Richard Wagner - Prelude to Parsifal

Nietzsche was Wagner's biggest fan, you you might expect, eating up all the proto Germanic ubermensch themes.  And then Wagner came out with this, his last and perhaps greatest opera.  Nietzsche about had a fit at the Christian themes, and wrote the whole thing off.

As with much from Nietzsche, he was throwing the baby out with the bath water.  Wagner's story is from what is perhaps the most interesting tale in all of Western Civilization: Gotfried von Strasbourg's 1210 A.D. story Parzifal.  Gotfried, like all writers of his age took common stories that dated far, far back.  Starting with something that would be familiar to listeners, the story teller would add depth and make the characters his own.

What Gotfried did was to create what was the first truly modern psychological view of Western Man (certainly this was Joseph Campbell's claim).  It was one that synthesized Classical Greco-Roman, Christian, and native European Celtic and Germanic themes into what is unmistakeably modern Western thought.

Nietzsche, of course, hated the Christian aspects of spiritual rebirth.  But the synthesis that comes from repeated failure leading ultimately - if we are lucky - to a breakthrough in our own realization of our lives, that is perhaps uniquely western.  And quite appropriate for Easter.

I don't want you to go

Brigid has lost her brother.  Her sendoff is what you'd expect, and I expect that the Ferryboat Man will take that in lieu of the expected obol.  And make change.

I missed him. I remember walking in the woods with Dad's old Savage and seeing an elk crash into flight from a stand of small trees, the sound curving around the whole earth it seemed. I couldn't move, frozen by the sound. I simply stood, open mouthed, gun at my side, incredulous as to how big he really was close up and all the thoughts flowing through my head, turning to follow his now invisible running. For lack of any other response to his leaving, I picked up a rock and threw it hard and deep into the forest in which he ran, the stone, glinting like a knife, disappearing into the last copper ray of sun before it dipped behind the trees.


"I don't want you to go" was all I could say, as I stood there in the fading light, sounding very small and alone.

But while I never knew him nor him me, her words remind us of the common community in which we find ourselves.

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee. 

- John Donne

Our community is diminished, because Brigid shares with us that which is precious.  The bell tolls for all of us.

Quote of the Day - Camels and needles edition

James figures out Michael Bloomberg's theology:

I have to tip my hat to Bloomberg.  That shriveled old runt sure does aim high.  Imagine how much clout and wealth it must take to bribe God.

Quote of the week, actually.  Holy Week.

Holy Weekend prayer request

If this is your thing, please add one for Brigid.

Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.

- Leo Tolstoy

Ralph Stanley - I Am The Man, Thomas

Ecce homo, behold the man.  Nothing sings that more clearly than Bluegrass, and nobody sings that more in the bluegrass style than Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys.  Not even the epic Bill Monroe who more or less founded bluegrass.



I Am The Man, Thomas (Songwriter: traditional?)

Oh, I am the Man, Thomas, I am the Man
Look at these nail scars here in my hands

They pierced me in the side, Thomas, I am the Man
They made me bear the cross, Thomas, I am the Man

They laid me in the tomb, Thomas, I am the Man
In three days I arose, Thomas, I am the Man

They pierced me in the Side, Thomas, I am the Man
They made me bear the cross, Thomas, I am the Man

He descended to the Dead

Good Friday is always a day for reflection - as it (and indeed all of Holy Week) is intended to be.  If we are strong of heart, we will do that uncomfortable grappling with our own psyche, to glean scraps of wisdom for our own spiritual enlightenment.

The Great Questions are worth study.  What is it to be fully human, as we would wish to be? What is it to live a good life?  What is it to leave that good life, as we all know will some day be our fate?

Hard questions.

The older I get, the more moving I find the story of Holy Week.  Psychologically, we all experience triumph.  Psychologically, we all experience betrayal.  Watching your spirit descend to the Dead is something that I personally have experienced, in the cold, dark, silent hours.  Knowing that a Grace beyond understanding is coming is something that I've experienced more than I've deserved these last years.  That knowing is a special gift, one that has kept me moving forward.

That wasn't there for Kang Min-gyu.  He was the vice principal of the South Korean High School who set up a class trip that ended when the ferry boat ripped it's hull apart on rocks.  Hundreds of his pupils are missing, many no doubt ending their short lives in the dark and cold waters.

He was overcome with grief for his charges, and doubtless no little guilt. And so yesterday, his spirit descended to the Dead.  And when that journey was complete, he hung himself from a tree outside the school.

