While drinking my third cup of coffee, and reading all this talk of heroin and Charlie Parker, I got to thinking of James Baldwin’s beautiful short story “Sonny’s Blues” (1958).

Around the same time that certain Beats were extolling the subconscious primitive impulses of “negroes” (including “white negroes”) and “negro music,” James Baldwin published this humane story about Sonny, a heroin addicted jazz pianist, told from the first person perspective of his brother, a high school algebra teacher. As the brother relates Sonny’s story, the narrative introduces the theme of suffering and its connection to artistic expression.

Throughout the story, the brother worries about what Sonny’s life has come to, and while he is currently clean, the brother fears a relapse that would lead to his early demise—a demise that would indicate his own inadequate brotherly keeping.

In one scene, there is a street revival with some women singing, “Tis the old ship of Zion,…it has rescued many a thousand.” The brother drily thinks, “Not a soul under the sound of their voices was hearing this song for the first time, not one of them had been rescued. Nor had they seen much in the way of rescue work being done around them.” Having heard this song countless times, it seems that no one is any longer capable of truly taking what it says to heart.

As the gospel singers continue their song, the two brothers hold a conversation where the brother agrees to go hear Sonny play music that night, possibly with the hope of doing some kind of rescue work himself. During the conversation, Sonny broaches the topic of his heroin problem, which leads to the following exchange:

Sonny says, “…listening to that woman sing, it struck me all of a sudden how much suffering she must have had to go through—to sing like that. It’s repulsive to think you have to suffer so much…”

His bother responds, “But we just agreed…that there’s no way not to suffer. Isn’t it just better, then, just to—take it?”

Sonny: “But nobody just takes it…Everybody tries not to…”

Brother: “I don’t want to see you—die—trying not to suffer.”

Sonny: “I won’t…die trying not to suffer…”

But he continues, “It’s terrible sometimes, inside…that’s what’s the trouble. You walk these streets, black and funky and cold, and there’s not really a living ass to talk to, and there’s nothing shaking, and there’s no way of getting it out—that storm inside. You can’t talk it and you can’t make love with it, and when you try to get with it and play it, you realize nobody’s listening. So you’ve got to listen. You got to find a way to listen…”

Speaking about his previous attempts to escape drugs, Sonny warns his brother, “It can come again…”

Later that night, the brother is at a club listening to Sonny play piano with the band. He struggles at first, but then the band goes into “Am I Blue,” and Sonny’s playing begins to shine through. The brother thinks:

“Sonny’s fingers filled the air with life, his life. But that life contained so many others. And Sonny went all the way back, he really began with the spare, flat statement of the opening phrase of the song. Then he began to make it his. It was very beautiful because it wasn’t hurried and it was no longer a lament. I seemed to hear with what burning he had made it his, with what burning we had yet made it ours, how we could cease lamenting. Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did. Yet, there was no battle in his face now. I heard what he had gone through, and would continue to go through until he came to rest in earth.”

As he reflects on Sonny’s and his family’s past, the song comes to an end. The brother orders up a “Scotch and milk” for Sonny, who takes a sip, and then places it on the piano. As the band resumes its play, the brother thinks that the drink “glowed and shook above my brother’s head like the very cup of trembling.”

Some critics claim that Baldwin is here presenting Sonny as a sacrificial artist who takes on suffering—“the cup or trembling” (cf. Isaiah 51:17-22)—in order to rescue the rest of us. Perhaps. Sonny recognizes that everybody suffers, and everybody tries not to suffer. For him, there are multiple ways of trying not to suffer. Heroin is one way, and jazz is another. One way is productive and beautiful, and the other is death. But Sonny also tells his brother that family and a career teaching algebra might be another way. And of course, there is the way of the “the old ship of Zion.”

Which way is best? Somehow the superiority of the way of artistic sacrifice seems to be the point of the story, except that it is the clear-eyed, stable brother who is able to give an account of it.

Regardless, whether in music or words, the story points to the notion that in order to never know lament, one must “Never No Lament.”

If you care for this kind of warning, then let me say that there are probably SPOILERS throughout the following:

1. The Great Gatsby (Dir. Baz Luhrmann, 2013).

Nietzsche (there I said it!) says, “What is most difficult to render from one language to another is the tempo of its style.” This is as good a place as any to begin a discussion of the most recent translation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby to the big screen—and this time in 3D.

