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The St. John’s Review
Volume XLVI, number two (2002)
Acting Editor
George Russell
Editor
Pamela Kraus
Editorial Board
Eva T. H. Brann
James Carey
Beate Ruhm von Oppen
Joe Sachs
John Van Doren
Robert B. Williamson
Elliott Zuckerman
Subscriptions and Editorial Assistant
Blakely Phillips
The St. John’s Review is published by the Office of the Dean, St.
John’s College, Annapolis: Christopher B. Nelson, President;
Harvey Flaumenhaft, Dean. For those not on the distribution
list, subscriptions are $15.00 for three issues, even though the
magazine may sometimes appear semiannually rather than three
times a year. Unsolicited essays, stories, poems, and reasoned letters are welcome. Address correspondence to the Review, St.
John’s College, P Box 2800, Annapolis, MD 21404-2800.
.O.
Back issues are available, at $5.00 per issue, from the St. John’s
College Bookstore.
©2002 St. John’s College. All rights reserved; reproduction in
whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
ISSN 0277-4720
Publishing and Printing
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Contents
Essays and Lectures
Measure, Moderation and the
Mean............................................ 5
Joe Sachs
Plato and the Measure of the Incommensurable
Part II. The Mathematical Meaning of the Indeterminite
Dyad................................................................................
................... 25
A.P. David
Moral Reform in Measure for
Measure............................................63
Laurence Berns
Book Reviews
Eva Brann’s, The Ways of
Naysaying ................................................79
Chaninah Maschler
Eva Brann’s What, Then, is
Time?.....................................................107
Torrance Kirby
The Feasting of Socrates
Peter Kalkavage’s translation of
Timaeus...................................117
Eva Brann
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5
Measure, Moderation, and the
Mean
Joe Sachs
(with particular reference to the story Odysseus tells in
the Odyssey)
Anyone who comes to love the writings and artworks that have
survived from ancient Greece ought one day to visit Olympia. In
Athens there are wonderful things to see, but also evidence everywhere of the destructive effects on buildings and statues of some of
the most polluted air anywhere in the world. But, in Olympia, in
the Peloponnese, where the most famous of the ancient athletic
games were celebrated, one can still breathe purer air, and see glorious sights. In particular, in the museum there, at the two ends of
the large main room, restored to their complete shapes, are the two
pediments of a temple of Zeus built in the decade of the 460s BC.
(Illustrations are at the end of the text.) The form of a pediment will
be familiar to you as what sits above the appropriate sort of
entrance to a temple. Picture a rectangle, wider than it is long, made
of evenly spaced vertical columns; resting on top of this row of
columns is a triangle, shorter than it is wide, with a series of sculpted figures across it. The statue at the center of the triangular pediment is the tallest figure and the focus of the whole composition.
The eastern pediment at Olympia depicts Zeus at its center, in a
monumental style that makes one think of Egypt. In fantasy, one
might see this pediment as a doorway into ancient Greece, leading in
from the east. But the truer doorway to things that are most characteristic of classical Greece is at the other end of the room. The western pediment depicts the defeat of the Centaurs, who are men in
their heads, arms, and upright chests, but horses in their legs and horizontal lower trunks. They are attempting to carry off human
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women, and one young boy, but the sculptor has captured the
moment of their defeat. They are being fought by human heroes,
including Theseus, but they are defeated by a look and a gesture. At
the center of the pediment is Apollo, ten feet tall, looking to his right
with his right arm outstretched, the hand level, the palm downward.
The look in his eyes is not angry but serious, and his face is not
clenched in threat but calm. The centaurs cannot have their way
when faced with the power radiated by such dignity. This scene, displaying in outward figures an inner topography of the human soul,
holds in it something of the spirit of classical Greece. The fact that
you or I can see these seemingly invisible qualities, just by being
patient and receptive in front of some shaped blocks of stone, is one
of the amazing achievements that has survived from that time and
place.
Zeus was, as you know, the father and ruler of the Olympian
gods, and even the name of the town Olympia was taken from its
temple of Zeus, who was the Olympian, but somehow Apollo came
to be pre-eminent among the gods imagined as living on Olympus.
At Delphi, on Mount Parnassus, above the Gulf of Corinth, there
was an ancient temple of Gaia, Mother Earth, which was considered the center of the earth. But people were kept away from it by
the Python, an inhuman monster, until Apollo killed it. The Pythia,
the priestess of the temple, then became a medium through whom
people could consult Apollo, and learn his word, or oracle. The
story of Pythian Apollo embodies the same meaning as that of the
Apollo sculpted at Olympia, a victory on behalf of humanity, won
over older and subhuman enemies. The dragons and half-humans
are not wiped out, but become subject to something shining and
beautiful. I think you will find some version of this insight present
in almost every work you read from classical Greece, though not
everyone would agree, and it may certainly at times be something
hard won and dimly seen. But even tragedy, a type of poetry discovered by certain Greeks, always displays that, even in the most
horrendous circumstances, there is a human dignity that we can still
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recognize; that when it is recognized it commands respect; and that
this respect allows all things to be seen in their true proportions.
Above the doorway of the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, we are
told (Plato, Protagoras 343B) that two sayings were inscribed:
Know thyself, and Nothing to excess. These may seem to be disconnected—an exhortation to self-knowledge and a platitude about
not going overboard with anything—but to think them together is
to find the meaning of each. Know thyself means know your true
limits, the greed and ambition to which no human being should
aspire and the depths to which no human being should sink. And
Nothing to excess is not just practical advice; it means that the
nature of anything, including human life, is revealed only when its
true proportions are found—that the truth of anything is its form.
The positive version of Nothing to excess is another saying—
Measure is best—and the measure of a thing is its form.
To take a simple example, what are the right proportions for
the entrance to a temple? When I described the pediments at
Olympia and asked you to picture them and the columns under
them, I’ll bet you got their proportions just about right. The rectangle formed by the columns is wider than it is high. How much
wider? Enough so that it will not look squashed together, but not so
much that it would become stringy looking. Let your imagination
squeeze and stretch it to see what goes wrong, and then notice that
to get it right again you have to bring it back to a certain very
definite shape. This is the golden rectangle. It has been produced
spontaneously by artists, architects, and carpenters of any and every
time and place. What is the ratio of its width to its height? I can tell
you exactly what it is, but not in numbers. I can also tell it to you
in numbers, but not exactly. It is approximately 61.8 units wide and
38.2 units high. That will get you in the ballpark and your eye will
then adjust it to make the ratio exact, but it can be proven that no
pair of numbers, to any finite precision, can accurately express this
ratio, which is that formed by cutting a line so that the whole has
to its larger part the same ratio that the larger part has to the smaller. If you have a calculator, you can check that 61.8 is to 38.2 in just
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about the same ratio as that of 100 to 61.8, but no matter how
many decimal places you take it to, any ratio of numbers for the
parts will fail to match that of the whole to the larger part. We know
many things by measuring, and our usual way of measuring is with
numbers, but in this case numbers are too crude an instrument by
which to know something our eyes know at a glance.
Taking the measure of something, then, does not necessarily
require quantifying it. We are always going too far in trying to quantify things. The intelligence quotient is a precise number, and no
doubt it means something, but it doesn’t capture anything worth
calling intelligence. An acquaintance of mine, who grew up in
Baltimore, once watched an old, uneducated cook in North
Carolina make biscuits. She was writing down the recipe, and at one
point asked “How much shortening did you use?” The reply was
“Enough to make it short.” This example reveals both the genuine
intelligence of the cook, which would not show up on any test
score, and the fact that she was measuring the shortening not by its
volume or weight but by its feel as she mixed it into the dough. Her
hands were performing a qualitative measurement, just as the eyes
of your imagination were measuring the rectangle by its shape,
rather than by the lengths of its sides. You should not be too quick
to agree with me about this, because if you do, you may have to give
up many other things you believe.
I am claiming, and this is something I learned from certain dead
Greeks, that the world really has qualities in it, that they are not
subjective distortions projected onto it, but the true forms of things.
I know them by my senses, and I know them better that way than
by any theoretical explanations of them. With the golden rectangle,
the discovery of the ratio of its sides reveals something that we can
never name directly—we cannot say how many times bigger one
side is than the other, or than any possible fractional part of the
other—but we can still recognize that ratio in two ways: in its sameness with another ratio, or, even more simply, in the distinctively
shaped rectangle it produces. What is quantitatively incommensurable is qualitatively harmonious. Similarly, the experienced cook
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knows that all batches of flour and shortening are not identical, and
that they may not behave the same way at different times of the
year. If you want the biscuits to turn out right, the only thing to
trust is your hands.
We need not go through all five senses, but one example of
measurement by the ear will be helpful. Clamp a guitar string at
both ends, put a bridge under it about two-fifths of the way from
either end, and pluck the two parts. You will hear something interesting. But what if the string is not of uniform thickness all the way
along? If you have measured the two lengths to make them exactly
as two to three, you might still hear something that sounds wrong,
just a little off. The interval of a fifth is produced by strings with
lengths in a perfectly commensurable ratio, all other things being
equal, but the lack of uniformity in real strings means that one tunes
an instrument best with one’s ear. It is true that musicians nowadays
sometimes use little electronic devices that read out frequencies of
vibration. But if the machine malfunctions, it will do no good for
the musician to tell the audience he got all the numbers right. Only
for the ear is there such a thing as being in tune.
Measure, proportion, and harmony are in the nature of things,
and we have a direct responsiveness to them that orients us in the
world. These are not the ratios of mathematics, but incarnate ratios.
And the words pure and applied do not fit the distinction, because
the purer instances of measure are the ones given to our senses. A
tradition preserved by a twelfth century writer (Johannes Tzetzes)
tells us that the inscription above the doorway of Plato’s school, the
Academy, read “Let no one without geometry enter under my roof.”
Does this mean that skill in mathematics was, as we would say, a
prerequisite for his classes? I don’t think so. It seems to me important that the entrant is not required to have mathematics, but geometry. Much of mathematics develops from the act of counting, a fundamental and natural power without which we could not speak or
think, but geometry starts in a different way, from a sensory recognition of the ordering of simple visible shapes. In Plato’s Gorgias
(508a), Socrates actually tells a young man that he is without geom-
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etry, but he is not criticizing Callicles for his intelligence or learning
or skill, but blaming him for a failure of moral choice. The young
man is greedy and in danger of having no friends, Socrates says,
because he does not recognize the way geometrical equality gives all
things the proportions that let them be part of larger wholes. The
loss of a sense for geometry is equated with losing one’s way in the
human world.
An example that shows both the positive and the negative side
of this is the central scene in Plato’s Meno. Meno’s “boy,” a slave
who has never been taught geometry, begins to discover it in front
of us. Relying at first solely on his ability to count, he twice goes
wrong in trying to measure the side of the double square, but counting also shows him he is wrong. With Socrates leading the way, by
drawing figures and pointing at them, the slave eventually is led to
trust his eyes, and to see the square double itself, out of itself. And
while Socrates asks all the questions, the slave has to do all the seeing himself, out of himself, just as he was led to his mistakes, but
made them himself. This is all very elementary, but the slave has
geometry in him, and he also has a little bit of courage and determination in getting it out—two qualities his master lacked when he
found some unexpected difficulty in answering other questions.
And this finally is the point of the scene, the reason Socrates
arranges it in front of us: Meno cannot see that his “boy” is a better man than he is. We can all recognize that certain people deserve
more respect than others, if we are honest, but Meno has lost that
capacity. He has lost his way. He is without geometry.
This way of understanding geometry may help explain an
apparent inconsistency in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Near its
beginning, Aristotle says something that might at first seem to be
opposite to the inscription on Plato’s gates. He warns the reader not
to look for the precision of mathematical demonstration in the
study of ethics (1194b 19-27). Is this not equivalent to writing on
the portals of this sort of philosophy, “let no one try to enter here
with geometry”? If so, it is odd that Aristotle fills his exploration of
ethics from the beginning with references to actions that are in pro-
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portion, or in ratio, or in a right ratio. For instance, someone may
have good fortune and a steady course through life, but be knocked
out of equilibrium by some misfortune. The inability to cope with
disaster is out of proportion (1100a 23, 1101a 17) with the rest of
the life. Since some alteration is inevitable, and some grief would be
appropriate, and no rules prescribe its amount or how it should be
expressed, only a geometrical eye can judge this. The fitness of such
actions might be measured with some precision, but it can never be
demonstrated. All the circumstances and all the history of any
action can never be known, too many considerations have to be balanced, and equally good alternative ways of handling difficulties are
always possible.
Aristotle, then, does believe that human actions can be chosen
and recognized as right or wrong with precision, but he denies that
this is the same as the precision of a mathematical demonstration.
But he not only uses the language of ratio and proportion for the
kind of precision appropriate to ethics, he also speaks of all actions
that come from virtues of character as actions that hit the mean.
This is easy to misunderstand, because readers tend to ignore the
warning he gives almost as soon as he begins talking about the
mean, that this sort of mean is also an extreme (1107a 6-8, 22-3).
In fact, people rarely understand that this sort of mean is not quantitative at all. But taking it in a quantitative sense opens the way to
identifying the mean with the mediocre, the middle of the road, or
even middle-class morality, the sort of timidity that shies away from
anything that might distinguish one from the crowd. But one of the
things that Aristotle says hits the mean is courage, and he says plainly that there is no such thing as too much courage.
Now one way to see how courage both is and is not a mean
condition is to extend the mathematical language to a second
dimension, and this is both accurate and helpful. There is no such
thing as too much courage, but there is such a thing as too much
confidence, just as there can be too little of it. Courage occupies a
mean position on a scale of fearfulness and fearlessness. The sense
in which courage is an extreme is on a different axis, one on which
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the person who has just the right amount of fear puts that attitude
into action in the most excellent way. We might even liken this twodimensional scheme to the appearance of the west pediment at
Olympia, on which Apollo occupies the middle position, but also
towers over everyone else. Courage is like that. As I say, this is true
and it helps one keep hold of Aristotle’s claim that the virtues are
extremes of human character, but also stand in and aim at a mean.
But for all that, this talk of measuring along two axes seems to
me to be misleading in the most important respect. I can show how
very simply. Just ask yourself if the power of Apollo over Centaurs
and humans would be greater if he were taller. As it is, he towers
over them, but the design could have been made in such a way that
he dwarfed them, reduced them to puny insignificance. With a little bit of play in the imagination, I think you can see that this would
destroy the sculpture’s effect. The designer of the pediment (who
may have been someone named Alkamenes) wasn’t aiming at making Apollo as big as possible, but at making him extend the human
stature just a little. The Centaurs are sub-human monsters; a gigantic Apollo would also be monstrous. The sculptor has not only
placed Apollo in the middle of the horizontal array; he has also hit
a mean along the vertical axis. All the power of the ensemble
depends on getting the figures in a right relation to one another. As
with the golden rectangle (and recall that the pediment originally
sat on top of one), it is not a matter simply of adjusting Apollo’s
height, but of forming a single design.
Apollo’s height is a precise mean between a ridiculous shortness
and a monstrous tallness, but that mean is also an extreme in the
sense that it is unsurpassably right. But the way in which it is unsurpassably right is not quantitative. It is unsurpassably right in the
design to which it belongs. It fits, and nothing else would. Liddell
and Scott, the authors of the standard dictionary of ancient Greek,
will tell you that aretê, the word for virtue, comes from the name
of Ares, the god of war, but another school of thought derives it
from a humble verb that means to fit together (arariskein), or be
fitting—it may be related to a similar humble verb, from wood-
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working (harmozein), from which we get our word harmony.
Courage too, as Aristotle or any thoughtful person would explain
it, comes not from the bloodthirstiness of the war god, but from
recognizing what one’s circumstances call for and carrying it into
action. Only when the circumstances are extreme, as they are for
Patroclus or Hector, does courage call for the extreme risk, or sacrifice, of life, or perhaps, in the case of Achilles, for the sacrifice of
revenge. At the end of the Iliad, the usual ways of confronting an
enemy are no longer fitting, and Achilles recognizes that.
The recognition that Hector’s body belongs to his father and to
his city has nothing to do with anything quantitative. It is not
arrived at by adjusting any sort of dial up from too little or down
from too much. But it is a measured response to the situation that
Achilles faces. It is geometrical equality that Achilles restores, by letting the dead man be given an appropriate funeral. It is dignity that
he measures. Priam, the miserable wreck of an old man at Achilles’s
feet, dominates his action in exactly the way Apollo dominates the
Centaurs. In both cases, anger takes up a subordinate position in the
design of the human soul. It finds its right proportion to the whole.
On a list of the various meanings of the word logos preserved from
Aristotle’s school by an ancient scholar (Theon of Smyrna), one of
those meanings was the ratio of one who gives respect to the one
who is respected. By looking at Apollo in his glory, or at Priam in
his misery, we can begin to take our own measure.
This kind of qualitative measurement is appropriately represented by ratios, because a ratio is not a quantity. A ratio limits a
quantity. It is a revealing fact that we all have trouble remembering
what Euclid means by greater ratio—that it is not the span of the
interval between two magnitudes but the size of the first in relation
to the second that he is referring to. A length, or an area, or a volume, or for that matter a weight is measured by its size or amount,
but a ratio is something on a different order of things. We measure
length by cutting it up and counting the pieces, but ratios do not
admit that kind of treatment. Fractions do. Fractions are quantities
but ratios are not. The nature of quantity is that of material. There
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can always be more of it or less, arranged this way or that. And this
way of looking at quantity helps one see that ratios belong to the
realm not of material but of form.
In the Odyssey, Odysseus tells a story that goes on for four long
books. About two-thirds of the way through it he tries to stop and
go to bed, but his hosts will not let him. He claims the story is taking too long to tell, and there is too much more of it, but they are
spellbound and persuade him to go on. The king who speaks for
them tells Odysseus that there is a morphê upon his words (XI,
367), meaning a shapeliness or gracefulness. This is one of the
words that comes later to be used for “form” in an important philosophic sense. Odysseus need not measure his words by time or number, the king is telling him, because his hearers measure them by
beauty and depth. A form does not merely surround its content
with a shape. It transforms the material and makes it be what it is,
through and through. And just as Alkinous praises Odysseus for the
form of his story, Aristotle too, in his Poetics (Chap. 8, 1451a),
praises Homer for knowing where to start and end an epic poem to
make it be one story goverened by one action.
What is the form that governs the story Odysseus tells the
Phaiakians? Neither they nor we ever take that story to be a simple
report of the events that Odysseus witnessed and took part in since
the time he left Troy. It is a story formed or transformed by art. But
if all stories that reshape events were lies, fiction would simply mean
falsehood. Alkinous distinguishes Odysseus from the multitude of
liars the dark earth breeds. His criterion is not easy to translate, but
it is understandable to us because we too have heard Odysseus tell
his story, and know exactly what he means. Lattimore makes
Alkinous say that the liars make up stories from which no one could
learn anything (XI, 366). The more usual translation has it that the
lying stories are made up out of things no one could see, and this,
in turn, either in the sense that all the human witnesses are dead, or
in a deeper sense. Both translations are possible, and both capture
something of what Alkinous is talking about. Odysseus is trying to
get something out of the Phaiakians, but he is also letting them learn
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from his experience, and they count that a fair exchange. Things
that are literally false, contrary to fact, are redeemed from falsehood if they capture truth that goes beyond the merely factual. No
one can go see if the story was accurate, but no sensible person
would try to check it in that way, because its proper subject is something that cannot be seen. The story puts in front of the eyes of our
imaginations things that are invisible.
What is Odysseus’s story about? It is, first of all, full of fabulous
beings, gods and monsters and people who live in strange ways. A
question that is repeatedly asked, not with formulaic phrasing but
with constant changes in its wording, is whether the characters that
are about to be encountered are human, that is, dwelling on the
earth and eaters of bread (VI, 8; IX, 89, 191). And even among
those who are not immortal gods and monsters, some dwell under
the earth and drink blood, some dwell in mountain caves and are
cannibals, and some eat the lotus fruit and dwell in their own psyches. But these non-humans are not only a background against
which the human form is displayed, they are constant temptations
to the humans themselves.
Some of the companions of Odysseus are seduced by the lotus
into the oblivion of ignorance, but Odysseus himself is later seduced
by the Sirens, toward the oblivion produced by the love of knowledge. On either side there is a loss of connectedness to the human
community. And Odysseus’s story begins among the Kikones, where
his men get drunk and reckless with success, and then, when their
luck turns, lose six of their companions out of each of their twelve
ships; his story ends among the cattle of Helios, where the men who
are left, less than fifty of them on their one remaining ship, get hungry and reckless in misfortune, and lose their lives. In both overconfidence and despair their hungers become unmeasured by judgement. And again Odysseus too experiences the same dangers, in his
different way. His hunger for recognition, when he has saved himself and his men from the Cyclops, results in a foolhardy judgement
which brings him Poseidon’s curse, and turns victory into needless
defeat; and this is followed by another foolhardy judgement, that he
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could stay awake for ten straight days with the bag of winds, and
arrive home the single-handed savior of his men. His hunger for
glory is as deadly to his judgement as his companions’ hungers are
to theirs.
This break-down of judgement is again a loss of the connectedness of human community, since disproportionate hunger of any
kind, whether from extreme self-indulgence or extreme need,
brings isolation. After the fiasco with the bag of winds, Odysseus
twice shows himself to us in isolation on top of mountains (X, 97
and 148), and this image surrounds his explicit comparison of a
monstrous Laistrygonian to a mountain peak (X, 113), and echoes
his earlier description of the Cyclops (IX, 187-92). Here is what
Odysseus says when he narrates his first sight of the cave of
Polyphemus: “Here a monster of a man bedded down, who now
was herding his flocks alone and afar, for he did not mingle with
others, but stayed away by himself, knowing no law, for he was
formed as a wondrous monster, not like a man, an eater of bread,
but like a wooded peak of the high mountains which stands out to
view alone, apart from others.” In his outsmarting of the Cyclops,
Odysseus displays the power that lets a puny human master a gigantic brute, but in his glorying Odysseus outsmarts himself, and ends
up no better than a Cyclops.
Finally, Odysseus is measured against the gods. This is most
apparent in his verbal jousting with Athena when he awakens on
Ithaca in Book XIII. She uses superhuman knowledge and magic to
deceive and test and tease him, while he holds his own with his
merely human skills, to her delight. “That’s my boy,” she says in
effect, and he replies, in effect, “So where have you been for so
long.” But this alliance of man and goddess as friendly rivals is not
the one that is his true test. It is Kalypso who offers him the ultimate choice, to be her lover forever, while neither of them grows
old, on an island that grows everything to delight the senses and
requires no work. He chooses to go back into the sea, to work, to
fight, to take chances, and ultimately to die. He does not talk about
any of this in the story he tells the Phaiakians, though he had told
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the king and queen the bare outline of it the day before. We know
the story of Kalypso’s island from Homer’s telling of it, before we
know how to understand it. It is Odysseus who puts it in context.
From the time, early in Book X, when he comes down from the
mountain on Circe’s island, the rest of Odysseus’s story is about his
losing battle to win back the trust of his companions. “I am in no
way like the gods,” he has said to Alkinous, “but count me equal to
whomever you know among humans who bears the heaviest load of
woe.” (VII, 208-212) But unlike another man who might say that,
Odysseus had a choice, and chose human troubles. What he lost,
with his companions, was more worthy of choice to him, than what
he could gain from Kalypso’s gift.
We make much of Achilles’s choice, to live a short and glorious
life instead of a long and ordinary one, and pay less attention to
Odysseus’s choice, to live not at ease forever but for a long but
bounded time, amid troubles that will eventually come to an end.
You probably know that the first word of the Iliad is wrath; of the
Odyssey the first word is man. The shaping of the Iliad rises from
the flare-up of Achilles’s wrath, to come to completion when that
wrath itself finds its limit, not just in duration but in submission to
a higher good; the wrathful, warlike side of human life finds its
form and proportion within a larger whole. The Odyssey is formed
in a different way. It starts in three places (Olympus, Ogygia, and
Ithaca). It backs up, and proceeds for a while on parallel tracks, as
we hear a story told and watch the interaction of the teller and hearers, and finally begins moving forward in its second half. But
through and through, the form that shapes the Odyssey is the form
of the human being, as it shows us a man travelling up to all the limits of what it is to be human, coming to know them, and choosing
to remain within them. A participle in the fifth line of the poem
(arnumenos), as it is usually translated, credits Odysseus for saving
his life, but it has a richer meaning: he earned or achieved his life,
proved worthy of it by learning that it was worthy of his choice.
The Phaiakians understand his story, and honor his choice by making one in its image: they choose to risk their easy life by taking on
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his troubles as their own, and their journey to Ithaca is their last
carefree voyage. The first thing we hear about the Phaiakians is that
they live far away from men who earn their bread (VI, 8), but the
human form becomes visible to them in Odysseus, and draws them
out of their isolation.
In the west pediment at Olympia, human dignity is made visible in the figure of Apollo. In the toils and troubles of Odysseus at
sea, human worth becomes apparent against a background of goddesses and monsters and bad choices. The beauty of the Phaiakians’
action is set against the perversion of the human image in the young
suitors who have taken over Ithaca. The suitors are worse than the
Centaurs at Olympia, who are simply appetites that have not yet
come under control. The suitors have no respect for any man or
woman (XXII. 414-15), and so they cannot be reformed. What they
cannot recognize, they cannot take as formative. Their image, in
their feasting, reflects that of the human pigs on Circe’s island; in
their obliviousness to someone else’s home, it reflects that of the
lotus eaters; and in their reasoning that Telemachus is about to
become an obstacle to their pleasure and so, of course, should be
killed, they are no different from the cannibal Cyclops. Odysseus
knows what to do when immortality is offered to him, because he
has learned to respect the claims of human need, and wants to
redeem his loss of his companions, for which he bears not all, but
enough, of the blame. And he will have to use the same standard to
decide what to do about the suitors.
But in Ithaca and abroad, in the story that surrounds that of
Odysseus, there is a gallery of portraits of simple human dignity.
They work on us to convey the power we respect in old people
whose experience has brought them understanding. One of them is
Nestor, who responds to strangers first by feeding them and only
afterward asking whether they are pirates. (III. 69-74) Pre-eminent
among these figures is Eumaeus, the swineherd, a victim of pirates;
born the son of a king (XV 412), he was kidnapped and sold into
.
slavery, but came to accept his lot as the lowliest of servants with no
bitterness (XIV 140-147). He balances the picture of life on Ithaca:
.
SACHS
19
as the suitors have turned a palace into a pig-sty, Eumaeus, with his
courtesy and shrewd judgement, has turned a pig-sty into a place of
gracious hospitality. Homer refers to him as the godlike swineherd
(XIV 401, 413), and as the swineherd, first in the ranks of men
.
(XVII. 184). But surrounding and woven through all these portraits
of age and wisdom is the un-regarded figure of Mentor. Odysseus
had left him in charge in Ithaca (II. 225-7), but his power to rule
rested on nothing but respect. With the invasion of the suitors, the
foundation of civilized life on Ithaca collapsed, and in the resulting
chaos we hardly notice Mentor, since he cannot fight, and barely
raises his voice. He is glorified in the last line of the poem, when
Athena, in a poetic equivalent of the sculpted figure of Apollo at
Olympia, has put an end to the violent strife of people who are all
alike (XXIV 543), making herself recognizable in the voice and liv.
ing form of Mentor. These last words of the whole poem confirm
our sense that its first word, man, is what it intends to reveal to us,
and the final embodiment of that revelation is in a radiant presentation of a character so humble the poet had to compel us to notice
him at all, a character whose dignity lives only in the medium of our
respect, while that dignity, in turn, is the only foundation for shared
human life. Homer makes us err, in overlooking Mentor, and come
to ourselves in recognizing him, so that, in a small way, we mimic
Odysseus’s journey.
But if we are to take the human measure from
Mentor, that must mean that he displays human excellence, and that would be a very strange claim to make.
The poet Homer can play in a serious way by putting the
kingly soul of Eumaeus in a position in which he has only
pigs to rule over, and he can leave us with the vision of a
goddess who makes a humble man resplendent, but neither of these figures seems to display any maximum of
human possibility. Instead, what we seem to see in them
is the last shred of dignity that cannot be taken away from
any human being by any sort of mistreatment from others, but can only be lost by one’s own act. When
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THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
Odysseus comes out of the sea alone on the island of the
Phaiakians, he burrows under a pile of leaves. Here is the
way Homer describes this action: “As when someone
hides away a glowing ember in a black ash heap at the
end of the earth, with no countrymen anywhere near, no
others at all, saving the seed of fire in a place where there
is no other source from which he could start a fire, so did
Odysseus cover himself up with leaves.” (V 488-91)
,
Odysseus almost lost himself on his journey. And the
thing that nearly smothered the last spark of humanity in
him was his drive to excel.
We are told in the third line of the poem that many were the
people whose cities he saw and whose intellects he knew, and for
Odysseus every new experience was a test. Seeing and knowing
were never for their own sake for him. He was always taking the
measure of any new places and their inhabitants, and that, for him,
came to be for its own sake, continually to prove himself more than
the equal of any kind of skill or strength or strategem, and worthy
of respect from anything that exists that can pay respect. He wanted to go beyond anywhere others had been, to find every limit and
surpass it. This fits a conventional understanding of excellence, but
it makes no sense. It aims at nothing but beyond everything, so that
the task is infinite and formless. To achieve excellence in this way is
to measure oneself against what is measureless. Only a being of
infinite capacity could be genuinely successful. One image of human
finitude in the Odyssey is our need to sleep. The journey from
Aeolia to Ithaca is long and hard, but achievable, but also just barely longer than anyone could stay awake for. With a dangerous cargo
like the bag of winds, a sensible captain will have to admit his own
limits to himself, and take someone else into his confidence, but
Odysseus does not permit himself such weakness. That stubbornness costs him more than nine years of trouble, and eventually costs
every one of his companions his life. When we see Odysseus give
way to sleep again, the meaning is exactly the opposite of the former occasion. His sleep brings to an end his efforts to persuade his
SACHS
21
comrades, and they eat forbidden meat and die; they decide that
they are no heroes, and cannot hold out indefinitely against hunger.
Afterward, Odysseus never ceases to defend them. But it is usually not his companions themselves that he refers to, but the common lot of human beings that he discovered by paying attention to
them. No less than six times he lectures people about the cursed
belly, and the things its need can drive people to (VII. 215-21; XV
.
343-5; XVII. 286-9, 473-4; XVIII. 53-4; XIX. 71-4). The man who
once despised weakness in himself is now the fierce defender of
those whose strength fails them. His rejection of the offer of immortality is in part a gesture of solidarity with his companions, and his
disguise as a beggar on Ithaca in some way displays the truth. In
front of the Phaiakians, Odysseus could have told his story to present himself as the hero of Troy, the most important man in the
world, but he chooses instead to make his loss and his need central.
He tells one of the suitors “Nothing feebler than a human being
does the earth sustain, of all the things that breathe and crawl on
the earth” (XVIII, 130-1), using the same adjective he chose when
telling Kalypso “I know very well that thoughtful Penelope is feebler than you in both form and stature” (V 215-17). He has learned
,
to see what is fragile in us and in need of protection as having a
higher claim on his effort than any extraordinary achievements that
might extend human glory.
But the radiant dignity conferred on Mentor at the poem’s end,
and glowing from within Eumaeus in its midst, is not the whole of
the human image either. There is also heroic action that is not ambitious for glory but called forth in defence of what is dignified but
weak. In Aristotle’s ethics the word that names human dignity is
spoudê, seriousness, the quality that is apparent in certain exceptional people who know what to take seriously. But in the Odyssey
the focus is on aidôs, respect, the quality present in all of us that
enables us to recognize dignity. Respect can take the place of force,
and can bind together a community, establishing the conditions of
life under which the things that have seriousness and dignity can be
given their due. The actions that embody respect constitute what
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THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
Aristotle calls distributive justice, the paying of what is due not
merely in the quantitative medium of money but by reference
always to the qualitative medium of honor. In a just community,
according to Aristotle, there will never be simple equality, but rather
proportional equality, actions and titles and gestures that make evident what different people deserve. And this is what Socrates called
geometrical equality, since it requires an act of seeing rather than
one of calculating.
In the Odyssey, our seeing is put to work most vividly beyond
the world in which we live and make choices, envisioning the
Cyclops, the passage between Scylla and Charybdis, or Odysseus
lashed to the mast while the Sirens sing, but as in the west pediment
at Olympia, these figures depicted as outwardly visible display the
shape of the invisible human soul. The soul that Homer lets us recognize as unsurpassably right in its ordering is the one that we see
in the hero in rags, in his feeble old father in armor (XXIV 513-25),
.
in the boy who calls an assembly of adults, in the woman who neutralizes the strength of 108 men (XVI. 245-51) and stops time itself
for four years by unweaving every night what she wove by day (II.
94-110). It is the human balance in which strength has reason to
give way to weakness, and weakness has resources to find strength.
It is the human mean that can live only within a community. The
best human life is a topic that demands philosophic reflection, but
such reflection would not be possible if one could not, in the first
place, simply see its form.
NOTE:
The central importance in the Odyssey of the respectful attitude aidôs
that makes human communities possible is something I first learned by reading Mary Hannah Jones’s senior essay, “A First Reading of the Odyssey,”
included in the collection of St. John’s College Prize Papers, 1977-78.
SACHS
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THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
25
Plato and the Measure of the
Incommensurable
Part II. Plato’s New Measure:
The Mathematical Meaning of
the Indeterminate Dyad
Amirthanayagam David
I shall argue that the controversial developments—some
would say the reversals—in Plato’s later metaphysical outlook
were in fact an inspired response to some truly epochal developments in the mathematics of his day; in particular, to certain
seminal advances in the theory of the irrational. Following on
my reading of the geometry lesson at Theaetetus 147, and of its
significance for that dialogue and for the Sophist and the
Politicus, I can now shed light on one of the most obscure
notions associated with Plato, a thing known to Aristotle as the
“indeterminate dyad.” The discovery and description of this
remarkable object—remarkable, all right, yet thoroughly nonmystical and mathematically legitimate—can be seen as the
motive force behind some of the arguments and constructs in the
late dialogue Philebus. In interpreting the ancient testimony, my
reconstruction demonstrates that the mathematical meaning of
the late Platonic metaphysics was either not transmitted to, or
simply lost on, the successors of Plato and their critic Aristotle.
But where the philosophers strayed, the mathematicians found a
fruitful path: the conclusion to the work started by Theaetetus
and Plato finds a home of concision and elegance in the mathematics of Euclid’s Book X. A historian of ancient philosophy
may have to distinguish in future between the academics who
inherited Plato’s arguments, and the mathematicians who understood them.
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THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
Perhaps the best evidence for a revision, radical or not, in
Plato’s thought comes from Aristotle’s intellectual biography in
Metaphysics A. He there refers to a kaí flsteron, an “even
afterwards” in Plato’s career (987b1). The passage is explicit
that there was a before and an after in Plato’s thinking which
was not apparently defined by the death of Socrates. What is
more, the change was apparently of some considerable moment;
the whole force of the expression is in the kaí; Plato is said to
have accepted the premise of universal flux espoused by Cratylus
and the Heracliteans, even afterwards. The theory of sensation
we have discussed in the Theaetetus is an example of his new
approach to an old premise, an approach based on a new mathematics of measurement.
At one time during the geometry lesson in the Meno, Socrates
counsels the slave boy, who is trying to find the line from which a
square the double of a given square is generated, “if you do not care
to count it out, just point out what line it comes from (e£ m±
boúlei ¡rivmeîn, ¡llà deîxon ¡pò poía$, 84a).” This is the
vintage Socratic irony, a playful but possibly sinister half-telling:
there is in fact no straightforward way to count out such a line with
the same unit measures that count off the side of the given square.
In a passage that means to inspire confidence in our ability to learn,
Socrates hints at a shadowy impediment that lurks, even as the slave
boy triumphs. This problem of incommensurability was the bane of
measurement science—metrhtik≠, that science which assigns
number to continuous magnitude—perhaps onwards from the time
of Pythagoras. Measurement prò$ ållhla, or mutual measurement, the reciprocal subtraction (¡nvufaíresi$) of two magnitudes, came to an end or limit (péra$) at the common measure of
these magnitudes; but if the magnitudes were incommensurable, the
process of subtracting the less from the greater, and then the
remainder from the less, would continue indefinitely (i.e., it was
unlimited, åpeiron). Such everyday magnitudes as the diagonals of
squares with countable sides were årrhton, inexpressible, or
DAVID
27
ålogon, irrational, in terms of those sides, an embarrassment to
any serious measurement science.
The in-betweenness of irrational lengths with respect to rational (countable) ones—in the Meno, Socrates takes pains to show by
a narrowing process that the required length, the side of an eightfoot square, lies somewhere in between two and three feet (83ce)—may have been the clue to a new approach. Plato’s Stranger
proposes a new branch of measurement science in the Politicus
(283d ff.); alongside measurement prò$ ållhla, there is now to
be measurement prò$ t±n toû metríou génesin, measurement
toward the generation of the mean. I have suggested that
Theaetetus’ seemingly humble classification of roots (Theaetetus
147c ff.) was the ultimate inspiration for this formulation; his novel
use of the mean proportional allows number and magnitude (the
phenomena of arithmetic and geometry) to be subsumed successfully under a revitalised and heuristic measurement science.
“’Squaring’ is the finding of the mean (› tetragwnismò$
mésh$ eflresi$, De Anima 413a20),” and he who defines it this
way, says Aristotle, is showing the cause of the fact in his definition.
To square a given rectangle, one has to find the mean proportional
between the lengths of its sides. Theaetetus distinguishes between
two kinds of length as sides of squares: a mêko$ is the length of a
side of a square number (4, 9, 16, etc.), the mean proportional (or
geometric mean) between the unit and a square number; a dúnami$ is the side of a square equal to a rectangular number (2, 3, 5, 6,
etc.)—i.e., the geometric mean between the unit and a rectangular
number—which is incommensurable with the unit in length
(m≠kei) but commensurable with it in square (dunámei).
Taken by itself, this classification is hardly more than a new
way of naming the phenomena of measurement science. Even at
this stage, however, the roots of non-square numbers, formerly
irrational and intractable, have become more expressible (@htá);
they are at least commensurable in square. A third category can
now be envisioned—incommensurability in length and in square—
so that where we had a polar division of opposites (rational-irra-
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THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
tional), now we have an enumeration of the phenomena: rational,
expressible, irrational.
But the true mathematical utility of this re-classification lies in
the lucid quality of the geometric mean. We recall that for any interval, this mean can be approximated in length by interpolating successive pairs of arithmetic and harmonic means within the given
extremes. Since in a rational interval, like that between the unit and
a non-square number, the interpolated means are also rational, and
since they define an evanescent sequence of rational intervals
around the same geometric mean, the incommensurable roots of
non-square numbers can now be systematically approximated with
numbers of their own. Each of these lengths, which we nowadays
call √2, √3, √5, etc., is approximated as a geometric mean by one
or more series, each unique and infinite, of arithmetic and harmonic means, which give better and better rational over- and under-estimates (respectively) of each incommensurable length. Though the
geometric mean is never reached, each successive pair of interpolations reduces the interval containing it by more than half, so that
each of the approximating extremes approaches closer than any
given difference to the mean (by Euclid’s X.1). Hence the process is
unlimited in its degree of accuracy.
The uniqueness of each of these “dyadic series,” corresponding
to each of the incommensurable roots, is the key to their achievement. Numbers may now be introduced, in a mathematically useful
and rigorous way, to describe the lengths of these roots.
Measurement science can thereby fulfil its mission, once paralysed
in these cases, to number the greater and the less. Irrational roots
are no longer vaguely “in between”: each dyad of interpolated
means defines all rational lengths, whole or fractional, than which
a particular incommensurable root is greater, and all than which it
is less. Since the “dyadic interval” can be made to shrink indefinitely, these incommensurable lengths have been uniquely measured in
terms of a given unit, as uniquely as any commensurable length.
A rational length is measured by one number, a “one many,” a
single collection of so- and so-many units (and fractional parts).
DAVID
29
These lengths are therefore measured both absolutely and relatively in terms of the unit length; one can answer the question, “How
many is it?” with respect to them. An irrational but expressible
length, on the other hand, is measured by a series of pairs of numbers, a unique but “unlimited” or “indeterminate” dyad (¡óristo$
dúa$). Such lengths are only relatively measured in terms of the
unit; for them, one cannot answer the question “How many is it?”
with a definite number, but one can always answer the question, “Is
it greater or less than this many?” There are now two ways in
which number can be applied to continuous magnitude—with a
normal ¡rivmó$ measured by the unit, or an indeterminate dyad
of such ¡rivmoí—so that both the diagonal and the side of a
square can be “counted off ” in terms of the same unit length.
The original significance of the unit and the indeterminate
dyad can now be recognised in the context of the new branch of
measurement science: the former, already a principle and product
of the existing branch, measurement prò$ ållhla—for the unit
is the measure of all commensurable magnitudes, and the ultimate
result of the reciprocal subtraction of commensurable quantities—
is a measure of all rational means (including the roots of square
numbers). The latter is a way of measuring all the expressible geometric means (the roots of rectangular numbers); it is a principle
and product unique to the new branch, measurement toward the
generation of the mean, for paired interpolation represents a way
to “generate” an expressible geometric mean numerically, and the
resulting indeterminate dyad of greater and lesser values is a precise
and exhaustive way to locate an expressible length within the scale
of the rational continuum. The unit and the indeterminate dyad,
the respective measures of rational and expressible means, are
therefore rightly conceived as the two proper principles of that science which approaches measurement through the construction of
means.
*
*
*
*
*
*
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THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
In the Philebus (23c ff.), Socrates proposes a four-part division
of all beings. The first two segments cover the limited and the
unlimited, the once all-embracing Pythagorean pair of opposites.
The third division encompasses those beings produced by the mixture of the polar principles; this mixed category represents the distinctive late Platonic innovation in ontological thinking, outlined
also in the Sophist (see 252e). A fourth division is enumerated to
cover the cause of the mixing in the category of mixed beings.
At first glance, the mathematical subtext of this classification seems fairly straightforward. The unlimited stands for continuous magnitude, that which admits of being greater or less
(24e); the limited stands for number and measure (25a-b). The
mixed class stands, as could be expected, for continuous phenomena that admit of measurement or a scale: Socrates mentions music, weather, the seasons, and “all beautiful things
(Øsa kalà pánta, 26a-b).” The demiurge of the Timaeus,
who constructs a cosmic musical scale out of elements he has
mixed (35b ff.), could be seen as a mythical archetype of the
fourth kind of being, the cause of mixing. The mixer is also a
measurer.
Certain peculiarities in Plato’s presentation suggest, however,
that it is motivated by the developments in ancient measurement
theory that I have described. First of all, the distinction made
between the limited and the unlimited is virtually analytic. This
would not be necessary for a distinction between number and magnitude, because of the phenomenon of commensurability. But the
class of the more and the less, the pair which characterises the
unlimited, is said to disallow the existence of definite quantity; if it
were to allow quantity (posón) and the mean (tò métrion) to be
generated in the seat of its domain (‰drˆ ™ggenésvai), the moreand-less themselves (a dual subject in Plato’s Greek) would be made
to wander from the place where they properly exist (24c-d). The
class of the unlimited therefore stands for the greater-and-less qua
greater and less, those magnitudes which refuse numerical measurement of any kind, like the radically incommensurable lengths
DAVID
31
(commensurable neither in length nor in square). The class of the
limited, on the other hand, is said to cover only those things which
admit of everything opposite to the more-and-less (toútwn dè tà
™nantía pánta decómena):
prôton mèn tò ªson kaì £sóthta, metà dè tò
ªson tò diplásion kaì pân Øtiper ∂n prò$
¡rivmòn ¡rivmò$ ˚ métron ˜ prò$ métron...
(25a-b)
first the equal and equality, and after the equal the double and everything whatever which is a number in relation to a number or a measure to a measure.
The limited is therefore the class of commensurable magnitude.
Is the distinction between limited and unlimited then a descriptive
one based on that between number and magnitude, or really an analytic one between two kinds of magnitude, the commensurable and
the incommensurable?
The mixed class is also described as the class (£déa) of the equal
and the double (25d); this means it must be meant to include within it the whole class of the limited or commensurable. One could
have expected this if it corresponds to a class of scalable magnitudes. But Socrates goes on to add this curious category to its
domain:
...kaì ›pósh paúei prò$ ållhla t¡nantía
diafórw$ ®conta, súmmetra dè kaì súmfwna
™nveîsa ¡rivmòn ¡pergázetai (25d-e)
also so much of a class as stops things which are opposites, differently disposed to one another, and fashions
them into things commensurable and harmonious by
putting in number.
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THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
This function appears to be unique to the mixed kind of being.
Since only incommensurable things can be made commensurable,
the unlimited did indeed signify the incommensurable, as was surmised; and the class mixed from the limited and the unlimited
appears to include a new species not found in either apart, which
makes incommensurable magnitudes commensurable by “putting
in” or “inserting” (™ntívhmi) number. With somewhat uncharacteristic acuity, Protarchus understands Socrates to mean that certain constructions (or “generations,” genései$) follow from the
mixing of the Pythagorean opposites (25e). (This interchange
seems to be a single Platonic exposition split between two speakers. The author better remembers his dramatic premises when,
within less than a Stephanus page, he has Protarchus suddenly
express his unsureness about what Socrates could have meant by
the members of the third class.)
The two ways of measuring magnitude in terms of a single unit
length, by means of a number or an indeterminate dyad of numbers,
correspond to the two classes which make up Socrates’ third category. In particular, the second way of measuring corresponds to that
construction described above which is unique to the mixed category. Both take up magnitudes that were formerly irreconcilable, subsumed by an opposition of greater to less—i.e., incommensurables
belonging to the category of the unlimited—and make them concordant and commensurable by “inserting number.” But neither of
them does this in such a way as thereby to reduce these magnitudes
to the class of the limited. Rather, certain lengths turn up in the
measurement of magnitude, incommensurable as such but commensurable in square, that call forth a peculiar application of number, one which inserts greater and lesser values in such a way that
they become more and more equal. This use of numbers comes to
light only in measurement science, and hence only in the mixed category of beings; it does not suggest itself in the operations of pure
arithmetic, the science of the class of the limited (governing numerable, discrete quanta and their formal equivalents, like commensurable lengths). An indeterminate dyad is a numerical description of
DAVID
33
a peculiar kind of length, neither irrational nor rational, but belonging to a third analytic class called “expressible.”
The mathematical subtext of Socrates’ proposal therefore runs
as follows: the distinction between unlimited, limited, and mixed
is, after all, a descriptive one based on that between magnitude,
number, and measured magnitude. But when Socrates attempts to
bring unity to each category, drawing together into one (e£$ ‰n,
25a, 25d, etc.) the beings subsumed by each, he employs a threepart analytic distinction that applies properly to magnitude alone.
That is to say, he brings unity to each of the three realms—number, magnitude, and measured magnitude—by describing each of
them in terms of the particular kind of length, the particular kind
of one-dimensional magnitude, which uniquely characterises it.
Hence the class of the unlimited is not just the class of the greaterand-less, but the class which positively rejects numerical description, like that of the radically incommensurable lengths. (The analogy is strict, for recall that this class is said to reject from its own
rightful seat both definite quantity (posón) and the mean (tò
métrion); on my reconstruction, this means it rejects the only two
ways of counting lengths, either with a single number, or with an
indeterminate dyad of numbers that approximate a geometric
mean.) The class of the limited, likewise, is not just the class of
numerable things, things which can be expressed as ratios of a
number to a number, but also the class of certain kinds of magnitude, those which can be expressed as ratios of a measure to a
measure, for commensurable lengths share all the properties of
numbers. Hence the distinction between magnitude and number
(unlimited and limited) can be reduced to a distinction between
two kinds of line. And finally, the mixed class, or the class of the
scale, though it includes within it the class of the limited, comes to
be characterised by a use of numbers and a kind of magnitude
which are each unique to it. These are the indeterminate dyad and
the lengths which it measures, once incommensurable but now
made “expressible” by the insertion of number. The expressible
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THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
roots form a third analytic possibility within the field of onedimensional extension, alongside rational and irrational lines.
The reductionist spirit of Socrates’ analysis is in the best traditions of ancient mathematics. To reduce one problem to another is
of course heuristic of a solution, but the process can also be useful
in definitions and classifications. An example has been given in
Aristotle’s reduction of the problem of squaring to that of finding
a mean proportional line. One effect of Euclid’s proposition II.14,
which contains a solution to Aristotle’s reduced problem, is in turn
to reduce a comparison in magnitude between any rectilinear
figures to a comparison between squares, and hence to a comparison in one dimension, between square roots. A later and particularly virtuosic example is to be found in Apollonius’ use of the
three kinds of application of area upon lines, the parabolic, hyperbolic, and elliptic, to both name and define the three kinds of conic
section. In Plato’s case, the distinctions between his ontological
realms of the unlimited, limited, and mixed—two of which, as
opposites, had had a long-standing currency in metaphysical thinking—have been reduced to the distinctions between the three kinds
of line studied in the new measurement science: irrational lines
that are incommensurable both in length and in square; rational
lines that are commensurable both in length and in square; and the
expressible lines that are incommensurable in length, but commensurable in square.
This analysis is also in the spirit of the “enumerative” method
Socrates had earlier set out (16c-17a). One is to seek out the form
(£déa) which lends unity to a field of phenomena, and then seek out
those things measured by this hypothetical unit-form (i.e., those
phenomena which are “numbers” if the original form is taken as a
unit). The method intends to be self-correcting, for one is enjoined
in turn to analyse the original unit (tò kat ¡rcà$ ‰n, 16d) in
the same way that one has analysed the enumerated phenomena, to
see “how many” it might actually be. A converse procedure is equally espoused in the case of a science like grammar (18a-d): when the
datum seems unlimited or continuous, as does the phenomenon of
DAVID
35
human vocalisation, one is first to discover the numbers into which
it naturally divides, which govern pluralities such as those marked
out by the distinction between vowels and consonants, before one
proceeds to analyse these further into their units. There may be an
analogy here with modern analyses in terms of “sets,” which also
presume that things need to be sorted before they can be counted
or related. Euclid’s definition of ratio (V requires a relation of
.3)
kind between the compared terms. Even the infinite field of number
itself is nowadays divided in such a way that unitary types may be
distinguished (“Reals” over “Rationals” and “Irrationals”) while
individual members remain both infinite and infinitely instantiatable. An “enumerative theory of forms” would seem to reflect the
ontological and epistemological implications of the interdependence of sorting, on the one hand, and counting or measuring on the
other. The new Socratic method is developed as an explicit reaction
to the Parmenidean or Pythagorean type of thinker—but also, perhaps, to the early Plato—who analyses everything in terms of
opposed principles like the one and the many or the limited and the
unlimited, and fails to articulate the crucial phenomena that are
ordered, like numbers, in between such opposites. Hasty and simplistic analysis in terms of opposites is said to characterise arguments that are made eristically, while the enumerative method, the
method that discovers the numbers of things and their ordered relations, characterises the truly dialectical approach (17a).
Socrates had earlier made it clear (14d-15c) that the familiar
paradoxes of the one and the many were no longer his concern.
Any lazy riddler could prove that an individual like Protarchus, or
a thing made up of parts, was at the same time one and many. It
was the possibility of formal unity, in the face of the sensible births
and deaths of numberless individuals, the unity that is asserted of
things in discourse—whether of “man” or of “ox” or of the beautiful or the good—that was of vital philosophical interest. Did any
such units exist? How might they persist as individuals? And how
is it that they partake of the infinite multiplicity of things that
come into being? The genuineness of these perplexities calls forth
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his enumerative approach, a philosophical pathway that Socrates
says he had ever loved, but which had often deserted him in the
past (16b). The method is hard, but the results can apparently be
astonishing; all the achievements of the arts (técnai) are said to
have been discovered on this road (16c).
The implications of this method, shot through as it is with the
influence of the burgeoning measurement science, are staggering for
the “classical” Plato. Consider that we are here hypothesizing the
existence of forms as measures, enumerating phenomena in terms
of a posited unit-form, and then examining the posited unit, presumably against the phenomena themselves, to check for its possible plurality. The method itself is therefore mixed, in such a way as
to cancel Plato’s earlier formulations. Neither is this the unhypothetical reasoning from forms to forms, whatever that may have
meant in The Republic, nor is it a reasoning from unquestioned
hypotheses, in the manner of synthetic geometry. The once eternal
forms, the objects and immutable guarantors of knowledge, have
become provisional and heuristic.
God is said to have made all beings out of the one and the many
with the limited and the unlimited as innate possessions (16c). This
would tend to insure that all phenomena will be inherently numerable, and hence to guarantee their susceptibility to an enumerative
method; we shall find the unifying form, for it is in there (eflr≠sein
gàr ™noûsan, 16d). It is as though the pairs of opposed ontological elements, once the principles of the eristic disputations, have
now been “re-packaged” in the premises, made the condition for
the possibility of an enumerable reality. Inasmuch as it was
Aristotle’s understanding (Metaphysics M.4, 1078b12) that the theory of forms was invented in the first place to account for our sense
of dependable knowledge in the face of a Heraclitean flux—and
note that the premise of a reality in flux is still accepted at Philebus
43a—it seems that this theory has now been modified to make sense
not so much of our ability to know as of our ability to count. And
this change of purpose is sparked in turn by a renewed confidence
in this sovereign ability, in light of Theaetetus’ successful attack on
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the irrational. Number had at last been restored to some of her
Pythagorean glory, as a measure of the things that are, that they are,
and the things that are not, that they are not, and what is more, of
the things in between. The victory here was sweet indeed, for the
irrational square roots were recovered from the domain of flux and
incommensurability on the very terms by which this domain is distinguished. The indeterminate dyad is both a measurement and a
process of measurement: interpolating means between means
involves a measurer and a thing measured which are continually
changing, just as in the Heraclitean or Protagorean contentions; yet
this process of itself yields a unique measure of the fixed mean proportional between the interpolated means, and makes expressible
and commensurable the once irrational root of a rectangular number.
Indeed, this process of measuring or counting in an indeterminate dyad has proved to be revelatory of form, in the sense that it
creates the class of the expressible and defines the mixed category
of being. On the one hand, things need to be sorted before they can
be counted, and hence the knowledge of form has primacy over
measurement, and the ability to count depends upon the ability to
know. But it would seem in this case that the act of measurement
can itself be disclosive of form, and hence that knowing can depend
on counting. There appears therefore to be a dialectical relationship
between sorting and counting, which is reflected in a self-correcting,
enumerative theory of forms. This methodology of the Philebus can
be seen as reincorporating certain aspects of the Pythagorean, in the
sense that once again, knowledge has become coordinated with
measurement, and to know something is in some sense to comprehend its number.
Confidence in the grounds of an enumerative approach to the
sensible world—a confidence that may once have deserted Socrates
in the face of an irrational diameter, leading him, with Meno’s
honest slave, to the abyss of irony—can allow that significant guarantees of veracity will come from the method itself. There are, for
example, different ways to “count” or measure a phenomenon,
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each of them legitimate, based on the premises and aims of the
investigator, as the several alternate divisions of the sophist and the
statesman make clear. One measure of the truth of a hypothesis,
that such-and-such a form is a genuine unit, must, under this
method, be the economy and scope of the enumeration it affords,
as a unit in fact. A criterion for a successful articulation, a guarantor that a dialectical enumeration corresponds to a real one in the
world, must therefore be the elegance of that articulation, in terms
of the economy of means and breadth of cover which problemsolving mathematicians have always striven for in the concrete
practice of their art.
Indeed, it is an informed sense of respect for developments and
concrete formulations in the arts that seems to move the older
Plato. In the spheres of grammar and music, for example, although
it appears that an abstract analysis in terms of opposites, in the manner of the sofoí, may to some extent be applied in the interpretation of phenomena, by itself such abstract analysis simply does not
make you much of a useful theorist (17b-c). An investigation into
the numbers and kinds of sounds, on the other hand, or an enumeration of the different scales and modes and the vagaries of
rhythm—these, it seems, can truly render you wiser than the common run, in music and in grammar.
Behind this sensitivity of Plato’s to the enumerative and the
concrete aspects of the arts, as against the approach through dogmatic first principles, may rest his experience of the dramatic
changes in the mathematics of his day. A distinction like that
between the rational and the irrational, which must have seemed as
basic to the science as that between odd and even numbers—an
eternal, immutable opposition, seemingly a part and principle of the
order of things—was made obsolete by the emergence into history
of a new formulation through the mind of a single, brilliant practitioner. Recall that Theaetetus’ reforms began very humbly on the
level of classification and definition: he makes the distinction
between square and non-square the basic one for number, beyond
the distinctions between, say, odd and even or prime and compos-
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ite. But of itself this suggests a new way to approach the measurement of lengths, as geometric means, and this further yields, or
reveals, a third, formally distinct category of magnitude called
expressible. Experiencing this revolutionary development, as witness or participant, must lead a thinker away from a view of tà
mavhmatiká as eternal, innate verities that can be investigated and
learned as though by recollection, towards a view of mathematics
that must acknowledge the importance and ingenuity of the problem-solver in situ, together with the power of classifications, definitions and measurements to reveal, or to obscure, the fundamental
nature of their objects. As the traditional theory of forms and the
doctrine of mávhsi$ ¡námnhsi$ can be seen as responding to the
ontology and epistemology of the earlier geometry, so can a selfcorrecting, enumerative theory of forms be seen as a response to the
ontological and epistemological implications of the new mathematics and a dynamic measurement science.
Insofar as other arts aspire to the mathematical, the new philosophical outlook must also apply to them; although, to be fair, the
provisional, enumerative approach would have long since guided
the formulations of practitioners in music and grammar, without a
felt need for a mathematical paradigm or a philosopher’s blessing.
Perhaps one should credit Plato only with waking up to the new
realities of science and art around him, much in the spirit of later
revolutions in philosophy. One need not qualify, however, one’s
estimate of the implications of this change of view for Plato’s political thought; they are as great as the differences between the
Republic and the Laws. In this vein, while Plato’s guardians had
learnt their lessons and then interpreted the world, so that nature
and politics alike would have been for them a kind of applied mathematics, Plato’s statesman is of an altogether different mould of
mathematician. He is a problem solver, in amongst it like a navigator or a physician, who must be able to adapt his laws to suit changing conditions, or improve upon his formulations to serve the present (see Politicus 295c ff., 300c). It is of course notorious that the
guardians’ inability to solve a problem—the numbering of love, and
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40
its irrational quantities—leads inexorably to the degeneration of
their regime.
*
*
*
*
*
*
In Metaphysics N, Aristotle introduces his redaction and criticism of the Platonist (or Academic) metaphysics with this statement:
“All thinkers make the principles opposites (pánte$ dè poioûsi
tà$ ¡rcà$ ™nantía$, 1087a30).” There appear to have been
various schools of thought among Academic ontologists, all of
whom posited the unit as a first principle or “element,” but each of
whom disagreed as to the nature of the opposite principle, whether
it was the “greater-and-less” or the “unequal” or “plurality”.
Aristotle makes short shrift of all these formulations, as they treat
affections and attributes and relative terms as substances (1088a16).
In N.2, he mentions a group who posit the indeterminate dyad as
the opposed element, as a way of getting around some difficulties in
the other versions; but it is still a relative principle, and in addition,
all these formulations fall to Aristotle’s argument that eternal things
simply cannot be composed of elements (1088b28-35).
Aristotle then feels, before he adumbrates his own approach to
ontology, that he must explain why these thinkers ever came up
with formulations so narrow and forced, constrained as they are by
the dogma of opposed principles (1088b35 ff.). His answer is that
they had framed the problem of ontological multiplicity in an oldfashioned way (¡rcaikô$, 1089a1-2), for they were still arguing
in response to certain paradoxes of Parmenides. The implications of
this reconstruction of recent intellectual history are decisive both
for our sense of Aristotle’s access to Plato, and for our knowledge
of Academic thought and its relation to Plato. All the Academics,
and thus Plato as well, are said to reason about existence in terms
of an opposed pair of first principles—always the unit and something else; they do this under the direct influence of Parmenides,
perhaps as part of a tradition of arguing against certain eristic dogmas of his, such as the one which Aristotle quotes:
DAVID
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o∞ gàr m≠pote toûto dam˜, e–nai m± ™ónta
For this may never be enforced, that things which are
not, are.
These thinkers are said to have felt that the possibility of multiplicity in the world would be threatened unless Parmenides were
refuted, and some other thing than unity or being were allowed to
exist. This was the origin of the “relative” principles that stood
opposite the unit. The unit and the indeterminate dyad, on this
scheme of Aristotle’s, are but one alternative among several pairs of
first principles proposed by different Academic philosophers.
The first thing to note is that the Philebus itself is Plato’s direct
and unambiguous criticism of the ontological reasoning based on
two opposed principles, in favour of a technical, empirical, enumerative approach. From the perspective of philosophical method, the
dialogue can hardly be said to have any other point. Plato conceived
of his enumerative method as a more illuminating and more useful
way of articulating phenomena, which comes to yield significant
new categories in the analysis of being (e.g., the mixed one and the
cause of mixing). No further clue seems to be necessary for the conclusion: Aristotle, somehow or another, has entirely missed the
point of Plato’s late formulations, by classing them with the type
that Plato himself characterises as eristic rather than dialectical, and
from which he most particularly wants to distinguish his own.
The next point, however, is that there must actually have been
a vigorous tradition of thought which both preceded Plato and
outlasted him in his own Academy, characterised by the use of
opposites as first principles. To believe so much is the only way to
attach any seriousness to Aristotle’s redaction. This tradition originates with Parmenides, and must once have included Plato in its
ranks, again if one is to pay any respect to Aristotle’s judgement.
But Plato came to argue against such thinkers not only in the
Philebus, but also in the Sophist, where they are called “the friends
of the forms (o‹ tôn e£dôn fíloi, 248a).” These were the lat-
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ter-day champions of eternal, immutable, unmixing forms, the
kind of weary theoretical construct that is often now taught as
Platonism. When the differences seem so clear, the question must
become: How could Plato’s new “mixed” ontology have come to
be confused with the old-fashioned approach through polar principles?
Recall that on my reading of the Philebus, there are for Plato
three ontological realms apart from the agent of cause. The first is
the realm of the limit, the realm of arithmetic, whose principle is
the unit. The second is the realm of the unlimited; its principle,
analytically opposed to the unit, is the dual greater-and-less, the
principle of irrational flux. The third realm is that of the mixed
beings, which I have interpreted as the realm of measurable things.
Its principles are two, and reflect the two ways that magnitudes
may be numbered or made commensurable, absolutely in terms of
the unit or relatively (but uniquely) by an indeterminate dyad. The
thing to note is that the unit appears as a principle twice in this
scheme, opposed in two different ways to two different things. The
distinction between the unit and the greater-and-less is strictly analytic, and belongs squarely in the Parmenidean tradition; whereas
the distinction between the unit and the indeterminate dyad is
merely descriptive, serving to recognise ways of applying numbers
inside the sphere of measurement that happen not to arise in arithmetic. The unit and the dyad are therefore not opposites; they are
simply different.
If a thinker in the Parmenidean tradition, or a historian of the
Parmenidean tradition, were to interpret Plato’s scheme in light of
their own practices, or to force it into a Parmenidean mould to flatter a historical premise, the conflation of the two distinctions would
be an inevitable result. If the Philebus could not be consulted—if it
were ågrafo$ in the sense “unpublished”—no recourse could be
had to the original reasoning; but even if there were such recourse,
Plato’s three realms of number, magnitude, and measure, and the
important differences between the distinctions unit/greater-and-less
and unit/indeterminate dyad, could only be understood in light of
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an underlying mathematical paradigm, as I have argued. Such a
thinker or such a historian would not be likely to know or to care
about the analytic possibilities in one dimension. (This is as much as
to say, he would not know what was meant by the indeterminate
dyad.) He will look for the polar principles in any ontological
scheme; at best he will see that the indeterminate dyad must connote something different from the greater-and-less, as the principle
chosen to stand opposite the unit. But he will never envision a
scheme that encompasses both oppositions.
The question next to ask is whether it was his Academic
sources, or whether it was Aristotle himself who did not understand
the mathematical meaning of the indeterminate dyad. There is
intriguing evidence in Metaphysics M and N for the latter interpretation. It would seem that his sources were in the dark about this
too; but whatever one concludes about the Academy, there is evidence that Aristotle had Plato’s accounts at hand either to quote or
to paraphrase, and that he could not make sense of them.
In N.1 (1087b7 ff.), Aristotle mentions a group of thinkers who
attempt to generate the numbers, o‹ ¡rivmoí, from the “unequal
dyad of the great and small,” taken as a material principle in relation to the formal “one,” and someone else who would generate
them from the principle of plurality. (He probably intends, respectively, the followers of Plato and Speusippus.) The generation of
numbers does not seem to have been a concern of Plato’s, however; the “problem” of multiplicity, or of how things can be both one
and many, which when posed by Parmenides might have led his successors to theorise in the abstract about the generating of numbers,
seems to be regarded in the Philebus (14c-15a, 16c-17a) as merely
a staple of the eristic paradoxes, now subsumed within the premises of Socrates’ concrete enumerative approach. Which is to say, it
appears that Plato is no longer so interested in number theory as he
is in simply counting. I am therefore inclined to think that neither
the above-mentioned group nor the ‘someone else’ represents
Plato’s line of argument, or Plato’s understanding of the unequal
dyad. Aristotle bears this out by going on immediately to mention
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an individual who speaks of the one and the unequal dyad as ontological elements (1087b9), thereby distinguishing him from the
group who had used them (afterwards, I presume) as formal and
material elements in the generation of numbers. Aristotle’s complaint about this individual is that he does not make the distinction
that the unequal dyad of great and small is one thing in formula
(lóg¨), but not in number (¡rivmõ).
