Ecclesiastes 1:9

Every now and then (in fact, more now than then) I think wistfully of what great journalists, essayists and satirists would write of our times. Specifically, I wonder what someone like Mencken, or Bierce or Juvenal would have to say, if only they were alive to bear witness to our folly. In that mood I revisit what I've read by them, and sometimes find what I haven't read before (to discover something I haven't read is particularly delightful).

I've been reading Mencken mostly. The Sage of Baltimore had an incisive mind, his writing is clear, erudite and witty, and he was more often right than wrong, though he had his prejudices and didn't hesitate to voice them. What struck me most as I read was that seemingly very little has changed since his death. Granted, he didn't die all that long ago, but it seems long ago and it seems we've come to think of most everything which happened more than a decade into the past as being ancient. Such are the expectations and inclinations of those of the age of Twitter.

The chapter (if I may call it such) of the Bible called "Ecclesiastes" makes several neat little observations about life which seem commonplace now, but perhaps were not so then. One might not think the members of a Bronze Age tribe would make them, but they were made nonetheless. Some have a Stoic tinge to them. What's referred to in the title to this post is the one which is paraphrased as "there is nothing new under the sun." Let's give the ancient author his due and quote him here: "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun." (King James' version).


This saying came to mind while I was reading an article Mencken wrote in 1924 regarding immigration. The government was taking steps to stem the tide of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, then. That's more or less where my ancestors come from, as I'm largely of Italian and Polish descent My ancestors would not have been affected by the law, as they were in the first wave of immigration from those parts, so to speak; the late 19th century. That assumes the law wouldn't have retroactive application, of course, but I think that would be pushing anti-immigration sentiment too hard; making it too obviously contrary to the Constitution.

I think the rhetoric used to justify such a law at that time would have been similar to the rhetoric we hear now about Mexican immigrants. Mencken in his article doesn't dwell on the Italians, especially southern Italians and Sicilians, being undesirable in the many ways they were thought to be undesirable in 1924. Instead, the article sets forth an argument that if the immigration of such people is prohibited, then the Americans Mencken called "Anglo-Saxon" would be forced to do the manual or factory labor being done by the immigrants. This made no sense to Mencken, because the lower kind of Anglo-Saxon not only wanted to avoid such work, but were no longer capable of doing such work well or diligently. The higher kind of Anglo-Saxon, of course, would not even consider doing such work in any situation, according to Mencken. Mencken, as a devotee of Nietzsche, was inclined to speak of higher and lower kinds of people.

The claim that immigrants are needed to do the work we don't want to do, but which nevertheless should be done, is an argument we hear today as well. So it isn't new, and nor is the claim that immigrants from particular areas or nations are undesirable, which is to say unlike Americans who are descendants of northern Europe or England. It is only new to the extent it addresses new people.

Though we're often called a nation of immigrants, America has always been unkind to immigrants. Irish, Chinese, Italian throughout the 19th and even into the 20th century; now Mexican and Muslim. The Irish, Chinese and Italian have been accepted for the most part; perhaps more properly assimilated. The prejudice against them reduced over time. Perhaps that will happen as well with the newly undesirable, and they will have their turn at objecting to immigrants in the future. It seems to be the American way.

It's claimed by some that restricting the immigration of Muslims is a special case, as it impacts our national and personal security. The same was also said of others, though. Italians promoted crime and even organized it. Eastern Europeans were communists. Italians could be anarchists as well, of course, like Sacco and Vanzetti.

Mencken wrote, wisely I think, that people don't really want liberty. Instead, what they want is security. What was truly said is that which shall be truly said, to paraphrase Ecclesiastes. We seem most willing to sacrifice our liberty--and those of others, of course--in the hope that sacrifice will provide us with security. Immigrants like many other things make us feel insecure.

Mencken thought democracy to be a destructive form of government given his contempt for the masses who through it would run the show, and remarked that its result in America would be that someday the common people would achieve their dream of electing a complete moron to the presidency. It may be that dream has come true at last, and that it has come in part due to our desire for security.

I suspect Mencken and other great cynics and critics of the past would therefore be inclined to write much like they did in the past if they lived now. There seems indeed to be nothing new under the sun at least as far as human conduct and misconduct is concerned, and so those who comment on human conduct are fated to make comments already made. But they would make them in with much more skill and wit than can be found these days, as skill and wit in communication are actively discouraged, the act of communicating instantly being of greatest importance in these unhappy times when talk is quick and cheap.

The Incredibly Credulous

We're being told--by the purveyors of news--that we're imperiled by "Fake News."  Fake News is, it appears, something which purports to be actual news, but is not.  It seems it lurks everywhere, but tends to appear and be reproduced especially on Facebook.

I'm not certain whether I've ever encountered Fake News.  I tend to be amused by satirical news sites like The Onion and the Onion-like English language sites I find on the Web.  Those sites publish what can clearly be called news which is fake, but it must be the case that they don't publish Fake News, because if they did it's difficult to conceive how it poses a threat to our well-being.  The news they publish is plainly fake and fake in a way which amuses or at least provokes thought of a sort (generally in the nature of ridicule) regarding their subject matter.  Presumably, someone would have to be unusually credulous in order to believe that the news stories published on such sites are accurate or true.

Apparently, Fake News appears most on Facebook or similar social media, or appears in unsolicited emails.  I personally find it hard to understand why anyone would believe a purported news story appearing in such emails or popping up on Facebook, but it seems that many do.  That's something I find far more disturbing than Fake News itself.

For some time, those who have believed whatever it is they read in the paper or see on TV have been considered naïve, or far too trusting, or thoughtless.  So, it can be said that we've been aware of the fact that media can be misleading for many years.  We've also been aware of the fact that we can be manipulated by media as well.

One would think that this would make us cautious regarding what shows up on our tablets, PCs, laptops and smart phones.  However, if the news about Fake News is accurate, that's not the case.  We're seemingly more easily duped and less likely to question now than we have been in the past.

Clearly, our technology is such that our access to information of all kinds is much greater and easier than it was in the past. So is our ability to communicate and, more pertinently, the ability of others to communicate with us. Or, perhaps I should say, to communicate to us--to send us writings, pictures, videos, audios, regardless of whether they were sought. Unless we take precautions.

I'm hardly savvy about such things, but assume that in certain if not most cases its possible to block efforts to bombard us with Fake News and otherwise intrude on us electronically. I read that Facebook is taking steps to reduce Fake News, but assume we users can do so as well. No doubt some of us do.

But some of us don't and some of us apparently belong to groups or frequent sites which one way or another provide others with access to us. Assuming this is the case, why do some of us pay attention to Fake News and, evidently, believe it? Have we abandoned verification, or do we now lack the desire to verify? Do we determine what the source of Fake News may be or merely read it, listen to or see it and automatically accept its veracity? Do we unthinkingly pass it along, if we like it? If would seem a relatively simple thing to check the bona fides of Fake News. Is it nonetheless the case that we don't bother to or think doing so is unnecessary? Why must we be protected from it by others?

It's very human to accept as true what we hear from others if it is consistent with what we think is the case. It's good for our desires and prejudices, our thoughts and feelings, to be confirmed. Accept this human weakness as a source of the tendency to believe Fake News. What's concerning is the unquestioning acceptance of information, the suspension of thought which would seem to be a prerequisite of belief in Fake News if such belief is indeed widespread. It could be that our technology is now such as to render us particularly susceptible to manipulation because our receipt of information is encouraged by it and facilitated by it. But the acceptance of Fake News requires something more, something from us and not others. It would seem to me to require that we stop thinking.

Is that a function of technology as well? The speed of communication and our ability to respond to communications is such that we tend to act immediately and without thought to what is sent to us. At the same time, there are limitations on our ability to respond to communications or to send communications which are extensive. If we can only send a certain number of words at one time, we can only express a limited amount of information. The less we can express, the less we think. The less we analyze. The more we merely react and in fact emote. It's an invitation to stupidity and crassness, as we have seen and will see more and more as the Twitter-President looms and comes closer and closer, a noisy orange-tinged storm on the horizon.

That seems to be the way of it. But it's within our control whether we rely on and have recourse only to instant, limited communication and information. We have only ourselves to blame for Fake News and for what we do with/about it.

Stoicism, God and Some Consequences of Belief

The immanent God of the universe which is characteristic of Stoicism would seem to be necessarily different from the anthropomorphic God or gods one finds in most religions of the West. Some contend that two, at least, of the later Stoics--Epictetus and Seneca--conceived of God as more "personal" than other ancient Stoics. While I think it's true that Epictetus refers to God with a kind of fondness which seems suited to a personal God, and even it appears spoke (jokingly I believe) as if God spoke to him, I think fondness isn't at all inconsistent with the reverence for nature which would be induced by belief in an immanent deity. So I doubt the God of the Stoics ever was a personal one.

I'm sure that those who believe in a personal God, concerned with we humans more than anything else, our actions, thoughts, what we want, who we have sex with, what we wear, etc., find this conception comforting and satisfying, that kind of deity is one I find hard to reconcile with the God of the vast universe. The Busybody God, as I've called him, isn't what I would expect one immanent in the universe to be. If there was a lesser God who was peculiarly concerned with Earth, it could well be the Busybody God.

