Wednesday, March 31, 2004

Speaking of writing, here's a great piece by Terry Teachout from his arts blog About Last Night. He describes the hard craft of writing a 40,000 word biography of George Balanchine.

Quote Worth Clipping:

"It didn’t surprise me that I had to leave so many things out. What surprised me was how much I was able to put in, and how many of the techniques I used in writing The Skeptic [his biography of H.L. Mencken] were equally useful in writing All in the Dances. Both books are built around scenes and portraits, though most of the "scenes" in All in the Dances deal not with events in Balanchine’s life but with the premieres of the Balanchine ballets I singled out for description and criticism. Conversely, I used the portraits—of Serge Diaghilev, Igor Stravinsky, Lincoln Kirstein, Jerome Robbins, Tanaquil Le Clercq, and Suzanne Farrell, the six most important people in Balanchine’s life—to keep the narrative moving forward."

Great stuff. You can see inside the craft of writing by reading the whole thing.
More on Cooke

I don't particularly want to turn this into the Official Alistair Cooke Website, but his passing is of a genuine interest to me. For one thing, he is a breath of another era. He worked on a screenplay with Charlie Chaplin; he befriended H.L. Mencken; he reported from London for NBC on Edward VIII's abdication; and all of this was just in the 1930's. And he was a great writer.

Anne Applebaum, who I admire very much as a thinker and a writer, is partly correct in her column in today's Washington Post about the strange double-image of Cooke, English to the Americans, a psuedo-Brit to the British. And she is quite good on how the aura of Alistair Cooke on Masterpiece Theater still influences the way that educated Americans view Britain, no matter what the actual place is like. She writes:

"Good evening, I'm Alistair Cooke, and this is 'Masterpiece Theater.' "

It was a Sunday evening in the mid-1970s. In Britain there were miners' strikes, blackouts, and weeks without garbage collection. Sterling had collapsed, or was about to. Punk rock was in its early adolescence. The nation was gripped by post-imperial depression, and obsessed with its own decline. But within the little square box that Alistair Cooke inhabited while he introduced the latest BBC costume drama -- "Upstairs, Downstairs" or the "Forsyte Saga" or, later, the beloved "Brideshead Revisited" -- Britain appeared unchanged since its Edwardian heyday. Cooke always sat on the same sort of high-backed armchair, and always wore the same sort of neat gray suit. He spoke slowly -- what was the rush? -- and kept his hands neatly folded in his lap. He was, in other words, just what we wanted an Englishman to be, and I have no doubt that he knew it.


But I think she goes a bit far when she says that he did "a peculiar disservice" by showing a old-style England to Americans, and a genial and quaint America to the English. He wasn't really that simplistic, at least not as I heard him in the last four years of his life. And by all the accounts and scripts I've read, he was never that simplistic in the first fifty-four years of his career, either.

Applebaum also doesn't mention, or doesn't appreciate, what an exquisite literary stylist Cooke was. Fortunately the New York Times and Daily Telegraph writers do, and in their obituaries make clear just what a consumate craftsman the old pro could be at his best. Speaking of style, the Telegraph obituary is one of the classics of the genre; I really wish that the Washington Post would start copying them, for goodness knows that every day someone dies in the Washington, DC area or in the United States who is more than worthy of the Telegraph treatment. The Times has not so much an obituary, with rolling, sonorous, lingering prose rythyms and melodies, as a profile of the deceased. But it's great.

A tidbit from the Telegraph:

"Here [in the United States]," [Cooke] said, "they think I'm an old English gent, and in England they think I'm a sort of enlightened American."

The key to this dual identity was Cooke's voice, instantly identifiable, easy on the ear, betraying nothing, acceptable to all. And the voice originated, like his infatuation with America, as a brilliant young man's escape from what, in a rare unguarded moment, he once described as "the snobbery and seediness of English life".


And, with the last word, here is Cooke quoted in the Times on the hard work of writing:

In an interview with The New York Times earlier this month, Mr. Cooke reminisced about his long career, especially "Letter From America," and the discipline he imposed on it.

"I would pick my topic on Monday and spend the day researching it," he said. "On Tuesday I'd type two or two and a half pages, all my arthritis would allow me. I'd type the rest, another three pages, on Wednesday, 1,700 words total ? 13 minutes 30 seconds air time.

"Then I'd beat the hell out of it, getting rid of all the adverbs, all the adjectives, all the hackneyed words. Do you know what Mark Twain said about the perfect word? The difference between a perfect word and a near-perfect word is like the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."


Go forth and do likewise.
Soros Attacked; Suspects Plot

Two Ukranian thugs (should I put that in scare quotes? No, we're not the BBC) assaulted financier, deep thinker and international busybody George Soros in Kiev, with a salvo of glue. The money quote: Soros said he doubted it was just an ordinary incident. "Somebody is behind this," he was quoted as saying by Interfax.

Well, duh, George. Sort of like that time someone hedged the pound in the early 90's; there was someone behind that, as well. Or like that group that met in a Hampton's mansion to figure out how to defeat Bush in 2004. They're behind something, too!

Moral: Those who beget conspiracies always see conspiracies. [Lector: And usually they're right! Auctor: That is a subject for another time.]
Jack, John, and Dr. Donne

Today is the traditional day for remembering the life of the versatile and brilliant John Donne. (1572-1631). There is much that could be said about Donne's work and life, but I have neither the time nor the talent to take on the topic, and your time would be much better spent reading his work anyway.

Or even better, listen to Richard Burton read it.

Tuesday, March 30, 2004

Dr. Potomac's Memo

Dr. Potomac would like to connect two important dots today. Dot number 1 is the new Time/CNN/USA Today poll showing, miraculously, that President Bush has actually begun to put some daylight between himself and JFK. When considered in the context of a year of active Bush-bashing by Democrat presidential aspirants this is startling enough. Dot number 2, the 9/11 Commission Hearings, is what makes these results truly astounding.

The Time/CNN/USA Today poll was conducted following Richard Clarke's testimony to the Commission, and the accompanying breathless media frenzy, claiming that President Bush and his staff had paid insufficient attention to the terrorist problem in the early months of the Bush presidency. The Bush team probably expected a dip and Dr. Potomac certainly did yet, inexplicably, Bush continues to rise. (By the way, the rule of thumb is that any incumbent over 50 percent is in excellent shape for re-election.)

What lesson can we draw from this state of affairs? The Democrats are wasting their breath on the Richard Clarke story. In fact, they are making a frontal assault on the redoubt of Bush's strongest political characteristic, his leadership in the war on terrorism. This is akin to Republicans attempting to make the public believe that Bill Clinton was a phony. Now, Dr. Potomac happens to believe Bill Clinton was a phony and that he needed to be exposed but he also learned the perils of going up against deeply settled public opinion. The peril of this way of thinking is that those engaged in the fruitless quest tend to double down on their bets. The public, the argument goes inside the hot-house, can't be that stupid. They will eventually see this guy for the charlatan that we, in the humid climes of our political environment, know he is already. When this hoped for "Damascus road" experience doesn't occur to the electorate, the prosecuting party gets, dare we say it, haughty. "The voters are so dumb," they say, "they deserve what they get." Yes, to coin a phrase, been there, done that. It is a wrenching experience to come up against the hard fact that, as much as we want something to be, it just ain't so. The Democrats, God bless them, are in the process of learning this lesson the hard and costly way.
Did you catch the Cavett Show?

Monday night after teaching, I came home and, armed with a glass of wine, turned on the television. On C-Span, I found this fascinating broadcast of the Dick Cavett Show from June 30, 1971. This piqued my interest for two reasons. First, I was one day old on June 30, 1971. Second, the guests were two spokesmen for Vietnam Veterans' groups: John O'Neill for Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace, and one John Kerry for Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

Kerry sounded more Bostonian-Harvard than ever, much more so than the Americanese he speaks today. O'Neill, looking rather like Tom Wolfe in a white linen suit, backed the Nixon policy of Vietnamization and warned ominously that if the US abruptly pulled out and cut ties with South Vietnam, a bloodbath would ensue as the North descended on its vulnerable pro-American enemy. Kerry discounted the worry, seeing no evidence the North would do such a thing, urging withdrawl ASAP.

Two things struck me. Kerry was appallingly wrong on the result of an American pullout, ignoring the history of North Vietnamese actions back to the 1950s (200,000 died in mass executions of political enemies from 1954 to 1956, to say nothing of the terrorism in the South from 1956 on). One wonders if Kerry was ashamed of his naivete looking on events like the Killing Fields between 1975 and 1980. Somehow I doubt it. Does it disturb anyone (he asks rhetorically) that John Kerry, extrapolating military and diplomatic facts from a four month tour of duty, shamefully misjudged the Vietnam War and the historical precedents hinting at what would happen after US and RSV defeat? Based on such enormous misjudgments and ignorance of history, why should we trust him today as he accuses President Bush of being wrong on Iraq?

Where is John O'Neill today? Apparently he is an attorney living in Texas and keeps out of contemporary politics. In fact, he distanced himself from politics after the fall of Saigon in 1975, disgusted at that result. But this man needs to speak out. A profile of O'Neill, perhaps titled "The Other Vietnam Vet," would be enormously useful in clearing the air about the War and Kerry's take. He spoke out in 1971 to discredit Kerry the first time, and he needs to speak out in 2004 to discredit Kerry's perspective again. The stakes are high.

