Nausea

“Nausea.”  The word itself leaves us unsettled, calling to mind a debilitating feeling that leaves us helpless.  At its strongest point, we remain unsure of when the feeling will pass.  The departure of the feeling is generally preceded by an extremely unpleasant event, one which we hope to avoid all the while knowing its arrival is inevitable.  And so we wait, and if we are to find comfort in anything while overcome with nausea, it is in knowing such a wretched feeling will pass.

While our own experience with nausea suggests it is a temporary condition, there are some who insist upon it being otherwise.  One such person is Jean-Paul Sartre, a French existentialist (that is, if it is fair to label this author) who produced the novel Nausea, a work which remains influential to this day.  The novel follows Antoine Roquentin and the gradual rise of nausea in his life.  While I admit this is a vague description, I ask my reader’s pardon for not remembering the entirety of the story.  It has been a few years since I’ve read Nausea, and quite frankly I do not have any desire to read it again.  Perhaps this is a fault of mine, but I think I may be forgiven for forgetting plot details which are, I think, unimportant.  What I do recollect are particular instances in Roquentin’s life (that is, the portion which Sartre deems important enough to present to us), times before and after a new realization produced by Roquentin’s nausea, a realization to which he is privileged and others are oblivious.

Early in the novel, Roquentin is drawn to contemplation by a record playing in the background.  The sound of the music quickly leads Roquentin to wonder how the artist produced the song.  What room was the artist in?  What was he thinking?  What was going on in the world outside his window as he composed the song?  These reflections are interesting, and they led me to wonder the same things about the music I listen to.  With music so easily accessible to us, it is very easy to not even consider what actions produced the sounds we hear in the songs we love.  Whereas live performances allow us to see exactly what an artist puts into his or her songs (and further reveal the artist usually cannot produce those songs on one’s own), a CD or MP3 file presents us the end result of an artist’s thoughts and actions.  The music we listen to is disembodied.  This thought to which Roquentin leads us is strangely wonderful, but it is not his last word on music.

Before Roquentin’s thoughts return to music, he makes the pivotal discovery of the novel.  Sitting in a café, Roquentin catches a glimpse of his hand and begins to stare at it.  For the first time in his life, his hand appears as a thing, a “fat red slug.”  Roquentin’s hand does not seem to be a part of him, but a strange object.  Since the hand is a part of Roquentin, he realizes he too is a mere thing.  This thought is the source of Roquentin’s nausea, and his discovery is what Sartre believes to be his greatest contribution to the world.  Though elaborate attempts have been made to conceal this fact from ourselves, Sartre says such attempts are futile.  At the root of all we imagine, behind the façade of comfortable ideas, lies the fact that we are bodies, and our bodies are mere things.

At the end of the novel, the reader once again finds Roquentin listening to music.  Yet when Roquentin hears the music this time, he is not filled with wonder.  Roquentin says those who believe comfort may be found in music are fools.  The music we hear cannot ease our sorrows.  As for the artist who produces music, Roquentin believes the songs are futile attempts by the artist to escape from his own sorrows, and possibly even his nausea.  The harmony we find in music is a lie, something we tell ourselves to fight off our own nausea.  Such lies are easily communicable; the truth is not.

What is interesting about Sartre is his eagerness to share his discovery with us.  As Roquentin realizes he is a thing surrounded by other things in that café, we are supposed to experience a sense of alienation.  There is, however, a bit of an absurdity in this thought.  In his essay “The Man on the Train,” Walker Percy begins by saying, “There is no such thing, strictly speaking, as a literature of alienation.”  True alienation would be incommunicable.  The second a novelist writes about alienation, thereby allowing others to read it, the phenomenon he attempts to describe becomes something entirely different.  Because readers are able to share in alienation, they are not experiencing what they intend to experience.  By definition, it should be impossible to share in alienation, yet this is precisely what Sartre does through Roquentin.

