tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post8759800761517732277..comments2024-03-28T06:07:03.667-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: READING TEA LEAVESRobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-82977691556868454442018-09-06T00:30:43.935-04:002018-09-06T00:30:43.935-04:00Anonymous,
This verbal sparring is getting a bit ...Anonymous,<br /><br />This verbal sparring is getting a bit jading. Of course I put my apocryphal quotation which I attributed to Nietzsche in quotation marks – that’s what made it satire.<br /><br />And yes, it is a bit silly to get all worked up over a fictional character like Jay Gatsby. But it was you who associated Gatsby, a fictional character, with Trump, unfortunately an actual human being and our terrifyingly pathological President, in your comment on 9/4 at 4:21 P.M., saying you don’t like either one of them, and that Gatsby “was a pig.” And then on 9/5, at 10:38 A.M., you elaborated on your appellation by saying of Gatsby that he was a, “Pig, as in capitalist pig," as if his porcine character derived from his being a capitalist. I’ve just come to Gatsby’s defense, opining that your comparison of him to Trump, or Trump to him, does Gatsby a disservice.<br /><br />On that note, I’m going to call it a night.<br />MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-79829624794064161032018-09-05T23:05:06.197-04:002018-09-05T23:05:06.197-04:00MS
This is not debatable: look at section 108 of ...MS<br /><br />This is not debatable: look at section 108 of The Gay Science. That's 17 sections before section 125: "God is dead." Also, the "God is dead" phrase (or whatever one calls it) wasn't original with Nietzsche anyway. Among others, Hegel used the term long before. I know what satire is, but if you want to say that the following is a famous quotation from Nietzsche and you put it in quotation marks--and it isn't what Nietzsche said (and not even close to it), then don't expect this strawman to take it lying down. (Kaufmann's Portable Nietzsche doesn't include much from the Gay Science--it has only about 9.5 pages of excerpts from the first edition of the work. It doesn't include, e.g., section 108.) As far as capitalist pigs are concerned, none of the characters in the book are in fact capitalist pigs because they're fictional. Still, there are such things: The bastards who actually wrecked the economy and gave us the Depression and those real people, most of them still among us (I guess), who tanked things back in 2008. (Maybe Trump qualifies as one--I bet he'd like to. I don't know about him; I don't want to credit him with being sui generis, but maybe he is.) And the Koch Brothers--not because they've tanked the economy (so far as I know they didn't have anything to do with that) but because they're using their money and power to screw the majority of people in this country. And so on. There's nothing new in any of this. Having said that, I'm not anti-capitalism or anti-capitalist. I don't think that we'd have the modern world without it and without them. But they have to be watched and controlled. The ancient Greeks would ostracize people who they thought were getting too powerful. I wouldn't go that far, but I do think that we have to be wary of power. Look at what that jackass in the White House can do--and I emphasize "can." Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-75596318663736784132018-09-05T22:28:18.876-04:002018-09-05T22:28:18.876-04:00Anonymous,
The statement “God is dead” first appe...Anonymous,<br /><br />The statement “God is dead” first appears in The Gay Science, Sec. 125: “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.”. I, too, have a copy of Prof. Kaufmann’s Portable Nietzsche. And how astute of you – correct, my modification of that statement does not appear anywhere in Nietzsche’s works. It is called satire.<br /><br />And, of course, you know who the capitalist pigs are, because they are a “recognizable type,” like Jay Gatsby, and Nick Carraway, and ......<br />MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-86203226148680122552018-09-05T20:36:35.382-04:002018-09-05T20:36:35.382-04:00MS
I don’t know that “famous quotation from ‘The G...MS<br />I don’t know that “famous quotation from ‘The Gay Science.’” Nobody does, because it doesn’t exist. The one I do know (section 108 of that work) has to do with Buddha’s shadow. The thing runs: “God is dead; but given the way people are, there may still for millennia be caves in which they show his shadow.