Here's the latest Newsletter! Hope you enjoy it.
Interpreting the Second Amendment:
Comment in the most recent of these Newsletters evoked some strong reactions, including an important observation by Hunter Rawlings about James Madison’s way of expressing himself. That in turn elicited a useful comment by Arthur Eckstein on 18th century thinking about “a well-regulated militia” Both Rawlings’ blog post and Eckstein’s comment can be found in the blog for June 13: https://www.wrobertconnor.com/blog/hunter-rawlings-on-james-madison-and-the-interpretation-of-the-second-amendment
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Richard Seaford of Exeter University also reacted to the discussion in the last Newsletter of the financing of American college education. His piece, “Wealth and How We Use It,” can be read on the blog post for June 9th.
You’ll also find there a link to TLS’s version of his presidential address to the British Classical Association. Good reading!
I am very grateful to all those who react and respond to my blog and Newsletter. Keep ‘em coming!
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Are the Best of the Best Are Experiencing the Worst of the Worst?
In personal email correspondence I found something else – outrage at the mass shootings, and despair at the inability of the political system to make any significant response. This is part, I fear, of a more wide-ranging discouragement about the political impasse that makes it difficult to take action on pressing issues such as social justice and climate change.
If discouragement prevails among the mature and well-educated readers of this Newsletter, what is it like to be an adolescent in this climate? We know the answer to that question, at least in part, from the statistics showing a rise in suicide, self-harm and other forms of psychological distress among young people, not least those in highly selective colleges and universities See “The Numbers Just Continue to Rise”“ in the Boston Globe of June 8, 20222.
Whatever its causes, many colleges are having a hard time keeping up with this problem, and nearby Emergency Rooms are sometimes overwhelmed by young people in desperate need of psychological help. Psychiatrists are so booked up that they often cannot take new patients or see them with the needed frequency. It’s another pandemic, but not getting the attention it needs.
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Recent Blog Posts at https://www.wrobertconnor.com/blog
“A Nearly Perfect form of Government” June 25 What makes a democracy work at least at one scale.
Staging Euripides’ Ion” June 21 What the tragedy is really about
“His Greatest Contribution to the Field” June 10. On “I’ve written only one masterpiece. Bolero. Unfortunately, it has no music in it.” Maurice Ravel to Arthur Honneger.
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Ponderable::
“The critical contribution of Periclean leadership to Athenian success … was not so much his expert understanding of the political system that he led, but his ability to maintain civic cohesion through his superlative prestige.” “ Mark Fisher “Thucydides’ Tragic Science of Democratic Defeat” in The Review of Politics 84 (2022), 25–54.
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The Value of History:
The last Newsletter poked fun at the phrase “History teaches us that …” But that raises the serious question of what is the value of history? Michael Lurie called my attention to a passage in Schopenhauer: “ “What the faculty of reason is to the individual, history is to the human race. By virtue of this faculty, the human being is not, like the animal, restricted to the narrow present of perception, but knows also the incomparably more extended past with which it is connected, and out of which it has emerged ... Thus, writing history serves to restore to unity the consciousness of the human race, which is necessarily interrupted by death, and is accordingly piecemeal and fragmentary,”.
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Word of the Month: Euphemism
The Greek word demands we respect the disruptive power of language. Better to keep silent than to misuses speech. We’ve taken hold of the word and made it insipid. It’s become a “nice” way of speaking, not a stern reminder to watch what we say and how we say it..
In Late Antiquity some Greeks were aware that this was already a problem:
“ All the ancients, but most of all the Athenians, were careful not to use ill-omened words; so they called the prison 'the chamber,' and the executioner 'the public man,' and the Furies (Erinyes) they called 'Eumenides' ('the kindly ones') or 'the Venerable Goddesses.' " [Helladius of Antinoopolis, quoted by Photius] “
The British philosopher Bishop George Berkeley observed
“…in our dialect, a vicious man is a man of pleasure, a sharper is one that plays the whole game, a lady is said to have an affair, a gentleman to be a gallant, a rogue in business to be one that knows the world. By this means, we have no such things as sots, debauchees, whores, rogues, or the like, in the beau monde, who may enjoy their vices without incurring disagreeable appellations. [George Berkeley, "Alciphron or the Minute Philosopher," 1732] (from Etymonline s.v. euphemism.)
We are learning to be wary of ostensibly “nice” euphemisms. Our teacher is now Vladimir Putin, who has given us instructive example of “special military operation.”
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Zen Master Avoids Happiness Trap:
The trap was explained in a blog post on February 23: https://www.wrobertconnor.com/blog/the-happiness-trap
The Zen master responds::
“The good archer does not aim at the bullseye.”
--
Thanks!
These monthly Newsletters will take a vacation in July and August, but I will continue blogging through those months. I always welcome your comments and leads to new ideas and information. Keep ‘em coming. .
--
I hope you like this Newsletter and will consider forwarding it to friends with a suggestion they join the mailing list by sending me a message either here or at wrconnor1@gmail.com.
Next week I’ll post “Just Holding a Gun Gave You Guts:” The Gun Fetish in America. Stay tuned.
