Yes we can! (. . . lob a few cruise missiles at Syrian military installations in a futile attempt to save face after yammering about a red line.)
Dueling Injunctions
"Dont' hide your light under a bushel." "Don't cast your pearls before swine."
"Haste makes waste." "He who hesitates is lost."
Others escape me at the moment.
UPDATE (7 September). Jeff Hodges and Kid Nemesis come to my aid. Jeff contributes:
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder."
"Out of sight, out of mind."
Jeff adds, "According to some, the latter was translated into German to mean "blind and crazy"! That might be a joke, but I did hear a professional translator render "white male gaze" into German as "white male homosexuals."
Well, "Out of sight, out of mind" is rendered exactly by the German proverb Aus den Augen, aus den Sinn. Someone who didn't know German well could easily translated the latter as "blind and crazy" thinking that the German sentence means "out of eyes and out of mind."
Kid Nemesis writes, "Not really injunctions, but. . .
'Distance makes the heart grow fonder' vs 'Out of sight, out of mind.'"
'Absence,' not 'distance.' But KN makes a good point: my second example and Jeff's are not injunctions. My post should have been titled, 'Dueling Maxims.' An injunction is an act of ordering or commanding or enjoining or admonishing or else the content of an act of ordering or commanding or enjoining or admonishing. Injunctions are broadly imperative as opposed to declarative. A maxim may or may not be imperative.
56 Years Ago Today: Gilbert Millstein’s Review of Kerouac’s On the Road
Here. Millstein's NYT review brought Kerouac fame, but fame contributed to an early death at age 47 just a bit more than 12 years after the review. Fame brought death, but no fortune, leastways not for Jack. Last I checked, his heirs were battling over his estate.
By the way, the Telegraph article to which I have just linked gives the year of Keroauc's death incorrectly as 1968. Kerouac died in his beloved October, in 1969. I remember the day he died and my annotation in my journal.
Neal Cassady, Keroauc's hero and friend, the Dean Moriarty of On the Road, died in February of 1968, also of substance abuse, having quaffed a nasty concotion of pulque and Seconals, on the railroad tracks near San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Legend has it that Cassady had been counting the ties and that his last word was "64, 928." (Cf. William Plummer, The Holy Goof: A Biography of Neal Cassady, Paragon, 1981, pp. 157-158.)
Be mad, muchachos, be mad. Be not too mad.
No One Excluded
Everyone can make a contribution if the level of the conversation is low enough.
Temptation
A striking one or two sentence formulation taken from a wider context is not an aphorism, strictly speaking. But I'm in a loose and liberal mood. So I present for your consideration and delectation the following sentence from Paul Ludwig Landsberg (1901-1944). It is from his essay "The Moral Problem of Suicide," translated from the French by Cynthia Rowland and bound together with "The Experience of Death" in a volume entitled The Experience of Death (Arno Press, New York, 1977). The sentence occurs on p. 69.
Temptation is an experience of the difference between the vertigo of power and the decision of duty.
Nulla Dies Sine Linea
"No day without a line."
No day without a line even if the line is that no day should be without one.
Jim Ryan’s Truths
Jim Ryan posts infrequently but thoughtfully. His latest entry is a list of truths he considers self-evident. I don't consider them all self-evident, but I do consider them all true.
Reading About Commies
In partial answer to a reader's query, here are some good books about Communism. These are 'second-tier' books. First read Whittaker Chambers, Witness; Leszek Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism (three vols.); Cszelaw Milosz, The Captive Mind. What follows is a 1 August 2004 post updated and expanded from my first weblog.
……………..
I like reading books by and about Communists and former Communists. One reason is that I think it will give me some insight into the related phenomenon of Islamism, which would not be badly described as the Communism of the 21st century. Here are some out-of-the-way titles I have dug up recently. I have found them both enlightening and entertaining. Being ‘fair and balanced,’ as everyone knows, I read materials both sympathetic and hostile to Communism.
Vivian Gornick, The Romance of American Communism (New York: Basic Books, 1977). Consists of sympathetic biographical sketches of numerous American communists. A very enjoyable read for those who enjoy psychology and biography.
Aileen Kraditor, “Jimmy Higgins”: The Mental World of the American Rank-and-File Communist, 1930-1958 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988). An academic sociological study by a former commie, and Boston University professor “written from a conservative standpoint.” (Preface) Strongly recommended, and of course ignored by leftists. Note that I didn’t say,‘suppressed by leftists,’ because that is the silly way they talk. To ignore something is not to suppress it, any more than to refuse to sponsor or subsidize something is to censor it. Especially egregious is the use of 'voter suppression' by leftists to refer to common sense polling place requirements such as government-issued photo ID.
