Who Killed Homer?

[Robert Ramirez]

I hope everyone will forgive my posting of this rather lengthy book
review from yesterday's Washington Post. I found it quite interesting,
and suspect others may as well.

Ancients And Moderns
By Camille Paglia
Sunday, March 29, 1998; Page X01

WHO KILLED HOMER?

The Demise of Classical Education and the

Recovery of Greek Wisdom

By Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath

Free Press. 277 pp. $25

Reviewed by Camille Paglia, professor of humanities at the University of
the

Arts in Philadelphia.

Bullets are still flying in the culture wars of the last decade, but the
front has changed. As costs rise and as competition for students
intensifies, administrators are taking increased control of curricular
matters from the often bitterly factionalized faculties. By terminating
or transferring vacated faculty positions and by relying on poorly paid
part-time instructors, many institutions are being reshaped by purely
economic criteria. Among humanities programs, classics departments have
been the most vulnerable to drastic downsizing and outright
annihilation.

Victor Davis Hanson is professor of Greek at California State University
in Fresno, and John Heath is chairman of the classics department at
Santa Clara University. In Who Killed Homer? -- a murder-mystery title
wittily echoing that of Christina Hoff Sommers's groundbreaking 1994
book, Who Stole Feminism? -- Hanson and Heath demonstrate in riveting
detail the actual scale of the threat to Greco-Roman studies in the
United States.

Who Killed Homer? is a blistering indictment not just of administrators,
who must meet the bottom line, but of classicists themselves, who
ignored the developing crisis over the past 30 years. Instead of
reaching out to the general public to defend the classics, many
professors withdrew into insular academic conferences and narrow,
"obscurantist" scholarship saturated with French poststructuralism and
postmodernism. Surveying recent academic critiques (my own exposes are
briefly cited), Hanson and Heath suggest that the media's false
portrayal of the culture wars as a quarrel between tolerant liberals and
reactionary conservatives has helped the most ruthless campus
careerists, who gained major professorships with huge salaries and
reduced teaching loads by espousing a fashionable leftism.

Hanson and Heath eloquently assail the systematic denigration of Western
culture in prevailing campus "trend, cant, and fad": "Why do few
professors of Greek and Latin teach us that our present Western notions
of constitutional government, free speech, individual rights, civilian
control over the military, separation between religious and political
authority, middle-class egalitarianism, private property, and free
scientific inquiry are both vital to our present existence and derive
from the ancient Greeks?"

Sternly rebutting the misleadingly rosy picture of classics studies
given by such partisan figures as Garry Wills, Hanson and Heath show
that, from 1962 to 1976, the number of high school students studying
Latin "plunged 80 percent" and has never recovered. Decline is also
clear at the college level: "Of over one million B.A.'s awarded in 1994,
only six hundred were granted in Classics." Yet classics professors
themselves merrily spin on: Since 1962, "twice as many scholars now
publish 50 percent more material in twice as many journals."

"Our own Founding Fathers," Hanson and Heath point out, "helped
establish an American 'cult of antiquity' . . . To walk through
Washington, D.C, is to experience Graeco-Roman institutions,
architecture, sculpture, and city-planning at first hand." They argue
that enthusiasts and amateurs, not professional classicists, made the
great breakthroughs in our understanding of the ancient world, from
Heinrich Schliemann, the discoverer of Troy, to Milman Parry, who
established the Homeric oral tradition, and Michael Ventris, who cracked
the code of Linear B, the Minoan script.

A long chapter called "Thinking like a Greek" intricately presents the
"Greek paradigm," with its principles of democracy, rational thought,
and the "free exchange of ideas." The material on Greek warfare is
particularly fine: Military history is shamefully neglected in
contemporary education, to our future national peril. Another chapter,
"Who Killed Homer -- and Why?", asserts that the university has been
hijacked by "therapeutics" -- "diversity training, journal writing,
gender and racial sensitivity, multiculturalism, situational ethics."

Hanson and Heath believe that interdisciplinary experiments, such as
"Mediterranean Cultures" programs, have compromised scholarly standards
for both professors and students, from whom deep, rigorous learning is
no longer expected. In concealing the autocracy and brutality of
non-Western societies, academic multiculturalism is "intellectually
naive" and "hypocritical to the core." Many feminists' anti-male
rhetoric has marred legitimate inquiry into the status of women in
antiquity, and some gay-studies scholars have used their field for
"self-projection of their gender preferences."

A sequence of appalling passages from recent classics books proves
Hanson and Heath's thesis that current scholarship is shot through with
"bad prose," "elitist vocabulary," and "vacuous jargon," which manage
"to make Homer silly and absolutely dull." Documenting "the strange
cycle of self-promotion," where "everything now is to be deconstructed
except resumes," the book boldly names names -- as, for example, that of
Martha Nussbaum, a prominent University of Chicago professor whose
career gets a long-overdue public scrutiny here that raises serious
questions about high-echelon academe.

The remedies offered by Hanson and Heath are based on "classics as a
core curriculum." They laud the intellectual challenge of the study of
ancient Greek, where the verb has over 350 forms. They provide a
thematic teaching guide to Homer and a reading list of recommended
scholarly works of unimpeachable quality.

The authors' proposals for academic reform are intended to reawaken a
sense of professional ethics and to reorient universities toward
undergraduate teaching. These include ending the exploitation of
graduate students as "helot" teaching assistants; abolishing doctoral
dissertations; dismantling tenure in favor of five-year contracts; and
cutting off subsidies for pointless travel to conferences -- which are
underwritten by the tuition bills of unwitting parents and taxpayers.

Hanson and Heath are perhaps too focused on American abuses; some
broader consideration of still-vital classical studies in Europe and
Great Britain would have been useful. The authors' portrait of popular
culture is excessively bleak, and I was distressed by their skepticism
about psychoanalytic criticism and even undergraduate study of Egyptian
art.

However, Who Killed Homer? is the most substantive by far of the
academic critiques that have appeared in the past 15 years. This
passionate protest, with its wealth of facts and its flights of savage
indignation, is a must read for anyone interested in the future of
higher education in the United States.

© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company

[Richard A. Schulman]

In the excerpts from the Camille Paglia review recently posted here,
we are once again reminded of the flaw in Mikhail Zeleny's attempt to
deny Greek and Latin language and literature their place in the sun.

Paglia (quoting Hanson and Heath), is merely the latest of many to
state some obvious points that Zeleny chooses to ignore:

>Hanson and Heath eloquently assail the systematic denigration of Western
>culture in prevailing campus "trend, cant, and fad": "Why do few
>professors of Greek and Latin teach us that our present Western notions
>of constitutional government, free speech, individual rights, civilian
>control over the military, separation between religious and political
>authority, middle-class egalitarianism, private property, and free
>scientific inquiry are both vital to our present existence and derive
>from the ancient Greeks?"

Richard
---
To email me, remove the "XYZ"

[zel...@math.ucla.edu]

Richard A. Schulman <RichardAS...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:

>In the excerpts from the Camille Paglia review recently posted here,
>we are once again reminded of the flaw in Mikhail Zeleny's attempt to
>deny Greek and Latin language and literature their place in the sun.

Did I do that? How naughty of me! Pray tell where said scurrilous
denial has occurred, so that I may retract it posthaste. In fact, I
insist on being corrected in the matter of as-yet unidentified, much
less addressed, "important but erroneous claim by Zeleny". Go for it!

>Paglia (quoting Hanson and Heath), is merely the latest of many to
>state some obvious points that Zeleny chooses to ignore:

>>Hanson and Heath eloquently assail the systematic denigration of Western

>>culture in prevailing campus "trend, cant, and fad": "Why do few
>>professors of Greek and Latin teach us that our present Western notions
>>of constitutional government, free speech, individual rights, civilian
>>control over the military, separation between religious and political
>>authority, middle-class egalitarianism, private property, and free
>>scientific inquiry are both vital to our present existence and derive
>>from the ancient Greeks?"

Since you were so helpful as to have mentioned la trahison des clerks,
would you now kindly explain, in what sense is rote indoctrination in
allegiance to the letter and provenance of Western civic mythology
part and parcel of liberal educators' professional duties? Also, how
many professors of Greek and Latin teach us that our peculiar Western
institution of slavery was explicitly rooted in Aristotelian political
doctrine?

Paglia's thinking is endemic in the humanities because of its self-
serving nature. There is no evidence that those who venerate history
are excused from repeating it. Indeed, the most scrofulous currents
of political thought in recent memory were ostentatiously grounded by
their spewers in ritualized antiquity, both authentic and spurious.
The moral merits of Richard's institutional derivation are precisely
parallel to the linguistic merits of Heidegger's arrogation of second
best suitability for philosophical discourse on behalf of the German
language, right after ancient Greek.

Cordially -- Mikhail Zel...@math.ucla.edu * M...@ptyx.com ** www.ptyx.com
God: "Sum id quod sum." ** 7576 Willow Glen Road, Los Angeles, CA 90046
Descartes: "Cogito ergo sum." * 213.876.8234 (fon) * 213.876.8054 (fax)
Popeye: "Sum id quod sum et id totum est quod sum." **** www.alonzo.org
established on 2.26.1958 ** itinerant philosopher * will think for food

-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading

[Richard A. Schulman]

Yours truly:

>>In the excerpts from the Camille Paglia review recently posted here,
>>we are once again reminded of the flaw in Mikhail Zeleny's attempt to
>>deny Greek and Latin language and literature their place in the sun.

Mikhail Zeleny:

>Did I do that? How naughty of me! Pray tell where said scurrilous
>denial has occurred, so that I may retract it posthaste. In fact, I
>insist on being corrected in the matter of as-yet unidentified, much
>less addressed, "important but erroneous claim by Zeleny". Go for it!

You must be the only one who misses the point: your refusal to accord
Greek and Latin a priority over Sanskrit, Chinese, Arabic, and Hebrew.

>Since you were so helpful as to have mentioned la trahison des clerks,
>would you now kindly explain, in what sense is rote indoctrination in
>allegiance to the letter and provenance of Western civic mythology
>part and parcel of liberal educators' professional duties?

How does this request differ from the question, "When did you stop
beating your wife?"

> Also, how
>many professors of Greek and Latin teach us that our peculiar Western
>institution of slavery was explicitly rooted in Aristotelian political
>doctrine?

You've no doubt discovered, in the course of your extensive
researches, that Islam was free of slavery?

>Paglia's thinking is endemic in the humanities because of its self-
>serving nature. There is no evidence that those who venerate history
>are excused from repeating it. Indeed, the most scrofulous currents
>of political thought in recent memory were ostentatiously grounded by
>their spewers in ritualized antiquity, both authentic and spurious.

Ah, the calm, reflective, discriminating, finely nuanced idiom of the
self-described spokesman for "the scholarly ideal of impartial inquiry
into truth."

>The moral merits of Richard's institutional derivation are precisely
>parallel to the linguistic merits of Heidegger's arrogation of second
>best suitability for philosophical discourse on behalf of the German
>language, right after ancient Greek.

Ha! I think this one got trotted out the last time we had a go at
this. Plus ca change... When at a loss for words, hurl a jackboot!

[Michael Zeleny]

In article <6fpou8$k...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>

Richard A. Schulman <RichardAS...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:

>Yours truly:
>>>In the excerpts from the Camille Paglia review recently posted here,
>>>we are once again reminded of the flaw in Mikhail Zeleny's attempt to
>>>deny Greek and Latin language and literature their place in the sun.

>Mikhail Zeleny:
>>Did I do that? How naughty of me! Pray tell where said scurrilous
>>denial has occurred, so that I may retract it posthaste. In fact, I
>>insist on being corrected in the matter of as-yet unidentified, much
>>less addressed, "important but erroneous claim by Zeleny". Go for it!

>You must be the only one who misses the point: your refusal to accord
>Greek and Latin a priority over Sanskrit, Chinese, Arabic, and Hebrew.

If your priority is accorded on a parochial basis, you don't have an
argument as distinct from special pleading. On the other hand, if
your priority is accorded on a rational basis, you've yet to exhibit
it. I dub this predicament herewith "Schulman's Dilemma."

>>Since you were so helpful as to have mentioned la trahison des clerks,
>>would you now kindly explain, in what sense is rote indoctrination in
>>allegiance to the letter and provenance of Western civic mythology
>>part and parcel of liberal educators' professional duties?

>How does this request differ from the question, "When did you stop
>beating your wife?"

By taking its premiss from your own text:

>>>Paglia (quoting Hanson and Heath), is merely the latest of many to
>>>state some obvious points that Zeleny chooses to ignore:

>>>>Hanson and Heath eloquently assail the systematic denigration of
Western
>>>>culture in prevailing campus "trend, cant, and fad": "Why do few
>>>>professors of Greek and Latin teach us that our present Western
notions
>>>>of constitutional government, free speech, individual rights, civilian
>>>>control over the military, separation between religious and political
>>>>authority, middle-class egalitarianism, private property, and free
>>>>scientific inquiry are both vital to our present existence and derive
>>>>from the ancient Greeks?"

If I read you correctly, you are claiming that Greek and Latin should
be privileged over other classical languages *because* they teach us
that "our present Western notions" are both vital to our present
existence and derive from the ancient Greeks. By parity of reasoning,
Mohathir Mohamad and Lee Kuan Yew can, and indeed do, claim that their
present "Asian values" are both vital to their present existence and
derive from the Confucian canon; whereas the Lubavicher hassidim can,
and indeed do, tell me that the values vital to my present existence
derive from the Torah and the Talmud. Since similar premisses yield
disparate conclusions depending only on the ethnic provenance of one's
audience, your argument cannot have any logical force; rather it is a
prime example of what Locke identified as "argumentum ad verecundiam".
Which is to say that your proposed honors curriculum is based not on
any rational consideration but on rote indoctrination in fealty to the
letter and provenance of parochial civic mythology. Q.E.D.

>> Also, how
>>many professors of Greek and Latin teach us that our peculiar Western
>>institution of slavery was explicitly rooted in Aristotelian political
>>doctrine?

>You've no doubt discovered, in the course of your extensive
>researches, that Islam was free of slavery?

And this tidbit is relevant to -- what? Recall that it was my own
contention that the sole grounds for choosing between alternative
classical traditions are to be found in chauvinistic party discipline.

>>Paglia's thinking is endemic in the humanities because of its self-
>>serving nature. There is no evidence that those who venerate history
>>are excused from repeating it. Indeed, the most scrofulous currents
>>of political thought in recent memory were ostentatiously grounded by
>>their spewers in ritualized antiquity, both authentic and spurious.

>Ah, the calm, reflective, discriminating, finely nuanced idiom of the
>self-described spokesman for "the scholarly ideal of impartial inquiry
>into truth."

Your avoidance of the point comes as no surprise. And you are still
wearing egg on your face, as self-condemned treacherous cleric. Your
agenda is transparently political and htherefore anti-intellectual;
hence your attempt to dignify it with an allusion to Julien Benda's
polemic *expressly* dedicated to denouncing political engagement of
intellectuals, is a clear instance of sophistical shamelessness.

>>The moral merits of Richard's institutional derivation are precisely
>>parallel to the linguistic merits of Heidegger's arrogation of second
>>best suitability for philosophical discourse on behalf of the German
>>language, right after ancient Greek.

>Ha! I think this one got trotted out the last time we had a go at
>this. Plus ca change... When at a loss for words, hurl a jackboot!

And I remind you that you never answered it back then.

If the jackboot fits, wear it.

[tlrkirk]

Guys, can you take your diatribes to personal email? I would like to see a
relevant and rational discussion of the original posting here, not a
continuation of a personal squabble that, frankly, has denigrated to bickering
and name-calling.

Does anybody have anything to say about Paglia's review and/or Hansen and
Heath's book? I'm going to get the book and hopefully I'll have time to read
it soon (after graduation, like everything else). I'm worried that I'll get
only one (biased) viewpoint. Can anybody recommend a book or article that
puts forth a different (if not exactly opposing) view?

Thanx
TLR

[Richard A. Schulman]

I am passing by without comment the rant in Michael Zeleny's recent
post so as to better focus on the one key point of interest.

Recapitulation
--------------
MZ denies that there is any particular reason for favoring the study
of Greek and Latin language and literature over the study of a number
of other classical languages, such as Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, and
Sanskrit.

