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On Copernicus
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Audio recording of a lecture delivered on December 6, 1967, by Jacob Klein as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Klein, Jacob, 1899-1978
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Annapolis, MD
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1967-12-06
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Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804. Ethics
Copernicus, Nicolaus, 1473-1543
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English
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Tape_280
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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Must Eudai.monism Mean the Euthanasia of AJ..1. ...._....... __ _
Kant's Rigorism and the Mora1ity of Happiness
by Daniel Kolb
St. John's Col1ege, Annapolis
In the Metaphysics of Morals, the last of Kant's major ethical
works, he offers the following estimation eudaimonian ethics.
"If
eudaimonism (the principle of happiness) is set up as the basic
principle [of ethics] ... , the result is the euthanasia (easy death)
of all morals." [MM 378/183) 1 An ethical doctrine is eudaimonian,
in Kant's terms, if it treats acting virtuously as source of
happiness or contentment. This special kind of happiness, which
Kant also calls 'moral happiness' and opposes to 'empirical
happiness,' is, he tells us, a "self-contradictory absurdity." [:MM
377/182) Kant's use of the Greek term 'eudaimonian' to characterize
this mistake is not accidental.
He means to direct our attention
to the doctrines of certain ancient philosophers closely associated
with it, most notably Aristotle and the Stoics.
At first blush, Kant's rejection eudaimonism seems strange.
He begins his first mature work on ethics with the unambiguous
endorsement of the idea of a virtuous will is the central, indeed
the only, concern of the ethical life. "There is no possibility of
thinking of anything at all in the world, or even out of it, which
The key to references to Kant's works is found at the end
of the text.
1
1
�2
can be regarded as good without qualification [that is, as morally
good,] except a good will." [G 393/7] In the midst of the growing
tribes of utilitarians, sentimentalists, and rational egoists who
populate the landscape of modern ethical thought, Kant's call to
focus on virtue for virtue's sake seems to belong to a different
time.
Indeed one might easily suspect that Kant will encourage us
to look to the doctrines of those ancient philosophers who share
his view that moral virtue perfects the person who possesses it.
Like Kant, the ancient eudaimonists insist that virtue is only
virtue if it is exercised for its own sake, not as a means to some
other goal.
Yet, it is precisely these philosophers Kant
conderr~s.
In tonight's lecture I will explore Kant's ethics with a view
to understanding why Kant thinks he must reject any form of
eudaimonism. I shall begin by examining an aspect of Kant's ethics
that is usually ignored and which is generally disparged when it is
noticed.
This is what Kant calls 'rigorism.' I shall argue that
rigorism, p r operly understood, is an essential aspect of Kant's
ethics.
By exploring the roots of Kant's rigorism, I hope to make
clear that Kant's ethics is deeply teleological in its orientation,
and that his treatment of duty cannot be understood apart from his
doctrine of virtue.
It is in his doctrine of virtue that we find
his reasons for rejecting eudaimonian ethics.
Virtue requires
purity of motivation, and philosophers such as the Stoics and
Aristotle who teach us to think that virtue is essentially related
�3
to happiness threaten the purity of the motives of the virtuous
agent and thereby undermine the practice of virtue itself.
RI GORI SM
Kant's clearest endorsement of rigorism is found in the
opening sections of Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone.
It is of the greatest consequence to ethics in general to avoid
admitting, so long as possible, of anything morally intermediate,
whether in action ... or in human characters; for with such ambiguity
all maxims are in danger of forfeiting their precision and
stability. Those who are partial to this strict mode of thinking
are called rigorists (a name which is intended to carry reproach,
but which actually praises) . . . [R 22/18]
The rigorist is not someone who adheres unwaveringly to principles
of duty, e.g., someone who tells the truth even when doing so will
cause a great sacrifice of non-moral goods.
Rather, rigorists are
persons inclined to view every action or state of character as
morally significant, that is, as either good or evil with no moral
middle ground.
The scope of Kant's rigorism is not limited only to actions
and traits of character.
It also applies to the moral evaluation
of the entire character of a person.
Neither can a man be morally good in some ways and at the same time
morally evil in others. His being good in one way means he has
incorporated the moral law into his maxim; were he, therefore at
the same time evil in another way, while his maxim would be
universal as based on the moral law of obedience to duty, which is
essentially single and universal, it would be at the same time only
particular; but this is a contradiction. [R 24-25/20]
�4
Persons are either good or evil in the foundation of their moral
character.
Opposed to rigorists are what Kant calls latitudinarians.
Latitudinarians threaten to undermine morality by marking off
categories of action or traits of character as intermediate between
good and evil and as therefore falling outside of the scope of
morality.
Kant identifies two types of latitudinarians:
indifferentists and syncretists. Indifferentists are philosophers
who maintain that human beings are by nature indifferent to virtue
and vice.
No ancients fall into this category. [R 25/20 note] Kant
seems to have in mind here modern advocates of natural rights such
as Hobbes, Pufendorf, Grotius, and Locke.
According to Hobbes,
there is no justice or injustice in the natural condition of men.
Morality consists of a set of human agreements which we make and
keep because it is in our interest to do so.
Locke differs from
Hobbes in that he believes that there are eternal moral laws which
ought to guide our behavior.
But lacking human agreements to
enforce these laws, and, ultimately, a divine judge to assure their
perfect application, we do not have a sufficient motive to obey
them. A marginal note of Locke's expresses this well.
Men have a natural tendency to what delights and from what pains
them. This universal observation has been established beyond
doubt. But that the soul has such a tendency to what is morally
�5
good and from what is morally evil has not fallen under my
observation, and therefore I deny it. 2
For the indifferentists, moral activity has nothing to do
with the perfection of the agent. Rather, the guiding light in our
adherence to any moral principle is self-interest which leads us to
avoid conflicts which would and render our own individual, private
pursuit of pleasure impossible. Without constraints on selfinterest, individuals would not have any reasonable assurance of
their ability to survive and pursue even part of their private
agenda. Thus even agents who are completely motivated by selfinterest will be led to conform to a moral principles because by
doing so they can carve out a space in which they are able to
pursue their own private interest without restraint. 3
By syncretists, on the other hand, Kant seems to have in mind
primarily, advocates of moral sense, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and
2 Cited by John Passmore,
Duckworth, 1972), p.159
The Perfectibility of Man (London:
Leibniz is sharply critical of this idea the compatibility
of what he calls 'internal corruption' and 'external virtue'.
"While it is possible that someone, by hope or fear, will repress
wicked thoughts, so that they do not harm ... nevertheless he will
never succeed in making them useful. Therefore, whoever is not
well intentioned will often sin, at least by omission .... Thus
[Pufendorf's] hypothesis about a soul which is internally corrupt
and outwardly innocent is not very safe and not very probable."
Political Writings (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988),
p.69 Those of you who have read Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov
will remember Ivan's claim that he would protect his father's
li fe whil e re t a ining the 'right' to wis h f or h is murde r.
He ends
up not only wishing for his father's murder but also acting to
facilitate it.
3
�6
Hume. {Kant lectured with enthusiasm on the these moral theories of
these philosophers in the mid 1760's - about 20 years before he
finally formulated his mature ethical views. He was still trying to
incorporate major elements of moral sense theory in his ethics as
late as 1775.} These philosophers maintain that virtuous behavior
is motivated by a unique set of feelings which direct us to goals
different from those of immediate self-interest. I quote here from
Francis Hutcheson's The Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue.
The author of nature has much better furnished us for a virtuous
conduct than our moralists seem to imagine, by almost as quick and
powerful instructions as we have for the preservation of our
bodies. He has given us strong affections to be the springs of
each virtuous action and made virtue a lovely form that we might
easily distinguish it from its contrary, and be happy in the
pursuit of it. 4
The beauty of virtuous actions stems from the fact that they are
be neficent, that is, they tend to the public good or the goods of
other individuals even when they conflict with self-interest.
However, these motives are often competing with other interested
motives, and there can be no assurance that the motive of virtue
will be sufficiently strong to win out over other motives opposing
it.
Moral sense theorists, at least Hume and Hutcheson, endorse
the practice of finding ways to combine appeals to the moral sense
with appeals to self-interest.
From Mor al Philosophy from Montaign e to Kant, J.B.
Schneewind editor (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990),
Vol. II, p.506.
4
�7
Beneficent actions tend to the public good; it is therefore good
and kind to give all possible additional motives to them, and to
excite men who have some weak degrees of good affection to promote
the public good more vigorously by motives of self-interest ... 5
In the end, we have a we cannot tell and perhaps do not care which
motive, love of virtue or self-interest is primary. In the Critique
of Practical Reason Kant expresses his distaste for this kind of
theory.
(W]e find ourselves in a syncretistic age, when a certain shallow
and dishonest coalition between contradictory principles is devised
because it is more acceptable to a public which is satisfied to
know a little about everything and at bottom nothing ... (CprV 24/23]
MORAL WORTH
In order to see why Kant objects to the morality of actions in
which self-interest or natural feelings of beneficence lead us to
do the right thing, let us turn to Kant's argument from the
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.
In the much discussed
examples from the first section of the Groundwork Kant contrasts
actions that are simply in accord with duty with actions that are
performed out of a sense of duty.
A shopkeeper acts from the
motive of his own calculated self-interest. He performs the morally
required action and charges his customer an honest price.
But he
acts for a ''selfish purpose" rather than from a sense of duty.
his second example a naturally beneficent man, one whom Kant
5
Schneewind, Vol. II, p.512.
In
�8
characterizes as a 'friend of mankind', acts in accord with his
duty to help those less fortunate than himself.
Even though he
acts without vanity or selfish purpose and is motivated by a
genuine concern for the happiness of another, his act does not
spring from a sense of duty and, therefore, according to Kant, it
lacks moral worth.
Kant identifies three problems with motives of the selfinterested shopkeeper and the friend of humanity. First, their
motives do not lead to moral actions in a universal manner, that
is, under all conditions and in all circumstances.
If his
calculations of market forces and social pressures no longer
constrain him, the shopkeeper who acts out of self-interest will
fail to act in accordance with his duty.
There is no necessary
connection between his self-interest and honesty.
In the case of
the friend of humanity, feelings such as beneficence may lead him
to perform actions which are even contrary to those morally
prescribed. The beneficent person may, out of sympathetic feelings,
protect the guilty from punishment, supply drugs to a suffering
drug addict, kill someone to end suffering, or help a terrified
criminal escape legal detection.
If you have read Crime and
Punishment place yourself behind the pawnbrokress' door with
Raskolnikov when he is on the brink of being discovered after his
murders and s ee where your sympa thy lies .
Or read the concluding
scenes of Of Mice and Men in which George kills Lennie and then
�9
lies about his act and its motives. Sympathy is with the escaping
criminal and the beneficent lying murderer.
The second problem Kant finds with motives of self-interest
and beneficence is that it is a matter of chance that we find
ourselves endowed with these motives.
They are subject to
arbitrary alteration. The sympathetic person's feelings may change.
He is affected by the ingratitude of his beneficiaries or by a
change in his circumstances and the feelings of sympathy weaken to
the point where they are no longer sufficient to move him.
Shakespeare's Timon of Athens presents us with just such a man.
Timon's generous benevolence is transformed into raging misanthropy
by the ingratitude of those around him.
These problems point to Kant's third, and deeper, reason for
thinking that motives other than duty for duty's sake have no true
moral worth.
Persons acting from self-interest or beneficence
really have different ends in view from those acting from a sense
of duty.
The shopkeeper motivated only by self-interest, or the
sympathetic person motivated only by feelings of benevolence, act
without regard for duty.
The person who acts from a sense of duty
acts out of respect for the moral law.
His end includes, at a
minimum, the component that he will not violate the moral law.
For Kant, human being are more than natural beings governed by
sentiments.
In so far as we are parts of nature, we find ourselves
subject to various feelings and inclinations that are caused in us
�10
independently of our wills.
As rational . beings, however, we find
ourselves set apart from nature.
Everything in nature acts according to laws.
Only a rational being
has the power to act according to the idea of laws, that is
according to principles; that is to say only a rational being has a
will. [G 412, my translation]
Human agents are able to distance themselves from the immediate
promptings of nature, consider other possibilities, order and rank
incentives.
That is, they can think about how they are going to
act and give reasons for their choices.
In calling our motives
'maxims' or 'ideas of laws' Kant means to emphasize the fact that
human action contains rational reflection on both the ends of
action and the motives for pursuing .them.
Actions which appear the
same externally can be motivated by very different maxims. A
shopkeeper must rank self-interest and honesty in his maxim.
If he
ranks self-interest above honesty, his honest dealing with his
customers depends on his perception that it will promote his selfinterest.
His motive is very different from the shopkeeper whose
honesty is not dependent entirely his self-interest.
The
shopkeeper who values honesty more highly than self-interest will
act honestly from a principle, that is the idea of the good of
honesty, even when he can see no benefit for himself from honest
dealing.
A rational agent whose reason is not just instrumental, but is
pract i c a l i n t h e Ka nti a n sens e c a n as k why h e is d o ing what he is
doing; that is, he capable of conscious self-examination of his
�11
motives.
For Kant, practical reason does not just deliberate about
means; it is also active in evaluating ends. Kant's forbiddingly
titled "Categorical Imperative," in its initial formulation, really
commands no more of rational agents than that they choose ends for
good reasons, that is, reasons which command the assent of any
rational being.
For example, for the self-interested shopkeeper to
say that his action is a good one, he must be able to say that it
is good for people to value self-interest over honesty.
The
enterprise of shop keeping, however, depends on customers and
suppliers keeping their promises, honoring contracts, and
respecting ownership.
These conditions of shop keeping would be
impossible if everyone was to value self-interest over honesty.
Hence it is inconsistent for the shop keeper to will self-interest
over honesty.
In willing his self-interest over honesty he is
inconsistent in the same way a thief who wants others to respect
his ill gotten gain is inconsistent.
"That's my money; I stole
it."
The moral agent who respects his reason giving capacity
refuses to allow his reason to be reduced to the status of a mere
instrument serving for the procurement of ends prompted by his
desires.
Retaining rational control of the ends of his action is
the goal that a self-respecting rational agent sets for himself.
Kant summarizes this line of argument in discussing the 'respect
humanity' version of the categorical imperative.
�12
Rational nature is distinguished from the rest of nature by the
fact that it sets itself an end. This end would be the matter of
every good will.
But in the idea of an absolutely good
will ... complete abstraction must be made from every end that has
come about as an effect .... And so the end must be conceived not as
an end to be effected, but as an independently existing end. Hence
it must be conceived only negatively, i.e., as an end which should
never be acted against and therefore as one which in all willing
must never be regarded merely as means but must always be esteemed
at the same time as an end.
[G 437/42)
We act against humanity when we treat the rational capacity that
makes us persons, as a mere means to be used in procuring any
goals. This amounts to no more than saying that the ultimate end of
any rational being's mode of action must respect its integrity as a
rational being. It is neither possible nor desirable to eliminate
pathologically conditioned incentives directed towards an
indefinite variety of ends - food, drink, friends, knowledge, etc.;
but these can be tested for permissibility and overridden if they
fail the test.
It is a consequence of this account that Kant's rigorism holds
fo r act i on .
No actions can be morally neutral. Consider an agent
whose maxim ranks self-interest or immediate inclination of
benevolence above respect for duty.
The agent is then treating the
satisfaction of these incentives as unconditional goods.
While
this might produce permissible actions occasionally, or even in
particularly fortuitous circumstances, throughout a lifetime, the
maxim of the agent lacks recognition of the primacy o f the moral
law a nd expresses a willingness even to violat e the moral law
should it be necessary in the pursuit of its object.
While such an
�13
action may be legally permissible, it has a morally unacceptable
motive. [CprR 62/64] In their maxims agents either recognize
respect for the moral law as a necessary condition for the
permissibility of actions, or they do not.
If acts include this
recognition as part of their motive, they are morally good and can
be willed universally.
If motives do not include respect for the
moral law, they cannot be willed universally and the actions they
prompt are morally evil.
An action which is not one or the other
is impossible.
A morally indifferent action ... would be one resulting from natural
laws, and hence standing in no relation whatsoever to the moral
law, which is the law of freedom; for such action is not a morally
significant fact at all. . . [R 23/18, note)
In other words, an 'action' which is morally indifferent is not
really an action at all.
It is rather a natural event governed by
natural necessity.
HAPPINESS AND MORAL LIFE
As so far characterized, Kant's rigorism might seem fairly
benign.
While it recognizes an overriding duty to adopt a certain
point of view when evaluating actions, it might turn out that most
actions considered by most agents are in the permissible category.
It need not be not an overly onerous intrusion into most lives.
Furthermore, it is not yet clear why Kant's rigoristic exclusion of
a moral middle ground between good and evil applies to character of
�14
the agent considered as a whole.
Why could it not be the case that
one is respectful of the moral law in areas of life dealing with
property and honesty but falls short when it comes to sensual
pleasures such as food and drink?
Why does Kant think that we
cannot be good in some ways and bad in others, virtuous at some
times and vicious at others?
In order to begin answering these questions let us turn to
Kant's account of the place of the pursuit of happiness in a moral
life.
This is, perhaps, best illustrated in the genetic account of
the development of moral consciousness found in a number of works short essays on history and the Critique of Judgment - written in
the period between the Groundwork the Religion.
The story Kant tells about the development of moral
consciousness in human agents (and for which he acknowledges his
debt to Rousseau [SBHH 116/54]) goes something like this. As
animals human beings find themselves wi th a host of natural
inclinations.
The rational capacity of human beings complicates
the way in which we respond to these inclinations. The technical
rationality of human beings enables them to develop arts and
sciences.
Competition and jealousy among people leads to greater
reliance on craft and less on nature in the satisfaction of desire.
As a consequence people are able to pursue a wider variety of ends
than could be prompted by mere instinct. They f ind themselves
confronted with a range of options which are not mutually
�15
compatible and must make choices requiring rational consideration.
This in turn requires the discipline of desires, freeing them from
their immediate responses to the impulses of nature.
It is a characteristic of reason that it will with the aid of
imagination cook up desires for things for which there is not only
no natural urge, but even an urge to avoid; at the outset these
desires go by the name of greediness, and from them arise a whole
swarm of unnecessary, indeed even unnatural, propensities that go
by the name of voluptuousness. [SBHH 111/51]
Worry about the future satisfaction of as yet unfelt desires,
desire for honor and esteem of others, and the corresponding vices
of avarice and envy as well as a taste for beauty and higher
learning are the result of this expanding circle of desires.
The agent must now use his reason to impose order on the mess
it has helped to create.
Reason does not yet function morally.
does not dictate what ends ought to be pursued.
It
Rather, it
attempts to form a coherent idea of order out of the ends suggested
by desire.
The object of this idea is what we mean by 'happiness.'
The concep t of happiness is not one that man abstracts (s ay ) from
his instincts and hence gets from himself as an animal. Rather, it
is a mere idea: the idea of a state of his, an idea to which he
tries to make that state adequate under merely empirical
conditions. (J 430/317. See also, SBHH 113-4/52.]
The idea of happiness, "the greatest sum of what is agreeable in
life," [J 208/50] represents a good, but one which is merely
subjective, since its organizing principle is dictated by arbitrary
individual preference.
�16
When happiness is pursued as an unconditioned good it leads to
incoherence.
This is because happiness pursued as an unconditioned
end is unattainable.
Even if we restricted the concept of happiness to the true natural
needs shared by our entire species, or if instead we maximized
man's skill for accomplishing the purposes he imagines, he would
still never reach what he means by happiness, and reach what is in
fact his own ultimate natural purpose ... : for it is not his nature
to stop possessing and enjoying at some point and be satisfied. [J
430/318]
In more realistic circumstances where we do have unnatural desires
and have only moderate skill in satisfying them, the pursuit of
happiness results in a condition even less adequate to the idea of
happiness.
If the value that life has for us is assessed merely in terms of
what we enjoy (i.e. happiness, the natural purpose of the sum of
our inclinations), then the answer is easy: the value falls below
zero. [J 434 note/321)
When happiness is pursued as an unconditioned good it also leads to
conflict with others because it fails to harmonize efforts of
different individuals. Given the subjective nature of the idea of
happiness, such conflict is inevitable.
[CprR 28/27-28) The
conflict among individuals leads to greater disorder, fears,
frustrations, and new desires for power .. The pursuit of happiness
as an unconditioned good leads to its opposite of its goal.
[IUH
20-21/32]
I want to emphasize two points that emerge from Kant's story
about the sad fate of human agency dominated by the idea of
unconditioned happiness.
First, Kant illustrates the the
�17
systematic function of reason in its practical affairs.
All human
end setting is mediated by rational conceptions of ends and selfawareness of the agent. In human agents reason transforms what Kant
calls our ''crude'' predispositions from an animal-like instinctual
form of end setting into a distinctly human capacity.
All human
end setting involves the use of 'ideas.' Even in the pursuit of
non-moral ends, reason has more than a purely instrumental role to
play. Second, in pursuing happiness unconditionally we are driven
to recognize the futility of happiness as the final goal of human
action\
In this recognition, however, we discover our independence
from the desire for happiness.
This in turn leads to the idea of
an end which can successfully introduce systematic order into our
practical pursuits and successfully harmonize them with those of
others. [SBHH 114/52)
This is the idea of the moral
law~
In his genetic accounts of the development of hurnan moral
capacities Kant does little more than hint at how a systematic
moral idea of life might emerge from the failure of the idea of
happiness to provide a coherent guide to action.
[SBHH 114-5/52-53]
His formal account of the relationship between happiness and the
moral law, however, fits exactly as the end of this process. By
subjecting the desire for happiness to the condition that it be
pursued in accordance with the moral law, happiness first becomes a
true good and not just an object of arbitrary preference.
love cannot be rejected.
Self-
According to Kant, it is "natural and
�18
active in us even prior to the moral law." [CprR 73/76]
When self-
love allows its claims to be mediated by the moral law, however,
they can be willed universally; and it is then called "rational
self-love." [CprR 73/76]
By recognizing the necessity of
considering the happiness of others and willing my happiness only
when it harmonizes with that of humanity in general, willing my own
happiness has the form of law and is objectively good.
Let the material content [of my maxim] be ... my own happiness. If I
attribute this to everyone, as in fact I may attribute it to all
finite beings, it can become an objective practical law only if I
include within it the happiness of others. Therefore, the law that
we should further the happiness of others arises not from the
presupposition that this law is an object of everyone's choice, but
from the fact that the form of universality which reason requires
as a condition for giving the maxim of self-love the objective
validity of law, is itself the determining ground of the will.
[CprR 34/35)
If I am willing to subject the claims of self-love to the form of
the moral law, I have a virtuous disposition and my happiness
becomes a legitimate goal. If I limit the requirements of the moral
law in order to accommodate my pursuit of happiness, theD I have a
vicious disposition.
MORAL LAW AND FUNDAMENTAL DISPOSITIONS
As a agent endowed with practical reason, then, each of us is
confronted with two competing principles of systematic order and
must choose between them.
The whole of each agent's moral life can
be ordered e i t he r by the demands of self-love or by respect f or the
moral law.
�19
The disposition, i.e., the ultimate subjective ground for the
adoption of maxims, can be one and only one and applies to the
whole use of freedom. [R 25/20; see also MM 410/210-11]
Both principles, happiness and obedience to the moral law, are
original and indispensable.
The choice of what Kant calls a
''supreme maxim" (R 31/26] determines which principle will be
subordinate to which.
Either the pursuit of happiness is
subordinated to the moral law or the moral law is acknowledged only
when it does not interfere with the pursuit of happiness.
Kant's argument for the claim that the whole agency of a moral
agent must be governed by a single maxim or principle is based on
his insistence that human actors do have systematic conceptions of
themselves as agents, and these conceptions include an estimation
of the relative merits an agent assigns to moral incentives.
We
have the capacity to think about our lives as wholes, rather than
as random sequences of unconnected actions.
We do not shift
arbitrarily from one set of motives and values to another.
If such
a shift does occur, it needs to be explained either by means of a
deeper continuous value, or by means of a change in the basic
disposition of the agent and the adoption or rejection of a basic
maxim.
In either case there is a basic maxim at work.
If an agent
refuses to relate his maxims to each other and is willing to allow
a high degree of incoherence in his agency, he has adopted a maxim
of moral indifference.
The only other possibility, Kant notes,
ZL/17-18, note] is that he acts on natural impulse.
But Kant
[R
�20
rejects this because he assumes that human agents are free,
rational beings and can take an interest the coherence of their
maxims if they choose to do so.
What is lacking in the morally
shiftless agent is not a systematic conception of his own agency.
Rather it is the disposition to respect the moral law in his
systematic conception of his agency.
Kant's argument concerning the 'supreme principle' of virtue
in the Metaphysics of Morals reflects this argument.
The supreme
principle of virtue is that one should adopt the moral law and the
promotion of humanity as the basic principle of all agency; this
amounts to the same thing as adopting a fundamentally good
disposition.
Kant notes that this principle can be deduced from
its possibility.
The basic principle of the doctrine of virtue ... cannot be proved,
but it can be given a deduction from pure practical .reason. What,
in relation to himself and others, can be an end is an end for pure
practical reason. For practical reason is the capacity for ends
generally and for it to be indifferent to ends, that is, to take no
interest in them, would be a contradiction ... [~ll~ 395/198, emphasis
Kant's]
Since reason can take an interest in the content of our maxims and
the fundamental disposition of our character, it must take such an
interest.
Failure to do so reflects a culpable lack of virtue.
RIGORISM AND MORAL PERFECTION
The a dopt ion of the f undament a l ma xim of moral goodness is
only the beginning of the story of what is required of the virtuous
�21
agent. But the adoption of a fundamentally good maxim is, however,
always the beginning.
Moral regeneration for Kant must always stem
first from the choice of fundamental maxim and only secondarily
from the reformation of habits. [R 48; MM 409] The original choice
of a
fundamental disposition reforms the "cast of mind and the
grounding of the character." [R 43]
In doing so, it orients the
character toward the ideal of moral perfection in which all aspects
of the agent's character and actions are in complete harmony with
the commitment to the supremacy of the moral law.
Now it is our duty as men to elevate ourselves to this ideal of
moral perfection, that is, to the archetype of the moral disposition in all of its purity. [R 61/54]
The duty to moral perfection follows from the basic maxim of moral
goodness.
To choose the end is also to will the means.
The
individual who is good in his fundamental disposition must also
will that the elements of his character and passions do not present
obstacles which tempt him away from or make him inattentive to
duty.
The duty to moral perfection does not allow any accommodation
to inclination.
Kant calls the duty to elevate oneself to moral
perfection "narrow and perfect" in its quality. [MM 446/241]
In
non-Kantian terms, this means that it is a duty which, like
repaying a debt, has only a single path to its completion, and it
should be completely accomplished.
In practice the duty to moral
perfection must be treated as "wide and imperfect" because of the
�22
overwhelmingly imperfect condition of human beings.
There is
simply so much work to do in bringing our empirical natures into
harmony with the idea of moral perfection that we cannot do it all
at once.
The choice to adopt the basic maxim of moral goodness is
made in the context of a will which also has what Kant calls the
'propensity to evil in human nature' and which has already made
claims on our characters. [R 29-32/23-29]
[I]n the moral development of the predisposition to good implanted
in us, we cannot start from an innocence natural to us but must
begin with the assumption of a wickedness of will in adopting
maxims contrary to the original moral predisposition; and since
this propensity [to evil] is inexstirpable, we must begin with
incessant counter action against it. [R 46]
We can never eliminate the propensity to evil.
No matter
successful one is in reforming his character, there is always the
possibility of slipping into a fundamentally evil disposition.
The best we can hope for in the struggle against evil in us is that
we make continual progress.
The person who has adopted the basic disposition of moral
goodness confronts two major obstacles to its realization in
practice. Much like the characters at the bottom of the mountain in
Dante's Purgatory, their souls have the·right fundamental
orientation, but they need to undergo a cleansing.
According to
Kant what needs to be cleansed are conditions he identifies as
'frailty' and 'impurity'.
when
Frailty is the condition that results
�23
I adopt the good into the maxim of my will, but this good which
objectively in its ideal conception ... is an irresistible incentive, is subjectively ... when the maxim is followed the weaker. [R
29/25]
The frail agent does not incorporate an immoral maxim into his
fundamental disposition.
Rather, he is overwhelmed by impulses,
such as when a generally well disposed individual is momentarily
overcome by anger or by passion, e.g. when an alcoholic who has
sworn off drunkenness, has no idea how to resist the passion for
drink.
The will is frail when it has adopted the fundamental maxim
of moral goodness, but confronts irresistible obstacles to its
achievement.
Kant's initial description of frailty makes it seem not so
much a quality of a human will failing as a case of the will
encountering the limits of its capabilities.
If the incentives
that lead us to act against the moral law are truly irresistible,
the acts are really beyond our control and should more properly be
considered events than actions. A disposition which requires moral
self-condemnation for events beyond the agent's control seems more
like pathological psychosis than a moral imperative.
Looked at more closely, however, Kant is concerned here with
barriers to moral perfection which originate in the will itself.
Virtue is ... the moral strength of a man's will in fulfilling his
duty ... but because this constraint is to be irresistible, strength
is required, in a degree that we can assess only by the magnitude
of the obstacles that a man himself furnishes through his
inclinations. The vices, the brood of dispositions opposing the
law, are the monsters he has to fight. [MM 405/206]
�24
We 'furnish' ourselves with incentives that lead us to act contrary
to the moral law, and these are to some degree alterable.
Likewise, our defenses against these
or weakened by our own practice.
inc~ntives
can be strengthened
The will which is overcome by
incentives contrary to duty may have virtue in its fundamental
orientation, but it lacks virtue in the narrow sense in which it is
opposed to specific vices.
The struggle against frailty requires a wide range of
strategies.
We must avoid adversity, pain, and want to the degree
to which that is possible if these present us with overwhelming
temptations.
[MM 388/192-3)
We must also, however, seek out
adversity when it will strengthen the will against immoral
incentives.
With regard to the principle of a vigorous, spirited and valiant
practice of virtue, the cultivation of virtue, that is moral
ascetics, takes as its motto the Stoic saying: Accustom yourself
to put up with the misfortunes of life and to do without its
superfluous pleasures .... This is a kind of reqimen ... for keeping a
man healthy.
[rvIM 485/273, emphasis Kant's]
Kant calls this 'ethical gymnastics'.
Ethical gymnastics ... consists only in combatting natural impulses
sufficiently to be able to master them when a situation comes up in
which they threaten morality ... [MM 485/274]
In assessing progress against frailty Kant's rigorism requires
that we accept nothing less than perfection.
This means that we
must measure ourselves not against our own past performance, our
pr e sent abilit i e s, or t he condition o f othe r people.
Rather i t
must be measured only by perfect conformity with the moral law.
�25
Ethical duties [that is, duties of virtue] must not be determined
in accordance with the capacity to fulfill the law ... On the
contrary, man's moral capacity must be estimated by the law, which
commands categorically and so in accordance with our rational
knowledge of what man ought to be in keeping with the idea of
humanity, not in accordance with the empirical knowledge we have of
men as they are. [MM 404-5/205/6)
Since the struggle against human frailty is never over, at least
not in this life, the basic moral disposition of the agent must be
estimated in terms of effort to make progress against weakness
rather than in absolute terms of moral strength. [MM 409/209]
The condition of impurity, like frailty, is a condition of the
will which is compatible with a fundamentally good disposition.
The impure will allows incentives other than pure respect for the
moral law to be incorporated into its basic maxim.
Rather than
treating the moral law as the fundamental incentive to permissible
action, the impure will incorporates other incentives such as selfinterest, pride, or hope for eternal salvation into his basic
maxim.
In condemning impurity, Kant cannot mean to conderrw the
presence of incentives other than respect for the moral law.
Many
incentives other than respect for the moral law are compatible with
a fundamentally good disposition.
The problem with the impure will
is that it places these incentives on an equal footing with the
moral law.
Since these motives will conflict, at least in
principle, with the moral law, the person with an impure will
becomes confused and corrupted.
[G 411/22] This corruption is a
large part natural propensity to evil.
By this Kant does not mean
�26
that incentives other than the moral law are intrinsically evil.
Rather it is the tendency of the will to confuse the proper
ordering of the incentives in its maxims.
This tendency cannot be
completely overcome, it can only be combated.
corrupted condition.
We begin in a
The fundamental disposition of the agent must
be judged not in terms of its purity or impurity in absolute terms,
but rather in terms of its willingness to combat the condition of
impurity which is always present to some degree.
The method Kant recommends for fighting impurity is
scrupulous examination of conscience.
Indeed the "First Command of
All Duties to Oneself" is to gain moral self-knowledge.
Impartiality in appraising oneself in comparison with the law, and
sincerity in acknowledging to oneself one's inner moral worth or
lack of worth are duties to oneself that follow directly from this
first command of self-knowledge. [MM 441-442/236]
Sincere pursuit of self-knowledge helps to undermine a number of
vices, not the least of which is egotistical self-esteem of the
person convinced of the goodness of his own heart.
The b as ic
disposition of the will is never immediately manifest in our
experience of even ourselves as agents.
It can only be inferred
from the more limited intentions we have in particular actions and
projects.
Yet even with regard to these, Kant notoriously
maintains, we are never certain and are subject to a great deal of
self-deception in interpreting the moral worth of our acts.
The depths of the human heart are unfathomable. Who knows himse lf
well enough to say, when he feels the incentive to fulfill his
duty, whether it proceeds entirely from the representation of th~
�27
law or whether there are not many other sensible impulses
contributing to it that look to one's advantage ... and that in other
circumstances, could just as well serve vice. [MM 447/241)
Examination of conscience must, therefore, always recognize the
possibility that lawful actions are motivated by an impure will and
work to guard against it.
Persons lacking self-knowledge may
frequently mistake impure motives for virtue.
Very often he mistakes his own weakness, which counsels him against
the venture of a misdeed, for virtue .. . ; and how many people who
have lived long and guiltless lives may not be merely fortunate in
having escaped so many temptations? In the case of any deed it
remains hidden from the agent himself how much pure moral content
there has been in his disposition.
[MM 392-3/196]
To the outside observer, and perhaps even to the agent himself, an
impure will may seem no different than that of the purely dutiful
agent.
The greedy shopkeeper may always act in accord with duty
and may be smugly self-satisfied on account of his conformity to
the law.
By contrast the frail individual who often acts against
duty may have a much greater purity of will.
He may feel the full
force of his transgres sions , have a firm re solve to reform, and
take steps for his improvement.
Yet, to the external observer he
seems much worse than the agent with the impure will who happens to
act in legal conformi ty with duty. The agent with an impure will
is, ne ve rthe l e ss, in the more da ngerous condition because he is
much closer to slipping over into a fundamentally evil disposition.
Ka nt's rigoristic approach to character, then, allows him to
make subt l e and nuanced judgments about va riations in and types of
vice and virtue.
By distinguishi ng between the fundamental
�28
disposition of the agent and his state of progress .in incorporating
the ideal of moral perfection into his character, Kant is led to
some rather surprising conclusions for a rigorist, who, it seems
should divide everyone into sheep and goats.
For example, he
maintains that one should never attempt to make a final estimation
of the basic moral worth of oneself or others. A tendency to moral
self-condemnation and disgust with the evil state of one's
character suggests a degree of respect for the moral law and may
indicate a fundamentally good disposition.
In judging others we
can never acquire enough information to determine the true state of
their basic disposition.
Another surprising conclusion is his
recognition that the frail character who acts against prescribed
duties may have a fundamentally good disposition, while the impure
age nt may act in accord with duty but be fundamentally evil in his
disposition.
KANT'S CRITICISM OF EUDAIMONISM
How does all of this help us understand Kant's condemnation
of eudaimonian ethics?
Let us put his c r iticism before us .
I
quote here from the Metaphysics of Morals.
When a thoughtful man has overcome incentives to vice and is aware
of having done his often bitter duty, he finds himself in a state
that could well be called happiness, a state of contentment and
peace of soul in which virtue is its own reward. Now a eudaimonist
says: This de light, this ha ppi ness is r e ally the mot i ve for acting
virt uously. The concept of dut y does not de t e rmine his will
directly.
He is moved to do his duty only by means of the
happiness he anticipates .... [T]here is a contradiction in this
�29
reasoning. For on the one hand he ought to fulfill his duty
without asking what effect this will have on his happiness, and so
on moral grounds; but on the other hand he can recognize that
something is his duty only when he can count on gaining happiness
by doing it, and so in accordance with a sensibly dependent
principle, which is the direct opposite of the moral principle. [MM
377-378/183)
While the eudaimonist pursues a course of action that is in accord
with virtue, as here characterized he is moved primarily by the
happiness he anticipates will result from his action.
He
understands the nature of duty for its own sake; but his motive is
so mixed with consequent satisfaction that he cannot even recognize
his dUty unless he can count on it.
He will act in accord with
duty, but his motive is fundamentally impure.
Kant's condemnation of eudaimonian ethics certainly does flow
from the core of his moral theory. If we see his criticism as
directed at modern eudaimonians, the people who we earlier saw Kant
characterizes as latitudinarians, it also seems well considered.
These philosophers do base morality on sensibly conditioned motives
and argue that without such motives we would be unable to recognize
or do our duty. Hume, in the closing pages of the Treatise,
certainly sounds like just the sort of eudaimonist Kant has in
mind.
[W]ho can think any advantages of fortune a sufficient compensation
for the least breach of the social virtues, when he considers not
only his character with regard to others, but also his peace and
inward satisfaction entirely dependent upon his strict observance
�30
of them; and a mind will never be able to bear its own survey, that
has been wanting in its part to mankind and society. 6
It is not difficult to understand Kant's negative reaction to the
kind of duplicity he sees here.
For Hurne, as for any moral sense
advocate, ethics is based on an empirical impulse of benevolence
that may or may not be stronger than conflicting motives of selfinterest.
Trying to bolster this tenuous basis for ethical life
with appeals to contentment and self-satisfaction merely adds one
more empirical and contingent motive to the mix.
Yet, Kant's condemnation of eudaimonian ethics does not does not
seem fair or accurate when applied to the ancient philosophers whom
he also seems to have in mind, namely, Aristotle and the Stoics.
For both Aristotle and the Stoics, virtuous activity must be
undertaken for the sake of the virtuous activity itself without
regard to external goods the individual might acquire by being
virtuous.
One need not look far in their works to find passages
asserting the necessity of being virtuous even at the expense of
the sacrifice of all goods Kant associates with happiness.
I quote
here from the Nichomachean Ethics, Book III.
[In] the case of courage ... death and wounds will be painful to the
brave man and against his will, but he will face them because it is
noble to do so and base not to do so . And the more he is
possessed of virtue in its entirety and the happier he is, the more
he will be pained at the thought of death; for life is best worth
living for such a man, and he is knowingly losing the greatest
goods, and this is painful. But he is none the less brave, and
6
Treatise of Human Nature, L.A. Selby-Bigge, ed., p.620.
�31
perhaps all the more so, because he chooses noble deeds of war at
that cost. 7
The virtuous activity that Aristotle considers essential to
eudaimonia is not motivated by a desire for happiness as a
consequence of virtuous actions. The virtuous man must choose
virtue for its own sake. He is possessed of eudaimonia to a higher
degree precisely because he is able to sacrifice goods external to
the exercise of his virtue in order to exercise that virtue more
perfectly.
The Stoics, likewise, consider concern for anything
external to the exercise of virtue for is own sake to be an
impediment to virtue.
Only one who has achieved a state of
complete apathy to goods external to virtue is really acting
virtuously. Indeed, the Stoics do maintain that this leads to a
state of tranquillity, but the state of tranquillity is a result of
living in harmony with one's true rational nature. Although stoic
rhetoric on this point is at times confusing, desire for
tranquility cannot be the primary motive for virtuous action if the
action is really virtuous.
Hence, it seems that what Aristotle and the Stoics mean by
'eudaimonia' is very different from what· Kant means by 'happiness.'
Eudaimonia essentially involves the pursuit of virtue.
For
Aristotle, practicing moral virtue for its own sake is an intrinsic
part of eudaimonia.
7
For the Stoics, it is the whole of eudaimonia.
Nichomachean Ethics,
David Ross tr., Book III ch. 9.
�32
The happiness Kant speaks of is distinct from and consequent upon
the exercise of virtue.
For Kant, there is no intrinsic happiness
in the exercise of virtue and there is no necessary connection
between happiness we might have and the exercise of virtue.
Is Kant then just wrong in his blanket condemnation of
eudaimonian ethics?
Does his criticism, at least in the case of
the ancients, simply rest on a linguistic confusion, taking the
ancient idea of eudaimonia for his own idea of happiness?
not.
I think
I believe Kant is right to be suspicious of ancient doctrines
of eudaimonia, if not quite for the same reason he rejects the
modern eudaimonists.
Central to the idea of ancient eudaimonian ethics is the
belief that desire can be cultivated in such a way that reason and
desire really share the same goals.
In the man of perfect virtue,
reason and desire are in perfect harmony with each other.
Kant
rejects this not only because he thinks it is a false conception of
desire, but he also sees in it a threat to his rigoristic account
of moral virtue.
The mixture of reason and desire in the
eudaimonist's ideal of virtue Kant perceives as a threat to the
purity of virtue.
It is useful in this light to consider Kant's criticism from
the Metaphysics of Morals of Aristotle's account of virtue as a
mean between extremes.
[T)he well known principle (Aristotle's) that locates virtue in the
[Note)* ... What distinguishes
mean between two vices is false.*
�33
avarice (as a vice) from thrift (as a virtue) is not that avarice
carries thrift too far but that avarice has an entirely different
principle (maxim), that of putting the end of economizing not in
enjoyment of one's means, but merely in the possession of them,
while denying oneself any enjoyment from them. In the same way,
the vice of prodigality is not to be sought in excessive enjoyment
of one's means but in the bad maxim which makes the use of one's
means the sole end, without regard for preserving them.
[MM 404/205, text and note]
As Kant puts it elsewhere, if proper thrift is a mean between
avarice and prodigality, one would pass through the virtue in
moving from one vice to the other.
being. a little less vicious.
One could be virtuous by simply
[MM 432/228]
While Kant's
condemnation of Aristotle's doctrine of the mean is certainly hasty
in that he ignores the role of practical wisdom in the choice of
the mean, the point he is making is clear enough.
either vicious or they are not.
Maxims are
The path from vice to virtue
requires first and foremost the conversion of the character from an
evil maxim to a good one.
Habituation of desires is valuable in
enabling an agent to overcome his frailty and build strength that
is necessary for consistently acting on a moral maxim.
If his
actions are not based on the proper maxim, however no amount of
habituation to the mean will make the action virtuous.
Thi s criticism of the doctrine of the mean suggests a deep and
unbridgeable chasm between Kant and Aristotle.
For Kant, the end
that Aristotle proposes for moral life, the perfect harmonization
of inclination and reason, is neither possible nor desirable.
For
Aristotle desire is a fundamentally different animal than it is for
�34
Kant.
Desires points us at a something good.
That something is
desirable tells us something about its intrinsic value.
Untutored
desire my attach to a good in the wrong context or to the wrong
degree, but desire itself has an affinity with reason in that it
indicates something about the true value of objects to which it
attaches.
Thus Aristotle can say
[W]e must none the less suppose that in the soul too there is
something beside the rational principle, resisting and opposing
it ... Now even this seems to have a share in the rational
principle ... ; at any rate in the continent man it obeys the
rational principle-and presumably in the temperate and brave man it
is still more obedient; for in him it speaks, on all matters, with
the same voice as the rational principle. [NE I.13]
Desire is capable of education in the Aristotelian scheme of
things; it makes sense to talk of "those who desire and act in
accordance with a rational principle ... " [NE I.3] In the case of
the virtuous man, the good is indicated to him both by his desires
and by his reason.
The completeness of his virtue is indicated by
the pleasure he takes in virtuous actions.
[N]ot only is a horse pleasant to the lover of horses, and a
spectacle pleasant to the lover of sights, but also in the same way
just acts are pleasant to the lover of justice and in general
virtuous acts are pleasant to the lover of virtue. Now for most
men their pleasures are in conflict with one another because they
are not by nature pleasant, but the lovers of the noble find
pleasant things that are by nature pleasant; and virtuous actions
are such, so that these are pleasant for such men as well as in
their own nature. [NE I.8]
Because desire participates in the rational principle the two
faculties can come to share the same goals, take pleasure in the
same things, and speak with one voice.
�35
Like Aristotle, the Stoics find a strong natural affinity
between reason and desire.
The Stoics, of course, reject
Aristotle's doctrine of the mean. They opt instead for the extremes
of complete elimination of desires directed at goods external to
the will and complete attachment of desire to the one true good
internal to the will itself, namely correct willing and rational
control of life.
But the Stoics share with Aristotle the beliefs
that desire is always directed at what is good and aversion at what
is bad and that desires participate in the rational faculty.
Inde$d, they often speak as if desire is nothing more than a
confused way of thinking and as if desires are really judgments
concerning the value of objects.
Epictetus tells us,
Remember that what is insulting is not the person who abuses you or
hits you, but the judgment about them that they are insulting. So
when someone irritates you be aware that what irritates you is your
own belief. Most importantly, therefore, try not to be carried
away by appearance, since if you gain time and delay you will
control yourself more easily. [Encheiridion, Aphorism 20; see also
Seneca, On Anger, II.1-3}
To desire something is to judge it good.
something is to judge it bad.
To have an aversion to
Since they are really forms of
judgment, desires can be educated by philosophical moral guidance
which reveals the true value of the object of desire.
If
reflection reveals an object of desire not to be a true good, the
will is naturally led to detach itself from the desired object.
The true good for the Stoic is to be found in the perfection of the
act of willing itself and his virtue is an inner attitude that is
�36
indifferent to the consequences of actions.
It is, however,
passionately attached to the good of the will itself, that is,
maintaining control over the faculty of choice and acting in
harmony with the agents true rational nature. 8
Kant will have none of this. For him reason and desire have
very different objects.
A desire to be dutiful is a contradiction
in terms. The main task of moral development is the separation and
purification of reason from desires. As his reflection on ethics
develops Kant does devote a great deal of attention to the need to
habituate the empirical components of our characters to strengthen
emotions and feelings that can assist and to weaken desires and
emotions that can hinder the performance of duty.
But he rejects
the idea that desires can have a share in or participate in the
rational faculty.
Desire is always subject to arbitrary factors of
individual preference and is always empirically conditioned.
The Stoics were notorious for their doctrine that
'externals' can add nothing to the happiness of the virtuous
person. 11 ' But look you, ' 11 it is objected, 'is not the wise man
happier if he has lived longer, if no pain has distracted him,
than if he had always had to wrestle with misfortune?' 'Tell me
[,' responds Seneca,] 'is he better or more honorable? If not,
then neither is happier.'
[ Seneca, "On the Happy Life, 11 The
Stoic Philosophy of Seneca, Moses Hadas, ed., p.244; see also
Epictetus, Discourses, 3.11, or Cicero, De Finibus, III.17-21]
For extensive treatments of the relationship between reason and
desire in the Stoics, see Nancy Sherman, Making a Necessity of
Virtue, (New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997), Ch. 3; J.B.
Schneewind , "Kant and Stoic Ethics ," in Aris totle , Kant, and th e
Stoics, S. Engstrom and J. Whiting editors, (New York: Cambridge
Univ. Press, 1996), pp.285-301.
8
�37
Only experience can teach us what brings joy. Only the natural
drives for food, drink, sex, rest, and movement, and (as our
natural predispositions develop) for honor, for enlarging our
knowledge, and so forth can tell each of us, and each only in his
particular way, in what he will find these joys .... [MM 215/43)
The arbitrary and personal nature of desire means that it can never
tell us anything about the true value of the objects to which it is
attached.
Desire can never be educated.
It can only be
controlled. While Kant does admit that the cultivation of the taste
for the arts and sciences may heighten sensitivity to our higher
moral purpose, he views it as just as likely to corrupt the will by
engendering false pride and vanity incompatible with duty.
If duty and desire cannot have the same objects as their
goals, the very idea of loving virtue is an impossibility. True
virtue requires complete separation of motives of duty from motives
based in the desires.
The process of the acquisition of virtue
requires distillation of the motive of duty, separating it from
impurities.
It is a process that requires no unique philosophical
knowledge or special learning.
[W]e do not in the
make it attend, as
do we show neither
honest and good or
least try to teach reason anything new but only
Socrates did, to its own principle - and thereby
science nor philosophy is needed in order to be
even wise and virtuous. [G 404/16)
Rather than pointing us toward the simple unadorned principle of
moral duty, eudaimonists direct us to ideals which mix duty for
duty's sake with other elements.
The problem with the ancient eudaimonist, then, is not that
he advocates a goal that is completely wrong or directly opposed to
�38
duty.
Rather, he places before us a moral ideal which cannot but
foster an impure will.
The impurity in question, however, is not a
simple garden variety impurity in which the will is led to hedge
and trim adherence to duty for duty's sake to accommodate easily
understood passions and desires.
It is rather an intellectual's
perversion of . duty in which impurity is painted in a deceptively
attractive light.
The product of this deception Kant terms 'moral
fanaticism,' a vice engendered, he tells us by novelists and
sentimental educators as well as the strictest of all philosophers,
the Stoics. [CprV 86/88-89) In the following passage Kant contrasts
the disposition of the moral fanatic with that of the dutiful
agent.
