Posts by Joshua

Just a bit of fun at the expense of Lucy Hutchinson.

Snow in Montana

What Ms. Hutchinson would think of me now, I do not care to know;

Seated at my ease, sipping coffee from Colombia,

Attended by a thousand swirling doting motes of snow

Outside the truck stop window,

Caught in the beam of a Ford headlight.

Oh, unhappy dispensation from honest toil!

To spend a vain and idle wintry day in

Wanton dalliance with impious books;

To speak with Lucretius in pagan oracles of the soft

Fallen snow—of the atoms at the heart of every flake—

Of the pinnacles and drifts that build up

Slowly, accumulating like a Puritan's holy scorn

On pickups and diesel pumps and the soft

Blushing cheeks of laughing people.

Ah, the shame of it! Methinks I ought to

Hide my face, and glower in the darkness

Of that Casino in the back.

Mr. Hogg was lifelong friends with one of the pre-eminent English poets of the Romantic Period, and must have moved in circles that included Mary Shelley (Frankenstein) and Lord Byron. We know for certain that Percy Shelley read Lucretius, and that may be the materialist author Hogg is referring to.

I think it's clear from the broader context of the passage that he regards materialists, atheists, and Epicureans as ultimately benign, but also selfish, insensible, and out of touch. The last sentence is meant to be read as a summation of legacy; Plato and Aristotle didn't literally feed thousands, but their intellectual legacy was taken up by Christians, Deists, Spinozoans, etc. And the idea is that while adherents of these sects held charity to be a virtue and a duty, the heirs of Epicurus cared only for themselves.

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Their narrow sect cannot possibly flourish; we cannot live upon this world alone.

But this is the stand-out sentiment for me. What does the second "cannot" mean? Does it mean that it cannot be possible that we live alone? Or that we cannot possibly tolerate the truth of living alone, and that's why we need comforting lies about Providence or Godhead? Hard to say.

Later in the book he has this (and much else) to say about medical doctors of his time;

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[They are] too frequently epicureans, obtruding and thrusting in men's faces a

low, offensive, and shallow materialism.

These excursions are amazingly common in the text. It's as if he wrote a biography about his more-famous friend just so that he could fill up the pages by getting his own ideas into circulation under the name.

I've had rather enough of Mr. T. J. Hogg, and will be happy to leave this selection here and never revisit his book! What Epicurus taught was never shallow; but it was clear, so that you could see right down to the bottom. Plato by contrast is so muddled and murky you can't see an inch into him. They see this obscurantism, and foolishly call it depth.

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The world is deeply indebted also to epicureans and materialists; it is a great benefit to mankind, that in every generation a small body of innocent, estimable, and apathetical men should be found ready to demonstrate practically, that their narrow sect cannot possibly flourish; that we cannot live upon this world alone.

Plato and Aristotle have fed thousands, but to whom did Epicurus ever give a morsel of bread?

I wasn't sure where to put this one, but I found it interesting. This is Thomas Jefferson Hogg, an English barrister, writing in his biography of lifelong friend Percy Bysshe Shelley. He had mentioned Shelley's reading of materialist authors, and then tossed out this gem.

The really interesting thing is that Shelley and Hogg were both expelled from Oxford for their joint authorship of a pamphlet called The Necessity of Atheism, a text that argued against special creation while at the same time allowing Spinozoan Pantheism.

There's a book out by Michael Vicario on Shelley's Intellectual System and its Epicurean Background. I don't have it, but I think I'll try to get a copy.

[I should just note that Shelley's family were outraged by Hogg's biography, so we should keep that in mind. The above quote appears to be all Hogg.]

Just handheld. All credit to the phone manufacturers! I never do anything more serious than zooming and cropping. (I also take a lot of bad or disappointing photos...it helps to have a lot of options to choose from!)

This is as far as I'm willing to walk for a picture today!

They were all taken with a smartphone, Cassius. All but one—the high mountain lake at Quandary Peak in Colorado—were taken with my current phone, a Samsung Galaxy s9+. I have been thinking about getting something like a go-pro to mount at the passenger-side window for especially scenic drives.

(The shot of the road with a faint rainbow was taken while I was still in training. No photography while driving!)

Road trips are great, Godfrey! My main complaint is that I get so close to places I want to see, but not close enough to actually see them. I need about 8 daylight hours to spare in a city before I can justify the Uber!

I still have three states I've never been to; Rhode Island, Vermont, and Alaska. I'll be meeting my family in Nashville in June. Finally going to go check out that Parthenon. But first I'm looking forward to a lazy 8 days off in Florida come January!

Haha oh I have pictures...

Northeast of El Paso

Somewhere out west

Iowa

Maine

Arkansas

Colorado

Michigan

Salt Lake City

West Virginia

And one very regrettable night in Memphis

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And you want more ? If you say Epicurean-ism without the word as << philosophy>> it is right then, people to think : Ah, this is a mainstream with kitchens with good food and wine!

Ok, this is an excellent point! Those people have almost completely ruined search engine utility re: "Epicurean"

You've put that extremely well, Cassius!

