Gandalf the. . . Libertarian

Sooner or later every beloved literary character falls victim to some ideologue who tries to shoehorn him into a pet philosophy. My goal here is far more modest: to observe the character of Gandalf as consistent with Tolkien's philosophy of nature. I have chosen the appellation libertarian mostly out of desperation, libertarianism being the only recognizable philosophy with any principled and pervasive antipathy toward the use of force. Tolkien's own opposition to force included the political as well as natural.

"The modern world meant for [Tolkien] essentially the machine. . . He used ["machine"] very compendiously to mean. . . almost any alternative solution to the development of the innate and inherent powers and talents of human beings. The machine means, for him. . . the wrong solution: the attempt to actualize our desires, like our desire to fly. It meant coercion, domination, for him the great enemy. Coercion of other minds and other wills. This is tyranny. But he also saw the characteristic activity of the modern world is the coercion, the tyrannous reformation of the earth, our place." – Christopher Tolkien

We see in Middle Earth, then, tyranny in the obvious form of Sauron's political control of the free peoples, but also from Saruman, and it is in fact this tyranny which is more instructive insofar as it is multifaceted.

1. He controlled the land via his industrious machines.
2. He sought political domination, by way of the One Ring, to order all things according to his special wisdom. 
3. He through his extraordinary powers of persuasion sought to coerce people for his own ends. Tolkien calls him subtle in speech but we might appropriately call him in Greek δεινός/deinos, or great and terrible with respect to speech.
4. He assumed political authority in heading the White Council. 

In each instance Gandalf is opposed to Saruman.

1. Where Saruman controlled the land, Gandalf was itinerant.
2. Where Saruman sought the One Ring, Gandalf rejected it. Moreover, while he possessed the ring Narya, its power and purpose were not domination but of preservation and rekindling hearts, Gandalf's mission.
3. Where Saruman seeks to persuade Gandalf finds common cause and mutual self-interest (if that's not too libertarian for you) as in the case of the quest for Erebor.
4. Gandalf refused to head the White Council, rejecting political means and preferring to have "no ties and no allegiance" except to those who sent him.

Most different of all, though, Saruman studied the "devices of Sauron of old" and the Rings of Power, their making and history. Even though he earlier sought to learn with the purpose of destroying evil, Tolkien describes Saruman's "desire of mastery" as having grown great. We cannot say for certain whether only the knowledge itself corrupted him, but surely knowing the arts of evil contributed to his downfall. Elrond's statements that, "The very desire of it corrupts the heart. Consider Saruman." and, "Nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so." suggest the corrupting influence of power. As soon as one ponders the ways of domination, they work their way into once noble plans.

We should pause on that for a moment, the perversion of noble plans. It is facile to say that "power corrupts" and "plans go awry," but think of how truly sad it is to fall from grace, to see the flame of the good die. How pitiful for a skilled and brilliant spirit tasked with the highest good, a sacred good, to have fallen to the uttermost depths of lust and tyranny and to have perverted himself and his trust. Howard Shore brought out the gravity of Saruman's fall in his score to Gandalf's confrontation with the fallen wizard in Peter Jackson's 2001 film adaptation. Jackson, not without reason, played the scene for a laugh with the dueling geezers, but Shore picked up on the profane thread of Saruman's transformation, the unholy perversion of the good.

In contrast, Gandalf tried to fulfill his limited role of "messenger" to the peoples of Middle Earth and to move, "all living things of good will to valiant deeds." Indeed Gandalf seems to be reminding Saruman of his mission when, after Saruman confesses his plans to rule with the ring, Gandalf responds that he has only heard such folly from the emissaries of Mordor, suggesting that Saruman's proposal is the very antithesis of their mission. It was not the wizards' job to to coerce, either Sauron directly or the free peoples to oppose Sauron, but to kindle, that is to cultivate, the good which would by nature oppose evil. In contrast to Saruman's obsession with means, Gandalf brought purity of purpose and, instead of a desire to oppose force with might, a faith in the agency of the good and meek.

Consider Gandalf's proposal to Elrond that Merry and Pippin be permitted to go with the ring-bearer instead of some great elf lord:

this quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere. . . it would be well to trust to their friendship rather than to great wisdom.

How striking, to put all hope not in force, not in conscripting men to fight Sauron nor in matching the Dark Lord in might, but in a bond of love and fealty. To venture slightly off-canon, in his film of The Hobbit, writer-director Peter Jackson gives Gandalf a few lines which seem to sum up the wizard, and libertarian, philosophy:

Saruman believes that it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I find. I've found it is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk, that keeps the darkness at bay, simple acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps it is because I am afraid, and he gives me courage. 

No grand plans, no machines and spies and lies and craft. No system of force, just people doing good. And how beautiful that Gandalf should take courage, what he was meant to kindle, from Bilbo, in whom the wizard awoke something Tookish and adventurous, some spirit willing to take a personal risk for the good.

On Five Lines of Cicero

In discharge of my pedagogical duties I've been this week teaching a selection of Cicero's Catilinarian Orations. Given our Presidential Rhetoric series, as well as recent praise of Rand Paul's filibustering and the usual boilerplate about President Obama's rhetorical prowess, it seemed prudent to share some thoughts on a choice passage of Cicero. Not that we need any pretense to talk Cicero, of course.

Without further delay, Cicero against Catiline. Fasten your seat belts.

Though we are looking only at a section of the speech, it is clearly of the deliberative type. Cicero stands before the senators to:

1. Urge a course of action: the exile of Catiline. 
2. Demonstrate a concern over Rome's future.
3. Establish the expediency of punishing Catiline.

Given Catiline's crimes, though, this speech undoubtedly shares in the elements of a forensic speech with its invective and catalogues of Catiline's deeds.

Let's now look at a section, which I reproduce courtesy The Latin Library.

V. Quae cum ita sint, Catilina, perge, quo coepisti, egredere aliquando ex urbe; patent portae; proficiscere. Nimium diu te imperatorem tua illa Manliana castra desiderant. Educ tecum etiam omnes tuos, si minus, quam plurimos; purga urbem. Magno me metu liberabis, dum modo inter me atque te murus intersit. Nobiscum versari iam diutius non potes; non feram, non patiar, non sinam. 

The opening cum clause swiftly combines the previous thoughts and emphasizes one thing: that they happened. Cicero continues in apostrophe, addressing Catiline directly with a series of imperatives: perge, egredere, proficiscere, educ, purga. The effects are many. First, as a list, Cicero provides a catalogue of what Catiline intended to do. Second, Cicero is being ironic, suggesting that Catiline leave not to come back and challenge Rome, but as an exile. Third, the imperatives taunt Catiline, challenging him to do what he wanted to do. Fourth, Cicero mocks Catiline, emphasizing both Catiline's desire to do those things as well as his weakness and exposure. Lastly, the imperatives, as commands, emphasize Cicero's consular authority.

Note also the personification with castra desiderant: "The camp has been missing you, its general." Here Cicero at once 1) mocks Catiline, calling him "general," imperatorem, 2) reminds the audience of Catiline's martial intentions, 3) reminds the audience about the army which was at that very moment waiting to attack Rome, and 4) distances Catiline from the senators, as if Cicero said, "Go back to your camp, with your people, where you belong." This is masterful economy.

Cicero continues to taunt Catiline, telling him to leave and take his friends with him. Again, a few brilliant touches here.