Frank Luntz and his merry pollsters should study the repercussions of a new Bush ad that shows clips of Kerry's Vietnam statements on the Cavett Show, and then juxtaposes clips of the Killing Fields and statistics of the dead under dictatorial communist Vietnam.

John Kerry: Wrong on Vietnam, Wrong on Iraq, Wrong for America

Oh yeah.

Military Matters

I was deep into a sharp but fair review of Stanley P. Hirshon's biography Patton: A Soldier's Life before I noted that it was written by Victor Davis Hanson. Considering that Hanson has praised Patton in extravagant terms in his own work, I thought his criticisms were remarkably nuanced. He praises Hirshon's mastery of the Patton archives, and says that the book will be a "valuable storehouse" for future students of Patton. But that's about all the good things he can say. Essentially he charges Hirshon for neglecting the fact that Patton was a soldier.

Yet the deepest problem with A Soldier's Life is that it really is not a soldier's life. One could make the argument that on key occasions—the approach to Brest, the closing of the Falaise Gap, the crossing of the Seine River, the August race to the Siegfried Line, the initial desire to go much deeper to the rear of the Bulge, and the decision to stop before Prague—thousands of lives might have been saved had superiors ceded to Patton's judgment. Such controversial and monumental decisions affected an entire theater; yet they warrant only a few pages in Hirshson's account and are overshadowed by stories of Patton's purported liaisons, insensitive language, and blinkered class biases. In lieu of in-depth military analysis, we get a few extended quotations from Chester Wilmot, B.H. Liddell Hart, and S.L.A. Marshall—none of whom is known for consistency, fairness, or sympathy to Patton.

This could be taken out of an academic paper of Hanson's I remember, in which he charges military historians of recent times of neglecting the grind and plod of battle as the primary means to understand the soldiers or commanders whom they purport to chronicle. After all, the only reason Hirshon decided to study Patton was because he was a famous general. (I should add, by the way, that Hanson doesn't deny Patton's liasons, language, or class biases. As for Patton's racism and classism, he seems to be pretty well described by Alistair Cooke's description of H.L. Mencken: "He disliked all sorts of groups on principle, but was prepared to put aside all prejudices when meeting with an individual." Something like that.)

I thought of Patton when reading a little comment on Strategypage.com about the Pakistani offensive into the border regions. By assaulting al Quaeda, the Pakistani's have forced them to use their radios and satellite phones; combat and movement forces them to use insecure means of communication. This means they can be tracked, that signals intelligence can be picked up from their conversations and reports, and that cell phone calls to terrorist cells in Pakistani can be walked back to those terrorist cells. Things happen when you press hard in an offensive, and Patton of course knew this well. It was the "Soldier's General" who believed in slow, cautious, frontal assaults...which, oddly enough, means that he lost more men.
Alistair Cooke, RIP

Here's the notice of his death in the Torygraph; not the official obituary, mind. And here's the Letter from America page on the BBC website, which is filled with stuff. My favorite is the program from 1977 where he remembers Groucho Marx and Bing Crosby. It turns out that Groucho really did talk as he did in the movies.

Here Cooke describes lunch with Groucho:

When the meal was almost over and the waiter came to take the dessert order he stumbled several times over who was having what.

Finally he said: "Four eclairs and four - no, no - four eclairs and two coffees, I think."

And Groucho whipped in with: "Four eclairs and two coffees ago, our forefathers brought forth on this continent a nation dedica... Skip the rhetoric and bring the dessert."

Monday, March 29, 2004

Authority Strikes Back

My dear Jennifer, Esq.:

A splendid retort, with that feisty family edge I have come to know so well from being flailed repeatedly by brother and sister. So many scars. Several things to clear up the fog:

1.) You say your respect for me as a Doctor of Philosophy ends once I leave the grounds of the academy. At that point, I lose any and all authority I have "because, to put it bluntly, outside the scope of the academy, you have no authority besides that of your character." If by that you mean I cannot tell you to write me an essay, you are quite correct. If by that you mean I am no longer an authority on certain things, you are quite incorrect. Further, and this seems to be the crux of our very civil disagreement, you seem to be saying that because I am an authority on certain things (out of the ordinary from others) this carries no social meaning. Extra-ordinary expertise gives me no expectation of greater respect in the wider community, and Ph.D.s and ditch diggers mingle together in cocktail parties. Doctors leave hospitals as doctors, doctors leave campuses as misters and misses. Medical knowledge goes a long way; it stretches from work to the house. Humanities are left on my desk.

But this is certainly incorrect and contrary to normal practice. Plenty of academics are revered outside the gated walls for their wit and wisdom, are shown a great deal of respect in social settings, and have every right (based on expertise and accomplishment) to expect some degree of deference and respect based on their unique position. I can hear you now, growling about expecting people to come on bended knee, but that is certainly not the point here. Manners and courtesy would seem to demand a respect for others' accomplishments and for their standing in the community relative to others. Arthur Schleisinger may introduce himself at parties as "Arthur," but certainly when being introduced by others at that party they say, "this is Doctor Schleisinger." Then, if he chooses, he waves off the "Doctor" and says, "call me Arthur." Seems harmless.

Thus, I disagree with the strange calculus of the limited social authority of Ph.D.s. It seems (a.) silly in its inconsistency and petty egalitarianism, and (b.) contrary to normal practice. I defer to you on the law, you defer to me on, well, Jacksonian America. Or something like that.

(2.) You say: "In American society, were I a ditch digger and you an academic, within our generations we are still social equals. For you to presume authority over me solely by virtue of your education would be most offensive and quite wrong." First of all what have I done, merely by introducing myself as a doctor, to offend you? I did not say, "I'm Doctor Curmudgeon, and I am brilliant." You assume the use of the title infers egotistic motives (Dr. X, what have you done?), that there is a subtext to my introduction, when I could be merely expressing a reality (I am a doctor) and am quite a humble person. Socrates said (paraphrasing here) the wise man knows there is so much more to learn, that despite all his accomplishments the known was dwarfed by the unknown. I have made no hubristic pronouncements about my superiority. I know what I know, and seek to know what I do not. It is possible to think of oneself as (heaven forfend the self-centeredness) a doctor and be humble.

It is your use of "offensive" that sticks with me, with all its moral implications of wrong-doing and shame. You almost look upon the title as a weapon used in social circumstances to humble the peons.

(3.) The "egregious Dr. X" has certainly spoiled your opinion of non-medical Ph.D.s, that if you've seen one you've seen them all. Or at least to guard against other "Dr. X's" (ie. prospective bus wavers) lessen their social status relative to medical doctors.

(4.) Since I am at work currently, I cannot refer to my 1940 book of etiquette, but I will do so later tonight and reference any further mentions of non-medical doctors in social settings. As to what I quoted you earlier: Assistant professors and instructors are always addressed as 'Mr.' Full professors are addressed as 'Professor' in the vicinity of the college or whenever they are engaged in educational work elsewhere. Otherwise they too are given the title 'Mr.' The title 'Doctor' should be carefully reserved and used only in addressing persons who hold a doctor's degree. Your "close reading" ( I am guessing here) sticks on the "educational work elsewhere" phrase, seeing "elsewhere" as a social setting. Note however where it comes in the reading, directly before addressing doctors, not after. Why wasn't it before? Perhaps because doctors are different from misters?

(5.) And finally (phew), regarding the Molnar quote (and it is Doctor Molnar, by the way -- sheesh, what do you think this is a cocktail party or something?), you bend a bit. You now give social standing to elders -- how much older do I have to be, by the way? If I was a fifty-year old Ph.D. historian, would you still consider me a pretentious twit if I introduced myself as doctor? Somehow I think so. Molnar seeks to bolster respect for authority he sees dwindling in the post-1968 West, where no one respects traditional social roles and the healthy, historically-proven authority they bring for social functioning: fathers and mothers, teachers and professors (oops, doctors), generals and politicians, priests, nuns, and ministers. Both of you see the same problem ("we cannot tell merit from the lack of it") and go in opposite directions. Dr. Molnar gives the benefit of the doubt to a person's social role and assigns authority to their position; you take nothing for granted and, at least in those of the same generation, demand social equality so nasty Dr. X's are exposed. He attempts to save social authority despite abuses, you attempt to destroy it because of abuses. Not all authority is earned, not should it be.

I should mention in closing that I have not done what I am arguing for, fearing the lash of Jennifers out there on the watch for social pretentiousness. All I want to do is poke and prod this a bit, to see what's at the heart of our prejudices here.

My undying respect for your patience and wit,

Doctor Curmudgeon

PS: At Georgetown parties, is Condi Rice introduced to fellow revelers as "Dr. Rice" or "Mrs. Rice?" Just wondering.
Authority's Place

My dear Michael:

I fear that despite my liberal sprinkling of the world "socially" or in "social situations" throughout my original post, my example of "Dr. X." grabbed your attention and undermined the thrust of my argument. I apologize for the slip shod nature of this example and will clarify my position.

No one, dear Michael, is more sympathetic to your plight within the academy than I, and I fervently support your position. Students should address you as "Professor" or "Doctor" within the walls of the academy. That is a professional situation, in which the use of the title correct and the use of a professor's given name is not, and I assure you I never presumed to call a Professor by his or her first name, but always referenced them by a proper title.

