The other day I was flipping through one of my philosophy books by Peter Kreeft in search of something entirely different when I chanced across a passage about Immanuel Kant. I was very gleeful at my find and saved the page so I could share it with everyone.
As if everyone in the class reads my blog. In fact, I am quite sure that less than 50% of the class even cares what the rest writes on their blogs. Actually, if anyone else in the class reads my blog I will be surprised.
I mean, they haven't commented on anything. Granted, that's a smart move. I was under the impression last semester that Dr. Brewton had mandated we were all to use Blogger so we could comment on everyone else'se blog. So I commented on someone's blog. I promptly felt like a creepy stalker and have wanted to delete that comment ever since. (Is it possible to do so?) I wondered if I should post another comment apologizing, decided that would be equally creepy, pondered apologizing in person, and decided that would be really creepy. I have settled for pretending it never happened and trying not to randomly freak out in said person's presence.
Here's to hoping said person has forgotten it entirely.
ANYWAY, back to the business at hand. A Refutation of Moral Relativism, by Peter Kreeft, page 48-49:
"[Kant] called his most important idea his "Copernican revolution in philosophy". That was the notion that the human mind makes the truth instead of discovering it, that truth is formed by the human mind. And that includes moral truth. Kant called true morality "autonomous", that is, man-made rather than "heteronomous", made by another, by God. So our will makes the moral law, not God's. We make it; we don't discover it. I'd call that subjectivism. It's nine-thenths of the way to moral relativism. It's not yet moral relativism because Kant also believed that all minds necessarily worked the same way and created the same morality-- like logic or math. So morality was universal and necessary for Kant but not objective."
Of course, the temptation with such a values system as subjectivism is that if you have made up your own morality, you can change it whenever and whyever you want. (Is 'whyever' a word? If not, it should be. It sounds cool.) And so, to continue with our journey into Kreeft:
"Kant tried to prevent that, but he failed. He tried to prevent it by arguing that I can't logically succeed in creating my own morality contrary to the universal Golden Rule, and absolute "Categorical Imperative". It's logically inconsistent to will that everyone lie or steal when I do. But he failed because why should I care about logic if I made that up too?"
You have to admit, it makes sense in a rather chilling way... And so Kant seems to have realized the destructive tide his theory would unleash, and tried to stem it. However, he should have known it wouldn't work. Because along came Hegel, who destroyed the last bit of objective reality Kant still allowed. To wit:
"Kant called it "things in themselves". He believed that this was something real but unknowable. Hegel argued: if it's unknowable, if we can't know it, then how can you know it's there? Knowing the unknowable enough to know it exists- that's a self-contradiction. Kant tried to limit thought, to draw a border to thought; but to do that, you have to think both sides of the border."
As if attempting (and doing a good job of it) to destroy common belief in objective reality were not enough, Hegel didn't stop there, but further postulated an idea that helped form relativism: "universal process. Everything flose; everything is in flux. Truth itself evolves, even God evolves, through human history, according to Hegel."
And then popped up Mr. Doom-and-Gloom, Friedrich Nietzsche, who announced, "God is dead." I find it darkly ironic and amusing, in a schadenfreude sort of way, that he said a man would go insane without God, which he did.
Have you made it all the way through this blog post? Congratulations! I would give you a big gold star if I could.
However, since I can't, I'll give you this picture from Catholic Memes:
...Or, at least, so saith the article on TVTropes. My favorite of the examples given: that from Thud! by Terry Pratchett (since I have actually read that book), where Sergeants Colon and Nobbs, while investigating an art theft, notice two pieces by a certain Daniellarina Pouter: (1) Don't Talk to Me About Mondays, which consists of a pile of rags, and (2) Freedom, which consists of a stake to which Ms. Pouter had been nailed after Lord Vetinari saw the previous piece.
Ahh.... I knew there was a reason I loved Lord Vetinari, in addition to his addiction to insanely complex crossword puzzles.