—And we must still defeat his shadow as well!” Now there is a more famous mention of the Death of God in that book (section 125—The Madman), but it likewise can’t be stretched to imply what you’re getting it. Then again, you might be thinking of this, from “Twilight of the Idols” (section 5 of “Reason in Philosophy): "’Reason’" in language -- oh, what an old deceptive female she is! I am afraid we are not rid of God because we still have faith in grammar.” In any case, I don’t see Nietzsche dividing the world into socialist know-it-alls and everybody else. On the other hand, Nietzsche did divide the ethical world, or the history of it, into Master Morality and Slave Morality. He seemed pretty sure of himself. And it’s pretty clear which side he was on. (When I first went off to college, I had already read through a lot of Walter Kaufmann’s “Portable Nietzsche.” I had an advisor who was actually a friend of Kaufmann’s and early on told me to be careful with Nietzsche, saying something like Nietzsche’s not as benign as Kaufmann makes him out to be. As it turned out, I meandered into American Pragmatism and pretty much have stayed there. I don’t believe in black and white, in anything. There are capitalist pigs—that’s a recognizable type—but not all capitalists are pigs.)<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-84023620121764469482018-09-05T15:51:56.120-04:002018-09-05T15:51:56.120-04:00That all capitalists may be bad does not necessari...That all capitalists may be bad does not necessarily imply that all socialists are good. I'm not claiming that all capitalists are bad by the way. It is worth exploring what degree of complicity in capitalist exploitation implies that one is not a good person and whether that complicity need be conscious or deliberate for one not to be a good person. I don't have the formula myself. s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-5099800736032826932018-09-05T15:37:30.566-04:002018-09-05T15:37:30.566-04:00The character Meyer Wolfshein in The Great Gatsby ...The character Meyer Wolfshein in The Great Gatsby is modeled after Arnold Rothstein, a New York gambler, renowned at the time for his business savvy and acumen. It has been rumored, but, not to my knowledge ever confirmed, that he master-minded fixing the 1919 World Series loss by the Chicago White Sox, which is referred to in the novel.<br /><br />Which leads me to the larger point. The Great Gatsby has many themes, among them the shallowness of the rich, the lack of marital fidelity, illustrated by Tom Buchanan’s affair with Myrtle, the meaning of friendship, exemplified by Nick Carraway’s fondness for Jay Gatsby. Carraway is the only person, aside form Gatsby’s father and Gatsby’s house guest described as wearing “owl-eyed glasses,” who attends his funeral – none of the people who sponge off Gatsby and attend his opulent parties show up. Fitzgerald is not blind to the selfishness and destructiveness of the rich, he is actually quite critical of it. Towards the end of the book, Carraway says, “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they made[.]”<br /><br />But, ultimately, the novel is a story of unrequited love – the story of a kid growing up poor who falls in love with a socialite and spends his life chasing the earmarks of wealth in order to impress her enough so she will reciprocate his love. She never does. And he dies at the hands of a man who thinks he has been having an affair with his wife – when it was Daisy Buchanan’s husband who was having the affair. It is a very human story that goes beyond pigeon holing people as good or bad, capitalist or socialist.<br /><br />Unfortunately, it appears that Anonymous cannot not see this. Jay Gatsby is a “pig” because he is a capitalist, and, perhaps, a dishonest one at that. And, apparently, Carraway is not much better, because he is a stockbroker. We are now to evaluate the merits, or lack thereof, of literature through the prism of capitalism vs. Marxism/socialism. All capitalists are bad, without any redeeming qualities whatsoever; all socialists/Marxists are good, deserving our admiration. By this yardstick, all of the characters in every novel written by Henry James is a capitalist or aristocratic pig. And what about Atticus Finch – yes, he may have been fair-minded and heroic in defending Tom Robinson against the trumped up charge of rape – but did he own stock? (An aside. For the life of me, I cannot understand why To Kill A Mockingbird was excluded from the Modern Library’s list of the 100 greatest English language novels of the 20th century. Yes, there is something preachy about it – but the sermon is well worth hearing. And what about the exquisite language of the prose, the authenticity of the Southern dialogue? Oh, I see, it lacks the sophistication of Virginia Wolff’s To The Lighthouse, No. 15 on the list.)<br /><br />So it is with the world at large. Anonymous, and those who think like him/her, divide the world into good people (socially progressive) and bad people (capitalists). Sometimes, when I read some of the comments on this blog, I am reminded of that famous quotation of Friedrich Nietzsche from “The Gay Science,” “God is dead – but, fortunately, we still have the omniscient commentators to Prof. Wolff’s blog who can fill the void and tell us the difference between right and wrong and good and evil.”<br />MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-5928908653222063272018-09-05T15:05:03.395-04:002018-09-05T15:05:03.395-04:00Anonymous,
