What I Demand of Life by Frank Swinnerton

My Deal-Me-In Challenge has been going the way of my other challenges this year, but I thought with a few months left in the year, I might try to resurrect it and at least finish well.  We'll see .... In any case, I drew the queen of Spades, which gave me an essay entitled, What I Demand of Life by Frank Swinnerton.

At the age of 40, Swinnerton is evaluating his life: what he has experienced and musing on the years to come.  While men can be failures in a number of ways, few fail from aiming too high, yet many aim amiss or do not aim at all and are like parasites on others.  These men should be pitied.  Swinnerton then lists things he does not want:

1. money
2. fame
3. a life of gaiety
4. possessions
5. innumerable acquaintances
6. contentment
7. people to sing "for he's a jolly good fellow"

Wealth has no value and breeds insincere friends.  Fame lacks privacy, brings judgement and breeds pomposity and tyrants.  Poverty gave Swinnerton a good spirit and he was able to land a job with a publish company, J.M Dent and Co., a job which honed his insights into human character.  He realized his dreams about living in a cottage, writing "goodish" novels and marrying for love.  He has good friends, the best, in fact, a good nature and because he is not labelled among the popular authors, is able to write what he wants.

Now we get to the title.  What does Swinnerton demand of life?

1. health
2. privacy
3. moderate security
4. affections of those dear to him
5. some leisure

Swinnerton is advocating a life of modest means.  

"That is the whole point.  No man can be satisfied with his attainment, although he may be satisfied with his circumstances ...... I have been returning thanks to good fortune.  I have been betraying perhaps, a readiness to be pleased with small results."

Swinnerton does not have lofty ambitions but only wishes to live the remainder of his life in enjoyment, immune from hardship.  

"I do not demand to be happy, because I expect --- on a basis of experience --- to be happy.  Is not happiness the most satisfactory of all possessions? .... when I come to die I shall be able --- in spirit at least --- to repeat the memorable last words of William Hazlitt ..... 'Well, I've had a happy life.'  Which of us --- uncertain travellers as we are upon uncharted ways --- can ask to say more?  Not I."

While I found Swinnerton's modest desires and thoughtful life philosophy interesting, I cannot say his expectations were particularly realistic.  Could he really be happy simply on expectation?  Could he avoid hardship because he had already experienced it and was therefore immune to it?  Could his moderate philosophy really bring happiness?

I supposed the fewer expectations we have, the less chance of being disappointed. There is something to be said for appreciating our lives as they are.  However, I'm not certain if I am in complete agreement with Swinnerton's approach to life.  What about you?  Is it better to accept mediocrity and be happy or to strive for higher ideals and perhaps encounter more dissatisfaction and strife but also maybe experience more intense joy and satisfaction?

Deal Me In Challenge 2018 #2 ~ Queen of Spades

The Great Ideas ~ The Darwinian Theory of Man's Origin

From How Different Are Humans? we move to the Darwinian Theory of Man, the argument and evidence for his origin and nature.  While Darwin did not present his theory until his second book, The Descent of Man, he relied on his first book, Origin of Species for the truths of his theory.

This is a tough chapter with complex ideas so bear with me.  I'm going to use many of Adler's quotes. Darwin's argument in The Descent of Man is structured as follows:

1. man differs only in degree from other animals;
2. man's origin can be like that of other species;
3. if man's origin were like that of other species, then missing links must have existed and must be discovered.

His whole argument is dependent on this first proposal being true; there can be no missing links if "there are no intermediate varieties possible between man and ape" and therefore no intermediate varieties are possible if man differs in "kind" from other animals, instead of by "degree".

Luckman protests that the scientific people he spoke with claim that there are only two positions: 1) a difference in degree only and; 2) that any differences in kind are always reducible to differences in degree.

Adler says that these people "beg the question" (begging the question is a logical fallacy when an argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion instead of supporting it).  They are right if things only differ in degree but they cannot say that the difference between kind and degree is indiscernible.  They cannot say that a difference in kind is reducible or a difference in degree is large enough to make a divergence to kind.  They cannot say that the difference between kind and degree is unintelligible because the fact they recognize a difference exists, makes their argument unintelligible.

Adler goes on to answer questions and observations from letters he received that support his point.  Then he moves on to the question, "how does man differ from other animals with or without intermediates, intermediate varieties?"

Ape in the Orange Grove (1910)
Henri Rousseau
source Wikiart

The Main Point of Darwin's Theory

Both Hume and Kant noted that man differs from other animals by degree alone with intermediate varieties hundreds of years before Darwin.  So what did Darwin add to the insistence on difference in degree?  He took their point and expanded it to theorize about man's origin which brought about his theory of evolution.

