One intellectual rivalry the world was fortunate enough to see was that of C.S. Lewis and T.S. Eliot. I suspected Lewis and Eliot might have been acquaintances. They were contemporaries (Lewis at Oxford, Eliot at Cambridge) with similar areas of interest, both were Anglican, and both were considered preeminent scholars in their times. But was never aware of any interaction between the two. The only reference I was aware of came from Lewis in his poem, "A Confession:"

I am so coarse, the things the poets see
Are obstinately invisible to me.
For twenty years I've stared my level best
To see if evening-any evening-would suggest
A patient etherised upon a table;
In vain. I simply wasn't able.

Tonight, I was thinking about it, and so I typed their names into Google, and came across this article. Apparently, there was some real tension between the two of them, and Lewis actually wrote a great deal against Eliot.

I don't have the energy to go through the article line-by-line right now, but it's a very interesting read, especially if you are familiar with their work. It left me a bit torn, because I love both, and I find points of agreement and disagreement on either side. Decide for yourself. I cannot.

Fortunately, the story has something of a happy ending:

In 1958 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, appointed both Eliot and Lewis to a commission charged with reviewing the Psalter. In the following years Eliot and Lewis met each other regularly during the meetings at Lambeth Palace which resulted in The Revised Psalter (1963). Now that they had gotten to know each other personally, a friendship came into being. 'You know I never liked Eliot's poetry, or even his prose. But when we met this time I loved him, Lewis told his private secretary Walter Hooper in the last summer of his life. The greetings in his letters to Eliot changed from 'Dear Sir' to 'Dear Mr. Eliot' to 'My dear Eliot.' After a conference in Cambridge of the Psalter-commission, Lewis and Eliot even had lunch together, with their wives, Helen Joy Davidman and Valerie Fletcher. According to Hooper, Lewis could have been talking about Eliot and himself when he wrote in the fourth chapter of The Four Loves.'

Like most people who grew up liking the movies, I'm infatuated by old movie stars. James Stewart, Judy Garland, Marlon Brando, Grace Kelly, Ingrid Bergman, Peter Fonda, and all the Hollywood luminaries who lit the screen in the age before CGI ruined everything. Something about the way their faces would shine in the lights of the black-and-white era. The voices, the accents that nobody has anymore. The stage-presence without the stage. Nostalgia and pretty things.

No figure of that era is quite so iconic as Katharine Hepburn. Her elegance, her beauty, her sharp tongue - they don't make 'em like that anymore. She was a true aristocrat, even as the aristocracy faded away.

I found this the other day. It's Hepburn reading a letter she wrote to Spencer Tracy after his death in 1967. It's really quite beautiful. It says a lot about both of them.

Michael Spencer, better known as the iMonk is dying of cancer. He has been given six months to a year to live.

As someone who read and often identified with his writing, this is sad for me. I can't imagine what it must feel like for those closest to him, for his wife. Apparently, he isn't in any real physical pain, and has taken the news as well as anyone can.

Pray for him, pray for his family.

Singer/songwriter Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse fame killed himself yesterday. There's not much to say, other than that it's tragic and sad, and I hope to God he found the peace his spirit needed.

I was thinking the other day about pairs of historical figures I wish had been contemporaries, so I could watch them square off. For instance, I would love to see Alexander the Great and Hannibal in a fist fight. I would pay dearly to see Abraham Lincoln debate FDR (I'm not saying they had any significant disagreements, it just would have been fun). I would love to see C.S. Lewis sit down with David Hume (in fact, I'd love to spend a night on the town with Hume). Kant and Mill would be fun to watch.

Above everything else, I would love to watch Kierkegaard and Nietzsche have a debate. When Kierkegaard died, Nietzsche was only eleven, and it wasn't until the last decade or so of Nietzsche's life that Kierkegaard began to get any recognition outside of Denmark. In many ways, they were kindred spirits. In the end, they came down on completely opposite sides of the spectrum, but the way in which each arrived as his position is remarkably similar. Intellectually, they are equals, and they both wrote with the same extreme passion. I have no idea whether they would have liked each other. I suspect Kierkegaard would have liked Nietzsche. Nietzsche didn't like very many people, but it's possible he would have found something worth liking in his Danish cousin.