First, si minus, quam plurimos, "if [you take] less than all [your allies], [take] as many as possible" suggests, correctly or not, that there are so many conspirators that Catiline might not be able to take everyone with him. Also, there is a pleasing parallelism and contrast of if less, then many. The omission of the verb, such as to lead, and the substantive tuos give this statement a curt, off-the-cuff ring, as if Cicero is so fed up he blurts out, "Go, fine if you can't take them all, but just go!" Second, purga carries the sense of empty as well as meaning of clean here, suggesting in departing Catiline will be cleansing the city, an image Cicero will pick up again later.

Cicero finishes this thought with a simple conditional, stating that if Catiline goes, he'll "free" (liberabis) Cicero from a great fear, as long as a wall, that is the wall around Rome, separates them. It's easy to overlook the effects of this simple statement.

First, Cicero is being ironic in using liberabis, as if the criminal Catiline could do anything such as free someone. Second, Cicero emphasizes his dominance by painting a scene in which Catiline has obeyed him. Third, he describes that Catiline was a danger with magno metu, but indirectly, connecting by metonymy Cicero's fear with Catiline's plans which caused the fear. Lastly, the invokation of Rome's walls reminds the audience of Rome's power and, again, the fact that Catiline belongs outside them.

Cicero concludes the section with a series of short, staccato phrases. Of devices we have alliteration and  anaphora with non, as wells as asyndeton with the final three verbs. versari, meaning to stay but also be situated among again drives home the point that Catiline does not belong. Also, the word order here and person of the verbs here are effective:

With us to stay longer you are not able; 

I will not bear it; I will not endure it; I will not allow it. 

Cicero places Catiline's inability, potes, right next to Cicero's own authority, non feram.

Too the shift from the previous imperatives, taunting Catiline, to the second person, "you will free" and "you are not able," mocking and diminish him, to Cicero's conclusions with "I, I, I" are pleasing contrast, climax, and a reminder of who is in charge.

Not bad for five sentences.

Presidential Rhetoric IV: James Madison

Welcome to Part IV of our series on the rhetoric of American presidential inaugural addresses. Feel free to take a peek at the previous entries in the series:

1. Worthy of Marble?
2. John Adams
3. Thomas Jefferson

We continue with our present look at the rhetoric of James Madison's inaugural address, delivered Saturday, March 4, 1809. As with Adams and Jefferson, the Fourth President's education in and knowledge of the Classics is well known. Let us see what traces remain in his own writing.

–

UNWILLING to depart from examples of the most revered authority, I avail myself of the occasion now presented to express the profound impression made on me by the call of my country to the station to the duties of which I am about to pledge myself by the most solemn of sanctions. So distinguished a mark of confidence, proceeding from the deliberate and tranquil suffrage of a free and virtuous nation, would under any circumstances have commanded my gratitude and devotion, as well as filled me with an awful sense of the trust to be assumed. Under the various circumstances which give peculiar solemnity to the existing period, I feel that both the honor and the responsibility allotted to me are inexpressibly enhanced.

With "unwilling" Madison begins on a personal note of humility and continues in a participial/adjectival preface to speak of "revered authority," presenting himself as having inherited and as continuing a sacred tradition. This clause also delays his entry, further diminishing him and continuing the thread of humility. Madison pulls this thread farther, "avail"-ing himself of the inaugural's occasion, and to express what but the impact on him of the call to duty. Madison also continues the thread of holiness with "solemn of sanctions." We have grown accustomed to using sanction as a synonym for penalize , but the meaning here is clearly that of sanctifying, that is, sacred and authoritative approval. Sanction here has also a twofold force, the first denoting a divinely-observed oath. The second is set and picked up by the second sentence, praising the virtuous people. Thus with sanction Madison also expresses the  present election to the presidency, his, as the manifestation of a sacred and natural, that is, God-given, individual sovereignty of the people. Finishing this thought, in saying that his election has left a "distinguished mark of confidence," he expresses con-fidence in both divine law and the sovereignty of free, good men. Virtuous ought not be overlooked here.

Madison then contrasts the previous confidence with his own humility in the face of the "trust to be assumed." In the final introductory sentence he amplifies the aforementioned by ending with "inexpressibly enhanced." The rhythm here is quite clear: beginning each sentence with a prefatory/participial phrase and using the  main clause as the consequent. The themes are equally clear: he begins with humility, moves to confidence, returns to humility, and unites the two with the pair of "honor and responsibility," which he augments with the final words "inexpressibly enhanced." A unified, balanced, and climactic opening.

When to Trash

Everyone who writes throws a great deal of his work away and so it must be. For my part, I trash a good number of posts because a topic which at first seemed of import or humor turned out to be dull. Often too I'll find an article or observation disagreeable, but in dissecting find it better than I thought. Destroying your work is a humbling and edifying experience, though, for doing so requires you acknowledge a failure of execution, conception, or perception. 

Yet there exists a special moment which will always tempt the author to exceed himself. The time is when he, certain of his writerly skills and canny mind, fishes for the extraordinary in the realms of the mundane. Whether there exists a muse to inspire the necessary insight or whether the Chestertonian talent can be taught or inherited, I know not, but the gift is much sought and seldom found. Still, though, this moment of unbridled confidence is not the author's most perilous. That moment comes when he finds a trivial detail which reveals, so he thinks, something grotesque about one of his enemies. How many writers, people could resist such temptation? 

Not enough. This week the bards of the internet stepped forward to squelch any remaining faith in humanity by discussing the artwork of former President George W. Bush. Please note I describe the discussion as faith-squelching not because no one ought to look at the paintings, surely the activity of any former chief executive is worth a momentary gander, but because they're unimportant. They don't reveal anything about him, the nation, or life. So why talk about them?

There is, I think, a desperate desire to resurrect the relevance of George W. Bush because he stirs up strong, positive feelings for many people. Yes, positive. The left prefers to remember a time when they took principled stands against corruption over sinking into the soul-sucking silence of their present sycophancy. The right remembers actually admiring a president (wisely or not) and having their guy in charge. A depressing situation to say the least. 

A good example of just how sad is a piece like this. The liberality I expect and pass over. Not every citizen of every republic wants the executive to return Cincinnatus-like to his farm. Too I ignore the lowly style with its inattention to euphony, rhythm, diction, and tone. Even the cheap shots don't irk me too much. We all have our moments. 

What gets is the grasping, the groping after any and every way no matter how trivial to eviscerate the man. When I read them I don't see vindication or validation in the heart of their author. Instead and with an audible voice I hear her saying, "I miss having principles. I miss feeling like this is right." She loathes Bush like an ex-lover, and like a tempestuous but authentic relationship she remembers it more fondly than the mire of compromises, half-truths, and excuses she's concocted to preserve the image of her new fairy-tale romance.

So maybe I was wrong about when writers should trash their work. They should save and print it all. You never know when they'll reveal themselves. 

On Reading Bad Writing

It may come as no surprise that President Obama's recent inaugural effusions set your humble blogger on a tirade. You may, however, be pleased to know this tirade was strictly apolitical. In fact, the speech simply iced a cake which had been rising, layer by layer, for several months. The particular bugaboo this time was mine against bad writing. Now mind you there exist many shades on literature's spectrum and everyone has bad days and deadlines, but I'm noticing a downward trend. Maybe I'm just growing old and grumpy.

For my part, I am grateful to readers.  I assume that no content is ever so enthralling or persona magnetic that you can get away with a slight or cheap shot. I strive to please and thank all for coming back despite my literary mishaps. Every essay calls for a little persuasion, seduction even.

In fact, absent some linguistic enticement, writing takes on a strident tone. "You'll read me because I'm brilliant!" it insists. Salon seems to specialize in cultivating this self-important tone. You suffer through line after line of the author's indifference to clarity and style until you realize you labor more in trying to comprehend than the author did in conceiving. I find myself more and more often throwing my hands up and moving on. Unfortunately, I'm probably missing out on some good ideas which makes me even more surly.

