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Fri, 10 July 2015
"Today," I.A. Richards begins his 1936 lectures, rhetoric "is the dreariest and least profitable part of the waste that the unfortunate travel through in Freshman English! So low has Rhetoric sunk that we would do better just to dismiss it to Limbo than to trouble ourselves with it--unless we can find reason for believing that it can become a study that will minister successfully to important needs" (3). this is just what Richards sets out to do in a series of lectures at Bryn Mawr that eventually became the thin book The Philosophy of Rhetoric.
For Richards, a literary scholar by training and one of the founders of the Close REading and New Criticism, rhetoric had been for too long about disputes and argumentation. Instead he proposes that rhetoric should be "a study of misunderstanding and its remedies" and investigation in "How much and in how many ways may good communication differ from bad?" To this end, the proposes a sort of philological rhetoric, one where there is to be "persistent, systematic, detailed inquiry into how words work that will take the place of the discredited subjuect which goes by the name Rhetoric" (23). This description may rankle contemporary rhetoricicans. We like argumentation, and resist the idea that what we should be doing sounds like the very work schoolmarmn sentence diagramming, but Richards recognized that the way words work cannot be divorced from society.
But Ricahrds also broadened the idea of what rhetoric could be--not just strict argumentation, but an exporation of all language. "Perausion is just one of the aims of discourse" he writes. "It poaches on others." This opens up rhetoric to more than argumentation, and Richards' focus on words, words, words does not come at the expense of thinking about meaning.
In fact, he derides what he calls the Proper Meaning Superstitution, the fallacious ida that "a word has a meaning of its own (ideally, only one) independent of and controlling its use and purpose for which it should be uttered" (11).
Instead "What a word means is the missing parts of the contexts from which it draws its delegated efficacy" (35). It's all context.
In order to illustrate the importance of context, Richards gives the example of the metaphor, one of the four master tropes. He separates the metaphor into its two parts: the tenor and vehicle. the tenor is the thing behind the metaphor and the vehicle is the means of conveying it. So if I said love is a battlefield, love is the tenor and battlefield is the vehicle. That girl is a firework. girl is tenor, firework is the vehicle. So far so good? So metaphors, Richards says, "may work admirably without our being able with any confidence to say how ti works or what is the ground of the shift." Richards gives his own, slightly outdated example "If we call some one a pig or a duck, for example, it si little use looking for some actual resemblance toa pig or a duck as the ground. We do not call someone a duck ro imply that she has a bill and paddles or is good to eat" (117). Little venture into canniblistic imagry there, I.A., but, of course, we call someone a duck becuase they are "charming and delightful"--or we could call someone a duck if we were a little more british. But the duck example highlights that while some metaphors work because of a "direct remblance" between the tenor and the vehicle and sometimes because of a similar attitutude to both--love is like a battlefield because there are similar feelings to being at war and being in love. This all sounds like a lot of poetics, but it demonstrates Richards concern for the very small elements of communication.
Words are vitally important, down to the detail, for Richards. "Words are the meeting points at which regions of experience which can never combine in sensation or intuition, come together. They are the occasion and the means of that growth which is the mind's endless endeavor to order itself. That is why we have language. It is no mere signalling system. It is the instrument of all our distinctively human development, of everything in which we go beyond the other animals." (131)
Ultimately, he envisions a philosophical restructuring of rhetoric were "we may in time learn so much about words that they will tell us how our minds work" (136). Further, he goes on "It seems modest and reasonable to combine these dreams and hope that a patient persistence with the problems of Rhetoric may, while exposing the causes and modes of the misinterpretation of words, also throw light upon and suggest a remdial discipline for deeper and more grievous disorders; that, as the mall and local errors in our everday misunderstandings with language are models in miniature of the greater errors which disturb the development of our personalities, their study may also show us more about how these large scale disasters may be avoided (136-7). The man who pioneered New Criticism proposes a New Rhetoric beyond argumentation.
for all that, you won't read much rhetorical scholarship pulling on Richards. Back in 1997, Stuart C Brown pointed out that while most rhetoric students read the Philosophy of Rhetoric, or at least excerpts of it, rhetorical scholars don't really pay much attention to Richards. Maybe they have a word or two of "faint praise" and ackowledge him as part of our tradition, but they don't spend much time on him. Brown thinks this is a mistake and that Ricahrds " established the basic argument for establishing a truly new rhetoric" (219) By acknowledging the multiplicity of meanings, the instabliity of langauge, Richards opens up space for rhetorical interpretation. Brown makes an indepth defense of the value of Richards' work. But still, 1997 was a long time ago and Richards still hasn't come to the forefront as a rhetorical influence.
that being said, we'll get to spend a little more time with Richards, because next week we're going to talk about Richard's other major work--the Meaning of Meaning--so get ready to get hipster about your rhetorical theoretians next time on Mere Rhetoric.
Direct download: Richards_Philosophy_of_Rhetoric.mp3
Category:Education -- posted at: 6:11 PM
Thu, 2 July 2015
When I was a kid, I bickered a lot with my brother Dave. Dave is three years older than me, which meant he was farther along in school and knew more things. This bothered me, so if he said something, I said the opposite. If he said that hippos were more dangerous than lions, then I had to prove that lions were more dangerous than hippos. If he said that indoor games were better than outside, I have to prove that outside were better than inside. Sometimes, like boxers circling eachother, we would switch positions and suddenly I was arging for hippos and indoor games and Dave was arguing for lions and outdoor games. It must have driven my mother crazy, especially on a long Sunday afternoon, but it turns out that what Dave and I were do has a long tradition in rhetorical education. We just didn't have a word for it yet—dissoi logoi.
Dissoi logoi means "contrasting arguments" in Greek. You can sort of tease that out from the root word for "dissent" and "logos." It goes really really far back, and we don't know who came up with the first time, but the idea is that you argue your opponent's position to better understand your own. There are two ways to practice dissoi logoi. One is the way I did as a 7 year old, by having an interlocutor and then switching positions. This method works great for school kids all learning together and you can see this practice in speech and debate classes even today. You research and write and then argue your heart out and then after you finish, the teacher holds up their hands and says, "Okay, switch." When I argued what Dave would said, I'd know how to respond to his arguments, because I have heard his arguments.
The other way to practice dissoi logoi is to do it all yourself. You run through all the arguments on one side and then you run through all the arguments on the other side. You're arguing with yourself in a sense. There's a philosophical and cynical view to the practice of dissoi logoi. If you're cynical you might say that this is an example of the relativism of the sophists at the worst. This is what people hate about lawyers and sophists—they don't really care about the argument, but they only care about the language and winning, so they could arguing one thing just as impassioned as the other. It looks like you are two-faced or insincere if you can switch from caring deeply about one side and then, on the turn of a dime, care just as deeply about the other side. But the philosophical perspective sees dissoi logoi as an exercise for coming at a truthier truth. In fact, another term for dissoilogoi is dialexis, and the term is related to dialectic—the opposing forces method of getting at truth espoused by Socrates, Plato and other heavy hitters of classical Athens.
The practice of Dissoi Logoi is articulated in a text called the Dissoi Logoi, which was found at then end of a much later manuscript, and wasn't published until the renaissance. It was proably written around 425 BC, based on its references to historical figures and style of writing. The Dissoi logoi looks like student notes, which is what a lot of rhetorical tezts are, but there's no way of saying it was one thing or another for certain, and we don't know whose class the author was sitting in. It kicks off by saying that good and bad "are the same thing, and that the same thing is good for some but bad for others, or at one time good and at another time bad for the same person." All of this is to say that some actions have different moral weight, depending on who you are and under what circumstances you engage in them. Then follows a series of examples—in sports, a certain outcome will be good for one team, but bad for the other; shoddy workmanship is bad for customers and good for the manufacturers, etc. The same event could be good or bad depending on who experiences it. Then there's a list of the circumstances which are shameful in one setting and praiseworthy in another, like ow for Spartans, girls would walk around bare armed or naked while Ionians would never. You can kind of imagine a list of examples from an instructor. And some of the examples seem awfully sensational—not just regular suicide, murder, exhibitionis, and adultery, but drinking from your enemies' skulls and eating your parents and cross dressing and incest. It's all these off-color examples that make me think the Dissoi Logoi was an educational text—nothing gets kids' attention like sex and violence.
And as a bit of a tangent, the question of education comes up explicitly at the end of the tract, where the question is asked whether wisdom and moral excellence can be taught. The author takes care not to claim that wisdom can be taught, but dismantles the arguments against such an education and argues for the ideal of the person who can "converse in brief questions and answers, to know the truth of things to please one's cause correctly, to be able to speak in public, to have an understanding of argument-skills and to teach people about the nature of everything" (8.1). Oh, if that's all an education takes… But it sounds a lot like the education which Cicero describes in the dialogs on the Orator.
It doesn't seem like a big stretch to say that two thinkers could have independently come up with the idea that the best education would be to know everything, but there's also a possibility that the ideas of the dissoi logoi made it over to Roman thought. But heading back the other way, there may have just been a common ideal floating around in the Greco-Roman world. So did the Dissoi Logoi influence Cicero?