I'll be out moving and shaking as normal! The western plains and the Rockies have just been buried under a foot of snow. Hopefully all are doing well! I shut down the truck yesterday and won't start again until this evening or tomorrow morning. No sense getting stranded in Wyoming!

Oh, I don't mean to imply that I am finding this discussion tedious. I continue to think Nate and Elli are making fair points.

But to say, for example, that Christianity is a relationship, not a religion, is to fortress one's opinion with something like an inverse Kafka-trap; they want to control the terms so that definitionally they can't be argued against—and I find that tedious.

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Furthermore, while we may all sincerely admire the person of Epicurus, and delight in the historical texts that resulted from the activity of his Garden, our path to wisdom – unlike every other -ismic school of thought – is neither dependent upon allegiance to a centralizing leader, nor upon a golden age of history, nor upon a doctrinal institution.

We should ask those schools; they have a different opinion. There is not one of them that wouldn't plead the same or a similar case. Or the same case couched in different terms. I know for a certainty from personal experience that in Buddhism the argument is identical; that instead of Buddhism, many would prefer Buddhadharma (Sanskrit) or -dhamma (Pali).

"Stop calling [my belief] an -ism!"

Buddhism

Christianity

Mohammedanism

Humanism

Capitalism

Marxism

Judaism

Sometimes it goes the other way. Taking a word, and weaponizing the -ism.

Islamism

Atheism

And, what is for me the most droll article of piffle to have made my acquaintance; I hate religion, but love Jesus

Anti-ismism is a cottage industry! Ironically, the only school I searched but can't find an example in is Stoicism. This, despite the fact that Stoicism 1.) Also comes from Greek, and therefore enjoys the blessings of our own etymological arguments, and 2.) Is one of the only schools not to have been named after a person.

I don't know about all of you, but I find this sort of thing tedious. I suspect that Lucian, for one—an equal opportunity lampooner of pretense—would have seen right through it.

It pleases me inordinately to hear in DeWitt, as an example, of the "spread of Epicureanism". If it was the "spread of Epicurean philosophy", I wouldn't know what that meant; does that mean that the books are spread, like Gideon bibles, with no one reading them? But "Epicureanism" is unmistakable. It doesn't mean scrolls or sages; it means people. An Attic potter molding a krater. A Roman soldier marching in Gaul. A Corinthian fisherman taking in the morning catch from the Aegean; and all bound in brotherhood by devotion to the school of Epicurus.

And in the same spirit...I'll leave it there! Candor has its place, but so does good humor and good nature. I once witnessed an exchange with a believer in Young-Earth Creationism. The interlocutor replied that "no, [he] believed in Old-Earth Accretionism". I laughed so hard I almost fell off the chair!

Good stuff, Charles! That whole scene from the tenth canto is simply bizarre. Actually that reminds me of one of my favorite specimen of "famous last words";

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"All right, then, I'll say it: Dante makes me sick." — Lope Félix de Vega Carpio (1562—1635), Spanish dramatist and poet. On being informed he was about to die.

I am VERY sympathetic to the idea that our Greek friends should have 'naming rights'! It's just a difficult transition. Out of curiosity I thumbed through DeWitt while I wrote that post. He must use "Epicureanism" a hundred times in that book; since that's the academic text "of record" in our circle, the problem is unlikely to go away.

Note; If I have Cassius' permission, I wanted a place to simply list minor treatments of Epicurean characters, motifs, and themes in works by Non-Epicureans. The purpose is a simple reference; if you find something interesting, add it to the list. If something on the list merits attention and/or discussion, start a thread and we'll talk about it! Entries should include Author, Title, Year/Period, Brief Description of Relevance.

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Walter Pater; "Marius the Epicurean"; 1885; Victorian Historical Novel set in Imperial Rome

Alfred Tennyson; "Lucretius"; 1868; Victorian Poem treating the alleged madness of Lucretius

Sir Francis Hastings Doyle; "The Epicurean"; 1841; A Poem that actually takes Epicureanism seriously! Here

George Eliot; "Romola"; 1863; A Novel. By reputation, the character of Tito Melema is an unsympathetic portrayal of an Epicurean.

Pierre Jean de Beranger; "The Epicurean's Prayer"; ~1850; A difficult poem. I suspect it loses something in translation? Here

Piero di Cosimo; "The Forest Fire"; 1505; A painting, said to be inspired by De Rerum Natura.

______________________________________________

I hope this thread works out! Someone (I think Charles?) planted the seed in my head a few weeks ago. Once we've got something good going we could work on arranging by period and artistic movement.

Edit; To clarify, "Non-Epicurean" here just means a figure that we don't already know to be Epicurean. It's ok—and welcome!—if the figure is sympathetic to the school.

https://www.theonion.com/i-don-t-fit-in…-box-1824207087

Here's some satire that came to memory as I was writing, re: -isms and ideologies

I've yet to register an opinion on the -ism question; as Nate has put forth a comprehensive effort at surveying the field, I'll offer it here.

