11.10.09
Settling on a name
“Rosie” has won by default. One son calls her “Cat”, I tend to call her “Kitty”. George’s “Pestilence” and “Allergen” get the prize for snarkiness. The son who calls her “Cat”’s “Chlorine” gets the prize for paying attention to other son’s passion. “Sam” is a little too masculine for this particular feline, but we like the driver on Foyle’s War who has the same color hair. It’s not exactly rose-colored, but since the name reminds us of my daughter’s middle name, it’s close enough.
Other son’s favorite science song,
[tune from Gilbert and Sullivan's "I am the very model of a modern major general" from The Pirates of Penzance.]
11.09.09
Why we can and can’t just be ourselves, but pigs can
Virtue does not mean being “nice” and “proper” in an isolated act or ommission. Virtue means: man’s being “is” right, and this in the supernatural and natural sense. Here we find two dangerous possibilities for perceiving the notion of virtue within the Christian common consciousness itself: first, there is the possibility of moralism, which isolates the action, the “performance”, the “exercise” and makes it independent from the living existence of a vital human being; and second, there is the possibility of supernaturalism, which diminishes the value of the natural well-lived life, of vitality and of natural decency and integrity. Virtue is also, very generally, an essential enhancement of the human person; it is the fulfillment of human potential – in the natural as well as in the supernatural domain. This is how the virtuous man “is”: by the innermost tendency of his being he realizes the good by doing it. (from “A Dead Word?” by Joseph Pieper)
First and foremost, a presupposition must be clarified and then accepted, namely, the belief that a man “ought to”, in other words, that not everything in his action and behavior is well and good just as it is. It makes no sense trying to convince a pig it ought to act and behave “like a real pig”. That the rude line by Gottfried Benn – “The crown of creation: the pig, man” – can be spoken at all and, further, hold true in such terrible ways: this fact alone shows that humanity must still realize the truly human in the domain of lived realities; it means man, as long as he exists, “ought to”. [...] the human being ought to become what he is (and therefore not already (eo ipso :”is”); that one can speak of all other earthly creatures in the indicative, in simple statements, but of man, if one wants to hit upon is actual reality, one can only speak in the imperative – to him who cannot see this or does not want to admit to its truth it would be understandably meaningless to speak at all of an “ought to” and it would make no sense to give instructions on obligations, be it in the form of a teaching on virtue or otherwise. (from “Ought To” by Joseph Pieper)
He speaks against moralism, so to me “is” or being is less action centered and more along the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, and long-suffering. I suppose we still have to prove our love and long-suffering through action, but in transfigurations, the light and warmth of being in communion are what unifies more than unforgotten forms.
11.08.09
Popular American Culture
Growing up I loved watching American classic movie musicals. Last night our classical radio station profiled some of the music of Irving Berlin, who wrote a lot of iconic American music, like the wartime “God Bless America”, “Over There”, and “Oh How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning”
and music that was used in film such as the beautiful “What’ll I Do”, “White Christmas”, “Blue Skies”, and the syncopated “Puttin on the Ritz”.
Wikipedia reveals that he was born in Russia, in the part now known as Belarus, was the son of a Jewish cantor (his first musical influence), and moved to New York at age five when his family’s village was burned down in a Pogrom ordered by the last Tsar. He is not the only defining American with that story.
“The new Tsar of Russia, notes Whitcomb, had revived with utmost brutality the anti-Jewish pogroms, which created the spontaneous mass exodus to America. The pogroms were to continue until 1906, and thousands of other families besides the Balines would also escape, including those of George and Ira Gershwin, Al Jolson, Sophie Tucker, L. Wolfe Gilbert (“Waiting for the Robert E. Lee”), Jack Yellen (“Happy Days Are Here Again”), and Louis B. Mayer (MGM).”
So does that make American popular culture not really American? Not at all. These artists were extremely grateful to the land of opportunity, freedom, and relative safety. All of us except the American Indians and the imported slaves share this same heritage. To be American in most cases, means to have fled here.