The novel is notorious for its style, told in the particular voice of Nick Carraway, and consequently there has been great difficulty in successfully rendering it into film. With a sense of distance and irony, the novel’s personal and retrospective narrative takes the tone of a regretful eulogy and/or apology. Its languorous prose looks up to Gatsby from a below that is somehow higher and also, more importantly, later. Carraway’s “back-trailer” move from the west to the east “withholds judgment” on character—including Gatsby’s—in order that it may focus on the study of “bonds.” That is, judgment is withheld until the survivor (Carraway) tells us that the view from the top to that of the bottom, just as the view from the east to that of the west, returns to itself in the end. We are told that no matter how tawdry it all may be, high and low and east and west must reckon with a view that is “borne ceaselessly into the past.” For the sake of understanding (including understanding the “promises” and “dreams” of the U.S. of America), it seems that Carraway’s experience is an education that requires from the reader recognition that beginnings are more important than ends.

However, Luhrmann’s movie, and not the novel, is under discussion here. Regarding the novel, Luhrmann’s movie gets the basics of plot and symbol right, but then again, it frames its telling as occurring within a mental institution where Carraway (Tobey Maguire), like Fitzgerald, suffers from morose alcoholism, anxiety, and other sundry neurasthenic ailments. At the institute, a good doctor claims that writing might prove therapeutic, and so the story begins in Carraway’s voice—a voice prompted by a psychologist’s head-shrink gimmick.

Like the novel, the film delves into themes of class, ambition, dreams, love, sex, excess, secret lives, luck, crime, corruption, time, mortality, etc. The figure of Jay Gatsby (Leo DiCaprio) remains ridiculous. After “five” long years, Gatsby steadfastly holds the torch for Daisy (Carey Mulligan) to this day. There’s also the green light at the end of the Tom Buchanan’s (Joel Edgerton) pier, a place where careless people can smash up things and return to their money. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

But it’s Luhrman cinematic style that he’s known for, and he once again shows it here. Making Romeo + Juliet into an emo ‘90s teen flick, this time he takes on a candidate for the “Great American Novel,” and gives it a makeover to his own taste—and in 3D. For added emphasis, and in case you missed it, at one point in the film Tom Buchanan asks whether Nick is still working on the “Great American Novel.” In this way, I suppose one could give the Baz Luhrmann treatment to just about anything in literature, and I’m sure SNL is already working on a good parody—Baz Luhrmann does Kafka! I’d go see that!

That said, I’m not sure what the makeover is for this time, though it is remarkable that Brooks Brothers recently had an Art Deco catalogue attuned to the movie. If Fitzgerald was attentive to the ways in which financial capital was based on speculation, perhaps this time Luhrmann is attentive to the free expenditure of capital as the basis for the celebration of one’s own individual identity in terms of consumer choice. Perhaps this celebration of the “me” is fitting therapy for today’s largely unemployed movie audience (unemployed in both the narrow and broad senses).

Regardless, the film is big, brash, colorful, excessive, kaleidoscopic, etc. It’s definitely a movie made for a non-reading public, as when the when the young party girl asserts that Gatsby is a nephew or cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm, adding, in case you didn’t know, that the Kaiser was the ruler of Germany.

There is no need to linger on these points. Great American Novel, historical literacy, or not, this movie does anything but linger. Instead it insistently pushes its frenetic filmic artifice into the forefront, and it cut-cut-cuts through dialogue and action in such a way as to prove that the Great American Novel was a silly idea in the first place. Prudes who worry about the sacred importance of the Gatsby text need to learn to embrace the shiny images that Luhrmann has projected onto the screen. Unfortunately, other than the voiceover narrative as therapy motif, we see no representation of the audience for whom the story is told. Apparently we find ourselves in a doctor/patient relationship understood in terms of the then modern scientific ideas which uncannily resemble the religion of Oprah Winfrey. Despite its shiny artifice, Luhrmann nonetheless seems to lack any deeper reflexivity other than pop psychology and the current tools of human management science.

The movie is all bright colors, glitter, garish costumes, confetti, and CGI cityscapes of Google Map type topographies between Manhattan and West Egg with the “Valley of Ashes” a short drive in between. It also nods to various filmmakers, with a notable Hitchcockian Rear Window sequence. But to repeat, it is all cut-cut-cut in a kaleidoscopic “whoosh,” as the erudite contrarian Armond White calls it. It’s a fast break movie with another Jay’s (Jay-Z) soundtrack playing a mélange of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and Alicia Keys’ “Empire State of Mind” in the background. Of course, we also have Adele and Beyonce thrown in for effect.

