question is irrelevant, however, because what is true of women is also true of men in this regard. Like Augustine several centuries later, Musonius argued that women and men have equal intellectual powers. If philosophy entails the development and strengthening of our native intellect, then surely women will benefit from it just as much as men.
It would appear that the questioner wasn't concerned about people becoming opinionated, independent thinkers, but about women becoming opinionated, independent thinkers. What began as a question about the vices of philosophy quickly exposes itself as a question that reveals the bias of the questioner -- a bias that philosophy would be more than happy to correct.
This brings me to my student's question: Yes, philosophy has flaws, and one of its chief flaws is that when it is combined with a lack of kindness, it can amplify that unkindness.
But it also has the power to expose that unkindness in a pretty keen way. And when it is combined with kindness and positive regard for our neighbors -- with what we sometimes call agapé, or love -- it can be something that causes kindness to grow.
I don't mean that philosophy is a panacaea, or that it will do all good things for us, all on its unattended own.
But I do mean that you, my student, have very real native intelligence, and it pleases me to see it in you. And I would love to see it grow. To point to Augustine once more: Augustine found philosophy to be helpful for his own self-understanding, for his seeking after God, and for keeping his church from descending into irrationality. He regarded it as a way to "love God with his mind."
I wouldn't ask you, my student, to give up your nursing major. Quite the opposite! Just as surely as women need philosophy, I think nurses and business majors and scientists and poets need philosophy, too. I think that studying philosophy will make you a better nurse, one more able to improve the nursing profession and to improve your workplace.
And let me add one more thing. When you came into my office the other day to ask me that brilliant question, one thing was quite clear to me: whether or not you choose to make philosophy your formal major, you are already becoming a philosopher. And that makes me very happy indeed.
She wanted to know, she said, because she was thinking seriously about studying more philosophy, and for her, thinking seriously about something means considering something from all angles. She knows that ideas give birth to other ideas, and to practical consequences.
I don't think I gave her a very good answer at the time, but I've continued to think about it because it strikes me as a good question asked for a good reason.
Not long ago I was re-reading the Stoic philosopher Gaius Musonius Rufus. Of the four major Roman Stoics, he's probably the least well-known. Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius all left substantial writings, but Musonius did not.
Rather, Musonius is known chiefly through the notes his students left behind. In fact, this is one of the reasons I like him so well: whatever became of his writings, his life made a difference for his students. His teaching mattered so much that they refused to let his life vanish from history.
There's another reason I like Musonius: he insisted that philosophy is for women, not just for men. Since the student whom I invited to study philosophy is also a woman, I want to try to give a better answer to her question by turning to Musonius now.
Once, when Musonius made the bold invitation for women to join the Stoic philosophers, someone asked him: won't studying philosophy make the women obstinate, independent, and opinionated?
He replied that in fact, it might do just that. Musonius recognized that the question was a question about the same thing my student was asking about: philosophy's flaws. Philosophy often makes us better thinkers, but it can also make us obnoxious to our neighbors when we care more about the ideas than about the people whose lives are connected to the ideas.
Musonius then quickly pointed out that the question is irrelevant, however, because what is true of women is also true of men in this regard. Like Augustine several centuries later, Musonius argued that women and men have equal intellectual powers. If philosophy entails the development and strengthening of our native intellect, then surely women will benefit from it just as much as men.
It would appear that the questioner wasn't concerned about people becoming opinionated, independent thinkers, but about women becoming opinionated, independent thinkers. What began as a question about the vices of philosophy quickly exposes itself as a question that reveals the bias of the questioner -- a bias that philosophy would be more than happy to correct.
This brings me to my student's question: Yes, philosophy has flaws, and one of its chief flaws is that when it is combined with a lack of kindness, it can amplify that unkindness.
But it also has the power to expose that unkindness in a pretty keen way. And when it is combined with kindness and positive regard for our neighbors -- with what we sometimes call agapé, or love -- it can be something that causes kindness to grow.
I don't mean that philosophy is a panacaea, or that it will do all good things for us, all on its unattended own.
