The Odyssey, by Homer. Translated by Joe Sachs, Paul Dry Books, 2014 An excerpt from the Introduction I have never met a translation of the Odyssey I didn’t like. There are verse translations that march in boots (Richmond Lattimore) or amble along in sensible shoes (Albert Cook), or glide (Ennis Rees) or dance (Allen Mandelbaum) or [...]
What happens when one mixes science and poetry in the way that Timaeus does? What can we learn from this strange mix? My intention is to place before us some important themes that connect poetry and science. She was the single artificer of the world In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea, [...]
This is what Courage means to Socrates: It is descriptively distinct from and essentially identical with all the virtues. For us this “paradoxical” outcome sets a task—we are to figure out how it might become intelligible. Euripides, it is reported, was “Socrato-nailed-down” (σωκρατογόμφους) – that is, patched up, bolted together, by Socrates.1 I understand this term [...]
Each great teacher locates the fundamental problem of human living differently: The Buddha cites suffering; Socrates points to ignorance; and Jesus identifies faulty love. In addition, all three Masters teach that the task set for each human soul is to travel from illusion to reality. Unlike the Age of Faith, in Postmodernity, or more accurately [...]
James Madison's "Memorial and Remonstrance" is in truth among the finest of those works of republican rhetoric in which one finds an adroit enunciation of liberty. The document entitled “To the Honorable the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, A Memorial and Remonstrance” is a jewel of republican rhetoric.[1] Nor has this choice example [...]
Great books introduce us to ideas and to ways of looking at the world that are new to us. They provide a refreshing distance from the trends, fashions, tastes, opinions, and political correctness of our current culture. Great books invite us to put aside for a while our way of looking at the world and [...]
The demise of imitation has been devastating for personal growth. It used to be a commonplace that successful people need to have extraordinary “heroes” whom they admire and try to emulate. But the historical disciplines in the twentieth century waged something of a war against the very idea of the hero. Imitation, like so many [...]
The letters of the alphabet, strung together in cogent meaning, might be best thought of, not as means to an end, but as an end in and of themselves—a living, incarnated creativity that encourages relationship. And I like to consider speech, in all its forms, as love letters. My youngest child, just nearing his seventh [...]
The figure of the universally benevolent man seems in many circles to have taken a back seat to the stunted, self-centered Economic Man. We ought to ask ourselves: Are we losing a nuanced sense of self-interest rightly understood? I have been reminiscing a lot lately, probably a sign of my age. But I recently came to [...]
The chief public benefit of liberal education is the formation of a particular kind of person, a particular kind of citizen, who robustly embodies the virtues of both inquiry and membership, and therefore is equipped for the truth-seeking deliberation and responsible action that a republican form of government requires. If we are to make any [...]
Fairness is an acknowledgement of just desserts, and therefore implies equality in dealings with similarly entitled partners. So it is indeed equality adjusted to circumstances that I desire. Thus there is an intimation that equality will come into play when justice is administered communally. Regarding the title: 1. The question mark expresses a genuine perplexity [...]
My first and last care is not politics but education. Education seems to me inherently conservative, being the transmission, and thus the saving, of a tradition’s treasures of fiction and thought. But education is also inherently imaginative. Author’s Note: I wish to dedicate this essay to a writer of books whose greatness is at once [...]
The “Eumenides” is not a tragedy of the unresolvable impasse, of the unavoidable fatality. It is a “pragma,” an affair practically handled, whose outcome is not all-round cleansing by devastation, but a future of good daily living. Aeschylus invests this drama of sweet reason, of moderation triumphant, with exhilarating solemnity and participatory splendor. Aeschylus’ Eumenides is [...]
It is the task of the wise ruler to seek to transform the city based on force into one based on speech (if only on myths and noble lies). This is no different for a founder of a community of discourse than for a founder of cities. This is the primary task of the first [...]