January 7, 2011 at 2:01 P.M. "Errors" inserted since my previous review of this work were corrected today, until next time. The continuing disregard for legality in these censorship efforts says much about America today.
September 28, 2010 at 10:15 A.M. "Errors" inserted and corrected since my previous review of this work. ("New Jersey's Politically Connected Lawyers on the Tit.")
May 5, 2010 at 9:45 A.M. "Errors" were inserted, again, in this essay which had been left alone for a while. I have made all corrections. Richard Perez-Pena, "Christie, Shunning Precedent, Drops Justice From Court," in The New York Times, May 4, 2010, at p. A22: " ... the state's back-scratching, free-spending political culture ... [New Jersey Supreme Court legislating] required more state financing of low-income school districts, mandated construction of affordable housing, struck down a state law requiring parental notification for minors seeking abortions and allowed Democrats to make an 11th-hour candidate substitution in a hotly contested race for the Senate." ("Is Senator Bob 'For' Human Rights?")
December 21, 2009 at 6:10 P.M. Numerous "errors" inserted in writings as part of the continuing cyberwars. I hope to correct all of them soon.
November 1, 2009 at 12:48 P.M. "Error" inserted and corrected.
October 24, 2009 at 9:10 A.M. James C. McKinley, Jr., "Vast Drug Case Tries to Disrupt Cultlike Cartel," in The New York Times, October 23, 2009, at p. A1. An international drug cartel -- with a solid center of operations in Los Angeles, Miami, New Jersey/New York -- and with a great deal of political protection from corrupt politicians and their lawyers doing money laundering has suffered a major blow: $38 MILLION in U.S. currency, perhaps an equally large sum in other currencies (not mentioned in U.S. media), large amounts of drugs and "other contraband" (Rolex watches?) as well as weapons have been seized. Are you sweating Senator Bob? There is more to come. ("Is Senator Menendez a Suspect in Mafia-Political Murder in New Jersey?" and "Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?")
Allegations of a connection between this drug ring, hired attorneys in America, and a teen-porn as well as child-prostitution "service" can neither be confirmed nor denied, at this time. ("We don't know from nothing" and "New Jersey-Based Prostitution Ring Gets Spitzer.")
Just like delivering pizza, right boys? I will spend the rest of my life going after you low lifes in New Jersey. The investigation is on-going, reputedly and allegedly. ("Another Mafia Sweep in New Jersey and Anne Milgram is Clueless" then "new Jersey's child Sex Industry.")
October 23, 2009 at 8:50 A.M. "Errors" inserted and corrected. This is called "public censorship." My security system is semi-functional. I do not know how helpful it is, but it must be better than nothing. A "Live Update Notice" for my security system has appeared on my screen, as an irremovable icon, despite the automatic update feature of my security system. I received a notice that "Blogger cookies" were disabled at my computer. I wonder what that means?
October 18, 2009 at 3:39 P.M. The red notice on my security system cannot be removed at this time. A notice appeared on my security system "ERROR LOADING Run DLL C:WINDOWS/ivguwinvwese.dll" A second such notice also appeared, but I was unable to note the information. As best I can determine, the second notice reads: "ERROR LOADING Run DLL: C:WINDOWS/cfilososes.dll" Miami? Univision? Cuban American National Foundation?
October 18, 2009 at 2:48 P.M. My security system was disabled and is no longer functional. This will allow for insertions of "errors" in all of my writings, together with further defacements of texts in the days and weeks ahead. Restarting my computer has not helped. I will continue to struggle to restore my security system.
October 18, 2009 at 10:38 A.M. Another wave of attacks against this essay, more corrections. $2,500 for a 14 year-old is the rumor on the street, right Bobby? ("Fidel Castro's 'History Will Absolve Me'" and "Is Union City, New Jersey Meyer Lansky's Whore House?")
October 18, 2009 at 9:34 A.M. New "errors" inserted and corrected. Letters have been added to words that appeared, correctly, before last night. I wonder what could have happened? I believe that I have now made all necessary corrections. This is the sort of experience that can give one a migraine headache. Any and all media scrutiny is most welcome. Tell your friends about this interesting situation. ("Is Menendez For sale?" and "Senator Bob, the Babe, and the Big Bucks.")
October 17, 2009 at 9:44 A.M. Only a few "errors" inserted since this essay was first posted last night.
Primary Sources:
Martha C. Nussbaum, "The Passion Fashion," in The New Republic, September 23, 2009, at p. 43.
Cristina Nehring, A Vindication of Love: Reclaiming Romance for the Twenty-First Century (New York: Harper, 2009).
