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Christos anesti!
Khristos voskrese!
Christus resurrexit!
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Great Composers: Bach
From the 1997 BBC Documentary narrated by Kenneth Branagh and featuring Georg Solti, Charles Rosen, Zuzana Parmova, and Michael Tilson Thomas.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Himmelskönig, sei willkommen
J.S. Bach: Cantata BWV.182, Chorus 'Himmelskönig, sei willkommen'
Himmelskönig, sei willkommen,
King of heaven, welcome,
Laß auch uns dein Zion sein!
let us also be your Zion!
Komm herein,
Come within,
Du hast uns das Herz genommen.
You have taken our hearts from us.
King of heaven, welcome,
Laß auch uns dein Zion sein!
let us also be your Zion!
Komm herein,
Come within,
Du hast uns das Herz genommen.
You have taken our hearts from us.
Not nearly as famous as No. 140, "Wachet auf. . ." this cantata too is a glorious and vivid depiction of great multitude of people. Here the scene is the throng greeting Christ as He enters Jerusalem and the chorus is open and airy in G major. The fugal form is a naturally fine fit to depict such a scene, the entrances of the voices providing a perfectly appropriate structure for Christ's procession. Too the counterpoint provides a structure for the busyness, though the fugal subject itself contributes to the sense of liveliness with its shift into semiquavers:
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| BWV.182, Chorus I, m.1-2 |
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| BWV.182, Chorus 1, m.12-14 |
A joyous, moving piece and a concise example of Bach's profound unity of style, structure, and expression.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Well-Temperament with Trevor John Stephenson
Part I | Part II
Tom Shippey on Tolkien
Medievalist and scholar of modern fantasy and science fiction Tom Shippey on J. R. R. Tolkien and "filling the gaps" of medieval English literature.
Part I | Part II
The Politics of Leisure
It is curious the following pair of articles came across my desk in the same week, Terry Eagleton's encomium for Marx in The Chronicle of Higher Education and Wendy McElroy's reflection on values and economics at Mises Daily. I would certainly wager the authors are not in communication. While Eagleton's essay, a condensed version of his book sans the scholarship, I would assume, embraces more issues, both articles add an uncommon spin to the topic of economics: culture. Now your humble bloggers have discussed leisure and culture as well as economics but I thought this was a novel take. This pair of articles in particular yields a fruitful comparison.
In Praise of Marx, by Terry Eagleton
The Case for Frugality, by Wendy McElroy
First and foremost they both examine the concept of leisure in the light of economics, albeit from opposing economic camps. Both authors embrace the idea that leisure time is of value and both realize that some excess production is necessary to achieve excess time. Both authors even admit the excess production can be spent on anything at the discretion of the individual: perhaps what pleases you is expensive and you must work more to afford it or perhaps you work less because you would rather have leisure time or what goods please you are inexpensive.
Yet Eagleton's position demands, since inequality is unacceptable, that the excess production be split to achieve equal leisure. While both embrace the value of leisure Eagleton in essence declares it a right. There being no legitimate and acceptable reasons for inequality, either of resources or ability, and because this condition of leisure does not naturally exist since people have to support themselves via work to create food, shelter, and so forth, some people have to provide it for others. He also seizes the moral authority to act and balance the inequality, adding, "We would no longer tolerate a situation in which the minority had leisure because the majority had labor."
Thus it becomes the case that an individual is not free to value and trade his labor, i.e. his finite time and life, since he must support others, others who define what the "minimum standard" of "leisure" is and distribute the resources to achieve it. He may have to work more than he wants to (and achieve less leisure, either of time or goods) because someone else cannot.
Eagleton clearly wants to present the spiritual, "enlightened," side of Marxism, i.e. Marxism as un-economic and essentially unconcerned with material goods. Yet lack of such considerations merely neglects the economic and moral effects of planned economies, it does not eliminate them. He says that people would be free how to spend their leisure without acknowledging the processes used to determine how much leisure he is allowed to keep in the first place (as well as the moral implications and economic ramifications.) His romantic view ignores the fundamental fact that central planning destroys the ability of an individual to ascertain the cost and result of a given activity. That individuals are free to act and act unpredictably further confounds any attempt at centralization. The gross and repeated failures of planned economies to react to change are usually glossed over as failures of implementation rather than of essence. Too critics often attempt to distinguish between planned economies and taxation, the latter being acceptable because merely redistributes and does not interfere with the economy, a false assertion.
