July 2009 Archives

Sarah Palin stepped down from the office of Governor of Alaska today, and in an official public ceremony she transferred power to Sean Parnell. The event was held in the city of Fairbanks at Pioneer Park, where it is estimated that about 5,000 people attended (newsminer.com). I was able to attend the event as well since I live in the area. I am embedding the two-part YouTube video of her speech.

Much of this, of course, will not be relevant to you if you are not an Alaskan. However, near the end of the first part she spoke for 2nd Amendment rights. In the second part she gave blunt criticism of large government, and she encouraged us to resist enslavement to dependence on the federal government, to be self-sufficient in economic policy, and to develop our God-given resources. And it is this focus on personal responsibility, freedom, and independence which is probably the greatest contribution of the speech.

It will probably help if I provide one or two details of the scenery which are not visible in the videos. To the right and back of the platform is the huge riverboat Nenana (now a museum) on top of which is an Air Force band which played earlier in the ceremony. Her family is seated on the right side of the platform. The new governor, an Alaska supreme court justice, and others are seated on the platform. Her platform is surrounded on three sides by thousands of spectators. Most of them were providing the cheering audible in the recording, but there was a contingent of detractors to the left holding signs with messages along the lines of "Get lost, we are glad to see you go." (And thus Palin's glance in Part 2, around 7:15.)

In Pilgrim's Regress by C. S. Lewis, there is a conversation between the main character John, and his Guide (an angel). In the allegory, the "Landlord" represents God, the "Enemy" represents Satan, the "Black Hole" represents Hell, and the "Mountain Apple" represents sin:

'Then there is, after all,' said John, 'a black hole such as my old Steward described to me.'

'I do not know what your Steward described. But there is a black hole.'

'And still the Landlord is "so kind and good"!'

'I see you have been among the Enemy's people. In these latter days there is no charge against the Landlord which the Enemy brings so often as cruelty. That is just like the Enemy: for he is, at bottom, very dull. He has never hit on the one slander against the Landlord which would be really plausible. Anyone can refute the charge of cruelty. If he really wants to damage the Landlord's character, he has a much stronger line than that to take. He ought to say that the Landlord is an inveterate gambler. That would not be true, but it would be plausible, for there is no denying  that the Landlord does take risks.'

'But what about the charge of cruelty?'

'I was just coming to that. The Landlord has taken the risk of working the country with free tenants instead of slaves in chain gangs: and as they are free there is no way of making it impossible for them to go into forbidden places and eat forbidden fruits. Up to a certain point he can doctor them even when they have done so, and break them of the habit. But beyond that point -- you can see for yourself. A man can go on eating mountain-apple so long that nothing will cure his craving for it: and the very worms it breeds inside him will make him more certain to eat more. You must not try to fix the point after which a return is impossible, but you can see that there will be such a point somewhere.'

'But surely the Landlord can do anything?'

'He cannot do what is contradictory: or, in other words, a meaningless sentence will not gain meaning simply because someone chooses to prefix to it the words "the Landlord can." And it is meaningless to talk of forcing a man to do freely what a man has freely made impossible for himself.'

'I see. But at least these poor creatures are unhappy enough: there is no need to add a black hole.'

'The Landlord does not make the blackness. The blackness is there already wherever the taste of mountain-apple has created the vermiculate will. What do you mean by a hole? Something that ends. A black hole is blackness enclosed, limited. And in that sense the Landlord has made the black hole. He has put into the world a Worst Thing. But evil of itself would never reach a worst: for evil is fissiparous and could never in a thousand eternities find any way to arrest its own reproduction. If it could, it would be no longer evil: for Form and Limit belong to the good. The walls of the black hole are the tourniquet on the wound through which the lost soul else would bleed to a death she never reached. It is the Landlord's last service to those who will let him do nothing better for them.'

