Classics in Contemporary Culture

Cookie-Monster-ness

I am indebted to the gods that "I did not fall into the hands of any sophist" (M. Aur., Med. 1.17).   

Jonah Goldberg channels Marcus Aurelius through Hannibal Lecter to apply a lesson to a contemporary problem:  the portrayal of the Cookie Monster on Sesame Street.

Since my copy of "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius is in storage, let me explain by paraphrasing Hannibal Lecter's famous dialogue with Clarice Starling in "Silence of the Lambs." Imagine Lecter isn't a superhuman cannibalistic serial killer and that, instead of being a doe-eyed feminist naif in the FBI, Ms. Starling is a doe-eyed feminist naif at the Children's Television Workshop.

Lecter: "First principles, Clarice. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing, ask: What is it in itself? What is its nature? What does he do, this creature you seek?

Starling: He entertains children ...

Lecter: "No! That is incidental. What is the first and principal thing he does? What need does he serve by entertaining children?

Starling: Social acceptance? Personal frustration?

Lecter: No: He craves. That's his nature. And what does he crave? Make an effort to answer.

Starling: Food?

Lecter: No! He is not a "food monster!" He is a cookie monster!

But not according to the well-meaning social engineers of PBS. After three decades, they've announced he's not a Cookie Monster at all. In the interests of teaching kids not to be gluttons, CTW has transformed Cookie Monster into just another monster who happens to like cookies. His trademark song, "C is for Cookie" has been changed to "A Cookie Is a Sometimes Food." And this is a complete and total reversal of Cookie Monster's ontology, his telos, his raison d'etre, his essential Cookie-Monster-ness.

If the Cookie Monster is no longer a cookie monster, what is he? Why didn't they just name him "Phil: The Monster Who Sometimes Likes to Eat a Cookie"?

Of course, we all know that Stoicism is sometimes a nefarious influence...and that "Stoicism goes so far, until the psyche collapses and victims cease to function normally."  And that reading is kind of a pain...However, I think the passage of Marcus Aurelius can be found online (although Perseus, sadly, does not have it), at least in English: 

Tyranny through History

Mario Turchetti points out his 2001 book Tyrannie et Tyrannicide de l'Antiquite a nos jours in a comment to this post; so as not to fall into the conspiracy of silence I'll transcribe some comments from the review in the History of Political Thought 24 (2003), pp. 537-41, on what looks like quite an interesting and exhausting volume, and, as the reviewer says, a book "henceforth indispensable for anyone concerned with the history of Western political thought":

This extraordinary work seeks to record, compare and assess what has been written about tyranny and tyrannicide from classical antiquity to the present.  Thus it is a history of concepts, images and theories, not of tyrannies, tyrants, or of attempts to eliminate those who have been so designated.  Turchetti's study, which is more than a thousand pages long, considers the full range of descriptions, conceptualizations and theories of tyranny and the tyrant beginning with the Greeks.  From them and subsequent discussions of tyrannicide, it goes on to consider justifications today of terrorism, and even the case for treating globalization as the newest form of tyranny.  As if this were not enough, Turchetti includes extended treatments of the relationships between the concept of tyranny and those of despotism, absolutism, autocracy, dictatorship, caesarism and totalitarianism.
...
Such comprehensive interdisciplinary treatment makes this book more than a history of political theories.  Yet its emphasis falls on a few highly significant strands running through that history.  Turchetti stresses the changing relationship of concepts of tyranny and tyrannicide to those of justice, power, legitimacy, rights and obedience.  However, this book's unprecedented length, which is perhaps its greatest asset as a work of historical scholarship, also creates difficulties for it as a work of political theory.  That is, Turchetti could have made a substantial contribution to our understanding of major concepts (justice, liberty, equality, power, legitimacy, rights and obedience) by analysing how they function in semantic fields that treat them in relationship to tyranny and tyrannicide.  While he often discusses these issues, Turchetti never states his overall conclusions about the new light thrown on other key concepts by viewing them in relation to that of tyranny.
...
More than thirty years ago, it occurred to [Turchetti] that since his sources invariably defined freedom and toleration in reference to tyranny, he could illuminate the meaning of justice, power, legitimacy, rights and obedience by tracing the origins, identifying the contexts, and charting the history of their opposites.  In the end, the project turned into a historical study of the controversies engendered by opposition to 'bad' or 'corrupted' governments.

At this point, WorldCat is only showing 28 copies--and I've ordered one of them.  Actually, the book is quite reasonably priced, if you're getting it in France.

Origen Rising...?

Robert Jackson ruminates on the Pope, Platonism, and heresy...

On Sunday morning I watch the inauguration ceremony for the new Pope. I have an interest in ancient philosophy, so my ears prick up when I hear him invoke the patristic definition of human individuals as "thoughts in the mind of God". He goes on to say that every individual is thus loved by God: also, that each individual is "necessary". This suggests the heresy of the pre-existence of souls, for which Origen was condemned at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553. If the individual soul is necessary, then it is eternal, and if eternal, it pre-exists the body. So why not transmigration - as Plato thought and as Buddhism teaches? As he is an unlikely heretic, I decide that the Holy Father probably meant that the individual is "important", rather than "necessary".

"Conjugating Everything in Sight..."

Good grief.  From the headline "SAT MD heals wounds with Latin tongue"/ "Wounds healed with Latin tongue by SatMd" I was expecting at least an incantation or two, or what a mother bear does to her cubs...but all it was was a "press release" advertising Michael DiSalvo's SAT preparation services.  Of couse, I do agree with the strategy:  learning Latin!  I can't help but think, however, that there's a vein of salaciousness in this story of licking students into shape.

