Bestiary of Philosophical Conceptions: #474 Rabbit or Duck?

The Admirable Crichton 1957

I first saw The Admirable Crichton when I was a young teenager. I was impressed, as it is a very funny and well-acted film, which, at that time, seemed to me to expose the weaknesses and "buffoonery" of the British class system. To my young self, the film underscored the notion that, notwithstanding our social positions and relative wealth, we are all equal so far as our moral and spiritual capacities can take us.  

When I saw it just the other night, however, I was struck by the conservative tenor of the film, for rather than advocating some Jeffersonian philosophy of equality, the film actually represents an endorsement of the familiar schedule of Stoic "truisms" that we associate with British society, and that are drawn to a pinpoint by the English in one of their more unfortunate phrases: "That's the way it is." Kenneth Moore in the role of the Butler Crichton and the tropical island "Guv"--and not very ironically, alas--is the film's chief advocate and exponent of this principle.  While not advancing something as reprehensible as the Roman apatheia, still this film strikes me (indeed, strikes me over the head) as being politically, even metaphysically, committed, first, to the British class system, and, second, to the importance placed upon people dutifully and properly playing their designated roles in society. Somewhere--and this is articulated near the end of the film by Crichton himself--the English, and the English of all social classes, got it stuck into their heads that civilization is equivalent to playing one's role. This hardly can strike me as the foundation for a respectable--or sustainable--national ethos, but there it is.  Moreover, it is curious that the central inverter of social roles and the right-to-lead-others, the right to command, and the right to expect the "natural" loyalty and admiration of his social inferiors--is Crichton himself. His social place is determined by environmental context, and it is his duty to play his role to that context. And whatever his context--be it far-flung tropical island or stately English manor--the Guv is both philosophically and vocationally committed to the view.  In that sense, The Admirable Crichton rather leaves a distasteful impression that calls to mind the grizzly sociological lessons of The Lord of the Flies.

It remains a funny film--I suppose--but (and other than my shock at its conservative pitch), now seeing it as an adult, I am wonderfully taken with how Sally Ann Howes shines in the role of Lady Mary. Miss Howes is wonderfully beautiful here, and really much more  impressive, in a forceful sense, than she appears in her very memorable and altogether better performance as Truly Scrumptious opposite Dick Van Dyke in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.



Note: in this recording, the film ends at 1:28:50.  Some extraneous bits from the film follow hence, evidently tacked on due to error, and can be disregarded.

Breaking

Clever, ironic, subtle, pleasant...

The "Extra Pound" Limericks of Professor Hodges

I won't burden the Highbrow Commonwealth with mundane descriptions and analyses of Professor Hodges on-going "Extra Pound" limericks series, which has been running in his blog Gypsy Scholarship for some time.  Suffice it to say that these pieces are fascinating.  Please click HERE for a particularly clever installment, and click HERE for access to the blog in toto.

Horace Jeffery Hodges, PhD

Praelucidus

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"Which side runs the Village?"

Emanations 8 editing progress (and delays)

There have been some delays in editing. Last week, I moved my classes on-line, and I have since learned that teaching on-line is time-consuming. Next week, I expect things to slow somewhat, and I'll get back to the project of reading submissions and communicating with contributors.

I've sent out a number of emails already, and several stories have gone out to illustrators, so things are moving.

"We'll send armed police, and we'll be sending them with flamethrowers."

Please click the following image for videos of Italian mayors seeking to protect their citizens:

I sympathize with the mayors' sense of responsibility. They are trying to save people.

And you can see why Italian literature, art, architecture and design are so wonderful. The ability to connect to feelings and to convictions and to circumstances... the appropriate application of irony in a difficult situation.

Though he was working with theological materials and themes, seeking to both restore and reinvent Classical consciousness, and developing the metaphysics and anthropology of a new political philosophy, when it came to the exploration of new possibilities for the representation of new subject matter, Milton turned to Italian poetry.

Coagulatio

From Compendium Alchymist, 1706

Atlas descends as we turn through the heavens

Never mind foolish superstitions and folkloric fears concerning the portents of menacing comets encroaching through the ether, the advent of comet Atlas promises to be quite a show. 

There is a Dutch website, in English, that provides ample tracking maps and data tables to facilitate a detailed over-view of the course of the visitor. The diversion should prove welcome as we sit out the latest terrestrial folly. Please click HERE to examine the information.

Meanwhile, below (click for a high-resolution image) is a cosmic map representing Atlas's grand and sweeping itinerary as it enters and departs our solar system.

"Fog Tropes" by Ingram Marshall

The Art of Description: Professor Hodges is reading My Servant the Wind by Michael Butterworth

The other day in his blog Gypsy Scholar, my international Authors colleague Horace Jeffery Hodges posted a short but nevertheless engaging description of Michael Butterworth's hybrid memoir-novel My Servant the Wind. In my response to Professor Hodges' note, I remarked, "It is an excellent work, and your selection from the text and your succinct and insightful description do the book good service."

Please click HERE to view Professor Hodges' description.

And click HERE to visit the Amazon description of My Servant the Wind.

Some Levity

Emanations 8 update: the editorial team is reading submissions and organizing the manuscript

Pushing the Data General Eclipse M/600 to the limit.

Professor Hodges is Reading Emanations: Chorus Pleiades

 Please click HERE.

The Survival of Obsolescent Intermutual Obligations

HMS ships Neptune, King George V, Hercules, Colossus, Marlborough and Iron Duke

Such names evoke all the ignominy that we properly associate with imperialism, militarism, and the hegemony of state-defined identities. It might be observed, however, that we rather too automatically draw this association, and in this rapid censure we could overlook the deeper truths of our universe and our place in it. As mythical expressions of human aspirations placed in historical contexts that together express the meaning of the human condition, such names configure appropriately to the world in which we used to live; and, one wonders, the world in which we yet live; or--should we abandon an appreciation for the deeper emotional qualities of our mythologies--a world we might stumble into again?

"0.3-50 r/hr" Hmmm...

Katrina Van Tassel

Among the musical disciples who assembled, one evening in each week, to receive his instructions in psalmody, was Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and only child of a substantial Dutch farmer. She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge; ripe and melting and rosy cheeked as one of her father’s peaches, and universally famed, not merely for her beauty, but her vast expectations. She was withal a little of a coquette, as might be perceived even in her dress, which was a mixture of ancient and modern fashions, as most suited to set off her charms. She wore the ornaments of pure yellow gold, which her great-great-grandmother had brought over from Saardam; the tempting stomacher of the olden time; and withal a provokingly short petticoat, to display the prettiest foot and ankle in the country round.

 --Washington Irving, "The Legend of Sleepy  Hollow"