Marginal Notes

Used books often come with notes in the margin, notes almost always of marginal value.

The Obsolete Man

The Twilight Zone marathon is in progress at the SyFy channel. One of the best episodes of the series which ran from 1959-1964 is The Obsolete Man (1961). Rod Serling's opening narration is eerily prescient and eerily relevant to our present police-state predicament:

You walk into this room at your own risk, because it leads to the future, not a future that will be but one that might be. This is not a new world, it is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advances, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But like every one of the super-states that preceded it, it has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and truth is a menace. This is Mr. Romney Wordsworth, in his last forty-eight hours on Earth. He's a citizen of the State but will soon have to be eliminated, because he's built out of flesh and because he has a mind. Mr. Romney Wordsworth, who will draw his last breaths in The Twilight Zone.

"Logic is an enemy and truth is a menace."

An accurate summation of the Biden regime. The most recent example of illogic: the defense of democracy requires the destruction of democracy by banning the popular front-runner from the ballot on trumped-up charges when, as is obvious, the physically decrepit, mentally incompetent, morally corrupt, and political destructive Biden is the one who ought to be banned from the ballot if anyone is to be banned, not that I am saying that any one of the current contenders should be banned from the ballot. For Biden is a traitor in plain dereliction of duty. If the Republicans were not lousy with feckless RINOs, Traitor Joe and his noxious entourage would no longer be befouling the White House. The Republicans' inability, or rather unwillingness, to give as good as they get is exasperating. Trump tried to teach them how to fight, but instead of learning from him and engaging the enemy, too many of them waste their time and energy attacking the only man who can turn things around. The well-fed Christie, flaccid in body and mind, is a USDA prime example.

As for the assault on truth, the main players in the Biden administration are proven serial brazen liars: Biden, Mayorkas, et al. Liars, plagiarists, Orwellian language-abusers: scumbags all. Is there even one member of that 'team' who does not exhibit one or more of the modes of mendacity? Got an example? Let me hear it.

Serling via the Meredith character puts librarians in a good light. Rod in 1961 was no doubt thinking of Nazi book burnings. A mere 16 years had passed since the collapse of the Third Reich. But times have changed. Librarians are now too often anti-biblic in their banning of books and anti-civilizational in their promotion of pornography and other species of cultural garbage. Librarians now are mostly leftist termites. We have our work cut out for us.

Termitic Librarians

Library 'science' now attracts the mindlessly presentist, the terminally woke-assed, the viciously anti-civilizational, and the erasers of the historical record. See here and here.

Build private libraries and be prepared to defend them. In your will, specify a worthy, like-minded heir to whom to bequeath the library that you have spent a lifetime building along with the tools for its defense.

Related: Withdrawn from Circulation

Books and Reality

And back again. Back at the Stack.

Reader Asks: What Should I Read?

Nathaniel T. writes,

In the new year, I'm committing to some more regular reading habits.

What serious books would you recommend to someone outside academia who has about half an hour uninterrupted in the morning to read, three times a week? How about a list that would last that person a year?

Here are some additional parameters that might aid in your selection:

I went to St. John's College in Annapolis, so I've read many of the "greats" in whole or in part, at least once. I have kept up some serious reading since my graduation in 2012, just irregularly.

I already pray and read the New Testament and spiritual reading daily.

Thanks for your insight and writing!

The best advice I could give anyone with your background who is committed to the life of the mind is to buy and study a copy of A. G. Sertillanges, O. P., The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods. He explains how to proceed. It is a classic. He draws upon Aquinas and upon Alphonse Gratry, of whom C. S. Peirce had a very high opinion. So I also recommend Gratry's Logic if you can find a copy. Reference here.

I hesitate to offer a list of books on particular topics given the constraints on your time. But here are a couple that are short, very clear, and unusually thought-provoking: Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation (make sure to get the Sea Harp Press edition which contains an introduction by C. S. Lewis); Romano Guardini, Jesus Christus (anything by Guardini is worth reading).

