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From the New York Times obituary section:
Michael Sugrue, 66, Dies; His Talks on Philosophy Were a YouTube Hit
After an academic career spent in near obscurity, he became an internet phenomenon during the pandemic by uploading talks he had given three decades earlier.
By Trip Gabriel
Published May 25, 2024
… Michael Sugrue would go on to teach Plato, the Bible, Kant and Kierkegaard to two generations of undergraduates, including for 12 years at Princeton, without ever publishing a book — an academic who hadn’t “really had a career,” as he told The American Conservative after retiring in 2021.
But that same year, in the depths of the pandemic, Dr. Sugrue uploaded his three-decade-old philosophy lectures to YouTube, where many thousands of people whose aperture on the world had narrowed to a laptop screen discovered them. His talk on the Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius, in particular, seemed to fit the jittery mood of lockdown, when many people sought a sense of self-sufficiency amid the chaos of the outside world. It has now been viewed 1.5 million times.
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“The only matter of concern to a wise and philosophic individual is the things completely under your control”
Oh fuck.
He was great, and truly elevated the public discourse on YouTube. But his died months ago. What took the New York Times so long to notice?
A much older friend, now in his late 80s, was for many years a senior lecturer ( Engineering ) at a highly rated British University. He never wrote an article, never mind a book. I used to think you couldn’t get away with that now. But Sugrue was an actual professor, not a mere lecturer. Rather bizarrely, all his qualifications and his professorship were in history, not philosophy.
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/professors/michael-sugrue/
PS For someone presumably of Irish Catholic background, he does look Jewish. Can any reader enlighten ?
>his qualifications were in history, not in philosophy
NOBODY TELL HIM! LET HIM FIND OUT!
Your standards of judgment are exposed as faulty?
Is it possible to truly learn this Philosophy material from just listening to lectures?
I have my doubts!
Some relatively highbrow inquiry in the iSteve comments:
https://www.unz.com/isteve/is-steve-sailer-a-racist/#comment-6572383 (#13)
Thread continues:
https://www.unz.com/isteve/is-steve-sailer-a-racist/#comment-6576481 (#124)
Related to metaphysics, from the Daily Mail—
Sebastian Junger, Sebastian older.
Spooky, grim article and pictures relating to Junger’s new book:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13447247/sebastian-junger-near-death-late-father-appeared.html
Select comments from DM readers:
LadyCarmenShmarmen Shmarmelot New Mexico, United States
He has cold, unfeeling eyes. look. Like a sociopath or a narcissist.
BessieWarfield Nassau, Bahamas
Nah, he’s just German.
I have almost died, and recognise none of the phenomena he describes. But as someone put it in a novel (I think Compton McKenzie's Whisky Galore), "some people feel important when they've got a toothache".
We all know it from our experience, although there is no "scientific" proof.
We all know - heard, experienced- situations when a man is dying in a hospital & his dog is away, with this man's family. Then, suddenly, the dog jumps & starts howling. Of course, his owner had died at that moment, which was later confirmed by hospital staff.
Of course, this is anecdotal evidence. It cannot be replicated.
But- it's real. Not a fiction. And completely inexplicable by the materialist world-view.Replies: @James B. Shearer
Non cogitat.
Publish or perish indeed.
More seriously, his lectures were exemplary. Even the way he would say “Now” when introducing a statement was superb.
Good stuff.
RIP.
https://www.unz.com/isteve/is-steve-sailer-a-racist/#comment-6572383 (#13)
Thread continues:
https://www.unz.com/isteve/is-steve-sailer-a-racist/#comment-6576481 (#124)
Related to metaphysics, from the Daily Mail—
Sebastian Junger, Sebastian older.
Spooky, grim article and pictures relating to Junger’s new book:
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/05/23/16/85205377-13447247-Junger_known_for_his_work_in_conflict_zones_like_Afghanistan_whe-a-2_1716479819096.jpg
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13447247/sebastian-junger-near-death-late-father-appeared.htmlSelect comments from DM readers:
Replies: @Jenner Ickham Errican, @Carol, @Harry Baldwin, @Bardon Kaldian, @YetAnotherAnon, @Bardon Kaldian
Or epistemology, even
This video is good, but it has some deficiencies.
