Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Literary Matters

  • He Who Writes, Remains . . .

    . . . but in the vast majority of cases, merely on the shelves, unread and forgotten. Well, oblivion is better than nonexistence. I now hand over to Samuel Johnson.

  • John Updike, Seven Stanzas at Easter

    Seven Stanzas at Easter Make no mistake: if He rose at allit was as His body;if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the moleculesreknit, the amino acids rekindle,the Church will fall. It was not as the flowers,each soft Spring recurrent;it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddledeyes of the eleven apostles;it was…

  • John Updike’s Christianity

    Gerald R. McDermott (emphases added): In Updike’s religion, then, there are no commandments we are meant to keep except the obligation to accept what is: “Religion includes, as its enemies say, fatalism, an acceptance and consecration of what is.” Our only responsibility is to “appreciate” the great gift that life represents. He learned from Barth that…

  • Attributed to Robert Frost

    Here: "A liberal is a man too broad-minded to take his own side in a quarrel” is usually credited to American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963). Frost used the quote in January 1961 (discussing John F. Kennedy, who Frost thought was not this type of liberal) and Frost used it again in January 1962. A popular…

  • 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…

  • Like a Bolt of Lightning

    An aphorism is like a bolt of lightning: it does not explain itself.

  • Bernanos on Prayer

    Georges Bernanos has the protagonist of his The Diary of a Country Priest (Image Books, 1954, pp. 81-82, tr. P. Morris, orig. publ. 1937) write the following into his journal:   The usual notion of prayer is so absurd. How can those who know nothing about it, who pray little or not at all, dare…

  • Jack Kerouac: Religious Writer?

    Beatific October, Kerouac month hereabouts, is at its sad redbrick end once again, but I can't let her slip away without at least one substantial Kerouac entry. So raise your glass with me on this eve of All Saint's Day as I say a prayer for Jack's soul which, I fear, is still in need…

  • Sebastian Haffner: Totalitarians Intolerant of Private Life

    Among the dozen or so books I am currently reading is Sebastian Haffner, Defying Hitler: A Memoir (Picador, 2003).  Written in 1939, it was first published in German in 2000. The Third Reich is no more, but the following passage remains  highly relevant at a time when the main forms of totalitarianism are Chinese Communism,…

  • Negativity: The Spirit of the Left

    The spirit of the Left is the spirit of negativity. Any intellectually honest person following current events can see that the tendency of leftists is mindlessly to destroy for the sake of destruction what it has taken centuries to build. Transgressive of tradition and its wisdom, these 'progressives' are both hobbled and enabled by their…

  • Chiasmus and Antimetabole

    Explained.

  • Thomas Merton and Walker Percy

    I have long been fascinated by the conflicted man revealed in Thomas Merton's Journals, all seven volumes of which I have read and regularly re-read.  He was a spiritual seeker uncomfortably perched between the contemptus mundi of old-time monasticism and 1960's social engagement and 'relevance,' to use one of the buzz words of the day. …

  • What Makes an Aphorism Good?

    Reader RP submits the following aphorisms for evaluation: A very good thing about not having anyone to talk to is not having to talk to anyone. A very good thing about not having any place to go to is not having to go anyplace. The evil of loneliness becomes the good thing of solitude when…

  • Benjamin Jowett on Grace

    A stunning formulation for your delectation from the translator of Plato and the don of Balliol College: Grace is an energy; not a mere sentiment; not a mere thought of the Almighty; not even a word of the Almighty. It is as real an energy as the energy of electricity. It is a divine energy;…

  • The Deep Thinker

    Elias Canetti, The Agony of Flies: Notes and Notations (Die Fliegenpein: Aufzeichnungen), Noonday 1994, tr. H. F. Broch de Rothermann, bilingual ed., p. 25: His thoughts have fins instead of wings. It flows better in German: Sein Denken hat Flossen statt Flügel. The title is my creation. Many of Canetti's notations express insights; others, however…