|  |
 |
|
The Captive Mind (1953)
by Czeslaw Milosz, translated by Jane Zielonko
251 pages - Vintage International
A few people on my friends list had the great idea of reading something related to the theme of Remembrance Day, and so I decided to do the same, and picked out this book from my 'to-read' pile. Though it actually does have a lot to do with war, it covers much more ground as well.
Czeslaw Milosz was born in Lithuania in 1911 to a Polish-speaking family, and while he pursued his dream of being a poet, he also studied law. Before the Second World War he held somewhat leftist ideals, but as the Soviets took tighter and tighter control of Poland, he decided to take his chance to defect to the West. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980.
This book is an examination of the way in which the totalitarian ideology of Soviet Russia takes hold in the minds of certain segments of the population, and specifically it looks at the stories of four different writers who became active voices in the promotion of Stalinism, sometimes at the very same moment when their own families were being deported to slave camps. Milosz himself attributes his own decision not to accept the conditions of life under Communist rule not to a strong character or a sharp mind, but to a sick feeling in his gut. The human mind can accept and tolerate almost anything, he says, but the gut can only take so much before it rebels.
This book can be quite a harrowing read, as it takes the reader into the concentration camps of the Nazis, as well as explores the way that the Red Army stood by, delaying their march until the Warsaw Uprising was crushed by the Nazis, and then goes into the many deportations, slave labour camps, and wholesale mass-murders and genocides carried out by the Communists. The four writers highlighted found a role for themselves in the new totalitarian society, saw themselves praised and rewarded, and thus were able to, at least for a time, divorce the reality in front of their faces from what they expressed in their writings.
As someone of Lithuanian descent, it was especially affecting for me to read Milosz's account of the fate of the Baltic states, such as the quote from a Soviet official that in the future, "There will be a Lithuania; but there will be no Lithuanians." (Pg. 230) Not only did the Communists eliminate a large portion of the population with massacres and deportations to slave-labour camps in Siberia, but this very account of it was written at a time when it was not unthinkable that the party heads in Moscow would decide that it was historically necessary for the salvation of humanity, according to their Marxist science, to finish the job of extermination.
This turned out to be an excellent read to mark Remembrance Day, because it is anything but an angry or simplistic attack against Communisim. Instead, it is simply a sober account that stands witness to the people and nations who are caught, "Like a fly between two giants." Many of the ceremonies of Remembrance honour the soldiers, but make little mention of the civilian cost which is almost always many times greater. Even for those of us who live in 'free' nations, we can see today that the civilian cost of far-off wars is beneath the concern of governments.
'The war years taught me that a man should not take a pen in his hands merely to communicate to others his own despair and defeat. This is too cheap a commodity; it takes too little effort to produce it for a man to pride himself on having done so. Whoever saw, as many did, a whole city reduced to rubble--kilometers of streets on which there remained no trace of life, not even a cat, not even a homeless dog--emerged with a rather ironic attitude toward descriptions of the hell of the big city by contemporary poets, descriptions of the hell in their own souls. A real "wasteland" is much more terrible than any imaginary one. Whoever has not dwelt in the midst of horror and dread cannot know how strongly a witness and participant protests against himself, against his own neglect and egoism.' (pg 216)
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen & Pre-Zen Writings
compiled by Paul Reps