First, Heraclitean Logos is much more than rational thought & it is close to God. Basically, it is something like Tao or Dharma, or Brahman in one of its many metaphysical incarnations. Johannine Logos, on the other hand, recycled the old Egyptian idea that God (in the Egyptian case Ptah) created the world through Word. John’s originality is that Word became flesh in Jesus Christ- which is, essentially, the Western version of the Avatar myth.
In the Hebrew faith, things are simple- here is God & there is Man. Abstractions like “divine nature” and “human nature” are separated. Christians created the confusion with their Avatar, God-Man in whom human and divine natures are reconciled. Other layers of confusion come with Gnostics, for whom divine nature is present not in Christ only, but in every human being. Christ (not in Jesus’ personality, but as the divine Son) is potentially present-albeit dormant- in everyone.
Sugrue is only partially right about Mythos. Greeks, with few exceptions, pitied Prometheus & remained ambivalent about the whole story. It was only with Romantics, the first of them being multifaceted erotomaniac Goethe, who claimed Prometheus to be their archetypal hero & God in any variant (Zeus, Yahweh, ..) a sadistic sky God worthy only of contempt. One can have that attitude to life even if you are atheist- for instance, Marx was Promethean.
Basically, it is about the deification of Man, which may be divorced from a metaphysical context & can be defined as “Man is the Measure” in the extreme. For those who are into religion or similar stuff, it leads to contemplative mysticism; for those who are more secular or atheist, it is the project of human liberation, accomplishment & revolutionary action in any field. Gods of yore are pale figures in comparison with what Man will accomplish in the future. Optimistic science fiction is the Promethean project in literature & arts, while Marxism-Leninism a horrible realization of collective Prometheus utopian myth in real life (for a milder example, one can consult the Soviet cult classic, Ilin and Segal’s “How Man became a Giant”)
Sugrue’s lecture is good, but also deceptive in its simplifications.
Ancient Greeks, the best of them, were a mixture of rationality & irrationality. For some of them, Man was somehow divine & God(s) were not anthropomorphic, but Man was theomorphic. In short, Man is a potential God. For others, Gods were inscrutable & you better concern yourself with human things- otherwise, you might be squashed. Don’t cross the measure allotted to humans.This was the attitude of Homer and Pindar- humans were basically impotent & miserable, but human life is still worth living, because the afterlife is either non-existent or some confusing mess, so one is not certain what to expect (Hades or Elysium).
So, Sugrue simplifies the Greek attitude. Actually, there were many “Greek attitudes”.
Regarding Jerusalem, Sugrue is more correct, but also too simplistic. Job is not a Hebrew & the whole story is probably an expression of confusion besetting Jewish mind confronted with military & political defeats, as well as with the encounter with Greek thought. In traditional Judaism, there is not much thought given to individual life & afterlife. Sheol is basically Homer’s Hades- but Homer has also Elysium, while no such thing exists in Judaism. Alan Segal, in his magnificent masterwork “Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion” was right when he stated that for Jews- apart from normal human grief- death of an individual is not a tragedy. It’s the destruction of the collective, the Jewish tribe with their covenant, that is the ultimate horror. And Merkavah mystics, whose existence seems to contradict this contention, are not more than a footnote (albeit an interesting one), something like late Sinatra in the age of the Beatles.
Hebrew religion is the pinnacle of the Levantine spirit- life sucks, but let’s live because there is no other option; God is the omnipotent sovereign & human life revolves about fulfilling God’s decrees in the covenant. What comes next is fuzzy & rather down to earth wish fulfillment, world to come & similar pedestrian infantile projections. Islam is, in that sense, simpler & more optimistic- it lacks pathos of Hebrew scriptures, but it misreads the central motifs Muhammad found among Christians and Jews in Arabia in the N. Vincent Peale prosperity gospel fashion. In the Hebrew Bible, there is a whole spectrum, from allegro to andante, containing both major major & minor keys; in Quran, it’s all good if you behave properly & Job’s dilemmas are unimaginable (if life sucks, you’ll get your compensation in the afterlife). For Jews, expulsion from Eden was a bad thing; for Christians, it was the cosmic catastrophe. For Muslims- it was not such a big deal because Adam & Eve quickly found consolation in sex.
Be as it may- for Levantines life is reduced to religion. For ancient Greeks- absolutely not. And then came Christians & created a total emo-mental chaos. That’s why Christian theology is the most advanced- it tries to “explain” completely irreconcilable world-views.
The offer to Steve and Ron to join me for a chat remains open. I'm no Joe Rogan but at nearly 20,000 subscribers I have more clout than most.