The personal God most believe in now, and who has been worshipped in the past is of course not thought of as a God of the Earth solely. Though certainly a personal God, and one with some disturbingly human characteristics, those who believe think of him as being God of the universe nonetheless. Apparently, though, their God of the universe is particularly concerned with human beings living on a tiny planet in a tiny solar system located in one of billions of galaxies. Some think this God actually became one of us. Sort of.

Just why a God of the universe--one immanent in it or, as it seems many prefer, one immanent in it who nevertheless created it and so is apart from it--would be so concerned is something I think very unclear. But there are other consequences of belief in a personal God which I think create problems for us of a profound nature, and which I think can be avoided if we believed in the Stoic version of God.

The belief in a personal God tends to create conflict among us, because we're the concern of such a God. Though the same in essential respects, we're different in many ways which, though superficial, are emphasized because we have lived in groups which foster certain beliefs and norms regarding dress, food, acceptable conduct, sex, law, religious beliefs. Our personal God is concerned with us, and so approves of us and those like us, naturally enough. Those who aren't like us don't have God's approval, almost as a matter of course, until such time as they become like us. Those who don't believe in our personal God are outsiders, strangers, enemies. They must be; God wouldn't be concerned with us if he didn't approve of us. Though he disapproves of us from time to time, we can get back in his good graces because he's concerned with us when we seek forgiveness and act as we should.

An impersonal God, on the other hand, isn't especially concerned with us and as a God of the universe (in Stoicism, God in the universe) wouldn't be concerned with what we wear, eat, who we have sex with, what days we treat as holy, whether we believe in him; in other words, what is typically the concern of organized religion would be of no consequence to such a God. What is the cause of conflict among us cannot have its basis in the belief in an immanent God of the universe entire.

Such a God would as well have none of the characteristics we find comforting, however. Such a God wouldn't love us, wouldn't watch over us a parent would, wouldn't listen to our pleas, etc. Such a God wouldn't be impressed by our ceremonies or rituals. Such a God would in fact be unfeeling; wouldn't have our feelings, in fact, or be in the least bit troubled by them.

We may be saddened by aspects of an unfeeling, impersonal God, but it doesn't follow that without a personal God our lives have no meaning or we may do whatever we want. Impersonal though such a God may be, as it is immanent all of nature partakes in it; so we and all other creatures do so. This knowledge should have the effect that we treat all others (in fact all of nature) as divine, worthy of reverence and respect. What other people may do will not necessarily be divine and may in fact be wrong or harmful to others. That may well create conflict and require action on our part. Otherwise, though, their conduct to the extent it causes no harm is no cause of concern to us. Why should we cause no harm to others? Why should we prevent them from doing so? Because God is immanent in them and in all else.

The Stoic injunction to be indifferent to what is not in our control, and not to be disturbed by it, fits well within this conception of the deity. It also would minimize the tendency to do wrong to others, because those things which normally motivate us to do harm (desire for wealth, fame, power) would not longer do so. We wouldn't be motivated by concerns for things beyond our control. What would motivate us would be the desire to do the best we can with what we have. To live in accordance with nature, which is to say live reasonably, to do no harm, to benefit to the extent we can the rest of the universe of which we're a part.

It's a very spare, simple view of divinity and the spiritual, and requires no myriad of rules, proscriptions, ceremonies. But if it's accepted it diminishes the adverse consequences of belief in God which have otherwise been encouraged throughout out history, largely due to our own self-regard.

An Escape Into Another Dark Time

I find that I'm overwhelmed by the urge to comment on things which have nothing to do with the increasingly grotesque politics of our Great Republic and the bizarre person soon to become its enormous, orange head.  So bear with me if you please as I turn from one kind of darkness to another.

I've heard since I was in college (that is a long time ago, alas) that what is called the Dark Age of Europe wasn't nearly as dark as commonly thought.  Unsurprisingly, I've heard this claim from scholars of the Dark Ages, both professors and students.  I happened to hear a lecture to that effect by a learned professor while driving home one night.  What the professor referred to, though, were events and persons which took place and lived from roughly the 11th century to the 14th centuries.  If those are unjustly considered the Dark Ages, I wonder what we call, or should call, when considering the history of Europe (the Latin West) the period from the end of the 5th century to the 11th century.  In other words, the period from the fall of the Western Roman Empire traditionally thought to take place around 475 C.E. to the bright, brilliant, not at all dark period commencing sometime in the 11th century, when, as the professor noted, Aristotle was rediscovered in Europe, Abelard and Heloise loved and thought, etc.

Do those 5 or 6 centuries constitute something different from what are called the Dark Ages according to learned academics of our time?  Are they, for example, the Really Dark Ages, or the Very Dark Ages?

I can understand that it's appropriate to note that some good and interesting, and indeed admirable, events took place from the loosely defined Fall of Rome in the West to the Renaissance.  There were significant achievements during the Medieval Period and significant people lived during those times.  We have a tendency to identify as significant persons--as worthy of note--the influential thinkers, rulers, artists who appear in history.  Events we tend to identify as significant are usually military battles and conquests, political revolutions, inventions, and laws.  Especially during what are delightfully referred to as the "High" Middle Ages, (usually considered the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries) it's easy enough to identify "significant" history.  What of that part of those Ages which wasn't High?

Identifying what and who were significant in that period isn't as easy, unless it's easy by virtue of the fact that there are few events and people typically considered significant to history during those times.  Again, I refer to Europe and specifically Europeans, not Byzantines or Muslims.  Augustine of course didn't live to see the traditional End of the Roman Empire.  The next significant philosophical figure would, I suppose, be Boethius.  Boethius had a wonderfully Roman name:  Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius.  He's sometimes called the Last of the Romans.

Boethius served as minister to Theodoric the Great, an Ostrogothic king, but one of several of what I think can fairly be called the quasi-Roman rulers in Europe who reigned after the Western Empire fell.  These kings and their kingdoms are justly considered Roman successor states, I believe.  They mimicked the Empire in various respects, even in the manner of their administration.  Boethius served until he was imprisoned by Theodoric and later bludgeoned to death by his minions.  While in prison he wrote his famous Consolation of Philosophy, and it's to be hoped he was consoled by it, particularly as he was beaten to death.

The Europeans seemed to have busied themselves primarily  by fighting off the infidels and fighting among themselves until the Frankish kings came along and, eventually, one Frank in particular, Charlemagne, became the (first) Holy Roman Emperor.  While he ruled, the Holy Roman Empire may not have been holy, but was in fact an empire and was in fact rather Roman.  The ghost of Rome certainly was regularly seen in those times and haunts us still today.

It was during Charlemagne's relatively benign and enlightened rule, and the fitful peace that resulted, that what is considered dark became less dark.  So we see such thinkers as Duns Scotus appearing, a greater appreciation of learning and writing (needed for administering a large territory).  We may owe to Charlemagne what there is of Latin Christian learning, knowledge and art during the less-than-high Middle Ages.

Naturally, Europe was impacted as well during the time of the less-than-high or darker Middle Ages by the incursions of the Byzantines while Justinian was Emperor of the East.  Justinian aspired to be Emperor of the West, and due to the ability of his generals Belisarius and Narses actually conquered portions of the old Western Empire, but only for a relatively short time.  The Arabs of course had taken North Africa and the Spanish peninsula, and held Spain until the Reconquista. 

Just what is "Dark" and how dark were the Middle Ages in Europe?  It seems there can be no question that something very bad happened after the Western Roman Empire fell, no matter what is said regarding those times.  Even what we today consider simple things, such as the provision of flowing water to people and the handling of their waste, disappeared.  Such things didn't reappear in cities like Paris until Napoleon's reign. 

It must have been a remarkably dirty world after the Roman baths stopped functioning. Roman moralists used to claim that the baths, which were frequented by many who relished soaking in the hot and cold water rather than merely washing themselves hurriedly, sapped the strength and weakened the sense of stern morality fostered by their ancestors. I think it's likely, though, that even the most censorious moralist would have been more appalled by people who either didn't bathe at all or did so only rarely. The effect on health and hygiene must have been profound. The poor have always been poor and miserable, but it's likely that they became more miserable during the Middle Ages, and less of them were educated and more died by hunger, disease and war.  Urban life was almost nonexistent for a time.

People no longer knew how to do certain things. The legions were gone, and the work they would do to build and maintain infrastructure when not making war was not done by anyone else. People began to borrow stone and marble from old buildings in order to construct anything new, not having the knowledge or skill--or perhaps even the opportunity--to do otherwise. Knowledge of the natural world wasn't encouraged, the world being less important than it was to those of the past.

It may be that the Renaissance led many to think of the Middle Ages as being Darker than they were in fact.  But it's difficult to think they were not darker times than what came before and what came after, in many important respects.  Why and how they were darker is an important question to be addressed.

What's a Stoic to do?

An aspiring Stoic is bound to ask himself/herself:  What is the appropriate, which is to say Stoic, response to our recent presidential election, its unusual result and its likely effects on our nation and the world?  What's a Stoic to do?

I don't know of any tenet of Stoicism which requires that we ignore what took place or the poor qualities of the candidates and the electoral process generally.  Nor do I think a Stoic is in any way bound to consider the circumstances to be anything but what they are, i.e. that we've elected as our president an inexperienced, arrogant, ignorant, vulgar, obnoxious and seemingly scatterbrained person.  That person will soon fill the executive branch of our government with his yes men (maybe even a woman or two, if they're physically attractive) and like-thinking lackeys.  A Stoic values reason, and that's what reason indicates.