So bad writing is ticking me off and it's everywhere. Let's look at a few ire-inducing examples.

1) Defective Cadence

"citizens who want to come to watch the state senate do things like" -Esquire

One wonders whether the author noticed the heavily iambic meter of this line, and how he builds up energy which crashes, without purpose, into the conclusion. Does he realize it reads like this:

"citizens who want to come to watch the state senate do things LIKE"

Of course one learns rhythm and meter in high school, but I first became aware of the need to avoid rhythms with unwanted effects or associations when I studied the prose rhythms of Cicero's Second Philippic.

2) What does it all means?

"He spoke in a soft voice, in an otherwise silent room." -Salon

You see how it's not really clear what's important in that sentence? Is it the softness, or the silence? After all, any sound would have shattered the silence. Also, isn't the construction sloppy? We want to make the two phrases with "in" parallel, especially because they're both indicating location, but the comma throws off the parallelism. The comma also puts the weight on soft, which as we established doesn't make any sense.

3) We Talk Like Dis

Another Silmaril from Salon:

"It’s like when you’re trying to decide on a restaurant with a new friend." -Salon

Choose, madam, the word you are looking for is choose.

4) Indirect Misstatement

even those for whom it is right can benefit from talking honestly about it. -Salon

On the one hand "for whom" is the indirect object of "it is right" and the subject of "benefit." Rectitude aside, don't Frankenstein your sentences. It is too easy in the name of efficiency to try to join clauses by any means possible. Sometimes, just make a compound: Even those who x, can y. Yay.

Similarly, from an opera blog:

[Her] unusual voice and compelling presence made Magda more interesting to me than I've found her in the past.

"More interesting" is shared between two verbs as the predicate of "made" and the direct object of "found." The result is an awkward shift in sense.

5) Participial Maze

by saying “these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us,” he took a decided shot at Paul Ryan, || doubling down on Mitt Romney by adding in the next breath. . . -Vanity Fair

First, note how the ideas before and after my red break are unrelated and lay listlessly against one another. The participle doubling links the two phrases, however the speaker (President Obama) did not "take a shot" by doubling down, or at the same time as doubling down. The ideas are related forcibly by proximity, not logic. If you strip out the extraneous you see how disjointed the sentence is:

"He took a shot a Paul Ryan, doubling down on Mitt Romney."

That the author thought to squeeze in another quote at the end. . .

6) Chopped Up

"They spoke audibly enough that I had to work very hard to not hear them." -WQXR

1. Too many short words makes a soupy sentence where nothing stands out, unless you make something stand out.
2. The use of "that" to indicate the result that is logically unnecessary.
3. There's too much junk cluttering the parallelism between to work/not to hear, which is why one does not feel the parallelism, which I believe is the point of the sentence.

Hence a broken sentence.

Perhaps instead, "They spoke so loudly [that] I strained. . ."

7) Apposedly Bad

"have shifted from youthful nihilism to pessimism to a less totalizing pessimism, one that leaves room for something approaching or at least nodding toward hope, change, possibility." -NY Times

This sentences loses momentum and grinds to a halt. Why?

1. The phrase beginning "one that leaves" is simply in apposition to the previous sentence, mooching off of its energy.
2. The phrases "something approaching" and "at least nodding toward" are too long. Also, they're too similar, only one is necessary. The author clearly couldn't find the word she was looking for,  meaning "acknowledges and leaves room for"
3. The concluding asyndeton lets the sentence drip dry.

Instead: "have shifted from nihilism to total pessimism to a pessimism which admits some hope, change, or possibility."

8) It Burns!

"In my writing and podcasts, I’ve expressed my hatred of breastfeeding Nazis, my love of boxing, and my bafflement at arduinos. I have lots of opinions, but I’m not all that ideological, and my favorite stories I’ve written are the ones with the least bombast." -Hannah Rosin, Reddit AMA

1. Syntactical Ambiguity: Does she hate [non-Nazis] breastfeeding Nazis or Nazis breastfeeding each other?
2. She's not expressing emotion at the arduinos as in I'm angry at you, she's baffled because of them.
3. "lots of" is not colloquial, like "a lot of," it's just wrong. Unless perhaps she has multiple lots full of opinions.

The boldface line is a doozy. She starts with the direct object, gives us the main verb and subject, then a predicate of the subject. The result is that:

1. The "my" and "I" jockey for prominence to the confusion of the sense. Also, one of them provides redundant possessive information.
2. The separation we noted above means she has to duplicate the sense of "my favorite stories" again after the verb with "are those with."
3. After we're confused and exhausted, we finally get to the point at the end.

Instead: The least bombastic of my stories are the most dear to me.

 –

In conclusion, bad writing is unpleasant reading and fruitlessly effortful work. I don't recall which pianist once said how much more difficult it is to play a bad piece of technically easy music than an excellent piece of challenging music. The same is true of reading. Write well, for the sake of your ideas and your readers.

Top Ten: Things Which Annoy Classicists

Classicists are a curious bunch. We come in all shapes and sizes and with all manner of creeds, but generally it's a smart and elitist crowd. We're also rather. . . picky.

Most of us find the following vexing. Utter these at the risk of being denounced on an epic scale. I tried to keep the list focused on the discipline and not academia.


10. "I know Italian/Modern Greek. . .

. . . can't I just pronounce/read it like that?" It's not the ignorance of the cradle of Western Civilization here that galls so much as the unwillingness to invest in learning about it.

9. Fouling up quotations

Quote foreign languages at your own risk. "Arma virumque cana" is an epic fail.

8. Duckworth, Balchazy-Carducci, and Cambridge

Aside from the varying quality of the commentaries, the first two fall apart about an hour into reading and there is no force in the universe which can keep a new Cambridge propped open.

7. Random Translations

It's admirable that you added the $4.99 bargain edition of The Odyssey at checkout, but the Derpy McDerperson translation is not helping anyone or anything. Ask for assistance.

6. Lack of an Apparatus Criticus

You mean we don't have perfect original manuscripts? What?!

Presidential Rhetoric: Grading the Graders

I don't care to read about politics before breakfast, let alone before my tea and shower, but today I stepped out onto the ice and fired up Twitter early in the morn. Naturally, right up in my face popped this Reason blurb of an article in which "experts" graded President Obama's recent inaugural address. I couldn't resist, not only because both alleged experts and laymen habitually overestimate this president's rhetoric, but because any easy praise irks me. It is no small matter to put an idea into someone's head, thus it is no small slight to the craft and its masters to heap undeserved praise on. . . let us say, the inexpert. I'm also in the middle of reading a book on Cicero's Against Verres and thus at this moment not particularly forgiving. So what did I do first?

First, I tried to find out a little about our experts and turned to their bio pages at their respective universities or personal sites, if possible.

1. William Brown, chair of the department of strategic communication and journalism at Regent University
2. Stephen J. Farnsworth, director of the Center for Leadership and Media Studies at the University of Mary Washington
3. Kathleen E. Kendall, research professor of communication at the University of Maryland at College Park
4. Mitchell S. McKinney, professor of communication and director of the Political Communication Institute at the University of Missouri at Columbia
5. Martin J. Medhurst, professor of rhetoric and communication at Baylor University
6. Theodore F. Sheckels, professor of English and communication studies at Randolph-Macon College [No Faculty Bio Available]
7. Gerald R. Shuster, professor of communication at University of Pittsburgh
8. Mary E. Stuckey, professor of communications and political science at Georgia State University
9. Ronald C. White Jr.

