Month: October 2010

Kerouac October Quotation #30

The despairing section X of Book Thirteen of Vanity of Duluoz which I quoted yesterday is followed immediately by this:

Yet I saw the cross just then when I closed my eyes after writing all this.  I cant escape its mysterious penetration into all this brutality.  I just simply SEE it all the time, even the Greek cross sometimes.  I hope it will all turn out true.

It is fitting to conclude Kerouac month with the last section of Jack's last book, a section in which, while alluding to the Catholic mass, he raises his glass to his own piecemeal suicide:

Forget it wifey. Go to sleep. Tomorrow's another day. Hic calix! Look that up in Latin, it means "Here's the chalice," and be sure there's wine in it.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Route 66

Kerouac in a letter from 17 January 1962: "Everybody is making money off my ideas, like those "Route 66" TV producers, everybody except me . . . ." (Selected Letters 1957-1969, ed, Charters, Viking 1999, p. 326; see also p. 461 and pp. 301-302.)  Here is the Nelson Riddle theme music from the TV series.  And here is part of an episode from the series which ran from 1960-1964.  George Maharis bears a striking resemblance to Jack, wouldn't you say? Now dig Bobby Troup.  And if that's too cool for you, here is Depeche Mode.  Chuck Berry, the Rolling Stones, Dr. Feelgood,  and others have covered the tune.

Kerouac October Quotation #30: The Holes in Jesus’ and Buddha’s Bags

Vanity of Duluoz, Book Thirteen, X, pp. 274-276, ellipses and bold emphases added:

Kerouac again.  .  .  .Mad Dog creation has a side of compassionate mercy in it . . . we have seen the brutal creation send us the Son of Man who, to prove that we should follow His example of mercy, brotherly love, charity, patience, gave Himself up without murmur to be sacrificed.  Otherwise we would have taken his example lightly.  Seeing that He really meant it right down to the cross, we are impressed.  [. . .] But we cant be redeemed "unless we believe," it says, or follow His example.  And who can do that?  Not even Count Leo Tolstoy who still had to live in a "humble hut" but on his own lands even tho he had signed over his "own lands" of course to his own family, and had the gall then, from that earthly vantage point of vaunt, to write The Kingdom of God is Within You.  If I, myself, for instance, were to try to follow Jesus' example I'd first have to give up my kind of drinking, which prevents me from thinking too much(like I'm doing in awful pain this morning), and so I'd go insane and go on public debt and be a pain to everybody in the blessed "community" or "society."  And I'd be furthermore bored to death by the knowledge that there is a hole even in Jesus' bag: and that hole is, where He says to the rich young man "Sell everything you have and give it tothe poor, and follow me," okay, where do we go now, wander and beg our food off poor hardworking householders?  and not even rich at that like that rich young man's mother? but poor and harried like Martha?  Martha had not "chosen the better part" when she cooked and slaved and cleaned house all day while her younger sister Mary  sat in the doorway like a modern beatnik with "square" parents talking to Jesus about "religion" and "redemption" and "salvation" and all that guck.  Were Jesus and young Mary McGee waiting for supper to be ready? While talking about redemption?  How can you be redeemed when you have to pass food in and out of your body's bag day in and day out, how can you be "saved" in a situation so sottish and flesh-hagged as that? (This was also the hole in Buddha's bag: he more or less said "It's well for Bodhisattva sages and Buddhas to beg for their food so as to teach the ordinary people of the world the humility of charity," ugh I say. No, the springtime bud I talked about with rain dew on its new green, it's the laugh of a maniac.  Birth is the direct cause of all pain and death, and a Buddha dying of dysentery at the age of eighty-three had only to say, finally, "Be ye lamps unto thyselves" — last words –"work out thy salvation with diligence," heck of a thing to say as he lay there in an awful pool of dysentery.  Spring is the laugh of a maniac, I say.

