Philosophical notes…
On Peacebuilding
“But very often peacebuilding initiatives were anonymous and unseen. In 1983, John Lampen, an English Quaker, moved to Derry in Northern Ireland. A year later, he was joined by his wife, Diana, and their children. The Lampens were inspired by the work of another Quaker, Will Warren, who had lived in Derry for many years and had quietly befriended both sides in the conflict, including various members of the rival paramilitaries. Warren once said that his role as peacebuilder had been ‘to listen to people on both sides … and maybe, one day, to help them to listen to one another’. Listening was the central element of Quaker peacebuilding... Peacebuilders are often searching for metaphors to understand the mysterious process they’re engaged in. Addams spoke of ‘peaceweaving’, and in their admiring essay about her, the political scientists Patricia M Shields and Joseph Soeters in 2015 wrote of why it’s an apt metaphor: ‘individual, often fragile, strings are connected through the process of weaving, which does not homogenise the combined, often colourful, strings but lets them work together despite their differences.’ Diana Lampen calls peacebuilding a spider’s web: there are delicate links in all directions with, at the centre, not a spider but peace itself... If it’s true that peacebuilding requires not esoteric learning but sacrifice, sensitivity and artistry, it might be that we’re closer than expected to what Mac Ginty in 2014 called ‘the elixir’ of peacebuilding: ‘local ownership’. Not in the sense that locals accept what’s cooked up for them, but that they actually create their own recipes for peace. ”
Tobias Jones, “Peacebuilding Is an Artform Crafted by Divided Peoples,” - aeon.co/essays/peacebuilding-is-an-artform-crafted-by-divided-peoples
On Timekeeping
“But since the 14th century, we’ve gradually been turning our backs on nature and increasingly calculating our sense of time via manmade devices. It began in the monasteries of Northern and Central Europe, where pious monks built crude iron objects that unreliably but automatically struck intervals to help bellringers keep track of canonical hours of prayer. Like any machine, the logic of the mechanical clock was based upon regularity, the rigid ticking of an escapement. It brought with it a whole different way to view time, not as a rhythm determined by a combination of various observed natural phenomena, but as a homogenous series of perfectly identical intervals provided by one source. The religious fervor for rationing time and disciplining one’s life around it led the American historian Lewis Mumford to describe the Benedictine monks as ‘perhaps the original founders of modern capitalism.’ It is one of the great ironies of Christianity that it set the wheels in motion for an ever-unfolding mania of scientific accuracy and precision around timekeeping that would eventually secularize time in the West and divorce God, the original clockmaker, from the picture entirely.”
Joe Zadeh, “The Tyranny of Time,” - noemamag.com/the-tyranny-of-time/
On Beethoven and Bridgetower
“It’s a passionate and sweepingly epic work , but there’s also drama off stage in what is arguably Beethoven’s most loved and performed violin sonata [No. 9, Op. 47 in A major]. In our first collaboration with Belvoir St Theatre, we explore the drama, passion and scandal surrounding this masterpiece, and the interconnected fates of those that came after it: Tolstoy’s story of jealousy and murder, and Janáček’s First String Quartet, both bearing the title The Kreutzer Sonata. Known as The Kreutzer for its dedication to the violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer (who likely never played this difficult, titanic work), what has been lost in history is its original dedication to George Bridgetower – a far more accomplished violinist of mixed European and West Indian descent, and a kindred spirit to Beethoven – who performed with the composer at the Sonata’s premiere... However, in its success lay its downfall. While celebrating with a drink (or three) Beethoven and Bridgetower spectacularly fell out, and Bridgetower’s name was removed from the dedication, and from history.”
Attended this performance by the Australian Chamber Orchestra last night here in Newcastle. An eerie feeling to be in a theatre again after 2020’s hiatus, but a reminder of how live performance lingers in the mind over days. The theme threaded through the mashup of compositions seemed to me to be the manifold inspiration of music. In this case, a forgotten encounter between composer and virtuoso (Beethoven and Bridgetower) rippled out to other composers (Janácek), authors (Tolstoy), and audiences. What is to explain how one work goes on to inspire the ACO to now reclaim the Kreutzer Sonata’s original attribution as the Bridgetower? I suppose thinking about it the day after, the performance offered a kind of catharsis, an honest response to a year experienced as diverse facets of tragedy. Such honesty may make one hopeful, even if for a brief moment, that this year may be better than the last. - aco.com.au/whats-on/2021/beethoven-and-bridgetower.
On Aristotle's Poetics
“After carefully investigating the matter, Aristotle inked a short treatise that became known as the Poetics. In it, he proposed that literature was more than a single invention; it was many inventions, each constructed from an innovative use of story. Story includes the countless varieties of plot and character—and it also includes the equally various narrators that give each literary work its distinct style or voice. Those story elements, Aristotle hypothesized, could plug into our imagination, our emotions, and other parts of our psyche, troubleshooting and even improving our mental function.”