The moral condition which he (the dutiful agent] can always be in
is virtue, that is, moral disposition in conflict [with desire],
and not holiness in the supposed possession of perfect purity of
the intentions of the will. The mind is disposed to nothing but
blatant moral fanaticism and e xaggerated self-conceit by
exhortation to action as noble, sublime, magnanimous. By it people
are led to the illusion that the determining ground of action is
not duty, i.e., respect for the moral law whose yoke must be borne
whether it is liked or not (though it is only a mild yoke, as
imposed by reason) . This law always humbles them when they follow
(obey) it , but by this kind of exhortation they come to think
those actions are e xpected of them not because of duty but only
because of their own bare merit. [CprR 84-5/87)
The moral f anatic is like ly to forget the condition of moral
degeneracy from which he has progressed, he will probably fail to
correctly examine his own moral condition, and neglect to guard
aga ins t the r eal threats to his virtue . One of the fe w us eful
things that the moral philosopher can do for the ordinary moral
�39
agent is warn him about the temptations of moral fanaticism.
Because it is an intellectual's pipe dream, it needs a philosopher
to diagnose it correctly.
[I]t is indeed an important article for morality to warn us
emphatically against such empty and fanciful desires, which are
of ten nourished by novels and sometimes also by mystical
presentations, similar to novels, of superhuman perfections and
fanatical bliss. But such empty desires and longings, which expand
the heart and make it weak, have an effect on the mind. They make
it languish by depleting its powers, showing well enough how the
mind is repeatedly strained by [these] ideas in trying to bring
their objects into being. With each effort the mind sinks back
into consciousness of its own impotence. 9
If a moral agent is seduced into believing he possesses the virtue
advocated by the moral fanatic he will inevitably overestimate his
own virtue.
On the other hand, if he accepts the ideal of the
fanatic, but honestly evaluates his own inability to make progress
towards it, he will be discouraged.
The goal he has adopted is not
just stern and difficult; it cannot even begin to be approximated.
Finding no way to it, he is liable to despair about the efficacy of
moral effort.
What then would Kant have us do?
Other than avoiding
novelists, sentimental educators, and eupaimonists, (and we do seem
to spend a lot of time in the company of these characters here at
St. John's) Kant would have us see that the conflict between duty
and inclination is not just insurmountable, it is providential.
9
First Introduction to the Critique of Judgment, Academy
edition of Kant's work, Vol. 20, p.231 note, my translation.
It
�40
is a creative tension without which we could not come to understand
the nature of our moral purpose. Consciousness of duty is born of
the awareness of the tension between duty and desire.
Finite moral
agents like us with one foot in the world of the sense and the
other in the intelligible world of reason can flourish only with
the recognition of the tension between the two and the claims of
each. The aesthetic character of virtue is not that of beauty or
harmony.
Virtuous acts are not beautiful; they are sublime.
They
contain the subjugation of the finite and conditioned value of
desire and its objects to the unconditional and infinite value of
respect for the moral law. If Kant is right in this, then he is
also right to see attempts to bridge the gap between reason and
desire as destructive of the very core of moral agency.
The
illusion that better life awaits us in the happy land beyond our
present divided moral condition is not only mistaken, it is
potentially lethal to morality itself.
In closing let me suggest that what I have done here is no
more than scratch the surface to expose some of the major
differences between Kant and the ancients. In order to adequately
evaluate Kant's criticism much more needs to be done.
At minimum
the differences between Kant, Aristotle, and the Stoics on the
nature of practical reason and its relation to desires will have to
explored.
Thorny issues such as why Arist otle says that practical
reason is primarily involved in deliberation about means not ends
�41
and while Kant holds exactly the reverse to be the case need to be
explored.
This will have, however, to wait until a later ocassion.
Key to Citations
References to Kant's works embedded in the text are as follows:
CPR
Critique of Pure Reason, Norman Kemp Smith translator.
London: St. Martin's Press, 1929 . References are given
in the standard 'A', first edition and 'B', second edition.
CprR
Critique of Practical Reason, Lewis White Beck translator.
Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill Press, 1956. First number of
the citation is from Volume V of the Academy edition of
Kant's work, second number is from English translation.
G
Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals, James Ellington
translator. Indianapolis: Hackett Press, 1981.
[Volume IV of Academy edition/English translation.)
IUH
The Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan
Intent, in Perpetual Peace and other Essays. [Volume
VIII of the Academy edition/ English translation.)
J
Critiaue of Judgment, Werner Pluhar translator.
Indianapolis: Hackett Press, 1987. [Volume V of the
Academy edition/English translation.]
MM
The Metaphysics of Morals, Mary Gregor translator. New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
[Volume VI of
the Academy edition/English translation.]
SBHH
Speculative Beginning of Human History, in Perpetual Peace
and Other Essays, Ted Humphrey translator. Indianapolis:
Hackett Press, 1983.
(Volume VIII of the Academy
edition/English translation.]
R
~R=e=l=i~o~i~o~n"'--w~1=·=t=h=i=n~t=h=e""-'L=1=·m==i~t~s--"o~f=-=R~e=a==s=o=n-"-'A=l~o~n~e,
Theodore
Greene and Hoyt Hudson translators. New York: Harper
Torchbooks, 1960. [Volume VI of the Academy edition/
English translation.)
�41
and while Kant holds exactly the reverse to be the case need to be
explored.
This will have, however, to wait until a later ocassion.
Key to Citations
References to Kant's works embedded in the text are as follows:
CPR
Critique of Pure Reason, Norman Kemp Smith translator.
London: St. Martin's Press, 1929. References are given
in the standard 'A', first edition and 'B', second edition.
CprR
Critique of Practical Reason, Lewis White Beck translator.
Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill Press, 1956. First number of
the citation is from Volume V of the Academy edition of
Kant's work, second number is from English translation.
G
Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals, James Ellington
translator. Indianapolis: Hackett Press, 1981.
[Volume IV of Academy edition/English translation.]
IUH
The Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan
Intent, in Perpetual Peace and other Essays. [Volume
VIII of the Academy edition/ English translation.]
J
Critique of Judgment, Werner Pluhar translator.
Indianapolis: Hackett Press, 1987.
[Volume V of the
Academy edition/English translation.]
MM
The Metaphysics of Morals, Mary Gregor translator. New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
[Volume VI of
the Academy edition/English translation.]
SBHH
Speculative Beginning of Human History, in Peroetual Peace
and Other Essays, Ted Humphrey translator. Indianapolis:
Hackett Press, 1983. [Volume VIII of the Academy
edition/English translation.]
R
"'"R=e=l=i...,g...,i,,_,o..,,n~w:.:..1=·=t=h=i..,,n...._..t.....h=e=--L=i=·rn=i=t=s-""'oC::f'--"-R"""'e=a=s""'o""'n:..:....:A:..::.=l=o=n=e,
Theodore
Greene and Hoyt Hudson translators. New York: Harper
Torchbooks, 1960. [Volume VI of the Academy edition/
English translation.]
�
Dublin Core
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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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a> or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
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formallectureseriesannapolis
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paper
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42 pages
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Must Eudaimonism Mean the Euthanasia of All Morals: Kant's Rigorism and the Morality of Happiness
Description
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Typescript of a lecture delivered on April 20, 2001, by Daniel Kolb as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Kolb, Daniel
Coverage
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Annapolis, MD
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2001-04-20
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text
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pdf
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Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804. Ethics
Aristotle. Ethics
Happiness--Moral and ethical aspects
Stoics
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English
Identifier
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lec Kolb 2001
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<a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/7871">Audio recording</a>
Friday night lecture
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/25ac0c7d0e280df2121eeb5dc8f3407c.mp3
c61fdfd42819b6ffefffbe83bf2a204a
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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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a> or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
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formallectureseriesannapolis
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audiocassette
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01:01:39
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Title
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Must Eudaimonism Mean the Euthanasia of All Morals: Kant's Rigorism and the Morality of Happiness
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture delivered on April 20, 2001, by Daniel Kolb as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Creator
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Kolb, Daniel
Coverage
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Annapolis, MD
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2001-04-20
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St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online.
Type
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sound
Format
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mp3
Subject
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Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804. Ethics
Aristotle. Ethics
Happiness--Moral and ethical aspects
Stoics
Language
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English
Identifier
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LEC_Kolb_Daniel_2001-04-20_ac
Relation
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<a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/7871">Typescript</a>
Friday night lecture
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/575f29b038ec0fd8e9d4ddf31a6977ea.mp3
da14352b20131677c4de3ee7533997b4
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St. John's College Lecture Recordings—Santa Fe
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St. John's College Meem Library
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Santa Fe, NM
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m4a
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01:21:02
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Evils in Our Midst: A Close Reading of Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Description
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Audio recording of a lecture given by Jeffrey Stout on December 8, 2023 as part of the Dean's Lecture & Concert Series. The Dean's Office has provided this description of the event: "What is the movie about? Does the title contain an allusion? When is the story set? What film genres are at work and why? Why are there two Charlies? How did Uncle Charlie and his sister become so close? Why are there so many soldiers in town? What do the Freudian symbols and the biblical quotation mean? Was Hitchcock rejecting or affirming his Catholic upbringing and Jesuit schooling? Was he an amoralist or a moralist?"
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Stout, Jeffrey
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St. John's College
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Santa Fe, NM
Date
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2023-12-08
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Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online.
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sound
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mp3
Subject
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Hitchcock, Alfred, 1899-1980. Shadow of a doubt.
Language
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English
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SF_StoutJ_Evils_In_Our_Midst_2023-12-08
Friday night lecture
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/fe597e28a2e9110e99fe1c2edc8fc89e.mp3
c7449405b8bda4e595eacfa15ceba1be
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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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a> or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
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formallectureseriesannapolis
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01:04:34
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In Defense of Cicero
Description
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Audio recording of a lecture delivered on October 31, 2008, by Walter Nicgorski as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Dr. Nicgorski describes his lecture: "The tradition of criticism of Cicero as a thinker consists in charges that his rhetorical interests and oratorical excellence intrude on his philosophical work, that he is more the patriot than the philosopher, that a busy life of political activism led him to be philosophically eclectic and superficial, and that his character, especially his ambition and pride, make him unworthy to be a philosophical guide in a search for a life-directing wisdom. This lecture, by attending to certain topics and passages in the writings of Cicero, looks to him to provide his own defense. The body of the lecture explores his Socratic orientation reaching to his very skepticism, his regard for Plato including his remarkable way of reading The Republic, his apparent elevation of political action and statesmanship over the life of philosophy, and his teaching on the virtues and natural law. What emerges from this partial and selective examination of his philosophical writings is, at the least, a prima facie case for a further, more careful and fuller engagement with his thinking."
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Nicgorski, Walter
Coverage
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Annapolis, MD
Date
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2008-10-31
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St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online.
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sound
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mp3
Subject
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Cicero, Marcus Tullius
Language
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English
Identifier
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LEC_Nicgorski_Walter_2008-10-31_ac
Friday night lecture
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/340c61c4d97bdbad13760f298307ed53.mp3
b6b140895878c1d038507aef2bbf0087
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St. John's College Lecture Recordings—Santa Fe
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St. John's College Meem Library
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Santa Fe, NM
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m4a
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00:59:32
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On Aristotle's Hypothetical Method in De Anima
Description
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Audio recording of a lecture given by tutor Jacques Duvoisin on December 1, 2023 as part of the Dean's Lecture & Concert Series. The Dean's Office has provided this description of the event: "To understand Aristotle’s remark that there is no thinking without an image, it is necessary to consider the mode of his argument in De Anima and elsewhere. If we suppose that he is exploring a hypothesis -- if we accept that, we must also accept this -- and inviting us to join him in it, we may find a result that is both unsettling and oddly compelling, but also one we cannot easily dispense with. It seems strange to say that all modes of thinking, including the thinking we might attribute to the gods must involve an image. This means we have to develop a keen sense of the context of the remark, and this will entail attending to its argumentative mode. This reflection will nudge us toward recognizing both a physiological and a political dimension to Aristotle’s theory of the soul."
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Duvoisin, Jacques
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St. John's College
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Santa Fe, NM
Date
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2023-12-01
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Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online.
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sound
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mp3
Subject
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Aristotle. De anima.
Language
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English
Identifier
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SF_DuvoisinJ_On_Aristotles_Hypothetical_Method_in_De_Anima_2023-12-01
Friday night lecture
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/9b21e5e3609df121c0ebaa41094361b2.pdf
735ce244532825e870446b2c3bf41254
PDF Text
Text
THE
St. John’s College
Annapolis, Maryland
GADFLY
Johnnie Culture
November 27, 2023
Vol. XLV, Issue 4
�CONTENTS
Letter from the Editor
λόγος
Johnnie Family Weekend: An Honest Review by
Vivian Miyakawa
The Truth of Containers by B.S.
Thai and a Movie by Audrey Fox
Leptoglossus corculus: Leaf-footed Pine Seed Bug
by Louis Rosenberg
συμπόσιον
Gilbert’s Metaphysics of Magnetism by Luke
Briner
Mathematics and Seminar by Augustus Pananas
Five Beautiful Passages from Plotinus arranged by
Luke Briner
πόλιςÊ
St. John’s, A New Panem by Molly Sprout
Competition at the College: The National Intercollegiate World Chopsticks Championship By B.S.
SJC Mystery #4: A Deeper Dark by Bennett
“Toxic” Scott
vessels by Natalie Goldman
The Statuary by Luke Briner
Noodles: “The Pessimist” by Tamar Pinsky
“The Student’s Lament”: A Poem From the SJC
Archives
3
4
6
8
Dear Polity,
We hope that you’ve had an enjoyable
and rejuvenating Thanksgiving break!
Please enjoy our fourth issue of the
semester, and here’s to finishing it
strong.
Luke Briner
Editor-in-chief
9
10
12
15
16
18
19
20
22
23
THE GADFLY STAFF
COVER
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
MANAGING
EDITOR
STAFF
Abigail Poppleton
Luke Briner
El’ad NicholsKaufman
Meliha Anthony
Vivian Miyakawa
Tamar Pinsky
THE STRUCTURE
Λόγος holds news reports and narratives of
immediate relevance to the Polity. The purpose here
is to develop a shared reservoir of information
relating to campus life and the community.
ΣυμπόσιονÊoffers the opportunity for our readers to
thoughtfully consider contrasting opinions
regarding a particular topic.
ΠόλιςÊserves as a platform for elevating voices in
our community. Here we find letters to the editor,
columns, cartoons, and submitted pieces.
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Louis Rosenberg
Benne Sco
YOUT
CONTRIBUTORS
Tuyết-Nhi Nghiêm
Louis Rosenberg
Molly Sprout
Natalie Goldman
Audrey Fox
Augustus Pananas
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THE GADFLY
November 27, 2023
Johnnie families participate in the school’s Fall Festival (Photography by Abigail Poppleton)
Johnnie Family Weekend: An Honest Review By Vivian Miyakawa
For many students, college is their first taste
of true freedom away from their families. Far from
the stress and monotony of home life, suddenly the
world is new and exciting. They have independence
to live how they want, sleeping, cleaning, and
working all on their own terms. However, this
transition doesn’t mean complete isolation from the
people they grew up with, especially with events such
as Johnnie Family Weekend. During the weekend of
October 27th-28th, friends and family were
encouraged to make the trek out to Annapolis,
Maryland and visit the students they had dropped off
at college just a few months before.
During this fun-filled weekend, students had
the opportunity to drop their beloved family members
off at a variety of educational and riveting activities,
or in other words, “parent daycare.” Here, Johnnie
friends and family got to gawk at the old books in the
Greenfield Library, listen to the dean assure them that
their children wouldn’t end up as deadbeat poets, and
even participate in a mock seminar! Seeing the
parents raising their hands all around the table, eager
to interject with an “um, actually” moment, really
shed light on why some of my classmates turned out
the way they did.
Another crucial aspect of family weekend was
perfecting your white lies. It’s a valuable skill to be
able to stand in the middle of the quad and assure
your grandfather that “nobody really drinks or
smokes here.” Flaunting your perfect rhetorical
argument, you plaster on a wide smile and convince
them that it’s your dream to become a lawyer one
day. After all, if you charm them enough, they may
just help you pay tuition. Just be sure that if your
room is too messy, it means your roommate is “sick”
and they surely wouldn’t want to catch whatever’s
going around.
Jokes aside, the best part of family weekend
was watching students gleefully drag their family
around campus, introducing them to all of their
friends and seeing them genuinely excited to share
their newfound home with the people they love. And,
for the rest of us, well, it was our collective sigh of
relief when the weekend was finally over.
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THE GADFLY
November 27, 2023
The holy land and the disciples (Photo by B.S.)
The Truth of Containers
The Universal Form
(MAJORÊPHILOSOPHICALÊDISCOVERY)
Esteemed members of this philosophical
institution,
Modern philosophy, as you know, claims to
have come far, rooting out so much superstition and
error. But in our rapid motion towards truth, we have
left behind a great many of the most important
questions. If I may speak frankly, you are cowards. But
I cannot blame you. For, until now, I too was afraid, a
coward, a degenerate bound by the will of ‘University
Boards’ and ‘Codes of Ethics.’ No more. We have
hidden the most important lines of inquiry—Why is
there something rather than nothing? What is truth?
Who am I?—out of sheer embarrassment. Even worse,
we have abandoned much of our realm of knowledge to
the“hard sciences”. We have betrayed the presocratics1,
having given up even the most important of all
questions: What is the essential matter of the world?
“Chemists” and “Physicists” claim to know of “atoms”
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By B.S.
and “quarks.” Let me ask you a simple question: have
you ever seen an atom? A quark? No? Then how can
they possibly be the essential matter of the world? How
could there ever be anything important that was hidden
away from us? It just makes no sense. My dear friends,
science has misled you, has misled us all. And I am
here to right that wrong.
On a date which shall go down in history2
(11/1/2023), I made a trip: I went to Westfield mall.
Amongst the Five Guys,3 the Hot Topic, and the emptygazing shoppers, I found something truly incredible.
The Container Store. One could say it is located right
next to the Crate and Barrel, but, in truth, it exists on an
entirely separate metaphysical plane. To enter into it is
to be confronted with truth. Walking around with my
loyal companions,4 I started to feel a dread emptiness:
was everything here a container? Was there no
substance, no actuality, only a vast abyss waiting to be
filled with all the excess accretions of capitalism so
numerous that we must dedicate ourselves not only to
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collecting things but collecting things to collect things?
There were boxes, chests, drawers, luggage, every sort
of container, but then I turned and saw something: a
candle? How could they be selling a candle at The
Container Store? Right next to the candles were shirts.
There were even fancy board games. Could it be that
this store, so committed to its cause that it put
‘Container’ in its name, would betray itself and give us
things which were not containers, but containeds? No.
To believe such a betrayal would be akin to
accusing the CIA of testing brainwashing
techniques on American citizens from
1943 up to July 10th, 1972. It’s
just not possible.
I grabbed the candle and
stared, whispering, then saying,
then screaming: how are you a
container? What do you
contain? WHAT DO YOU
CONTAIN?? Then, I had my
revelation, given by the gods.
I looked up and around
Everything I saw was
containers. Not just the boxes
and chests. Candles contain
smells. Shirts contain bodies.
Fancy board games contain fun!
Everything made sense. I began
running through the store, imbibing
in the wisdom of The Container Store
founders Garrett Boone, Kip Tindell, and
John Mullen.5 Measuring tapes contain the form
of measurement. Mirrors contain reflections. That cute
french press contains a possible future for my roommate
and I6. My mind began to expand beyond its dogmatic
state. Those children running around screaming contain
potential. Their parents chasing after them contain
regret. My companions and I and so too you my dear
reader, we are all but mere containers for thoughts and
guts. The Container Store was a container container, the
highest of all forms7. To contain is to have is to be8.
My peers, we’ve done it. I’ve done it. So long
we have faced the dictum “Think outside the box.”
Fools! Fools! All of them! There was never anything
outside of the box to think of! Aristotle will remind us
that after physics must come meta-physics, but what
about containa-physics, encompassing top, bottom, and
sides? Don’t you see? We were misled from the very
beginning. Everything is container. Philosophy has been
solved.
Thank me later (but not too much later),
B.S.
November 27, 2023
Endnotes
1. The moment Socrates began asking his insipid
questions, philosophy died. How could anything
interesting survive genuine inquiry? No. Questions
must be silenced.
2. Alongside the death of Socrates and The Bay of Pigs.
3. Fries were not nearly as good as I remember, clearly
the decline of capitalism.
4. Audrey Fox, food reviewer and enthusiast
of making fun of me, and Ben Maier,
Love Doctor and man who greeted
every employee by saying we
were shopping for Christmas.
5. Our Container Story |
Container Stories
(containerstore.com)
6. In a small apartment on
the Eastside of Seattle.
There are birds singing.
There’s a gentle breeze.
The coffee’s ready. We
have matching cableknit
sweaters. It’s all there! And
we can buy it all at The
Container Store!
7. There were also containers
just for pasta. Truly
revolutionary that containers can
be so object specific.
8. “Rabbi Zeira says that there is another
method [for acquiring an elephant]: One
brings four vessels [which must, of course, be
containers] and places them under the elephant’s feet,
and he thereby acquires it like any other item that is
inside the buyer’s vessels” [Tractate Kiddushin, 25b, tr.
William Davidson]
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THE GADFLY
November 27, 2023
Thai and a Movie
By Audrey Fox
Are you looking to film a 21st century
Annapolis reboot of the all-time classic The
Godfather? I too would be a little suspicious if I were
told the best place in Annapolis to reenact the classic
restaurant assassination was Carslon’s Thai Kitchen,
but hear me out; it fulfills many of the aesthetic and
logistical requirements that unfortunately none of the
Italian restaurants in Annapolis possess. It’s quiet,
customers keep to themselves, and the food is great.
There are also some great stand alone tables in the
restaurant that I am sure would easily break upon
impact with a falling body, making for a great
location to stage a cold hearted mob assassination.
Upon arrival at the location, I was struck by
the various means of escape I could utilize for the
getaway car. Not only is West Street an obvious
choice, there are numerous side roads in the vicinity
that could also aid in a “stealth” based approach.
Unfortunately I could not test this, as my editor is a
poor driver, and almost got us killed while pulling out
of the driveway. There are also two entrances to the
restaurant, which I am certain could come in handy.
Inside the restaurant there are two spaces that
constitute the main dining room. There is the check
out area, which is connected to the vestibule of the
doorway, and there is also the seating area that is
partitioned off by a partial wall. Both booths and
tables are available, however it seems that the
majority of customers carry out, meaning it will be
empty inside.
I was staking out the location with my editor
to get a sense of the atmosphere. I had to come back
in the morning as I forgot the most important part: the
bathroom. Oh, and of course the donuts as well. It
soon became apparent that we would have to stage
the bathroom scene at an alternate location, as the
toilet was not an old fashioned one with the pull
chain. Otherwise everything was perfect. The interior
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has that small, hole in the wall vibe that was essential
to the assassination. Numerous vases line the wall,
the lighting is warm, the only people sitting near us
were an old hard of hearing couple and a young girl
watching Minecraft videos. I would have some
ethical issues with staging such a violent scene near
one so young, but perhaps if she had headphones on
this issue could be averted. By the way—to any
freshman or other Johnnies who have not been to
Carlson’s and love Thursday night donuts—these
donuts are 10x better. I recommend a good old
chocolate glaze donut, but the cronuts (croissant
donut) are also a fun option.
Now, let me get to the good stuff: the food.
We started out with fried tofu. Very solid, a hard
appetizer to mess up. I had the red curry with pork,
and I found it very delicious and perhaps better than
Lemongrass, which is often hailed as the best Thai in
Annapolis. Their drunken noodles are also out of this
world. The noodles are fresh and the flavor has a
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November 27, 2023
little kick but nothing too overpowering. My
editor loves Carlson’s, but unfortunately the
meal he got while we were staking out the
location (he only referred to it as the #7) was
not to his liking. We also got the Thai iced
tea—which was good, but nothing
remarkable. The only food they order in the
Godfather is the veal. There is no veal at
Carlson’s, however I think any of the curry’s
would be a good substitute.
I have been told by my editor that my
budget proposal for recreating the Godfather
has not been approved. I guess it makes
sense. What sort of mobster movie would
take place in Annapolis at a Thai restaurant?
We may never know. But in the meantime, I
highly recommend you check out Carlson’s
Thai Kitchen.
Images by Benne Sco , Audrey Fox, and Taste of Cinema
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November 27, 2023
Leptoglossus corculus: Leaf-footed Pine Seed Bug
By Louis Rosenberg
About the many bugs that are leaf-t largely
undescribed.
I saw this leaf-footed bug on my friend’s car last
week, so naturally I took a picture of it. After my
initial plan for this bug article fell through, I came
back to that picture and began working to identify its
subject. I began my search by looking up leaf-footed
bugs, family Coreidae, which seemed to be the best
starting place for this specimen and its jagged hindleg protrusions. Since I found it in Maryland, I
headed over to the Maryland Biodiversity Project
website, which is a large database of animals (and
plants and fungi) found throughout Maryland,
including common names, scientific names, and
pictures of specimens of each species. After noting
that the leaf-footed pine seed bug, L. corculus, most
closely matched my specimen, I headed back to my
favorite search engine to try and find more
information on this species.
I found very little. Michigan State University
published a short article from 2006 that focused on
the agricultural impacts of the species, but there was
little description of the bug (only the creature’s size,
the white stripe on its back, and its hind leg shape
were described). Its living habits were only described
insofar as they impact humans — they may
overwinter in human homes, causing minor nuisance,
and thus the authors flatly recommend homeowners
“destroy them or vacuum them up.”
Beyond the MSU article, most of the remaining
search results were for a closely related species, L.
occidentalis or the western conifer seed bug. One of
those links, from Pennsylvania State University, led
to an excitingly detailed article on that species, which
included a note that L. occidentalis can easily be
confused for other Leptoglossus species, including L.
corculus. L. corculus is a darker brown than L.
occidentalis, and the inner and outer portions of their
hind leg expansions can differ in size, as they do on
the bug I found, which further confirmed my
identification of this specimen. A Wikipedia article
for L. occidentalis also comes up, which includes
sections on the insect’s description and range. The L.
corculus Wikipedia article, on the other hand,
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contains only two sentences: “Leptoglossus corculus,
the leaf-footed pine seed bug, is a species of leaffooted bug in the family Coreidae. It is found in
North America.”
Why is so little information about L. corculus
available? Perhaps because it is so innocuous to
humans: while its relative is expanding its range, and
thus accruing ecological concerns, L. corculus itself
does nothing worse than irritating homeowners.
Perhaps it’s just because there’s so many species of
insects in the world that it’s foolish of me to hope for
detailed information on each and every one of them.
While I feel a little sad for every underresearched
insect that I spot, it also reminds me of the glory of
the natural world. There is, and always will be, so
much out there that’s unknown. We can only strive to
find it.
Sources:
・https://extension.psu.edu/western-conifer-seed-bug
・https://www.marylandbiodiversity.com/viewChecklist.php?
family=Coreidae
・https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/leaf_footed_pine_seed_bug
・https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_conifer_seed_bug
・https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leptoglossus_corculus
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Gilbert’s Metaphysics of
Magnetism By Luke Briner
In his treatise De Magnete (On the
Loadstone), William Gilbert expounds his theory of
the spiritual nature of magnetism, attributing the
essential behavior of magnetically active bodies not
to the physical properties of body in itself, but to the
“effused immaterial forms beyond the limits of the
body” (p. 61). How can we understand the magnetic
force of these bodies as not a physical but a
metaphysical phenomenon, and what implications
does that understanding have for the way that we
must think about all magnetic bodies?
Gilbert begins his investigation by observing
some of the empirical phenomena which loadstones
(naturally occurring magnetic bodies) exhibit. By
taking a loadstone and shaving it down into a
spheroid, subsequently called a terrella and “a true
homogenous offspring of the earth and…of the same
shape” (p. 56), he observes that, by the movement of
a needle or iron wire along its surface, a north and
south pole may always be observed along its equator
with opposite directions and tendencies to each other.
These two poles, however, despite being contrary to
each other, are at the same time attracted to each
other. Gilbert demonstrates this by showing that the
north pole of a terrella, when suspended in water
such that movement is easy and free, will actively
align itself with the south pole of the earth itself, and
that the south pole will thereby do the inverse (p. 58).
This attraction to the contrary pole, either to that of
the earth itself or to that of any other magnetic body,
is in fact so great that poles of the same kind will
actively repel each other: if two loadstones are set
against each other such that the pole of one is put
toward the same pole of the other “one stone repels
the other” (p. 59) until the proper alignment of
opposites previously observed is restored.
Gilbert attributes all of this behavior not to a
merely physical or mechanical but to a spiritual
cause. While it’s true that “not from a mathematical
point does the force of the stone emanate, but from
the parts themselves” (p. 56), the parts themselves
possess such a force at all solely by virtue of the
“effused immaterial forms” (p. 61) of the souls which
inhabit them. Just as many of the ancients believed
that “not without a divine and animate nature could
movements so diverse be produced” (p. 60) in the
November 27, 2023
great bodies of the universe, so Gilbert attributes a
similar nature to magnetic globes large and small,
since only by such a nature could their seemingly
active movements and tendencies be possible or
intelligible.
The implications of this assertion for the ways
in which we can conceive of the general nature of
magnetic bodies can be easily drawn out by applying
the methods of the differential and integral calculus
of our Junior Mathematics tutorial to them. Gilbert
demonstrates that when a loadstone is split apart, the
parts thus divided will naturally and immediately
seek to reunite with those parts to which they were
originally connected when the stone was whole, with
it the one being themselves a north and the other a
south pole (p. 59). But say that we divide the entire
loadsone, “at one fell swoop” (Galileo, Two New
Sciences, NE 93), into a “continuum out of absolutely
indivisible atoms” (ibid). Let the whole original
loadstone be M, and each infinitesimal atom be called
dm (to borrow the language from Leibniz’ New
Method). Now in each infinitely fine cut made to the
unified loadstone, there must, by the same tendency
demonstrated above in the case of the splitting of one
into two, a tendency for each to unify with their
adjacent atoms, since they were connected when the
loadstone was still a unity. From this it’s evident that
there is an infinite series of north and south poles
already and always contained within the loadstone as
present in each dm, such that ∫dm = M; in other
words, each loadstone, itself ensouled, contains
within itself a virtual infinity of equally ensouled
magnetic particles. A merely physical division
couldn’t possibly, on Gilbert’s account, in any way
alter the polar nature of each dm, since this nature has
no physical cause in the first place. Neither does the
duality implicit in each dm necessarily containing a
north and south pole contradict their atomized
indivisibility, by the same distinction between
the physical and the metaphysical explained
before. Hence we come to a similar
conclusion to Leibniz, then, that “there is
a world of creatures…of souls in the
least part of matter” (Monadology,
§66), with each magnetic soul
being immaterial, indestructible,
and causing or helping to
cause all physical
phenomena observed in
magnetic bodies.
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November 27, 2023
Mathematics in Seminar
By Augustus Pananas
Of all the elements of the Program, the
mathematics tutorial is perhaps the one which
requires the most explanation. Not that the value of
the tutorial in itself isn't obvious (at least to the extent
that you take it seriously). People like myself, who
always hated math classes previously, find
themselves delighted with the clarity, orderliness, and
comprehensibility of Euclid. Even the prospect of
calculus in future years and dark hints from the
seniors about some kind of dark sorcerer called
“Lobachevsky” aren't enough to abate the wonder of
this new way of thinking about mathematics. The
experiences of subsequent years only confirm this
feeling. What is perhaps less clear is the way in
which this miraculous experience fits in with the rest
of the Program.
If the central work of St. John's takes place in
seminar (and this I believe wholeheartedly), how
does the mathematics tutorial serve that work? The
content of the mathematics tutorial doesn't seem to
aid much in the project of seminar. If the language
tutorial teaches us how to utilize the tools of language
in a meaningful way, laboratory helps us to use our
observational and theory-forming skills, and chorus
and music tutorial connect our work to the experience
of the beautiful and sublime, what does mathematics
do? As much as some (myself included) might like,
the work of seminar is simply not reducible to
propositional argumentation. And since many of us
don't study any formal logic at St John's (a travesty
which is too vast to be addressed here), the
parallelism with syllogistic reasoning isn't very
helpful either. While the kind of rigorous thinking
which the study of mathematics produces is
something worth mastering in itself, it is something I
see applied to the work of seminar only rarely, even
by the very best Johnnies. The topics of seminar
simply don't lend themselves to the same sort of
thinking that occurs in the mathematics tutorial. So
what is it for? I suspect that the answer lies more in
the
effect
mathematics
(especially
public
mathematical demonstration) has on the psyche of the
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student. In particular, it has two effects which, if
applied to the work of seminar, address a pair of
failings to which Johnnies are prone.
First, mathematical demonstration requires a
precision of language which is extremely helpful in
seminar. This is distinct from the rigor of its ideas.
Mathematical demonstration is rigorous in that all of
its claims can be said to follow immediately from
those that came before. If an unsupported claim is
made, anyone who is paying attention can
immediately point it out. This is extremely powerful,
but is not the feature which is important here. What
matters here is the fact that in a good demonstration,
it is necessary to always make clear exactly what one
is referring to. All of us have had the experience of
watching (or even presenting) a disastrous
demonstration in which someone makes repeated
reference to “it” or “that one” or “the thing” without
clarifying the objects being referred to. It simply
doesn't work. Mathematical demonstration is
incompatible with that kind of imprecision. The
application of this kind of precision can be
immensely helpful in seminar. Too often a
conversation is hindered because someone proposes
an idea (sometimes even a great idea) in terms too
imprecise to move the conversation forward. At such
times, reminding oneself of the constraints of
demonstration (if you can't say it, you don't know it)
can be immensely helpful. The topics of seminar are
vast and sweeping; the thoughts which it provokes
often have a grandeur which seems to evaporate on
the lips. Grounding ourselves in the simplicity of
speech that our shared experience in mathematics
gives can be a lifesaver when we fall into the trap of
trying to say everything all at once by forcing us to
use meaningful language.
If our mathematical experience can help
prevent us from trying to say too much, it can also
save us from falling into another classic trap: saying
nothing at all. In seminar, it's easy to fill a silence by
rambling about nothing at all. Because a discussion
of Plato or Dante or Locke isn't a proposition, it is
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possible to spend a great deal of time rearranging the
terms of the discussion in such a way that it produces
no new ideas at all. This can happen both
intentionally and accidentally, and all (or at least
most) of us are guilty of it from time to time. It's less
awkward than sitting in silence, but it's even more
useless. And if it's interjected into a conversation
which is actually progressing smoothly, it can be a
massive hindrance to the flow of the argument. While
this problem will almost certainly be with us for a
long time to come, I'm willing to bet that it is not
worse than it is because of our time spent with
mathematics. While seminar may be fertile ground
for using a great number of words to say nothing, the
November 27, 2023
same is not true of mathematics. When you go up to
present a proposition, you either know it or you don't.
There is no faking it. That feeling of standing at the
board with a piece of chalk in your hand and your
foot in your mouth is not easy to forget, and it
reminds us that there is a real difference between
being able to speak and having something to say. You
can talk about a proposition all you want, but if you
can't do the proof, there's no way to hide it. I suspect
we all carry at least a bit of that feeling (or the
vicarious version of it, for those demigods who have
never flubbed a proof) with us into our other classes.
It's a feeling we could stand to bring to mind a little
more.
Female Student at Blackboard during Mathematics Tutorial in 1961
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Five Beautiful Passages from Plotinus
Arranged by Luke Briner
All passages are from the MacKenna-Page
translation as produced in Encyclopædia
Britannica’s 1952 Great Books edition of the
Enneads.
-LB
IV.8.1.
Many times it has happened: Lifted out of the body
into myself; becoming external to all other things and
self-encentered; beholding a marvellous beauty; then,
more than ever, assured of community with the
loftiest order; enacting the noblest life, acquiring
identity with the divine; stationing within It by
having attained that activity; poised above
whatsoever within the Intellectual is less than the
Supreme: yet, there comes the moment of descent
from intellection from reasoning, and after that
sojourn in the divine, I ask myself how it happens
that I can now be descending, and how did the soul
ever enter into my body, the soul which, even within
the body, is the high thing it has shown itself to be.
I.6.9-10.
But how are you to see into a virtuous soul and know
its loveliness?
Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not
find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the
creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts
away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line
lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown
upon his work. So do you also: cut away all that is
excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to
all that is overcast, labour to make all one glow of
beauty and never cease “chiselling your statue,”1 until
there shall shine out on you from it the godlike
1
splendour of virtue, until you shall see “the perfect
goodness surely established in the stainless shrine.”2
When you know that you have become this perfect
work, when you are self-gathered in the purity of
your being, nothing now remaining that can shatter
than inner unity, nothing from without clinging to the
authentic man, when you find yourself wholly true to
your essential nature, wholly that only veritable Light
which is not measured by space, not narrowed to any
circumscribed form nor again diffused as a thing void
of term, but ever unmeasurable as something greater
than all measure and more than all quantity—when
you perceive that you have grown to this, you are
now become very vision: now call up all your
confidence, strike forward but a step—you need a
guide no longer—strain, and see.
VI.7.36.
Knowledge of The Good or contact with it, is the allimportant: this—we read—“is the grand learning,”3
the “learning” we are to understand, not of looking
towards it but attaining, first, some knowledge of it.
We come to this learning by analogies, by
abstractions, by our understanding of its subsequents,
of all that is derived from The Good, by the upward
steps towards it. Purification has The Good for goal;
so the virtues, all right ordering, ascent within the
Intellectual, settlement therein, banqueting upon the
divine—by these methods one becomes, to self and to
all else, at once seen and seer; identical with Being
and Intellectual-Principle and “the entire living all,”4
we no longer see the Supreme as an external; we are
near now, the next is That and it is close at hand,
radiant above the Intellectual.
Here, we put aside all the learning; disciplined to this
pitch, established in beauty, the quester holds
knowledge still of the ground he rests on but,
Plotinus is referencing Phaedrus, 252b7 here. Although the quotation marks are absent in MacKenna-Page’s version, I have chosen to follow
Armstrong’s lead and add them in order to make that reference’s fact clear to the reader, and will do the same when necessary going forward.
2
Phaedrus, 254b7.
3
Republic, 505a2.
4
Timaeus, 31b1.
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suddenly, swept beyond it all by the very crest of the
wave of Intellect surging beneath, he is lifted and
sees, never knowing how; the vision floods the eyes
with light, but it is not a light showing some other
object, the light is itself the vision. No longer is there
thing seen and light to show it, no longer Intellect and
object of Intellection; this is the very radiance that
brought both Intellect and Intellectual object into
being for the later use and allowed them to occupy
the quester’s mind. With This he himself becomes
identical, with that radiance whose Act is to engender
Intellectual-Principle, not losing in that engendering
but for ever unchanged, the engendered coming to be
simply because that Supreme exists. If there were no
such principle above change, no derivative could rise.
VI.9.8.
Thus the Supreme as containing no otherness is ever
present with us; we with it when we put otherness
away. It is not that the Supreme reaches out to us
seeking our communion: we reach towards the
Supreme; it is we that become present. We are always
before it: but we do not always look: thus a choir,
singing set in due order about the conductor, may
turn away from that centre to which all should attend:
let it but face aright and it sings with beauty, present
effectively. We are ever before the Supreme—cut off
is utter dissolution; we can no longer be—but we do
not always attend: when we look, our Term is
attained; this is rest; this is the end of singing ill;
effectively before Him, we lift a choral song full of
God.
Bust of Plotinus from the Ostiense Museum in Rome,
VI.9.11.
This is the purport of that rule of our Mysteries:
Nothing Divulged to the Uninitiate: the Supreme is
not to be made a common story, the holy things may
not be uncovered to the stranger, to any that has not
himself attained to see. There were not two; beholder
was one with beheld; it was not a vision compassed
but a unity apprehended. The man formed by this
mingling with the Supreme must—if he only
remember—carry its image impressed upon him: he
is become the Unity, nothing within him or without
inducing any diversity; no movement now, no
passion, no outlooking desire, once this ascent is
achieved; reasoning is in abeyance and all
Intellection and even, to dare the word, the very self;
caught away, filled with God, he has in perfect
stillness attained isolation; all the being calmed, he
Italy (Source: worldhistory.org, CC BY-SA license)
turns neither to this side nor to that, not even inwards
to himself; utterly resting he has become very rest.
He belongs no longer to the order of the beautiful; he
has risen beyond beauty; he has overpassed even the
choir of the virtues; he is like one who, having
penetrated the inner sanctuary, leaves the temple
images behind him—though these become once more
first objects of regard when he leaves the holies; for
There his converse was not with image, not with
trace, but with the very Truth in the view of which all
the rest is but of secondary concern.
There, indeed, it was scarcely vision, unless of a
mode unknown; it was a going forth from the self, a
simplifying, a renunciation, a reach towards contact
and at the same time a repose, a meditation towards
adjustment. This is the only seeing of what lies within
13
�συμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
the holies: to look otherwise is to fail.
Things here are signs; they show therefore to the
wiser teachers how the supreme God is known; the
instructed priest reading the sign may enter the holy
place and make real the vision of the inaccessible.
Even those that have never found entry must admit
the existence of that invisible; they will know their
source and Principle since by principle they see
principle and are linked with it, by like they have
contact with like and so they grasp all of the divine
that lies within the scope of mind. Until the seeing
comes they are still craving something, that which
only the vision can give; this Term, attained only by
those that have overpassed all, is the AllTranscending.
It is not in the soul’s nature to touch utter
nothingness; the lowest descent is into evil and, so
far, into non-being: but to utter nothing, never. When
November 27, 2023
the soul begins again to mount, it comes not to
something alien but to its very self; thus detached, it
is not in nothingness but in itself; self-gathered it is
no longer in the order of being; it is in the Supreme.
There is thus a converse in virtue of which the
essential man outgrows Being, becomes identical
with the Transcendent of Being. The self thus lifted,
we are in the likeness of the Supreme: if from that
heightened self we pass still higher—image to
archetype—we have won the Term of all our
journeying. Fallen back again, we awaken the virtue
within until we know ourselves all order once more;
once more we are lightened of the burden and move
by virtue towards Intellectual-Principle and through
the Wisdom in That to the Supreme.
This is the life of gods and of the godlike and blessed
among men, liberation from the alien that besets us
here, a life taking no pleasure in the things of earth,
the passing of solitary to solitary.
Pictured on le : Portrait of Stephen
Mackenna, translator of Plotinus, drawn in
1907 by Leo Mielziner
Excerpt from a 1907 journal entry of
MacKenna’s: "Whenever I look into Plotinus I
feel always all the old trembling fevered
longing: it seems to me that I must be born
for him, and that somehow someday I must
have nobly translated him: my heart,
untravelled, still to Plotinus turns and drags at
each remove a lengthening chain. It seems to
me that him alone of authors I understand by
inborn sight..."
14
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THE GADFLY
November 27, 2023
Noodles: “The Pessimist”
By Tamar Pinsky
15
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SJC Mystery #4: A
Deeper Dark
By Benne “Toxic” Sco
I was in Mellon 206, looking for a strike
lighter and a bunsen burner (I have no idea how long
the power is going to last). I haven’t been going out
much. The rain was always cold, but I’m fine with
the cold. My problem was how loud and blinding it
could be; in all my paranoia, the thought of not being
able to see or hear properly sounded, to say the least,
unappealing. But I couldn’t sit inside forever (I’m
slowly discovering all the different ways you can go
crazy), so I went on a little adventure in pursuit of the
thing my little caveman brain can understand best:
fire!
Lights turned off and on in a few of the
windows I passed, the cars were in different locations
despite never moving, all the usual haunts to make
me question the stability of my mind/reality. I
checked my phone out of habit: no texts (despite
having service?), and the date still and always the
same: somewhere between midnight and 8, April 7th,
2016. I kept walking.
After I’d been in Mellon for a while, I found
myself with a bunsen burner in one hand and a
problem in the other: how was I supposed to get a
fuel source from the lab to my apartment? For all the
evidence to the contrary that I have provided you
dear reader, I am not entirely a fool. Having a
propane tank in my apartment that has one exit and
no windows which can open in a world where
firefighters definitely will not answer my call? That’s
fool central. So I decided to light it then and there
instead. About three seconds later, the lights went
out.
Now, someone who has actively put
themselves in the position of summoning powers
beyond our comprehension would be well served by
having a good survival instinct. I, naturally, do not;
when it comes to fight or flight, I freeze. So I stood,
unmoving, trying to make out the contours of the
darkness. At first, I only heard the rain and the
burner. The burner, about a minute in, went out. After
about three or four minutes (long enough that I could
have just been hallucinating), I began to hear the
scratching, a rhythmic cutting in the darkness. It was
coming from the next room.
16
November 27, 2023
There is only one thing to do in such a
situation, once more a correlate of ‘Don’t do anything
that would start a horror movie’: if you’re in a horror
movie situation, do something absolutely antithetical
to being murdered. Options include: break dancing,
yodeling, reciting the declaration of independence,
etc. My demon prevention method of choice? Britney
Spears. Toxic. Certainly has some bad vibes, but who
ever got stabbed to something so danceable? Now, I
didn’t sing too loud at first for obvious reasons, but
once you get to the chorus, brother you cannot stop
yourself from going for it. I put on a little show for
those demons: choreography, high notes, drama. And
by God, it must have worked; I finished singing, and
there was no more scratching.
I stood in silence, waiting to hear the screams
of the damned. Nothing, nothing so pure it started to
hurt my ears. I looked around: why the hell did
silence hurt? My head felt like it was expanding,
pressing out at the temples. I tried coughing and it
was swallowed up. It was so very quiet. Out the
window, I could see the stars. The panes were clear.
The rain had stopped.
Well I—to speak like my good ol’
grandmother—just about jumped for joy. What the
hell happened? What the hell kind of explanation
could there be? What the hell did I care for an
explanation? The rain was done and the air was
warm! The lights turned back on (I only jumped a
little when they did). Everything was gonna be
alright! There was only one problem: I had to check
where the scratching had come from. It might get me
killed, but there might be answers. This was what I
found:
�πόλις
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November 27, 2023
St. John’s, A New Panem
By Molly Sprout
Recently my friends and I were imagining a
Hunger Games-type situation at St. John’s; a fight to
the death with the entire student body. While
entertaining to think of, and maybe even intriguing
(Reality Club... maybe something to work on?), there
was a thought that came to me: we are all incredibly
weak. And yes, this is ignoring some of the student
body that does really have their shit together and
could probably kill a lot of us with their bare hands.
But for the most part our weakness is accurate and
unavoidable. And this isn’t just due to the student
body comprising mostly of previous high school
nerds, and we can hear why in the conversations we
have outside of class. Does any of this sound
familiar? “I haven’t eaten anything
all day” “I only got three hours of
sleep last night” “I’ve just been
drinking coffee and eating the
dining hall fries for the past week”
“I had ten (10) shots of Jack
Daniels last night” “I have had
bronchitis for eight
weeks but will
continue to
smoke half a
pack a day”—
this campus is
malnourished,
under slept,
and sick.
With our college’s motto being “Books and a
Balance” one would think that we would attempt to
execute this. Our failure to do so raises the question
of what kind of balance the student body is seeking.
If it is not the balance of a healthy life with an
immersive study of books, then what exactly is it?
With the obsession with acting thoughtlessly and
unhealthily along with the need for our peer’s eyes, it
seems as though we are seeking the balance of
someone on a tightrope, teetering on the thin line we
have created for ourselves, made for the spectacle of
it. Because it is not that we are just drinking too much
or eating and sleeping too little, but that it is done in
tandem with scholarly perfection. It is an attempt to
do the impossible; reduce your body and health to
Student Studying in McDowell Hall
nothingness while turning in a beautiful essay on
time. We must be the impossible to everyone we
know! And as glamorous as that sounds, being a
functional alcoholic with a great Don Rag, it is
impossible. We can try to convince ourselves that the
essay we turned in after seventy-two hours of not
sleeping is good, but it really isn’t. Instead of
reaching perfection and self-destruction at the same
time all we have done is hurt our bodies and our
minds without anything to show for it. As much as
we avoid this conclusion it is inevitable, and we can
all see it when we cry to our friends about not being
able to keep going as tired as you are.
To offer a solution for this is to throw a stone in a
glass house. I smoke an incredible amount and
absolutely do not work out. So, really what I have
done is offer up useless critique on a mass problem of
young people in academia. But I will say that each
and every one of you would benefit from drinking a
glass of whole milk
and eating some
vegetables.
17
�πόλις
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November 27, 2023
The Statuary
By Luke Briner
They stand abidingly amid the sun-enhalcyoned shrouds
That diadem the lofty, lonesome mount
As though the eminences of a never-passing age,
Formidable and unoblivioned.
I’ve longed so much to know
Myself the secrets of that conclave’s beatific life—
No longer to meander through its ranks
In idle fancy, but to offer up this trembling flesh
Unto its highest rigor, and be free
From all that lies below.
Beneath this sacred crest partitioning the long-estranged
Hypostases of timelessness and toil
A worthless nature writhes, unidylled, frantically inert,
And aching for a self-subverted peace.
Is that my destiny?
Or does a higher motion dwell within this dismal breast,
By which I could endeavor to endure
In still submiss the apogean kiln that immolates
All false debris, and fires the faultless form
That hides inside of me?