In his defense of the music, Luhrmann claims that hip-hop is the music of the street today, just as jazz was in the 1920s, and so this music should not be distracting to the viewer. Indeed he is correct, except that calling hip-hop the music of the streets in 2013 is almost like Fitzgerald calling Stephen Foster the street music of his day. But this only adds to the supreme artificiality of Luhrmann’s vision, and it does not distract.

Except that distraction is Luhrmann’s main motif as a filmmaker. To use the current therapeutic lingo, Luhrmann’s style is hyperactive and ADD. As already stated, it’s all cut-cut-cut. To avoid the slowness of the 1974 Jack Clayton version starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow and written by Francis Ford Coppola–what with its long shots and hazy filtered photography–Luhrmann’s version overcompensates with nothing but falling confetti. The ’74 version emphasized regret and loss. This one emphasizes the frenzy to move ever upward (even if that means the overcoming of neurasthenia while safely ensconced in an institute under watchful and caring eyes).

Still, both versions fail to translate the tempo of Fitzgerald’s novel adequately. It may be true that Fitzgerald, as a professor of mine once put it, simply lucked out with Gatsby—writing it perhaps even in an alcoholic delirium. Maybe he lucked out—compare Gatsby to his other books, even This Side of Paradise. He wouldn’t have been the first. However, despite its excess, Luhrmann’s excessive Gatsby is entirely too sober (even calculating) in its 3D grandiosity, and hence it is all the worse for it.

I’m tired so I’ll get to the fine film Mud tomorrow.

2. Mud (Dir. Jeff Nichols, 2012).

As the hugely successful CBS sitcom Big Bang Theory moves toward the conclusion of its sixth season, I thought I’d link to Ken Masugi’s recent blog post on the show. In it he relates this intelligent and funny show to some of the philosophic concerns of modernity as discussed in James V. Schall’s book The Modern Age.

In particular, Masugi draws attention to the moral authority that Dr. Sheldon Cooper’s mother, Mary, is able to exert over the nerdy scientists and their “earthy” neighbor Penny. Why would this group give active consideration to advice from a woman Sheldon himself describes as “a kind, loving, religiously fanatical, right-wing Texan, with a slightly out of scale head, and a mild Dr. Pepper addiction?” Masugi suggests it has to do with the way the show dramatizes the limits of modern science and research as a way of life—a way of life that ignores “any notion of final causes or purpose, teleology, and self-knowledge.” Mary Cooper adds an element of grace, whereby we can see that “Sheldon’s problem is not solved by treatment of Asperger’s but rather an understanding of original sin and the sacrifices we need to make to heal our own wounds.” Giving high praise Masugi states that “[w]ithout a trace of didactic preaching, the ‘Big Bang Theory’ teaches us the limits of modern rationalism and points to the rationality of revelation.”

This post elicited a response from Steve Hayward where he noted the impressive knowledge of the show’s writers, as when Sheldon gives a short discourse on the economist Fred Hirsch’s notion of a “positional good.” Indeed, the writing is smart. In one episode, an exasperated Sheldon listens to his girlfriend, Amy Farrah Fowler’s, critique of the attempt in theoretical physics to establish a “grand unified theory.” From her own expertise in neuroscience, she belittles the likes of Clerk Maxwell. Sheldon walks away in a hurry responding, “That’s the rankest psychologism, which was conclusively revealed as hogwash by Gottlob Frege in the 1890s!”

For more on the science of the Big Bang Theory (television show), you can check out the Big Blog Theory (which looks like it may now be defunct, but which provides instructive accounts of the science mentioned throughout the series).

UPDATE: Perhaps Sheldon should teach a MOOC on physics.

This week had some big news in the world of movies. Unfortunately it didn’t include any new movies worth watching at the local multiplex.

First, Roger Ebert sadly passed away. In certain circles, his style of movie criticism—thumbs and all—was criticized as simplistic, bordering on crass salesmanship. It allegedly failed to appreciate the finer points of cinema. But this take on his work is unfair. While simple, Ebert’s criticism demonstrated that strong opinions about movies could be defended with unpretentious language. He was a critic, whether you agreed with him or not, whose obvious passion for the movies led him to offer his brief insights on thousands of movies for decades. His passion could be infectious, and he was often keenly perceptive.