He believes that those who argue for a preferential emphasis on Greek
and Latin are parochial, partisan, and tribal; and that the preference
in question cannot be rationally defended.

(The assumed target audience under discussion here consists of those
honors students who do not have a profound religious or cultural
commitment to Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, Sanskrit. The assumed audience,
in short, would consist of most of the honors-level students in "the
West".)

Discussion
----------
MZ ignores or dismisses the lengthy scholarly literature supporting
the pro-classical position I am defending, as contrasted with the
neglible literature (at least as far as I am aware) in favor of his
own position.

I would be the first to admit that iconoclasm and heterodoxy are the
engines of improved knowledge and understanding. But it is customary
for the iconoclast to make his novel case in extenso, rather than
demanding that those holding the received view restate, yet again,
theirs.

That said, I merely summarize what I think the key points are. If I
miss some important ones, hopefully other readers will remedy my
omissions.

1. The Classical Basis of Modern Science and Republican Government
------------------------------------------------------------------
Beginning in the Renaissance and principally basing itself upon the
assimilation, revision, and extension of Greek and Latin thought,
Europe moved ahead of every other culture area in the world --
intellectually, economically, politically, and militarily. Its culture
began diffusing, with varying degrees of penetration, to every corner
of the planet.

If an intellectual today wishes to understand, at an advanced level,
the nature of this achievement, a solid grounding in Greek and Latin
language, history, and literature is indispensable. Untranslated Latin
and Greek quotes abound in the literature from the Renaissance onward.
Up through the 18th century, there are still important untranslated
texts in Latin. In literature, most of the genres are conscious
developments from earlier Greek or Latin models.

This is not to deny ancillary contributions from Hebrew and Arabic
sources or advanced parallel, or even precedent, discoveries in
Sanskrit or Chinese sources.

That said, the Greek and Latin contribution is certainly unique and
crucial in the political sphere. I am not aware of any body of thought
in the Hebrew, Islamic, Sanskrit, Chinese, or Japanese corpus that
could compare with the currents of republican thought, beginning in
the classical texts, continuing in the European Renaissance and
Enlightenment, and subsequently enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and
Federalist Papers.

True, the gist of this can be assimilated in translation now. But for
the richer understanding -- an understanding the American "Founding
Fathers" certainly had -- a classical education is necessary.

2. The Linguistic Basis
-----------------------
For speakers of the Romance languages and English, literacy in Greek
and Latin is a prerequisite for the most sophisticated use of word
meanings and grammatical structures in these modern languages.

3. The Religious Basis
----------------------
For Christians, Greek and Latin (along with Hebrew) are the basis for
the most sophisticated understanding of their faith.

Summary
-------
The argument in category one above is of universal scope. Those in
categories 2 and 3 are of more delimited scope, but it would certainly
be wrong to call a category 2 argument "parochial" or "tribal". One's
native tongue is a fact of life. It is certainly a worthwhile endeavor
to use it well, and in the case of English, we address the world's
leading "second language."

Only a category 3 argument could really be called parochial and even
then, not in a pejorative sense, unless MZ wishes to argue for the
inferiority of Christianity to some other faith.

I won't add a "QED" to the above, as he jejunely does.

Ah, those three famous letters from -- is it Arabic? Hebrew? Chinese?
or Sanskrit?

[Ron Hardin]

Richard A. Schulman wrote:
> For speakers of the Romance languages and English, literacy in Greek
> and Latin is a prerequisite for the most sophisticated use of word
> meanings and grammatical structures in these modern languages.

An ear for roots can keep you from mixing them too.
--
Ron Hardin
r...@research.att.com

On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

[Ron Hardin]

Richard A. Schulman wrote:
> I won't add a "QED" to the above, as he jejunely does.
>
> Ah, those three famous letters from -- is it Arabic? Hebrew? Chinese?
> or Sanskrit?

``We have a Mr. Buckley on the phone who describes Laverne and
Shirley as egregious, puerile, and jejune.'' - Dick Cavett

[Paul Ilechko]

Ron Hardin wrote:

> Richard A. Schulman wrote:
> > For speakers of the Romance languages and English, literacy in Greek
> > and Latin is a prerequisite for the most sophisticated use of word
> > meanings and grammatical structures in these modern languages.

> An ear for roots can keep you from mixing them too.
> --

And roots for ears can keep you from listening.

I hope that Mr. Schulman will soon provide us with the linguistic
theories and scientific studies that support his contentious statement
above. Or is this just an *opinion* ?

Paul.

***************
Paul Ilechko
http://www.transarc.com/~pilechko/homepage.htm

[Francis Muir]

Ron Hardin :

Richard A. Schulman:

For speakers of the Romance languages and English,
literacy in Greek and Latin is a prerequisite for the most
sophisticated use of word meanings and grammatical
structures in these modern languages.

An ear for roots can keep you from mixing them too.

Sometimes a mix is the height of sophistication. Here's a snippet
from *THE INVENTION OF LOVE*

CHAMBERLAIN: . . . I know your brother Laurence. We belong
to a sort of secret society, the Order of Chaeronea, like the
Sacred band of Thebes. Actually it's more like a discussion
group. We discuss what we should call ourselves.
"Homosexuals" has been suggested.

AEH: Homosexuals?

CHAMBERLAIN: We can't be anything till there's a word for it.

AEH: Homosexuals? Who is responsible for this barbarity?

CHAMBERLAIN: What's wrong with it?

AEH: It's half Greek and half Latin!

CHAMBERLAIN: That sounds about right.

Francis Muir.

[Richard A. Schulman]

On Tue, 31 Mar 1998 11:22:36 -0500, Ron Hardin <r...@research.att.com>
wrote:

>An ear for roots can keep you from mixing them too.

Hence, putting this into educational practice would constitute a
radical reform.

[Richard A. Schulman]

I wrote:
>> > For speakers of the Romance languages and English, literacy in Greek
>> > and Latin is a prerequisite for the most sophisticated use of word
>> > meanings and grammatical structures in these modern languages.

Paul Ilechko comments:

>I hope that Mr. Schulman will soon provide us with the linguistic
>theories and scientific studies that support his contentious statement
>above. Or is this just an *opinion* ?

Not even that. From an etymological standpoint, opinion presumes one
at least has a developed capability to think.

[Robert Ramirez]

Francis Muir wrote:
>
> Ron Hardin :
>
> Richard A. Schulman:
>

> For speakers of the Romance languages and English,
> literacy in Greek and Latin is a prerequisite for the most
> sophisticated use of word meanings and grammatical
> structures in these modern languages.
>

> An ear for roots can keep you from mixing them too.
>

> Sometimes a mix is the height of sophistication. Here's a snippet
> from *THE INVENTION OF LOVE*
>
> CHAMBERLAIN: . . . I know your brother Laurence. We belong
> to a sort of secret society, the Order of Chaeronea, like the
> Sacred band of Thebes. Actually it's more like a discussion
> group. We discuss what we should call ourselves.
> "Homosexuals" has been suggested.
>
> AEH: Homosexuals?
>
> CHAMBERLAIN: We can't be anything till there's a word for it.
>
> AEH: Homosexuals? Who is responsible for this barbarity?
>
> CHAMBERLAIN: What's wrong with it?
>
> AEH: It's half Greek and half Latin!
>
> CHAMBERLAIN: That sounds about right.
>
> Francis Muir.

Um, sorry; it's ALL Greek. The "o" is short, as in homonym. Or am I
missing the joke here? Is the reader meant to understand that AEH
erroneously supposes that "mixing" is going on here?

[Robert Ramirez]

Paul Ilechko wrote:
>
> Ron Hardin wrote:
>
> > Richard A. Schulman wrote:

> > > For speakers of the Romance languages and English, literacy in Greek
> > > and Latin is a prerequisite for the most sophisticated use of word
> > > meanings and grammatical structures in these modern languages.
>
> > An ear for roots can keep you from mixing them too.

> > --
> And roots for ears can keep you from listening.
>

> I hope that Mr. Schulman will soon provide us with the linguistic
> theories and scientific studies that support his contentious statement
> above. Or is this just an *opinion*

If it is an opinion, I share it. As much as it is anything else,
English is a highly evolved mixture of Greek and Latin. There is no way
in which subtlety of expression can be communicated in English without
competence in classical languages. Period. Paragraph. This statement
will be received as offensive by certain elements who don't wish to have
it suggested of them that they are deaf to the subtleties of a language
that they think they know intimately.

Before anyone wheels out Churchill's well-known assertion that he would
have ordinary children instructed in the glories of English, while
reserving for the "clever" ones "Latin as an honor, and Greek as a
treat", I would just like to say that this typically Churchillian
blowhardism (if I may be allowed a promiscuous coinage) was written
specifically to pander to respectable middle-class Tory voters with
lingering insecurity deriving from their lack of a university education.

By way of analogy, I would say that although I derive great joy from
Bach and Handel, I know that my ignorance of musical theory inhibits any
deeper appreciation and understanding of what the composer is trying to
accomplish. But this does not tempt me to claim that beyond my powers
of understanding nothing else exists.

[Francis Muir]

Robert Ramirez:

Francis Muir:

Sometimes a mix is the height of sophistication. Here's a
snippet from *THE INVENTION OF LOVE*

CHAMBERLAIN: . . . I know your brother Laurence. We
belong to a sort of secret society, the Order of
Chaeronea, like the Sacred band of Thebes. Actually it's
more like a discussion group. We discuss what we
should call ourselves. "Homosexuals" has been
suggested.

AEH: Homosexuals?

CHAMBERLAIN: We can't be anything till there's a word
for it.

AEH: Homosexuals? Who is responsible for this
barbarity?

CHAMBERLAIN: What's wrong with it?

AEH: It's half Greek and half Latin!

CHAMBERLAIN: That sounds about right.

Um, sorry; it's ALL Greek. The "o" is short, as in homonym. Or

am I missing the joke here? Is the reader meant to understand
that AEH erroneously supposes that "mixing" is going on here?

I'll spare you the a-little-learning is-a-blah-blah-blah bit. Sure,
"homo" is Greek, but "sex" is not. AEH is Housman was one of the
great classical scholars. Stoppard's credentials? Dunno.

Francis

[Mario Taboada]

Robert Ramirez:

<<If it is an opinion, I share it. As much as it is anything else,
English is a highly evolved mixture of Greek and Latin. There is no way
in which subtlety of expression can be communicated in English without
competence in classical languages. Period. Paragraph.>>

Ah, another partisan of "Taught Mother Tongue". I have nothing (in fact,
strongly support) the learning of ancient languages, but your assertion
about needing the classical languages to understand one's own is
perfectly ridiculous. Who makes the language? Who owns it? The language
is the vernacular, written or not, doctored in school or not. It's the
people's.

It's interesting to see how many Nebrija wannabes there are. Don Antonio
is probably grinning down there.

Regards,

Mario Taboada

[John McCarthy]

Paul Ilechko <pile...@deletethis.transarc.com> writes:

> Ron Hardin wrote:
>
> > Richard A. Schulman wrote:
> > > For speakers of the Romance languages and English, literacy in Greek
> > > and Latin is a prerequisite for the most sophisticated use of word
> > > meanings and grammatical structures in these modern languages.

> I hope that Mr. Schulman will soon provide us with the linguistic

> theories and scientific studies that support his contentious statement

> above. Or is this just an *opinion* ?

Let me put a precise version of Paul Ilechko's question.

Suppose, contrary to fact, that I wanted to study languages in order
to achieve a "most sophisticated use of word meanings and grammatical
structures" in my English writing. What should be the priority of
Latin and Greeks vs. Middle English, Anglo-Saxon and French -
including old French. How would all of this compare in effectiveness
with reading the English literature of the 17th thru the 19th
centuries.

I realize that some of you are fools and some are sophisticated fool
killers, but I forget which are which.

--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

[don_...@kvo.com]

In article <6fr61i$2...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>,

Ron Hardin <r...@research.att.com> wrote:
>
> Richard A. Schulman wrote:

> > I won't add a "QED" to the above, as he jejunely does.
> >
> > Ah, those three famous letters from -- is it Arabic? Hebrew? Chinese?
> > or Sanskrit?
>
> ``We have a Mr. Buckley on the phone who describes Laverne and
> Shirley as egregious, puerile, and jejune.'' - Dick Cavett
> --

Surely not puerile. Not from Buckley. From Cavett, maybe. (How're
you feeling, Mr. Rodale?) Let's see. . . Puellish? Puellate? Interesting.
We have uxorious, virile, but no feminine equivalent to puerile. Is it
impossible to reify the behavior of young maidens in quite that way?

Don

[Richard A. Schulman]

On Mon, 30 Mar 1998 19:50:54 -0600, zel...@math.ucla.edu wrote:

>There is no evidence that those who venerate history
>are excused from repeating it.

But there is plenty of evidence that those who are ignorant and
contemptuous of history will repeat its worst follies.

>Indeed, the most scrofulous currents
>of political thought in recent memory were ostentatiously grounded by
>their spewers in ritualized antiquity, both authentic and spurious.

The reference is not clear.

The barbarity of the writer's English is, however.

[Robert Ramirez]

Mario Taboada wrote:

> The language is the vernacular, written or not, doctored in school or not. It's the
> people's.

There is another language, that of the literate. Simply because you
have never heard of it does not mean that it doesn't exist.

> It's interesting to see how many Nebrija wannabes there are. Don Antonio
> is probably grinning down there.

I have no idea what you are referring to, but I would be happy to learn
exactly what slur you are offering me. I suspect you are imputing an
ethnic identity to me, based on my last name. You don't know me, or my
heritage, culture, or motivations . How dare you imply intimate
personal knowledge that you cannot possibly have?

Your insinuations are not only insulting and disgusting; they are
stupid. I await your public apology, unless that is too much to expect
from your Latino honor.

[Mario Taboada]

Robert Ramirez:

<<There is another language, that of the literate. Simply because you
have never heard of it does not mean that it doesn't exist. >>

Fuck you, son. Who are you, son? And what do you know about me? I was
wrong: you are not a Nebrija - you are an ass.

Regards,

Mario Taboada

[William Grosso]

Robert Ramirez wrote:
>
>
> I have no idea what you are referring to, but I would be happy to learn

> exactly what slur you are offering me. ....

>
> Your insinuations are not only insulting and disgusting; they are

> stupid. I await your public apology...
>

Interesting leap there.

--A

[Mario Taboada]

<<I have no idea what you are referring to, but I would be happy to
learn

exactly what slur you are offering me. I suspect you are imputing an
ethnic identity to me, based on my last name. You don't know me, or my
heritage, culture, or motivations . How dare you imply intimate
personal knowledge that you cannot possibly have?

Your insinuations are not only insulting and disgusting; they are

stupid. I await your public apology, unless that is too much to expect
from your Latino honor.>>

You completely misinterpreted my reference to Nebrija. The fact that he
was Spanish like your name has nothing to do with it. He was the first
intitutionalizer of language. Your idea of a "higher" language which is
presumably "more subtle" than the vernacular seems to be right in line
with his thought. But correct me if I'm wrong. Or read about Nebrija and
see if you're wrong.

In many years spent teaching college students of all nationalities,
colors, and cultures, not once have I been the target of an accusation
of this kind. I neither implied any knowledge about you nor even gave a
thought to your name. To me, you are just someone arguing a point.

But you assume something about me, apparently - which I answer in a
separate post.

Best regards, and let's keep this friendly in spite of our differences.
The topic is very interesting.

Mario Taboada

[Robert Ramirez]

Shucks; now I guess I'll never find out what a Nebrija is.

[don_...@kvo.com]

In article <352135...@bellsouth.net>,
bram...@bellsouth.net wrote:

> By way of analogy, I would say that although I derive great joy from
> Bach and Handel, I know that my ignorance of musical theory inhibits any
> deeper appreciation and understanding of what the composer is trying to
> accomplish. But this does not tempt me to claim that beyond my powers
> of understanding nothing else exists.
>

Suppose you take a certain pleasure in watching a magician saw a woman in half
and then reassemble her. Later, you find out how the trick is done. There's
a certain pleasure in that, but it robs you of the capacity to enjoy the first
kind of pleasure.

At some point, you may decide you don't want to know how every trick is done.
(Or what makes that pate so tasty.)

