Aristotle's Left the Building

This week, I've been watching a DVD course on philosophy and religion in the Middle Ages. It probably couldn't compete with the evening news on a drama quotient, but I found it entertaining. The course explored how various thinkers from Saint Augustine to William of Ockham incorporated or repudiated, as the case might be, ideas of Plato and Aristotle in their own writings on religion.

At this point you may be thinking, "That's what you do for entertainment?" It may not be to your taste, but think of it this way: there were no commercials, no preening actors, and no mentions of Super-Pacs, dark money, or dubious efforts to make America more secure during the entire twelve hours of viewing. You had to concentrate to keep up with the arguments involved, but it beat propaganda disguised as news or a dumb conversation you might overhear at Starbucks by a country mile.

Of course, the Middle Ages had its share of politics and foolishness, and the conversation on faith and reason took place against a backdrop of wars, power struggles, and other calamities. The views of various Church leaders played a part in some of those events, but this course focused on intellectual, not political, history. I personally am not a fan of institutions, the Church included, and generally distrust them, but the discussion of faith and reason on a purely intellectual level was very engrossing.

Some of the arguments left me scratching my head, though. Anselm, for example, apparently thought that saying there was something "than which something greater cannot be thought" was enough to prove the existence of God. I kept trying to figure out how that works and was never quite convinced. The argument seems to be missing something.

William of Ockham helped put the kibosh on the latter medieval tradition based on Aristotle, and I agree with the lecturer that in some ways that was too bad. Many medieval religious thinkers seemed to care very much about their arguments being rational and coherent and their religious ideas squaring with reason. We could use more of that respect for clear and systematic thinking today, in all realms of life.

Most entertaining to me was the discussion of the development of universities from the cathedral schools in the thirteenth century. Newly available translations of Aristotle in Latin seemed to set practically everyone on their ear, with Arts faculty members (who were basically teaching prep courses to younger students) going crazy for Aristotle, while the more senior Theology faculty tried to reign them in. The University of Paris was the epicenter of the conflict, which resembled the first coming of Elvis, or a food fight of beatniks versus squares.

Aristotle was the champion of definitions, categories, and arguments and of a theory of knowledge based on what our senses tell us about the world. The early Church fathers were heavily influenced by Plato, whose theory of the transcendent Forms dovetailed nicely with a mystical, spiritual realm inhabited by God and the angels. Aristotle taught that universal forms exist as concepts in our minds but that there is no "Form" of a horse, tree, turnip, or planet hanging out in the ether, existing as a blueprint. There are only particular horses, trees, turnips, or planets. He didn't say there was no Supreme Being, but he called his the Prime Mover.

Aristotle was down-to-earth on many things, and that appeals to me. I could picture those Arts masters looking around and rejoicing in the revealed beauty of a world of individual apples, turnips, stars, and horses, and their elders shaking their fists and yelling about Mysteries of the Faith. It all came to a head with the Condemnation of 1277, the Church's attempt to ban people from teaching aspects of Aristotle that it considered problematic. Good luck with that.

Although William of Ockham did, apparently on purely philosophical grounds, later pull the rug out from under the thinking of a lot of Aristotelians, he was no shrinking violet either. He declared the Pope heretical (on an unrelated matter) and got himself excommunicated. (The Pope apparently threatened to annihilate an entire town in Flanders if it didn't give Ockham up to church authorities.)

But that's straying into politics. For me, the beauty of this course was in the consideration of ideas for their own sake and in the image of generations of thinkers trying to hold their beliefs up to a standard of rational thought, undeterred by the fact that the great philosophers they struggled to emulate had never even heard of Christianity. The course was entitled Reason and Faith: Philosophy in the Middle Ages, and it was taught by Professor Thomas Williams. It is one of the Great Courses on Philosophy & Intellectual History of The Teaching Company.