Stoicism doesn't demand that we ignore reality.  Instead, it teaches that we should not be unduly disturbed by things outside our control.  A great deal of what's now taking place is quite beyond my control, and is disturbing.  However, as a Stoic, I'm enjoined to remain tranquil and, essentially, unaffected.  As Epictetus said, I should do the best I can with what I have, and take the rest as it comes.

Very well, then.  I shouldn't allow the capering of those we've foolishly entrusted with the future of our nation and the world to render me miserable.  So much for taking the rest as it happens.  What is the best I can do with what I have, though, in the here and now?

What I have is what is in my power.  So, I have myself; what I think, feel and do.  There's nothing that hinders me from doing what I do well, or doing good, or being just, fair, kind, using my reason, etc.; in short, there's nothing which prevents me from doing what a person should do in order to live a life in accordance with nature, secundum naturam.

There may be some who claim, however, that more than this is required.  It's been maintained that Stoicism accepts the status quo, that it's a form of quietism, and that in its emphasis on indifference to what's beyond our control it ignores the need to take action required to change the world for the better.

But what's in our power may well enable us to do such things, and such things may be the best we can do with what we have.  So there's no conflict between changing the world for the good and Stoicism.  It's reasonable, though, to determine first what we can do for that purpose that would be effective.  In other words, we shouldn't feel obligated to engage in action of any kind provided it expresses the fact that we're displeased with the status quo.  Some of that action could be foolish or harmful.  Whether or not we engage in violence is something within our power, for example, and violence isn't something which is consistent with Stoicism in most cases.

Marcus Aurelius wrote:  "Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present."  The Stoic will let the future come, then, and in response to it do that which reason indicates is appropriate, and condemn that which reason indicates is not.

America Does the Limbo: How Low Can We Go?

My father, an intuitively perceptive man now dead over four years, would remark now and then upon the adage that in mass marketing of all kinds success was achieved by appealing to the "lowest common denominator."  In other words, success was obtained by appealing to the least discriminating audience or target group.  Especially now but it would seem throughout the history of popular and semi-popular government, politics has been little more than marketing.

H.L. Mencken, the great Sage of Baltimore, wrote that:

"When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. "

Mencken had his faults; he was an unabashed elitist.  But it would seem to me that this is prescience.  Prescience, that is, regarding what has become the tendency of voters in our democracy, such as it is.

I don't think, though, that democracy is itself inherently defective or that Mencken even thought it to be such.  What Mencken objected to about democracy, or more properly democratic forms of government (our nation isn't a democracy, strictly speaking) was the place of people in it.  He loathed most people, and was contemptuous of the intelligence of the mass of people.  Consequently, he loathed government by the people or any government which is dependent in any significant sense on the whims of the people.
 

The problem with people he refers to specifically in what's quoted above is that their thinking "is done in terms of emotion" and their "dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand."  This seems to be true, and seems to become increasingly true here in our Glorious Republic.

 We "dread" when we greatly fear something we anticipate will happen.  The relationship between fear and hate is well known; we hate what we fear.  And fear, as Ambrose Bierce noted, is an idiot.  In this recent, seemingly endless, presidential campaign and election, fear, hate and idiocy have been much on display, and have been exploited.  As Mencken noted, it's probable that the successful candidate will be the one that is most devious and mediocre.  That would seem to be the case in this case.

I can't find it in me to mourn the fact the losing candidate lost; I simply wish she had lost to someone else.  She has never struck me as an admirable person, and was, to put it mildly, uninspiring, just as she has always been.  The editorial cartoonist Pat Oliphant, whose work I greatly miss, used to draw her as a cat sitting on pillow or with a princess crown on her head, the image of entitlement and smugness.  I think that portraying her as a cat was unjust--to cats.  However, I've never hated her with the fanaticism some have and still do.

Her secretive and suspicious nature and self-righteousness made her so unappealing that I doubt she would be successful in most circumstances; she was overwhelmed in the last election, and was nearly pushed aside within her party in this one.  But I didn't think that even she could lose to this particular opponent.

I venture to say that no reasonable person can maintain her successful opponent is qualified for the presidency, having never served in public office of any kind, elected or appointed, or the military.  Nor do I think it can be said it's been established he has any unusual ability in business.  He pretends to expertise in a variety of areas, but it seems his claims must be taken on faith, as they have been unsupported.

More disturbing than his lack of qualifications, his ignorance, his boorishness, however, is his courting of support through exciting and exploiting the "worse angels of our nature" so to speak.  Parallels have been drawn with both Hitler and Mussolini, and those comparisons aren't altogether absurd.

More disturbing than that, though, is the fact that so many were sold on his message.  One can understand frustration with the system, the establishment and the feeling that it must change (though how it could be changed wasn't addressed).  The specter of a global society, government, economy, is I think not one to be frightened of much.  The desire to retain sovereignty is understandable, but as far as I'm aware that isn't in any serious danger, except perhaps in the minds of those who live in fear of the Illuminati, or the Council on Foreign Relations, or some other focus of our many conspiracy theorists.

The message was more (and less) than this, unfortunately.  It included contentions that America is imperiled by those who are believed to not be Americans or to be un-American, and they include Jews, Muslims, Hispanics (mostly Mexicans), immigrants, Gays, and virtually anyone who is not white and Christian and straight and was born either in the United States or Europe.  The message also was that something must be done to protect America from those folk, and this would make America great again.

What many of us succumbed to, therefore, was an appeal to emotions of the worse kind, primarily hatred and fear.  So we were exactly what Mencken said we would be, which I think isn't what we could and should be, if only we would think.  But thought wasn't sought and so wasn't given, either.  We bought the claims made, pure and simple.  We wanted to believe that our problems were caused not by ourselves, but by others.
 

We sink low and it's reasonable under the circumstances to ask how low we can go.

Fear and Loathing in the United States

Well, I couldn't use "Fear and Loathing in America" as a title for this post without entirely dishonoring the memory of Hunter S. Thompson who did a book bearing that title, so I will merely dishonor him somewhat by borrowing most of that title from him.  Or perhaps it can be said I do him honor by borrowing from him and noting that I do so.

Our Glorious Republic, still inexplicably considered by some to (really) be God's favorite country will tomorrow, November 8, 2016...a day which may live in infamy...vote and thereby usher in to the White House one of two of the most unliked candidates ever to seek the presidency.  It's an event to fear, and will doubtless inspire loathing, regardless of who attains that lofty and increasingly undesirable position. 

I say "undesirable" because it's clear that anyone who has the misfortune of becoming president will likely be hated by many, and likely will achieve little, in our divisive if not divided nation.  As I think I've written before, it's arguable that anyone who seeks the presidency is a least a little bit mentally or emotionally disturbed given these circumstances.

Assuming the election has a clear result (and it's dubious whether it will be acknowledged to be clear even then), the President of the United States will shortly be either a preternaturally ambitious, mendacious, venal, secretive woman or a scatter-brained, ignorant, verbose, uncouth, mean, sexually-immature and boorish man.  The nation's global reputation will suffer if either is elected, as the latter will be as welcome among the world's leaders as a fart in a conference room, while the former will probably be thought of as someone who must be tolerated for no more than four years.  Domestically, the former will achieve nothing of significance if the Congress is held by Republicans, while the latter will achieve nothing if he tries (he may be content merely to be wheeled out to pontificate now and then) because he's something of a dolt.

The Republic has fallen low indeed, and in a relatively short period of time.  Try to remember the last time a president was someone of intelligence, someone to be respected if not admired.  One must reach farther and farther into the past to accomplish this feat of memory.  But perhaps we deserve to be governed by fools or crooks.  The pickings are slim if the candidates issuing from the two major parties are any indication, but this is ultimately the fault of the electorate, one would think.  Democracy has been described as a system of government which will engender leaders peculiarly unconcerned with governing well and subject to the whim of the ignorant and short-sighted majority since the word "democracy" first was used.  This election has been a kind of invitation to a benevolent oligarchy or government by an educated elite if not an enlightened despotism.

For perhaps the first time, we begin to see here the kind of tribalism and chaos in government seen, for example, in the French Republic for some time.  In part, I think we're experiencing the results of the decline of the long dominance of reactionary white men of European descent in our nation, expressed in their anger at what they see to be their dispossession by others.  It may be this will pass as they become fewer, by death or otherwise. 

As the two major parties have become more and more moribund when it comes to their ability to inspire or evoke, we may perhaps see an increase in viable "third parties."  For me, this would be a desirable result.  There will be greater representation of views, and less chance of dominance by one party to the exclusion of others.

But why try to envision the future when tomorrow's results will inevitably impact any reasonable prediction of the nature of our fate?  Some of us will continue to fear and loathe, though, whatever they may be.

God's Image and Likeness

As most if not all of us know, it's written in the Book of Genesis that God made us in his image and likeness.  Somewhat strangely, God's portrayed there as speaking to himself prior to our creation.  "Let us make man [or mankind, or human beings, depending on the translation] in our image, in our likeness" God muses, or suggests to himself.

It happens that there were (and are) others besides the Hebrews and their successors in interest in Genesis who believe that we're the image and likeness of God or the gods, or at least believed that God or the gods resemble us to a startling degree.  The ancient Greek and Roman pagans, for example.

Certain of the ancients portrayed their gods as being hybrids, odd mixtures of humans and animals.  The ancient Egyptians did this, of course.  Certain cultures conceived of them as being particular animals.