But I do mean that you, my student, have very real native intelligence, and it pleases me to see it in you. And I would love to see it grow. To point to Augustine once more: Augustine found philosophy to be helpful for his own self-understanding, for his seeking after God, and for keeping his church from descending into irrationality. He regarded it as a way to "love God with his mind."
I wouldn't ask you, my student, to give up your nursing major. Quite the opposite! Just as surely as women need philosophy, I think nurses and business majors and scientists and poets need philosophy, too. I think that studying philosophy will make you a better nurse, one more able to improve the nursing profession and to improve your workplace.
And let me add one more thing. When you came into my office the other day to ask me that brilliant question, one thing was quite clear to me: whether or not you choose to make philosophy your formal major, you are already becoming a philosopher. And that makes me very happy indeed.
∞
20,000: Two Stories Of Water Pollution In The Dakotas
Two stories in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader in the past week have caught my attention. Coincidentally, both have to do with pollution of groundwater and with 20,000 units lost.
The first was a story about an oil pipeline leak in which 20,000 barrels of crude oil contaminated over seven acres of farmland. The Argus reports that in major oil-producing states like North Dakota oil spills must be reported to the state, but state law does not mandate the release of this information to the public. In other words, the state is free to keep this news quiet. One has to assume that the state legislators who wrote that law thought it was in the public interest to keep news of toxic spills quiet. It's better for us not to know about such things, I guess.
Anyway, the Argus lets us know that some state officials think there's no cause for concern: "state regulators say no water sources were contaminated, no wildlife was hurt and no one was injured." Oh, good.
The second story is about the disposal of some 20,000 cattle that died in a surprisingly early and heavy snowstorm earlier this month. This is a devastating loss for ranchers across western South Dakota. It represents an enormous financial loss, and it also creates a very difficult cleanup problem. The best solution for disposal of all the carcasses so far has been to dig two large pits. The Argus reports that there are strict regulations concerning the depth and soil of the pits.
According to the Argus, the reason for the pits is to make sure the dead cattle don't contaminate streams.
Which makes me wonder why there is so little concern for the oil spill in North Dakota. Obviously there is an important difference between bacterial and viral infections entering streams, on the one hand, and oil entering streams on the other hand. But surely both represent serious health hazards?
We are left with a peculiar contrast: a few cattle on the ground - something that happens in nature all the time - are a serious threat to the water, while a million gallons of crude oil spread across seven acres of farmland (presumably some rain falls there and washes into streams?) is barely worth telling the public about.
*****
Update: Since a number of people have asked me just what happened to the cattle in South Dakota, I am posting this link that I found to be a helpful reply to some questions about the storm and the loss of the cattle.
The first was a story about an oil pipeline leak in which 20,000 barrels of crude oil contaminated over seven acres of farmland. The Argus reports that in major oil-producing states like North Dakota oil spills must be reported to the state, but state law does not mandate the release of this information to the public. In other words, the state is free to keep this news quiet. One has to assume that the state legislators who wrote that law thought it was in the public interest to keep news of toxic spills quiet. It's better for us not to know about such things, I guess.
Anyway, the Argus lets us know that some state officials think there's no cause for concern: "state regulators say no water sources were contaminated, no wildlife was hurt and no one was injured." Oh, good.
The second story is about the disposal of some 20,000 cattle that died in a surprisingly early and heavy snowstorm earlier this month. This is a devastating loss for ranchers across western South Dakota. It represents an enormous financial loss, and it also creates a very difficult cleanup problem. The best solution for disposal of all the carcasses so far has been to dig two large pits. The Argus reports that there are strict regulations concerning the depth and soil of the pits.
According to the Argus, the reason for the pits is to make sure the dead cattle don't contaminate streams.
Which makes me wonder why there is so little concern for the oil spill in North Dakota. Obviously there is an important difference between bacterial and viral infections entering streams, on the one hand, and oil entering streams on the other hand. But surely both represent serious health hazards?
We are left with a peculiar contrast: a few cattle on the ground - something that happens in nature all the time - are a serious threat to the water, while a million gallons of crude oil spread across seven acres of farmland (presumably some rain falls there and washes into streams?) is barely worth telling the public about.