My position, and if I may be so bold as to presume Miss Manners' position, dear sir, do not apply to the realm of the professional. They apply to the realm of the social. While your students should be required to call you "Doctor", I should not. Were I to meet you socially, having not met you before, it would be incorrect for you to introduce yourself to me as "Dr C". Rather as I extend my hand and say I am Miss X, you should, as shake my hand, introduce yourself as "Mr. C." This is because, to put it bluntly, outside the scope of the academy, you have no authority besides that of your character. To quote the poet Burns, "the rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that." In American society, were I a ditch digger and you an academic, within our generations we are still social equals. For you to presume authority over me solely by virtue of your education would be most offensive and quite wrong.

This is what happened with the egregious Dr. X. It was quite correct for students at the high school to call him Dr. X. That is the proper deference due to authority within the academy, but what was quite incorrect was that he introduced himself as "Dr. X" in social situations. This was most improper, and this is what opened him to the overall ridicule of the community when they found out the nature of his doctorate. A valuable lessons actually, for for his temerity in introducing himself as "Dr. X", he received not the respect he craved, but rather ridicule. The field of Manners is indeed a bloody one.

Your suggestion that Miss Manners' etiquette was acquired in the post 1960's era leaves me reeling for the fainting couch and calling for the smelling salts. To suggest that I acquired my knowledge of etiquette from post 1960's manners is offensive, but forgivable, but to cast such aspersions upon Miss Manners, a lady of refined Victorian manners who is also your elder, is truly the frozen limit. When she says that the title "Dr" is only to be used socially by medical professionals, she is referring to a line of etiquette that extends far back beyond the 1940's. If you had given a close reading to the passage you cite from your etiquette book, I think you would find that it refers to professional usage and not social. I suspect that if you read further within what is certain to be a delightful text, you would find it agrees with us on the use of such a title in social situations.

Certainly your charming quote from dear Mr. Molnar does. It is precisely because "we cannot tell merit from the lack of it in normal social relations" that when we meet as people of the same generation, we meet as equals, because in the context of my life your function, rank, role, and representivity as a Ph. D. has no standing. Were you outside of my generation, your representivity as my elder, or mine as yours, would have standing. Were you President of the United States, your rank would have standing. Were you a medical doctor, your role would have standing, because you might in fact be able to perform an emergency tracheotomy on me should that be necessary. But just as it is completely inconsequential to our social interaction that I am a lawyer, it is completely inconsequential to our social interaction that you have a Ph.D., hard earned and well deserved though it was.


Sincerely,

Jennifer





Through some extraordinary coincidence, the Chronicle of Higher Education touches on authority and the academy in this article entitled "Remembering the Old Lions." Some lovely bits:

Who were these "old lions," and where did they come from?

They were almost always men (though there were a few pioneering women), and, by my time, in the late '80s to early '90s, they were at least 60 years old. They all wore similar clothes: dark suits, often with a vest, almost certainly custom tailored and designed to last for decades. They had a preference for bow ties, or ordinary ties with old-school, prep patterns.


Yikes, I've just realized I aspire to be an Old Lion. I'm often called "Professor Bowtie."

I look at myself today, an assistant professor, dressed in cords and a sweater -- basically the same style clothes I wore when I was 20 -- and think how much authority professors have lost since the 1960s, when younger faculty members began to dress like their students, and students began to abandon civilized clothing altogether. I look at my students: some barefoot, others wearing hats and dressed in clothes they could easily have slept in, and I think how the college classroom has become an adjunct of the dorm bedchamber. Sometimes, when I begin classes, I get the impression that the students resent my interrupting their conversations. Few of them take notes, and I unconsciously make an effort to be more entertaining.

Bring back dress codes for colleges! For profs and students!

I can't help thinking that, for all their gruff aloofness, the old lions were extraordinarily effective teachers from whom I can, belatedly, learn a lot (though I doubt I can put many of their strategies into practice).

I once had a prof of the New Left school who clearly made it his policy to never say "no" or "you are wrong" no matter how loony students' answered his class questions.

P: "In Dante's Inferno, he was writing about what rather harrowing place?"
S: "Uh, Burlington, VT"
P: "Well, it can be harrowing there, and it is a place..."

Apparently, if you said, "No, and you are a genuine waste of my time," the student would be chastined and never want to learn again.

Among the old lions, I think there was a genuine respect for students that is very different from the egalitarianism feigned by many teachers today. The old lions expected students to draw a hard line between their personal and professional lives.

There were no excuses. They did not care if you were having emotional difficulties; civilization had to go on, with or without you. They were adults, and they expected their students to grow up. They were not hampered by the fear of giving offense or hurting students' feelings; they believed there were correct answers to questions. They did not believe in unearned self-esteem. They would not congratulate you for simply meeting expectations.


I had a student tell me I graded his final research paper too hard (he failed, if memory serves) because he tried hard and that should count for something in the final grade.

I said "no" and your effort is immaterial.

They were not interested in being students' counselors, confessors, or friends. They were not afraid of being called "authoritarian"; they were authorities. They were indifferent to love, but they commanded respect. And institutions once gave them the power to command it.

Like I said, I have enough friends already. I know something you do not, and you pay an extraordinary amount of money to hear it. So sit down and listen.

I feel like a grown-up child when I compare myself with the old lions, but I have to remember that I am the product of a radically altered culture. Today's tenure process, particularly the requirement that one get high scores on student evaluations, makes it extraordinarily hard to demand as much from students and to use the fear of disapproval as a motivation. It's hard to deny there is a direct correlation between high scores on student evaluations, grade inflation, and the relaxation of standards.

Student evaluations hurt education. They assume the student knows what is best for him, a rather incredible assumption actually. The whole point of a college education is to give students the tools so they will know what is best for them. They do not have those tools yet. Evaluations imply that colleges are run on business principles, that the customer is always right. In fact, colleges and universities are the exact reverse: the producer (professor) is always right, and must be if we expect the product (learning and knowledge) to be of high quality. Demand-side education will play to the crowd; supply-side education leads the crowd.

Meritocracy versus Authority

My dear Jennifer:

After reading and re-reading your post this weekend, I am convinced you have made a thoroughly good American argument on the question of academic titles and salutations. Indeed, I think many share Miss Manners’ prejudices that only “pompous fools” suggest being called a doctor (despite being one), and your qualms that those who use the title eagerly are insecure, pretentious status-seekers covering up the inadequacy of their “knowledge and character” with the three simple letters, Ph.D.

This is an argument from merit and democracy (how else to categorize using the title only when the community at large makes judgments on you, and then essentially votes by treating you one way or the other). Medical doctors earn their degree once, only at school. Doctors in the humanities earn their degree twice: first by completing the degree at their institution, second by convincing the Jennifers of the world the institution didn’t make a mistake over those seven to ten years. Perhaps this is why we “whine.”

Yet for all its neatness and American-ness, I am not sure I buy it. This “taking nothing for granted” attitude sounds like good sense at first blush, but in reality masks something more interesting, a preference for separate individual judgments on each person over institutional and social judgments, ie. I know the "knowledge and character" of this man better than XYZ University which gave him a doctorate. In a sense, this radical skepticism of broader social and institutional hierarchies levels distinctions between humans, outside what is purely and perpetually earned. How that respect is earned will, in turn, differ from person to person, for some morality, for others efficiency at their jobs, for others friendliness, for others cleverness, and on and on. Without the unquestioned and assumed respect for those with a traditional distinction (family, educators, churchmen, judges, bosses, military men, governors), how is social respect, order, and collegiality possible? Deference and respect break down to each individual’s constantly changing judgments on every other individual.

Your brother will giggle at me using this as a reference, but Thomas Molnar speaks of this in Authority and Its Enemies: It is in school that we learn that respect is due not only to the respectable, if one may put it that way, but to whole categories because of the function they collectively perform … Does this mean that one inculcates hypocrisy in the young when he is made to respect whole categories of people instead of those individuals who deserve respect, or when he is taught manners that he must use in all circumstances? Manners and manifestations of social respect are not equivalents of hypocrisy, just as ethical commands do not discriminate between those toward whom one ought to be charitable and others toward whom one does not have to be. There would be no social coexistence without treating individuals also as members of groups, uniformly. We cannot tell merit from lack of it in normal social relations; we must hence give the benefit of doubt to something that stands above the individual (from the collective point of view), namely the function, the rank, the role, the representivity. We pay our respects to the persona which was the mask that the characters wore in Greek tragedies and which represented types, not individuals. Old age ought to be respected ( to cite one example among many), even though not every old man or woman is individually worthy of respect.

Much of this came to mind recently when I noticed some students call their professors (doctors all) by their first names. Apparently we are all students now, there are no traditional distinctions in the academy, and “collective learning” signals we should call each other Frank, Bob, and Joe. This breakdown of the barrier between professor and student, masking itself as back-slapping friendliness, stinks of lack of respect for those with more learning and position.

I do not let students do this, and they always refer to me as “Professor” or “Doctor.” As I tell them, “I’ve met my quota for friends. I don’t want any more.”

As regards Miss Manners, she is mistaken in noting that “traditionally” only medical doctors are referred to by their title. If by “traditionally” she means post-1960, then she is correct but laboring with a frighteningly short perspective, sort of like saying t-shirts and ball caps are traditional American dress. My New American Etiquette of 1940 (which I prefer over the creeping chummy casualness of post-1960 guides), written at a time when many profs had only a Masters, says: Assistant professors and instructors are always addressed as “Mr.” Full professors are addressed as “Professor” in the vicinity of the college or whenever they are engaged in educational work elsewhere. Otherwise they too are given the title “Mr.” The title “Doctor” should be carefully reserved and used only in addressing persons who hold a doctor’s degree.

