Is it time for the Gods of the Copybook Headings to return?
Or perhaps they already have.
I’ve written before about how a course I took in college on Russian Intellectual History stopped me from joining the left in the late 60s. Here’s an excerpt:
It was there I learned – without anyone ever telling me directly – that in the 60s we were reliving those long-past Russian years in a somewhat altered, Americanized form. No, my generation was not unique; that was clear. No, we were not inventing something that had never been tried, going down some wonderful path that had never been trod. We were going somewhere that in the past had led to nothing good.
I could see it for myself; all I had to do was read, and think. If we don’t learn history we are indeed condemned to repeat it. And even if we do learn it, we may be condemned to repeat it anyway.
I’ve thought of that course again lately, for obvious reasons – the parallels are there. One of the many books we had to read and discuss was Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons, about the intergenerational conflict between the generations. And that exists today, too.
Lo and behold, here’s a professor with similar thoughts to mine on that score, and who even uses the same book as example (although he apparently hates the right and Trump; he’s got a very fully developed case of TDS).
And that, in turn, puts me in mind of Rudyard Kipling’s chilling poem “The Gods of the Copybook Headlines.” Copybook headings were a now-defunct pedagogical tool by which a student learned both penmanship and maxims for wise living, two subjects which seem to have been cast aside in recent decades:
The “copybook headings” to which the title refers were proverbs or maxims, often drawn from sermons and scripture extolling virtue and wisdom, that were printed at the top of the pages of copybooks, special notebooks used by 19th-century British school-children. The students had to copy the maxims repeatedly, by hand, down the page. The exercise was thought to serve simultaneously as a form of moral education and penmanship practice.
Kipling wrote the poem right about World War I, that searing experience that is considered to have been the birth of the modern age, and which brought with it much cynicism and despair:
As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
I called the poem “chilling” and I meant it literally. I have never been able to read it without the hair on my body standing on end in fear and dread.
[NOTE: The next-to-last verse, which I consider most powerful, draws on this Biblical reference:
“As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly” is an aphorism which appears in the Book of Proverbs in the Bible — Proverbs 26:11, also partially quoted in the New Testament, 2 Peter 2:22. It means that fools are stubbornly inflexible and this is illustrated with the repulsive simile of the dog that eats its vomit again, even though this may be poisonous…
In Proverbs, the “fool” represents a person lacking moral behavior or discipline, and the “wise” represents someone who behaves carefully and righteously. The modern association of these words with intellectual capacity is not in the original context.]
“And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,”
Immediately upon reading this I thought of San Francisco. How fitting!
Especially that last line. . .
I think we can’t post images here?
From the PLblog’s Week in Pictures for this week ….
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/07/the-week-in-pictures-buy-goya-edition.php
…. scroll down to the airplane crashed nose first into the ground with label
When you ‘decolonize’ math
We are on our way …
The Art of Manliness has a great podcast about the rise of woke culture:
https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/podcast-628-the-rise-of-secular-religion-and-the-new-puritanism/
They also talk about Dostoevsky.
I have referred to this impending Moment of Cosmic Clarity as ‘The Great Slap Up Side ‘O the Head.’
It’s true that humans are striving toward a better future, but As Kipling says, we keep falling back to the lowest common denominator. It is the struggle over how to divide our resources that eventually leads to terror and slaughter returning.
Our system is not egalitarian and it creates vast disparities in wealth. Those who have not given much thought to this problem always seem to come to the conclusion that it’s not FAIR. So, as Marx and others did, they seek a better system. It always turns out to be a variant of Communism. And that idea, once fixed upon, is so attractive that the “True Believers” are willing to kill to make it come true. The history of Communism should convince people that it eventually boils down to a few at the top enjoying the good life, and the vast majority all equal and all equally miserable. But it is a lie so attractive that millions have died in the last 100 years in the attempt to make it come true.