18
�πόλις
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November 27, 2023
Take all that’s good within: outstretch, unfold the tiny point
Of infinite and life-enthralling light
That silently reposes in the center of the squalls
And miseries of its posterity
Into a puissant shape,
Epitomized in its unique perfection, as its kin,
Atop an undeclining golden age;
Would that ascendancy be mine?—or would I, thrown aside
As an extraneous vessel, only watch
Its heavenward escape?
Alighted effortlessly on the yawning azure apse
The Luminary, cool and pontiff-like,
Presides above the praises of her progeny, and sighs
A living redolence that sweeps them up
In transcendental rite;
As she to them, so they to me—and I in kind aspire
To carve upon the all-anointed plane
A self-derived exemplar that, unmoving, moves the world,
And, surpliced by the noon, behold her with
An uneliding sight.
I have withdrawn into myself and looked, and I have found
The dim quiescence of a once-held spouse;
There lies the one true work made for these transience-addled hands:
To grasp the chisel, and restore him to
His early, godlike shine.
For you and you alone, my Critic, do I make myself
At once the Statue and the Cypriot—
For nothing but the hope of finding in your loving eyes
My truth and legacy, forever fixed
Within your stainless shrine.
19
�πόλις
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November 27, 2023
Competition, Victory, Joy. (Picture by Meliha Anthony)
Competition at the College: The National
Intercollegiate World Chopsticks
Championship By B.S.
Dear friends competitors,
You are certainly aware that society is
presently going down the drain. But why? Scroll long
enough on any Tik-Tok feed (past the incessant
dancing, stolen jokes, and… is that just almost porn?
Why?) you will find the same answer given by the
same people: men variously to the side of the camera,
a microphone in their face, will tell you that
masculinity is dead (the so called ‘Bro Scogan
Experientia’ is the prime example of this). People tell
you to be tougher, harder, fight more wolves. And, to
be honest with you dear reader, it’s boring. The man20
o-sphere’s solution is returning to something more
primal, less soyboy; I, as the soyboy philosopher king
that I am, know that they are only striving after
shadows; we must strive after truth. And the truth is
competition.
The immediate, weak-minded assumption is
that competition exists purely in and for itself; the
thoughtful, big-brained solution sees that competition
solves every single problem ever and never has any
issues thank you very much Adam B. Smith. And let
me tell you: St. John’s College has entirely lost its
competitive edge. We make our college ‘hard’ by
�πόλις
THE GADFLY
November 27, 2023
say pressure makes diamonds, they are not going far
enough: enough pressure makes a black hole, strong
enough to swallow up even Einstein.
Imagine the money from the reality TV
version.
And to prove my commitment to this cause, I
have begun the competing process with a new and
great competition, not just for the college, but for the
whole world: The Intercollegiate National World
Chopsticks Championship:
having enabling, but what is enabling when everyone
and their cousin gets enabled? We claim to have a
rigorous program, but we don’t even require a single
class in Business Administration (the most difficult
course)? We take our name, our calling professors
tutors, calling evaluations don rags from Oxford, the
most prestigious school in the world. The first step to
being truly competitive is to take another Oxi
tradition: post grades on public bulletins. “But B.S.!
We don’t concentrate on grades at the College!” Shut
up. What kind of world is it where we are not
comparing GPAs? What is there to compete over
when our unit of measurement is the number of
longing looks directed your way during a semester
(2)? And god damn it, why do we only have to be
graded on our classes? We need to be truly expansive
in our evaluations. We need grade postings for
everyone as a waltz partner (C+), as a friend (A–), as
a lover (F). You try kissing like a fish and being
publicly ridiculed for it; you will change. You will
evolve.
But why stop there? Everything done by
everyone should be rated all the time to build
pressure and spite. Seminar points should get a rating
from both tutors on the spot (a la gymnastics); papers
should be read aloud and critiqued at random;
intramural games should be made overly violent and
obsessive (see how small the steps we have to take
are!). Forget renovating the dorms: destroy them all
and make one giant Naval Academy building: eat and
be judged, sleep and be judged, shower and be
judged, judged even for your judgement. When they
Entirely seriously,
B.S.
21
�πόλις
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November 27, 2023
vessels
By Natalie Goldman
The channels for spirit
Are delicately constructed.
Lying in a well-worn path,
They drive passion to madness.
Nobody, though, would doubt
The hardiness of the walls themselves,
Keeping in even the most
Base and heinous of rages.
There is no seeping out.
Someday, blood will be replaced.
They will change it for something
More beautiful and terrifying.
When that day comes,
We will break down our barriers
And run into each other’s arms.
22
�πόλις
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November 27, 2023
The Student's Lament from the St. John's College Yearbook;
Author and Year Unknown
Hope you all had some wonderful food over Thanksgiving Break!
23
�THE STUDENT
NEWSPAPER
OF
ST. JOHN’S
COLLEGE
Founded in 1980, the Gadfly is the
student newsmagazine distributed to
over 600 students, faculty, staff, and
alumni of the Annapolis campus.
Opinions expressed within are the
responsibility of the author(s). The
Gadfly reserves the right to accept,
reject, and edit submissions in any
way necessary to publish a
professional, informative, and
thought provoking newsmagazine.
Submissions sent to the Gadfly
should either be in Google Docs or
JPEG format. The deadline for
submissions is the Friday prior to
(Photography by Abigail Poppleton)
publication.
For more information, contact us
via email at lbriner@sjc.edu.
Photographs without a listed source are from the
St. John's College Digital Archives.
St. John's College owns the rights
to these photographs.
Illustrations without a listed source are by Takashi
Mifune from Irasutoya.com and are free to use for
non-commercial purposes. All rights to these
illustrations still belong to the artist.
60 COLLEGE AVENUE
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND 21401
�
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Text
Thursday
November 16
2023
The St. John’s Collegian
A Gadfly Publication
From the
polity
Vol. I Issue 8
Printed Thursdays in Annapolis
College Historical taskforce
organizes panel on key
It’s a Road! It’s a Way! It’s a… Taskforce, Created to Examine College History and Examine
Desire Path?
the College’s Responsibility Today, Hopes to Spark Dialogue
Chances are you’ve seen them around and barely
noticed them: short dirt paths eroding away well-kept
sod. Have you ever wondered how they got there? The
answer is base human instinct.
Desire paths are created by humans taking the shortest
route between two points and typically occur when the
paved/planned path takes a longer or more-circuitous
one. In some places, desire paths are actively studied by
landscapers and engineers to learn from the wisdom of
the herd and pave accordingly. In others, they are
roped off to prevent further soil erosion.
In the U.S., due to our lack of pedestrian
infrastructure, desire paths can be found where the
sidewalk ends, along the sides of roads, and between car
parks and stores. Another place is on college campuses
since they are some of the few pedestrianized areas in
the country. Poor planning and hurried students
combine to create desire paths on many campuses
around the world.
In a place like St. John’s, we have few desire paths. 300
years of constant habitation have allowed many of our
naturally-created paths to be paved over in an orderlyangled array of bricks. There are a few left, however,
where the aversion to paving over everything has us
keeping some grassy plots. The Quad may be the most
glaring example, as many different desire paths crisscross the grass square and turn it into a mud patch. A
more classic example would be the one next to ChaseStone, leading to the East side of Pinkney .
Some see desire paths as a nuisance and an eyesore.
Others laud them as they fly in the face of the rigid lines
of modern landscaping. There’s even a whole
subreddit (r/desirepath) dedicated to them. Love them
or hate them, they’re sticking around until we can
always predict the movements of a crowd. And even
then, we may still surprise our landscapers.
Caleb Briggs
Editor’s Note: this is not a typical From the Polity
article, but I did not have any submissions of opinion
this week. I know all of you have opinions, please send
them to me. The Collegian needs them!
St. John’s College has seen much in its 240 years of
history, from its founding in the tumultuous days
immediately following the American Revolution to its
slow and quiet decline throughout the last half of the
19th century and beginning of the 20th, and into the
new program that has defined the past 87 years. This
history is inseparable from the state of the College
today; every aspect of life in the Polity is shaped by it,
with an even greater impact on the relationship of the
College with the wider world. However, much of this
history, especially that which predates the New
Program, is forgotten or unacknowledged, outside of a
few anecdotes about Humphreys Hall having been a
morgue, or McDowell burning down.
We pay lip service to our history, claiming the
distinguished 1696 founding date (a myth that I hope
to dispel in a future article), and displaying pride in our
19th century architecture, but we rarely pause to think
about how the College’s history, and particularly
history of discrimination and slavery, has made the
Polity we have today. While it might be nice to imagine
the New Program as its own isolated bubble, a
Republic in Speech brought forth by the sheer
intellectual will of its founders, it is not. Because of this
reluctance to look back practically, there has long been
a need to reckon with the historical legacy of the
College.
In the summer of 2020, a group arose hoping to do
exactly that. “It was the summer of George Floyd’s
murder,” explained Adrian Trevisan, Chair of the
College Historical Taskforce. “Roughly the same time,
there were two open letters from alumni to the college,
and a webinar.” These events, all calling on the college
to address systemic racism, and to make concrete
changes in the day-to-day operations of the College,
and which lead to the creation of the campus Diversity,
Equity and Inclusion Taskforce inspired Trevisan to
think. “Well, let's look at our Annapolis campus that's
built in the 1700s for a bunch of white kids in
Maryland. So there's got to be slavery in there. And we
really ought to be doing something to research our
history and to figure out some way to acknowledge it.”
Trevisan, who is a board member, reached out to the
then Board of Visitors and Governos chair Ron
Fielding, who agreed that this was an important
project. Trevisan expected that Fielding would then
pass the task to someone else, but instead found
himself responsible for putting his idea into action. By
This Week in Seminar
the Fall of 2020, Trevisan had put together a group of
tutors, students, board members, staff members and
historians to begin examining the College’s history.
Since then, they have been researching, discussing, and
seeking ways to get funding to do more detailed work
on the history of the College.
Central to the work of the task force was the question
of what it means to address the College’s history. Many
other institutions have been struggling with similar
questions, with particular focus on who gets to be
commemorated by names of buildings, or how the
institution’s impact on the community may be built on
legacies of discrimination. In Annapolis, there is a long
history of slavery that is irrevocably tied up with the
founding of the College, but hard to document, as well
as later tensions between St. John’s and the
neighboring Clay Street community. The way we
remember important Annapolis figures is also caught
up in this history: Samuel Chase, William Paca,
Thomas Stone, and Charles Carrol all held slaves, while
the College’s most famous alumnus and the namesake
of the FSK auditorium, Francis Scott Key, had a
complex history as a slaveholder, as well as a lawyer for
Black people suing for their freedom. How to address
these issues remains a major topic of discussion.
At St. John’s, there are additional complications
created by the unique position of the College’s campus
in Santa Fe, which, being created in the middle of the
twentieth century, sometimes seems to have a level of
distance from many of the injustices in New Mexico’s
history. Salomon Cordova, a former student
representative from Santa Fe, argued otherwise.
Beyond the responsibility anyone who purchases land
in New Mexico has to address its theft from indigenous
people, he said, “St. John’s kind of triggered the
beginning of gentrification in Santa Fe, they started to
bring in mostly white facing individuals who are
intellectuals… and they came with money… I think
addressing that requires a bit more nuance and more
work to be done by the College.”
“Knowing history gives people a better, a more
complete sense of what it means to be a Johnnie,”
explained Trevisan. “Slavery, that's part of it… you
need to know about it and then you need to figure out
what you're going to do about it.” For now, the
taskforce has begun by commissioning a series of
Cont. on page 2
Upcoming Events:
Freshman:
- 11/16: Plato: Phaedo, 57A–84B
- 11/29: Plato: Phaedo, 84B–118B
Sophomores:
- 11/16: Plotinus: see official list for selections
- 11/20: Augustine: Confessions, I–V
Juniors and Seniors:
- Preceptorials
Friday Night Lecture:
Marcel Proust's Turning of the Table, Rebecca Goldner
Page 1
Thursday 11/16
- 3 pm, Mitchell Art Museum: 20
minute tour of exhibitions
Friday 11/17
- Noon, Private Dining Room:
Montessori International info session
Saturday 11/18
- 7 pm, FSK Auditorium: Duchess of
Malfi
Sunday 11/19
- 7 pm, FSK Auditorium: Duchess of
Malfi
�Thursday November 16, 2023
St. John’s collegian
Duchess of malfi:
Play Showing this Weekend
Exclusive Interview of Director Jack Domanski about
The play, The Duchess of Malfi, is set to be performed
this weekend in the FSK. To get a better idea of the
dramaturgical delights that await us, I accosted the
director, Mr. Jack Domanski, on a dark Quad.
through the means of their spy Daniel de Bosola who
is a mercenary who served the Cardinal for several
years as a galley slave. What unfolds from this is a
series of death and tragedy.
Question: Without using the phrase “a Jacobean
Revenge tragedy” give a brief summary of the play.
Q. Does it end well?
Answer: It revolves around the Duchess of Malfi who
is recently widowed who has two brothers, Duke
Ferdinand and the Cardinal and they are both jealous
over her domestic life and encourage her not to marry
again–
Q. What comprises her domestic life?
A. Her domestic life is one– she decides to marry her
steward, Antonio, in secret, against the wishes of her
brothers and they lead a secret life with three children
for several years until their brothers find out
Time is of the
essence
New Exhibit at Mitchell
Museum Shows Video Art
The combination of different sounds from different
places in the room is striking. Screens and projected
videos line the walls, and the floor plan is open, so all
of the audio mingles to create a single backdrop.
Nonstop speech collides with the sound of a person
imitating a wolf howl, and it takes a moment to realize
that the majority of the pieces don’t have audio at all,
but are silent by design. The performance art
movement of the early 1960s gradually turned to film
and video as new mediums through which to express
their art. The Mitchell Art Museum’s current
exhibition, which runs until December 10, highlights
seven pieces of film and video art from the late 1960s
and 1970s in the United States. It’s important to note
that the only information written on the labels on the
walls next to the pieces are the artist’s name and the
duration of the video. One piece features a cat eating
out of a bowl while a person circles it slowly (15:37
min), and one shows the artist putting on makeup
and getting dressed for the day (38 min). Don’t
worry, the names of the pieces and the years they were
created are still displayed on the wall near the door of
the exhibit, but it’s important to this exhibition to
focus the most on the element of time. Some of the
videos are more flashy and less mundane, but even
these ones are made fascinating by their durations.
How much time to spend with each piece of art is up
to the viewer, but seeing the exact amount of time the
artist intended for the piece to take up can compel the
audience to stick around to see the whole thing. It’s
illuminating to find out which pieces are worth the
wait.
Natalie Goldman
Pensée of the Week
Dish washers are the prime example of modern
capitalism. We put dirty things in a closed box and
hope someone else would take care of them
Vol. I. Issue 8
A. I think you could well infer from “death and
tragedy” that it does not end well but–
Q. Very good, next question: What part of the play
are you most excited about?
A. I am excited for the Duchess’s final scenes of the
play. I think that Acacia gives a phenomenal
performance and the audience will be quite
astonished by it. I think also the scenes where Ranger
Kasdorf goes wild as Ferdinand will also blow the
audience away. I’m also excited–
Historical Taskforce, Cont.
reports on figures that have buildings named after
them who were important to the College’s founding,
and which should prove helpful for promoting more
informed conversation about their legacies and how
the College can address them. These reports should
be completed this winter, and be distributed
throughout the Polity.
They should also form the starting point for a series
of forums, beginning with one on Key later this year.
The forum, which will feature Annapolis community
members and historians, to help examine who Key
was, what his impact was on the College, and
Annapolis as a whole, and why it matters how we
remember him. In particular, Key’s complex
relationship with slavery, and his close ties with the
College, including his founding of the alumni
association, will be discussed. In part, this
conversation hopes to be a starting point for more
concrete action, whether that may include suggesting
the College rename the hall, work to help mend
legacies of its impact on the Annapolis Community,
or help educate about Key’s complex past.
The task force is not primarily aimed externally,
however. It hopes to encourage conversation and
reflection within the Polity, particularly amongst the
student body, who often have not been very well
informed about College history. “Your years on
campus are the beginning of your life as a Johnnie.
You’ll be a Johnnie all your life, so the history of the
college will matter for you for a long time,” said
Trevisan. “I would hope that in addition to students
studying history for knowledge for its own sake,
students would be interested in reading the histories
that we will have, and tell us if it matters or not. If they
read it and say ‘eh, I don’t have any problems with
that, then that’s as good information as saying that we
have to change things. What we’re asking is, read these
reports, and tell us what you think.”
It is not easy to address so many centuries of history,
but in a way very appropriate to the College, the
taskforce hopes to do so by conversation. Only by
discussion, based on the grounding texts of the stories
of our own past, can we, as a Polity, decide what our
responsibilities are to address our College’s legacy,
and what it really means to be conscientious citizens
of the Polity’s present in light of its past.
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman
Page 2
Q. This is a short article; we’re going to move on.
What part of the play has been the most challenging?
Mr. Domanski buried his face in his hands for a
moment before muttering “Jesus.”
A. Almost all of it–
Q. And finally, are you bothered that we look the
same?
A. I am deeply bothered by it.
The Duchess of Malfi, a Jacobean revenge tragedy,
featuring Acacia Burnham, Ranger Kasdorf, Max
Mersmann-Jones, and Khanya Mnisi is coming to the
FSK at 7 p.m. on November 18th and 19th.
Caleb Briggs
About the St.
John’s
Collegian
The St. John’s Collegian is the weekly newspaper of
St. John’s College Annapolis. We work to bring quick
and timely coverage of important events going on, to
help develop a more informed student body. If you’re
searching for more in-depth investigations and
reporting, as well as essays, art and culture, check out
the Gadfly, our affiliated publication, which is
published once every three weeks.
Want to submit an article? We always need more
writers, whether for opinion or reporting!
Submissions for news articles should be between 350450 words, while opinion should be kept short at 300
words. Just email eanicholskaufman@sjc.edu with
your article, and we will work to get it in print!
Longer form articles and more in-depth exploration
of ideas should go to the Gadfly, which accepts
submissions at lbriner@sjc.edu.
Contributors for this issue:
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman, Editor
Caleb Briggs
Natalie Goldman
Notice of Elections
The Delegate Council will be holding elections on
Tuesday, December 5th for four Freshman
Representative positions, as well as the positions of
President, Secretary, Treasurer, and Polity Herald.
People interested in running should contact the
Polity Attorney, Ranna Kisswani, with any questions
about eligibility or election procedure.
�
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<em>The St. John's Collegian</em>
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A student newspaper of St. John's College. <em>The St. John's Collegian</em> began publication in 2023 and is affiliated with <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/collections/show/16"><em>The Gadfly</em></a>. <br /><br />Published weekly on Thursday, with the exception of weeks <em>The Gadfly </em>is published. <br /><br />Earlier publications with the title <em>The Collegian </em>and <em>The St. John's Collegian </em>are available in <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/collections/show/26"><em>The Collegian Collection</em></a>.<br /><br />Click on Items in <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=69&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">The St. John's Collegian Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection.
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St. John's College
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St. John's College
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Annapolis, Md.
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2 pages
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St. John's Collegian, November 16, 2023
Description
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Volume 1, issue 8 of the St. John's Collegian, published November 16, 2023. Corrected version.
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St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)
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Annapolis, MD
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2023-11-16
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pdf
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St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)--Periodicals
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SJCCollegian_vol1_issue8_2023-11-16
Student publication
The Collegian
The Gadfly
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/617a5ad44c3d7f77e9774ffadd630606.pdf
0efe75cc33b881c28f8ccfab7732db4b
PDF Text
Text
Thursday
November 9
2023
The St. John’s Collegian
A Gadfly Publication
From the
polity
Vol. I Issue 7
Printed Thursdays in Annapolis
calls alleging suspicious items
made, buildings evacuated
Why Smoking is Frickin’ Epic Local and State Police Conducted Check of Campus, Found
No Explosive Objects, Investigation is Ongoing
I hear the concerns of a tragically misguided member
of the polity and raise them the age-old aphorism,
“live and let live,” applicable in the sense that you
should let me live my life of peace, freedom, and
looking damn cool whilst you live your pedantic, nitpicky life of cold unfeeling sobriety.
Big Anti-Tobacco has been in the limelight for far too
long, propounding such fiction as “lung cancer” and
“emphysema,” which has poisoned public nicotine
discourse in the way smoking does not poison the
body. It pains me to see the noble gifts of my good
and unbiased friend, Phillip Morris, so treated with
base contempt. We could speak for hours on the
claim that well over 10 people die of smoking related
illness per annum, but I digress. We have issues closer
to home to discuss, and such arguments are beneath
such esteemed sophists as we. Did Socrates ever decry
the baseness of smoking? I think not.
Moving onto my anonymous friend’s claim that
smoking grants one an unattractive nature and an
unpleasant presence. I’d in fact like to argue the
opposite, that you non-smoking squares and your
whining tires my fellow smokers and I, gives us a
headache, and makes us really need a smoke. When
you think about it, you’re the problem. But my low,
sexy voice and existential joie de vivre allow me to
suffer such blows without complaint. If you insist
upon being so bent out of ideological shape, perhaps
you should consider the good of the whole. Does the
presence of smoking not elevate the mysterious and
pseudo-intellectual atmosphere that the polity aspires
to cultivate here? In standing in opposition to
smoking, you stand against progress, truth, and
freedom. After all, academia is best seen as the process
of peering through the veil—in this case, one of
smoke.
Now, to the author of On the Smoking Policy, I hope
this refutation is not deeply offensive to you, but
rather that it has encouraged you to entertain the
truth, that there exists no art more dear to—nor more
conducive to—the St. John’s spirit and culture of
passionate truth-seeking. Please cease your attacks on
the cornerstones of our college, and our intrinsic,
God given right to smoke on the quad.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need a Lucky Strike. You
know where to find me. That’s all.
–J.S. (Jilted Smoker)
Classes in Mellon on the morning of Thursday,
November 2nd, were interrupted at about 10:40 by the
harsh ringing of the fire alarm. For many students, the
reason for the alarm was unclear at first, with some
speculating that there might be a fire drill that was not
announced, or that there was actually a fire going on
in Mellon. However, the word quickly began
spreading amongst students standing outside of
Mellon, and was confirmed by tutors and staff
nearby, that a suspicious package was reported to be
somewhere in Mellon, and that the Annapolis Police
Department had ordered the building to be
evacuated.
Students who were signed up to the Public Safety
Emergency Alert System received emails and texts
warning them to evacuate Mellon at 10:47, and
students who were in the building at the time were
moved over across the fields of back campus, before
being told to continue down towards the boathouse.
At this time, Fielding Hall, Campbell Hall, Carroll
Barrister House, and the Harrison House were also
evacuated. The buildings remained closed until an all
clear message was sent out to the Polity at 12:44. Due
to this, 1 pm classes were canceled, and the dining hall
was opened from 1-2 pm, with campus operations
returning to normal at the start of 2:20 classes.
The evacuations were triggered in response to a call
made to admissions earlier that morning, in which an
unidentified person suggested he knew that there was
a student in possession of a dangerous object on
campus. “It was Thursday, and I had a 8:30 am to
12:30 pm shift,” explained the student who received
the call, who asked to remain anonymous. “I opened
things up as I usually do, and I was returning calls that
were missed… there was a call that came in at 7:40 am,
which I thought was odd, because admissions doesn’t
open until 9, and why would you call admissions at
7:40?” The student proceeded to call the number
back, and a voice of someone who didn’t sound like a
student responded. “He said, ‘did you know that
there’s a student on your campus that has explosive
material that can bet turned into a weapon?’”
continued the student who answered the phone. “He
said, ‘I don’t want anyone’s arms or legs to be blown
off.’ That is where the call began to feel threatening.”
The student kept the caller on the phone while trying
to transfer him to Public Safety, but was unable to,
This Week in Seminar
and so gave Public Safety’s phone number to the
caller. After the call ended, the student called Public
Safety, and explained what had happened. “They
basically said, please come over right away,” he
continued. After he arrived at the public safety office,
he was given a statement to fill out. “At some point
while I was there, the person actually called public
safety again… as far as I could tell [the Public Safety
Officer] was mostly trying to get his name.”
Upon receiving this call, which specified the
dangerous materials were near a “chemistry
classroom,” the Annapolis Police Department was
notified, and Dean Susan Paalman went around
talking to tutors before 10:20 classes to inform them
of the situation, and to say that they were awaiting the
Police Department for further instructions.
Danielle Lico, Vice President of Student Affairs, who
helped coordinate the response, said in a statement
that “upon [the police department’s] arrival to
campus and after a review of the information
available, the decision was made to evacuate Mellon
Hall… Public Safety continued to work with onsite
law enforcement, including the Annapolis Police
Department, Maryland State Police, Capitol Police K9 Unit, the US Navy Police Department, and the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives,
including explosive detection canine units, to
determine if any explosive materials were present.
After searching multiple locations on-campus, no
explosive materials were found.”
Paalman, in a statement to the Collegian expressed
appreciation that the response was quick, well
organized, and that the first priority was to keep
students safe. “I'm not sure what led someone to
report that there might be a dangerous object on our
campus. It was frustrating to have to leave everything
for a couple of hours. I am grateful that there was, in
fact, no dangerous object and that students, tutors,
and staff were calm and listened to instructions. I'm
grateful for the beautiful day and the extra time many
of us had to enjoy it. I'm grateful for the people who
were not able to enjoy the lovely day, but whose job it
is to respond to emergencies. I especially note the calm
professionalism of Ms. Lico, Mr. Abbott, Ms.
VanNess, Chief Boston, our Public Safety officers,
and others I'm not thinking of at the moment.”
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman
Upcoming Events:
Freshman:
- 11/9: Aristophanes: Clouds
- 11/13: Plato: Apology and Crito
Sophomores:
- 11/9: Bible, First Corinthians
- 11/13: Bible, Romans and James
Juniors and Seniors:
- Preceptorials
Friday Night Lecture:
All College Seminar on Ecclesiastes, Hosted by the SCI
Page 1
Saturday 11/11
- Noon, Library Patio: Library Book
Sale
- 9 pm, Great Hall: Masquerade Waltz
Tuesday 11/14
- 3:45 pm, Hodson Room: Internship
Search Workshop
- 4:30 pm, Conversation Room:
Shakespeare in the Fall, Coriolanus
Wednesday 11/15
- 2:30 pm, Hodson Room: Maryland
Public Service Scholars Info Session
�Thursday November 11, 2023
St. John’s collegian
Vol. I. Issue 7
Editorial:
The Gadfly Publication Delays, and Why Both Campus Publication’s
Review by Administration and Independence is Important
For the third time this year, the Gadfly’s publication
has been delayed, with none of the three issues
scheduled to come out to date having been
published on the week they were supposed to. The
first time was purely an internal issue, which has
been resolved, but the remaining two times have
been because of concerns over the Gadfly’s content
during its review by the administration of the
College. The most recent issue, which should have
come out last Thursday, is not yet out at the time of
the Collegian’s publication.
Publications are delayed on campus for two good
reasons. The first is practical: we receive our funding
from the College, and the College cannot have a
publication that operates with its money spreading
disinformation or harmful content without
exposing itself to liability. The second is more
philosophical: these reviews often function as a
check for truth and moral character of the
publication. In one incident that occurred this year,
the Collegian was delayed because I had mis-
recorded some important financial data from the
BVG meeting, and the treasurer wanted to offer a
correction. This kind of fact checking is important
for the publication, and was a good reason for a
delay. Likewise, an article in the Gadfly held up the
second issue because some of it might have seemed
insulting to individuals on campus. The author of
the article had secured the permission of the people
mentioned, but the person doing the reviews did not
know that, and it was very reasonable to make sure
that the paper wasn’t personally attacking or hurting
students on campus.
However, the most recent delay caused by these
reviews is not necessary for ensuring the factual or
moral soundness of the paper, and has continued a
trend of more administrative involvement in the
day-to-day operation of the Gadfly. The Gadfly is
currently being delayed because Ms. Demleitner
wants to publish a response to an interview I
conducted on tutor pay. While I respect that there
may be a need to provide factual corrections,
Balancing our books and
our bodies:
Musings on the Campus Problem of Student Health (or
Utter Lack Thereof)
Recently my friends and I were imagining a Hunger
Games-type situation at St. John’s; a fight to the
death with the entire student body. While
entertaining to think of, and maybe even intriguing
(Reality Club... maybe something to work on?),
there was a thought that came to me: we are all
incredibly weak. And yes, this is ignoring some of
the student body that does really have their shit
together and could probably kill a lot of us with their
bare hands. But for the most part our weakness is
accurate and unavoidable. And this isn’t just due to
the student body comprising mostly of previous
high school nerds, and we can hear why in the
conversations we have outside of class. Does any of
this sound familiar? “I haven’t eaten anything all
day” “I only got three hours of sleep last night” “I’ve
just been drinking coffee and eating the dining hall
fries for the past week” “I had ten (10) shots of Jack
Daniels last night” “I have had bronchitis for eight
weeks but will continue to smoke half a pack a day”
This campus is malnourished, under slept, and sick.
With our college’s motto being “Books and a
Balance” one would think that we would attempt to
execute this. Our failure to do so raises the question
of what kind of balance the student body is seeking.
If it is not the balance of a healthy life with an
immersive study of books, then what exactly is it?
With the obsession with acting thoughtlessly and
unhealthily along with the need for our peer’s eyes, it
seems as though we are seeking the balance of
someone on a tightrope, teetering on the thin line we
have created for ourselves, made for the spectacle of
it. Because it is not that we are just drinking too
much or eating and sleeping too little, but that it is
done alongside perfection in school. It is an attempt
to do the impossible; reduce your body and health to
nothingness while turning in a beautiful essay in on
time. We must be the impossible to everyone we
know! And as glamorous as that sounds, being a
functional alcoholic with a great Don Rag, it is
impossible. We can try to convince ourselves that the
essay we turned in after seventy-two hours of not
sleeping is good, but it really isn’t. Instead of
reaching perfection and self-destruction at the same
time all we have done is hurt our bodies and our
minds without anything to show for it. As much as
we avoid this conclusion it is inevitable, and we can
all see it when we cry to our friends about not being
able to keep going as tired as you are.
To offer a solution for this is to throw a stone in a
glass house. I smoke an incredible amount and
absolutely do not work out. So, really what I have
done is offer up useless critique on a mass problem
of young people in academia. But I will say that each
and every one of you would benefit from drinking a
glass of whole milk and eating some vegetables.
Molly Sprout
holding up the publication of the newspaper to give
a greater voice to the administration is an abuse of
the review power. If Ms. Demleitner really wants to
have her voice heard about tutor pay, she should be
able to either offer an official statement outside the
Gadfly, or wait until the next issue.
Once the paper is ready, the primary aim of the
review should be to get a factually sound Gadfly out
as fast as possible. Otherwise, the Gadfly loses its
relevance as a source of news and information. To
hold up this key part of what a campus publication
is just in order to give more voice to people on
campus who already have many other platforms of
communication seems irresponsible and infringes on
the independence of the Gadfly.
I hope that moving forward, the Gadfly and
administration can work to build better
communication, to ensure that we can find a balance
between publishing an independent, relevant
newspaper, and reasonable review of its content.
About the St.
John’s
Collegian
The St. John’s Collegian is the weekly newspaper of
St. John’s College Annapolis. We work to bring
quick and timely coverage of important events going
on, to help develop a more informed student body.
If you’re searching for more in-depth investigations
and reporting, as well as essays, art and culture, check
out the Gadfly, our affiliated publication, which is
published once every three weeks.
Want to submit an article? We always need more
writers, whether for opinion or reporting!
Submissions for news articles should be between
350-450 words, while opinion should be kept short
at 300 words. Just email eanicholskaufman@sjc.edu
with your article, and we will work to get it in print!
Longer form articles and more in-depth exploration
of ideas should go to the Gadfly, which accepts
submissions at lbriner@sjc.edu.
Contributors for this issue:
Pensée of the Week
The observant reader will note that this is now
classified as the pensée of the week, rather than the
aphorism. This is because a new manuscript,
attributed to the same sage of Gorman Street, was
found by my friend, clarifying that these were in fact
inspired by the scattered philosophical musings of
Pascal. Upon receiving this information, I quickly
corrected the title of this reoccurring feature, as most
of these really don’t make sense as aphorisms to
begin with. Whether they make sense as thoughts in
general is another question, but one I feel more
comfortable to let the reader decide.
The Leviathan ruled the wide sea on his majestic
throne. One day, he was sitting on his throne for too
long, and he drowned because he forgot to breathe.
Page 2
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman, Editor
J.S.
Molly Sprout
Enjoy intramurals? Want to see more
coverage of games, scores and standings?
The Collegian wants you!
We are looking to provide comprehensive coverage
of College sporting events going forward, and would
like to have a sports writer on staff. If this interests
you, please email El’ad Nichols-Kaufman at the
email listed above, and we can get started on giving
our campus sports the attention they deserve.
�
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
A name given to the resource
<em>The St. John's Collegian</em>
Description
An account of the resource
A student newspaper of St. John's College. <em>The St. John's Collegian</em> began publication in 2023 and is affiliated with <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/collections/show/16"><em>The Gadfly</em></a>. <br /><br />Published weekly on Thursday, with the exception of weeks <em>The Gadfly </em>is published. <br /><br />Earlier publications with the title <em>The Collegian </em>and <em>The St. John's Collegian </em>are available in <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/collections/show/26"><em>The Collegian Collection</em></a>.<br /><br />Click on Items in <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=69&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">The St. John's Collegian Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection.
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St. John's College
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St. John's College
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Annapolis, Md.
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SJCCollegian
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St. John's Collegian, November 9, 2023
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Volume 1, issue 7 of the St. John's Collegian, published November 9, 2023.
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St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)
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Annapolis, MD
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2023-11-09
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St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)--Periodicals
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SJCCollegian_vol1_issue7_2023-11-09
Student publication
The Collegian
The Gadfly
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Thursday
October 26
2023
The St. John’s Collegian
A Gadfly Publication
From the
polity
As a response, the college has been undergoing
austerity measures of one sort or another for 15 years.
That has meant a lot of things, including faculty and
staff salaries that are not where they should be. Since
you have asked about tutors, I will focus on that side
of things, not forgetting that many staff are also
facing difficulties.
The base tutor salary is lower than it was in 2008, if
we adjust for inflation. In recent years housing has
become very expensive in Anne Arundel County.
Tutors are finding it hard even to rent close to
campus, let alone to buy a house.
The good news is that we are here, while many
colleges have had to close their doors. The college has
also not gone through layoffs, as others have. More
good news: according to our pay scale, newer and
mid-career faculty, receive “step increases,”
percentage increases to salary, every year. The college
has always preserved these yearly increases in spite of
the difficult circumstances. Also, our benefits package
is quite competitive with what other places offer. Last
year, the college also increased starting salaries and
faculty base pay across the board for the first time in
many years.
It's a complicated situation, as I said above. No one
doubts that salaries are not where we would like them
to be and that housing is hard to find in this area.
Tutors (and staff!) face real difficulties. On the other
hand, we are better off than we might have been, had
the college made different choices.
Cont on Page 2.
Printed Thursdays in Annapolis
Board of Visitors and
governors meets in Santa fe
Statement From the Dean:
On Tutor Pay
Since the recession of 2008, and exacerbated by the
pandemic, the college’s traditional sources of revenue
have changed. In particular, we have been moving
from a more tuition driven financial model to a more
philanthropic model. In making this move, we have,
since 2008, lost about $10 million in student derived
revenue. That is, if we were still getting the kind of
net tuition we were getting before the economy
tanked in 2008, we’d have gotten a total of $10
million more (not inflation adjusted) over these years.
Vol. I Issue 6
Deficit, Tutor Pay, Enrollment and Retention, Tuition
Increases, and Presidential Search Discussed
The College’s Board of Visitors and Governor’s fall
meeting, one of the three annual meetings that rotate
between the two campuses, occurred in Santa Fe this
year. This meeting, the first to be chaired by Warren
Spector, took place from October 19th to 21st. Most of
the meetings took place behind closed doors, as is
usual for the board, but topics discussed at each of the
committees, along with the reports of the Board
Chair, both campus presidents and deans, were
presented at the Plenary Session that was open to the
public. Spector’s report, however, was not able to be
heard, due to a technical malfunction of the meeting’s
livestream.
During this session, different visions of the College
were outlined by its officers. Nora Demleitner,
Annapolis President, presented her vision of the
“student centered college as a framework that informs
the whole college… a pillar that supports the
program.” She emphasized the needs of 21st century
students, and of remembering that “all student
challenges are institutional challenges.” She
emphasized
career-oriented
programs
and
partnerships with other institutions of higher
education as ways to achieve this.
Mark Roosevelt, Santa Fe President, who is serving
his last year in this position, used his address to discuss
the need for the college to resist trends and maintain
its contrarian identity in order to survive. “What does
it mean to be contrarian?” he asked, “It’s not just a
different path to succeeding conventionally.” He
argued that St. John’s cannot try to sell itself as a
college whose graduates will be materially successful,
since it cannot compete with other institutions for
that, and it should not necessarily value that kind of
success. He claimed that the college should not try to
make itself selective, as a fundamental part of St.
John’s is recognizing that students who did not
succeed in high school might be the best Johnnies. He
called on the board to resist adopting the latest trends
in college administration, and to embrace our unique
identity.
A major topic of discussion during the board meeting
was tutor pay, which has been particularly visible on
the Annapolis campus due to the tutor walkouts
covered elsewhere in this issue. Demleitner
This Week in Seminar
announced in her statement that “tutors and staff
work very hard, but we are not in a financial position
to give them what they truly deserve.” She said that
given the budgeting constraints, the college will not be
able to give them regular raises.
Annapolis Dean Susan Paalman raised the issue in her
report, and called on the board to take action. She
noted that base salaries have only been raised twice,
and cut once, since 2008, meaning that adjusted for
inflation, all tutors are making much less then they did
then. Tutor pay is so low that starting tutors in
Annapolis cannot find housing in the city, and
actually qualify for affordable housing in Anne
Arundel County, but cannot receive it because the
wait list is too long. “This is a serious problem for
retention and recruitment of faculty… we are nearing
the point at which we cannot maintain the college like
this.” She closed her statement by looking at the
vibrant academic life on campus in contrast with this
difficult situation for tutors. “How we put together
campus vibrancy with the tutor pay problems, I don’t
know, but it makes me wonder at the love we have for
the college.”
The chief reason given by the board for not raising
tutor pay was the College’s precarious financial
situation, as reflected in its deficit, which was
frequently mentioned during the meeting. Operating
deficits have returned in the fiscal year 2023, although
they can be covered for this year by a onetime grant of
federal funding for employee retention over the
Covid-19 pandemic For fiscal year 2024, the college is
projecting a $5.4m operating deficit – over $1m more
than originally budgeted, but the board hopes to
reduce the total deficit to $3.4m with tax credit
money., but the board hopes to reduce it to $3.4
million with tax credit money. Moving forward, the
college will be running a $5 million deficit in 2025,
and a $6 million deficit in 2026.
Fueling these fiscal pressures is rising inflation, raised
prices of utilities, and IT costs more than expected. In
particular, Buildings and Grounds costs were over
budget due to many unplanned critical maintenance
projects as well as unexpected price hikes in utilities.
Cont. on Page 2.
Upcoming Events:
Freshman:
- 10/26: Plato: Republic, IV 427D–VI 502C
- 10/30: Plato: Republic, VI 502D–VII
Sophomores:
- 10/26: Bible, Matthew
- 10/30: Bible, Luke
Juniors:
- Preceptorials
Seniors:
- Preceptorials
Friday 10/27:
- Johnnie Family & Friends Weekend
begins, see schedule on website for
more details on events taking place
this weekend.
Saturday 10/28:
- 3 pm, Mellon Patio: Fall Festival and
Pie Baking Contest
- 8 pm, Great Hall: Contra Dance
Sunday 10/29:
- 6:45 pm, FSK: Great Conversations
Wednesday 11/1:
- 2:30 pm, Hodson room:
ScribeAmerica info session
Friday Night Lecture:
What the Heck is Hell?
7:30 p.m., FSK Auditorium, by Annapolis Tutor Ron Haflidson
Page 1
�Thursday October 26, 2023
St. John’s collegian
Tutor pay (Cont. from Page 1.)
Finally, there are many positive financial signs. Our
recent capital campaign was incredibly successful
and showed the generosity of our supporters. Much
of that money, though, is in pledges or bequests,
which are not immediately available. The board and
the presidents have all recognized the need to
increase salaries. I’m confident that we’ll get to
where we need to be.
Susan Paalman
BVG Meeting (Cont. from Page 1.)
In order to address these budget pressures, the
College is looking at various ways of increasing
revenue. Given the stagnation of tuition revenue, the
College aims to continue to build more on
philanthropy. This year, they received a $35 million
dollar gift from the Hodson Trust for the
endowment, the second largest gift in the College’s
history. It brings the endowment up to about $250
million. The net return on the endowment is also up
at 12.1%, a high amount given the low risk
investments the College’s endowment is invested in.
There are also several large bequests willed to the
College, which it should receive in the coming years.
However, this by itself is not enough to provide the
revenue the College needs, and the Board voted to
raise tuition and fees again by 4% this year, which is
roughly on par with inflation.
Another topic discussed during the meeting was
enrollment, which is looking to be a continuing
challenge as the nation faces a demographic cliff of
declining College-aged population. This year,
enrollment in Santa Fe was below target, at 92
students in the Freshman class, while enrollment in
Annapolis was 140. Applications still remain
relatively strong, however, and the College hopes to
pull new students through innovative application
methods and recruitment of international students.
Retention was also discussed in detail, with the
College looking to find ways to help support
students at the College and keep them until
graduation. Freshman to Sophomore retention has
reached its highest level since 2018, but overall
retention is still below similar institutions in the
small college consortium, causing a drop in tuition
revenue as well as damage to community. One way
Vol. I. Issue 6
the College hopes to address that is by a program
being piloted on the Santa Fe campus called the
expanded freshman year. The program will allow
students to spread the work of freshman year across
two semesters and a summer, meaning they would
take a reduced courseload in the fall, a normal
courseload in the spring, and a few classes over the
summer, to be able to rejoin their classmates for
sophomore year. This program aims to provide
support for students who might otherwise struggle
during their transition into College life. It will be
open to students who chose to take the extended
year from the start, as well as those who struggle at
the beginning of the regular freshman year classes.
The other major topic on the board’s agenda was
selection of a new president for the Santa Fe campus
to replace Roosevelt. The board is committed to
holding an internal and external search. So far, Santa
Fe tutor and former Dean J. Walter Sterling (not to
be confused with Annapolis tutor Walter Sterling)
has been selected as the internal candidate search
finalist, and will undergo further interview processes
before the selection of a new president is made.
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman
Tutors organize walkout to About the St.
advocate for higher pay
John’s
Collegian
Tutors and Students Walked Out of Class Ten Minutes
Early, Stand on the Quad in Protest
An unusual sight filled the quad at 2:00 this past
Friday. While the space enclosed by McDowell and
the pair of colonial dorms is usually thriving after
classes, it generally remains vacant until 3:30, when
classes come to an end. However, this Friday,
hundreds of students and tutors gathered together in
protest of low tutor pay.
The walkout was initiated by a letter written on
October 18th by Annapolis tutors Nicholas Bellinson
and Khafiz Kerimov. This letter, which was
distributed by the morning of the 19th physically in
campus public places and sent digitally to their
students and to the entire Polity by the Delegate
Council Herald, stated that the two of them would
walk out “of tutorials ten minutes early and stand on
the quad in protest of the ongoing neglect of tutor
compensation.”
In the letter, they noted that starting salaries, which
has not been subject to annual increases since 2008,
have effectively dropped by $20,000 adjusted for
inflation. Kerimov and Bellinson argued that this
decrease in compensation has meant that it is more
difficult for tutors to do their jobs, since they are
forced to live further from campus, due to high
housing costs in Annapolis, giving them less time to
do their work and making it harder to be properly
engaged with the Polity. They also noted that lower
compensation makes it much harder to recruit new
tutors, especially ones from underrepresented
backgrounds.The letter called on other members of
the polity to join them in solidarity.
On the day of the walkout, most classes in session at
the time ended ten minutes early, while some classes
that were to begin at 2:20 began ten minutes late.
Students and faculty made their way down to the
quad. Once there, students and tutors milled
around, and Bellinson and Kerimov made brief
comments. Bellinson thanked people for coming out
in support, while Kerimov told the Polity members
present that “What you see here is the kind of place
the College is. We should be proud of ourselves. At
the end of the day, this is about instruction, and
keeping our instruction strong.” They both also
urged students to attend their 2:20 classes, to avoid
interrupting too much class time.
Student responses seemed primarily positive, with a
majority of students in class at the time showing up
in support. “It’s good that this many people turned
up,” said DC President Helen Felbek, noting that it
shows that the student body cares. “The quad is
veritably tumescent,” agreed Junior and SCI
representative Jack Domanski. Freshman Andy
Manne noted that it often feels like tutors are backed
up against a wall. “They can’t leave the College, they
can’t leave our community. This is a place that we all
make some kind of sacrifices for. It makes a lot of
sense, if we are really as one community, that we get
involved. It means a lot that the students and tutors
all care about this.”
After the statements by Kerimov and Bellinson,
people milled around the quad for a while, and the
Sophomore music assistants organized a singing of
Sicut Cervus with the classes they had brought over,
which many other students joined in on. After this,
most people dispersed, heading towards their next
class or back to their dorms, the library or other
gathering places.
Further coverage on this walkout will be found in
the Gadfly coming out next week, which will feature
an interview with Kerimov and Bellinson. The
Collegian has asked the President and Dean for
comment on the issue; the Dean’s comment can be
found in the “From the Polity” section and was
coordinated as a response by the President and
Dean.
. El’ad Nichols-Kaufman
Page 2
The St. John’s Collegian is the weekly newspaper of
St. John’s College Annapolis. We work to bring
quick and timely coverage of important events going
on, to help develop a more informed student body.
If you’re searching for more in-depth investigations
and reporting, as well as essays, art and culture, check
out the Gadfly, our affiliated publication, which is
published once every three weeks.
Want to submit an article? We always need more
writers, whether for opinion or reporting!
Submissions for news articles should be between
350-450 words, while opinion should be kept short
at 300 words. Just email eanicholskaufman@sjc.edu
with your article, and we will work to get it in print!
Longer form articles and more in-depth exploration
of ideas should go to the Gadfly, which accepts
submissions at lbriner@sjc.edu.
Contributors for this issue:
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman, Editor
Susan Paalman
Aphorism of the Week
A man who kills one person is a murderer; a
man who kills a hundred people is a murderer;
and a man who kills a million people is still a
murderer, only much worse than the others.
�
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<em>The St. John's Collegian</em>
Description
An account of the resource
A student newspaper of St. John's College. <em>The St. John's Collegian</em> began publication in 2023 and is affiliated with <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/collections/show/16"><em>The Gadfly</em></a>. <br /><br />Published weekly on Thursday, with the exception of weeks <em>The Gadfly </em>is published. <br /><br />Earlier publications with the title <em>The Collegian </em>and <em>The St. John's Collegian </em>are available in <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/collections/show/26"><em>The Collegian Collection</em></a>.<br /><br />Click on Items in <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=69&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">The St. John's Collegian Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection.
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St. John's College
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St. John's College
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Annapolis, Md.
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
Language
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English
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SJCCollegian
Text
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pdf
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2 pages
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Title
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St. John's Collegian, October 26, 2023
Description
An account of the resource
Volume 1, issue 6 of the St. John's Collegian, published October 26, 2023. Corrected version of the publication.
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St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)
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St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)
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Annapolis, MD
Date
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2023-10-26
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St. John's College holds the rights to this publication.
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text
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pdf
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St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)--Periodicals
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English
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SJCCollegian_vol1_issue6_2023-10-26_Corrected
Student publication
The Collegian
The Gadfly
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08b824431067d704198fa2a71d27c374
PDF Text
Text
THE
St. John’s College
Annapolis, Maryland
GADFLY
Common Ground
November 2, 2023
Vol. XLV, Issue 3
�CONTENTS
λόγος : news reports & narratives regarding immediate campus life
An Interview With Mr. Bellinson & Mr. Kerimov
by El’ad Kaufman-Nichols
3
THE GADFLY STAFF
COVER
Kunai, a History by Tamar Pinsky
10
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Carlson, God of Donuts and Thai Food
by Bennett Scott, with Audrey Fox
12
MANAGING
EDITOR
συμπόσιονÊ:Êcontrasting opinions on various topics for thought
Ungo by Nicky Jordan
13
An Attempted System of Operational Proofs for Four
Transfinite Equations by Luke Briner
17
STAFF
Abigail Poppleton
Luke Briner
El’ad NicholsKaufman
Meliha Anthony
Vivian Miyakawa
Tamar Pinsky
Louis Rosenberg
πόλιςÊ:Êvoices of the community, including poetry, cartoons, etc.
Benne Sco
Noodles: “A Cannibalistic Chef’s Dilemma”
by Tamar Pinsky
19
Don’t Meet Your Wife At St. John’s College by Ben Maier
20
Should Men Have Friends? by B.S.