God, Possibility, and Evidential Support for Non-Contingent Propositions

Mike Valle gave a presentation yesterday before the ASU philosophy club on the skeptical theist response to the evidential argument from evil.  A good discussion ensued among Guleserian, Nemes, Lupu, Reppert, Valle, Vallicella, et al.  Peter Lupu made a comment that stuck in my mind and that I thought about some more this morning.  For what puzzles him puzzles me as well.  It may be that we are both just confused.

1. Let us assume that our concept of God is the concept of a being that has a certain modal property, the property of being such that, if existent, then necessarily existent, and if nonexistent, then necessarily nonexistent. Call this the Anselmian conception of deity.  It follows that God exists, if true, is necessarily true, and if false, necessarily false.  Simply put, the proposition in question is either necessary or impossible, and thus necessarily noncontingent.

2. Peter's question, I take it, was: how can such a noncontingent proposition have its probability either raised or lowered by any empirical consideration?  In particular, how can considerations about the kinds and amounts of natural and moral evil in the world lower the probability of God exists?  If true,then necessarily true; if false, then necessarily false.  Peter's sense — and I share it — is that evidential considerations are simply irrelevant to the probability of noncontingent propositions.

3. The problem — if it is one — arises in other contexts as well.  I once argued that conceivability does not entail (broadly logical) possibility.  I got the response that, though this is true, conceivability of p raises the probability of p's being possible. That is not clear to me.  Assuming the modal system S5, if p is possible then necessarily p is possible, and if p is necessary, then necessarily p is necessary. (The possible and the necessary do not vary from world to world.)

I happen to think that S5 caters quite well to our modal intuitions.  Assume it does.  Then It is possible that there be a talking donkey is necessarily true, if true.  If so, how can the fact that I (or anyone or all of us) can conceive of a talking donkey raise the probability of the proposition in question?

4. Reppert made a comment in response to Lupu about the probability being epistemic in nature.  I didn't follow it.  If p is noncontingent, and we are concerned with the probability of p's being true, and if truth is not an epistemic property (i.e., a property reducible to some such epistemic property as rational acceptability), then I don't see how evidential considerations are relevant.

The ComBox is open if Victor or Peter want to add to their remarks. 

 

 

Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic Moderate?

Spencer Case, on his way home from Afghanistan, e-mails:

I recently wrote a column on Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the supposed Islamic moderate.  It's been a long time since I've written a column that was really controversial, but this might break the dry spell. I hope you will share it with your readers not only for the sake of shameless self-promotion but also because your readers need to be warned about this guy. It says a lot about Islam that this guy is considered moderate! The link is here: http://www.pocatelloshops.com/new_blogs/afghanistan/

I urge you to read Mr. Case's column.  This Nasr is obviously no moderate, and his views, at least as reported by Case, are plainly incompatible with Western values.   That Nasr has tenure at an American university is yet another demonstration of the complicity of the Left with radical Islam. Excerpts:

Nasr states in many places and in no unclear terms that he opposes both secular law and “freedom of speech”—placed in scare quotes—which allows for criticism of religion. Most moderates in western countries, Nasr asserts, want the same.

“In the Islamic perspective,” he writes, “Divine Law is to be implemented to regulate society and the actions of its members rather than society dictating what laws should be… to speak of Shari’ah as being simply the laws of the seventh century fixed in time and not relevant today would be like telling Christians that the injunctions of Christ to love one’s neighbor and not commit adultery were simply the laws of the Palestine two thousand years ago and not relevant today, or telling Jews not to keep the Sabbath because this is simply an outmoded practice of three thousand years ago.”

And again: “Since God is the creator of all things, there is no legitimate domain of life to which His Will or His Laws (antecedently stated to mean Qur’anic Shari’ah) do not apply.”

The problem  with Nasr's view as reported by Case should be obvious.  It is plainly incompatible with our Western liberal values — values whose defense, paradoxically enough, is being carried out by contemporary conservatives, the Left having abdicated due to its inherent political correctness. 

