Volt: So how do we find our place within society?
Hans: From the fact that we are citizens of a political state, then we could find our place within society.
Volt: But you would not even know that you are a citizen without being told as such.
Hans: The recognition of being a citizen is dependent on actually being a citizen, which is predicated on an already existing political state.
Volt: All right; you receive your citizenship from the state, but what are you in relation to your society?
Hans: I am saying that once we recognize our own political state, then we can be effective members of its society.
Volt: You, sir, don’t know you place within society.
Hans: How could you say that I don't know? I have lived within society all of my life. Do you have any evidence that I have not lived within society?
Volt: Here is what I mean: once you live among its members, you will find your place.
Hans: But I…But what is my place?
Volt: Your place is to see that its members decide who you are going to be in relation to them.
Hans: But what of my personal dignity?
Volt: They will respect that once you show yourself to be a dignified member among them.
Hans: I guess that I feel that have a lot to learn.
Volt: That’s all for today’s lesson.
Monday, September 14, 2015
Thursday, September 10, 2015
How to Converse with the Dead
Here is a passage from Hamlet (III, ii, 17-36)):
Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion
be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the
word to the action; with this special o'erstep not
the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is
from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the
first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the
mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature,
scorn her own image, and the very age and body of
the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone,
or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful
laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the
censure of the which one must in your allowance
o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be
players that I have seen play, and heard others
praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely,
that, neither having the accent of Christians nor
the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so
strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of
nature's journeymen had made men and not made them
well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
This is apart of the 'Speak the Speech' advice give to his players, who have to preform before the royal audience in Elsinore. These are the stage directions given by Hamlet to instruct the players in how to act well in the play, the Murder of Gonzago, that is going to be preformed. So I'd like to focus on the meaning of two things within the above speech: 1. 'holding up the mirror up to nature' and 2. 'imitating humanity'
1. Hamlet says that the play-actor shows what is the heart of his audience by merely speaking his lines. This simple direction seems too simple because Hamlet is an experienced play-actor, while his players are novices, who are forced to keep up with the demands of the playwright. So the nature of the players are their relative youth and inexperience.
2. The irony of Hamlet is that he points out the flaws of other players that he had seen. These were poor players, who did not act well because they sometimes missed their cues. When it was their turn to act, they failed because they did not deliver their lines with the gusto that Hamlet is demanding from his players. So it's human to wander away from what you are supposed to be doing.
Thus, while we wander from our duties, we could take the time to remember our place on the stage. We will never be like Hamlet because he does not want us to be like him. He demands exact conformity to his directions, which we will never measure up to. So we concede that we have enough of the words that we have been taught from him as players on his stage.
Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion
be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the
word to the action; with this special o'erstep not
the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is
from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the
first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the
mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature,
scorn her own image, and the very age and body of
the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone,
or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful
laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the
censure of the which one must in your allowance
o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be
players that I have seen play, and heard others
praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely,
that, neither having the accent of Christians nor
the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so
strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of
nature's journeymen had made men and not made them
well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
This is apart of the 'Speak the Speech' advice give to his players, who have to preform before the royal audience in Elsinore. These are the stage directions given by Hamlet to instruct the players in how to act well in the play, the Murder of Gonzago, that is going to be preformed. So I'd like to focus on the meaning of two things within the above speech: 1. 'holding up the mirror up to nature' and 2. 'imitating humanity'
1. Hamlet says that the play-actor shows what is the heart of his audience by merely speaking his lines. This simple direction seems too simple because Hamlet is an experienced play-actor, while his players are novices, who are forced to keep up with the demands of the playwright. So the nature of the players are their relative youth and inexperience.
2. The irony of Hamlet is that he points out the flaws of other players that he had seen. These were poor players, who did not act well because they sometimes missed their cues. When it was their turn to act, they failed because they did not deliver their lines with the gusto that Hamlet is demanding from his players. So it's human to wander away from what you are supposed to be doing.
Thus, while we wander from our duties, we could take the time to remember our place on the stage. We will never be like Hamlet because he does not want us to be like him. He demands exact conformity to his directions, which we will never measure up to. So we concede that we have enough of the words that we have been taught from him as players on his stage.
Saturday, September 5, 2015
Natural Law Ethics
Natural law ethics could be described as the attempt to find values within nature, which is the image of what should be. That is a very sketchy definition of nature, but then from this understanding of what nature is, one could set up a way of carrying out those values to other image-bearers, who are those who hold to these values. (The values are concepts which are shown through actions.) So this is a theistic account of how we understand ethics through natural law theory, which is on the internet somewhere.
So once we look at nature, we will then look for a certain 'oughtness' about how things work within nature. This 'oughtness' is a feeling that we have when we see how nature should act. Down below, there will be a distinction between how things should be and how things ought to be. Let's call this the difference between how we feel about something and how things actually are in themselves.
