My Montaigne Project - Latest Comments

Re: About Dan Conley

John K. Herr — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 00:31:37 -0000

Hey Dan, great and honest piece about Richard Ben Cramer. I was 21 in 1988 and worked on the Bush campaign. Got to see Pete DuPont hand out pamphlets at a town dump in Bedford, New Hampshire. Among other memories. Hit me on Facebook, I'm a fellow writer for PunditWire. Thanks --JHerr

Re: Richard Ben Cramer

Shaun Kenney — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 22:48:51 -0000

That was amazing... great post.

Re: Montaigne Today, August 13, 2011

Cjarriola — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 14:24:43 -0000

do you have a photo of his tattoo? ive been trying to look for it to no avail.

Re: Nietzsche, Batman and Masks

Jeff — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 08:43:43 -0000

This is an excellent blog!

Re: Ghostwriting: On Cicero

The Heretic — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 13:48:42 -0000

Could this distinction be applied to that of Bill Clinton & Barack Obama?
Clinton is much better at weaving narratives, which communicates better
to more people, whereas Obama is superior at reasoned argument, the
property of legal rhetoric, which appeals to rational thinkers. Clinton
is closer to Demosthenes, while Obama is closer to Locke. One's Seneca,
the other is Cicero. One is more insightful and deeper, while the other
defends more noble ideals.

Thus Clinton is the great communicator whereas Obama is the great orator.

Re: Ghostwriting: On Cicero

The Heretic — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 13:47:44 -0000

=double posted please delete=

Re: About Dan Conley

ayuk james — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 10:29:34 -0000

i see as a mentor and i will like u 2 be my political mentor.I am a speculative transcendental researcher in political sociology.

Re: Giving Style to Character

Marie Snyder — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 22:05:58 -0000

On becoming a poet - that says to me to watch yourself and learn from the watching as an objective observer - without any judgment or condemnation. So when the thoughts creep in as you think about what you're thinking (I need to lose weight), to just let them go - and carefully so as not to condemn yourself for being condemning! But I didn't get this from Rorty as much as I got it from Taoist writings. Same difference it would seem. But it helps me when the writing is more like poetry and must be meditated on than a literal description suggesting we not be literal. Keep watching and gently dismissing and things really do look a little brighter!

Re: John Richardson on Heidegger

danconley — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 07:06:21 -0000

Oh, so because someone using a pseudonym doesn't like my post I should feel like I have no right to comment on Heidegger? Truly brilliant!

I've actually commented extensively on Heidegger on this blog over the past two years and my opinions of him have waxed and waned. If you just dropped in on this one post, you wouldn't come close to getting a full and accurate picture of my views on him and also missed the irony of the post. I may very well be back to loving Heidegger the next time around.

As for me being a "non-entity," you're the one who searched me out from the comfort of your computer in Vaughan, Ontario (yes, I have Google Analytics.) If you feel I'm not worth reading, that's on you, not me. If it bothers you so much that people other than professional philosophers would dare comment on Heidegger, then perhaps you should spend less time reading the blogs of people you don't know and writing childish comments on them.

Oh, and one final thought, a bit ironic also for you to be hiding behind the name Al Etheia ... I doubt that Heidegger would consider such an act of cowardice an example of aletheia.

Re: John Richardson on Heidegger

Al Etheia — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 00:35:05 -0000

Oh, so because a phony like Harold Bloom (and a non-entity like yourself) thinks lowly of Heidegger I should change my views? Riveting stuff!

Re: Why Hollywood Sucks

Mintysage — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 04:05:52 -0000

Old Hollywood sucks as well.

Re: An Original Relation to the Universe

danconley — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 23:14:06 -0000

The characterization of "confusion and wonder" was solely in regard to the quote that followed. Confusion was a poor word choice -- perplexity, perhaps? Still, your comment is unfair given my great praise of Malick here and elsewhere. Plus if you're going to insult me on my blog, I'd appreciate some analysis instead of dumping a couple quotes and running.

Re: An Original Relation to the Universe

J. N. — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 21:45:47 -0000

"But Malick is still filled with confusion and wonder."
It is you that are filled with confusion and wonder about Terry.
Even so, I leave you his paraphrase of Emerson.

Malick: "The supreme misery: to be cheated of the sight of essence: to find oneself
abandoned to the busy dance of things which pass away. What is despair but to
lose the eternal?"

Emerson on Plato: "The misery of man is to be balked
of the sight of essence, and to be stuffed with conjecture: but
the supreme good is reality; the supreme beauty is reality"

Re: About “My Montaigne Project”

krebby — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:04:43 -0000

This is a great help for my bullshit western civ class! thanks!