*****
Update: Since a number of people have asked me just what happened to the cattle in South Dakota, I am posting this link that I found to be a helpful reply to some questions about the storm and the loss of the cattle.
∞
I'm reviewing David Clough's On Animals and I just came across a gem in its pages. The "gem" is from Edward Payson Evans’ book The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals. I had no idea Evans' book existed, so part of the fun was simply learning that there have been hundreds of criminal cases in human history where animals have been placed on trial and given court-appointed lawyers. Another part of the fun was learning that someone took the time to compile them in a book.
The first paragraph below is from Clough, the second from Evans. This is one for the office door, I think, since it details a court case in 1545 in which weevils were put on trial, and had a court-appointed lawyer. I like the way the judge decides that the earth is not for us only, but also for the weevils:
In Defense of Insects
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| Cloudless Sulphur in my asters. |
The first paragraph below is from Clough, the second from Evans. This is one for the office door, I think, since it details a court case in 1545 in which weevils were put on trial, and had a court-appointed lawyer. I like the way the judge decides that the earth is not for us only, but also for the weevils:
“One example will serve to indicate the seriousness with which the court proceedings against animals were taken. Evans records the case of the wine-growers of St Julien in 1545, who complained that weevils were ravaging their vineyards. The official, François Bonnivard, heard the arguments of Pierre Falcon for the plaintiffs and Claude Morel in defence of the weevils, before deciding to issue a proclamation rather than passing sentence. The proclamation was as follows:
“Inasmuch as God, the supreme author of all that exists, hath ordained that the earth should bring forth fruits and herbs not solely for the sustenance of rational human beings, but likewise for the preservation and support of insects, which fly about on the surface of the soil, therefore it would be unbecoming to proceed with rashness and precipitance against the animals now actually accused and indicted; on the contrary, it would be more fitting for us to have recourse to the mercy of heaven and to implore pardon for our sins.” (Clough, p. 110; citation from Evans, 38-39; boldface emphasis is mine.)This is a reminder that while theology can have terrible consequences, theologies and other stories we tell about ourselves can have fascinating, helpful, and thought-broadening consequences as well. Here the story of creation is deployed to remind us that we are not sole masters of the world. God is invoked as creator of everything to insist that the world is there for God - and so for everything God made - and not just for us. The world is, apparently, even there for the insects. Haldane's famous quip about God's "inordinate fondness for beetles" finds serious support here.
∞
Demosthenes' "Against Meidias"
Tonight I am reading Demosthenes' Against Meidias. Why? Because nothing prevents me from doing so, and books like this repay the reader many times over for the little effort it takes to read them.
The text is full of citations of Athenian law, and both its structure and content tell us a great deal about ancient jurisprudence.
Demosthenes also gives us some gems of ancient legal reasoning, reminding us that there is very little new under the sun. For instance: Meidias, a wealthy and brutish man, assaulted Demosthenes while Demosthenes was performing a sacred state function. Meidias then claimed that such assaults happen all the time, and therefore his was unimportant. Demosthenes replied that the decision of the court will affect not only this single case but that it will have the effect of deterring future assaults as well.
But on this reading I am especially enjoying Demosthenes as a handbook of erudite Attic insults. His repeated epithet against Euctemon, Ευκτημων ο κονιορτος, "dust-raising Euctemon" or "Dirty old Euctemon" is a minor example.
A far better one is this one, aimed at Meidias:
The text is full of citations of Athenian law, and both its structure and content tell us a great deal about ancient jurisprudence.
Demosthenes also gives us some gems of ancient legal reasoning, reminding us that there is very little new under the sun. For instance: Meidias, a wealthy and brutish man, assaulted Demosthenes while Demosthenes was performing a sacred state function. Meidias then claimed that such assaults happen all the time, and therefore his was unimportant. Demosthenes replied that the decision of the court will affect not only this single case but that it will have the effect of deterring future assaults as well.
But on this reading I am especially enjoying Demosthenes as a handbook of erudite Attic insults. His repeated epithet against Euctemon, Ευκτημων ο κονιορτος, "dust-raising Euctemon" or "Dirty old Euctemon" is a minor example.
