tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post1930605848059849828..comments2024-03-07T12:57:35.296-05:00Comments on Varieties of Unreligious Experience: Humanism and the virtue of anxietyConrad H. Rothhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-44091277048977205822007-10-09T17:05:00.000-04:002007-10-09T17:05:00.000-04:00I like to do this occasionally too, strike up an a...I like to do this occasionally too, strike up an argument out of boredom, especially of this sort! I would have argued that if humans had no desire for the arts and humanities, oh what an efficient world we would live in. If creative genius was transfered to technical genius, we would be generation ahead of ourselves now.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-78623723999454488372007-09-23T13:22:00.000-04:002007-09-23T13:22:00.000-04:00Wow! And who said the humanities were good for not...Wow! And who said the humanities were good for nothing?Conrad H. Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-56367053820469524982007-09-23T13:11:00.000-04:002007-09-23T13:11:00.000-04:00You, in particular, will love this. A bottle of te...You, in particular, will love this. <BR/>A bottle of tequila.<BR/>In fact, fairly good tequila.M.W. Noldenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09196301119957236731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-4162110564713939152007-09-23T12:26:00.000-04:002007-09-23T12:26:00.000-04:00MW: How much did you win?Lori and achilles3, thank...MW: How much did you win?<BR/><BR/>Lori and achilles3, thanks.<BR/><BR/>"Humanities: Why? Because it's fun and pleasurable. Utility? Seems beside the point to me, but I'm not..."<BR/><BR/>... but you're not an academic. Amateurs (in the good sense), as I said to Xensen and Chris, have it easy. No anxiety.Conrad H. Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-5423870805213310672007-09-22T19:05:00.000-04:002007-09-22T19:05:00.000-04:00Ha! I've just won a bet. I knew you'd hit 40 comme...Ha! I've just won a bet. I knew you'd hit 40 comments on this one.M.W. Noldenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09196301119957236731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-65686575717835617112007-09-22T16:56:00.000-04:002007-09-22T16:56:00.000-04:00As a 29 year old goof ball educator I'll start by ...As a 29 year old goof ball educator I'll start by saying that I feel compeled to comment for two main reasons:<BR/>1. I have thought of this notion as well.<BR/>2. I haven't the reading experience (subject wise) to drop any names and I thought I would humor you.<BR/><BR/>As a veteren English teacher (public high school mostly) I have a real passion for the humanaties. I love to read and write. Period.<BR/><BR/>BUT what is starting to annoy the shit out of me is that many middle of the road (or just plain crappy)teachers take the assumed "play" inhearant in the humanaties as license to just say "Well this is how I do it and since there is no right or wrong way please allow me to do "it" this really stupid way"<BR/><BR/>They think (or at least they pretend for their own ends) that there exist no "better (or best) ways/processes"...that there are just ways and they are all equal. Again I'm speaking about a certain college educated group who isn't reading (much less writing) blogs (or comments) like these. <BR/><BR/>This huge job-having college degree holding "middle" is uninterested in 99% of this conversation and I find that, in using the two groups we are talking about (roughly the humanists and the scientists)that far and away it's the "middle" humanists that grate on my nerves to hear in discussion. <BR/><BR/>These people know just enough to seem a part of the conversation but are not interested enough in actually reading (or REALLY listening) to become, genuinely, a solid part. <BR/><BR/>There are holes in my set up but its 5:49 AM in Seoul, Korea (where I teach ESL @ a small University) and i'm passing out so I'll make a quick assertion.<BR/><BR/>I teach English and love to read and write but the older I get the more I feel like a math and science guy because at least they have rules and ubderstood foundations that even the "middle" crowd respects.<BR/><BR/>sry abt da spelin 2 <BR/><BR/>peace & keep up the goodwork:-)achilles3https://www.blogger.com/profile/07161092581595912302noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-21183214679046595192007-09-22T06:30:00.000-04:002007-09-22T06:30:00.000-04:00What a juicy post! What a wild ride of comments!I ...What a juicy post! What a wild ride of comments!<BR/><BR/>I really will come back and read more thoroughly...I promise...but skimming without my reading glasses leaves me little recourse except to drive by a bit of Mencius' remarks.<BR/><BR/>Fencing: Enjoyed it (tried it a couple of years ago) until my knees started hollering. It was fun to find that age and guile can win out over youth and speed.