Secondary Sources:
Martha C. Nussbaum, "Plato on Commesurability and Desire," in Love's Knowledge (New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 106-124. (Nussbaum contra Nussbaum.)
Robert C. Solomon, About Love: Reinventing Romance for Our Times (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989), entirety.
Iris Murdoch, especially "The Idea of Perfection" and "On God and Good," in Existentialists and Mystics (London & New York: Penguin, 1997), pp. 297-363, and entirety. (Please see my essay, "Martha Nussbaum and Iris Murdoch on The Philosophy of Love.")
Plato, The Phaedrus and Letters VII and VIII (New York & London: Penguin, 1986).
Plato, The Symposium, any edition.
David Hoy, "Jacques Derrida," in Quentin Skinner, ed., The Return of Grand Theory in the Human Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 41-65.
Karl Jaspers, Plato and Augustine (New York: Harcourt Brace & World, 1962). (Edited by Hannah Arendt.)
Ovid, The Art of Love (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1957).
Allan Bloom, Love and Friendship (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993).
Jean-Luc Marion, The Erotic Phenomenon (Chicago & London: University of Chicago, 2003).
I.
I have been surprised by the number of articles appearing in elite publications -- like The New Republic -- attributed to well-known and respected scholars, such as Professor Nussbaum, containing discussions and blunders that are impossible to attribute to their ostensible authors. This article to which I will now turn my attention and a recent essay dealing with China's politics, said to be by Leon Wieseltier, are good examples of articles that could not have been written, exclusively, by these two authors whose works usually reveal subtle, learned, and profound minds, not the sort of temperament(s) disclosed by alterations of their texts which are, obviously, the work of much lesser intellects and writers. ("Incoherence in 'The New York Times'" and "Incoherence in 'The New Yorker'" then "David Denby is Not Amused.")
Whoever is inserting these screeds in thoughtful articles by respected writers is not doing them (or readers of The New Yorker and The New Republic) any favors. Andres Openheimer? Please do not tamper with the work of people writing serious philosophical essays or analytical attempts at understanding our political situation. We need the thoughts of such people to clarify our own thinking on weighty matters.
Is it possible that the persons vandalizing these articles appearing in U.S. media are also tampering with my writings? If so, then I am highly flattered. ("What is it like to be plagiarized?" and "How Censorship Works in America.")
Nussbaum and Wieseltier are hurt by these insertions in their writings (so am I) whoever is responsible for them.
Mr. Wieseltier would never make the crude charge that we are "superior" to China because we are better morally or when it comes to human rights. We may have a better human rights record than other countries. We may have a worse record in other respects. We may learn from others in any range of matters, including learning from others distant from our achievements in key areas of human endeavor and moral struggle just as they may learn from us. This humility is only common sense. ("Why do they hate us?")
The subtlety and qualifications that one has come to expect from serious thinkers, like Wieseltier and Nussbaum, as well as the learning normally on display in their prose vanishes when this ghostly "politically correct" editor appears with a fortune cookie-like gem to place in their polished sentences like a turd in Christmas wrappings. This altering of texts seems like the "work" of the Cubanazos. ("Manohla Dargis Strikes Again!" and "What is it like to be plagiarized?" then "The Heidegger Controversy.")
I wonder whether Senator Menendez can illuminate this situation with his unrivaled wisdom? Carlos Gutierrez? It is embarrassing for Cuban-Americans to be associated with such "stupid imbecility" (in the words of Mr. Lesniak) and fascist tactics. It is bad enough that you Miami "Batistoides" are members of my ethnic group, but do you have to be illiterates? Take a college course or something, for God's sake, and not at Dade Community College or the University of Miami. Try the "Teaching Company." I find it difficult to believe that anyone can be called "Jean-Paul Rathbone." Some creativity in developing pseudonyms is expected in the future: "Vivien Schweitzer"? "Carlotta Gall"? "Ashley Parker"?
In a review of a new book by Cristina Nehring (a book I intend to read) Professor Nussbaum makes statements that are, to put it politely, in tension with Nussbaum's own previously published celebrations of love and appreciations of the profundity of the Romantic intoxication. There are surprises in this review -- such as the attribution of Plato's theory of love to the Phaedrus, without quotation and further discussion -- when, as a classicist who has written on this very theme -- Nussbaum has discussed and lived the opposed wisdom concerning love expressed by Diotima and found in Plato's Symposium. ("The Allegory of the Cave.")
The famous "charioteer analogy" in the Phaedrus refers to the powers of the body (passions) as against the faculties of the mind (intellect), mental powers that yield access to the forms or "essences." Argument that appeals to the emotions (masses) is contrasted with arguments appealing to the few, philosopher kings in the Republic, i.e., intellectuals.