175 pages - Anchor Books Gusan instructed his adherents one day: "Those who speak against killing and who desire to spare the lives of all conscious beings are right. It is good to protect even animals and insects. But what about those persons who kill time, what about those who are destroying wealth, and those who destroy political economy? We should not overlook them. Furthermore, what of the one who preaches without enlightenment? He is killing Buddhism." (pg.56) This book contains four separate works related to Zen Buddhism. The first, 101 Zen Stories, is the one I enjoyed the most. It consists of a collection of very very short stories, some thoughtful, some funny, some wise, some enigmatic. The section after that, The Gateless Gate, is a collection of koans, and I'm not sure if it's just too much of a cultural gap or something with my personal thought process, but I didn't get these at all. Well, apart from one, which I thought was wonderful, so maybe that makes slogging through the rest worthwhile? I feel like I didn't really understand what role these would play in Zen practice, or what a reasonable range of responses would be. The third section is 10 Bulls, which is a set of ten illustrations accompanied by text, which uses the metaphor of someone searching for a bull, finding it, taming it, transcending it, and entering back into the world. The fourth section is Centering, an Indian document from before the Buddha's time, which is an example of what Buddhism grew out of. Like the koans, I was mostly lost with this. A student of Tendai, a philosophical school of Buddhism, came to the Zen abode of Gasan as a pupil. When he was departing a few years later, Gasan warned him: "Studying the truth speculatively is useful as a way of collecting preaching material. But remember that unless you meditate constantly your light of truth may go out." (pg.47)
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
The Perennial Philosophy (1945)
by Aldous Huxley
312 pages - Perennial Library
'To find or know God in reality by any outward proofs, or by anything but by God Himself made manifest and self-evident in you, will never be your case either here or hereafter. For neither God, nor heaven, nor hell, nor the devil, nor the flesh, can be any otherwise knowable in you or by you but by their own existence and manifestation in you. And all pretend knowledge of any of these things, beyond and without this self-evident sensibility of their birth within you, is only such knowledge of them as the blind man hath of the light that hath never entered into him.' - William Law (quoted on pg. 130) In this book Huxley examines the writings of all the major monotheistic religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, etc.) to draw a unifying picture of what he terms a 'Perennial Philosophy', as all these testimonies describe a 'divine Ground' with similar characteristics. This is a God that is both immanent and transcendent, a Creator who is the source of all things, but primarily love, and the experience of which is open to everyone be they willing to undertake the proper physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual steps. Indeed, Huxley's view of the material world is that it is entirely supported by God, and that the purpose of everyone's existence is to arrive at a union with Him. It's a very impressive book in terms of its scope and depth, but I have to say that it takes a lot of work to get through - I've probably been reading this in bits for a few months, and that's after it's been on my shelves for years. The only things I'd read previously from Huxley were Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited so it was a bit surprising to discover how intensely religious he was. The book is somewhat a product of its time and, written right after the Second World War, Huxley directs a lot of blame at technology and the march of 'progress' - something I don't entirely agree with. He does make an interesting comment near the end about how one of the utilitarian goals that we should have in creating the society we live in is to minimize the influences that 'lead us into temptation,' which take advantage of people's weaknesses and distractibility; and so with those negative influences minimized, increase the possibility of every person realizing their potential. This is almost entirely opposite to the society we're living in now, which seems to prize and honour the person who can create things which other people buy into by thoughtless reflex, and which eat up hours and hours of the limited time they have on earth. I guess a one-word summing-up of what this book is about is 'mysticism'. But Huxley does take pains to state again and again that this isn't something just for a chosen few or the specially gifted, but available to everyone who wishes to glimpse the way things really are; to let God's presence grow within themselves. It made me think that one of the unfortunate aspects of the modern world's gradual drift away from religion (even though I feel that the pervasiveness of religion in the past is way overstated, because of the type of record it's based on) is that by exiling God from life in the community people grow ignorant of even the potential of any supernatural assistance (I'm not talking about physical miracles exclusively). The book ends thus: "It is they [mystics] who, dying to themselves, become capable of perpetual inspiration and so are made the instruments through which divine grace is mediated to those whose unregenerate nature is impervious to the delicate touches of the Spirit."
