I have posted a new article (at last!) under the articles section of this site.

History of the World, Part IX: “It has been said that Walt’s way of managing had trained some to imitate his style, but without the genius.”

Thoughtful article about the rise of the Binder People at Disney. We wonder if they run Target. We know they run Disney as Commisar Michael, who saw his creative side die with Wells, sputters through ever more powerpoint presentations showing the fall of his Empire. In the end, he will be found clutching a binder full of colorful projections of massive attendance at California Adventure, the Binder Persons Theme Park. Pixar is run by Steve Jobs, the new Disney, who would not know a binder if it hit his creative head.

Pixar should buy Disney.

Target should fire some Binder People and save herself from Disney’s fate.

Just to be fair:

1. If a Republican thought giving the IRS more power to look at our tax returns was a good idea, he should be treated for Washington disease. Let’s get rid of the IRS, not give it more power.

2. If Republicans think protecting their own from court is a good idea, then they need to take anti-Hubris Pills. It is likely that Tom DeLay is the victim of an over zealous crack pot prosecutor. However, wouldn’t a gentleman of the old school resign, defend himself, be vindicated and return in triumph to power? Yes. This is what DeLay should do.

On the other hand, maybe (unlike Denny Hastert) Tom DeLay is one of those conservatives that think winning is more important than being good. Wrong.

Traditional Christians do not mind sinners saved by grace. Why? We are sinners saved by grace. We don’t want to throw stones at those sorry for their misdeeds. God knows I want mercy for the sins of my youth.

But conservative “leaders” (one thinks of Rush and Newt) who continue to defy what they say in public in their private lives are hypocrites. They don’t seem sorry and they keep on doing bad things. We are a forgiving lot, but in the end (as there had to be for Clinton) one must be accountable for wrongs repeated and not confessed as sin.

I hope DeLay is not one of those repetitive ethical corner cutters.

Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me a sinner.

Does Target dislike traditional Christians?

Probably not. I doubt anyone thought very much about banning the Salvation Army from Target Stores. Most decisions like this are made by people with lots of binders on their shelves. These binder people have done studies and generated models. They are the sort of people who believed Kerry had to win because a Princeton mathematician told them so.

Target does some good charitable deeds. Someone made a powerpoint presentation while other people sat with glazed eyes around the boardroom. It had a title like, “Impact of Charitable Giving on Target and a Re-Positioning of Community Involvement Opportunities.” Comments were made. Motions were passed. Most of the world’s stupid decisions are made this way.

Whether Target likes it or not, forty percent (or so) of the population feels that their values, even their existence are under assault. Lately the media has called them theocrats, stupid, and trailer trash. They give more of their income to charity than any other group, certainly more than secularists who are Scrooges with their money. In that climate Target bans a group that does nothing but good. They ban an evangelical group so deeply part of Christmas that most of us cannot see a bell ringer without hearing carols. Target profits from the Holidays, but forgets that for almost all Americans they are Holy Days.

So group made sensitive by weeks of old media tongue lashings is striking back. Just as Disney has transformed itself from the Family’s Favorite Film Maker to unfeeling Giant that is Less Clever than Pixar so Target risks becoming the store of least resort for forty percent of the population. And what have they gained?

This is bad timing and probably no one is much to blame. Now is the time for leadership, for a CEO without a binder, who says, “We blew it.” and restores the bell ringers. Such a man would become an instant folk hero and the positive p.r. would make the whole debacle almost worth it for Target.

Or the binder people could convince the CEO that it will all blow over. These are the same people who convinced the CEO that there be no stir, or not much of a stir, in the first place. There is a man, a real man, somewhere at the top of the land of the Binder People. Isn’t it time he made our Christmas merry so we could say without shame, “God bless him and his store, every one?”

Someplace in Iraq, in harms way, Colin Anderson stands guard. A graduate of Torrey, Anderson decided his duty was to serve his country.

He is far from home tonight. How can I think him? How can my words reach him in the place where he is at?

I remember him in class always willing to defend his country. He helped many students to consider ideas not often heard in the modern academy. Of course in a traditional program like Torrey no one sneers at God and country. Hard questions get asked, but patriotism is respected.

Sadly, this is not always a popular position in the “Christianity Today” (CT)subculture of nuanced Christians. Christian college professors are often “beyond” love of nation and loath positive discussions of our homeland. They act as if the merest whisper of God and country comes from Constantine himself.

The notion of patriotism frightens CT Christians. So fearful are they of the errors they see in too much love of country that they often end up not loving her at all. Of course, no nation is the true home of any Christians. All of us are pilgrims and our ultimate allegiance is to the City of God. CT Christians spend so much time reminding us of this fact, that they fail to do their duty in honoring the place of their pilgrimage.

It is hard to love a City I have not yet seen, if I have not yet learned to love the city in which I now live. Mr. Anderson understands this. He was willing to risk being misunderstood to express what this nation means. He knew, rightly, that is the freest, most prosperous nation on earth. It is not perfect, and a good citizen hopes to right her wrongs, but there has never been anything like her.