I agree that there's not much poin...Anonymous,<br /><br />I agree that there's not much point making 15 year-olds read The Scarlet Letter. I didn't understand most of the books I had to read in high school. That is, I understood the story well enough to get a good grade, but I was much too immature to understand the human element or even the ethical point of the work. In fact, high school literature classes turned me off to certain writers, perhaps unjustly, those we were forced to read, for the rest of my life.<br /><br />If I were giving literature classes to high school students, I'd tell everyone to chose a novel that they want to read, any novel, and to give a book report on it to the class. That would foment reading. Sure, some of them would chose the shortest and simplest text they could find, but the kind of people who chose the shortest and simplest text are not likely to put the energy needed into reading Moby Dick, if that is assigned. Some kids will pick Moby Dick (not me), and for them that will be a first step towards understanding 19th century American Literature. For the first "serious" novel that I recall reading, enjoying and feeling that it spoke to me and for me was Camus's The Stranger, so maybe in retrospective I'd pick that for my teenage reading. s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-56513524953294922812018-09-05T13:33:28.501-04:002018-09-05T13:33:28.501-04:00S. Wallerstein
I've never read Proust. I think...S. Wallerstein<br />I've never read Proust. I think I know how to pronounce his name. But that's it. Maybe his reincarnation comments on this blog sometimes. I've seen his name here. I wasn't much interested in Fitzgerald in my junior year in high school (which was American Literature year)—I didn’t care about New York wealth, but I did find The Scarlet Letter interesting and mulled over it for a while, and retained some of it. I’m a New Englander and such things appealed to me even then. Good, and lucky, thing, as it turned out. First of all, I went to Bowdoin College a couple of years later--Hawthorne's alma mater (he was in the same class there as Longfellow and Franklin Pierce (later the 14th President)), and Hawthorne even then was a presence there. Second, about 10 years after my junior HS year, I met the person whom I’m married to. She is a relative of Hawthorne’s wife’s family—and she knew it. So I had a kind of ice-breaker. We could talk about Hester Prynne, Pearle, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth. (Now, those were ordinary (non-elite) people, too.) The men didn’t come off looking so good. I do wonder, though, what the educational point is in having 15 year-olds read that stuff: I suspect that I then saw the whole book as a kind of 17th century soap opera. I’ve long thought that kids should study philosophy in high school: literary symbolism would make more sense if one knew some philosophy first. And the kinds of critical and analytical techniques one can get from philosophy are the sorts of thing that bright adolescents would eat up—and enable them to be even more annoying than they are anyway. <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-81106543263997793982018-09-05T12:17:14.525-04:002018-09-05T12:17:14.525-04:00Anonymous,
First of all, let me compliment you...Anonymous,<br /><br />First of all, let me compliment you on your memory given that you read the book the year after Kennedy was assassinated and still remember the plot line. I've read it at least 4 times, taught it and read it the last time 5 or so years ago and still my memory of it is hazy.<br /><br />However, as I recall, there is some speculation on and gossip whether Gatsby is a bootlegger, but that is never clear. At one point Gatsby greets as a friend a man who fixed sporting events (the World Series?), and so maybe Gatsby is mixed up with illegal gambling. There is no omniscient narrator, and the narrator is a times unsure about events. <br /><br />I can see why you distinguish between a 20th century novel and Greek tragedy as to their treatment of non-elite characters: in the 19th century novelists began to portray poor people and working class people: for example, Dickens, Dostoyevsky and Zola, so Fitzgerald was aware of the possibility of incorporating non-elite points of view in this narrative and did not. So in light of that fact, would you condemn all the main characters of Proust's Search of Lost Time as pigs, given that they are idle rich who live off the labor of the proletariat? Just asking….