Zeal and Conversion
Bayle
zeal (or in it's other guises, "enthusiasm", extremism, etc) don't in fact
value it when the zealot has converted to a side we think is right.
Therefore, isn't zealotry in defense of X (something we hold sacred) really
and truly no vice? Or does the conversion delegitimize the zeal, as if the
convert ought to be more understanding having held both positions himself?
I can think of some examples. Admittedly some are hypothetical in the sense
that I can't assign a name to the actions, though I think there must have
been people who did this. We are most familiar with the Communist to
anti-Communist zealots so I will avoid those.
Take slavery. Certainly there must have been people connected to the slave
trade in some way (family, job) who became rabid anti-slavery activists. I
believe that pre-civil war in the US there were people in New England whose
families practically disowned them due to their anti-slavery activities. We
look at them in a very different light today.
What about the holocaust? Don't we admire those Germans who attempted to
assassinate Hitler even though some of them probably supported him in the
early days. We don't rue the fact that they were zealots, we rue the fact
that they didn't succeed.
The above examples are simple, where most of us agree with ends. What about
a situation like the Middle East? Both sides have used terror and there are
certainly zealots on both sides. In fact there seems to be a certain
symmetry. Who could blame Zionists after the Holocaust for being zealots,
even if you disagreed with their political aims? And isn't it
understandable that people who have spent their whole lives in refugee
camps might not have the patience that we expect in others.
In writing this, it occurs to me, that I have always found the zealotry
from those on the outside more suspect than those in the middle of it:
Jewish immigrants from Montana to the West Bank or the American Israeli
Lobby. I have heard Israelis express the same feelings not to mention the
Palestinians. Of course in the case of the American Israeli Lobby, I have
resented the special pleading and manipulation with the threat of the
charge of anti-Semitism if you oppose them. I have heard it said that
Hindus in the Diaspora are much more fanatical nationalists than those at
home, as if they were attempting to maintain their identity through their
expatriate politics.
Ironically there was an article in the NYT about Hillel (a Jewish student
organization) running of programs to train Jewish college students to
defend Israel during the anti-Israel demonstrations predicted on US college
campuses. Someone was quoted as saying that the Arab students are much
more knowledgeable about the situation, because they often have family
living there, while the American Jewish students just feel good about being
Jewish, having little knowledge of Middle East events. In quotes that I
thought would make GO proud (or at least hopeful) the students having spent
time in Israel complained (paraphrased): "I wanted to hear both sides", "I
don't want them to tell me how to think", "I want to make up my own mind".
Certainly signs of the morality of Judaism and the strength of democratic
pluralism. Maybe we ought to reserve the term zealot for those who only see
one side.
Alan Allport
news:01c12f01$34fc3060$21541cd0@ilzyausv...
> To get right to the point, I wonder if those of us who are suspicious of
> zeal (or in it's other guises, "enthusiasm", extremism, etc) don't in fact
> value it when the zealot has converted to a side we think is right.
> Therefore, isn't zealotry in defense of X (something we hold sacred)
really
> and truly no vice?
IIRC the original Zealots detested those Jews who were willing to reach any
kind of practical accommodation with the Roman occupiers. The question is
thus partly one of whether adherence to a cause, however righteous, trumps
the maintenance of peaceful life. Should abstract political duty always be
pursued, even if it means the destruction of a civil society? The medieval
concept of the Just War comes to mind, with the injunction that war "must be
conducted with a moderation which, in the continuance and settlement of the
struggle, commits no act intrinsically immoral, nor exceeds in damage done,
or in payment and in penalty exacted, the measure of necessity and of
proportion to the value of the right involved, the cost of the war, and the
guarantee of future security." A somewhat nebulous concept, but one with
wider implications than the martial, and that argues against the devout
insatiability of the Zealot.
Alan.
Tom Deveson
>Take slavery. Certainly there must have been people connected to the slave
>trade in some way (family, job) who became rabid anti-slavery activists. I
>believe that pre-civil war in the US there were people in New England whose
>families practically disowned them due to their anti-slavery activities. We
>look at them in a very different light today.
This isn't an answer to your general question about zealotry and how we
regard it. But the paragraph above made me think of John Newton. He was
born in London in 1725, went to sea at the age of eleven, became a
virulent disbeliever in Christianity (allegedly after reading
Shaftesbury), was publicly flogged as a navy deserter, and then spent
fifteen months in Africa working for a slave trader.
Then he was reconverted to Christianity after surviving a storm at sea,
but still spent the next six years as commander of a slave ship. In
1764, after some years ashore, he became influenced by Wesley and was
appointed curate in Olney, where the poet Cowper was one of his
parishioners.
From 1780 onwards he was rector of St Mary Woolnoth in the city of
London (it's the church Eliot mentions in Pt 1 of *The Waste Land*, and
we walked past it last weekend, on the way to Spitalfields). He became a
central figure in the Evangelical movement and was then an active
propagandist for the abolition of the slave trade.
He's best known for hymns like 'Amazing Grace' and 'Glorious things of
thee are spoken', which came out in *Olney Hymns* in 1779, a collection
he wrote with Cowper.
His career poses intriguing questions. Was he merely a hypocrite, who
entertained complacent Christian thoughts while pacing the decks of his
ship while the horribly suffering human cargo was chained below? Or was
he, by the brutal standards of the time, an 'enlightened' slave trader,
who seems to have tried to run a 'humane' ship, and who then laudably
used his experiences to campaign effectively and knowledgeably against
the business in which he had once worked?
He seems to have been a simple man, self-educated and unsophisticatedly
literal in his religious views. His poems and hymns are mainly
colloquial, using homely imagery unlike that usually found in eighteenth
century verse.
I can imagine contemporaries on several sides of what were current
debates claiming him as either an admirable or a contemptible example of
faith/zealotry.
Tom
--
Tom Deveson
Bayle
Alan Allport <all...@ee.upenn.edu> wrote in article
<9mdmhj$bdm$1...@netnews.upenn.edu>...
Thanks Alan. Which would also argue against lightly labeling someone a
Zealot. If "commits no act intrinsically immoral, nor exceeds in damage
done etc" [I'll leave the lawyer[s] to parse this] is the key point, I fail
to see what acts of Zealotry people like Horowitz, Genovese, Chambers, etc,
primarily writers could have done, especially if they were being truthful
and sincere. I would think that this point would probably extend to all
writers, and is probably one of the underpinnings of freedom of thought and
expression.
Of course one could also wonder about the "moderation" of Medieval war. Or
the Crusades.
Bayle
Tom Deveson <a...@devesons.demon.co.uk> wrote in article
<s3dioOAT...@devesons.demon.co.uk>...
Thanks Tom, beautiful example. I would like to think that his reading of
Shaftesbury infected him with its examples of fellow-feeling and moral
sense, which took years to blossom and could blossom in a Christian
setting. I also find it interesting, as a lapsed Methodist, the degree to
which Wesley was attacked as an enthusiast, something I was not aware of,
and the degree to which many Methodists in the early days of the civil
rights movement in the US had forgotten their roots.
I also plead guilty to being infected by a little of Shaftesbury, though
more accurately via Voltaire via Bolingbroke.
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/s/shaftes.htm
"Regarding religious enthusiasts (or fanatics), he [ i.e. Shaftesbury]
tells us that "vapors naturally rise," and he would dispel them by
ridicule."
ROBBIE
>
>
as a lapsed Methodist, the degree to
We should have a poll on here to find out what religions people were brought
up in. I'm lapsed caffolic myself. I bet Rennie's C of E....Alan Allport
could well be a Plymouth Brethren who escaped after dancing to a political
speech on a *wireless*!......Mab must have been a methodist...
Alan Allport
news:9me3kh$1pq8f$1...@ID-88989.news.dfncis.de...
> We should have a poll on here to find out what religions people were
brought
> up in. I'm lapsed caffolic myself. I bet Rennie's C of E....Alan Allport
> could well be a Plymouth Brethren who escaped after dancing to a political
> speech on a *wireless*!......
I'm not even going to ask where that theory of credo came from. For the
record, if there needs to be a record, I'm of the same religious background
as GO and with similar opinions about same.
Alan.
Bayle
Alan Allport <all...@ee.upenn.edu> wrote in article
<9me43e$4bm$1...@netnews.upenn.edu>...
Disclaimer: Mention of my own background was intended as an example of the
extent to which believers (to the extent that I ever believed) in a
religion (or for that matter any group) can remain ignorant of the sect's
founding principles and class background. Leave it to Robbie to start an
Inquisition (albeit of the Monty Python variety) on ABGO. I would predict a
high number of lapsed-Xs though.
John Rennie
He was spot on about me anyway.
ROBBIE
John Rennie <j.re...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:sMwi7.30150$_71.2...@news6-win.server.ntlworld.com...
I can imagine you John, rosy cheeked, belting out '..the heathen in his
blindness bows down to wood and stone...'