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
The Further Teachings of Lao-Tzu: Understanding the Mysteries: A Translation of the Taoist Classic Wen-Tzu
translated by Thomas Cleary
184 pages - Shambhala
The Way is so familiar it cannot be estranged, so close it cannot be put at a distance. Those who seek it afar go and then come back. (pg. 118) Lao Tzu, thought to have lived in the 6th century BC, is mostly known as the reputed author of the Tao Te Ching, a work structured as poetry. However, he is also at the centre of a prose work much less known in the West, called the Wen-Tzu, after one of his students who appears in many of these pieces asking Lao Tzu questions. As befits a prose work, this is a lot less ambiguous than the Tao Te Ching, and offers wisdom both for an individual's life as well as for that of a statesman. To let concerns produce concerns, and then take concern to stop concerns, is like brandishing fire and not trying to burn anything. To let knowledge produce troubles, and then to use knowledge to prepare against them, is like stirring water in hopes of making it clear. (pg.75) I had a really interesting experience reading this, where at times it felt really dense and hard to get through, but other times the text was speaking to me incredibly clearly and directly. I think one of the things that I realized most powerfully, and that sounds like such a piece of pop-psychology pablum, is that very often what I'm frustrated by are concepts in my head; it's just my own (likely inacurate) ideas, and not even the real world. Also, a person's determination and will can only do so much, mostly things are going to happen or not happen outside of your own control, and trying to force stuff just leaves you out of touch. These are things that are easy to say on an intellectual level, but getting a full understanding is different and much more valuable. The Way is to straighten oneself and await the direction of destiny. When a time is going to arrive, you cannot go out to greet it and bring it back with you; when a time is going to leave, you cannot stop it and pull it back. (pg.55)
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
 |
|
Lieh-Tzu: A Taoist Guide to Practical Living
translated by Eva Wong
247 pages - Shambhala Dragon Editions
The Lieh-Tzu is a book traditionally attributed to a person of the same name who lived in the 4th century BC. Along with Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching and the book of Chuang Tzu, it is one of the three main texts of Taoism. This is presented as not just a translation but a "hermeneutical opening-up" of the text, which essentially means that the aim is more to get across the various layers of meaning, rather than to make a literal translation of the original text.
This is just my latest time re-reading this book, but I always find it delightful; both comforting and thought-provoking. Most of the text is short tales that span a page or two, and remind me a lot of western fables or parables. A lot of the emphasis is on the usual Taoist themes of ambivalence about the cares of the world and acknowledging our uncertainty and lack of knowledge of even the most basic aspects of our lives.
( Excerpt: 32 - Who is confused? )
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
 |
|
The Malaise of Modernity (1991)
by Charles Taylor
135 pages - House of Anansi
This is the book-form of the Massey Lectures delivered in 1991, and was published in the U.S. under the title The Ethics of Authenticity. In this book, Taylor looks at three 'malaises' that are affecting modern society: individualism (which threatens a loss of meaning), the primacy of instrumental reason (which threatens an eclipse of ends), and the political consequences of individualism and instrumental reason (which threaten a loss of freedom). Taylor focuses mostly on the first malaise, individualism or a struggle for authenticity, and then in briefer sections applies a similar sort of exploration to the other two areas.
Taylor says that for the last several hundred years, a prime factor in western society has been the quest for authenticity, the notion of "to thine own self be true". This notion has its attackers, which characterize the present as a 'culture of narcissism' and self-indulgence, and it also has its proponents who are often temped to say that the only value is freedom of choice, and that all choices are equally valid. Taylor looks at the ethic of authenticity and finds it something noble and worthwhile, and believes that the solution lies in exploring and making clearer the ethic, because relativist attitudes, on closer inspection, are inauthentic themselves. We all define ourselves against horizons of meaning, and in communication and interchange with the outside world, and if we deny that and say 'every choice is equal', it not only 'flattens out' the outside world and robs it of value, but it eventually robs us of our own identity, since it was built up and forged by a specific history, in a specific world. At the same time, it's not only probably impossible, but also undesirable to try and somehow turn back the clock to a time before people felt such a strong inner call to authenticity, as it is something that helps us navigate through the modern world.
On the primacy of instrumental reason (aka the dominance of rationalism), Taylor also sees something useful, but something that needs to be framed within a more human vision, so things like statistics or efficient modes of production can still be used, but for human ends. And as for the political consequences, there's a necessity to build broad coalitions of consensus, to prevent society from splintering into small special-interest groups who fight all-or-nothing battles on government policy.
This was a pretty good, short introduction to the thought of Taylor, a Canadian philosopher who was in the news lately for winning the $1.5 million Templeton Prize. It does date itself amusingly towards the end, where Taylor (a Quebecer), says that the break-up of Canada is imminent with the defeat of the Meech Lake Accord. I wonder if Charles Taylor wears 'Chuck Taylor' Converse sneakers - that would be pretty cool.