[David E Latane]

On Tue, 31 Mar 1998, Paul Ilechko wrote:

> Ron Hardin wrote:
>
> > Richard A. Schulman wrote:

> > > For speakers of the Romance languages and English, literacy in Greek
> > > and Latin is a prerequisite for the most sophisticated use of word
> > > meanings and grammatical structures in these modern languages.
>

> > An ear for roots can keep you from mixing them too.
> > --
> And roots for ears can keep you from listening.
>

> I hope that Mr. Schulman will soon provide us with the linguistic
> theories and scientific studies that support his contentious statement
> above. Or is this just an *opinion* ?
>

More like common sense. If by "sophistication" one means fuller, more
complex, or more polysemous, it only makes sense that those who are aware
of the imbrication of a word with its original setting will be more
sophisticated. (Note--sure kept a roof over my head.) (nota bene, vide
"imbricare"!)

If, on the other hand, we think "sophistication" has something to do with
dear old Sophia, well it's pretty silly--but wait, leaving aside the
Byzantine, if its sophos, mere cleverness, why not?

D. Latane

[Richard Harter]

William Grosso <gro...@smi.stanford.edu> wrote:

>Robert Ramirez wrote:
>>
>>
>> I have no idea what you are referring to, but I would be happy to learn

>> exactly what slur you are offering me. ....

>>
>> Your insinuations are not only insulting and disgusting; they are

>> stupid. I await your public apology...
>>

>Interesting leap there.

It's the literate mind at work.

Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net, The Concord Research Institute
URL = http://www.tiac.net/users/cri, phone = 1-978-369-3911
Dear Josephine: I will be arriving home in three days.
Don't bathe. - Napoleon

[lisa mammel]

Ron Hardin wrote:

> An ear for roots can keep you from mixing them too.

When I was an undergrad I liked to say that I was
majoring in cerumenal extirpation.

Lew Mammel, Jr.

[Paul Ilechko]

Richard A. Schulman wrote:

> Not even that. From an etymological standpoint, opinion presumes one
> at least has a developed capability to think.

--
Of course, and that is something you have patently failed to show so
far. All you have done is repeatedly parrot received ideas about inate
superiority. You're probably a royalist, too. Do the underclasses
disgust you ? Don't you find that they are rather unhygienic ?

Paul.

***************

Paul Ilechko
http://www.transarc.com/~pilechko/homepage.htm
** new URL, new album reviews, new graphics **

[Paul Ilechko]

John McCarthy wrote:

> Suppose, contrary to fact, that I wanted to study languages in order
> to achieve a "most sophisticated use of word meanings and grammatical
> structures" in my English writing. What should be the priority of
> Latin and Greeks vs. Middle English, Anglo-Saxon and French -
> including old French. How would all of this compare in effectiveness
> with reading the English literature of the 17th thru the 19th
> centuries.

--
I'm not clear that study is the issue here. The purpose of language is
to be understood. It would then follow that the most sophisticated use
of language would be that which can be understood most clearly. Assuming
that the majority of people using the english language are not well
versed in latin, greek or middle english, then it follows again that the
more sophisticated user would avoid terms that are not available to the
majority of his audience. Of course, there is a small group of people
dedicated to the study of the history of languages, who will have a
totally different set of needs. But Dick S. specifically stated that

"literacy in Greek and Latin is a prerequisite for the most
sophisticated use of word meanings and grammatical structures in these

modern languages", and made no mention of study, or of any special
interest group whose needs he was addressing.

[Michael L. Siemon]

In article <6fsdlm$l...@news-central.tiac.net>, c...@tiac.net (Richard
Harter) wrote:

+Definitely you don't want to know what makes that pate so tasty.

Ya got somethin agin pig-fat, Dakota Boy?
--
Michael L. Siemon m...@panix.com

"Green is the night, green kindled and apparelled.
It is she that walks among astronomers."
-- Wallace Stevens

[Michael Kagalenko]

Marge together with Bart did. It's "Oedipus Rex" all over again.

[Michael Zeleny]

To correct several misrepresentations of my position in this argument,
I recognize any number of particular reasons for favoring the study of
Greek and Latin language and literature over similarly motivated study
of Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, or Sanskrit. What I deny is that there is
any known general reason for doing so, applicable across the board to
all honors track students in any constitutional democracy. Similarly,
I recognize a theoretical possibility of discovering rational reasons
for preferential emphasis on the teaching of Greek and Latin, on the
same basis and to the same extent as I do not rule out a theoretical
possibility of proving innate moral superiority of the Aryan master
race over all other races. What I deny is that any of the putative
reasons and proofs adduced heretofore in either matter are anything
but parochial, partisan, and tribal. I also deny that my position can
be rightfully deemed iconoclastic and heterodox, until such time as my
opponent exhibits the standards and beliefs he imagines himself to be
upholding against my attack.

Thus consider Richard's claim that
>For speakers of the Romance languages and English, literacy in Greek

>and Latin is a prerequisite for the most sophisticated use of word

>meanings and grammatical structures in these modern languages.
Curiously neglected here is that the relevant grasp of word meanings
can be attained by memorizing a vocabulary of several hundred Greek
and Latin words, a task that scarcely requires formal instruction in
either language or literature. Concerning grammatical structures, it
would be preposterous to deny that acquaintance with highly inflected
grammars of classical Greek and Latin enables a special insight into
their modern descendants. Even so, far greater insights are available
on the basis of learning languages less closely associated with one's
native tongue. Thus a familiar linguistic illustration: only Slavic
speakers can benefit from intimate familiarity with prominently marked
aspectual systems indispensable for understanding accounts of time and
action in any language ancient or modern.

My point here is not to ignore or dismiss any scholarly literature,
much less to establish or uphold an anti-classical position. Since
the beginning of an earlier, equally fruitless discussion nine months
ago, I have been attempting to elicit a rational argument in support
of Graeco-Roman pedagogical preferences. I take it for granted that
such rational argument will have to apply across the board, regardless
of race, ethnicity, age, gender, or creed. Instead, I am offered time
after time the presumption that
>(The assumed target audience under discussion here consists of those
>honors students who do not have a profound religious or cultural
>commitment to Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, Sanskrit. The assumed audience,
>in short, would consist of most of the honors-level students in "the
>West".)
In other words, Richard graciously exempts those of us who have such
commitments -- including myself, as a matter of public record -- from
the purview of his appeal on behalf of the intellectual, cultural, and
political elite of the future.

If there is anything that THIS lumpen-intellectual today wishes to
understand, it is the unmitigated gall of a man bent on forcing every
Jew, Moslem, Hindu, or Chinese in "the West" to make a deferential
cultural gesture on the basis of irrational considerations in no way
rooted in HIS tradition, as the social cost of attaining the standard
of academic excellence.

Cordially -- Mikhail Zel...@math.ucla.edu * M...@ptyx.com ** www.ptyx.com
God: "Sum id quod sum." ** 7576 Willow Glen Road, Los Angeles, CA 90046
Descartes: "Cogito ergo sum." * 213.876.8234 (fon) * 213.876.8054 (fax)
Popeye: "Sum id quod sum et id totum est quod sum." **** www.alonzo.org
established on 2.26.1958 ** itinerant philosopher * will think for food

[tlrkirk]

Guys, can you take your diatribes to personal email? I would like to see a
relevant and rational discussion of the original posting here, not a
continuation of a personal squabble that, frankly, has denigrated to bickering
and name-calling.

Michael Zeleny wrote:

> In article <6fpou8$k...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>
> Richard A. Schulman <RichardAS...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> >Yours truly:
> >>>In the excerpts from the Camille Paglia review recently posted here,
> >>>we are once again reminded of the flaw in Mikhail Zeleny's attempt to
> >>>deny Greek and Latin language and literature their place in the sun.
>
> >Mikhail Zeleny:
> >>Did I do that? How naughty of me! Pray tell where said scurrilous
> >>denial has occurred, so that I may retract it posthaste. In fact, I
> >>insist on being corrected in the matter of as-yet unidentified, much
> >>less addressed, "important but erroneous claim by Zeleny". Go for it!
>
> >You must be the only one who misses the point: your refusal to accord
> >Greek and Latin a priority over Sanskrit, Chinese, Arabic, and Hebrew.
>
> If your priority is accorded on a parochial basis, you don't have an
> argument as distinct from special pleading. On the other hand, if
> your priority is accorded on a rational basis, you've yet to exhibit
> it. I dub this predicament herewith "Schulman's Dilemma."
>
> >>Since you were so helpful as to have mentioned la trahison des clerks,
> >>would you now kindly explain, in what sense is rote indoctrination in
> >>allegiance to the letter and provenance of Western civic mythology
> >>part and parcel of liberal educators' professional duties?
>
> >How does this request differ from the question, "When did you stop
> >beating your wife?"
>
> By taking its premiss from your own text:
>
> >>>Paglia (quoting Hanson and Heath), is merely the latest of many to
> >>>state some obvious points that Zeleny chooses to ignore:
>
> >>>>Hanson and Heath eloquently assail the systematic denigration of
> Western
> >>>>culture in prevailing campus "trend, cant, and fad": "Why do few
> >>>>professors of Greek and Latin teach us that our present Western
> notions
> >>>>of constitutional government, free speech, individual rights, civilian
> >>>>control over the military, separation between religious and political
> >>>>authority, middle-class egalitarianism, private property, and free
> >>>>scientific inquiry are both vital to our present existence and derive
> >>>>from the ancient Greeks?"
>
> If I read you correctly, you are claiming that Greek and Latin should
> be privileged over other classical languages *because* they teach us
> that "our present Western notions" are both vital to our present
> existence and derive from the ancient Greeks. By parity of reasoning,
> Mohathir Mohamad and Lee Kuan Yew can, and indeed do, claim that their
> present "Asian values" are both vital to their present existence and
> derive from the Confucian canon; whereas the Lubavicher hassidim can,
> and indeed do, tell me that the values vital to my present existence
> derive from the Torah and the Talmud. Since similar premisses yield
> disparate conclusions depending only on the ethnic provenance of one's
> audience, your argument cannot have any logical force; rather it is a
> prime example of what Locke identified as "argumentum ad verecundiam".
> Which is to say that your proposed honors curriculum is based not on
> any rational consideration but on rote indoctrination in fealty to the
> letter and provenance of parochial civic mythology. Q.E.D.
>
> >> Also, how
> >>many professors of Greek and Latin teach us that our peculiar Western
> >>institution of slavery was explicitly rooted in Aristotelian political
> >>doctrine?
>
> >You've no doubt discovered, in the course of your extensive
> >researches, that Islam was free of slavery?
>
> And this tidbit is relevant to -- what? Recall that it was my own
> contention that the sole grounds for choosing between alternative
> classical traditions are to be found in chauvinistic party discipline.
>
> >>Paglia's thinking is endemic in the humanities because of its self-
> >>serving nature. There is no evidence that those who venerate history
> >>are excused from repeating it. Indeed, the most scrofulous currents

> >>of political thought in recent memory were ostentatiously grounded by
> >>their spewers in ritualized antiquity, both authentic and spurious.
>

> >Ah, the calm, reflective, discriminating, finely nuanced idiom of the
> >self-described spokesman for "the scholarly ideal of impartial inquiry
> >into truth."
>
> Your avoidance of the point comes as no surprise. And you are still
> wearing egg on your face, as self-condemned treacherous cleric. Your
> agenda is transparently political and htherefore anti-intellectual;
> hence your attempt to dignify it with an allusion to Julien Benda's
> polemic *expressly* dedicated to denouncing political engagement of
> intellectuals, is a clear instance of sophistical shamelessness.
>
> >>The moral merits of Richard's institutional derivation are precisely
> >>parallel to the linguistic merits of Heidegger's arrogation of second
> >>best suitability for philosophical discourse on behalf of the German
> >>language, right after ancient Greek.
>
> >Ha! I think this one got trotted out the last time we had a go at
> >this. Plus ca change... When at a loss for words, hurl a jackboot!
>
> And I remind you that you never answered it back then.
>
> If the jackboot fits, wear it.

[Caius Marcius]

In <352126...@stanford.edu> Francis Muir <fra...@stanford.edu>
writes:

>
>
>Sometimes a mix is the height of sophistication.

How outrageous.

- CMC

[Richard Harter]

don_...@kvo.com wrote:

>In article <352135...@bellsouth.net>,
> bram...@bellsouth.net wrote:

>> By way of analogy, I would say that although I derive great joy from
>> Bach and Handel, I know that my ignorance of musical theory inhibits any
>> deeper appreciation and understanding of what the composer is trying to
>> accomplish. But this does not tempt me to claim that beyond my powers
>> of understanding nothing else exists.
>>

>Suppose you take a certain pleasure in watching a magician saw a woman in half
>and then reassemble her. Later, you find out how the trick is done. There's
>a certain pleasure in that, but it robs you of the capacity to enjoy the first
>kind of pleasure.

>At some point, you may decide you don't want to know how every trick is done.

>(Or what makes that pate so tasty.)

Definitely you don't want to know what makes that pate so tasty.

[Richard A. Schulman]

Richard A. Schulman wrote:
>> Not even that. From an etymological standpoint, opinion presumes one
>> at least has a developed capability to think.

Paul Ilechko:

>Of course, and that is something you have patently failed to show so
>far. All you have done is repeatedly parrot received ideas about inate
>superiority. You're probably a royalist, too. Do the underclasses
>disgust you ? Don't you find that they are rather unhygienic ?

As could have been expected, you missed the joke -- which proves my
point about the relationship of Greek and Latin knowledge to more
sophisticated deployment of English.

Look up the etymology of "opinion", stupid.

And stop cluttering up the newsgroup with your juvenilia.

[Richard A. Schulman]

On 31 Mar 1998 11:39:01 -0800, John McCarthy <j...@Steam.Stanford.EDU>
wrote:

>Suppose, contrary to fact, that I wanted to study languages in order

>to achieve a "most sophisticated use of word meanings and grammatical
>structures" in my English writing.

Nobody in their right mind would do this as an end-in-itself in such
an out-of-context way. That said, this chef's recommended menu would
be:

Breakfast
---------
>English literature of the 17th thru the 19th
>centuries

Lunch
-----
>Latin and Greek

Supper
------
>Middle English and French [and German -- my addition]

Snacktime
---------
>Anglo-Saxon.

The context is the fine literature to be enjoyed. Without this, the
meanings are...meaningless.

[tejas]

Michael L. Siemon wrote:
>
> In article <6fsdlm$l...@news-central.tiac.net>, c...@tiac.net (Richard
> Harter) wrote:
>
> +Definitely you don't want to know what makes that pate so tasty.
>
> Ya got somethin agin pig-fat, Dakota Boy?

Pig-fat's fine. It's the geese he's worried about, I reckon.

--
TBSa...@richmond.infi.net (also te...@infi.net)
'Do the boogie woogie in the South American way'
Hank Snow THE RHUMBA BOOGIE

[Richard Harter]

tejas <tbsa...@richmond.infi.net> wrote:

>Michael L. Siemon wrote:
>>
>> In article <6fsdlm$l...@news-central.tiac.net>, c...@tiac.net (Richard
>> Harter) wrote:
>>
>> +Definitely you don't want to know what makes that pate so tasty.
>>
>> Ya got somethin agin pig-fat, Dakota Boy?

>Pig-fat's fine. It's the geese he's worried about, I reckon.

Ayup. That and them dead tree parasites that the pigs dig up.

[Michael L. Siemon]

In article <6ft4s9$9...@news-central.tiac.net>, c...@tiac.net (Richard
Harter) wrote:

+>Pig-fat's fine. It's the geese he's worried about, I reckon.
+
+Ayup. That and them dead tree parasites that the pigs dig up.

I tell you what -- you jest send them thingies to me, and don't
worry yore little haid about 'em!

[Paul Ilechko]

Richard A. Schulman wrote:

> As could have been expected, you missed the joke -- which proves my
> point about the relationship of Greek and Latin knowledge to more
> sophisticated deployment of English.

> Look up the etymology of "opinion", stupid.

--
And as could be expected, you have continued to ignore all the points
made that contradicted your maniacal worldview and reduced the
discussion to the level of pathetic insults and name calling.