<br /><br /><br /><br />s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-70927194104311160392018-09-05T10:38:17.376-04:002018-09-05T10:38:17.376-04:00Sounds right to me. Pig, as in capitalist pig. Thi...Sounds right to me. Pig, as in capitalist pig. Things were going great for them until the stock market crashed—which would have been a major transient news item except that it led to the destruction of the national economy. That class of people caused that mess. (Just like the close-call we had a decade ago. “They” were at it again.) Being one of the good guys in that demimonde doesn’t say much in Jay’s favor. Also, it seems to me that Gatsby was mixed up with organized crime, a bootlegger—right? (I read that book in high school, maybe a year after Kennedy was murdered. (I don’t think much of him either.)) While I think Prohibition was a socially foolish idea, that doesn’t mean that I think that the criminals who benefited from it were the good guys. And so on. As for Hamlet and medieval or otherwise ancient social structures—well, they’re a story line. I don’t blame Hamlet for being a prince any more than I blame Oedipus for being a king. There’s enough about them, or rather about mythical great men in general, to build a story around: there’s something there to notice. What can we say about the average medieval peasant? Not much that differentiates one peasant from another. Also, and this is no small thing in the tragedy genre: Hamlet and Oedipus were the playthings of fate—moira, in Greek. I don’t know any Danish. (I read, by the way, that publication rights to that book are still in Scribner’s hands—and will be until 2020, which will be (coincidentally?) 80 years after the author’s death. Not a bad run—with someone else’s work.) Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-85582691323938121602018-09-05T08:35:33.552-04:002018-09-05T08:35:33.552-04:00Anonymous,
If when you affirm that Gatsby is a pi...Anonymous,<br /><br />If when you affirm that Gatsby is a pig, you refer to the fact that he is a stock market speculator, all the major characters in the novel, including the narrator, are filthy rich and profit from Wall St., the narrator dealing in bonds if I recall correctly.<br /><br />Within the world of the novel, Gatsby is portrayed as one of the good guys. Since all the major characters are linked to Wall St. speculation, to call Gatsby a pig is a bit like calling Hamlet a pig because he is royalty and undoubtedly benefits from the exploitation of Danish peasants, since all the major characters in the play Hamlet are either royalty or aristocrats, all of whom live off the labor of peasants.s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-17389708595987791662018-09-04T17:49:02.648-04:002018-09-04T17:49:02.648-04:00Anonymous,
I know that literary criticism is not ...Anonymous,<br /><br />I know that literary criticism is not the focus of Prof. Wolff’s blog, and I have already been criticized by some readers for allowing my ego to divert its focus from its intended purpose, so I will try to keep this brief. Jay Gatsby a “pig”? Isn’t that a bit strong? Why, then, Nick Carraway’s unadulterated admiration for Jay? Is he, too, deluded? Yes, Gatsby engages in ostentatious displays of wealth to impress Daisy, and his constant reference to Nick as “old sport” can seem patronizing, but he is a man hopelessly in love (in infatuation, not love, you say?) with the beautiful, charming girl of his youth. And yes, Daisy is superficial and self-centered and, perhaps, Gatsby’s love for her is a reflection of his own shallowness, but still, the heart has its reasons which reason knows not. I hope that your disdain for Gatsby does not also reflect a disdain for the novel itself. It is, after all considered the paradigm of the Great American Novel, ranked No. 2 on the Modern Library’s list of the greatest English language novels of the 20th century. In this age of Trump, are we not still “beat[ing] on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into [a yearning for] the past”? (For a fascinating story about the relationship between Fitzgerald and his best friend, Ring Lardner, and their admiration for Joseph Conrad, see https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/00/12/24/specials/fitzgerald-lardner.html)<br /><br />Regarding Trump and his relationships with his father and brother, his father was a sadistic man, who taught Donald that there are only two kinds of people in the world – “killers and losers.” This is a lesson that Trump has internalized as his gospel. It was this sadism that drove his brother to drink, and what I have read indicates that Donald had absolutely no empathy for his brother, thought him cowardly and weak. Regarding his infatuation (incestuous?) with Ivanka, I am not so sure that if she were driving the car and struck and killed Myrtle, that he would say, no, it was I who was driving.<br /><br />I had best skidaddle before another Anonymous (see above) sends his devotees to rid this blog of my troublesome self.<br />MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-88635498886757859062018-09-04T16:21:15.693-04:002018-09-04T16:21:15.693-04:00MS