Alas, none of this research turned up any clear experts on rhetoric and oratory. There's plenty of writing about politics and "communication" and history, but scarcely any on, well, rhetoric. Forget about brass tacks talk of Greek, Latin, Demosthenes, Cicero, Aristotle, Quintilian. . .

Based on what we can see, these professors do not seem the experts to whom we should turn for a full, systematic, rhetorical analysis. Their views are surely relevant, but hardly definitive.

Only two professors, Martin Medhurst and Gerald R. Schuster, mention on their pages anything which remotely sounds like scholarly discussion of rhetoric. Of these two only Mr. Medhurst has his course descriptions online (It's 2013: Get with the program, universities!) and his course on Presidential Rhetoric seems credible though not necessarily rooted in the fundamentals.

Professor Medhurst seems to bear the most relevant expertise in having edited, "Presidential Speechwriting: From the New Deal to the Reagan Revolution and Beyond," and "Critical Reflections on the Cold War: Linking Rhetoric and History," volumes of mixed quality and relevance to our discussion here. These volumes both focus more on intersection of speech-writing, politics, and policy than fundamental rhetorical analyses. The contributing authors talk the talk of rhetorical analysis, throwing around deliberative and partitio, but there is precious little extended, systematic analysis. The criteria are thrown out and then not followed up. Some articles even betray a clear blindness to the Classics. How can one cite a modern author's view of, "rhetoric as epistemic" without at least a nod to Plato and Gorgias?

Maybe, though, these scholars possess the appropriate expertise by their training even if their scholarly careers are not perfectly attuned to the needs of our present discussion. Alas, their faculty bios do not list their courses and grades.

We have only left to judge them, then, by their contributions to this Inside Higher Ed article.

Second, the professors' own writing is abysmal. Their remarks seem improvised, as if the professors were interviewed, but should we give experts on communication a pass for that? Take a gander at some of these gag-inducing clunkers:

• where citizens are bound to each other as a way of protecting (Farnsworth)
• President Obama’s second inaugural had moments of greatness, on this date of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, as when he tied his speech closely to King’s "I Have a Dream" speech, both in parallel language and in his theme of equality. (Kendall)
• seemed more confident with a sense of urgency (McKinney)
• signaled that he intends to pursue (Medhurst)
• what Obama hopes will be a sizable majority to pursue (Scheckels)
• balanced persuasion with direction, and hope. (Shuster)
• with and without adherence to focusing (Shuster)
• the overall speech was gracefully done (Stuckey) (N.B. Beware non-adverbial uses of overall. The adjectival use will sink your noun like a stone and the noun makes the reader think of overalls.)
• What makes us exceptional, he told us -- from Seneca Falls, to Selma, to Stonewall, will be an inclusive nation where everyone enjoys (White)

Editor on aisle five! It's a shame one could spill so much red in grading the graders.

Speaking of red, a note to the one at Inside Higher Ed: what Professor Brown gave you was not a rubric.

Lastly, these paragraphs are useless without analysis and examples. I expect, and hope, there exist detailed analyses behind them, but in the absence of such, what good are cliches and summaries? What are we supposed to make of statements like, "the energy seemed lower," or that the speech, "was better," "had references," and was "interesting" and "optimistic." These meaningless phrases are as useless as those other remarks which are mere summaries. 

–

I did not intend to analyze the president's second inaugural the way I did his first, but let's take a little look for fun. [Full Transcript]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Vice President Biden, Mr. Chief Justice, members of the United States Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens, each time we gather to inaugurate a president, we bear witness to the enduring strength of our Constitution. We affirm the promise of our democracy. We recall that what binds this nation together is not the colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names. What makes us exceptional, what makes us America is our allegiance to an idea articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

What stands out most is the definition of his own inauguration not only as the fulfillment of the promise of democracy, but also as the source of national unity. He is the first idea in his speech.

A few grammatical observations:

• bear witness is a meaningless archaism to lend dignity to the speech. 
• that what is a relative clause fumble. 
• articulated in a declaration made more than is a giant brick
• made more than two centuries ago would be better supplanted by one vivid adjective

A few logical observations:

• A promise is something is a declaration that something will be done. What is the, "promise of our democracy?" It cannot be that all men are created equal because that is a premise, an assertion, not an activity. This statement is just a pleasantry thrown out there. 
• How does the election of the president recall that all men are created equal? This is not official "question begging" (petitio principii) but some attempt at logic would be, well, persuasive. 

As with his first inaugural, the rhythmic gesture is ponderous and the effect is a leaden opening. There is no manipulation of periodic length to create an ebb and flow of tension. The vocabulary is dull and the verbs are limp and not consistently utilized to energize the speech. 

I would just like to add a few observations about the subsequent paragraphs:

• The beginning of the second paragraph is a most peculiar place to slip into the third person.
• This is not the place for a history lesson.
• How on earth could anyone have chosen the word noted in the following:

Through blood drawn by lash, and blood drawn by sword, we noted that no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half slave, and half free.

Through repeated bloody violence, we noted? 

Far from an auspicious start.

–

If you enjoyed this essay, you may also enjoy:

• Presidential Rhetoric I: Worthy of Marble?
• Presidential Rhetoric II: John Adams
• Presidential Rhetoric III: Thomas Jefferson
• On Rhetoric and Arguing
• Freedom and Natural Law
• On Law

A Visit to Strand

I was walking uptown to my bus stop the other day when I realized how much time remained to spare. Happily, I stood not only in the vicinity of but in front of Strand and so I entered. I hadn't been inside for a while and upon realizing this I made haste to the music section. Craning my neck up toward the rafters I began scan the shelves. Nothing new for Mozart. Ooh, something on the Missa Solemnis? Definitely. A whole book on parody in Bach? Gold! So I troubled the clerk for a ladder and making my way up I noticed a serendipitously placed misfile: a book of concerto themes. Not necessary, but charming: mine now.

This went on for some time until I brought my hefty pile toward the register. I plopped it on the counter, beaming with pride as the cashier began to ring up my books. Bloop. Bloop. "Yes, yes, keep blooping!" I greedily chirped to myself. Now I thought I had shopped with great prudence but my purchase qualified me for a free tote. The icing.

Now short on time, I hustled toward the bus stop and on the journey I became aware of the social dimensions of my purchase. From the moment I had stepped outside the bibliophile's enclave of Strand, my bag had identified me as a book man. This experience surprised your humble blogger, who generally endeavors not to serve as a bipedal billboard. Yet there I walked, telling all how I loved books. The bag didn't have a sports team logo or a pricy brand name stenciled on the side, but it said, "Strand," that is, "books." What a powerful statement the word book still makes. I was also seized several times with the urge to strike several specimens of the chattering couture masses with my sack, but that might have been unrelated.

At home I spent a few hours rearranging my bookshelves to accomodate my new wards, embossing them and introducing them to the fold.  I may get a little carried away playing the librarian, entering the titles into a catalogue as I do, but I can't help feeling a custodian to these books and the ideas within.

The Classics Problem

Two articles I stumbled upon this morning spurred some post-breakfast thinking on academia, specifically of the Classical variety. The first via Rogue Classicism discussed the demise of a prominent classics blog and the second was a list about dissertations in The Guardian. After chewing on the articles a while I came away with a little indigestion and now that it has passed I have a few thoughts on what we might call The Classics Problem.

The Classics Problem is that Classicists think there's a problem with Classics, namely that Western Civilization isn't groveling at the feet of people who count conjunctions and propose emendations to medieval gardening treatises. This fundamental problem turns out to be a handily protean one to the Classist who readily transforms it into the perennial calamities of slackening education standards, cultural decline, social indifference, inadequate funding, social injustice, and forest fires.  Classics is the answer, of course.