>
>
John Rennie
inevitably been either axed or whose words have been corrupted
by the PC Brigade. (What is it called now Tom?)
Gene Zitver
>Take slavery. Certainly there must have been people connected to the slave
>trade in some way (family, job) who became rabid anti-slavery activists. I
>believe that pre-civil war in the US there were people in New England whose
>families practically disowned them due to their anti-slavery activities. We
>look at them in a very different light today.
There's also the case of John Brown, who attempted to organize an armed revolt
against slavery before the Civil War and was hanged. Today I think he is
generally regarded as a hero and a martyr, but in his day I imagine even some
abolitionists thought he was going to far, discrediting the cause, etc. Time
and historical distance has a way of taking the edge off zealotry.
>The above examples are simple, where most of us agree with ends. What about
>a situation like the Middle East? Both sides have used terror and there are
>certainly zealots on both sides. In fact there seems to be a certain
>symmetry.
If by terror you mean deliberate attacks on random civilians, it's been
extremely asymmetrical.
Who could blame Zionists after the Holocaust for being zealots,
>even if you disagreed with their political aims? And isn't it
>understandable that people who have spent their whole lives in refugee
>camps might not have the patience that we expect in others.
>
>In writing this, it occurs to me, that I have always found the zealotry
>from those on the outside more suspect than those in the middle of it:
>Jewish immigrants from Montana to the West Bank or the American Israeli
>Lobby.
I lived in Israel through the end of last year and I'd estimate that the olim
(immigrants) there from the US and Canada were about evenly divided between
doves and hawks (at least before the latest intifada). They aren't all West
Bank settlers from Montana, although there may be some of those. BTW would it
surprise you to learn that 97 percent of Israelis live within the pre-1967
borders?
I have heard Israelis express the same feelings not to mention the
>Palestinians. Of course in the case of the American Israeli Lobby, I have
>resented the special pleading and manipulation with the threat of the
>charge of anti-Semitism if you oppose them. I have heard it said that
>Hindus in the Diaspora are much more fanatical nationalists than those at
>home, as if they were attempting to maintain their identity through their
>expatriate politics.
Again American supporters of Israel aren't all religious zealots by any
means-they span the political and religious-secular spectrum. I'm not sure what
you mean by special pleading and manipulation-if you mean lobbying, I guess
they do that. I don't like promiscuous charges of anti-Semitism either, but
yes, it does happen. Whenever the Israeli entry in the shlocky Eurovision song
contest gets a low score, Israelis joke about it being a result of
anti-Semitism.
>Ironically there was an article in the NYT about Hillel (a Jewish student
>organization) running of programs to train Jewish college students to
>defend Israel during the anti-Israel demonstrations predicted on US college
>campuses. Someone was quoted as saying that the Arab students are much
>more knowledgeable about the situation, because they often have family
>living there, while the American Jewish students just feel good about being
>Jewish, having little knowledge of Middle East events. In quotes that I
>thought would make GO proud (or at least hopeful) the students having spent
>time in Israel complained (paraphrased): "I wanted to hear both sides", "I
>don't want them to tell me how to think", "I want to make up my own mind".
>Certainly signs of the morality of Judaism and the strength of democratic
>pluralism. Maybe we ought to reserve the term zealot for those who only see
>one side.
That's fine. I just hope the Arab students are equally open to hearing both
sides. Before I moved to Israel I went on one of those junkets and we heard
from all sides of the political spectrum-Shimon Peres and Bibi Netanyahu, among
others. Some of us went to visit an Israeli Arab village, and the people there
weren't reluctant to tell us their views. Interestingly the guy who took us on
that visit was an American immigrant who was very active in the peace movement
and whose job as an army reservist was speaking to groups of officers on the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Gene
Martha Bridegam
ROBBIE wrote:
Why, dare I ask?
/MAB
Martha Bridegam
John Rennie wrote:
"Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence," full congregation with pipe organ, gives
me chills. I kind of miss it.
/MAB
Bayle
Gene Zitver <gzi...@aol.com> wrote in article
<20010827200121...@mb-mf.aol.com>...
> Bayle wrote
>
> >Take slavery. Certainly there must have been people connected to the
slave
> >trade in some way (family, job) who became rabid anti-slavery activists.
I
> >believe that pre-civil war in the US there were people in New England
whose
> >families practically disowned them due to their anti-slavery activities.
We
> >look at them in a very different light today.
>
> There's also the case of John Brown, who attempted to organize an armed
revolt
> against slavery before the Civil War and was hanged. Today I think he is
> generally regarded as a hero and a martyr, but in his day I imagine even
some
> abolitionists thought he was going to far, discrediting the cause, etc.
Time
> and historical distance has a way of taking the edge off zealotry.
Seems like it. I would think Brown was both crazy and a religious zealot
and a hero and a martyr. I wonder how many would support his actions in a
present day context though. Vidal's comparison of him with McVeigh was
telling I think.
> >The above examples are simple, where most of us agree with ends. What
about
> >a situation like the Middle East? Both sides have used terror and there
are
> >certainly zealots on both sides. In fact there seems to be a certain
> >symmetry.
>
> If by terror you mean deliberate attacks on random civilians, it's been
> extremely asymmetrical.
Would you say that if you included things from the early days, say
Bernadotte's assassination or Deir Yassin or the King David Hotel, the
Irgun and the Stern gang., etc? (not sure of the spellings), as well as the
82 action in Lebanon? Plus the recent pictures of Israeli helicopters
launching missile attacks on civilian urban areas (however legitimate) are
almost the definition of terror.
Tonight I saw where the Israeli's took out a high-level PLO leader with a
couple of helicopter launched missile through his office window. Apparently
the rest of the building was untouched. Awe-inspiring in the old sense of
the word awe. It left me speechless.
> Who could blame Zionists after the Holocaust for being zealots,
> >even if you disagreed with their political aims? And isn't it
> >understandable that people who have spent their whole lives in refugee
> >camps might not have the patience that we expect in others.
> >
> >In writing this, it occurs to me, that I have always found the zealotry
> >from those on the outside more suspect than those in the middle of it:
> >Jewish immigrants from Montana to the West Bank or the American Israeli
> >Lobby.
>
> I lived in Israel through the end of last year and I'd estimate that the
olim
> (immigrants) there from the US and Canada were about evenly divided
between
> doves and hawks (at least before the latest intifada). They aren't all
West
> Bank settlers from Montana, although there may be some of those. BTW
would it
> surprise you to learn that 97 percent of Israelis live within the
pre-1967
> borders?
Yes it would. It still strikes a non-believer and an outsider as strange
that someone from a totally different country can return and have more
rights than people whose families have been living their 500 years. Not a
point to start an argument, just a psychological fact from my perspective.
It is also interesting that the proportion of hawks versus doves is
definitely not the impression I get from the media. When I think of an
American immigrant in Israel I think of a settler on the West Bank with an
Uzi and a Brooklyn accent. (Fair or not)
> > have heard Israelis express the same feelings not to mention the
> >Palestinians. Of course in the case of the American Israeli Lobby, I
have
> >resented the special pleading and manipulation with the threat of the
> >charge of anti-Semitism if you oppose them. I have heard it said that
> >Hindus in the Diaspora are much more fanatical nationalists than those
at
> >home, as if they were attempting to maintain their identity through
their
> >expatriate politics.
>
> Again American supporters of Israel aren't all religious zealots by any
> means-they span the political and religious-secular spectrum. I'm not
sure what
> you mean by special pleading and manipulation-if you mean lobbying, I
guess
> they do that. I don't like promiscuous charges of anti-Semitism either,
but
> yes, it does happen. Whenever the Israeli entry in the shlocky Eurovision
song
> contest gets a low score, Israelis joke about it being a result of
> anti-Semitism.
Good joke. I know they aren't all zealots. I also know that they have
treated the US's relationship with Israel as their special property and woe
be to anyone who suggests that US and Israeli interests are not the same.
They also act like that it is not possible for a non-Jewish American to be
anti-Zionist and yet be not anti-Semitic. I do recognize that the situation
is much better than it used to be in that regard though.
> >Ironically there was an article in the NYT about Hillel (a Jewish
student
> >organization) running of programs to train Jewish college students to
> >defend Israel during the anti-Israel demonstrations predicted on US
college
> >campuses. Someone was quoted as saying that the Arab students are much
> >more knowledgeable about the situation, because they often have family
> >living there, while the American Jewish students just feel good about
being
> >Jewish, having little knowledge of Middle East events. In quotes that I
> >thought would make GO proud (or at least hopeful) the students having
spent
> >time in Israel complained (paraphrased): "I wanted to hear both sides",
"I
> >don't want them to tell me how to think", "I want to make up my own
mind".
> >Certainly signs of the morality of Judaism and the strength of
democratic
> >pluralism. Maybe we ought to reserve the term zealot for those who only
see
> >one side.
