The Gadfly, Vol. XXXIV, Issue 21

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photo by Chengyaqing Shi

The Gadfly The student newspaper of St. John’s College 60 College Avenue Annapolis, Maryland 21401 sjca.gadfly@gmail.com

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reetings, Johnnies— I have asked tutors and friends to send me their opinions on various topics that have sparked my interest throughout my years here at St. John’s College. In this special edition of the Gadfly you will find a wide array of thoughts and experiences that reflect some of my deepest passions and questions. I hope you all enjoy the journey with the same amount of pleasure I have.

www.issuu.com/sjcgadfly www.facebook.com/sjcagadfly Founded in 1980, the Gadfly is the student newsmagazine distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus.

Opinions expressed within are the sole responsibility of the author(s). The Gadfly reserves the right to accept, reject, and edit submissions in any way necessary to publish a professional, informative, and thought-provoking newsmagazine.

Staff Nathan Goldman • Editor-in-Chief Ian Tuttle • Editor-in-Chief Hayden Pendergrass • Layout Editor Sasha Welm • Cartoonist Jonathan Barone • Staff Andrew Kriehn • Staff Robert Malka • Staff Sarah Meggison • Staff Contributors Eva Brann Katy Edwards Boethius Fontaine Jerry Januszewski Daniela Lobo Dias Joseph Macfarland Painter Bob Alex Schmid John Verdi

John Ropoulos

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[Editor’s Note: Scattered throughout the issue, enjoy these words of wit and wisdom from tutor John Verdi on subjects such as love, memory, education, thinking, and more.]

—You sense that a great liberation will be yours if only you act. The bonds of morality which bind your spirit will be loosened, if only slightly. Yet you hesitate. The unknown consequences of acting immorally paralyze you. What measure of bitterness must be drunk with the sweet? Of course you do not know. To a large extent the efficacy of their freeing action arises from your ignorance. In these matters it is difficult to be wise before becoming free. Viva uncertainty, the mind’s savior!

—“I have never had a memorable conversation with him.” Thus you indict yourself.

You suffer from either a bad memory or a mean spirit.

—For one hour I felt that profound force push against the thin fabric which protects me. Then it withdrew, and I felt that every good thing was once again possible. I must never forget that hour when it seemed that all my happiness might spill onto the ground at any moment, and I would be left hollow, pale, and bitter. O fortuna, velut luna!

—We expect to awaken one day to find our adolescent fears and anxieties gone, but they are not. They have just “matured.”

—Habits of good thinking are like those of cleanliness: unless you have grown up with them, you never really understand what all the fuss is about.

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ohnnies—Just a gentle reminder that we’re accepting submissions for our final issue of the year, dedicated to the Class of 2013.

Seniors: Please send in your hometown, senior essay title, post-grad plans (however tentative...), and a headshot. We also welcome reflections, advice, etc.

Others: We are looking for profiles, interviews, odes to your favorite seniors—anything about this year’s graduates.

All submissions are due by Wednesday, May 1.

We look forward to featuring this year’s graduating class! !

The Gadfly

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!"#$%&'()*+()#)$%,"+-&."/#(+,0 1+2+(3$+($4"#$5'647(&8(#66 !"#$%&'()*"+&,&-(.$'"$'"#$/&0'.(1 Miss Eva Brann

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r. Ropoulos and I were talking in the Coffee Shop, and the subject of modernity came up. So he asked me to write a few pages for his issue of the Gadfly.

“Modernity” comes from Latin modo, “just-now.” Thus modernity is any generation’s own time; it is the mode of the recent, the contemporary—with a hint of time-pride: the latest is the newest, and the newest is the best. The moderni of any era, its progressives, think along those lines—and the conservatives see decline. But modernity also has a history-bound meaning: It is that epoch which is tied to Antiquity by a Medieval or Middle Age. It is a time, first of renewal and rebirth (Renaissance), then of the simply new, Modernity, and finally, of novelty, namely when its very signature is prolific innovation. Eventually “modernism” is appropriated for a style, or rather a plethora of styles, in art and architecture—rejectionist with respect to tradition, deliberatively expressive of modern functionality, and relentlessly “creative.”

Now it has come to this: Innovation has been institutionalized, change and growth has become a way of life, and knowledgeable rejection has turned into forgetful oblivion. Moreover, modernity, just-nowness, epochalized, has become just another age to be superseded.

Therefore we live in post-modern times; and that was really what Mr. Ropoulos and I were talking about.* What are its now-discernible features? An intensification of modernism, I thought as we talked: More and faster.

But also explosive variety—everything going off in opposite directions: globalism and nationalism (an ever-smaller world with evermore national entities), personal freedom and impersonal tyrannies (options galore and regulative officiousness), rampant individualism and conformist outcomes (anything goes, and so we all wear jeans and logo-imprinted T-shirts).—Any Johnnie can expand this post-modern Table of Opposites, which lists the contrary trends that pull at us;

I’m full of additional items.

How to live in this roiling stasis? I thought: Go soundmindedly schizophrenic (Greek for “split-minded”). Be cannily knowledgeable about all this sheer potentiality. Then fall to worldmaking: Found small habitable communities that have definable purpose, definite character, and flexible stability. It might be a gathering of 3 or 3x10n people, a band of friends, a school, a company, a civic group. You might be the catalyst or the organizer or a devoted participant— whatever. Just make a place for souls to be—adapting Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics I.7 and X.6—thoughtfully and fulfillingly at work in behalf of some good.

Mr. Ropoulos said “400 words,” and I’m already beyond that—though I’ve barely begun. ! *I haven’t yet come across a proper name for the next epoch, post-post-modernity.

In retrospect, what will post-modernity be the “pre-” of? Johnnies are well positioned for conjecturing about that temporal Non-being, the Future.

