Peter was fishing for my responses on Christianity and its relation to modernity’s three stages in America AND on whether or not America is more oligarchic than democratic according to Plato’s sense of the terms. Well, that first topic is huge, but even as I focus upon the second one . . . . Continue Reading »
Here’s what Plato wrote about democracy almost 2350 years ago: “ . . . do you notice how tender they make the citizen’s soul, so that if someone proposes anything that smacks in any way of slavery, they are irritated and can’t stand it? And they end up, as you well know, by . . . . Continue Reading »
No, I do not take Zombies with my Jane Austen, so you know I’m talking about the musical group of the 60s! Well, they’ve reunified for some new songs and gigs, and the fab Dawn Eden reports on their recent DC-area concert over at the Weekly Standard. For those who didn’t see the . . . . Continue Reading »
For never are the ways of music moved without the greatest political laws being moved. Plato, The Republic, 242c And so they say, this the golden age . . . U2, “New Year’s Day” At this point one might well wonder why I am bothering with rock, having abundant reasons to dislike the . . . . Continue Reading »
The Poetic Wisdom Paradox, which I abbreviate as the PWP, works as follows. A wise poet, let us say Homer, wants to convey wisdom in his poetic creation. Unlike the bohemian model of the underground poet satisfied with a tiny audience, we assume he begins with the poet’s traditional desire to . . . . Continue Reading »
Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity by charles taylor harvard university press, 601 pages, $29.95 To describe Sources of the Self as a learned book would be a little like describing Michael Jordan as a skilled basketball player: accurate, but hardly adequate to the . . . . Continue Reading »
It is harder to see what one seesthan anyone knowsbecause it is easier, far far easierthan on can suppose. That still point of the turning world—look! this light through the petal—where there are no shadowsand where it is never a problem never to have shadows,neither haunted by undaunted . . . . Continue Reading »
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