“The Empathy Generator - In this narrative technique, a narrator conveys us inside a character’s mind to see the character’s remorse... The invention’s original prototype was tinkered together by the anonymous Israelite poet who composed the verse sections of the Book of Job, likely in the 6th century B.C. Since empathy is a neural counterbalance to ire, it may have reflected the poet’s effort to promote peace in the wake of the Judah-Babylonian-Persian wars. But whatever the reason for its initial creation, the invention can help nurture kindness toward others.”
Angus Fletcher - smithsonianmag.com/innovation/eight-literatures-most-powerful-inventions-and-neuroscience-behind-how-they-work-180977168/. An interesting summary of neuroscientific work at Project Narrative on the effects of literary techniques.
On Early Demokratia
“Of course, a simple return to early democracy is neither possible nor desirable. But early democracy does help us better understand the frailties of the modern democratic experience. A closer look at early democracy can in turn help us to understand what we might do to see that democracy today fulfills the underlying idea of demokratia: bringing power to the people... [for instance] we need to think of new investments that might better connect citizens with government by giving them information sources that are in touch with reality and that, in the case of the US, would avoid fanning the flames of longstanding racism. In some countries, most notably the US and the United Kingdom, the local press, though known to be both more trusted and less partisan than national outlets, faces economic conditions that are leading to its disappearance. A subsidy for local news outlets could be money well spent... [moreover] as we become ever more tribal in nature in countries such as the US, perhaps we could learn more from societies that actually had tribes. The lesson wouldn’t be to establish new tribes or clans of our own: it would be, instead, to examine how different political and social institutions can aid in creating links for people living in different places, from different backgrounds and holding very different beliefs. The idea here would be to help strengthen and unify society by creating new links across the lines of polarisation.”
David Stasavage, “Lessons from All Democracies,” aeon.co/essays/democracy-is-common-and-robust-historically-and-across-the-globe.
On Listening
“As an activist on the left, I long assumed that my role consisted entirely of raising awareness, sounding alarms, and deploying arguments; it took me years to realize that I needed to help build and defend spaces in which listening could happen, too. As citizens, we understand that the right to speak has to be facilitated, bolstered by institutions and protected by laws. But we’ve been slow to see that, if democracy is to function well, listening must also be supported and defended—especially at a moment when technological developments are making meaningful listening harder. By definition, democracy implies collectivity; it depends on an inclusive and vibrant public sphere in which we can all listen to one another. We ignore that listening at our peril. Watching ‘What Is Democracy?’ today, I find that the answer lies not just in the voices of the people I interviewed. It’s also in the shots of people listening, receptively, as others speak.”
Astra Taylor, “The Right to Listen,” https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-future-of-democracy/the-right-to-listen. Interesting summary of themes in the recent documentary “What Is Democracy?” Well worth a watch as an example of deliberative democratic practices. As she rightly notes, deliberative theory can be overly enamored with speakers in an ideal public. However, more recent theory has focused on pragmatist accounts of discourse endemic to anywhere people are willing to explain themselves to each other. Moreover, as I’ve written last year, it can be coupled with democratic systems theory which apprehends interactive listening environments. Taylor pursues examples in the film as well as this essay’s debtor’s assembly. Systems theory aims to apprehend the way such assemblies could be made more robust as well as coordinated with other layers of democratic practice ranging from citizen’s juries, deliberation days, and mini-demoi to more familiar parliamentary institutions.
On Thinking to Some Purpose
“‘There is an urgent need today for the citizens of a democracy to think well.’ These words, which could have been written yesterday, come from Thinking to Some Purpose, a popular book by the British philosopher Susan Stebbing, first published in 1939 in the Penguin ‘Pelican’ books series, with that familiar blue-and-white cover. This little book, which could easily be slipped into a pocket and read on the train, in a lunch hour, or at a bus stop, was pitched at the intelligent general reader. In Thinking to Some Purpose, Stebbing took on the task of showing the relevance of logic to ordinary life, and she did so with a sense of urgency, well aware of the gathering storm clouds over Europe.”
Peter West - https://aeon.co/essays/on-susan-stebbing-and-the-role-of-public-philosophy. An interesting summary of what some hope philosophical skills can foster in democratic societies. The essay mentions John Dewey, who explicitly linked philosophical education to the practices necessary for democracy. As later pragmatists such as Jeffrey Stout noted in Democracy and Tradition, this relies on a rigorous defense of traditions that foster rich grass roots deliberative capacities. West’s essay on public philosophy has been widely circulated while the second impeachment trial is ongoing this week. Representative Jamie Raskin concluded his case with an appeal to Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, which he summarized as facts plain to most people as well as a human sense that is common. That latter notion made me think of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s summary of sensus communis in Truth and Method (p. 21-22) that looked back to Giambatist Vico who cited Roman Stoics interested in basic moral interest in the common good. It struck me that this is precisely what is eroding and what we must work to recover. Hannah Arendt discussed the challenge a bit in one of her last posthumously published 1975 lectures in a collection, Small Comforts for Hard Times. “Only when they [private individuals] can enjoy the public will they be willing and able to make sacrifices for the public good. To ask sacrifices of individuals who are not yet citizens is to ask them for an idealism which they do not have and cannot have in view of the urgency of the life process.” (.p. 105-107). Arendt was writing to a different time, but her words resonate as the pandemic rages on, economic struggles persist, and people are increasingly isolated from each other physically as well as through algorithmic information bubbles fostered online. The challenge remains to build democratic practices where common sense nonetheless persists.