Don't be alarmed. Ms. Pouter was delighted and is apparently now planning to nail herself to a wide variety of objects in the near future, as part of a special exhibition. Oh, Pterry, you...
Anyway, so today we covered the French poet Charles Baudelaire. He was a great fan of Edgar Allan Poe, so that explains a lot. He seems to be best classified as a horror poet, if there is such a genre as horror poetry. If there's not, I am greatly surprised. Anyway, he apprently looked for the beauty in the most unglamorous of objects, and glorified such revolting things as a decaying corpse. O.o
I mean, really. Are you serious?
To tell the truth, I got about halfway through Carrion before going, "Ugh, I can't take any more of this." I generally have a strong stomach for such things, unless it is completely pointless, excessive, or prolonged (made it through biology lab, and only felt the urge to throw up once we starting taking apart cow eyeballs in search of the retinae and once another boy managed to shove his fist down a cow aorta).
I am not at all bothered by spiders, and once when we had an infestation of rats in the barn (I live on a farm, for all you uninitiated out there) I was the one having to carry the (huge) corpses out to go throw them in the field. Sometimes there would be three or four a day. And these were RATS, not mice. Mice generally don't grow to be a foot long, y'know. The only one that made me jump I refer to as the Thanksgiving Day Horror (since it was on Thanksgiving Day, of course). I picked it up, and, to put it mildly... the bottom fell out. With lots of bonus, wriggly, pale worms. I'll leave the rest to your imagination... Pleasant dreams tonight!
Anyway, I realized that I had actually once read poetry of this sort before, and so naturally, since I love giving people nightmares apparently, I must share it.
First off, it was written by a man who lived from about 306 to 373 AD, known as St. Ephrem. He is chronologically the second Doctor of the Church; more Doctors have been added since I got my 700-page book entitled The 33 Doctors of the Church, but I most pathetically cannot remember how many and who. Hmm, sounds like I need a new book.
Oh, and a Doctor of the Church is a person- not necessarily a man!- who has been given that special distinction in recognition of their writings on theology, spirituality, etc. Let's see if I can rustle up an icon of St. Ephrem to show you all...
This is the best picture I could find that would actually LOAD, stupid thing. There's a much better one in my book, but it's black and white and I am not attempting to scan it in and then upload it to my computer and then upload it to my blog, blah, blah, blah, as it would take twenty minutes and this suffices.
Back to what I originally wanted to say! An excerpt from his poetry appears in my book, and it sounds strikingly modern in light of what we read by Baudelaire today. Here's how it goes (I doubt there are any copyright issues on writings from the 4th century):
There lie those who improved their complexions,
And artfully disguised their faces;
There lie those who painted their eyelids,
And the worm corrodes their eyes...
There lie those who were enemies,
And their bones are mingled together.
I could go into an interesting analysis of the thought process behind make-up and its ultimate futility here (I don't go in for that sort of thing, partly because I abhor stuff being on my face like that), but on second thoughts I don't think I will.
I really do go in for brutally and embarrassingly honest in this blog, don't I?
...And, let me tell you, "Somebody That I Used To Know" isn't a bad song, but once you get it stuck in your head it becomes the most annoying thing. Grr.
Anyway! Today I shall attempt to not rant and to focus on a single text. My success rate at this sort of thing has not been so good (I was making notes for this when you called on me, Dr. Brewton, so I wasn't doodling).
It hasn't been a good few days to be a German-minded person. In history yesterday the Rhine-Danube line between Roman civilization and Germanic barbarism was brought up. Several derogatory remarks about Germans were muttered by various members of the class. It didn't really bother me, since I am used to people regarding Germans, and particularly German Catholics, as a bigoted, backwards, and benighted bunch (how's that for alliteration?), but I was kind of amused. I highly doubt they knew my family comes from Bavaria.