We'll never know, I guess.

I'm sure everybody has seen those Levi's Jeans commercials with the Walt Whitman poem running through the background. Well, if you haven't, here you go:



I found out a while back that the commercial took a section from Whitman's poem "America," but what I didn't know was that the track behind the commercial is actually the voice of Walt Whitman himself. In 1889, Thomas Edison got a wax cylinder recording of Whitman reading some of his poems. The original recording was badly damaged, but these four lines were preserved. Pretty amazing. You can even hear a little bit of Brooklyn in his voice.

I should make note that the other Levi's commercial, while it does contain a Whitman poem does not boast the voice of Whitman (and you can tell - it's a lot less grainy).

Maybe this will raise your blood to the correct temperature.


Obama Caught Lip-Syncing Speech

If you don't find that funny, I suspect this video might help.

I learned over the weekend that Texas was the first state to elect a female governor (in 1925!). She is also, to my knowledge, the only female governor to ever win re-election. Miriam Fergusen was not the first female to serve in the office of governor, because two weeks earlier, Wyoming swore in Nellie Tayloe Ross after the death of her husband, Governor William B. Ross. The next time a woman was elected governor in the United States was not until 1967 (in Alabama).

What is more interesting, Fergusen ran on a strongly anti-Ku Klux Klan platform, enacting some strong restrictions on the group once in office (later overturned).

While I don't deny that the American South has been behind the rest of the nations on certain issues, I think many of the caricatures of the South as backwards and anti-progress are overblown. I don't know much about Fergusen's tenure as governor, and I do know that her husband had served earlier, but I think it's still interesting that that particular barrier was broken in the South.

Anyways, I just thought that was interesting.

Nick Kristoff has a good column up today on evangelicals and foreign aid. It's nice to hear a liberal voice praising the work of the Christian right. I don't consider myself evangelical or necessarily right-wing (in the contemporary American sense), but this was refreshing:

Pop quiz: What’s the largest U.S.-based international relief and development organization?

It’s not Save the Children, and it’s not CARE — both terrific secular organizations. Rather, it’s World Vision, a Seattle-based Christian organization (with strong evangelical roots) whose budget has roughly tripled over the last decade.

World Vision now has 40,000 staff members in nearly 100 countries. That’s more staff members than CARE, Save the Children and the worldwide operations of the United States Agency for International Development — combined.

...

The American view of evangelicals is still shaped by preening television blowhards and hypocrites who seem obsessed with gays and fetuses. One study cited in the book found that even among churchgoers ages 16 to 29, the descriptions most associated with Christianity were “antihomosexual,” “judgmental,” “too involved in politics,” and “hypocritical.”

Some conservative Christians reinforced the worst view of themselves by inspiring Ugandan homophobes who backed a bill that would punish gays with life imprisonment or execution. Ditto for the Vatican, whose hostility to condoms contributes to the AIDS epidemic. But there’s more to the picture: I’ve also seen many Catholic nuns and priests heroically caring for AIDS patients — even quietly handing out condoms.

One of the most inspiring figures I’ve met while covering Congo’s brutal civil war is a determined Polish nun in the terrifying hinterland, feeding orphans, standing up to drunken soldiers and comforting survivors — all in a war zone. I came back and decided: I want to grow up and become a Polish nun.

Some Americans assume that religious groups offer aid to entice converts. That’s incorrect. Today, groups like World Vision ban the use of aid to lure anyone into a religious conversation.

Some liberals are pushing to end the longtime practice (it’s a myth that this started with President George W. Bush) of channeling American aid through faith-based organizations. That change would be a catastrophe. In Haiti, more than half of food distributions go through religious groups like World Vision that have indispensable networks on the ground. We mustn’t make Haitians the casualties in our cultural wars.

The student body at Ole Miss recently voted to phase out Colonel Reb as their mascot. The favorite potential replacement? Admiral Ackbar.



Follow Ackbar on Twitter. Support the cause here.