Today is a Holy Day, not a holiday.  Today is about Mr. Kang's journey, and our journey, and His who this day is about.  What can we learn from others that can aid us on our own journey?  It's said that the longest journey a man will ever take is the eighteen inches between his head and his heart.  Some don't survive the trip.

This reflection is hard, as must be anything truly worth while.  I hope that you - and I - make good use of this pondering.

Pimpin' the minivan, yo

I built an awesome tree house for the kids, yo.

When border collies dream of electric sheep

Most awesomest picture you will see all day

T-Bolt rocks it.

A third of a Century of "Climate Change is going to kill us!"

I'm totally cereal.  But this time it's actually going to happen!

Impressions of Spring

Seen in high places.

 

Seen in low places.

 

Of course, all this comes at a cost.

Yes, that's pollen collected in the cracks of the sidewalk.

Family is important

Even somewhat strange families.

Core memory, Old School style

And nobody does Old School stylin' like Tacitus.  Looks like that stuff is even magnetic.

Srlsy, what's the information density on that?  I mean, it's readable by the human eyeball ...

Jimmy D Lane - Bleeding Heart

Usually I post blues on Thursday, but this Heartbleed vulnerability from hell is making my life blue.  Gettin' bluer every day.

All will be well when the Government votes in a new People

Stupid old Democracy standing in the way of Climate Change action:

Nations need to take aggressive action in the next 15 years to cut carbon emissions, in order to forestall the worst effects of global warming, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Expect a certain part of our political class to insist that man-made climate change is not consensus science, and that until it is, nothing should be done. The problem there is obvious: By the time all the skeptics are persuaded, it will be too late for an effective response. In that regard, climate change poses a test of our democracy’s ability to address a threat pressing enough to require a relatively prompt response but too complicated for a lay person to assess on his own authority.

Man, those rubes just don't get the importance of them paying more taxes and having lowered standards of living.  Don't they understand that this is Science® from Top Men?

Fortunately for Those In Charge, the United States is not a Democracy but rather an Oligarchy:

A study, to appear in the Fall 2014 issue of the academic journal Perspectives on Politics, finds that the U.S. is no democracy, but instead an oligarchy, meaning profoundly corrupt, so that the answer to the study’s opening question, "Who governs? Who really rules?" in this country, is:


"Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts. Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But, ..." and then they go on to say, it's not true, and that, "America's claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened" by the findings in this, the first-ever comprehensive scientific study of the subject, which shows that there is instead "the nearly total failure of 'median voter' and other Majoritarian Electoral Democracy theories [of America]. When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy."

To put it short: The United States is no democracy, but actually an oligarchy.

Top Men working to keep themselves on top, you might say.  There's actually a more specific political definition for this:

When it comes to the real world, the difference between fascism, communism and crony-capitalism is semantic. Let's start with everyone's favorite hot-word, fascism, which Italian dictator Benito Mussolini defined as "the merger of state and corporate power." In other words, the state and corporate cartels are one system.

Real-world communism, for example as practiced in the People's Republic of China, boils down to protecting a thoroughly corrupt elite and state-owned enterprises (SOEs). The state prohibits anything that threatens the profits (and bribes) of SOEs--for example, taxi-apps that enable consumers to bypass the SOE cab companies.

...

How else to describe this other than the merger of state and corporate power? Any company the state doesn't own operates at the whim of the state.

Now let's turn to the crony-capitalist model of the U.S., Japan, the European Union and various kleptocracies around the globe. For PR purposes, the economies of these nations claim to be capitalist, as in free-market capitalism.

Nothing could be further from the truth: these economies are crony-capitalist systems that protect and enrich elites, insiders and vested interests who the state shields from competition and the law.

The essence of crony-capitalism is of course the merger of state and corporate power. There are two sets of laws, one for the non-elites and one for cronies, and two kinds of capitalism: the free-market variety for small businesses that are unprotected by the state and the crony variety for corporations, cartels and state fiefdoms protected by the state.

Since crony-capitalism is set up to benefit parasitic politicos and their private-sector cartel benefactors, reform is impossible.

...

That's why the answer to the question, what's the the difference between fascism, communism and crony-capitalism is nothing.

And so never fear about those beastly old Global Warming Deniers.  If spending Big Ca$h on IPCC mitigations will benefit the Oligarchs, it will be made to happen.  So let it be written, so let it be done.

And ignore the murmurings from the peasants.  After Immigration "Reform" there will be a new People, more congenial to the Top Men than the current one.