Another irony is Sartre’s apparent nihilism.  Not only is Sartre trying to share with us something which cannot be shared, but he is also attempting to justify his discovery that human beings are mere things.  Roquentin’s ability to face the truth is presented so as to be an act of courage.  Sartre thereby tacitly affirms the existence of a virtue to which he does not wish to dedicate much serious discussion.  That the virtue of courage is linked to the truth is also fascinating.  Though Sartre’s intent is to affirm nothing, he sets up the coldness of the universe to not only be something, but the something we should all know.  Sartre’s real concern, then, is the truth, he is just too much of a coward to admit it.

The answer to Sartre’s problem appears to be in music, something which I think nearly all of us can agree is truly wonderful.  In order to return to the matter of music, it may be best to go back the way we came and start with Roquentin’s discovery of his hand.  In opposition to Roquentin’s discovery, Percy presents us with a man who has a heart attack.  As this man regains consciousness in the back of the ambulance, he catches a glimpse of his hand as if it is the first time he sees it.  This man’s hand appears both strange and wonderful, for although his hand appears as if he does not know it, he realizes it is a complex thing which is a part of him.  To misuse a lyric from John Mayer, this man’s body is a wonderland, something he feels he is first beginning to grasp.  This man’s hand, and by implication himself, is wonderful.  He is a creature who was once lost and may now be recovered.  As a result of near tragedy, Percy’s man in the back of the ambulance now seeks to understand himself.  To put the matter another way, this man’s nausea may have passed.

As a consequence of being overly inundated with music nowadays, it is easy to let it wash over us.  Many songs are devoid of any substance, often being created merely to make money or to accompany scantily clad images of the “artists.”  The most music can aspire to is distraction, and this seems to be Sartre’s position.  But if we think about the music we truly enjoy – and perhaps even love – our experience is much different.  The music remains disembodied, but it speaks to us in a way that looking at the CD containing the music cannot.  Music is the work of other human beings, and though it is by nature disembodied, it is also by nature ensouled.  The soul of the music makes it beautiful, and the music may perhaps be most beautiful when paired with words.  Whatever the case may be, it appears to me that music is beautiful because it speaks to our souls an intuitive truth which is not easily expressed with words, a quality which may make music more real to us than physical things.

How we hear music depends upon our moral stance.  We may either move towards nothingness or wonder.  Though it may not have been intended, even Sartre’s Roquentin presents us this choice.  Where Sartre seems to fall short is in his desire for the truth to be tangible.  If we are mere things in a meaningless universe of other things, the truth should be easy to grasp (at least in one sense of the phrase).  But if we take the way of wonder, truth appears in a very different light.  The things which best speak to us as human beings may not be tangible, but they very well may always be there for our intellect to grasp so long as we are willing to trust it.  The way to truth may be through the wonder of beauty, but that way can only appear open to us when we first ask ourselves how we are to live.  

George W. Bush

NOTE:  Last night, when I returned to my apartment, I wanted to record my thoughts on meeting President George W. Bush while the events of the night were still in my mind.  So, here they are. Enjoy!
  

Tonight, I had the privilege of meeting George W. Bush.  As I step back and think about that meeting, all I can say is that he is impressive.

The evening began with myself, fifty other students, and some faculty being brought to a decent sized room for a thirty minute question and answer session.  There were two columns of tables extending five rows back with an isle in the middle leading up to a podium.  By chance, my assigned seat was in the front row to the immediate left of the podium.

When President Bush walked in the room, I was seized with a sense of both amazement and normalcy.  On the one hand, right there, five feet in front of me, is the forty-third President of the United States, a man who was, at one time, arguably the most powerful man in the world.  On the other hand, he is not that much taller than myself, and he looks like a normal guy in a suit.  A second later, I remembered who George W. Bush is, and after him motioning for all of us in the room to sit down, he began to speak.