Most cordially,

Doctor Curmudgeon

Friday, March 26, 2004

No, you're not a doctor

You should be reluctant to use Doctor as a title. Why? It's un-American.

I defer to the ultimate authority in these matters, the divine Miss Manners:

Dear Miss Manners: I have a Ph.D. in astrophysics. Once in a while, I like to introduce myself as "Dr. Jones." My wife has lately informed me, however, that society reserves the title of "doctor" only for medical professionals, not Ph.D.s. Is she correct? Should I avoid introducing myself as "doctor" so as not to give the false impression that I am an M.D.?

Gentle Reader: No, you should avoid introducing yourself as "doctor" to avoid giving the impression that you are a pompous fool. Your wife is correct that, traditionally, the medical title is the only one used socially. Miss Manners' point is that it is socially pompous to use any title in regard to oneself.

I know, work with, and am fond of many Ph.D.s.; some I even respect, but the ones I do respect, I respect, not because they have a Ph.D., but because of their knowledge and character. Almost inevitably, I have found that those who do not insist upon being called "Dr." are far more brilliant than those who do. Why? Because they are willing to be judged on their actual merits and not the pretensions of a title.

Most who insist upon being called "Dr." if not "Dr. Dr." really want to be known as: "Most revered, esteemed, and awe-inspiring Dr. before whose unrivalled genius I, a miserable worm, quail into a subservient kowtow." and generally they are the ones who least deserve it. I give you my high school principal who INSISTED on being called "Dr. X." He had put in the time and effort ,and all those other things about which Ph.D.s whine they have done, and so he demanded that he should be called "Doctor".

I am sure it did take a great deal of time and effort to acquire that doctorate in bus transportation from Nova Southeastern University. And he certainly used those acquired skills every morning when he marched outside to wave in the waiting buses.

In contrast, I have a friend who has her Ph.D. in economics, and she refuses to use the title "Dr." because she thinks it's a silly pretension in social situations. The kicker on this one is that she actually would have an excuse to use it because she is European. In Europe, especially the Germanic countries, "Doctor" for Ph.D.s has a long history of usage in social situations.

But we are not German, and American PhDs who use Dr. as a social title are as pretentious as those Americans who use their cutlery in the European fashion.

But for those who think etiquette is bunk and not the world's oldest virtue by all means use the title "Dr." socially in America; just be aware that when they find out you're not a medical doctor, most children and quite a few adults might think you wave in buses.




Wednesday, March 24, 2004

Am I a doctor or not?

Having a doctorate in the Humanities (a Doctor of Philosophy, but a historian) can pose a dilemma, albeit an egotistical one. When I book a room at a hotel, reserve a table for dinner at a fine restaurant, or subscribe to any number of journals, magazines, or newspapers, do I refer to myself as "Dr.?" Medical doctors are assumed to use their titles for such things (I believe it says so on their driver's license). I have had people ask me what type of medicine I practice, and for some unknown reason I sheepishly reply that "I'm not that type of doctor" and almost feel guilty for using the title. In turn, they look at me in a way that says, "oh, so you're not a REAL doctor."

Yet why should I be reluctant to use the title that took me seven years of sacrifice and work? Is it the American in me, that silly scorn of titles and hierarchy, that fear that such things establish a de facto aristocracy? A friend of mine, an American theologian educated in Austria, regales me with tales of how students and average citizens honor doctors of philosophy and letters in Europe -- he knew of one professor who had two doctorates and was referred to as "Dr., Dr."

What is the etiquette for such things in America? Are the only doctors ones who perform surgery, or also those who lecture on Plato? Of course, my fear is that one day I will reserve a table at a restaurant as a doctor, another patron will choke or have a heart attack, and everyone will expect me to assist and save the day. The best I'll be able to do is hold the poor man's hand and tell him about Abe Lincoln while he dies.
Why I'm glad I don't live in England

I'd have to let people who break into my apartment with a gun terrorize me.

Tuesday, March 23, 2004

Aspiring Oxford undergrads now must take a history entrance exam to gain admission. How do you think American students would do on such an exam? I have students who have never heard of Richard Nixon.
Go and Sin No More

Books and Culture has a series of short but disheartening book reviews on the Oxford University Press Seven Deadly Sins series. It’s not the review that disappoints (it hits the mark quite well), but the books. What should have been a lively introduction to (1.) what the seven sins are, (2.) how they came to be defined, and (3.) how they have been understood, devolved into a contemporary opinion fest with most authors suggesting that the sins were relative and perhaps not all that bad. Only four have been written thus far (Envy, Lust, Gluttony, and Greed), but you can sense a trend.

The reviewer suggests Greed to be the best of the bunch, but can't you hear naysayers? Who said avoid sin? Condemning lust merely inhibits the free individual (darn Puritans), envy drives us to succeed by “keeping up with the Joneses,” one man’s gluttony is another’s satisfaction, greed is the engine of economic progress, pride doubles as self-esteem (and Lord knows moderns must like themselves first and foremost), anger means caring about what is happening to you and the world (another word for “engagement” really), and sloth could be confused with leisure.

Horse feathers. Sin, as Abram Van Engen rightly notes, is making each of them an end in themselves, making pleasure the thoughtless end to one’s actions rather than a measured means to another end, doing good and right by God. The Roman Catholic Church’s favorite pagan, Aristotle, saw moderation as the key to virtue, the halfway house between self-denial and self-centeredness: The man who shuns and fears everything and never makes a stand, becomes a coward; while the man who fears nothing at all, but will face anything, becomes foolhardy. So, too, the man who takes his fill of any kind of pleasure, and abstains from none, is a profligate, but the man who shuns all is devoid of sensibility. Thus temperance and courage are destroyed both by excess and defect, but preserved by moderation.

These extremes of self-centeredness the Church called the “seven deadly sins,” and the moderation of each the “seven heavenly virtues”: humility rather than pride, generosity rather than greed, love rather than envy, kindness rather than anger, self-control rather than lust, temperance rather than gluttony, and zeal rather than sloth. Moderation does not mean the absence of what is expressed by the seven deadly sins, but presence within bounds, controlled and put to constructive use, understood within the wider context of human thought and action. You can enjoy a glass of wine and not get drunk; you can enjoy a fine meal and not stuff yourself to illness; you can enjoy your rest but only after working hard; you can enjoy love and sex but not make it a destructive obsession ruinous to your family. Do not make enjoyment the end but a means, part of the wider context of living.

A rather funny take on this was the 1967 Dudley Moore & Peter Cooke movie Bedazzled.

A friend and associate of mine once suggested that the Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Heavenly Virtues was the best way to organize a university/college humanities program, with classes and readings revolving around each sin and virtue. A very interesting suggestion, I thought. How would you construct it, with two books for each sin/virtue?

Pride/Humility
Greed/Generosity
Envy/Love
Anger/Kindness
Lust/Self-Control
Gluttony/Temperance
Sloth/Zeal
Darling Patrick

229 years ago today Patrick Henry delivered his famous speech to the Second Virginia Convention. I suspect many Dr. C readers can recite the ending:

Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace -- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

But you ought to do youself a favor and read whole speech. And then read more about Henry, who as one of his biographers correctly points out, is shortchanged when we just think of his speech:

"It's not the quotation, but the career that commands attention--at least fifteen terms in the legislature, leadership in the historic revolutionary conventions, the continental congress, and the 1788 ratifying convention, three successive annual terms as Virginia's first governor and three additional years later, and--from first to last--a deep and affectionate popularity that amounted to folk hero status and for a long time made Henry more highly cherished than George Washington in the hearts of his Virginia countrymen. "

Monday, March 22, 2004

Dr. Potomac's Memo

Dr. Potomac is feeling considerably chuffed by the state of the presidential race. Over the past two weeks certain clouds have begun to form around John Kerry's forehead (how could they not at such an altitude) which he believes are portents of disaster.

Cloud 1 -- Foreign Endorsements

Is there anything more delightful than this dust up over which foreign leaders support the Kerry campaign? Is it Jacques, or Gerhard or Vladimir or the new Socialist PM from Spain who supports your candidacy, Mr. Kerry? Tell us, we do so want to know, which of the leaders who opposed the liberation of Iraq or the cleaning out of the Taliban nest is so eager for your election.

There's no good way to answer these questions, so much of the "when did you stop beating your wife" variety. Moreover, in one fell swoop, Mr. Kerry managed to undue all the manly effort he put into establishing his foreign policy cojones during the primary season. This gaffe, which Dr. Potomac believes will haunt him up until election day, serves two important purposes. First, it reminds the average voter (outside the Bay State, that is) why Democrats can't be trusted with foreign policy: Dems just don't "get" the facts that America truly is the "indispensable nation", that our security is the foundation of global security, and that a nation occupying this position cannot allow itself to be held down by the Lilliputians of the European Community. A simple thought experiment along the lines of "What would the world be like if American economic and military power were suddenly and dramatically diminished, say, through a nuclear decapitation of the country's civilian leadership or the precipitous leveling of lower Manhattan?" clarifies the issue nicely. The answer is an ungodly mess, with China suddenly unleashed and massive economic disruption across the globe. We favor a strong national security policy not just because it is good for America but because it is good for the world. Second, Kerry's comment reveals his single biggest vulnerability as a candidate. He is a hot-house flower, nurtured in the rarefied climes of Boston Democratic politics. Seen in this context, the appeal to the views of foreign leaders is part and parcel of how Kerry has been utterly insulated from any opinion that originates south of the Pennsylvania state line. He can't compete nationally because his mental map of the nation looks like one of those "the view from Boston posters" in which the only visible landmarks are villages called Chicago and Los Angeles. Dr. Potomac predicts more such stumbles in the future.