<BR/><BR/>Riding: Fond memories of hoof-clatter, chuffing and foggy horse-breath on a chilly morning riding through a worn trail, but Western saddle please. The only kind of posting I care to do is on a blog.<BR/><BR/>Shooting: Despite living in Texas, only did so once. And I found that a 12-gauge shotgun is just the thing to slaughter old hot water heaters tossed into a junk heap on a friend's ranchland. (Said ranch is now an upscale subdivision, and I smile every time I think about those water heaters.)<BR/><BR/>Humanities: Why? Because it's fun and pleasurable. Utility? Seems beside the point to me, but I'm not as well read as all y'all are here in Conrad's comments-kitchen.<BR/><BR/>:-)Lori Witzelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-52935908113021798922007-09-20T17:46:00.000-04:002007-09-20T17:46:00.000-04:00"And maybe one should always be at least a little ..."And maybe one should always be at least a little anxious about one's occupation -- since the world of work is continually -- and it seems -- ever more rapidly changing."<BR/><BR/>Yes, as are the Humanities. Change always needs to be made--nothing is perfect, and no laurels should be rested upon.Conrad H. Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-26071195365668932202007-09-20T11:20:00.000-04:002007-09-20T11:20:00.000-04:00But Is anxiety a virtue ?As the awareness of a cha...But Is anxiety a virtue ?<BR/><BR/>As the awareness of a change that needs to be made -- yes, of course. <BR/><BR/>One should be anxious -- and then make the change. (so perhaps that spitzer of anxious art historians should then find another occupation or profession or both )<BR/><BR/>And maybe one should always be at least a little anxious about one's occupation -- since the world of work is continually -- and it seems -- ever more rapidly changing.<BR/><BR/><BR/>But the humanities -- considered as the European secular tradition of literature and the arts - and considered as a set of professions rather than of current career opportunities - has a scope so broad (encompassing so many religious as well as non-western traditions) -- that one should be far more anxious about practicing any profession outside of it (other than those professions whose assertions are subject to strict, empirical verification -- like aeronautical engineering - or selling widgets)chris millerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09575033275184403015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-37123128337694362592007-09-18T17:32:00.000-04:002007-09-18T17:32:00.000-04:00Well, I'm delighted to have beaten my own 32-comme...Well, I'm delighted to have beaten my own 32-comment record, and with excellent discussion too.<BR/><BR/><STRONG>Xensen</STRONG>: I do love someone romantically, and it is even a woman. However, if I spent my whole life--or even a large part of my life--stroking her lovely face, I might have reason to worry I was not spending my time as well as I should be.<BR/><BR/><STRONG>Michael</STRONG> and <STRONG>Rami</STRONG>: To a degree this goes back to what Chris said about the elite of Imperial China, the 'class of people who can compose variations on classical themes in complex poetic structures at the drop of a hat'. The Renaissance humanists were drilled in a school such as Guarino's to have the requisite humanist abilities (including, notably, fluency in Latin) for court life and professional (secretarial and artistic) work.<BR/><BR/>The conflict between nobility and universality mentioned by Rami are I think realised in all those conservative prescriptions that humanism <EM>ennobles all</EM>. This especially seems to be the old American (democratic republicanist) ideal. Leavis is particularly interesting on this, as he equivocates between advocating an 'educated public' ("there will be possibilities of education, and of real participation in the cultural heritage, at many levels") and promoting elitism (as he refers disparagingly to "the assumption that a high intellectual standard can be attained by more than a small minority").<BR/><BR/>Again, though, we are moving headlong onto the topic of the function and significance of the universities as opposed to other types of humanist programmes, which I want to address later.<BR/><BR/>I haven't read NZD, but I find the explicit association of Renaissance humanist practices with capitalist accumulation potentially an interesting one. What you and Michael agree on (as you are aware) is that an essentially aristocratic ethos and society has given way to an essentially bourgeois one. (I don't like talking like a Marxist, but there you go.) And we all agree that this reluctant devolution is what motivates the pronouncements of all the conservative authorities ('cultural elitists') I cite. BUT I don't think that what I call 'camaraderie' is the same as this 'cultural elitism'--it is less ideologically pregnant, less indebted to prior assumptions about 'character' as a metaphysical notion--it is simply the warmth of exchange and friendship among those who have similar personalities and interests, and equally applicable (unlike the Arnoldians' theory) to trainspotting anoraks as to cultural humanists.Conrad H. Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-53227615731137839482007-09-18T15:11:00.000-04:002007-09-18T15:11:00.000-04:00Great discussion.There’s a basic contradiction (wh...Great discussion.<BR/><BR/>There’s a basic contradiction (which, I think, some of the commenters have already remarked upon) between the idea of the inherent nobility of humanistic study (with all the notions of gratuitousness and elitism and camaraderie that go with it), and the idea that it’s something universal (<I>humanitas</I> as something ‘held in common’ of benefit to all). It’s pretty difficult to square these two ideas – hence the anxiety.<BR/><BR/>I’m thinking the root of all this anxiety can be found in the transition from the ancient conception of the liberal arts to the Renaissance retooling of it – with a tension between the conception of liberal study as a gift economy (knowledge as gratuitous: ‘scientia donum dei est, unde vendi non potest’) and the emerging reality of the commodification of knowledge: knowledge is still a gift from God, but it <I>can</I> be bought and sold. The liberal studies market was moving into conformity with the money form of value, and the ‘exchange value’ of learning was driving out its ‘use value’. The fiction of the gratuity of liberal studies persisted of course, and the patronage system stood as a bulwark against market forces. Natalie Zemon Davis mentions in her study of gifts in early modern culture that in 1536 it was still the official line in the University of Paris statutes that the doctors could not legally be paid for teaching. They were being paid, of course, but it suited them to maintain the fiction. And the book market, despite the best attempts of the likes of Erasmus and his circle, who dedicated books back and forth to each other under the guise of ‘gifts’, was being driven by market forces – after all, how could the humanistic disciplines be truly universal and at the same time reserved for a cultured elite? When the value (‘virtue’, or ‘character’) of a man is no longer a matter of innate nobility but instead a matter of how much <I>humanitas</I> he has acquired, cultural elitism (or ‘camaraderie’ as you delicately call it), in the new world of social mobility, is just the privileging of accumulation of another sort of capital. So the foundations – and the actual <I>point</I> - of all this humanistic study are lost, and we have to appeal to completely outmoded notions like <I>virtus</I> to justify to ourselves just why we need to have the education of a Christian prince.<BR/><BR/>Actually, I’ve just realized that while I was typing, Michael up there ^^^ already said much of this better than I could.Raminagrobishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12008850757226541475noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-24088098774181064722007-09-18T13:51:00.000-04:002007-09-18T13:51:00.000-04:00Thanks to Conrad for his response to my comment, a...Thanks to Conrad for his response to my comment, and also to Gawain for his flattering remarks. Gawain's reaction as an Eastern European on discovering what the West has become reminds me very much of Andrei Navrozov's.<BR/><BR/>Camaraderie is as good a reason as any for the study of humanism, but it will not sustain the social and economic expectations of university-level study, nor the careers of professionals. Maybe this is just as well. There is a great modern tendency to confuse education with training, and universities with superior vocational schools. <BR/><BR/>The humanists of the early Renaissance, for example Petrarch, Boccaccio, Cosimo and Lorenzo di Medici, Politian, Pico, or Aldus Manutius, were not "professionals," and the universities of their time did not have a place for their studies. For camaraderie these people formed learned societies, "academies" properly so called, distinct and separate from the universities. They conferred no degrees, had no paid staff, and derived their social status from the eminence of their members, rather than conferring social status by extending membership to persons previously humble and obscure.<BR/><BR/>Perhaps a revival of such institutions offers the best hope for the survival of humanism. It has often seemed to me that the study of classical literature and philosophy lost something vital when it was absorbed into the curriculum of the universities. <BR/><BR/>The friends of Lorenzo the Magnificent read the classics for their content, in which they were passionately interested. They were fascinated by the world of antiquity, strange in many of its aspects, but familiar in exhibiting that human nature which is immutable by time or distance; more advanced in some aspects than their own society, in others more primitive and barbaric. Once these works became the province of the university, the gerund-grinders took over. The seeds of humanism's decline were planted then.