No other nation has had the power of our mother country. No nation with half her power has used it with such restraint. If Iraq is won, that nation will gain full sovereignty and be better off than she has ever been in her history. Anderson serves and fights to gain this liberty for a people not his own. In this way, by spreading liberty if the Iraqis will take it, he helps protect us.

So Mr. Anderson has done his duty. I am sure he would remind me that he was no saint as a student and is not one now. So it always is with men who do the hard things. They are less concerned with being nice than with doing right. The hard road to sainthood itself never began with perfect men, but with sinners saved by grace. We thank you for your service, Colin, and we admire you for it. We are always in your debt, as we are to other faithful Americans, like fellow Torrey alum Jon Dyke.

Thank you Colin. Thank you for believing in liberty. Thank you for coming to Torrey. Thank you that when you left, you decided in the end to serve others and not just self. Thank you for always standing for your country in words and now in deed. God bless you and keep you. Hope and I pray for you nightly and look forward to your return.

Alcibiades University
Herm Center for Social Uplift

TO: Mass Media Talking Points List
FROM: D.U. Lucretius
RE: Re-positioning “Evangelical” Voters

The time for sorrow is over. We know the election was stolen. We know it for the simplest possible reason. Our campaign was run by the finest minds at our best schools, staffed by graduate students, and appealed to what is best in the American spirit. I personally never met a person at a department wine and cheese who voted for Shrub. We could not lose to social-misfit qua nerd Karl Rove. We could not lose to the Chimp in Chief.

How was the election stolen? Blame Free Republic. Blame Hugh Hewitt. Blame Roger rabbit, for all I care. It does not matter. What matters is that the election we won was still too close for comfort. As Foucalut once memorably did not say,”The reality must be faced if it cannot be recreated.” And that is as true as anything he ever said.

Millions of Americans are trapped in the Dark Ages. The fundamental problem with America is fundamentalism. These are mostly harmless folk who pay their taxes and mind their own business. However, as we attempt to change the culture and help bring progress to the nation, we must face the fact these folk will not change. They ignore our best advice and go on reading the Bible, a book that is old!

Sadly, “religious” people of this sort, who ignore the universal religion of self-actualization for the religion of blood and tears, are often admired. They give money to charity, though with regard only to “helping others” and not to the political implications of that help. We must opposed groups like the Salvation Army that “help” feed the hungry and house the homeless and yet have never handed out one PETA or NARAL brochure while doing so. Better to die in hunger as a Democrat than become a fat and happy Republican with no soul.

So here are three fundamental ways to position the “religious right” in talking to each other and to other members of our little group. Some of this was developed through our New York Time working group, the rest we developed during an aroma therapy session here at the Bay Campus. Good times, good times.

1. First, always assume a tone of intellectual superiority. Of course, this is not justified by any actual study. Evangelicals have their own so-called intellectuals with degrees from our own schools. However, despite this we are justified in our assumption. We know we are right, therefore all the people who are right must (QUED!) agree with us.

2. Second, remember they believe and we know.

Due to early hardwork we have convinced most Americans that faith or belief is acting contrary to evidence based on what you wish were true. Of course, by “belief” they mean an epistemic humility that acts based on best reason and admits uncertainty. With that other annoying conservative Plato, they believe that some things are worthy of belief about which we are not certain. In fact, they believe that we cannot be certain about much of anything of importance, but that we can have enough evidence to act. According to evangelicals, this action must be approached with modesty, since any belief in this life could be wrong.

All this is complicated. It will not fit in a Times article so we can simply say, “They believe and we know!”

We are certain of our uncertainty with unwavering skepticism about everything but our skepticism. We know we are right, because the post-modern age is the one we live in and we are the highest moment in the Darwinian struggle. We know, they believe. Repeat it often.

3. Evangelicals wish to impose their morality on us.

It is vital to be libertarian about sex, but guide humans in everything else. The one will placate them to the other.

Evangelicals must pay for abortions and grant gay marriage equal status to their own. If they do not approve, then their very disapproval makes us feel bad. This bad feeling oppresses us and so imposes a moral stigma on us. Any moral stigma is tyranny. We must stop them from making us feel bad! We must bring on an age where everyone is free to agree with reason.

This must be imposed through the growth of state power. Salt Lake City must have the same laws as San Francisco!

Remember: people who based their ideas on religion are dangerous. All religions are the same when their followers believe in them. Radical Islam is the same as Christianity. Can anyone think of any real difference between Pat Robertson and Bin Laden? Bin Laden may blow up buildings, but Robertson disagrees with our ideas in forceful ways on television! Television!

I hope this memo encourages you to act. Dan Rather may be going, but Michael Moore is here to stay!

Courage!

FOXNews.com - U.S. & World - Students Free to Thank Anybody, Except God: “‘We teach about Thanksgiving from a purely historical perspective, not from a religious perspective,’ said Charles Ridgell, St. Mary’s County Public Schools curriculum and instruction director.”