Taylor's 2004 lecture on Religion and Violence is available online as an audio file.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
The Mystery of Being - Volume II: Faith and Reality (1950)
by Gabriel Marcel, translated by G. S. Fraser
188 pages - St. Augustine's Press
The second of two volumes of Gifford Lectures delivered in 1949 and 1950. The first part of this book is concerned with questions of being, and how being in the world necessitates a search for meaning. The second half deals with many of the concerns Marcel had about the world, especially coming out of WWII: the disappearance of the individual into the anonymous masses, the decreasing belief in eternal life, and the importance of faith, hope, and charity. Though Marcel is a Catholic these questions are all dealt with from the side of philosophy, treating revelation as another realm which is not the subject up for discussion today.
After I read the first volume[review] I had planned to read the second a lot sooner, but it's actually been almost exactly a year in between. The first half of this book is extremely dry and seems to concern itself with questions of grammar more than reality, and the second half is not much more engaging. I found myself starting to think about other stuff while reading, and I kept needing to back-track to catch the train of thought. There's probably a bit too much emphasis here on the meanings of words and such, not as much of a grander vision.
Existentialism is quite often considered to be an atheistic philosophy, though this is almost solely due to the influence of Sartre, whose nihilism is most palatable to teach in an academic environment (not a compliment). Of course this is using 'existentialism' in a catch-all sort of way, that the individuals probably wouldn't accept without qualifiers, but many of the prominent existentialists are religious as well, including Protestant (Paul Tillich, Kierkegaard (though he wasn't a big fan of the Protestants)), Jew (Martin Buber), Orthodox (Dostoevsky), Catholic (Marcel) and miscellaneous (Karl Jaspers).
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
 |
|
The Consolation of Philosophy (524)
by Boethius, translated by Victor Watts
192 pages - Penguin Classics
Boethius (c. AD 480-524) was a Roman was raised by a rich, Christian family, and showed talent in several branches of knowledge from an early age. He rose high in the court of King Theodoric, an Ostrogoth, but was judged to be guilty of treason (unfairly, according to his account), imprisoned and then brutally put to death. In this book, written in prison while awaiting his execution, he tries to find justification for living a good life in the face of the apparent evidence that in this world, evil is rewarded while those who attempt to do good are unfairly punished.
The book is set up as a dialogue between Boethius, in prison after being framed, and the spirit of Philosophy, personified as a woman (at the start of the book she amusingly chases away the Muses of Poetry, calling them 'hysterical sluts'). The book alternates between discussion in prose and poetic passages, and I was surprised at the quality of the poetry. One of the most famous images from this book is the 'Wheel of Fortune', which constantly alters the fate of everyone alive. There is some platonic dialogue which gets a bit tedious (as the introduction says, it 'tends to treat words as if they had an unchanging value like symbols of algebra or logic'). But it is a relatively smooth and easy read, and quite a rewarding one too.
One of the most interesting points, which gave me a lot to ponder, and which I haven't heard expressed so succinctly and directly, is: 1) There is nothing that God cannot do, 2) God, by definition, cannot do evil, 3)Therefore, evil is nothing. This thought is continued as it is stated that people who are evil do not exist, which is to say, they are not existing (they may have a body and breath, but they are not actually living on any meaningful level).
During the middle ages, when much of the thought of the ancients was lost to Europe, the work of Boethius was one of the few ways in which the ancient Greeks and Romans were kept alive; many consider him to be the most influential thinker in the thousand years after his death. Boethius still plays a role in today's culture, not just in the theme of a trashy game show, but in things such as the comic novel A Confederacy of Dunces and the film 24 Hour Party People.
2 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
Introducing Kierkegaard (2003)
by Dave Robinson, illustrated by Oscar Zarate
176 pages - Icon
This is a fun little book in the 'Introducing' series, where serious subjects are explained using mainly somewhat-irreverent black-and-white illustrations, similar to the editorial cartoons found in most newspapers. This one is about Soren Kierkegaard, and gives some biographical detail while mainly focusing on his philosophical ideas. I bought the book mostly because I was very amused by the illustrations, many of which are derived from what life in Copenhagen would have been like in the 19th century.
