David Frum on the Perils & Possibilities of Impeachment: Lesson 1 on the Trump Impeachment

Okay, it's time to start paying attention to impeachment (akin to a criminal indictment). This article by former Bush speechwriter David Frum is an excellent place to start. It briefly outlines the perils of impeachment (if you shoot at a king, you'd better not miss). And as for the Dems, they need to keep talking about the issues that people care about and that this administration is screwing-up: health care, climate change, tariffs that hurt American enterprises (e.g,. farmers), and so on (and believe me, I could go on at length). Anyway, start here, and I"ll try to keep pace.

P.S. Am I excited about impeachment? Do I cherish the ideas of President Mike Pence? Good grief! We must ultimately act via an election and reject the politics of division.

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THEATLANTIC.COM

A Realist’s Guide to Impeachment

Trump should face the consequences of his misdeeds, but the road ahead is perilous.

Mind, History, and Dialetic: The Philosophy of R.G. Collingwood by Louis Mink

An overview of Collingwood's project

In this work, Louis Mink proves himself a sympathetic but not uncritical expositor of Collingwood's thought. Mink recognizes that Collingwood was a systematic thinker and that Collingwood was also economical in his writing–not often repeating contentions or arguments from book to book. And, of course, Collingwood’s thought developed over time. 

Mink identifies Speculum Mentis (1923) as the template of for Collingwood's later thinking, and he then reveals how RGC (Collingwood) alters and details that map in his later works. I’ve read all of RGC’s major works except Religion and Philosophy (1916), An Essay on Philosophical Method (1932), and An Essay on Metaphysics (1940). By having completed Mink's book, I've gained a greater sense of what I'm missing and how these works tie together in Collingwood's overall project. 

For instance, Mink clarifies Collingwood's ideas about "the logic of question and answer," which, as Mink demonstrates, is not a (propositional) logic at all, but a theory of inquiry. Mink also clarifies Collingwood's notion of "absolute presuppositions," another one of Collingwood's concepts that is often misunderstood and widely criticized, but that makes sense with Collingwood's larger scheme. Mink also addresses many of the sticking points found in The Idea of History (1946--posthumous publication). The way that Mink unpacks some the peculiarities of Collingwood's insights can save readers from the gamut of responses often suffered when reading and contemplating The Ideas of History initially. In my experience, these responses can run from thinking "unique" to "brilliant" to "really? to "dogmatic and arbitrary" to "nonsense!"--all concerning one concept or argument! Mink's efforts to place these ideas, such as "all history is the history of thought," in the context of Collingwood's entire opus allows the reader to (perhaps) return to the initial response of "unique" and "brilliant" that may well have been justified in the first place, Mink's effort may also spares us from suffering unjustified reams of critical complaints based on faulty assumptions. All of this is not to say that Mink isn't critical, but only that he makes sure that he's dug as deeply as possible to get at the fundamental insights that Collingwood has attempted to convey before he levels any criticism.  

One other point of value also worth adding is that Mink briefly explores similarities between Collingwood's thought and that of pragmatism and existentialism. Collingwood didn't directly address these contemporary philosophical schools, but Mink points out some striking similarities. For my part, I also see some intriguing similarities between Collingwood's thought and that of Hannah Arendt, herself a unique offspring of the German existentialist school of thought, especially regarding the topics of political action, the crisis of the 20th-century, and democracy. 

I’ve read only a couple of other book-length considerations of RGC’s work (one focused on The Ideas of History & the Fred Inglis biography, History Man), but Mink’s book has provided the most thorough and well-presented roadmap of Collingwood’s project as a whole that I can imagine anyone writing in a single, 268-page text.

Images & Reflections About the Climate Strike

Marching to Battery Park

They just keep coming!

Grade school kids having their say!

A river of humanity, young, old, and everyone in-between, representing about every demographic and identity one could imagine--as only New York City can--rallied and protested yesterday. The scene was a mixture of carnival and the utmost seriousness (reminding me of demonstrations in the early 1970s). Of course, diversity also means disagreement. I'm one to look at a poster and ponder whether it's accurate and most often its not--at least not entirely so. But these demonstrations are about symbols and numbers. A vast number of people around the world are frightened about the increasingly real peril that climate change poses to our shared well-being as a civilization (now global) and as a species. At demonstrations, we focus on slogans, symbols, and personalities ("Greta Thunberg for President!" "We Love Greta!" and so on). All well & good for the present, but we have to translate this concern into policy--and here we'll encounter conflict. And here the challenge is to engage in meaningful political action: in other words, speech. We must act to find common cause and to sort answers, all in good faith (and knowing that good faith is not always in play). Whatever changes we make (or don't make), someone's ox will get gored (as my medieval history prof used to say about attempting to discern the motives of political players in medieval history). Or, to put it another way, some will be made worse off, some better off. It's a moral and political and economic question of the highest order. So, the hard work lies ahead. The U.S. Congress and the executive branch must mobilize to act, and that will occur if there's a tidal wave of popular sentiment conveyed to those folks.