Does your chest puff out like a pigeon when you are able to use a word
that someone doesn't recognize ? Is that how you get your kicks ? I
can't imagine a dweeb like you having much of a life.

[Ron Hardin]

tlrkirk wrote:
>
> Guys, can you take your diatribes to personal email? I would like to see a
> relevant and rational discussion of the original posting here, not a
> continuation of a personal squabble that, frankly, has denigrated to bickering
> and name-calling.

Denomigration.
--
Ron Hardin
r...@research.att.com

On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

[Richard A. Schulman]

On Tue, 31 Mar 1998 23:49:24 -0800, Michael Zeleny
<zel...@math.ucla.edu> wrote:
>To correct several misrepresentations of my position in this argument,
>I recognize any number of particular reasons for favoring the study of
>Greek and Latin language and literature over similarly motivated study
>of Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, or Sanskrit.

Why don't you enumerate these, since you have been so outrageously
misrepresented?

> What I deny is that there is
>any known general reason for doing so, applicable across the board to
>all honors track students in any constitutional democracy.

You were given, in some detail, the principal such reason -- that the
intellectual foundations of constitutional democracy derive from the
Greek and Latin classics.

> Similarly,
>I recognize a theoretical possibility of discovering rational reasons
>for preferential emphasis on the teaching of Greek and Latin, on the
>same basis and to the same extent as I do not rule out a theoretical
>possibility of proving innate moral superiority of the Aryan master
>race over all other races.

That you would equate the two underscores the moral squalor of your
rhetoric.

> What I deny is that any of the putative
>reasons and proofs adduced heretofore in either matter are anything
>but parochial, partisan, and tribal.

I assume then that you, like the Confucian authoritarians, find
Western constitutional democracy to be "parochial, partisan, and
tribal."

I wrote (context unfortunately omitted):

>>(The assumed target audience under discussion here consists of those
>>honors students who do not have a profound religious or cultural
>>commitment to Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, Sanskrit. The assumed audience,
>>in short, would consist of most of the honors-level students in "the
>>West".)

Zeleny:

>In other words, Richard graciously exempts those of us who have such
>commitments -- including myself, as a matter of public record -- from
>the purview of his appeal on behalf of the intellectual, cultural, and
>political elite of the future.

The moral squalor continues, through deliberate misrepresentation of
the opponent's argument. Zeleny knows only too well, since we have
been over this ground a number of times, that I respect the other
classical traditions and have not only defended them publicly but
urged students to deepen their intellectual appreciation of these
traditions through direct linguistic study.

It would be nice if there were time for honors students to study all
the classical languages cited, but there isn't. Zeleny wants to just
leave it up to the individual student to study whatever classical
language he feels like studying. I want to get the honors students
studying Greek and Latin unless they have strong religious or cultural
commitments to one of the other classical languages.

The job of educators is to make choices and recommendations on the
basis of rational criteria. Zelenyi chooses to get hysterical over the
fact that Greek and Latin language study may have an additional
benefit to Christians, ignoring the fact that there are good reasons
for recommending the study of those languages as well.

>If there is anything that THIS lumpen-intellectual today wishes to
>understand, it is the unmitigated gall of a man bent on forcing every
>Jew, Moslem, Hindu, or Chinese in "the West" to make a deferential
>cultural gesture on the basis of irrational considerations in no way
>rooted in HIS tradition, as the social cost of attaining the standard
>of academic excellence.

In point of biographical fact, I had a multicultural upbringing --
both Jewish and Christian.

Zelenyi, on the other hand, manifests the virulent form of
multiculturalism rampant in contemporary society -- violent in thought
and word, paranoiacally determined to oppose any reform, no matter how
beneficial, that could be construed as a slight to his own
particularity, even where no offense could reasonably be construed.

[Richard A. Schulman]

On Tue, 31 Mar 1998 23:49:24 -0800, Michael Zeleny
<zel...@math.ucla.edu> wrote:

>Thus consider Richard's claim that
>>For speakers of the Romance languages and English, literacy in Greek
>>and Latin is a prerequisite for the most sophisticated use of word
>>meanings and grammatical structures in these modern languages.
>Curiously neglected here is that the relevant grasp of word meanings
>can be attained by memorizing a vocabulary of several hundred Greek
>and Latin words, a task that scarcely requires formal instruction in
>either language or literature.

This is an astonishingly ignorant view of how meanings are developed
in thought and literature. The writer of the above, trained in
philosophy, needs merely to reflect on the richness of a single term
doubtless quite familiar to himself, "logos."

> Concerning grammatical structures, it
>would be preposterous to deny that acquaintance with highly inflected
>grammars of classical Greek and Latin enables a special insight into
>their modern descendants. Even so, far greater insights are available
>on the basis of learning languages less closely associated with one's
>native tongue. Thus a familiar linguistic illustration: only Slavic
>speakers can benefit from intimate familiarity with prominently marked
>aspectual systems indispensable for understanding accounts of time and
>action in any language ancient or modern.

My comment regarding the importance of understanding classical
grammatical structures was pointed in a different direction, namely,
toward understanding and appreciating Greek and Latin rhetorical
structures -- in particular, the ability to develop complex thoughts
through hypotaxis and lengthy periods.

One sees the effects of this extraordinary achievement in Dante's
Divine Comedy, in Shakespeare and Milton, and in the great European
prose writers of the 16th through 19th centuries (after which this
classical influence begins to wane).

Richard

>
>My point here is not to ignore or dismiss any scholarly literature,
>much less to establish or uphold an anti-classical position. Since
>the beginning of an earlier, equally fruitless discussion nine months
>ago, I have been attempting to elicit a rational argument in support
>of Graeco-Roman pedagogical preferences. I take it for granted that
>such rational argument will have to apply across the board, regardless
>of race, ethnicity, age, gender, or creed. Instead, I am offered time
>after time the presumption that

>>(The assumed target audience under discussion here consists of those
>>honors students who do not have a profound religious or cultural
>>commitment to Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, Sanskrit. The assumed audience,
>>in short, would consist of most of the honors-level students in "the
>>West".)

>In other words, Richard graciously exempts those of us who have such
>commitments -- including myself, as a matter of public record -- from
>the purview of his appeal on behalf of the intellectual, cultural, and
>political elite of the future.
>

>If there is anything that THIS lumpen-intellectual today wishes to
>understand, it is the unmitigated gall of a man bent on forcing every
>Jew, Moslem, Hindu, or Chinese in "the West" to make a deferential
>cultural gesture on the basis of irrational considerations in no way
>rooted in HIS tradition, as the social cost of attaining the standard
>of academic excellence.
>

>Cordially -- Mikhail Zel...@math.ucla.edu * M...@ptyx.com ** www.ptyx.com
>God: "Sum id quod sum." ** 7576 Willow Glen Road, Los Angeles, CA 90046
>Descartes: "Cogito ergo sum." * 213.876.8234 (fon) * 213.876.8054 (fax)
>Popeye: "Sum id quod sum et id totum est quod sum." **** www.alonzo.org
>established on 2.26.1958 ** itinerant philosopher * will think for food

---

[Richard Harter]

m...@panix.com (Michael L. Siemon) wrote:

>In article <6ft4s9$9...@news-central.tiac.net>, c...@tiac.net (Richard
>Harter) wrote:

>+>Pig-fat's fine. It's the geese he's worried about, I reckon.
>+
>+Ayup. That and them dead tree parasites that the pigs dig up.

>I tell you what -- you jest send them thingies to me, and don't
>worry yore little haid about 'em!

You're a kind feller - but I ain't saying what kind.

[sayan bhattacharyya]

Richard A. Schulman <RichardAS...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:

>My comment regarding the importance of understanding classical
>grammatical structures was pointed in a different direction, namely,
>toward understanding and appreciating Greek and Latin rhetorical
>structures -- in particular, the ability to develop complex thoughts
>through hypotaxis and lengthy periods.
>
>One sees the effects of this extraordinary achievement in Dante's
>Divine Comedy, in Shakespeare

But wasn't Shakespeare "a man of little Latin and less Greek" ?
What gives?

[Richard A. Schulman]

I wrote:
>>My comment regarding the importance of understanding classical
>>grammatical structures was pointed in a different direction, namely,
>>toward understanding and appreciating Greek and Latin rhetorical
>>structures -- in particular, the ability to develop complex thoughts
>>through hypotaxis and lengthy periods.
>>
>>One sees the effects of this extraordinary achievement in Dante's
>>Divine Comedy, in Shakespeare

Sayan Bhattacharyya writes:
>But wasn't Shakespeare "a man of little Latin and less Greek" ?
>What gives?

I think some scholars have looked into the question of whether Ben
Jonson was giving vent to envy and pedantry in this characterization,
or speaking truly. I'm not familiar with the results of their inquiry.

Whatever the case, it's not even necessary to assume that Shakespeare
knew Greek and Latin at all to see how he could have been influenced.
The Elizabethan age was an age of widespread, excellent translations
of classics into English. Thus, the hypotactical structures and grand
rhetorical periods were widely available in English as well as the
original Greek and Latin.

Richard

[tma...@hotmail.com]

In article <35212AD2...@wam.umd.edu>,
tlr...@wam.umd.edu wrote:
Can anybody recommend a book or article that
> puts forth a different (if not exactly opposing) view?
>
> Thanx
> TLR
>

Try Bernard Williams' book "Shame and Necessity", especially the first
chapter titled "The Liberation of Antiquity". It is a very subtle discussion
of our relationship to classical antiquity, steering a very reasonable course
between the extreme camps.

[David E Latane]

On Wed, 1 Apr 1998, Richard A. Schulman wrote:

> I wrote:
> >>My comment regarding the importance of understanding classical
> >>grammatical structures was pointed in a different direction, namely,
> >>toward understanding and appreciating Greek and Latin rhetorical
> >>structures -- in particular, the ability to develop complex thoughts
> >>through hypotaxis and lengthy periods.
> >>
> >>One sees the effects of this extraordinary achievement in Dante's
> >>Divine Comedy, in Shakespeare
>
> Sayan Bhattacharyya writes:
> >But wasn't Shakespeare "a man of little Latin and less Greek" ?
> >What gives?
>

He certainly knew a bunch of Latin by modern standards. I just heard a
paper from a fellow who thought through this using WS's likely Latin
textbooks.

It's like the case of Keats, made fun of viciously for his classical
attainments by Lockhart in Blackwoods--then one reads Cowden Clarke (son
of Keats's schoolmaster in Enfield) and discovers that the lad Keats
made a complete translation of the AEneid at about age 13.

D. Latane

[Michael Zeleny]

Richard A. Schulman <RichardAS...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:

>Michael Zeleny <zel...@math.ucla.edu> wrote:

>>To correct several misrepresentations of my position in this argument,
>>I recognize any number of particular reasons for favoring the study of
>>Greek and Latin language and literature over similarly motivated study
>>of Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, or Sanskrit.

>Why don't you enumerate these, since you have been so outrageously
>misrepresented?

Because I refuse to feel outraged by inept posturing.

>> What I deny is that there is
>>any known general reason for doing so, applicable across the board to
>>all honors track students in any constitutional democracy.

>You were given, in some detail, the principal such reason -- that the
>intellectual foundations of constitutional democracy derive from the
>Greek and Latin classics.

They do, in the same way that my physiological foundations derive from
the primordial ooze. Which gives me no reason to imagine nonpareil
educational opportunities arising from a regimen of wallowing in muck.

>> Similarly,
>>I recognize a theoretical possibility of discovering rational reasons
>>for preferential emphasis on the teaching of Greek and Latin, on the
>>same basis and to the same extent as I do not rule out a theoretical
>>possibility of proving innate moral superiority of the Aryan master
>>race over all other races.

>That you would equate the two underscores the moral squalor of your
>rhetoric.

That you would refuse to recognize their similarity underscores the
poverty of your reasoning.

>> What I deny is that any of the putative
>>reasons and proofs adduced heretofore in either matter are anything
>>but parochial, partisan, and tribal.

>I assume then that you, like the Confucian authoritarians, find
>Western constitutional democracy to be "parochial, partisan, and
>tribal."

I find that whatever moral, social, and political good comes out of
Western constitutional democracy, does so despite, rather than because
of, its parochial, partisan, and tribal origin.

>I wrote (context unfortunately omitted):

>>>(The assumed target audience under discussion here consists of those
>>>honors students who do not have a profound religious or cultural
>>>commitment to Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, Sanskrit. The assumed audience,
>>>in short, would consist of most of the honors-level students in "the
>>>West".)

>Zeleny:

>>In other words, Richard graciously exempts those of us who have such
>>commitments -- including myself, as a matter of public record -- from
>>the purview of his appeal on behalf of the intellectual, cultural, and
>>political elite of the future.

>The moral squalor continues, through deliberate misrepresentation of

>the opponent's argument. Zeleny knows only too well, since we have
>been over this ground a number of times, that I respect the other
>classical traditions and have not only defended them publicly but
>urged students to deepen their intellectual appreciation of these
>traditions through direct linguistic study.
>
>It would be nice if there were time for honors students to study all
>the classical languages cited, but there isn't. Zeleny wants to just
>leave it up to the individual student to study whatever classical
>language he feels like studying. I want to get the honors students
>studying Greek and Latin unless they have strong religious or cultural
>commitments to one of the other classical languages.
>
>The job of educators is to make choices and recommendations on the
>basis of rational criteria. Zelenyi chooses to get hysterical over the
>fact that Greek and Latin language study may have an additional
>benefit to Christians, ignoring the fact that there are good reasons
>for recommending the study of those languages as well.

The actual job of educators in this country includes erecting barriers
against "excessive" entry of Jews and Asians into its most prestigious
universities, in the form of geographical distribution requirements
and preferential legacy admissions. Your choices and recommendations
are visibly made in the same spirit.

>>If there is anything that THIS lumpen-intellectual today wishes to
>>understand, it is the unmitigated gall of a man bent on forcing every
>>Jew, Moslem, Hindu, or Chinese in "the West" to make a deferential
>>cultural gesture on the basis of irrational considerations in no way
>>rooted in HIS tradition, as the social cost of attaining the standard
>>of academic excellence.

>In point of biographical fact, I had a multicultural upbringing --
>both Jewish and Christian.

Which is to say that you have accepted the social cost.

>Zelenyi, on the other hand, manifests the virulent form of
>multiculturalism rampant in contemporary society -- violent in thought
>and word, paranoiacally determined to oppose any reform, no matter how
>beneficial, that could be construed as a slight to his own
>particularity, even where no offense could reasonably be construed.

Try sticking to your original position in this debate. I am the one
opposing your argument for genealogical particularity of your culture
forming the basis of its curriculum preferences.

Elsewhere, in article <6ftq75$j...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>,
Richard A. Schulman <RichardAS...@worldnet.att.net> added:
>Michael Zeleny <zel...@math.ucla.edu> wrote:

>>>Thus consider Richard's claim that
>>>For speakers of the Romance languages and English, literacy in Greek
>>>and Latin is a prerequisite for the most sophisticated use of word
>>>meanings and grammatical structures in these modern languages.
>>Curiously neglected here is that the relevant grasp of word meanings
>>can be attained by memorizing a vocabulary of several hundred Greek
>>and Latin words, a task that scarcely requires formal instruction in
>>either language or literature.

>This is an astonishingly ignorant view of how meanings are developed
>in thought and literature. The writer of the above, trained in
>philosophy, needs merely to reflect on the richness of a single term
>doubtless quite familiar to himself, "logos."

I find the intricacies of philosophical use of "logos" adequately
explained and documented in a two-page entry of Peters' dictionary of
Greek philosophical terms. The deliciously unintended irony of this
reference is its juxtaposition with Richard's consistent refusal to
supply a logos for his privileging of the Graeco-Roman literature over
all other classical corpora.

>> Concerning grammatical structures, it
>>would be preposterous to deny that acquaintance with highly inflected
>>grammars of classical Greek and Latin enables a special insight into
>>their modern descendants. Even so, far greater insights are available
>>on the basis of learning languages less closely associated with one's
>>native tongue. Thus a familiar linguistic illustration: only Slavic
>>speakers can benefit from intimate familiarity with prominently marked
>>aspectual systems indispensable for understanding accounts of time and
>>action in any language ancient or modern.