Yes, I think, and no. Whatever one Dave doesn't think.
Direct download: dissoi_logoi.mp3
Category:Education -- posted at: 3:38 PM
Mon, 15 June 2015
Henry Hume, Lord Kames (1696-1782)
Henry Hume, Lord Kames was a distant relative as well as friend to David Hume, although they spell their names differently. David Hume changed the spelling so that his English readers would pronounce it properly. Henry Hume kept the original spelling H-O-M-E.
Unlike David Hume, Lord Kames did not go to university nor even have the benefit of a sojourn to France to broaden his education. Much more like Jane Austen's Lizzie Bennet, Kames was born the third son out of nine children to a heavily indebted but well-respected family. He was educated at home with his siblings and was apprenticed as a solicitor. Unlike Lizzie Bennet, who faces limitations due to her gender, Kames was able to participate in a number of philosophical societies and gentlemen's clubs. He further expanded his knowledge through jobs such as Curator of the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh which gave him access to a wealth of books.
There are a number of factors contributing to Kames success. Clearly two of these factors were his talent and his drive. Another was the luck of a long life. Kames was born in 1696 and lived through much of the eighteenth century to the ripe age of 86. Contemporaries commented on his remarkable good health in old age, the longevity of his memory, and his feisty personality. Kames is quoted as saying of old age "why should I sit with my finger in my cheek waiting for death to take me?' He did not specify which cheek.
After his apprenticeship he worked his way up through the judicial ranks to become a highly respected judge, which is how he acquired the title Lord—it was not a hereditary title but an honor associated with his work as a judge. Lord Kames again like Lizzie Bennett benefited from a lucky marriage. He waited until age 47 to finally decide to marry. His bride, Agatha Drummond, an attractive socialite eleven years his junior came from the wealthy Blair Drummond family. James Boswell's journals praise her for her looks, conversational skills and sense of humor—high praise from Bozzie. Agatha's original marriage portion was a moderate £1000 without any prospects due to an older brother with a family of his own. However in 1766, Agatha unexpectedly became heiress to the entire Blair Drummond estate upon the unfortunate death of her brother and his son. Thereafter, she and her children styled themselves Home-Drummond to acknowledge her family's legacy and her husband Kames actively worked to enjoy and care for the sumptuous estate.
The inheritance impacted Kames' work by providing a country writing retreat. He was a prolific writer with 8 legal histories, plus books on diverse subjects like agriculture, and political science. His book with the greatest impact on the history of rhetoric and the subject of our talk today was Elements of Criticism. Published in 1761, Elements of Criticism brought the Enlightenment's "scientific" view of human nature to the critical evaluation of the fine arts. I would like to highlight how this interesting eighteenth century text connects to some very recent conversations about multimodal, visual and spatial rhetorics.
Elements of Criticism made a splash and was a bit controversial due to its expansive inclusion of the visual arts with belle lettres. Developing a theory of criticism for the fine artsrequired Kames to take sides in debates about human nature, beauty, and human nature. He is participating in these with writers like Frances Hutcheson, Thomas Reid, and Edmund Burke. At the time he was writing the orthodox and moderate factions of the Presbyterian church were vying for power in Scotland. Based on theological ideas going back to the Reformation, both sides had mixed feelings about the impact of visual arts like paintings and sculpture on the viewer. In some areas theater was illegal.
Most of Elements of Criticism engages with literary texts for its examples and illustrations but his methods take into account the multimodality of the work. For example, Kames takes encourages readers to take into account the musical and melodic qualities of poetry in his analysis of meter. In spite of the disapproval of theater in Edinburgh, he works in criticism of plays and operas—not just the librettos but also of the staging and sets tacitly indicating through these inclusions his views on theater debate.
For those listeners interested in spatial theory or rhetorics of space, Kames applies the final chapter of the book the criticism of gardening and architecture. The chapter thinks about how progression through space and the arrangement of objects in space can influence the mind and especially the emotions. Kames emphasizes the natural style of gardening over more ornate or fantastic styles. He presents the ornate French gardens as an example of what not to do, and praises the harmony of Chinese models.
Many of Kames's proscriptive and prescriptive critiques participate in a larger Scottish Enlightenment conversation about taste in which moderates posed that fine arts were acceptable if morally improving to the audience or reader. In this argument the wealthier members of society had an obligation to develop their taste as a sort of moral education. For Kames, taste could also be developed by the lower classes through proximity to and observation of tasteful public works. This idea represents a synthesis of ideas about the human tendency towards imitation and new concepts of the moral sense. This chapter along with Sir John Dalrymple's Essay on Landscape Gardening popularized the natural garden trend in mid-eighteenth century Scotland.
Elements of Criticism had a lasting impact as a textbook well into the 19th century and was by no means confined to Scotland. The work was quickly translated into German and appeared in the library of Emmanuel Kant. It crossed the Atlantic where it was taught in rhetoric courses at Yale side-by-side with texts by authors like Hugh Blair and George Campbell, according to the research of Gregory Clark.
To close our discussion of Elements of Criticism I would like to bring things back to the author himself. Lord Kames, after all, did not have the benefit of a formal education, nor did he have the restrictions. Although his writing is clear, he does not aspire to the heights of rhetorical eloquence. In his judicial practice he was well known for using casual and even ribald language with his colleagues. According to local legend, Kames at his retirement took leave of his colleagues with a cheery "Fare ye a'weel, ye bitches!"
Thanks for listening to our podcast today. This is Connie Steel at the University of Texas for Mere Rhetoric.
Chambers, Robert. Traditions of Edinburgh, Vol 2. Edinburgh: W. & C. Tait 1825, p 171. Googlebooks Web.
Clark, Greg. "Timothy Dwight's Moral Rhetoric at Yale College, 1795–1817." Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric. Vol. 5, No. 2 (Spring 1987) pp 149-161.
Home, Henry, Lord Kames. Elements of Criticism. Edited with an Introduction by Peter Jones (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005). 2 Vols. www.libertyfund.org May 31, 2015. Web.
Lehmann, William C. Henry Home, Lord Kames, and the Scottish Enlightenment: A Study in National Character and in the History of Ideas. The Hague: Martinus Hijhoff, 1971. (International Archives of the History of Ideas. Info on Agatha and the family, on Agatha p 64-65. "Bitches" 135 (from Chambers).
Miller, Thomas. "The Formation of College English: A Survey of the Archives of Eighteenth-Century Rhetorical Theory and Practice." Rhetoric Society Quarterly. Vol. 20, No. 3 (Summer, 1990) pp 261-286.
Direct download: Lord_Kames.mp3
Category:Education -- posted at: 6:41 PM
Sat, 23 May 2015
Today we're doing a podcast on Dionysius of Halicarnassus, not least because it's so fun to say his name. Some people just have the kind of name that makes you want to say it all out, in full. Say it with me: Dionysius of Halicarnassus. It's lovely. Fortunately, we'll lget to say Dionysius of Halicarnassus several times today.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, being of Halicarnassus, was Greek, but he wasn't one of the 5th century golden age Greek rhetoricians--he lived around 50-6 BC during the Roman empire. Indeed, he studied in Rome and gave lessons there as part of the Greek educational diaspora. Dionysius of Halicarnassus could be seen as a great reconsiler between Roman and Greek thought, or he could be seen as a stoolie for the romans. He wrote of the Romans as the heirs of Greek culture and was always talking up the qualities of the Romans.
But he did love Greek rhetoricians. He writes admiringlyof Greek poets like Homer and Sappho of Greek rhetoricians Isocrates and Lysius, and even of Dinarchus, whom most people thought was kind of a lousy rhetor and even Dionysius of Halicarnassus admits was "neither the inventor of an individual style … nor the perfector of styles whcih others had invented" (1). He compiledhis thoughts on rhetoric into a more-or-less treatise known to us rather unimaginatively as the Art of Rhetoric. Not to be confused with all of the other Arts of Rhetoric, but the one by Dionyius of Halicarnasus. In the Art of Rhetoric and On Literary Composition, he offers in-depth analysis of many of the greatest Greek rhetors and rhetoricians, giving long examples in his text. As a matter of fact, much of the fragments we have from folks like Sappho comes from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, because he loved to quote big chunks of text and then go back and describe what was happening in those texts, even down to the level of the sounds of the vowels. that's the level of analysis you get from dionysius of Halicarnassus.