(HT: Andrew Sullivan)

This semester, I will be writing the longest paper of my academic career. My subject? Friedrich Nietzsche.

Nietzsche is a kind of boogey-man for Christians, and maybe for good reason. He was a battering ram at a critical moment in history, and his writings contain what is, in my opinion, the strongest attack against Christianity ever raised. It wasn't that he said "God is dead" (though he did, several times), but it was the reasons behind why he attacked Christianity and the way in which he did it.

Nietzsche gets a bad wrap in a lot of circles today, and many would rather ignore him than confront him. Some of his reputation is deserved. Nietzsche was barely ever charitable, he often wrote bombastically and ironically, and could come off as pretty vain. He's been unfairly associated with Nazism and nihilism, and his atheism is enough for most people to dismiss him.

In his defense, while his writing isn't exactly soft, it is great prose. While he is bombastic, he is also very in-control, weaving layer upon layer, writing with perfect pacing and vitality, knowing precisely when to attack and when to relent. Nietzsche died before the formation of the Nazi party, but is associated with them because they used his writings in their propaganda. And he did write about a new and better man (the overman), but this man was to overthrow Christian morality, not conquer the earth. Implicating Nietzsche for the Holocaust would be like implicating Rousseau in the Reign of Terror. For what it's worth, Nietzsche was extremely critical of Germany, and rather liked the Jews. Finally, Nietzsche hated nihilism (the paper I mentioned above is actually on Nietzsche's critique of nihilism). One of his major critiques of Christianity is that it is a kind of nihilism.

Personally, I think Christians can learn a lot from Nietzsche. At the very least, his arguments deserve to be addressed, because they are so original. His attack is not against God or against Christ, but against the moral worth of Christianity. I don't have time to go through his arguments (and I wouldn't be the best summarizer of them), but I think we have something to gain from knowing them and defending against them. If nothing else, Nietzsche can teach us something about prose. ;-)

Next semester, I will begin work on my honor's thesis. It will be three semester's worth of work, and while I won't start the writing process until next Spring, I will begin the research portion in the Fall.

I'm really excited about this. Upon completion, it will stand as my first actual academic achievement. Besides, it will look good on my grad school applications.

Anyways, while I don't start researching a topic until the Fall, I do have to begin thinking about what topic I am to research. My concentration is American Literature, and my main interest is the twentieth century, so I imagine whatever topic I choose will have much to do with that. Right now, I've got three topics I'm mulling over. None are very fleshed out, and with the exception of one, I have no arguments formulated.

I don't expect many of you will have anything to say in the way of helping me (that's not meant to sound elitist... my interests are kind of narrow, and so is my readership), but here are the three topics I'm considering at the moment. I'll update as I hone in on one (or, as I expand!):

1. Walker Percy's Protagonist in the Modern World: Percy is one of my favorite writers. A real jewel, he is. He does us all a favor by being remarkably single-minded as far as theme goes. He wrote six novels, and a few works of non-fiction, and all of them focus on the same basic questions. He asks why the present age is so miserable, why is man such a paradox, and why nobody wants to acknowledge these things. He was strongly influenced by Catholicism and Existentialism (his favorite writers were Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Marcel and Aquinas), and he poured all his deepest concerns into his fiction. It doesn't hurt that he wrote beautifully, and that his novels are, in my opinion, some of the finest ever written.

2. Suicide and the Twentieth Century Novel: Here, I would probably look at individual works of several American novelists who focused, or commented on, the issue of suicide. I'd likely look at Faulkner (Quentin Compson in The Sound and the Fury), O'Connor (Hazel Motes in Wise Blood), Percy (Will Barrett's father in The Second Coming and The Last Gentleman), and McCullers (John Singer in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter). Of the three topics I'm looking at, this would be probably the most interesting. Suicide is a fascinating idea, and a very painful one. Each of these novelists treat it beautifully, though differently. I also turned over the idea of using Hemingway's death as a concluding note.