!"##"$% Mr. Nima Eshragh Last seen: Croquet Weekend, surrounded by purple pillows, gold goblets, and red silk tapestries.

Last wearing: Copious amounts of gold jewelry, cheap cologne, and stolen Greek artifacts.

!"#$%&'( —The best teacher of all but the very young helps a student organize his experience, but can do little for a student with little experience. Socrates knew this and insisted that our most important experiences were those held in common. On these he practiced his pedagogical art. Plato interpreted (or refashioned) Socrates’s belief to require common experience prior to birth, perhaps because people seemed to him more different from one another than they did to Socrates, and so less able to share experiences. (One might say that Socrates loved people more than did Plato, but that Plato respected them more.)

—Why are the great loves that inspire creativity invariably illicit?

—How much of “I want” is “I have wanted”?

How much of “I want” is “they expect”?

—A great source of unhappiness is the opposition of good people. (St. Teresa)

The Gadfly

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Jerry Januszewski

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Counselor

ne warm September day in 1998, five of us from St. John’s remained on the beach.

College went for a swim in the Chesapeake Bay at a beach When you plunge into water that cold, two things happen about ten miles from campus. It was so much fun we returned in an instant. One, your body heat gathers to your core, which a month later. We were pleased with ourselves, swimming in leaves your outer body, from head to toe, throbbing in pain. what we thought was pretty cold water in October. It may have Even your face hurts. Two, panic takes over. The rational mind ended there, but then someone asked, “Why don’t we swim shuts down, except for one thought: MUST GET OUT NOW. outdoors every month of the school year?” Feeling flush with After submersion, getting out with all speed is exactly what we hope or hubris, we formalized our agreement. The St. John’s did.

College Polar Bear Club was born.

Then a wonderful thing happened. Within 15 seconds of The air temperatures that November were balmy. It was 65 leaving the water, my body heat rushed back out to my skin degrees the day we took our third plunge as a group. The water and limbs. This produced an ecstatic sense of well-being. The was cold, but not cold enough to keep us from laughing as we same happened to the others swimmers. We stood on the swam around. Still, the swim felt like a great achievement. At beach without our coats, laughing, warm and happy and feeldinner that evening we exchanged knowing glances, as if we ing, most amazing of all, a sweet absence of anxiety. That mowere soldiers who had survived combat ment remains one of my fondest memotogether. ries: a transformation of one of my most What disturbing irony it For some reason we were in no rush to anxiety-ridden moments ever into one of would be if activities we get our December swim accomplished. the most magical. pursue in the name of freeAs the temperatures began to drop, Later, when I pondered this peak exsomeone would say in passing, “Hey, we perience, I became very upset at how my dom, may in truth accomshould get our swim in before it gets real anxiety had incapacitated me, and how plish a flight from freedom. cold.” But we kept putting it off. passive I had felt. Soren Kierkegaard said, Examining the origins of Christmas came and went, and still no “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” If anxiety may reveal our pres- he is correct, then the human inclination swim. Everyone was still in town, so a ent needs that are unfamilmeeting of the Polar Bear Club was called to escape anxiety could very well be an iar to us, but still deeply felt. attempt to escape from freedom. Is that to order. The air temperature was now consistently around freezing, 32 degrees. what I did?

Mary, our archousa, pointed out that we One could argue that polar bear swimwere in serious danger of failing our mission as an organization ming is a frivolous activity. But my anxiety was real and dizand also of invalidating any previous claim to toughness. Dave, zying because real freedom was involved. I had two choices, our second-in-command, objected, asserting that swimming in swim or not swim, and both were painful. Saying “I wanted this weather could lead to death. Mary and Dave were dating, Mary and Dave to be my mommy and daddy” was a wisecrack and I thought I noticed a contentious glare exchanged between perhaps, but on that beach I dearly wanted them to choose for them. me. It is truly frightening that all it took for me to be willing My anxiety about whether to take the icy swim made me un- to forfeit my freedom was a certain sufficient level of anxiety. usually passive about the decision. We all deferred to Mary, This contradicted what I thought I stood for in the pursuit of and she determined we would swim the next day, New Year’s a free life.

Eve, December 31, at 6pm at the same beach. This was not Our society regards anxiety as an enemy to happiness, not quite the 11th hour, but it was awfully close. an ally. It feels so good to make anxiety disappear that there The next evening we piled into my car and headed out to is widespread sympathy for removing it through almost any the beach. The mood was subdued. Outside it was 24 degrees, means, such as prescribed medications, alcohol, and, increaswith wind gusts up to 20 mph. The normally tranquil beach ingly, marijuana. I understand that sometimes incapacitating had waves as big as ocean surf. It was dark and as uninviting anxiety requires direct intervention. But I wonder how often a setting for swimming as you can imagine. We stood on the we slavishly blunt anxiety to flee the “dizziness of freedom.” beach, miserable, shivering in our bathing suits and winter What disturbing irony it would be if activities we pursue in coats, huddled tightly to protect against the wind. the name of freedom in truth accomplish a flight from freeWe argued again about whether we should risk this. Mary dom. Examining the origins of anxiety may reveal our present was for it. Dave was against it. I was wavering. I wanted Mary needs that are unfamiliar to us but still deeply felt. What a rich and Dave to be my mommy and daddy and tell me what to do. source of self-knowledge is that state, if we can learn to tolerIt was so cold. ate it.

Finally Mary took charge, ripping off her furry coat and For the cause of personal freedom are we willing to attend shouting, “I don’t care! I’m going in!” She sprinted to the wa- to our anxiety and learn its lessons instead of blotting it out? ter and dove in. I mechanically followed her into the water. Facing our anxiety with courage and curiosity is one of many One of the others followed me in. Dave and the last member fascinating and fruitful entrances to the well-examined life. !

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The Gadfly

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Wolfe Nelson

SF’14

Current Santa Fe junior Wolfe Nelson sat down with Santa Fe tutor Michael Wolfe, a St. John’s alum with an M.A. in the History of Religions, to discuss possibilities for studying Islamic texts at St. John’s.

Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, Mr. Wolfe. I guess a good place to start would be, has the recommendation for a Middle Eastern Classics program already been submitted, or is that still in process?

cussed the possibility of including preceptorials on the Greeks.

You spoke of another recommendation.

I’ve moved past the original recommendation for a Middle Well, that depends on which recommendation you’re talking Eastern graduate program to think about other possibilities, about. I’m not sure how much of this has circulated among in part because I feel very strongly that Islam is part of the the undergraduates, but let’s start with the idea for a graduate Western tradition, and I don’t think that Islamic texts should program. In the fall of 2011 a recommendation was submitted be studied in isolation from the rest of the Western tradition. to the Instruction Committee for a graduate program in Mid- A recommendation was recently put forth for a new B.A. prodle Eastern Classics. That was designed to include both Jew- gram in World Classics at St. John’s, to run concurrently with ish and Islamic texts, modeled after the one-year structure of our current undergraduate program. That recommendation the Eastern Classics graduate program. That recommendation was spearheaded by Mr. Houser. A group of faculty members was spearheaded by Mr. Venkatesh, and the curriculum was gathered last year to design a curriculum in World Classics. I designed mostly by Ken Wolfe, with some collaboration from was a member of this group. However, when the recommenme. I’m not sure about its current stadation was finally submitted, I wasn’t tus, but some people seem to have been one of the tutors who signed on. My interested in it. That was the original main reason for not signing on was that I feel very strongly that Islam recommendation for a Middle Eastern is part of the Western tradition, I didn’t like the idea of splitting the Classics program. undergraduate student body into two and I don’t think that Islamic A few months ago, Mr. Carl (Director programs. I think it’s very important texts should be studied in isola- that undergraduates participate in a of the Graduate Institute) approached tion from the rest of the Westme and asked me to design a curricusingle, common program. ern tradition. lum of Islamic readings modeled after But the experience of working on the segments in the Liberal Arts graduthis project prompted me to submit my ate program. That would be an eight-week summer course. It own recommendation for a five-year World Classics program would not count towards academic credit at the college. Like based on the programs that we currently have in place. In my any segment in the Liberal Arts program, it would consist of recommendation, most of the current undergraduate program three classes: a tutorial, a seminar, and a preceptorial. We don’t would actually remain intact. The revisions that I suggested yet know if this program is going to happen at all, but there’s could be implemented incrementally, in three steps. The first some hope that it could launch as soon as summer 2014. step would be to market the Eastern Classics program as a fifth year of study for those who go through the undergraduate proFor the full-year program, what would the curriculum gram. Going through all five years would result in a master’s consist of? degree. This step was not actually my own idea. The idea was already in circulation.

The languages offered would be Hebrew and Arabic. Students The second step would be to introduce additional precepwould choose to study one of the two. Because they are, in torials in the senior year. This was also not my idea. It had aleffect, cousin languages, and are quite similar to each other, ready been proposed by other tutors. Part of the problem with there would be more opportunities for interaction among stu- senior seminar is that there are just too many things worth dents than, say, with the Chinese and Sanskrit tutorials in the reading from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and we Eastern Classics program. The hope would be that at some can’t read them all in any depth. New preceptorials would ofpoint in the year Hebrew and Arabic students could come to- fer students the opportunity to choose just a few of these imgether and teach one another, and interact in the context of portant texts and study them in a more in-depth way. Seniors studying two closely-related Semitic languages. have reached the point where they can begin choosing what The fall semester would be devoted to classic Jewish texts, they want to focus on. They’ll have to do that after graduating the spring semester would be devoted to Arabic Islamic texts, from St. John’s anyway. The recommendation for additional and the summer semester would be devoted to Persian Islamic preceptorials in the senior year was originally unrelated to texts. The time span covered by the curriculum would be quite any recommendation for a World Classics program. It was large, moving from the earliest books of the Hebrew Bible up conceived of as a way to improve senior year. I’m just piggythrough the fourteenth century. Given the importance of Plato backing on that original recommendation. and Aristotle to Islamic philosophy, which can be almost uninContinued On Pg. 06 telligible without knowledge of the Greek thinkers, we’ve dis-