And rather not surprisingly. Dionysius of Halicarnassus cited big chunks of text because he was a firm believer of imitation. Imitation,in this case, wasn't the same as mimesis. Let me describe the differences: For Aristotle, Mimesis was about looking to nature and imitation from nature. So you see a bowl of grapes, and you get your teeny, tiniest paintbrush and you paint thos grapes so realistically that someone walking by might jam their finger reaching out to grab one. that's mimesis. Dionysian imitation, though, is about imitating an author. Or authors. So now instead of staring at a bowl of grapes, you might stare at a poem about a bowl of grapes. Pedagogically, you might first emulate the poem, trying to recreate the poem as closely as you can, then adapt the poem, maybe now instead of a poem about grapes you make it a poem about plums. then you might rework and improve the poem, cutting back the long winded parts, or where the original author used a lame analogy or something. But then, in your own work, you continue this process with not just one poem, but dozens of poems, and not just by one author, but by dozens of authors. Through careful reading and analysis, you can identify the styles and methods most appropriate to your situation. This was popular for the Romans and it's popular with us. If you're going to write a love poem today, for instance, you might write a sonnet because of the successful love poems of Plutarch and Shakespeare, and you might find yourself using similar kinds of tropes and figures as Plutarch and Shakespeare, cataloging the beauty of your beloved, or comparing them to an animal or flower.this is all Dionysian imitation on your part. The Dionysian imitation caught on in a big way among Latin writers. Quintilian was a fan and included imitation of authors in his own pedagogy. Dionysius of Halicarnassus' 3-volume treatise, known to us as--surprise--on imitation became a relative best seller. It makes sense considering the politics of greco-roman relations: if the Golden Age rhetors, Isocrates and Lysius, really are teh best, they can serve as models for Roman writers. these Roman writers, though, can exceed the Greek models. Just like how Dionusus of Halicarnassus thought that Romans were the literal descendents of later Greeks, he found a way that their writing could be descended from Greek style.
It may sound weird to us to not value originality, but Romans were sort of world-weary, "nothing new to be said" sorts who recognized the long literary precedent of Greek and Egyptian writers. Dionysian imitation could give them a way to feel that they were taking this long history and improving on it. And that meant a lot to them.
If you, like Dionysius of Hallicarnassus, have a fun name to say, or if you know of a rhetorician who, like Dionysius of Hallicarnassus, has a fun name to say, why not drop us a line at firstname.lastname@example.com? Until next time, Dionysius of Hallicarnassus.
Direct download: Dionysius_Of_Halicarnassus.mp3
Category:Education -- posted at: 5:00 PM
Mon, 18 May 2015
Remember when you were a freshman and you took first year critical reasoning? Or in high school, when you took the AP thinking exam?
Of course not, because we don't really teach philosophy or critical thinking. What we do teach is writing.
Welcome to MR the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, movements and people who have shaped rhetorical history. today we'll be talking about the mid nineties text "Rhetoric of Reason," winner of the 1997 MLA Mina Shannassy book prize.
Titles one chapter "The end of Philosophy and the Resurgence of Rhetoric" Provocative idea. but can rhetoric and writing classes take over the millenia of philosophy and logic instruction that have long been cornerstones of a liberal education?
Crosswhite conceives his own book to be "a challenge to teachers of writing… to become much more philosophical about the teaching and theory of argumentation" (8).Motivated by "a social hope that people will be able to reason together" (17) in a civil responsibly taught in FYC classes the nation over. Because "The teaching of writing is nothing less than the teaching of reasoning" (4). Purpose of university education is to write reasoned argumentation, "about conflicts that are matters of concerns to many different kinds of people, to fellow citizens who may not share their specialized knowledge" (296).
Rhetoric is philosophy without absolutes ("including negative absolutism") (35). If there is an end of philosophy in the 1990s as the influence of deconstructionists like Derrida is splashing over departments of English, can writing and rhetoric fill the gap in teaching the new good reasoning?As one review put it, "Crosswhite clearly moves away from the static view of formal logic in which propositions are measured against internally consistent rules rather than the more complex and shifty criteria articulated by live audiences" (Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, Reed Way Dasenbrock, Andreea Deciu, Christopher Diller & Colleen Connolly).
In this, he is highly indebted to the work of new rhetorics like the kind you'll find in Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca's The New Rhetoric, which I promise we'll talk about one of these days. For our purposes the key thing Crosswhite adopts is the idea of a universal audience. The term "universal" can be misleading. Crosswhite points out that "Unviersiality … depvelops along different lines; there are different and sometimes incompatiable ways of achieveing more universal standpoints. Universality is an achievement of particular people at particular times for particular purposes" (215). But another way, he says "Even if argumentation is a relatively universal practice, the occasions on which one argues, what one argues about, the requency with which one argues, the people with whom one argues, how explicitly one argues, how far one carries and argument--all these things may vary strongly from culture to culture" (218). It sounds a lot like rhetoric, doesn't it, all this considering the audience and kairos and stases? Rhetorically specific communities, though, all will detirmine what is good reasoning and reflect that back to their interlocutors.Reasoning "is dependant on a background of deep competences, moods, abilities, assumptions, beliefs, ways of being and understanding" (254). "Argumentation is a "relatively universal practice" but how, where, why and for what of argumentation "may vary strongly from culture to culture" (218). Fundamentally, "People can argue only concerning those things about which they are willing to learn, and change their minds" (283).
Imagine an audience that is broadly conceived yet culturally dependant. An audience of good reasoners.With such an audience, good reasoning is "a matter not simply of what is true, but of the measure of the truth yielded by argumentation" (153). Audiences are crucial, because "there are those occasion on which an audience repsonds in ways we had not anticipated and in fact goes beyond our own reasoning and our own ideas. sometimes, and audience evaluates our reasoning and in ways we could not have foreseen--but which we nevertheless recognize as legitimate" (152). Contradiction is important, becoming "powerful enablers of discovery" (263) and as such "contradictions should be cherished, nurtured developed" (264)
Other key influences come from philosophy, notably Levinas and Cavell, because the ordinary, the acknowledgement of other people are important, builds"mutual trust and respect [to] make possible rather extraordinary uses of the ordinary possibilities of communication" (31).
Mutual respect does not, though, mean consensus. In fact, Crosswhite is bullish on dissent in general "Where there is no conflict of any kind," he says, "there is no reason" (72). "We don't need courses in 'critical thinking' nearly as much as we need course in suspending critical thought in order to read deeper understandings" (201), focusing more on questions than consensus (199). This proves a problem when looking at a significant third of traditoinal rhetoric: the epideictic. As Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and co-authors observe, this "view, however, forces Crosswhite to quickly pass over how both aesthetic discourse (he cites fiction, poetry, and plays) and, less quickly, how epideictic rhetoric complicate the way that rationality and argumentation be- come embodied and therefore persuasive." Instead, the epideictic for crosswhite "seems to lack the connectio with social conflict and looks more like a struggle with nature" (104) and the only way is to "try to show how epideictic, too, is a form of social conflict" (105)--a proposition he invokes but doesn't develop.
But let's get back to what he does get to, which is surprisingly pragmatic for a book that cites so much Gadamer and Heidegger. He says That students simply "need more familiaryt with more diverse and more universal audience, with audiences which demand more explicit reasoning" (273) Crosswhite gives an extended example of what this looks like in his own classes.
Here's the useful, wheels-on-the-road stuff: " writing courses and textbooks often lack focus and purpose; they simply try to cover too much" (189); and he recommends more workshops with student-to-student audiences because "writers need real interlocutors and audiences—a real rhetorical community" (281). Crosswhite's writtena pretty brainy and philosophical text here, but he's also made an argument for bringing questions of reasoning and philosophy into the writing class as key to what we do and key to what philosophy should do. What do you think? Should we be responsible for teaching reasoning in the university? How do we fit it in when we have so much to cover? Drop us a line at email@example.com and let me know. Should first year composition be retitled first-year reasoning and writing?
Direct download: crosswhite.mp3
Category:Education -- posted at: 7:28 PM
Thu, 7 May 2015
Complaint that Gorgias has not written a true encomium, but an apologia--a defense. He only defended her actions as not her fault instead of saying what she was actually excellent at. Isocrates complains that the encomium of helen is flaky, like the encomiums of bees or salt that other sophist have written. And, like so many of us, he uses this technicality to fuel his own attempt. It kind of reminds me of the Phaedrus, where Socrates wants to correct the speech he has just heard from another sophist. Something about seeing something done wrong makes you want to do it right.
And Isocrates is certain that is has been done wrong. First lines of his encomium demonstrate that: "There are some who think it a great thing if they put forward an odd, paradoxical theme and can discuss it without giving offense" Complaints against the sophist especially gorgias--Isocrates was one of those people who thought Gorgias was disreputable, moving around all the time, proving impossibles all the time, and, damningly, a political. "The most ridiculous thing of all is that they seek to persuade us through their speeches that they have knowledge of politics" (9). Writing about trivial things means that people will listen, admire--but not debate. By taking novel topics instead of political, they are easily the best--like being the best player of Calvinball. Instead, Isocrates praises in a political vein, using Helen as a figure for a contemporary controversy. But he does so in a roundabout way.
So to praise Helen, starts by praising her absconder. He mentions himself that "it would not yet be clear whether my speech is in praise of Helen or a prosecution of theseus" (21) But he argues by association: those who are "loved and admired her were themselves more admirable than the rest" (22). So, that argument goes, those who wanted Helen were the best sort, so she was, by assoication, pretty great. There's a lot of praise of Theseus here for a supposed praise of Helen, but the Theseus Isocrates paints is a hero, not just of himself, like Hercules was, but for the Greek people in general he "freed the inhabitants of the city from great fear and distress" (25) and "thought it was better to die than to live and rule a site that was compelled to pay such a sorrowful tribute to its enemies" (27). Theseus was a selfless, poltical heo who has "cirtue and soundness of mind … especially in his managment of the city. He saw that those who seek to rule the citizens by force became slaves to others and those who put others' lives in danger live in fear themselves" (32-33).