22
Notes on Dialogue Gossip by Vivian Miyakawa
24
Ben Maier
SJC Mystery #3: Could Have Gone Better by Bennett Scott
25
art i guess by Natalie Goldman
26
Natalie Goldman
Translation of Baudelaire’s “Élévation” by Luke Briner
27
YOUT
KC Taylor
Tuyết-Nhi Nghiêm
CONTRIBUTORS
Letter from the Editor
Nicky Jordan
Audrey Fox
Dear Polity,
We’re excited for you to read our third issue of the year!
I want to give a special word of gratitude to our new layout team, Ms. Tuyết-Nhi Nghiêm and Ms. KC
Taylor, who begun their work at the Gadfly last issue, as well as Ms. Abigail Poppleton, who has and will be
continuing to very kindly provide us with her excellent photography. It’s because of them that our paper is
able to look nearly as good as it does, and they have my and our sincerest thanks.
I also want to personally address the recent demonstration in protest of insufficient tutor
compensation organized and executed by tutors Mr. Nicholas Bellinson and Mr. Khafiz Kerimov. Tutors are
the guardians and the lifeblood of St. John’s, and are accordingly deserving of the highest respect not only
from students but from the College itself—and one of the clearest and most important criteria for measuring
the degree of that respect must inevitably be the level of material well-being that the College actually affords
them with. The Gadfly, as an expression of the activity and the will of the student body, is inextricably linked
to all conditions surrounding the educational life of that student body, and consequently must be passionately
invested in this struggle which is so vital to the essence of that life. It is our very earnest hope that any and all
financial ills and wrongs currently suffered by tutors are ameliorated and rectified as swiftly and as
completely as possible, and we wholeheartedly support any means by which that may be accomplished. In
practice, the Gadfly will use its platform to address the situation in three main ways. First, there will have
already been coverage of the walk-out itself as well as our Dean’s personal reaction to it in the sixth issue of
the Collegian. Second, within this issue, there is an extended interview by our Managing Editor Mr. El’ad
Nichols-Kaufman with Mr. Bellinson and Mr. Kerimov. Third, Mr. Nichols-Kaufman and I will be working
together on a significantly larger investigation of financial compensation and insecurity at the College for
staff and students as well as for tutors in an upcoming issue. We also encourage our readers to reach out to us
with their own respectfully-expressed perspectives on the situation, which we will happily publish in future
issues.
Luke Briner,
Editor-in-chief
2
�λόγος
THE GADFLY
November 2, 2023
An Interview With Mr. Bellinson & Mr. Kerimov
By El’ad Nichols-Kaufman
Mr. Kerimov Addressing the Polity During the Walk-Out (Photo by Abigail Poppleton)
On Friday, October 20th, a group of tutors and
students walked out of classes ten minutes early to
protest tutor pay, in response to a letter calling for
action by tutors Nicholas Bellinson and Khafiz
Kerimov. We sat down with them to ask about how
the protest came about, and what kind of action might
be expected moving forward.
year, the compensation situation gets worse because
of inflation, and things are at a breaking point in
some ways. While it’s probably true that we could
have done this in another month, we wanted to do it
as early in the year as possible to give the board and
the governance of the College as much time to
respond as early in the budgeting season as possible.
Nichols-Kaufman: Could you tell me how this
protest came about, and why you decided to have it
particularly now?
Kerimov: Another thing that may have pushed us to
do it now, is that as we perceive it, the problem has
become visible to students now, which is really
disgraceful. In the future, it will only become much
more visible. It really felt like we had to act.
Bellinson: I think one important thing to say is that
we’ve tried the official channels a number of times.
We’ve talked to the governing bodies of the College,
we’ve shared our concerns, we’ve said the same
things we’ve said in the letter, we’ve contextualized
them with the data and numbers that have been
provided to us, and that is apparently to no avail. We
felt that something else was necessary.
Why now particularly? Well, with every passing
B: We had a letter from a recent alum who said that
the whole time she was here, she was painfully aware
of this problem. I think it's not good for the tutorstudent relationship, for students to know this is
going on, but at the same time, they do know it’s
going on, so it seemed to us that pretending it's not
going on was not doing anything for anyone.
3
�λόγος
THE GADFLY
N-K: What in particular made you choose the
walkout as the way to raise this issue?
B: I think we felt that because instruction is being
eroded by the problem, it was a form of protest that
seemed appropriate to and commensurate with the
problem itself. With our letter, we reached a wider
audience than we thought, but the actual walkout
seemed to us to make a statement about how
instruction and potential instruction is lost because of
poor compensation.
N-K: At the BVG meeting on Saturday (10/21) they
announced they would not be increasing
compensation. What are you thinking of doing to
move forward now?
B: There are two things to say about that. One is that,
in general, we see this as a problem of allocating the
resources we already have as a college, and allocating
money that’s raised in the future, since the only
sustainable way to deal with compensation is to
fundraise for it. It’s not something that will be
covered by adjusting tuition or financial aid. We’re
sure people are worried about that, and we want to
make sure that people understand that those are not
sustainable routes to raising tutor compensation.
One thing is that modest annual increases to
compensation every year would prevent the problem
from getting worse, and part of the issue is that the
board, in stopping annual increases 15 years ago, they
made it so that every year the gap between where we
are and where we should be gets larger. It looks like
this insurmountable problem that you couldn’t
possibly throw enough money at, but part of the
problem is that they simply do not put any money to
it each year. Part of it is setting aside a modest
amount every year, but it's also the case that there has
been a refusal to fundraise on this particular issue.
We think it's clear that students, alumni, and wider
members of the St. John’s community understand that
this is an issue, and they would be responsive to
fundraising.
It's true that last year (2022-2023) the College
increased pay slightly. That increase is quickly being
swallowed by inflation, but it's now being used to
justify the refusal to increase pay further. This is
exactly why we need a commitment to annual
increases corresponding to inflation.
K: Let me add that we have encouraged at multiple
faculty meetings the governance of the College to
4
November 2, 2023
fundraise to improve tutor compensation, but no such
attempts have been made. This is really a problem of
priority. The governance of the College, the board,
has been taking tutors for granted for fifteen years
now. We want a change in priority in how we are
allocating the money we have already gathered, think
of the freeing minds campaign, but also a change in
priority in what we fundraise for. We are moving
towards fundraising as the chief source of funding for
the college, but the priorities of the governance just
don’t reflect the reality of what it means for this
college to be run. It’s so manifest that tutor
compensation is not a priority.
B: One more thing to say is that we’re often told that
there’s no money for things. I’m sure you’ve heard
this in other contexts as well, it’s not just tutor
compensation. But, while it is the case that although
there is separate fundraising for capital expenditures,
it's also the case that capital expenditures like that do
restrict endowment funds, and that’s where money
for other things on campus come from.
The other thing is although we're alway told that
there isn’t money for tutor compensation, recently the
board found money for a possible readjustment of
compensation that would be disastrous, which we
will probably reject. But it is certainly true that
money can be found when there is a will, and the will
simply hasn’t been there.
N-K: I’ve heard two arguments made before at board
meetings. One is that it’s harder to fundraise for pay,
and the other is that it is not sustainable to pay people
out of fundraising money.
B: Just to clarify what we were saying, fundraising
goes into the endowment for the most part. The
endowment yields a certain amount of interest every
year, which then can be drawn to pay the expenses of
the College. That money can be allocated in different
ways. There’s some question as to whether a separate
fund would be the right way, we’re not sure about
that. It is the case that when you fundraise you tell
people, ‘this is why you should give money. These
are our priorities,’ and then you allocate the fund
accordingly. It’s not so much about fundraising into a
particular pool, as it is allocating the funds
appropriately.
K: One of the reasons why we did what we did
Friday is that we want to bring attention of the wider
polity to the issue of tutor compensation. It doesn’t
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November 2, 2023
seem to us a ridiculous idea to fundraise for tutor
compensation. At the end of the day, the College is
about the students and the tutors. How can buildings,
moving a coffee shop from one building to another,
be a priority compared with making the job of a tutor
sustainable? Let’s just say I’m not convinced that it's
not possible to fundraise specifically for raising tutor
compensation. They need to try it.
how can I help?’ I just want to say that it's probably
the case that in order to determine what the next steps
are, we need to wait to get a response from the
governance of the college. We haven’t received an
official response yet, and I’m not sure one is
forthcoming. If one is not forthcoming, we’ll make
our next move (the board has not changed its position
as a result of the walkout).
B: By the way, there are people who work in the
fundraising office who want to try it, it’s not that the
opposition to this is universal. It’s kind of an
accepted principle of fundraising that you don’t
fundraise for this, but I don’t think that it takes into
account that St. John’s is different. Our relationship
to our students and alumni community is different,
the modes of instruction are different, and I don’t see
why we shouldn’t be more creative about our modes
of fundraising.
K: We have to wait for the governance to articulate
their position, to respond to what happened, and
hopefully they do.
We’re really impressed by the kind of support we
saw on Friday. I don’t think this could happen at
other schools, and it really shows that when the
essence of this College is under threat, students show
up to protect it. It’s really beautiful.
N-K: My last question is, given that this is going to
remain an issue, what would you like to see happen
moving forward?
B: I think we want to say first that we’re really blown
away by the student support we’ve received. We’ve
received many offers from students: ‘what can I do,
B: Just as a footnote to that: we’d much rather that
students not have to worry about this. We are totally
sympathetic to the desire not to burden students with
this. But the reason we did what we did in the way
that we did is that we believe that now students are
burdened with this. Treating students as adults, and as
members of the Polity, which is a political
community, it’s only fair to at least make clear how
important the stakes are.
A Polity United: Students Sing “Sicut Cervus” During the Walk-Out (Photo by Abigail Poppleton)
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November 2, 2023
A Brief Note from Your Layout Editor
This issue of the Gadfly was originally set to be
published on November 2, 2023. The submission deadline for
articles was on October 23, 2023. Layout was completed and
the final copy sent in for review on November 1, 2023 for the
planned publication date of November 2, 2023. The printing
of the issue has been delayed due to the desire of the
administration of the college to add in the following piece
(beginning on the facing page), in response to the interview
with Mr. Bellinson and Mr. Kerimov that they saw while
reviewing the final copy. Administration insisted on the
response being in this issue of the Gadfly as an immediate
reaction to the interview, in order to correct allegedly
inaccurate statements made in the interview. This letter was
finally sent in to Gadfly editors on the morning of November
8, 2023. I have completed the layout with adjustments for this
piece — which, I must note as a layout editor, are not as
simple as just copy-pasting text in and was indeed a
significant inconvenience — as soon as possible as to not
delay printing of this issue any further, but I believe it is
important for transparency’s sake that the polity know the
circumstances surrounding the addition of this piece and the
delay of the issue’s publication.
You may read more about this situation in the Collegian,
where our managing editor, El’ad Nichols-Kaufman, has
provided some additional commentary.
Tuyết-Nhi Nghiêm
Layout editor
6
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November 2, 2023
Le er from the President: A Response to the
Tutor Compensation Walk-Out
By Nora Demleitner
Over the past several weeks, the issue of tutor
and staff compensation has become a focus of
broader conversation on campus. Although this issue
is complex, I am committed to sharing information
with the express aim of educating the community
about the multitude of factors that influence
budgetary decisions, including those around
compensation. It is my hope that through both the
statement shared by the dean in the Collegian last
week, and through this longer and more detailed
letter, that the community will start to understand the
complexities of this issue more fully.
First and foremost, I wholeheartedly agree
that our employees deserve to be compensated at
higher levels. They are the lifeblood of this
institution, and we could not deliver the education we
deliver without them. We are committed to exploring
fundraising and other strategies that will help address
this issue and will continue to work with our donors
and employees as we move forward. At the same
time, the issue is a complicated one that I hope to
clarify more fully here.
St. John’s provides an exceptional education
that is also exceptionally expensive: small classes
that allow students to get individualized attention and
feedback, seminars with two tutors who are all tenure
-track or tenured faculty (no adjuncts or graduate
assistants), and all in a residential setting on a historic
college campus, which requires high levels of
maintenance. These realities create many challenges
when thinking about how to allocate funds.
It is important for our community, and
especially our students, to understand how we operate
when thinking about the economic choices we
make—whether addressing the cost of higher
education by cutting tuition by one-third as we did a
few years ago, expanding financial aid support for
students, addressing the deferred maintenance on our
buildings by committing to residence hall
improvements and other renovations, and addressing
the very real challenge of compensating our tutors
and staff at the levels we to which we aspire.
Like household budgets, operating budgets
consist of revenue and expenses. On the expense side,
the St. John’s Program is very costly. A St. John’s
education costs approximately $65,000 per student
annually, even though we receive far less on average
from students who attend. Why is it so expensive?
Our education is highly individualized. It requires
two full-time, tenure-tracked faculty members in
three years of seminar; none of our classes besides
freshman music are more than 21 students. There are
no lecture classes of 50 or 500 (that happens only for
Friday night lecture). Because our faculty members
are all full-time, they receive full benefits, including
excellent medical insurance, generous retirement
benefits, and a host of other incidental benefits. And
up to a certain level of seniority, every faculty
member receives annual step increases, which is the
college’s language for an annual raise. The college
also offers other multiple opportunities, such as
summer teaching to augment salaries, and works
closely with the tutor compensation committee to
address salary issues and discuss, as we currently do,
at least some limited proposals to mitigate the most
serious impact of our salary structure.
In addition to the high cost of our educational
model, our student services are robust. Over the last
several years, we have increased student services
across multiple areas: mental health and wellness
resources, career development services, graduate
school preparation, and more. In total, our annual
operating expenditure for both campuses exceed $53
million.
On the revenue side, St. John’s draws revenue
from two sources: student-derived revenue, which
includes tuition and fees plus housing and dining; and
donor-derived revenue, which includes the annual
fund, dedicated gifts, government and institutional
grants, and the endowment draw. On the studentderived revenue front, the college annually receives
approximately $14 million less from students today,
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November 2, 2023
Students Walking Out In Support Of Their Tutors (Photo by Abigail Poppleton)
inflation-adjusted, than we did in 2008. This is a
challenging trend seen across higher education. On
the donor front, the college’s annual fund provides
approximately $3 million annually for operating
expenses including salaries and benefits; donor gifts
and grants are often restricted to specified uses; and
our approximately $240 million endowment has strict
legal requirements around its use: the college may
use 5 percent of the endowment annually— which is
called the endowment draw—to help fund that year’s
operating expenses including salaries and benefits.*
Balancing the distribution of funds to meet multiple
competing needs while honoring donor intent and
legal restrictions is never a simple task.
Unlike most colleges, our educational model
makes alternative revenue streams challenging to
access. We do not have major sporting events,
profitable vocational certificate programs, or large
money-making online programs. We also choose not
to operate at the scale that large institutions do
because we believe that real community on a small
campus matters, but this means that our per student
costs are very high. We don’t want to compromise
the things we hold most dear: our tight-knit
8
community, small classes, and a full-time, tenured
faculty.
Although we have just completed the
successful $325 million Freeing Minds capital
campaign, it is important to note that more than $135
million of the funds raised are bequests and planned
gifts, which will not become available to the college
for years and even decades. Of the $190 million
received to date, $80 million went into the
endowment. Another $68 million went toward
academic and operational support, which also
supports college salaries and benefits. In addition, as
part of the campaign, a specific gift of over $330,000
was spent on faculty support for freshman advising
and direct stipends. And another $41 million was
given by donors specifically to support construction
projects, and that especially means, in Annapolis, our
residence halls.** Anyone living in our residence
halls knows that renovating them is not a luxury but
an overdue necessity—and some of our donors want
to put their resources there.
Fundraising specifically for salaries can be
challenging, but is not impossible. It requires a donor
who has the will to support us and the capacity to do
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so. Because salaries are not one-time costs, we need
to fundraise for them in a way that provides
consistent, ongoing, annual support. The most
effective way to do this is by establishing tutorrelated endowments, from which the college could
reap 5 percent annually without the underlying
principal dropping. We do have some endowments
that are uniquely focused on tutor support, but a step
forward would be to fundraise specifically for faculty
salaries; this may require us to find new and creative
avenues, such as endowing the deanship or the
associate dean position, endowing rotating faculty
positions, or endowing specific functions the college
values, such as archons. Those opportunities may
resonate with donors who could help us create longterm, year-over-year funds for the ongoing and
always rising costs of salaries. Should we be
successful at finding interested donors, the solution
would not arrive overnight as endowments take some
time to build but would allow our small but
outstanding fundraising team to make specific
requests for donor support of salaries.
Last year, we were happy to be able to raise
tutor and staff salaries (separately from tutors’ annual
step increases) but were not in a position to do so
again this year. The board and college leadership are
committed to raising salaries going forward but we
have to do so in a way that is fiscally responsible by
not adding further uncovered expenses. In the
meantime, the board is considering proposals to
increase junior tutor salaries, which many consider
the most immediate shortcoming.
These challenges are not new to us. The
Program was founded in 1937 as the college was on
the precipice of collapse. At that time and throughout
the Program’s multiple decades, St. John’s has
required many periods of sacrifice across our full
community. This sacrifice has always been shared
across our faculty, staff, and even our students. On
the student side, we put Johnnies through a rigorous
curriculum and ask them to forgo some of the
luxuries that large universities offer. On the staff side,
most work very long hours, have no guaranteed step
increases, and deserve higher pay. And on the tutor
side, as we all know, they pour their very hearts and
souls into their work and are paid less than they
deserve. It is a demanding Program for all of us, and
we are in this together because we love St. John’s.
The college won’t lessen the demands of the
curriculum nor add luxuries to our campuses, but it is
committed to bettering the workload and
November 2, 2023
compensation situation for tutors and staff.
Sincerely,
Nora Demleitner
President
*With an endowment of roughly $240 million, we
draw approximately $10 million annually to spend on
college expenses, which covers about 20% of our
annual $53 million operating budget.
** An additional $41 million in funds from the
campaign were given by donors for construction
projects that support students through campus
improvements, such as Santa Fe’s solar array and
the renovation of Campbell Hall in Annapolis. The
college has also been able to benefit from special
funding from the state of Maryland and foundations
for some building projects, such as Mellon Hall.
These are funds that are not available for other uses,
but that provide an important opportunity to improve
our students’ living and learning environment, while
also offering additional budget relief. In addition,
after a 2020 facilities assessment of both campuses
was completed— in which we learned that the cost of
deferred maintenance on both campuses was
estimated to exceed $80 million—a generous donor
awarded the college a matching grant of $25 million
dollars over 10 years to address these projects, so
long as the college can match the amount two-to-one
annually. This means we are responsible for finding
$5 million dollars in cash gifts annually through
2032 in order to get our campuses in healthy shape.
This is no small task but one that we are committed to
and will complete.
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November 2, 2023
Kunai, a History—a Made-up Name, But Here to Stay
By Tamar Pinsky
Pictured: Aerial View of a Kunai game. Photography by KC Taylor.
Kunai as we know it today is a place where women
and non-cisgendered students come together to play
sports, whether it be practicing, scrimmaging, or
competing in tournaments. Not quite the same as
either intramurals or pick-up, rather, Kunai is a
program all its own; however, it did not start out this
way.
What is now Kunai was once the women’s
complementary program to an all-men intramural
program. The two operated similarly, having five
10
teams for men and four for women, and a draft that
took place sophomore year—this construction was
thanks to the athletic director at the time, Bryce
Jacobsen. The women’s league had some difficulty
getting enough people out to play, but this was not
unusual at the time—the 1970s. Title IX, the federal
civil rights law prohibiting sex-based discrimination
in schools, had just been passed, and so support for
women in sports had just started to increase.
But then Jacobsen retired from the athletic director
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position, and the athletic program experienced a
transitional two-year blip, in which three different
people ran it together. The next person to take over
was Leo Pickens, a St. John’s alumnus and previous
commercial banker.
During Pickens’ first year in 1988, the women’s
league still had small games on the regular, but
Pickens realized that the structure of two parallel
leagues was outdated, bringing the women down. He
abolished the format of intramural games, and had
the women start playing club sports—against schools
such as Washington College, Gallaudet University,
and the Naval Academy. The women’s program, now
focusing strongly on soccer, resembled the crew
program, with practices three times a week and
games three times a semester.
It was at this time—the mid-90s—that they started
calling themselves Kunai Kthonyai, meaning “the
female dogs from the underworld,” because they
practiced on the lower field. Participation grew, and
excitement hit the roof—big crowds came to watch
the 24 women play against non-Johnnies.
These intercollegiate games started to get a little too
rough. The other schools’ teams played differently,
and students were getting seriously injured. As
referee of the games, Pickens felt that he lost control.
Pickens decided that this level of intensity was more
harmful than helpful for the students, and besides—
the amount of effort needed to facilitate the games
was not worth it, and playing other schools was not in
the spirit intended—and so he brought Kunai back
from intercollegiate play.
Now he had to decide what to have Kunai members
do instead of playing other schools. He decided to
form an “advisory council” of the most enthusiastic
players from the women’s league—about fifteen
people. These fifteen in turn recruited more, for now
they would just be playing amongst themselves.
However, Kunai had moved on from being an
intramural substitute.
The Kunai council created the idea of a “craft”
instead of a “draft” for arranging the players into
teams. Rather than have each captain choose who
they like for their own team, they all worked together
to create teams with optimum fairness. Their goal:
maximum participation and fun competition.
November 2, 2023
The identity of Kunai cemented. Weeks of clinic
work followed by weeks of soccer and basketball
games turned the teams of women into one proud
united group.
Then Pickens retired, and under the new athletic
director Mike McQuarrie, Kunai did not have as
much support as in the past. McQuarrie held a spot
for Kunai and gave them equipment, but his main
focus was making intramurals co-ed. Many people
wondered about the purpose of Kunai – they did not
realize that Kunai was not akin to pick-up, nor a sort
of preparation for intramurals, but some unnamed
third thing.
In 2016, Chris Krueger took over as athletic director,
and helped revive Kunai. He brought back the
advisory council, the structure of captains and teams,
and had them start playing netball. He tried to get rid
of the “pick-up” label they had acquired, encouraging
Kunai members to do league play. It was around this
time that the student captains decided to expand
Kunai to include non-cisgendered individuals as well.
But yet another obstacle was up ahead: Covid. A lot
of the smaller clubs had been struck hard by the
pandemic—fencing, crew. There was at least one
year when Kunai did not manage to have any
practices, and only a tiny season.
Kunai has essentially had to build from the ground up
since then, under the athletic coordinator Rachel
Fleming who started at St. John’s in 2022.
With all the changes Kunai has had over the years,
there is no sign of it stopping anytime soon. Already
in the two years since Covid, Kunai has taken on
several additions—a reintroduction of netball, a
reintroduction of crafted teams, and this year, for the
first time, flag rugby.
And Kunai may keep on changing in the future, to
keep up with its evolving purpose and participants.
But it is clear that along the journey that Kunai has
had—from being a women’s league alongside the
men’s, to playing intercollegiate games, to becoming
a program all its own, Kunai has held a special place
in our athletic program. A place of adaptability, a
place of sports for the sake of sports, and a place of
community.
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November 2, 2023
Carlson, God of Donuts and Thai Food
By Benne Sco , with Audrey Fox
What happened in 2002? Audrey Fox, food
reviewer of The Gadfly, was born (boring,
predictable). But what really happened? The Global
Thai Program was launched, expanding Thai food
from 5,500 restaurants to 10,000 in less than a decade
(see the Wikipedia article about it IDK1). And what is
better than Thai food? Donuts. But putting them
together reminds me of my uncle’s first three
marriages: bound to be a bad combination. So how,
then, does this place which once sent my nerves
tingling out of fear become my favorite restaurant?
Let me tell you about my most recent trip to
Carlson’s Thai and Donuts (!?).
Ms. Audrey Fox is a woman. At first, we did
not get along; she knew what she was talking about,
undercutting any mansplaining I might have done
(AudreyÊ note:Ê IÊ disagree). However, on the drive
over, we learned that we aren’t so different: we have
the same messed up speech pattern (mayor
pronounced like mare, nuclear pronounced like
George Bush), we have the same birthday (March
9th), and were dreadfully afraid of the dark as
children (she feared being stabbed, I feared the Green
Goblin). Our main bond: Minecraft. If we had met in
the 7th grade, we would have stabbed each other with
digital sticks. So that’s cool (AudreyÊ Note:Ê IÊ
unfortunatelyÊdoÊnotÊagreeÊthatÊthisÊisÊcool).
Upon arriving, you’re immediately hit with
one of my favorite parts of the Carlson’s experience:
extreme dis-ease. The parking lot is oddly slanted, the
building next door is an abandoned gas station with a
boat out back, and the restaurant itself is just a house
that’s been gutted. They’ve tried to make the inside
less unsettling: the lighting is gentle, coming from
nice decorative lamps, and there’s plenty of art (all of
the Thai royal family). This is one of the worst
changes Carlson’s has undergone; last year, when
they were only doing takeout, the lighting was pure
white, the tables were covered in disposable utensils,
and not a soul was sitting at them. As a man who
doesn’t let himself feel any real emotions and so must
rely on incredibly strange stimuli to have anything
like actual feeling, this liminal experience scratched a
deep itch and I miss it. Don’t worry, though, some
remnants of the uncanny remain: the refrigerators full
of half and half (tasty with your fried rice), the
panicked and continual stream of phone calls, the
12
signs posted everywhere warning against buying
alcohol without a real ID (‘DON’T EVEN TRY,’ but
y’all don’t even sell alcohol?), all combine to remind
you that this place is certainly not home.
We ate in a booth (AudreyÊ Note:Ê WeÊ oughtÊ
toÊhaveÊsatÊatÊtheÊtableÊwithÊtheÊtwoÊchairsÊfacingÊ
theÊ wall). Before our food arrived, what had seemed
to be our saving grace turned out to be our worst
nightmare: Minecraft was back. And this time it came
with something even more horrifying than my own
childhood: a real living present-tense child. She was
two booths over from us and listening to KidsYoutube Minecraft on full blast (I can’t even attempt
to recreate what they were saying it makes my brain
melt so bad). My secondhand embarrassment, if you
can believe I have such a thing, was through the roof.
How could I explain the intricacies of how a block
game has become a cultural institution and how
videos on the internet have become explicitly
designed to be crack-for-children to the old couple
sitting next to us? How could I make them
understand that that little girl didn’t want to ruin their
cute evening together (they just learned what Thai tea
is!), that she was just a victim of late stage
entertainment capitalism? I stuck to eating (AudreyÊ
Note:ÊVeryÊcoolÊBennett).
It was during the first course that Audrey
went on the first of many monologues: “You see I
remember the day I learned I was gonna die: I was
sitting on a trampoline with my mom and said, ‘It
sucks that you’re gonna have to grow old and die one
day while I’m gonna be young forever.’ Then she
promptly informed me I was gonna die too. That was
the first time I faced my mortality.” She proceeded to
torment me about the worst moments of my life and
dunk on the entire concept of dog movies (AudreyÊ
Note:Ê IÊ don’tÊ thinkÊ thisÊ shouldÊbeÊ aÊ controversialÊ
opinion.ÊInÊfact,ÊIÊthinkÊMr.ÊScottÊisÊusingÊthisÊandÊ
previousÊcommentsÊonÊmyÊbehaviorÊtoÊpaintÊmeÊasÊ
aÊ cold,Ê unfeelingÊ woman.Ê IÊ likeÊ dogs,Ê IÊ justÊ findÊ
dogÊ moviesÊ toÊ beÊ usingÊ ourÊ loveÊ ofÊ animalsÊ asÊ anÊ
emotionalÊcrutchÊtoÊavoidÊanyÊrealÊsubstance).
Honestly, I don’t know how to review actual
food. Go read Audrey’s article if you want opinions.
I, truly, just love Carlson’s. The fried rice. The curry.
The stir fry. It’s flavorful, it’s fresh, it’s fucking
delicious. Sure, I’m weak to mushrooms and
sometimes they randomly show up, but as Audrey
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loves to remind me: I’m 22 years old and I can suck it
up. Will I, upon every return trip, recall a certain food
editor making fun of the time I had to recite a ten
minute ‘humorous’ speech in front of my entire
government class and got not a single laugh (AudreyÊ
note:Ê IÊ don’tÊ rememberÊ thatÊ atÊ all,Ê butÊ BennettÊ
definitelyÊ does)? Yes. But, by god, it’s good enough
to endure even that.
You really should go.
November 2, 2023
Endnotes:
1. I actually fear plagiarism so here’s the
real citation: “Culinary Diplomacy.” Wikipedia,
Wikimedia Foundation, 20 Sept. 2023,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Culinary_diplomacy#Thailand.
Illustrated: Audrey Fox and Benne Sco and Benne Sco and Benne Sco and Benne
and Benne Sco and Benne Sco and Benne Sco and Benne Sco
Outside Carlson’s
Sco
and Benne Sco
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November 2, 2023
Ungo By Nicky Jordan
Over the last couple of years, one subject and one technology have
been the cause of much clamor, that subject being what might be popularly
referred to as AI.
Whether or not this so-called AI technology is truly Artificially
Intelligent is a question with many dimensions. Questions such as: What is
intelligence? How would we identify Intelligence? What are the ethical
implications of such a theoretical intelligence? and others of that sort are just
some of a seemingly infinite fractal spiral of problems that seem to rise with
the birth of anything somewhat new.
In this essay, my aim is not to answer any of these broad questions; I rather want to buttress
some grounding aspects of the question of intelligence and problematize the idea that any kind of large
language model has any actual understanding of words in and of itself. With the hope that this investigation
will somehow provide some insight into this ever looming issue, one that bears not only on our lives but on the
nature of life itself.
Of course, the dangers of AI as it exists now are not yet at least the dangers of the formation of some
super spirit or superintelligence of the Skynet variety—that's probably at least a few years down the line,
though we can of course debate whether it's possible at all.
My concern here is not so much with AI but rather with the possible ramifications of so-called AI for our
understanding of ourselves and for our understanding of language.
The thought experiment I present here will look rather familiar to some of you, and it should be—the first part
of it is stolen from John Searle.
Part I: A Chinese Room
“Imagine a native speaker of English, me for example, who understands no Chinese. Imagine
that I am locked in a room with boxes of Chinese symbols (the database) together with a book of
instructions in English for manipulating the symbols (the program). Imagine that people outside
the room send in small batches of Chinese symbols (questions) and these form the input. [What]
I know is that I am receiving sets of symbols which to me are meaningless. Imagine that I follow
the program which instructs me how to manipulate the symbols. Imagine that the programmers
who design the program are so good at writing the program, and I get so good at manipulating
the Chinese symbols, that I am able to give correct answers to the questions (the output). The
program makes it possible for me, in the room, to pass the Turing Test for understanding
Chinese, but all the same I do not understand a single word of Chinese. The point of the
argument is that if I do not understand Chinese on the basis of implementing the appropriate
program for understanding Chinese, then neither does any other digital computer solely on that
basis because the computer, qua computer, has nothing that I do not have.”1
This is the Chinese room argument, often considered one of the most important arguments regarding
AI. The argument essentially seeks to show that something is missing as regards so called AI, that being
semantic cognition. By this I mean that mental process by which a signified is understood as corresponding
determinately to a signifier; i.e., by which a tree is understood to be a tree.
One important feature of this kind of cognition that I would like to highlight especially is the ability to
name. In naming, we are, in stark contrast to the sort of arbitrary input-output manipulation featured in the
passage above, capable of actively generating symbols that have a real signified-object, and therefore that have
a determinate, substantial meaning to us. An intelligence with real semantic cognition, then, will have an
entirely different, and we might suppose far more intentional and conscious, process of thinking than an
1 Searle, “Minds, Brains, and Programs,” 1980.
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artificially-programmed intelligence which does not. In naming we not only construct meaningful sentences or
statements but indeed furnish the very meanings of words. But perhaps this is to get ahead of ourselves.
Part II: Ungo
1. Let me now present a further, extrapolative thought experiment whose possibility and implications
are unclear and which I hope will provide insight into the precise nature of semantic cognition that I’ve
indicated above.
Imagine two Chinese rooms, with each room in this case being two different programs. Each sharing a
set of randomly generated symbols, each with a set of syntactic rules like Searle’s, the symbols are generated
split up into categories, randomized into sets, further categorized, etc. These categories are subsequently
assigned syntactical rules of interaction with all other sets. These two programs are also to be slightly
randomized as well as equipped with neural networks to train and evolve on the data involved for each
stabilizing and changing the symbol sets. These two will then be put in “dialogue.”
I propose that the system I have described here would by all appearances
simulate effectively the interactions of the two speakers of a language, such that if
carved in stone the symbols would be interpreted as linguistic by some unfortunate
archeologist of the future who has no idea the kind of prank that has been pulled. I
will refer to this “language” as Ungo and its “speakers” as Ungo Boxes. The
arrangements of symbols produced by this dynamic system would have consistent
structure, consistent symbols grouped in consistent orders, and even sequences or
embedded parts of this “dialogue” that involve the consistent inconsistencies so
common to language. I operate under the assumption that this latter part is
achievable by means of the aforementioned neural network. I would add here that
if those readers who are more knowledgeable on the subject have found this
description fundamentally flawed, I would welcome them with open arms to
correct me.
My central question, then, is this: does this language (this zombie language
if you will), and thereby also the dialogue produced on its basis, have any actual
semantic content? Again, on the assumption that 1) this dynamic symbolic system I
have described is possible and 2) that my descriptions of the outcomes of that
dynamic system are theoretically plausible, we have here with what I have called
‘Ungo’ a system of signs that to anyone who didn’t know it’s origin would appear to be a language.
2. To illustrate this point, I would like to provide a story, one whose basic narrative will be familiar to
most historians and archaeologists.
In some distant other time, perhaps long ago or long after the time I am writing, an archeologist digs through
the ruins of an ancient civilization, digs through the ruins of what is thought by common hypothesis to have
been a great temple, one made of fine strange materials and standing high, well preserved, and ornate amidst a
vast expanse of sunken, water-logged ruins. Stumbling about in the dark recesses of this great and mysterious
structure, our archeologist comes across a room that strikes her as strange. She slowly, carefully makes her
way into this room in order to investigate further—and then, in a single, startling moment, the wall that she has
kept her hand against for stability suddenly opens as though a secret door, revealing an even stranger octagonal
room with high ceilings. Squinting in the darkness, she discovers a great black obelisk with incomprehensible
symbols staggered across it as far as she can see everywhere and in all directions. A later investigation finds
that the walls around the monolith are also transcribed upon but with letters and numbers that are much more
familiar.
This is naturally hailed as the discovery of the century, and the young archeologist becomes famous.
But as the years drag on, all attempts to decode, decipher or make intelligible the monument transcripts utterly
fail. The writings on the wall provide no resources for deciphering it; and, once translated, only provide what
seem to be interpretive methods for the monument itself, some of which contradict each other and some of
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which simply prescribe probabilities of sequences. Speculation abounds; some even suggest an extraterrestrial
origin.
One thing is abundantly clear to all, however: the makers of the monument room didn’t seem to know
any more about this language than the researchers did.
Paper after paper is published on the monument transcript, arguing over its linguistic content, its origin,
and its purpose. One paper of particular interest takes the interpretive paradigms transcribed on the wall as
evidence that, much like many ancient civilizations, this monument represented a type of divination, a stone
transcription of an oracle bone or augury. This theory is, however, ultimately rejected: the syntactical character
of the writing was far too obvious for it to have been any kind of random augury.
Throughout all this, the archaeologist who discovered the monument finds herself in a constant
frustration and anxiety that she cannot explain what she has become so well known for finding.
3. What I propose as the main features that differentiate an empty zombie language from the sort of
language of actual speakers, then, is that the latter is necessarily embodied in a world, and moreover that it
refers to that world. When I speak of “eating that banana over there,” I am not merely playing out a
structurally necessary series of signs; rather, I am weaving together those signs with the conscious intent of
representing some reality, or at least the notion of some reality. Conversely, in the case of zombie language
like Ungo, the signs cannot mean anything because they are only for themselves: x only means x, y only means
y—or, really, not even that, for any actual enunciation of y is always already a case of y standing for
something other than its pure existence as a symbol or sign. At most it stands for its syntactical role.
It is just this kind of reference that is impossible in any meaningful sense for the Ungo Boxes. The
system involved are completely incapable of making any meaningfully-embodied reference to a world,
because the only world that this mechanical system has is its own symbolic plumbing system, one necessarily
contained entirely within itself and with no external reference or meaning for the whole manifold of its
vocabulary.
I’ll leave off my inquiry at this important point. The legitimacy of my ultimate claim is questionable, of
course, and the work has only just been outlined here; I hope in any case, however, that my basic enunciation
of it serves as an effective means of stimulating dialogue concerning this highly important topic at the
College.
John M. Christensen, Director of Admissions, Seated at Desk Typing on a Computer Keyboard
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AXIOMS.
1. Two numbers are equal when one cannot be shown
to be greater or less than the other.
2. The sum of two numbers in an additional operation
will be greater than or equal to each of those numbers
individually; i.e., (n₁ + n₂) ≥ n₁ or n₂.
3. A transfinite number is immeasurably greater than
any finite number.
An A empted System of
Operational Proofs for Four
Transfinite Equations
4. Any number, finite or transfinite, cannot signify
two discrete quantities at once; i.e., if n is determined
to represent a discrete quantity of two, it cannot at the
same time represent a discrete quantity of three, and
likewise ℵ₀, being the representative of the transfinite
set S comprehending all natural numbers, can neither
simultaneously represent any of those natural
numbers themselves or any transfinite set definitely
greater than S itself.
DEFINITIONS.
PROPOSITIONÊ1.
1. A set is “any collection into a whole…of definite
and separate objects…of our intuition or our
thought” (p. 231).1
The sum of a finite number and a transfinite number
is always exactly equal to that transfinite number.
By Luke Briner
2. A cardinal number is a number which signifies the
discrete quantity of members within a given set.
3. Transfinitude is that which is not bound by
finitude.
4. S is the transfinite set of all natural numbers.
5. ℵ₀ is the cardinal number signifying S.
6. n is any definite, finite (natural) number.
7. Counting is the simple operation of “the successive
creation of the infinite series of positive integers in
which each individual is defined by the one
immediately preceding” (p. 210).
8. Addition is the compounded operation of counting.
9. Multiplication is the compounded operation of
addition.
Let the operation n + ℵ₀ be given. Hence it is for us to
prove that the sum of that operation will necessarily
be exactly ℵ₀. Now since the sum of any additional
operation will always be greater than or equal to each
of its constituent numbers (Ax. 2), the sum of n + ℵ₀
will necessarily either be equal to or greater than ℵ₀;
for a sum less than either of the constituent numbers
of the operation is impossible. I say, then, that n + ℵ₀
= ℵ₀. For to assume that the sum would be greater
than ℵ₀ by the addition of n would be to assume that
ℵ₀ is in a less-than-immeasurable ratio to n, such that
its magnitude could actually be added to by its
combination with it. But this would imply that ℵ₀ is
not in fact a transfinite number, since all transfinite
numbers are immeasurably greater than any finite
number (Ax. 3), and, this being the case, its
magnitude could not be increased by the addition of a
finite number. But this is absurd, since ℵ₀ is a
transfinite number (Defs. 4-5). Since, then, n + ℵ₀
cannot be either less than or greater than ℵ₀, their sum
must be exactly equal to ℵ₀ (Ax. 1).
Q.E.D.
1 All citations are to the Junior Mathematics Manual as produced for the academic year of 2022-2023.
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PROPOSITIONÊ3.
The product of a finite number and any transfinite
number is always exactly equal to that transfinite
number.
Student at Blackboard during Mathematics Tutorial
PROPOSITIONÊ2.
The sum of a transfinite number with itself is always
exactly equal to that same transfinite number.
Let the operation ℵ₀ + ℵ₀ be given. Hence it is for us
to prove that the sum of that operation will
necessarily be exactly ℵ₀. Now since the sum of any
additional operation will always be greater than or
equal to each of its constituent numbers (Ax. 2), the
sum of ℵ₀ + ℵ₀ will be either greater than or equal to
ℵ₀. Moreover, it is given that ℵ₀ signifies the
transfinite set S (Defs. 4-5), and that any transfinite
number is immeasurably greater than any finite
number (Ax. 3). I say, then, that ℵ₀ + ℵ₀ = ℵ₀. For to
assume that the sum of ℵ₀ + ℵ₀ is greater than ℵ₀
would necessarily be to assume that the sum ℵ₀
(designated hereafter by sℵ₀) is greater than the
addend ℵ₀ (designated hereafter by aℵ₀), and thereby
that aℵ₀ is actually less than sℵ₀, since only then
could sℵ₀ be conceived as actually greater than it. But
sℵ₀ and aℵ₀, despite performing different functions
operationally, are constituted by the very same
number ℵ₀ which itself signifies the very same
transfinite set. Thus to say that sℵ₀ > aℵ₀ is
effectively to say that ℵ₀ > ℵ₀, i.e., that each of the
individual ℵ₀s presented to us in the operation ℵ₀ +
ℵ₀, before being summed, are definitely less in
themselves than the sum ℵ₀ on the other side of the
supposed equation. But this would imply that ℵ₀
simultaneously signifies two different discrete
quantities; and this is absurd (Ax. 4). Since, then, sℵ₀
cannot be greater than aℵ₀, it must be equal to it (Ax.
1); i.e., ℵ₀ = ℵ₀.
Q.E.D.
18
Let the operation n ℵ₀ be given. Hence it is for us to
prove that the product of that operation will
necessarily be exactly ℵ₀. Now multiplication is
simply the compounded operation of addition (Def.
9), i.e., is simply a given multitude of additional
operations; thus what holds fundamentally for
addition will also hold fundamentally for
multiplication. I say, then, that n ℵ₀ = ℵ₀; for since
we have proven that n + ℵ₀ = ℵ₀ (Prop. 1), the same
must hold for the subsequent multiplicative
operation.
Q.E.D.
Corollary.
From this it necessarily follows that 1/n ℵ₀ = ℵ₀. For
although fractions are produced by the more
complex, indirect operation of division (p. 210) rather
than addition or multiplication, the fractional number
is nevertheless a finite number signifying a discrete
quantity, and hence is not conceptually distinct from
n in itself in any way, and will in any case result in a
finite number when the divisitive operation is
actually performed on 1/n itself; i.e., 1/n = n/n₂/etc.
Since, therefore, we have proven that n ℵ₀ = ℵ₀, the
product of 1/n ℵ₀ must be the same.
Q.E.D.
PROPOSITIONÊ4.
The product of a transfinite number with itself is
always exactly equal to that same transfinite number.
Let the operation ℵ₀ á ℵ₀ be given. Hence it is for us
to prove that the product of that operation will
necessarily be exactly ℵ₀. Now multiplication is
simply the compounded operation of addition (Def.
9), i.e., is simply a given multitude of additional
operations; thus what holds fundamentally for
addition will also hold fundamentally for
multiplication. I say, then, that ℵ₀ ℵ₀ = ℵ₀; for since
we have proven that ℵ₀ + ℵ₀ = ℵ₀ (Prop. 2), the same
must hold for the subsequent multiplicative
operation.
Q.E.D
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Noodles: “A Cannibalistic Chef’s Dilemma”
By Tamar Pinsky
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November 2, 2023
Don’t Meet Your Wife at
St. John’s College
By Dr. Benjamin Raymor Maier, Ph.D.
During this past alumni weekend, I was
horrified to see the College giving out a button that
said “I met my wife at St. John’s College.” At first, I
couldn’t articulate the dread that this harmless little
button caused me. Some dark evil seeped through its
inanity and kitschness. As an expert in romance, I felt
compelled to publish a public health announcement
to anyone remotely concerned for their future:Ê Don’tÊ
meetÊyourÊwifeÊatÊSt.ÊJohn’sÊCollege.
Within the confines of the College, we are in
a kind of intellectual Disneyland. We are constantly
exposed to the same mentors, friends, and colleagues
who share our own interests. There are even little
rituals, traditions, and ways of life that mold our
minds over the course of four years. If libraries could
be homesteads or pastoral villages they would be our
College. An unfortunate consequence of all this
sentimental exposure is that Johnnies tend to develop
deep romantic feelings for each other.
Most critics would immediately attack my
diagnosis: “Of course this happens. Most people fall
in love at college”, “Isn’t it such a cute way to meet
your future spouse?”, or “Stop judging the way
people fall in love”. Before I proceed let me clarify, I
am notÊ advocating abstinence at the College. If the
Spirit compels you to a series of twisted and sexy
Johnnie encounters (if such a thing exists), then by all
means go ahead. However, the idea of “marrying a
Johnnie” indicates a deep sickness within one’s heart:
a total enrapturement with a functional co-worker
because they “get you” or have given you “so many
great memories”.
It is truly the romance of our grandparents and
generations past. Much like our classical curriculum,
the Johnnie romance harkens back to an older time
where desperation and necessity compelled us to the
nearest objects of desire. For Euclid that was shapes,
but for the Johnnie it's someone you’ve had a seminar
and two tutorials with.
“Marrying a Johnnie” rejects the modern and
scientific prescriptions of dating and openly stands
against the norms of our world. As Figure 1 shows,
there has been a total collapse of romantic
partnerships among co-workers and college students.
20
Figure 1
Once again, the critics will claim that this shows how
diseased our modern condition and heart has become:
“What about the intimate connections gained through
in-person community?” I will say that I am deeply
sympathetic to the claims of the pastoral integralist
who scorns the current state of affairs. We have lost
many great things with the decline of the tight-knit
community. However, I believe that the injection of
modernity into romance has been a triumph for the
erotic soul. Online dating and meeting at bars
leverages romantic volume at an unprecedented rate:
one can probably find three more potential spouses in
a dedicated week of “dating-around” than their
village-stuck grandmother could do in a lifetime.
There are no serious advantages to marrying a
Johnnie and I am not convinced by the arguments of
my opponents. The common polemic waged against
me is that “There is no one else I would rather talk to
than a Johnnie”. The claim testifies against itself and
shines a light on the deep egotism of the Johnnie
soul: a belief that “being good at talking” makes
someone attractive. The absurdity of this claim grows
when these kinds of Johnnies get married. The yoke
of marriage inverts all traditional so-called romantic
wisdom and “cures” like communication and
affection become poisons to the union. As any
graduate student would know, being “good-attalking” does not pay the mortgage or buy the
pleasures of life. To love a beautiful soul is to live a
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life of poverty. For the record, I do not want to hear
of successful Johnnie marriages. Survivorship bias is
already enough of a poison to the discourse as it is.
Now if you must entertain marriage with one
of your classmates, please consider this helpful
example to guide your decision making. Consider the
first-class Midshipman who is ready to graduate. He
has been trapped for four years in an open-air prison
with severe restrictions on his freedom. His prospects
for future partners are grim and he is deeply afraid of
being alone. Consequently, he immediately marries
his classmate or hometown girlfriend in order to
bring her along on his six years of drudgery. Most
would think that this is the worst kind of marriage but
I say the opposite. Before this couple inevitably
divorces, they will freely enjoy Uncle Sam’s
numerous benefits for young married couples in the
Armed Forces: mobility, adventure, financial
November 2, 2023
security, healthcare, etc. In fact, the quickness of their
marriage is a boon to the couple. Neither partner will
have enough assets to make the divorce messy and
they will still be young enough to try again if they so
choose. The Johnnie marriage promises quite the
opposite: longevity with little material gain.
But as St. Paul says, it is better to marry than
to burn. If you, Johnnie man or woman, have a heart
of twists and turns and feel compelled to marry-up
then please do the following: Next time you steal
your Johnnie partner’s phone, don’t check through
their text messages, look at their bank account
instead. Trust me, I’m a doctor.
Yours Truly
Ben Maier,
Ph.D. in Romance and Sports Medicine
Pictured: The Love Doctor, photo by himself, artistry by BS
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Should Men Have Friends?
By B.S.
Dear men,
Images by B.S., Pexels, PNG Tree, and Raw Pixel
22
As
an
elite
entrepreneur, the first and only
certified Omega Male, and wildly
successful podcast host (The Bro
Scogan
Experientia),
people
frequently bring me their most
important questions: “How can I get
in shape?” Work hard, hit the gym,
stay consistent. “What are the things
I need to do to be a real man?”
Anyone can be a real man. Just be
kind, protective, loyal, and run at
least two marathons every week.
“How can I do all that while
maintaining a family life?” Get rid of
the family. But there’s one really
difficult question I’d like to address
here, in my Omega-Sigma-AlphaTRT-Man-Letter of the week: Should
men have friends?
To some of the lesser thinkers
of this generation, the answer seems
obvious: “Of course. All the finest
men have had friends and confidants:
Alexander the Great, Julius Caeser,
Napoleon. They all had close
advisors who must certainly qualify
as friends. Having friends not only
helps you achieve your highest goals,
they can also help you in your worst
times. Nobody deserves to be alone.”
Oh really? If that’s true, then explain
this: why is it a lone wolf, not a ‘goes
to trivia every Thursday and goes
drinking every Friday with a reliable
group of friends’ wolf? If those
friends were so important to the great
people, name three. Name three
friends. Of all time. If men are
supposed to have friends, why do I
have absolutely none and am forced
to stare at the empty ceiling every
night as it slowly blurs with tears?
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Huh? Exactly: because men aren’t supposed to have
friends. We’re supposed to have rivals.
