Philosophy Now Forum

I'm reading and enjoying Robert Frost: The Poet as Philosopher
http://www.amazon.com/Robert-Frost-Poet ... 514&sr=1-1 by Peter J. Stanlis.

I have come upon some anecdotal evidence supporting a statement that I made in a different thread about the philosopher Slavoj Zizek. See the last sentence below regarding Zizek's video comment on the movie "The Sound of Music". 1

Robert Frost admired Charles Darwin, the great naturalist. Stanlis shows that Darwin, in his Autobiography and some private correspondence, admitted to a gradual and eventually total loss of aesthetic sensibility regarding literature, music, painting, and the arts. Darwin wrote:

"I was fond of reading various books, and I used to sit for hours reading the historical plays of Shakespeare...I also read other poetry... I mention this because later in life I wholly lost, to my great regret, all pleasure from poetry of any kind, including Shakespeare.

But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost any taste for pictures or music."

And the cause of this loss of aesthetic sensibility? Stanlis writes:

"In a moment of great candor, two years before he published Origin of Species, in a letter to Thomas Henry Huxley (July 9, 1857) he confessed that he consciously and deliberately sought to depersonalize his desires and emotions in order to achieve greater objectivity in his work: "Alas: A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections a mere heart of stone." Two years after his monumental book had appeared, Darwin retrospectively identified a major cause of his loss of emotional and intellectual sensitivity. In a letter to H. W. Bates (December 3, 1861), he wrote:" I have long thought that too much systemic work [and] description somehow blunts the faculties." p. 86

About causation and Frost, Stanlis writes:

"Darwin as a naturalist continued to fascinate Frost for the rest of his life. As he saw it, the evolutionist was the archetypal case of how a normal and superior mind could become aesthetically desensitized by being too immersed in the mechanical processes of its work. But the poet denied that science as such was the cause of Darwin's deprivation of aesthetic sensibility. The real cause was excessive specialization of any kind, the subversion of one's humanity in one's professionalism. Frost always believed that specialization destroyed the creative powers in man. He stated on several occasions that acquiring a vast quantity of factual knowledge beyond what could be usefully employed by the imagination, intuition, reason, consciousness, will, and memory injured the human psyche. Darwin was particularly vulnerable to the loss of his aesthetic sense because, as he acknowledged, his education in the humanities was to him "simply a blank".13 In addition to this severe self-depreciation, Frost noted that during his voyage on the Beagle Darwin experienced a loss of faith in revealed religion. There was therefore nothing to set bounds to the scientific descriptions and quantitive measurements of facts in his research, no impediment centered in the value system of the humanities." pp. 86-87

Thus, I suggest that it is quite possible that Zizek, like Darwin, may have lost his aesthetic sensibility. Further, his YouTube video interpretation of "The Sound of Music" is some proof of such a suggested loss.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavoj_%C5%BDi%C5%BEek and some criticism from a surprising source http://wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/zize-n12.shtml

Comments anyone?

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1. "Slavoj Zizek is a well-known professor of philosophy/cultural critic. http://www.iep.utm.edu/zizek/

During my reading of The Arts of the Beautiful, I happened upon the following remarkable video entitled "Slavoj Zizek explains why the Sound of Music is racist." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiTum8eQ51E

Listen carefully to the conceptual metaphors* that Zizek uses in his analysis. In analyzing the movie, not surprisingly, Zizek advises the consumer of beauty to "leave out all the singing"!

On my contention about Professor Zizek's incapacity regarding the Sound of Music as art, Gilson is instructive at page 15:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4909&p=77750&hilit= ... zek#p77750

I suggest that Zizek is incapable of experiencing the beauty, qua beauty, manifested in the scenery, acting, music and story contained in the movie![/i]

Wow...thanks for posting that Tom. I had never even considered that possibility before. I guess books do serve a purpose!

artisticsolution wrote:Wow...thanks for posting that Tom. I had never even considered that possibility before. I guess books do serve a purpose!

