The purpose of these now and then Newsletters is to share my delight in the ways the past speaks to the present. But behind that delight is awareness of how much we depend on colleges and universities to preserve that past, advance our understanding of it, and transmit that understanding to successive generations. Over the past few months that part of the story has been anything but a delight – in fact, deeply troubling. Still, there are signs of movement in amore encouraging direction. So, I want to begin with campus protests, then go on to some of their unexpected consequences before prowling in quotations, etymologies, palindromes and other sources of fun and delight.
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3200 Campus Arrests and What They Achieved:
Last Spring, the Boston Globe has reported, over 3200 arrests were made on U.S. campuses as a result of protests tied to the Israeli – Palestinian conflict. That’s only part of the story: some Jewish and some Muslim students felt the environment on their campus had turned hostile, even threatening. Arguments turned violent, classes and exams were interrupted, a Congressional committee jumped into the fray; heads rolled when some university presidents gave wishy-washy answers to the Committee’s questions. Donors made threats; commencements were curtailed or cancelled; friendships turned into hostility. The collegiality on which educational institutions depend was sometimes lost.
What was achieved? As nearly as I can tell, nothing – nothing to alleviate the miseries caused by the conflict in the Middle East or enrich the educational experience on American campuses. What the protests did do, I believe, was to force many universities and their faculties, students, boards, donors and other constituents, to ask what is a university for? If an institution’s proximate goal is to bring about social change at home and abroad, then protestors are justified in demanding forceful statements, bold action, curricular and policy change and much, much more. But if the goal is to preserve, advance and transmit knowledge so that better educated citizens can advance the values they stand for, then such protests are at best a distraction. Which is it?
Over the summer many university leaders have spoken more clearly and forcefully than before about what their institutions stand for and what is acceptable or unacceptable on their campuses. But change can be seen not just at the top. At Harvard a group of faculty, alumni and students focused on “academic excellence, academic freedom, and good governance” has good things to report. You can sign up here for their 1636 newsletter.
One tell-tale change: Harvard, Johns Hopkins and no doubt other institutions, too, have decided no longer to make “statements of empathy,” as Harvard did after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the atrocity in Israel on October 7. They will issue such statements only when the ”issue is clearly related to a direct, concrete, and demonstrable interest or function of the university,” As John Hopkins phrases it.
These are minor, perhaps timid steps, but motivating them is a commitment “to our foundational ethos…to be a place where competing views are welcomed, challenged, and tested through dialogue and rigorous marshaling of evidence.”
The most eloquent of the new statements about the purpose of a university comes from the newly appointed president of Stanford. It’s worth quoting:
“The university has a very noble and distinctive purpose, which is inquiry and learning. And in order to support that mission, we give students and faculty a very broad range of freedom of inquiry—what to study and think about; and expression—what they can say and write. It’s actually different than in a democracy. In a democracy, it’s there to protect the citizens from tyranny. At the university, the freedom is there to promote inquiry and learning
Jon Levin, President, Stanford University
Lofty sentiments and fine words in our sullen age provoke suspicion and often cynbicism. We’ll see how they hold up as students return to campus – or perhaps the barricades – this fall. But we did not often hear such words in recent years. Perhaps a sea change is underway.
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Thanks to Those Arrested:
These developments, it seems to me, are refocusing higher education on its core mission, the advancement, preservation and dissemination of knowledge. That’s not, I suppose, what the protesters intended, but thanks anyway; you’ve forced us to focus and think more clearly about what colleges and universities are for.
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And now for something completely different:
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Dubious Etymology of the Month”:
gazebo (noun, or possibly a verb?)
We are building a gazebo at our vacation home in Maine. The project sent me searching for the history of the word. Was it, as the Oxford English Dictionary suggests, a term borrowed from some unspecified locale in the Orient? Or is it, as Etymonline suggests, 18th century fake Latin, made out of our verb gaze plus the Latin ending for a future tense?. That is, an “I will gaze.” place If so, what’s the plural, gazebimus?
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Gilgamesh Meets Artificial Intelligence:
There are thousands of unread cuneiform tablets and very few scholars to read them. Enter AI, which has helped scholars recognize the ones that belong together, and the marks and verbal patterns that convey their meaning, thereby providing a fuller understanding of the very early and very splendid Gilgamesh epic. Here’s the story.
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Have You Ever Been In Love? Does This Ring True?
Here’s one of the tablets:
“You truly are the sun, so let me warm myself in your heat.
You truly are a cedar tree, so let the heat not burn me in your shadow!”
From a cuneiform tablet, (maybe part of the Gilgamesh epic?), translated by Agnete Lassen in the New York Times
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Pot of Gold:
Rarely do archaeological finds resonate so nicely with historical texts as when the University of Michigan’s excavation of ancient Notion turned up a hoard of gold coins from the late fifth century BCE. Here’s the link to the story. And here’s a link to Hobbes’ old translation of Thucydides 3.34, where the “barbarians” are mercenaries posted at Notion, paid, no doubt, in gold coins like those in the newly discovered hoard. Did one of them bury his savings before going into battle, and never return to enjoy them?
