The problem with metaphors and owning dogs

Yesterday I attempted to compare Robert Shuman's continued support for European unity to my bright idea to attach my Husky to my Australian terrier so that they could not run away. It has been working pretty well. Shuman's theory was that if he could tie other countries together economically, they would find it much more difficult to fight militarily. What I used as a comparison is that when countries (and dogs) are left to operate on their own, they run amok. Tied together, I argued, they are more likely to stay in bounds. This morning, my analogy exploded when I went out to get my dogs, and they were no where in sight. My assumption was that they were probably near by. Bad assuption. After driving around the neighborhood, I returned to the ravine behind our house to call for them. I could hear Thumper (the Terrier) barking. I could not climb down the bank without risking re-injuring my ankle... and I was wearing a bathrobe, so I risked my daughter's life instead. She clambered down the ravine and found them tied together to a tree. Suffice it to say, I will not try out this tie them together theory again.

The question is, does that mean that Shuman is wrong and that countries should not tie their fates together? Does the fact that my metaphor exploded all over me this morning have any import on world politics?

This morning, South Korea responded to a North Korean bombing by sending fighters to return fire. Are we just tying ourselves to a Husky who will drag us into the ravine here?

My attempt at a rough draft of the new Rebel Rebel paper

Unfortunately, I can't cut and paste it in here. I wrote it in Word, and will not retype it. So... look at the links on edline if you are curious...

To those who see finishing Camus' essay much like Sisyphus pushing his rock up the hill, know this- there will be an end to it. Of course, this, Camus points out, is what we all hope for- a finish line to give meaning to the journey...

My struggle with Qs 15-38 (pp. 297-306)

How does Camus feel about history? He says it can then "no longer be presented as an object of worship"(302). Instead, history is an opportunity to be rendered fruitful by vigilant rebellion. Thus, we cannot simply sit back and conclude from history that the struggle is over. Tension continues. History is to be struggled against. "It is those who know how to rebel... against history who really advance its interests"(302).

Camus says that Christianity has replied by the annunciation of the kingom and of eternal life, which demands faith. Camus explains that this waiting has worn us down, postponing for too long. Materialism tries to answer the problem (the injustice and the suffering of the world)by saying that all things are determined by physical laws and that there is no sense in complaining. We should all just wait until (as Marx and Hegel argued) it sorts itself out. Once again, this requires faith in the future. This is why Camus sees Marxism and Christianity as being so similar.

So to whom shall we turn? Sisyphyus was Camus' hero in the 1930s, but now it is Prometheus. Camus says that "an injustice remains inextricably bound to all suffering" and that Prometheus' silence cries out in protest. His power is the power to rebel. This idea of Prometheus bound is probably asking us to look at Aeschylus' play... see Wikapedia- "Prometheus Bound". He is punished for thwarting Zeus' plan to obliterate the human race. Thus Prometheus is the rebel against god, but he does so for the sake of mankind. After irritating Zeus even more (he refuses to tell him that one of his own descendents (Hercules) will try to overthrow him), Zeus casts our hero into the Abyss with a thunderbolt. And what has man done with this gift? He "has seen men rail and turn agianst him... until all that remains ... is his power to rebel in order to save from murder him who can still be saved (you and me?) without surrendering tot he arrogance of blasphemy"(304).

This story might seem similar to another one you've heard before. The heroism of Prometheus is that he has a "strange form of love" (304) which rebellion cannot exist without. Abandoning God, these types are condemned to live for those who, like themselves, cannot live... for the humiliated. Those who like Karamazov cry, "If all are not saved, what good is the salvation of one only"? Another example of this kind of strange love is that of the Catholic prisoners who refuse communion because the Church made communion obligatory. Thus, they risk their own damnation to allow man the free will to be damned. "This insange generosity is the generosity of rebellion"(304). Thus, rebellion (in its purest outburst) gives birth to existence. It is love and fecundity or it is nothing at all. This rebellion, Camus recounts, is contaminated, forgets its origins, and becomes a murderous machine (see Hitler?). But at the end of this tunnel, there is a light. One we already can sense or feel, but for which we must fight (struggle). Beyond the limits of nihilism, we are preparing a renaissance (new birth).. but few of us know it, says Camus. Now go read "The Second Coming" by Yeats and read about Kalyayev.

My answers to #s 1-14 (297-306)

I am going to take a stab at the questions on Thought at the Meridian here...

