Illuminations from the Second Ether

Here are some of the "illuminations" artist Kai Robb is preparing for a full-color edition of Tally-Ho, Cornelius! My collaboration with Kai has been most helpful, and his enthusiasm for the project has inspired thoughts of a sequel.

Manhattan as a Tree:

Cappy:

Mary Make-Believe:

The Bifurcating Monofilament:

The Bifurcating Monofilament in Flames:

The Smollettsphere:

Trailer Park Shane the Bling-Bearing Gangsta Wannabe:

Lt. Baudrillard Picturing Himself in the Guise of the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Cornelius, with Soft Toy Cephalopod:

Climb High Oh Corsairs!

Arch Maintypes:

More of Kai Robb's splendid illuminations can be viewed here:

http://tekelili.deviantart.com/gallery/

A Hittitologist

From Bill Caraher, a note on my uncle, Professor Charles Carter:

One of the fringe benefits of running this blog is that you occasionally hear from an alumnus/a who studied the ancient world under one my predecessors here at the University of North Dakota.  While it was always interesting to hear from a member of the larger university community, I must admit that prior to working on the history of my department, these names were usually fairly meaningless to me.  Some of this is perhaps exacerbated by the fact that that our department as a group have only a fairly modest collective memory, owing largely to the fairly brisk turnover in faculty over the last 20 years. 

As the study of the ancient world in North Dakota allows for some unusual relationships, correspondences, and juxtapositions, it seems worth including a brief biography of one of my predecessor here (drawn in large part from the department'sCentennial Newsletter of 1983):

Charles Carter, a native of Kentucky, (greater Cincinnati) earned his Bachelor of Divinity from Emory University (Atlanta), a B.A. from the University of Kentucky and the Ph.D., ancient Near East languages, from the University of Chicago. He taught at Central Methodist College at Fayette, Missouri 1965-1966. At the University since 1966, he taught ancient and early European courses. His Ph.D thesis was entitled Hittite Cult Inventories, and his subsequent publications include "Some Notes on Political and Religious Institutions in Two Ancient Cultures," Social Science XLIV (1969) as well asVokabulare, mythen und kultinventare (1978, with H.G. Gutterbock) and numerous more specialized journal articles dealing with the Hittite language as well as reviews.  In 2000, after some delays, a volume in his honor was edited by Yoël L.Arbeitman and titled The Asia Minor Connexion: Studies in Pre-Greek Languages in Honor of Charles Carter (Peeters, Leuven 2000).

He was the first individual to come to the history department to teach exclusively (more or less) the ancient world and he brought with him to North Dakota, of all people, the Hittites .  He was active in national organizations like the American Oriental Society as well as more local organizations like The Linguistic Circle of Manitoba and North Dakota.  He began and led the Grand Forks chapter of theArchaeological Institute of America which has subsequently disappeared. 

Perhaps noting Carter's contribution in as ephemeral a medium as the a weblog is not doing him any great service, but, then again, some of the most compelling journeys come from following footprints in the sand.

--Bill Caraher, 8-14-07

Source: http://mediterraneanworld.typepad.com/the_archaeology_of_the_me/2007/08/hittites-in-nor.html

From Plato to Pedantry

A passage from my forthcoming play, Diogenes:

TYRANNOSAURUS: Now show us someone else.  We aren’t getting very far.

DEAN OF PHILOSOPHERS: Hmm.  As Athens is a city rich in departments and bureaus, perhaps our Stoic here can help.  He is very popular amongst the clerks, having solved all their problems with remarkable alacrity.  You, Stoic! What can you add to our understanding of this affair?

STOIC: With all due respect, sir, your affair is completely out of your control, sir, and all that is not in control is immaterial, sir.

IONEDES: I didn’t quite catch that.

TYRANNOSAURUS: Never mind him, Ionedes.  He is another bore.

DEAN OF PHILOSOPHERS: Gentleman, might I suggest Starchild, Junior; the philosopher at the end?  He is from Athens’ most widely renowned school; and one of his students, Aristotle, as I say, was in fact the teacher of Alexander.

TYRANNOSAURUS: From the school that taught Alexander’s teacher!  By all means, let the man speak.

DEAN OF PHILOSOPHERS: There's a good fellow:  Tell these men what you know best?

STARCHILD, JUNIOR: I am wise in what Suarolophus calls ‘matters of love.’

IONEDES: This is more like it.  How can I find my daughter?  How can Tyrannosaurus find his son?

STARCHILD, JUNIOR: But when I say I am wise in love, I do not mean, as in Baryonyx’s popular definition of the term, the love of people. It is, as Dacentrus and Deinocheirus have urged, the soul that I love; and in loving the soul I love love, much in the way that Ornatotholus interprets the meditations of Deinodon.