Hieronymus Jackdaw,
a prominent Classicist

I would propose that in good measure Classists are the problem, having delved too greedily and too deep into their precious texts. They want to hoard as one discipline what should be gleefully diffused amongst the humanities. Instead of standing prominently alone, Classicists need to be willing, to some degree, to disappear into the foundations of other disciplines.

Classists ought to consider, perhaps, that little more may be dug up and researched about the ancient world with great profit. They ought to consider that their esoteric articles, dissertations, and academic paraphernalia may do less good for the world than would sharing the fundamentals they take for granted. Classicists might need to realize there is a much smaller space for research than is commonly thought and that that sequestering professors in offices and articles in private databases is not the best way to spread ideas.

The world needs more of its Greek and Roman heritage flowing in its veins, yes, but it needs it in plays, operas, and novels, not commentaries. We need statesmen weaned on Thucydides and Cicero, generals studied of Alexander and Julius Caesar, and philosophers who actually read Greek. We don't need, "Classics," or "culture," our "a culture of classics," rather we need our own authentic, living, culture grounded in Classics. We need creativity. That means we need more students of English, music, and history with a solid classical education, and that means we need teachers.

Of kind, we need teachers of Classical languages, yes, and history, but we also need history, music, art, and even science teachers with firm Classical foundations. Similarly Classicists need to broaden their intellectual horizons. It will simply not do to sit down to translate Plato or Thucydides and concede discussions of content to the philosophers and historians. As an aside, teachers of Latin and Greek need to read the great works in their native language and develop on their own literary expression. Studying Latin and Greek is a gift, but it can wreak havoc on your style if you don't synthesize the elements into a sensible whole. Academese is already an aesthetic catastrophe, Classical Academese is a blight on humanity.

Of quality, we need good ones, naturally, but full-time ones. We can't have our greatest minds teaching 15 hours a week and chasing sabbaticals so they can finish that paper on Cicero's underpants. A tenured university position doing mostly research cannot be the ideal.  We can't be dismayed at the idea of grading tests and papers, but we need to be excited at the thought of what Classics can do for a brilliant mind. We should not always think on getting back to "our work," but we need to imagine a Mozartian score to a Sophoclean libretto or a Bachian fugue on a line of Heraclitus and infuse the excitement over such possibilities into education.

In short: more creation, more cultivation, less curation. We need to stop standing around the spear, lecturing everyone about its beauty and importance, and we need to pick it up and give it a good throw.  That'll get everyone's attention.

Contemptuous Classicist: A Meme

More after the jump.

Essay & Review: Artwork of Middle Earth

Few modern books, if any, have inspired as much artwork as those of J. R. R. Tolkien. The obvious but incomplete reason is that Tolkien wrote some ripping battle scenes, from the defense of Helm's Deep to the ride of the Rohhirim and the siege of Gondor. I say incomplete because as much if not more attention has been lavished on the quiet and understated moments in the history of Middle Earth. So why should anyone care about the Prancing Pony, Bilbo's foyer, or Theoden's Hall? Why do these created places and spaces take on more significance than actual ones? The answer lies in Tolkien's ability to create a world, and not just a physical one.

While we do relish Tolkien's meticulous descriptions of  Bag End and the seven levels of Minas Tirith, these places also exist in time. If Orthanc, for example, were simply the home of Sauruman it would be, for all its splendor, just a place, albeit one significant to the heroes of The Lord of the Rings. Yet when Orthanc is the ancient fortress built thousands of years ago on the Northern border of the Numenoreans, who in their decline they could no longer maintain it and offered it to Sauruman, it becomes part of the history of Middle-earth, a history we gladly get swept up in. Places in Middle-earth exist not simply now, in the age we are reading about, but they have existed, and this gives them a unique authenticity. The Philosopher said that what appears to have been always what it is, is regarded as real. Indeed. Too, a place which housed great kings and outlasted many battles deserves to endure, a home which has housed generations of a family ought to be the home of their descendants. Their history gives the places of Middle-earth their authority.

Tolkien achieves this authenticity in two other ways, the plainest of which is his use of the languages he invented for Middle-earth. Yet it is not the euphony, novelty, or even uniqueness of the Elvish languages that imbues Middle-earth with authenticity but the logic of the roots and names. Whether it is Nan Curunír, "Valley of the Wizard," or the Noldor "those with knowledge," Tolkien's peoples and realms do not simply have names but feel named. This adds a human presence to all of Middle-earth even where the historical details are not painted in.

Lastly, Tolkien creates his world with details in short, often rather vague, asides. These are easy enough to spot but I would quote one of my favorites from The Two Towers. Treebeard tells Merry and Pippin, who inquire about whether Fangorn Forest is like the Old Forest near the Shire,

Aye, aye, something like, but much worse. I do not doubt that there is some shadow of the Great Darkness lying there still away north; and bad memories are handed down. But there are some hollow dales in this land where the Darkness has never been lifted, but the trees are older than I am.

Tolkien has in fact not told us anything about who is doing what, when, where, or why, rather he has created a sense of the way things are, the nature of things in Middle-earth. In two sentences Tolkien sketches an ancient world full of creatures older even than hoary Treebeard himself, a world which has passed through a darkness so great that evil endures in cracks and crevices. Tolkien's use of the passive voice with," bad memories are handed down" is especially effective, suggesting both that the darkness was so great that it could not be forgotten and that those passing the memories down are still bitter. The information also comes as bit of a discovery about a place we thought we knew.

By these means Tolkien's stories come to the reader not only as romances and mythologies, but as an inheritance of rare histories which invites us to step into Middle-earth. As such, Tolkien enthusiasts have a particular fondness for drawings of Middle-earth. Here are my thoughts on a pair of collections.

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Realms of Tolkien and Tolkien's World

Harper Collins published both of these volumes in the early an mid 1990s and they feature respectively 58 and 60 paintings. Fans of Peter Jackson's filmed Lord of the Rings will recognize the many by John Howe and Alan Lee and Tolkien aficionados will recognize the handful of Ted Nasmith's meticulously detailed work, but the remainder, a diverse assortment of drawings from lesser known artists and even amateurs, will be a welcome surprise to all.

In particular, Realms of Tolkien features the work of Dutch artist Cor Blok, whose work so pleased Tolkien himself that the two met and the author bought two of Blok's paintings. Blok's work draws least on the common elements of design we associate with Middle-earth, such as the Nordic look of the Rohirrim and so forth. Without the familiarizing effect of traditional visual design elements Blok's paintings focus on the essence of the action.

The bloodiness of at the Hornburg takes on a new starkness with Blok's orange slashes and tiny lopped heads. His Mûmak is a truly alien creature and our shock at it draws us closer to the fear of the humans in the picture far more than our reactions to any old elephant could. Other styles are far from antiquated, though. Nasmith's (above) captures the grandur and scale of that "moving hill," and Swedish artist Inger Edelfeldt captures its power with billowing dust clouds and scattering men. The variety here is a real pleasure.

In both volumes each painting is accompanied by the corresponding selection from Tolkien, and while some of these could have been longer it is helpful to have some of the text beside, both to have the author's description set the stage and to compare the picture. Many but not all of the paintings are full-page for reasons of aspect ratio. The wide landscape paintings are unfortunately not rotated but printed across the page so they can be viewed beside the text, a reasonable decision but one which results in a significantly smaller image and much wasted space. Yet that's a minor complaint about these volumes, both splendid and rewarding paths through Middle-earth.