To compound my frustration, we are doing Goethe. Not that there is anything wrong with doing Goethe, it's just that we are doing Faust, and I'd much rather do The Erl-King (or, Der Erl-Koenig, as Goethe wrote it). I have a weird fascination for Der Erl-Koenig, which I shall relate in a little bit. First, I have to bash our literature book for its COMPLETE and UTTER FAILURE. It shall never arise from its ashes of shame and humilitation... *cue screenshot of Azula*
My point about the literature book is that it offered a pronunciation guide for the work. Not in itself a bad thing, seeing as how most people flail and kevail over foreign words and mangle them. (Me and French, for example. French and I do not agree. It's a German/French dog/cat sort of thing.) BUT THE PRONUNCIATION GUIDE WAS WRONG. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. I could only laugh in bewilderment at what they were saying the words should sound like.
For instance: they said Goethe should be pronounced 'GAY-tuh'. No joke. I snorted at that. They got the consonants right, and that's about it. German vowels are more complex than English vowels. We tend to reduce everything to a schwa and get on with our lives. It doesn't work that way in German. The 'oe' in Goethe does not sound like a long o or like 'oy' (as it does in Sindarin), but is meant to represent o-umlaut (an o with two little marks over it). The o-umlaut sound is made by making the sound for 'eh' in one's throat but by shaping the lips in the o position. This yields a weird sound that has no relation in English. (There is also u-umlaut and a-umlaut, for your information.)
So there was my rant about the pronunciation guide. Sorry, Dr. Brewton, but it seems that no matter what I do I end up ranting about something or other. *sigh*
Goethe was basically to German what Shakespeare was to English. As a matter of fact, they have named the Goethe Institut after him. (No, it's not supposed to have an e at the end of 'Institut'. It's the German spelling of that word.) The Goethe Institut spreads German language, arts, and culture. 2013 is the Year of Wagner. If you don't know anything about Wagner... *sigh* Oh, yeah. I forget that not everyone has taken six years of German or 14 years of piano.
He was a very famous German composer of operas, etc., okay? He did Lohengrin and the Niebelungenlied (whence, some people claim, Tolkien got the idea for the One Ring). "The Ride of the Valkyries" song? Yeah, he did that.
Anyway! I should now explain my weird fascination with Goethe's Der Erl-Koenig. I won't annoy you with the German version, as much as I'd love to. But I think I should inflict the full length of a literal English translation upon you all. Because I have troll tendencies. XD
Who is riding, so late, through night and wind?
It is the father with his child.
He has the boy well in his arm
He holds him safely, he keeps him warm.
"My son, why do you hide your face so anxiously?"
"Father, do you not see the Erl-King?
The Erl-King with his crown and tail?"
"My son, it's a wisp of fog."
"You dear child, come, go with me!
Very lovely games I'll play with you;
Many colourful flowers are on the shore,
My mother has many golden robes."
"My father, my father, and don't you hear
What Erl-King quietly promises me?"
"Be calm, stay calm, my child;
The wind is rustling through withered leaves."
"Do you want to come with me, pretty boy?
My daughters shall wait on you finely;
My daughters will lead the nightly dance,
And rock and dance and sing you to sleep."
"My father, my father, and don't you see there
Erl-King's daughters in the gloomy place?"
"My son, my son, I see it clearly:
There shimmer the old willows so grey."
"I love you, your beautiful form entices me;
And if you're not willing, then I'll use force."
"My father, my father, he's grabbing me now!
Erl-King has done me some harm!"
It horrifies the father; he swiftly rides on,
He holds the moaning child in his arms,
Reaches the yard with trouble and hardship;
In his arms, the child was dead.
Charming little story, isn't it? If it was too much for you to decipher, it's basically about a father riding home late one night with his son. The boy tells the father he can see an evil woodland fairy king, the Erl-King, and that the Erl-King is trying to take him away. The father dismisses this as fog, trees, etc. Finally, the child shrieks that the Erl-King has got him. The father spurs the horse on; they reach the courtyard of their house, and the father finds that his child is dead in his arms.
