Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

As soon as Abraham Lincoln received a favorable battle report from Gettysburg in early July 1863, he at once paired the time of year with the time in which the United States had declared its independence from its mother country, and before long Lincoln did the arithmetic.  The two events were separated by 87 years. Months passed before Lincoln spoke on the subject of that battle and its consequences (in November), but his famous address on that occasion begins with the invocation of the length of time that passed between the two events: four score and seven years.  This is likely the only reason the word "score" in that sense remains in the English language.  All of which, as we close in on the 250th anniversary of the same declaration of independence, induces me to ask: what happened just 87 years ago as I write?  That would be 1939. What happened on independence day that year? Four score and seven years ago, legendary first baseman Lou Gehrig delivered a farewell a...

Next week you will see my traditional four-panel piece reviewing the latest term of the Supreme Court.  But this last session is such a bore I'm not sure how I'm gonna be able to come up with any material! <jk>  A blogger's lot is not an easy one.  Happy fourth of July, everyone!  I'm reminded for no good reason for something John Adams says in the Broadway show 1776 .  History, he was afraid, would forget him. Posterity would believe that "Franklin smote the ground with his magic lightning rid, and up sprang a horse with General Washington astride it. Then the three of them -- Franklin, Washington, and the horse -- rode off to win a revolution."  It's a good line, and history does tend to become almost as simple in the re-tellings as the fictionalized Adams feared it would be.  ("Eisenhower conquered Germany, saw the Autobahn, and instantly wanted to order some of those for America.") But Adams does seem to have kept his part through multi...

This, the Sunday described in the headline, is a good time, if I judge rightly, to contemplate the grave danger in confusing religious piety with political/patriotic feelings. I'm not making a constitutional point -- let's not argue about what the phrase "establishment of religion" meant to Madison, Mason, and that old powdered-wig-wearing crowd. (If I die a martyr to the US, will I be greeted in paradise by a crowd of Virginians?) My point, rather, is theological. I believe whole-heartedly that the universe isn't just a bunch of material/mechanical coming and going. Life is more than matter and mind is more than life and the whole of the cosmos is more than its parts -- that More is what we revere as God. Precisely because I believe this, I find it baffling and disheartening when people try to hijack spirituality for nationalism. On this first Sunday after Independence Day, let us recall the first book of Samuel, chapter 8, with its stern warning ag...

I've recently come across a book, Existential America (2005) by George Cotkin, a professor of history at CalPoly. A book note here may be a fitting wrap-up for the July 4th weekend. The focus of the book is the big splash that the existentialist movement made as a high-prestige European import right after the war, in the middle of the last century. The people exporting that product were rather disdainful of what they saw as American superficiality and probably thought they were just a fad here -- though a fad they were happy enough to ride in terms of book sales etc. In 1950, Jean-Paul Sartre wrote that Americans don't have a concept of evil. "There is no pessimism in America regarding human nature and social organization," -- which was bad news for us. Simone de Beauvoir, similarly, said Americans have no "feeling for sin and for remorse." But, Cotkin thinks, they misunderstood us and misunderstood their own reception. You can read in...

This year, as it happens, America's Independence Day fell in mid week. This, the following Sunday, is a good time, if I judge rightly, to contemplate the grave danger in confusing religious piety with political/patriotic feelings. I'm not making a constitutional point -- let's not argue about what the phrase "establishment of religion" meant to Madison, Mason, and that old powdered-wig-wearing crowd. (If I die a martyr to the US, will I be greeted in paradise by a crowd of Virginians?) My point, rather, is theological. I believe whole-heartedly that the universe isn't just a bunch of material/mechanical coming and going. Life is more than matter and mind is more than life and the whole of the cosmos is more than its parts -- that More is what we revere as God. Precisely because I believe this, I find it baffling and disheartening when people try to hijack spirituality for nationalism. On this first Sunday after Independence Day, let us recall th...