Why would not Plato have made this distinction? The unequal
dyad is not one thing in formula alone: the successive pairs of interpolated numbers relate uniquely to one object as well, the side of
the square that is their single geometric mean. Further, since it consists of successively more equal sides of a single rectangular number,
the dyad can quite emphatically and strikingly be said to be of one
number, with a rationale that Aristotle might have appreciated if he
had been more familiar with the construction.
On this model of progressively “equalised” rectangular numbers, we have a transparent motivation for the original formulation
of terms like “unequal,” “indeterminate dyad,” “greater-and-lesser,” and “exceeding and exceeded,” which find their way into the
theories of Plato’s followers. In addition—and this point would
seem to be decisive for the interpretation—we should expect to
find them opposed in this context to a concept of the unit which is
associated with the square or “equal”. On no other grounds but
those of the new measurement science, as I have described them
here, would such an association be expected. Sure enough, the unit
in these theories is described as the equal (1087b5, 1092b1), in
such a way as to mystify not only Aristotle but also modern interpreters of these passages.
Neither Aristotle nor his Academic sources seem to connect
these various expressions with geometrical representations of number; the theories on the generation of numbers betray no influence
of Theaetetus’ square/oblong distinction, nor of the geometrical
interpretation of number that is settled convention by the time of
Euclid. The Academics seem to have posited “ideal” numbers which
were generated individually in succession (two, three, four, as
DAVID
45
Aristotle says in M.7 1081a23, and so without distinction as to
square or oblong) from the unit and the indeterminate dyad.
Aristotle takes some pains to make sense of this theory: if the units
(monads) of ideal numbers are all the same and addible, then they
are not ideal at all, but normal mathematical numbers (cf.
1081a19); but if the monads of each ideal number are distinct and
inaddible, they must be generated before each of their respective
numbers can be generated, as a point of logic (1081a26 ff.). This is
true no matter how these monads are generated; but Aristotle once
more quotes “he who first said it” (› prôto$ e£pµn, 1081a24)—
again distinguishing him from those who later used such phrases as
the “unequal dyad”—to allude to a possible mechanism for this generation of inaddible monads (¡súmblhtoi monáde$): they arise
out of unequals, once these are equalised (™x ¡níswn (£sasvéntwn gàr ™génonto)).
To begin with, Aristotle cannot rightly make attribution to
anyone of a theory on the generation of inaddible monads. As he
says, no one actually spoke that way (1081a36). Aristotle, perhaps
himself in reaction against the eristic movement, constructs these
arguments to save his opponents from the obvious fallacy of ideal
numbers composed of normal, identical, addible monads; yet the
alternative, unstated by them, but which he says follows reasonably from their own premises, turns out to be impossible as well,
if truth be told (1081b1). There is therefore no reason to suppose
that Plato thought or said that the generation of inaddible monads, or any monads, was connected with his notion of the unequal.
On the contrary; Plato seems to have anticipated Aristotle’s notion
of the unit as a measure, both in the intuitions of the enumerative
method and in the specifically mathematical context. At 57d-e, the
distinction is made in the Philebus between the units of the arithmetic of the many, which change as different things are counted,
and those of the arithmetic of the philosophisers, which are always
identical. It would of course have been an easy (but pointless) solution to the problem of the irrational to say that incommensurables
are simply measured by different unit lengths than commensurables.
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The enumeration of Theaetetus and Plato, on the other hand, is
predicated on the assumption of identical units. While some lengths
still remain incommensurable on these terms, all the formerly irrational square roots become expressible through an indeterminate
dyad, and the achievement of this articulation would be lost without the assumption.
What can be attributed to Plato, however, is that his notion of
the unequal involved a process of equalizing it. In neither place in
M where Aristotle mentions this idea (as above, and at 1083b24)
can he make anything of it, nor does it seem to have any intuitive
connection to the Academic number-generation theories he covers
there. The only conclusion, I suggest, is that Aristotle refers to this
conception of the unequal merely because he knows it to have been
true of Plato’s thought. The “Platonists” speak of the unequal as a
generative principle, Aristotle might have reasoned, and who knows
what they mean, as to how it generates; Plato himself also spoke of
the unequal, and the only action he attributed to it was “being
equalized”; perhaps this was somehow the “generating action,” as
obscure as that seems; one ought therefore to mention what the old
man said, in fairness to them. In N, Aristotle for the first time mentions a number-generation theory which did, perhaps, try to interpret the process; it first declares that there is no generation of odd
numbers at all, and that the even numbers are generated out of the
great and small when these are equalised. Aristotle’s criticism of the
logic of this account verges on the sarcastic: faneròn Øti o∞ toû
vewrêsai ‰neken poioûsi t±n génesin tôn ¡rivmôn.
(“Clearly, it is not on account of philosophical theorizing that they
produce their generation of the numbers.” 1091a29) Neither
Aristotle, for whom the notion seemed fatuously self-contradictory,
nor these latter theorists, for whom it was received dogma, could
have known the original mathematical context, for neither could
interpret or properly apply the notion that the unequal as an elemental principle involved a process of being equalized. We can now
restore the context, in the process of “equalizing” an unequal,
oblong number with an indeterminate dyad of more and more
DAVID
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equal rational factors. (It is particularly striking that these latter
Academics seemed to know that the notion “unequal-when-it-isequalized” served in such a way as to divide all numbers, but they
tried, with dismal consequence, to apply it to the familiar, venerable distinction between odd and even; they must have been unaware
of the division of numbers by square and oblong, which supplanted
the earlier distinction in the course of Theaetetus’ study of irrational roots, and where alone the notion of the “equalized unequal”
has any use or coherence.)
“Those who say the unequal is some one thing, making the
indeterminate dyad from great and small, say things that are far
indeed from being likely or possible,” in Aristotle’s view (M.1,
1088a15). He complains that to adopt such ideas is really to adopt
his lowly Category of the “relative” as a substantial, unitary first
principle. Something is great or small only in relation to something
else. Unlike the superior Categories of quality and quantity, which
have more substance because they involve absolute change, whether
by alteration or increase, there is no such change proper to the
Category of the relative. While a compared term may remain substantially the same, it becomes greater or less merely by quantitative
change in the other term. Aristotle is therefore at a loss as to why
such metaphysical honour should be paid to concepts that are
inherently relative.
Plato could have replied: “Consider the nature of measurement
toward the generation of the mean.” In this process, the relative
terms do not depend simply on each other, but both are related to
an unchanging third thing, a single geometric mean. Furthermore,
the pairs of relative terms are uniquely related to their proper mean,
the root of a particular oblong number. And because the greater and
lesser lengths approach closer than any given difference to the
unchanging length of the root, their status in relation to this length,
qua members of an infinite succession of approximating pairs, poses
a heady puzzle for any common-sense idea of their ontological difference from, or identity with, this single length. There is therefore
every reason to see the indeterminate dyad of great and small, a self-
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correcting binary approximation of a single geometric mean, as a
unitary and substantial thing in its proper mathematical context.
But if the context was lost, and one had access only to the words in
its name, then Aristotle’s objections might seem judicious.
That Aristotle knew about the geometry of means is clear
enough, but he must not have been familiar with the interpolation
of means in the peculiar configuration of the indeterminate dyad,
where means become extremes, which in turn beget means, which
then in turn become extremes, while each pair of harmonic and
arithmetic means serves as the extremes to the geometric mean in
the middle. The notion of relativity embodied in this configuration,
involving a process of equalising, and motion towards a fixed
object, is more subtle and peculiar than that involved in a simple
comparison, or even a static analysis expressed in terms of a mean
and extremes. I claim it is this peculiar conception of the relative
that Plato raised to the level of a principle, to stand in tandem with
the absolute measure connoted by the unit.
While the Academic metaphysicians may appear to have used
these very same principles, right down to the letter of their formulation, it is clear that neither they nor Aristotle grasped their proper function. They have nothing to do with accounting for multiplicity in the universe, or with the generation of numbers. They
have everything to do with the measurement of numbers. After
Theaetetus, numbers are figured as square or rectangular; they can
be compared not only in quantity, but in size, by the length of their
square roots, just as after Euclid’s II.14, any rectilinear figures can
be compared by the sides of their equivalent squares. While all
numbers have either absolutely or relatively measurable rootlengths, not all lengths have countable squares. This is one of the
odd new ways that arithmetic and geometry, number and magnitude, become interlinked after Theaetetus’ happy reformulation.
It is therefore in this context, the context of measurement, that
Plato is likely to have distinguished the absolute from the relative,
being-in-itself from relative being. Aristotle alludes to just such a
distinction, in a passage which once again exemplifies his peculiar
DAVID
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mire: he wants to review the Academic theories on the generation
of multiplicity based on certain contrary principles, including principles first conceived by Plato, but conceived in a context where in
some cases they weren’t even contraries, and where they had had
nothing to do with generating either multiplicity or numbers; he
knows the language of Plato’s own articulation of these principles,
but doesn’t have the mathematics to interpret the words. In this
case, he may even foist his own innovations in usage back on to
Plato’s original phrases, just to make sense of them.
At 1089b16, Aristotle once again invokes “he who says these
things,” claiming this time that this person had also proved for himself (prosapef≠nato) that that which was potentially a “this” and
substance (tò dunámei tóde kaì o∞sía) was not “existent in
itself ” (πn kav afltó); it was the “relative” (tò pró$ ti). What
the expression “potentially a ’this’ and substance” may have meant
for Plato is a difficult thing to determine. In particular, Aristotle
seems to take dunámei, with obvious anachronism, in his own characteristic sense of “potentially”; he had just now used the word this
way when introducing part of his own familiar solution to ontological analysis, that we must hypothesize in each case what a thing is
potentially (¡nágkh mèn oun...flpoveînai tò dunámei πn
flkást¨, 1089b15-16). Perhaps Aristotle is here weaving his own
terminology into the Platonic materials? But his next comment is a
scholium, on Plato’s appropriation of the term “relative,” that it is
just as if he had said “quality” (¸sper e£ eªpe tò poión); and
there was never a scholium without a text.
So what could the Greek text “tò dunámei tóde kaì
o∞sía” have meant to Plato? Recall Knorr’s observation that
dúnami$ and dunámei mean “square” and “in square” throughout
Greek mathematical literature. (The only exception is the very passage in the Theaetetus [148a] where the eponymous hero applies
the term dúnami$, for the first time, to a square root.) Thus in
Plato’s context, the same words may well have signified “that which
has particularity and existence in square”—i.e., that which is countable (because it is commensurable) only in square (dunámei), like
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the expressible as against the rational lines. It is these very magnitudes which one could expect to find distinguished as relative in
their being, insofar as their being depends on their measure; the
rational lengths, on the other hand, have the self-subsistent being of
definite quantity, in length and in square, while the irrational lines,
which cannot be made commensurable in either length or square,
are captive to the realm of flux and non-being. If Plato equated
“that which has being” with “that which can be counted”—and his
enumerative method suggests a move in this direction—then it is
entirely and specifically appropriate that that which has being in
square be allowed only a relative existence. It has no autonomous
number, but only a relative count. Even the phrase pró$ ti may
have had a specific connotation for Plato, which is lost in the
anachronistic aura of the Categories; for such beings are measured
by a process that is inherently pró$ ti, “towards something,” measurement toward the generation of the mean. Plato’s distinction
would have been between that which exists or is measured on its
own terms (tò πn kav afltó)—the equal, the square, and rational lengths—and that which exists or is measured toward something
else (tò πn pró$ ti), the unequal being equalized, the rectangle
approaching the square, and the indeterminate dyad approximating
the mean.
It seems clear that any such significance in these phrases could
never have been allowed to emerge through the schemata of
Aristotle’s redaction. He explains (1089b4 ff.) that in response to
the diversion caused by Parmenides, the philosophers posited the
relative and the unequal as the types of opposed principle which,
when mated with being and the unit, generated a manifold reality.
He points out, however, that neither of these posited principles is in
fact the contrary (™nantíon) or the negation (¡pófasi$) of being
and unity; each is rather another single nature among the things that
exist (mía fusi$ tôn øntwn). This is also the point of his critical scholium on Plato’s use of the phrase pró$ ti: the Category
“relative” is no more a legitimate candidate than the Category
“quality” for that contrary and negation of being and the unit which
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the Academics were supposed to be seeking; each is simply “some
one” of the beings (‰n ti tôn øntwn, 1089b20). He goes on to
complain that if Plato had meant to explain how things in general
are many, he shouldn’t have confined his investigation to things that
lie in the same Category (whether this be “substance” or “quality”
or “quantity,” let alone the insubstantial “relative”).
The sense of this reading ranges from the misguided to the wilfully obtuse. In the first instance, we cannot fault Plato for failing
either to prophesy or to apply the revolutionary insights into
ontology expressed in Aristotle’s theory of the Categories. Nor can
we fault him for not being interested any longer, as indeed he wasn’t, in the problem of how things are many. Still less can we fault
him for giving up the reasoning by opposites. He would of course
have agreed that his conception of the relative, in the configuration
of the indeterminate dyad, is in no sense the opposite of the unit
and its measure, but simply a different way of measuring, based
also on the unit, that applies to certain types of being (i.e., certain
two-dimensional numbers and one-dimensional magnitudes—
oblongs and their roots). But the full picture of Aristotle’s plight as
a redactor emerges when one throws in the fact that Plato’s complete formulation did in fact include a genuine opposition as well,
between the unit and the greater-and-less qua greater and less. One
then has a recipe for the peculiar quandary of Metaphysics M and
N towards Platonic thought, based in part on unwitting conflations, but in part also on flagrant, self-serving anachronisms, and
characterised by a haplessness in the face of Plato’s own expressions, when read in light of their borrowed use in the irrelevant
theories of the Academy.
A question remains: where did Aristotle get those “texts” of
Plato, which he seems to treat as quoted material? Although the distinction between absolute and relative being may be consistent with
the Philebus and with other ontological discussions in the later
Plato, the specific phrases which Aristotle comments on, such as tò
dunámei tóde kaì o∞sía, do not seem to occur in the dialogues.
Where, then, did Plato draw this mathematical distinction, and to
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52
what did he apply it? Was it perhaps in a Lecture on The Good—a
lecture which seemed to promise moral philosophy, but delivered
mathematics—a lecture which nobody understood?
*
*
*
*
*
*
The mathematical development of ancient measurement science will prove much easier to trace than its philosophical obfuscation at the hands of Academics and Peripatetics. As forbidding
as the structure of Euclid’s Elements X seems to be, I believe its
logic is profoundly simple, following directly in the spirit of
Plato’s enumerative method, and upon Theaetetus’ geometrical
interpretation of number.
After Theaetetus’ first efforts had rendered all the square roots
countable, he next sought to extend his classificatory net even further into the uncharted regions of the irrational. He could use his
already successful methods as a paradigm: since exploring numbers
in terms of the means between them had yielded the class of
expressible lines, he was led to explore the possibility of means
between the expressible lengths themselves, and the possibility of
irrational means. While in general such means could not be “counted off,” since the expressible lengths, treated as extremes, had not
the fixed values necessary for a computation of means, the mean
lengths could still be constructed and named with respect to rational lengths; just as at the time of the Meno, the root length of the
double square could not as yet be counted, but it could be constructed within the unit square and was named “diameter” (or the
“through-measure”) by the professors (Meno 85b). Orders of irrationals could thus be defined in terms of means, though they could
not be made commensurable.
Just such an assignment of orders is credited to Theaetetus by
Pappus, in his commentary on Elements X, on the authority of
Eudemus’ history of mathematics (now lost):
...it was...Theaetetus...who divided the more generally
known irrational lines according to the different means,
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assigning the medial line to geometry, the binomial to
arithmetic, and the apotome to harmony, as is stated by
Eudemus, the Peripatetic.32
The passage does not suggest that Theaetetus invented the three
lines and their names, but only that he first saw the essential parallelism between the structure of their relations and those of the
familiar means. The medial simply is the geometric mean between
two expressible lengths. That is why it is called méso$, the mean
proportional; the name “medial” serves only to distinguish it in
English. The binomial is a sum of two expressible lengths, and so
can be associated with the arithmetic mean, which is half the sum
of two rational lengths; but the apotome is merely a difference of
expressible lengths, and the connection with the harmonic mean is
less obvious. This also comes clear, however, as one recalls the fundamental feature of pairs of arithmetic and harmonic means which
makes possible the measurement by an indeterminate dyad: if one
applies a rectangle contained by rational extremes to the length of
their arithmetic mean, the height of the new rectangle turns out to
be the length of their harmonic mean. Euclid’s X.112-14 illustrate
a significantly parallel property of binomials and apotomes: if one
were to apply the same rational rectangle to a length that was
known to be a binomial, the height would turn out to be an apotome; further, and curiously enough, the expressible terms of such
a binomial and an apotome would be commensurable with each
other, and in the same ratio. If Theaetetus was responsible for these
propositions, he might well have been led to view the binomial and
apotome as “irrational means” between rational extremes, or as
irrational factors of an oblong number, counterparts to the rational
arithmetic and harmonic means.
It is clear, however, that Euclid’s presentation is not designed as
a theory of means. The bulk of his 115 propositions in Book X are
concerned with enumerating and constructing twelve different
kinds of binomial and apotome, making with the medial thirteen
types of irrational line; the full list is given by Euclid after Prop.
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111, before the proofs that establish the analogy between the binomials and apotomes, and the arithmetic and harmonic means. The
rationale for this enumeration becomes more apparent if one considers David Fowler’s handy grouping of the propositions:
X1-18: general properties of expressible lines and rectangles,
X19-26: medial lines and rectangles,
X27-35: constructions underlying binomials and apotomes,
X36-41, 42-7, 48-53, 54-9, 60-5, 66-70, & 71-2:
blocks of propositions dealing with each of the six types
of additive irrational lines. They are described in X3641 and also, in a different geometrical configuration, in
the Second Definitions following X47,
X73-8, 79-84, 85-90, 91-6, 97-102, 103-7, & 108-10:
blocks of propositions, parallel to the previous, dealing
with each of the six types of subtractive irrational lines.
They are described in X73-8 and also, in a different
geometrical configuration, in the Third Definitions following X84,
X111-14: the relations between binomials and
apotomes,
X115: medials of medials...
As Fowler himself observes, the propositions seem to represent an
exploration of the “simplest operations of adding, subtracting, and
squaring pairs of expressibles.” Before Theaetetus classified them in
relation to the different rational means, the binomial and apotome
may have first been distinguished and defined as part of an investigation of the “arithmetic” of expressible lengths. An investigator
might have said, if we are to understand the expressibles the way we
understand numbers—and indeed, numbers are the very paradigms
of our understanding—then we must comprehend their arithmetic;
what might the manipulations of arithmetic look like when applied
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to expressible lines?
Whereas the prospect of such an investigation might have
daunted the most optimistic of researchers, with its seeming openendedness and unlimited number of possible cases, Euclid was
able, by manipulating squares and rectangles, to organize the
infinite additions and subtractions of expressible lengths into six
types each. Thus Euclid accomplished the first ever rigorous ordering of radically incommensurable lengths, as the sums and differences of expressible ones. One cannot measure these sums and differences as such, and so one cannot “count off ” the irrational lines
that are produced; but one can number their types, and enumerate
their orders.
While the fundamental early propositions of Book X are generally credited to Theaetetus, and the propositions about mean proportionals (“medials”) seem to suit his historical and mathematical
character, the enumeration of the binomials and apotomes must
belong to Euclid. Pappus says that Euclid, following Theaetetus,
“determined...many orders of the irrationals; and brought to light,
finally, whatever of finitude (or definiteness) is to be found in
them.” This should naturally refer to his ordering of possible binomials and apotomes, and the enumeration of six corresponding
types. Though they do not depend on the proofs involved in
Euclid’s enumeration, Theaetetus’ propositions, about the relations
between binomials and apotomes, are then placed by Euclid at the
end of Book X, so that they can be expressed in terms of that enumeration, and take on a new authority: each pair belongs to one of
six sets of ordered pairs of binomials and apotomes whose terms
turn out to be commensurable and in the same ratio; each pair consists of corresponding members of one of a finite number of possible combinations of additive and subtractive expressible lengths.
It is possible, then, to trace the genesis of Book X in this way:
Theaetetus first extended the insights of measurement toward the
generation of the mean by using the three means involved in that
science as heuristic paradigms with which to interpret irrational
magnitudes. Just as an expressible length is a geometric mean
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between rational extremes, a medial length is a mean proportional
between expressible extremes; and just as arithmetic and harmonic
means are pairs of commensurable rational factors of the rectangle
contained by the extremes of their interval, binomials and apotomes
are pairs of irrational factors of the same rectangle. In his investigation of binomials and apotomes, Euclid discovered their classification, and thereby produced an ordering of irrationals in terms of
possible types of sum and difference—an arithmetic of expressible
lines. This in turn advanced the classificatory scope of Theaetetus’
propositions on the relations between binomials and apotomes,
when they were placed after Euclid’s work, at the end of Book X.
While Theaetetus could likely have proved that a rational area
applied to a binomial produces an apotome as breadth, and that the
terms of these irrational factors are commensurable and in the same
ratio, Euclid could now add, as he does in the enunciations of
Propositions 112 and 113, that such a binomial and an apotome
belong to the same order.
David Fowler approaches the book from a very different angle,
as part of his reconstruction of the ancient mathematics of ¡nvufaíresi$. He proposes an anthyphairetic theory of ratio, where
ratios between quantities are described by counting the number of
mutual subtractions which can occur between them: one counts the
number of times the lesser subtracts from the greater, then the number of times the remainder can be taken away from the lesser, then
the remainder of that transaction from the former remainder, and
so on; the list of numbers thus produced gives a unique description
of the particular ratio. He finds evidence for the historical existence
of this approach in several quarters, including a direct allusion in
Aristotle’s Topics to a definition of same ratio as same antanairesis
; and he sees the peculiar implications of this ratio theory as providing the most economical of many proposed rationales for the
total sequence and layout of Euclid’s Book II. The most surprising
fact he uncovers is a remarkable periodicity that arises in the anthyphairetic description of ratios of the form √m:√n—that is, ratios of
expressible lines.
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The achievement of Fowler’s work is to have rediscovered, and
in some measure to have resurrected in our day, the other branch of
measurement science, measurement prò$ ållhla. The periodic
repetition of the terms in the otherwise infinite mutual subtraction
of expressible quantities would have been the great discovery of this
science; as Fowler observes:
Those ratios that can be now completely understood
and described in finite terms by the arithmoi include the
ratios of the sides of commensurable squares, that is the
ratios of expressible lines √m:√n...
Note how fitly this parallels the development I have
described in the science of measurement toward the generation
of the mean: those lengths which can now be uniquely measured
in terms of the ¡rivmoí include these same expressible lines,
the sides of commensurable squares.
As far as the rationale for Euclid’s Book X is concerned,
however, Fowler’s reconstruction of the mathematics of anthyphairesis shows only why the relations between expressible lines
would have seemed a thing worth investigating. We gain no
insight into the specific form of the book as we have it, into its
method and structure in the classification of the irrationals;
these are better explained as an integral outgrowth of the new
science proposed in Plato’s Politicus, the science of measurement
toward the generation of the mean. This is not just because
Theaetetus is said to have classified the irrationals in terms of the
different means. Consider that the entire investigative strategy
of Book X, including the work I have ascribed to Euclid, is to
manipulate squares and rectangles, a manipulation in two
dimensions, in such a way as to distinguish and to enumerate the
forms of the associated lines. This approach was born with the
science of measurement toward the mean, on one fateful day. As
he lies dying off-stage, the story is told of how the young
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Theaetetus, Theodorus’ student, on the day of Socrates’ appearance in court, divided all numbers between the square and the
oblong, and distinguished two kinds of line as the sides of
squares equal to each kind of number. The “square side” of an
oblong number is the geometric mean between the sides of the
oblong. The names Theaetetus chose for these two lengths,
mêko$ and dúnami$, did not survive, for the implications of a
classification by sides of squares made the distinction itself obsolete: both kinds of length would now be called @htá, expressible. But the technique applied in his classification was to direct
the exploration of lines to its crowning achievement, in the enumerations of Euclid’s Book X.
We ought, however late, to acknowledge the dramatist who
saw the significance of such a day for history, saw it in a way that
must combine the personal and the universal, the historical and
the mathematical. Innovations in mathematics must have moved
that man in a way that made even innovation in religion seem a
distant charge, a memory of youthful import. We must come to
recognise the changes in this chronicler of the human argument,
as he took his bearings anew, and found new patterns, enumerative structures, emerging in a discourse that strains to keep
pace—paradigms of order no longer laid up in heaven, yet resonant, perhaps, with a piece of divinity. His myth of the globe’s
reversal (Politicus 268d-274e) encompasses a deteriorating
world, but also a return, through the numbering of its classes
and kinds, to the elegance of god’s tenure. Let him stand
absolved at last of the mystifications of his followers: Plato’s
own measures, his own mysteries, must finally furnish our count.
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2. Wilbur R. Knorr and Miles F. Burnyeat, “Methodology, Philology, and
Philosophy,” Isis, 1979, 70:565-70
3. Miles Burnyeat, “The Philosophical Sense of Theaetetus’ Mathematics,”
Isis, 1978, 69:489-513, on pg. 513, pg. 513
4. Knorr, Evolution, pg. 192
5. Ibid., pg. 192
6. Ibid., pg. 69 ff.
7. Ibid., pg. 96 (In full: “(a) The proofs are demonstrably valid. (b) The
treatment by special cases and the stopping at 17 are necessitated by the
methods of proof employed. (c) The proofs will be understood to apply to
an infinite number of cases. (d) No use may be made of the dichotomy of
square and oblong numbers in Theodorus’ studies, either in the demonstrations or in the choice of cases to be treated. (e) Theodorus’ proofs utilize the
special relations of the lines in the construction of the dynameis. The geometrical methods of construction are of the type characteristic of metrical
geometry as developed in Elements II and are closely associated with a certain early style of arithmetic theory. (f) But the arithmetic methods by which
Theaetetus could prove the two general theorems, on the incommensurability of lines associated with non-square and non-cubic integers, were not
available to Theodorus.”
8. Malcolm Brown, “Theaetetus: Knowledge as Continued Learning,”
Journal of the History of Philosophy, 1969, 7:359-79, on pgs. 3678
9. Knorr, Evolution, pg. 158
10. This proof is given by Knorr, Evolution, pg. 184
11. Ibid., pg. 159
12. see Euclid’s Elements X Def. 3
NOTES:
1. Wilbur R. Knorr, Evolution of the Euclidean Elements
(Dordrecht and Boston: D. Reidel Pub. Co., 1975), pgs. 65-9
13. see Plato’s Politicus, 278b-e
14. see Euclid, The Elements, 3 vols., Vol. 3, ed. Sir Thomas Heath
(Annapolis: St. John’s College Press, 1947), pg. 3
15. see Euclid II.14 and VI.13
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16. Brown, “Theaetetus,” pg. 371 ff.
17. Proclus, In Platonis Timaeum Commentaria, 3 vols., Vol. 2, ed.
Ernst Diehl (Leipzig: Teubner, 1903-6), pgs. 173-4
18. Brown, “Theaetetus,” pg. 371
19. see David H. Fowler, The Mathematics of Plato’s Academy
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), pg. 14 ff.
20. see Plato’s Timaeus 36a for this usage
21. The reading of B and T; editors usually read to )to
22. Brown, “Theaetetus,” pgs. 376-7
23. Ibid., pg. 377
24. see Theaetetus, 185c
25. Brown, “Theaetetus,” pg. 374
26. quoted in Brown, “Theaetetus,” pg. 373, note 38
27. Euclid, X.1
28. Brown, “Theaetetus,” pg. 379
29. Julia Annas, Aristotle’s Metaphysics Books M and N, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1976, pg. 195
30. Ibid.
31. Knorr, Evolution, pgs. 65-9
32. tr. W.Thomson and G.Junge, in Fowler, Mathematics, pg. 301
33. Fowler, Mathematics, pgs. 169-70
34. Ibid., pg. 192
35. tr. Thomson and Junge, in Fowler, Mathematics, pg. 301
36. Fowler, Mathematics, pg. 17 ff., and see Aristotle, Topics 158b
37. Ibid., pg. 192
38. see Ibid., pgs. 190-1
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63
Moral Reform in Measure for
Measure
Laurence Berns
(St. John’s College, Annapolis)
To what extent are the principles of classical political philosophy and the American polity reconcilable? The Declaration of
Independence did not mean, Lincoln tells us, that all men are equal
in all respects. The Declaration, however, presupposes that the difference between man and man is never as great as the difference
between man and beast, on the one hand, and man and God, on the
other. This “equality” by superiority to beasts and inferiority to the
divine sets limits both to human servitude and to human sovereignty.1 These principles issue in the rule of prudence that just government derives its authority from the consent of the governed. This
equality, as Locke put it, “in respect of Jurisdiction or Dominion
one over another” is not incompatible with the classical principle of
fundamental inequalities in capacities to govern. As a matter of fact
the institution of free elections (the Declaration’s “Right to
Representation”) introducing a principle of merit into the system is
predicated on the existence of such inequalities of ability, and the
capacities of electors roughly to discern them. (This does not, of
course, mean that the judgment of the electors is always correct, but
that it is sufficiently deliberate and well-informed to avoid disasters
that would unhinge the very frame of government.)
The classical position on democracy has been put, I believe,
with great clarity by Thomas Aquinas quoting St. Augustine:
If the people have a sense of moderation and responsibility and are most careful guardians of the common
weal, it is their right to enact a law allowing such a people to choose their own magistrates for the government
Delivered at the Convention of the American Political Science Association,
September 1993, The Washington Hilton Hotel, Washington, D.C.
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THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
of the commonwealth. But if, as time goes on, the same
people become so corrupt as to sell their votes and
entrust the government to scoundrels and criminals,
then the right of appointing their public officials is
rightly forfeit to such a people, and the choice devolves
to a few good men. [S.T., I-II, Q. 97, A. 1.]
I have no problem with this statement in principle, despite the
questionable practicality of its remedy for corruption. As Benjamin
Franklin put it, “If any form of government is capable of making a
nation happy, ours I think bids fair now for producing that effect.
But, after all, much depends on the people to be governed. We have
been guarding against an evil that old States are most liable to,
excess of power in the rulers; but our present danger seems to be
defect of obedience in the subjects. There is hope, however, from
the enlightened state of this age and country, we may guard effectually against that evil as well as the rest.” [Lett. to Ch. Carroll,
5/29/1789] What most threatens the required state of enlightenment today, it seems to me is not any paucity of economic resources
devoted to education, but rather the reigning generally accepted
opinions about what constitutes enlightenment. The AugustineThomas statement suggests, at the very least, that there is a natural
connection between the will to preserve free institutions and the
sense that those living in accordance with them are worthy of them.
How can a corrupt people be reformed? This, of course, is the
problem set for its protagonists by Shakespeare’s Measure for
Measure. Some distinctions between Duke Vincentio’s situation and
ours must be made. He has a single city and its environs to reform,
we have a huge and highly diversified nation. Our laws derive their
constitutional authority from the very people needing reform, his
do not. His polity is monarchical, ours is not. Our polity contains a
diversity of religious sects, his does not. Religious authority and
moral authority, if not united, form a well-functioning team in his
regime, in ours ... they do and they don’t. Obviously we are not
likely to find immediately applicable recipes from a study of
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Measure for Measure. We are obliged to put things in constitutional terms: “the abuse of the first Amendment”; the tendency of
lawyers and judges to ape intellectual fashions, sanctioning licentiousness with shallow-pate notions like freedom of expression, bargain-basement moral autonomy.2 We can, as teachers, try to change
the intellectual fashions. The only way I know how to do that is to
try to rise beyond the realm of intellectual fashion altogether, by
trying to understand the Duke’s problem as much as possible, as my
better, William Shakespeare, understood it.
Vienna, the seat of the Holy Roman Empire, is ruled by a
Duke, who “above all other strifes contended especially to know
himself,... a gentleman of all temperance.” Like those two political defectives, Prospero and Socrates, he has no taste whatsoever
for the theatrical pomposity endemic to political life. His apolitical temperament has caused him wrongly (“t’was my fault”) to
allow Vienna’s strict and biting laws to become toothless and contemptible; licentiousness thrives, and “Liberty plucks Justice by
the nose.”
His keen sense of justice prevents him from punishing in his
own name evil deeds bred by his own permissiveness. But purification there must be. He appoints a Lord Angelo (soon to prove a
Fallen Angelo), a man of “stricture and firm abstinence”, who
“scarce confesses that his blood flows” to stand in for himself, that
is (unlike American executives) to “enforce or qualify the laws.” But
first something should be said about why someone like puritanical
Angelo was needed.
The Vienna presented at first in the play seems to consist primarily of nunneries, monasteries and whorehouses, with almost
nothing in between: the only family man presented is the absurd
comic figure Elbow; austere celibacy, on the one hand, and saucy
profligacy, on the other, again almost nothing in between. As sexuality is debased, celibacy, for some, gains in attractiveness.
Something seems to be radically wrong with the way most Viennese
think, feel and behave in regard to their sexuality. Immediately fol-
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lowing Angelo’s appointment the Duke pretends that affairs of state
require his hasty removal to foreign parts; Angelo is on his own.
Political scientists (Bloom and Jaffa) quite properly refer to
Machiavelli’s The Prince, chapter VII, as the locus classicus for the
Duke’s mode of procedure with Angelo.3 Cesare Borgia on taking
over Romagna found that because it had been very badly governed
it was full of robberies, quarrels and insolence. To reduce it to peace
and obedience he appointed a very cruel man, Remirro de Orco, as
his deputy with full powers. Remirro soon reduced it to peace and
unity. The reform being accomplished, in order to deflect the hatred
it had generated from himself Cesare had the cruel Remirro placed
one morning in the piazza at Cesena in two pieces, a piece of wood
and a bloody knife beside him. The ferocity of the spectacle left the
people both satisfied and stupified. Bacon speaks of this way of proceeding both in his Wisdom of the Ancients [III], and his Essays
[XIII], but both seem to have been published after this play was first
presented. One is tempted to go along with our scientific fashions
and play at being “more hard-nosed than Thou,” but the differences
between Shakespeare and Machiavelli at least deserve listing. The
Duke does not kill Angelo, though he had full warrant to do so;
unlike Cesare with Remirro, the Duke is not interested merely in
using Angelo, but also as with everyone else, including himself,
making him better, reforming him; above all, since he is not omniscient, he is interested in understanding Angelo: “Hence shall we see,
/If power change purpose, what our seemers be.” It is not simply
because he courts popularity, that he doesn’t institute the reform
himself, it is rather because he is not the right man for the job, and
it would not be, or at least not seem, just for him to do so. There is
another work of Machiavelli’s that bears close comparison with
Measure for Measure, that is Mandragola4; the Duke seems to combine characteristics of both Ligurio and Frate Timoteo, but here
again the differences should prove instructive.
The Duke does not leave Vienna, he goes underground in the
guise of a “holy friar” both to observe and invisibly to correct the
course of his reform. Angelo evidently goes to work immediately:
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the houses of prostitution are put down, and a young gentleman
named Claudio is sentenced to death for fornication; for the
woman he is engaged to marry (the marriage delayed by dowry
problems), Juliet, is big with child. Angelo rejects the urgings of his
second in command and his Provost that here the punishment is
way out of proportion to the crime. Claudio has a high-spirited sister, Isabella, who has entered the austere order of St. Clare -“When
you have vow’d, you must not speak with men /But in the presence
of the prioress; /Then, if you speak, you must not show your face;
/Or if you show your face, you must not speak”- as a novice. She
wishes for an even “more strict restraint.” We are, I suppose, to
imagine her quite beautiful; her moral beauty at least engages the
affections of the play’s two main protagonists. She is urged by the
dissolute gentleman Lucio to plead with Angelo for her brother’s
life. Despite her choosing to renounce family life, her’s is the only
powerful display of family feeling in the play. While hearing her
plea the transforming event of the play takes place, Angelo finds
himself possessed by an overwhelming passion, which, both to himself and to her, he calls love for Isabella. He, on second interview,
proposes that she yield her body to him for one night in exchange
for her brother’s life.
The critique of Angelo would seem to be a critique of
Puritanism in general. Licentious Lucio thinks Angelo “a man
whose blood /Is very snow-broth; one who never feels /The wanton
stings and motions of the sense...” This is surely wrong. The Duke
had made a similar, but more penetrating, observation: “Lord
Angelo is precise; /Stands at a guard with Envy; scarce confesses
/That his blood flows...” If he must guard against envy, he feels the
desires whose indulgences he must not be envious of. With old
Escalus, before he has fallen, Angelo admits that he too has had the
desires that lead to the actions he is punishing with death, acting
upon them makes the difference. He is too good, at least too strict
and too proud to consort with the dissolute; he proves to be not
good enough to be celibate. He wants to be associated with the
highly virtuous, is attracted by Isabella’s purity; he wants to pre-
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serve the image of his gravity; and he wants the joys of what he calls
love: your brother shall not die “Isabel, if you give me love.”
He seems to be altogether confused about the difference
between “yielding up thy body” and “give me love.”5 It was
Isabella’s moving persuasiveness that led him to give more attention
to the erotic side of his soul than he could handle: “Go to your
bosom, /Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know /That’s
like my brother’s fault. If it confess /A natural guiltiness, such as
his....” He replies to himself: “She speaks, and ’tis such sense /That
my sense breeds with it.” [2.2.137 ff.] He did warn the Duke: “Let
there be some more test made of my metal, /Before so noble and so
great a figure /Be stamp’d upon it.” The Duke knows that: “He doth
with holy abstinence subdue /That in himself which he spurs on his
power /To qualify in others.” [4.2.79] The immoderate Puritan
allows the bitterness from his own frustrated desires with perhaps a
touch of envy to spur him on to punish those who will not abstain.
The fear of falling into temptation increases the severity. The intensity of purifying zeal seems to be directly proportional to the
difficulty one has in keeping one’s own illicit desires under control.
The judgment is warped in the direction of severity by what one
feels is required to frighten oneself into abstinence. Isabella’s loveliness and what he sees when he follows her advice and looks into
his own soul push him over the edge.
And now I give my sensual race the rein:
Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite;
Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes
That banish what they sue for. [2.4.159 ff.]
On reflection it might not seem so strange that modesty should
provoke desire.
Any competent political scientist can figure out why Angelo
never intends to fulfill his side of the bargain. Isabella can find no
“charity in sin.” “More than our brother is our chastity.” The Duke
disguised as Friar Lodowick prepares Claudio for death with a ser-
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mon crammed with Stoic commonplaces on the worthlessness of
life. From here on the Duke uses the holy privileges associated with
his disguise to inform himself of everyone else’s secrets. He overhears Isabella’s account to Claudio of Angelo’s proposal. In another remarkable scene Claudio begins by sharing Isabella’s righteous,
honorable and Christian indignation at the impossibility of Angelo’s
plan. But he has been brought to face the fear of death in a very feeling way.
Death is a fearful thing.
...to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bath in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison’d in the viewless winds
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world: or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thought
Imagine howling, -’tis too horrible.
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury and imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise
To what we fear of death. [3.1.115 ff.]
Claudio’s speech is a beautiful illustration of that “very illusion
of the imagination” beautifully described by Adam Smith: the way
a man or woman’s sympathetic imagination attributes to the dead
what he or she would feel being alive, if he or she were housed in
the dead person’s body. And thus “the foresight of our own dissolution is so terrible to us, and ... the idea of those circumstances,
which undoubtedly can give us no pain when we are dead, makes
us miserable while we are alive.” The Duke certainly does not
explain anything like this to Claudio or to anyone else in this play,
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but I don’t think he would disagree with the way Smith closes this
chapter. “And from thence arises one of the most important principles in human nature, the dread of death, the great poison to the
happiness, but the great restraint upon the injustice of mankind,
which, while it afflicts and mortifies the individual, guards and protects the society.” [The Theory of Moral Sentiments, I.i.1.13] Bloom
quite properly refers to Lucretius [III. 417 ff.] in his discussion of
this passage, but Smith, it seems to me, is more balanced, even more
“classical”.
Claudio goes on to plead:
Sweet sister, let me live.
What sin you do to save a brother’s life,
Nature dispenses with the deed so far
That it becomes a virtue. [3.1.132 ff.]
This is not the first time Nature has been invoked to oppose
chastity law. The licentious but eloquent Lucio puts it in a way that
comes close to generally accepted opinion among our intellectuals.
Your brother and his lover have embrac’d;
As those that feed grow full, as blossoming time
That from the seedness the bare fallow brings
To teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb
Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry. [1.4.40 ff.]
The licentious have their say in this play. But Shakespeare has quite
naturally, but not altogether explicitly, built Nature’s answer to
promiscuity into their very speech: it is full of the imagery and fear
of venereal disease. The Duke seems to have come to the realization
that Nature in human society requires law for its fulfillment.6
Isabella is moved by Claudio’s speech, but in exactly the opposite direction. “O, you beast. . . faithless coward...dishonest wretch,”
she replies.
Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice?
Is’t not a kind of incest, to take life [i.e., to be born
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again]
From thine own sister’s shame?
...Take my defiance,
Die, perish! [3.1.135 ff.]
This is not the first time sexual imagery enters Isabella’s speech
in moments of great passion. Answering Angelo she is primarily
thinking of stripping herself for whipping:
Th’impression of keen whips I’d wear as rubies,
And strip myself to death as to a bed
That longing have been sick for, ere I’d yield
My body up to shame. [2.4.101 ff.]
The Duke’s first task is to avert the great impending injustice
brought on by his scheme, but he does it in a way that also seems to
be perfectly calculated to bring Isabella to face her sexuality, and
human sexuality in general, more temperately. His reform will turn
out to be a comprehensive reform; all the representative characters,
Pompey, Lucio, Claudio, Angelo and Isabella are in different ways
reformed. The Duke uses the religious authority he has assumed to
engage Isabella in a plot that will right all wrongs. Angelo, it turns
out, had been engaged to marry a lady, Mariana. When her brother carrying her dowry was wrecked at sea, Angelo “pretending in
her disoveries of dishonour” called off the marriage. This wronged
lady, the “forenamed maid” has unreasonably been driven by his
unkindnesses to a more violent and unruly love for Angelo. She still
regards him as her “husband.” Isabella is to agree to Angelo’s terms,
arrange for a short meeting in a very dark place; Mariana is to be
substituted for Isabella. If the encounter is acknowledged afterwards, it may compel him “to her recompense.” By this, the Duke
argues, “is your brother saved, your honour untainted, the poor
Mariana advantaged, and the corrupt deputy scaled.” The Duke as
friar will frame and make Mariana fit for the attempt. The fact that
this seems to pose no special difficulty suggests that Mariana may
indeed be as right as one can be to mate with Angelo. But it is too
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easy these days to berate Puritanism, Mariana may just see some
nobility in Angelo’s austerity, a nobility that manifests itself to us as
well even in his guilty self-condemnations. It can hardly escape
Isabella’s later reflection that what takes place between Angelo and
Mariana is in many respects parallel to what took place between
Claudio and Juliet. But this conjunction is sanctioned by a holy
man, who declares that “the doubleness of the benefit defends the
deceit from reproof.” Isabella is happy to go along. Even the pleasure of revenge on Angelo seems to be sanctioned by this holy man.
Isabella’s imagination is invited with no impiety to receive scenes of
her enemy coupled with his affianced lover, thinking he is violating
herself. If her soul is puritanical, it will have to become Puritanism
with a certain sense of humor.7
The Duke’s plan for deceiving Angelo succeeds, but Angelo
sends no reprieve for Claudio. On the contrary, he advances the
time for his beheading. He has no interest in preserving the life of
a man privy to his crime, and who, if he has the least grain of honor,
would be bound to think of little else than revenge. The Duke, again
using his assumed religious authority, attempts to get the Provost of
the prison to substitute the head of a convicted murderer,
Barnardine, for Claudio’s, to fool the wicked Angelo again. The
Duke had invoked “the vow of my order.” The “gentle Provost” is
the only one who refuses to bow to religious authority, “Pardon me,
good father, it is against my oath.” When the Duke, without fully
revealing himself, is forced to prove he is acting not only by religious authority but by the authority of the Duke himself, the
Provost goes along. He who refused to subordinate political authority to religious authority for his “care and secrecy” will be rewarded by the Duke with “worthier place.” But Barnardine has been
drinking and is not prepared for death today. He simply will not
consent to die today. This is an amazing prison. They all agree that
to take him in this condition is damnable. Luckily, the captive
pirate, Ragozine, who resembles Claudio, has died that morning:
the perfect head to substitute for Claudio’s. Besides provision of
some fine comedy, the prison scenes are essential for understanding
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the Duke’s basic strategy of reform. Pompey the procurer now put
out of work becomes the prison’s executioner’s assistant. The servant of false love, venereal disease and the unlawful begetting of life
quite easily becomes the true servant of its lawful taking. Pompey’s
coarseness is re-formed to serve the rule of law. The taking and the
begetting of life have been connected before. Angelo declares:
Ha? Fie, these filthy vices! It were as good
To pardon him that hath from nature stolen
A man already made [a murderer], as to remit
Their saucy sweetness that do coin heaven’s image
In stamps that are forbid. ’Tis all as easy
Falsely to take away a life true made,
As to put mettle [metal] in restrained means
To make a false one. [2.4.42 ff.]
As Jaffa put it, “Fornication, as a kind of false coinage of citizens, becomes more than a private action.”8 The regulation of
coinage, society’s circulating medium, is usually a rather unquestioned prerogative of sovereignty. The penalties for counterfeiting
have never been light. To “coin heaven’s image” joins biblical sanctity of begetting to the need for sovereign political regulation of that
private behavior which is the source of life for society as a whole.9
(The coining image occurs at least three more times in the play, in
speeches by the Duke [1.1.35-36], Isabella [2.4.128-29] and Angelo
[1.1.48-50].)
Threats of death color the whole atmosphere of the play. Fear
of death in potential malefactors seems to be indispensable for the
restoration and maintenance of law-abidingness. But absolutely no
one ever gets killed in this prison. It is the genius of this Duke to be
able to employ the fear without ever having to follow through with
the act. The ploy would never work, if it became generally known.
The great final act and scene of the play pulls all strands together, the return of the Duke and resumption of his authority in a
grand public ceremony, where the Duke “like power divine” reveals
all hidden iniquities and resolves all difficulties with perfect justice.
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This justice, both legal and natural justice, is primarily justice in
marriage. For the chaste sexuality of marriage, the raising and nourishing of families under the law, is the solution for the sexual corruption of Vienna.10 The dissolute gentleman, Lucio, is forced to
marry the prostitute who is the mother of his child. Angelo, who
sought Isabella, who was too good for him, is ordered to marry and
love the less scrupulous Mariana. But the Duke knows that the institution of marriage, upon which the health of his polity depends,
will not be on a firm foundation unless it shines forth at the paradigmatic center of society. He too must marry, and marry well. The
high-minded Duke asks the high-minded Isabella to be his wife.
How that works out, we never learn. As part of the apocalypse the
Duke staged for his triumphal return, Isabella was made to believe
that her brother had indeed been executed. It may be that the Duke
wanted her to weigh the events leading to that result more carefully, or merely, as he said, “to keep her ignorant of her good,/To make
her heavenly comforts of despair/When it is least expected.” He
might be made to pay for those hours of despair. These reservations
aside, it seems to be a near perfect marriage. If it should be that the
Duke comes short of perfection by contemplative leniency and
Isabella by spirited severity, it would be by the blending of their
virtues and the mitigating of their defects in their shared lives or in
their offspring that Vienna could hope to receive its perfect Lord.
NOTES:
1. Cf. H.V. Jaffa, The Conditions of Freedom: Essays in Political
Philosophy (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), pp.
152-53; G. Anastaplo, St. Louis University Law Journal (Spring, 1965), 390.
2. G. Anastaplo, “Censorship”, The Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th
Edition, 1986 printing, Volume 15, pp. 634-641; The Amendments to
the Constitution: a Commentary, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1995), pp. 52-56: R.A. Licht, “Respect is not a Right”,
Crisis, Vol. 11, No. 7, July-August, 1993, pp. 41-47; “Communal
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Democracy, Modernity, and the Jewish Political Tradition”,
Jewish
Political Studies Review, 5:1-2 (Spring, 1993).
3. A. Bloom, Love and Friendship (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1993), p. 330; H.V Jaffa, “Chastity as a Political Principle: Measure for
.
Measure”, Shakespeare as Political Thinker, eds. J. Alvis and T.G.
West (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2000), pp. 211-12.
4. The most reliable and literal translation known to me is by M.
Flaumenhaft (Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1981).
5. Cf. W. Shakespeare, Sonnets, Nos. 129 and 116.
6. L. Berns, “Gratitude, Nature and Piety in King Lear”, Interpretation,
Vol. 3/1 (Autumn, 1972), Sections V and IX; “Rational Animal-Political
Animal: Nature and Convention in Human Speech and Politics”, Essays in
Honor of Jacob Klein (Annapolis: St. John’s College Press, 1976), pp.
29-35, esp. section III; [uncorrected version in The Review of Politics,
Vol. 40, No. 2 (April, 1978), pp. 231-54.]
7. L. Berns, “Transcendence and Equivocation: Some Political, Theological
and Philosophic Themes in Shakespeare”,
Shakespeare as Political
Thinker, cited n. 3, pp. 402-4.
8. “Chastity as a Political Principle: Measure for Measure”, citation
n. 3, p. 221.
9. The locus classicus for the relation between private and public, polity and family is Aeschylus’s trilogy Oresteia. The trilogy begins with a
world where family feeling, the spirit of revenge and cycles of blood feuding dominate and characterize political and social life. Agamemnon, the triumphant leader of the Trojan expedition, is killed on his return to Argos
from Troy by his wife Clytaemestra for the sake of “my child’s Justice”, that
is , to avenge the death of their daughter sacrificed to propitiate the gods
holding up the expedition to Troy. The ruling deities are the Old
Goddesses, the Daughters of Night, the “ingrown, vengeful Furies.” In the
second play, Orestes, Agamemnon’s and Clytaemestra’s son, following the
charge of Apollo’s oracle, avenges his father’s death by killing his mother.
The Furies, “the bloodhounds of my mother’s hate,” pursue him. The third
play, The Eumenides, the well-meaning ones, celebrates the founding of the
Court of the Areiopagus at Athens. Orestes seeks sanctuary at Delphi. The
Pythian oracle is overwhelmed by the pursuing Furies. Apollo himself inter-
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venes and stills the Furies long enough for Hermes to guide Orestes to
Athens for a final resolution of his case. At Athens Pallas Athene takes
charge. She who was not born of woman (born from the head of Zeus), a
most man-like female, almost a mean between male and female, turns the
trial over to an open court of Athenian citizens. The Furies argue against,
Apollo argues for Orestes; gods as advocates, before human beings as
judges and jury. The jury of twelve human beings is given the authority to
decide. The sovereignty of hitherto untamable family feeling is brought
under the supervening authority of the polis, the political community.
Although they have the authority, the human beings by themselves are incapable of deciding between conflicting rights of mother and father. The jury
splits evenly. The deciding vote is given to the goddess Athene. Divine help
is required for settling such questions. She decides for Orestes. It seems that
reasonable procedures for settling and dispensing with problems may
sometimes be more important than assurance that the solutions are correct.
These questions are no longer to be dealt with violently behind closed
doors but deliberately before public and open spectacles of law court,
assembly and theater. The Furies are unwilling to accept these dispensations of the younger gods. By a combination of threats and persuasion
Athene cajoles the Furies to integrate their authority over family feeling and
the household into the service of the greater good of the political community. They shall “win first fruits in offerings for children and the marriage
rite.” The Furies finally agree and are transformed into Eumenides. The
feelings they preside over which are capable of tearing the political community apart cannot be extinguished: they are to be redirected against the
despotically minded consumed by “a terrible love of high renown” and
external enemies; they will bolster the mutual love of fellow citizens. “This
is a cure for much that is wrong among mortals.” Cf. M. Flaumenhaft,
“Seeing Justice Done: Aeschylus’ Oresteia”, Interpretation, Vol. 17/1,
(Fall, 1989), pp. 69-109, reprinted in The Civic Spectacle: Essays on
Drama and Community, (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1994),
Chapter 1; and David K. Nichols, “Aeschylus’ Oresteia and the Origins of
Political Life”, Interpretation, Vol. 9/1, (August, 1980), pp. 83-91.
10. L. Berns, “Gratitude, Nature and Piety in King Lear”, citation n. 6, p.
50: “... love and passion ... need to be controlled by law and authority. Being
conceived outside the ’order of law’, Edmund was banished from the family circle. He is not altogether ’unnaturally’ devoid of family feeling.”
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79
A Review of Eva Brann’s
The Ways of Naysaying
Chaninah Maschler
“The first impetus” for this study,1 Eva Brann tells us in her
Preface, was the desire to deepen her understanding of the two
“capacities of our inwardness” that had been the themes of two of
her previous books, The World of the Imagination and What, Then,
is Time? “As the imagination ...makes present what is not before us
by reason of nonexistence or withdrawal, so memory ...holds what
is not with us by reason of having gone by....Therefore... to understand something of imagination, memory, and time, we must mount
an inquiry into what it means to say that something is not what it
claims to be or is not there or is nonexistent or is affected by
Nonbeing. And that is what I am after in Ways of Naysaying” (pp.
xiif, my italics).2
Addressing, I presume, readers of the first two volumes of her
trilogy, Brann explains that and why there will be less reliance on
introspection and more reliance on logic and language in the present volume: ”We could, it is thinkable, be aware of our internal
images...without having language for them....But whether we
could know about negation—that we are capable of it and how—
without speech is doubtful to me. Hence within my scheme, no,
not, non- are deeper than imagination and time, in the sense that
the former underlie the latter and are revealed in their analysis” (p.
xiii). Earlier in this paragraph, and in more detail later, when summarizing Freud’s essay “On denial” in her Chapter One, she allows
that there is a pre-linguistic “nay-saying of instinct and gesture.”
Since this paragraph is rather condensed, and much hangs by it,
let me try to say in my own words what I believe it to hold: Doing
no, for instance, spitting out or pushing away or averting the gaze,
occurs (ontogenetically and, according to Freud, also phylogenetically) before speech. And a sort of prereflective reacting to heard
Eva Brann’s The Ways of Naysaying: No, Not, Nothing, and Nonbeing. Lanham, Md: Rowman
and Littlefield, 2001. Chaninah Maschler is tutor emeritus at St. John’s College.
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“no,” or even the uttering of the syllable “no” (as mere substitute
for the gesture of rejection) may well be a phase of children’s intellectual history. Further, having images and reacting to them, or to
having had them, can occur without the one who reacts being aware
that what he or she is reacting to is an image. But to peg an image
as an image, which means, to take it as a likeness of its original, that
requires, according to Brann, the thought “This is and is not that.”
Therefore there can be no sizing up of a mirror image, memory
image, dream image, perceptual presentation as “merely” an image
until after negation has entered upon the mental scene. Now knowing about negativity, which is different from prereflectively reacting in a rejecting or separating manner, that could not occur sans
speech. While images are, therefore, existentially “prior to” (earlier
than) speech, in involving recognized negativity they show themselves conceptually “posterior to” speech.3
Brann seems to be employing some version of the
Aristotelian contrast between “first to us” and “first in nature.”
This is how I construe her claims that, while imagining and recollecting are more manifest, negativity lies “deeper” than do
these “capacities of our inwardness”; and that, furthermore,
whatever is condition for the possibility of negativity lies more
deeply still. Her book as a whole will argue that the Platonic discovery that Being “holds” Nonbeing may well be the ultimate
answer to the question “was die Welt im Innersten zusammen
halt” (“what it is that most intimately holds the world together,”
Goethe, Faust Pt. 1, li 383).
The Introduction of Brann’s book is given over to etymology. It draws attention to the fact that in English, German,
French, Latin, and Greek (the languages in which the Western
philosophic tradition is expressed), most of the basic words for
naysaying—no, not,non-,nothing, and negativity—start with a
nasal sound. Jesperson, and before him Darwin, remarked on
this fact and entertained the thought that, conceivably, our signs
for negation are transitional between naturally expressive gesture and conventionally learned word. The n-word would then
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81
have originated as a substitute for the snort of aversion or refusal
and in the course of linguistic and cultural history have proliferated into a multiplicity, the last but not least of which would be
the abstract general negation word “not” we use for contradiction.
In Chapter One, Brann, like many of us today, seems to
share Darwin’s impulse to give direction to speculation about
human archai by studying child development. Accordingly, the
title of her book’s first official chapter—“Chapter One,
Aboriginal Naysaying: Willfull No”—refers initially to “the primordial ‘no’ to everything” of the toddler (p. 9), but eventually
to other respondings (Goethe’s Mephistopheles serving, seriocomically, as paradigm) that reject, disobey, or spit out what is
given. Thus some of the discussion of nihilism in Chapter Six
looks as though it were continuous with Chapter One’s analysis
of childish “no.” The toddler rejects the breast, the command or
prohibition, the saying “so it is” of the grown-up; the nihilist
turns down shared traditions, institutions, and even intersubjectively acknowledged matter of fact.
I loved the affectionate and knowing description of “the terrible twos” in this chapter. I share Brann’s admiration for Freud’s
astonishingly potent brief essay on negation, which she summarizes,
pretty much in Freud’s own words, on pp. 10-12. But it looks to me
as though Freud’s quasi-Nietzschean “genealogy” of the intellectual function of judgment out of the interplay of biologically “primary impulses” has, when Brann is through with it, become tinted with
Augustinian surmises of original sin. In evidence I cite the fact that
it is rather late in the chapter (footnote 28, p. 22) that the “healthy
naysaying” of resistance to temptation and of rebellion against
tyranny are mentioned; also, that the emphasis on self-awareness’
emerging from deeds and words of “arbitrary willfullness” (cf. p.
18) does not seem to be balanced by reflections on the child’s need
to exercise, so as to perfect, skill at matching expectation with outcome, and vice versa. What I have in mind is well-explained by
Jerome Kagan. In brief, Kagan holds that much of what we
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observe in the not quite two-year-old is made intelligible if we
view it as due to the emergence of “three related competencies”:
ability to notice that some happening or action is at odds with
what is right and regular; absorption by the idea of standards as
standards, both those set by others and those set by oneself; awareness of one’s own and the world’s ability or inability to meet standards. I am confident that Brann would agree that these competencies involve the child’s increasingly better memory: Isn’t much
of the toddler’s “testing” of the world, commandeering of adults,
and “first Adam”-like rage at the world’s or the grown-ups’ not
coming through connected with practicing the ability to match
outcome with forecast and plan, remembrance with presentation?
It is my impression that Brann writes more nearly in this spirit in
What, Then, is Time? (See p. 165).
The chief questions asked and answered in Chapter Two, where
the not of logic is taken up, are as follows: 1.What is negation?
2.Where is the sentence negated? 3.Is the positive prior to the negative? 4. How is negation related to falsity?7
Following Aristotle, Brann assigns negating (the act) and negation (the act’s sentential consequence) to the genus of opposition.
An admirable overview of types of opposition, as described and
classified by Aristotle, is provided, while opposition in general is
recognized to be indefinable.8 Plainly, the idea of not is clarified
when, through insertion into its genus, it is made evident that not
must be discriminated from fellow-contenders for naysaying primacy, for example, speaking linguistically, the particles non- or un- or
a- and, speaking semantically (?), the polar relations of contrariety
and privation. The not of contradiction is declared the winner, on
Aristotle’s authority (p. 27). But, Brann hastens to add, contradiction, which is “sheer, unintermediated opposition” (studied as such
under the heading of question 4), belongs to thinking and speaking,
not to things.
We seem, perhaps contrary to expectation, to have ferreted out
something like an answer to the question of what negation consists
in. A summing up of the interim upshot of the inquiry into the
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83
nature of not is provided on p. 29f. and concludes with the sentence: “Negation arises from the human desire and ability to make
distinctions; it is (most likely) grounded in the oppositions and
polarities that belong to beings....”
Where in the declarative negative sentence is the particle that
accomplishes negation located? is the second question. What
motivates the question? One could imagine a linguist who is trying to learn an exotic language asking it. He would, I suppose,
have tried to obtain a corpus of utterances sufficiently rich to
hold instances of all the elementary affirmative sentence patterns
of that language (supposing this possible); next, he’d have consulted with a native informant as to how one would, in his language, “say the opposite(s)” of these. Assume the native informant is a speaker of English and the linguist’s native tongue is some
non-Indo-European language, say Chinese or Hebrew. If I understand Brann correctly, she believes that the Chinese linguist
would somehow find out that all the elementary affirmative sentence patterns of spoken English are reducible to the triadic pattern S is P How could he have found this out? The best I can
.
come up with is that, in learning English, he relies on the same
logical truth on which he relied when he acquired his mother
tongue—that whatever is said is interpretable as making some
comment on a declared or otherwise manifest topic: The topic is
named by one part of the sentence; the sentence attaches the
comment to the name; and in so doing comments on, that is,
predicates the sentence’s predicate of, the thing or things in the
world that is or are the sentence’s topic.12 The question now
becomes how and why this insight into the logically dyadic T-C
structure of simple 13 affirmative sentences issues in the triadic S
is P structure. The reason for my selecting a Chinese-speaking linguist was, of course, that (as Brann reports in the long and important footnote 22 on p. 64), Chinese sentences do not require a
copula to accomplish the job of commenting. Hebrew doesn’t
either: Joseph holech “merely juxtaposes” what is, strictly speaking,
a participial (thus adjectival) form of the verb to the proper name
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“Joseph” to say what in English would be said by the sentence
Joseph is walking. But nothing stands in the way of a Hebrewspeaking linguist’s learning that in English sentences an “is” must be
inserted between “Joseph” and “walking” for the predicating job to
be accomplished.
What all this fussing is about is the issue how logical and grammatical distinctions differ and mesh. Brann’s fourfold answer to the
question where the negation particle is located in a sentence proceeds, not on the linguist’s basis of studying a corpus of English negative sentences, nor on the logician’s basis of reflecting on the negating jobs that would have to be accomplishable if the tasks of describing and reasoning rightly are to be carried out. Rather, she works
with the S is P pattern of “traditional” logic and negates, first the
“is” or copula, next the “P” or predicate, third the sentence “S is P”
as a whole, and finally, although not whole-heartedly, even the “S”
or subject. Having done this, she points out the jobs done by the
patterns which thus emerge.14
Why does she proceed in this manner? She is, usually, not at all
friendly to mere algebraic patterning. More important, she knows
that Frege, whose “deep critique of the classical view [of negation]”
was taken up appreciatively in the concluding section of the treatment of question 1 (pp. 30-32), endorses something like what I
tried to say through my fable of the Chinese or Hebrew-speaking
linguist, that what chiefly matters is the irreducible logical contrast
between naming and predicating and their complementarity,15
whereas the presence or absence of some form of the verb “to be”
is a linguistic accident.
On first reading I thought that her manner of proceeding in
Chapter Two is due to her not being as convinced as was Frege of
the need for a principled distinction between logic, as a normative
science, and psychology and linguistics as empirical sciences which
acknowledge logical norms in practice (as we all do when we think),
but which do not study them.16 Brann reports and up to a point
explains that Frege distinguishes T-C structures qua what he calls
Gedanken (“thoughts”) from “assertions” (what Kant called “judg-
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ments”). And she appreciates that “thoughts,” including negations,
are for Frege objective and atemporal whereas he regards “assertions” as acts of a speaker or thinker who at some time or other
asserts an assertable or its contradictry. She even quotes a sentence
of Frege’s which brings this contrast to bear on the issue of negation.17 But she refuses to let go of inquiry into what it is in human
beings and the world that leads to nay-saying.18
On second reading I found an outright answer to my question,
why Brann distances herself not only from Frege but also from Plato
and the Aristotle of On Interpretation, in footnote 22 (p. 64). She
writes: “I accept...[‘S is P’] as the fundamental sentence form
because people whose thought is congenial to me19 have built on it
structures that are of great interest, and because I have corroborated by introspection that it is my most basic declarative mode of
internal speech, closer to thinking than the bipartite sentence consisting of a subject and a predicative verb.”20
Postponing till her penultimate chapter, Chapter Six, inquiry
into what she calls the “greatest question,” namely, whether
Something or Nothing is ultimate, the issue in section 3 of the present chapter is whether “in human speaking denial is always derivative and in human speech negation is always secondary” (p. 36).
Boethius, ancient authors in the Aristotelian tradition, and modern
cognitive science are reported to endorse the opinion that the affirmative is prior to the negative, as at first blush it would seem to be,
since any negating particle is an “addendum.” Bosanquet and
Bradley are described as having answered the question in a more
nuanced way: “Negation is not as such a denial of affirmative judgment; it does not presuppose a particular affirmative judgment to be
denied. But it does presuppose some general affirmation, namely,
that of a world having a positive content judged to be real....The
positive judgment itself cannot take place before the distinction
between a mere idea and a fact of reality is recognized. ‘And with
this distinction the idea of negation is given’ ” (p. 40).21 Still, the
over-all conclusion of the inquiry in section 3 is that negation is
“secondary.”
