21 20 5655 https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/c694b264759a06cb579e94f61dbba204.pdf c94a2c7e51238404cb2b3130cab87ad1 PDF Text Text Liberal Education and Exemplary Ordinariness: On the Meaning of Bildung in Hegel’s Political Philosophy Andrew J. Bove—Villanova University For Presentation at St. John’s College, Santa Fe, October 18th, 2014 My aim in this paper is to understand how Hegel thinks classical education or study of the ancients participates in the transition or transformation of bourgeois society into the state, a transition that is perhaps the most distinctive moment and feature of Hegel’s political thought as a whole. According to Hegel, what makes a society of individuals into a genuine community is a process of formation through which the abstract notion of individual rights becomes embodied in the workings of the state and the hearts and minds of its citizens or members. He also claims, in a lecture written about a decade before he elaborated his formal political philosophy or philosophy of right, that the study of great literary works of antiquity—and of the ancient Greeks especially—plays a crucial part in the transformative process he describes. To what does Hegel ascribe the constitutional power of such study? Is the classical education he describes truly a liberal education? And what can we learn from him about the role of liberal education in strengthening or deepening the foundations of our own community? I aim to shed some light on these questions. The first part of the paper is a consideration of the education or Bildung of bourgeois society [bürgerliche Gesellschaft ] into or towards the state [Staat] that Hegel describes in the Philosophy of Right. In the second part of the paper I will examine a few striking figures and images in the lecture, with the intent of understanding Hegel’s conception of the worth of classical education in the modern world and, in particular, a fundamentally liberal world of individuals pursuing their separate ends and their own notions of happiness. 1 �I: The Bildung of Society: A Consideration of Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, §§182-7 Hegel conceives of the modern political association as a restless, dynamic, unruly, but ultimately rational process through which a collection of individuals—aware of their rights or what Hegel calls “subjective freedom”—strive and struggle, one and all, to attain their own ends and end up constituting a new kind of ethical unity that Hegel calls the state.1 From the standpoint of the political philosopher, it is a kind of dramatic spectacle through which a new form of human community comes into being behind the backs of its members as they aim only to satisfy their private interests. Hegel looks out, Zeus-like, upon the battlefield of bürgerliche Gesellschaft and appreciates the combatants not for their heroism or warrior virtue, but rather (and somewhat ironically) for their unwitting advancement of the universal interest. What he sees with much greater clarity than the participants do is the absolute extent to which they need one another in order to realize their individual ends. He sees them becoming more and more alike and cooperative even as they think exclusively of their own purposes and projects. A passage from a Zusatz2 to the opening paragraph of the bürgerliche Gesellschaft section captures Hegel’s understanding especially well: 1 State [Staat] for Hegel has a special meaning as the ethical community in which individuals or “private persons” find themselves finally “at home.” It is, for him, something morally much greater than a juridical entity that protects individual rights. The latter sense (as will be discussed below) entails a relationship of estrangement between the individual’s purposes and desires and the means to their accomplishment and satisfaction. The genuine state only comes into being as a result of an accomplished process of overcoming that estrangement and, more broadly, the process through which individual subjectivity places its stamp on the world. In his introductory lectures on the Philosophy of History, Hegel famously claims that “the state is not a work of art”—that is, it does not come into being directly and intentionally through human planning and artifice, but only as the final expression of human will and action and the historical world they create. 2 The Zusätze or additions to the text of the Philosophie des Rechts are based on the notes of two of Hegel’s students who attended different series of the lectures that form the basis of work. The—necessarily selective, given their volume—inclusion of these notes in later editions of the work is controversial, but the notes themselves are reliable and I do not hesitate to make reference to them where they are helpful in making sense of Hegel’s argument. The Zusätze should not be confused with Hegel’s own Anmerkungen or remarks to many of the paragraphs in the work, the purpose of which is to unpack and elaborate on, or give broader context to, the work’s very dense and abstract main text. On these matters see H.B. Nisbet’s Translator’s Preface to the Cambridge edition of the work: Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Allen Wood, ed. (Cambridge, 1991), pp. xxxv-xxxvi. I make use of the Wood-Nisbet edition throughout the paper with some modifications to the translation. 2 �Since particularity is tied to the condition of universality, the whole [of bourgeois society] is the ground [Boden] of mediation in which all individual characteristics [Einzelheiten], all aptitudes, and all accidents of birth and fortune are liberated, and where the waves of passion surge forth, governed only by the reason which shines through them. Particularity, limited by universality, is the only standard by which each particular [person] promotes his welfare.3 Hegel seems quietly to delight in the vision of an anarchic mass of liberated individuals getting straightened out as a consequence of the passionate pursuit of their own ends. They are, in a sense, defeated by their own rationality, and there is a certain charm in the beholding of this spectacle. While the individuals regard the state as merely a juridical structure that allows them to pursue their private interests, Hegel sees this whole situation as a kind of spiritual engine that generates a substantial moral community: the state in the proper sense of the term.4 The individual regards the state as the means to his own projects and satisfaction; it allows him to get what he wants and to keep it (or to do what he wants and keep doing it) without fear of invasion or violence at the hands of the others.5 But Hegel sees society as the means to or presupposition of the state—the ethical communion that comes into being only as a result of the formative process that takes place in society. His political-philosophical aim is to show how the selfdefeating structure of society leads to higher possibilities for individual satisfaction. The spirited modern individual must constantly sacrifice his particularity at the altar of the universal—the “system of all-round interdependence (§183)” in which he involves himself willy-nilly—and 3 Addition to §182. See Hegel’s rather grandiloquent (yet also quite technical) definition in Philosophie des Rechts, §257: “The state is the actuality [Wirklichkeit] of the ethical idea—the ethical spirit as the substantial will, manifest [offenbar] and clear to itself, which thinks and knows itself and implements what it knows in so far as it knows it.” 5 For Hegel, Thomas Hobbes is the philosopher of society in Hegel’s sense, not of the state. The Leviathan, despite its great power and fearsomeness, guarantees only the unstable flux of society and the sense of estrangement that accompanies it. Bürgerliche Gesellschaft in Hegel’s sense is not the Hobbesian state of nature, but rather its opposite, what Hobbes calls civil society or the civil condition of mankind. 4 3 �Hegel undertakes to show how this (unintentional) sacrifice does finally bring back the gods of the city. Thus far, Hegel’s theory of modern society does not appear to differ fundamentally from the theories of many of his eighteenth-century political-philosophical predecessors. Kant, for instance, famously describes how the very antagonism of society awakens previously dormant moral powers whose activation begins the historical process of a moral regeneration of mankind.6 Both Kant and Hegel owe a lot to the works of the Scottish political thinkers—above all, Adam Smith—and their innovative accounts of how commerce and intercourse amongst essentially self-concerned human beings leads to new forms of human association and interconnectedness. In attempting to explain what is distinctive about the Hegelian understanding, I would begin with the suggestion that both Kant and Hegel are responding to Smith’s type of social and psychological analysis, but in the spirit of a radical re-founding of the modern community that they learned from reading Jean-Jacques Rousseau. They read Smith in the light of Rousseau and the possibility of a restoration of a genuine republic to which he aspires. One might say that Kant and Hegel are attempting a synthesis of two thinkers who take divergent approaches to the problem of how a genuine community of interests can be constituted on the basis of individual rights or “subjective freedom.” If Smith’s view is broadly that the antagonism of society produces distinct manners and sentiments and a sort of psychic or moral economy that (together with a flourishing physical economy) compensates us for the loss of genuine republican association; and if Rousseau’s view is broadly that the antagonism must be radically superseded by means of the establishment of a general will that founds a new republic—then the view of 6 See especially the essay “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose,” in which Kant describes how “a pathologically enforced social union is transformed into a moral whole.” In Reiss, ed., Kant: Political Writings, 2nd edition (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 41-53. 4 �Kant and Hegel is that the social antagonism itself contains the intellectual and moral seeds of its own regeneration. It can reasonably aim at something much higher than a thoroughly “polite” and economically productive civilization, yet without repudiating the fundamentally individualistic character of modern society. It is not, however, that Kant and Hegel are attempting to broker a compromise between two thinkers who have radically different dispositions towards modern life, but rather that they claim to have arrived at a truer and more complete understanding of the nature and consequences of individual freedom. One might say that in their view, Smith articulates the process without articulating the final result; while Rousseau articulates the result without fully accounting for the process.7 Kant and Hegel both approach the problem as one of forming or educating individual freedom or subjectivity in a profoundly transformative way, but without abandoning the foundation of individual rights. On the contrary: they aim to complete the structure to which that very foundation gives rise. The Kantian solution—an ambitious attempt to engender a progressive project that gives new moral meaning to human history—is of great interest and difficulty in its own right and I will not attempt any kind of summary here. (And Kant, too, draws on classical notions of liberal education in his understanding of how individual freedom can fully realize its own moral possibilities.) For the remainder of this section, I will attempt to draw out what is distinctive and interesting about Hegel’s understanding of the “education” of individual freedom that characterizes bourgeois society. Hegel spells out his basic claim most fully and clearly in §187 of the Philosophie des Rechts. Individuals, he claims, “can attain their end only insofar as they themselves determine their knowing, willing, and acting in a universal way, and make themselves into links in the 7 These formulations are admittedly glib and are not intended as anything remotely close to an accurate characterization of these two great modern political philosophers. My intent is simply to characterize a certain broad way of thinking about modern society that is common to both Kant and Hegel. 5 �chain of this interconnection [Zusammenhang]”—i.e., the universal element of society which appears to individuals merely as a means to their private ends and not as an end-in-itself. “The interest of the idea in all of this,” he continues, which is not present in the consciousness of these members of bourgeois society as such, is the process of raising [erheben], through natural necessity as well as their arbitrary needs, the members’ individuality and naturalness towards [zur] formal freedom and formal universality of knowing and willing—of educating [bilden] subjectivity in its particularity [besonderheit]. Active participation in the “system of needs” that characterizes bourgeois society leads to an elevation of individual judgment and action to the level of formal freedom and universality of moral and intellectual judgment. The more we pursue our private ends, the more we get to know our way around the “chain” of interdependency, and this has the effect of making us something more than mere links in this chain. We become in a more normative sense social beings, aware of the general context of our actions. And Hegel characterizes all this as a process of education or cultivation—Bildung—“of subjectivity in its particularity.”8 This key paragraph occasions a relatively lengthy Anmerkung on education in general, in which Hegel makes clear that the education or cultivation of members of bourgeois society is not an education merely by analogy, or an education only in the special sense of what might today be called “socialization.” He readily associates Bildung—a word with very lofty, including religious, connotations9—with the very ordinary and prosaic process of learning how to be a 8 The key part of the sentence reads: “…die Subjektivität in ihrer Besonderheit zu bilden.” The dative construction makes it clear that subjectivity is being educated or cultivated in (not into) its condition of particularity. The sense is similar to something like, “He learned, in his naïvete, that not everyone who makes a promise is to be trusted.” Hegel means to say that subjectivity is, in truth, being formed out of or away from its particularity, towards universality of thinking and acting. 9 The word has its origins in the word Bild—picture or image or eikon—and in particular, Martin Luther’s use of the word in his translation of Genesis 1.26-27: “Und Gott sprach: Lasset uns Menschen machen, ein Bild, das uns gleich sei…. Und Gott schuf den Menschen ihm zum Bilde, zum Bilde Gottes schuf er ihn.” (“And God said, Let us make 6 �functioning member of modern bourgeois society. The commentary is all the more remarkable in that in it, Hegel is refuting two alternative views of the worth and significance of education, and his refutation seems to proceed precisely from that lofty sense of Bildung in comparison with which Hegel’s use of the term sounds such a dissonant note. Specifically, he rejects both the Rousseauean understanding of education or culture as the corruption of natural simplicity, and the moral flipside of that understanding according to which education is nothing but a means to the ends of “needs, their satisfaction, the pleasures and comforts of particular life, etc.” Both views, he states, “show a lack of acquaintance with the nature of spirit and the goal of reason.” Hegel’s intention here seems to be to show that Bildung, in its true and proper meaning, is not something external to, or separate from, the process through which the individual discovers himself to be a member of a larger social context—but that it is that very process, grasped in its full human significance. What, then, is the “goal of reason,” if it is neither natural simplicity nor the satisfaction of individual needs and desires? Hegel states it as follows: [its goal is] for natural simplicity [Natureinfalt]—whether as passive selflessness or as the coarseness [Rohheit] of knowing and willing—that is, the immediacy and individuality in which the spirit is immersed, to be worked away [weggearbeitet] and for its externality to receive for the first time the rationality of which it is capable, namely, the form of universality, that is, understanding [Verständigkeit]. Hegel seems to equate the acquisition of rationality or understanding with the elimination of natural coarseness. Hence Bildung is simultaneously something positive and something negative, the development of new powers and the “working away” of original nature. On both man after our image, after our likeness…. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him.”) Bildung literally means the formation of man in the image of God, and its later humanistic use retains (or retained until relatively recently) much of the majesty of its origins. “Culture” in the sense of “man of culture” captures some, but by no means all, of Bildung’s sense of a deep inner formation and perfection of mind and soul. 7 �the individual and the general level, it involves an exchange or replacement of the immediate and particular with the mediated and universal. As in the art of sculpture, the rough exterior of the stone needs to be worked away to reveal the universal form that lies within, but which is, in truth, a result of the very process of the working away of the “natural” exterior. It is only by means of such a process that spirit finds itself “at home” in externality. To remain on the level of satisfying immediate needs and wants is to remain in a condition of self-estrangement—to be compelled to venture out into a foreign land merely to subsist. “Education [Bildung],” Hegel concludes, is therefore liberation and work towards a higher liberation; it is the absolute transition [Durchgangspunkt] to the infinitely subjective substantiality of ethical life [Sittlichkeit], which is no longer immediate and natural, but spiritual and at the same time raised to the shape of universality. In practice, education is “hard work [harte Arbeit] against mere subjectivity of conduct, against the immediacy of desire, and likewise against the subjective vanity of feeling and the whim of one’s preferences.” This negative labor of opposition is, at the same time, an ascent to the level of understanding and the being-at-home-in-externality that is, for Hegel, the condition of genuine individuality. The shucking off of natural simplicity and roughness allows us recognize ourselves in external actuality and, thus, to possess ourselves fully. We are liberated from the compulsion of having constantly to “play the game” to satisfy our needs and desires; the barrier between our subjective particularity and the interplay of individual interests is effaced or eliminated through our very participation in that interplay. In a famous (or infamous) Zusatz to the foregoing passage, Hegel comments as follows: “By educated people, we may understand in the first place those who do everything as others do it and who do not flaunt their particularity, whereas it is precisely the latter that the uneducated 8 �display, since their conduct is not guided by the universal aspects of the object.” He goes so far as to claim that education “irons out” our peculiarities—like wrinkles from a shirt.10 Again, Hegel seems to go out of his way to show that Bildung is not some kind of special possession, but an exemplary kind of ordinariness—the exemplariness of neither wanting nor needing to be anything special. Hegel appears as a great defender and champion of the bourgeois at a time when the bourgeois was already an object of contempt and of all manner of political and aesthetic attacks and efforts of overcoming. The fully self-conscious participant in bourgeois society, the man who has embraced the game and made it his own, is, Hegel suggests, nothing less than the complete human being. One might say that he means to vindicate civilization against culture, the alleged antagonism between which is expressive of an approach to the problem of modern dividedness that Hegel fundamentally rejects. For Hegel, “culture” means precisely the Bildung (or Ausbildung—the working out or elaboration) of civilization’s implicit rationality and completeness. “Culture” is not a radical alternative to civilization, but a civilization that has come to understand its own finality and has thus made peace with itself. For Hegel, the “man of culture” is the bourgeois who has grasped that his is the most rational, satisfying, and contradiction-free life that can be lived on the foundation of individual freedom. Hegel implies that even in a self-consciously individualistic society, one should expect a certain human type to predominate, and that this (in the strict sense) assimilative tendency of individual-rights based societies ought to be encouraged and seen through to its best conclusion, rather than fought against in the name of human variety or diversity (as the Romantics of Hegel’s 10 This much-decried passage might be seen as simply an affirmation of the essentially classical, as opposed to Romantic or naturalistic, character of education in general. Swimming provides a useful analogy: If one wants to swim well in the “ocean” of externality—the sea of competing individuals with competing interests into which we are thrown—then it is best to master the accepted strokes and eliminate individual peculiarities of motion. Excellent swimmers all look about the same in the pool, and to see them all at once, moving together and in competition with each other, is an impressive spectacle indeed. 9 �time and, perhaps, the “multiculturalists” of ours). Indeed, it is especially in such a society that human beings tend to be or to become similar to one another, to a greater degree than in any past society. All are gebildet—formed, shaped, educated, cultivated—by and into the one universal Zusammenhang. There are no substantial social classes through which our characters are shaped, and traditional morality or natural law in a pre-modern sense is too weak to prevail over the spirit of individual freedom that animates modern societies. Moral traditions or Sitten must necessarily be reconstituted through the free actions of individuals. In this sense, modern societies, our own included, are the least “diverse” that have ever existed. Our incessant talk of “diversity” is ultimately an expression of our lack of diversity. We feel, obscurely perhaps, this lack, and we are troubled by it; but according to Hegel’s account, this is not because we truly love or long for human diversity (it is difficult to conceive how such an abstraction could be an object of human longing), but because we have not thought through and cultivated our uniformity and responded to the intellectual and moral demands that it places on us. We have a bad conscience about out failure to accept what we are, and we try to appease it by praising and exaggerating superficial differences. But this only leads to a bad kind of similarity or sameness—a generic sort of eccentricity that is, for Hegel, a sort of no-man’s-land of the spirit.11 II: Liberal Education in a Bourgeois World Does classical liberal education have any place in the bourgeois world that Hegel champions? Surprisingly, study of the ancients appears to play an essential role in the larger process of Bildung that he seems to conceive in thoroughly modern terms. What, then, is the relationship 11 Many things in our own society might be seen as examples of this tendency: “customized” consumer products that are nothing more than inputs into a computerized manufacturing system; the prevalence of tattoos and body art expressing outward difference but inner sameness; the nearly infinite variety of poetically-named colors with which to paint “accent walls”; “hipster culture” and its tendency to become entangled in ironic self-contradiction; etc. 10 �between classical learning and the Bildung of bourgeois society? What purpose does the former serve, if not to help us to ascend out of the noisy cave of modern society? How does study of the ancient Greeks and Romans belong to or participate in the process through which individuals form themselves into an ethical whole on the foundation of subjective freedom? I will address these questions by examining some key passages in the first of a series of annual addresses Hegel gave as rector of the new gymnasium established at Nuremburg in 1809. The lecture as a whole takes the form of a defense of classical learning—a defense which was by no means either expected or obligatory on Hegel’s part. Hegel wants to set the tone for the new institution, and he does so by making the case for a revival of classical education against some of the major currents of his age. “The spirit and purpose of our institution,” Hegel claims in beginning his statement about the principle [Prinzip] and fundamentals [Grundzüge] of the new school, “is preparation for learned study, a preparation which is built on the foundation [Grund] of the Greeks and Romans.”12 Their works have been, for millennia (Hegel rather oddly says), the ground or soil [Boden] “on which all culture [Kultur]13 has stood, from which it has sprung, and with which it has been in continuous connection [Zusammenhang].” It is impossible, he claims, to conceive of 12 “Rede zum Schuljahrabschluß am 29. September 1809,” in G.W.F. Hegel, Werke 4: Nürnberger und Heidelberger Schriften, 1808-1817 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970), p. 314. Part of the address is translated by Richard Kroner as “On Classical Studies,” in Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.F. Hegel, ed. Jon Stewart (Evanston: Northwestern, 2000), pp. 291-9. I have made use of Kroner’s translation with some modifications. 13 Hegel uses the word Kultur occasionally (including twice in significant passages in this lecture) as more or less a synonym for Bildung, which has a much more important and definite (but also quite complicated and puzzling) place in his philosophy as a whole. Kultur for Hegel seems to mean a society or a people in a gebildete condition. In the second passage (discussed below), Hegel speaks of “the culture [Kultur], art, and science of a people” in a way that implies its equivalence to “the Bildung of the modern world.” The implication is that Bildung includes all three of these entities, so perhaps Kultur may be taken to refer more specifically to manners or moral culture, which would be roughly consistent with the Kantian usage of the word. (Kant makes systematic use of Kultur on account of his neo-Roman emphasis on the careful tending and cultivation of nature.) The later nineteenth-century German tendency to employ Kultur as a polemical term against—and as the antidote to—civilization or civilisation as something typically English or French is foreign to Hegel, who, as I explain above, can be understood to be an opponent of the civilization-culture distinction before it really gets political traction. 11 �an educated or enlightened society that does not somehow rest on the foundation of the ancients. Hegel then ventures the following analogy: Just as the natural organisms, plants and animals, struggle to free themselves from gravitation, but cannot escape this element of their being [Wesen], so has all art and science grown up out of that ground [Boden]. And even though the arts and sciences have attained their own self-sufficiency, they have not emancipated themselves from the recollection [Erinnerung] of that older education [Bildung]. As Antaeus renewed his forces by touching his mother earth, so has every new resurgence and invigoration of science and culture [Bildung] raised itself to the sunlight out of a return to antiquity [Altertum]. Several things are noteworthy in this complicated image. First, modern knowledge is rooted in ancient soil; it is a new growth, but it is not a radical departure from or superseding of the ancients. Second, the works of the ancients appear in the analogy as something different in kind from modern art and science. Hegel likens ancient Bildung to the soil, the inorganic element, and modern Bildung to the organic beings, plants and animals. Modern Bildung lives and dies and regenerates itself, while ancient Bildung is the permanent ground or Boden of all spiritual growth and striving. Ancient Bildung is original, modern Bildung is derivative. Third, modern Bildung, by its nature, does indeed wish to escape its ground, but is prevented from doing so by an external force, recollection, just as natural beings are prevented by gravitation from taking leave of the earth. Finally, the allusion to Antaeus implies that modern Bildung would destroy itself (or be destroyed by some Heracles) if ever it did succeed in escaping or renouncing ancient Bildung. This account of modern intellectual and artistic activity is reminiscent of Hegel’s account of the activity of the modern individual in the Philosophie des Rechts discussed above. Modern knowledge wishes to be immediately for itself and independent even though it is grounded in the element of the ancients; just as the modern individual wishes to be immediately for himself even 12 �though he depends on the universal element of society for his subsistence. The logic of development by means of self-defeating self-assertion is the same in both cases. In the case of modern individuality, what prevents lift-off is the Zusammenhang of mutually interdependent individuals. The more we strive for independence, the more we find ourselves caught up in the universal element of society. In the case of modern knowledge, the more it strives for independence, the more it “recollects” the ancient ground from whence it is sprung. In both cases, the attempt to escape the origin leads back to the origin, but the relationship to the origin is profoundly altered in the process. The ancient republic is the ethical origin of the modern constitutional state populated by an enlightened, sociable, prosperous, and mutually cooperative bourgeoisie. Similarly, ancient Bildung is the ground on which the modern arts and sciences flourish and proliferate, and enable the manifold pursuits of the modern individual. The implication is that the study of the ancients is somehow essential to the maintenance of the integrity and self-conscious universality of the modern state. The study of—or rather the modern return to the ancients, which is what Hegel was trying to effect at the new gymnasium in the new, post-Napoleonic, reformed Bavarian monarchy14—has, for Hegel, the greatest political importance. This return is deeply implicated in the Durchgangspunkt, the moment of passing over into “the infinitely subjective substantiality of ethical life.” The process Hegel describes in the Philosophie des Rechts of simultaneously ridding ourselves of natural coarseness while 14 On the political background and context of Hegel’s appointment as rector, see the excellent account of Terry Pinkard in Hegel: A Biography (Cambridge, 2000), ch. 7. Pinkard presents Hegel, along with his friend and patron Immanuel Niethammer, as a champion of “neo-humanism” against Catholic and Protestant traditionalism on the one hand, and modern utilitarianism on the other. While this is broadly accurate, it perhaps does not appreciate Hegel’s radical skepticism towards any kind of “cultural” palliative for modern society. Pinkard’s Hegel is an intellectual like Niethammer, but Hegel may be more accurately characterized as anti-intellectual in the strict sense of the word. Bildung, in Hegel’s view, is not primarily the formation of an enlightened class that can direct society, but rather it is the formation or education of society itself. There is a deeply republican character to Hegel’s thinking that is (ironically) often missed by interpreters who regard him as a theorist of society or community in the sense of a wise and public-spirited intellectual critic. 13 �acquiring new rational powers seems to be underwritten by a new regard for the works of the ancients as the permanent or inorganic basis, the soil, of modern ethical life. Later in the lecture, after defending the importance of the study of ancient languages as one moment in the organic whole of knowledge rather than (as it was in the old institution) the most important part of higher learning, Hegel raises an objection that prompts a stirring, and rather poetic, defense of classical education. Hegel points out that the study of ancient languages, even when their place in the whole of knowledge is properly understood, is very demanding and timeconsuming. Shouldn’t we then just leave it to a few specialists and allow the rest to devote their time to the study and cultivation of the new sciences? “It seems to be a just demand,” Hegel says, “that the culture [Kultur], art, and science of a people come to stand on its own two feet.” He then poses the following question: May we not believe, of the Bildung of the modern world, of our enlightenment and the progress of all the arts and sciences, that they have replaced their Greek and Roman children’s shoes and outgrown their leadingstrings [Gängelbande] so as to be able to walk on their own ground and soil [Grund und Boden]?15 Hegel alludes to Kant’s exhortation (in his famous essay, “What is Enlightenment?”) that we cut our leading strings and start living and thinking by our own lights. But, he continues, if we truly wish to overcome coarseness or vulgarity—“if we agree that excellence [das Vortreffliche] should be the point of departure”—then, he claims, the study of Greek and Roman literature (in that order of priority) is the indispensable basis [Grundlage] of education. “The perfection and glory of these masterworks,” Hegel says, “must be the spiritual bath, the profane baptism, which gives to the soul its first and inalienable tone and coloration [Tinktur] for taste and knowledge [Wissenschaft].” Moreover, a general familiarity with the ancients does not suffice for this 15 Werke 4, p. 317. 14 �critical preparation of soul. Rather, “we must dwell and dine with them, so that we can inhale their air, their ideas, their manners, one might say even their errors and prejudices, and become at home in this world, the most beautiful that has ever existed.” What should one make of this striking image of a rigorous classical education—one that includes mastery of Greek and Latin—as a “profane baptism”? For one thing, it implies that classical education is, or ought to be, more a radical exposure to the ancients than a scientific study of their works or way of life. We return to the ancients not primarily to know or learn about our origins, but to transport ourselves out of the modern world and back into what Hegel calls “the second, higher paradise, the paradise of the human spirit.” There is a theological understanding at work, at least metaphorically,16 that needs to be unpacked before we can understand how the works of the ancients function as a permanent standard for education. For Hegel, the ancient world is the postlapsarian peak of human existence. It is the beautiful whole assembled from the broken shards of the first, naïve paradise of human nature—like a glorious mosaic made from the pieces of a simple glass vessel that has been smashed. Its blessedness or serenity [Heiterkeit] is no child’s game, but is like a veil, “spread over the melancholy which knows the cruelty [Härte] of fate but is not thereby driven to lose its freedom and moderation.” We have, Hegel implies, fallen from this second paradise that knew how to deal beautifully with a human condition filled with suffering and strife. (Hegel seems to have Homer and Greek tragedy especially in mind here.) The post-Christian principle “of the self-sufficient and inherently infinite personality of the individual, the principle of subjective freedom”17 disrupts 16 Hegel’s understanding of paradise is in a sense necessarily metaphorical, in that paradise for him is not truly paradise, but rather a beautiful condition that was made to be broken or ruined as the means to a higher or more developed condition. The “higher” paradise of the spirit occurs in the world after the fall (!), and its beauty is owing to its sublime and poetic way of dwelling in a world of suffering and sin. The true (earthly) paradise comes at the end. And it is not truly a paradise, but a world that understands itself as final or post-historical and in which the spirit can finally come to rest and experience boredom—with all of its problems and possibilities. 17 Philosophie des Rechts §185 (Anmerkung) 15 �the tragic beauty of the ancient world. Its disruption, however, is both lamentable and inevitable—inevitable, because according to Hegel’s redemptivist understanding, we can only return to God by means of the recognition of the individual’s infinite personality which is sacrificed in the world of the ancients for the sake of the beautiful whole. Yet our souls need to “bathe” in their world if we are going to have any hope of constituting a new whole through our own harte Arbeit following our expulsion from the first paradise. We need not just a glimpse of, but a thorough immersion in the greatness of their sentiments, their statuesque [plastische] virtue free from moral ambiguity, their patriotism [Vaterlandsliebe], the grand manner of their deeds and characters, the multiplicity of their destinies, of their morals and constitutions as a preparation for the demands of modern ethical life or citizenship. The new ethical whole that we modern individuals are trying to assemble will never be as beautiful as the ancient precisely because it will never be as “holistic”; it will always be riven by the spirited striving of individuals who are all too aware of the infiniteness of their personalities. Thus, “whoever has not known the works of the ancients, has lived without knowing what beauty is.” A synopsis of the foregoing argument might be that we need to study the works of the ancient Greeks and Romans because they are the expression of the only paradise that historical human beings have ever really known. But a claim like this can easily lend itself to snobbery, philistinism, “elitism,” and a host of other vices of the intellectual (or, the general vice of being an intellectual, or at least an intellectual of a certain kind). Is there something more definite that serious exposure to the ancients does, according to Hegel, that makes it something more than just a beholding of a beautiful world (a world whose beauty is hardly self-evident to many modern people, as anyone who teaches Homer and Aristotle to college freshmen can attest)? How, 16 �exactly, does classical education function as a baptism or purification of the modern soul that orients it towards a higher kind of cooperation amongst free individuals than would otherwise be possible? Hegel addresses the question indirectly towards the end of the lecture when he treats the formal aspect of education after having discussed its substance. By what formal means or process does the study of the ancients have the effects or consequences that he claims it does? His answer, in sum, is that these works, read in their original languages, have the effect of estranging [Entfremden] us from ourselves. Genuine Bildung takes place only by means of the imagination’s straining to occupy itself with “something not given in immediate experience, something foreign, something pertaining to recollection, to memory and the thinking mind.”18 Hegel claims that “only what is strange and foreign attracts our interest and lures us to activity and effort.” Our moral and intellectual faculties are quickened by the experience of the foreign—similar, perhaps, to how one becomes more attentive and perceptive when visiting a foreign country for the first time. Hegel speaks of the pedagogical necessity of a “separation wall” [Scheidewand], and claims that “the world and language of the ancients” is best suited to this purpose. Their world appears to us as a barrier between ourselves and…ourselves; that is, between the unformed self and the self that has realized itself through a process of self-estrangement and return.19 Not just any 18 Werke 4, pp. 320-1. Alasdair MacIntyre captures something of the spirit of Hegel’s claim in the following statement: “[I]t is a primary responsibility of a university to be unresponsive, to give its students what they need, not what they want, and to do so in such a way that what they want becomes what they need and what they choose is choice-worthy.” MacIntyre, “Catholic Universities: Dangers, Hopes, Choices,” in Higher Learning and Catholic Traditions, ed. Robert E. Sullivan (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press), p. 15. (Cited in Liam Kavanagh, “Interview: Alasdair MacIntyre,” Expositions 6.2 (2012), p. 1.) 19 The subtitle of the Bildung section of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (published two years prior to the Nuremburg lecture discussed here) is “the self-estranged spirit” or “spirit in its self-estrangement.” It is the quasihistorical account of how spirit-in-general comes to be gebildet, that is, to return to itself in a new kingdom following the break-up of its ancient paradise. A complete investigation of the questions being posed in this paper 17 �unknown subject matter encourages this process. We require a genuinely foreign world that challenges us and draws us out of ourselves through its beauty as much as its troubling strangeness. The works of the ancients possess an unmatched power to separate us from ourselves and, hence, force us to work to rebuild ourselves into something greater. They are like a beautiful, exotic stranger whom we meet outside the gates of the first paradise, and who excites in us the energy of mind and soul to build for ourselves a new home worthy of the spirit with which we are originally endowed. Conclusion For Hegel, classical education serves the purpose of reminding us of human possibilities that our world of individualistic striving tends to obscure. It draw us out of ourselves towards what is universal, and encourages the best tendencies of our type of society towards genuinely ethical cooperation. It does not, however, promise any sort of transcendence of, or ascent above, the plane of bourgeois society. Although he waxes eloquent about the study of the ancients as immersion in the truly beautiful, he comes close to conceiving of classical education as essentially the means, or an especially important part of the means, of society’s self-actualization or self-completion. It is the final stage of the modern individual’s moral work of smoothing off his rough edges and becoming an exemplary participant in bourgeois society—the type who works hard, cares about the common good while respecting others’ freedom and independence, and assiduously works to “bring people together” instead of remaining absorbed in his own private affairs. would require considerable attention to the Phenomenology, which is Hegel’s complete account of the process of spirit’s “recollection” of all its past phases that brings its historical development to completion. 18 �Is Bildung as Hegel conceives it a liberal education? In the sense that it aims to liberate us from the narrow moral horizons that modern individuality tends to encourage, then it can certainly be called liberal. And Hegel intimates another sense of the liberating power of classical education when he speaks of its power to excite in the young the desire to dwell in a foreign world and allow themselves to be transformed by the experience. But he conceives of this power in terms of an immanent social process through which the modern individual learns to recognize himself in the workings of bourgeois society. Its purpose is ultimately to make us more completely at home in bourgeois society rather than to free us in a radical way from its forces and relations (whatever such a liberation might mean or entail). Hegel’s most basic thought is that the truly liberally educated human being is the one who embodies a sort of exemplary ordinariness and derives satisfaction and serenity from being this way. He has, with the help of the ancients, learned to “own” his bourgeois existence and not to long for any kind of transcendence, at least not in this world. We may wonder at the spectacle of such a person. Whether one wonders with admiration depends, finally, on whether one thinks there are other modern possibilities for a human life well and fully lived. 19 � 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 "What is Liberal Education For?" 2014 Conference Papers 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 Santa Fe Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make these items available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Meem Library Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 19 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 Liberal education and exemplary ordinariness : on the meaning of Bildung in Hegel's political philosophy Description An account of the resource Paper presented on October 18, 2014 by Andrew Bove at What is Liberal Education For? : a conference at St. John's College on the 50th Anniversary of the Santa Fe campus. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bove, Andrew J. 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 Santa Fe, NM Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10-18 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online. 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 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831. Education, Humanistic Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 24004523 https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/1e9e51b80314fb05e958aefd2ecdf7d8.mp3 2121b78de4bcae6cae7f46883020ee8a 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 Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Description An account of the resource The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library 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 CD Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:44:45 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 Courage, Insight, Sympathy, Solitude: The Genealogy of the Noble Type in Part Nine of <em>Beyond Good and Evil</em>. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Boxel, Lise van Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-08-01 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 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 audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online." Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Subject The topic of the resource Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900. Jenseits von Gut und Böse. English Nobility Philosophy Courage Good and evil Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 80814 Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on August 1, 2012, by Lise van Boxel as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. <br /><br />Ms. van Boxel was a tutor at St. John's College. Her talk is on Nietzsche's <em>Geneology of Morals</em>. In particular, her talk examines what it is that makes up a "noble type" for Nietzsche by looking at a close reading of part nine of his work. Her lecture aims to point towards a positive definition of what the noble type in Nietzsche actually constitutes. Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Graduate Institute Summer lecture series Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/df2e62717d69b016386da62a93f1d213.mp3 c0ae1b9f0d69901b0333138f19a2ccd5 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 College Lecture Recordings—Santa Fe Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Meem Library Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Santa Fe, NM 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 CD Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:07:15 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 Nietzsche : the motion that is man Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture given on April 22, 2016 by Lise van Boxel as part of the Dean's Lecture and Concert Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Boxel, Lise van 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 Santa Fe, NM Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-04-22 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make this item 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 Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900. Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 20014279 Friday night lecture https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/fab34c9596aaed5a76a30099d6d41cc4.pdf 9a32881a0f0074c463ffca2d1984aea1 PDF Text Text COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS, THE GRADUATE INSTITUTE AT ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE, AUGUST 2011 By Lise van Boxel Congratulations on your successful completion of the Master’s Program in Liberal Arts! Now that you have your M.A., it is a good time to reflect upon what you have learned and the reasons why you began the journey that led you to your degree. What knowledge have you acquired at St. John's College? Have you gained any practical skills here? Your employers or potential clients, your friends and your family will certainly ask such questions. What will you say to them? What do you say to yourself? Before turning to a consideration of possible answers to such questions, consider briefly some of the pre‐suppositions that often underlie them. Frequently, the real meaning of, “What did you learn?” is, “In what way has this education contributed to your value as a worker or to your ability to earn a living?” These questions are not ridiculous. Unless you are lucky enough to be independently wealthy or you have a patron, you have to think about how to support yourself. On the other hand, it is wrong‐headed to think of education simply or primarily in these terms, as if employability and income were the highest, most important considerations for a human being. Friedrich Nietzsche offers a vivid description of this impoverished understanding of education—an understanding that characterizes the modern era. In sum, he argues that an education that looks solely or primarily to the marketplace deforms the souls of its students because it is ignorant of, or denies, the proper fullness and activity of the human soul: [T]he present age is . . . supposed to be an age, not of whole, mature and harmonious personalities, but of labor of the greatest possible common utility. That means, however, that men have to be adjusted to the purposes of the age so as to be ready for employment as soon as possible: they must labor in the factories of the general good before they are mature, indeed so that they shall not become mature—for this would be a luxury which would deprive the ‘labor market’ of a great deal of its workforce. Some birds are blinded so that they may sing more beautifully; I do not think the men of today sing more beautifully than their grandfathers, but I know they have been blinded. (Nietzsche, On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life, § 7) Nietzsche grants that the emphasis on science, and more specifically on science directed by the marketplace, will indeed produce economic success, at least in the short‐term. However, he adds that this kind of science is a desiccated version of the comprehensive understanding that is the proper goal of science or higher learning more generally—the goal that the modern world has largely abandoned: 1 �I regret to use the words of the slave‐owner and the employer of labor to describe things that in themselves ought to be thought of as free of utility and raised above the necessities of life; but the words “factory”, “labor market”, “supply”, “making profitable”, and whatever auxiliary verbs egoism now employs, come unbidden to the lips when one wishes to describe the most recent generation of men of learning. Sterling mediocrity grows even more mediocre, science ever more profitable in the economic sense. . . . Those who unwearyingly repeat the modern call to battle and sacrifice—“Division of labor! Fall in!”—must for once be told in round and plain terms: if you want to push science forward as quickly as possible you will succeed in destroying it as quickly as possible; just as a hen perishes if it is compelled to lay eggs too quickly. (Ibid) If Nietzsche’s account of the trend in modern education aptly describes the kind of education you did not receive and to which I think St. John’s is opposed, how might you describe what you did learn here? While denouncing an overly narrow view of education, Nietzsche alludes to the effect of a complete education: it would create “whole, mature and harmonious personalities” (Ibid). Neither you nor I can honestly claim that you acquired a complete and harmonious soul as a result of several years of education at St. John’s. This is not to say that I abandon the idea that the truly authoritative education aims at, and can produce, a harmonious soul. Rather, I think this education is the ongoing activity of a lifetime. I do think that the liberal education you received here can contribute greatly to the attainment of this goal. However, I will put aside these ideas for the moment, and I will turn instead to a more modest articulation of what a liberal education is and what skills may be acquired as a result of it. To do so, I will replace Nietzsche’s high‐flying, though accurate, description of a complete education with Aristotle’s sensible, though still ambitious, account of a liberal education. In distinguishing a specialist from someone who, like you, has been generally educated, he says: With regard to every [kind of] contemplation and inquiry, both lowlier and more esteemed, there appear to be two ways of being skilled, one of which it is well to call the science of the thing, and the other . . . a kind of educatedness. For it is characteristic of an educated man to be able to hit the mark and judge appropriately what the speaker sets forth finely and what he does not. For something like this is in fact what we suppose the generally educated man to be, and . . . to be educated is to be capable of doing this very thing—except that we believe this one, the generally educated man, is able to judge about virtually all things, though being one man, whereas the other one [the scientist or specialist] is able to judge [only] about some limited nature. (Aristotle, On the Parts of Animals, 639a2 – 15) I do not recommend launching yourself into this quotation when asked what practical skills you acquired at St. John’s College, though if you decide to do so, take 2 �a deep breath, and deliver it with panache. You can, however, capture the essence of what Aristotle says in your own words. In my own words, I say that, as a result of your liberal education, you are better able to judge when an argument or account is adequate and when it is not. When it is inadequate, you are more capable of seeing how it is deficient and what would need to be addressed to alleviate this shortcoming. Such judgment can be brought to bear on any argument, regardless of the field. If the argument includes technical language, all you need is the time to look up the definitions of these words before you are able to proceed as you would with any other account. At bottom, such an argument is no different from any other. To Aristotle’s description, I would add that, as a result of your education, you are now better able to admit when you do not know something, and to do so without embarrassment. Do not underestimate the value of this intellectual honesty. It will help you to continue to learn. In addition, it will be greatly appreciated by other people, most of whom are anxious about their own ignorance, but are afraid to admit that they do not know. It can be a tremendous relief to encounter someone who can say without shame that he does not know, but that he wants to learn. This training in judgment—in clear thinking—is an essential part of a liberal education. And it can indeed help you to advance your career. I advise you, therefore, to consider how you can describe this skill to others so that you can represent it with the full strength that it deserves and in a manner that is readily apparent to others. If you do this, you will be well equipped to respond to those who want to know how what you learned can be applied to the workplace. This account of your education, however, is neither complete nor does it capture the most important part of it. Aristotle would agree that, in order truly to judge well, one must have a satisfactory understanding of the ultimate end at which one aims. It is not enough to have an idea of the proximate goal that one seeks to fulfill. One must have adequate knowledge of whether and how this proximate goal accords with the highest and most comprehensive goal at which human beings can and should aim. Without a sufficient account of this authoritative, supreme good— The Good—no judgment is adequate, strictly speaking, and one cannot truly be said to know. Thus, any education can and must be considered in terms of whether and how it can contribute to The Good. Regarding questions about whether your education here was practical, therefore, the real issue is not whether this education will contribute to your employment opportunities, but whether it contributes to your knowledge of the good. And the real question about you job is not whether your education has made you suitable for it, but what impact it has on your ability to lead a good life. No, I will not let go of the highest account of education to which Nietzsche alludes and that I dare say all great thinkers share. Moreover, I expect that you empathize with me in my refusal to forgo these highest goals. While some of you came to St. John's partly in order to advance your career, I doubt that any of you came here primarily for this reason. You came because you had questions—questions that perhaps you could not quite articulate, even to yourself, but that you could not put aside. As you made your way through the works of the program, I suspect many of you began to recognize your questions reflected 3 �back to you in the Great Books: “What is justice?” “What is love or friendship?” “What kind of beings are we, and what is our place in this world?” Many and perhaps all of these questions arise from a common origin: the yearning to have a good life, combined with the realization that you do not know clearly enough what this is. I suspect, in other words, that the fundamental reason why you came here was because you thought this education might help you to understand The Good. Since our human life is limited, and since the clock is already ticking on the time that we have, this question of the good is urgent. No one wants to realize at the end of his life that he misused or wasted his time. And since none of us know how much time we have, it is foolish for any of us to postpone the question of the good indefinitely. Such talk of mortality and The Good sounds very serious. Well, what did you expect? Has anything valuable that you have read or discussed here been unserious? Thankfully, seriousness does not have to be grave. You need only recall the company you have kept as you have pursued your questions, and you will feel, not weighted down, but elevated by the astounding souls who have walked alongside you. Here is Plato, on the same journey as you, speaking with a voice as nuanced and relevant as it was some 2,400 years ago. With a touch of mischief, he doubles himself, adopting the voice of Socrates, who recollects taking this same path, just a day earlier: “I went down to the Piraeus yesterday with Glaucon, son of Ariston” (Plato, The Republic, 327a). Another man introduces himself with the words: “Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the moment that it broke out, and believing that it would be a great war” (Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 1.1). He hands you his book, which contains his thoughts about your shared questions, saying as he does so: “I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time” (Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 1.22). Homer turns his blind eyes upon you and points to Achilles and Odysseus, each of whom tackles the questions of the good life and what it means to be a good human being. Shakespeare speaks to you with a profundity that is surely expressed in some of the most beautiful language ever heard. Nietzsche reaffirms life with cry from his electric soul: “We still feel it, the whole need of the spirit and the whole tension of its bow” (Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, “Preface”). These souls are among the best students and teachers ever to have lived. Their greatness consists largely in the fact that they investigated the most serious eternal questions with unmatched comprehensiveness and depth. What have you learned from them about The Good? If you have learned anything, it is that, when speaking to one who does not already know the answer, you cannot respond meaningfully to this question in a single sentence or two. You might say, for example, that they taught you that the good life is the philosophic life or the life devoted to the Divine, but then you would have to explain what philosophy or the Divine is and what it would mean to dedicate your life to such things. 4 �While there are answers to these questions, each answer leads to a new question—and this is not the occasion for a long conversation. It is the occasion, however, to remind you that all of these great students and teachers spent their lives engaged with such questions. Inquiry is thereby shown to be central to, if not the essence of, a good human life. Furthermore—and this is worth emphasizing, since you are have now exited the Master’s Program—these students were able to learn from virtually everything and everyone, if not directly, then indirectly. Life after your M.A. may not be as leisurely as it was when you were a student, but you can and will find opportunities to learn, if only you come to embrace life itself as a learning opportunity. I hope and expect that something of this way of life has become a part of you and that, if you look around now at the faces of your fellow students, you will see in their eyes something of the souls of those great human beings who are your models. Continue to be thoughtful. Be open‐minded. Retain the flexibility of soul that is necessary for continued learning. In sum, keep the goal of a good life always before you. Use The Good as your North Star to guide every significant action and decision you make. Doing this will not guarantee that you always make the right decision, but it will mean that will have done the best that you could do, and that, whatever contingencies you may face, you will have led the best life that is possible for you. Let me conclude with one of Plato’s favorite salutations: “Have success in action, and do what is good.” 5 � 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 Commencement Programs and Addresses 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 Description An account of the resource Addresses given at commencement and programs of events related to, and including, the annual commencement ceremonies at St. John's College. Includes both the undergraduate and Graduate Institute commencements. <br /><br />The College Archives holds programs and/or addresses for the following years:<br /> <ul> <li>1796</li> <li>1835-1836</li> <li>1842</li> <li>1852</li> <li>1856-1857</li> <li>1870</li> <li>1878</li> <li>1880</li> <li>1890</li> <li>1893</li> <li>1895</li> <li>1897</li> <li>1907</li> <li>1910-1918</li> <li>1920-1924</li> <li>1928-1929</li> <li>1932</li> <li>1936-1937</li> <li>1939-1945</li> <li>1947-present  </li> </ul> Click on <strong><a title="Commencement Programs and Addresses" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=18&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">Items in the Commencement Programs and Addresses Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context commencementprograms Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 5 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data digital Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Boxel, Lise van Title A name given to the resource Commencement Address, Graduate Institute, Summer 2011 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-08 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Annapolis_GI_Summer_2011_Commencement Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Description An account of the resource Typescript of the commencement address for the Graduate Institute given by Lise van Boxel at the end of the Spring 2011 semester in Annapolis, MD. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online. Commencement Graduate Institute Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/0dd8065ca939713e3147a895afdfd0db.jpg af66b6b5ea2bdb08467b1efd60c93265 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/. 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Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SJC-P-0974 Title A name given to the resource Continuing Education Students Drawing in a Figure Drawing Class at St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland Description An account of the resource 1 photographic print : b&w Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Boyce, Ed 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 Type The nature or genre of the resource Still Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource jpeg Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this photograph. https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/beab7236b1c4be3bb6294b2cee201afb.pdf 4ec16344311e1dceafa39383f40b16b1 PDF Text Text Inspiration in geometry is just as necessary as in poetry. --Pushkin The Collegian first est. 1888 Friday, April 6, 1990 Volume Ilssue 3 Creation in Nicomachus' Arithmetic The early chapters of Nicomachus' Introduction 19 Arithmetic emphasize creation, concerning themselves with the creator, the created, and the means of creation. Nicomachus gives three examples of what he considers the creative attribute of arithmetic: the creation of the universe, the planning of a course of study, and the formation of the individual person. Nicomachus believes so strongly that arithmetic is the founding plan of all that is created that lthink I would be justified in extending his ideas to include man's own creative processes, and will do so after considering his own examples. First, however, one should be aware of two assumptions Nicomachus makes. The first assumption is that there are two forms of what we call arithmetic, one of which is a reflection of the other. The first form is that which consists of "multitude and magnitude [which] are by their own nature infinite." It is this I mean when I speak of the "means of creation." The other form deals with "quantity, set off from multitude, and size, set off from magnitude". This I mean when I talk of the science that people learn. The second assumption is that there is a God who created the universe out of an order, and that this order is the order of number. Combining the logic outlined in Chapter IV with the above supposition taken from Chapter VI leads CREATION IN NICOMACHUS ACK TION AND REFLECTION N OF A SOAP OPERA ACTOR RY OF A SHORT-ORDER COOK ILDING BLOCK MYSTERY TOGRAPH AN BLOOM ON ROCK 'N ROLL p. p. p. p. to very interesting observations on Nicomachus' vision of the creation of the universe. Since that which can exist without something else but is necessary to the other's existence is primary to that other thing, God is the primal cause of all creation, for nothing either creates or abolishes God. And just one step away in the order of creation from the mind "KOO"fi(C'1t'Olo'1 eeou ," of the God-poet of the universe, is arithmetic. With the "artistic plan" of arithmetic in hand, God creates the end product, the universe. God is the creator, the universe the created, and arithmetic the means of creation. This can be seen in the creation story of the~. which is bound up in number from its very start. The opening,"ln the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth," already establishes a dual- 1 4 5 6 p. 7 p. 11 p. 12 p. 15 St. John's College, Annapolis, MD 21404 COVEY FITZPATRICK BROOKS FITZPATRICK BENNING STOUT DONALDSON WHITE �2~~~~~~~~--.~~~~~~~~~-.-~~~~~~~~~ come first, we would be ity. It goes on to describe plies number, for if it is taking the numbered and seven days, a certain motion from one place to creating the numbers. I number of fish of the sea another, there are two think it absurd to assume and birds of the air, an places and therefore there that the purpose of divine amount of land and water, is number. If it is motion in or human art is to create two human beings, one one and the same place numbers. apple, and one snake. such as decay or aging or Nicomachus' second What sense would it make any such change, time must example of the creative to say that there was an be involved. Time, consid- power of arithmetic is the indeterminate amount of ered as a movement from formation of a course of human being matter in the instant to instant, implies study. Chapters IV and V garden? And similarly with number for the same rea- are spent showing the everything else, our ver/ son that physical motion priority of number in the expression of it proclaims does. If there is more than way a student should learn, its number, since our lan- one instant of time, there is and consider the priority of guage does not let us speak number. Similarly, since arithmetic to place it as a without referring to num- there are many shapes, sun at the center of ber. (For example, I can there is therefore number. education's solar system. speak of a table or of tables And the same holds true Nicomachus believes that or of table as an idea differ- for all the other attributes of the other six liberal arts are ent from other ideas, but the universe -- the fact that founded on number just as there is no word we use these attributes have parts the created universe is. The that does not tell the lis- implies the existence of difference is that whereas tener whether I am talking numbers and therefore the universe was created about one or more objects makes arithmetic prior to by a God no one sees at a each of them, and for or ideas.) time no human being Although the world is Nicomachus it makes it the remembers, curricula are very much tied up in one and only foundation formed by human beings number, some people ob- around which everything all the time. Nicomachus ject that it's also tied up in elsethatexistsisbuilt. This believes that if the end color, motion, time, shape, reveals a fascinating aspect product is so firmly rooted and a whole myriad of other of his belief in the primacy in arithmetic, people's effort qualities. To this objection, of number, namely, that to plan a course of study Nicomachus would proba- numbers can exist without must be centered on the bly reply that arithmetic anything to be numbered. creative material of abolishes all of these other He never explains how this arithmetic. This is an characteristics but is not can be, but accepts, and example in which people's asks us to accept, that it is abolished by them. If there own creations mirror God's is color, there must be at possible. I personally think in the use of number as a least two colors, for what is that the bond between creative material. In this the difference between numbers andthe numbered instance, we are the having one color and no is so strong that they are creators, the curriculum is color? If the one color interdependent, neither can the created, and arithmetic cannot be distinguished by exist without the other. If I the means of creation. contrast with another, it is must choose one or the The third example is the same as having no other to be primary, discussed in Nicomachus' color. There would be two however, I would prefer to first three chapters and is colors, then, and therefore agree with Nicomachus, for the end product of the cur number. Motion also im- if the numbered things �~~~~~~~~~.-~~~~~~~~-.~~~~~~~~-s Action and Reflection in Richard Llewellyn's How Green Was My Valley Smack Smack. At this moment the world is moving so fast, Mocking love and calling it passe. There is a boy, only a boy, spinning, spinning, spinning Through tireless ambition. (Or is it lack of ambition?) He ties himself down, Coils twine around his wrists, Allowing enough slack to climb on the roof In the daybreak-silhouette of the city He devours the smog Without letting any love smother him. (Afterall, love is passe.) Wrong. He is not a boy. He is a storage room fermenting In the perspiration of August. --SHARON FITZPATRICK '93 Mondrian's "Composition tion. Perhaps the creator's With Two Lines" in that any job is to establish a baluse of arithmetic in them is ance between pure framemerely an inner working work and complete disorand not immediately rec- ganization. The observer ognizable by the observer. must be able to see thatthe Nevertheless, Nicomachus work has a form, but the insists that number is there. form must not become the Of what value is this frame- work. For example, music work that is never apparent must have an organization in the thing itself? I would to be understood by the be very hesitant to say that listener, but music is not an observer cannot admire just two sticks being beaten a work of art without know- together at a steady rhythm. the arithmetic involved The creator must decide in it. At the same time, a when and to what extent to work must be affected in bring number's creative some way by its founda- structure to the forefront. Accordingly, a greater understanding of arithmetic leads to agreater understanding of our own processes of creation and so helps us to create better, since, though the creator may change and the er ated may change, arithm tic remains the foundatio of creation. --JEFF COVEY The subject of apathy resurfaces periodically in our community. Many feel that there is a lack of interest in current events in our school and outside of it because this interest is not made manifest. We are criticized, and criticize ourselves, for not acting to alleviate world political crises and for not questioning the decisions made bout the school commuity rigorously enough. To assume that stunts are apathetic on such rficial grounds is misded. lcallthesegrounds rficial because they into account only what e seen from the outand forget one of the reasons why we are o not want to make for students who nsible or inconbut would like to at there are at ways to handle in the world Political action n a person attakes a stand ddaessomee intention of making the world better right here and now. This can be noble at times. At other times, it can be very foolish. Our actions can result in consequences we cannot foretell. It is easy to forget that political action can be covert, when a person chooses not to act without long reflection aboutthe reasons for and the probable outcome of a given action. These two kinds of political action are brought into conflict very poignantly in Chapters X and XI of Richard Llewellyn's novel How Green Was My Val!