To put it simply—I suppose I mean by that, To put it frankly: I haven't found the objections to this usage persuasive, and I doubt whether I can be bothered to police myself in the matter! 😁

I will unhesitatingly grant to our Hellenic friends the etymological point. I share their concerns regarding affinities in language, and I think I can appreciate—at least in outline—their objection to the imported feel of what ought to taste (from their perspective) like a native vintage. It strikes the wrong note, so to speak. I get that. Like grafting Old World vines onto New World rootstock.

And yet for all that, I simply cannot warm to the alternative. A few reasons come to mind.

1. It's inelegant

This is possibly the most bothersome quality. "Epicureanism" to a native English ear sounds very natural. "Epicurean Philosophy" sounds like it was designed by committee. Worse, it sounds like even the committee got tired of saying it, and switched to "EP" before the meeting was adjourned. Worse still, they didn't know—couldn't know—that when they were overheard speaking of EP, it sounded to the casual observer as if they were discussing, with hushed tones, an embarassing medical condition.

2. It plays like a shell game

When the preachers of Creationism got tired of getting laughed out of every courtroom in America, they did what we're doing; they dropped the -ism. Intelligent Design was the new PR slogan, and that too was roundly panned. But with one important difference: "creationism" had an ancient and venerable, albeit wholly misguided, philosophical pedigree. They could claim among their number no less a scientist than Isaac Newton. By contrast, "Intelligent Design" is cheap and tawdry; a sleazy rules-lawyer trick. Richard Dawkins' proposal to replace "atheists" with "Brights" was comparably silly. Creationism, atheism, and Epicureanism are perfectly serviceable words. To agitate for their replacement, rightly or wrongly, is to immediately put one's motives under suspicion.

3. It's a colorless abstraction

Now, there's nothing wrong with abstraction. Under certain circumstances it actually makes sense to speak in those terms. "Epicurean Philosophy", like "concussion protocol" or "Jeffersonian democracy", is a fitting term to use in an academic sense. One could write a book about "Epicurean Philosophy". One could teach a course, or chair a panel on "Epicurean Philosophy" at a Classical Antiquities conference.

But that just isn't my relationship with the school of Epicurus! I do study Epicurean Philosophy, but that is secondary to my main interest; I am a follower of Epicureanism. We can talk about ideology and labels, but I don't see this as a weakness. I have vetted this school, approved it, found it worthy above every comparable human effort; like Lucretius—like Diogenes of Oenoanda—I have nailed my colors to the mast. On some deeper-than-intellectual level, it pleases me to think of some continuity between myself and the numberless ancient Epicureans whose dust lies scattered in forgotten tombs.

Well, that went on rather long! I am aware of holding the minority view on the question, and I don't mean to convey the impression that I am bothered by the group preference. I certainly have no intention of forcing the point! But the argument as compiled by Nate has persisted for at least five years, and it may be of service to have this response on hand. It might aid in understanding some of the resistance, at least.

I love Dover Bitch as well, Elayne. Delicious with irony!

Certainly disposition is a factor, Cassius. Witness Cicero;

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If I err in belief that the souls of men are immortal, I gladly err, nor do I wish this error which gives me pleasure to be wrested from me while I live.

And probably there are degrees of disposition. Some would cease to miss the crutch after they had walked without it for a time.

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If this attitude stems from temporary darkness brought by circumstances then remedy is possible, but if for some reason the sickness is beyond he point of reversal, then recognizing that is a part of the prescription.

What interests me about this despair is how it seems to be brought on by the same materialism that in our philosophy is the very foundation of "joy, love, light, certitude, and help for pain".

When this poem was written, Charles Lyell (Principles of Geology) had demonstrated to the general annoyance of the clergy that the Earth was older—far, far older—than six thousand years. Darwin had drafted (but not yet published) an essay to develop the theory of Natural Selection. Louis Pasteur was at the same time pioneering his research into germ theory. Humanity was suddenly, comprehensively losing its sense of fair proportions. To a bacterium, he is a cosmos; to the cosmos, he is a mote of dust. This vision of nature as vast, impersonal, and indifferent was new and wholly unnerving. A century prior, the figures of the Enlightenment could speak of nature as rational and ordered, reflecting a god that was likewise;

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Unerring Nature, still divinely bright,

One clear, unchang'd, and universal light,

Life, force, and beauty, must to all impart,

At once the source, and end, and test of art.

-Alexander Pope

A half century later, the Romantics were beginning to find nature a little refreshing and wild; an aesthetic escape from that rigid order.

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There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society where none intrudes,

By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:

I love not Man the less, but Nature more [...]

Lord Byron

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The differences also found expression in theology; during the Enlightenment, Deism and Unitarianism came into vogue. For the Romantics, it was Pantheism. For Victorians like Matthew Arnold, a miserable Agnosticism. Byron turned to the roaring sea and found music and rapture; Arnold heard the same roar, and it

"brought

Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

Of human misery".

What Arnold's cosmos is missing seems to be the unifying and generative figure of Venus—that is, of pleasure. It doesn't matter that I am as nothing compared with the roaring ocean; I experience pleasure. To that extent, I hold a corner of the cosmos in usufruct. To that extent, I belong here. I have the title-deed, and next to that ocean I am home.

"For Thee the Sea’s rough Waves put on their Smiles, and the smooth Sky shines with diffused Light." Lucretius, 1743 trans.