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More minute examination of Bosanquet’s and Bradley’s
remarks on negation might have yielded a scheme for differentiating the diverse senses of the prior/posterior relation; causal priority
might have become differentiated from conceptual priority; priority in dignity or rank from temporal priority.22 But as it stands, section 3 seems to favor a temporal sense of prior/posterior. This bothers me because I am inclined to believe that logicians qua logicians
have no business asking about temporal priority and that conceptually the positive comes or rather is on the scene along with the negative. Thus neither is prior to either.23 As an illustration, consider
the following: At the beginning of the Prior Analytics, Aristotle
defines argument or deduction (syllogismos) as follows: “A deduction is a discourse in which, certain things being stated, something
other than what is stated follows of necessity from their being so.”
I believe that anyone who grasps the type of necessity here spoken
of grasps along with it the impossibility of the contradictory. Upon
reflection I recognize that I base this apparently psychological
observation on the conceptual (i.e. logical) truth that must-bes are
the contradictories of cannot bes and cannot be apart from them.
Indeed, it dawns on me that my seemingly psychological claim may
be nothing but the conceptual truth itelf in another form of words.
The treatment of question 4 (how negation is related to falsity)
shows a respect for Wittgenstein that was, I believe, absent from
Brann’s previous writings.24 His Tractatus is praised both for asking
and for answering the following questions: (1)“How do Truth and
Falsity come to be obverses” (i.e. opposites)? (2)“How is negation
related to them and to truth-values?” (3)“Why are propositions
bipolar?” (4)Can we justify the logic textbooks’ assumption “that
each proposition has only one negative?”(p. 47).25 The two paragraphs immediately preceding the enunciation of these questions
seem to report the answers that Brann found in Wittgenstein. I
quote them in full:
“It all begins with a discrimination exercised by us over a logical space wherein things are seated within their place in their proper relation configurations, a discrimination of the otherness of what
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is false. So prototruth26 is in the world of fact. Now comes a proposition. In its negative and positive sense it is like a solid body that
restricts all movement into a certain place; in its positive sense it has
an empty place where the object can fit in (Tractatus 4.463). These
[comparisons ]are pictures of the ... inherent bipolarity of every
proposition. It shows negation from the beginning related to the
negated proposition, for it is that hole which the negating proposition is blocking (Tractatus 4.0641). So to understand a proposition
is to see the logical space (Tractatus 3.4) and to discriminate what
the facts would have to be like to make a proposition...[i.e. a logical picture] true or false.”
“Truth, then, or falsity, is the consonance or correlation of a
propositional picture with reality (Tractatus 2.21), where reality
(Wirklichkeit) is the existence or non-existence of facts (Tractatus 2;
2.06)—a non-existent fact being one that is pushed out of the world
picture by the fact that exists. In this correspondence is truth in the
primary sense, and it comes in the duality true-false because of the
way logical space divides and we discriminate the facts. In the sense
of propositions lies the polarity positive-negative, the latter of
which is expressed in the sign not- when the facts fail to correspond
to p. Truth values, T and F, are secondary to and derived from negation: ’The sense of a truth function of p is a function of the sense of
p’ (Tractatus 5.2341). Thus T and F are not properties of propositions (Tractatus 6.111) any more than are positive and negative.
The truth values of the truth tables capture the relations of T and F
to p and not-p more than they define the latter.”
Section 4 concludes with the following remarkable observations:
(1)The examination of the Tractatus has revealed that for
Wittgenstein and other moderns “truth comes from the world, and
negation is in propositions. For traditional philosophers it is just the
other way around: Negation is in the world of appearances and in
the beings of the intellect, and truth is in the propositions” (p. 48).
(2)What Aristotle says about the true and the false in
Metaphysics Bk. IV 1011b25 and Bk VI, 1027b19ff tends to show
,
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that Heidegger was quite right when, in his Logic, he denied that
the Aristotelian texts hold a “correspondence theory of truth” (p.
48).
(3)Aristotle speaks “for a world very different from the one in
which the propositional calculus of Russell and Wittgenstein is at
home. For Aristotle negation (I mean negation in an objective form,
contrariety interpreted as Nonbeing and its effects) is in the world
and falsity (I mean the not always unintentional failure of speech to
reveal being is in statements....Whether negation is in the world or
in speech is one of the numerous but interrelated marks by which a
classical world...is distinguished from a modern world. For a world
that has negation built in responds to receptive thought since it
reveals its own distinctions, while a solidly positive one demands
constructive reason since oppositions need to be made” (p. 49).
As the just-reported grand conclusions of section 4 of Chapter
2 tend to confirm, negation became thematic for Brann by virtue of
her interest in the psychological and ontological topics that were
mentioned in the opening paragraph of this review; whereas logicians—from Aristotle through the Stoic logicians and Frege, Peirce,
Russell, Quine—attend to negation chiefly because of how it affects
what is and what is not a valid pattern of argument. Patterns of reasoning or deduction rather than patterns of judgment or of propositions may well be their primary concern.27 This difference
between herself and the logicians might also explain the otherwise
rather puzzling remark, on p. 25, that “by and large the negations
of logic28 take place in symbols and are found in books. They are
not so much naysayings as naywritings.” For the purposes of reasoning the idea of contradiction, that is, of an opposition which is
not only exclusive but also exhaustive, is indispensable: Illiterate
Athenians have no trouble grasping the sense of arguments by contraposition such as, “If virtue were teachable, there’d be teachers of
virtue, yet there are none. Therefore, virtue is not teacheable.” And
I surmise that the pattern of Euclid’s reductios (which likewise
involve the stark negativity of contradiction) was first discovered as
a debating gambit and passed on by teachers of rhetoric. I say this
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partly because it seems to me that even Euclid’s Elements still retain
a viva voce dialogic rhetorical mode.
“When we refer to a nonexistent object, what are we thinking
of and what are we talking about?” (p. 76). Chapter Three begins
by pointing out that this is a distinctively modern question,29 different from the ancient one taken up in Plato’s Sophist, how nonbeing can be, to which Chapter Four will be devoted. Four types of
non-existents are mentioned for purposes of illustration—“members of extinct species [dodos, for instance]...deceased human
beings [for example, Socrates]...artifacts no longer extant,30 but
also all the entities that never did exist in the ordinary sensible
sense, such as unicorns” (p. 79).
Roughly speaking, four types of answers are sketched in
Chapter Three: Bertrand Russell’s “theory of definite description,”
Alexius Meinong’s “theory of objects [and objectives],” the recent
version of Meinong worked out by Terence Parsons in his 1980
book Nonexistent Objects (New Haven: Yale University Press), and
any one of a number of theories according to which “pretense and
make-believe are the chief explanatory principles,...[not of the
behavior of nonexistent objects], but [of] how they manage to
come on the scene to begin with, [and] what we cognitively do to
cooperate in fiction making” (p. 99). From the way these theories
are elaborated it becomes apparent that, although —as the two earlier volumes of Brann’s trilogy argued—our ability to think and
speak truly or falsely of bygone things is testimony to the powers
of the human imagination, in that the feat of “re-calling” depends
on or consists in the imagination’s having succeeded at making
temporally absent things present, it is the “saving” of fictional entities that chiefly matters for the purposes of the present book’s
Chapter Three.
Before she turns to a fairly detailed examination of Russell’s
treatment of proper names and definite descriptions, Brann lets us
know that “the theory that is the winner in the world of logic
[namely, Russell’s], will turn out to be something of loser in the
world of fiction” (p. 76). Russell’s theory, as she tells us Parson too
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observed, pays too high a price for its clarity: “The theory commits
us to treating the sentences of fiction as false, while most of us think
they have at least a sort of truth, and some of us even believe that
they often have more truth than mere fact does” (p. 86). Meinong,
contrarywise, “comes near to saving the phenomena of that intentional experience of central interest to this trilogy...the experience
of imagining (p. 91). Russell’s excision of nonexistents from reality31 is false to the power that some non-existent beings and places
have, moving us “as models and attractors,” and “outliving us by
millennia, and in a word impinging on us as if existence were home
to them as well [as to ourselves?]” (p. 102).
Instead of recapitulating what Brann says about the technical
aspects of Russell’s theory of description and Meinongian rival theories, I want to dwell a little on Brann’s question how we are to
account for the fact that the Natasha, Pierre, and Andrey of
Tolstoy’s War and Peace or the Hari Kumar and Ronald Merrick of
Scott’s Raj Quintet32 have become our companions.
A familiar answer begins by reminding us of our unabating
curiosity about our fellow human beings, whether met in the flesh
or encountered vicariously through what our friends, our children,
our journalists report and our television news programs show. “But
the characters who people novels are immensely more memorable
than the Tom or Dick or Harry that our neighbors tell us about.”
Well, that does somewhat depend on what a particular neighbor is
capable of telling us about a particular Tom (or Jane for that matter), not to mention the particular Tom or Jane spoken about. But
to the extent that it is true, may it not in large part be the result of
novelistic characters’ (at least those that dwell in novels of substance) becoming so much better known to us than any persons not
our “real life” intimates?33 Novelists are much better at noticing
things than most of us are, and better at imparting what they’ve
noticed too. Also, our acquaintance with novelistic characters is a
shared acquaintance, shared with other make-believe characters in
the novel, with the novel’s author, and with fellow-readers of the
novel. It is hardly news that sharing (comparing notes and impress-
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sions) is immensely pleasurable, greatly contributes to a feeling of
solidarity, and is constitutive of our sense of reality.
Add to what’s been said our relish for just about all human skills
or powers, our own as readers and the novel-making skills of the
author. Most important, count in the special joys of play and makebelieve: Aren’t we well launched on the beginnings of some sort of
answer to the question “Why and how do fictional characters
become real to us?”
Brann does not think so. At least, she rejects the idea that what
we relish, in ourselves and novelists, is the exercise of the human
power of make-believe: “Being absorbed into a fiction, living in its
landscapes and with its people, is not well described as a form of
pretense—not on the reader’s or viewer’s part and so much less on
the poet’s or painter’s part....Children, to be sure, play ’Let’s pretend,’ but that is usually when the game requires that roles be
assigned , and I’d bet that the mover of the pretense doen’t often
assign, say, the submissive role to herself; in participating in a novel,
on the other hand, we may well surrender ourselves to the experiences of the underdog ”(p. 99f).34
I wonder whether childish “dramatic play” (as the child psychologists call it) and make-believe of every sort is here conceived
of in all its richness. Think of the infinite variety of solitary and collaborative pretending and letting be we catch our children at! Sure,
sometimes there is one kid in charge (“I’ll be mommy and you’ll be
baby”) but by no means always. Two games of make-believe I
remember watching were: spreading out newspapers on the floor to
be islands and going island-finding, island-hopping, and islandworking; arranging marbles in rows and letting them be children at
school. Neither of these games called for leadership. Older children
would sometimes join the younger ones at play, humbly grateful and
gratified to be allowed “in” on the game. Improvisational theatre
has some of these qualities, I believe, though I cannot be sure since
I have never participated, either as actor or as audience.35 I went on
like this because I want to make concrete that there might be ways
of “taking fiction seriously” and trying to understand why and how
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make-believe matters that don’t proceed by way of ontology but by
way of psychology. The British pediatrician and child psychologist
D.W Winnicott may have something to teach us here.36 And as for
.
grown-ups making believe, I have begun to read Kendall L.
Walton’s Mimesis as Make-Believe, On the Foundations of the
Representational Arts (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990.
Part Four of this book tries to show why it is all right to do without
fictional entities. I should, however, also mention that in Austria, at
the University of Graz, much is currently being written about the
logic and ontology of fictional objects.
A reader of an earlier version of this review advised me that I
need to report where I stand on the issue of the being and non-being
of fictional characters. I am undecided, because I have insufficiently considered (to give just one example) whether my belief that one
can be as mistaken in one’s “reading” of a fictional character as one
can in one’s “reading” of a violin sonata does or does not have
ontological implications. My laziness about ontology may have
something to do with the fact that I lean toward believing that it is
more illuminating to ask questions about how imagined persons
and places are and are not like historical individuals and geographic regions, or how what one learns about good and evil from living
hooks on to what one learns about them from literature, than it is
to delve into ontology.
The rest of Chapter Three is devoted to reflections on lies and
lying37 and to Anselm’s so-called ontological proof of the impossibility of God’s non-existence.38 The setting out of Anselm’s argument is very pretty!
Chapter Four: When we begin to read Chapter Four’s first
paragraph, we are already in possession of the guidepost furnished
in the Preface (p. xiv): “Here [in section 2] comes on the scene the
Non of philosophy (my italics), a prefix signifying not the brusquely rejecting denial of fact in words but the more forgiving opposition of two elements in the same world. The thought of Nonbeing
comes among us as the unbidden effect of Parmenides’ injunction
against it, and Plato will domesticate that same Nonbeing, bringing
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it into philosophy as the relational principle of diversity, the Other.”
But to reach section 2 we must traverse section 1. It begins:
“Parmenides learned from the goddess who dwells in the house of
truth that ’Being is’ and that he must not embark on the way of
Nonbeing. As far as I know, Nonbeing had not established itself in
anyone’s thought—at least in the West—before Parmenides’ deity
warned him off this path of inquiry; nor has it ever vacated its place
in thought since. Her [i.e. the goddess’s] repeated prohibitions and
injunctions against this Unthinkable and Unsayable seem to have
done for this philosophical offense what inveighings against sin
have so often accomplished in the moral sphere—they have
launched it on its career as a well-formulated and ever attractive
presence” (p. 123).
Among the titillating suggestions of Brann’s commentary on
Parmenides’ poem there is this, that this “heroic epic” (in dactylic
hexameter) is “unmistakably [intended as?] a rival to Homer’s
Odyssey,” so that “the ancient difference between philosophy and
poetry” of which the Republic speaks (607b)39 first comes on the
world scene when the journeying of young Parmenides displaces
that of middle-aged Odysseus.
I find myself incapable of paraphrasing what Brann says about
Parmenides. Here are some more quotations: “We often use phrases like ‘sing a song,’ where the object is the action of the verb made
into a thing accomplished. Parmenides sometimes does something
symmetrical with the verb ‘to be’ at the front end of a sentence. He
turns the verbal sense into a subject. But I don’t think that Being or
its negation is thereby established as a thing....On the contrary,
mere verbal ‘Is’ remains the truest kind of showing forth, and the
nounlike forms merely display the inability, or rather unwillingness,
of the goddess’s speech to get outside the meaning of that little
word which courses through human speech surrounded by subject
and predicate. Parmenides’ poem is a rebuff before the fact to those
who will claim that Indo-European languages are indefeasibly subject-and-predicate-ridden. For this is what Parmenides is bidden [by
his goddess] to convey: the sheer Isness of which we always get hold
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when we think beyond multiplicity....The common declarative tripartite sentence...is an implicit expression of three distinctions:
between the thinker and the thought (since some thinking person is
having and uttering a thought); between the thought and what it is
about (since the sentence states a thought-proposition about an
object); and between the object and its properties (since the sentence predicates a property of its subject). At the very beginning,
before these elements have ever been formally established, the goddess wants to prevent them from being distinguished....My main
purpose in this section has been to enter just enough intothe meaning of ‘Is’ to make sense of the ’Is not’ that trails it as its unwelcome
but unshakable doppelganger” (p. 130ff.).
“The next step in the ancient story of Nonbeing is...the reversal of its outlaw status and its integration into the community of
Beings. It is taken in Athens, the city of reconciliations” (p. 138).
What follows the exquisite paragraph whose two opening sentences were just quoted40 is a fresh setting out of reflections on
Plato’s dialogue the Sophist.41
I describe a few of these.
Seasoned readers of Platonic dialogues agree in noticing that
the conversation in the Sophist begins with the question whether
corresponding to the three names or titles “sophist”, “statesman”,
“philosopher” there are three beings or three types of being. Given
the fact that there is a dialogue called Sophist and also one called
Statesman, the non-being of a dialogue called Philosopher is a glaring fact. Some Plato commentators have argued that the Philebus is
the “missing” dialogue. But Brann believes that there are indications
in the Sophist that Plato means us to understand that “sophists and
philosophers are identical,” though differing in three respects: First,
the dialectical skill which is shared by sophists and philosophers is,
in the philosopher, accompanied by a kind of professional ethics.
Dialectic is, for him, a sacred trust. For the sophist it is a moneymaking techne, for sale to the highest bidder. Second, unlike the
traveling sophist, who is detached from civic loyalties, “the philosopher never forgets his human circumstances” (p. 139). Third, the
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philosopher is “that rare sophist who acknowledges Nonbeing
without taking cover in it” (p. 139).
To catch the “vulgar” sophist, the philosopher-sophist—in this
dialogue represented by an unnamed stranger-guest from
Parmenides’ city, Elea—must somehow show that contrary to what
Parmenides’ goddess taught him, Nonbeing is.
But it is not only to catch the sophist; nor just to defend the
possibility of false speech, negative speech, and error. Rather, to
save philosophy itself (to save speech itself?), Nonbeing must be
allowed to be! (Sophist 260A). The stranger therefore, Theseus-like,
or again, Athena-like, bestows citizenship on Nonbeing by declaring
it a form among the koinonia of forms (p.141). It is the diversifying
relational principle or form Otherness, not to medamoos on,
absolute nothing. “It is its ...[being identified] as the Other that
saves it from the utter inability—which Parmenides does indeed
assert—to become sayable....Nonbeing both bonds and negates
among beings, but its negation is not annihilation” (p. 142).
The chapter’s last paragraph makes the transition to Hegel: “In
Nonbeing naysaying has found its enabling principle in the realm of
Being. Now comes a view of speech and thought [namely, Hegel’s]
as themselves having inherent negativity. As Nonbeing was a source
of ontic diversity, so this [Hegelian] negativity will be the source of
mental motion” (p. 144, my italics).
Concerning Chapter Five I merely report that it employs the
trinity Spirit, Understanding, Reason to display and classify the
kinds of negativity encountered in Hegel’s Phenomenology, Kant’s
First Critique, and Hegel’s Logic. Devotees of Hegel will find much
to admire here. The chapter concludes with a paragraph announcing that, though the earlier chapter concerning Parmenides and
Plato and the present one concerning Hegel conspire to reaffirm
that Being is prior to Nothing, this is not as yet fully established:
Therefore Chapter Six42 jousts with the “greatest question”—which
is ultimate, Something or Nothing?
Most winning, witty, and sometimes even wise of all the sections of Ways of Naysaying are the concluding pages of this chap-
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ter, Chapter Six, about Nothing, offered under the seemingly bleak
heading, “Nothing as Inescapable End: Death” (pp. 188-198)!
However much of the time I was rather lost in this chapter. The
reason, I imagine, is that Brann’s question, whether Something or
Nothing is ultimate, never jelled into being a question for me. Yet as
best I understand the chapter, the various items it gathers together—“modern nominalism” (p. 170), Epicureanism and the void (p.
171ff), the “blithe nihilism” of some of the Buddhist schools (p.
173), the political “nihilism” of the mid-nineteenth century Russian
revolutionaries portrayed in Turgeniev’s novel Fathers and Sons (p.
179), and Heidegger’s teachings concerning the nihilating nihil (das
nichtende Nichts, p. 184ff) —are thought to deserve to stand side
by side because they all affirm, albeit in different ways, that Nothing
is more C primordial, more really real, than Something. This is the
sense in which they are all of them “nihilisms.”43 Another thing that
they may have in common is an ontology in which will is prior to
understanding.
It is possible that my failure to understand the chapter and its
leading question is due to incomprehension of Heidegger: I tend to
become so overwhelmed with irritation at his preachy incantational tone, his haughtiness, his tricks of inverting grounds and their
consequents, his abuse of the scholarly riches deposited in etymological dictionaries, that I become incapable of paying attention to
what he says.
Conclusion: (1)Is all human “opposing” (in will, word, or deed)
reactive to, thus parasitic on, a “posing”? (2)Might negating
responses constitute evidence for the being of Nonbeing,
Nonexistents, or even of Nothing? (3)Supposing there are
Nonexistents and Nonbeings, by what powers of the soul do we
encounter them?
In her final chapter, Brann recapitulates the affirmative answers
she earlier gave to questions (1) and (2). But she now expands on
what was said about Nonbeing in her pivotal Chapter Four:
“Besides the nonexistents that respond to our sense of what is missing...there are also declines and falls from existence, right in the
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world around us, that we experience as a sort of nonexistence.
Take, for example, the reflection of a willow tree that appears in a
pond. Take the numerous things and people in the world without
that are not what they appear to be....This last group, fallen existences [my italics], particularly raises the question whether it is our
way of experience or the nature of things that provides the not or
non here” (p. 215). As the past participle “fallen” which I underlined just now goes to show, Brann is introducing a principle of hierarchy into the realm of being. “Nonbeing as otherness is the universal relativity....But there is also ...a vertical Nonbeing....This
Nonbeing...has in it something of absolute inferiority, of defective
or deficient Being” (p. 216). Brann has brought us back to the central books of Plato’s Republic, I mean, books VI and VII, with their
image of the sun, diagram of the unequally divided line, and story
of the prisoners confined to life in a cave.44 It is in this context that
she reaffirms the answer to question (3) that’s been with us since her
book’s opening sentence: It’s neither sensing nor thinking that give
us access to nonbeings and nonexistents but imagination and memory.45
Obviously, then, this review cannot have done justice to the
book it tried to summarize and (in some measure) appraise, since
that book is one third of a three thirds whole. I hope, however, to
have conveyed something of its extraordinary scope, writing style,
intellectual daring and imagination.
NOTES:
1. The Ways of Naysaying: No, Not, Nothing, and Nonbeing (
New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001)
2. Cf. What, Then, Is Time?, p. 165:“...we are able to have and interpret
images, to live consciously in the phases of time, and to think and speak negatively. My guess is that these three capacities are really triune, three-in-one.
They may be the root of our humanity, and perhaps the subject of another
book.”
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3. See also World of the Imagination, pp. 405 and 783, where Brann
expresses her agreement with Freud and Wittgenstein that one can “speak of
what is not, but not depict it.”
4. His self-identification, from Faust pt. 1, lines 1336-8, is quoted on p. 14:
“I am a part of the force that constantly wills evil and constantly effects
good....I am the spirit that constantly denies.” Omitted from the quotation,
though surely Nietzscheans would hold that they are, if not the, an arche of
“nihilism,” are the lines: “und das mit Recht; denn alles, was entste-
ht/ Ist wert das es zugrunde geht;/Drum besser ware es dass
nichts enstunde...” (“and rightly so, because everything that originates
deserves to perish. Wherefore it would have been better if nothing had originated.”)
5. Brann’s use of the Freud essay is filtered through Rene Spitz’s The First
Year of Life and No and Yes. I have not read these books. Therefore I
cannot tell whether her complaint that Freud’s speculations— about what it
was that first prompted the human race’s invention of a “symbol” for negation— fail to include reflection on not as accomplishing “denial of truth or
untruth” is also Spitz’s. “Psychoanalytic theory does not tell whence comes
mature negation and possible truth telling; these may not have a naturalistic
genesis” is the concluding sentence of her account of Freud. What a non-naturalistic account of origins might consist in is not explained.
6. The Second Year: The Emergence of Selfawareness (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1981).
7. This list slights her treatment of double negation, of the logical paradoxes that are generated when negation and self-reference are allowed to combine, of the stretching of the concept of number through the introduction of
negative numbers and zero, and of Kant’s discovery or invention of “directed quantities” (vectors) in the pre-critical essay “An Attempt to Introduce the
Concept of Negative Numbers into Philosophy.” Since these topics are listed
in the well-prepared index, I omit page references.
8. Cf. Metaphysics ix, 1048b1-10
9. The quoted sentence ends with the bracketed remark “...of which the first,
the opposition of oppositions, is surely that of thinking itself to its object.”
This claim makes me uneasy, given the remark, on p. xiii of the Preface, that
“the mysteries and conuncrums of intention—denotation and reference,
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sense and meaning...are happily not within the task of this book.” In my estimation, Frege’s insistence on the need for a Sinn/Bedeutung contrast and late
Russell’s attempt to dispense with it must be discussed by anyone who investigates thinking and speaking and their “objects.” Observe also that conversational exchange is given no role in the account. A quick way of making this
manifest is that, throughout the book, saying “no” is classified or explained
in terms of exercising the will, although it surely figures when answering
what linguists indeed peg as “yes/no questions.”
10. My hunch is that Anscombe’s remarks about “internal” and “external”
negation in her Introduction to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (see in Anscombe
pp. 31, 34, 35, 46, 47, 51), and her question (p. 53) “...Is the property of
being true or false, which belongs to the truth-functions, the very sam property as the property of being true or false that belongs to the propositions
whose internal structure does not interest us?” is what first prompted Brann
to make the question about the “location” of the negation particle thematic.
11. If we are both looking at the ocean and you say “Majestic!” my guess
that it is the ocean that is said to be majestic is pretty safe. That’s how I mean
“otherwise manifest.”
12. For the somewhat ampler statement of this Fregean type of analysis of
“simple” sentences which is the source of my remarks, see pp.132f,
Anscombe and Geach, Three Philosophers: Aristotle, Aquinas, Frege. Please
observe that although English, which has pretty nearly dropped the use of
case endings, tends to place the name of the topic early in the sentence,classical Greek and other languages that use case endings to express syntactic
structure may, for rhetorical purposes, place it late in the sentence. Note also
that nothing prevents a simple sentence’s having a “complex” topic, for
instance the ordered triple {Athena, Athens, this olive tree}, which is, on one
analysis, the topic of the sentence “Athena gave Athens this olive tree.” When
the topic is so identified, the predicate is “—gave—to—” When the item that
would, in Greek, be in the nominative case is singled out as the name of the
sentence’s topic, the predicate would be “—gave Athens this olive tree.”
What chiefly matters, from a Fregean logical point of view, is the contrast
between proper names (e.g. “Theaetetus”) and concept words (e.g “flies” or
“sits”) as in the sentences “Theaetetus flies” and “Theaetetus sits.” A person
who is unaware that the word “give” is trivalent and the word “fly” or “sit”
is monovalent hasn’t got the hang of the semantics of these concept words.
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Cf footnote 11 below. See further Anthony Kenny’s Penguin volume about
Wittgenstein, pp. 121f.
question (p. 63) “Is Being at the true center of every sentence even if it is
obscured by a predicative verb?”
13. How “simple” is to be understood in this context is, of course, much in
14. In the spirit of Kantian “architectonic,” these ways of negating a sentence
are later (p. 95) brought to bear on lying, so as to yield a classificatory scheme
for lies.
21. I note that there’s a large dose of such “idealist” thinking in Freud’s essay
on negation: “the performance of the function of judgement is not made possible until the creation of the symbol of negation has endowed thinking with
a first measure of freedom from the consequences of repression and, with it,
from the compulsion of the pleasure principle.”
15. In the “dream theory” of Theaetetus 202 the mistake is to suppose that
22. Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics Bk V, Ch.ll.
sentences consist of nothing but names; earlier, at 190, it looks as though sentences are being spoken of as consisting of nothing but predicate words. For
explicit correction of such “homogenizing” treatment of the constituents of
sentences, see Sophist 262.
23. Peter Geach’s essay “The Law of Exclude Middle” (p. 79, Logic
need of saying.
16. Does “doing logic”/“doing empirical science” exhaust the genus “investigation”? Brann would certainly question this bipartition.
17. “Perhaps the act of negating, which maintains a questionable existence
as the polar opposite of [affirmative] judging, is a chimerical construction,
formed by a fusing of the act of judging with the negation.” (p. 128 of Geach
and Black’s Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob
Frege, Oxford: Blackwell, 1952).
18. In footnote 54, on p. 69, Brann calls on Anscombe to testify that, as
Brann puts it, the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus, in “rejecting inquiry into
the way world, pictured fact, language, and thought are related” and “pretending that epistemology has nothing to do with the foundations of logic
and the theory of meaning,” made claims that are “fantastically untrue”
(Anscombe, Introduction to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, (London: Hutchinson
University Library, p. 28).
19. For example, and especially, Kant and Hegel.
20. This sentence continues, after a colon, as follows:”The briefest way to
put the reason why is that thinking speech brings its objects to a standstill
even as it goes about discerning them through their properties. The declarative is expresses at once that transfixing done by thought and the expansion
with which the object of thought responds.” The just cited explication of
Brann’s “introspective” report is tantamount to an affirmative answer to the
Matters, Oxford: Blackwell, 1972) contains a nice exposition of this thesis.
Geach, like Brann herself (e.g., p. 28), exploits Wittgenstein’s metaphor of
“logical space” and the notion of boundary for this purpose. Note, by the
way, that it would be a mistake to assimilate Wittgenstein’s logical space to
Brann’s psychic space, as she describes it on the opening pages of her Preface.
Studying Brann’s, Wittgenstein’s, and the cognitive scientist Gilles
Fauconnier’s uses of metaphors of space would be a delicate but worthwhile
undertaking.
24. See, e.g., What, Then Is Time?, p. 112ff. In other sections of Ways of
Naysaying Wittgenstein continues to be treated as the or a bad guy: He
would, as Brann reads him,want to prevent her and fellow philosophers from
investigating whether there is “some one truth behind [the] many appearances” of, in this instance, negativity (p. xiv and note 11 on p. xvii). In the
chapter on nihilism, Brann approvingly reports that Stanley Rosen has
“shown” that “‘Wittgenstein and his progeny are nihilists because they cannot distinguish speech from silence.’” After the brief quote from Rosen, she
goes on to say: “For [according to Wittgenstein] it makes no difference what
we say. It makes no difference because if, as the later Wittgenstein
says...speech becomes meaningful only in a context of gamelike rules and
conventions and as a ‘form of life,’ then we can never get beyond these and
never receive a sensible answer when we query a conventional usage or conventionalism itself ” (p. 183).
25. I was helped by Anscombe’s version of this last question, which runs as
follows: What right do logicians have to define “not” by telling us that “not
p” is “the proposition that is true when p is false and false when p is true”?
The phrase “the so- and- so” is, after all, legitimate only when there is a soand-so and there is only one such.
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26. Does this word (or its German equivalent), occur in Wittgenstein’s text?
27. It is a striking fact that only Aristotle’s treatment of “immediate inference” is taken up (footnote 7, p. 61) and “syllogizing” omitted. Note also that
in Chapter Three, when dealing with Russell’s account of Definite
Description, nothing is said about the need, in mathematical reasoning, for
the principle of “substitutivity of identicals” or the “principle of existential
generalization.” See Ausonio Marras’ Introduction to his anthology,
Intentionaliy, Mind, and Language (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1972) for some brief remarks about the latter two. When all is said and
done, Brann does not seem to be really interested in formal logic. This is how
I account for her not catching the slip in claiming that “In symbolic logic we
do not enter the propositions as we did in section 2, but take them as primitive, symbolized by p or q, etc.” (p. 43; cf p. 212). She certainly knows that
Frege’s treatment of quantification (analysis of the sense and use of such little words as “all”, “some”, “one,” which is needed for doing predicate calculus) is what is usually singled out as the true “advance” beyond premodern
logic; Stoic logic, though “pre-modern,” had already dealt with the definitions of the logical constants of propositional logic and with its basic argument patterns.
I look as though I’m being a pedant about the history of logic. But that’s really not what I care about. Rather, ever since the days that I heard the World
War II German soldiers who were entering Amsterdam, Holland, sing
“Denn wir alle lieben nur ein Madelein, Annemarie” I have wondered, “Should I feel sorry for that girl, Annemarie, burdened with being
loved by this whole troop of men? Or are there as many Annemarie’s as there
are men in this troop, and each of the girls gets one of the singing men? For
a fine essay on this topic, see Peter Geach’s “History of a Fallacy” in Logic
Matters (Oxford: Blackwell, 1972).
28. I believe this means the not of contradiction.
29. I am not sure how “modern” is meant here: post-Occamist, that is postrealist (in the scholastic sense of that word)? I ask for clarification of the
adjective because I am not certain what, exactly, the systemic import of the
observation is. See footnote 23 on pp. 111ff. See also the remark about the
“inherent nihilism of an absolute nominalism” in her commentary on Wallace
Stevens’ poem “The Snow Man” and the continuation of this thought in her
interpretation of “The Course of a Particular,” p. 170. FootnoteA 3 on p. 199
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claims that “nominalism is one of the philosophical positions adopted by
those for whom disillusionment is a warrant of truth” and concludes with a
remark about the “fanatically honest.” These are, says Brann, the folk who
“take pride in shivering in the metaphysical cold.” The quoted passages
sound—what shall I call it?— dismissive to me. I wish there had been something more nearly like an explanation of what the nominalism/realism issue
is and why Brann favors the realists. Cf pp. 4-6 of W Stace, The
.T.
Philosophy of Hegel (New York: Dover, 1955)?
30. Artifacts no longer in use, like sliderules, or tools for living about which
we learn through literary remains but examplars of which have not been
encountered by archaeologists? I try more nearly to specify the question
because I am confused whether the general question of how we can speak or
think truly or falsely of kinds that are“bygones” is being raised or rather the
question how bygone individuals can be referred to? Cf Wittgenstein’s
Philosophical Investigations ¶79 about the many senses of “Moses did not
exist.” See also G.E.M. Anscombe and P Geach, Three Philosophers
.T.
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1973) pp. 135f about the importance of Frege’s reviving
the scholastic contrast between singular and universal propositions.
“Traditional” logic rides roughshod over the distinction. Geach’s essay “Perils
of Pauline” in Logic Matters is refreshingly lucid and unstuffy on the subject of names and descriptioons (and much else besides).
31. Cf. p. 100: ”What Russell says he means, flatly and irremediably, and
therefore he must be flatly and irremediably wrong: It cannot be the case that
what is said about and within fictions is false—unless one maintains that logically accurate speech has no correspondence with humanly normal speech.
For we say both that it is true and that it is true to life that Natasha Rostov
marries Pierre Bezuhov, and we want to keep on saying just that.”
32. See the splendid appreciation of the Raj Quintet in Brann’s contribution
to the anthology Poets, Princes, and Private Citizens edited by Joseph M.
Knippenberg and Peter Augustine Lawler (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield,
1996).
33. The special pleasure we take in our own children is not solely due to
their being ours; it has much to do with our knowing them better than most
other people’s children.
34. I worry a little about the rhetorical effects of using the words “pretend”
and “pretense” in lieu of “make believe.” But let that pass.
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35. The novelist Jorge Luis Borges writes somewhere, “[The actor] on stage
plays at being another before a gathering of people who play at taking him
for that other person.” I acknowledge, however, that novels differ from stage
plays, involve (in addition to the things mentioned) some special a deux intimacy between the reader and the book.
36. See for example Playing and Reality, London: Tavistock Publications,
1971 and perhaps also some of the essays about Winnicottt included in the
collection edited by Grolnick and Barkin, Between Reality and Fantasy
(New York: Jason Arons, 1978). I particularly recommend Rosemary
Dinnage’s “A Bit of Light.”
37. As best I recall, Brann does not, when treating of “the lie in the soul” (p.
94), worry about what Freud called repression.
38. I was puzzled that Brann did not reserve space in her book to discuss the
important topic of children’s and grown-ups’ often being uncertain whether
this or that “really happened” and whether this or that named individual
(Satan, Cerberus) or species of entities (witches) “really exists” or not.
Helping children sort out the dreamt from what’s in the public world of the
awake is among our parental responsibilities. Thus “...does not exist” seems
to me to hold as important a story as is that about the being of non-beings.
39. Cf Epinomis 990 on that mere farmer’s almanac, Hesiod’s Works and
Days?. Parmenides reputedly was the first to propose that the moon shines
by the sun’s reflected light and that the earth is a sphere; also, that the
evening and morning stars are one and the same. I therefore keep hoping for
a reading of his poem that will show that its episteme/doxa contrast has
astronomical meaning. But no such reading is endorsed by Brann.
40. These sentences allude, of course, to Aeschylus’ Oresteia and Sophocles’
Oedipus at Colonus. This well illustrates the dramatizing vividness of Brann’s
ontological discourse.
41. Cf The World of the Imagination p. 389ff. and Jacob Klein, Greek
Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra (English version,
Cambridge: MIT Press, 1966), p. 82 and A Commentary on Plato’s Meno
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965), p. 114f.
42. Corresponding to the afternoon of the day on which Man was created,
male and female, in God’s image? Yes, of course I am joking in playing with
the numbers. But I am not just joking: The chapters in Genesis that tell in
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detail how man became man (chapters 2, 3, 4) hold a plethora of negation
words, whereas the opening chapter lacks all negativity.
43. If there is an explicitly stated definition of the word “nihilism” in
Chapter Six, I need to have it pointed out to me.
44. Cf. Eva Brann, “The Music of the Republic,” St. John’s Review, volume xxxix, numbers 1 and 2. Se especially pp. 75,6.
45. Cf. the discussion of “opinion” on pp. 38ff of “The Music of the
Republic.”
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107
The Potent Nonentity: A
review of Eva Brann’s What,
Then, is Time?
Torrance Kirby
Time, Augustine claims, is so ordinary as to be impossibly
difficult (Conf. XI.14). This is the paradoxical theme to which Eva
Brann returns often (one is tempted to say “time and again”) in her
remarkable, recently published volume What, Then, is Time? Time,
the “potent nonentity,” proves to be as elusive a quarry as the
Sophist himself. The inquiry begins with a high sense of wonder
peculiarly fitting in this of all philosophical quests. The inner experience of time and its foundation or ultimate ground, constitute the
heart of this investigation. Brann employs an extended, highly elaborated aporetic approach to the search for a definition. So numerous and complex are the poriai encountered that this Protean
beast is not pinned down with a definition until well into the closing chapter of the book. The investigation as a whole is composed
in the form of a diptych with one larger panel devoted to the study
of various selected texts or “presentations” by philosophers who, in
Brann’s estimation, “have written most deeply and most engagingly about time.” A second smaller panel contains the author’s own
“reflections” on the matter. She is careful to point out, “study and
thought, though not of necessity incompatible, are by no means the
same” (159). This book is worthy of the most careful reading with
both ends in view.
The predominance of the prolegomena in this investigation is
consistent with the spirit of much contemporary, postmodern
inquiry. Brann’s approach is underscored by the splendidly postrevolutionary claim that her purpose is “not to change the world
but to interpret it!” Viewed in another light, however, the methodology of this book is resonant with the very best ancient authors,
Eva Brann. What, Then, is Time? Lanham, MD. Rowman and Littlefield, 1999.
Torrance Kirby is an assistant professor at McGill University.
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and its hermeneutical approach reminiscent of Aristotelian science.
The first part of the book, a study of earlier philosophical “presentations” of time, constitutes a “history” such as one finds at the
outset of many of Aristotle’s treatises. Brann’s study of the
attempts of her predecessors to define time is thus by no means any
ordinary history. Her extensive review of the preeminent contributions to the hermeneutics of time clarifies wonderfully the question concerning time and enables the reader to make the great
ascent from mere study to thought. In the “reflections” of the second part, Brann proceeds intrepidly to face the question “what,
then, is time?” head on.
Discussion of the “lisping” efforts of predecessors (Metaph.
A.1) in this chase turns out to be a daunting task. The relevant texts
range “from the hard to the hellishly hard,” as Brann puts it. As in
an Aristotelian “history,” the texts are selected with a view to clarification of certain key facets of the problem of definition. Four crucial theories about the nature of time are addressed through the
study of four pairs of philosophers. The originality of Brann’s
approach is striking. The unexpected pairings - Plato and Einstein,
Aristotle and Kant, Plotinus and Heidegger, Augustine and Husserl
- prove to be both inspired and illuminating. An important element
of Brann’s purpose in this approach is to demonstrate that the larger questions about the nature of time are themselves by no means
“time-bound.” By pairing the authors in this way Brann ensures that
the problem of definition predominates over less important considerations. The first approach to the theory of time, as exemplified by
the arguments of Plato’s Timaeus and Einstein’s Special Theory of
Relativity, proposes that time is “external,” namely that time refers
to external motions of which it is the measure, as in the case of a
clock’s measurement of the diurnal rotation of the sun. (The consideration of time as the “externality” of history and its movements
is mercifully ruled outside of the present inquiry.) In the cosmos of
Timaeus, time is the very intelligibility or “numbering” of the external motion of the visible heaven. As Brann puts it, this identification
of time with phenomenal motion continues to “bedevil” the dis-
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course of physics. Einstein displays little interest in the essential
nature of time, but is absorbed rather by the question of quantifying time owing to complications arising from the implication of
temporality in locomotion. After the fashion of the hunt for the
wily Sophist in the Platonic dialogue of that name, the consequence
of this initial “presentation” of a definition of time is to introduce a
dichotomous division - namely between time in the world and time
in the soul - which is of considerable use to Brann in advancing her
own quest for an acceptable formulation. The boundaries have been
narrowed considerably by the exclusion of merely “external” time
as a fallacy.
Before proceeding to the presentations of internal time, Brann
examines a pair who propose highly speculative accounts of the
generation of time out of space. Hegel’s dialectical exposition of the
genesis of time out of space is put forward by Brann as possibly the
most profound of all treatments of “external” time. For Hegel, time
from its first genesis as a pure Becoming, behaves like incipient spirit (Geist): “Time is the Concept itself that is there and which presents itself to consciousness as empty intuition. For this reason Spirit
necessarily appears in time, and it appears in time just as long as it
has not grasped its pure Concept, that is, has not annulled Time”
(Phenomenology ¶ 801). Through a discussion of Bergson’s mission
to suppress “extensive space” in favour of “intensive time” Brann
effects a transition to the second principal stem, viz. internal time
or “time in the soul,” which is the general focus of the remaining
three pairs of texts in the series of presentations.
With her examination of the theories of Aristotle and Kant,
Brann arrives at the second crucial stem of the dichotomous division of time into the categories “external” and “internal.” Although
for Aristotle motion is properly the “substrate” of time, while conversely for Kant time is itself the ground of motion, both philosophers are “driven” to relate the notion of time to a “psychic counting.” As Aristotle says, “time is the number of motion” where
motion is understood as disclosing continuous magnitude. The
“truth” of time resides in the numbering or counting soul that meas-
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ures the before and after of this magnitude. Time, according to this
presentation, is no longer viewed as an independent, “substantive”
reality or but is rather reduced to the status of an accident or predicate which exists “for thought.” For Brann, Kant’s treatment of
time displays a deep affinity with Aristotle’s on this more general
level. The internal sense of time, however, represents much more in
the Kantian metaphysics than ever dreamed of by Aristotle. For
Kant this psychic counting is perhaps the most intimate characteristic of humanity. Indeed Brann shows that Kant’s treatment of time
is most accessible when the Critique of Pure Reason is viewed as “a
new founding of human nature whose centre is time” (55).
Appearances may be removed from time but not the reverse, which
reveals that time, for Kant, is prior in the order of knowing; the
apprehension of change is understood to depend upon the a priori
intuition of time. In one of numerous penetrating aperçus scattered
throughout the discussion, Brann draws attention to Kant’s
nonetheless restricted view of our ability to know ourselves as temporal beings by reminding us of his low opinion of music. This, in
turn, is contrasted with Leibniz’s opposing exaltation of the unconscious counting of the soul in music as “a pleasure given to us by
God so that we may know of him; in music soul is revealed to itself
and God to it” (Principles of Nature and Grace ¶ 14).
In the subsequent paired “presentations” of Plotinus and
Heidegger, the inquiry proceeds to consider the “ground” of temporality—that is, of some higher, possibly transcendent source of
this inner sense of time. Thus the dichotomous division of the
“hunt” advances to a new level of precision. For both Plotinus and
Heidegger, as Brann shows, time constitutes the “deepest condition” for humanity. Plotinus identifies time with specifically
“human” being in its manifestations of a peculiarly ecstatic nature,
by the human’s attempt to escape the element of its temporal fallenness. The Soul’s very “appetite for things to come” (Enneads III.
7.4, 34) keeps her in her fallen state. Temporal being strives for salvation, viz. the overcoming of temporal “dispersion,” through
union with the eternal hypostasis above. Happiness, understood as
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“the flight of the alone to the Alone,” is thus altogether outside
time, for it is no mere mood or emotion, but rather a fundamental
possibility for the soul, that of an undispersed present even beyond
being (Enneads I. 5.7, 15). Time is made explicable through eternity, its original ground. Although radically distinct from Plotinus
with respect to virtually the entire substantive content of his
thought, Martin Heidegger at least shares with Plotinus the supposition that temporality is the key to understanding human existence.
As a being whose essence is its existence, this ultimate ground is for
Heidegger not the transcendent eternity of the Plotinian Primal
Hypostasis, but rather the temporality of human being itself,
Dasein. The discussion stemming from this remarkable dialectical
pairing of Heidegger and Plotinus is particularly illuminating.
In chapter four Brann arrives at her final pairing of Augustine
and Husserl with the observation that no two philosophers are both
further apart and closer together. Through an examination of their
discourse on time as a temporal “stretching” of the soul (distensio,
as Augustine puts it), the argument—for it is indeed an argument—
acquires a distinctly sharper dialectical edge. The coincidence of
identity and difference in their thinking about time is uncannily
appropriate to their strongly dialectical approaches to the quest to
define time. According to Brann, while Augustine sifts through the
phenomena in search of existence and while Husserl neutralizes
existence in order to find the phenomena, both look within themselves for the phases of time, that is to say, for past, present, and
future. For both philosophers, Brann argues, the problem of “internal” time is not to be referred to a higher ontological ground for
resolution, as is the case with Plotinus, for example, but rather time
is to be understood as arising out of and discerned within the soul
or consciousness. Brann’s argument on this point is open to some
dispute, at least with reference to Augustine if not to Husserl.
Perhaps the device of pairing the presentations has led to a downplaying of Augustine’s affinity with Plotinus. It is common among
contemporary existential readings of Augustine to de-emphasise his
dependence upon Neoplatonic metaphysics. He begins his presen-
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tation on time with the “in principio” of Genesis 1, the revelation
of the divine creative activity understood as totally beyond the temporal, narrative realm of human existence. In making his transition
in Confessions from Book X on memory to Book XI on time,
Augustine shifts gears as it were from looking within at the phenomena of consciousness to looking above at the higher ground of
the life of the soul, ab interiora ad superiora. The Creator, who is
altogether above the flux of becoming, is understood nevertheless
by Augustine to be present, knowing, and active within the temporal realm.
While temporal human existence, dispersed or “distended” as
it is through phases of past, present, and future, is to be contrasted absolutely with the undivided existence of “the One,” Augustine
finds nonetheless within the soul as imago dei a positive image of
the activity of God in creation. The enigma of the human experience of time is thus referred by Augustine to the exemplar of the
Trinity for resolution. In the psychological image of the Trinity—
memoria, intellectus, et voluntas—Augustine finds a model for his
reflection upon the experience of time as at once continuous and
without extension. He points to the chanting of a psalm as a potent
revelation concerning time. He reflects upon the recitation of a
song that he knows, Ambrose’s hymn Deus Creator Omnium. The
song is stored in memory, an already completed whole which the
soul intends to sing. Before singing, the soul’s expectation possesses the complete song. As the soul sings, the relation of expectation
to memory shifts syllable by syllable until the entirety of expectation has finally become a memory of the song as completed, as having been sung. Memory, presence, and expectation are united in
the song. Through the singing of praise, itself a mode of confession, Augustine begins to see how the timeless and the temporal
become one. Through song the soul is enabled to think the divine
object in the image, and this, Plotinus certainly would regard as the
most extreme absurdity. Thus, by “collecting” ourselves, we can
escape from our temporal constitution into God’s “standing Now,”
as Brann puts it, into eternity.
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Brann concludes the part devoted to presentations of time with
an extensive and complex analysis of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological treatment of internal time-consciousness. The text of
Husserl’s Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewußtseins we
owe, Brann tells us, to Edith Stein’s supererogatory editing of various manuscripts and notations. By way of a background sketch,
Brann offers a helpful introduction to Phenomenology itself and
looks at the influence of Augustine, William James, and Franz
Brentano on Husserl’s reflections upon time. Husserl is particularly
engaged with the problem of integrating the phases of time. Brann
claims that he in fact “solves the problem of relating the present, the
moment of primary perception to its immediate retentional past
and protentional future by giving a model for the orderly sinking
away of perceptions and their intertwining with present consciousness” (160). With Husserl, the presentations have in a certain sense
come around full circle. Husserl brings his account of time to completion by reconstituting “external” time in the form of an absolute
temporal flux which transcends the temporal phenomena of internal time-consciousness and which is, moreover, the underlying principle which sustains human subjectivity. As Brann concludes,
Husserl’s ultimate temporal flux is “a very nearly inarticulable final
fact” (156).
In the Second Part of the book, titled “Reflections,” Brann purports to finally face the question “What, then, is time?” (The claim
that the “Presentations” are a mere exercise in “study” and that
only now, in the final pages is she going to roll up her sleeves and
get down to the serious business of “thought” seems not entirely
ingenuous. Already a good deal of hard thinking has gone into
both the pairing itself and the ordering of the pairs, all of which
serves to advance the quest for a definition.) The reflections proceed with a consideration of certain formal similarities between
time and the faculty of imagination - here, once again, is the
Sophist and the wedding of Being and Nonbeing. Brann shows that
images present a relatively constant picture, viz. Being and
Nonbeing in fusion, while time, on the other hand, is a flux of
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THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
“Being as passing over into Nothing and Nothing as passing over
into Being” (Hegel, Phil. of Nature ¶ 259). Time and imagination
are thus connected with one another through the way Being is
related to Nonbeing in both temporal process of becoming and in
images. As might well be expected, Brann offers a fascinating comparison of these concepts by building upon her previous exploration of the faculty of imagination.2
There follows Brann’s own interpretation of the phases of time
together with their appropriate faculties: past and memory, future
and expectation, present and perception. Throughout, she draws
upon the foregoing presentations of time by the philosophers which
provide both the categories and a vocabulary which enable Brann to
penetrate the question deeply and swiftly. This section of the book
is a wonderful demonstration of the dictum of Bernard of Chartres
who claimed to be able to see things far off by virtue of “standing
on the shoulders of giants.” In an interesting and frequently amusing section Brann proceeds to analyse various “time pathologies” as
forms of “phase-fixation.” Here we have an opportunity to reflect
on aspects of time’s “brutal tyranny,” e.g. the contemporary idolatry of novelty, a fixation on the “just now,” the trivialising of the
past in nostalgia or the future obsession of the IT phenomenon.
Brann even reviews cures for these time-induced pathologies such
as that offered by Nietzsche in his teaching on the Eternal
Recurrence of the Identical. Brann counters this frantic cycle of
reincarnation with another, much more attractive option, namely
the concept of Aevum, as manifest in the sempiternity of the angels
in heaven or, alternatively, in the fictional temporality of the novel.
All of this is delightful. Brann recommends the cultivation of “aeveternity” as at least “a partial relief for our temporal ills.”
In the last chapter of the book Brann moves closer to the final
struggle with the definition of time by way of a via negativa. Here
time is finally unveiled as the potent, indeed tyrannical, non-entity.
The revealing is apophatic. Time is not external motion, nor is it an
abstraction from process. It is not a power or force, nor a “fungible
substance” (i.e. time is not even money!). Time is certainly not a
KIRBY
115
mere linguistic usage. As Brann succinctly puts this point,
“Language can guide thought but it cannot constrain it.” (Brann
notes in passing how neatly the distinctions of philosophical inquiry
concerning time seem to turn up in the problems of linguistics.)
Time is not Dasein. Whereas Heidegger regards human finitude as
ultimately expressed in the fact our mortality, that our existence is
“destined” to end, Brann counters optimistically that human finitude is better sought in the fact that we begin, “we do not temporalize ourselves; we are born temporal.” Time is no determinate
being; it is not perceived by the senses, it is without external effects,
and elusive to insight. Time is therefore a non-entity. Though
apparently nothing, time’s “not-being” is nonetheless very powerful
(although, be it noted, not “a power”). “What, then, is time?” Here
the argument finally shifts from marked apophasis to a more kataphatic note. The affirmative definition comes in nine-fold form (a
touch which no doubt would have pleased Pythagoras). It is not this
reviewer’s intent, however, to spill the beans. In order to reap the
full benefit of Brann’s final, dramatic unmasking of Time—to be
altogether “present” as it were at the capture of this elusive beast—
readers are well advised to follow the leader of the hunt herself
along the trail through all its intricate twists and turns. And who
indeed are the intended participants in this quest? Brann recommends her book to anyone who longs to learn about time by pursuing the quest described above, to aficionados, to students who
seek to come to grips with some of the primary texts on time, and
finally to teachers who might be on the look-out for some tips on
selections for a syllabus on the interpretation of time. This is an
unusually difficult book whose author challenges the reader to “take
note” and whose rewards are proportionate to the investment of
careful, punctuated attention.
NOTE:
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THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
1. See Eva Brann, The World of the Imagination: Sum and Substance
(Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1991).
117
The Feasting of Socrates
Eva Brann
Before reviewing Peter Kalkavage’s Focus Press translation of
the Timaeus for the St. John’s community, I must, in all fairness,
confess my partiality. He, Eric Salem, and myself were the cotranslators of Plato’s Phaedo and his Sophist for the same publisher.
Together, over several years, we worked out some principles of
translation which are discernible in this Timaeus version. In fact, I
think the three of us would welcome with some glee the notion of
a St. John’s school of translation. For we wanted to be working very
much with the spirit of the Program and a possible use by our students in mind. We thought that translations of Plato should render
word for word, even particle for particle, with the greatest exactitude, what the Greek said, avoiding all interpretative paraphrase,
craven omissions, and latter-day terminology. But we also stipulated that they should catch the idiomatic expressiveness and the
changing moods of the original. These principles are clearly at work
in this rendering of the Timaeus.
We learned as well, however, that each dialogue is a unique universe of discourse, the artful representation of an inquiry with its
own approaches, terms, settings, and above all its own participants,
each of whom is in a mood specific to this never-to-be-repeated, yet
ever-to-be-continued conversation. Thus it follows that the Timaeus
made its own particular demands on the translator. It is, after all,
less a dialogue than a short tale of antiquity by Critias followed by
an account of the cosmos by Timaeus—a long one. The familiar
voice of Socrates falls almost silent as these speeches are made to be
a feast for his enjoyment—or, perhaps, amusement. Timaeus’s cosmology is full of the sort of technical matter Socrates does not scruple to spoof in the Republic—the very dialogue which establishes
the sort of ideal city that his companions agree to bring to moving
life for him by giving it its historical and cosmological setting.
Peter Kalkavage, Plato’s Timaeus. Newburyport, MA: The Focus Philosophical Library (2001).
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THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
Timaean cosmology involves not only the moving spheres and circles that bear the astronomical bodies and the geometric elements
from which they are constituted, but also the musical “harmonies”
(scales) that ensoul the heavens. Three beautifully clear appendices
provide the reader—and this edition is meant for the “adventuresome beginner”—with the fairly elementary knowledge needed to
enjoy this heavenly entertainment. It should be said, though, that
the cosmological astronomy of the Timaeus together with its sober
mathematical exposition in Ptolemy’s Almagest was the serious science that stood behind the New Astronomy of the dawn of modernity. (There is a story—I cannot vouch for its truth—that in the
early days of the St. John’s Program books of astronomy and
physics were to be found in the library ranged under “Music,” courtesy of the Timaeus.) The dialogue is so full of Greek science that
there is a danger of regarding it as a source of antiquarian problems.
But, the translator observes in his Preface, that is the very danger,
the one of reducing the cosmos to a collection of mummified facts
and recondite puzzles, to which the Egyptian priests are said to fall
prey. So less is more by way of learned exegesis, and the well-illustrated appendices give just enough to make the dialogue intelligible
to an amateur.
Since I’ve started at the back, let me say that here too you will
find an English to Greek glossary. The entries tell not only how a
Greek word is translated and, if more than one translation has to be
used, why that is necessary, it also gives the root or central meaning
and others that flow from it. In sum, the entries are a pretty interesting lesson in philosophic Greek.
To go to the front end of the book, there is, besides the Preface,
the Introductory Essay. The Timaeus, the only Platonic dialogue
known in medieval times and in all epochs the most influential one
among those philosophers to whom the constitution of the cosmos
was of central interest, is also, in Peter Kalkavage’s words, “the
strangest of Plato’s dialogues. It is so strange that one wonders
whether anything can be taken seriously . . . . [It] is strange not only
to us but also in itself.” The Introduction is intended to illuminate
BRANN
119
that strangeness without dispelling it. The odd but necessary question is pursued: What is the Timaeus about? Socrates is all dressed
up (kekosmenos) and in a strange mood. He gives a truncated, philosophy-free version of his Republic and asks to be told about this
stripped-down political blueprint mobilized to go to war. The
resulting verbal feast prepared for him among the three eminent
men who are present (one mysterious fourth is absent) has an oddly
skewed relation to the truth and the love of wisdom that are
Socrates’ normal preoccupation, for it is presented as a “likely
story,” and a story of likenesses, the way of being that is so dubious
for Socrates.
The festivity begins with Critias’s retelling of an antiquarian
tale about archaic Athens as told by the Egyptian priests to the visiting lawgiver of Athens, Solon. We hear that this old Athens,
ancient even to the ancients, once defeated a huge and sinister
island empire called Atlantis.* Critias thus presents a pseudo-historical Athens as the embodiment of a “pale image” of the Republic.
There is plenty to puzzle about in this beginning.
For this city Timaeus supplies the cosmic setting; we are invited to wonder how fitting it is. A divine craftsman appears out of
nowhere and makes the cosmos, the well-ordered beautiful world,
in the image of an original model. Hence the cosmos has two wonderful features. It is a copy and thus, while imperfect in its being,
capable of being in turn a model, as it indeed is in the dialogue. And
second, it is intelligible, interpretable, not only as an intentionally
made work of art, but as en-, or rather, circum-souled. For whereas the human animal has its soul within, the cosmos is encompassed
by bands of soul matter. All these wonderful and significant doings
can be read in the dialogue, but the Introduction brings out their
thought-provoking strangeness and their relevance to our humanity.
Thus after the cosmic construction there is a harsher “Second
Founding.” It has an elusive “wandering cause,” the “source of
power as opposed to goodness”—an intra-cosmic, semi-intractable
cause called “necessity” acting in a scarcely intelligible theater of
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THE ST. JOHN’S REVIEW
operation, space. Within it arise body and the human animal: “The
making of man for Timaeus is a pious desecration,” says the
Introduction. It is delegated by the Craftsman-father to his starsons.
This part of the Timaeus, the coming-to-be of organic life within the cosmos, is so weird that our undergraduates aren’t even asked
to read it, yet Peter Kalkavage shows how to begin to make humanly applicable sense of it.
Finally he returns to the question: “Why is the greatest philosophical work on the cosmos framed by politics?” An answer is suggested: The frame signals Plato’s reflection on what happens when
the Socratic search for truth is replaced by a Timaean will to order.
But this shift to the constructive will might well stand for the revolution that initiated our modernity. The means to this new age are
also adumbrated in this miraculous dialogue; in his final assessment
of the Timaeus Peter Kalkavage says that “the likely story presents
the paradigm of what it would mean to use mathematical structures
to make flux intelligible—at least as intelligible as possible.”
Twenty-one centuries later the calculus will perfect these structures,
and so the science by which we live and which Plato has prefigured
will really take off. Read this introduction to get a sense of what it
means for a work to be great, to see deep into things and far into
time.
But better yet, read the splendid translation framed by the valuable apparatus. It is trustworthy; it sticks close to the text, word for
word. But it is also readable—not translaterese but good, lively, and
flexibly intoned English, since faithfulness in translation includes
preserving something of the literary quality of the original. This dialogue in particular is, for all the wild exuberance of its philosophical imagination, written in fresh, plain Greek, though plain terms
are often put to novel uses.—Would you expect to find Being,
Becoming, Same, Other, ordinary words with a gloss of high philosophy, in a cosmological context? Perhaps the best example is the
divine Craftsman. As the translator points out in the glossary, the
Greek word, which has passed into English as “demiurge,” merely
BRANN
121
means a skilled worker available for orders from the public, so it
was just right to preserve that sense with the plain English word. To
help with background knowledge, there are lots of footnotes right
on the page.
Here’s my recommendation, then: We have all these wonderful
alumni seminars around the country. Why not devote one here and
there to a reading of the Timaeus?—And perhaps some participants
might take advantage of Peter Kalkavage’s translation (which is,
incidentally, purposely inexpensive). I’d love to come and help, and
so, I imagine, would he.
*I can’t resist a footnote.
In our own last century, there have been droves of people,
many of them now active, who have fallen into Plato’s antiquarian
trap and gone in search of this lost continent. The description of the
island, which enormous geometrically planned public works have
transformed into something formidably awful, is set out in the dialogue Critias. Its Speer-like architecture (Speer was Hitler’s architect) appealed to the Nazis, whose mythmakers represented Atlantis
as an early Nordic utopia, to be rediscovered by state-sponsored
archaeologists. These people had at least got it right with respect to
the scariness of the drawn-and-quartered, brass-walled locale. Most
modern representations, be they in books, songs, or movies (of
which Disney’s “Atlantis” is the latest) are governed by the mistaken notion that Atlantis was meant to be a lost place of marvels and
beauties, a sort of mid-ocean Shangri-la. It’s actually a totalitarian
topography, the triumph of the will over nature.
�
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<em>The St. John's Review</em><span> is published by the Office of the Dean, St. John's College. All manuscripts are subject to blind review. Address correspondence to </span><em>The St. John's Review</em><span>, St. John's College, 60 College Avenue, Annapolis, MD 21401 or via e-mail at </span><a class="obfuscated_link" href="mailto:review@sjc.edu"><span class="obfuscated_link_text">review@sjc.edu</span></a><span>.</span><br /><br /><em>The St. John's Review</em> exemplifies, encourages, and enhances the disciplined reflection that is nurtured by the St. John's Program. It does so both through the character most in common among its contributors — their familiarity with the Program and their respect for it — and through the style and content of their contributions. As it represents the St. John's Program, The St. John's Review espouses no philosophical, religious, or political doctrine beyond a dedication to liberal learning, and its readers may expect to find diversity of thought represented in its pages.<br /><br /><em>The St. John's Review</em> was first published in 1974. It merged with <em>The College </em>beginning with the July 1980 issue. From that date forward, the numbering of <em>The St. John's Review</em> continues that of <em>The College</em>. <br /><br />Click on <a title="The St. John's Review" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=13"><strong>Items in the The St. John's Review Collection</strong></a> to view and sort all items in the collection.
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Russell, George
Kraus, Pamela
Brann, Eva T. H.
Carey, James
Ruhm von Oppen, Beate
Sachs, Joe
Van Doren, John
Williamson, Robert B.
Zuckerman, Elliott
Phillips, Blakely
Sachs, Joe
David, Amirthanayagam
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Maschler, Chaninah
Kirby, Torrance
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S T. J O H N ’ S C O L L E G E
S P R IN G 2017
VOLUME 42, ISSUE 1
Lincoln
Leading by
Teaching
�OPENING NOTE
A remarkable coincidence occurred
when Chris Nelson first announced
publicly his plans to retire this
spring: it was 25 years to the day that
he was named president of the Annapolis campus. Stumbling upon this
realization, I immediately swapped
my editor’s pen for my detective’s
magnifying glass, searching for clues
to some deeper, hidden meaning.
Alas, to no avail. But the opportunity
led me to explore Chris’s influence as
president. While the coincidental timing of his announcement may remain
a mystery, one thing which can be
said with certainty is that the pages
dedicated to him within this issue of
The College only begin to describe the
impact of his legacy and his devotion
to the St. John’s Program.
In honor of President Nelson, members of the Annapolis community
joined tutors for an afternoon of reading and discussing works by some of
his favorite authors. Among them was
Abraham Lincoln. A fascinating and
complicated figure in American history, tutor George Russell describes
Lincoln as “a man with a true moral
compass.” Lincoln inspires us today
through his eloquent speeches, and
his gift for the written word. He also
inspires by his actions as a leader,
revealing that a moral compass is capable of shifting when flawed notions
give way to enlightened thought.
Gregory Shook, editor
ii THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 1
�SPRING 2017
VOLUME 42, ISSUE 1
“� incoln appeared on the earth in the right place at the
L
right time to preserve and protect a constitution constructed
to provide against the fortuity of prudence in human affairs.”
—George Russell, tutor
FEATUR E S
P A G E 1 2��
DEPAR TM ENTS
PA G E 1 8
PA G E 2 4
LEADERSHIP IN
FACTIOUS TIMES
PROTECTOR OF
OUR PROGRAM
MODERN
GLADIATOR
In a politically and morally
divided United States,
Abraham Lincoln, our nation’s
16th president, displays
leadership through teaching.
After 26 years, Christopher
Nelson says goodbye to his
role as president of the
Annapolis campus—but not
to his love for the Program.
Ingenuity, empathy, and a
passion for learning lead to
a technological breakthrough
that may save the skulls of
athletes everywhere.
��FROM THE BELL TOWERS
BIBLIOFILE
FOR & ABOUT ALUMNI
4 �
Growing the Graduate Institute
28 �obert Wolf (Class of 1967)
R
envisions a self-reliant rural
America in Building the
Agricultural City.
30 �JCAA Elections: Cast Your Vote!
S
6 Lincoln’s Walk
8 �
Tutors Talk Books:
Krishnan Venkatesh
9 Open to Inquiry
10 Civility on the World Stage
11 �idden Talent:
H
Joan Haratani (SF79)
31 Alumni Leadership Forum
32 �hilanthropy: Ron Fielding (A70)
P
and Warren Spector (A81) pledge
their commitment to St. John’s.
29 �elson Lund (A74) aims to revive
N
the ideas of a major philosophic
critic of the Enlightenment era
in Rousseau’s Rejuvenation of
Political Philosophy.