TYRANNOSAURUS: It seems very pleasant to think in this way, but what about our children?

STARCHILD, JUNIOR: Your children are but copies of greater ideas existing where existence is real, as Hypsilophodon has said in a brilliant recent discussion.  As Hypsilophodon would further point out, your children, like everything that you behold—the sky, the earth, the sea, and all that lives—are imitations of invisible ideas existing outside our universe.  Even the circumstance of your children missing is a pattern that copies an image that exists where images are real, which agrees closely with what Troodon has often urged.

DEAN OF PHILOSOPHERS: We're getting somewhere, Tyrannosaurus.  For if we can see the image of where they really are, then locating their duplicates here in Athens should be a snap. (snaps his fingers, and points at STARCHILD, JUNIOR) And where do these real images exist?

STARCHILD, JUNIOR: Nowhere: because if they were anywhere they would not exist, as Hypsilophodon has so persuasively argued.

TYRANNOSAURUS: So that even if we find them we haven't really found them?

STARCHILD, JUNIOR: To recapitulate Velocipes’ seminal phrase, ‘what you say is true.’

TYRANNOSAURUS: So that by your logic our search is futile.

STARCHILD, JUNIOR: Opinions are vague as to the specific question of your specific search, but as Astrodon has written in his neo-pragmatic demotion of philosophy to the recitation of officially authorized modes of discourse, your search is but an imitation of the pattern of the real search where images are real.

IONEDES: This is ridiculous. Why do you pursue this with him?

TYRANNOSAURUS: Because these are the teachings known to Alexander.

STARCHILD, JUNIOR: Gentlemen, do not become discouraged. As Saltopus might suggest, we are making progress. Our proceedings are indeed following the pattern set forth for philosophical discussion in the ideal state—indeed, exactly as Astrodon argues in his famous formulation.

(Enter ACHILLES and CHRYSIS followed by DIOGENES.)

Song of Diogenes

A few lines from my Aristophanic comedy Diogones, forthcoming from Mustard Lid Press:

Her fey beauty like the glowing moon

Lives in an aging vision that walks alone

In streams and in this life that came to seem

What is, the way it was, what should ever be

 

If I could sit in session with the wind

And call upon the outlines of that original vision

Have it before, unfolding grace, once more

I would say, "Slowly, linger with me awhile."

 

And a long gaze with time I should take

In all the fine array of what I should make

Of this gift, this beautiful friend who love herself

Did send singing out of the silent shrines of hope

 

 "Wisdom, do you see?  Anointed, in a form soft,

 Flowing, woman.  Friend, how can I friend to thee?"

And I should sit quiet and wait, a keen mind listening

                                    

And wait upon the long road of a languishing wave

Or as some mathematician tends upon the fortunes

Of a lonely comet rise and wane to the heavens

'Till midnight's last hour on western hill of sleep

 

I shall listen to the stillness of her breath, her sigh

Patient, upon a field of remembered expectation

Promise as this interview concludes, then dawn

This night wiser by one night, one still, one love

But that was a long time ago....

Submarine Conflict and Literature

The following note comes from Mustard Lid Press Editor L. Sterns Newburg:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090217/wl_afp/britainfrancenuclearweapons

I understand what happened, and how. And I understand why both countries, as well as the US, keep the locations and movements of these submarines secret even from one another. I suppose that the probability of such a collision taking place is quite small, but nevertheless, this whole affair seems to me to indicate that better co-ordination of the various allies might well be indicated.

The incident and the aftermath are almost humorous, if it were not for the specter of, "What would happen if they damaged each other so badly that there was a serious leak of nuclear material?"

I'm sure you are aware of the history of "live exercises" between the erstwhile antagonists of the Cold War. Sometimes, it could be like a game of "chicken" between the vessels of the US/UK/France and the old USSR or China or Korea. Very bizarre examples of what is sometimes called "brinkmanship."

Connected to all this, I will freely admit to a weakness for books that depict the situation of men in these extreme situations—at war, against environment, et caetera. Books of the Run Silent, Run Deep variety, as well as the book about the Shackleton expedition (Endurance) or the very odd The Long Walk all have their attractions.

Why are such books so interesting to some of us? I do not really know, but one speculates, of course. There is a lot of literature that dramatizes the "test" of man against obstacles of circumstance—war, hardship, and the like. It's a metaphor for life, and the hard choices that must be made, and the consequences that must be endured. Do we all, at some level, identify with the protagonists in these books? Hmm, I do not know. Perhaps.

Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls certainly falls into this category, as do many other books and stories. Hemingway's book is sort of interesting because it depicts the character not just in a difficult situation, but in an impossible one, and one that he comes to recognize is doomed—yet feels compelled by various reasons to push on through to the end. People have, at various times, suggested that the theme is "existential." Ah, well, could be, but the whole thing grows out of Hemingway's view of the world and one's place in it, so I do not think it can fairly be called "existential" the way Camus's or Sartre's works are labeled thus. Hemingway had ideas about life, it's clear, but he never struck me as a "thinker," and to go to such writers looking for "deep thoughts" seems to me a problematic enterprise.

Writers who handle these subjects well present a situation and actions that stimulate us into near-endless meditation on the difficulties of life for which the fiction is a metaphor. I do not think that "good" books provide ready-made answers to questions and problems dealt with this way. It's probably enough—and better—to  dramatize the conflicts and problems that arise when people must make hard choices in the face of difficulties and conflict. The reader brings a certain amount of understanding (one hopes) to the reading table, and can do the rest.

Along this line, let me point out a book I read some years ago that I found to be an excellent example of this style, done in novelistic form. The book in question is called Wilderness, and it was by Gerald Hausman and the late Roger Zelazny. Nicely written, and a fascinating read overall; and I never even really had much interest (before reading the book) in the milieux depicted.  

–LSN 

Mt. Redoubt

This is a link to the Alaska Volcano Observatory webcams. There are two webcams--"Hut" and "CI"--currently viewing Mt. Redoubt as it gets ready to erupt:

http://www.avo.alaska.edu/webcam/

Maxim and Maxine

Something's going on with the prefix "Max," as just recently I received two communications that signify in possibly interrelated ways. The first concerns a message from my publisher offering the use of "Maxim" next time I visit London. "Maxim DeWinter (Daphne Du Maurier)" is his Citroen 2CV Lomax:



The second "Max" communication I received is an image passed along by a friend, whose daughter "Maxine" gives me a mention in this page from her illuminated memoirs:




This bodes well.

Critical Commentary with the Ouija

The other evening I paid a call upon my astrologer, who after following the usual preliminaries--heating a pot of chamomile tea, vigorously rubbing my shoulders, burning white sage, and with much fanfare striking a gong--pulled out her Ouja board to survey a variety of notable historical figures concerning the critical reception Tally-Ho, Cornelius! was receiving on "the other side." Demons are known to impersonate the shades of the dead in order to corrupt our world with fantasy and illusion, and thus I can not attest to the veracity of these statements, but they ring true to me:

"Cast this reactionary drivel to the flames. Then everybody
back to work."

--Mao Tse Tung

"The story of a vicar whose best friend is a cuttlefish. We all
know someone like that."

--Evelyn Waugh

"I would like to have dinner with the author. There can
be no higher praise."

--James Boswell

"With delight and ease this novel exposes such people as have betrayed their civilization and all mankind; and especially that terrible species we know as the 'political scarecrow,' that is the man of straw, ridiculous to all who know of what materials he is made; and to none more so, than to those who have stuffed him, and set him up, as the Priapus of the garden of the golden apples of corruption."

-- Thomas Love Peacock

"Perfectly esoteric!"

--Leo Strauss

Sources for an American Idea of Revolution

In his seminal book on The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, Bernard Bailyn identifies five currents of thought that were significant to forming the world view of the colonists who struggled against the British Empire. The initial four are as follows: first, “the heritage of classical antiquity;” second, the “ideas and attitudes associated with the writings of Enlightenment rationalism;” third, the tradition represented by English common law; and, fourth, the “political and social theories of New England Puritanism.” However, according to Bailyn,

important as all these clusters of ideas were, they did not in themselves form a coherent intellectual pattern, and they do not exhaust the elements that went into the making of the Revolutionary frame of mind . . . The ultimate origins of this distinctive ideological strain lay in the radical social thought of the English Civil War, and of the Commonwealth period.

Bailyn goes on to say that the permanent form of the American revolutionary world view had fully formed by the late-seventeenth and early eighteenth-centuries. Interestingly enough but not surprisingly, Milton figures significantly as a progenitor of this opposition theory. If this is true, the American Revolution is properly an outcome of radical “poetical” processes of late-Protestant thought. In more modern terms, this revolutionary mindset is characterized by patterns of investigation sharing close affinities with analytic philosophy and critical synoptics. Before, however, analytic and synoptic perception is possible, thought has to be set free to range beyond the limits of custom and conventional knowledge. Please click HERE for the elaboration of a formal methodology.


Bernard Bailyn. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992).

 List of John Milton's Writings

And more

Notes on a New Novel

Tallyho, Cornelius! is a pastiche of two of Michael Moorcock’s fantasy cycles: Jerry Cornelius and the Second Ether. Many contributors to the avant-garde magazine New Worlds wrote Jerry Cornelius stories in the 60s and 70s, and what I offer is a 21st century adaptation. I was very fortunate to gain Mr. Moorcock’s support in this project. As well, he has contributed a lengthy blurb for the back cover.