In deed, there's so much civic love for Theseus here that you set the idea that Isocrates here isn't just talking about fiction, or myth, or history , but politics. This is not just a fun triffle , a parodoxologia like where Gorgias made Helen a hero instead of a villian. this is not paignion, a fun peice of exhition. George Kenedy argues that Isocrates goes on at such great length about theseus because "theseus is worthy of Helen" and similarly "Athens is worth of the hegemony which it should take from Sparta" (81). In other words, The Helen is "in fact a clear statement of Isorates' program of Panhellenism" (80)--a united federation of greek city states helmed by Athens.
The praise of Helen herself backs up this idea: "It is due to Helen that we are not the slaves of the barbarian" paraphrases Kennedy (82). Isocrates talks about Helen the way that 19th century americans talked about manifest destiny: "A longing for beautiful things,... is innate in us, and it has a strength greater than our other wishes" and "we enslave ourselves to such people with more pleasure than we rule others" (55-57). Helen wasn't just beautiful--she was devine. She "acheive more than other mortals just as she excelled over them in appearances. Not only did she win immortality, but she also gained power equal to the gods'" (61). While Theseus was honored by association to be chosen to judge the gods, Helen was defied, and --and this is important for the political analogy--she was able to assist in the apotheiosis of Menelaisis and others.
In the end, Isocrates' Helen is several things at once: it is a criticism of the Gorgias and the other traveling sophists, who made their living by proving the impossible in demonstration speeches that delighted and caused, to paraphrase Gorgias' own words, amusement for the authors. He's presenting a political tract, similar to the one in the PanAthenaicus, where he argues for a more involved Athenian hegemony in panhellenic unity. He's also presenting a pedagogical advertisment: study with me, he says, and you'll create real political speeches, not fluffy bits of taffy. At the end of the speech, ever the teacher, Isocrates says "If, then, some people wish to elaborate this material and expand on it, they will not lack material to stimulate their praise of Helen beyond what I have said, but they will find many original arguments to make about her"--yes, he's setting up his potential students to use his encomium--a real encomium--as a model for their own, future, semi-scaffolded work.
Direct download: Isocrates_Encomium_of_Helen.mp3
Category:Education -- posted at: 9:46 PM
Fri, 1 May 2015
Transcript available on request
Return from hiatus. Dissertation submitted to readers.
Gorgias. Not The Gorgias, but gorias himself.
There are very few rhetoricians who get a shiny golden statue made of them. In fact, I don't personally know anyone who has one. But when I think of solid golden statues, I think of one man in specific—Gorgias. People built a golden statue to Gorgias. Sold. Gold. Awarded many honors that were usually reserved for citizens. Traveled around like a rock star.
And what do you do when you're a rock star? What did the Beatles do? Find greater challenges.
Helen of Troy's position in society
Why did he it—it's fun (also money) "I wishes to write a speech which would be a praise of Helen and diversion to myself"—but also demonstrate the power of language, arguing implicitly that his speech has been effective. While he's describing that Helen couldn't help herself, everyone in the audience is being swept away, too. paignia, a playful piece. Shining example of "paradoxologia."
it's a bit contradictory to have an orator tell you to beware of the things people say in beautiful ways because they could lead you astray. He certainly isn't making a case for straight-talking, the way he's speaking, but the idea that speech can be good and bad and can be immensely powerful makes Gorgias himself into a supposed kind of benevolent dictator of people's opinions and emotions.
How he does it: Gorgiac figures divices like antithesis and paronomasia.
"opinion is slippery and insecure it casts those empllying it into slippery and insecure successes" "Speech is a powerful lord" "is she was persuaded by speech she did not do wrong but was unfortunate.
Say H had been physically abducted—certaitnly she wouldn't be at fault. G says that Helen being seduced by words was just as powerful. Since speech can "stop fear and banish grief and create joy and nurture pity" Speech is "comparable to the power of drugs over the nature of bodies"
The dual nature of speech is strongly marked by Gorgias' use of antithesis. He discusses "a passion which loved to conquer and a love of honor which was unconquered" to describe Helen (45). He is not only defending Helen, but using Helen's dual nature to prepare his listeners for his explanation of the positive and negative potential of rhetoric. "
isocolon; he describes cities and manpower, body and beautiful, soul and wisdom, action and virtue, and speech and truth (44). By drawing connections between these things, Gorgias sets the stage for his thesis about the necessity for speaker to speak truth or else immorally lead people astray against their ability to stop the speaker. Speaking of setting the stage, while Gorgias uses isocolon quite liberally, he only uses two significant metaphors, both dealing with the nature of speech. He describes speech as both a lord and a drug, two metaphors which describe the irresistible nature of speech as well as speech's power to be both benevolent and maleficent (45-46).
Why did they love him so much? Well, he was an innovator, for one: he is one of the first generation of sophists, the father of sophistry, if you will.
Not everyone loves him, though. : Aristotle also criticizes Gorgias' showmanship and money grubbing. Isocrates wrote a later encomium of Helen and he accuses Gorgias of not having really written an encomium—no praise of her, but defense (Kennedy 21).Father of sophistry becomes Socrates' foil in Gorgias, and it's not surprising given the cheerfully deceiving and deceived of the Encomium's radical departure from Greek traditional view of Helen.
Next week: Isocrates' Encomium of Helen
Direct download: Gorgias_Encomium_of_Helen.mp3
Category:Education -- posted at: 7:17 PM
Thu, 16 April 2015
Show Notes (transcript available upon request):
Why and how does rhetoric break down? For Wayne Booth the issue is that there has been a loss of faith in the idea of good reasons--that we can, indeed, persuade each other to change minds. The crucial assertion is that we are able to change minds.
Modern dogmas--either sciencism or romanticism-- assert that"the purpose of offering reasons ... cannot be to change men's mind in the sense of showing that one view is genuinely superior to another" but it all must be trickery (87). Because of the dogmas of modernism "what had once ben a domain with many grades of dubiety and credibility now becomes simply the dubious (for scientism) or the arena of conflicting faiths (for irrationalism)" (89). The poster boy for these--conflicting enough-- positions is Bertrand Russell, or--rather--Bertrand Russells. Booth splits Russell's work into three parts: Russell I, "the genius of mathematical logic" who was all into proof and facts, Russell II who "tried to disestablish certain past beliefs and establish the more adequate beliefs" of science, and Russell II who was "the man of action and passion, the poet and mystic" (46-7). Both the completely, sterilely rational and the impassioned romantic are part of the modernist perspective that can undermine rhetoric.
The crazy thing is that "Not only do we talk and write and create art and mathematical systms and act as if we shared them: we really do share them, sometimes. Sometimes we understand each other" (113).
Boothe can take it a step further and say that not only do we understand each other, but we actually make each other. We "successfully infer other human beings' states of mind from symbolic clues" but also we "characteristically, in all societies, build each other's minds" (114). This is, in fact, "the supreme purpose of persuasion"-- to "engage in mutual inquire or exploration" and rhetoricians should be committed to learn "whatever conditions make such mutual inquiry possible" (137). "Rhetoric is a supremely self-justifying activity for man only when those engaged in it fully respect the rules and the steps of inquiry" (138). In the rhelm of rhetorical inquiry "we can add value fields that modernism would exclude: in love by lovers, in gastronomy by gourmets, in ever kind of value by those who have some to know a good reason from a bad" (143)--in short what I have called, before, untenetable claims.
The way to do this is through--surprise--thoughtful dialoge. "as I do so I will know that the justic of my action is determined by whther what looks like good reasons" are, in fact (149). We must "somehow constitute [society] as a rhetorical field" (149). Ultimately, "it is not a comfortable community nor a stable one. Even those who join it consciously and sustematically, as we all do by talking together here, cannot provide a convenient list of gods and devils, friends and enemies. But at the same time it can give us some ease in whatever subcommunity we have already assented to" (203).
There's also a great part on rhetoric of poetics and narrative, which I could include in a rhetoric of poetics course--"story as reasons" "Every kind of argument that anyone could ever use in real life might be used in a narrative work and it could presumably carry as much force one place as another" (181).
"if there are good reasons for confidence in the values of discoursing together, then we can get about our business, what ever that may be" (100)
"truth is not always on the side o th rebel"..."simply to say no when everyone else is saying no is just antoher form of group compliance, a disguised and therefore feeble yes" (195)
Motivism is a dogma "not because I think that all or most value choices are made on the basis of fully conscious and 'scientifically cogent reasoning' but because I find many people assuming, without argument, that none of them ever can be. 'Look for the secret motive'"(25). In practice, motivism has often led to a cutting down of man's aspirations and capacities to the 'merely animal' or, in a natural further step, to the chemical or physical" (29)
Direct download: Modern_Dogma_and_the_Rhetoric_of_Assent.mp3
Category:Education -- posted at: 4:16 PM
Fri, 10 April 2015
Transcript available upon request. email@example.com
Direct download: Audience_Addressed_Audience_Invoked.mp3
Category:Education -- posted at: 5:03 AM
Wed, 1 April 2015
Transcript available upon request.
