auto-da-fé

You know how there are some words you just never quite absorb into your vocabulary? Like, it doesn't matter how many times I look up the definition of ontology, nonplussed, or deus ex machina, I just never quite internalize what they mean. In the case of ontology, I think this brain block is the result of a deep-seated dislike I have for all philosophy grad students. (Sorry.) Nonplussed I get confused about because there are two opposite definitions, and only one of them is correct, but I can never remember which one. 

And then sometimes there are words I just never bothered to look up before. Auto-da-fé  came up somewhere in my reading today, and did you know that it's Portuguese for "act of faith"? It's the name of a ritual from the Inquisition, where condemned heretics and apostates made public penance before execution. I had no idea. 

What I want to know now is how the phrase made it into English. Is it really so specific an idea that we needed to import a Portuguese phrase from the 15th century? I guess it sort of is, actually. Auto-da-fé is a lot pithier than "a public penance of heretics and apostates." I will work really hard to drop this into casual conversation soon. If only I knew how to pronounce it! 

those human swarms

Why should any given thing have happened? No theory, no convention or prejudice, should take precedence over the fact that if it did happen, it arose out of the endless complexity of human life, human lives. The Puritan Thomas Shepard, generally credited with founding Harvard, remarked that a man with a wooden leg could trim his foot to fit a shoe, but in the case of a living limb this would not be advisable. By all means those who think about history should avoid such trimming, since they deal with living flesh, specifically those human swarms whose passage through the world is the sum and substance of history.

We have not yet absorbed the fact that history has fallen into our laps, and we hardly know what it is, let alone what we should do with it. We have been busy destroying the landmarks that might otherwise help us orient ourselves. We have impoverished ourselves of every sense of how over time a society emerged that we and most of the world have considered decent and fortunate. Could we save this good order from a present threat? If it collapsed, could we rebuild it? These are real questions.

—Marilynne Robinson, Old Souls, New World

The founders knew that without a virtuous citizenry, the Constitution was a mere piece of paper and, in Madison’s words, “no theoretical checks — no form of government can render us secure.” Franklin was blunter in forecasting the moment we are now in: He believed that the American experiment in self-government “can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.” You can impeach a president, but you can’t, alas, impeach the people. They voted for the kind of monarchy the American republic was designed, above all else, to resist; and they have gotten one.

—Andrew Sullivan, Can Donald Trump Be Impeached?

on not giving a shit

Thoughts from an interview with Caitlin Flanagan, who I think is a very good and interesting writer. (She's published a lot, but this article, which I can hardly believe was published over 10 years ago, is the first I remember reading by her. I still think about it.)

The interviewer is Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. The whole thing is worth listening to, but here's a bit from the very end, where they're winding down a discussion of sex, #metoo, toxic feminism, and fraternities:

Goldberg: “Caitlin Flanagan…”

Flanagan: “...You’re fired!”

Goldberg: [Laughs] “No, we love having you at The Atlantic, because you say interesting things and you don’t really give a shit.”

Flanagan: “I don’t give a shit.”

Goldberg: “Why don’t you give a shit? Because so many people give a shit right now.”

Flanagan: “Because this is why…it sounds so corny…I love America. You don’t have to be liked. Willy Loman should stop worrying. We have these freedoms that everybody mocks. You can say whatever you want. You know, you’ll get a lot of enemies, but…there’s 20 people I really care what they think about me. My family and my closest friends. After that, I don’t care. If people are offended or they don’t like it then they can turn this podcast off...It doesn’t matter if somebody likes what you say or not, you have the right to say it, you have the right to think it, you have a right to read the great books, and be the “artist reader” of the book as Nabokov would say and make your own meaning of the book. Beyond that it just doesn’t matter.”