In another post, I briefly described one of the best works of C. S. Lewis, The Pilgrim's Regress.  I would like to provide an especially instructive excerpt from the chapter entitled Dixit Insipiens:

Still I lay dreaming in bed, and looked, and I saw John go plodding along the road westward in the bitter black of a frosty night. He walked so long that morning broke. Then presently John saw a little inn by the side of the road and woman with a broom who had opened the door and was sweeping out the rubbish. So he turned in there and called for a breakfast, and while it was cooking he sat down in a hard chair by the newly-lit fire and fell asleep. When he woke the sun was shining in through the window and there was his breakfast laid. Another traveller was already eating: he was a big man with red hair and a red stubble on all his three chins, buttoned up very tight. When they had both finished the traveller rose and cleared his throat and stood with his back to the fire. Then he cleared his throat again and said:

'A fine morning, young sir.'

'Yes, sir,' said John.

'You are going West, perhaps, young man?'

'I -- I think so.'

'It is possible that you don't know me.'

'I am a stranger here.'

'No offence,' said the stranger. 'My name is Mr. Enlightenment, and I believe it is pretty generally known. I shall be happy to give you my assistance and protection as far as our ways lie together.'

John thanked him very much for this and when they went out from the inn there was a neat little trap waiting, with a fat little pony between the shafts: and its eyes were so bright and its harness was so well polished that it was difficult to say which was twinkly the keener in the morning sunshine. They both got into the trap and Mr. Enlightenment whipped up the fat little pony and they went bowling along the road as if nobody had a care in the world. Presently they began to talk.

'And where might you come from, my fine lad?' said Mr. Enlightenment.

'From Puritania, sir,' said John.

'A good place to leave, eh?'

'I am so glad you think that,' cried John. 'I was afraid --'

'I hope I am a man of the world,' said Mr. Enlightenment. 'Any young fellow who is anxious to better himself may depend on finding sympathy and support in me. Puritania! Why, I suppose you have been brought up to be afraid of the Landlord.'

'Well, I must admit I sometimes do feel rather nervous.'

'You may make your mind easy, my boy. There is no such person.'

'There is no Landlord?'

'There is absolutely no such thing -- I might even say no such entity -- in existence. There never has been and never will be.'

'And is this absolutely certain?' cried John; for a great hope was rising in his heart.

'Absolutely certain. Look at me, young man. I ask you -- do I look as if I was easily taken in?'

'Oh, no,' said John hastily. 'I was just wondering, though. I mean -- how did they all come to think there was such a person?'

'The Landlord is an invention of those Stewards. All made up to keep the rest of us under their thumb: and of course the Stewards are hand in glove with the police. They are a shrewd lot, those Stewards. They know which side their bread is buttered on, all right. Clever fellows. Damn me, I can't help admiring them.'

'But do you mean that the Stewards don't believe it themselves?'

'I dare say they do. It is just the sort of cock and bull story they would believe. They are simple old souls most of them -- just like children. They have no knowledge of modern science and they would believe anything they were told.'

John was silent for a few minutes. The he began again:

'But how do you know there is no Landlord?'

'Christopher Columbus, Galileo, the earth is round, invention of printing, gunpowder! !' exclaimed Mr. Enlightenment in such a loud voice that they pony shied.

'I beg your pardon.' said John.

'Eh?' said Mr. Enlightenment.

'I didn't quite understand,' said John.

'Why, it's as plain as a pikestaff,' said the other. 'Your people in Puritania believe in the Landlord because they have not had the benefits of scientific training. For example, I dare say it would be news to you to hear that the earth was round -- round as an orange, my lad!'

'Well, I don't know that it would,' said John, feeling a little disappointed. 'My father always said it was round.'

'No, no, my dear boy,' said Mr. Enlightenment, 'you must have misunderstood him. It is well known that everyone in Puritania thinks the earth flat. It is not likely that I should be mistaken on such a point. Indeed, it is out of the question. Then again, there is the palaeontological evidence.'

'What's that?'

'Why, they tell you in Puritania that the Landlord made all these roads. But that is quite impossible for old people can remember the time when the roads were not nearly so good as they are now. And what is more, scientists have found all over the country the traces of old roads running in quite different directions. The inference is obvious.'