If perchance you are interested mystical theology, and have already read the great Spanish mystics, Juan de la Cruz and Teresa de Avila, and have the stamina for a long slog, then I recommend Augustin Poulain, The Graces of Interior Prayer: A Treatise on Mystical Theology. Reference and notes here.

For more suggestions see my Bibliophilia category.

Combox open if anyone has any recommendations.

By the way, has St. John's College, Annapolis gone 'woke'?

Word of the Day: Peritus

Merriam-Webster: "an expert (as in theology or canon law) who advises and assists the hierarchy (as in the drafting of schemata) at a Vatican council."

I was sent to the dictionary by this communication from Tony Flood:

Bill, I remember Lonergan and other Vatican II periti refer[ring] disparagingly (in their writings) to the "theology of the manuals," publications approved for student-seminarian use. The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, published the 262-page book in question [Renard's Philosophy of Being] , its second edition (mine is the 7th printing, 1950, of a 1943 book). The title page is stamped "St. Charles Seminary Library, Staten Island, N.Y." and the next page bears an Imprimi potest and Imprimatur. [Edward] Feser refers to Renard's The Philosophy of Being as a "textbook." Structurally sound, no marks on any page, but it wears its 70+ years of handling on its cloth cover (no paper cover).

Tony's unloading from his library. I never unload; I just buy more. There's always space for more books. You make space. Commit territorial aggression against your wife's book shelves; invade her capacious closets; get rid of furniture. Books before bread. "Man does not live by bread alone."

Rudyard Kipling

“A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition”

In these trying times, 'lead' is a precious metal.

The Bookman and the Rifleman

You know things are getting bad when a bookman must also be a rifleman if he intends to keep his private library safe from the depredations of leftist thugs who are out to 'de-colonize' it. You cannot reach these evil-doers with arguments, for it is not the plane of reason that they inhabit; there are, however, other ways to each them. The gentle caress of sweet reason must sometimes give way to the hard fist of unreason.

This raises an important moral question. Are there cultural artifacts so precious that violence against humans in their defense is justified? I should think so. For those out to 'cancel' high culture have no qualms about 'cancelling,' i.e., murdering its creators. That is one consideration. But also: haven't the barbarians forfeited their (normative) humanity to such an extent that they no longer deserve moral consideration? Do they form a moral community with us at all?

I am just asking. Or is inquiry now verboten?

Book Lust

The old man's libido may be on the wane, but this man's book lust remains as stiff-standing as ever. I'm reading along in Anthony Kenny's Aquinas on Being and I find a footnote in which he praises a certain Hermann Weidemann's article contained in a certain anthology. I think, "Oh boy, when I am in Tempe on Friday I'll snag that volume from the Arizona State University library."

In the bookman's eros we descry the superiority of the spirit over the flesh. The pleasures of the mind can extend for decades, from earliest youth to advanced old age. But not even the artifices of a Hugh Hefner can help those enmired in the dotage and decrepitude of the flesh.

At the end, even stoked to the max with Viagra to the point of hearing loss, Hef couldn't get it up sufficiently to penetrate the young lovelies who cavorted around him. He was reduced to manual mode while the bunnies romped with each other exchanging intimacies I charitably imagine to be more innocently sororal than libidinously lesbian.

Withdrawn from Circulation

Substack latest.

Homo Americanus: The Rise of Totalitarian Democracy in America

Ordered yesterday, arrived today. That's what I call service. Only in America, but then what's with the 'wokery' of Bezos and the boys? Turn the USA into a Soviet-style shithole and then what motive would anyone have to innovate? A bit of a paradox. Did the US defeat the SU to become SU 2?

By Zbigniew Janowski. I found the reference in Political Ponerology. Afterword by Ryszard Legutko, the author of The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies, Encounter Books, 2016, 2018. It entered my library on 14 February 2021, a gift from Brian Bosse.

Should we of the Coalition of the Sane and the Reasonable be supporting Amazon with our purchases? I started a post on that question a while ago. It languishes in the queue.