He was often willing to let a movie tell the story the way it wanted to tell it, as for instance, when he takes Gene Siskel to task for for demanding that Taxi Driver be another movie than it is. (BTW–who would describe Travis Bickle’s courtship of Betsy as “funny and erotic” rather than as extremely disturbing as Siskel did? Though Siskel could also be perceptive critic.) His tastes were also broad, as he regularly defended popular tastes in a genuine manner (e.g., The Terminator), even as he had a film snob’s appreciation of “arty” flicks (e.g., David Cronenberg’s Crash).

While he was a good writer, and in his last years he was confined only to writing, Ebert was on television for so long that he came across as someone who you knew personally. Since, you allegedly knew him you could come to believe that you knew why he liked or disliked a movie—or even why he “hated, hated, hated” it. You understood his taste and his criteria for judgment. In this way, his television personality alone was a kind of non-academic film education in itself. He will be missed.

With his death, I suspect that the importance of the film critic—and of movies and films in general—to American popular culture is over. Of course, this has been the case for some time now, but with Ebert’s death, it seems to have become all the more obvious.

You might dispute this claim of loss with the second piece of big news, namely that Martin Scorsese found himself giving the annual NEH Jefferson Lecture. Entitled “The Persistence of Vision: Reading the Language of Cinema,” we are treated to an instructive and entertaining discussion of the history of motion pictures in terms of some of its constituent elements (light, movement, time, cutting, etc.) all the while interspersed with clips ranging from Edison’s “boxing cats” to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

In his presentation, Scorsese didn’t offer controversy and provocation, unless one thinks a defense of an education in learning the “language” of moving images or an argument in favor of the preservation of the entirety of film history is controversial and provocative. But I think in the area of “film studies,” or amongst movie fandom at least, there is little controversy here.

Perhaps being the first movie director to receive such an honor, Scorsese felt the need to give an account of movies, flickers, cinema, kino, “the seventh art,” etc., that demonstrated their importance. After all, the previous honorees were writers of some sort—various poets, novelists, historians, philosophers, academics, and the like. Yet the official or semi-official recognition of the importance of cinema as well as its appreciation, study and critique has been around for awhile—recently “canonized” in the Library of America volumes of writings on film by James Agee, Manny Farber, and Pauline Kael.

In his prepared speech about moving images, Scorsese defends the case for an education in cinematic language. He tells us that today images confront us faster than the light that hits the astronaut’s eye in the stargate scene in 2001. For any kind of sense to be made of our world today, one therefore needs to be more than a consumer of images. One needs to understand their composition, nuance, and complexity in order to get at what they mean. Scorsese points out that motion pictures have a surface and a depth, that they can present reality and contain “special effects,” and that they require an inference in the viewer’s “mind’s eye” that is provocative of thought that goes unspoken or that is even unspeakable.

He says that certain movies warrant repeated viewing over time in that they can offer new insights and perspectives. He even problematically speaks of finding “new values” in the watching of movies! We are told that movies—the moviemakers and the moviegoers—present the world through the biases of their time, and that an understanding beyond such bias emerges in the hindsight of time. However, Scorsese’s account of the artistry of Hitchcock’s Vertigo and the films of Powell and Pressburger belie his popular historicism, as such excellence while unappreciated during its time is still excellence then and as well as now.

In the lecture, he brings up a famous scene in Plato’s Phaedrus—a written dialogue toward the end of which Socrates recounts a myth in which the Egyptian king Thamos criticizes the god Theuth’s invention of the art of writing as an art that begets the soul’s forgetfulness. Writing, according to Plato’s portrayal of Socrates’ Thamos, is a drug not for conducive to memory but merely to reminding.

For Scorsese, we now find ourselves in a world where present day Thamoses criticize the inventions of Muybridge, Edison, Friese-Greene, the Lumiere brothers, et al. as leading to distraction, consumerism, and an emphasis on the bottom line of box-office grosses. He suggests that this art may be older than seen at first glance, in that the attempt to capture motion in images can be found as early as bison cave paintings. Ultimately he claims that the origin of the art of moving images is unfathomable, even as he claims that it can aspire to indications of the purity of being. However, far from leading to distraction, with the study of images one is confronted with the questions of metaphysics!

