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Herodotus, “The History” I.163-169: The Story of the Phocaeans

December 5, 2014 / ashok / Comments Off

Having put down a rebellion, Cyrus split his forces in order to take that much more beyond his empire. Harpagus was appointed general of one part of the army, and he warred against the Ionians. He alone conquered many cities, Cyrus conquering many more, but Herodotus spends quite a bit of time talking about the first conquest in Ionia, a city named Phocaea. The story which follows is peculiar, to say the least.

The Phocaeans were daring seafarers, going on long voyages to the ends of the Mediterranean. They found a king in a distant land who so valued their friendship that he offered to settle them anywhere in his kingdom. When they were worried about the Medes, this same king gave them all the money they needed to build immense and powerful fortifications.

When Persia invaded, the Phocaeans bought time to flee their city through a negotiation of sorts. Harpagus said that if they tore down just one part of the wall and consecrated a house, he would be content. The Phocaeans said they needed a day to think about this, in which time they put their children, women, and as many goods as they could carry to sea, including some images from the temples and sacrificial items. They sailed south, trying to buy some islands for settlement from another people, but were rebuffed.

They then decided to sail to Corsica, where before they had built a city on account of an oracle. Before they did this, they went back to Phocaea, murdered the Persians left guarding it, and sunk in the sea a bar of iron to pronounce a curse. No Phocaean was to linger behind on the relocation to Corsica, and only unless the bar surfaced would any Phocaean come back there. Despite this, half the citizens did sail back on the journey to Corsica, “seized with such homesickness and pity for their city,” breaking the oath they made (1.165).

If you’re wondering what we’re supposed to think of the Phocaeans after all that, join the club. The story only gets crazier. Those who sailed to Corsica did make it, joining with those who had founded the city before, setting up their shrines again. However, they decided to act like pirates and bandits toward the neighbors with their newfound strength. This brought the Etruscans and Carthaginians into common cause against them. They met in a naval battle, with the Phocaeans at least as strong as both the others combined. Technically, the Phocaeans won, but they had so many unusable ships after the battle that they had to flee their settlement in Corsica in the same way they fled Phocaea originally. They eventually settled in another country, founding a city with another name, twice removed from Phocaea. The city after Phocaea was Alalia, the city after that Hyele.

Herodotus adds that after the naval battle, the Carthaginians and Etruscans cast lots for the abandoned crews of wrecked Phocaean ships. The people of Agylla won many crews. Apparently, they were furious at the Phocaeans, or were just awful excuses for human beings, as they brought them ashore to stone them to death. This resulted in a curse:

After this, among these Agyllaeans, every living thing that passed the place where the Phocaeans were stoned and buried – every living thing, be it flocks and herds or beasts of burden or men – became alike twisted, crippled, or paralyzed. The people of Agylla sent to Delphi, wishful to heal their offense. The Pythia laid upon them the command that the Agyllaeans are still discharging to this day. For they have splendid religious celebrations for the dead Phocaeans and in their honor hold athletic contests and horse races. (1.167)

The curse of the place where the massacre occurred affected the beauty and motion of those who passed it. Hence, athletic spectacles in honor of the victims are an appropriate remedy. There is another detail of importance with which Herodotus ends this story. The Phocaeans eventually reinterpret the oracle that sent them to Corsica, as a local hero near their newest city had a name equivalent to Corsica.

III

I wonder what this whole story means. Herodotus says the Phocaeans were the first of the Greeks to go on long sea voyages. He mentions that they use a specific sort of boat. One could speculate that technology caused them to be as daring as they were.

One might wonder about piety, too. The Phocaeans heeded an oracle that told them to go forth and settle, to do something they would do anyway. They do not fight to the death for their ancestral homeland, nor do they take special pains to relocate or hide the weightiest images in the temples.

For me right now, the Phocaeans are this consideration: What if a people were entirely heroic? They would be awesome friends. Kings would willingly want them at their court, to learn from them and bask in their natural glory. They would be adventurous, using even misfortune as an opportunity to do more and see more. They would be secure and conflicted in their identity. To insist on the absurdity of being more Phocaean for leaving Phocaea itself is the sort of thing characteristic of any given hero. And they are celebrated in funeral games, just like other figures in epic.

Joe Connole beautifully expanded on this thought, adding that it looks like they turn barbarian quickly, asserting themselves a bit too naturally. And their identity, the very thing they insisted upon so much initially, is lost because of their own actions. One might be tempted to say the city doesn’t need heroes. It needs strong formal institutions and a willingness to slowly and steadily progress. That does seem to be a hidden theme of a more thoughtful approach to our democratic age, as our heroes dunk basketballs, win American Idol, and once in a while discover something amazing (which they get money and fame from. Never forget the cash and interviews, otherwise you wouldn’t know how heroic they were).

But maybe the foundations of the city are a deeper problem. Maybe it is the case that political life depends on heroes, even asking us to become them. In which case, we are always in danger of transcending the city itself, losing our sense of justice because we need to feel powerful and free. Some commentators think that power simply corrupts, for if you have power, you’re always tempted to do something bad with it. To be frank, that’s pretty idiotic. It’s more like this: morality is clearest when you don’t have power. When you do have it, moral choices become a lot more difficult. Sometimes, such choices are directly dependent on whether you can effect or provide something. You’re stuck playing god, like it or not; people depend on you and weigh you with their expectations.

To be sure, the Phocaeans eventually settle down, both in spite of their heroism and because of it. They were right to flee in their crazy, bold, adventurous way. And it was inevitable that they would act unjustly and almost imperially for a time, worried that without power, they would be powerless against those who would take their home away.

References

Herodotus, The History. tr. David Greene. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.