In this latest interpretation, Jerry Cornelius—the Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Cornelius—is an Anglican theologian promoting the New World Order. In keeping with Moorcock’s Jerry, his interests include physics and computer programming. Jerry’s opportunistic brother Frank is Bishop Francis Cornelius. The plot of the novel is driven by the Reverend Dr. Cornelius's "contact" with the Second Ether, which disrupts his theology of globalization. I’ve integrated some of Ray Kurzweil’s ideas into my adaptation of Moorcock’s Second Ether. Set in New York (where I live part of the year), the novel speaks to both sides of the Atlantic.

Michael Moorcok has said that Jerry Cornelius is as much technique as he is character. Jerry Cornelius has been called the first cyberpunk hero and this is probably correct. Jerry Cornelius also anticipated the contemporary “slipstream” movement in experimental fiction which author Bruce Sterling (who coined the phrase) describes as ". . . a kind of writing which simply makes you feel very strange; the way that living in the twentieth century makes you feel, if you are a person of a certain sensibility” (SF Eye #5, July 1989). It is easy to say that this sensibility is simply a continuation of the sixties psychedelic “franchise,” and as such there are many ways to create such effects, but I think at bottom of the slipstream movement is a unique treatment of history that is something else entirely.

Go back and look at the original Cornelius novels and we see there is a lot of the first half of the 20th century in there--the persistence of a culture even as the psychic infrastructure supporting that culture breaks apart. . . and is JC an exponent of this process? Both as a character and as a technique?

And isn’t it wonderful how this culture and this character persist as consistent and recognizable ontological reference points even as the centripetal forces of history draw it (and him) apart?

In Tally-Ho, Cornelius! a balance was struck, uneven perhaps, among three concerns: 1) the JC material as it stood before I made my contribution, 2) the mythographic patterns and templates I identified in the Second Ether (outlined in the chapter I wrote for Clyde Wilcox and Mack Hassler’s New Boundaries in Politics and Science Fiction), and 3) the sorts of things I had to do to satisfy my own “artistic” quirks and agenda. Many of these dynamics work themselves out in the colloquy between the Reverend Dr. Cornelius and Little Capricorn; where the former is the “secret superhero” behind a thousand masks of social respectability; while the latter, being a “real superhero,” is the unrestrained genius that acts out superhero impulses unfettered by the mitigating masks of social personae. I think it is interesting to note here that in African-American slang, “to trip” means to slip out of control and act-out the quirky emotions of our eternal dialogues.

To me the key difference between the Rev. Dr. C. and Jerry’s other avatars is found in his psychic continuity and the persistence of his persona. In his introduction to The Cornelius Chronicles John Clute writes, “The presentation of the self in everyday life in the inner city is a form of theatre where identity is a role and where entropy is high...” This presentation and the level of entropy can be adjusted by the author, who can figuratively “set the dials” and increase or decrease the persistence of identity or the level of entropy. In transplanting Jerry out of the inner city, it seems to me the secure and privileged high-church Anglican JC should have a higher level of apparent continuity, moreover as his professional training pointedly cultivates such continuity because it is central to the job of priest, and, eventually, central to the post of cathedral dean. But the reality of human theatre--choosing roles, wearing masks, playing with and against each other--remains the same at all levels. And likewise, entropy—a physical as well as social constant—remains a consistent a force that shifts the landscape and drives the actions that the players chose, or chose not to chose. As a well-connected authority of the high church, the Reverend Dr. Cornelius both represents and enforces the continuity of the individual and collective personae of everyone in society. His job is to keep us glued together because our cohesiveness—the integrity of our individual personae and the social interactions these personae make possible—are necessary to advance the integrity and the power of his friends at the top of the social pyramid; or indeed, are necessary for our collective survival. His little friend Capricorn, however, being a “superhero,” or, indeed, being an exponent of that very top of society that the Reverend Dr. Cornelius serves, is thus Jerry’s friend and his foil, his counterpoint, the model of the freedoms he seeks, and his master. JC’s encounter with Cappy is an encounter with the freedoms he has been aspiring to his whole life. In meeting Cappy, JC encounters the “billionaire masters” of our emerging global civilization; alternatively, in this encounter JC is the middle class fulfilling of its aspirations. In befriending Capricorn, JC meets up with the myth of his own liberation. But considering what Cappy really is, at the end of the day JC’s achievement and his success becomes the dissolution of the same rigid patterns of personality that have allowed him to ascend in the first place. Ironically, he has worked his whole life in order to achieve the dissolution of the most important tool—his persona—that he needed to get to the top. People today seem to have two avenues to achieve this kind of success: the first is to be extremely rich; the second is to give it up and drop out of the system entirely, and I think all of us are familiar with the strange aura of dissolution radiated by both the very lowest and the very highest strata of society—it’s something that very often frightens us middle class folk. Interestingly enough, however, little forays into this dissolute realm in the form of novels, church worship, music, film, TV and travel define the underlying character of our middle class “recreation.” Now while all this is going on it’s important to keep in mind the Rev Dr C’s religious vocation, moreover his position near the very top of the religious-political complex. Perhaps it all comes down to Michael Moorcock's line in The Entropy Circuit where Jerry says, “To the fearful all things are chaotic. That's how you get religion (and its bastard child, politics).”