Addendum. Dave Bagwill recommends Alistair Elder, The Red Trojan Horse: A Concise Analysis of Cultural Marxism, 2017. Also available via Amazon.

Stalin the Bookman

Here is a review of Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin's Library: A Dictator and his Books. Excerpts:

He was also an avid reader. Roberts’s book begins as an analysis of the personal library Stalin left behind, scattered around his various dachas and offices. It comprised some 25,000 volumes, covering a wide range of subjects including Marxism, political and military history, economics, biographies and classic works of Russian literature. Some surviving books have found their way into the archives, to be studied by scholars for insights into the dictator’s mind.

But this is no dry examination of dusty texts. Roberts takes us through Stalin’s life and shows how his reading molded his actions. Books transformed the bright seminary student into a ferocious revolutionary, prepared to sacrifice family, friends and a vast array of enemies — capitalists, kulaks, fellow Bolsheviks, imperialists, Trotskyist deviationists and millions of ordinary Soviet citizens — on the altar of his rigid dogmas.

[. . .]

Roberts emphasizes throughout that Stalin was an intellectual, whose firm belief in Marxism was grounded in a deep study of the subject; that his actions, however cruel, cynical and misguided, stemmed from the conviction that he was building the world’s first socialist state, which would be a model for the rest of humanity. By insisting on Stalin’s seriousness, and his profound faith in Marxism as modified by Lenin and the experience of revolution in Russia, Roberts perhaps downplays the fearful cost in human suffering involved. As a result, the book can seem to gloss over the gruesome awfulness of Soviet society — not to mention the serious mistakes for which Stalin was personally responsible, including his refusal to believe that his ally Hitler would attack him until he actually did.

The Babbitts of the world heap scorn upon philosophy because it "bakes no bread," to which my stock reply is: "Man does not live by bread alone." Matthew 4:4 has Jesus saying as much, and continuing, "but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." While not disagreeing with Christ's words, this philosopher says that man does not live by bread alone but also by ideas the implementation of some of which will ameliorate and the implementation of others of which will devastate, securing bread for some and denying it to others.

Ideas matter. They matter most when they are enmattered by men of power who bring them from the heaven of ideas to this grubby earth of blood, sweat, and tears. Whether they work weal or woe will depend on their truth, assuming that there is truth in William James' dictum that the true is the good by way of belief.

But why should (the knowledge of) truth be conducive to human flourishing? Must it be? This is an important and unavoidable question, one that itself testifies to the importance of ideas. I mention it only to set it aside. For now.

Addendum (4 March 2022). Dmitri D. comments:

The book review (and the book "Stalin's library" if the review is accurate) is a complete nonsense. Stalin desperately wanted to appear as intellectual but he never was one. He indeed read a lot, but was a terrible student judged by his seminary grades and intellectuals who knew him closely. He executed his private philosophy tutor among hundreds of thousands of others.

Here is a quote from an old guard Bolshevik from Wikipedia's article on Jan Sten, Stalin's executed tutor:

Hardly anyone knew Stalin better than Sten. Stalin, as we know, received no systematic education. He struggled to understand philosophical questions, without success. And then, in 1925, he called in Jan Sten, one of the leading Marxist philosophers of that time, to direct his study of Hegelian dialectics. Sten drew up a program of study for Stalin and conscientiously, twice a week, dinned Hegelian wisdom into his illustrious pupil. Often he told me in confidence about these lessons, about the difficulties he, as a teacher, was having because of his student's inability to master the material of Hegelian dialectics. Jan often dropped in to see me after a lesson with Stalin, in a depressed and gloomy state, and despite his naturally cheerful disposition, he found it difficult to regain his equilibrium…The meetings with Stalin, the conversations with him on philosophical matters, during which Jan would always bring up contemporary political problems, opened his eyes more and more to Stalin's true nature, his striving for one-man rule, his crafty schemes and methods…As early as 1928, in a small circle of his personal friends, Sten said: "Koba [a nickname for Stalin] will do things that will put the trials of Dreyfus and Beilis in the shade."