Re: Montaigne Today, July 26, 2011

danconley — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 12:16:03 -0000

The crucial problem with your essay remains, Patrick. You set up Montaigne as a straw man and took his quotations and life decision out of context. You failed to acknowledge in your piece that Montaigne's decision to withdraw from a life of service was made mid-life after many years of toil, which is quite a different decision than one made at the beginning of a career. Was Montaigne an ascetic monk? No, and thank God for that, otherwise we'd have none of his writings today and the world would be far worse off. If you admire Montaigne, then you should respect the choice he made and not score cheap points on a decision taken after decades of service and toil. Once you've been out in the world for a couple decades and have seen what a miserable grind it can be, you might come to have some reverence for Montaigne's inward turn. And given how introspection is slowly dying from the world, perhaps you will see that Montaigne brought a light to the world that can easily flicker away if everyone insists on living purely on immediate surface impact, with transparent lives that are concerned only with the material concerns of the day. Montaigne is not the enemy of virtuous, it's the postmodern materialists who are the greatest threat to the humane.

Re: Montaigne Today, July 26, 2011

Patrick Mccabe — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 10:30:27 -0000

Hi Dan,

Some vain Googling of my article has led me to your
reflection. Thanks for taking the time to read and reflect upon my article –
it’s certainly very interesting to read your musings. However, in the spirit of
friendly debate, I want to take issue with a few of your objections to my
article.

First, you assert that Montaigne in fact selflessly served others,
inspired by the memory of his father’s altruism. You quote an excerpt from ‘On
Restraining Your Will’ to establish this, in which Montaigne admires his
father’s selflessness. I must say I think your selection of quotations is a bit,
well, selective. The very next sentence after the quoted passage reads:

“Such ways I praise in others: but do not like to follow
them myself: not without some justification.”

That is a pretty crucial qualification of the passage you
quoted. While Montaigne admired his father’s selflessness, he did not wish to
emulate it. Moreover, a number of other passages of ‘On Restraining Your
Will’ reinforces my characterisation of Montaigne, rather than undermines it.
Other pertinent quotations from the essay include:

“In my opinion we must lend ourselves to others but give
ourselves to ourselves alone.”

And most pertinent of all:

“I have enough to do to order and arrange those pressing
affairs of my own ... without having a jostling crowd of other folk’s affairs
... trampling all over me; I have enough to do to attend to [my own] matters
... without inviting in outsiders. Those who realise what they owe to
themselves ... discover that Nature has made that an ample enough charge...”

Next, you claim that I asserted Montaigne had no empathy for
peasants. That’s not correct – I wrote that Montaigne had no feeling of
obligation towards the peasants (or other citizens). I think that the above
quotations, combined with the quotations in the article, demonstrate that fact
sufficiently. That doesn’t mean he was a heartless snob who thought peasants
were devoid of any merit. It just means he didn’t think it was up to him to
help peasants get out of their predicament. While I haven’t counted the number
of references to peasants Montaigne makes, as an admirer of Montaigne, I’m sure
you’re right. But I don’t think Montaigne’s empathy for peasants contradicts
anything I wrote in my essay.

Third, you quote a passage of my essay and claim that it
ascribes to Montaigne a ‘proto-Randian’ viewpoint that he did not hold. I agree
that Montaigne was not a ‘proto-Randian’, and that the argument you quoted
could be described as such. However, I don’t agree that I ascribed that
argument to Montaigne. I clearly ascribed the arguments to “proponents of the
‘Montaigne approach’”, not Montaigne. In the context of the essay, it is made
clear to the reader before this point that ‘the Montaigne approach’ is merely
shorthand for ‘the idea that one should pursue one’s interests, rather than
devote oneself to the selfless service of others.’

Finally, after all your accusations of misrepresentation, I
dare say that you might just engage in one yourself. You preface a quotation
from my article with the words “McCabe concludes:” The quotation in question
begins with the words “I am inclined to conclude...” Presented thus, it appears
to your readers that this quotation is in fact my conclusion. However, the next
few sentences of my essay in fact quickly dismiss this initial conclusion as
“too easily expressed on paper”, before eventually reaching a much more
tentative, less bold conclusion.

I very much enjoyed reading
your post, and just to clear it up, I am a fellow admirer of Montaigne. I don’t
think he’s a solipsistic, amoral capitalist. I just think he made the very
reasonable decision not to devote his entire life to a noble, selfless ideal,
but to live a balanced, content existence.