There are three main points to his theory:

1. from generation to generation organisms vary by hereditary
2. there is an accumulation and persistence of extreme variety
3. this persistence of extreme variety is accompanied by the extinction of intermediate varieties (if this was not so, there'd be no origin of species)

In Darwin's own words, "On the theory of natural selection the extinction of old forms and the production of new are intimately connected ... The only distinction between species and well-marked varieties is that the latter are known or believed to be connected at the present day with intermediate graduations. .... numberless intermediate varieties linking closley together all the species of the same group most assuredly have existed.  The number of intermediate and transitional links between all living and extant species must have been inconceivably great.  Yet, if this theory is true, they must have all existed at the same time on earth, linking together all the species in each group by graduation as fine as our existing varieties."

Adler states that if all the intermediate varieties co-existed at the same time today as the other species, there would be no species because "you would have a continuous connection of one with another."  Darwin claims the extinct fossil remains connecting man to ape exist, but simply haven't been discovered yet.  Under the assumption that man differs only in degree from apes, then the fossil remains do indeed form the missing link. Adler then lists man along with four anthropoid apes.

Man and Ape (2013)
Stanley Pinker
source Wikiart

Mental Differences Between Apes and Humans

The fossil remains are often reconstructions from a few bones, in particular the jawbone or skull bones and only point to a physical resemblance between man and ape. Luckman points out there are physiological and embryological resemblances as well and Adler agrees, but in addition to resemblances, there are enormous differences.  Yet he asks, scientifically how is ape separated from man?  The species of man is Homo sapien, therefore being sapient enough to have the intelligence to become wise and that is the main point; the mental difference is what is important, not the physical similarities or differences. The most important question remains; are the differences between man and ape kind or degree, and are they bridgeable?  If they are, the fossil remains can be missing links but if they are not, the fossil remains prove nothing.  Then, even if evolution can account for the origin of man's body, it cannot account for the origin of man's mind.

Luckman asks from a letter he received, why a highly rational species cannot have evolved fom a less-developed one.  Adler also points to another letter that asks why God cannot have created a rational man from a rationally undeveloped ape.  There is also a speculation of a new "ingredient" being added at the moment of man's origin, separating him from ape.

Allegory: boy lighting a candle in the company of an ape and a fool - Fábula (c. 1590)
El Greco
source Wikiart

Alder circles back to Darwin's argument which did not depend on the anatonomical or physiological resemblances, but man's mental development, knowing full well his argument would not stand if the two were not linked.  He quotes Darwin's words: "My object is to show that there is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties.  Animals possess the power of reasoning just as much as men do ..." He says they can speak abstractly, understand human speech, etc. He claims though if there is a difference mentally, it is only of degree.

Next time, Adler says he will share more of Darwin's reasoning, and add to it evidence that has been done since then in animal learning, speech and thought, which he says gives strong evidence for the evolutionary theory.  However, if this evidence was indisputable, the matter would have ended  But Adler says it can be disputed and he will present equally compelling evidence in the next discussion, The Answer to Darwin.

My apologies for the length of the post.  It helped me to try to get my head around Adler's ideas, and of course, Darwin's. I hope it didn't put the rest of you to sleep! :-)

The Great Ideas ~ How Different Are Humans?

The discussion continues from How To Think About Man, with the examination of the two questions, the nature of man and the origin of man.  In the last talk/essay, both opposing views were presented: before Darwin man was seen as having a special, distinct nature, but after Darwin he is see only differing in degree from other animals but is otherwise the same.

Adler wishes to approach this issue logically as it is important to see the issue clearly in order to access both arguments.  Luckman says that they have received letters criticizing Adler for taking the side of Darwin and Adler expresses his delight.  He implies his view is the exact opposite and is pleased with the error as it proves he is so far presenting the argument without any personal bias.  He does not plan to argue either for or against any one side, merely to present the issues logically and fairly.

Young Man (The impassioned singer)
Giovane uomo (Il cantore appassionato)
Giogorgione
source Wikiart

Differences in Kind and Differences in Degree

Adler begins with the definition of man.  There have been many definitions, but defining him as a "rational animal" is the most accurate, as it underlies all the other definitions. However it is not the definition but the interpretation of it that is the issue as it implies humans alone are rational.

Adler moves to the distinction between "kind" and "degree" which is important to understand to move ahead in the examination of the issues.  He gives an analogy of two lines of different lengths.  They have the same traits, only one is longer and one is shorter.  They differ in degree.  However, a circle and a square do not have common traits --- one has angles and one does not --- their differences are differences in kind.

Luckman says many scientists believe that the difference between kind and degree, is itself a difference of kind or degree; he gives the example of a many-many-sided polygon which eventually approaches and appears like a circle. Adler does not agree with this statement.  No matter how closely the polygon will appear like a circle, it will never be a circle; "difference in degree is never difference in kind and vice versa." When two things differ in degree, there always can be intermediates, such as an intermediate line between the two in his above example, but there is no intermediates between differences in kind.  They can have things in common, but there will always be a property or charcteristic that the other completely lacks.  The one with the additional property will be hierachically above the other.

