Music, Books, Beverages (3rd Edition)

I haven’t done one of these lists for a while (since March 8th apparently), so here’s a new, slightly longer one.

What I’ve Been Listening To:

Wild Beasts – Two Dancers
REM – Accelerate
U2 – Zooropa
Antony & The Johnsons – The Crying Light
Jeff Buckley – Grace

What I’ve Been Reading:

Kierkegaard – Repetition & Either/Or
Ivan Illich – The Right To Useful Unemployment
George MacDonald – Fairy Stories
Michel Henry – I Am The Truth
David Held – Introduction To Critical Theory

What I’ve Been Drinking:

An unusual amount of tea, often with a few ginger biscuits
Bodegas Salado Fina Blanca Paloma – a dry white sherry (well, technically a fortified wine ‘cos of the region, but that’s being fussy), which my sister & brother-in-law brought back for me from Spain
Dry ginger ale, again in unusual quantity
Rock Mild – the best mild I’ve ever had, brewed locally in Nottingham
Courvoisier VS – a standard, but very nice, cognac

Summertime Reading

By Choice • For Pleasure

.

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By Request • For Review

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William Morris’ Socialist Ideal

“…what I mean by Socialism is a condition of society in which there should be neither rich nor poor, neither master nor master’s man, neither idle nor overworked, neither brain-sick brain workers nor heart-sick hand workers, in a word, in which all men would be living in equality of condition, and would manage their affairs unwastefully, and with the full consciousness that harm to one would mean harm to all – the realisation of the meaning of the word COMMONWEALTH.”

from ‘How I Became A Socialist’ (1894), in News From Nowhere & Other Writings, p.379.

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_{N.B. Morris was ambivalent about just how to pursue the ideal, and was caught, it seems, between the Ruskinian hope of changing the system from the inside-out through moral pedagogy, and the Marxist call for overthrow of the system through bloody revolution.}

Wilfred Owen

The Guardian’s ”Poem of the Week” is Wilfred Owen’s famous The Parable Of The Old Man & The Young, in which he recounts the biblical story of Abraham almost sacrificing his son Isaac, retelling it through the lens of the First World War. It’s a classic, so I thought I’d stick it up here. The original article is pretty interesting from a literary perspective as well. It would be interesting at some point to take a look at all the different (less orthodox) uses of the Abraham / Isaac story. The treatments given by Kierkegaard and Derrida both spring to mind, in addition to this one by Owen. Anyway, here it is:

The Parable of the Old Man and the Young

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in the thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

A Reading Binge

I’ve been on something of a reading binge for the last few weeks in the run up to two essays I have due in May. For the first time in my life I’ve actually got into a reading routine (which has a lot to do with the fact I am otherwise unoccupied throughout the day, as I continue to look for a job that fits round my studies in this stupid recession). Nevertheless, here is the fruit of my labours, both completed and ongoing, and some I will be starting imminently:

Books Completed:

Ivan Illich - Tools For Conviviality. A staple of Illich’s corpus which extends the thesis he set out in Deschooling Society, that the institutionalization of the West – in terms of education, healthcare, transport, technology etc. – has done far more damage than good, acting as dehumanizing forces which make us slaves to the very things that were supposed to help us. Illich was something of a phenomenon in the 70s, but his work was rather neglected from the mid-80s on. However, the theological foundations of his work – the argument that modern society is essentially a corruption of Christianity – has recently been retrieved by Charles Taylor.

John Ruskin – Unto This Last. A scathing critique of the political economy of 19th Century Victorian society from what might be called a ‘theo-aesthetic’ and romantic perspective. Ruskin has been of interest lately to the likes of John Milbank and Jamie Smith, and has been cited as inspiration for the (related) political sensibility known as ‘Red Toryism’, with which Philip Blond is identified. I found Ruskin had much to say to our current economic situation, even though he was addressing a social context quite different (in some ways, not others) from our own.

