In the lovely remake of Pride
and Prejudice with Keira Knightly as Elizabeth Bennet and the always wonderful
Donald Sutherland as Mr. Bennet, there is a moment at the very end of the movie,
after Mr. Bennet has consented to the marriage of Elizabeth to Mr. Darcy, when
Sutherland, seated alone in his study, says to no one in particular [roughly] “If
there are any other suitors for my remaining daughters, send them in. I am quite at my leisure.”
Yesterday I taught my last zoom class at UNC, so, like
Donald Sutherland, I am quite at my leisure.
If anyone else in the world wants me to teach a course, send them in.
[Thanks to Carl for the spelling correction.]
[Thanks to Carl for the spelling correction.]
I am eagerly awaiting the Hume lectures, Professor Wolff!
ReplyDeleteMe too, I was wondering if he's still on the cards.
ReplyDeleteNat P.
I would attend! Hume or otherwise.
ReplyDeleteWould love to see you teach a course on Nietzsche. Is he merely Hume on steroids? Probably not, as Hume was a happy warrior and N. had plenty of anger and resentment.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if you (or perhaps another commenter) would answer a perhaps very elementary question about Marx's thought in Capital? I have an informal reading group with a couple of friends and we are working our way through Vol. 1 during quarantine. In Chapter 2, Marx is scathing about the idea that money is merely a symbol, and insists that money is a commodity. But in Chapter 1 we learn that a commodity must have a use-value and an exchange-value - and money, qua money, doesn't have a use-value. How then can money be a commodity? Does Marx only claim this because he is working with money 'backed' by gold and silver (which are clearly commodities), so this wouldn't hold true for modern 'fiat' currency?
ReplyDeleteMany thanks if anyone takes their time to indulge me here!
It's "Bennet."
ReplyDeleteThank you, Carl. I have corrected it and added a hat tip.
ReplyDeleteI will attend, Professor. (By the way, I watched the Chomsky lecture again this morning atop the pooper, during my morning movement, and it was just as thrilling the second time through. Thank you.)
ReplyDeleteI will attend as well.
ReplyDeleteSinead H, yes, Marx is assuming, along with the other classical political economists, that gold and silver are commodities that have, for a variety of reasons, been chosen as money [hence "pound sterling."] Fiat money issued by a state with the ability to require that debts to it [such as taxes] be paid in that scrip raise all sorts of problems that Marx did not deal with.
ReplyDeleteThanks very much, Professor Wolff! That clears it up.
ReplyDeleteSinead H.
ReplyDeleteYou might also be interested in David Harvey's course on Vol. 1 of Capital. He has been teaching it for over 40 years.
Here is the link. https://davidharvey.org/reading-capital/
This is not to diminish in any way Prof. Wolff's insight.
The obligatory "That's not me @8:05 AM." Different Dean. I'm the one who chimes in a little more frequently.
ReplyDeleteI'll join in, with pleasure.
ReplyDelete