So, now write, call, email, & converse with every elected official you can. Keep talking with your friends and neighbors. We'll either address these issues through talk or by violence. Let's make the right choice.

"A personal overview of Collingwood’s New Leviathan" by David Pierce: A brief cover note

This will complete a Collingwood trifecta today (aren't you lucky!). This one is by David Pierce, an American logician and mathematician who teaches in Turkey. I just discovered his blog a couple of days ago, and he has a wide range of interests, not the least of which is the philosophy of R.G. Collingwood. The post linked below marks the beginning of a careful walk through the last work published in Collingwood's life, The New Leviathan. I've only begun my trek through this series of posts, but Pierces's commentary adds a delicate sauce to Collingwood's sometimes Spartan sentences. (N.B., Collingwood is a fine stylist and often a pleasure to read, but in NL, he adopts a leaner form and style.)

Enjoy!

POLYTROPY.COM

A personal overview of Collingwood’s New Leviathan

These are the notes of an amateur of the work of the philosopher R. G. Collingwood. Published in 1942, The New Leviathan was the last book that…

"How the untimely death of RG Collingwood changed the course of philosophy forever" by Ray Monk: A note & link

A very recent appreciation of Collingwood by the biographer of Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ray Monk. Monk posits that Collingwood and the later Wittgenstein were kindred philosophical spirits and that British philosophy would have taken a different course if Collingwood would not have died young and been replaced by Gilbert Ryle, a militant analytical philosopher who came to dominate British philosophy in the post-war period. A worthwhile appreciation of Collingwood as a person of diverse interests and an outstanding philosophical project. 

PROSPECTMAGAZINE.CO.UK

How the untimely death of RG Collingwood changed the course of philosophy forever

The passing of this eclectic and questioning man in his prime allowed the narrower and more imperious Gilbert Ryle to dominate British philosophy. Had Collingwood lived, could the deep and damaging schism with continental thought have been avoided?

"R.G. Collingwood on the corruption of democracy" by Jonathan Ree: An appreciation & link

Since about 2014, I've become quite an admirer of the work of the philosopher R.G. Collingwood (1889-1943). He's best known of his book THE IDEA OF HISTORY (published posthumously in 1946) and other works of philosophy. But he dedicated much of his time before his impending death (of which he was quite aware) addressing the issues raised by the politics of the 1930s. This article by philosopher Jonathan Ree provides a peek at Collingwood's effort to address political issues. It's worth the read--Collingwood's insights seem quite pertinent today.

NEWHUMANIST.ORG.UK

R.G. Collingwood on the corruption of democracy

The philosopher, historian and archaeologist argued for the importance of "politically educated public opinion".

Roy Cohn & Donald Trump: The Master & the New Master via Maureen Dowd & Matt Tyrnauer, Documentary Filmmaker

Read at least this much & you get the gist of the article:

'“Roy Cohn did the impossible,” Mr. Tyrnauer said. “He created a president from beyond the grave. I don’t think there’s any disputing that. The basic lessons that Trump learned from Cohn were: Never apologize. If someone hits you, hit them back a thousand times harder. Any publicity is good publicity. And find an ‘other.’”

He said that the origin of Mr. Cohn’s career in the 1950s was dooming the Rosenbergs to the electric chair, Jews as Bolsheviks and fifth columnists, and going after gay people in the State Department. [SNG note: Cohn was Jewish & gay.]

“With Trump, the other is Mexicans, Latinos, Muslims, I mean, fill in the blank,” he said. “The lesson of this from history is: Pick your other. That’s what a demagogue does. Trump’s kind of an empty vessel. I think he’s eerily similar to Joe McCarthy in that way. I think it basically comes down to something Ken Auletta said in the film: What a demagogue does is throw out an untruth or a lie and then stands back and watches as that fills the void.”

. . . .

Flamboyant and ruthless met flamboyant and ruthless when Mr. Cohn collided with a young builder named Donald Trump at Le Club sometime in the ’70s.'

NYTIMES.COM

Matt Tyrnauer: Chronicler of Trump’s Mentor Roy Cohn

A Vanity Fair correspondent turned documentarian with a fascination for figures of the late 20th century.

A Secret History of Christianity: Jesus, the Last Inkling, and the Evolution Of Consciousness by Mark Vernon

I came to this book through the back door; that is, it was not the “Secret History of Christianity” that grabbed me (not a unique title), but the subtitle “the Last Inkling and the Evolution of Consciousness.” This phrase no doubt referred to Owen Barfield and his line of thought about the evolution of consciousness. Barfield has been on my radar for years as I’ve sought to become more familiar with his deep insights. While Barfield is a lucid writer, his thought dives deep and sometimes can leave the reader adrift. And unlike his more famous Inkling companions C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, Barfield never reached great numbers with his works (which only included a relatively small amount of fiction and poetry). So, I thought, perhaps this work would reveal more about Barfield’s project to me.