Not All Academic Philosophers are Leftists!

Dissident Philosophers

Voices Against the Political Current of the Academy

EDITED BY T. ALLAN HILLMAN AND TULLY BORLAND

The book consists of sixteen essays (and an introduction) from prominent philosophers who are at odds with the predominant political trend(s) of academic philosophy, political trend(s) primarily associated with leftism. Some of these philosophers identify explicitly with the political right – an admittedly broad term which ranges from American conservative to British Tory, from religious right to non-religious right, from libertarian to authoritarian. Yet other dissident philosophers eschew the left/right dichotomy altogether while maintaining a firm political distance from the majority of their (left-leaning) colleagues. The primary goal of the volume is to represent a broad constituency of political philosophies and perspectives at variance with the prevailing political sentiments of the academy. Each essay is partly autobiographical in nature, detailing personal experiences that have influenced these philosophers throughout their lives, and partly philosophical, putting forth reflections on the intellectual viability of a right-leaning (or decidedly non-left leaning) political philosophy or some segment of it. The contemporary university is supposed to be the locus of viewpoint diversity, and yet as is evident to professors, students, and virtually anyone else who sets foot within its halls, it most certainly is not – particularly in matters political. Nevertheless, these essays are not instances of special-pleading or grievance incitement. Instead, each article provides a glimpse into the life of an academic philosopher whose views have largely been at odds with peers and colleagues. Furthermore, all of the essays were consciously constructed with the aim of being philosophically rigorous while eschewing technical language and verbose prose. In short, the essays will be enjoyable to a wide audience.

………………………………

My Facebook comments:

Your humble correspondent's contribution is entitled "From Democrat to Dissident." Click on the link to see the Table of Contents and a review. I was planning on buying a number of copies for my friends. But the $120 price tag is somewhat disuassive.

I have carefully read the introductory chapter by Allan Hillman and Tully Borland. Well written, exciting, rigorous, with a delightful soupçon of snark.

The Left gets its collective and collectivist @ss royally kicked by a formidable crew of philosophers. Formidable or not, I am honored to be among them.

Withdrawn from Circulation

The very best books, or so it seems, are usually the ones that get withdrawn from circulation in local public libraries, while the trash remains on the shelves. The librarians' bad judgment, however, redounds to my benefit as I am able to purchase fine books for fifty cents a pop. A while back, the literary luminaries at the Apache Junction Public Library saw fit to remove Linda Hamalian, A Life of Kenneth Rexroth (Norton, 1991) from the shelves.

Why, I have no idea. (It wasn't a second copy.) But I snatched it up. A find to rejoice over. A beautifully produced first edition of over 400 pages, the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America wanted $25 for it. I shall set it on the Beat shelf next to Kerouac's Dharma Bums wherein Rexroth figures as Reinhold Cacoethes. I hope the two volumes refrain from breaking each other's spines.

Moral: Always search diligently through biblic aisles and piles, remainder bins, and the like. It is amazing what treasure lies among the trash.

Conservatives, especially, are bound to find gems. The reason being that the tribe of librarians, dominated as they are by the distaff contingent, reliably tilt left and are eager to remove from the shelves what their shallow pates consider offensive materials.

On Books and Gratitude

Wherein I say something nice about Howlin' Wolff.

Readings for Dark Times

When the light of liberty was extinguished in Germany 1933-1945, many escaped to America. But when the light of liberty is extinguished here, there will be no place left to go.

What was it like to live in the Third Reich? What can we learn that may be of use in the present darkness? I come back again and again to the following four.

Theodor Haecker, Journal in the Night, tr. A Dru, Pantheon, 1950.

Paul Roubiczek, Across the Abyss: Diary Entries for the Year 1939-1940, tr. George Bird, Cambridge UP, 1982.

Sebastian Haffner, Defying Hitler: A Memoir, tr. O. Pretzel, Picador, 2000.

Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45, The University of Chicago Press, 1955, 2017

Related: Theodor Haecker entries