On Voltaire's Questions sur l’Encyclopédie
“It may seem misleading to speak of a pirated edition in the case of the Questions, because Cramer did not purchase the text from Voltaire and he possessed no legal right to reproduce it. In fact, the consistory of Geneva would censor him for the book’s impieties in March 1772, while Voltaire dismissed the pirating with witticisms such as the following burlesque edict issued from Ferney: ‘It is hereby permitted to any bookseller to print my silliness, be it true or false, at his risk, peril, and profit.’ Yet Voltaire felt morally committed to his publisher and refused to offend him by collaborating openly with the pirates. He even urged Cramer to fight back against them: ‘You won’t be pirated if you take the right measures, and you can put a notice in Volume II that will discredit the pirated editions.’ In fact, Cramer knew very well that his Questions would be pirated. He merely sought to cream off the demand with a first edition by beating the pirates to the market.”
Robert Darnton, “An Enterprise of Solid Gold,” laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/enterprise-solid-gold. Interesting note on early print era piracy by a master in the field of book history. I’ve been writing on religious book making recently, and similar events took place in the reformation era. As Febvre and Martin noted in their The Coming of the Book, Luther’s various translations of books of the Old and New Testament Bible were pirated a number of times before publication.
On Information Overload
“These complaints about the consequences of printing were of course made in printed books, which added to the abundance of which they complained while offering various remedies to the overload: advice on how to read well, for example by taking good notes; judgments and reviews of books to aid in selecting them (a prime content of learned periodicals starting in the late seventeenth century); bibliographies to identify existing books (and possibly to deter the unnecessary composition of new ones); and reference works designed to collect the best parts of the best books to spare readers the trouble and expense of making these selections themselves. Printing prompted a new awareness of the need to manage information in and about books and also facilitated the development of new methods for doing so, among them printed questionnaires and lists, images and tables, cutting and pasting from printed books, or using the backs of printed playing cards.”
Ann Blair, “The Multitude of Books,” https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/multitude-books. The link provides an interesting excerpt from the edited collection Information: A Historical Companion. Reminds me of the advice we often give to students at the start of the semester soon to be overloaded with reading. The helpful guides in how to read a book take on new relevance, such as Mortimer Adler’s 1940 classic by that title. Or as is sometimes needed, Peter Barry’s guide for reading theoretical texts, Beginning Theory. It outlines the SQ3R approach to: survey; question; read; recall; and, review. These days I’ve been less interested in the initial rise of print, but rather the later impact when reading practices took root in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, e.g. Immanuel Kant’s essays on book piracy.
On Arendt's Lessing Prize
“In 1959, Hannah Arendt received the city of Hamburg’s Lessing Prize. Her lecture on that occasion drew attention to key features of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s enlightenment era notions of tolerance and humanism. In so doing, she both graciously acknowledged the importance of Lessing’s legacy, as well as critiqued the inadequacy of his ideas in the shadow of the second world war. While she shared with Lessing a life lived in what she would call ‘dark times’, her own response differed in important respects... Arendt’s lecture on Lessing provides a distillation of her vision of a political life beyond religious concerns. This has led some commentators to obscure her relevance to contemporary debates about the persistent and new interactions between religion and politics. However, Arendt never shied away from citing religious contributions to the development of her own viewpoints, nor did her vision of political spaces exclude religion as such.”
“Applying Arendt’s Vita Activa to Religion,” Politics, Religion and Ideology. By coincidence my essay on Hannah Arendt was published in the online release of this journal just prior to this year’s 27 January, holocaust memorial day. This essay is part of a series I’ve been writing the past few years which address ways to revitalize deliberative democratic practices in light of ongoing religious divisions oft-cited as the source of expanding fissures opening up in our societies. For instance, around this time last year, “Religion in Deliberative Democratic Systems Theory,” appeared in Religions, and the year before that, “The Pragmatist Question of Sovereignty,” appeared in a special issue of Political Theology, which also included a brief “Introduction.” A monograph is planned to bring together their increasingly urgent themes. It will begin with Arendt because she so adeptly identified many of the problems we still face in multicultural democracies.
“The world lies between people, and this in-between – much more than (as is often thought) men or even man – is today the object of the greatest concern and the most obvious upheaval in almost all countries of the globe.”