Three Stories from Herodotus, “The History,” Book 1

November 21, 2014 / ashok / Comments Off

Once again I have put together a piece of writing that sounds like a really ambitious 8th grader trying to have heady thoughts while distracted watching a League of Legends tournament. Below, you will find an attempt to grapple with why Herodotus puts the stories he tells in the order he does. I have done my best to reproduce those stories so you can make your own decisions, but I have added a heavy amount of commentary and editorializing because I’m trying to discover what I myself think. I do not think badly of the end result, clunky though it may be, because whoa that was an awesome combo to finish player Dr3dEnD0ll

Herodotus almost allows us to think Croesus, king of Lydia, a harmless fool. His haughty attitude in trying to be declared the happiest of all men indicates a tyrannical disposition, as his wealth and empire are simply so glorious. Attempts to test oracles and bribe the gods also fall under this category. Still, it is hard to see what he truly is. One has to remember why Herodotus brought him up in the first place. It seems to be said almost in passing that Croesus “was the first of the barbarians of whom we know who subdued some Greeks to the payment of tribute…. before Croesus’ rule all the Greeks were free” (1.6). That Croesus was the first to enslave Greeks is mentioned some 20 sections before his story begins in earnest. And a notable detail about how Croesus treated threats to his rule stands nearly an afterthought as Herodotus finishes his main narrative about him. A half-brother of his led a faction against him when he was to ascend the throne. For this, Croesus tortured him to death, “drawing him across a carding comb” (1.92). (1)

We do not hear much about the people building Lydia’s empire. For 14 years, Lydia is extremely formidable, poised to become even more powerful. We mostly hear of Croesus and Solon, Croesus and oracles, Croesus and Cyrus. He bumbles, stumbles, and finally is finished. The temptation is to think everyone around Lydia left and the Lydians occupied their territory, somehow also growing their numbers faster than humanly possible.

When Herodotus does speak about the Lydians, they are about to be destroyed. “There was at the time no people in all Asia who were braver or more valiant soldiers than the Lydians. Their fighting was from horseback, where they carried great lances, and they were themselves excellent horsemen” (1.79). This detail is given to us right before Cyrus finishes them. Cyrus, knowing horses are scared of the sight and smell of camels, used the train of camels he had transporting his provisions against the cavalry. Even though the cavalrymen should have completely broken, they joined the fight as best they could:

Indeed, as soon as the battle was joined, the very moment the horses smelled the camels and saw them, they bolted back; and down went all the hopes for Croesus. Not that, for the rest, the Lydians proved cowards; for as soon as they saw how it was, they jumped down from their horses and joined battle with the Persians on foot. (1.80)

The Lydians are routed, despite keeping discipline in the worst circumstance. They do not seem to be of the same cloth as Croesus. They are imperial, but not decadent; while tyrants over other peoples, they do exercise some virtue. They are not criminals looking to save their own skin, nor so desperate they rashly commit suicide.

Indeed, I hold this their silent rallying cry: give me liberty, or give me death. Croesus’ puffery masks a story about how we value freedom. The experience of freedom as something good is how we know it to be good. Unfortunately, this almost always means injustice toward others. Someone else’s labor creates the conditions for our freedom. The Lydians are not shy about freedom entailing empire, and therefore fight not to be slaves of another.

The next ruler Herodotus speaks of at length is Deioces (1.96-101). Deioces was a Mede, a “clever man” who “had fallen in love with royal power.” Grene’s translation of “royal power” isn’t quite correct; Benardete points out what he had as eros for tyrannidos (Benardete 24-25). The Medes at this time were quite a lawless people. Deioces thus “set himself to practice justice ever more and more keenly.” His village noticed and appointed him judge over them. People began flocking to him in greater and greater numbers, as he was judging “according to the rule of right” (1.96). When he realized how dependent everyone was on him, he refused to serve any longer, as he received no profit and his own affairs were neglected. Lawlessness grew more rampant in Media than before (1.97). The Medes met, agreeing with Deioces’ friends that they should set up a kingship, and Deioces should be king.

Deioces’ first demand was for kingly houses across the country and a bodyguard. These demands were met, enabling him to get more. A fortress upon a hill, with seven walls arranged in concentric circles. Complete privacy for the king except for messengers, shame upon anyone who laughed or spit in the royal presence. Spies and eavesdroppers everywhere, as people wrote their complaints about each other to Deioces, and he would send his decisions out. His justice was exact, and he seems to have united the Median nation (1.101).

Deioces, in effect, made himself a god. Invisible to his friends, those like him who might be as just and able. Invisible to all his people, who of necessity had to be in awe of him. The description of his fortress mirrors what was known about the cosmos at the time – seven walls for seven planets, except with himself at the center (Benardete 25). Benardete comments that what Deioces represents is the unjust basis of justice. Hence, the identification of justice and tyranny. Deioces could do whatever he liked behind those walls.

Benardete is right, but my concern centers on what Deioces achieved. In effect, he made an immoral people moral. We’re not looking at the mere establishment of law and security, as much as a recognition of necessity turned into morality itself. Deioces put himself in a perfect position to be thought a god after his death.

III

Herodotus’ cynicism about freedom and morality does not only disabuse us of more conventional opinions. He is openly wondering about how we create a world based on the experience of what is good for us. Both the Lydians and Medes embraced empire and tyranny because it resulted in goods for them, goods no less than freedom and justice. The worst abuses can come from the best intentions.

What about a more natural justice? Something more respectful of humanity as a whole? A later ruler of the Medes, Astyages, is warned through dreams and visions that a grandson of his will displace him (1.107). He orders his chief of staff, Harpagus, to kill the child; the chief of staff passes the duty to a shepherd, who through coincidence and contrivance is able to keep the child and raise him as his own. That child, Cyrus, does overthrow Astyages, but not before being discovered. As a result, well before his overthrow, Astyages has Harpagus’ son killed, dismembered, and fed to his own father.

Astyages is thoroughly despicable and disgusting. The Medes are united in their hatred toward him. Under the chief of staff’s plotting, they use Cyrus in Persia, the Persians being subject to the Medes, to effect a revolt and get rid of Astyages. The Medes are united in justice because of the gross injustice and tyranny of their king. They do not fight Cyrus’ Persian invasion for the most part, instead siding with it, capturing Astyages quickly (though Astyages finds what little time he has left ruling convenient for killing all his diviners).

The former chief of staff, Harpagus, confronts his old boss after all this, mocking him for becoming a slave. Astyages responds that Harpagus is the “stupidest and most unjust man alive:”

…stupidest, because you might have become king yourself, if the present circumstances are really of your making, and instead you turned over the power to someone else; most unjust if, because of that feast [where the son was eaten], you have made slaves of the Medes. If you had to confer the royal power on someone else rather than keep it to yourself, it would have been juster to grant that good to some Mede and not to a Persian. As it stands, the Medes, who were not guilty in your regard, have become slaves instead of masters, and the Persians, who were slaves, have become masters of the Medes.” (1.129)

Astyages is correct. From that point on, the Medes are subject to the Persians. Harpagus might have had power himself, or given it to a Mede, but instead he empowered Cyrus and the Persians. Moreover, the search for justice costs more than can be accounted for. The Medes as a whole pay for the wrong done to the chief of staff. Yet, being almost exactly right about these matters does not make Astyages wise, just, worthy to be a ruler, or remotely human.