Plato and Democracy

Toni Momiroski wrote a column recently for the Asia Times (also available at TM's web journal), in which he claims that Plato is useful for diagnosing the problems with current democracy and suggesting solutions...I'm not sure that I understand the connection he is attempting to make, unless he is indeed suggesting "rule by highly educated experts who conduct a dictatorship of reason."

Daily Show Philology

Latin "informants" wanted at the Daily Show!  Yes, that would be "wanted" in the sense of "needed"....In the fore-math of the election of Joseph Ratzinger to the post of pontifex maximus, Jon Stewart's late-night TV cohort Stephen Colbert brought out a spoof attack ad with text in "Latin" [video clip here]--and it's been ripping up a portion of the  Classical side of the blogosphere!  I'm not finding any mainstream media attention except for this, in the Sacramento Bee:

Q: Have any cardinals campaigned for the job?

A: Last week, a spoof on "Saturday Night Live" showed the cardinals campaigning for the papacy as if it were an American election - the show even had one of its troupe portraying the Rev. Al Sharpton as a papal candidate. "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" satirized the conclave by showing the cardinals attack ads in Latin.

But the cardinals - and the church - take the conclave and their duties seriously. Discussion prior to the death of a pope is forbidden. Cardinals can discuss their candidates before the conclave, but open campaigning is frowned upon.

Clint Hagen of "House of Hagen" posted his transcription of the Latin text, and his correction (and now also has an audio link of the original); and Angelo Mercado (Sauvage Noble) tightened it up stylistically and commented at length; meanwhile, there's also a LiveJournal thread on the subject, which also came up at Language Log, Open Book and Lawyers, Guns & Money.  So, click some links if you want to find out how to say "sausage-eating bastard" in Latin (and Greek)

Catullus for Kids!

New Zealand poet and fiction writer Anna Jackson recently commented on my post about C. K. Stead's adaptations of Catullus and Horace; Jackson herself has a book (published in 2003) called Catullus for Children.  Her comments are posted at the Auckland University Press website:

Anna explains, "In this collection I try to bring texts and emotions across generations and across time. The sequence 'Catullus for children' that gives the collection its title is perhaps rather an unlikely project to have embarked on, given that Catullus is a poet of such adult themes. But love and enmity are themes of high importance for children as well, and the excessive statements typical of Catullus, as well as the overwrought style of imagery I have borrowed from Renaissance translations of Catullus, seem to express very well the heightened emotions of a schoolchild."

The poet Catullus himself was a kind of "futurist" of his age - one of a school known as "the poets of the new". In the "Envoi" that introduces his book of poems he hopes that they will be read for many generations into the future. Anna wants the children she is writing her versions for to take them into their own future, where she hopes they will do more with them than she ever could. Most of all, she hopes, they will pass them on, into a future she can only dream of, with the blurred eyes of what is nearly already the past.

They also give a couple of poems; for more, see "Best New Zealand Poets 2003"; there's also a review in the Feb. 2004 NZ Poetry Society newsletter, p. 6 (pdf; html);  Terry Locke posts the text of Jackson's adaptation of Catullus 22:

Walk A Mile In Caesar's Sandals

A new video game, called "Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War,"  lets you sit at the helm of Greek, Roman, or other armies and participate in historic campaigns, or those of your own devising.  It features some very neat-looking graphics, etc.  And it's not just about armchair generalship:

[article 1]
...you'll get to do things never before possible in an RTS. Take it from me, the first time you charge an enemy fortification in Hero Command or ram an enemy ship with your Trireme and send hundreds of enemy units to a watery grave, it's truly a visceral, emotional experience. And once you experience it, you'll never want to play a game that doesn't have those features.

[article 2]
The truly innovative thing about Rise & Fall is hero command, which will be the key to your civilization's success. A powerful, heroic leader like Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, or Ramses the Great will perform incredible feats on the battlefield. At key, strategic moments in the game, you will leap into action and take personal control of your hero and cut a swath of destruction across the battlefield.

Mmmm...destruction...

What Would Leonidas Do?

Vox Day, friendly neighborhood Christian libertarian (WorldNet), wonders where the real men have gone, invoking some classical paradigms...

They are not men because the hallmark of a real man is one who is not ruled by fear. Consider the real men of history, the immortals whose names we still honor today. Leonidas and his Three Hundred did not run before the Persian army at Thermopylae even though they knew they would fall before the host of Xerxes...

Can you imagine one of these men meekly submitting to the harsh words of a boss? Can you imagine Cicero cowering before the sharp tongue of a nagging wife, who did not cower before an emperor? Or the Apostle Paul remaining silent for fear someone might take offense to his words?

It is absolutely true that Cicero never cowered before an emperor!

Different Salamis?

Barry Strauss speculates on the Battle of Salamis and its effects--What if things had gone differently?  (From a review of his new book on the battle)

Mr. Strauss, who uses his complete command of every detail to a surfeit, sometimes confusing the reader, paints all in glowing colors. Compared to the dry stuff of the usual military history, it is compelling, vivid and complete. One quibble is the publisher's hype about saving Western Civilization, words that don't sound like Mr. Strauss' careful scholarship. In fact the Greeks went straight back to their family feuding as soon as the wreckage was cleared, as was the norm. And Xerxes, like many military geniuses without a political plan, decided to leave the troublesome peninsula alone.

Was Salamis the most important battle in history? "Defeat at Salamis would not have deprived the world of Greece's glory, but of its guile and greed," Mr. Strauss concludes. The Greeks went on and became imperial, forgoing their democratic ideals. It might have been better, he says, if they had lost.