With a historical knowledge of the art, informed by an understanding of its elements, Scorsese says that the images can point toward things more important than themselves—such as the preservation of an American cultural heritage. A good example of such education is found in his own documentary A Personal Journey Through American Movies. Another notable example is Thom Anderson’s Los Angeles Plays Itself.

His case for the preservation of film—an art inherently connected to technological change—is particularly interesting. As noted, images can serve as reminders of things outside of themselves. We are told that moving images constitute a history of various “invocations of life,” and therefore spur a kind of “dialogue with life.” So while he brings up Socrates apparent critique of writing, perhaps Scorsese is not so much in disagreement with him (or Plato) as the lecture makes it seem. For instance, we are told in an aside that Frank Capra once said, “Film is a disease.” Unlike Socrates, Scorsese may not claim that philosophy (or hemlock!) is the cure for a diseased life in terms of film, but he surely teaches that film needs to be understood (rather than just merely consumed) in order for an individual and a culture to live well.

After speaking of the HBO series Girls and its brilliant stupidity, I received nothing but remarks about how following that show must be indicative of deep depravity on my part—even though I called the show crap in my title. In my post, I took the show seriously because I think what is not shocking in this show is its depiction of the shallowness of contemporary youthful attempts at finding love. I agree that the show represents a more or less accurate take on of today’s life of love, albeit in a saving wry comedic manner. What I take issue with is the fact that the show cannot do anything imaginative about this situation other than show the boring, stupid lives of its characters in a way which simply reproduces these very same lame conditions.

I am not the one to gainsay the sage commentary that many made on my obvious remarks about the dry humor found in Girls. Apparently I am a hipster conservative who needs to embrace his manliness due to the sin of admitting to watching the truly insipid Sex and the City.

Mea Culpa.

I will not defend the shows Girls and Sex and the City other than to demonstrate my own depravity with a personal reminiscence that could only show the perdition of my liking these shows in the first place.

I was in 8th grade in 1981 and the Sony Walkman had just come out. My parents weren’t as generous as some of my peers’ parents, so I had no Walkman. My peers be-bopped around listening to The Police and The Gogos on cassette tapes—or for the “deeper” types they listened to the 1980 version of The Doors Greatest Hits. Meanwhile I was musically deprived at school. At home I was discovering the Who, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and the Rolling Stones, but at school music was all lame music all the time–e.g., Catholico-Pop songs like “On Eagles’s Wings” (I don’t know the composer).

At any rate, I say this because one day in Catholic school “Religion” class a very nice teacher, Sister Peggy, decided to take us students on a “trip.” Now I don’t know what this sweet young woman was up to, but I wasn’t having anything to do with it. This “trip” was considered appropriate for 12 and 13 year olds in “Religion” class, but I had visions of late night TV and the Roger Corman movie starring Peter Fonda in my head. So I wanted nothing to with this “trip.”

Now compared to math, English, and science, “Religion” class at this Catholic school was a break from rigor, except Sr. Peggy made it too silly for my 12 year old jadedness to even take a break from that.

A friend of mine luckily loaned me his Walkman for class, and instead of taking Sr. Peggy’s “trip” with my classmates—a “trip” with dimmed light, goofy music, stars on the ceiling, and pictures of Jesus projected on the wall—I listened to The Cars’s album Shake It Up. While everyone else took the “trip,” I took my own trip.

Sr. Peggy offered a big “trip,” but I took the “big vacation.”

I’ve often wondered what the hell Sr. Peggy was up to with her “trips,” but at the time I was glad I was able to go elsewhere than she wanted me to go with a friend’s borrowed Walkman.

Since then, I always hated too cool for school—“I’m down with the kids”—type religious teachers. I can do with youth culture on my own time. I always wanted something else from education and “Religion” class. But not receiving that, I listened to the rock music of the day on my own time in my own ears. I was uneducable in terms of what was considered to be education at the time.

So you should watch Girls, not because it is what conservatives like to watch, but because it is relatively accurate regarding the mores such as they are about youth today (and for that matter, the youth of 30 years ago). Besides, in doing so, you can take your own “trip.”

That said, I’m gonna take Bob Cheeks advice and start watching reruns of the X Files on Sunday nights!

The cynic in doglike dismissal says the HBO TV series Girls is the most asinine way to spend one’s half hour on Sunday nights.