>
> That's fine. I just hope the Arab students are equally open to hearing
both
> sides.
Me too.
> Before I moved to Israel I went on one of those junkets and we heard
> from all sides of the political spectrum-Shimon Peres and Bibi Netanyahu,
among
> others. Some of us went to visit an Israeli Arab village, and the people
there
> weren't reluctant to tell us their views. Interestingly the guy who took
us on
> that visit was an American immigrant who was very active in the peace
movement
> and whose job as an army reservist was speaking to groups of officers on
the
> Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Well that's hopeful. I didn't mean to beat on Israel, I just wanted to use
the situation as an example of a case where the ends and facts aren't as
clear for many outsiders as they may be for you, especially now. My view
has always been, Israel has a right to exist, the Palestinians have a right
to a state and the killing on both sides must stop. (I also think Jerusalem
should end up as an international city of some sort (with dual capitals)
its being sacred to the 3 religions). Talking about the past has become
counter-productive. How we get there now who knows. Very sad an hard to
figure out how to help.
I saw today on the news that Colin Powell isn't going to the International
Conference of Racism. Apparently Koffe Annan and others attempted to get
the "Zionism is Racism" language deleted but failed. Interestingly,
Abraham Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation league said that if the
conference wanted to discuss the legitimacy of religious states that would
be fine, as long as they included Iran and the Taliban. That would be a
truly amazing conference session.
Paul Sebastianelli
ROBBIE wrote in message <9me3kh$1pq8f$1...@ID-88989.news.dfncis.de>...
My last name probably nakes obvious my Catholic baptism, but
otherwise I was brought up in a very unreligious household. I discovered
about a month ago that my old man is an atheist. Or was an
atheist. He told me last week that he is no longer sure because
he managed, in fortuitous circumstances, to catch a 37 inch muskie
in a small lake in eastern Ontario.
paul.
Bayle
Martha Bridegam <brid...@pacbell.net> wrote in article
<3B8AF1F4...@pacbell.net>...
I don't know that one. Care to sing a few bars ;-)
"Holy Holy Holy" and "For the Beauty of the Earth" were two of my
favorites. I sometimes wonder about the loss for kids who don't have the
opportunity to grow up hearing things like this. It seems much hard and
less likely to listen to this stuff later.
Does anyone like Blind Alfred Reed's "They'll Be No Distinction There"?
(Not to mention "Why Do You Bob Your Hair Girls".) He's a tuneful Methodist
in the Wesley tradition.
Martha Bridegam
Bayle wrote:
> ...
> >
> > "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence," full congregation with pipe organ,
> gives
> > me chills. I kind of miss it.
> >
>
> I don't know that one. Care to sing a few bars ;-)...
There's a nice description of the tune at
<http://www.stpetersnottingham.org/hymns/silence.htm> and a too-simple,
too-slow orchestration of the tune synthesized at
<http://www.motherflash.com/hymns/mortal.html>. In our church the organist
would introduce it by pounding down a whole minor scale with the whole
congregation coming in *pow* on the last note of the scale. What the St.
Peter's description calls the "fierce" side of the tune.
/MAB
Greg-Orang-utan
Paul Sebastianelli wrote in message ...
*lol* I admire people for whom faith itself is fortuitous.
I was raised in a very church-goin household and am still very much in doubt
that I will catch the elusive muskie.
Here is the Muskie Webring:
I'm afraid 37 inches would not warrant so much as a photo, but then eating
your heart out is all part of fishin fun...
Edward Belsky
Martha Bridegam wrote in message <3B8AF17A...@pacbell.net>...
>
>
>ROBBIE wrote:
>Mab must have been a methodist...
>
>Why, dare I ask?
>
>/MAB
In England, Methodists are associated with John Wesley (1703-1791) who
roused drunk factory workers with a whip and sent them back to work.
>
ROBBIE
Martha Bridegam <brid...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:3B8AF17A...@pacbell.net...
Oh come on....
>
> /MAB
>
Martha Bridegam
Edward Belsky wrote:
so?
/MAB
Edward Belsky
Martha Bridegam wrote in message <3B8BD3B3...@pacbell.net>...
>
>
>Edward Belsky wrote:
>
>> In England, Methodists are associated with John Wesley (1703-1791) who
>> roused drunk factory workers with a whip and sent them back to work.
>> >
>
>so?
working class English history tolls through his perceptions of people and
things. It is a terrible burden of memory. He wishes he clear himself of
the silt of those historical deposits but he can't. Your intonations and
turns of phrase and how you give and resist in argument must evoke Methodist
seriousness to Robbie. But don't to worry. In England the Methodists stand
out in high relief for being ballbusters (sorry about that) but not for low
church mediocrity which is how they appear only on this side of the ocean.
Martha Bridegam
Edward Belsky wrote:
So how about it, Robbie, are you an archetype or what?
/MAB
Joe Fineman
> There's also the case of John Brown, who attempted to organize an
> armed revolt against slavery before the Civil War and was
> hanged. Today I think he is generally regarded as a hero and a
> martyr, but in his day I imagine even some abolitionists thought he
> was going to far, discrediting the cause, etc. Time and historical
> distance has a way of taking the edge off zealotry.
I think the war produced all the historical distance needed to
rehabilitate John Brown:
He captured Harper's Ferry with his nineteen men so true,
He frightened old Virginia till she trembled through and through.
They hanged him for a traitor -- they themselves the traitor crew,
But his soul goes marching on.
> Again American supporters of Israel aren't all religious zealots by
> any means-they span the political and religious-secular
> spectrum. I'm not sure what you mean by special pleading and
> manipulation-if you mean lobbying, I guess they do that. I don't
> like promiscuous charges of anti-Semitism either, but yes, it does
> happen. Whenever the Israeli entry in the shlocky Eurovision song
> contest gets a low score, Israelis joke about it being a result of
> anti-Semitism.
An old tendency, and thus an old joke. 100 years ago, the Jews had a
series of jokes in which a Jew leaves his train to duck into the
station men's room, dawdles too long, and comes out to see the train
pulling out of the station. In one version, he yells "Wise guy!" at
the engineer. In another, he yells "Antisemite!
--
--- Joe Fineman j...@TheWorld.com
||: Death before dishonor? Too late, but never mind. :||
Joe Fineman
> <http://www.motherflash.com/hymns/mortal.html>.
We sang it in highschool. Nice to hear it again.
--
--- Joe Fineman j...@TheWorld.com
||: When we admire people, we seldom ask "What did their parents :||
||: do right?". :||
Bayle
Edward Belsky <Edward...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in article
<vrTi7.160$151....@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>...
>
> In England the Methodists stand
> out in high relief for being ballbusters (sorry about that)
So that explains my grandmother.
ROBBIE
LOL @ '..intellectual and spiritual pilgrimage.' I'm not an archetype and
certainly don't consider myself working class. I'm an autodidact who likes
discovering words like 'glissade'. I like Shakespeare too. Belsky just off
on one of his high toned waffles aka talking out of his arse....I don't know
much about working class english history either and don't want to much
because I think I've got the general idea: they were fucked over by
capitalism.
So, Mab, in relation to our ecumenical tally, what denomination are you?
>
> /MAB
>
Alan Allport
> LOL @ '..intellectual and spiritual pilgrimage.' I'm not an archetype and
> certainly don't consider myself working class. I'm an autodidact who likes
> discovering words like 'glissade'.
It's a good word (just looked it up). Though not as good as zumboorukchee.
By the way, harking back to the misty origins of the Probably Awful Books
thread, it turns out that Carlo Ginzburg's _Night Battles_ is a history of a
16th century northern Italian white witch cult that was investigated and
suppressed by the Inquisition. Fascinating, but nothing much to do with
Orwell.
Alan.
Bayle
ROBBIE <poolhal...@hotmail.com> wrote in article
<9mitrb$2h92i$1...@ID-88989.news.dfncis.de>...
I think we're supposed to try and figure it out. I'm a little short of
cultural capital in this field however. Listening to her choice in the hymn
book was no help. Though there was an organ in her church, which I think
would exclude certain dissenting sects (Quakers for example). And the hymn
was translated by an Anglican and put in a hymnal around 1906 IIRC. Plus I
didn't know the hymn, which I think I might if it were Methodists. Hmmmm???
Did she take you to church on your visit to SF Alan?
Alan Allport
> Did she take you to church on your visit to SF Alan?
Actually yes, though I believe it was more for its historical significance
(Mission Delores) than for the health of my soul.
Alan.
Bayle
Alan Allport <all...@ee.upenn.edu> wrote in article
<9mj0rg$a3j$1...@netnews.upenn.edu>...
So no clue there.
Tom Deveson
>In England, Methodists are associated with John Wesley (1703-1791) who
>roused drunk factory workers with a whip and sent them back to work.
Surely it's more complex than that?