>My comment regarding the importance of understanding classical

>grammatical structures was pointed in a different direction, namely,
>toward understanding and appreciating Greek and Latin rhetorical
>structures -- in particular, the ability to develop complex thoughts
>through hypotaxis and lengthy periods.

Subordinate clauses abound in Victorian literature as well. In fact,
no rhetorical structures are peculiar to the Graeco-Roman literary
corpus.

>One sees the effects of this extraordinary achievement in Dante's

>Divine Comedy, in Shakespeare and Milton, and in the great European
>prose writers of the 16th through 19th centuries (after which this
>classical influence begins to wane).

Sayan has preempted the best reply to this example. I shall content
myself with noting Richard's persistently demagogical efforts to
purvey genesis in lieu of logos, even as he strenuously disclaims his
association with similarly motivated ambitions of the Master Race.

[D. Barrington]

tma...@hotmail.com wrote:
: In article <35212AD2...@wam.umd.edu>,

: tlr...@wam.umd.edu wrote:
: Can anybody recommend a book or article that
: > puts forth a different (if not exactly opposing) view?
: >
: > Thanx
: > TLR
: >

: Try Bernard Williams' book "Shame and Necessity", especially the first
: chapter titled "The Liberation of Antiquity". It is a very subtle discussion
: of our relationship to classical antiquity, steering a very reasonable course
: between the extreme camps.

I also recommend Martha Nussbaum's book _Cultivating Humanity_, which
agrees with _Who Killed Homer_ about the importance of the classics in
developing character, citizenship, etc., but is very positive about the
general thrust of "liberal multiculturalism". (She is negative about
identity politics and about modern literary theory, however.) In the
review of _WKH_ that someone just posted, Paglia says that _WKH_ attacks
Nussbaum specifically. This wasn't in the shorter version of _WKH_ that
I read in _Arion_ -- I will have to take a look at the book-length version.

Dave MB

[Ron Hardin]

Michael Zeleny wrote:
> >Why don't you enumerate these, since you have been so outrageously
> >misrepresented?
>
> Because I refuse to feel outraged by inept posturing.

Actually, outrage comes from outre.

If there were a Mr. Wizard of everyday etymology, he would point
out helico-pter and pre-gnant as also worthy of notice.

Tomorrow we'll make battery acid.

[-Mammel,L.H.]

In article <3521B2...@deletethis.transarc.com>,
Paul Ilechko <pile...@deletethis.transarc.com> wrote:

>I'm not clear that study is the issue here. The purpose of language is
>to be understood. It would then follow that the most sophisticated use
>of language would be that which can be understood most clearly.

That does not follow. In fact, it is quite to be expected that
simple, natural, direct language should be more clearly
understandable and hence more effective than sophisticated language.
Look up "sophisticated".

One time I was going to drive my sister-in-law somewhere
and when we got in the car I initiated this conversation:

"I'm not sure of the relation."
"The what?"
"The spatial relation."
"You mean you don't know how to get there from here."
"Uhhhhhhhhhh, Yeah."

I wasn't doing it on purpose. I was in grad school.

I think we're used to the idea that "sophisticated methods"
and "sophisticated theory" confer more powerful results in
the pursit of scientific technology. This is the closure of a
long arc which at the beginning leads away from practical
effectiveness, and I think it's generally wrong to identify
sophistication with all the good stuff.

Lew Mammel, Jr.

[Michael Zeleny]

On 1 Apr 1998, Silke-Maria Weineck wrote:

>Richard A. Schulman (RichardAS...@worldnet.att.net) wrote:

>>You were given, in some detail, the principal such reason -- that the
>>intellectual foundations of constitutional democracy derive from the
>>Greek and Latin classics.

>Yes, but can you queer this for me somehow?

You could easily do it yourself by getting between Martha Nussbaum and
John Finnis. Deciding which way to face might be a challenge though.
On the other hand, parity of reason would require Richard to call for
compulsory inculcation in buggery as another prerequisite for grounding
in the intellectual fundament of constitutional democracy, as it were.

[-Mammel,L.H.]

In article <6fuj52$k...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>,

Ron Hardin <r...@research.att.com> wrote:
>
>If there were a Mr. Wizard of everyday etymology, he would point
>out helico-pter and pre-gnant as also worthy of notice.
>
>Tomorrow we'll make battery acid.

Chemistry is full of interesting etymology. Alcohol is
Al Kohol ( or something ) "spirit" of wine. A coinage of
Paracelsus, from what I learned.

Of course there's "gas" from "geist". THE BOY SCIENTIST impressed
this on me with an illustration of a lab explosion emanating
a Casper style ghost.

Speaking of Mr. Wizard, he once incited me to arson with
a demo of the caloric content of saltine crackers, which
he somehow induced to burn furiously. I could scarcely
believe it and I hastened to the basement where I tried
to set fire to some crackers in an old pot lid. Sometime
after I tried to help them along with a little alcohol from
the alcohol lamp, my mother appeared on the scene. Ever
careful not to dampen the spirit of scientific inquiry, she
nevertheless concluded the proceedings.

It wasn't until many years later that I saw this show
again in a Mr. Wizard revival, and noticed that he more or
less surreptiously had added potassium ( from potash, of course )
permanganate as an oxidizer. ( "oxygen" from "sharp" ( = acid )
maker. cf. "oxymoron". "manganese", from "magnesia", from
Latin "magnes carneus" = "flesh magnet". Is that outre
enough for you? )

Lew Mammel, Jr.

[Chris Camfield]

On Wed, 01 Apr 1998 14:12:58 -0600, tma...@hotmail.com wrote:

>In article <35212AD2...@wam.umd.edu>,
> tlr...@wam.umd.edu wrote:
> Can anybody recommend a book or article that
>> puts forth a different (if not exactly opposing) view?
>>
>> Thanx
>> TLR
>>
>
>Try Bernard Williams' book "Shame and Necessity", especially the first
>chapter titled "The Liberation of Antiquity". It is a very subtle discussion
>of our relationship to classical antiquity, steering a very reasonable course
>between the extreme camps.

Am I confusing this with another work, or is that book about the
psychological state of the heroes in Homeric epic?

Chris

[Atlee Parks]

Michael Zeleny wrote in message ...

>
>To correct several misrepresentations of my position in this argument,
>I recognize any number of particular reasons for favoring the study of
>Greek and Latin language and literature over similarly motivated study

>of Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, or Sanskrit. What I deny is that there is

>any known general reason for doing so, applicable across the board to

>all honors track students in any constitutional democracy. Similarly,

>I recognize a theoretical possibility of discovering rational reasons
>for preferential emphasis on the teaching of Greek and Latin, on the
>same basis and to the same extent as I do not rule out a theoretical
>possibility of proving innate moral superiority of the Aryan master
>race over all other races.

As a senior Greek major at the Univ. of Oklahoma, perhaps I'm wading in over
my head here, having neither a PhD nor immediate plans to acquire one, but I
would like to remind Mr. Zeleny that a thorough study of one's own
constitution, including its evolution from ancient sources, is essential for
anyone who wishes to call himself an educated person. This is something
that we simply do not get nowadays at either the secondary or university
level, yet a good grounding in the Greeks and Romans is necessary in order
to understand modern political theory and philosophy of any sort. To read
Marx without having read Plato, to attempt Nietzsche without a familiarity
with Aeschylus or Euripides, or even to explore the Bible without having at
least a passing acquaintance with the Greek mystery rites is to deny
yourself the richest experience of these texts -- and is this not precisely
what honors students attend the university for? Did Mr. Zeleny's dearly
held multiculturalism spring full-blown like Athena from some Confucian
text, or did the interest in foreign cultures perhaps originate with
Herodotus? And how can we come to appreciate the merits and flaws of a
constitutional democracy without knowing how and why democracy came into
being? That, I promise you, you will find rarely if at all in even the
honors seminars; the only classes I have found in my four years of college
that offered more than a cursory mention of the great names of ancient
philosophy have been taught by professors of Greek and Latin. Like it or
not, Mr. Zeleny, we are citizens of the western world, and the Greeks and
Romans have much more to tell us about who we are and where we came from
than the Koran. Furthermore, I should hope that Mr. Zeleny feels that
studying the origins of one's culture and government is a sufficiently broad
motivation for forcing the classics upon our tabulae rasae.

In following this discussion, I've been reminded rather strongly of
Aristophanes' Thinkery, in that you seem much more concerned in arguing over
fleas' footsteps than in discussing how to give us, your students, a better
education than the hodgepodge we now receive -- a tendency, I might add,
that seems to carry over into your classes! Or perhaps I am mistaken and a
solid and well-integrated education is merely a technique for furthering the
innate moral superiority of the Aryan race (and here I take the liberty of
reminding Mr. Zeleny that he will find many more descendants of the Aryan
race in Iran than in California). I have read _Who Killed Homer_, and from
a student's perspective it rings all too true. Please, save your quarrels
over the superiority of Sanskrit and Arabic for the graduate level -- give
to the undergraduates Greek and Latin, which have infinitely more to say to
us about our own lives and cultures, that we may become interested in
Classics in the first place. The Greeks and Romans are a far better
starting point for students who have never been taught to care about the
past at all and thus have little concern for the present and less still for
the future. Failing that, do not fault us when we all change our majors to
marketing, the real-world value of which is readily apparent to even a
non-honors student.

Atlee Parks

[Ted Samsel]

In rec.arts.books -Mammel,L.H. <l...@ihgp167e.ih.lucent.com> wrote:
: In article <6fuj52$k...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>,

: Ron Hardin <r...@research.att.com> wrote:
: >
: >If there were a Mr. Wizard of everyday etymology, he would point
: >out helico-pter and pre-gnant as also worthy of notice.
: >
: >Tomorrow we'll make battery acid.

: Chemistry is full of interesting etymology. Alcohol is
: Al Kohol ( or something ) "spirit" of wine. A coinage of
: Paracelsus, from what I learned.

Paracelsus, hell! It's from the Arabic, as are alkali, cotton and alfalfa.

: Of course there's "gas" from "geist". THE BOY SCIENTIST impressed

: this on me with an illustration of a lab explosion emanating
: a Casper style ghost.

From the Dutch "geest", more like..

: Speaking of Mr. Wizard, he once incited me to arson with

: a demo of the caloric content of saltine crackers, which
: he somehow induced to burn furiously. I could scarcely
: believe it and I hastened to the basement where I tried
: to set fire to some crackers in an old pot lid. Sometime
: after I tried to help them along with a little alcohol from
: the alcohol lamp, my mother appeared on the scene. Ever
: careful not to dampen the spirit of scientific inquiry, she
: nevertheless concluded the proceedings.

Making thermite was my downfall.

: It wasn't until many years later that I saw this show

: again in a Mr. Wizard revival, and noticed that he more or
: less surreptiously had added potassium ( from potash, of course )
: permanganate as an oxidizer. ( "oxygen" from "sharp" ( = acid )
: maker. cf. "oxymoron". "manganese", from "magnesia", from
: Latin "magnes carneus" = "flesh magnet". Is that outre
: enough for you? )

And oxygen auf deutsch is "sauerstoff".

ObBoyScientistBooks: Old "fun with chemistry" books from the turn of
the century until paranoia set in. Make your own "acqua regia"
and dissolve your Ma's jewelry. Or hydroflouric acid.

Back in my highschool days, there was always someone blowing
a thumb off or an eye out with their chemistry set. Kids just
don't know how to have fun anymore.

--
Ted Samsel....tejas@infi.net (or tbsa...@richmond.infi.net)
"do the boogie woogie in the South American way"
Rhumba Boogie- Hank Snow (1955)

[Meg Worley]

TLR writes:
>Does anybody have anything to say about Paglia's review and/or Hansen and
>Heath's book? I'm going to get the book and hopefully I'll have time to read
>it soon (after graduation, like everything else). I'm worried that I'll get
>only one (biased) viewpoint. Can anybody recommend a book or article that

>puts forth a different (if not exactly opposing) view?

I have a better idea: Why don't you read it & come up with your
own opinion? Then try it out on friends & foes, see how sharp
it is; realign the blade as necessary.

Rage away,

meg

--
m...@steam.stanford.edu Comparatively Literate

[Moiner]

In article <352135...@bellsouth.net>, bram...@bellsouth.net wrote:

> Paul Ilechko wrote:

> > I hope that Mr. Schulman will soon provide us with the linguistic
> > theories and scientific studies that support his contentious statement
> > above. Or is this just an *opinion*
>
> If it is an opinion, I share it. As much as it is anything else,
> English is a highly evolved mixture of Greek and Latin. There is no way
> in which subtlety of expression can be communicated in English without
> competence in classical languages. Period. Paragraph. This statement
> will be received as offensive by certain elements who don't wish to have
> it suggested of them that they are deaf to the subtleties of a language
> that they think they know intimately.

Your "period paragraph" assertion is fundamentally absurd. Can you really
be claiming that it is absolutely impossible for any person innocent of
Latin and Greek to express himself subtly?

Of more amusement is the fact that the sentences in your paragraph above
are so far removed from the virtue that they so loudly tout. Your sentiment,
then, is not "offensive" but rather laughable.

> By way of analogy, I would say that although I derive great joy from
> Bach and Handel, I know that my ignorance of musical theory inhibits any
> deeper appreciation and understanding of what the composer is trying to
> accomplish. But this does not tempt me to claim that beyond my powers
> of understanding nothing else exists.

Rather than muddle your metaphors so, try sticking to the "thought" you
assert above: that you cannot appreciate Handel and Bach with anything
approaching subtlety or thoroughness unless you are intimately familiar
with Classical Greek and Roman musical compositions.

That Latin and Greek have a value both intrinsic and utilitarian is clear.
That no one can be subtle, educated, or articulate without them is false.

--
If you must send spam,
here are the email addresses of the current board of
the Federal Communications Commission:

Chairman Reed Hundt: rhu...@fcc.gov
Commissioner James Quello: jqu...@fcc.gov
Commissioner Susan Ness: sn...@fcc.gov
Commissioner Rachelle Chong: rch...@fcc.gov

[Robert Ramirez]

Moiner wrote:
>
> bram...@bellsouth.net wrote:

> As much as it is anything else,
> > English is a highly evolved mixture of Greek and Latin. There is no way
> > in which subtlety of expression can be communicated in English without
> > competence in classical languages. Period. Paragraph. This statement
> > will be received as offensive by certain elements who don't wish to have
> > it suggested of them that they are deaf to the subtleties of a language
> > that they think they know intimately.
>
> Your "period paragraph" assertion is fundamentally absurd. Can you really
> be claiming that it is absolutely impossible for any person innocent of
> Latin and Greek to express himself subtly?

There are greater and lesser degrees of wealth even among the
poverty-stricken, but none of them rightly think of themselves as rich.
Need I say that subtlty exists not as an absolute, but by comparison?
My argument is that competence in classical languages enables
substantially greater "subtlety of expression in communication", by
which I mean both the speaker and the listener (or writer/reader,
naturally).

If you cannot accept this argument, then let us examine what you do
accept. Does competence in classical languages enable a *lesser* degree
of subtlty? A *comparable* degree? Please let us know which of these
positions you are prepared to argue.

> Of more amusement is the fact that the sentences in your paragraph above
> are so far removed from the virtue that they so loudly tout. Your sentiment,
> then, is not "offensive" but rather laughable.

Which sentences? What "virtue"? By "tout" do you mean "extol"? Do you
even know what tout means? I am arguing for the value of a cultural
attainment. I do not confuse knowledge with virtue, however. I really
have no idea what you are talking about.

> > By way of analogy, I would say that although I derive great joy from
> > Bach and Handel, I know that my ignorance of musical theory inhibits any
> > deeper appreciation and understanding of what the composer is trying to
> > accomplish. But this does not tempt me to claim that beyond my powers
> > of understanding nothing else exists.
>
> Rather than muddle your metaphors so,

Please inform yourself of the difference between analogy and metaphor.
(Competence in classical languages makes this easier to do.)

> try sticking to the "thought" you
> assert above: that you cannot appreciate Handel and Bach with anything
> approaching subtlety or thoroughness unless you are intimately familiar
> with Classical Greek and Roman musical compositions.

