Book Report
Actually, my office hours are long past; I'm killing time before EFM and catching up on work. When my jaw muscles start to feel like I've been chewing steak for an hour though I haven't been, and my chest muscles contract...time for a break.
A blog break!
Ah, the sweet luxury of blog. I swear I feel like I'm sinking into a warm jacuzzi right now. I can smell the chlorine...feel my trunks puffing with air...
'Hey man, it's really good to be here; someone pass me a cold Sierra Nevada...what is it when two drugs interact and become stronger, well, that, I want that with the hot water and the beer.'
***
Emerson is a language magician, no doubt. We read three essays by him, Nature, the American Scholar, and Self-Reliance. Each has common points but each is also different. I was stunned by the force of Nature; it's not an essay easily dismissed. The other two less so, though SR has some beautiful one-liners, some of the best I've seen in philosophy.
After thinking about E a bit more I'll say this: For one, his philosophy is not Christian. Could it be held by a Christian? Yes, generally, for Emerson seems to use rabbinic hyperbole to stand out, especially in SR. If the intention below his language can be found, he's fairly harmless, though he does not know God in the way Christians say God can be known. I can't deny the power of the natural world, and I think a person would have to 'try' his philosophy for a while before he could critique it. It is also possible Christ provided a new way for E to commune with Himself after Emerson walked away from conventional religion. Only God knows this answer. But while E's work is impressive, comforting, nurturing, and in SR, quite boldening (if that's a word) it lacks a tenth of the force of any single chapter in the gospels, or any of the better passages from the epistles. Am I being narrow-minded? Emerson would think so, but he would be wrong.
He places books below inner conviction and instinct, the God-placed movemements of the soul. Perhaps he's right, but he admits his own philosphy was drawn from Swedenborg and he cites and draws on many other authors (including the gospels). I don't know...any man who can put Ceasar and Jesus in the same line as examples of what man can accomplish earns my distrust, for Ceasar was a butcher.
Yet I wish I could speak to Emerson, see if he really took his ideas as far as he appears to. In places in SR he seems mean-spirited, as when he decries charity for those he feels no bond with (to pay for the education of 'fools in college' for example); in other places he feels snobbish or self-obsessed. But I know that SR has helped many people to believe in themselves, it helped my wife have the courage to return to school, and there are lines I want to put on my office door except that I'd look even more arrogant than E. "To be great is to be misunderstood," "Every true man is a cause, a country, and an age," "Suppose you contradict yourself, what then?" (What then as in, "so what?")
I still love to read him, but if Regis would say, "is this your final answer?" I'd say, "No." Though maybe part of the answer. Whatever he is, he's a beautiful walk through the country of the soul. I think that what he says may not be as powerful as how he says it, but my guess is about ten thousand philosophy professors have made the same assessment.
***
And on Lewis' Mere Christianity...since Funkiller brings it up in the comments...
I haven't had time to return to the book, sadly. But I would say Lewis' great strength is crystal clarity and an ability to sift through non-essential issues. He draws on several prior arguments in his defense of the faith, the ontological I recall for sure, but he does this in the most casual way. And he says some things I hadn't read before, or at least not in that way before. I want to read him again.
One thing Lewis realizes I can't dispute is that if God exists and he is the Christian God, the personal and moral God, our puny attempts at reason are pathetic indeed. If God has built mind into his universe, that mind, our minds, are below Mind. In fact, God would exist in a world we can not even describe; we have neither concept nor terms for Him or his house. Such admission, such awareness, is important in any theology.
***
Patrick O'Brian. I wonder how many women like the Aubrey/Maturin novels? They strike me as so guy. The Aubreyliad, the twenty-novel series is often called. It is that. This is naval war raised to the epic scale. Whatever can be said against the books, they are literature and I'm a true fan; I'm beginning the twelfth now. If you can wade through hundreds of obscure naval terms (I bought the dictionary someone wrote for the series books ago) the human story beneath is worth it. Could they be better? Yeah, I wish he'd written more about the female characters in the saga and focused less on naval action, but even so, I can't critize him. He's just too good. Someday it will be literate to know what a futtock shroud is, or a cathead, or a lubber-hole, the same way it's considered literate now to know terms like dryad, argonaut, rosy-fingered dawn.
***
I really am too tired to continue. I need to do my EFM reading (I think this is in my car) and even heavier, tonight I'm doing my spiritual autobiography. Out loud. Twenty or thirty minutes. One of the possible themes is 'intellectual history' or some such, but that sounds very dry; another is 'relationships.' A couple of people so far have been quite tranparent. My story, I think, will blow the windows out of that little room. I don't know how much to say (my wife is present, along with a bunch of half-strangers) but knowing me, I'll say plenty. Hey, any chance to let it out!