Direct download: Canagarajah.mp3
Category:Education -- posted at: 1:52 PM


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I though t it was alot of fun , and I really can't say much about the players except they the greastest I have seen it ages, not one boo boo, I will tell every one and may even go again'I had terrific seats.I just loved the music , brought back...continued
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New undercover footage shows Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains' Vice President and Medical Director, Dr. Savita Ginde, negotiating a fetal body parts deal, agreeing multiple times to illicit pricing per body part harvested, and suggesting ways to avoid legal consequences.
Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains (PPRM) is a wealthy, multi-state Planned Parenthood affiliate that does over 10,000 abortions per year. PPRM has a contract to supply aborted fetal tissue to Colorado State University in Fort Collins.
In the video, actors posing as representatives from a human biologics company meet with Ginde at the abortion-clinic headquarters of PPRM in Denver to discuss a potential partnership to harvest fetal organs. When the actors request intact fetal specimens, Ginde reveals that in PPRM's abortion practice, "Sometimes, if we get, if someone delivers before we get to see them for a procedure, then we are intact."
"We'd have to do a little bit of training with the providers or something to make sure that they don't crush" fetal organs during 2nd trimester abortions, says Ginde, brainstorming ways to ensure the abortion doctors at PPRM provide usable fetal organs.
When the buyers ask Ginde if "compensation could be specific to the specimen?" Ginde agrees, "Okay." Later on in the abortion clinic's pathological laboratory, standing over an aborted fetus, Ginde responds to the buyer's suggestion of paying per body part harvested, rather than a standard flat fee for the entire case: "I think a per-item thing works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it."
Ginde also suggests ways for Planned Parenthood to cover-up its criminal and public relations liability for the sale of aborted body parts. "Putting it under 'research' gives us a little bit of an overhang over the whole thing," Ginde remarks. "If you have someone in a really anti state who's going to be doing this for you, they're probably going to get caught."
Ginde implies that PPRM's lawyer, Kevin Paul, is helping the affiliate skirt the fetal tissue law: "He's got it figured out that he knows that even if, because we talked to him in the beginning, you know, we were like, 'We don't want to get called on,' you know, 'selling fetal parts across states.'" The buyers ask, "And you feel confident that they're building those layers?" to which Ginde replies, "I'm confident that our Legal will make sure we're not put in that situation."
As the buyers and Planned Parenthood workers identify body parts from last fetus in the path lab, a Planned Parenthood medical assistant announces: "Another boy!"
Be sure you have something handy before watching this, in case you feel the need to, you know…
A temporary restraining order has been issued preventing an anti-abortion group from releasing any video of leaders of a California company that provides fetal tissue to researchers. The group is the same one that previously released three covertly shot videos of a Planned Parenthood leader discussing the sale of aborted fetuses for research.
The Los Angeles Superior Court order issued Tuesday prohibits the Center for Medical Progress from releasing any video of three high-ranking StemExpress officials taken at a restaurant in May. It appears to be the first legal action prohibiting the release of a video from the organization.
The Center for Medical Progress has released three surreptitiously recorded videos to date that have riled anti-abortion activists. The Senate is expected to vote before its August recess on a Republican effort to bar federal aid to Planned Parenthood in the aftermath of the videos' release.
In a statement Wednesday, center leader David Daleiden said StemExpress was using "meritless litigation" to cover up an "illegal baby parts trade."
"The Center for Medical Progress follows all applicable laws in the course of our investigative journalism work," he said.
StemExpress is a Placerville-based company started in 2010 that provides human tissue, blood and other specimens to researchers. Planned Parenthood is one of the company's providers of fetal tissue.
A company spokesman said StemExpress is "grateful its rights have been vindicated in a court of law."
StemExpress is up to its eyeballs in this dirty business as well. As a fetal tissue procurement company, it has been encouraging clinics to benefit financially by aborting children just so, in order to preserve their
clumps of cells hearts, livers, lungs, and other organs that blobs of tissue with more in common with tumors than babies aren't supposed to have. What "rights" it might have, other than those under the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments, that were "vindicated" I have no idea.
I strongly suspect that CMP has its video stockpile in hands other than their own. What I'd love to see happen next Tuesday is for those other hands to release the next shoe to drop, and for CMP then to go back to the court with a middle finger upraised in the direction of Planned Parenthood and StemExpress and an innocent look for the judge as they declare they had nothing to do with the latest release.
Oh, and on a side note…whatever did happen to that First Amendment thingy? It have an accident in the middle of the night, and now sleep with the fishes?
UPDATE: A correction of a sort–it turns out that what CMP has been barred from releasing is vidoes that contain footage of StemExpress officials. Planned Parenthood footage can go on, according to LifeSiteNews:
The California Superior Court has issued a narrow temporary restraining order preventing the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), a pro-life group, from releasing further undercover video footage taken of three top-level staff of StemExpress.
CMP is the organization behind the series of three videos released over the past three weeks exposing the alleged harvesting and sale of body parts from aborted babies by Planned Parenthood – body parts that are then purchased by StemExpress.
The Associated Press, which broke the news about the court order, reports that the undercover videos of the Stem Express staff were filmed at a restaurant in May.
The restraining order reportedly only pertains to the footage of the Stem Express employees, meaning that any other footage, including that featuring Planned Parenthood employees, can still be released as planned.
In an exclusive comment to LifeSiteNews after the release of the court order, Daleiden said that, at the end of the day, what happened in the courtroom may actually be a victory for the pro-life group.
"The ruling is very narrow, concerning only one specific meeting, and it is temporary and contingent pending further litigation," he said. "The judge actually threw out completely the part of StemExpress' case where they were asking to suppress the documents on their baby parts sales."
"It was a much better day for us than it was for them and Planned Parenthood."
In a statement released after the ruling, StemExpress stated that they sought the restraining order "on the grounds that CMP and Daleiden violated California's anti-wiretapping law under Penal Code § 632 (Invasion of Privacy Act)."
"We will continue to pursue all available legal remedies against CMP and Daleiden," said the company.
However, Daleiden told LifeSiteNews that StemExpress' complaints are groundless.
"The recordings in California complied with the California law," he said. "The California law only applies to 'confidential communications' and does not include conversations held in public that anyone can overhear. There is significant case law on this point as well."
With the heresies of the Episcopal Church (USA) still freshly assaulting my mind, I happened across this wisdom from 140 years ago:
When error is admitted into the Church, it will be found that the stages of its progress are always three. It begins with toleration. Its friends say to the majority: You need not be afraid of us; we are few, and weak; only let us alone; we shall not disturb the faith of others. The Church has her standards of doctrine; of course we shall never interfere with them; we only ask for ourselves to be spared interference with our private opinions.
Indulged in this for a time, error goes on to assert equal rights. Truth and error are two balancing forces. The Church shall do nothing which looks like deciding between them; that would be partiality. It is bigotry to assert any superior right for the truth. We agree to differ, and favoring of the truth, because it is truth, is partisanship. What the friends of truth and error hold in common is fundamental. Anything on which they differ is ipso facto non-essential. Anybody who makes account of such a thing is a disturber of the peace of the church. Truth and error are two co-ordinate powers, and the great secret of church-statesmanship is to preserve the balance between them.
From this point of view error soon goes on to to its natural end, which is to assert supremacy. Truth started with tolerating; it comes to be merely tolerated, and that only for a time. Error claims a preference for its judgments on all disputed points. It puts men into positions, not as at first in spite of their departures from the Church's faith but in consequence of it. Their recommendation is that they repudiate the faith, and position is given them to teach others to repudiate it, and to make them skillful in combating it.
Charles Porterfield Krauth, The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1875), pp. 195-196.
Here is Steve Hildebrand's (on his business FB timeline) status today,
I honestly can't believe I'm writing this post. I need your help. Many of you have been in Josiah's over the last two weeks witnessing so-called missionaries bringing in upwards of 50-60 supposed homeless people.
As it turns out, the so-called missionaries were here to target my business – and they were here doing business for the predatory lenders.
Most of you know that I've been co-chairing the effort to curb payday lending and car title loans in South Dakota – an effort that is deeply important to me as I so strongly believe that low income South Dakotans deserve a better chance in life than the 574% these companies charge on small loans.
On June 23, a man by the name of Rod Aycox came to Josiah's. He lied to our staff that he was an old friend traveling through town and would the staff give him my cell phone number. He called me and demanded I meet with him that day. Rod Aycox is the CEO of North American Title Loans and lives in a mansion in Atlanta. He owns the largest predatory car title company in the nation. And, that day, he worked to try to talk me out of our efforts to cap the interest rates on predatory lending.