First, the obvious. Leaving God out of the Pilgrim Thanksgiving is not historical. It distorts history. Pilgrims were here in order to be Christian. They were very, very dedicated Christians. They were even part of the religious right of their day. Talking about Thanksgiving without talking about the Christian religion is like talking about Christmas without mentioning Jesus.

Religion is not toxic waste. Talking about it in public school is not evil. Mentioning what people believed is not evangelism. I managed to read the Koran without becoming Moslem. Students can hear the truth about the Pilgrims without being lured to Calvinism.

Most Americans have been and are Christians. Christian ideas have dominated our life as a nation. Failure to teach this is to lie about history. This curriculum director is either a bigot or ill informed. I prefer to think him ill informed.

Second, the troubling. This sort of outrage happens all the time. We roll our eyes and assume the perps are punished. However, they are not punished. Generations of American kids do not know the nation’s religious heritage. They have not read Lincoln’s actual speeches, shot through with Biblical and divine arguments. They cannot understand Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech. They do not know the religious motives of abolition.

Religious people should remove people who lie about American history to advance their own agenda. They should take back schools funded with their tax money. Such schools should never be sectarian, but should tell the truth about this most religious nation on Earth.

Yet the one thing I have discovered is that the Salem Witch Trials, with their religious motivations, is always taught. This tiny historical event is almost always mentioned.

Why are they lying to our students?

The Helen Crump Rules

The Andy Griffith Show in black and white is nearly perfect television. With a few other shows it unites all generations of televisions viewers. Whether you are an aging member of the Greatest Generation, a Boomer, or my seven year old daughter Jane, Don Knotts is funny and Opie makes us all cry when he releases those birds.

And then came color. For some reason, Andy becomes crabby. He snaps at everyone. My best theory is that he is forced to perpetually date, but never marry the well named Helen Crump, the least appealing female character to appear on the show. Don Knotts was long gone to be mishandled by countless writers who reduced his considerable abilities to clown status. The show tried hiring Warren, the least funny and most annoying comic sidekick in television history. Somehow the writers still produced a few good episodes. There is no better moment in the series than when Howard, the perpetual mothers-boy, becomes a swinger and sets up a bachelor pad. His happening party consists of Helen, Andy, and Goober. As Andy enters his near empty room, he declaims, like a liberal Episcopalian looking at his youth group, “And still they come. And still they come.” Any show that can still write an episode like that deserves some praise.

However, the show began to become ever more desperate for plots. Following the Iron Law of Declining Shows, they wrote an episode where Andy goes to Hollywood. Any show not set in Hollywood that visits Hollywood show end soon. The worst episodes were when the most blessedly unhip show in television history tried to speak to “today’s issues.” The old episodes are timeless, the socially relevant ones painful viewing.

My favorite of these bad shows, so bad it becomes entertaining, is one of the frequent “The Kids are All Right” episodes. In this Mayberry Woodstock, Helen Crump decides to direct the Mayberry school play. The students want a musical. They also want to sing some “groovy music.” They gyrate about the stage in music that could never have been hip and never fails to make me laugh out loud. Of course, instead of laughing at the talentless yokels who have sold their Carolina cultural birthright for the pottage of bad sixties music, the principal is horrified and cancels the show. He astutely observes the lack of musicality and the lewd nature of the music. He argues that he need not contribute to cultural degradation. Forty years later, his words make a great deal of sense.

The Crump fights back by teaching the principal a lesson. She discovers that the principal danced the Charleston with some flappers in the Roaring Twenties. She shows the poor man that kids are just the same now as they were. Eventually, the poor man is convinced by the Crump-that-Stole- Culture that the random gyrations of her students are just like the difficult-to-perform Charleston.

From this episode one can develop the Crump Rules. These rules under gird a great deal of television. They are assumed to be true, but are entirely false. Here are three of the most important:

I. Primary Crump Rule: The kids are o.k. There is a special sanctity and sincerity to our kids. Each generation struggles to find their way and adults should let them do so.

By and large, kids don’t understand the world. Adults, and I don’t mean twenty-somethings, need to be role models and help them develop cultivated taste. Much of high school culture is vicious with cruelty never matched in later life. Left to themselves, kids are not o.k. They need parents and adult figures who do not try to relate to them. (In fairness, this is a mistake I made early on.)

Alternative General Truth- Kids are kids. Adults should help them raise their standards and grow up.

II. Crump Rule: Worrying about depravity in one generation is silly since every generation worries about such things. Parents worried about Crosby, then Elvis, then Styx, and now . . . fill in the naughty group of the moment.

This misses two points. First, one can note that there may have been real social decay. Elvis was naughty and this led, as our grandparents predicted, to worse. Critics of lewd music in the fifties were, after all, overly conservative in their predictions of future depravity. The fact that Elvis seems modest to us now may indicate that we are depraved compared to our great-grandparents not that we have made progress. Of course, Elvis had real talent, but this talent does not justify his hedonistic message. One can recognize his good music while frowning on music packaged on sex instead of talent. Now we have tooth paste sold the same way. Aren’t you tired of it?