What attitude? The attitude is simple: "we are." It is the group dynamic. The individual has "need for others who have need of me and of each other"(297). Camus is no silly hippy singing Kum ba ya. He admits that this individualism is "in no sense pleasure," but he "cannot allow either myself or others to debase" our common dignity. Whose struggle might this be? Yours. Mine? Sisyphus'. It is the struggle of any individual in a group. Is Sisyphus alone? Yes, just like you and I are alone in our personal struggles, but we are not alone in that we all are alone. Paradoxical, but true?

What has happened to revolutionary trade-unionism? Camus says that despite the great gains of unions for improved working conditions, the "ideological Empire has turned socialism back on its tracks"(297).

Rebellion's association with with truth is that "Rebellion...relies on reality to assist it in its perpetual struggle for truth"(298), but it is an inverse relationship. Rebellion goes from top to bottom and truth works from bottom to top.

Thus, "if it (rebellion) wants revolution, it wants it on behalf of life" (298).

Commune against the state, concrete society against absolutist society, deliberate freedom against rational tyranny...altuistic individualism aginast the colonization of the masses"(299). Camus explains that these contradictions (oppositions) express the larger opposition of moderation and excess. This becomes a major theme for Camus. He is returning to a Greek ethos (See Aristotle's Means between Extremes) that encourages finding a limit to rebellion. Camus denies excess. The rebel rebels in order to pronounce an all or nothing philsophy, but in the end, this results in uncontrolled violence.

The other big dichotomy he brings up on page 299 is between "German dreams" and "Mediterranean traditions". The German dreams are "violent", "adolescent", nostalgic and based on knowledge and books. The Mediterranean is "virile strength" and courage reinforced by the experience of life. Camus clearly approves of the second set of values. The first set (the German) can be connected with excess. The second (the Greek) is characterized by moderation.

Historical absolutism collides with an irrepressible demand of human nature: rebellious thought. The rebel continues to deny reason and struggles even though it seems pointless. Rebellion is moderation, says Camus. To insist on moderation is "nothing but pure tension" (301). Keep this tension image in mind for later, when Camus gets out his bow string later...

Camus says that nature always takes up the fight against history. The Russians inspire Europe with their "potency of sacrifice"(300), while the Americans have "a necessary power of construction"(300).

Lucifer died with God, and from his ashes has a risen a spiteful demon who does not even understand the object of his venture.

Camus' stance toward excess (characterized earlier as the adolescent nostalgic German value system based on reason a la Hegel) is that it eventually wears itself out. He says it finds its limit and sacrifices itself, returning eventually to moderation (characterized earlier as the Greek virility based on the experience of life. This moderation is a perpetual conflict that finds its equilibrium through the "impossible" and the "abyss". The impossible is (in my view) the ideal we aim for, a utopia perhaps. The abyss is its mirror negative image. It is the pit of despair (Princess Bride!). It is the absurd condition, it is Sisyphus' rage at the gods.

This brings you to the line on the sheet, folks... good luck.

If you haven't read Stanley Fish's attack on U Albany in a recent NYT article, it is worth reading. I've put the article up on my Ed line page for all to read. I've also included Matthew Arnold on "The best which has been thought and said." Here is an excerpt:

There is a view [of culture] in which all the love of our neighbour, the impulses towards action, help, and beneficence, the desire for stopping human error, clearing human confusion, and diminishing the sum of human misery, the noble aspiration to leave the world better and happier than we found it—motives eminently such as are called social—come in as part of the grounds of culture, and the main and pre-eminent part. Culture is then properly described … as having its origin in the love of perfection; it is a study of perfection …

Then try Fish... He is far from a Victorian idealist. In fact, he is irritating in his pragmatic take:

It’s not their job to value the humanities or even to understand them. But it is the job of presidents and chancellors to proclaim the value of liberal arts education loudly and often and at least try to make the powers that be understand what is being lost when traditions of culture and art that have been vital for hundreds and even thousands of years disappear from the academic scene. President Philip cries crocodile tears. Real tears are in order.

Hear any echoes of Arnold on the shores of the Agean?

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.


Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Voting them in

I've heard a great deal lately about voting people out. Those who hold these signs, shaking them in our faces, seem like very angry people. Those who repeat the mantra in less angry tones say things like, well, I really don't know what else to do.

I would suggest something as equally absurd as simply voting for anyone except incumbents. Vote only for incumbents. Absurd? Of course it is. Voting for someone who has been in office for years simply because you are familiar with the guy is no reason to vote for him. Doesn't the guy's voting record matter? Of course it does.

By the same token, newcomers need to be checked out. Would you buy a new car this way? Would you become so angry with your old car that you just said, forget it, I'm just buying a car- I don't care what it looks like or how it drives!

If you can't take the time to look into who you're voting for. Stay home. Watch another episode of Jersey Shore. I was going to make a pun on the Situation, but it just doesn't seem worth it.