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The Gadfly

06 Continued From

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The third step is my own idea: having added preceptorials to sympathetic to that view. A really wonderful Islamic text that the senior year, I would recommend that we remove the junior I’d love to see us read here is Hayy ibn Yaqzan by Ibn Tufayl. year preceptorial. I see disadvantages to doing this, but I hope Ibn Tufayl’s introduction raises the question of the relationthey would be outweighed by the advantages. This would open ship between rational discourse and mystical discourse—a up space to do new things in seminar. The final eight weeks of question that I don’t think comes up elsewhere in the prosophomore seminar, chronologically, don’t gram. The Sufis didn’t influence Europe really belong in sophomore year. They as much as the Islamic philosophers, so I Islamic texts are not only belong in junior year. Descartes, Shakedon’t include as many texts by them in my a crucial component of a speare, Bacon…even thematically they fit recommendation for sophomore seminar. well-rounded program in in with junior year. My recommendation But we will spend a lot more time on the involves taking everything in sophomore Sufis in the summer program that we’re World Classics...they are seminar after Chaucer and moving it to modeling after the Liberal Arts graduate also a necessary compojunior seminar. I think there’s something nent of a well-rounded pro- program. to be said, for example, in favor of locatAs for myself, personally, the road that gram in Western Classics. ing both Descartes seminar readings (The led to studying Sufism began with PlotiDiscourse on Method and The Meditations) nus. I loved him when I first read him as in the same semester. I also think there’s something to be said a sophomore at St. John’s. I think this prepared the way for for juxtaposing Cervantes’ Don Quixote with Shakespeare’s As me to fall in love with Sufism. When I took my first class on You Like It, for placing Shakespeare’s Richard II and Henry IV Sufism in graduate school, it turned my world upside down— Parts I and II in the same semester as Hobbes’ Leviathan, and especially the writings of Ibn al-‘Arabi. He addressed all the for placing Montaigne’s “On Cannibals” in the same semester things I loved in Plotinus as well as offering alternative views as Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. These are on the things I didn’t love. Ibn al-‘Arabi’s work is both intellecjust a few examples of the new juxtapositions that would re- tually rich and experientially rich. My encounter with him insult from this rearrangement. spired me to change the focus of my graduate studies to Islam, So then we would have about eight weeks freed up in sopho- and I brought that interest back to St. John’s with me when I more seminar, and we could use that to introduce Islamic texts became a tutor. ! to the undergraduate program, filling in the lacuna that currently exists in the reading list between Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Islamic texts are not only a crucial component of a well-rounded program in World Classics; I would suggest —All my life I have too much enjoyed my comforts that they are also a necessary component of a well-rounded to become a good thinker. I have lived always amid program in Western Classics. The Qur’an is no more a Midprops and supports, finding opportunity all around dle Eastern text than the Bible. You can’t really understand to avoid the suffering that alone opens doors. Now where Thomas Aquinas came from if you haven’t read Avicenthat so many of my habitual sources of comfort na. Dante places Avicenna and Averroes in Limbo, alongside have betrayed me, I find I nevertheless continue to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Even Cervantes’ conceit of atlive in a manner which others can’t distinguish from tributing Don Quixote to a Moorish author testifies to Islam’s presence as a visible element of the European tradition. So my former ways. I try to fall but cannot. This is my I’ve drawn up a revised reading list for sophomore and junior peculiar form of blessedness, my personal irony. seminar that includes Islamic texts—mostly texts by Islamic —We might profit greatly in our daily lives if we philosophers, but of course it also includes selections from the Qur’an, Ibn Ishaq’s biography of Muhammad, and a few readcould keep a record of what we forget. These lost ings by Sufis (Islamic mystics). facts, reflections, emotions influence us much more In addition to these revisions to sophomore seminar, I would than what we remember, because we forget the suggest that we find a place in sophomore math for reading a most important things, sometimes quite aware of text or two in Islamic mathematics, in between Apollonius and their importance. But would a way to salvage these Descartes. These revisions would give us a more complete unotherwise lost experiences not overwhelm us, perdergraduate program in Western Classics, and it would put us haps to desperation? Is this the “profit” we ought to in a better position to claim that, along with the Eastern Clasexpect from our efforts? For some, yes. sics program, we offer a course of study in World Classics.

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We tend to ignore the mystic tradition here. Do you have any thoughts on why that may be?

That’s actually a big topic. Currently we have only a single seminar on a mystical text, the seminar on Plotinus. Mr. Duvoisin argues that we should read more mystics. I’m definitely

—We tolerate least the faults of others that we share with them.

—The search for virtue forces the seeker to distrust those who claim to know. Socrates was put to death for his distrust. Oh, yes: he called it “wonder.”

The Gadfly

07

Alive, Son of Awake: Should it be on the Program?

Mr. Joseph Macfarland

I

A’87

f a human being were raised and educated on an island, without the company of other humans, free from inherited opinions and prejudices, how would he encounter the world around him, and what might he discover about nature and its first principles? This is the improbable premise of Hayy ibn Yaqzan (“Alive, son of Awake”), written by Ibn Tufayl, a 12th century Muslim philosopher from Granada, and teacher of the better known Averroes (the “Commentator”). Not unlike Rousseau’s natural savage, Hayy begins his life imitating various animals around him.

When he discovers, however, that the doe who nursed him lives no longer, his education in philosophy begins: what has caused this change in her? His wish to discover this secret and cure his “mother” leads him to open her chest and unintentionally embark on the study of anatomy. Many dissections follow, and, in seven stages of seven years each, his education progresses through the sciences, from physics, psychology, and astronomy, to metaphysics, culminating in his attempt to understand the activity of the divinity and its action upon the world. Each stage of this journey raises questions about how the sciences are dependent on one another, how the world can be known, and what bearing this knowledge has on how one should live. At the age of 50 Hayy achieves perfection in the sustained contemplation of the divinity.

In the meantime, however, we are told of two pious friends, Asal and Salaman, who live on a nearby island. Salaman keeps to the apparent meaning and the external practices of the divine law, The Program is far too crowded for us to include sev- while Asal seeks to discover the spiritual meanings hidden within the dieral books from the Islamic vine law. While Salaman successfully philosophic tradition, and pursues a public life, Asal, preferring to include only one work as seclusion, repairs serendipitously to Hayy’s island. What do Hayy and Asal a sort of token would betray that tradition, since no single make of one another, as Hayy sought book can do justice to its rich- the divine without reference to any human traditions, and Asal sought divine ness and variety. through the study of the divine law?

In what ways are Hayy’s insights and practices preferable to Asal’s, or defective in respect of Asal’s? As the two discover that they seek the same divinity, and thus become friends, they wonder: should they dedicate themselves to the solitary, ascetic contemplation perfected by Hayy, or return to Asal’s native land and attempt to educate the faithful about the nature of the divinity and the path to human perfection? Is Hayy’s strange, asocial origin a perverse aberration, or even a lie (ibn Tufayl gives alternative versions), or does it signal the truth about human perfection?