Shortly there-after, these so-called missionaries showed up in Sioux Falls – and specifically at Josiah's, with a shameless cover story that they wanted to feed homeless people. Each day for two weeks, they brought upwards of 60 people into Josiah's – and multiple times each day. The people were disruptive to our staff and to our guests. Their ring-leader was a man who goes by Deacon Pete. His real name is Floyd Pickett – and yesterday I filed trespass orders to keep him off our property here. Mr. Pickett – a so-called missionary – lives in Atlanta and works for Rod Aycox at North American Title Loans.
Mr. Pickett had one mission in South Dakota and that was to disrupt and attempt to hurt my business and me specifically.
Now that we finally have proof that these folks are fakes and phonies and pawns of the predatory lenders, we can deal in a more direct way with authorities to keep them away from Josiah's for good.
As I said at the beginning of this post, I can't believe I'm writing these words. I've proudly made Josiah's a great place to hang out and enjoy family and friends in a drama-free environment. It's time to get back there.
That's where you come in. I could sure use a lot of familiar and friendly faces to come by – today, tomorrow and in the days ahead. This is YOUR coffeehouse – NOT THEIRS. You are the ones who made this the special place it is today in our community. And I need to see your smiling faces and a few hugs. I've said a hundred times, the best part of my life at Josiah's is all the wonderful people who I've come across. I love our customers and I love being here with you.
I'm so sorry that these bad folks have crossed this threshold. I hope today, we can move things forward.
I love you all a lot. And, I thank you for giving us the chance to serve you.
Steve H.
It is one thing to mount a protest, but these disgusting, idolatrous money grubbers added mockery of Christ himself to the mix.
On top of that, the initiative to cap the rate is to give the people of South Dakota a chance to vote on the matter. Past attempts to pass legislation thru the state capitol have been killed without reaching a vote, as the out of state money and lobbyists dazzle feckless politicians. Here again, people living high in big playground cities like Atlanta use money sucked up from poor people across the country (the average pay day loan in SD resolves in 574% interest - $300 loans result in interest and penalties leading to a payback of $800) to protect their racket. As I shared in an earlier post, their business is predicated on snaring people in cycling debt, leaving the borrower much worse off than when he or she sought the loan.
America is rife with folks whose guiding ethic is, "If it works for me and pleases me, it is good." We see it with Planned Parenthood and its apologists; we see it in government; we see it on Wall Street. I ask your prayers as we confront this manifest evil in South Dakota, in the form of Pay Day and Title lenders. If you are in South Dakota, sign the petition and consider circulating the same. If you know folks in South Dakota, share this information with them. You can learn more and contribute at the campaign website.
The predatory type of lending we are confronting here is "Ten Commandments" level stuff. As God said through Ezekiel, violence, idolatry, immorality and predatory lending are all objects of divine wrath,
"If he fathers a son who is violent, a shedder of blood, who does any of these things (though he himself did none of these things), who even eats upon the mountains, defiles his neighbor's wife, oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not restore the pledge, lifts up his eyes to the idols, commits abomination, lends at interest, and takes profit; shall he then live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself." (Ezekiel 18:10-13 ESV)
"This has been a three-year, well-funded effort by the most militant wing of the anti-abortion movement in this country to try to entrap doctors. And of course highly doctored videos, which show absolutely, doctors repeatedly said and it's all been edited out…
Planned Parenthood does not at all profit from fetal tissue donation, which is an important element of healthcare research in this country. The folks behind this in fact are part of the most militant wing of the anti-abortion movement that has been behind the bombing of clinics, the murders of doctors in their homes and churches."
So, those who got senior Planned Parenthood officials on record haggling over the price of body parts and discussing ways to evade the law prohibiting partial birth abortion are part of the same "movement" that has "been behind" the "bombing of clinics [and] the murder of doctors."
Keep talking, Ms. Richards. And no more weaselly language, please. The folks at CMP could use a bit more evidence for their slander suit.]]>
Olney Theatre's production of Mel Brooks's 2001 musical The Producers only has three more performances, but it's not going to close without a bit of manufactured controversy. Audience members at Montgomery County playhouse are going to have to walk past a small coterie protesting the show's play-within-the-play, because, the demonstrators say, it makes light of Adolf Hitler and the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany.
"I understand the intent is satire," says Jeffrey Imm, who is organizing the demonstration through his anti-discrimination group, Responsible for Equality And Liberty.
I'm sure he understands the intent. The problem is that he doesn't understand satire.
"This is the point of morality: some things we have to recognize as absolute evil. When 6 million people are murdered, we don't view it with knee-slapping, we view it with reverence."
In The Producers, which is adapted from Brooks's Oscar-winning 1968 film of the same name, two crooked Broadway producers endeavor to profit off a critical and commercial flop, which they believe they find in Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden, which portrays Hitler as a flamboyant dandy.
Even though the jokes in The Producers come at the expense of show-business types and Nazis, Imm is not impressed by its humor, or the original Broadway run's record 12 Tony Awards. Contemporary audiences, he argues, are no longer frightened by genocide.
In case you are unfamiliar with the play-with-the-play, here's a sample from the movie:
Now, speaking personally as a person of the Jewish persuasion, I find The Producers mildly funny (Brooks' Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein were both far better), but Springtime for Hitler is pure genius. Nothing enrages Nazis and other ant-Semites more than ridicule. Brooks himself explains:
"You have to bring him down with ridicule, because if you stand on a soapbox and you match him with rhetoric, you're just as bad as he is, but if you can make people laugh at him, then you're one up on him," he tells Wallace. "It's been one of my lifelong jobs - to make the world laugh at Adolf Hitler," says Brooks.
Something that the SJWs will never get is that one of the most effective weapons to take down evil is to laugh at it. Evil desperately wants to be taken as seriously as possible. It wants to eliminate all joy from life. Ridiculing it is one way–not the only way, of course, but one among many–that it can be fought.
Come to think of it, that may be the best way to deal with SJWs, too. In that regard, I have to echo Slim Pickens in this classic, anything-but-politically correct scene:
In case you are wondering, no coincidence this article follows this one.
A crowd of several hundred gathered Saturday night to see Detroit's newest resident: A 9-foot, 2,000-pound statue of a goat-headed occult idol named Baphomet.
The statue will now be stored out of public view until the Temple can find it a permanent home. The group hopes to display it at the Arkansas State Capitol, next to a monument of the Ten Commandments.
But it certainly speaks volumes as to why those crime rates are so high.]]>
"Look! A squirrel!" That's a shorthand way of saying, "Look out, they're giving us trivial distractions to keep us from looking at what's most important."
In our interminable warm ups for the next presidential election, plenty of squirrels are pointed out. Instead of significant policy positions and debates, we get extended news coverage of candidate "tone," bumper sticker slogans and whether or not a candidate can say something as banal as "All lives matter" without offending this or that group of lives.
"Look! A squirrel!" is one way to evade a challenging Bible passage. John's account of Jesus feeding 5,000 hungry people is our Gospel today, and it's been the source of squirrel sightings for many years.
It works like this. Instead of reading the text in detail, the preacher points at the Enlightenment squirrel. "We don't believe in supernatural stuff, so this was no miracle."
"Well, then what do we make of it, Father?"
And Father dutifully points to the moral squirrel. "It is a story about selfishness being overcome by sharing."
"Whaddaya mean, Father?"
"Well, it is clear that there was plenty of food carried by the crowd. If the little boy had fish and bread, so did all those other folks. And when he handed his over to share, all of the selfish people were shamed and produced their hidden munchies, leading to a great potluck. Oh, and Jesus blessed it because sharing is good and selfishness is bad. So it was a holy meal and Holy Communion reminds us to share."
Squirrels, squirrels everywhere, but nothing there to eat.
If we give John a fair read, we find out that WE are the ultimate squirrel. It isn't a practical, moral, human-centered story at all. Post-Enlightenment, or Humanism, or Liberal Theology, or SJW or whatever - it's all wrong for the proper proclamation of this Gospel. The God-breathed words of the text point not to us, but to Jesus as the source of all that matters.
+ It most certainly is about God's supernatural intrusion. The crowd was following Jesus because he was doing signs (v. 2). He was healing, multiplying loaves and fishes and, before it's all said and done, walking on water. The people react to the feeding as a sign by a Prophet "coming into the world", not a moral lesson drawn from the "normal" world (v. 14).
+ John tells us that only Jesus knew what was happening - he asked Philip how to feed the crowd, but "he himself (Jesus) knew what he would do."
+ Jesus calls the shots. He tests Philip. He speaks in imperatives - "Make the people sit;" "Gather up the leftovers."
+ Jesus does all the work. This is a point of emphasis unique to John. Matthew 15:36 says that Jesus, as he blessed and multiplied the food, gave it to his disciples who carried it into the crowd. John says, Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted (v. 11 ESV). That's not a contradiction, as it doesn't deny what Matthew detailed. But John focuses in on Jesus as the source, the power, the Word made flesh, dwelling among us, full of grace and truth. John's not saying, "And Jesus walked up to each individual in the crowd of 5,000;" but he's making clear that we don't need to look at the method of distribution so much as at the source of the abundance.
+ Jesus sets the agenda. He leaves when the crowd wants to make him king.