Luckman interjects, saying that it seems that Adler's definition of difference in kind is accepted by evolutionists and he wants to know how Adler thinks they differ.  After all, apes are different from horses and therefore so must man be different.  He does not see the issue.  Adler says there is one, and he intends to make it clear.

Man and Ape
Stanley Pinker
source Wikiart

Differences in Kind Exclude Intermediate Forms

Adler claims Luckman made a misstatement and although the evolutionists do see some forms of life as lower and some higher, they believe they differ only in degree.  How does Adler know this?  Because evolutionists believe in the continuity of nature.  There would be "no underlying continuity in nature .... unless intermediate varieties were possible as between different species in the scale of thing or the greater things".  These intermediate varieties must be possible, even if they are only missing links.  Those species which the biologist classifies as kinds are only apparent kinds, yet with the definition of man, they are real kinds.

Adler offers two conceptions:

1. a conception of species with missing links between them, with intermediate varieties
2. a conception of species without any missing links or without any intermediate varieties

The present biological understanding is that species are only apparent kinds, separated by the possibility of intermediate varieties and therefore can be a difference in degrees.

One more fact, modern science has hypothesized that if all possible forms of life or every species ever know existed on earth at the same time, there would be no species, just individual differences in degree.    The philosophical conception is species are real kinds with no intermediate varieties; modern biology sees the kinds with a possibility of intermediate varieties.

We get back to the question of how man differs from other animals: if in kind there is no intermediate varieties possible, but if in degree there are possibilities of intermediate varieties.

Adler emphasizes that so far he has only presented the facts without prejudice to one side or the other.    Next time, he is going to present the evidence and arguments from the evolutionist's point of view, that man only differs in degree which sets the stage for natural evolution.  He will then produce arguments and evidence for the opposing side, that man differs essentially in kind which would make a natural evolutionary process impossible.

Phew!  This talk became hard to follow about halfway through but I do believe I get Adler's point.  His next essay/talk is The Darwinian Theory of Man's Origin.

Doodles in the Dictionary by Aldous Huxley

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec
source Wikimedia Commons

Ah, my first essay by Aldous Huxley and I didn't know what style to expect.  He first begins by lamenting the insufferable boredom experienced by having to learn Greek and Latin in school.  Even the mention of these subjects he still finds tedious and can only find one benefit of having been forced through hours of searching for words in his Lexicon:

"I hate to think of all that wasted time.  And yet, in view of the fact that most human beings are destined to pass most of their lives at jobs in which it is impossible for them to take the slightest interest, this old-fashioned training with the dictionary may have been extremely salutary.  At least it taught one to know and expect the worst of life.  Whereas the pupil in a progressive school, where everything is made to seem entertaining and significant, lives in a fool's paradise." 

When his bookseller friend requested his presence to view an item that he was extremely thrilled to purchase, Huxley was dismayed to find that it was a Latin dictionary. However, when he found it wasn't just any Latin dictionary, but the one owned by the famous painter, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, his interest was piqued.

source Wikipedia

Toulouse-Lautrec created these "doodles in the dictionary" when he was sixteen years old, a mere two years after two accidents which would change his life forever.  First, he broke one leg, and then the other, and neither leg grew again, therefore upon adulthood, he had the legs of a fourteen year old and the body of a man.  Having to live as a "dwarfish monster", Lautrec immersed himself in his drawing and painting.

Aristide Bruant on His Bicycle (1892)
Henri Toulouse-Lautrec
source Wikiart

Huxley muses that up to the age of ten, the muse of genius is within every child, but with instruction that muse disintegrates until only one in four thousand people have any talent for art.  He calls this fact an "unsolved riddle" and hopes one day to learn the answer, whereupon education will be able to be transformed into a "social and individual reconstruction".  Hmmm .......  who would decide what needed to be reconstructed and why?  Who would be doing the reconstructing and under what premise?  It's all very vague and rather disturbing.

Artilleryman Saddling His Horse (1879)
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
source Wikiart

In any case, early on it was evident that Toulouse-Lautrec had rare talent for drawing and he was also proficient in Latin, earning prizes for translation and composition.  While his drawings at sixteen showed a maturity and flair that was unsurpassed for his age, his first master Bonnat was lukewarm with his praise.  In a letter to his Uncle Charles, Toulouse-Lautrec communicated his teacher's comments:  "Your painting isn't bad; it's clever, but still it isn't bad.  But your drawing is simply atrocious."  Judging from a comment from another student, Huxley believes Toulouse-Lautrec had a propensity to exaggerate his subjects, to "prettify" them in a way that was perhaps not pleasing.  Yet Huxley believes that facts are perhaps not so immutable as we perceive them, and that everyone can view each reality differently.  And facts can also cover a variety of disciplines: for example, he says, the H-bomb can at once be involved in physics, chemistry, physiology, medicine, genetics, psychology, politics, economics, ethics and even be an aesthetic fact, as the cloud it makes is quite beautiful.  Toulouse-Lautrec simply chose to communicate in his art the aspects that preoccupied him and "found no incompatibility between truth to nature and distortion." His exaggeration perhaps brought life to his art, which would align with Hsieh Ho, the fourth dynasty Chinese artist who stated that the First Principle of Chinese Painting ".... is that, through a vitalizing spirit, a painting should possess the movement of life," and the sinologist, Osvald Siren agreed, "that the First Principle refers to something beyond the material form, call it character, soul, or expression. It depends on the operation of the spirit, or the myserious breath of life, by which the figures may become as though they were moving or breathing."