Far be it from me to say anything nice about T...MS<br /><br />Far be it from me to say anything nice about Trump, or about Jay Gatsby. I don’t like either one of them. Gatsby may have had a human moment, but mostly he was a pig. Milton, so his critics have said since the 17th century, gave almost all of the best lines in “Paradise Lost” to Satan. But one should be careful about admiring Satan—at all. Still, I don’t think that Satan’s rhetoric was all just a con job—it’s always seemed to me that he meant and felt some of what he said. Maybe I’m giving Satan too much credit. I’m not sure. Blame Milton for writing the script. I don’t know what Fitzgerald had in mind in humanizing Gatsby. With Trump, maybe he’d take a bullet for his older daughter: he seems genuinely fond of her. He seems to have loved his parents, or has some recognizably wistful human affection for them. And his older brother’s death from alcoholism seems to have affected him and made him a tea-totaler. (I know, maybe it just scared him and made him obsessive about addiction, and his self-restraint here isn’t a moral virtue.) Also, I heard him say that, while his sons like to hunt, he thinks it’s barbaric, and he won’t do it himself. Of course, Hitler loved his mother. One can find touches of humanity in a lot of famous monsters. They’re still monsters. Trump seems to me a really weird, bizarre, sleazy person. I can’t get past that impression, and I don’t know how the Republicans can. They’re making a pact with the devil. By the way, I actually stayed a couple of nights at Fitzgerald’s Plaza Hotel, in the summer of 2000. I was at a conference there, so I didn’t choose the venue. I thought it was a dump and a rip-off—at least the part of it I was housed in. Sic transit gloria. Sic semper tyrannis. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-62100915120380117152018-09-04T14:04:57.421-04:002018-09-04T14:04:57.421-04:00Anonymous,
I appreciate your humor in referring t...Anonymous,<br /><br />I appreciate your humor in referring to Trump as the Great Grabsby, but it does a disservice to Jay Gatsby. Jay Gatsby takes the fall for Daisy Buchanan by not revealing that it was Daisy who was driving when she struck and killed Myrtle. Trump would never sacrifice himself for anybody. And, I daresay, Trump would never appreciate your literary reference, since he probably has never read The Great Gatsby (if it was required reading at the military academy he attended, he probably read only the cliff note, if even that).<br />MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-24272917124457473122018-09-04T12:41:12.404-04:002018-09-04T12:41:12.404-04:00To midcan5
Propaganda works. The Republicans and ...To midcan5<br /><br />Propaganda works. The Republicans and their fake news apparatchiks have been trying to destroy the Clintons since at least 1992. I don't know that they've actually managed to destroy the Clintons, but they have certainly done them a lot of damage. And now we're stuck with the Great Grabsby. Somehow, as the Republicans see it, he's not as bad as Hillary. I don't get it, but this seems to be the case with them. There is even a logo tee shirt gaining popularity among Republicans (= Trump supporters) emblazoned with the language: "I'd Rather Be A Russian Than A Democrat." It's for sale on the internet. Seems like a sick joke to me--but I think that for a lot of these clowns the logo expresses what they really believe. As you put it: the Democrats are "evil personified." We don't have to deal with Putin in person (yet), so the Republicans can make jokes about it. I don't distinguish anymore between (the terms) Republicans and Trump Supporters; they're synonyms.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-41542335973176799052018-09-04T07:40:20.647-04:002018-09-04T07:40:20.647-04:00Who needed the Russians? Hillary hatred (HH) and ...Who needed the Russians? Hillary hatred (HH) and Clinton hatred was well established long before the election. Personally I find HH the most fascinating piece of this puzzle on how America could elect a dishonest doofus as pres? Hillary is probably a saint (?) compared to Donnie and yet there was not a single action or behavior that did not become evil personified. Email really? Benghazi really? Foundation really? To this day all you have to do to stir up the right in America is mention Hillary and you have them by the ....<br /><br />midcan5http://midcan5.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-60259515990168198272018-09-03T15:27:23.733-04:002018-09-03T15:27:23.733-04:00s. wasserstein,
Thank you for the quasi left-hand...s. wasserstein,<br /><br />Thank you for the quasi left-handed compliment, I guess.<br /><br />By the way, I was not that student. I did not sit in the front of the class and rarely raised my hand to answer questions. And you are correct, I am male.<br /><br />Anonymous, please don't renew your call for my assassination. I was just responding to s. wasserstein's observation.MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-62292715370372763722018-09-03T14:57:14.283-04:002018-09-03T14:57:14.283-04:00Anonymous,