33 Alumni Notes
38 In Memoriam
� Stickey (A04) takes readers
Sarah
on a poetic journey through life’s
big questions about love, death,
beauty, and desire in Portico.
�Brann (H89), Peter Kalkavage,
Eva
and Eric Salem (A77) offer a
new translation of Plato’s most
popular dialogue, Symposium or
Drinking Party.
ON THE COVER:
Lincoln illustration by
Sébastien Thibault
43 �rofile: Robert Morris (SF04)
P
soars above the competition.
JOHNNIE VOICES
40 �omer in China
H
42 �irst Person: Yosef Trachtenberg (A15)
F
ST. JOHN’S FOREVER
44 �orward Edge of History
F
EIDOS
45 Anyi Guo (A15) photographs the world.
ABOVE:
Chris Nelson with Arcadia,
the campus dog
2 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 3
�From the
BELL TOWERS
“� or adults out of college,
F
I don’t know of a more
vital part of that education
in necessary citizenship
than that provided by the
opportunity to participate
in true liberal education as
offered by the St. John’s GI.”
50TH ANNIVERSARY
Growing the Graduate Institute
In the summer of 1967, on the three-year-old St. John’s Santa
Fe campus, the Graduate Institute came to life as the Teachers
Institute. The GI, as we know it during this 50th anniversary,
offers a master of arts in liberal arts on both campuses year-round.
In 1994, Santa Fe established a master of arts in Eastern classics,
including two semesters of Sanskrit or classical Chinese.
“I characterized it this way,” says tutor emeritus
Elliott Zuckerman, one of a handful of tutors
in the GI pilot year: “Bringing inner city high
school teachers” from Baltimore and New Mexico “to the high desert to read Aristotle.” As GI
director that second and third year, Zuckerman
found that, for at least one student, 7,000 feet
wasn’t high enough. “I thought I had prepared
for everything that first night. But the next
morning, a number of students came to me and
said their mattresses were missing.” The mystery
was solved when “one young man claimed to
need to sleep higher than everyone else.”
Zuckerman describes how Richard Weigel,
president and founder of the Santa Fe campus,
and Robert Goldwin, first-year GI director
(from Kenyon College), “invented the institute.”
Politics and Society, designed by tutor Laurence Berns, was the only segment offered that
first summer, with Freud’s Civilization and Its
Discontents heading the list for 35 students in
two seminars.
“We lost money in the early years. We got
scholarships for the students” from the Hoffberger and Cafritz foundations, “covering tuition
and compensating for their summer salaries. But
we forgot to include the overhead. We always
planned to have it in Annapolis but,” in the first
years, as a summer institute only, “Annapolis
wasn’t air conditioned.” Segments were added
and the enrollment quickly doubled. By 1969,
Literature and Poetry, Philosophy and Theology,
and Mathematics and Natural Sciences joined
Politics and Society. “The curriculum was pretty
much the same as now,” he says.
Zuckerman remembers when he and GI student William Yannuzzi (SFGI69)—a high school
teacher who became musical director for the
Baltimore Opera—criticized the previous night’s
opera. “He and I would give an informal and
scathing review to an audience at breakfast. It
was a favorite event.”
“Weigel wanted to start something; he didn’t
know it was the GI. From the first day, it was
a success,” says Sam Kutler (Class of 1954),
retired tutor and dean emeritus. “The Carnegie
Foundation paid me six hundred dollars to formulate a math program. I would have paid that
much to be able to do it. I think it’s been very
successful. It was started for teachers; that
was Bob Goldwin’s influence.” After the initial
years as a summer-only institute in Santa Fe,
“without [tutor] Geoff Comber (H95), I don’t
know what would have happened in Annapolis,”
Kutler says.
“I had been in Santa Fe two or three summers,” says Comber, “and I was so impressed.
I thought we were doing important work and
we should do it here.” He remembers “quite
strong objections,” with some Annapolis faculty
saying: Why should we take on the risk? It
took two years to get it off the ground, and in
1977 Comber operated as Annapolis GI director
from his tutor’s office while he continued to
teach full-time. “People were saying, ‘You can’t
just do the same thing as Santa Fe,’ so I made
up the history segment.” In 1988, the history
segment was approved on both campuses as a
fifth segment.
The vice president, Burch Ault, presented
Comber with potential funding contacts around
the country. “Everyone was impressed that
we grew so fast,” Comber says. In 1980, while
Comber was on sabbatical, Ben Milner took
4 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
—David Carl, past Santa Fe associate
dean for Graduate Programs
over the directorship and hired Sharon Hensley
as full-time GI assistant. Over decades, “she
was invaluable. A wonderful person to follow up
on things,” says Comber. “It was going so well
with the five segments, there was no reason to
change anything.”
David Carl, who recently completed his term
as Santa Fe associate dean for Graduate Programs (the title replacing director), knows well
the administrative tasks “constantly going on
behind the scenes, so that when tutors and students sit down at a table to talk about a book,
it’s as if there’s nothing going on but that one
activity.” Carl found it particularly appealing
to work with “adults from amazingly diverse
backgrounds. From firefighters to retired doctors, school teachers to surgeons, international
business men and women to lawyers, bartenders, veterans, and physicists. They are giving
For the past 50 years, the GI has provided an
integral role in the SJC community.
up jobs, moving across the country, asking
enormous sacrifices of their families.”
Part of the value of the Eastern Classics
program, Carl explains, is how it exposes “the
influence of Buddhism on Hume, or Hindu
philosophy on Hegel, or Eastern thought in
general on Nietzsche.” He describes how the
EC program, developed with the help of past
GI Director Krishnan Venkatesh, keeps the
college in touch “with the deep-rooted notion of
experimentation, which inspired the founders of
the New Program.”
Carl stresses the necessity of education in
a true democracy. “For adults out of college, I
don’t know of a more vital part of that educa-
tion in necessary citizenship than that provided
by the opportunity to participate in true liberal
education as offered by the St. John’s GI.”
Tom May, who served his first term as
Annapolis GI director in 1986, reflects on the
challenges of the early year-round program.
May taught half-time, while he and assistant
Hensley shouldered recruitment, alumni relations, budgeting, class assignments, and other
student matters. They supervised high school
visits, the Continuing Education and Fine Arts
Program, and various publications. It was “truly
prodigious labor, with no down time over the
course of the year,” May recalls.
By May’s second directorship in 1995, the
ancillary programs had “migrated to other
offices. The GI was finally fully and solely itself.
In the midst of these years of expansion, the
program remained essentially the same.”
Recalling the GI in the 1970s, tutor David
Starr refers to the Barr-Buchanan vision. “The
concept of the college as a possible model for
educating citizens of all backgrounds was alive
and well in what we thought of as The Teachers
Institute.” A past Santa Fe GI director, Starr
reflects on “the resilience and range of the
program” over the years. He writes of “a shift
in demographics, from teachers funded to
strengthen their competence, toward younger
academics seeking to broaden their scope.” He
explains that “people who specialized prematurely now come here to look into alternative
philosophic, social, and spiritual studies.”
The current GI associate dean in Annapolis,
Emily Langston, announced plans for a 50th
celebration in her Commencement address last
year. A number of events throughout this year
will culminate at Homecoming on each campus.
This anniversary year will highlight “the role of
the GI as an integral part of the SJC community,” Langston says. “There’s a hunger for the
sort of thing we offer at the GI. Someone who’s
eighty and someone who’s twenty-four talk
about a text together. I think the GI is the sort
of thing that Barr and Buchanan were envisioning when they talked about how these books
could speak to anyone.”
—Robin Weiss (SFGI90)
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 5
�F R OM T H E B E L L T OW E R S
IN ANNAPOLIS
LEFT:
An aerial view
of the St. John’s
campus, circa 1868.
BOTTOM: Lincoln tours
the battlefield after
the Battle of Antietam
in October 1862.
Lincoln’s Walk
Members of the St. John’s community are
aware that dedications have brought two
American presidents to the Annapolis
campus: William Howard Taft took part in
the French Monument ceremony in 1911,
while Dwight Eisenhower, after landing in
a helicopter on back campus, charmed the
faculty in 1959 when the Mellon-Key complex
was dedicated.
Few are aware that several weeks before
his assassination, Abraham Lincoln walked
the width of the campus during a 45-minute
visit to Annapolis. That occurred on February 2, 1865, when Lincoln was headed for
the deep water wharf on the grounds of the
Naval Academy. From there he sailed to what
became known as the Hampton Roads Peace
Conference in Virginia, leading to the end of
the Civil War.
By then, St. John’s had been transformed
into U.S. General Hospital Division 2. Tents
for wounded and ill federal forces were
pitched on back campus. At the Naval Academy, midshipmen and professors had been
moved to Newport, Rhode Island, and that
campus was serving as a large supply depot
and hospital facility for Division 1.
Details of Lincoln’s visit, which also suggest
what St. John’s College’s environment was like
during those wartime years, are revealed in
a history written by Rockford E. Toews and
published by the Maryland State Archives:
“Lincoln in Annapolis February 1865.”
Traveling by train from Washington, Lincoln
arrived at 1 p.m. at the Annapolis & Elk Ridge
Railroad, located at the corner of Calvert and
West streets, from where Lincoln set off by
foot for the Naval Academy wharf about half
a mile away. Toews noted that the traffic was
too heavy for him to go by carriage while the
streets were unpaved and almost certainly
muddy. He thinks that the most likely route
Lincoln followed may have been along the
route of the railroad extension laid out in 1861.
A map accompanying the article shows the
route Lincoln is believed to have taken, based
upon research by the Annapolis Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, the group that funded the
booklet. Lincoln’s path is shown in a red line.
“� o quiet and unobtrusive
S
was his arrival and
departure from the ancient
city that scarcely a score
knew of it until after the
steamboat sailed.”
After leaving the rail station, it is thought
that Lincoln walked over the Bloomsbury
Square area on what was then known as Tabernacle Street—today’s College Avenue. He
would have walked down Tabernacle, passing
Prince George and King George streets on his
right, and into the Naval Academy through a
gate at the end of College Avenue. St. John’s
would have been at his left. He would have
seen the Paca-Carroll House, Humphreys Hall,
McDowell Hall, Pinkney, Chase Stone, all built
by 1865, and, of course, the then flourishing
Liberty Tree.
6 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
Lincoln’s walk took him close to the State
House, where the Maryland Senate was
considering ratification of the Thirteenth
Amendment, ending slavery. No account of his
visit from the Annapolis paper survives, but
a Baltimore American correspondent, who
signed his name “Mac,” wrote:
“[H] Excellency, the President of the
United States, arrived in Annapolis, entirely
unannounced, and without any ostentatious
ceremony whatever, but, like the Democratic
Republican that he is, he quietly proceeded to
the Naval Academy, where he embarked on
the steamer Thomas Collyer and proceeded, I
suppose, to City Point. He was accompanied
only by a servant. So quiet and unobtrusive
was his arrival and departure from the
ancient city that scarcely a score knew of
it until after the steamboat sailed. Had it
become known that he was present in the
Naval Academy’s Hospital, he would have had
a gratifying and pleasing reception from the
wounded and sick inmates of the institution.
Many of the members of the Legislature
expressed great regret at not having the
pleasure of seeing the Chief Magistrate.”
The red line on the
map illustrates the
route Lincoln is
believed to have taken
weeks before his
assassination.
News accounts differ on the number who
accompanied Lincoln. The Crutch, published
weekly by Hospital 1, reported:
“President Lincoln arrived here on Thursday by special train from Washington. No one
was aware of this distinguished arrival until
it was heralded by the Hospital Band, playing
patriotic airs of welcome as he passed from
the wharf to the boat.”
After boarding the Thomas Collyer, which
Toews described as a “fast side-wheel”
steamer, he departed from the mouth of the
Severn River into the Chesapeake Bay, leaving
Maryland for Virginia. The following day, on
February 4, after an overnight trip, he steamed
back to Annapolis to catch a 7:30 a.m. train.
Back in Washington two hours later, Lincoln
was never able to return to Annapolis.
—Rebecca Wilson (H83)
The College
is published by St. John’s
College, Annapolis, MD,
and Santa Fe, NM.
thecollegemagazine@
sjc.edu
Known office of
publication:
Communications Office
St. John’s College
60 College Avenue
Annapolis, MD 21401
Periodicals postage
paid at Annapolis, MD.
Postmaster: Send
address changes to
The College Magazine,
Communications Office,
St. John’s College,
60 College Avenue,
Annapolis, MD 21401.
Editor
Gregory Shook
gregory.shook@sjc.edu
Contributors
Anna Perleberg Andersen
(SF02)
Samantha Ardoin (SF16)
Carol Carpenter
Martha Franks (SF78)
Jonathan Llovet (A17)
Paula Novash
Tim Pratt
George Russell
Aisha Shahbaz (A19)
Yosef Trachtenberg (A15)
Robin Weiss (SFGI90)
Andrew Wice
Rebecca Wilson (H83)
Design
Skelton Design
Contributing Designer
Jennifer Behrens
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 7
�F R OM T H E B E L L T OW E R S
TUTORS TALK BOOKS
“Tutors Talk Books” is a new series on the St. John’s College
website that features interviews with tutors discussing a
favorite subject: books. The following is an edited excerpt from
the debut interview in which Samantha Ardoin (SF16) chats
with longtime Santa Fe tutor Krishnan Venkatesh about his
appreciation for early Buddhist texts—and Frodo. Visit sjc.edu to
read the complete interview and learn more about Venkatesh.
Have you been working on any
writing projects?
A book of essays on the Discourses of the
Buddha, and on Lord of the Rings (LOTR). I
think they are fairly unique because I’m trying
to approach them as a literate, thoughtful
human being first, and not as, say, a Buddhist
or a Tolkien scholar—which I’m not anyway.
The essays have been posted on my blog
(kappatsupatchi.wordpress.com).
What inspired you to write on the
Discourses of the Buddha?
I’ve been thinking about the Discourses for
over twenty years, studying them in the [St.
John’s Eastern Classics program] as well as by
myself—but I’ve never made time to sit down
and articulate those thoughts. I have also
practiced various forms of meditation, including
mindfulness meditation, and have always been
struck by the depth of psychological insight
in these early Buddhist texts. I’ve learned a
lot about myself through studying them, and
they have given me some necessary tools for
understanding my own experience. Sometime
last year I found myself spontaneously writing
down reflections on the passages that moved
me, and here I am.
In what ways have the Discourses
affected your life?
The Discourses have affected me deeply in
many ways. Among them: greater awareness
of body and motion as well as of my emotions,
the ability to sit still and watch feelings as they
change from moment to moment, a greater
awareness of change as it happens, and a
generally calmer state of mind. I have become
better at handling stress, but also more aware
Early Buddhist texts and Tolkien novels provide
tools for critical thinking.
8 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
of other people’s feelings than I was before.
Being by nature a dreamy person easily given
to reverie and getting lost in my own thoughts,
I had a lot of work to do in these respects, and
the Discourses have been invaluable guides.
What prompted you to start writing
critically about Lord of the Rings, and
what have been some highlights of this
process of going deep into such a story?
I’m not a big Tolkien fan and also not a big
reader of fantasy fiction, but prompted by
conversations with (tutor) Richard McCombs
I started to reflect more on whether it was
a great book or not, and if so, why. Over the
course of reading it slowly with a wonderful
community seminar, I began to form a genuine
admiration for Tolkien’s genius as a writer.
He has his weak points, but on the whole the
man can write. I found out that [in] all the
crucial moments in the book he is laconic and
suggestive, and some of the characters are
richly enigmatic: Gollum, Sam, Frodo, Eowyn.
Best of all was finding out for myself that
the Lord of the Rings is not a book meant for
children, but speaks deeply to “mature” people
who have experienced struggle. Frodo is 50
when he starts his quest. It ends up being about
what Jung calls “enantiodromia”—the “turn”
halfway in life to seek completion by developing
our incomplete halves.
Was there a particular book, poem, or
film that, in your formative years, inspired
a healthy dose of skepticism?
In my intellectually formative years, ages 14
to 16, I was a voracious reader. Reading itself
tends to loosen up inherited and congealed
opinions, because one has to take seriously
other worlds than one’s own, and other
authorities than the people around us. In
school we had a lot of history: lots of detailed
study of European wars, the fight for universal
suffrage, and the industrial revolution. I didn’t
appreciate it at the time, but I think it went in
deep—so much so that I am always shocked at
how ignorant many Americans are of subjects
like labor history. Ancient history was also
important for me—and I remember the thrill
of learning to read Caesar, Suetonius, and
Tacitus critically. I didn’t have much of a social
life. I remember reading Sartre and Camus
very passionately; I still have a file folder
full of notes from that period! And I studied
The Discourses have
affected me deeply in
many ways. Among them:
greater awareness of body
and motion as well as of
my emotions.
Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov—the fathers of
modern drama—every weekend by myself for
two years. All of that changed me. I never felt
I belonged to my time and place. The seventies
and eighties mostly passed me by…
How are you involved in the St. John’s
Film Institute?
I was one of the founder-developers, along
with (tutor) David Carl. I taught both summers
with (tutor) David McDonald. I believe strongly
that in our period we can’t consider ourselves
liberally educated if we don’t have a developed
critical relationship to audio-visual media,
especially the moving photographic image.
Apparently in 1936 Scott Buchanan thought
so too, because in the blueprint for this college
he called for a four-year great books program
like ours and a fifth year called the St. John’s
College Institute for Cinematics.
What are some essential films that
Johnnies should watch and discuss?
The Passion of Joan of Arc, Tokyo Story, Early
Spring, Bicycle Thieves, Nights of Cabiria,
Andrei Rublev, Mirror, Rules of the Game—to
give you a few to start with.
Venkatesh’s blog, The Old Pearl Bed, layers
reflections on Tolkien with Tolstoy, on Chekhov
with Buddhism, and many other unexpected
connections abound. One of Venkatesh’s essays
on the Discourses was recently published in
Tricycle, a popular Buddhist magazine.
STUDY GROUP
Open to Inquiry
While the study of great books is central to
a St. John’s education, authors outside the
Western canon recently got some attention
thanks to efforts spurred by junior Emily
Krause (A18). Inspired by a preceptorial on
Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, led by
tutor Rebecca Goldner (AGI02), Krause and
her classmate Nathan Dignazio (A18) formed
a study group on modern writers and issues
surrounding traditionally marginalized communities. Focusing on such authors as Warsan
Shire, Audre Lorde, and Sojourner Truth, the
study group takes aim at political and social
questions that are not usually explored in
other classes in the Program.
During this spring semester, the group met
bi-weekly for lunchtime seminars, focusing on
short readings that are taken from literary,
historical, and philosophical works. Average
attendance was about the same as a tutorial—
large enough to have significant momentum,
but also small enough that it was intimate and
conducive to sincere and productive inquiry.
The group’s readings included “Conversations about home (at a deportation centre),”
Kenyan-born Somali poet Warsan Shire’s poem
about a refugee’s troubled relationship with
her home and the alienation that vexes her
relationship to herself, her new surroundings,
and her origins; “The Master’s Tools Will Never
Dismantle the Master’s House,” an address by
Audre Lorde critiquing the lack of representation of black and lesbian women at conferences
on feminist writing; and “Ain’t I a Woman?”
a speech by African American abolitionist
Sojourner Truth, who brings forward inconsistencies between professed and actual attitudes
towards women, and calls for equality of rights,
regardless of one’s intellect or race.
For the group’s fourth meeting, it returned
to its origin by reading the introduction of
The Second Sex, in which Beauvoir discusses
in Hegelian terms how woman is Other to
man and describes the relation between
woman and man that arises because of this
antithesis. She encapsulates the tension
pointedly, saying, “Woman’s drama lies in this
conflict between the fundamental claim of
every subject, which always posits itself as
essential, and the demands of a situation that
constitutes her as inessential.”
Krause and Dignazio hope that by looking
at perspectives of those whose lives and
experiences are vastly different than their
own, they can better understand the social
and political forces that are at work among us
in the world now. “Something is lost when we
don’t take into account the differences among
people,” Krause says. Goldner adds that the
study group shows something central to the
college, that the conversations that we have
in the classroom spill out and continue after
class (and from time to time find their way
back into class). “And hopefully,” Dignazio
says, “[the seminars] provide some wisdom
about the human experience.”
—Jonathan Llovet (A17)
ROSE S. PELHAM (A20)
ONLINE SERIES
The study group shows
something central to
the college, that the
conversations that we have
in the classroom spill out
and continue after class
(and from time to time find
their way back into class).
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 9
�F R OM T H E B E L L T OW E R S
C O N V E R S AT I O N
Civility on the
World Stage
comfort zones,” Mullen said. Several members
of the public asked questions about Trump,
immigration, and media coverage of Russia’s
purported role in the presidential election.
And when a woman asked if Democratic Sen.
Bernie Sanders, who lost the primary to Hillary
Clinton, could have won the general election,
Mullen leaned back on a lesson he learned early
on when dealing with the press: Don’t comment
on hypotheticals.
It was a strategy that suited Mullen well in
his conversations with Brokaw over the years.
The men had a longstanding professional
relationship, one that was based largely on trust
and respect. “I trusted him, he trusted me, and
we could do real business together,” Brokaw said
during a gathering before the event. “I needed
to know some things, and he knew things that
he didn’t want to tell me, and I respected that.
But that’s how it’s supposed to be.”
—Tim Pratt
TOP RIGHT:
Michael B. Mukasey, the 81st
Attorney General of the United States Judge,
opened the 2017 Dean’s Lecture Series.
BELOW:
TV journalist Tom Brokaw and former
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike
Mullen spoke at an event on February 19.
NEED FOR FREE SPEECH
To a capacity crowd in Santa Fe’s Great Hall,
the 81st Attorney General of the United States
Judge Michael B. Mukasey argued passionately
against forces of political correctness and the
“concrete pressures” that these forces can exert
on speech. Mukasey’s talk opened the 2017
Dean’s Lecture Series, which hosted Supreme
Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor last spring.
Concerned that America has become a nation
whose people live in narratives rather than
facts, Mukasey, who was appointed by the
George W. Bush administration and served
from 2007 to 2009, bemoaned trends in which
“personal taste and preference have started to
impinge upon how people view reality.” He also
touched on human rights, judicial activism, and
the threat of radical Islamic terrorism, which
he was careful to define as a political ideology
and distinct from the religion of Islam. Mukasey
concluded his short talk by encouraging attendees to “hold fast,” to uphold high standards of
free speech as well as the U.S. Constitution.
In the lively question period that followed, audience members pressed Mukasey on a number
of issues, including the need for criminal justice
reform, anxieties about the current presidency,
and threats from the Supreme Court decision commonly known as Citizens United. The
Citizens United decision restricted government
from limiting the rights of corporations, labor
unions, and associations to make unlimited,
independent political expenditures. Despite a
number of differing opinions from the audience,
the discourse remained civil and Mukasey held
fast to his beliefs while also retaining a sense
of humor. When a student began his question
with, “I’m a freshman,” Mukasey laughed and
said: “Me too.”
TONY J PHOTOGRAPHY
“� he thing I love to do
T
more than anything in
life … the thing that
gives me the greatest joy
is playing the drums.”
Mukasey’s lecture is available on the SJC Digital
Archives at digitalarchives.sjc.edu.
—Joan Haratani (SF79)
CAROL CARPENTER
The Francis Scott Key Auditorium erupted into
applause as veteran TV journalist Tom Brokaw
and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff Adm. Mike Mullen took the stage. Dubbed
“A Conversation with Brokaw and Mullen,” the
event held on February 19 featured a discussion between the renowned newsman and highranking military official on topics ranging from
the 2016 presidential election to America’s relationship with Russia, China, and North Korea
to ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.
The pair also spoke about the Trump administration and problems with the ways people
get their news. Brokaw urged those in the audience to check the veracity of stories found on
the internet. Social media has led to the easy
sharing of fake news stories, knee-jerk reactions, and heated, polarizing opinions, he said.
“You have to put as much effort into where you
get your news over a long period of time as you
do into buying a flat-screen television,” Brokaw
said. “You just can’t take it blindly off the internet because it’s there and it seems to be done
in a very sophisticated manner.”
Brokaw and Mullen later turned the conversation to issues surrounding immigration,
racism, and exposure to different cultures and
political beliefs. “We have to get out of our
H I D D E N TA L E N T
She’s Got the Beat
When Joan Haratani (SF79), visited the St.
John’s College campus in Annapolis last fall,
she made sure to visit the “rock room” in the
basement of Mellon Hall. The small, concrete
room was filled with amplifiers, guitars, a
piano, and drums. But the room had seen
better days. Graffiti was splayed on one of
the walls; stained, worn out furniture abutted
another. Equipment, some of it broken, some
of it covered in dust, cluttered the space. So
Haratani, who serves on the college’s Board
of Visitors and Governors, decided to do
something about it: She bought a new Yamaha
drum kit for the room and donated it to the
college. The donation spurred plans to spruce
up the room, an effort now under way. The only
stipulation? Haratani gets first dibs on playing
the kit when she visits campus.
While Haratani has a long and distinguished
law career—she now works for the firm Morgan
Lewis in San Francisco—she also is an avid
drummer. It’s a skill she is continuing to hone.
“The thing I love to do more than anything in
life … the thing that gives me the greatest joy
is playing the drums,” she says.
Although Haratani has always been musically inclined, she didn’t begin to play the
drums until about three years ago. She was a
violinist growing up. At the same time, she had
an admiration for musician Karen Carpenter,
not only for her “gorgeous voice,” but for her
ability to play the drums while she sang. “I
wanted to be Karen Carpenter,” Haratani says.
When she arrived at the St. John’s Santa Fe
campus in the mid-1970s, Haratani enjoyed the
two years of music theory classes she took. She
also listened to music while she studied, saying
it helped her focus on her work. Haratani went
on to law school at University of California at
Davis. Since then, her law career has spanned
more than three decades. Her practice includes
state and federal law, including the Alien Tort
Statute, California’s Unfair Competition Law,
pharmaceutical and medical device liability
doctrines, and national mortgage foreclosure
issues. In her free time, Haratani enjoys ice
climbing and other outdoor activities. But a
few years ago, while Haratani was taking voice
lessons, she had an opportunity to begin taking
drum lessons and jumped at the chance.
Haratani quickly realized regular practice
was the key to improvement. She took lessons
online and in person, and began attending
camps with drummers from all over the world.
Rudiments. Paradiddles. Stick control.
Haratani practices as often as she can. “I’m a
lawyer—that’s not easy—but I think drumming
is way harder because it’s so slow to get good,”
Haratani says.
She eventually began playing in a band with
her coworkers, many of whom had lengthy
musical backgrounds. The band won a competition last summer and will be performing again
for a charity in June, raising money for legal aid
for domestic violence victims. “I’m a big sucker
for helping people,” Haratani says. Performing
with a band also has helped Haratani improve
her drumming skills. “There is no faster way to
get good than to play live as a band,” she says.
When Haratani travels she makes efforts
to find places to practice. That’s what brought
her to the rock room in Mellon Hall last fall.
She was in town for the BVG meeting when
she learned of the room, saw the condition
of the existing drum kit—it had been pieced
together—and decided to do something about
it. She hopes Johnnies take advantage of the
new kit and the practice space. “There’s nothing like playing in a space that’s nice,” Haratani
says. “It makes you up your game.”
Music is an important part of life as a
Johnnie, with classes, singing and instrumental
opportunities abound. Those opportunities
create a more well-rounded educational experience, Haratani says. “I think music heals the
soul, I really do.”
—Tim Pratt
—Samantha Ardoin (SF16)
10 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 11
�12 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
IN
FACTIOUS
TIMES:
LEADERSHIP
LEFT:
Lincoln's "Gettysburg Portrait" by Alexander Gardner, taken on November 8, 1863, two weeks before the Gettysburg Address, with photo of James Campbell, born in slavery, c.1936-38, Library of Congress
TUTOR VIEW: LINCOLN
LEADING
BY
TEACHING
by George Russell
The paradox of Abraham Lincoln’s appearance in the
United States’ sectional conflict becomes manifest if
one considers a passage written by James Madison in
Federalist No. 10. In that paper, Madison, apologizing
for the Constitution that he had authored, cautions
his reader to resist the impractical expectation that
in the clash of the interests that naturally spring up in
the republic, prudent and “enlightened statesmen” will
appear to resolve those conflicts. He explains that the
Constitution is a contrivance of sorts which will control
the effects of factions by blunting the worst tendencies
of majorities. In doing so, the Constitution will obviate
the need for the prudence of an “enlightened statesman”
to solve conflicts of interest as they arise and escalate.
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 13
�TUTOR VIEW
M
adison, however, lived long
enough to see the precursor of
the sectional crisis and secession, the nullification crisis
of 1832, precipitated by John
Calhoun.1 He lived long enough
to see that factious men were
to arise in the republic who
ranked their interests above
the good of constitutional rule;
factious men who sought a
“union” in which the parts, the
states, superseded the whole,
the union of states. As those
men rejected constitutional
rule, they undermined the
implicit remedies of the Madisonian constitution, at
the same time as they speciously obfuscated what it
meant to be an American citizen.2 It was into that
turmoil that, Providence providing, the enlightened
statesman, Abraham Lincoln, entered.
Lincoln’s leadership displays itself in that wellknown political scene in which two crises intersect,
the moral crisis of possible slavery expansion and
the political crisis of secession. In the context of
those crises, Lincoln agrees with Madison that
Lincoln teaches that
government of the people
is government by majorities,
properly restrained, not
government of minorities
over majorities.
factious men are the great danger to the republic.
To counteract those factious men, Lincoln, from
the time of his earliest speeches, takes on the role
of a teacher. Indeed, leading by teaching, Lincoln,
both before he became president and during his
presidency, did his utmost to instruct the American
citizen on what it means to be an American.
14 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
Three major tenets emerge as central in Lincoln’s understanding of what it means to be an
American. First, one must be devoted to rule by
law. This tenet, he sets out in that early and precocious speech, Address to the Young Men’s Lyceum,
Springfield, Illinois. Second, according to Lincoln,
the true American believes in universal freedom
and a basic equality with respect to that freedom.
The principles of the founders as they expressed
them in the Declaration of Independence were
meant to be principles of the nation going forward.
Third and last, the true American believes that the
United States is a perpetual union of states.
Lincoln’s own exemplary submission to the law
is most easily discernable in his handling of the
two great factions of the sectional crisis, namely,
the radical Southern planters who claimed rights
to be able to move their property in human beings
everywhere in the Union, and the abolitionists,
who wanted to abolish the institution immediately. Lincoln maintained against both sides that
the law had to be respected against the factious
impulses of each. While he was in agreement with
the abolitionists that slavery was wrong, Lincoln
argued against the abolitionists that the institution
enjoyed legal protection in the states in which it
existed. As the institution enjoyed the sanction of
law, it had to be respected in those states. Against
the Southern planters, Lincoln cited as precedent
the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, in which the
institution was prohibited in those territories. In
his view, the same legal spirit that protects the
institution of slavery also limits slavery to where it
exists. Particularly in the factious times in which he
lived, Lincoln believed that adherence and submission to the law was the most needful thing for the
health of the republic.
In regard to the second tenet, that the true
American believes in universal freedom, especially
regardless of race, Lincoln’s view was mightily
contested by Southerners—and not only radicals.
As evidence of that contest, here citations from
one speech must suffice, the so-called “Cornerstone
Speech” of Alexander H. Stephens, an erstwhile
“Union man” from Georgia. In a speech that he
delivers on March 21, 1861, Stephens asserts the
following regarding the principles of the Declaration of Independence: “The prevailing ideas
entertained by Jefferson and most of the leading
statesmen at the time of the formation of the old
Constitution were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature, and that
it was wrong in principle, socially,
morally, and politically…[T]he general opinion of the men of that day
was that, somehow or other in the
order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass
away…Those ideas, however, were
fundamentally wrong. They rested
upon the assumption of the equality of races…This was an error…
Our new government is founded
upon exactly the opposite idea; its
foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth,
that the negro is not equal to the
white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his
natural and normal condition.”
In opposing those views and
other similar views, Lincoln never
seems very interested in such
statements as philosophical or
abstract statements. Rather he
contents himself with pointing out
and instructing his hearers in the
American way. In teaching that the
true American is an egalitarian, he
asserts the precise way in which he
understands all men to be equal; at
the same time, he likens the situation of the enslaved people to that
of the revolutionary era Americans.
Here I cite from two speeches:
First, from the Kansas-Nebraska
Act speech, at Peoria, Illinois, we
have a statement which repeats in
slightly different versions throughout Lincoln’s speeches. “…I hold
that…there is not reason in the
world why the negro is not entitled
to all the natural rights enumerated
in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that
he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I
agree with Judge [Stephen] Douglas he is not my
equal in many respects…But in the right to eat the
bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his
own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of
Judge Douglas, and the equal of any living man.”
Arguing in favor of universal equality, equality in
respect of property-engendering labor, Lincoln
rejects Douglas’s “popular sovereignty” doctrine
Madison termed Calhoun’s doctrine of nullification, the claim
that federal law could be “nullified” within a given state,
“preposterous and anarchical.”
1�
To be sure, the states in rebellion drew up a constitution.
However, they made sure that they explicitly asserted the
sovereignty of the individual states as supreme over the
central government. In effect, they did not ultimately submit
to the constitution and the government set up therein. They
rejected that sort of constitutional rule.
2�
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 15
�TUTOR VIEW
that slavery in the territories should not be a concern of American citizens outside the territories.
Lincoln maintains that the question of slavery was
the concern of every citizen. Every American citizen
should be concerned to keep slavery, the expropriation of labor and its fruits, on the road to extinction.
Second, from his debate with Douglas in Alton,
Illinois: “It is the eternal struggle between these
two principles—right and wrong—throughout the
world. They are the principles that have stood face
to face from the beginning of time; and will ever
Lincoln was a man with a
true moral compass. Whatever
he thought about the legality
of enslavement and the
necessity of upholding the
law, he knew and over time
persistently maintained that
in itself it was wrong.
continue to struggle. The one is the common right
of humanity and the other the divine right of kings.
It is the same that says, ‘You work and toil and
earn bread, and I’ll eat it.’ No matter in what shape
it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who
seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and
live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of
men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is
the same tyrannical principle.”
Whereas Stephens understands the founders to
be misguided in their adherence to the principles of
the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln maintains
that these are the ideas and principles for the sake
of which Americans shed their blood and gave their
lives; these principles are the founders’ legacy to
the republic for all times. He sets forth the view
that the founders “meant to set up a standard
16 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
maxim for free society, which should be familiar to
all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly
attained, constantly approximated, and thereby
constantly spreading and deepening its influence,
and augmenting the happiness and value of life to
all people of all colors everywhere.” The assertion
that “‘all men are created equal’ was placed in the
Declaration…for future use. Its authors meant it to
be…a stumbling block to those who in after times
might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism.” The principles, then, were
not merely to be held but to be lived by. To repeat,
the true American believes in universal freedom:
that is what Lincoln taught.
The third tenet of Lincoln’s Americanism is the
belief in the perpetuity of the union of the states
in the United States. What that amounts to, as is
known, is that there is no right of secession possessed by the citizens of the states. Lincoln saw the
secessionist view of the 19th century as a rejection
of the principle of majority rule. Lincoln agreed with
Madison that restraints needed to be imposed on
majorities in order to protect rights of minorities;
however, he also believed that once those restraints
were in place, the minority party must follow the
lead of the majority or dissolution of popular government ensues on the basis of minority secession.
Lincoln teaches that government of the people is
government by majorities, properly restrained, not
government of minorities over majorities.
There are those who might question Lincoln’s
qualifications as a teacher of what it means to be
an American. Lincoln was a man who had faults,
and because of his general candor, visible faults.
His views were at times what we would call today
“racist” views. For example, he acknowledged the
social inferiority of black people as a fact, and said
that he was not inclined to raise their status, or
change that state of affairs. Again and again, in
dealing with black Americans, he catered to the
feelings and prejudices of his white constituents
rather than treat the blacks equitably. Repeatedly,
he maintained that enslavement in the Southern states was legally sanctioned and protected
although he believed and taught that the enslavement of human beings is both wrong by nature and
un-American. In his speculations about emancipation, Lincoln for a long time favored the deportation of black Americans from the country. Charges
such as these continue to be leveled by some who
reflect on Lincoln’s career.
However, in the face of his faults and defects,
Lincoln was a man with a true moral compass.
Whatever he thought about the legality of enslavement and the necessity of upholding the law, he
knew and over time persistently maintained that in
itself it was wrong. Whatever he observed about
the social equality of blacks and whites, he knew
and repeatedly argued that politically, blacks and
whites were all fundamentally equal—that is, that
they all had rightful claims on the fruits of their
own respective labor. And Lincoln, in accord with
that true moral compass, knew that, as he put it
once when referring to Douglas, a man “may rightfully change when he finds himself wrong;” Lincoln
could and did change his mind.
If we come back to the matter of Lincoln’s attitude toward the black American, we can say the
following: Twice Lincoln gave personal audiences
to Frederick Douglass at the White House, once
in the summer of 1863 to hear Douglass’s complaint about his (Lincoln’s) tardy response to the
way in which the Confederates were treating captured black soldiers; and again a year later, when
Lincoln wanted Douglass’s opinion on the lack of
movement by the enslaved people who had been
legally freed. Lincoln came to see that these
United States were the true home of the latest
posterity of those Africans forcibly transported
here as long ago as 250 years. However tardily,
he came to see that the Americans of African
descent deserved to fight for their freedom. And
thereafter, he saw, too, that the darker-skinned
soldiers fighting to preserve the country founded
on freedom and equality did not deserve deportation to some foreign land. Rather, they deserved
citizenship in that homeland where through them
and in them a new freedom was being born. It
was in changing his mind in the ways that he did
that Lincoln really indicts those who clung so
tenaciously to what they knew to be wrong. At
the same time, in doing so, he exhibited, as he so
often did in his speeches, the kind of nobility that
his most ardent opponents wanted to claim for
themselves but could not.
In those exemplary ways discussed here, Lincoln
did all that he could to preserve Madison’s constitutional rule by trying to teach his fellow citizens
what it means to be an American. Paradoxically,
he appeared on the earth in the right place at the
right time to preserve and protect a constitution
constructed to provide against the fortuity of
prudence in human affairs.
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 17
�LEADERSHIP
Protector of
Our Program
Annapolis President
Chris Nelson (SF70)
Leaves a Mighty Legacy
By Tim Pratt
When Chris Nelson was a child, he often found
himself engaged in battle. Tomato plant stakes
from the family garden were used as swords.
Trashcan lids served as shields. The rug in
the living room was the river Skamandros as
Nelson and his siblings re-enacted the Trojan
War from the Iliad, bouncing on furniture and
avoiding the water below. “I slew countless
Trojans, over and over,” Nelson says with a
smile. “My siblings were very accommodating.”
DEMETRIOS FOTOS
While as a 12-year-old Nelson immersed
himself in the Iliad and Euclid’s Elements,
his journey with the great books of Western
civilization was just beginning.
18 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 19
�LEADERSHIP
It was a trek that took him to St. John’s College
as a student in the 1960s, to Chicago for a lengthy
law career, and eventually back to his alma mater to
serve as president. During that time, Nelson became
a champion for the liberal arts, played a prominent
role in higher education at the national level, and
oversaw vast improvements at the college. But now,
Nelson is preparing to step down as leader of the
place that has been a part of his life since childhood.
He will retire in June after 26 years as Annapolis
president. “Chris is kind of the rock on which the
college has operated for over a quarter of a century,”
says Mike Peters, who served as president of the St.
John’s Santa Fe campus from 2005 through January
2016. “He leaves a pretty amazing legacy.”
TONY J PHOTOGRAPHY
The Early Years
Nelson is an outspoken
advocate of the liberal arts.
Nelson’s connection to St. John’s came as a “birthright,” tutor and former Dean Michael Dink said during a recent Saturday Seminar event in Annapolis
held in Nelson’s honor. Nelson’s father graduated
from St. John’s in 1947—a decade after Stringfellow
Barr and Scott Buchanan founded the college’s great
books curriculum—and was a long-serving member
and chair of St. John’s Board of Visitors and Governors. Although Nelson’s
father didn’t talk a lot about
St. John’s at home, Nelson
says his childhood was permeated with elements of
the Program, from refighting the Trojan War with
his siblings to redrawing
the diagrams from Euclid’s
Elements, with and without
drafting instruments.
In high school, Nelson grew
tired of the lectures given by
his teachers, who would tell
students “what the answer
was and what to think,” he
says. He knew that if he
attended St. John’s, he would
be able to explore topics for
himself. Nelson arrived in
Annapolis in 1966. He never applied anywhere else. “I
was one of those people who come to St. John’s with
the attitude that the opening question only needs
to be ‘Ready, set, go.’ The desire to try to make the
books we were reading our own, and to take them in
and accept or reject the things in them as judgments
we were making for ourselves, was just thrilling.”
20 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
Nelson spent part of his time in Annapolis, where
he was an accomplished athlete and active in student government, before transferring to the Santa Fe
campus and graduating in 1970. College board chair
Ron Fielding (A70)—one of Nelson’s classmates, a fellow intramural sports captain, and officer in student
government—says he saw flashes of Nelson’s potential when they were students. “The leadership aspect
is without question,” Fielding says. “He was a natural
leader of the athletics teams and … of the polity.”
Following Nelson’s graduation, it was off to law
school at the University of Utah, where he founded
and directed the university’s student legal services
program. He graduated in 1973.
Nelson practiced law for 18 years in Chicago and
was chairman of his law firm when he was tapped
to become president of St. John’s in 1991. He had
served on the college’s Board of Visitors and Governors since 1986.
A Natural Leader
When Nelson returned to campus as president in
the summer of 1991, he faced a budget deficit and
aging facilities. Nelson immediately got to work,
coming up with a list of projects and working with
former Vice President of Development Jeff Bishop
and Treasurer Bud Billups to raise funds, make “prudent” cuts and balance the budget, he says. “Those
guys saved this college,” says Bishop’s wife, Sue.
In the two-plus decades since then, new dormitories
and other structures have been erected; every building on campus has been renovated; even the grounds
have improved. The four-year graduation rate, which
was 36 percent when Nelson arrived, has nearly
doubled. Enrollment applications also have increased
in recent years following a slight downturn after the
economic crisis of 2008—a crisis that affected enrollment at liberal arts colleges all over the country.
But some things, like the St. John’s Program, have
remained largely the same, with students now reading many of the same works as their predecessors.
That is one of the things Nelson takes most pride in
as he looks back on his career. “I think it’s protecting as much as I could the community of learning at
the college,” Nelson says. “I’d say that has been most
important to me.”
That’s not to say there haven’t been changes. Nelson is excited about the recent focuses on biology
and quantum mechanics in senior lab. A new quantum mechanics lab was recently completed in the
basement of Mellon Hall. Nelson says he has tried
to give faculty and staff the autonomy they need
to be successful. At the same time, he says he was
sure to question and discuss the recommendations
and decisions being made. “Everybody on the faculty has ideas about how to improve the work of the
academic program in the classroom,” Nelson says.
“I’ve wanted them to feel that they could continue
to work on the Program. I’ve wanted to provide as
much freedom from constraint as I could.”
Others share a similar view of Nelson’s management style. Dink, who served as dean from 20052010, said in his Saturday Seminar comments that
Nelson was friendly and supportive during his term.
Deans are drawn from the faculty for five-year terms,
which means they often come with no prior administrative experience. “But Chris well understood the
virtue, indeed the necessity of this practice, and did
everything in his power both to assist with the learning curve and to respect and support the authority of the dean,” says Dink. Leo Pickens (A78), who
served for years as athletic director before working
as alumni director and now director of Leadership
Annual Gifts, describes Nelson as “a great listener.”
“His door has always been open,” says Pickens. “He’s
very approachable, he’s extremely fair-minded … and
I think it became very clear early on that he was
dedicated to the college.”
“� t was clear when we met and has only
I
been reinforced during our time working
together that Chris’s affection for the
college is deep and fierce and abiding.
He has been a St. John’s force of nature.”
—Santa Fe President Mark Roosevelt
The Man
Like many others who have known Nelson over
the years, Pickens has stories to tell. He attended
St. John’s with Nelson’s younger brother, Ted, and
recalls hearing about Chris’s intramural sports
awards and team championships when he was a student. “I had not met Chris, but had only heard tales
of his athletic prowess,” Pickens says with a laugh.
Having witnessed Nelson’s skills on the badminton
court when he returned as president in 1991, Pickens
took note of Nelson’s resilience and coolness under
pressure. “Those kinds of qualities he demonstrated
as an athlete, even under the most difficult of circumstances … are qualities he also demonstrated as
a president here.”
Pickens got to see more of that determination
on a cross-country bike ride he took with Nelson,
Bishop, former Santa Fe Vice President for Development Jeff Morgan, and Bob Gray in 1993. Sue
Bishop saw it, too, as she drove the support van.
She and Pickens fondly recall Nelson “flying” down
steep mountain roads, a smile on his face. And while
the group had agreed not to talk about college business on the trip, Nelson would read Gilgamesh out
loud during rest stops as his colleagues relaxed in
the shade. “He demonstrated on that ride just how
strong of a human he is,” says Pickens. Through
it all, Nelson has maintained his love of the great
books, often quoting passages from works he has
read over the years. And he often invites students,
faculty, and staff to his home for special occasions.
Some who spoke of Nelson recalled lengthy conversations over a glass of wine, or of Nelson’s love
for chopping wood, or of the pleasure he gets from
working in the garden. There were stories of Nelson, while still a student, presiding over a hearing
for fellow Johnnies who were involved in a series of
food fights. And there were stories of Nelson going
out of his way to help faculty, staff, and students,
leading study groups, and teaching classes. Nelson’s
dedication to the college stands out, says Peters. “I
think Chris bleeds Johnnie black and orange,” says
Peters. “He is going to be a hard act to follow, but
he has smoothed the path for those folks who are
coming after him.”
Above: Leo Pickens,
Jeff Morgan, Bob Gray,
Chris Nelson, and Jeff
Bishop wearing bicycling
outfits, medals and
wreathes, and holding a
photo of Albert Einstein
on a bicycle, outside of
McDowell Hall in 1993.
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 21
�LEADERSHIP
“� e want to have people who
W
can think for themselves rather
than being ... useful tools for
someone else’s purposes. So
that’s asking each individual to
take responsibility for the public
good. Each of us has a leadership
responsibility in that respect.”
A National Voice
Nelson has served as an ambassador for the college, traveling around the country, giving talks—he
estimates he has given more than 1,000 since he
took office—on issues like government regulation
in higher education. He has met with lawmakers,
donors, and others; the National Association of
Independent Colleges and Universities on February 1 announced Nelson as chairman of its board of
directors. And two years ago he received the Association’s highest honor, the Henry Paley Award for his
“unfailing service toward the students and faculty of
independent colleges and universities.”
Nelson is well-known as a proponent of the liberal
arts. A liberal arts education creates more thoughtful,
well-rounded people, he says. “We want to have people
who can think for themselves rather than being driven
to, or useful tools for, someone else’s purposes,” he
says. “So that’s asking each individual to take responsibility for the public good. Each of us has a leadership
responsibility in that respect. To get there, we need
to cultivate the arts of intellect and imagination, and
that’s exactly what we do at St. John’s College.”
Nelson’s 26 years of work toward reaching that
goal are commendable, Fielding says. An American
Council on Education survey found the average term
of a college president is less than 10 years. “There’s
22 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
something comforting about having a leader who
doesn’t aspire to do anything other than making
this current institution better,” Fielding says. “That
is uncommon, whether it is a politician in a political
office or a college president. It’s very special.”
Senior Alina Myer, who served as president of the
student Delegate Council in 2016, says the college
is lucky to have someone as dedicated to the liberal
arts as Nelson. “It’s kind of an incredible thing to
have such accessibility to someone who has worked
tirelessly and on such a large scale to ensure that
people understand the value of what we do here at St.
John’s,” says Myer. “He is the first person who speaks
to us as Johnnies at convocation, and for my class he
will be the last, as our commencement speaker. He is
emblematic of our St. John’s experience.”
The Future
After Nelson retires, he plans to travel, visit family,
and catch up on some reading. “There’s a book in
there somewhere too,” he says. He hopes to relax a
bit after a career which included an 18-month stint as
president of the Santa Fe campus and often found him
working seven days a week. But Nelson won’t be completely absent from campus. He has been appointed a
member of the teaching faculty and says he will make
himself available to lead seminars, preceptorials, or
anything else asked of him. “For the sake of intellectual engagement, it will be good to spend some time
with the students,” says Nelson. “I get a great deal
of satisfaction out of the study groups I have now
when I’m not teaching a regular class, which I used to
do, and I can’t imagine not having that intellectual
vibrancy in my life going forward.”
Left: Nelson on
back campus, with
College Creek in the
background.
DEMETRIOS FOTOS
DEMETRIOS FOTOS
—Chris Nelson
A toast from Eva Brann (H89),
tutor and former dean, in honor of
Chris Nelson, at Homecoming 2016:
I’ve heard it said that a proper toast begins by
making people laugh. I’m feeling a little more
like crying than laughing myself. And moreover,
those glorious six years when I worked with
Chris to make this college of ours stay itself and
be what it was meant to be, weren’t as productive of funny stories as happy solutions. Yet I do
remember an incident which, when I told it to my
fellow deans at other schools, aroused laughter—
incredulous laughter. So I’ll tell it here.
Some of you may remember Miss Beate von
Oppen, a fellow tutor, my friend, and next-door
neighbor. She always collected more books than
she had places for. So I persuaded her to get yet
another bookcase. We picked up one of those
assemble-it-yourself cheapies, and, of course, no
picture in the instruction booklet matched reality,
and no word in it was in our human vocabulary. I
was dean then, and when in major trouble, such
as over-budgeting by thousands, I looked for salvation in one direction: to our president. So what
did I do? I phoned Chris at home, and within half
an hour he and Joyce were at the door, and within
another half hour the rickety thing stood erect and
ready. This, I’m here to tell you, was not the relation I used to hear about at deanish get-togethers.
What was normal was open warfare, uneasy
peace, all the way down to cowed submission.
The thing about Chris, an unusual thing, is that
he knows how to govern. There is not a smidgen
of pretentiousness in him, which means that he
meets ready respect for his decisions. There isn’t
even a ghost of power assertion, which means that
authority accrues to him naturally. There is no taste
in him at all for cliques, which means he’s everyone’s president. There isn’t even a little bubble
of hot air in him, which means that when he says
something is so, it’s because he’s costed it out,
or remembered it correctly, or really thought about
it. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if after dinner he
gently lets me know what facts I’ve got wrong.
Chris Nelson and
Eva Brann overlook
the campus, as they
did when Chris first
became president.
When I spoke of the years I was dean as glorious,
I meant it. We were known as “the four B’s and
the C”: our beloved Jeff Bishop and fondly remembered Bud Billups and me, the eternally amateurish
dean. And then Chris, who made it possible for us
so-called administrators to live up to the meaning
of the word, which is “to minister to” those in our
charge. Or better put, to be fulfilled by our offices
in Aristotle’s sense of happiness, the soul at work
in behalf of a good thing: the Program, the folks
busy here in its service, and the students who’ll
soon be our “nurslings,” alumni in Latin.
I’ll end with a vision I’ve held in my imagination
for a long time. Very near the beginning of his
presidency, Chris and I were standing on the quad
looking down from the top of the stairs onto our
irreplaceable bronze steal – the one that promises
to make free adults of children by means of books
and laboratories – and out across the back campus.
Chris heaved a deep sigh and said words to this
effect: “Here is where I want to spend my life.” And
so he has, and we cannot thank him enough for it.
So please raise your glasses in a toast to our
incomparable president, our Chris.
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 23
�BY
PA
UL
A
NO
VA
SH
GL MO
AD D
ER
IA N
TO
R
LEADERSHIP
Michelle Urban (SF08) is convinced there
is major value in having to figure things out.
“When I was at St. John’s writing a paper, I
usually wouldn’t know how to prove what
I wanted to,” Urban says. “But then it would
come together—and succeeding at something
you have struggled with is a great feeling.” It
is a philosophy that translates well to Urban’s
current situation as an entrepreneur running
a tech startup. As CEO of Albuquerque-based
Pressure Analysis Company (PAC), which designs and manufactures wireless technology
to track head injuries in athletes, Urban says
that her biggest challenge is inexperience.
“We’re creating an innovative product in an
emerging field,” she says. “Every day there’s
something new we need to learn how to do.”
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 25
�A
mid increasing concerns about
sports-related head injuries
–
particularly those that affect
younger players – the company’s
idea is timely. According to
a 2016 article published on Sports Illustrated’s
website, si.com, the rate of youth concussions rose
500 percent between 2010 and 2014.
Although high school-age athletes are most
likely to suffer concussions and the highest
percentage of injuries occur playing football,
Urban says the problem spans a wide range
of ages and sports. “There are complexities
at different levels. Younger players have not
been hit over and over yet, so having cumu-
lative data can be helpful for parents and
physicians,” she says. “And coaches of older
players need to be able to see exactly where
they’ve been hit and how hard, so they know
if someone needs to be pulled out of a game
and examined.”
Urban and her partners have developed
The Duke City Gladiators put Urban’s SmackCap technology to the test.
a tool to help. Called the SmackCap, it
resembles the slightly slouchy skullcap that
is popular with hipsters and other fashionminded individuals. But inside, SmackCap
is an array of pressure sensors, connected
in a spiderweb pattern, that can track every
impact to a player’s head in real time and
send the data to a wireless device such as
a cellphone or iPad. Besides showing if and
how badly a player may be injured over time,
SmackCap technology also has potential to
change the techniques coaches recommend.
“For instance, if a kid is getting hit repeatedly
in the same spot, the coach might notice that
he’s leading with his head,” says Urban.
Urban grew up in Santa Fe and was homeschooled. Although her first job during high
school was as part of the St. John’s campus
Buildings and Grounds crew, she did not
initially consider applying there. But she
says she loved the curriculum and skills she
learned as a Johnnie—and they were a com-
plement to her graduate studies at the University of New Mexico (UNM). “In business
school I was the one who was always asking
questions and analyzing during group projects and discussions,” she says. “I think some
people found it annoying, but I was used to
thinking deeply and critically.”
It was at UNM that Urban became interested in entrepreneurship. After earning
her MBA she did contract work for the New
Mexico economic development department,
and while creating resources for businesses
she realized she had skills she wanted to
leverage. “I was writing website content on
advice about how to start a business, and
I thought, I know all of that,” Urban says.
She wanted to do something that contributes
good to people’s lives, and became aware of
the problem of head injuries in sports. “It’s an
issue that for a long time was shoved under a
rug,” she says. “It seemed logical that having
technology to track even smaller level hits,
and provide a history of all hits taken, would
be valuable to physicians and researchers as
well as parents.”
Urban met her partners in PAC at a networking event. Together she and Lori Upham,
who handles business activities, and Scott
Sibbett, a UNM research professor who created the SmackCap technology, are engaged
in a hands-on, collaborative effort.
“When we built our first prototypes, Lori
handled the fabric, Scott the electronics and
laptop software, and I assembled the sensor array,” Urban says. A pilot partnership
with the Duke City Gladiators, a professional
indoor football team based in Albuquerque,
New Mexico, had players wearing SmackCaps during their practices and games and
allowed the PAC team to conduct field tests
and collect data.
At the 2016 South by Southwest (SXSW)
technology conference held in Austin, Texas,
Urban participated in a gathering of women
entrepreneurs who were pitching to investors; with fewer than 3 percent of tech companies run by women, she is one of an elite
AY
D
Y ’S ING ED
ER RE TH NE
�EV HE E E
“ T M W N O.”
O W AR D
S E E O
N OL T
T OW
H
cadre. “It was a great
opportunity—the first
time we were able to present about the company outside of New Mexico,” she says.
SmackCap is available for preorder with the target of making the
product available to consumers in 2018;
Urban and her partners are excited about
the future of the company’s idea. “Things are
moving so fast—we’re marketing, talking to
investors, dealing with intellectual property
issues, and expanding our team. I’m not sure
how it’s all going to work, but I’m sure we’ll
be able to deal with it.”
KEVIN LANGE
LEADERSHIP
Michelle Urban (SF08) protects athletes’ heads by using hers.
26 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 27
�BIBLIOFILE
ROBERT WOLF
(CLASS OF 1967)
Building the
Agricultural City
S
ince moving to the small town of Decorah,
Iowa, in 1991, former Chicago Tribune
columnist Robert Wolf has been concerned
with the decline of rural America. The upper Midwest’s Driftless bioregion, of which
Decorah is part, once easily fed its inhabitants with its
agriculture and fishing; now, despite much of the area’s
being farmland, it must import most of its food and
other manufactured goods. “I began to think,” writes
Wolf, “about how such a region could escape
the trauma of another national depression,
and realized only a region that was self-reliant and relatively self-sufficient could do this.”
How, then, to create such a region? The
solution, Wolf believes, lies in the concept
of “the agricultural city,” coined by Chicago
architect Joe Lambke. In Lambke’s vision,
rather than viewing themselves as a series of
towns or villages separated by fields, several
rural communities would join together to
form one “city” with multiple nodes of population. Cooperating rather than competing
would allow the inhabitants of an agricultural
city to develop a self-supporting economy less
dependent on centralized corporate interests.
Wolf first put forth these ideas in a
six-part editorial for Iowa Public Radio in
1994, “Developing Regional, Rural Economies”; the piece won the Sigma Delta Chi
Award and Bronze Medal from the Society
of Professional Journalists for Best Radio
Editorial, and was reprinted in the Des
Moines Register. Now he has expanded this
work into a book, Building the Agricultural
City (Ruskin Press, 2016), whose publication costs were raised on the crowdfunding
website IndieGoGo. Crowdfunding itself is
an example of the democratic, grassroots
actions that Wolf feels “democratize our
economy” and help decentralization.
Building the Agricultural City outlines
several practical steps towards building a self-sufficient regional economy: “a
community development bank, numerous
worker-owned cooperatives, and one or two
closed-loop agricultural systems to provide
fresh [fruit] and vegetables year round. Each
municipality would have a publicly owned
utility powered by renewable sources.” Each
of these tools has been successfully implemented by communities around the world.
Writers, artists, and
musicians are vital forces
to “[foster] a regional
consciousness, by offering
dying rural towns an
alternative to bitterness
and passive acceptance
of a System that works
against them.”
28 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
Locally sourced food, trendy on upscale urban
menus, might seem easy to achieve for the agricultural
city; unfortunately, most American farmland is owned
by corporations who ship crops out of the region in
which they are grown. Wolf believes small farmers can
maximize their local impact by turning to “closedloop” agricultural systems, “in which the waste from
one part of the system [becomes] the nutrient for
another”—e.g., Chicago’s The Plant raises tilapia, and
removes their waste from the water to use as fertilizer
for edible plants. The clean water is then recirculated
into the fish tanks. Ironically, Wolf finds examples of
such projects only in cities.
Another urban innovation that Wolf recommends in
a rural context is that of the community development
bank. The first of these in the U.S. was founded in
1973 by four black friends in the South Shore area of
Chicago, which was losing capital as whites moved out
of the neighborhood. Its investors included “nonprofits,
churches, banks, insurance companies, community
organizations, and individuals,” and the bank “invested
in minority-owned businesses and financed apartment
renovation that created affordable housing.” Placing community before profit, banks like ShoreBank,
Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank, and the Bank of North
Dakota, help keep small economies strong.
These economies can be further strengthened, Wolf
argues, by the creation of worker-owned cooperatives,
modeled on European examples. The Emilia Romagna
region of Italy, for instance, has approximately 8,100
cooperatives, in which businesses producing the same
product collaborate rather than compete—and it is this
power of collaboration that allows them to compete at
a global level and enjoy a high quality of life.
One last piece of the puzzle, Wolf writes in an
epilogue, is the necessary re-emergence of regional
arts and literature, “almost instinctively understood to
be the best means available for developing regionalist
sensibility.” Writers, artists, and musicians are vital
forces to “[foster] a regional consciousness, by offering
dying rural towns an alternative to bitterness and passive acceptance of a System that works against them.”
In this way, the humanities can add their persuasive
power to advances in science and technology, Wolf
hopes, in order to build “a cooperative society in which
meaningful, remunerative work is available to all…a
culture rooted in the land and created with tools that
enable a people to live harmoniously with the land.”
—Anna Perleberg Andersen (SF02)
Rousseau’s Rejuvenation
of Political Philosophy:
A New Introduction
By Nelson Lund (A74)
Palgrave Macmillan, 2016
How does one revive the ideas of a major philosophic
critic of the Enlightenment era, a figure both widely
misunderstood and widely influential? Nelson Lund’s
new book, Rousseau’s Rejuvenation of Political
Philosophy, aims to do just that by introducing
readers to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s thoughtful
political wisdom. In reading Rousseau authentically,
“as Rousseau read Plato,” Lund, a professor at George
Portico
By Sarah Stickney (A04)
Emrys Press, 2016
The 26 poems collected in Sarah Stickney’s new book
of poetry, Portico, are inspired, in part, by her love
for the Italian city of Bologna. With an artist’s eye
and a passionate heart, she observes the beauty and
wonder found in life’s everyday moments—young men
on Vespas buzzing in the streets, steam rising from
a bowl of pasta, cedar trees bending in the breeze—
and she takes the reader along for a soulful ride. In
“Song” Stickney writes, “From under a carved arch /
this morning Bologna brought me a woman / whose
Plato Symposium or Drinking Party:
Translation with Introduction,
Glossary, Essay, and Appendices
By Eva Brann (H89), Peter Kalkavage,
and Eric Salem (A77)
Focus Philosophical Library, 2017
A two-year labor of love, this new edition of Plato’s
most popular dialogue, Symposium or Drinking Party,
marks the fourth Plato translation by this trio of St.
John’s tutors. While grasping the mechanics of the
ancient Greek language requires a certain aptitude,
the translators delve deeply to explore the tone
and nuance of the original text, thus enhancing the
Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, helps
shed light on what Rousseau can do for mainstream
political issues, including feminism, religion in secular
society, and the behavior of the American constitutional
government. Rousseau meditated on fundamental
human issues such as the soul’s nature and the nexus
between our more primitive origins and civilization’s
achievements. Even so, the political reflections of
those meditations have not been taken seriously. Lund
endeavors to show readers that Rousseau, like his
muse Plato, is a not simply a dogmatist, and that we
ought to refrain from hastily attributing substantive
conclusions to these great authors.
—Aisha Shahbaz (A19)
hair-loss and stiff perm met / at the skeleton of a leaf
and a branch of dried coral.” The poems, several of
which first appeared under different titles in journals,
weave in and out of time and echo certain themes:
desire and loss, comfort and longing, the familiar
and the uncharted. Throughout the book there is a
subtle, universal reminder that our own shared human
experience is fleeting and meant to be embraced.
reading experience. As with the trio’s previous Plato
translations, the end result is faithful to the original
Greek vocabulary and syntax, and artfully transmits
Plato’s humor, drama, and artistry. In addition, the
trio pays careful attention when providing English
translations of the Greek rhymes, ensuring that the
text is pleasing when also read aloud. The volume is
sure to satisfy Plato scholars; however, it is friendly
to newcomers, too, offering a number of aids—an
introduction that sets the scene and introduces the
main characters; an interpretive essay; a select
bibliography of both classic and contemporary works;
and two illustrated appendices—to help readers
navigate this translation.
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 29
�For & About
ALUMNI
PIRAEUS 2017
SAVE THE DATE!
Annapolis: September 8-10
Santa Fe: September 15-17
At Homecoming, new memories and
deepened friendships emerge, as the past
and present come together. Share your
love for St. John’s College by celebrating
Homecoming 2017 with the special people
in your life—family, friends, and the SJC
campus community. Registration opens on
June 2. Visit sjc.edu/homecoming to register
and view the full schedule of events.
Highlights from the weekend in both
Annapolis and Santa Fe include:
Seminars: A wide variety of seminars are
offered for all alumni. Reunite with fellow
alumni around the seminar table and
engage in great conversations.
All-College Graduate Institute 50th
Anniversary Celebration: In honor of
the 50th anniversary of the Graduate
Institute, the college community is invited
to a reception to celebrate the history of
the Graduate Institute and GI alumni.
CAST YOUR
VOTE
in the 2017 Alumni
Association Election:
May 15-June 2
This June, the SJC Alumni Association
will elect a new president, six at-large
members of the Alumni Association Board
of Directors, and one alumni-elected
member of the college’s Board of Visitors
and Governors. Alumni will also consider
an amendment to the by-laws to address
recent changes in the organization of the
Alumni Relations Office.
Pub Trivia: Form a team with your fellow
alumni to test your mettle while enjoying
some pub style fare and drinks. In addition
to bragging rights, prizes will be conferred
to the winners.
Alumni and Student Networking
Luncheon: Whether you are well into
your career or searching for a new one,
our networking luncheon has something
for everyone. Share your career guidance
with curious students and/or network with
fellow alumni over lunch. Meet our career
counselors, and learn about resources that
are available to students and alumni.
All SJC alumni are encouraged to
participate in these elections. Early voting
by fax, mail, or online ballot will open
on May 15 and continue through June 2.
The election will be held during the 2017
Alumni Leadership Forum (ALF) on June
4 at the Santa Fe campus. (See next page
for ALF details.)
Accommodations
Alumni are
encouraged to
book their accommodations early.
On-campus housing
is not available in
Annapolis or Santa
Fe, though alumni
receive special SJC
rates at the hotels
listed below. Be sure
to contact hotels directly for specific rate
information; please note that there is a
home Navy football game schedule during
Homecoming weekend in Annapolis.