Look, for example, at Chapter 11 (*The Transforming Power of the Cross*)
in EP Thompson's *The Making of the English Working Class*.
Thompson has huge amounts to say about Methodism in the 900+ pages of
his book, covering the late 1700s and the early 1800s. In that chapter
he deals with the fact that "Methodism obtained its greatest success in
serving simultaneously as the religion of the industrial bourgeoisie
(although here it shared the field with other Nonconformist sects) and
of wide sections of the proletariat. Nor can there be any doubt as to
the deep-rooted allegiance of many working-class communities (equally
among miners, weavers, factory workers, seamen, potters and rural
labourers) to the Methodist Church..."
And for more recent years, looking at the first hundred years of the
Labour Party, or merely walking through towns in Wales, the Potteries,
the West Riding etc. and looking at the chapels [and seeing what's
become of them] suggests that the associations of Methodism in English
history deserve more than a glib generalisation.
Tom
--
Tom Deveson
Alan Allport
news:kBTAFFAv...@devesons.demon.co.uk...
> And for more recent years, looking at the first hundred years of the
> Labour Party, or merely walking through towns in Wales, the Potteries,
> the West Riding etc. and looking at the chapels [and seeing what's
> become of them] ...
One of the distinguishing characteristics of Britain and the United States
is that in the former the Wesleyan Halls are being turned into carpet
warehouses, whereas in the latter the buildings that look like carpet
warehouses are frequently newly-built churches.
Alan.
Tom Deveson
>One of the distinguishing characteristics of Britain and the United States
>is that in the former the Wesleyan Halls are being turned into carpet
>warehouses, whereas in the latter the buildings that look like carpet
>warehouses are frequently newly-built churches.
That's worth stealing. May I?
Tom
--
Tom Deveson
Alan Allport
> That's worth stealing. May I?
Since I don't think I stole it from anyone myself, please feel free.
Alan.
Martha Bridegam
ROBBIE wrote:
Lapsed Congregationalist. Of all the Protestant denominations it's the most
self-governing -- possibly even more so than the Unitarians. Decisions are made
by vote of the assembled adults of the congregation, very much in town meeting
style.
There's a lot to be said for the rural New England conception of democracy.
/MAB
Bayle
Martha Bridegam <brid...@pacbell.net> wrote in article
<3B8D2D03...@pacbell.net>...
And the least militaristic region of the country from way back (and current
home of the Democratic party) as I read recently in something concerning
Genovese or Vietnam IIRC. Not surprising when you consider how difficult it
would be to run an army as a democracy. I don't think even Cromwell tried
that.
Any idea how the Congregationalists viewed people like John Brown in the
ante-bellum days? In some of my Amazon browsing for books about the South
and the abolitionists there were quite a few concerning charismatic
abolitionist religious figures tinged with anarchism. They don't sound like
Congregationalists to me, but I'm certainly no expert.
Martha Bridegam
Bayle wrote:
The stern Abolitionist hymn "Once To Every Man And Nation"
(<http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/o/o274.html>) appeared frequently at our
particular church, but I don't know the overall history.
/MAB
Tom Deveson
>Lapsed Congregationalist. Of all the Protestant denominations it's the most
>self-governing -- possibly even more so than the Unitarians. Decisions are made
>by vote of the assembled adults of the congregation, very much in town meeting
>style.
>
>There's a lot to be said for the rural New England conception of democracy.
I'm not a lapsed anything, as I was never really anything to start with.
But at school in the 1950s/1960s there was a daily religious assembly,
as required by law, so I know large parts of the King James Version of
the Bible and of the Anglican hymn tradition by heart.
But let me, agreeing with Martha about the New England conception of
democracy, put in a small additional local-patriotic claim. The
Mayflower sailed from Rotherhithe, and though the Pilgrim Fathers
weren't South Londoners, the Captain and many of the sailors were. So we
made our practical contribution from over here.
And I grew up in Bedford, which is not far from Huntingdon (Cromwell)
and is the home town of Bunyan. Though Bunyan was in some ways a
Baptist, his church, dating from the 1650s, was listed as Congregational
after the Declaration of Indulgence in 1672. I used to go past it nearly
every day for nine years on the way to school, and waited for the bus on
the site of the gaol where he wrote *Pilgrim's Progress*.
The dissenting radicalism and unabashed independence of the 'turbulent,
seditious and factious' people' among whom he worked and preached,
combined with Bunyan's own love of and encouragement of music, singing
and dancing -- not always acceptable to fellow Puritans -- had a good
effect in Massachusetts, I hope, even if only at second or third hand. I
believe there are quite a few Bedfords in New England.
Tom
--
Tom Deveson
Martha Bridegam
Tom Deveson wrote:
New Bedford, MA (say it "nuBedfuhd" with the jaw a little slack) is a depressed
former mill and seaport town that's just over the line from Rhode Island and shares
Rhode Island's reputation for low-rent muscularity. Not my end of the state but a
place with an interesting history -- a whaling center in the old days, IIRC.
/MAB
Edward Belsky
Martha Bridegam wrote in message <3B8D55CD...@pacbell.net>...
>
>New Bedford, MA (say it "nuBedfuhd" with the jaw a little slack) is a
depressed
>former mill and seaport town that's just over the line from Rhode Island
and shares
>Rhode Island's reputation for low-rent muscularity. Not my end of the state
but a
>place with an interesting history -- a whaling center in the old days,
IIRC.
>
>/MAB
It's where the inn is located which is setting of the bedroom scene of
Ishmael and Queequeg about which I still owe you a rejoinder. By the
standard of Robbie's "tardy" reply to his critics [as he named a recent
thread], I am a worse "retardaire" [French for a late-comer]
ED qu n'est pas un arriviste
Edward Belsky
Tom Deveson wrote in message ...
>Martha Bridegam writes
>>Lapsed Congregationalist. Of all the Protestant denominations it's the
most
>>self-governing -- possibly even more so than the Unitarians. Decisions are
made
>>by vote of the assembled adults of the congregation, very much in town
meeting
>>style.
>>
>>There's a lot to be said for the rural New England conception of
democracy.
>
>I'm not a lapsed anything, as I was never really anything to start with.
By your own standards but by Jewish law you are Jewish and not a lapsed one
there being no such category and should you think that you have voided your
Jewishness by not "looking Jewish" (I am thinking of a word that is a
synonym for neat or full-strength), that my friend is no disqualification by
an old Rabbinic adjudication.
Joe Fineman
> New Bedford, MA (say it "nuBedfuhd" with the jaw a little slack) is
> a depressed former mill and seaport town that's just over the line
> from Rhode Island and shares Rhode Island's reputation for low-rent
> muscularity. Not my end of the state but a place with an interesting
> history -- a whaling center in the old days, IIRC.
Now Aprile is over and melted the snow,
And outer Noo Bedford we shortly must tow;
Yes, out o' Noo Bedford we shortly must clear,
We're the whalers that never see wheat in the ear.
Wheat-in-the-ear, my true-love's posy blowin';
Wheat-in-the-ear, we're goin' off to sea;
Wheat-in-the-ear, I left you fit for sowin';
When I come back a loaf o' bread you'll be!
-- quoted in _Captains Courageous_
--
--- Joe Fineman j...@TheWorld.com
||: Investing is the opposite of gambling, and downtown is the :||
||: opposite of uptown. :||
Tom Deveson
>Now Aprile is over and melted the snow,
> And outer Noo Bedford we shortly must tow;
> Yes, out o' Noo Bedford we shortly must clear,
> We're the whalers that never see wheat in the ear.
>
> Wheat-in-the-ear, my true-love's posy blowin';
> Wheat-in-the-ear, we're goin' off to sea;
> Wheat-in-the-ear, I left you fit for sowin';
> When I come back a loaf o' bread you'll be!
>
> -- quoted in _Captains Courageous_
Thanks for that, Joe.
And 'my' Bedford is also in Kipling:
"A tinker out of Bedford,
A vagrant oft in quod,
A private under Fairfax,
A minister of God --
Two hundred years and thirty
Ere Armageddon came
His single hand portrayed it,
And Bunyan was his name!
...All enemy divisions,
Recruits of every class,
And highly screened positions
For flame or poison-gas;
The craft that we call modern,
The crimes that we call new,
John Bunyan had 'em typed and filed
In Sixteen Eighty-Two...
...A pedlar from a hovel,
The lowest of the low --
The Father of the Novel,
Salvation's first Defoe --
Eight blinded generations
Ere Armageddon came,
He showed us how to meet it,
And Bunyan was his name!
[*The Holy War* 1917]
c/o Tom
--
Tom Deveson
Bayle
<KPxrmBAn...@devesons.demon.co.uk>...
Wonderful.
I've never read Bunyan myself. I had a copy of it when I was a kid among
the family books and I used to look at the pictures, but the words just
seemed too weird at the time.