President Bush started by pointing out that he was happy to see his book in front of us.  He said, “Some of you might be surprised to find books in front of you, especially one that I’ve written.  Some people didn’t even think I could read!”  From the humor (of which President Bush has plenty), he quickly transitioned to a more serious countenance by saying, “I am not here to criticize my successor.  It is not my place, and it is denigrating to the office of the President.”  He then opened up the floor to questions.

After about five questions were asked of the President, I raised my hand and asked, “Mr. President, you mentioned earlier the C.I.A. dossiers you received every morning.  What was it like to know things about the world that the public cannot know?”  President Bush responded, “It is a great responsibility.  But you all know most of what I know.  It’s when it gets to you that there’s a problem.”  An example he gave was the phones with certain frequencies used by members of Al Qaeda to coordinate the attacks on September 11.  That intelligence was leaked to the news, and immediately upon that happening, he said the chatter stopped on those phones stopped.

President Bush went on to say his administration was consulted over numerous types of torture.  Of the forms that were considered, he said, “There are two I can’t tell you about.”  What was particularly fascinating was when he called the terrorists “thugs” and “cold blooded murderers” with a still very-present anger as he justified his administration’s permitting of torture.  Explaining why he used torture, he said, “I could not live with myself if I saw Americans die because of something I had the power to prevent.”

In watching President Bush on television in the past, he always struck me as sincere.  As he stood there, five feet in front of me, I could still see a frustration over some of the unexpected challenges he faced or the things he had to do.  Throughout his talk with us, President Bush stressed the importance of principles and how he maintained a set of inviolable principles to guide his action.  I believe him.  His eyes did not dart all over the room as he said this.  He looked at all of us, and without a single stammer, said what he believes.  That is rare.

After the talk, we were all able to have our pictures taken with President Bush.  As I approached, he looked at me and said, “Good question earlier.”  After the picture, he took the time to answer a peer’s question.  I then said, “Thank you for all you have done.  My Dad has been in the Air Force for 28 years and he was honored to serve under you.  My family thanks you.”  President Bush looked at me and said, “Tell your Father I said ‘Thank you.’” 

In my second year at Mercer, I skipped my Great Books 202 class to go see President Bush at a campaign rally for Mac Collins in the Agricultural Center on the Georgia State fairgrounds.  Though I was excited to see the President, I walked away from the event with a mild disappointment.  The result was my third opinion column for The Cluster, titled “The Dehumanization of George W. Bush.”  I wrote of how I went to the rally hoping to get a chance to see George W. Bush, the person, but all I saw was President Bush, the campaigner.  This led to reflections on how there is a discrepancy between the President as a public figure and the man who is President.  There were hints of this tonight in the differences between President Bush’s question and answer session with us and his speech to the university.  But tonight, I did not just witness a speech, but had the chance to speak with George W. Bush, and that made all the difference.

If you sift through the rhetoric of President Bush’s speeches, you find glimpses of a man to whom principle matters.  Tonight, I saw that man.  I did not just see President Bush – I saw George W. Bush, the man who I wanted to see four years ago.  He is a man who is exactly as he appears to be.  That is impressive.

November 17-18, 2010

Oh Prudence, Where *Art* Thou?

At the start of the summer, my younger brother graduated from high school. The graduation was certainly memorable, but for all the wrong reasons. The ceremony was set to start at 7:00 PM. By 6:40, all the doors were locked so the ceremony could start promptly at 7:00. Though this at first glance appears to be sensible, I must add the minor detail that my mother (and hundreds of other parents) were left outside of the building where the ceremony was being held in order to ensure an on-time start.

More recently, my parents were ticketed for “improper parking” in front of the Atlanta airport while waiting for me at the passenger pick-up area. After circling the airport pick-up area four times, a police officer approached the car (which was still running) and told my Father he was parked illegally. Rather than providing a warning, the officer ticketed my Father, and when my Father tried to explain that I was stuck on a plane on the taxiway between terminals waiting an hour for a gate to open, the officer told my Father to keep quiet or else he would raise the fine.