Astyages indirectly explains the incentives that created the situation. The Medes, in order to maintain their preeminence, could not afford to turn on their own. To attack the king would be to divide the kingdom and invite their subjects to revolt. They ruled the Persians, Assyrians, and a number of other Asian peoples (1.102-106). Their imperial power has not only been unjust, but founded on a false confidence. One might say Astyages’ brutality is only the honest expression of a subconscious fear, one coming from their very successes.

Still, I think it safer to say that the Medians acted justly in overthrowing Astyages. In certain ways, they acted prudently, as the plot was accomplished with a minimum of bloodshed. The problem of the Medes keeping their freedom is bigger than any just or unjust action they take, even bigger than the fact they had an empire. The Medes, in understanding how grossly unjust Astyages was, acted on a presumption of what is naturally just. No one except the craziest would call them incorrect, but the reasoning underlying one’s claims to justice can and do blind one to men being the worst of animals, even when one recognizes exactly that as the problem. A thread unites all three of the above stories, setting the stage for the rise of Persia in Herodotus’ narrative. Our political ideals are greater than us, and bestow upon us certain goods, experiences that make life worth living. Those same ideals test us, though, seeing how good we are. In the last analysis, we will be found wanting. “For of those [cities] that were great in earlier times most have now become small, and those that were great in my time were small in the time before.” (1.5)

Notes

1. Croesus, as later advisor to Cyrus, saves the Lydians from being completely destroyed in his wrath. Croesus is a murderous scumbag, but still somewhat human. I think the point of Herodotus telling us this story is to highlight how brutal and wanton Cyrus was.

References

Benardete, Seth. Herodotean Inquries. South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 1999.

Herodotus, The History. tr. David Greene. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.

Some Thoughts on the State of Political Philosophy Today

November 14, 2014 / ashok / Comments Off

What does death ask of us?
I must change whatever it was I was
when the old man was alive.

– Suji Kwock Kim, after Ko Un

At least when I read the classics, this sort of concern seems unknown. In its stead are stories about desire and knowledge, nobility and tyranny, form and function. Personal drama, exemplified in Greek tragedy, does not merely mirror the political, it is politics. I’m almost tempted to say that the difference between political philosophy and poetry as we know it is that more personal concerns are purposefully excluded in the former. Some nowadays would say our treatment of topics that touch us directly, such as suicide and depression, would be beneath a writer like Plutarch or Cicero. They are careful to keep this under their breath.

Could they be correct? There are less technical and more technical explanations. An example of one less technical: ancient audiences, at times, consisted of an ambitious elite. For example, the ones who could blow money on sophists or teachers of rhetoric, or go to plays or ride horses. Someone writing the stuff I’m reading – Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, Herodotus, Thucydides – has to tell stories more or less about prominent people or lives well-led. He has to indulge the affirmative. Xenophon says “it is noble, as well as just and pious, and more pleasant, to remember the good things rather than the bad ones” (Anabasis 5.26). That statement is in the mouth of a character who is no less than Xenophon himself, defending himself before his men. It is an open invitation to wonder about what he does not tell us in his writing. As far as I’m concerned, the immediately personal is very much at stake. Socrates’ domestic life and attempted love affairs are more important than the fate of empires. This can be seen by comparing the first sentence of the Memorabilia with the Cyropaedia - there are the things Xenophon often wondered about, and the things he considered only once. But one might have to be a crafty, suspicious reader in order to find points of correspondence between our concerns and the past.

A more technical explanation goes something like this. Ancient thinkers wondered about the soul, the cause of motion on the one hand and rationality on the other. The soul, though, lends itself not just to scientific concern – in what sense are plants, animals, and humans all living? – but to political concerns. Law is the wishing to be the discovery of what is, as it makes claims on human being and how we think. The right laws lead to a virtuous, well-ordered, happy life. Laws complete the human species by shaping the soul. As time went on, the soul dropped out as a theme of philosophic inquiry. It was replaced by the self, which is a narrower, more subjective, and decidedly less political subject.

That the soul is a more comprehensive theme leads to a trap for those teaching classically related material. It tempts one to dismiss the self as a mere symptom of how we approach problems, as if one could turn back the clock to the 13th century or whatever and find manly men doing God’s work of obliterating heathens and debating the best regime and enslaving women, minorities, the people next door, etc. Men full of soul and virtue had no qualms about what was natural to them and just for others.

Still, it’s tough to prove that classical concerns have an overlap with our modern concerns that matters. Even if we’re talking about the same ideas, they tend to go different directions in the literature. I don’t want to prove that the classics want to talk about suicide, depression, how to deal with overbearing family or broken relationships. What I do want to show is that such themes are more continuous with the inquiry into what is humanity, what is civilization and barbarism, what is rule and knowledge, than we have been led to believe. The recovery of the past and its strikingly bold and different ideas, unfortunately, has been done with little or no self-awareness. We have become professors of a creed we do not understand. It is useless to many of our students and dangerous for some of the most talented.

Obviously, such a task is beyond the scope of this post. Perhaps light can be shed on one of the central problems, though. It has become fashionable in some circles to depict Socrates as a hedonist. As the most “natural” human type, this makes sense in a way. He has a lust for knowledge and a lust for the beautiful: he is driven to young men and then driven to ask them bothersome questions, keeping all but the most ambitious away (i.e. Charmides, Alcibiades, Plato). Whatever Socrates wants is good for him, as he will never do anything without some sort of benefit. This sort of reading means that the death of Socrates is not tragic, not in the least. I should say it is useful to purge ourselves of some of our most moralistic tendencies before we consider what philosophy is and what it is good for. Philosophy is quite a radical endeavor, to say the least, and it presents challenges that make us uneasy.

However, there is such a thing as being too reductive. If wisdom is moderation, and the love of wisdom some kind of madness, then we know Socrates to be certainly mad while being even more sure of his moderation. The appearance of not being a hedonist, the continence on display in matters of food, drink, clothing, wealth, takes more effort than actually being continent. We can say this is an extension of his rhetoric – he could do with any interlocutor as he wished – but then one has to explain where his considerable rhetorical ability as the most natural human came from. Either the image of Socrates that we have is an unintentional byproduct of his hedonism, or it is intentional. If intentional, then he’s more than a hedonist, and that leads me to my final thought for now.