To a real man, everyone is a rival. Your
rivalry with your roommate pushes you to wake up
earlier, shower colder, grunt louder during every
slight physical activity. Your rivalry with your gym
partner forces you to work even harder at the church
of iron because you know he’s getting stronger in his
own time, yeah, he’s been eating right, he’s been
lifting, he’s been doing cold plunges, you can tell, in
the hard… smooth… beautiful… the perfect muscles
he’s got going on for this summer. And you won’t
stand for it. Your rivalry with your classmates and
coworkers makes you speak faster, longer,
interrupting more just to let them know: I’m the
smartest, the greatest, you’re not correct and you’re
gonna be aware that you’re not correct as soon as I
start clearing my throat and making faces in the
middle of your point. To a true omega male, it’s all
about the grind to being #1, no matter how much you
have to push others out of the way. That’s why
omega is the first letter of the Greek alphabet.
Here’s my daily routine so you get an idea of
how a real man outruns his rivals and his impending
sense of doom: I wake up at 4:30 a.m. and I’m
already at the gym. I’m on a bench, mid-rep, ready to
start pumping iron from second numero uno. After I
hit the gym, I hit the showers. I hit my workplace. I
hit a brick wall at the age of 35 and have no idea
what the meaning of life is. So what do I do? Read
the stoics. You know Marcus Auerelias? Second only
to me. After a good reading session (just as I am
entering my first meeting of the day), I get a good
scream in. Scientists have proven that screaming
raises testosterone, makes you more of a savage, and
induces fear into all those ‘civilized’ types at HR.
That’s efficiency. Once my meetings are done, I start
another business. One every day. How can you be a
true entrepreneur if you stop entrepeneuing to
actually commit to a project? You can’t. This is about
business. And you know what every business needs?
A website. This week’s sponsor Circle Location
provides the ideal platform for [redacted]. Now that
I’ve created a new and revolutionary product, sold it
to the highest bidder, and made my ad plug, it’s time
to hit the gym again. It’s delt, forearms, and neck
day. I’m grinding. I’ve forsaken the touch of all
women. I’m hard as hell. I’m a certified omega male
on BStheBigMan.com. Get your certificate for only
$2,599.99. And that’s how I absolutely crush my
workouts every damn time. Then I eat dinner:
November 2, 2023
Chicken. Broccoli. Rice. But mostly meat. It’s as
important to eat as much meat as you can: it leaves
less for the rivals and leaves less potential animal
rivals all at once. That’s efficiency. At this point,
most people would go home, go to bed, see their
wife, their kids. I haven’t seen my kids in three
months. They were taken from me in the divorce. I
was promised every other weekend, but my week
never ends. And you know what I say? Everyone can
have kids, but not everyone is built for the grind. I’m
out here till midnight. Till 1 a.m. Till 2 a.m. You ever
heard of time zones? Someone else is always up, on
their shit. I can’t let them have that. I’m always in
competition mode. Every damn day. Grind. Sleep
while you blink. That’s efficiency. It’s 4:30 a.m. Let’s
do it again.
And don’t forget to watch the latest episode of
The Bro Scogan Experience with our good friend, the
Love Doctor, Ben Maier:
—B.S.
23
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Notes on Dialogue Gossip
By Vivian Miyakawa
St. John’s College, a school that prides itself
in great discussions about great books, excels in all
sorts of dialogue. However, there is one integral art
that continues to slide under the radar: gossip. This
underrated rhetoric is objectively the best way to
relay crucial information about friends and enemies
alike. Unfortunately for would-be messengers of the
gospel, a small group of people on a small campus
can lead to some unseemly situations. Here are my
top three tips on how to improve your gossip game
and avoid certain embarrassment.
1.
Location matters- The first and perhaps the
most important tip is that in a small college, space is
everything. Rumors fly faster than the winged boots
of Hermes, and everything, from the maniacal to the
mundane, is news. Now, as most have probably
realized by now, the walls of your dorm rooms are
not soundproof, so by gossiping in your dorm you’ve
already established that you’d appreciate an audience.
Tragically, your daily roommate ranting session is
only heard by everyone else in your hall. To avoid
this hapless mistake, try gossiping in the fishbowl
instead! This way your rumors will reach a larger
audience, and the echoey spaces of Mellon Hall add
to the grandeur of your news.
Two Faculty Members in Academic Robes Talking in
McDowell Hall, Fall 1980
24
Male Students in Conversation in the Coffee Shop
2.
Know your audience- Obviously, gossip is
meant to be spread, but it’s an anonymous art. One
needs their information circulating exactly where
they want it: everywhere. That is, everywhere except
for the ears of the unfortunate member of the Polity
who’s found themselves on the receiving end of the
rumor. With this in mind, be sure not to gossip
around those untrustworthy Johnnies who will betray
your noble goal and tell their friend about your
campus-wide whispers. Luckily, all Johnnies are
inherently trustworthy, having read Plato’s Republic
and ascribed to the Socratic ideals of justice.
3.
Embrace it- Honestly, it’s time to face the
music. It’s St. John’s College. Everyone knows
everyone. You’re not going to be able to gossip
without a little bit of risk, and maybe that’s why it’s
just so addicting! What’s the fun of spreading rumors
without constantly glancing around, avoiding the
subject of ridicule. Life is more interesting with a bit
of paranoia, and nobody will ever notice your
discreet head nods as you giggle and look over your
shoulder. Besides, only the squirrels are really
watching!
�πόλις
THE GADFLY
November 2, 2023
SJC Mystery #3:
Could Have Gone
Be er
By Benne Sco
Photo from the Library of Congress
This time, I’m going to ask you to watch the video
first. It’ll be easier that way.
The rain hasn’t stopped since I got here. It’s cold
and heavy. I can hear it all the time. Normally I can’t hear
the rain here. Somehow, it reminds me of home, out in the
desert where the rain is rare and always loud. Hopefully
it’ll end soon.
I think I’m stuck here. I tried putting my arm back
in the mailbox; nothing changed. I tried variations: the
other arm, the symbol drawn backwards, the other boxes;
nothing changed. There might be some other secret hidden
in that basement, but every time I go back… I can’t make
myself stay down there longer than a minute. It feels like
I’m choking on mud.
I’ve been trying to find out where I am between
the mad panics. Almost everything is the same as
Annapolis (though I’m suddenly paranoid that I’m missing
obvious details: were the streetlamps always that color?
Was the bay always so cold? I don’t know). There are just
no people. I’d be fine if the world were entirely empty
(that’s probably a lie), but it can’t be: I’ve been here long
enough that the power should have gone out, but it still
works; I swear I hear traffic in the distance; and things
move. When I’m not looking, things move. The cars on
the street change places. Lights in far away buildings turn
on and off. I went to bed last night and the chairs in my
apartment moved. All the changes make sense too. It’s not
some random haunting where the tables are being flipped
and glasses shattered. I know the way my roommates
leave plates out, the exact messes and the chairs set up for
a party. I just can’t see them. It’s as if everyone is living
their normal lives, but I just can’t see them. Maybe it
would be better to say: I’m not allowed to see them.
And for all the information I can glean from
random object movement, none of it seems
communicative. I find no notes, no panicked tearing apart
of my room in search of signs as to where I’ve gone,
nothing. I can’t find anything on the internet since the time
I disappeared. So let’s revise our hypothesis: maybe it’s
not that the people are still there and I’m not allowed to
see them, but that the world keeps on functioning without
them. There’s only one way to tell the difference: science.
So if you’re reading this, somewhere out there in the real
world, I want to try an experiment: put a note in the
mailbox with the symbol drawn on it. If you’ve got any
ideas how the hell to get me out of here that would be
great. But, honestly, I could use any form of human
interaction right now. So a note hello is appreciated too.
Consider me your interdimensional pen pal.
One last thing: something is wrong with the
clocks. My computer has been stuck at the same time ever
since I got here (it’s not even roughly close: it’s saying the
date is in 2016?). I can’t find my watch either. The clouds
make it difficult to even tell where the sun is. Should have
paid more attention in Ptolemy. I’m not even sure if I’ve
been here for two days or three. I go to bed and wake up
and it doesn’t seem to be the right time of day at all. It’s
almost always dusk or night. So if you could include the
date on your letters that’d be nice too.
What the hell have I gotten into.
25
�πόλις
THE GADFLY
art i guess
By Natalie Goldman
A crack through which
All the universe becomes clear,
Painted shadows dancing,
Arrested to the wall,
Presents itself before me
As the paradigm of humanity.
I can’t help but wonder
What all the toil and struggle
Was really for,
If not for this.
Not a person, really,
But an idea
Is crucified on that wall.
When I tilt my chin up
To peer into heaven,
I don’t see anything at all.
I only hear
The most cacophonous of silences.
26
November 2, 2023
�πόλις
THE GADFLY
November 2, 2023
Translation of
Baudelaire’s
“Élévation”
By Luke Briner
The alexandrine verse of the original has been converted
into iambic hexameter, and the ABBA rhyme scheme of each
stanza has been preserved.
Above the languid pond, above the vale-etched plains,
Above the mountains, forests, seas, and whirling clouds,
Beyond the Sun, beyond the fine-aetheric shrouds,
Beyond the confines of the Spheres’ celestial trains,
Move you, my Soul, with consummate celerity,
And, like a swimmer who swoons underneath each wave,
Upon the Vastitude you joyfully engrave
With an unspeakable and virile ecstasy.
Make quick your exodus from these miasmic banes;
Go sanctify yourself amid the air divine,
And there do you imbibe, as an ambrosial wine,
The halcyon fire that flows throughout the lucent planes.
Behind the greatness of our troubles and our spleen
That burden with their weight a pale life ever-bent,
Beatified be they who by a swift Ascent
Soar to those golden fields supernal and serene;
They whose own contemplations, like the songbird’s wings,
Take free and cheerful flight unto the morning skies,
—Who hovers over life, and effortless descries
The language of the flowers and of silent things!
27
�THE STUDENT
NEWSPAPER
OF
ST. JOHN’S
COLLEGE
Founded in 1980, the Gadfly is the
student newsmagazine distributed to
over 600 students, faculty, staff, and
alumni of the Annapolis campus.
Opinions expressed within are the
responsibility of the author(s). The
Gadfly reserves the right to accept,
reject, and edit submissions in any
way necessary to publish a
professional, informative, and
thought provoking newsmagazine.
Submissions sent to the Gadfly
should either be in Google Docs or
JPEG format. The deadline for
submissions is the Friday prior to
Photo by Abigail Poppleton
publication.
For more information, contact us
via email at lbriner@sjc.edu.
Photographs without a listed source are from the
St. John's College Digital Archives.
St. John's College owns the rights
to these photographs.
Illustrations without a listed source are by Takashi
Mifune from Irasutoya.com and are free to use for
non-commercial purposes. All rights to these
illustrations still belong to the artist.
60 COLLEGE AVENUE
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND 21401
�
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Gadfly
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Text
THE
St. John’s College
Annapolis, Maryland
GADFLY
Settling In
October 12, 2023
Vol. XLV, Issue 2
�CONTENTS
Letter from the Editor
λόγος
Dear Polity,
Interview: Robert Abbott, Assistant Dean and [Man
Who Doesn’t Want Me to Call Him the] Philosopher
King by Bennet Scott
3
Club Spotlight: Historia by Tamar Pinsky
6
Shaking Down Leftism by B.S.
7
Club Spotlight: The Platypus Review by Tamar Pinsky
9
How to Survive the Dining Hall in 13 Easy Steps by
Anonymous
12
We hope that you’re having a great start
to the year, and that you loved the
Gadfly’s first issue of it! In this issue, we
take a closer look at everything that’s
now very much underway at the College;
new clubs, new inquiries, and new
experiences. To provide a pleasant
counterpoint to this, and to keep with the
precedent set by the previous issue,
we’ve also reproduced another
foundational text by Barr on the nature of
the Program as we know it, and thus on
how we’ve actually gotten to where we
are now. Enjoy!
Why Waltz? by Vivian Miyakawa
13
Luke Briner,
Editor-in-chief
SJC Mystery #2 by Bennett “Worked in Real Estate for
One Summer” Scott
14
Swish: Motion of Fish by Ella Jacky
15
The Rose by Kurtis Bleakley
16
Comic: Noodles 02: “The Overly Optimistic Crosswalk
Button by Tamar Pinsky
17
συμπόσιον
Freedom, Responsibility, and the Liberal Arts by
Stringfellow Barr, arranged by Luke Briner
10
πόλιςÊ
THE STRUCTURE
Λόγος holds news reports and narratives of immediate
relevance to the Polity. The purpose here is to develop a
shared reservoir of information relating to campus life
and the community.
ΣυμπόσιονÊoffers the opportunity for our readers to
thoughtfully consider contrasting opinions regarding a
particular topic.
ΠόλιςÊserves as a platform for elevating voices in our
community. Here we find letters to the editor, columns,
cartoons, and submitted pieces.
·
·
2
Corrections to Vol. XLV, Issue 1
In Tamar Pinsky’s article “Registrar Resignation
Leaves Students Spooked,” a previous registrar at the
College was referred to as “Jacki Thomas”; their name
is actually “Thoms Jacqueline.”
At the end of section IV.§2 of Luke Briner’s essay “A
Critique of Dialogue,” a citation is missing—this
should be to: Robert C. Post, “Managing Deliberation:
The Quandary of Democratic Dialogue,” Ethics, Vol.
103, No. 4 (Jul. 1993), pp. 667-8.
THE GADFLY STAFF
COVER
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
MANAGING
EDITOR
STAFF
Photography by
Abigail Poppleton
Luke Briner
El’ad NicholsKaufman
Meliha Anthony
Vivian Miyakawa
Tamar Pinsky
Louis Rosenberg
Benne Sco
YOUT
KC Taylor
Tuyết-Nhi Nghiêm
CONTRIBUTORS
Ella Jacky
Kurtis Bleakley
�λόγος
THE GADFLY
October 12, 2023
Robert Abbo , Assistant Dean and [Man Who Doesn’t Want Me to Call Him
the] Philosopher King
By Benne Sco
Pictured: Assistant Dean Robert Abbo and Desistant Mean Obert Rabbo (Photo by Meliha Anthony)
Every interview I read has some description of its
subject and the interviewing process at the beginning.
I, unfortunately, consider myself the most contrarian
interviewer in America. Thus, an at-best-tangential
note: I wrote my first Gadfly article at Mr. Abbott’s
request. So blame him for all my madness-making.
Q:ÊWhoÊdoÊyouÊthinkÊyouÊare?
I don’t know.
You’reÊ aÊ knownÊ fanÊ ofÊ Tristram Shandy;Ê howÊ
wouldÊyouÊbeginÊyourÊfictionalÊautobiography?
I would like to know how on earth did you know that
I am a fan of Tristram Shandy? How widespread is
this knowledge and what is it based on?
Research.
Oh. Oh. You’re a reporter is what you’re saying.
Mhm.
Tristram begins his narrative in a completely
unmentionable way which I will not do. I would
probably start with the rather dry observation that
one’s life has many origins. What’s been interesting
in mine has been discovering them. So I don’t know,
I would say something like “I was born in Virginia
but came to consciousness in Annapolis.”
IfÊyouÊcouldÊmakeÊaÊnewÊSJCÊclass,ÊwhatÊwouldÊitÊ
lookÊlike?
If we had more time, I’d want to put on more law and
German literature. I have thought about the art
3
�λόγος
THE GADFLY
preceptorial, but, as much as I love art and painting, I
think it would be difficult to make a regular class. I
really can’t think of any that I would want to add.
What’sÊbeenÊyourÊgreatestÊlearningÊmomentÊatÊSt.Ê
John’s?
I don’t have a good answer; you’re going to have to
help me. All the ones that occur to me are from
Freshman year and were in some way fundamental or
profound though simple. Looking at a fish and
realizing that I did not understand what causality was,
and would not have any idea how one thing led to
another in an organism. This is different, this is
entirely different, but equally important: the first time
I realized a tutor was reading my essay really
carefully and they were taking what I was saying
seriously and I could feel my whole person turning
towards the effort of becoming a better writer
because if that’s going to happen—people are going
to read my writing—I should get better at it. But I
don’t know how to rank these things.
[There was banter here; as I am a reporter, this is
called: Off The Record.]
Joining crew. I was a terrible athlete in high school. I
remember being forced to play soccer in high school
and I used to request to play ‘fullback,’ which I
learned was a term I could ask to be. I could just
slowly back off the field into the woods and nobody
would notice. That was how bad my fear of being in a
game or being observed was. But then I had this
incredible experience of being on crew with then
coach Leo Pickens and I realized physical exertion
and being part of a team could be a path to selfrealization and connecting with other people. He used
to say at the beginning of the year “You show, you
row,” and it came to me as the year went on: “Oh
right, all I have to do is show up, and all sorts of
amazing things will happen. I don’t have to be a
certain person. I just have to show up.”
WhatÊ SJCÊ traditionsÊ shouldÊ weÊ bringÊ backÊ fromÊ
whenÊyouÊwereÊaÊstudent?
Okay, so the good part about this question was my
realizing that so many of the traditions that I love at
the college are still here. I kind of came at it
suspiciously like, “That’s right Mr. Scott, there are so
many things we need to bring back and I’m going to
think of them.” But then I thought: there’s still the
DC, the SCI, etc. There are a couple things I’d throw
out there: film club (which is in a slump but might be
coming back this year)…oh, what about adding a
film class? I hadn’t thought of that, but that would be
4
October 12, 2023
something I might seriously consider because I’m
one of those crazy people who thinks there are great
films [His list of great films later included: Tokyo
Story, Ran, The Night of the Hunter, Nights of
Cabiria, The Four Hundred Blows]. Anyway, the
sophistry contest, do you know about that?, So back
in the day as part of the Reality games there would be
a sophistry contest, and it would often be between
tutors. A question would be proposed, the one I
recall being, ‘Is Pindar right that water is best? Or
maybe it was, ‘Is a dry soul or a wet soul best?’ and
then the two people would have to argue the question
with great seriousness and erudition. But what is the
spirit of the tradition I’d like to see come back?
Something like the alternation between seriousness
and mirth. I know that’s still present, but it’s
something I want to make sure we hold onto, cultivate
it. I remember it from being a student, you know what
I mean? One day you’re in Rome, the next day it’s
carnival.
Also, guerilla seminars. Now it’s true that that
phrase is still in use at the college, but when I was a
student it was strongly held that if the tutor didn’t
show up, class would still be held. It’s your class.
Our second Politics seminar there was a huge
snowstorm and we, as a class, decided to have
seminar. Not just our particular seminar, but any
freshman who wanted to could come to this seminar.
CouldÊtheÊJohnniesÊofÊthisÊgeneration,ÊtwoÊofÊthemÊ
ofÊ theÊ strongestÊ sort,Ê lift,Ê withÊ greatÊ difficulty,Ê aÊ
boulderÊthatÊoneÊfromÊ yourÊgenerationÊcouldÊheftÊ
withÊease?
Yes. I’ve seen it. To answer that in a serious vein,
when I returned to interview [at the College] eleven
years ago, I was asked if I had any questions myself,
and I asked: how are the students different now? And
the answer was: though very little at the college has
changed, more has changed in the program than in
the type of student who comes here.
[There will be a later BS article on our ensuing
dispute about whether Johnnie typologies actually
exist.]
IsÊSJCÊtooÊencompassingÊforÊsomeÊpeople?
Yes. I often find myself in the somewhat ironic
position of encouraging people to think beyond the
College. Having been away from it, having come to
love so many other worlds within our larger world, I
am very ready to encourage people to find what is
beyond it. Something happens to a lot of seniors and
recent graduates; they think: “If I specify my area of
�λόγος
THE GADFLY
study, I will betray the college and I will narrow
myself as a human being.” And it turns out somehow
the opposite is true. By accepting some form of life
or study, you move beyond the College into the larger
world. I want students to feel like they’re expanding
when they leave. I have no credibility when I say that
because I’m an alum who’s come back, but I do hope
people think I have arguments for it. I’ve participated
in other traditions of learning. And I’ve taken up a
vocation. In one way, it’s true that what the tutors and
students are doing in the classroom is the same, that’s
a fundamental principle of the college, but it’s also
true that the tutors have a vocation that the students
don’t.
WhatÊ bookÊ wereÊ youÊ annoyinglyÊ attachedÊ toÊ asÊ aÊ
student?
[Minutes were spent thinking on this question in
silence.] I was probably the Johnnie who would just
incessantly bring up Aristotle in seminar with
complete honesty and genuineness, and say,
‘Actually, Aristotle says in On the Soul…’ and expect
everyone to thank me for that helpful reference.
WhatÊ story/legend/fableÊ fromÊ yourÊ timeÊ asÊ aÊ
studentÊneedsÊtoÊbeÊrevived?
Sometimes the stories are the character of the person.
It seems to me there were a lot of characters that were
part of the legendarium when I was a student and one
of them was Chaninah Maschler. She was German
and then Dutch and had survived the war and become
an American citizen. She was quite deaf by the time
I knew her and [was] a titanic intellect, which she did
not shy away from wielding, even on those who
could not handle her intense questions. I will never
forget her sitting at the table during question period
and pounding the table with her fist and destroying a
visiting lecturer because he had given a bad argument
and it was intolerable to her that it should be allowed
to stand. The room was packed, we were all titillated,
and I thought this was the most amazing thing. But
what has mattered in retrospect was not her pounding
the table but seeing someone who cared so deeply
about correct language.
HasÊ theÊ aestheticÊ lossÊ ofÊ smokingÊ inÊ classÊ andÊ
acrossÊcampusÊweighedÊonÊyou?
Yes. [Eight second pause before the interviewer can
no longer hold laughter in.] Thank you, thank you
Mr. Scott, let’s leave it at that.
YouÊheldÊfiresideÊchatsÊthroughoutÊlastÊyearÊinÊtheÊ
October 12, 2023
coffeeÊ shopÊ inÊ McDowell,Ê aÊ buildingÊ knownÊ
primarilyÊforÊhavingÊburnedÊdown.ÊAreÊyouÊaÊmanÊ
ofÊirony?
Mr. Scott, I am a man of irony, but I never considered
the great danger that I brought the college into. No.
That never occurred to me. I do often think of
McDowell burning down because one of the central
things I’ve thought about in my life is Athens burning
down, and, as someone who likes to think about
disaster, I often imagine what it would be like if the
tulip poplar on front campus fell. I don’t know if I’d
be able to live through that. That’s going to be a
terrible moment. And I certainly did not think about
that with the fireside chats. The fireplace does not
work very well and does fill the coffeeshop with
smoke, rather ominously, so I am chastened.
McDowell Hall a er the Fire of 1909, St. John's
College Annapolis, Maryland
InÊtheÊsameÊvein,ÊwouldÊyouÊconsiderÊtheÊHermanÊ
T.ÊWootersÊMemorialÊIceÊSkatingÊRink?
The what?
HermanÊ T.Ê WootersÊ MemorialÊ IceÊ SkatingÊ Rink,Ê
theÊmanÊwithÊtheÊplaqueÊinÊtheÊboathouseÊwhoÊfellÊ
inÊtheÊcreekÊandÊdrowned.
That is an incredibly bad joke Mr. Scott.
ThankÊyou.
That poor man. No, I have often, as a lover of
Tristram Shandy and the sentimental, I have often
looked on that plaque with some sadness and a little
bit of a smile, but mostly sadness. But that plaque had
better stay up. One of my little projects is making
sure the memorial plaques from the FSK lobby go
back up. [Pause.] Herman T. Wooters.
5
�λόγος
THE GADFLY
WhichÊ StÊ JohnÊ doÊ youÊ thinkÊ we’reÊ namedÊ after?Ê
[There are 101 Saints John.]
It seems right that it would be John the Baptist
because we’re about beginnings.
October 12, 2023
than I have that there’s an ethical aspect to what we
do at the college. But I think there’s also a place for
saying what we don’t do. The college is involved in
the process of becoming a good adult. I’m hesitant to
say that we’re teaching people how to be good. We’re
mostly about beginnings, not ends, not ethics.
HowÊdoÊweÊmakeÊSJCÊmoreÊunethical?
We could care about grades more and more. It would
eat the endeavor from the inside out. Maybe get rid of
grades. Say to the outside world, “We meant it when
we said we didn’t care about these.” The only reason
we haven’t done that is we care about our graduates.
[A discussion ensues which leads us to a simple
conclusion: GPAs at SJC ought to be given in the
form of complex numbers or existing in nonEuclidean space.]
Students Standing by the "St. John's College Founded
1696 as King William's School" Sign on College Avenue
DoÊyouÊthinkÊSJCÊcanÊclaimÊtoÊhaveÊtrulyÊstartedÊ
inÊ 1696,Ê orÊ isÊ thisÊ aÊ shipÊ ofÊ TheseusÊ thatÊ we’reÊ
drowningÊon?
Well, it’s definitely a ship of Theseus. I wish we
talked more about the founding of the new college.
That is our college. That is the water we swim in. I
want to honor that this institution has existed since
1696, but my college was the one founded by Barr
and Buchannan and reformed by Jacob Klein. I wish
we talked more about that. See? As I said, there’s
more than one beginning.
[Mr. Abbott spent the next minute threatening to
destroy the transcript of this interview; things were
going well.]
ShouldÊSJCÊbeÊanÊethicalÊendeavor?
That’s a really serious question. I am on the side of
saying no for two reasons: I believe in its aim it
should not be an ethical endeavor; I also don’t think
it’s good for us to say it’s an ethical endeavor. Many
tutors whom I love and respect have expressed better
6
HowÊemotionalÊshouldÊweÊgetÊwhenÊreading?
Pretty emotional. I think that the word sentiment is
one way to talk about the connection between thought
and feeling. I don’t think there’s a hard division.
When you’re reading a book, you’re feeling certain
things about it. Feel hard, if you can. How do you
read a poem without feeling? In class, you feel
longing for something, you don’t even know what it
is. I’ve run into more students who say “I hate Don
Quixote” rather than that they feel something about
it. It absolutely seems like a part of a seminar.
What’sÊyourÊfavoriteÊquestion?
“Why is there something rather than nothing?” I
understand it’s not the most interesting question
because it doesn’t really go anywhere, but I like what
it does to me when I think it.
DoesÊtheÊhatÊhaveÊaÊname?
No! Maybe it should. [The interviewer will be
collecting a list of potential names, please email me
with options to petition Mr. Abbott with.]
What?
τί ἐστι. That’s my answer.
ThankÊyouÊforÊyourÊtime.
Oh Mr. Scott.
After our interview finished, Mr. Abbott promptly
compared being interviewed to being tortured and
wondered how he was going to work through the
trauma of this experience (forcing his friends to listen
to his agonies over dinner and then an intensive
therapy session was the decision we came to).
�λόγος
THE GADFLY
October 12, 2023
Club Spotlight: Historia
By Tamar Pinsky
St. John’s College has several publications such as
Energeia (a literary and arts magazine), the Gadfly
(which if you haven’t realized yet, is a newspaper),
and 814 Magazine (which publishes photography.)
There used to be Historia as well, but it became
inactive—not anymore! Georgia Green, a junior, as
well as writing assistant, has started this academic
magazine back up again. You finally have a place to
send in all those essays you write for class (or essays
you wrote not for class)!
WhatÊisÊHistoria?
Historia was a publication of essays and other
inquiries that existed as St. John’s for some time but
fell apart in 2019 due to the Covid pandemic. This
year I am bringing it back as a journal with a focus on
long-form essays.
HowÊdidÊyouÊdecideÊtoÊrestartÊHistoria?
I was thinking about all the essays I read as a writing
assistant, and it made me sad that other people do not
get an opportunity to read all the great writing that we
do here. I thought it would be fun to have a
publication for people to show off their good work,
whether that be essays written for tutorials or for
pleasure.
HowÊdoesÊitÊwork?
We will open the submissions soon, and there will be
guidelines sent out alongside. It will work similarly
to Energeia – where you send your work to the
Female Student Typing on a Typewriter in her
Dormitory Room
editors—and then it goes through an editing process.
We hope to publish as many essays as possible.
WhoÊisÊtheÊarchon?
I (Georgia Green) am the archon, and Luke Briner is
the vice archon. There will be staff consisting of
contributors and/or people who have expressed desire
to be editors or layout editors.
WhatÊkindÊofÊJohnniesÊareÊyouÊlookingÊfor?
Anyone who is excited about writing! Anyone whose
essays show that they have put thought into their
work. Or if you just want to edit or do layout, that is
welcome as well. I know it is hard to be passionate
about writing when you are forced to do it for class,
but hopefully Historia will provide a space where you
can find fun in the form of writing.
HowÊoftenÊwillÊthereÊbeÊHistoriaÊpublications?
We are planning to have two publications per year—
one for each semester. The first should be out before
winter break, and the second one before the end of
the year, close to graduation.
AnyÊlastÊwords?
Look out for our email about submissions! I really
encourage people to submit essays even if they are
not your best work – we just want to hear your ideas.
Also, if you are interested in editing or layout please
reach out to gsgreen@sjc.edu!
Robert F. Vincent Studying at a Large Table with
Books, St. John's College
7
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October 12, 2023
Shaking Down Le ism at St John’s College By B.S.
S
t. John’s College is the mecca of liberal arts;
our courses are diverse and our student body
is trying to be, all in service of some
‘liberation.’ But what of the conservative
arts? Where is the degree for budding young
hardliners in support of weed being schedule 1 and
Ronald Reagan never having done anything wrong;
where is the degree which cares about facts, not
feelings; where is the degree my uncle from rural
Michigan wants me to have? Of course, you might
argue: “But we actually engage with a great deal of
what’s considered the tradition of conservatism:
Adam Smith, religious values, all of two women.” Or
you might say: “But this is an apolitical school!
There’s no place for explicit agendas in our hallowed
halls.” To both of you I say: goddamn liberals. I will
not be intimidated by your critical and theoretical
views. If this college won’t give it to me, I’m gonna
get my red-blooded all-American experience the truly
conservative way: handshakes and controversy. And
where better to do it than the most disgustingly freethinking event of the year: the BLT party (Standing
for: Black tie for self respecting individuals with
values; Lingerie for the corrupted youth; and Togas
for whatever weird Greek influence Percy Jackson
had on this generation).
My first handshake of the night was before we
even left the apartment: Benjamin Raymor Maier, my
roommate. He was dressed like the worst man in Las
Vegas, neck and collarbones and a little bit of chest
out too. I might have judged him edging on lingerie
showing that much skin, but as soon as I shook his
hand I knew: this is a black tie man, this is a politician
of the grand old ways, his elbow at a perfect ninety
degrees, giving a strong pull in and a pat on the arm.
By God, I’d vote for him and his invasions. When
asked, midshake, who the worst deity was he said:
“Xenu. The bad guy’s bad guy of Scientology.” With
that, we departed.
On our way to the cesspool, I happened upon
our old friend, Helen Felbek, Madam President of the
Delegate Council. Her shake was a bit soft, very
sober, and a little too tall (which has nothing to do
with my own height or insecurities). When asked what
the worst part about America is she said, “Americans”
and tried to laugh it off as if it were a joke, as if she
wasn’t getting the privilege of living in the greatest
8
country on earth, God bless us. The only good thing I
can say was that her outfit showed none of this
licentious ardor so common to European youth.
From my disappointing encounter with “our”
president, we turned into a back alley clearly labeled
‘No freshmen or sophomores,’ a requirement which I
could get behind: keep ‘em out, what do they know of
our way of life? The music was tolerable and the
lighting was dark. Frankly, I felt threatened knowing
such alleys exist in my good community. But I
swallowed my worries for now and got to work
shaking hands.
Ian Glueckert was dressed like an intern at a
real estate agent’s retirement party and shook my
hand the entire time we talked, but at least his answer
to ‘What’s the worst element’ (insincerity) was
passable. James Dormer, on the other hand (it was
actually the same hand), is a man who knows the right
number of pumps: not too much, with a good rhythm
as he told me about how we should outlaw mullets.
Ranna Kisswani—a woman who knows how to rig
elections—had a strong hand and a strong shake, a
strength of conviction supporting her belief that we
ought to annex Canada (this view got her broken up
with once). The worst thing Joshua Tague has ever
been described as is ‘A Gentleman’ and he’s got the
facial hair for it. John Teague made me feel like I was
being welcomed into some secret lodge with a pull-in
shake and the promise that “You want to change but
what’s always changing is you.” Carter Brown was all
positive vibes: asked if his hand might be shaken, he
said “For you, of course,” and proceeded to tell me
every detail about his life. This is where things went
downhill. Tait Geijer, with all his eight extra years of
life on most of the people he was surrounded by,
could shake a god given hand with that wide palm, but
I still don’t trust him (he said he’s never had a bad
date). Logan Arendt shook my hand twice, once
weakly, once strongly, while trying to justify it by
being “distracted” (what kind of man’s man gets
distracted when confronted with the most important
thing this side of defending his country: a
handshake?). Catherine Row had no tension in her
wrist (am I a god damn royalist meant to kiss your
hand?) and found absolutely no sexual tension in
language class. Bridget Mace was dressed in a way
that would have made my grandfather—a veteran,
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mind you—wonder whether fighting on the beaches
had been worth it, and only emphasized her
unamericanness when asked “What’s the worst place”
by answering “Cairo, Illinois.” Allyson Brink looked
me dead in the eyes and said: “Jesus? Not for me” and
smiled with too much enthusiasm (this is a woman
who prefers the company of addicts to that of God!).
My night had started as an up and down sort of
thing, but by this point, I was floundering and so too
was the country I love: is this what we had come to?
No one except me even saluted when the cops came to
tell us to quiet down. There was ass and alcohol on all
sides (neither attached to any particular persons
because none of this counts as slander and, though
committed to the bit, I am not a snitch). I saw the
world spinning, felt my hand tingling, and in my ears
was ringing. Were these not the people who had read
scripture? Aquinas! Augustine! Aristotle! Would they
approve of this? Where had it all gone? I had come in
October 12, 2023
pursuit of patriots and had let them all slip through my
fingers. I looked around and all I saw were hands with
cigarettes, with bottles of booze, clasping at each
other and not in a handshaking and god fearing
manner, no, clasping in a sexual manner! The music
was drowned out by laughter and screaming. What
could I do but run? Run out into the dangerous streets
of Annapolis, all on my own, fleeing for my life, my
virtue! As I stumbled out of that accursed place I saw
those signs on the wall and I knew, I knew all at once:
No freshmen. No sophomores. No freshmen. No
sophomores. It was junior year that corrupted people.
It was being enabled! Enabled into the cult of
satanism and baby eating! The corruption of calculus.
Of French. Of natural laws! My dear underclassmen
readers, flee, flee while you still can: save your hand
for shaking, not the devil’s work of vanishingly small
love triangles. And for all those lost to the corruption:
you have my thoughts and my prayers.
“All Handshaking is Entirely Platonic” (Plato photo credit: Britannica; artistic credit: BS)
9
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October 12, 2023
Club Spotlight: The Platypus Affiliated Society
By Tamar Pinsky
You already do plenty of reading here at St. John’s,
but have you considered doing more? There’s a new
reading group this year, a chapter of the Platypus
Affiliated Society, that is a great place to learn about
the Left and Marxism from a non-authoritative lens.
Come have discussions with your peers, whether you
have previous experience with the subject matter, like
archon Benjamin Kay does, or not at all—either way
your presence is appreciated.
WhatÊisÊtheÊPlatypusÊreadingÊgroup?
That is a more complex question than you might
think. I didn’t come up with it—we are connected to
a larger organization which has chapters at many
university campuses across the US, as well as some
in Germany and Austria.
this can be real, I’ve read my Darwin! This is
ridiculous!” Then one day he went to a zoo in
London, and he found himself proven wrong by a
platypus there.
Just as Engels felt failed by Darwin, the Platypus
reading group is about adjusting your approach when
your schemas for understanding the world around
you fail you, as they often did in the history of
Leftism.
WhatÊdoesÊtheÊreadingÊlistÊlookÊlike?
We are reading what Marx read and what he
responded to, so a lot of Enlightenment era works.
Right now we are reading Kant.
HowÊdidÊtheÊPlatypusÊorganizationÊstart?
WhatÊsortÊofÊJohnniesÊareÊyouÊlookingÊfor?ÊHow’sÊ
theÊgroupÊgoing?
It started back in 2006, in response to questions like
“why does the Left seem so incoherent?” They are
not overly utopian or political, rather their approach
involves going through the narrative of how people
understood the Left throughout history.
Obviously this is not going to appeal to everyone—
with the extra reading and a couple of hours on your
Saturdays. It is best when there is a consistent group
of people so the conversations can continue each
week, which we have been having.
HowÊdidÊyouÊbecomeÊinvolvedÊwithÊthisÊsociety?
WhoÊ isÊ theÊ archon?Ê WhenÊ andÊ whereÊ areÊ theÊ
meetings?
Last year, someone put up a poster about the Platypus
reading group at Georgetown, DC. It turned out that
it was Christian Cameler, the partner of a tutor at St.
Johns, Ms. Picker. I drove with Mr. Cameler to the
reading group on weekends.
WhyÊisÊitÊcalledÊPlatypus?
Some universities will have groups with very serious
sounding names – not to say that the Platypus group
is not serious, rather, the silly name is representative
of the fact that we are not trying to give a dogmatic
approach.
There is an actual funny story behind the Platypus
name as well. In the nineteenth century, Friedrich
Engels, Karl Marx’s collaborator, read in the
newspaper about a new animal discovered in
Australia, the platypus. He thought, “there is no way
10
I (Benjamin Kay) am the archon. Email me at
bhkay@sjc.edu if you have any questions. We meet
in McDowell 31, from 2:30-1:00 on Saturdays.
AnyÊlastÊwords?
If you have any interest, you should show up! There
is no expectation that you have any prior knowledge.
We are planning on having a guest lecturer soon, so
look out for that. We are also going to have some
film screenings like the French-German movie from a
couple years ago called The Young Karl Marx and
other biopics, if you would rather not work more
reading into your schedule.
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October 12, 2023
Freedom, Responsibility,
and the Liberal Arts
By Stringfellow Barr
Pictured at right: the modern St. John’s College
logo/seal, adopted in 1937. →
EDITOR’S NOTE:
“Freedom, Responsibility, and the Liberal Arts” was
a lecture delivered by Stringfellow Barr in 1938 —at
the dawn of our Program as we know it today. This
lecture was later produced in the Gadfly in 1981—the
paper’s second-ever year at the College—and is
produced again here now. -LB
T
he other day an interesting and curious gift
arrived at St. John’s College. It was a design in the
form of a circular seal, and it was the work of a
Harvard man who admires the educational program
which this College has undertaken and who chose to
express his admiration by designing this symbolic
seal. In the center of the seal is a pair of scales, or
balances. Around it in a circle are placed seven open
books, representing the seven liberal arts. And around
the open volumes is lettered the motto, FACIO
LIBEROS EX LIBERIS LIBRIS LIBRAQUE. I
suppose the motto may be fairly translated: “I make
free men out of boys by means of books and
balances.” The punning on the stem of the Latin word
for free is a serviceable pun now that liberal
education is confronted with a world-wide decline of
liberalism.
Like most liberals today, I am disturbed by
the rise in many parts of the world of government by
violence as a substitute for government by reason and
consent. But unlike most liberals I know, I am much
less disturbed by the overthrow of free government in
states that were once democratic than I am by the
confusion of the liberal mind in states like ours which
are still technically free. You may argue that
confusion in the liberal mind disturbs me because I
know that such confusion is normally followed by the
overthrow of free government. I agree that this is
what normally happens; but even if you could assure
me that “it can’t happen here,” I should still be
disturbed by the present state of liberalism. Because I
agree with those who founded our Republic that what
they and we have called free institutions cannot alone
and of themselves make men truly free. Free
institutions are a means to an end, not an end in
themselves. The end is the freedom of individual men
and women.
The real meaning of liberalism lies in the fact
that man possesses free will, and that he is really and
fully human only when that will is freely exercised.
Because he possesses free will, he has the power to
choose, to decide. You can prevent my exercising of
my free will, so far as politics is concerned, by a
number of methods. You can seize the government
and close the polls. Or you can keep the polls
ostentatiously open, and post armed men at them to
see that I vote Ja in any plebiscite you hold. Or you
can tell me to vote as I like but that I will lose my job
if the wrong man wins. Or you can refrain from
threatening my livelihood but see that I am kept
misinformed through a censored press, so that I will
“freely” choose the things you want me to choose. Or
you can let me have all the information I want but see
to it that my education is so defective that I lack the
intellectual capacity to interpret the information when
I get it. The last method would be the subtlest. For I
can lose the freedom of my will just as surely through
ignorance as through being sent to a concentration
camp, and I shall have the added disadvantage of not
knowing I have lost it.
Don’t misunderstand me: Concentration
camps are not merely disagreeable; they are a
genuine check on the freedom of the will; they
genuinely close out certain choices. All I am saying is
that keeping out of concentration camps is not
necessarily achieving freedom. Neither is having
access to an uncensored press. Neither is having the
rights of free speech and free assembly. These things
merely widen the choices a free will may make if that
will has learned to use and follow reason. It is
11
�συμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
because of these distinctions that the founding fathers
of this republic insisted on the necessity of liberal
education.
The daily papers suggest that Hitler and
Mussolini [this lecture was delivered in 1938] are
doing most of the choosing, most of the deciding,
most of the willing these days. The day’s news
suggests that liberal democracies are paralyzed. If
they are, it is because we twentieth-century liberals
have missed the point of our own faith. We have
slithered into the belief that liberty meant being left
alone, and nothing else. We have come to no longer
distinguish between authority and tyranny. We have
forgotten that the mind that denies the authority of
reason falls under the tyranny of caprice. We have
forgotten that he who will not answer to the rudder
must answer to the rock. We have therefore allowed
totalitarian dictators to take out a copyright on words
like authority and discipline, although their tyranny is
a caricature of authority and their terrorism is a
caricature of discipline.
It is high time that those Americans who
value liberalism should restate their faith in it, not
negatively as we so often do these days, but
positively; that we freely and gladly assume the
responsibilities of liberty as well as its privileges. For
though most liberals today are soft, there is nothing
soft about liberalism. I spoke in one of these radio
talks of the famous funeral oration which Pericles
made over the Athenian dead. At a crucial point in
that oration, Pericles boasts of the relationship
between the free Athenian and the laws he made and
lived by. Last month I asked a New Program student
[the New Program—our Program—was introduced in
1937] to reduce this paragraph to a single sentence,
and this is what I got: “We reverence the laws and the
laws respect us.” I think he did a good job. Pericles
was proud of Athenian freedom and insisted it was
worth dying for. Our ancestors shared that pride and
that insistence. But they and he were proud, not of the
absence of discipline or authority, but of the fact that
in a society of free citizens discipline and authority
are self-imposed. I too should insist they were worth
dying for. But I should not want to die for an external
discipline imposed on me by tyranny; nor should I
want to die for the right to be without any discipline
at all.
We liberals have erred, I suspect, through
asking too little. We have asked for what animals and
small children want, but not what free men and
women require. We have shouted hysterically for
12
October 12, 2023
freedom of speech, a free press, and free assembly,
while one by one these freedoms have disappeared in
one modern state after another. And we have asked
ourselves fearfully whether we too would lose these
freedoms. But we have not demanded, as our
ancestors did, both for themselves and their children,
a mind free from ignorance, an awakened
imagination, and a disciplined reason, without which
we cannot effectually use our other freedoms or even
preserve them. We have demanded, quite properly,
the right to make our own mistakes, but we have not
demanded the capacities that would enable us to
understand our mistakes when we have made them.
I think this Harvard friend of ours, who has
tried to express his conception of what St. John’s
College stands for today, has stated something
essential for you and me to understand, not merely
because you and I belong to the College which this
seal of his celebrates, but because you and I, like him,
are free American citizens. I am sorry my translation
of the motto he has furnished is so dull: “I make free
men out of boys by means of books and balances.” I
have lost the magnificent Latin punning: FACIO
LIBEROS EX LIBERIS LIBRIS LIBRAQUE. These
strong Latin words remind us of words the Latins
gave us. For we liberals cannot exercise our liberties
without knowing how to deliberate. Without that
power, we are children. Fortunately, there are books
that record for us the deliberations of men who
outgrew childhood, who knew how to weigh, to
balance choices, to decide. These books are models
of analysis, in which issues are clarified, so that real
choices, deliberate choices, can be made. They
propound and propose alternative solutions to
problems that are still with us under different guise.
And the different books state alternative issues
against each other.
And there are not books alone to help us.
There are balances. Balances and other laboratory
instruments which teach us to measure, to compare,
to discriminate, to combine, to understand. The
liberal arts, the intellectual arts that liberate the mind,
operating through these same books and these same
balances, liberalized and humanized our fathers, and
their fathers before them. They can liberate our
children too. They can make free men out of our
children, teach them to live in a liberal democracy,
and to make real choices, after due deliberation. Then
our children would understand liberalism, where our
own sloth and incomprehension have left it languid,
vulnerable, irrational, and therefore hysterical.
�πόλις
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October 12, 2023
How to Survive the Dining Hall in 13 Easy Steps
By Anonymous
1. Don’t fall into the trap of eating the only thing
that looks good (e.g., a hot dog) every day.
Vegetables are important!
2. Speaking of vegetables, however, avoid the
squash. Best get veggies from the salad bar.
3. But be careful regarding the salad bar!
Sometimes items will be rotten. Also, there’s
plenty of cross contamination; if you have an
allergy, beware.
4. For non-salad bar items as well, be very
careful if you have an allergy. (Speaking from
anonymous personal experience! Unless you
need an excuse to skip seminar.)
5. If you don’t have an allergy, but still have
dietary restrictions, make sure to check out
the vegan and gluten free mini fridges.
There’s also a kimchi mini fridge, by the way,
if you need more spice in your life.
9. And the effort they put into desserts is
admirable. You can always count on the
vegan desserts to be good, as well as the ice
cream (not vegan, sadly), and the fries (not
dessert, technically).
10. You can also always count on the juices to be
good—not the coffee, though.
11. Speaking of coffee, there’s also the coffee
shop as a nice option if you are not feeling the
dining hall. The prices are pretty good—and
there’s also pick-3.
12. Or if you are feeling the dining hall but not
the loudness of your fellow Johnnies, there
are greenies so you can take food out.
13. Or, you know, you could just go to Chipotle...
6. Condiments are another way to add some
spice to your food. Don’t be afraid to steal
the ketchup from another table. (Though
make sure to ask politely first.)
7. Be polite to the staff as well! “Appreciate the
fuck out of Chucky!” And don’t use your
hands instead of tongs, or put buttered toast in
the toaster, unless you’d like to get scolded.
8. Also don’t use the cups for anything other
than drinks—but speaking of cups, isn’t it
great that they use sustainable ones? And that
they recycle and compost!
Students Eating in the Randall Hall Dining Hall
with Bow-Tie Waiters
13
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October 12, 2023
Why Waltz?
By Vivian Miyakawa
“Grapes, cheese, crackers… anything else?”
“Apples!” my roommate exclaims as I quickly jot
down her requests in my Notes app. After taking her
order, I whirl around to fix my lip gloss in the mirror
and blow a kiss goodbye as I skip out the
door. Ziplock bag in hand and dressed to perfection,
I am headed to another St. John’s College waltz. On
my way there, I run into some friends. Amidst of our
flurry of compliments, I’m asked if I plan to dance
the night away. Jokingly, I crack a smile and hold up
my bags. “My roommate says I’m not allowed to
dance until I bring her back some snacks.” Giggling
ensues as they immediately comprehend the
importance of my mission. Rushing through the
doors, I meet a friend working the snack table and let
her grab me “fresh snacks” from underneath the
table. I take a small amount of each offering and
shove it in the Ziplock. The music swells in the
background as I gaze upon the delicacies before me.
Babybel cheese, mini croissants, Ferrero Rocher
chocolate—yes, we are truly living the high life.
Waltz Party, A View from the Balcony in the Great
Hall of McDowell Hall
14
Three Students Seated with Bowls of Food
Proud of my foraging victory, I rush back up the
stairs of my dorm and hand the food over to my
roommate, who is working diligently on an essay.
Once I’ve made my way back to the waltz, I
am ready to do some dancing. I grab a partner, put on
a smile, and let myself get lost in the music. I try to
recall my Tuesday waltz lessons, and count steps in
my head. I’m a bit of a clumsy dancer, but I have so
much fun every time. After twirling across the dance
floor for a few songs, another friend elbows me in the
side. “How come you haven’t been dancing this
whole time?” We laugh together for a moment, then I
find my way back to the snack table once more,
where the same people who had just witnessed me
shoving copious amounts of chocolate and cheese
into my bag are still deep in conversation.
Eventually, I head up the stairs and lean against the
balcony, watching the dancers from above. I look
around to see alumni couples holding on to each
other, perhaps reminiscing on their own time at these
waltzes. Smiling to myself, I think about the sheer
number of reasons people have for attending the
waltzes. From snacks, to conversation, to dancing, or
even just being an observer in the moment, there
really is something for everyone to enjoy.
�πόλις
THE GADFLY
October 12, 2023
The SJC Mystery #2: Location,
Location, Location
By Benne “Worked in Real Estate for One
Summer” Sco
I
n my pursuit of the stone’s meaning, I’ve
garnered plenty of theories: it’s a freemason
symbol; it’s an astrological sign; it’s an
Icelandic rune. I have gone so far as making
my first Facebook post (ever) and got responses
including: it might be an ornamental version of 羊
(yang), meaning goat in Mandarin (this was quickly
rejected by the next comment); it might be Ij-H-C,
someone’s initials in the Dutch alphabet; it might be
the logo of a Greek house (a naval academy hit
piece?); it might be Sintic or Mongol or Ogham
script; it might be a stone mason’s mark, though a
little bit elaborate; it might just be the shape of a stick
shift. Some people shrug and say it’s just a prank.