It's interesting to speculate on the reasons for our tendency to worship divinities so like ourselves (at least, I find it interesting); our tendency, in other words, to worship ourselves.  The observation that this is what we do is so commonplace that it's thought perfectly natural or to be expected.  So we say things like "if horses had a god, it would be a horse."  Very well, then.  In that case, why do we so think and expect?

The simple fact is that physically, we're not particularly godlike.  If physical attractiveness or ability are worthy of worship or are considered to be aspects of divinity, a human god would seem unworthy.  There are animals far more graceful, more beautiful than we are as a rule.  There are animals faster, stronger than we are; animals that fly though we cannot; animals that are physically superior to us in many ways.  Why would anyone think that God or the gods would look like us, appear to be like us or resemble us, i.e. that we're the image or likeness of a deity?

The belief that humans are the image of God would appear to require a level of self-regard which is baseless almost to the point of lunacy.  Nonetheless, that has been and may even remain the belief of many.  Perhaps the apparent silliness of such a conceit led the religious to maintain that God or the gods were, in effect, super-humans, that is to say exceedingly beautiful, powerful and knowledgeable humans who are also better than normal humans in that they're not mortal.

That may have been the case with, e.g., the ancient Greek and Romans, but wouldn't seem to include the ancient Hebrews, who weren't inclined to picture God as having the physical form of a human being, portraying God variously as a burning bush or column of fire, etc.  But the God of the ancient Hebrews had various human characteristics nonetheless, if not physical attributes.  He was a jealous God, and could be an angry and vengeful one as well.  These characteristics are not those one would expect an almighty being to have, but are uniquely those of humans among the creatures of God, as far as we know.  The ancient Greek and Romans similarly portrayed their gods as having these human emotional characteristics and others, such as lust. 

So it appears that at least in recorded history, there's been a tendency to anthropomorphize the divine in one way or another.  Perhaps this came about due to the fact that animals came to be domesticated and we came to employ technology to alter our environment and so came in our opinion to dominate and tame the world.  Genesis of course indicates this was God's intent, to give us authority over the world and its other, lesser, creatures.  Not knowing much of anything else about the world, we may have come to believe that we were the supreme beings of creation, and thought that the Lord of creation would necessarily be like us, only grander.  Such a view would also be consistent with what came to be the hierarchical nature of our societies; as we typically had kings or oligarchs, so would the world in general.

Even so, it's difficult not to think the supreme being would be limited by being or appearing to be human in any significant manner.  This seems clear enough now, given our knowledge of the vastness of the universe and the resulting knowledge that we humans and our planet are almost unimaginably insignificant in comparison.  The creator or intelligence inherent in the universe probably would not be something which looks like us or is like us.  Perhaps our gods were in the past not considered to be supreme in the sense which is common at this time.  They had limited authority and power, peculiar to believers and their place in the world (universe) rather than authority over the entire universe.

We know that pagan philosophers in the West came to think the Olympian gods were not in fact real, but were meant to be representatives of the deity or aspects of the divine portrayed in a way comprehensible to the common people.  The "god of the philosophers" wasn't peculiarly human or like a human.  The philosophers were largely Deists or pantheists, like the Stoics.

The notion of God as perfect, all-good, omnipotent, omniscient is so unlike any notion we can reasonably have of ourselves that it's plainly unreasonable to think that we're created in God's image and likeness.  As that notion was entertained by pagan philosophers and as early Christians were eager to accommodate Christianity to philosophy, the Christian doctrine that God became man generated problems it took centuries to resolve.  Whether they were actually resolved is questionable.  The claim that Jesus was at one and the same time fully human and fully divine is unsatisfactory, but it was necessary for the heresies which maintained that he was not fully divine while human to be quashed, and quashed they were, though in a most mysterious way.

It seems unsurprising that particularly in ancient times, we worshipped gods which were strangely similar to ourselves.  But it also seems clear that an almighty God of the universe wouldn't be like us, wouldn't be especially or exclusively concerned with us and our affairs and how we act, or what we eat, or who we have sex with, or whether we keep holy the Sabbath day.  Christopher Hitchens claimed that religion is a relic of the selfish childhood of our species.  I don't think that's the case as I don't think a belief in the "god of the philosophers" for example can be considered childish, but religions which make the claim humans are significantly like God and our affairs God's special concerns may be.

A Heritage of Torment

It's difficult to believe this blog has been around for so long a period, but six years ago I wrote a post regarding the decision made by the people of Catalonia in Parliament to ban the practice of bullfighting.  Proponents of the practice evidently reacted by petitioning the courts of Spain for relief, and now something called the Constitutional Court of Spain has determined that the ban is illegal.  From what I read, the basis for its ruling is that bullfighting is a part of Spanish heritage, and therefore can only be banned by Spain's central government, not a regional government.

It apparently took the court six years to decide that bullfighting is a part of Spain's common cultural heritage.  Regardless, it seems that under Spanish law, the central government alone has jurisdiction over this heritage, and so the regional government exceeded its authority by implementing the ban.

I can't help but wonder what this common cultural heritage may be and how and why the central government of Spain may alter it, if indeed it can.  "Heritage" by definition involves the history of a nation, and presumably no government of any kind can modify the past.  It could certainly modify how the past is perceived or understood, but banning bullfighting not only does nothing at all that impacts bullfights held before the ban; it likewise doesn't require that bullfighting which has taken place be thought of at all let alone in any particular way.

Presumably, the court hasn't ruled that only Spain's central government has the authority to do what can't be done, however.  It must be inferred that the court has, instead, determined that only the central government may ban something which has happened in the past from taking place now or in the future, provided it is a part of Spain's common cultural heritage.

Spain being no better generally than most other nations, its common cultural heritage may be said to include some less than admirable things, e.g. fascism, civil war, slavery, the Spanish Inquisition (which nobody expects) and, some would even say, genocide in the Americas.  Is it therefore the case that only its central government may prohibit such things?  Probably not.

So, it must be the case that only certain historical practices which took place in the Spanish nation constitute a part of its common cultural heritage, and so are inviolate unless and until its central government decides otherwise.  Bullfighting is one of them, it seems.

I think it's entirely fair to say that bullfighting consists of the highly stylized (even ritualized) process by which a bull is slowly tortured and killed by men on horseback and on foot through the use of sharpened metal weapons.  To some of us, it has special significance due to the fact that those torturing the bull, and particularly one of them, place themselves at some risk of being killed or seriously wounded by the animal being tortured.  The experience of observing the spectacle is said to be enhanced if the torture is engaged in a particular way, e.g. by controlling the animal's movements by the use of some cloth in a certain fashion, or striking the animal in a particular pose.

Assuming this is part of Spain's common cultural heritage (and setting aside the fact that if it is, it's not something some of us would take pride in), there remains the question why a particular part of Spain may not decide to prohibit bullfighting.  This question seem especially appropriate given the fact the court decided that Catalonia may "regulate the development of bullfighting" and "establish requirements for the special care and attention of fighting bulls."

What exactly are the powers to regulate the development of bullfighting and establish requirements for the special care and attention of fighting bulls?  If they're extensive enough, Catalonia can likely ban bullfighting for all practical purposes.  It could, for example, adopt a law that bulls may be fought, but only without the use of weapons of any kind.  Matadors may punch the bull, or attempt to wrestle it, but can't stick it with a sword.  Perhaps picadors would have to ride their horses sitting on them backwards, or could not ride horses, but instead could only ride other men.  Possibly, a very large tax on bullfighting may be imposed (not as satisfying an option, but far less silly).

Catalonia may explore these option and others, I would think.  Also, if the animus against this practice is particularly strong in any case, they could simply ignore it, and the practice die out for lack of interest and money.

The problem, of course, is that in the interim animals will continue to be tormented and killed as part of a grisly display for the delight of those humans who find such things enjoyable, and those who adopted the ban or supported it will be outraged.  It may be possible to continue to impose the ban regardless of the court's ruling, and force those who want to kill bulls or see them killed to have recourse to whatever remedies the law provides.  And this may be effective itself.

It may be the court's ruling is motivated at least in part by the perception the ban is an effort at Catalan independence.  It may be, in other words, that the court's ruling is purely political, and that it's felt the ban must be found legally invalid in order to avoid seeming to admit such independence.  If that's the case, there may little effort to enforce the ruling for fear of provoking a reaction.

Regardless, though, I wonder whether the Spanish people are well served by a court ruling that bullfighting is part of their common cultural heritage.  A heritage of gaudy, gruesome torment of animals wouldn't seem something to be proud of.

Esoterica and its Adherents

"Esoterica" may refer to things known only to the initiated, a select few. It's specialized knowledge available solely to those who come to be aware of it through means unavailable to most, i.e. to ordinary folk.  That's what it refers to in this post, in any case.

Esoterica, for my purposes, includes special knowledge pertaining to things both profane and sacred.  It's been a part of Western culture since ancient times; at least such knowledge has been claimed to exist and be possessed by those fortunate few who obtain it.  I don't pretend to know much of anything of Eastern culture but suspect esoterica plays a part in it as well, we humans being what we are. 

We see it in ancient times in the Eleusinian mysteries and in the mystery religions and cults which flourished during the Roman Empire, where initiation into the mysteries was required to obtain knowledge and salvation.  It was necessary that initiates perform or participate in certain ceremonies or rituals.  It required in some cases a special kind of learning, astrological learning, for example.  Those called the Gnostics pretended to esoteric knowledge, and it was claimed that such as Hermes Trimegistus obtained and wrote of it.  It was connected, as may be guessed, with mysticism and magic.