John said nothing.

'I said,' repeated Mr. Enlightenment, 'that the inference was obvious.'

'Oh, yes, yes, of course,' said John hastily, turning a little red.

'Then again, there is anthropology.'

'I'm afraid I don't know --'

'Bless me, of course you don't. They don't mean you to know. An anthropologist is a man who goes round your backward villages in these parts collecting the odd stories that the country people tell about the Landlord. Why, there is one village where they think he has a trunk like an elephant. Now anyone can see that that couldn't be true.'

'It is very unlikely.'

'And what is better still, we know how the villagers came to think so. It all began by an elephant escaping from the local zoo; and then some old villager -- he was probably drunk -- saw it wandering about on the mountain one night, and so the story grew up that the Landlord had a trunk.'

'Did they catch the elephant again?'

'Did who?'

'The anthropologists.'

'Oh, my dear boy, you are misunderstanding. This happened long before there were any anthropologists.'

'Then how do they know?'

'Well, as to that . . . I see that you have a very crude notion of how science actually works. To put it simply -- for, of course, you could not understand the technical explanation -- to put it simply, they know that the escaped elephant must have been the source of the trunk story because they know that an escaped snake must have been the source of the snake story in the next village -- and so on. This is called the inductive method. Hypotheses, my dear young friend, establishes itself by a cumulative process: or, to use popular language, if you make the same guess often enough it ceases to be a guess and becomes a Scientific Fact.

After he had thought for a while, John said:

'I think I see. Most of the stories aout the Landlord are probably untrue; therefore the rest are probably untrue.'

'Well, that is a near as a beginner can get to it, perhaps. But when you have had a scientific training you will find that you can be quite certain about all sorts of things which now seem to you only probable.'

By this time the fat little pony had them several miles, and they had come to a place where a by-road went off to the right. 'If you are going West, we must part here,' said Mr. Enlightenment. . . .

[John] got out of the trap and turned to bid good-bye to Mr. Enlightenment. Then a sudden thought came into his head, and he said:

'I am not sure that I have really understood all your arguments, sir. Is it absolutely certain that there is no Landlord?'

'Absolutely. I give you my word of honour.'

The fifth chapter of the book of Daniel the prophet provides us with intimate details of the fall of Babylon, though with a particular focus on spirtually relevant details - such as the impiety of the king and the judgment of God against him. But external sources illuminate for us some of the surrounding details regarding the fall of the city. One such source is Herodotus, the Greek historian, who lived within a century of this event. Following is his account, made available through the translation provided in the Loeb Classical Library, Herodotus I. 190-192:

Then at the opening of the second spring, when Cyrus had punished the Gyndes [a river] by parting it among the three hundred and sixty canals, he marched at last against Babylon. The Babylonians sallied out and awaited him; and when in his march he came near to their city, they joined battle, but they were worsted and driven within the city. There, because they knew already that Cyrus was no man of peace, and saw that he attacked all nations alike, they had stored provision enough for very many years; so now they cared nothing for the siege; and Cyrus knew not what to do, being so long delayed and gaining no advantage. Whether, then, someone advised him in his difficulty, or he perceived for himself what to do, I know not, but this he did: he posted his army at the place where the river enters the city, and another part of it where the stream issues from the city, and bade his men enter the city by the channel of the Euphrates when they should see it fordable. Having so arrayed them and given this command, he himself marched away with those of his army who could not fight; and when he came to the lake, Cyrus dealt with it and with the river just as had the Babylonian queen: drawing off the river by a canal into the lake, which was till now a marsh, he made the stream to sink till its former channel could be forded. When this happened, the Persians who were posted with this intent made their way into Babylon by the channel of the Euphrates, which had now sunk about to the height of the middle of a man's thigh. Now if the Babylonians had known beforehand or learnt what Cyrus was planning, they would have suffered the Persians to enter the city and brought them to a miserable end; for then they would have shut all the gates that opened on the river and themselves mounted up on to the walls that ran along the river banks, and so caught their enemies as in a trap. But as it was, the Persians were upon them unawares, and by reason of the great size of the city--so say those who dwell there--those in the outer parts of it were overcome, yet the dwellers in the middle part knew nothing of it; all this time they were dancing and making merry at a festival which chanced to be toward, till they learnt the truth but too well. Thus was Babylon then for the first time taken.