A far better one is this one, aimed at Meidias:
“If, men of Athens, public service consists in saying to you at all the meetings of the Assembly and on every possible occasion, ‘We are the men who perform the public services; we are those who advance your tax-money; we are the capitalists” – if that is all it means, then I confess that Meidias has shown himself the most distinguished citizen of Athens.” (Section 153; Taken from the Loeb edition. J.H. Vince, Trans. (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1956) p.107)He hardly needs to say what follows: of course, public service consists in much more than that, and by offering these public rebukes against a man like this I am fulfilling one of my highest duties. Powerful people who use their power to abuse their fellow citizens deserve no less.
∞
The Best Watchmen Of Our Thoughts
"And, finally, I suppose they took the acropolis of the young man's soul, perceiving that it was empty of fair studies and practices and true speeches, and it's these that are the best
watchmen and guardians in the thought of men whom the gods love."
Plato, Republic 560b. Allan Bloom's translation. (Basic Books, 1991)
∞
Pragmatic Stoic Theology
In preparing a class on later Stoicism, I came across a passage from Cicero's De Natura Deorum, or On The Nature Of The Gods. Cicero himself is not one to take sides, but he attempts to practice that virtue of presenting the views of others as fairly as he can. As part of this practice, Cicero attributes a god-argument to the Stoic Chrysippus in Book 2, section 16 (Latin text here) of his De Natura Deorum.
Chrysippus' god-argument is not, strictly speaking, a proof of the existence of a god. It is rather an appeal to what he thinks is common sense, and to the consequences of not believing.
The first part, the appeal to common sense, goes something like this:
The second part makes a case that at least invites us to be cautious about dismissing it too readily. It goes like this:
But the most helpful part, I think, is (4), which stands as an invitation to consider who we are as we face the cosmos. We think of ourselves as natural, but we also think of ourselves as standing somehow apart from nature.
So it may be that there is nothing in the cosmos wiser or more clever than we are. We should be honest about this and acknowledge the real possibility that this is the case.
But Chrysippus invites us also to consider the consequences of that belief, since it could be taken as license to act as we will. The danger, as he sees it, is that we might become the sort of people who worship ourselves. This is dangerous in part because it impedes growth; we become like what we worship, and if we worship only ourselves, then we become our own best ideal. I will speak for myself when I say that I, at least, am a cramped and stingy ideal.
Many of the Stoics are content to name nature as god; what matters is that there always be something worth our attention and admiration. I'm reminded of the wise words of David Foster Wallace, who said that
Wallace comes pretty close to Chrysippus. Neither is trying to convert you to a religion, neither is trying to set the rules for your life, but both are reporting on what they have seen when they have ventured in the direction of denying all the gods: off in that direction, they found they could escape all the gods except the god they then found that they forced themselves to become.
Which, to paraphrase Wallace, is a good reason for choosing to posit some god which, if it existed, would be worth your worship. And then, maybe, to test it by trying to worship it as though it were really there.
Chrysippus' god-argument is not, strictly speaking, a proof of the existence of a god. It is rather an appeal to what he thinks is common sense, and to the consequences of not believing.
The first part, the appeal to common sense, goes something like this:
1) If there is anything in nature that we can't have made then something greater than us made it;
2) That something is what we call a god.Of course, he is assuming that everything that exists must exist because it was made, and that it was made designedly by a single cause. We could object that natural arrangements might have more than one lesser natural cause; or we could contest the whole notion of greater and lesser and dismiss this part of his argument fairly easily.
The second part makes a case that at least invites us to be cautious about dismissing it too readily. It goes like this:
3) Unless there is divine power, human reason is the greatest thing we know of and can possess;
4) So if there are no gods, then we are the greatest beings in the cosmos. In which case, we are the gods.Of course there might be other things we don't know of that are more powerful than we are; or we might (wisely) regard nature as more powerful than we are.
But the most helpful part, I think, is (4), which stands as an invitation to consider who we are as we face the cosmos. We think of ourselves as natural, but we also think of ourselves as standing somehow apart from nature.