“What is justice?” is the central concern for any queries about Socrates. It is peculiar why this should be the case. Shouldn’t there be more of a focus on his desiring to know, and what he can actually know? Shouldn’t we be debating whether the only real philosophy is natural philosophy, whether questions such “what is just” or “what is noble” are exercises in futility? Well, no. The key question is how the most natural human being fits in with those of us who are also human beings. Philosophic justice – to do no harm – is more than mere rhetoric. It is the hallmark of the truly good life, where the wisest and most ambitious among us might not discover anything new. Extended to the realm of knowledge, it shows that self-knowledge, as illusory and temporary as it is, of vital importance. There’s no way to secure what is good for oneself, convey a benefit to others, or preserve a question or body of knowledge for the future without knowing who one is and how one is perceived. It is only just to be aware of the opinions of others; it is only just to be knowledgeable as opposed to dismissive.

Because this is America, Roger Goodell will probably continue to make $30 million a year for being a national disgrace

September 16, 2014 / ashok / Comments Off

Update: Here’s a petition you can sign, if you so choose.

Dear President Obama:

Please be blunt about Roger Goodell. Just say something like, “If I were in the NFL, and I knew that man handled domestic violence incidents that way, I would feel disgusted near him and couldn’t stand the thought of him as my boss.”

I realize we are in a strange world when it comes to the bully pulpit. The rhetorical power of the Presidency has been abused for years. A fragmented, too-partisan America for which we are all to blame means that your speaking can make some problems worse.

I know you won’t make this problem worse, but my thought requires some extended commentary. The more complicated problems you face stem from an American public that doesn’t really understand prudence. I don’t say this to be snobby – this open letter attests that I am way too moralistic, rambling, and idealistic. I fully grant that I can’t appreciate my own critique, if I’m right.

It just seems to me that we don’t want to accept the mistakes and messy situations that result from trying to be prudent. This is perennial, to be sure. I’ve got a few friends who think the very first Gulf War was launched because George H.W. Bush was going to make bazillions off of oil. Oil is obviously a factor in why we get involved in such things, but worries about global stability after the Cold War seems a reasonable explanation, at the least.

We’d rather embrace the more reductive explanation, because we’re the true believers. If we act rightly, pray rightly, think rightly, we will be rewarded in this life. War is obviously a bad thing; the justice of one’s cause can never be pure. While we might not know a thing about policy or the trade-offs that everyday life requires, we know war is bad. We know we’re jeopardizing our future if we go to it willingly.

Again, all of us believe in this trifecta: right thinking, right action, right result. It animates the utopian anti-war Left and some of the worst lecturers about poverty on the Right, but they are only the most visible believers. The rest of America thinks this way, too, and the funny thing is that it has made us less moral. We’re not sensitive to the concerns of others; we don’t pay attention when others cry for help; we’re cynical about moral rhetoric generally; we pick our echo chambers and stay there. Our lack of unity is no accident. Since many of us are not in the best economic condition – that “right result” is lacking – right thinking and right action must be in short supply with everyone else. To be sure, we beat ourselves up a lot. It’s a lot harder to be confident when one doesn’t feel one can produce anything.

That’s the climate you’re working with. It indirectly leads, as it did today, to two people I know privately reinforcing each other’s idea that “this Ray Rice thing is none of our business. She’s still with him.” Right, a woman getting knocked unconscious in an elevator is none of our business. That makes perfect sense, in hell. We’re not allowed to talk about moral issues because no one has moral authority. People beating the hell out of each other is totally fine as long as we make money and take what we’re given. The “right result” (here: “right” with no sense of “justice”) dictates right action and thinking, as people actually getting what is good for them is in short supply, and people feeling they’re getting lectured at is in large supply.

This is a stupid, awful climate, but it can be confronted directly. There are some things which are beyond debate, like domestic violence. If confronted, those who feel lectured at have to actually defend the lowest form of life on Earth, and if you call them out, they have to do this on larger platforms than Facebook.

Shame is a powerful tool which we don’t use enough nowadays. The funny thing about shame is that it works best when one doesn’t really have to argue for it. Pretty much everyone knows Roger Goodell is a national disgrace. If you call him out on it, you’re fine and you’ll get the right result, one that is actually just. We can work our way back to the more complicated moral issues, the ones dividing us, from that starting point. But it is important we start somewhere.

Introduction to the Study of American Government

August 17, 2014 / ashok / Comments Off

(Not counting chickens.)

It is impossible to memorize facts about institutions, assess current events, or recount history in the service of learning about government nowadays. This is the country where we live, and what happens presses us, affecting us in ways we do and do not perceive. Right now, a convincing case can be made that we are falling apart one way or another. Maybe alliances between corporations and government, militarized police, a refusal to let market forces do their work, and a lack of faith and values conspire to oppress the many at the expense of the few. But it could also be the case that we’re more racist, sexist, and hostile to minorities and immigrants than ever before. That in some quarters, unspeakable hatred and fear of others persists, poisoning our whole way of life from the inside out. Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice.

All this is to say that if I ask you to explain the powers of the Senate, or research a topic like gun control, or tell you to read a letter of Jefferson’s, I’m in danger of substituting a crude caricature that concerns American politics for the real thing. American life, the life you live, is deeply intertwined with politics. That our partisanship is so revoltingly dogmatic proves that. Liberals and conservatives can’t date each other. Awful, generalized statements that demean humanity, like saying “everyone on food stamps is jobless and commits fraud,” abound. Things that are probably not good policy, such as letting Syria destroy itself and then wondering where ISIS came from, are sanctioned by simplistic sentiments left unchallenged.

That you’re put off by what you see of politics, then, is a good thing. You shouldn’t want to participate when the way issues are framed is infantile. But at the same time, politics is not merely a part of your life. We are reminded daily that it can be a matter of oppression, missed opportunities, survival and death. It is almost unfathomable how anyone could be disinterested in it.

Almost. The thing is, you have ambitions, you have moral concerns. You have things you want to accomplish and be good at. I could say this is fantastic, but that’s redundant. What isn’t redundant is shifting perspective a bit and noting that there is an implicit gratitude for what politics can produce. Some relative stability and the promise of opportunity are motivating you to get more out of life. You want to make music everyone listens to or dominate on the football field. You want friends and lovers and family to be healthy and well. You want finances and a job that help you and those you care about, and maybe even do some good for people you don’t know and don’t necessarily care about. These private concerns are not inimical to politics. Indeed, they’re the blood pumping through the veins of political life. Yet politics in the news seems to have nothing to do with what we love or strive for.