ONLY IF we know that God exists AND ONLY IF we know his will with respect to us and our well-being would it be plausible to argue that something like Shari'ah is justified.  But those two necessary conditions have not been met and most likely never will.   Only an uncritical fundamentalist who absolutizes what is relative and conditioned, namely, the scripture of a religion inferior to Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity, a scripture which, even if in part divinely inspired, is mainly a human product, could possibly think that we have in that scripture rules of behavior that should be imposed on everyone.

Read the whole of Spencer's column.  And then make sure you vote next Tuesday, bearing in mind that the Democrat Party is the party of the Left and that the Left does not have the will or the integrity to stand up to radical Islam.

 

You Don’t Know Jack About Kerouac. A Trivia Test

I'll prove it. Take this test. No search engines.
Kerouac merchant marine 1. Name the one and only Kerouac novel that contains a chess  diagram. Extra credit: Does it represent a legal position?
2. On which nationally known talk show did Kerouac make a reference to Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite?
3. Kerouac gave a pretentious literary subtitle to one of his novels.  Name the novel and name the subtitle.
4. Kerouac applied the derogatory moniker 'Reinhold Cacoethes' to whom of his acquaintances?
5. Which of Jack's friends compiled a list of popes from A.D. 64 to 1958?
6. Which branch of the service was Kerouac in when the above picture was taken?
7. Name the neocon who took Kerouac & Co. to task in "The Know-Nothing Bohemians."
8. The phrase 'ball the jack' has fallen into desuetude. To the best of my knowledge, the phrase is employed in only one of Kerouac's novels. Name the novel and explain the phrase's meaning and origin.
9. "But it was that beautiful cut of clouds I could always see above the little S. P. alley, puffs floating by from Oakland or the gate of Marin to the north or San Jose south, the clarity of Cal to break your   heart." From which short piece is this passage excerpted? And what does 'S. P.' stand for?
10. "Since beginningless time and into the never-ending future, men have loved women without telling them, and the Lord has loved them without telling, and the void is not the void because there's nothing to be empty of." From which novel?

 

Kerouac October Quotation #27: Jack on Robert Lax

During his years of unsuccess, when he was actually at his purest and best, an "unpublished freak," as he describes himself in a late summer 1954 letter to Robert Giroux, living for his art alone, Kerouac contemplated entering a monastery: "I've become extremely religious and may go to a monastery before even before you do." [. . .] "I've recently made friends in a way with Bob Lax and I find him sweet — tho I think his metaphysics are pure faith. Okay, that's what it's supposed to be." (Selected Letters 1940-1956, ed. Charters, Penguin 1995, p. 444.)

And then on pp. 446-448 we find an amazing 26 October [sic!] 1954 letter to Robert Lax packed with etymology and scholarly detail which ends:

I'm no saint, I'm sensual, I cant resist wine, am liable to sneers & secret wraths & attachment to imaginary lures before my eyes — but I intend to ascend by stages & self-control to the Vow to help all sentient beings find enlightenment and holy escape from sin and stain of life-body itself [. . .] but thank God I'm a lazy bum because of that repose will come, in repose the secret, and in the secret: Ceaseless Ecstasy.

"Nirvana, as when the rain puts out a little fire."

See you in the world,

Jack K.

For information on the enigmatic hermit Robert Lax (1915-2000) , see here and here.

Finally, Visions of Tom for the Merton-Kerouac connection.

The Conservative Disadvantage (2010 Version)

We conservatives are at a certain disadvantage as compared to our leftist brethren. We don’t seek the meaning of our lives in the political sphere but in the private arena: in hobbies, sports, our jobs and professions, in ourselves, our families, friends, neighborhoods, communities, clubs and churches; in foot races and chess tournaments; in the particular pleasures of the quotidian round in all of their scandalous particularity.