I am flattered that you find my little analogy persuasive enough to make
it worthy of undermining. Although I know little of musical theory, I
do know that Pythagoras and other ancients had a thing or two to say
about harmony. I would be very surprised to learn that Bach and
Handel's extensive knowledge in theories of harmony had not introduced
them at some point to Pythagorean theory. I doubt not at all that the
great Baroque composers employed a musical grammar, recognizable to the
educated, that made use of tonal concepts first enunciated in
antiquity. To the extent that they did so, I think I could clearly
enter into a more intimate appreciation of their compositions if I too
had a familiarity with those concepts.

Will that do?

> That Latin and Greek have a value both intrinsic and utilitarian is clear.
> That no one can be subtle, educated, or articulate without them is false.

To repeat, I am speaking of degrees, not absolutes.

[Amittai F. Aviram]

Thank you, Mario Taboada, for telling us a little about Antonio
Nebrija. This sounds very interesting. Could you tell us a little
more about him? Also, what do you teach, and in what context do
you bring him up?There was an earlier (short-lived) thread about
language change and the evolution of standard languages, so this
sounds like an interesting potential continuation.

Amittai

[Moiner]

In article <3523FA...@bellsouth.net>, bram...@bellsouth.net wrote:

> Moiner wrote:
> >
> > bram...@bellsouth.net wrote:

> > >There is no way
> > > in which subtlety of expression can be communicated in English without
> > > competence in classical languages. Period. Paragraph.

> > Your "period paragraph" assertion is fundamentally absurd. Can you really

> > be claiming that it is absolutely impossible for any person innocent of
> > Latin and Greek to express himself subtly?

> There are greater and lesser degrees of wealth even among the
> poverty-stricken, but none of them rightly think of themselves as rich.
> Need I say that subtlty exists not as an absolute, but by comparison?
> My argument is that competence in classical languages enables
> substantially greater "subtlety of expression in communication", by
> which I mean both the speaker and the listener (or writer/reader,
> naturally).

This is rather different from your assertion, and it is thus the more credible.
You had asserted that "There is no way" to be subtle without Latin and Greek.

That increased linguistic study increases one's linguistic competence is another
assertion altogether. That second assertion is not laughable.

> If you cannot accept this argument, then let us examine what you do
> accept. Does competence in classical languages enable a *lesser* degree
> of subtlty? A *comparable* degree? Please let us know which of these
> positions you are prepared to argue.
>
> > Of more amusement is the fact that the sentences in your paragraph above
> > are so far removed from the virtue that they so loudly tout. Your sentiment,
> > then, is not "offensive" but rather laughable.

> Which sentences? What "virtue"? By "tout" do you mean "extol"? Do you
> even know what tout means? I am arguing for the value of a cultural
> attainment. I do not confuse knowledge with virtue, however. I really
> have no idea what you are talking about.

I mean that your sentence was utterly bereft of the subtlety you offered for
sale, pretending it was the sole property of the Classical Languages.

> > > By way of analogy, I would say that although I derive great joy from
> > > Bach and Handel, I know that my ignorance of musical theory inhibits any
> > > deeper appreciation and understanding of what the composer is trying to
> > > accomplish. But this does not tempt me to claim that beyond my powers
> > > of understanding nothing else exists.

> > Rather than muddle your metaphors so,

> Please inform yourself of the difference between analogy and metaphor.
> (Competence in classical languages makes this easier to do.)

Thank you for reminding us of the other thing that "kills" Classics-- the
ugliness of spirit that altogher too often infects those I am ashamed to see
playing its champions.

> > try sticking to the "thought" you
> > assert above: that you cannot appreciate Handel and Bach with anything
> > approaching subtlety or thoroughness unless you are intimately familiar
> > with Classical Greek and Roman musical compositions.

> I am flattered that you find my little analogy persuasive enough to make
> it worthy of undermining. Although I know little of musical theory, I
> do know that Pythagoras and other ancients had a thing or two to say
> about harmony. I would be very surprised to learn that Bach and
> Handel's extensive knowledge in theories of harmony had not introduced
> them at some point to Pythagorean theory. I doubt not at all that the
> great Baroque composers employed a musical grammar, recognizable to the
> educated, that made use of tonal concepts first enunciated in
> antiquity. To the extent that they did so, I think I could clearly
> enter into a more intimate appreciation of their compositions if I too
> had a familiarity with those concepts.
>
> Will that do?

It is quite different from what you said before, and it is precisely that much
the more credible.

> > That Latin and Greek have a value both intrinsic and utilitarian is clear.
> > That no one can be subtle, educated, or articulate without them is false.

> To repeat, I am speaking of degrees, not absolutes.

To the extent that you revise your assertions to do so, you gain
the more credibility; your previous post was altogether too full
of absolutes, and for this folly specifically was it held up to my
derision.

[Nathan Hicks]

Moiner wrote:
>
> In article <352135...@bellsouth.net>, bram...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>

> > By way of analogy, I would say that although I derive great joy from
> > Bach and Handel, I know that my ignorance of musical theory inhibits any
> > deeper appreciation and understanding of what the composer is trying to
> > accomplish. But this does not tempt me to claim that beyond my powers
> > of understanding nothing else exists.
>

> Rather than muddle your metaphors so, try sticking to the "thought" you

> assert above: that you cannot appreciate Handel and Bach with anything
> approaching subtlety or thoroughness unless you are intimately familiar
> with Classical Greek and Roman musical compositions.

How are they muddled? The metaphors refer to the foundational
elements in each art (if English may still be thought such).
Your statement is a conspicuously overstretched Ad Absurdum
attempt. You know well, if you know anything, that it is you
who seeks to muddle meanings.

> That Latin and Greek have a value both intrinsic and utilitarian is clear.
> That no one can be subtle, educated, or articulate without them is false.

False to the degree in which English can be mastered without
knowledge of those preceding and foundational tongues, yes.
It seems me that this degree is the focus of the contention
and that no one will put a solid value to the benefits of
Latin, Greek, and perhaps even Anglo-Saxon in learning the
underlying depths of our language. In mine own appraisal,
each is well worthy of our great estimation.

Nathan Hicks

[Robert Ramirez]

Moiner wrote:
>
> In article <3523FA...@bellsouth.net>, bram...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
> > Moiner wrote:
> > >
> > > bram...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
> > > >There is no way
> > > > in which subtlety of expression can be communicated in English without
> > > > competence in classical languages. Period. Paragraph.
>
> > > Your "period paragraph" assertion is fundamentally absurd. Can you really
> > > be claiming that it is absolutely impossible for any person innocent of
> > > Latin and Greek to express himself subtly?

Yep.

> > There are greater and lesser degrees of wealth even among the
> > poverty-stricken, but none of them rightly think of themselves as rich.
> > Need I say that subtlty exists not as an absolute, but by comparison?
> > My argument is that competence in classical languages enables
> > substantially greater "subtlety of expression in communication", by
> > which I mean both the speaker and the listener (or writer/reader,
> > naturally).
>
> This is rather different from your assertion, and it is thus the more credible.
> You had asserted that "There is no way" to be subtle without Latin and Greek.

What's the diff? My comments about subtlety of expression were
addressed to readers of the humanities.classics ng, an audience that by
and large inhabits the pointy end of the language-skills pyramid. I
suppose there are greater and lesser degrees of inarticulateness even
among the oafs at alt.morons. I do not think any of them possesses
anything that either you or I would recognise as subtlety of expression,
however.

> That increased linguistic study increases one's linguistic competence is another
> assertion altogether. That second assertion is not laughable.

Oh, my! Thank you!

> > If you cannot accept this argument, then let us examine what you do
> > accept. Does competence in classical languages enable a *lesser* degree
> > of subtlty? A *comparable* degree? Please let us know which of these
> > positions you are prepared to argue.

> > > Of more amusement is the fact that the sentences in your paragraph above
> > > are so far removed from the virtue that they so loudly tout. Your sentiment,
> > > then, is not "offensive" but rather laughable.
>
> > Which sentences? What "virtue"? By "tout" do you mean "extol"? Do you
> > even know what tout means? I am arguing for the value of a cultural
> > attainment. I do not confuse knowledge with virtue, however. I really
> > have no idea what you are talking about.
>
> I mean that your sentence was utterly bereft of the subtlety you offered for
> sale, pretending it was the sole property of the Classical Languages.

Just because it was plain and too the point? Moiner, are you confused
about the difference between subtlety and ambiguity? Are you suggesting
that one who values subtlety may never be plain-speaking? Subtlety is
a rhetorical device, Moiner, like irony, metaphor, and yes,
plain-spokenness.

> > > > By way of analogy, I would say that although I derive great joy from
> > > > Bach and Handel, I know that my ignorance of musical theory inhibits any
> > > > deeper appreciation and understanding of what the composer is trying to
> > > > accomplish. But this does not tempt me to claim that beyond my powers
> > > > of understanding nothing else exists.

> > > Rather than muddle your metaphors so,
>

> > Please inform yourself of the difference between analogy and metaphor.
> > (Competence in classical languages makes this easier to do.)
>
> Thank you for reminding us of the other thing that "kills" Classics-- the
> ugliness of spirit that altogher too often infects those I am ashamed to see
> playing its champions.

You are mistaken if you think I have the power to kill Classics, or even
to harm the smallest hair on its head.

> > > try sticking to the "thought" you
> > > assert above: that you cannot appreciate Handel and Bach with anything
> > > approaching subtlety or thoroughness unless you are intimately familiar
> > > with Classical Greek and Roman musical compositions.

A nice straw man for you to knock down. I never said anything about
being "intimately familiar
with Classical Greek and Roman musical compositions." You should really
have more respect for your readers' powers of discernment.

> > I am flattered that you find my little analogy persuasive enough to make
> > it worthy of undermining. Although I know little of musical theory, I
> > do know that Pythagoras and other ancients had a thing or two to say
> > about harmony. I would be very surprised to learn that Bach and
> > Handel's extensive knowledge in theories of harmony had not introduced
> > them at some point to Pythagorean theory. I doubt not at all that the
> > great Baroque composers employed a musical grammar, recognizable to the
> > educated, that made use of tonal concepts first enunciated in
> > antiquity. To the extent that they did so, I think I could clearly
> > enter into a more intimate appreciation of their compositions if I too
> > had a familiarity with those concepts.
> >
> > Will that do?
>
> It is quite different from what you said before,

No it isn't.

> > > That Latin and Greek have a value both intrinsic and utilitarian is clear.
> > > That no one can be subtle, educated, or articulate without them is false.
>

> > To repeat, I am speaking of degrees, not absolutes.
>
> To the extent that you revise your assertions to do so, you gain
> the more credibility; your previous post was altogether too full
> of absolutes, and for this folly specifically was it held up to my
> derision.

And boy, is my face red!

[David J. Loftus]

lisa mammel (lma...@ameritech.net) wrote:

: Ron Hardin wrote:

: > An ear for roots can keep you from mixing them too.

: When I was an undergrad I liked to say that I was
: majoring in cerumenal extirpation.

: Lew Mammel, Jr.

"He that hath ears..."

[David J. Loftus]

sayan bhattacharyya (bhat...@krusty.eecs.umich.edu) wrote:

: Richard A. Schulman <RichardAS...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:

: >My comment regarding the importance of understanding classical

: >grammatical structures was pointed in a different direction, namely,
: >toward understanding and appreciating Greek and Latin rhetorical
: >structures -- in particular, the ability to develop complex thoughts
: >through hypotaxis and lengthy periods.

: >
: >One sees the effects of this extraordinary achievement in Dante's
: >Divine Comedy, in Shakespeare

: But wasn't Shakespeare "a man of little Latin and less Greek" ?
: What gives?

That may well have been true of Will Shakspere, but not of William
Shakespeare.

ObBook: _Shakespeare: Who Was He? The Oxford Challenge to the Bard of
Avon_, by Richard F. Whalen

David Loftus

[Robert Ramirez]

Nathan Hicks wrote:
> It seems me that this degree is the focus of the contention
> and that no one will put a solid value to the benefits of
> Latin, Greek, and perhaps even Anglo-Saxon in learning the
> underlying depths of our language. In mine own appraisal,
> each is well worthy of our great estimation.

The few words of Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, and even Hebrew that I know all
enrich my understanding of English and the delight that I take in its
reading, writing, and speaking.

[David J. Loftus]

Ted Samsel (te...@sl001.infi.net) wrote:

: Back in my highschool days, there was always someone blowing

: a thumb off or an eye out with their chemistry set. Kids just
: don't know how to have fun anymore.

My best friend and I were busily trying to make flubber (back in the late
1960s, before Robin Williams arrived on this planet).

David Loftus

[Michael Zeleny]

Eight years ago, whilst traipsing around the UCLA campus, I was
accosted by a Lubavicher Chassid brandishing a pair of phylacteries
and insisting that I don them so as to fulfill a mitzva. "Thanks for
your concern," -- said I, -- "but I did that once upon a time and it
didn't do anything for me." The rabbi was aghast. -- "But aren't
you a Jew?" "Indeed I am one," -- I replied, -- "but an apikoros, a
philosopher rather than a fanatic." That was not a polite thing to
say, for an apikoros, according to Rabbi Akiba, is a Jew who reads
uncanonical books, books that the Talmudic tradition has uniformly
identified with Epicureanism. Both of us knew that by setting up a
dilemma between heterodoxy and fanaticism, I was gravely insulting my
righteously fundamentalist interlocutor. Nevertheless, the man was
nonplussed. -- "You are pretty smart, aren't you?" -- he inquired
earnestly. -- "I have a thought now and then," -- I replied -- "but
nothing extraordinary." "And who do you think is the smartest man in
the world?" It did not require a spectacular insight to figure out
what was meant to come. Our conversation was taking a predictable
turn towards Rabbi Menachem Schneersohn, the superannuated spiritual
leader whom the Lubavicher Chassidim regarded as the Messiah. But I
was determined to keep it on my ground. -- "The smartest man in the
world? surely that must have been Socrates." "No, I mean: Who is the
smartest man in the world right now?" -- the man insisted. I pondered
his question. -- "It's a hard call, but if I were to venture a guess,
I'd have to say that the smartest man in the world right now is Alonzo
Church." That did it: the unspoken rules of the game called for naming
a Jewish sage -- but correcting me on the account of my candidate's
provenance would have been ineffectual against me as a self-proclaimed
apikoros. The rabbi sighed with sad resignation: another Jewish soul
lost.

And here we are once again, two people putatively sharing a common
heritage, yet divided by a singular presumption, that "a thorough

study of one's own constitution, including its evolution from ancient
sources, is essential for anyone who wishes to call himself an

educated person." Let us examine this claim more closely. Doubtless
the knowledge of evolution of our bodily constitution as specimens of
Homo Sapiens is an essential part in good education. But something
else is meant as well: as citizens of the western world, we are said
to incur a special intellectual debt to ancient Greeks and Romans. I
would never dream of challenging the thesis that a good grounding in
the ideas of the ancient Greeks and Romans is necessary in order to
understand modern political theory and philosophy of any sort. My
incomprehension arises from a failure to understand why an equally a
good grounding in the foundations of Hebrew, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist,
Taoist, and Confucian thought is not deemed at least as necessary for
the same purpose. But let us suppose for the sake of argument that no
such cultural parity obtains. And let us further suppose that owing
monotheism to the Jews, algebra to the Moslems, and gunpowder and the
printing press to the Chinese counts for nothing in the reckoning of
our cultural heritage; that in other words, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero,
and Tacitus have much more to tell us about who we are and where we
came from than the Torah, the Koran, the Vedas, or the Analects. But
is our education limited to knowing our nature and provenance -- or
should it also encompass an understanding of our future? For if we
are to have an adequate idea of where we are going, we shall require a
thorough grounding in cultures that compete with, or stand opposed to,
the material standing of our own culture, or the principles embodied
therein. More importantly yet, if we are to play a condign part in
deciding where we go, we shall require adequate means for dealing with
such cultures. But will your Graeco-Roman grounding prepare you for
that? or will you resort to insisting on your principle as validated
by classical antiquity, just as your cultural opposition insists on
the validation of theirs by the Torah, the Koran, the Vedas, or the
Analects?