I’ll suggest this, and if it is a worthwhile starting point, we’ll be returning to it. What excites all of us is the prospect of freedom and what can be done with it. The funny thing is how that desire to be genuinely virtuous, to be a good human being, creates a more or less exclusive focus on the individual. It shouldn’t be a problem, as we’re supposed to be living in a system which allows individual freedom to flourish. In a weird way, though, it blinds us to public necessities and responsibilities, and I mean really blinds. We say “not my problem” regarding larger issues, as if we were actually exercising responsibility regarding them. After all, we’re not bringing our lack of information or interest to them.

Plato builds to a similar scenario in the fourth book of his Republic. The ideal city, structured into classes expert in their various practices, is just because each class minds its own business. There is no need for justice in the perfectly just city. The best regime, for Aristotle, is where private virtue and public virtue exactly coincide. But there is no best regime. All political systems involve a tension between the individual and the political order.

To go further, that tension does not necessarily occur because a political order is arbitrary or abstract. The problems exist because many political orders are legitimate in the deepest sense. They do provide goods, they do provide a basis for unity, they do manage conflicts. In other words: they are products of what we want as individuals. We are reflected in them, and like all images, we are distorted in them. It’d be easy to say “well, we should go back to being more simple, more natural,” so as to reduce the possibility anything could be distorted, and forget how alone we would become in doing so.

That you love, that you want satisfaction and happiness, shows the scope of political phenomena is far greater than readily conceived. For example, creeps on internet dating sites who show no restraint with their personal problems are not a private issue that gets easily ignored. They raise the question immediately of what is expected of people, how identity and gender are constructed. They raise the question of right, and how self-expression can be preserved while making sure the law points to the good of all.

They raise the question of us, how “we” comes from “I.” I would be stupid to tell you there are easy answers to this sort of question. Oftentimes in my field, a colleague will receive what he thinks is a burst of enlightenment. He’s realized that society is nothing more than conventional expectation, that all philosophy and wondering about things like “love” and “freedom” are moralistic constructs with no scientific, empirical basis. The humanities and social sciences stem from what we make up, and they’re totally artificial. Our problems are all self-constructed, so any prolonged musing on them is worthless.

He does not realize that it is precisely how complications arise that is the problem, that the complications are worth studying, focus, and reflection. That if an implied answer to all human problems were so easy, everyone would have done it by now. We’re not all the same, and it is frightening how pronouns keep that truth clear and distinct while we can’t.

David Foster Wallace, “McCain’s Promise”

June 16, 2014 / ashok / Comments Off

1. $4 bought me a small book by David Foster Wallace about the Republican Presidential primaries in 2000. At one point, McCain was incensed that the Bush campaign did push polling (“Would you vote for McCain if you knew he…”) and stood with some kook accusing McCain of treating his fellow veterans like dirt post-Vietnam. So his team responded with a stunning bit of manufactured drama. A woman stood up during a town hall meeting with McCain and talked about how her son was turned off of politics and didn’t believe in heroes anymore. But then he and his parents noticed that McCain, an actual war hero, was running. The son got excited but then the evil Bush campaign called and said mean things while push polling and now the son was in crisis. McCain teared up a bit and called off the town hall meeting early. The woman made headlines.

DFW, for his part, was incredulous. Politicians and the media treat people like sheep, and it works. Maybe it works because many of us are too cynical to believe politics is anything other than this crap. The diehards, for their part, are looking for anything to say their man is boss. That’s my thought, though. DFW goes a different direction. Here you have a war hero, someone who refused to be let out of the Hanoi Hilton because he didn’t want to violate a Code. Here’s a guy whose whole appeal is that he was willing to die for a principle. Standing up for something so boldly is being as good as your word; it’s an honesty that dictates courage. And here’s the same guy engaging in a petty bit of spin in order to win a few votes.

DFW doesn’t put it this way, but here’s what we’re working with: Heroism can’t be sold. It’s funny to say that, given the conventional character of heroism. Aristotle points this out early in the Ethics, in his discussion of Achilles being courageous. Achilles can only think of himself as brave in regards to the expectations of the city. Even self-sacrifice has to be cast in terms of how one could be remembered. One can say that heroism is nothing but selling out of a sort – the only issue is to which cause.

2. Let’s try this again. McCain’s problem, McCain’s promise, for DFW: he is an actual hero. But he wants to be more of a political leader, and thus has to sell that heroism given our current environment. This gets complicated, as leaders are not just believed, as a salesman might be. They are believed in.

There’s something about heroism and leadership that cannot be reduced to gain. DFW talks about the inspiration a leader provides: “A leader’s true authority is a power you voluntarily give him, and you grant him this authority not in a resigned or resentful way but happily; it feels right. Deep down, you almost always like how a real leader makes you feel, how you find yourself working harder and pushing yourself and thinking in ways you wouldn’t be able to if there weren’t this person you respected and believed in and wanted to please.”

He’s exactly correct in making such an impassioned statement. But we have been talking so far about the power of conventional expectation. There may be a courage when you don’t know exactly where you stand. The inspiration a leader provides might reflect a more natural phenomenon, one accounted for an entirely different way.

Of course, to talk about the natural is to talk on the one hand about philosophy, on the other about how life is actually lived. On that note, I’ve spent the last few months being whiny, saying dumb things to people, feeling like I’ve been taken for granted, not doing anything to prove I shouldn’t be taken for granted. That’s just as natural as philosophy. Man is the rational animal, and it is surprising we forget what is describing what in that formulation.

3. I forget exactly how this came about, but I was thinking recently of Socrates and Alcibiades. Alcibiades was one of the most ambitious and talented people the world has ever known. His goal was to have Athens defeat Syracuse and perhaps Carthage, becoming masters of the Mediterranean. Thucydides relates how he put a coalition together that nearly destroyed Sparta at little or no cost to Athens itself. His hubris was his downfall. During the campaign to capture Syracuse, he was falsely accused of a specific impious deed – in effect, a death sentence. He defected to Sparta, sleeping with the Spartan king’s wife while showing Sparta how to beat Athens. He eventually had to leave there, too. Xenophon depicts Alcibiades using Socratic rhetoric to show Pericles, no slouch as a leader himself, that he knows nothing.