3. F. Scott Fitzgerald's Spiritual Crisis: I believe The Great Gatsby to be the greatest American novel, if not my favorite. No novel is perfect, but this may have come as close as any other to reaching that height. I would basically argue that Fitzgerald's primary concern was the sickness of the spirit. He was, as far as I know, a staunch atheist for his entire career, but several of his novels (mainly Gatsby and Tender is the Night) show me that he was not deaf to the spiritual crisis at the heart of man. I'd like to explore that more. Other than Faulkner, Fitzgerald was probably the best American writer to ever put a pen to the page, and while plenty of high school students hate (and misunderstand) him, I can think of few writers who deserve a closer look.

I
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

Because I do not hope to know
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is
nothing again

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessèd face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

Read the rest of this entry . . .

Taliban Military Chief Captured.

My official position on Valentine's Day is one of complete indifference. For some reason, I used to think it was February 22.

In the last week, somewhere around 10,000 people (in the interest of full disclosure, they were all girls) expressed to me how much they hated Valentine's Day, how stupid it is, how shallow it is, and just generally what an awful day February 14 is.

I would nod my head in feigned agreement. What I wanted to say was that there's no reason to let a day put you in a bad mood. It's a day, like any other day. If it's so stupid, it shouldn't make you miserable. If you really need something to cheer you up on Valentine's Day, remember that the fourteenth of February is also Carl Burnstein's birthday.

I'm taking a course in Moral Philosophy right now. This is the second course in ethics I have taken, and I'm being exposed to the same quirky cast of characters, this time around, just a bit more in depth. Ethics is one of the more accessible areas of philosophical inquiry, and probably the most popular. Both classes have been filled to capacity with plenty of opinionated tweens, and I've spent most of my time in those classes listening and observing rather than speaking.

The first thing I observe is that on the first day, at least one student will make the point that morality is obviously relative and that we can't really say objectively what is right and what is wrong. They will usually offer an example about "a primitive tribe in [place where primitive tribes might live]" and how they hold something to be virtuous/vicious that our western minds don't. Philosophy classes are usually filled with pretentious snobs (including yours truly) who revel in the opportunity to knock down stupid arguments like that, but the comment usually gets to stand on its own uncontested. Why someone who doesn't believe in at least some moral objectivity would take a course on the ethical theory is beyond me, but I guess that's the price I pay for being born in the twentieth century.

The second (and most interesting) observation is watching how people react to the different systems. Generally speaking, there are four major figures in the history of moral philosophy. For background, here is a way over-simplified description of each thinker and his system (sorry, they're all men):

Aristotle - The ethical action is a mean between an excess and deficiency. For instance, courage is the mean between rashness and cowardice, or wittiness is the mean between buffoonery and boorishness. Eudaimonia (happiness/flourishing) is the chief end of virtue.

Immanuel Kant - Morality must be grounded in objective, a priori reality. A moral action is one that comes out of (not just in accordance with) duty to the moral law. The ends of an action don't matter. Duty commands us to do the moral thing without regard for the ends.

John Stuart Mill - The goal of morality is to secure the most happiness and least pain for the most people. Unlike Kant, the ends are everything to Mill. Rational beings must weigh the benefit of an action to determine its morality.

Friederich Nietzsche - Morality is grounded in the affirmation of life. Christian morality causes us to deny our true selves, and enslaves us. True morality sets us free.

Now, I over-simplified each of these to an incredible degree, but I believe I represented them fairly enough.

But to the point. The reaction to Aristotle is basically neutral. People like his ideas, his "practicality" (I personally found Aristotle to very impractical on his most vital points). They don't like how tedious he is, how long his book is, how emotionless he is. But overall, people react positively to Aristotle.

People love Mill. And what American wouldn't love him? He is, in so many ways, the great spokesman of classical liberalism. He writes well, makes good arguments, and really does think about morality in much the same way as most people do. Mills utilitarianism is a very western idea, and people react very positively to it, even to the point of giving his system passes when it most needs pushback.

Not very surprising, at all. What does surprise me is the reaction to Kant, and not only that, but the reaction to Kant in relation to the reaction to Nietzsche. People despise Kant. He upsets people, even infuriates them. Nietzsche gets some push back, but ultimately, people react rather well to him, especially given how much of a boogey man people have made him into.