§y. The main character, Huw, is aboutthirteen years old and lives in a small mining town in Wales. One Sunday he is trapped in church after the services and must sit through a Deacon's meeting. Expecting it to be Chapel notices or something equally uninteresting, Huw daydreams until the tone of Deacon Parry's voice snaps his attention to the meeting. A crying girl is brought to the platform of the pulpit. "A girl from the pits she was. Tidy in her dress, not good, but very tidy, and a good little bonnet with her, and her face so red and risen with weeping that I could have gone straight to give her comfort." Mr. Parry shouts atthe girl that she is an adulteress, and all the men, old and young, nod in assent. "The priests and the scribes and the pharisees were in session, and bitterly enjoying themselves." The girl is chastised for becoming pregnant out of wedlock and is told that her body is the trap of the Devil. When she begs for forgiveness, Mr. Parry tells her to be quiet; he and the other Deacons are there to see to it that she shall have nothing from God. It is at this moment that Huw disgraces himself. He stands, a thirteen-year-old boy with a squeaky, childish voice, and denounces the Deacons for being hypocrites. "Even so," he tells them, "ye are also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of dead men's bones, and all of uncleanliness." As soon as he speaks, he is overcome with shame. He knows that Mr. Parry is a good man. "He paid his men better than most, and gave plenty away to those who needed it, besides paying for the schooling of half the children in the Valley." Huw is rushed home by his father. He feels as if even the birds shun him. His sister looks at him with fear in her eyes. Only his mother praises his rashness. "'Good,' she said. 'Good, my little one. Your mama is so glad, she could scream.'" The implications of Huw's action become clearer when he and his friend the town preacher �s~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~- discuss it the next day. Mr. ~~~~~~~-i-~~~~~~--,-~~~~~~-7 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Gruffyd lists Huw's crimes: speaking about something he was ignorant of, raising his voice, being offensive. Huw stiffens with the injustice of it. If Mr. Gruffyd You left me in this pitied that girl as Huw did, Well, and thought that the DeaI'm not quite capable of grasping the right word. cons were cruel to her, why You see NO you don't didn't he defend her? Mr. Just couldn't make any sense of it. Gruffyd responds, "I will change their foolishness in Thus, my good time, and without I quarantined myself from anyone the help of Huw Morgan." Who could throw sand in my eyes. Mr. Gruffyd chose the path of one who endures the Daze. present in order to work for a greater good. He does That's it. A daze. not want to disrupt the fabIt wasn't naivete. ric of the townspeople's life This psychotic chaos won't hang on a word like so that the good of it is lost naivete. along with the bad. He chose to endure the pain of If scrubbed hard enough, bruises wash away. the girl momentarily so that others would not be Clean, tempted to fall into the same Smelling of chlorine; error. If Mr. Gruffyd acted I think: too quickly, he would have Let them teach you to Lie been "out in the street to Like a Lawyer. preach to the hedges. And no chance to make changes or to do good." The two possibilities --SHARON FITZPATRICK '93 shown are these: to respond and act quickly with L,';;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;p;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;.i a chance for later regret, or fectiveness of our actions to reflect and act slowly and puts one block at a time. and know when and how to carefully. Mr. Gruffyd ends To build solid and good. So with thought. Think. act for the best outcome. the discussion when he Here we are allowed to take thinks that Huw under- Build one thought at a time. Mr. Gruffyd's advice to build Then act." stands by saying: Being at St. John's our thoughts slowly so that "I thought that you were a they are solid and good. brave boy but misguided in gives us a chance to reflect We should not critici your bravery. Never mind about ourselves and the ourselves for taking thi what you feel. Think. world by means of the chance. Watch. Think again. And books that we read. Through this reflection we then one step at a time to -- TEOU ILA BROOKS I putthings right. As a mason can better ensure the ef- Son of a Soap Opera Actor Fast Lane: The To the early mornings of from a warm, combed is to enjoy fully the subtle joys of life. To visualize in the mind's eye the wind chasing the bird's song wherever it may lead is to visualize peace. To feel the fragrance of fresh spring flowers and to smell their colors in the haziness of awakening is to surpass ,..,,..,....... ,~,,..dream. Surrounded by friends on a deserted paradise island, yet completely alone. The wind ripples through soft golden strands of hair. The palm trees gently sway and musicfillsthe air. Plane engines are far away in the distance, coming to save the shipwrecked. They draw closer and closer until are directly overhead. Then... BEEP...BEEP...BEEP... A hand reaches up to hit the snooze button. The nails are short and wellgroomed, haunted by crafty dough hiding just out of reach of the nail file. The hand drops limply to the side of the bed, but is aroused again nine minutes later. Two green bloodshot eyes reveal themselves from behind heavy lids to regard the red digits on the alarm clock: 5:39, twenty-one minutes until required presence at the friendly neighborhood doughnut shop. The exhausted body slowly falls out of the stumbles its way down the hall to the bathroom, and manages to water on its unshaven face. With violent c;,n~lv•~'"" the brain is back in mind Them'"'"""'~'"' and the white T-shirt of his uniform, protected from the wind by his two-year-old leather jacket. He places the black helmet on his head and drops the visor to conceal a hint offear in his eyes as he prepares to match his maneuverability and speed against the 500 other hopefuls in the biggest race of the year. He hears the signal: "Gentlemen, start your engines!" 501 angry engines roar into life. He can feel the ad renaline creeping down his spineandescapingtoevery nerve in his body. "On your mark!" He looks to his left. "Get set!" He looks to his right. "Go!" He flies out of the starting gate ahead of the entire crowd. He takes the curves and jumps with the expertise of a pro. He weaves in and out of the slower competitors as he laps them for the third time. Then, just as the finish line is in sight, just one hundred yards from the the girls, the flowthe front page five �a~~~~~~~~--.~~~~~~~~~-.~~~~~~~~~ ,, , , You're such a kidder." miles. But the only thought came out all right." "Out, out, out!" Mr. Barton put his in his mind as he receives The gargantuan gave hand on Sam's shoulder the four hundred thirtyand began walking toward the midget a menacing seven dollar and eightylook, but before he could lift three cent ticket is how late the entrance. "You know, his huge hands to wring the he is for work at the Sam, that story brings a tiny neck, the latter was out tear to my eye. I'll doughnut factory. recommend you to the the door, on his bike and When he finally arrives hightailing it down the he tries to slink past his president to receive a street. His bike, with a mind boss and quietly put his purple heart. But while you of its own, ran three red apron on, but just before he were out there playing Mr. lights and almost hit a can get it tied, "Late again, Red Cross, another telephone pole before Sam Sam? And only thirty pregnant lady, not in labor, came to this very store and could slow it down to catch minutes this time." ten dozen his breath, "Well you see, Mr. ordered When he looked up, doughnuts, and there was Barton, what happened the letters SUPER MARwas: I really wanted to get nobody here to cook them. KET were staring him in to work on time so I got up So I cooked them, and while I was in this process, an the face. Regaining his 20 minutes early, I had all composure, he went inside my clothes laid out, and I entire soccer team walked to get an application. He skipped breakfast. I was through the door. I've been running a three ring circus walked up to the gumon my way over at twentychewing, nail-filing checker five 'til. Then, when I was for the last 30 minutes." "Mr. Barton, you're and asked herforone. She only a block away from pointed down the soup aisle being ten minutes early, I lying." Thesix-foot-five, 327- to two large green doors. had to slam on my brakes "Manager's in there." to avoid a pregnant lady pound man looked down at "Is she hiring?" right in the middle of the the five-foot-nine, 150The girl looked Sam street who was obviously pound kid walking next to him and smiled a crooked up and down and said in in labor. It was my civic between bubbles, "Yeah, duty to rush her to the smile with a mouth missing she'll hire you. She likes hospital on the other side two front teeth and said, cute little boys." of town. It was difficult for "Yes, I was. We haven't He flashed her a had a single customer all her to do her heimlich morning. But nobody's charming smile and began maneuver breathing hanghis journey to the stock ing off the back of my bike. going to be calling you later room. As he passed the The traffic was terrible but I with news of a screaming rows of Campbell's soup baby boy, either. So, my still managed to get her to and Lipton soup boxes, he the operating room and young friend, I hate to break could hear the low roar of back to work only 30 min- it to you, but you're fired!" Sam stood with his the waiting crowd. Passutes late. Why, I had to mouth agape, stunned into ing housewives, sporting fight off 50 reporters trying pink hair curlers and wearto get the inside scoop and silence for a few seconds, ing blue houseshoes, at least 20 little kids asking then the corners of his gazed at him and whisfor my autograph just to get mouth slowly defied gravity pered to each other behind back that soon. I'm a hero, and he beamed at his big boss. "You know, Mr. mountains of Noodle Roni Mr. Barton. She'ssupposed and Doritoes, "There goe to call me as soon as it's Barton, that's what I've the heavyweight champio born to tell me if everything always liked about you. reach in He said a prayer. He looked down at his red and white breath took a and slowly parted the door~ as if they were the Red Sea. But instead of being by an arena of whistling fans, he was face to face with a monster. Her hair was that of her face that of the Man, and her that of a beached whale. She walked up to the poor, defenseless creature and squeezed his cheeks with her adorned with long red fake fingernails. "And what can I do for you, my little stock y. You start tomorrow s?" ' "What time?" he impered. "Ten o'clock sharp." "You got it." He flashed charming smile at her slowly backed up to But he strolled downthesoupaisle, waved at the cashier and ten minutes later he was home again dreaming about his tropical island paradise. Thoughts of long, red fingernails and fat , green slime flashed through Sam's head as he crawled out of bed the next morning and stumbled to the kitchen. He made breakfast, macaroni and cheese topped with tabasco sauce and grape jelly, dreading the horrible prospects of the day. Maybe he would have been Mr.Barton betteroff pounce on him vg::,c~tor.ri".>\I him on his way to a mercy death and out of the clutches of Miss del Fu ego. He looked outside the Ulir•"'~••• what were concrete and his distress grew with each for step. He as he ap1:>ro.act1ed the green doors, but he was finally standing in front of them. He reached out a weak arm to push one open. Immediately the nightmare was upon burying his small head in her giant Dolly Parton "I thought you bosom. would never get here," she sang as she stared ingly into his young face. "I have so much for you to do." For the next three hours Sam lugged boxes from one side of the gymnasium-size room to the other. such big muscles," his new boss would chuckle. He fixed her transistor radio. "So smart and so with the hands." He mnnnr•R the The sun was in there were Sam's heart. The clear blue contrasted the black storm clouds in his head. He didn't even feel the usual twinge of excitement as he straddled his favorite twowheeler. The streets were empty and so were his hopes. He constantly studied his shoes and his omeitdown in three minutes as he watched, disgusted. She announced the wonderful news of her parting afterward and Sam spent the rest of the afternoon stocking. While he was putting milk on the shelf, a small �I d it was no good, he was spe~tac es an crinkhngthe1rnosesast~ey 1O but feisty four-year-old tiny . sinking ... sinking ... sinking walked up behind him, rabbed a half gallon of looked atthecarton, ask.mg He awoke from the gm'1lk and ran and put it in that forever annoying . t' "Do you have a nightmare screaming, a thefreezersectionwiththe ques ion, " hit coldsweatonhisbrow,and frozen enchilada dinners later date? Sam was d hisheartdoingsomersaults and Eskimo pies. S~m by seven reckl~s~ ~~s in his chest. Panting, he went and retrieved the milk, runaway gg h looked down at his body to uttering obscenities under throughout the day, e reassure himself that the . the cleaned up twelve messes H . es one through ten, nails were gone. e his breath. an d c~rsmg art of childbearing. B~t on a1sl disinfected the couldn't sleep for the rest before he got ~ack, the kid a~d ,::es' toilet. By the of the night. The ~ext ?ay flew past him, got a ~ p h YI ftthegrocerystore hetumedinhisres1gnat1on, containerofcottageche~se t1i:ne ~t was torn his wentto "Nightmare on Elm and threw it down t~e aisle his. um ormbled a slo~pily- Street XIV" and laughed as if it were a bowhn~ b~ll. ~air ~~:~est and his brain through the whole movie. After thr~e more s1m1lar ept ' m letel frazzled. As Sam's dreams slipped scenes with yogurt, orange was co h~ home and by with the innocence of juice, and three do~en He went s r~~ace into bed. his boyhood, reality eggs, which broke leaving fell fl~:~ ~ad a nightmare slapped him in the face with . s float in a spatula. a yellow sea of yolk all over the floor, the boy grew tired that mght. ~e wa h · 9 "Two Eyeballs on a d began in the sea m a s oppmg . d , of th~ ga~e an II' cart All around him were pallet, SSU, with og s am us mg himself by pu '.ng .. nd the only delight." "DeadTwithtancarbo Sam's golden locks. Five hair cdu.rlehr~ aars was the . I t r the boy's soun m is e minutes ae . . . hedbee sofcash and greens." mother, aferocious-lookmg hig~-pitc H P to "Alpha water and chef woman with a. mustache ~eg1ster~. boxe:. c:~~ked recipe." . and one thick black i~land ~aceful warm place "Three-egg-pizzaw~th eyebrow, came to rescue hke a~ but 1·u~t as he got shredded wheat and fnsher poor child from the to res ' . bees." The orders come from insane screaming stock out of the cart it "Oon'tyouknowbetter disappeared and he was north, south, east, and thantoattackadefenseless sudden~y s~rrounded by west. Eggs fly across the ? Who taught scream mg kids. Then he four-year-oId · df ils all room, steaks sizzle on the you your manners, young felt long. re mgema Th grill, and an order of sweat Where's the over his body. e ere, horrifying voices of seven and grease hangs in the th There' To simultaneously h d o\1,Hvt·hm1crs going to million Del Fuegos ec ~~ a melange of e breakfasts, " she reassured from everywhere. n:::a\Mllr1a brat As she boxes were · · a ~anager, soggy and were beginning lunches, and dmners is i:.... 1... m.nnc:t~rnn her arms to sink below the depths of true art. Int.he d .II ks He was knives an 1or his tongue at the the crue I .sea. cut and ·ust m a sea of fat t l for sock . f and cnes or mommy. He struggled to keep his head above the chaos, but resses; and the twangy f. beat of country music accompanies every bite of heartburn. Thedissonance of truckstop rush hour is a music all its own. Three perfectly decent meals had already been sent back today by dissatisfied customers who had of course eaten over half the meal but ref used to pay for such dog food. Glory in this business was extremely minimal. Amidst the organized confusion, visions of a classy French restaurant passed through Sam's mind. He wasn't preparing lunch for a slimy, pot-bellied truck driver, but for a sixteenth century French King. His barely digestible #Sbecame an eight-course dinner; his plain, rare hamburger became a perfectly seasoned veal with mushroom sauce; his flimsy, greasy french fries became a casserole of the finest vegetables and salads; and his three-week old slice of apple pie became heavily buttered, tongue-melting cakes and astries. The angry cries hungry patrons nsformed into the ngratulatory, satisfied lf!n\10.r.oi,..nt" The lasted until the hot se from the Sam back to and he finished his with a dream in his and a l"\::::al"\hlir'iln his ears. had this life in a 24-hour truckstop two weeks after his retirement from shopping carts and soup cans. In the thirty years he would be there, he would see dingy waitresses and fat, bearded customers come and go; he would publish a mildly successful dictionary of short-order logo for the up-and-coming cooks and waitresses of the trade; and he would learn a little something new about life with every rising sun. His head was full of tales for his three young grandsons who dreamed of following in the footsteps of their formidable grandfather. One hundred truck drivers, ten waitresses, thirty cooks, and even Miss Del Fu ego attended his funeral to pay tribute to the finest and fastest-living short-order cook they had ever known. His epitaph read: Here lies Samuel Phillip Dunkey, going from doughtnut shop to grocery store flunkey The days ofyouth he spent Then on to a grill he went. He was a master of sunnyside up, A tribute to his trade; Burning and sizzling the Euclid's Point, Nicomachus' Unit, and the Building Block Mystery Stranger: Euclid, historically, was first. He's first alphabetically, too, so in honor of these two things we'll let him march to the front of the line and explain his side of the story. Euclid: Geometry comes first. I'm not saying it should come first, or even that I'm glad it comes first! It just does. There are no two ways about it. The world is not made of magnitudes and multitudes. These things are simply apparitions that we have oe~sr-ras1mante,;;.rtt>ur1n B111Br developed and applied to nature in order to help us understand it better. When we look at the moon, we see a circle. We don't see has all its sides ecHJ1d1stant from one cenlt is after we see and learn how to recognize this circle that we --LORIE BENN ING '92 can measure it and see how �~~~~~~~~~-r-~~~~~~~~~-.--~~~~~~~~-13 it works in relation to other shapes like, say, a triangle. Str:Which isthefigure you actually claim the world begins with... Euc: I didn't say that. I only used a circle in this context because I was afraid you lunkheads wouldn't understand the concept of triangle. Nicomachus: Objection!!I Str: Overruled. Nothing inherently offensive in the word "lunkhead." Go ahead, Euclid. Euc: (looking contemptuously at Nicomachus) As I was saying, the triangle is not a particularly easy concept to grasp. I would say this could rest in the factthat there are fewer triangles in nature that circles. Also, if either of you knew my work better, you would know that I do start with a circle. The very first proposition of book one of my Elements asks that a triangle be constructed. How do I instruct the reader to draw this triangle? With a circle I I'm not writing for a country boy doing his thens Elementary School ath; I'm writing for a literadult who wants to derstand the origin of hematics. I suppose, n such an audience (he ures at Nicomachus), I uld not have taken such rties. Str: What liberties did say you took? Euc: I took liberties 1 created a triangle 'i ,, --NANCY DONALDSON I out of two circles. assumed I could go ahead without explaining every little detail. (softly) Maybe I was wrong. Str: Now, Nicomachus, you claim something entirely different. You say that arithmetic is the basis of geometry and that without it geometry wouldn't even exist. I suppose you would say that Euclid in fact goes backwards in his Elements when he decides to move from figures to numbers. Nie: You are exactly correct in your appraisal of whatthe Elements is. Now don't get me wrong--1 think Euclid's book is a good piece of work. I wouldn't mind his failure to move chronologically with the path of mathematics if only he would just admit that this is what he's doing. But he won't. He just keeps insisting that he has written it the way it happened, and that's just not true. Euc: But at least my work is accessible to people outside the walls of the Academy! How do you expect the common man to understand all your superpartients, super-particulars and subsesquialters? I'll bet students two thousand years from now won't know what you're trying to say. Nie: I agree that your work is more accessible to the common man, but you yourself called me a lunkhead for not understanding whence you de- rived that triangle ... is this com men man you're writing for really all that common? And if he could understand your jumps from circles to triangles and back again, couldn't he understand my arithmetical terms? Euc: (sullenly) Perhaps. Nie: So as I was saying, I think the truly big difference between our works is that I begin at the origin of mathematics whereas Euclid begins with something everyone can understand and then explains where it came from. Str: let's talk a little bit about what makes these theories what they are. Now correct me if I misunderstand anything, ck? Euclid, you propose that your mathematics -we'll call it geometry, is based on a building block called a point. This point has no part, and yet a whole bunch of them can be found on another one of your 1igures,' the breadthless length. You, Nicomachus, on the other hand, say that your mathematics, called arithmetic, is built using something called a unit. A unit is related to some kind of "oneness" as it cannot bedividedinanyway. More than one unit becomes a number, and numbers expand additively as more units are put together. Forgive me for these oversimplifications, but have I got the idea? Euc: I can't speak for �14~~~~~~--.~~~~~~~-r~~~~~~~ Nicomachus, but as for me, unit has no point? bearing in the natural world Str: No , no . You 're 'in that they are reflections you've done fine. Nie: Couldn't be bet- the one with the point, of things we can see. Now Euclid. this is not to say that terl Nie: (to Stranger) I triangles are the Euc: So let me explain thought you were impartial! written forms of triangular my point a bit... my point What do mean he has uu1t::n..;1.;:, ••• on the contrary I I about my point, that is. The the like to think that a Platonic is not a (to Stranger) form of triangle -- the ideal contrary to the title of this He's He was talking triangle, lies somewhere in However, it is a when I interrupted. themindofthephilosopher. ............ _. block. a Str: But my point was But I still admit that it's a has no part, a line is not... triangle, as opposed to a es~;en,ua111v made up of an Euc: I certainly hope number series or some infinite amount of them. you had no point! such. Nicomachus, in my Likewise there are infinite Nie: (to Stranger) has no relation to lines on a plane, and infinite You're not a mathematician the natural world at all. three Nie: Are you saying It's too, are Str: Let's make an that I'm very your help our readers Euc: Nie: You call that straight what's going What is simple is a here. A point is to unit. I can't believe I called what a unit is to Greeks! you accessible before-arithmetic. They are similar would you like to defend nothing of the kind I Both yourself or would you like indeed! Who could in this way. We have to finish be asked to understand the Nicomachus • and Euclid this dialogue before the existence of something that allow for geometry and festival of Artemis, you isn't? A unit is something. arithmetic in their methods. know! Now, it's an adjective, so Euclid explains arithmetic Nie: (grumbles) there isn't a unit the way in magnitudes, represented now let me think what Nicomachus by lines. there is a table. But unit is want to say. I would say blue in the way there is a explains geometry with that Euclid is correct to blue table. We talk about numbers and makes ,...,,..~m11nc and polygons of units in an intellectual way, variables to ~~~rnn1wl,~do1e ,..,..,........ , ... T .. " Oh, no! It's only rock 'n roll, but I like it. -Mick Jagger, "It's Only Rock 'n Roll" Like a modem day Pentheus vainly trying to chain down the new demigod in town, Allan Bloom has devoted considerable space and effort to condemning a younger generation's music of choice -- rock 'n roll -- and its most visible practitioners. But much like the original Pentheus, he has revealed more about himself and his ignorance than he has about rock. Oneofthemostamusing, and yet disturbing, aspects of the critique is the almost total lack of perspective with which Mr. Bloom attempts to dismiss rock. His ignorance is so willful that he unwittingly gives further proof of the existence of a closed American mind -- namely, his own. The picture Mr. Bloom Euc: Let me see if I can explain it. I think what Nicomachus is saying is that I see things in the world, I draw them out how they ught to be geometrically, nd I work from there. icomachus, on the other nd, has developed a stem that is independent the physical world. His and numbers can be ied physically, but that st a coincidence. For ce, I think a blind n would have a lot of lty doing my geome- try, but lthinkthatthissame blind person would be able to understand Nicomachus' arithmetic. Str. But a blind person could feel the shapes, couldn't he? Euc: Well, that's true, but let's assume he can't, for the sake of this discussion. You see, my mathematics is dependent on the ability of the reader to visualize, while Nicomachus' is dependent on the ability to figure. Nie: I agree with you Allan Bloom on Rock 'n Roll And in what does progress culminate? A pubescent child whose body throbs with orgasmic rhythms: whose feelings are made articulate in hymns to the joys of onanism or the killing of parents: whose ambition is to win fame and wealth in imitating the dragqueen who makes the music. -Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind 15 paints of today's young people and their music is incredibly, impossibly bleak. Visions of drag queens, Satanic rituals and deadened minds leap out of his pages. He does his best to shock and terrify us with v1s1ons of Onanism(say what?), suicides, and familial blood orgies in prose that would make even MickJagger(the object of most of Mr. Bloom's scorn) blush several shades of red. And he lays the blame for all of this grotesque behavior-- real or imagined, he doesn't seem to specify-- on rock. The first reaction many of us rock 'n rollers had to all of this fell far short of the desired effect; after all, we had heard this stuff before when we were growing up. Our parents, shocked and bewildered by the noise one hundred percent. Str. Well, that certainly clarified some things for me! Euc: Yes, I'm tired. Nie: How about a drink? Euc: Sounds great! Nie: (as they're walking into the sunset) Euclid, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. -- AMY STOUT '93 �16~~~~~~~~---.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~- our vices, and how lamely emanating from our rooms, airwaves for fear it would we express our regrets for pollute the young and immade it known that the old transgressions. What Plague would be more pressionable. Never mind the old French Prophet of welcome in their home than that young people heard Decadence said about our Jimi Hendrix or the Who. something quite different in sins goes at least double What's funny is that they the song, something quite for our popular music. were rarely as vicious in moving they could relate their complaints as Mr. to; suicides for years after*** wards were blamed on Bloom seems to be. Imagine our surprise Lady Day. The fact that If Mr. Bloom were to when, in our later years, we she was a black enter- venture beyond his short discovered that our parents tainer made the ban on the memory into the "rock 'n had to put up with the same song that much easier to roll" of any age, he would kind of nonsense enforce. Today it's rockers find the same reprehensible themselves when they like Ozzy Osbourne who role models, the same were our age. Of course are sued for allegedly ad- ghastly subjects for songs, their music of choice was vocating suicide, and Lady and nearly the same vices swing or jazz; but the talk Day is credited with being associated with it. A brief was the same. That bar- nothing less than a cultural excursion to Scotland alone baric trash was just the icon. (I wonder what the yields such notorious worst thing our folks could author of "Young Werther" womanizers as Robert have brought home to would think of all this fuss; Burns, no stranger to vices plague grandma and as I understand it, Goethe himself, who was known to grandpa with -- yet bring it was blamed for the same write many a lurid tune. home they did. Mr. Bloom sort of behavior in hisday ... ) Take a good look at your The plain fact is that conveniently forgets the this argument about de- local Celtic goods store, struggles he and his peers and you are more than likely had, in the days when his praved music and resultant to find a small paperback pop idols were reviled by depraved youth has been filled with suggestive lyrgoing on since the invenan older generation. ics, sexual puns and the Baptist preachers of an tion of the lute. The only like-- all either written or earlier day(let's face it, our difference is that once a prized by the man. To say Mr. Bloom resembles one generation of young people that Burns' life had epicomes of age, controversy quite closely) called the sodes of controversy would music of the Big Bands the becomes convention and be an understatement. noise of Satan. Everything the satanic noises of old Any number of songs from zoot suits to Gene are strangely transformed deemed "traditional" by Krupa's alleged cocaine into golden oldies. Not a Burns' fellow countrymen use were used as proof that word is whispered about were surely controversial how disreputable the stuff our parents' souls were in was in its heyday; and all in their day. Take the old grave jeopardy. tune "Babylon," for When Billie Holliday the drugs and violence instance(also known as "BY recorded "Gloomy Sun- associated with it (in each the Bonnie Banks day," that was the last generation, mind you, this O'Fordie"); it is no less tha straw for quite a few adults. is the case) are viewed with a ballad about fratricide an In their minds, it was noth- a quaint mixture of suicide, with implications ing less than a song advo- fondness and regret. incest. An exile, or "ba cating suicide, and they Baudelaire once pointed ished man," finds th sought to ban it from the out how fondly we nourish :yo~u:n~g~si:fil:e:rs=--=a~s~th=e~y~p~i~ck~~~lt~i~s-t-ru-e~th_a_t--yo_u_n_g.-A~~~~~~~~- 17 flowers by the river. One b h h y one, e t reatens to kill t~em if they will not m. arry h1m Two of th .s . e sisters refu e him ' an d are stabbed t~ de~th; but bef~re the third sister can be k1lled, the exile discovers · f h" that they arem act 1sown sisters. Overcome with · f gne 'the man stabs himself to death. Who_ev~r. wrote that song, lthink1t1ssafetosay that many people found the violence . and latent sexua_lity m the song M. any still do, I ould · w . imagme, smce the lyrics hav~ not been changed noticeably to this day . . But. the only appr~coable ddlere_nce I can f md between this song and "M'd . ' say, I night Rambler" by Mick Jagger( another ballad a is tts relative antiquity. It is "incl d d . m reput.able anu thologies of Scottish ~ong, a~d you .can hardly fmd a d1sparagmg word in print nowadays about it. When "Babylon" is erformed by Scottish usicians(I personally ommend the version by k Gaughan, one of the untry's finest), it is not et with catcalls from the .ne~uals for its portrayal k, mhuman behaviour. er, the song is anafor its structure ualities, its refle~tion cial conditions etc useam. ' ., offens1~e. abo~ cuMh~at) ~ look at the rogues of peop1 today are being history who now grace Mr. e exposed to all sorts of terrifying thoughts and Bloom's shelf of classic literature -- Rabelais Ovid stories; butthat is the same R"im b aud, Poe, Ar1'sto-' ' as it ever was. It is ridiculous to attribute this phanes, et alia--should give fascination with the d k us all pause when we conside of human naturetotahre demn our young people for their choice of musi·c and current p popular m ~rve,yors of eccentric habits. us1c a one We *** have always had an attract1"on t o ev1·1 . our in literature and our popular As songs. That, coupled with a symbol of a weakness for the vices of everything that is evil and our day, does not indict a manipulative in Rock whole generation of music, Allan Bloom goes teenagers so much as "it after Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones. Had Bloom shows how much they k resemble their peers from t~ en the time to acquaint earlier times. himself with the lyrics of Standards and tastes Mr.Jagger, he would have may change from been surprised to find a generation to gen t" rather intelligent treatment era ion, of some very common butthebehaviourstaysre- th T markablythesame. Young emes. ake "Sympathy people lionize "rock 'n roll- for the Devil," for instance ers,"seektorebellromtheir a song made from parents andado t . Devil's point of view. It ' p vices or almost echoes B d modes of dress that are au eshockingtotheirelders. But laire's "Au Lecteur,"with its it is not a sign that Western ringing indictment of human Civilization is d nature. It is merely un er attack. The Source of All Evil of th a re-enactment presents himself as "a man and ~ool~:;e~\ of youth of wealth and taste": and the same on: t~::cence, a~ Sat.an goes through a himself once took Bl~~m brief hst of accomplishThe line of s pa . m. ments--the Hundred Years comes to us dow~~~ss1~n W~r and the Russian RevoEl . mt e lut1on among them -- his P:rT~~npode~~d~::ou~h the courtesy and refinement 1800's a d II . the are al~ays at the forefront. present n we mto the Brutah~y and politesse go Th: . hand m hand throughout might is is t~ f~geant, I the seven minutes of this destroy ci Ta t' oes not song. But as the gore rises, . v1.1z~ ions so the listener probably bemuch as it revitalizes them. gins to question the sincer- th~ �~~~~~~~~-.~~~~~~~~--.-~~~~~~~~19 outrageous ments like this one, when tries· the same Mr. trick he is of con,.i,.,.,..,.. ... .::.t1rui in Mr. Bloom's little more than a bunch of ···~·.,_,,.,..., musicians who put on a stage show reminds us that the swamJer the make-up, the for show yes, but of us consider true rock 'n roll to consist of an dead earnest portrayal of the human condition, in all its glory It is the and who are in it for the money. Just because rock is subject to pressures does not make it a art completely form. And just because ... One major aspect of rock that Mr. Bloom chose to ignore is its ability to persuade young people to virtuous, principled action. Many of the most memorable songs from the rock era are not recklessly violent or gratuitously vulgar; for the ideals of peaceful coexistence, mutual respect, resistence to dogma, and independent thinking are all a part of the rock experience; as well. The most striking example of this for me is Pete Townshend's "Won't Get Fooled Again," a song played so often on the radio even today (nearly twenty years after it was written) that its meaning is easily forgotten. If the loud, boisterous version performed by Townshend's band The Who would betoomuchfor Bloom's prickly ears, I recommend he try listening to it in its acoustic guitar version on "The Secret Policeman's Ball," a recording of a benefit rock concert for Amnesty International. The song translates well into that gentler medium, and serves to remind old rockers what it is really about. "Won't Get Fooled gain" tells the story of a · ger who was apparently nned into supporting a volution, only to find that people have been trayed. The new vernment is the same as old, and the leaders he 9 for have all turned out e as power-hungry as the ones he helped to overthrow. Looking soberly at the new powers that be, he sets about to lead another revolution, in hopes that the people won't fall prey to the same political bosses. In my mind, I cannot separate the song from the demonstrations in Beijing or Soviet Georgia. The overwhelming desire for freedom, and the sense of betrayal that people feel the world over when their leaders turn from liberators to prison guards -- these are universal sentiments, which are portrayed forcefully in Townshend's lyrics. The name of rock groups with a positive message to otter young people is legion. And Mr. Bloom seriously undermines his credibility with me by ignoring the forces of good in rock's ranks. Groups like U2, Midnight Oil, and the work of any numberof solo artists as well, all serve to make nonsense of his caricature of rock as a nihilist conspiracy to kill the minds of our nation's youth. *•* I would be far more comfortable discussing the negative aspects of rock in broader context. Until Mr. Bloom does, I cannot join those who fawn over his book, as if it were the ultimate defense of our way of life. His ignorance of his own culture, his own history, and his own nature are so painfully obvious that I find it hard to join his ranks. But his willful igno- _ ranee of rock is not surprising, given the numerous examples of rank prejudice that can be found throughout his precious critique of our society. While there is much. that is worth of praise in The Closing of the American Mind, Mr. Bloom needs to be taken to task for the malicious and ignorant attacks he makes on so many other fronts. Bloom needs to understand that one of the reasons the Great Books has fallen into disrepute is that professors like him have conducted themselves so shamelessly over the years. Snap judgments, snobbishness that borders on bigotry, and a total disregard for the old Socratic maxim of professing ignorance before pretending to be wise -- all of these faults are laid out in bold detail in Mr. Bloom's writings. A little more humility would go a long way toward attracting the general public to an educational standard that has inestimable value. Pardon me if I seem ungrateful; even though he claims to be defending the dignity of books that I myself hold dear, I find that Mr. Bloom does more damage to our cause than good. It is tragic that the most vocal �20~~~~~~~~-.~~~~~~~~~-.--~~~~~~~~- advocates of classical education unwittingly turn off as many people as they convert. I recall many frustrating evenings spent in the company of reputed great minds, trying vainly to hold a conversation with them and running into a brick wall. The virtues of an open mind stand tall with the virtues of a well-trained one. Bloom knows this; but until he can show us that both traits can co-exist peacefully in his own brain, I have little hope that he will attract many more people to our great camp. -- ANDY WHITE '83 The editors of the Col!eajan have been grateful for the positive support and comments we have received. It is our hope that the Collegian will continue to be a valuable forum for writing and art works. There is only one more issue this school year. Therefore, we invite and encourage everyone interested in the editorial side of this publication for next year to come to the editors' meeting in room 24 on Friday, Aprll 27 at 4:30 p.m. As with any honestly-run school publication, the Co!leaian editors welcome your input and creativity. We intend to publish the Col!eajan each month next year, with your help and submissions. Yes! one more issue ... so all writers, artists, and photographers who have spoken of possible submissions should take heed of the deadline below. H there are problems meeting that deadline, speak with Tequila Brooks (x298) or Rachel Boyce (x303). The publishing policy of The Collegian is to treat all writers or artists and the pieces they submit with respect. A piece will not be accepted if the staff judges that it does not reflect the capabilities of the originator. No revision will be adopted without the inform and consent of the writer. Please address correspondence and criticism to Box 391 Campus Mail. NEXT DEADLINE: Wednesday, April 25 � 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 Collegian Description An account of the resource The Collegian began as a student newspaper; became a college community literary publication in 1952 and continued until 1969; became a student newspaper again in 1969; discontinued publication from 1980 until 1989 when it again became a student literary publication.<br /><br />Click on <a title="The Collegian" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=26">Items in The Collegian Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. 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 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 20 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The Collegian 6 April 1990 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1990-04-06 Title A name given to the resource The Collegian, April 06, 1990 Description An account of the resource Vol. I, Issue 3 of The Collegian. Published on April 6, 1990. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Boyce, Rachel (Editor) Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/f0498a2a5366fdeb61219eeed0c5df40.pdf 5198432ba3b6945d638c643d7d599ee6 PDF Text Text There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. ' --Shakespeare, Hamlet The Collegian first est. 1888 Friday, May 11, 1990 Volume I Issue 4 Some (Incomplete) Notes on Descartes' Geometry The problem is that, for Descartes, geometrical figures cease to be important per se. Instead, they become the means to an end. The ratiometric properties of the various rectilinear figures become simply one of the tools of Descartes' new mathematics. This can be seen easily in his description of multi- Now how does he get multiplication out of this? From Euclid Vl.16, he can say that rectangle CB, DB is equal to rectangle BE, AB. Descartes now says we will arbitrarily call the first term in the ratio, viz. CB, the unity, and it will be the measure of everything else. What happens to the means/extremes equality? The idea that Descartes' version of geometry ~E C is a contrivance or somehow artificial when compared to the Greeks' must 8 be addressed. It is true ,___ _ __.....__ __;A~---------____, Instead of CB, DB= BE, AB thatthe general solution for plication. a hyperbola suffers when We know from Euclid Vl.2 we have DB = BE, AB and compared to, say, Euclid that: EC: CB :: DA : AB. Descartes has his geomet1.1. But I challenge any- Componendo, we say that rical explanation of multibodyto tell methatthe dem- EC+CB : CB :: DA+AB : plication. The fact that CB, AB, onstration of the dodeca- AB, or BE : CB :: DB : AB. hedron is intuitively obvi- The inverse ratio of this is etc., are lengths does not matter to Descartes. The CB : BE : : AB : DB. NOTES ON DESCARTES' GEOMETRY THE WIND TANEY ... AND THE CONSTITUTION THE PRAYING MANTIS LANGUAGE OU REED: WORDS FROM THE STREET IGHTMARE OF EDEN SUME READING E STREET WHERE YOU LIVE OTOGRAPH (FRED) NOWLEDGMENTS p. 1 DORLAND p. 2 COVEY p. 3 BROWN p. 5 HINSHAW p. 6 BENNING p. 7 JOHNSON p. 8 NELSON p. 9 NEASE p.12 ROUTI p.13 HARRIMAN p.14 Collegian Staff St. John's College, Annapolis, MD 21404 �~~~~~~~~~-.~~~~~~~~~-.-~~~~~~~~-3 2 . number itself is what is important. When you "square" a line, Descartes does not feel bound geometrically to understand The wind moans like a thousand men this as the construction of a Cheering in a vacant square. rectilinear figure from two It gallops through the deserted alley~ays lines, but thinks of it rather Of the town, stirring here a stray d~g s fur, as the number added to There, tree limbs full of unbudded ideas, itself a number of times The moments of my mind as I walk alone equal to itself. On cold rock-bound streets seeking ~helter I think that it is this Even as I fly trom shelter. I am the wmd, idea of number as sepaHome wherever I go with empty thoughts rable from magnitude that Of half-revolutions spiralling down my days. . troubles people. It removes You see me when you glance from your upstairs mathematics from the Bedroom window before you turn to sleep realm of the visible and And ou stop for a moment, just a moment, moves it into the intelligible. To c~ntemplate a figure with upturned coat collar. Algebraic symbology exAnd though I never see you, I feel you there emplifies this. The te.rm l And we know that you are too tie~ and I too free +Yi.=1 is that of a circle. Like the wind that howls down all its days, Now, it doesn't look like .a Thrashing its relentless lonely fury, circle. This is unlike Euclid With no place to go. where, if need be and you __ J. S. COVEY '93 were completely lost, you could usually find a circle The Wind l----------r--------- 11111111111 or triangle somewhere in the construction. But there is a trade-off Greeks obfuscated every- formul~s that w~uld require in this motion of the mind. th'ng with a purpose in extensive (both m effort and 1 Throughout Apollonius, fs to uncover · ) th t the mind. It seems clear to me time p~oo h' h there is a sense a that not only does his geometrically' proofs w I~ visual and prose descrip- method make the old ge- most people would bedm· tions he uses are being . . able of But by un erpushed to their limits. His ometry clearer, but it.gives ~~~nding the meanings of enunciations become so us new understanding of the formulas, we can de· convoluted that they be- the figures. f th rive this knowledge easily. An example is the come meaningless until The formulas or e ob conic sections are: II you have done th e Pr question of scale. At a sma lem and understand it. Circle 1 scale, we know what the me /·+y +Dx+Ey+f=0 h They essentia II Y b eco figures look like. But w Parabola pointless. effect does increasing seaI y1+Dx+Ey+f=0 de r Descartes un (increasing x) have .upo stands this problem -- his Hyperbola 2 the figures? By looking A/--Cy +Dx+Ey+F=0 . . the formulas above, it mockery of Aristot Ie's d ef 1nition of motion makes this Ellipse :i. p\a'1n that at great seal rt Ax2+Cy+Dx+Ey+F=O plain. In fact, Desca es There is a wealth of certain properties of seems to be under the various formulas ass sneaking suspicion thatthe knowledge hidden in the themselves. At very large or y=[±,/(A/C)]x x distances, the ratio of the Ellipse Ox, Ey, and F factors to the Ax 1+Cy 2=0 or Ax2=-Cl' Axz. and Cy2. factors apBoth the circle and the proaches zero. The equa- ellipse have no solution at tions might be rewritten as: great scale, which is reasonable considering they Circle are closed figures. The x2+y 1=0 or x2=-y 2 parabola tends to become Parabola a line on the x-axis. The yi=O or y=O hyperbola has two soluHyperbola tions, each of which is a Ax1-C/°=O or Al= cy1 line from the origin whose slope is ±./(AIC); in other words, the asymptotes. The Cartesian method is a much needed breath of fresh air after a year and a half (or two thousand years, depending on your perspective) of being yoked to magnitude and visual explanation as the Greeks would have it. suited in ill-fitting robes. His leather boots now rendered in bronze jutoutoverthe tip of the statue's base -- very near to eye level. The pits of the Justice's eyes serve to accentuate the length of his crooked nose. Beneath what would be considered a shock of hair by today's standards, Taney is frowning. His countenance is mean and determined. His back is bent as though he bears an invisible weight which drives his gaze to the ground; and as he peers ahead into stark silence, one might meet along with this unwavering gaze the pitiful disposition. Beneath his left hand is a bound volume entitled The Constitution . Taney gained his greatest recognition by writing the majority opinion for the Dred Scott vs. Sanford case in which he infers from the Constitution the alienation of American slaves from the American people. Because of sev- eral remarks which were presented to me on behalf of Taney's opinion, I intend to expatiate upon my belief that Taney's arguments are incomplete, rhetorical, and slanderous in their assumptions. In so doing I hope to free myself from any moral principles which may be at stake, attacking Taney's principles on the weakness of his logic. Clearlythetopic I have chosen is a sensitive one. However, while one would like to think that racism is behind us, in many ways it is not, nor will it be for generations to come. Racism is not an emotion perfectly natural to the human heart. On the contrary, I believe that hateful pre judices such as racism are promulgated by institutions such as, given the example of Taney, the Supreme Court. Furthermore, I believe that educational institutions are far from guiltless. For while they may not teach racial Taney, Douglass, and the Constitution At St. John's we read the work of many authors dating as far back as Homer and including many diverse ures from Europe and erica as well. Curiously ough, one of these aurs was actually reared e in Maryland only to to the honored position Chief Justice of the ed States. That man Roger Brooke Taney. Having read the Dred vs. Sanford case for the Chief Justice ed the majority opinhaving discussed in seminar, I was drawn to inspect e statue of Taney behind the State he statue is large an life. Taney is -- BRYAN DORLAND '92 �4~~~~~~~-.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~- hatred, they often do little to address the problem of racism inourcountrywhich continually needs a forthright and honest perspective. Taney claims that the language of the Constitution and of the Declaration of lndependence was universally understood as excluding the negro race. Nothing could be further from the truth. Taney supports his conclusion with the idea that were this not the case, (i.e. if the language of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were inclusive of the black race)thatthe authors would have been flagrant hypocrites. Taney's calculated misconception of documents such as the Constitution serve no end but the continuation of slavery in perpetuity. What Taney fails to interpret with accurate completeness is thepassagehequotesfrom the Declaration of lndependence: "in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another." This passage effectively illustrates that the Founding Fathers of the United States need not be considered hypocrites, but instead men who understood change in the course of human events. They were men who effectively understood progress. In saying that all men are created equal, and by emancipating the thirteen states from their position as British colonies, they acted to preserve equal rights before the law. Hadhenotbeengiven to support the economic mainstay of his home state, Taney might have been disposed to finish his line of reasoning. The Founding Fathers did mean the entirety of the human family when they used the word "people" or "human" precisely because they knew what these words meant. They were not hypocrites because of the inconsistency which existed between their use of the word "people" in the Constitution and obvious inequalities of social conditions. The authors expressed their belief that "all men are created equal," and that "in the course of human events it becomes necessary to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another." I presume that this statement reflects the necessity of political liberty and equality before the law for all peoples. The argument has been presented to me that words evolve in usage and in meaning. I find that this is true in many instances, but laughable when we consider the words "human" and "people." These words have been used by Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Locke in the same manner in which we would use them today. There is no reason to believe that such words would be used any differently by the authors of the Constitution. In the Constitution the authorscertainlyspeakof "securing the blessings of liberty." I am now compelled to ask along with Frederick Douglass what in the Constitution guarantees the right to enslave? (from Douglass' speech The Constitution of the United States:is itpro-slavery or anti-slavery?) Like Taney, Douglass was born in Maryland only to reach the exalted status of authorship on the Great Books Program. While Taney was from Calvert County, Douglass was born aslaveinTuckahoeonthe Eastern Shore. Later Douglass was brought to Baltimore where he learned how to read and write. After a time he escaped to New York; and, after moving to Massachusetts, he won fame as an outspoken abolitionist. Douglass writes: "the American Constitution is a written instrument, full and complete in itself. It is a great natural enactment done by the people, and can only be altered, amended, or added to by the people.'' Douglass appeals to the words of the Constitution while he rejects the practices of its authors. He is angered by the persistence of those who would look ~~~~~~~-~~~~~~~~-.-~~~~~~~s everywhere but to the Constitution in order to decide whether or not the Constitution is pro-slavery. His most compelling argument comes from the insight which he offers to words which are commonly distinguished, but are somehow often equivocated by interpreters of the Constitution. These words are "persons" and "prop- erty". Douglass claims that these words cannot be equivocated by inference, but must be done so by plain English. These two men -Douglass and Taney-- held opposite views, even as theylivedonoppositesides of the Chesapeake. Both men's lives were exceptional, but Taney held to the status quo while Douglass had the courage to look to the present and the future of the nation. I believe that this is especially true when I consider Douglass' wise words: "act for the abolition of slavery through the government, and not over its ruins." -- STACEY BROWN '90 the thorax, extending half The bees also tend to walk an inch further than the directly underneath the Observation abdomen. It has four legs mantises, seemingly proextending from the middle voking If the the Praying section and two thicker legs comes them. enough,bee close a directly underneath the mantis will grab for it, usuMantis head. These two legs are ally unsuccessfully, but the held in an unusual praying mantis will not chase it. position under the chin and After a while, a bee will have been observed to be become very uncoordiSprawled out grace- used for catching and de- nated. One bee was obfully on the window frame, vouring insects. served to approach the first silhouetted by the light There is another man- mantis four times, in spite outside, the praying mantis tis in the window. The of falling several times attentively observes its second mantis is approxi- along the way, within two Its black mately two-and-a-half minutes before it was actusurroundings. eyes protrude from either inches long and is brown, ally caught. For these side of its head, the re- save the green upper reasons it may be inf erred ainder forming a small halves of the hind legs. It that the mantises produce inted nose and mouth moves less steadily and not a sensory signal (probably een the eyes. The only as often as the other pray- olfactory) which attracts erdistinguishing feature ing mantis. prey. the head is the two conThe window is also Two days ago, when ntly wavering antennae. occupied by two bees. observation began, the The body of the man- When the mantises were larger mantis was standing is shaped like a baseball observed on other occa- on the fluorescent ceiling the head being the sions, they always seemed light with its four hind legs le. Its abdomen is light to have a devoted follow- and with its two forelegs n, and its head, limbs, ing of a few insects. Algrasped. Apparently, it was and wings are the though insects seem to be trying to consume the of dead grass. It is attracted by light, the other smaller mantis. The ~ four inches long, three light sources in the smaller mantis was strugmgs starting behind· room contain no insects. gling valiantly and after a An of �6~~~~--~~..,-~~~~~~~-r-~~~~~~~ few minutes managed to larger walked away, ignor- came into very close proximity. In both cases the be dropped. The actions ing the smaller. leading to this struggle can The appearance of a prey was ignored if the atbe treated only as specula- second large praying man- tack was initially unsuction. The following day the tis has opened the possi- cessful. In both cases the larger was observed briefly bility that the initial interac- prey continually apon several occasions to tion on the ceiling light and preached the mantis, in have moved very little, the following two on the spite of becoming weaker remaining in the light. The window may have involved and less coordinated after smaller was about one foot two different large man- each attack. For these away from the larger. Two tises. The small mantis reasons it can be postuinteractions ensued. Par- was almost certainly the lated that the purpose of allels can be drawn be- same in both cases. both sets of interactions -tween these interactions, Many similarities can that is, to consume the prey although of a purely specu- be seen between the large -- was identical. lative nature. mantis' attacks on the bee On the following day, The smaller mantis and on the smaller mantis. the smaller mantis was initiated the first interaction. In both cases the prey was nowhere to be found. After a few tentative ad- observed, yet ignored by -- MOLLY HINSHAW '93 vances, it boldly ap- the larger mantis until it preached the larger mantis. The smaller was ignored until it was directly beneath the larger. The "A{_ y w v ·~v ¥. ~ v q> ix ( vex l larger then pounced, both Syllables mixing and meshing, fell onto the sill, and the Words spoken and lost struggle proceeded for a Stain the place of human memory, few seconds, ceased for Fill the place between the world and thought. several seconds, then reThe soul is somewhere started until the larger behind the sound ... walked away. During the L---------__..1---------1 Language lull, it appeared to the ob) ,,. )I (/ £POJAE-VOS OVTOll t.VplCTKCC..l server that the mantises Secret ponderings of the mind were simply gripping each Public whispers of why other with their hind legs, Lead from the inside-out-back-in-again and that no other body parts To the heart of being that lies behind came into contact. It apevery question and every human endeavor ... peared, although it is not necessarily true, that mat-rrpcXTTWll 13(ov cptxlv£.To<l ing did not take place. The Bumping, touching, missing; smaller was left stunned Interaction of body and mind for about five minutes, then Gives life to the soul of experience, it again approached the Reveals the experience of a soul living in deed. larger. Once again the What is known is what is spoken is what is done larger pounced when the is what is. smaller was immediately under its nose. The sec-- LORIE BENNING '92 ond interaction was much briefer and, once again, the L------------------ ~~~~~~---r~~~~~~-.-~~~~~-7 LOU REED: Words from the Street Some people tend to think that song lyrics are meaningless, stupid, or even harmful to children. Some people don't realize that a number of lyricists can be considered true poets. The songwriters just prefer to intensify and convey the feelings within the words by accompanying music. Some songwriters ave even published their rics separately in newspers and recited them to iences. One such gwriteris Lou Reed. He "lectured" his words to ents at a university in klyn, and the New York ~has printed his songs tr "Op-Ed" section. Reed's words derive early fifty years exe of living in New · His language is mart, yet not offenis style resembles elmore Schwartz, with motifs of hate, fear, death, sex, and drugs. Reed and Schwartz were friends when Reed attended the University of Syracuse in the early sixties. More than once, Reed has stated that Schwartz was more than a friend, rather a mentor or an "example." Ironically, Schwartz was one of those people who regarded song lyrics as 'stupid.' On his first album with his band The Velvet Underground: Reed and his band mates composed "European Son (to Delmore Schwartz)," a seven-minute song with only eight lines of words, the shortest set of lyrics Reed has ever written. Fifteen years later, Reed wrote a song called ''My House (In Dreams Begin Responsibilities)," for his albumTheBlueMask. The song told a tale as a Ouija Board spelling out the "proud and regal name Delmore." Reed sings, "He was the first great man that I had ever met." "I wanted to set out and write the Great American Novel," Reed has said and over two decades, h~ has. In 1967, while the rest of the nation was in euphoria about the 'Summer of Love,' Reed and the Velvet Underground released an album containing songs about taboo subjects such as death, drug-use, and sadism. It contained the basic emotions of a me- tropolis as decadent as the New York of the late sixties: rage, anger, and hurt. The album's centerpiece was a song called "Heroin." Neither for or against the drug, Reed just told what it was like to use it. "It's my wife, and it's my life." Another song on the album tells a tale of druguse, "I'm Waiting for the Man." Reed said he wrote it "on a subway, gain' to Harlem to do something.'' That 'something' is an addict's daily trip to see his 'man' or dealer for a 'fix,' a daily dose that curbs the pain of withdrawal. Again, Reed seems neither for or against the drug, but just narrates the tale of his daily chore. The last two lines, though, are praising and denouncing the drug. The first line praises the intense rushofbloodandgoodfeeling that the user experiences, while the second focuses on the fact that an addict has to do this each and every day to avoid the sickness of withdrawal. His use of language here is typically colloquial. He switches from talking about himself as the subject to telling the listener what it's all about. "Everybody's pinned you, but nobody cares." By'pinned,' Reed means that all the people at this 'heroin house' in Harlem have seen this 'white-boy' walk in, but the people are so 'lit' on heroin thatthey really couldn't care �9 less about him, but rather about their own state of mind. Reed's first album with the Velvet Underground was produced by the godfather of sixties art, Andy Warhol. The Velvets owe a great deal to Warhol, for he brought them public exposure with his travelling art show, "The Exploding Plastic Inevitable." When Warhol passed away in 1987, Reed felt moved to join with fellow bandmateJohn Cale for the first time in twenty years to collaborate on a two-hourtribute. Drummer Maureen Tucker also wrote a tribute song to Warhol for one of her albums. Reed dedicated his tribute song, "Dime Store Mystery,"to "Andy-honey." It is questionable whether Reed meant this sarcastically, indicating that their relationship over the years may not have been amicable. This thought comes up again in the line "I wish Resume Reading You were right, Dorothy -You might as well live. (Your words, but not your reasoning. I'll explain) Can't determine whether The change would be better or worse Would there be a change at all? That's no reason -If it's no difference, why bother? If it's better, that's a good reason But -If it's worse, that's a good reason not to. Why worry? Soon enough I will know, Dorothy (Too soon) And I have no real proof either way So why should I worry? Dorothy, if I stay In my current condition For long enough When the change arrives I am sure it will interest me So why should I worry? And, Dorothy, having said all this -Why do I still? ROBBY NEASE '92 I hadn't thrown away my 1 ';;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;~ time on so much Human ... and so much less Divine." eed may have disagreed had spent less time with cal, chances are that he ih people's opinion that the rest of the world, the did. Phrases such as arhol was some sort of "so much Human and so "Ermine furs adorn the mi-god, and regarded much less Divine." imperialists" and "Downy as "so much Human A song on the first sins" give the piece an so much less Divine." Velvet Underground album, almost majestic feel. The perhaps more realisti- "Venus in Furs," discusses tale is another narration ly, Reed considered another taboo of street-life about what the actual act hol a true friend and hedonism, sadism. I don't incurs. It is a perverted tale ed that he had spent know if Reed personally of the dominant "mistress" time with him before dabbled in such acts, but and her "servant." It is not ssed away. Reed since most of his songs are until the two lines "Tongue ave wished that he somewhat autobiographi- the thongs, the belt that -- ARLANE NELSON '91 �!--------------------~·~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~11 10~--~--_:_---,---'-::___~--~~-r---~~~---:--:­ does await you" and "Taste "Streethassle," the woman aspects of a city that shock the whip, now bleed for me" has overdosed and a by- non-metropolitans, such as that Reed blatantly refers stander is now instructing drug-use, death, and vioto the pleasure-through- the prostitute on what he's lence, become common · E ar 1·1er he'd sug- gotta do. The language of factors of life in a big city. pain. gested the theme with the first part gives the story The last few lines, how"Different colors made of the dream-like, fantastic ever, represent this man's, tears." This line illustrates quality that the woman and ultimately Reed's, phi.,. the attraction to sadism. experiences. Phrases like losophy of people's relaThe different colors are the "cascading slowly he lifted tion to other people. "Some two feelings, pleasure and her holy" and "everybody's people got no choice ... " pain, while the tears are dream for a day," fully illus- brings to mind the image of the medium. The seNant trate this. Reed brings a young runaways going to cries because of the physi- pleasant account to the New York for the first time, cal pain he has endured, world's oldest occupation not knowing anybody. but he is also crying be- by replacing the sordid act Searching for acceptance, cause of the intenseorgas- of prostitution with a dream. the young runaways beIn part two, the dream come friends with "the first mic emotions he has experienced. turns into death. This eve- thing they see that allows The one song, how- ningwouldbethelasttime themtherighttobe."These ever, that fully illustrates the woman feels love. The first friendships usually sexual desire is also Reed's male prostitute just stands don't last long and somecareer masterpiece. Reed there not knowing what to times end up in pain, anwrote the song in 1978, do. After all, to him, she ger, and even death. These during what has been called was just another nameless relationships end up in "bad "The Sexual Revolution," client. It is the by-stander luck." Reed has said that when sexual promiscuity who must act. His attitude these lines would make a becamefashionable. Reed is rational. He faces the fine epitaph. has been known to be facts that the girl is dead, The language here is 'trendy' and write about she can't come back, and purely conversational. The present social issues. This as he says to the prostitute, use of profanity and collotale reflects on sexual "you're the one who came quial slang terms clearly desire and narcotic use that here, an' you're the one shows this. Some people were so popular in the late that's gotta take her when consider this language ofseventies. The song is you leave." Death has no tensive and think it should called "Streethassle," and meaning to this man. His not be featured in a song · th t "when meant for radio airplay. its use of slang and prof an- id ea of tru th is a ity highlight the street back- someone turns that blue, This is language that every't's a universal truth, one hears at least once a ground of the story. Th e Well l story is as follows: part one, an'you just know that bitch'll day. The listener may be "Waltzing Matilda,"tellsthe never fuck again." In his shocked because songs story of a woman seeking New York, death is so don't usually contain prothe services of a male pros- common that he regards fanity, but profane words words of the English titute; in the second part, an overd ose d corpse as are "just another hit-an-run." language that Most people consider New every day. Just as Reed Yorkers "cold-hearted." They are, but only because about sexual desire seventies, he wrote about the aftermath of sex in the eighties -- AIDS. "Halloween Parade"takes its name from the annual event in Greenwich Village where the entire neighborhood, mostly homosexual, dresses in costume for a night on the town. At first listening, the line "This Halloween is something to be sure especially to be here without you," seems to imply that it's a love song about abroken relationship. It is, but not between a man and a woman, but rather between one person and a group of friends that have died from AIDS. This is more than a separation, this is death. The "you" in that line is plural, not singular, referring to the lost friends. I can imagine Reed standing by a window in the top room of a four story house, gazing down at the remembering street, friends from the past. Reed borrows the phrase "The pa~ keeps knock knock ocking on my door and I n't want to hear it anyore," from Bob Dylan's necking on Heaven's or." The door here is the or to Reed's memory. As ed looks down at the pie, it brings back to his d the people that won't .down there. The emo1pain grows and grows it does become too to bear, even for the llycold-hearted Reed. this point in time, he had settled down and moved to New Jersey to think on the past and present. The one aspect of city life that people see, but blatantly ignore, is that of class division. While the nation enjoys cocktail parties and little get-togethers, another nation is sleeping in the streets. Reed gives the common Shakespeare love-story a twist in "Romeo Had Juliette." The relationship between Romeo Rodriguez and Juliette Bell is a contemporary one, based primarily on sex. It is not Romeo and Juliette, but rather Romeo had Juliette. They didn't love each other, they "wanted" each other. The class division is evident as Romeo thinks of "his lonely room the sink that by his bed gives off a stink Then smells the perfume in his eyes and her voice was like a bell." Juliette Bell is "lithesome" because, despite her advantages, she desires a man who "curses Jesus" while wearing "A diamond crucifix in his ear used to help ward off the Fear that he has left his soul in someone's rented car." It's not even his own car, but "someone else's rented car." The "diamond crucifix" symbolizes the modern desire for material decoration. Although he lives in a slum, Romeo would rather spend his money on clothes that make him beautiful to others, which makes him feel good about himself. The one Lou Reed song that explicitly contrasts different classes is "Men of Good Fortune." Here, Reed correctly equates money with emotion. The three lines, "the rich son waits for his father to die -- the poor just drink and cry -- and me I just don't care at all," contrast the three classes -- upper, middle, and lower. The upper class grow up knowing nothing but parental support, ending with the colossal inheritance. The lower class, deprived of such advantage, only dream of such a life and when the realization that such a life is an impossibility sinks in, they do what they grew up with, surviving -- either by crying to release the pain or drinking to drown out the sorrow. The middle class are just content with their own lives and problems, showing no feelings toward others. Over the years, each album Reed has made has introduced the listener to another aspect of Lou Reed. His albums with the Velvet Underground and his nearly twenty solo albums are individual chapters of his Great American Novel. It is an autobio- �12~~~~~~~~~~~--~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~- graphical novel. Reed writes what he does, what he sees, and most impertantly, what he feels. He has grown from an angry youth to a wise, angered man. As a youth, he was angry at his own life and how pain dominated it. As a man, he became content with his life, but angered at the things that happen in the world around him. "Faulkner had the South; Joyce had Dublin; I've got New York." Each of the albums Reed has recorded has been about New York, either directly or indirectly. It started with the first Velvet Underground album and culminated with his recent release, the aptly titled New York. Life in the city can be harsh, yet at times beautiful, and Reed wasthetruepoettoemerge from there. -- DAVID JOHNSON '92 cover the wooden floor, than mine but it too holds rugs my grandmother had memories for me. He saw made. Clothes hung in the Santa Claus fill his stocksmall built-in closet on one ing there one Christmas. It Street side of the room. A radiator was there I discovered the stood between the two note saying he was runWhere large windows. My books ning away, and that we and toys filled the book- would have to tell Miss shelves. My bed was in the Henry, his teacher, who corner by the door -- for an was coming to dinner. My easy escape. On top of the parents' room had matchdresser which held my ing curtains and bedspread. clothes was an Indian When the hurricane came stuffed elephant, agiftfrom we all spent the night safely together in here. I am walking down my my name-mother. I can remember when Our rooms came off a street. Or rather, the street my brother pulled the pink passageway forming the which used to be mine. But you live here now. You live rug out from under me and private part of the house. in the house with the black I got my one and only nose- The rest were public rooms. shutters and door, with the bleed when I hit the book- The kitchen is now an green grass in the front shelves. How I posed on important part of a house sloping gently down to the the little table for photo- for me, and it was then -sidewalk, the black railing graphs for our scupltor even at age five. I can that sticks up beside the friend. And how frightened remember helping, stand1 was of robbers or man- ing on a stool. And my steps up to the path. I wonder what you use sters or vampires hiding mother on her knees, vainl wiping at the floor, pracf my bedroom for now? My somewhere in my room. My room was safely cally dropping from th mother had just made white poplin curtains for the win- encased by my parents' Victoria flu. There was dows when we moved. room and my brother's. My swing door between th There were throw rugs to brother's room was smaller kitchen and the butler The You Live I -- VINCE HARRIMAN '90 �··-------------------------~~~ 14~~~~~~~~-.