This past Sunday, during the PGA Championship, Dustin Johnson approached the eighteenth hole with a one shot lead. An errant drive placed Johnson deep into the crowd on the right-hand side of the fairway. The ball ended up sitting on a patch of sand which was connected to a larger patch of sand with grass mixed in. Johnson briefly grounded his club, played the shot, and went on to bogey the hole. Though this cost him the lead, it put him into a three-way tie for a playoff. As Johnson was leaving the green, a PGA official approached him to ask him if he grounded his club in the bunker on the last hole. After fifteen minutes of discussion and review, Johnson was charged a two stroke-penalty for grounding his club in the bunker, thus removing him from the playoff and a chance to win his first Major Championship.

In my contemplation during these events and in the time that followed, I realized they are all perfect examples of the Modern human being’s inability to be prudent.

With my Brother’s graduation, there was no notification from the school board in advance that seating would be limited. Though it was announced the doors would be closed at 7:00, they were closed well in advance of that time due to a full room. As I said, this left my mother and numerous other parents outside. And rather than delaying the start of the ceremonies to at least guarantee that all parents get a seat inside the building to see their children graduate, the school board thought it was more appropriate to make the ceremonies start immediately at the scheduled time and force those left outside to either watch through the glass doors or go to a room with a projection screen. How a police officer could stare at my mother (and many others) and say “Tough luck” as they struggled to get in baffles me. I was also miffed by a school board official giving evil-looks to parents knocking on the glass doors as their children walked by, as if wanting to be a part of your child’s graduation which a fool has locked you out of is a crime.

The police officer who ticketed my Father is also a moron (and perhaps something less). Yes, if someone parks their car in the pick-up lane of an airport and leaves it, that would be “improper parking.” But when my parents arrived at the appropriate time and are forced to circle the parking area because my plane cannot be parked at a gate for over an hour after landing, they should not be punished for something they have no control over. I am almost certain the officer had no idea how delayed air traffic was in the airport. Then again, his actions speak to the character of a person who may not care.

And then there is Dustin Johnson. Every golfer is aware of the fact that you cannot ground your club in a bunker. Most golfers (both amateur and professional), however, do not encounter bunkers with spectators in them. The crowd officials only made enough room for Johnson to take a swing at the ball. They did not remove enough spectators from the back of the bunker to reveal the lip, and though part of what could have been perceived as a lip in the front of the bunker was in view, the crowd still stood in front of it, thus obscuring it from view. There also was a hefty amount of grass in the bunker, so it looked like a dirt area. Now, on top of all these factors, Johnson approached the ball with a Major championship on the line. Though the PGA Tour claims that players were handed rule sheets to the players which designated all sand areas as bunkers on the course (which Johnson admittedly did not read), I do not think it is fair to expect the first thought on Johnson’s mind to be, “That is a bunker” as he approached and eventually took his shot. Still, the PGA tour charged the penalty, and cheated Johnson out of a shot at the Championship.

Up front, I will admit I am aware of the actions which could have been taken by everyone involved in these three situations to avoid a problem. My Mother could have arrived earlier to the ceremony, but that still would not change the fact that other parents were locked out of their children’s graduation. My parents could have parked at the airport and waited for me, but that could have come at the cost of paying an unnecessary parking fee had my plane not been forced to wait for a gate or had I come out earlier. And though Dustin Johnson should have read the rule sheet or called over a rule’s official, I do not think the physical and mental circumstances were conducive to him trying to decide in what area his ball was.

Prudence aims to consider the circumstances and judge what actions are appropriate in a given situation. Because every situation is unique, prudence will not dictate the same course of action in any two situations. What prudence will strive for is to produce an action conducive to the same end in each situation.

Looking back over these examples, I find people who are completely unable to accommodate their way of proceeding to what the circumstances dictate. In each scenario, I find those in positions of authority making the same chant as those who completely blame Dustin Johnson for what happened to him: “Rules are rules.” If that is one’s default position for authority, then such a person does not deserve that authority.