For the key developments and revisions of these ideas turn to the "Athenian Stranger" in the Laws. Roger Scruton's "Xanthippic" dialogues explore powerful criticisms of the Platonic theory in light of Aristotelean, empirical, phenomenological, and (curiously for Scruton!) feminist scholarship.
This sudden transformation of Martha Nussbaum is most strange. I cannot believe that Ms. Nussbaum would fail to know which of Plato's dialogues contains his theory of love as "eros."
We begin with a genuine sample of Nussbaum's appreciation of eros:
"For love is not just wonderful in itself, it is also a source of energy for the rest of life's activities -- particularly, perhaps, for artistic and intellectual creativity. And it is a source of insight, leading us to see ourselves and others with more generous and accurate eyes. [emphasis added] (Here Nehring draws persuasively on Plato's Phaedrus.) [?] In sum, love makes the entire person come alive -- but only if it is pursued with sufficient openness and daring that it brings with it a constant danger of pain and loss." (p. 43.)
I thought Phaedrus was concerned with rhetoric. In fact, Walter Hamilton of Oxford University and other scholars have CONTRASTED Socrates in the Phaedrus with the view of love attributed to the fictitious poet Diotima in The Symposium: "This serves to diminish our sense of the incongruousness of such a speech in the mouth of Socrates whom we know, just as in the Symposium a similar effect is achieved by ascribing to the fictitious wise woman Diotima the culminating account of the nature and function of love." (Hamilton, Introduction and translation of Phaedrus, pp. 11-12, in the Penguin books edition.)
"[Derrida] finds another important case of undecidability in Plato's attack on writing in the Phaedrus (Derrida 1981a; see Hoy 1982a). However marginal and trivial the example may seem, Derrida's reading implies that since the example occurs at the beginning of the history of philosophy, it is decisive for Western thought." (Hoy, "Derrida," p. 58.)
"Undecidability" [sic.] and the rhetoric of philosophy are questions that focus on Derrida's attempt to replace epistemology with hermeneutics not bearing on any theory of the existence or contents of truth. The Phaedrus is not -- primarily or at all! -- an exposition of Plato's influential philosophy of love, on Derrida's reading, but a discussion of LANGUAGE, knowledge and persuasion. ("What is Enlightenment?" and "Derek Parfit's Ethics.")
To suggest that a respected scholar, like Ms. Nussbaum, would not know the difference between these dialogues is absurd to those who know Professor Nussbaum's work, but not to strangers to her writings who will wonder about the author's competence as a scholar. This error damages Ms. Nussbaum's reputation and the prestige of an important and serious American publication, aside from the violations of First Amendment rights. ("Ought implies can.")
Perhaps Ms. Nussbaum and TNR may be regarded as "collateral damage," like children in Pakistani villages killed by drones? Or children in America's best colleges who are so "easily manipulated"? Nothing to worry about. I am not so sure about this alleged "ease" in manipulating America's brightest young people. (Compare "Whatever!" with "Nihilists in Disneyworld.")
People who know my writings are witnesses to the daily alterations and defacements of these texts. They are, similarly, horrified by what is being done to the Constitution of the United States of America -- with the cooperation of U.S. public officials! -- as men and women are dying for the freedoms guaranteed in that document that New Jersey has seen fit to use as toilet paper. Things will only get weirder as we go down this rabbit hole:
"The smallness of aspiration against which Nietzsche inveighed in his portrait of 'the last man' is not, as he suggested, a recent creation of bourgeois European Christianity. It is a pervasive inclination of ordinary human life." (p. 43.)
How strange that Professor Nussbaum's historical sense should desert her? "Ordinary life," the experience of a dull normality, is itself a product of the modern world (hence, Nietzsche's point) which arrived with the doubtful "success" of the middle classes. Boring, old ordinary life before Modernity meant being a serf or slave, probably getting killed in a religious war, perhaps the experience of being burned alive at the stake as a witch if one displayed a slight interest in medicine, as a woman, or (heaven forbid!) the desire to learn to read. Maybe "ordinary life" ain't so bad, Friedrich, since it may leave us with a little time for passionate love-making. Nussbaum attributes the following theme to Nehring's book:
"Her central thesis is really two distinct arguments, one sensible and wise, the other adolescent and silly. [Would Nussbaum say this about a fellow scholar's work?] The wise thesis is that one should be willing to incur risk for the sake of a deep and valuable love. This advice may not be for everyone, but for those who have the strength to live that way, [what way? "adolescent and silly"?] such a life does, as she says with Plato [,] promise great rewards -- even when, as often happens, the love turns out to involve reversal or some other type of suffering. (There is always death at the end of even the happiest love)." (p. 44.)
