I must confess my origins, I was forced to read cicero in high school, and
I found him... a lawyerly rhetorician, not much is new of whta he says
(badly) about actual stoics, these are however matters of taste
palma, apgs
On Wed, Jan 24, 2018 at 4:09 PM, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I suppose that the remark about lawyerly rhetoricians was already intended
to make an exception for Cicero,
On Wed, Jan 24, 2018 at 3:41 PM, adriano paolo shaul gershom palma <
palmaadriano@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
what is a crossbearing argument?
On Wed, Jan 24, 2018 at 3:02 PM, Donal McEvoy <
dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
with odd exceptions of lawyerly rhetoricians I have no knowledge of asingle political leader who may deserve artistic interest>
What about Havel?
Churchill received a Nobel Prize for Literature,and this surely included
artistic considerations,*"for his mastery of historical and
biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending
exalted human values"*.*
We could go back to Cicero, unless he is simply to be dismissed as an
odd lawyerly rhetorician, rather than a thinker and writer of considerable
artistry.
Admittedly, such incidences and their weight may be vastly outweighed by
the blundering of most political leaders when it comes to providing
anything of artistic interest [an effect now known as "Clinton's sax"], but
"no knowledge" is surely going too far.
D
*Of course, we could see the Prize as being awarded on largely political
grounds, but this would be to underestimate the artistry which underpinned
Churchill's effectiveness as a writer and orator. Non-artistically,
according to Popper, Churchill also made a great contribution to
epistemology, as he originated a most ingenious and compelling epistemic
argument ['the crossbearing argument' discussed in "Objective Knowledge"]:
the quotation from Churchill shows he presented this argument most clearly
and with greater artistry than the average professional philosopher.
------------------------------
*From:* adriano paolo shaul gershom palma <palmaadriano@xxxxxxxxx>
*To:* "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Sent:* Wednesday, 24 January 2018, 9:31
*Subject:* [lit-ideas] le guin
Good evening, I never read a line of Mrs le Guin (I always get
astonishingly bored by science fiction and so called fantasy, the witch,
the dragon, the cretins who have to sit on the thrones etc.)
that said, if she was good what would you pick as he single text to
read, that may give incentives to read something else by her
palma, apgs
oh, btw, with odd exceptions of lawyerly rhetoricians I have no
knowledge of a single political leader who may deserve artistic interest
(this may be approximately true with the margin of error around i. j.
paderewski, the polish prime mini of 1919)
On Wed, Jan 24, 2018 at 10:16 AM, <epostboxx@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
The tremendous depth and spectrum of political thought in America is
sometimes overlooked — especially by foreigners such as myself who are both
alarmed and mystified by the pronouncements and antics of the current
president.
It is sad to read of the passing of Ursula K. Le Guin — but she was
after all 88 years old, and even literary gods and goddesses don’t live
forever. And the publicity about her literary works and political views
that has inevitably arisen as the result of her passing serves as a welcome
reminder that there is a deep, varied and thoughtful political culture in
America; a culture upon which Donald Trump and his ilk are little more than
<insert your favourite metaphor about unwholesome skin lesions on various
parts of the human anatomy here>.
I sincerely hope that the publicity surrounding Ms. Le Guin’s death
triggers both re-awakened and new-found involvement in political discussion
and debate more worthy of our attention than the shallow populist, sexist
and racist ranting, bleating, and tweeting of the current occupant of the
Oval Office.
This would be not only a fitting tribute to Ms. Le Guin, but also to the
rather tattered image of American political culture as a whole. I’m sure
that Ursula K. Le Guin would have liked that.
- Chris Bruce, in
Kiel, Germany
P.S. Lest some regard my ‘skin lesion’ metaphor as (an attempt at) wit
at the expense of gravity: some such ‘blemishes’ are dangerous in
themselves, and all are at the very least symptomatic of some sort of
disorder or disease that calls for attention and treatment. (America is far
too mature for this to be merely that embarassing but short-term symptom of
a young body struggling with a temporary hormonal imbalance.) We all watch
for further manifestations of the conditions that have led to this
unsightly outbreak and follow attempts to treat both it and its underlying
causes with great interest and concern.
P.P.S. For those unfamiliar with or looking for a quick refresher in Ms.
Le Guin’s political philosophy I can recomment the Wikipedia entry under
her name as a good place to start. The sections in that entry under the
rubrics ‘Sociology, anthropology and psychology’, ‘Environmentalism’, and
‘Anarchism and Taoism’ give some indication of the range and depth of her
thought:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Ursula_K._Le_Guin
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_K._Le_Guin>
Am I being somewhat utopian in attempting to balance the utterances of
‘the most powerful man in the world’ with the ‘lunatic fringe’
politically-nuanced scribblings of some obscure fantasy and science-fiction
author?
In 2014 Ursula K. Le Guin was awarded the National Book Foundation
Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. And the fact that
she one of very few authors honoured in their lifetime with a volume in the
Library of America indicates the important place she has occupies in
American culture:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/ 08/29/books/ursula-le-guin-
has-earned-a-rare-honor-just- dont-call-her-a-sci-fi-writer.
html?action=click& contentCollection=Obituaries&
module=RelatedCoverage®ion= Marginalia&pgtype=article
<https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/books/ursula-le-guin-has-earned-a-rare-honor-just-dont-call-her-a-sci-fi-writer.html?action=click&contentCollection=Obituaries&module=RelatedCoverage®ion=Marginalia&pgtype=article>
(I can’t quite see Mr. Trump receiving an award for ‘distinguished
contribution’ of any sort, and somehow doubt that “The Wit and Wisdom of
Donald John Trump” will be making an appearance on the list of volumes
published by The Library of America or any other august institution
dedicated to the collection, preservation and dissemination of works
seminal to American literary and political culture.)
The obituary in the New York Times also has links to other articles
about Ursulas K. Le Guin and her works in its sidebar:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/ 01/23/obituaries/ursula-k-le-
guin-acclaimed-for-her- fantasy-fiction-is-dead-at-88.
html?&hpw&rref=obituaries& action=click&pgtype=Homepage&
module=well-region®ion= bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/obituaries/ursula-k-le-guin-acclaimed-for-her-fantasy-fiction-is-dead-at-88.html?&hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well>
- cb
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