This is at Baylor. Baylor is a Christian school in name only, but a high percentage are still evangelical. And, from what I can tell, a high percentage of students in these classes are Christians, or at least have a strong background in the Christian tradition. Nietzsche is the guy who said "God is dead"* and Kant is the guy who's ethical system most resembles the words of Christ. It doesn't help that Kant is a terrible writer and Nietzsche's prose is stunning, but come on!

Granted, there are problems with Kant's approach, and he isn't the most practical guy in the world, but I don't think he deserves the amount of abuse he takes.

Tomorrow, we're discussing the categorical imperative. Should be fun!

* In case any philosophy nerds are reading, I know that I just took Nietzsche out of context, and I know how dangerous that is. I believe that Christians can learn from Nietzsche, but I also think that if people don't want to scream and prove him wrong when they read him, then they have not understood Nietzsche.

Eliot, Kierkegaard, O'Connor, Dostoevsky, Percy, Lewis and Faulkner are the only authors I will read from here on out. I don't need anybody else.

This is, of course, untrue.

In order to avoid congratulating the Saints on their victory over my favorite quarterback, I figured I'd post a question.

Why do we never hear about steroid use in football? I believe I heard something about it a few years back, but it wasn't a big story, and I might be imagining it. I can't really say. But it's never talked about or even wondered about, as far as I know.

I suppose some of it has to do with the fact that steroids aren't all that helpful to the guys who get all the glory in football. Quarterbacks might get some extra arm strength out of it, but I've never seen a successful quarterback who looked like he was on steroids. Most of them are somewhat cut, but nothing beyond your average NBA small forward. Many are downright lanky. Receivers and defensive backs are mostly a skinny, swift bunch, and I just don't see steroids, as I understand them, being conducive to that particular skill set. Running backs, I suppose could probably benefit from Andro or HGH, and I guess of the skill positions, theirs is the most suspicious. But even then, so much of what makes a running back good has nothing to do with strength. Many of them aren't even that fast comparatively (Emmitt Smith, the all time leader in rushing yards and touchdowns, was notoriously slow for an NFL skill position). Steroids don't give you better vision or agility.

So, maybe we don't hear about it because the guys everyone pays attention to don't really have anything to gain from taking steroids. It isn't an issue for the same reason NBA point guards aren't constantly under suspicion for juicing.

But I look at linemen, particularly defensive linemen, and linebackers and think, some of them have got to be shooting up. These guys are freaking monsters. Guys who look like cattle are running forty yard dashes in 4.5 seconds and pushing through 320 pound offensive tackles just doesn't make much sense to me. Then again, back in junior high I knew a couple of guys who were really big, really strong, and exceptionally fast, and I'm pretty sure they hadn't gone all Mark McGwire just yet. I'm sure the skill set exists, it just boggles my mind.

Like any sports fan, I don't like the idea of steroids invading sports, but I also want the best entertainment possible. We feed it, and ultimately bear some responsibility. I'm not sure if steroids is a big issue in football, and I haven't seen much evidence that it is. With all the hooplah over steroids in baseball, I'm sure I'm not the only one who looks at football players with suspicion. The cynical part of me doesn't ask why steroids aren't an issue in football, but how can they NOT be an issue?

In theory, Wednesdays are my productive day. I do have an extra class, but it is also the only day of the week (the 5-day week) where I don't go to work. So generally, I save Wednesdays to do any running around I need to do. Today, I went to the Centre to sign another form that goes over their sub-leasing policy. I did laundry, bought shower supplies, and finished a book (Mother Night). I then went to the library, returned the book I had just finished, and checked out another. I went to Chili's, read, and had a spectacular burger. I had planned on going back to my room after Chili's to read a little more, and then I had kind of planned on blogging. But, Kenny called me and challenged me to a game of Madden. It was an offer I couldn't refuse. So I walked twenty minutes through the rain and cold for a video game. Long story short, my plans for the evening changed a bit.

So no book discussion tonight. I meant to talk about Fitzgerald and Walker Percy, but it will just have to wait (not that anybody who reads this blog cares about old American novels).