Cloud 2 -- Political Infrastructure

Kerry and his staff are making brave noises about raising $80 million between now and the convention. This is improbable but let's give those angry Democrats the benefit of the doubt. Raising the money is only part of the problem; spending it effectively is the other, more important aspect of the equation. For the past four years, Team Bush has been investing carefully and methodically in preparations for the mother of all ground campaigns which will be especially important in a tight election. Over the weekend, President Bush launched his campaign in Florida with 400 or so precinct captains whose job it is to register new Republicans and organize get-out-the-vote activities. (In his previous life, Dr. Potomac had the opportunity to see just how effective a good GOTV program can be in bringing in that last 3 to 5 percent of the vote. Kerry has reason to be very, very afraid.) Kerry, in the meantime, was clearing his throat about how he didn't have a team in Florida but was planning to bring on staff -- soon, really, soon. In other words, in all the swing states, Kerry is catastrophically behind in organization and raising a lot of money isn't going to solve the problem BECAUSE THERE ISN'T TIME TO SPEND IT IN PRODUCTIVE AND USEFUL WAYS. Most will end up being wasted, a la Howard Dean's primary campaign.

Cloud 3 -- Ralph Nader

Did any of Dr. Potomac's loyal readers pick up on the NYT/CBS Poll showing President Bush with an 8 POINT lead in a three-way race with Kerry and Nader? This is stunning given the drubbing the President has taken in the past few months of all-Democrats-all-the-time media coverage. That sound you hear is the bottom about to fall out of Kerry's campaign. POTUS still might not get 51 percent of the popular vote but an 8-point victory over Kerry would translate into an electoral college blowout. And it is the NYT. Did I mention this was a NYT poll?

To top it all off, poor old Sad-Tree, who probably feels like he's been through a nuclear war with his primary opponents, in reality just finished the easiest part of the campaign. Everywhere his plane touches down from now on, he will be greeted by a blizzard of paid media advertisements attacking his position on national security and taxes and guns and gay marriage as well as rapid response media teams that will dissect every utterance for possible use in television ads at the next stop.

Yes, Dr. Potomac is feeling quite happy. Chuffed to the max.
Here's a good one: an Anglican vicar in Northumberland is having a sex change operation, and while he has quit his parish, (1.) his wife supports him (is this now a civil union?), and (2.) the bishop does as well (inclusivity, you know). Apparently this is a process (the ex-vicar will now be known as Helen) that demands our "respect and sensitivity for the whole Savage family, who are supporting Helen through a challenging medical process." I am reminded of that great scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian:

FRANCIS:
Why are you always on about women, Stan?
STAN:
I want to be one.
REG:
What?
STAN:
I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to call me 'Loretta'.
REG:
What?!
LORETTA:
It's my right as a man.
JUDITH:
Well, why do you want to be Loretta, Stan?
LORETTA:
I want to have babies.
REG:
You want to have babies?!
LORETTA:
It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them.
REG:
But... you can't have babies.
LORETTA:
Don't you oppress me.
REG:
I'm not oppressing you, Stan. You haven't got a womb! Where's the foetus going to gestate?! You going to keep it in a box?!
LORETTA:
[crying]
JUDITH:
Here! I-- I've got an idea. Suppose you agree that he can't actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody's fault, not even the Romans', but that he can have the right to have babies.
FRANCIS:
Good idea, Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother. Sister. Sorry.
REG:
What's the point?
FRANCIS:
What?
REG:
What's the point of fighting for his right to have babies when he can't have babies?!
FRANCIS:
It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.
REG:
Symbolic of his struggle against reality.

Friday, March 19, 2004

Happy Birthday William Jennings Bryan

I've tried to warm up to Bryan in recent years, but it is just impossible. Did you know there is an organization called the William Jennings Bryan Recognition Project? He backed, according to their site:

(1) graduated income tax (16th Amendment), (2) direct election of U.S. senators (17th Amendment), (3) women's suffrage (19th Amendment), (4) workmen's compensation, (5) minimum wage, (6) eight-hour workday, (7) Federal Trade Commission, (8) Federal Farm Loan Act, (9) government regulation of telephone/telegraph and food safety, (10) Department of Health, (11) Department of Labor, and (12) Department of Education.

Despite opposing well over half these initiatives (I'll stay vague for safety's sake), Bryan deserves our remembrance -- Yes sir -- give lavishly.
Beat to the punch

Arriving to Chicago O'Hare hours early, I read through that Hitchens' article while sitting at my gate. All sorts of conservative bigwigs have ruminated over that particular passage (and many many others):

But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone!

What to make of it, indeed. He is bemoaning the growing prominence of Enlightenment rationalism (as seen through economics) that measures everything via the pound. Now some things should be measured that way, the price of bread for instance, but religion, family life, the integrity of historical communities and age-old customs and traditions that have lasted the test of time (though they may not last the test of today's market)? Nay, nay. If you absolutize market ways of thinking and acting and spread them to social relationships as well, you lose (as he says) loyalty, submission (to betters), obedience, and "exalted freedom" (that which takes into account the needs outside the individual). Hence those great turns of phrase, "the unbought grace of life" and "the cheap defense of nations" (note the adjectives -- those things beyond the wallet) thrill us still, because we seek to be more than just a consumer in the grocery checkout line.
Vino Nino

Albert having whooped about on the whatsit isle set in the silver sea fancies the light, acidic offerings of the Vineyard Hitchens. I find them occasionally palate cleansing myself, but having labored late in the vineyards of the law, I personally favor the vintages of the Il Famiglia Scalia.

They are robust, full bodied, with great depth and clarity, and posses nice lingering kick on the finish, plus they age well. The latest offering, Vino dell'anatra, exhibits all of the standard characteristics of the Scalia vintages, but also possesses a remarkably high alcohol content, even for a robust red. While drinkable now, this wine will age nicely, with a greater development of its low chocolate notes, without losing any if its spicy heat. Best served at room temperature, accompanying the heads of your enemies.

Enjoy!

Thursday, March 18, 2004

Whoops. Left out the URL of the Hitchens essay on Burke. It's right here.

And yes, I know the name is Hitchens, not Hitchers. That's just a little English public school jargon, don'tcha know; like calling J.R.R. Tolkein not "J.R.R." but "Tollers", which is what C.S. Lewis always did.
Hitch on Burke

Just came across a new essay posted on The Atlantic by Christopher Hitchens on Edmund Burke. It's a pretty sweet juxtaposition, especially as Hitch has often said that Thomas Paine is one of his most important intellectual models.

I'll leave the Doc to comment fully, as he knows Burke way better than me. But I thought that I could help ol' Hitch out in one place. He quotes the passage where Burke wonders why no one came to the defense of Marie Antoinette, which as he says is a hypnotic piece of writing. Here's an extract:

But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone!

Hitch says then that he can't quite understand what Burke is banging on about. "'The unbought grace of life' is a most arresting phrase, however opaque, just as 'the cheap defence of nations' remains unintelligible", he opines.

Well, not to me, old chap. Burke is referring (or as I would say if I were back in Oxford, "rather obviously referring, don't you think?") to chivalric honor. For honor cannot be bought, it graces life, it defends nations yet does so free of charge, and it directs the sentiments of those who hold it in right and proper directions.

OK? Hope that helps! Do try to focus better in your next tutorial paper, young Hitchers, and there will be a glass of sherry for you. Or, as you would probably prefer, the whole bottle.
Happy Birthday John C. Calhoun, looking spry and lively at 222 years old. The Cast Iron Man lives in the hearts of many, particularly in the last 20 or so years, when his political theories and constitutional ideas have regained popularity. "Concurrent majorities" anyone?

And the same birthday greetings to the last great Democratic president, Buffalo's finest, Grover Cleveland. A small government man, the last in the aging Jeffersonian-Jacksonian line, he vacationed up here in NH. In fact, his son, who lived in NH, died within the last 5-10 years; I can remember the television special on him, saying with wonder, "Just think, these eyes looked upon President Grover Cleveland." Unfortunately the son did not remember much, only sitting on his father's lap admiring his large moustache.

Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Our favorite ex-Trotskyite Christopher Hitchens has a pleasing essay on the Spanish elections. It goes down warm and bilious, with lingering acidic afternotes. The Hitchens vineyard has very reliable offerings.
Marvelous article on Philadelphia's "Old City" in today's Philadelphia Inquirer. Old City is one of those places in America (the Virginia peninsula, where the First British Empire began at Jamestown and ended at Yorktown, is another) that feels "European" because the history is long and thickly layered on top of itself.
Calling Dr. Potomac!

...To tell us if Terry Eastland's electoral math holds up. He says we might have a tie in 2004!

Tuesday, March 16, 2004

I apologize. How presumptuous to assume knowledge that may not be there.