Irving Berlin grew up destitute in the streets of New York. He found his niche selling newspapers near the saloons where he could hear and learned to imitate popular music. His musical genius beyond what he learned from his father, was mostly self-taught. “Over the years he was known for writing music and lyrics in the American vernacular: uncomplicated, simple and direct, with his aim being to “reach the heart of the average American” whom he saw as the “real soul of the country.”"
He said, “My ambition is to reach the heart of the average American, not the highbrow nor the lowbrow but that vast intermediate crew which is the real soul of the country. The highbrow is likely to be superficial, overtrained, supersensitive. The lowbrow is warped, subnormal. My public is the real people.”
American popular culture is characterized by a certain unrestrained freedom from rules. This section from the article presents some criticism of that,
Whitcomb also points out the irony that Russia, the country Berlin’s family was forced to leave, flung itself into “the ragtime beat with an abandon bordering on mania:”
- “… like a display of medieval religious frenzy; some seemed to be doing a dance of death. Lady Diana Manners, at a London ball reviving the Age of Chivalry, was escorted by Prince Felix Yusupov. This young man, a recent Oxford undergraduate, had an impeccable Russian noble lineage: a descendant of Frederick of Prussia, he was heir to the largest estate in Russia, he would be richer than the Tsar. He was exquisite and heavily bejewelled, but Lady Diana was irritated by his ‘wriggling around the ballroom like a demented worm, screaming for ‘more ragtime and more champagne’.”[5]:183
Lady Diana Manners was apparently not alone in her dislike of ragtime. A newspaper clipping found in Berlin’s scrapbook included an article titled, “Calls Ragtime Insanity Sign”:
- (excerpt)”‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band” [Berlin's first hit - A.E.] is a public menace…. The authority for these statements is Dr. Ludwig Gruener of Berlin, a German [doctor] who has devoted twenty years’ study to the criminally insane…. He says, ‘Hysteria is the form of insanity that an abnormal love for ragtime seems to produce. It is as much a mental disease as acute mania—it has the same symptoms. When there is nothing done to check this form it produces idiocy’. He also stated that 90 percent of the inmates of the American asylums he has visited are abnormally fond of ragtime.”[14]:23
[adding: I think there is something redeemable in the energy of ragtime and other controversial styles, and that each generation seems to need to build on the energy of the last generations' energetic experimentions or we'll go crazy or grow dull. However some things need to be thrown away.]
Berlin was also advised against getting a more formal education, “Not always certain about his own writing abilities, he once asked a songwriter friend, Mr. Herbert, whether he should study composition. “You have a natural gift for words and music,” Mr. Herbert told him. “Learning theory might help you a little, but it could cramp your style.” Berlin took his advice.”
Many American achievers come from a life of adversity, but have an inner driving energy to forge their own path, which they believe they have the freedom to do in this land that they love.
In striving for an American Church, it seems that some want to approach Orthodoxy with this same pioneering, from the heart, spirit. Some of the forms of Orthodoxy can strike Americans who have not criticized popular American cultural sensibilities, as constraining and “highbrow”. Many times Orthodox criticize “undisciplined” (meaning untrained in old-school methods) Americans, and do not want to incorporate this aspect of freedom into American Orthodoxy. I agree that the Church should not seek to incorporate a syncopated tempo or emotive singing into the Liturgy. Rachmaninoff may have been the last classically trained composer who could add a somewhat “popular” form into Liturgical worship, though I’m a bit more open to the styles used at the Monastery of St. John of San Francisco, where Metropolitan Jonah was formerly abbot. Trusting in these types of updates is going to be very difficult for the Church at large. It’s almost like we’ll know it when we hear it. But then some seem to accept forms, like organ music, that others wont. I think those controversial new elements should be put on the shelf until they are somehow proven. Peace in the body is a mysterious thing. Not all will agree, yet concensus is possible.
There is perhaps something else that American culture can contribute. This exuberant American heart can find a place. Maybe not in renovating the services, but in joining with the energy in the services to refine the heart’s direction and expression upon leaving the nave. This is something each person can do in their own lives. Irving Berlin loved American simple expression. Some may feel that American vernacular is beyond redeeming. I don’t think that we need to blanketly accept the increased advertising quality of American sloganeering communication. Beyond a return to pre-WWII speech patterns and heart-felt, unschooled discipline (Irving was very disciplined in his writing schedule), I’m not sure what has survived, but there must be something.