It didn't by any means disappear after Christianity took hold of the Empire, Christianity having its share of esoterica.  But Christianity at most inhibited for a time esoterica which may be said to be unrelated to Christian doctrine.  From the 17th century on, it seems that esoterica and what may be called esoteric societies have cropped up seemingly as an alternative to Christianity.  Those societies still flourish today.

There are of course the Masons.  Then there are the Rociscrucians and lesser known societies such as the Ancient Order of Druids, formed in the 18th century.  The Knights of Columbus appears to be a kind of freemasonry for Catholics.  The Illuminati and the Bilderberg Club are favorites of conspiracy theorists of various kinds.

My favorites are the Ordo Templi Orientis and Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.  The latter was created in the 19th century, the former in the 20th century.  These two even more than others were devoted to the magic arts and ancient pagan gods and goddesses, or at least rituals they imagined were involved in pagan worship.  The Ordo Templi Orientis was founded by the very odd Aleister Crowley who, in certain photographs, bears a remarkable resemblance to Uncle Fester of the Adams Family, especially as he appears in the movies.  Crowley seems to have worshipped every god at one time or another, though he was partial to ancient Egyptian deities.  He claimed to have been contacted by an entity named Aiwass while in Egypt, and with his assistance wrote a book which became the foundation for his religion, called Thelema.  It's not surprising that L. Ron Hubbard was influenced by him.

The Order of the Golden Dawn included William Butler Yeats among its members, and seems to have been associated with Crowley as well.  It was also devoted to the magic arts (Crowley liked to use the spelling "magik").  Meetings of these societies involved dressing in what were thought to be  clothing worn by ancient Egyptian priests.  The Egyptian craze resulting from the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb may have influenced the societies and their members.

It seems that peculiar clothes play an essential part in meetings of these societies, even those more common societies with which we're familiar.  The Masons don aprons and other items they imagine were worn by medieval builders.  The Knights of Columbus wear special hats, sashes, capes and carry swords, at least when they've attained a special rank.

I wonder what it is that prompts adults to gather together and wear costumes which would otherwise be considered silly, and engage in arcane rituals.  I understand that such societies can be a place for what we like now to call "networking" and suppose that if this results in financial or professional success it could well be worth dressing like a fool for an hour or so, especially when everyone else is similarly attired.  Is it thought to be a way of carrying on a tradition?  An elaborate game of dress-up for adults?  Is it thought to impress others, or please the gods or God, or render the wearer more potent in magic or knowledge?  Do these societies instill a sense of brotherhood?  Do they please the animal in us, these rankings and this hierarchy?

One would think that acquiring esoteric knowledge or power need not be something requiring a gathering of a community appropriately dressed, although the recitation of certain words and the conduct of certain ceremonies would seem to have been required for magic of any kind for a very long time, and throughout our history.  Gatherings associated with esoterica would therefore seem to satisfy more of a social impulse than anything else.  Perhaps that's a sense of brotherhood or a sense of comfort in the knowledge that others are as we are and want what we want, and willing to do what's being done.

But esoterica and the quest for it seems to be, like so much else of what we do and think, the result of our persistent desire, even need, to control things beyond our control, e.g. such things as death, our fate, others, the world, the universe.  Associated with that desire or need is our fear of such things, especially death and the loss of self.  This seems to be one, at least, of the bases of our religious instinct.

The Stoic injunction to be undisturbed by things beyond our control strikes me as having a profound effects.  Not only does it quiet our fears and concerns and our foolish ambitions, thus making happiness a possibility, but it renders certain all-too-common irrational conduct unnecessary and unreasonable.  It isn't necessary to accept complicated rituals and rules or believe in magic or gods to attain happiness and tranquility.  Esoterica is irrelevant.  We need only exercise control of ourselves.

Mark Twain's Mysterious Stranger(s)

I've been less adoring of Mark Twain than others for quite some time, and have written of him unkindly in a few posts here in this very blog.  It may be that my view of him and his work is an example of familiarity, of a sort at least, breeding contempt.  The comedic Twain, teller of tall tales, the Twain of Hal Holbrook, creator of stock characters and folksy dialects, which seems to be the more popular Twain, I find annoying.   But I acknowledge that it may be that Twain did what he had to in order to make a living and thrive in this world and this required pandering, or that the familiar Twain of which I speak is in the nature of a caricature.

One thing I find quite interesting about him, however, is that work called The Mysterious Stranger.  I call it that here, in any case.  There are said to be 3-4 versions of this work, and each has been given its own title.  There is apparently no finished version; finished by Twain in any event.  His executor/biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine, himself a writer of fiction and other things, is said to have created a version with an ending by slapping together 3 different versions and doing some creative editing with their texts together with a publisher named Duneka.

This work or more properly these versions or drafts of a work were written during the latter part of Twain's life, and address the subject of religion.  They feature the Prince of Darkness himself, or some versions do, or it may be that this character is merely his nephew, also named Satan.  It also may be that the Satanic figure is intended to be a different figure entirely.  I read that one version features Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.  That obviously isn't the version I've read, and I'm not interested in reading anything about those two characters, though I am willing to imagine, fondly, what the Devil might do to them.

I don't wish to enter into the debate regarding which version is truer to Twain.  I assume I've read the Paine version.  It certainly has its problems.  It must be wondered whether we do any author a service by publishing unfinished work posthumously, especially where the author left different versions of the work lying about at the time of death.  This is an indication that the author was never satisfied with what was written, and in fact never thought it should be read.  In that case, we wrong him by doing so or at the least do something he/she didn't want us to do.

Nonetheless, assuming that some part of the versions written by Twain are present, I think it fair to say that the satire engaged in is not the broad, sometimes knee-slapping, overt satire Twain otherwise indulged in (for example in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court).  It is a grim, serious, and simply written tale, sometimes sinister, sometimes hectoring.  What is most interesting, I think, is the indifference of the Satan-figure to humans in general or particular humans, and especially as to what is called their "Moral Sense."  This he considers a peculiarity of humans and an unnecessary burden.

His indifference is striking.  Unfortunately it's rendered less striking by his propensity to lecture about the defects of human kind.  By all accounts Twain was prone to dwell on our many problems and deplorable nature and conduct, but I like to think that the lectures were inserted after his death.  They become repetitive and are boring, the point being already quite clear.  Also, he inserts himself into human events now and then.

The Satan-figure is quite willing to use his powers to benefit and do favors for some, and seems to have no real malice.  Our happiness or unhappiness isn't of much concern to him, it seems.  As might be expected, when he bestows benefits it's likely things don't turn out well for the person benefited, and as a result of the benefit.  He or she dies, or someone else does, or goes mad.  Episodes of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone come to mind, inevitably.

The overwhelming impression I receive from this work is that the concerns of humans, their deeds, problems, thoughts, and beliefs, even as to matters right or wrong, are small and insignificant and of no interest to Satan, or God, or the universe.  I think the Satan-figure could very well be a substitute for God, despite his name and the fact he refers to himself as an angel. 

Simply put, I think it's the intent or one of the intents of the work to point out that we flatter ourselves enormously by thinking we have any importance in the universe or the Divine Plan, if there is one.  The universe wasn't made for us, and isn't bound by our conceptions of right and wrong.  What happens merely happens, and there need be no reason to it; at least no reason humans would understand or appreciate.

The late Warren Zevon wrote a song called The Vast Indifference of Heaven.  Is this indifference what Twain was contemplating in his later years?  Did it comfort him, appall him, confirm him in his belief regarding our foolishness?  The vastness of the universe suggests that we're creatures of great pretensions, and our concerns with what is not in the power of our wills foolish indeed.  Perhaps Twain was something of a Stoic in that respect, at least.  But I have difficulty believing that he felt the universe to be divine in any sense, or that we shared in any divinity, which would seem to establish he wasn't a Stoic in the ancient sense.

Thoughts on "Muscular Christianity"

The Victorian Era is famous, or infamous, for a number of peculiarities.  What's been called--rather uneasily, I think--"Muscular Christianity" is one of them, or so I believe.

"Muscular Christianity" is the name of a movement of sorts which associates Christianity with physical exercise, physical health, team sports and such, not of humans generally but of men specifically.  It's a very if not exclusively manly Christianity.  Ostentatiously manly, in fact. 

It's said to have had its genesis, as it were, in British authors like Charles Kingsely and Thomas Hughes.  Hughes, it may be remembered, was the author of Tom Brown's Schooldays, a kind of celebration of the life experienced by boys in the English public schools of the time.  Hughes, his book and his hero were spoofed by George MacDonald Fraser in his wonderful series of books which were the supposed memoirs of Harry Flashman, a rogue and scoundrel who, in Hughes' book, also attended Rugby when Tom Brown was there until expelled for drunkenness.  Frasier's Flashman manages to be present at virtually all significant event of the era and though he's a coward and reprobate also thrives, and is in fact honored.

In the U.S., this form of pious muscularity has been associated with Teddy Roosevelt (called "The Great American Sissy" by Gore Vidal, by the way) and the YMCA.  It's adherents seem to maintain that this kind or brand of Christianity looks back to medieval chivalry in that it champions protection of the weak by the strong, and it's been claimed that it has a basis in Scripture.