The annoying thing about death is that it comes to those who love and also to those who don't have time for love as they have meetings to attend. At least lovers can claim to have experienced a little "nookie-nookie" before the last bugle calls. As Professor Nussbaum would say: "You ain't kidding!"
We live in an age of something called "Torts." People are sued for any harm that they cause, even in some extreme cases for harms suffered by others which they have not caused and for which they are not to blame. This is based on societal decisions concerning the allocation of risks and harms, as with the vast and lucrative (for lawyers) "products liability field." We are cautious. We are careful. We listen to our mothers.
Odysseus would be appalled by our "fallen" condition. We refrain from killing strangers. We avoid torturing Trojans (not Arabs or Iraquis, of course) in our wimpy regard for their so-called "rights." Sparta is weeping for us. We feel less intensely, or not at all, because we "enjoy" these absurdly long "lives" without passion. As Plato would have said: "What the hell is wrong with you people?"
This is not because ancient people lived "passionately" whereas we must live "boringly." There are many romantics among us more than a century after the death of Romantic poets, like Wordsworth and Byron. Can you imagine, say, "Boy George" as an accountant in a government office? I can't. Mick Jagger, Madonna, Little Richard, Norman Mailer, Jean-Paul Sartre, and any number of other persons lived (or live), deliberately, intense and public passionate commitments. ("La Traviata.")
All of these amazing people may be described as romantic individuals. This is not a mere "adolescent's view" of life.
Romanticism is one of the perennial outlooks on life. Other outlooks on life include money or power accumulation; social activism and altruistic modes of existence; study and scholarship, along with many other life-options that are ALWAYS available for your choosing pleasure.
What is today's life-options "special"?
As for the absurd and sexist American obsession with whether women are "thin," it is well established that a slight "overweight" condition is healthier than being slightly underweight. Furthermore, the concern to keep women "skinny" is a symptom of the desire to maintain a condition of powerlessness among sexually desirable women. ("Ex Machina: A Movie Review.")
Strong women still frighten Americans. A beautiful and powerful woman with great curves -- who is not controlled by Madison Avenue or Hollywood images (most of which are bullshit) -- is a fearsome entity because she associates eros with logos in the public square. We can't have that.
The combination of power in non-erotic and erotic terms with femininity is still unacceptable in America, for women.
I urge readers to consider Diotima's comments in The Symposium concerning eros that "always is [now] and neither comes to be nor passes away, neither waxes nor wanes." Plato, "Symposium," quoted in Robert C. Solomon & Kathleen M. Higgins, eds., The Philosophy of Love (Kansas: University of Kansas, 1991), pp. 26-27; then, Robert C. Solomon, Love, Emotion, Myth, & Metaphor (New York: Prometheus, 1990), pp. 16-33 and Walter Pater, Plato and Platonism (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2005), pp. 103-134. (Sappho's lesbian erotic poems express longing for the woman of "ample form" who reflects the will of Venus.)
Shakespeare would have insisted that we twenty-first century persons (or too many of us) do not die for so many years only because we also do not live at all. The death of affect in our dull lives would have horrified the Bard.
Who can say that this is wrong? After all, Senator Bob has explained that: "on the one hand, but then on the other hand." Maybe Senator Bob will also explain these mysteriously inserted "errors"? ("Time to End the Embargo Against Cuba" and "Is Senator Menendez a Suspect in Mafia-Political Murder in New Jersey?")
My objection to the Clinton-Lewisnky scandal had less to do with the allegations of the Starr Report than with the thought that the President of the United States of America was harried into unsatisfying encounters between meetings, encounters lasting all of ten minutes. The Chief Executive should be in a position to fly off to Camp David for a long weekend with, say, Beyonce Knowles -- or some other comparable person of the president's choice -- for serious "discussions and conversations concerning policy." ("Is he serious?")
I am afraid that these gentlemen -- Shakespeare and Plato -- had a point concerning the need for passion in a fully human life even if we agree not to kill strangers and to abide by relative or non-relative moralities.
To "burn with a hard and gem-like flame" (Walter Pater) may allow for the creation of great art by making us lions of emotions as opposed to gerbils of Oprah Winfrey-like "feelings." Hence, Cristina's alleged second thesis is more than understandable:
"The second thesis, which Nehring regularly confuses with the first, is that the quality of a love can be measured by the amount of danger, distance, riskiness, suffering, and so on that it involves." (p. 44.)