PS Notion is on a beautiful section of the Asia Minor coast, near the village Ahmetbeyi, and not far from ancient Ephesus. . Time for some vacation sightseeing?
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Speaking of Thucydides; Thinking Through Analogies:
Historians, both of the ancient world and of modern times, like to draw analogies between past and present. Their readers seem to love it, especially when the talk is about democracy and the “fall of Athens.”
But analogies are slippery critters. Proceed cautiously, as Mark Fisher advises in “The Historical Present: Thucydides and the politics of historical analogy .“ . Here is the link: https://aeon.co/essays/what-thucydides-really-thought-about-historical-analogies
It’s required reading for anyone who wants the past to speak to the present..
Quotables:
“‘Only two of my personalities are schizophrenic. But one is paranoid, and the other is out to get him.”
Attributed to Edgar Degas
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Have You Ensorcelled Anyone Lately?
In The Arabian Nights (1885) Richard Burton used this rare word in a story about a prince). Now Maureen Dowd has applied it to Kamela Harris’ smile. Here’s the etymology. Your move.
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Ponderable:
“But somehow most people prefer erring and aggressively defending the view that has become dear to them instead of enquiring without obstinacy what is said with greatest conformity to the truth.”
Cicero, Lucullus 9 (trans. Reinhardt, modified)
Thanks to Bob Kaster for this timely quotation.
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Quiz: Which American Politician Quoted Which Ancient Author?
“This is our concern, that every man be able to increase his wealth so as to supply his daily prodigalities, and so that the powerful may subject the weak for their own purposes. Let the poor court the rich for a living, and that under their protection they may enjoy a sluggish tranquility.”
Answer: Augustine City of God, quoted by J.D. Vance in his account of his conversion to Catholicism “How I joined the Resistance” in The Lamp.
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“Out of the Corner of Andrew Wyeth’s Eye” and “An Almost Perfect Form of Government” and an exploration of where “weird” came from are among recent posts on my blog at https://www.wrobertconnor.com/blog
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Thinking about Liberalism
“Autopsy and demonology—these are the two genres of writing on liberalism with the most sway in public discussion today. Autopsies propose to explain "why liberalism failed" or how it decayed into neoliberalism. Demonologies claim to show that the inequalities, oppressions, and corruptions of contemporary society are the work of a single vaguely defined yet immensely powerful force, "liberalism," haunting our era. There are, to be sure, recent writings that try to rescue or even glorify liberal thinkers or ideas, but their tone is plaintive or desperate. The moment belongs to liberalism's critics on the left and the right. “
Bryan Garston Journal of Democracy April 2024
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On Walking:
“You don’t need to be on a pilgrimage for each step to be a prayer.”
Maurice Brendenheim Confessions III
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Congratulations
First, to Jean Anderson, who not long after her 100th birthday was awarded a long delayed and richly deserved Ph.D. in history from the University of Pennsylvania.
Then, to that same university for appointing Peter T. Struck as Dean of its College of Arts and Sciences. Two good moves for Penn.
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Will Lord Elgin Lose His Marbles?
The New Yorker has the goods on him: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/05/13/the-british-museums-blockbuster-scandals
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The Metaphorical Mixing Bowl:
- “He’s gone behind my back, right in front of my face!” attributed to rugby coach Craig Bellamy.
- “The ship of state is sailing the wrong way down a one-way street,” attributed to Ronald Reagan
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Back and Forth in Late Latin:
Communication is always a back and forth exchange between speaker and listener. But palindromes embody that back and forth motion in the letters themselves. Here’s a palindrome, beloved of Late Latinists. for your back and forth pleasure:
“Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor.
Sidonius Apollinaris, Ep. 9. 14).
It can be roughly translated “Rome,, Love will swiftly come to you woth its motions (the emotions?).”
Thanks to Mark Saltveit for steering me to such palindromes.
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Pass It On:
Please consider forwarding this Newsletter to friends and colleagues who might enjoy it. They can subscribe (and unsubscribe whenever they want) with an email to [email protected]
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Excuses, Excuses:
What has made it take so long to produce this little Newsletter? In a word, grandchildren. The desire to be closer to them led us to sell our North Carolina home and move to Cape Cod. We made the move north this spring. Then we kept heading north, first to Maine, then on a bus tour of Newfoundland and Labrador – on which my wife Callie and I both contracted Covid. Recovery has been slow, just like this Newsletter, but things are now looking up.
Our new address is P.O.B 188, Cataumet MA 02534.
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Thanks to friends who have sent me useful quotes and leads, especially Judith Hallett and Jean Houston, and to Callie Connor for help and encouragement.
August 2924