Second, our pop culture experience is very limited. It stretches over one human lifetime (the last one hundred years). There is no reason to think things “always go this way.” They don’t always go in this direction.

Alternative General Truth- Social decay is a problem. All of us in every generation (especially me!) should say, “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me a sinner.” The best way to avoid social decay is to worry about it.

III. Crump Rule: The fast people of any generation form the norm.

Helen Crump convinces the principal, who evidently had a misspent youth that “modern” music is fine because of what he did as a young man. Does anyone believe that must principals in the Carolinas were hanging with Flappers in their youth?

The flappers of the Twenties were not most young people. I venture more people attended Fundamentalist revival services in tent meetings and walking the Saw Dust Trail than drank gin and danced the Charleston, especially in North Carolina.

Why do the bad kids (hippies in the sixties) now form our “normal” image of an era? At my own university, if we had sixties day, people would dress in ways that the actual students of the Biola of the sixties would have despised.

It is time we began to admire the good kids of these eras who served their country in the Armed Forces, who played by the rules, and built the nation by conforming to social norms. Conformity to social norms does not lead to intellectual stagnation as centuries of life in Christian universities prove. Needed social change best comes by good citizens, like Rosa Parks, who have the moral standing to press for change. One black pastor was worth one hundred hippies in civil rights.

Alternative General Truth- The hard workers in any generation, who play by the rules, produce most of the greatness of the nation. They also are best positioned to produce needed change.

The Helen Crump rules must go. They are at best assumptions and whatever limited truth there may be in them, they have outlived their usefulness.

FOXNews.com - Foxlife - ‘National Treasure’ Strikes Box-Office Gold: “Cage’s ‘National Treasure’ debuted as the No. 1 weekend movie with $35.3 million, coming in just ahead of ‘The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie,’ which opened in second with $33.5 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.”

National Treasure is a mediocre action movie. It has a bizarre view of history that is hard to swallow. (Free mason Founding Fathers refusing to spend any part of a large treasure when their cause was dying for lack of money? Centuries of treasure growing each time it was passed from hand to hand?) On the other hand, it is clean, fun at times, and has decent acting that is only marred by the typical action adventure hack-job by the female “lead.”

I am glad I went, but the movie leaves almost no impression on my mind. However, I doubt anyone’s mind was the target of the producers of this film. Go for fun, but if you wait for the dollar theater, you have not missed much.

Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Ideas / Science wars: “Many of the cases of science politicized singled out by the Union of Concerned Scientists seem motivated by an attempt to appease ‘traditional values’ voters. But the scientists’ case against Bush involves more than just prohibitions on research based on religious or moral objections. It also involves matters of scientific fact. As the history of ‘creation science’ in America shows, Christian conservatives have their own views on many scientific matters and even, in some cases, their own cadre of PhDs to advocate these positions. Antiabortion Christian conservatives tend to argue, for example, that so-called ‘adult’ stem cells can replace embryonic ones for scientific purposes and that abortion causes breast cancer and other negative health outcomes for women. (The latter notion was even temporarily suggested by a National Cancer Institute fact sheet, thanks to advocacy from Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey and other antiabortion members of Congress.) Although a few scientists who are also Christians support such claims, the nation’s broader scientific community has resoundingly rejected them.”en

Evidently Christians in a field cannot be trusted. Their professional opinions are tainted by religion. On the other hand, the secularist majority in the academy, misusing science and education to push their lifestyle choices and political agenda, can be trusted. Secular science is neutral. Ever more frantically these folk, insulated from most of America, cry out,”Smart people vote for us! We are the future! Did we remind you that we are smart?”

It appears Democrats believe most Kerry voters were grad students at the University of Ohio and not inner city voters exploited by these effete elite for their own benefit. Hispanic and African-American voters might take notice. They don’t care about you, they care about a good vegan meal for the caf at the local State U.

Of course this is all nonsense. Secularism is a dying ideology propped up in the educational world by socialism. Government money keeps ideas that would never survive in the market place of ideas going. Most professors, and teachers, have never had to survive competition. They moved from school to school, the only difference is that they now get paid to go to school, where they used to pay. They go to meetings where everyone agrees that Kerry should have won and the teacher’s lounges of our government schools reward any mention of Republican ideas with ridicule. Government school educators are some of the dimmest professionals in the country. Most of college professors are aging radicals or their disciples hired to as much for political purity as anything else. Conservative and religious ideas are hardly discussed, except in those professions, such as philosophy, where brilliant counter-culture thinkers (like Al Plantinga) have forced change.

Here is my question: why should Alabama pay for a state school system hostile to her values? Why can’t Alabama or any other red state end up with a school that represents the will of the people who pay the bills? They can and soon they will. The cries of the over-wine-and-cheesed will not suffice to keep reason and real education from Americans. Meanwhile Christian parents should vote with their kids and withdraw them from Blue-schools at every level. Biola proves a great education can come with Red-state values.