Furthermore, we are told:
"The idea that love is improved by suffering and loss is an adolescent view [Shakespeare, Wilde, others] (despite the fact that some great Romantic writers have had it [had what? the measles?] -- but then Romanticism had its elements of immaturity). This argument generates some of the book's silliest parts, in which Nehring recommends to today's women a life spent in unseemly narcissistic reveling in their own tribulations." (p. 44.) (emphasis added)
Wow, you tell 'em girl. I mean, "woman" or "female person." I doubt that Nehring is suggesting that "love is improved by suffering." I surmise that Nehring's point, apparently directed at women and which I would make to MEN, is that passionate love is about commitment.
I do not accept that Martha Nussbaum wrote this paragraph. The stupidity and shallow understanding of what is at issue in this discussion is not possible for a writer of Ms. Nussbaum's gifts and scholarly learning. How is it possible for this prose make its way into the pages of The New Republic?
Tell me again why it is permissible to censor and suppress my writings? Are you my intellectual "superior," Ms. Milgram? Were you, Ms. Milgram, (or were persons in your office) involved in discussions at The Philosophy Cafe at MSN? Kim Guardagno? Were you involved in efforts to destroy that site? to suppress my writings? to alter or steal my copyright-protected texts? ("What is it like to be censored in America?")
Such criminal actions and cover-ups are grounds for disbarment, especially for an "Attorney General." Would you agree, Mr. Rabner? How does any Jewish person become Eichman, Stuart? Each day that the cover-up continues is a renewal of the tortures, Mr. Rabner. Whatta-ya need, Stuart? What's it going to take? How much cash do you require, Stuart? Do your job, Stuart. ("No More Cover-Ups and Lies, Chief Justice Rabner!")
Commitment for heterosexual men should mean a willingness to give one's all for the love of a woman over a lifetime. As I write this comment, I am fifty years-old. On a good day, I don't look a day over 45! I have loved (romantically or erotically) only two women over my adult life, loved them deeply and in a mature way -- over 36 years in one instance, more than 22 in another. I will love those women until the day I die. Nothing material nor any "career goals" or professional status, not possessions or titles, not the threat of torture or death means as much to me as one hair on their heads.
This has nothing to do with whether I am able to see -- or have seen -- either one (or both) of them.
I trust that I am sufficiently clear on this point. Incidentally, despite my best efforts, I have never been unfaithful to a woman in a "relationship." No, there is no contradiction between these statements except in telenovelas.
Computer warfare and psychological torture, suppressions and destructions of my writings will not cause me to deny or alter my feelings for anyone that I care about deeply. Blocking my t.v. signal will have no effect on these values or upon my opinions. Destroying my phone service will not cause me to change my mind nor will I be intimidated by the theft of my watch.
I will not change my view of New Jersey's overstuffed legal toilet (legal system) or back down on any of the positions that I have taken unless I am persuaded by rational arguments that I am mistaken as opposed to threats from nervous mafiosos.
I do not believe that there are too many more slanders that can be pronounced against me, secretly. I do not expect too much more economic or professional harm, censorship, or destruction of creative work. Whatever further "surprises" come my way, however, my feelings and opinions will not change on these matters. ("How Censorship Works in America" and "Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey.")
Perhaps Kay Li Causi is behind these censorship efforts? Say hello to the wife, Senator. And to Gloria and the twins, "BobbyM." (Once more: "Boss Bob Holds a Grudge!" and "Senator Bob, the Babe, and the Big Bucks.")
"That's not practical!"
Skinny persons dressed in black insist on "practicality."
Whether such Romantic values are "practical" depends on how one defines a fully human life. This passion that is love for a woman (or anyone) is about commitment, devotion, loyalty, against the entire world if necessary.
I think of such feelings for these women -- whatever they may feel for me and, again, even if I am separated from either or both of them -- as the normal loves of an ordinary man in one "insignificant" life.
I am pretty certain that, if necessary, I would die for either of those women or for my child, and for a few other people and things that matter, like the imperiled Constitution of the United States of America. Maybe I have done exactly that -- struggling for such phenomena for many years. ("Richard A. Posner on Voluntary Actions and Criminal Responsibility" and the sadly mutilated "Manifesto for the Unfinished American Revolution.")
I will be happy to repeat these statements "again and again" until the slow learners in Trenton get it, including self-proclaimed "adolescent psychologists." Presumably, this phrase refers to fourteen year-olds with advanced degrees. "Napoleonic Scholars?" Raymond Hernandez, how much is Bob Menendez or Albio Sires paying you?
Amazingly, an attempt to explain and defend America's commitment to freedom of expression was vandalized at this blog before the eyes of the world to the indifference of legal authorities in this country. The same legal authorities are asking young men and women to risk their lives in defense of freedoms that are trashed, publicly and shamelessly, every day, by N.J.'s corrupt politicians. ("Law and Ethics in the Soprano State.")