-~~~~~~~~.-~~~~~~~~ pantry where we ate most of our meals. A toaster sat at the far end of the table next to the radio which broadcast our advertisement for someone to give a home to Wolfsbane. From the butler's pantry there was another swing door that led into the dining room. I climbed that door frame many times and never fell. I did wind myself once, when I fell while rushing excitedly through the doorways and passage in my winter pajamas. The dining room was mainly a living room really - and sometimes even a guest room. The orange couch which could transform into a bed was there. We ate our first meal in the house in this room. And we ate lunch there the time when I badly skinned my knees because Lady Day had pulled me along as she chased a cat; she apologised by licking the newly cleaned wounds from underthe table. Adjoining was the sunroom where plants and television were kept. My brother and I would get up early on the weekends to watch cartoons there. But the major room of the house was sort of my father's study. There was an open fireplace. The record player was in there, and there was a big area to move about in; my brother and I made up a dance to the Nutcracker Ballet in that room. Every year the Christmas tree was put up in the study. Onedaythetreewas so big that it touched both of the walls and seemed to go right through the ceiling. Another year the tree fell on my father three times. The house had three stories. We rented our part of it from the lady on the first floor. Tilly was a wonderful woman who came from an old New England family. A couple of times each year she was over- ~~~~~~~~-,--~~~~--'-~~-.-~~~~~~~15 seas, and then we looked after her part of the house and her elderly Siamese cat, Keiko. Her rooms were cluttered with all sorts of objects collected on her excursions. They are beautiful rooms, rather Victorian in appearance just like her. Surely they remain the same? We also rented part of the top floor, which was rather small. My mother had a study and a workroom up there. It was also a guest area, complete with its own "facilities." This floor joined thefirstby wayofastairto the kitchen and the outside. The backyard seemed very large. There was a winding driveway where we played badminton and a large tree beneath which, every year at Easter, violets and pansies came up. In the same place mother found Wolfsbane once when he managed to escape from the house. The garage housed Tilly's land rover and was a general storage area. There was a space behind it where we planted chives and where my brother and I played. He and a friend lost my Jane West doll, which they had kidnapped, somewhere there. Did you ever find it? Everitt Street is a long one and especially beautiful in the fall with all the crisp, colorful leaves. The house next door was rather like ours. When it came up for sale we hoped my grandparents would buy it, but they didn't. I think we would still be here if they had. The far end of Everitt Street leads to East Rock Park. Twodoorsawayfrom our house is a church parking lot. Here it was that I learned to ride a twowheeler, and we played baseball here, and we used itasashort-cuttoWhitney Avenue. Away down at the otherendofthestreetlcan Acknowledgments It is the purpose of The Collegian to be a meeting place of the minds and hearts of the college community. We may have faltered some in actuating this purpose - some of the essays have been too long and the columns may have been too narrow for all that we intended. We hope at the least that we have been able to bring before the eyes of the community works which did not fit into other forums at the college -- humorous short stories too long for one publication, commendable essays too short for the other, and pieces of writing meant to communicate but which had no place to do it in. Now these are set down in record for students who will come after us. The people who should be thanked the most for this magazine are Tequila Brooks and Akiba Covitz. Akiba did all of the legwork and pleading with Mr. Henry Higuera (faculty advisor to Energeia), Assistant Dean John Verdi, and Treasurer Robert Harner to obtain the excess of Energeia funds to pay for The Collegian. Had he not done this, the magazine would never have been possible. Tequila acted as the mainstay and guiding light for the whole enterprise. The Computer Society and students Sascha Cocran '90 and Aaron Rosenbaum '91 we give our thanks and recognition for the newly revamped Computer Room. Although their influence is indirect, all Collegian production is done on the Macintosh computers. . .. We owe much to Miss Eva Brann for the advice, encouragement and cnt1c1sm she gave us, as well as the many essays she recommended. She would not let us lose hope even when it did not seem a good idea to continue. .. Rachel Boyce deserves to be commended for lending her talents to ed1t~ng although she only wanted to do a little bit of lay-out. She has been invaluable as editor and artist and we will miss her sorely when she graduates. She brought energy and ideas when others of us began to despair. Robby Nease has also been invaluable. He has been constant and true to the magazine from the beginning. It is to Robby that we owe the low percentage of typographical and spelling errors. Heartfelt thanks goes to the other students who had the spirit to begin but whose schedules would not allow them to continue with the magazine, and to the students who have just begun to work with us. We thank Carin Calabrese and Zoe Beatty at The Gadfly for those pieces they passed on to us which were too long for their format. Gratitude to the writers and artists for the pieces they have submitted goes,with?ut saying. It is inspiring to think that the community can produce so many good ideas. It is the hope of The Collegian to continue publication in the future. May it always be a magazine which holds to ideals and which makes the attempt to treat all concerned with decency and respect. It is a magazine large enough to affect the lives of its readers, but small enough to not be affected by the forces which make larger publications compromise their ideals for other purposes . . We enjoyed producing The Collegian and it is our hope that the community enjoyed reading it. May 1990 . Thanks to Chris Colby, David and Donald Murchake in the St. John's College Pnnt Shop for the printing of The Collegian. �~ . ~ ~ 16 see my friend Celia's house. Do you know her, I wonder? After the hurricane everyone on Everitt Street came out for a big cleanup, and a lot of tree branches were piled in front of the house. At Halloween we would Trick 'n' Treat with friends all up and down the street. And at Christmas we would go caroling along it in the snow. But where is the corner where almost every week I used to skin one or the other of my knees? Events have faded and melted in my mind, so that I can no longer be sure of what is true. I know I will visit this street again. It will seemevenshorter,smaller, less pretty then. Now you live here, and for you the images of the past are different. Yet it will alwaysbeEverittStreetand the house will always be 134. Now I have relinquished my hold. I have honored my past in my way. I leave the present to you. They are your house and your street now. -- DEIRDRE ROUTT '91 Students who have contributed to the Production of The Collegian during the 1989 - 90 school year: Rachel Boyce '90 Tequila Brooks '91 Akiba Covitz '91 Elizabeth Didato '92 Vince Harriman '90 Molly Hinshaw '93 Robby Nease '92 Maureen Spectre '91 Vanessa Stratton '93 The publishing policy of The Collegian is to treat all writers or artists and the pieces they submit with respect. A piece will not be accepted if the staff judges that it does not reflect the capabilities of the originator. No revision will be adopted without the inform and consent of the writer. Please address correspondence and criticism to Box 391 Campus Mail. An organizational meeting will be called at the beginning of the next term. � 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 Collegian Description An account of the resource The Collegian began as a student newspaper; became a college community literary publication in 1952 and continued until 1969; became a student newspaper again in 1969; discontinued publication from 1980 until 1989 when it again became a student literary publication.<br /><br />Click on <a title="The Collegian" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=26">Items in The Collegian Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. 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 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 16 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The Collegian 11 May 1990 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1990-05-11 Title A name given to the resource The Collegian, May 11, 1990 Description An account of the resource Vol. I, Issue 4 of The Collegian. Published on May 11, 1990. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Boyce, Rachel [Editor] Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/edd2a0cc00023888552b3c5a74e61642.jpg 2f54d9a9e1765fcbd4c781b5317d647f 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 Image Collection—Annapolis Description An account of the resource <p>The Greenfield Library Image Collection houses over 5,000 photographs, postcards, drawings, and other graphic materials.  The images in the collection document the history, academic, and community life of St. John’s College. </p> To learn more about the Greenfield Library's archives use policy or to obtain high-resolution images, please see the <strong><a title="Image Collection Use Policy" href="http://www.sjc.edu/academic-programs/libraries/greenfield-library/policies/#photographicarchivepolicy" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Library’s Image Collection Use Policy</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Photographic Archives" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=7">Items in the Image Collection—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library 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 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context imagecollectionannapolis Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image image 17 x 11.5 cm. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data photograph 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SJC-P-0344 Title A name given to the resource McDowell Hall on Fire, St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland Description An account of the resource 1 photographic print : b&w Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1909-02-20 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Boyer, W. E. Subject The topic of the resource St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.). -- McDowell Hall -- 1909. 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 Type The nature or genre of the resource still image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource jpeg Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this photograph. McDowell Hall https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/4921f10018329f17b24e5327e496c91e.mp3 306593e0296f9cc7a6dc30eb25c2739e 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&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;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 wav Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:53:19 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 Given and Giving: Hegel and Heidegger on the Work of Art Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered by Brendan Boyle on February 22, 2019 as part of the Formal Lecture Series. (Beginning of recording is cut off). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Boyle, Brendan 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 2019-02-22 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 audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library and to make an audio 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 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Boyle_Brendan_2019-02-22 Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/19c02cf635eb8116d89244da67d4731e.mp3 0426157eadd61836521e45ac12d522ef 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&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;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. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:59:19 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 82439 Title A name given to the resource Privacy and the Constitution Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on September 19, 2014, by William Braithwaite as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Braithwaite, William 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 2014-09-19 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 audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. 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 Privacy, Right of United States. Constitution Civil rights Language A language of the resource English Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/2fc3d7c3d983c53ba7d927a6030727e3.mp3 e8c661366318a732f7ac170634fc0820 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 Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Description An account of the resource The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library 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 mp3 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:56:41 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 Euclid as Teacher Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on July 10, 2019 by William Braithwaite as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. Mr. Braithwaite is a tutor at St. John's College, Annapolis. His talk centers on Euclid's role as an educator not just of mathematics but also of life. In particular, Braithwaite examines the ways in which Euclid's mathematical reasoning has applicability outside of what would be traditionally thought. Using examples from Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, and others, this talk deepens an understanding of Euclid as a teacher of logic, mathematics, and life. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Braithwaite, William T. (William Thomas) 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 2019-07-10 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 audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library and to make an audio 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 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Braithwaite_William_2019-07-10 Subject The topic of the resource Teaching Euclid. Elements Mathematics Geometry Education Graduate Institute Summer lecture series Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/2c9681c631a750f266a929096f63fc0c.mp4 536fb345b5b2972647931398a82eee82 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 Speeches, presentations, and other lectures Description An account of the resource Speeches, presentations, and other lectures given at St. John's College. These include convocation addresses delivered in both Annapolis, MD and Santa Fe, NM.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Speeches, presentations, and other lectures" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=15">Items in the Speeches, presentations, and other lectures Collection</a></strong> to <span>view and sort all items in the collection.</span> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speechespresentationsotherlectures Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Zoom video conference Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:36:02 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 Learning While Alone Together On-Screen Description An account of the resource Video recording of an online lecture by Annapolis tutor William Braithwaite given on April 15, 2020. <br /><br />Braithwaite describes his lecture: "In <em>Memory and Recollection</em>, Aristotle distinguishes that calling-back to conscious attention which we name 'remembering,' from the kindred activity of re-assembling that ensemble of original perceptions and primary intuitions ('connecting the dots'?) which together constitute knowing some one thing whole. <br /><br />Are our e-meetings working as well as they are because we are able to remember and recollect the on-campus being-together that preceded them? <br /><br />This communal experience, now a memory, had at its heart a paradox: we regularly met face-to-face, in the same place, to read together books written long ago (some in languages not our own), in far-away places, by men and women whose faces we can never see, whose voices no technology can let us hear. How is such a way of learning fruitful? Can it be done through a screen? <br /><br />Drawing on our books, I shall offer some preliminary reflections on the differences, which we are now experiencing, between the screen and the page."<br /><br /><span>Enkh-Od Batzorig of the Student Committee on Instruction introduces Braithwaite's lecture.</span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Braithwaite, William T. (William Thomas) 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 2020-04-15 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Permission to record the lecture and provide online access to the recording has been received. Type The nature or genre of the resource image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp4 Subject The topic of the resource Distance education Technology--Philosophy Quarantine Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Batzorig, Enkh-Od Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Braithwaite_William_2020-04-15 Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/9a845f3d960726c7f87dfded218476d1.mp4 10e760de2f14ca041e7858e8eb964cf5 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 Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Description An account of the resource The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Zoom video conference Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:03:38 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 Reading Plato’s <em>Meno</em> Online Description An account of the resource Video recording of a lecture delivered on June 24, 2020 by William Braithwaite as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. The final minute of the recording (beginning at 01:02:00) is in audio format only.  <br /><br />Mr. Braithwaite describes his lecture as follows: <br /><br />"Traditionally serving to introduce the study of Plato’s two dozen dialogues, the <em>Meno</em> raises questions about what virtue is and how it is acquired, about what knowledge is—both in itself and in relation to opinion, and about how teaching and learning are connected. <br /><br />I will offer a preliminary, or serious beginner’s, reading of the dialogue, with a view to opening one path to these questions: What are the conditions Plato suggests as ideal or best, indispensable or useful, for learning and teaching? How, and to what extent, are these conditions affected by the differences between face-to-face student-teacher meetings, and meetings among geographically-dispersed teachers and students, mediated by an electronic screen? What sort of community is an 'on-line' community?" Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Braithwaite, William T. (William Thomas) 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 2020-06-24 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 audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library and to make an audio recording of my lecture available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp4 Subject The topic of the resource Plato. Meno Web-based instruction Education Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Langston, Emily Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Braithwaite_William_2020-06-24 Graduate Institute Summer lecture series Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/f0ad61f8a58ce280b730e638c1c90471.pdf cbcbec0adcf644670e9ddc57e39ba3d5 PDF Text Text ������������������ 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&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;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 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. 18 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 Reading Genesis Chapter Three Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on September 2, 2022, by William Braithwaite as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Mr. Braithwaite offers this description: "The Garden of Eden story, about Adam and Eve, what they did and how they were punished for it, is the authoritative source for the Christian doctrine of original sin. Before St. Augustine and St. Paul appropriated it for this purpose, however, the story belonged to the Hebrew Scriptures of the ancient Israelites, and Judaism has no dogma of original sin. But even before ancient rabbis put the story in writing many centuries ago, it may, some scholars suggest, have circulated orally. If we try to imagine who first told the story, and to whom, and with what end in mind, what would we take it to be about, and what truth might we find in it? What does the story say to those who are not Christians or Jews, whether of another faith, or even atheist or agnostic? Seeking reliable speculations on such questions is the work behind this lecture." Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Braithwaite, William T. (William Thomas) 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 2022-09-02 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 typescript copies of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John’s College Greenfield Library; make a copy of my typescript available online." 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 Bible. Genesis Eve (Biblical figure) David, King of Israel Parables Solomon, King of Israel Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Braithwaite_William_2022-09-02 Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/d34aed13624e9834bdf439cb45e0126d.mp4 9922934162c7493bde007b90830be93b 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&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;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 Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data mp4 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:17:48 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 Reading Genesis Chapter Three Description An account of the resource Video recording of a lecture delivered on September 2, 2022, by William Braithwaite as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Mr. Braithwaite offers this description: "The Garden of Eden story, about Adam and Eve, what they did and how they were punished for it, is the authoritative source for the Christian doctrine of original sin. Before St. Augustine and St. Paul appropriated it for this purpose, however, the story belonged to the Hebrew Scriptures of the ancient Israelites, and Judaism has no dogma of original sin. But even before ancient rabbis put the story in writing many centuries ago, it may, some scholars suggest, have circulated orally. If we try to imagine who first told the story, and to whom, and with what end in mind, what would we take it to be about, and what truth might we find in it? What does the story say to those who are not Christians or Jews, whether of another faith, or even atheist or agnostic? Seeking reliable speculations on such questions is the work behind this lecture." Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Braithwaite, William T. (William Thomas) 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 2022-09-02 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 typescript copies of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John’s College Greenfield Library; make a copy of my typescript available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp4 Subject The topic of the resource Bible. Genesis Eve (Biblical figure) David, King of Israel Parables Solomon, King of Israel Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Braithwaite_William_2022-09-02_ac Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/fef65f90603df99d5e419135b73c53fb.pdf 3d425bc294c66710dfdf756b3496cc37 PDF Text Text �Table of Contents Letter from the Editor ............................................................................................................................. ...... 1 Reflections on Zoom Seminars at St. John’s College .......................................................................... 2 Bonnie Naradzay The Ancients Had It Easy ........................................................................................................................... 4 Jeanette Corey Artwork .............................................................................................................................................................. 6 Neha Gaddam A Conversation with Four Graduating GIs, Fall 2019 ......................................................................... 7 Jordan Poyner, featuring artwork by Jaime Marquez and Neha Gaddam Ode to the Void ............................................................................................................................. ............... 20 Patricia Harden On the Voluntary Nature of Virtue ......................................................................................................... 21 Brandon Wasicsko Artwork ............................................................................................................................................................ 25 Marley Crank On the GI and Online Seminars .............................................................................................................. 26 Winston Elliott, featuring artwork by Neha Gaddam Two Poems ............................................................................................................................. ....................... 28 Louis Petrich A Letter to St. John’s: On Creating a More Inclusive Learning Environment .......................... 31 Hayley River Smith Artwork ............................................................................................................................................................ 34 Jaime Marquez Two Poems .................................................................................................................................................... 35 Alexander Andreosatos A Toast to the Tutors .................................................................................................................................. 37 Sam Hage Rise Up and Come Away: An Ode to the Marriage of Friends ...................................................... 39 Ryan Shinkel, featuring artwork by Neha Gaddam Human Space Is Where St. John's Exists ............................................................................................ 41 Jordana Rozenman �Prizewinning Essays, Spring 2020: The Soul with Good Sense Guides Correctly ....................................................................................... 43 Sam Hage, featuring artwork by Neha Gaddam Love and Suffering in Joyce’s Ulysses ................................................................................................... 49 Christine Mooradian Editor-in-Chief Olivia Braley Editorial Board Alexander Andreosatos Leith Daghistani Folke Egerstrom Winston Elliott Andrew Graney Charles Green Mustafa Kamal Dimple Kaul Corey Sentz �Letter from the Editor December 11, 2020 Dear Members of the Graduate Institute Community, I'd like to start by thanking all the staff, students, and members of the community who contributed their time and hard work in helping to bring this issue together. Thank you also to our contributors and members of the editorial board. This issue would genuinely not be possible without each of you. As Editor-in-Chief, I am proud of the rigorous and wide-ranging array of writing and art that we have received and are able to put forth in our Fall 2020 Issue. I'd like to take a moment to recognize those members of the editorial board who have supported Colloquy in a time of transition: Dimple Kaul, Jaime Marquez, Charlie Green, and especially our former Editor-in-Chief, Jordan Poyner. Mr. Poyner's guidance even beyond his graduation has been an invaluable help to me in assuming this position and assembling this issue. Without their steadfast commitment to Colloquy, this issue would likely not be in front of you all today. There is no need to assign more adjectives to the year 2020. It's been called trying, unprecedented, uncertain, difficult— and yes, it has been those things. However, at this moment I'd simply like to highlight the abiding need for community, which has, in this year, become all the more pronounced. I hope that this issue of Colloquy may serve as a reminder of the strength and diversity of our polity, and the enduring spirit of the GI community at St. John's College. I hope that you all keep well, and look forward to seeing many of you on campus very soon. Sincerely, Olivia Braley Editor-in-Chief 1 �Personal Essay Reflections on Zoom Seminars at St. John’s College Bonnie Naradzay After a recent preceptorial session on Homer’s The Odyssey with Mr. Townsend, I was feeling disoriented by the Zoom format; it was as if conversations were flowing by me, and I was standing on the bank of a river, following what was being said, but finding it hard to wade into the conversation. I realized in that particular session I’d saved up the ideas I’d wanted to express but seemed unable to share, partly because I’d been muting myself and by the time I’d unmuted myself, there was a pileup of others who were ready to contribute. Finally, toward the end of the two hours, I blurted all out the comments I’d wanted to share at various times. Clearly, I’d not grasped how to contribute to an absorbing Zoom conversation among fourteen students and a tutor, so I asked Mr. Townsend for guidance. Mr. Townsend told me it’s better to ask a question than make a statement, and he recommended that I ask succinct questions directed to others in the class. He added, “Try to say only one thing when you speak so that others can respond. Build a conversation by addressing others. Consider what might be the objections to your claim and look at it from many points of view together.” Then I thought back to my first GI seminar, when I’d also felt like an observer rather than a participant. There were two tutors and close to twenty students. I recall times after the sharing of Opening Questions when I would sit back and wait to see if my topic would come up rather than finding something compelling in the topics being discussed and weighing in. Or if the seminar was near the end, and no one had brought up an issue I’d hoped to focus on, I would try changing the topic while neglecting transitional phrases that could link what was being discussed with what I wanted to contribute. Differences in being in a Zoom seminar include 1) the increased intensity of the Zoom format, since we’re all gathered into a single frame, 2) the disorientation of two-dimensional discourse, when communicative cues we could intuit in actual seminars are now hard to detect 3) the fact that Zoom technology moves us around, so when I look for someone who was in one place for an hour, that person is no longer there but somewhere else in the frame of faces, and sometimes a person will get up, leave an empty chair, and return at a later time; and, most disconcerting: 4) the distancing that comes from seeing one’s own face among the others, which leads to a fixation on how that face is connecting with the others, and where the eyes are focused. Distractions like this mean that one lacks real presence in the conversation. In the GI classes I had with Mr. Zeiderman, I remember he liked to involve us in questions of process. Before starting into our Opening Questions, he would often question us on the quality of our previous session. Were there issues that needed our attention? Did we feel successfully engaged? Any ideas for improvement? (This group assessment is a key part of the Touchstones philosophy.) Now, as we transition to a radically different way of pursuing rigorous dialogue, reflecting on our process seems even more vital. Before this semester started, I attended Mr. Braithwaite’s online talk one evening in June on how Plato’s “Meno” relates to the challenge of leading seminars on Zoom. Mr. Braithwaite noted, 2 �Personal Essay “Meno is in some radical sense not really present in the conversation with Socrates. He recites, like a ventriloquist’s dummy, opinions and arguments he learned from Gorgias, and he’s more attentive to what impression he can make on the audience than to the questions of what is virtue, and can it be taught.” In the appendix to his lecture, Mr. Brathwaite included a list of possible ways to enhance the Zoom learning experience; one is to divide students (part of the time) into smaller discussion groups of perhaps three or four per group. I tried his idea in a limited way. Because we can’t meet casually on the campus, in the coffee shop, for instance, to follow up on seminar conversations with others, I contacted a classmate in The Odyssey to explore a comment he’d made in class. We met on Zoom, which meant that the two of us were speaking side-by-side as well as face-to-face in the Zoom frame; this was certainly better than encountering him as one of the postage-stamp sized faces of fourteen of us plus a tutor, all looking out from a single frame. After our half-hour chat, I felt as if I’d gained a friend as well as insights into his comment and on the text. The impulse to meet with one other fellow student (in a virtual Coffee Shop) worked well. But the concept can be enlarged. We could form smaller groups – perhaps four people in each, in different configurations each time, and meet at set times. This way, we could fine-tune the larger group’s dynamics. Those who tend to distance themselves in the larger seminar setting could feel encouraged to formulate and explore possible text-based opening questions and theories. In addition, we could explore our paper topics with each other. Here’s another way to counter Zoom’s artificial formality: Mr. Townsend has been available on Zoom fifteen minutes or so before our class starts. For those of us who tune in early, this impromptu salon is a way to chat before class starts and before we proceed, in earnest, with our Opening Questions. And now we students have decided to hang out on Zoom after the class ends if we’d like to continue our Homeric journey (picture oarsmen rowing in rhythm). We can use this time also to step back and take a look at our group’s “process” during the most recent seminar. Think of it as being transported to Harry Browne's, upstairs, once the formal session has ended for the evening. To sum up the importance of engaging with the Zoom effect on GI seminars, I turned to Mr. Townsend. “Zoom is alienating and challenging,” he told me. “But otherwise we’d be isolated. So I’m grateful for it.” Mr. Braithwaite, for his part, asked me, “What is it to be present in a genuine, serious, meaningful, absorbing conversation?” He said we know “what it’s like to be physically present while our mind is elsewhere; we know this experience in ourselves and in others.” So we are challenged to find ways to achieve that presence. How do we bring the mind into alignment with what is now a postage-stamp sized representation of our presence? 3 �Poetry The Ancients Had It Easy Jeanette Corey The ancients had it easy with their ships, and quests, and bands of like-hearted searchers. And time, as heroes by trade, to search for god to have that be enough and a foundation of myth that proposed the divine as something to be happened upon or sought by way of trees and fountains, sheepskins, portals. I'm new: I'm now. No word on the exact coordinates of Jacob’s ladder just the hefty knowledge that the blue ceiling of my world is not, in fact, the underside of heaven but space only more and more. Otherwise I'd connive to throw my fists at it, long enough to maybe dislodge a floorboard or kitchen tile of paradise climb up through eternity like a child thief collapse into the presence of the creator as a stowaway. Instead: an increasingly closed system of physics and metaphysics deepening the image of the reality that only forms the negative space around the more-than-real. 4 �Poetry Literacy: unmitigated privilege of waterboarding myself with a treasure of accumulated theology in an attempt to understand what I must acknowledge a desperate wail of mind to soul to disclose a truth that’s clearly there WHAT WHAT WHAT DO WE BELIEVE TELL ME WHAT AND WHY AND HOW AND //NOW\\ and how I’d love to set sail in a long boat and fall off the edge of the world into God. 5 �Artwork Neha Gaddam 6 �Interview A Conversation with Four Graduating GIs, November 2019 Jordan Poyner, on behalf of Colloquy Colloquy: Let’s start by talking about our least favorite tutors. [Laughter]. Colloquy: I’m not really going to conduct anything. I may ask some questions— Lee Cranberg: An opening question? CQ: Yeah, an opening question: that’s very fitting. The most obvious thing that I’m curious to hear you all talk about is the imminent time to come post-graduation. We can talk materially first: what is everyone planning on doing after they graduate? Gregory LaMontagne: My goal is the military—I think most people know that. I will leave, go back to Texas— where I’m from—a week after the final day of class. And hopefully I'll hear something early January and then fly out to Rhode Island for Officer Candidate School in Newport and from there you move on with your military life. That's me. Andrew Dorchester: Well, I guess I'm following in the footsteps of: I don't know what I'm doing next. But I think the goal is to figure out in what capacity can I live [according] to the standards that St. John’s has set. And figuring out what it means to apply that to a day-to-day life. LC: I'm going to do the fifth semester and leave St. John's in May. I retired just before I started St. John's, so there's no job I'm going back to. I want to continue to enjoy retirement with different adventures. I'm not sure quite what the next one is going to be, but one thing I've considered is volunteering as a physician abroad. I did that once in my career, once in my life. As soon as I got my medical license, my first position was as a volunteer in Samoa in the South Pacific, where I was the only doctor on an island of 900 people. And I met other volunteer physicians there who were in my current age bracket, who had retired from their careers in the U.S. But they were still using their skills and their medical license to see the world. And there were people who had done volunteer stints, like six months at a time in like six different countries. And I filed that away in the back of my mind, that it might be a good thing to do when I reached that stage. And I'm lucky that I have the health and wherewithal to do it. Patrick Corry: I'll be leaving St. John's in May as well. I'm really unsure about what I want to do next. I’m fairly sure I want to be in education in some capacity. I’m applying to a master’s program in theology. It’s an interest I developed while I was here. GL: Where’s the program? Or is it classified? PC: At Notre Dame. Yeah, I think there's a big possibility I'll try to stay around here and do education at the community college or high school level, or even in more nontraditional forms. I want to be talking about literature in some capacity and I’m not sure what that is yet. Like you, Mr. Dorchester, I’ve been entertaining thoughts of dusting off old trades. I used to paint houses and other things, [and] St. John's has made me much more interested in how that can go on in a flourishing life. 7 �Interview LC: Have you ever taught before? PC: I taught high school for the first time this past summer: high school classes in history and economics. And I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I disliked the school's administration more than I thought I would... [Laughter]. This is gonna be a recurring theme of my life. CQ: With the exception of going into education, it's not clear exactly what the relationship is between what you all have been doing here and what you're planning to do next. So maybe we could talk about that: what do we take with us? [To GL:] How does that factor into either your decision to go into the military or, if it doesn't, how do you think it changes the way that you can approach that stage in your life? GL: I'm curious about that myself. Because the military seems so antithetical to St. John's—the idea that [here] you're invited to ask questions whereas [there] you might be invited to never ask questions. [Laughter]. GL: One thing that I experienced at St. John's I think—personally and witnessing it in others—is an instability, a sense of doubt about all things, and like a reverence of doubt, and how that leads people to run towards tradition, [towards] orthodoxy of some kind, and run towards something stable, some belief of some kind. And I feel that perhaps I'm running towards a belief in the United States or something like that—a belief in the state, the nation, the republic that is the United States. And I’m curious about these different environments: I think St. John's fosters questioning and inquiry because it believes that maybe certainty, if it can be found, is hard to find. And I'm running to a place where one thing is certain, and that’s the U.S. Constitution. — I'm curious how I will react to that, and I'm curious what effect it has on people—if they want to talk about it. I feel like when I talk to non-Johnny people, I end up running into a lot of “this is how things are....” And so I've been really happy with the student veterans I've met here who seem to have a balance. Sometimes, if they've left the military, they say, “that's the reason why I left the military, because they were just like: this is how things are and you have to do that.” But for those that are still involved with the military, [and] are still supportive of it, I’m curious how they navigate that: those two scenarios, two worldviews. I'm curious how I will react to it and I'm curious why it is that I end up finding veterans of all types so fascinating when they have this separate worldview. There's some type of different reverence that they have—not for doubt, but for either patriotism, God, country, family—that I really respect, even though it is alien to me. But it won’t be alien to me very soon, I hope. — If I have to make a question out of my journey into the military, my question is: what does a certain faith do to my individuality and my behavior in society? I think I'll be taking with me the idea that I want to investigate things that aren’t certain, and that certainty is very hard to find, and I’m not sure I know what certainty is. So I'm taking that enquiring mind with me, but I'm going to take it into an environment that will combat that with a very strict faith in an ideal that is supposedly certain. And I might suffer turmoil because of that conflict, but I'm excited to see if I'll end up becoming like the student veterans I so admire, who seem to have navigated that conflict very well. So that's a very long way of explaining what I hope to take with me into a non-Johnny world. LC: Was it a hard decision to apply to the military? 8 �Interview GL: No. My parents were supportive. People were like: “really?” And I said, “yep.” And I guess it’d been on the back of my mind before this, when I was getting out of my original career path of performing. Back then I thought: “well, I know I don't want to do this. So I can either go back to school for something, specifically Great Books, or perhaps Peace Corps, or perhaps military.” So it was in the back of my mind. CQ: Why do you think that is? GL: I'm wondering if it has something to do with the fact that I came here to question things. And [that] I think there's an extreme to questioning. There's an extreme doubt, an extreme skepticism, that I don't like. Whether or not it's morally right, I have no idea. I find extreme skepticism to be toxic rather than helpful, and knowing that the military seems from the outside to be the extreme in the other direction—of extreme certainty or extreme dogmatism in regard to a kind of bureaucracy, [in regard to] following orders—maybe I'm hoping to find a balance in between the two. And rushing from one extreme to the other might help me find the balance. PC: How do you think questioning and extreme skepticism go together? GL: I guess questioning implies more active initiative on the part of the skeptic? Because I guess you could be extremely skeptical and not question anything: you just don't believe it. Maybe those are two separate faculties or abilities. One is to not believe something and the other is to ask why you don't believe it or why it's not believable, to actually inquire into it. So, you're right: I guess there are two separate things. It seems to me that St. John's inspires you, as in the Meno, to be very active in the search, to not give up, to keep asking questions. But there's a part of me that thinks: “I don't know. I read Nietzsche and there are some things I don't want to know, some things I don’t want to question.” So finding the balance between questioning everything and not questioning anything is what I’m searching for, but maybe they're two different types of skepticism. CQ: You were going to ask something earlier, Patrick. PC: I was thinking that it’s a weird tension at St. John's, where it seems like when you start to question something, you have to have some childlike thought about the possibility of finding an answer. From that point of view, it seems like it shouldn't be the least skeptical thing you do. But also, you have to suspend [already] having grasped the answers to do it, which does seem skeptical. So I wonder if that tension is what drives good things at St. John's and how it would express itself in the sort of balance you're seeking between firm ground and the activity of questioning. AD [to GL]: Have there been any texts that have guided you in your thought process? GL: Reading Nietzsche and reading Thomas Carlyle’s works, or even reading the Republic and talking about music and gymnastic—I feel like I've had a lot of music, not too much gymnastic. [Laughter]. PC: I know the feeling of being inspired by the gymnastic section. CQ: There's something demoralizing about the section on gymnastic and realizing that I'm almost thirty—I know that's young, all things considered—I'm not an undergraduate at St. John's. And in the Politics too, there's this discussion about when the proper time is for each of these forms of education to happen and realizing you can't go back and change the past. And it's not clear to me if, 9 �Interview at thirty, I'm supposed to go and learn natural science all over again. That probably would be helpful and attainable, but it's hard reading great texts sometimes, especially when they talk about education, because you become aware of how unlike the ideal education your own was. I don't necessarily despair of it, but I do wonder: what should I do? How should I take all these different teachings about how you need to have an education in music and gymnastic, and natural science. I can't go back and do all that, so I feel confused about what's the right thing to do, especially as a student in the Graduate Institute—someone who is definitely an adult. And it's different for every person. That's the nature of everything that has already been said, but I find it painful. Maybe I'm too fixated on the question of what the right thing to do is according to some authority. GL: It seems weird to me, I don't know—I haven't read Diogenes Laertius’s Lives of the Eminent Philosophers—but I imagine that Plato wrote his books without having the education that he prescribes in them perhaps. I don’t know if Plato had the type of education that he makes Socrates extol as the proper education, and yet he wrote very incredible things. I'm wondering about Rousseau, who wrote Emile, and John Locke, who wrote Some Thoughts Concerning Education: did they actually have the education they espoused? But there is a frustration that comes with being a GI especially, feeling that somehow we're tardy. And there are times when I think I'd be so brilliant if I had had these texts when I was four. If I could have just read Plato starting, you know, when I put my socks on for the first time—man, watch out world, I would have been the best scholar. LC: There is a fellow in Santa Fe who graduated from the Graduate Institute there. He's in his sixties and then he started as an undergraduate at St. John’s. PC: But what would that get you? We’re not here to become philosopher kings, or Plato? Plato isn’t a product of an institution that educated him; he’s a genius. LC: I think I'm here to learn the underpinnings of my culture. GL: I guess we're not supposed to graduate and be experts. Or maybe this goes back to the question earlier: what are we supposed to take away from this [our time at St. John’s]? Because we read all these texts and we're not necessarily supposed to graft them onto our skin. What exactly are we doing here? What are we at St. John's for? Is there a use to it, besides going to class and getting to talk to great people, and ask profound questions that anyone else might scoff at? I'm still wondering about that myself. AD: It’s not only knowledge that we're acquiring so much as it is a kind of mindset: the ability to grapple with perplexing questions. I think one of the best speeches I heard during my entire time here was Mr. Sinnett’s speech last fall for the graduating students, where he talked about the strength of the St. John's program being the ability to deal with perplexity, to be… PC: Perplexed, but not despair. AD: Thank you, yeah. And that's something pretty unique for our society. I think he was absolutely correct that the number of people in society that can be comfortable in perplexity is—it's a rare thing. And it is a strength of the Johnny: the ability to manage perplexity—not necessarily to resolve it, but to manage it. PC: Do we love it? Is it a delight? 10 �Interview CQ: I think it’s a fetish object for knowledge. PC: What? CQ: I’m just being perverse. AD: There are still those moments where I get extremely uncomfortable around complex issues, but I do feel that this experience has allowed me to manage that much better. I'm taking one of the drawing classes right now—and it's probably the hardest class I've taken here—where I'm being forced to draw on the basis of shadow, to see in terms of shadow: it's unbelievably hard, and it's perplexing. I'm slowly starting to see what the instructor wants me to see, but I think the underlying base of the St. John's education has allowed me to be more adaptable to what needs teaching. CQ: How? AD: I got to a point last Saturday where I wanted to just give up. I wanted to throw down my charcoal pencil and say, “I can't do this.” And I stuck with it. I worked my way through whatever the struggle was that I was dealing with. And I think part of the resilience that I felt within myself to go ahead and continue to manage that frustration is a type of resilience that—I don't know if it would have been there a year ago. CQ: But how did St. John's instill that in you or help you form that within yourself? AD: I think it's through the regimen of dealing with the constant perplexing questions that we are confronted with in these texts. And the fact that not only do we work our way individually through this, but we work our way through complex and perplexing questions in class. CQ: But didn't you do that before you went to St. John’s? You went to college before... AD: Certainly the complex litigation that I've been involved with—I've done that. CQ: And you had read some of these texts before you came, right? So surely some of the perplexing questions that the texts raise you had already encountered. So what's different? I know there's a different setting in terms of the seminar, the conversation... PC: I think it’s very easy to read a great text and not encounter any perplexity if you’re not doing it a certain way. AD: Especially if you’re not a specialist on the subject area. And I do think that one of the advantages that St. John's provides is that we come into some of these readings cold. So I'm doing Lobachevsky right now—this is a whole new world for me and for everyone in my class, and the world that he is describing is bizarre in some ways, but it's slowly starting to make sense. But it's the fact that I have no background in it! And I think the advantage of any sort of Liberal Arts program is that it should be broad enough that you're eventually going to run into a text or multiple texts that are going to be on a subject area that you have no background in. CQ: But we all took geometry in high school. So, you know, you may not have read Lobachevsky, but you’ve dealt with parallel lines. I realize that there is an immediate answer: first, the way we 11 �Interview learned geometry in high school might have elided all of the ambiguity out of it. You might have been told that this is how things are: it's fairly straightforward. We can explain satisfactorily, at least to you, a fifteen-year-old, how this works. But that's not always true when you take a class in college. I'm not sure how you read Hobbes, for example, and don't have a moment where you think: “no, this is weird.” — Someone could read the Republic and have an instructor tell them: “well, you know, this is fairly straightforward. It's an account of proto-communism or something else. This is how you'd have to set things up and that's what is being discussed.” And that might work temporarily. Or, to be somewhat inflammatory, I think that a person who's really thinking, even a young person, is not going to be satisfied with that account for long. Cracks are going to start to appear in the edifice. I am in total agreement with the idea that St. John's does something differently, but I don't think we've said exactly how that is. Maybe you can’t, but I’m asking. PC: The first thing that comes to mind is that you're going to have a teacher tell you: “Hobbes believes in absolute authority because the English civil wars were very, very difficult, and he was living in a very violent time. No wonder this man had such radical, absolute ideas! You don't have to ask: “is this in me? Can I believe this? Do I believe this? Am I living in this world or not?” I think it takes a community or a conversation, or the right question to pose the text to yourself in that way. CQ: You're not just talking about Hobbes as a historical thinker, you’re talking about writing for a historical moment and saying, “does this make sense to me?” GL: I came here, as LC was saying, to study the roots of my culture. And I’ve been thinking about Aristotle’s Metaphysics and how we desire to know—and we don't really know things unless we can pinpoint their causes. I like knowing—with the Politics & Society segment—how America came to be through other thinkers and writers who perhaps were the efficient causes. We're able to sort of lead Western culture on paths, and I like tracing those paths back. I find that fascinating. And I guess you can do that on your own. But the conversational approach here at St. John's and the decontextualization you [PC] were referring to also allows us to ask deeper questions of ourselves then I think other places would. — So it's not only a course in intellectual history— “Plato said that and then Locke said that, and then Hamilton said that”—but it's: “Plato said that—should we believe what Plato says? Is America wrong? Is Plato timeless? Is he bringing up something that is still pertinent?” And the answer is often: “yes.” Or let's assume it's pertinent: what would that mean? Having those intellectual premises to work with, I think, leads to the most liberating treatment of the most profound subject matters in life. Should I be free? Is there freedom? Is America right? That's a big thing, especially after reading Tocqueville. What is America? I don’t know if I want to live there. Maybe what St. John’s does differently or well is that they take questions that were asked millennia ago and treat them as if they were asked today. And I feel like that has really been the key for me: to have a less assumptive way of thinking, a more liberated way of thinking. And it's allowed me to put myself in a lot more shoes that I would have if I thought: “they can't speak to me; they said that a long time ago.” But having a diverse set of views, from ancient to modern, I really feel like I'm getting more out of life, purely just by considering another way of living. And maybe that's only possible through the St. John's approach where questions really elicit vulnerability and assumption-breaking. 12 �Interview LC: That’s something I would not have been able to do on my own. I decided to come to St. John's because these books have always been on my reading list, but I didn't have the self-discipline to read them on my own. Most people would not choose Aristotle as bedtime reading. And it's so hard that I would not have been able to understand it on my own, and I’m not able to understand it on my own. That's why the seminar is really great: because we're helping each other to try to understand a difficult text and pooling all of our different insights. Mr. Townsend is fond of quoting Mortimer Adler: “reading is like drinking. It's something that you can enjoy on your own, but it's more fun to do it with other people.”1 CQ: I hate this quote every time I hear it. [Laughter]. GL: Why’s that? CQ: Because the analogy doesn't make sense. PC: That’s what’s funny about it. LC: It makes sense to me. CQ: It makes it seem as if reading alone is pathological. AD: I also drink alone! CQ: I hope you don't drink alone as much as you read alone. I hope you read alone like an alcoholic drinks alone. PC: I thought it was a vindication of drinking alone. But you're right, it can be equally read as a pejorative comment about reading alone. AD: In many ways, I do feel like the Program has, strangely, taught me how to read. Taking the Modern Poetry Preceptorial right now I've learned how to read a poem in a way that I didn't know how to do prior to— LC: Is that part of the class? Explicitly talking about how to read a poem? AD: No, it’s a kind of culture that just comes with the class. To prepare for a discussion on a poem takes a lot of time, [it takes] really getting your hands dirty with the poem, reading it multiple times, becoming, as Eva Brann said, “preoccupied with the work.”2 To spend an entire day thinking about the poem that we'll be discussing in class on Thursday—that leisurely process of learning (leisurely in the Greek sense of the etymology of “school”), of really spending your time with something and allowing yourself the time with it, is something that I didn't recognize the importance of prior to coming to St. John's. The editor has not been able to locate this quote. An approximate aphorism can be found in Adler’s Harvard Lowell Lecture (April 11, 1990), “The Great Books, the Great Ideas, and a Lifetime of Learning,” where he says, “Solitary reading is as horrible as solitary drinking.” 1 2 See Eva Brann, “Tips on Writing: Excerpts from the Fall 2017 Colloquy Symposium,” Colloquy 2 (2017): 16. 13 �Interview LC: What's the etymology of “school”? CQ: “σχολή” is the Greek word that means leisure and it ends up informing the English word “school.” GL: It seems like the program asks for you to have the leisure. And it invites me to be more vulnerable and more profound, and not so superficial with my inquiry and my researches. And that leads to more rewarding results, regardless of whether I arrive at answers—there's something fetishistic about asking the deep, dark questions that don't often get asked. PC: Fetishistic? As in it’s being overly sought? GL: I think we get off on asking the deep questions. CQ: The fetish object is a substitute for something else: the non-fetish object. That’s what a fetish is. The fetish is the object of your misplaced erotic attention—it should be on something else, but it's on the fetish. So if it is that kind of a fetish, then what's the thing we're being diverted from? PC: That's why I wanted to push back on the word. GL: That makes more sense. Maybe I mean the erotic tendency of ours to be aroused by asking deep questions. But if it is fetishistic, maybe we should be committed to love of God, love of country, love of state, or something like that—and we're misplacing our desire by focusing it on whatever is not stable. CQ: Those all seem like good things: the love of country—a love of one's homeland seems like an unambiguously good thing to me, in the sense that I haven't added on to it any other qualifications—we should be able to pursue all those things. But maybe any one of them pursued to its extreme precludes the others. The way that most GI’s end up doing the Program, I don't see a lot of people who seem in danger of seriously undermining all their other noble or good civic aspirations or ideas. GL: Maybe they’re not reading deeply enough. CQ: Yeah, it was interesting that you said you had read Nietzsche and you took that as a warning, a shot across the bow. You read Nietzsche and you thought: “I don't want to do what Nietzsche does. I don't want to look into the abyss.” Do we all agree that we don't want to look into the abyss? PC: I agree, but I might have a different understanding of what the abyss is. Maybe this moves us closer to what the abyss might be: do we call the impulse to question a fetish or is there a genuine end of the erotic impulse? It’s a huge question. I think that St. John’s has to presuppose that there’s something natural and good about the desire being projected towards searching for truth by asking questions, and that that activity has meaning. CQ: Yes. When I brought up fetishes in my offhand remark earlier, what I meant, as a joke, was that questions might be a fetish object for knowledge. Knowledge in the sense that GL talked about having a kind of—I don't want to call it faith—a certainty that some things are inviolable. You’re 14 �Interview not going to question some things, and that's something that you could call knowledge or faith. It’s something that doesn't get penetrated or dissolved. But the constant seeking—and this is the tension that you [GL] brought up and are wrestling with—if the life of the mind involves constantly asking questions, where's the stability? Do we have something we can stand on to do that? I don't want to raise my family in the jungle or in some anarchic state. AD: Rousseau says it's great! PC: You're just not allowed to come along. Jaime Marquez LC: I was curious if people had any criticisms of the GI, or [noticed] weaknesses or things you'd like to see done differently. GL: Of the things that I think the Graduate Institute can control: there needs to be more of a variety of Preceptorial options. There are just literature Precepts and like one philosophy option. I want to take some math and science, I want to take another political theory class, I want a history Precept. I think they had trouble in the past getting people to sign up for math and science Precepts, so maybe that's why they stopped offering them, but I really think that I'm missing out when I look at the list [of Preceptorials] and have to choose either a piece of literature or an ethics text. Now obviously I think those choices are great too, but to get more variety in that regard—that's a criticism I’ve brought up before. 