I audited the course by Michael S. Roth, who is the president of Wesleyan, on the development of the “The Modern and the Post-Modern” on Coursera. (Audited here means watched the lectures but did not register or do the assignments.) Roth discusses the development of the central themes of the world as it moved away from classicism or should I say neo-classicism of the 16th and 17th centuries. The romantic era of Rousseau and Marx and Hegel leads to an anti-establishment post-modern world of Nietzsche and a more self-reflective realism of painters like Delacroix and Manet. Ushering in the Modern is the search for intensity and the rejection of social norms of Baudelaire (he shoots a clock during a street protest). Nietzsche rejects even conventional morality as a notion of self-imposed restraint of personal power and he rejects the idea of God as a mere figure of shame the people use to impose a false and inhibiting morality. Dr. Roth concentrates on Europe, but clearly the same development can be seen in America. There was Jefferson, the Enlightenment paragon breaking from classical thought and religion and embracing science and empiricism. On the continent, Darwin looks closely at natural processes and describes the fundamentals of biology, while in America Twain and Crane and John Singer Sargent are depicting a realistic world of the life as natural as we come. Roth’s final lectures are on the art world. The romantic Delacroix depicts life and revolution as glorious and emotional, depicting the mid-19th century turmoil in France that Marx called “The Beautiful Revolution.” Courbet turned to realism, pushing back against both classicism and romanticism. He paints with the influence of the new art of photography. He wanted to show the real, quotidian life of ordinary people and, famously rather outrageously, paints highly sexualized nudes and the banned girly-parts close up “The Origin of the World.” Edouard Manet ushered in the Impressionism movement depicting the impression of light of the picture and the observer. People interacting with the modern world of the railroad. In Manet’s Olympia the unashamed courtesan stares directly at you, the observer, while in his “Bar at the Folie-Bergere he shows the barmaid staring away from the patron. While she serves a patron, she stands at the bar among all the objects for sale, which include herself and perhaps all of us watching.
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Ulysses S. Grant
An amazing book, Grant, by Ron Chernow tells the remarkable story of President Grant. Grant rose from being a cashiered army officer struggling in penury to become the victor over the rebellion and then one of the greatest American presidents. After his service he was adored by his country and admired throughout the world. An uncommonly decent man. What may have been his battle even more difficult than the war was the aftermath of the war. Grant spent his presidency struggling against the violent South which waged a vicious campaign against the freed slaves. “Americans today know little about the terrorism that engulfed the South during Grant’s presidency. It has been suppressed by a strange national amnesia. The Klan’s ruthless reign is a dark, buried chapter in American history. The Civil War is far better known than its brutal aftermath.” (p. 857). Grant, Ron Chernow, Penguin Random House, 2017.
Akka Mahadevi
Mahadevi was a 12th century Hindu poet whose dispute with her authoritarian husband sparked a public exposure that tops Lady Godiva’s ride. Godiva rode through Coventry in the buff to protest her husband’s cruel taxes on the poor. The story also created the legend of “peeping tom” a tailor who dared to look. Mahadevi was bolder and apparently didn’t care who looked as she walked naked through India talking philosophy. In one poem she is critical of the virtue of modesty.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Michael S. Roth, who is the president of Wesleyan, teaches the course “The Modern and the Post-Modern.” Roth says that while Rousseau claimed that the state protected inequality and uses the poor to protect the status of the rich, Alexis Tocqueville saw something else in America. Tocqueville agreed with the problem of inequality but the state should be a vehicle to provide and protect the equality of persons. Roth says about Rousseau that his legacy is long. “He institutes a mode of thinking, that challenges his contemporary society, by saying that the dynamics that we see in what looks like progress, are really corruption…. we see greater inequality protected by the state, that vanity and hypocrisy keep us from knowing what human beings are really like.”
Tribalism and the Midterms
All the blogosphere is talking about voters exercising a kind tribal loyalty in the voting booth and the rural v. urban divide demonstrates that. I think it is time to maybe drop the “tribal” term and look more deeply at what motivates conservative personalities and liberal ones. Here is a post I wrote earlier:
The David Brooks column last Friday (The Internal Invasion) explored a broad view of the major divisions in the Trump election. He used gemeinschaft and gesellschaft ideals, a view of society where gemeinschaft (community based, reason based) competes with gesellschaft (society based, social cohesion based). These terms were prominent in the work of Tonnies and Weber and I think Durkheim had a similar broad division. This framing fits well with my most recent read: Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind which sees liberals as motivated by care and equality while conservatives are motivated only moderately by care and fairness and more by loyalty, sanctity, and authority. Fairness is important for the right, but it means parity for their group while fairness for the left means equality. Importantly, the right, or gesellschaft people are motivated by a group loyalty and care of their own, a parochial altruism. The left is less groupish or loyal to a network and more universally altruistic. Problem is, there are always more voters on the right who are highly motivated and highly devoted to an emotional attachment to their social group, whether a religion or ethnicity or national identity. Cold reason, facts, cosmopolitan care just has a hard time competing with flag waving loyalty or devotion to religion.