Yet the cynic continues to watch—even as he waits for the new season of Game of Thrones too.

The trials and tribulations of Hannah and her loosely held crew of midwest liberal arts college graduates living in or near the orbit of the hipster Brooklyn ambience of excellence (or idiosyncrasy) is boring. It requires a sense of distance, a suspension of disbelief, that after two series worth of shows can’t believe that someone as fat, sloppy, and poorly dressed as Hannah has as many sexual encounters and potential suitors as she does. The veritable rapist Adam becomes her deepest and truest encounter. They seem to love each other.

Hannah as this OCD girl finds her deepest longing with Adam—this AA attending since 17 years old industrial artist alcoholic (who could have never hit alcoholic bottom at his age or situation. As is shown when he overrides his sobriety for a hot chick.). It is kind of ridiculous, but it is one of the charming elements of the show. I fear that the romantic breaking down the door in the last episode (a la Carlito’s Way) where Adam must be with his girl Hannah will make the show lose a bit of its edge.

But like all TV shows, the writers will just change the scenario to make it “interesting.” In that case, Girls has already jumped the shark.

But this shark jumping could be compensated by the attractive Marnie as she reunites with her jackass boyfriend Charlie, who has recently made a lot of money. I love these shows where money is made like magic, such as through things like the internet. Charlie’s success explains all by creating an App. I don’t deny the actual money making of those who can’t explain how they made their money, but it is an interesting phenomenon to which Girls seems to rely. This is Marnie’s boyfriend—he is the honor student regarding what today’s economy considers to be PRODUCTIVITY.

But in this scenario, Marnie is happy and Hannah is miserable, but it is not really the case of course. These two love each other, and will have a hard time disentangling that love as they meet and marry (or get into deep relationships) with other men.

Shoshana dumps Ray after he gives up “Latin Studies” (who writes this crap?), but he tries to make himself manager of a new coffee shop. She dumps him anyway.

The only relationship in this show somewhat based in reality, i.e., Shoshana and Ray, is marred by the promise of being free for one’s own ends to which Hannah speaks. Both Shoshana and Ray want to fulfill themselves as everyone else in the show wants to do.

Hannah loves Marnie and Adam. Shoshana, in a way, loves Ray. Marnie loves Charlie. Hannah loves her parents too, but she is also miserable and weak. And unhappy.

Which leads to the most interesting character in the show to my mind—Jessa. She has run away, after one episode where we have met her family. The only family we know in this show other than Hannah’s basically normal midwest parents are Jessa’s unfortunate hippie parents. Jessa grew up in a “progressive” environment, and it is no wonder that she has no place. She marries some guy, and then immediately divorces him. Then she disappears.

Unlike Sex and the City, of which I unfortunately saw many episodes, Girls shows family, but it tends to keep family at arms length. Except for Hannah and Jessa. Those family stories tend to be some of the best episodes.

Jessa better not disappear and then just show up again in future seasons. Or if she does, she better have some indirect influence on her friends Hannah, Marnie, and Shoshana.

I almost would rather watch what happened to Jessa than these other girls.

Remi Brague is no stranger to PomoCon and First Things readers. So it goes with saying that he is one of the most brilliant and knowledgeable thinkers and writers living today. His immense erudition, his intense study, and his mastery of Greek philosophy, as well as medieval Islamic, Jewish, and Christian thought is something of a wonder. That he can also speak to the most important present concerns in a way that is fluent with modern thought from Hobbes to Habermas, and do it in a way that can provoke deep reflection in a generally educated person leaves one speechless. And to pile on the accolades, to be able to present all this with panache, and with a dash of good humor (in English!), is truly amazing.

Not living in one of the major cities (or academic hubs) where such intellectual persons are called upon to give an account of their thoughts, I was unaware that M. Brague had something of a North American Tour last fall. At least that’s how YouTube presents the dates of his lectures, i.e., lectures apparently presented at Notre Dame and McGill in late 2012. One of the advantages of the modern networked society is that you can watch lectures like this on the internet regardless of where you presently live.