To me the great fun is in the mythographic possibilities that open up when JC and the Second Ether interpenetrate. At this point of intersection the shamanistic doors swing wide apart. Michael Moorcok's In Lighter Vein: A note on the Jerry Cornelius Tetralogy, neatly describes the system of “referentiality” that is represented in the JC material, and which is key to my understanding of mythographic poetry, be it Blake, Milton, or what have you:

Part of my original intention with the Jerry Cornelius stories was to 'liberate' the narrative; to leave it open to the reader's interpretation as much as possible - to involve the reader in such a way as to bring their own imagination into play. This impulse was probably a result of my interest in Brecht - an interest I'd had since the mid-fifties.

Although the structure of the tetralogy is very strict (some might think over-mechanical) the scope for interpretation is hopefully much wider than the conventional novel. The underlying logic is also very disciplined, particularly in the last three volumes. It's my view that a work of fiction should contain nothing which does not contribute to the overall scheme. The whimsicalities to be found in all the books are, in fact, not random, not mere conceits, but make internal references. That is to say, while I strive for the effect of randomness on one level, the effect is achieved by a tightly controlled system of internal reference, puns, ironies, logic-jumps which no single reader may fairly be expected to follow.

Thus far the responses to the novel have been very positive. In correspondence, Steve Aylett has suggested to me that the Reverend Dr. Cornelius does not “feel” like Jerry Cornelius, and I agree (but do not sympathize) with his impression. They are different characters, but they are also the same person. The basic thematic elements, issues of technique and “band name” referents are all there. The corporate logo is in place and just how far does (or can) Jerry Cornelius transcends his corporate logo? Moreover, the Reverend Dr. Cornelius feels like Jerry to me. This all gets into the nature of human identity, too, and this is a crucial philosophical theme in Moorcock’s original vision. Another reader, John Neffay, has suggested that in my presentation of Oona I rely too much on past incarnations of Una Persson. My Oona certainly could have been developed further. The question I had while writing the novel, however, was what a more-developed-Oona would have contributed to the overall scheme of the novel? That is, beyond a minor foil and a “tool” that he cynically uses, how relevant is she to the Reverend Dr. Cornelius? Perhaps she might play a greater role in a possible sequel if she can contribute to the diffuse field of internal reflections and epiphenomena that make up a Jerry Cornelius novel. Meantime, the Reverend Dr. Cornelius is what the novel is about, just as he is what he is about. This novel is in many ways an interior monologue. And for that matter, does Little Capricorn, the "Devil Boy” as Francis calls him, even exist? Or is he a figment of the Reverend Dr. Cornelius’s imagination, or the representative principle of imagination that drives him toward his success, or is it toward his dissolution?

The Diplomatical Simian

He plays at the leash-end

Whilst "culture" grinds the crank

He plays with ottava rima strains

When the muses raise his rank

Octaves he knows many more

Than scan within an inch

Of monkey sandman's drizzle laughter

Imagine how must he itch

To tell off the offices

And the clerks who make a crouch

In bowling to their engines

In plain rooms boldly numbered

See how in a drop of day

They've lost time that so encumbered

Now so free the mortal strain

(As seen on TV, never mind the color

It's all black and white, all problems

Solved in half an hour

Audio then visual)

Ecce sweet refrain:

The sinecure's been sequestered!

Hurrah! Huzzah! Hoobaloo!

Thus all meek before the melting mob

And the center stays smartly centered

Beneath the gaze of micromanager

Whose hurdy gurdy gently groans:

"Dot your 'i' and cross your 't'

Review the 'p' and 'q' and

And . . . presto!"

So drop the idiom, drop the drone

Your song is nearly done

As for your predominance

Preeminent, tall, and novel,

All blue-jeaned and professorial

Well, something's much less, it surrounds:

Have you seen the flatness of the terrain?