Some people look at me with genuine fear and make
me promise never to take it off campus.
My life rule from the last article (don’t do
anything that would start a horror movie) might be
said to have a parallel, but stronger postulate about
the world at large: All bad vibes converge. So how do
you find out about the accursed stone? Pursue all
other sources of discomfort, dislike, and disgust and
eventually you’ll find something related. Luckily, if
there’s one thing this college excels at, it’s spooky
locations. Since you and I are such good friends my
dear reader, I figure I ought to take you on a little
tour of some of my favorites:
Under Pub Safe: If you happen to need a
break from talking with the wonderful folks at public
safety (the only people who know more about badvibe locals on this campus than I), just step out that
door, take a quick right and then another and there
Examining the stone itself more has only
made things worse. It’s made of the same stone as
used in parts of McDowell and all across the quad. It
doesn’t fit perfectly into its hole; instead, it has
roughly hewn sides but a perfectly flat bottom. The
symbol is carved almost too perfectly in comparison
to the slipshod jaggedness of the edges. I sat (during
a party, music and voices blasting) staring at it and
realized: some of the tiles of this type are smooth,
some are rough. The tile that the stone is in is a
perfectly smooth tile. The stone itself, though, has a
rough top. So was the stone cut out from a separate
tile and then put into this one? Who would put it
there? Is it intentionally ambiguous? I can’t find
dates; I can’t find reasons; all I can find are more and
more ambiguous pieces of information. You see the
problem? I’ve got a lot of theories, but no hard
evidence. So I did what any good (para?)normal Trees by the Side of Pinkney Hall, St. John's College,
Annapolis, Maryland
investigator does: went entirely off the rails.
15
�πόλις
THE GADFLY
you go: a storm cellar door. This one requires a little
bit of work to open and close, but once you’ve waded
your way into the darkness, you’ll be swallowed up
in the sort of shadow where you know there are walls
nearby, just not exactly where. The unfortunate thing
is that you’ll find (with the help of a flashlight or
some simple flailing around) a lightswitch. Turn it on
and surprise: it’s literally just a room with pipes. Not
that exciting and a little too risky for my tastes.
The Pit: Is this one scary? Kind of? More just
disgusting. Imagine me (wait no imagine me a little
taller than that I promise I’m 6 feet tall) and my
roommate, two Western boys in an East coast world,
headed to the gym. Just outside of the entrance is a
rectangle of bricks with a sheet of rusted metal on
top. If anything says “Two 20 year old boys are going
to be curious about me,” this screamed it. So I took
the tetanus risk and lifted the sheet. Light barely cuts
across one side of the hole at a shallow angle, leaving
all else black. There’s water running some ten or
fifteen feet below. My roommate points his phone
down the hole and turns on the flashlight. Roaches. A
hundred of them. At least. They all run towards the
bottom of the hole and you can hear it, the ghastly
bug on bag stampeding. I promptly say “Fuck that”
and put the top back on. We moved on with our lives,
doing our best not to have nightmares. I checked the
pit again recently and found no roaches. I don’t want
to know where they all went.
Under Mellon: Now for the place I hate more
than anywhere else in the world! Under Mellon
(down a not very well hidden stairway), there’s a
door. According to you and public safety, I’ve never
opened that door and never will, but if it just so
happened to be open one night, you would most
certainly find the heebee-jeebee-est spot on campus. I
opened the door and knew one thing: this space is
bigger. Much bigger than all the others. So big that
any light I used was swallowed up, leaving me in a
half formed hall of concrete and dusk. The first thing
16
October 12, 2023
you see upon entering are chairs, stacked upside
down and right side up and every other direction, all
brown and black and tan and most certainly hiding
something on the far side. There are pianos too,
perfect for playing single, unexplained notes. The
floors and walls are unchanging grey and the ceiling
is all pipes. Reality does not have a heavy hold on
this place; there’s always something there, just out of
reach. But it’s not just the long hallway: there are
attached rooms and a doorway that breaks up the
space. There is no way to see everything around you,
no way to look around every corner. All you can do is
venture deeper into the deep, deep dark.
Honorable mention: The random door from
Gilliam that leads to a one story drop? Classic.
Under the Yellow House: The yellow house
on the Southwest side of campus is all dissonance:
why, amongst the tall brick walls aspiring to colonial
grandeur, is there this little prairie home with its
wood sides and white trim? I’ve never been inside.
I’ve never seen anyone come in or out. It’s
supposedly the alumni house. All that matters to me
is that, on the parking lot side, there is yet another
storm cellar door.
And you won’t believe what I found there (am
I getting better at this clickbaiting stuff?). Check out
the video for a bad vibes compilation and a special
discovery (I’m laughing, aren’t you?):
�πόλις
THE GADFLY
October 12, 2023
Swish: Motion of Fish By Ella Jacky
Moss, rocks, tank, fish
Tranquil, serene, fins that swish
Sleek, shine, sway, flow
Everchanging, moving slow
Fins, rotate, fore, rear
Swirling in a cyclic sphere
Down, push, up, swoop
Never-ending eight-shaped loop
In flux, gills pulse
Contract, expand, now convulse
Fins slip, skim, swim,
Spinning over, now again
All times, shift, change
Yet ever same; wonder strange
Motion quick and motion slow
Fish in constant ebb and flow
Fins, sheer, sheen, thin
Twirling gently, sudden whenTail shift, now flick
Fluid, flashing, turning quick
Arched bend, left, right
Swift through water, swimming flight
Beats pulse through spine
Even rhythm, keeping time
Waves bend, move, shift
Lilting meter, cadence swift
Swish, slip, dart, slide
To a corner, buggy eyed,
Peer out, eyes shift
Goggling, staring, rhythmic drift
Swirl, fins, front, back
Jaw is gaping, mouth is slack
A Tree and the Dock on College Creek,
Annapolis, Maryland
17
�πόλις
THE GADFLY
The Rose
By Kurtis Bleakley
How Tender is
The sweetness there,
The fragrance of a rose,
Lasting for a moment,
Inhaled through the nose
How precious that I, and I alone,
In a hair’s breadth of time,
Can take unto myself this eternal beauty.
What wonder you are, flower!
Delight to the eye and the breath,
Would that you could last forever,
With your fragrance of a rose
I wish for a love like you, sweet flower,
A delightful love,
A love to capture world entire in its embrace,
A love to make beauty become all things.
And a love to make the godly and the beautiful a
wondrous union,
And love that loves all love, and all loving and lovely
things therein,
But I already have that,
Because of this moment and that fragrance of a rose.
18
October 12, 2023
Noodles 02:
“The Overly
Optimistic
Crosswalk
Bu on”
By Tamar Pinsky
�λόγος
THE GADFLY
October 12, 2023
Eva Brann, circa 1986
A special colloquy was organized honoring the now-retired icon of St. John’s College.
19
�THE STUDENT
NEWSPAPER
OF
ST. JOHN’S
COLLEGE
Founded in 1980, the Gadfly is the
student newsmagazine distributed to
over 600 students, faculty, staff, and
alumni of the Annapolis campus.
Opinions expressed within are the
responsibility of the author(s). The
Gadfly reserves the right to accept,
reject, and edit submissions in any
way necessary to publish a
professional, informative, and
thought provoking newsmagazine.
Submissions sent to the Gadfly
should either be in Google Docs or
JPEG format. The deadline for
Pictured: The Gadfly Office (Photo by Luke Briner)
submissions is the Friday prior to
publication.
For more information, contact us
via email at lbriner@sjc.edu.
60 COLLEGE AVENUE
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND 21401
Images without a listed source are from the St.
John's College Digital Archives.
St. John's College owns the rights
to these photographs.
�
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The Gadfly, Vol. XLV, Issue 2
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Gadfly Vol XLV Issue 2
Gadfly
Student publication
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/6230a0358f64187551ffb84302937446.pdf
09fdf908ebf94ce3d62e5559892276c5
PDF Text
Text
the Gadfly
St. John’s College
Annapolis, Maryland
BACK TO SCHOOL SPECIAL
September 25, 2023
Vol. XLV, Issue 1
�Letter from the Editor
Dear Polity,
Welcome and welcome back!
As we all embark on this new academic year together, it’s the sincere hope of mine that the Gadfly is able to serve as a worthy and
exciting representation of the life, thought, and spirit of our College.
In the pursuit of this ideal, we’ve made some changes to the organization and publication of our content, which is always intended, as
our Staff Handbook says, to “encourage discourse between all facets of our community.” Most notable among these changes is the introduction of the Collegian, the Gadfly’s new weekly newsletter which you’ve probably already seen around campus a couple of times
by now. Spearheaded by our wonderful managing editor El’ad Nichols-Kaufman, the Collegian will help to more frequently and
dynamically engage with our Polity in between the much more substantial issues of the Gadfly proper, which we’re now intending
to publish on a regular triweekly schedule. We’ve also adjusted the organization of content within each Gadfly issue itself: the Logos
section will be more heavily emphasized overall, and the Symposium section will now be focused on writing of a definitely academic
style, leaving more personal and purely introspective essays to the Polis section.
We hope that you enjoy our first issue of the year, and all issues to come!
Luke Briner,
Co-editor-in-chief
Contents
λόγος
New Year, New Dean
Registrar Resignation
Housing Troubles
συμπόσιον
Selections from "Notes on Dialogue"
Thoughts at the Beginning
A Critique of Dialogue
3
4
6
7
10
14
Cover
anonymous
(Digital archiveS)
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
luke briner
MANAGING EDITOR
el'ad nicHols kaufmann
StAFF
Meliha Anthony,
Anna Dayton,
Natalie Goldman,
Will Marchman,
Vivian Miyakawa,
Tuyết-Nhi Nghiêm,
Tamar Pinsky,
Louis Rosenberg,
Bennett Scott,
Felix Tower
layout
Bridget mace
πόλις
Getting Personal
22
From the President: The Value of Civic Engagement 24
Advice on Summer
25
Dog-Day Cicada
26
The Betrothed
27
SJC Mystery #1: The Stone
28
Review of the Freewrite Drafting Tool
30
Freshman Bodies and Freshman Souls
33
Finds from the Archives
34
2
�λόγος
the Gadfly
September 25, 2023
New Year, New Dean
well: a staff member, a board member, a student, a tutor.
She and the president need to work very well together.
Eva Brann has a famous quote that maybe she never said,
By LUKE BRINER
"The president attends to the existence of the college, the
dean to the essence." What is our essence? How do the
This July 1st, Susan Paalman succeeded Joseph many individuals who make up the college come together
Macfarland as dean of our undergraduate Program in to become one college? I think a lot about Socrates and
Annapolis. Her first year as dean will mark her 26th his question in the Republic about how two ones come
overall at the College. Found below are several questions together to make one two. It's mysterious and beautiful.
posed to her regarding her new position and her responses.
What was the process of becoming our new dean like?
It was like being initiated into the Mysteries... Ok,
maybe not that dramatic. I shadowed Mr. Macfarland
last semester, having been released from one teaching
station (sorry, freshman lab! You know I love you). Ms.
Demleitner and I met regularly also, and I attended the
board meetings along with Mr. Macfarland. I attended
lots of other meetings and got to know a bit more about
what makes things tick at St. John's. Everyone was so very
helpful to me. I'm especially grateful to Ms. Demleitner
and Mr. Macfarland, who were both very generous with
their time and advice.
What about your new position as dean excites you
most?
St. John's has formed my adult life; I came here when I
was 28 years old. I am more grateful than I can say that I
am now in a position to be a leader at this place that has
meant so much to me. So, just the fact that I am here in
this role is very exciting to me.
What does it mean to be a good dean, and especially
the dean of a college like St. John's?
Are there any colleges "like St. John's"? (Sorry, I couldn't
resist.) A good dean needs to have some sense of what the
good is, in general and for this community. She is a listener
and a learner, especially at St. John's. A good dean takes
what she has heard and learned and makes the decisions
that need to be made, with the good of the community
in mind. This takes a combination of pulling back, to
take in what is happening in the community, and acting
decisively, so things that need to be clear are clear. "The
community" includes so many people in so many different
worlds that a good dean needs to be able to hear everyone
What do you think the most pressing issues at St. John's
that fall under your jurisdiction as dean are, and how
do you intend to address them?
I've begun a conversation about a possible honor code.
This is part of a larger conversation that Mr. Abbott
has also been engaging in: how do we hold on to our
humanity in the face of the technology that could
threaten it. We have available to us aids and tools that,
ironically, could cripple us if not considered wisely. St.
John's is as vulnerable as anyone to this danger. We are also
particularly well suited to examine this problem and take
it on with thoughtfulness, care, and thumos [spiritedness].
Do you have any beginning-of-the-year message that
you'd like to convey to the student body as a whole,
and/or to freshmen in particular?
Dive into the program with spirit and help each other
with kindness and grace!
Photo: Meliha Anthony
3
�the Gadfly
λόγος
Registrar Resignation
Leaves Students Spooked
By TAMAR PINSKY
Students received their much-awaited class schedules
on the evening of Tuesday, August 22nd. Some of these
schedules, however, were still subject to change. Some
of the schedules contained groupings of students oddly
familiar to those of previous years. . Other students
reported experiences less extreme, yet still notable: a
switched class, or a seminar resembling last year’s.
Why did schedules come out so late? Why have
there been so many last-minute fine tunings? Why have
students been re-clustered into already used clusters? The
absence of a registrar seems the popular scapegoat.
Many individual experiences are attributed to the lack
of a registrar—whether correctly so or not. They add to
the idea that the school has suffered due to the previous
registrar’s resignation, which is also not necessarily correct.
The previous registrar and the previous assistant
registrar resigned in the beginning of the summer due to
personal reasons. Because of the quantity and type of work
that had to be done, however, they worked after hours as a
contract employee. They were, however, not the only one
who took on the laundry list of responsibilities: transcript
requests, organizing convocation and graduation,
arranging and adjusting tutor and student schedules, and
arranging don rag and senior oral schedules.
The registrar’s work was completed with the help
of Ms. Latham, Ms. Stevens, Mr. Beall, Mr. Abbott, Ms.
Lico, Ms. Waters, and Ms. Francis.
The work also could not have been done without
the Santa Fe registrar and assistant registrar, Julie Romero
and John Martinez. There is certain software and training
vital to doing the registrar’s work, and thus their specialty
was much appreciated.
Normally, the registrar and assistant registrar would
complete this work such that class schedules are done
in early August. This year, because the work was thrust
onto a multitude of faculty members, the first drafts were
a couple of weeks late. However, they did not come out
extremely late, for the school in fact prefers to send them
out only a couple of days before classes start.
Creating class schedules is hard work—one must make
sure that no one is in a core group with anyone in their
previous core groups, that there is a reasonable gender
balance, that each class contains only students from other
Jacki Thomas, previous registrar. Photo: Tamar Pinsky
4
September 25, 2023
�λόγος
the Gadfly
core groups who were in none of their other classes, and
that no student has a class with a tutor they previously
had. Adjusting schedules is difficult too—sometimes
classes must be moved due to conflicting schedules, and
sometimes students request a class transfer—however,
class transfers are not allowed in the first three weeks of
classes.
Because of the difficulty of this work, there were cases
in which not all these requirements were met regarding
scheduling. For Sophomore Sophia Derico, several of
these standards were not met. Her core group this year
is identical to the one she had her first year, with the
addition of two more students. However, she no longer
shares music with these five students—she got switched
into a different class, taught by her freshman Greek tutor.
Meanwhile, her math class got moved back a day, because
it had been scheduled to take place during the weekly
Sicut Sing. And to top it all off, both her Greek and math
classes this year are shared with another core group, so the
same eleven students dominate both.
But not every case, such as simply having familiar
faces in one’s class, can be ascribed to the absence of the
registrar. It is inevitable that there will be some repeated
combinations of students year to year, given St. John’s size.
In other words, the schedules were affected by the
absence of a registrar, but perhaps not as much as they
might have seemed to be so.
September 25, 2023
The registrar’s work also comes with certain legal
requirements due to its confidential nature. Because the
registrar is entrusted with dealing with students’ personal
information, not just anyone could take their place.
Furthermore, it is ideal for the registrar to know the tutors
and students to perform their role optimally—it is best if
the registrar stays at the school for a long time.
Particularly at a school like St. John’s, where the
students do not register themselves for classes as they
do at most colleges, the importance of the registrar is
more apparent. Many universities rely almost entirely on
machines for their registrar work, but perhaps that would
not be fitting for St. John’s. As Assistant Dean Mr. Abbott
said, to think that the situation St. John’s is facing might
suggest the need for machines is the kind of thinking that
makes “the world come to an end.”
Instead of placing hope on machines, both the Dean
and Assistant Dean have expressed hope that they will
find a new registrar soon. It is hard to predict exactly
when that will be, but they are optimistically searching.
Perhaps the registrar is of the sort that one does
not realize how important they are until they are gone.
They are the “nuts and bolts,” as our Dean, Ms. Paalman
called them, that Johnnies may neglect in the face of the
contemplative, speculative questions they tend to focus
on.
Cartoon: "Noodles," Tamar Pinsky
5
�λόγος
the Gadfly
Housing Troubles
By VIVIAN MIYAKAWA
The sticky summer heat slowly gives way into fall,
marking the beginning of a new school year. Groups of
wide-eyed freshmen enter their residence halls for the
first time, squaring their shoulders and preparing to live
life with a roommate...or two?? Generally, freshmen at
St. John’s College live in doubles, with the occasional
room built for a triple. However, this year brings a unique
housing situation for most incoming freshmen. Campbell
Hall, a dorm traditionally housing freshmen, has been
under construction since the beginning of the summer,
leaving less space for many incoming Johnnies. Situated in
the midst of historic downtown Annapolis, St. John’s isn’t
exactly known for its ample dorm space, so this ongoing
building renovation forced freshmen into whatever
housing happened to be available.
Unlike most years, every residence building on
campus houses freshmen, and doubles have been
converted to triples as dorms overflow with students. This
unique situation adds even more change to the generally
tumultuous beginnings of a school year. Curious to gauge
the Polity’s reactions to these developments, I interviewed
a variety of students, asking them their opinions on the
housing situation and recording their thoughts.
Humphrey’s Hall is a freshman dorm generally
known for its spacious rooms; a healthy mix of doubles
and triples. This is perhaps the very trait that made it the
prime candidate for stuffing even more freshmen into one
6
Side View of Campbell Hall
with Circular Window and Bushes
September 25, 2023
residence hall. When interviewing students from different
floors of this residence hall, most mentioned that they
“expected smaller” and that they were “preparing for the
worst” when they heard about this year’s changes. Keeping
your standards low is a surefire way to satisfaction, but
unfortunately, not even the lowest of standards could
make the Humphreys bathrooms seem appealing. With
about one third more students than anticipated, the
bathroom has truly become a “communal” space. The
three showers and two bathrooms stalls are often crowded
and dirty, and large globs of hair tend to block the drains.
Work orders are plentiful as amenities such as soap, toilet
paper, and paper towels are prone to running out within a
few days. Luckily, as mentioned by more than one resident,
including Ms. Greer, the Humphreys 2 RA, the mold on
the shower curtains isn’t the only thing “growing on them.”
A sort of begrudging fondness for this lively community
has sprung from the less-than-ideal conditions. As put by
Ms. Greer, “intentional community building and regular
gatherings are crucial to fostering a sense of friendship
and community,” and the tighter spaces brought on by the
housing changes certainly help facilitate that process.
However, things look a bit different for the few
freshmen living in typically upperclassmen dorms.
Freshmen from Pinkney Hall experience a much smaller
community, mentioning feeling as if they “don’t know
many of the people in their hall, and aside from the other
freshmen on their floor and their RA, they “have no clue
who is living with them in the biggest dorm on campus.”
In a similar vein, Ms. Bain, the RA for the freshmen
living in Chase-Stone, also noticed a sort of separation
between the freshmen and upperclassmen, specifically in
regards to the Chasement. In the past, it wasn’t generally
used as a place for study, but freshmen living there have
“taken advantage of the blackboards and comfy couches,
turning it into a standard common room.” Ms. Bain
mentions that even with the small amount of pushback
from some upperclassmen, she believes that “having
integrated dorm buildings is generally positive, it allows
for the blending of all of the classes which is nice and good
for our college community.”
In the end, it is likely that housing will return to normal
with the completion of the Campbell Hall remodel, and
that nothing will fundamentally change, but hopefully
this temporary diversion from normalcy has left a positive
impact on the people it has affected.
�συμπόσιον
the Gadfly
September 25, 2023
Notes on Dialogue (Selections)
Stringfellow Barr
EDITOR'S NOTE:
“Notes on Dialogue,” an essay written by one of our
Program’s founders, Stringfellow Barr, has become both
a foundational text for gaining insight into the nature
and intent of the College’s educational model, and the
subject of a contemporary controversy among students
and faculty over exactly how present it should be in
our academic lives at large. Central to this controversy
is the fact that, while Summer Academy students and
freshmen introduced to the College through the recently
established Pritzker Program do read it, other incoming
students do not. Why just them, and not the others?
Should all incoming students be required to read it, or
no one at all? In order to stimulate this debate, as well
as to complement the two other similarly-themed essays
featured in this issue’s Symposium section, some of the
most important sections of the essay are produced below.
-LB
_________________________________________
Perhaps the first obstacle to writing even these random
notes on dialogue is that the very word, dialogue, has
been temporarily turned into a cliché. Everybody is loudly
demanding dialogue, and there is not much evidence
that most of us are prepared to carry one on. Indeed, to
borrow a traditional phrase from professional diplomats,
conversations have deteriorated. But both radio and
television, whether public or commercial, remind us daily
that a lonely crowd hungers for dialogue, not only for
the dialogue of theatre but also for the dialogue of the
discussion program.
***
[B]abble is a ghost we cannot lay, the ghost of dialogue.
We yearn, not always consciously, to commune with other
persons, to learn with them by joint search. This joint
labor to understand would be even more exciting than
the multiplication of our gross national product or the
improvement of our national defense or even than the
elimination of war from the face of the earth. For we can
never live wholly human lives without a genuine converse
between men.
***
It seems possible that the most relevant sort of
dialogue, though perhaps the most difficult[…]to achieve
is the Socratic. For this difficult form of dialogue, there
are luckily a number of models in Plato's Dialogues. To
model [our] dialogues on those that Socrates incited
and took part in is a dangerous counsel of something
precious close to perfection. But I would merely urge
that Socrates' behavior "in dialogue" is a good star to
hitch one's wagon to. At the minimum, it is a good
guide to the reefs on which most really good dialogues
are wrecked. All these reefs welcome hungrily those who
substitute the kind of discussion Socrates called "eristic"
as a substitute for the kind he called "dialectic." In Book
I of Plato's Republic Thrasymachus uses eristic; Socrates,
dialectic. Thrasymachus' purpose is to win points and to
win applause. The purpose of Socrates is to try, through
dialectical discussion with Thrasymachus and others, to
understand better the essential nature of justice. Each of
the two men makes a choice of weapons appropriate to
his purpose. The rising voice, the personal accusation, the
withering scorn, the crushing sarcasm, the panic at the
possibility of being out-maneuvered, the sweating, the
unaccustomed blush of a normally unblushing champion
sophist, the volubility that tries to shore up a crumbling
argument and to ward off the disgrace of refutation, the
love of one's own opinions precisely because they are
one's own, the vanity that replaces love of truth with love
for victory are all exemplified by Thrasymachus. What
Socrates displays towards Thrasymachus is courtesy. He
treats him not as an enemy, but as a valued colleague in
the mutual search for understanding. Socrates is, as it
were, the personification for purposes of discourse of the
love for one's neighbor that Judaism and Christianity
prescribe. And the same love sometimes infuses his
courteous questions with irony, because such irony
helpfully invited Thrasymachus to rid himself of the false
opinions he harbored. So he is never fearful that he will
7
�συμπόσιον
the Gadfly
September 25, 2023
"lose," precisely because he is not trying to "win," and does introduced with an (ironic) apology. Since [students are]
not meet these flat opinions with other flat opinion, but trying to see more deeply into current problems but are
with the ironical question.
free of the burden of imminent, practical, political action,
Just as we are taught to hate not the sinner but the they might profitably stay "drunk" longer than the King of
sin, especially if it is our own, so Socrates never attacks Kings and his royal counsellors could risk staying.
Thrasymachus. Indeed, he never attacks his ignorance
The Socratic dialectic has another code of manners than
and presumptuousness. He merely dissolves the opinions the dinner party, where religion and politics are sometimes
Thrasymachus spouts so loudly, so rapidly, and so volubly. forbidden for fear that rising passions may damage "social"
That Thrasymachus recognizes the mortal danger in intercourse, and where interrupting a speaker and even a
Socrates' questions and, indeed, that painful scalpel, long-winded empty speech, is forbidden. In dialectic, a
irony, that Socrates uses on on his opinions
quick question is analogous to "point
(and consequently, given Thrasymachus'
of order" in political assemblies. "Do I
pride of authorship where his expressed
understand you to be saying . . . ?" always
opinions are concerned, on himself, his
has the floor.
honor, and his fame as a sophist) comes
Even these thumb-rules may seem
out in Thrasymachus' sarcastic allusion
guaranteed to produce bedlam. And,
to "your famous irony." That Socrates
indeed, when they are first tried,
knew that his irony "put to the question,"
they generally do produce it. But
a euphemism the Spanish Inquisition
inexperienced dancers on a ballroom
would later in history use for the act of
floor and inexperienced skaters on an
torturing the accused, is shown by his
ice rink also collide. Experience brings a
likening himself to a gadfly that stung
sixth sense in Socratic dialectic too. The
the noble steed, the Athenian democracy.
will of self-insistence gives way to the
That the steed knew too is shown in Plato's
will to learn.
Apology, where Socrates was sentenced to
In
dialectic,
"participational
death for putting Athens to the question.
democracy" consists in everybody's
The many dialectical conversations
listening intently; it does not consist in
in Plato's Dialogues suggest several rules
what commercial television calls equal
of thumb that might be profitably used
time. When a good basketball team has
by [students], or at least more frequently
the ball, its members do not snatch the
followed. One hesitates to suggest rules
ball from each other but support the
of thumb for a kind of discussion that is
man who has it, and the man who has it
essentially spontaneous. But it is hard to
passes it to a teammate whenever a pass
see how these particular rules could stifle Portraits of Stringfellow Barr is called for by the common purpose of
spontaneity:
the team. But in dialectic, as opposed to basketball, the
The exchange of declarative monologues tends to be "opposing team" is composed only of the difficulties all
dialectically unproductive. The effort to be too complete men face when they try to understand. The point is that,
is often self-defeating. An adumbration often contributes in dialectic, it does not matter whose mouth gets used by
more to dialectic than a rotund speech. Brevity stimulates the dialectical process, provided all are listening intently
dialectic.
and exercise the freedom to interrupt with a question if
I take it that Herodotus' "anecdote" that the Persians they do not understand. On the other hand, reading or
deliberated while drunk and decided while sober implies writing while "in dialogue" is a grave offense against the
that in the early stages of a dialectic exchange a "wild idea" common purpose of all, not because they diminish the
is often more fruitful that a prematurely prudent opinion. number of speaking mouths but because they diminish
The imaginative and the unexpected are frequent the number of listening ears. (Doodling and smoking are
ingredients of Socrates' style, though they are often permissible aides to listening!)
8
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Whatever the touted merits of pluralism in
democratic society today (and pluralism is, minimally,
better than shooting each other with mail-order submachine guns or even than legislating on religious
beliefs), the agreement to disagree is a disgraceful defeat
if it means surrendering the hope of agreement through
further dialectic. Even Socrates, on rare occasions,
countenanced postponement of the struggle to a more
propitious occasion.
Perhaps the first rule of Socratic dialectic was laid
down by Socrates: that we should follow the argument
wherever it leads. Presumably, this means that some
sorts of relevance that a court pleading should exhibit
(and, even more the forensic eloquence that pleading
encourages) are irrelevant to dialectic. The deliberate
manner, and even more the ponderous manner, are
mere impediments. The name of the game is not
instructing one's fellows, or even persuading them,
but thinking with them and trusting the argument to
lead to understanding, sometimes to very unexpected
understandings.
The chairman [of the Fellows of the Center for the
Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara]
recently abandoned the practice of recognizing speakers
in the order in which their raised hands requested the
floor. The abandonment of this device, so necessary in
parliamentary procedure and even in small committees
if they have not learned to discuss dialectically, was an
immense step towards Socratic dialogue. The chairman,
[like St. John's tutors] now has the more delicate task
of intervening, preferably by question, only when
he believes that there is a misunderstanding or an
unprofitable (not a profitable) confusion, a confusion
that in his judgment bids fair not to right itself.
[Students], however, will need to be close listeners,
in the event that we take Socrates' advice; we shall,
indeed, have to be closer listeners than we now are. We
are likely, if we meet that obligation, to attain to a level
of friendship that not many men attain to. Aristotle,
we may recall, held that friendship could be achieved
on three levels. The lowest level is that of what we
Americans call "contacts," a level on which two men are
useful to each other and exchange favors and services.
On a higher level, two men can find pleasure in each
other's company: they amuse each other. On the highest
level, each man is seeking the true good of the other.
September 25, 2023
On that level [students] would be, even more satisfyingly
than now, seeking in common to understand. We share
the friendship, or philia, that Aristotle thought must exist
between the citizens of any republic if it was to be worthy
of men. It would certainly exist, and without sentimentality,
in any genuine republic of learning. And it would heighten
the courtesy that any good and rigorous dialectic demands.
There is only one, final rule of thumb that I would offer:
When free minds seek together for greater understanding,
they tend to move, as the mind of Socrates so characteristically
moved - with playfulness and a sense of the comic. This,
perhaps, is because men are most like the gods when they
think; because, nevertheless, they are emphatically not gods;
and because, for godlike animals, this fact is so thoroughly
funny. The truly relevant jest is never out of order, so long as
we can pursue our dialogue with high seriousness and with
relevant playfulness.
Were we to apply the ten rules of thumb sketched above,
we would certainly produce many of those brief interludes of
bedlam when dialectical collisions occur, even though these
moments of vocal static would decrease in length and in
number as we gained practice with free dialectic. Such static
is not dialogue's worst problem. Plato and Shakespeare both
speak of the mind's eye, that eye that alone sees intellectual
light. I suggest there is a mind's ear too, a listening, mindful
ear. I suggest that the chief reason that conversations
deteriorate is that the mind's ear fails.
Stringfellow Barr and Students in Conversation
Seated at a Table in the Coffee Shop
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September 25, 2023
Thoughts at the Beginning
Robert Abbott
I have been working on this essay off and on for six months.
My intention was to address the confusion and antipathy
that occasionally arises when someone runs up against
our college’s unusual way of doing things. Over the years
I've heard many questions on the verge of fermenting into
outright indictments, and I wondered if I could take them
as opportunities to clarify what we do and why. Why is
our Program so demanding? Why should the tutors have
a say outside the classroom as well as in it? Why should
the students be granted more freedom here than at most
other schools? These are real questions and the teacher
in me wanted to see them lead to a deeper understanding
in myself and others of our communal life here. But
something about the form the essay took did not seem
right to me, so I put it aside.
I found a second beginning when a recently
graduated senior pointed out a passage to me in Eva
Brann’s book of aphorisms. Here is Ms. Brann’s advice:
“Citizen’s Imperative: Always act as if you were then
and there founding a community, be it of two or two
hundred–in conducting conversations, in enacting
routines, in mounting critiques.” She goes on to say that
this is how Plato’s Republic gets off the ground. Bearing
that in mind, I would like to go back to the beginning
with you and ask a question about our own college.
What is required to nourish a community dedicated to
the reading of great books? I can think of at least four
conditions and will spend most, but not all, of this essay
describing these to you. (There is a Gadflyish conclusion
you should not miss.) These four conditions are in
addition to those required for any residential college e.g.
a campus, sufficient funding, etc. I am wondering what
is needed specifically for our project, which might justify
our unique way of doing things.
First Condition: an environment that grants
dignity to the endeavor of reading the great books, inside
and outside the classroom. Exploring the mysterious
depths of the great books elicits strong and varied actions
and reactions from readers. Shock, disgust, boisterousness,
hilarity, fear, anger–these typical responses, and their
10
consequences, could all easily be censured in ordinary life.
But as a teacher knows, they are all part of the circuitous
path the soul takes on its way to understanding, and
should be dignified with tolerance and attention. There
are many ways to fail to grant this dignity. One could read
The Brothers Karamazov in a laboratory, and after every
chapter be hooked up to an electrocardiogram, given a
thermometer, required to fill out a survey, and asked what
reactions you had after hearing certain words or phrases.
If you lived in such a lab, your thinking, speaking, and
feeling would only be recognized as a generic quantity.
Being reduced to a number is never dignifying. If you
read The Brothers Karamazov in an amusement park, on
the other hand, which is the opposite of a laboratory, you
might be encouraged simply to enjoy yourself. St. John’s
the Amusement Park would provide plenty of distractions
from–or easily digested explanations of–the great books,
plenty of carefully managed encounters, plenty of fun,
but you would never be deeply moved or driven to think.
Our college is opposed to both of these extremes and all
their disguised variations. In both of them a student is
an accidental addition to the apparatus of measurement
or production of entertainment, rather than an essential
agent in their own education.
Many of our fellow readers over the centuries have
read the great books under duress, alone, in less than ideal
circumstances–often in prisons resembling a laboratory or
a funhouse. Some of the writers of the great books lived
this way. Their communities did not directly support the
reading of great books and yet the books did their work,
often acting as a refuge to their readers and writers alike.
It is useful to remember that fact in dark times. But in this
essay I am interested in defining a community in harmony
with the requirements of the great books, one which
makes it possible for people with little or no experience of
them to give them the sustained attention they repay.
Second Condition: a community that encourages
its members to take time to separate themselves from the
present moment. If the college did not actively encourage
students to step away from the present, however urgent
and fascinating, it would be at odds with its central
activity–returning to books written in the past, even the
recent past, and taking them seriously on their own terms.
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Herodotus is, among other things, very interested in
understanding the world-historical situation he finds
himself in, the ascendancy of the Greeks over the
Persians–but he does this by first going back in time, far
away in place, and deep into the minutiae of seemingly
unrelated cultures, such as the Egyptians’ belief in a
cat’s compulsion to run into a burning house, or the
Ethiopian practice of burying their dead in sarcophagi
of translucent crystal and setting them up around the
city. Somehow the things of others help us to see our
own. Herodotus’ broad and ennobling curiosity should
be a model for us at the college–we who read about the
immoveable earth and invisible electric fluids. I say this
is a necessary condition not only because the members
of our community should maintain an idiosyncratic and
useful esprit de corps but because there will come a time
when you realize what a strange thing you’ve done by
coming here and you will not be reassured if someone
tells you that our college is really not so different from
everywhere else. It is not like anywhere else, and your
first sallies beyond our walls will make that very clear
to you. Sometimes this happens, as it did for me,
while you are a student, which is why so many of us
have occasionally wondered if we’ve come to the right
place. You might pose that question because you have
maturely recognized the magnitude and strangeness of
your choice. As I say, it will not help you then to think
that you haven't done anything strange by coming here.
You have. And you can come to understand and own
that wonderful and courageous choice, both while you
are a student, and afterward, when you truly begin to
need your education and the books that gave it to you.
Third Condition: a community that refuses
to promise what it cannot deliver and what the books
themselves say is difficult to achieve. I mean wisdom.
If we were at a college for nursing or mathematics
or boat-building, we would be more than justified–
perhaps ethically required–to promise to deliver certain
skills, and give some assurance that we were qualified
to do so. By contrast, what we are doing at our college
is more obscure and difficult. Neither our tutors nor
our books promise to make students wise. Yet we all
seek, vigorously and hopefully, to understand what
lies beneath the superficial appearances of nature and
culture. It takes a great deal of experience, dedication,
and knowledge to sustain such an endeavor. That is the
September 25, 2023
work of our tutors, not simply to pass along the skills we
may have, not to turn students into numbers, and not to
entertain you. Instead, we are like guides to an island that
shifts its location depending on who is going to visit it. We
have the conviction and the ability to crew the ship, but we
must rely on much more than rote formulas, manuals, or
maps to do it. The college itself must be the sort of place
that is suspicious of educational models that emphasize
training or entertaining because our aim is different. We
want to keep alive an activity that dies when training and
entertaining become widespread. This activity of ours
has all sorts of wonderful side-effects, including, perhaps,
mastery of a skill, or deeper understanding of an idea, or
greater depth in a feeling, but it is in itself a wilder, less
determinate impulse.
Fourth Condition: a community of free
independent thinkers who believe that reading the
great books is the primary reason they are here, and that
everything that might go along with that project, such as
obtaining a degree, is of secondary importance. I know it
may seem obvious, but this needs to be said. We could have
begun this imaginary exercise by making a degree-granting
college a first principle of our experimental founding, in
which case a great books program is just one possible
core curriculum among many–software installed on an
indifferent mainframe. But if the germ you cultivate is
the reading of great books, you would see a very different
organism develop, one that is only partly contained by the
four-year frame of a small liberal arts college. You would
see a life of reading, thinking, and speaking that begins in,
but ultimately exceeds, that frame. Please note, I did not
say that this community of independent thinkers should
imagine that there is nothing more important than the
great books. Reading the great books is a preparation for
the things in life that are even more important than the
books. If we are to tackle those greater things later, then we
should read these books now.
At one of my weekly Tuesday lunches last year, I
asked how the college was like, and unlike, a city. We do
not exist simply in order to keep existing, as most cities do.
We have a central purpose that defines us. We are here to
read and discuss great books. When that purpose vanishes,
the college buildings may stand, but our college will not.
It seems to me that our college can, with effort, live up to
these ideals, and remain the sort of community the students,
tutors, and alumni have always known, not by following the
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beat of the cacophonous drums of higher education, but by
paying attention to our own melody and letting each part
of this place find its harmony within it.
There is an important question I’ve left looming. I
know it’s easy to scoff at it, but I will ask: what is a great book?
After all, does it really matter if you can say what one is in the
abstract when there are so many piled up for us to read? I’d
encourage you to spend some time thinking about it–even
if not too much time. Look at the stack of books, posters,
blogs, texts, captions, and zines you’ve already read. Do you
have the conviction that there is such a thing as a book that
stands shoulder height above the others, some great book
worth spending far more time on than your average artifact
of human thought? Part of what allows us to set aside the
usual trappings of higher education–historical context,
received opinions, course goals, pedagogical models, etc.–
is the simple trust that entering into conversation with a
great book will take care of what all those things are trying
to do, and much more besides. If you have never studied
at another college or university, it is possible you do not
realize how rare and unimpeded the education at St. John’s
is. At most colleges, you would be enmeshed in a carefully
constructed web of defined expectations before being
allowed even to smell, let alone touch, a great book. When
you find yourself complaining about how little recognition
your opinions receive here, or how unpredictable class is,
or when you find yourself wondering why students at other
institutions are seemingly so content with their clearly
defined benchmarks of success, remind yourself that we are
aiming at the individual’s freedom to learn, and freedom
almost always generates a healthy level of disagreement and
democratic turbulence.
I’d like to change tack. I’ve been describing the
enduring principles of our community and now I’d like to
turn to their opposite: contemporary threats. (This is the
Gadfly’s bite.) The first threat is the abandoned classroom.
Absences at the college last year were shockingly high. This
is partly because the rules during COVID were relaxed and
many students found themselves taking more days off than
permitted. To put a medicinal spin on it, we need a dose of
strong medicine. The work we do here is cumulative, not
because you are accumulating information but because you
are learning with others through conversation. Whenever
you fall out of that conversation, returning to it is more
difficult. We don’t attend class because we have done
good work or because we are well prepared. Instead, it’s
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September 25, 2023
just the opposite: we attend classes together in order to
do good work. Most of the work around here happens
in the classroom and the conversations that spill out
of it. It will get easier to go to class if you are in the
habit of going to class. The dean and I have agreed that
the enforcement of the attendance policy this year will
closely adhere to the written requirements in the student
handbook. Please recognize that the bar has been reset
to the place it should be, and falling below it will likely
result in absence probation, withdrawal from your class
or from the college altogether.
The second contemporary threat to life at the
college is the universal, often intrusive presence of
digital technology and the internet. Again, if I think
only of the reading of the great books in conversation,
digital technology presents specific threats to that
endeavor. Social media encourages our social anxieties.
We want to be leisurely interlocutors; we find ourselves,
instead, judging and being judged in often terse,
superficial phrases. Digital communication accelerates
the rate of conversation, reduces its complexity,
increases its emotional freight, and too often preserves
what should be ephemeral. Disreputable websites make
cheap opinions available at every turn. AI churns out
vapid prose without thought or effort. Ubiquitous and
distracting internet access discourages coherent and
sustained presence of mind. Tutors and students alike
have voiced concerns about how habitually they allow
themselves to be distracted from the activities they really
love and most want to pursue. I’ve noticed that these
habits have affected me and perhaps you have noticed
something similar in yourself as well.
This year, I want to provide ways to think about
and step away from digital technology. There will be
a few scheduled forums on Tuesday for us to discuss
this matter over lunch. I’m sure many of you disagree
with my dire assessment of the Internet Age and I’d
like to know why. I’d also like to discuss more radical
measures. Can we imagine a wi-fi free dorm for those
interested in a less digital life, or an honor code to
define our opposition to AI writing? As a less radical
beginning, there will be one or more “Phone Hotels”
on campus where you can safely leave your phone for a
few hours to experience untethered life. If you would
like encouragement to participate in this experiment,
we will hold a No Phone Day in October during which
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you can try out the hotel. Finally, I will be organizing
a few more “Writing Jails,” as they’ve come to be called,
at which we can write together, silently, without the
pestering blur of wi-fi. I know the name rubs some
people the wrong way, but it is homegrown (and surely
tongue-in-cheek), and further, true, that in order to
write, some of us really need to confine ourselves to the
task. More information about these will be available
soon.
There is a chance that my efforts at reformation
will be misunderstood as merely reactionary or
nostalgically anachronistic. I wish you to understand
that I propose such measures as radical interventions
aimed at nourishing the roots of the educational
endeavor. Here is a passage from a recent book about
the struggle with those technologies that undermine
one of those roots: our attention. “Whereas all
previous tools and media have had effects that
September 25, 2023
gradually and indirectly acted on our self-understanding,
digital technology acts straightforwardly on us; as
attention is the single most intimate expression of who and
what we are, digital technology is a spiritual technology.”
That was Antón Barba-Kay, an alum of our college, in his
recent book, A Web of Our Own Making: The Nature of
Digital Formation, (Cambridge, 2023). What is uniquely
threatening about digital technologies, he says, is that they
make our attention “the subject of their measurement,
control, and (self )design.” If what he says is true, and I
think it is, we have a pressing responsibility to guard and
cultivate that precious part of us, our attention, however we
can.
Robert Abbott
Assistant Dean
August 14, 2023
Students and Tutor Seated at Seminar Table
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September 25, 2023
A Critique of Dialogue
Luke Briner
Last spring, Yale’s Sterling Professor of Law Robert C. Post
delivered a lecture entitled “Citizenship, Undergraduate
Education, and Great Books.” The lecture’s goal, as
enunciated by Post, was to examine “how the essentially
political project of preserving democracy might be
connected to the distinguished educational project at St.
John’s.”1 His eagerness to pursue this specific enquiry was
attributable to his growing anxiety over the fragility of the
world's current political order, and of the degeneration of
political life and discourse in America in particular. “In
my lifetime,” he reflects, “I don’t think I have witnessed a
political atmosphere more angry, more poisonous, more
baleful.”2 In setting out to examine the relationship between
the general political project of preserving a genuinely
democratic society and the particular pedagogical project
of preserving the educational integrity of our College,
Post thus hoped to arrive at a richer understanding of
what makes real dialogue so valuable for our society, and
thereby of how to implement and preserve such dialogue
most effectively in our society.
This was obviously a very admirable endeavor,
and was just as obviously based on an accurate assessment
of the deplorable state of contemporary political life in
America. As I listened on, however, despite the clarity
of Post’s reasoning and the nobility of his intentions, I
couldn’t help but find myself disagreeing fundamentally
with several of the conclusions that he arrived at, especially
concerning the nature of dialogue and its political and
pedagogical efficacy. I propose, then, to take up the same
enquiry that he did, and, through my own independent
line of thinking, to state as respectfully but as decisively as
I can the reasons for my differing perspective on dialogue
both in America and at St. John’s.
To accomplish this in a clear and orderly way, I
will proceed as follows:
1. “Citizenship, Undergraduate Education, and Great Books.” Delivered March 24th,
2023.
2. Ibid.
14
I. Explication of the nature of dialogue in itself.
II. Exposition of the fundamental issues of dialogue so
understood.
III. Review and critique of the opposing perspectives of
Plato and Karl Popper with respect to the nature and
issues of dialogue.
IV. Review and critique of Post’s own perspective, both
in itself and as through the lens of the broader debate on
dialogue explored in the previous section.
V. Application of my view of dialogue so developed to the
pedagogical philosophy of St. John’s.
VI. Conclusion.
I.
§1. The word dialogue is derived from the Greek διάλογος,
which is itself made up of διά (through) and λόγος
(typically and most relevantly word or reason).
Two interesting conclusions about dialogue proceed
immediately from this simple etymology. First, with
respect to διά, its meaning as through indicates the object
of predication’s nature as existing in a passive relation to
another object; i.e., that which is gone through must be
gone through by something other than and extrinsic to
itself. This implies that dialogue, whatever it is, exists not
as an independent and active entity in itself, nor as its own
end, but either as a medium through which some other
entity or activity operates and finds its being, or otherwise
as a means by which some other end is attained. To be
through λόγος indicates an object outside of that λόγος
which is the primary actor and/or end in relation to it.
Second, with respect to λόγος, its dual meaning as word or
reason shouldn’t be understood as a simple coincidence,
but as essential to the nature of dialogue itself. Words,
without the strict, universalizing discipline of reason,
would be nonsense; and if that’s what we wanted to
describe, then we’d be better off using words like διαλαλιά
(through babble) or διαἦχος (through noise). Likewise,
reason itself, without the interpersonal medium of words,
would be mute, dumb, unconveyable; and the necessity
of its conveyability in at least some sense is evident
from the meaning of διά, which it’s joined to. Again, if
we intended to describe something purely mentalistic
and self-contained, we'd be better off using a word like
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the Gadfly
διανόημα (through thought in itself ). Hence the fact that
λόγος, with its multiple connotations, is the word that’s
used, should lead us to the conclusion that the proper
sense in which dialogue must be taken will have those
respective connotations incorporated into and manifest
within itself. The λόγος of dialogue is at once rational
and the means by which the content of its rationality is
conveyed.
§2. This λόγος can be further divided into two distinct
but highly intertwined categories, which I’ll designate
as the syllogistic and the dialectical. By the syllogistic I
mean the formal mode of reasoning that consists in the
combination of a major and minor premise for the sake of
producing a necessary conclusion. This is the foundation
of all serious rational thought. By the dialectical I mean
the method or movement by which a manifold of
individual, often contradictory syllogisms are swept up
into a dynamic unity wherein each particular’s premises
and conclusions constantly interface with those of all
others in the endeavor to arrive at a greater, more holistic
understanding underpinned by yet fundamentally
greater than the sum of its parts. The individual steps of
the dialectical movement can be seen as in themselves
syllogistic, i.e., involving ground-level deductions based
on previously-given conclusions, and the final product
of that movement can usually take the form of a single,
perfect, culminating syllogism. Such a culmination,
however, is made possible only by our ability to compare,
contrast, comport, and ultimately unify syllogisms within
the context of an all-comprehending tapestry of rational
intercourse existing independently of any one individual
component, and, most importantly, in which “the result
of an untrue…knowledge must not be allowed to run way
into an empty nothing, but…grasped as the nothing of
that from which it results—a result which contains what
was true in the preceding knowledge.”3 This is the kind
of dialectic championed by Socrates throughout Plato’s
dialogues, which Barr describes as “something precious
close to perfection,”4 Sachs as “something that the greatest
of philosophers have all talked about and practiced,”5 and
Plotinus as “the precious part of Philosophy.”6
3. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, §87 (trans. Miller).
4. “Notes on Dialogue” (1968), p. 2.
5. “The Heart of the Program” (2004), p. 3.
6. Enneads, I.3.6 (trans. MacKenna-Page).
7. I.e., the Laches.
8. I.e., the Republic.
September 25, 2023
§3. A further aspect of dialogue’s general nature demands
explication. We’ve already seen that διά’s conjunction
with λόγος indicates that this λόγος must act primarily as
a medium or means for something extrinsic to itself. But
this, in conjunction with the dialectical nature present
within that λόγος, leads inevitably to the conclusion that
dialogue must be social. It’s possible for dialectic to be
conducted by a single individual, since its very nature
implies the comprehension of syllogistic multiplicity under
a greater unifying rational principle, i.e., the mind itself.
But the fact that dialogue involves not the dialectical in
itself but the dialectical as an intermediate implies that it
is simply the mode of and occasion for the interconnection
of multiple minds. This is, again, why the meaning of
λόγος qua word is so important: it’s only through such
that the intercommunication of minds that dialogue’s διά
so obviously demands can actually take place, or, in other
words, that the content of the one’s rationality can be
transferred to that of the other, and vice versa, for the sake
of a greatly enriched dialectical process shared by both at
once.