Somewhere I read some good advice that, alas, I should have followed. A paraphrase: "Each day one should read a poem, listen to some music, view a painting, and say a prayer." I don't remember the speaker. But, like others, I was too busy practicing law to make money and didn't take the time to follow the advice.

This morning I was reading Stanlis to Classic Arts Showcase. This Vanessa Mae video came on. I stopped reading, and intently watched and listened. I was unaware of electric violin music. I really like this performance. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh9j0-Ey3kw I have a duty to share great art with you poor impoverished folks who don't have Classic Arts Showcase.

MSNBC‘S MADDOW GETS UPSET OVER ’SHINING CITY ON THE HILL’ METAPHOR

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/msnbcs- ... -metaphor/

I submit that Maddow, who has a doctorate in political science, in a recent show displayed her ignorance of both the nature and function of metaphor and of the intellectual history of the concept of a “shining city on the hill”

Stanlis, in Robert Frost, supra, provides the historical clarification:

“The Calvinist religious “covenant of grace,” based upon a fixed compact between Puritans and God, could not long be restricted to those who regarded themselves as “God’s elect.” With each new wave of immigrants, the original vision of an Edenic world recovered, an earthly paradise, a “new Jerusalem,” a shining city on a hill, yielded increasingly to the idea of an open society, wherein the monolithic Augustinian concept of the city of God was transformed into the multiple secular city of man.” In time, the Calvinist theocracy evolved into the expanded and secularized “Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” based upon a social contract theory that anticipated the prerevolutionary constitutional democracy of the United States. Thus the New England social covenant of a common citizenship of free men changed American social relationships from the medieval concept of fixed status within a hierarchical system into the open status of voluntary contractualism of free individuals with equal civil and legal rights under constitutional law. As all this makes clear, New England was to Frost not merely a geographical region, but a capacious metaphor to live by, an evolving way of American life, in which the Puritan virtues of faith and courage provided the principles, beliefs, and disciplined actions that helped to create a great new nation. The creation and expansion of a just and free civil-social order was a crucial element in Frost’s conception of creative evolution. pp. 99-100 (Emphasis added)

Finally, perhaps Maddow's lack of understanding of metaphor may be due to an overspecialization in practical contemporary liberal politics. From my post, supra, starting this thread:

"But the poet denied that science as such was the cause of Darwin's deprivation of aesthetic sensibility. The real cause was excessive specialization of any kind, the subversion of one's humanity in one's professionalism. Frost always believed that specialization destroyed the creative powers in man."

"Frost's theory of knowledge as memory clearly placed an enormous stress upon the past as experience. He emphasized this point strikingly in "Carpe Diem"

But bid life seize the present?
It lives less in the present
Than in the future always,
And less in both together
Than in the present.

The hierarchy of man's concerns within time reverses Decartes' conception of knowledge as conscious self-awareness in the present. Except for persons who live largely on a nonhuman animal level, by their immediate senses and without moral imagination, even the long, long thoughts of youth are more concerned with the future than with the present. Aesthetic and moral imagination and the "correspondence" which occurs between individuals in their emotional rapport are far more vital to him than the senses and abstract reason." p. 137 (Emphasis added)

http://poetry.about.com/od/poems/l/blfrostcarpediem.htm

When I was a public defender, I often had clients who were "persons who live[d] largely on a nonhuman animal level, by their immediate senses and without moral imagination." They were difficult to represent. Usually they blamed others for all of their problems.

I suspect that Western culture is increasingly producing such persons. Two causes that immediately come to mind are the single mother and the public school systems.

My grandmother would buy me books, books that she thought a young boy should read. At "Easter, 1950", she bought me a beautifully illustrated volume of "Aesop's Fables." I was eight years old. I can today still see her handwritten date in the book; but I no longer have it; I lost it to my evil ex-wife. May she rot in Hell for Eternity!