Philosophical Antecedents to the Second Amendment

I leave it to legal scholars to thrash out the wording of the US Constitution and the supposed (or actual) ambiguities concerning who has the right bear arms—be it officially convened militias or independent individuals—and instead direct my attention to ponder the deeper philosophical questions the document gives rise to. To us highbrows, the thought of an armed populace seems abhorrent, at best ridiculous; but, nonetheless, the philosophical antecedents stepping up to the Second Amendment represent a fascinating thread in intellectual history evoking the very fundamentals of our traditional Western understanding of the universe, humanity, and the latter’s relationship to (and place within) the former.

In their broadest considerations, the framers of the American Bill of Rights were operating under the Augustinian assumption that the world and the people in it were corrupt, and ergo the activity of people in that world was corrupt as a matter of this essential nature. This assumption was central to Luther (an Augustinian), Calvin, and Arminius, and looking into the way these people interpreted the “fall” is instructive, and in the liberal interpretation of the concept Gnostic and antinomian notions are very important as well, especially to the Protestant traditions that lead to our constitutional rights, including the bearing of arms. Augustine claimed that political entities had a right to protect themselves. Coercive rule itself was a necessary evil upon which the well-being and preservation of society depended. Nevertheless there was no actual virtue in the state’s authority, as Augustine neatly expresses in this anecdote from The City of God (VI:4):

When [Alexander the Great] asked [a captured pirate] what he meant by infesting the sea, he boldly replied: ‘What you mean by warring on the whole world. I do my fighting on a ship, and they call me a pirate; you do yours on a large ship, and they call you Commander.

The story is suggestive of the ironic scene Golding deploys at the conclusion of The Lord of the Flies, where the boys are rescued from their island of barbarity by men from the warship ominously hovering above them in the ocean, and that ocean leading out to a world at war. Early Protestants would share Augustine’s perspective in regards to the authority of the state, and thus the state, despite its corruptions was “tolerated” out of necessity. But the sense the state itself was a corruption remained a problem, and this unsettling "truth" became something else again as the Protestant movement followed a modern turn to liberalism during the seventeenth century in the Netherlands and England.

And it was after all this modern turn that was most directly the heritage of ideas that informed the framer’s thinking. Indeed, the framers of the US Constitution were heirs to the socio-religious-political tradition represented by Cromwell and the “Good Old Cause”—the movement we associate, first, with the Independents and the Army during the English Civil War of the 1640s; then the work of Shaftsbury and Locke which was realized in the ascension of William and Mary and the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which brought about an English Bill of Rights claiming the right of Protestants to bear arms in their lawful self-defense. In those days, Independent Protestants had a legitimate fear of the High-English and Roman churches, as well as the political forces these churches represented. Historically, this line of demarcation recapitulates itself in the 1640s, the late-1680s and--moving to America--the 1770s and 80s (Declaration, 1776; U.S. Constitution, 1787), placing on one side the middle classes, and on the other the bankers and land owners. Respectively, in the wake of the English Civil War, these divisions followed religious lines as well, placing Baptists, Presbyterians and Independents on one side, and High-Church Anglicans on the other. In Revolutionary America, the division fell out similarly, with the Baptists and Calvinists on one side, and the Episcopalians (Anglicans) on the other. In class terms once more, the former were middle class and the latter were upper-class bankers and land owners. Politically, the former were Democratic Republicans and the latter were Federalists. As originally offered, the U.S. Constitution had no provisions for guaranteeing the Rights of the middle classes. It was a document intended to guarantee the powers and status of the upper classes, and for this reason it was rejected. Thus it was necessary to add the Bill of Rights (containing the Second Amendment), which properly guaranteed human rights as understood by the middle classes.

There is in this Lockean nexus of political thought a fundamental belief that the people have a sacred duty to resist any government that does not protect the people’s natural rights. Government could take many forms (Locke of course had some wise suggestions involving balance of powers) but the benchmark for measuring the legitimacy of any government, system or ruler was whether or not that government, system or ruler protected the rights of the “community.” Locke doesn’t say much about who makes up his “community,” but suffice it to say Locke’s “community” consisted of people who thought like himself (Independent Christians, political liberals, and, perhaps most important of all, people who amassed property through their labor, by which Locke meant everybody who worked). More generally, Locke’s community is properly regarded as the human community in toto, where the people are united as beings equal under and subject to God’s especial love and care. Whatever form or persona the magisterial (state) power takes, it is answerable to God if it fails to protect the human community. The chief instrument of God’s judgment is the people. In 1651, a generation before the Glorious Revolution, in A Defense of the People of England Milton writes, “God changes circumstances, assigns kingdoms, and takes them away . . . through the agency of men.” This is directly in line with the theological rationale Locke calls upon when he claims that people have a sacred duty to overthrow any government that fails to uphold God’s trust. The notion is essentially Christian but uniquely formed by the ancient liberal traditions of the English people and their Common Law, which provides for individual’s to be secure in their persons and their property, and that allows them to have a say in the usages of their persons and their property. In the English tradition, the state derives its power from the people; the state itself has no rights. The folk on the continent have traditionally viewed this the other way round. Back to Locke: As for the right to bear arms: if overthrowing a bad government is a sacred duty, then the people need the tools to do it, thus the Right to keep and bear arms. Thus we might cautiously cross over into the specialized field of Constitutional interpretation and assign specific meanings to the amendment, which reads as follows:

