Can you give everyone the link to the video?
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A Commentary on the Passing Scene by Robert Paul Wolff rwolff@afroam.umass.edu
My Stuff
https://umass-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/rwolff_umass_edu/EkxJV79tnlBDol82i7bXs7gBAUHadkylrmLgWbXv2nYq_A?e=UcbbW0
Coming Soon:
The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.
NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for "Robert Paul Wolff Kant." There they will be.
NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for Robert Paul Wolff Marx."
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- SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI
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About Me
- Robert Paul Wolff
- As I observed in one of my books, in politics I am an anarchist, in religion I am an atheist, and in economics I am a Marxist. I am also, rather more importantly, a husband, a father, a grandfather, and a violist.
28 comments:
I don't have a link....just the file itself which needs to sent as an attachment or embedded if I knew how to do that.
Okay, I posted it on my youtube channel:
https://youtu.be/yQhdIFpDtwg
better take a look quickly as I'm sure someone will claim copyright issues and
it will be taken down...
@Jerry If you use dropbox (or some other similar service) you can put the file in a folder somewhere under dropbox on your machine and then dropbox will give you a sharing link that you could post here.
DDA....let's see how long the youtube link (https://youtu.be/yQhdIFpDtwg) lasts...thanks.
It's been blocked.
What was it?
I see. It says “Funny Trump video: Not Wanting to Leave” (Created by Jerry Fresia?)
I can guess that it showed Il Duce screaming and yelling, “Leave me alone!” holding on to his desk, as the Secret Service tried to drag him out of the White House.
In the meantime, since there has been no post about which I can be accused of making an irrelevant comment (nothing can be irrelevant in a vacuum), I finished watching The Queen’s Gambit last night. The producers did a great job of including just enough chess to keep chess aficionados interested, and enough plot/character development to keep those disinterested in chess interested in the narrative. I will admit, I teared up a bit at the scene when Beth returned to the orphanage and went into the basement where Mr. Shaibel had first taught her to play chess. I was also pleased that they had a tribute to Paul Morphy, one of the truly great chess players and of whom Bobby Fischer was particularly fond. Another piece of cinema trivia – I did not recognize the actor who played Harry Beltik as the same actor who had played Harry Potter’s cousin, Dudley.
I do have a question for other readers who have watched the series. Beth’s adoptive mother, Alma, had intimated that she had had one or two children who had died, and that was the reason she and her husband were adopting Beth. I kept waiting for an explanation about how they had died, but don’t recall her giving one. Did I miss it?
I hope the movie inspires a resurgence in chess playing, the way that the Fischer/Spassky world championship had done back in 1972.
okay, everyone, HERE IT IS (in my wife's dropbox):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/b07hqdusktphakt/VIDEO-2020-11-06-12-17-44.mp4?dl=0
PREVIEW OF WHAT COULD HAPPEN IN NOVEMBER IF....
Thank you Jerry. (I was close, but this one’s funnier.)
I didn't wonder about how Alma lost her child--I thought she indicated just one--because it didn't seem that important. On the other hand, I think it was important to learn how beth became an orphan, something the series kept us in the dark about until almost the last possible moment
And thanks, jerry, for the video.
Finally, wrt something that someone mentioned here some time ago, something which those curious about Marx might find interesting, an essay by peter Linebaugh, who first came to my attention many years ago when he was working with Edward Thompson on "The Black Acts" and on the role of capital punishment in suppressing the London poor:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/11/11/afterword-to-karl-marx-critique-of-the-gotha-program/
MS
Didn't you mean "uninterested in chess"?
Anonymous,
I actually thought about that as I was writing the sentence, and I had vague recollection of Prof. Wolff having actually written a post about the difference between “disinterested” and “uninterested” and chiding those who confuse the proper usage of the two words. Notwithstanding, I decided to go with “disinterested” for two reasons: (1) I thought the conjunction of “disinterested” with “interested in the narrative” was less redundant than the conjunction of “uninterested” with “interested in the narrative.” (2) There are two accepted definitions of “disinterested”: “unbiased” and “indifferent.” Since the latter definition worked in the context in which I was using it, and given the first factor, I decided to go with “indifferent.” But surely, some might disagree with the choice. Different strokes for different folks.
And, by the way, if you are the same Anonymous who commented at 12:36, my recollection is that Alma made reference to the loss of children at two different points in the series. In the first reference, she alluded to the loss of a single child. In another segment, I believe she remarked something to the effect that Beth would have had two brothers, had they lived. I could be mistaken, of course, and as you note, it is not a major plot point. I was just curious about how the child/children had died, because the event had obviously had an adverse impact on her marriage. In other movies in which the loss of a child has been an important plot consideration, one of the parents was responsible for the death of the child (driving while intoxicated, for example) and guilt blame plays an important role in the narrative. So, I was just wondering.
I guess I'll be a traditionalist here:
*******
https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/disinterested
Usage
One of the most contended questions of usage is the difference between disinterested and uninterested. According to traditional guidelines, disinterested should never be used to mean ‘not interested’ (i.e., it is not a synonym for uninterested) but only to mean ‘impartial,’ as in the judgments of disinterested outsiders are likely to be more useful. Ironically, the earliest recorded sense of disinterested is for the disputed sense. Today, the ‘incorrect’ use of disinterested is widespread: around a quarter of citations in the Oxford English Corpus for disinterested are for this sense
*******
https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/disinterested-person
Anonymous,
You know, it is not really a big deal. I was not writing a Ph.D. dissertation or trying to win the Nobel Prize for literature. I was writing a brief, spontaneous comment on a blog – a very prestigious and literate blog, to be sure – but, nonetheless, a comment for a blog. And if a “quarter of citations in the Oxford English Corpus” have made the same erroneous usage of the word “disinterested,” then apparently it has achieved a degree of acceptability that deserves recognition. Give me a break.