P.S. As mentioned in previous comments, I don't read anything else on this platform but if there are any columnists of some sanity around these parts they too are free to get in touch.
This is wonderful. Lots of stuff I studied years ago, well presented. Thank you!
https://www.unz.com/isteve/is-steve-sailer-a-racist/#comment-6572383 (#13)
Thread continues:
https://www.unz.com/isteve/is-steve-sailer-a-racist/#comment-6576481 (#124)
Related to metaphysics, from the Daily Mail—
Sebastian Junger, Sebastian older.
Spooky, grim article and pictures relating to Junger’s new book:
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/05/23/16/85205377-13447247-Junger_known_for_his_work_in_conflict_zones_like_Afghanistan_whe-a-2_1716479819096.jpg
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13447247/sebastian-junger-near-death-late-father-appeared.htmlSelect comments from DM readers:
Replies: @Jenner Ickham Errican, @Carol, @Harry Baldwin, @Bardon Kaldian, @YetAnotherAnon, @Bardon Kaldian
No idea fractions were causing so much stress. That seems … irrational.
He produced tapes for the Teaching Company and has had an audience in the general public for 25 years or more.
I recently went back and read some Marcus Aurelius. Have to say— I found him wanting. In particular, I noticed that he was something of a nihilist. I was wondering why I had never heard this before, so I looked it up, and, yep, he has that reputation:
Could be though that this particular perspective was particularly conducive to recieving the Gospel. Rather like sensing that something is missing without knowing what, but not giving up. Like a seedbed of hope.
Yet Marcus Aurelius persecuted the Christians. It was not conducive for him.Replies: @Prester John
Maybe Marcus Aurelius was the Stuart Smalley of 2nd century AD Rome. He was after all the Emperor. Who would ever tell him that his writings sucked.
It must also be noted that he wasn't that good of an emperor. He was the worst of the five "Good Emperors", especially in that he named his worthless son, Commodus, to be his successor rather than adopting a worthy heir as his four predecessors had.Replies: @Ian M.
I just caught on to Sugrue’s YouTube videos recently. I watched his lecture on Machiavelli, which was amazing. He never stopped moving pacing to and fro along the stage with what was seemingly a stream of consciousness nonstop talk without notes and a thorough knowledge of his subject.
https://www.unz.com/isteve/is-steve-sailer-a-racist/#comment-6572383 (#13)
Thread continues:
https://www.unz.com/isteve/is-steve-sailer-a-racist/#comment-6576481 (#124)
Related to metaphysics, from the Daily Mail—
Sebastian Junger, Sebastian older.
Spooky, grim article and pictures relating to Junger’s new book:
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/05/23/16/85205377-13447247-Junger_known_for_his_work_in_conflict_zones_like_Afghanistan_whe-a-2_1716479819096.jpg
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13447247/sebastian-junger-near-death-late-father-appeared.htmlSelect comments from DM readers:
Replies: @Jenner Ickham Errican, @Carol, @Harry Baldwin, @Bardon Kaldian, @YetAnotherAnon, @Bardon Kaldian
When Junger was on Joe Rogan’s show on May 2021 and was asked to name someone in politics he considered a hero, he named Liz Cheney. Sad.
Last year a guy I worked with died of a stroke, 2 years before he was going to retire at 62. 37 years at the same company.
Delivered 100’s of millions of pounds of material over that time. Drove a truck with no air conditioning for the first 22 years of his career. Dealt with bad equipment, bad drivers, bad management, and angry customers without ever an incident that I know of. Married, had a couple kids and a couple grandkids IIRC. Total working class normie who paid his taxes, earned his paycheck, and never got into any trouble.
RIP to him. He and millions like him are the reason a guy Michael Sugrue can even exist.
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/professors/michael-sugrue/
PS For someone presumably of Irish Catholic background, he does look Jewish. Can any reader enlighten ?Replies: @J.Ross, @For what it's worth, @Larry, San Francisco, @Ian Smith, @kaganovitch
[Smiling]
>his qualifications were in history, not in philosophy
NOBODY TELL HIM! LET HIM FIND OUT!
Art’s wrong about a few things, but, when Art praises you, that is high praise indeed.
