the change in language

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We watched this short interview with Martin Luther King, Jr. last night. I love listening to MLK.

What I find especially noteworthy about MLK is that he used a social movement and tactics to put pressure on political figures. It seems to me that the social method allows for greater personal integrity and less compromise than a more direct political method. Something about the difference in the nature of the two arenas.

lacking words

We no longer have a sufficiently high estimate of ourselves when we communicate. Our true experiences are not garrulous. They could not communicate themselves if they wanted to: they lack words. We have already grown beyond whatever we have words for. In all talking there lies a grain of contempt. Speech, it seems, was devised only for the average, medium, communicable. The speaker has already vulgarized himself by speaking. -From a moral code for deaf-mutes and other philosophers.

Nietzsche Expeditions of an Untimely Man §26

pokerface

leonid meteor shower tonight

NASA has a little applet to show expected activity in your area. The international dark sky association lets you know the best places to check it out. I'm guessing it's going to be overcast here but maybe you'll have better luck.

to the fates

To The Fates

Grant me a single summer, you lords of all,
  A single autumn, for the fullgrown song,
    So that, with such sweet playing sated,
      Then my heart may die more willing.

The soul, in life robbed of its godly right,
  Rests not, even in Orcus down below;
    Yet should I once achieve my heart's 
      First holy concern, the poem,

Welcome then, O stillness of the shadow world !
  Even if down I go without my
    Music, I shall be satisfied; once
      Like gods I shall have lived, more I need not.

Hölderlin (trans Christopher Middleton)

the yin and the wankers

Obligatory political post.

Horace

   Ask not ('tis forbidden knowledge), what our destined term of years,
   Mine and yours; nor scan the tables of your Babylonish seers.
   Better far to bear the future, my Leuconoe, like the past,
   Whether Jove has many winters yet to give, or this our last;
   THIS, that makes the Tyrrhene billows spend their strength against
        the shore.
   Strain your wine and prove your wisdom; life is short; should hope
        be more?
   In the moment of our talking, envious time has ebb'd away.
   Seize the present; trust to-morrow e'en as little as you may.

-Horace Odes

Lincoln

We've been watching the PBS documentary "God in America" and it was interesting to hear their description of how Lincoln's attitude toward religion changed as the civil war progressed. Initially it sounds like his thoughts were roughly the same as Dylan's With God on Our Side. As the war progressed though, and casualties increased, he felt compelled to the belief that this was all God's plan, that God wanted the civil war and wanted the north to win.

I suppose it was the only way he could think to justify all that pain. I wonder what sorts of beliefs about the afterlife Lincoln held that could foster anything but disdain for the Christian God. Initially Lincoln was more of a deist but his later belief, according to the film, was in a more personal (and rather horrifying) God.

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near the devil's punchbowl

help design a new site dedicated to philosophical discussion

If you're familiar with StackOverflow then you likely know how valuable it is for programmers. Its great advantage seems to be how it handles reputation and how that impacts the quality of Q&A.

Anyhow, this is a proposal to create a similar site for philosophy. If you commit to it, it's more likely to happen and you can have some impact on how the community is formed.