To state (either in words or action) that “Rules are rules” with no further explanation strikes me as a seemingly righteous guise for selfishness. It is a way to appear just while saying, “I’m so glad I’m not you.” But if we recall the exchange between Portia and Shylock in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, we might find that treating things so simply is not necessarily right. Portia says, “Though justice be thy plea, consider this, / That in the course of justice, none of us / Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy, / And that same prayer, doth teach us all to render / The deeds of mercy” (IV.i.193-198). Shylock replies, “I crave the law,” and with this finds his undoing as Portia gives a literal reading of his agreement with Antonio so as to prevent Shylock from exacting his one pound of flesh since he must do so without shedding any blood (IV.i.203).

Now I’ll admit that the wisdom of Shakespeare does not perfectly fit with the point I’m making (I’m well aware that I am leaving out the religious implications of Portia’s speech). But I think Portia’s speech applies in the sense that in addition to law, we need judgment to supplement it. Further, Portia attempts to warn Shylock that pursuing his “Rules are rules” claim to the letter will reveal his faults while also blinding him to the times when mercy, and not mere justice, were of help to him. Sometimes justice is not enough, and prudence aims for what is above justice. Rather than having the laws simply state to us what is fair, prudence asks us to consider what is best.

I do not believe anyone with a conscience can make the case to me that starting things on time is good when it comes at the expense of hurting parents. Nor do I anticipate finding someone who can fairly say my parents being ticketed at the airport was right. And though sports reporters will swear up and down that they would not make the same mistake as Dustin Johnson, they cannot fairly say they would know how to handle that situation (After all, there is a reason why they are behind a news desk or a computer screen and not out on the playing field or golf course).

What we are witnessing is a fundamental failure of people today to think through a situation and address its particulars with reference to the proper ends. Part of the problem stems from a failure to put oneself in the position of others (This failure was, according to Hannah Arendt, the major character flaw of Eichmann.). But the other failure is the inability to think. Somehow people have managed to fool themselves into believing that the rules and laws are there to do all the thinking for them. There are judges for a reason, and that is because rules and laws are not enough: they are in need of judgment. Judgment is what people are supposed to add to the laws, and sadly, in the Modern world, it is what they lack. 

"Arts and Entertainment," Be Gone!

It’s been over a year since I wrote my last opinion for The Cluster, and after a year of graduate school, I’ve found myself missing the activity of setting down an opinion for others to consider.  But about a month ago, the television network A&E intervened and gave me an idea.

In a series of television commercials for shows like “Dog the Bounty Hunter” and “Intervention,” the commercial was filmed as if the viewer were in the show.  At the end of the commercial, the words “You don’t just watch great shows – you live them” flashed on the screen. 

The motto soon disappeared from A&E’s commercials and was promptly replaced by “Real Life. Drama.”  Though more succinct, the motto still betrays the hideous notion that a reality TV show should be the aim for how we live our lives.  Were Socrates to come and pose the question “What is the best human life?” to A&E’s television executives, they would most likely respond by saying, “One that is entertaining.”

At one time, “A&E” actually stood for something, namely “Arts and Entertainment.”  To many, however, that designation would be impossible to recover (much like “Science Fiction” from the idiotic “SyFy”).  The issue of acronyms, however, is beside the point (though it is pathetic).  What is at issue is the wretched equivocation between “Arts and Entertainment,” one found not only on television but in newspapers, movies, music, and just about all possible places you can imagine.

If we look at what we find to be entertaining, we should be unsettled.  Most of the popular television shows center around horrific crimes and our heroes are the scientists, detectives, or agents who stop them (Where are our Achilles’?  More on that some other time.)  Reality TV shows play on the most base elements of human nature, whether it be the vulgarity of the presumably representative residents of the Jersey Shore or the drug dealer who has been evading arrest from a bounty hunter with way too much hair.