Have a great summer
Interpreting the Second Amendment:
Comment in the most recent of these Newsletters evoked some strong reactions, including an important observation by Hunter Rawlings about James Madison’s way of expressing himself. That in turn elicited a useful comment by Arthur Eckstein on 18th century thinking about “a well-regulated militia” Both Rawlings’ blog post and Eckstein’s comment can be found in the blog for June 13: https://www.wrobertconnor.com/blog/hunter-rawlings-on-james-madison-and-the-interpretation-of-the-second-amendment
--
Richard Seaford of Exeter University also reacted to the discussion in the last Newsletter of the financing of American college education. His piece, “Wealth and How We Use It,” can be read on the blog post for June 9th.
You’ll also find there a link to TLS’s version of his presidential address to the British Classical Association. Good reading!
I am very grateful to all those who react and respond to my blog and Newsletter. Keep ‘em coming!
-----
Are the Best of the Best Are Experiencing the Worst of the Worst?
In personal email correspondence I found something else – outrage at the mass shootings, and despair at the inability of the political system to make any significant response. This is part, I fear, of a more wide-ranging discouragement about the political impasse that makes it difficult to take action on pressing issues such as social justice and climate change.
If discouragement prevails among the mature and well-educated readers of this Newsletter, what is it like to be an adolescent in this climate? We know the answer to that question, at least in part, from the statistics showing a rise in suicide, self-harm and other forms of psychological distress among young people, not least those in highly selective colleges and universities See “The Numbers Just Continue to Rise”“ in the Boston Globe of June 8, 20222.
Whatever its causes, many colleges are having a hard time keeping up with this problem, and nearby Emergency Rooms are sometimes overwhelmed by young people in desperate need of psychological help. Psychiatrists are so booked up that they often cannot take new patients or see them with the needed frequency. It’s another pandemic, but not getting the attention it needs.
--
Recent Blog Posts at https://www.wrobertconnor.com/blog
“A Nearly Perfect form of Government” June 25 What makes a democracy work at least at one scale.
Staging Euripides’ Ion” June 21 What the tragedy is really about
“His Greatest Contribution to the Field” June 10. On “I’ve written only one masterpiece. Bolero. Unfortunately, it has no music in it.” Maurice Ravel to Arthur Honneger.
--
Ponderable::
“The critical contribution of Periclean leadership to Athenian success … was not so much his expert understanding of the political system that he led, but his ability to maintain civic cohesion through his superlative prestige.” “ Mark Fisher “Thucydides’ Tragic Science of Democratic Defeat” in The Review of Politics 84 (2022), 25–54.
--
The Value of History:
The last Newsletter poked fun at the phrase “History teaches us that …” But that raises the serious question of what is the value of history? Michael Lurie called my attention to a passage in Schopenhauer: “ “What the faculty of reason is to the individual, history is to the human race. By virtue of this faculty, the human being is not, like the animal, restricted to the narrow present of perception, but knows also the incomparably more extended past with which it is connected, and out of which it has emerged ... Thus, writing history serves to restore to unity the consciousness of the human race, which is necessarily interrupted by death, and is accordingly piecemeal and fragmentary,”.
--
Word of the Month: Euphemism
The Greek word demands we respect the disruptive power of language. Better to keep silent than to misuses speech. We’ve taken hold of the word and made it insipid. It’s become a “nice” way of speaking, not a stern reminder to watch what we say and how we say it..
In Late Antiquity some Greeks were aware that this was already a problem:
“ All the ancients, but most of all the Athenians, were careful not to use ill-omened words; so they called the prison 'the chamber,' and the executioner 'the public man,' and the Furies (Erinyes) they called 'Eumenides' ('the kindly ones') or 'the Venerable Goddesses.' " [Helladius of Antinoopolis, quoted by Photius] “
The British philosopher Bishop George Berkeley observed
“…in our dialect, a vicious man is a man of pleasure, a sharper is one that plays the whole game, a lady is said to have an affair, a gentleman to be a gallant, a rogue in business to be one that knows the world. By this means, we have no such things as sots, debauchees, whores, rogues, or the like, in the beau monde, who may enjoy their vices without incurring disagreeable appellations. [George Berkeley, "Alciphron or the Minute Philosopher," 1732] (from Etymonline s.v. euphemism.)
We are learning to be wary of ostensibly “nice” euphemisms. Our teacher is now Vladimir Putin, who has given us instructive example of “special military operation.”
--
Zen Master Avoids Happiness Trap:
The trap was explained in a blog post on February 23: https://www.wrobertconnor.com/blog/the-happiness-trap
The Zen master responds::
“The good archer does not aim at the bullseye.”
--
Thanks!
These monthly Newsletters will take a vacation in July and August, but I will continue blogging through those months. I always welcome your comments and leads to new ideas and information. Keep ‘em coming. .
--
I hope you like this Newsletter and will consider forwarding it to friends with a suggestion they join the mailing list by sending me a message either here or at wrconnor1@gmail.com.
Next week I’ll post “Just Holding a Gun Gave You Guts:” The Gun Fetish in America. Stay tuned.
Have a great summer