15 �Interview LC: Yeah, there have been semesters where I was not enthusiastic about any of the Precept choices. And some of them were on some rather obscure authors: it seems as if whatever the tutors wanted to devote their semester to ended up being the option. GL: It used to be the case that you had to have the Precept match the same subject as your segment. It used to be required. And so in the fall they would have to offer math, natural science, and literature Preceptorials, and then they would switch to political science, philosophy, and history in the spring. But I also love the idea that it's an interdisciplinary education: you can take [the] Math & Natural Science [segment], and then read Jane Austen and see connections. I love that idea, but by doing that they may have lost the sense of diversity. Perhaps they think: “literature applies to everything, so we're just going to offer that all the time—and that's what everyone wants to take.” I would be excited if I saw Darwin's The Descent of Man or even Descartes’ La Géométrie: I would be scared, but if I was ever going to study those texts, it would be at St. John’s. CQ: I still don't understand exactly what the Graduate Institute is—especially given who the students are. It still feels like an experiment to me. I am favorably disposed to it, but— GL: You don't feel like it has somehow settled into its identity? CQ: Yeah, I'm not sure if the Graduate Institute knows where its place is. AD: I don't know how you market it either. The identity of the people that come here—particularly people that are coming from a career—you couldn’t necessarily use Google Analytics to figure out who would be a suitable GI candidate. It doesn't work that way. CQ: They kind of have to find the Graduate Institute, right? GL: It’s very self-selecting. LC: Self-selecting is one thing, but finding something in hiding is something else! CQ: What do you guys think about the rigor of the Graduate Institute? On the one hand, there seems to be this standard, which is: “we don't expect more than this, because this is what we can expect an adult who is working full-time to be capable of. They're an adult, but we still want them to be able to come and do the Program, so we limit the scope of the writing, the oral exam, and— perhaps most significantly—the reading list.” But how do we determine what that baseline is? And do the students feel that more could be asked of them? For example, an oral exam that’s more than half an hour. I’m not suggesting we place more of an emphasis on grades or other formal academic qualifications, but perhaps the oral exam could be a little more serious. Of course it's nice to have a half hour conversation with a tutor, but I can take them to lunch and have the same conversation. I don’t think that’s being flamboyant; I don't know what your oral exams are like. AD: I think the rigor is what you put into it. And there clearly are students that do less than other students, and probably do just fine. But I feel like if you really want to get something out of the Program, the opportunity is there—and the reward is definitely there—to do the extra work, to spend more time reading the texts that are assigned. Most of these texts are pretty dense. Somebody with a job could probably do a couple of readings and come into class prepared, or you can spend all 16 �Interview day preparing for this and have a much richer experience. So I don't feel like I've necessarily lost out on the Program because we're not given more [work]. I can always go read more. And there are also enough students that are doing the extra work, so that I can always have a discussion with somebody who is doing the extra work, and we can confer outside of classes. GL: I think I agree that the opportunity is there to make it what you want, to make the experience be as rigorous as you want it to be. I think the best part about the student-tutor relationship here is how free the school makes the tutors be. They can’t have office hours. We’re able to approach a tutor at any time and say, “I need to talk more about this text; I have more questions.” And they might give you more assignments, they might give you an extra essay topic to write on—I'm not quite sure, I haven't taken that step. But I know it's there. And I think the library has plenty of resources. I think there are opportunities to make more of the Program, to make the Program even more intensive than it is at first glance. But there are times when I think I should probably be writing more papers. There are times when I think: “I didn't need to prepare as much for this oral exam as I needed to prepare for certain other things.” And I think: “is that actually a mark against the Program? Are the standards too low?” — There might be times when I think I really prepared for class, and then I show up and we talk about something that somehow slipped through my attention while reading Oedipus Rex five times and annotating—which I didn't do, but assuming I did. I think that the nature of the classroom—that it is so organic and unpredictable—doesn't lend itself to being something like a quiz on what happens in Oedipus Rex—where there's a pretty functional relationship between how much you studied the text and how you performed. As opposed to: I studied a lot and then I come to a discussion-based classroom where we can talk about something that doesn't interest me for two hours. That would lead me to think preparation and success do not go hand in hand at St. John's. Because you could read the text once and think, “well, I'm really not prepared for class,” and then the class focuses on your opening question. And then you think: “cool, I get to talk for two hours about something I'm really interested in, and I didn't really need to prepare!” Maybe there's something about the loose nature of the classroom that might lead to a sense of lack of rigor, but I still think that there are opportunities to make it as rigorous as you want. PC: I agree with a lot of what’s been said about the rigor being something you determine for yourself and I’ve been really impressed with the way that students are motivated to prepare outside of class. I think you notice fluctuations in the discussions according to whether a text invites really intensive preparation or wards it off by its nature. This is something I think about a lot with the Program: there's so much conversation that we have, but there's not a lot of forum for dialogue on things about the conversation. Part of that is what's really cool about the spontaneous nature of it: because there are no rules of etiquette for talking in a seminar, people become better at doing it. GL: What about the “Notes on Dialogue”3 though? PC: Right, but there's nothing that anyone is going to enforce. GL: Maybe that’s a problem. Stringfellow Barr, “Notes on Dialogue,” (address to the Fellows of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, Santa Barbara, CA, 1968), https://www.sjc.edu/application/files/7614/9814/1117/Notes_on_Dialogue.pdf. 3 17 �Interview PC: Well, maybe the same could be said about practices for reading. I’ve noticed times when tutors explicitly encourage students to redouble their efforts, because they know that they're going to be more discouraged than usual, but that, if they dig in, there will be great profit in the seminar. I don't think it's only the tutors’ responsibility. We could build a culture around what it means to read rigorously and how it is that that’s going to help your growth, what the frustrations are and how they can be overcome. I think that could go a long way towards improving our culture of rigorous discussion. I think the current tutors do this already, but we, as students, could collectively encourage it and develop some sort of understanding. Maybe Colloquy is an organ for this type of thing—where the self-consciousness of the Graduate Institute can develop. GL: And the Graduate Student Council—although we haven't done the best job of promoting it—is supposed to be a sort of intermediary between the academic administration and the student body. There’s normally a forum that we invite students to come to and comment on the Program, on our classroom experience—they usually do that at least once a year. So that might be another avenue for critiquing the rigor and [generally] bringing up criticisms of the Program, because I do think that the Graduate Student Council should be another resource for students if the rigor is unsatisfactory. That should be one of their avenues for fixing that or discussing it. CQ: My first two semesters I had almost the exact same tutors. Which is really interesting now— being in my third semester and having entirely different tutors—because I have realized that there were things that I had taken for granted due to having the same tutors. One of the things that I had taken for granted was this idea of there being rules for dialogue. Both semesters I had Mr. Townsend and he opened each class by stipulating that there are some rules—or guidelines if you prefer. And I had gone forth and been talking to family members and friends about my experience, and telling them that St. John's has rules! They're not rules that people necessarily enforce, at least not in the sense that you get a demerit if you violate them. Rather, people will gently correct you. What would each of you say the rules are—if there are rules? Or, if “rules” is too rigid a term, what are the guiding norms for conversation in class? AD: During my summer semester, a lot of the students were new to the St. John's experience and I was in large seminars, and the first couple of classes were kind of chaotic. So I shared that sheet that Mr. Townsend gave us on the first day about rules or standards for discussion. Between that [sheet] and some comments that the tutors made in class, the students came around. But it can be tricky because the rules are not prescribed, they're agreed to in a social way. PC: I think the experience of having that realized spontaneously is so rich and so important for coming to terms with what learning is that I think it would be a very regrettable thing to try to impose a written law on a seminar—even if you thought you might save yourself some convenience and the growing pains GL: There are times when I think there should be rules—not necessarily about conversation—but there are times when I think: everyone should have the same edition, so you can save time. Invite students to have different translations, but for class I want this [edition] and I want us to be able to move through the text without spending thirty minutes on where a passage is. Regarding norms for discussion: even if they're suggested by “Notes on Dialogue” or the tutors, what seems to be a norm is just whatever is conducive to civility. I think if civility is the guiding principle then that would lend itself to: not interrupting, not hogging the conversation, and inviting people that haven't spoken to 18 �Interview speak up. That might be the principle I have in mind that leads to successful conversations about, [for example,] the rape and murder of this character, or whether or not society should be an absolute monarchy. It seems like if the classroom is devoted to civility, then all the norms work themselves out. AD: I definitely concur that if we had the same translation of Aristotle that would help—different translations for all of the other texts, sure, but Aristotle... PC: That's how the Middle Ages fell apart. [Laughter]. Neha Gaddam 19 �Poetry Once a Void Patricia Harden My mind, a wind-swept oasis, Craven and blind in the darkness, Lay wasted, huddled in An invariable nothingness. Thunder rolled and Lightning slashed the sky. From whence, the faintest cry Quickened my dry and dusty soul. And I, as ere Kant professed, Sought the light and then began to be. 20 �Essay On the Voluntary Nature of Virtue Brandon Wasicsko Why do some people become virtuous, others vicious? It is due in large part to their actions, says Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics. If we want to be virtuous, we must conduct ourselves in ways that comport with virtue, which is to say our actions must be of the same quality as the moral virtues we wish to embody (1103b14-21). For Aristotle, the order of operations is clear: we act, the power of habit operates on us, and our characteristics—virtuous or otherwise—come into being imbued with the same qualities as the actions we repeat time and again (1105b4). Because actions are central to Aristotle’s account of virtue, we should endeavor to understand precisely how they factor into his argument and how they function in ourselves. In particular, this paper will explore how and to what degree actions—and, by consequence, our characteristics—are within our power, with a focus on childhood. Let’s begin by laying out some of the key ideas in Aristotle’s account of virtue as a foundation for our inquiry. We know, first, that moral virtues are not present in us by nature: they are characteristics that come to be as a result of habit (1103a16). Characteristics, being that part of the soul “in reference to which we are in a good or bad state in relation to the passions,” admit of optionality (1105b25), a fact illustrated by the example of anger: feeling it too intensely or too weakly puts us in a “bad” condition relative to the passion of anger, but experiencing it in the proper, moderate way—i.e., feeling angry when one ought, at the things one ought, and in due proportion— puts us in a “good” condition. Similarly, an action becomes virtuous to the extent that the quality of the act and our condition in performing align with virtue. The “should” or “right way to act” or “good or bad condition” is a quality with origins in right reason or “practical wisdom” or “how the prudent person would define it” (1107a1). Habit is intimately related to action in the process of character formation. It is the operative power that combines the qualities of our repeated actions into characteristics. Though we do not understand precisely how it works, we do know that one-off actions come, temporally, before the development of characteristics, though both are determined in part by how we turn or conduct ourselves. The long-term result of habit is that we come to have “a certain disposition” (1106a6). This disposition flavors and guides our future actions. We become accustomed to responding one way rather than another in certain situations, e.g. through repeatedly cowering in the face of fear, we come to have a cowardly disposition and are inclined to act accordingly. Our characteristics, in this way, gradually move outside of our direct control. Nevertheless, Aristotle concludes that characteristics are voluntary or willing things “because it was once in our power to make use of [them] in this way or that” (1115a2). For Aristotle, an action is voluntary or willing if (1) the cause of the action is within the actor and (2) the actor has knowledge of the particulars involved in the action (1110a1). It is possible, according to Aristotle, for discrete actions to satisfy both of these conditions fully: if we are forced to act (violating 1) or are ignorant of the particulars involved in our actions (violating 2), our actions become involuntary (or nonvoluntary when awareness of our ignorance fails to produce regret). Voluntary actions, therefore, entail authoritative control over an action from beginning to end. But characteristics are only voluntary at the beginning. We lack the same beginning-to-end control over characteristics that we have over actions because the particulars of the process of habituation, by which our character is formed, are not known to us. Because we do not know how characteristics add 21 �Essay to themselves through the power of habit, we cannot satisfy (2) when thinking of character development as a whole. But because it is possible for us to satisfy both conditions in the case of particular actions, and because our actions, when compounded by the power of habit, result in our characteristics, Aristotle concludes that our characteristics are voluntary to the extent that we have causal control over our actions early on. When introducing the power of habit and its relation to moral virtue, Aristotle claims that “it makes no small difference, then, whether one is habituated this or that way straight from childhood but a very great difference—or rather the whole difference” (1103b24). If characteristics are voluntary, what is meant here by “the whole difference”? On the surface, these two ideas seem at odds because habituation in childhood seems to entail a great many external causes, whereas the claim that characteristics are voluntary rests on their cause being internal and “up to us.” Let’s consider, first, how we should understand “the whole difference,” then turn to the process of habituation in childhood to consider how and to what extent our actions are “up to us.” By “the whole difference,” two main interpretations seem possible. One is that habituation in childhood is fully and ultimately determinate of the characteristics one comes to have in adulthood. On this view, how one is raised solidifies one’s characteristics such that a person exiting childhood no longer has any control over the composition of their disposition. Though they retain authoritative control over individual actions, their characteristics are unchangeable. The other interpretation views an upbringing that accords with virtue as necessary but not sufficient to attain virtue. Being “raised right” endows the person with a fundamental predisposition upon which they can, through their own work and effort, ultimately attain virtue by identifying the mean and acting rightly many times, though there is no guarantee that they will succeed. Someone “raised poorly” is instilled with predispositions that are so antithetical to the attainment of virtue that reaching it is effectively impossible. A third interpretation, admittedly weaker than the main two, considers “the whole difference” to be directionally determinate. On this view, childhood habituation endows the person with certain inclinations or predispositions, but leaves open the possibility of alteration and development. The difference can be considered “whole” if habituation in childhood is responsible for creating a fixed “starting point” in adulthood. A person of reasoning age could, from this starting point, deliberate and choose to act one way despite having been habituated in childhood to act another and could, through repetition, thereby alter his characteristics. It is possible, on this view, for someone “raised right” to corrupt themselves in adulthood and for one “raised poorly” to attain virtue. What does habituation in childhood look like? Since the child is a being in development whose physical and mental capacities change over time, it seems, too, that the manner of habituation will vary accordingly. For a very young child, the first actions we can call “voluntary,” in Aristotle’s vocabulary, are basic motor functions. Such actions are voluntary to the extent their cause is internal to the child. But a greater share of causation at this stage of development belongs to the parents who decide what the child eats and when, how he is dressed, where he goes, etc. Indeed, the whole aim of parenting, at least in this respect, is to be the cause of the actions that a child is incapable of directing (or directing well) himself. As he grows and his capacities increase, he takes on a greater proportion of the causal responsibility of his own actions, his parents less. When the child can walk, he has greater command over where he goes, within the confines the parents set for him. When he is a teenager, the balance shifts even more. 22 �Essay In addition to the role of the parent, there is a complex web of other external causes impacting the child’s development, including the broader environment one grows up in, role models one can tacitly learn from, and random chance. The claim is not that all external causes constitute “force.” Aristotle makes clear that an action retains some element of the voluntary to the extent that we contribute to it (1110b16). Rather, we’re left with a picture of habituation in childhood that is a mixture of internal and external causes, and the task of deciphering the voluntary and involuntary. It will help to pause for a moment and say precisely what’s at stake in sorting out the voluntary from the involuntary. Since Aristotle ties praise and blame to voluntary action and forgiveness and pity to involuntary action (1109b30), knowing the difference is important if we care about justice. If we wrongly attribute a voluntary cause to an action that was indeed involuntary, we risk blaming when we should be forgiving. In the opposite case, where we think a voluntary action to be involuntary, we risk becoming suckers to the calculations of evil that prey on our sympathies. The distinction matters, too, in the case of law, where understanding the nature of voluntary and involuntary action is necessary for rendering appropriate judgement in particular instances. Regarding characteristics specifically, if we agree with Aristotle’s claim that they are voluntary or willing things, we have to understand how and to what extent this is so since the mixed nature of childhood habituation has proved nuanced. ### It may be instructive to think about character development in two distinct phases. Aristotle writes: “Neither by nature, therefore, nor contrary to nature are the virtues present; they are instead present in us who are of such a nature as to receive them, and who are completed through habit” (1103a25, emphasis mine). What does it mean to be “of such a nature” as to receive the virtues? The broadest interpretation reads “of such a nature” as human nature: our common human nature, lacking “completion” at birth, is nevertheless of such a nature as to find its completion in virtue. By contrast, a stone is not “of such a nature” because the quality that drives it downward cannot be altered no matter how many times it is thrown in the air. Man can become courageous, cowardly, or reckless, but the stone will always fall. And while only virtue, for Aristotle, is the right or full completion of a human being, a number of excesses or deficiencies are possible outcomes whereas the stone is not “of such a nature” as to admit of optionality in this way. True as this may be, it seems Aristotle wants to make a distinction amongst human beings rather than between humans and non-humans. A stricter reading of the quote says that there is one kind of “of such a nature” that is capable of attaining virtue and others that are not. What is this “second nature” and where does it come from? It seems to be a quality or set of qualities on top of “mere” human nature that one comes to possess prior to virtue which makes virtue’s attainment possible. We can understand this second nature in two main ways: as inborn tendencies or as initial conditioning. The inborn tendencies view says: “although nature does not furnish us with full-blown virtues, we are born with nascent proclivities or predispositions that incline us one way or another.” For example, an inherently skittish child may frighten easily and be more likely to act in a cowardly manner. It is not inconsistent to say all human beings share a common nature but are not born equal in all respects. We recognize this in cases where one is born with, say, a greater potential to achieve physical strength. On this view, the inborn tendencies are not ultimately determinate—just as a greater potential for strength does not guarantee that one will be strong—but they do give some children a natural advantage over others when it comes to the possibility of attaining virtue, all else equal. The internal and external factors of upbringing still play an important role in the outcome. 23 �Essay The other view understands this second nature as the initial conditioning that comes from one’s childhood. On this view, we are born blank slates who come to be “of such a nature” in this preliminary sense by our upbringing. Since childhood habituation is a mixture of causes voluntary and involuntary, internal and external, the outcome of our “second nature” is the result of this complex web of causation. This view gives children more of an equal footing by nature but places greater determinate power in childhood habituation since one who is “raised right” will be “of such a nature” as to receive the virtues, the one who is not, not. This understanding seems most consistent with the “necessary but not sufficient” interpretation of Aristotle’s claim that habituation straight from childhood makes “the whole difference.” Nevertheless, it remains an open question how and to what extent the child causally contributes to his childhood and therefore to the constitution of his “second nature.” ### We suggested before that at least a small part of a child’s development is “up to” the child and that the proportion of causal responsibility he shares relative to his parents and other factors increases as he matures. This framing gives us the chance to consider, if only in thought, a kind of social science experiment. What makes the difference between two people whose external factors are all the same but who turn out very differently? Of course, we cannot control for sameness of upbringing with true scientific precision—circumstances will necessarily differ, even for children raised in the same household. But for the sake of this thought experiment, let’s say we know that the parents, environment, and all other external causes were all the same for two children. One becomes prodigal in adulthood, the other liberal. What accounts for the difference? If we understand “of such a nature” as the inherent qualities infused by nature, then it seems clear that different inputs through the same process will yield different results. The parents in this scenario should seek to identify these inherent qualities early on and tailor each child’s upbringing accordingly. But if, having controlled for all external factors of childhood, we understand “of such a nature” to mean initial conditioning, we’re left with how each child, respectively, responds to his conditions and how he turns or conducts himself in action, to the extent he is able. Suppose the two children were brought up in poverty. At some point early in life, the prodigal child may have responded to a one-time excess of money by spending it wildly for fear of losing it, aware of the pain of not having it, while the liberal child responded to the same circumstances by spending some and saving the rest. The power of habit then gradually took hold and cemented the quality of prodigality in the one, liberality in the other. Now, as adults, it is effectively outside of their power to be otherwise. Whichever case may be true, the thought experiment reveals what it might look like for voluntary action in childhood to contribute to one’s second nature, and ultimately to one’s characteristics, even though habituation from childhood as a whole is a mixed bag of factors. A definitive framework for determining the exact proportion of causal responsibility a child shares in determining his own character at each stage of his childhood remains elusive. Does the two-year-old who accounts for, say, 15% of the causal control over his action in the face of a particular fear play a decisive role in determining his character (if such a thing is quantifiable at all)? At what point does he become aware of habit’s power, and how does this knowledge affect his future actions? To what extent should he be praised or blamed later in life for being courageous or otherwise? I do not think it is possible in this inquiry, or from the text of Aristotle alone, to answer these questions precisely. Yet their answers may indeed make “the whole difference” in how we conceive of justice and arrange our laws, how we relate to one another, and how we understand ourselves. 24 �Artwork Marley Crank 25 �Personal Essay On the GI and Online Seminars Winston Elliott What if we were to examine screen shots of my Graduate Institute online sessions (Summer and Fall 2020) and put an X through the faces of those who would not have attended if Annapolis residency was required? Many faces would disappear and their lives, and St. John’s College, would be the poorer for the loss. In person conversation is wonderful for people who live in the area. Or for those who can take summers (or Fall/Spring) off from jobs, and families, and move to Annapolis. Shouldn’t we continue to reach out to those who would love, and benefit from, the GI but aren’t retired, childless, or have summers off? Is it reasonable to let the occasionally nearly perfect (in person) be the enemy of the often excellent (Zoom)? Sadly, there are several new Johnnies who, having begun the GI online, will not be able to continue if relocation to Annapolis is the only option. It seems the College benefits tremendously from broadening the reach of the GI and expanding the beneficiaries of the St. John’s Program. Would it not be magnanimous to make the GI available beyond Annapolis area residents, teachers, and retired people? Many prospective GI students cannot afford to pay for classes and move for the four summers (or one year). The online GI option makes the GI possible even for those who take care of elderly parents, or special needs children, for whom relocation is impossible. I hope members of the St. John’s community see that those who cannot come to Annapolis still may partake of the treasure that is St. John’s. I think it would a great loss to deny prospective GI students a St. John’s College experience only because they cannot move to Annapolis. After all, the books, the people, and the conversation are the heart of the St. John’s College Graduate Institute and all are present in person and via Zoom. In my Seminar, Tutorial, and Preceptorial this fall I see that Zoom brings advantages (hearing participants well, seeing our faces regardless of where we sit!) and some disadvantages (mute buttons, while necessary, reduce spontaneity and shared laughter, no informal time together before/after seminar discussion). It helps me to keep in mind that during my last three decades of seminar participation (regardless of whether participants were teachers, undergrad/grad students, or academics) any particular conversation may be too slow or too fast, a bit flat or too explosive, too singular in focus or too often skimming along the obvious. I have seen that requesting our colleagues to explain their thoughts may slow the pace so that we may enjoy contemplating the questions deeply. Instant answers are seldom the richest. My Odyssey preceptorial has been a tremendous gift that transcends technology, speed, and distance. We often bring the joy of our days, or the anxieties of COVID-tide, with us each Thursday. However, we may always bring the overwhelming joy which is the beauty, adventure, and deeply powerful humanity of Homer’s Odyssey. Even when life conspires to wound any particular shared conversation, I endeavor to remember that the Odyssey is a gift beyond measure. Occasionally, when we are doubting the progression of any particular discussion, we are refreshed by rereading some favorites parts of the poem aloud. The poem is variably enchanting, fantastical, sad, joyful, violent, and full of loving tears. Often it is easy to ignore the shimmering surface while we submariners plow through the subtle complexities of the subtext of the poem. Simply, it is lovely, and loveliness is always worth savoring. 26 �Personal Essay As long as we are grounded in the text, polite, and present there is always the potential for great good to come about. Although that potential is occasionally left unfulfilled. Seminar may be messy, unpredictable, exhilarating, exasperating, enlightening and occasionally transformative. It may be what we humans are: dull, thrilling, entrancing, boring. My wife and I have participated in many seminars over the past three decades. Fortuitously, twenty-four years ago we met in a seminar discussing American political novels. Barbara and I were especially pleased to join the Annapolis GI in summer 2017. I am happy to share that my experiences with the online GI this past summer, and this semester, have been excellent. In fact, the online conversations have most often equaled, and occasionally surpassed, those we had in person in Annapolis in the summer of 2017. I am proud to be a Johnnie and grateful to be a member of the St. John’s community. Neha Gaddam 27 �Poetry Two Poems Louis Petrich At Wrist’s End Come round, I’ll wave away, my kindly hand, of course, as you pass by. What more? If in you want a look, think this: to book with me, from safe, part company. Unopened am unlet they’ll soon forget to miss. End good enough— at wrist? 28 �Poetry Tanned and Tided Over (A 2020 Conversation) Me— on this world— have you— like sure— if thought can have unreal turn real. I can no longer live by thinking— ‘tis purely by these manly words Orlando sure turns Rosalind woman, who liked as Ganymede, ifs love to school of clock or cuckoldry. The virus taught, worst ifs have virtues: like wilderness of quailing numbers on diet ontological has pillared fire obedient raw. Yet lunge they for Egyptian dishes!— dark touches— there’s the taste beats Law! We tried to lap up milk, sans tongues— say, what’s the sum of mounting credits? sapped soul adrift as clouds from seas. To stead, fill clefts and plaster walls, new paint them splashing, careless care, for nesting’s pulled loose knots of carpet— house bunny piles them, besting beds— so marries cornered jets of instinct. Our paradox: though tripping far by instinct, still by caution benched. ‘Tis hard, thought honest: sparks by night need lying room for air to stage ‘em. I smoke, while homing lost o’er roofs; you pray, to pose this wildness caged. What proof of plot, as looks rebook? the exodus, plague started, goes. 29 �Poetry I sought, years back, distraction’s lease from beauty’s case load--found others by to slant, diversify my peering and footing, threads and colors, Achilles knew to get out when, and when to put his all back in! O— It cost him, lacked. Dishonor me, and out I go, back in. This needs but taking being took, dark tactics. Don’t we prefer deep stirring black to weakly tanned, weeks tided over? Unsheathe your arrows, shoot home come and cream the throng, so sweet to die! God chums what’s wrong: wring longing’s turns!— spite topsoil masked as bottom stern, assign to plight of leaves kite words— than rather list this versing hand to con complicit, bodied off, and prop kind-faced old beaten cause. For living contact— fated yearning!— teach clay to risk its perfect cleaving, or Pilate hands will bleach haled roughs and gut the shells for shored defection. The soul intact ne’er breaches thus, but breathes blood buoyant seas, earth-welling! Pan-safe, safe-swelling, hearts go bust. 30 �Personal Essay A Letter to St. John’s: On Creating a More Inclusive Learning Environment Hayley River Smith As my time comes to an end, I would like to reflect on what the St. John’s College’s Graduate Institute has given me. I considered St. John’s because throughout my education I have felt within me a drive to think deeply and examine the world around me. So when the question of what I would critique about my education thus far was asked in the Graduate Institute’s essay application I knew instantly what I would say: I love the community I am a part of and I share many of the same values as my peers, but the lack of diversity of ideas can constrain, rather than build. It is not because other views do not exist here but because they are often silenced. That would be the main critique of my education hitherto. People are unwilling to converse when someone’s views go against their own. I want my peers to talk to me about information I have not heard before. I want my tutors to ask me questions that I do not have an answer to. But when we all believe the same things there is no room for transformation. We cannot circle back because we are not moving at all. The examining and reexamining of concepts is a part of how we come to understand them thoroughly. We stay the same and we do not do justice to our own identity. St. John’s was the answer to that in many ways. I am leaving with an abundance of knowledge that I otherwise would not have at this moment, a familiarity with texts that take me beyond the reaches of my undergraduate experience, and a better understanding of my own education. The reality is I wouldn’t change my personal experience within the program because it has brought me to a point of realization that I can no longer sit silently and allow for someone else to do the same. There is a need to reevaluate the true purpose of the Graduate Institute and if that goal is being achieved within the classroom; that may be considered in terms of the discussion itself, representation, the feedback given, and the needs of each student. During my first semester in the graduate program, I felt stupid and in certain moments I truly believed it. I often find myself listening and processing for a bit before I speak, but quickly I found that even though some say listening is enough it is not the case for everyone. So, I adjusted, as we must in new environments, and began to ease myself into the conversation, and I rarely found my ideas getting traction. In an environment that encourages extemporaneous speaking, occasionally ideas can fall flat, but I found some of my classmates glazed over my words as if they were but a whisper. And again, I found myself falling silent. It’s not to say I interacted with the text less than anyone else, but it became more solitary in certain ways. I’d still have moments of excitement about a text or idea and while feeling completely enveloped by it found myself speaking from a place of passion and maybe clarity. I felt that about the poem “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower,” by William Carlos Williams, which we read for a Preceptorial class on American Poetry. You see, we were talking about the way in which he is expressing love to his wife and it lit a little fire in me. I found the way he spoke about himself, his affairs, death, and loving her frustrating. I questioned if his words were genuine or his love was true, and as the conversation progressed, I became quite sure of a sort of selfishness lying between the lines. It didn’t feel too much like love to me, at least not a kind I would want. Some agreed and others didn’t, but one response still sticks with me. A man at least twice my senior laughs under his breath and says, “what would you know about love.” I pretended like I didn’t hear his words. 31 �Personal Essay Nevertheless, we moved on with the conversation and that was that. The issue here for me lies in the fact that his comment was not only patronizing but also irrelevant. Naturally, many people in the class brought up their own personal relationships in order to grapple with this poem. Why did his perception of my life experience thus far need to act as a mark against me, making my comments less legitimate or important than his? This has not been the most upsetting or only occasion this kind of behavior has been upheld and through conversations with my peers, I realize it is not an isolated issue. The toleration of comments like these points to the symptom of a greater problem and our inaction will only continue to allow for it to grow. I began to see again that my silence did not go unnoticed as I would enter into meetings with my tutors halfway through the semester, “we would love to hear you speak more” they said. Like clockwork, I would nod, try, and then feel exhausted once more. Most of the time I could get my ideas across through my essays and oral exams which I grew to love and look forward to, but it wasn’t always enough. Aware of it or not, each of us is perpetuating a problem at this college about the determination of who is heard. I did. Not in every moment but in many, I made a choice to say nothing because it was easier than feeling discouraged, unheard, or misunderstood. It has been in my last two semesters at the college that I have felt especially frustrated as I continued to wrestle with this feeling. Through conversation with peers that I trust I have realized the deep-seated issue that exists among us whether we can acknowledge it or not and I worry that the online classes as they are at this moment allow for this potential inequity to fester and grow. In my classes over Zoom, I have personally felt a rise in comments tinged with privilege and a lack of self-awareness. Maybe the distance that online learning allows, while essential, is also a part of the problem. Something that ties us together in the classroom is our common humanity. However, at this moment, we are not sitting arm in arm, instead, we stare at each other in little boxes on the screen. It is during these times I have felt most constrained in whose voice is valued or simply listened to. I have watched as some of my classmates try to pick apart my words as if they don’t make sense even though they barely listened to what I said in the first place. Then, others speak about things so far outside of the text that it becomes undoubtedly unproductive while those who couldn’t try to conceive of what I was saying nod and engage in this off-topic conversation. We talk about texts, like the founding documents of this country and court cases that for a long time decided who was considered human or who deserved rights and we speak about inequality while we stare at those boxes, of mostly (if not all) white faces. It creates a distance which in turn gives some people more liberty to say things they might not if they had to look in the eyes of their classmates or sit with them and eat a slice of pizza after seminar. It also appears that the voices that speak up against these comments go unheard. We all come to the table with different ideas of the world and that is absolutely valuable but in that, it also seems essential to recognize our own positions and privileges as well. If we cannot do that the community becomes a difficult and disappointing place for those who do not look or think like the loudest or most persistent voice in the room. Now, I come to this very moment at the end of my time in the program where I am writing to process what I will do with this knowledge I have gathered. So, in the very spirit of the college, I will ask a question: Is this an equitable environment? At this moment, my own answer would be no. I don’t want to sound as if I am asking for pity or some sort of apology and that is not what I am hoping for. What I would like is a movement towards what I wrote about in my application because if someone asked me if I would do all of this again, I would say yes. I’m aware that the world is filled with moments similar to this one. I know that many voices don’t even have the opportunity to make 32 �Personal Essay it into these conversations. I am also sure that not every mind feels free. The way in which the program cognizes the depth of student knowledge, the validity of each student’s voice, and the intention behind some comments made within the classroom demands acknowledgment and must be examined further. I believe that the perpetuation of this classroom culture, both through action and inaction, ultimately hinders the overall mission of the college and its philosophy. I know if I left without speaking up, I would regret a part of my time here and I don’t want to wish any of this away. I will end this letter with a few considerations for our community moving forward: How do we create an environment where the students listen fully and deeply to their peers? What responsibility do not only tutors, but students have in regulating one another? How can we empower students to recognize what comments are not helpful or even harmful? How can we create an environment that is receptive to constructive criticism? Are we given the resources and space to recognize inequity within the classroom? Ultimately, I think if we allow for this to continue without true consideration and change the program will lose touch with itself completely. It will no longer serve a purpose to many individuals who want to be a part of it but can’t because the feelings that deter them, while absolutely real, go unnoticed and unchanged. 33 �Artwork Jaime Marquez 34 �Poetry Two Poems Alexander Andreosatos K .Ø. He kept no sleep for me in Brooklyn. I wrapped the whole night around my shoulders, like it was fox fur—red, black, and white. A kind of heaven had come over us—something sure, but with awful eyes, and we were bent by the entrance of it, as wind bends a skirt, and knees bend to dirt, and I could hear the city bark at the intrusion—— I tossed my head in widening circles, my neck on the soft animal, and kept him close to the chest—my precious forest—and, after all, it was his dark hair, his stark thoughts, long, and sometimes cut, that I desired so much as to be forthwith for the first time in my life, and nothing is as beautiful as when the gloves come off—— I’d never seen such a proud moon before. He shed on the city his equal figure, and crouched on the steps of his apartment, smoking and listening to the dogs. He kept the whole night wrapped around his shoulders, feeling empty like fire must—— 35 �Poetry PRECIOUS Precious, mint, and honest sweet things, sweet ones, overrun. O how it is— they go by in the hard field. I’ve always wanted a brother. A kind of twin. He would know how it is. I know he’s there. Gone like a dolphin. Tissue paper sky—— Mint overcomes the wallflower. Being sensitive and shy is the family business, so I've studied the phenomenon closely. I wonder how much of it is just wanting to be picked. The sweet-story mint. It overgrows the head—— All shades under green to nurse the wound. O how easy it is to recreate— it goes by in the hard field with a wish. I miss him. My brother, the buried firework. He harbored colossal emotions. I know he’s still there. Paper beats rock. He’s underneath everything—— We drive out to Belfast in old sun. Two kinds of firsts in the front seats. I want the battle dug up and winged. Black fern growls on the shoulder. First thing we see is a mother. A too-kind darkness. Piano-feet sky. We kid ourselves. O how it is— she goes by in the hard field—— 36 �Personal Essay A Toast to the Tutors, Spring 2020 Sam Hage During the quarantine I’ve heard a lot of people ask, “What are you doing to keep busy?” This question strikes me as both appropriate and tragic. It’s appropriate because “keeping busy” is a tactic employed during all kinds of hardship— layoffs, breakups, the loss of a loved one. And this virus, no doubt, presents many real hardships. And yet “keeping busy” is not a strategy employed only by the bereaved— if anything, it has become our country’s dominant attitude toward life. “Keeping busy” is no longer just a means of escaping the extraordinary pain of unusual tragedies, but instead a constant refuge from existential dread and the terrors of inner life. The frenetic activity we rely on simply to fill up our lives keeps us from encountering life’s contemplative moments with pleasure and curiosity. We distract ourselves from thinking about what life really is. St. John’s has shown a lucky few of us an alternative. Reading The Stranger last month, I was struck by the parallels to our own situation in Camus’ stunning depiction of humanity. The book is subtler and less obviously relevant than the more conspicuous quarantine choice, The Plague, but there is at least one feature I find particularly germane. Camus’ protagonist spends a great deal of the book’s final section in solitary confinement awaiting his trial, and perhaps even his execution. We read many pages of his reflections. At first Meursault misses his work, his friends, and his routines, finding it difficult to pass the time in isolation. But he quickly adjusts to the new reality, learning how to live with only his thoughts and the changing color of the sky. Exploring the simple memory of the objects in his bedroom over and over in greater and greater detail, he muses that a man who had lived a single day in the world could easily endure 100 years of solitary contemplation. He realizes that his supremely unexceptional life really contained the most sublime joys in its most ordinary moments. Meursault learns this in isolation. St. John’s teaches us the same thing among friends. The pressures of solitude and austerity are less explicit for us right now than they were for Meursault, but I find myself thinking about them anyway. Most of the time, it’s easy for us to avoid looking at the question of what life is very closely; to assemble all the different pieces—work, school, hobbies, family time, socializing—and assume that life is more or less the sum of its parts. By disrupting these routines, the virus shows us that life is something else. It compels us to reflect carefully on what life is all about; a St. John’s education gives us the tools to do so. Rather than desperately filling up any quiet lacunae with diversions, we can look directly at the space itself. We might even come to realize that this space above all is what life really is. 37 �Personal Essay Before St. John’s I read lots of books like The Stranger, and even a few of the books on our program. But I never had thoughts like these. The books alone are not enough to teach us about life, let alone about the good life. We need each other, and most of all we need our tutors. Our tutors teach about what is good in life, but they also do something a book never could: they model the good life for us. Last Spring, I met my seminar tutor outside a Friday night lecture and asked if he planned to stay for the Q&A period. He told me no, since he had to go read freshman essays. I said something like, “Gosh, on a Friday night—being a tutor seems like a lot of work.” He smiled and said, “Not really—I love every minute of it.” His sentiment ought to be an aspiration for us all: not merely to fill up our lives, but to find a way to live life such that we love every minute. To embrace life rather than simply keep ourselves occupied until it’s over. By merely staying busy under normal circumstances we shirk that greatest of duties to live an examined life. Doing so while quarantined, we risk giving up a greater than usual opportunity for introspection. Only by taking a close and sustained look at what life really is can we actually live it. To do so took Meursault solitary confinement and the guillotine. For me all it took was St. John’s. This is what our tutors offer us: the ability to live, because we now know how to think. To the tutors of St. John’s College. 38 �Poetry Rise Up and Come Away: An Ode for the Marriage of Friends Ryan Shinkel My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; The time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. —Song of Songs 2:10-13 For ten years men fought at Troy for Her face. A thousand ships had set sail, to what end? For power, riches, wisdom, and strength, placed With honor, glory, and blessing to fend Against Trojans? Greeks warred to destroy Troy. Another motive these ancient heroes, Who gave so much, must have had, to have fought. Yet what more reason is needed, with joy In Love: he who can endure any blows Knows flame reasons enough for what hearts wrought. One Achaean knew there was one more war He had to wage, the fight to return home. Ten years at Troy, ten years wandering for A way back to take back Ithaca. He roamed, Odysseus, named at birth, Son of Pain. For his wife, Penelope, he withstood Barbarians, Lotus Eaters, the Cyclops, Man Eating Giants, Witches, Sirens, Storming Rain, Sea Monsters. Even Immortal Life offered With Calypso he swapped for her and swam. Immortality he exchanged to die. Naked, helpless, he begged kind Nausicaa. He wished her in supplication this blessing: For spouse, house, and lasting harmony, a Gift no finer or greater to be unfurled When man and woman possess their home, one Of a marriage with true souls, two minds, and Two hearts thinking and beating their own world. Despair to enemies, joy to friends, done like two souls merged into one flesh, they stand. The lovers who last must befriend truly, or So the poets report of marital bliss. That covenant like two wings or two oars Roves the waves to our true home to the kiss Of the Lamb and his bride, a cosmic feast Which beckons our lifelong odysseys. One bird with two oars, one boat with two wings 39 �Poetry Can sail to a celestial city fleeced With men sacrificing immortality to gain the everlasting homecoming. Arise, my love. Let us hear the birds together. Neha Gaddam 40 �Personal Essay Human Space Is Where St. John's Exists Jordana Rozenman originally published on Colloquy blog, April 2020 I’ve been, as we all have, on a cycle of heartbreak and of deep gratitude and hope the past few weeks, generally as we began to move into whatever this time period is, and then very specifically as news came from St. John’s. Because these feelings were solidified by St. John’s, there is a lot to say about the school. There already was a lot to say, as I am moving toward the end of my last semester in the GI, frequently thinking about what it has given me, what has come from it expectedly and unexpectedly, how the program and the people have come to mean what they have come to mean. In this legitimately unimaginable development, there are now even more things I can say about St. John’s. St. John’s is a small focus in the midst of a truly gigantic crisis, a small personal thing in a global event that is not about us, but to be sad and to be grateful I suppose is important at any time. To be told, four semesters in, and seven years into imagining attending, that you cannot return to the St. John’s campus after spring break to finish your time there in person is a punch to the gut. How can it mean so much, some of you first semester GIs might even be asking (and I perhaps would even have asked during my first semester here)? How much proverbial Kool-Aid have I drunk? As it turns out, I am so happy to report, the answer is none. No Kool-Aid at all. The marvel is (and this does not come through rose-colored glasses–how exactly did I end up in TWO semesters about sixteenth-century French writers?! I DO NOT LIKE THEM) …the marvel is that St. John’s exists as one of what must be a very, very few places that does what it says it is doing. No Kool-Aid needed. It might not do it immediately. It surely won’t do it in the way you are expecting. It might take three or four semesters for you to even see it happening. Because the texts work very slowly. But beyond that, the people working with you on the texts–students and tutors–require time together for the program to happen. To use the term “heartbreaking” for not being allowed to finish St. John’s at St. John’s might seem hyperbolic. But it is testament to the power of finding people who are about what they say they are about. A major, perhaps the main, reason that works is that the program is not, and cannot be, online. There is a reason that there are a disproportionate number of GIs who come to read and discuss the great books and who have flip phones, not iPhones. There is a reason we are specifically asked not to use digital versions of the text in class, but to use hard copies. Of books. This is probably one of the most important foresights in the program. It is only in small part about what (deep) benefits that kind of reading will have for the reader, and in much larger part about what kind of reader such a caveat will bring to campus. The intention of the community is to be found in people who want, and need, to gather around a text, in at least equal part as it is to be found in the texts themselves. I suppose I am talking about form and content. The content can be made available anywhere. The form is found only at St. John’s. If the form disappears, the entire meaning of the program is lost. To my mind the need to explain any of that doesn’t exist, because everyone who has ever been or will ever want to be a Johnnie, or who has been a tutor, understands this. It is why Pano was able to say at my Convocation that this is not a community, 41 �Personal Essay but a polity (and the undergrads went wild with enthusiasm at this). The particular idea of this polity can only live in classes and a campus that exists in real, not virtual, space. In case all this makes it sound like St. John’s GI is actually not a “real place,” or is an escape from the real world, a four-semester-long respite from what is actually happening out there in the digital age to which you will have to return when you finish, let me be clear about just a few other points. St. John’s is perhaps one of the realest foundations for being in the real world that I’ve found. It is the opposite of an escape. It is a stepping stone. Nothing has made this clearer to me than the pandemic. In a program that is so short and so special to begin with, I was not surprised to speak with more than a few people who shed some tears about losing everything that it meant to them in the home stretch. But in the weeks that followed the closure of SJC and the closure of everything in the world, and the abrupt cutoff from a million things we love, I could not stop hearing in my head the words of a wise tutor last semester as we discussed a character who couldn’t get something he wanted: “Good practice for death!” (A very Johnnie response to a minor problem.) I had laughed when he said it, because he did not mean it gloomily. He meant only, take a breath. Let go when necessary. Be graceful. We do not have control over when our most beloved things (people, experiences, lives) are taken from us. So–good practice. I thought also of Odysseus. (I’m not sure there will ever be a time post-SJC when I don’t think of Odysseus.) And I thought of the class when we discussed Odysseus’ long, long-awaited return to Ithaca. After 20 years, he is asleep when it finally happens. What can possibly be the meaning of his being denied the poignancy of seeing his home, his awareness of reaching it, as he sails into it after 20 years of imagining it? It seemed a cruelty to me. Our tutor suggested that the moments we think we are waiting for, the moments we anticipate and that take on utter importance in our imaginations, are perhaps not the important ones, as real life unfolds, at all. The parts of the future that we cannot possibly anticipate sometimes offer the realest moments, if we are open to them. I think of these as only two of the times that what has come out of St. John’s has been grounding for me, in a way that is the opposite of coddling. It is not an exaggeration to say that I feel better off in a pandemic having had St. John’s than I would without it. I am so grateful for it, to have something I feel so sad about losing the end of. We have adjusted pretty quickly to the flimsy, flimsy substitution for classes in this emergency. But we are missing deeply, even grieving, everything real and organic that grows, during the classes (“facing with each other the questions of the text in front of us,” as one classmate put it), in between the classes, outside of them, through the people surrounding the texts. Such a polity does not happen often. I do not want to oversell St. John’s. It is not nearly perfect. But it is real, which is better. It is for the real world, and everything that St. John’s is capable of accomplishing is only so because of the fullness of the program as it exists. I am so excited about the stepping stone it has provided me, and the other stepping stones it will provide me that I can’t even see yet. It doesn’t stop, I don’t think. 42 �Prizewinning Essay: Tutorial The Soul with Good Sense Guides Correctly Sam Hage “The natural road is from what is more familiar and clearer to us to what is clearer and better known by nature; for it is not the same things that are well known to us and well known simply.” Aristotle, Physics 184a19 —————— Doubtless every reader of the Meno has at some point asked the same question: What is a geometrical demonstration doing in the middle of a dialogue about virtue? The introduction of this lesson is abrupt, and the supposed teaching about “recollection” is difficult to take at face value. Now, it isn’t hard to see how a certain specific type of mathematical learning might help us understand, in general, the process of coming to know, and to feel confident in the truth of, a proposition that was previously opaque; but it is substantially more difficult to understand how this type of learning fits into the conversation about virtue in particular, and especially its teachability. Part of the trouble, I think, stems from a confusion about where exactly in the encounter with the slave recollection is supposedly taking place, and indeed about the status of recollection as opposed to teaching in the first place. This latter difficulty leads to two further questions: Why does Socrates insist, as a partial answer to the question of whether virtue is teachable, that nothing is teachable? And then, having done so, why does he collapse the distinction between teaching and recollection shortly thereafter? His coy reversion at 87c makes me think there is something in the nature of recollection that may be important for the reader to bear in mind even at points in the dialogue where Meno himself has obediently yielded to Socrates’ equivocation. I would like to look closely at the geometry lesson in order to better understand the type of learning that is being described. But first, some context may be helpful. The Good Things At 77b, well before Socrates brings the slave into their discussion, Meno attempts to identify virtue for a third time, offering the following definition: “for one who desires the noble things to be capable of providing them for himself.”1 Unlike the previous two attempts, Socrates doesn’t immediately counter the argument or point out the ways in which Meno hasn’t truly answered the question. Instead he turns to a single point of clarification around what it really means to “desire the noble things.” Socrates first asks Meno to affirm that not everyone desires good things—some, Meno wants to say, actually “desire the bad things” (77c). But from this, of course, arises the question of whether he who desires these things does so “in the belief that the bad things benefit him…or knowing that the bad things harm him” (77d). It quickly emerges that everyone who desires bad things does so in the mistaken belief that the bad things are the good things—that is, out of ignorance—and so everyone, in a sense, really desires the good things for himself (77e–78b). It is indeed difficult, knowing what it means to “desire” something, even to imagine Meno’s paradoxical 1 Plato. “Protagoras” and “Meno”. Translated by Robert C. Bartlett, Cornell University Press, 2004. 43 �Prizewinning Essay: Tutorial alternative, that some people actually desire to be “wretched”. But Meno is clearly onto something important: Most people, while desiring good things in the most general sense, in fact end up pursuing at the very least a mix of good and bad things, and often bad things simply. From here Socrates goes in a surprising direction. Having collapsed Meno’s twofold definition, “to want the good things and to be capable,” into the single criterion, “being capable” (78b), Socrates does not ask what to me would be the obvious next question: What is it that allows some people to correctly recognize the good things, while others are mistaken about the objects of their desires? Could such a faculty be the very virtue we’ve been seeking? I can guess why Socrates does not suggest this. These mistakes were identified at 77e as coming from ignorance; wouldn’t the opposite, then, have to be a form of knowledge? Since he never refuted Meno’s claim that virtue has something to do with pursuing the good things, Socrates is perilously close at this moment to admitting that virtue is essentially knowledge. Were he to make such an admission this early in the conversation, Meno would, no doubt, jump immediately to the conclusion that virtue is teachable—and indeed that the teachers of virtue are the men he has been going to for his lessons. Socrates still has other things to show him. Instead of investigating the faculty that might allow one to distinguish from among health, wealth, honors, offices, and “things other than those of that sort” (78c) which ones might be the “good things,” Socrates misdirects Meno in a way that seems intended to result in perplexity. He accepts Meno’s assertion that the things popularly held to be goods are in fact goods, and then introduces the nakedly circular argument that getting these things for oneself can be done both virtuously and viciously, and is only virtuous when undertaken with “justice or moderation or piety, or some other part of virtue” (78e). He then chastises Meno for relying on virtue in his definition of virtue, as though it hadn’t been his own idea to twist Meno’s argument that way in the first place! Meno’s definition seems internally consistent so long as we inquire further about the all-important ability to identify the good things. Instead, Socrates has chosen a line of questioning that makes the definition appear contradictory. But there’s a certain beauty in Socrates’ strategy—if virtue depends on a knowledge of what the good things are, and vice stems from an ignorance thereof, then surely a knowledge of one’s own ignorance would be preferable to a mistaken belief in one’s knowledge. Meno certainly is ignorant of some things, and by 80a Socrates has at least gotten him to admit his ignorance, even if he has done so rather duplicitously. The confusion also elicits a docility from his interlocutor that allows Socrates to direct the conversation in a way Meno had stubbornly resisted before. By Zeus, Socrates, For My Part I Don’t Know I will put off looking at the specifics of Socrates’ mathematical example for a moment longer, turning first to the description of recollection that comes right after his exchange with the slave. At 85c Socrates proposes, based on what has just been demonstrated, that even in someone who doesn’t have knowledge, “there are present true opinions about those things that he doesn’t know.” Recollection, it seems, is the process by which such a man, through questioning alone, may 44 �Prizewinning Essay: Tutorial come to possess knowledge, “he himself recovering the knowledge from within himself” (85d). Armed with this working definition of recollection, we may confidently return to the beginning of the geometry problem and follow Socrates’ exhortation at 82b to pay attention to whether the slave is “recollecting or learning from me.” Socrates beings with a series of four opening questions, none of which strike me yet as aiding directly in the process of recollection. They all pertain merely to the knowledge of what it means for a figure to be square and to the possibility for the image of a geometrical figure to represent a conceptual object of arbitrary size (82c–d). The next set of questions serves a similar purpose, this time testing the slave’s knowledge of arithmetic, which, though he stumbles a little at first, is sufficient for Socrates’ purposes. So far none of these questions seems to involve either teaching or recollection. Everything up to about 82e is of the same character as Socrates’ first question at 82b: “does he speak Greek?” They constitute a few epistemological prerequisites for conducting the real investigation that follows. Those out of the way, the process of recollection begins in earnest, I think, with the slave’s first incorrect answer to the question of creating a square with double the area of the original—that the lengths of the sides, too, would be doubled (82e). This is one of the opinions the slave already possessed; one that perhaps seemed so obvious to him that he thought it was his only opinion on the matter. Now we see the questioning at work that Socrates later identifies as crucial to the process of recollection. By drawing on two things the slave does “know”—arithmetic and the size of the original square—Socrates creates a sort of syllogistic middle term in the argument, showing conclusively in 83a–c that the supposedly doubled square actually contains four of the original square, making it not twice, but four times as large. This first opinion having been dispelled, the slave realizes he has another: that since the doubled square is (in a sense) halfway between the original and the quadrupled squares, so too must its side lengths be halfway between two and four. Socrates uses an abbreviated form of the earlier argument to disprove this opinion as well, relying this time on the simple arithmetical fact that three times three is nine, not eight (83e). The dispelling of the slave’s incorrect opinions is illuminating, but the real point of interest as regards recollection comes from the realization of the correct answer. Just before 84d Socrates again reassures Meno, “I’m doing nothing other than asking [the slave] questions and am not teaching him.” In what follows, I think this ceases to be true, a troubling fact that somewhat muddles the lesson about recollection. After guiding the slave through the entire construction of a new figure, this time of the quadrupled square with a smaller square rotated and inscribed inside it, Socrates asks him to perform a simple calculation to determine that the inner square is indeed double the area of the square they started with. This technique has much more in common with the method Socrates used to disprove the previous two opinions, and in the final analysis is not, I think, the best way to demonstrate recollection. He spoon-feeds every step of the argument to the slave, asking him only to verify the final calculation. But the truth being “recollected” might just be uniquely suited to Socrates’ kind of learning. The side length they have ended up with has a very important property: being the hypotenuse of the right triangle formed by two sides of the original 45 �Prizewinning Essay: Tutorial square, it is incommensurable to those original sides. Modern algebra tells us that it does have a numerical length, the square root of eight. But this bland description obscures something fundamental about what a number (as opposed to simply a magnitude) is—one that is important to understand if we want to take what Socrates calls recollection seriously. Though convenient in proving the truth of the proposition, the figure, in which we can count triangles and squares for ourselves, actually hinders the consideration of the nature of magnitudes that cannot be described with a number. I can truthfully say of such a magnitude “I know how large that is,” but it’s hard to meaningfully tell you how large it is. I must resort to ratios or to special symbols whose uniqueness renders them almost completely inert.2 Whole numbers do not work this way. They have the power to communicate meaning by themselves, even in totally unfamiliar contexts, because they represent a number of units that can always be directly compared. Absent such units, then, we might ask: What does it mean to “know” a magnitude? I think it may be this type of knowledge in particular that Socrates wants to draw attention to in talking about recollection. A more effective demonstration might have come at 84a, had the slave not failed Socrates’ injunction to say “what sort of line” would give the required square, which failure prompted Socrates to lead him through the construction of the second figure. Couldn’t the slave have indicated at this point that the new side must be somewhere between two and three, and perhaps even that it’s quite a bit closer to three than to two? Certainly he knows this to be the case—but how does he know it? It wouldn’t have been on Socrates’ authority, because the precise, authoritative answer comes after the new diagram. It also couldn’t have come from the type of arithmetic that has allowed the slave to understand certain parts of the lesson up until now. Even for a student who understands modern trigonometry and irrational numbers, the algebraic calculation hardly grants as pure an understanding as is available if she simply looks at a picture and allows her mind to grasp the manifest truth. To state the case more strongly: Because the new side length is irrational, I cannot constitute it out of discrete units representing the natural numbers. But I can draw the length precisely (to the extent that precision is actually possible in a drawing)—Socrates himself has just done so using his “diameters”. At the risk of stating the obvious, there is a part of my mind, then, that simply grasps what this length is, just not in a way I can easily and rationally describe. Teaching as usually understood, no matter how skilled the teacher or how exhaustive the lesson, cannot resolve the fundamental discontinuity between a series of factual statements and logical arguments, on one hand, and the intellect’s sudden comprehension of this kind of noetic truth, on the other. The student can be turned in the right direction, shown why initial opinions were incorrect, and perhaps taught certain subsidiary propositions that make use of previous knowledge—but the final act of learning consists in an active apprehension rather than the passive reception of knowledge like a vessel being filled from without. This, I think, is what it means to recollect. In other words, a symbol like √8 or π or e or ln(2) can have meaningful reference only to itself, or to fractions and multiples of itself. In all cases, knowledge of the original magnitude must come first. 2 46 �Prizewinning Essay: Tutorial Knowing Virtue Socrates’ application of a kind of rigid syllogistic reasoning throughout the dialogue to questions about virtue’s teachability feels at times like a deliberate obfuscation of a clear path through the argument. By insisting on statements like ‘if virtue is knowledge, it must be teachable’ (87b) and ‘if virtue is teachable, there must be teachers of it’ (89d) Socrates can disguise certain subtleties he might be omitting behind apparently incontrovertible logical propositions. This leads to what in my mind is clearly a circular argument. Meno wanted to know whether virtue was teachable, in response to which Socrates said that it would then have to be a kind of knowledge. But if virtue were knowledge, there would be teachers of it, which there are not, and so virtue is not knowledge and not teachable. I can easily forgive Meno and Anytus for their frustration. But Plato has provided the careful reader a way out. By allowing the slave to apprehend the truth of the geometrical principle behind the square problem, Socrates has shown that the soul of the learner may be turned toward a certain kind of knowledge, which it can then grasp on its own, merely by contemplating it. The demonstration gives the lie to his sophistical insistence that anything knowable must admit of teaching in the conventional sense. Spending much of the dialogue insinuating that the categories “knowable” and “teachable” are identical, Socrates’ lesson with the slave has demonstrated just the opposite; there is a category of abstract truths that may—in fact must—be known without being taught. These things may just be the most knowable of all. What if knowledge of the good, which Socrates and Meno have both identified as being so crucial to virtue, belongs to this category too? Could the recognition that good things are good and harmful things harmful come to the knower in the same way this lofty mathematical abstraction came to the slave? I’m inclined to believe that this is what Plato is pointing us to. The conjecture at least allows us to make sense of the inclusion of Socrates’ geometry lesson in the dialogue, and of the obvious parallels between the categories of knowledge and true opinion in both cases. And as previously noted, it also resolves the apparent stalemate of virtue’s being neither teachable nor inherent. The problem with this supposition, possibly a grave one, is that the virtue discussed throughout the dialogue, though simply referred to as such, clearly seems to be a specific kind of practical virtue related to matters of action and governing. Although individual character virtues like moderation and courage are mentioned a handful of times, the examples discussed are overwhelmingly of a practical nature—and Meno’s abiding concern throughout the text seems to be with ruling over others. Meno even assents at multiple points to the explicit equation of virtue with phronēsis—or at least the assigning of phronēsis to a kind of architectonic role, present in the exercise of all virtue—as at 88d, 89e, and 97a. Anyone asserting that the soul can apprehend the principles of right action in the same way it understands the archē of mathematics must overcome the objection that mathematical certainty in the practical realm is plainly impossible—and probably nonsensical. And yet it’s hard to deny the necessary existence of a faculty of our intellects, common to both cases, that is somehow able to assimilate from among disparate particulars the unified whole that we refer to when we say that we “understand”. What does seem clear is that self-rule plays an important role in the development of this faculty, something that Meno utterly fails to grasp. Socrates repeatedly chides him for his inability to rule himself, as at 86d: “you don’t even attempt to rule yourself—so 47 �Prizewinning Essay: Tutorial you can be free, I suppose—but attempt to rule me.” Meno appears to place self-rule in the middle of a kind of hierarchy, in which absolute freedom from any sort of rule is best, and being ruled is worst. He fails to take note of Socrates’ suggestion that self-rule is really a critical first step both in virtue and in ruling others. Why would this be, other than because it is a well-ordered soul that grants a proper orientation in practical matters, allowing one to see the good things and the bad things for what they are? Meno’s tyrannical nature and his desire to be taught simple techniques for rhetoric and politics thwart his understanding of Socrates’ important teaching: that some things come to be known in a very different way, and that the process of coming to know requires a type of soulcraft he would be unwilling to engage in. He is consumed by a desire to know and to be taught, but it is this desire that prevents him from seeing that the highest things are knowable without really being teachable. Meno will never be a virtuous ruler until he understands what it is to be a knower. No teacher can offer him the knowledge he seeks if he does not first look within himself. Neha Gaddam 48 �Prizewinning Essay: Preceptorial Love and Suffering in Joyce’s Ulysses Christine Mooradian “Why should I describe a sorrow which all have felt, and all must feel?” — Mary Shelley, Frankenstein The death of a child can bear down hard on a marriage, splitting couples apart and destroying intimacy, as can many of the accidents of life. The death of Rudy, Molly and Bloom’s son, at 11 days old created a pain between Molly and Bloom which turned into an alienation that continued 10 years later at the time Joyce provides an account of one day in the lives of several Dubliners, June 16th, 1904. Ulysses is a story about the human struggle between the desperate need for intimacy and the constant threat of alienation, a chronic condition of mankind. And not just for Molly and Bloom but perhaps even more so for Stephen Dedalus. While Molly and Bloom struggle with the pain of troubled intimacy, Stephen struggles to establish intimacy in his adult life. Intimacy is one of the most profound of human needs and among the greatest of human goods, a state of being deeply known and deeply knowing. To be known is a mystical or spiritual need. The Psalmist expresses awe at understanding God knew him before he was formed. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all my days were written in Your book and ordained for me before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139 NIV) And the Apostle Paul said, "Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known" (1 Corinthians 13 NIV). While the Biblical concept of intimacy with God will only be complete “then,” as Paul says, human intimacy can reach its highest point of expression in the conjugal relationship between a man and a woman, and can also be found in its human completeness between a parent and child. It seems we swing between the alienation we fear and the intimacy we desire, and that fear and desire compel us forward from the moment we are born. An infant leaves the womb at birth, a place of the most complete intimacy between two humans, sharing the same flow of blood and water, and if fortunate, that infant is drawn into intimacy in his mother’s arms, feeding from her body on her life sustaining milk - an intimacy without words, but human desire and fulfillment mutually achieved. An infant who is not held will not thrive, and perhaps an adult who is not held will not thrive either. This intimacy and alienation as revealed in Ulysses will be explored through the two protagonists, Stephen and Bloom, with the following questions: What do we learn from Ulysses about this human struggle between alienation and intimacy? Why do unfortunate circumstances of life tend to drive us apart from the relationships we need the most? What blocks or confuses our attempts at intimacy or destroys established bonds? How do the images of blood, water, and milk 49 �Prizewinning Essay: Preceptorial help reveal this struggle? And does Ulysses offer any resolution for our characters or any hope for the rest of us? Stephen and Bloom Alienation dominates Stephen Dedalus’ life as he is cut off from nearly every type of human intimacy – he is cut off from God, from family, from friends, and even from himself. Once on a track to become a Jesuit priest, he has rejected the church and struggles with faith and doubt in the wake of his mother’s death. His refusal to grant her dying request, to kneel and pray at her bedside, is a source of recurring torment. He has no friends that he trusts. Mulligan harshly accuses Stephen of killing his own mother. Haines dismisses or is blind to Stephen’s artistic gifts, jotting down quotations from Stephen as if they are quips for a greeting card. For whatever reason, he refuses to acknowledge his biological father, and instead of drawing familial warmth from his sister, he fears her needs will drown him. Stephen is intelligent, well-read, sensitive, an artist - but he is paralyzed artistically. Like Telemachus in The Odyssey, Stephen is half boy half man as the book opens. As far as we know, he has not yet truly known the intimate love of a woman and is separated from the love of the mother. “Pain, that was not yet the pain of love, fretted his heart.” (1.102) The desire in Stephen for mother-love, an enwombing love, takes on special importance from the start and images of the nurturing mother are repeated. In “Scylla and Charybdis” Stephen states, “Amor matris, subjective and objective genitive, may be the only true thing in life.” (9.842) The image of mother-love, love that starts our journey in this world, is present in the milk maid and in the milk she brings in “Telemachus.” The milkmaid is a mysterious figure that brings the nurturing, praiseworthy milk. “An old woman came forward and stood by Stephen’s elbow.” (1.389) Her physical proximity to Stephen is important, and her presence is noted by Stephen as she stands close to him. He watched her pour into the measure and thence into the jug rich white milk, not hers. Old shrunken paps…Old and secret she had entered from a morning world, maybe a messenger. She praised the goodness of the milk, pouring it out…a messenger from the secret morning. To serve or to upbraid, whether he could not tell: but scorned to beg her favour. (1.397) The milkmaid is the first of many mystical experiences for Stephen, experiences outside his conscious awareness but experiences that have profound impact on him. Stephen has an odd but sensitive reaction to the milk maid. Why would it cross his mind that the milk is not hers? Of course it is not. But as a mother figure she is providing the nurturing milk that can make men whole, that can heal them. Stephen seems to sense, if only subconsciously, his need to be healed and made whole. Mulligan, surely unaware of the depth of his comment, confirms the power of the milk saying, If we could live on good food like that…we wouldn’t have the country full of rotten teeth and rotten guts. Living in the bogswamp, eating cheap food and the streets paved with dust, horsedung and consumptives’ spits. (1.411) 50 �Prizewinning Essay: Preceptorial Stephen is jealous for the affection of this mother figure as he feels she bestows her attention on the unworthy Mulligan. “Stephen listened in scornful silence. She bows her old head to a voice that speaks to her loudly, her bonesetter, her medicineman: Me she slights.” (1.418) He scorns the scientist, but he – the artist – is frozen in indecision. In “Nestor,” mother-love again surfaces as a pure and sacrificial love when Stephen helps an awkward, dull student with his lesson. Stephen imagines the boy’s mother, “Yet someone had loved him, borne him in her arms and in her heart. …She had loved his weak watery blood drained from her own. Was that then real? The only true thing in life?” (2.140) Stephen, for a moment, takes on the role of mother as he cares for, encourages, and nurtures the student. Stephen sees himself in Cyril Sargent, “Like him was I…Secrets, silent, stony sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts…” (2.170) In this moment with Cyril Sargent, Stephen shows his artistic gift for teaching and his ability for compassion and intimacy, but immediately shrinks back into his shell of despair as the lesson ends. Stephen’s walk home along the Sandymount Strand clarifies his state of alienation from self and others. As he walks on the beach, the half boy half man, Stephen longs for the touch of a woman and imagines the healing touch of a soft hand. Can he bridge the span from the motherlove to the intimate love of a woman? “Touch me. Soft eyes. Soft soft soft hand. I am lonely here. O, touch me soon, now. What is that word known to all men? I am quiet here alone. Sad too. Touch, touch me.” (3.434) But alienation from the self is Stephen’s deepest struggle expressed in his lack of self-awareness and his self-neglect. While still on the beach longing to be touched, Stephen either masturbates or urinates, or both; the passage is unclear, suggesting Stephen’s lack of attention to what he is doing and lack of self-awareness. “Better get this job over quick,” he says to himself. (3.456) What job? Stephen is out of tune with his body and with his sexuality. Instead, during the process, whatever process it is, Stephen’s mind floods with thoughts of despair, …My ashplant will float away…Vehement breath of waters amidst seasnakes…And, spent, its speech ceases…writhing weeds…sway reluctant arms…Lord, they are weary...To no end gathered; vainly then released… (3.454) Even his body has become a stranger. Care for his physical body is limited as he hasn’t eaten in two days though he has money in his pocket, he hasn’t bathed since the previous October (17.238), his teeth are rotting, and even his body is foreign to him, “Who chose this face for me? This dogsbody to rid of vermin. It asks me too.” (1.136) Although he clearly needs money, he abandons his teaching job and is careless with what little money he has, giving it away or losing it. Stephen hides at times inside a drunken stupor. And like a child without a parent nearby, he is terrified of thunderstorms. Bloom also struggles with alienation, but differently from Stephen. Since Molly and Bloom’s son died 10 years ago, the couple has been unwilling or unable to have sexual relations. This is a long time for a marriage to lie dormant and for two people to live without the embodying of intimacy in conjugal love, which should be at the heart of a healthy marriage. Bloom is obviously 51 �Prizewinning Essay: Preceptorial not impotent, but he seems to be with Molly. They share a bed, but Bloom sleeps with his head at Molly’s feet. Bloom muses on the liquid nature of human intimacy, I was happier then. Or was that I? Or am I now I? Twentyeight I was. She twentythree. When we left Lombard street west something changed. Could never like it again after Rudy. Can’t bring back time. Like holding water in your hand. (8.608) Bloom unsuccessfully attempts to fill the void of intimacy in his life. He carries on a trifling affair by letters with Martha, a woman he has likely never met and has very little fondness for. Bloom has been with prostitutes in Dublin, a slim attempt at intimacy. But he has no real friends, and he misses the son he should have had. He thinks about the intimacy of a father-son relationship that he longs for, If little Rudy had lived. See him grow up. Hear his voice in the house. Walking beside Molly in an Eton suit. My son. Me in his eyes. Strange feeling it would be. From me. Just a chance…I could have helped him on in life. I could. Make him independent. Learn German too. (6.75) However, in spite of Bloom’s alienation from other people and the lack of intimacy in his marriage, he maintains a connection with life and with himself that Stephen is unable to do. Bloom displays a hearty appetite for the sensory aspects of life, especially food. He feeds himself well, in fact he has several meals during the day of June 16 th, each of which he relishes. He drinks but with moderation. He bathes. Bloom notices all the smells and sounds and beauty around him and finds the world a wonderous place. Bloom, while timid at times, stands up for himself when he is pushed. And Bloom is kind. It takes great strength to be kind, and kindness defines Bloom; he is aware of other people’s needs, he remains open to people, and he is willing to risk being wounded for the sake of another - perhaps these are the prerequisites for establishing intimacy. While Stephen is guarded, cuts himself off from the world and drinks himself into a stupor, Bloom remains vulnerable and sober. “…Mr Bloom, who at all events, was in complete possession of his faculties, never more so, in fact disgustingly sober…” (16.61) Bloom is our hope for redemption from alienation. Alienation What draws us away from bonds and intimacy with others? Or renders us unable to establish intimate relationships initially? Joyce provides a day full of the occurrences of life that pull us away from intimacy with others, which can be summarized in the “Sirens” chapter. Sirens are all things that call us away from life, away from bonds, with false promises of sustenance, with offers of imitation intimacy. Whether the sirens come with intent or are accidental, the influence is the same. Miss Kennedy and Miss Douce, the proprietors of Ormond’s Pub, personify the sirens of life. While they are serving customers at the pub, the two are clearly singing, luring, unfaithful sirens, drawing men towards them with no good intentions, just for the joy of leading them low. “…miss Douce’s wet lips said, 52 �Prizewinning Essay: Preceptorial laughing in the sun…Her wet lips tittered: ---He’s killing looking back. She laughed: ---O wept! Arent’ men frightful idiots?” (11.72) Breasts that should provide the life giving milk, the kind of milk we see in “Telemachus,” instead lure and deceive. The breasts of the barmaids tantalize but disappoint and frustrate. Miss Douce reached high to take a flagon, stretching her satin arm, her bust, that all but burst, so high./ O! O! jerked Lenehan, gasping at each stretch. O!/ But easily she seized her prey and led it low in triumph. (11.360) For Boylan, who stops in Ormond’s pub as he is heading to Molly’s bed, the barmaid pours a glass of sloe gin, a blood red syrupy liqueur. Again, what should be life sustaining, the blood of the human body or the saving blood of Christ, is poured as an inebriant, confusing men’s minds. The “milk” the barmaid pours is a false nurture, a sickeningly sweet lugubrious wine, drunk by an imposter with bewitched vision. Boylan, eyed, eyed. Tossed to fat lips his chalice, drank off his chalice tiny, sucking the last fat violet syrupy drops. His spellbound eyes went after, after her gliding head as it went down the bar by mirrors, gilded arch… (11.419) Bloom is seemingly immune to these particular sirens. While he imagines or remembers an interlude with Lydia, or perhaps Lydia’s hand on the beerpull reminds him of some soft, soft hand, On the smooth jutting beerpull laid Lydia hand, lightly, plumply, leave it to my hands. All lost in pity for croppy. Fro, to: to, fro: over the polished knob (she knows his eyes, my eyes, her eyes) her thumb and finger passed in pity: passed, repassed and, gently touching, then slid so smoothly, slowly down, a cool firm white enamel baton protruding through their sliding ring. (11.1112) Bloom is not drawn off course by these sirens. “Get out before the end. Thanks, that was heavenly. Where's my hat.” (11.1122) The sirens for Bloom, which dash him on the rocks and widen the distance from Molly, are his own anxieties demonstrated in his shame and sadness. At the funeral early in the day and at Ormond’s bar later, he feels deep sadness remembering Rudy and a sense of shame for Rudy’s death. A dwarf's face, mauve and wrinkled like little Rudy's was. Dwarf's body, weak as putty, in a whitelined deal box. Burial friendly society pays. Penny a week for a sod of turf. Our. Little. Beggar. Baby. Meant nothing. Mistake of nature. If it's healthy it's from the mother. If not from the man. Better luck next time. (6.326) “Well, my fault perhaps. No son. Rudy. Too late now. Or if not? If not? If still? / He bore no hate. / Hate. Love. Those are names. Rudy. Soon I am old.” (11.1066) Bloom also seems to feel shame at growing old. 53 �Prizewinning Essay: Preceptorial Shame is a powerful force behind alienation, causing people to withdraw, to cover themselves, and feel unworthy. Stephen is described by Mulligan as a reverse Jesuit. Perhaps shame is reverse intimacy. Perhaps the opposite of intimacy is not alienation, but shame. Molly recognizes death and shame in the “Penelope” chapter, I suppose I oughtnt to have buried him in that little woolly jacket I knitted crying as I was but give it to some poor child but I knew well Id never have another our 1st death too it was we were never the same since…(18.1448) Molly speaks to the shame of all mankind in her allusion to the first death of the world. Adam and Eve give us the first example of shame when, upon the tragedy of sin, they knew the shame of nakedness, and futilely tried to cover themselves with “the trees of the garden” (Genesis 3.8 NIV). But God knew that more than leaves were needed to cover their shame, that only a blood sacrifice would do, and covered them in the skin of a dead animal, the first death on earth. “…God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.” (Gen 3.22 NIV) And nothing was the same after that, as shame took the place of intimacy. The Mystical Nature of Intimacy Does Joyce offer any solution for this chronic condition of swinging between intimacy and alienation? Is there hope for our characters, or for ourselves? If Bloom is our hope, how does Joyce develop this hope? Can intimacy be created, or must it be given like grace? Joyce suggests that something transcendent, something outside of our control, something even mystical is part of intimacy. In Ulysses, intimacy is found in the relationship that grows between Stephen and Bloom, a relationship that begins the morning of June 16 th, even though the two don’t meet until evening. A mystical bond begins between Stephen and Bloom, one a child – symbolically – without a parent and the other a man in need of a son, one seeking the word known to all men and one who knows the word known to all men, and both men relatively friendless and alienated from the intimacy they desire. This mystical bond is established in part in the parallel experiences of Stephen and Bloom during the day of June 16 th, experiences that later create a link between them that even they do not fully comprehend. Two of those parallel experiences are found in their reaction to sunlight and shadow, and in their experience on Sandymount Strand. Both Bloom and Stephen have similar reactions to the sunlight and shadow they encounter early in the day. Both experience a brooding and fear as a cloud covers the sun, followed by a restoration of spirit as the cloud passes. Stephen standing alone on the parapet after Mulligan has descended, looks out to sea. Something or someone seems to be present with him. Woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace from the stairhead seaward where he gazed. Inshore and farther out the mirror of water whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet…A hand plucking the harpstrings… (1.242) 54 �Prizewinning Essay: Preceptorial But as a cloud begins to cover the sun, Stephen’s spirit darkens, and he thinks of his mother’s deathbed. It [the bay] lay beneath him, a bowl of bitter waters. Fergus’s song: I sang it alone in the house, holding down the long dark chords. Her door was open: she wanted to hear my music. Silent with awe and pity I went to her bedside. She was crying in her wretched bed. For those words, Stephen: love’s bitter mystery. (1.249) Wracked with turmoil, he cries out, “No, mother! Let me be and let me live.” (1.279) Mulligan’s voice rouses Stephen from his darkness just as the sun reemerges and “Stephen, still trembling at his soul’s cry, heard warm running sunlight and in the air behind him friendly words.” (1.282) This is a profound experience animated with something living, and revealing of Stephen’s deep despair and deeper hope. Bloom has a parallel experience with the same cloud that morning from his own vantage point on his way home from the porkbutcher. “A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, wholly. Grey. Far.” He begins to have very dark thoughts of brimstone, death, and desolation, and “a grey horror seared his flesh.” (4.218-230) Bloom’s reaction is to head home. As he turns on to Eccles street “hurrying homeward” he reassures himself, “Well, I am here now. Yes, I am here now.” (4.233) and he thinks of friendly, mundane and sensuous soothing thoughts: that he must exercise more, that “number eight is still unlet,” that he longs for the smell of tea and sizzling butter and to “Be near her ample bedwarmed flesh. Yes, yes.” (4.236) And presently the sun reemerges and a presence of some kind is sensed, just as Stephen had noticed. “Quick warm sunlight came running from Berkeley road, swiftly, in slim sandals, along the brightening footpath. Runs, she runs to meet me, a girl with gold hair on the wind.” (4.240) Both men are visited by something beautiful, and it restores their souls, at least for a moment. Another parallel experience between Stephen and Bloom that contributes to this mystical bond is each man’s compulsion to masturbate, or urinate as the case may be, while on Sandymount Strand. These scenes take place at different times of day, but their parallelism is not coincidental. Stephen’s experience takes place in the morning and Bloom’s later in the day when, “the summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious embrace,” (13.1) In addition to the same location, both men assume the same physical posture stretched back against rock with their hands in their pockets. Stephen, “…lay back at full stretch over the sharp rocks, cramming the scribbled note and pencil into a pocket, his hat tilted down on his eyes.” (3.437) And for Bloom, It was getting darker but he could see and he was looking all the time that he was winding the watch or whatever he was doing to it and then he put it back and put his hands back into his pockets…He was leaning back against the rock behind. (13.557,744) Both men are desiring the touch of a woman, but making do with their own, but the men differ in their cognitive impressions. Stephen, as described earlier on page 3, is cut off from himself and perhaps somewhat unaware of what he is doing, with confused and wandering thoughts. Bloom, on the other hand, is very focused and engaged. “Still, I feel. The strength it gives a man. That’s the 55 �Prizewinning Essay: Preceptorial secret of it.” (13.859) As with other sensuous aspects of life, he embraces his sexual desire with intention. Joyce presents numerous parallel experiences, some small and some significant, that suggest the potential for an intimacy between people might begin before they ever meet and might never be fully comprehended. Eummaus The “Eummaus” chapter establishes the relationship between Stephen and Bloom as father and son, resolving the tension of alienation for both men. Bloom initiates this relationship in the previous chapter “Circe” when he speaks to the two policemen who want to rough Stephen up for insulting the king. Bloom says, “I know him. He’s a gentleman, a poet. It’s all right.” (15.4485) I know him. To know and be known is the beginning of intimacy. And Bloom doesn’t just know him, he knows he is a gentleman and a poet. This is the only time all day (which is all we have) that Stephen has been known for what he is, or for what he is capable of becoming, the kind of knowing a parent has for a child. Eventually all others leave, and Bloom and Stephen are alone. The scene can be likened to a birth, and perhaps it is Bloom who has given birth to Stephen. This image is supported as Bloom is portrayed earlier in the chapter as both male and female. Dr. Punch Costello refers to Bloom saying, “Professor Bloom is a finished example of the new womanly man.” (15.1798) and Bloom replies, “Oh, I so want to be a mother.” (15.1817) Joyce seems to be establishing the enwombing relationship between mother and child that Stephen has searched for all day - the relationship of shared blood and water, and sustaining milk. Stephen, in his drunken stupor, resembles a newborn, curled on his side, stretching out his arms and curling his body. Bloom “(he bends again and undoes the buttons of Stephen’s waistcoat) To breathe.” (15.4937) Bloom calls out to rouse him, “Stephen! (There is no answer. He calls again) Stephen!” (15.4926) Bloom calls him by his name, or names him. Bloom stands over him with concern and “looks down on Stephen’s face and form” saying, “Face reminds me of his poor mother.” (15.4946) Bloom murmurs an oath or maybe a blessing over Stephen. The scene then moves to include a vision of Rudy. Bloom “(wonderstuck, calls inaudibly) Rudy!” (15.4961) The connection between Stephen and Rudy is strong, and perhaps Joyce suggests the metempsychosis of Rudy’s soul into Stephen’s body. During this mystical moment Stephen is mumbling in his drunken stupor lines from “Who goes with Fergus.” Bloom doesn’t recognize the words and assumes he is talking about, “Ferguson, I think I caught. A girl.” (15.4950) Joyce further develops this father/son relationship as Stephen and Bloom sit in the cabman’s shelter. Paternal behaviors emerge in Bloom in the form of admonitions, caring questions, and awareness of the similarities and differences between Bloom and Stephen. Their parallel experiences of earlier in the day begin to manifest themselves in a familiarity that Bloom doesn’t fully understand. Bloom notes, “Though they didn’t see eye to eye in everything a certain analogy there somehow was as if both their minds were travelling, so to speak, in the one train of thought.” 56 �Prizewinning Essay: Preceptorial (16.1579) Just as their parallel experiences established a commonality, differences between Bloom and Stephen are evident, and Joyce suggests the differences are as much a part of establishing this intimate relationship as the similarities. Bloom eventually asks Stephen to come home with him for cocoa, which Bloom will make with milk, Molly’s milk, “…the viscous cream ordinarily reserved for the breakfast of his wife….” (17.364) The pivotal passage of Ulysses, a point when the mystical becomes present with the natural, occurs late in “Eummaus” and can be easily overlooked, buried among chatter about sweeping the floors and the sleeping sentry. Bloom says to Stephen as they leave the cabman’s shelter, The only thing is to walk then you’ll feel a different man. Come. It’s not far. Lean on me. /Accordingly he passed his left arm in Stephen’s right and led him on accordingly./ --Yes, Stephen said uncertainly because he thought he felt a strange kind of flesh of a different man approach him, sinewless and wobbly and all that. (16.1719) Though hesitant, Stephen says yes to this sinewless, wobbly flesh. Who is this being Bloom has become? Joyce refers to him as “the unconquered hero,” “our hero” (16.1643), he is a father figure and a mother figure, and in “Cyclops” Bloom is revealed as Elijah the prophet. Or is he Fergus come to take Stephen in his brazen car? Or is he all of these? On the walk home, Bloom and Stephen demonstrate an intimate relationship that neither has been able to establish all day. They are parent and child, they are husband and wife, the two organic forms in which intimacy manifests itself in human relationships. “--…the two figures…both black, one full, one lean, walk towards the railway bridge, to be married by Father Maher.” (16.1886) -- and they are friends with arms linked. The subject of their conversation is the subject of Ulysses: “…their tete a tete … about sirens, enemies of man’s reason, mingled with a number of other topics of the same category, usurpers, historical cases of the kind…”(16.1889) The book, Ulysses, it could be argued, is the offspring of their union, written by the Stephen character, Joyce, which is strongly suggested in the ending line, “Trieste-Zurich-Paris/ 1914-1921.” (18.1610) Memory Steven and Bloom find metaphorical or mystical significance in each other and discover the friend each needs. While Stephen and Bloom establish an intimate bond, Bloom and Molly need to maintain or reconcile intimacy. And what can reconcile intimacy? If knowing and being known is a basis of intimacy, Joyce suggests that memories provide ongoing fuel for intimacy. Bloom fondly recalls Molly frequently during the day of June 16 th. He remembers her voice, her perfume, “Know her smell in a thousand.” (13.1024), her “bedwarm flesh”, he shares her picture with Stephen – all of his senses are engaged in remembering her. In Molly’s soliloquy in “Penelope” she fondly remembers details about Bloom “…if they only knew him as well as I do…the last time he came on my bottom… I could always hear his voice talking when the room was crowded…when he asked to take off my stockings lying on the hearthrug in Lombard street…” (18.45, 77, 182, 266) Molly’s memories are earthy and sexual. 57 �Prizewinning Essay: Preceptorial But shared memory might be the most powerful call back to intimacy and to maintained intimacy. Molly and Bloom, each in their own moment, relate the same memory of an intense physical and emotional encounter. Bloom’s memory occurs early in the day at Davy Burn’s as he has red wine and a cheese sandwich, waiting for 4 o’clock to pass, the time Boylan is to visit Molly. The imagery of wine and bread alludes to communion, which is a repeated act of memory designed to restore intimacy with God. “Bloom ate his strips of sandwich, fresh clean bread…Sips of his wine…” (8.818) Bloom seems to feel the memory coming upon him, something somewhat beyond his control, invoked by the wine. “Glowing wine on his palate lingered swallowed…Seems to a secret touch telling me memory. Touched his sense moistened remembered.” (8.897) And he remembers, …Ravished over her I lay, full lips full open, kissed her mouth. Yum. Softly she gave me in my mouth the seedcake warm and chewed. Mawkish pulp her mouth had mumbled sweet and sour with spittle. Joy: I ate it: joy…High on Ben Howth rhododendrons … Wildly I lay on her, kissed her: eyes, her lips, her stretched neck beating, woman's breasts full in her blouse of nun's veiling, fat nipples upright. Hot I tongued her. She kissed me. I was kissed. All yielding she tossed my hair. Kissed, she kissed me. (8.906-916) In “Penelope,” Molly recalls the same scene from her own point of view, …the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear…and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. (18.1572-1609) The most common memory they share is Molly’s gesture of passing a bit of seed cake from her mouth to Bloom’s - an act of extreme intimacy. While perhaps a cultural symbol of marriage, Molly’s gesture came from her heart, her erotic being, her deep human desire to be one with her lover. To share a bit of masticated cake from one wet mouth to another is something only lovers, or a parent, will do. Molly and Bloom are deeply linked by this gesture and it provides a memory of strength. It is ritualistic and spiritual in the deepest sense. Hope Joyce does not offer us a plan for complete redemption from our struggle between intimacy and alienation. The relationship between Stephen and Bloom is based on very thin reeds of cocoa and urinating together, and the restoration with Molly is only hinted at by Bloom asking for breakfast in bed. But Joyce does offer hope. We are left with a wise notion I once heard, that to live is to love and to suffer. And the best we can do is hope to love more and suffer less. 58 �Prizewinning Essay: Preceptorial Appendix Who goes with Fergus? By W. B. Yeats Who will go drive with Fergus now, And pierce the deep wood's woven shade, And dance upon the level shore? Young man, lift up your russet brow, And lift your tender eyelids, maid, And brood on hopes and fear no more. And no more turn aside and brood Upon love's bitter mystery; For Fergus rules the brazen cars, And rules the shadows of the wood, And the white breast of the dim sea And all dishevelled wandering stars. Works Cited Joyce, James. Ulysses. New York: Vintage Books - Random House, Inc., 1986. Yeats, W.B. The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. 59 �� 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 Colloquy Description An account of the resource A student-run journal for the Graduate Institute community of St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. The issues feature essays, art, poetry, interviews, and more. 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 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. 63 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 Colloquy, Fall 2020 Description An account of the resource Volume VII of Colloquy, published in Fall 2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Braley, Olivia (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 2020-12 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 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived English 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 Colloquy_Fall2020 https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/0883fdc25114c3017a270a8d96113f1b.pdf df56bfd24d5da50441cc7466136b4d87 PDF Text Text �Editor-in-Chief Olivia Braley Editorial Board Leith Daghistani Folke Egerstrom Andrew Graney Charles Green Gavin Laur Diana Villegas �Table of Contents Letter from the Editor Olivia Braley, Annapolis Colloquy Constitution The Editorial Board Three Poems Andrew Laurence Graney, Annapolis Excerpt from Argos’ Odyssey – Lost Years Winston Elliott, Annapolis - with art by Elizabeth Janthey, Annapolis 1 2 6 9 Dialogue and Understanding in the Seminar Oral Courtney White, Annapolis “Therefore etc”: Bang or Whimper? Jeremy Sheeler, Annapolis - with art by Jaime Marquez, Annapolis Why I Am Here Bonnie Naradzay, Annapolis A Conversation with Louis Petrich, Annapolis Tutor Charles Green & Jaime Marquez, Annapolis The Pandemic and the Iliad Will Harvard, Annapolis - with art by Neha Gaddam, Annapolis Excerpt from The Molting Eagle and the Shedding Serpent James Wheeler, Annapolis - with art by Jaime Marquez, Annapolis 14 Vico’s Poetic Morals: Forced into Philosophy? Akayla Lewis, Annapolis Nostalgia in February Kelsey Hennegen, Santa Fe - with art by Neha Gaddam, Annapolis On the Benefit of Virtual Learning for Our Community Leith Daghistani, Annapolis Uncovering the Lost World of the Black Classical Tradition Dr. Anika Prather, Annapolis Visiting Lecturer 37 16 20 21 29 33 42 44 48 �Letter from the Editor Dear Members of the Graduate Institute Community, May 2021 I’ll begin by thanking the whole of our Graduate Institute community at St. John’s: your unique presence enriches our program and the work we set out to do in our seminars, be they at a table or through a screen. I want to especially thank the members of the Colloquy editorial board, our contributors, and other community members who made possible the issue you have before you. I’d like to thank Ms. Langston for her commitment to providing Colloquy with the support we need for success, and Ms. Kraus, my mentor, for her guidance and encouragement throughout the semester. It’s an honor to be your Editor-inChief, but this title doesn’t encompass the totality of people that are essential to this process. Through our collective efforts, we have put forth a diverse and compelling issue of work that we can all be proud of. This semester, I had an eye towards the future of Colloquy. With collaboration from the board, we developed a Colloquy Constitution and other materials that formalize our processes and procedures. I do this in hope that Colloquy can continue to showcase the impressive work of our GI community long after my tenure at St. John’s. We also endeavored to solicit a broad range of submissions from students on both campuses and studying online. Each of us brings a fresh perspective to the program and our voices and ideas should be highlighted. It is my hope that these perspectives will develop as Colloquy grows. Regardless of geographic location or class format, we are united by the work that we do in this program. Let us celebrate that unity here. As we continue our studies from various places and slowly work towards a return to, or reinvention of, normalcy in many aspects of our lives, I hope Colloquy will augment the sense of community that is developed through our time at St. John’s and serve as a reminder of the strength and diversity of our polity. Thank you all for your talent, trust, and time. Sincerely, Olivia Braley Editor-in-Chief 1 �Colloquy Constitution The Editorial Board Preamble The mission of Colloquy is to curate a diverse journal that mirrors the unique work of the Graduate Institute community. The vision of Colloquy is to provide a space for all members of our community to continue the conversation. We will showcase the great breadth of the Graduate Institute’s work: our content will highlight the cultural elements and ideas of the Graduate Institute, such as visual art, creative writing, and personal essays that do not always have a natural place in our classroom, alongside our most attentive and compelling academic work. 1. Editorial Board Article I Staff a. Editorial board membership shall be open to all students and alumni of the Graduate Institute. b. Editorial staff are responsible for electing the editor-in-chief, spreading awareness of the journal’s calls for submissions, reading and reviewing all submissions, providing consultation on final publication pieces, and reviewing final drafts before publication. c. More specific roles, titles, and responsibilities may be granted to editorial staff as necessary in consultation with the editor-in-chief. d. Editorial staff may be removed by the board for misconduct following a motion and subsequent vote of no confidence. 2. Editor-in-Chief a. The editor-in-chief position shall be held by a degree-seeking student currently enrolled in the Graduate Institute. If there are no degreeseeking students on the editorial staff, the editorial board may elect any enrolled student or alumnus of the Graduate Institute to hold the position in trust until a degree-seeking student joins the board. b. The editor-in-chief shall be elected by the editorial board each year. c. Tenure for the position is two semesters and there are no term limits. i. There may not be vacancies of any length for the position of editor-in-chief. ii. The editorial board may allow single-semester terms for editorsin-chief when suitable. 2 �d. The editor-in-chief is responsible for recruitment to the editorial board, submissions management, board meeting management, journal administration, and publication and dissemination of the journal to the Graduate Institute community. e. The editor-in-chief shall ensure that geographically disparate editorial staff have access to board meetings and decision-making processes. f. The editor-in-chief may be recalled and removed by the editorial board for misconduct following a motion and subsequent vote of no confidence. 3. Internships a. Funded internships for students are occasionally offered by St. John’s College to students for positions on Colloquy staff. Coordination of internships is managed by the Office of the Dean of the Graduate Institute. b. The college shall identify a member of the faculty to serve as a mentor for the intern. c. In order to maintain student control over the journal and preserve a competitive internship application process, the board’s election process for the position of editor-in-chief and the college’s internship application process shall be mutually independent. d. Interns may concurrently serve as editor-in-chief if separately elected to that position by the board. For the semesters in which these positions are held by separate individuals, roles and responsibilities may be decided as appropriate between the editor-in-chief, intern, and faculty mentor. 1. Constitution Review Article II Administration a. The constitution shall be reviewed by the editor-in-chief every semester and disseminated to the editorial board at the beginning of each publication cycle. b. The constitution may be edited as necessary by the editor-in-chief in consultation with the editorial board. Consultation with the Office of the Dean of the Graduate Institute is required only for changes relating to Article I Section 3. 3 �2. Submissions and Publication a. Submissions shall be accepted from current students, alumni, and tutors of the Graduate Institute. Other submissions from associates of the college may be solicited and accepted at the discretion of the editor-inchief. b. Calls for submissions and deadlines shall be established and disseminated to the Graduate Institute community by the editor-in-chief for each publication cycle. The editor-in-chief may determine the nature, scope, and type of media called for each semester. c. Published material shall align with the mission of Colloquy. In general, content which was created for a different academic institution, Graduate Institute admissions essays, and submissions which are not reflective of the work of the Graduate Institute may not be considered for publication. d. The editor-in-chief shall consult with the editorial board in deciding the final disposition of all submissions. i. All submissions will be made available for review to all members of the editorial board. ii. Submissions will be made anonymous by the editor-in-chief before presentation to the editorial board for review. iii. Following consultation with the editorial board, the editor-inchief retains final authority in selecting which submissions may be published. iv. The editor-in-chief shall coordinate timely individual responses from the editorial board to all submitters following publication decisions. e. Graduate Institute prize winning essays shall be automatically eligible for publication in their entirety within the journal released immediately following selection of the prize winners. i. Submission of prize winning essays shall be coordinated between the Office of the Dean of the Graduate Institute and the editor-in-chief. ii. The editor-in-chief shall obtain permission to publish these essays from the prize winning authors prior to publication. f. Publications shall be released at least twice a year, one each at the end of the spring and fall semesters. g. Publications shall be made available to the Graduate Institute community in hard-copy and electronic formats. i. The editor-in-chief shall coordinate funding for publication with the Office of the Dean of the Graduate Institute. 4 �ii. iii. The editor-in-chief may select the press for hard-copy publication each semester. Electronic copies of the journal shall be made publicly available on the internet. 3. Documentation of Processes and Turnover a. The editor-in-chief shall be responsible for maintaining and updating the codified processes of the journal such as financial processes, press contacts, dissemination lists, formatting guides, social media, and any other information deemed necessary by the editor-in-chief. b. Codified processes shall be maintained separately from the constitution, and may be updated and disseminated by the editor-in-chief when required. c. The editor-in-chief shall meet with their replacement as necessary to conduct a turnover of the codified procedure materials and ensure a seamless transition of the role and associated responsibilities. 5 �Creative Writing Three Poems Andrew Laurence Graney Stand-up I wake up down because the woman who gives me gooseflesh didn’t call me back, then walk downstairs and am surprised to see my mother’s not at work: Your MRI shows signs of MS in the brain. Oh-kay. Finally. After all the fucking blood-work taunting me with negatives, pure diagnosis comes as a gift. Something physical to rip me out of swirling dark and back into daylight. Finally, a concrete reason for my dizziness, my numbness, and my limp. Something I can name. Scars in my brain. New material for my stand-up: my blood’s got so much work done it deserves a raise. If you know anyone looking for scars, I got multiple. So she didn’t call me back... George Carlin said death is caused by swallowing small amounts of saliva over a long period of time. Meantime, every swallow is a blessing. I’ll stand up until I don’t. Eventually, love must call. 6 �Creative Writing On Having to Take Daily Medication Because it makes me feel robotic, this blue-green capsule, which keeps my nervous system settled, unsettles me. I realize robots wouldn’t take pills, but the thing’s not food or drink, and yet, to function, I have to have it. Twice Daily. I could go longer without water. That can’t be human. But it works. I haven’t had a relapse since the first attack, when I learned what MS means: my nervous system fights itself. Now that’s human. Like it’s confused or mussed up with blues. If I could speak to my addled system I could say, I feel you, man, and it could fight fright with a joke, When they named me Nervous System, what did they expect? Foolish, I know, this exchange, but it helps to imagine my nervous system is just a friend who misses signals, mixes up the ones he does catch, who tries his best to keep me on my toes and says, Dude, MS drugs could win the ‘Most Improved’ award in Medication School, and you complain they turn you robot? Oh, the humanity. What’s really got you wrinkled? This medicine, in keeping me well, reminds me I am not in control, every time I swallow the blue-green pill. 7 �Creative Writing Boarding a Redeye in Phoenix, I Hear a Man Talking on his Phone - after Alexander Long He sounds tired, deflated. Still, he leaks hope, like he’s just discovered a sort of air pump for his spirit: I had such a good time with her today. She said, ‘Papa, are you gonna be able to play hide and seek with me again?’. I told her, ‘Yes, when I get back from my trip’. She said, ‘Papa, you hide and I count’. I said, ‘okay’. So. May he return to his child, may his home always be hers, may they laugh and laugh and laugh before and after problems inevitably rise again like vapor to form clouds over their common ground, may hide and seek be, once and for all, only a game, may she find him wherever. 8 �Academic Essay Excerpt from Argos' Odyssey - Lost Years Winston Elliott Odysseus was once like the young Argos. He was a noble boy who was trained to hunt and expected by his family to be strong and swift. We know this from the story told of Odysseus’ naming by his grandfather Autólykos and the boar hunt, where Odysseus wins the famous scar used to identify him when he returns home (Fitzgerald, Bk. 19, 460-550). This story shows that Odysseus, like the dog he bred and trained, was a hunter from his early days. With hounds questing ahead, in open order, the sons of Autólykos went down a glen, Odysseus in the lead, behind the dogs, pointing his long-shadowing spear (Fitzgerald, Bk. 19, 508-510). Of course, Odysseus was in the lead. This is his “pup” training analogous to the training he gave Argos. But he is also “behind the dogs.” This is the life he and Argos would have enjoyed if his allies had not called Odysseus to Troy. Even as a boy Odysseus is strong and resilient: “Odysseus…had the first shot…but the boar had already charged under the long spear…he hooked aslant with one white tusk and ripped out flesh above the knee…Odysseus’s second thrust went home…and the beast fell” (Fitzgerald, Bk. 19, 520). This character began early his telling of tales, for when he returned home his parents wanted to know how “he got his wound; so he spun out his tale, recalling how the boar’s white tusk caught him when he was hunting on Parnassos” (Fitzgerald, Bk. 19). Odysseus was always full of skill and luck, taking impossible risks and doing remarkable things. This is the Odysseus who was lost to Argos, to Telemachus, and to Ithaka for twenty years. In the absence of computer data bases and DNA testing, the people of Ithaca relied on other incontrovertible means of identification. Eurykleia recognized the scar, before she “saw” her master. Odysseus could not dispute it, but to guarantee success of his mission, he demanded her silence with threats of death (Fitzgerald, Bk. 19, 550). Eurykleia also uses the scar as proof of Odysseus’ identity in her conversation with Penelope, saying, “But there is one sure mark that I can tell you: that scar left by the boar’s tusk long ago” (Fitzgerald, Bk. 23, 80). Odysseus proves 9 �Academic Essay his identity to Eumaeus with “a sign that you can trust me, look: this old scar from the tusk wound that I got boar hunting….” (Fitzgerald, Bk. 21, 240) Finally, Laertes is shown the scar by Odysseus: “Oh, Father, I am he! Twenty years gone, and here I’ve come again to my own land!”.... “If you are Odysseus, my son, come back, give me some roof, a sign to make me sure.” His son replied: “The scar then, first of all” (Fitzgerald, Bk. 24, 350) Here the tears may flow, finally, after all the disguises and lies are put aside. These tears need not be hidden, as they had been for Argos. Odysseus’ adventure with the boar hunt as a boy shows us the true identity of Odysseus-- born to be Odysseus the adventurer, the master strategist, taker of risks, and man of courage beyond all measure. He was brave, skillful, and perhaps reckless enough to need luck, or the help of Athena. This scar will prove to be the only certain way to identify Odysseus, even for those who know him best. How remarkable, then is the single glance of “knowing” that is all Argos will need to recognize his master, despite all the years that separated them. But Argos ran out of luck when Odysseus left for Troy, and Athena apparently did not come to him on her visits to the household. And yet, twenty years is a long time for dogs to live. Athena’s blessings had been showering down on Penelope and Telemachus, and perhaps a few sprinkles reached Argos to extend his life until Odysseus returned. Argos’ story is linked to the story of Odysseus, for Argos owes his very existence to Odysseus. After all, Odysseus bred Argos. Odysseus wanted Argos to join him on the great hunts to come so he bred a dog that would be strong and swift. Argos would never lose the scent of the prey because he was a fine dog who had been trained by a skillful and wise master. Surely Argos was meant to be at Odysseus’ side. For Ithaka, Penelope, Telemachus, and Laertes, Odysseus did finally return. We are left with hope that Ithaka will be reunited and once again have its King. A loyal wife will once again be with her beloved husband. Our young prince is now guided by Athena and his father. A father is reunited with his long-lost son and may now rest in true peace. But Argos has no future with Odysseus, only a “last look, and having seen him, dies; So closed for ever faithful Argus’ eyes!” (Pope) I wish that Odysseus had let his guard down long enough for this to happen: 10 �Academic Essay My master takes my head in his hands and looks deep into my eyes. “Can it be that you still live? Truly the gods are good…. Now you may let go of your duty to me and hunt the wild stag and the fearsome boar on Mount Olympus. They wait for you on the other side, most loyal of all creatures.” This passage is not from any of the translations of Homer’s Odyssey I consulted. It is from a novel I recently discovered (Argos, Ralph Hardy, Harper Collins, 2016). This is the ending moment Argos deserved. Why wouldn’t Homer write this ending? I think for the same reason Odysseus doesn’t throw his arms around Telemachus, Penelope, Laertes, or Eurykleia. It does not fit Odysseus’ plan to be recognized before he is ready. Is this selfish or merely hardheaded realism? With Odysseus it is a mixture of both. In a way, Argos is like Simeon, who had waited many years for a glimpse of the baby who would be the savior of the world, which he had been promised. When the promise is fulfilled, he can die in peace. When the child was brought to the temple for a blessing, overjoyed, Simeon uttered these words, which were his last: Lord now lettest thy servant Depart in peace, according to thy word For my eyes have seen your salvation That you have prepared in the presence of all peoples. (Luke 29:31) This man waited for years, longing for the arrival of the promised one who would put right in the world all the things that are crooked. Finally, justice and goodness would arrive and reign with equity. Is it too much to say that in a secular sense, Odysseus was to be the “salvation” for his beleaguered wife, his endangered son, and lawless Ithaka? In this beautiful moment, in the last breath of Argos, he finally sees the promised one, who will put right all that is not so in Ithaka. And having finally seen him, Argos dies. Odysseus, although a mortal, had godlike characteristics that were given to him when Athena cloaked him in golden splendor, making him taller and younger, 11 �Academic Essay with hair like hyacinth blossoms. In crucial moments in battles, Athena deflected spears that would have killed Odysseus. At critical junctures she appeared in the guise of Mentor, to guide him with divine wisdom. Although Odysseus was a mortal, he had encounters with the divine often enough to reliably seek and find divine solutions. And Odysseus definitely had people who “believed in” him, in the sense of relying on him and trusting his capabilities. Penelope was one, robust enough in her faith to hold on for twenty years without a single letter or message, without news from people who had seen him or his men. Nothing. That is extraordinary faith. And Telemachus, although he remembered nothing of his father, and wasn’t even sure of his parentage, wanted to believe. When he finally talked with the war heroes who knew his father and recognized Odysseus’ characteristics in him, Telemachus became a true believer. And of course, there was Argos, who needed no proof whatsoever to “know” Odysseus, who believed that his master would finally come home. Homer’s Odyssey is a marvelous story offering exciting tales of goddesses, giants, six headed monsters, grand victories, and deadly defeats. In the midst of the epic adventures of the wily Odysseus, Homer artfully paints the doubt, despair, and disorder, which plagues a leaderless land. Those who are left behind for two decades pay a heavy price. Argos’ story is a delicately painted miniature offering the reader of the Odyssey a vibrant portrait of life in Ithaca without a master, a king, a father, a son, and a husband. Athena always aided Odysseus when he needed her most. Penelope never failed her husband. Telemachus, empowered and encouraged by Athena, grew to be a prince. Eumaeus remained steadfast. Argos? He was touched by greatness in his youth as he was bred and trained by the transformative spirt of his master. When Odysseus was gone, Argos was forgotten, abandoned, and cast away in disordered Ithaca. But Odysseus never left his heart. In the end, Argos was reunited with Odysseus and a salt tear from his beloved master quenched his parched spirit, as Argos sailed off on his final journey. May we, like Argos, always keep Odysseus in our hearts. 12 �Academic Essay "Here, Cyclops...now drink some wine" Odyssey, (Emily Wilson) Book 4. 345 Mosaic floor, Villa Romana Del Casale, Sicily photographed by Elizabeth Janthey 13 �Personal Essay Dialogue and Understanding in the Seminar Oral Courtney White When I think of good opening questions, “What's the point of it all?” is not one of them. That might be considered a question worthy of existential philosophy, but I chose it as my opening question for my literature seminar oral with Mr. Townsend. This type of question is generally thought of as too broad. In my previous orals, I brought an opening question that was specific, and prepared by looking over the texts, assuming that the conversation would be directed in specific ways. Despite all the preparations, the tutors seemed to take the conversations into unknown territory where I felt like I was hit by a torpedo fish. What led me to ask this question? I never quite understood the draw of literature, so I chose to take the math and science segment first, followed by the history segment. The scientific proofs invigorated me and the specificity of geometry gave an illusion of clarity in a chaotic world; this kind of analysis carried over well to the history segment. Emboldened by my newfound knowledge of ancient philosophy and Greek history, I felt ready to take on the literature segment, which was always a weak area for me. I read Homer through the lens of Vico, and Shakespeare through the lens of Plutarch. I attempted to analyse the texts with the same specificity of math and science, but literature resists such scrutiny. After some time, however, I was able to shed my need for finding historical accuracy, through being drawn to the emotional portrayals of the human experience. Still, despite being sympathetic to some of the various characters, I was repulsed by the horrible actions of pretty much every one of them. What values are these texts teaching us when we read that Achilles drags Hector's dead and bloodied body around? What are we supposed to believe when we read that Dionysus puts a spell on women who not only dance and drink but tear animals to pieces with their bare hands? I kept asking myself as I read, how do we know what a virtue worth pursuing is? Who sets the standard? Is it the gods or is it man? Who is a virtuous man? Can we justify revenge or murder for the sake of honor? Can we justify lying for the sake of storytelling? As a Christian, I take to heart when St. Paul says to dwell on whatever is good, noble, and pure. The content of the literature we read made me question if there was anything in it that was good, noble or pure. As my oral approached, I still had not gotten the 14 �Personal Essay illumination I was seeking. I was also starting to despise the texts we were reading. There really wasn’t a more honest or more pointed question for the oral than “what’s the point of it all?” With two semesters under my belt, I knew that the tutors were there to help me discover and grow. At this point I was grateful that St. John's puts so little emphasis on grades, emboldening me to take a chance. My question wasn’t rhetorical, rather it was a plea to truly get what I was seeking. Mr. Townsend had the patience and subtlety to draw out my thoughts and feelings and to expand my question. He asked me questions as if I were the author of a great book. Like Socrates, he helped me to discover and to see things in a new perspective. He was humble, patient, and deeply attentive. He was not afraid to get to the heart of the issues most people are afraid to broach. Mr. Townsend asked me if I was looking for a judge to determine what is right, like Athena in Eumenides. That didn’t seem to resonate with my deeper concern. When he pointed to Hippolytus as an archetype of a sacrificial figure, I began to see how I could find value in these texts. It seemed that my main issue with the Greek texts was that there was no guiding light of truth. A source of truth was what I was looking for, an anchor. Mr. Townsend assured me that, even in a secular college, it's acceptable to come in with my own religious convictions as a compass for interpretation. One way to look at it, he told me, was to believe that God providentially created all people in such a way that certain truths can be illuminated through their actions. So, is there anything good, noble or true in these texts? As I thought about it, examples flooded my mind: The desire to sacrifice oneself for a higher cause, in Hippolytus, the desire to forgive in the Iliad, an acknowledgement that revenge perpetuates violence in the plays of Aeschylus, the desire to conquer death in Antony and Cleopatra. Although my opening question wasn’t directly answered, the desire of my heart was. I wanted to find value in literature, and reconcile my emotional draw to the characters with my desire for a clear understanding of virtue. I am now in the Philosophy and Theology segment where I can explore the concept of virtue in more depth. My next opening question: “Can we even call something good or bad without evoking an externally derived moral standard?” 15 �Personal Essay “Therefore etc”: Bang or Whimper? Jeremy Sheeler I must confess, Euclid just does not speak to my soul. Despite understanding intellectually why he is so important (both foundationally for mathematics, and because so many thinkers whom I respect hold him in such high regard), I cannot help but find him boring. Somehow I doubt the beauty of an elegant construction will ever move me, nor, as in the case of an affected acquaintance of one of my classmates, will I ever shed tears of joy over him. I am certainly awed by Euclid’s god-like powers to create a world ex nihilo from the abyss of breadthless depthlessness. Yet, this realm lacking space or time, for me, also lacks life. Though apparently a later substitution by our esteemed translator Heath for the full re-enunciation intended by Euclid, I cannot think of a better way to sum up the feeling I get after working through a proposition than the underwhelmed, “Therefore etc.” Still, I cannot help but wonder to what sort of soul such a project does speak? As with Aristotle, there is a dry austerity to Euclid’s procedure: proposition following upon proposition, piece by piece, step by step, till this rigorously rational world is created. What I cannot decide, though, is if dry necessarily means arid? Heraclitus once proclaimed that “To souls, it is joy to become wet;” however, in his typical self-countervailing fashion, he also admonished, “It is the dry soul which is wisest and best.” While there is much joy to be found in the excesses of the Dionysian flood, the more delicate growths of reason and prudence tend to be drowned in the torrent. Yet so too, it would seem, is the aridity of the desert an equally inhospitable climate for life. The Dictionary of Scientific Biography opens its lengthy article on “The Geometer” by admitting, “Although Euclid is the most celebrated mathematician of all time, whose name became a synonym for geometry until the twentieth century, only two facts of his life are known, and even those are not beyond dispute.” It is postulated, however, that in addition to compiling the Elements, he also wrote treatises on spheres and cylinders, geometric optics, analytical problem solving, and, most-contested of all, a mathematization of music. Yet, despite our lack of any definitive knowledge of his life, perhaps, we could draw out some aspects of his soul merely from his work. As Nietzsche purports in his Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, “Philosophic systems, even if completely erroneous, 16 �Personal Essay have always one wholly incontrovertible point: personal mood, color.” Though being far from qualified to judge the efficacy of Euclid’s enterprise itself, I feel at least slightly more comfortable formulating some hypotheses about the possible character traits one could deduce from such a painstaking attempt at systematization. What drives someone to desire this degree of order and exactitude? Is it really just for knowledge’s sake—a disinterestedness desire for the Truth, with uncompromising reason merely seen as the straightest path? It is certainly a noble image, and the prevailing one we continue to hold of the “Man of Science” today. But if one peers beyond this façade, there is no man who appears behind this scientist—only method. Euclid, the man, disappears in his work, no more material than the world that he has so carefully constructed. Still, there must be something there, something to this need that Euclid felt. For though a perfect circle can never actually exist, nor will a straight line ever sit at a perfect right angle upon a plane, there must be some sort of connection to the “real” world. But what if my inability to appreciate him is not simply a matter of personal preference, but instead a personal failure? If the effusiveness of so many of my colleagues is any indication, not only is the solemn reverence that I have so far managed to muster warranted, but a genuine excitement is possible. Their enthusiasm, however, seems to stem from two entirely different (and conflicting) sources: either his procedure accords with their nature; or it arises from a selfaware recognition of lack—either they already love order; or they are perceptive enough to know that they need it. What if Euclid, the man, did not feel the need to live in his work because the dryness of his intellectual pursuits was actually a counterbalance to the joyous overflow of his actual life? While unfortunately the details of his biography have been lost to the sands of time, there is another figure that perhaps can be justifiably put in his place to judge the soundness of the project. The renowned historian of mathematics Thomas L. Heath was born in 1861, in the small English village of Barnet-byle-wold. His love of the ancient world began early in life at the knee of his father, a farmer with a penchant for the Greeks, and would eventually lead him to a degree in both mathematics and classics from Trinity College Cambridge. After graduation, Heath became a civil servant in the national treasury, but his desire to continue living the “life of the mind” never faded. When not engrossed in official duties, he engaged in 17 �Personal Essay independent scholarship, and, despite never holding any academic position, is now revered as one of the leading authorities in the history of mathematics. Yet, in addition to these staid and scholarly pursuits, he was also an accomplished pianist, literature and train enthusiast, mountaineer, as well as a loving husband and father. Indefatigable to the very end, he climbed his last mountain at the age of seventy and left behind an unfinished work on Aristotle’s mathematics when he died suddenly of a stroke in 1940. Now this is hardly the image of a man living apart from life, rather of one engaged in all its fullness and multifarious offerings. He seems to be the very type of individual whom St. John’s wishes to midwife into the world: one who not just knows arête, but practices it; one not just locked away in a sterile laboratory, creating impossible worlds, but using the knowledge gained there for this one. Euclid’s imaginary world is then perhaps not in parallelity to life, but in harmony with it. But as Heath so acutely recognized: it is a means, not an end. In his essay The Abolition of Man, a reflection on the disintegration of the human soul under modern philosophy theories, C.S. Lewis contends that there are certain “qualities” in the world that “demand” certain responses from us— that is, whether we like it or not. To illustrate this, he admits that, although he does not particularly enjoy the company of small children, he sees this as a defect in himself, instead of a mere personal preference. The goal of his essay is to show that there are standards—goods—in this world that, by necessity, transcend an individual’s subjectivity—which if we lack, then there is something fundamental missing in our lives. He calls this sort of judgment, “Speaking from within the Tao.” Perhaps my failure to appreciate Euclid is of just this sort of deficiency. Perhaps, it is a refusal to become whole, an attempt to instead hide away as a selfcontented half-man. Yet so too would this be the case for the those who love Euclid simply because he comports with their inner nature—but for the opposite reason. The tallest growths, it would seem, flourish only in flush environments. But lucky for us humans this does not depend solely upon the lottery of birth or accident of location: it is a choice we are all given to create for ourselves. So, then, to attempt to answer my titular question: Is “Therefore etc,” as an end to Euclid’s propositions, a bang or a whimper? Maybe it is neither. Heath was just too busy living his life to tell you what you already know. 18 �Personal Essay The Eternal Kingdom of the Triangle by Jaime Marquez 19 �Creative Writing Why I Am Here Bonnie Naradzay Ibykos fragment 286, translated using only words from Martin Luther King’s Letter from the Birmingham City Jail (After Anne Carson in Nay, Rather) In Birmingham, on the one hand, early Christians, being willing to face hungry lions where a higher law was involved, while white mothers screaming on television were seen. On the other hand, for me an unjust law distorts the soul. Nay rather, like a code inflicted on a minority, creating with unjust methods parading without a permit, on its face, nothing wrong man’s tragic separation. 20 �College Ephemera A Conversation with Louis Petrich, Tutor Charles Green & Jaime Marquez, Colloquy Colloquy: How did you arrive at St. John's? Louis Petrich: That’s a long story. How far back should I go? I think the intellectual seeds for becoming a tutor were sown in college, by diverse studies at Northwestern University. I started out in “the integrated science program,” an intense curriculum for kids very strong in math and science, who did not want to major in any one science, but preferred to study all to become interdisciplinary researchers. I did that for two years. Almost all my classes were physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics. But I took an elective my sophomore year, a survey of Western literary classics, most of which we read at the College. I fell in love with the great epics, dramas, poetry, and novels, and felt deprived that I wasn't getting more, to learn how to express that very love. The sciences do not teach you how to talk with the beloveds. So I switched majors to English, though first I took off a quarter to read on my own. (Northwestern is on the quarter system.) I mostly read the Romantic writers of the American tradition--Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman. Students who have done zoom classes with me will recognize the portrait of Thoreau that hangs in my office. His book, Walden, had a tremendous influence on me. I went to Concord, Massachusetts, for a summer to study Thoreau and Emerson, who both lived there. I stayed in a replica of his hut. I got to know some estimable “Thoreauvians,” and wrote a one-man show on the life of Thoreau that I performed locally when I returned to Northwestern. I still maintained my studies of math and the sciences, by making them my electives. So I graduated college with (what felt like) a dissonant double background of poetry and science. I went immediately to the University of Chicago to harmonize that doubleness in the Committee on Social Thought, which allowed graduates to pursue their own questions with anyone who shared them. Owing to the influence of one of my mentors, David Grene, an Irish classicist and farmer, I became more and more interested in Shakespeare and the theater. I got involved in a local professional company at the University of Chicago, and I started writing a dissertation on Shakespeare and performance. This was all in the 1980’s. Then in the fall of 1989, the world changed as the communist countries in Eastern and Central Europe collapsed in a heap. The Soviet Union would as well, two years later. I learned through a friend that the Fulbright Scholar program, under the agency of the 21 �College Ephemera State Department, was having a hard time filling its slots for Romania, which had a bloody revolution in December ‘89. Conditions were very bad and few people wanted to risk the rampages of Romanian miners, who were making front-page news. I dropped right into those alien waters, like jumping off a cliff at high tide. By that time, I was tired of being in graduate school, preparing for a career in some American English department, most of which had enthralled themselves to political and sociological agendas that did not suit my tastes, which as I said were acquired in the knowledge-driven laboratories of science and the beauty-driven stagings of Shakespearean verse. So I up and left for Romania as a Fulbright Scholar to teach American studies--not my field, but that’s what the freed Romanians wanted. My only qualification--being American--was enough. I really loved it. The Romanians were very pro-American and eager to read our books, previously prohibited. If they were taught anything about us, it was through a Marxist-Leninist indoctrination. Though no one believed in that, they felt compelled to go along, until enough of them realized they needn’t, and there I was. I ended up teaching for ten years in several former communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe and the Soviet Union--until 9/11. Then the world changed again, and the borders, newly opened across the once half-forbidden globe, were closing because of terrorism and overstated fears. The resources that supported my work in education were redirected to fighting terrorism and keeping us all safe. By that time I was married and had a son. We were living in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, north of Afghanistan, a Moslem country. It was deemed a precarious situation, though really there was nothing that warranted the closures and evacuations. I had tucked away in the back of my mind an idea I never thought would come to pass: to teach in the U.S. at the only College that fully suited my waywardness, St. John’s. I knew about it because there's a lot of crossover between St. John's and the University of Chicago. So I applied for a tutor position. The Dean flew me half-way around the globe for an interview in January of 2002, and by April the Instruction Committee had decided in my favor. So if not for Osama Bin Laden and 9/11, I would probably have remained a happy expatriate, teaching American studies to our former official enemies, who now number among my best and oldest friends. I do miss that life--the adventures and freedoms, not to be had now--but of course I’m grateful to tutor in Annapolis, for as long as the students want it. CQ: Do you do you notice any differences between teaching undergraduates and teaching at the Graduate Institute? 22 �College Ephemera LP: I get asked that a lot. I'm not sure why people are so interested in that question. There are differences, obviously. GI students are older. They tend to be more settled in their lives than the College kids. They're not living together in campus dorms like the undergrads. So they are not as dependent on the community for their well-being, and consequently they have adjusted better to the online medium than my younger students. One thing I do miss in the GI is the chronological program of the College. With any group of undergraduates, I know what they have read before. In the GI, students take the segments in any order. I'm often tempted to make a reference to another book in the program, but I can't do that in the GI as I can among the undergraduates, who share an enlarging common ground for discussion. But the GI students have chosen to come back to school, after an interim of some years spent in a world delinquent in the things we do; thus they’re all the more appreciative of the books and conversations and friendships to be made here, like nowhere else, they tell me. I have personal reasons (that aren't so interesting) for teaching in the GI, but I’ll mention them. I like getting a new group of students each semester. I like that there are smaller classes in the GI than in the College. And I've gotten to like being the solo tutor in seminar. I've learned a lot by having to carry responsibility for the seminar’s questions and conduct. I like teaching a preceptorial alongside the seminar, for there’s always a book I want to work on for sixteen weeks. So there are many things to please me in the GI. I’ve also done much teaching in the College’s continuing education program. A Friday night lecture I gave on Chekhov had its origin in a weekend community seminar, with people off the street interested in his stories, still students. CQ: I'm wondering if you could talk about your Friday night lecture on Falstaff which you gave in the spring of 2019. LP: That lecture was a joy. We were trying with difficulty to schedule it in April, a very busy month, with croquet, Senior Prank, and other activities that cluster at the end of the year. But it suddenly occurred to me that this would be a great prank lecture, because of Falstaff, who (among other roles) is a prankster. So I said to the Dean, “All right, let's schedule it right after Thursday’s senior prank, as long as certain conditions are met.” These included advertising the lecture so that people would not know what to expect: something prankish, but nonetheless serious? The occasion made me push quite far in vindicating Falstaff’s comic excesses, rooted in the body and a deep longing for dimly remembered paradise. 