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-60539761286400225202007-09-18T09:30:00.000-04:002007-09-18T09:30:00.000-04:00Suppose you love someone romantically -- a woman, ...Suppose you love someone romantically -- a woman, let's say. Do you parcel out your love, setting it in scales and weighing it out against little blocks, one that says "improved character," another that says "better self-understanding"? Or do you simply love her, without inhibition? Now suppose her name is The Humanities.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-41824530300024687112007-09-18T06:29:00.000-04:002007-09-18T06:29:00.000-04:00Michael: "The difficulty of maintaining in the pre...<STRONG>Michael</STRONG>: "The difficulty of maintaining in the present day and age that a humanistic education develops character is that we cannot agree what "character" is or even whether there is such a thing."<BR/><BR/>I maintain that a humanistic milieu <EM>selects for</EM> character. And I don't think 'character' needs to be anything metaphysical, nor that it requires strict definition or particular philosophical argumentation. If you'd prefer I could use the word 'personality', or 'disposition', or even, conceivably, 'behaviour'.<BR/><BR/>"Most, I suspect, of today's students and teachers of humane letters in fact reject the idea of the Christian gentleman, but cling to the notion that they should enjoy his elite status."<BR/><BR/>This I agree with, broadly. I think Mencius would too: and I think he would say that the old idea really vanished in 1914. (If you read Quiller-Couch from just before this time you can quite clearly see the old tone beginning to promote slightly different values.) But going back to your earlier point, I don't think one has to be articulating the nobility of the 'Christian gentleman' to talk about character--though I think the conservative writers I cite generally do have something similar in mind--which is at the heart of the problem with their arguments.<BR/><BR/><STRONG>liminalcriminal</STRONG>: "the humanist snakeblood still pulses and pays intellectual recompense"<BR/><BR/>I'm delighted you think so, though I hope it is not <EM>snake-oil</EM>.<BR/><BR/>"Humanism exists so long as its lexicon is mobilized pursuasively"<BR/><BR/>I think we can agree on this, and from what I can tell, you like me disapprove of the current move in the academic humanities towards the 'disingenuous assimilation of otherness'. As for the 'shadowy improvisational farce of dismantling authoritative aesthetic narratives through perversely local readings', this sounds like the sort of nihilist formalism that I have some sympathy with.<BR/><BR/>"It's silly to think about humanness in a hypostatized way"<BR/><BR/>Well, that's my criticism of all those conservative critics. The problem with wanting a humanism 'divorced from explicit or grandiose ends' is that human beings are not (in general) motivated to act in such a way. People--and not just capitalists--want ends, results. That is the root of humanist anxiety, and calling for 'purposelessness', however noble, merely denies that the problem exists.<BR/><BR/><STRONG>Chris</STRONG> and <STRONG>Xensen</STRONG>: "If engaging the arts is an enjoyable pastime -- why be anxious about doing it? What's wrong with pursuing a harmless pleasure?"<BR/><BR/>You're both asking this question, and interestingly, you are both amateur (by which I mean, not academic) humanists. When I say that I am not yet addressing institutional issues, I am referring to <EM>specifics</EM>: the problem itself is completely bound up with professional activity within an institution. I'm not talking about the enjoyment of hobbyists, which is much less problematic--I'm talking about those who have devoted their professional energies to this, and wonder if they might be doing something more productive, less intellectually pointless (and possibly shallow), and (though this is a much less important point) more remunerative. Count yourselves lucky that you <EM>can't</EM> identify with this!<BR/><BR/>"You have, I think, a rather Victorian notion of what constitutes worth and productivity. Any life has by its nature value."<BR/><BR/>So says the Buddhist, maybe. Sadly we are not Buddhists. We are, in fact, at heart, much more Victorian than Buddhist. The voice of our fathers and fathers' fathers is still at the back of our minds--the voice of conscience. Pure <EM>jouissance</EM> is not quite enough for most of us, and pure 'harmlessness' will seem to most of us like a pretty poor criterion of worth. Of course there are value-systems in which this is not a problem (eg. Buddhism, nihilism, etc.): but I am addressing the value-systems of those for whom this <EM>is</EM> a problem--in this sense I am just the 'messenger', although I share the problem myself.