This is no defense of MOOCs or online education, the efficacy of which, regarding a good education, I am generally skeptical as a whole (but with which I try to keep an open mind). Apart from the internet, my interest in Brague—the characteristically pressing questions he asks, the perennial issues he addresses, and the classic texts he takes as relevant for exposition and interpretation—required face to face classroom instruction where difficult texts were slowly read as an introduction to the most important matters. That is, it required something resembling what is called an education in the arts and sciences on the model of a liberal education—an education which had as its core a focus on the “great books.” From that basis, I read (or read parts of) Brague’s books The Wisdom of the World, The Law of God, Eccentric Culture, and The Legend of the Middle Ages.

I do not claim to be an expert on Brague or the texts and topics he writes about, but I have learned much from him nonetheless.

Of course, this background is no excuse for my own current ignorance and confusion. That is entirely my own, despite whatever I may have learned.

Nonetheless, I wanted to recommend a way to spend an evening other than watching TV on that evening when that was your only other option and when, as per usual, there was nothing worth watching anyway. On that night, why not watch a few lectures by Remi Brague?

The McGill lecture has the title “The Question Atheism Can’t Answer.” In this lecture, Brague lays out an account of atheism internally on its own terms, especially regarding the real successes that modern natural science and modern politics, and their attendant technology, have wrought. Perhaps, Pierre Bayle in his “Thoughts On a Comet” was onto something in suggesting the possibility of a society based on atheism. The question is—given the apparent success of a science, a technology, and a politics wholly of human making, do human beings, understood as rational animals that are open to a whole greater than themselves and living together in communities, need to perpetuate themselves? He lays out the typical statistics as to why those in societies most influenced by these conditions seem not presently to do what is necessary for such perpetuation. The Q&A after the lecture is illuminating, especially when a young student asks a question from the point of view of what could only be called what a young French friend of mine calls “apatheism.” Brague handles it with aplomb, reminding the student of the 40 years hence of Shakespeare’s Sonnet number 2.

The Notre Dame lecture is called “There is No Such Thing as a Secular Society.” With a fascinating account of the etymological and historical meanings of “secular” and “society,” Brague points out how the dominant ideas which founded and continue to explain modern modes of living one amongst another provide nothing outside themselves by which to understand, assess, and judge themselves as a basis for right action. Once again, the Q&A gave further clarification, where he makes a great point about the ultimate inadequacy of phrasing ethical and political questions in terms of “what is the MEANING of life?”

I am not saying I agree with all of Brague’s arguments, insofar as I understand them, but they make for a thoughtful evening’s viewing.

I took these words from a response to a fine post by Carl Scott, and decided to make them into a not so fine post of mine here–

A long time ago Peter Lawler mentioned doing the most unconservative thing, i.e., writing some kind of postmodern conservative manifesto. It would at least help to explain what this blog is NOT about. Whatever happened to that idea? If it were ever to happen, I promise that I would restrain my hyped up rhetorical self–insofar as that is possible!

Manifesto is probably the wrong term here. Whatever it were to be called, it would still have to take into account as a central question Peter Lawler’s deep understanding of who we are as relational beings (including the theotropic triune relation) and his fascinating forays into popular culture like his analyses of Girls. It would also take into consideration Carl Scott’s cultural (primarily musical) knowledge and how the decades since the ’60s (and the popular attitudes regarding the political and sexual revolution) have played themselves out in terms of love, pride, and the consequent viability of institutions that make such passions find proper formation. No doubt, it would require a serious examination of the politically strategic knowledge that Pete Spiliakos offers, especially when he couples such strategies of persuasion with a mastery of the facts of the fiscal crisis (and other important issues) that the debate regarding public policy means for the general welfare. In such a light, Kate Pitrone would be able to offer her typically intelligent thoughts on local and national issues, and Jason (or is it Jonathan?) could offer his insights regarding TV and movies (like his piece on the TV series American Horror Story). I guess that would leave the few angry polemics–those which may be necessary–to me (with a few movie reviews on occasion–I’ll see Soderbergh’s Side Effects tomorrow, and may have some words to say afterwards).

Of course, the rigorous “Ralphism” of Ralph Hancock regarding philosophy’s relationship to the requirements of political choice (insofar as choice is possible) must have its voice. And the “Ceaserism” of James Ceaser, in fine explanation and defense of such choices regarding what is best in the American political tradition in terms of “political development,” needs to be evident too (as well as Ceaser’s entertaining stories about crabs on the beach and the use of kitchen cooking devices acquired during bouts of insomnia).

Mr. Postmodern Conservative himself–James Poulos–needs to throw in his ideas in terms of his interesting and successful career of insightful analysis, of which he and we can be so proud.