§4. This is dialogue qua medium; but dialogue qua means
(to an extrinsic end), within the context of the social nature
just described, remains as variable as the possible occasions
and uses of dialogue as such a medium. It’s this fact that
makes dialogue so versatile, so useful in so many different
situations: dialogue is only the mechanism by which the
ultimate object of its dialectic is pursued, and this object
can be anything that its participants want it to be. So
Socrates and his interlocutors seek out the true nature of
Courage in one dialogue7 and that of Justice in another8,
and a healthy democratic body calmly deliberates over the
merits and faults of a manifold of policies with the intent
of determining the efficacy of each, and also at the same
time over those of the overarching political values and ends
informing and directing all such policies. In every case the
actual goal of a dialogue is outside of itself, and if that goal is
ever definitively reached, then it, whose being is constituted
by its pursuit, will negate itself in its own completion.
§5. All this being established, I finally define dialogue in
and of itself as the dialectical process conducted by two or
more persons through the medium of rational discourse for
the sake of an end extrinsic to that process.
II.
§1. Dialogue so understood, however, immediately runs
into serious real-world issues. To begin with, its threefold
15
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nature (i.e., the syllogistic, the dialectical, and the
social) necessitates a threefold discipline, or more
exactly a submission to the necessary conditions of
each that must be met in order for the whole to be
realized concretely. The syllogistic demands that the
formal structure of its own logic is carefully followed,
the dialectical demands that all the content of such
rigorously-structured syllogisms is kept in continually
graceful and well-balanced motion, and the social
demands that all persons intending to participate in
such motion are shown the respect and consideration
that they, both as contributors and as human beings,
are inalienably entitled to. But “the laws of nature,” as
Hobbes observes, “...of themselves, without the terror of
some power to cause them to be observed, are contrary
to our natural passions…[a]nd covenants,without the
sword, are but words and of no strength.”9,1⁰ Since,
then, we’ve already determined that dialogue has no
such power, it follows that it’s incapable of actually
enforcing its own rules.
§2. This naturally leads to the implication that dialogue,
left simply to its inherently defenseless self, will provide
the very grounds for its own self-contradiction,
subversion, and destruction. An absolutely,
unqualifiedly free dialogue will almost always allow
an individual participant to shirk the discipline(s)
essential to its being, and this initial violation, since
left entirely unchecked, almost invariably leads to the
total denigration and dissolution of the originallyposited dialogue itself. This naturally causes it to take
the form of a worthless and belligerent chaos—the
opposite of everything that dialogue and its dialectic is
and should be. Barr calls this self-engendered antithesis
the “eristic,”11 derived from ἔρῐς (conflict or discord).
Moreover, if dialogue in and of itself, i.e., unqualifiedly
free dialogue, is seen to be defenseless to the point of
September 25, 2023
self-contradiction and self-subversion, then the ultimate
efficacy and stability of all systems founded upon it must
be called seriously into question.
III.
§1. Perhaps no one ever grasped the essence of this fatal
flaw more clearly and sought to rectify it more decisively
than Plato himself. “Too much freedom,” he reflects,
seems to change into nothing but too much slavery, both
for private man and city.”12 This agrees perfectly with our
own understanding of the existential threat to dialogue
contained within its own content—or, maybe more
precisely, its lack of actual, active content, of ἐντελέχεια
(self-preserving being). The eristic that proceeds
naturally from the inherent impotency of dialogue’s
dialectic is tyrannical in that it, upon the very basis of
a totally unrestricted mode of political organization,
itself constitutes that mode’s annihilation—it plunges
all members into a hostile free-for-all in which only the
strongest(-willed) may “prevail.” Hence Barr correctly
takes Thrasymachus, “whose purpose [in the dialogue]
is to win points and to win applause,” as an eristical
antithesis to the always-courteous Socrates, whose own
purpose is simply “to try, through dialectical discussion…
to understand better the essential nature of justice.”13
§2. Now if “the greatest and most savage slavery” proceeds
naturally “out of the extreme of freedom,” then the
obvious thing to do in order to best preserve the actual
benefits produced by freedom would seem, as it did to
Plato, to be to create bounds for it, to qualify it so that
the eristical-tyrannical elements which would otherwise
ferment within it are eliminated or kept at bay. For
Plato, this in practice means the active reproach or nonallowal of things such as harmful music15 and poetry16
or heresy and blasphemy17—anything that (at least in
his own opinion), if allowed to go unimpeded in society,
9. Leviathan, p. 99 (Britannica Great Books edition, Fuller version).
10. I feel justified in making use of this passage despite the fact that the term “laws of nature” is alien to my own argument because it’s clear that such laws consist essentially
in the same kind of reason that’s absolutely essential to it. As Hobbes explains in Pt. I, ch. XIV (p. 86) of the Leviathan, “[a] law of nature, lex naturalis, is a precept, or general
rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same, and to omit that by which he
thinketh it may be best preserved.” Obviously the broader contexts of our arguments are different, but the sense in which we’re thinking about reason in itself here turns out to
be quite similar.
11. See “Notes on Dialogue,” pp. 2-3.
12. Republic, VIII.564a (trans. Bloom).
13. “Notes on Dialogue,” p. 3.
14. Republic, VIII.564a.
15. See Laws, II.659c-660a, III.700a-701c (trans. Griffith-Schofield) & Republic, III.400a-403c.
16. See Laws, II.659c-660a & Republic, X.607b-608b.
17. See Laws, X.
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will naturally cause society to degenerate into the
anarchical freedom that flings itself into tyranny at the
first opportunity. Obviously we, as modern and more
culturally enlightened people living in the real world,
don’t need to go as far as Plato did in the strictures he
proposed. But the innermost kernel of his perspective,
viz., that an absolutely free social organization must be
conditionally closed in order to preserve the true good
of its own freedom and to prevent it from becoming
entirely closed through self-engendered collapse, seems
not simply worthy of serious consideration but correct
outright. This is shown by the force of all the preceding
arguments.
§3. Plato is, of course, not without his detractors. Chief
among these is Karl Popper, who coined the nowfamous term paradox of tolerance in the astonishingly
uncharitable critique of Plato featured in his Open
Society and its Enemies18. For Popper, this paradox,
whose maxim is that “[u]nlimited tolerance must
lead to the disappearance of tolerance,”19 is used by
Plato to justify an unconscionable regime that is
“fundamentally identical with”20 totalitarianism. “The
enemies of freedom,” he claims, “have always charged its
defenders with subversion,”21 and therefore a genuinely
free society must never resort to such justifications,
whatever the cost.
§4. As an alternative to Plato’s program, Popper
advances an ideology he calls “protectionism.”
Although having “nothing to do with the policy of
strict non-intervention (often, but not quite correctly,
called ‘laissez faire,’”22 protectionism nevertheless
promotes a highly free society in which the state has as
18. See The Open Society and its Enemies, n. 7.4, p. 546.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid, p. 87.
21. Ibid, p. 88.
22. Ibid, p. 112.
23. Ibid, p. 6.
24. Ibid, n. 7.4, p. 546.
25. Ibid, p. 109.
26. The ridiculous idea that the Platonic society is somehow absolutely or unconditionally restrictive is instantly refuted by the passages given in nn. 15-17, as
well as, for instance, the entire character of the Ion. As explained in III.§2, Plato
isn’t opposed to all poetry, music, etc., or with them in themselves as art forms,
but only with what he considers their grave social misuse and abuse. On the
contrary, the qualified use of such art forms, as directed to the betterment or at the
very least not to the detriment of the πόλις is approved of and expounded upon
throughout the Republic and the Laws. And again, we obviously don’t need to advocate for the precise degree of limitation that Plato does, but only the underlying
rationale that informs such limitation; and, in the current context, the fact that all
of this is a matter of degree at all is enough to effectively challenge Popper.
September 25, 2023
little influence as possible on the education and dialogue
of its members. This, and Popper’s perspective as a whole
on this matter, is founded ultimately upon his conviction
that “[the] story that democracy is not to last forever is as
true, and as little to the point, as the assertion that human
reason is not to last forever, since only democracy provides
an institutional framework that permits reform without
violence, and so the use of reason in political matters.”23
§5. There are three major problems with Popper’s position
so understood.
First, and most fundamentally, it is indistinct from that
of Plato’s—or, to put it another way, the very essence of
Plato’s is contained latently within his own. Popper himself
explains, in response to the Platonic paradox of tolerance,
that he advocates for “a government that rules according
to the principles of equalitarianism and protectionism;
that tolerates all who are prepared to reciprocate, i.e.
who are tolerant.” But this in itself is an admission that
an absolutely free society, being incapable of even this
noble kind of reciprocal intolerance, is not at all feasible,
and therefore that it’s necessary to impose some sort of
subjective, external conditions upon that society in order
to ensure its continued well-being; and this is exactly the
view that we’ve seen Plato to propound. It’s all well and
good for Popper to talk about how “it is…difficult to
determine exactly the degree of freedom that can be left to
the citizens without endangering that freedom.” But the
fact that the Platonic society is by no means absolutely but
only conditionally restrictive, and that such restriction is
derived from the exact same rationale of the restrictions of
the Popperian/protectionist society, necessarily indicates
that the relevant differences between those societies are
themselves only of degree and not essence.
Second, Popper himself admits that it’s entirely possible
for the restrictions that his own protectionist sensibility
is willing to sign off on—which, again, are made on
essentially the same basis as the Platonic belief that he
abhors—to be incapable of preventing the total collapse of
democratic society, and moreover that he sees no serious
problem with this. He writes:
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[S]hould he [the protectionist democrat] live
to see the day when the majority vote destroys…
democratic institutions, then this sad experience
will tell him only that there does not exist a
foolproof method of avoiding tyranny. But it need
not weaken his decision to fight tyranny, nor will it
expose his theory as inconsistent.27
Thus Popper’s democrat, incapable of simply
introducing some further reasonable limitations on
manifestly dangerous elements threatening national
dialogue in order to actually preserve it in its essence,
finds himself in the ridiculous situation of proving
himself as the oh-so-noble champion of democracy by
allowing it to die in front of him.
Third and finally, Popper fails to recognize that,
although “only democracy provides an institutional
framework that permits reform without violence, and
so the use of reason in political matters,”28 the very
establishment and preservation of that institutional
framework requires a political impetus outside of such
reason. Again, reason, according to Popper himself, is
“an intellectual link between man and man, a medium
of universal understanding”29; but we know well enough
by now that such a medium is unable to preserve itself
on its own and therefore equally unable to preserve any
of the institutions that are built upon it. True dialogue
is of course greatly valuable for society, but the actual
preservation of its integrity, i.e., the guarantee that
all its participants submit to its necessary threefold
discipline, is necessarily not due to dialogue in itself
but the subjective, partisan valuation and enforcement
of it by an extrinsic and unilateral power.
From these considerations it’s clear that the intolerance
of intolerance, as enunciated by Plato, is entirely
necessary and right.
27. Ibid, p. 124.
28. Ibid, p. 6.
29. Ibid, p. 130.
30. “Citizenship, Undergraduate
Education, and Great Books.”
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
18
37. Robert C. Post, “Managing Deliberation: The Quandary of Democratic
Dialogue,” Ethics, p. 654.
38. Alexander Meiklejohn, Political
Freedom: The Constitutional Powers
of the People (1965), p. 7
39. Robert C. Post, “Between Governance and Management: The History
and Theory of the Public Forum,”
UCLA Law Review 34 (1987): 17131835.
September 25, 2023
IV.
§1. With all these observations at our backs, let’s finally
return to Post’s own thinking.
Post’s primary concern throughout his lecture, and—in
his view—the cause of “the hell created by mistrust and
polarization”30 we’re unfortunately experiencing today,
is “extreme partisanship.”31 Since this extreme partisan
attitude refuses “to wheel and to deal”32 in the traditional
way with those across the political aisle, it’s antithetical
to the very nature and project of liberal democracy. “We
cannot enter politics,” he argues, “without encountering
those who disagree with us, and perhaps who disagree
with us radically,”33 and our political agonists cannot
be thus encountered without the mutual recognition of
“something in common that’s more important than [our]
disagreement [i.e., the very system of political dialogue
now in place].”34 “Politics is not like war—politics is the
art of living together despite differences. In war, we seek to
exterminate the other; but in politics, we abjure violence…
we seek to win while remaining bound to the rules to the
law that defines appropriate political engagement.”35 Since
the fundamental rules and ideals of liberal democracy
as an institution therefore transcend all other possible
disagreements that may occur within or upon the basis of
them, “political ideology” itself for Post “counts for much,
but it does not count…cannot count for everything.”36
§2. Further valuable information concerning Post’s
perspective on this matter can be extracted from his
1993 paper “Managing Deliberation: The Quandary
of Democratic Dialogue.” In this wonderful paper, Post
dedicates himself to the analysis and refutation of what he
calls “the ‘collectivist theory’ of the First Amendment,”37
which consists in the belief that the Amendment’s
ultimate goal is not personal autonomy in and of itself
but the ensurance of “the voting of wise decisions,”38
and therefore also in the belief that the conditional
limitation and moderation of public dialogue is not only
constitutionally permissible but necessary and good in
itself.
Post begins his treatment of this theory by observing
that it’s basically “managerial,”39 in the sense that “the
[political] meeting is regarded as an instrumental
organization designed to achieve important and specific
social ends, and its rules and regulations are deemed
constitutionally justified insofar as they are necessary for
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the attainment of these ends.”40 Public discourse, for the
collectivist, is like a town meeting—and just as a town
meeting, with its clear rules for appropriate language,
brevity, general decorum, etc., “is free to resolve as it
wishes items properly presented for decision, but…
is not free to abandon the shared assumptions of
function and procedure that constitute it,”41 so it’s
only reasonable that national discourse should have an
analogously moderated order for the sake of producing
a politically and intellectually enriched polity capable
of self-preservation and beneficial democratic decisionmaking. This position seems sensible on its face; Post
is quick to point out, however, that although such a
moderated order is perfectly suitable for something as
small-scale and limited in scope as a town meeting, its
application to national discourse would necessitate that
“the framework of democratic decision making remains
fixed and beyond the reach of citizen self-government.”42
And yet this must imply a State that “stands in
contradiction to the central project of collective selfdetermination”43 insofar as it “displaces that project for
the sake of heteronomously imposed norms.”44 If such
a contradiction exists, then it must obviously follow
that “the democratic function of public discourse is
inconsistent with government regulations that suppress
speech within public discourse for the sake of imposing
a specific version of national identity.”45 Hence Post
concludes this argument with a warning: “[i]f we create
organizations of heteronomy, we shall all, sooner or
later, be condemned to inhabit them. We shall become
the subjects of a power not our own.”
§3. I disagree with Post’s position so understood in two
fundamental ways.
First, it appears to me that he, like Popper, does not
satisfyingly address the basic existential problem that
dialogue of any kind, and especially dialogue qua
political discourse, faces in either his lecture or his
above-examined paper. An absolutely free dialogue,
again, has no means of actually defending itself against
the anti-dialogical behavior and sentiments that will
40. Robert C. Post, “Managing Deliberation: The Quandary of Democratic
Dialogue,” Ethics, p. 658.
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid, p. 659.
43. Ibid, p. 660.
44. Ibid, p. 661.
45. Ibid, p. 665.
46. Ibid, p. 678.
September 25, 2023
inevitably come onto the scene. In such cases the survival
of that dialogue, i.e., of democratic society, can only ever
be attributed to some power or agent extrinsic to the realm
of dialogue itself. This is necessarily the case because, if it
were intrinsic to dialogue, i.e., only a certain conviction
or position within a conversation, then it would again
be incapable of seriously dealing with something that
is antithetical to the very existence of that conversation,
and thus that has no interest in following any of its
necessary rules. Reason is effective only against itself.
The most rational and beautifully expressed argument in
the world is worthless when met with irrational or antirational forces; and this is exactly the situation we face in
America today. If we fail to fully acknowledge this fact,
then we do so at our own peril. Therefore some active and
determinate moderating power other than dialogue itself,
i.e., a heteronomous power, is necessary.
Second, it seems as though Post doesn’t appreciate that
liberal-democratic society, and the ideology upon which it’s
founded, is no less fundamentally partisan, no less a single
subjectively-decided mode of political organization, than
any other. Actually, he doesn’t even appear to be fully
conscious of this fact. His claim that “political ideology…
counts for much, but it does not count…cannot count for
everything” is especially telling. By phrasing the matter
in this way, it’s clear that he doesn’t consider liberal
democracy to be ideologically-founded in its own right.
Instead of perceiving that the very valuation of democratic
dialogue, i.e., the conviction that such is a beneficial
social practice that should be introduced and abided by,
is itself profoundly ideological, and is therefore partisan in
the sense of being unable to coexist with fundamentally
contrary ideologies within the same society, Post appears
to view the conventional mode of liberal-democratic
discourse as non- or supra-ideological, and in fact as some
kind of universal, impartial, value-neutral substratum
upon which ideologies then grow and interrelate. This is a
common and manifestly false perspective. The ideologies
which do genuinely exist and coexist within the context
of liberal-democratic dialogue only do so because they are
all fundamentally on the same side as it—because they are
only minor permutations of one major partisan ideology,
and are therefore capable of actual intercourse and
compromise within the context of that major ideology.
Hence, for instance, different parties are capable of
coexisting peacefully with each other because (or maybe
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insofar as) both fundamentally agree with and submit
to the overarching ideology of liberal democracy itself.
The same principle also holds for things like different
(non-fanatical) religions and cultural backgrounds.
This is, in fact, exactly why multiculturalism works,
and is one of the real virtues of our current mode of
political organization. But the same is not and cannot
be the case between, for instance, liberal democracy
and fascism. There can be no common ground, no
substratum, no mutually recognized principle, no
friendship, no dialogue between these two. They are
utterly irreconcilable, and are thus in a perpetual state of
war with each other. And it’s this fact, viz., that fascism
is so morally repugnant and so violently irreconcilable
with the ideals of our own and of any civilized society,
that makes its exclusion, suppression, and elimination
reasonable, necessary, and just. “Extreme partisanship”
in this sense is therefore not only not bad in itself
but actually the foundation upon which a genuinely
tolerant, cosmopolitan, and dialogue-rich society must
rest.
V.
§1. Viewing the kind of dialogue featured in the St.
John’s Program as a model or microcosm of dialogue in
broader American society is a long-standing tradition,
not the least for figures like Post. We may now do the
same by applying some of the general insights we’ve
arrived at to dialogue as it manifests specifically at St.
John’s.
§2. The ultimate goal of our education at St. John’s,
and of liberal education generally, is to prepare us for
the acquisition of personal moral excellence. This is
obvious by the fact that it’s clearly neither erudition in
itself (if it is, then why would the College deemphasize
grades, and why would we bother involving ourselves so
heavily with the messiness and uncertainty of our kind
of dialogue at all?) nor any kind of technical skill (if it
is, then why not just go into STEM or trade school?).
Nor is our education even capable of making us good on
its own; making anyone good is probably impossible,
47. Letters From a Stoic, Letter
LXXXVIII (trans. Campbell).
48. Eva Brann, “A Manifesto for
Liberal Education” (2015).
49. For a more detailed account of
this, see my essay “What’s the Good
20
of a Liberal Education?” in Gadfly
XLIV.1.
50. Stringfellow Barr, “Education:
Now and to Come: Liberal Education:
A Common Adventure,” Autumn,
1955, Vol. 15, No. 3, p. 306.
September 25, 2023
and even if it is, one look at the character of our student
body shows that it’s most certainly not possible by this
means. Instead, liberal education is a worthy practice
only insofar as it “prepares the mind for the acquisition
of moral values.”47 This is accomplished by the student’s
sincere engagement with the trivium and quadrivium,
which we study most of at St. John’s, and, specifically at
St. John’s itself, with the Great Books and the dialogue
through which we approach them. By submitting
ourselves wholeheartedly to the dialogue of the classroom
in the investigation of “what is elementary in all subject
matters,”48 we’re slowly given the inner tools by which we
might become more virtuous and fully realized human
beings; and this is something infinitely more valuable to
ourselves and to society than simple scholarly or technical
training.49
§3. An important and interesting distinction needs to
be made with respect to dialogue’s place in this system,
however. We’ve already observed (I.§4) that dialogue qua
means is simply the mechanism by which the ultimate
object of its dialectic is pursued. If this is true, however,
then it’s clear that the goal of St. John’s is not the goal
of dialogue itself. Its goal is to fully understand its
object; our goal, conversely, is to use the pursuit of that
understanding as a method of social (the third and most
characteristic nature of dialogue) and thereby ultimately
of moral discipline, regardless of whether we actually end
up understanding the object itself or not. This is why Barr
writes that “[t]he [great] books really are ‘to chew on,’ not
to master.”50 It is not mastery in itself, but the discipline of
our communal, dialogical endeavor toward mastery that
constitutes the essence of our education.
§4. The fact that dialogue is used simply as a moral
discipline rather than as an instrument for ascertaining
intellectual truth puts an even greater emphasis on
the necessity of actually preserving that dialogue. If
classes are allowed to be constantly derailed by the
Thrasymachuses among us, then we aren’t just deprived
of a good conversation, but of the very content of our
own education. It’s possible that the desperate struggle to
reestablish order can itself be educational, but this must
be true only in very specific circumstances and is in any
case not what should be generally accepted. What we’ve
already said concerning the necessity of an extrinsic,
unilateral moderating power capable of enforcing the
threefold discipline of the dialogue while not interfering
�πόλις
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with any of its actual syllogistic and dialectical content
thus holds especially true here; and this is, in fact,
the exact role tutors should play in the classroom.
The tutor’s purpose is “not,” of course, “to give
information, nor is it to produce the ‘right’ opinion
or interpretation”51; but this doesn’t at all contradict
their proper activity of ensuring that dialogue remains
“cooperative and respectful, not competitive,”52 i.e.,
of ensuring that the eristical is never able to get a
considerable foothold. The St. John’s classroom must
be a place where all students feel unconditionally
safe and heard. Thus while the actual subject-matter
of the students’ dialogue should rarely be interfered
with, the structure within which that dialogue must
necessarily take place should be very actively and
jealously guarded. In summary, tutors should “guide
the conversation.”53 Likewise, good students should
commit themselves scrupulously to the discipline of
dialogue and actively seek to preserve and promote its
necessary structure as much as possible through their
words and conduct, understanding that it’s only by
means of such submission to its strict order that the
freedom promised by the Program can actually be
acquired.54
VI.
§1. To recapitulate: my main contentions are 1) that
dialogue is not an end in itself, but only the medium
and/or means of something extrinsic, 2) that dialogue,
being in itself incapable of self-preservation, requires a
similarly extrinsic power in order to defend it from the
eristical and to enforce its own necessary conditions,
3) that Plato’s position on democratic dialogue is
fundamentally correct, while those of Popper and Post
are fundamentally flawed, 4) that modes of political
organization based on democratic dialogue are in
themselves every bit as partisan and ideological as any
others precisely because of their valuation of dialogue,
and must be esteemed and defended accordingly, and
5) that the protection of dialogue as it exists both in
American life in general and at St. John’s in particular
51. Statement of the Program, p. 5.
52. “Learning Through Conversation
at St. John’s College,” 2015.
53. Ibid.
54. For a more thorough account of
this position, see my essay “Thoughts
on the St. John’s Class” in Gadfly
XLIV.4.
55. “Citizenship, Undergraduate
Education, and Great Books.”
September 25, 2023
necessitates the active, unilateral restriction of things
antithetical and irreconcilably opposed to its very nature
and being.
§2. I’m aware that these contentions will be very
unpopular. But it’s my sincere concern for the state of
our country, and my sincere love for our Program here,
that compels me to put them forward strongly anyway.
I have no interest in flattering myself, my colleagues, my
tutors, or my fellow citizens with the unrigorous and even
complacent appraisals of dialogue that I unfortunately
think have become very common. In fact, I think that
seriously examining and challenging the philosophical
foundations which those appraisals often seem based
on is the truest way of respecting both myself and them.
At the very least, I think I’ve done a Johnnie-like thing
by questioning such a sacrosanct ideal of our country
and College, and I can only hope that, in doing so, I’ve
managed to be even the littlest bit like those great figures
of our Program insofar as they, as Post rightly celebrates,
“display both respect for their interlocutors and at the
same time the determination to assert their own ideas.”55
Marble head of a philosopher,
1st or 2nd century CE
21
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πόλις
September 25, 2023
Getting Personal
with the Program
Tuyết-Nhi Nghiêm
It’s a new year, and a new start ‒ certainly for freshmen, but
upperclassmen should not think themselves excluded or
immune from beginnings. The first questions I long to ask
everyone I meet on this campus are: If you have chosen to
come to this college, why? What do you believe the core
purpose of the program is? Will you allow yourself to be
changed?
I suppose it isn’t fair to ask so many questions of
someone who is still a stranger without answering them
myself, but I’m not sure that those answers are clear to
my own heart yet. I can tell you this: I fought for three
hours with my father, shouting and sobbing, to come
here. Others with strict, traditional parents, especially
those from less stable foreign countries, may understand
this without further explanation. I had been accepted
into a prestigious, competitive, well-known school for
computational neuroscience, setting me up to graduate
with plenty of internships under my belt and a well-paying
job lined up. In my father’s eyes, I was throwing away the
small fortune he had painstakingly saved since before my
conception to support a child’s full education. I was, and
still am, incredibly privileged to have even been able to
consider coming to this college. Because of this continued
pressure on me by practically all of the adults in my life to
justify studying here rather than a more traditional school,
made worse by the fact that the school is on the other
side of the country from what I knew as home and thus
necessitated abandoning not only my parents’ dreams for
me but abandoning them physically as well, the questions
of what the heart of the program is really meant to teach
are ever-present in my mind.
I spend a lot of time with the Program ‒ in classes,
obviously, but elsewhere as well. I am trying to understand
It truly, and each time I reach for it, this old fox twists and
turns out of my grasp. Every once in a while, the Program
and I, butting heads once again, walk down the grassy
hill to the small docks. Under the clear stars and over the
creek’s restless whispers of “πάντα ῥεῖ,” I beg the Program
once again to give me answers. What are we doing here?
What is it all for, and was everything I sacrificed to be here
22
Students Crowd around a Tutor during a
Dissection of a Sheep Heart in Junior Laboratory
even remotely worth it? Can the Program save anyone?
How can it be that a Program which I want to believe is so
perfect leaves us as such imperfect people?
None of us came here as perfect students or perfect
Program readers, obviously ‒ even less so as perfect
humans. Maybe no such reality exists for any of the ideals.
We have to be meant to learn something, though; it can’t
be just talk without growth. It is clear that what we are
learning are not the languages in themselves, or calculus
for its own sake, and certainly not that plants contain fire.
The school promises to “make free human beings out of
children by means of books and a balance”. Can anyone
that can sophistically talk their way through anything then
be called free? If so, the college is merely producing tools
without guidance, which can bring evil to the world just
as readily as they may do good in it. If the Program is to be
seen as a good in this world ‒ which I believe is necessary
to justify its continued existence and the adoration that
many of us hold for it ‒ then it must leave us with some
guidance regarding what we should go out into the world
to do as well.
The obvious answer would be that dozens of our
readings center around ethics and virtue. These are
almost always my favorite readings, because they allow me
to believe that what we are doing on this beautiful little
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campus matters. They allow me to believe that after
my four years here, I will exit our bubble as a better
person. When I look around at all of these people I
love working together to understand texts that I love, I
catch a glimpse of what this place is meant for.
On the other hand, if I take a step back from my
attachment to these people I adore, I hesitate to say
that we have all been made better. So many of us,
myself included, still fall so short of the ideals of a
responsible citizen and individual that we have read
about. I am far less active and involved in various clubs
and activities than I ought to be, less learned in current
political happenings, and less frequent in bringing
people joy than I was in my past. I work far too much,
partially out of an overabundance of wanting to be
prepared for whatever may come my way and partially
due to a touch of avarice. Little dramas and gossips
still find hold here, even in what I believe is one of
the strongest communities that I have seen. We fail
in our responsibility to each other in tiny ways all the
time, evidenced by the frequent messes left behind in
common kitchens or after events. There are far more
extreme examples, too: our significant substance use
problem, most especially with smoking addiction and
its iron grip on our “campus culture,” even if we try to
brush it off as a joke; the continued malicious thefts of
food of people with medical conditions from common
kitchens, even after explanatory notes of the severity of
the crime were left; the theft of hundreds of dollars of
club equipment; the cases of sexual assault or greater
which are reported each year. These occurrences,
even if unique in specific details, I am sure are regular
occurrences generally in this college’s history. Perhaps
the nature of humans is too corrupt for any community
to be perfect ‒ again, perhaps ideals will never exist in
reality. The books that we read and the subjects we talk
about, however, are intended to work towards freeing
us from such things. We know better. We choose to do
worse. We spend years and years learning through the
Program, and we spit in its face again and again as we
go.
I wonder how many of us genuinely take the Program
seriously. The gravity of the Program, the weight of
what we have set out to do, hits me at times, but it is so
easy to let that fade away when I am preoccupied with
other things: work, fun, social conformity, etc. Perhaps
September 25, 2023
that means that it doesn’t really loom so large, or it would
naturally stay more present in our minds.
Every fiber of my being rejects this notion, however.
The Program has to be grand and life-changing, or else
I will never come to terms with my personal gripes with
it. I will never be able to forgive it for what I lost. More
specifically, I will never be able to forgive myself for my
futile foolishness. And so I need the Program to change
me. This school was not the most affordable, not the most
prestigious, not the most comfortable, not the easiest of
my options. I chose it anyway, believing that it could teach
me something that few other places could, in a way that no
other place could. It is the only reason I can conceive of to
come to a college so far off the beaten path and so contrary
to the conventional “wise choices” for higher education.
I hope that my fellow students share most of my
sentiments about our task at hand. The Program demands
so much of its students that entering into it without being
deeply passionate about and trusting in its power seems to
me as foolish as bailing a body of water which one does not
know the bounds of. But if we are all here for the same core
reason, and if we all want to grow through this Program,
shouldn’t we live and breathe it; not just by dedicating so
much time to it, but by holding it in our hearts as we decide
daily how to conduct ourselves in this world? Even if we
continue to fall short, at least we’re making small steps. At
least the weight of the Program is carried with us in some
sense, even if it is only the source of some guilt and not a
full change of actions. At least we can say that what we have
spent or will spend four years of our short lives studying
leads us to be better to each other, better to our community,
better to our world. This is perhaps not someone that every
college student can claim (certainly not finance majors).
The last question that I sometimes want to ask as a
part of my initial torrent of them, although I fear it coming
off as rudeness: If it is the case that you did not come here
ready, and more than that, desperate to be changed, then
why did you bother?
23
�the Gadfly
πόλις
From the President:
The Value of Civic
Engagement
Nora Demleitner
During the spring’s inauguration ceremony, I laid out
my vision for St. John’s College as a place that “sustains
its unique spirit and continues to set itself apart from
other institutions of higher education—and that we
keep leaning into our distinctive curriculum while
responding to the needs of our time, remaining relevant
for the next 100 years and beyond.” Part of that vision
includes championing “an atmosphere where students
have a strong sense of belonging, and they are set up for
success as participants in civic life and the workforce;
an environment where we are engendering responsible
citizenship and lifelong learning...”
I believe there may be no better way to accomplish
this than to support opportunities where students can be
of service to others. Since joining the college, I have been
continually impressed with the community volunteer
efforts of our students, many of which are longstanding,
such as Project Polity’s tutoring sessions for local Annapolis
youth, community cleanups and pantry drives. The Food
Recovery Network, a partnership between students and
staff of the dining hall, last year donated more than 2,500
pounds of food to Annapolis Light House, a homelessness
prevention center. Volunteering has also had its place on
campus, for example when tutors, students and staff team
up annually to create and maintain a campus rain garden
with native plants.
Beyond enhancing the College’s reputation in the
Annapolis community, these opportunities are a great
chance to make the program come alive. You can apply
skills such as listening and working together that are at the
core of our program’s pedagogy in the real world. You’ll
be amazed what you have learned and how applicable it is
to situations on and off campus. Civic participation also
provides opportunities to think about the values you read
about in the classroom – virtue, beauty, justice, friendship
– and how they relate to you as an individual, and the
greater community.
Being of service to others is a way of clarifying personal
values, finding purpose and meaning, and learning about
one’s place in the larger community. That civic engagement
can take many forms, such as the community service
examples above, but it can also mean getting involved in
a nonprofit foundation, or in support of a cause you are
passionate about. This sort of work can help you find your
strengths, perhaps even figure out a career path, and build
skills that will serve you throughout your lifetime.
I want you to know that the College sees what you are
doing – and we support it. If you have more ideas for ways
to serve the community, bring them forward. I regularly
interact with community organizations who ask for
Johnnie support because of the impressive way in which
you comport yourself. I couldn’t be prouder of all of your
community efforts, and they, along with the education
you receive here, are truly the foundation for a meaningful
life, meaningful work, and better world for us all.
Scott M. Buchanan Leading a Community Seminar
24
September 25, 2023
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πόλις
Advice on
Summer Vacation
Bennett Scott
Dear fools,
What is the divine truth of a summer vacation? The
hottest days of your youth spent rollerblading till your
knees bled, your knees burning as you jumped in the
over-chlorinated pool, the bug bites layered on the backs
of your knees distracting from your youthful four square
crushes. All those wonderful knee-oriented days are gone;
now your summer days are: working at the local coffee
shop, ripping on your vape out back with Pam (20 years
serving coffee and not once employee of the month), and
being hit on by men who are old enough to be your father
and apparently wouldn’t mind if they were. The nights are
filled with drinking and trying to be friends with people
you haven’t been friends with since high school and,
during a lucky witching hour or two, trying out some new
drug and gazing off into the distance of your car’s ceiling.
(If you’re new here: welcome, you’ll understand in about
three weeks.)
Let’s be frank with each other: it was a boring summer.
When people ask you what you did, you’re embarrassed.
Sure, you tripped acid for the first time, went on a date
with that 56 year old Italian mobster, and even managed
to rug-burn your knees, but it’s just not the same. You
know me, dear reader; I’ve always got a solution for you.
Lie. Just straight up lie about what you did this
summer. And not just one lie (coward), but as many as
you can juggle in that little sun-bleached head of yours:
To your Greek class, you spent the summer curing
cancer with unheard of new methods based on a
vision you had in a dream (that image of your ex-threetimes-removed partner surrounded by a halo of birds
repeating “Oogabooga” at you over and over had to mean
something!).
To your math class, you worked as a bouncer/
bartender/much-requested-but-rarely-seen-dancer at a
strip club by the name of The Swooch’s Gentlewoman’s
Club (you, however, went by the name Bach It Up and
exclusively danced to his Suites in Major) where you led
the newest trends in seduction (not to let the cat out of
the bag, but it involves putting a cat in a bag).
September 25, 2023
To your tutors, you were hiking the Appalachian
trail with nothing but a sawn off toothbrush and the
clothes on your back in pursuit of a spiritual experience
(the spirit has spoken: you are to become a goat herder
and Christian rapper).
To your “we ate once together” friend, you may have
murdered three people or maybe you didn’t there isn’t any
definitive evidence guess you’ll never know, Jeremy.
To your crush, you (weren’t doing anything, never
have a crush on anyone at St. John’s College it’s a horrible
idea, we’re all idiots, romantic idiots who’ll eat you alive
without realizing it or very much realizing it and you
won’t know what you’d like to believe as you lay crying on
Augustine’s Confessions).
And when everything threatens to come crashing down
at a party with everyone there, you’ll realize reconciling
the timelines is the most entertaining part: “No no no
don’t worry sorry I forgot to tell you all the full story of
my summer so yes I was working at Swoochie’s at night
while I was curing cancer during the day and going to the
Appalachians on Tuesdays where I might have murdered
one person and murdered the other two at the club during
a bar fight and buried them in the lot out back (4571 E.
Plimpton Street, Detroit MI 48127) which is now also
where I’ll be setting up my combination goat-field and
church/soundstage, yeah it was really a great summer huh
and I know I’m so cool and hot and have lyme disease
from the hikes so don’t you want me huh don’t want to
date me now Mr.—(Shush. Don’t have a crush at SJC).
Remember: Dead men tell no tales (hidden
underneath a thick layer of pepper and dead fish in the
dirt lot where you last saw your mobster boyfriend), but
you sure can. So why not tell interesting ones?
—B.S. (Not for BSing)
Students Sitting in Sailboats on College Creek
25
�πόλις
the Gadfly
September 25, 2023
Neotibicen canicularis: Dog-Day Cicada
100 decibels? Are you sick-a-da noise?
Louis Rosenberg & Vivian Miyakawa
It’s another beautiful day on campus. The weather is
perfect for reading, with soft hints of sunlight glancing
through the trees, and not a single gust of wind to disturb
the pages of a busy student. Settling down, freshmen crack
open The Odyssey while seniors tackle the works of Hegel.
On this lovely afternoon, productivity comes easy. A lull
falls over the quad as everyone settles in, reveling in the
peaceful simplicity of studying outside.
It starts with a hum. A simple background noise, akin
to the gentle buzzing of honeybees or the quiet whir of
fluorescent lights. It blends in with the rustling of the
trees, hardly noticeable to anyone who isn’t seeking it out.
Slowly, the humming builds. Students are pressed to pay
attention to their readings, attempting to tune out the
now obnoxious drone of continuous noise. The buzzing
sounds frantic now, getting louder by the second and
showing no signs of stopping. An irritated Johnnie whips
out their phone, grumbling about cicadas. In what may
well be a futile attempt to guilt-trip these singing insects,
they navigate to a website that records noise levels. As soon
as the page is opened, the screen spits out an outrageous
number. One hundred decibels. The very same volume
as using a lawnmower or operating a jackhammer. As the
students reluctantly retreat to their dorms for a quieter
study space, they’ll grumble these questions to themselves
as they trek up the stairs: How on earth can such small
bugs make such loud noises? And why are they absolutely
everywhere?
Annual cicadas can be spotted throughout the fall at
various points in their adult life-cycle: singing from the
trees, disrupting classrooms in Mellon, and dying on the
ground. These cicadas are distinct from their periodical
brethren both in their lifecycle (they emerge every year
while periodical cicadas emerge every 13 or 17 years) and
their appearance. Species that emerge annually are larger
than periodical cicadas and possess relatively wider bodies.
Their carapaces are generally patterned in various shades
of green, brown, and black; their eyes are black or brown
rather than the bright red of periodical species. Many
annual species closely resemble each other, however, and
identification of specific species is further complicated by
26
the significant variation within each species’ patterns.
One of the more common annual species in Maryland
is the dog-day cicada, N. canicularis. They come in three
primary color morphs: green with black markings, brown
with black markings, and predominately black. They are
smaller than some other species which may otherwise
be mistaken for them, such as the lyrical cicada, but are
still fairly large insects at 1.5 to 2 inches in length. The
adult form of cicadas is the most easily recognizable to
the routine observer, as the nymphs spend all of their time
underground. Adults begin emerging in mid-summer
and fly, mate, lay eggs in plant stems, and yes, sing, until
early October. Though each year will lead to at least some
new adult dog-day cicadas emerging (hence the common
reference to “annual cicadas”), each individual of this
species is thought to have a life-cycle lasting around 3
years.
The characteristic singing of cicadas is among the
loudest of any insect species, often building to more
than 100 decibels, which is comparable in volume to a
lawnmower. Their song is used to attract females or, for
some species, repel rival males. Sound is produced from
cicadas’ tymbals, which are located in a cavity between
their first and second body segments. When the tymbal
is vibrated by a cicada’s abdominal muscles, it produces
the start of the song, and the sound is amplified to its
extreme volume by resonation chambers in the thorax and
abdomen. In part because of the variation between songs
of different N. canicularis specimens, it is suspected that
they often hybridize with other cicadas in the genus. Still,
dedicated listeners can often still identify cicadas based
solely on the sound of their chirping. Next time you’re out
on the quad, you should give it a try.
Sources:
https://bugguide.net/node/view/12461
https://lanwebs.lander.edu/faculty/rsfox/invertebrates/tibicen.html
https://extension.umd.edu/resource/cicadas-maryland
“The Evolutionary Relationships of 17 and 13 Year Cicadas,” R. D. Alexander
and T. E. Moore (https://orthsoc.org/sina/c700lam62.pdf ).
�πόλις
the Gadfly
September 25, 2023
The Betrothed
Luke Briner
I.
As I walk weeping through the shaded vale
That seeks to swallow me in arid night
And would but for that faint-aetheric light
Which rare and sweet illumes the somber pale,
May I keep tight this consecrated veil
Wrapped ‘round me, and, so wrapped, obscure the sight
Alike of extern eyes and false delight
And fix my view above by its curtail.
O veil, true cultus of obscurity!
Beloved, I desire to be unknown
Unto this world and all its surety
If only I one day before your Throne
Might find my peace at last, and if to me
You will vouchsafe eternally your own.
II.
Allow me, then, to breathe in the perfume
Of your true Name, ambrosial as the flowers
Of Lebanon or henna-braided bowers
Of fair Ein-Gedi in resplendent bloom,
And, so enrapt, with joy myself consume
In fainted love of that enthralling Power
Which in you flows innate and from you showers
Upon your servants’ Idyll-famished gloom;
Ah, that I might, my Perfect One, return
My borrowed fragrance to your native Seat
From which my second race made sad adjourn
And back to which I long now to retreat,
And knelt before you, solemn and supern,
With it in trembling awe anoint your feet!
III.
See how my spirit cries out for your reign,
Sublime as that of David, who through force
Of Prodigy by Providence endorsed
Made Israel’s two Kingdoms his domain,
Or Pallas, Genius-Sired of Heaven’s Plane,
Who, condescending from her lofty Course,
Contrived by puissant Wisdom to enforce
Upon her namesake State her golden Rein;
As they exalted came to the command
Of subjects bound in gracious unity,
May you with sovereign soul and sceptered hand
Deign to reside triumphant over me,
And I, thus made your own new-conquered land,
Become at last by your yoke truly free.
IV.
With Longing such as this I ceaseless pray
In silent speech, my gaze cast humbly down
By meditations cumbrous as the gown
Which curtains me from the encroaching fray
And keeps me on the much-benighted Way
That leads to and is lumined by your Crown
Whose sacred shine dispels all mortal frown
And hints the dawn of amaranthine Day;
As I make my way down that lustral aisle,
Good egress of this sad-appointed place,
Allow me unto you to reconcile
My heart, so long unworthy of embrace,
So I might look, at the end of my trial,
At last with eyes upraised upon your Face.
V.
O Face, which with a smile can comprehend
The nameless ecstasies of the Divine—
O Face, whose contemplation is a wine
With which no worldly spirit could contend!
Wrapped now in your own arms do I transcend
All past-held pain, all reason for repine,
And, finding in you all that was once mine,
Achieve by new Beginning my true End.
Before I was, you Were, and but for you
I’d have no life, nor have desire thereof;
For unto you and you alone I flew,
My only wish to find you here Above,
And joined again in Consummation true
To melt away in your all-perfect Love.
27
�πόλις
the Gadfly
September 25, 2023
The SJC Mystery #1: The Stone
Bennett "The Stone" Scott
In middle of the journey of our days
I found that I was in a darksome wood—
The right road lost and vanished in the maze.
I live by one rule: never do anything that could start a
horror movie. It singlehandedly prevents all manner of
foolish decisions: sex in the woods at night: no; exploring
dangerous abandoned buildings: NO; using a ouija
board to summon your recently deceased neighbor while
insulting that neighbor’s elderly widow: NO.
But I am young, dumb, and stupid, which means I
already qualify for a horror movie by simple right of being.
So, just this once, I want to try something: The Stone.
If I’ve ever been anywhere haunted, it would be
the St. John’s College, Annapolis campus. The college
bookstore was a morgue during the civil war, people have
been drowning here in College Creek for centuries, and
there is something most certainly devilish in this muggy
East Coast air (it’s the cigarette smoke that you just blew
into my face). And The Stone? The stone is bad vibe
overdrive.
Walk up the brick path from the front entrance,
pass the first building (McDowell, my old friend,
hello, didn’t you burn down in a fire?), and come to a
quadrangular space we call the quad (innovative). On the
southwest side of the upper lawn is The Stone, hidden
amongst the gray, a small disk carved out of the slate
ground. Pick it up. Turn it over. Now, you are looking at
The Symbol.
The Symbol is best described as four tallies, the
second having a twist attached below, and a large curve
on the far side (Bad description? Read till the end of the
article to find out how you can see it! And your boy! At
the same time!). To me it looks like a really messed up
moose ridden by my dad, mom, and me. My psychoanalyst
would like me to unpack that; I will not.
So what is The Symbol? If you ask around, even
the witchiest looking students (stick and poke tattoos,
teeth earrings, self-administered haircuts) can’t tell you,
28
responding to all inquiries by wondering aloud if they
should leave the college. You can try asking the internet
too. But posts on Reddit and other, somehow sketchier
websites have received only mocking responses, net -2
upvotes, and an ad for hot moms in my area (I don’t care
what they need right now while their husbands are gone,
do they or do they not they know what The Symbol is?).
Even contemplating The Symbol while absolutely out of
my mind on entirely legal experiential substances led only
to a vague sense of foreboding and the urge to order Papa
John’s. So, having tried everything, I was forced to pull
out the big guns: get over my social anxiety and ask our
head librarian and campus historian, Penelope Earrose.
Bennett Scott: Dr. Earrose, thank you for taking
the time to meet with me.
Penelope Earrose: Of course! I love nothing more
than getting to talk to students about college history and
thus being given a fleeting moment of freedom where I
actually get to do my job and interact with other human
beings rather than just stare into the dreadful empty face
of my computer all day.
BS: Great. So when was the current campus of St.
John’s founded?
PE: Well, work on Mellon was begun in 1742, but
[entirely interesting information has been cut here to get
you to the heart of the matter:]
BS: So do you know anything about The Stone?
PE: Sorry, the what?
BS: The Stone. The small disk on the quad with
a weird symbol on it? This weird symbol. [Draws The
Symbol.]
PE: Well, no, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything
like that. We’ve got some old documents that you’re more
than welcome to sort through for any explanations, but
that…well to tell you the truth, Mr. Scott, that symbol just
doesn’t look right.
BS: Thank you for your time Dr. Earrose.
PE: Of course.
BS: [Leaves the office, walks out the front of the
�συμπόσιον
the Gadfly
September 25, 2023
library, promptly:] Well, fuck my one idea.
So then, my search continues. If you have any information regarding The Stone, The Symbol, or anything even
vaguely related, please send me an email at: bascott@sjc.edu. If there’s anything helpful, I’ll try to include it in the next
article.
Also! In an SJC first, there will be a video series associated with this column; the first video is already up; go
check it out for more details on this mess I’ve gotten myself into:
(All my videos will be uploaded to this channel (BSMysteries), so check it out!)
29
�πόλις
the Gadfly
September 25, 2023
Review of the Freewrite Drafting Tool
John Teague
In the spring of 2023, I pulled the trigger on a used Taylor
812ce I had been eyeing at a music store in Baltimore.
This particular instrument had been on my mind since
my sophomore year in high school: made in America,
new V-Class bracing, beautiful inlays. It manages to be
articulate without sacrificing the great tone of the more
traditional dreadnought, making it a fingerstyle guitarist's
dream. This particular model stood unadulterated
from any electronics, and its rudimentary simplicity
encouraged rudimentary practice. Unamplified sets
harkening back to distant memories of folk music in the
Sangre de Cristo mountains, where I worked a summer
exploring and presenting that country. Despite the
seemingly impossible combination of both jargon and
abstractions of my description, the guitar managed to
touch me spiritually, invigorating my practice habits. I've
improved more in a partial year of fine guitar ownership
than I would in a decade of noodling on my old acoustic
at my previous rate. Learning tunes and techniques from
their bluegrass inceptions to their more modern nu-folk
consequences, I've immersed myself in something more
than a music style, a certain folkish worldview and all
its accompanying philosophies and mannerisms that
gradually change a personality. While the cause of this
30
was my will (I think), I remain troubled by a realization
that my musical and personal development was only the
consequence of my enthusiasm for a new purchase, a state
of mind also witnessed in Funko Pop mongers and MCM
universe enjoyers.
With that experience showing me that virtue can, in
fact, be taught, I made another purchase - ASTROHAUS's
Freewrite Drafting Assistant. It markets itself as a 'digital
typewriter,' the gateway to distraction-free writing. I
checked the package tracking with some excitement,
wanting to hold and feel the aluminum chassis in my hand,
to hear the satisfying clacks of the MX Brown mechanical
switches. Now that it has arrived, I can confirm that it
does, in fact, feel great in my hands and that writing with it
is a novel and enjoyable experience. It has fewer electronic
functions, so its reduced EMF radiation probably has
a less harmful effect on my genetic fidelity (I write as I
smoke a cigarette). My state of mind as I write this review
is as advertised. Instead of switching tabs or listening to
music I feel a cool autumnal breeze and hear the sound
of lapping water on ships' hulls. I'm writing this relatively
quickly, a good sign that I'll get the improved output I was
looking for.