We don't look to politics for meaning. Above all, we conservatives do not seek any transcendent meaning in the political sphere. We either deny that there is such a thing, or we seek it in religion, or in philosophy, or in meditation.  A conservative who denies that there is ‘pie in the sky’ will certainly not seek ‘pie in the future.’ He will not, like the leftist, look to a human future for redemption.  He understands human nature, its real possibilities, and its real limits.  He is impervious to utopian illusions.  He will accept no ersatz soteriology.

 A conservative could never write a book with the title, The Politics of Meaning.  Politics for a conservative is more like garbage-collecting: it is a dirty job; somebody has to do; it would be better if nobody had to do it; and we should all lend a hand in getting the dirty job done. But there is little by way of meaning, immanent or transcendent, in garbage collecting and sewage disposal: these are things one gets out of the way so that meaningful activities can first begin.

I’m exaggerating a bit. To write is to exaggerate, as a Frenchman might put it, which amounts to a meta-exaggeration. But I’m exaggerating to make a serious point. We conservatives don’t look for meaning in all the wrong places. And because we don’t, we are at a certain disadvantage. We cannot bring the full measure of our energy and commitment to the political struggle. We don't even use the word 'struggle.' We are not totally committed to defeating the totally committed totalitarians who would defeat us.

But now we need to become  active.  Not in the manner of the leftist who seeks meaning in activism for its own sake, but to defend ourselves and our values so that we can protect the private sphere from the Left's totalitarian encroachment.    The conservative values of liberty and self-reliance and fiscal responsibility are under massive assault by the Obama administration.   So if you value your life and liberty, you are well advised to inform yourself and take appropriate action.

So get off your conservative duff and vote!  It matters.  We must divest 'conservative activist' of its oxymoronic ring.  There is too much at stake. Next week's election will be a watershed event.

Ned Polsky, Maverick Sociologist

Polsky book Reader Ray Stahl of Port Angeles, Washington, kindly mailed me a copy of Ned Polsky, Hustlers, Beats, and Others.  It is a work of sociology by a maverick sociologist, academically trained, but decidedly his own man.  I wasn't aware of it or him until a few days ago.  The preface already has me convinced that this is a book I will read and digest. A writer who writes like this is a writer to read:

Many readers of this book will feel that I object to the views of other scholars in terms that are overly fierce. These days the more usual mode in academia, thronged as it is with arrivistes aspiring to be gentlemen, is to voice such objections oleaginously. But luckily I cut an eyetooth on that masterpiece of English prose, A. E. Housman's introduction to his edition  of Manilius, and so am forever immune to the notion that polemical writing and scholarly writing shouldn't mix. I believe that polemical scholarship improves the quality of intellectual life — sharpens the mind, helps get issues settled faster — by forcing genteel discussion to become genuine debate.

(Hyperlinks added. Obviously.  But it raises a curiously pedantic question: By what right does one tamper with a text in this way?  Pedantic the question, I leave it to the pedants.)

Polsky died in 2000.  Here is an obituary.  You will have to scroll down to find it.

Halcyon Arizona October

Chilly nights, good for sleeping with windows open, warm dry days of lambent desert light.  October's sad paradise passes too soon but its dying light ushers in the month of Gratitude in my personal liturgy.  The 28th already. Savor each day, each moment, each sunrise and moonset, moonrise and sunset.  Drink green tea in the gloaming with Kerouac on your knee.

Enjoy each thing as if for the first time — and the last.

Arizona Citizenship Proof Law for Voters Overturned by Court

Here. Excerpt, emphasis added:

A three-judge panel of the court, in a 2-1 decision, said the proof-of-citizenship requirement conflicted with the intent of the federal law aiming to increase voter registration by streamlining the process with a single form and removing state- imposed obstacles to registration.

The federal law requires applicants to “attest to their citizenship under penalty of perjury” without requiring documentary proof, the panel said.

Copping a riff from Michelle Malkin, you could call this the Left's "No illegal alien left behind" program.  But the day of reckoning approacheth, in less than a week.