The reader will, I hope, indulge me a great deal in regard to this post, as I am not prepared to show a clear connection to the science of theology. I was reading Herodotus, the ancient Greek historian, and I came across one of those curious accounts which seem to have simultaneously a touch of humor and a touch a tragedy.

I reproduce it here in the hope that it will benefit the reader in some way, at least as an object for reflection on the curious nature of human conflict. The translation is taken from Herodotus I. 82 in the Loeb Classical Library:

Now at this very time the Spartans themselves had a feud on hand with the Argives, in respect of the country called Thyrea; for this was a part of the Argive territory which the Lacedaemonians had cut off and occupied. (All the land towards the west, as far as Malea, belonged then to the Argives, and not the mainland only, but the island of Cythera and the other islands.) The Argives came out to save their territory from being cut off; then after debate the two armies agreed that three hundered of each side should fight, and whichever party won should possess the land. The rest of each army was to go away to its own country and not be present at the battle; for it was feared that if the armies remained on the field, the men of either party would render help to their comrades if they saw them losing. Having thus agreed, the armies drew off, and picked men of each side were left and fought. Neither could gain advantage in the battle; at last, of six hundred there were left only three, Alcenor and Chromios of the Argives, Othryades of the Lacedaemonians: these three were left alive at nightfall. Then the two Argives, deeming themselves victors, ran to Argos; but Othryades, the Lacedaemonian, spoiled the Argive dead, bore the armour to his own army's camp and remained in his place. On the next day both armies came to learn the issue. For a while both claimed the victory, the Argives pleading that more of their men had survived, the Lacedaemonians showing that the Argives had fled, while their man had stood his ground and despoiled the enemy dead. At last the dispute so ended that they joined battle and fought; many of both sides fell, but the Lacedaemonians had the victory. Ever after this the Argives, who before had worn their hair long by fixed custom, shaved their heads, and made a law, with a curse added thereto, that no Argive should grow his hair, and no Argive woman should wear gold, till they should recover Thyreae; and the Lacedaemonians made a contrary law, that ever after they should wear their hair long; for till now they had not so worn it. Othryades, the one survivor of the three hundred, was ashamed, it is said, to return to Sparta after all the men of his company had been slain, and killed himself on the spot at Thyreae.

The traditional way to learn Latin includes two activities. The first activity involves memorizing Latin declension and conjugation charts. The second activity involves translating ancient Latin texts into your modern language.

While both these components are important, they are lacking in interactivity. Before Latin was relegated to its classical role as an exclusive language of priests and scholars, there were quite a few people who spoke Latin as a native language. These people had learned Latin by communicating in Latin with other people, and the method worked quite well for them.

Obviously, that is difficult for those of us who do not happen to have a lot of Latin-speaking friends or Latin pen-pals to communicate with. However, one useful resource I have found is this website:

http://schola.ning.com/

SCHOLA is an online social network dedicated to helping people learn Latin by communicating in Latin. Anyone can become a member (sodalis) as long as they understand that all communication between members should be done in Latin. To help members interact, the site provides a chat room (locutorium) as well as special interest groups and user-submitted photos and videos. Each member has his own page (pagina mea) where he can optionally provide information about himself and his interests.

This admonition is displayed on the Sedes Situs:

Cum errare humanum sit, ne timueritis scribere, metu errandi permoti.

If my translation is good, that means:

Seeing that "to err is human", you should not be afraid to write, being influenced by the fear of making a mistake.

So the site concept is that you can supplement your regular Latin studies by trying to communicate with other people who have learned Latin or are trying to learn Latin. When you do make mistakes, other sodales will be understanding because they understand why you are there: to improve your Latin skills by communicating with real people.