This seems dubious.  From what I've read, the story of Jesus' anger at the money changers is considered scriptural authority or sanction for "Muscular Christianity."  It's beyond dispute that muscles were required to tip over the tables of the money changers (unless Jesus, being God after all, and so not required to make use of muscles, threw them about by other means).  However, Jesus presumably used his muscles for most everything he did as a man, and that's the case with normal men as well.  So the use of muscles in and of itself would not seem to be peculiarly Christian or Christ-like.

It would seem then that what is considered important by Muscular Christians is the manner in which Jesus used his muscles in this case; that is to say, violently.  But if violent conduct, even righteous violent conduct, is what's being touted there are difficulties with contending that this is what Christianity is or should be.  According to the Gospels, Jesus was a great fan of nonviolence, as in turning the other cheek for example.  Paul's references to athletic events are also referred to, but the ancient pagans often used such events as analogies even when philosophizing, e.g. Epictetus.

If ancient times or early Christianity are to be considered, it's much easier to find evidence of Muscular Pagans than Muscular Christians.  Most Christians refused to even serve in the Roman military, at least until Christians began to become prevalent in the imperial administration.  They condemned the Roman games.  The early Christians could hardly be said to have emphasized the perfection and beauty of the human body.  They were more likely to complain of it and damn it as sinful.  Ascetics were idolized by early Christians, not athletes.

Of course, in the 19th century it would have been difficult for most in England and America to think of physical exercise of any kind as being anything but a manly pursuit.  Women who engaged in it were likely considered odd, abnormal in a particularly disturbing way.  So to the extent physical activity of the kind involved in sports, hunting or war were deemed religious activities or thought to be activities which could be engaged in for religious reasons, it's unsurprising that it was taken for granted that the actors would be men.

But the idea of manly Christianity as a special, better kind of Christianity, or of Christianity as being a manly religion, seems rather odd these days; even risible, in fact.  For someone like me, alas, the old SNL skit about the good ship The Raging Queen and the manly ports at which it called comes to mind whenever the word "manly" is used.  The relationship between Muscular Christianity and idealization of  English public schools (and the YMCA at least as portrayed in a certain popular song) similarly encourages association with a particular kind of manliness, one which may be seen now and then when the female and the feminine are absent from the life being lived.  It was arguably very much on display in ancient Greece, where women simply had no place in social life.  But perhaps I'm too inclined to mockery.

Assuming I am too much so inclined, though, I still think the idea of a Muscular Jesus, exercising regularly, engaged in roughhousing and wrestling or whatever sports were popular at the time in Palestine, to be untenable.  Romans of the time, at least of a particular age, regularly patronized the public baths in which it was common for these activities to take place, but Christians weren't known to frequent the baths any more than they did the ludi.

Muscular Christianity, then, has nothing to do with early Christianity.  I think it likely it has much to do with Victorian values, instead, certain of which remain significant to some even in these times.  I suspect that there is behind it a belief that certain kinds of physical exertion serve to keep the mind occupied and so incapable of erring in other ways; the idle mind being the Devil's playground.  It may also be thought to channel physical exertions away from our base sexual urges and into something more desirable, something which requires discipline and conformity, like sports or, if appropriate, war. 

The Curious Belief that it's a Good Thing to Die: Some Examples

One day in 185 C.E., a large group of Christians appeared at the house of Arrius Antoninus, Roman proconsul in Asia Minor, and demanded that he order their execution.  It seems he obliged as to a few of them, but told the rest of them to go home, noting that if they wanted to die there were available to them plenty of cliffs from which they could hurl themselves and rope by which they could hang themselves, without his assistance.

We learn of this remarkable incident from Tertullian (Quintus Semptimius Florens Tertullianus), a great Latin Christian apologist of the time, who noted it in correspondence to another Roman official written in defense of Christianity and urging against persecution of Christians.  Tertullian was a lawyer and, sadly, it's not unusual for lawyers to use almost any argument in making a case.  Here, it seems he was arguing something to the effect that "we Christians want you to kill us, so threatening to kill us or otherwise harm us won't do you any good."

Had I been a Roman official of the time, I wouldn't have found this argument very persuasive, except in establishing that Christians were annoying lunatics (which is it seems is how Antoninus thought of them and how he treated them).  This presumably wasn't Tertullian's intent.  The fact that Tertullian cited this event in his petition to a Roman official, however, indicates at the least that it wasn't a story made up by the opponents of Christianity to ridicule it.  Tertullian seemingly takes pride in it.

I don't want to enter into the debate regarding the extent to which imperial Rome persecuted Christians, although the subject is fascinating.  What I've read on that topic leads me to believe that most historians think that reports of the deaths of Christians resulting from Roman persecution are greatly exaggerated, like that of the death of Mark Twain.  For those interested, I'd recommend The Myth of Persecution by Candida Moss.

Nonetheless, assuming Tertullian was noting an event that actually occurred, I find it interesting that it took place and find its use in an argument against persecution even more interesting.  Two questions arise:  (1) why did the Christians confront a Roman magistrate and demand that he have them killed? and (2) why did Tertullian believe their example noteworthy in arguing Christians posed no threat to imperial authority?

As it would seem clear that Roman provincial authorities didn't hesitate to execute those they considered dangerous (except Roman citizens who could appeal to the Emperor and would in that case be sent to Rome), it must be assumed that the Christians were quite aware Arrius Antoninus would execute them if he was so inclined.  So they must have known their execution was a real possibility if not a probability.  There's no real likelihood they expected he would not execute them.  They must have anticipated he would have them killed.

Their demand that he have them executed can only mean that they wanted to be executed.  They wanted to die at his hands.  They hoped he would have them killed.  According to Tertullian, Antoninus addressed them as "unhappy" or "miserable" men in dismissing them; he clearly thought them to be unfortunates, misguided or demented for desiring death, and wouldn't cooperate in their execution.  He must have annoyed them greatly when he chose to ignore their unusual demand and sent them away. 

The fact they sought out the proconsul and clamored for their deaths means they weren't content to await execution or patiently wait to be persecuted. It's not that they were willing to die for their faith if the Romans came and took them and demanded they give it up.  That didn't happen.  They were too impatient for that; they wanted to die so badly they tried to make the proconsul kill them.

It's difficult, then, to consider these particular Christians martyrs as that word is normally understood.   It's also difficult to think them noble for dying for their faith, or an idea, because they wouldn't abandon it or denounce it.  Someone who demands that they be killed isn't admirable to most people.  As Christianity became more widespread in the Empire and it became common for Christians to hold imperial positions, it seems the orthodox Church came to find such examples of zealotry embarrassing, and the insistence on death as indicative of heresy.

Unless these seekers of death are considered wholly demented, it must be assumed that they demanded to be killed because being killed, dying and perhaps just being dead in itself was good, proper, desirable in some sense, for them at least.  Perhaps they thought that they were literally better off dead.  Perhaps they thought they would be rewarded after death.  Perhaps they thought that by dying at the hands of Roman authorities they would become like Jesus.  Perhaps they thought God wanted them to die.

As for Tertullian, I think we can only assume he thought that referencing this incident would somehow act to convince a Roman official that Christians should not be persecuted.  Why he thought this is a mystery to me.  I think it's doubtful he thought this incident would persuade the official that Christians were noble or heroic and so should not be persecuted.  Although ancient pagans certainly recognized and honored heroic deaths, demanding death in this instance would likely be considered incomprehensible by them.  I also think it's doubtful he thought this example would convince the official that Christians were harmless, or good, peaceful, subjects of the Empire.  The official might fear he would be hounded by Christians demanding that he kill them, in fact, regardless of whether they were persecuted.  So, I think we must infer that Tertullian was telling the official that persecuting Christians would have no effect.  "We have no fear of death."

These considerations are useful in these far too interesting times, as we're confronted by others who seek death, apparently for similar (that is to say, only, religious) reasons.  Those who seek death now, however, don't merely seek to kill themselves or have others kill them--they want to kill others.  Indeed, it seems they consider killing others the primary reason for killing themselves.

So, the ancient Christian death seekers were clearly different from those Muslim death seekers who kill themselves now intending to kill others as well.  There's a difference between wanting to be killed and wanting to kill others while killing oneself.

But it would seem that in each case it's believed that dying is good, and that God wants us to die in a particular way or will reward us if we do so.  And these are dangerous thoughts indeed.  Once we think God wants us or others to die, or that it's good that we or others die, we not only accept but seek death; our death or the death of others, or both.  Worse, we think we should kill.  Death becomes a moral imperative.

Zugzwang in the Voting Booth

As I may have mentioned before in some post or other, "zugzwang" in chess (and perhaps in other games as well) takes place in the case where the pieces are in such a position that any move which can be made results in a disadvantage and therefore is a "bad" move.  Here is an unlikely, but easily understood, example:

 

 

Neither White nor Black can make a move without facing disaster.  The pawns of course can't move at all; only the kings can.  If either king is moved, the opposing king can take the now undefended pawn of the opponent, and that's the end of that.

It occurs to me that "zugzwang" is a word which describes, most appropriately, the position each of us will be in when voting in the upcoming presidential election.

I've been dissatisfied with the nominees of both of the two major parties in the past, and so have on more than one occasion voted for a third party candidate or indulged in a useless "write in" vote.  I suppose I could do the same in this case.  But this election is remarkable in that the nominees of both major parties are so peculiarly unlikeable; even contemptible.  It seems I'm not alone in this opinion.  If polls are accurate, there have never been candidates for the presidency who were so unliked.  As one of those nominees will necessarily be elected, the result of the election won't merely be unsatisfactory, it will be revolting.