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

The phrase "well regulated" is used consistently in the contemporaneous writings of the framers to indicate a militia that is proficient or well-trained. Although the subtext of "supervision" can properly be read into the wording, the overt significance of the phrase underscores the effectiveness of the militia as an organization to support the defense of the community and the security of the democratic-republican political system as is is formulated in the Constitution. In order to insure the effectiveness of the organization in both its political and operational capacities, the militia is a thoroughly democratized body, not officially constituted pro forma but rather naturally constituted de facto. Everyone is a member.

This stuff makes fascinating intellectual history, but it is important to realize that these ideas are not mere philosophical amusements. They are embedded in the Constitution itself, and here's where things become a bit sticky. According to the Lockean formula, usurping persons or governments attempting to take away the people's arms are obstructing the duty of the people to safe-guard their Rights; thus the people have a duty to resist any power that tries to take their arms. Of course, Congress can legally pass laws to regulate or even confiscate arms; but the antinomian (against the law) understanding that is essential to English Protestant thought stipulates that Christians are absolved from obeying any worldly law. The belief that the Gospels abrogated Mosaic law (the first five books of the Old Testament) not only influenced orderly Germanic types like Luther and Calvin, but can be seen in Augustine as well. Even in the minds of our most theocratic and authoritarian teachers, there is a profound distrust of the state. To find common ground and reconcile our various western traditions regarding who shall possess the power of arms, a healthy distrust of the state must be foremost in the considerations of those who would regulate the possession of arms, as well as those who maintain that arms are to be dutifully borne by all people.

Perhaps the solution lies in that other Lockean assumption that says human beings can tolerate each others' differences as they seek liberal consensus in those areas where consensus can be sought, and proceed reasonably and without violence in the direction of common objectives that can best benefit the members of the human community. The instrumentality of the U.S. Constitution is directed toward this express purpose.

I am no expert in these matters, and rather stumbled upon them in a roundabout fashion as I was pursuing recreation in the works of Milton, Locke, Jefferson, and Hawthorne.

Wittgenstein in 90 Seconds

In a series of architectural notes Wittgenstein made while building the spare and block-shaped family home in Vienna, the philosopher proposed that aesthetic reactions consist of feelings or impressions associated with distaste—“discontent, disgust, discomfort”—and the expressions of these forms of aesthetic distaste were formulated as instructions for reform and improvement—“Make it higher! . . . too low! . . . Do something to this.” If I am not wrong, these notions may lead to a characterization of Wittgenstein’s philosophy at its highest level. This characterization is as follows:

The essential thrust of Wittgenstein’s philosophy is the search for an appropriate response to phenomena. In order to identify this elusive appropriate response, it is necessary to construct a critical synoptic surview; that is, an imaginative overview or “story” in which the phenomena in question can be regarded with clarity and precision. Our conceptual confusion, however, can cloud our overview and lead to an inappropriate response, be it in our understanding, in our pronouncements, or in our actions. Our use—but of course more essentially our misuse—of language can lead to conceptual confusion and philosophical credulousness, and hence the attention paid in analytic philosophy to the use of language; thus the analysis of propositions is the activity, but the philosophy itself is the quest for an appropriate response, and an understanding of the world that both supports and is incumbent upon that appropriate response.

In an age which has mythologized science—or, indeed, in past ages which have mythologized sympathetic, superstitious and magical relationships—and as well amongst a species (Homo sapiens) which tends toward uniformity, conformity, rationalization, and following the habits of custom—empirical explanation is generally accepted as the end of all serious intellectual inquiry. While offering empirical explanation is the appropriate response to some phenomena—exploiting a pharmacological reaction for medical purposes, for instance—empirical explanation is an inappropriate response to other types of phenomena, such as aesthetic phenomena, which are more appropriately approached with the idea of getting hold of some sort of understanding. This understanding chiefly consists of understanding where we stand in relation to the phenomenon we are examining.