What do you think Tom? Is "Pilgrim's Progress" worth reading at the
beginning of the 21st century? I love Kipling's line,
Tom Deveson
>What do you think Tom? Is "Pilgrim's Progress" worth reading at the
>beginning of the 21st century?
Well, I'm perhaps a biassed witness but I'd say, "Yes, yes, yes."
There are passages of sectarian narrowness, and places where the
Puritanical Bible-citing habit probably gets on a modern reader's
nerves. Recalling the title of this thread, Ben Jonson's character
Zeal-of-the-Land Busy seems to be at times not too far away.
But the life in the language constantly restores the reader's relation
with the narrative -- such as the well-known passage where Christian
talks to By-Ends.
"Christian: Pray, who are your kindred there, if a man may be so bold?
By-Ends: Almost the whole Town: and in particular, my Lord Turn-about,
my Lord Timeserver, my Lord Fair-speech (from whose ancestors that Town
first took its name), also Mr Smoothman, Mr Facing-both-ways, Mr
Anything: and the Parson of our Parish, Mr Two-tongues, was my Mother's
own Brother by Father's side; and to tell you the truth, I am become a
Gentleman of good Quality; yet my Great Grandfather was but a Waterman,
looking one way and rowing another; and I got most of my estate by the
same occupation..."
It's rooted in popular idiom, and, as Leavis says, 'what is involved is
not merely an idiomatic raciness of speech, expressing a strong
vitality, but an art of social living, with its mature habits of
evaluation.' Those neighbours of By-Ends are surely still around.
Christopher Hill makes the point that, writing in an age of satire,
Bunyan's success as a satirist comes from realism. 'Bunyan's satire is
of a particular kind. It is directed almost exclusively either against
the aristocracy, the gentry and the rich generally, or against
hypocritical turncoats and the self-satisfied godly.'
And as for the passage at the end of Part Two, where the pilgrims are
waiting by the river and receive, one by one, the summons to cross, it
is surely one of the most wonderful pieces of writing in the English
language. To quote Leavis again -- 'Incomparable, for where else in
prose can a like sustained exaltation be found.'
I would write it all out if there were time.
The only book I could really bracket with it is *Gulliver's Travels*.
*As-I-Please*-type-question:
Why are so many literary titles formed on the PP pattern? Pride and
Prejudice, Pierce Penniless, Piers Plowman, Pickwick Papers, Peter Pan,
Pippa Passes, Peregrine Pickle, Prince and the Pauper, Pit and the
Pendulum, Passionate Pilgrim, Past and Present, etc.
Tom
--
Tom Deveson
Bayle
Tom Deveson <a...@devesons.demon.co.uk> wrote in article
<VrLsPfAO...@devesons.demon.co.uk>...
> Bayle writes
> >What do you think Tom? Is "Pilgrim's Progress" worth reading at the
> >beginning of the 21st century?
>
> Well, I'm perhaps a biassed witness but I'd say, "Yes, yes, yes."
>
> There are passages of sectarian narrowness, and places where the
> Puritanical Bible-citing habit probably gets on a modern reader's
> nerves. Recalling the title of this thread, Ben Jonson's character
> Zeal-of-the-Land Busy seems to be at times not too far away.
>
> But the life in the language constantly restores the reader's relation
> with the narrative -- such as the well-known passage where Christian
> talks to By-Ends.
>
> "Christian: Pray, who are your kindred there, if a man may be so bold?
>
> By-Ends: Almost the whole Town: and in particular, my Lord Turn-about,
> my Lord Timeserver, my Lord Fair-speech (from whose ancestors that Town
> first took its name), also Mr Smoothman, Mr Facing-both-ways, Mr
> Anything: and the Parson of our Parish, Mr Two-tongues, was my Mother's
> own Brother by Father's side; and to tell you the truth, I am become a
> Gentleman of good Quality; yet my Great Grandfather was but a Waterman,
> looking one way and rowing another; and I got most of my estate by the
> same occupation..."
Well Tom you've done it again !!! Another book on the "to read" list. You
must have been very dangerous as a teacher, making it very hard for your
student to do their assigned work. I would have never predicted that
posting on abgo I would have ended up getting interested in Bunyan. Not
totally out of the blue though becuase I think I actually have Hill's book
on Bunyan around somewhere around here. I just can't remember which Hill I
have.
Is there a modern edition of Bunyan that you would recomend? Do you think
it's a book that benefits from apparatus and notes?
Edward Belsky
Bayle wrote in message <01c131d9$99e6f980$0e541cd0@ilzyausv>...
you can get it yourself from Gutenberg.
Martha Bridegam
Edward Belsky wrote:
Pedic Perspiration?
/MAB
Edward Belsky
Martha Bridegam
Edward Belsky wrote:
In for a penny, in for a pound.
The proof is in the pudding. (Does that mean it's rum pudding?)
A pig in a poke.
Then there's Peter Piper who picked a peck of pickled peppers, and didn't there
use to be an herb tea called Pelican Punch?
Yep, there's definitely something about that double "p" sound.
(BTW, interesting mutation from "PP" in __Aspidistra__ to "BB" in __1984__.
Wonder if there was any conscious association in GO's mind?)
/MAB
Bayle
Edward Belsky <Edward...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in article
<LNFj7.747$Uf1....@bgtnsc06-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>...
Thanks for the offer Ed, but I think I might go blind and crazy if I tried
to read it on a computer. I'm sure I can find it, I was just wondering if
there might be a really good edition. Sometimes Longman in the UK publishes
good and scholarly paperback editions of the classics. Their volume on
Spenser for example is excellent.
Paul Sebastianelli
Alan Allport wrote in message <9miu7d$qqj$1...@netnews.upenn.edu>...
Speaking of the Possibly Awful Books thread, I, like others,
have noticed the heavy volume of traffic around here lately.
A quick look at google tells me that the POB thread has hit
171 articles and counting, which puts it ahead of the longest
thread in my memory - the legendary "Orwell and Fruit Juice"
thread of November 2000. Now, I've only been here since
late '98, and perhaps there has been a longer thread. But
assuming not, I think we should congratulate ourselves for
all the hard work we put in to make this dream come true. A
special bottle of Victory Gin should go to Alan, who
started the thread by trying to get us to do his homework, and
to Gene, who boldly posted message 164, putting us over the top!
Way to go, abgo!
paul.
Alan Allport
news:1ALj7.41903$Hr2.3...@news20.bellglobal.com...
> A
> special bottle of Victory Gin should go to Alan, who
> started the thread by trying to get us to do his homework
Shucks, I do what I can. But sweet sherry, please.
Alan.
Greg-Orang-utan
Paul Sebastianelli wrote in message
<1ALj7.41903$Hr2.3...@news20.bellglobal.com>...
I only posted twice and didn't read Alan's books for him, but I was really
rooting for this thread. There must be some muskie leftover to go with the
gin.
Gene Zitver
A
>special bottle of Victory Gin should go to Alan, who
>started the thread by trying to get us to do his homework, and
>to Gene, who boldly posted message 164, putting us over the top!
Make mine a bottle of Dos Equis, even though it doesn't seem to do much for the
beer snobs:
http://www.ratebeer.com/ShowBeer.asp?BeerID=224
Clint Eastwood likes it too, and what's good enough for Clint...
Gene
Tom Deveson
>I only posted twice and didn't read Alan's books for him, but I was really
>rooting for this thread. There must be some muskie leftover to go with the
>gin.
Earlier today our daughter uncovered some fermenting fruit juice in our
food cupboard. May I join in? I'm wearing sandals.
Tom
--
Tom Deveson
Edward Belsky
Tom Deveson wrote in message ...
>Why are so many literary titles formed on the PP pattern? Pride and
>Prejudice, Pierce Penniless, Piers Plowman, Pickwick Papers, Peter Pan,
>Pippa Passes, Peregrine Pickle, Prince and the Pauper, Pit and the
>Pendulum, Passionate Pilgrim, Past and Present, etc.
a puzzle: this peerless poll was produced by a putatively post-peak
pipsqeak. I am perplexed.
>
>Tom
>--
>Tom Deveson
Bayle
Gene Zitver <gzi...@aol.com> wrote in article
<20010831111526...@mb-mf.aol.com>...
Will no doubt make your day.
I can hardly wait for Possibly Awful Books II or Son of Possibly Awful
Books, coming soon to a theater near you. (i.e. after Alan actually reads
these books). And I assume, due to our setting a new record, that we can
reasonably expect to see a few book reports posted to abgo. After your
sherry of course.
Martha Bridegam
Gene Zitver wrote:
But what does Merle Haggard drink?
As for me, on a special occasion I'll take Kentucky bourbon sipping whiskey. A
taste I regret sharing with Richard Nixon.
There's a place here that sells Jura whisky but it costs something like forty
dollars and the gesture has never seemed worth quite that much money.