<BR/><BR/>"There is no one correct way to live a life."<BR/><BR/>Of course this is true. But that doesn't mean that some ways are not more correct--more rewarding--than others. The <EM>fact</EM> is, I know several people who have quit professional humanist studies because they thought there wasn't any point or virtue in it, even if they continued to enjoy 'amateur humanities' (ie. reading etc.) in their spare time.<BR/><BR/><STRONG>Gawain</STRONG>: "academic combat over whether line 177, fourth word should read "hatching" or "hutching""<BR/><BR/>Yes, and I suspect that the more humanism is like this, and the less it is like bamboo combat, the more humanists will feel the anxiety of professional worth. Having said that, pedantry is not in and of itself a bad thing: one of my favourite examples is the tooth-and-claw arguments between stuffy Victorian philologists. So long as there's some moxie in it--some moxie which is not simply the mediaeval hounding by the authorities of those who step out of line, as described in <A HREF="http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2007/09/the_hidden_impact_of_political.html" REL="nofollow">this essay</A>, recently linked by Mencius.Conrad H. Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-64583341864023477502007-09-18T00:12:00.000-04:002007-09-18T00:12:00.000-04:00>There are (it might be argued, and I think is evi...><I>There are (it might be argued, and I think is evidently sensed by many professional humanists) more worthwhile and productive ways to spend one's time.</I><BR/><BR/>You have, I think, a rather Victorian notion of what constitutes worth and productivity. Any life has by its nature value -- worth does not have to be accumulated one act at a time as a miser hoards wealth. This is the essence of the ecological worldview. The Buddha said that one should first do no harm -- a scholar's penury may cause less harm than a businessman's wealth. If your livelihood does not increase suffering and results from right intent then you are practicing right livelihood (more precisely, according to the Buddha's teaching, from right understanding proceeds right thought, from right thought proceeds right speech, from right speech proceeds right action, from right action proceeds right livelihood). <BR/><BR/>I repeat that there is no reason <I>not</I> to study the humanities, or anything else for that matter. There is no one correct way to live a life. You appear to be trying to judge value from a life's outward manifestations, and therefore you are stuck on appearances, on the kind of calculation that suggests that if a scientist finds a cure that results in saving ten lives, then his live is worth ten of others. Perhaps one of those lives is that of a humanist, another a monk's. I submit each of those lives has not just one unit of value but the same infinite value as all of the lives collectively.<BR/><BR/>Of course, if what you are really after is an argument that will justify more funding for the department, then my arguments won't help, it's true, and you might have to resort the kind of cost/benefit analyses that are persuasive to those who control the purses.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-40896688282795880462007-09-17T23:18:00.000-04:002007-09-17T23:18:00.000-04:00oh, come on, somebody kick the ball.oh, come on, somebody kick the ball.Sir Ghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07953581535133000686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-5655698402607383342007-09-17T20:59:00.000-04:002007-09-17T20:59:00.000-04:00michael:your remarks are remarkable; i was raised ...michael:<BR/><BR/>your remarks are remarkable; i was raised in a kind of deep-freeze of Eastern Europe and therefore am a sort of mastodon -- the sort that occasionally fall out complete with hair and lice out of a melting glacier; my teachers wanted to shape my character; much of my education consisted in the contemplation of worthy virtues; i was taught that what made us, and what we aspired to, different from those who occupied us and what they aspired to, was something profoundly western and greek -- the idea of a virtuous man; indirectly, my teachers assumed that our ally, the west -- namely NATO with its liberal democracies and open markets -- stood for these things;<BR/><BR/>thus fully formed i had then the West as it now is sprung upon me at the age of 16 -- and did not recognize it. this is it? i said to myself. this is it?<BR/><BR/>(the experience was akin to sexual initiation -- oh, come on, this cannot be <I>it</I>, can it?)<BR/><BR/>i wonder, might i trouble you to write me at to_mson(at)yahoo(dot)com as I would hate to lose access to your precious wisdom in the manner usual of these drive-by comments; and as there does not appear to be a blog at which i could follow further on your musings.