Regular commenters like Paul Seaton, Pseudoplotinus, Bob Cheeks, C.J. Wolfe, and other important persons ought to be there too.

Mr. Lewis may say that this has something to do with intellectual property–copyrite or copyright–but being only a lawyer’s son, I must admit that I never understood what the hell Mr. Lewis was talking about anyway. Kant and Hegel make more sense to me. That said, he apparently has something to say about postmodern conservatism too. So welcome aboard!

This postmodern conservative explanation needs to be done. “Making Manifest the Postmodern Conservative Persuasion”–I agree it’s too wordy. It is simply a proposal. Or “The Pomocon Persuasion.”

That said, given the diversity of concerns evident on this blog the title may be easier than the explanation, and I would not want to destroy that diversity (rightly understood)!

So the Texas State Legislature is considering a law allowing conceal and carry of firearms on the campuses of public schools. Faculty, students, administration, and staff would be eligible to conceal and carry.

If the law passes, I’m considering taking the license for myself, even though I have never owned a gun other than a twenty gauge shotgun. But that can’t be concealed. So I might as well carry a six shooter .38 revolver in my pocket.

Imagine a professor saying, “You better hand in that paper on time mo****fu***r—or else.” Unfortunately “Up against the wall” would be answered by “Stop telling me what to do, or else I’ll kill you like the worthless piece of s**t that you are.”

No doubt, this law will surely improve education. It will teach that one need not study texts which emphasize speech in a deliberate, albeit difficult, search for the good. Smith and Wesson will become more important than Plato.

You may say that those who hold conceal and carry licenses are already responsible, and that they would never commit crimes. But if that is the case then this law already has a bias in favor of ONLINE education—which is a non-education. Stay at home responsibly with one’s own guns and read Wikipedia. It beats the showdown at the OK Corral U. As a professor friend of mine says, “If you take online courses, you are not serious about education. So why should I be serious about teaching?”

Why not make it dumb for everyone online? Besides, there is an app for that anyway.

But administrators hope against hope that this total online education will be the case of the future of education. Then administrators will have true job security, and there will be no need for actual teachers. So they like the idea of everyone carrying guns, as long as those guns are held at home online and everything else educational is online too.

If you listen to the most fierce defenders of this law allowing everyone to conceal and carry, you would think that “the government” is one step removed from mass killings the likes of which were used by Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, or Mao.

But if you tried to find the actual law on the web page of the Texas legislature, you might be forgiven if you thought that Chauncey Gardener, Forrest Gump, or Jacques Clouseau were its framers.

That’s why I don’t have a link here. As Forrest Gump’s mother said, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

You may make this issue what you will, but the so called “citizens” legislature which spends its time in Austin 24/7—365 makes laws for all of Texas. Try to figure this nonsense out at the Texas State Legislature’s page—let alone try to figure out their reasoning behind the law.

Nonetheless, I’m gonna stay at home and be a web page monitor—oops, I meant to say professor—of online education. Despite one’s responsibility, it beats being killer or killed.

Okay, I’ll keep teaching face to face, but after this law you must realize that that is a bulge, and while I will be as excited to teach as I ever was, that bulge is actually a gun, and I am not that happy to see you. Beware!

I only wish I were as excited about teaching without a gun as I am with one. You see, allowing guns in the classroom makes my thoughts perverted in a way that they never were.

Thanks Texas.

P.S. You may wonder about the psycho with a gun who kills many indiscriminately in school without remorse. Would my .38 ultimately save anyone? I wonder. What I do know is that education in its notion of pointing toward a way of life that is worth living is corrupted the more gun training is emphasized over “great book” learning.

But then I would never want to say that education in guns is not worthwhile.

In lieu of a review, here is Michael Totten’s case for seeing Zero Dark Thirty. His piece primarily addresses the controversy surrounding the movie’s depiction of the use of torture, and whether or not such practices led to actionable intelligence.

While ZDT’s action is presented in a matter of fact way, it was engrossing. So now, at least, you too can view a fictionalized version of bin Laden’s end.

In its portrayal of CIA professionals and Seal Team Six there were no overly dramatic scenes where someone freaks out or whines or expresses moral indignation. Rather we see highly talented and dedicated people doing their job excellently.

BTW, Totten is the author of an excellent journalistic account of war and terrorism in Lebanon called The Road to Fatima Gate.