It is Sunday. My health continues to decline. I feel sick as could be, yet my soul is strong. I love the dialectic. I love Plato. His work is so clear and inquiry is liberating. One moment of this discussion is a lifetime of television and meaninglessness in the culture.

We begin with Book X of the Republic. This is the book that troubles me most. Of course, Julia Annas famously dismisses it. Yet it seems to me to be the capstone in a new (and better!) direction in Plato’s thought, a capstone to the dialectic. Let me put all my ideas on whole and be open to what the conversation may show me.

Why can’t Glaucon see? At the end, even in the midst of Socrates hopeful comments about salvation (621), Glaucon says nothing. To Dr. Geier the key moment is when Socrates says (611E), “. . . our vision of the soul marred by countless evils. But we must look elsewhere Glaucon.” (Shorey)

“Where,” said he.

Glaucon never returns to this “where.” He becomes silent. The first act of speech, motivated by the hopefulness of the true student, brings a soul to the conversation. Story telling without speech may be dead. (But what of Timaeus?)

I am hopeful about Glaucon because of the “we” of the end of the dialogue (that seems to show Plato and Socrates in a new unity) and the notion that the myth of Er might save them, if believed. Dr. Geier is less hopeful because of the reference to Glaucus (611D). Has Glaucon’s soul (and indeed all our souls) been so marred that nothing can save it?
If this conversation has been a feast (end of Book I and Book X), Glaucon may have been a glutton. On the other hand, perhaps Glaucon has learned a profound silence. Silence in a conversation needs to be true listening. True listening leads “no place” for sure. It is “all ears” without being directly connected to a mouth. God teach me this lesson!

Dr. Geier believes that listening need by destructive. You do not have to take it into your soul if you are speaking as friends and not lovers. Dr. Geier finds it hard to talk without a text, because he is sure the text has wisdom and he is not sure that he does. A wise man may write texts, but he would not speak without one.

There was an interlude where we discussed texts. Spirited students suggested that a good teacher might make a text unnecessary. However, it seems that a good teacher, who is after all not a Platonic text, mediates to the true wise man. Even in Plato himself were here, he would simply mediate to his own text. Telling us “the truth” would simply be too much for us and not allow us to grow ourselves. This is like the behavior of Jesus in John 6 when he speaks cryptically about His Sacred Body and Blood, allowing his disciples to grow without imposing His views on them.
Plato might not be to us the best expositor of his views. First, we are separated from him in space and time. Second, good writers are not always great teachers. Without a text, we are exchanging our poverty. Listening with a text in the center is rich.

After a break, we turn to Timaeus. We return to an examination of the Third Kind.

“Here” for Plato seems to be an undifferentiated world of Becoming.
Everything “here” is simply “here.” Things here can be touched and be held.

What is it that receives things? It is the “that in which.” Space is perhaps not the best term for it. (There is much to ponder here.) There is container that holds. This is a different view of space than the modern. The cosmos comes to be in the soul. Any discrete object (the cup, which actually is merely the cup-like) comes to be in the receptacle.
This interlude is no longer presented as a likely story, but as a “true story.” The creation account is suspended and Timaeus pushes hard to make clear his idea of the Third Kind. He explains it many times (at least four?) which may be a record for Plato. Why is he doing his best to persuade us that this is the truth?

This much is clear to me (at the moment!). The space here is not, as I once suspected, the “substance” of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. It is not “stuff” in any way. Whatever it is, it is not Aristotle.
What is the “illegitimate” form of reason that allows us to apprehend or grasp the receptacle?

Just before 52, Plato speaks of True Opinion and Knowledge. All men can have True Opinion. Only the gods and a small class of men have knowledge. The Greek text has had a comma inserted into the phrase “of gods, and a small class of men” (my own translation). This seems to imply (if one allows the comma which would not have been in the Greek) that the gods are essential group that one has in mind and the men are secondary. This is opposed to the “no comma” view where gods and this group of men are equal in knowledge. However, note that this are not divine men, but a genus of men. There are men who are in the class “knowers.”

We ate our last meal together. The group has come together and we are making progress. Torrey has fine students, really fine. What a great thing it is to get to teach them! I miss Hope and the children, but for a short time this thirty hours of class is sweet. Is our surety of the Third Kind based on our understanding of the difference between True Opinion and Knowledge?

Everything in the visible world is “in between.” The only material (so called) is the receptacle. When we point at a thing, the thing itself is not there, only the receptacle. The receptacle is intelligible (barely) by partaking of the imitation of the forms. Think of the receptacle as a white board. On the white board is drawn a circle. This drawing is not really a circle, but it reminds us of the true circle, the form of circle. To the extent that the circle-like drawing is on the board, the white board partakes in a relationship with the form of circle.

The Third Kind allows Being and Becoming to be related without confusion for the first time.

Just as there is nothing in a mirror when it is reflecting, so there is nothing actually in the receptacle only an image of the forms. We are dreaming and these distinctions wake us up.
52D is very, very hard. It may be the hardest sentence I have found in Plato. I think it means something like this:
“Reasoning leads to Knowledge. Persuasion leads to True Opinion. This different epistemological route means that Being and Receptacle will always be kept apart.”