In at least two dialogues, the Symposium and the Alcibiades, Plato shows Socrates trying to moderate Alcibiades. Alcibiades is young and handsome, though, and that subtext is not terribly quiet in the Symposium. He expresses his pain at his playing hard-to-get: Socrates won’t teach him everything he knows despite his advances, and as a consequence, he hasn’t become the person he wants to be yet. Nowadays, I think the question of Socrates teaching nobility reflects on Socrates himself. The question of loving him or learning from him turns into the question of Socrates simply. For Alcibiades, no matter how much he thinks he has a grasp on who Socrates is, there’s another person in there he hasn’t found.

Philosophic eros isn’t only a lust for knowledge. It also involves the philosopher being hard-to-get, seemingly composed of many beings. Golden statues of gods reside within an ugly exterior, Alcibiades says. For all practical purposes, though, the philosopher might as well be mutable. Philosophy is this strange combination of knowledge and self-knowledge where what one learns should better one from the inside out. Not external gain, but an attempted building of the self.

Still, the philosopher finds himself defined more by questions than answers. Exactly how stable a form he has – well, that’s a problem. At best, he’s like a container more than anything else. I don’t know this means that someone who pursues wisdom is unlovable, despite Socrates’ expressed hope in the Lysis for a friend. I do think it means that only the philosopher can appreciate where he stands at a given moment. There is a radical independence at play. The inability of Alcibiades to woo Socrates is Alcibiades’ inability to love Socrates.

4. Going back to heroes and leaders, I’m thinking this. We do live in a world where the best are continually taken for granted, where the most superficial of images draws people by the millions and institutions and even commitments. When DFW worries about authenticity, he is specific about the problem. To have your attention constantly competed for by what is worthless will lead to your not paying attention.

To not take things for granted, to be attentive to one’s life in the deepest sense, is to be open to one’s own mistakes, disappointments, and pain. Young Socrates learned the hard way about his conception of the forms. More importantly, Alcibiades was a pupil that got himself and his teacher in trouble. Athens’ ultimate response to philosophy was an attempt to exterminate it completely. Just as we could describe a philosopher as carefree and happy with his own pursuits, we could also find him drowning in problems.

In a similar fashion, I think the logic with which we started reflecting on heroism and leadership incomplete. We said they inspire because of a certain honesty, their dedicating themselves to a principle beyond themselves. That’s not really what makes them heroes. What makes heroes amazing is that they do what they do in spite of everyone else. We expect them to break, we do neglect them when they don’t. Heroes only inspire some, not all. This isn’t to celebrate hard-headed intransigence. It is to explain why we put our leaders in a position where they must sell themselves to us. We stopped believing not just because of a culture of spin, but because we’re in deep denial about how much things actually cost.

Note on Francis Bacon, “Of Unity in Religion”

May 29, 2014 / ashok / Comments Off

Almost hidden in “Of Unity in Religion” is a comment on the conduct of a philosopher, reproduced below. To summarize: The “rending of God’s church” can be effected by problems which resemble philosophical ones. In essence, such problems are also political, as we are not really told of what their substance consists. Bacon tells us that what is at stake is “great,” but the substance is afflicted by people exercising their cleverness. Too much “subtility” and “obscurity” take an issue upon which a lot depends and make it a contest of pride. The ignorant do not realize how much they agree with each other. Only those with “judgment and understanding” see the larger issue and agreement. God is accepting of opposed ignoramuses, as they intend the same thing; Paul warns that “profane novelties” and “contradictions” abound in falsehood presented as knowledge. Men allow words to govern meaning instead of looking at utility, and this leads Bacon to wonder about two sorts of errors in creating a knowledgeable whole. There is the simple case of “everyone is ignorant,” unable to make proper distinctions. Everything is the same in the dark. There is the more complex case when we admit that things do directly oppose each other. Whatever is truer will cause conflict:

The other is, when the matter of the point controverted, is great, but it is driven to an over-great subtilty, and obscurity; so that it becometh a thing rather ingenious, than substantial. A man that is of judgment and understanding, shall sometimes hear ignorant men differ, and know well within himself, that those which so differ, mean one thing, and yet they themselves would never agree. And if it come so to pass, in that distance of judgment, which is between man and man, shall we not think that God above, that knows the heart, doth not discern that frail men, in some of their contradictions, intend the same thing; and accepteth of both? The nature of such controversies is excellently expressed, by St. Paul, in the warning and precept, that he giveth concerning the same, Devita profanas vocum novitates, et oppositiones falsi nominis scientiae. Men create oppositions, which are not; and put them into new terms, so fixed, as whereas the meaning ought to govern the term, the term in effect governeth the meaning. There be also two false peaces, or unities: the one, when the peace is grounded, but upon an implicit ignorance; for all colors will agree in the dark: the other, when it is pieced up, upon a direct admission of contraries, in fundamental points. For truth and falsehood, in such things, are like the iron and clay, in the toes of Nebuchadnezzar’s image; they may cleave, but they will not incorporate.

At least for me, I see this as about philosophy without reading out “God” and “peace,” which seem to point to religion and politics, respectively. Rather, I start with the general problem: we can and do make important matters more complicated than they should be, so complicated that we confuse people as to what they actually want. The problem, then, is that too many fancy attempts to assert authority over a situation with knowledge simply results in a lack of self-knowledge. This is a lack that is fatal on a popular scale, and yes, the insane partisan divides we see in a number of countries do involve actors who cannot correctly identify their own interests.

But the political problem in Bacon’s thought can’t stay political, for this reason: What age doesn’t have people who are completely caught up in ideological blinders? Bacon himself introduces actors above the fray: “a man of judgment and understanding,” “God,” “St. Paul.” There is someone out there, in any given age, who can see the spirit of his time and judge accordingly what men both need and desire. This sounds mystical, but the word for this kind of knowing is prudence – it’s just being expressed on a slightly bigger scale. What is crucial is that the one exercising prudence is not taken in by false, useless distinctions. In other words, he uses the via negativa in a way less theological, and much more Socratic. However, the philosopher in his prudence does seem to a more active role than Socrates ever did. In at least some cases, he builds from a consensus in society that already exists.