Interestingly enough, our understanding—our nurtured and cultivated understanding, which is rooted in an understanding of our feelings—can and has reformed our science, which (since Bacon, Locke and Newton) has been taken from a level of pursuing empirical explanation to a level of an on-going skeptical-empirical enquiry. In our cultivated response to poetry we have learned that our poetry (our mythological expression) is in a state of “semiotic flux” and transformation. When our myths become fixed, they stultify and breed orthodoxy and barbarism. Our myths must therefore become supple and changing, yielding softly to the shifting impressions of the poetic consciousness. Civilized science—the skeptical-empirical method—is in a like state of flux. Aristotle’s notion of potentiality and actuality is revised by Galileo’s emphasis on the quantitative measurement of the physical characteristics of motion, which is revised by Newtonian mechanics, which is revised by Einstein’s relativity, which is revised by quantum mechanics, and so on. These different models are “right” for different times, at different scales, for different tasks, and they all the time progress along a path weaving in and out through ever more subtle and deft articulations of understanding. We don't believe in them, but rather believe in what they can show us, or what they can do for us. They are not essential models, but tools we pick up and set down as we go about engineering new methods for dealing with (and in) the world.

The Princess of the Black Stone Bailey

A free priest, away and merry
Easy to rove the dreaming downs
Saw a princess framed in window stone,
The Princess of the black stone bailey
Above the gates that groaned apart
To admit his ringing bell and holy form
From an open air,
While the green hills, bending road
And slanting skies
Bid him walk the other way.

Beautiful, the princess wise
Of the black stone bailey
Above the full-swung gate
Where the priest now stood.
How her metal hair should
Send a lathe-spun light
At once twice yellow, full bright
A burst star, flying
Beams of wild delight!
How knowledge beneath her brow
Should glow in her eyes a cool appreciation,
Open, alert, placid blue, soft consummations
Of softer desires and darkened dreams
Like placid skis behind gothic spires
That beckon with piercing insinuation,
Or can repel again
With softly narrowed attenuation.

A book against her breast was open
Where was written her devotions,
But this princess other words
She knew, a siren's song,
A Kirke's creaking incantation
That ever calls the shadow-life
Lost shades to Aeaea:
Alongside her missal prayers
Discernment exceeding comprehension
To enjoin a free priest
Of self-same learning!

He now mounts the bailey stair
Rising up in spiral gyre
To join her in the tower lair,
Like Icarus a sun to see,
Or like the scores' gray fulmers
Who cry "Wind!" and pierce the sky.
So he enters the tower room,
Withal the bailey attic
Her quotient-musk fills the air.

Open hand he shows and lifts
From her breast the missal book.
"Friend," says he soft
And gentle shakes his bell,
"Speak to me your bailey prayer."

In like stillness she makes answer
His honest request
And coldly whispers four old lines
So all may be redressed
In man and woman
In bird and beast
Over Earth in higher Heaven:

"To Love we Forgive
To Forgive we Love
For Rebirth we are Born
Forever, save Death, we Live."

Such these words the free priest heard
Whispered by the round-eyed Princess
In the sky-borne
Black stone bailey.

Today in the Britain Nu-Labour Built

1. You can be arrested (and disappear) without charge.

2. You are now liable to arrest for information given to you by someone else.

3. You can't protest without Police consent, and they'll film you while you do it.

4. Your DNA can be taken and held for the most trivial, or indeed innocent of reasons.

5. You can be prohibited from doing otherwise lawful acts on nebulous "anti-social behavior" grounds.

6. Dissent and contradiction are being stamped on; this is designed to chill internal government dissidents, dissuading them from leaking documents while frightening opposition politicians off from receiving, let alone acting upon, leaked information.

7. The government helps undocumented aliens find work, selectively disregarding the law, even as unemployment levels remain high.

8. High-profile militants with violent agendas are tolerated to enhance the government’s argument there exits a permanent "special security" situation.

9. Widespread hooliganism is tolerated, even as law-abiding citizens are prevented from protecting themselves.

10. Micromanaged behavior training in schools.

11. Over-prescription of mind-numbing antidepressants like Prozac and behavior-modification drugs like Ritalin.

12. Security cameras are everywhere, even in parks, wood and green spaces.

Has Britain become a totalitarian state? Or is it in a transitional phase, moving in the direction of tyranny?

Such a transformation will be difficult to recognize according to the various projections of C. S. Lewis, Anthony Burgess and Stanley Kubrick.

Lewis cautions us to watch the universities, where we can expect corporate take-over marked by a philosophy of moral relativism and bureaucratic stoicism superintended by a positivist vision of scientific utopia.

In Kubrick’s interpretation of Burgess’s violent novel, it will appear as the early flickering of a bad trip just round the edges.

Ignore the flickering to your peril, ye Britains.



"What's it going to be then, eh?"