Wish me luck.
Peace to all.
Troy
A blog break!
Ah, the sweet luxury of blog. I swear I feel like I'm sinking into a warm jacuzzi right now. I can smell the chlorine...feel my trunks puffing with air...
'Hey man, it's really good to be here; someone pass me a cold Sierra Nevada...what is it when two drugs interact and become stronger, well, that, I want that with the hot water and the beer.'
***
Emerson is a language magician, no doubt. We read three essays by him, Nature, the American Scholar, and Self-Reliance. Each has common points but each is also different. I was stunned by the force of Nature; it's not an essay easily dismissed. The other two less so, though SR has some beautiful one-liners, some of the best I've seen in philosophy.
After thinking about E a bit more I'll say this: For one, his philosophy is not Christian. Could it be held by a Christian? Yes, generally, for Emerson seems to use rabbinic hyperbole to stand out, especially in SR. If the intention below his language can be found, he's fairly harmless, though he does not know God in the way Christians say God can be known. I can't deny the power of the natural world, and I think a person would have to 'try' his philosophy for a while before he could critique it. It is also possible Christ provided a new way for E to commune with Himself after Emerson walked away from conventional religion. Only God knows this answer. But while E's work is impressive, comforting, nurturing, and in SR, quite boldening (if that's a word) it lacks a tenth of the force of any single chapter in the gospels, or any of the better passages from the epistles. Am I being narrow-minded? Emerson would think so, but he would be wrong.
He places books below inner conviction and instinct, the God-placed movemements of the soul. Perhaps he's right, but he admits his own philosphy was drawn from Swedenborg and he cites and draws on many other authors (including the gospels). I don't know...any man who can put Ceasar and Jesus in the same line as examples of what man can accomplish earns my distrust, for Ceasar was a butcher.
Yet I wish I could speak to Emerson, see if he really took his ideas as far as he appears to. In places in SR he seems mean-spirited, as when he decries charity for those he feels no bond with (to pay for the education of 'fools in college' for example); in other places he feels snobbish or self-obsessed. But I know that SR has helped many people to believe in themselves, it helped my wife have the courage to return to school, and there are lines I want to put on my office door except that I'd look even more arrogant than E. "To be great is to be misunderstood," "Every true man is a cause, a country, and an age," "Suppose you contradict yourself, what then?" (What then as in, "so what?")
I still love to read him, but if Regis would say, "is this your final answer?" I'd say, "No." Though maybe part of the answer. Whatever he is, he's a beautiful walk through the country of the soul. I think that what he says may not be as powerful as how he says it, but my guess is about ten thousand philosophy professors have made the same assessment.
***
And on Lewis' Mere Christianity...since Funkiller brings it up in the comments...
I haven't had time to return to the book, sadly. But I would say Lewis' great strength is crystal clarity and an ability to sift through non-essential issues. He draws on several prior arguments in his defense of the faith, the ontological I recall for sure, but he does this in the most casual way. And he says some things I hadn't read before, or at least not in that way before. I want to read him again.
One thing Lewis realizes I can't dispute is that if God exists and he is the Christian God, the personal and moral God, our puny attempts at reason are pathetic indeed. If God has built mind into his universe, that mind, our minds, are below Mind. In fact, God would exist in a world we can not even describe; we have neither concept nor terms for Him or his house. Such admission, such awareness, is important in any theology.
***
Patrick O'Brian. I wonder how many women like the Aubrey/Maturin novels? They strike me as so guy. The Aubreyliad, the twenty-novel series is often called. It is that. This is naval war raised to the epic scale. Whatever can be said against the books, they are literature and I'm a true fan; I'm beginning the twelfth now. If you can wade through hundreds of obscure naval terms (I bought the dictionary someone wrote for the series books ago) the human story beneath is worth it. Could they be better? Yeah, I wish he'd written more about the female characters in the saga and focused less on naval action, but even so, I can't critize him. He's just too good. Someday it will be literate to know what a futtock shroud is, or a cathead, or a lubber-hole, the same way it's considered literate now to know terms like dryad, argonaut, rosy-fingered dawn.
***
I really am too tired to continue. I need to do my EFM reading (I think this is in my car) and even heavier, tonight I'm doing my spiritual autobiography. Out loud. Twenty or thirty minutes. One of the possible themes is 'intellectual history' or some such, but that sounds very dry; another is 'relationships.' A couple of people so far have been quite tranparent. My story, I think, will blow the windows out of that little room. I don't know how much to say (my wife is present, along with a bunch of half-strangers) but knowing me, I'll say plenty. Hey, any chance to let it out!
Wish me luck.
Peace to all.
Troy
Comments