Plato Unmasked
Keith Quincy, the former chair of government at Eastern Washington University, wrote a somewhat abridged translation of Plato’s Dialogues that is a favorite of mine. When I studied a course on Plato at Berea College (Fall, 2016), we used the more authoritative translation edited by John M. Cooper and D. S. Hutchinson (Plato: Complete Works, 1997, Hatchett). Nonetheless, Quincy’s book is a delight especially his readable and engaging introductions to each dialogue. I wonder if in the academic world it is admitted that some of Plato’s passages are just plain confusing and frequently a confusing diversion. Quincy takes some liberties in translation and omits the less important parts. I also think he is correct in writing that Xenophon’s style is more clear than Plato’s. Most commentators I have read thing Plato’s writing style is captivating, but I think not. I know that Bertrand Russell has little respect for Xenophon, but not Quincy. This book is kept by my night reading chair and I just think of it as a true friend: Plato Unmasked: Dialogues Made New, Plato translated by Keith Quincy, Eastern Washington University Press, 2003.
White Trash History
Nancy Isenberg, a sociologist and historian at Louisiana State University, wrote this somewhat overwrought history of the great working class or poorer class in America. I think it does fill an important gap in political thinking: we assume that bigotry and oppression is characteristic of black Americans, but that same hatred and exploitation certainly extends to the white lowest classes. Ab ovo, this class has been used, cheated, and dismissed as ignorant proles who, nonetheless, managed to build America and create the wealth enjoyed be the more educated and wealthier whites. Unfortunately, she displays enormous disrespect for Benjamin Franklin as well as scant understanding of his enlightened attitude and incredible contributions to this nation. I learned from Isenberg that there is a robust lexicon for terms of little endearment for the lower classes, the white trash throughout history, such as lubbers and crackers, rednecks and clay-eaters (a puzzle over this one), and my favorite: mudsills. Interesting in that a mudsill has a truly nasty ring to it, but in truth, a mudsill is a type of foundation holding up the rest of the edifice. White Trash: the 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, Nancy Isenberg, Viking, 2016.
The Dream of Enlightenment
The major philosophers of the Enlightenment are presented by Anthony Gottlieb in this survey of the lives and contributions of such thinkers as Voltaire, Descartes, Liebniz, and others. I am always interested particularly with Spinoza and Gottlieb does a creditable job with this. The book is necessarily introductory but the author’s concentration on the biography and political conditions of each of the philosophers adds a great deal to understanding how philosophers such as Locke and Hume and Hobbes continue to contribute to contemporary thought and politics. The Dream of Enlightenment: the Rise of Modern Philosophy, Anthony Gottlieb, 2016, W. W. Norton.
Groupiness in Politics
The David Brooks column last Friday (The Internal Invasion) explored a broad view of the major divisions in the Trump election. He used gemeinschaft and gesellschaft ideals, a view of society where gemeinschaft (community based, reason based) competes with gesellschaft (society based, social cohesion based). These terms were prominent in the work of Tonnies and Weber and I think Durkheim had a similar broad division. This framing fits well with my most recent read: Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind which sees liberals as motivated by care and equality while conservatives are motivated only moderately by care and fairness and more by loyalty, sanctity, and authority. Fairness is important for the right, but it means parity for their group while fairness for the left means equality. Importantly, the right, or gesellschaft people are motivated by a group loyalty and care of their own, a parochial altruism. The left is less groupish or loyal to a network and more universally altruistic. Problem is, there is always more voters on the right who are highly motivated and highly devoted to an emotional attachment to their social group, whether a religion or ethnicity or national identity. Cold reason, facts, cosmopolitan care just has a hard time competing with flag waving loyalty or devotion to religion.
Sandel on the Telos
Michael Sandel, in his iTunes U course on Justice, lesson 9, mentions the problem of Aristotle’s acceptance of slavery in Nichomachean Ethics but also give a brilliant lecture of the use of teleological reasoning in defense of affirmative action in college admissions. What is a college for? He goes on the quote Winnie the Pooh! Winnie hears a buzzing noise in a tree, what is it for? It means a bee, and what is a bee for? To make honey. And what is honey for? For me to eat!
Two Strikes 