Regards,

Patrick McCabe

Re: More Trashing of Heidegger

danconley — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:01:09 -0000

I'm skeptical that humans make those choices both consciously and routinely. These choices rise to the level of consciousness only in the most extraordinary circumstances (Hamlet's dilemma, also Beckett's "I can't go on ... I'll go on") but those are moments of high drama. Heidegger exposes out how peculiar it is that we continually go on and have something that can be called a routine life. But I think it's a mistake to think of it as a conscious life. I have four year old twins who have to be begged and prodded to get ready for school every day. For them, the routine of waking up at the right time, getting dressed, eating, brushing their teeth and getting into the car doesn't exist. Every day consists of conscious acts of following orders. I would contend that ontological consciousness is something that becomes routine at birth. Fortunately, we never had to go through a period of being told to breathe, eat and go to sleep. Our continuing existence doesn't require us to answer why.

Re: More Trashing of Heidegger

rexstyzens — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 15:44:22 -0000

It's called "ontology," as you well know. I do not go around telling myself, "I need to choose life. I need to choose life." Yet when I stop to think, that is what I am doing.

Re: More Trashing of Heidegger

danconley — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:36:06 -0000

Yeah, I get that. It's just that Heidegger has a way of taking the most dramatic human experiences and draining them of life. For Hamlet, it wasn't just a simple question of whether existence is worth it, it was more deeply a question of whether he wanted to live in a world where revenge was the only apparent option. This is a question Nietzsche wrestled with in numerous places. Montaigne's eternal examination of Stoicism fits too ... when is suffering and withdrawal the best option? Even Nietzsche, who despises all forms of asceticism, comes down on the side of saying yes to suffering, seeing it as something that makes him stronger. That seems to me like a renaming of Stoicism. Heidegger's world is an interesting examination of people and their furniture, but it often seems to be bereft of other people.

Re: More Trashing of Heidegger

Rex — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:22:15 -0000

Incidentally, I interpret "...in its being this being is concerned about its very being” to include what Hamlet in his most famous soliloquy represents. The choice may not be a conscious one, but we must choose each day to live, since we are fully aware of the option.

Re: Why Hollywood Sucks

danconley — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:14:22 -0000

I have read some reviews that raise a similar point in a more positive light -- viewing "Hugo" as an antidote to the mechanical "useless" man in a global economy, abandoned and unloved. But even this interpretation assumes that humans have a single defined purpose. I'm terrified by the Kurzweil myth of post-humanity and if Americans had any idea how much money technology companies such as Google are directing towards these goals ... well, they'd probably be just as apathetic.

There's also a Christian/existentialist element to "Hugo," like all Scorsese films. There's always a fish-out-of-water savior in a Scorsese film who restores the world to balance. I guess if you're the world's most famous director, you come to believe that your own success was inevitable and God ordained. The one-percent always believes in Providence.

Re: Why Hollywood Sucks

rexstyzens — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:03:36 -0000

I am surprised to have seen no comments yet about how "Hugo" can be viewed as a cosmetic cover for "Frankenstein's Monster." While Ray Kurzweil can get away with his fantasies of mehanical men, surely the medical profession must object to the idea that living things can be "fixed" rather than "healed," which involves the capacities of the patient as well as the doctor. I know of no louder objections than those Heidegger raises to warn us of allowing ourselves to be treated as technology, whose images populate this Scorcese travesty..

Re: Pynchon on Newspeak

rexstyzens — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 14:55:48 -0000

GW Bush may not have had Orwell in mind, but he sure seemed to have learned well Big Brother's program.

Re: More Trashing of Heidegger

rexstyzens — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 13:39:03 -0000

Emerson was a snob, to be sure. My impression is that it was less a matter of his admiration of the wealthy than it was discomfort with the hordes of poor immigrants pouring into his elitist Boston neighborhoods. He most admired the poet, such as Whitman, who was far from wealthy.

And Heidegger's attempts using linear language to express what philosopher Donald Davidson later called "anomalous monism" require translation, to be sure. Davidson invented his phrase to preserve his primary loyalty to causality while including human freedom as spontaneous. We need sentences to offer a complete thought. Sentences require a subject and verb. How else can one write of the non-causal "Being is always the being of a being”? His efforts at the pre-cognative continue to receive attention, as no philsophy can begin without something "Given that."

Watched a 2D version of "Hugo" last night. It made me wonder also about the nostalgia of Hollywood, where the top awards go to self-serving pep talks. If it is entertainment or education, it seems the former will usually prevail.

Re: Of The Education of Children (take two)

Montaignem2012 — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 05:22:50 -0000

Hi Dan
I enjoyed this essay, and your project. I'm attempting something quite different but, I think, very relevant. I've only just started. I'd be reallt grateful if you could have a look and tell me what you thought

http://essaysbymontaigne.bl...