Fishing Boat (1880)
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
source Wikiart

Huxley brings the subject of the horse into his essay, lamenting its passing into the history of transport and surmising that it was heading towards extinction.  It embodied the expression of life from its splendid grace, from the thoroughbred down to the old hack; in modern times we are only left with man who is a graceless uninteresting creature.  The advent of the automobile, and in fact all technology, detracts from life and therefore from our enjoyment of it.  Lautrec's father had advocated for the health of the outdoors but sadly, Lautrec was not destined for such a life because of his accident and became, instead, fascinated by the race-track, Montmartre known for its public dancing and cabarets, alcohol and prostitutes.

"The drunks and tarts, the lecherous gentlemen in top hats, the sensation-hunting ladies in feather boas, the stable boys, the lesbians, the bearded surgeons performing operations with a horrifying disregard of the first principles of asepsis ....... these became the subject matter of most of Lautrec's pictures, the environment in which he liked to live.  He portrayed them simply as curiosities, passing no moral judgment, but simply rendering the intrinsic oddity of what he saw around him."

His interest in the theatre grew, of which sketches can be seen in the dictionary of jesters, actors and actresses.  He did not portray women in a sexual way nor with any discrimination, only executing them as he would any other subject, "from memory and with appropriate distortions, rendered their life-movement, now graceful, now grotesque, and the underlying rhythm of the mysterious spirit that manifests itself within that movement."

And so concludes an essay that I thought would be an educational treatise and ended up being about the creation of art, and secondary the sad demise of a creative talent. Huxley did not reveal that Lautrec died from the effects of alcoholism and syphilis at the age of 36 years old.

Next up is classic children's book, The Finn Family Moomintroll.  I absolutely love this book; it is tied for my all-time favourite children's classic.  I can't wait to read it again and share some unique Moomintroll adventures!

Week 9 - Deal Me In Challenge - Two of Spades

Politics and the English Language by George Orwell

I haven't yet read enough of Orwell's works to decide whether I like him or not, but one thing I have learned in our short acquaintance is that he's not one to prevaricate or candy-coat his ideas.  If you don't want his opinions, don't read him, and if you do, get ready to duck!

Orwell begins his essay, Politics and the English Language, by speculating on the impending collapse of the English Language. Is its demise a mirroring of society's cultural suicide, simply an innocuous descent that is only natural given the state of our world?  Yet Orwell believes that there is not just a natural cause, but more pointedly, political and economic ones, and even the effects themselves can become causes that reinforce the original cause.  For example:

"A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks.  It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language.  It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier to us to have foolish thoughts."

There is a remedy though: if we clean up our bad habits when applying language to thoughts, our thoughts will become clearer.

A Song Without Words (1919)
John William Godward
source Wikiart

Orwell now gives five writing examples exemplifying problems with how people use language:

1. an essay by Professor Harold Laski (who uses 5 negatives in 53 words)
2. a paragraph from Interglossa by Professor Lancelot Hogben (mixed metaphors)
3. an essay on psychology in Politics (meaninglessness)
4. a Communist pamphlet (stale phrases)
5. a letter in the Tribune (words and meaning part company)

The two main problems in all these examples are a "staleness of imagery" and a "lack of precision".  Modern English prose is ripe with these issues, but they crop up continuously in political writing.   Instead of sticking with concrete thoughts, the abstract creepy in, melting away the valuable meaning of ideas, instead consisting of a stringing together of hackneyed phrases.  He then lists examples of the ways that the adequate construction of prose is habitually avoided.

Dying Metaphors:  These are metaphors between the good and bad, a garbage dump of metaphors that have lost all expressive power and are used only to avoid the trouble of creating new evocative phrases.  Whenever inconsistent phrases are mixed or the original meaning is convoluted, it is evidence that the person is not particularly interested in what they are saying.

Operators of Verbal False Limbs:  Used to avoid choosing correct verbs and nouns but give the appearance of a harmony by expanding the sentence with the use of extra syllables.  Examples of such are: make itself felt, exhibit a tendency to, etc.  In addition, the passive voice is preferred instead of the active, noun constructions are employed instead of gerunds (by examination instead of by examining), verbs are cut down by -ize and de- formations, clichéd statements are presented as intelligent by the not un- formation, clean conjunctions and prepositions are replaced by phrases such as, with respect to, the fact that, etc, and sentence completions are made to sound mundane by such phrases as deserving serious consideration, etc.