First of all: excellent use of literary references. Second: I admire the sentiment. I doubt many people (myself included) would be able to carry off not giving a shit as well as Flanagan, especially since she can apparently not give a shit and keep her job, but I admire the sentiment nonetheless. And Jeffrey Goldberg is right to mention that she says interesting stuff and doesn't give a shit in the same breath. Because when everyone gives a shit things are so boring. If you watched the Oscar's this year, you know what I mean. A room of people carefully selected and eager for approval; I've been to academic panels more exciting. 

a philosophical windfall

Somewhere in the backwaters of twitter I came across this gem: an investor and fund manager has given $75 million dollars to the philosophy department at Johns Hopkins. Notably, this is the same department where he failed to finish his PhD.

My immediate reaction was, "I wouldn't give five cents to my grad school department." Upon additional reflection, yes, that's still true: I wouldn't give them a cent. Perhaps that's because they didn't kick me out when they probably should have? Regardless, I remain astounded that anyone could have had such a good time in a doctoral program that they decided to donate their hard-earned money to perpetuate that program. And I'm not even particularly bitter about my grad school experiences!

When I told Josh about the article, his very sensible question was, "What are they going to spend $75 million on? Books?" I imagine they will buy books, and also the very best graduate students in all the land. Too bad money won't be enough to get them all a job. Though I guess it will be enough to hire them all as lecturers for the next 30 years? 

mischief-making

"But, dear aunt," Isabel broke out, "I have no one, no one to advise me!"

"Then count yourself fortunate," Mrs. Touchett implacably replied, presenting to her niece the blank aspect of a sphinx. "Advice is another term for mischief-making, and anyone who asks for it deserves the consequences. One cannot be told how to live, my girl—and one shouldn't wish to be."

—John Banville, Mrs. Osmond

sincere questions

1. Why is it illegal for me to sell my kidney but totally cool for me to make a small fortune "donating" my eggs? Or renting my uterus? (Of course, now that I am 33 my eggs and uterus are probably not as valuable as they once were, but I'm sure I could get something for them...even with my mediocre SAT scores!)

2. Why don't we eat more venison? I can't find it in any grocery store, despite the fact that it is really delicious and deer appear to be everywhere. Ordering meat online (from New Zealand, no less) seems unnecessary when the actual animal I want to eat is all over my neighborhood.  Maybe it's time to break out the bow and arrow?

3. Why is Andrew Sullivan the only person who seems to make any sense these days?

4. Why do we celebrate birthdays? Mine is tomorrow, and taking joy in my advancing decrepitude seems unnatural. And it always has: I've felt birthday ennui for as long as I can remember. I guess the presents are nice? Meh. 

ch-ch-changes

Three weeks ago, I started a new job. In brief: it's a good job, and I'm happy to have it. I'm also happy to report that finding a second job out of grad school was a lot easier than finding the first one.

As I was going through the process of changing jobs last month, I realized that I've never done it before. I've left jobs, but I've never gone straight from one job to another. The last job I quit because I wanted to travel for three months. And like any insane 24-year-old I did it just as the global economy was collapsing. Suffice it to say: I didn't work for a good long while after that.

Let me be clear: I have no regrets! I feel honored that at the ripe old age of almost-33 I am just now changing jobs like a real adult employed person who has a retirement account and an FSA. I don't know if this job history does me much credit, but I have no desire to trade all that time I spent unemployed or under-employed for any type of cash equivalent. I went a lot of interesting places and read a lot of good books during that period! It was worth whatever it cost me.

Anyway, if the process of changing jobs has taught me anything, it's that I'm not very important. I definitely knew this, intellectually, but the experience of leaving a job with various projects unfinished, and starting a new one where you know nothing, is humbling. You realize that nothing you were working on was that crucial, and that nothing you've been hired to do couldn't be done by someone else. In fact, whatever you've been hired to do could be done a lot more efficiently by anyone who has worked at your organization longer than you, because you can't even find the bathroom key. In other words: I feel like a superfluous idiot.

This feeling is useful, if only because it's accurate. I could very easily have remained at my old job, or I could have taken a different new job, and at the end of the day it doesn't matter all that much to anyone except me. And working on a new project, with new people, at a new organization means that I have very little idea what's happening, and am therefore kind of an idiot. And I am here to tell you that feeling like a superfluous idiot is kind of exciting. It may very well be the antithesis of boredom.