Did your grandmother like mine have you read Rudyard Kipling?
http://www.aesops-fables.org.uk/

tbieter wrote:"Frost's theory of knowledge as memory clearly placed an enormous stress upon the past as experience. He emphasized this point strikingly in "Carpe Diem"

But bid life seize the present?
It lives less in the present
Than in the future always,
And less in both together
Than in the present.

The hierarchy of man's concerns within time reverses Decartes' conception of knowledge as conscious self-awareness in the present. Except for persons who live largely on a nonhuman animal level, by their immediate senses and without moral imagination, even the long, long thoughts of youth are more concerned with the future than with the present. Aesthetic and moral imagination and the "correspondence" which occurs between individuals in their emotional rapport are far more vital to him than the senses and abstract reason." p. 137 (Emphasis added)

http://poetry.about.com/od/poems/l/blfrostcarpediem.htm

When I was a public defender, I often had clients who were "persons who live[d] largely on a nonhuman animal level, by their immediate senses and without moral imagination." They were difficult to represent. Usually they blamed others for all of their problems.

I suspect that Western culture is increasingly producing such persons. Two causes that immediately come to mind are the single mother and the public school systems.

My grandmother would buy me books, books that she thought a young boy should read. At "Easter, 1950", she bought me a beautifully illustrated volume of "Aesop's Fables." I was eight years old. I can today still see her handwritten date in the book; but I no longer have it; I lost it to my evil ex-wife. May she rot in Hell for Eternity!

Did your grandmother like mine have you read Rudyard Kipling?
http://www.aesops-fables.org.uk/

I often think of this fable when I'm driving. I drive slow. Some driver will come speeding by me. When I get to the traffic light he's there, waiting for the light to change. http://www.aesops-fables.org.uk/aesop-f ... rtoise.htm

Hi Tom,

T:I suspect that Western culture is increasingly producing such persons. Two causes that immediately come to mind are the single mother and the public school systems.

AS: I was raised by a single mother, do you think I am a person "who live[d] largely on a nonhuman animal level, by their immediate senses and without moral imagination."?

No, my grandmother never bought me books...my mom did...I had all the Dr Suess books and mother goose and others, but my favorite (I can't remember the name of)...It was about a mouse in a house that people wanted to get rid of so they got a cat...then they wanted to get rid of the cat so they got a dog...and so on til they got an elephant to get rid of somthing and then needed to get a mouse to get rid of the elephant. HA! I loved that tale...it cracked me up. Silly people...running around trying to control and bring order to their lives and they end up not being able to control a thing as it all ends up for naught in the end.

As for Aesop fables, I think I did have a book...but I preferred to watch this show...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqtOM03M8co

Do you remember it?

One can argue that President Obama is seeking re-election by setting the poor against the rich, against the banks, the oil companies, and now, the Catholics. Regarding the phrase "exploitation of envy and discontent," think of Obama and the Occupy Movements.

Although he was a Democrat, Frost certainly would not be a supporter of Obama:

"Another major criticism that Frost leveled against the New Deal was its use of economic appeals in elections: its setting the poor against the rich, and its exploitation of envy and discontent for political purposes. This type of neo-Marxism called forth his sharpest attacks. The very idea of judging a person by his economic condition or status was repellent to him." Robert Frost, supra, p. 276

tbieter wrote:One can argue that President Obama is seeking re-election by setting the poor against the rich, against the banks, the oil companies, and now, the Catholics. Regarding the phrase "exploitation of envy and discontent," think of Obama and the Occupy Movements.

Although he was a Democrat, Frost certainly would not be a supporter of Obama:

"Another major criticism that Frost leveled against the New Deal was its use of economic appeals in elections: its setting the poor against the rich, and its exploitation of envy and discontent for political purposes. This type of neo-Marxism called forth his sharpest attacks. The very idea of judging a person by his economic condition or status was repellent to him." Robert Frost, supra, p. 276

But Tom....the country has been poor vs. rich since the depression for sure...perhaps longer though. Obama did not create that and I think it is dishonest for our media to say he did. Now using it for political purposes I can't say...but I will say this...anyone running for office be it republican or Democrat is going to use political tactics to get reelected. Using a platform of helping the poor would not help a politician be reelected if there were hardly any poor.