Pretentious Diction:  Catch words are used to adorn simple statements to give biased judgements an appearance of scientific authority.  He goes on to describe specific words used in political writings, claiming the result is slovenliness and vagueness, to obscure the real issues.

Meaningless Words:  Passages with a complete dearth of meaning abound in many areas of writing, but principally in art and literary criticism.  Orwell gives a few examples, such as:

"The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far it signifies 'something not desirable.'  The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another.  In the case of democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides.  It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of régime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.  Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way.  That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different."

In an attempt to show that modern writing does not choose words for meaning nor does it evoke powerful images for clarity, Orwell gives first an example from Ecclesiastes, and then his own modern translation.  His experiment is quite fascinating:

Ecclesiastes:

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, or yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Modern English:

Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

He then analyzes them to show the weakness of the translation and claims modern writing is lazy, borrowing ideas and phrases and "gumming" them together in order to use minimal mental effort; also there is often an attempt to convey emotional meaning without attention to detail nor the actual point.

Language is Not Transparent
Mel Bochner
source Wikiart

A responsible writer will ask himself the following questions when writing:

What am I trying to say?
What words will express it?
What image or idiom will make it clearer?
Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?
Could I put it more shortly?
Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

However, Orwell says, most writers are contend to string together cliches, obscuring their meaning even to themselves.

In politics, the writing is particularly dreadful, all the literary mistakes converging and causing the viewers to feel that "one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy," who is being transformed into a machine by the very words he speaks.  By the constant bombardment of meaningless jargon, people's consciousness becomes sleepy and allows atrocities to be labelled as pacification, or transfer of population, or elimination of unreliable elements.  This particular phraseology has no metaphor content and therefore images are lacking, allowing the reader/listener to easily dismiss the human connection and thus controlling our emotional response to it.  Inflated euphemisms are used to justify cruelty.

The Treachery of Images (1948)
Rene Magritte
source Wikiart

Yet while thoughts are able to corrupt language, the reverse is also true.  You can catch this impoverished writing, like a disease, and have your mind affected by it.  Orwell admits that in his essay he has committed some of the literary crimes he is attempting to reveal.  The only way to avoid these faults is to continually be on guard against them. We can start by eradicating worn-out phrases and metaphors, but the change must go deeper.  He goes on to explain what these changes do not imply, then gives the reader rules to follow when intuition fails:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

By applying these rules, one could still write badly, but one could not write the drivel of which he has been speaking or using as examples.  His goal with his essay is not to consider "the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought."

For:

"Political language --- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists --- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

Young Girl Learning to Write
Camille Corot
source Wikiart

A very powerful essay by Orwell and one that requires time and deep thought to digest. On most points, I agree with him wholeheartedly, but there are a few minor claims that poke at my passion for words.  To use less words that have Greek or Latin roots, seems overly particular.  These words have been in use for centuries and add to the language instead of detracting from it.  And while Orwell didn't directly say that he takes offence at larger more complex words, the appearance in his examples was to severely diminish them (sorry, if I misread you, George, but that was my impression).  While I certainly do not advocate using complex words to diminish meaning or cloak intent, I do think that they are valuable for enjoyment in reading.  Would one rather have a French seven course dinner, or MacDonald's?  If one is discerning in the culinary arts, certainly the former.  However, just as the ingredients for the seven course dinner would have to be used with style and attention, so must complex words be, when writing.

My next choice for my Deal Me In Challenge is suppposed to be a children's classic, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aitken, but I'm having some trouble finding it (yes, those of you who know of my "issue" of losing my DMI choices can laugh at me), so next week might find a different post appearing.  Time shall reveal!

Week 5 - Deal Me In Challenge - Eight of Spades

Vulgarity by G.K. Chesterton

Interior of a Tavern, Peasants Carousing (1635)
Master of the Large Jars
source ArtUK

I've been keen to read a Chesterton essay for awhile now, but have not drawn him for the Deal Me In challenge yet.  Luckily, this time, he's my first draw of the year!

Wearing many hats, Chesterton is known for his poetry, philosophy, theology, orating, journalism, biographies, and literary and art criticism.  I haven't read many of his essays, but of those I have, I've found his style entirely unique, a sort of meandering while at the same time being very pointed.  Reading this essay was similar to my previous experience.

Although more practical inventions such as telephones and aeroplanes have foreshadowings of their later inventions, vulgarity itself is so new that even its name is somewhat misleading.  The Latin word "vulgus" was generally used to describe "something that was not particularly common among the common people."  In fact, the vulgar is not very common if one searches for evidence of it.  Farmers, peasants, the poor, and even savages are rarely vulgar.  This new "thing" requires a new name and definition and although Chesterton questions his ability to give it, because he has just been reading a book about love, he has a few ideas.  Curious ..... I can't wait to see what he comes up with.