Bella V. Dodd, School of Darkness (New York: P. J. Kennedy, 1954) Bella Dodd’s idealism swept her up into the Communist Party, as did Whittaker Chambers' and and the idealism of so many of the best and brightest of their generation. But after wasting years of her life in the CPUSA, it spit her out. Disillusioned, she turned to Catholicism, taking instruction from none other than Bishop Fulton J. Sheen in New York City. She had come to the conclusion that the brotherhood of man is possible only under the fatherhood of God. Her book is available on-line here.
Ron Radosh, Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left, and the Leftover Left, Encounter, 2001. There are some juicy revelations about Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary, on pp. 39-40. But I am too lazy to type them up. But I'm not too lazy to link to this great PP & M tune.
The Essential Sermon
"The essential sermon is one's own existence." Søren Kierkegaard, Journals, #1056
Obama Indicts Obama
Another brilliant analysis by VDH. Ends thusly:
So why is there such a disconnect between what Obama once declared and what he subsequently professed? There are four explanations, none of them mutually exclusive:
A. Candidate Obama had no experience in foreign policy and has always winged it, now and then recklessly sounding off when he thought he could score cheap points against George Bush. As president, he still has no idea of how foreign policy is conducted, and thus continues to make things up as he goes along, often boxing himself into a corner with serial contradictions. Trying to discern any consistency or pattern in such an undisciplined mind is a futile exercise: what Obama says or does at any given moment usually is antithetical to what he said or did on a prior occasion. He is simply lost and out of his league [12].
B. Candidate Obama has always been an adroit demagogue. He knew how to score political points against George Bush, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain, without any intention of abiding by his own sweeping declarations. The consistency in Obama’s foreign policy is his own carefully calibrated self-interest. Bombing or not bombing, shutting down or keeping open Guantanamo Bay, going or not going to the UN or the U.S. Congress — these choices are all predicated not on principle, but only on what a canny and unprincipled Obama feels best suits his own political interests and self-image at any given moment. In a self-created jam, he flipped and now goes to Congress in hopes of pinning responsibility on them [13], whether we go or not, whether successful or unsuccessful if we do. He is a quite clever demagogue.
C. Obama is a well-meaning and sincere naïf, but a naïf nonetheless. He really believed the world prior to 2009 worked on the premises of the Harvard Law School lounge, Chicago organizing, and Rev. Wright’s Church — or least should have worked on such assumptions. Then when Obama took office, saw intelligence reports, and assumed the responsibilities of our highest office, he was shocked at the dangerous nature of the world! There was no more opportunity for demagoguery or buck-passing, and he had to become serious. In short, it is easy to criticize without power, hard with it to make tough decisions and bad/worse choices. He is slowly learning.
D. Obama is the first president who genuinely feels U.S. exceptionalism and power were not ethically earned and should be in an ethical sense ended. As a candidate, he consistently undermined current U.S. foreign policy at a time of two critical wars; as president, he has systematically forfeited U.S. authority and prestige. There is no inconsistency: whatever makes the traditional idea of the U.S as a superpower weaker, Obama promotes; whatever enhances our profile, he opposes. He is often quite angry at what could be called traditional America — seen often as a downright mean country [14] here and abroad.
All of the above, say I. But especially (A), (B), and (D).
Michael Valle on Marxism-Leninism and Islamism
There are four new philosophical-political posts at Mike Valle's infrequently updated weblog that I recommend. Start with Marxism-Leninism and Islamism and scroll up. Excerpts with some comments of mine:
One thing that people got wrong with the communists, and they get wrong with the Islamists, is that they think that people can’t really believe this stuff. They think these people think that they are acting from these ideas, but they are really reacting to oppressive conditions, and these crazy ideological ideas are only an indirect way of expressing their frustration with their conditions.
[Scott Atran, anthropologist, seems to maintain this absurd view as I report in Does Anyone Really Believe in the Muslim Paradise?]
What Bochenski argues for communism, I also argue for Islamism: Yes, they really do believe this stuff, and we insult not only reality but those very people themselves by suggesting that we know more than they do about their own motivations. Yes, an Islamist does, in fact, believe that Allah will reward him for his violent martyrdom. He believes it in the marrow of his bones. Not only that—he will believe it even if he is no longer oppressed, lives in a big house, has a great job, has a university education, and the rest of it. Throwing money at Islamists does not kill ideology. Ideology is more powerful than wealth. Just as with communist terrorists, the Islamist terrorists are quite frequently well-educated and, by the standards of history, not particularly oppressed. They are ideologues.