Dr. Geier points out that Being “needs help.” Why? How can anything in the phantom world help being? The Third Kind protects Being from Becoming. The Third Kind assures that the Second Kind does not block our view of the First Kind or pretend to be the First Kind. The Third Kind destroys the potential idol that is the Second Kind. (Note: the Second Kind, creation, exists out of longing to be like the First Kind. This longing could go too far and could confuse our soul.) The world is a god, but the original is a God. Because of the power of the imitation we confuse the creature with the Creator and our minds are darkened. We confuse the world with the World. In doing this, we cannot (of course!) touch the essential properties of the Forms. However, we can create an inappropriate relationship between Being and Becoming which takes away from Being appropriate “glory.”

We turn to Necessity at 48. What is Necessity? It seems to be the “natural order.” It keeps the Demiurge from making the world “perfectly good.” Physical nature follows such “laws” as “like is attracted to like.” Such motion is not always rational. As a result, intellect must intervene to make this motion rational.

Necessity is NOT evil. It keeps the creature from simply being the Creator. We cannot draw a perfect circle on the white board. That does not prevent us from thinking about a perfect circle. (I suppose in Heaven that we could draw a perfect circle.)

The creation of the mortal is a difficulty. There exists in Plato an idea that I find appealing. All things that can be must be. There is a plenitude of being with all possible things existing. If true, this explains the existence of the mortal. More or less. It seems that death is very bad and that the benefit of having “all” is inadequate to explain its creation. I don’t know why the immortal gods create mortality.

That promising student, Matt Anderson, expressed a powerful thought. For humans, it is good to have emotions. Fear is good, but must it cannot be mastered by us. Humans should feel anger, but only when appropriate. Hard things are good, because they provide value and glory to living. They are a school for souls. But, rightly, wise Mr. Rhodes wonders if this is what Timaeus says or is it an Augustinian answer we are sneaking into the text.

(Not they have done that before. . .)

It is worth noting the rest of the Creator in 42E. Genesis is not Timaeus, but they do have some remarkable similarities. (Dr. Geier notes that I have a bad habit of looking for similarities, instead of noting differences. That is a good insight. I must learn to note and even glory in difference.)
Why does the good god create? It seems that he creates out of his own goodness.

Craftsmanship and philosophy cannot be separated. The divine craftsman uses the best model to make the best creation. 28B “But when the craftsman of any object, in forming its shape and quality, keeps his gaze fixed on that which is uniform, using a model of this kind, that object, executed in this way, must of necessity be beautiful. . .”

There are several ludicrous images in this section of Timaeus. Without buying Taylor’s thesis that this is all (or mostly) a sort of Platonic joke, it is easy enough to see that some of it is. The rivets of the soul, the soul-shake (44), and the gods borrowing stuff from the cosmos they intend to return (43) are good examples of this. One can take Plato too seriously and so not seriously enough in missing his good humor.

We are near the end now of our thirty hours of class. It seems to fly by now. We were tired about ten, but now have caught the great wave instead of being destroyed by it. And yet it must end. The time has passed. Bless you, Dr. Geier. Bless you students.

And for these thoughts: may those impious be forgiven, may I always follow the Logos wherever it leads, and may You, Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.

It is evening. The vesper prayers are said. How can one honor a teacher like Dr. Geier? Who can know? Now comes the long haul as we examine the Good.

How would we honor a great man if he came into the room?

The Good is much greater to be honored than knowledge and truth. Why is this the case? What is so good about the good? It is hard to think about how we could possibly honor the good?

509 “An inconceivable beauty you speak of,” he said, “if is the source of knowledge and truth, and yet itself surpasses them in beauty. For you surely cannot mean that it is pleasure.”

Why does Glaucon make this spirited reply? Socrates says “Hush.” It is a statement that is connected to piety. Why? Is it because for Glaucon to say more would be impious? Or has he already committed an impiety even by connection the good to pleasure?

509A4 What about the word (transliterated) “agathoeidei”? It is used only by Plato. It is translated (Shorey) boniform. That seems clumsy. Why a new word? How about good-ish? However, that removes the sense of “form” from the word.

M. Schubert suggests, and I agree, that Glaucon is not associating the good with pleasure. However, this seems hard for him. She asks, “Is Glaucon saying: ‘then it is not pleasing.’”

The Good is beyond “being” in rank and power. It is beyond “being” in every way. This seems hard to understand if we use our intellect to question. What if we use our intellect to look at it?

I may have limited “inquiry” too much. Usually, I think of being skeptical. What if part of inquiring is just looking at a thing. When I stand before the New Testament, the written Word of God, don’t I feel small? Should I “tear it apart” or should I stand humbly? There is a place for knowing that goes beyond or is not exhausted by the tearing apart of skepticism. Socrates, “you inquire” must not be limited to a challenge to conventional statements. It may also be a following them out to their natural (good?) ends on the assumption that they are true.