While a free market system creates vast wealth and a few obscenely wealthy people, it also provides the highest standard of living to the most people of any economic system yet devised by humans. We have a system that works well enough that vast numbers of people want to come here and often come illegally or make perilous journeys to get here. Try to explain that to the Marxists of BLM and ANTIFA. My suggestion to them is that they immigrate to a Communist paradise of their choosing (Venezuela, Cuba, Zimbabwe, China, or North Korea to mention a few.) But no, they want to ruin this country. 🙁
“Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.”
George Santayana
Today the students are not taught history but propaganda.
For ages, I have been thinking of that poem, almost daily.
But then, I’m deplorable. Like Kipling.
J.J. I certainly endorse what you said. However, I think I would have said “millions were killed,” rather than “millions have died” in the last 100 years in the attempt to make it come true.
Hi Neo…I’m going to caution against trusting Wiki for Biblical clarity.
A “fool” according to Wisdom Scriptures was the one who rejected the overarching rule of God who established & maintained the created order by God’s Wisdom. “There is no God” (Psalm 14:1 & 53:1). So a “fool” trusts their own wisdom & ends up repeating their foolishness eventually becoming self-destructive. (Proverbs 1:32)
A “fool” is not so much stubbornly inflexible as much as arrogantly self-confident that they know best in all things…The “wise” however live responsive to God’s Wisdom that creates & sustains all things & guides wisely in life & therefore…Proverbs 3 may be as good as any.
We’ll have the ushers take up the offering now & sing a hymn. 😉
Refreshments will be on the front lawn.
Pax vobiscum
Neo,
I first read that poem in the late 60s. It made an impression. Chilling, indeed.
Waidmann
The New Yorker published an account in 2015 of Kipling’s trial by fire during WWI, titled “When Rudyard Kipling’s Son Went Missing.”
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/when-rudyard-kiplings-son-went-missing
The essay describes the anguish felt by Kipling and his wife Carrie when they went to Loos in northern France to look for their son John, reported missing in September 1915.
“Nothing conclusive emerged. An eyewitness told a friend of theirs that a shell had exploded over John’s head, smashing his jaw and leaving him weeping in pain. The friend, though, deemed it too cruel to pass this information on to the Kiplings. John was destined . . . to rest ‘uncoffined’ until 1992, when his remains supposedly were found in Chalk Pit Wood—though there is still some doubt about that claim.”
Speaking of Kipling’s capacity to be “chilling,” the essay goes on to summarize “Kipling’s finest war story, ‘Mary Postgate,’ . . . fueled by hate. The title character is a forty-four-year-old spinster who helped to raise a young man named Wynn, who’s become a pilot in the war. Devastated by the news that he’s been killed during a trial flight, she steps into the garden to make a bonfire of his possessions. When she hears a groan, she looks around to discover a wounded German pilot pinioned under a branch. He begs for a doctor, but all Mary can think of is Wynn, and the ‘ripped and shredded’ body of a village girl freshly killed by a bomb that could well have been dropped by this fair-headed ‘thing hunched under the oak-tree.’ ‘Nein,’ she says harshly. Then, as she watches the fire blaze and hears the German’s piteous cries, she gives herself up to an emotional rapture. Once the ‘thing’ is quiet and ‘Wynn’s things’ are an ashen heap, Mary goes in to have a long, hot bath, after which she sprawls on the sofa looking ‘quite handsome.’ A scandalized relative of Kipling’s called it ‘the wickedest story ever written.'”
To get back to Neo’s comment on “The Gods of the Copybook Headings,” Kipling was certainly a master at eliciting “fear and dread” in his readers, but he knew whereof he wrote.
The Gods of the Copybook Headings are coming back at a time when the loss of religious belief in the West is almost total.
We’re a people who have to *hide* our dead, dying and decrepit old folk from ourselves in ‘normal’ times because we cannot face the horror; so imagine what the coming unpleasantness is going to feel like. The psychological shock will be much the worse for our lack of any transcendent beliefs.
No real surprises here. Definitely not my original deep thoughts, but I posit:
(1) When SHTF, everyone is going to get ‘Religion’ real fast. What form it will take is not easy to predict. Perhaps folks will grasp at the faintly-remembered familiar Christian forms. Perhaps not.