Another note: As sad as conditions were in Russia, we shouldn’t overlook the fact that the Russian and Jewish heritage of the above artists contributed to their American expressions (we can’t overlook other cultures’ influence into ragtime and jazz either). The combination apparently resonated in Russia too.
11.06.09
Kierkegaard on asking questions and Greek (Orthodox?) thought
I shall take a little break before proceeding with St. Dionysius because the Intro is transitioning to the Saint’s treatment of the non-entity, evil, which treatment is apparently lengthy, and thus I will have to shore myself up for its necessary negativity.
From The Concept of Irony With Continual Reference to Socrates
To ask questions denotes in part the individual’s relation to the subject, in part the individual’s relation to another individual. In the first case, it is an effort to free the phenomenon from any finite relation to the individual. Inasmuch as I ask a question, I know nothing and am related altogether receptively to my subject. In this sense, Socratic questioning is clearly, even though remotely, analogous to the negative in Hegel, except that the negative, according to Hegel, is a necessary element in thought itself, is a determinant ad intra [inwardly]; in Plato, the negative is made graphic and placed outside the object in the inquiring individual. In Hegel, the thought does not need to be questioned from the outside, for it asks and answers itself within itself; in Plato, thought answers only insofar as it is questioned, but whether or not it is questioned is accidental, and how it is questioned is not less accidental. Although such a question form is supposed to free the thought from every solely subjective determinant, nevertheless in another respect, it succumbs entirely to the subjective as long as the questioner is seen only in an accidental relation to what he is talking about. But if asking questions is seen as a necessary relation to its subject, then asking becomes identical with answering. And just as Lessing has already wittily distinguished between replying to a question and answering it, so there is a similar contradistinction fundamental to the difference proposed by us, namely, the contradistinction between asking and interrogating; hence the true relation comes to be the relation between interrogating and answering. Admittedly there is still always something subjective about it, but if it is borne in mind that the reason for the individual’s asking thus and so is found not in his arbitrariness but in the subject, in the relation of necessity that joins them together, then this will also disappear.
In the second case [the relation of the individual to another individual], the subject is an account to be settled between the one asking and the one answering, and the thought development fulfills itself in this rocking gait, in this limping to both sides. This, too, is of course a kind of dialectical movement, but since the element of unity is lacking, in as much as every answer contains a possibility of a new question, it is not the truly dialectical evolution. This understanding of questioning and answering with the meaning of dialogue, which is like a symbol of the Greek conception of the relation between deity and man, where there certainly is a reciprocal relation but no element of unity (neither an immediate nor a higher unity), and genuine duality is really lacking also, because the relation empties itself in mere reciprocity – like a pronomen reciprocum [reciprocally retroactive pronoun], it does not have the nominative but only casus obliqui [dependent cases] and only in the dual and plural forms.
If what has been said so far is accurate, then it is manifest that the intention in asking questions can be twofold. That is, one can ask with the intention of receiving an answer containing the desired fullness, and hence the more one asks, the deeper and more significant becomes the answer; or one can ask without any interest in the answer except to suck out the apparent content by means of the question and thereby to leave an emptiness behind. The first method presupposes, of course, that there is a plenitude; the second that there is an emptiness. The first is the speculative method; the second the ironic. Socrates in particular the latter method. When the Sophists, in good company, had befogged themselves in their own eloquence, it was Socrates’ joy to introduce, in the most polite and modest way of the world, a slight draft that in a short time expelled all these poetic vapors. These two methods do in fact have a strong resemblance, especially for the kind of observation that pays attention only to the element; indeed, this similarity becomes even greater because Socrates’ questioning was essentially aimed at the knowing subject for the purpose of showing that when all was said and done they knew nothing whatever. Every philosophy that begins with a presupposition naturally ends with the same presupposition, and just as Socrates’ philosophy began with a presupposition that he knew nothing, so it ended with the presupposition that human beings know nothing at all; Platonic philosophy began in the immediate unity of thought and being and stayed there. The direction that manifested itself in idealism as reflection upon reflection manifested itself in Socrates’ questioning. To ask questions – that is, the abstract relation between the subjective and the objective – ultimately became the primary issue for him. (p. 34-37)
So the Greek emphasis on the eternal distinction between two people conversing is one of ever blossoming fullness and relationship between the two and the subject being talked about. This brings me to a slightly related comment about the difficulty of language in many philosophical works. I agree with others that it can be simplified, as I am want to do, but I also appreciate it as an art form. Highly detailed descriptions that dance and play around the subject are like a very detailed line drawing of a perhaps simple enough building. It adds shading like that in graphic novels. It also adds the movement of an intricate dance. It is accurate to say that the building is cubed and the dance is ballet, but there’s more to art and appreciation than that.