Alas, it did not. After an initial cursory introduction to Barfield’s key notion of “original participation” followed by “withdrawal participation” and “reciprocal participation,” and a nod to French anthropologist Lucien Levy-Bruehl about his idea of “participation mystique,” Vernon plunges directly  into a history of the Hebrew Bible through the lens of the concept of “participation.” From that starting point, he moves on into a review of ancient Greek culture through the same lens. In both traditions, the earlier manifestations of those cultures were marked by “original participation” with the world around them. As Vernon describes it, the phenomena refer “to the felt experience of participating in life. Original participation dominates when there is little distinction between what’s felt to be inside someone and what’s outside because the boundaries of individual self - consciousness, which today we take for granted, are not in place.” (p. 3; loc. 264.) Or as Barfield describes it: “Early man did not observe nature in our detached way . . . . He participated mentally and physically in her inner and outer processes.” (p. 3; loc. 269.) Vernon proceeds to take the reader through a brief history of the Hebrew Bible to illustrate this phenomenon and the eventual shift away from a consciousness marked by original participation to one of “withdrawal participation,” which is marked by a shift away from immersion in the surrounding world into a greater sense of individuality. As Vernon describes it, “An awareness of separation, even isolation, is felt. A person will begin to sense that they have an inner life that is, relatively speaking, their own. (p. 3; loc. 273.)

After completing his brief but illuminating history of the Hebrew Bible, Vernon moves across the street, as it were, and does the same with ancient Greek culture, displaying the same dynamic at work. Like the Hebrew prophets, the emerging Greek philosophers (culminating in Socrates) promote a greater sense of individuality and individual agency. The world of Achilles in the Iliad is significantly different from that of Socrates. As Vernon points out, another way to look at this shift is to discern a growing sense of individuality and the use of introspection by individuals.

With the advent of the Hellenistic Age in the wake of Alexander the Great and his successors, these two lines of thought—Hebrew and Greek—begin to encounter one another and interact. Out of this mixture arises the life of Jesus and the coming of Christianity. It’s at this point that I must quibble about the first part of the title of this book, “the Secret History of Christianity.” What Vernon writes about in this section and the sources he draws upon is not Dan Brown material. Rather, the sources that Vernon draws upon are neither secret nor very unorthodox. (Although he does cite the Gospel of Thomas, which is outside of the sanctioned Scriptures, that’s about as far out of the mainstream that he goes.) Vernon’s portrait of Jesus draws upon the Four Evangelists and Paul to demonstrate that Jesus was taking his followers deeper into the interior life. Vernon demonstrates his argument with quotations from the Gospels and Paul that should prove familiar to any reader. He emphasizes the message of interiority preached by Jesus and the desire of Jesus to prompt a metanoia—a change of mind (or heart-mind, as I’m persuaded may prove a more adept translation). Vernon argues that Jesus didn’t intend to set down new sets of rules to follow, but instead, he intended to change our awareness; to find the root of our conduct on the inside. (I can’t help but recall the scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian where the supposed messiah (Brian) loses a sandal while attempting to flee the crowd and the crowd takes this as a directive to shed their sandals--or something. Ah, literalism.) In short, Vernon provides a convincing and attractive portrait of Jesus that comports with Barfield’s theory of “participation” and that comports with sound Biblical scholarship. Sorry, no lost gospels or secret societies here.

Vernon continues his tour of Christian culture and belief through the early Church on to Augustine, whose interiority further expands this Christian insight and who develops the idea of the will to better understand an individual’s volition. Vernon follows this path continuing up through the Renaissance, which—contra Burkhardt—Vernon argues does not provide a definitive break with medieval culture and belief. But the Reformation, which follows upon the Renaissance and does alter the course of the evolution of consciousness. The Reformation, in the words and works of Luther and Calvin and their followers, placed a significantly increased emphasis on the individual’s conscience. The Reformation, along with the Scientific Revolution, altered the ways that individuals saw themselves and their world. The advent of the printing press, like the advent of literacy and private reading in earlier times, greatly facilitated (or perhaps more it’s more accurate to say, helped cause) this change in consciousness. Humanity became more aware of how to manipulate the world around it and gained an increased sense of individual agency. But these gains came at the cost of losing much (and in some cases all) of the sense of belonging to the cosmos that had survived through the Renaissance. Christianity, as a result, tended more toward literalism and faith as belief rather than trust. This trend has continued up through the present, but Vernon identifies signs that humanity may be ready to move into a mode of “reciprocal participation.”

