Weekly Features Post
Finally, a Weekly Features Post. For awhile, we thought we'd have to rename it the "Monthly Features Post." It's been a hectic summer. Even this WFP is being written after ninety minutes of pulling up prickly weeds that were nearly six feet tall. The WFP isn't the only thing that got neglected in the rush of extended family and immediate family obligations.
You may notice a new page on the site: Letters to the Editor. The link is on your left. As some of you may recall, we disabled the blog's "Comments" feature after we saw a few fellow bloggers flamed out of existence and after spam comments started to infiltrate our site at a rate greater than legitimate comments. We also didn't think the Comments feature was getting used much. We averaged approximately one comment per post, even though we were averaging more than 150 visitors every day (the figure has climbed to about 225 as of mid-July).
The Letters to the Editors page is meant as a compromise between no comments and open comments on every post. You can write a letter, leave a comment, or ask a question. Like many magazines, we won't respond to letters and comments. We will, however, try to answer questions.
The feature is easy to use. You are not required to register. Just log in, type something, submit it, and log off. It's easy and, unless you're incredibly rude and prompt us to delete it (a feature we haven't even learned how to use yet), it'll stay up forever. We'll see it, as will others.
And, of course, you're always welcomed and encouraged to send us e-mail (link on your left).
Stoic's Porch
"What then is a man's nature? To bite, to kick, to throw into prison, and to behead? No, but to do good, to co-operate with others, to wish them well." Epictetus
More Anonymous Existentialist Ramblings
Although I see an existentialist thread running through Salinger's works, Salinger himself seems to be the antithesis of Camus' ideal absurd man and even of Holden Caulfield. Salinger had immense success with The Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey, but he wasn't happy. The literature establishment didn't take him seriously as a writer and leveled pointed criticisms at his work. Salinger grew bitter at the criticism, so bitter that biographers say it drove him into his reclusion in Cornish, New Hampshire.
In short, Salinger eschewed the offerings of modern culture through the characters of Holden Caulfield and Zooey Glass, but became disillusioned and bitter when success within that modern culture didn't yield up happiness.
It was an illogical response given Holden Caulfield's perspective on life (what would a jaundiced teenager like Holden care about the haughty literature establishment?). It was also the exact opposite of what Camus' absurd man would have done. He would have written the novels without regard to what people thought. He would have received the acclaim without self-congratulation. He would have received the criticism without disillusion.
Salinger's odd response is significant for me because I did a similar thing as a young man. I accepted Salinger's portrayal of modern life, but, in my attempt to escape the banality, I continued to pound on the world with a gluttony of reading, expecting to find ultimate meaning from my efforts, like Salinger apparently thought he would obtain from a successful writing career.
I was determined to “get to the bottom of things” through my studies in politics, literature, history, and economics. I spent about five years reading and reading, arguing and arguing, questioning and questioning: everything–law, history, politics and, increasingly, philosophy and religion.
Initially, my peers were interested in such things, but as I got older I found myself somewhat isolated from my law school friends and, later, young attorneys in my law firm. They were no longer concerned with such things; they were focused on the money they were going to make and the immediate hurdles to making that money: law school exams and, later, legal briefs and court dates; and the stuff they'd buy with the money. They were, in short, leaving their youthful “idealism” that tended to believe answers to the bigger issues could be found, and were instead heading for the culture of pop banality–cars, vacations, electronic gadgets.
Although I shared the tendency to desire wealth, I also sensed it was shallow. Holden would have ridiculed it. Camus, too: The man who harbors that tendency isn't conscious that his money-making effort is a droid-like Sisyphean attempt to roll the rock up the hill. He doesn't know that the rock will always roll down–either through career setbacks, stock market crashes, illness, or death (and, failing those, in a life wrapped up in worrying about such things).
But my alternative approach was even worse. My friends abandoned their idealism because, I assume, they got no response to it. It wasn't taking them anywhere, so they re-shifted their focus, running from the gutter of empty idealism to the pop culture of banal pursuit. But at least they stopped barking at the silent oak tree universe. When my youthful idealism stalled, on the other hand, I cried louder to that tree.
My soul pounded away at the world for meaning, while at the same time reviling its banalities that my peers were beginning to value. There was a serious problem with this approach: banalities is all the wall of indifference can give. It won't give meaning, so my peers were right: we might as well pursue them. I unwittingly pursued banalities at two levels. I tended to turn away from the banality that was attracting my peers, but then I rushed away to find meaning in what might be called “higher” banalities–politics and history and economics–continuing to demand meaning from the oak tree.
The difference between my peers approach and my approach, in other words, wasn't significant. It was merely a question of degree: Shallow banalities or deeper banalities. It's no wonder Camus preached absurdist resignation. Recognize the absurdity and simply accept the ultimate nothingness underlying us and then pursue whatever you want, as long as you're conscious, as long as you have the Sisyphean attitude.
Strays
From Belloc's The Path to Rome:
“[W]hat men love is never money itself but their own way.”
“It is quite clear that the body must be recognized and the soul kept in its place, since a little refreshing food and drink can do so much to make a man.”
“[S]o I offered them a pull of my wine, which, to my great joy, they refused, and we parted courteously.”
The “best of all Christian associations [is] a large village.”
While reading Tacitus, Belloc says he found “this excellent truth, that barbarians build their houses separate, but civilized men together.”
The Last Word
Gyesite: someone who accepts money in return for spiritual things. "You think that guy who runs Lakewood Church might be a gyesite?"