Another aside, I really enjoyed his lampooning of Xenophon and his description of Plato’s adoring relationship to Socrates previous to this passage.
11.05.09
More on hierarchies
In pgs. 63 – 71 of the Introduction to St. Dionysius, The Divine Names and Mystical Theology, Dr. Jones explains St. Dionysius’ hierarchy of beings in accordance with Plato’s view of justice where everyone and everything minds their own business, or that which is according to their determined logos. He also adds that the divinity creates, energizes and connects everything similar to things connected to a spiral, a vertical line, or in a pyramid. The things at the top or the center are more like God than the things at the bottom. He also points out the deficiencies of these comparisons in that the divinity is beyond descriptions of space and is everywhere present. Evil occurs when things transgress their boundaries by becoming more or less than what is intended.
Sometimes I have a criticial view of hierarchy because it can seem to render useless the things at the bottom. St. Paul uses the imagery of a body with higher honor to the head than the toe. But if you’ve ever had a broken toe, you see how influential they are. Finding one’s place in the body without transgressing any boundaries is the tricky part. Lord have mercy. However, it should be the natural and peaceful place to be.
Hierarchical comparisons are traditionally made between the Father and the Son, Christ and the Church, men and women, and women and children. A dialectical opposition decreases the significance of the second. The following explanation decreases the opposition,
The nature or the logos of a being is what determines the being to be what it is. Further, each nature is a determination of and manifestation of the divinity itself. Now all the natures of beings are interconnected into a universal nature, such that there is no opposition between any one nature and nature as a whole. However, the diversity of natures is such that not every nature or what pertains to any one nature is compatible with every other nature. Thus, not everything that pertains to the nature of a human being pertains to or is compatible with the nature of a rock; not everything that pertains to the nature of a monk pertains to or is compatible with the nature of a priest. Now order can prevail with beings and their natures only if they are brought together and differentiated in a way which is in conformity with each other and with each nature. The cause of this order or appropriate identity and difference between all beings is the divinity. (p. 63)
Trying to understand context for proposed unity of American Orthodox Churches
Oca.org has posted this summary of Metropolitan Jonah’s talk at “the “Road to Unity” conference sponsored by Orthodox Christian Laity [OCL] at Antiochian Village here Thursday, October 29 through Saturday, October 31.”
In it he details a structure that unified jurisdictions could use to come together while respecting the differences in the different communities. SCOBA apparently is ineffective because it isn’t a “canonical entity” and its members are not elected, which apparently Americans must do to be able to respect their own leaders.This is an interesting cultural aside that I’d like to hear more discussion on.
I wonder if his recommendations could provide a conciliar basis for unifying practice among American jurisdictions. Hopefully any substandard practices could be looked at and gently healed instead of giving them an opportunity to cause infection throughout the whole. Perhaps though, if Churches are legtitimized through being local (I only have a vague concept of what “local church” means), which has historically been along national lines, the American Church is already One, even if our Bishop situation is a bit messy and some feel more bonded to their respective bishops in the “old country”. Therefore any deficiencies in practice would already be affecting the local body, whether they are under the same bishop or not.
Also in the summary, Metropolitan Jonah gives interesting homage to the Ecumencial Patriarch.
11.04.09
Is goodness or the good an essence or an energy
In the next section, Dr. Jones lists good, or at least goodness, as a power, which I equate with energy, not essence which was a little murky in the passages yesterday.