It's an amusing and somewhat thoughtful read, though I was really jarred by the last few dozen pages, where the book essentially says, "But of course, when you realize that Marx was right about everything, you can see that the thought of Kierkegaard had some major problems." WTF?!? I can understand including the thoughts of Hegel, Sartre, Heidegger, and others of that ilk, because they're clearly related to Kierkegaard, but it I can't see the reason to include Marx to this extent, and especially not as 'baseline reality'...which is actually more offensive the more I think about it.
There are some other more minor irritations, such as a stereotypical and too-simplistic psychological portrait of Kierkegaard. And I think the analysis of The Concept of Anxiety is actually entirely inaccurate (this book states that SK thought that any kind of sex was sin, whereas from my reading I quite remember clearly that it's stated that sexuality is entirely separate from sinfulness -- this book also states that The Concept of Anxiety says that sin came from Adam and Eve, and is transmitted from them down to each of us, whereas the book actually says that sin comes into the world, but it's not important for the discussion at hand to debate how it comes into the world, because the point is that it exists). Lastly, though several of SK's works are examined in some depth, oddly no mention at all is made of the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, which is SK's largest book, and believed by many to be his most important in regards to philosophy.
I still think a lot of the illustrations are cute and fun, though.
1 Comment | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
Something about Kierkegaard (Revised and Enlarged edition - 1945)
by David F. Swenson, edited by Lillian Marvin Swenson
259 pages - Augsburg Publishing House
David F. Swenson was a professor of philosophy who was an admirer of Soren Kierkegaard and translated several of his books. This is a collection of various papers and essays about Kierkegaard, put together after the death of Swenson. The two characteristics that stand out most are that the text was not modified for book form, and so often similar ground is covered repeatedly in back-to-back chapters, and also that Swenson was among the first wave of Kierkegaard scholars in the English language, working with the original Danish texts and some German criticism, and so much of this reads as an unrefined first impression, without access to the depth of scholarship that is available at present.
In his survey and interpretation of Kierkegaard's thought, though Swenson brings up some interesting aspects to reflect on, I'm also afraid he might be getting a significant portion of the thought of Kierkegaard wrong, or at least awkardly trying to pull existential and subjective thought into a framework of intellectual academic objectivity - and pulling it too far. Even though a third-party analysis can only be a dull reflection of the original, it's often a valuable way to get a slightly different view of a subject -- but I would definitely look for something more recent.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
Kierkegaard: A Biographical Introduction (1973)
by Ronald Grimsley
127 pages - Scribners
As the subtitle states, this is a look at Kierkegaard and his ideas which is organized in biographical fashion. There wasn't a lot of information that was new to me, but it's organized and well-written and doesn't make Kierkegaard and his work either over-complex or over-simplistic. At this point I've read most of the major works, but there's a usefulness in having all those hundreds of pages summarized into about a hundred, giving you a good overview.
'Because human existence is always in movement and in a process of becoming, its decisive expression can take place only through an act which is more like a 'leap' than a gradual transition from one stage to another. Since it is not a fixed static quality, existence does not operate within the sphere of pre-established certainty, for it involves a change of quality rather than an increase in quantity. Yet the consciousness that an existential choice has absolute though unpredictable significance for the fate of the individual explains the mood of 'dread' by which it is always accompanied. The man who chooses his being in this absolute way feels he is floating 'over seventy thousand fathoms of water'. Choice is inseparable from risk: it is an adventure into the unknown.' (pg.70)
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
The Pensees (1662)
by Blaise Pascal, translated by J. M. Cohen
287 pages - Penguin Classics
Blaise Pascal, 17th century mathematician and scientist, was also a theological thinker who had several religious experiences. He was planning to write a work of Christian apologetics, but died before doing so. His assorted notes, many of them just a sentence or two in length, were arranged into this book, organized according to the outline of a lecture he delivered. The book is mainly separated into two parts, 'Man Without God' and 'Man With God'.
The first part is a philosophical analysis of man's state on earth. Pascal disagrees with Descartes and other strict rationalists, and asserts that intellect is not supreme but merely an aspect of our existence, and asking all of the heart's decisions to be explained by reason is equivalent to exposing all of the intellect's decisions to the judgment of the heart. Pascal draws an effective picture of humanity as seemingly contradictory, in the process of becoming, capable of amazing highs and lows.