<BR/><BR/>Xensen:<BR/><BR/>"Which is not as much fun as hitting each other with bamboo sticks. Presumably."<BR/><BR/>i assume that stands as a metaphor for any conversation which has real life applications. such conversations can occasionally have the satisfaction which one more commonly associates with the pain and pleasure of combat -- but whose essence is not combat. academic combat over whether line 177, fourth word should read "hatching" or "hutching", though it stimulates the adrenaline, does not make for a great philosophy of life. but i dont think we disagree at all.<BR/><BR/>Chris:<BR/><BR/>"what is the anxiety about?"<BR/><BR/>I think Mengzi put it right: people wondering why they are paid to do this. but they don't need to ask the question. i know a fellow who is a dog-catcher. he loves his job and every day he blesses himself for being paid to do it. i would do it for free, he says, if no one paid me. which is kind of what we do on our blogs, isn't it?<BR/><BR/>everybody:<BR/><BR/>OK, this is comment 29. how long can we keep this ball up in the air? can we make it last till comment 100? last - without losing interest?Sir Ghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07953581535133000686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-22082038931296831292007-09-17T18:52:00.000-04:002007-09-17T18:52:00.000-04:00O.K. -- if we ingore the institutonal issues (i.e....O.K. -- if we ingore the institutonal issues (i.e. the social issues) -- and just focus on whether literature, art etc is usefull/useless to oneself, then...<BR/><BR/><BR/>What is all this anxiety all about ? <BR/><BR/>If engaging the arts is an enjoyable pastime -- why be anxious about doing it? What's wrong with pursuing a harmless pleasure ?<BR/><BR/>And if it's not enjoyable -- maybe the anxious person should find something else they'd rather do.chris millerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09575033275184403015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-26216044448927438422007-09-17T17:24:00.000-04:002007-09-17T17:24:00.000-04:00In a delightfully obvious way, the original post a...In a delightfully obvious way, the original post and the growing body of successive comments enacts the attenuation of the humanist anxiety addressed (the imperiled value of intellectual discourse). Even if "there is no longer any temple of the Sun" (Debord) there is still the half-embarrassed, lively chatter of those who remember, disparagingly but with a sort of sullen nostalgia, the stages of the temple's dissolution-- and in waxing lyrical, learned, and derisive, the humanist snakeblood still pulses and pays intellectual recompense (a hoary notion, yes, but an ever-renewable fact of comraderie). <BR/><BR/>The pleasure of the text is actually the pleasure of indulgent, communal exegesis, and the cycles of cummunication that surround an artifact of study self-justify as they potentiate acts of wit and truth-- this is less art for art's sake than talk for fun's sake (fun encompassing the effete and self-referential intellectual rapture of the enlightened subject). The humanist project is or should be not understanding but the shadowy improvisational farce of dismantling authoritative aesthetic narratives through perversely local readings whose narrowness implicitly critiques the big dour picture (the object of imbecilic, adequating modernists). <BR/><BR/>The almost obligatory anxiety felt or staged by contemporary humanists derives less from any inherent vocational contradictions than from a disingenuous assimilation of otherness (the otherness of a ravaged world whose depredations, the story goes, make theoretical talk about them ethically odious). I just reread the original post and recognize the, at best, tangentiality of these remarks-- so I'll try to be more topical.<BR/><BR/>Humanism exists so long as its lexicon is mobilized pursuasively (that is, its language used as means of elucidation, not surveyed as outmoded slag-heap of inert ideas-- not anthropologically sterilized). Humanism is broadly understood as the study of artifacts AS humanly forged objects-- and while the operative concepts undergo academic mutation, the project roars on.