Now, it is my contention that if the classical tradition teaches us
anything worthwhile, it is not the distinction between the Greek and
the barbarian, the Jew and gentile, the Moslem and the infidel, or the
Chinese and the gwailo; rather it is that the power of logos, rational
demonstration, applies across such distinctions, and consequently that
an education grounded in ethnic, religious, or cultural particularity
is necessarily deficient in instilling this power in its beneficiary.
And absent impartial power of reason, brute force is the only other
means of dealing with adversary who does not defer to your hereditary
premisses. As witnessed by the ongoing constitutional controversies,
this predicament arises as acutely in domestic issues as it does in
foreign affairs.

The choice is yours: make an issue of your genesis to fight with those
who do not share it; or make a stand on universal logos to reason with
them. But do not for a moment imagine that you can compel everybody
else to venerate your ethnic, religious, or cultural particularity at
the expense of forswearing theirs.

[Richard Rynar]

Who killed Homer?
I didn't know he is dead.
What will Bart and Lisa do?

Michael Zeleny wrote in message ...

MAJOR MAJOR SNIP

[T.H. Chance]

>In article <6fu6u5$hop$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, tma...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
>>In article <35212AD2...@wam.umd.edu>,
>> tlr...@wam.umd.edu wrote:

>> Can anybody recommend a book or article that
>>> puts forth a different (if not exactly opposing) view?
>>>

>>> Thanx
>>> TLR
>>>
>>
>Try Bernard Williams' book "Shame and Necessity", especially the first
>chapter titled "The Liberation of Antiquity". It is a very subtle discussion
>of our relationship to classical antiquity, steering a very reasonable course
>between the extreme camps.

By 'subtle' here, I understand the not-so-fine-art of straddling, at each
moment, every conceivable fence. By "a very reasonable course between the
extreme camps", I understand the persistent juggling of doxai in such a
manner as to stroke every member of his Oxbridge philoi. And it is not the
case that the book improved upon the living performance. Fortunately, this
time, I had the option, in part, not to attend.

For a different, if not exactly opposing view to the Heath/Hanson book,
see the publications of the APA, and anything to which they attach their
imprimatur.

thc

[Susan Young]

In article <6g0054$6rb$4...@nw003t.infi.net>, Ted Samsel

<te...@sl001.infi.net> wrote:

> ObBoyScientistBooks: Old "fun with chemistry" books from the turn of
> the century until paranoia set in. Make your own "acqua regia"
> and dissolve your Ma's jewelry. Or hydroflouric acid.

We have a few of those, cherished relics of my beloved's misspent youth.

> Back in my highschool days, there was always someone blowing
> a thumb off or an eye out with their chemistry set. Kids just
> don't know how to have fun anymore.

Tim and his brother burned up their mom's vaccuum cleaner trying to make a
perfect vaccuum...they'd forgotten that once they'd sucked all the air out
of the container, there wouldn't be any way of cooling the v.c. motor. Then
there was the time the brother burned half his clothes off while cooking up
some vicious kind of acid. Can't forget their rockets, which always blew up
on the launching pad, and were actually primitive pipe bombs. Those were
the days!

ObCatalogue: Loompanics

--
Susan

[Meg Worley]

Oklasusan writes:
>Can't forget their rockets, which always blew up
>on the launching pad, and were actually primitive pipe bombs. Those were
>the days!

Is there anyone here for whom this isn't true? I suppose Silke
might have been too cool in grade school to be a junior pyro,
but I just can't believe it of anyone else.

[T.H. Chance]

>Michael Zeleny <zel...@math.ucla.edu> writes:
>Now, it is my contention that if the classical tradition teaches us
>anything worthwhile, it is not the distinction between the Greek and
>the barbarian, the Jew and gentile, the Moslem and the infidel, or the
>Chinese and the gwailo; rather it is that the power of logos, rational
>demonstration, applies across such distinctions, and consequently that
>an education grounded in ethnic, religious, or cultural particularity
>is necessarily deficient in instilling this power in its beneficiary.
>And absent impartial power of reason, brute force is the only other

>means of dealing with an adversary who does not defer to your hereditary

>premisses. As witnessed by the ongoing constitutional controversies,
>this predicament arises as acutely in domestic issues as it does in
>foreign affairs.
>
>The choice is yours: make an issue of your genesis to fight with those
>who do not share it; or make a stand on universal logos to reason with
>them. But do not for a moment imagine that you can compel everybody
>else to venerate your ethnic, religious, or cultural particularity at
>the expense of forswearing theirs.

Atlee,

True to the classical tradition, Mikhail has guided you, in protreptic
fashion, to the crossroads. Indeed, the choice is yours.

Let me add that you can profit from remembering that to align yourself
with Reason and its attendant Logos is itself to relive the very essence
of the classical tradition. To Heraclitus, falls the honor of having seen
that the Logos is both Real and Xynon; and it was Plato and Aristotle who
gave to us the symbol of Nous for that luminous force which can, in
Pindar's word, forge our tongues on the anvil of Truth.

thc

[-Mammel,L.H.]

In article <6g0054$6rb$4...@nw003t.infi.net>,
Ted Samsel <te...@sl001.infi.net> wrote:
>

>: Chemistry is full of interesting etymology. Alcohol is
>: Al Kohol ( or something ) "spirit" of wine. A coinage of
>: Paracelsus, from what I learned.
>
>Paracelsus, hell! It's from the Arabic, as are alkali, cotton and alfalfa.

Right. That's where Paracelsus got it. Partington, in A SHORT
HISTORY OF CHEMISTRY says that he was the first to use the term
with its present meaning. My impression is that it was used
like "spirit" as in "spirits of turpentine" or "spirits of wine".

Paracelsus evidently dropped the attributive quality and
used it as a simple substance name. That's a nontrivial shift,
but if you think it doesn't qualify as a coinage, excuse me.

Lew Mammel, Jr.

[Puss in Boots]

"Atlee Parks" <at...@ou.edu>:

> ... To read

>Marx without having read Plato, to attempt Nietzsche without a familiarity
>with Aeschylus or Euripides, or even to explore the Bible without having at
>least a passing acquaintance with the Greek mystery rites is to deny

>yourself the richest experience of these texts ...

I used to go to a bookstore where the owner, a frustrated
academic, refused to sell books to anybody that he felt hadn't done
the required reading. One day I was browsing near the front, in
the new arrivals section, and I heard him arguing with a guy trying
to buy something by Searle. The would-be customer hadn't read
Austin, and the owner wouldn't ring up the sale.

> ... In following this discussion, I've been reminded rather strongly of

>Aristophanes' Thinkery, in that you seem much more concerned in arguing over
>fleas' footsteps than in discussing how to give us, your students, a better
>education than the hodgepodge we now receive -- a tendency, I might add,

>that seems to carry over into your classes! ...

An education isn't something that you receive: it's something
you acquire. But most teachers base their classes on just the
opposite assumption -- and it seems that like most students, you've
learned your lesson only too well. So agreed that you need a
better education. I suggest you stop waiting for somebody to _give_
you one, tho.

-- Moggin

[tejas]

-Mammel,L.H. wrote:
>
> In article <6g0054$6rb$4...@nw003t.infi.net>,
> Ted Samsel <te...@sl001.infi.net> wrote:
> >
> >: Chemistry is full of interesting etymology. Alcohol is
> >: Al Kohol ( or something ) "spirit" of wine. A coinage of
> >: Paracelsus, from what I learned.
> >
> >Paracelsus, hell! It's from the Arabic, as are alkali, cotton and alfalfa.
>
> Right. That's where Paracelsus got it.

At least I didn't mention Al Kaline of the Detroit Tigers...

Partington, in A SHORT
> HISTORY OF CHEMISTRY says that he was the first to use the term
> with its present meaning. My impression is that it was used
> like "spirit" as in "spirits of turpentine" or "spirits of wine".
>
> Paracelsus evidently dropped the attributive quality and
> used it as a simple substance name. That's a nontrivial shift,
> but if you think it doesn't qualify as a coinage, excuse me.

I meant no quibble, but that seems a bit like calling those klassic
GM/Ford vehicles El Caminos & Rancheros and forgetting that Spanish
exists.

But they do look nice with an appropriate set of cowhorns on the hood.

--
TBSa...@richmond.infi.net (also te...@infi.net)
'Do the boogie woogie in the South American way'
Hank Snow THE RHUMBA BOOGIE

[Richard Harter]

m...@Steam.Stanford.EDU (Meg Worley) wrote:

>Oklasusan writes:
>>Can't forget their rockets, which always blew up
>>on the launching pad, and were actually primitive pipe bombs. Those were
>>the days!

>Is there anyone here for whom this isn't true? I suppose Silke
>might have been too cool in grade school to be a junior pyro,
>but I just can't believe it of anyone else.

I never built any rockets; however I had friends who made nitroglycerin.
Does that count? Making nitro at home is not a cool thing to do or,
rather, it had better be cool if you want to keep all your bits and
pieces.

I am told that the SD School of Mines had the instructions for making
nitro in their chemistry lab books up until some time in the 40's. They
removed it when some amateur experimenter blew out the side of an ore
smelter.

Somehow I think we're drifting a bit from the classics. On the other
hand some of the Roman plays ...

ObBook: _The Ancient Engineers_

Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net, The Concord Research Institute
URL = http://www.tiac.net/users/cri, phone = 1-978-369-3911
Dear Josephine: I will be arriving home in three days.
Don't bathe. - Napoleon

[Jim Collier]

Susan Young wrote:

> Can't forget their rockets, which always blew up
> on the launching pad, and were actually primitive pipe bombs. Those were
> the days!
>

> ObCatalogue: Loompanics

I suspect many disastrous fires which originated in backyard
trash incinerators, which were legal around here until the
mid-1950s, were intentionally started by small boys who
didn't like having to take the trash out every night.

ObSong- Kurt Weill, "Saga of Jenny"

Jim Collier

[Lee.Goddard]

On 2 Apr 1998 22:09:20 -0800 m...@Steam.Stanford.EDU (Meg Worley) posted article
<6g1ueg$a...@Steam.Stanford.EDU> to rec.arts.books:

Oklasusan writes:
>Can't forget their rockets, which always blew up
>on the launching pad, and were actually primitive pipe bombs. Those were
>the days!

Is there anyone here for whom this isn't true? I suppose Silke

might have been too cool in grade school to be a junior pyro,
but I just can't believe it of anyone else.

Oh I'm still doing it, but then I'm still a kid ('til I reach sixty at least).
New fun, now I'm tired of the Anarchist Cookbook, is WinNuke, and keeping a list
of schmucks phone numbers on the clipboard when surfing the dodgy software sites
c/o alt.2600.*.

Of course, I just do it to get caught: you reckon the authorities read here? You
reckon they read?

ObBook: Iain Banks, THE WASP FACTORY

[Ron Hardin]

T.H. Chance wrote:
> Let me add that you can profit from remembering that to align yourself
> with Reason and its attendant Logos is itself to relive the very essence
> of the classical tradition. To Heraclitus, falls the honor of having seen
> that the Logos is both Real and Xynon; and it was Plato and Aristotle who
> gave to us the symbol of Nous for that luminous force which can, in
> Pindar's word, forge our tongues on the anvil of Truth.

I myself have always wondered about the part in the Rhetoric,

The epithets that we apply, too, may have a bad and ugly aspect, as when
Orestes is called a ``mother-slayer''; or a better one, as when he is called
his ``father's avenger.'' Simonides, when the victor in the mule-race
offered him a small fee, refused to write him an ode, because, he said,
it was so unpleasant to write odes to half-asses; but on receiving an
adequate fee, he wrote
Hail to you, daughters of storm-footed steeds,
though of course they were daughters of asses too.

1405b
--
Ron Hardin
r...@research.att.com

On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

[Gavin Steyn]

Robert Ramirez wrote in message <3523FA...@bellsouth.net>...

>If you cannot accept this argument, then let us examine what you do
>accept. Does competence in classical languages enable a *lesser* degree
>of subtlty? A *comparable* degree? Please let us know which of these
>positions you are prepared to argue.

Everyone in this argument seems to accept this as a given. I really don't
see
that there's a clear connection between the two. I've studied Latin (and
enjoyed
it), but I don't believe that it improved my English one whit. Certainly
I've read
papers by professors of the classics which were downright impenetrable and
contained some really ugly writing. And, OTOH, I'm not particularly
convinced
that every one of the writers whose English I consider beautiful has studied
Greek and Latin. (Peter Beagle, CormacMcCarthy, and so on).

>Please inform yourself of the difference between analogy and metaphor.
>(Competence in classical languages makes this easier to do.)

Well, the easiest way is just to learn the different rhetorical devces,
rather
than taking several years to learn a new language to know the difference
between metonomy and anaphora.

>Although I know little of musical theory, I
>do know that Pythagoras and other ancients had a thing or two to say
>about harmony. I would be very surprised to learn that Bach and
>Handel's extensive knowledge in theories of harmony had not introduced
>them at some point to Pythagorean theory.

I would be incredibly surprised if they had. Pythogorean harmony has very
litle
to do with the 12-tone msuical system already in place by the Baroque. For
Bach to read Pythagoras on harmony would be like a physicist reading
Aristotle's
_Physics_.

> I doubt not at all that the
>great Baroque composers employed a musical grammar, recognizable to the
>educated, that made use of tonal concepts first enunciated in
>antiquity.

This is just laughable. The whole system of tonalities (on which Western
music is based) did not exist in Greek times.

> To the extent that they did so, I think I could clearly
>enter into a more intimate appreciation of their compositions if I too
>had a familiarity with those concepts.

To relate this back to the topic at hand: If I wished to learn the music
theory of Handel and Bach, I would not go running off to spend 4 years
learning Latin andGreek so that I could read Pythagoras. Instead,
I would pick up Fux's work on harmony which was the basis oftheir
musical educations. Similarly, if I wished to uswords as skillfully as
Cormac McCarthy (if such a skill can even be learned), I would simply
read and study his works, not make an end run by studying Greek and
Latin.

Gavin

[you...@ionet.net]

In article <6g1ueg$a...@Steam.Stanford.EDU>,

m...@Steam.Stanford.EDU (Meg Worley) wrote:
>
> Oklasusan writes:
> >Can't forget their rockets, which always blew up
> >on the launching pad, and were actually primitive pipe bombs. Those were
> >the days!
>
> Is there anyone here for whom this isn't true? I suppose Silke
> might have been too cool in grade school to be a junior pyro,
> but I just can't believe it of anyone else.
>

I didn't do chemistry. My favorite method of near-self-destruction in my youth
was combining wheels and excessive rates of speed. Spectacular roller skate,
skateboard, bicycle, and automotive crashes were my specialty. I also had a
nice sideline in dumb and dangerous water-skiing antics.

ObMovie: Heart Like a Wheel

-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading

[Richard A. Schulman]

On Fri, 3 Apr 1998 06:57:00 -0500, "Gavin Steyn"
<ma...@JUNKprime-x.net> wrote:

>Similarly, if I wished to uswords as skillfully as
>Cormac McCarthy (if such a skill can even be learned), I would simply
>read and study his works, not make an end run by studying Greek and
>Latin.

I'm not familiar with the writer you mention. But most of the great
European writers through the early 20th c. were well read in the Greek
and Latin classics -- as often as not in the original. The classical
knowledge shows up in many ways in their writings -- subject matter,
genres, rhetorical structures, and word sense.

The writers in question can be read by readers lacking that classical
background, but the readings are necessarily more superficial than
would otherwise be the case.

Incidentally, one problem I have with poetry written since the
Pound-Eliot generation is that so much of it is tin-eared and prosaic.
I won't say that Greek and Latin meters are the only way to train a
poet's metrical sense, but it certainly helps.

Richard
---
To email me, remove the "XYZ"

[Richard A. Schulman]

Zeleny:
>Logos...Sum id quod sum....Cogito ergo sum....Sum

> id quod sum et id totum est quod sum.

Res ipsa loquitur.

[Ron Hardin]

Richard A. Schulman wrote:
> Incidentally, one problem I have with poetry written since the
> Pound-Eliot generation is that so much of it is tin-eared and prosaic.
> I won't say that Greek and Latin meters are the only way to train a
> poet's metrical sense, but it certainly helps.