(2) Those who *do* have strong beliefs and tribal affinities will survive and thrive — at the expense of those who do not. Hello Islam. Remember, the recipe doesn’t have to be ‘nice’ or intellectually sophisticated — it just has to get results in the Real World. If what you believe helps you to steal your neighbors’ food and womenfolk and quickly process and integrate horrific things happening to your relatives / children, then it ‘Works’.
(3) The major reasons the Gods are returning is that we cannot live without Gods of some form or another. Religion isn’t just a comfort to the sick / dying / survivors. It’s a way of codifying rules for sound evolutionary and civilizational hygiene across the generations. Knock down this Chestertonian Fence and the Kindly Ones come roaring back into town.
Happened before. Will happen again. Only question is what will we do about it in our own little lives.
The whole religion thing is quite fascinating. I live in East Asia and have also lived in SE Asia. People are nominally Buddhist. In the West, Buddhism is seen as a license to do whatever one wants and forgive oneself for it, plus some nifty nihilistic detachment dressed up in A Max Mara-ish flavor of Expensive Simplicity. Out here, it’s different. Traditional and syncretic beliefs abound everywhere. Buddhism is useful for comforting the dying and their survivors and providing intellectual entertainment to the more philosophical. But it’s not enough; people have had to people their world with Spirits of Place, Gods of War, Wealth, etc.. and everywhere shows up some kind of Goddess of Mercy. Down South, the Kings become Living Gods and bits of Brahmanism linger.
In short, we had better get us some Gods or the Gods are going to give themselves to us good and proper.
PA Cat:
There’s another short story he wrote about a Hausfrau back on the home front in Germany and the effects of starvation. Recall something about her being haunted by the ghost of a girl child who had died of malnutrition.
Loss of his son did unhinge him for a while. But it’s noteworthy just how foully nasty the propaganda turned immediately in August 1914. It’s a long topic for another another day, but sad truth is that Western Civ was already a putrescent corpse that year. What that makes us in the present year does not bear much thinking about.
Eventually we’ll hit bottom and begin the long climb up again to eventually repeat the cycle.
Despair is a Sin as the Late Great Jerry Pournelle used to say.
Zaphod. I believe Miller in Canticle for Leibowitz had despair as the worst because it meant you believed God had no power.
They have never left. Mainly they’ve been ignored.
Eunice Kennedy Shriver, when I read her obituary I learned she was a daily Mass Catholic. being a convert, I says to myself “that’s something, a daily Mass Catholic”. I only get close.
As Flannery O’Connor would say, “I’ll meet you at the foot of Cross.”
Such a time.
I am reminded of a story of a headmistress at a girl’s school in England. She called in the 16 year olds, and told them: You are going to have to make your own way in the world. The men you would have married are dead, and only one in ten will be a wife.
She was right. There was a whole generation of single English working women after the war.
The last stanza has already started to come true.
We have all, nearly, remarked on the relatively obvious fact that post-modern progressivism, and its analogs, present in the form of a virtual religion.
But Matthew, this podcast was well worth listening to as a relatively better developed and analyzed take.
Now, is “salvation anxiety” – partly he hypothesizes – a result of guilt over undeserved advantage, a better explanation than the pure emotional neediness of a particular kind of person found in our developed society? Quite possibly. And, it may even include it.
Themes,
– Salvation anxiety
– guilt over unearned “privilege” (or undeserved advantage)
– the academics (the member’s of the academy) who need, require, more than other people “validation …”
Very good, Matt.
Thanks …
they too busy burning digital books to copy them..
Zaphod, that’s an interesting explanation about the roles of Buddhism. Thanks.
I like following this blog.
Neo,
I want to recommend a movie to watch, as odd as that might strike you.
You probably know it, or of it. But if not, or if you have not watched it recently on the larger flat screens we all have nowadays do so. I just came across it recently.
It’s Jean Renoir’s, “The Southerner”, 1945. It can be downloaded from several online sites, as a UCLA restored print. So, it will still play adequately, if not with crystalline clarity, on a flat screen of 40 inches or more.