The second part is ironically a lot weaker, it is mostly focused on how prophecies of the Old Testament have been fulfilled in history and in the New Testament, and how various outer signs and events of history testify to the truth of Christianity, and specifically Catholicism. It reminded me a lot of people who do various calculations with the numbers of letters and words in the Bible in order to 'prove' that it's 'true', and how Kierkegaard compared this to people who start to count the words in letters from their true love -- it may be nice that you're that devoted, but perhaps in putting so much emphasis on these details you're missing the message.
Overall it's a remarkable work, though it's kind of disappointing when the superb perceptive thoughts of the first half end there, and the gears change entirely into what's mostly a discussion of details from the Bible without much application. But it is an uncompleted work that was built with scraps, so you can't assume what kind of book Pascal would have wrote if he had the chance; perhaps he would combine all of this into something greater, or perhaps he would have discarded and smoothed away all the rough edges that give this book its spirit.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings from the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century (1960)
edited and translated by Thomas Merton
81 pages - New Directions
This is a little collection of sayings of the desert hermits of the 4th century who separated themselves from society and went into the desert regions of Egypt, Palestine, Arabia and Persia. Merton has selected these himself, not to any scholarly or doctrinal purpose, but just picking what he thought might be good and pleasing. Merton includes a twenty-some page introduction, which was the part I enjoyed most. The selections themselves are from the Verba Seniorum, and they range from enlightening to mundane to puzzling. It's very similar to anthologies of Taoist or Zen sayings.
It's interesting to read through, but doesn't give a lot of information about the Desert Fathers themselves, or the wider world they existed in, which was something I was curious about. I guess I'll need to find another work that deals with that.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
The Mystery of Being, Volume I: Reflection & Mystery (1950)
by Gabriel Marcel, translated by G. S. Fraser
221 pages - Gateway Editions
This is the first of two volumes of Gifford Lectures Gabriel Marcel delivered in 1949 and 1950 at the University of Aberdeen. Marcel was a philosopher and a playwright who could be described as an existentialist, but though he was a contemporary of Sartre he had many objections to Sartre's atheist twist on the existentialist approach.
There's a lot of different areas covered in the book, especially as it is a sort of introduction to Marcel's thought and methods, and is building up to the second volume. However, the main theme is probably the question 'Who am I?', which Marcel states cannot be answered truthfully and fully by the person asking the question, nor by any other person the questioner might ask about himself. Our past, our present situation, our potential future, is beyond the full grasp of our consciousness, and it is one of the situations where an appeal to the transcendent is necessary. Another theme is what Marcel calls 'our broken world', which is essentially an acknowledgment that things are not functioning the way we feel they should, which would be analogous to The Fall of Man.
Marcel also talks about the importance of the reflection and mystery of the subtitle. Reflection to seriously contemplate our situation and re-orient ourselves if necessary. And the need to acknowledge things we encounter as mysteries instead of oversimplifying them into problems to be solved; to see others as presences rather than objects to be categorized and used. One thing that really stood out for me was his emphasis on the need to be open and available to others, and how they mystery of community with others, and the sharing of intersubjectivity guides you along into transcendent experience. Near the end there were also a few hints that he dropped about the nature of time, and how he didn't think it just travelled like an arrow, which was quite intriguing.