Mike is on the money. What's the best test for belief? Action! By their fruits shall ye know them. What people believe is manifested by their actions in the context of their verbal avowals. People who think that Communists and Islamists don't really believe what they say they believe are probably just engaging in psychological projection: "I can't believe this stuff, so you can't either."
But the fact that I can't bring myself to believe in, or even entertain with hospitality, any such nonsense as a classless society or the dictatorship of the proletariat or post-mortem dalliance with 72 black-eyed virgins as recompense for piloting jumbo jets into trade towers, or that the USA is permeated with 'institutionalized racism' – cuts no ice. People believe the damndest things and they prove it by their behavior, and the fact that other people can't 'process' this at face value means nothing. People really do believe this crap.
We all seek a transcendental meaning to our lives, except for those few of us who live as animals. National Socialism, Communism, and Islamism give people that meaning, and having such a meaning is, for many people, far more important than material comforts and wealth. I think this is fine, as long as one’s transcendental purpose isn’t murderously evil, of course.
Mike here touches upon the problem of misplaced idealism.
It is not enough to have ideals, one must have the right ideals. This is why being idealistic, contrary to common opinion, is not always good. Idealism ran high among the members of the Sturmabteilung (SA) and the Schuetzstaffel (SS). The same is true of countless millions who became Communists in the 20th century: they sacrificed their 'bourgeois' careers and selfish interests to serve the Party. (See Whittaker Chambers, Witness, required reading for anyone who would understand Communism.) But it would have been better had the members of these organizations been cynics and slackers. It is arguably better to have no ideals than to have the wrong ones. Nazism and Communism brought unprecedented amounts of evil into the world on the backs of idealistic motives and good intentions. Connected with this is the point that wanting to do good is not good enough: one must know what the good is and what one morally may and may not do to attain it.
It is therefore a grotesque error, one that libs and lefties have a soft spot for, to suppose that being idealistic is good in and of itself. The question must follow: idealistic in respect of which ideals? No doubt John Lennon in his silly ditty "Imagine" expressed lofty ideals; but his ideals are the utopian ideals of the Left, and we know where they lead. It is not good to be idealistic sans phrase; one must be idealistic in respect of the right ideals. Only then can we say that being idealistic is better than being a common schlep who serves only his own interests.
Bochenski was right about communism. Too many are still in denial or ignorance of the destructive and evil nature of communism (as were so many of my professors), just as too many are hopelessly naïve about the power of Islamist ideology (as are so many “intellectuals”).
I would add the following. Communism is not dead. it lives on in those leftist seminaries called colleges and universities. To understand the Left and its political correctness, you must study the history of Communism. As I have said more than once: PC comes from the CP!
A related point is that Islamism is shaping up to be the Communism of the 21st century. Which is another reason to study Communism.
Saturday Night at the Oldies: Beethoven, Billy Bob, and Peggy Lee
The Man Who Wasn't There is one of my favorite movies, and the best of Ludwig van Beethoven is as good as classical music gets. So enjoy the First Movement of the Moonlight Sonata to the masterful cinematography of the Coen Brothers.
Here is the final scene of the movie. Ed Crane's last words:
I don't know where I'm being taken. I don't know what I'll find beyond the earth and sky. But I am not afraid to go. Maybe the things I don't understand will be clearer there, like when a fog blows away. Maybe Doris will be there. And maybe there I can tell her all those things they don't have words for here.
That is the way I see death, as an adventure into a dimension in which we might come to understand what we cannot understand here, a movement from night and fog into the clear light of day. It is a strange idea, I admit, the idea that only by dying can one come into possession of essential knowledge. But no more strange than the idea that death leaves the apparent absurdity of our existence unredeemed, a sentiment expressed in Peggy Lee's 1969 Is That All There Is?
Perhaps no other popular song achieves the depth of this Leiber and Stoller composition inspired by the 1896 story Disillusionment (Enttäuschung) by Thomas Mann.
Don’t Do It, Mr. President!
Pay attention for a change to people who actually know something and can think straight such as Victor Davis Hanson and Charles Krauthammer.
At a bare minimum, make the case to the American people and consult with congress.
A simple question that John Kerry does not address in his case for intervention is the one posed by Hanson: "And what of the irony that Assad is probably no worse a custodian of WMD than is the opposition that we would de facto [be] aiding?"
Old Carl
It must have been the fall of '72. Old Carl and I were sitting in his Culver City flophouse room drinking Brew 102 after a day's manual labor . He delivered himself of a line not to be forgotten.
"Bill, once I was limber all over but stiff in one place. Now it's the other way around."
The Old Man
He fills up quickly, but empties slowly.