Tolkien on Nature: Cultivation vs Coercion

"The modern world meant for [Tolkien] essentially the machine. . . He used ["machine"] very compendiously to mean. . . almost any alternative solution to the development of the innate and inherent powers and talents of human beings. The machine means, for him. . . the wrong solution: the attempt to actualize our desires, like our desire to fly. It meant coercion, domination, for him the great enemy. Coercion of other minds and other wills. This is tyranny. But he also saw the characteristic activity of the modern world is the coercion, the tyrannous reformation of the earth, our place." – Christopher Tolkien

These thoughts from Christopher Tolkien on his father's work touch on one of the more fascinating yet tantalizing inchoate strains within J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle Earth, that of a philosophy of nature. He draws primarily from a letter Tolkien wrote in the early fifties clarifying the underlying themes of The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion and readers are encouraged to seek this enlightening letter of some 10,000 words in the Houghton Mifflin volume, The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien.

Let us start by considering Tolkien's broad and unconventional definition of "machine" as "almost an alternative solution to the development of the innate and inherent powers and talents of human beings." We must assume he means not simple machines such as levers and wheels but rather complex machines. Simple machines simply balances the loads and direct the energy applied by man. The lever puts his energy where it is most effective, the wheel balances a load so it may be pulled and so forth for simple machines. How do simple tools, "develop the innate and inherent powers and talents of human beings?"

A hammer and chisel develops a man's coordination between his hands and his eyes and develops his visual sense of proportion and the rightness of what he cuts, such as the stone of a sculpture. The same is true for a brush which requires him uniformly to cover a material such as a canvass. Knives and scythes require him to know where and how much and how to cut, such as the stem of a flower. A whip requires him to know where and how and how hard to swing, such as in spurring a horse. Shaping the sheets with the lines on a sailboat requires careful attention to the geometry of the sail and the direction and strength of the wind. Even almost passive simple tools like lenses help man focus his attention on acute details.

All of such simple tools have in common two things. First, they develop a specific, unique individual faculty. Second, the demand a specific, unique, and firsthand knowledge of the materials with which you are working, such as the density of a piece of wood or the strength of a piece of stone.

In contrast machines alienate the user from the material. They do not require the use of cultivating any talents for interacting with nature, only for interacting with the machine. (This may not be quite so true for the inventor of the machine but it certainly is to the disinterested user.) The motor on a boat allows you to sail with disregard for currents and winds. Jackhammers and spinning saws cut without asking him to know how strong it is what he hopes to break. A glider falling gains speed and thus lift by its wings where as a a powered plane forces air across the wings. An unpowered mower requires you to know what you are cutting and thus how fast to go, how hard to push, and how high to set the blades. A powered mower simply cuts down everything in its path.

Machines have in common distancing the user from knowing by his senses what is the nature of the material he disturbs and purports to use and this prevents him from knowing the processes by which to use them. He learns only to use the machine. Complex machines, like the process of skill specialization, of course do liberate man from certain tasks and free him to perform others. They also allow him more liberty to manipulate nature. According to Tolkien's definition, though, despite this gain we see man does lose something.

Notice it is here not only concerned with nature itself but the effect of machines on man. In the Silmarillion, Tolkien, discussing the Ents, the shepherds of the trees, writes that while the Ents will guard the trees, "there will be need of wood." Tolkien is, I think more than is obvious in the Silmarillion which does not seem to revolve around man, concerned also with man and that he harms himself in coercing nature instead of cultivating himself. As his son Christopher points out in the above documentary the One Ring is the machine mythologized. The Ring allows the individual to bypass the means and simply and immediately actualize his will. It is this distance from, or blindness of, the means which, in part, dooms any attempt to use the ring, whether for good or ill.

Yet Tolkien does express disapproval of wantonly changing, "bulldozing" he says, the real world. Yet the theory we just discussed is mostly centered on man. By what principle ought man change his world?

Tolkien contrasts mechanical "re-creation" with artistic "sub-creation." Whereas mechanical re-creation seeks to make without regard for means, that is to say with no limiting principle, artistic sub-creation is content to create a secondary world which does not infringe on the primary world. The world of a symphony or painting reflects some truth of the primary world but does not replace it, moreover it derives its significance from it. Recall that the great jewels, the Silmarils, are not merely works of art but  composed of the light of the Two Trees of Valinor. They are in a sense containers or distillations of the best of nature while they are the unique fruits of their artistic creator. In contrast, philosopher Roger Scruton has observed, "The ugliest of modern art and architecture does not show reality but takes revenge on it." We may conclude then that beauty is the principle by which man's actions as creator and crafter are governed. His highest pursuit is not after the useful, which becomes a tyranny over nature and himself, but "useless" beauty. Man cultivates the beautiful in himself by himself cultivating the beauty of nature.

If you enjoyed this essay you may also enjoy:

• Why Beauty Matters (Documentary) [YouTube]
• Causa Pulchritudinis
• Wagner and The Lord of the Rings
• Why I Hate Modernism: The Tragedy of St. Stephen Walbrook
• The Anonymous Artist
• Movie Review: Mon Oncle
• Primitive Romance
• Sacred Music: Part I | II | III | IV | V

Short Books, Long on Wisdom (I)

All of these books are very short ( > 150 pages) but exceptionally insightful; many of these books would be accessible to curious and attentive teenagers. All will sustain multiple readings. The topics range over philosophy, theology, poetry, science, music, architecture and psychology. Above all, these short books are a school in which to learn the "art of living," a liberal education for those whose notions of wisdom aren't measured by the catena of degrees after a surname.

• Marilynne Robinson, Absence of Mind
• Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle
• Edmund Rubbra, Counterpoint
• Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences
• E.F. Schumacher, A Guide for the Perplexed
• David Watkin, Morality and Architecture
• George Grant, English-Speaking Justice
• Owen Barfield, Saving the Appearances
• Josef Pieper, Leisure: the Basis of Culture
• Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
• Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath
• Romano Guardini, Letters from Lake Como: Explorations in Technology
• Ivan Illich, In the Vineyard of the Text
• Roger Scruton, On Hunting
• C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
• Martin Buber, The Way of Man
• Etienne Gilson, Methodical Realism
• Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension
• Dietrich von Hildebrand, Marriage: The Mystery of Faithful Love
• Leszek Kolakowski, Metaphysical Horror

An Overture for Richard?

I am not one of the pesky many perpetually scoffing at programmatic music for being "limited." Yet. . . in this one case I simply must give new purpose to Rimsky-Korsakov's battle music from The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh. It will be quite a different purpose but I hope you agree one quite a fine fit. 

I propose seeing Korsakov's scene as an overture to Richard III. From the outset the dark winds suggest ill intent and the lengthening line Richard's invasive scheming. The brassy six-note figure evokes here throbbing (and later in the violins, stabbing) as much as marching and the opening wind figure most appropriately accompanies it. The rising range of the orchestration depicts Richard's rise and the rising tension matches his increasing viciousness.  

The spacious and grand theme that follows is the essence of what fascinates us in Richard. It's a soaring and rapturous theme, seductive in its primal heedlessness. Its opening figure is repeated against increasingly martial strings and drums until climaxing in a dazzling and colorful explosion of vigor, violence, and self-assertion. Growing darker and more malevolent, though, the theme is then itself besieged by ferocious drums who hound and snap at it until, put to flight, it limps off. (This dactylic figure could easily also be Richard's horse trotting off.) A baleful shadow of its former glory the theme makes its last overtures now, shrinking after each attempt. Its last gasp is way up in the oboes, and the last bit of energy it expends is on the shock at its fate.

Calvin Coolidge on Classics

Is 1921 really so long ago? It doesn't seem so. They had motorcars and electricity, indoor plumbing and pantaloons. Alright, clearly much has changed but so much so that a speech given 90 years ago would be shocking today? Apparently.