So, there's an understandable inclination to abstain from voting or, if one feels voting is a privilege which should be exercised in all cases regardless of circumstances, to vote for anyone who isn't a member of the dreadful duo.  But is this appropriate when there's so much at stake in this election?

That there's a great deal at stake in any case seems to be the prevailing view.  There's a sense of crisis, and we seem to become more and more angry, emotional, irrational.  We're polarized (that word seems to be used more and more these days).  The world is more dangerous than it has been; America isn't what it once was.

This is what many people say.  More significantly, this is what we are told that they say, and we're told this over and over.  Our ability to communicate, even when that communication is unwanted and unsolicited, is virtually unlimited.  The news media is ubiquitous; it can't be escaped.  It's always available and is always there, not merely on TV and radio but on the Internet, our PCs, laptops, tablets, smart phones.  Every dispute, every opinion, all conduct is noted and on display.

Those like me, who are cynical about human nature, may hold the opinion (also like me) that in actuality our circumstances are no different than they have been in the past.  They merely appear to be different because it simply wasn't possible, even in the not so distant past, to know or at least be told about ourselves and others and our multitude of disputes, opinions, problems, mistakes, crimes, immorality to the extent we can now.  There's a limit to what we can read in a newspaper, what we can hear on AM radio, what we can see and hear on TVs with 13 channels.  We were every bit as chaotic and misguided in the past as we are now, we're just better informed (or misinformed) than we ever were; and of course there are more of us.

Even so, though, we're more capable of causing damage and doing harm now than we ever have been, and that's particularly the case for those in power.  And we're more easily subject to manipulation.  George Orwell was keenly aware of the power of political manipulation and the tendency of government to manipulate us.  He was aware of the uses to which the media of his time could be put to foster manipulation as well.  But he couldn't fully anticipate the tools we have available to us now or how much they facilitate manipulation.

Due to an evil fate or our own foolishness, we're in a position where our next president will be one of two people, neither of whom should be president.  It's not in our power to prevent that from taking place.  It's prudent to consider which of them is less likely to cause harm, to us and the rest of the world.  One appears to be someone with no principles, someone profoundly ignorant, who is likely to make decisions based on whatever the last person he spoke to told him if experience is any guide, is erratic, with no experience in government and a tendency to act thoughtlessly and emotionally.  The other is venal, corrupt, secretive, stupid it seems in some things, a purely political creature, with considerable experience in government, who seems intent on benefiting herself and her friends, cronies and allies more than anything else. 

I think the latter is less likely to do damage than the former.  In these disturbing times, that may be the only reasonable basis on which to decide how to vote.  We're in zugzwang, yes.  But there are two moves available, and one move is less likely to cause disaster or at least will likely result in less of a disaster than the other.  Happy days.

The Benefits of Uncertainty

I doubt that it's possible to be certain of anything.

I don't want to say I know it's not possible to be certain of anything, of course, because in that case I can be accused of claiming I'm certain that we can't be certain of anything, thus contradicting my own claim through the magic of language.  And, in fact, I'm not certain it's not possible to be certain of anything.  Unfortunately, I'm certain that I'm not certain it's not possible to be certain.

There are problems in the use of the word "certain," then.  There are also problems in the use of the word "true."  For that matter, there are problems with the use of the word "know."  These problems may be usefully addressed by philosophers--I'm not certain that's the case, however.  John Dewey, as we know, maintained that "truth" was problematic and so, being inclined to awkwardness in the use of language, substituted for it "warranted assertability."

The problems caused by the word "certain" and its synonyms are not merely those which may befuddle philosophers, because the problems of philosophers can also be problems in what certain of them delight in calling "ordinary, day-to-day life (or existence)."  At least they can if we let them.  And to a certain extent I think we have, as we have come to accept that it's desirable to be certain, and even that we must be certain.

Certain of what?--you might ask, and I do ask, rhetorically.  Certain of anything of importance to us or to others.

Dewey wrote of the difficulties resulting from the desire or need for certainty in The Quest for Certainty.  One of those difficulties is that we convince ourselves that only what is certain can be considered true, or good.  Having done so, we necessarily despair of or denigrate what takes place in our lives, because very little of what does or will take place is absolutely certain.  So, we come to believe that we, and the world, are defective in some way, and true certainty lies elsewhere.  Or we come to doubt our senses, our judgments, our actions.

Even in ancient times, there were skeptics (who are, unsurprisingly, called "the skeptics" or sometimes "sophists") and they apparently would wander about Greece annoying people with their skepticism.  They were so annoying that certain philosophers, such as Plato, felt it necessary to rebut them.  In Plato's case, he did so through his character called "Socrates" who may or may not have espoused arguments which were similar to those of the actual Socrates.  It was, and probably is, thought necessary to do so because certainty is thought essential by many.

Speaking only for myself (which is all that I can do in this case) skepticism doesn't trouble me.  I'm unimpressed by the fact that we cannot know most anything with absolute certainty.  I see no reason why we should.  And, I'm quite content to make judgments based on the best available evidence, even if that means I cannot be certain those judgments are absolutely true.

In fact, I question whether any of us really doubt when we're not absolutely certain.  If our conduct is any guide, I don't think we can reasonably maintain that we do.  Though it's true we don't know with absolute certainty the sun will rise tomorrow, we don't harbor any doubt that it will; the possibility that it won't rise doesn't cause any worry or concern.  There are many things we take for granted even when we know there is a possibility they won't take place.  It's how we live, and we have no reason to doubt unless something arises which causes us actual concern or worry, or creates a problem.  We don't normally require certainty in "ordinary day-to-day life."

So certainty as Dewey addressed it isn't quite the issue it is in life as it is in philosophy.  We like being certain of things in life as well, of course.  But we like to be uncertain, especially as far as people we dislike or positions with which we disagree are concerned.  That is to say, we're selective in our demand for certainty. 

The controversy, such as it is, regarding climate change is an example of the demand for certainty.  The questioning of the theory of evolution is another.  Those who deny climate change face a problem in doing so, because it appears that the vast majority of those knowledgeable in the area believe it exists.  There are, however, a handy few who disagree.  Thus, it can be claimed there is uncertainty--it isn't absolutely certain that climate change is taking place, or that humanity has caused or exacerbated it, so it may be discounted.  It may as well be claimed to be a hoax, a kind of fraud being perpetrated for some reason by someone (what would motivate the hoax is unclear to me).

As to the theory of evolution, merely because it is overwhelming accepted by those knowledgeable and there is ample evidence for it, it can't be established with certainty.  So, it can't be said to be true; therefore, it's appropriate for other theories to be taught, such as creationism.  Uncertainty can have its benefits, for creationists in any case.

There may well be a quest for certainty, as Dewey proposed.  However, the demand for certainty is something which doesn't universally apply.  We don't need certainty to live, we disregard it in most cases.  We demand it when we find it useful to do so.  We find it useful to do so when we disagree with each other.

In that manner, the fact that people we disagree with can't establish their claims with certainty, and positions with which we disagree with can't be established with certainty, is a benefit for some of us.  It allows them to hold untenable opinions and make unreasonable decisions serenely, secure in the knowledge (so to speak) that it doesn't matter whether they can't be certain of them because nobody can be absolutely certain of anything. 

The idea that no belief can be criticized because nothing is certain can be reassuring, in some cases. 

Poe's Imp

Edgar Poe (it seems he disliked being called "Edgar Allan Poe") wrote a short story with the interesting title The Imp of the Perverse.  The narrator is a murderer who seemingly commits a murder for which he cannot be suspected, but is compelled to admit the crime, thereby assuring his conviction and ultimate death by hanging.  He's compelled to admit the crime not by interrogation or happenstance, but by his own urge to do so, despite knowing he need not and knowing that by doing so he's effectively killing himself.

It's a story that describes an irresistible self-destructive impulse, then.  Of course, given Poe's personal history, many have suggested he was himself a victim of the Imp and that the story was a kind of confession.  Unfortunately for Poe, the story was panned by the critics of the day, who evidently were unable to tolerate or even consider the thought that the Imp could exist.

Poe could be a rather savage critic himself.  He was prone to dispute with his rivals, and was especially fierce in his quarrel with and condemnation of Longfellow.  If you've ever read Longfellow, particularly his famous Song of Hiawatha, you know how annoying his poetry can be and like me may be inclined to sympathize with Poe.  But you might also be unsurprised by the criticism Poe received and that he was upset by it.

The Imp should have been a recognized figure even then, however, as our self-destructive impulse has been apparent throughout recorded history.  But perhaps the classical nature of education at that time inclined those who recognized it to ascribe it to hubris, the fate of those whose pride offended the gods, or in any case thought it to be a function of the just wrath of God, or the machinations of the Devil.

Since Poe wrote the story, though, we've become familiar with the Imp, who made appearances in the work of Dostoevsky and others, and of course in Freud.  In fact, the Imp has even become a regular in various films, TV series and specials, not to mention its presence in courtrooms and the ubiquitous news media.  The Imp is still portrayed as irresistible, and as overcoming  the reason of heroes and villains alike.

I'm not so sure.  Although there may well be circumstances where the urge to self-destruction is overwhelming and caused by genuine mental illness, I think the Imp must be indulged in order for it to destroy us.