Annapolis: SJC rates offered at Historic
Inns of Annapolis, O’Callaghan Hotel, and
the Westin.
Santa Fe: SJC rates offered at Sage Inn,
Hotel Santa Fe, and Drury Inn on the Plaza.
Contact
alumni@sjc.edu | 410-972-4518
At Piraeus, St. John’s College welcomes
alumni back to the seminar table. Held on
both campuses June 8-11, Piraeus’ tutorled seminars provide an opportunity to
relive the rigorous classroom experience
over the course of a leisurely weekend.
Named for the port city that served Athens,
Piraeus brings alumni from all career
paths and geographical areas back to
their educational roots. Said Thucydides
of ancient Piraeus, “From all the lands,
everything enters.” In that spirit, we invite
you to bring your voice back to the seminar
table and share in the reflection, discussion,
and community that Piraeus offers. Upcoming Piraeus offerings include:
In Annapolis:
The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, led
by Zena Hitz (A95) and Eric Salem (A77)
In Santa Fe:
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by
James Joyce, led by Grant Franks (A77)
and Maggie McGuinness
Selected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges, led
by Michael Wolfe (SF94)
Tuition: $655 (includes five seminars,
opening and closing receptions, breakfasts
and lunches, and Saturday night social
gathering). Recent alumni from the
classes of 2007-2016 may receive a
discounted rate of $475. On-campus
Housing: $180 for three nights, June 8, 9,
and 10. Housing available on June 7 and
11 for an additional $60 per night. Dinner
in the dining hall is included.
• Diversifying regional chapter events and attracting
new participants
• St. John’s admissions efforts, staffing college fairs,
and the Adopt-a-School program
Online and paper ballots must be
received by June 2, 2017.
Online:
http:/
/community.stjohnscollege.edu
For an online ballot, log in and select
the link under Notice of Elections and
Annual Meeting.
30 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 016
Alumni Association Mission
To strive for the continued excellence of our
college and fellow alumni by celebrating our
distinctive educational experience, connecting our community in efforts toward shared
support and benefit, and fostering a culture
of intellect, generosity, and service.
For more information and to register
online, visit http://community.stjohns
college.edu/piraeus or call 505-984-6114.
training will be provided, including sessions on:
By Mail or Fax:
Request a Paper Ballot
Contact Sarah Palacios, director of
Alumni Relations, at 505-984-6121
or sarah.palacios@sjc.edu.
• An overview of the Career Services strategic plan
for the upcoming year
HOW TO VOTE
In Person:
Alumni Leadership Forum 2017
The Association’s Annual Meeting will
be held during ALF weekend on Sunday,
June 4, from 9 to 10:30 a.m. on the
Santa Fe campus.
Two offerings in Annapolis—The Aeneid
by Virgil, led by Tom May and David
Townsend, and Persuasion by Jane Austen,
led by Eva Brann (H89) and Erica Beall
(A07)—are already fully subscribed. To
place your name on the waiting list,
please contact the Alumni Office at
alumni@sjc.edu or 505-984-6114.
This three-day program gives the college’s most active
volunteers a forum to come together, share successes and
challenges, and learn best practices from one another. It also
provides an intimate opportunity to hear from the presidents
and college leadership on the evolving strategic plan for
St. John’s, and to learn more about ways in which you can
be of significant service in these efforts. In-depth
• The capital campaign, peer-to-peer giving efforts,
and building a culture of philanthropy
In appreciation for your service to the college, the
Alumni Leadership Forum is offered at no cost.
To register and view information, visit sjc.edu/alf.
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 31
�PHILANTHROPY
ALUMNI NOTES
Gifts to Inspire
1952
Ron Fielding (A70) and
Warren Spector (A81)
Seed the Ground for
a New Century of a
Flourishing St. John’s
St. John’s experienced history in the making last fall when Ron Fielding (A70) and
Warren Spector (A81) each pledged $25
million gifts to the college. The twin gifts
are each the largest individual gifts ever
donated to St. John’s. “This commitment is
our rallying cry to fellow board members,
alumni, and friends at the dawn of our
capital campaign,” Fielding said. “It’s a
signal of confidence in the college’s direction and a call to action. While $50 million
is an important foundation for the future
of St. John’s College, it is only the beginning. We are calling on fellow supporters
of the Program to come forward, and we
hope to inspire gifts both large and small.”
The gift was announced November 5 at
the college’s Board of Visitors and Governors meeting in Annapolis, where Fielding
and Spector expressed enthusiasm for the
college’s recent progress toward financial
sustainability through fiscal prudence,
strategic management of the endowment,
and attention to student revenues and philanthropy. The two said that the board and
alumni must now step forward to protect
the institution for generations to come and
acknowledged the sacrifices that have been
made by staff and tutors.
“Belt-tightening has been painful,” Spector said. “But the commitment of staff and
faculty has given supporters of the college
the confidence that we are dealing with our
challenges. Now it’s the job of the board,
alumni, and friends to take the next steps
in ensuring the integrity of the Program.
It’s an exciting moment: for me, this means
giving future generations the opportunity
to grapple with problems of great complexity, of viewing problems through the long
Pierre Grimes (A) published two
articles in 2016, “The Philosophy
of the Self” and “The Betrayal of
Philosophy: Rediscovering the
Self in Plato’s Parmenides, in
Philosophical Practice: Journal of
the APPA (American Philosophical
Practitioners Association).
1955
Helge Leeuwenburgh, husband of
Carolyn Banks Leeuwenburgh (A),
died on January 10 after a long
illness. During the 1980s, Carolyn
and Helge arranged St. John’s
tours to Europe and China.
“St. John’s is unlike any
other college in the world,
and its Program is a
precious, singular gem.”
—Santa Fe President Mark Roosevelt
lens of human history, and of understanding that seemingly new problems are
actually part of an ancient continuum. The
Program gave me comfort in addressing
challenges and finding answers where no
research was yet available. What could be
more valuable than that?”
Santa Fe President Mark Roosevelt
thanked Fielding and Spector for their
extraordinary leadership, adding, “Our
task now is to live up to their faith in the
administration and faculty—to continue
to make the hard choices that allow us to
focus on what is really important here: our
students and their success.”
True to St. John’s history and values,
Fielding’s and Spector’s support will
primarily be directed toward strengthening the Program and ensuring that all
students with a desire to attend can afford
to do so. Both gifts will be made as cash
and not estate gifts. The largest share will
be designated for the college’s endowment,
where it will provide ongoing support
32 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
Ron Fielding and Warren Spector
for academics, financial aid, and career
services. A smaller share will go towards
the Annual Fund, thereby ensuring that
donors’ gifts in the coming years will be
protected as long-term investments in the
Program.
Fielding’s and Spector’s philanthropy
has already galvanized additional support.
“Others are now working with us to match
areas of need with their giving priorities,”
Roosevelt said. “It’s so important, and so
inspiring to see people stepping forward.
St. John’s is unlike any other college in
the world, and its Program is a precious,
singular gem. It must be preserved for the
unique students who come to us, and preserved by those who came before them.”
Annapolis President Chris Nelson
(SF70) noted that the gifts acknowledge
the importance of securing the future of
the college for the sake of our country and
many generations of students to come. “St.
John’s has a long history of alumni and
friends stepping forward to safeguard the
college’s distinctive and highly regarded
program of study,” Nelson said. “These two
gifts are extraordinary in their size and in
the message they send about our future.
I dare say that Spector and Fielding have
seeded the ground for a fourth century of a
flourishing St. John’s College.”
1968
Mary (Howard) Callaway published
“Medieval Reception of the
Prophets” in The Oxford Handbook
of the Prophets, ed. Carolyn Sharp,
pp. 423-441. She still teaches a
course in ancient literature to
honors students at Fordham,
around a big table furnished with
Clore chairs. Homer and Virgil,
she says, seem more pertinent
every year.
John Farmer (A) recently closed his
family practice after 37 years. He
is currently treating patients with
heroin addiction.
Thomas G. Keens (SF) gave the
Margaret Pfrommer Memorial
Lecture on long-term mechanical
ventilation at the annual meeting
of the American College of Chest
Physicians, held on October 25 in
Los Angeles. This prestigious lectureship is given to a person anywhere in the world who has made
pioneering contributions to home
mechanical ventilation. Keens and
his interdisciplinary team have
discharged more than 600 children
on mechanical-assisted ventilation
in the home, allowing them to live
outside the hospital, attend school,
and reintegrate with their families. Keens is a professor of pediatrics, physiology, and biophysics at
the Keck School of Medicine of the
University of Southern California,
and the Division of Pediatric Pul-
Emily Langston, associate dean for the graduate program in Annapolis, Dale Mortimer (A75),
and Grant Mortimer (A17) take a tour of Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge.
monology and Sleep Medicine at
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
Bart Lee (A) recently published
The Long Road from Mount Moriah
to Mount Moriah: A Meditation on
Kindness, Killing and the Voice of
God, available on Amazon.
Last summer, while at his cottage
on Lake Okoboji, Iowa, Rick
Wicks (SF) developed breathing
problems after spending time
planting prairie flowers and
grasses. He returned home to
Sweden, where he is thankful for
the excellent medical care and
universal medical insurance.
Fortunately, atrial ablation (plus
a daily cocktail of medicines) has
his heart now pumping slowly,
steadily, and strongly.
1969
Joseph Baratta (A) wrote an editorial to the Italian journal, The
Federalist Debate, entitled “The
Response of Federalists to the
Trump Election.”
1972
Melissa Kaplan Drolet (SF) writes
that she and the late Raymond
Drolet’s (SF69) daughter Megan
Josephine Drolet (SF08) is engaged
to be married to Earl Joseph
Jordan. Megan received a master’s
degree in social service from
Bryn Mawr College in 2014 and
is working as a social worker at
The People’s Emergency Center in
Philadelphia. Megan’s aunt Sharon
Kaplan Wallis (Class of 1964) and
her uncle Bart Kaplan (Class of
1965) are expected to attend the
wedding.
1976
Class co-chairs Bridget Houston
Hyde (SF), Christopher Graver (SF),
and Christian Burks (SF) report
that the Santa Fe Class of 1976
came together to celebrate their
40th reunion. Members became
reacquainted nine months earlier
by e-mail, on a private Facebook
group, and by videoconferences. Of
the 145 graduates, many reconnections were established, and more
than 30 showed up in Santa Fe for
official and unofficial, registered
and unregistered “reunioning.”
1975
Dale Mortimer (A75) welcomes St.
John’s tutors to visit the Mortimer
family in Vancouver, Wash., where
they can enjoy the magnificence of
the Pacific Northwest.
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 33
�ALUMNI NOTES
1984
David Simpson (SF)
recently won an Emmy
for Editing on Life Itself,
the biopic documentary
about Roger Ebert. Other
recent editing credits
include Abacus: Too
Small to Jail, which will
be in selected theaters
in May and will air on
Frontline in September,
David Simpson (SF84) and a colleague
and Maya Angelou: And
pose with their Emmys.
Still I Rise, which premiered on the PBS series
American Masters in February. Last year saw the release
of Hard Earned, a series on getting by in America, which
Simpson co-directed and edited, and which aired on
Al Jazeera America. When he can escape from the edit room,
the father of two looks for chances to travel and be in nature.
1977
Marlene Benjamin’s (SF) new book,
The Catastrophic Self: Essays in
Philosophy, Memoir and Medical
Trauma, was published by InterDisciplinary Press in 2016.
1982
Peter Griggs’s (A) novel No Pink
Concept is now an ebook. He has
also finished a second, currently
unpublished novel, Paisley Jubilee,
about a middle-aged man with
diabetes and his life in the mental
health system. He welcomes suggestions for a publisher.
1984
Elizabeth A. Povinelli’s (SF) new
book, Geontologies: A Requiem to
Late Liberalism,was published by
Duke University Press in 2016.
Monika V. Schiavo (A) recently
joined The Potomack Company,
an auction gallery based in
Alexandria, Va., as the director
of books and manuscripts and
manager of consignor relations
and systems. She invites Johnnies
to contact her to help determine
the value of the company’s
rare books, maps, autographs,
34 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
antiques, and collectibles. Or just
call to chat. She is still married
to John Schiavo (A82) and still
the mother of Hellena (SF11) and
Anthony.
1985
Lora Keenan (SF) writes, “After
twenty years
working as a
lawyer for the
Oregon appellate courts,
I recently
launched my
own business
as a writing consultant and freelance attorney. As the ‘brief doctor,’
I offer writing improvement
seminars and coaching, appellate
advice, and complex legal drafting
in the litigation context. I live in
southwest Portland (not the cool
Portlandia part), surrounded by
fir trees. I recently visited Palm
Springs with Maya (Bajema)
Butterfield (SF), Judy Houck (SF),
Caryn Hunt (SF), Mary-Irene Kinsley
(SF), and Terri Luckett (SF). We all
still dance like glorious maniacs.”
L. Jagi Lamplighter (A) is writing a
young adult fantasy series titled
The Unexpected Enlightenment of
Rachel Griffen, which takes place
in a magic school that is based, in
part, on St. John’s. The story idea
and overarching plot were made
up by Mark Whipple (A96); John C.
Wright (A84) and Bill Burns (A94)
also helped with the project.
1988
Síofra Rucker (SF) moved six
years ago from San Diego back
to Louisville, Ky., with her two
daughters. She is the director
of Advancement at St. Francis
School, a progressive independent
PK-12 school, where she herself
attended. Rucker oversees the
school’s fundraising, marketing,
and communications. Her youngest is now in eighth grade there,
and her eldest is an alumnus.
1990
Elaine Reiss Perea (SF) was
recently named director of the
College and Career Readiness
Bureau for New Mexico’s Public
Education Department. In this
position, she oversees Career
Technical Education and Accelerated Learning programs (such
as dual credit and advanced
placement). “We have several
innovative programs to encourage student engagement and are
making a push for more student
internships. Although a tight fiscal
environment can make challenging the day-to-day work of
managing costs, the policy work is
rewarding, and I’m grateful for a
dedicated and effective staff.”
Julie Rehmeyer (SF) has a book
coming out in May, Through the
Shadowlands: A Science Writer’s
Odyssey into an Illness Science
Doesn’t Understand. It chronicles
her experience with chronic
fatigue syndrome and describes
the science, politics, and history
of poorly understood diseases.
She’s currently living in Santa
Fe in a straw bale house that she
built herself.
1993
Christopher D. Denny’s (A) new
book, A Generous Symphony:
Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Literary
Revelations, was published by
Fortress Press in 2016.
Chris Dunlap (A) works in sales
and marketing for San Francisco’s Arion Press, whose catalog
includes several books on the
1996
1991
After two years of hard work
building a free app designed
to help homeowners manage
their homes and everything in
them, Shubber Ali’s (SF) startup
company Centriq won the firstever Platinum “Game Changer”
award from the National Association of Home Builders in January.
Kemmer Anderson (AGI) published
Palamedes: The Lost Muse of
Justice, a cycle of poems begun
after discovering the rhetoric
of Palamedes while reading
Phaedrus at Annapolis in 1991.
1992
Thomas Cogdell (SF) and his wife
Amy look forward to celebrating
the 500th anniversary of the
Protestant Reformation on
October 31 in Wittenberg,
Germany.
Alice Mangum Perry (SFGI) misses
her fellow Johnnies in Santa
Fe. Having returned to the East
Coast, she’s been an editor, writer,
proofreader, and “word-nerd-forhire” for books, magazines, newsletters, websites, and blogsites.
She keeps busy and appreciates
having a flexible schedule.
St. John’s Program. Arion Press
continues the tradition of fine
presswork, hand-binding, and
artful typesetting rejuvenated by
William Morris and the Arts and
Crafts movement. The company
fabricates its own metal type
through its on-site sister business,
M&H Type—the last remaining commercial type foundry
in America. Anthony Bourdain
featured Arion Press in his series
Raw Craft, available on YouTube.
1996
Stephen Conn (SF) writes, “For
Johnnies interested in working as
an extra in films, the Albuquerque/Santa Fe area is booming.
This year alone I’ve been in scenes
with Paul Rudd, Jeff Bridges,
and Jessica Chastain. Just go to
the New Mexico Actors & Extras
Forum on Facebook and look for
listings that fit your description.
It’s a fun way to make some extra
money and learn the mechanics of
big-time filmmaking.”
be offered through Western State
Colorado University’s Honors
Program, for which she also serves
as director.
2001
Congratulations to Talley Kovacs
(A01), an associate with the
Baltimore area law firm PK Law,
on being named one of the Daily
Record’s Leading Women.
Luke Mitcheson (SF) and his wife
Daphne are overjoyed to announce
the birth of their first child Henry
Michael. Little Henry arrived on
November 14, and he’s been filling
the Mitcheson home with wonder
and excitement ever since.
1999
Michael Barth (AGI) and Elizabeth Norwood (AGI10) founded
and recently launched the Bhutan Fund. Barth notes that the
Bhutan Fund is the first private equity fund for the country of
Bhutan, and the only one in the world that applies the country’s core principles of Gross National Happiness to its investment criteria and investment monitoring framework. According
to Barth, the Bhutan Fund will establish a committed pool of
capital for growth equity investments in areas that capitalize
on Bhutan’s natural, sustainable competitive advantages which
include abundant clean power resources; a well educated, English-speaking workforce; unique culture; pristine environment;
stable political climate; and firm emphasis on strengthening
the private sector. The Fund’s pipeline has more than 15 deals
covering over $200 million, with opportunities for co-investment
and debt finance. Barth and Norwood believe it has the potential to set an ethical example for other markets.
“Hello from Pittsburgh to all
Annapolis and Santa Fe former
classmates!” writes Maureen
Gallagher (SF), who is currently a
visiting assistant professor in the
English Department at Duquesne
University. “Teaching a full course
load of composition, literature,
and research literacy skills, all
while raising two young daughters Molly (4) and Jane (1) with
my husband, Laurence Ales, is
keeping me busy indeed.”
2000
Kelsey L. Bennett (SF) is the
recipient of a two-year National
Endowment for the Humanities
Enduring Questions grant. The
grant supports the development of
a new university honors course to
investigate several among many
questions she first confronted
during her time at St. John’s. The
guiding question of the course is:
What is Art For? The course will
2002
James Marshall Crotty (SFGI) is
the director of communications for
U.S. Congressman Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE).
2003
Johanna Omelia (SFGI) is delighted
to report that Come Fly With Us
Magazine is celebrating its third
anniversary this spring. The
publication is now read in 128
countries, across every ocean and
across every continent.
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 35
�ALUMNI NOTES
2005
Jared Ortiz (AGI) and Rhonda
(Franklin) Ortiz (A04) are awaiting
their fourth child in March 2017.
Jared teaches Catholic theology at Hope College in Holland,
Mich., and recently published
his first book, You Made Us for
Yourself: Creation in St. Augustine’s
Confessions (Fortress, 2016). He
is also the executive director and
co-founder of the Saint Benedict
Institute for Catholic Thought,
Culture, and Evangelization
(www.saintbenedictinstitute.org).
Rhonda writes fiction and does
freelance graphic design work.
2006
Michael Bales (SF) recently started
at the Mitre Corporation as a
senior data scientist, a nonprofit
that runs federal research centers.
He is also finishing his master’s
in government analytics at Johns
Hopkins University.
Alumni interested in
careers in data and
public service may
contact him at mike.
bales@gmail.com.
2016 was a good year
for Jacqueline KennedyDvorak (AGI). She and
her husband had a baby
in April, he got a new job
in November, and she got
a new job in December.
In January she saw great friends,
Melody (AGI07) and Everett Reed
(AGI07), and their three children.
She looks forward to seeing them
again, as well as Camille Stallings
(AGI07) in May.
Sarah Rera (A) was named to the
2016 New York Super Lawyers
Upstate list. She is an attorney,
and recently became a shareholder, with the law firm Gross
Shuman Brizdle & Gilfillan, P.C.
She is admitted to practice in New
York State and Federal Courts, as
well as before the U.S. Supreme
Court and Bankruptcy Court,
Western District of New York.
Russell Max Simon (SFGI) recently
wrote and directed his first feature
film, titled #humbled, about an
idealistic young theatre director who leads her vagabond cast
and crew through the pitfalls of
a fledgling indie theatre production. The “play within the film”
is a modern-day adaptation of
Aristophanes’s The Frogs, which
Simon read while at the Graduate
Institute in Santa Fe. He writes,
“The film explores relationships,
egos, and competing perspectives
on the true meaning of art and
mediocrity. You can get updates on
the film by going to 7kfilms.com/
humbled and signing up for the
newsletter there, or liking the 7k
Films Facebook page: facebook.
com/7kfilms.”
For the past five years, Susan
Swier (AGI) lived in Taiwan and
visited more than 80 cat cafes. Her
new book, published in Taiwan in
both Chinese and English under
2006
Caelan MacTavish Huntress (SF)
has returned to Portland, Ore.,
after living for three years in Costa Rica,
where he and his wife Johanna homeschooled their three children— two sons
and a daughter. Huntress took his wife’s
last name, noting that the Huntress Clan
ruled the Isle of Mann as a matriarchy for
300 years, and their male descendants
have had mostly daughters for five generations. The couple’s
youngest child Taos was born in Costa Rica in an unassisted
water birth. They made their living in the jungle with his
website design business, which was recently absorbed into
the consulting agency Stellar Platforms. This branding and
strategy firm works with authors, coaches, and teachers on
their digital marketing, and packages their teachings into a
curriculum that can be sold as a course on their website. He is
also active in the local Parkour community, teaching and training in the new sport that has its philosophical underpinnings
in Stoic philosophy. This connection is revealed in Ryan Holiday’s book The Obstacle Is the Way, which Huntress suggests
every Johnnie should read. You can follow his adventures at
http://caelanhuntress.com.
notes the timing with the election
was only coincidental.
the title Come in and See the Cats,
introduces 62 of them. The book
is available on www.kinokuniya.
com and is only searchable by the
Chinese title, 這裡有貓, 歡迎光臨.
Swier works as a freelance writer
and recently moved to Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia.
2007
Lucas Smith (SF) and his wife
Miriam had their first baby,
Verity Linnéa Sihn-Sze Smith,
born May 13. The provenance of
their daughter’s middle name is
from Linnaeus. In early 2017 he
immigrated to Canada, though he
36 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
Michael Wu (SF) recently completed an appointment in the
Obama administration, leading
renewable energy and energy
resilience efforts for the U.S.
Air Force. He is now starting an
energy consulting company and
beginning work on a book on the
history of energy in warfare.
2008
In August, Tammie Kahnhauser
(A) accepted a job as a software
engineer at Uber. She is currently
working on tracing tools that will
help other engineers make their
code more efficient.
Nate Okhuysen (A) has been
promoted to the rank of captain
in the U.S. Air Force. Okhuysen graduated from his Judge
Advocate Staff Officer Course in
September of 2016 and currently
serves as chief of Administrative
Investigations for the 86th Airlift
Wing’s legal office at Ramstein Air
Base, Germany. He loves the work
but misses the robust seminar
schedule of the Boston Alumni
Chapter.
children, Meir (2) and Adele, (two
months).
2014
2011
2009
2012
Kyle Lebell (SF) (pictured right) is
completing her final year of rabbinical school and will be ordained
at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic
Studies in May 2018. She and
her husband Sam, who is also
studying to be a rabbi, have two
Chloé Annick Ginsburg (SF)
writes, “When I was studying at St. John’s College never
in my wildest dreams did I think
that a Great Books Program could
ever prepare me for a Hollywood
creative life. When I moved back
to Los Angeles, I pursued accounting in a law firm, but I found that
Ryan Burnett (AGI) shares the following: “Seminar at St.
John’s College has gravity. This comes from the genius of the
writer, the skill of the tutor and the openness of the student.
What we feel is a spirit of shared urgency to get things right.
It is no surprise, then, that my new-found career in water
conservation in California reminds me of my alma mater. Both
St. John’s and my career share the need to get to the heart of
essential things. Clearly,
state-wide drought and
a set of Great Books are
different. However, what
they share is a life-giving
focus on what matters
most. That tenor guides
me every day and has
helped me focus studies,
earn certifications and
Ryan Burnett (AGI14) with his wife
gain a footing on a body
Kate and son Teddy.
of knowledge as big as
you can imagine.”
Virginia Harness (A) left her corporate gig in Los Angeles for a life in
public service as the architectural
historian for the South Carolina
State Historic Preservation Office
in April 2016. She is enjoying a
return to life with four seasons
and a traffic-free commute.
In January Brittany French
(SF) received her master’s
degree in philosophy from
Simon Fraser University
in Vancouver, Canada,
where she is also a teaching
assistant. She plans to study
medicine somewhere in the
U.S. starting this summer.
Nicholas H. Loya (A15) visited the cloisters under renovation at Canterbury
Cathedral while touring with Sidharth Shah (A). Presumably, Anselm saw a
similar scene.
life was not fulfilling enough. So
I reevaluated and discovered my
true passion: costume design. I
then enrolled in a Theatre Conservatory last year where I have had
opportunities to costume design
AFI short films and school plays.
The biggest news I have is that
I was nominated for my costume
designs by the Kennedy Center for
the Performing Arts for Waiting for
Lefty by Clifford Odets. Little did I
know that a liberal arts education
would be the perfect education to
prepare me for such a task. I was
able to analyze the script in such
detail that I think only a liberal
arts major could possibly do. With
these tools I was able to translate
the author’s intent and words into
physical embodiment through
the costumes. I have always been
interested in history, literature,
and fashion, but St. John’s honed
my interests and led me to a
rewarding profession.”
2014
Micaela MacDougall (A) thanks
everyone who donated to her fundraiser to attend the University
of St Andrews in Scotland. She
graduated in November 2016 with
a master’s in theology, imagination, and the arts. Now back in
Annapolis, she is planning her
next steps.
Do you have news to share
with The College? Send your
note, along with your name,
class year, and photo(s), to
thecollegemagazine@sjc.edu
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 37
�IN MEMORIAM
Leroy Edward Hoffberger
Office of Personnel Management,
and several conservation
organizations.
Most of Dobert’s clients
worked with him for years and
often decades. And many of
those same clients became dear
friends. He won more than 50
CINE Golden Eagle Awards as
well as numerous other video
and film recognitions. Today his
films are viewed and used in
national parks throughout the
U.S. and have become part of the
nation’s environmental legacy.
He is survived by his wife,
Claire Guimond Dobert; brother,
Peter; daughter, Sabrina; sons,
Pascal and Alexander; and
numerous grandchildren.
Stefan Sebastian Dobert
Class of 1962
October 22, 2016
Stefan Sebastian Dobert
(1938-2016), photographer,
documentary film maker, and
video producer, died peacefully
at his Maryland home. He
was 78 years old. Born in
Geneva, Switzerland, Dobert
spent his formative years in
Bethesda, Maryland. After St.
The Shining Youth/Shining Walls
mosaics at the American Visionary Art
Museum bears Hoffberger’s name.
John’s, Dobert enlisted in the
U.S. Army. While stationed
in Germany he discovered
his passion for filming and
photography. After completing
his military service, he returned
to Germany to work for Screen
Gems at Studio Hamburg.
There, he met his first wife,
Urte Petersen, the mother of his
three children.
For a decade Dobert produced
and directed more than 50
38 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
award-winning films on a
variety of subjects for the U.S.
Department of Agriculture
and for the Federal Aviation
Administration. In 1976, he
started his own film production
company, Stefan Dobert
Productions, Inc. He became
renowned in the industry for
his well-researched and scripted
nature films, educating and
informing the public about
numerous environmental issues.
Over the years, he traveled
the Americas with his second
wife and production partner
Claire, meeting, interviewing,
and filming such subjects as
the Annual Spring Waterfowl
Population Survey, the National
Wildlife Refuge Systems, the
Federal Duck Stamp Program,
all for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service. In addition, he produced
numerous stories for the U.S.
Information Agency, the U.S.
November 24, 2016
August 27, 2016
DAN MEYERS
A strong believer in helping his fellow man, Leroy
“Roy” Edward Hoffberger (1925-2016), former
member of the Board of Visitors and Governors
of St. John’s College, may be best known for his
philanthropic activities. The Baltimore lawyer and
businessman served as president and chairman
of the Hoffberger Brothers Fund (renamed the
Hoffberger Foundation in 1963 and known today
as the Hoffberger Family Philanthropies). The
foundation—one of Maryland’s largest philanthropic
funds and one of Baltimore’s greatest benefactors—
supports hospitals, health care services, Jewish
scholarships, artists and various cultural
institutions, and medical research, especially in the
areas of Alzheimer’s and aging. Hoffberger was also
one of the earliest leaders in the effort to create the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
A great supporter of the arts, Hoffberger was an
avid art collector and a co-founder of the American
Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. He also
endowed the LeRoy E. Hoffberger Graduate School
of Painting at the Maryland Institute College of
Art. On the cover of his 2014 memoir Measure of a
Life, Hoffberger wrote, “What we leave behind is
far more important than how far we get ahead.” He
is survived by his wife, Paula; his two sons, Jack
and Douglas; his two stepdaughters, Athena Alban
Hoffberger and Belina Rafy; his brother, Stanley;
and three grandchildren.
Annapolis campus for 18 years.
“I first met her when I came
as a newly appointed tutor to
St. John’s College, in 1979,”
writes Tom May. “… Jan was
the soul of graciousness and
discretion, dealing routinely
with all manner of student and
faculty concerns. Her ability
to listen, her wonderful smile
and genuine laugh, and her
readiness to be helpful are all
lasting impressions I fondly
remember and cherish.” She is
survived by her husband of 64
years, Julian Easterday, Jr., her
son, Julian “Ralph” Easterday
III, and her beloved grandson,
Tyler.
Janice Easterday
August 3, 2016
Board member
After a one-year battle with
cancer, Curran G. Engel (19632016) died on Thanksgiving
Day. Soon after graduating
from St. John’s in 1986, Engel
began his career in the motion
picture industry. He worked
on hundreds of productions,
including independent and
studio films, commercials,
documentary, corporate image
films, and music videos. His
Janice “Jan” Easterday (19342016) passed away after a short
battle with lung cancer at the
Hospice of the Chesapeake
with her loving husband,
Julian, by her side. Many
from the St. John’s community
will remember Easterday
through her work as secretary
to the assistant dean on the
Curran Engel (SF86)
screen credits include The
Sculptress, Heartwood, The Net,
and James and the Giant Peach,
among others. Engel frequently
served as a guest lecturer on
film industry topics and was a
member of the faculty at The
Academy of Art University in
San Francisco, where he taught
courses in producing, production
management, and creating
demo reels. In his final months,
despite his physical pain,
he returned to St. John’s for
Homecoming in Santa Fe, where
he celebrated a 30-year reunion
with friends. He is survived by
his wife, Annalisa Chamberlain
Engel; his sons; and brother
Brandon Engel (SF91).
Thomas Rea
Class of 1951
February 7, 2016
Thomas Herald Rea’s (19292016) groundbreaking
discoveries in the field of
dermatology led to treatments
that allowed patients with
Hansen’s disease, better known
as leprosy, to live without
stigma. Rea and his University
of Southern California colleague
Robert Modlin identified the
exact role played by the immune
system in Hansen’s disease
symptoms; their research paved
the way for new treatments
that rendered the disease
non-contagious and allowed
patients to live normal lives.
Rea served as head of the USC’s
dermatology division between
1981 and 1996, and kept
working at the Hansen’s disease
clinic at Los Angeles CountyUSC Medical Center in Boyle
Heights until a few months
before he died. The clinic was
renamed for Rea in 2015.
After St. John’s, Rea attended
Oberlin College and medical
school at the University of
Michigan in Ann Arbor. He
completed his dermatology
residency at University Hospital
in Ann Arbor. Rea worked in
the Medical Corps of the U.S.
Army in Korea and in the
dermatology department at New
York University, where he first
began treating Hansen’s disease
patients. He had an appreciation
for books, film, classical music,
and Japanese art. Rea is
survived by his wife of 51 years,
Mary; his sons, Andrew and
Steven; and four grandchildren.
Also Deceased:
Paul C. Cochran, Class of 1963
October 14, 2016
Virginia A. McConnell, AGI84
August 21, 2016
Jesse Faulkner Sherman, A06
January 27, 2015
Robert Alexander, Class of 1942
August 23, 2016
Christian “CJ” Dallett, SF88
February 23, 2017
Veronica Nicholas, Class of 1963
November 29, 2016
David F. Simpson, A97
August 28, 2016
Burton Armstrong, Class of 1943
January 4, 2017
John S. DesJardins,
Class of 1947
November 7, 2016
Jacob C. Perring, SF06
October 29, 2016
George F. Smith, Class of 1947
October 19, 2016
Devin J. Ayers, EC05
January 26, 2017
Donald A. Phillips, Class of 1955
Carol J. Dockham, SF76 August 24, 2016
Margaret J. Bair, AGI13 September 8, 2016
Paul A. Sachs, Class of 1941
September 25, 2016
Margaret Jean Mattson, AGI90
November 18, 2016
June 21, 2016
John W. Burke, A79
Michael A. Smith, A87
August 28, 2016
Mary Storm, Class of 1962
November 29, 2016
February 5, 2017
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 39
�JOHNNIE VOICES
HOMER IN CHINA
By Martha Franks (SF78)
C
hinese high school is a warrior culture. The students in my
classes in Beijing were engaged
in constant battle, which became
clear when I took them slowly
through Homer’s Iliad. The Greek society
sung by Homer is based on competition for
excellence in battle, which was rewarded by
glory, honor, and prizes. My Chinese students, fighting their way through the literal
and figurative tests of a competitive high
school, understood that down to their bones.
Everyone attending Bei Da Fu Zhong, the
high school where I taught for two years from
2012-2014, were high achievers, having fought
to excel all their lives. They spent enormous
time and money on test preparation. I disliked
their preoccupation with tests, so I never gave
them any, which mystified them. As far as they
knew, doing well on tests was the only point of
school. How could they win glory if they did not
take tests?
My argument—that a person might genuinely
be interested in learning—seemed to them a
quaint, if charming, frivolity. They could not
afford to indulge in it.
I pushed the argument anyway; it was part
of my job. Dalton Academy was geared toward
students who intended to go to the United
States for college. It was also an experimental program that tried to get away from a
deadening focus on tests, in order to encourage
creativity in students.
We plunged into both tasks on the first day
of class. Beginnings are always challenging,
and starting a discussion class was especially
difficult for these kids. After years in the classroom, their voices had only been raised when
they were sure of the answer.
“Was Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek
armies, a good king?” I asked. Silence. I wrote
the question on the whiteboard. “What do you
think? Was Agamemnon a good king?” More
silence. People looked down and fiddled with
pens. The silence became so uncomfortable
that one student, Janie, restively broke it.
“No,” she said with an angry air, as if it
made her mad that she had been driven to
speak. “He should not have take away prizes
from best warrior Achilles and humiliate him.
That is stupid. Good king isn’t stupid.”
We had started. It took time and lots of
encouragement, but discussion has an almost
physical momentum, especially among competitive people. Each expressed opinion calls forth
an equal and opposite opinion. I asked Janie a
few questions: “Why do you think Agamemnon
did such a stupid thing? What might worry him
about Achilles?”
Sam reacted with the opposite opinion to
hers: “Good king should control powerful warrior or his authority is attack. Agamemnon is
smart. Think Achilles problem.”
Anne agreed. “Achilles acting like child
weakens. Good king must be strong.”
(My students understood English very well, but
when it came to speaking it, they often ignored
the parts they found strange, unnecessary, or
confusing, such as articles, plurals, and tenses.)
Seeing Sam’s and Anne’s disagreement
as a challenge to her, Janie turned on them
combatively, saying with scorn that Agamemnon could have found a less stupid and greedy
way to control Achilles if he was afraid of him.
Sam swelled a little. Other voices came quickly
forward to soothe the waters. Chinese students
dislike disharmony in the classroom, and will
try to heal it.
In the classes that followed, we spent some
time with Achilles sitting in his tent, trying to
decide which is the best life, short but glorious or long but obscure. I asked my students,
“What do you think is the best life?”
A pause, and then someone, nearly whispering, ventured: “The best life has lots of money.”
There were suppressed giggles.
“Okay, good,” I said. “Suppose you have lots
of money. What do you do with money?”
“Buy things,” someone else said boldly, and
got a laugh.
“All right. Obviously, you don’t want money
itself, you want the things money can buy.
What things?” I wanted to know.
Lots of ideas poured out at that: “Clothes,
jewels, travel, a big house….”
“Why do you want these things?” I asked.
They thought that was a ridiculous question.
There was no why about wanting things. You
just wanted them.
Tom joked: “I want because my friends don’t
have!”
“So,” I replied, “you want your friends to envy
you, or to be impressed by you?” They looked
at me with an “of course!” expression, which
was tinged with a little surprised embarrassment—I gathered that people rarely said that
aloud. “Why do you want that?” I pressed.
“I feel proud,” Tom answered, after a moment.
“You want glory and honor, like a Greek warrior?” He agreed, relieved that we were talking
about the book again. Yes, he was like a Greek
warrior that way.
Allen jumped into the silence and announced: “I want to be rock star.”
“Why do you want that?” I asked.
He grinned, sure he had figured out the
answer: “Glory and honor!”
“We spent some time with
Achilles sitting in his tent,
trying to decide which is the
best life, short but glorious
or long but obscure.”
“Really?” I teased him back. “You don’t actually like music? It’s just a way to get money,
glory, and honor?” Allen’s music was a byword
around the campus. He played in a band every
extra moment he had. He admitted that he
loved music for its own sake.
I asked: “If you had to choose between
money and music, which would you choose?”
This question seemed to hit a sore place.
Faces turned downwards. Perhaps it named
something that many of them hid within. They
might like music, or art, or anything, but they
had obligations to their families. All of them
were only children, their family’s best hope for
wealth.
“I won’t choose,” said Allen, bravely. “I want
both.” The circle lightened, and I thought they
would applaud.
Class ended and students stood up, chattering
excitedly in Chinese. I took this as a good sign.
As the book and the semester progressed,
there were a variety of reactions to how we
were reading and talking. A few wrote the
whole thing off as an easy credit because there
were no tests and no one was forced to join the
conversation. I believe they had spent so much
of their lives looking at school as a source of
glory, honor, and prizes—separate from the
private personal places where their real interests lay—that they did not know how to treat it
otherwise.
Lots of students, though, loved what went
on in our class, even though they still thought
it a charming luxury that they could not afford
to indulge in very much. If an SAT loomed,
work for my class was likely to be the first
thing shorted. And yet the figure of Achilles
became vivid in their minds. Living in their
own warrior educational culture, they felt how
angry he was when the glory, honor, and prizes
he had worked for were taken from him. They
understood, too, why his reaction to that was
to wonder whether these things had ever been
worth his life.
Homer’s answer to that question is not obvious, but perhaps it has to do with the scene at
the end, one of the greatest moments in Western literature. King Priam of Troy comes into
the Greek camp by night, alone, to beg Achilles
to give him his son Hector’s corpse for burial.
Achilles and Priam, Greek and Trojan, victor
and vanquished, magnificent and broken, have
both lost people they loved. And they know they
will die soon. Achilles shares this mortal sorrow with the king of the enemy city. As one of
my students put it, in a lovely English sentence:
“Achilles and Priam weep together, in the dark,
in the quiet of Achilles’ tent, with the army
sleeping around them.”
My Chinese students and I concluded that
Achilles’ lasting glory was not won on the
battlefield. His greatest glory is that he grew
great enough to feel for all human loss and
sorrow, even those of his enemy. Possibly Confucius meant something like this when he put
the quality of “ren (仁),” or “humaneness,” at
the center of his answer to the question of what
is the best life. If so—and it will be the job of
people like my students, with learning in both
traditions, to decide—then the insight is neither
Eastern nor Western, but belongs to us all.
Martha Franks (second row, fourth from the left) with students from her high school in China.
40 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 41
�FIRST PERSON
ALUMNI PROFILE
VIEW FROM THE TOP
GUIDED BY INTUITION AND REASON
By Andrew Wice
By Yosef Trachtenberg (A15)
“Every rule has an exception, Mr.
Trachtenberg,” Mr. May whispered to
me as I mounted the stage to receive
my diploma. As my Freshman Language
tutor, he argued with patience and humor
against my insistence for unequivocal rules
of translation. This was my main approach
to life—everything had to be logical,
definite, and precise.
In many ways, that class set the tone
for my time at St. John’s. What began
concerning translation spread to my
ethical beliefs. I wanted there to be
definite, logical, and universal ethical
rules so I wouldn’t need to rely on my
intuitions. I didn’t understand them, so
I didn’t trust them. Many philosophers
we read attempted to provide a rigorous
ethical system, but none were convincing. I
concluded I must (for now) base my ethics
on the particulars of each situation, guided
by my intuition and reason.
Even as I was becoming disenchanted
with logical rules for life, St. John’s
was sharpening my logic. If my ideas
weren’t logically sound, they would likely
be challenged (they were often challenged
even when they were logically sound, but on
other grounds). I became skilled at spotting
flaws in arguments, and my standards for
accepting something as true increased
significantly. If anything, I took this too far.
I would find a flaw and use it to dismiss the
entire argument. But a flaw doesn’t mean
the conclusion is false or the argument
contains nothing useful, so I learned to find
value in arguments despite their flaws.
Beyond logical skills, conversations at St.
John’s (both in and out of class) improved
my ability to communicate. I learned when
to interrupt and when to listen, how to deal
with lecturing, and how to disagree without
alienating. Of course, knowing what I should
“I learned to find
value in arguments
despite their flaws.”
do doesn’t mean I always succeed at doing it.
This next change seems trivial, but may
turn out to be the longest lasting effect of
my education. Before St. John’s, I hadn’t
sung (outside the shower) for 15 years.
Freshman Chorus required me to sing, while
giving me a comforting crowd to lose myself
in. I came to love singing; I still sing our
chorus songs. In addition to the pleasure
their beauty brings me, singing these songs
recall the community I found at St John’s.
I hadn’t expected to experience a
sense of community. During high school, I
withdrew from people and learned how to
be happy alone. I expected to live the rest
of my life with only superficial connections.
At St. John’s, I met people who shared
my interests, who I could have engaging
conversations with, and who could inform
42 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
and challenge my thinking. Moreover, I
came to respect their intellectual and moral
character. For the first time, I saw potential
for friendships based not just on utility or
pleasure, but on a shared desire to figure
out how the world works, what a good life is,
and how to live it.
Not everything at St. John’s was new.
Sometimes, I found words for ideas I already
lived by. In Epictetus’s Discourses, the
statements “At first, distance yourself from
what is stronger than you” and “It is not the
things themselves that disturb people but
their judgments about those things” perfectly
described my choices during my withdrawal.
I found a name for what I had become.
Reading and discussing Stoic philosophy
also showed me the potential for moving
beyond Stoicism. While it helped me
approach the world with equanimity, I found
Stoicism’s limits. As a Stoic, maintaining my
equanimity requires keeping a part of me
isolated from people. I still want to act in a
level-headed way, but I now think it possible
to experience the strong emotions that
arise from wholehearted connection with
other people without letting them cloud my
judgment. I believe such a life is nobler than
a Stoic one, and while I’m just beginning to
explore its possibilities, I would never have
considered it before my time at St. John’s.
St. John’s enriched my life beyond
measure by helping me break through many
barriers I created for myself. It softened my
rigid worldview, led me to like people again,
and left me with a deep love of singing.
Infrared technology provides valuable data for wine growers.
Robert Morris (SF04)
Soars above the Competition
In the world of
agribusiness, the
use of commercial
drones has become
increasingly popular
among farmers
seeking aerial
imagery of their land.
Robert Morris (SF04),
CEO of San Francisco Bay-area company
TerrAvion, which produces the highest
volume of aerial imagery for agriculture in
the nation, is bucking that trend.
The company has reached the pinnacle of
the industry by using airplanes instead of
drones. By applying first principles to the
economics of the aerial imagery industry,
Morris realized that properly employed
airplanes would be far more efficient than
drones. Flying at a higher altitude, staying
in the air longer, and stringing together
multiple flight paths are accumulative
advantages which drone-based services
cannot match. “Dynamics that favor high
volume and customer density in imagery
production mean that we can keep offering
a better product for less cost per unit—just
like computer chips or network links have
been doing for decades,” Morris says. “Soon,
this will allow us to give tools to farmers for
a few bucks that were not even available to
the highest generals for billions (of dollars) a
decade ago.”
TerrAvion uses the latest innovations in
information technologies to electronically
deliver detailed maps of farmland with
overnight data analysis. That analysis can
be rapidly used to optimize irrigation, see
disease before it spreads, or maximize
the return on investment of fertilizers and
herbicides. The company allows agribusiness
to “farm more land more efficiently, more
sustainably, more profitably, and more
comfortably,” Morris says, which agricultural
companies have been quick to adopt.
After graduating from St. John’s, Morris
served as an officer in the U.S. Army, leading
a drone platoon in Afghanistan. He was
properly skeptical of the so-called “disruptive”
drone technology, and remained stoic when
drone-based aerial imagery companies took
an early lead. TerrAvion’s use of planes
was first able to gain traction among wine
growers on the California coast. “TerrAvion
started operating in vineyards because their
early adopters were especially receptive to our
service,” Morris says. “Vineyards intentionally
stress the vines to create flavor and sugar
in the grapes—this gives off a really clear
signal in the infrared to monitor from the air
and also means grape growers are farming a
valuable crop at the edge of control—making
the stress data especially valuable.”
Today, the company’s success has crested
the tipping point. The economy of scale means
that TerrAvion has been able to expand at an
exponential rate into the nation’s agricultural
heartland. “The majority of our acreage
is now east of the Rockies, mostly in corn
and soy,” Morris says. “Growers of traded
commodities are really focused on efficiency
of production and scale, so they are also
growing at the absolute limit of what plant
science allows. We actually expect Nebraska
to be our best market next year because the
irrigation practices and crop mix make it
super-receptive to what we’re doing.”
In Silicon Valley’s hyperbolic scramble for
the next paradigm shift—a concept now often
called the next “disruptive technology”—
Morris believes that innovators with a
foundation in the classics possess a deeper
insight and a broader overview. “Is the
automobile, or telephone, or internet-based
retailer more disruptive than geometry,
optics, or Christianity?” says Amariah Fuller
(SF11), one of several Johnnies working
at TerrAvion. “The type of collaborative
inquiry we undertake at St. John’s is the
best preparation for vague vagaries of the
business world. … Getting to the root of what
someone is talking about in a collaborative
way is where Johnnies shine,” Fuller says.
“The most intimidating business concepts
fall to pieces when you ask a few simple
questions.” In the coming years, Morris
expects to “continue to hire more Johnnies as
we grow, since they are so adaptable and can
work so effectively across disciplines. …We
want the ones that love action.”
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 43
�EIDOS
ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE GREENFIELD LIBRARY / COURTESY OF HENRY HIGUERA
S T. J O H N ’ S F O R E V E R
FORWARD
EDGE OF
HISTORY
The year was 1959. Dwight D. Eisenhower
was our country’s president. And St. John’s
College was expanding. On May 22, Eisenhower paid a special visit to St. John’s to
dedicate three new buildings on campus: Mellon Hall, McKeldin Planetarium, and Francis
Scott Key Auditorium. Before a crowd that
included 25 descendants of Francis Scott Key,
Eisenhower delivered remarks tinged with his
trademark humor and wit—and admiration for
the Program.
“The colleges of civilization remind us that the
affairs of the human community are continuous and indivisible,” Eisenhower said in his
speech. “Your own Great Books program,
organized around the masters of thought for
thirty centuries, convincingly demonstrates
the interdependence of human activities.
President Eisenhower, left, and St. John’s
President Richard Weigle stroll past the
McKeldin Planetarium.
Today is merely the forward edge of history.
From Homer to Einstein, through politics to
philosophy and physics, the past instructs the
present, ever revealing the continuity of the
human adventure.”
After touching on the U.S.’s position in world
affairs, Eisenhower concluded with comments
on the importance of “the educated citizen”
that a St. John’s education produces. “It cannot be too often repeated that there is urgent
need for the citizen to grasp the relationship
between his own actions and attitudes and
those of the nation of which he is a participating member.”
One of Anyi Guo’s (A15) greatest gifts
as a photographer is her ability to make
an instant connection with her subjects.
Whether focusing her lens on St. John’s
students and tutors engaged in conversation,
hot air balloons drifting across a Turkish sky,
or art lovers taking in the British Museum,
Guo captures the spirit of her subject with
an artist’s eye and a click of her camera.
While a student at St. John’s, Guo’s photography skills were in high demand. Using an
actual film camera (the Olympus mju II and
Kodak Portra 400 film is her favorite combo),
she provided photos for student publications
as well as The College magazine, covering everything from Croquet to basketball
games to Freshman Chorus to lunchtime
reading groups. Guo now works for a finance
firm in London, where she has embraced
European culture and new experiences—and
continues to follow her bliss. “I’ve learned
a lot about the world since my move,” says
Guo. “I’ve learned to have a dry sense of
humor from Brits, to speak with gestures
from the three Italians that I live with, to
greet continental Europeans with cheek
kisses, and to make authentic Indian food.”
View more of Guo’s photography at anyiguo.com.
44 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 iii
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Permit N0. 120
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Annapolis, MD 21401
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The College, Spring 2017
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Shook, Gregory (editor)
Venkatesh, Krishnan
Haratani, Joan
Wolf, Robert
Lund, Nelson
Stickey, Sarah
Brann, Eva
Kalkavage, Peter
Salem, Eric
Russell, George
Franks, Martha
The College
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/b6b50290f2bf08b23c0b09a5067e5e85.pdf
74038a96af953c82c5fe4e22a60cafa5
PDF Text
Text
�On O’Connor
“The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time andplace
and eternity somehow meet. His problem is tofind that location. ”
STJOHN’S
College
ANNAPOLIS • SANTA FE
lannery O’Connor’s fiction tends to elicit strong reactions from her
F
readers. Some object to the mixture of comedy and pathos (country girl
wooed for her wooden leg) and the blend of the mundane and shocking
(senseless violence emerges from a clear blue day on a lonely country
The College (usps 018-750)
is published quarterly by
St. John’s College, Annapohs, MD
and Santa Fe, NM
readers was
uncomfortable.
OthersCeorgia,
are entirely
devoted
toon
hertoand
will
Mary Flannery O’Connor
born in Savannah,
in 1925,
went
earn
a read
and
re-read
her
fiction,
prose,
and
letters,
even
as
they
feel
the
discomfort
sociology degree at the Georgia State College for Women, and studied at the Iowa Writer’s
Known office of publication:
Communications Office
St. John’s College
Box 2800
Annapolis, MD 21404-2800
and
discordance
witnesses
to anfirst
accident
to beLiterary
lookingconnections
so closely. In
the interest
Workshop,
whereofshe
began her
novel. ashamed
Wise Blood.
made
in Iowa, of
full
editors
of’sThe
Colleger
admit
to in
devotion:
wc She
havewas
been
scheming
to get who
and disclosure,
later at the the
Yaddo
writer
colony,
helped
her
her career.
a devout
Catholic
Periodicals postage paid
at Annapolis, MD
road). The freaks, misfits, and fools who populate her world make many
O
’Connor on the
cover for
now,
and here
is in her
rightful
corresponded
regularly
witha while
Thomas
Merton,
theshe
Trappist
monk
who place.
shared her love of writing
along with her deep faith. She suffered from lupus, the wasting disease that killed her father
when she was 15. (It left her near death in 1950.) She was proud of being a Southerner and loved
many aspects of the quiet rural life she was forced to live in Milledgeville because her illness left
her dependent on her mother’s care. On the family’s dairy farm, she raised peafowl that dined on
her mother’s Herbert Hoover roses. She wrote, she explained, because she had a gift lor it.
O’Connor wa.s often amused by those critics who tried to label her. She argued eloquently
with those who insisted that something “socially uplifting’’ must come from fiction: “The
novelist must be characterized not by his function but by his vision, and we must remember that
his vision has to be transmitted and that the limitations and blind spots of his audience will very
definitely affect the way he is able to show what he sees” {Mystery and Manners}.
The focus of this issue, “Revelation,” was one of her last stories, published a few months
before she died on Aug. 3,196/,. We know from her letters that the story was inspired by a visit
to the doctor’s office and that she wasn’t making fun of her protagonist or offering her up for
scorn: “I like Mrs. Turpin as well as Mary Grace. You got to be a very big woman to shout at the
Lord across a hogjten” {The Habit ofBeingY O’Connor made her first appearance on the Read
ing List of St. John’s College in 1989 with “Everything that Rises Must Converge.” Throughout
the years, the standard reading has been “Parker’s Back.”
In addition to paying homage to a favorite Program author. The College accomplishes
another important goal in this issue by showing off the tutors and the interesting things they
have to say when we give them a chance. We posed a question about the short story “Revela
tion” to a group of tutors from both campuses, and they approached it with zeal. (Advancement
vice president Barbara Goyette, A73, wa.s inspired by a church sermon to contribute an essay.)
To get the most from this feature, read or revisit “Revelation” before exploring these essays.
-RH
Send address
changes to The College
Magazine, Communications
Office, St. John’s College,
Box 2800, Annapolis, MD
21404-2800.
postmaster:
Annapolis
410-626-2539
reharty@sjca.edu
Rosemary Harty, editor
Sussan Borden, managing editor
Jennifer Behrens, art director
Advisory Board
John Christensen
Harvey Flaumenhaft
Roberta Gable
Barbara Goyette
Kathryn Heines
Pamela Kraus
Joseph Macfarland
Jo Ann Mattson
Eric Salem
Brother Robert Smith
Santa Fe
505-984-6104
alumni@sjcsf.edu
John Hartnett, Santa Fe editor
Advisory Board
Michael Franco
David Levine
Andra Maguran
Margaret Odell
Roxanne Seagraves
Mark St. John
Magazine design by
Claude Skelton Design
�"I “I v„.
College
The
ZINE
FOR
Alumni
of
t
St. John’s College
Annapolis •
{Contents}
PAGE
JO
DEPARTMENTS
Revelations
a
FROM THE BELL TOWERS
A routine visit to a doctor’s office ends in
a painful revelation for a self-satisfied
farmer’s wife. But what is really being
revealed? Pondering Flannery
O’Connor’s “Revelation.”
•
•
•
•
•
•
Santa Fe Initiative invests in student life.
A new Web site debuts.
Johnnies and Journalism
Mids and Johnnies on Thoreau
Middle States affirms accreditation.
Wine, art, and conversation
PAGE 2izj.
9
LETTERS
The Habit oe Writing
PAGE la
Chris Lynch (A87) on Machiavelli’s
Art of War
A GI alumna considers the lost art and
missed opportunities of letter writing.
PAGE
30 BIBLIOFILE
35 ALUMNI NOTES
2i6
PROFILES
31 Tias Little (EC98) brings Eastern
classics to yoga.
34 Ben Bloom (A97) finds fame.
38 Owen Kelley (A93) pursues monster
hurricanes.
The Mind in Winter
The challenges of the examined life keep
Johnnies young.
PAGE
Zj.6
41 STUDENT VOICES
Summer at Stag’s Leap
Is wanting good grades a bad thing for
Johnnies?
Fine wine, good company, and seminars
make a traditional Northern Cahfornia
chapter event a popular summer
tradition.
44 ALUMNI ASSOCIATION NEWS
48 ST. John’s forever
PAGE 46
ON THE COVER
Flannery O 'Connor
Illustration by David Johnson
�{From
the
Bell Towers}
The Santa Fe Initiative
Concerned by the toll deferred
maintenance was beginning to
take on the Santa Fe campus,
the college’s Management
Committee came up with a
comprehensive plan: the
Santa Fe Initiative, a $4.5
miUion investment in buildings
and grounds, improved staffing
in the areas of student life, and
immediate upgrades to two of
the campus’ six laboratories.
When he unveiled the commit
tee’s initiative to the college’s
Board of Visitors and Gover
nors, Annapolis President
Christopher Nelson, interim
president in Santa Fe, received
a standing ovation from the
board. The reception from
tutors at a Santa Fe faculty
meeting was equally
enthusiastic.
For Nelson, serving as
interim president of the Santa
Fe campus in addition to his
regular duties in Annapolis, the
need for an immediate injection
of capital to the Western cam
pus was apparent. Even as the
college plans a Capital Cam
paign to fund a strategic plan of
long-needed initiatives such as
raising faculty salaries, Santa
Fe’s needs couldn’t wait. Nelson
had already seen what could
happen to a campus during lean
years: the Annapolis campus
found it expensive and time
consuming to catch up on main
tenance deferred when funding
for improvements was unavail
able in the early 1990s.
“With the Santa Fe initiative
we are jump-starting a program
of improving opportunities for
students outside the classroom
and for the improvement of
buildings and grounds,” says
Nelson. “This is just the start of
what we need to do over an
annual or intermittent basis
over a period of a decade or
more. We’ve invested about $35
million in the Annapolis physi
cal plant over the last 13 years.
We don’t want to see Santa Fe’s
physical plant deteriorate to the
level that Annapolis was.”
The purpose of the plan is
to make the kind of improve
ments that will encourage
student retention and enable
the admissions office to attract
a larger pool of qualified appli
cants to Santa Fe. Thus the
initiative focuses on areas that
affect student life, the appear
ance of the campus, and the
operation of the admissions and
financial aid offices.
At the same time, the college
will provide funding for an
internship program similar to
the Annapolis program funded
by The Hodson Trust while the
college seeks long-term grant
support for internships.
Costs for the Santa Fe Initia
tive will represent a a percent
''This isjust the
start ofwhat we
need to do over
an annual or
intermittent
basis... ”
Christopher Nelson,
Annapolis President
increase in the operating budg
et each year. The funds for the
initiative will come from unre
stricted endowment funds and
early unrestricted gifts to the
college’s Capital Campaign,
expected to officially begin in
June 2005,
Improvements that affect stu
dent life include funding for
additional staff in the Assistant
Dean’s office.
Career Services
office. Security,
and Student
Activities office.
Facilities
improvements
include renovat
ing the laborato
ries; resurfacing
all roadways and
parking lots,
curbs, and cen
trally located
walkways; adding
a new parking
lot; replacing
After 40 years,
THE Santa Fe
CAMPUS IS SHOW
ING SIGNS OF AGE.
{The College-
St. John’s College • Spring 2004 }
hardscape between the upper
dorms and Peterson Student
Center; repairing concrete
walls and steps; installing
uniform campus lighting;
installing patios for outdoor
study and social fife; and adding
attractive signs and a security
kiosk at a more formal campus
entrance. Some funding for a
director of buildings and
grounds and an additional
maintenance staff member is
also included.
While it will mean significant
short-term improvements in
Santa Fe, Nelson emphasizes
that the initiative is just a start
ing point: “The campus needs
an investment of about $30
million over time: new dormi
tories, a home for the Graduate
Institute and a new lecture hall,
renovations of the Evans
Science Laboratory, plus
additional renovations
campus-wide. For so many
years, we’ve sacrificed every
thing else to the Program.
We’re on a slow, steady plan of
improvement that requires
investments to make up for
deferred maintenance, for
poor salaries, and insufficient
student services-it’s time to
turn our attention to them with
out taking anything away from
the Program.”
To oversee the implementa
tion of the initiative, Annapolis
treasurer H. Fred “Bud” Billups
(HA03) will assume a new
college-wide position as special
assistant to the chair of the
Management Committee
(a position that alternates
between the two campus presi
dents). Billups will split his time
between the Annapolis and
Santa Fe campuses, providing
oversight over the two admis
sions offices, the two financial
aid offices, and the college-wide
Information Technology office.
He will prepare a college-wide
budget that will allocate annual
operating funds between the
campuses. 4^-Rosemary Harty
�{From
the
Bell Towers}
3
One College, One Web
Ifyou can make the time to
search all of the 4,285,199,774
Web pages available through the
search engine Google, let us
know ifyou find another college
with a Web site like St. John’swhere the dominant image is of a
chair and the valuable center real
estate is not a shot of smihng stu
dents or the beautiful campus,
but ofwords: the names of great
book authors.
On March i, after two years
of planning and gathering
comments from as wide a sector
of the St. John’s community as
possible, the college launched
the new site: www.stjohnscollege.edu. Previously, the col
lege’s student-designed site
diverged into two separate
paths for the Santa Fe and
Annapolis campuses right after
the home page. This new site
was designed from the start to
present St. John’s as one college
with two campuses. Thus what
is emphasized is the common
curriculum and the prevailing
Johnnie culture.
The front-page tour is also a
departure. The links in this
Web tour introduce Johnnies
and their wide range of reasons
for attending the college, the
unique and lively community of
learners, the Santa Fe and
Annapolis communities, and
the chair thing. Alert visitors
will also find surprises-“Easter
eggs” in Web lingo-on the
front page.
The new Web site was
designed to introduce the college
to prospective students and to
better serve alumni, current stu
dents, parents, faculty and staff,
and the communities of Annapo
lis and Santa Fe. The alumni sec
tion, developed with extensive
input from Alumni Association
president Glenda Eoyang and a
team of alumni testers, offers
something particularly useful: a
secure, password-protected
online Alumni Register.
Previously, the college issued
a printed directory of alumni
every five years. With support
and guidance from the associa
tion, the college now offers this
directory online. The search for
mat allows alumni to look up
classmates, find alumni in a new
city, or identify a group of alum
ni working in a particular field.
Like many areas of the Web site,
the directory is a work in
progress. Information in the
Register is drawn from two
separate databases, and the
program the college uses to
“marry” the data often falls
short of the ideal. The college’s
Information Technology and
advancement staffs are working
to remedy this. The more alumni
who use the database to update
their records, the more accurate
the register will be.
A few caveats: to protect
alumni privacy and restrict the
directory to alumni, the system
currently requires the college to
authenticate each user who
attempts to log
in. Once an
alumnus regis
ters, it will take
college staff
about two busi
ness days to pro
vide a password
that will grant
access. Similarly,
any changes
made to an indi
vidual record will
take a few days to
appear. Alumni
can choose at any
time to restrict
their information
to “name only”
or to not appear
in the Register.
If you encounter any
difficulty with the Register or
the Alumni section, or have
thoughts about how the Web
site can better serve alumni,
contact either of the alumni
directors: in Annapolis, Jo Ann
Mattson at 410-626-2531; in
Santa Fe, Roxanne Seagraves at
505-984-6103.
Diving with Sharks in South Africa
OR Wrestling with Plato in Santa Fe?
Along with articles about
pumping iron and healthy eat
ing, the April edition of Men’s
Health listed Santa Fe’s Sum
mer Classics among its “25
Greatest Getaways for Men.”
“We’ve found the best places
you’ve never been,” the article
begins-“high-point adventures
you can plan right now and
brag about for years.” The fea
ture lists opportunities such as
climbing the sand dunes of
Namibia, cage-diving with
Great White sharks in South
Africa, and piloting a subma
rine in Mexico. Studying the
classics at St. John’s sounds
pretty cool, too: “Do you really
want to check out of this life
without having known what
Shakespeare, Mozart, and Tol
stoy were going on about? Take
{The College-
a crash course in the human
experience-and spend a sab
batical summer to rememberby registering at St. John’s Col
lege, where laymen are invited
to delve into the great works of
man in small classes....”
This year’s Summer Classics
offerings are luxuriously eclec
tic, combining classics of the
East and West with modern
fiction and a generous serving
of music.
The first week, July rr-i6,
features Joseph Conrad and
Henry James, Xenophon, and
Freud in the morning; in the
afternoon participants take on
the stories and short novels of
Dostoevsky and Gregorian
Chant,
During week two, July 18-23,
morning session participants
St. John’s College ■ Spring 2004 }
can choose from Mozart or Lao
Tzu, or Jane Austen paired with
Shakespeare. Afternoon partic
ipants can take on Copernican
meditations, the short stories
of Thomas Mann, or the
Platonic dialogues Laches,
Charminides, otEuthyphro.
The third week, July 25-30,
features a.m, offerings of
Mahler, the Yoga Visitha, and
Spinoza. In the afternoon par
ticipants can study Maurice
Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenolo
gy ofPerception, Montaigne
essays, or Faulkner’s Absalom!
Absalom!
The full schedule of seminars
and tutors are available on the
college Web site: www.sqohnscollege.edu.
�{From the Bell Towers}
Journalistic Johnnies
The
Gadfly
What Dfcl You Do During the Hurricane?
The Moon ^z/z^/The Gadfly/
Politics, Poetry, Punditry
Of the four individuals who
edited the student newspapers in
Annapolis and Santa Fe this past
academic year, not one has the
shghtest interest in pursuing a
journahsm career. Yes, it had
crossed their minds at one point
or another, hut they have all
talked themselves out of it.
Cathy Keene, a rising junior
in Annapolis who helped edit
The Gadfly for two years, admits
to being a deadhne junkie and
loves being in the know on
controversies or breaking news.
But one summer spent working
at a magazine convinced her
she should consider another
way to make a living. “Too
much stress,” she explains.
Ian McCracken, her co-editor
this year, is graduating and head
ing to law school. Santa Fe Moon
co-editor Jonathan Morgan,
a senior, is more interested in
biotechnology; senior Margaret
Garry is now leaning toward law
school and politics.
So, if it’s not a career goal that
tethers these individuals to to to
12 hours a week of writing, edit
ing, and production headacheson top ofwork-study jobs and
all the regular rigors of the
Program- what is it?
“1 have no idea why 1 do it,”
Keene admits. “We’re all
friends at The Gadfly, and it’s
really fun getting it out every
week. It gives me a real connec
tion to the Polity.”