The TV show “Intervention” is particularly atrocious.  The show takes what is a horrific situation for those involved and turns it into entertainment.  Once a week, you can tune in to A&E and watch a human being’s life fall apart and get back together – all in one hour!  It is a spectacle, which by its very nature removes itself from consideration of whether it is good or bad.  What is important is that you watch, and as to the reasons why you watch it, both the spectacle and those who provide it remain indifferent.  

The things we find entertaining remind me of Machiavelli’s account of Remirro De Orco and Cesare Borgia.  In The Prince, Machiavelli describes how Cesare Borgia has Remirro De Orco killed, cut in half, and put on display in the piazza at Cessena.  Machiavelli says, “The ferocity of this spectacle left the people at once satisfied and stupefied.”  Entertainment has the same effect:  it both satisfies people and makes them stupid.

Were the great artists of the past to come into our time and look at the spectacles we offer as under the designation of “art,” the nicest action they may perform is scoff.  Shakespeare’s plays were meant more to educate than to entertain.  This is not to deny that there was some entertainment involved in Shakespeare’s works, but I think it is safe to say that entertainment was a means for Shakespeare to help his readers and viewers examine important human questions.  Today, entertainment is the end, satisfying our many desires without first questioning to what in human nature should one appeal.

Art should inspire wonder.  What it means to wonder, however, seems lost today.  In the previews for “Eat Pray Love,” Julia Roberts’ character says, “I want to marvel at something.”  Well that is all well and good Ms. Roberts, but what in the world do you mean by that statement?  Somehow I do not think seeing Michelangelo’s “David” is on your mind, certainly not if you are “having a love affair” with a pizza.  Perhaps it is here where we find our problem.  What serious attention has been paid to the notion of wonder, to love?  In this preview we find yet another movie character saying these words without questioning what they mean, what the fundamental human experience behind them is.  Ideas that deserve serious contemplation are glossed over for the sake of entertainment.  What could have been an opportunity for self-examination is passed by for the sake of a spectacle. (As a side note, I find the movie title has conflicted priorities.  If one were to put those three words together, it would seem more fitting for it to be “Love Pray Eat.”  But I digress.)

In the Metaphysics, Aristotle makes the famous claim that philosophy begins with wonder.  Art should (and once did) provide that opportunity.  Not only did Art give us something to sense, but it gave us something to contemplate as well.  But spectacles do not want to be contemplated.  In fact, the greatest aim of a spectacle is distraction, to keep us from contemplation.  In no way can distraction be considered Art.  At best, one should only consider distraction disgusting.

A Question About Selfishness

Throughout the opinions I wrote for The Cluster and behind my studies of Political Theory is the question of how to deal with the problem of selfishness. Often I approached the question with a great deal of righteous indignation, though sometimes my spiritedness (or “thymos” for my friends in Political Theory) would get carried away, resulting in works such as a column titled “There is no Self in Selfishness.”

Over the past couple of weeks, a new question has emerged in my mind and I have yet to come up with an answer to it. I’ve begun to wonder if selfishness is a form of ignorance, or if it is a choice. A friend to whom I first posed the question suggested it can be both, though it depends upon the case. While I think there is truth to what he said, I’m still not convinced.

One of the most prominent displays of selfishness is driving. Rarely is there a day out on the road where I see a driver who doesn’t leave me stunned by his or her action. Now there are some instances where I know I seem like a bad driver. For example, I may cut someone off either because I did not see that person or I realize that I am in the wrong lane. My action is selfish to the extent that I am trying to get where I need to go and I inconvenience others in the process, but I do not think it is an example of selfishness. Riding someone’s tail is not done by accident, and not only is the action selfish, but the person doing it must be selfish since his or her intent is to annoy you so that you may get out of the way.