+ Jesus is the focus. The crowd doesn't extol a generous young man with some fish and bread, but Jesus who worked the miracle. "This is indeed the Prophet…" "Let's make him king!" And Jesus, walking later on the lake, calms the disciples' fears by pointing to himself: "It is I…"
When we come together for Holy Communion, Jesus is the focus of this holy and miraculous meal, one he created so that he would be known among us.
His blessing and presence make our simple bread and wine into a participation in his sacrificial death for us.
His grace, received by faith, lets this food become his eternal life in all who share it worthily.
There are plenty of squirrels to see. We can look out the windows, or around in the church, or anywhere in the wandering places of our minds. May our Heavenly Father give us the Holy Spirit, so that we can ignore the squirrels and look upon Jesus, really present with us here and interceding for us in highest heaven, where with the Father and the Holy Spirit he lives and reigns in glory everlasting. Amen.]]>
ABC US News | World News
Wait, what? Polyamory? That's not what they kept talking about! I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked! What next, dogs and cats living together?]]>
The TEC parties have said they plan to appeal the final judgment to the Second Circuit Court of Appeal. However, any such appeal will be guided by the "neutral principles of law" announced by the Texas Supreme Court when it reversed Judge Chupp's original judgment in their favor, based upon his belief that he was required by Texas law to defer to the "hierarchical" Episcopal Church. Under neutral principles, the Texas courts look solely to the documents establishing a party's title: whose name is on the deeds, what trusts have been recorded, and what (if anything) the Church's governing documents say about a diocese's ability to amend its own constitution so as to remove its affiliation with the Episcopal Church.
Such an appeal will probably take a year or more to resolve. The losing side could then ask the Texas Supreme Court to review the case, but its decision to do so is discretionary. The same would be true of any further request for review filed with the United States Supreme Court after the Texas courts have finished with the appeal.
In the meantime, the parties are settling upon terms for Judge Chupp to approve next month that will allow the TEC-aligned congregation of All Saints to continue to worship in the same church it has been using since the lawsuit began, until the appeal is decided. The congregation claimed to own title to all of its property, but an examination of the facts under neutral principles showed that the deeds to the actual church property were in the name of Bishop Iker's diocesan corporation, which the court declared was the owner of All Saints. Bishop Iker is showing a good deal of Christian charity toward the congregation, which had written him a letter at the outset of the litigation threatening to take him personally to court should he venture on the property. Most recently, they rebuffed again his efforts at conciliation, and would not acknowledge his authority.]]>
JUSTICE TO PROBE CENTER FOR MEDICAL PROGRESS — While congressional committees investigate Planned Parenthood's practices, the Justice Department agreed to look into whether the group that released the sting videos obtained the footage legally. In response to a request by House Democrats, Attorney General Loretta Lynch saidWednesday afternoon that Justice would "review all of the information and determine what the appropriate steps moving forward would be." Planned Parenthood has staunchly defended its practices and claims that the Center for Medical Progress illegally obtained its footage, then excessively edited it to misrepresent what the organization does.
So it seems the DoJ can move faster than molasses when it
has a political opponent in its sights wants to.
Biomax set up exhibits at our National Medical Conference and our National Conference over the last couple of years.
We believe that on at least one occasion a representative from Biomax was shown a highly sensitive area in a clinic where tissue is processed after abortion procedures. While this work is standard and essential during any abortion procedure, any filming in such an area would be an extremely serious invasion of our patients' privacy and dignity. We also believe that in at least one interaction at a Planned Parenthood facility, the Biomax representative asked questions about the racial characteristics of tissue donated to researchers studying sickle cell anemia, apparently seeking to create a misleading impression.
We believe a focal point of Biomax's efforts was to induce our affiliates to enter into sham procurement contracts. In one instance, the amounts offered by Biomax were $100 per specimen. In another instance, Biomax offered to pay much more, sending the affiliate a "procurement agreement" that offered a payment of $1,600 for a liver and thymus – an astronomical amount compared to the minimal cost-recovery fees that affiliates with tissue donation programs currently recoup. These efforts most often targeted Planned Parenthood affiliates not currently engaged in tissue donation. All of these efforts were rebuffed. We suspect, however, that this will not deter the extremists behind this campaign from editing and distorting their surreptitious videos.
We also believe there are multiple taped interactions initiated by Biomax discussing whether and how a physician could adjust an abortion if the patient has requested to donate tissue for medical research, and we believe that these extremists will manipulate those videos to make more false claims. In fact, given the scope and length of the deceptive practices perpetrated by Mr. Daleidan, and the lengths he apparently went to in order to advance his political agenda, there may well be thousands of hours of videotape that he will deceptively edit into short video clips to release for many months.
There's a lot of misinformation, disinformation, and just pure frontier gibberish in that passage, but it raises some intriguing questions. For instance, what exactly goes on when the baby death industry gets together for trade shows and conferences that Planned Parenthood is worried the world will see? (The complaints about "deceptive editing" are specious claptrap, given that CMP has released the full videos at practically the same time as the summaries.) What goes on in PP's abortuaries that is so hideous that they need Congress and the Justice Department to protect them from it seeing the light of day? What does "patient privacy" have to do with the "processing" of aborted children (maybe those aborted are now "patients")?
Here's the real problem for Planned Parenthood: for decades, its highly lucrative abortion business has operated in the dark, away from prying eyes and any form of government supervision. The general public has no real idea what goes on behind the doors, or what moral monsters the leaders of the organization are. These videos threaten to expose the cockroaches to the light of public scrutiny, and may sicken most of that public in the process. And that will be the end of the gravy train.
Prepare the torches and pitchforks, folks. As a great man once said:
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) released a letter sent to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and California Attorney General Kamala Harris demanding they investigate the Center for Medical Progress for the videotaped sting operation that revealed Planned Parenthood traffics in body parts of aborted babies.
The letter was signed by three other Democrats, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (NY), Rep. Zoe Lofgren (CA) and Rep. Yvette Clarke (CA).
From the letter:
We are writing to request that you investigate whether any laws were broken by individuals who participated in an elaborate, multi-year scheme to impersonate corporate officials from a fake biologics company, secretly filmed video of a Planned Parenthood physician in California, and make public portions of the video without her consent.
The video at issue was taken by an anti-abortion group based in Irvine, California called the Center for Medical Progress, which was founded by David Daleiden. According to the group's website, the video was taken in California "with actors posing as buyers from a human biologics company."[1]
Press accounts regarding this incident have reported that this group created "fake identification" in order to falsely impersonate corporate executives and "gain access" to meetings with Planned Parenthood officials.[2] It is unclear from these reports what forms of fake identification they created, whether any false statements were made on applications for this fake identification, whether this fake identification purported to be issued by or was processed through any state or federal agency, or whether any fraudulent information was transmitted electronically or through the mail relating to this fake identification.
A Democratic Party favorite–some refer to the party as the "political wing" of the abortion industry–is revealed to have engaged in barbaric and very possibly illegal behavior. The answer? Shoot the messenger!
If these four blood-suckers (Schakowsky got $3830 from Planned Parenthood in 2014, while the other three benefited from the $30,250 given to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and that's just one election cycle) had a shred of decency about them, they would be asking for an investigation, not of the CMP, but of the killers in white coats. Instead, they are as morally culpable of trafficking in baby body parts as well, by serving as congressional enablers of the barbarity.]]>
Lots of big names on the list. I knew about Starbucks and stopped patronizing them long ago. Some of them might be worth lobbying rather than just dumping.
American Cancer Society
American Express
Bank of America
Bath & Body Works
Ben & Jerry's
Deutsche Bank
Fannie Mae
Johnson & Johnson
La Senza
Levi Strauss
Liberty Mutual
March of Dimes
Morgan Stanley
Susan G. Komen
United Way
Wells Fargo
Choosing to devote your dead body to composting?
I have to admit, that doesn't trouble me. I think my view of the disposition of remains was shaped by my parents. Reacting to a TV argument against cremation, they leaned on their WWII generation experience, "What about all the boys lost at sea? Or blown up and never found? Don't you think God can put them back together for heaven?" (My dad was a flight sergeant in the USAAF, whose postwar nightmares were mostly about C-47 cargo bays filled with horribly wounded and burned servicemen with whom he sat on lengthy flights back from the battlefronts).
I've honored cremation through the building of columbaria in two churches I've served. These bring back the "churchyard" of old, reminding us of the communion of saints and how we live or rest in anticipation of the return of Christ.
I honor those who are organ donors or who donate their bodies to scientific research. There's a Christlike quality to sacrificing the flesh so that others might live.
So why not do what, honestly, many generations of unenbalmed, buried in a sheet Christians did, and return oneself to the elements, in hopes of renewing the land and even feeding others?
All that said, the article still frosted me when I ran into this smug BS:
The Rev. Brian Baker, dean of Trinity Cathedral in Sacramento, California, and a member of the Episcopal Church's Executive Council, said that other than "the ick factor," there was nothing to prevent Episcopalians from participating in the Urban Death Project. Given the importance of environmentalism to his congregation, he wouldn't be surprised to see it gain traction.