“We get to produce this little
snapshot of St. John’s,” says
Garry. “And it’s really cool
seeing the Moon come together,
from somebody’s idea to
publication.”
The two periodicals differ
significantly in graphic style,
content, and tone. The Gadfly is
heavy on politics and Polity
issues; fiction and poetry are
more hkely to turn up in the
Moon (though it doesn’t shy
away from hard news either).
The Gadfly savors the backand-forth of intellectual argu
ments between two people
j
that can span several issues.
In the Moon, the “campus
moralist” expounds on issues
of student conduct; The Gad
fly has “You Make the Gall,”
athletic director Leo Pickens’
regular sports rules quiz.
Consider some of the offer
ings in Volume 8, Issue 4, of the
Moon', an opinion piece honor
ing military veterans; a feature
on the Web site bartcop.com, a
first-person parody of a seminar
on The Runaway Bunny, an
explanation of the Student
Review Board, a think piece
about the value of studying clas
sical languages, an investigative
report on problems concerning a
Common Room, and a science
fiction fantasy offering on
“Poster Wars.”
And Volume 25, Issue 20, of
The Gadfly: of review of tutors’
performance of The Birds', an
extensive piece on a cover-up by
the liberal media, three-and-ahalf pages of letters to the edi
tors, a review of Mr. Grenke’s
Friday-night lecture on Kant,
and “Why 1 Hate George W.
Bush, the Final Installment,”
including the author’s offer of a
cup of coffee for those who
would sit down and talk with him
about their opposing views.
Both publications attracted
controversy this year. The Gad
fly was delayed when assistant
dean Judith Seeger and student
services director Joy Kaplan
decided two stories should not
run. One included potentially
libelous material, the other con
fidential college information.
Seeger doesn’t see her role as
a watchdog; she reviews the
publication with an eye to
{The College-
protecting the college from law
suits. “We have occasionally
seen things that we think are
sometimes cruel, and we’ll
say ‘do you really want to put
that in your paper?’ And some
times they have listened and
reconsidered.”
The Gadfly was also blasted
for running a sham review
submitted by two students on a
movie they called “Tough Jew.”
“What really got people mad was
the photo we ran with it-Leo
Strauss. The cutline was: ‘Leo
Strauss: tough?’ One tutor wrote
in and said, basically, ‘how dare
you?’ We were totally blown
away by the response. We
defended ourselves, and then
we learned the movie was a
fake-we looked even stupider.
It was a learning experience,”
Keene says.
The Moon editors also had a
learning experience in the
Santa Fe campus response to
the newspaper’s “2003 Dirty
Poetry Contest” issue last fall.
The issue included photographs
of female students that some in
the campus community consid
ered racy; others considered
them degrading.
“There were several different
objections to the issue from
faculty members, the administra
tion, even a couple of students,”
Morgan says. “I think the most
valid point is that showing
certain students in that frame
work contributed to kind of an
uncomfortable classroom
environment. I hadn’t really
St. John’s College • Spring 2004 }
thought it was that immense of a
deal. People have bodies.”
After Morgan and Garry sent a
letter to the faculty apologizing
for the issue, and promising to
be more responsive in the
future, a proposed resolution
condemning the Moon turned
into a resolution supporting the
newspaper. “I regret that we
offended some people, but I
still think it was a great issue
because it got people’s atten
tion,” he says.
While both publications
accept advertisements, they’re
not self-supporting and, like
other student groups, get fund
ing allocated by the college.
McCracken believes the publica
tions might be better if they were
independent and funded by ad
revenue. “Given all the guidefines, I sometimes think it would
be easier if we weren’t affiliated
with the school. I know of people
who would write more things if
they knew their copy wasn’t
going to be reviewed by the
administration first,” he says.
Morgan hopes future Moon
editors work to maintain the
publication as a voice for
students. “I like that the Moon
doesn’t have a strict focus,
that we can have poetry and
artwork, a commentary on
Dante’s Inferno or the Iliad,
philosophical pieces and funny
pieces,” he says. “I like the
creativity. ”4-Rosemary Harty
�{From the Bell Towers}
5
A Meeting of Mids: Students Launch
Joint Seminars with the Naval Academy
The Johnnies wore
jeans and t-shirts
and lounged
comfortably at the
seminar table. Bolt
upright in their
chairs, white caps
set neatly in front of
them on the table,
the midshipmen
were clad in their
dark uniforms and
polished shoes.
As they spoke, they
looked to the semi
nar leaders, tutor
Louis Miller and
Naval Academy
Professor Lt. David
Bonfili, and resisted
the urge to raise
their hands.
The text before
the group of to students was
Thoreau’s “On Civil Disobedi
ence.” Miller’s opening ques
tion drew from Thoreau’s
words: “Can there not be a
government in which
majorities do not virtually
decide right and wrong,
but conscience?-in which
majorities decide only those
questions to which the rule of
expediency is applicable?”
For two hours, students
grappled with the text not as
students from a military
academy or liberal arts
college, but as intelligent,
self-directed individuals eager
to grasp the heart of an idea.
The discussion quickly drew
out strong responses, but it
didn’t evolve into a debate
between students from the two
institutions. Thoreau’s stance
on not paying taxes and his
views about resisting an unjust
government were seen by
some of the midshipmen as
ideological luxuries. One
midshipman was distinctly
annoyed by what he described
as Thoreau’s “arrogant” ideal
Junior Rachel Hall
AND Midshipman
David Buck
ism. “He’d like to be a martyr,
but he’s not,” said a midship
man who pointed out that
Thoreau did not resist when
his friends bailed him out of
jail. And several studentsJohnnies and mids alikedisagreed with Thoreau’s
stance that it was not his
“business” to petition the
government to remedy what
he viewed as unjust laws.
Saida Johnnie, “Thoreau
believes that we won’t need gov
ernment if we’re enlightened.”
Enlightenment is a fine
thing, a midshipman coun
tered. But who will build the
roads? Can we convene a
government just when we need
one to accomplish some
particular goal? Can we call
up a military force only when
under attack?
One of the midshipmen said
that governments do make bad
decisions and meddle in per
sonal liberty; citizens should
protest when a government’s
actions are unjust. “There are
people who don’t have any
thing to do with me making
{The College.
decisions about how I live my
life,” she said.
“Not all of us,” said another
midshipman, “can be Martin
Luther King or Gandhi. If
everyone stopped supporting
the government, I don’t know
where we’d be today.”
After the seminar, the
group gathered in the Great
Hall with the participants of
the five other seminars, about
70 in total. Midshipman David
Buck attended all three semi
nars, partly out of interest in
the readings, but also because
his girlfriend, St. John’s junior
Rachel Hall, helped to organ
ize them. Hall hit on the idea
when she began reading Sun
Tsu’s The Art of War last year
and found she wanted to dis
cuss it with a group of people.
She brought the idea to Navy
Professor David Garren, and
Garren helped recruit Navy
co-leaders and organize the
seminars. “He was very enthu
siastic about it,” said Hall,
who found St. John’s tutors
were also pleased to partici
pate. The first seminar, in
St. Jo hn’s College ■ Spring 2004 }
January 2003, was
on Sun Tsu’s The Art
of War. Johnnies
went to the Naval
Academy to discuss
Plato’s Crito last fall.
Jacob Thomas,
a junior, found the
Thoreau seminar the
best of the three so
far, because mid
shipmen had caught
on to the dynamic of
seminar. In discus
sion of Sun Tsu,
their superior
military knowledge
tended to lead them
to dominate the conversations,
he said.
“But this time, they really
became involved in the discus
sion and in Thoreau’s ideas,
which was wonderful,” said
Thomas.
“It’s good for our students to
be exposed to each other,” said
Lt. Bonfili, a political science
professor. “I see the diversity
of opinions coming out.”
Having encountered John
nies during waltz parties,
croquet, and Reality, Buck
has been impressed with the
intellectual side of St. John’s.
Still, he added, “Johnnies are
crazier than mids.”
Like croquet, the joint
seminars seem to have become
another tradition, says junior
Mark Ingham, who helped
organize the seminars. “The
more you talk with the mid
shipmen, the less intimidated
you are by the uniform,”
he said.
-Rosemary Harty
�{From the Bell Towers}
6
News and
Announce
and in Santa Fe from 1989-96
before she came to Annapolis
in 1997-
ments
Steve Linhard, assistant
Appointments
In the Graduate Institutes,
effective June i: Tutor
Krishnan Venkatesh
becomes director in Santa Fe;
tutor Joan Silver the director
in Annapolis. Venkatesh has
been a tutor since 1989. He
earned a bachelor’s in English
from Magdalene College,
Cambridge. He spent more
than three years conducting
postdoctoral research in
Shakespeare and Renaissance
English at the University of
Muenster, West Germany, and
later taught at Shanxi Universi
ty, People’s Republic of China,
where he helped develop an
ESL curriculum.
Silver earned her bachelor’s
degree from the State Univer
sity of New York, College at
Old Westbury, a master’s from
St. John’s, and a doctorate in
Theology and the Arts from
Graduate Theological Union.
She was a tutor in Annapolis
from 1974-77, a tutor for several
summers beginning in 1985,
Middle States Review
Annapolis Appointment
St. John’s in Annapolis has earned a lo-year reaccreditation
from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
The college’s accreditation was reaffirmed at the March
meeting of the commission and followed a review of the
college’s extensive self-study.
A report from the evaluation team affirmed that St. John’s
is carrying out its educational objectives. The college
community found its opening words most gratifying:
“St. John’s College (SJC) deserves its reputation as one of
the best and most distinctive institutions in the United States,
indeed the world. The College has a long and unswerving
history of commitment to a single ideal: the life of the mind
as principally represented in the great books of the Western
tradition. Everything in the educational program evolves from
this ideal and it has worn well over many years. By design,
change occurs slowly at SJC and this deliberateness buffers the
College from the swings of fad and momentary diversions that
often plague other sectors of higher education.”
The college this year also sought accreditation from the
American Academy for Liberal Education; a decision from the
AALE is pending.
treasurer in Annapolis, will fill
the position of treasurer on the
recommendation of St. John’s
President Christopher Nelson
and the campus faculty. The
college’s board approved the
appointment. Linhard came
to the college in 1997 as con
troller. Prior, he was the
accounting manager/
controller for the Chesapeake
Bay Foundation.
New Staff
in
Santa Fe
Doug Single joins the college
as director for college-wide
major gifts. He brings
extensive fund-raising and
management experience to
the new position. After earn
ing bachelor’s and master’s
degrees in political science
from Stanford University,
Single became associate
director of athletics and
assistant football coach at
Stanford; he also served as
athletic director at Southern
Methodist and Northwestern
universities. Single recently
served as chief executive
officer of the David Douglas
Marketing Group in San
Francisco.
John Hartnett (SF83) has
been named communications
director. Hartnett attended
the Santa Fe campus before
going on to earn undergradu
ate degrees in philosophy and
economics from the University
of Illinois. He also holds a
master’s degree in writing
from Hamline University in
St. Paul, Minn. Most recently,
he was the president of his
own marketing communica
tions company. 4"
Consider Consolidating
Alumni with student loans may
want to look into consolidating
them into one fixed-rate loan,
the college’s Financial Aid
offices advise. Student-loan
consolidation involves paying
off current federal education
loans in full and creating a new
loan with a new interest rate
and repayment term up to 30
years. Federal Stafford and
PLUS loans charge variable
rates that are set by formulas
based on the last auction of 91day U.S. Treasury bills in May.
Federal consolidation loans,
however, carry fixed rates that
are based on the rates of the
loans being consolidated.
In recent years, the variable
student loan rate, determined
by the government, has been
at record lows (3.4 percent
on Stafford loans in May), but
interest rates are expected to
rise this year. Parents of college
students who have taken out
PLUS loans may also consoli
date these loans at current
rates.
There’s another reason to act
quickly, says Caroline Chris
tensen, financial aid director in
Annapolis. Legislation expected
{The College -Sf.
to come before Congress as part
of its renewal of the Higher
Education Act this year could
turn that low fixed rate into a
variable rate in the future.
Proponents of the bill say the
government is losing millions
in subsidies it pays to lenders
and want the savings directed
to other aid programs for
currently-enrolled students.
However, new alumni face
complications. “Ifyou consoli
date during your six-month
grace period, you lock in at the
in-school rate, currently 2.82
percent,” Christensen says.
John ’5 College ■ Spring 2004 }
“What ifyou lock in at 2.82 per
cent, then rates drop on June
30? You’ll have a higher rate for
the fife of your loan, in addition
to losing remaining months of
interest-free grace period when
you consolidate. So you want to
wait until very close to the end
of your grace period.”
Contact your lender or the
Financial Aid office on either
campus: in Annapolis,
410-626-2503; in Santa Fe,
505-984-6058. Information on
researching and comparing
loan programs is available at
www.estudent.com.
�{From
the
Bell Towers}
Board Approves Polity Amendments
Among the many actions it took
at its quarterly meeting in April,
the college’s Board of Visitors
and Governors approved a
change to the college Polity,
the governing document for
St. John’s College.
The Management Committee-which oversees non-aca
demic policy and coordinates
administration of the two campuses-was made a permanent
part of the St. John’s governing
structure. The Management
Committee was established in
3000 and included as an addi
tion to the Polity with a five-year
sunset clause. The board voted
to delete the sunset clause, thus
continuing the committee.
This action represents the
culmination of a several-year
review of the Pohty, which also
resulted in a rewording to reflect
gender-neutral language and
10 amendments being passed in
April 3003. One of these amendments-the addition of sexual
orientation to the college’s
non-discrimination poUcy-had
been controversial a decade ago.
During a review of the Polity in
r993, the board failed to adopt
an amendment that specifically
prohibited discrimination on
the basis of sexual orientation.
Five years later, in 1998, the
issue was not even raised.
“The first time it came up, it
was so bitter, so divisive, that
people were afraid to bring it
up again,” said Jean FitzSimon
(A73), a lawyer who served on
the board committee that took
up the most recent review of
the document. Original resist
ance to adding to the document
was centered on the belief that
discrimination based on sexual
orientation was covered by
other laws, and therefore did
not need to be spelled out,
FitzSimon said.
FitzSimon and other commit
tee members believed other
wise: “Even if it [discrimination]
isn’t happening at the college,
the Pohty is the Polity. We talked
about the public nature of this
document, and we felt that this
was something that had to be
speUed out,” FitzSimon said.
This time around the Polity
Review Committee, led by Greg
Curtis, did bring up the issue as
it began to work through possi
ble revisions in 3003. This com
mittee recommended, and the
Board adopted, a revised
non-discrimination clause:
“There shall be no discrimi
nation at St. John’s College in
appointments, conditions of
employment, admissions,
educational policy, financial aid
programs, athletics, or other
activities, on the basis of race,
religion, age, sex, national
origin, color, disabiUty and/or
physical handicap, sexual orien
tation, or other characteristic
protected by any applicable
federal, state or local law.”
In the Nick of Time
A TRAFFIC STOP ON THEIR WAY TO THE PRESIDENT’S HOUSE NEARLY MADE THIS GROUP OF AnNAPOLIS SENIORS
MISS THE MIDNIGHT DEADLINE FOR TURNING IN THEIR SENIOR ESSAYS. (ThE POLICE OFFICER WAS UNIMPRESSED
WITH THE students’ PLEAS TO LET THEM GO ON THEIR WAY.) FrOM LEFT TO RIGHT ARE DeAN HaRVEY
Flaumenhaft, Justin Berrier, Hayden Brockett, Melissa Thomas, and Joseph Method. A rattled
Thomas is more than ready to hand over copies of her essay, “Reconciling Faith with Action.”
{The College
■ St. Jo hn ’5 College ■ Spring 2004 }
7
Taxing
Bachelors
As Maryland’s legislators grap
pled this spring with measures
to raise money for the state’s
coffers, word of an innovative
approach from the past-a tax on
bachelors-reached The College,
thanks to Richard Israel, retired
Maryland assistant attorney
general.
While browsing through pages
of General Assembly proceed
ings, Israel found that in 1761
legislators issued a series of
proposals for funding a college
that eventually resulted in
St. John’s. The “batchelor’s tax”
was expected to have a value of
500 pounds or more, according
to a bill aimed at acquiring
Bladen’s Folly, now McDowell
Hall. Listed also were 600
pounds to be raised through
licenses for public ordinaries
(pubs), 150 pounds from taxes
on wheel carriages, and 90
pounds through fees on card
and billiard tables.
The idea wasn’t just to raise
money, but also to encourage
single men to settle down, as
Israel found in the Acts of the
General Assembly, 1755-56:
“Forasmuch as Divine Institu
tions ought to be strictly
observed in every well-regulated
Government, and as that in
Regard to the entering into the
holy Estate of Matrimony may
tend to the more orderly Propa
gation of Mankind, it ought, not
only in a rehgious, but pohtical
View, to be promoted, and the
continuing in a State of Gehbacy
discountenanced, especially in
every Infant Country.”
The measure, however, was
never signed into law. After
several subsequent attempts,
St. John’s was chartered as a
college in 1784, soon after the
end of the Revolutionary War.
The charter provided that the
college would be financed by the
revenue from several different
taxes.
— Rebecca Wilson
(AGI82)
�{From the Bell Towers}
8
Fun-Raising, East and West
Art, Wine, and Good Conversation Brighten Winter's Dark Nights
Two events in January show that alumni and other college support
ers won’t pass up a chance for self-improvement along with the
opportunity to stay connected to St. John’s. Fine wine and good
food can’t hurt, either.
In Santa Fe, Larry Turley (SF69) brought the extraordinary
wines of Turley Wine Cellars to a benefit hosted by the Philos
Society-a group of local patrons of the college. The event had
wine-lovers buzzing over Turley’s hard-to-find wines, paired with
gourmet food.
Philos Society Event
Features Turley Wines
“Wine is the glass ofthe mind. ’’-Erasmus
A wine dinner hosted by the
Philos Society of St. John’s
College brought too people
from the Santa Fe community
to the rooftop garden room of
La Fonda Hotel in January.
While the opportunity to learn
more about St. John’s College
and fine wines attracted many,
it was clear that the main
attractions were the Napa
Valley wines provided by Larry
Turley (SF69). After all,
there’s a two-year waiting list
for Turley’s coveted wines,
such as a aooi bottle of The
White Coat. The event was
limited to 100, and the tickets,
at $125 apiece, sold out well in
advance.
Now the owner of Turley
Wine Cellars, Turley earned a
medical degree and became an
emergency-room physician
after leaving St. John’s.
He co-founded the Frog’s Leap
Winery in 1981, and then
moved on to open Turley Wine
In Baltimore, Philanthropia (the Alumni Development
Council) and President Christopher Nelson hosted a “Conversa
tion About the State of the College’’ at the Baltimore Museum of
Art. Wintry weather in December cancelled the first attempt at
the BMA event, but the rescheduled event was well-attendedencouraging Philanthropia to plan future stimulating occasions
to keep Johnnies informed and involved in the college.
Cellars with his sister,
Helen (A67).
The hotel’s wine
experts and chefs
worked to create the
night’s dinner menu.
The White Coat was
paired with appetizers;
langostino and goat
cheese empanadas with
toasted pinon-green
apple slaw. Next came
the duck confit on
greens tossed with chile
cascabel-basil vinai
grette, served with a
aooi Pesenti Vineyard
Zinfandel. Paired with
the third course
(pan-roasted chicken
breast with white truffle
demi-roasted garlic
mashed potatoes and sauteed
spaghetti squash) was a aooi
Hayne Vineyard Zinfandel.
A aooi Library Vineyard
Petite Syrah accompanied
cheese and fruit.
The event raised $6,500 for
the college’s Annual Fund.
Left: Philos board member
Charmay Allred shares her
APPRECIATION FOR LaRRY
Turley’s wine.
Above: Richard Morris,
A PAST BOARD MEMBER OF THE
COLLEGE, AND
JeFF BiSHOP
(HA96), VICE PRESIDENT FOR
COLLEGEWIDE ADVANCEMENT,
PERUSE SILENT AUCTION
OFFERINGS.
{The College.
John’s College ■ Spring 2004 }
Turley donated some of the
wine for the event and provided
the rest at cost. In his holo tie
and denim shirt, he circulated
among the guests, talking
about wine and wine-making
and graciously accepting
compliments from wine lovers
grateful for a chance to experi
ence something extraordinary.
The Philos Society of
St. John’s College was founded
to foster and enhance commu
nication, understanding, and
joint activities between the
college and its community.
Co-chairs of the board are
Donn Duncan, M.D., and
Robert Zone, M.D.
�{From the Bell Towers}
9
Friday at the BMA
WITH Chris
Thanks to Philanthropia (the Alumni Development Council)
and Annapolis President Christopher Nelson, BaltimoreWashington alumni had an opportunity to enjoy a private viewing
of the Baltimore Museum of Art’s Cone Collection. Afterwards,
the 82 alumni gathered for conversation, refreshments catered by
The Classic Catering People, owned by Harriet Dopkin (A77), and
an update on the college by the president.
The sights and sounds of the evening echoed the style of the
Cone Collection, creating an impressionistic tableau of delights
for the eyes, treats for the tongue, fellowship for the soul, and
ample food for thought. Thus, as an homage to the Cone
Collection, The College offers its report in the style of the
impressionists.
The Art
time in Paris among the expatriates. It was as though he had memo
rized all the accompanying notes on the walls. It was great fun hstening to him-he completed the experience for me. I’m not sure going
through the Cone Collection will ever be the same.
“Although I didn’t ask a question of Chris Nelson, I liked hear
ing what he had to say, and I know that people felt free to ask him
anything about the college. I was reminded that I still don’t know
very much about the Santa Fe campus and what its financial needs
are, or what those needs grow out of.”
Matisse, Purple Robe and Anemones, Interior, Flowers, and
Parakeets
Picasso, Mother and Child
Cezanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire Seenfrom theBibemus Quarry
Monet, Waterloo Bridge
Van Gogh, Landscape With Figures
Fete avec Biere et Vin
Caprese skewers of pesto-rubbed grape tomatoes, baby mozzarella,
and kalamata olives
Dried fig, walnut, and goat cheese tapenade
Tenderloin roulades with spinach and portobello mushrooms
Jumbo lump crab fondue with a hint of dry sherry and old bay
Miniature fruit tarts, petite brownies, raspberry almond bars, and
fresh strawberries
DeGroen’s micro brew. Banrock Station wine, coffee, tea
Report of the President
Applicant pool up, attrition down.
Graduate Institute-healthy.
A new dormitory with water view is being built for 48 students.
The Santa Fe Initiative invests $4.5 million in the campus and
student life.
Gratitude for The Hodson Trust’s
$10 million grant, which funded
the Mellon renovation and new
dormitory.
Two or three additional major gifts
this year: a possibility.
The help and support of aU alumni
at all levels of giving: priceless.
President Christopher Nelson with Mark Lindley (A67).
Stacey Andersen (AGI93): “While we were wandering through the
Cone Collection, we noticed it was noisy: not normal museum
behavior. Yet we were expected to talk. There’s a commonality
we’ve run into with people who’ve gone to St. John’s. There’s a
shared dialogue. It’s a tone that was set and carried throughout
the evening. I think that’s what led to the discussion that contin
ued after Chris Nelson gave his introductory talk. We thought the
venue for an alumni function was fantastic. Is there abetter place
to unleash a group of Johnnies than in a museum? Thank you for
giving us the text! ”
- SUS3AN Borden, A87
The Reviews
Sara Stuart (Ago): “Mark Lindley
(A67) must have gone through the
Cone Collection before Brad (A89)
and I arrived. He was able to teU us
about all of the paintings and art
objects, and about the Cone sisters’
Above: The feast
Right: Sara Larson Stuart (Ago),
Brad Stuart (A89), and Philanthropia
EVENT CHAIR Steph Takacs (A8g)
{The College.
5t. John’s College ■ Spring 2004 }
�{Letters}
Febbie Question Answered
Wendell Finner’s account of his query
concerning SJC’s lack of Eastern authors
(Winter 2004) brought back a memory of
Douglas Allenbrook that 1 cherish more as
political correctness continues to elimi
nate free speech.
During convocation for the Febbie 1980
class, one student asked about the lack of
Eastern authors. Without hesitation, and
with a charming smile, Mr. Alienbrook
replied “...the only thing good that has
come out of the East was the Sun.” Memo
ries like these convince me that St. John’s
College is more important than ever to
liberal education and free thought.
Steven D. Brower
(A83)
The Lost Languages
It was a joy and consolation to read the
article about the intensive Latin summer
classes in the Fall 2003 issue of
The College. It made up for the allegation
by a recent commencement speaker that
the students in front of him were lucky to
have the best education: liberal arts,
i.e. trivium and quadrivium-or, as my
Munich editor explained to colleagues at
the Beck publishing house, the “Septem
Artes”'we did at this interesting college in
America. Yes, the liberal arts, all seven of
them, and four foreign languages, the
commencement speaker said: Greek
and Latin and German and French.
The graduates kept a straight face.
Latin had already been dropped from the
curriculum when I joined St. John’s in
i960. German survived another couple of
years; then it, too, was gone. I taught one
of the last classes. It was a pleasure, and a
profitable one. We read bits of the Luther
translation of the Bible, the beginning of
Genesis and the opening of the Gospel of
John, and the juniors recalled some of the
Greek New Testament. We read Lessing
and a little Kant (with the surprising
earthiness of his vocabulary); we read
some Goethe; some of the rhymed caution
ary tales of Heinrich Hoffmann...and stuck
to texts that seemed more memorable and
discussable.
There was a young man in that class, Jim
Forrester (A62). He took the very first
[translation], six weeks into the first
semester. I was amazed at the result, which
included a perfect translation of a page
from Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy. He
translated it into real English, not translaterese, and showed an astonishing feel
''Yes, sing ye and
chant id andyou il learn to
speak and read it.. ”
Beate Ruh m von Oppen
for nuances. Next time the class met I
asked Mr. Forrester if he had been a begin
ner when we began six weeks ago. He said:
“Yes”-and after a moment’s reflection he
added: “I’d sung some Bach.”
Bach makes the language, especially
the biblical language, Luther’s German,
memorable. It sticks in the mind-even
as some of Picander’s poetry in the
St. Matthew Passion does, or perhaps just
first words like “Buss undReuf though
the Gospel of Matthew itself is more
memorable, e.g., “Der Geist ist willig,
aber das Fletsch ist schwach ” quotable
and even usable in daily life...
That remark by Jim Forrester taught me
that singing is the best way to learn a
language. Perhaps poetry, anything that
scans is the next best. So we now leave
German (and Latin) to the freshman
chorus and the other, voluntary singing
groups. Yes, sing ye and chant it! - and
you’ll learn to speak and read it...
Beate Ruhm von Oppen
Tutor Emerita
Thailand’s War on Drugs
I wanted to address something that [Tiitor
Linda] Weiner said in describing her
summer in Thailand (Winter 2004).
Ms. Weiner suggested that Thailand
benefits from an “enlightened monarch”
and described the king’s policy of replac
ing opium farms with organic farms.
While the king may be enlightened, Thai
land’s Prime Minister and police force are
not. In Thailand’s own war on drugs, 2,245
people were killed in an anti-drug cam
paign from February to April 2003. The
police admitted to killing 50 themselves,
and many others were killed as they
returned from police stations. Thai
officials have neglected to investigate or
prosecute the killings. In August Prime
Minister Thaksin said, in reference to drug
smugglers crossing from Myanmar to
Thailand, “From now on if their trafficking
{The College-
St. John’s College • Spring 2004 }
caravans enter our soil, we won’t waste our
time arresting them, but we will simply kill
them.” This and other policy statements of
the Prime Minister suggest that more extra
judicial killings will come.
The international community, including
the U.N. Special Rapporteur on extrajudi
cial, summary or arbitrary executions;
Amnesty International; and the Drug
Policy Alliance, have expressed outrage
over the human rights abuses stemming
from Thailand’s war on drugs. I would hate
for Johnnies to get the impression that the
program described by Ms. Wiener is
indicative of Thai drug policy. More
information can be found in the Amnesty
International report “Thailand-Grave
Developments-Killings and Other
Abuses” available atwww.amnesty.org
Renate Lunn
Room
for
(A96)
Gauss
Doing year-end cleaning I chanced upon
Sheri McMahon’s letter in the Spring 2003
issue of The College. I guess it’s a recurring
topic among alumni who reflect upon the
mathematics tutorial.
I personally have often thought it a pity
not to pursue geometry a little further.
I always felt a historical approach to
Gauss’s Theorema Eregiurn on curved sur
faces or something like that might be pos
sible. Michael Spivak does something
along these lines in his Comprehensive
Introduction to Differential Geometry.
I always felt there was no greater figure left
out of the program than Gauss, that there
was a route to some of his work in geome
try that would be accessible to seniors, that
it was the perfect context for glimpses of
non-Euclidean geometry and general
relativity that were offered in the tutorial
(nearly three decades ago!), that it has a
perfect antecedent in the spherical
geometry of Ptolemy.
Mark Copper
(SF76)
Words and Deeds
Thank you for the article in the Winter
2004 issue on Santa Fe’s martial artists.
The Annapolis campus has also enjoyed the
Asian martial traditions over the years.
In 1977 tutor David Starr persuaded one of
his former philosophy students from the
University of Rhode Island, a prodigiously
talented gentleman named Robert Galeone, to move to Annapolis to teach the
Okinawan system of Uechi-ryu karatedo.
continued on nextpage
�{Letters}
I was Mr, Galeone’s first student at the col
lege club, which met in one of the handball
courts in Iglehart Hall on Tuesday and
Wednesday evenings, and Saturday morn
ings. Mr. Galeone, a 5th-degree black belt,
produced quite a few serious students over
the seven years that he led the dojo....
Today, Annapolis students interested in
aikido may join the U.S. Naval Academy’s
Aikido Club, which holds classes on both
the Naval Academy campus and in Iglehart
Hall. (For more information, see
http://www.geocities.com/navyaikido/.)
It seems to me that study and practice of
the martial arts, whether from Asia or the
West, is essential to the development of a
free citizen. Whether the pen is mightier
than the sword is not the right question.
Rather, why should the study of one pre
clude the study of the other? To paraphrase
a Japanese proverb, in the hands of an
educated individual, the sword and the pen
are one. Unfortunately, it is too easy for a
student of the liberal arts to acquire a great
and unjustified faith in the power of speech,
along with an all-too-ready skepticism
concerning action. Words need the support
of deeds. As Mr. Galeone once said, “The
body remembers what it does, and not what
you tell it.” Martial arts training provides
the student with the framework to become
as proficient in the world of action as he or
she is in the world of reason, by teaching
balance, grace, and poise, all while facing
an adversary. I hope that students on both
campuses will take advantage of the
opportunities to pursue these disciplines.
Jim Sorrentino (A8o)
Calendar Mysteries Revealed
I was quite amazed to open the 2004
calendar and find a photo of my high
school math teacher (February 2004).
He is Thomas Yoon (A58), and he taught
me trigonometry and led a philosophy
seminar at Scarborough School, in
Scarborough, N.Y. My guess is that it
was 1967. He was an inspiring teacher with
a great sense of humor, and was the one
who told me about St. John’s College.
Pippi Ellison
few lists I have. The whole scene was
contrived, which is why there is a smirk on
the face of the guy front center and guy
left. Girl center was trying to look serious
and guy rear was told to pose in an
awkward position. The people at the end of
the table were told to look at each other.
No one has the same book. The photos
were intended for a catalog redesign, or a
flyer for the admissions office.
I was the student aide for Marsha Drennon, then admissions director, and helped
find the students and arrange the furni
ture. Notice how there aren’t any empty
chairs? We did have a blast doing the series
of pictures around the campus.
Michael David
(SF87)
Dumping Concerns
While I found the “Night Crawlers” letter
(Winter 2004) somewhat amusing as a
piece of black humor, I was taken aback
that there was no editorial note as to the
state of affairs since the dumping
occurred. Has all that stuff been leaching
into the ground and water and possibly the
creek ever since with nothing being done,
or was it cleaned up at some later date?
If not, I think [the college] is morally, and
perhaps legally, bound to address the prob
lem. Surely, SJC is not so philosophically
preoccupied that it doesn’t care what it
does to our environment?
Natalie Chambliss (class
of
1964)
Editor’s Note:
Steve Linhard, treasurer on the Annapolis
campus, says thatfor an undetermined
period oftime, a dumping ground was sited
on the college’s back campus. When the
college investigated severalyears ago, it
uncovered bricks, broken china, bottles.
(Aya)
The May 2004 photo of students at a table
on the dining hall balcony was taken in
June or July 1985. It was a PR photo from a
whole set of photos taken that day all over
the campus. The students in the photo are
mostly January freshmen, though I can’t
remember or find their names in any of the
{The College-
St. John’s College ■ Spring 2004 }
cans, kitchen utensils, and similar domestic
refuse. “'Testpits were dug by an outside
survey company three summers ago, and
nothing ofany chemical nature was
found,” Linhard says. “In addition, core
samples were taken by a geological testing
firm to examine the soil contentforfeasibil
ityfor thermal conductivityfor the geother
mal heating systemfor the new dormitory.
These samples were examined and nothing
hazardous was discovered. ”
Errata
An article in the Fall 2003 issue stated that
Hans von Briesen attended and taught at
Stanford and the University of Rochester.
He attended the universities, but did not
teach at them.
The reading list on St. John’s history that
accompanied an article on the attempted
Navy takeover of St. John’s (Winter 2003)
should have included these works by
Charlotte Fletcher (HA69), former
librarian at the Annapolis campus: Cato's
Mirania: A Life ofProvost Smith, and
“St. John’s ‘For Ever’: Five Essays on the
History of King William’s School and
St. John’s College,” published in the
St. John'sReview (1990-91).
The College welcomes letters on issues of
interest to readers. Letters maybe edited
for clarity and/or length. Those under
500 words have a better chance of being
printed in their entirety.
Please address letters to: The College
Magazine, St. John’s College, Box 2800,
Annapolis, MD 21404 or The College
Magazine, Public Relations Office,
St. John’s College, 1160 Camino Cruz
Blanca, Santa Fe, NM
87505-4599Letters can also be
sent via e-mail to:
rosemary.harty
@sjca.edu.
�{Revelation}
la
REVELATION
and
REDEMPTION
hat is the revelation in Flannery
O’Connor’s “Revelation”?
That was the question
The College asked of a group of
tutors and others in the St. John’s
College community. The short
essays that follow are presented as thoughtful responses to
a question posed in search of gaining more insight into a
puzzling and multi-layered short story. If you have not read
“Revelation,” or read it long ago, put this feature aside
until you can.
W
Ripe for Revelation
by Joan Silver
Lastfall I received a letter from a stu
dent who said she would be “graciously
appreciative” if I would tell her “just
what enlightenment” I expected her to
getfrom each ofmy stories. Isuspect she
had apaper to write. I wrote her back to
forget about the enlightenment andjust
try to enjoy them. I knew that was the
most unsatisfactory answer I could
have givenbecause, ofcourse, shedidnt
want to enjoy them, shejust wanted to
figure them out.
In most English classes the short story
has become a kind of literary specimen
{The College -John’s
College ■ Spring 2004 }
to be dissected. Every time a story of
mine appears in a Ereshman anthology,
I have a vision ofit, with its little organs
laid open, like afrog in a bottle.
I realize that a certain amount ofthis
what-is-the-significance has to go on,
but I think somethinghas gone wrong in
theprocess when, for so many students,
the story becomes simply a problem to
be solved, something which you evapo
rate to get Instant Enlightenment.
A story isn I really very good unless it
successfully resistsparaphrase, unless it
hangs on and expands in the mind.
Properly, you analyze to enjoy, but ids
equally true that to analyze with any
discrimination, you have to have
enjoyed already.. ..”
Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners.
I will assume that all who have read
Flannery O’Connor’s story, “Revela
tion,” have enjoyed it. We enjoy the
story, and her remarks above, somehow
as wholes, and also in their humorous
and penetrating details. In the spirit of
the above remarks, I would like to notice
numerous revelations which spring from
�{The Colleges?.
John’s College ■ Spring 2004 }
�14
{Revelation}
''In a crucial moment
ofthat vision, she
finds her own kind
bringing up the rear... ’
this story, which calls itself “Revelation” in
the singular. I hope that together they may
“hang on and expand in the mind.”
Perhaps the key revelation in the story is
the return to Mrs. Turpin of the enraged
question she asks of God, “‘Who do you
think you are?’”: “The question carried
over the pasture and across the highway
and the cotton field and returned to her
clearly like an answer from heyond the
wood.” This answer is a distillation of the
revelation already embedded in her earlier
questions: “‘How am I a hog and me both?
How am I saved and from hell too?’” At this
reply, Mrs. Turpin’s mouth opens (is it in
wonder or in understanding?), and she
does not speak. But this revelation is not
the end of the story.
Other revelations follow, mediated by a moment in which
she imagines the death of her husband, his truck hit by anoth
er, his “brains all over the road.” Seeing his truck return, she
herself begins to move, “hke a monumental statue coming to
life.” Only now do initial events of the story receive their
answering revelations.
An early revelation in the story is that “living demonstra
tions” are present in the world. When the story begins Mrs.
Turpin (who is “very large”) is entering the “very small”
waiting room of a doctor’s office; she is said to be a “living
demonstration that the room was inadequate and ridicu
lous.” As the story goes on, of course, we see that the waiting
room is exactly the right size for the events which take place
in it. A later echo which replies to this apparent “living
demonstration” immediately follows Mrs. Turpin’s “coming
to hfe.” The “old sow” and young hogs, above whose “pig
parlor” she confronts God, find their places in their “waiting
room” with ease: “They had settled all in one corner around
the old sow who was grunting softly. A red glow suffused
them. They appeared to pant with a secret hfe.” It is the sow
and the other pigs who become a real “living demonstra
tion” for Mrs. Turpin and for the reader. Her earher “glow
ering down” at the hogs and disdaining of others has become
a “gazing down”; she “remained there with her gaze bent to
them as if she were absorbing some abysmal life-giving
knowledge.”
{The College -
Two more echoes follow. The first is a
revelation and echo for Mrs. Turpin and
the reader alike; the second, for the read
er alone. Early on, Mrs. Turpin’s charac
ter is revealed by one of her inner
“games.” In one, she lies awake at night
“naming the classes of people.” She sep
arates and tries to rank human beings by
certain combinations of race and proper
ty, but the real people of her acquain
tance will not stay put in the places that
she gives them: “Usually by the time she
had fallen asleep all the classes of people
were moiling and roiling around in her
head, and she would dream they were all
crammed in together in a box car, being
ridden off to be put in a gas oven.” The
impulse from which such grading and judging spring leads
ultimately to the gas chamber-to spiritual and physical
death for all. This dream is echoed and transformed at the
end by Mrs. Turpin’s vision of the “vast horde of souls
rumbling toward heaven” in which all classes and kinds
are present. In a crucial moment of that vision, she finds
her own kind bringing up the rear: “she could see by their
shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were
being burned away.” Not the fire which makes the gas
chamber, but the fire of purgatory is needed. Note, too,
that hogs are easier to clean than humans; for pigs, only
water is needed.
The final echo is concerned with seeing (and with size).
Mrs. Turpin’s eyes were initially described as “little
bright black eyes . . . [that] sized up the seating situation”
and all else around her. After the vision just mentioned,
O’Connor tells us that her eyes are “small but fixed
unbfinkingiy on what lay ahead.” We may need to ask just
what is intended by “what lay ahead,” but, in this changed
description, we receive the revelation both that a kind of
steadfast looking is necessary for us, and that a transfor
mation of one’s manner of seeing in the world is possible,
(and that size-at least relative human size-does not
matter).
Among the many other revelations in the story, two
seem worthy of note in the context of the ones mentioned
above. The first concerns the catalyst for revelation, the
St. John’s College • Spring 2004 }
�{Revelation}
second the capacity to receive it. The story shows revelation-or the beginning of it-coming from the strangest
source: Mary Grace. The suffering of one human being,
her anger and anguish, gives birth to grace for another.
And in Ruby Turpin the story shows inquiry, linked with
sin, as a potential path to revelation and grace. Mrs.
Turpin’s inner “games” embody inquiry in a strange form:
who might I have been if not myself; what is my place with
in all of humanity? They also, of course, reveal pride mas
querading as gratitude. This picture remains a revelation,
if a comic one, of what can make one ripe for revelation.
Joan Silver is a tutor and incoming director ofthe Graduate
Institute in Annapolis.
In the Eye
of
15
Judgment Day
by Pamela Kraus
Ruby Turpin knows what should be and does her part to
make it so. She notices every instance of the messy, dirty,
unregulated world. She has her faults, she knows that, but
she’s a respectable, church-going woman who always tries to
make things right. She keeps pigs-just a few of the preemi
nent unclean animal-but she’s built them a concrete pen, a
“pig-parlor,” to keep them from wallowing in mud and slop,
and she hoses them down regularly. On the day of this story
Ruby accompanies her husband Claud to the doctor and sizes
up the waiting room: it’s small and dirty and filled with
slovenly, careless people. To counter the disorder she exer
cises the best force she can, her good disposition generously
Since the emergency, a wrathful Mrs. Turpin has been
demanding why Mary Grace called her an old wart hog from
hell. Mrs. Turpin is convinced that Jesus sent her the mes
sage and, though she has negotiated with him before, for
once, she finds that defense is futile. She has no one to turn
to. She doesn’t trust the cotton-pickers, whose comments
she finds intolerable and full of flattery. She can’t confide in
Claud (whose name sounds like “clod,” and who can’t shore
up her failing faith). She shouts defiantly to Jesus, “Who do
you think you are?”
The sight of the sun setting in the back pasture, “looking
over the paling of trees like a farmer inspecting his own
hogs,” triggers the collapse of her carefully-tended beliefs.
She inspects her own hogs, who are glowing rosy in the cor
ner of the pig parlor, and takes in the “abysmal life-giving
knowledge” from them-sees, I think, that though there is
no one out there measuring each person for a future crown,
yet we have the present life. There is no doctor behind the
waiting-room door, about to call our names. Mrs. Turpin
sees the vast parade of people, carried to heaven on the pur
ple bridge shouting hallelujah. She knows, for the moment
at least, that this is nothing but a dream.
Heaven
by Basia Miller
Mrs. Turpin’s revelation is pretty dark. She has experienced
the dark before-at the end of her dreams, everyone is
crammed in a boxcar and sent off to a gas oven. Today when
she and Claud enter their own dirt road on the way back from
the doctor’s, she is ready to see her home destroyed, “a burnt
wound between two blackened chimneys.” A few moments
before the end, she imagines the pickup truck being crushed
and her husband’s and the fieldhands’ brains oozing out on the
road. Her final revelation seems, too, to be of a world
destroyed, a kind of apocalypse that nevertheless offers “life
giving knowledge.”
First, Mrs. Turpin’s vision was affected in the waiting room.
When Mary Grace sent the book flying at her head, Mrs.
Turpin saw things smaller first, then she saw everything larg
er. The impact was particularly powerful because Mrs. Turpin
sensed that the girl had a deep, timeless knowledge of her,
perhaps of her soul. We who have heard Mrs. Turpin talking
incessantly, all afternoon, about her own goodness have to
ask if much of this talk isn’t inspired by self-doubt. She’s con
verted everyone’s gestures, everyone’s shoes, green stamps, Basia Miller is a Santa Fe tutor.
and traces of snuff into material for affirming her worth in the
eye of heaven, like a person feeding an insatiable hunger.
{The College-
St. John’s College • Spring 2004 }
�i6
{Revelation}
''Thepurgatorial
vision reveals
all manner of
sinners lined up
ingroups...
bestowed, a veneer of nice manners and char
•
itable platitudes barely covering harsh judg
ments. This is her way of following the com
mandment Love Thy Neighbor. Both her
justice and her mercy are superficial rather
than utterly misplaced. They are poor imita
tions of the divine, not complete aberrations.
Yet they are not harmless: they hold her fast
in easygoing self-righteousness and could
forever blind her to herself.
Mary Grace is the only occupant of the wait
ing room who won’t submit to Ruby’s intru
sive geniality. An ugly, cranky, even mean
young woman, Mary Grace sees a deeper dis
order than Ruby sees, and her penetrating
eye is right on Ruby Thrpin. Mary Grace
waits in the waiting room but is sickened by
the world that surrounds her, as if she has
taken in its ugliness. She is most revolted at
Ruby, its banal and self-satisfied leading citi
zen. Seemingly lost to charity, or too bur
dened for it, she freely offers this world
her scorn.
Each of these judges is drawn to the other
from the first as to a perfect enemy. Mary
Grace rebuffs Ruby’s attempts at cordial
small talk, even when not directed to her, by making
grotesque faces. The affronts enliven Ruby’s insistence on
the virtue of good-naturedness. The garrulous, prettied-up
world of Ruby’s waiting room advances upon the stark,
friendless one defended by Mary Grace. When Ruby’s enthu
siasm reaches its peak, she bursts out in praise: “Thank you,
Jesus, for making everything the way it is! ” Mary Grace retal
iates. She launches her book at Ruby and goes for her throat.
Both fall in this battle. Mary Grace inflicts the blows, yet
she is the one sedated and removed to a hospital. The purple
swelling above Ruby’s eye and the marks on her throat are on
the surface; deeper is a more grievous wound. Not the book,
not the hands clenched around her throat, but the words
Mary Grace whispers as the two lock eyes hit home: “Go back
to hell where you came from, you old wart hog.” These words
“brooked no repudiation.” They strike Ruby’s center of grav
ity, confusing her sight and toppling her confidence. Ruby is
turned, readied for revelation; Mary Grace, an inadvertent
{The College-
cause of grace, goes to a fate we do not know.
The vision of an ugly wart hog besets Ruby
all afternoon. Driven by anger, confusion,
and need, she spills her story almost in spite
of herself to the Black cotton workers in her
employ. This veiled plea for compassion is
met with highly spirited but superficial concern-the kind of concern Ruby has been so
proud of and good at herself, especially with
the Blacks-and it angers her to receive it
from those she has considered so far beneath
her. She goes to her pig-parlor seething as
intensely as Mary Grace in the waiting room,
turns the hose on the pigs, and, like a comic
Job, thrusts question after question at God.
The questions begin in a forceful whisper,
“How am 1 a hog and me both?”, and reach a
summit of fury: “Who do you think you
are?”, the fundamental question to which a
vision is the mysterious answer.
The purgatorial vision reveals all manner
of sinners hned up in groups, each rejoicing
in its distinctive way, and puts Ruby in
her place. Ahead in line are the leapers
and rollickers; she, Claud, and the other
respectable people are last in the procession,
their virtues the sins being burned away. The vision is a
reminder of our essential unfitness to understand and follow
the commandment to love even when we desire to and a reve
lation of God’s inscrutable, comic ways. As Ruby stands gaz
ing upon “what lay ahead” and hearing at the crickets’ chirps
hallelujahs of praise, we wonder in what world Ruby now
is and whether it may embrace the edge that Mary Grace
inhabits.
99
Pamela Kraus, a tutor in Annapolis, also serves as editor of
the St. John’s Review.
The Private Hell
of
Ruby Turpin
by Cary Stickney
Without rereading the story, 1 want to say that the primary
revelation is what the girl in the doctor’s office says that
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�{Revelation}
wounds Mrs. Turpin so: “You are a warthog from Hell!”
Ruby Turpin cannot forget it, and it brings on a kind of crisis
of faith, I presume because on some level Mrs. Turpin
acknowledges its truth. It is at least in part-the warthog
part-an inevitable consequence of existing as a creature in
the same cosmos with an infinitely good Creator. In this
sense I suppose even archangels are warthogs, compared to
the beauty of God. That the warthog is from Hell seems to me
to say that we have each taken the finite beauty and goodness
we might have had and thrown it away. That is, we are sin
ners, and we make a kind of hell for ourselves.
Looking back at the story I see that the girl in the waiting
room says, “Go back to Hell where you came from, you old
warthog!” Mrs. Thrpin had been revealing by her conversa
tion with the girl’s mother that she lives in a world of careful
ly maintained distinctions, and that she compensates herself
for the efforts she makes to be good by looking down on all
those who seem not to try as hard. She would not describe her
own world as a hell. But I see something hellish in the dream
we are told she sometimes has, in which her struggles to
17
maintain the picture of a well-ordered hierarchy of human
virtue and vice correlated with property ownership and
worth ancestry, to say nothing of skin color, give way to a
vision of a cattle-car crowded with every kind of human on
the way to a gas oven. In her waking hours, she sees a world
in which good people are the exception and things are get
tingworse. To be “saved,” as she believes she is, requires that
she think better of things than that, at least in an ultimate
sense, but it looks as if she has reduced God to a scorekeeper
and that her gratitude to have been created as the one we see
is dependent at least on her fear of and contempt for others.
The Wellesley girl, Mary Grace, may see that, and may mean
that she is far from heaven and fairly close to hell, so that it
would be easy to just go back. Of course being an effective
messenger may not require that the aptly named Mary Grace
fully understand the message she delivers.
Both the aspects of the revelation, that she is a warthog and
that she came from Hell, carry with them a redeeming and
mysterious grace: namely that in spite of our vanishingly
small claim to significance or beauty or even to being at all.
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College • Spring 2004 }
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{Revelation}
we somehow do exist in the same cosmos with infinite beauty
and heing-God has made room for us and wants us to be.
That turns out to involve, in the Christian understanding,
that He has moreover forgiven us the waste of our time and
gifts, the pettiness and cruelty we might have avoided, and
that He offers us His love. What Mrs. Turpin demands to
know, namely how she can be herself and a hog too, or saved
and at the same time from hell, is the mystery that requires a
further revelation, or a deeper view of the one she has been
given.
In the story, Mrs. Turpin is hosing out the hog pen and
shaking her fist at God when the shape of the stream of water
momentarily comes to resemble a snake. She is at that
moment complaining to God that she might as well have
never tried to lead a good life at all, if she can be so insulted
and feel it so deeply; if, in a word, she is still just a warthog: in
spite of all her efforts still essentially no better than the worst
of sinners, the most lazy and wicked. This is a form of the
temptation to think that she should. Godlike, be able to make
herself, to accomphsh her own goodness and merit by her
unaided efforts, and thus, implicitly, to know good and evil:
to have the right to judge and condemn others presumably
less industrious or tasteful than herself. For if it does not ulti
mately matter what she does, and all saving power remains
with God, why has she troubled herself all these years? “Why
should we not sin the more, that Grace may abound?” asks
Paul, before repudiating the question.
The mystery and the final aspect of the revelation, granted
in her sunset vision, is that it does and does not matter. It
does: before she sees the highway into heaven she has seen
the setting sun like a farmer looking over the fence of the
treetops at his hogs, and she has seen her own hogs, clean
now and gathered around the old sow, the source of their
hves, and one kind of image of herself. She gazes “as if
through the very heart ofmystery,” and again, “as if she were
absorbing some abysmal, life-giving knowledge.” It is a
knowledge set off both by the previous sight of her husband’s
truck going down the road no bigger than a toy, liable at any
moment to be smashed, and by the fact of sunset itself. Even
without accident we are not here long. From the abyss, the
depths at greatest distance from God, she absorbs the knowl
edge that life-finite, particular, hog-ugly hfe-precisely in its
finitude, is beautiful, is full of God, its secret source. If those
hogs are beautiful, then so is she; it is right that she is who she
{The College-
is. But then it is equally right that others are who they are.
Her struggles to do right have not made her superior. When
she sees the horde of ascending souls, led by the crazy, lazy,
crippled, and off-key, she sees she had to make the efforts she
made to be who she is, not because God would not love her
otherwise, but because there must be all kinds of saved sin
ners, and it is a divine gift to be whatever kind you are.
It does not matter: the very virtues of the decent and
upright like herself are being burned away in the purging
fires of the ascent; that is, even their virtues are small and
small-minded in the hght of God’s love. That God’s love is not
hmited by human wickedness and yet does not annihilate the
significance of an individual life is part of the same revelation
as that an infinite being should make room for finitude to
begin with. Greation and redemption are revealed to be at
one.
Carey Stickney (A75) is a tutor in Santa Fe.
The Presence
of
Evil
by George Russell
Flannery O’Gonnor did not write about the lives of the
great, but the lives of the ordinary and the lowly. By conse
quence, the situations and actions of her characters are
most often the stuff of comic and not tragic report. One
finds himself laughing spontaneously at the human beings
in her stories. Nevertheless, she is not condescending to
her characters. She takes them seriously, holding them
accountable for their weaknesses and transgressions. They
may be ridiculous in the smallness of their views and
desires, but they suffer nonetheless for their sins, and one
is brought to feel for them in their sufferings and in the
realizations that their sufferings allow.
“Revelation” is a story about a day in the life of Ruby
Turpin, a farming woman who, as far as she knows, is
“saved” (“And wona these days I know I’ll we-era a
crown.”) and who, in her own words is “a respectable, hard
working, church-going woman.” From the first we are told
that Ruby Turpin is a woman, big in size (“I wish I could
reduce...”), blessed with a “good disposition” and “a little
of everything,” with the emphasis on “everything.” In the
story, we see her settled conclusions about the world
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around her and her place and identity in that world and in
the divine plan come under an unexpected and jarring
attack during a visit with her husband to the doctor’s
office; and we witness a recovery which is as remarkable as
the fall.
A story with two distinct parts, “Revelation” in its first
part takes place in the waiting room of a doctor’s office.
The waiting room is emblematic of the shared human
condition. Human beings are susceptible to injury and
sickness. And their susceptibility is real; they get injured;
they get sick. However that maybe the case, the story is less
about bodily injury and illness than it is about another abo
riginal susceptibility, the proneness to sin and especially to
pride. It reminds one of the passage in the Bible from
On
the
Road to Damascus
by Michael Dink
The revelation that comes to Ruby, in the form of a book
thrown by Mary Grace that knocks her off her chair in the
doctor’s office, is in essence identical to that which came
to Saul, in the form of a flash of light that knocked him to
the ground on the road to Damascus. Prior to the revela
tion, Ruby and Saul shared a sense of their superiority to
certain other human beings, a superiority achieved by reg
ulating their conduct according to certain precepts and
recognized in the eyes of God. In Ruby this sense takes the
form of a self-congratulating condescension, in which she
sees herself as kind and tolerant to those inferiors, while
in Saul it took the more aggressive form of trying to pun
ish or reform those who had strayed from the right path.
When Ruby is called “a wart hog from hell” and Saul is
asked, “Why do you persecute me?” they are confronted
with the claim that they are sinners, certainly no better
than those they had despised, and perhaps even worse,
precisely because of the claim to righteousness implicit in
their despising, a claim that Saul, reborn as Paul, denies
that any human being can truthfully make.
Ruby struggles valiantly to deny this message, “But the
denial had no force.” She resents its being directed to her,
“a respectable, hard-working, church-going woman,”
19
Proverbs, “Pride goeth before destruction, and haughty
spirit before a fall.” The central dramatic incident that
takes place in the first part of the story occurs in the con
text of a conversation between three women, Mrs. Turpin,
a poor white woman, and the mother of a college student
named Mary Grace. The conversation of the women, taken
together with the reports of the narrator, reveals the pride
of the three women and of Mary Grace, but especially that
of Ruby Turpin.
About Mrs. Turpin we learn early on, that when she is
restless and unable to sleep, she has two nocturnal occupa
tions. In one, she seems to be acutely aware of the contin
gent character of her present life. Like Eve, who is tempted
by an alternative vision of the world, Mrs. Turpin’s imagi-
“though there was trash in the room to whom it might
justly have been applied.” A kiss from her husband and
flattery from the black womenfolk of their hired help fail
to assuage her resentment.
When she goes to the pig parlor and tries to cleanse the
pigs, she speaks out her resentment, evidently to God,
indicating that she does recognize the source of the reve
lation, despite her resistance to it. She continues to justify
herself, to defend her innocence, her charity, her superi
ority to lower orders of people. Her fury bursts forth in a
defiant challenge, “Gall me a hog again. From hell. Gall
me a wart hog from hell. Put that bottom rail on top.
There’ll still be a top and bottom.”
After seeing her husband’s truck in the distance as tiny
and vulnerable, she gazes at the hogs for a long time, “as if
she were absorbing some abysmal life-giving knowledge.”
Then she has a vision of a procession of souls marching
toward heaven. Leading the way are “the bottom rail,” all
the kinds of people she despised, “shouting and clapping
and leaping like frogs.” Behind them, with “great dignity”
but with “shocked and altered faces,” come people like
herself and Glaude, and she sees that “even their virtues
are being burned away.” In this final vision, she at last sees
how she is “saved and from hell too.”
Michael Dink fAyjJ is an Annapolis tutor.
{The College -5f. John ’5
College ■ Spring 2004 }
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{Revelation}
Priestess and Visionary
by Elizabeth Engel
Mrs. Turpin’s revelation builds from the first face the girl
makes at her through Mrs. Turpin’s wonderful defiant
questions to God as she stands at the pig parlor; “What
do you send me a message like that for?” “How am I a hog
and me both? How am I saved and from hell too?” The set
ting sun, now far more mysterious than when Mrs. Turpin
saw it, hke her, “looking over the paling of trees like a
farmer inspecting his own hogs,” transforms everything.
Mrs. Turpin, ignoring the transformation, dares God again
and ends with roaring “who do you think you are?” An
echo comes back at her “like an answer from beyond the
wood.” God answers her by questioning her and her pride,
with far more right than she had to question him.
Mrs. Turpin begins to see who she really is as she sees the
fragility of human life in Claud’s tiny truck, which from her
position looks like a child’s toy: “At any moment a bigger
truck might smash into it and scatter Claud’s and the nig
gers’ brains all over the road.” When she has seen the truck
home safe, she turns to the pig parlor: “Then, hke a monu
mental statue coming to life, she bent her head slowly and
gazed as if through the very heart of mystery, down into the
pig parlor at the hogs. They had settled all in one corner
nation brings her to envision the world other than it is. She
wonders how things would have gone “If Jesus had said to
her before he made her...You can either be a nigger or
white-trash.” Her preference, she decides, is for Jesus to
have made her “a neat clean respectable Negro woman,
herself but black,” changed but still saved, sidestepping the
lowly. In her other nocturnal activity, Mrs. Turpin is said to
have “occupied herself at night naming the classes of peo
ple.” She lies awake at night trying to sort out the people in
her world into classes, in accordance with their material
and social standing in the world. She assumes blindly that
she possesses the standard and judgment for the task of sav
ing and condemning. However, the fluctuations in the for
tunes of the human beings that she would rank make such a
jumble of her very attempts to rank them, that she finally
falls off to sleep, imagining them all condemned, (“she
would dream they were all crammed together in a box car,
being ridden off to be put in a gas oven.”). Her virtues
notwithstanding, Mrs. Turpin remains prey to these temp
tations, and we see her assailed by them too in the light of
{The College.
around the old sow who was grunting softly. A red glow suf
fused them. They appeared to pant with a secret life.” The
hogs have become beautiful gathered around the maternal
and musical old sow, a vision of animal life filled by grace.
This is how we can be both hogs and ourselves too.
Mrs. Turpin is herself transformed by gazing at the hogs;
she becomes a sort of priestess, raising her hands “in a ges
ture hieratic and profound.” Her transformation allows her
final vision, the bridge over which souls are marching
towards Paradise. The most respectable, the group she
thinks she belongs to, come last, and “even their virtues
were beings burned away.” In relation to salvation, virtue
doesn’t matter, nor does top and bottom, dignity and luna
cy, white and black. This, I think, completes Mrs. Turpin’s
revelation. O’Connor says, “she lowered her hands and
gripped the rail of the hog pen, her eyes small but fixed
unbhnkingly on what lay ahead.” We see what she sees, and
we see her seeing it, pig-like, with her small eyes, and still
as priestess and visionary. Is this our revelation? Our judg
ment of her has become irrelevant, just as have her judg
ments of other people. We turn with Mrs. Ihrpin back onto
the darkening path-surely O’Connor intends us to think of
Dante-and with her we hear “the voices of the souls climb
ing upward into the starry field and shouting hallelujah.”
Elizabeth (Litzi) Engel is a tutor in Santa Fe.
day. Mrs. Turpin feeds her false pride by imagining the infe
rior world or worlds that might have been. Those imagina
tions of worlds inferior to her world feature the lowly ones
of the here and now whom she judges so severely.
As Mrs. Turpin’s prideful attitudes leak out in the waiting
room conversation, they become contagious. In the chief
exchange in the waiting room, an exchange about the
Turpin farm, Mrs. Turpin and Mary Grace’s mother silent
ly join together against the opinions of the “white-trash
woman.” The two women form an alliance inasmuch as
“...both understood that you had to have certain things
before you could know certain things.” An antagonism
erupts between the poor white woman and Mrs. Turpin
regarding their differing opinions about the possessions
and associations that Mrs. Turpin has; Mrs. Turpin raises
pigs and associates with black people. According to
Mrs. Turpin, the Turpins have “a couple acres of cotton and
a few hogs and chickens and just enough white-face that
Gland can look after them himself.” That report elicits a
retort from the white-trash woman that she doesn’t want
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�{Revelation}
''The corruptive
power ofpride takes
its toll once more.''
anything to do with hogs: “Hogs. Nasty
stinking things, a-gruntin and a-rootin all
over the place.” It does not matter to her
that the Turpins have a “pig-parlor” a con
crete-floored pen where the pigs are raised
and where “Claud scoots them down with
the hose every afternoon and washes off
the floor.”
The poor woman wouldn’t stoop to
“scoot down no hog with no hose.” And as
to the black people that the Turpins hire
(“butter up”) to pick their cotton, the
“white-trash woman” is equally as
adamant: “Two thangs I ain’t going to do:
love no niggers or scoot down no hog with
no hose.” As far above the “white-trash
woman” as Mrs. Turpin seems to place
herself, the “white-trash woman” places
herself above hogs and “niggers.” The
corruptive power of pride takes its toll
once more.
In the doctor’s office, then, we witness
Mrs. Turpin’s awareness of the contingent
character of her life (“When I think who
all I could have been besides myself and
what all I got...It could have been different!”) and how that
awareness contributes to her false pride and a lack of
understanding both of who she is and of the true character
of her world. Behind her “good disposition,” we see her
judgment on the world as it is given to her. Despite the fact
that her virtue has no positive ground, she imagines that
her goodness is sufficient both to judge and re-order the
world and to do that without any assistance: “It’s no use in
having more than you can handle yourself with help like it
is.” Hers is not a position where she needs help, and she
doesn’t ask for any. She divides her world into those like
herself and Mary Grace’s mother, who don’t need help, and
those like the poor white woman. Of the latter, she thinks,
“Help them you must, but help them you couldn’t,” even
though, “To help anybody out that needed it was her philos
ophy of life.” Mrs. Turpin is saved and she is a would-be sav
ior. From that vantage point of self-sufficiency, hers is a posi
tion of gratitude. (“Oh, thank you, Jesus, Jesus, thank you!”)
But she is more grateful for what she is not than for what she
is, perhaps grateful even that she is child
less. What she does not seem to acknowl
edge is that bad things and evil itself can
not be relegated to what is not or to
absence, and for that reason in part, no one
is completely “saved” in this world, cer
tainly not by dint of one’s own efforts
alone, from the power of temptation and
malevolence.
It is in the context of her ignorance of
the forces of evil in the world that Mrs.
Turpin comes to consider Mary Grace
(“Why, girl, I don’t even know you...”),
who gives up her reading and bears wit
ness to the display of pride. She takes up
her station, staring relentlessly at Mrs.
Turpin and making ugly faces at her until
she feels the need to defend herself. But
most importantly, at the point where Mrs.
Turpin claims not to know Mary Grace,
she thinks that Mary Grace, “was looking
at her as if she had known and disliked her
all her life-all of Mrs. Turpin’s hfe, it
seemed too, not just the girl’s life.” What
there was to be known all of her hfe is
nothing but the susceptibility to temptation and the
depredations of evil which are coeval with the garden and
human existence.
Mary Grace, possessed of money, family, education, is a
real puzzle for Mrs. Turpin. So obviously lacking in grace,
she is loaded with the worldly goods by which Mrs. Turpin
partially takes her bearings. It does not make sense to her
that Mary Grace with all of her books could be possessed of a
false pride dwarfing that of her and the others. (“The girl
looked as if she would like to hurl them all through the plate
glass window.”) It does not make sense to her that Mary
Grace as Mary Grace could be a source of evil. Mary Grace
would open her eyes though, and so she throws the book at
her. The incongruity of first being silently intimidated, and
then being assaulted with a book by someone such as Mary
Grace, convinces Mrs. Turpin that there is more to the situa
tion than meets the eye. And so she seeks out Mary Grace,
“What you got to say to me?” And she receives the retorted
command, “Go back to hell where you came from, you old
{The Colleges?. John’s
College ■ Spring 2004 }
�aa
{Revelation}
wart hog.” When Mary Grace tells Mrs. Turpin to go to heU,
Mrs. Turpin does not understand what she means, does not
accept the evil that confronts her. She thinks that God is
telhng her that she is not saved. The second part of the story
addresses that mistake and achieves in a way a resolution to
the story.
The shift in the story from the doctor’s office to the farm
marks a shift from pride to humility, the doctor’s office hav
ing pride of place. Mrs. Turpin is so convinced that God has
abandoned her, that when she and Claud drive home, and she
looks for their house, “She would not have been startled to
see a burnt wound between two blackened chimneys.” She
and Claud he down, but she cannot escape what had hap
pened or the image of her that had been deposited in her
soul. “She had been singled out for the message.” In her feel
ing of sohtude, she cries, but when her tears dry, “Her eyes
began to burn with wrath”: she is “a respectable, hard-work
ing, church-going woman.”