This is a challenge to much of modern philosophy. We may have privileged one form of reason over another. This is part of the epistemology of belief that Plato argued for in the Timaeus. Some things are true. We know them to be true. (”There is a good.”) Tearing them apart is useless, moving ahead with them is crucial. We don’t have to cultivate doubts we don’t really have. (Dangerous? Certainly not philosophically correct in today’s academy. Doesn’t dogmatism in the bad sense lurk near these concepts?)

At 509C, Glaucon ejaculates again (my translation): “And Glaucon very jokingly said, ‘Apollo!’ he said ‘demonic hyperbole can go no further.’” Glaucon, like Peter in the New Testament, seems always to be bursting out with these statements. Does this one mean anything?

Now we stand at the Cave Analogy at the start VII. As always, I fear the dazzling impact of this analogy on all of us.

However, far from being dazzled Glaucon at 516C and other places is calmed by the analogy. Glaucon is like the young child who must be distracted in order to learn. Certain needs must be sated in him (and are sated by the dazzling story) which allows him to calm down.

The quotation of Achilles in hell (Odyssey) is meaningful. Glaucon would do anything at this point rather than stay “down.” He has improved from Book I when he wanted to stay down in the Piraeus. He now understand why he might want to lead the place of mere spectacle.

The Cave is a dark place. The fire is not enough, but is the light we are used to having. Our fear of losing what we have can keep us from the thing we should have. The loss of their “sight” leaves them (literally!) in aporia.

Here we are at 10:30 in what, at least for me, is a “sticking place.” Few are speaking and many are listening. Are folk expressing their views of the text or merely speaking? It is hard to tell, but we shall press on to see what will come of it all. One of the nicest things about this discussion is that I am not in charge. I should note Dr. Geier has a willingness to let the discussion unfold as it must. Part of this comes from having more time. There is a great deal to be said for a ten hour class!

We are still discussing the image. The nature of education, the good, and the sun are all topics. Slow progress, if any. God help us. The ultimate sight would be to see without an image. We must strain over time to see the Good without any intermediate image.

What about the long road to education? Why is there some reluctance on the part of even Socrates for this trip? We follow the logos wherever it takes us. We are not sure that there is definite end, but what else can we do.

The dialectic in pursuit of the Good, Truth, and Beauty seems so much better, truth-like, and beautiful that even if I questioned the existence of these things I would pursue it. But could I do this if I wanted the truth? Yes, because if there is no Good, then there is no truth either. If the Good is not there to be found, then there is no good reason to think any Truth is there either. So for the love of the truth, I pursue the Truth.

We are down to a dozen students. There was some discussion by students at 11:30 that too few are here to proceed. This is difficult. What should be done? Some students wanted to turn to less interesting topics, such as Atlantis, to continue the discussion without leaving out some from the good stuff. The rest of the community wanted to proceed with the difficult notion of the Third Kind. I am energized by this prospect.

We have decided to press forward to the study of the Third Kind in Timaeus. This section of text begins with an “archei” (like John) or new beginning. This beginning (48) is not a start in time, but a basis for dealing with “what has come up.” The old account that started with “being and becoming” is no longer adequate.

This Third Kind is obscure and vague. It is a “receptacle” It is the nurse of all Becoming. All generation takes place here. Nothing in the receptacle has stability. Nothing stays there or Becoming would stop. Images are concrete things.

It seems to me that this Third Kind will allow for “falling short” of Reason in the World of Becoming. The first creation story has accounted for rational motion. This Third Kind makes possible irrational motion.

The Third Kind is called “that Wherein it becomes and the source Wherefrom the Becoming copied and produced.” This is yet another name for the Third Kind. Why?

A chief criticism of “Platonism” is that there is no mechanism for the “imitation of the Forms” in the natural world. At 50C, Timaeus promises to explore this issue. Either he does so at 53C or as Dr. Geier suggests he never gets to it.

This second creation account is not naturalistic as some suggest. Instead, it is different. It solves different problems and creates new ones. The “mother and father” language that is coming means that this is not some sort of proto-naturalistic account.

Eventually the Third Kind is called a Mother. The source is called a Father. They have an “offspring” (not a child). It exists between Mother and Father. It has an inheritance that neither parent gives it.

The Third Kind is a blank. The things printed on it do not remain on it. It has a new kind of Being, though it makes Becoming possible.

Tomorrow is another day. This is a good thing, but my body calls for sleep.

The afternoon and early evening are here. I am tired in body, still fighting off a cold. Still, we are on the edge of good insights. Dr. Geier never seems to need rest.

Timaeus places the body within the soul, so that the body does not end up controlling the soul. This is not the way we normally think of it and as a result we end up with a soul “imprisoned” or dominated by the body.

The soul is built to connect with “knowables.” When the soul encounters a thing it is built to know, the possibility of knowledge arises. However, the entire construction seems problematic, because the unity of the soul seems impossible. How do the three become one?

The thing that is necessary to know cannot be completely understood. How do we force together the parts of the soul (Same, Different, Being)? Of course, I have proposed a solution to this (Unified Platonic Human Psychology), but I am not satisfied. It is the unity that is lost in my thought about the soul. Where is the one?

