Saturday, December 23, 2006

George P. Marsh, The Earth As Modified By Human Action (1864)

The apophthegm, "the world is governed too much," though unhappily too truly spoken of many countries--and perhaps, in some aspects, true of all--has done much mischief whenever it has been too unconditionally accepted as a political axiom. The popular apprehension of being over-governed, and, I am afraid, more emphatically the fear of being over-taxed, has had much to do with the general abandonment of certain governmental duties by the ruling powers of most modern states.

It is theoretically the duty of government to provide all those public facilities of intercommunication and commerce, which are essential to the prosperity of civilized commonwealths, but which individual means are inadequate to furnish, and for the due administration of which individual guarantees are insufficient. Hence public roads, canals, railroads, postal communications, the circulating medium of exchange whether metallic or representative, armies, navies, being all matters in which the nation at large has a vastly deeper interest than any private association can have, ought legitimately to be constructed and provided only by that which is the visible personification and embodiment of the nation, namely, its legislative head.

No doubt the organization and management of those insitutions by government are liable, as are all things human, to great abuses. The multiplication of public placeholders, which they imply, is a serious evil. But the corruption thus engendered, foul as it is, does not strike so deep as the rottenness of private corporations; and official rank, position, and duty have, in practice, proved better securities for fidelity and pecuniary integrity in the conduct of the interests in question, than the suretyships of private corporate agents, whose bondsmen so often fail or abscond before their principal is detected....

The example of the American States shows that private corporations--whose rule of action is the interest of the association, not the conscience of the individual--though composed of ultra-democratic elements, may become most dangerous enemies to rational liberty, to the moral interests of the commonwealth, to the purity of legislation and of judicial action, and to the sacredness of private rights.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Peig Sayers, An Old Woman’s Reflections (1936)

I am now at tight grips with the years and many a thing I saw. Everything I was interested in I didn’t let it astray. Someone else will have pastime out of my work when I’m gone on the way of truth. A person here and a person there will say, maybe, “Who was that old Peig Sayers,” but poor Peig will be the length of their shout from them. This green bench where she used to do the studying will be a domicile for the birds of the wilderness, and the little house where she used to eat and drink, it’s unlikely there’ll be a trace of it there.

These thoughts appearing in my heart today are lonely. They are not pleasant for me but I can’t help them. Here they are towards me in their thousands; they are like soldiers. As I scatter them, they come together again. It’s no good for me to be at them. They have beaten me. My blessing and the blessing of God on Youth; and my advice to everyone is to borrow from this life, because a spool is no faster turning than it.

Georg Simmel, "The Metropolis and Mental Life" (1903)

[O]ne must meet the difficulty of asserting his own personality within the dimensions of metropolitan life. Where the quantitative increase in importance and the expense of energy reach their limits, one seizes upon qualitative differentiation in order somehow to attract the attention of the social circle by playing upon its sensitivity for differences. Finally, man is tempted to adopt the most tendentious peculiarities, that is, the specifically metropolitan extravagances of mannerism, caprice, and preciousness. Now, the meaning of these extravagances does not at all lie in the contents of such behavior, but rather in its form of "being different," of standing out in a striking manner and thereby attracting attention. For many character types, ultimately the only means of saving for themselves some modicum of self-esteem and the sense of filling a position is indirect, through the awareness of others.

In the same sense a seemingly insignificant factor is operating, the cumulative effects of which are, however, still noticeable. I refer to the brevity and scarcity of the inter-human contacts granted to the metropolitan man, as compared with social intercourse in the small town. The temptation to appear "to the point," to appear concentrated and strikingly characteristic, lies much closer to the individual in brief metropolitan contacts than in an atmosphere in which frequent and prolonged association assures the personality of an unambiguous image of himself in the eyes of the other.

Elsie C. Parsons, Fear and Conventionality (1914)

Steadfast in their functions, the gods are credited too with steadfast views or convictions. They are invariably conservatives. They may be given the privilege of an occasional change of heart or of temper, but their mind they may not change. Hence comformity with their unyielding opinions is judged pleasing to them and they are expected to feel aggrieved or dishonored by non-conformity. Their habits being fixed, they are very susceptible to insult and have a very nice sense of the honor due them.

Many other human traits besides the desire to be imitated or agreed with or considered are ascribed, we know, to the gods. The more they resemble their worshippers, the more sympathetic and accessible they appear. Hence even nature or animal gods are likely to become anthropomorphized, and gods of all kinds tend to be assimilated in one way or another with their priests. But because of this very humanizing of the gods, there is always a certain amount of danger in dealing with them. They may be superhumanly conservative, but their temper is human enough to be uncertain.

Terry Eagleton, Holy Terror (2005)

Human law has both a kindly and an intimidatory face. This is not a contradiction it can escape, since it must resort to force to protect the powerless who take shelter beneath it. Even so, it is a contradiction which threatens to strip the law of the credibility and free assent it needs in order to be effective, since our minds are not easily adapted to a power which is at once daunting and benign. If the law has an angelic presence, it also has a Satanic one. This would then seem true of God as well, whom we are expected both to love and fear. Yet the parallel is deceptive, for what is most fearful about God is his love. God is a shattering, traumatic, sweetly intolerable force who breaks and remakes human subjects by offering them something of his own frighteningly unconditional friendship. Fearing God does not mean being scared witless by his implacable wrath but respecting his law, which is the law of justice and compassion.

Rainer Maria Rilke, “Worpswede” (1902)

With human beings, we are in the habit of learning much from their hands and everything from their faces, on which, as on a dial, the hours are visible that cradle and carry their souls. But landscape is without hands and has no face - or rather it is all face and has a terrible and dispiriting effect on man….

For let it be confessed: landscape is foreign to us, and we are fearfully alone amongst trees that blossom and by streams that flow. Alone with a corpse one is not nearly so defenceless as when alone with trees. For however mysterious death may be, life that is not our life is far more mysterious, life that is not concerned with us, and which, without seeing us, celebrates its festivals, as it were, at which we look on with a certain embarrassment, like chance guests who speak another language.