If you don’t know it, and have only a vague idea of it, I can reassure you that it is not a Grapes of Wrath or Of Mice and Men type film preordained to a grim conclusion; nor is it a hopeless Tobacco Road (1941) populated by enervated and degenerate gentry, vagabonds, and idiots.
If you watch it through, it will become obvious why I have recommended it.
Matthew …
He’s now on Descartes and The Meditations, and emphasizing some aspects of a Promethean project he sees as implicit in them, that I had never heard mentioned in school. (Descartes was covered only in passing in the course work I did; and I did more than enough, by any standard measure).
It’s very interesting.
Philip Sells:
I forgot to mention that at the simplest level in East Asia, for most people, if you really get down to it, Buddhism is mostly about ‘Taking Out the Dead Garbage’ + ‘Ghostbusters’. It’s no accident that in Japan you go to Shinto Shrines for good luck and weddings. Funerals, however, are Buddhist. Buddhist rites assuage the deceased and make sure that they don’t haunt you and generally @#$% you over.
Gross over-simplification, but that’s pretty much the essence of it. Same broad smear pertains in China.
Naturally there are esoteric exceptions to the rule. However, someone like D T Suzuki made out more like gangbusters in California than he might have done in Kyoto.
There’s a bit more to Buddhism further South, but anyone who thinks it’s entirely a calm and meditative creed need only look at the politics of (say) Sri-Lanka, or a bunch of Thais getting blotto at a rural funeral.
This is not to say I’m against Buddhism. Far from it. Acceptance of our shitty lot is a very important lesson and the ideal is something worth aiming for.
Talking of Aiming, Eugen Herrigel’s book on Zen and Archery is well worth a read.
It evokes neither fear nor dread, but appreciation of generations and wisdom past and present. #PrinciplesMatter
LOL. I think Huxley commented on him too and said something about him not being quite the traditional Buddhist which people like me imagined.
I read him and thought, “Gee, kind of an Oriental Phenomenology … there is probably a transcendental reduction in here somewhere. At least no little fat guy with an incense burner in his belly, or Tibetan hell … ”
I’m not even sure Zen is phenomenological. At least I gave up on trying to figure it out after a modest amount of reading.
Cap’n Rusty, I agree. Killed is the correct word.
I went through a phase in high school of being interested in the basics of Buddhist thought: the Eightfold Path, etc. Orthodox Christianity is my foundation now, however.
I’ve lately been contemplating writing a big long letter to my second-cousins once-removed or whatever they’re classified as, setting forth my views on life as I approach a certain time demarcation. Something to fortify them as I ponder what they might have to face in their coming years. The thing is that they don’t know me well yet, since we only became acquainted relatively recently and they’re very young yet. But I’d like to, in some sense, ‘adopt’ them; not that I lack faith in their parents’ abilities, but I worry that things will sweep over the entire extended family in the years to come for which we’re unprepared as an aggregate. And I think we, the big family, can’t really afford such weakness. Furthermore, I selfishly hope that I might be able to retire to where they all live, the general region, and be able to support and be supported by them as I approach the end of my path eventually.
Or perhaps they already have.
I have returned, mortals.
^^^ If I should die and find out that I was this fellow’s John the Baptist, can I ask for a refund?
Asking for a Friend.
Back to Kipling.
My favourite poem of his is Recessional. Anyone who calls Kipling a Jingoist just shows their ignorance and illiteracy.
Could be a bit, well, To the Point when he took a dislike to someone: e.g. one Rufus Isaacs.
Ex Canadian Columnist and Editor and now Blogger David Warren had an interesting childhood and early career with Kiplingesque rhymes and echoes. Interesting cantankerous Old Coot. I suspect a bit impoverished these days so someone to consider when doing the random PayPal Drive By.
DNW,
Rene Descartes is one of my favorite historical heroes. I don’t think he gets anywhere near the mention he deserves for the impact he had on the modern world. A true Renaissance man of upstanding moral character and an incredibly flexible and intelligent mind.