Benjamin Crowninshield came from a prominent Salem maritime family, and they were an unusual bunch because they tended to be Jeffersonian Democrats. Benjamin served as Secretary of the Navy under both Madison and Monroe from 1814-1818 (in fact, Monroe stayed at Crowninshield's home during a visit to Salem -- the home stands next to the Salem Custom House, and was later used as a home for aged women), and served a few terms in Congress (1823-1831). He is buried with all the other eastern Massachusetts luminaries at Mt. Auburn Cemetery.

Some claim that "King" Elias Hasket Derby, a very prosperous and clever Salem merchant, was America's first millionaire. His son, Elias Junior, inherited the family business acumen, but instead of the sea was drawn to the rails as a persistent advocate of New England railroad development in the 1840s and 1850s. Elias Senior's beautiful home still stands, a nearly perfect example of Georgian mid-18th century architecture. Here is a picture of it; scroll down a bit to see.

And who designed that house? Why Samuel McIntire, of course, Salem's answer to Charles Bulfinch of Boston, and one of the premier Federal designers between 1790 and 1810.

Joseph Story was never Chief Justice (quite a shame, since Marshall lived so damn long) but an associate justice of the Supreme Court between 1812 and 1845. He began life as a confirmed Salem Democrat (there were such things in staid Whiggish Salem, Story and Crowninshield the most prominent), but over time gravitated to conservative Webster Whiggery. His Commentaries on the Constitution (1833) were widely read (note that he quotes Cicero and Burke on the frontspeice, very nice), and along with Marshall and Taney was among the best known and influential American jurists.

And note that I did not say "canonical" when referring to dear Hawthorne's works from 1850-1852; I made reference to the volume of his work. That said, Pierce remains a very interesting read, and while literature-types might find it unpalatable, those of us with a political eye gobble up the observations of America's great Jacksonian Democratic novelist. A taste:

The theorist may take that view in his closet; the philanthropist by profession may strive to act upon it uncompromisingly, amid the tumult and warfare of his life. But the statesman of practical sagacity--who loves his country as it is, and evolves good from things as they exist, and who demands to feel his firm grasp upon a better reality before he quits the one already gained--will be likely here, with all the greatest statesmen of America, to stand in the attitude of a conservative. Such, at all events, will be the attitude of Franklin Pierce ... Those northern men, therefore, who deem the great cause of human welfare all represented and involved in this present hostility against southern institutions, and who conceive that the world stands still except so far as that goes forward--these, it may be allowed, can scarcely give their sympathy or their confidence to the subject of this memoir. But there is still another view, and probably as wise a one. It looks upon slavery as one of those evils which divine Providence does not leave to be remedied by human contrivances, but which, in its own good time, by some means impossible to be anticipated, but of the simplest and easiest operation, when all its uses shall have been fulfilled, it causes to vanish like a dream. There is no instance, in all history, of the human will and intellect having perfected any great moral reform by methods which it adapted to that end; but the Progress of the world, at every step, leaves some evil or wrong on the path behind it, which the wisest of mankind, of their own set purpose, could never have found the way to rectify. Whatever contributes to the great cause of good, contributes to all its subdivisions and varieties; and, on this score, the lover of his race, the enthusiast, the philanthropist of whatever theory, might lend his aid to put a man, like the one before us, in the leadership of the world's affairs.

Mais oui! Read it all here.
I think it safe to say that no where on the web, and perhaps anywhere else, do you find The Life of Franklin Pierce listed along with the Master's more, shall we say, canonical works.

But, Doc, you will have to provide a few footnotes for Crowninshield, Derby and McIntire. Joseph Story was a Chief Justice, wasn't he?
This very well-reasoned post on the plight of conservatives in academia slipped under my radar, but was good reading over coffee this morning.

Happy Birthday James Madison, born on this date in 1751. From Federalist 49:

The reason of man, like man himself, is timid and cautious when left alone, and acquires firmness and confidence in proportion to the number with which it is associated. When the examples which fortify opinion are ANCIENT as well as NUMEROUS, they are known to have a double effect. In a nation of philosophers, this consideration ought to be disregarded. A reverence for the laws would be sufficiently inculcated by the voice of an enlightened reason. But a nation of philosophers is as little to be expected as the philosophical race of kings wished for by Plato. And in every other nation, the most rational government will not find it a superfluous advantage to have the prejudices of the community on its side. The danger of disturbing the public tranquillity by interesting too strongly the public passions, is a still more serious objection against a frequent reference of constitutional questions to the decision of the whole society. Notwithstanding the success which has attended the revisions of our established forms of government, and which does so much honor to the virtue and intelligence of the people of America, it must be confessed that the experiments are of too ticklish a nature to be unnecessarily multiplied. We are to recollect that all the existing constitutions were formed in the midst of a danger which repressed the passions most unfriendly to order and concord; of an enthusiastic confidence of the people in their patriotic leaders, which stifled the ordinary diversity of opinions on great national questions; of a universal ardor for new and opposite forms, produced by a universal resentment and indignation against the ancient government; and whilst no spirit of party connected with the changes to be made, or the abuses to be reformed, could mingle its leaven in the operation. The future situations in which we must expect to be usually placed, do not present any equivalent security against the danger which is apprehended.

Happy Birthday General John Pope, Union Civil War general whose reputation never recovered from the debacle of Second Manassas in 1862. I have read some revisionist takes on his life, but his life and career (like that of Ambrose Burnside and Joe Hooker, both of whom have had their advocates in recent years) seem destined for a dark corner of history's basement.

Nero died on this date in 37AD, as did the great American cartographer Nathaniel Bowditch in 1838. A good son of Salem, you could use his maps with complete confidence in a dense fog. Charles Darwin also passed on this day in 1882. His work devastated mainline Protestantism, and sent many fleeing into the Catholic Church. Said Newman to those looking for comfort:

It does not seem to me to follow that creation is denied because the Creator, millions of years ago, gave laws to matter. He first created matter and then he created laws for it -- laws which should construct it into its present beauty, and accurate adjustment and harmony of parts gradually. We do not deny or circumscribe the Creator, because we hold he has created the self acting originating human mind, which has almost a creative gift; much less then do we deny or circumscribe His power, if we hold that He gave matter such laws as by their blind instrumentality moulded and constructed through innumerable ages the world as we see it. If Mr. Darwin in this or that point of his theory comes into collision with revealed truth, that is another matter -- but I do not see that the principle of development, or what I have called construction, does. As to the Divine Design is it not an instance of incomprehensibly and infinitely marvelous Wisdom and Design to have given certain laws to matter million of years ago, which have, surely and precisely worked out, in the, long course of those ages, those effects which He from the first proposed. Mr. Darwin's theory need not then be atheistical, be it true or not; it may simply be suggesting a larger idea of Divine Prescience and Skill ... but at first sight I do not see that the accidental evolution of organic beings is inconsistent with divine design -- It is accidental to us not to God.

And Nathaniel Hawthorne, another famous son of Salem (so many for an insular town -- Hawthorne, Bowditch, Joseph Story, Benjamin Crowninshield, Elias Hasket Derby, Samuel McIntire -- who said Boston was the Athens of America?), published his novel Scarlet Letter on this day in 1850. This came in the midst of Hawthorne's most creative period. Think of it -- has any author done so much of worth in so short a time? First came the Scarlet Letter in 1850, followed in 1851 by House of the Seven Gables (Halfway down a bystreet in one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house with seven acutely peaked gables in the midst...), followed in 1852 by both Blithedale Romance and the Life of Franklin Pierce.

Monday, March 15, 2004

Canadiana, Con't.

The American Thinker, which is a very fine web journal we should really link to, has a little editorial entitled The Nigeria of the North?, noting how the Liberal Party is now choosing to blame its financial scandals on a vast American business conglomerate, in this case Hewlett-Packard. Well, no bloody surprise there. But given that Carly Fiorina is probably the most visible female corporate executives, it seems only right that we should accuse the Canadian government of sexism. Shocking, really, to see that sort of sexist hate emanating from the frozen north.

And all the while Paul Martin desperately tries to stave off electoral doom, now warning that the Tories would be bad sports who would risk "electoral backlash" if they teamed up with the independence-minded Parti Quebecois in provincial elections. Ho-hum. The interesting part of the story, not mentioned in the headline of course, is that "a key Liberal political lieutenant admitted it would be crazy to head into an election right now given anger in Quebec at the federal sponsorship scandal."

Why worry about Canadian politics? Well, they're our neighbors. And it's fascinating stuff! The stakes are so small...unless you're getting a government public relations contract, that is!
Good Safire column on John Kerry's "phony toughness." It's all out of the Bob Shrum playbook, of course. Kerry is beginning to manifest an eerie similarity to Al Gore's behavior in 2000. Come debate time, Long John won't just be pacing the stage, he'll be pawing it and letting out gushes of steam.
I suppose it was inevitable...

DNC Demands Bush Drop 'President' from TV Ads

It's just an unfair advantage for him to use the Presidency in the campaign.
Spain, Con't.

The Telegraph leader is titled Euro Isolationism is Triumphant. (Note to self: use "Euro-isolationism" in conversation three times this week.) Money quote: "Spaniards died in industrial quantities, and the first instinct of many voters was to take it out on their government. If terrorism has succeeded there, where will be next?"

Answer: England, before the next general election. That's the handwriting on the wall, mates.


