Alan Jacobs

The sophistry that undid me is common to the majority of men, who deplore their lack of strength when it is already too late to make use of it. Virtue is only difficult through our own fault. If we chose always to be wise we should rarely need to be virtuous. But inclinations which we could easily overcome irresistibly attract us. We give in to slight temptations and minimize the danger. We fall insensibly into dangerous situations, from which we could easily have safeguarded ourselves, but from which we cannot withdraw without heroic efforts that appal us. So finally, as we tumble into the abyss, we ask God why he has made us so feeble. But, in spite of ourselves, He replies through our consciences: 'I have made you too feeble to climb out of the pit, because I made you strong enough not to fall in.'

— The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Book II

(Another post from a class blog.)

Bunyan’s emotional and spiritual turmoil is caused, primarily, by one core element of the Calvinist theology that he espoused and never seemed to question (that is, he either believed in this theology or no theology at all). That element is the doctrine of election in its specific strict Calvinist form, that of double predestination. As the Canons of the Synod of Dordt put it, God did not just predestine some (the elect) to salvation, but also predestined all others (the reprobate) to damnation. He chose “to leave them in the common misery into which, by their own fault, they have plunged themselves; not to grant them saving faith and the grace of conversion; but finally to condemn and eternally punish those who have been left in their own ways and under God’s just judgment, not only for their unbelief but also for all their other sins, in order to display his justice.”

So the question for Bunyan is this: From before the foundation of the world God chose me to be either among the damned or among the saved, but how can I tell which it is? That is, there was nothing he could do to change his predestined place; all he could do was to read the signs, interpret the events of his life to see what pattern emerged. For him and all the other Puritan autobiographers, this was the reason for self-writing: to discern the pattern that would tell  them whether they were damned or saved.

Bunyan illustrated this great divide between the elect and reprobate in a widely-distributed “Mapp Shewing the Order and Causes of Salvation and Damnation.” Click on the image below to get a larger version. 

(What follows is a post I wrote this morning for one of my class blogs, which are private.)

Erasmus is sometimes referred to as Erasmus of Rotterdam, but that’s primarily to distinguish him from his namesake, St. Erasmus of Formia, also known as St. Elmo, patron saint of sailors. (That Wikipedia page also says he’s the patron saint of abdominal pain, whatever that means.) But our Erasmus really wasn’t of Rotterdam at all, even if he was born there. He considered himself to belong to that international group of scholars and writers that would later come to be called the Republic of Letters. His “countrymen” were Thomas More, who happened to live in England, and Aldus Manutius, who happened to live in Venice, and Johannes Frobenius, who happened to live in Switzerland.

Centuries later, as World War II was breaking out, the poet W. H. Auden would write of that same sense of connection with people separated by citizenship in the modern nation-states:

Defenceless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.

In contrast to this highly cosmopolitan vision, we should be aware that Machiavelli is much more aware of himself as a citizen of one particular city, Florence, whose greatness he wishes to restore. He is as local and particular as Erasmus is universal and general.

And yet, when Machiavelli was in exile from Florence he wrote of how central to his life was his reading of, his conversation with, the great writers of the past. Here he sounds like the truest possible humanist:

When evening has come, I return to my house and go into my study. At the door I take off my clothes of the day, covered with mud and mire, and I put on my regal and courtly garments; and decently reclothed, I enter the ancient courts of ancient men, where, received by them lovingly, I feed on the food that alone is mine and that I was born for. There I am not ashamed to speak with them and to ask them the reason for their actions; and they in their humanity reply to me. And for the space of four hours I feel no boredom, I forget every pain, I do not fear poverty, death does not frighten me.

Machiavelli was a complicated guy.

‘Sacrifice’ is another word liable to misunderstanding. It is generally held to be noble and loving in proportion as its sacrificial nature is consciously felt by the person who is sacrificing himself. The direct contrary is the truth. To feel sacrifice consciously as self-sacrifice argues a failure in love. When a job is undertaken from necessity, or from a grim sense of disagreeable duty, the worker is self-consciously aware of the toils and pains he undergoes, and will say: ‘I have made such and such sacrifices for this.’ But when the job is a labour of love, the sacrifices will present themselves to the worker—strange as it may seem—in the guise of enjoyment. Moralists, looking on at this, will always judge that the former kind of sacrifice is more admirable than the latter, because the moralist, whatever he may pretend, has far more respect for pride than for love.

— Dorothy L. Sayers, The Mind of the Maker

[gallery columns=“1” size=“large” ids=“19944,19942,19943”]

uimapcoll:

January 10, 1946: The General Assembly of the United Nations met for the first time in Westminster Central Hall in London, England

The colors and illustrations featured in this map are pretty spectacular!

Map: MacDonald, Gill. The time and tide map of the United Nations. London: George Philip & Son, 1948.

Ariane Sherine, who launched the Atheist Bus campaign in the UK a few years back, has written a piece for New Humanist magazine suggesting that the time has come for atheist polemic to become kinder. This is a development devoutly (and not-so-devoutly) to be welcomed. And for what it’s worth it fits very much with my sense that the particular cultural moment associated with the Four Horsemen (etc) is ending. The perceptual tide has turned, and the tone of caustic contempt that marked the atheist bestsellers of the last decade has started to look awkward and dated and dismissive of human complexity, rather than fresh and bold. From the atheist side as well as on the centre ground of unimpassioned unbelief, there’s a tentative sense that more interesting conversations between belief and unbelief might be available, if belief were not labelled in advance as being utterly unworthy of human respect.

[gallery columns=“1” size=“large” ids=“19948”]

vruba:

Snow in Kamigamo Shrine, Kyoto, by Fujishima Takeji, 1953.

[gallery columns=“1” size=“large” ids=“19951”]

houghtonlib:

“Observations sur les Couleurs Newtonienne” from Gautier Dagoty, 1717-1785. Observations sur l’Histoire Naturelle, sur la physique et sur la peinture, 1752.

Typ 715.52.630

Houghton Library, Harvard University

I must admit to going back and forth on the topic of the New Homophiles. Apostolic celibacy is a great good. The struggle to be faithful Catholics is a great good. Trying to identify with Christ is exactly what we are all called to do. Spiritual friendship could be a good thing though I worry they envision something like Charles Ryder reading scripture with Sebastian Flyte. Can we accept them on their terms? I do not know.

How many wealthy young Americans have ever held a minimum-wage job, or had an internship that placed them amongst America’s poorer classes? Would such involvement change their attitudes toward lower-class families? Would their discrepant cultural tastes rub off on each other, perhaps: the upper class obtaining a greater appreciation for pro sports, the blue-collar worker deciding to give classic literature a try?

L’Ecole de Gouvernance et d’Economie’s internship model, if instituted in the United States, would present interesting opportunities for bridging class divides. The Yale student could work at Chik-fil-A, the Harvard student in a local Wal-Mart. One wonders what application their education might have in daily interactions with customers, fellow employees, and supervisors. One wonders what they might learn of a class people that they’ve rarely encountered—at least not for a long time.

Education is not meant to isolate: rather, knowledge is meant to help us bridge divides of every kind. How should we put our educations to use? Do we use them to distance ourselves from the “unwashed masses,” or do we use them to connect with people unable or unwilling to obtain higher education?