I wasn't sure what to think of this book for the first half, and I mostly read it in spurts. However, I did read the second half quite quickly, I suppose after much of the preliminaries had been delt with, and now I feel quite enthusiastic about getting my hands on Volume II.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
Purity of Heart Is To Will One Thing: Spiritual Preparation for the Office of Confession (1847)
by Soren Kierkegaard, translated by Douglas V. Steere
220 pages - Harper Torchbooks
'As a devotional classic, the nineteenth century produced almost nothing in either Catholic or Protestant circles that can compare seriously with Purity of Heart. Designed as a preparation for the church's office of confession, it is prepared to put into the hands of the serious reader the surgical instruments for a major spiritual operation. The instruments are razor-sharp and they can cut through any cancerous worldly growth, no matter how fibrous, in order to liberate again the healthy tissues of a man's individual responsibility before the gaze of the living God' - Translator's Note
This small book is one of Kierkegaard's 'Edifying Discourses' where he states, as the title suggests, that purity of heart is to will one thing. And that one thing is The Good (as under the aspect of The Eternal). Emphasis is placed on different types of possible double-mindedness and evasion, as well as the necessity of living as an individual. As SK himself says in the text, books like these are much more about what happens inside the reader than anything that the speaker might say, or how he says it -- so I'll just say that it was a worthwhile read.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
The Great Philosophers (2005)
by Jeremy Stangroom and James Garvey
160 pages - Capella
This is sort of a coffee-table type book of profiles of noted philosophers, with lots of colourful images and easy-to-read synopses of their work and lives. Starting from Socrates and ending at Foucault, each person gets a four-page profile which reads smoothly but isn't dumbed-down, and is even quite witty at times. Selected works of each philosopher are profiled for further reading.
It's good to have a hard-copy reference to get a quick idea of some notable figures; reading through it you certainly get a sense of the development of philosophy over more than two thousand years, and the impact of each person's work. Some of the selections are a bit questionable, as in including Machiavelli and Marx but excluding Karl Jaspers. And there's a definite bias toward the more rationalist and logical schools of thought. I'm even more convinced now that the Enlightenment was mostly a bad move for the West, the effects of which are still being felt.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
Practice in Christianity: No. I, II, III (1850)
by Soren Kierkegaard (writing as Anti-Climacus), translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong
262 pages - Princeton University Press
This is a collection of three short works that Kierkegaard published together under the pseudonym of Anti-Climacus, in contrast to his Johannes Climacus pseudonym; the 'Anti' not meaning 'against' but 'higher' or 'before'. He chose to use a pseudonym for this book as he wanted to separate himself from the high ideality of its contents. It has been previously translated as Training in Christianity.
This is a book that, broadly, is intended in two ways. It is a statement about how distant Christendom is from true Christianity. In this way SK hoped the state church in Denmark would accept his invitation to acknowledge the distance from the ideal, and labour towards a truer imitation of Christ, instead of an admiration. A second intent of the work, which comes to light when the established order rejects this, is of a criticism and attack on Christendom. As well as instruction for the individual.
There's some good material here, but I don't think it's among SK's best work. As I read what really began to wear on me is the emphasis on the single individual before God, when surely there is also importance and significance and growth in your relationship to the world and other people? Perhaps this is an example of the difference between Protestantism and Catholicism. Though, it's also important to remember that it was published under a pseudonym, and so doesn't necessarily express SK's true thoughts. But the 'individual against the world' approach does get a bit bleak.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
Either/Or: A Fragment of Life - Part II: Containing the papers of B; Letters to A (1843)
by Soren Kierkegaard (as editor Victor Eremita), translated by Walter Lowrie, revised by Howard A. Johnson
372 pages - Anchor Books
This is the second volume of Either/Or, published simultaneously with the first. It purports to be the papers of B, a judge who has a wife and children. He is also known as Judge Wilhelm, though I don't remember that name mentioned anywhere other than in the translator's introduction, possibly because that hint of his identity is only given in Stages on Life's Way, a later volume by SK where he re-appears. B tries to convince A to embrace the ethical instead of leading a life strictly concerned with aesthetics. There is no indication which volume was written first, so you can imagine that A took heed, or that he did not.
The book is largely split between two sections, Aesthetic Validity of Marriage which is about marriage, and argues that an ethical approach does not eliminate aesthetic beauty but allows it to exist at its highest, and Equilibrium Between the Aesthetical and the Ethical in the Composition of Personality which is, briefly, about despair and making the choice of your self. A final short section, Ultimatum, contains a sermon 'The edification implied in the thought that as against God we are always in the wrong'.
Either/Or is considered one of SK's major works, and I suppose as his first publication and an entry-point into his thought it has some value, but it's mostly quite a chore to read with arguments that drone on and few high points compared to the amount of sludge. It doesn't help that B is supposed to be a sort of dull, boring bureaucrat. And combined, these volumes are the longest book SK ever wrote. Things would only get better from here.