I've had more than my share of dis...Anonymous,<br /><br />I've had more than my share of disagreements with MS, and I'm hardly a fan of his (or hers, but I'd guess it's a him).<br /><br />I think of this blog as a classroom with RPW as the professor. In every class there is always someone who raises his hand at every question, who generally sits in the first or second row, whose answers are long and at times stray from the meat of the question. <br /><br />In a classroom you either have to listen to him or her or do your NY Times crossword puzzle (I went to school before the days of smart-phones) under your desk while he or she speaks. In this virtual classroom we have, as MS themself points out, the option of skipping over their words. <br /><br />In general, I find it sane to imagine this blog as a classroom situation. <br />s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-21068097386477427482018-09-03T14:10:30.259-04:002018-09-03T14:10:30.259-04:00Anonymous,
I certainly hope that there are no ind...Anonymous,<br /><br />I certainly hope that there are no individuals in the blogosphere who, like the minions that answered Henry II’s invocation and hunted down and murdered Thomas Becket, will feel inclined to answer your prayer. Fortunately, my address is not public knowledge.<br /><br />I am not seeking to impose my “wisdom” on anyone. All my comments are prompted either by what Prof. Wolff has written in his posting, or in response to a comment posted by another reader. And I don’t regard my comments as offering “wisdom,” but what I believe is an alternative informed opinion. You apparently disagree with my use of the adjective “informed” and are certainly entitled to your opinion.<br /><br />I recognize, obviously, that this is Prof. Wolff’s blog, not mine. If he regards my comments as inappropriate or overly intrusive, he can advise me as such and I will defer to his request. In point of fact, he has my email address, and if so inclined, he could make that request to me. I can assure you that Prof. Wolff is candid enough that if that is what he thought, he would have emailed me, and would not be concerned about bruising my feelings.<br /><br />Short of such an admonition from Prof. Wolff, my advice to you and to any other readers who find my comments obnoxious or irrelevant, just skip over them – they will always be identified by the initials “MS.”<br />MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-39922731580192287962018-09-03T11:40:19.818-04:002018-09-03T11:40:19.818-04:00Who will rid us of this troublesome MS?
Or to put...Who will rid us of this troublesome MS?<br /><br />Or to put it otherwise: I come to this blog to read what RPW writes and to read what a range of others say on the matters he raises. But for weeks now, every set of comments is MS going on and on again and again trying to impose his "wisdom" on us. Enough!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-37310395290804257772018-09-03T03:36:54.812-04:002018-09-03T03:36:54.812-04:00s. wallerstein,
You can read this when you awaken...s. wallerstein,<br /><br />You can read this when you awaken. Perhaps I should let your last comment slide, but an appeal to the better angels of my nature has been unsuccessful.<br /><br />I'm being competitive? In my comment to Jerry Fresia, I asserted that, in my opinion, the U.S. Constitution was the greatest political document since the Magna Carta. I recognize that he does not agree, since I purchased his book which takes a different view, and I complimented him on his scholarship. You then asked me if I had studied constitutions of other democratic nations, which you asserted function as well as "or better" than the U.S. Constitution. In deference to your assertion, I conceded that your point was well taken, and I amended my statement to state that the U.S. Constitution was "one" of the greatest political documents since the Magna Carta. I mentioned as one of its merits the inclusion of the Bill of Rights, which I opined had been copied by other nations in their constitutions. You responded by pointing out that the French Declaration of Rights was "contemporaneous" with the Bill of Rights, which I interpreted as stating that, therefore, the Bill of Rights could not be one of the greatest political document since the Magna Carta, since there was an equally great document contemporaneous with it. I then responded that, "taken as a whole," the U.S. Constitution was a "superior political document" to the Declaration, since the Constitution, unlike the Declaration, established a form of government that included institutions intended to protect those rights.<br /><br />Now you come back, accuse me of being "competitive" and assert, erroneously, that I stated that the Bill of Rights is a "greater document," terminology which you claim is "competitive," than the Declaration of Rights. That is not what I said. I said that the Constitution, taken as a whole, and which includes the Bill of Rights as a sub-part, is a superior political document to the Declaration. This assessment is not "competitive," it is comparative. Please don't twist my words. I am not, as you claim, being competitive. But when someone challenges something I've written, and in doing so, gets it wrong, I respond.