When her self-pity turns to anger, Mrs. Turpin turns to
the farm community, which she rules for affirmation and
assurance of who she is. In a sense, she wants the message
to be overruled by her loved ones, her husband, her black
field hands, and her hogs. But the fact of her rule presents
a problem for her, because now she needs help. She turns to
Claud for solace-(“‘Listen here,’ she said.” ‘“What?”’
“‘Kiss me.’”)-and Claud obliges her, as he does through
out the story, “as if he was accustomed to doing what she
told him to,” but nothing happens. She turns to the black
workers, but the workers think that Mrs. Turpin is beyond
anything bad happening to her, as if “she were protected in
some special way by Divine Providence.” When Mrs.
Turpin leaves the black workers, she goes down to the pig
parlor and takes the hose from Claud; on the farm, she is
“the right size woman to command the arena before her.”
When he goes off, Mrs. Turpin begins speaking to God,
raising her questions, wanting to know how she is herself
and a hog both and how she is “saved and from hell too.” In
a final display of pride, hosing down her hogs, she rants and
raves at God until she comes to the more general form of
her question, “Who do you think you are?” the question
echoing back to her.
The humihty on the farm appears to be the antidote to the
diseased pride infesting the doctor’s office. There Mrs.
Turpin comes face to face with someone “above” her, who is
{The College.
not thankful to Jesus, who does not “read from the same
book” as she does and who takes her bearings from what
Mrs. Turpin ostensibly is, a fat, indulgent, prideful woman,
who, just like Mary Grace, “complains and criticizes all day
long.” The evil in Mary Grace would claim Mrs. Turpin for
itself; hence, the condemnation. But because Mrs. Turpin
thinks that she is saved, she thinks that evil is somehow
warded off, existing in some imaginary alternative world;
and so, she mistakenly interprets what Mary Grace says.
Mrs. Turpin mistakenly thinks that God is turning away
from her because evil makes its presence known to her and
even as having a root in her; she thinks that she is no longer
one of the saved.
But to say that God is not turning away from Mrs. Turpin
is not to say that God was not working through the force of
evil. O’Connor clearly beheves that God does work through
evil, and that He is able to do such work just because of the
inroads that evil has made in the souls of human beings. God
was not turning away from her, but turning her so that she
might face the reality of her continual need for salvation. On
the farm, in her rant, Mrs. Turpin would fight God with her
pride-until she hears herself. Then it is that the day’s lesson
begins to come clear to her, the lesson about the world and
the serpent and the lesson of Job and God and the Adver
sary. Then she sees Claud’s truck, looking “like a toy,” and
sees the downside of that technological marvel, that it could
be smashed by a bigger truck and everyone in it destroyed.
Then Ruby turns to her hogs gathered around the sow,
where “A red glow suffused them;” they were God’s crea
tures, panting “with a secret life.” Her acknowledgement of
the presence of evil in this world and of the goodness of
God’s creation even in the lowly allows her to have a vision
of a new order marching to salvation; in that order the lowly
are entering first.
It is hardly accidental that the setting of the first part of
the story is in a doctor’s office, that there is even a black den
tist in town, or that the book that Mary Grace throws at Mrs.
Turpin was titled Human Development. Today, many people
have a difficult time talking about good and evil, preferring
instead to talking about health and sickness. But O’Connor’s
character, Mrs. Turpin, when she is in need of help, does not
want the doctor’s help. What is aihng her is a matter of the
spirit. Of course, the terms in which she understands the
“classes of people” and herself belong to the contemporary
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^3
revelation is not a
quiet Inull...
•
United States South, where the old
notions of rank based on land owner
ship and breeding issue in such cate
gories as “good blood” and “white
trash” and “niggers.” She is a stock
character in O’Connor’s repertoire of
stories, each one having its place as in
a series of echoes originating in and
echoing from a single homeland,
O’Connor’s powerful imaginative
intellect. O’Connor is a Catholic
writer from the South, for her, the
land of the humble and the humbled.
Persisting in her faith and her South
ern roots and in allusions to the Holo
caust and the dark sides of technolog
ical life, O’Connor helps us navigate
our own darkness and locate the beau
tiful in lowly and humble lives. On
that account, in the aist century, she
is a writer whose meanings are not
only important but urgently needed.
George Russell is a tutor in Annapolis.
The Message-Bearers
by Barbara Goyette
Perhaps this story is not only about a revelation but about
revelation itself, the nature of a mysterious occurrence
that serves as a link between our everyday world (or the
somewhat off-kilter but nevertheless recognizably every
day world of Flannery O’Connor’s South) and some deeper
reality.
Revelation involves drama and it involves some kind of
truth or disclosure about something that wasn’t realized or
known before. In a theological sense, revelation involves a
manifestation of the divine will. A revelation is not a quiet
truth: Mary Grace hurls a textbook at Mrs. Turpin and then
pronounces her verdict, “You are a wart hog from Hell.”
The black field-hand ladies also tell her the truth: “ ‘Ain’t
nothing bad happen to you! ’ the old woman said. She said
it as if they all knew that Mrs. Turpin was protected in some
{The College.
7
99
special way by Divine Providence.”
This truth infuriates Mrs. Turpin; she
fervently hopes that it is as false as
Mary Grace’s revelation. And then
there’s the wild and wooly vision of the
souls marching up to heaven, violent
in its intensity and in its absolute nega
tion of all that Mrs. Turpin thinks she
believes to be right and just.
Revelation does not need proof. It
can’t be arrived at by logic, and one
can’t be persuaded to it. Revelation
suggests someone or something as the
medium of higher truth or another
level of reality. In this story, the irony
of the message-bearers-a disaffected,
angry, acne-scarred intellectual; a
troop of respectable, sycophantic field
workers; and the pigs, hosed off to spot
lessness from their naturally filthy
state-reinforces the disjunction that is
at the root of Mrs. Turpin’s sinful view.
Her sin is that of not seeing, not understanding the most
fundamental fact of grace-that it applies to everyone at all
times, no matter what their level of receptiveness or worthi
ness. Mrs. Turpin fails just as we aU fail, by virtue of being
human. The last shall be first and the first shall be last. In the
beatitudes, the unhappy are blessed and the happy are
cursed (this complementary “woe to...” set of pronounce
ments is often ignored in our recollection of the beatitudes—
it’s not only that the downtrodden have a special place in
God’s consideration, it’s that those who are successful do
not, at least not insofar as they are successful). Our measures
of success, those that Mrs. Turpin admires and with which
she measures the worthiness of others, are worse than mean
ingless. They get in the way of our understanding that we are
all in need of grace. Revelation is a gift, presented to
Mrs. Turpin and to us. It’s there every day for all of us, and
everyone around us is a messenger.
Barbara Goyette (A’^g) is vice presidentfor advancement in
Annapolis.
John’s College • Spring 2004 }
�24
{Alumni Voices}
THE HABIT OF
WRITING
BY Brigid K. Byrne, AGI03
hen I open my mailbox to find an
ingly [reflects] the object, the being, which [specifies] it.”
envelope addressed in a bold, careful
Studying O’Connor’s letters, I decided that Fitzgerald had
script and bearing an Iowa City post
given the collection the perfect name. O’Connor offered
mark, mixed in among bills and cata
her correspondents thoughts about everything: her pet
logs, I feel a small thrill, an excite
peacocks, her writing habits, and her peculiar interpreta
ment that there is something meant especially
It
tion offor
theme.
Catholic
faith. Her letters to friends, fans, pub
seems strange that finding a personal letterlishers,
in my mailbox
and fellow writers reveal a woman who wrote them
gives me so much joy. Yet, how often do we get a letter from
not only to maintain her connection to those she loved, but
someone we know and love? How often do we take the time
also to explore and reveal the parts of herself which the
to write to others? Most of the written communication we
intended recipient had the power to bring out.
send and receive are hasty e-mails, typed quickly, in lan
I was most struck by O’Connor’s correspondence with
guage created to speed up the time spent composing mes
Cecil Dawkins, a college professor who introduced herself
sages. While e-mail has perhaps kept us closer to those we
to O’Connor in a letter. Dawkins challenged O’Connor by
may otherwise have drifted apart from, our brief electron
asking her advice in matters concerning her career, her
ic conversations lack the richness and intimacy that are
desire to write, and her faith. In a response to a question
vital parts of human relationships. We compose our mes
Dawkins raised about the effectiveness of the Catholic
sages so quickly that we forfeit the benefits of self-reflec
Church, O’Connor wrote, “You don’t serve God by saying:
tion and personal growth that we can gain when we write
the Church is ineffective. I’ll have none of it. Your pain at
letters to others. The flow of thoughts seems better suited
its lack of effectiveness is a sign of your nearness to God.
to the flow of ink from the pen than to the pecking of
We help overcome this lack of effectiveness simply by suf
fingers on a plastic keyboard, and the act of sealing an enve
fering on account of it.” Reading this unusually lengthy
lope much more satisfying than hitting the “send” button.
response, I realized that Dawkins had asked a question that
I felt the loss of the art of letter writing poignantly as I
O’Connor herself struggled with and wondered if O’Con
recently revisited The Habit ofBeing, Sally Fitzgerald’s col
nor was speaking more to Dawkins or to herself.
lection of Flannery O’Connor’s letters. Fitzgerald titled
In her introduction to the book, Fitzgerald notes that “on
her collection The Habit ofBeing because she saw that the
the whole, [O’Connor’s] correspondence was an enrichment
writer’s correspondence reflected the attainment of that
of her life, to say nothing of the lives of her correspondents”
habit, which she defines as “an excellence not only of
and that “almost all of her close friendships were sustained
action but of interior disposition and activity that increas
through the post.”
W
{The College-
St. John’s College ■ Spring 2004 }
�{Alumni Voices}
As I reread
O’Connor’s let
ters, I realized
that my own
habit of letter
writing
has
enriched my life.
1 was not much
of a letter writer
until about five
years ago when
I began corre
sponding with
Sandra, an honors student from Iowa, whom I met while
interning at the U.S. Department of Education. After rais
ing her children, Sandra enrolled in a community college
near her home and was so successful in her studies that she
gained an internship through Phi Theta Kappa. Over that
summer, Sandra and I had many conversations, and I
learned much from her about courage and faith. When our
internships ended, Sandra and I exchanged addresses in the
way parting people do, intending to keep in touch, but
doubtful whether such a brief acquaintance would with
stand time and distance.
I returned to college that fall, but I could not forget San
dra. I pulled out the scrap of paper on which she had care
fully printed her address and wrote her a letter. Thus began
years of correspondence that have led me to question and
contemplate many of my ideas, choices, and beliefs. When I
first began writing to Sandra, I was feeling uncertain about
my faith. Having been raised Catholic and force-marched to
Mass, I purposefully spent each Sunday of my first few years
away at college lingering over breakfast in the dining hall,
ignoring the bells chiming at St. Paul’s, just a few hundred
yards away. I was torn between rebelling against my parents
and discovering my own sense of faith. In writing to Sandra,
I found that I could wrestle with my doubts and hesitations.
Through my letters to her, I came to recognize my struggle
was not between me and God, but one of becoming an adult.
{The College-
25
learning to make
choices for my
self. Sandra’s res
ponses, resonat
ing with her faith
in God, even in
the face of hard
ship and sorrow,
gave me the
strength to travel
my own spiritual
road. Without
Sandra as my
audience, I am not sure that I would have found that part
of myself.
While my relationship with Sandra has led me to a deeper
sense of faith, having a variety of correspondents challenges
me to look at many sides of myself. One of my favorite audi
ences is my friend Sally, who lives in Atlanta. Although Sally
and I talk on the phone frequently and see each other occa
sionally, letter writing is still an important part of our
friendship. We enjoy what Shakespeare might term “a mar
riage of true minds,” as our thoughts, interests, and experi
ences run uncannily parallel. Writing to Sally is almost like
writing to myself, except that I wait in anticipation for her
honest replies, replies that demand that I look into myself
more alertly.
In my day-to-day habit of living, running from job to job,
eating in my car, I have little time for reflection and clarity.
I have come to see this habit of living, which requires me to
direct so much energy away from myself, as distinctly differ
ent from the habit of being, which allows me to spend time
inside, listening only to myself. Like O’Connor, I have
found that I can practice my habit of being most effectively
as I sit down to write. So I will find time today to retreat
from the habit of living and write to my friend and fellow
St. John’s alumna, Sarah. I can’t wait to see what my letter
will reveal.
St. John’s College ■ Spring 2004 }
�{Johnnies
2,6
on
Aging}
THE MIND IN
WINTER
Living an ExaminedLife in Later Years
wi Sus3AN Borden, A87
would lose meaning and she knew that there have even
been suicides [among older people]. To provide meaning
to their lives, she endowed the institute, which provides
high-quality, exciting courses for seniors. The faculty,
illiam Butler Yeats
Institute, where he explores the world -W
from
a classroom.
from neighborhood universities and the U.C. Medical
“Hannah Fromm was worried that the life of retired people
Center, are also mostly seniors,” explains Brunn, who has
ohn Brunn (class of 1947) is no Magellan, no
studied history, literature, science, and music at the insti
Columbus, no Ernest Shackleford or Neil
tute since his retirement.
Armstrong, but in an important way, he has
Brunn’s explorations are important to an aging mind,
remained true to his childhood ambition to
says Helen Hobart (class of 1964). Hobart works with
become an explorer. “I thought of it then as
older people who are experiencing dementia, and she’s a
physical exploration,” he says of the ambition
true believer in the adage “use it or lose it.” “The more
that has become increasingly intellectual as he
we exercise our minds, the more protection we have from
has aged. “When I first came to California,
the effects of dementia,” says Hobart. “People who com
I fell in love with the Sierra and have spent
plete loth grade have five more years of protection from
vacations exploring the mountains, at first with friends
theand
effects of Alzheimer’s than those who don’t. You may
later with my wife. With increasing age-I have turned
be 77showing signs of the disease neurologically, but symp
that has become difficult. Most of my learning istomatically,
now
you’ve got enough other brain connections
indoors, but I am still curious about the world.”
that function because you’ve stimulated their growth, so
the assault of Alzheimer’s won’t show up.”
While keeping the mind active slows the effects of
aging, Hobart encourages us to recognize that, with the
loss of cognitive ability, other strengths can come into
Life moves out ofa redflare ofdreams
Into a common light ofcommon hours.
Brunn is fortunate to live in San Francisco, not just for
Until
old age and
brings
the but
redflare
the mountains
the city,
also foragain.
the Hannah Fromm
J
{The College -Sr. John’s
College ■ Spring 2004 }
�27
{Johnnies on Aging}
play. “Roughly half
of people over 85
have Alzheimer’s
and we’re aU hving
longer,” she says.
“So it behooves
us to consider
what it means to
be human in addi
tion to our cogni
tive functions. I’ve
seen a lot of suffer
ing because people
feel they’re no
longer worthwhile
because their memoryis failing or they can’t figure out how to do something
that they used to do. But there are so many wonderful
ways of being in relationship with the world and other
people. The epidemic of dementia as we grow older really
invites us to consider our humanity, our affections, our
spirituality, our art, our love of music. All these things
can thrive, even flourish, if our cognitive functioning
{The College -St
Playing the piano is
JUST ONE RETIREMENT
PURSUIT FOR
Carolyn Banks
Leeuwenburgh .
gets out of our way
a little.”
Carolyn Banks
Leeuwenburgh
(class of 1955) has
yet to notice a drop
in her cognitive
abilities. She’s an
avid reader, an
insightful conversationalist, and a freelance teacher of
English as a foreign language. She also pursues a number
of interests that will serve her well if cognition begins to
fail. A retired opera singer, she is still involved with the
arts, maintaining subscriptions at the McCarter Theater
in Princeton in drama, dance, and music. She’s also an
avid movie-goer and a fairly active practitioner of several
John’s College ■ Spring 2004 }
�2,8
{JohnniesonAging}
experiences mostly loss. Although
arts: “I paint, very poorly, but I
only 46, Nick Giacona (SFGI98) is
paint,” she says. “I play the piano
now facing the physical effects of
poorly. I still can sing and I still sing
'Tve always believed
age as he cares for his 8i-year-old
publicly.” Leeuwenburg performs in a
thatpeople older than
mother, Betty, who moved in with
small cafe just outside of Princeton,
him and his family last spring. “My
singing mainly popular music, blues,
mepossessed some
mom is a retired schoolteacher with
and torch songs.
wisdom.
Pre
always
an alert mind and a body that’s fail
Music has been the saving grace for
ing.
She has very bad arthritis and is
many older people, even those whose
felt they were worth
pretty much confined to an electric
other faculties are deteriorating, says
working with and
wheelchair. Yet her mind is still very
Hobart. “It’s fantastic to watch people
active. She goes on the computer,
start playing the piano again. The
learninp^from, worth
does e-mail. She’s a voracious read
parts of the brain formed when we’re
sharing with.
er and we have great theological,
younger last the longest, so the capac
spiritual, and political discus
ity to play the piano can come back,”
sions,” he says.
she says. There may be no ability to
Philip Valley (SFGI75)
Giacona sees first-hand the trials
make a coherent sentence, but the
of life in an aging body. “I’m learn
reward and beauty of making music
ing day by day with her and I really
can persist for a long time.”
admire how she’s handling it,” he says. “It’s hard and
There are other compensations to counter deteriorat
frustrating for her to do the little things we take for grant
ing cognitive ability, according to Virginia Seegers Harri
ed, even something as simple as making herself a meal.
son (class of 1964), a geriatric case manager. “Over time
Yet
she’s handling that with grace and courage.”
you learn to tune out nonsense more quickly,” she says.
A discussion on aging that former Santa Fe campus
“The experience you’ve had in life makes it easier to say,
president John Agresto gave years ago left an impression
‘uh-huh, right.’ From observation and personal experi
on Giacona. “He said that our culture doesn’t really pre
ence, I would consider that a real advantage.”
pare
us for aging and death. I thought he was so wise. He
She describes the benefits that come in later years as we
said that death and aging should be the culmination of a
grow to accept our lives. “You can bring your mind to
well-lived life, an examined life,” recalls Giacona. “While
bear more easily on what is actually accessible, doable.
my mom didn’t have a St. John’s education, I’ve turned
You learn to pick your battles. You learn to pare down and
her on to the Apology and the Crito and the Tibetan Book
be satisfied. There’s a feeling in youth and middle age,
of the Dead."
‘this world is out there-where do I start?’ When some
Giacona says that his mother seems prepared for her
options have closed behind you, there can be a sense of
own death: “We’ve already discussed the whole memorial
liberation. That may be what makes working with elders
service. She wants to be cremated and have her ashes
so sweet, so affirming, for people in middle age who are
scattered where my father’s ashes were scattered. She’s
still struggling to be greater than they ever will be. When
even decided what songs we’re going to sing. If she died
people accept themselves and their lives, that in a sense is
tomorrow, she would feel that she had a good life.”
where life really begins.”
When his mother’s life does end, Giacona will consider
Harrison underscores her point with a joke: “A retired
himself lucky for the time that he and his family spent
woman is listening to several young mothers talking
with her. “My wife, Keiko, is so great and supportive. She
about when life begins. One says at conception. Another
helped convince my mom to stay with us. My mom had
says, no, it begins when the fetus quickens. A third says,
concerns about moving in and invading the family, but
‘I think life begins at birth.’ Finally, the retired woman
Keiko told her that when she was a kid her grandfather
leans over and says, ‘Listen, I’ll tell you when life begins.
lived with her family and she appreciated the time she
Life begins when the kids leave home and the dog dies.’”
spent with him.”
While it’s comforting to know that the mind enjoys
gains to offset its losses, a sad fact of aging is that the body
{The College -Sf. John’s
College - Spring 2004 }
�{JohnniesonAging}
ag
Although she’s a young
Giacona’s own chil7a, Leeuwenburg knows
dren-Sarah, 13, and
Kyle, ii-respond to his
she has some tough times
mother in different
ahead. “Many years ago I
ways. “My son is outgo
heard Bette Davis say
that getting older is not
ing and loves to hug
her and sit and talk to
for sissies,” she says. “As
her. My daughter’s really
you get older you aren’t
shy, so it’s harder for
really aware of getting
her. She appreciates hav
older, but you are aware
ing her there, but she
that you don’t do the
shows it in a different
same things you used to
way. It’s so rewarding to
do physically. There are
have three generations
times when I get out of
in one house.”
bed in the morning and I
don’t think I can move
Philip Valley (SFGI75)
runs day programs in
and other times I’m
New Hampshire for
fine.”
Leeuwenburg swims
adults over 55 with
nearly every day, but a
developmental disabili
recent cancer scare
ties. He says that sharing
revealed
her true attitude
time across the genera
Nick Giacona and his mother, Betty, are
tions is rewarding even for people LEARNING TOGETHER ABOUT AGING.
about exercise. “I was thinking, ‘hell,
who are not related. “Maggie Kuhn,
if I’m going to die. I’m certainly not
going to swim,”’ she says. “This is
head of the Gray Panthers, once
not something I’m doing for the
gave a talk where she told the audi
'She s a voracious reader sheer pleasure of it. At my age your
ence, ‘We are not wrinkled babies,
metabolism gets so slow that, even if
we are elders of the tribe.’ I’ve
and we have great
you do all your cleaning, all your gar
always believed that people older
theological, spiritual,
dening, you still have to exercise.”
than me possessed some wisdom.
Leeuwenburgh has not reached
I’ve always felt they were worth
andpolitical
working with and learning from,
the point where she feels encum
worth sharing with.”
bered by aging, but she has begun to
discussions.
ponder her own mortality. “I don’t
Harrison, the case manager, has
NickGiacona (SFGI98)
think anyone ever really comes to
nothing but scorn for those who
grips with the reality of their own
subscribe to the “wrinkled babies”
death. When we view ourselves, we
view of seniors. “Many people who
work in nursing facilities call the elderly ‘baby.’ That’s
view a disembodied creature. Chronologically, I’m 7a
absolutely not right,” she says. But she’s also disturbed by
years old. I’m at the point where I know I’m not going to
a subtler form of infantilizing. “Even older people who
be here in 20 years. Yet there’s a part of me that you could
are quite cogent are pretty much treated like they have to
stand up and say, ‘Caroline, you’re getting old,’ and I
be fed, clothed, and then amused. I really have trouble
would say, ‘I am?’”
with that. Yes, it takes time to go at the slower pace and
hear someone tell his story, but it’s usually extremely
worthwhile. I would encourage anybody to start to talk to
people over 75. Ask them about their lives. Ask them what
they remember.”
{The College* St. John ’5 College ■ Spring 2004 }
�30
{Bibliofile}
Approaching
Machiavelli’s
Art OF War
Art of War
Niccolo Machiavelli, translated, edited,
and with a commentary by
Christopher Lynch
University of Chicago Press, 2004
hris Lynch (A87) traces the
origins of his newlypubhshed translation of
Machiavelli’s Art of War to
the questions posed hy what
is known in the academic
throats. As I studied him more, I realized that
world as the ancient/modern split.
Lynch says
Machiavelli
’s emphasis on the bellicose
that Johnnies have a more intimate
relation
aspect
of human
beings, an aspect acknowl
ship with the split, and rephrases its essence
edged but not emphasized by the ancient
for the SJC crowd: “Why was everything so
philsophers, was part of his overall goal to
much fun sophomore year and why did
transform the terms in which human life is
everyone get so depressed junior year?”
generally understood.”
Lynch arrived at the University of
Fortunately for Lynch, his academic inter
Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought in
ests dovetailed with a hole in Machiavelli
the fall of 1988 with this question (in its grad
scholarship. Of Machiavelli’s four major
school expression) very much on his mind:
vtorks—Prince, Discourses on Livy, Florentine
What is the end of human hfe? Is man natu
Histories, and Art q/' UAr-almost no one had
rally social or essentially alone? What is the
seriously studied Art of War. Lynch threw
purpose of philosophy? As he pursued these
himself into that text and, seven years (and a
questions, Lynch came to see Machiavelli as
Ph.D.) later, emerged with an impressive
the pivotal writer in the transformation
between the ancient and modern worlds.
“The most sahent aspects of the transfor
mation that Machiavelli tried to affect were,
first, to change the general climate of opinion
“Controversy abounds as to what caused
and discourse such that human hfe would no
the dizzying military changes during
longer be understood in terms of its ultimate
Machiavelli’s day. Also debated is
goal or purpose but instead in terms of its
whether these changes constituted a
origins and roots,” says Lynch. “The second
full-blown military revolution or instead
is the attempt to bring about in this world the
represented a particular moment in a
best regime human beings can come up with,
long-term evolution. In considering
the best way of living together, instead of
these questions, it is important to
leaving it to chance hke Plato. And the third
remember that the sense at the time was
is really a corollary of the first, to get subse
that tumultuous change was indeed
quent thinkers to be primarily concerned
afoot, but not rapid change in a single
with human freedom and independence as
direction driven by gunpowder technol
opposed to virtue as understood as obhgation
ogy. On the tactical level especially,
and duty to something higher.”
each of the battles that occurred on the
These issues gave Lynch a clear direction
Italian peninsula, from the battle of
for his graduate work. “The more I saw
Fornovo in 1495 to that of Pavia in 1525,
Machiavelli as the key figure in the
seemed to offer a new lesson to be
ancient/modern spht, the more I wanted to
learned, a new innovation that trans
figure out what was on his mind,” Lynch says.
formed the ways armies ought to be
“I started to see war as central to his thought,
armed, ordered, led and used.”
to understand that for Machiavelli, humans
- Christopher Lynch
are not social beings, but at each others’
C
Excerpt:
{The College -Sf.
John’s College ■ Spring 2004 }
pubheation to his credit: a translation of the
text with an introduction, interpretive essay,
and (he points out with the pride of a Johnnie
who’s successfully negotiated secondary
sources) more than 600 notes.
Lynch originally wrote the translation for
himself, “blasting through it” in just a few
months, he says. “I wrote the initial transla
tion as a way to study it carefully. I translated
it as literally as I could so I could think about
it the way we do with readings in language
class, as a tool for closer reading,” he says.
Over several years. Lynch returned to the
translation, making changes after improving
his Italian by translating works by Machiavelh’s predecessors, including Dante and
Boccaccio. Later, when he decided to submit
a proposal to the University of Chicago Press
to turn his translation into a book, he first
reworked a portion of the text to see if he
could make it valuable to other readers.
Once the proposal was accepted. Lynch
had to rewrite the entire translation several
times. In the process, he discovered a practi
cal approach to translation that satisfactorily
answered for him the issues that arise in
discussions about translation in St. John’s
language tutorials: “You start off as literal
and as consistent as you can, then you puU the
translation back toward understandabihty,
readability and accuracy,” he says, “In the
next phase, you forget about the Italian and
ask what the passages mean in Enghsh and
how they sound. If it’s not in readable
English, you pull the Itahan out again and
start thinking about changes.”
Lynch notes that this is not the process for
most non-Johnnie or non-Strauss-influenced
translators. “They think about how it sounds
right away,” he explains. “But I think that
puts too much emphasis on the translator and
makes him think he is a sort of god mediating
between two languages with full omniscience
of what the author intended. I think it’s better
to approach it humbly, to cleave to the hteral
andonlybepushed toward readabi 1 i ty when
it’s clearly necessary.”
With the time and energy Lynch lavished
on Art of War, you’d think he’d be a fierce
Machiavellian, but that’s hardly the case.
“Machiavelli presents himself as the
ultimate antagonist to the basic understand
ings that I’m inclined to-ancient, philosoph
ic, and religious,” Lynch says. “However, I
think he’s also the most trenchant critic of
ancient thought, both philosophic and rehgious, and therefore I see him as the person
to understand if I’m going to understand the
truth about the big questions at stake in the
quarrel between ancients and moderns.”
-SUS3AN Borden
�{Alumni Profile}
31
Tias Little, EC98
Santa Fe Yogi Combines Wisdom with Practice
BY Andra Maguran
such as the Upanishads, the Yoga Sutra and
he word “yoga” once con
Bhagavad-Gita, along with studying San
jured images of health nuts
skrit or ancient Chinese in order to read
contorting their bodies in
works in their original language.
impossible, seemingly
Reared in Amherst, Mass., Little attend
painful positions. Now
ed Amherst College, where he earned a
women, men, even children
bachelor
are flocking in droves to yoga. An
estimat’s degree in English. Inspired by
mother,
who also taught yoga. Little
ed 15 million Americans say theyhis
have
a
began his studies in the Iyengar system in
regular practice; more than double that
the early 1980s, and continued his study in
number say they expect to try yoga in the
Mysore, India. Frequent trips to visit his
next year, according to a Harris poll. The
grandfather, a Presbyterian minister who
reasons for yoga’s newfound popularity are
served on the board of directors at
many: stress reduction, improved strength
Abiquiu’s Ghost Ranch, fed Little’s love for
and flexibility, and heightened concentra
New Mexico. He moved to Santa Fe in 1991
tion are among the many benefits linked to
to teach yoga, and in January aooo, he
this 5,ooo-year-old practice.
opened Yoga Source with his wife, Surya.
Inside Yoga Source, a small studio
Little began hearing about the Eastern
tucked into a Santa Fe shopping center,
Classics program at Santa Fe, established
studio founder Tias Little {EC98) walks
in 1994, from others in the Santa Fe yoga
among the students after his morning
community. Friend and fellow yoga teacher
class, preternaturally serene, his voice as
Nicolai Bachman (EC96) persuaded him
soft as a temple bell. Like yoga teachers
that the fledgling program was worth
everywhere. Little is benefiting from the
pursuing. “I was very enthusiastic [about
wave of yoga popularity-his studio sched
Eastern Classics] from the first day,” says
ules more than 40 classes every week,
Bachman, who now leads workshops across
many of them packed. The Santa Fe
the country in Sanskrit, Ayurveda (healing
New Mexican recently described Little
as “one of the emerging stars
of the yoga phenomenon.” He
leads classes for yoga teachers,
writes articles and serves as an
expert for a leading yoga
magazine, holds clinics all over
the country, and offers yoga
retreats in venues such as
Costa Rica.
But even if the craze wanes
and the numbers drop. Little
believes that people will con
tinue to seek out something
beyond yoga’s physical
benefits. His own devotion to
the practice, he says, was
informed and deepened by
intense study of the works in
the St. John’s Eastern Classics
program, a yearlong program
in which students read works
T
Tias Little’s yoga practice is
INFORMED BY HIS STUDY OF
Eastern classics.
{The College.
St. John’s College ■ Spring 2004 }
arts), and the Yoga Sutra. “I knew it would
be a great chance for Tias to deepen his
understanding of the Indian, as well as
Chinese and Japanese, traditions.”
Little began by auditing a seminar on the
Upanishads, after which he applied to the
program in full. After 15 years of practice.
Little hoped to find a solid foundation in
the original texts for his own philosophy
toward yoga, the Mahayana Buddhist
“middle way” teachings that are pertinent
to living in the world today. He had previ
ously read the Bhagavad-Gita and Yoga
Sutra on his own, but the formalism and
structure of a discussion-based graduate
program offered a key to deeper learning,
he says.
“The texts are complex and philosophi
cal,” Little says. “It would have required
an intense practice and austerity to have
read the works on my own and gained as
much insight and understanding of them.
The dialogue that the classroom setting
encourages is far superior to simply
reading alone.”
For Little, the Eastern Classics program
afforded a marriage oiprajna (wisdom)
andsadhana (practice).
Wisdom training comes
through study of scriptures
that are the historical backdrop of the practice. “Just as
scholarship feeds the practice
of yoga, so the practice feeds
the scholarship. To me, just
reading can become very eso
teric if one tries to cognitively
grasp the teachings one needs
to embody, or engage through
psycho-spiritual discipline.
The two modes of understand
ing are cooperative, but not
interchangeable. ”
Little encourages yoga
teachers-in-training to enroll
in Eastern Classics; already,
two Yoga Source instructors,
Wendelin Scott (EC03) and
Lynsey Rubin (ECoa), have
completed the graduate
program.
�{AlumniNotes}
3^
1935
and dance to a caUer. Will any of
the class of 1944 be at our 60th
anniversary?”
“I’m in my goth year,” writes
Melville L. Bisgyer. “My beloved
wife, Pauline, passed away a few
years ago. I now make my home
comfortably in a retirement home
named Signature Pointe. Many of
my children, including the normal,
the grand, and the great, live near
by. I shall never forget St. John’s.
I spent four very happy years there.
I wish good luck and much happi
ness to all my fellow Johnnies.”
1937
“Just a word from the Class of’37Bob Snibbe alive and well-will be
91 in April. Still playing golf and
still publishing small shirt-pocket
handbooks. One on ‘Our Flag,’ the
story of Old Glory... sold in large
quantities to big companies for
sales promotion purposes. I call
Harry Fahrig (Class of ’37) from
time to time. He is very sick and in
a nursing assisted living facility.
His wife, Frannie, was a former
model for Ponds-‘she’s lovely, she
uses Ponds’- ads in the ’30s and
’40s. They live in Jupiter, Fla. Also
call Alan Pike (’37 too). He’s also
in an assisted living facility with
his wife in Deland, Fla. And my
brother Dick, class of’39, lives in
Arlington, Mass. He’s also in an
assisted living facility recuperating
from a stroke. Have fond memories
of days in Crabtown. Football and
lacrosse. B.C. great books.”
1944
John Davis Hill writes that he and
his wife, Dorothy Murdock Hill,
spent the winter in Southern
California attending four Elder
hostel programs sponsored by the
University of Judaism at Camp
Ramah in Ojai and at their Bel Air
campus. “We like to sing folk songs
1947
Changes for Stephen Benedict:
“Three years ago, I pulled up
stakes in New York City after
40 years and moved 125 miles north
to the hamlet of Spencertown in
Columbia County. After prowling
the area, I bought an old farmhouse-type structure, whose earli
est segment dates to about 1750.
It’s said to be the second- or thirdoldest house in the area. The
transition from city life turned out
to be seamless. Time, of which
there’s never enough, is variously
allocated to work on family and
personal archives, the nearby cul
tural center, the local Democratic
Party, and play—the piano, tennis,
and cats. Then there’s always fixery
to be done on my ancient structure.
I do maintain one interest in NYC,
the Theatre Development Fund,
which I helped found 37 years ago.
Watch for the new half-price booth
in Times Square. Drop by if you’re
up this way: 518-392-0487;
stevebenedict@taconic.net.”
1949
Frederick P. Davis sends news
from California: “Since last report
ing from this always sunny and
warm southwest corner of the
‘lower 48,’ we ‘3-Ds’ (Fred, Rita,
and son David) are still holding
the line as ‘Mr. Outside’ and
‘Mrs. Inside’ (the house). David
recovers from infections of both
legs and feet resulting from badly
broken legs of late aooo. But
things are looking up. David, after
over a year at a Riverside City Con
valescent home, should soon come
home. He is now equipped with a
motorized wheelchair, enabling
him to be on his own to go out to
see docs.”
David B. Weinstein has retired
from the practice of medicine and
is living with his wife, Stella, in
Atlanta to be near his daughter and
her family. “Attending senior class
es at Mercer University and learn
ing to play the recorder to keep the
gray cells and fingers limber.”
do’s top was the thrill of a lifetime,
along with riding through a city
rainforest to get there. Anticipat
ing my trip to Alaska in July.”
i960
Peter J. Ruel sends in a book
1955
With a July production of
La Traviata, Harold Bauer will
conclude a 27-year tenure as music
director of New Philharmonic and
DuPage Opera in Chicago’s west
suburban region. His 42 years as a
conductor include the music
directorship of six orchestras in
the U.S. and numerous guest
concerts in this country, Canada,
and Europe. What’s next? More
reading, traveling, painting (oil
and watercolor), golf, composing,
and, of course, some guest con
ducting. He looks forward to the
50th reunion of his class in 2005.
1957
News from Joan Cole: “I am
continuing to enjoy my retirement.
With friends, I attend the Metro
politan Opera and work with the
New York Black Librarians Cau
cus, raising funds for scholarships.
Am also enjoying my vacations-in
September 2003,1 went to Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil. Viewing the Christ
the Redeemer statue on Corcova
recommendation: “Thomas Cahill
has written an insightful history of
the ancient Greeks, printed 11/03:
Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: Why
the Greeks Matter.”
1961
Harrison Sheppard has been a
regular columnist for San
Francisco Attorney Magazine.
the quarterly journal of the Bar
Association of San Francisco.
“The regular title of the column is
‘Law and Justice,’ with a subtitle
relating to the particular column
subject. For the most recent col
umn (Winter 2004), the subtitle is
‘Law and Privacy: The Right To Be
Let Alone.’”
1962
JusTiNA Davis Hayden sends in
good news: Justina and Luci, her
partner of ig years, were married
in San Francisco on February 19.
A magical day! They are living in
San Diego now, having sold their
Startup to Success
(class of 1956) is now
general manager of Word Web Vocabulary, a new
curriculum for grades 5-10. “From a startup last
year we are now in 55 school districts in 16 states
plus Barbados. Word Web is a paperworkbook
system based on root words, prefixes, and suffixes,
all of which are Greek and Latin in origin. Grant Wiggins
{A72) thinks it’s an excellent way to approach vocabulary.”
ASQUALE L. POLILLO
P
{The College -St John’s
College • Spring 2004 }
�{Alumni Notes}
33
Mark Bernstein (A) writes; “Linda
(Bernstein, nee Torcaso, A69) and
I are looking forward to our last
child graduating high school and
going off to college. I’m a judge in
Philadelphia court doing class
actions and about to finish a book
on Pennsylvania evidence. Linda is
also a judge of the Social Security
Administration.”
Courtesy of The Moon, Santa Fe students and hobbes
house in Berkeley. Luci is an artist
whose work from recycled materi
als may be seen at CorrugatedArt.
com. Justina designed and main
tains the web site. She is enrolled
in a certificate program in Finan
cial Planning and is having fun
with investing.
practicing law in Washington,
D.C., and is writing for the local
newspaper in her spare time.
“Am looking forward to the next
reunion of the Class of’65.”
“Niece Megan Drolet, daughter of
Melissa Kaplan (SF72) and Ray
Drolet (SF69) will be coming to
Annapolis this fall, continuing the
Kaplan/Drolet tradition,” writes
1963
Bart L. Kaplan.
Charles B. Watson (A) writes that
Madeline Rui Koster writes:
“I was very much looking forward
to attending the 2003 40th class
reunion, since as a Californian I
have not been back to Annapolis in
40 years. A sudden change in my
teaching assignment (high school)
from all algebra to algebra and
ceramics, in September, led me to
change my plans. I was a potter and
ceramic sculptor for 20 years
before becoming a full-time
teacher in the Bos. I look forward
to another Homecoming. As time
goes on, I value the St. John’s edu
cation more than ever, and greatly
enjoy reading The College.'"
Michael Trusty attended
Homecoming 2003 in Annapolis
and had a great time: “I’m
married, living in New Mexico, and
ride horses with my 12-year-olddaughter.”
1965
Grace Logerfo Bateman is
married, is the mother of four chil
dren (mostly out of college), is
Nyssa Episcopal Church, San Fran
cisco, the inaugural Distinguished
Alumni Award for “unique and
distinguished ministry in the
church and especially pioneering
contributions to liturgical
practice.” The church’s Web site,
www.saintgregorys.org, docu
ments this practice (and theory)
with extensive photos and articles.
Rev. Schell is a 1971 graduate of
General Seminary; his co-rector, a
1970 graduate.
1968
“Finally finished my B.A. in 1999only 30 years late-at Thomas
Edison State College,” writes
Megan Beaumont (A, formerly
Anne Beaumont Reid). “Received
an M.A. in Spiritual Psychology
2001. Nowadays I am an ordained
non-denominational clergy person
and spend my time leading person
al growth workshops, teaching
manifestation and self-forgiveness,
and officiating at marriages,
memorial services, and most
recently at an un-handfasting-a
spiritual ceremony to honor and
complete the severing of ties after
a civil divorce. My husband has
retired, and we are enjoying the
blessings of good health and happy
travel.”
“I’m somehow still in Britian!”
writes Deborah Rodman
Lawther (SF).
The General Theological Seminary
Alumni Association awarded
Donald Schell (SF) and Richard
Fabian, co-rectors of St. Gregory of
{The College.
he was sorry to miss the 35th
reunion of the Class of 1968 last
year, but he enjoyed e-mail and
pictures. “Spring has finally come
and our family looks forward to
visiting our Martha’s Vineyard
home again. Happy to say that we
are all well and enjoying diverse
pursuits. Would come to SJC more
often but we are far away...”
News from Bob Wycoff (A) and
Maya Hasegawa (A), first from
Bob: “Bob’s computer system
support job is going to India and
Bob has enrolled in Berklee College
of Music as a full-time undergradu
ate to pursue a B.A. in music,
starting in September. Four
grandchildren and still counting;
number five is due in August.
See you in October! ” And from
Maya: “Maya is now working as
compliance manager for the City of
Boston’s Department of Neighbor
hood Development. DND builds
affordable housing, finances
rehabs, and helps small businesses.
The satisfaction comes from seeing
formerly vacant lots with houses on
them. Spare time is spent practic
ing tai chi and researching a
Methodist deaconess named
Hattie B. Cooper.”
1970
Isaac Block (SFGI) writes:
1969
High praise for tutor Steve Van
Luchene’s second Tecolote
colloquium for K-12 teachers from
Elizabeth Aiello (SFGI), who
found it “even more gratifying and
professionally stimulating than the
first one. It inspired me to expand
my Great Books class by offering
two more sections. Each section
has 12 students, all enthusiastically
participating in meaningful
dialogue related to meaningful
text. I have been honored as a ‘Los
Alamos Living Treasure’ in recog
nition of my 14 continuous years as
‘the Great Books Instructor.’”
St. John’s College ■ Spring 2004 }
“My wife, Mamerza Delos Reyes
Block, has published her book.
The Price ofFreedom: The Story of
a Courageous Manila JournaHst."
Last fall, Theda Braddock Fowler
(A) published her second book.
Wetland Regulation: Case Law,
Interpretation, and Commentary.
After an illustrious career with the
Postal Service and World Bank
(over 30 years and 83 foreign coun
tries), Juan Ianni (A) has decided
that it’s time to hang up his spurs.
classnotes continued on page 36
�{Alumni Profile}
34
Rich and Famous
Ben Bloom, Aq7, Finds Fame, Fortune—and Something Even More Important.
vi Sus3Aw Borden, A87
embers of the
Annapolis class of
1997 may not be
surprised to learn
that classmate
Ben Bloom (A97)
has achieved a degree of celebrity. He was
certainly well known as a student, and his
jump-head-hrst approach to life revealed a
boom-or-bust attitude that leads those who
meet him to believe that he is not destined
for an ordinary life.
Indeed, he is not. Today, seven years
after graduation, he has won a measure of
fame in three categories: Scrabble, poetry,
and table tennis.
Bloom was already a skilled Scrabble
player when he arrived at St. John’s, but
since graduating, he has played in tourna
ments in Italy, Israel (his home for much of
his life), Turkey, Norway, Reno, San Diego,
Tennessee, and Florida. Although his cur
rent rating is 1428, at the height of his play
in March 2003, he was rated 1649 (a rating
over 1600 is considered expert).
Bloom learned of his Scrabble-world
celebrity in 2003 when he was flying to
Reno for the National Scrabble Champi
onships. “I had to fly via O’Hare airport in
Chicago. There were several players there,
wearing their typical Scrabble t-shirts,” he
recalls. “In the airport lounge, I saw a bald
guy in his early 4os-black pants, white
t-shirt, and two red braces with which he
was continually fiddling. I recognized him
as Joel Sherman, the 2002 National Cham
pion and one of the top three players in the
world. I got up the courage to ask him if I
was correct in identifying him. He said,
‘Yes, and you are Ben Bloom.’”
Stefan Fatsis, a Wall Street Journal
reporter and author of Word Freak, a New
York Times bestseller about Scrabble, also
knew who Bloom was before the two were
paired in an expert match in the 2002
he read from his thesis at Books & Books, a
finals in San Diego. Bloom beat him and
prominent Miami bookstore.
walked away from the match with a signed
As for table tennis. Bloom has been prac
copy of his book.
In the world of poetry. Bloom is complet ticing for years. He was an aggressive play
er at St. John’s and shared the Annapolis
ing his final semester at the University of
campus titles in men’s doubles and mixed
Miami, where he received his master’s
doubles in 1996. When he lived in Israel,
degree in poetry in May. His 15 minutes of
he played in the National League for the
poetry fame took place on March 31, when
M
{The College -St. John’s
College ■ Spring 2004 }
For the poet in Ben Bloom, words have
GREAT MEANING. FoR THE SCRABBLE PLAYER,
they’re just part of the game.
�{Alumni profile}
suggestion: “During my late teens I was
disabled (he has cerebral palsy). After
graduation, he took his game on the road,
still in denial with regards to my CP. I
wanted to fit in with other students and
coming in third at the European Disabled
was ashamed of being different. This feel
Championships in Budapest in 1998 and
winning the silver medal at the World
ing turned into anger and resentment. I
Games for CP athletes in 2001.
wanted nothing to do with other people
Thus accounts for the fame. The fortune
with CP as I felt this would be letting go of
my aspirations, a stupid concept which I
is a different matter. It stems from the con
look back on and thank God I have come so
ditions of Bloom’s birth, which are both
far in the last decade.”
tragic and miraculous. The short version is
Bloom has indeed come far. He is calm
this: Ben was born brain dead. The attend
ing nurses thought he
and relaxed, accepting
was stillborn. His par
and tolerant. He has
grown into a man with a
ents asked the hospital
strong, healthy sense of
staff to do all they
himself. It would be
could so they put him
in an incubator. After
impossible to recount
all that went into that
72 hours, he came to
growth, but Bloom cites
life. The staff said that
a particularly transfor
if he survived a week it
mative experience he
would be a miracle.
had during the World
The price of that
Games for CP athletes.
miracle is cerebral
“While there I felt
palsy, the condition
like never before,” he
that Bloom has lived
says. “I made friends
with-and struggled
with other CP athletes
against-his entire life.
from Russia and France.
In 1999, after a nineI speak French well, so
year legal battle.
-Ben Bloom
it was easy to break the
Bloom settled out of
ice with them. Many
court with the hospi
athletes had more
tal. A profile of Bloom
severe CP than me, and were very hard to
by Sam Orbaum, Web-published in 2000,
understand. We communicated through
sums up his situation: “He is now, in the
other means; the bond that we shared, of
most grotesquely literal sense, a self-made
being equal, made for a wonderful feeling.
millionaire.”
At the end of the Games, we had a party
Bloom’s cerebral palsy makes him hard
to understand, contorts his face, and gives
with Karaoke. All of us moved the same
him a peculiar, dragging walk. But it’s not
way. All of us had the same unclear voice.
just his speech, gait, and appearance that
There was an intense feeling of cama
raderie and equality.”
CP has disfigured. His condition has also
Bloom is now finishing his thesis-a col
affected his sense of self.
lection of 50 poems that reveal much about
Bloom has a history of buoying up his
him and the way his world is shaped by
challenged sense of self with humor. The
cerebral palsy. His poem, “Jane Fonda’s
Orbaum article quoted some of his witti
(pain in the) Neck Workout” describes the
cisms: “Hey, you know what happens when
mechanics of dealing with a stranger’s
I have a few beers?” Bloom asks. “I talk
insults. “Special Olympics” describes a
clear and walk straight.” He describes giv
night out for eight people with CP. In the
ing his own brand of speech therapy to a
crowd: “I make them repeat the alphabet
poem, the group tries to order drinks:
“Two Heinekens, two Carlsbergs, two
after me, with all 26 letters sounding
Guinness and two Everclears./Five min
exactly the same.”
utes trying to communicate, then we settle
Humor, of course, does not heal all
for eight domestic beers.”
wounds, and Bloom has not always known
In “The Extremities Of A Line Are
how to salve them. When he first arrived at
Points,” Bloom describes the obstacles,
St. John’s, several people unwittingly
both interior and exterior, of everyday
found themselves on his bad side by sug
events. The poem reveals Bloom’s writing
gesting he get to know Santa Fe tutor
for all it is: story, insight, therapy, balm,
Robert Sacks, who also has CP. An older
and wiser Bloom recalls why he hated that
''All ofus moved the
same way. All ofus
had the same
unclear voice.
There was an
intensefeeling of
camaraderie and
equality.
{The College -St John’s
College • Spring 2004 }
35
The Extremities Oe
A Line Are Points
-Euclid, Elements., Book i. Definition
3
Standing in line
Motionless
Passing glances from strangers
Maybe three-quarters of a second
longer than normal
Nothing to get upset about.
“Next!”
Four steps to reach the desk
One-two-three-four
People have other things on their
minds
They’re here for a reason
They’re all adults
They’re not going to stare.
“Next!”
They want to rush me
No, it’s not me
Don’t be oversensitive
Do other people have these inner
dialogs?
Am I Socrates or his interlocutor?
“Hi. I'm here to... ”
Said too much
She’s been working all day
No patience for me
No patience for my voice
Fuck it
Can’t stop now.
“For my appointment. ”
Confusion. Disappointment. Disgust.
Pity.
The myriad of facial expressions tell a
familiar story
The patented neck strain won’t be too
far away
Yup, here it comes
In answer to your next question, “I’m
here alone.”
“Is anyone responsiblefor
this... guy?”
Should I look around?
Should I glare at the people behind
me?
No point. One day they’ll read about it.
In a poem.
They can wait.
“Next!”
�{AlumniNotes}
36
et al.), ‘What constitutes scientific
proof?’ Very fun.”
1971
In April, pediatrician Linda
Belgrade Friehling (SF71)
embarked on a trek to Everest Base
Camp to raise funds for Himalayan
Health Care, serving the people of
rural Nepal. In a fund-raising letter
she sent along, she described the
trek and its mission: “We will cover
lao miles on foot and attain an
elevation of 18,500 feet. The funds
raised will support the completion
of a project sponsored by
Himalayan Health Care. Himalayan
Health Care is a small non-govern
mental organization founded
approximately a decade ago by a
Nepalese and an American to
promote better health and life in
remote rural areas of Nepal. With a
dedicated group of volunteers,
including physicians, dentists,
nurses, and other professionals,
this small organization has facilitat
ed impressive improvements in pre
natal care, infant mortality, dental
hygiene, and overall health for over
40,000 people. Learn more by
visiting the Web site: (Himalayanhealthcare.org)...One of the things
that has impressed me most about
Himalayan Health Care, is the
forward-looking approach that
emphasizes educating the Nepalese
team to carry out on a day-to-day
basis vastly improved health prac
tices. In a country that currently
has one doctor to 32,000 people,
I feel this is the only way to make a
substantive difference.” For more
information, e-mail her at:
tlofftrax@aol.com.
From Colorado, Michael
ViCTOROFF (A) writes: “After
nearly five years as medical
director for Aetna, I left to work
as an investigator for the Depart
ment of Toxicology at the Universi
ty of Colorado Medical School.
Officially, I’m a private detective.
Our group has M.D.s and Ph.D.
toxicologists. We investigate
medical claims of inquiry from
environmental chemicals. Sort of
like Erin Brockovich-only we use
science. Much of the most difficult
work is philosophical (Karl Popper
1972
Wesley Sasaki-Uemura (A) writes,
“On December i, 2003, we
finalized the adoption of Melina
Mei (Xin Yi) Sasaki-Uemura. She
was born October of 2002 in
Jiangxi province, China. She has
‘smiling eyes.’”
IleneLee (A) reports: “McKee
(A72) and Ilene’s daughter, Mollie,
now 25, is completing her first year
at Yale Law School after a summer
South American tour that ended
with sailing from Galapagos to
Tahiti on a 37-foot catamaran. Ilene
has a busy play therapy practice in
the San Francisco area, specializing
in autism and consulting with
schools.”
1973
Jose F. Grave de Peralta (A) is
taking a group of art and architec
ture students from the University of
Miami to Florence, Italy, for six
weeks to learn fresco painting and
restoration. Side trips include
Assisi, Rome, and Pompeii to view
fresco sites in those places as well.
1976
Jonathan Mark (A) was a recent
William Malloy (SF) writes that
he took early retirement in Decem
ber 2003 for health reasons. “Now
I have the opportunity to work four
mornings a week holding prema
ture babies and to concentrate on
improving my health. Additionally,
I am a volunteer reporter for KPFT
(Keep People Free, Thinking), the
local Pacifica station in Houston.
Not only can I put up a couple of
alumni who may be passing
through Houston, I am also accept
ing invitations to visit alumni.
Particular consideration will he
given to those invitations that are
accompanied by a prepaid airhne
ticket. Kidding? No, really, I mean
it!”
David Pex (SF) is “working hard as
contributor to Popular Science
magazine and built an off-road
course for Toyota in San Antonio.
From Steven and Melissa Sedlis
(both A): “Our daughter Elizabeth
is a first-year medical student at
Columbia College of Physicians
and Surgeons. Our daughter
Jennifer will graduate in May from
Scripps College, Claremont, Calif.”
1974
From California, Gerard (A) and
Daphne Kapolka write: “Daphne
(nee Greene, A76) retired from the
Navy in July. She is now a senior
lecturer in physics at the Naval
Postgraduate School in Monterey.
Gerry continues to teach English at
Santa Catalina School in Monterey.
Basia Kapolka (Aoi) is studying
acting in New York City.”
John Rees (A) is working hard as a
tele-neuroradiologist: “I live for my
work and my family. I greatly enjoy
participating in a small seminar
group of old SJC friends!”
{The College.
1975
is not yet completely comfortable
with the “Transgender Club” and
similar organizations constituting
student life today-but he’s trying.
He is feehng very old these days.
A career change for Idell KesselMAN (AGI): “After more than 20
years of teaching college composi
tion, literature, and other related
courses, followed by two years as a
vocational rehabilitation counselor,
I am working as a psychotherapist
at a nonprofit agency in Phoenix
operating under a managed care
system. In July I begin a one-year
residency in Dialectical Behavior
Therapy, a cognitive approach to
helping individuals with Borderline
Personality Disorder. My daughter
Bisa, nearly 25, is completing her
master’s in education this June,
with several years of elementary
teaching already completed. We
live in our separate apartments in
Phoenix, with our own cats and
habits. It helps us to keep our
friendship strong. I’d enjoy hearing
from old friends and tutors:
ideleyz@earthlink.net.”
1977
Brad Davidson (A) still lives in
Annapolis with his wife, Lynne, and
children Teddy and Lucy. He’s been
taking Teddy on college visits and
St. John’s College ■ Spring 2004 }
the finance director at Ecos Con
sulting, which implements energy
efficiency programs for electric and
gas utility companies. Write me at
dpcx@qwest.net.”
Carla S. Schick (A) won an
honorable mention in the Barbara
Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award.
The poem, “The End of the
Words,” can be found at www.
wagingpeace.org.
Marlene Strong (A) has news:
“After a year of being a lady of
leisure, which I spent fixing up my
new house and garden in Boise, I’m
starting work at a therapy center,
so I’ll finally get to use my hardearned MET (Marriage and Family
Therapist) license. Life in Idaho is
calmer; Boise is small enough that
you know your neighbors, but large
enough to have plenty of culture,
and the mountains are beautiful.
Any classmates are invited to stop
by if you’re in the neighborhood-if
not, see you for our 30th reunion.”
�{Alumni Notes}
1978
Robert McMahan (SFGI) reports
that he is now full professor at The
College of New Jersey and has given
many recent concerts both as per
former and composer. His wife,
Anne, continues to teach at the
Pennington School, working with
West African drumming. Renais
sance recorder, and Native
American music.
An invitation from Lawrence
Ostrovsky (A); “I see a lot of gray
haired people in the summer who
come up here to visit Alaska. So
I’m sure there must be someone
from the class of ’78. If you find
yourself up this way, please give me
a ring.”
1980
Leanne J. Pembvrn (A) writes:
“After five years of planning and
hard work, Mark and I have com
pleted phase I of home building in
our woods. Next phase will be straw
bale-all help is very welcome for
the bale raising. Contact me via
e-mail: leanne@pemburn.com.”
Tom G. Palmer (A) sends a quick
update: “I was in Iraq in February
under the auspices of the Ministry
of Education and the American
Federation of Teachers for a
conference for educators on civic
education and have been working
to get a lot of important books
translated into Arabic and pub
lished. In addition. I’m helping
Iraqi libertarian friends to set up a
think tank there, for the purposes
of educating people in the princi
ples of classical liberalism and
producing policy studies for the
new Iraqi government on how to
reform the judiciary to secure the
rule of law and the protection of
the rights to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness, how to priva
tize state-owned industries, and so
forth. I’m leaving this Wednesday
for the European meeting of the
Mont Pelerin Society in Hamburg
(Free Trade from the Hanseatic
League to the EU) and from there
to Moscow to give a paper, ‘The
Role of Law and Institutions in
Economic Development’ at a
conference, ‘A Liberal Agenda for
the New Century: A Global
Perspective.’ I hope to be back in
Iraq in May and July to set up a
series of seminars for students,
some of which will involve SJC-like
seminars and discussions, as well as
lectures.
I’ve recently published a few
items, including a monograph,
‘Globalization and Culture:
Homogeneity, Diversity, Identity,
Liberty’ (published by the Liberales
Institut in Berlin for worldwide
distribution through the many
offices of the Friedrich-Naumann
Stiftung) and a paper, ‘Globaliza
tion, Cosmopolitanism, and
Personal Identity in the Italian
journal Etica e Politica. ’ I’ve got
a few other items in the works,
as well.
All in all. I’m keeping busy and
off the streets.”
37
Susan Read (SFGI) writes that her
1986
“Greetings, SJC,” writes Clayton
DeKorne (A). “I live now half time
in Burlington, Vermont, with my
daughters, Cecilia (16) and Helen
(14), and halftime in Brooklyn,
N.Y., with my new wife, Robin
Michals. I work as a full-time free
lance writer with regular assign
ments at The New York Times
Learning Network and a steady
stream of multi-media production
work from a handful of education
media companies. I would love to
hear from old friends and any John
nies interested in the brave new
world of online learning:
cdekorne@verizon.net. ”
son, Harry, is a thriving 8-year-old.
“We have just bought the house of
our dreams. I continue to enjoy
teaching English at Wooster
School.”
1988
Juliet Burch (A) writes from
Boston: “David (Vermette, A85)
and I are still happily impoverished
in Boston. I am apprenticing to be a
film projectionist and he is
researching Franco-American and
Quebec history alongside an edito
rial job. We continue to use our
St. John’s education for good
instead of evil, vigilantly keeping
cocktail party conversations away
from portfolio talk and on track
with suitable topics like ‘what is
color, anyway?’”
About the Tattoos
1982
Geoffrey Henebry (SF) writes:
“Ana and I and our brood of seven
(Patrick, Claudia, Gus, Thomas,
Isabel, Maria, and Tessie) continue
to enjoy the Good Life here in
Lincoln, Neb. My research over the
past five years has been diverse:
from modeling the ranges of native
vertebrate species in Nebraska to
analyzing the consequences of the
collapse of the Soviet Union on the
annual cycle of greenness in
Kazakhstan.”
1983
Theodore Zenzinger (A) just had a
daughter: Sophia Anne Zenzinger,
born in April.
{The College-
to have passed in a flash. Sophia is a fearless, joyful, lively
child, and she infinitely enriches our lives. She doesn’t have
any tattoos yet, but I was able to locate some black clothing in
her size. Our families and friends helped us adjust to parent
hood, but we are especially grateful to my classmate Ken Hom
(A80). Ken has logged thousands of hours in Babylon with us.
If Sophia develops a taste for good music and a knack for pool,
she will owe it all to him. I continue to practice the Japanese
martial art of aikido, in which I currently hold the rank of 4thdegree black belt. Since 1999,1 have been the chief instructor
at Aikido of Northern Virginia. I have about 75 students, any
30 of whom may show up for a given class. You may visit the
dojo’s website at http://www.aikido-nova.org. I’m still a
bureaucrat in the Department of Housing and Urban Develop
ment. For the past two years. I’ve been working as a housing
program policy specialist in the Office of Lender Activities and
Program Compliance. We spank mortgage lenders when
they’ve been bad. People may reach me at
Jim_Sorrentino@hud.gov.”
St. John’s College ■ Spring 2004 }
�38
{Alumni Profile}
Looking for the “Monster”
Owen Kelley, Agg, Finds a Clue to Why Hurricanes Intensify
BY
Rosemary Harty
Before investigating hurri
omputer models can often
canes, Kelley had entered a
make accurate predictions
doctoral program in compu
of where a hurricane will
tational science immediately
wander. But no one has yet
found an accurate method to after graduating from
predict how intense a hurri
St. John’s. He ended up
cashing
out his credits for a
cane’s damaging winds win hecome.
Grapmaster(A93)
’s degree in physics
pling with this question, Owen Kelley
because he worried that he
asks, “Why does one hurricane become a
“wasn’t smart enough to be a
monster and another one doesn’t?”
As a scientist with George Mason Univer
Ph.D. scientist.” After honing
sity, Kelley is part of a team that works at
his skills at NASA for six years
NASA’s Goddard Space Fhght Center to
and feeling a growing desire to
study satellite data gathered by the Tropical
“ask the big questions,” he
Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). The
decided last year to continue
TRMM satelhte is a joint effort between
where he left off with his
NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration
doctoral studies.
Agency, and its data are being analyzed by
When Kelley began his
scientists around the world. For most of the
hurricane research last year,
past six years, Kelley created graphics and
he did not immediately think
software for other researchers. Through this
to look for hot towers. “Erich Stocker, my
work, Kelley met Joanne Simpson and
project manager at NASA, came in my
learned of her pioneering hurricane
office one day and saw me poring over my
research. Back in the 1950s, Simpson
hurricanes pictures, getting nowhere. He
proposed that short-hved “hot towers”
told me to pick one thing to study, and that
sustain a tropical cyclone, allowing it to
made all the difference. I had in the back of
travel a thousand miles in a week. But with
my mind how Joanne Simpson would talk
out computers or satellites, Simpson’s hot
passionately about hot towers, so I looked
tower hypothesis was difficult to prove.
up one of her articles and then taught my
Hot towers are rain clouds that reach at
computer how to find towers. It turns out
least to the top of the troposphere, which is
that the only instrument in space that can
nine miles above the earth and four miles
clearly see hot towers is the radar that’s
higher than the rest of a hurricane. The tow
onboard the TRMM satellite. This radar
ers are called “hot” because heat released by gives us ‘x-ray’ vision. It doesn’t look at just
water condensing allows these towers to rise
the upper surface of a hurricane-it sees into
higher.
the heart of the storm.”
Once Kelley began pondering the myster
ies of hot towers, his training at St. John’sparticularly his fondness for a question that
begins with “what is?”-began to pay off.
“Freshman year, I was horrified when we
started Euchd and my class argued for an
hour about the definition of a point. By the
time I graduated, I appreciated the power of
simple questions. Instead of becoming lost
in the data, I repeatedly asked the simple
question, ‘What is a hot tower?’ Every paper
I found seemed to use a slightly different
definition of hot tower. Eventually, I settled
on a precise definition and my persistence
C
Kelley’s computer models show hot towers
RISING FROM HURRICANES.
{The Colleges;, John’s
College ■ Spring 2004 }
As A SCIENTIST,
Owen Kelley appreciates
THE POWER OF SIMPLE QUESTIONS.
led me to patterns that other scientists failed
to notice in this same dataset.
“It took my breath away when I first
examined my statistical summary and I saw
that hot towers appear often in the intensify
ing hurricanes, but rarely in the ones that
are not intensifying,” says Kelley. A good
example of an intensifying hurricane with a
hot tower is Hurricane Bonnie in August
1998, as the storm intensified a few days
before striking North Carohna.
Kelley cautions, “We still can’t predict
which hurricanes will become monsters,
but perhaps we are now one step closer to
an answer.” Kelley’s results suggest that
seeing a hot tower near the hurricane’s eye
is a clue that the hurricane is twice as likely
to intensify than it would be otherwise.
In January, Kelley flew to Seattle to
present his findings at the annual meeting
of the American Meteorological Society.
He was not prepared for the media atten
tion that resulted when NASA issued a press
release about his findings on the day that he
presented them. While answering journal
ists’ questions, he had to learn how to
describe his research in a few words. In the
end, more than 80 Web sites, newspapers,
continued on nextpage
�{Alumni Notes}
Shannon May Lavery (A) and her
husband, JOHN (A87), celebrated
the eight-month birthday of daugh
ter Aurora (A2025) in Healdsburg,
Calif., where they recently relocat
ed with their first-born dog, (Vizla)
Lucius. All are well and peaceful.
“Fellow Oenophiles and Tahoebound schussers and ski rats pass
ing through should get in touch.
We are local and down to the
ground. Hookenzababy!”
Kim Paffenroth (A) has published
another book. In Praise of Wisdom:
Literary and Theological Reflec
tions on Faith and Reason (New
York and London: Continuum
International Publishing, 2004). In
it he traces the Biblical image of
wisdom as it unfolds in Dostoevsky,
Shakespeare, Augustine, Goethe,
Pascal, and Melville.
1990
Rebecca Ashe (SF) writes:
“I’m turning 40 this year and going
back to the UK for my high school
class reunion in June. Still happily
married to Steve Simmer with three
gorgeous and interesting daughters
(10, 8, and 4-all avid readers).
My beloved Faraday died at age 13.
Lee Whiting (SF89) and I got him
in Santa Fe. I still run daily and am
training for a half-marathon in May.
Also starting a private practice in
West Springfield. Would love to
hear from classmates again:
Rebecca.ashe@the-spa.com.”
