Ralph Waldo Emerson on Shakespeare

Some able and appreciating critics think no criticism on Shakespeare valuable, that does not rest purely on the dramatic merit; that he is falsely judged as poet and philosopher. I think as highly as these critics of his dramatic merit, but still think it secondary. he was a full man, who liked to talk; a brain exhaling thoughts and images, which seeking vent, found the drama next at hand. Had he been less we should have had to consider how well he filled his place, how good a dramatist he was, -and he is the best in the world. But it turns out, that what he has to say is of that weight, as to withdraw some attention from the vehicle; and he is like some saint whose history is to be rendered into all languages, into verse and prose, into songs and pictures, and cut up into proverbs; so that the occasion which gave the saint's meaning the form of a conversation, or of a prayer, or of a code of laws, is immaterial, compared with the universality of its application. So it fares with the wise Shakespeare and his book of life. He wrote the airs for all our modern music: he wrote the text of modern life; the text of manners: he drew the man of England and Europe; the father of man in America: he drew the man and described the day, and what is done in it: he read the hearts of men and women, their probity and their second thoughts, and wiles; the wiles of innocence, and the transitions by which virtues and vices slide into their contraries: he could divide the mother's part from the father's part in the face of the child, or draw the fine demarcation of freedom and of fate: he knew the laws of repression which make the police of nature: and all the sweets and all the terrors of human lot lay in his mind as truly but as softly as the landscape lies on the eye.
Quoted in Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence.

To Make a Point

Mark Ellingsen. The Richness of Augustine: His Contextual and Pastoral Theology. (2005).
Normally I do not review books until I finish reading them but I will make an exception here. This is an exceptionally good book except for one glaring stylistic point; the author wants to emphasize that Augustine was African, all well and good. I will not debate here the difference between North, Central, and South Africa. The problem lies in the consistent naming of Augustine as "the African Father." The Fathers of the Church are those whose writings expanded the theology of Christianity. I have no problem with classifying Augustine as a Father of the Church, it is long accepted usage. The kicker is the adjective "African." Rarely does a page go by without the term "African Father." It is used as often as "he" or "his." We get the point! If one wants to be technical it should be "An African Father" since Clement of Alexandria would also qualify in this way. The editor should have realized this and changed it. It mars a good book.

The Bob Bullock Texas History Museum

Bob Bullock was not one of my favorite Texas politicians but the Bob Bullock Texas History Museum makes up for that and then some. My wife and I spent two hours there yesterday and could have spent two more easily. It presented the history of Texas in a frank, unvarnished way, without being either Politically Correct or Worshipful. For more info, check out the website at
http://www.thestoryoftexas.com/

The Age of Ballyhoo-2012 edition

H. L. Mencken called it "ballyhoo". Today we call it hype. The Hunger Games. Etch-A-Sketch. Mega-Million. In today's world we move from one hype to the next without a thought. And that is the key. The era known as the Enlightenment emphasized the mind and thought. In reaction we had the Romantic movement which emphasized the heart and feeling. It results in the dichotomy between heart and mind, I think versus I feel. But the mind has to be educated in order to function. If it is not educated, not trained, we fall back on instinct. We are a more instinctual society today. Is that a good thing? Basing our responses on emotion and instinct, the public consciousness suffers from Attention Deficit Disorder. Instinct directs us to the here and now, there is no past and thus no future. We are prey to those who can take advantage of the moment, like advertisers, who are trained for this. Warhol was right, it is the future and everyone is famous for fifteen minutes.

Why Charles Lemert Doesn't Matter

Charles Lemert. Why Niebuhr Matters. Yale. 2011
Charles Lemert is "University Professor and Andrus Professor of Social Theory Emeritus at Wesleyan University and Senior Fellow of the Center for Comparative Research at Yale University." The Yale University Press saw fit to have him write about Reinhold Niebuhr in its "Why X Matters" Series. I am not sure why. Certainly the writings of Niebuhr could be classified as Sociology or Cultural Studies but that would be missing the main source. Would it not make sense to have someone who has some background in theology or history? Lemert apparently has not touched these subjects since his undergraduate days. His understanding of theology would embarrass a layman, his knowledge of history is embarrassing to a historian.

Theologically Lemert does not grasp the impact of the Social Gospel on Urban American Christianity. His convoluted attempts to explain Augustine make the simple complex. His snide comments are a constant distraction, such as "Anglicanism (a faux Protestant cult). "

Historically, Lemert does somersaults in keeping Niebuhr as a member of the Old Left while downplaying the threat of Communism. Yet, if one reads the work of Niebuhr, it is obvious that he did not do likewise. One only has to turn to the opening page of The Irony of American History to see this. Niebuhr writes:

Everybody understands the obvious meaning of the world struggle
in which we are engaged. We are defending freedom against tyranny and trying
to preserve justice against a system which has, demonically, distilled
injustice and cruelty out of its original promise of a higher justice.
(3)

To put it succinctly, Lemert does not answer the question why Niebuhr matters.

Why History

The goal Herodotus claimed for himself in the opening sentence of the Histories, to prevent the deeds of humankind from losing their color with the passage of time, is the goal of a man who saw the world of the past slipping away, along with the generation who had shaped it. He himself had grown up in a different world but he had learned to revere that of his father. Without doubt he knew it could not be brought back, but he also ensured it would not be forgotten.
-James Romm. Herodotus. (202)

March 2

Texas Independence Day. 176 years ago a number of people took their stand.

Bureaucracy

While watching the movie Tora, Tora, Tora earlier this evening, I was struck by one of the many examples of bureaucratic paralysis. The movie depicts the events leading up to and including the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. There were numerous instances but the one that stood out involved the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Harold "Betty" Stark. When informed that the decrypted intercepts indicate war, Stark is advised to put the Navy on alert. He pauses, and then decides he has to ask the President first. His Army counterpart, General George C. Marshall, needs no such confirmation, he goes and orders the Army to be ready (the tragedy being the message doesn't get to Hawaii in time.
But Stark's hesitation is a far cry from a similar situation some forty three years earlier. In 1898, Congress was debating declaring war on Spain. The Assistant Secretary of the Navy, on his own initiative, ordered the US fleet to prepare to attack the Spanish fleet at Manila, thus paving the way to Admiral Dewey's smashing victory. The Assistant Secretary's name?
Theodore Roosevelt.
In another irony, Roosevelt was entertaining a guest from England, a journalist, who sixteen years later, as Second Lord of the Admiralty (British for Assistant Secretary of the Navy) would keep the British fleet at sea after maneuvers while Europe waited for war. His name was Winston Churchill.

Stroke

Yesterday I discussed Woodrow Wilson and how his stroke affected the vote on the Treaty of Versailles. I realized that they were as familiar with the horrors of a stroke as my generation was with polio. Not that there are no more strokes but that treatment has advanced so far. In Wilson's day, it was amazing he lasted four more years. When my father had a stroke 27 years ago, the fact that he lived for another ten years was par. Now people have strokes and are back to work in a matter of days. Amazing.