"This is much better stewardship of the Earth and human resources and land than putting up a cement crypt and a coffin that obligates people to care for it," he said. "We're not a doctrinal church. It's not like a church body would say yes or no, it's more like Episcopalians do it and so it becomes church practice."
Leave it to the Episcopalian to come in with legalistic wingnuttery, extolling choice while holding up his environmental club as morally superior, and deriding the "poor stewardship" of untermenschen who might want to be traditionally buried untergrund.
I can see the environmental position his folks take, so why can't he possibly imagine a Christian who believes that the body should be kept intact and handled reverently, truly "laid to rest" in anticipation of Christ's return and reunion with its spirit in the eternal resurrection body?
Oh, that's right, he's "not doctrinal." He dresses up in robes, does ceremonies, believes, I'm sure, that two men having sex or a clinician doing an abortion are absolutely and unquestionably sacred, God-ordained necessities; but any stuff that he doesn't like? Meh.
Well, tell it to the Moravians in North Carolina,
The site for the graveyard was selected April 21, 1766; the avenue bordering the graveyard was laid out in the year 1770; and the first body, that of John Birkhead, one of the eight men who first came to the settlement, was interred June 7, 1771.
The Moravians still call their graveyard by that significant and ancient name used by their ancestors – "God's Acre". It is a "field" in which the bodies of loved ones are sown in faith as "physical bodies," in due time to be raised as "spiritual bodies."
A feature of God's Acre is the recumbent stones, symbolizing the Moravian belief in the democracy of death and making it impossible to distinguish between the graves of the rich and poor.
Or tell these folks why they are not "good stewards,"
Zaka was founded by religious Jews in 1995 in response to deadly terrorist attacks that often left body parts strewn over wide areas. Jewish religious law requires the recovery of as many body parts as possible so that a person's entire body can be buried.
Leave it to an Episcopal priest to scatter the dung of smug, self-referential poison over a field flowered with some of the most delicate expressions of human feeling and reverence.
I'll weigh in with an op/ed by liberal Kirsten Powers. Even she's appalled at PP, and she outs one of the crazy progressive "Christians" working in Satan's media office,
Mississippi abortion doctor Willie Parker — who was lauded by Esquire for his "abortion ministry" — ran with the trope that direct quotes from a Planned Parenthood doctor constitute a vicious attack, but went a step further: He compared Nucatola to Jesus. "It's no secret that my frame of reference for the work that I do and in terms of generating compassion is related to my religious understanding and, in particular, my Christian religious understanding," Parker told Cosmopolitan magazine. "I'm thinking about a strong parallel between what's happening to my colleague (Nucatola) and the trial week of Jesus before he was crucified (as) he was marched from place to place, asked to answer allegations."
What to say that can amplify the manifest ghastliness of that? (h/t SF reader Seanny Rotten)
Today the church calendar commemorates Mary Magdalene. Jesus "delivered her from seven demons," which is to say a s**tload of deception and madness, made her the first eyewitness to his resurrection from death, and validated her witness to him in the face of doubters and scoffers.
This morning I prayed that Jesus deliver some Mary Magdalenes who are out in the Planned Parenthood desert of deception. That he will free them from whatever affliction has them so far gone, that he will let them shine with the presence of his new life, and that they will become his witnesses, overcoming the doubt and mockery that will be spat at their new lives in him.
Similarly, as I take part in a South Dakota campaign to curb the crushing interest by which Pay Day and Title lenders enrich themselves at the expense of the poor and vulnerable, I pray for "Zacchaeuses" to come out of that industry. Zacchaeus was the tax collector who accepted Jesus into his home, and repented of his ways with financial restitution to those he'd bilked.
While I'm at it, I'll start praying for some "Apolloses." Apollos was a convert to Christianity, with formidable debating skills but a deficient understanding of the faith proclaimed by the Apostles. He was humble enough to accept correction and instruction and went on to be deployed as a church builder and leader. I thought of him this morning as I read a blog piece by Anne Kennedy, confronting the ever smug, too cool by half Rachel Held Evans,
First off, I wish she would desist calling me, and others who love the Bible and the Jesus revealed in the bible her "fellow Christians". We are not fellows together. We believe contradictory opposite gospels. She is not curious enough about the gospel I embrace to know what it says, to understand that love is at the center of this issue…
Other Biblical figures come to mind, in the face of the madness polluted mission field in which we serve?
Of course the reason Fischler can cover PP and not go mad is that he and the rest of us who are in Christ are not alone in this mission field. Christ is with us, to the close of the vile, demonic, adulterous and polluted age.
Final word to Martin Luther,
And though this world, with devils filled,
should threaten to undo us,
we will not fear, for God hath willed
his truth to triumph through us.
The Prince of Darkness grim,
we tremble not for him;
his rage we can endure,
for lo, his doom is sure;
one little word shall fell him.
On Friday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the group's explanation was good enough for the White House.
"I did read the news reports indicating that the policies that are followed by Planned Parenthood are entirely consistent with the strictest ethical guidelines that have been established in the healthcare industry," Earnest said.
He then tried to refer questions about Planned Parenthood's compliance with those standards to the group itself, and deflected when a reporter pressed him on whether the president believes it is ethical to sell aborted fetus remains.
"There are medical ethicists that have taken a close look at this, and Planned Parenthood, I understand, has said that they follow those ethical guidelines and in fact the highest ethical guidelines," he said. "But for their compliance with them and exactly what that means, I'd obviously refer you to them."
"I don't have intimate knowledge of the kinds of practices that they engage in," he added.
It's a good thing he doesn't. If he did, he'd be dead.
So Planned Parenthood said they "follow those ethical guidelines and in fact the highest ethical guidelines." Well, that settles it, then. I understand that Joseph Mengele said the same thing about his medical work.]]>
I'll have more on this later. It's only got 300 views as of 9 pm EDT, so spread the word.
(Via LifeNews.)
UPDATE: The consequential things in this latest video are these:
1) Gatter is perfectly happy haggling over price. Her undercover interlocutors want to know if she's willing to receive more money per specimen, which would be an indication that this is not just about reimbursement, but sale for profit. They succeed handsomely:
Actors posing as buyers ask Gatter, "What would you expect for intact [fetal] tissue?"
"Well, why don't you start by telling me what you're used to paying!" Gatter replies.
Gatter continues: "You know, in negotiations whoever throws out the figure first is at a loss, right?" She explains, "I just don't want to lowball," before suggesting, "$75 a specimen."
Gatter twice recites Planned Parenthood messaging on fetal tissue collection, "We're not in it for the money," and "The money is not the important thing," but she immediately qualifies each statement with, respectively, "But what were you thinking of?" and, "But it has to be big enough that it's worthwhile for me."
Gatter also admits that in prior fetal tissue deals, Planned Parenthood received payment in spite of incurring no cost: "It was logistically very easy for us, we didn't have to do anything. So there was compensation for this." She accepts a higher price of $100 per specimen understanding that it will be only for high-quality fetal organs: "Now, this is for tissue that you actually take, not just tissue that someone volunteers and you can't find anything, right?"
By the lunch's end, Gatter suggests $100 per specimen is not enough and concludes, "Let me just figure out what others are getting, and if this is in the ballpark, then it's fine, if it's still low, then we can bump it up. I want a Lamborghini."
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that last remark was a joke. The point, however, is that the price is negotiable, so it isn't just a matter of covering PP's costs. It's a matter of how much profit can be made.
2) Gatter also indicates that she has no problem using whatever technicalities might come to hand to evade the law that specifically prohibits changing the timing or procedures used in abortion in order to get the tissues her buyers want:
Gatter also suggests modifying the abortion procedure to get more intact fetuses: "I wouldn't object to asking Ian, who's our surgeon who does the cases, to use an IPAS [manual vacuum aspirator] at that gestational age in order to increase the odds that he's going to get an intact specimen."
Gatter seems aware this violates rules governing tissue collection, but disregards them: "To me, that's kind of a specious little argument." Federal law requires that no alteration in the timing or method of abortion be done for the purposes of fetal tissue collection (42 U.S.C. 289g-1).
The fish rots at the head. The corruption goes to the top. Planned Parenthood should be investigated as a RICO organization.
Unbeknown to most Americans, Obama's racial bean counters are furiously mining data on their health, home loans, credit cards, places of work, neighborhoods, even how their kids are disciplined in school — all to document "inequalities" between minorities and whites.
This Orwellian-style stockpile of statistics includes a vast and permanent network of discrimination databases, which Obama already is using to make "disparate impact" cases against: banks that don't make enough prime loans to minorities; schools that suspend too many blacks; cities that don't offer enough Section 8 and other low-income housing for minorities; and employers who turn down African-Americans for jobs due to criminal backgrounds.
Big Brother Barack wants the databases operational before he leaves office, and much of the data in them will be posted online.
So civil-rights attorneys and urban activist groups will be able to exploit them to show patterns of "racial disparities" and "segregation," even if no other evidence of discrimination exists.
Not sure if this is a page from Nazi Germany or not. The collection seems to ignore the fact that whites will soon be a minority.
Hot Air also has an informative article here.]]>