Having completed a general analysis of the divine powers let me now proceed to examine the nature and function of specific divine powers and names. I will consider the names of goodness, beauty, eros, be-ing, power, justice, preservation, and peace, for in my estimation these are the most important powers with which Pseudo-Dionysius deals. (p.55)
He then gives a description of Neo-Platonism and follows it with difference in St. Dionysius’ thought,
In Neoplatonic thought “good” and “one” are identical, thus to be good is to be one. However, good and one are prior to being, for being always marks multiplicity, and the good (the one) is, ultimately, the absence of all multiplicity. Further, being always points towards completion. This means that something is only to the extent that it attains to the unity which is proper to its logos or nature. In attaining to this unity a being attains to its completion. This is its end or good.
For Pseudo-Dionysius goodness names the entire divine constitution because “by being the good as ‘essential’ good extends goodness to all beings.” We thus see a decisive connection between constitution and goodness and cause; for it is as constitution of goodness that the divinity is cause of all. Indeed, as we have just seen, the divine constitution itself is goodness. “Constitution” here seems to have both the sense of “existence” (ecstasis) and the sense of source. For the procession of all beings into be-ing – the divine goodness – is the ecstasis of the divinity; however, as source of this procession, the divinity is “constitution beyond being.” (p.56)
So it does seem that goodness is an overarching power, since beauty, life, peace, etc. are all good. And it is closer to God’s essence in that it is his constitution, but maybe it’s my wishful thinking that sees his explanation of good as a sort of dividing membrane between His essence and energies. The division isn’t dividing the good, but that goodness is what we see when seeing God. I don’t know if Dr. Jones, like the Neoplatonists, is positing that for St. Dionysius the divinity is beyond good though, so it’s still a little foggy. There also seems a difference in the first and second paragraphs regarding multiplicity. In the first I suppose the powers listed collapse under the good, but in the second they are allowed to remain distinct?
11.03.09
The Divinity or The Good
Thinking aloud about pages 46-55 of Dr. Jones’ intro to St. Dionysius’ Divine Names,
Firstly, the quoted texts from St. Dionysius use the name “God” whereas Dr. Jones in his explanations uses “the divinity”, which is an it.
Secondly, it seems Dr. Jones is using “the good” as an ultimate form in this defining statement: “The first classification between x-itself [a divine power such as beauty or life] and the support of x-itself does not consider the divine unity to be the support of the divine difference, but it considers the good as the support of both the divine unity and divine difference.” (p.50)
This second point about who is in control seems contradictory to the following statement about the divinity or the good: “The discussion so far of the distinction between the support of the divine powers and the powers themselves served to express the divine preemenance.” (p.52)
Perhaps he thinks the divinity and the good are synonyms. The terms seem rather impersonal, but the concepts of these powers proceeding from the divine essence (unless he thinks the form of the good mediates the powers) seems pretty three dimensional and substantial, so I’m just relating what strikes me as a small annoyance with what is otherwise a helpful explanation.
11.02.09
Hierarchies and Why I did not want to get a cat
1. The dog eats stuff in the litter box.
2. They claw the furniture.
3. Some aren’t very cuddly.
4. They like to break through the screen on the Bearded Dragon’s cage.
5. Kids don’t like to clean the litter box.
However, the girls have been dreaming about the cute little things, so on my second trip to look at them at Petsmart, I listed all of the above complaints, except #4 unfortunately, to the volunteer. She said a child gate with a hole small enough for only the cat to get through placed in the doorway to where the litter box is kept will keep the dog out. She didn’t recommend declawing because it is painful and can change their personality. They make little plastic covers for their claws now apparently. She also could tell which kittens would be cuddly and less likely to climb the drapes. We only have one set of drapes as the rest of the windows have blinds, but still I don’t really want a Tasmanian devil kitty like the grey and white one seemed, tearing around the house. He sure was funny though in his cage. I would have named him Charlie Chaplin.
The orange and white, medium fur-length one stole our hearts. She was laid back and not nervous about being held. She leaned into my daughter and purred. The tag said she’s also playful. 
When it was time to meet the guys for dinner before Vespers I told the girls they’d have to convince Dad. The youngest’s Puss from Shrek face sealed the deal.