I was saddened by President Obama's pro-forma visit to the Garden State to support Jon Corzine. Luckily, Mr. Obama avoided photos with Bob Menendez and Dick Codey. Obama's presence is not about Mr. Corzine or New Jersey's embarrassing Democrats, but it is an attempt to bolster the image of the Obama administration. A vote for Mr. Corzine is an endorsement of a $1 BILLION tax increase in 2009-2010. Sadly, the persons in the Garden State's graveyards are mostly registered Democrats who vote in every election, often more than once. ("New Jersey is Lucky Luciano's Havana" and "New Jersey is the Land of the Living Dead.")
Perhaps out of embarrassment, whoever is responsible for these attacks against my writings and (possibly) for the insulting "editing" of Professor Nussbaum's article, has disabled my security system. I will struggle to restore my protections, fully expecting that my essays will be terribly damaged by this latest violation of my rights -- and yours.
Is Norton Security "legitimate" or a front for Bob Menendez? Will I get to meet the computer criminals?
In our "risk-averse" culture, passionate commitment makes me a fool. I am not overly disturbed by this fact because I have plenty of company. This loyalty to the Constitution is true and real even if -- like former Vice President Dick Cheney -- I have "other commitments." Mr. Cheney explained his lack of service in the military in Vietnam as due to his "other commitments." I bet many of those who were killed (or wounded) in Vietnam also had other commitments. Right, John Kerry?
Did Senator Bob serve in Vietnam? I did not serve in Vietnam. This was not because of "other commitments," but due to not being drafted because I was too young. Many of those who were drafted discovered a fascination with life in Canada, probably due to their other commitments.
For another example of a disgraceful trashing of Constitutional rights by New Jersey's hackers, see my essay "What is Law?"
In America, the Constitution guarantees our right to criticize public officials. Let us see how many "errors" are inserted in my essays after this statement and the destruction of my security system. As I revise this essay -- after a second wave of vandalism -- I cannot avoid being struck by the former Vice President's comments concerning Mr. Obama's prudent weighing of factors before deciding on an increase in troop numbers in Afghanistan. Mr. Bush allowed the decision concerning troop numbers in that country to sit on his desk for eight months. Anne Coulter said this morning that Mr. Obama was "living on the Bush achievements." This statement borders on the surreal in a nation facing a $1.4 trillion deficit, stubborn, persistent guerilla warfare in Afghanistan, insurrection in Pakistan, daily bombings in Iraq, sharp decline in education, collapsing infrastructure, underfunded academic research, and in most other areas resulting from Bush/Cheney neglect or incompetence. Katrina? Is Katrina's rescue efforts the Bush achievement?
We are associated by the world with torture and murder at horrifying concentration camps inherited by Mr. Obama. We are rightly seen as hypocritical in professed commitments to human rights and freedom of speech as we torture dissidents (like me) and suppress their works. The deliberate undermining of our once precious and much respected Constitution has made us anything but "admired." 283,000 Americans lost their jobs last month (September, 2009) and did not receive "bail outs" thanks to Bush/Cheney. Tell those people or the millions who are desperate in America today about Mr. Bush's "achievement" and Mr. Cheney's "priorities." Harassing me will not help Right-wingers with those issues. There is no plausible alternative to Obama/Biden/Clinton at this moment in American history. ("Presidential Debates" and "Republicans Unplugged.")
Secretary of State Rodham-Clinton's efforts to persuade Honduras to abide by WORLD opinion by respecting the rule of law, allowing their ousted President to return to office, or to participate in new elections, should not be undermined by far Right-wing fanatics in Miami endorsing a return to "Banana Republic" status for client states of U.S. corporations in Latin America. House arrest for Honduras' duly elected president does not reveal a "commitment to the rule of law," Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. ("Iliana" likes to "shop till she drops!")
When Nussbaum writes that "despite the fact that some great Romantic writers have it" -- meaning that some Romantic writers and those of us who are romantic today "hold the view" -- that love may require sacrifice or involves suffering, that is, a willingness to suffer agonies of separation and concern for the other, we are mistaken.
I cannot agree that, despite our best efforts, human life and relationships will ever be entirely without risk or pain. Furthermore, I am sure that "maximizing self-interest" is lethal to genuine love which has little to do with rational self-interest in material terms or with enhancing one's comfort.
Love is painful because we are involved in (and are part of) the mortality and burdens of another human being, a person whose boundaries overlap with our own. Her pain becomes mine; my pain becomes hers. ("Drawing Room Comedy: A Philosophical Essay in the Form of a Film Script.")
Perhaps the deepest love should not be without pain, according to religious wisdom, because love teaches us how to die, every day, and makes our every moment infinitely precious as an epiphany of meanings. Saying goodbye to an adult child heading off to college will teach you that lesson.