SK concieved of three spheres of life, the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious, and Either/Or only deals with the first two, though SK saw the ethical as a stepping-stone up to the religious. All the same he never really repeated himself, and so if I was going to re-read these I would probably concentrate most on Equilibrium where the choice of one's true self is outlined in more detail than I have seen anywhere else, the contradictory yet true act of becoming one's self by choosing one's self, and yet choosing what has already been created before you choose to become it.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
Introduction to the New Existentialism (1966)
by Colin Wilson
188 pages - Hutchinson
This book is a short summary of the ideas Wilson examined and developed in his 'Outsider cycle' of books. The emphasis is on getting away from the negativity of modern existentialist philosophy (especially that of Sartre) and using phenomenology to investigate how we construct our images of the world. Wilson sees modern man as mostly bored, apathetic, directionless, with life-affirming mystical experience being rare, and often dismissed as 'abnormality'. He sees phenomenology as a tool we can use to consciously take the blinders off when we choose, and allow ourselves to apprehend more of 'real' reality, which sweeps away our everyday feelings of pointlessness, powerlessness, and the void of meaning. Perceiving reality means perceiving infinity, eternity, meaning.
A pretty good book, and a light read, though as I've read several of Wilson's other philosophical books, there wasn't much new here. But a nice summary.
( quotes )
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
Either/Or: A Fragment of Life - Part I: Containing the papers of A (1843)
by Soren Kierkegaard (as editor Victor Eremita)
translated by David & Lillian Swenson, revised by Howard A. Johnson
465 pages
Anchor Books
This is Kierkegaard's first major publication, a popular work during his lifetime, and it endures as one of his most popular books today. This is an entry-point for a lot of readers of SK, so I am coming at it fairly late, after having read many of his other books. The fictional story of the narrative is that the editor, named Victor Eremita, buys a used fancy desk of some kind, and then sometime later discovers a hidden compartment with a stash of papers. He determines these belong to two authors, and consist of various thoughts, papers and essays by someone we will call A, and a series of letters written to A by someone we will call B. The first volume of Either/Or is the writings of A.
The reader gets to know A through his papers. These are: Diapsalmata: A collection of aphorisms, some of them very witty and sharp [Aside: Actually I was reading something by the current pope, before he became pope, and he actually used one of these as an illustration at the start of the essay or book or whatever it was I was browsing. Even more curiously, I'm not sure he understood it correctly.]. The Immediate Stages of the Erotic or the Musical Erotic: An analysis of Mozart's opera Don Juan. The Ancient Tragical Motif as Reflected in the Modern: A discussion of the plays of Sophocles. Shadowgraphs: A discussion of three female characters from literature. The Unhappiest Man: An amusing discussion of where such a man could be found, and what he would be like. The First Love: An analysis of a theatrical romantic comedy. The Rotation Method: On how to avoid boredom, because everything in creation is ultimately boring. Diary of the Seducer: May not be written by A but only edited by him, a mini-novel about how Johannes picks a girl, slowly seduces her, manipulates her and others, plans other conquests while he is engaged to her, and forces the cancellation of their engagement and runs off as soon as she has fallen in love as far as she can go.
SK intended this to be a vivid portrait of a person engaged only in the aesthetic sphere of existence. It certainly illustrates it copiously. A is unquestionably an intelligent person, a resourceful person, a passionate person, but his life is endless novelty and frustration. One of his sayings is, 'Kill yourself or do not kill yourself, you are certain to regret it'. Perhaps The Rotation Method is the best illustration of this, a discussion of how to keep the novelty or interest going, how to flit to the next new thing, how to find the quirky in the mundane. In many ways it anticipates and reminds me of the decadent fiction that would come at the end of the 19th century, especially A Rebours by Huysmans. Interestingly, both Kierkegaard and Huysmans found a similar cure for their dilemma.
My complaints would be that I think some of the analysis of art doesn't quite hold up more than a century and a half later, and if you're unfamiliar with things like Don Juan or the works of Goethe, your eyes can just glaze over as you're reading page after page of analysis of something you're quite unfamiliar with. The book could have been half as long and made its point.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}