I've asked this before, but maybe someone here now can give a more satisfactory
answer: why, living within a day's walk of some of the world's greatest
distilleries, did Orwell keep writing to his friends from Jura asking them to send
him brandy? I mean, people have suggested before that it may have had something to
do with rationing or the diversion of alcohol production into the war effort or
something, but surely it must have been possible to get Scots whisky on Jura and
Islay of all places? I'm wondering if it was some kind of 'transferred
nationalism' or if he just didn't like whisky. Which would be odd.
/MAB
John Rennie
"Gene Zitver" <gzi...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20010831111526...@mb-mf.aol.com...
Yuk!! Give me a pint of Adnams anyday.
Martha Bridegam
John Rennie wrote:
Is that a typo for "Sam Adams" (very nice Boston microbrew, fruity taste
like fresh apple) or something else entirely?
/MAB
Tom Deveson
>I would have never predicted that
>posting on abgo I would have ended up getting interested in Bunyan. Not
>totally out of the blue though becuase I think I actually have Hill's book
>on Bunyan around somewhere around here. I just can't remember which Hill I
>have.
The one I was quoting from is *A Turbulent, Seditious and Factious
People: John Bunyan and his Church* [Oxford University Press 1988]. The
phrase in the title is Bunyan's own ironic summary of how he and his
fellow-believers were regarded by the respectable in 1662. Hill provides
a very broad historical background against which not just PP but all
Bunyan's works come to greater life.
>Is there a modern edition of Bunyan that you would recomend? Do you think
>it's a book that benefits from apparatus and notes?
I'm not sure.
My own late-19th-century copy was a precious gift to me in about 1965,
from an old lady who came from a village near Gamlingay on the
Bedfordshire/Cambridgeshire borders. I used to go and visit her and
chat.
Her vivid memories of early twentieth century village life -- growing
up in a cottage, going into service, losing her young man in the Great
War -- illuminated for me the reading of *Coming Up for Air*.
The copy of PP was produced as part of a cheap edition for 'the cottage
homes' of England, and it marks Biblical allusions in the margins.
I would guess that either the Penguin or Oxford World Classics editions
would have enough apparatus to explain the historical and polemical
setting.
Tom
--
Tom Deveson
John Rennie
"Edward Belsky" <Edward...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:_9Pj7.1332$Uf1....@bgtnsc06-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
Paris Peripherique, Pope Pius
>
John Rennie
"Martha Bridegam" <brid...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:3B8FCA2C...@pacbell.net...
Something else entirely.
Martha Bridegam
John Rennie wrote:
Too bad for you. <chauvinistic smirk>
/MAB
Bayle
Tom Deveson <a...@devesons.demon.co.uk> wrote in article
<J8Mb6GAS...@devesons.demon.co.uk>...
> Bayle writes
> >I would have never predicted that
> >posting on abgo I would have ended up getting interested in Bunyan. Not
> >totally out of the blue though becuase I think I actually have Hill's
book
> >on Bunyan around somewhere around here. I just can't remember which Hill
I
> >have.
>
> The one I was quoting from is *A Turbulent, Seditious and Factious
> People: John Bunyan and his Church* [Oxford University Press 1988]. The
> phrase in the title is Bunyan's own ironic summary of how he and his
> fellow-believers were regarded by the respectable in 1662. Hill provides
> a very broad historical background against which not just PP but all
> Bunyan's works come to greater life.
>
I just saw that PP was written against the Quakers. It was also compared
with Dante. As my son is reading Dante in a Quaker school this year, it
would make a great comparison. Too bad there is no chance in hell of it
happening.
> >Is there a modern edition of Bunyan that you would recomend? Do you
think
> >it's a book that benefits from apparatus and notes?
>
> I'm not sure.
>
> My own late-19th-century copy was a precious gift to me in about 1965,
> from an old lady who came from a village near Gamlingay on the
> Bedfordshire/Cambridgeshire borders. I used to go and visit her and
> chat.
>
> Her vivid memories of early twentieth century village life -- growing
> up in a cottage, going into service, losing her young man in the Great
> War -- illuminated for me the reading of *Coming Up for Air*.
>
> The copy of PP was produced as part of a cheap edition for 'the cottage
> homes' of England, and it marks Biblical allusions in the margins.
>
I think I may have had a 19th century copy when I was a kid.
> I would guess that either the Penguin or Oxford World Classics editions
> would have enough apparatus to explain the historical and polemical
> setting.
I just bought the Penguin edition, which is edited with notes by Roger
Sharrock who was the general editor of the Clarendon Edition of the
Miscellaneous Works for Oxford UP. He died in 1991. I don't know what the
World Classics edition uses.
Gene Zitver
>But what does Merle Haggard drink?
I believe Merle gave up drinking some time ago, after some problems with
excess. I've sent him an email asking him which beer he liked when he did
drink. If he replies, I'll report the result.
Gene
Paul Sebastianelli
Greg-Orang-utan wrote in message <9mo9lh$3du97$1...@ID-31858.news.dfncis.de>...
The muskie is at the taxidermists, apparently.
paul.
Paul Sebastianelli
Martha Bridegam wrote in message <3B8FCF13...@pacbell.net>...
You're not missing anything, John, like most American beers
it's mediocre. <smug smirk>
paul.
Martha Bridegam
Paul Sebastianelli wrote:
> ...
>
> The muskie is at the taxidermists, apparently.
>
This is a wonderful sentence.
"None of them knew the color of the sky..."
"Call me Ishmael..."
"In Moulmein, in Lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people..."
"The muskie is at the taxidermists, apparently."
/MAB
Martha Bridegam
Paul Sebastianelli wrote:
Maybe by the time it's been jostled up to the northern hinterlands, it is.
<snobbish smirk>
/MAB
Joe Fineman
> The proof is in the pudding. (Does that mean it's rum pudding?)
The rum is *on* the pudding, and the threepenny bit is *in* the
pudding. Neither of them proves anything.
The saying is "The proof of the pudding is in the eating".
--
--- Joe Fineman j...@TheWorld.com
||: None of us is getting any younger, and few of us are getting :||
||: any soberer. :||
Joe Fineman
> I've asked this before, but maybe someone here now can give a more
> satisfactory answer: why, living within a day's walk of some of the
> world's greatest distilleries, did Orwell keep writing to his
> friends from Jura asking them to send him brandy?
He appreciated presents of whisky too. He explains this somewhere in
CEJL. The entire output of Jura was going to America on account of
Britain's desperate shortage of dollars. Later on, you may recall, he
had to do some finagling in order to import some aureomycin (I think
it was) from the U.S.
--
--- Joe Fineman j...@TheWorld.com
||: I like people who are easy to tell apart. :||
Martha Bridegam
Joe Fineman wrote:
OK, thx, sorry to forget.
It was streptomycin but you're right about the rest. Ironically for Mr.
Proletarian, it was David Astor who helped him get the medicine.
/MAB
Joe Fineman
> Shucks, I do what I can. But sweet sherry, please.
How vulgar!
I cannot find a decent bottle of sherry these days. My old standby,
Sandeman's Amontillado, has failed me. Everything is too sweet or too
dry or too medicinal-tasting or not nutty enough or something. Pity
it's not practical to ship an open bottle; we could make a deal.
--
--- Joe Fineman j...@TheWorld.com
||: 180 degrees from wrong is still wrong. :||
Martha Bridegam
Joe Fineman wrote:
> Martha Bridegam <brid...@pacbell.net> writes:
>
> > The proof is in the pudding. (Does that mean it's rum pudding?)
>
> The rum is *on* the pudding, and the threepenny bit is *in* the
> pudding. Neither of them proves anything.
>
> The saying is "The proof of the pudding is in the eating".
> --
Ayuh. That was an attempt at humor, that was.
/MAB
Paul Sebastianelli
Martha Bridegam wrote in message <3B8FF19D...@pacbell.net>...
I've only ever tried Samuel Adams in Buffalo, NY. <so-there smirk>
paul.
Paul Sebastianelli
Joe Fineman wrote in message ...
>Martha Bridegam <brid...@pacbell.net> writes:
>
>> The proof is in the pudding. (Does that mean it's rum pudding?)
>
>The rum is *on* the pudding, and the threepenny bit is *in* the
>pudding. Neither of them proves anything.
>
>The saying is "The proof of the pudding is in the eating".
"The proof is in the pudding" is a very common saying up here.
paul.
Martha Bridegam
Paul Sebastianelli wrote:
Buffalo, NY *is* the northern hinterlands. <whatever kind of smirk they got
left>.
/MAB
Paul Sebastianelli
Martha Bridegam
Paul Sebastianelli wrote:
Aw, no need to quit just as the repartee was getting brilliant...
/MAB
Joe Fineman
> "None of them knew the color of the sky..."
>
> "Call me Ishmael..."
>
> "In Moulmein, in Lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people..."
>
> "The muskie is at the taxidermists, apparently."
"But luckily, I had a pat of butter in my pocket, so everything turned
out all right."