Moderns are like a small child presented with a watch. A watch is just what he wanted. He next wants to understand how it works and tries to take it apart. He does this and the watch becomes a jumble of parts. It does not work and he cannot see how it could work. He becomes skeptical about the inner workings of watches. Instead, just as with the soul, we already know the watch works.

We trust that our souls think and work, because they do. Timaeus comes to us with a story about how thinking happens that does not reduce thinking to non-thinking (as a materialist does). We accept him, because his story seems probable.

We do not mistrust a fairy tale. Why do use mistrust as basic. Our epistemology should begin (perhaps) in belief and not skepticism. A fairy tale can move us toward things that are. We trust it and so gain knowledge.

Socrates wants to see a soul that is alive and knowing. He has constructed one. Why do we spend so much time in doubt when we cannot tell a better story?

(Interesting note: every time Plato mentions the four elements they come in a different order. Are all the configurations used up?)

We shift to the Republic. My soul is full of the desire to see the Good. Lord help me to be one who pursues truth at all costs. Give a mind that is awake. Lord Jesus Christ son of God have mercy on me a sinner.

At 508, Socrates says, “The thing . . .you call light.” Why does Socrates say this? It is an odd way of speaking. Perhaps Socrates is challenging what Glaucon is saying. He wants Glaucon to use more care. The analogy here seems so clear. Yet there are deeper waters that should be attended to.

We really want to acknowledge, always, that we do not understand, but we do not want to glorify it.

Plato wants us to look away from the familiar. We need to see the familiar as unfamiliar. We need to get past the “knowing” that comes from naming.

We break for dinner wondering about the good.

James Dobson - The religious right’s new kingmaker. By Michael Crowley: “In one of his books, Dobson has written of the gay-rights movement that ‘[e]vil has a way of overreaching.’ So does the far right.”

Slate, part of the far left (much smaller than even obscure Protestant groups) manages to be nicer to Arafat than to Dobson. You can tell who they hate more. After all, Arafat only murdered thousands. Dobson wants to end legal abortion!

Anyone who has not heard of Dobson and needs the kind of condescending description found here needs more friends. Evangelicals know secular culture. We have to know it. What excuses this horrid ignorance?

We begin Saturday with great enthusiasm. Home repairs kept me away from the first forty-five minutes. The city brings the philosopher back to life!

We begin in discussion of the soul. Only soul can possess intellect. That does not mean every soul has intellect. Plato believes this, but does not argue for it. It seems a reasonable assumption to me on the grounds that ideas and matter are different in kind. Matter cannot grasp ideas, because it is not the sort of stuff that could do so. No matter how many red lego bricks one has one could never build a blue castle. In the same way, no matter how complex or great matter might be it cannot think.

Timaeus has grasped this concept by using his intellect. For the Demiurge, in the account, to grasp all these things the Demiurge must be good. He wants all things to be like himself.

The cosmos seems designed by Timaeus to allow the intellect to function. This is often missed by Darwinists. They build a universe in which matter and energy are free to function, but it is hard to see how intellect has a place. They solve this problem last, if at all.

On the other hand, Plato views intellect as primary and solves this problem first. The Demiurge is good and he sees to it that a truly living soul comes into being.

Like a myth, this tale tells us something. It is not “serious” astronomy or cosmology. . . but it is deeper than they are. Human things are the most important things humans can study, divine things being the products of Revelation and miracle. Yet we are too close to human things, one human being is more complex than the entire non-animal cosmos. So we look at the beautiful, simple, and large cosmos to see something we might be able to apply to our thoughts about men and gods.

Timaeus continues in a playful manner. Of course, playful does not mean a lack of seriousness. (For example, we see his playfulness in his explanation of the large intestine. Why is the intestine long? “To give more time for philosophy,” Timaeus says. Philosophy may not be possible if one is not playful.

We begin discussion of the creation of the soul at 34b10. This harmony between cosmic body and soul is beautiful. It is so beautiful that I come to doubt whether it could be. University has taught me the dreadful prejudice that good things, things I wish to be true, never are. Yet this is false. The universe is good. This discussion is good. Soul and body can come together.

Here too we see the lie exposed that Plato hates the body. Socrates has been, up to Timaeus, skeptical that body and soul can get along. Here Timaeus reveals the truth. Why do “scholars” often get this wrong? They are so busy creating doctrines about Plato that often they (we!) don’t have time to read the text.

Any soul in this arrangement must be happy.

We are to a new image. This image looks like the original. There is something about it that makes it almost impossible to see the original. We begin to call (with Timaeus) this image a “god.” This discussion begins to degenerate into idolotry. The better job we do describing the universe, the more likely we are to worship our image. The worship of science is always a temptation.

Being, Same, and Other are forced to come together to make soul. (This Being is not quite like the true Being.) I have proposed that this like mixing liquids. How is this possible? It does not seem possible, but it is necessary.

It is now time to eat. The afternoon will be even better, I think.