Like Christopher Hitchens' "libertarian" argument for "free" health care, [1](that it makes you more free) the fatal flaw of this very similar article is its lack of attention to the fundamental paradoxes of socialism. As a pair the articles show that anyone can value culture and a leisurely, philosophical life. Too they demonstrate that such leisure comes at a price. The question is "who pays it?" You or someone else? Eagleton's article has value insofar as it spurs the non-socialist to review an author often caricatured and scoffed at rather than studied. Such a love letter, though, however romantic and sincere, does not vindicate the ideology.
N.B. No doubt Eagleton's reference to Ludwig von Mises makes his apparently persuasive article, expertly tailored to appeal to a wide audience, more so by imbuing in it a semblance of equanimity and scholarly rigor. Readers should follow with Mises' "Socialism."
[1] http://www.aplvblog.com/2009/09/libertarian-case-for-free-health-care.html
In Praise of Marx, by Terry Eagleton
The Case for Frugality, by Wendy McElroy
First and foremost they both examine the concept of leisure in the light of economics, albeit from opposing economic camps. Both authors embrace the idea that leisure time is of value and both realize that some excess production is necessary to achieve excess time. Both authors even admit the excess production can be spent on anything at the discretion of the individual: perhaps what pleases you is expensive and you must work more to afford it or perhaps you work less because you would rather have leisure time or what goods please you are inexpensive.
Yet Eagleton's position demands, since inequality is unacceptable, that the excess production be split to achieve equal leisure. While both embrace the value of leisure Eagleton in essence declares it a right. There being no legitimate and acceptable reasons for inequality, either of resources or ability, and because this condition of leisure does not naturally exist since people have to support themselves via work to create food, shelter, and so forth, some people have to provide it for others. He also seizes the moral authority to act and balance the inequality, adding, "We would no longer tolerate a situation in which the minority had leisure because the majority had labor."
Thus it becomes the case that an individual is not free to value and trade his labor, i.e. his finite time and life, since he must support others, others who define what the "minimum standard" of "leisure" is and distribute the resources to achieve it. He may have to work more than he wants to (and achieve less leisure, either of time or goods) because someone else cannot.
Eagleton clearly wants to present the spiritual, "enlightened," side of Marxism, i.e. Marxism as un-economic and essentially unconcerned with material goods. Yet lack of such considerations merely neglects the economic and moral effects of planned economies, it does not eliminate them. He says that people would be free how to spend their leisure without acknowledging the processes used to determine how much leisure he is allowed to keep in the first place (as well as the moral implications and economic ramifications.) His romantic view ignores the fundamental fact that central planning destroys the ability of an individual to ascertain the cost and result of a given activity. That individuals are free to act and act unpredictably further confounds any attempt at centralization. The gross and repeated failures of planned economies to react to change are usually glossed over as failures of implementation rather than of essence. Too critics often attempt to distinguish between planned economies and taxation, the latter being acceptable because merely redistributes and does not interfere with the economy, a false assertion.
Like Christopher Hitchens' "libertarian" argument for "free" health care, [1](that it makes you more free) the fatal flaw of this very similar article is its lack of attention to the fundamental paradoxes of socialism. As a pair the articles show that anyone can value culture and a leisurely, philosophical life. Too they demonstrate that such leisure comes at a price. The question is "who pays it?" You or someone else? Eagleton's article has value insofar as it spurs the non-socialist to review an author often caricatured and scoffed at rather than studied. Such a love letter, though, however romantic and sincere, does not vindicate the ideology.
N.B. No doubt Eagleton's reference to Ludwig von Mises makes his apparently persuasive article, expertly tailored to appeal to a wide audience, more so by imbuing in it a semblance of equanimity and scholarly rigor. Readers should follow with Mises' "Socialism."
[1] http://www.aplvblog.com/2009/09/libertarian-case-for-free-health-care.html
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Baroque Music of the Synagoguge
Salomon Rossi was an Italian Jewish composer of the late Renaissance and Baroque. The above is a setting of the Kaddish (sometimes known as the Mourner's Prayer); the text is in Aramaic, not Hebrew as many non-Jews believe.