Lileks says he's saving himself on Spain for his Newhouse column (where does that thing run, btw? We need to link to it.). But he nonetheless puts things with characteristic concision: "...you can take the nation out of old Europe, but you can't take the old Europe out of the nation." And, he observes, "At least Spain knows what's expected of them now. If they remove the Socialists from power some day, they can expect a few bombs here and there to remind them of their place."

But he spends most of his time dissecting Loony Tunes: Back in Action. Whatever.

The brilliant David Warren hasn't had a column posted since the vote, but he read the tea leaves before it happened sufficiently well to be prophetic.

Spain's test will be completed in the election itself, where dealing with terrorism both domestically and internationally has been the major campaign issue. The government of the retiring prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, firmly allied with President Bush's "coalition of the willing" in Iraq and elsewhere, and dead-set against concessions to Basque and Catalonian separatists at home, must win decisively. The Socialist opposition, led by Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, which has played childish rhetorical games comparing Aznar to Franco, and associating the defence of civilization itself with "fascism", deserves the punishment of electoral humiliation. Spain must show old Europe that it has not gone soft in the head.

Whoops! Too late.
This is the kind of post that Jennifer usually makes, but I thought it was too horrible not to do myself. In the Daily Telegraph opinion page, of all places, we learn that if you cut yourself in an urban park, you had better take some extreme measures to disinfect that cut. Pronto.

Otherwise they might have to cut your leg off.

Sunday, March 14, 2004

Terrorists 1, Spain 0

What other conclusion can be drawn from the Spanish election other than that Al Qaeda (or, now much less likely, the ETA) was sucessful in its desire to influence the election? By all accounts the voters went to the polls convinced that the Aznar government was a bunch of "liars" who had brought this upon Spain by their support of the United States. Bin Laden was convinced that the United States was weak, that it was a rotten core with a weak husk that could be easily toppled with a few acts of terror. It didn't work here; but so far it seems to have worked in Madrid.

Friday, March 12, 2004

I can't believe that I didn't notice this when it happened, but Alistair Cooke has retired.

He is 94 years old, and had since he started broadcasting Letter from America in 1946 done 2,869 shows. It's hard to imagine anyone else ever coming close to such longevity and endurance.

What's particularly interesting to me is the dual-identity that this grand old man has. Over here in America, we continue to think of him as British. In fact, I think his time as host of Omnibus and then Masterpiece Theater kept alive an American perception of Britain as still honey for tea, alongside of those delightful cucumber sandwiches. But in Britain he was thought of as a Brit who had gone over the Yanks (he had become an American citizen in the late 1930's, after all), and who was thus both questionable and exotic. The two still go together in some parts of the British imagination.

I valued his marvelous ability to speak common sense about American habits and mores to the British audience. It isn't there isn't lots of information about the United States in Britain; but he was the only person to actually give historical perspective, to speak of attitudes and manners from a long, long experience of both Britain and America. He did what ambassadors are supposed to do, and most American ambassadors to Britain have been too unwilling to do.

Beyond that, he wrote brilliant scripts. Everything was carefully written to give you the impression that he was having a chat with you. But everything...pauses, heavy emphasis, jaunty use of commas...was there in the scripts when you read them on the BBC website. This was a style that he had developed on his very first test for the BBC in 1946, and he made it into a level of literary art. You cannot fail to learn something about writing and speaking if you listen to one of his broadcasts (all on the Radio 4 section of the BBC website) while reading along in the associated script.

Ave atque vale.
I suspect that no one has posted on Spain, because we do not know what to say in the face of such a tragedy and have nothing to add to the educated commentary found on other sites, but I know our thoughts and prayers are with those who are suffering from this act of terrorism.

Perpetual adolescence hits the Stock market:

"On a recent day at noon, every chair was empty in the vast dining room at the century-old, members-only Stock Exchange Luncheon Club. Enduring wars and market crashes, the club for years was packed at lunch, as members -- including Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan and stockbroker "Black Jack" Bouvier, father of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis -- courted customers over tomato-clam juice and oysters on the half shell. Traders often slipped upstairs for a smoke, a drink or an afternoon nap.

The club "has stood as a bastion of capitalism since 1898," when it was formed by stockbrokers, investors and industrialists, the club's Web site says, serving as a "quiet, gracious retreat" from the hubbub of Wall Street."

...

Now, the club serves only a moderately priced lunch in the bar and delivers light food to the floor. The elegant dining room still appears ready for customers, laid out with white table cloths; but the maitre d', the wait staff and the diners are gone.

...

"It's a tragedy -- the end of an era," says Alan Rothenberg, a private investor and former Big Board member who has been a member of the Luncheon Club since 1981. Says Carl Weisbrod, president of the Alliance for Downtown New York: "By and large, the day of the lunching social club is gone." For many traders, it was part of the routine of exchange life. "The Luncheon Club had the best �©clairs in the world, the best fish in the city," laments Peter Yahr, a floor trader. "I ate lunch there every single day for 25 years."

Now, like most traders, he eats lunch at his post on the exchange floor. Changes in the way stocks are traded, now in increments of pennies, increased the number of trades, tethering brokers to their booths. And with corporate scandals gyrating stock prices, slipping away for lunch is riskier than ever.

Last week, the exchange floor was abuzz with developments in the WorldCom Inc. and Adelphia Co. trials taking place a few blocks north at the federal courthouse. On Friday afternoon, the guilty verdict in Martha Stewart's trial on obstruction and other charges came shortly after lunch. "You can't step away for a minute," Mr. Yahr says. "The whole world can change."


Now I ask you. Because we think we are indispensable, we must cram our faces full of food at our desks or trading spots and we're expected to even be proud of the fact? What are we 15? Isn't the belief that you are indispensable, a perfect indicator of perpetual adolescence?

Phoo to that I say. Next we'll be enagaging in belching contests as a result of having eaten too rapidly. Even though it is Lent, I call for the return of the two martini lunch!

Still, in other parts of our society there are glimpses of hope for maturity.


Thursday, March 11, 2004

Aren't I bloggy today?

Today is the birthday of Robert Treat Paine, fair Bostonian and signer of the Declaration.

Charles Sumner died this day in 1874, not one of my personal favorites. One of a handful who tried so hard and so successfully to bring on the Civil War that killed over 600,000 Americans, he died a hero to many. His reputation dipped for the first half of the 20th century, but has now rebounded.

Happy Johnny Appleseed Day, the pride of lovely Leominster, Massachusetts.
A simply brilliant article about perpetual adolescence by Joseph Epstein. Sometimes you read things and say, gosh, I wish I had written that. This is one of those times.

Thanks to Enoch Soames for the tip.
Are portable cd players or the new iPods a way of regaining your personal space and a tool whereby users manage space, time and the boundaries around the self? This prof thinks so.

I've always thought portable music devices tremendously anti-social, a method to prevent the user from speaking, listening, or interacting with anyone no matter the environment, and escaping into an individualistic, immature fantasy land. I have students who, immediately after class is finished, pack up their books, rig up their walkman, and stroll out of class to the audible tinny blast of very bad music. No talk with their fellow students, rather an escape back into their own little musicial nirvana, reminiscent of moody teenagers who'd rather brood in their room than speak with friends and family.

But what you listen to and when has a more subversive edge as well. It can undermine some of the messages aimed at you. Shopping for food while listening to a Bach violin concerto completely remakes the experience. It turns you from a grazing animal into something finer. In the same way listening to David Bowie's The Laughing Gnome would radically alter a dressing down from a policeman.

And reading a book, having a civil conversation, and conducting yourself with a degree of good manners would also be shocking as well as transformative. Turn off da noise, say please and thank you, and read a damn book. We all have to live in the world with you.

If I saw a patron at the grocery store, wired to his walkman and listening to Bach, I'd faint.
Microwave popcorn kills!

Smoking Kills!

Are you sure you want a burger?

I lived in Takoma Park, MD for three years, and found it a very odd place. Awfully trendy, awfully "worldly," awfully annoying. Now perhaps the most liberal neighborhood in greater DC has a chain-sandwich store vandalized with spray-painted slogans saying "Buy Local," and one of its citizens was arrested today for spying for Iraq. Look here and here. Somehow it all just fits together, doesn't it?
Awesome article on the Telegraph which features the memories of Ken Rees, one of the last survivors of the "Great Escape". If you don't know what that was, then you need to read this at once.

As the writer concludes, "In an age obsessed with C-list television celebrities battling it out on phoney 'reality' survival shows, Rees and his dwindling band of Great Escapers stand out as the real thing." That's what's so great about the British papers. They still focus on people who did great things, usually in the obituaries. Why can't American papers write such good obituaries? There must be someone dying every day in the Washington area who did truly great things, and whose memory should be celebrated and preserved.
That is indeed a great article from the Post on Vienna. Money paragraph:

It wasn't glamour on an Oscar-night scale -- not too many dangerously plunging necklines and very few audacious cummerbunds. But it was a dazzling concentration of Old World elegance in a setting straight from the Age of Fairy Tales. There was a Scotsman in a full-dress kilt. And one young beauty, with purple hair and a backless green gown, had a tattoo on her shoulder of the Austrian Imperial Eagle Crest. In Vienna, you can be punk and a monarchist, too.

Just perfect; I mean, perfekt.

Tuesday, March 09, 2004

Goodnight, Vienna

interesting article in the New Yorker on the development of malls and how they were initially designed to make the New World more like Vienna. No really, apparently they were.

Malls however do not have waltzing. Vienna does. Oh how it does!
Yet another reason to read James Lileks: sentences like these.