I wonder, however, if the driver who rides your tail is aware of what it’s like to be the person who has to get out of the way. To the extent that the selfish driver knows people will move out of the way, this person seems to be aware of what his actions may cause others to do. But as for the frustration and righteous indignation of the drivers who have to get out of the way, I do not think the selfish driver has any clue of what it’s like until it happens to him or her, and then that feeling is quickly forgotten the next time such a terrible person hits the road.

At the heart of the question seems to be whether or not people are capable of seeing themselves in the place of another. This is where my thoughts become unclear, because this seems to be ignorance. If people knew how their actions affected others, they would not act selfishly. Yet this conditional statement doesn’t appear to be right, because people may be perfectly aware of how their actions may affect others, they just might not care.

My friend suggested Christianity provides love as a solution to selfishness, and not everyone is capable of loving their neighbor. This again brings me back to the question of whether or not selfishness is a form of ignorance or a choice. We’ve all heard the commandment to “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is an interesting commandment, especially since its counter to selfishness is based on selfishness. Think of how you would like to be treated first, and then act that way towards other people. To put yourself in the position of another is different from knowing something, because such an ability leads to learning. But, on the other hand, lacking the ability to put yourself in the position of another strikes me as ignorance, and if people knew this ability, they would not be selfish.

Perhaps the question hinges on a disagreement between Plato and Aristotle. Plato suggests no one willingly does bad things, and if people knew what was good, they would choose it. Aristotle, however, says it is possible to know what is bad and still choose it. [Unsurprisingly] I find myself agreeing with Aristotle, because his view suggests there has to be something which leads a person to act for the sake of what one knows, and I think (and I may be wrong) that something is care or love (This leads to the question of “What is love?”, which, even though I have a partial answer, I am constantly contemplating its nature and cannot cover it here.) For now, I think I am left with a distinction between acting selfishly and selfishness. The latter is a state of being while the former is confined simply to an act. At times, we all act selfishly, but not all of us are selfish. Yet in both cases, it seems to me we remain ignorant of how we may hurt others, and eventually, ourselves. And it is at this point that I arrive at two more questions with which I leave you: If we knew the hurt a selfish choice brings, why would we make it? And armed with that knowledge, why would someone choose a selfish life?

Thunder Road

On this day one year ago, I went to see Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band Live in Atlanta for their “Working on a Dream” tour.  It was the first time I saw Springsteen Live, and it was nothing short of wonderful.

My words will never be able to capture what the music of Bruce Springsteen means to me.  Even though I have only listened to his music for a little over two years, I can honestly say I’ve grown up with his music, and I’m still “Growin’ Up” as I continue to listen to it. 

The soul of Springsteen’s songs is “Life Itself.”  Love and loss, joy and heartache, hope and despair – I could enumerate countless combinations of human experiences and I would still not cover everything.  Bruce, however, does cover everything in the human experience.  Each song is a part of the whole that is life.  Bruce gives us life in parts, and though he could tell us how each song sings to and with another, he leaves it to us to piece them together to find the whole

Every song of Bruce’s is an experience.  You can listen to a song, and you may understand it, but you will never know the song until you go through the experience Bruce sings about.  It is here where the beauty of Bruce Springsteen’s music is found, because if you listen to his music long enough, you will find yourself not only growing up with his music, but growing into it.

In an episode of “Storytellers,” Bruce described “Thunder Road,” the opening song of Born to Run, as an invitation.  It is in the spirit of that invitation that I share “Thunder Road” with you, though not the 1975 version from Born to Run.  The link below is a recording of “Thunder Road” from his Live in New York DVD from the year 2000. 

Just as Bruce’s songs grow with us, they grow with him as well.  In this recording, he is not the young man who does not know what awaits him on Thunder Road.  He is a man who has gone out to “case the Promised Land,” yet on the way he has found “The Price You Pay” for “Working on a Dream,” for chasing everything he has longed for without knowing the things that may break his heart along the way.  He has been to the “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” and yet in spite of that pain, he retained hope and kept “pushin’ ‘til it’s understood.” 