--
--- Joe Fineman j...@TheWorld.com
||: Entertainers have all the vices of politicians, and none of :||
||: the excuses. :||
Joe Fineman
> "The proof is in the pudding" is a very common saying up here.
What do they think it means up there?
--
--- Joe Fineman j...@TheWorld.com
||: Big prizes make many losers. :||
Tom Deveson
>Bayle writes
>>I would have never predicted that
>>posting on abgo I would have ended up getting interested in Bunyan. Not
>>totally out of the blue though becuase I think I actually have Hill's book
>>on Bunyan around somewhere around here. I just can't remember which Hill I
>>have.
>
>The one I was quoting from is *A Turbulent, Seditious and Factious
>People: John Bunyan and his Church* [Oxford University Press 1988]. The
>phrase in the title is Bunyan's own ironic summary of how he and his
>fellow-believers were regarded by the respectable in 1662. Hill provides
>a very broad historical background against which not just PP but all
>Bunyan's works come to greater life.
I suppose it's worth recalling that Christopher Hill's own intellectual
and ideological journey reflects many of the themes of this thread. He
still counts, I think, as one of the most distinguished and influential
British historians of the 17th century.
He came from a Methodist and middle class background, was educated at St
Peter's School in York and Oxford, became a Fellow of All Souls, worked
at the Foreign Office, went back to Oxford and ended as Master of
Balliol between 1965 and 1978. In that role he used to write a Master's
Letter in the College Record which was largely untroubled by radical
rhetoric, and concerned itself with the retirement of old fellows and
college servants, building works, the success of college sports teams,
the academic achievements of members of the college and the like. His
excellent *The Century of Revolution* was a 6th-form text book at my
conventional boys' school back in 1963. He once said that he'd been led
to study the 17th century as a result of reading TS Eliot on
metaphysical poetry.
Hill had also joined the CP back in the 1930s, following a year spent in
the USSR. Under the pseudonym KE Holme he wrote a book *The Two
Commonwealths* in 1945, which compares the British and Soviet systems,
commending the latter for having solved the problem of "the independent
peasant proprietor" by "reorganization and improvement pf agricultural
technique", though we can make a guess as to what that really meant.
He wrote another book on *Lenin and the Russian Revolution* in 1947,
which insists on the continuity between Lenin and Stalin -- emphasising,
for example, that the problems of the nationalities were "first worked
out by 'the wonderful Georgian', as Lenin called him. Indeed, it is
impossible to separate the work of the two on this subject." Hill goes
on: "There is general agreement that in its policy towards the former
subject peoples the Soviet regime has won one of its most striking
successes." The Chechens, Tartars and others might have wondered.
When Stalin died, Hill wrote a memorial tribute which celebrates Stalin
as "a thinker no less than a man of action. Since 1945, whilst political
leaders in the capitalist countries have seen no future for humanity
save more and more destructive wars, Stalin has had different
preoccupations, a different conception of his responsibiitlies to his
people." Hill refers to Engels's maxim that socialism will mean
'humanity's leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom'
and adds:
"It was Stalin's great happiness that he was able to contribute so
largely to the creation of such a society, to know what he was creating,
and to see that knowledge spread among the men and women who were
joining with him in its creation. Humanity, not only in the USSR but in
all countries, will always be deeply in his debt." [*Modern Quarterly*
Autumn 1953]
Hill left the CP in 1957.
This all raises difficult questions. Was Hill applying the same
standards to his more political writing as he did to his academic
historical research? Did he feel the same need to interrogate documents,
check sources, consult experts? What really goes on in a perhaps divided
mind?
How much did Hill's work with the Communist Party Historians' Group
contribute to the ability of a generation of historians not to reduce
history to simple economic/class determinism but to take the social
history of ideas with immense seriousness. Hobsbawm says Hill was of
great importance in this area. Hobsbawm also said that he didn't write
on Russian history himself, because the Soviet sources were "horseshit".
Who enlightens whom?
Tom
--
Tom Deveson
Paul Sebastianelli
Joe Fineman wrote in message ...
>
>> "The proof is in the pudding" is a very common saying up here.
>
>What do they think it means up there?
It means the strongest evidence is in the result. If I
don't believe somebody, and they say "He really
tries to get here on time. He says it's mportant to him."
I'll respond "The proof is in the pudding. He's not here."
I don't think anybody thinks of threepenny
bits or rum pudding when they say it.
I have never heard the saying you mentioned.
paul, descriptivist.
John Rennie
"Tom Deveson" <a...@devesons.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:UyQ85BA$7ik7...@devesons.demon.co.uk...
snipped
>
> Hill left the CP in 1957.
>
He left as I joined. The swing doors must have been working overtime in
King Street.
Bayle
Tom Deveson <a...@devesons.demon.co.uk> wrote in article
<UyQ85BA$7ik7...@devesons.demon.co.uk>...
Very depressing stuff. It makes me want to go upstairs and empty my
library. At least Hobsbawn seems to have more integrity. I never knew this
about Hill. I knew he was a communist but assumed that his historical
writing was mostly about the 17th Century. Did he ever comment on his
early praise for Stalin? Do you know how Thompson, Hobsbawm and Hill were
looked upon by other British historians who didn't share their politics?
I don't know how to answer any of your questions but it seems we have
following kinds of animals in our bestiary.
Hill - where he is writing nonsense about history (a seemingly well past
youthful indiscretion time) at the same time he means his other work to be
taken seriously.
Ellis - who is lying about his own past at the same time he is teaching it.
Meanwhile most of his other work is much earlier.
Anthony Blunt - Soviet spy - great art historian
Nazi Scientist - bad politics but presumably still capable of good science.
Soviet Scientist - Lysenko - bad politics - bad science.
Nazi Philosopher - Heidegger - bad politics - unknown philosophy
Wagner - anti-Semite - great composer (admittedly not for all tastes)
I'm sure there more.
*****
I also picked up "Grace Abounding, with other spiritual autobiographies" in
the Oxford World's Classic series. Seems to have a lot of good background
info. I'm very interested in the anti-Quaker angle of Bunyan. Would like to
know if it bled over into Colonial America.
Joe Fineman
> Joe Fineman wrote in message ...
> >"Paul Sebastianelli" <p.se...@sympatico.ca> writes:
> >
> >> "The proof is in the pudding" is a very common saying up here.
> >
> >What do they think it means up there?
>
> It means the strongest evidence is in the result. If I don't believe
> somebody, and they say "He really tries to get here on time. He says
> it's mportant to him." I'll respond "The proof is in the
> pudding. He's not here." I don't think anybody thinks of threepenny
> bits or rum pudding when they say it.
But what's the idea? The proof of *what* is in the pudding? The
cooking?
> I have never heard the saying you mentioned.
Weird.
--
--- Joe Fineman j...@TheWorld.com
||: It is an advantage in propaganda to seem virtuous, and one :||
||: way to seem virtuous is to be virtuous. :||
Tom Deveson
>Very depressing stuff. It makes me want to go upstairs and empty my
>library.
That wasn't my intention -- don't be so drastic!
The bits I quoted were meant to suggest just how complicated this whole
issue of zeal/conversion/truth-telling is, which is presumably one
reason why we continue to hang around abg-o. One point is that the stuff
I quoted from Hill all dated from before he left the CP in 1957 (at age
45), and that his historical writing for which he's now respected comes
from the 1960s onwards. A study of all this -- *The British Marxist
Historians* by Harvey J Kaye [Polity Press 1984] -- emphasises, however,
that it's not fitting to see an absolute break in H's work in 1956/7,
in that he thereafter pursues some similar problems using some similar
approaches to those in earlier years. But Kaye goes on to demonstrate
that Hill also *does* deal with new problems in new ways -- 'none of
this should be too surprising in a scholarly career of over forty
years.'
I don't know enough of H's work in detail to argue about its freedom
from ideological taint, if such a thing is even possible.
A tangential point -- I don't know if Hill is on Orwell's 'list', though
I guess not. But a Fellow of All Souls, then wartime Foreign Office
official, who goes back to Oxford to teach in the college which
particularly nurtures young diplomats and politicians, and who believes
that stuff about Stalin and his benevolent treatment of the minorities,
when maybe 500,000 of the Kalmyks, Chechens, Karachai, Ingush, Balkars,
Meshki, Crimean Tartars and Volga Germans died in the first year of
forcible deportation --- hmm.
BTW, Kaye also comments on Methodism/Nonconformism in Hill's and
Thompson's and indeed Sheila Rowbotham's background. Thompson went to
Kingswood, a Methodist public school [in the English sense]. Hill, of
course, deals with the connection between Nonconformism and intellectual
history in several of his books, and Kaye comments on the evidence of
Nonconformist upbringing 'in his own work ethic and the volume of his
scholarship'.