Lovely poem, really. I mean, it's really something you should read as a bedtime story for your little ones. And is it the Erl-King, or is it merely the child's hallucinations? No one knows. That's the thing.
Now, there is a bit of a debate about the meaning and etymology of 'Erl-King'. Apparently, it was supposed to be 'Elf-King' (which would have been Elfen-Koenig), but as it stands it means King of the Alders/Elders/however you want to spell it. An elder tree. In fact, the same sort of tree that the ultimate wand in Harry Potter's world, the Elder Wand, is made out of!
MIND. BLOWN.
As a matter of fact, when I was reading The Deathly Hallows, the Erl-King was all I could think of during that part. I was like, "Uh-oh, it's an elder tree, that's a bad sign- everyone knows that means the Erl-King!" But of course few people actually know this.
WHY do I know so much about Der Erl-Koenig, though, you ask? Well. Through highschool (yes, the entire four years), I had a ginormous piano book composed solely of works by Franz Liszt. I have no idea why I picked Liszt. Actually, I do. When I still went to a private elementary school (so I couldn't have been any older than eight or so), the music teacher showed us a movie about Liszt's life. I can't remember anything about it now, except for that he had a weird and violent style of playing the piano.
Fast forward ten or so years, and I still had my weird preference for Liszt over Beethoven. (The horror, I know. I now have a ginormous piano book composed solely of works by Beethoven.) So I got that infamous book. The first song, "By the Lake of Wallenstadt," was really pretty and not too hard and deceived me utterly about the rest of the book.
BECAUSE LISZT WAS A DEMON PIANIST AND APPARENTLY ASSUMED EVERYONE ELSE COULD DO PIANO ACROBATICS JUST LIKE HIM.
He wrote the Hungarian Rhapsodies, okay? I had to learn two of them- the most famous one, No. 2, and the slightly more bearable one, No. 6. (I did like his "La Regatta Venetiana", though. It was a lot of fun to play, and it was only six pages long. Not, say, oh, SIXTEEN, like Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.)
As a matter of fact, my inability to play Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 as it should be played was a big reason why I had a minor bout of hero worship of someone real. (Most of my fangirling, if you want to call it that, safely involves fictional people.) When I was still in high school, Shoals OnStage hosted the 5 Browns here at UNA and they had a concert in Norton Auditorium. Since I imagine most of you know nothing about the 5 Browns, they are a group of five Mormon siblings who all play the piano and attended Juliard simultaneously. They can play 5-piano pieces together at once in perfect timing, all the pianos arranged in a semicircle. AMAZING. They haven't been touring much lately since one of the girls had a baby, but the other two girls keep up a 'modest fashion' blog and my sister checks it regularly. Anyway, one of them, Gregory Brown, played Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.
And did it perfectly.
MIND. BLOWN.
They autographed stuff and talked with the fans after the concert. My sister of course got her CD's autographed and was happily chatting with them. Me? Standing there awkwardly, wanting desperately to say something like, "Ohmigosh, that was amazing! I've tried to learn Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 and I can't play it anything like that!" However, if I had said that, I would have felt obliged to crawl away under the nearest table and hope the earth opened up and swallowed me. Heaven help me, but I cannot bring myself to talk to people.
They were really nice. It's a pity I couldn't say something.
Anyway, Schubert originally set Der Erl-Koenig to music, but Liszt later took his version and changed it up. I've heard Schubert's is scarier to hear since it keeps the triplet pattern all the way through, but Liszt's version is practically a nightmare to play already. I'll DEFINITELY have to find a video so I can give the rest of you nightmares.
The 1-2-3 beat of the triplets is meant to imitate the flying hooves of the horse (at a canter, a horse's hooves strike three beats- only three, since two hooves hit the ground at the same time). Oh, and that rattling upswing and jarring dun-dun-dun on the left hand is eerie, too. A lot of fun to play, if you're of a weird bend of mind, but exhausting and very, very, difficult.