Around 10 the snow started, and no one predicted this storm. By the time I got on the highway to take Gnat to Nana’s, the traffic had that terrified quality of people picking their way across a field of broken glass on their hands and knees in the dark.

So good it makes your teeth hurt. It makes you realize how few bloggers actually bother to try to write write.

Monday, March 08, 2004

Cuisine Courante

From the ettiquete column of the London Spectator:

Q. I have three children aged seven, nine and five. What do I serve at their birthday parties now that all the old favourites — sausages, cakes, hamburgers, chicken nuggets and fizzy drinks — have been demonised? I know for a fact that some mothers at our children’s prep school refused a recent invitation to a house where the parents were known to take a no-nonsense attitude to ‘faddy foods’ and serve the full toxic works. A friend who served parsley sandwiches in Terence Stamp wheat-free bread followed by sheep’s yogurt with organic maple syrup found there were no takers.
A.A., London W11



A. You cannot go wrong with Prince of Wales Royal Duchy products — his sausages are free-range and organic, his biscuits free of hydrogenated vegetable oils. Leave the Duchy packaging lying around to impress the parents at pick-up time.

Wednesday, March 03, 2004

Welcome Killington, NH. The Union-Leader has a good collection of articles today on the VT secession movement, here, here, here, and an editorial. And the Burlington Free Press here. And a well-written "nay" editorial in the Rutland Herald here.

A filthy talking parrot may meet the Queen. That should be interesting.



Tuesday, March 02, 2004

The new wave of secessionism?

When you say "secession," you think of South Carolina, or Alabama, or Mississippi, right? Visions of the Old South, "Lanterns on the Levee, " julips, fields of cotton and slaves, butternut-frocked generals, hoop skirts, and tales of the "lost cause?" Well, how about New England farmhouses, rocky fields, maple syrup, and ski lodges?

The town of Killington, Vermont voted overwhelmingly to secede from Vermont because the taxes are too high and the services miserable. The alternative? Join New Hampshire! "Other towns have been sitting back and waiting for Killington to break ground," said Jim Blackman, 46. "It is Killington's obligation to break that ground." "The state is treating us like a cash cow," said David Lewis, the town manager.

The town now plans to draft an appeal to NH Governor Craig Benson and the NH Legislature asking for public support of secession and incorporation into the Granite State. Then the VT Legislature has to approve Killington's appeal to leave. How fabulous is this for political entertainment? Now, what if Governor Benson and the Legislature approve of Killington, VT becoming Killington, NH? What will Vermont do? Say "no," and look rather bad, keeping a town that would rather leave, keeping it despite NH's willingness to take it, and keeping it rather obviously for the tax dollars it brings? Say "yes," and begin a stampede of other towns who are sick to death of paying high VT taxes and would rather "live free [and cheap] or die?"

Maybe this is an interesting way for towns around the country who are unhappy with civil unions and gay marriage to unite with states more favorable to their values. Find a state that you like, and secede. Now that's leverage!

Who knows, in a few years, if this works, there may not be a Vermont. Message to towns along the NH-Massachusetts border: are you sick of paying 5% sales tax? Are you tired of paying a state income tax? Have you considered the benefits...?
Dewi Sant

We should have also noted yesterday that March 1st is also the feast day of Dewi Sant (St. David), Bishop of Menevia, the Patron Saint of Wales. Welshmen commemorate the abstemious saint, who drank only water and ate only vegetables, by singing and eating leeks, which may be why this holiday has never caught on in the New World as compared to St. Patrick's, which is celebrated by singing and drinking beer.

"Your majesty says very true: if your majesties is remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps; which, your majesty know, to this hour is an honourable badge of the service; and I do believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy's day." - Fluellen in Shakespeare's "Henry V".

Monday, March 01, 2004

Happy Birthday Frederic Chopin (b. 1810, should have kept clear of Georges Sand), Augustus Saint-Gaudens (b. 1848, his home Aspet is here in NH), Georg Simmel (b. 1858), Glenn Miller (b. 1904), and David Niven (b. 1909)

The first conviction in the Salem Witch Trials came this date in 1692. Contrary to popular belief and Hollywood, no one burned at the stake. Nineteen were hung, and one was crushed to death.
And speaking of language, a nice quick note from John Derbyshire in his latest NRO bit about conservatives and the subjunctive. There is no more distinctive marker of the conservative sensibility than accurate use of the subjunctive mood in speech. Outside we few, we happy few conservative intellectuals, use of the subjunctive in spoken speech has pretty much died out. (Would it were otherwise!) But at least we have this tiny verbal marker with which to identify each other, like a Masonic handshake. Apparently, it is a good way to get a right-thinking date.

I am a proud, if unconscious, user of the subjunctive mood. Did you know there was a website bent on its preservation? But of course!

Patronize God Save the Subjunctive! Heaven forfend it passes away!
I remember for a few weeks in my early graduate student days, lost in the library and milling about the stacks, I came upon a large series of books on lesser known-dying out languages in the British Isles. There were books on Scots Gaelic, Welsh, Irish Gaelic, Manx, Breton, Cornish, and probably some others I have forgotten. Intrigued, I flipped through a few and even brought several home to see if I could learn something. I failed to learn anything actually because I was much too busy with my doctoral studies and my attention wandered. Looking back, I wonder what the motivation was -- some genealogical longing for languages of my ancestors, spiteful learning and use of something dead and dying? I still am not sure, but the idea still intrigues me.

That said, the NY Times had an interesting article by Jack Hitt yesterday on dying languages, showing "both sides" of the debate. The predictable "save the languages" movement crowds around academia (mostly graduate schools) and government, and works through organizations like the Endangered Language Fund and (no joke, although it does sound rather Monty Pythonish-Ministry of Silly Walks) the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages. The less predictable "let them die out" group is here and there, mostly found around an idea rather than an institution: those in favor of a global economy of free trade, open borders, and liberal capitalism. Their mantra seems to be, if you can't survive in the marketplace (of goods, ideas, or languages) then what good are you?

This is not a simple good guy-bad guy issue, with poor old farming folk clinging on to the old ways facing down heartless globocrats intent on making the world a homogenized cheeseburger. Yes, there is something sad and unfortunate (maybe even unnecessary and hence a human failure rather than a natural trend) about an old language dying out. But as is pointed out, resistence to globalization and "big concerns" can be quite successful, as reactions inevitably occur seeking out quality, oddity, and uniqueness rather than simply quantity, predictability, and cheapness. Compare the types and varieties of beers Americans were drinking 20 years ago to the proliferation of micro-brews today; or the number of gourmet coffee shops people haunt rather than brew their 'joe from a can.

In an odd way, the same reaction occurs in linguistics. Hitt notes:

The very success of English as a global language is prompting a revival of ancestral tongues. Compared to the die-off now in progress, it's a drop in the bucket. Still, many native American languages have reacted against these near-death experiences. The Miami in Oklahoma and the Mohawk straddling the Canadian border have full-scale programs for language revival. Native Hawaiian, also written off only a few decades ago, has 18 schools teaching a new generation in the original language of the islands ... Language revival as a means of identity politics may well be the way of the future. The big fight in linguistics over the past two decades has been about English First. But first is no longer the question. Now the question is, What will be your second language? In America, the drift in high-school curriculums has always been toward a second dominant language -- French, Spanish, German, maybe Chinese if you're a rebel. But what if the second language could be that of your ancestors?

That possibility is already proving to be quite popular with many people. As their initiatives succeed and become more visible, they will drive into the open a question for English-speaking Americans, the owner-operators of the dominant linguistic ecosystem. Do we want to dwell in a society that encourages linguistic revival and cultural diversity, knowing that with it may come a lot of self-righteous minority-pitying? Or, shall we just sit contentedly amid a huge cultural die-off, harrumphing like some drunk uncle at the family reunion angrily spilling his beer and growling, ''Let 'em die''? Keep in mind that if the actuarial tables are correct, it means that once the languages start to die off in earnest, there will be a ''death of the last speaker'' article in the papers, on average, every 12 days.


Now, identity politics gives me the creeps, but when thought of in terms of language, it has some appeal. After all, this is a politics based firmly on an appreciation of the past (this will always play well with me), and if we begin a more concerted apprecation of past language, can an appreciation for values (which language transmits) be far behind? Of course, this carries with it the equal danger that restoration of older languages will ignite a wave of "why I hate English and English-speaking people." Still, it holds some appeal for me, I must admit. As Hitt rightly notes, Israel is the model:

For more than two millenniums, Hebrew was found almost exclusively in Scripture and rabbinical writings. Its retreat was nearly complete -- out of the public square, into the house and finally into the scrolls of the Torah. But the early pioneers of what would become Israel faced a politically charged question: which of their languages should dominate? Ashkenazi Yiddish? Russian? German? Sephardic Ladino? The commonly agreed-upon answer was supplied by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the Jewish linguist who used the stiff, formal language of the Bible to conjure into existence a modern version -- now the main language of 3.6 million people. (Of course, Hebrew's comeback has helped drive Yiddish and Ladino into ''endangered'' status.)

It can be done, it need not be an exercise in PC self-loathing, and it might make people think a little more about the past. If you are interested, here are a few links that struck my fancy:

A Course in Welsh
Gaelic Lessons Online (both Scots and Irish Gaelic)
Manx Gaelic
The Cornish Languages Online
Kervarker: Breton Language