Vulgarity consists of two elements: facility and familiarity.  The first means that a man may "gush", that his words flow without any thought or self-control; they "stream from him like perspiration".  He appears confident and admired but he "never need stop explaining himself, for he understands neither himself nor the limits of explanation."  The second element can be defined as profanity, a "loss of holy fear and a sin against the mystical side of man."  This man can "handle things confidently and contemptuously, without the sense that all things in their way are sacred things."

"The point is that the fool is so subjective that it never occurs to him to be afraid of the subject."  He can be both a Pagan fool and a Puritan fool, because each is so familiar with his subject that he becomes blind to the depths of it and loses his objectivity.  On the other hand, a man writing to the woman he loves or the saint writing of his sin, is able to view each with a clear perspective because he has a healthy respect for each and the complexities are clear to him.

Phew!  I certainly understood the gist of Chesterton's points but following his train of thought can be challenging.  I suspect that I need more practice!

Next week for my Deal Me In Challenge, I'll be reading the short story, A Little Woman by Franz Kafka, my first reading of Kafka ever.

Week 1 - Deal Me In Challenge - King of Spades

Different Tastes in Literature by C.S. Lewis

Art and Literature (1867)
William-Adolphe Bouguereau
source Wikiart

Is there good literature?  Is there bad literature?  How do we make the determination, and do we even have the criteria to judge?  In his essay, Different Tastes in Literature, if Lewis does not directly answer these questions, he at least gives the reader criteria that makes it easier to judge, and challenges us to examine our reading experiences.

First, Lewis investigates the notion of "tastes" and indicates a determination between good and bad literature is complicated by the fact that there are no objective tests.  But the error people make is in assuming that people like bad art in the same way that they like good art.  Instead, Lewis proposes, bad art does not succeed with anyone.

Lewis defines bad art as very low art, such as novels, and popular music that are read or sung and then forgotten soon after.  When it goes out of fashion, it is never thought of afterward.

Geniuses of Art (1761)
Francois Boucher
source Wikiart

Yet while bad art itself is not so easy to describe, the consumer of bad art is more easily targeted:

"He (or she) may want her weekly ration of fiction very badly indeed, may be miserable if denied it.  But he never re-reads.  There is no clearer distinction between the literary and the unliterary.  It is infallible.  The literary man re-reads, other men simply read.  A novel once read is to them like yesterday's newspaper ...... It is as if a man said he had once washed, or once slept, or once kissed his wife, or once gone for a walk.  Whether the bad poetry is re-read or not .... I do not know.  But the very fact that we do not know is significant.  It does not creep into the conversation of those who buy it.  One never finds two of its lovers capping quotations and settling down to a good evening's talk about their favourite.  So with the bad picture.  The purchaser says, no doubt sincerely, that he finds it lovely, sweet, beautiful, charming or (more probably) 'nice'.  But he hangs it where it cannot be seen and never looks at it again."

With bad art, there is no question of the 'joy' that good art brings. "The desire for bad art is the desire bred of habit: like the smoker's desire for tobacco, more marked by the extreme malaise of denial than by any very strong delight in fruition."

Art Critic
Norman Rockwell
source Wikiart

On experiencing good art, it is not like moving from one type to the next, but more like "when you opened the door, to lead to the garden of the Hesperides ...."  However, we must not say that some men like good art and some bad, rather that the term "like" is not the proper word for good art, and the response towards good art, has never been produced in bad.

Is it too simple to say that bad art does not ever have the same effect on a person as good art?  What about those books that captured our imagination in youth but that we now consider bad?  Might this simply mean that the reader's imagination was superior to the author's, but lacking both maturity and discernment?  In effect, we would not have been enjoying the book for what it was, but for what it was not.  But this "mirage" is quite different from the actual liking of bad art.  Bad art is "tepid, trivial, marginal, habitual.  It does not trouble them, nor haunt them ..... No one cares about bad art in the same way as some care about good."  It is only when we eliminate the bad art that the discussions about the superiority of one work of art to another can have some value.

The Disquieting Muses (1916-18)
Giorgio di Chirico
source Wikiart

In this essay, Lewis more distinguishes what is not good art than what is, however his insights, as always, are invaluable.  We have so little time on this earth.  Life comes and goes in the blink of an eye.  Don't we want to be discerning about our literary choices and choose to read works that add perspective, wisdom and purpose to our lives, instead of reading words that pass through us in the blink of an eye?  I do.

Deal Me In Challenge #10 

The World of Tomorrow by E.B. White

I seem to be getting mostly essays lately for my Deal Me In Challenge.  This week, I read The World of Tomorrow by E.B. White, the famed author of Charlotte's Web.  White wrote this essay about the 1939 World's Fair in New York, where visions of the future abounded and a bright tomorrow was laid before eager and credulous eyes.

"The eyes of the fair are on the future ---- not in the sense of peering toward the unknown nor attempting to foretell the events of tomorrow and the shape of things to come, but in the sense of presenting a new and clearer view of today in preparation for tomorrow; a view of the forces and ideas that prevail as well as the machines.