<BR/><BR/>It's silly to think about humanness in a hypostatized way, as a quality that occurs in variable intensities across a spectrum of more or less human agents. Even so, we can say that the humanist often estranges himself to his own humanity through study and that a symptom of this estrangement might be Gerald's (chimerical sense of self-evolution and discovery). <BR/><BR/>This is only getting more desultory it seems. Well, I like your take on comraderie as plausible aim of humanities discourse-- understanding of comraderie in this way should be proportionate to a relief of the voncational anxiety of those vexed art students. Might be a genuine means to relief-- certainly in practice, maybe in theory. Still, however facile, it's probably best to understand collective intellectual work as fundamentally striving, period. Airily divorced from explicit or grandiose ends-- and so distanced from the acquisitive logic of capitalism and the legion vanities of self-improvement-- critical work sheds the imputation of valuelessness by abjuring the codes and metrics of goal-oriented enterprise and inaugurating a fun inquisitive counterzone where "just being there together is enough."liminalcriminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07605463688660090695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-31695805859838909952007-09-17T16:59:00.000-04:002007-09-17T16:59:00.000-04:00The difficulty of maintaining in the present day a...The difficulty of maintaining in the present day and age that a humanistic education develops character is that we cannot agree what "character" is or even whether there is such a thing.<BR/><BR/>Past ages had no such difficulty. The classical education as delineated in the classical age by Quintilian was intended to produce a gentleman, in the strict old-fashioned sense of the word, i.e., not merely a person of polished manners but someone to whom, as a member of the leading class of society, polished manners came as a matter of course. The liberal arts were so called as being befitting of a free man - free, that is, as distinguished both by legal status, from the unfree, and free as distinguished by the possession of independent means from those who, though legally free, were not free from the need to toil for their livings. The right of such a person to be what he was, was not then politically or philosophically questioned - he was obviously born to be leader of society and was to be prepared as such. <BR/><BR/>To this the rise of Christianity added its own baggage - education was now to prepare one to be a Christian gentleman - but for most of early modern history, this made no essential difference. The British public schools, following a curriculum not greatly different from the one prescribed by Quintilian, prepared many generations of young men to govern the British empire just as Quintilian had prepared Pliny the Younger and the grandnephews of Domitian to govern the Roman empire.<BR/><BR/>These circumstances, though, have ceased to obtain. The old educational institutions have nonetheless persisted, and may even have preserved some vestigial habits of the Christian gentleman here and there. However, for the most part they are inhabited and run by people who are neither gentlemen nor Christians and this has led to a sort of crisis of the spirit. Most, I suspect, of today's students and teachers of humane letters in fact reject the idea of the Christian gentleman, but cling to the notion that they should enjoy his elite status. Bereft of roots in traditional order, they are an elite in search of a society (hence their arrogance) - and if they can't find one, they will make one (hence their addiction to utopianism and 'gnosticism' in the Voeglinian sense).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-72275579616047780062007-09-17T15:32:00.000-04:002007-09-17T15:32:00.000-04:001904: thanks. I will. Actually I wrote something a...<STRONG>1904</STRONG>: thanks. I will. Actually I wrote something about the Great Books a year and a half ago, but it was dull, and I deleted it.<BR/><BR/><STRONG>Xensen</STRONG>: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that <EM>you</EM> were complacent. However, "Why not do the humanities?" is really the question I'm addressing in the first place. Why not do the humanities? Because there are (it might be argued, and I think is evidently sensed by many professional humanists) more worthwhile and productive ways to spend one's time.<BR/><BR/><STRONG>Gawain</STRONG>:<BR/><BR/>"some of the ways in which these conversations are sometimes made in the academia are not exactly the most inspiring or life- relevant."<BR/><BR/>We can agree there; and I suspect a majority of us here will agree too, to some extent. Much fashionable humanist-academia simply ignores the anxiety by plunging headlong into the abstract and 'non-life-relevant'. Which is not as much fun as hitting each other with bamboo sticks. Presumably.<BR/><BR/>As for the wider relationship of academia to humanism, that too must wait for another post.<BR/><BR/><STRONG>Chris</STRONG>: "fine character has nothing to do with the knowledge of literature -- and everything to do with one's parents."<BR/><BR/>Yes, I agree--which is why I wrote in the post that "I don't think that their character is shaped by their choice of subject, but rather the reverse—they have chosen the humanities because of who they are."<BR/><BR/>Again, you bring up <EM>institutional</EM> issues which I must endeavour to resolve, or at least address, in the future.Conrad H. Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-45747083726199712662007-09-17T12:43:00.000-04:002007-09-17T12:43:00.000-04:00Chris, mon ami:"Regarding the second - there is no...Chris, mon ami:<BR/><BR/>"Regarding the second - there is no way that art historians should have anything to do with art museums since their discipline has nothing to do with taste. Nothing."<BR/><BR/>You have seen my production on "The closet aesthetics of the Titian Attribution wars"? Art historians have tastes and preferences, and exercise them in their field, they just lie about them.<BR/><BR/>I like the concept of the examination system you propose. Makes sure people have something to talk about -- something other than last night's Desperate Housewives (or whatever is on these days). (Having something to talk about at work the next day is given as the single most important reason to watch TV).<BR/><BR/>Now, speaking of "Gazing towards eastern hills with nostalgia..."Sir Ghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07953581535133000686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-7103277645988048192007-09-17T12:40:00.000-04:002007-09-17T12:40:00.000-04:00I love when Mencius talks about what it was like b...I love when Mencius talks about what it was like before 1914.<BR/><BR/>And Conrad, please do a post about The Great Books. Please. I long for that.<BR/><BR/>Mencius is right. You ARE a living demonstration. And the good Lord neither makes mistakes nor wastes His time.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-50205435965553962372007-09-17T12:02:00.000-04:002007-09-17T12:02:00.000-04:00I hasten to add that I am not offended in the leas...I hasten to add that I am not offended in the least; I was simply pointing out the dangers of overgeneralizing.<BR/><BR/>What the waiter is trying to say is that the silver service has been stolen. A robot would have to be unreasonably clever to figure that out. See <A HREF="" REL="nofollow">"The Queer Feet"</A> for the whole story. Favorite bit:<BR/><BR/>"Stand still," he said, in a hacking whisper. "I don't want to threaten you, but--"<BR/><BR/>"I do want to threaten you," said Father Brown, in a voice like a rolling drum, "I want to threaten you with the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched."<BR/><BR/>"You're a rum sort of cloak-room clerk," said the other.<BR/><BR/>"I am a priest, Monsieur Flambeau," said Brown, "and I am ready to hear your confession." The other stood gasping for a few moments, and then staggered back into a chair.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-79059380999703689882007-09-17T11:08:00.000-04:002007-09-17T11:08:00.000-04:00Yes, camaraderie among art and literature lovers i...Yes, camaraderie among art and literature lovers is a fine thing -- who could possibly object to that ?<BR/><BR/>But some more controversial issues would be:<BR/><BR/>1. what sort of educational rite-of-passage should be purchased and then inflicted on smart young people ?<BR/><BR/>2. who should exercise control over public art museums ?<BR/><BR/>-- and this is where I would question which (or any) of our current professional humanists should be involved.<BR/><BR/>Regarding the first question -- I think you have to begin with some idea of culture -- as a specific tradition worth cultivating - and then hire those who can enable/encourage others to get immersed in it -- and this<BR/>may be only a small subset of our contemporary humanists.<BR/><BR/>(but even then -- I think about Chinese literature, where the most compelling and important books ("Three Kingdoms", "Journey to the West", "Dream of Red Chamber", "Water Margins") were<BR/>categorically excluded from traditional education -- so maybe it's really best to let curious kids discover this stuff on their own)<BR/><BR/>Regarding the second - there is no way that art historians should have anything to do with art museums since their discipline has nothing to do with taste. Nothing. <BR/>(and their continued mis-management of American museums continues to<BR/>prove it)<BR/><BR/><BR/>Regarding some of the historical apologies for the humanities -- I can only say that, in my limited experience, fine character has nothing to do with the knowledge of literature -- and everything to do with one's parents.<BR/><BR/>And... I'm kind of leaning, at least today, towards the imperial Chinese system: i.e. qualification for careers in management begin with some incredibly difficult, week-long examination, that depends upon the memorization of lots of poetry and philosophy and skill in penmanship -- creating a class of people who can compose variations on classical themes in complex poetic structures at the drop of a hat. What fun to invite<BR/>such people over for a party -- especially if they had also mastered a musical instrument or two !chris millerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09575033275184403015noreply@blogger.com