Vernon identifies “imagination” as the key to reaching a state of reciprocal participation. In this argument, Vernon echoes many of the themes that Gary Lachman identified in his 2017 publication, Lost Knowledge of the Imagination. As both authors note, imagination is not another word for fantasy; both authors draw upon Samuel Taylor Coleridge for guidance in describing the role and function of imagination and its distinction from what Coleridge labeled as “fantasy.” Also, Vernon discusses the body of poetic and visual works of William Blake as a master of informed imagination.

Thus, while I didn’t experience an in-depth dive into Barfield’s thought (although Barfield’s work does resurface prominently toward the end of the book), I did receive a persuasive application of how Barfield’s perspective can apply to the history of Western Christianity. An for those who want a helpful introduction to Barfield’s project, one can turn to Gary Lachman, who refers to Barfield frequently, and at depth in his works ASecret History of Consciousness and Caretakers of the Cosmos. And as to having a not-so-secret history of Christianity added to the piles of books written about the history of Christianity, Vernon’s effort is worthwhile. The fact the sources that Vernon draws upon are not occult doesn’t mean that the project isn’t valuable; it is. While not secret, his understanding of Christianity is not widespread so far as I can discern. The description that he provides is one that could prove useful as we go forward to meet the challenges ahead. He hopes to see Christianity (along with other wisdom traditions) bridge the gap between our alienation from the world around us (and ourselves) and the gifts that individuality and science have brought to us. This is a noble and vital enterprise, and one that deserves our thanks—and our reading time.

"The Year of the Flood" & "Maddaddam" by Margaret Atwood

2009, #2 in the trilogy

2013, # 3 in the trilogy

These two novels are the successors to Atwood's 2003 Oryx & Crake. These two later novels complete this dystopian trilogy. 

I wrote how horrifying Oryx and Crake was for me. Not in a horror story fashion, but in the way that Orwell's 1984 and such can be labeled "horror." That is, not by the fright elements of some supernatural or embodied form of metaphysical evil, but by the plausibility of the evil described, the banality of some future state that conjures up a more mundane but no less lethal evil. But these two later journies give us some respite from what struck me as the overweening sense of doom in the first novel. 

Not that anything is "good" in these novels, except the few people in it who survive and attempt some modicum of humanity. The Year of the Flood focuses on two female characters in the story, Ren and Toby (and to a lesser extent on a third, Amanda). Their stories draw us in and arouse a sense of sympathy with their struggles to survive and thrive. Thus, unlike Oryx & Crake, which overwhelmed me with foreboding of inevitable doom,in The Year of the Flood I didn't feel plagued by this sense, bad as situations were in this novel for these lead characters. The main characters come from the world of corporate gated communities and corporate enterprises (the nation-state is non-existent), as opposed to those who live and work in the "pleeblands."  Also, the main characters all become involved with "God's Gardners" an eco-apocalyptic Christian group. (Cult? Perhaps.) The group is led by the charismatic Adam One, and they prepare for the "waterless flood" that will soon overtake the earth. In the meantime, the group squirrels away provisions in "arhats." Their calendar is marked with a unique panoply of saints, such as "Saint Euell Gibbons" (for those old enough: the Grapenuts guy), "Saint Jane Goodall," "Saint Rachel Carson," and the like. The Gardners are pacific but not without guile. 

The concluding book, Maddaddam, takes one of the peripheral characters in The Year of the Flood, Zeb, and focuses on his story and those who survive what became the "waterless flood." Zeb is the scoundrel and survivor, and he contrasts to the pacifist-prone Adam One. In addition to learning Zeb's backstory (via a clumsy but perhaps necessary plot device), we learn about those who survived into the post-flood world. These groups include a band of post-Gardner humans; super-intelligent "pigoons" (genetically altered pigs); "Crakers," genetically modified humans with pacific and randy traits; and "Painballers," debased criminals who have survived the punishment turned spectacle of "Painball," an experience much like the hunger games of Susan Collins's series of that name. And while this post-apocalyptic novel has cruelties and horrors abounding, it is a tale of survival and learning and of the human enterprise. 

It seems to me that dystopian fiction always has a prophetic element inherent in it. And by prophetic, I don't mean foretelling the future, like a soothsayer or fortune teller, but of providing a moral exhortation in the form of an implied "if-then" proposition, in the manner of Old Testament prophets or Cassandra in Greek mythology. Perhaps the reason that the year 1984 was not too much like the Orwell's 1984 is that we heeded, even in the slightest echos, Orwell's implicit prophecy. So it should be with Atwood's trilogy. Inherent in this extended tale is a vision of the future that I hope no sane person would want. Yet it is all too plausible. The dis-ease with which one leaves this trilogy should remain with us and give us pause as we choose our future.