To the visitors the Fair will say, 'Here are the materials, ideas and forces at work in our world.  These are the tools with which the forces of the World of Tomorrow must be made.  They are all interesting and much effort has been expended to lay them before you in an interesting way.  Familiarity with today is the best preparation for the future."
                                                  ( ~ official New York World's Fair pamphlet)

British Pavilion
source Wikipedia

Someone is obviously trying to sell something grand, and it was enlightening to read about White's experience at the Fair.  Right from the start, we sense a disconnect between the two, as he personifies the event.  His first sentences read:  "I wasn't really prepared for the World's Fair last week, and it certainly wasn't prepared for me. Between the two of us there was considerable of a mixup."  White informs the reader that upon his visit, he had a cold and that "when you can't breath through your nose, Tomorrow seems strangely like the day before yesterday."  He then gives a catalogue of the exhibitors with strangely impersonal names such as Kix, Astring-O-Sol, Textene, Alka-Seltzer and the Fidelity National Bank. White's impressions do not inspire awe or a trust in Tomorrow.

"It is all rather serious-minded, this World of Tomorrow, and extremely impersonal.  A ride on the Futurama of General Motors induces approximately the same emotional response as a trip through the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.  The countryside unfolds before you in $5-million micro-lovliness, conceived in motion and executed by Norman Bel Geddes. The voice is a voice of utmost respect, of complete religious faith in the eternal benefaction of faster travel ........  When night fall in the General Motors exhibit and you lean back in the cushioned chair (yourself in motion and the world so still) and hear (from the depths of the chair) the soft electric assurance of a better life --- the life which rests on wheels alone --- there is a strong, sweet poison which infects the blood.  I didn't want to wake up.  I liked 1960 in purple light, going a hundred miles an hour around impossible turns ever onward toward the certified cities of the flawless future.  It wasn't till I passed an apple orchard and saw the trees, each blooming under its own canopy of glass, that I perceived that even the General Motors dream as dreams so often do, left some questions unanswered about the future.  The apple tree of Tomorrow, abloom under its inviolate hood, makes you stop and wonder.  How will the little boy climb it?  Where will the bird build its nest?"

White makes a few other observations which are very powerful statements:

"In Tomorrow, people and objects are not lit from above but from below" 

"Rugs do not slip in Tomorrow, and the bassinets of newborn infants are wired against kidnappers.  There is no talking back in Tomorrow.  You are expected to take it or leave it alone." 

"In Tomorrow, most sounds are not the sounds themselves but a memory of sounds, or an electrification."

At the end of the essay, instead of remembering the Fair itself, White's recollections are quite different:  the trees at night, eerie shadows, fountains in the light, a girl, remembered not just as passing impressions, but in generous detail.  The last line of the essay stabs home his point:

"Here was the Fair, all fairs, in pantomime; and here the strange mixed dream that made the Fair: the heroic man, bloodless and perfect and enormous, created in his own image, and in his hand (rubber, aspetic) the literal desire, the warm and living breast."

After my first read of this essay, I was left completely unmoved.  I had no interest in the 1939 World's Fair, and White's ramblings about his cold, standing in line, etc. which I found annoyingly pointless.  It was only when I read the essay for a second time, that his consummate skill as a writer drummed me over the head.  Though not stating his views outright, with each sentence White was building his case, having the reader experience the loss of humanness and empathy that the rapid rise of technology was moving towards.  When one places the value of machines and progress above the people they are supposed to be serving, you lose the human qualities of life and the simplicity, the wonder and human connection in life that make it so fulfilling.

Perhaps it's telling that White moved from New York to Maine that very year.


Deal Me In Challenge #8

Out Of Your Car, Off Your Horse by Wendell Berry

This "essay" is set up in point-form with the sub-title, Twenty-seven Propositions About Global Thinking and the Sustainability of Cities.  It's going to be difficult to review, not only because of the structure, but also because Berry is such an original thinker and has so much of value to say.  It is almost a shame to leave anything out.

  1.  Global thinking is not possible; those who claim to be global thinkers have
       done so in a manner too simplistic and oppressive to merit the word
       "thinker".  Global thinkers are dangerous (national ones too) and he gives
       the example of his state of Kentucky being used as a garbage dump.
       Apparently it's okay with everyone except those who live in the state.

  2.  Global thinking is only based on statistics and can only do something if it is willing to
       be destructive on a large scale, however, conversely, one is able to make a positive
       impact locally.  Global thinking takes you so far from your neighbourhood, soon you
       are unable to recognize it.  Instead, get out of your spaceship, car, or horse and
       walk on the solid earth to discover its wonder.

   3.  If we really thought locally, we would make better choices and those choices would
        make a positive impact globally.

  4.  By making the local community independent, self-sufficient and capable, and do it
       with creativity, mercy and endurance, we ensure the community is seen in "proper
       relation" to the rest of the world, instead of employing "presumptuous abstractions
       of 'global thought'".