Post-script:
In light of the sometimes ambiguous meaning of “disinterested,” as a lawyer, do I want disinterested people on my jury?
Thanks for posting that Jerry!
'nothing can be irrelevant in a vacuum'
You might think that dropping things in a giant vacuum chamber would be the ultimate in coolness.
Well, it's close.
Disinterested vs. Uninterested:
..when these words were first introduced their meanings were the reverse, with disinterested originally meaning "lacking interest," and uninterested meaning "unbiased."
Very interesting post, not because of the video, of course, but because, in the comments to follow, someone felt the need to correct MS on their use of "disinterested." What could possibly be gained by doing so, especially since everyone knew exactly what MS meant?
disinterested should never be used to mean 'not interested' (i.e. it is not a synonym for uninterested) -- or I mean, this, according to traditional guidelines. The difference between disinterested and uninterested is often controversial. Today, the ‘incorrect’ use of disinterested is widespread. But there is a difference, and to avoid confusion, you should be aware of what that difference is. When someone doesn’t have a vested interest in a matter, or doesn’t have a horse in that race, we can say that this person is disinterested. To be disinterested means to be impartial, which explains why this word, in its traditional sense, is often used in legal or business contexts. It’s best to preserve the distinction between these two words. To avoid confusion. Somebody -- *some* writers -- sometimes use(s) disinterested when uninterested would be more accurate. But if someone is bored, doesn’t care about something, or isn’t showing an interest in something, we can use the word uninterested to describe them. Anyways, for those who love to declare that our language is in an eternal state of decline, and that the kids these days just don’t care about the difference between disinterested and uninterested—well, the printed record shows there's still a distinction observed between these two words. A distinction that does not reflect their original meanings. But people are starting to confuse them. Generally, unless you're a lawyer, the word you're looking for is "uninterested"..
I take writing very seriously, and am a stickler for correct grammar. When I read that, “Mr. Green was severely effected by the corona virus,” I bristle. This is an error which I am seeing and hearing more and more often, and I, like other readers of this blog, including Danny, find it deplorable. But as anyone who has studied linguistics knows, the meanings of words, and their proper usage, is ultimately determined by the users, not the grammarians. When does the misuse of a word become so common that it is no longer a misuse, and when does criticizing such misuse become as futile as Canute trying to hold back the tide? As Danny points out, the meanings of “uninterested” and “disinterested” have reversed over time. But this simply contributes to their current ambiguity. And if one has a stylistic reason for preferring one over the other in a given context, then it seems to me alright to take advantage of that ambiguity, especially if, as GJ states, everyone understood what I meant.
Here’s a question for the grammarians among us. One can express the sentence, “Are they not brilliant?” by substituting a contraction and stating, “Aren’t they brilliant?” One can do the same for the third person singular statement, “Is he not brilliant?” and write instead, “Isn’t he brilliant?” And for the second person singular, “Are you not brilliant?” becoming “Aren’t you brilliant?” But what about the first person statement, “Am I not brilliant?” Can it properly be written, “Amn’t I brilliant?” and if not, why not? And is this the derivation of the contraction “Ain’t”?
Out of curiosity, I did a search to find examples of well regarded writers who have misused words – hoping to find examples attributable to James Joyce or Hemingway. What I found instead was an article about Joe Biden, which indicated that when he was Vice President, he repeatedly misused “literally.” If I had known that, I would not have voted for him. (Yes, I know, Il Duce is incapable of using any word with more than three syllables, but at least he has not misused the word “literally.”)
Eureka! I found one.
The opening line of Joyce’s “The Dead” reads: “Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, was literally run off her feet.”
No wonder he never won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
'This is an error which I am seeing and hearing more and more often, and I, like other readers of this blog, including Danny, find it deplorable.'
Danny was yanking your chain.
Danny,
So you do not find statements such as “Mr. Green was severely effected by the corona virus” deplorable?
“it seems to me alright”
https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2008/12/is-alright-all-wrong.html
'So you do not find statements such as “Mr. Green was severely effected by the corona virus” deplorable?'
Because you mean 'affected', and 'effect' is usually a noun? Well, in some contexts, effect is a verb. Thanksa lot, English. The protesters wanted to effect change in the corrupt government. While we are on what I find deplorable, I muse about the expression 'grammatical error'. I mean, 'grammatical' means "following the rules of grammar" (in other words, 'correct'). I know that people actually take the time to cavil about things such as this -- many people loved to argue about all things that relate to grammar and usage, and thus, the question of whether grammatical error is up to snuff may just be what you’re looking for (or "the thing for which you look").
Danny,
Actually the error is not that the speaker is using “effected” as a verb, when it is more properly used as a noun. “Effect” has an appropriate meaning as a verb, such as “Obamacare has effected a major change in the way Americans can obtain their health care.” And confusing the distinctly different uses of the verbs “affect” and “effect’ is, in my opinion, and in the opinion of many grammarians, deplorable, because it confuses causing (“effect”) with being caused (“affect”), and this is an important distinction to keep in mind.
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