Again, political and religious readings of this passage run into problems. Bacon ends bleakly, for those of us concerned with religious tolerance and freedom of conscience. If a religion has more claim to “truth,” it can only stand the existence of another for so long (“cleave, but.. not incorporate”). In the next paragraph in this essay, he urges Christians to obtain unity in a way consonant with the spirit of charity, never fighting to convert others. As noble as that is, what it has to do with truth is an open question. Whether political peace can ever be founded upon the simple truth is also an open question: we fight for what we believe in, and we fight best when we believe in others. There’s a correspondence between the people in a political community and the opinions which govern that community, and that enables peace. Bacon, strikingly enough, does not speak of this more ancient view of politics but instead spends a lot of time speaking of Christian sentiments promoting factionalism which threatens peace and security.

Socrates’ injunction to “do no harm” is the philosopher’s justice. Obviously, not every philosopher is Socratic or agrees with this view of justice. Bacon’s emphasis on scientific and technological progress, the mastery of nature for the sake of utility, definitely is not harmless in the strict sense. But I am predisposed to think that the “peace” of which Bacon speaks as internal to the philosophic life. Truth and falsehood will not cleave, but they are not all we have to work with. We search for knowledge, and we can try to know our own ignorance. This does not place us beyond falsehood, but one sort of strife can be avoided. At the very least, one can know truly where one stands with respect to others.

How different do YOU feel the United States would be without the Constitution?

May 10, 2014 / ashok / Comments Off

Suffice to say I’ll be talking about American Constitutionalism with scouts tomorrow.

The goal, as I see it, is to help them create thoughtful responses to questions like these: What makes a good citizen? Why are the Declaration of Independence and Constitution important? – In other words: Are you, as a good scout, working at being civic minded? –

But what is unstated dominates any potential response. To get to what is unstated, we can start with being a bit skeptical of the motives these kinds of questions assume. Maybe some people want to be the embodiment of patriotism: self-reliant, honorable, loyal. But there could be others who just want the power to be self-reliant and get honors without regard to their own behavior. This isn’t to cast doubt on anyone’s motives or any particular institution. It is to wonder how “What is good for me?” becomes the same in our minds as “How do I serve my country?” Every nation that has ever existed posits the two as more or less the same.

I actually didn’t start by being skeptical of anyone, I should add. I started by asking myself the title of this post and wondering why the heck I would ask such a thing. The question conflates tradition and history, justice conceived at another time, with how I feel now about anything. And before someone says this question is dumb or ill-formed, I’ll go further and say it is perfectly well-formed. It tries to square who one is exactly with the order handed down to one. It almost assumes your human nature is exactly the product of being a part of a country.

Almost.

I think I do want to talk about the Constitution and values tomorrow. I’ll start off with how the Declaration of Independence has grand, powerful rhetoric – “all men are created equal,” have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” – and how this can be acid on any given regime. The declaration of natural right, while obviously groundbreaking and moral, lends itself to wanting too perfect justice. The Constitution sidesteps this, continuing the project of the Declaration by focusing on large issues of practical import:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Those issues of practical import veer far away from proclaiming any right to revolution. The ends of forming a more perfect union, establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, and providing for the common defense are all about security in one way or another. Promotion of the general welfare and securing the blessings of liberty concern property.

The higher values can disappear, and often do disappear, when we have to get things done. The Constitution is about getting a working government which does not threaten liberty. At this point and only this point, I’ll move into talking about the structure and powers of the various branches. I’ll mention beforehand the “little bill of rights” as an expression of the larger concerns (but not as large as, say, equality). I’ll talk a little bit about the Bill of Rights after some basics about checks and balances and separation of powers. But the main theme should be that we ask some very funny questions about things like citizenship. What we’re assuming and why we assume have to be thought through, especially in this age where people are regularly tuning out appeals to genuine patriotism and informed civic participation.

Francis Bacon, “Of Truth” (Part III)

May 9, 2014 / ashok / Comments Off

Francis Bacon, “Of Truth” | Part I | Part II | Part III

I started this close-read because I was curious to see how early modern rhetoric works. People like Francis Bacon are in a time where being a scientist is not like it is today. Accordingly, we saw in the first part Bacon talk about truth, but also hint that skepticism and lies have their utility. Truth looked like integrity, but whether it characterized freedom or aided our self-esteem was another matter. In the second part, we saw a rousing defense of truth. It was good and ought to be loved! It was godly! Again, some doubts about this picture were raised. If truth enables you to say you are better than everyone else, are we really talking about truth?

In the last part of his short essay, Bacon returns to the theme of lying again. Of course, this means that being truthful must be emphasized:

To pass from theological, and philosophical truth, to the truth of civil business; it will be acknowledged, even by those that practise it not, that clear, and round dealing, is the honor of man’s nature; and that mixture of falsehoods, is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it.

There is theological/philosophical truth, and the truth of “civil business.” What this means exactly Bacon leaves unsaid. What he does say is that everyone, even if they are liars, says straightforward dealing “is the honor of man’s nature.” To mix in falsehoods with truths is like making an alloy. One sacrifices purity for utility.

But Bacon’s demonstration of truth’s purity, as we remarked in part II, is very curious. Either truth is a realm to itself, sounding to a degree like the worst religious fervor has to offer, or truth is part of a divine quest that requires some curious readings of Scripture. Bacon has been pretty clear the way we normally operate is something like this: we have self-knowledge and self-esteem. This is a mixture of truth and untruth. There is also truth in the sense of knowledge strictly, which is about providence and the obtaining of a sovereign good. Though Bacon has been critical of vanity on the surface of his essay, the key passage showing the value of truth – you can survey all the mistakes everyone else makes, while being immune yourself – seems designed to appeal to nothing but vanity.

It would be nice if Bacon just said “truth as useful, as effectual cause, advances humanity more than theological speculation which leads to petty fighting and warfare.” But he can’t say that, and that clues us in to how regimented and dominated by honor previous ages were. What he does say is that lies are most dishonorable. A mixture of lies and truth forms “winding and crooked courses,” “the goings of the serpent.” If one is found “false and perfidious,” one will be covered with shame like nothing else:

For these winding, and crooked courses, are the goings of the serpent; which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet. There is no vice, that doth so cover a man with shame, as to be found false and perfidious.

This seems pretty straightforward, but again, note the emphasis on honor. The problem with lies is that they are dishonorable, making one shameful, like an animal. But even Christ says to be as wise as serpents, and I do wonder if the problem Bacon points at is being “found false and perfidious.” Not that one lies, but one gets caught lying.