John M. Christensen, Director of Admissions, Seated at Desk Typing
on a Computer Keyboardon a Computer Keyboard
�πόλις
the Gadfly
This article’s pretensions fall away when I am led
into the next part of any review, whether or not I'd
recommend the Freewrite. To answer that question, I
of course have to ask myself the question 'for whom?'
which in this particular instance, begs an inquiry
into the psychological effects of the Freewrite on a
consumer in a society where things like 'distractionfree' are taglines for overpriced, metrosexual-adjacent
gizmos that simply give back to the human experience
the peace of our previous simpler existence. An inquiry
which, in a just world, would fill a small tome your
correspondent is currently unable to write with his
overstimulated, mildly ADHD-ridden (can I get meds
for this?) brain. I personally avoid taking responsibility
by complaining about the prevalence and aggression of
modern advertising, annoying at its best and maddening
at its worst. It is product as spectacle that got me into
this mess and so it must be another one that potentially
gets me out.
- Quick aside, have you seen these iPad babies
recently? God, that sh* makes me want to vomit. That's
not to say I would ever say anything bad about mothers
who, of course, are blameless in all instances.
Something someone once called Product Excitement
Syndrome (hereafter called PES) has come on the scene
as a very lucrative state of mind to be induced into the
atomized consumer. Lacking church, family, good books
(maybe movies), desire for social change, nationalism,
or general hope the mind struggles in a search for some
unattainable mystery to apply itself towards. When freed
from worrying about complex strategies for the tracking
down of the tribe's next mammoth, the resultant bored
consciousness instead tracks down information about
another other, ideas of wealth and success, and fantasizes
about the procuring of one of those distant philoplutarian
offerings of the megaconglomerates and especially
about the presentation of one of those products to the
consumer's friends and 'loved' ones. One suffering from
PES, interestingly, does not especially fantasize about
the changes to the quality of his life entailed from the
procuring of product, especially recently (admittedly, I
would probably have been frothing at the mouth for a
Model T, but an iPhone? ‘Come on, Man!’).
The situation is not really as vain as I'm saying,
though. Sometimes people afflicted by PES are really
trying to find a beautiful life. Purveyors of fashion try,
September 25, 2023
with varying degrees of earnestness, to embody some
idea of material quality with selvedge jeans or Goodyear
Welted boots. So-called 'barefoot shoes' sell the idea of a
natural life halfway convincingly. It's just that I can't wrap
my head around all these lifestyle choices being driven by
profit motive, especially when the product embodies ideas
that your correspondent sees as 'good' or 'sustainable,' It
seems like whatever goodness I can sense in those ideas is
being violated, bringing superficiality to things that really
ought to be taken seriously. This is where the Freewrite
Writing Assistant comes in.
The instruments specific to the art of idea-sharing
are progressing, getting faster and easier to use, resulting
generally in better ideas that are more fun to digest.
There's no way to write or distribute any kind of rigorous
metaphysics treatise or witty postmodern novella on a
stone tablet etched in cuneiform. Recent technological
developments, however, are mostly centered around the
general easing of life itself, rendering obsolete previous
tools with single functions by introducing complex
multi-function tools: think of the smartphone replacing
a cell phone, camera, notebook, library, et cetera into a
palm sized brick of literally unimaginable utility. This is
all well and good (arguably) when considering the total
efficiency of the person, but considered individually the
functions seem to be compromised, not to mention the
weird thing that happens psychologically when you can't
actually grasp the tool you’re using. I can’t conceive of
a cell phone camera ever being of higher quality than a
proper DSLR (even when considering ease-of-use: a
cell phone will always have some kind of interface in
the way, keeping you from taking your picture). All of
the improvements to writing the Freewrite offers are a
result of the simple re-establishment of a unique tool
for a particular function. The function in question is
notoriously tedious, as hundreds of millions of students
will testify, and so the FreeWrite finds a particularly roomy
niche to occupy. Typewriters, so obsolesced, have not had
the advantage of adopting the technological innovations
designed for quality-of-life improvements for writing on
laptops, and so ASTROHAUS simply decided to apply
those improvements -nice keyboard, digital storage, wi-fi
backups- to a nevertheless simple machine.
But there are people who'll read much further
into the FreeWrite than this, arguing something like
‘distraction-free writing is the only way to truly write and
31
�πόλις
the Gadfly
laptop writers must needs be either poor, unaware, or a
Philistine. The FreeWrite™ has not only freed my mind,
but also my soul’(the author begs you forgive this less
than flattering portrait of a PES-inflicted FreeWrite
enjoyer, the truth is that he, in fact, at one point held
opinions regetably similar to those of the caricature he
describes). Those afflicted by PES perceive a large divide
in society of people who perceive the valiant struggle the
FreeWrite engages in and the slobbering masses, unable
to articulate a thought due to TikTok brain. The irony
of this sentiment distresses me greatly. Writing, thought
materialized, should be as self-aware as possible. The
compromising of so basic a foundation shakes the whole
building, and simply put, I won't trust you if you think
this product is going to purify your thoughts.
And yet, as I've learned through my guitar
purchase, the human spirit seems to be lamb-like enough
to potentially be benefited by PES. For argument's sake,
let’s say that regular writing is a substantial enrichment
of a personality, like music. Would not this character,
so maddened by the FreeWrite, wind up actually being
a better person for it, assuming his blistering rage puts
him at the keys? And would not the regular ‘distractionfree’ lengths of time gradually ease his troubled soul?
And then, won’t he have actually accomplished his idea
of himself: a little-stimulated, thoughtful, little guy with
a big writing portfolio? It’s this thought thought that
just drives me crazy about the FreeWrite.
The best argument I have for purchasing the
FreeWrite is the fact that I wrote the first draft for this
article ~1500 words, in a little over two hours. For me,
this is lightning pace. But really, this wasn’t due to any
mystical encouraging by the mechanical keyboard or
imparting of wisdom by the aluminum chassis (both of
which are, again, really nice) but instead the smallness of
the screen preventing me from going back to what I had
previously written while I was drafting. I didn’t realize
this, but the reason I used to write at a snail’s pace was
because I would go back up and make edits whenever
I would get stuck on a sentence, which I now realize is
a huge waste of time. I really don’t think the FreeWrite
is necessary to induce this, though. You could simply
zoom in on your text document or have good habits or
something, but for me it took buying a cringeworthy
32
September 25, 2023
typewriter. Besides the embarrassment of my failure
to come to this realization by myself, the reality of the
contrivance of my improvement shakes my security of
humanity’s ownership of the fine arts. If I do wind up
becoming a better writer, it will be the result not of my
nature, nor my will, but a rather funny little object.
So, do I recommend ASTROHAUS’s FreeWrite
Drafting Assistant? Perhaps. Even though it’s quite
overpriced it does seem very nice. I think the improved
feel of the act of writing will increase my output. If that
kind of thing matters to you or you just like the look of
it, go ahead; it will probably be what you’re hoping for.
Why would I even want to recommend or dissuade from
buying it? It’s like you’re asking me to inform you how to
be more like myself. But if you go out to purchase one, I
beg of you to think of the consequences and recommend
you come up with some sort of coping mechanism to
handle the stress of battling with your identity.
Small writing desk (bonheur-du-jour).
Martin Carlin, c. 1768
�πόλις
the Gadfly
September 25, 2023
Freshman Bodies and Freshman Souls
The following list is reprinted from a 1982 issue of the Gadfly.
Bryce Jacobsen
The reasons, both physical and metaphysical, why everyone ought to become involved in our sports program are many.
1. We have the best athletic program of any college in
the country.
2. Exercise is good for the body... unless you sprain an
ankle, or something like that.
3. Most of us feel better, are more alert, and can get
more work done if our bodies are healthy and our
souls relaxed.
4. Friendly competition is one of the really fun things
in life. It is good for your soul.
5. Your circle of acquaintances will be greatly enlarged.
This is good for the soul, provided you can separate
the wheat from the chaff.
6. You will learn to accept, and bear with, thousands
of split-second decisions from the officials, a few of
which are wrong. This is very good for the soul.
7. Do you like to strive for, and achieve, specific
goals? If so, consider our College Blazers. They are
much sought after, and the pathway is clearly laid out.
Striving for goals is good for your soul.
8. It is probablly true that more pure fun occurs in the
athletic program than in any other area of the college.
Fun is good for your soul.
9. If you get involved in team sports, and become a
"good team player," you have realized that there are
things in the Universe that are more important than
your ego. That is good for your soul.
10. The benefits of exercise and friendly competition,
learned while one is young, should be maintained for
the rest of your life... i.e., they should become habitual.
For virtue, as the Philosopher said, is a habit.
11. You will get to know numerous Alumni, Tutors,
and Staff members who participate in the program.
This is good for your soul, or ought to be... provided
that they are the proper sort of role models.
12. Our showers are the best at the college; always
plenty of hot water.
13. Are you bothered by, or worried by, tobacco fumes
in the air? Come to the gym. The whole building is a
nicotine-free zone.
14. If you perform some sort of heroic deed on the
athletic field, your name will be mentioned in our
weekly column. Heroes are always acclaimed. But do
not be carried away by this. Remember that "the paths
to glory lead but to the grave."
15. A high percentage of our best students are active
participants in our program.
16. Those who play, stay.
17. The gym is not particularly well-equipped, as
gyms go. But it has washers and dryers, and a cokemachine... and I will explain to you, if you ask me,
how you can get yourself in tip-top physical shape,
without any equipment at all.
18. You can sit in an old-time barber's chair in my
office... you can pump yourself up or down, and adjust
the slope high or low. Where else can you do that?
19. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
20. It is better to light a candle, than to curse the
darkness.
So there you have it.. twenty good reasons why you should participate in our athletic program. If you are not
convinced by all this, come and talk with me... I can probably think of some more good reasons. Or better yer, ralk with
the upperclassmen. They will tell you all sorts of strange, interesting and wondrous things.
Bryce Jacobsen
Director of Athletics
The Gadfly - September 9, 1982
33
�πόλις
the Gadfly
September 25, 2023
Finds from the Archives
This room has since undergone a "vibe shift."
Can this thing please come down from the attic?
Students Playing Table Tennis in the Basement of Paca-Carroll House, c. 1941
34
�πόλις
the Gadfly
September 25, 2023
Finds from the Archives
They say this student still has
that look on his face.
Students with Suspended Weights in Laboratory Class
35
�THE STUDENT
NEWSPAPER
OF
ST. JOHN’S
COLLEGE
Founded in 1980, the Gadfly
is the student newsmagazine
distributed to over 600
students, faculty, staff, and
alumni of the Annapolis
campus.
Opinions expressed within
are the responsibility of the
author(s). The Gadfly reserves
the right to accept, reject,
and edit submissions in any
way necessary to publish a
professional, informative,
and thought provoking
newsmagazine.
Dean John O. Neustadt Seated on a Tree Stump
Playing with a Dog on Campus, c. 1940
Submissions sent to the
Gadfly should either be
in Google Docs or JPEG
format. The deadline for
submissions is the Friday prior
to publication.
For more information, contact
us via email at sjca.gadfly@
gmail.com
6 0 COLLEGE AVENUE
Images without a listed source are from the
St. John's College Digital Archives.
St. John's College owns the rights
to these photographs.
36
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND 21401
�
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
A name given to the resource
<em>The Gadfly</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Founded in 1980, <em>The </em><em>Gadfly</em> is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the <em>The Gadfly</em> Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Contributor
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
thegadfly
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
pdf
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
36 pages
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
A name given to the resource
The Gadfly, Vol. XLV, Issue 1
Description
An account of the resource
Volume XLV, Issue 1 of The Gadfly. Published September 25, 2023.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Briner, Luke (Editor-in-Chief)
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
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2023-09-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Subject
The topic of the resource
College students' writings--Periodicals
College student newspapers and periodicals
St. John's College--Periodicals
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Gadfly Vol XLV Issue 1
Gadfly
Student publication
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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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
audio cassette
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:54:00
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
A name given to the resource
Circles of Sorrow: Dialectic and Grief in <em>Go Down Moses</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture delivered on November 16, 2001, by Lael Gold as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Gold, Lael
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
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2001-11-16
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
A signed permission form has been received stating: "I hereby grant St. John’s College permission to: make a recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John’s College Greenfield Library; make typescript copies of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John’s College Greenfield Library; make a recording of my lecture available online; make a copy of my typescript available online."
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
mp3
Subject
The topic of the resource
Faulkner, William, 1897-1962. Go down, Moses.
Keats, John, 1795-1821. Ode on a Grecian urn.
Bible--In literature
Allusion in literature
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LEC_Gold_Lael_2001-11-16_ac
Alumni
Friday night lecture
-
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d74da9008d28c6909397207f5a92e6c7
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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
audio cassette
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:03:30
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
A name given to the resource
The First Amendment: Freedoms, Civil Peace, and the Quest for Truth
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture delivered on November 3, 2000, by Murray Dry as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dry, Murray
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
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2000-11-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
A signed permission form has been received stating: "I hereby grant St. John’s College permission to: make a recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John’s College Greenfield Library; make typescript copies of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John’s College Greenfield Library; make a recording of my lecture available online; make a copy of my typescript available online."
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
mp3
Subject
The topic of the resource
United States. Constitution. 1st Amendment
Freedom of speech--United States
Freedom of religion--United States
Church and state--United States
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LEC_Dry_Murray_2000-11-03_ac
Friday night lecture
-
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47ec8f58590b737d42a8612efdcd987b
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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
audio cassette
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:07:48
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
A name given to the resource
The Place of Astrology in the Classical Tradition
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture delivered on September 8, 2000, by Anthony Grafton as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grafton, Anthony
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
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2000-09-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
A signed permission form has been received stating: "I hereby grant St. John’s College permission to: make a recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John’s College Greenfield Library; make a recording of my lecture available online; make a copy of my typescript available online."
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
mp3
Subject
The topic of the resource
Astrology--History
Civilization, Classical
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LEC_Grafton_Anthony_2000-09-08_ac
Friday night lecture
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/c9d4f2c699fd8002f4d7b534659665a9.mp3
64eb566be0e4b07189a22aa5bffd87aa
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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
audio cassette
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:58:57
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
A name given to the resource
The Metaphysics of Practical Reason
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture delivered on April 9, 1999, by Richard L. Velkley as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Velkley, Richard L.
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
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1999-04-09
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
A signed permission form has been received stating: "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: Make an audiovisual recording of my lecture available online."
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
mp3
Subject
The topic of the resource
Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804
Metaphysics
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LEC_Velkley_Richard_1999-04-09_ac
Friday night lecture
-
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PDF Text
Text
Thursday
October 19
2023
The St. John’s Collegian
A Gadfly Publication
From the
polity
On the Smoking Policy
I’ve heard the complaint a dozen, if not a hundred
times. “The college is unfairly punishing students for
smoking on the quad.” “They’re hurting low-income
students with the smoking policy.” “They’re trying to
destroy our culture.”
I hear these complaints, and while I understand where
some of them are coming from, I find them mostly
stupid: no one aren’t entitled to some “right to smoke.”
When some are puffing away on the quad after
seminar, the rest of us who don’t want lung cancer
must deal with their foul-smelling smog. There are
many people on this campus who have breathing
problems, who simply cannot be around smoke for
health reasons. They should not have to avoid large
swathes of campus for smokers who refuse to take the
two-minute walk down to the smoking area. It is the
smoker’s responsibility as a polity member to not
endanger their fellow students and move for them.
Even for students who are not more actively
endangered by smoking, they have made a choice not
to smoke to protect their health and wellbeing, and
simply to be more pleasant to be around. To violate
that choice and force them to inhale secondhand
smoke simply due to being too lazy to walk two
minutes is obscene, and just plain inconsiderate.
There are now several smoking areas on campus, and
our campus is small enough that no place is so far away
that you cannot either walk off campus or walk to a
smoking area in a few minutes. There is no effort
required, just a sense of decency and social
responsibility. Just a little bit of effort on the part of
campus smokers could make so many spaces on
campus more friendly and welcoming- maybe I won’t
have to avoid the quad after seminar if people were just
a bit more considerate. It's not difficult, it’s not
complicated, and it doesn’t keep you from your
nicotine. Just have the decency to respect others who
chose not to smoke. That’s all.
Anonymous submission
Vol. I Issue 5
Printed Thursdays in Annapolis
Delegate council passes
budget omnibus
Bill Includes Funding for Campus Clubs, Passed After Weeks
of Hearings
Disclaimer: the Gadfly receives funding from the
Delegate Council, and the author of this article is the
DC Secretary.
At this week’s Delegate Council meeting, the DC
passed the budget omnibus bill, which contains all the
funding for clubs for the entire semester. Each club’s
budget is heard and approved independently, but this
approval is only preliminary, and the budget may still
be amended until the passage of the omnibus bill,
which is contains the formal approval of the budgets
and the authorization for the treasurer to give Archons
money from the Delegate Council’s accounts.
This semester, the total amount approved came to
$39,527.68. This is more than the $36,000 the council
receives annually, but as clubs rarely spend as much as
they request, DC treasurer Grace Jang estimated that
the council could afford to spend as much as $42,000
this semester. Last semester, the budget omnibus bill
totaled $43,199.921. Money remaining in the DC
accounts after the budgeting season can now be spent
through the process outlined in the Agora Act, which
allows individual students to request funding at any
time after budgeting season for projects and events not
affiliated with clubs that would benefit the polity as a
whole.
The funding was split between 38 clubs, ranging from
$25 for the Yearbook club, who only received money
for snacks, to $4175 for the King Williams Players
who requested funding for two plays and Too Much
Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. Almost all clubs who
requested funding received it, with the exception of
the Rock Climbing Club. funding for two plays and
Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. Almost
all clubs who requested funding received it, with the
exception of the Rock Climbing Club.
Approximately half of all the funding went to the five
largest clubs, who each requested more than $3,000:
the King Williams Players, who received $4175, the
This Week in Seminar
Waltz Committee, receiving $3,900, Reality receiving
$3,350.78, the Polo Club, receiving $3191.65, and
Energeia, receiving $3180.96. The money was
distributed between many different types of clubs,
with arts, sports, and party organizing clubs receiving
each about 20% of the budget, publications, affinity
clubs and other miscellaneous clubs each receiving a
little over 10% of the total funding.
Particular attention was given by Delegates this year to
the question of how to approach clubs that serve a
limited number of people for a more specialized
activity, which often cost the DC much more per
participant than other clubs. These clubs, such as
Polo, Rock Climbing and Jiu Jitsu, were each
approached differently, leading to calls for an act of
council outlining the process for this type of club.
Such an act has already been proposed by Delegate
Rosenberg, but has not yet been formally introduced.
Treasure Jang also submitted a statement of purpose
organizing a budgeting committee at this meeting.
Such a committee will consider budgeting standards
and procedures for future years.
At this same meeting, the Delegate Council held
elections for members of the Committee on Student
Life. This committee, which has existed at the college
in the past, is now being revived, in order to give
students a forum to respond and take action on issues
outside of the immediate classroom-related
environment. Jack Huntley was elected chair of this
committee, with the other members elected being
Helen Felbek as Secretary and Tabby Rutledge as
Junior Representative. Further elections will be held
later this semester to fill the remaining vacant
representative positions.
All Delegate Council meetings are open to the public,
and members of the Polity may come and speak
before the DC if they have issues they wish to have
addressed. The council meets weekly at 7:30 in the
General Hartle Room.
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman
Upcoming Events:
Freshman:
- 10/19: Plato: Republic, I–II 367E
- 10/23: Plato: Republic, II 367E–IV 427C
Sophomores:
- 10/19: Tacitus: Annals, III–VI
- 10/23: Epictetus: Handbook
Juniors:
- 10/19: Leibniz: Philosophical Essays, see official list for selections
- 10/23: Leibniz: Principles of Nature and Grace; Monadology; Philosophical Essays, see
official list for selections
Seniors:
- 10/19: Kierkegaard: Philosophical Fragments, Chapters I–III (including Appendix)
- 10/23: Kierkegaard: Philosophical Fragments, Chapter IV–end (Moral)
Friday Night Lecture:
Australian Haydn Ensemble
Page 1
-
-
Saturday 10/20: 9 pm to midnight,
Funkenstein/Brewster concert, outside
the planetarium
Tuesday 10/24: 3:45 pm, Hodson
internship information session, Hodson
room.
Have an event you want to publicize for your
club? Want to send a message to that one Johnnie
you met once on that fateful night but can’t
remember their name? Want to confuse the
polity with a cryptic notice? Write
eanicholskaufman@sjc.edu, and we can get a
notice printed in the Collegian, in our semiclassified advertisement section coming in future
issues!
�Thursday October 19, 2034
St. John’s collegian
Vol. I. Issue 5
Local Limbo Pariah Millie Ransohoff Back in
Good Graces Over Co-Victory: Freakishly Tall Graduate
Student Just Consolation Prize for True Adversary Says Ms. Ransohoff
Tensions were high in the Great Hall last Saturday for
the annual Sock-Hop Limbo Competition.
Beginning with around thirty participants the
numbers quickly dwindled with each lowering of the
bar. Moments of excitement included several people
who successfully limboed in heels, consternation over
the validity of Maddie Minor's back-bend and snap
execution, and the eighth round entry of a pair of
cavalier contenders. But the real thrill came when it
became apparent that there were two competitors
who, in some ways against all odds, were on their way
to the final round. Millie Ransohoff '25, the runnerup from last year, and Weston Wright GI '26, who
gave his express permission to be referred to as
“freakishly tall.” Coming in at five foot five and six
foot four respectively, both Mr. Wright and Ms.
Ransohoff outlasted the rest of the competition.
With both failing to make it past the eleventh round,
they were crowned co-winners, too many cheers of
jubilation and awe from the crowd. I had the pleasure
of speaking to the winners in the wake of the
competition.
Like the true athletes they are, Mr. Wright and Ms.
Ransohoff were already thinking of ways that they
could improve. Going as far as to bemoan their
perceived failings, Mr. Wright said that "they could
have gone further, it was just an issue of needing
momentum." Nodding in agreement Ms. Ransohoff
added that the main reason they won at all, especially
over shorter competitors (at least in Mr. Wright's
case), was one of proportion. She stated that "[we
succeeded] because we have even body proportion of
legs to torso, it helps with the center of gravity."
Though she did add that the whole competition
could have been made fairer if everyone had to go
shoeless. A note to the future waltz committee.
Finally, I addressed the elephant in the room. I asked
Ms. Ransohoff how she felt, in the wake of her loss to
a Midshipman last year, about yet again, coming up
*ahem* short. To which Mr. Wright stooped to say
that he "doesn’t even go here either," further adding
salt to the wound (a note to the reader, the question
CSL Chair calls for Polity Members to Participate
Respected Polity – I should urge you to pay
attention to this, my indubitably important message.
Be made aware of the existence of the newly refounded Committee on Student Life. The
Committee on Student Life intends to fill a niche
left by the previously defunct Committee on
Student Life. There is a clear outlet through which
student concern and opinion might be heard
regarding academic issues at St. John’s College. This
is, of course, the venerable Student Committee on
Instruction. Notably, such recourse is absent when it
comes to Student Life. This is where the Committee
on Student Life comes in. Namely, to represent your
Student Life, if you have one. We will host maybeweekly forums during Wednesday Lunches, and
other, secret and unconfirmed, events. In the
hallowed recesses of the private dining hall, we will
discuss issues of the greatest import to the polity.
The forums and other events of the Committee on
Student Life will be wildly and unprecedentedly
successful, if God be pleased. We will communicate
the priorities and concerns of the polity to the
administration, who will love and respect us.
The Committee on Student Life is, of course, a
talking club. It has no power or on-paper relevance
whatsoever. Whatever relevance to administrative
decision making we acquire we must earn for
ourselves by our arguments and guile. Yet, consider
carefully, consider the twinkle one gains in their eye
by complaining, that comradely pleasure resembling
victory. Consider the strength and determination
that arises, should it be necessary, by collective
grievance. Far from forsaking actual changemaking,
the Committee On Student Life insists on it. Even if,
though, you are cynical that a liaison to the
administration on important issues such as housing
Despite Ms. Ransohoff's feelings of inadequacy, not
all were unhappy with the shared victory. When asked
for comment, Dean Paalman stated that she was
"thrilled by multi-generational bonding between the
undergraduate college and graduate institute." So,
perhaps it is not yet time for Ms. Ransohoff to throw
in the towel. It is indeed something to be part of such
a momentous unity event, and after all, what the
polity really cares about is that no Johnnie was beaten
by a Middie. To that end, Ms. Ransohoff has limboed
her way back into our good graces. And who knows,
maybe next year it will be a Santa Fe transfer that she
shares the laurels with, and by her senior year, Ms.
Ransohoff will win for the college once and for all.
Andy Manne
Committee on Student life
Revived
“The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to
fill a man's heart” - Albert Camus
of whether attending the GI counts as "going here" is
best left to another time and place). With what this
intrepid reporter discerned to be signs of tears, and a
distinctive sorrowful sniffle, Ms. Ransohoff replied
that she was "happy with all the results."
will yield any positive change, attend our meetings
anyway. You may be surprised. At the very least, I can
promise that the conversations and events we host
will not be boring. Watch your e-mail.
Jack Huntley, Chair of the CSL
Note from the Editor:
If you’re reading this edition, you’ve probably
noticed the biggest change to the collegian: a smaller
typeface. For this issue, in order to better fit in all the
material that is submitted, and to reflect the large size
at which the paper is printed, the text of the articles
will be in a smaller font. This means the word count
for submissions has gone up, as reflected in the about
the collegian section to the right of this column.
There have also been questions about our publication
schedule which I hope to clear up. The Collegian is
published weekly on Thursdays except on weeks the
Gadfly is supposed to publish. The Gadfly usually
comes out every three weeks, and so the pattern of
Collegian printing is two weeks on, one week off.
This year, the first Gadfly was delayed due to
problems transitioning between layout editors, and
the second one was delayed because of concerns from
the administration about content, but moving
forward they should be published more consistently,
and the campus should see one Gadfly affiliated
publication coming out every Thursday.
Aphorism of the Week
A fool is a better governor than a prince, because he is
less clever but more ridiculous.
Page 2
About the St.
John’s
Collegian
The St. John’s Collegian is the weekly newspaper of
St. John’s College Annapolis. We work to bring quick
and timely coverage of important events going on, to
help develop a more informed student body. If you’re
searching for more in-depth investigations and
reporting, as well as essays, art and culture, check out
the Gadfly, our affiliated publication, which is
published once every three weeks.
Want to submit an article? We always need more
writers, whether for opinion or reporting!
Submissions for news articles should be between 350450 words, while opinion should be kept short at 300
words. Just email eanicholskaufman@sjc.edu with
your article, and we will work to get it in print!
Longer form articles and more in-depth exploration
of ideas should go to the Gadfly, which accepts
submissions at lbriner@sjc.edu.
Contributors for this issue:
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman, Editor
Jack Huntley
Andy Manne
Corrections:
An article in the last edition (Mellon Hall
Officially Reopened in Ribbon Cutting
Ceremony) erroneously said that the Mellon
Fishbowl was completed in the 1980s. It
was instead completed in the 2000s.
�
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St. John's Collegian, October 18, 2023
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Volume 1, issue 5 of the St. John's Collegian, published October 18, 2023.
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Student publication
The Collegian
The Gadfly
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Text
Thursday
October 5
2023
The St. John’s Collegian
A Gadfly Publication
Vol. I Issue 4
Printed Thursdays in Annapolis
From the
polity
Mellon Hall officially
reopened with ribbon cutting
Shocking Exposé on the Bells
Ceremony Attended by Local Dignitaries, Campus leaders,
Celebrated Work Done to Improve Campus Spaces
Dear Editors of The St. John’s Collegian,
It is with a heavy heart and strained
conscience that I write to address the mystery
of the bells ("Ding Dongs? Merrily on High?:
Mysterious Ringing Keeps Campus Awake").
Those with discerning ears will have noticed
that the bells have a decidedly Phrygian ring
to them. Recall that Socrates, in Book III of
The Republic, claims that this mode forms
souls to be courageous and moderate. And
now for the shocking truth: our Assistant
Dean, Mr. Abbott, in an intricate and
ingenuous plot, is the one behind those bells.
In brief: he has long been worried about the
influence that years of music in the Ionic and
Lydian modes (e.g.: Tay-tay) has had on so
many of our students—and more than a few
tutors; the mysterious bells have been
designed to counter those effects. Not only
do they ring in the Phrygian mode, but they
do so at the precise times when the circadian
rhythms of Freshmen make their souls most
receptive to the influence of sound. Let me be
clear: I do not doubt Mr. Abbott’s devotion
to the college or his exceedingly admirable
intentions, yet I could no longer remain silent
about this shocking (and tyrannical?) abuse
of power. I also ask all members of the Polity
to assist me in getting to the bottom of a
question that now haunts me: was the
Assistant Dean acting alone?
Your devoted comrade,
Mr. Haflidson
After two years of renovations, the final part
of the renovations of Mellon Hall begun in
the winter of 2021 were finally completed last
week. The patio, which has been under
construction since this summer, was paved
just in time to welcome alumni, donors and
local leaders for a reopening ceremony that
acted as a celebration of all the various sources
of funding and work that made the
renovations possible.
of its original design features, but was made
accessible and received furniture to make it more
welcoming to student use. The Fishbowl,
which was first installed during the
renovation in the 80s, was given a more open
plan, while the conversation room’s ability to
support technology was improved alongside
its atmosphere as a welcoming space to hold
conversations in. New facilities backstage
include a studio theater, although all space
that was usable to build sets and most of the
The idea to renovate Mellon, which had its prop storage space was lost, making the
last major renovation in 1989, was first practical use of the auditorium more difficult
initiated by former college president Pano for campus theater groups.
Kanelos, to attempt to create new public
spaces to form a hub for students, and draw At the reopening ceremony, speakers
them into closer community by making included President Demleitner, Maryland Lt.
spaces like the Mellon Lobby and the Governor Aruna Miller, who spoke about
Fishbowl more welcoming spaces for student the state’s commitment to higher education,
use. The renovations also aimed to increase and State Senator Sarah Elfreth, who spoke
ADA accessibility, allowing both doors into about her role in securing St. John’s a five
the lobby area to be accessible and improving million dollar grant from the state of
accessibility to the backstage areas, as well as Maryland that enabled the construction.
to rebuild the building’s ageing HVAC Maryland is unusual in that it provides
systems. They cost approximately ten million funding for capital projects for private
dollars, and were planned by David M. Colleges, and St. John’s matched this
Schwarz Architects, a firm led by an alumnus funding with fundraising from the college’s
recently completed Freeing Minds capital
of the college.
campaign to cover the costs of the project.
These renovations primarily impacted the Also speaking at the event was William
FSK lobby, the fishbowl, the conversation Rowel, representing Mayor Gavin Buckley
room and the backstage areas behind the who was unable to attend the ceremony, and
auditorium, all of which were substantially Delegate Council President Helen Felbek,
changed. The lobby, which before the who spoke on the student experience using
renovation was one of the only interiors the newly renovated spaces.
designed by midcentury architect Richard
Neutra still intact on the east coast, lost many El’ad Nichols-Kaufman
This Week in Seminar
Upcoming Events:
Freshman:
Thursday, 10/5
- 10/5: Plutarch: Lives, Lycurgus; Solon
- 9:45 pm: Bonfire & Hoe Down,
- 10/9: Herodotus: History, I; II 50–53, 112–120; III 37–38, 66-87
Planetarium
Sophomores:
Friday 10/6
- 10/5: Virgil: Aeneid, V–VIII
- 12:30 pm: Petting zoo, Upper Fields
- 10/9: Virgil: Aeneid, IX–XII
- 9 pm: Selena screening, Mellon
Juniors:
courtyard
- 10/5: Hobbes: Leviathan, Chapters 30–31, 32 (first four paragraphs), 38
- 8:30 pm: Reunion Waltz, Great Hall
(selections), 39, 43, 46–47; A Review and Conclusion (last paragraph)
Saturday, 10/7
- 10/9: Spinoza: Ethics, Book 1 through proposition 29
- 8:30 pm: Rocky Horror Picture
Seniors:
Show screening, Great Hall
- 10/5: Marx and Engels: The German Ideology, Part One; and “Theses on Feuerbach”
Sunday 10/8
- 10/9: Marx and Engels: Capital (see main list for selections)
- 12:00 pm: Tea party and bouquet
making, Quad
There will be no lecture due to the long weekend
Monday 10/9
- 12:30 pm: All-College scavenger
hunt, Quad
Page 1
�Thursday October 5, 2034
St. John’s collegian
Vol. I. Issue 4
Public Safety office releases annual report
The report includes statistics on crimes committed on campus for the past three years,
from 2020-2022, as well as fire safety reports for the same time.
In this year’s public safety report, which is
required by federal law to be issued every
October, the following crimes were reported
for the calendar year 2022: one burglary,
seven drug related violations and eight liquor
law violations. While for our campus that in
2022 had approximately 453 students and
190 faculty and staff, this may seem
significant, it is indicative of large
improvements from 2021. Officially
reported cases of rape and sexual assault
dropped from 17 in 2021 to none in 2022,
drug violations dropped from 33 cases in
2021, and liquor law violations went down
from 57 violations in 2021. However, it is
always difficult to determine whether these
changes can be attributed to changes in
enforcement, reporting, or in actual The email which was sent out by the public
safety office contained last years report, but
frequency of crimes.
this years report can still be found online in
The report also featured a fire safety section, the Clery Act, Crime Awareness and
which showed that all the residence halls had Campus Security Act of 1990 section of the
sufficient fire safety measures in place in college website, or can be requested as a
2022, including fire alarms, a full sprinkler physical document from the public safety
system, smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, office.
and evacuation plans and diagrams. The fire
alarms on campus went off six times, once Included in the report was detailed
each in Gilliam, Humphreys, Campbell, information on campus safety procedures
Chase-Stone and twice in Spector, all of and policies, with many detailed resources
which were due to unintentional cooking for students, and includes the campus sexual
incidents. Most of them took place in the misconduct policy as an appendix.
afternoon or evening, except for one at 10:52
am. None involved a fire that actually caused El’ad Nichols-Kaufman
any injury or damage.
Can’t you dance the Polka?
Oktoberfest Polka Competition features spirited dancing,
fierce rivalry, and much stomping
Two Saturdays ago, the College saw the ‘23
St. John’s College Oktoberfest Polka
Competition. Decked out in dirndls and
lederhosen, members of the polity amassed
to witness the finest endurance test of the
year. With flower crowns secured and sleeves
rolled up, the dancers hit the floor with a
well-timed stomp. Quickly, the crowd was
culled. (The author of this piece and the
editor were cut a very respectable fifth). The
esteemed judges Mr. Dang and Ms. Hile
called out movement changes over the din,
pushing the dancers to new heights—quite
literally, as a dizzying array of aerial moves
were performed—and eliminating pairs left
and right, until only four were left. As the
twenty-five-minute mark was passed the
competition grew fierce. All four pairs
seemed evenly matched. First up, was Millie
Ransohoff, fresh off a victory last year, and
Paolo Medelius. Clearly having fun, they
pranced around the dance floor with an
infectious exuberance and a powerhouse of
side-to-side sashays. Hot on their heels were
Chris Thomas and Charlotte Nicholas, in it
to win it. They maintained an even pace—
focusing on endurance and conservation of
energy—though not without style. Charlie
Mahon and Lainey Rendelman made up the
youngest pair, with Mr. Mahon being the
only freshman to make it to the final four.
They made for a powerful couple, striding
across the floor with an athlete's focus.
Finally, Logan Arendt and Maddie Minor
completed the quartet. Cool as cucumbers
About the St.
John’s
Collegian
and with seemingly effortless grace, they
played off the mishap as a shoe flying off
with panache. As time ticked on, something
had to give. The first to go were Mr. Mahon
and Ms. Rendelman, disqualified—
debatably unjustly—for not being able to
hear directions. Next were Ms. Ransohoff
and Mr. Medelius, felled to an unfortunate
stumble. Despite the losses all were in good
spirits, knowing that they had a few more
years to try for the crown. The same could
not be said for the remaining couples, all of
whom were seniors. With the stakes thus
raised the competition headed into its
fortieth minute with neither pair giving any
ground, and the tension rose to a point
unmatched since the Calydonian boar hunt.
Finally, around minute forty-four the judges
called it, awarding—as they sailed through a
final flip and spin—Mr. Thomas and Ms.
Nicholas with their well-deserved laurels.
With that the polka competition ended,
leaving the victors to their spoils and the rest
to rest their feet, and a beloved tradition to
be laid away until next year.
The St. John’s Collegian is the weekly
newspaper of St. John’s College Annapolis.
We work to bring quick and timely coverage
of important events going on, to help
develop a more informed student body. If
you’re searching for more in-depth
investigations and reporting, as well as
essays, art and culture, check out the Gadfly,
our affiliated publication, which is
published once every three weeks.
Andy Manne
Ron Haflidson
Want to submit an article? We always need
more writers, whether for opinion or
reporting! Submissions for news articles
should be between 300-400 words, while
opinion should be kept short at 200 words.
Just email eanicholskaufman@sjc.edu with
your article, and we will work to get it in
print! Longer form articles and more indepth exploration of ideas should go to the
Gadfly, which accepts submissions at
lbriner@sjc.edu.
Contributors for this issue:
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman, Editor
Andy Manne
Aphorism of the Week
Look at the confidence of a chicken. How
blessed are those who know that they don't
know!
Page 2
�
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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<em>The St. John's Collegian</em>
Description
An account of the resource
A student newspaper of St. John's College. <em>The St. John's Collegian</em> began publication in 2023 and is affiliated with <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/collections/show/16"><em>The Gadfly</em></a>. <br /><br />Published weekly on Thursday, with the exception of weeks <em>The Gadfly </em>is published. <br /><br />Earlier publications with the title <em>The Collegian </em>and <em>The St. John's Collegian </em>are available in <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/collections/show/26"><em>The Collegian Collection</em></a>.<br /><br />Click on Items in <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=69&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">The St. John's Collegian Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection.
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St. John's College
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St. John's College
Coverage
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Annapolis, Md.
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
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English
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SJCCollegian
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pdf
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2 pages
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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St. John's Collegian, October 5, 2023
Description
An account of the resource
Volume 1, issue 4 of the St. John's Collegian, published October 5, 2023.
Creator
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St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)
Publisher
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St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)
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Annapolis, MD
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2023-10-05
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St. John's College holds the rights to this publication.
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text
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pdf
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St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)--Periodicals
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English
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SJCCollegian_vol1_issue4_2023-10-05
Student publication
The Collegian
The Gadfly
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/d4ed42405a2281703907363550204241.pdf
fe53145c6e77826836f7e197f118d1bd
PDF Text
Text
Thursday
September 28
2023
The St. John’s Collegian
A Gadfly Publication
Vol. I
Issue 3
Printed Thursdays in Annapolis
From the
polity
Delegate Council Budgeting
Season update
A Response to On the Honor
Code
DC Hearings Continue, 30 Clubs Funded with Almost a
Dozen Still Awaiting Hearings
Many of us have given thought to Ms.
Paalman's suggestion of establishing an
Honor Code for Johnies in response to the
emergence of Large Language Models. But
while some remained untroubled, others have
embraced the proposition with an
enthusiasm that should not fail to disturb us.
Every time we are to think of our institution
as a πόλις (city-state), we consistently
compare it to Athens (the city of philosophy)
and not to the Media (the kingdom of
Middies). This is because our education here
embraces intellectual freedom. St. John’s
neither cares about grades nor punishes
anyone for a lack of engagement. Indeed,
when one fails to prepare for a class by reading
or produce an original piece of writing, these
actions serve as self-punishment, depriving
oneself of intellectual opportunities. And
should we look within fto uncover the
reasons for such misadventures, we
necessarily discover that the individual is
blinded either directly (through some sort of
ignorance) or indirectly (because of a tragic
life circumstance). The proposal of the code
and all subsequent ideas are necessarily
spoken with an eye on the interests of our
polity. As individuals we also postulate that
one’s freedom finds its limit there where the
other’s start. Yet the exercise of one's freedom
to cheat (oneself) does not compromise
others in their intellectual development.
Hence the interests of the polity are not hurt.
If St. John’s is confident in the dignity of its
Cont. on Page 2
The final day for archons to submit club
budgets for the fall semester was September
7th, and the Delegate Council began hearing
club budgets on September 10th. (While most
DC meetings take place Tuesday evenings,
two weekend hearings were held to make the
process more efficient.) These hearings play a
key role in ensuring that funds are distributed
in a way that benefits the polity. In a policy
newly introduced this year to improve
efficiency for archons and delegates alike, the
DC is aiming to keep debate times to under 8
minutes for most clubs, or under 10 minutes
for clubs that are requesting $1000 or more.
had approved budgets of less than half their
initial request. Not all budgets have been
heard yet, and hearing a budget doesn’t
necessarily mean it will be approved the same
night or at all — at the meeting on the 19th, for
example, a final decision on Polo Club’s
budget was deferred to the following week.
Any polity member who has an interest in the
DC or the budgeting processes is strongly
encouraged to attend the upcoming meetings,
speak to their delegates, and/or read the
minutes from past meetings. Louis Rosenberg
DC Budgeting Statistics:
Amount requested by clubs: $53,654.97
Amount of money received by the DC each
year: approx. $35,000
Amount estimated by the DC treasurer that
can be allocated given club underspending
and surpluses: approx. $42,000
The amount of money initially requested by
clubs ranges from $190 (JSPN and
Storyteller’s Guild, though JSPN ended up
successfully requesting to amend their budget
to include an additional $175 for a rugby
viewing party) to $5855 (Rock Climbing
Club). Approximately 10 clubs requested
more than $2000, while 15 clubs requested KWP: $4,175
less than $500; nearly 40 budgets were Waltz: $3,900
Reality: $3,235
submitted in total.
Energeia: $3,180.96
As expected, larger budgets tended to be Pangaea: $2,305
discussed in more detail than smaller budgets. Jiu-jitsu: $2,120
Some clubs — including Baking Club, Board Cinema: $1,740
Games Club, Insect Farming Club, Folk Life, Futsal: $1,050
and Shammai — had their budgets passed SCI: $1,000
with little to no debate. Other clubs had more HEMA: $887.87
contentious budget hearings, with delegates Darkroom: $800
proposing various amendments. Notably, Board Games: $737.53
Video Games Club (which requested $1445) Peliculemos: $700
and Jiu-Jitsu (which requested $4550) each
Cont. on Page 2
This Week in Seminar
Freshman:
- 9/28: Plato, Gorgias, 447A–481B
- 10/2: Plato, Gorgias, 481B–to end
Sophomores:
- 9/28: Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, IV–VI
- 10/2: Virgil, Aeneid, I–IV
Juniors:
- 9/28: Hobbes, Leviathan, Chapters 12–18
- 10/2: Hobbes: Leviathan, Chapters 19–21, 24–25, 27, 28 (only the very last
paragraph), 29
Seniors:
- 9/28: Tocqueville, Democracy in America (see official list for selections)
- 10/2: Tocqueville, Democracy in America (see main list for selections)
Friday Night Lecture:
Rhetoric and Democracy: Introduction to Aristotle's Rhetoric, Robert Bartlett
Page 1
Upcoming Events:
Friday, 9/29:
- 11:30 am: Mellon re-opening
ceremony, Mellon Terrace
Saturday, 9/30
- 2 pm: Extended bookstore hours and
book signing, Bookstore
- 3 pm: Alumni-Student Networking
Event, Hodson room
- 8:30 pm: Reunion Waltz, Great Hall
Sunday, 10/1
- 7 pm: Film Showing, Coco
Tuesday 10/3
- 5:30 pm: Resume Workshop,
Hodson Room
Wednesday 10/4
- 3:30 Naloxone administration
training, Conversation Room
�Thursday, Sep 28 2023
St. John’s Collegian
Vol. I. Issue 3
Skeletons as Satire
Exhibit Ending this Week at the Mitchell Museum Highlights Work of Posada
When I arrived at the Mitchell Art Museum,
I suddenly thanked my past self for sticking
with Spanish for all four years of high school.
All of the text in the exhibit is written in
Spanish, primarily, with English translations
underneath. The first instance of this is
displayed on the wall, right outside the
entrance to the museum. This wall asks each
passerby two questions: “¿ Debe uno ser
serio para ser tomado en serio ?” and “¿ El
arte tiene límites ?” The translations given
are “Must we be serious to be taken
seriously?” and “Does art have bounds?”
José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1915) has
become one of Mexico’s most celebrated
printmakers and satirists, but he did not
Ding Dongs?
Merrily on
High?
Mysterious Ringing Keeps
Campus Awake
For night owls, insomniacs, and light
sleepers on upper campus, you may be aware
that our beloved campus bell has been
exhibiting a curious behavior over the past
few weeks. Administration Officials and
Public Safety Officers are baffled. The bell
has frequently gone off for ten minutes at
precisely midnight on Wednesdays and at
7:30 on Mondays. It also went off at
midnight on Monday of last week, chiming
thrice. The only clue to go off of is that the
bell may be controlled remotely.
What are we to make of this mysterious
malfunction? Is it ghosts, goblins, gnomes?
Seniors with long-overdue essays? Perhaps
the bell has a mind of its own and wishes to
join the revelers on lower campus in their
ushering in of the New Year. The midnight
Monday chimes make less sense, however.
Perhaps a seminar in the Octagon went on a
bit longer than usual–there’s no end to those
things, you know.
The hunt for who or what is causing this
continues, making this lofty mystery a
worthy counterpart to the underquad. The
answer to this riddle, however, is likely
hiding in plain sight.
Caleb Briggs
achieve fame or recognition during his
lifetime. Spending most of his career at the
publishing house of Antonio Vanegas
Arroyo, he created images to be printed in
Arroyo’s chapbooks. The reason the exhibit
asks us its initial questions is that José
Guadalupe Posada was notorious for his
satire. Calaveras , or skeleton figures, are now
well known as symbols of Mexican culture,
but their popularity is in part due to
Posada—he often used them to satirize
current events or public figures. The exhibit
itself doesn’t seem to prioritize seriousness in
the slightest. The word “ ridículo ” is
splashed across the wall in bold capital
letters, and bright primary colors dominate
Honor Code (Cont.)
enterprise as a college, there should be no
question of an honor code. One will thus be
either a Johnie or not (someone who
enrolled at St. John’s by an accident or
blindness). If we are to help the cheating one
with their ignorance or a tragic event, we
must do so sincerely and only from the
position of love and compassion. These two
qualities are not to be found in the realm of
fear and control, but in the realm of joy of
and wonder in the other. And the same is
true for good essays and discussions.
Semyon Andruschenko
DC Funding (Cont.)
Video Games: $620
Alexander Hamilton Society: $540
Bowling: $503
Catholic Fellowship: $500
Christian Fellowship: $500
3D Printing: $495.10
Historia: $480
Purls of Wisdom: $448
Delegate Council: $415
Baking: $386.22
JSPN: $365
Shammai: $356.96
Swimming: $299
Insect Farming: $275
Project Polity: $270
Folk Life: $250
Storyteller’s Guild: $190
Total approved to date: $32,724.64
Aphorism of the week:
Madness is the only way to immortality by
oneself. That is why it is called madness.
Page 2
the space. There is even a plastic skeleton
lying prone on a ledge, gazing down upon
unsuspecting museum-goers. At the same
time, the calaveras introduce an underlying
motif of death, and it’s true that Posada
wrestled with very somber ideas in his prints.
One of these was the Mexican Revolution,
which sparked a creative drive in Posada,
though he died before Mexico gained
independence. Death imposes on us a hard
and fast limit to creativity, but that doesn’t
mean that we can’t poke fun at ourselves
while we’re still here. Sometimes, humor is
what reveals the gravest of truths.
Natalie Goldman
About the St.
John’s
Collegian
The St. John’s Collegian is the weekly
newspaper of St. John’s College Annapolis.
We work to bring quick and timely coverage
of important events going on, to help
develop a more informed student body. If
you’re searching for more in-depth
investigations and reporting, as well as
essays, art and culture, check out the Gadfly,
our affiliated publication, which is
published once every three weeks.
Want to submit an article? We always need
more writers, whether for opinion or
reporting! Submissions for news articles
should be between 300-400 words, while
opinion should be kept short at 200 words.
Just email eanicholskaufman@sjc.edu with
your article, and we will work to get it in
print! Longer form articles and more indepth exploration of ideas should go to the
Gadfly, which accepts submissions at
djnathan@sjc.edu.
Contributors for this issue:
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman, Editor
Natalie Goldman
Caleb Briggs
Semyon Andruschenko
Louis Rosenberg
�
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
A name given to the resource
<em>The St. John's Collegian</em>
Description
An account of the resource
A student newspaper of St. John's College. <em>The St. John's Collegian</em> began publication in 2023 and is affiliated with <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/collections/show/16"><em>The Gadfly</em></a>. <br /><br />Published weekly on Thursday, with the exception of weeks <em>The Gadfly </em>is published. <br /><br />Earlier publications with the title <em>The Collegian </em>and <em>The St. John's Collegian </em>are available in <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/collections/show/26"><em>The Collegian Collection</em></a>.<br /><br />Click on Items in <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=69&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">The St. John's Collegian Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
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.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SJCCollegian
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
pdf
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
2 pages
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
A name given to the resource
St. John's Collegian, September 28, 2023
Description
An account of the resource
Volume 1, issue 3 of the St. John's Collegian, published September 28, 2023.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)
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
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2023-09-28
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College holds the rights to this publication.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Subject
The topic of the resource
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)--Periodicals
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SJCCollegian_vol1_issue3_2023-09-28
Student publication
The Collegian
The Gadfly