We never know where our own Thunder Road will take us, what pain it may bring.  But we go forward, because that is the only way we can go.  There is hurt along the way, yet when we “get to that place we really wanna go,” we can look back on the good and the bad and recollect what it was like when we set out on that odyssey into the unknown.  For at the beginning, middle, and in the later parts of that journey is happiness, even if we may not always see it.  That is why Bruce sings, and why we sing along as well.

And thus, “The screen door slams…”

Thrasymachus and Philosophy

Though only a force to be reckoned with in Book I of Plato’s Republic, Thrasymachus always manages to grab my attention.  The first time I read the Republic, I thought Thrasymachus was a simpleton.  In my second reading, my opinion changed, with great thanks to having some Modern political thought in the back of my mind (particularly Hobbes).  My third reading of Book I of the Republic found me seeing Thrasymachus as being somewhat comedic.  I could see the frustration on Thrasymachus’ face as he was being held back from wanting to jump in like a wolf and set Socrates straight.   

My most recent reading of Book I has brought with it something new (which always seems to be the case when I read Plato, Aristotle, and any other great author, for that matter).  When Thrasymachus finally speaks, he says, “What is this nonsense that has possessed you for so long, Socrates?  Why do you [and Polemarchus] act like fools making way for one another?” (336c).  Thrasymachus then accuses Socrates of withholding the answer from all who are listening so that he can gratify his love of honor (336c).  What first stood out to me is Thrasymachus’ complete misunderstanding of how dialectic works.  The give and take of dialectic requires those involved to make way for one another, but it is not because they are fools.  One engages in dialectic to find the truth, and it is, as Socrates continually shows, the best way of dealing with ignorance.

A deeper misunderstanding of dialectic is Thrasymachus’ call for answer, though the depths of that misunderstanding do not come to light until the end of Book I.  Once Socrates realizes that Thrasymachus has “put injustice in the camp of virtue and wisdom,” he says, “One oughtn’t to hesitate to pursue the consideration of the argument as long as I understand you to say what you think.  For, Thrasymachus, you seem really not to be joking now, but to be speaking the truth as it seems to you” (emphasis added) (348e-349a).  Thrasymachus quickly (and perhaps curtly) responds, “And what difference does it make to you whether it seems so to me or not, and why don’t you refute the argument?” (349a).  Socrates responds (ironically, I believe), “No difference” (349b).

In the final parts of Book I, Socrates raises the stakes of the dialogue by saying, “For the argument is not about just any question, but about the way one should live” (352d).  Thrasymachus’ insistence that Socrates provide an answer and refute the argument shows his refusal to talk about justice in relation to himself.  If Thrasymachus can convince Socrates to treat justice merely as an argument, then if the argument is proven wrong, the fault lies with it and not the person who makes it.  But if Thrasymachus considers justice in relation to himself, and Socrates shows him that he is ignorant, it could be devastating to Thrasymachus (and seems to be once he blushes at 350d). 

Thrasymachus’ approach would most likely be considered by the modern reader to be objective (and, by implication, perhaps scientific).  But from a Socratic perspective, one could not call Thrasymachus’ way of dealing with the argument as “just an argument” philosophic.  If philosophy begins from the command at Delphi to “Know thyself,” then the consideration of ideas simply as arguments and not in relation to ourselves would be avoiding the purpose of philosophy. 

Self-examination is hard, and facing the fact that you are wrong is even harder.  Both tasks are required for Philosophy.  To those who are like Thrasymachus, it may seem comfortable to keep an argument at a distance.  In the end, however, they too are bound to blush from their cowardice.  Philosophy’s ability to leave us unsettled requires that we have the courage to face ourselves and see the good and bad within us for what it really is.  Ignorance of justice is terrible.  Ignorance of oneself is something far worse.  Plato’s Republic has a wonderful way of showing us that knowing justice and knowing oneself are woven together in Philosophy, which, if properly pursued, helps one find the best human life.