John Ruskin – ‘A Biting Retort’

I recently checked out a volume entitled A Book of Ruskin from the University Library. It is a small pocket-size compendium of excerpts from John Ruskin’s writings, published in 1927. It has a heavily worn, navy blue, hardback cover which seems to be falling off at the binding. The pages are aged, a little crumpled and rather yellow. It smells very, very musty. It is the kind of book I like.

In it, are a selection of Ruskin’s letters, both private and public, and I came across one which I particularly enjoyed, entitled ‘A Biting Retort’. By way of background, Ruskin was a staunch critic of the laissez-faire economics of his day. Part of his argument was that modern capitalism turned the lower-class factory worker into little more than a human machine – simply a means of production for the national economy. The working class were given simple, repetitive, menial jobs, with long hours and low pay, in terrible conditions, and this was said to be their fair lot in life. In addition to the obvious social injustice issues here, Ruskin argued that this robbed working class ‘work’ of any pleasure or beauty, because it destroyed its creative element (see his essay ‘The Nature of The Gothic’ in The Stones of Venice). Ruskin saw this as a deep injustice at the heart of modern, Victorian society, that was dehumanizing and anti-life. The following exchange comes in this context, and concerns a misunderstanding of Ruskin’s critique as concerned simply with an attack on machinery. I will quote in full from the book:

“A somewhat impertinent critic once wrote to Ruskin:

Since you disparage so much iron and its manufacture, may it be asked how your books are printed, and how is their paper made? Probably you are aware that both printing and paper-making machines are made with that material.

To this Ruskin replied as follows:

Sir,

I am indeed aware that printing and paper-making machines are made of iron.  I am aware also, which you perhaps are not, that ploughshares and knives and forks are.  And I am aware, which you certainly are not, that I am writing with an iron pen. And you will find in ‘Fors Clavigera’, and in all my other writings which you may have done me the honour to read, that my statement is that things which have to do the work of iron should be made of iron and things which have to do the work of wood should be made of wood ;  but that (for instance) hearts should not be made of iron, nor heads of wood – and this last statement you may wisely consider when next it enters yours to ask questions.

I am, Sir,

Your obedient servant,

J.Ruskin

(Corpus Christi College, Oxford. February 10, 1872)”.

Superb!

Music, Books, Beverages (2nd self-indulgent list)

What I have been listening to…

U2 // No Line on the Horizon

Lindsey Buckingham // Gift of Screws

Lindsey Buckingham // Under The Skin

Fleetwood Mac // Rumours

What I have been reading…

Charles Taylor // A Secular Age

Augustine // Confessions

Stanley Hauerwas // A Better Hope (essay collection)

G.K. Chesterton // Orthodoxy

What I have been drinking…

Highland Park 12 year old (Single Malt Island)

Glenmorangie Original 10 year old (Single Malt Highland)

Hopping Hare (Golden English Ale)

Baileys & Hot Chocolate (Cadbury’s, of course)

Chesterton: Cats, Madness and Reason

My main reading project right now is Charles Taylor’s _A Secular Age_, which has been set for my Theology and Postmodernism module with John Milbank. In addition to that, however, I’ve just started G.K. Chesterton’s classic book Orthodoxy, which I have been told by many is quite brilliant! I read a few chapters this morning and have thoroughly enjoyed it so far, so I thought I’d share a couple of quotes.

First, here is a little gem where Chesterton hammers the modern liberal theologians of his day for rejecting the notion of basic human sinfulness. This was written in the early 1900s, and while the contemporary theological climate has changed somewhat since then, the quote maintains its potency, and positively drips with irony:

“If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions. He must either deny the existence of God, as all the atheists do; or he must deny the present union between God and man, as all Christians do. The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat.”

This statement comes in the context of an argument Chesterton is making to try and show the absurdity of many of the principles underpinning the contemporary scholarship of his day. He goes on to make the point that it is not, as many might think, an excess of poetic and mystical imagination which can lead to insanity and madness, but a lack of it, combined with an excess of reason and logic. This is because the latter seeks to explain the world and reduce it to a set order, when according to Chesterton room must always be left for mystery. The poet is comfortable with and even embraces mystery, whereas the logician seeks to explain and remove it- an impossible task which risks sending him over the edge to madness:

“The general fact is simple. Poetry is sane because it floats on an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion… To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.”