23 �College Ephemera In fact I rewrote the lecture with an audience of senior pranksters in mind, who’d be turning of the College into a kind of Boar’s Head tavern of Eastcheap. You see it was first drafted a couple of years before, while I was on sabbatical, on the shores of an island in the Caribbean, my little piece of paradise. Falstaff lays claim to paradise, in that he doesn't consent to death; he doesn't sweat at labors; he gardens pleasures and reaps what others sow, without guilt, without trepidation. I had a lot of fun releasing him as the center of meaning in Henry IV, Part 1. He’s the one attractive alternative to the ugly politics of Hal's father, and the excessive honor-loving of Hotspur, who, though beautiful, is too vulnerable to destruction by the politicians. I tried to offer Falstaff as a third way, whenever life presents itself in the form of two deadly necessary alternatives. CQ: What distinguishes Shakespeare's plays from those of his contemporaries, like Marlowe or Ben Johnson, such that he’s still read and performed today? LP: Well, if you read a late play of Shakespeare, say Henry VIII, on which he probably collaborated with John Fletcher, you can immediately hear the difference between Shakespeare's dramatic verse and his popular colleague’s. Marlowe is credited with introducing blank verse to the English stage. But his verse, great as it is, doesn't convince you the way Shakespeare’s does. Marlowe is more cumbersome and literary. Read the plays aloud and see for yourself. By the way, an interesting thing to note about Shakespeare is that even though he knew, along with everyone else, that he was the greatest writer of his time, and would remain a treasure forever, he didn't succor the kind of pride that forbade collaboration with others. He was willing to share the creative work, not only with his own company of actors, but also with lesser playwrights. I think that was part of his strength--not caring much about possessing and controlling his creations, his Ariel and Caliban loves. Think about that the next time you read or see The Tempest. Also wonderful, along these lines, is that Shakespeare never put effort into publishing his plays. He left them to chance, or to other people. I think they were, to him, a kind of ephemera, written one after another (about two per year) to entertain the high and low of London. And all the while he was reviving and directing old and new plays by others and co-managing the company. He wasn’t writing dramatic “literature,” and yet he struck such deep chords that the plays seem miraculous, such that many seek to assign them to an illustrious author. In 24 �College Ephemera the end, Prospero, the stage master, would have tossed the whole corpus into the sea. That’s worth thinking about, too. CQ: Do the techniques of acting and drama translate at all to leading a seminar or tutorial? LP: I think in some ways, yes, definitely. Actors must learn to be believable onstage, by delivering their lines freshly minted, even if they’re as old and handled as pewter. I’ll never forget an actor’s workshop I attended in London one summer, in which we were asked, one at a time, to stand up and recite Shakespeare’s sonnet 18: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” We all took our turns, but not one of us got beyond the twentieth word or so before the Anglo-Irish instructor, from England’s top school of drama, precisely interrupted, “Stop, I don’t believe you just now. You can sit down, please. Next.” We had to believe ourselves that the words of that sonnet had never been writ or said before we pronounced them--that they were our original creations of the moment. In seminar or tutorial, tutors return to the same books over and over again, making believe, because it’s true, that they never grow old or stale. It should always be an original moment of creation in discussing them. Otherwise, it’s time to stop. Participants in seminar, like actors, must listen genuinely, not robotically, not waiting for the cue to say something expected of them. We need to appreciate being part of an ensemble, and not just a bunch of solo performers. Good timing is essential, along with a balanced facility for comedy and tragedy, something Socrates advocates, for aren’t we all fools, we brave-hardy fallen equals of the lettered great? In both capacities, a modulating voice that brings out the shifting meanings of speech is such a help. The books we read come from breathers like us. Often people forget that. So they don't modulate. Everything is spoken and heard in a deadly monotone. So having some background in theatre helps readers become co-creators, as I think they should be, now more than ever, to thwart the machines. CQ: Do you think live theater will survive this period of extended closures and quarantine? LP: Definitely. There've been plagues in the past and theater has survived their closures. You know not long after Shakespeare's death, the theaters were closed by the Puritans for twenty years! The real threat to theater is not disease, but righteous politics and purifications. Besides, what's the point of saving lives if you get rid of the things that make life worth living? If we’re going to keep safe, 25 �College Ephemera at least let’s do it Falstaff’s way, rising up to full cheeky liveliness, having counterfeited death for a while. You know, I recently streamed a very successful National Theatre production of Twelfth Night, my favorite Shakespearean comedy. But it's not nearly the same thing as being there, live. These streamed productions are missing the risk of spontaneity and contact with human bodies onstage, spitting heart and mind into the rapt audience. If streaming plays is the future, then we won’t keep funding theater, we’ll just have film. CQ: Would it be fair to say, by way of analogy, that streaming a play is akin to seeing video images of beautiful places, rather than visiting the actual sites? LP: That's the effect. I find it demoralizing, really, that all these travel companies, who have found me out, deluge me with cheerful offers of a “virtual travel experience.” Why should I enable the doctrine of the enemy? CQ: You’ve contributed many poems to Colloquy over the last several years. Could you talk a little about some of your poetic influences and favorite poets? LP: My main influence is blank verse, iambic pentameter, owing to all my drinking in of Shakespeare. I’d have to make the effort to avoid it, but why? I like rhyming, but not at the expense of sense, so I’ll often admit rhymes anywhere in the line, so long as the words say precisely what is wanted. I am fussy about rhythm. I count syllables and stresses, and fight against lazy irregularities. But laziness often gets the better of me. CQ: Can you talk more about the process you go through in writing some of the poems you’ve contributed to Colloquy? LP: My process is continual revision. In the morning hours, words that somehow were found in sleep, sound out and self-select. I’m learning to get out of their way. From whence they come, who knows? Formerly, the sources were called “muses,” a useful term still for the faces and voices that get inside you. I regret the fact that meeting deadlines requires premature parturition, which vanity assists, and later regrets. There’s much sense in Emily Dickinson’s process: keep working at your poems until you’re dead; let others see to their publication; and thereby keep the muses from feeling betrayed by missteps in public rehearsal. 26 �College Ephemera Another creative “process” I learned from performing in Othello. I’m sure that Shakespeare felt Iago as deeply as he felt Othello. He does not censure his capacity for the darkness that owns the light, and that’s a giant part of his strength. Theatrically and poetically, Iago is a power to be husbanded, as questions are. They make for a pleasing whole that contributes to knowledge. For hate knows its objects as deeply as love does, and questions them with like authority. Something else relevant to writing poetry I learned from King Lear: to speak from stirred lips that aren’t specific to the owner. Personal experiences are straw, to be spun into the silk that is simplicity itself. Lear gets there by the end. Shakespeare’s dark lady sonnets spring from personal experience of betrayal in a love triangle, but it would be vulgar-minded to read them primarily as autobiography. His Richard II supposedly drew from Queen Elizabeth the response that Richard (being deposed) was her; a dangerous identification to make, but Shakespeare must have trusted that she would not mistake a poetic character for her own history. It’s discomforting to treat life as scraps for composition, but each of us does this at night in dreams. Out of vanity we see ourselves there, though it is merely an elbow that is wanted by the poet, the dreamer, the lover. I might start a poem with some woman’s elbow, a catchy saying, a breakfast taste, a spasm of jealousy, but soon these things go roaming for words that live out there, where Cordelia’s lips have gone, and then I’m free of my dead-end self, to borrow breath from what’s forever stirring in the air. We’ve all had that experience, right?—when you read something and say, “That’s me, and I could’ve written it, if only I knew how to write!” We’re all out there, when smitten, like Orlando posting love poems on embarrassed trees. The poems I post may be like the abrupt body of Richard III, sent before his time into this breathing world, scarce half made up. But let the dogs bark, that hunchback knew how to get the girl and the crown, though he didn’t keep them long. CQ: If you could add any books or authors to the Program, which would you add? LP: James Joyce. I think his story, “The Dead,” is the greatest short story I've read. And Ulysses, my God, yes, yes, because there is probably no other College in America, or the world, that better prepares its students for the amazing feast that Joyce serves up in that book. I'd like to read more American authors: Frederick Douglass, his autobiography, I'd want to include with Ben Franklin's. Each of them solves the problem of life, as it faced him, and each still speaks to the question of identity that so occupies us today. Augustine’s shouldn’t be the only autobiography we read. We don't read any dramatists after the 17 th-century. I would at least add Chekov. His Cherry Orchard is about keeping a good thing 27 �College Ephemera going in a world opposed to that thing. It would make an apropos final reading for seniors and their tutors. CQ: Are there any books on the program currently that you feel are no longer helpful, that don't serve their purpose anymore? Or that don't excite you when you enter into them? LP: That's very rare. Carl Jung’s book on Freud, which we read in the GI, is an interpretation, and I’d rather read Freud himself and form my own interpretations. There’s been a fair amount of experimentation on how to end the senior year. What’s a fitting end to this chronological program of ours? We finish by going back to the Phaedrus, implying that the end is the beginning. I like that idea, but not by itself. I got to see, while living abroad for many years, something you hear said: that civilization, which takes a long time to erect, can be lost damn quickly. The way to keep it going is to return to the beginning, but with a conviction of how precarious it is. That’s why I would end with Chekhov, for he knew the fragility of that cherry orchard, which we hear being chopped down at the end of the play, to make money. Its caretakers did not take proper care. I think that’s where we always are in danger. CQ: What's your experience been leading online classes? LP: Going into it, a year ago, I felt the dread of exile to Siberia (which I’ve been to, in winter). It feels to me antithetical to community, humanity, and love. What we value at the college is learning from each other face to face--in person--getting energized from each other's actual company. Plato's word for that, as we all learn to appreciate, is eros. When you're disembodied online, you lose that erotic energy. This makes learning exhausting, and not much fun, either. Who looks good online? Whose words are not impeded by the removal of common breath? Who has not felt the urgent need to chuck the screens into the nearest river? But I have to admit, nonetheless, that my online GI classes have gone much better than I expected. Their success makes me want to say, like Polus, “I have to agree with the argument, but still, I’m not going to live that way.” Lab classes in the College suffer because there are no practica to perform with one’s own knowing hands. So lab ceases to be lab, and science becomes more authoritarian. Math tutorial also suffers, because we do need a real blackboard to give room to the beholding of truths and the gestural expanding of thoughts--spontaneously. That’s a synonym for life, you know. 28 �Personal Essay The Pandemic and the Iliad Will Harvard We all can look back on the past year and reflect on how we coped with the dramatic change and shift that Covid-19 brought to our individual and collected lives. Zoom became the world in which people went to work; school; even happy hours and family gatherings. It would be the place I would spend my final summer before graduating from St. John’s Graduate Institute. Four summers, this was not how I wanted to end my tenure. And yet, I could not help but think of the undergraduates who spent even more time than I did at St. John’s and their loss of a senior spring on the beautiful Annapolis grounds. People lost jobs, and relationships became strained for many communities living together. Screens and the information contained on them, be it print, or video, became a lifeline for a majority of people around the world. And although I count myself as one of those people, I also craved silence and reflection. Too much screen time left me fatigued and feeling even more distanced from people. By the end of the summer I had taught the final two months of the school year on zoom as well as attended my final St. John’s classes on it as well. I was averaging anywhere from two to six hours on it: I needed a break, and this break came in the form of rereading an edition of the Iliad I had had since college. My initial hope was to reread the epic poem in the original Greek with all the time I had to spare since most things in my community were still closed. However, no matter how far I read, I could not help returning again and again to book one and the opening of the work itself. What started out as a way to take my mind off the pandemic, quickly turned into a meditation on the world’s situation as well as the canon at St. John’s. For anyone that has read the poem, the opening line is one of the most famous in all of literature, “sing, oh goddess, the destructive wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus.” And while “wrath” deserves our attention at the outset, since it is what fuels Achilles to return to battle after the death of Patroclus and has him slay Hector, it was another word a few lines down that drew me in as if reading the poem for the first time: “χολωθεὶς- having been angered (ln.9).” This aorist participle describes Apollo and his anger at Agamemnon for keeping the daughter of Chryses, who is a priest to Apollo, as a war prize. As a result, Apollo sends a plague in the form of his arrows to punish 29 �Personal Essay the Greeks on behalf of his priest’s pain at not having his daughter returned by Agamemnon in exchange for spoils and wealth. Homer describes the result of this plague as “crowded pyres of the dead always burning (ln. 52).” Perhaps it is simply the time we are living in with restrictions, a national death toll, and trackers for those infected, but I simply could not move past this episode in the poem. It felt as though I was watching this very scene play out nationally before all our eyes. Here in this instance is Achilles, not the warrior and vengeful killer, but Achilles, the diplomat, who calls the Greeks to council at the behest of Hera, to whom the Greeks were so dear. Instead of wielding his sword, Achilles reasons it is time to return home, or at least consult a seer to understand why Apollo is so angry with them. Enter Kalchas, the greatest of diviners, who led the Greeks to Troy, and is described as being able to know “the things that are, the things to come, and the things that were.” But this matters not as he makes Achilles swear to protect him, because he knows that he is going to upset Agamemnon. He prudently addresses Achilles with the following: For a king is greater when he is angry with a lesser man, and even though on the same day he keeps his anger from rising, he still holds back his grudge, deep in his chest, until it is fulfilled. (l.80-83) And Kalchas is right. Agamemnon is furious with him as he replies, Seer of evil, never have you spoken a favorable word to me. Always evil things are dear to your heart to prophesize. You have never spoken a worthy prophecy, nor has it ever been fulfilled. (l.106-108) Despite Kalchas’ prodigious skills, and having his gift of prophecy from Apollo himself, Agamemnon uses the personal pronoun, “μοι-to me (ln. 106).” It is no matter to Agamemnon how truthful Kalchas is being or even how skilled he is, because Kalchas’ words are in direct opposition to Agamemnon’s personal wants and desires. And we know this because Agamemnon tells the council he prefers Chryseis to his own wife, Clytemnestra, in looks and work. From here Achilles fulfills his promise to Kalchas and stands up to Agamemnon. As both men trade 30 �Personal Essay insulting speeches, it is Agamemnon who gets the final say when he gives back Chryseis only to strip Achilles of his prize, Briseis. These actions have irrevocable consequences as this is the reason Achilles abstains from the war and sets in motion the future deaths of not only countless Greeks, but also that of Patroclus. Achilles even puts it to Agamemnon that “my hands have managed the greater part of this tiresome fighting (lns.165-166).” While it is tempting to draw parallels with the language and reactions between our country’s leadership with that of Agamemnon and Kalchas, as well as seeing Achilles as a frontline worker in terms of how much fighting he bore, there is a larger and more important question to ask: what does this episode mean for the great books cannon at St. John’s? Indeed, every generation will have its Agamemnon in one way or another. And time and again each passing generation of St. John’s students will experience a Kalchas or diviner who sees the truth with an Achilles willing to defend it. But what does it mean for us readers, those that have read before us, and for those future generations that will read after us, that the St. John’s curriculum chronologically begins with an episode of a pandemic, anger, and the dichotomy between personal and civic responsibility on the behalf of a king and a goddess born warrior? One may ask, especially of the Graduate Institute, “but how does this episode stand at the forefront of St. John’s?” While it is less evident at the Graduate Institute due to the opportunity to study segments out of order, the undergraduates embark on the Iliad and the Odyssey their freshman year. Perhaps sections of the Old Testament could be considered older than Homer, but regardless, St. John’s undergraduates begin their academic careers with a storyline that predates all the other Greek writers on the reading list for that year. Achilles’ wrath is so famous that even if one has not read Homer, she is certain to know it. And yet, before the invocation of the goddess to sing of Achilles’ wrath, she must first explain the anger of a god, a king, a warrior, and the balance of self-interest they have for themselves as well as others. Just like my time on the Annapolis campus, I am filled with questions more than with answers. During this past year I have experienced anger, frustration, and even compassion. While I count myself fortunate not to have lost anyone in my family to Covid, I have watched as coworkers and family friends attended virtual 31 �Personal Essay funerals. Reading Book 1 of the Iliad was not therapeutic. I did not feel a sense of perspective that the idea of a plague and the dissension it causes goes back to one of our earliest forms of literature. Instead I came to understand the adverb “αἰεὶalways (ln. 52),” as in every time someone reads or listens to Book 1 of the Iliad, the crowded funeral pyres of the dead are always burning, as if in perpetuum. And the result will always be the same: an assembly of leaders called forth, the consultation of an expert, and the resulting anger of those in attendance in response to the truth. “Always” does not make this epic linear, instead, it presents the work as continually existing, coming into being every time we pick up the text to listen to the goddess explain Achilles’ wrath, and to a no less important degree, a pandemic and its consequences. By Neha Gaddam 32 �Academic Essay Excerpt from The Molting Eagle and the Shedding Serpent James Wheeler Nietzsche does not give us any tidy answers. Like the Sphinx to Oedipus, he has presented us with a riddle. But for what purpose? Why not state his position clearly? One answer might be that Nietzsche, through Zarathustra, does not want to be understood by everyone. Maybe, he only wants those who read his words slowly, precisely, and with blood-dripping intensity to be able to unravel the bandages wrapped around this mummy of Moment. Perhaps he is telling us that there must be some demonstration of faculties before the keys to the kingdom of heaven and the gates of hell can be given. In that sense, it seems clear that Zarathustra’s position on the eternal recurrence is not meant to encapsulate everyone. Zarathustra is no savior for all of mankind. If he is a savior at all, he is only so for those who can solve his riddle and more importantly, once solved, can summon the courage to not wither before it. Zarathustra’s idea of the eternal recurrence demands, even from himself, a person unafraid to tie themselves to the tracks while the Train of All-Life hurtles forever and repeatedly toward their body. The eternal recurrence is the recognition and celebration of the idea that from those tracks there is no escape. One cannot free oneself from the moment, that which shackles one in place. The moment must be experienced in order for there to be a future and a past. Such a courageous moment-lover also understands that the Train of All-Life cannot move backward, only incessantly forward along the unalterable Track of Eternity, a track to be traveled time and time and time again with no deviation. But does the track proceed eternally in a straight line? Thus, the riddle continues, and Zarathustra further complicates matters by cavalierly dismissing a key element to the solution when he admonishes the dwarf for lazily stating that “All truth is crooked; time itself is a circle.” Zarathustra responds to the dwarf by stating that he is demeaning the thought of the eternal recurrence by making it less complicated. That is to say, the dwarf dilutes the entire concept into the simple, insouciant explanation that time is circular. In doing so, the converse of the dwarf’s comment provides the linchpin to the entire idea: if time wasn’t circular, and since it is self-evident that past events cannot be changed by actions in the present, that is to say that we can’t walk backwards in time, how could anyone or anything return to the same moment? The answer is that it can only be 33 �Academic Essay accomplished in a circular manner. As long as time is circular, the past can still not be changed but it can be experienced again. As such, it can be returned to eternally. *** Of course, venturing an attempt at solving the riddle of the eternal recurrence is only a part of the nut to be cracked, the hard coating protecting the seed within. As that shell is peeled back, two additional layers are revealed. To begin with, prior to even hinting at the eternal recurrence, Zarathustra presents as a statement of fact that God is dead. He mentions it in the prologue while walking through the forest where so many nuts hang from tree branches or litter the ground. Interestingly, Zarathustra, that nomadic nutcracker, seems to be the only person aware of this fact, as even the saint he comes into contact with in the forest is not aware of God’s death: “Could it be possible? This old saint in the forest has not yet heard anything of this, that God is dead!” What, then, does it mean for the Christian god to be dead; and how does that fact, if accepted as a fact, inform our understanding of the eternal recurrence? For one, within a group of believers reliant on God’s continued existence, the factual death of God would represent a loss of faith. No, not just a loss of faith, a loss of connection to reality, an untethering of the mind. Such a spiritual and metaphysical unraveling, if recognized as true by all investors in such holy stock, would be cataclysmic. It would be the apocalypse of the mind. God, as man’s most cherished creation, the most precious child of the mind of man, is supposed to be that which is beyond death and gives undying structure to existence. Additionally, the death of God signals to mankind that even their most deathless vision can go blind. In such dark fumbling, what are God’s followers to do? Now given a void, how does man choose the correct soil with which to fill the hole caused by the absence of the creator of all values and the provider of all purpose? Zarathustra has the answer: create once more and plant the seeds of man’s future in the soil of the eternal recurrence. That is to say, in one way, with his mind man created God; therefore, man, through his mind, is the true god and the sole possessor of all the power he needs to provide purpose and meaning to life. He only needs but to harness his creative desire to that end. In other words, it is a matter of will, of will to power. Which leads to the second layer of the riddle of the eternal recurrence: if we stipulate that will in this sense is consistent with desire, what kind of will to 34 �Academic Essay power is that which Zarathustra advocates? Throughout the book, he regularly speaks of the relationship between those in command and those who obey the commanders. In one sense, it is of course easy to conclude that power to Zarathustra is an imbalance of dominance: the person who wills more power into their possession than others and who lords that power over any and all who have less. In another sense, Zarathustra informs us, and therefore might be implying, that will to power can also take the form of a single-minded obsessive hunt for truth-knowledge and then hoarding that truth-knowledge so as to be swollen like a tick, on the verge of bursting with so much knowing and so much truth. In other words, it is a type of power sought so as to be conspicuously grand among all the cathedrals of the mind: to have more truth-knowledge than others is to have power over them due to the vacant pews inside their heads. Another, and I speculate more accurate, meaning of will to power, at least in the eagle eyes of Zarathustra, is dependent on the acceptance of the death of God and the primacy of the eternal recurrence. As previously mentioned, if God is dead, then there is no defender against the futility of life. If God is dead, then we are all passengers in a car with no destination. There is no driver at the wheel, and we have no direction home. However, if we have the strength and courage to stare eternity square in his endless eye, we would ourselves have the vision to see that all that can happen has happened and all that has happened will happen again. While we would realize that our lives have no off-ramp, we would also realize that we have the power to be the driver of our own car, not some god. And we would shout in the voice of our highest song, Yes! Give me this highway, this car, now and forever, over and over again! Consequently, we are left with a choice: in recognition of the death of God and the primacy of the eternal recurrence, do we throw our helpless hands up in the air and become the last men that Zarathustra warns us of; those joyless, purposeless, kings of emptiness, those owners of vacant, blinking eyes? Or do we, bodies bristling with infinite exuberance and a belief in the value and purpose of life that is deeper than the deepest well, infinitely and recurringly shout “Yes!” to the eternal recurrence? If so, then that eternal yes-saying requires us to desire, to lustily crave everything in our lives. We must, with our most irresistible hands, grasp each and every single moment of our lives with a drunken desire and rejoice in all that has happened, all that is happening, and all that will happen. 35 �Academic Essay Thus, spoke Life to Zarathustra: “For what does not exist cannot will; but what is in existence, how could that still want existence? Only where there is life is there also will; not will to life but—thus I teach you—will to power.” For Zarathustra, such an acceptance is the most human imperative. It is the definition of will to power. Our desire, our will to embrace the life we have and spend no energy or thought on the life we want to have or think we should have had is where true power lies. A person so equipped is a person as powerful as any god the mind of man has ever created. Such a thought, were it to take hold of humanity in a way that Christianity and other religions have, would be transformative for humankind. Perhaps the power of transformation is one reason why Zarathustra’s most beloved animals are the proud eagle and the wise serpent. They molt and they shed. Their willingness to do so is non-existent because they don’t have a choice. The eagle and serpent don’t question their molting or their shedding. They don’t try to fight it, to wish that it didn’t happen or that it would happen differently. They are in life and such transformation automatically happens in that domain. Life has deemed it necessary. In the face of such necessity, they focus only on what life provides and transform when and how life demands. At this, the serpent with split-tongue smiles, and the eagle, unweighted by the spirit of gravity soars above us all. The Geometry of Addiction by Jaime Marquez 36 �Academic Essay Vico’s Poetic Morals: Forced into Philosophy? Akayla Lewis In The New Science of Giambattista Vico, the author, G. Vico, makes a claim that I found peculiar and interesting. In paragraph 509, Vico says, “for husbands shared their first human ideas with their wives, beginning with the idea of a divinity of theirs which compelled them to drag their women into caves; thus, even this vulgar metaphysics began to know the human mind in God” (509). Of course, this sentence is in the context of a larger thought, but I think it still sounds jarring based on the context. Men dragging women into caves and forcing them to be wives and share in philosophy does not sound like a world familiar to me, but Vico argues that this practice was the way of the early humans. A few immediate questions arise for me: What is this idea? Why did this happen? How do I make sense of Vico’s claims in light of his work being a “history of human ideas” (6, 347, 391, 424)? Fear Forces the Hand In The New Science, one of Vico’s main principles is that human civilization began with three practices: religion, marriage, and burial. “From all that has been set forth in general concerning the establishment of the principles of this Science, we conclude that, since its principles are divine providence, moderation of the passions by marriage, and immortality of human souls [witnessed] by burial, and since the criterion it uses is that what is felt to be just by all men or by the majority must be the rule of social life…” (360). Vico also argues that marriage and burial precede from the human ideas of the gods. Ideas of the gods (or a god) is the driving force of the actions of the early humans. Where does this religious bent come from? Fear is the beginning of the religious bent for man. “Thus, it was fear which created gods in the world; but, as was remarked in the Axioms, not fear awakened in men by other men, but fear awakened in men by themselves,” Vico says (382). It is the human imagination of divinity that drives man to fear. The early humans were “children” (187) that did not understand nature or have reason to govern their views of the world. Vico posits that the human mind reflects itself on whatever it does not understand. Vico says, “when men are ignorant of the natural causes producing things and cannot even explain them by 37 �Academic Essay analogy with similar things, they attribute their own nature to them” (180). Vico uses lightning and flooding as his examples of how humans reflected their minds. When lightning would strike and people would fall, the early humans thought that there was a mind with intention behind this phenomenon which was perceived as a divine action. According to Vico, man’s natural curiosity put man on this path; he says “curiosity that inborn property of man, daughter of ignorance and mother of knowledge when wonder wakens our minds, has the habit, wherever it sees some extraordinary phenomenon of nature, a comet for example, a sun-dog, or a midday star, of asking straightway what it means” (189) Humans are inclined to ask what something means, and this is a very fascinating claim. The first response of man to something grand or rare is to ask what it means. There is not an explanation for this other than for Vico to say that it is inborn in humans. Either way, ascribing meaning to the phenomenon of nature is how all (gentile) religions start Vico claims this as the universal beginnings of the gentile world; every nation started this way. “Jove hurls his bolts and fells the giants, and every gentile nation had its Jove,” (193) Vico states. Sex Is Not Sexy The question of how early ideas of divinity fits in with women being clubbed and dragged into caves is still unanswered. How does religion compel these early humans to this strange and seemingly backward behavior? Vico says of these early humans, “Our treatment of it must take its start from the time these creatures began to think humanly. In their monstrous savagery and unbridled bestial freedom there was no means to tame the former or bridle the latter but the frightful thought of some divinity, the fear of whom, as we said in the Axioms is the only powerful means of reducing to duty a liberty gone wild” (338). The fear of a great power above is the first step in man restraining himself. It seems the early men thought they needed to control themselves so that they would not be struck by Jove’s lightning. “Authority was at first divine; the authority by which divinity appropriated to itself the few giants we have spoken of, by properly casting them into the depths and recesses of the caves under the mountains. This is the iron ring by which the giants, dispersed upon the mountains, were kept chained to the earth by fear of the sky and of Jove, wherever they happened to be when the sky first thundered” (387), Vico surmises. Thunder and lightning drove these men into the caves because they 38 �Academic Essay concluded that the phenomenon was the work of a god who was enacting violence against them. To escape this violence and consequence, men took cover in caves thus restraining themselves. The early men took this restraint of their bodies to be a moral virtue. Vico articulates that “moral virtue began, as it must, from conatus. For the giants, confined under the mountains by the frightful religion of the thunderbolts, learned to restrain their bestial habit of wandering wild through the great forest of the earth, and acquired the contrary custom of remaining hidden and settled in their fields” (504). These early men thought the right thing to do was to restrain one’s wandering, and thus one’s bodily motion. The motion of the body is under control of the will which was something that needed to be commanded instead of the motion of the body controlling the person. It was right to control these urges to move so that the gods would be pleased. As Vico puts it, “from this thought must have sprung the impulse proper to the human will, to hold in check the motions impressed on the mind by the body, so as either to quiet them altogether, as becomes the sage, or at least to direct them to better use, as becomes the civil man. This control over the motion of their bodies is certainly an effect of the freedom of the human will…” (340). The control and direction of the body through the will is one of the first steps out of bestial living for early man. From the idea of bodily control, the need to control one’s sexual urges sprang up. In a very literal sense, sex is bodily motion. The urge for sex usually drives the motion of men, so the early humans wanted to control this “bestial lust” (504). Just like other movements were constricted to the cave, sexual intercourse would be hidden as well. Violence and Self-Control The question of why these early men needed to enact violence in order to practice their self-control is still open. It seems strange that in thinking that bodily movements and sexual intercourse should be controlled and restricted that the early men would use violence and force to get and keep these women in caves as wives. Why did the men use violence to achieve their virtuous end? Vico does not give a direct reason for this practice; he only says that it was the case. He does however give a description of the early women when he says “…women, who in that state must have been wild, indocile and shy…” (369), and under this description it is possible to understand why the early men needed 39 �Academic Essay to use violence against these women in order to have them as partners. In order to propagate, these men needed to obtain these indocile women, but were these women truly indocile? Vico does not give an explanation of this synthesis of the early women, and I do not find myself satisfied. Although Vico does not give a concrete reason for this practice he does seem to be sure that it was a practice that happened. Vico seems to be convinced by the ancient fables and their depiction of women in marriage as he states, “the hieroglyph or fable of Juno hanging in the air with a rope around her neck and her hands tied by another rope and with two heavy stones tied to her feet, had signified the sanctity of marriage. Juno was in the air to signify the auspices essential to solemn nuptials, and for the same reason Iris was made her handmaiden and the peacock with its rainbow tail was assigned to her. She had a rope about her neck to recall the violence used by the giants on the first wives” (514). The ancient fables are the record of human ideas from which Vico draws his conclusions about the practices of early humans. It is quite possible that Vico himself thought this practice awful, but he simply describes it as the way the early humans interacted with each other. Therefore, this notion of the subjugation of women - a notion in which women lack autonomy and are seen as property - is founded within the fables, beliefs, and traditions of his time which he recounts. This belief is still present in some cultures currently. Forced Friendship Circling back to my original question: What is going on in the following statement? “For husbands shared their first human ideas with their wives, beginning with the idea of a divinity of theirs which compelled them to drag their women into their caves…” (506). The first conversations were between the man and woman in the cave, yet she was forced there by violence. What are we to make of this? Given the context of Vico’s conception of the world of the first humans and the consequent traditions and beliefs of ancient nations, we are led to think that men were unsociable creatures. Vico says, “For out of the passions of men each bent on his private advantage, for the sake of which they would live like wild beasts in the wilderness” (133). Thus, in this sketch of humankind, the early cave dwellers (or those men still living out in the forests) would have no one to share their ideas with. It follows that these men would commune with the women they 40 �Academic Essay captured. “Thus, marriage emerged as the first kind of friendship in the world,” Vico says (554). This is an interesting point because, perhaps these men thought that this force was necessary to save these women from the wrath of the gods and keep them safe. The need to communicate about the gods and important impressions upon their minds is implicit here. It seems that there was some sort of care and affection in this situation given that Vico highlights that the root word for friendship in Greek is the word love in paragraph 554. Vico has the underlying assumption that men have to need to communicate even in the face of being unsocial. Given the context of these “first friendships,” to call it such might seem foreign to my contemporary understanding; However, in this odd sketch of the first marriages (and thus societies via Vico) women are taught and share in their husbands’ ideas because they have the capacity to understand them. For Vico, these early men did not just force women into caves and did not speak to them, but they communed together (given the strange circumstance). These women learned, developed alongside their male counterparts, and possibly contributed to the ideas of the divine and of life as the species advanced. This possible interpretation gives me hope in this strange world Vico describes. 41 �Creative Writing Nostalgia in February Kelsey Hennegen First published in Narrative Magazine Jackets zipped against wind, we stand close, cupping hands to catch the light. I get it. My profundity problem. I want everything to mean. To have worth and weight. But it doesn’t. My desire verges on dire. I try to remember patience. I usually forget. With extravagant flair, Sam fans the match and declares all bad poetry is sincere. It’s nothing new, of course. It’s Eliot or Wilde, maybe. The trouble is, I’m too sentimental. I had my first cigarette last week. Now my body goes buoyant on just a few sips, doomed and irreverent. A little romantic. I buy Sappho in the original Greek even though it flummoxes me. I wear my mother’s wedding ring to bed so I can sleep. Oh, but I want to be greedy with beauty. Or— No. That’s not quite it. I want the past. A garden hose draped over the gate, backyard showers after sun-spoiled days. Bonfires, a poorly pitched tent in Joshua Tree. Strange, isn’t it? How anything will turn dangerous if you cling to it long enough. 42 �Creative Writing The last bellow of day drains. Scallop-edged and purplish, the cottonwood leaves fatigue. It was Hesiod who deified pain, now our -algia is named for the spirits of grief. And yet, Nostos means tribulations be damned, the hero gets home. Sometimes I stumble on a day so blue it blinds. I find a June within and I am everything righteous and thrashing and right. By Neha Gaddam 43 �Personal Essay On the Benefit of Virtual Learning for our Community Leith Daghistani From the preamble to the Polity of St. John’s College: Education is the making of men and women out of children by bringing them into the world of inherited customs, intellectual traditions, and spiritual ties. Institutions of learning are set up for this purpose. Beyond this they should also seek to develop the moral and intellectual powers of their students to enable them to fulfill best their freely chosen tasks and thus to take their own responsible part in shaping the future. St. John's College is a community of learning committed to holding these ends constantly in sight and to seeking the best means of attaining them. Many of our peers who were exposed to virtual learning over the past year or so have continued to convey to me some form of the idea that virtual learning is fundamentally incompatible with the GI because we lose some intangible element of the program hidden in in-person interactions or intramurals when it moves online. Even those who now defend virtual learning sometimes tacitly agree with the concern that the program is weaker online. Based on these conversations it often appears to me that the prevailing views of students and graduates of the GI are either that virtual classes should not be offered at all or that offering virtual classes is a worthwhile trade-off for a less rigorous program because it provides for wider access to students who ought to be in our community. I believe that maintaining the option for virtual segments offered alongside in-person classes and leading to the same degree is not a trade-off, and has great potential to improve the program for us all. In-person interactions and extracurriculars certainly make the program at St. John’s more enjoyable, but they aren’t essential or exclusive to the GI. Undergraduates approach a wider range of texts using the same method and have more access to the same extracurricular activities as the GI over a longer period of time, all in person. If one believes that the undergraduate program is not essentially distinct from the GI, then the GI is limited to be nothing more than an accelerated and inferior copy of the undergraduate program. I reject that view and say that the GI has merit in itself, and can support virtual learning. 44 �Personal Essay From my perspective, most undergraduate schools achieve the same basic educational ends regardless of their specific mission: they generally teach students how to learn effectively, to continue their education beyond the classroom, and to employ their education in a way that benefits the people around them in many contexts. Undergraduate programs generally require in-person immersion in the form of shared living and learning spaces, intramurals, or other extracurriculars to offset the students’ overall lack of experience. Experience empowers individuals to broadly apply their education in concert with other methods to improve themselves and the world around them, and in-person immersion in an academic program quickly develops a kind of experience. At St. John's College, intramural sports are an outstanding example of immersion because they provide students with a training field by which the elements of a good education developed in the program can be put into practice and safely tested with immediate feedback. The undergraduate program likely couldn’t exist virtually at St. John’s College because that program requires in-person immersion and indoctrination to really bring children into the world of inherited customs, intellectual traditions, and spiritual ties. But as graduate students we don’t need a practice field, and we are not children. Though we are still developing, we have already had a basic level of exposure to higher education. Before virtual classes were offered, GI students who worked full time or had other responsibilities received the same education and the same degree without involving themselves in any events outside of class whatsoever and without any question of their participation in the essence or rigor of the program. Participating during class hours is sufficient for us because we already actively seek and employ new methods and models of learning outside of the classroom to make ourselves better and to empower others to the same. At the graduate level we are perfecting rather than developing that habit. Our community’s standards and expectations should reflect that distinction. Our community is our unique strength, and good dialogue among the community is the only necessary function for our education in the GI. While the texts are an important part of our method of education, they are a tool for creating good dialogue among our community, which is the essential part of our program. The key group dynamics of good dialogue, namely balanced participation, active listening, and cooperation, are not impossible to achieve 45 �Personal Essay online, so GI students should be able to effectively learn virtually. Intramurals and after-seminar gatherings and everything else that requires in-person interactions are a bonus — welcome for some but unnecessary for others. If this were not the case, then we would be able to achieve the same education by reading the texts in isolation, or by joining a social club for classics enthusiasts. What makes effective virtual learning more challenging than in-person learning is that good virtual dialogue always requires balanced participation, active listening, and cooperation among the group along with a consistently high level of individual objectivity, courtesy, trust, discipline, and respect. The austerity of the virtual classroom means that students must develop these habits quickly to be successful. That is a good thing for the program. Conversely, we can probably get away with having good-enough dialogue in person despite not maintaining such a high standard by hiding behind so-called nonverbal participation or through other conversations which are easier to continue outside of class hours. At the graduate level, the reality is that we should already have expected excellence in dialogue as the standard from all members of our community before we were forced to move online in the spring of 2020. I do not mean to suggest that the move to online learning in the middle of a semester and as a result of a global pandemic was easy or welcome in any way. There were technical difficulties and growing pains great enough to dispirit many in our community, myself included. I prefer learning in person. But I won’t pretend that my personal preferences are essential to a good education or that the academic problems I encountered online were a product of the medium of the conversation and not of my own failures. It is clear to me that virtual learning works for students who choose to pursue it because they have already dedicated themselves to a consistently high standard of dialogue regardless of the medium. I observed as much in my final semester in the fall of 2020, which was online for all students. GI students who began the program virtually or who were only able to attend online due to their circumstances were capable of developing dialogue online at least as often and to as high a standard as any other in-person group which I have been a part of. I believe that virtual learning is troubling for our community not because it is incompatible with our program but because it exposes our collective and 46 �Personal Essay individual weaknesses. But an awareness of one’s weaknesses is a gift to be cherished, not ignored. If those of us who prefer in-person learning found virtual learning to be less rewarding it highlights that we should all should be more consistent in explicitly identifying, promulgating, and holding ourselves to a higher shared standard of dialogue as a community. My opinion is that no matter the reason or purpose for our enrollment, we should practically expect all students of the GI to be able to participate in consistently fruitful and equitable dialogue with any group in any medium. GI alumni should be able to naturally lead such groups, purely as a byproduct of sustained exposure to our method. That does not mean that dialogue or class meetings must always be rewarding for every participant, but as the community of the premier graduate liberal arts program, we should strive toward the highest standards for dialogue and be unafraid of collaborative reflection and criticism when we do not meet them. I think that an examination of the dynamics of good dialogue should play a more formal part of our education at the GI. We would collectively benefit from more direct conversations about dialogue itself, such as a mid-semester meeting dedicated to a conference-style conversation among the group in each of our classes, or a more robust orientation program that is revisited by all students every semester. In short, we should be looking to empower all members of our community to be successful and versatile in pursuing their education, rather than prematurely declaring the limits of the program when we briefly falter in the face of a new challenge. Our community remains strong because we draw on an extraordinarily diverse range of human experiences and vast depth of competencies to approach fundamental questions as equals and collaboratively develop a better understanding of the great books through good dialogue. If we focus on our improvement with that unique strength in mind, the GI will thrive in any environment. We should not shy away from serious reflection and frank discussion which has such enormous potential to both improve and expand access to the GI. Doing so based on a misguided belief that our program should exist only in the in-person interactions of St. John’s students in or immediately adjacent to the classroom is a disservice to us all. 47 �College Ephemera Uncovering the Lost World of the Black Classical Tradition Anika Prather I feel like I am Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. What an adventure I have had seeking to find the connection between Classic texts, Great Books and the Black community. I have literally dug through ruins, run away from dangers seen and unseen and felt fear and despair like you would not believe all in my journey to revealing to all that Classics are for everyone, especially the Black community. For the Black community the Classical tradition is actually a part of our heritage. When I say that, I am met with anger from both Blacks and Whites, Blacks not wanting any sign that our people are connecting to those who have oppressed us and Whites not wanting us to have access to “their” books. I have been met with perils of many kinds in my effort to uncover this lost world, where my ancestors were fully engrossed in the texts of the ancient world and beyond. It all happened by accident, actually with me finding DuBois’ essay “Of the Training of Black Men.” But that one text for some reason awakened an awareness that if DuBois was devoting so much passion to writing about the Black Classical tradition, it must be based on some common occurrence in the Black community. From that one essay, I found myself reading the other essays in his Souls of Black Folk and it was more of the same, that Classical education was the most effective way to educate Black Americans. From Souls of Black Folk I was led to his education essays, The Education of Black People, which provided more of his revelations about his views on Classical Education for Black people. DuBois gave me the eyes to see that there was a whole other world undiscovered, a secret place where Blacks read, discussed, wrote about, synthesized and embraced the classical tradition. They were learning and reading Latin. Engaged in rhetorical discussions about beauty, virtue and truth. Classical study was their gateway to cultural literacy, empowerment and equality. Many yearned for this type of learning even while enslaved and most ran for this type of education, once they were emancipated. One excerpt from “Of the Training of Black Men” has become an opus for me: I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls….I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed 48 �College Ephemera with Truth, I dwell above the Veil. Is this the life you grudge us, O knightly America? Is this the life you long to change into the dull red hideousness of Georgia? Are you so afraid lest peering from this high Pisgah, between Philistine and Amalekite, we sight the Promised Land? (From Souls of Black Folk: Of the Training of Black Men) In this passage, I feel what DuBois felt, a feeling of being transported to a magical place where color lines no longer haunt us and we are able to dance with all people in harmony. This one passage was the turning point for me, and would be the catalyst for my continued journey to finding how the classics have played an integral part in the African American’s journey to finding their place in American society. Not too long after discovering DuBois, I took my high school students on a tour of the Frederick Douglass House in Washington, DC. I remember that day so clearly because my mind had been so blown away by what I was reading about DuBois. I felt mentally on a cloud. Up to this point, I was working on my PhD, researching the role of the arts in the K12 classroom, but Dubois took me off that path and his writings compelled me to continue this “archeological dig.” In other spaces I have shared the resistance I experienced in academia by making this detour and the danger of me not finishing was a constant presence. However, I pressed on and through the support of others in my department, I was able to continue the “archeological dig” enough to introduce my discovery into my dissertation. I had no idea that Douglass would be connected to what was starting to become an obsession of mine, but as soon as I walked into the front door of his house, where everything was preserved in time, I was greeted by the bust of Cicero. Instantly I thought, “Cicero? Why is Cicero in here? What does a former slave know about Cicero?” My heart began to race as I noticed so many items in his house that reflected this former slave was self-taught in the Classical Tradition. Leaving the foyer, I came upon a painting which showed a scene from Shakespeare’s play Othello. Revelation after revelation happened as I toured that house. He decorated the entire house with signs of his love for Classics and the Canon. The final clue that confirmed what I was already feeling internally, was when I entered his library. From floor to ceiling were shelves of books, all from the Classical tradition and the overall western canon. The tour guide went on to 49 �College Ephemera explain how Douglass would spend hours in his library reading the texts and practicing writing about them. This bit of information actually gave me the foundation for how I teach the texts at the school. We spend our time reading the texts, discussing the text and writing an essay on the text every week. This process Douglass engaged in was also how he studied the text when he was enslaved. When we left the Frederick Douglass House, I went home to further my research on Douglass and I learned that as a teenage boy he bought the Colombian Orator and would spend his free time sneaking to read the texts, focusing on the speeches of Cicero. The Colombian Orator was an anthology of excerpts from classic texts. This text was commonly used in schools during this time. In reading the excerpts of the Colombian Orator, Douglass unchained his mind well before his body was set free. One text involved Douglass analyzing the argument between a slave and his master, in which the slave did such an effective job showing his master why slavery was wrong, that the slave ended up being voluntarily emancipated. It was arguments like these that revealed to Douglass the importance of rhetoric and logic in presenting a case for ending slavery. Douglass said, “I read them over and over again with unabated interest. They gave tongue to interesting thoughts of my own soul, which had frequently flashed through my mind, and died away for want of utterance. The moral which I gained from the dialogue was the power of truth over the conscience of even a slaveholder...The reading of these documents enabled me to utter my thoughts and to meet the arguments brought forward to sustain slavery.” (from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass) Douglass spent his time copying the texts, summarizing the texts and fully immersing himself in the texts. He even says that it was in reading Classics that he was given the words needed to communicate about the atrocities of slavery in a way that the White and Black community could understand and receive. Now two of my ancestors were flooding my mind with reflections on the Black Classical tradition. There was this pattern I was seeing of going from captivity or feelings of oppression or both to reading these texts that tell the human story and discovering that whatever the world may say about you, these texts reveal a greater truth. These texts actually cancelled out the lies of our 50 �College Ephemera inferiority and curse that says we were created to serve those with a lighter complexion. These texts confirmed our identity as an equal human being. My mind filled with these reflections was still floating on these clouds of revelations when I took on a new job as a principal of a private school in DC. The board was considering getting a new building and I had been looking at properties. One property was an abandoned building which at one time housed the Nannie Helen Burroughs School. The realtor and the property manager took me all around the building. It looked as if it had been just left as is. Everything was still in place from when the school had closed down. It was not in the greatest condition at that time and I wasn’t sure if I’d meet Mickey and Minnie Mouse and their friends in the process of touring the building, but somehow I felt a sense of awe as I walked the abandoned halls and I felt the spirit of the woman who desired to bring a quality education to Black students many years ago. The property manager brought us to a glass enclosed room that was a museum dedicated to Nannie Helen Burroughs. I asked if I could go in and he unlocked the door to let me in. So many artifacts were in the space that revealed her love for education, but one thing caught my attention more than anything in that little shrine to Nannie Helen Burroughs. On the wall, was a framed list of classes that students had to take back when the school first began in the early 1900s and on that list of classes was Latin. In fact, the other classes I saw reflected some type of appreciation for the Classical tradition. There’s another one. Another ancestor inspired by the Classical tradition. I was thinking about Dubois, Douglass, and Burroughs. How many of them are there? When I did more research on Nannie Helen Burroughs, I discovered a world of Black women educators dedicated to the classical tradition. Nannie Helen Burroughs had been a high school student at the famed M Street School, led by Anna Julia Cooper. Anna Julia Cooper used an almost totally Classical curriculum in educating the Black students that attended there and fiercely fought for this type of education for those students until the board of education fired her, because she would not stop teaching this way at their request. At M Street School, Nannie Helen Burroughs founded the Harriet Beecher Stowe Literary Society. Most students at M Street School took classics, which included the study of Latin and most went on to some of the top colleges in the nation. Anna Julia Cooper mentored Nannie Helen Burroughs and in a way, I feel like they are both mentoring me. Anna Julia Cooper is of great importance, because in discovering 51 �College Ephemera her, I find a whole community of Black female educators, dedicated to Cooper’s passion for providing a classical education. Anna Julia Cooper was born into slavery and remained in enslaved until emancipation. At around 10 years old, she attended St. Augustine’s School, which primarily taught freed slaves the classical tradition. Even though the school focused more on the rigors of classical education for the male students. Anna Julia Cooper advocated for herself to take the same classical courses. She excelled in Latin and became a scholar of classic texts. She eventually completed her college degree at Oberlin College, again advocating to take the rigorous classical program that was primarily for the male students. Anna Julia Cooper was one of two African American women to earn an M.A. (the other was Mary Church Terrell) in mathematics. Eventually she became the principal of M Street School in DC, again implementing a primarily classical curriculum for her students. As you walked the halls of the M Street School, you could hear her enthusiastically teaching the Aeneid in Latin. She would also teach the students the works of Cicero and many other Classical thinkers. Anna Julia Cooper was passionate about uplifting the African American people through education. She says, There is no social activity that more vitally concerns the life of a people than the problem of education. The Colored people of the United States...want for themselves and their descendants...all the advantages and opportunities of education as the term is interpreted and understood in the most favored groups in our American civilization. (from Uplifting the Women and the Race by Karen A. Johnson) What was this world I had found? And now with these constant discoveries of notable Black Americans who engaged in Classical study, how could I turn away? I knew that bringing this information to the light would be met with resistance from all directions. This seemingly mythical world had been kept so secret, almost undetected. I was right about my misgivings. As soon as I began to share what I was discovering there was resistance from all directions. This discovery I was making was not about Black scholars in classics, this was a bit different. If it was about Black Scholars then you could sort of segregate them to a space, sort of like DuBois’ “Talented Tenth.” You can say just this small group of people did this and then it doesn’t quite disrupt a system or misconceptions we have all held close to our minds and hearts. However, this discovery was 52 �College Ephemera about an entire educational system, that started while Blacks were in slavery and continued on until desegregation, revealing that the main way Blacks were educated in America up until desegregation, was Classical. Anna Julia Cooper was fired for refusing to stop teaching classically. Why do you think that is? Why was the Classical tradition taken from us? To reveal this, could upend all that we thought we knew about how education has been done and should be done. This discovery dispels the myth that Classics are the tools used to oppress Black people, when in fact history shows that Classics was a tool to liberate them. Black people fought to be educated this way, Douglass risking his life to steal it (through self-teaching) as an enslaved teenager. My journey continues. Constantly, I am uncovering more of this “lost city of the Black Classical tradition” and my most recent discovery is that Howard University was the first and only HBCU to have a Classics dept. The university was founded by General Howard who was a leader with the Freedman’s Bureau. The organization was responsible for setting up educational institutions for freed Black people after emancipation and the main educational philosophy they used in these institutions? Classical. The fact that Howard University still has a Classics dept is a monument to this now almost extinct world. It stands there as a flickering light, reminding us of a powerful time in the education of Black people. This flickering light at Howard University and what I am learning about the classical component to the early years of African American education, makes me wonder what the implications are for the current state of education in African American communities. If such great minds and powerful beings as Martin Luther King, Anna Julia Cooper, Frederick Douglass, James Baldwin, W.E.B. DuBois, Nannie Helen Burroughs, Thurgood Marshall and so many others came out of this tradition, what can that tell us about a possible need to consider going back to those roots in the present day? Even now as we celebrate the first woman, African American and South Asian Vice President in American history, being a graduate of a place Classically inspired like Howard University, we all should be wondering about this little secret within the African American community. The Classics dept at Howard is responsible for bringing the exposure to classical learning to all students who attend. Even as an undergrad who was not majoring in Classics, I remember having to read Medea and Agamemnon. I remember having to learn about Socrates in my required Philosophy class. Yet the beauty of this is that we were taught to read classics, but then how to connect it to our lives as African Americans. As a 53 �College Ephemera result of reflecting on this and learning even more, I am becoming aware of other early schools that educated Blacks. For example, St. Augustine’s School, which is now St. Augustine College is where Anna Julia Cooper attended right after emancipation. This school also used mainly classics as a part of its educational program. It is all such a long tangled history that I am seeking to unpack. My dissertation just barely touched the surface of uncovering this hidden world of Blacks in Classical study and even this article sheds little light on the richness of the Black Classical heritage here in America. Even though I have felt the resistance to what I am discovering and I have felt the walls surround me as I try to share what I am learning, I push forward, hoping one day people will hear me as I unpack the untold story of the history of the Black Classical tradition in the education of Black people. 54 �� 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 Colloquy Description An account of the resource A student-run journal for the Graduate Institute community of St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. The issues feature essays, art, poetry, interviews, and more. 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 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. 58 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 Colloquy, Spring 2021 Description An account of the resource Volume VIII of Colloquy, published in Spring 2021. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Braley, Olivia (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 2021-05 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 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived English 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 Colloquy_Spring2021 Graduate Institute https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/d39edb7e905efe8ca964918d77defb9f.pdf 6d5a80ec509385f04c1c39ac0e093d54 PDF Text Text �Editor-in-Chief Olivia Braley Editorial Board Leith Daghistani Andrew Graney Charles Green Diana Villegas �Table of Contents Letter from the Editor Olivia Braley, Annapolis Purple Freckles Toni Lambert, Annapolis "I Feel, Therefore I Am?" Kayleigh Steele, Annapolis - with artwork by Bucca, Annapolis Toast to the GI Graduates Louis Petrich, Annapolis Tutor Annapolis Bells Joshua Laperche, Annapolis - with artwork by Jesse Clagett, Annapolis Genesis William Braithwaite, Annapolis Tutor Pap and Me Judith Wrenn, Annapolis - with artwork by Bucca, Annapolis A Conversation with Brandon Wasickso Charles Green, Annapolis- with art by Bucca, Annapolis “Equality” and the Tyranny of the Majority Drew Maglio, Annapolis The White Man Burdened Dimple Kaul, Annapolis - with artwork by Jesse Clagett, Annapolis Holy Sonnet XIV Vita Kudryavtseva, Annapolis - with artwork by Jesse Clagett, Annapolis About a Letter Louis Petrich, Annapolis Tutor - with artwork by Bucca, Annapolis Prize-winning Tutorial Essay: Meno Andrew Graney, Annapolis Prize-winning Preceptorial Essay: Thus Spoke Zarathustra Anthony Meffe, Annapolis - with artwork by Jesse Clagett, Annapolis 1 2 3 7 10 11 17 18 27 33 35 39 41 45 �Letter from the Editor Olivia Braley Dear Members of the Graduate Institute Community, As another semester comes to a close, I reflect on these last sixteen weeks with immense gratitude for our community. Thank you all for your dedication and commitment to the unique work and relationships we cultivate around our seminar tables, across our computer screens, and everywhere in between. Thank you especially to my fellow Colloquy editors, our contributors, and all others who dedicate their time and talents to helping this publication come to fruition each semester. Due to your efforts, we can showcase the various perspectives and elements of our community here. The issue you have in front of you today is a culmination of the thoughts and efforts of many people and, in that way, I believe is in keeping with the collaborative spirit of St. John’s college. The magic of the St. John's seminar is not hindered by distance or time. That is evident as we bring you an issue composed of past and present graduate students from both the in-person and low-residency programs. The fact that Prize-winning Tutorial and Preceptorial papers were awarded to an in-person and low-residency student respectively is but one apt example of the rigor and integrity that the St. John’s program requires of its students no matter the circumstances or platform. This Fall 2021 issue is of particular personal import as it marks my last semester as Editor-in-Chief of Colloquy and as a graduate student at St. John’s College. Neither departure is without a bit of sadness— but I am filled with hope for the future of this journal and the Graduate Institute. To have had the opportunity to integrate into this community in my two years here is an honor and I know that the lessons, connections, and questions that I developed during this time will be with me for many years to come. Let Colloquy be a reminder of these connections and of the diverse, attentive community in which each of us has a place. As always, thank you all for your talent, trust, and time. Sincerely, Olivia Braley, Editor-in-Chief 1 �Purple Freckles Toni Lambert Debris. Debris and remnants Of the gentle and no-longer-tall giants, Everywhere. The limbs of these strong beings Show the fresh flesh Of where they were snapped and torn. They couldn’t stand, So they flew. And now they’ve been flung, Pushed aside, Out of the way of where people pass By foot or by car. Inches from where we pass, But consuming our sight Of what happened just the night before. Did they catch our gaze, Or even our glance, When they remained attached In their proper place At home in the horizon line? Not in the same way. When attached They represented strength And growth, That we can stretch and reach To be just like the humble tree. Now, flung and displaced, They represent the terrific And tragic strength Of something harder to see. But what’s that? Underneath the carcasses Of the brutal storm, Purple freckles stand tall. Mere inches tall, But exactly as tall as they should be On a warm September day. They hold strong, Often over glanced in their simplicity. These tiny purple freckles Of flowers show us strength. Unfazed and perfectly placed Despite what the storm attempted to do. Even those standing under And holding the remains of gentle giants Hold strong, Their purple untouched. 