There is little in Calvin Coolidge's 1921 speech at the Second Annual meeting of the American Classical League at the University of Pennsylvania that wouldn't create a stir today. The first surprise is undoubtedly the thought of a classicist politician in the 20th century. I must admit I am quite skeptical of, and generally concerned about the competence of, presidents without a classical education. The thought of making political judgments without having read Thucydides, moral judgments without having read Plato, and just plain thinking without having read Aristotle makes me wince. Magnify that concern by the authority vested, wisely or not, in the office of the president and you have an uneasy citizen. This is not to say a classical education is a prescription for virtue or ability. In my own life study of the classics has led primarily to gratitude, humility, conservation, and moderation, but it might just as easily lead one to hubris and grandiosity. That too might not be all for ill. The classically-trained Founding Fathers certainly took a big, liberal step. In either case though, one acts informed. Not to see the modern world in the light of the world from whence it came is quite simply not to see it. We may then safely say that a classical education is at least a prerequisite for prudence.

Returning to "Silent Cal," how surprising it is to see a politician so lovingly and earnestly speak about the classics.  More noteworthy is how forcefully he recommends.

For many centuries, in education, the classics have meant Greek and Latin literature. It does not need much argument to demonstrate that in the western world society can have little liberal culture which is not based on these. Without them there could be no interpretation of language and literature, no adequate comprehension of history, no understanding of the foundations of philosophy and law.

Coolidge is not at all at pains to speak of the necessity of the classics.

No question can be adequately comprehended without knowing its historical background. Modern civilization dates from Greece and Rome. The world was not new in their day. They were the inheritors of a civilization which-had gone before, but what they had inherited they recast, enlarged and intensified and made their own. . .

Here Coolidge is tying self-knowledge to learning and that's when we realize something unusual: he's talking about actual ideas. Not the flapping platitudes and political pablum we are used to, but actual ideas. Ideas worth exploring, I think, at least because it is hard to imagine any politician saying them today. Consider the following passage:

The present age has been marked by science and commercialism. In its primary purpose it reveals mankind undertaking to overcome their physical limitations. This is being accomplished by wonderful discoveries which have given the race dominion over new powers. The chief demand of all the world has seemed to be for new increases in these directions. There has been a great impatience with everything which did not appear to minister to this requirement.

Can you imagine any politician making such a defense of a liberal education? Defending "impractical" education? What about suggesting there is more to life than physical, material concerns? What about the following, a legitimate swipe at commercialism?

The age of science and commercialism is here. There is no sound reason for wishing it otherwise. The wise desire is not to destroy it, but to use it and direct it rather than to be used and directed by it, that it may be as it should be. not the master but the servant, that the physical forces may not prevail over the moral forces and that the rule of life may not be expediency but righteousness.

Now Coolidge doesn't deride commercialism but he does knock it down a few pegs, suggesting it is of less importance and moreover that it can be a danger, and still more that it can be a consuming danger. The phrase, "that it may be as it should be" would probably not go over well today. First, it is compact and requires one to unpack it and think on it. Second, it implies there is a natural order, that commercialism simply occupies a lower rung in the hierarchy of man's goods. "Expediency," that is, convenience, is not man's greatest need. Could George W. Bush, who told Americans after 9/11 to go out and shop, or President Obama, whose economic plan is spending for the sake of spending, have made these remarks?

Coolidge continues to make some genuinely conservative comments which would be alien and tendentious to current crop of "conservative" politicians.

It is impossible for society to break with its past. It is the product of all which has gone before. We could not cut ourselves off from all influences which existed prior to the Declaration of Independence and expect any success by undertaking to ignore all that happened before that date. The development of society is a gradual accomplishment. Culture is the product of a continuing effort. The education of the race is never accomplished. It must be gone over with each individual and it must continue from the beginning to the ending of life. Society cannot say it has attained culture and can therefore rest from its labors. All that it can say is that it has learned the method and process by which culture is secured and go on applying such method and process.

There can be no city on a hill, no new era or order or deal. Every society and every man has both an inheritance and a burden. No new plan will remedy all or forever rather it is the duty of each generation and each person to learn, do, and pass on. Culture and education are not objects to be acquired but processes. What a conservative and even elegant thought that puts to shame, to scandalous shame, the "spend more money on education" policy we endure today. How inestimably impoverished the latter! Coolidge continues on education.

Education is primarily a means of establishing ideals. Its first great duty is the formation of character, which is the result of heredity and training. This by no means excludes the desirability of an education in the utilities, but is a statement of what education must include if it meet with any success. It is not only because the classical method has been followed in our evolution of culture, but because the study of Greek and Latin is unsurpassed as a method of discipline. Their mastery requires an effort and an application which must be both intense and prolonged. They bring into action all the faculties of observation, understanding and reason. To become proficient in them is to become possessed of self control and of intelligence, which are the foundations of all character.

The first end of education is not fame and profit? No, but Coolidge does not dismiss the need of profit to support oneself. Again he simply rearranges the hierarchy: the first goal of education is to develop character. Working, then, becomes a subset of who you are, not all you are. Faculties then have two goals also, utility and self-control. Self-control, a virtue? Good heavens! Notice also how Coolidge has managed to make some significant claims here without actually waxing philosophical.

How unusual, too, for a politician ever to use the word culture. When was the last time one acknowledged the existence of culture, of looking at people through a lens not political or social per se, but for the whence and wherefore of their world.

Coolidge now asks a penetrating question, "How are we to justify the existing form of government in our Republic?" which he thusly answers, "The beginnings of modern democracy were in Athens and Sparta. That form of human relationship can neither be explained nor defended, except by reference to these examples and a restatement of the principles in which their government rested." What a far cry from the mindless endorsements of democracy without reference to any value which democracy is supposed to further. Speaking of the loss of those values,

Both of these nations speak to us eloquently of the progress they made so long as their citizens held to these ideals, and they admonish us with an eloquence even more convincing of the decay and ruin which comes to any people when it falls away from these ideals. There is no surer road to destruction than prosperity without character.

With this reference to character Coolidge has linked his political philosophy to his philosophy of education and the lynch pin to both of these is classics. Only a classical education can show you the ideas which justify or condemn. Only a classical education can give you the tools of self control and intelligence to form a character, and only a character can let you weather the suffering of poverty and the temptations of prosperity.

In the most conservative section of the speech Coolidge continues to tie together classical education, the individual, society, and culture:

We do not wish to be Greek, we do not wish to be Roman. We have a great desire to be supremely American. That purpose we know we can accomplish by continuing the process which has made us Americans. We must search out and think the thoughts of those who established our institutions. The education which made them must not be divorced from the education which is to make us. In our efforts to minister to man's material welfare we must not forget to minister to his spiritual welfare. It is not enough to teach men science, the great thing is to teach them how to use science.

Being American is not simply being born in America but too a process. Being American requires you to follow American ideals, in a nice turn of phrase, to "think the thoughts of those who established our institutions." Thus being American too is a process of education, and being conservative is a process of inheriting and passing on ideas. Coolidge concludes the paragraph by reducing yet another star of the modern world often seen as an end in itself, science, to its status as a tool.

Coolidge concludes with an exceptional exhortation:

Unless Americans shall continue to live in something more than the present, to be moved by something more than material gains, they will not be able to respond to these requirements and they will go down as other peoples have gone down before some nation possessed of a greater moral force. The will to endure is not the creation of a moment, it is the result of long training. 

The speech culminates in the idea that everything is a process, and thus that the "now" is never everything. Man must have transcending goals and transcendent values.