RABBLE, n. In a republic, those who exercise a supreme authority tempered by fraudulent elections. The rabble is like the sacred Simurgh, of Arabian fable — omnipotent on condition that it do nothing. (The word is Aristocratese, and has no exact equivalent in our tongue, but means, as nearly as may be, "soaring swine.")

- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

Hat tip to 2cents for the first link, which brought the whole post together.

The Bureau of Land Management's Bastille

Image via La Wik

July 1789 was a tumultuous time in Paris.  Discontent with the Royal regime had been building for decades and had reached the point where the King was forced to call a Constitutional Assembly.  But as the nobles, clergy, and bourgeoisie harangued each other, the people of Paris were growing increasingly restive.

And by "restive" I mean that mobs were spontaneously forming.  The most important of these was the mob that stormed and sacked the notorious Bastille prison on July 14.  The Bastille had an evil reputation and was seen by essentially everyone - educated and uneducated alike - as a symbol of a despotic and tyrannical government.  And so the mob broke the doors down and sacked it.  They paraded the head of its commander on a pike through the streets.

Image via La Wik

What is odd is that the perception was very different from the reality.  The Bastille had almost no prisoners housed in it.  Conditions for the prisoners were actually fairly comfortable, and fine dining among its noble prisoners (most of those incarcerated there) was the norm.  But the air was filled with discontent, and so wildly exaggerated books like Simon-Nicholas Linguet's Memories of the Bastille painted a lurid (if untrue) portrait of the place.  And so it was torn down.  Today's Place de la Concorde is all that remains of the site.

We have just see the US Government's Bureau of Land Management go through an experience similar to Louis XVI.  What was essentially a mob driven by a long-building sense of grievance stared down the King's Men in Nevada.

A number of people have rightly pointed out that Mr. Bundy is no Saint, and that legally he doesn't have a leg to stand on.  That's quite true.  It also isn't the point that is driving events.

What is driving events is something that would have been well understood by M. Linguet.  Mobs do not spontaneously form out of nothing, and the spark that lights the fire may have very little to do with reality.  His memoir was essentially a work of fiction; it was enormously influential nonetheless because the Government then had laid the groundwork building widespread resentment.

As has ours in this day.

All that remains of the Bastille is the key to its main gates, currently handing on display at Mt. Vernon (it was a gift to George Washington from the Marquis de Lafayette).  That's all that's left of a feared symbol of Royal power - that and an annual national holiday in France.

Our Government has no idea what they have awakened, any more than Louis XVI had.  So far, it has played out without blood flowing in the streets.  I am pessimistic that this will continue for long.

Wednesday morning link dump

Graybeard on 3-D printed body parts.

So that's what you use Ethernet for?  LOL.

Adverse Possession and the Bundy vs. BLM affair.  I hadn't thought of that.  And Goober scores a double by explaining how to pronounce FLAK.  No, not the nickname, the actual German word.  Yikes.

Why are Texas women so misogynist?

Beer is salad.  Because Science®!

This post is brought to you by General Clapper, who is still not in prison ...

From the department of abusive philosophy

Battle of Britain Ace's decorations going to auction

Stephen emails to point out the upcoming auction of these:

The decorations of Air Commodore Ronald Berry.  Expected price, 120,000 UKP.

The Thought-Terminating Cliche

Al Fin has a link-rich post about groupthink and the hive mind:

A large part of the dominant left’s ideological battle against all others, is keeping alternative thought as far away from “authoritative” public platforms as possible. So no commencement address at Brandeis for Ayaan Hirsi-Ali.

A thought-terminating cliche is a canned response that drops a listener into a default protective mode where challenging propositions can be rejected out of hand.  These cliches have (as all cliches must) a kernel of truth surrounded by vast shades of gray that are skipped over.  The usefulness of the thought-terminating cliche is that the Faithful can resist sin.

When avoiding the group mind, one is not looking for things to believe. Rather, one is looking for provocative ideas capable of jarring the mind into alternative levels and avenues of thought. A mind looking for something to believe is a mind ripe and ready for recruitment into the hive.

This explains the hypocrisy of the Academic Left: in the 1960s and 1970s they were all for free exploration of new ideas, because they were on the outside looking to get in.  Free expression helped them.  Since the 1980s they have become the dominant ideology and so new ideas are most definitely not welcome.  Thus the focus on punishing thought crime (Campus speech codes) as being harmful to diversity.

Of course, "thought crime" and "diversity" are both cliches.  However, only one stops the thought process.