2 �"I Feel, Therefore I Am?" Kayleigh Steele René Descartes, after having divested himself of his body and the sensible world in a thought experiment in the first of his Meditations, famously declares in the Second Meditation that he is merely a thinking thing, and that his thought alone can serve as proof of his existence. He asserts, “It is thought; this alone cannot be stripped from me. I am, I exist, this is certain” (27). In other writings, he states this central idea aphoristically as: “I think, therefore I am.” By the end of the Meditations, though, Descartes believes he has successfully proven the existence of the material world and has restored his body to himself. This prompts the question of whether we can now return to the Second Meditation and, with the body and access to sensation intact, ask if there are other possible proofs of our existence to be found. Could “I feel, therefore I am” be true? Intuitively, it seems true that if there is a sensation being felt, that is proof that there is something here existing to feel the sensation. The proposition does not feel so different from Descartes’ basic assertion that if there is something here thinking, there must be something here existing to think the thought. So now, stripped of our reason and using only our sensations, we test “I feel, therefore I am." Immediately, the question presents itself: is it possible for a merely perceiving being to form a “therefore”? It seems impossible that a feeling being would be capable of taking in sensory data and using it to form a conclusion; reason must be involved in this process. However, Descartes identifies sensation and perception as a form of thinking: “I seem to be seeing, hearing, getting hot. This cannot be false. This is what is properly meant by speaking of myself as having sensations; and, understood in this precise sense, it is nothing other than thinking” (29). To accord with his cogito statement, he removes sensation from the body entirely and assigns it to the mind: “Bodies themselves are perceived not, strictly speaking, by the senses or by the imaginative faculty, but by the intellect alone, and... they are not perceived because they are touched or seen, but only because they are understood” (34). With sensation now subsumed by the understanding, the proposition of “I feel, therefore I am” effectively becomes one and the same as “I think, therefore I am,” and must be true. As he works to reestablish the body in the Sixth Meditation, though, Descartes complicates his idea of sensation as a form of thinking: I find in myself faculties of thinking in various specific ways – namely, the faculties of imagination and sensation – without which I can understand myself clearly and distinctly as a whole. But the converse is not true – I cannot understand them apart from an intelligent substance in which they inhere (for they contain a certain degree of intellection in their formal concept). Hence I perceive that they are to be distinguished from me as modes are from a thing. (78) 3 �By identifying sensation as a mode or accident of thinking, he effectively separates it and makes it nonessential from the business of thinking. He can conceive of a version of himself existing purely as a mind without requiring the faculty of sensation, but not as a feeling being without his intellect. After this development in his conception of sensation, “I feel, therefore I am” cannot possibly be true. Or can it? In making an argument for mind-body dualism later in the Sixth Meditation, Descartes states: When I consider the mind, or myself in so far as I am purely a thinking thing, I can distinguish no parts in myself but understand myself to be a thing that is entirely one and complete. And although the whole mind appears to be united with the whole body, if the foot is cut off, or the arm, or any other part of the body, I know that nothing is therefore subtracted from the mind. Nor can the faculties of willing, perceiving by the senses, understanding, and so forth be said to be parts of the mind, since it is one and the same mind that wills, that senses, and that understands. (86) Descartes contradicts himself here. Where before sensation was identified as separable from his conception of the self, now it is contained absolutely within the whole. For “I feel, therefore I am” to be true, it has become clear that both the faculties of sensation and the understanding must be available to us: the former to perceive the “I feel”, and the latter to form the “therefore”. Between these two statements in the Sixth Meditation, Descartes has presented these faculties as either entirely divisible or muddled together, and sometimes it seems that they may even be the same faculty altogether. How is it possible to proceed in the face of a contradiction that makes the proposition to be tested both true and false simultaneously? The imprecision of Descartes has revealed itself during this exploration. Because he does not resolve the inconsistency in the Meditations, it appears we have encountered an insurmountable obstacle. Perhaps we can look to another, more systematic, thinker to resolve the confusion: namely, Immanuel Kant. In the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Kant details his conception of the mind and its innate faculties: the faculties of sensibility, the understanding, and reason. He defines the faculty of sensibility as responsible for giving form to our perceptions through pure intuitions, transforming the raw data from sensation into empirical intuitions we understand in time and space. The faculty of the understanding then uses the pure concepts of the understanding to form our empirical intuitions into appearances, allowing us to make inferences and conclusions about the things that affect our senses. Reason, finally, is the faculty by which it is possible to know a priori, apart from any experience. 4 �Artwork by Bucca Now the roles and limitations of our various faculties are clearly defined. In the proposition of “I feel, therefore I am,” the “I feel” is now easily understood to pertain to the faculty of sensibility, and it seems the faculty of the understanding can use that information to craft a “therefore”. When Descartes states, “I am therefore, speaking precisely, only a thinking thing...” (27), he declares sensation to be completely separable from his conception of the self. This prompts the question of what the newly separated merely sensing self is capable of, and, with only Descartes to look to, led to the confusion above. In Kant, the question of whether a perceiving being can form a conclusion never arises because a merely perceiving being cannot exist within his system. The innate structure of our minds makes it impossible to separate sensation from the understanding. Nature has implanted within us the pure intuitions and pure concepts of the understanding. They exist in us prior to sensation; therefore if we feel, we are able to form an understanding from that sensation. But can this understanding form a conclusion of “I am”? Kant identifies the conception of the self, or the soul, as a transcendental idea, or a pure concept of the reason. These transcendental ideas, he says, cannot be understood empirically; they exist outside of all experience. “The transcendent cognitions of reason neither allow what relates to their ideas to be given in experience, nor their theses ever to be confirmed or refuted through experience; hence only pure reason itself can detect the 5 �error that perhaps creeps into them...” (4:329). The idea of the soul, like the pure concepts and intuitions, exists in us intuitively and innately. Kant states, “Now it does appear as if we have something substantial in the consciousness of our self (the thinking subject), and indeed have it in immediate intuition; for all the predicates of inner sense are referred to the I as subject, and this I cannot again be thought as the predicate of some other subject” (4:334). This “I am” can be concluded, but never through sensation or experience. For Kant, “I feel, therefore I am” is, consequently, impossible. Kant has proven, through this exercise, the immense value of the precision in his system for answering the metaphysical questions. When Descartes’ ideas became hopelessly entangled in the attempt to prove or disprove our proposition, Kant’s system provided a clear and firm groundwork for continuing the process of thought. In exploring this question, the ideas of Descartes quickly became a quagmire that one could not navigate safely out of without the use of interpretation or opinion, which are far too fickle for good metaphysics. Through Kant, it appears something rare and unexpected, and welcome, has occurred: we have seemingly discovered a certain conclusion to our question. While Descartes prompted only more questions, Kant provided what was sought: an answer. 6 �Toast to the GI Graduates Mr. Louis Petrich Delivered Spring Semester 2021 Socrates says, some place or other, that it’s good to be refuted--to suffer refutation-because then we cease to think that we know what we do not know. For that’s a troublesome condition, sometimes dangerous, even over elementary, physical matters. Let’s say you have to prepare the table for guests, and you think you know how to size it up or down to fit the occasion. But the table turns out too big or little—once the guests have come—and then, too late for proper hospitality, Zeus is angry. . . unless, perhaps, there’s a Socrates among the guests, persuasively game to undertake a second or third measuring, ever another round of getting to know us things and gods. Thus it’s fitting for Socrates to add that we should thank our refuters for delivering us from the human propensity to think we know more than we do. For consider how much that is, and how dear the objects, how costly the mistakes, when the accommodation of bodies around the table is for the sake of souls, too. Prompted by that word, “souls,” which is the real dynamite in our mining conversations, I would now say “thank you” to the graduates for practicing with my colleagues and me the soulful art of refutation for a few years, under physical conditions that have sorely refuted us--I mean our bodies, mainly, less so our souls, and not much your souls, for I’ve made particular comparisons. Yours have continued, under mandated refutations, elsewhere debilitating, to take the measure of things unknown in a spirit of wonder, and with an energy and commitment that frankly, have refuted me of certain hard opinions I held of the mediating mechanisms we have all had to depend upon for our fellowship. The efficacy of your refutation surprised me, for you know how attached a man can get to his own thoughts, as to his own hands. You got me wondering if, perhaps, I’ve been wrong all these years about not handling a cell phone. Who knows what new body parts I’ll acquire in future time, or what strange places we’ll occupy, in company we never imagined to enjoy, or feared to miss? Life is full of surprises, Emerson writes, and would not be worth the taking otherwise. Would it be to our present purpose to recall some recent history of surprises and refutations? After all, they’ve turned many lives, including mine, around and around again. Who could have thought, thirty-five years ago, that European and Russian communism would collapse in a heap, in a moment, with almost no violence? That surprise led to a decade of newly opened borders, unforbidden books, high hopes, dancing movements, and the liberalization of learning at much bigger, more inclusive tables than anyone thought possible. Those closed regimes had been considered permanent and inhospitable to us. Not so. Who could have thought, twenty-five years ago, that our proud gleaming towers, reaching to the heavens, uniting the world in awe, if not aspiration for like endeavors 7 �and rewards, could collapse in a heap, in a moment, not from earthquakes, but from passenger planes, taken over by secreted enemies of our towering powers? That refutation led to a mighty contraction of the tables of hospitality. Surveying the tables thence are cameras, ubiquitous and seeming permanent. So it goes. Who could have thought, two years ago, that we’d be measuring, painstakingly, our own Johnnie tables, classrooms, this auditorium, fields of grass, body temperatures, breath components, all that and more, to determine how many embodied souls can investigate in person, through friendly refutation, the truth of tables?--I mean by that what’s meet (as Hamlet says) to set down in our tables of memory (“there you are”) for present and subsequent pursuit; what’s meet to co-discover that lies secretive underneath the surfaces; what’s meet to venture jointly in towers of purpose that spy into heavenly, unforbidden things; and what is meet to know that stirs across continents and seas, around the tables of absent friends and plotting enemies. Our surprising, painstaking measurements sting the awareness of how meet it is to be here now, bridging the distances between us with words, gestures, and images, always grateful for the help we get to cross the divide, by thoughts going out to listeners and coming back home, never the same, like Odysseus when Athena brushes him up, to become his best, god-intended, homecoming self. Many American writers have admitted to doing their best work, going out dressed to claw their way up cliffs, when life is especially hard, and coming back in a shining guise. (Tennessee Williams wrote an excellent piece about clawing to success.) Ease and comfort, as Moses told the Israelites, about to enter the Promised Land, would make them go slack and forget God, who brought them there, thirsty. So let us cheer those who are about to enter academic masterdom, for clawing their way up the cliff, for life has been hard and deserted of late. But let us also charge them to refute those of the ease and comfort school. For haven’t we learned, from our clawing, that the convenience and resourcefulness of the medium of exchange is not the message?-For it does not dictate, as means, that mediation itself is to be learned as end. We thirst for being there, where words and gestures issue ripe from their sources. For we are proud to be a college of primary sources, and here’s to our looking now upon some of them, I mean us, who are present, we sources, high on the cliffs! I shall end my toast by looking to a source I mentioned earlier, on my mind because of a preceptorial coming shortly, on Hamlet. Some of you have probably heard the anecdote about the lady who went to see a production of Hamlet, which she had never seen or read before. When asked at intermission, “Madam, how like you this play?” she responded, “I’m so surprised at how many quotes it contains!” Yes, life is full of surprises--and goodly refutations (in her case, let us imagine it kindly postponed). Yet isn’t it good to know that the words we speak want to go somewhere, and be recognized sometime and again, even if we don’t know where the words originally come from? You graduates know a lot better than you did two years 8 �ago where many of our best words come from. Knowing that makes the question of “to be or not to be” much less anxious. For we’ve learned to keep good company, asking life’s questions, laying open the tables of the mind, expanding their contents for feasting. Hamlet, as you know, is not given to feasting; he prefers to keep alone, to talk to himself; in company, he almost always wears a mask (not this kind); for there’s lots of poison in Denmark; it kills him in the end, leading that lady to report, when asked what she thought of Hamlet the character, “During the play I kept wanting him to get it over with, but now that it’s over, I miss him.” Another goodly refutation there, about endings, after so many words along the way, alone or accompanied, with still so much more to say, before the final arrest, always ready to be surprised--by missing you. But there’s more to meet with in heaven and earth than dreamt of in our seminars and tutorials, which means there’s more for us to philosophize over at our tables round, and it’s a good thing the soul’s immortal, or the missing would really be impossible to bear, the “not to be” at our throats. Imagine our anecdotal lady attending a production of Hamlet knowing that it would be the last time the play would ever be performed or read, because at the end, it must all disappear, without a trace. What would that be like? She’d have to remember it, write it down, talk about it, and make it come back. Remember your time as students at St. John’s College, and make it come back, full face-to-face, to your unimpeded liking. To that end, I propose a toast to the graduates of the Graduate Institute, class of 2021, for the refutations they have turned to goodly account, able hereafter to profess to the dire and dooming, the being of true minds, and the oneness that comes in moments--the edges of eternity. 9 �Annapolis Bells Joshua Laperche Who installed these beckonersthese pardoners of the long day? Saint Mary keeps continenceEvery hour, The Prime Hour. Our Liberty Bell, Cracked as it is anchored. It too tolls. Saint John; his own tune plays. 7:22, he neglects the quarter hour. In the dark I swear I heard this once. To the hourTo the RepublicsTo the Soul. Three Tolls to the regularity of experience. Artwork by Jesse Clagett 10 �Genesis Mr. Braithwaite This paper was read September 7, 2021 to some students in my Sophomore Seminar. The first two chapters of Genesis tell two stories about the origin of Man, humankind, and of the male and female sexes. The first story, in Chapter 1, describes the six days of creation. The beginning of the second story, verses 4 through 7 of Chapter 2, is the text for my present inquiry. I have two questions. What is the relation between the first story and the second? What do the two stories taken together suggest about the Biblical understanding of the relation between the sexes? In Chapter 1, verse 27, it is said: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (King James tr.). Is mankind, or humanity, as we might say, one or two; singular or plural? Are we human beings first and foremost a unity, or a duality of male and female? As a unity, we are one kind, one species, distinguished from other, different species. As primarily a duality of male and female, we confront the question whether our likenesses, as men and women, --or something in between, transcend our differences. Could our potential for unity and co-operation get us beyond the abrasions among the sexes which we know from experience? We can observe these problems every day in the world around us. They spawn endless conflicts, some trivial, others deep and wounding. Many of these conflicts seem irresolvable. Some are even violent. Very often, it is women and children who suffer most, along with those who may not easily fit our deeply-rooted traditional categories. In Chapter 2, verse 18, it is said: “And the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone; I will make a help meet for him.” In the following verses (19-23), we are told that Woman was made from Adam’s rib. This account seems to say that man/male preceded woman/female. But according to Chapter 1, male and female, man and woman, were created at the same time. Are the two stories consistent? Another question. In the first story, Man, human-kind, is “created,” as are the two sexes, male and female (1.27). In the second, man is “formed,” of the dust of the ground, and woman is “made” from one of Adam’s ribs (2.21). How does “create” differ from “make”? What does “form” mean, different from “create” and “make”? In the first story, what God creates, besides man/male, is “female,” not either “a woman” or capital-W “Woman,” as Adam names her, saying, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” Remembering Aristotle’s Physics—that a maker needs material, we might wonder what material man and woman, as male and female, were made from. The first story does not say. Does this omission signify that the material is less important than that both sexes are created in God’s image? Later events in Genesis 11 �suggest that woman’s god-likeness is shown in her power of giving birth. God creates, woman pro-creates. In the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the emphasis on “seed” suggests that the god-likeness of man/male is shown in his power to quicken woman’s fertility into a living soul. In the second story, man/male is made from “the dust of the ground,” and woman/female from a bone near Adam’s heart. Here the materials, earth and bone, are ready at hand, and God is more an artificer, one who makes by art, than a creator, who perhaps can bring material into being out of nothing (cf. Gen. 1.1-3). Adam, the source of the material from which Woman is made, has a different perception of his new “help meet,” or as we might say, a different experience, than God, the artisan who “made” them both. To Adam, she is not only “bone of my bones,” but also “flesh of my flesh” (2.23). Together, bones and flesh constitute the living body, the primary habitation of every human being, including each one of us. If our greatest blessing is that we have souls, is it our greatest curse that our souls must dwell in a body? The question of how the body and the soul are related, and therewith the question whether the soul survives the death of the body, is grave enough to occupy the full attention of Socrates and his companions in the final hours of his life. The second story begins this way: “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there were up a mist from the earth, and watered the face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” It is in this second creation story, in Chapter 2, verse 4, that the word “generation,” which is related in its root to the word “genesis,” appears for the first time. There is no reference to “generation” in Chapter 1. Man, like God, is a “maker”: he makes cities, as we learn in Chapter 4 (v. 17) and tall buildings, like the tower at Babel, as we learn in Chapter 11 (v. 9). Both God and Man are also makers of images. Man makes images in stories, such as the Book of Genesis, about how the world began. In doing this, he may, like Homer, call on divine assistance or inspiration. Is the poet’s power to make stories that image people and events akin to God’s power to make human beings in his own image? Although both God and Man are makers, in Genesis 1 and 2 it is only God who “creates,” and only Man is said to “generate,” although it is evidently implicit that 12 �many or most other living creatures do also. These first two chapters are about the beginning of all things, but Creation, in Chapter 1, precedes Generation in Chapter 2. There must first be a world before there are beings who will dwell in it. Some of these beings are male and female, who by coupling will generate their own kind, “to multiply, and replenish the earth” (1.28). As Generation pre-supposes Creation, so Creation anticipates Generation. We see this in Chapter 1’s references to “seed” and “kind.” “And God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself” (1.11). In Genesis, from not later than Chapter 4, “And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived,” the story begins to leave plants and animals largely behind, and to focus on the generation of children, especially sons, through the conjugal coupling that unites the Father’s seed with the Mother’s power of procreation. Only one creature, Man, is said to be both “created” and “made.” God’s creating power is exercised through his speech. “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light” (1.3). God speaks, and light is. The speech and deed are one with the being of the thing. Is there some inner communion between divinity and speech and light? Certainly we know from our own experience that human speech is not always enlightening. Very often, it is intended to obscure, conceal, or mislead, like the speech of the Serpent in Chapter 3. The creation of man, on the sixth day, and the creation of light, on the first day, are described differently. Light appears immediately upon God’s utterance, “Let there be.” The creation of man, by contrast, happens in two stages. “And God said, Let us make man in our own image” (1.26). How is “Let us make” different from “Let there be”? Does “Let us make” suggest some sort of deliberation? Who is the “us” that deliberates? Is it God as not “him” but “them,” the duality of male and female? In bringing human-kind into being, God first announces his intention, “Let us make,” and then acts, but his action does not exactly follow his announced intention. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (1.27). The announcement said “make,” what God did was “create.” What was to be made was “man”; what God “created” was “male and female.” The thing to be made was one, a unity, a singular; what God created was a duality, whose coupling is necessary for generating its own kind. Can this unity be reconciled with this duality? With respect to other living beings, fish and birds, animals and insects, Man, humankind, is given “dominion” (1.26, 28). But if both male and female are in God’s image, it would seem that man/male does not have dominion over woman/female. Rather, the two sexes share “dominion” and are co-prime. Among human beings, among their own kind, men and women are equals. In the Biblical account, as in Diotima’s account of Eros in Plato’s Symposium, man and woman, male and female, lover and beloved, are both needy and moveable. Each of 13 �them lacks, but also needs and desires, the other. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” This text, verse 24 of Chapter 2, appears very near the end of the second story, and immediately after Adam has named his new helper “Woman,” observing that her flesh is his own. But Woman’s flesh, which in some way yet to be explained is also Man’s, is no longer part of his body. His body was material for making her body. Is she some sort of image of him, as Man-kind is an image of God? If a man must leave home in order to cleave to his wife, it follows that man and woman are at first separate, at a distance from one another, before, as husband and wife, he can “cleave” to her. “Cleave” means “stick to,” but also “to cut in twain.” This is what a meat cleaver does. This double meaning of “cleave” invites comparison of the Biblical account of the origin of the sexes with the account given by Aristophanes. The least we can say is that Plato thought the question of Eros weighty enough to compose two dialogues about it. Is Genesis another account of how Eros shows itself in our lives? What does Genesis say about how man and woman come together? One element of this attraction we have already noticed: woman’s flesh beckons man because it is in some way his own. There is another element, mentioned in the concluding verse of Chapter 2. “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” The Biblical author is here preparing the reader for what happens in the next chapter. We must begin, then, to parse out what is implicit in this nakedness that is without shame. In Chapter 1, God said several times of his work that it was good. The first mention of any opposite or antithesis to “good” is in Chapter 2, verse 9, “And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (see also verse 17). What sort of knowledge this is, and of what, is a question we can examine more fully when we take up Chapter 3. It is immediately after he commands the man not to eat of this tree that God says, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (2.18). What does God mean by “not good”? Man’s solitariness is not said to be “evil,” but simply “not good.” Would solitary man be neither good nor evil, but something in-between? Could he still be a human being, yet unable to become fully what a human being can become if he has a “help meet”? God brings the beasts and birds to Adam, and Adam names them, but none of them are found to be a “help meet” for him. In the King James translation I am quoting throughout these remarks, “help” and “meet” are two separate words, and I take “meet” to mean “fit.” Why are none of the beasts or birds a fit helper for Adam? In Chapter 2, verse 5, the plants and herbs are in the earth, but not yet growing because there has not been any rain, “and there was not a man to till the ground.” 14 �After forming man of the dust of the ground, verse 7, God puts him in the garden “to dress and keep it” (2.15). The work of the first man is to till the soil. He is a farmer, not a hunter, one who must shed blood in order to eat. If man’s solitude, or solitariness, is the reason it is “not good” for him to be without a fit helper, the help he needs isn’t an ox to pull a plow, or a falcon he can train to hunt other birds. Not as a farmer is the man in need, but as a kind of being not made for living alone. Man is a social animal, we might say; Aristotle says “political.” He needs a being like himself, yet somehow also different. The end of Chapter 2 spells out what sort of being this is. In three successive verses, the meaning of “female” is transformed. In verse 22, God made “a woman” and brought her to Adam. In verse 23, Adam names her “Woman, because she was taken out of man.” In verses 24 and 25, Woman becomes “wife.” After they eat the apple, “Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living” (3.20). “Female” is shared by all animals that reproduce by copulating. “Woman” specifically relates her to “man.” “Wife” relates her, in marriage, to “husband.” “Eve” specifies her as a woman-become-mother, conjugally joined to a man-become-father, for the sake of generating their own kind. Thus begins to come into view the Biblical author’s reason for the phrase “these are the generations of,” used for the first time at the beginning of the second story. Thereafter we find the generations of Adam, Noah, of each of Noah’s three sons, then again and separately, of Shem, the eldest down to Terah, the father of Abram, who will become Abraham. Later the generations of Isaac and of Esau are given. These lists are in Chapters 5, 6, 10, 25, and 36. In the Joseph chapters, there are several different lists of the sons of Jacob. With this clue, we are able to begin discerning one main thread of the Genesis story. It is generation, the human act of procreation, the activity of multiplying our own kind through the pairing of man and woman in the conjugal union of husband and wife. The pairing of male and female changes us, successively, into man and woman, husband and wife, father and mother. By duplicate ratio, mothers and fathers become grandmothers and grandfathers. This continuity in generations, a geometric progression, establishes the continuity of families, and so also of cities and nations. From Chapter 4 forward, another main thread of the Genesis story is the murderous jealousy and hatred between brothers—Cain and Abel, Esau and Jacob, Joseph and his brethren. Does the sequence of events in Genesis suggest that the disobedience of Adam and Eve is somehow the primal origin of the rivalries among brothers and sisters? If the right ordering of the man-woman relation, as husband and wife, is disturbed, is the right ordering of the next generation also likely to be deranged? Because Adam and Eve could not restrain themselves, we, their descendants, are now liberated—and cursed, with the knowledge of good and evil. If it is possible for men and women to re-discover the innocent nakedness without shame our first Mother 15 �and first Father once had, then we will have to search for it ourselves. The search will not be easy, or safe, since the place we must look into is that boiling cauldron of lust and rage—the family. Both the Hebrew and the Greek poets divined this truth, as we may see from comparing the stories in Genesis with Aeschylus’ Oresteia. Plato suggests, at the beginning of the Laws (626 D-E) that the conflicts in the family begin in the individual soul. Freud proposes, echoing Plato, that the source of unhappiness is a soul at war with itself. Might our dreams be one portal to this dividedness (see Aeneid, VI.1211-18)? 16 �Pap and Me Judith Wrenn Huckleberry Finn eulogises his father Pap warn’t much a man. He’d hurt my mam when I was young. He’d hurt me too, plenty, But what mattered He was my Pap, long and the short. Betwixt a drinking and a whooping showed me to borrow and cuss. Reckon a man ain’t more or less a man, we end up ware we ends. All we are is what we been Pap and me and everyman. Artwork by Bucca 17 �A Conversation with Brandon Wasickso, Associate Director of the Graduate Institute Charles Green, Colloquy Editor Colloquy: What brought you to St. John's? Brandon Wasickso: I don't remember how I first learned about the college. Looking back, did I get a mailer in high school? Did a professor mention it at some point? I really can't remember how I first heard of it, but it was something that I was aware of, and had always been floating around the periphery as an option, something that resonated with me. I was working in the D.C. area for several years in kind of ideological work. It was a very ideas-based sort of work, but at the same time, I felt that it was not the extent of the world of ideas and that there was some constraint in having that sort of bias toward action and a narrow, particular way of thinking about things, and I decided I didn't want to do that anymore. I went to Vietnam and taught for about a year and a half, and that's where I was when I applied to St. John's. Something put it back on my radar again. I had this view of the great books as if they had this kind of like mystical power. I didn't know what any of them said. Of course, I'd heard of Plato, I’d heard of Aristotle, right? I'd probably come across different excerpts here and there, maybe even read a few of the books on our list, but I really had no sense of what they were and just how diverse the kinds of things I would be reading would be. But anyway, I had this calling, this idea that drew me to the idea of the great books without again really knowing what the content of them was. I had the sense that by wrestling with these books I would find answers to some of the big questions about meaning and purpose and the like. So, one day, I applied and said, “You know, if I if I get in, great, the decision’s made, I'll move back and I'll do it. And if not, I'm happy here teaching, eating great food, and riding around on a motorcycle.” CQ: It's interesting that you speak of it as kind of a calling, because that’s the feeling I get when I talk with other Johnnies. BW: I remember remarking to a friend at the time, or maybe I wrote it in an email, that I both want to read the books and to be the kind of person who has read the books. It’s that sense of both the activity and also some kind of transformation that was supposed to come out of that activity, right? CQ: Of course. That sounds like a good way to describe it. Can you talk about your experience as both a student at the Graduate Institute and as an administrator? BW: Do you mean, what it's like doing both at the same time, or reflecting on each of them? Or both? CQ: Can you reflect on both. You were in an unusual circumstance to be both a student and helping to run the Program at the same time. 18 �BW: That's right. The position opened up quickly and unexpectedly. A few months before I had had lunch with Ms. Langston through the “take a tutor to lunch” program. I was curious about her being a tutor, but also an administrator. And she had written a convocation address at some point called “Life in the In-Between”, describing how in the GI program, people have feet firmly planted in two worlds: they're in the program, but they also have their own very full lives, careers, families, etc. The undergrads, in contrast, are just really so immersed in the program. There's no other world besides the College that they can occupy for long. So I had I asked Ms. Langston to lunch because I thought that being an administrator and a tutor was also kind of like having your foot in two very different worlds. And I was curious what that was like. My background was in higher ed and nonprofit administration. And I had an interest in continuing in administration perhaps in another form. So we had this conversation and a few months later, the job opened up. And I'm in the middle of my third semester when it did and said, “Of course I'm going to apply to this. This would be really cool.” And I had some skills I could bring to it. So I applied and finished out that semester and then took some time to just focus on getting into the job, doing it well, and making sure I learned what I needed to learn without having to divide my time too much between that and the classes. I wanted to focus on making sure I gave each the time they needed and deserved in order to do them well. But it was it was a strange transition, and I remember the moment that all the people who knew me first as a student, as their classmate, when they all started graduating. And then there's this whole crop of people coming in who just knew me as the guy in the office, the guy who sends all the emails and tells them “you didn't turn in your enrollment plan”, or “here's your conference schedule.” So that was a strange dynamic. Having to navigate the rules around privacy and confidentiality and things like that while still being very close friends with a number of people in the program, and having the primary thing that people knew about me be that I was the program administrator, rather than the fact that I was a fellow GI. So that was strange. It’s been a blessing in so many ways to be able to remain a part of the college. And of course, you know, a lot of people say, “Well, if I could just stay here, take another semester, another preceptorial, wouldn’t that be great?” I say that as well. But a lot of my education since joining the staff has been out of the classroom, learning as one does through the experience of the mundane day-to-day of working a job. There are things we can do better as an institution, and there are parts of the sausage-making process I’d have been happy not to learn, but at the end of the day this “job” has a lot going for it that others don’t. The college is first and foremost a community of learning dedicated to a particular vision of liberal education, and that influences the culture of the “office.” Employees are not—well, I should say not only—vehicles for productivity and a means to someone else’s end. The humanity of the program extends into the workplace. 19 �CQ: I can definitely relate to wanting to stay at St. John’s and the GI. I’ve felt incredibly lucky to take preceptorials as an alumnus. BW: Yes, there’s a dedicated group of returners that I’m happy to see every semester. CQ: I’m curious if since the pandemic and the transition to online learning, you’ve seen more alumni returning to take courses? BW: Well, in the middle of the spring semester of 2020, of course, we had to go online. And I mean, it was an unbelievable moment. Now we're so inundated with COVID news that it barely makes a dent on the mind. But then we knew nothing. We had no idea what was going on, how long it was going to last; this is even before masking was a thing. Everything was just shutting down and cases were popping up. The College had exactly zero infrastructure for doing anything online, right? There'd never before been an online class in the history of the College and we had about a week to get the GI classes up. They extended the undergrad’s spring break by an extra week to give them more time to set things up. But we had basically a week in the GI and a lot of the heavy lifting was from our great IT folks. To the extent I could, I threw myself into the process and it was a “we'll figure this out” attitude all around. I remember being on the phone with tutors evenings and weekends. I offered to help serve as a guide to walk them through how to set up Zoom and how to use it. We had questions about using headphones, and what is muting? I joke that everyone who graduated that year earned a minor in educational technology, with honorary degrees for the tutors. And we did it. I think there were a lot of fears about it, obviously. Partly because other colleges have had online options for a long time and we hadn't, and it was an intentional decision not to have it. So there were a lot of fears going into it. And I think the immediate reaction by just about everybody was, “Oh, OK. It's not sitting around a table being co-present with others, but it's not this terrible thing that we thought it was going to be. It actually kind of works. It's actually pretty good.” Your question was about alumni and folks coming back. I think a lot of people realized that this was an opportunity. We had people who had moved away because they got a job or got married or had to leave in the middle of the program. But now, they can do it from wherever they are in the world, they could finish that last semester in order to graduate, or they could take a precept. I mean, they're not going to move to Annapolis or Santa Fe for a semester to take a single class. So there were a lot of people who really came out of the woodwork and were excited about the opportunity that it presented. And it's funny the way that a crisis like that can reveal opportunities. But I think it's often the case that that they do. And there are people who attended, who otherwise would have never attended, people who graduated, who otherwise would never graduate. And I think that's a really positive outcome. CQ: I can say, from my own experience as alumni taking a preceptorial during that time that transition, it was remarkably easy. Of course, the folks taking three classes 20 �probably had a little more of a transition, but at least for me, given the situation, it seemed remarkably smooth. BW: You were taking a class that spring, right? CQ: Yeah, I was doing Ms. Kraus’s precept on T.S. Eliot. BW: Four Quartets, right? It's funny, I was doing my last segment that that spring. So, I'd just done eight weeks of in-person classes before spring break. And then both getting the classes up and running and then having to go through that experience myself of adjusting to the online mode of doing things as a student as well, which was completely different from the administrative side of things. I never really had a chance to reflect on what I was doing during that first week. It was just, you got to get this up and running. We’ve got to do it. So it was a week of very intensive work. And then I finally went to the classes thinking, OK, now I have to actually think about this and how it changes the experience for me and what's going to be different about it? It was helpful seeing both sides of that. CQ: Yeah, that's a really interesting perspective. And I'd forgotten that you were, you know, that you were finishing up then. Yeah. You got to see both the doing of it and seeing how it works from the student end. I know for myself, it was nice having that time on Thursday evenings away from current events and the uncertainty of the times. It gave me something else to concentrate on, you know. And at the same time, though Four Quartets felt eerily appropriate. It has the line, “This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.” BW: So that’s where that’s from? CQ: Yes. It was a comfort to discuss the poem with a group of like-minded people when everything else was unpredictable, even though at times it seemed to be about the current time. BW: Well, we always say, the texts are timeless and timely, right? CQ: Exactly, it was strange and good at the same time. I'm also wondering what’s been your experience with helping to develop the fully online, low resiliency track at the GI? BW: Like I was saying before, the crisis sort of thrust the online aspect on us out of necessity, but then I think it became an opportunity for us. I really don't think we would have an online low-residency program today without it. We might have had one in three or four years. There were other pressures and discussions about doing that. But we wouldn't have it today had it not been for the pandemic. And like I said, just the people that we were able to engage with, who were able to have this experience with the college, making lasting friendships across great distances and divides. It's been great to see those kinds of results come out of it. And I guess it's also been kind of doubly strange in a way, in that I'm also remote most of the time. I'm in Annapolis every other week, but most of the time I'm home 21 �here in Virginia and I'm working with people who are in Annapolis, as well as doing a lot more work with our Santa Fe campus because we now share the preceptorial in the online segment. So, Annapolis-based online students are meeting the Santa Febased online ones. Students are taking classes with Santa Fe tutors and vice versa. So there's a lot more college-wide community building that I think transcends some of the one campus loyalty kinds of things. So that's very nice. But yeah, being remote and serving remote students, I experience some of the same challenges that they do have, and ask some of the same questions, and also see a lot of the same benefits in working remotely that they see. They’re continuing to do their full lives without having to uproot things to do the program. Artwork by Bucca CQ: I think, the growing interaction between the two campuses, feels like a great opportunity. I realize I don't really know any of the Santa Fe tutors or administrators. BW: Right. CQ: I know Mr. Sterling from when he gave a lecture in Annapolis a few summers ago. And I appreciated getting to know him better when Santa Fe did lectures online last spring and summer. BW: Yeah, you're right. We ended up canceling several of our lectures and Santa Fe pushed ahead and really quickly transitioned to have a lot of their lectures online. And 22 �I sat in on a couple of those online reading groups they developed, like the all- college seminar. CQ: Right, and I think even this past summer Santa Fe had much of their lecture series online. So that was nice to be able to watch that from Annapolis. Do you see, you know, any challenges ahead for the College in general or the GI in particular? BW: Well, by the time this comes out, we'll have welcomed a new President. Not to say that’s a challenge, but a new President means new leadership. A new direction, new tenor to things. There are a lot of open questions right now at the College in general and the GI in particular. As much as I just talked about the benefits of having this online program, there are a lot of a lot of questions we still have to work out. And I think especially thinking about how the mix of online and in-person affects the culture of the GI as a whole, I think is still very much a live question. I’ve been listening to this podcast that we just produced with David MacDonald, a tutor in Santa Fe, interviewing Zina Hintz here in Annapolis where they talk about technology. They discuss the phenomenon of the existence or accessibility of some new technology making the morality or validity of doing a thing somehow more acceptable. The example they discuss involves reproductive technology, but in our case it’s, “well this technology has been thrust upon us out of necessity, so now using it for other things doesn’t seem so far-fetched.” The idea of an online GI program even just a year and a half ago was outside the Overton window. All this is to say, I wonder is there a risk to the life of the campus community of the GI because of the accessibility of the online programs? Are there people who would have and could have attended in-person, but choose online instead? Even if it’s, say, only a 45-minute commute to campus, they think, going online, I could spend more time with my family, or save on time and money, or keep normal hours at work, etc. They weigh the tradeoffs and say, as much as I would like to do the in-person, I’m going to be online, even though I reasonably could be in person and would have been if the online option didn’t. I wonder to what extent that that will happen. The other side of that question is how many students would never have been able to come to the GI if not for this new option? How should the administration be thinking about the answers to these questions? We really have to wait until the COVID-based restrictions are done to see what people are actually going to do in a normal set of circumstances, though. I’ll say also that there are a lot of nonacademic—by which I don’t mean not intellectual, but simply not connected to a college—organic, nonprofit learning communities popping up all over the place that I think are attractive to some people. People who are looking for an intellectual life, looking for stimulating conversation, looking to seek truth. They want to be in the world of ideas. These learning communities are less expensive, they’re more flexible. They’ll create classes and groups that run the amount of time that’s appropriate for the content; they don’t have this weird constraint of, “learning must take place in 16 weeks in the academic calendar,” right? As though somehow that’s the optimal learning arrangement, which 23 �is a little constraining on our part. And it's also, I think, really appealing to people who don't want or need a degree. That's not their primary motivation. And I think that's true for a lot of Johnnies, too. For a lot of GIs who come through, the degree is nice, but that's not why they did it. If they didn’t get it, they'd be equally happy, right? So I wonder what competition from these other groups is going to look like. They're not direct competitors in the sense of being other graduate programs in the liberal arts, but I think they are compelling opportunities that have some good things going for them. And so I'm curious to see how that plays out and how we might respond to those potential challenges. CQ: Definitely. You talked a little bit earlier about, the opportunity that going online has given the GI. Are there other opportunities that you see? BW: I definitely see opportunities in the sense that the GI program in particular, I think, can be a benefit to a lot of people who are thinking about and reacting to everything that’s happening in the world. You know, like I said before, coming out of a crisis often helps clarify priorities. People are talking about the relationship of economic life to the rest of life, they’re concerned about the nature of our so-called politics, they’re grappling with death and loss. St. John’s, of course, can be one helpful way of giving shape to and thinking through these questions. And I think people who have said to themselves, “Oh, I want to do St John's eventually, it would be great to do that eventually.” Well, they might see that “eventually” is now and that they now have the opportunity to do it. I'm glad that we have more ways than ever now for people to engage with us and to join our community. One of those other things, not directly related to the GI, is a new College podcast, which I edit and produce. We released our first two episodes in October. So by the time this is published, there will be three or four episodes of this podcast. It’s called “Books and a Balance: A Podcast on Liberal Education.” It’s hosted by two faculty members: Brendan Boyle here in Annapolis and David McDonald out in Santa Fe, who was previously the associate dean for graduate programs out there. So, it's the two of them having conversations with people who have interesting things to say on the topic of liberal education. Our first two episodes that are out now are with tutors Zena Hitz and Dan Harrell. One with Columbia professor Roosevelt Montás on his new book Rescuing Socrates is up next. It's an independent intellectual project, engaging with the contemporary discourse around liberal education, very broadly construed. Some of the guests that we have coming up are outside of the College, who have ideas very different from ours about what a successful liberal education would look, so I think it will be interesting to a lot of people. It’s an opportunity that I'm really excited for in a couple ways. One is, we are going to have some folks from the Graduate Institute, graduates and other people who've gone on to do other things, who will be guests on the show. And I think it's also a good opportunity for even more people to see the kind of conversations that happen at St. John's. Because if you listen to them, they're just archetypes of good conversation. And so I'm excited that that's going to be able to reach an even wider 24 �audience. You know, it's not meant to be a marketing tool, in the sort of cheap transactional way that we often think of advertising or marketing. It's a substantial intellectual project that I think is a totally new outlet for us. And I think there are potential Johnnies out there who, in listening to this podcast, may well have their first interaction with the College. I expect very soon a number of new folks coming to the GI from this project. CQ: Is there a book or an author not on the program that you’d include if you could? BW: Everyone loves asking this! You know, everyone's got their pet thing of note, so-and-so needs to be on the on the program. The short answer is, no, I don't have a book. And the reason is not because there are so many different books that could be included or excluded, but because I think it's a really hard question to actually answer in any serious way; it demands such a massive context to really answer that question. To do so, you would, I think, need a sense of the program as a whole from the perspective of a teacher. You’d have to say, “I have a sense of the effect of different readings and the combination of readings on the individual lives of students.” And with that context, then saying, “I think taking this one book out and substituting another would be beneficial.” And I don't have that context, right? I don't have the depth and experience to think about it that way, but I think that’s how you have to consider it, if you're going to answer that question in a serious way. A lot of times that question really means is that there’s a particular book that you really like and you really want to see it on the program. And that's one thing. But the real difficulty of weighing it is knowing the pedagogical or academic context. And then also asking the very difficult question of, well, if you're going to add that what are you going to take away to make space for it? That's the harder question. CQ: That’s the question I’ve always heard when people propose adding a book: what are you going to take away? BW: Really what I think this comes down to a lot of times, and it’s true for me in the times I’ve said, “why isn’t X on the list?”, is that I’m thinking here's this book that is very good or maybe even a great book that I want to read with other people who take reading and discussing books seriously. You want it in the program so you can have that discussion with other people right now. I invite anyone who has that feeling about a book to come back and host a study group anytime! But of course the program can’t contain and isn’t meant to contain everything; it’s the beginning, hopefully, of a deeper, richer, more meaningful life. 25 �“Equality” and the Tyranny of the Majority Drew Maglio I am a democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. And whenever their weakness is exposed, the people who prefer tyranny make capital out of the exposure… The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. —C.S. Lewis What Is Human Nature?: The Anglo-American Perspective There are two dichotomous views articulated by proponents of democratic government which the aforementioned passage from C.S Lewis’s essay, “Why I Am a Democrat,” succinctly conveys. These two distinct camps have been broken down into many classifications by various authors as early vs. late-Enlightenment or AngloAmerican vs. French/Continental. The former classification, advocates for democratic government as a makeshift, necessary evil, or least bad option. It holds and articulates that man is so fallen that no one man--or group of men (i.e. majority)—should possess such absolute power so as to legislate how others are to live their lives. The conservative camp, firmly grounded in the way things actually are, seeks to decentralize power (and production) via many checks and balances because absolute power corrupts absolutely, as Lord Acton presciently warned. Recognizing men “are not angels,” institutions and government must be varied and decentralized, in a manner where one entity is positioned against another with an opposing institutional interest, in order prevent any one entity from assuming too much power. J.R.R. Tolkien perfectly encapsulated the “constrained” view (to borrow contemporary economist, Thomas Sowell’s terminology) of government that is based on a negative view of human nature that hearkens back to Plato and Aristotle, when he wrote in a letter to a friend: “the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.” The French View In stark contrast to the early-Enlightenment, Anglo-American view of human nature which is firmly grounded in Christianity and owes a great debt to the Medieval Scholastics like St. Thomas Aquinas, is the Continental vision of democratic government that manifested itself most notably during the French Revolution. Without going too far afield, the defining characteristic of this strand of liberalism (spearheaded by Rousseau), is the rejection of the idea that man is fallen by nature that had long been held in the West. 26 �Rousseau famously declared that “man though born free, is everywhere in chains”—he may as well have said “man is born good and is everywhere corrupted.” In his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Rousseau wrote with impunity, Allowing that nature intended we should always enjoy good health, I dare almost affirm that a state of reflection is a state against nature, and that the man who meditates is a depraved animal. We need only call to mind the good constitution of savages, of those at least of whom we have not destroyed by our strong liquors; we need only reflect, that they are strangers to almost every disease . . . to be in a manner convinced that the history of human diseases might be easily composed by pursuing that of civil societies. [1] For Rousseau, it is in society that the “noble savage”—Rousseau’s archetypal man, becomes irredeemably corrupted as his vices are allowed to fester while his virtue grows weary and lethargic: "In proportion as he (man) becomes sociable and a slave to others, he becomes weak, fearful, mean-spirited, and his soft and effeminate way of living at once completes the enervation of his strength and his courage." [2] In this way, Rousseau may be seen as the antithesis of Hobbes who held that life in the state of nature—which for Hobbes was analogous to a constant state of war—is “nasty, brutish, and short.” Locke contrarily, occupied a sort of mean between the “totally-depraved” Calvinistic view of human nature that Hobbes held and the naturally benevolent view of human nature that Rousseau championed. The Genius of Tocqueville Hailing from France, Alexis de Tocqueville was simultaneously one of most ardent proponents and chiding critics of American liberalism as it was practiced during the 19th century. In his analysis, Tocqueville notes that Antebellum America was the most fundamentally egalitarian society that he had ever witnessed, in which both squalid poverty as well as extravagant wealth were rarities. Tocqueville noted that there seemed to be no great abundance of either uneducated or illiterate individuals, but on the other hand, there were few highly intelligent and exceptional individuals. As Tocqueville conveyed, the overarching motif of Antebellum America was a pragmatic and practical—if not restless and busy—virtue. Unlike the founding era that was made possible by the interventions of the learned, noble, aristocratic (in the proper sense of the term, i.e. in merit not merely land holdings), the burgeoning America that Tocqueville visited was fast at work becoming a blue-collar and middle-class republic, in which leisure and philosophical contemplation took a back seat to industry and action. Tocqueville feared however—in an increasingly egalitarian and average society—that a new tyranny was looming on the horizon: namely the tyranny of the majority, which was manifested not through despotism and 27 �autocracy, but rather by way of the public pressure of opinion and homogeneity: “In our day, the most absolute sovereigns in Europe cannot prevent certain thoughts hostile to their authority from circulating . . . The same is not true of America, as long as the majority has not made up its mind, speech is allowed; as soon as it has pronounced its irrevocable decision, speech is silenced.”[3] In this way, a new tyranny of mind exercised by the majority over minorities began to manifest itself in Tocqueville’s age. Tocqueville argued that this new “groupthink” (as moderns tend to call it),“leaves the body alone and goes straight to the spirit.”[4] When surveying the contemporary political order (or disorder), Tocqueville’s pertinent observations have unfortunately and undoubtedly intensified in magnitude and frequency. Democracy Changes Neither Human Nature Nor the Nature of Political Power Despite being a Frenchman, Tocqueville breaks from Rousseau and instead embraced Locke’s view of human nature, which holds that man has both the propensity for virtue and vice: which he shall become is the result of deliberation and habit. Locke held that the state of nature is not a state of license wherein each is entitled to everything as Hobbes held, but rather that natural law does not cease to reign supreme in the hearts and minds of men. Because of the gross difficulty in each individual protecting his property by enforcing the natural law himself, individuals (who naturally gravitate towards civil society anyway) contract together for the sake of the enforcement of contracts, in addition to establishing an impartial body by which to adjudicate disputes related to trespasses made by one party against another.[5] All of this must be said, in order to convey that for Locke (and Tocqueville), civil society neither drastically reforms (as in Hobbes) nor corrupts (as in Rousseau) the human being: instead, it may do either according to the arrangement of its structures and institutions which either accord with, or conflict with, the natural law. In other words, man is still man no matter the political arrangement, generally speaking. In this way, Tocqueville rejects both the notion that man is either benevolent by nature (and thus it follows that society corrupts him) or that man is so totally depraved that a Leviathan is preferable to a constant state of war that follows from unimpinged liberty: Omnipotence seems self-evidently a bad and dangerous thing. Its exercise appears to be beyond man’s powers, whoever he might be, and I see that only God can be omnipotent without danger because his wisdom and justice are always equal to his power. There is, therefore, no earthly authority so worthy of respect or vested with so sacred a right that I would wish to allow it unlimited action . . . When . . . I see the right and capacity to enact everything given to any authority . . . I say: the seed of tyranny lies there and I seek to live under different laws.[6] 28 �Tocqueville put it even more chidingly later in his work, “I believe that in all governments of whatever sort meanness will attach itself to force and flattery to power. I know of only one method to of preventing men from being debased and that is to grant to no one who has omnipotence (i.e. the majority as in the US) the sovereign power to demean them.”[7] The Lust For Equality: Mill, Marx, and other “Revolutionaries” The underlying source of the new tyranny Tocqueville conveyed is born of the democratic impulse and is the special scourge of democracy, i.e. a disdain of any amount of inequality. Tocqueville believed this state would create a condition of lethargy in relation to liberty, as equality became the most cherished ideal of democratic society (rather than liberty). As Rousseau—and later Mill, Hegel, and Marx became the dominant political ideologues for Continental Europe, equality supplanted liberty as the most vital and cherished ideal for civilization. Mill, for instance, went as far to argue that “the most happiness for the greatest number of people” should be the end of government. In this utilitarian view, the safeguarding of individual rights takes a backseat to “equality” and “progress.” Marx famously declared that “all history is class conflict,” and therefore goaded the proletariat class of workers to revolution in order to achieve greater equality. Marx adopted from Hegel a belief in historicity, or the notion that social values, standards, and mores are historically contingent and therefore not absolute and objective but, instead, malleable in order to suit the needs of any given epoch: The human essence is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In its reality it is the ensemble of the social relations . . . To abstract from the historical process and to fix the religious sentiment as something by itself and to presuppose an abstract—isolated— human individual . . . the “religious sentiment” is itself a social product . . . All social life is essentially practical . . . The highest point reached by contemplative materialism, that is materialism which does not comprehend seriousness as practical activity, is the contemplation of single individuals and civil society. The standpoint of the old materialism is civil society; the standpoint of the new is human society, or social humanity. The philosophers have only interpreted the world . . . the point is to change it.[8] The Desire For Equality Will Undermine Liberty Tocqueville both anticipated and feared the way in which in those who wished to undermine American democracy could appeal to man’s insatiable lust for equality in all outcomes, despite the fact that each individual possesses different aptitudes and abilities which allow or inhibit them from making the best of their circumstances: 29 �The passion for equality sinks deeply into every corner of the human heart, expands, and fills it entirely. It is no use telling such men, as they blindly obey such an exclusive passion, that they are damaging their dearest interests; they are deaf. Do not bother to show them that their freedom is slipping through their fingers while their gaze is elsewhere; they are blind, or rather they can only see one advantage worth pursuing in the whole world . . . I think that democratic societies have a natural taste for freedom . . . but they have a burning, insatiable, constant, and invincible passion for equality; they want equality in freedom and, if they cannot have it, they want it in slavery. They will endure poverty, subjection, barbarism but they will not endure aristocracy.[9] Tocqueville saw a great danger on the horizon for American democracy, whereby a general distaste of learning and extreme wealth could and would create conditions of mediocrity in mind and spirit, i.e. an aggregation of individuals becoming a homogeneity and thereby silencing dissent through social pressure once the majority “had made its mind up.” Once equality (and security for that matter) supplants liberty as the foundation of democracy, it becomes obtrusive and destructive to both minorities and the individual who have but little recourse or redress: My main complaint against a democratic government as organized in the United States is not its weakness . . . but rather its irresistible strength . . . When a man or party suffers from an injustice in the United States, to whom can he turn? To public opinion? That is what forms the majority. To the legislative body? That represents the majority and obeys it blindly. To the executive power? That is appointed by the majority and serves as its passive instrument. To the public police force? They are nothing but the majority under arms. To the jury? That is the majority invested with the right to pronounce judgments . . . however unfair or unreasonable the measure which damages you, you must submit.[10] Tocqueville feared a sovereign majority—with a blithe regard for liberty and an insatiable appetite for equality in all matter of small things—could create conditions which would destroy the human essence, that revolutionaries such as Marx denied altogether, while simultaneously appealing to the yearning for equality: It (the tyranny of the majority manifested as a guardian rather than as a ruler) gradually blots out their mind and enfeebles their spirit . . . It will be useless to call upon those very citizens who have become so dependent upon central government, to choose from time to time the representative of this government; this . . . brief exercise . . . of their free choice will not prevent the gradual loss of the faculty of autonomous thought, feeling, and action so that they will slowly fall behind the level of humanity.[11] Tocqueville’s Democracy in America serves as a reminder that democracy is just as, if not more, prone to abuse than other systems of civil government. In order to flourish, democracy must be firmly grounded in principle in order to construct institutions that align with the objective and absolute reality of this world. In order to remain stable, power must be decentralized and therefore liberty and equality under 30 �the law must be valued over abstract and ambiguous ideals such as “equality” or “progress,” which are but generalities that amount to little more than mere slogans. As Tocqueville conveyed throughout his seminal work, liberty entails duty and obligation and requires a great deal of proper habituation, which cultivates the wisdom and virtue necessary for self-governance—even of the practical sort. All of these prerequisites must be met so that democracy does not devolve into tyrannical mob rule. In our age it seems that few of us have heeded Tocqueville’s admonition about the dangerous democratic impulse that is devoid of reality in so far as it fails to recognize the fallen nature of man and in particular the propensity for those in power to abuse it, which is most often made manifest in democratic society by the ceaseless, fruitless, and senseless pursuit of absolute equality which anesthetizes the exceptional individual in order to bolster the tyrannical majority. [1] Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Greg Boroson, Discourse On the Origin of Inequality (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2004), 7. [2] Ibid, 8. [3] Alexis De' Tocqueville, Democracy In America, trans. Gerald E. Bevan (London, England: Penguin Books, 2003), 297. [4] Ibid, 298. [5] Property for Locke was—among other things—both metaphysical as in labor and the activity of the mind, in addition to physical as in the case of cultivated land. For Locke, the preservation and protection of private property was the impetus for the establishment of civil government. [6] Tocqueville, 294. [7] Ibid, 302-303. [8] Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and C. J. Arthur, The German Ideology (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1974), 122-123. [9] Tocqueville, 586-587. [10] Ibid, 294-295. [11] Ibid, 808. 31 �The White Man Burdened Dimple Kaul While researching British Education Policy and its impact on indigenous knowledge systems, I was reminded of Rudyard Kipling’s exhortation of The White Man’s Burden! This poem is a response from a proud member of the community of indigenous people across the world. It is a reminiscence of pain and an attempt towards collective awareness, acknowledgement, and healing for harmony. It is also a sensitive caution against subconscious/unconscious supremacy that still appears to linger; it is not directed against any race or people. As a Hindu, harmony and mutual respect are intrinsic to my being. Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah! The White Man burdened — Set forth the worst of his breed — blinded sons who were exiled To serve his crown’s greed; Plundering, causing heavy distress On folks he labeled wild — ill-treated the natives as sullen, calling them Half devil and half child. The White Man burdened — Treating himself to a free ride, Unleashed vile, violent terror And reveled in that pride; Not through stealth but loot simple, An hundred times made plain. He sought to make profit, From our labour and pain. The White Man burdened — Forcing us to fight his wars of peace — Causing full mouths of Famine And never let sickness cease; And when his goal was met His promises came to naught, He called us uncivilized, heathen Treated worse than cattle bought. The White Man burdened — Usurping the rule of kings, Through deceit and acting as keeper — Vaingloriously he sings. The ports he forced and enter, The roads he lustily tread, And made his entire living, Off our sweat- alive and dead! The White Man burdened — And reaped untold rewards: 32 �The lies and fallacies he’d better, Spreading hate for those he charred — The cry of hosts, the fake perfumer Would hide in plain sight — He sold our people into bondage, While calling himself just and right The White Man burdened — He kept stooping to conquer And called it an act of civilization To cloak his wickedness; Impoverishing us, he did prosper, By hook or crook, Through acts quiet and vocal Denigrated our Gods, reduced us. The White Man burdened — Having benefited in myriad ways — The self- proffered laurel, The lavish self-praise. Comes now, to teach us humanity After all the thankless years, Cold-hearted ravager of human civilization, Sits in judgment of us, he dares! Artwork by Jesse Clagett 33 �Holy Sonnet XIV Vita Kudryavtseva Upon reading this poem, I was immediately struck by the wave of angst and tsunami of violent rage felt in the wake of it. What kind of “holy” sonnet is that? Where is the Poet’s reverence for Higher Being? Where is humility and trust in God’s wisdom? Donne opens up with “Batter my heart” - a command or directive, but hardly an appeal. He marches on complaining that God’s gentle ways, “knock, breathe, shine” are not effective in helping him, Donne, to “rise and stand” and God’s viceroy “proves weak and untrue”. Donne’s request to God to “bend Your force” can be taken as outright blasphemous - merciful Christian God is no help, he calls upon Zeus the Destroyer, who can “break, blow, burn”. And after giving the account of God’s multiple shortcomings, Donne sighs - “Yet dearly I love you”. Why is Donne angry and who is he angry with, are the questions that I seek to answer in this essay. A couple of immediate observations spring on me - the prevalence of “me”s in the poem, 8 mentions total, and distinctness of “I” from “me”, as in “imprison me, for I...never shall be free”. In fact, the famous paradoxes of the last 3 lines - freedom through imprisonment, chastity through rape - are paradoxes only if “I” and “me” are conceived of as referring to the same entity. What if, by way of hypothesis, we look at them as related but separate? “I” and “me”, being personal pronouns, lead me to take a note of “you”, another personal pronoun frequently evoked in the poem. While the identity of “I” and “me” is not yet clear, Donne makes it explicit that “you” refers to “three-person’d God” in the very first line of the poem. Now that I identified three main characters at play in the sonnet - “I”, “me”, and “you” - the next step is to examine them individually and in relation to each other. “me” in line 12 both rhymes with and is consonant with “enemy” in line 10. The Poet would like “me” to be o’erthrowen, made new, imprisoned, ravished. “me” is the troublemaker, the antagonist in the story. Throughout the sonnet, Donne insists on “me”s distraction or subjugation. Interestingly, the only exception to this narrative happens in line 7: “Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, But is captiv’d”. This is also the line in which “me” is stressed twice in a row. Who is it that Reason has failed to defend “me” from? One potential reading of this line is to go along with Donne’s poetic logic and to add a couple more “me”s - “Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend [from me], but is captiv’d [by me]”. These additions are consistent with the antagonistic treatment of “me” elsewhere in the sonnet and illuminate the fact that “me” is not inherently “bad”, rather left to its own devices “me” can become unruly and dangerous. If the current “me” could be returned to its original condition, “made new”, “me” will no longer be an “enemy”. On the other hand, Donne’s description of “you” makes me think of a powerful but gentle giant, who is slow to act because he is kind and aware of his might. The Poet’s choice not to capitalize “you”, “three-person’d God”, visually puts “you” on the same 34 �level as “me”, makes it more “human-scale”. “you” is lovable, “you” is unintrusive, “you” shines. “I” loves “you”. “you”s victory over “me” is also “I”s only hope for being free, chaste, and loved. “I” pleads with “you” - “Divorce me, untie or break that knot again, take me to you”. It can appear ambiguous whether “I” is referring to divorcing “me” from “you” or “me” from “I”. But the presupposed union between “me” and “you” does not make sense in light of the subsequent request to “take me to you” and multiple appeals for “you”s distraction earlier. Rather, it is the bond between “me” and “I” that “I” is asking to be severed - “Divorce me [from I]”! And we are told “you” have done it before and can “break that knot again”. This tells us that “you” has both the authority, experience, and expertise to straighten “I”s affairs. But who is that “I” that is making the appeals? The first thing we learn about “I” is that “I” is down, not doing well and the cause of “I”s condition is “me”. Donne’s metaphor for “I” as an “usurp’d town” is echoed throughout the poem. “I” is “betroth’d unto your [“you’s”] enemy”, making “I” a potential traitor. “I” wants “me” imprisoned, enthralled. “I” is suffering because “I” loves “you” but feels unsure of “you”s love - he may be, “would be lov’d”. “I” comes across as weak, powerless, vindictive, and angry. If the reader can suppress combat connotations evoked by the imagery of “usurp’d town”, the relationship between “me”, “you”, and “I” takes the character of a tragic romance story told from “I”s perspective. “I” loves “you” but is “betroth’d” to “me”. “you” is ambivalent or perhaps more reserved in his feelings for “you” and “me”. “me”, in the eyes of “I”, has taken “I” unjustly, by force, but without “you’s” intervention “me” is certain to prevail. While I found it helpful to designate “I”, “me”, and “you” as a kind of “stick figures” for the purposes of elucidating some of the “plot” lines in the sonnet, it is now time to attempt an interpretation of their meaning. Donne’s use of “three-person’d God” as an antecedent for “you”, as well as appeals to “you’s” powers throughout the poem, make it easy to see “you” as divine nature. In contrast, “me” can be thought of as a human nature - fallible, driven to horrid extremes when not governed by Reason. But even Reason by itself cannot be relied upon to control these animalistic impulses and urges. The question of who “I” is both the most obvious and the most difficult. On one hand, “I” is the narrator, the Poet, John Donne. But with this understanding, “I”s relationship to “you” and “me”, “divine” and “human”, remains obscure. 