Finally, how does Coolidge propose to further the classics? A modern speech would conclude with the promise to have the government support their study, but Coolidge lets the burden rest on the people: "If they are to be maintained they will find their support in the institutions of the liberal arts." It is up to individuals, to "those who believe in America, in her language, her arts, her literature and in her science. . . to perpetuate them by perpetuating the education which has produced them."

This speech from then Vice President Coolidge would make a much-needed splash today. It reclaims the dignity of the individual by restoring character over its replacement, the ego. It makes culture and not politics the essence of living. It restores use to education by insisting on purpose. It reduces tools like science and values like materialism to their proper status and Coolidge weaves these values together with the thread of classics, the discipline that enlightens, scolds, warns, that discipline ever challenging, ever rewarding, ever necessary.

Presidential Rhetoric III: Thomas Jefferson

Welcome to Part III of our series on the rhetoric of American presidential inaugural addresses. Feel free to take a peek at the previous entries in the series:

1. Worthy of Marble?
2. John Adams

As with the the previous speeches we will not be addressing the truthfulness of the assertions but rather we will consider primarily two questions: what is it trying to persuade us of and how does it do so. We will also, as before, look at some rhetorical criteria as set forth by Aristotle. For clarity I have chosen to annotate certain sections.

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[Called upon to undertake the duties of the first executive office of our country,] I avail myself of the presence of that portion of my fellow-citizens which is here assembled to express my grateful thanks for the favor with which they have been pleased to look toward me, to declare a sincere consciousness that the task is above my talents, and [to declare] that I approach it with those anxious and awful presentiments which the greatness of the charge and the weakness of my powers so justly inspire. A rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all the seas with the rich productions of their industry, engaged in commerce with nations who feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye—when I contemplate these transcendent objects, and see the honor, the happiness, and the hopes of this beloved country committed to the issue, and the auspices of this day, I shrink from the contemplation, and humble myself before the magnitude of the undertaking. Utterly, indeed, should I despair did not the presence of many whom I here see remind me that in the other high authorities provided by our Constitution I shall find resources of wisdom, of virtue, and of zeal on which to rely under all difficulties. To you, then, gentlemen, who are charged with the sovereign functions of legislation, and to those associated with you, I look with encouragement for that guidance and support which may enable us to steer with safety the vessel in which we are all embarked amidst the conflicting elements of a troubled world.

Jefferson's structure defers mention of himself to the middle of the sentence and begins by stating that the people have asked him to take up duties in the government. He continues by acknowledging with great care the American people, both those present and those elsewhere by saying "that portion of my fellow-citizens." Jefferson thanks them for their favor and states that he is humbled before the task. His use of the phrase "above my talents" compliments the opening "undertakes," both images of the president below the task. Clearly Jefferson is doing everything he can to convey humility. Even his structure does this, for example he says, "I avail myself. . . to express, to declare, that I approach" Clearly the "that I approach" utilizes some understood infinitive (for example, "to acknowledge") parallel to "to express" and "to declare" but he omits it to the effect of a mild anacoluthon, that is, a breaking off of the structure to suggest that he is being carried away by the moment. Jefferson continues to describe the awesomeness of the task before him, describing them not just as "anxious and awful presentiments" but "those anxious and awful presentiments, which the greatness of the charge and the weakness of my powers so justly inspire." The phrase, "which the greatness of the charge" suggests that anyone ought to be humbled by this office and the word "those" amplifies the sentiments by suggesting that the presentiments are somehow familiar to the men who have been president and endemic to the office. "Those" implies, "those same presidential." Jefferson continues to humble himself by expressing, parallel to the previous thought, that his own weakness is the cause of some of his apprehension. The logic of this naturally elevates the status of his predecessors. The phrase, "so justly inspires" emphasizes both points, that his apprehensions are cause by 1) the natural greatness of the office and 2) his own weakness.

Some Philosophy Books

Since I will have the opportunity to introduce Greek and Roman philosophy in my courses, I've been giving some thought to the books that formed my own philosophical outlook. It occurred to me that many people, who want to do philosophy, may lack an entrée into the discipline.


As the ancient, medieval, and modern canon* is (or ought to be) well-known to the liberally educated person, I've limited myself to books that might reasonably be called secondary sources or books that are reckoned---by me---to be generously illustrative of the Western tradition. (I leave altogether to one side the distinction between a philosopher who uses philosophical history to philosophize and a historian of philosophy.) I've appended a list of books written by non-academic philosophers; the authors of these books are, to my mind, wise to an exemplary degree and typify the lover-of-wisdom in the contemporary era. You won't learn a great deal about any one thinker or movement in their works; but perhaps even more than the other books, you'll glimpse what it means to live a philosophical life.


* (If unfamiliar with the canon, that deficiency can be redressed by looking to the historians of philosophy --- Copleston and Brehier below --- for a comprehensive survey.)

I've tried to provide a list that addresses, in sum, the prime branches of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Natural philosophy, political philosophy, psychology, and logic are addressed only tangentially. It is, in short, an idiosyncratic catalog of my own interests and education, a catalog perhaps broad enough to accommodate others' curiosity and interest in the discipline.


General


* Etienne Gilson

Being and Some Philosophers


The Unity of Philosophical Experience


God and Philosophy


* Jacques Maritain


An Introduction to Philosophy


Degrees of Knowledge

* Pierre Hadot

Philosophy as a Way of Life

* Frederick Copleston, SJ


A History of Philosophy (11 vols.)

* Karl Jaspers

Way to Wisdom: An Introduction to Philosophy

* Leszek Kolakowski

Metaphysical Horror

Why is There Something Rather than Nothing?


* Iris Murdoch

Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals

* Charles Taylor

Sources of the Self


A Secular Age


* Emile Brehier


The History of Philosophy


* Alasdair MacIntyre

After Virtue


Whose Justice? Which Rationality?

* Josef Pieper


Leisure, the Basis of Culture

* Alvin Plantinga

God, Freedom, and Evil



Movements, Thinkers, Epochs


* Roger Scruton: Modern Philosophy; Kant: A Short Introduction


* Pierre Hadot: What is Ancient Philosophy?; Plotinus: The Simplicity of Vision


* A.E. Taylor: Plato: The Man and His Work


* Etienne Gilson: The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy; The Christian Philosophy of St.Thomas Aquinas


* Ernst Cassirer: The Philosophy of the Enlightenment


* Leszek Kolakowski: The Main Currents of Marxism


* Jonathan Lear: Aristotle: The Desire to Understand


* Robert Sokolowski: An Introduction to Phenomenology


* Charles Taylor: Hegel


* Julian Young: Schopenhauer; Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography; Heidegger, Philosophy, Nazism


* William Richardson, SJ: Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought


* Werner Jaeger: The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers


* W.K.C. Guthrie: A History of Greek Philosophy (6 vols.)


* David Roochnik: Retrieving the Ancients: An Introduction to Greek Philosophy


* Babette Babich: Nietzsche's Philosophy of Science: Reflecting Science on the Ground of Art and Life


* John Caputo: How to Read Kierkegaard


* Frederick Beiser: German Idealism: The Struggle Against Subjectivism (1781-1801)


Books You Probably Won't Find in the Philosophy Section


* E.F. Schumacher: A Guide for the Perplexed


* Viktor Frankl: Man's Search for Meaning


* Wendell Berry: Life is a Miracle


* C.S. Lewis: The Abolition of Man


* Richard Weaver: Ideas Have Consequences


* Ivan Illich & David Cayley: The Rivers North of the Future: The Testament of Ivan Illich as Told to David Cayley


* G.K. Chesterton: St. Thomas Aquinas