So it may be that there is nothing in the cosmos wiser or more clever than we are. We should be honest about this and acknowledge the real possibility that this is the case.
But Chrysippus invites us also to consider the consequences of that belief, since it could be taken as license to act as we will. The danger, as he sees it, is that we might become the sort of people who worship ourselves. This is dangerous in part because it impedes growth; we become like what we worship, and if we worship only ourselves, then we become our own best ideal. I will speak for myself when I say that I, at least, am a cramped and stingy ideal.
Many of the Stoics are content to name nature as god; what matters is that there always be something worth our attention and admiration. I'm reminded of the wise words of David Foster Wallace, who said that
There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship - be it JC or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles - is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.You can read the rest of his brief, insightful talk here (or by searching for "This Is Water.")
Wallace comes pretty close to Chrysippus. Neither is trying to convert you to a religion, neither is trying to set the rules for your life, but both are reporting on what they have seen when they have ventured in the direction of denying all the gods: off in that direction, they found they could escape all the gods except the god they then found that they forced themselves to become.
Which, to paraphrase Wallace, is a good reason for choosing to posit some god which, if it existed, would be worth your worship. And then, maybe, to test it by trying to worship it as though it were really there.
∞
Trained By Trains - Thoreau on Technology
I'm teaching Thoreau's Walden this semester, and tomorrow my class will discuss the chapter entitled "Sounds." While re-reading it tonight I was struck by two passages about trains and the way this new technology was changing the people who lived near it.
Here's the first passage:
It may sound like Thoreau admires this change, but he does not. Just a little earlier he wrote that when he was at Walden his "days were not days of the week, bearing the stamp of any heathen deity, nor were they minced into hours and fretted by the ticking of a clock." His Walden-time is not "minced into hours." That is, it is not governed by any clock but Thoreau himself.
The other passage is one where he imagines the trains as "bolts" or arrows:
A hundred and seventy years ago Thoreau was already seeing the ways that a single technology - one heralded as beneficent and neutral - was remaking us in its image, changing our sense of time, speeding us up, educating us to stay out of its way and so confining us to the spaces between the spaces it occupies.
And it's not just those who ride the railroad who are conditioned by it; everyone is conditioned by it. The technology is not neutral, not a mere thing we can wield with no effect upon the wielder. We may devise tools, but we are ignorant if we think that the tools do not also come to change us.
Here's the first passage:
"Far through unfrequented woods on the confines of towns, where once only the hunter penetrated by day, in the darkest night dart these bright saloons without the knowledge of their inhabitants….They go and come with such regularity and precision, and their whistle can be heard so far, that the farmers set their clocks by them, and thus one well-conducted institution regulates a whole country. Have not men improved somewhat in punctuality since the railroad was invented? Do they not talk and think faster in the depot than they did in the stage-office? There is something electrifying in the former place."The Fitchburg Railroad had been very recently built in his time. Despite the short time it had been in existence, already it had begun to change the way people who lived near it regarded time.
It may sound like Thoreau admires this change, but he does not. Just a little earlier he wrote that when he was at Walden his "days were not days of the week, bearing the stamp of any heathen deity, nor were they minced into hours and fretted by the ticking of a clock." His Walden-time is not "minced into hours." That is, it is not governed by any clock but Thoreau himself.
The other passage is one where he imagines the trains as "bolts" or arrows:
"We live the steadier for it. We are all educated thus to be sons of Tell. The air is full of invisible bolts."To be a son of William Tell is no pleasant thing. To be a son of Tell is to be constantly in mortal peril. One's schoolmaster is the permanent risk of sudden death.
A hundred and seventy years ago Thoreau was already seeing the ways that a single technology - one heralded as beneficent and neutral - was remaking us in its image, changing our sense of time, speeding us up, educating us to stay out of its way and so confining us to the spaces between the spaces it occupies.
And it's not just those who ride the railroad who are conditioned by it; everyone is conditioned by it. The technology is not neutral, not a mere thing we can wield with no effect upon the wielder. We may devise tools, but we are ignorant if we think that the tools do not also come to change us.