“Greetings to all. I hope you are
well. Zip bang,” writes William
Culley (SF).
James Clinton Pittman (SF) writes
1989
After a year in Thailand, Elizabeth
Powers (A) and her husband
returned to Brooklyn in late 2002.
They gave birth to a daughter,
Madehne Josephine Wagner, in
October of 2003.
that younger son Sam just turned
two. “Hope everyone is well. I
need to write a book-anyone know
how to get political commentary
published when you hate Democ
rats and Republicans alike?”
1991
Brad Stuart (A) and Sara Larson
(Ago) are delighted to announce the
birth of their second daughter,
Phoebe. Brad is a software engineer
for General Dynamics in
Westminster, Md.
RonalieMoss (SFGI, EC95) is still
a teacher at Los Alamos High
School, but she looks forward to
retiring soon. “I have had a reward
ing career, but now I am looking
forward to reading great books
again instead of student papers.”
News from Megan Smith (A):
My husband, David Dougherty
(AGI98), and I welcomed our baby
television stations, and radio stations picked
up the story. His hurricane results appeared
in the media from Texas to Canada, Switzer
land, Colombia, Australia, and Japan.
A European Web site has even posted an
Italian translation of the story.
Perhaps the most gratifying attention
came from Simpson, who sent Kelley an
girl. Harper Claret, into our world
on September 2, 2003. She is a
bright and smiling baby with a full
head of spiky hair, just like her
mother’s. We are still living in
Annapolis, and I am working part
time as an optician and trying to
start a career in freelance ad design
for small businesses. David is a Java
programmer with Anne Arundel
County government. We’d love to
hear from any of our old friends.
My e-mail is peanutmom®
comcast.net and David’s is
dsmithdi@comcast.net.”
1992
From London, Victoria Burgess
(SF) writes: “I wish to thank every
one for their kind wishes following
the death of my father. They mean a
great deal to me. I would love to see
any Johnnies passing through the
London area.”
“After almost eightyears at the
Consortium for Oceanographic
Research and Education (CORE),
I will start a new job in April with
the Office of Education and
Sustainable Development at NOAA’s
headquarters in DC,” writes Sarah
ScHOEDiNGER (A). “While this job
won’t shorten my commute from
Annapolis, I am looking forward to
the new professional opportunities
it presents.”
Michael Zinanti (SF) tells us:
“I am an antenna design engineer
for Centurion Wireless Technologies
and have contributed to three anten
na patents with one more pending.
Susan (formerly Switich, SF93) and
I are raising and home-schooling one
e-mail that pointed out weaknesses in his
research, but closed with the statement:
“An old person feels that his/her life has not
been in vain when we see young people
grabbing the ball and running with it.”
This year, Kelley plans to revise the
material he presented at the conference
and submit it to a scholarly journal. Once
(The College.
39
daughter, Anna. We would love to
hear from any Johnnies passing
through the Denver area.”
1993
“Hello, all!”AMYFlack (A) writes.
“Things in South Dakota are going
well. Ministry is an adventure,
harrowing, wonderful, blissful,
wacky, and so many other adjectives
both good and bad.” E-mail:
thiers55@yahoo.com .
1994
Natalie Arnold and William Blais
(both SF) were married in July 2001
and celebrated with a 30-day cross
country train trip. Currently, they
“five in Pittsburgh and are the proud
owners of a happy house in need of a
little TLC. We are happy to provide
bed and breakfast, good conversa
tion, and a warm welcome to any
Johnnie traveling through Pitts
burgh. We are best reached through
e-mail at bill.blais@pobox.eom.”
Larissa Engelman (A) is currently
living in New York after moving
from Washington, D.C., in 2002.
“Working as marketing manager of
the New York office of Covington &
Burhng. As a side project, am look
ing to raise money for an independ
ent film project and would love to be
connected to others who have expe
rience or contacts in that world. My
hellos to the class. Hope to see you
at our lo-year reunion.”
he finishes his doctoral studies, Kelley is
not sure what the future holds. “The
ultimate goal is supposed to be teaching at
a research university and doing ground
breaking research between classes. I just
want to look at data and see things other
people haven’t seen before. I’m not sure
how to make that happen.” -*■
St. John’s College ■ Spring 2004 }
�{Alumni Notes}
40
1995
Joel Ard (A) and his wife Hannah
(A92), announce the birth of their
son, David Frederick Ard, on
September 4, 2003. David made his
first appearance at St. John’s at
Homecoming a week after his birth.
“Remember kids,” writes Chris
Davis (SF), “funk is its own
reward.”
Benjamin “Alex” Ruschell (SF)
has a new baby. George Alexis
Ruschell (8 lbs., 20 in.) was born in
Schweinfurt, Germany, in
December 2003.
Jessica VanDriesen (A) is about to
complete a master’s in education as
part of the New York City Teaching
Fellows. “I have been teaching
math at Wadleigh Secondary School
since 2002. It is a far cry from
explorations of the conic sections or
Minkowskian space-time, but there
are moments. I plan to travel abroad
next year, teaching in an interna
tional school or possibly switching
to ESL. Anyone with suggestions,
please contact me via e-mail:
jvandriesen@hotmail.com.”
Tracy Whitcomb (A) is still in
Vermont and now back in school for
a second bachelor’s degree: in nurs
ing. “I hope everyone else is well! ”
An invitation to adventure from
KiraK. Zielinski (SF). “Anyone
in or passing through Las Vegas,
Nev., I’m now flying the Dam
Helicopter Tours out of a Bell 206
at the Hoover Dam-the tours are
quick, but a ton of fun, so drop by
and fly with me! I just bought a
house and I’ll be here for a year.
Because it’s Vegas, I think I need
to consider modifying my uniform
to sparkly midriff-baring nomex
with rhinestones! My callsign is
Dam Helicopter...too cool...
I’m obviously having a blast with
my new life. Also need to design
more bookshelves to go in the
helicopter...”
business journalism, I moved on to
Moscow. As of March, I have been
here for two years and I’m now writ
ing for a Dutch AIDS charity. I got
aggie Roberts Arnold (A95) writes:
married last summer to Elena
“Late as usual, I am announcing the
Rudykh, a Siberian intellectual
arrival of our son Augustus Bullock
beauty queen. We see ourselves
Roberts (Gus), born on September 16,
moving back to the homeland
2002. Parenthood is a blast! Thanks to Gus
eventually, but in the meantime,
we are frequent visitors to the San Antonio
I hope to see the day when one of
Zoo. (I am expecting the bears to wave to us out of
therecognition
many Marx readings on the
any day now.) We are also frequent visitors to theProgram
McNay isArt
replaced by Bulgakov’s
Museum. As parents we love this enthusiastic rediscovery of
‘Heart of a Dog’ for a modest
the basics: the naming of and conversational focus on ani
injection of reality.”
Rediscovering the Basics
M
mals, shapes, colors, vehicles, body parts, foods, nature (you
name it). I think fondly and frequently of the time I spent on
each campus and wish my contemporaries great happiness
and fulfillment! (And the courage to send in a note!)”
1996
1997
Maya Brennan (SF), formerly
J. Maya Johnson, is in New Jersey:
“I’ve recently moved from Baltimore
to central New Jersey where my
husband. Grandpa of evihobots
.com, found a paying job after his
election-induced unemployment.
I’m working at Princeton University,
compiling and coding data for the
Cultural Policy and the Arts National
Data Archive (CPANDA). Anyone
interested in the cultural pohcy field
will want to check out our free online
data archive atwww.cpanda.org. I’d
love to hear from former classmates,
especially anyone passing through
the central New Jersey to New York
City area. My e-mail address is
mahimsab@yahoo.com. Snail-mail:
501 Raritan Ave., D6,
Highland Park, NJ 08904
Erin N.H. Furby (A) is working as a
massage therapist in Anchorage.
“My husband and I are enjoying our
attempts at balancing middle-class
American fife with the fife of the
mind, and we still love Alaska, even
if it snows five days before April.”
{The College.
Michael Chiantella (A) married
Karen Burgess in Buffalo, N.Y., on
August 2, 2003. “Taffeta Elliott
(SF) gave a reading at the wedding.
Currently almost completed an
LL.M, in Trust and Estate law at
the University of Miami.”
1998
In September 2003, Julie Bayon
(AGI) graduated from Claremont
Graduate University with a Ph.D. in
education. The title of her disserta
tion is “The Neo-Classical Ideal:
Liberal Arts Education for the
Twenty-First Century.” She is
currently assistant professor of
English and chair of General
Education at Washington Bible
College in Lanham, Md.
Jacqueline Camm (A) announces
Shannon Stirman (SF) writes:
“We’re moving from Philadelphia,
where I’ve been studying at Penn,
to San Francisco, where Kelly will
begin working for a new software
company. Henry turned 2 in August
and we’re trying to keep up with
him. I’m finishing up my disserta
tion in psychology and will plan to
start an internship in the fall.
As soon as we figure out exactly
where we’ll be hving, visitors wifi
be welcome!”
“I think the last time I appeared
here, just after graduation, I was
rather optimistic about saving the
world through economics,” writes
David Veazey (A). “Well, since then,
I got my M.A. at Fordham but
stopped just before I had to start on
my dissertation. Over the years I had
become disenchanted with the
inherent inabihty of economics to
solve any meaningful problems.
Then later, after becoming an expert
in maximizing my unemployment
checks and dabbhng in health and
St. John’s College . Spring 2004 }
her marriage to Robert Travis
(a 1998 graduate of Columbia
University) on February 8, 2003, in
the Cathedral Church of St. Luke,
Orlando, Fla. The Rt. Rev. John
Howe, bishop of the Episcopal
Diocese of Central Florida,
presided. Amy (Norman) Morgan
(A96) and her husband Bill provided
music for the ceremony. Writes
Jacquehne: “We moved to
Tennessee in August for Rob to
attend seminary. We also purchased
our first home with the help of
Milk Klim (A02) of Columbia
National Mortgage. If anyone
would like to reach us, or is passing
through Tennessee, please send us
an e-mail: jacquelinecamm@
hotmail.com.”
Method-acting studies for Stephen
Conn (SF) finally hit Hollywood
gold! Look for him this summer in
Troy, he plays the third spear from
the left in that big battle scene
towards the middle. “Brad was a
dream to work with,” Steve adds.
�{Alumni Notes}
Christopher Pagan Nelson (SF)
Grateful for Phlogiston
reports: “Right now. I’m living in
Texas and concentrating on my
turbo-gangster country band. The
drian Lucia (SFoo) writes: “After living in
Foggy Mountain Cop Killin’ Boys.
Philadelphia and Chicago for three years. I’m
College didn’t really prepare me for
pursuing a master’s degree in library and infor
the scads of fame and money I’m
mation science at the University of Illinois,
receiving, but it was cool anyway. I
Familiarity with the theory of phlogiston has
would love to hear what other John
never been so helpful. I plan to flee the Mid
nies are doing, so please e-mail me
west in basically any direction when I finish this program.
Any
at donkeytown@hotmail.com
.
A
Johnnie librarians out there?”
James Petcoff (SFGI) is teaching:
a college administrator for the
University of Chicago’s economics
department, serves as president of
the Chicago chapter of the Society
of Architectural Historians, and is a
member of Chicago’s Caxton Club
(for bibliofiles): “I collect 16thcentury Aristotle texts.”
“I recently left my job as a mental
health counselor in Hyannis, Mass.,
and now work for The May Center
for Child Development at The May
School in Chatham, Mass., teach
ing children with developmental
disabilities. I recently moved to
Wellfleet, Cape Cod, from
Yarmouthport. When I am not
involved in the above, I play with
my jazz, folk, blues rocka-billy band: Skeeter and the Buz
ztones. I would love to communi
cate with fellow Johnnies in the
area.”
1999
Benjamin Closs (A) is serving at
the Marine Corps Air Station in
Miramar, Calif. “I may go overseas
for a while this fall, but Pacific
Beach isn’t bad until then.”
from Philadelphia to Frederick,
Md., a year and a half ago to live
with Vince Baker (AgsJ-yes, that
Vince Baker. We’re now engaged,
we’ve just bought a house and are
planning an October wedding. I’m
working for a biotech company,
while Vince is an editor. We have a
bit of a menagerie with the cats
Apollo & Artemis, and our recently
acquired blue-fronted Amazon par
rot, Pancho, the Bird of Mass
Destruction. We’d love to hear
from anyone in the D.G. metro
area: cinderlou@peoplepc.com and
oldmarley@hotmail.com.”
announce the birth of their son.
Mason, on February 14, 2003.
“We’d love to hear from our former
classmates at ShannonandKerry@
earthlink.net.”
Mike and Abby Soejoto (both A)
are pleased to announce the birth
of their first child, Lucila Adele.
Lucy was born on September 30 in
Los Angeles, where Mike is begin
ning his second year as an attorney
in the tax department of O’Melveny
& Myers. Abby recently finished the
post-baccalaureate program in
classics at UCLA. They’d love to
hear from anyone, especially those
in or passing through Southern
California (asoejoto@cs.com or
323-572-0343).
Nevin Young (A) writes: “I am now
Mauricio Rojas in August. “Also I
am currently teaching in Prince
George’s County. I got my certifica
tion through their Resident
Teacher Program and would be
happy to talk to any seniors or
graduates who are looking into
doing the same.”
“Hey all,” writes Jessica Sprout
Morgenstern (A). “Still busy out
here, loving my job, loving the
weather-sunny Santa Barbara. Feel
free to e-mail anytime...anyone
looking for a fun way to get paid to
learn (and teach) dance (ballroom
and social) give me a call!”
{The College.
Christopher “Casey” Vaughan
(A) is living in St. Augustine, Fla.
“Anyone who wants to come surfing
feel free to contact me at cvaughan@flagler.edu.
2001
Katharine Christopher (SF) and
Billy Davis (SF) were married on
December 20, 2003, in a beautiful
traditional ceremony at the Church
of the Holy Faith in Santa Fe.
Katharine reports: “We were
attended by our five sisters as
bridesmaids, and Jackson FrishMAN (SFoi) and Chris Carlisle
(SFoi) as groomsmen. Nikki
Mazzia (SFoi) sang two lovely
solos, and Juliana Corona
Kirmeyer (SF02) read a Scripture
passage. A number of other John
nies also came to celebrate with us,
as well as family and friends from
all over. It was a wonderful day, as
well as the beginning, God willing,
of a long and joyful marriage.”
2000
Lori Beth Kurtyka (AGI) married
Cindy Lutz (A) writes: “I moved
married in Rocky Mount, N.C., and
now live in Indianola, Miss., which
has been my home since gradua
tion. I will be ordained in May and
we are expecting our first child in
November.”
Shannon Rohde and Kerry
O’Boyle (Both AGI) would like to
Robert Herbst (SF) is employed as
A report from Andrew B. Hill (A):
“I’m getting married sometime in
2004 to a tremendous woman who
did not, sadly, attend St. John’s.
I reside in Fort Worth, Texas.
I recently completed an unsuccess
ful bid for the mayorship of my
lovely city, for which I was reward
ed with a whopping 206 votes, as
well as about 60 hours of Digital
Beta footage, which I intend to
convert into something remotely
saleable. Thus, no matter how
vague my connection to the school
may be, I am following in a
tradition of Maverick Johnnie
filmmakers, or at least I think I
am.”
41
finishing my third year in the
evening division at the George
Washington University Law School,
and am working for a lawyer in the
District of Columbia. (I cannot
understand why anyone would not
want to be a lawyer.) I would be
happy to answer any questions from
Johnnies who want to know about
law school in general, or GW.”
“Greetings from the Mississippi
Delta!” writes Paul Spradley (A).
“This past January 1 got married to
Caroline Taylor of Rocky Mount,
N.C. In the wedding party were
Derek Alexander (A99), David
Bohannon (A99), Adam Dawson
(A03), Alan Hudson (A03), and
George O’Keefe (A03). We were
John ’5 College . Spring 2004 }
What’s Up?
The College wants to hear from
you. Call us, write us, e-mail
us. Let your classmates know
what you’re doing. The next
issue will be published in
September; deadline for the
alumni notes section is July 15.
In Annapolis:
The College Magazine
St. John’s College, P.O. Box 2800
Annapolis, MD 21404;
rosemary.harty@sjca.edu
In Santa Fe:
The College Magazine
St. John’s College
Public Relations Office
1160 Camino Cruz Blanca
Santa Fe, NM 87505-4599;
alumni@sjcsf.edu
�4a
Katrina Costedio (SF) has finally
decided to use her powers for good
and is heading for law school,
although she isn’t sure which one.
“Also shaping the young minds of
California in various volunteer
positions and as a sub. And on the
weekends I work with an adult who
is learning to read. I’m struggling
with the demands of being a good
citizen. Most of the time I still feel
like I’m pretending, but what’s the
difference really?”
Terence Duvall (A) writes: “I just
returned from my first major trip
since graduating college so I
decided it was about time to send
an update. My lomo and I spent six
stupendous weeks in Slovenia
taking pictures of castles by lakes
for my upcoming art exhibit
‘Reflected Castles.’ In Ljubljana I
met a producer who has offered to
put out a split seven-inch of my
{Alumni Notes}
band. Big Brother, and the Sloven
ian underground rock quartet
Sister City. I think I finally under
stand why you can’t spell Slovenia
without the word ‘love.’ And so in
the immortal words of the poet
Jerry Garcia, ‘What a long strange
trip it’s been.’”
Talley Scroggs (A) moved to
Bennington, Vt., after a half year in
Agen, France, where she assisted
in running The French Kitchen at
Gamont, a 1720s inn. Her friend
Louis Kovacs (A), is in the post
baccalaureate program at
Bennington College. Talley works
at North Shire Booksellers and
plans to start an MBA program
next fall.
An intriguing “heads up” from
Peter Speer (A): “You’re the king
of hearts for four years and then
you come out into the real world
and you’re the two of spades. And
there’s no don rags in your new
office, and no one wants to read
your senior essay. But that girl by
the water cooler is awfully cute,
and she blushes when I quote
Dante, and though she’s never
heard of Virgil she swears it sounds
familiar. So all’s well and I’m
going to Vegas. Feel free to contact
me with lucky numbers.”
2002
Margaret Tobias (A) will be
attending graduate school this fall
at the University of Chicago,
enrolling in the Master of Arts in
Humanities program.
2003
“I am enjoying Eastern Classics
and highly recommend the pro
gram,” writes Allison Webster
(SF).4-
Alek Chance (A) and Iva Ziza
(Aoi) had a daughter, Emma
Katherine Chance. Emma was
born on August 10, 2003, in
St. Johnsburry, Vermont.
{Obituaries}
Diana “Danny” Bell
Herbert Brent Stallings
Diana “Danny” Bell, the wife of Santa Fe
tutor emeritus Charles Bell, died March 24
of pancreatic cancer. She was 80.
She was born and raised in Darlington,
Md., trained as a teacher, and after marry
ing Charles Bell in 1949, lived with her
family in Chicago and Annapolis. She
taught first grade in Annapolis until mov
ing to Santa Fe in 1967. Along with her
husband, she was named one of the city’s
“Living Treasures” in 1996 for contribu
tions to the Santa Fe community.
“Everything she did was in proportion
and infused with order, kindness, and
delight,” her family wrote in her newspa
per obituary. “Whether it was a picnic, or
the peaceful sharing of tea, Danny filled all
with joy and the sense of her unconditional
acceptance of our human foibles.”
The family has arranged for two ways for
friends to remember her: contributions
can be made for the publication of Charles
Bell’s poems through the non-profit
Lumen Books (40 Camino Cielo, Santa Fe,
New Mexico 87506) and also to one of
Danny’s charities. La Luz de Santa Fe Fam
ily Shelter, (2325 Cerrillos Road, Santa Fe,
NM 87505).
Herbert Brent Stallings, class of 1941, died
January 8, 2004, in Cary, N.C. He was 84.
A native of Baltimore, Stallings played on
the college’s football team (nicknamed the
“gallopinggoose-eggs”) before intercolle
giate sports were dropped. His pastor, the
Rev. William Green, remembers Stallings
bringing his family back to the St. John’s
campus several years ago, videotaping his
old dormitory room, and fondly revisiting
his days at St. John’s. When the college
adopted the New Program in r937, Stallings
had the option of sticking with the old pro
gram or starting in the new and spending an
extra year at the college; he chose the New
Program, Green said.
“He has always said that St. John’s really
formed who he was,” said Rev. Green. “He
really loved talking about the college.”
Stallings went on to serve as a lieutenant
in the Navy during World War IL After the
war, he launched a 30-year career in adver
tising with the Baltimore News-American.
He met his wife, Ruth, on a Chesapeake
Bay Cruise. Married for nearly 60 years,
the couple had two children who live in
North Carolina.
{The College-
St. John ’5 College ■ Spring 2004 }
“He was a wonderful man who loved
books,” Green said.
Medora Cockey
Medora Cockey (A03) died January 3, 2003,
after a brief illness. She was 23.
Miss Cockey was born in Baltimore and
moved to Salisbury with her family in 1983.
She attended St. John’s College for two
years, then transferred to Warren Wilson
College in Asheville, N.C., to finish her
studies. She was to have graduated with a
fine arts degree in May.
Miss Cockey was a talented artist. She
loved hard physical farm work, and her
favorite summer job in recent years was
working on organic farms in Virginia and
Georgia. Her sister, Mary, is a member of
the Annapolis class of 2004.
Also noted:
Clayton Davis, class of r938, died Feb. 9,
2004.
John Falencki, (A68), died Dec. 30, 2003.
Merrill Turner (SF79) died March 16,
2004.
Charles T. Westcott, class of 1936, died in
July 2002.
�{Student Voices}
43
On Grades: How Can Genuine
Learning be Measured at St. John’s?
BY loHN Peterson, A05
grades? Do any students complain about
y grades were never
their grades? One can respond to a tutor in
something I worried
a don rag because he is stating observations
too much about. In
and offering suggestions, but how does one
middle school I earned
respond to a B on a piece of paper?
As, but in high schoolThe college’s recent self-study, “Liberal
where I didn’t always
Education
in a Community of Learners,”
do homework or attend class-I
maintained
states
that the college wants students to
a consistent B+, or 90 percent
average.
“work for understanding and not for
These grades were meaningless, I thought,
grades,” but acknowledges that students
because the work that the A-kids were
need transcripts, and therefore grades, for
doing to get their grades was out of propor
life after St. John’s. Grades interfere with
tion to a grade’s value. I scoffed at the arti
the college’s goals of fostering genuine
ficial scale of greatness that accompanied
learning and cultivating freedom, they
the grades: “High Honor Roll,” “Honor
distract students, encourage competition,
Roll,” etc. I beheved that I was wiser than
and are “inadequate as means of evaluating
these students, because while they were
working hard to slave for top grades at their a student’s success in liberal learning,” the
report states. Nevertheless, it says, tutors
college choices, I was heading to a place
take the “fair determination of grades very
where grades didn’t matter and where what
seriously.”
would really be measured after four years
The “Grades and Grading Poficies” sec
would be the true worth of an individual.
tion of the student handbook says that the
When I came to St. John’s College, I
college “does require all tutors to award let
found classes to be radically different from
ter grades to their students at the end of
high school, the teachers much more alive,
each semester...and authorizes them to
the students more interested and interest
decide what elements they will take into
ing. There were no tests and no homeconsideration and in what proportion.”
work-at least not in the high school sense
As opposed to the pre-determined system
of busywork from a textbook. Why, then,
of my high school days, this process is mys
were there still grades?
terious and vague, perhaps even arbitrary.
St. John’s is an egalitarian institution
What are these “elements” that a tutor may
that loves truth and rewards hard work not
or may not take into consideration? Class
with good grades, but with understanding,
room participation, attendance, attitude,
good conversation, and good judgment.
papers, and demonstrations all seem like
Could it possibly be true that with all these
candidates. However, different tutors may
riches around them, students here would
be more interested in different things, and
be worried about their grades, look them
this is something that a proportional grad
up every semester, and work for them, even
ing pohcy, in which various assignments
to the detriment of learning itself?
are given certain weight in a total grade,
During my first semester, I don’t think
is designed to alleviate.
grades ever crossed my mind-I was having
It is unhkely that St. John’s will implement
too much fun. I was worried that I did not
any pohcy such as this in the near future.
talk as much as some of my classmates and
One reason is that the more specific we get
that maybe I did not study enough. In my
about grades, the more it will appear that we
don rag, my tutors were nice to me and
care about them, and as a result, we will care
said some helpful things. This was enough
about them more. If tutors needed to discuss
for me.
grades, they would have to think more about
This year, however, I began to think
grade-giving and less about teaching.
about life after St. John’s and checked my
Students would consequently worry more
grades. This raised a series of troubling
about grade-getting than about learning.
questions about grades and the learning
Competition would inevitably result.
environment at St. John’s: How many other
“It’s a weird situation,” acknowledges
students check their grades? Students dis
Dean Harvey Flaumenhaft. “On the one
cuss don rags all the time-what about
M
{The College.
St. John’s College Spring 2004 }
John Peterson
hand we give [grades], and we don’t want
them to be some kind of secret document
that a student can’t look at, but on the other
hand we don’t report them to the student,
and we try to play it down. I don’t think it’s
hypocritical...It’s trying to foster a commu
nity where people are really concerned
about the depth of each individual student’s
self-education-and it really works.”
With all the debate about how much to
talk about grades, by which standards they
are given, and how much they matter to
students as opposed to how much consider
ation tutors have in giving them, my
inclination is to revert to my old high
school attitude. I begin to suspect that the
behavior of the students around me is
geared toward getting better grades.
I wonder if this or that student has better
grades than I, and if so, why. I become
taken with the feeling that we are all here
to go somewhere else, to get our tickets to
graduate school. I begin to resent my fellow
students and to think only of myself. Worst
of all, I stop all learning and introspection,
adopt an air of superiority, and start to
think about my future.
Only at this point do I realize that the
school knows what it is doing: it has foreseen
these problems, and in its grading pohcy has
tried to circumvent them. It recognizes that
grades can be a potential threat to learning,
but that they are necessary. If a Johnnie is
still worried about the arbitrariness of
grades, he only needs to ask himself,
“Do my grades reflect anything real?” and
he will answer, “More than they did in high
school.” That should be enough, and he
should go back to his studies.
�44
{Alumni Association News}
From the Alumni
Association
President
Greetings!
Your Alumni
Association and
the staff of SJC
have heen hard at
work supporting
the network of
Johnnies. I wish I
could share in
one letter all the
projects and possibilities that are emerging
from our shared work, but we only have
room for three this time. Watch this space
for more in the coming issues.
Part 1 - Reconnect
What ever happened to that interesting
woman in my freshman seminar?
WTio are the Johnnies living in my state?
Is there someone from St. John’s practicing
law in my city?
How many people were in my class?
What is Glenda Holladay’s last name now?
Does my favorite waltz partner have an
e-mail address?
How can I be sure the college has my
correct address and phone number?
Soon you can answer these and many other
questions about alumni around the world.
The Alumni Association and the college
joined forces to put the St. John’s College
Alumni Register online. It will be a great
new tool for you to stay in touch with the
rest of the college community. To use the
Register1. Go towww.stjohnscollege.edu.
2. Select alumni.
3. Select Online Register.
4. Apply for access to the Register.
5. Within a week, you will receive an
e-mail with your username and password
that will give you access.
Then you’ll be searching to your heart’s
content. As you use the new Register, we
strongly urge you to:
• Send your feedback about the Register
and the rest of the Web site to Jo Ann
Mattson (A87) joanne.mattson@sjca.edu
or Roxanne Seagraves (SF83)
roxanne.seagraves@mail.sjcsf.edu.
• Update and/or complete your own
information. The Register is only as
good as the information it holds. Please
make it most useful by keeping your own
data up to date!
• Let the college know if you prefer not
to have your information appear in the
Register. You should have received a
postcard asking if you wanted to opt out.
There are also places online that you can
choose not to have your information
appear.
• Use the Register as a tool to stay in
touch with Johnnies from your era, your
campus, your profession, or your locale.
Part 2 - Come Home
Are you going to Homecoming this year?
Please consider making the trip to Santa Fe
in the summer or Annapolis in the fall. You
will have many reasons to be glad you did.
• Seeing old friends and making new
ones.
• Thanking that tutor who opened your
mind to the books (or the books to your
mind).
• Seeing a rejuvenated campus whether
you’re in the East or the West.
• Watching a Santa Fe sunset over the
mountain or an Annapolis sunset over
the creek.
• Sharing the unique conversational
experience of seminar.
• Dancing as if you were ao again.
• Munching on burritos or crab cakes.
• Welcoming new honorary alumni.
• Gongratulating fellow alumni with
Awards of Merit for their remarkable
lives and work.
• Learning about the current state of
student hfe and the Program.
• Exhibiting and/or observing work of
creative and industrious Johnnies who
have books to sign (Annapolis) or art to
show (Santa Fe).
You will be receiving information and
invitations from classmates, the Alumni
Association, and the college. We look
forward to seeing you!
Partg - Reach Out
The Next Steps Action Team of the Alumni
Association and the Career Services offices
on both campuses support new alumni as
{The College .
St. John’s College ■ Spring 2004 }
they venture out into the world. If you’re
interested in providing support or in get
ting a boost yourself, consider reaching
out. Among the many opportunities and
services:
Virgil Initiative: Juniors who volunteer
are matched with an alumnus mentor.
The two meet periodically and stay in
touch through senior year and beyond.
The purpose of the relationship is to share
experiences and insights about the transi
tions after St. John’s. Career counseling is
not part of the plan, but mentors may have
helpful suggestions and resources for the
job or educational market as well. (Thanks
to Lee Zlotoff (A74) and Tom Krause
(SFGIoo) for conceiving and launching
this program!)
Networking receptions: Several Alumni
Association chapters host receptions that
bring new alumni and older ones together
to share career and grad school informa
tion. As you might imagine, many other
topics come up for conversation and a
lively time is had by all.
Communities of Interest: Clusters of
alumni have shared interests such as
psychology, dance, quilting, art, academic
research in various fields, law, or educa
tion. Often these Johnnies don’t have ways
to be in touch with each other even when
they know they’re not alone. The Next
Steps Action Team is planning to launch
a network across time and space to get
like-minded alumni connected.
Internships: A generous grant from the
Hodson Trust inspired summer internships
for students on the Annapolis campus.
Recipients have pursued a variety of
activities from arts to sciences to services
to professions. The project has been very
successful, and plans are afoot to begin a
similar program in Santa Fe.
We all have transitions to make as we
leave the college. These programs and
others help make the transition a time for
extended learning about how the great
ideas are the foundation for happy and
productive lives. If you’re interested in
participating in any of these programs,
either as supporter or supported, please
be in touch with Jo Ann or Roxanne.
They’ll help you make the connections.
For the past, present, and future,
Glenda Holladay Eoyang, SF76
�{Alumni Association News}
Chapter Update
With i8 active chapters meeting on a regu
lar basis throughout the country, including
a new chapter in Pittsburgh, St. John’s
alumni have plenty of opportunities for
seminars, social events, and cultural out
ings with other Johnnies. Efforts are also
under way in six new areas to develop
chapters from reading groups or nurture
budding interest in the formation of new
chapters and alumni groups.
In her annual report on chapter activity
to the association board, Carol Freeman
(AGI94), reported on an encouraging year
marked by active chapters planning innova
tive events and emerging interest in areas
yet to establish chapters.
Here are some highlights:
• The Santa Fe chapter is now meeting
bimonthly, and has formed a steering
committee to select topics and plan
meetings.
• The Boston chapter is thrilled to have
read Marcel Proust’s In Search ofLost
Time. This inspiring endeavor (5,000
pages) was a project embraced enthusias
tically by chapter members.
• The Annapolis chapter has decided to
develop a reading list for several months
in a row to attract more of the 500
alumni in the area to seminars.
• Inquiries about starting a chapter or
reading group are being pursued in
Ithaca, N.Y., and the Greater Miami area.
In Miami, Johnnies traveled up to three
hours to attend recent alumni gettogethers in Miami and West Palm
Beach, hosted by Annapolis staff
members Barbara Goyette (A73),
vice president for advancement, and
Jo Ann Mattson (A87), director of
alumni activities.
• Russ Dibble (SF97) and Kira Heater
organized the first seminar, on February
II, for alumni in the Missoula, Montana,
area.
In addition to seminars, Johnnies are
demonstrating their interest in socializing
with other alumni by turning out in large
numbers for crab feasts (Baltimore),
picnics (New York), and an annual
alumni dinner (Greater Puget Sound),
Check the Web
FOR Election
News
The Alumni Association nominations for
alumni representatives to the St. John’s
Board of Visitors and Governors and for
directors-at-large for the Alumni Associa
tion Board for 2005 will be posted on the
college Web site atwww.stjohnscollege.edu.
Select “Alumni” from the left-hand menu
(under the SJC seal), then click on the
Alumni Association homepage. A special
nominations page will appear among the
left-hand menu options
that are now highlighted in
red. Names, photos (when
available) and biographical
information about the
nominees, as well as infor
mation on the election
process, will be available
online on or before
August I, 2004.
45
ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE
ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
Whether from Annapolis or Santa Fe, under
graduate or Graduate Institute, Old Program
or New, graduated or not, all alumni have
automatic membership in the St. John’s
College Alumni Association. The Alumni
Association is an independent organization,
with a Board of Directors elected by and from
the alumni body. The Board meets four times
a year, twice on each campus, to plan pro
grams and coordinate the affairs of the Associ
ation. This newsletter within The College mag
azine is sponsored by the Alumni Association
and communicates Alumni Association news
and events of interest.
President - Glenda Eoyang, SF76
Vice President - Jason Walsh, A85
Secretary -Barbara Lauer, SF76
Treasurer - Bill Fant, A79
Getting-the-Word-OutAction Team Chair Linda Stabler-Talty, SFGI76
Web site - www.sjca.edu/aassoc/main.phtml
Mailing address - Alumni Association,
St. John’s College, P.O Box 2800, Annapolis,
MD 21404, or 1160 Camino Cruz Blanca,
Santa Fe, NM 87505-4599.
Brett Heavner (A89) and
Nancy Lindley (A58) at an
Annapolis networking
reception for students and
ALUMNI.
CHAPTER CONTACTS
Call the alumni listed belowfor information
about chapter, reading group, or other alumni
activities in each area.
ALBUQUERQUE
Bob & Vicki Morgan
505-275-9012
BALTIMORE
Deborah Cohen
410-472-9158
ANNAPOLIS
Beth Martin Gammon
410-280-0958
BOSTON
Ginger Kenney
617-964-4794
AUSTIN
Jennifer Chenoweth
512-482-0747
Bev Angel
512-926-7808
CHICAGO
Amanda Richards
847-705-1143
DALLAS/FORT
WORTH
Suzanne Gill Doremus
817-927-2390
DENVER/BOULDER
Lee Goldstein
720-746-1496
MINNEAPOLIS/
ST. PAUL
Carol Freeman
612-822-3216
NEW YORK
Daniel Van Doren
914-949-6811
{The College-
NORTHERN CALIF.
Suzanne Vito
510-527-4309
SANTA FE
Richard Cowles
505-986-1814
WASHINGTON DC
Jean Dickason
301-699-6207
PHILADELPHIA
Bart Kaplan
215-465-0244
SEATTLE
Amina Brandt
206-465-7781
PITTSBURGH
Joanne Murray
724-325-4151
SOUTHERN
CALIFORNIA
Elizabeth Eastman
562-426-1934
WESTERN NEW
ENGLAND
Julia Ward
413-648-0064
PORTLAND
Dale Mortimer
360-882-9058
SAN DIEGO
Stephanie Rico
619-423-4972
St. John’s College • Spring 2004 }
TRIANGLE CIRCLE
(NO
Susan Eversole
919-968-4856
ISRAEL
Emi Geiger Leslau
15 Aminadav Street
Jerusalem 93549
Israel
9-722-671-7608
boazl@cc.huji.ac.il
�{AlumniAssociationNews}
46
“A LOAF OF BREAD,
A GLASS OF WINE, AND ... I AND
ThOU.”
Sn^ng, Swirling, and Seminar at
Stags Leap Wine Cellars
BY Mark Middlebrook, A83
Here with a LoafofBread beneath the
Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse - and
Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness And Wilderness is Paradise enow.
- FROM Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat^ c. iioo.
Nine centuries later, the sentiments
expressed in Khayyam’s verse echo each
summer in a vine-rich valley watched over
by a rocky palisade known as Stag’s Leap.
Alumni from around Northern Californiaand perhaps an eagerly welcomed visitor
from Santa Fe or Annapolis-rise early on a
sunny Sunday morning to prepare our pic
nic lunches and finish our seminar reading.
And then we’re off to the annual Stag’s
Leap Wine Cellars picnic and seminars,
where we’ll once again be the blessed
beneficiaries of St. John’s alumni Warren
(A52) and Barbara (A55) Winiarski’s
hospitality.
The drive from the San Francisco Bay
area takes about an hour, and many of us
carpool-if only for the pleasure of packing
in extra hours of conversation with fellow
alumni whom we may not have seen since
last year’s pilgrimage. As we head north,
fog often lingers on the Bay and even in the
lower reaches of Napa Valley, but its cool
ness provides a lovely contrast to the
intense valley heat that will come in the
afternoon.
We pass through the town of Napa and
head north on the Silverado Trail, a road
threading up the eastern side of Napa
Valley that’s traveled mostly by winery
hopping tourists and bicyclists. Vines
appear-lots of them-as we speed past the
now-familiar litany of wineries: Luna
(where former tutor Abe Schoener, A82, is
now winemaker), Altamura, White Rock,
Clos du Vai, Chimney Rock. After a few
miles, we see the distinctive notch in the
craggy ridge to the east. That’s the Stag’s
Leap. Just before the road begins to climb
out of the Stags Leap District and the
bicyclists start to down-shift, we pull into
the Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars driveway.
To keep track of all the stags in these
parts, you need a scorecard-or maybe a
punctuation handbook. The “Stags Leap
District” (multiple stags) is the name of
the small wine-growing region that sits
just below the notch in the ridge called
Above: Alex Poulsen (SF74) and Daniel
Cohen(SF90)
Left: Former Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars
events coordinator Gabriele Ondine and
PICNIC GUEST
{The College-
St. John’s College ■ Spring 2004 }
“Stag’s Leap” (singular possessive stag).
“Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars” (ditto) is the
Winiarskis’ winery and home of our annual
picnic and seminars. “Stags’ Leap Winery”
(plural possessive stags) is an unrelated
winery in the district.
We bypass the tasting room parking lot
and instead take the road that skirts below
the white wine fermentation building and
around a wooded hill to the small lake
tucked behind. There we unload our picnic
baskets and coolers, carry them up to the
lake’s grassy banks, and spread a blanket
on a spot to our Uking-full sun, full shade,
or dappled with some of each. It’s a little
more civilized than Khayyam’s Wilderness,
but with boughs, wine, and books-not to
mention a refreshing lake to jump into-it
will be Paradise enow for us.
Despite the claims of some that our
palates are most discerning in the morn
ing, we defer to the scruples of those who
might find earnest wine tasting at 10 a.m.
a bit unusual, and instead we sally forth on
a vineyard walk and winery tour. We stroll
past FAY-a storied vineyard where Stags
Leap District pioneer Nathan Fay planted
the region’s first Cabernet Sauvignon
grapes in 1961-and then into S.L.V. (Stag’s
Leap Vineyard), whose grapes catapulted
Warren Winiarski to fame when his 1973
S.L.V. Cabernet Sauvignon won the 1976
Paris tasting. We taste some of the grapes
and wonder at the winemaker’s techne that
�{AlumniAssociationNews}
reveals supple, prize-winning
wines from these juicy but still
tart berries.
From the luxuriant but care
fully-coifed wilderness of
grapevine tendrils, we return to
paved road and make our way to
the civilization of a modern
winery: crusher-destemmer
machines, fermentation tanks,
oak barrels, and bottling lines.
Our tour culminates in the
spectacular caves, which are
home to hundreds of barrels of
aging wine, a bronze bear and
cub nestled among several of
those barrels, a Foucault pen
dulum, a dramatically lit,
chapel-like room designed by
Catalan architect Javier Barba.
An hour of walking, plus the
heady, deep aromas of ferment
ing wine, have eliminated any
remaining scruples, so we make
a beeline for the lake. At a table
nearby, our host begins pulling
corks and pouring tastes.
The diligent among us work
methodically through the full
lineup, sniffing, swirling, and
then either swallowing or spit
ting-depending on one’s
lunchtime drinking plans and
desired degree of lucidity
during the afternoon seminars.
We start with Sauvignon
Blanc, several Chardonnays, and a pair of
Merlots. The simpler wines bear the Hawk
Crest name-Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars’
second label-while the grander ones
display the Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars
name and distinctive “standing stag and
tree” logo. We finish with an impressive
phalanx of Cabernet Sauvignons,
including the FAY Estate, S.L.V. Estate,
and occasionally, if we’ve been very, very
good, a precious taste of the CASK 33
(a blend of particularly excellent lots from
FAY and S.L.V.).
Tasting wine is all well and good, but
drinking wine is better, so we pour a glass
of our favorite and bear it gingerly back to
our chosen picnic spot. There we fling
open picnic baskets, unwrap deli sand
wiches or flip open cardboard carry-out
containers, and begin to enjoy the happy
union of good food, good wine, and good
company. Congenial swapping ensues-of
victuals, opinions about the wines, opin
ions about the seminar readings, stories of
Liz Travis
(SF83)
our lives during the preceding year (many
of them true), stories of our times at
St. John’s (some of them true).
All of this eating, bibbing, and creative
embroidery under the hot summer sun is
arduous work, and some of us reinvigorate
with a jump into the lake. At the stentorian
bellow of the ceremonial conk shell, we
commence the annual chapter meeting.
This short but raucous affair typically com
prises effusive thanks to the Winiarskis
and the hard-working winery staff,
announcements of upcoming events, a
desperate plea by the current chapter
president for a successor, and directions to
the various seminar rooms scattered about
the winery.
Despite the unquestioned zeal of
St. John’s alumni for seminars, the next
{The College.
5£. John’s College Spring 2004 }
47
half hour offers irrefutable proof
of the validity of Newton’s first
law. Every body assembled there,
in its tranquil, well-fed state of
rest, does indeed continue in
that state of rest unless com
pelled to change its state by
powerful forces impressed upon
it. Several of us cajole, plead,
and eventually threaten in order
to get these bodies rolling
towards their seminar rooms.
We typically run five simultane
ous seminars on readings
ranging from Plato to the Lotus
Sutra to Wallace Stevens to a
contemporary political essay,
plus one film.
An hour and a half later, the
seminars disband and we
regroup at the Arcade outside
the caves for a reception with
scrumptious desserts and
cheeses, perhaps a sip of dessert
wine, and coffee. “How was
your seminar?” mingles with
other typical post-seminar chat.
There is more catching up on
the previous year, expressions
of wonder that we’re able to
enjoy a day like this each year,
and the wistful sense that this
year’s day is almost done.
One more slice of cake or
piece of cheese, another round
of grateful thanks to our hosts,
perhaps a stop in the tasting room to buy
a few bottles, and then we’re heading
south on the Silverado Trail, back towards
the Bay Area. The day’s heat is starting to
wane, and sun slanting off the vines
makes the early evening sky glow. 1 roll
down the window, and the air rushing by
seems to sing.
This year’s Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars
picnic and seminars have not yet
been scheduled at the time of this
writing. Please note that reserva
tions are required, and that we some
times must limit attendance in order
not to exceed the winery’s capacity.
See the St. John’s College Alumni
Association of Northern California’s
Web page for more information and
reservations instructions:
http://teamrioja.org/sjcaanc/
�48
{St. John’s Forever}
Initiating the
Young into the
Tribe
‘!i4s well you know there is only one com
mencementspeech. It has been delivered
many times and it has many superficial
variations, but it always says the same
thing. An old man ofthe tribe tells the
young men that they are beautiful and
strong, that the world isfull ofevils, and
that they must go out into the world tofight
its evils and keep the vision ofits highest
good. ”
—Scott Buchanan, Commencement 1952,
he commencement rite
calls for a memorable
speech filled with sage
advice on how to go on
with the business of life.
Scott Buchanan called
commencement “the great rite of initiation
of the young into the tribe.” Some speech
es are memorable; some are not. Some
focus on history, some on urgent current
events. But at St. John’s College the selec
tion of the commencement speaker always
falls to those to whom it is primarily
directed, and throughout the years tutors
have been heavy favorites in the selection
process.
Scofield said in his 1950 speech that a
Tutors Richard Scofield and the Rev.
possible interpretation of the custom of
J. Winfree Smith became commencement
choosing a speaker from within the
traditions themselves. Scofield delivered
the commencement speech four times;
college is that students “think of the
Smith was selected by the graduating class
occasion, in spite of its name, as not only
looking forward. Since the life that lies
five times. Tutor Nancy Buchenauer was
ahead of you. . .is more complicated, more
selected by the students in Santa Fe in
serious, and more precarious than the life
1997, and after transferring to the
you are leaving, you could hardly go
Annapolis faculty, was asked to deliver the
without a backward glance.” dtp
2000 address.
T
{The College.
St. John’s College . Spring 2004 }
Tutor Richard Scofield, shown here in
1950, DELIVERED THE COMMENCEMENT
SPEECH FOUR TIMES.
�{Alumni Events Calendar}
Santa Fe
Homecoming: July a-4,2004
classes
are: ’69, ’74, ’79, ’84, ’89, ’94, ’99.
Childcare is available.
Friday, July 2
Picnic on the Placita, 5 p.m.
Reunion class parties
Movie: The Tao ofSteve
Saturday, July 3
Homecoming Seminars, 10 a.m. to noon
Barbecue, 12-2 p.m.
Alumni Art Show opening, 5 p.m.
Banquet, 7 p.m.
Members of the Denver-Boulder chapter
Sunday, July 4
Annapolis
GATHERED FOR A SEMINAR LAST WINTER.
President’s Brunch, 10:30 a.m
Homecoming: October 1-3, 2004
L2I2EEZ1liunni
____
Week i; June 28-July a, 0004
Kierkegaard’s Meditation on Abraham and
Isaac
Led by David Starr
Hegel, Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling,
and excerpts from the book of Genesis.
Painting & Reflection
Led by Phil Le Cuyer &
Elizabeth Pollard Jenny (SF80)
On-campus and off-site painting experi
ences, gallery tours, seminars.
Week2: July 5-9, 2004
Plato’s Republic
Led by Eva Brann & David Carl
Revisit one of the seminal texts of Western
political theory.
Don Giovanni & the Operas of Mozart
Led by Peter Pesic & George Stamos
Once again, Don Giovanni is dragged alive
through the gates of Hell.
Call the Office of Alumni and Parent
Activities, 505-984-6103
Registration, 4 to 8
Career Panel, 6:30 p.m.
Homecoming Lecture, 8:15 p.m.
After lecture: Wine and Cheese with the
class of 2005, Rock Party in the Boathouse
Saturday, October a
Seminars, 10 a.m.
Homecoming Picnic, noon
Class Luncheons, 11:45 P ®Afternoon: Autograph Party, Soccer,
Gathering of All Alumni, Dance
performance in memory of Harry Golding
Hors d’oeuvres & wine, 6 p.m.
Homecoming Banquet, 7:30 p.m.
Waltz/Swing Party, to p.m.
Sunday, October 3
President’s Brunch, ii a.m.
* Tentative schedule.
All alumni are welcome. Reunion classes:
’39, ’44, ’49, ’54, ’59, ’64, ’69, ’74, ’79,
’84, ’89, ’94, ’99.
Contact Planit Meetings for special rates at
Annapolis hotels. Space is limited for dis
counted rates; mention St. John’s College
when you call for reservations.
Phone: 301-261-8284; fax: 919-642-0062.
E-mail: kelder@planitmeetings.com.
For more information, call the Alumni
office: 410-626-2531.
{The College -St.
John’s College ■ Spring 2004 }
Back cover: Reality observers in Annapolis
�STJOHN’S COLLEGE
ANNAPOLIS • SANTA FE
Published by the
Communications Office
P.O. Box aSoo
Annapolis, Maryland 21404
D A N IE L H O U C K
( ao 6)
ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED
Periodicals
Postage Paid
�
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The College </em>(2001-2017)
Description
An account of the resource
The St. John's College Communications Office published <em>The College </em>magazine for alumni. It began publication in 2001, continuing the <em>St. John's Reporter</em>, and ceased with the Fall 2017 issue.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="The College" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=56">Items in The College (2001-2017) Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Creator
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St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, Md.
Santa Fe, NM
Contributor
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
thecollege2001
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
48
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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The College, Spring 2004
Description
An account of the resource
Volume 30, Issue 2 of The College Magazine. Published in Spring 2004.
Creator
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St. John's College
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Santa Fe, NM
Date
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2004
Rights
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St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Type
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text
Format
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pdf
Contributor
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Harty, Rosemary (editor)
Borden, Sus3an (managing editor)
Behrens, Jennifer (art director)
Hartnett, John (Santa Fe editor)
Wilson, Rebecca
Silver, Joan
Kraus, Pamela
Miller, Basia
Stickney, Carey
Russell, George
Dink, Michael
Engel, Elizabeth
Goyette, Barbara
Byrne, Brigid K.
Maguran, Andra
Peterson, John
Eoyang, Glenda H.
Middlebrook, Mark
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
The College Vol. 30. Issue 2 Spring 2004
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/905a24c0f76c81129a3bf1e766e514ca.pdf
ee2c7bb3f779e5da7fa2a3bc6021390f
PDF Text
Text
S!JOHN'S
College
ANN A POLlS • SANTA FE
LECTURE/CONCERT SCHEDULE FIRST SEMESTER- 2006-2007
(August 24, 2006 - conected copy)
August 25, 2006
Mr. Michael Dink
Dean
St. John's College
" In the Eyes of Others, Part II:
Rousseau and Smith"
September 1
All College Seminar
Montaigne's essay
"On Friendship"
September 8
Mr. Andre Barbera
Tutor
St. John's College
"Is There Great Jazz?"
September 15
Mr. L. Harvey Poe
Annapolis, MD
"On the Roots of the Political
Philosophy of the Constitution"
September 22
Mr. J. Walter Sterling IV
Tutor
St. John's College
Santa Fe
"The Visibility of Dying
in Homer's Iliacf'
September 29
Mr. Samuel Kutler
Tutor Emeritus
St. John's College
"The Republic of Letters and
the Republic of Numbers"
OFFICE OF
THE DEAN
P. 0 . Box z8oo
ANNAPOLIS, MARYJ, AND
21404
410-626-25II
FAX 4I0-295-6937
www.sjca. edu
October 6
Long Weekend
No Lecture
October 13
Mr. Jonathan Tuck
Tutor
St. John's College
"Baudelaire's Swan Song"
October 20
Professor Paul Bagley
Loyola College
Baltimore, MD
"On Why Spinoza's Teaching
in the Tractatus Is Necessarily
Theologico-Political"
October 27
Professor James A. Arieti
Hampden-Sydney College
Virginia
"Achilles, the Moral Pioneer"
November 3
Mr. Andreas Haefliger:
Concert
Piano Sonatas of Beethoven
November 10
Professor David Branning
Trinity College
"Quantum Mechanics"
November 17
Mr. Frank Pagano
Tutor
St. John's College
Santa Fe
"Masks of the Naked Animal:
Herodotus on Shame and
Ci vi I ization"
�December I
Mr. John Tomarchio
Tutor
St. John's College
"Aquinas and the Object
Proper of Metaphysics"
December 8
King William Players
Midsummer Night's Dream
�S!JOHN'S
LECTURE/CONCERT SCHEDULE SECOND SEMESTER- 2006-2007
College
Januaty 12, 2007
Professor Kirk Sanders
University of lllinois
at Urbana-Champaign
"Epicurean Emotions"
January 19
The Aulos Ensemble
Handel 's "Acis and Galatea"
January 26
Mr. Joseph Smith
Tutor
St. John's College
Santa Fe
"The Diffidence of Reason- A
Reading of the Conclusion of
Book 1 of Hume's Treatise"
February 9
Ms. Ange Mlinko
Croton-On-Hudson, NY
Modern Poetry
February 16
(Steiner Lecture)
Professor Camille Paglia
University of the Arts
in Philadelphia
"Form and Figure in Greek Art:
Ideal Beauty, Individualism, and
Political Space in Greek
Architecture and Sculpture"
Februaty 23
Professor James Nonis
Howard University
"The Negro Spiritual: A
Choral Art Form"
March 23
Concett
Talich String Quartet
March 30
Prof Christina von Nolcken
University of Chicago
"Another "Lollere in the
wynd"? Chaucer, his Miller,
and Nicholas' Door"
April6
All College Seminar
April 13
Mr. George Russell
Tutor
St. John' s College
"Freedom and Equality in
Lincoln's Understanding of
the American Polity''
April20
Mr. Jason Tipton
Tutor
St. John's College
"Man's Emergence from the
State ofNature: An Account
Founded on Darwin's
Discussion of Sexual Selection"
April28
King William Players
17te Good Doctor
MayS
Reality
No Lecture
ANNAPOL I S • SANTA PE
OFFICE OF
THE DEAN
P. 0. Box 2.8oo
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND
2.I404
4I0-62.6-2.5rr
FAX 4I0-295-6937
www.sjca. edu
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Page numeration
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3 pages
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Creator
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Office of the Dean
Title
A name given to the resource
Lecture/Concert Schedule First Semester - 2006-2007 (August 24, 2006 - corrected copy) & Second Semester - 2006-2007
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006-2007
Description
An account of the resource
Schedule of lectures and concerts for the 2006-2007 Academic Year.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lecture Schedule 2006-2008
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Publisher
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St. John's College
Language
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English
Type
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text
Rights
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St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Format
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pdf
Relation
A related resource
October 13, 2006. Tuck, Jonathan. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/3800" title="Baudelaire's swan song">Baudelaire's swan song</a> (audio)
October 13, 2006. Tuck, Jonathan. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/3797">Baudelaire's swan song</a> (typescript)
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dink, Michael
Barbera, André
Poe, L. Harvey (Luke Harvey)
Sterling IV, J. Walter
Kutler, Samuel
Tuck, Jonathan
Bagley, Paul
Arieti, James A.
Haefliger, Andreas
Branning, David
Pagano, Frank N.
Tomarchio, John
Sanders, Kirk R., 1966-
The Aulos Ensemble
Smith, Joseph
Mlinko, Ange
Paglia, Camille, 1947-
Norris, James
von Nolcken, Christina
Russell, George
Tipton, Jason A.
King William Players
Friday night lecture
Lecture schedule
-
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da3029da108713fb37d07b90d87614a6
PDF Text
Text
•
SJC
St.John's
College
LECTURE/CONCERT SCHEDULE 2013-2014
Date
Speaker
Title
August 23, 2013
Ms. Pamela Kraus
Dean
St. John's College
Annapolis
Robert Frost's "To
Earthward"
August 30
Professor Irene Pepperberg
Department of Psychology
Harvard University
Grey Parrot Number
Acquisitions: Parallels
With and Differences
From Young Children
September 6
Ms. Linda Wiener
Tutor
St. John's College
Santa Fe
Artistic Expression in
Animals
September 13
Mr. David Townsend
Tutor
St. John's College
Annapolis
The Declaration of
Independence: Is That
Philosophy, or Did You
Make It Up Yourself?
September 20
Mr. William Braithwaite
Tutor
St. John's College
Annapolis
Is Obscenity Obsolete?
September 2 7
(Homecoming)
Mr. Matthew Linck
Tutor
St. John's College
Annapolis
Knowing and Ground: A
Reading of Hegel's
Phenomenology of Spirit
October 4
Long Weekend
No Lecture
October 11
Professor William Peirce
Department of Economics
Case Western University
Can Taxes Be Fair?
Should They Be?
October 18
Professor Ronna Burger
Department of Philosophy
Tulane University
In the Wilderness: Moses
as Founder and Lawgiver
60 College Avenue I Annapolis, Maryland 21401
I 410-263-2371 I www.sjc.edu
�October 25
Professor Daniel P. Maher
Department of Philosophy
Assumption College
Aristotle on Friendship
and Teaching Philosophy
November 1
(Parent's Weekend)
Parker Quartet
Concert
November 8
All-College Seminar
No Lecture
November 15
Mr. George Russell
Tutor
St. John's College
Annapolis
The Emancipation
Proclamation and the
New Birth of Freedom
November22
Mr. Michael Brogan
Tutor
St. John's College
Annapolis
Dwelling in the Land of
the Confessions
November 29
Thanksgiving
No Lecture
December 6
King William Players
"A Door Made of Frosted
Glass"
December 13 January 5
Winter Vacation
No Lectures
January 10
Professor John T. Scott
Department of Political
Science
University of California, Davis
Resentment, Justice, and
the Appeal to Providence
in Adam Smith's Theory
of Moral Sentiments
January 17
(Steiner Lecturer)
Professor Christopher Ricks
Boston University
T. S. Eliot: More Than
One Waste Land
January 24
Professor Richard Velkley
Department of Philosophy
Tulane University
Why Does Heidegger
Matter?: Leo Strauss's
View
January 31
Long Weekend
No Lecture
February 7
Professor David Roochnik
Department of Philosophy
Boston University
Teleology as Death Wish:
A Nietzschean Critique of
Aristotle
�February 14
Concert
February 21
Professor Graham Hannan
Department of Philosophy
American University in Cairo
Dante's Ontology: What
the Florentine Poet Can
Teach Contemporary
Philosophers"
February 28- March 16
Spring Vacation
No Lectures
March 21
Mr. Daniel Harrell
Tutor
St. John's College
Annapolis
Making Time Count
March 28
The Aulos Ensemble and
Soprano, Sherezade Panthaki
Concert
April4
Mr. Robert Goldberg
Tutor
St. John's College
Annapolis
The Liberal Education of
Plato's Laws
Aprilll
Professor Tobin Craig
James Madison College
Michigan State University
The Place of
'Technology' in Bacon's
Critique of Ancient
Philosophy
April 18
Professor Christopher J. Kelly
Department of Political
Science
Boston College
Rousseau 's Chemical
Apprenticeship
April25
King William Players
Shakespeare's King Lear
May2
Reality Weekend
No Lecture
May9
Commencement weekend
No Lecture
�McGuire, Terry
From:
Sent:
Subject:
Waters, Taylor
Tuesday, June 10, 2014 1:15 PM
Wednesday Night Lecture Series
Summer 2014 Wednesday Night Lecture Series"
St. John's College Annapolis
Join us this summer for a series of informal lectures, sponsored by the Graduate Institute
Wednesdays at 7:30p.m., Great Hall
"On High Mountains: An Overview of Nietzsche's Perspectivism"
Wednesday, June 18
JS. Black, Director of the Graduate Institute, St. John's College, Annapolis
"Hume's Philosophy of Science"
Wednesday, June 25
James M Mattingly, Georgetown University
"On Reading Poetry Aloud: Some Lessons from Shakespeare's As You Like It"
Wednesday, July 2
William Braithwaite, Tutor, St. John's College, Annapolis
"Machiavelli and Absolution"
Wednesday, July 9
Stephen D. Wrage, United States Naval Academy
"Mastery, Freedom, Friendship: Tutor and Pupil in Rousseau's Emile"
Wednesday, July 16
Gianna Englert, Georgetown University
"The Relationship of Art and Truth in Plato's Republic"
Wednesday, July 23
Jamuna Reppert, Claremont Graduate University
On the Humanity of Thucydides' Demosthenes"
Wednesday, July 30
Andrea Radasanu, Northern Illinois University
1
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
4 pages
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Office of the Dean
Title
A name given to the resource
Lecture/Concert Schedule 2013-2014
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2013-2014
Description
An account of the resource
Schedule of lectures and concerts for the 2013-2014 Academic Year.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lecture Schedule 2013-2014
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Rights
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St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kraus, Pamela
Pepperberg, Irene M. (Irene Maxine)
Wiener, Linda F., 1957-
Townsend, David
Braithwaite, William
Link, Matthew, 1975-
Peirce, William
Burger, Ronna
Maher, Daniel P. (Daniel Patrick), 1964-
Russell, George
Brogan, Michael
Scott, John T.
Ricks, Christopher
Velkley, Richard L.
Roochnik, David
Harman, Graham, 1968-
Harrell, Daniel M., 1961-
The Aulos Ensemble
Panthaki, Sherezade
King William Players
Goldberg, Robert
Craig, Tobin
Kelly, Christopher J., 1970-
Friday night lecture
Lecture schedule
-
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e122641edeb0a2a6199f4ab094fb12fe
PDF Text
Text
Revised 10/19/01
S!JOHN'S
College
LECTURE/CONCERT SCHEDULE - 2001-2002
August 24, 2001
ANNAPOLIS · SAN TA FE
Mr. Harvey Flaumenhaft
Dean
St. John's College
Annapolis
OFFICE OF
"History in Liberal Education -Hindrance or Help?"
T ilE DEAN
P.O. Box 28oo
August 3 1
Mr. Adam Schulman
Tutor
St. John' s College
Am1apolis
"The Di scovery of
Entropy, 1824-1865"
September 7
Professor Tony Seeger
Department of Ethnomusicology
UCLA &
Ms. Judy Seeger
Tutor
St. John 's College
Annapo li s
"Mehinaku: Showing of
an Ethnographic Film,
Followed by Discussion"
September 14
A ll-College Seminar
September 21
Professor Neil Weiner
Marlboro College
"Generosity and Truth"
September 28
(Homecoming)
Mr. Abraham Schoener
Tutor on Leave
St. John's College
Annapolis
"The Biology of the
Fermentation Vessel"
October 5
Long Weekend
No Lecture
October 12
Cypress String Quartet
Concett
October 19
Professor Devin Stauffer
Kenyon College
"Socrates and Callicles: An
Interpretation of Plato' s
Gorgias"
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND
21404
410-626-25II
FAX 4ID-295-6937
www.sjca.edu
�October 26
(Steiner Lecture)
Professor William Kinderman
University of Illinois
"Beethoven's Creativity: The
Relation of Life and A11"
November 2
(Parents' Weekend)
Ms. Eva Brann
Tutor
St. John's College
Annapolis
"Ways ofNaysaying"
November 9
Mr. George Russell
Tutor
St. John's College
Annapolis
"Being and Shadow: Socrates'
November 16
Ms. Lael Gold
University of California, Berkeley
"Circles of Sorrow: Dialectic
and Grief in Go Down Moses"
November23
Thanksgiving Holiday- No Lecture
November 30
Mr. Gary Bmjesson
Tutor
St. John's College
Annapolis
December 7
King William Players
Encounter with Meno''
"Wisdom's Roots in Nature"
�Revi sed- 15 April 2002
S!JOHN'S
LECTURE/CONCERT SCHEDULE- SECOND SEMESTER 2001-2002
College
ANNAr OL IS · SA NTA FE
January I I , 2002
Professor Ori Soltes
Department of Theology
And Fine A1ts
Georgetown University
"The Binding of Isaac:
Interpretation and Depiction
of Genesis XXII by Jews,
Christians, and Muslims"
January 18
Ms. Chaninah Maschler
Tutor Emeritus
St. John' s College
Annapolis
" What Tree is This? In
Praise ofRenaissance
Printers, Publishers, and
Philologists"
January 25
All-College Seminar
February 1
Long Weekend
No Lecture
February 8
Mr. Frank Hunt
Tutor
St. John ' s College
Santa Fe
"Husser! and the Crisis
of European Sciences"
February 15
Professor Alex Roland
Department of Hi story
Duke University
"Public Policy and
Technological Development:
The Case of the Strategic
Computing Program"
February 22
Palastrina Choir
Concert
March 1-15
Spring Vacation
No Lectures
March 22
(Steiner Lecture)
Professor Christopher Pelling
University College
Oxford
"Caesars: From Plutarch to
Shakespeare - and Beyond"
March 29
Ms. Katherine Heines
Tutor
St. John' s College
Annapolis
"On Sophocles ' Trachinian
Women"
OFFICE OF
THE DEAN
P.O. Box 2.8oo
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND
2.I404
4ID-62.6-2.5II
FAX 4W-2.95-6937
w ww.sjca. edu
�April 5
Mr. Alban Gerhardt
Cello Concert
April 12
Professor Noel Swerdlow
University of Chicago
"Scientific Cosmologies"
April 19
Mr. John Kress
Tutor
St. John's College
Annapolis
"The Alliance of Laughter
and Wisdom: Nietzsche's
,
Gay Science
April26
King William Players
Much Ado About Nothing
May3
Reality Weekend
May 10
Commencement Weekend
No Lecture
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
4 pages
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Office of the Dean
Title
A name given to the resource
Lecture/Concert Schedule - 2001-2002
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2001-2002
Description
An account of the resource
Schedule of lectures and concerts for the 2001-2002 Academic Year.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lecture Schedule 2001-2002
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Relation
A related resource
November 02, 2001. Brann, Eva T. H. <a title="Ways of naysaying" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/269">Ways of naysaying</a> (audio)
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Flaumenhaft, Harvey, 1938-
Schulman, Adam
Seeger, Tony
Weiner, Neil
Schoener, Abraham
Stuffer, Devin
Kinderman, William
Brann, Eva T. H.
Russell, George
Gold, Lael
Borjesson, Gary
Soltes, Ori Z.
Maschler, Chaninah, 1931-2014
Hunt, Frank
Roland, Alex, 1944-
Pelling, Christopher
Heines, Katherine
Gerhardt, Alban
Swerdlow, Noel
Kress, John
King William Players
Friday night lecture
Lecture schedule
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