Plato's Phaedrus is about meanings, knowledge, expression and truth. Plato's Symposium is about love. I am not aware of any ancient writer called "Platon." Do you Cunanoids even speak English? ("Manohla Dargis Strikes Again!")
Nussbaum and Wieseltier are Jews. David Denby is fair game? ("David Denby is Not Amused.") There is an element of antisemitism in these censorship actions. Miami's Cubanoid fascists are often antisemites, also racists. Would other writers with Nussbaum's and Wieseltier's levels of experience be subjected to this treatment? Perhaps this explains the alterations of David Denby's writings. Are their Constitutional rights "expendable," like mine?
When you violate one person's Constitutional rights you have potentially violated the rights of all persons in America. We need an INDEPENDENT press in the United States. I will do my best to make this point concerning unfair slanders and antisemitism to New Jersey officials. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")
I have offered criticisms of Israel's policy in the Gaza matter. Many Israelis have made the same criticisms. However, I have also made it clear that I am firmly on the side of the U.S.-Israeli alliance which is compatible with a peace effort and sovereignty for Palestinians. I have no patience for and do not condone ANY form of antisemitism. I also will not hesitate to criticize persons who happen to be Jews when they commit crimes or fail to discharge their public duties. ("Is Humanism Still Possible" and "Martin Buber's Diet Judaism.")
Think of the loss of humanity in a person who cannot feel passionate love -- although she desires it -- and is offended even by descriptions of love because such descriptions are reminders of all that she will never have or be, everything that cannot be bought or obtained through force, which explains her death of affect. That's the sort of individual who disfigures literary texts and clips an angel's wings.
II.
To explain Diotima's wisdom in this matter of passionate eros, as set forth by Plato in The Symposium, I will quote the Martha Nussbaum I have come to know and "love" from her scholarly work as a philosopher:
"It is a startling and powerful vision. Just try to think it seriously: this body of this beloved person is exactly the same in quality as the value of Athenian democracy; of Pythagorean geometry; of Eudoxan astronomy. What would it be like to look at a body and to see it exactly in the same shade and tone of goodness and beauty as in a mathematical proof -- exactly the same, differing only in amount and in location" -- eternally, now -- "so that the choice between making love with that person and contemplating that proof presented itself as having n measures of water and having n + 100? ... We might even imagine the interchangeability of souls, helped by a religious heritage according to which we are all equally, and centrally, children of God." (Love's Knowledge, p. 116 and "Is it rational to believe in God?" then "'Inception': A Movie Review.")
Love is undifferentiated because it is concerned with the eternal essence of the beloved instantiated in her warm physical presence right here and now. It is through this person that I love that I am -- thank you Diotima -- permitted to contemplate the eternal forms of love and beauty. We are kindred spirits. My lover and companion guides me and instructs me, as Diotima taught Socrates, in the mysteries and perfections of "love's knowledge" which must include suffering with and for the beloved. This is what I mean by "wife." ("The Allegory of the Cave.")
The serpent in this garden, allegedly according to Nehring, is feminism.
I do not accept this view of feminism nor can I believe that there is a conflict between passionate eros and feminine equality. On my side in this argument, are women like Mary Wollstonecraft (I love her sexy letters to Godwin!) and Simone de Beauvoir, not to mention the mysticism of Simone Weil which is saturated with suppressed sexual longing. This insight concerning eros and feminism is not gender-specific:
"Feminism is to blame for women's rejection of romantic love because, says Nehring, feminism asks women to be always rational and always in control, rejecting the romantic emotions as sources of low status or even servitude. Moreover, feminism urges us to see love in contractual terms, and that sort of calculation is incompatible with real passion." (p. 44.)
Eros is the height of rationality conceived in terms that do not exclude feelings or emotions from reasoning. ("F.H. Bradley's Concrete Universal" and "F.H. Bradley's Absolute.")
This assumed and false opposition between women being "rational" as opposed to "passionate" is disconnected from our most profound meditations on love as the unity of passion and reason in the beloved. Rejecting love is irrational. ("'The Da Vinci Code': A Book Review.")
The division between rationality and emotions is sexist and subject to criticism by feminists, like Simone de Beauvoir, who insisted on a passionate sexual life with many partners -- male and female -- also on a long-term loving "commitment" to Jean-Paul Sartre as a free woman and philosopher of love. ("Stuart Hampshire and Iris Murdoch On Freedom of mind.")
We experience much more than our trite social thinkers would have us believe in our deepest relationships.
There are erotic-agapic choices for every woman to make for herself. Incidentally, Jean Paul Sartre and Jean-Paul Sartre are equally correct writings of this illustrious name. I will vary my writing of this name to annoy the Cubanoids offering unsolicited incorrect corrections. This would be a good time to insert another "error."