The Program is far too crowded for us to include several books from the Islamic philosophic tradition, and to include only one work as a sort of token would betray that tradition, since no single book can do justice to its richness and variety, and it would betray the Program, since we choose books for their inherent wisdom rather than “to cover” historical or cultural epochs. Still, if we were to choose just one book from the Islamic philosophical tradition, Hayy would serve us best, for through the ambiguities of Hayy’s amusing story we are invited to view the religious tradition as critically and analytically as did Alfarabi, the most strident philosopher in the Islamic tradition, and to consider the satisfactions and the risks of mystical contemplation as deeply as did Alghazali, the most acute critic of Muslim philosophers such as Alfarabi. Moreover, Hayy does not belong to a foreign tradition at all inasmuch as one easily recognizes the footprints of Plato, Aristotle, and the neo-platonic philosophers on Hayy’s allegedly uninhabited island. In any case, if this delightful and deep book should never make the Program, you might consider it a worthy diversion should you find yourself this summer alone on a beach. !

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!"#$%& Mr. Timothy Schum For: Not attending best friend’s senior oral.

Last seen: Entering BBC to write Gadfly article. Article was never written.

Last wearing: Loincloth.

Reward: Milkshake at Ruth & Chicks.

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—Sometimes coming to understand has the feel of waking up and joining a conversation that has been in progress for a long time.

—Every generation must ask its own “eternal questions.”

The Gadfly

08

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Practically Stupid?

John Ropoulos

E

A’13

Practically Brilliant

ur school is marketed as an “intellectual” college; we read very Johnnie has been asked, “So what is it you’re studythe brilliant minds of the Western world, take a hands-on ing?” at least a dozen times. Our answers are varied, but approach to mathematics, science, language, and music, and often we resort to a simple one like, “The great books,” “Oh, we participate in conversations that few people outside of our just philosophy,” “A bunch of dead white guys,” or my favorite, little cult have the time or knowledge for. Still, there is some- “the history of Western civilization.” All of these answers— thing missing. and the question, for that matter—are irreverent.

Most of our endeavors at this college are “lofty”; we soar Studying, or “a detailed investigation and analysis of a subabove first impressions and build giant monoliths of thought ject,” is not what Johnnies are supposed to participate in. We so that the daily movements of our minds are focused on gran- are supposed to “experience” the thought of the author. diose objectives. Yet despite the fact that we dissect fish, we These two are different by virtue of their internalization. are afraid to get our hands dirty. We lack an inclination to Studying is cold and analytical. It is a process that implants practicality. “facts” and “ideas” into our minds for later use.

First, let’s think about how we eat. I’m not Experiencing is a combination of Plato’s recolIf you are not necessarily talking about all the hamburgers, lection and an unscientific experimentation. hotdogs, quesadillas, and fried food served in experiencing the Instead of storing “facts,” its job is to develop the dining hall (though food quality is a huge the framework of the mind anew by introductexts and authors’ problem). We should be concerned with where we get our food. We label ourselves as “indemodes of thought, ing modes of thought or avenues for intuition.

It is similar to lifting weights. When you study, pendent” thinkers, but we are very dependent making them your you take the same 10 lb. dumbbell and increase on outside food sources. The solution: food proown, then you are your amount of reps and do the same exercise duction. The College has enough land to build over and over again. But when you experience, greenhouses and enough students who would not actualizing you go to crossfit. be willing to participate in a work-study proyour full potential Freshmen, have you raged like Achilles? (I’m gram, where they learn how to grow their own not talking about partying here). Have you food. The food grown would offset dining hall to be a Johnnie. “played Socrates” with your family, friends, or expenses, making the meal plan cheaper and would have the added benefits of locally grown, fresh and townies? And by this I mean using the playful, investigative, nutritious stamped upon it. The world population is increas- and sometimes abusive method of that sage and getting to the ing rapidly, but food supplies are diminishing; wouldn’t these origin of someone’s thought. Go to a person and make him or little greenhouses be invaluable learning centers for students her your Meno, Polus, or Phaedrus. and attractive for prospective students? We don’t have to look Sophomores, have you gone out into the woods and tried too far for supporters either. Stringfellow Barr, in his book The talking to God, or have you poured tears asking for repenKitchen Garden Book (yes, it’s in the library), says this about tance? Have you examined your heart and loved your neighbor the garden: “It is at least a spot in space where man encounters as yourself? Meditated in search of the One? Have you written the Earth, where man may love and nourish her, and she may a song or practiced an instrument? Have you viewed life as a love and nourish him,” so why are we depriving ourselves of play? this rich educational opportunity?

Juniors, have you been the Knight Errant? Have you tackSecond, let’s talk about money. I’ll try to make this one led windmills, attacked bandits and ridden heavy steeds? Have simple. Let’s say that you receive a monthly salary of $10,000, you intuited your existence as a monad? Have you been as conwhat would you do with it? You could spend it all, or you could invest it. Take $2,000 of your salary and buy something that fident as Don Giovanni? Tell me about your a priori faculties generates $200 monthly. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but and whether they are bound by time and space. I would even now your salary has increased to $10,200, your investment ask you to count from 1 to 5, and if you can do that without heswill be paid off in 10 months, and you now have more capital itating, then perhaps you need to read your Dedekind again.

Seniors, how noble have you been? Have you worked in an for more investment.

So what about the College? Most of the money from tuition assembly line? Have you felt Reason to be a passion? Have you and donations from alumni is spent as soon as it arrives in our fallen in love? Are you Alyosha, Dimitri, Ivan, or all three? hands; it comes in one door and out the other. What do we Have you fought against the tyranny of the majority? Have you own? If we owned a business (a coffee shop, perhaps, that peo- “gone huntin”?

I ask these questions because if you are not experiencing ple actually enjoy eating at), we would have useable revenue.

I may be making a complicated issue sound simple, but maybe the texts and authors’ modes of thought, making them your it’s a simple problem: Need money? Purchase something that own, then you are not actualizing your full potential to be a generates money. Need money for investment? Get a loan. Johnnie. Nietzsche calls the new philosophers great attemptDon’t we read Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations here? ers; what have you attempted? The next time someone asks St. John’s College has a few problems that are easy to fix. you, “What are you studying?”, tell him or her, if you can, that All it takes is a little clever thinking to get around them. Could you don’t study, you experience. ! the real problem be fear? Perhaps we’re too conservative and think bad quality food from outside sources (that’s usually fried upon arrival) and a continual reliance on donations and tuition with the same financial problems over and over again is who we are. Buying a business or land for development: —To be denied elevated feelings is to be cut off from radical and liberal, not cohesive with the identity of St. John’s.