I read an interesting book that attempted to prove or disprove he was a Rosicrucian. It was a fun read because it turned out to be a fairly thorough biography, but, due to the subject matter had a “spy/thriller” secret society flavor to the telling of the tale. Unfortunately I am not seeing the book title online, nor can I remember it, and I bought it used and sent it to a friend a few years ago. It’s almost certainly out of print.
Anyway, I don’t think you will be disappointed if you devote a bit of your life to learning about the man, if you find yourself looking for something to study.
I have a few other books about him, all centered on Philosophy, and he is one of my favorite Philosophers, but his mathematical work and creating a system to represent complex, physical, statistical, theoretical… concepts in 2 dimensions with quill and paper was an incredible leap.
He was a Zoro-esque figure, very active in helping the innocent and downtrodden, but also trying to save the world through better math and engineering, and just plain, deep, philosophical thinking.
Neo: I have read Kipling for years, and have my grandfather’s set. He is vastly under-rated on many counts.
“Mary Postgate” is chilling, but there is a counter-point – read “The Gardener”, which may be one of the most poignant of all his post-WWI stories.
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”
When C.S. Lewis elaborated on this point, he called it The Abolition of Man, whose first chapter is “Men Without Chests.”
Another relevant Kipling poem: “The ‘Mary Gloster'”
forgot the link for “The ‘Mary Gloster'”, here it is:
https://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/mary_gloster.html
One can understand Kipling’s distaste for the superficial whims, fads and vagaries of fashion that are exemplified by the stock market.
The market, in all its rawness, is an easy target. But it seems that the major problem is not so much “the market” but the revolution and its quest for naked power heavily and effectively disguised as a crusade for “moral purity” and as the relentless pursuit of “human rights”; and the overarching goal of imposing “virtue”—as defined by those same revolutionaries—upon society as a way to overthrow the existing structure and cement their grip on the new.
Anyway, here’s a related disquisition on the meaning of the opposition to the “Harper’s Letter” that’s worth reading:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/harpers-letter-left-attacks-defense-free-inquiry-debate/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first
H/T Powerline blog.
“Gods of the Copybook Headings” and “Dane-Geld” are two of the Kipling poems I quote most often. Among the others, I especially like “The Ballad of East and West:”
———-
Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!
———–
“The Law of the Jungle” is useful too. “The strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.”
That man was a wizard with words.
Speaking of attitudes in Asia, I’ve run across two adult (mid 20s when they started vlogging, and now in their 30s) Youtube vloggers who—over a dozen or so years–have traveled together throughout a large portion of China via motorcycle and have, thus, seen and experienced a lot more of the actual, “on the ground,” predominantly rural China than most Westerners.
One vlogger, a South African by birth, goes by the handle “serpentZa,” the other vlogger, an American, calls himself “Laowhy86.”
Take a look at their very interesting and informed perspectives on China, as they discuss many dozens of topics, and their experiences as foreigners in and traveling around China.
Very enlightening, and while they very obviously started out being fascinated by and loving China, as they saw more and more their coverage–especially serpentZa’s coverage–got more and more critical of China.
In the last two years or so both vloggers–more and more closely monitored and harassed by Chinese security forces–have moved themselves, their Chinese wives, and children here to the U.S.
Barry Meislin…”One can understand Kipling’s distaste for the superficial whims, fads and vagaries of fashion that are exemplified by the stock market.”
I don’t think “gods of the market place” refers to the stock market, or the the market system in general, rather, it refers to popular religions which spring up and are circulated. Present-day equivalents might include the various forms of mysticism, belief in magical crystals, earth-worship, etc.
One of his best.
For another “chilling” example, I recommend “MacDonough’s Song”
I recall grammar-school discipline being held in from recess to write “More freedom means more responsibility” 100 times.
I never did successfully learn to write in cursive script. Upon graduation from high school, I abandoned it and returned to block letters. I can’t see that I am any worse off for it. Besides which, I can type much faster than anyone can write in cursive.
PROMETHEUS (entering.)
Who was it fled from here? I saw a shape
Flitting among the trees.
EPIMETHEUS.
It was Pandora.
PROMETHEUS.