35 �Artwork by Jesse Clagett Donne may have planted a hint to answering this question in the opening line “three-person’d” is clearly a deliberate choice of descriptor for the Supreme Being that harks back to the Holy Trinity. Drawing attention to God’s multiplicity and oneness in the very beginning of the poem, Donne sets the stage for the multiplicity and oneness of “I”, “me” and “you”. The intentional parallelism between the God’s structure of Being and the Poet’s, “I”s, structure is further strengthened if we recall Genesis 1:27: "So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him". God’s creation resembles God by design. However, in the context of the sonnet this correspondence can only be taken so far - it is hard to envision that “I”, “me”, and “you” are meant to directly correspond to the “Father”, the “Son”, and the “Holy Spirit”. At a very minimum, the sonnet does not seem to supply enough evidence for such a direct mapping to be established unambiguously. Thus, while the multiplicity may be present in Donne’s concepts for both “I” and God, the relationship between “I” and “me” and “you” requires further clarification. Because of the prominence of “usurp’d town” metaphor taking over the entire second quatrain, I was drawn to conceive of “I” as a fortress, a container, a shell which under ideal circumstances can contain both “me” and “you”, “human” and “divine”. In the Poet’s case, “me” has overgrown, overflown, subdued Reason, and filled up "I"s entire interior. Like a cancerous growth, “me” needs to be lacerated to make space for “divine” to be admitted back into Donne’s being. 36 �An alternative interpretation of “I” occurred to me when I recognized “I” as a common symbol for a mathematical function, called “Indicator function”. This function can only have values of 1 or 0, “true” or “false”. It is 1 if a variable is a part of a given set, and 0 if it is not. If I substitute “you” for “x” and “me” for A in the above formulation, then an indicator function equals one if “you” belongs with “me” and zero otherwise. This conception of “I” better aligns with the extremeness and volatility of feelings expressed in the sonnet. “I” only has value when there is “divine” present in it, otherwise it is a mere “me”, a worthless animal. This would explain why the Poet cannot be loved, as in “valued”, in his current condition and “would be lov’d fain” only when “you”, “divine” returns to “me”. Donne is facing a stark, binary choice admit “you” to “me” and “raise and stand” as One or continue on as “me”, a Zero. Did any of these elucidations get me closer to understanding why Donne is angry and who he is angry with? I think so. Both a “container” and an “indicator function” concepts of “I” share an important feature - the potentiality for having Divine as a part of “I”, an internal part. The Poet is making demands of and airing frustrations not to an external deity but to the Divine within. The angst, the rage, the brutality Donne summons are both self-directed and self-inflicted. The remedy he seeks for his condition is not a violent rape but a self-flagellation. 37 �About a Letter Louis Petrich Dyed colors eye my star-took tan goodbye, and harking freckles, islets hitching waist, my home’s horizon, wane in vesting night. I hail them back, hot stabs: so bleeds away a summering care for hale and hearty having. One letter needs to convalesce, my ache. Then alphabetic whole, outfielding fate that kicked me forth her goal, like lightening grounded, shall sate farmed fires ‘tween legs that compass sky and sweat such poses, friction-bent, of limbs, that unquiet hips may cool on capering tongues that summon sounded midriff world of ends. And were those aches but featly trials of me to loose from earth and seas their titled stores lone Adam’s lips, spontaneous, once sprung? Go live bedrocked in paradise of questions; tell good and evil: hang yourselves. You’ll see. That always ache—it’s butting never never. With waves unbound around the earth forever, no breaking reef, sunk shores so answered, be. 38 �Artwork by Bucca 39 �Prize-winning Tutorial Essay: Meno Andrew Laurence Graney “Can you tell me, Socrates, whether virtue is something teachable?” Meno asks at the outset of Plato’s Meno. He continues, “Or is it not teachable, but something that comes from practice? Or is it something neither from practice nor learning, but something that comes to human beings by nature, or some other way” (70A)? Quickly, however, Socrates turns the dialogue away from Meno’s original question, whether or not virtue is something teachable, and towards the very definition of what virtue is. Socrates claims he does not know what virtue is, and can therefore not say, on any solid ground, whether or not virtue is teachable. He states: I share the poverty of my fellow citizens in this matter and blame myself for not knowing about virtue at all. And how could I know what sort of thing something is, if I do no not know what it is? Or does it seem possible to you that someone who has no cognizance of Meno at all, who he is, could know whether he is handsome or rich or well-born, or the opposite of these? Does it seem possible to you? (71B) Therefore, as soon as the conversation has begun, it has taken a turn. It is no longer, for the time being, about whether or not virtue is teachable, but what the thing itself is. Still, Socrates’s answer, saying that he does not know what virtue is and so cannot say whether or not it is teachable, implies that he does at least think that some things are teachable, that there is such a thing as the teachable thing, and he simply does not yet know whether virtue is one of those teachable things. Throughout the dialogue, neither of the interlocutors explicitly claim that nothing at all is teachable. In 87C, for example, Socrates and Meno seem to agree that knowledge, at least, if nothing else, is teachable. In this paper, I want to question whether or not anything it is at all, truly teachable. I am inclined to say yes. But, as Meno learns in his conversation with Socrates, what I am inclined towards is not necessarily the truth, for at the beginning of their dialogue, Meno is sure he knows what virtue is, and yet as the dialogue continues he becomes more and more perplexed. Therefore, I ask again, is anything teachable? Another way to ask this question might be: what is the relationship between teaching and learning? Surely, people do learn things. I could not be writing this paper had I not learned a multitude of things beforehand. I had to learn my letters, had to learn how to write, how to form cohesive thoughts, among other skills. How did I learn these skills? One might say that the obvious answer is that I had teachers in these subjects. In elementary school, teachers taught me how to read and write. As I got older, other teachers taught me how to write papers, ask questions, form my thoughts on the page in a manner that might be compelling to others. This does seem to be the case. I had those teachers. I learned those skills. But, a problem arises. When I was a child I had a violin teacher, and yet I never became a skilled violinist. My teacher had other students that did become quite skilled. From this example I can only conclude that the fact of having a teacher does not guarantee one’s learning. Therefore, I return to my question. How does one learn? Is anything teachable? 40 �In their search for what virtue is Meno asks a question that seems to imply that no one can actually learn anything. Again, from everyday experience, it seems obvious that people do learn. Still, Meno’s question is difficult a difficult one to answer. On how Socrates will find what virtue is, Meno asks: And in what way will you seek, Socrates, for that which you know nothing at all about what it is? What sort of thing among those things which you do not know are you proposing to seek for yourself? Or, even if, at best, you should happen upon it, how will you know it is that which you did not know? (80D) Socrates responds: I understand the sort of thing you want to say, Meno. Do you not see how inclined to strife this argument you are drawing out is, that it is not possible for a human being to seek either what he knows or what he does not know? For he could not seek for what he knows, because he knows it and then there’s no need of any seeking for this person; nor could he seek for what he does not know, because then he does not know what he is seeking. (80E) This argument, at first glance, might appear foolproof. Socrates has an answer, however. The soul is immortal, he states, and “Inasmuch as the soul is immortal and has been born many times and has seen all things both here and in the house of Hades, there is nothing which it has not learned” (81C). He then supposes that everything we are supposed to have learned is actually, truly, our souls recollecting that which they already knew. To illustrate this point, Socrates calls over one of Meno’s slaveboys. Through a series of questions asked by Socrates, the slaveboy comes to realize the line lengths that would be needed to double the size of a given square. Socrates claims that because he asked nothing but questions, this serves as evidence of the fact that the knowledge of the squares came from within the boy, from within his immortal soul. One could object that Socrates was asking leading questions, and that, perhaps, asking these sorts of questions is a way of teaching. Before starting on my own inquiry, in this paper, on the nature of teaching and learning, I would have been inclined to agree, and to a certain extent, I still am. Socrates knew what he was asking. He led the boy step by step, albeit through questions, through the geometrical proof. The boy could not have come to this knowledge without Socrates. Nevertheless, as I stated earlier in my example of having a violin teacher as a child, having a teacher does not guarantee that one learns something. Beyond Socrates questioning, how does the slaveboy learn the geometrical proof? That is, what makes him have an “aha” moment, a moment of realization, a moment, perhaps, of learning? Socrates’s exchange, if taken at face value that the boy, through questioning, came to recollect what his soul already knew, does, in a way, clear up Meno’s paradoxical question of how one can learn anything. That is, one can search for anything, “learn” anything, if it is simply, (though it may not be simple), a matter of recollection within his soul. Still, the soul’s immortality does not shed any light on what makes the ‘aha’ moment happen for a learner. 41 �After this exchange with the slaveboy, Meno and Socrates continue the dialogue on what virtue is and whether or not it is teachable, and something strange happens here to Socrates’s argument. Socrates, as I have stated, claims to have not taught the boy anything, and instead states that “true opinions will exist within him, which after being aroused by questioning becomes matters of knowledge” (86A). Again, Socrates’s argument is that the boy is recollecting, not being taught. Still, Socrates must think some things are teachable. If he thought nothing was teachable, he need not inquire about what virtue is in order to say whether or not it is teachable. He simply could have said, “No, it is not teachable. Nothing is.” Strangely enough, in apparent contradiction to the geometrical proof example with the slaveboy, Socrates seems to believe that knowledge actually can be taught, and is, among all things, the only thing that can be taught. He states: In this way then, about virtue too —since we know neither what it is, nor what sort of thing it is—let us look hypothetically at it, whether it is teachable or not teachable, speaking in the following way: If virtue is some sort of thing among those things that have regard to the soul, would it be teachable or not teachable? First, then, if it’s the kind of thing that is different from, or like knowledge, is it teachable or not, or, as we were just now saying it, is it recollectable?—let it make no difference to us about whatever name we use—but is it teachable? Or is this, at any rate, clear to everyone, that a human being is taught nothing else than knowledge. (87B-C) Meno agrees to this, that a human being is taught nothing else than knowledge, and agrees, when Socrates states, “And if virtue is some kind of knowledge, it is clear that it could be taught” (87C). The question then becomes for the interlocutors, is virtue a matter of knowledge? It might be that Socrates does wobble a little bit here in his argument, changing from nothing can be taught to knowledge can be taught, but for my purpose, it would not be productive to quibble with that wobbling. For my question still holds: How does learning happen? Is anything, strictly speaking, teachable? For Socrates, if virtue is a matter of knowledge, and can therefore be taught, there would be teachers of virtue, and one would do well to send his child to a virtue teacher. In the end, Meno and Socrates agree that there are no teachers of virtue. Furthermore, they agree that if there are no teachers, there are no learners (96C). Because they conclude that virtue has no teachers, and is therefore not something teachable, which, consequently, makes virtue not a form of knowledge, they then conclude that one who has virtue must get it from “divine dispensation” (100A). I disagree with Socrates that if there are no teachers there are no learners. One can learn through observation. One can learn to play basketball by watching professional basketball players. One can learn to skateboard by doing the same. One can learn to write poetry by studying the masters. This glaring omission, their leaving out that one can learn through observation, makes the conclusion of this dialogue, to my mind, unsatisfying, makes the jump to divine dispensation quite the leap. The more I think about it, however, the more I think Socrates might be correct. 42 �I still do not agree with him that if there are no teachers there are no learners. I do, however, think he might be right when he says that learning virtue is due to divine dispensation. To my mind, his answer as to what is divine dispensation is actually too limited, for I still cannot understand, if anything is teachable, knowledge, for example, what makes that ‘aha’ moment possible. Where does it come from? One might say it comes from intuition, but what is intuition? Could not one say that intuition might in fact be the soul remembering, and that therefore nothing is teachable? I was dissatisfied with Socrates’s answer that virtue is bequeathed through divine dispensation because I thought it obvious that one can learn without teachers, that one can learn, that is, through observation. But what about this gift of observation? Where did it come from? Is it all, everything we do and learn, a gift from God? Could it be that yes, there are teachers; things are teachable, and yes, there are learners; we do learn things, but it all comes from God, the ‘aha’ moment of learning, the ability to teach? Many questions arise from this. Does God bestow gifts equally, but one has to accept the gift? Could this be why some people are virtuous, others not? What makes one more or less inclined to accept God’s gifts? Why would God create people who are not inclined to receive his gifts? Does God indeed do this? But these, perhaps, are questions for another time. For now, though, I conclude that that ‘aha’ moment that makes learning possible, that might permit me to answer these further questions, must be a gift from God. 43 �Prize-Winning Preceptorial Paper: Thus Spoke Zarathustra Anthony Meffe In a note Nietzsche observes that “One generally mistakes me: I confess it; also I should be done a great service if someone else were to defend and define me against these mistakes.” (XIV, 318 f.) Nietzsche here admits to the often obscure and esoteric nature of his writing, an obscurity that must be revealed by later interpreters and defenders. Walter Kaufmann in his seminal biography of Nietzsche echoes this sentiment with his refutation of the “Nietzsche legend,” namely the inheritance of preconceived notions surrounding who Nietzsche was, and what the purpose of his project was. The benign influence of Nietzsche’s sister Elizabeth was instrumental in cementing Nietzsche’s reputation as a nationalistic anti-Semite, as poet, or prophet rather than philosopher, and had led to a situation where, as Kaufmann puts it, “there is not even basic agreement about what [Nietzsche] stood for.” While the scholarly horizons for Nietzsche’s work are perhaps less grim today than in 1950, it is still a weighty task to come to a firm understanding of a philosopher who deliberately eschewed systematization, and who described the scholarly approach to knowledge as “cracking nuts.” (Z, II, 16) In cracking a nut you achieve a completeness, a goal, an end, then discard the scraps and move to the next nut, triumphant. In contrast, Nietzsche asks us not to ‘solve’ his thought, but to engage with it in a dynamic motion of mistaken interpretation, defence and clarification. The emphasis upon motion is a recurring theme in Nietzsche’s work, and especially in Thus Spoke Zarathustra where the path to the Overman (Ubermensch) is first described in direct and linear language but quickly develops into cyclical and nonlinear transformations, dances, and songs, that lead to greater understanding and creativity, but not to any end or telos. Nietzsche, while desirous of eternity, attempts to achieve it not in any solution that finds a solution, but rather through the eternal recurrence of the individual, subjective, creative will in the world, this particular world, the only one which will ever exist and has ever existed. Creation, the act of God which demands conformity, is distinguished from individual creation that engenders freedom and creates new values in a world where God is dead. (Z, Prologue, 9) In the death of the Creator, there is an opening for the creative will to find its way to becoming the Ubermensch, by perpetually moving. But the question remains as to whether the world outside of the subjective creative will ‘exists’ in a real sense, or whether it is merely a subjective projection of the whims of new creators. At the risk of attempting to crack this philosophical nut like the scholars, I will argue that Nietzsche presents a unified and consistent view of the world, defined by motion, and against Christian and Darwinian teleology, which demands the kind of creativity he describes. It is meaningful insofar as it describes reality, the eternal exercise of the will in relation to the world. Nietzsche’s system that eschews systems then relies upon perpetual motion which reflects and is faithful to life, or rather living in the world as it is. This is achieved through eternal recurrence, and can be described reliably as an objective reality. 44 �The most essential quality of life in Zarathustra is constant motion, whether simply physical motion or a deeper spiritual transformation. As Peter Behrens writes in his novel The Law of Dreams, “the law of dreams is keep moving,” and this might equally be called the law of Zarathustra. (Behrens, 10) Thus Spoke Zarathustra begins with a movement and transformation: “When Zarathustra was thirty years old he left his home… and went into the mountains. Here he enjoyed his spirit and his solitude and for ten years he did not tire of it.” (Z, Prologue, 1) Zarathustra moves to the mountain, but still finds no ultimate satisfaction: “I am weary of my wisdom… I want to bestow and distribute…For this I must descend into the depths, as you do evenings when you go behind the sea and bring light even to the underworld.” (3) He continues: “Like you I must go down…” (3) Already on the first page we have spanned ten years, and bridged two epiphanies on the part of Zarathustra, not satisfied with enjoying his spirit, he wishes to descend and teach. And what does he wish to teach? It is the path to the Ubermensch: “I teach you the Overhuman. Human being is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?” (Z, Prologue, 3) Humanity is one stage, a stage that requires action to be surpassed. While Zarathustra also uses semi-evolutionary language, comparing the Ubermensch to man as we compare man to ape, Kaufmann is careful to point out that Nietzsche rejected an evolutionary corollary to his work. (Z, Prologue, 3) While the symbolism and comparison here “invites misunderstanding,” Nietzsche himself claimed that only “scholarly oxen” would interpret his work as Darwinism. The path to the Ubermensch requires active overcoming rather than passive and deterministic reception of natural forces to which one adapts. We might find some clarity in Nietzsche’s work on history, written in 1874 before Zarathustra” where he writes: For since we happen to be the results of earlier generations we are also the results of their aberrations, passions and errors, even crimes; it is not possible quite to free oneself from this chain. If we condemn those aberrations and think ourselves quite exempt from them, the fact we are descended from them is not eliminated.” (U VI, 3) He writes further that the attempt to eradicate this memory creates a kind of second nature as we break from the first, and yet something of the past state always remains, and the new state is generally feebler than the first. (U VI, 3) By feebler Nietzsche likely means more contingent and less survivable, even if it is more complex, as all higher beings are, comparing the complexity and fragility of humans to the durability of simpler organisms in The AntiChrist. Instead Nietzsche demands that the path forward be willed rather than accepted, even as remnants of earlier transformations will endure. Rather than look to change as a cold or mechanistic reality, it should be understood as a proud action towards a higher state. In The Gay Science Nietzsche remarks that the Darwinian conception has led, just as in Christianity, to a “man against the world” understanding of life, wherein man must give up either reverence or his own being, where both are accorded as nihilism. (GS, 346) Rather Nietzsche seeks a path wherein man and the world are not in conflict, 45 �where what is past, is, and is to come can be accepted with all their warts. But how does Nietzsche’s conception of motion and transformation eradicate nihilism? The answer to that question is found in Nietzsche’s conception of life which is irrevocably tied to endless motion towards without ultimate completion, as well as his notion of the death of God. Zarathustra teaches not just the Ubermensch but the path to it: “Mankind is a rope fastened between animal and Overman – a rope over an abyss.” (Z, Prologue, 4) The ones who know how to be “crossing over” and “going under” are those who know how to live. (4) But what does it mean to know how to live? If mechanistic Darwinism is not an antidote, then neither is faith in God, even as in the revolutionary nineteenth century such a dichotomy seemed to be the nexus of intellectual conflict. As soon as Zarathustra comes down from the mountain he meets an old man who has as yet not heard that “God is dead.” (Z, Prologue, 2) The phrase is one of Nietzsche’s most famous aphorisms, and represents a foundational principle upon which all his ideas depend, especially in Zarathustra. The one who is a believer in God is a believer in “a world behind.” (Z, Part 1, 3) God is presented as outdated, or perhaps more appropriately something which has served its purpose, but which now retards motion. Zarathustra once believed in this “delusion,” that is the belief in anything beyond the human. (Z, Part 1, 3) To put faith in a world beyond the world that one inhabits is to reject life and living, to place the creative will outside of one’s action, and instead to conform to an invented will without realizing that it was man that willed it. Thus speaks Zarathustra: Weariness that wants to attain the ultimate in a single leap, in a leap of death, a poor and ignorant weariness that does not even want to will anymore: that is what created all Gods and all worlds behind…The body it was that despaired of the body – that groped with the fingers of deluded spirit for the ultimate walls. (Z, Part 1, 3) The deluded spirit longs to achieve eternity and completion, the ultimate, in one swoop, and to rest upon that victory. God’s corpse erects a wall, an ultimate wall, that protects against motion, but motion and transformation is necessary to life. In simpler and more direct words, Nietzsche describes the chief principle of faith in Twilight of the Idols (written after Zarathustra) as “faith that a will is already in things.” (G, Epigrams and Arrows, 18) If a will, especially a constant, unchangeable Will, is imputed into the world, then the human will is once again in opposition to the world. He must either conform and lose himself, or lose his reverences, just as with mechanistic Darwinism. We are then presented with two distinct forms of modern nihilism, both belief in a deterministic world to come, and a religious world that ought to be left behind yet casts long shadows. By what means then can man find meaning? For Nietzsche the answer lies in the transformation, the motion, of the spirit. We have already heard that mankind is a rope over an abyss, but Zarathustra goes on to say that “What is great in the human is that it is a bridge and not a goal.” (Z, Prologue, 4) What is terrifying in humanity is “dangerous shuddering and standing still.” (Z, Prologue, 4) The bridge, however, like the rope, is a linear image, one may 46 �cross forwards, or backwards, or potentially fall into the abyss. While the abyss itself may represent a non-linear element, the path is straight. A straight path then must necessarily lead to some goal, some destination, or some end, unless it is infinite. Surely then the straight path must lead to death. However, this linear imagery is developed in Zarathustra’s speech on the Three Metamorphoses, and becomes more cyclical. The cycle allows for repetition, without a necessary end to motion. The spirit moves through three transformations, into the camel, the lion and the child, each providing a necessary means to move beyond the world behind, and the world to come. The first transformation is that of a camel in whom the spirit can carry the weight of heavy questions and pondering. (Z, I, 1) Then we encounter the lion in which man learns to regard the “sacred Nay” to become a “lord in its own desert” after winning freedom. (1) The enemy of the lion is the great dragon who proclaims “Thou shalt,” in a rather obvious reference to the Decalogue. (1) Freedom is attained through rejection of what one should do, “thou shalt,” and in rejection of external value, of external will in the world. (1) An apex, but not a completion, is found in the child, the final transformation. (1) The power of the will transforms sacred naysaying into sacred “Yea-saying,” embracing creativity to build one’s own world of value. The innocence of the child allows for forgetting, rebuilding, and transforming, much like in Nietzsche’s theory of history. The purpose of these transformations seems to be a means to let go of the old values that weigh down the spirit, to reject the world beyond, and to will it into the world behind through individual creation. As Zarathustra remarks, “Wherever I found the living, there I found the will to power, and even in the will of the serving I found the will to be master.” (Z, II, 12) The dragon says “thou shalt” but the lion says “I will” becoming master over itself and serving life. (Z, I, 1) Evaluation is transferred from the realm of external discernment to individual will and creation. There is no indication that this could not be repeated, providing man a means to stay in motion. Life is then served by killing the Creator, killing Creation, and moving to become one’s own willing creator in the world as it exists. The slaying of the dragon then opens new ports of motion. Nietzsche writes in The Gay Science of the great joy one experiences at the news that “the old god is dead” (GS, 343): At long last the horizon appears free to us again, even if it should not be bright; at long last our ships may venture out again…all the daring of the lover of knowledge is permitted again; the sea, our sea, lies open again; perhaps there has never yet been such an “open sea.” (GS, 343) What is important is the possibility of movement and transformation, not any particular course. The sacred Nay opens an ocean of sacred Yea. Yet even this grand freedom is not without qualification, as Zarathustra remarks “Body am I through and through, and nothing besides; and soul is merely a word for something about the body.” (Z, I, 4) The soul is an aspect of the body, as is the spirit. (4) The transformations enumerated above are bodily and spiritual, insofar as all things are 47 �bodily for mankind. He later expounds on this stating “Since I have come to know the body better… the spirit is only a hypothetical spirit to me; and all that is everlasting – that too is only a parable.” (Z, II, 17) Only the perishable body exists as truly real for Zarathustra at this point. What is important, however, is that Nietzsche necessarily unifies subjective creation through the three metamorphoses with reverence for life and nature. The creating will is a function of a new freedom gained from an awareness of the reality of this world, apart from worlds beyond or behind that a literal spirit or soul would indicate. One might raise the objection: is this demand to perpetual motion and life not simply replacing one dragon with another? Why should the ‘thou shalt’ of nature or of life be any different from the ‘thou shalt’ of God? From the language that Nietzsche uses, however, it seems plain that he envisions this reverence for life not as something you must do, but rather that this new way offers man the freedom to behave honestly towards nature, not through a delusion, nor through compulsion. Zarathustra preaches faithfulness to the earth and not to invented worlds. (Z, I, 3) The creation of new values is then a function of nature through our life-affirming bodies. Nature does not demand, but permits. The image that Zarathustra uses of the railing to the Ubermensch illustrates this: “I am a railing by the torrent: grasp me whoever is able to grasp me! But your crutch I am not.” (Z, I, 6) One may grasp the rail or not, but it is there to make use of as one will. But does life not still end? How does one avoid the obvious inference of fatalism (that Nietzsche rejects) in these attempts to escape nihilism, or does this merely cement nihilism as reality? Some clarification and expansion might be found in the songs that Zarathustra sings in the Second Part of the book where we find the first murmurings of the eternal recurrence. The distinction between night and day also features heavily as a kind of perpetual and ongoing motion in the cosmos, undergirding life. In The Night Song, Zarathustra looks to the heavens, and finds something cold and unsettling in their motion. “Many suns revolve in desolate space…to me they are mute. Oh this is the enmity of light toward that which shines; mercilessly it goes its orbits.” (Z, II, 9) Later Zarathustra says “Like a storm the suns fly their orbit, that is their motion. They follow their inexorable will; that is their coldness.” (9) This inhuman motion seems to unsettle Zarathustra in contrast to the motion of the spirit which was animating. Words like ‘merciless,’ ‘desolate,’ ‘mute,’ ‘coldness,’ and especially ‘inexorable’ sound like the language of fatalism and resignation rather than life, specially when referencing will. Yet life is itself a reverence and honesty towards nature through motion. Zarathustra is perhaps reflecting on the disjuncture between the creating will which “wills its own will” and which “attains its own world” while confronted with a natural world remote to that experience (Z, 1, 1) In the daylight Zarathustra could preach to the stars: “You great star! What would your happiness be if you had not those for whom you shine?” (Z, Prologue, 1) Where Zarathustra was boastful and proud in the daylight, he is now intimidated and alienated from those same luminous bodies in the evening. What has changed? Zarathustra experiences “iciness” and “hesitation,” at night, and he seems unable to move while experiencing 48 �a kind of involuntary contemplation of the shining suns that move so inexorably. Contemplation, or rumination had been an object of mockery to Zarathustra, a desirable nonsense, but nonsense all the same. (Z, I, 2) Later too he describes contemplation as “emasculated leering,” to “desire nothing from things” but to lie before them. (Z, II, 15) The lifeless impasse is broken by adding motion into contemplation as a passive corollary to the dynamic creation of the day time. In The Dance Song, Zarathustra comes face to face with life itself in the form of a dancing girl while strolling at night with his disciples. Life is dancing, and it is in that motion and transformation of nocturnal dancing that Zarathustra finds a means to rehabilitate concepts he had dismissed to make them serve life. His first words to life are “Do not stop dancing” referring to the dancing girls as “light ones.” (Z, 2, 10) He finds life before him, in the evening, motioning in a manner that is not alien the way the movement of the stars was. He says to life: Into your eyes I gazed recently, oh life! And then into the unfathomable I seemed to sink. But you pulled me out with your golden fishing rod; you laughed mockingly when I called you unfathomable.” (10) Unlike the distance between Zarathustra and the night-time suns, life is here personified, and speaks to Zarathustra directly, breaking any delusion of distance or disjuncture between the human will and the natural world. To look at life and understand it is not then a rumination, nor a flight from life, but part of a parallel structure of nature of which the creative will is one part, along with the acknowledgment of the natural world. Creation of value is necessarily parallel with nature, not disrespectful to it. But while nature’s existence is objective, creation of value is not, for how could you march from summit to summit if you had found and rested upon the real truth? (Z, II, 7) Rather it is an objective response to the freedom conferred by the non-existence of objective values in nature that is itself an objective reality. This is why life dances, because these two necessary aspects participate with each other in the constant motion that is, for Nietzsche, life, itself mirrored in the transition from daylight to evening. In the dance we can imagine the constant flow of transformation, from camel, to lion, to child, or from day to night, in a constant flow of motion, that is to say in concert with nature. It is not surprising then that it is those moments of crisis for Zarathustra when he has forgotten how to walk, that he has also lost sight of the path to the Ubermensch. (Z, II, 22) But why does Zarathustra continue to experience moments of stillness and lifelessness even after his encounter with life? He has still not sufficiently conquered one final ‘end,’ specifically permanent death, a permanent end to motion that he refers to as ‘the spirit of gravity.’ Zarathustra describes life as “A dance and a mocking song to the spirit of gravity,” the spirit that rules the world. (10) Zarathustra mentions this spirit only once before in the first Part, “And when I saw my devil, there I found him in earnest, thorough, deep, somber: it was the spirit of gravity – through him all things fall. (Z, I, 7) The spirit of gravity is the essence of fatalism, for what goes up must come down, what lives must die, what begins must find an end, 49 �even if that end is neither a religious nor a mechanical world to come, nor a world beyond. In what then can a creator take solace other than nihilism? The dancing god, life, provides a clue in the names men give her: “profundity or fidelity, eternity or secrecy.” (Z, II, 10) Eternity is the name that men give life, but eternal life is a concept that Zarathustra has derided as the life-denying philosophy of the despisers of the body and the preachers of death, whose conception of eternal life is a goal that distracts from life as it is in the world. (Z, I, 9) What life tells to Zarathustra is that life itself, life as it is, is eternity, and this is the lightness that Zarathustra perceives in the dancing girls, their liberation from the spirit of gravity without any final end to their dancing. This liberation also provides for a liberation of the will, as well as a further unity of the subjective creating will with the objective natural world. In The Gay Science, Nietzsche claims that “Faith is always coveted most and needed most urgently where will is lacking.” (GS, 347) Faith is the dereliction of the will, the belief that there is another will in the world to which one must submit. However Zarathustra remarks that “I would only believe in a god who knew how to dance.” (Z, 1,7) It would seem then that the dancing god, life, offers an exception to the rule. Nietzsche states that there is a correlation between one’s strength and the need to believe, therefore Christianity, or Metaphysics more broadly, will survive so long as they are needed. (GS, 347) We know that Zarathustra has proclaimed the death of god, declaring that all gods are human works (Z, I, 3) and that true creativity is impossible if there are gods, for how could one create if there were already Creation, if there were already a will there? (Z, II, 24) Zarathustra tells us that the gods died of laughter when the God of Abraham declared “thou shalt have no other gods but me,” stating that true divinity is to have gods but no God. (Z, III, 8) Yet through the spirit of the lion, and sacred naysaying, God, the dragon that commands “thou shalt,” has been killed. We are left without gods, and without God, but this leaves a new sea open once again. If belief is derived from necessity, then the creative will must will belief in the dancing god, life. The dancing god is man’s reverence for nature which participates in nature. The created god of nature, the created god of the will, steps in concert with the world as it is, and is united with it. Man gives up neither reverence nor himself. To what one is reverent is their own body united with nature through the will. This unity is expounded upon by Zarathustra when he addresses the heavens before sunrise: Oh sky above me, you pure, exalted one! This your purity is to me now… that you are my dance floor for divine accident, that you are my gods’ table for divine dice throws and dice player. But you blush?... is it the shame of us two that made you blush? (Z, III, 4) Through the will, man can find unity even in the parallel structure of nature, and divinize the world as it is. Why does the sky blush? Is it perhaps embarrassed by this union? While still two distinct and separate entities, Zarathustra becomes aware of the power of the will to unite with the natural world, exemplified by the motion of the dancing god, life. The necessity of creating new values is reconciled with the 50 �reality of nature in this long dance to become aware of how one’s “own being is involved in the totality of the cosmos”. That parallel division is never truly eliminated, however, nor does that seem to be a particular problem for Nietzsche or Zarathustra any longer. But there is still the question of the eternity of life, that is to say the question of perpetual motion. Having reconciled life with the creating will, there is still the need to defeat the spirit of gravity. As Nietzsche writes in Twilight of the Idols: The fatality of our essence cannot be separated from the fatality of all that was and will be. We are not the consequence of a special intention, a will, a goal; we are not being used to reach an “ideal of humanity”… We have invented the concept “goal”: in reality, goals are absent… (G, The Four Great Errors, 8) Nietzsche must then find a way to reconcile the eternity that life has spoken to Zarathustra with human fatality, without succumbing to fatalism. This is achieved through the concept of eternal recurrence. As Kaufmann points out, Nietzsche considered the eternal recurrence his most important idea, even as he offers little to no proof of it in his works. All the same it is an absolutely necessary aspect of his thought, for it is his solution to fatalism that respects fatality. The dwarf says to Zarathustra, “You stone of wisdom! You hurled yourself high, but every hurled stone must fall!” (Z, III, 2.1) This is the thought of lead that is dripped into Zarathustra’s ear, which he overcomes with the courageous phrase, “Was that life? Well then! One More Time!” (2.1) Zarathustra then develops the doctrine of the eternal recurrence: “See this gateway, dwarf! I continued. “It has two faces. Two paths come together here; no one has yet walked them end to end. This long lane back: it lasts an eternity. And that long lane outward – that is another eternity (2.2) The paths converge only at the gateway called “Moment.” (2.2) Each moment is then made eternally alive through repetition, without the need to look forward or backwards or towards any goal or telos. From this gateway Moment a long eternal lane stretches backward: behind us lies an eternity… And if everything has already been here before, what do you think of this moment, dwarf? Must this gateway too not already have been here? And are not all things firmly knotted together in such a way that this moment draws after it all things to come?... For, whatever can run… must run it once more! (2.2) Kaufmann calls this the supreme “suprahistorical” expression, wherein all striving beyond is extinguished in the exaltation of the moment, whether that striving be Darwinian, or Christian. Each moment resounds in eternity not as a stepping stone, but as a stepped stone, always present, and past, and future, and therefore always in perpetual motion. The finitude of earthly existence is transformed into an eternal faithfulness to the earth that Zarathustra preached from the beginning. (Z, I, 3) With each moment separated from a final goal or end, the will is free to say to itself “One More Time!” (Z, III, 2.2) This is what it means for the will to create its 51 �own world, because it creates the world as it is, one’s own eternity which is eternity, and that is life. With the eternal recurrence Zarathustra is free to say “This is my good and evil.” (Z, III, 11) The recurring will makes for itself eternal values not by appeal to another world, but in this world that will always reemerge. “All joy wants eternity, wants deep eternity,” says Zarathustra, by which he means that willing ‘yes’ to life is a will to its totality, night and day, pain and happiness, all ensnared together as one bottomless dancing eternity. This is how Nietzsche solves the problem of nihilism as a reaction to the world as it is, through life as eternal motion which relies heavily upon the eternal recurrence to achieve coherence, and also how he reconciles the subjective will with objective nature. The project of Nietzsche can then be described as the attempt to reconcile his rejection of nihilism with his beliefs regarding what reality is. Whether he succeeded or not is a difficult question, and one to which many will likely come to differing conclusion, however what seems clear is that Nietzsche offers in Thus Spoke Zarathustra a circuitous and roundabout enumeration of the demands of his conception of reality. The creating will that emerges from the corpse of God is not merely subjective, but rather subjective in accordance with the reality of the natural world where there exists a gap in objective value. While Nietzsche never fully unifies the two, he does posit a parallel unity where each is faithful to the other, even if they are not fully united to the other. This faithfulness to the earth as it is what is objective for Nietzsche, the earth that is eternally alive and in motion, where every subjective value is elevated in each moment of eternity. Through eternal recurrence, and the creating will, Nietzsche sustains his central notion of life as motion in a way that, at least internally, fulfills the objective of faithfulness to the earth as it is (according to Nietzsche), while providing an escape from nihilism that rests on no assumptions that contradict his own conception of reality. The joy that Zarathustra experiences towards the end of the work is the joy of reconciliation and unity, achieved on his own terms. The conception of the world as described by Zarathustra can then be said to be objective, and even further, that the distinction between subjective and objective breaks down in the eternal recurrence. Whether it is correct is another question for another essay, though there are suggestions of the necessity of faith for some of the concepts here enumerated, particularly the eternal recurrence. Whether this is a true victory over nihilism is perhaps still left to the reader, but all things considered it was a heroic and consistent attempt. 52 �Artwork by Jesse Clagett 53 � 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 Colloquy Description An account of the resource A student-run journal for the Graduate Institute community of St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. The issues feature essays, art, poetry, interviews, and more. 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 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. 56 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 Colloquy, Fall 2021 Description An account of the resource Volume IX of Colloquy, published in Fall 2021. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Braley, Olivia (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 2021-12 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 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived English 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 Colloquy_Fall2021 Graduate Institute https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/1c0101ce28ea085841d2551fe7afa90b.pdf d472e0fafadaccca3c77b8438c426d05 PDF Text Text DEPTH AND DESIRE EVABRM-IN St. John's College Annapolis, Friday, August 31, 1990 �DEPTH AND DESIRE Eva Brann Annapolis, Friday, August 31, 1990 li5l y an old tradition the first lecture •)f the year is dedicated to lQJ the new members of our college, to the freshman students and the freshman tutors. It is a chance to tell you something about the shape and the spirit of the Program that pverns St. John's College-­ and not only to tell you but perhaps even to show you. I think I am right in this spirit when I begin by examining the class-name I just called you by: freshmen. A freshman, my etymological dictionaries tell me, is a person "not tainted, sullied or worn," a still-fresh human being, where "fresh" means, so the dictionary points out, both "frisky" and "impertinent." Later on in the year you will learn a weighty Greek word applicable to persons of frisky impertinence. They are said to have thymos, spiritedness or plain spunk, a characteristic necessary for serious learning. This spirited frame of mind is perfectly compatible with being shy and secretly a little scared. In fact, to my mind, it is a sign of quality in newcomers to be anxious for their own diJnity in the way that shows itself in spirited shyness. It is our business, the business of the faculty and of the more responsible upper class students, to help your spiritedness to become serious, to emerge from the shyness-- whether it be of the quiet or the boisterous sort, to help you channel your energy into a steady desire for learning and to direct your boldness toward the discovery of depth and, moreover, to help you without leaving you tainted, sullied, and worn out. I keep saying "help," because although great changes are bound to take place in you in these next years-- do but behold the seniors: unsullied, untainted, unworn and transfigured-- we none of us know who should get the most credit besides yourself: the Program, our teaching, your friendships or just plain time passing. At any rate, the spirit of the college is invested in seriousness, a certain kind of seriousness-- not dead seriousness but live seriousness, you might say. This seriousness shows itself on many occasions: in deep or heated conversations in the noon sun or at midnight, in marathons of effort and in the oblivion of sleep, in devoted daily preparation and in glorious goofing-off, in the 1 �BRANN DEPTH AND DESIRE willingness to try on opinions and in the need to come to conclusions. What does your school do to induce this very particular kind of seriousness? When you chose to come to St. John's you were, perhaps, attracted by the fact that the mode of teaching normal in higher education is quite abnormal here. I mean lectures. Only one lecture a week is an integral part of the Program, on Fridays at 8:15 P.M. Now the chief thing about a lecture is that it is prepared ahead of time. For instance, I began working on this lecture in March. A lecture Ol!ght to be the temporarily final word, the best a speaker has to give you at the moment. It should not matter whether the surface of the speech is brilliant or drab, as long as it is a deliberate and well-prepared opening of the speaker's heart and mind to the listeners. As such it carries authority. These authoritative occasions are obviously important to the life of the school. Yet our normal way is not the prepared lecture but the focused conversation which is effervescent rather than prepared, provisional rather than authoritative, and participatory rather than reactive. Your tutors will not tell you but ask you; they will not demonstrate acquired knowledge, but the activity of learning. One reason why the teaching of new tutors-- and some of your classes will be taught by newcomers-- is often most memorable to freshmen is that their learning is genuinely original and keeps sympathetic pace with yours. There is an irresistible but false local etymology of the word tutor as "one who toots," perhaps his own horn. What the word tutor really signifies is a person who guards and watches learning. We are deliberately not called professors because we profess no special expertise. Since you will not be told things, you will have to speak yourselves. What will you speak about? The Program wiH ask you to focus your conversation on certain texts-- they might be books or scores or paintings. These texts have been selected over the years by us because they have the living seriousness I am trying to speak about. To my mind texts, like people, are serious when they have a surface that arouses the desire to know them and the depth to fulfill that desire. Here then, is my announced theme for tonight: the depth that calls forth desire. To delineate that depth I must once again distinguish our kind of conversation, the kind associated with such texts, from the 2 �BRANN DEPTH AND DESIRE kind of fellowship to be found in other places. All over this country, and wherever the conditions for some human happiness exist, there are people who know all there is to know about some field that they till with a single-minded love. This is the blessed race of buffs, aficionados and those rare professionals who have had the grace to remain amateurs at heart. They study history or race stock cars or do biology or fly hot-air balloons. My own favorite fanatic is the young son of a graduate of St. John's. This boy is persistently in love with fish, with the hooks, flies, sinkers, leaders, reels and rods for catching them, with the books for studying them, with the aquaria, ponds, lakes and oceans for observing them. When I first met him he looked up at me shyly and asked if I knew what an ichthyologist was. Since I knew some Greek I knew the etymology of the word and could tell him that it is a person who can give an account of fish, so he was satisfied with me. This boy may have his troubles but he is also acquainted with bliss. This kind of concentrated bliss we cannot deliver to you, except perhaps in limited extracurricular ways. Instead we, or rather the Program, will drive you through centuries of time and diversities of opinion, while depriving you of the freedom and the serenity to till and to master a well-defined field of your own choosing. You will study Greek and invest hours in mem01 izing paradigms, but your tutorial is not a Greek class-- it is a language tutorial in which Greek is studied only partly for its own virtues, and partly as a striking and, for you, a novel example of human speecl1 and its possibilities. You will study Euclid and demonstrate rna 11y prepositions, yet your tutorial is not intended to make you geometers but to allow you to think about the activity of mathematics. In short, you will be asked to read many books carefully and to stcdy many matters in some detail only to find them passing away, becoming mere examples in the conversation. And these fugitive texts will almost all bear their excellence, their worthiness to be studied exhaustively, on their face, for we try to pick the ideal examples. This procedure is practically guaranteed to keep you off-balance, even to drive you a little crazy, since you will not often have the satisfaction of dwelling on anything and of mastering it. How do we dare do this to you? Here is a strange but unavoidable fact: Those who plow with devotion and pleasure and increasing mastery some bounded plot on the globe of knowledge often undergo a professional 3 �BRANN DEPTI-I AND DESIRE deformation. They lose first the will and then the ability to go deep. To be sure, specialists are often said to know their subjects "in depth," but that is not the depth I mean. Let me illustrate with an example I have a special affection for. I began my academic life as an archaeologist, and the first thing archaeologists do is to dig deep past the present surface of the earth, or rather they scrape it away layer by layer. But with every stratum they scrape away they find themselves at a new surface, the surface of a former age. They poke into time-- a magical enough activity--but they do not pretend to pierce the nature of things. For example, there would come up from the depths of a well-shaft an ancient pot. I would catalogue it by naming its form, say: kotvle, a kind of cup; by giving its dimensions: H. 0.108 m.; diam. 0.135 m; by describing its proportions: deep­ bodied, narrow-footed; by interpreting the picture painted on it: a rabbit-- this is the pot-painter being funny-- jumping a tracking hound from behind; by conjecturing about the provenance and the stylistic influences: made in Attica under Corinthian influence; and by assigning a date: third quarter of the seventh century B.C. Was I required to consider what I meant by dimensions, proportions, styles, images, funniness, influences, places? Not a bit-­ that would have meant time out and profitless distraction from my business, which was to know all about the looks and appearances of the pottery of Athens in early times. What this Program of ours offers you is exactly that time out, and that splendid distraction. People will say of you, when you have graduated, that you have 4 �BRANN DEPTH AND DESIRE acquired a broad background. But your education will have been broad only in a very incidental and sketchy way-- certainly not in the fashion of a close-knit tapestry that is a continuous texture of interwoven warp and woof. Many of the books you are about to read do tie into one another. Sometimes a book written by an ancient Greek will (I am not being funny) talk back to one written by a modern American, or the opposite-- the strands that connect these books seem to run back and forth and sideways through time. But some books will stand, at least as we read them, in splendid isolation, and all in all the texts we study do not add up to a texture of knowledge: There is no major called "Great Books." How could there be competence in a tradition whose moving impulse is to undercut every wisdom in favor of a yet deeper one? There is not even agreement whether this tradition of ours advances or degenerates with time, whether its authors are all talking about the same thing, though in a different way, or in apparently similar ways about quite incomparable things. Here is what the books do seem to me to have in common: They intend to go into the depths of things. All the authors, even those subtly self-contradictory ones who claim that there are no depths but only surfaces, are deep in the way I mean. This desire for depth, then, is what will hold your studies here together. There is a word for this effort, to which it is my privilege to introduce you tonight. The word is philosophy. The term is put together from two Greek words, philos, an adjective used of someone who feels friendly, even passionate love, and sophia, which means wisdom or deep knowledge. When I say that your school is devoted to philosophy, the love of deep knowledge, I mean that all our authors want to draw you deep into their matter, whether by words, symbols, notes or visual shapes. Incidentally, in a few weeks a lecturer, a tutor from Santa Fe, will come and contradict me; he has told me that he will say that what we do needn't bear the name of philosophy at all. Let that be a subject for future discussion, and let me come to the heart of my lecture tonight. It is ;he question what depth is and how is possible. I think we are all inclined to suppose that literal, actual depth belongs to bodies and space and that people or texts are deep only by analogy, metaphor .cally speaking. I want to propose that here, as Sl often in philosophy, it is 5 �BRANN DEPTH AND DESIRE really the other way around: it is the body that is deep merely metaphorically, as a matter of speaking, while the soul and its expression alone are deep in the primary sense. Certainly the depth of a body or a space is elusive. If a body has a perfectly hard and impenetrable surface, its depth must be forever beyond our experience-- a kind of hard, inaccessible nothingness. On the other hand, let the physical body have a hollow in it-- such caves are powerful allegories of depth and you will in the next four years come across some famous holes: the grotto of Calypso, the underground chamber in Plato's Republic, Don Quixote's cavern of Montesinos. Now ask yourself: Where actually is the depth? The containing boundaries of the hollow are all faces of the body, and no matter how deep you seem to be inside the body, you are still on its surface, just as I argued before about archaeological excavations. Now consider matterless bodies, geometric solids. Euclid says in Book XI that a solid has length, breadth, and depth, but he gives us no way to tell which is which: it depends on your perspective-- in fact all three dimensions are lengths delineating the surfaces that he says are the extremity of the solid. What is inside that solid, what its inwardness or true depth is, he does not feel obliged to say. These are questions you might want to raise in your mathematics tutorials: Can one get inside a geometric solid? How? Bodies, I am suggesting, are either too hard or too involuted or too featureless or too empty to have true depth. Only divine or human beings and the texts they produce-- texts made of words, notes, paint, stones, what have you-- can be literally deep or profound. For I attribute depth or profundity to that which is of a truly different order from the surface that covers and hides it. And it must be the inside and foundation of just that surface, so that we can gain entrance to it through that particular outside and through no other. Every depth must be sought through its own proper surface which it both denies or negates and supplies with significance: the surface that hides its own depth is never superficial. Human beings seem to me the most obvious example of such depth. All human beings have a surface, namely the face and figure they present. I personally think that in real life almost all people also have an inside, their soul, their depth. But there are some famous novels in which characters are described who are nothing but 6 �BRANN DEPTI-1 AND DESIRE empty shells. Against their impenetrable surface those whom they attract by the insidiously unflawed beauty peculiar to facades that hide nothing break themselves, or if they tear through, they fall into nothingness. However, these are fictions, and actual human beings have by the very fact of their humanity an inner sanctum. We begin by noting, casually, their face, their demeanor. As our interest awakens we proceed to read more carefully, to watch their appearance ardently for what it signifies. If we are lucky, they may open up to us, as we do to them. If we go about it right, this interpretative process need never come to an end, for the human inside, or to give it, once again, its proper name, the soul, is a true mystery. By a true mystery I mean a profundity whose bottom we can never seem to plumb though we have a persistent faith }n its actuality. I think that for us human beings only depths and mysteries induce viable desire. For love entirely without longing is not possible among human beings. Many a failure of love follows on the-- usually false-­ opinion that we have exhausted the other person's inside, that there is no further promise of depth. It is not only in respect to living human beings that depth calls forth desire. This college would not be the close human community that it is if you did not get to know some human beings deeply-- which is called friendship. But such love is only the essential by-product (to coin a contradictory phrase) of our philosophical Program, a program that encourages the love of certain para-human beings. These para-human beings are the expressions of the human soul, our texts, as well as the things they talk about. Let me take a moment to ask wl>ether this particular desire for depth I keep referring to is common among human beings or even natural. I say it is absolutely natural and very common. You will see what I mean when I tell you what I think is the nature of desire. Desire seems to me to be a kind of negative form or a shaped emptiness in the soul, a place in the spirit expecting to be filled, a kind of psychic envelope waiting to be stuffed with its proper contents. Now take a long leap and ask yourself what a question is. A question is a negative form or shaped emptiness in the mind, a place in thought waiting to be filled, a psychic envelope ready to be supplied with its proper message. Questions therefore have the same 7 �BRANN DEPTII AND DESIRE structure as desires. In fact questions are a subspecies of desire: a question is desire directed upon wisdom or knowledge. Therefore I might go so far as to say that this school teaches the shaping of desire-- because here we practice asking deep questions. Now I think that very many, probably all, human beings would like to ask such questions if they only knew how. That is why the desire for depth is both common and natural. What we most often, or at least most programmatically, ask questions about are those texts I have been mentioning. As I have intimated, such a text, particularly a text of words, is a curious kind of being, neither a living soul nor a mere rigid thing. What a book might be, such that it could have genuine depth, is a question that should arise over and over in the tutorials and the seminars. That books do have depth is shown by the fact that they induce questions, the directed desire to open them up. I want to end by giving a sample of a deep text and a demonstration of the beginning of a reading, a mere knock at its gate, so to speak. The text is a saying by Heraclitus. Heraclitus flourished about 500 B.C. He was early among those who inquired into the nature of things, and he had a contemporary antagonist, Parmenides. You will see from your sheets that Heraclitus said that it is wise to agree that "All things are one. • Parmenides said things that, on the face of it, seem similar, but whether he meant the same thing as Heraclitus, or something opposite or something incomparable-- that is a matter of ever-live debate. In any case, Heraclitus and Parmenides together embody the great principle of our tradition that I mentioned before; you might call it the "the principle of responsive differentiation." However, I shall not try to talk about Heraclitus's actual wisdom tonight-- that along with the previous questions: "What is philosophy?," "What is a solid?," "What is a cave?," "What is a book?," I leave to future discussion. I shall attend only to the preliminaries with which Heraclitus surrounds his wisdom. Heraclitus's book is largely lost, though as far as we know it was not a treatise but a book of sayings. Even in ancient times it had a reputation for depth; the tragedian Euripides said of it that it required a Delian diver-- the divers from the island Delos (which means the "Manifest" or "Clear") were evidently famous for diving deep and bringing things to light. 8 �DEPTH AND DESIRE BRANN The sayi�g I have chosen goes: OVK IIJOU &:ua TOU Aoyou aKQU aaVTas 611oAoydv aoq�ov AaTw lv 1rav-Ta dva& Transliterated it reads ouk emou alia tou logou akousantas homologein sophon estin ben panta einai. On the surface this saying is in Greek and needs to be translated. Since I have argued that surfaces are, like traditional Japanese packaging, an integral part of the contents, they must be carefully and patiently undone. Now to put Heraclitus's Greek into English is, up to a certain point, not hard. Your Greek manual will tell you about the "accusative absolute" and about various infinitives, and your Greek dictionaries will give you the meaning of "listening," of "wise" (which you are already familiar with in philosophy), and of "agree." "Logos" is one of the But then you look up logos. tremendous words of our tradition, to which it is, once again, my privilege to introduce you. Without even looking it up, I can give you the following meanings: Word and speech, saying and story, tally and tale, ratio and relation, account and explanation (that was the meaning which occurred in the word "ichthyologist"), argument and discussion, reason and reasoning, collection and gathering, the word of God and the son of God. As you learn Greek you will see what it is about the root-meaning of logos that makes this great scope of significance possible. But how are you to choose? You are caught in a vicious circle: Unless you know what Heraclitus means by logos you cannot choose the right English translation, and unless you discover the right English word you cannot know what he means by his saying. However, sensible people find ways to scramble themselves out of this bind. Try a meaning that makes good immediate sense: choose "reasoning." Listening not to me but to my reasoning, it is wise to agree that all things are one. This yields a saying that is particularly pertinent to us, since 9 �BRANN DEPTII AND DESIRE it might be posted over every seminar door. For though we must look into each other's faces, we must not get stuck on personalities. Each seminar member has a right to say: "Never mind me, answer my argument." Heraclitus is introducing a great notion into the Western world here: Not who says it matters but what is said. But there is more signifying surface to the saying. Listen to its sound and notice that in the second line the word homologein sounds like logos. "Agree" is a good first meaning but it does not preserve the similarity of sound. Homologein literally means "to say the same." Let me try that, and for "my reasoning" I will substitute "the Saying." If you listen not to me but to the Saying, it is wise to say the same: that all things are one. Now what sense does that make? What Saying? Whose saying other than Heraclitus's own? Suppose the translation did make sense, then Heraclitus is saying that there is a saying that can be heard beyond his own, a speech to which we must listen, a speaking that it would be the part of wisdom to echo in what we say. What impersonal speech could that be? Heraclitus in fact tells us not what the logos is, but what it says, for he bids us to say the same: "All things are one." What if this saying, of which no human being is the author, where a power whose saying and doing were one and the same? What if its speech were an act? Let me play with a third, somewhat strange, version: Once you have listened not to me but to the Gathering, it is wise similarly to gather all things into one. Here logos is translated as gathering or collection. It is the power that gathers everything in the world into a unified whole, the organizing power we are invited to imitate by giving a comprehensive account of the universe in speech. The logos speaks primally; our logos becomes deep by imitating it. I think by now the text has begun to draw us through its surface into its depth. You can see that it demands of you the playful seriousness I mentioned at the beginning, a seriousness that calls out all your capacity for careful attention to surface detail as well as your willingness to dive into the depths. io �BRANN DEPTH AND DESIRE Here I shall stop. But although I am ending, I am not finished-- and neither, of course, are you. If you have in fact listened not only to me but also to my argument, and if you are possessed by the proper freshman spirit, now is your moment, the part of the Friday night lecture that is the true St. John's: the time for questions. 11 �A NOTE ABOUT THE TEXT This lecture was written and edited in WordPerfect 5.1. All headings, subheadings, and body text are set in Times Roman. Typesetting, editing, and printing were done at the St. John's Print Shop. � 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&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;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 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper 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 Depth and desire Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on August 31, 1990 by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brann, Eva T. H. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1990-08-31 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 57332 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Taken from the St. John's Review, Volume XXIX, Number 3, 1989-90. It was originally the opening lecture of the 1990-91 academic year at St. John's College, Annapolis. 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 Relation A related resource <a title="Audio recording" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/326">Audio recording</a> Deans Friday night lecture St. John's Review Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/a1c9f2fc4240a91c117155ca8ef84126.mp3 4b3f07f1255ce76f9a2ad1c04a0bada1 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&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;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 CD Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:55:16 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 Talking, Reading, Writing, Listening: A Lecture for Parents and Students Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brann, Eva T. H. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-11-04 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 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I herby grant St. John's College permission: To make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. To make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. To make an audio recording of my lecture available on the St. John's College web site." Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Brann_Eva_2011-11-04 Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on November 4, 2011, by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Deans Friday night lecture Tutors