Wait, aren’t we a liberal arts college? deep thoughts.

P.S. One more thing on practicality: Why is there no Wi-Fi in most of the dorms and the Coffee Shop? !

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The Gadfly

09

Experiential Exegesis Katy Edwards

M

SF’13

y January freshman lab tutor once led us into a class- over, and I lost sense of my imagination working to go beyond room of dead cats. At the time, I was feeling pretty my own nature. The philosophic life eventually allowed me overwhelmed, and all I wanted was the comfort of my cat. to become my own Prospero, but that was a long journey. To Needless to say, the sight of the lab room did not help me feel use a metaphor, imagine walking through an art museum. At better. I fled the classroom in humiliated tears. When I re- some point you should come upon some well-known painting turned, my tutor began counseling our unskilled hands say- and primarily take in its totality. Just like succumbing to the ing, “I want you to dissect this cat like you were analyzing a artistic rhythm of a story, I would trust my eyes to compreShakespearean play.” In my mind, this was a perfect platform hend the whole picture while the tiny brushstrokes of poetic for a new philosopher to begin working with scientific rigor. wit were overlooked. I wasn’t necessarily starting my journey A strange realization was thrust upon my mind, and my hands at the wrong place. First, I had to acknowledge the frame the happily began their translation of fact artist chose to dance within, and then I into my naive ideas of beauty. This mocould hear the inevitable, historical conThe creative philosopher ment has stuck to me for many years, yet versation the author was having with requires a sense of beauty a large amount of curiosity still remains. humanity. As I sat in front of the picture, Why is literature such a necessary part my eyes would naturally find their own beyond logical deduction. of philosophic inquiry? What does litsmall strokes of truth. These unfiltered, One must feel the push of erature contribute to the philosopher’s understanding without com- almost meditative, discoveries of subjecapproach to a liberal arts education? tive beauty led to an unaware creation; plete certainty. While finding As a philosopher searches for truth by my work of art was something like a map the framework is the work of of relativity, an analytic path between defining all boundaries of logical reality, the philosopher, the coma work of literature artistically attempts the work’s logical totality and my own to highlight these boundaries and simunication of human experi- artistic understanding. A form of beauty multaneously push the reader into the was found in my private dialogue, and I ence belongs to the artist. chaos lying beyond acceptable bounds. acquired the most important tool in my I have often found my own academic trajectory focused on Johnnie career. I was able to analyze all the beautiful details idealized progress, but when I try to fit my own experience by applying my scalpel wherever I desired. I would proceed into the equation, a sort of societal claustrophobia takes hold to create my own collage within the historical enframing I first of my confined thoughts. To use a literary cliché, literature encountered. A disheveled visage usually appeared after my has always felt like a breath of fresh air here at St. John’s. Not passionate hands had worked to the point of exhaustion. I necessarily a warm, reassuring, summer breeze, but more like soon realized I needed a guidebook: my own experience. This a winter gust thrust upon the unsuspecting nerves of my ex- third step sounds simple, and perhaps a reader often applies posed skin. This sudden experience often melts my quixotic experience to a text before anything else, but for now let us pride and illuminates the flimsy frame of subjectivity. stick to the art museum metaphor. Just as one is drawn to the These incandescent moments in literature are not easily details of beauty in a great work of art, one must also take time found. Literature wears a mask as wily as our Odyssean hero, to separate the natural idea of beauty that resonates within holding vulnerability and truth where we least expect. When their being. This allows one to see what societal facts one acI was younger I believed a good story was defined by the hyp- cepts, eg., that deep blue pigment is probably made of azurite, notic hold the author fixed upon my eager thoughts. By fall- but also what subjective experience lingers in that monad of ing under the writer’s sorcery, my bold eyes became glazed personal beauty, such as the first moment I saw the deep blue of the Atlantic Ocean.

The creative philosopher requires a sense of beauty beyond logical deduction. One must feel the push of understanding without complete certainty. While finding the framework is —The real loss in the disappearance of God is the work of the philosopher, the communication of human that we no longer enjoy the luxury of believing experience belongs to the artist. As philosophers, the human that all things can be understood and that each condition should be sweet honey for our wormwood of logic. has a purpose. God took with him some of the Nietzche says that as artists we must float betwixt the cliffs secrets as well as the telos. We are left with a of rocky history and the unknown abyss. This is only achievworld badly understood and without purpose, able in the philosophical portrait of an artist. So remember, Johnnies: artistic talent lies in the balance of academic fact but ours. and personal truth. This gives us so much more than an ana—When young we envy the good fortune of othtomical diagram of a cat. A beautiful tempest can be born even within the realm of scientific fact. All it requires is the ardor of ers; when old we envy their virtue. a philosopher with an eye for beauty. !

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The Gadfly

10

!"#$%&'()*#$)+$,'-$ ./$%'#*#/-$!.0#*1$ !"#$%&'()*'+#$,-$./$0#/1#/ Daniela Lobo Dias

S

A’13

!"#$%& Sultan Çınar Doruk For: Stealing feta cheese from Greek peasants.

Last seen: Pumping

ome weeks ago at the Hirshhorn Museum in D.C., I saw Ai iron, glistening in sweat.

Weiwei’s exhibit “According to What?” and its impact on my mind has not yet fizzled out. Since walking out of the exLast wearing: Nothing. hibit, the question, “What kind of art is this?” has only gained intensity and gravity—alas, without much progress.