>At least Hobsbawn seems to have more integrity. I never knew this
>about Hill. I knew he was a communist but assumed that his historical
>writing was mostly about the 17th Century. Did he ever comment on his
>early praise for Stalin? Do you know how Thompson, Hobsbawm and Hill were
>looked upon by other British historians who didn't share their politics?
Again, I can't really answer this. Alan probably knows much more. I've
just looked in the index of *In Defence of History*, Richard Evans's
study from 1997. [Evans is Professor of Modern History at Cambridge.]
Evans quotes Hexter on Hill's remark in the preface to *Intellectual
Origins of the English Revolution* [1965] that he was advancing a thesis
and picked out evidence to support it. "Far from just looking for
evidence that may support his thesis, he (i.e. the historian) needs to
look for vulnerabilities in that thesis and to contrive means of testing
them. Then, depending on what he finds, he can support the thesis,
strengthen its weak points, or modify it to eliminate its weaknesses."
[Evans adds in a footnote that Hexter is arguably doing the same in
combing Hill's work for evidence in favour of his own critique of it'.]
Evans elsewhere makes the point that the attack on the Whig
interpretation of history by Marxist historians like Hill and Thompson,
who argued that there was a good deal of self-interest behind the
middle-class advocacy of parliamentarianism in the 17th and 18th
centuries, in some ways matched that from the right by Namier and his
followers.
Evans refers to Thompson's *Making of the English Working Class* as a
'major, influential classic' which couldn't have been written without
Marxist theory behind it. He also cites Thomspon's observation that 'the
historian has got to be listening all the time...If he listens, then the
material itself will begin to speak through him.' He also recalls the
famous phrase from Thompson's preface to *Making* as one which 'struck a
resounding blow against the arrogance of the political historians' --
"the enormous condescension of posterity". Incidentally, when I
reviewed Peter Gay's second book in his vast six-volume *Bourgeois
Experience*, I recall saying that Gay was rescuing the rentier and the
paterfamilias from a similar condescension.
Thompson was elected a Fellow of the British Academy, an honour that is
given to many historians much his junior in age and reputation, only
towards the end of his life.
Random ramblings from me, I'm afraid -- someone must know more.
Tom
--
Tom Deveson
Tom Deveson
>> I have never heard the saying you mentioned.
>
>Weird.
Re puddings and proof.
My tuppence worth: I've only heard and used Joe's version. Perhaps it's
a generational thing? Or perhaps not because our son (aged 24) just said
that he would use Joe's/my version too.
Anyone else?
Tom
--
Tom Deveson
Martha Bridegam
Tom Deveson wrote:
> ...
>
> A tangential point -- I don't know if Hill is on Orwell's 'list', though
> I guess not. But a Fellow of All Souls, then wartime Foreign Office
> official, who goes back to Oxford to teach in the college which
> particularly nurtures young diplomats and politicians, and who believes
> that stuff about Stalin and his benevolent treatment of the minorities,
> when maybe 500,000 of the Kalmyks, Chechens, Karachai, Ingush, Balkars,
> Meshki, Crimean Tartars and Volga Germans died in the first year of
> forcible deportation --- hmm....
No, he's not on the List unless I'm missing something, but Davison reports
that when news of the List emerged in '96 he was quoted in the Independent
as saying, "I always knew he was two-faced. There was something fishy about
Orwell... it confirms my worst suspicions about the man."
/MAB
John Rennie
"Tom Deveson" <a...@devesons.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:G2y4YVA2...@devesons.demon.co.uk...
"The proof of the pudding is in the eating" that's how
I have always heard it and seen it. Makes sense that
way surely?
Tom Deveson
>No, he's not on the List unless I'm missing something, but Davison reports
>that when news of the List emerged in '96 he was quoted in the Independent
>as saying, "I always knew he was two-faced. There was something fishy about
>Orwell... it confirms my worst suspicions about the man."
Thanks for that.
Hmm again, I guess. Writing sunny advertising copy for Stalin at the
time of the Gulag doesn't really seem like the moral high ground.
Tom
--
Tom Deveson
Bayle
Tom Deveson <a...@devesons.demon.co.uk> wrote in article
<O8$aKaACn...@devesons.demon.co.uk>...
Thanks for all the comments Tom.
I find a disjunction in evaluating and justifying the actions of those who
lived in these times by those of us in the present. It is rather
disorienting.
I think that those of us born in the generation or two after the Hills and
the Orwells have an almost impossible time appreciating someone's reactions
to Stalinism back then. By that I mean I grew up without absorbing either a
factual or instinctual fear or revulsion towards "Communism". In fact it
was the anti-Communists like McCarthy and Nixon that seemed to mark the
evil end of my moral spectrum. Finally when I begin to increase my
historical knowledge in these areas, it was confounded both with aging and
the insanity of American politics. Instinctively I feel right to be
revolted by both my past ignorance and the horror of the truth but always
fearing to be both foolish (fighting the last war) and zealous (impolite).
So how do I evaluate Hill? On the one hand it's hard for me to believe that
he knew the "truth". How could he be so foolish? On the other hand I'm sure
Orwell saw clearly. But even assuming Hill did know, I can't emotionally
comprehend the effect it ought to have had on someone. Instinctively I feel
that someone as smart as Hill should have known and ought to be judged
harshly for his actions as a propagandist. But because I knew so little
myself, and because I admire his history, I tend to want to give him the
benefit of the doubt. GO would have had no such compunction. Knowing the
horrors of Stalinism and instinctively realizing the traitorous (and evil)
potential of the Philbys and the Blunts of the world, Orwell's list was a
fairly modest reaction. Certainly more modest than Hill's foolish writings.
For Hill to call Orwell two-faced in the light of his apologies for Stalin
makes me want to believe that moderation in the defense of liberty truly is
no vice. Of course that would be zealotry.
Paul Sebastianelli
Tom Deveson wrote in message ...
>Bayle writes re Christopher Hill:
>
>>Very depressing stuff. It makes me want to go upstairs and empty my
>>library.
>
>That wasn't my intention -- don't be so drastic!
>
>The bits I quoted were meant to suggest just how complicated this whole
>issue of zeal/conversion/truth-telling is, which is presumably one
>reason why we continue to hang around abg-o. One point is that the stuff
>I quoted from Hill all dated from before he left the CP in 1957
I can't help but notice that everybody seems to
have left the CP when Rennie joined. Hmmmm......
paul.
Paul Sebastianelli
Joe Fineman wrote in message ...
>"Paul Sebastianelli" <p.se...@sympatico.ca> writes:
>
>> Joe Fineman wrote in message ...
>> >"Paul Sebastianelli" <p.se...@sympatico.ca> writes:
>> >
>> >> "The proof is in the pudding" is a very common saying up here.
>> >
>> >What do they think it means up there?
>>
>> It means the strongest evidence is in the result. If I don't believe
>> somebody, and they say "He really tries to get here on time. He says
>> it's mportant to him." I'll respond "The proof is in the
>> pudding. He's not here." I don't think anybody thinks of threepenny
>> bits or rum pudding when they say it.
>
>But what's the idea? The proof of *what* is in the pudding? The
>cooking?
The proof that our imaginary friend is not interested in being
on time. The proof is in the pudding, i.e. if it was important to him to
be on time, he would be here. I actually just used the phrase
today at work, but am in a state of exhaustion and can't
remember why. I know I wasn't corrected.
>> I have never heard the saying you mentioned.
>
>Weird.
Very Weird. Does anyone else use my version?
I must say that I don't know what "rum pudding" is (tho' I can
guess). Nor do I know why there are threepenny bits in it
(though it may explain the British rep for bad teeth).
paul.
Martha Bridegam
Paul Sebastianelli wrote:
Oops, I seem to have started a whole discussion by making a silly pun on
the use of "proof" to mean the strength of liquor.
Before this week I think I would have said that "the proof is in the
pudding" meant that you don't really know the quality of the cook's work
until you taste the food. Maybe in the sense that when you try a new way of
doing something you won't necessarily know if it was a good idea until you
see the finished result.
/MAB
Tom Deveson
>Nor do I know why there are threepenny bits in it
>(though it may explain the British rep for bad teeth).
That's the old threepenny bit (i.e. the *old* old silver threepenny bit,
not the chunky multi-sided one which replaced it after the war and then
itself disappeared after decimalisation) as featured and hated in
*KTAF*.
It used to be put into Christmas puddings, often with other trinkets, to
act as a sign that the recipient would be rich, lucky etc during the
coming year.
The last silver threepenny bit I remember seeing in use was in 1958,
when my friend Roger C tried and failed to pass it off as a sixpence on
a penny-halfpenny bus-ride. If he kept it, it would be worth a lot more
than the sixpence now.
An interminable argument can be had between bores of my generation as to
how you pronounce its nominal value -- thrippence, throopence [with the
RP sound from 'good'] or threppence or indeed varieties of these.
Tom (ancient memorialist)
--
Tom Deveson