  5.  We must ensure that we don't demand too much of the globe, and therefore help
       destroy it, and to accomplish this desire, we must live at home as independently
       and self-sufficiently as we are able.  The earth's limitations should be constantly
       kept in mind.

  6.  A sustainable city can only exist if the city and countryside are in balance.

  7.  Our current cities are "out of balance", living off the "principal" of ecology without
       adding to it, and their faulty assumptions will lead to their downfall.

  8.  Industrial machinery has contributed to the destruction of this balance, by providing
       cheap production and transportation.

  9.  Since the Civil War, and more since WWII, the fossil-fuel industries regulate the
       patterns of productivity.

10.  Fossil fuel sources are rural and historically have been produced at the expense of
       the community and local ecosystems, because care of these does not profit the
       producer.  "It assigns no value to local life, natural or human."

11.  When industrial principles are applied to field and forest, both die.

12.  Industrial principles forced onto the countryside make people dependent and the
       corporations powerful.  A small number of people own land, and the workers are
       hostages of their employers.

13.  Our leaders, most of whom have wealth, do not understand how to make
       community function well because they must be ready at any time for power and
       wealth to destroy community.

14.  Ecological sense is in conflict with economic entities because it requires reduction
       or replacement of those entities.  Only the work and will of the people can further
       this "sense".

15.  Because now all institutions have adopted industrial methods of organizational
       patterns and quantitative measures, both sides of the ecological debate are
       alarmingly abstract.

16.  The abstraction is what's wrong.  The evil of either capitalist or communist industrial
       economy is its inability to distinguish one place or person or creature from another.

17.  The abstractions of sustainability can destroy the world, the same as the
       abstractions of industrial economy.  Even those who want to save the plant can ruin
       it by abstractions and central organization because they cannot know the local
       nature or community.

18.  You must make ecological good sense locally.  You can't act locally and think
       globally.

19.  No one can make ecological good sense for the planet; everyone can make
       ecological good sense locally, if the scale, knowledge, tools and skills are right.

20.  "The right scale in work gives power to affection".  When when one works beyond a
       love for a place, destruction results, and an adequate local culture is needed for
       balance.  (I didn't quite understand this point.  Sorry, Wendell!)

21.  How do we make a local culture that will preserve our community?  We need a
       knowledge that comes from or with affection, but is unavailable to the unaffectionate
       or to anyone simply as "information".

22.  What is the economic result of a local affection?  We may never know as love can
       be enigmatic and unfathomable, and the answer would never satisfy a corporate
       executive.

23.  The steps to saving the planet are small steps, which are humbling and rewarding.
       Its jobs and successes will be many but rarely noticed, nor will they make anyone
       wealthy or eminent.

24.  Many people are motivated by fame instead of greed, but this sort of attitude will
       never truly be a benefit to the planet.

25.  Good workers are persons willing to enter the daunting and humbling local
       presence of a problem and tackle it one life at a time.

26.  Some cities will never be sustainable because they don't have countryside
       surrounding them or near them.  For example, New York or Phoenix will never be
       sustainable.

27.  To make a city sustainable, start small by increasing local food brought in by
       farmers, then as the demand for local food grows, farming could become more
       diverse, the farms smaller yet more complex in structure and production, and also
       provide more jobs.  As the intimacy of city and countryside grow, their thought
      would become more unified towards sustainability.

Lately, I've been reading Alexander Schmemann's Great Lent, and I was surprised to see Berry's words in this essay echoed back in a Christian context.

"In this respect, Christian love is sometimes the opposite of 'social activism' with which one so often identifies Christianity today.  To a 'social activist' the object of love is not 'person' but man, an abstract unit of a not less abstract 'humanity.'  But for Christianity, man is 'loveable' because he is person.  There person is reduced to man; here man is seen only as person. The 'social activist' has no interest for the personal, and easily sacrifices it to the 'common interest.'  Christianity may seem to be, and in some ways is, rather sceptical about that abstract 'humanity,' but it commits a mortal sin against itself each time it gives up its concern and love for the person. Social activism is always 'futuristic' in its approach; it always acts in the name of justice, order, happiness to come, to be achieved.  Christianity cares little about that problematic future but puts the whole emphasis on the now --- the only decisive time for love.  The two attitudes are not mutually exclusive, but they must not be confused.  Christians, to be sure, have responsibilities toward 'this world' and they must fulfil them.  This is the area of 'social activism' which belongs entirely to 'this world.'  Christian love, however, aims beyond 'this world.' ...... "

I hope that I've done Berry's words justice with my review.  I've tried to keep his ideas and words as close to his own as possible for clarity.  It's a great essay and I encourage you to read it.  Once again, with his clear insight, Berry brings to light many problems with the structure of our world today and the callous, ineptness of those in power to even attempt to set it right.  However, his words to bring hope.  When we think 'big' often the problems seem too overwhelming to solve, but when we think small, or locally, everyone has a purpose and change is possible, one life at a time.

All images from Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons

Deal Me In Challenge #7