O Epimetheus! Is it then in vain
That I have warned thee? Let me now implore.
Thou harborest in thy house a dangerous guest.
EPIMETHEUS.
Whom the Gods love they honor with such guests.
PROMETHEUS.
Whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad.
EPIMETHEUS.
Shall I refuse the gifts they send to me?
PROMETHEUS.
Reject all gifts that come from higher powers.
EPIMETHEUS.
Such gifts as this are not to be rejected.
I would suggest Antigone..
evil appears as good in the minds of those whom god leads to destruction
Kind of a repeating theme here; Frost, Millay, etc. for esthetics. Kipling for when things get serious.
Richard Aubrey:
I have many posts about Frost and politics, as well. And yes, even about Millay and politics. Here’s a quote from Millay during the 1930s:
Please read the whole thing.
SO WE ARE NEARER TO A CIVIL WAR SINCE IT SEEMS THE RULE OF REASON AND OBJECTIVE SEARCH FOR ANSWERS ARE BEING OVERRULED BY INTIMIDATION AND FORCE. SURRENDER NOT YOUR WEAPONS BUT PREPARE BY ARMING UP TO MEET THE ENEMY. SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIORS WILL NOT PREVAIL IN THE FACE OF DEADLY FORCE@
Barry Meislin; David Forster:
It doesn’t refer to the stock market or finances in particular. It refers to popular movements/programs and belief systems about humanity, culture, government, etc..
I had never read this before and my heart filled with creeping dread as I realized what he was saying. By the end, every hair was standing up on my arms and my eyes were damp.
“We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.”
The idea of human folly being this inexorable Mike Myers following us through history is one of the most horrifying ideas I’ve ever had in my head.
Chilling is right.
Moron Pundit,
I have spent many, many, many, many hours pondering if agriculture has been a net positive, or a net negative to homo sapiens. I still can’t form an opinion, but I am convinced it is the linchpin, one way, or another.
Assistant Village Idiot,
My school district was predominantly first or second generation immigrants. In my 20s I remember thinking back on my American History instruction at the public schools I attended and concluded that the story of Jamestown, Captain John Smith and “No Work, No Food” was featured prominently over several years. I think my school board was concerned some of our parents may have brought socialist ideas with them from home, and they wanted to make sure we knew where that leads.
Imagine that? A public school system promoting personal responsibility?
Snow on Pine,
The book, “River Town,” by Peter Hessler is an excellent, true account of the same phenomenon. I highly recommend it. Hessler is a good writer! I read it right after our family took a three week trip to China. Obviously one can hardly see any of China in three weeks, but we had decent exposure to urban, rural, supervised (maybe) unsupervised. We had many conversations, some rather in depth, with many locals. I had a sense of something I could not quite put my finger on, but Hessler’s book made it obvious. Everyone officious was extraordinarily nice, kind and generous, but if you persisted a bit too long, tried to get friendly, tried to practice some words…
Kipling and the ancient Greeks seem to have had a few things in common.
It’s not like the current descent into anarchy is a new thing.
Snow on Pine, that was a very interesting tip about those two fellows in PRC. I took in just a couple of their more recent videos. I suppose by doing so, I’ve kind of spoiled the rest for myself, in a way. But at least Winston did convince me that I should visit Taiwan sometime.
Neo. Okay. Kipling only for serious, not for esthetics.
However, the Millay piece isn’t so much about politics. It’s about her getting a clue everybody else already has and explaining to the rest of us that she’s just had an epiphany and everybody should listen to her.
Philip Sells–It’s worth it to take a look at a lot more of these vlogs–they offer a rare, intelligent, and fascinating street level look at subjects and areas of China that are glossed over by travel advertisements/articles, or just not (probably deliberately) even reported on by the usual sources.
John Guilfoyle:
Your verses from Psalms use a different Hebrew word than Neo’s quote in Proverbs.
In Psalms it is a “Naval” – from a root that means “wither/decay” and is related to the word for a corpse. I would translate as “decadent/corrupt”.
In Proverbs the fool is a “K’sil” which really translates as “fool, dupe, oaf”.