I stopped by my mom as she lay
And asked how she's doing today
She said with a sigh
I am sick I must die
Timor mortis conturbat me

[Ron Hardin]

you...@ionet.net wrote:
> I didn't do chemistry. My favorite method of near-self-destruction in my youth
> was combining wheels and excessive rates of speed. Spectacular roller skate,
> skateboard, bicycle, and automotive crashes were my specialty. I also had a
> nice sideline in dumb and dangerous water-skiing antics.
>
> ObMovie: Heart Like a Wheel

ObSecondMcGarrigle: The Bike Song, Matapedia album

[Ted Samsel]

In rec.arts.books Ron Hardin <r...@research.att.com> wrote:

: you...@ionet.net wrote:
: > I didn't do chemistry. My favorite method of near-self-destruction in my youth
: > was combining wheels and excessive rates of speed. Spectacular roller skate,
: > skateboard, bicycle, and automotive crashes were my specialty. I also had a
: > nice sideline in dumb and dangerous water-skiing antics.
: >
: > ObMovie: Heart Like a Wheel

: ObSecondMcGarrigle: The Bike Song, Matapedia album

Nothing about Melanie's brand-new rollerskates?

But there's nothing like putting a large cardboard box over one's
self while sitting in a coaster wagon and pushing off to go downhill
to eventually cross the road. It gives the motorists quite a start
to see a cardboard box pop out of the mesquite and prickly-pear
cactus in front of their field of vision.

Go Speed Racer.

--
Ted Samsel....tejas@infi.net (or tbsa...@richmond.infi.net)
"do the boogie woogie in the South American way"
Rhumba Boogie- Hank Snow (1955)

[tlrkirk]

Well, of course I will form my own opinion as I read it, but I'm not going to go
out and read every survey and report that (I assume) they studied to write the
book. I realize, however, that the same numbers and statistics can by massaged by
poeple with opposing viewpoints to support each of their claims. What I would
like to do is read Hansen and Heath's book, then read another book that draws
different conclusions and then use both those books to come to my own opinion
which would be more informed than if it were based on my reaction to only one
book.

Meg Worley wrote:

> TLR writes:
> >Does anybody have anything to say about Paglia's review and/or Hansen and
> >Heath's book? I'm going to get the book and hopefully I'll have time to read
> >it soon (after graduation, like everything else). I'm worried that I'll get
> >only one (biased) viewpoint. Can anybody recommend a book or article that

> >puts forth a different (if not exactly opposing) view?
>

> I have a better idea: Why don't you read it & come up with your
> own opinion? Then try it out on friends & foes, see how sharp
> it is; realign the blade as necessary.

[David E Latane]

On Fri, 3 Apr 1998, Richard A. Schulman wrote:

> Zeleny:
> >Logos...Sum id quod sum....Cogito ergo sum....Sum

> > id quod sum et id totum est quod sum.
>

> Res ipsa loquitur.
>
> Richard
> ---

> To email me, remove the "XYZ"
>

res ista loquitur, si rogas me.

D. Latane

[yoda...@chelm.cs.nmt.edu]

On Thu, 2 Apr 1998 06:06:11 -0000, Atlee Parks <at...@ou.edu> wrote:
>As a senior Greek major at the Univ. of Oklahoma, perhaps I'm wading in over
>my head here, having neither a PhD nor immediate plans to acquire one, but I
>would like to remind Mr. Zeleny that a thorough study of one's own
>constitution, including its evolution from ancient sources, is essential for
>anyone who wishes to call himself an educated person. This is something

That's an assertion for which I see no evidence. One can make a much
better case that if you have not studied Letter from a Birmingham Jail
and the works of Frederick Taylor, to name just two, you are not an
educated American citizen. The US constitution derives some from
"Classical" sources, but even in Jefferson you see a lot of non-classical
thought and things have changed in the last couple of hundred years. As
Try explaining the meaning of the commerce clause through classical sources.

>level, yet a good grounding in the Greeks and Romans is necessary in order

>to understand modern political theory and philosophy of any sort. To read

>Marx without having read Plato, to attempt Nietzsche without a familiarity
>with Aeschylus or Euripides, or even to explore the Bible without having at
>least a passing acquaintance with the Greek mystery rites is to deny

One can easily, and with much more justification, argue that you can't explore
the Bible without a strong grounding in Talmud, a familiarity with Aramaic,
Hebrew, and Egyptian, and an understanding of modern archeology.

>Like it or
>not, Mr. Zeleny, we are citizens of the western world, and the Greeks and
>Romans have much more to tell us about who we are and where we came from
>than the Koran. Furthermore, I should hope that Mr. Zeleny feels that

Like it or not, we are citizens of the soup of all cultures. The influence
of African-Americans on American culture and language
in the 20th century is far more profound than the hypothetical influence
of the Romans. Is it really more important for American citizens to
read Aristotle on natural slavery than to read King or Dubois or even
Cornell West?

>Or perhaps I am mistaken and a
>solid and well-integrated education is merely a technique for furthering the
>innate moral superiority of the Aryan race (and here I take the liberty of

Circular reasoning. What's a solid and well-integrated education? Is it
the 19th century selection of worthwhile classical texts or is it something
else? It might interest you to compare your notion of "classics" with
Jefferson's recommended reading list for his nephew: A whole lot of
math and science and natural history, a couple of Greeks and Romans, some
practical engineering skills, some modern political thinkers. An updated
version of Old Thom's reading list would be a far better start for a
classical American education than a warmed over version of what was hip at
Edwardian Eton.

[Michael Zeleny]

On Fri, 3 Apr 1998, Richard A. Schulman wrote:

> Zeleny:
> >Logos...Sum id quod sum....Cogito ergo sum....Sum

> > id quod sum et id totum est quod sum.

> Res ipsa loquitur.

Indeed. A translation from Hebrew scripture, the liminary thesis of
modern philosophy, and a back formation from an American comic strip
yield impeccable logos for privileging classical Graeco-Roman culture.

Richard's thoughtfulness knows no bounds.

[Richard M. Alderson III]

There doesn't seem to be anything of Classics, narrowly or broadly construed,
in this thread. Please edit your follow-up headers, and leave us out!
--
Rich Alderson You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary
of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philo-
logists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they
know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning
as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or
what not.
--J. R. R. Tolkien,
alde...@netcom.com _The Notion Club Papers_

[Joe Bernstein]

In article <352416...@bellsouth.net>,
Robert Ramirez <bram...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> Moiner wrote:

[and thus back and forth]

[Ramirez]

> > > > >There is no way in which subtlety of expression can be
> > > > >communicated in English without competence in classical
> > > > >languages. Period. Paragraph.

[Ramirez again, asked to confirm he meant it]

> Yep.

You must have a truly remarkable definition of "subtlety". Well,
either that or you were just out to insult the vast majority of
your readers in two newsgroups. I should, in fact, not assume
that the majority of rec.arts.books' readers lack Greek and Latin,
since I don't read the group, but after over two years of reading
*.classics I do certainly doubt that the majority of its readers
would claim "competence" in the subject languages. The challenge
of translation from Latin often elicits cries of "Oops!" from them,
in fact.

In any case, you certainly succeeded in insulting me. Then again,
that must have been the "subtlety" you sought.

I can certainly tell you that the shrill insistence, on the part of
some readers of this group, that I will remain essentially subliterate
until I learn their chosen languages, has gone very far to aid me in
my conscious decision not to learn Latin at this time in my life,
despite a number of reasons which tempt me to change that decision.
Congratulations on contributing to this collective rhetorical success.

> What's the diff? My comments about subtlety of expression were
> addressed to readers of the humanities.classics ng, an audience that by
> and large inhabits the pointy end of the language-skills pyramid.

Yep. Reading knowledge of French and Spanish, occasionally extensible
to short passages of writing or other Romance languages, and rather
less knowledge of German, in my case. And, in fact, recent experience
with German has helped to confirm for me that the sort of "sophistication"
an earlier controverted post asserted was only possible with Greek and
Latin is real; there is a sort of harmony possible in German usage,
through German's immense array of near-synonyms formed by combining
different prepositions with a given root verb, which appears to be a
parallel, and probably a consciously designed parallel (given the history
of German), to the sort of root-harmonising described in this thread.

But of course, being incapable of *this* form of subtlety due to my
lack of Greek and Latin (not to mention Proto-Indo-European), I should
keep my subliterate observations to myself, no?

[Moiner]
> > Thank you for reminding us of the other thing that "kills" Classics--
> > the ugliness of spirit that altogher too often infects those I am
> > ashamed to see playing its champions.

[Ramirez]
> You are mistaken if you think I have the power to kill Classics, or even
> to harm the smallest hair on its head.

Would T. Chance care to argue this point, given his recently stated
interest in the role of individuals in the decline of the field?

At any rate, no, you individually don't keep me from learning Latin.
I'm working on a history of [a part of] world literature, and though
Latin would open many doors for me (for example via the translations in
the <Patrologia Syriaca>), Japanese, Persian and Russian would do the same,
while arguments for the languages with more substantial literatures in
their own right (respectively Greek, Chinese, Arabic and, well, Russian)
would be nearly as strong. Since the bulk of my history is in fact
concerned with material I can already read in the original, let alone
what translations make accessible to me, I can't justify the cost of
one additional language, and therefore choose not to justify the cost
of any. But in weeks like this one, when I confront just how much I
thus cannot read in any way, it really helps to have concerned individuals
like you encouraging me not to harm Classics by participating more actively
in its study.

Do remind me to path-alias bellsouth.net out when posting more
substantive articles here. I wouldn't want to harm you or anything,
by exposing you to unsubtlety.

Joe Bernstein

--
Joe Bernstein, writer and bookseller http://www.tezcat.com/~josephb/
Speaking for myself alone j...@sfbooks.com jos...@tezcat.com

[Joe Bernstein]

The inclusion of soc.culture.jewish in this subthread boggles my mind,
but I'm not dropping it from followups because one of my points turns
out to be on-topic there (or so I would presume). Please adjust
newsgroup lines according to the topic of *your* followup, and if you
omit humanities.classics, but want me to see it, e-mail me a copy.

In article <Pine.SOL.3.96.980402...@oak.math.ucla.edu>,
Michael Zeleny <zel...@math.ucla.edu> wrote:

> Atlee Parks <at...@ou.edu> wrote:

> >To read
> >Marx without having read Plato, to attempt Nietzsche without a familiarity
> >with Aeschylus or Euripides, or even to explore the Bible without having at
> >least a passing acquaintance with the Greek mystery rites is to deny

> >yourself the richest experience of these texts -- and is this not precisely
> >what honors students attend the university for?

Hum. The first two went by me in peace. I read the Communist Manifesto
in six successive years of school, learning something each time; indeed
it was only in the last that I saw anything of value in it, and became
impatient with my history teacher's dogged insistence on pointing out
logical flaws already five years familiar to me. Plato certainly helped
in readings five and six, yes. I haven't read Nietzsche on tragedy but
would be astonished if in fact the Greek tragedies were not necessary
starting points, rather more directly than Plato for Marx.

But Greek mystery rites for the Bible?

Well, you do backtrack pretty fast: denying oneself "the richest
experience" is hardly condemning oneself to total incomprehension,
after all. But I'm at a loss to understand how one is to gain more
in reading the Bible from the scanty remnants of information about the
Greek mysteries than from any number of other possible sources. In
particular, I find my reading of the Bible immeasurably enriched by
an acquaintance (albeit in translation) with the poetry of Ugarit, the
wisdom and narrative literatures of Egypt, and above all the writings of
Assyria, from epic poetry to prosaic treaties. I simply fail to
understand how Apuleius can compete.

Oh, or did you mean by "Bible", in fact, "New Testament"? Oh. Then
I sort of understand. Well, maybe. I think. Though I remain reluctant
to *agree*... Which is not my take on this next remark:

> >The Greeks and Romans are a far better
> >starting point for students who have never been taught to care about the
> >past at all and thus have little concern for the present and less still for
> >the future.

[oh, I'm doing a whole lot of snipping here, can you tell?]

> as citizens of the western world, we are said
> to incur a special intellectual debt to ancient Greeks and Romans. I
> would never dream of challenging the thesis that a good grounding in
> the ideas of the ancient Greeks and Romans is necessary in order to
> understand modern political theory and philosophy of any sort. My
> incomprehension arises from a failure to understand why an equally a
> good grounding in the foundations of Hebrew, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist,
> Taoist, and Confucian thought is not deemed at least as necessary for
> the same purpose.

To what extent do modern political theories and philosophies derive
from Taoist or Buddhist grounds? Are there philosophies worthy of
more than strictly local attention, and modern, deriving from Hinduism?
(Well, yes, I should consider Gandhi as modern. OK.) Confucian, Muslim
and Hebrew (with qualms about that last) I'll concede without argument.

> that in other words, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero,
> and Tacitus have much more to tell us about who we are and where we
> came from than the Torah, the Koran, the Vedas, or the Analects. But
> is our education limited to knowing our nature and provenance -- or
> should it also encompass an understanding of our future?

Ah, but this is one etymological game even I can play. What then
does "education" mean?

I should think that if nothing else, one begins in leading students
out of the cave by calling their attention to the interesting features
of the rock to be seen near the exit. While no doubt the sun is a
dazzling and wonderful thing, to one who has never seen it, it can
be terrifying. Personally, I can say that I consider my intellectual
equipment fairly decent, but I nevertheless alternate, in reading the
Upanishads, between dazed incomprehension and dismayed confusion. It
will take me a lot longer to *start* with them (despite the ease with
which I skim the Rgveda or reject the Atharvaveda - which Vedas did you
*mean* exactly?) than it has taken me to get where I am with the Greek
and Latin pagan classics.

I've seen the sun, and would like someday to check it out further
despite considerable fear of sunburns. In the meantime, I'm still
busy with the moss and stuff near the exit. I'm really not convinced
that education should *begin* with transplantation, and think it's a
case you'll still have to make.

Yes, of course I recognise that in your case (as indeed in mine and,
I would controversially argue, in any American's) the Hebrew tradition
stands alongside the Greek and Latin in the rock of that cave; as
other traditions in other students' backgrounds. But I still suspect
that even now, the majority of American students have no such personal
exception to the general rule.

Joe Bernstein
noting, by the way, that the Gathas of Zoroaster, undoubtedly that
tradition's proudest heritage, exist in four English translations,
which agree on almost nothing. Shall all students learn Avestan
to read them?

[T.H. Chance]

>In article <3524CA...@research.att.com>, Ron Hardin

Do you see the problem, Atlee? How does one discern, especially if one is
young, the difference between the original and the image, between the
genuine article and the fraudulent imitator. You may be disturbed by the
arguments of, say, Schulman or Zeleny (I know tlrkirk is). But with
Richard and Mikhail, at least, you encounter serious thinkers who are
trying, in so far as they can, to articulate the truth. They made their
choice, and you can learn from them, even if you are disturbed by their
positions or argumentative style.

Now Ron Hardin, too, has made a choice. He has chosen to indulge in that
popular form of maggotry known as deconstruction. Characteristic of this
neoteric is that he has no protreptic intention at all; that is, unlike
Zeleny, he can't guide you anywhere. All he knows how to do is play games,
sideswipe serious interlocutors, misdirect the understanding,
intentionally obfuscate, and lurk, like some bottom feeder, on the margins
of discourse.

Do you think for a moment that, overcome by thauma, Ron Hardin wants to
engage in a serious discussion of Aristotle's Rhetoric or, for that
matter, of any text of Aristotle? Do think that he possesses the paideia
for such an inquiry? Do you suppose that he or an other member of this
postmodern chorus of drunken revelers has any knowledge of Greek and
Latin? any knowledge of Homer?

thc

[T.H. Chance]

In article <6g493m$b...@huitzilo.tezcat.com>, jos...@tezcat.com (Joe
Bernstein) wrote:

>In article <352416...@bellsouth.net>,
>Robert Ramirez <bram...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>[Moiner]
>> > Thank you for reminding us of the other thing that "kills" Classics--
>> > the ugliness of spirit that altogher too often infects those I am
>> > ashamed to see playing its champions.
>
>[Ramirez]
>> You are mistaken if you think I have the power to kill Classics, or even
>> to harm the smallest hair on its head.
>
>Would T. Chance care to argue this point, given his recently stated
>interest in the role of individuals in the decline of the field?

From my brief study of his writing, Joe, I would have to agree. Far from
harming the Classics, Mr. Ramirez is proving to be a BoEthos tO logO.

thc