Reward: $50 gift card to Ai Weiwei’s exhibit at first glance could easily lead to the Hot Topic. usual modern art reaction, “It’s interesting, but I don’t get it.”

But like any great thing, with time and effort you are brought to new ideas never formed in your mind before. The exhibit was organized linearly on a broad hallway, and scattered over soon as the vases’ historical context was imposed on its identithe floor space were large three-dimensional pieces. I’ll focus ty, they gained power over my actions and thoughts. Had there on one that led me to a particularly enjoyable thought process: been a fire, I just might have tried to save one of them for the The Colored Vases. sake of preserving history.

I happened upon this piece unceremoniously, but I soon And thus we come to the impasse: What is the purpose of realized its terrible importance. Since the short and wide in- history in our present lives? Should we disregard history and stallation took up most of the hallway’s walking space, it was use it for the benefit of the present, regardless of destructive unavoidable that I had to choose a way to walk around it, right consequences, or should we worship and preserve it even if it or left. The disruption of the straight walking path was won- has nothing to teach the present—simply for the sake of perderfully appropriate, as the impasse and questions that were petuity? brought to light by this piece were just as unavoidable as its Just as I had to choose right or left to continue past this inplacement. stallation, I had to choose my stance on this issue. By invoking There were 16 simple vases, varying around a height of immediate anger or indifference in his audience, Ai Weiwei about two feet. It seemed they had been dipped like Easter also made the question of the importance of history immeeggs into some average house paints diately present, and the answer was in and that they were half-haphazardly left Contemporary art, unlike that your reaction. So Ai Weiwei begs his to drip and dry. The colors were pleasaudience to make an active decision, to of the past, is not an ideal of ant and various, and it was enjoyable be angry or to be indifferent, and to then maybe beauty or tradition, enough to glance at. But as soon as I read act on that path, since there is no middle but a commentary and a con- path, literally. He wants to rouse people its nameplate and description, a spark versation on the present. of indignation furrowed my brows and from ambivalence and ambiguity. my mouth opened to protest. These vasBy representing a question in the es were from the Han Dynasty and were over two thousand form of artwork, the above dialogue happened within my own years old. ANCIENT CHINESE ARTIFACTS COVERED IN mind. Through the necessity of having to internalize the imCHEAP PAINT. How dare he? How dare some artist destroy age, the piece made me personally experience what was at and ruin these testaments of human existence and ancient art- stake, making the question relatable and understandable in my istry? He has desecrated and disrespected their value by join- own words. By reaching inside my heart to my personal emoing them with the cheapness of the present. tions, I had no time to think and be lost in ambivalence.

However, the minute before, these vases had no use or imWe now return to my first question, “What kind of art is portance to me. They were objects with no emotional value, this?” The rest of his pieces were also comments on socialand I might have passed them just I would have passed a pret- political issues, and they also begged the audience to actively ty stone that caught my attention on the ground. The vases choose a side. Ai Weiwei has stated, “The so-called contemthemselves were not striking in shape, similar to vases I would porary art is not a form but a philosophy of society.” Contemsee any day of the week, and they were not beautifully made. porary art, unlike that of the past, is not an ideal of, maybe, They were unadorned and showed no particular genius. As an beauty or tradition, but a commentary and a conversation on artist, I can’t imagine there to be any special new method or the present. Perhaps this type of art has sprung from the need inspiration to be learned from their form. The paint actually of originality, that the beautiful things have already been cremade the grey and beige surfaces fun and pleasant to look at. I ated, and we have already dissected every aspect of shape and noticed that other observers seemed not to have been angered color through the moderns. All that’s left for the artist to exat all by the background knowledge. plore is the present. Is commentary-driven art cheap, and less The only thing that made them special was their age. As epic than art that was created for beauty’s sake? !

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The Gadfly

11

!"#$%&'()*(%!"#$%&'()*(#&%+,Alex Schmid

T

GI’12

humos, Plato’s noble beast—at one time the lion made to say, if one agrees with Aquinas that the will, or one’s spirited fight the infinite heads of the hydra of passion (Republic nature, may be directed towards a more noble goal than one’s Bk. IV 443D), another time described as a noble, chaste horse intellect, nous, though by nature it is not nobler, the proper made to run alongside the ignoble and opprobrious horse of role of thumos is to aid in the completion of any conscious or base desire (Phaedrus 246a - 254e). Its seat, often the phren, rational human endeavor. Great. is according to some authors around the heart, according to What, then, does it mean for the thumos to have motive other more ancient authors, the lungs—but its being near the force? This simply means that the thumos is necessary for diaphragm will likely do this aspect of the every possible conscious or unconscious soul, this spirited part of Man, justice. human action, because it is the motor by Thumos is universal, and it is recogThe thumos is necessary for which the vehicle moves. Which master, nized the world over—whether one finds then, this lion-horse-motor serves beevery possible conscious or comes very important if one is to successit in Plato’s tripartite soul or in Francis Fuunconscious human action, fully accomplish any task. For though kuyama’s analysis of “megalothymos” affecting world events, or whether one very thumos is properly subjected to nous, because it is the motor by briefly studies the chakras of kundalini how many of us know just how often a which the vehicle moves. yoga and finds it lurking somewhere betool is misappropriated and misused? tween the anahata and hridaya chakras (I How often do the base appetites win personally prefer to locate it within anahata, which Wikipe- over our Geryon-like lion-faced horse-motor (monster truck dia will be quick to tell you means “unbeaten” in Sanskrit.). made from monster trucks?)? Often. Very often. One need All this brief historico-physico exposition (gobbledy-gook) not even use overly serious and hyperbolic examples. I could, I have spewed for the first hundred and fifty words goes to say, mention something so simple as choosing to implement show that thumos, or spiritedness, is a motive force of the hu- a general tool, of monstrous size, in order to accommodate man soul necessary for the completion of willful human ac- an imagined majority of blurry-faced supporters in service tion—and is recognized as such from East to West. That is to of a youthful desire for acceptance and recognition. Clearly, such an action lacks reason and reflection, good-natured as it seems, but such chimeras are birthed every day when thumos is not properly trained.

