More Gordon Allport

The final truths of religion are unknown, but a psychology that impedes understanding of the religious potentialities of man scarcely deserves to be called a logos of the human psyche at all.
-Becoming. (98)

Gordon W. Allport

The theory of democracy requires...that man possess a measure of rationality, a portion of freedom, a generic conscience, propriate ideals, and unique values. We cannot defend the ballot box or liberal education, nor advocate free discussion and democratic institutions, unless man has the potential capacity to benefit therefrom.
-Becoming. (100)

Rangers 2012

The Texas Rangers are entering their second full week of the season with a 7-2 record. The pitching has been stellar. Yu Darvish looks to be worth the investment. What is interesting is some of the younger players who are in utility roles at present. The future looks good.

The Three Books that Have Impacted Me

Several years ago, when interviewing for a teaching job, I was asked to name the three books that have had an impact on me. Since then I have thought a great deal about how I would answer that question in relation to my teaching of history. Here is how it stands at present.
First would be Robert E. Lee and the Road of Honor by Hodding Carter. In the 1960s Random House brought out a series of history books for children written by journalists, the Landmark Series. This was the first history book I had ever read and I was hooked. I reread it about five years ago and it still holds up, informative, easy to understand and well-written.
Next would be Charles Beard's Economic Interpretation of the Constitution. Granted the book is nearly a century old and many subsequent works have been written to refute it but Beard still retains an impact on all students of American History. Harold Bloom wrote in The Anxiety of Influence that Shakespeare has a pervasive influence on contemporary man even if he is not read because of his impact on not just language but our view of humanity. Beard's influence is similar for historians because of his emphasis on research.
Third would be a work better classified as political philosophy. That is The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt. In this massive tome Arendt posits the steps that lead to a totalitarian government. First, Anti-Semitism, then Imperialism, finally totalitarianism. This book has affected my thought about US History. If we change Anti-Semitism to Racism, can we apply Arendt's thesis to the United States?

Community

The processes that have led to the release of the individual from the old customs and solidarities have led also to a loss of moral certainties, a confusion of cultural meanings, and a disruption of established social contexts. We cannot, in sum, deal with the progressive emancipation of individuals without also recognizing the decline of those structures from which the individual has been emancipated. Judgments of progress must always be specific and selective; they cannot be disengaged from opposing judgments of decline and disruption.
-Robert Nisbet. The Quest for Community. (70)

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.