<br /><br />I'm not sure what your gripe is, but in past comments you have asserted that Americans who are proud of their political heritage are narcissistic and that (I am paraphrasing) it makes you sick. I am open minded enough to acknowledge the flaws in the U.S. system of government and the mistakes that the U.S. has made in international relations. But among the nations of the world, the U.S. is not alone in this regard. I am far from a flag-waving jingoist, but I also believe that there is a lot that the U.S. has done that it can be proud of (yes, I know, the institution of slavery and the oppression of Native Americans are not among them). And I also believe that the U.S. Constitution is one of the greatest political documents crafted by imperfect human beings, and that, at the time it was ratified it represented a significant contribution to the improvement of human self-government. I will read Jerry Fresia’s critique of the Constitution with an open mind, but it will take a lot to persuade me otherwise.<br />MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-86019308651661271872018-09-03T00:56:34.307-04:002018-09-03T00:56:34.307-04:00Professor Wolff --
You write the following: "...Professor Wolff --<br /><br />You write the following: "we do know that Clinton lost for two reasons: She was the worst candidate imaginable, and she ran a godawful campaign."<br /><br />There is another crucial reason: many voters harbor an irrational hatred for Clinton -- some even viewing her as the devil incarnate. As a consequence, the voting choice of many U.S. voters during the last presidential campaign was repeatedly articulated by the voters themselves as "anyone but Hillary."<br /><br />Moving on to far more important issues, were you and your wife "approved" as cat adopters? My thinking is that Christmas would want you to have the opportunity to care for another cat.<br /><br />-- JimJimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00826600172627425879noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-77463443323555982272018-09-03T00:56:24.317-04:002018-09-03T00:56:24.317-04:00MS,
It's not that we are destined to disagree...MS,<br /><br />It's not that we are destined to disagree. You see everything in terms of competitive disagreements.<br /><br />I, without having an opinion on whether the French Declaration of the Rights of Man or the U.S. Bill of Rights, is a "greater document" (your terminology and to be sure, a competitive one), merely linked to an article on the French Declaration to show that there was an interesting cross-fertilization about rights in exactly the same year and that Jefferson, one of your heroes surely, contributed to it. <br /><br />Although it may surprise you, since you see everything in competitive terms, I have no opinion at all as to which is the greater document nor do I care much. I'm not playing chess here, I'm simply conversing, which for me is not the same as arm wrestling.<br /><br />You probably see not competing as another form of competing, but I don't. Good night.<br />s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-87044688150936742962018-09-02T22:04:03.598-04:002018-09-02T22:04:03.598-04:00"No right without a remedy.""No right without a remedy."David Palmeterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01895092366685079046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-80364334770777298692018-09-02T21:32:54.647-04:002018-09-02T21:32:54.647-04:00s. wallerstein,
It seems that on issues other tha...s. wallerstein,<br /><br />It seems that on issues other than lexicographic you and I are forever destined to disagree with one another.<br /><br />I would readily acknowledge that the French Declaration of the Rights of Man is undoubtedly a magnificent political document. But it is a Declaration of rights, not a document creating a form of government to ensure that those rights are protected. The U.S. Constitution, by contrast, includes much more than the Bill or Rights. It establishes a form of government with three branches that constitute a check and balance on overreaching by any one branch. It creates a legislature to, among other things, enact laws to protect the rights enunciated in the Bill of Rights. Most importantly, it creates an independent judiciary that ensures that the rights articulated in the Bill of Rights are protected. The Declaration of the Rights of Man does none of this. How were the rights in the Declaration protected during the Reign of Terror? So, judging the documents as a whole, I believe that the U.S. Constitution is a superior political document. Moreover, while the Constitution had provisions that unfortunately recognized the de jure legitimacy of the “peculiar institution” of slavery, it also included a provision that allowed for the Constitution’s amendment, which, ultimately, resulted in the abolition of the legality of slavery in the 13th Amendment. Now, you may deplore the fact that the U.S. Constitution even included provision legitimizing slavery. but, as the Wikipedia article you link to indicates, the Declaration of Rights of Man did not outlaw slavery either. And no amendment of the Declaration, and no mechanism for doing so, corrected this grievous error.<br />MSnoreply@blogger.com