Dramatis Personae

Last year I wrote about the State of the Union address and tried to analyze it in terms of John J. MacAloon's anthropological categories of spectacle, festival, ritual, and game. Having concluded that it was largely spectacle and game, without much substance, I wasn't sure I even wanted to watch again this year--I mean, why bother? If it's just yadda, yadda, yadda, what's the point? I'm in the middle of a Great Courses DVD on "Philosophy in the Middle Ages" this week, so wouldn't it be more profitable just to spend the evening with Saint Bonaventure?

After an inward debate, I concluded that possibly it was more responsible, as a mythologist, to watch the address and make a few cultural observations. So I decided to watch with the volume turned down. You might think I'm being facetious, but I'm not. I knew the speech would consist of a lot of well-considered, carefully sifted words, and I wasn't going to believe more than one or two of them, all told. More interesting to me was to watch the people in the room, see their reactions, and observe how the President conducted himself.

You may dismiss this as missing the point of an address, especially if you believe that the important information is always in the words. But don't forget, non-verbal messages are often just as important as the verbal ones, and maybe more so, especially if they conflict with the person's statements. In this case, I figured I could dispense with words. I've found it very useful to carefully observe people, whether they're speaking or not. Are you with me so far?

I didn't see the President looking directly at the camera much--he addressed his remarks largely to the people in the chamber. I didn't think he looked especially relaxed, though, as he neared the exit after the speech. Of course, the Vice President and the Speaker of the House were really in the hot seat since they were on view most of the time the President was speaking, and I have to say they both looked remarkably uncomfortable last night. As the camera picked out various people present, I was struck by how self-conscious some of them seemed. I noticed a range of reactions, from intent listening, to smiles, to amusement, to tension, to frowns, to sadness. I saw people who seemed to have tears in their eyes.

I admit that my own attention was not undivided. I decided the speech needed some musical accompaniment, so I played Grateful Dead's "Touch of Grey" and the theme from Star Wars, among others. I did a little interpretive dancing. I talked back to the screen and made faces (if you can't do it in your own living room, when can you?). I ended up watching a video of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech while the President was finishing and the GOP Senator was giving her response. I was really wondering what Dr. King would make of it all.

This is as much to say that I'm not pleased with the President, many of those in his administration, some members of the Supreme Court, and a number of our Congresspeople. I know there were hard-working, dedicated public servants in the room, and my annoyance is not directed at them. But, seriously, how do you expect me to take sitting down the remarks and stated goals of a President under whose leadership the United States has fallen to number 46 (as of 2014) in the World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders? (That's right, folks, we were ahead of Haiti and Taiwan--just barely--but behind South Africa and El Salvador.) It's fine for the President to smirk while Chinese president Xi Jinping apparently refuses to answer a reporter's question (on 11/12/14), but he really should be more concerned about the dismal showing of his own country on issues of press freedom and constitutional rights. (Aren't you shocked at that ranking? If you aren't, you should be!)

With all this in mind, I've decided that the way to view the State of the Union is not as a straightforward outline of things to come but as theatre, pure and simple. If we're talking Shakespeare, I'd say it was most like Macbeth. It's not an exact fit, perhaps, but the rapacious, overriding ambition and hubris of that play's characters fit my idea of what I saw last night more closely than anything else I can think of. My only fear is that there might not be enough bad guy roles to go around for Joe Biden, John Boehner, John McCain, etc.

Let's see, the President as Macbeth, and that would make the First Lady, well, Lady Macbeth, and for the three witches, we have Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, and Nancy Pelosi, and well . . . you get the idea. Just use your imagination.

Winter Dreams

I don't keep a dream journal, though a lot of people interested in Jung believe that you should. I find it tedious to describe dreams on paper, since I often remember them in a lot of detail. I sometimes jot them down when they seem especially interesting, but I don't pretend to have a system for understanding them. That's a tricky thing even for Jungians. For starters, you have to ask: Was the dream personal? Or was it archetypal? Should you refer to your own associations with things, people, and events in the dream, or do they relate to larger, universal themes? Is it the images that are more important, or the emotions? Are all dreams the same, or do some involve wish fulfillment, others compensation, and still others some kind of problem-solving?