As I'm an aspiring Stoic, I ask myself how the Imp would have been perceived by the ancient Stoic philosophers.  The Stoics thought suicide to be an option available where it was not possible to live according to nature, but didn't deem it to be virtuous in itself.  Self-destruction was not a goal of the sage except in limited circumstances.  Otherwise, I think it would have been considered contrary to reason and to the Divine Reason (the creative aspect of the universe) in particular.  It's in our nature to die, but not in most cases to cause our own death.

I think the Imp would have been considered perhaps the ultimate instance where emotions such as fear, guilt, and despair, which are in our control, were left uncontrolled.  Succumbing to the Imp would be seen as something the Stoic Sage could not do.

The Imp, I would say, isn't something which is not in our control, to which we should be indifferent according to Stoic thought.  It's not a disturbance resulting from our preoccupation with what others think and do, or from our desire for things in the control of others.  It's rather a failure on our part to do the best we can with what's in our control, i.e. ourselves.

Of "Trigger Warnings" and "Safe Spaces"

The University of Chicago has made the news because it has sent to incoming freshman a letter (how quaint!) notifying them that it doesn't favor so-called "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces."  I've heard these phrases before, and have seen them in certain forums I frequent, I think in connection with the now more or less ubiquitous references condemning "political correctness" in colleges and universities in particular.

Apparently, a "trigger warning" is a notice of some kind to students that material or speech they might find offensive, or which would make them uncomfortable or even traumatize them, is about to be considered, discussed, written of...taught?  A "safe space" it seems is some place in which they may shelter from that regarding which a trigger warning would be given.  I'm delighted to read in one of the news stories that Brown University provided a safe space during some dispute or debate regarding sexual assault in which Play-do and bubbles were provided to those seeking safety, among other things.  The story doesn't indicate whether these items were made available as an ironic or sarcastic gesture.  How I wish I had Play-do to comfort me, right now.

Campuses have been subject to protests by various and sundry for quite some time.  Since the '60s, at least.  Students have been offended by any number of things for quite some time as well.  As far as I know, however, it's not until recently that institutions of what is sometimes laughingly called "higher learning" have found it necessary or appropriate to issue trigger warnings and/or create safe spaces.

Are we lawyers responsible for this?  Have we counseled colleges to do these things in order to avoid liability to the traumatized, the offended, the uncomfortable?  I hope not, but the United States is a litigious society.  I can conceive of circumstances where an incendiary speaker could induce an environment where physical harm to people or property might result and in those circumstances a lawyer could be inclined to advise against indulging the speaker by allowing him to speak.  I find it harder to conceive that a lawyer would recommend trigger warnings or safe spaces as a matter of policy, though.

Have we become too fearful of offending people, or of exposing them to what they might think offensive?  I'm not one who finds "political correctness" to be a matter of great concern.  Generally, I think those who are not politically correct or refuse to be politically correct are in most cases simply inclined to be rude and stupid.  It's not laudable to not be politically correct if being politically correct is simply to avoid being deliberately insulting or insensitive.  But I don't think institutions like colleges and universities need concern themselves with sifting material to determine what might disturb someone and to notify others that material may be considered, let alone provide them with a haven if it is.

State institutions or state funded institutions may be required to invite proponents of various points of view, some of them offensive, if they invite others or could be considered a forum for the expression of speech protected by the First Amendment.  However, it's not clear to me that a college must otherwise invite or allow anyone to propound anything to their students or faculty, regardless of whether or not it's offensive, unless it be part of a curriculum--in which case it would presumably be for the students' benefit; or for their education, which I suppose may or may not be considered by them to be beneficial.

It's the possibility that trigger warnings and safe spaces be given or provided as a matter of policy regarding material communicated in courses that causes me the most concern.  History, and what takes place in the present, is filled with offensive words, thoughts and conduct.  How would it be possible for a college to function effectively if trigger warnings would have to be given before Nazi Germany could be studied, or South African apartheid, for example?  Would objecting students be allowed to go to a safe space while this takes place?  What about technology some find offensive, courses of study which might encourage the use of nuclear power which some object to, or who knows what else?  Would warning have to be given, and students allowed to shelter in some space where they might gaze upon comforting photographs of Heidegger or some other technophobe?

It's also necessary to consider the fact that students, or most of them, will some dreadful day leave college and find themselves exposed to a world in which trigger warnings are few or nonexistent, and safe spaces, if there can be such things, must be of their own device.  In what way could college prepare them for that world if college becomes a place of trigger warnings and safe spaces?

I know, of course, that I've written before in some post or other that I consider the college years to be a kind of sojourn to a wonderful place unconnected with what we'll encounter for the rest of our lives; for most of us, at least.  Those who stay there may be able to ignore much of the world others cannot.  I also think that once we leave it, college becomes less and less important to us.  So it may be that no permanent harm will result if students are bombarded with trigger warnings and become used to running for the Play-do when disturbed.

But it seems to me that this will render higher education less of a benefit than it could be.  It also seems to me that students would be well advised to school themselves to not be unreasonably disturbed by why others say and think and do (except, of course, in cases such as sexual assault and active harm or oppression).  In fact, now that I think of it, Stoicism should be taught in college.  It's study should be mandated.  Compulsory training, Stoic exercises.  Perhaps there's such a thing as "Radical Stoicism"?

Tolstoy and Sanctimony

Donald Bartheleme wrote a most amusing story titled At the Tolstoy Museum. It begins with the sentence "At the Tolstoy Museum we sat and wept."  The museum is said to display thousands of pictures of Tolstoy.  In the story, museum staff carry with them buckets filled with handkerchiefs for the use of weeping visitors.  The story contains illustrations.  One displays a colossal figure of Tolstoy next to a tiny Napoleon.  Another shows Tolstoy "tiger hunting in Siberia" a la Hemingway.

The museum is said to have, I think, three levels, each being larger than the one below, so it appears to be falling on its visitors.  This is to impress upon them the weight of Tolstoy's vast moral authority.

It seems there are many Tolstoy museums, and I wonder if there really is one similar to the one in the story.   I rather hope there is such a place.

Tolstoy is considered by many to be the greatest writer in history, or to have written the greatest novel.  That's the gargantuan War and Peace, as one might guess.  That happens to be the only work of Tolstoy I've read from start to finish.  If it's the greatest novel ever written, I'm sad.  I don't think it's a novel, really; I think it's a kind of treatise in which the author uses characters, some historical and some not, to express a theory of history and opine somewhat ponderously, I think, on various human characteristics and philosophical issues.  Sometimes he doesn't even bother with characters.

The work is pervaded by a sense of rightness; or, perhaps more accurately, a sense of righteousness.  Tolstoy is throughout busy making moral points with varying degrees of subtlety, but it's difficult for someone convinced they know better--so much better--than others to be subtle in their expressions regarding what they know to be true.  So, Tolstoy is not particularly subtle in this novel, and I suspect he's not in his other works.  Nor would I expect him to be witty in them.  Holy men aren't known for their wit.

Tolstoy allowed himself to be drawn and photographed to an extraordinary extent.  This of course is indicative of the extent of his popularity, and the reverence in which he was held; a reverence in which he's still held, as spoofed by Bartheleme.  In many of them he's portrayed as farming, or praying, or generally looking wise and even holy.  He kept meticulous diaries recording his movements and thoughts.   He was a vegetarian, a pacifist, a sort of anarchist, and a Christian of the kind who know what Jesus really meant.  He was an exponent of non-violent protest and inspired Gandhi and others.  He became a kind of cult figure, and it seems was devoted to the nurturing of his cult.

George Orwell lambasted Tolstoy for his opinion of Shakespeare.  Tolstoy wrote that he couldn't understand the fame of Shakespeare or why Shakespeare was thought of so highly.   Tolstoy claimed he was repulsed by Shakespeare.  Shakespeare was not moral, he didn't address questions of real importance, he lacked the dignity required of a great artist.  As Orwell noted, Tolstoy was repulsed by Shakespeare because Shakespeare was a humanist, and Tolstoy's views were religious, for all his contempt for clergy.  Tolstoy, according to Orwell, wasn't a saint but tried very hard to become one.  I would go so far as to say he believed himself to be one, in any case.

Tolstoy was admirable in many ways, but was self-consciously good, and this I think is the problem with him and his work.  He knew himself to be good, and expected others to know that as well.  He made great efforts to show himself to be good, by his renunciation of his lands and title, for example (he was a Count).  He was a kind of exhibitionist when it came to his morality.

It's not clear to me that someone who considers himself to be uniquely moral, who is convinced that he knows what is right and what is wrong, is capable of being a great writer of fiction.  I think such a person would be too compelled to proclaim what is good and true, to lecture, to at best create morality tales and declamations in the guise of fiction.  The temptation to pontificate would be irresistible to such a person.  It would be particularly irresistible to a writer, as opposed to other artists such as a painter, composer or musician.  One might successfully create a painting or music which expressed what one thinks to be the truth without seeming to preach, but when we try to communicate by words, by prose at least, we can't avoid being obvious, even leaden, in our righteousness.  Perhaps a poet could be convinced of his/her holiness and still write great poetry, but Tolstoy was certainly not a poet.

I'm not repulsed by Tolstoy as he was repulsed by Shakespeare, but I think his sanctimony limited him in his art.  His work is overwhelming and hectoring.  He's more a moralist than a novelist.