Friday, April 8, 2011
A Telling Comment
Speaking at the National Archives in downtown Washington, D.C., esteemed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns commented today on the recent popular criticism of public funded broadcasting. Patrick Gavin reporting for Politico carries parts of the talk which I think would perk the ears of any libertarian, not so much because of any particular policy suggestions from the director but rather because of his choice of words. Let's take a quick look:
Perhaps, you might say, the government organizes people, meaning it collects the money and pays the plow drivers because citizens, if left to their own choice, would not pay for them. Thus the government in this line of thinking "creates the demand." Well if there was no demand the people didn't really want it now did they? And if there is demand, well then you don't need the government now do you? You're not suggesting people be forced to pay for things they don't want, are you? Of course not.
So what is Burns really suggesting here? Does he think that the government, that central planning, is really the only way people can organize? Is he saying if the government didn't organize fire brigades and plows that we would all sit and freeze or flambé to death? That you can't learn a skill and offer it to people in exchange for something?
Burns' choice of words strongly suggests that to him a "marketplace" is not a market place of people offering their skills to others who need it and who will in turn trade what they have or do in return, but
a vague notion describing how people produce only inessential items. In fact he seems to mock "the marketplace" for not being a specific institution he can call on for help, as if the world isn't filled with people offering their skills to each other without government "guidance." A "free market" in this view is just a sort of foggy, fundamentalist, fantasy.
Referring to both the government and marketplace as institutions that produce things themselves instead of contrasting methods of organization of people, the actual agents and producers of society, suggests a mindset not centered on the individual. No doubt Mr. Burns thinks that "the marketplace" can accomplish certain things, but the way he talks about it, as a failed or faux institution, reflects a fundamentally state-oriented view. At the very least his choice of words reflects someone who has not seriously thought about the economic implications of liberty.
[1] http://www.politico.com/click/stories/1104/ken_burns_blasts_pbs_critics.html
People can make arguments about the marketplace, but if your house is on fire at 3 a.m., you don't call the marketplace. When your road needs plowing, you don't call the marketplace. The marketplace doesn't have boots on the ground in Afghanistan. [1]Any libertarian or advocate of a free market, I think, would be immediately taken aback by how Burns talks about a "marketplace" and what his choice of words seems to indicate. Unusually, he describes it as if it is a monolithic institution, that is, he conceives of it in essentially statist terms. He seems to be thinking, "I can call the government for help because it is a finite entity, but in contrast I cannot call 'the marketplace' because it is not." This suggests a fundamental view of his: that the basic unit of utility or agency in society is the individual but as some larger institution, most particularly the government. This may seem an extraordinary extrapolation but a lack of understanding of what a market is, the free association of people, leaves only a collectivist mindset. His reasoning forgets that all institutions are made of people. Regarding economics, they are people with particular skills: if they didn't work where they did they would work somewhere else with those same skills. Likewise, if there is a demand, someone with the skills to meet it will do so. And if there is no one with the skill, there is nothing the government can do about it. Only individuals can make the choice to invest in a particular skill.
Perhaps, you might say, the government organizes people, meaning it collects the money and pays the plow drivers because citizens, if left to their own choice, would not pay for them. Thus the government in this line of thinking "creates the demand." Well if there was no demand the people didn't really want it now did they? And if there is demand, well then you don't need the government now do you? You're not suggesting people be forced to pay for things they don't want, are you? Of course not.
So what is Burns really suggesting here? Does he think that the government, that central planning, is really the only way people can organize? Is he saying if the government didn't organize fire brigades and plows that we would all sit and freeze or flambé to death? That you can't learn a skill and offer it to people in exchange for something?
Burns' choice of words strongly suggests that to him a "marketplace" is not a market place of people offering their skills to others who need it and who will in turn trade what they have or do in return, but
a vague notion describing how people produce only inessential items. In fact he seems to mock "the marketplace" for not being a specific institution he can call on for help, as if the world isn't filled with people offering their skills to each other without government "guidance." A "free market" in this view is just a sort of foggy, fundamentalist, fantasy.
Referring to both the government and marketplace as institutions that produce things themselves instead of contrasting methods of organization of people, the actual agents and producers of society, suggests a mindset not centered on the individual. No doubt Mr. Burns thinks that "the marketplace" can accomplish certain things, but the way he talks about it, as a failed or faux institution, reflects a fundamentally state-oriented view. At the very least his choice of words reflects someone who has not seriously thought about the economic implications of liberty.
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[1] http://www.politico.com/click/stories/1104/ken_burns_blasts_pbs_critics.html
Sunday, April 3, 2011
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