The next day, last Thursday, we brought our carrier and picked her and her accessories up from the store after early Vespers. She didn’t mind the cage too much – she’s pretty easy going. Pippin, the Corgi, can be pretty aggressive with cats so we kept him on a leash and, with the new child gate, walled off the hallway to the oldest daughter’s room and the bathroom with the litter box to give her a safe place to be. When he barks and lunges at her, which is getting less frequent, she hisses and swipes at him before she outruns him, but otherwise she doesn’t seem too nervous. This morning as he slowly came toward her on the couch, she curled up and amusedly watched him approach. He got within a foot and then turned away. No hissing and no lunging! Maybe they’ll be friends.
Then she jumped on top of Kronk the Bearded Dragon’s aquarium which is covered by a duck taped screen that a heavy, visiting cat broke through. They were staring at each other when I got her off and put her in my daughter’s room. Looks like I’ll have to order another screen. Kronk has thus far won battles with cats and dogs though. We haven’t witnessed his hissing, puffing and swatting or biting tactics, but bigger, stronger dogs come out from under the table, where the confrontations usually occur, scared.
11.01.09
Interesting quotes from Dr. Jones on St. Dionysius
On Hierarchy,
The unity of the world is a function of the divine eros. For Pseudo-Dionysius one can distinguish these levels in the hierarchy of beings: 1) a given rank of equals, 2) those which are superior to these equals and which are both more fully be-ing that them and the cause of them, and 3) those which are inferior to the first group (the second as well); these are less fully being than the first group and are caused by them. There is an ecstatic cosmic community of beings in which all beings are manifest and are manifested in all others. It is the divine eros which brings this about for “it is ecstatic; it does not permit lovers to remain among themselves but bids them to be among those whom they love. Superiors show this by coming to be among their inferiors through their providences; equals show this by their bond with one another: inferiors show this by returning to the more divine and first among begins” (Divine Names, intro note 21, p. 44)
I find the distinction between the levels in the first part according to fullness of being, confusing. St. Maximus talks about certain beings eternally living well or eternally living ill, according to their virtue, which seems less externally discriminatory. It would make more sense if there were only two groups, the divine cause and the caused. When I think of hierarchy of beings (or above being-ly beings) I think of the Triune God, angels, humans, animals, plants and inorganic material. When I think of causes, besides God, I think of Adam causing Eve; then Eve, with Adam, causing children. I also think of the hierarchy of the Church. I don’t really think of any of these humans as having more fullness of being than the others. I wish this section were more specific, maybe it will be later. The second part is more conciliatory.
On Empowerment
The differencing of the divinity is the procession and reversion of all beings; in this differencing, beings are as beings. As such they are, subsist, and receive constitution; they are empowered and are given a position. [...] The fundamental principles of beings – being itself, life itself and so forth – are divine powers. [...] Moreover, these powers themselves – subsist in virtue of the divine power. Through having power, all that is subsists. Thus to subsist is to be given a position; it is to take up a place “away from” the divinity and to stand as different from and united to the divinity.
How Divinity Exists and Beyond Being Abides
Further, this subsisting of beings is the ecstasis of the divinity out of itself. In this ecstasis the divinity “comes out of itself into beings” [Divine Names] and, thus, exists. Yet this ec-stasis is the be-ing of beings; hence, the be-ing of beings: the divinity be-ing (existing). That is, the divinity both differentiates itself and is the differentiation of itself.
Yet the divinity abides. This does not mean that the divinity subsists beforehand or pre-exists – exists apart from beings – or has all beings in itself before causing them [D.N.] Rather, the abiding divinity: concealed before being, before subsisting, and before having. Abiding, the divinity is not a being which subsists independently of or apart from beings; for the divinity is not a being at all. It is beings which subsist or exist or are positioned. The divinity, which is the positioning of all, is beyond all position.
I think this is the part that upset me in the John Scottus Eriugena book. The way it was worded there sounded like God doesn’t exist apart from creation, and that He is dependent on creation to exist. Dr. Jones fills this in to make it sound like He was still beyond existing before and apart from creation, and not dependent on creation, but that He remains with it out of love.