How, then, do we train the thumos? I suppose I could agree ! John Ropoulos, A’13 with Plato (and I do) that very difficult actions must be done: !"#$%&'($)*$+,$-./0"1'(%2$30)45$%)00"/6 gymnastics and wrestling and music playing: hell, add anything difficult and potentially embarrassing when first begun 78)*$8'1-9$3-(-)*8$*8)*$9+'&5:$;$8'1-$*""$<)*2 that requires difficult manipulation of the body in subjection =),$)(1$4)&->&--2$0'5-$)$48'01?9$%)00"/6 to some form of motion. These difficult endeavors are pre@#3'0-2$&-12$4")&9-$8)'&9$94&-)+2$AB0-)9-CD$0'5-$)$ cisely effective in that they alter the motion and form of the body—and thus the soul (if some pre-post-pre-modern mind 4"&9)'&?92$1-45$&)*6 even believes in such archaic notions). They mold one and move one towards the telos of beautiful moving; and as movE?00$3#'01$,"#$)$+"(#+-(*$">$/)45-1$9("F2 ing is an action, they often enough mold one’s form or being B0)4-$)$G-9*)0$E/8'%-(')$"( into something beautiful. And these actions are hard to learn, to practice, and to endure. Really fucking hard. Aristotle sugH8'9$%&""+-12$F8'*-$)0*)&I$)$>&-98$30""1J3&""1$1"-6 gests, though, if this gives us some solace, that precisely be7'*8$+,$&#9*,2$K)%%-1$-1%-2$F)&+$4&'+9"(2$1&"/9$)*$ cause something is hard is it excellent in that way. This feels 1)F(6 right. And this will allow one to perform difficult actions on a daily basis outside of the gym or practice room, like asking out a girl or guy one likes, telling off “that guy,” asking for a raise— H8)*$9*-)+L*8)*$4"(1-(9-9$"($+,$8"*$8)(192 making any move, really. I mean, game over if you have a lionH8)*$9*&-)+L">$,"#&$94)01'(%$9*&-(%*82$94&-)+9$ motored, horse-footed monster truck on your side, right? !

“

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!"#$%&'( —To be serious about self-knowledge means being bold and willful enough to embrace dark times as rare opportunities. Some parts of the soul are like cockroaches: they come out only at night.

—How often do we read in order to save ourselves the trouble of thinking?

The Gadfly

12

!"##$%&'()&*+(,$-.+//0&12$&!34$%5"%&!4"%-6 Boethius Fontaine

W

hich is the superior sport, soccer or basketball? It is basketball. Does this question matter? Yes, it does. Is it even possible to differentiate the moral qualities of the two sports? Yes, it is. More importantly, do we have the courage to do so? Yes, we do, and we will.

A casual analysis would note several similarities. Each sport has a predetermined number of participants per side, the length of each contest is governed by a clock, and each gives the player te opportunity to perfect his thespian skills as he writhes in pain attempting to deceive the official into calling a foul (though soccer players are especially duplicitous in this regard).

The more fascinating differences involve which sport is the nobler—which is to say, the more spiritual. In this respect, basketball is clearly the superior endeavor for the human soul.

Soccer, ironically called “The Beautiful Game” by some, is of the earth. Players are obliged to cast their gazes downward at the staccato, lurching movements of each other’s inelegant feet. Basketball aspires for the Eternal as participants reach for heaven, fluidly propelling their bodies and souls ever upward. The basketball players’ arms are open and outstretched, ready to offer gifts to the Creator in the form of shots released, while receiving heaven’s bounty in the form of rebounds. Soccer players’ arms hang impotently at their sides, reacting to the action, but not affecting it. One wonders if the writer of Ecclesiastes had soccer players’ arms in mind when he declared, “...all is meaningless, a grasping at the wind.” Is it any wonder that soccer appeals to communist countries while basketball originated in the Land of the Free and the Home of Larry Bird?

Furthermore, soccer is a stingy sport, yielding two or three goals in a typical game. Basketball is generous and inclusive— everyone shoots, everyone can score and, ipso facto, attain prosperity unto holiness. Or is it holiness unto prosperity?

I’m not sure.

Aristocratic soccer bestows one player special privileges:

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a “keeper” who uses his hands to prevent otherwise worthy shots from entering the goal.

This is inglorious.

In egalitarian basketball, “goaltending” is properly recognized as a crime that is legislated against and swiftly penalized.

The physical action of basketball is closer, geographically and theologically, to the heart and mind of its practitioners.

The only time the action in soccer approaches the Last seen: circumnavigating heart and mind the Fishbowl. is when the ball strikes the player with great vioLast wearing: Red and green lence in the head dashiki with a Santa Clause or chest. Photos hat of soccer players “heading” the ball clearly show facial expressions rife with existential angst.

Oh wretched peril! Conversely, when a basketball comes in contact with a player’s foot, play is immediately stopped and Grace restored.

When this world passes away and paradise reigns again on the earth, I doubt you’ll see a single soccer ball in the New Jerusalem. Until that day, we must proceed from one evolutionary step to the next. As you learn to walk erect, you switch to basketball. !

!"##"$%

Mr. Palmer McMath

!"#$%&'( —The Worse Sin. Take a moment to imagine the worst sin you can, yours or another’s, actual or not. ... Have you done so? Let me whisper in your ear one that is worse: doing it the second time.

—We ought to forget small transgressions, not forgive them. Job cannot understand Yahweh until he is convinced that Yahweh has forgotten his sins— and forgotten him as well.

—Anticipation makes everything worse. Pleasures are greater and pains less when they take us by surprise.