Chesterton, by the way, is not simply railing against reason here, but is more specifically warning of the dangers of an unbalanced and reductionist emphasis on reason to the exclusion of the poetic imagination and the acknowledgment of mystery. It is this that can send the logician mad, and lead him to come out with all sorts of nonsense. In a very healthy way, Chesterton recognises the limitations of reason without discounting its usefulness.

Legend.

Music, Books and Beverages

What I have been listening to…

Leonard Cohen // The Best Of

The Killers // Day and Age

Joseph Arthur and The Lonely Astronauts // Temporary People

Pixies // Wave of Mutilation: Best Of

What I have been reading…

Alain Badiou // Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism

Michael J. Gorman // Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross

Soren Kierkegaard // The Sickness Unto Death

…and some of E.E. Cummings poems.

What I have been sipping…

The Macallan 12 year old (Single Malt Highland)

Laphroaig 10 year old (Single Malt Islay)

Apostoles aged 30 years (Palo Cortado Sherry)

Fursty Ferret (English Ale)

On things which might be worth more than words

Since Feeling Is First - E.E. Cummings

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
–the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says

we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

The Perfect Christmas Present 2008

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There is absolutely nobody who would not be grateful to receive this for Christmas.

Meine Vorlesungsliste

I had my first proper class at the University of Nottingham on Monday, the first in my ‘Continental Philosophy of Religion’ module, and we were given a rather extensive reading list (see below) which we will work through from now until December. I am going to try (!) and keep this blog updated somewhat regularly with my ongoing thoughts as I work through the list, although I am a little sceptical as to whether I will actually do that.

Now, Winston Churchill once observed that it was “good for an uneducated man to read books of quotations”. A few years ago, I took him at his word and bought two. As such, by the side of each work listed, you will also find a witty remark about reading, books or education to make you laugh!

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Week 1

Søren Kierkegaard

Excerpts from:

Philosophical Fragments (Johannes Climacus)

Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments (Johannes Climacus)

“The covers of this book are far too far apart” (Ambrose Bierce).

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Week 2

Søren Kierkegaard (again)

Excerpts from:

Fear and Trembling (Johannes de Silentio)

Repetition (Constantin Constantius)

“I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about” (Jean-Jacques Rousseau).

On The Enjoyment Of _Things_

Last Monday, I took a ten minute walk from our flat to the Company Inn, a pub alongside the canal in Nottingham, to watch the Tottenham Hotspur vs. Aston Villa game on Setanta. ‘Twas a bad night for Spurs all round really, and they ended up losing 2-1. So, with Spurs 2-0 down with seventy minutes gone, and finding myself increasingly disinterested in the football, I pulled an old battered copy of William Blake’s ‘Songs of Innocence and Experience’ out of my coat pocket and, in rather unconventional surroundings, began reading. One poem in particular jumped out at me:

I went to the Garden of Love, 
And saw what I never had seen; 
A Chapel was built in the midst, 
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut 
And “Thou shalt not,” writ over the door; 
So I turned to the Garden of Love 
That so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves, 
And tombstones where flowers should be; 
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, 
And binding with briars my joys and desires.

Now, anyone remotely familiar with Blake’s work will find no new or unexpected thought in this poem; Blake’s suspicion towards the church of his day, which he perceived to stand against those ‘joys’ and ‘desires’ which he saw to characterise proper human life (as well as God’s life [see 'The Little Vagabond']), is well known. Indeed, it was not that Blake had a problem with religion or the biblical Jesus or even Christianity per se - he was rather protesting that which represented these things during his lifetime. Nevertheless, I think it likely that his words, and his view of the church, still ring true for many in society today. This has regularly been the case in my experience.