Sometimes I notice bits and pieces of recent events in dreams and recognize the presence of issues that have preoccupied me in waking life. Sometimes I look back on a dream I wrote down a couple of years again and think, "Oh, I know why I dreamed that now." It really does seem that a part of the mind recognizes certain truths long before they become conscious. Most of the time, this seems to relate to events in my own life, not universal concerns (though, of course, the universal and the personal flow into and out of each other for all of us).

For whatever reason, I seem to be in a particularly active dreaming period right now. Over the last month or so, I've had a few dreams that were especially vivid or memorable for one reason or another, and I noted them without making much of an attempt to interpret them. I'll try to do that now, though some of my attempts may be slightly satirical. In my experience, a dream either clicks for me pretty quickly or has to be left alone until it does--which could take a while. But in the interest of science, here goes.

(From last month.) I dreamed about the Twin Towers. I dreamed I was sitting in a parked car with someone I used to work with, and the towers were behind us and by far the biggest thing on the skyline. They were farther apart from each other than they were in real life, though. I told the other person we needed to move the car away from there; it was dangerous. The city didn't look like New York--we drove to an area that looked sort of like Printers Alley in downtown Nashville.

Interpretation: Two or three days after I had this dream, I saw in the news that it was the 14th anniversary of Al Gore's concession speech following the presidential vote recount in Florida. I was not aware of this pending anniversary before I had the dream, but I'm struck by the sense of being in Tennessee, Mr. Gore's home state, and the presence of "Printer's Alley," since Mr. Gore has a journalism background. Was my dreaming mind wondering if we'd be where we are now if Mr. Gore had won the election?

(A week before Christmas.) I dreamed I was at a library conference at a retreat center in Florida. The grounds were beautiful. The building was on top of a hill, and some hazardous stone steps led down to a lower level. When I looked south from the bottom of the steps, I could see a road winding through the trees and, in the distance, a snow-capped mountain. Not quite what you expect in Florida, but interesting.

Interpretation: In this dream, I was speaking on the phone to the same person I was talking to in the car in the previous dream. It seems to me that there are things I would like to say to this person but haven't. In this dream, I was actually in Florida, but it didn't look like Florida. The terrain was beautiful, and I could see a long way, but there were all those hazardous steps and snow in the distance. Could this dream be related to the previous one? (It came a week later.) Was I thinking about politics or merely hoping for a vacation?

(From the week after Christmas.) I dreamed last night I was still going to work downtown, except you had to enter the building through the garage, and it was on the other side of the building. Some people I knew at Pacifica also worked there, and one of them was studying to be an accountant.

Interpretation: This is another dream involving a former place of employment, with a surprising connection between two different areas of my life. I was entering the building "from the ground up," maybe a sign of a deeper level of understanding on my part. While the dream itself was matter-of-fact, I think it reveals a judgment about the person studying to be an accountant.

(Last week.) Dreamed last night that a deer gave birth in front of me after I came out of a store in San Francisco. The store was a real one I've actually been in (a CVS or something similar) in North Beach. I've never seen a deer on a sidewalk, though.

Interpretation: The deer was actually on the curb, and I was looking at it from the sidewalk. There was a lot of flowing water with blood in it, and I couldn't see what was happening at first. The birth itself was very lifelike. I associate deer in mythology with magical events, like the deer that a person pursues deep into the forest that leads to an adventure. This was a deer giving birth, which seems in some way propitious, though I can't say exactly why.

(Last night.) I dreamed I was in my college cafeteria. They were serving pork cutlets. When I asked for potatoes, the chatty server gave me two noodles instead, so I had to ask again. When I inquired about salad, she said there was a salad bar, but I never saw it. The soft drink machine was noisy and messy, and there didn't seem to be dessert. When I left by a back door, someone came along and started locking doors from the outside.

Interpretation: The server seemed friendly but was actually rather passive aggressive. I left the cafeteria with my tray but didn't eat any of the food. I seemed to be rejecting what had been given to me, and seeing the doors locked added some finality to the process. This dream seems to involve recognizing dissatisfaction and saying no to the source of it. I interpret this dream, too, as positive.