In fact, Bacon points to the dignity and power of lying, cutting against his religious rhetoric a few sentences before. To lie is no less than to confront God. Yes, one could read him as saying lying is nothing but hubris and cowardice toward men. But it could also be that those looking to challenge the “truth” in their age have to take on what is most like god while avoiding the rage of the mob:

And therefore Montaigne saith prettily, when he inquired the reason, why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace, and such an odious charge? Saith he, If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards men. For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man.

Again, one can read Bacon as dismissing the enterprise of lying, of concealing one’s purpose in order to reveal new modes and orders. But it looks like he has worked with two senses of “truth” throughout this short essay. There is truth in the sense of integrity, which makes his last sentence below stand out. No less than God’s judgment is reserved for our lack of faith. But truth and lies in terms of making something out of oneself (not always the same thing as integrity!) or furthering utility is completely missing from the end:

Surely the wickedness of falsehood, and breach of faith, cannot possibly be so highly expressed, as in that it shall be the last peal, to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men; it being foretold, that when Christ cometh, he shall not find faith upon the earth.

Thank you for your time. I’m sure commentary on these essays becomes more dense when one has command of all of them. But I wanted to read one as closely as I could to see what we could find.

Francis Bacon, “Of Truth” (Part II)

May 7, 2014 / ashok / Comments Off

Francis Bacon, “Of Truth” | Part I | Part II | Part III

Last time, we wondered why Bacon titled his essay “Of Truth.” He seemed more concerned with skepticism and lying, and pointed indirectly at the advantages they provide. Again, the larger significance of Francis Bacon’s thought: he is a key transitional figure from ancient/medieval thought to the world as we know it today. Democracy and science are prominent themes, but have to be looked for carefully, as Bacon can be considered subversive for his time.

We resume with a comment of Bacon’s about poetry. Poetry, he claims, was condemned by a Church father as something demonic and filled with error, some kind of wine or false nutrition, as it fills the imagination. But poetry may be filling the imagination because it is nothing but a shadow of a lie. Poetry comes and goes, passing through the mind: it’s a shadow puppet show. The deeper lies sink and settle in the mind, and they cause harm:

One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum doemonum, because it filleth the imagination; and yet, it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in, and settleth in it, that doth the hurt; such as we spake of before.

What lie, which sinks and settles, did we speak of before? Bacon must mean the type that gives us “vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would,” i.e. self-esteem. But no one’s self-image is based entirely on truth. We make do with a combination of truth and lies – or more properly speaking, untruths. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t work for honor or for greater goods.

Of course, you object at this point. Isn’t a life that works for honor, a greater good, or the truth one that is fundamentally true? – Oh, you have much to learn. – Bacon will allow you to use the word “truth” in a number of different ways, assuming their uses completely reconcile. According to him, the sorts of lies I am saying we use for self-respect are merely depraved. Truth only judges itself, teaches inquiry into itself and an erotic love of knowledge. Also, believing one has the truth is not just enjoyment, but “the sovereign good of human nature:”

But, howsoever these things are thus in men’s depraved judgments, and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature.

Bacon has taken a key element of ancient thought, that the philosopher has a lust for knowledge, and overemphasized its inhumanity. Granted, Socrates can be accused of neglecting the human things. “What is justice?” leads to the inanity and cruelty of the Republic. Aristophanes and the sophists rightly ask how one so unmindful of money can advise regarding human happiness.

The overemphasis makes itself clear in how truth is a realm unto itself, a realm that sounds suspiciously like a universal, monotheistic religion. The “belief of truth” is the “sovereign good of human nature” and our pleasure? No believer about to massacre infidels or heretics thinks they have a mere opinion. By contrast: the Socratic claim was knowledge of ignorance, which, upon further examination, was something Socrates worked for.

Bacon provides, in accordance with his purposes, a retelling of Scripture. Pursuing truth is no less than godly. God first made “the light of the sense” and ended Creation with “the light of reason.” The work of the sabbath (are you supposed to work on the sabbath?) is “the illumination of his Spirit:”

The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense; the last, was the light of reason; and his sabbath work ever since, is the illumination of his Spirit. First he breathed light, upon the face of the matter or chaos; then he breathed light, into the face of man; and still he breatheth and inspireth light, into the face of his chosen.

This little myth reconciling Christianity and rationality is crazy. The light of God that distinguishes beings from chaos is of a reason and purpose beyond us. It requires revelation to understand. Man in Scripture is not meant to be as rational as he is meant to be obedient. That is plainly obvious. With these problems in mind, what the heck being “chosen” in the sense of having light inspired in one has to do with the sabbath or the Holy Spirit is beyond me. I think Bacon ultimately wants to show rationality of a certain sort Providential, i.e. the progress of the sciences. This would make truth useful to man. But Bacon prior to this passage has truth being its own self-sufficient realm, where believing in it is enjoying it.

So what exactly is happening in this essay? For now, the argument seems to be that the pursuit of truth is a godly task that is good in every way. To have the truth is to have the highest honor possible. Those in ships and in battles are subject to fortune and can be laughed at as idiots. However, you, holding the truth, will have pity and move in charity, as you do not need to condescend to swelling with pride:

The poet, that beautified the sect, that was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well: It is a pleasure, to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea; a pleasure, to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle, and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below; so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling, or pride. Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man’s mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.

Bacon said truth is its own good, even Providential in aspect. And yet he ends this paragraph with a bit of poetry whereby one who has the truth does better than others. This is not an appeal to the good in itself or to divinity. This is a mere earthly pleasure, usually held by one who is vastly superior to opponents in games of power. Bacon is appealing to some kind of courtier or clergyman or warrior desperate for honor. Instead of adventure, intrigue, or force of arms, go find the truth and put oneself in an unassailable position. He has not yet talked about doing science, but he is definitely preparing the ground for that (cf. New Atlantis, where honor and science and religion go hand-in-hand).

Rethink.

Ora sono ubriaco d'universo. (Ungaretti)

Category: politics (page 1 of 33)

Herodotus, “The History” I.163-169: The Story of the Phocaeans

Three Stories from Herodotus, “The History,” Book 1

Some Thoughts on the State of Political Philosophy Today

Because this is America, Roger Goodell will probably continue to make $30 million a year for being a national disgrace

Introduction to the Study of American Government

David Foster Wallace, “McCain’s Promise”

Note on Francis Bacon, “Of Unity in Religion”

How different do YOU feel the United States would be without the Constitution?

Francis Bacon, “Of Truth” (Part III)

Francis Bacon, “Of Truth” (Part II)

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