If republicans want to get reelected then they should also use political promises that will help the poor...as the poor hold the majority of the votes.

I also wanted to add that speaking about facts...such as there are poor people in America who need to be helped out of poverty...does not necessarily mean that one is using them as a political springboard to the presidency. How is Obama supposed to have a conversation about the poor without actually bringing up the poor?

Here is Frost's essay "Education by Poetry." http://www.en.utexas.edu/amlit/amlitpri ... dbypo.html

"Frost maintained that there was no such thing as a citizen of the world. What he feared most was that some American president with an ideological vision of democracy would follow a foreign policy to compel other nations to conform to the American model. Such a disaster could come from the leader of either political party. Pursued by military means, such a foreign policy could plunge the United States and many other nations into chaos and self-destruction." p. 337 (Underlining added)

Regarding former President George W. Bush, I think that the above measure is apt, especially relative to Iraq, getting rid of Saddam Hussein, and installing an alleged democracy in Iraq.

Regarding Obama, I think of the "April Spring" movements, Obama's demands that the dictators in Syria and Libya vacate their offices, and his implicit approval of the methodology of the Occupy Movements.

In your opinion, does the above measure bear a resemblance to the current Obama foreign policy?

Last night I finished Robert Frost- The Poet as Philosopher.

I have started reading Metaphors We Live By. http://www.amazon.com/Metaphors-We-Live ... 072&sr=1-1

I updated my document. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hfz ... 33CdY/edit

tbieter wrote:"Frost maintained that there was no such thing as a citizen of the world. What he feared most was that some American president with an ideological vision of democracy would follow a foreign policy to compel other nations to conform to the American model. Such a disaster could come from the leader of either political party. Pursued by military means, such a foreign policy could plunge the United States and many other nations into chaos and self-destruction." p. 337 (Underlining added)

Regarding former President George W. Bush, I think that the above measure is apt, especially relative to Iraq, getting rid of Saddam Hussein, and installing an alleged democracy in Iraq.

Regarding Obama, I think of the "April Spring" movements, Obama's demands that the dictators in Syria and Libya vacate their offices, and his implicit approval of the methodology of the Occupy Movements.

In your opinion, does the above measure bear a resemblance to the current Obama foreign policy?

"Although Wilson proclaimed that the First World War was being fought because “The world must be made safe for democracy,” in reality the overthrow of autocratic rule in Germany and Italy also led to totalitarian regimes that were far worse. Those today who assume that the overthrow of authoritarian governments in Egypt and Libya is a movement toward democracy are following in Wilson’s footsteps."
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/02/17/the- ... vention/2/

"What makes a good conversationalist has changed little over the years. The basics remain the same as when Cicero became the first scholar to write down some rules, which were summarised in 2006 by The Economist: “Speak clearly; speak easily but not too much, especially when others want their turn; do not interrupt; be courteous; deal seriously with serious matters and gracefully with lighter ones; never criticise people behind their backs; stick to subjects of general interest; do not talk about yourself; and, above all, never lose your temper.” But Cicero was lucky: he never went on a first date with someone more interested in their iPhone than his company."
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/564ceb92 ... z1pIgNwzMo

The Prelude in the book is entitled "The Conversationalist as Poet." Frost was considered to be a splendid conversationalist.

Stanlis writes: "...from early manhood until his death the poet believed that next to poetry itself the art of conversation with sophisticated literary friends was the great social, aesthetic, and intellectual passion of his life."

When was my last enjoyable conversation with a stranger?: Last week. I had a very enjoyable conversation at Barnes and Noble with an old guy after he awoke from his nap. However, I won't bore you with the details.