For example, if there is a glass of water on the table, then one could look at how the water is settled within the glass, and then from there conclude that the water acts in such a way that it should be settled within that glass. However, this is a fallacy because nature does not tell us anything about how things should act, but rather those, who have a sense of how nature should be, are the ones who make a judgement about how nature should act.
Thus, our judgments depend on nature to give us an idea of how things ought to be, but we already have an idea of how things should be. And as we look to nature for how things ought to be, let us keep in mind that 'should' tells us about our feelings that we have about nature, while 'ought' is how things are to be in our world that is sensible to the image-bearers within it. So we get knowledge about the world through how we interact with it, since nature is the source of science, but math guys have to give you a schema to find out how to understand science.
So once we look at nature, we will then look for a certain 'oughtness' about how things work within nature. This 'oughtness' is a feeling that we have when we see how nature should act. Down below, there will be a distinction between how things should be and how things ought to be. Let's call this the difference between how we feel about something and how things actually are in themselves.
For example, if there is a glass of water on the table, then one could look at how the water is settled within the glass, and then from there conclude that the water acts in such a way that it should be settled within that glass. However, this is a fallacy because nature does not tell us anything about how things should act, but rather those, who have a sense of how nature should be, are the ones who make a judgement about how nature should act.
Thus, our judgments depend on nature to give us an idea of how things ought to be, but we already have an idea of how things should be. And as we look to nature for how things ought to be, let us keep in mind that 'should' tells us about our feelings that we have about nature, while 'ought' is how things are to be in our world that is sensible to the image-bearers within it. So we get knowledge about the world through how we interact with it, since nature is the source of science, but math guys have to give you a schema to find out how to understand science.
Friday, September 4, 2015
Kentucky Woman
This is nothing less than Calvin’s doctrine of the lesser magistrates (Institutes 4.20.22-32), which I would urge upon
all and sundry as relevant reading material. And as Calvin points out, after
Daniel — a Babylonian official — disobeyed the king’s impious edict, he denied
that he had wronged the king in any way (Dan. 6:22-23).
John Bugay wrote the
above on a blog that has helped me out in my thinking and writing:
Now, this controversy over a Kentucky woman, who did the
right thing in my estimation, is about being blamed for not issuing marriage licenses
in her respective state. She had an issue of conscience that would not allow
her to perform her duties, so she has been put in jail, I believe, over this
issue of gender-blind marriage, which to me is nonsense.
My question is: does the lesser magistrate, in this context
the Kentucky clerk, have the right to not follow the law, if that law does not
seem right in her estimation? If you do not think that a law is right, does
that obligate you to disobedience? When is civil disobedience justifiable?
Let’s say that there is a law that says that it’s lawful for
persons to do evil. Now this is just a thought experiment, so do not object yet,
you lawyers! There is a point to this thought: when the law says to perform an
evil action, will you do it? Yes, that is what the law says, but what does your
instinct tell you?
So if there is a law that you feel has no binding authority
on your behavior, should you not be punished for your crime? Yes, because you
have decided that the law is useless in the sense that it has no authority over
your conscience because you feel that it would not be right to follow such a
law. Why follow an unjust law?
Thus, if you are a lesser magistrate, and if there is, I
hate to say it, an evil-law, then you should disobey that law because that
particular law is unjust. So when a society becomes oppressed by evil-laws,
then that society will become weak with ill rule, so that another one will take
its place over time. This is a bleak conclusion that could be overturned with
magistrates who follow this line of thinking.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
How to Read and Why
The book ‘How to Read and Why’ was published by Touchstone in 2000 by Harold Bloom, an excellent literary critic, who wrote this book to give many examples from imaginative literature, or fictional writing, to show you why reading matters. He begins his book by giving us some guidelines to read well:
1. Clear you mind of jargon.
2. Read to improve your own interests, not those of your neighbor.
3. A scholar is a candle, which the love and desire of all men will light.
4. One must be an inventor to read well.
5. Look for irony as you read.
These principles of reading serve us as a reminder that we read for ourselves, while writers write for others. However, the opposite happens also, but the propose of reading fiction is to become better at overhearing ourselves as we seek what the author, Bloom, calls the Sublime, which is a hard pleasure to capture. Thus, we read fiction to enjoy our own interests, but you have to read a lot if you are going to become an interesting person.
1. Clear you mind of jargon.
2. Read to improve your own interests, not those of your neighbor.
3. A scholar is a candle, which the love and desire of all men will light.
4. One must be an inventor to read well.
5. Look for irony as you read.
These principles of reading serve us as a reminder that we read for ourselves, while writers write for others. However, the opposite happens also, but the propose of reading fiction is to become better at overhearing ourselves as we seek what the author, Bloom, calls the Sublime, which is a hard pleasure to capture. Thus, we read fiction to enjoy our own interests, but you have to read a lot if you are going to become an interesting person.
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