My personal creepy fascination with Der Erl-Koenig therefore actually has more to do with the Liszt version of it (and the fact that I now permanently associate the song with a character in my stories that I write), but it remains a creepy fascination that needs to be shared with the class. Because I have troll tendencies and want to give everyone nightmares. Oh, and I think it counts as making the blog interactive, doncha think?
This is a VERY long post. Perhaps I should (again) start a new one? Nah. It'd look really small and sad compared to this one. On with more Goethe!
So in class we discussed why Faust in Goethe's long poem (I'd like to compare it to Marlowe's Faustus and play a game of spot-the-differences) has everything a medieval scholar should want- a scholastic reputation, a devoted pupil, the accolades of the populace, knowledge of practically everything Man Was Meant to Know and a good bit of what Man Was Not Meant to Know. However, he is not happy. Part of the reason could be that he has lost his faith, and is seeking to replace it by dabbling in the black arts.
I think we could sum up Faust's modus vivandi/operandi as being For Science! He craves knowledge for the sake of knowledge; he has made it his First Thing. However, knowledge alone cannot give happiness or satisfy the soul, so it is no wonder he has fallen to the pits of despair.
This is more or less what most people think of when they hear the word 'chemistry'. Without actually putting it in those words, they assume it works on magical and unknowable principles. They also like to assume that it involves lots of brightly colored 'potions' and explosions. Reality is much more mundane.
I would like to take the moment to identify Faust as having Genre Blindness of the highest degree. As most readers of fantasy novels could tell you, summoning and controlling spirits is NEVER a good idea. After all, it's what turned Carsaib into Durza the Shade in the Eragon series (*sarcasm mode* oh, beg pardon, I suppose I should call it the Inheritance Cycle). The bargain is NEVER a good idea. Almost every time, the spirits escape control, take over the sorcerer/alchemist/mad scientist/whatever he calls himself, and procede to wreak havoc upon the world.
I mean, Faust doesn't even see what's the big deal with signing a contract in blood! I mean, seriously, dude, NEVER sign a contract in your own blood. Bad things always, always ensue. That's what happens (spoilers!) in Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn. TWICE. First, Pelleas signs a contract and ensures that you have to fight Micaiah and her pathetic Dawn Brigade, and then that you have to actually use them. And they were useless. Then you learn that Naesala, the Raven King, who is decidely not useless, had a blood contract himself. However, he didn't sign it himself; he is practically the king of cunning and would never have been tricked into that. He inherited it from the previous king. He does promise to tell Tibarn how he inherited the throne, but the conversation apparently never happens. Pity. I would have liked to know.
When Dr. Brewton asked if we could give any contemporary examples of a Faustian bargain, I couldn't think of a contemporary one, but I can give one from a movie! In fact, the first thing I thought of was The Empire Strikes Back, where Lando Calrissian makes a deal with Darth Vader. Vader, of course, keeps demanding more and more of him: "Pray I do not alter the bargain further."
Boys and girls, the moral of this story is: NEVER bargain with demons or Sith lords. They always get the better end of the bargain.
What? It's an awesome picture! Not to mention, I think the Nazgul beat the Sith any day. The Sith are infamous for going all Drunk On The Dark Side and dying by being thrown down reactor shafts. They are also incredibly hammy. Meanwhile, the Nazgul are genuinely terrifying (they easily beat the Great Flaming Eyeball of Sauron in this respect) and can only be killed in extremely special circumstances.
Anyway. I'd also like to quote Gandalf on Faustian bargains: "Perilous to us all are the devices of an art deeper than that which we ourselves possess." (I may not have the wording exactly right. My brother has borrowed The Two Towers and I can't find where he's hidden it.) C'mon, people, Gandalf is always right about these things...