This anti-love critique is more like a description of the shallow versions of feminism popular on daytime television. This is certainly not the view of the great feminist philosophers I admire and respect. ("Is clarity enough?")
Feminism is compatible with an intense and passionate love-life and commitment of the serious kind by and for women, as EQUALS, loving others (whether men or women) who can accept and respect that "equality in freedom" and/or "freedom in equality" because they are willing to give the same level of commitment in return.
There cannot be a self-protective, cautious, reserved entry into "relationships" -- on a commercial analogy -- in true devotion. Sadly, the nature of so-called "amorous relationships" in contemporary America is very different: "We relate relationally relationship-wise, Oprah." (See Kate Winslet's performance in "Iris.")
Poetry comes to the rescue:
"The Definition of Love"
by Andrew Marvell
My Love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis for object strange and high
It was begotten by Despair
Upon impossibility.
Magnanimous despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing,
Where feeble Hope could ne'er have flown
But vainly flapped its tinsel wing.
And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended soul is fixed,
But fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt.
For Fate with jealous eye does see
Two perfect Loves; nor lets them close:
Their union would her ruin be,
And her tyranic power depose.
And therefore her decrees of steel
Us as the distant poles have placed,
(Though Love's whole world on us doth wheel)
Nor by themselves to be embraced.
Unless the giddy Heaven fall,
And Earth some new convulsion tear;
And, us to join, the World should all
Be cramped into a planisphere.
As lines so Love oblique may well
Themselves in every angle greet:
But ours so truly parallel,
Though infinite, can never meet.
Therefore the Love which us doth bind
But Fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the Mind,
And opposition of the Stars.
We do not create prenuptial agreements "in fair Verona where we lay our scene," as it were, but enter into an embrace that is life-altering and longstanding. It is only in our prudent and cautious age when "spontaneity has its time and place" that passion is expected to be safe. ("The Sure Thing.")
In the immortal words of Frederick the Great echoing Alexander the Great as he sent his troops to die in a cavalry charge: "Would you live forever?"
"Eros requires speech, and beautiful speech, to communicate to its partner what it feels and wants. Now there is plenty of talk about relationships and how people are intruding on one another, and there is talk akin to discussions on the management of water resources. But the awestruck vision of the thing-in-itself [say what?] has disappeared. It is almost impossible to get students to talk about the meaning of their erotic choices, except for a few artificial [bromides] that square them with contemporary right thinking. [P.C. bullshit.] Out of self-protectiveness, no one wants to risk making arguments, as Plato's characters did, for the dignity of his or her choice and its elevated place within the whole of things. What one cannot talk about, what one does not have words for, hardly exists. Richness of vocabulary is part of the richness of experience. Just as there is a disastrous decline in political rhetoric, rhetoric necessary to explain the cause of justice and form a community around it, so there is an even more disastrous decline in the rhetoric of love. Yet to make love humanly, the partners have to talk to each other." (Bloom, Love and Friendship, p. 25.)
From the point of view of Romantics and romantic Americans today immaturity and childishness is attributed to persons frightened of emotion and of living intensely, opting for tepid existences and adoration of safety, together with ever higher levels of solvency and something called "therapy."
Living is anything but "safe." 9/11 should have taught us that much.
During your final seconds would you wish to put in a call to your broker to check on your investments in a prudently planned portfolio that includes "death planning"? Not me. My planning is to avoid death for as long as possible without avoiding life. I will try to see "As You Like It" at BAM. There is a new exhibit of Bronzino's drawings at the MET. Turandot is being performed at the MET Opera. Tim Burton's "Alice" will be in theaters in March. The arts provide a balm for love's wounds.
People all over the world look at this bizarre place called America and shake their heads. We do not eat meat. We wear helmets when riding motorcycles. We wear condoms even if we are women. We wear sensible shoes.
Is this maturity? Or have we died and failed to notice the fact?
This is not the America of Walt Whitman. Perhaps we have wandered into New Jersey. Hand me the Hemlock. Here is what terrifies us:
"It is the whole idea of becoming vulnerable to an inner life that one cannot see and can NEVER control. It is not qualitative difference, but the sheer separateness of the other person, the idea of an independent source of vision and will, that makes love an adventure in generosity [emphasis added] -- or, if one is like Proust's narrator, a source of mad jealousy and destructive projects of domination and control. And this has nothing at all to do with class difference, or gender difference, or even temperamental difference. It has to do only with the fact of human individuation -- that minds and bodies never merge, that intimacy is never fusion but a CONVERSATION." (p. 45.)