Once More for Middle-earth

I don't know what you did on New Year's Eve, but I was in the middle of a Lord of the Rings home video screening, which seems as good a way to spend it as any. LOTR has always seemed to me to be a winter story, possibly because I first encountered it as a boxed set of books--including The Hobbit--as a Christmas present in my senior year of high school. I'm looking at it right now; although the books are threadbare from much handling, the box, with it shiny gold foil, is in good condition. It's covered all over with Elvish symbols that, now that I look at them, are not unlike something you'd see in Jung's Red Book, with their wheel shapes flowing around central stars and flowers. Very mandala-like, these devices are.

Of course, all of the movies have been holiday releases as well--but I'm thinking back now to my first introduction to Middle-earth all those years ago, when I spent most of Christmas break absolutely immersed in the books. I can see myself now in the small bedroom I shared with my sister, sitting up in bed, eyes intent on the page, completely absorbed in a world of Tolkien's making. I remember how strongly the characters, the settings, and the events of this strangely compelling other world impressed themselves on my imagination and how nearly impossible it was to stop reading.

I used to re-read the books periodically but fell out of the habit some years ago, though I think it may be time now to re-visit the tradition. It will be interesting to see how the intervening years, and Peter Jackson's films, have changed my reactions to the stories on the page. I've written recently about the ways in which Mr. Jackson's Hobbit films (especially the final one) seem to part company with the book, but his LOTR has always seemed remarkably close to Tolkien's vision.

In the three years since I bought the video trilogy, I've probably watched the movies once a year. Even in that time, my way of looking at them has changed from one viewing to the next. Interestingly, The Fellowship of the Ring, which was formerly my favorite part, no longer is--at least not in exactly the same way. I linger over scenes in the Shire, which used to seem merely a prelude to the action, and Rivendell, both of which I find it increasingly hard to imagine leaving on such a task as the hobbits had. The Shire, in its innocence, and Rivendell, in its elegance and otherworldly beauty, are of course as under threat as any place else in Middle-earth until the quest is done . . . but the feeling of safe harbor, ease, and peace is strong in both places.

I find myself mentally speeding the company through Moria and down the river to the place near the falls where the Fellowship breaks up. While this is a major break in the story, and a sad ending to the companionship of the nine, it's almost a relief to me to see Frodo and Sam slip off to the eastern shore. I now find myself enjoying the scenes in both The Two Towers and The Return of the King in which the remaining members of the Fellowship look for and are reunited with one another and become deeply involved in the affairs of Rohan and Gondor.

In reading the books, I always considered these aspects of the story less interesting, dealing as they do less with enchantment and more with strategy, politics, and the role of humans in events. Now, I find the people and their problems much more engaging than I did as a teenager, and the courage of not only Theoden's people but those of Gondor, along with the bravery of the companions who aid them, is very compelling to me. I like Theoden's seasoned, no-nonsense authority, Aragorn's valor and calm intelligence, Gimli's sense of humor, and Legolas's steady eye. I like the way the two younger hobbits, Pippin and Merry, seem to grow up in the course of their dealings with Ents, wizards, and warriors, while remaining essentially light-hearted and free.

While the quest of Frodo and Sam to destroy the ring is protracted and wearying (as in the books), the doings of the other characters, even though they involve a constant succession of either major battles or preparations for them, include many scenes of everyday life, love, jealousy, secret hopes, failings, renewed purpose, and tragedies of an all-too-human nature. The story in its latter stages becomes more character-driven than it was in the beginning. In the face of the big events taking place both in Mordor and the kingdoms of men, small incidents revealing the character of the players bring events back down to earth and are rewarding to watch.

One of my ideas about why this is so has to do with the fact that I don't see as much distance between the concerns of Middle-earth and those of the real world as I used to. Far from seeing it as an escapist fantasy, as I did as a teenager, I now see its contours as much closer to a map of the world as we know it. Like a true myth, LOTR gets its power not so much from its fantastic elements as from the way it resembles reality. It's a mirror in which we see ourselves reflected.