I'd also like to state that, having made his eponymous bargain with Mephistopheles (what a name) for the ultimate knowledge of the world and the demon's service, Faust then undergoes a rapid Motive Decay and just wants to experience all the pleasures in the world. His asking Mephistopheles to apparently kill him once he hits self-complacency is puzzling, though. I just don't understand Faust's mind. Which is probably a good thing, since I'd imagine is a dark place, full of, of course, Things Man Was Not Meant To Know.
Mephistopheles himself gives riddling answers. It reminds me of Gollum and of Smaug, not entirely inappropriately. Gollum, however, is Creepy Awesome and Nightmare Fuel in ways that Mephistopheles, the demon in gentleman's clothes with a rapier, will never be able to achieve, and Smaug, well...
Let's just say even I find this gif hypnotizing, and leave it at that.
I should probably share what I meant by the song, "Gaudeamus Igitur". I'll see if I can find a good video of it, but in case I can't, I'll see if I can rustle up the lyrics. Hope you know Latin! XD As I mentioned, it's a song made up by German university students in the 14th Century or so. Ooh, look! I found both the Latin and the English lyrics. I don't suppose anyone wants the German lyrics (Lasst Uns Also Froehlich Sein)...? No? Oh, all right.
Gaudeamus igitur, Juvenes dum sumus; Post icundum
iuventutem, Post molestam senectutem Nos habebit humus.
Let us therefore rejoice, While we are
young; After our youth, After a troublesome old age The ground will
hold us.
Vita nostra brevis est, Brevi finietur; Venit
mors velociter, Rapit nos atrociter; Nemini parcetur.
Our life is brief, It will shortly end; Death
comes quickly, Cruelly snatches us; No-one is spared.
Ubi sint qui ante nos In mundo fuere? Vadite ad
superos, Transite in inferos Hos si vis videre.
Where are those who before us Existed in the
world? You may go up to the gods, You may cross into the underworld If
you wish to see them.
Vivat academia, Vivant professores, Vivat membrum
quodlibet, Vivat membra quaelibet; Semper sint in flore!
Long live the university, Long live the
teachers, Long live each male student, Long live each female
student; May they always flourish!
Vivat et republica Et qui illam regit. Vivat
nostra civitas, Maecenatum caritas Quae nos hic protegit.
Long live the state And those who rule it. Long
live our city, And the charity of benefactors Which protects us here.
Vivant omnes virgines, Faciles, formosae! Vivant
et mulieres, Tenerae, amabiles, Bonae, laboriosae.
Long live all young women, Easy and
beautiful! Long live wives as well, Tender, loveable, Honest,
hardworking.
Pereat tristitia, Pereant osores. Pereat
diabolus, Quivis antiburschius Atque irrisores!
Perish sadness, Perish haters. Perish the
devil, Whoever is against the student fraternity, As well those who mock
us!
Quis confluxus hodie Academicorum? E longinquo
convenerunt, Protinusque successerunt In commune forum.
Who has gathered now Of the university? They
gather from long distances, Immediately joining Our common forum.
Long live our fellowship, Long live the
studious! May truth and honesty thrive, Flourish with our
fraternity, And our homeland be prosperous.
Alma Mater floreat, Quae nos educavit; Caros et
commilitones, Dissitas in regiones Sparsos, congregavit.
May our Alma Mater thrive, That which educated
us; Dear ones and comrades, Who we let scatter afar, Let us assemble.
Okay, and now it's thrown the text box off. Oh, joy. Anyway, so I was wrong. It wasn't so much about students complaining about their homework and their professors as it is about the shortness of life and their determination to enjoy it while they can. Which leads us to the comparison that they, like Dr. Faust, want to feel as much as they can.
Let's see if I can find a video of it and restore my wonky text box.
Well, I aligned my text box again, but the embedded video player is off. If it doesn't play, anyway, just look it up on YouTube and you'll find tons of videos. If you're interested, which I highly doubt.