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/professors/michael-sugrue/
PS For someone presumably of Irish Catholic background, he does look Jewish. Can any reader enlighten ?Replies: @J.Ross, @For what it's worth, @Larry, San Francisco, @Ian Smith, @kaganovitch
“PS For someone presumably of Irish Catholic background, he does look Jewish. Can any reader enlighten ?”
Your standards of judgment are exposed as faulty?
“Could be though that this particular perspective was particularly conducive to recieving the Gospel.”
Yet Marcus Aurelius persecuted the Christians. It was not conducive for him.
Well, up until Constantine all the emperors persecuted 'em. As to the old Stoic, Marcus, he thought of them as irritating oddballs. And yet ironically, he would have approved of the (Christian) "Cardinal Virtues" (prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance)Replies: @For what it's worth
Good topic about an excellent scholar’s passing.
I note that once again, the NYT like other NYC centric media (most of them) was dragging out the “pandemic” as a reference point.
I notice this is much of the limp “analysis” in the Wall St. Journal, also NYC.
These Big Apple beings, who believe that this is the Center of the Universe, are still transfixed by the Chinese style lockdowns and Cuomo repression to “fight COVID” there. This made them, or many, urban hermits walled up into their mostly tiny apartments.
Of course these cave dwellers spent most of a year living online.
This gave them a temporary form of mental illness. But now the “Pandemic” (lockdown in NYC, mostly, not elsewhere) is a touchstone to explain anything and everything.
People living in non Dem ruled insane asylums where such penal lifestyles weren’t enforced, didn’t adopt the pandemic as the universal explainer for all subsequent developments.
In Texas, Florida and other more rational places, it was an annoyance but didn’t cause mental defects.
For the media to claim that it “caused” interest in this or that, or altered behavior now and forever, is mere provincialism which New York City is famous for producing. But also blind to their own variety of living in a “Mayberry bubble” a la the Andy Griffith TV show small town in NC.
Pauline, by the way, had a childhood much like our Jack D's. And she did know one Nixon voter-- she's constantly misquoted. But, hey, it keeps her memory alive, like Fibonacci's rabbits do for him.
I was pained to hear Aaron Rogers tell Tucker Carlson that Krakauer was his favorite author, “only book [he] ever cried over.”
Ian Despalo is another really good classics lecturer from the Great Courses catalog who’s available on Youtube.
Producing, or inviting?
Pauline Kael was from Petaluma, Truman Capote from Monroeville, Alabama, Tony Randall from Tulsa. Dick Cavett is from Lincoln, Nebraska, Rex Reed from Fort Worth, Gay Talese from Ocean City, way down the Jersey Shore. Tina Brown is from Buckinghamshire.
Donald Trump, however, is a native. If you take the 1898 absorption of Queens County as legitimate.
Pauline, by the way, had a childhood much like our Jack D’s. And she did know one Nixon voter– she’s constantly misquoted. But, hey, it keeps her memory alive, like Fibonacci’s rabbits do for him.
I agree with most everything you wrote, with one exception: to an extent, New Yorkers are bound to be more obsessed with Covid because the resulting WFH has caused massive economic destruction. No city with the possible exception of San Francisco has suffered so much.
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/professors/michael-sugrue/
PS For someone presumably of Irish Catholic background, he does look Jewish. Can any reader enlighten ?Replies: @J.Ross, @For what it's worth, @Larry, San Francisco, @Ian Smith, @kaganovitch
Black Irish?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_European_FarmersReplies: @Roderick Spode
OT – Feminist rage rituals at $4k a pop:
Remember when we were told that we needed women in positions of authority because they would bring gentleness, caring, and concern for others to institutional decision making.
Of course, none of these shrieking harpies will ever be in positions of authority.
But they will elect those who are.
The future is female…………………….
H/T Revolver News
Well- did they notice Richard Lynn’s passing?
https://www.unz.com/isteve/is-steve-sailer-a-racist/#comment-6572383 (#13)
Thread continues:
https://www.unz.com/isteve/is-steve-sailer-a-racist/#comment-6576481 (#124)
Related to metaphysics, from the Daily Mail—
Sebastian Junger, Sebastian older.
Spooky, grim article and pictures relating to Junger’s new book:
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/05/23/16/85205377-13447247-Junger_known_for_his_work_in_conflict_zones_like_Afghanistan_whe-a-2_1716479819096.jpg
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13447247/sebastian-junger-near-death-late-father-appeared.htmlSelect comments from DM readers:
Replies: @Jenner Ickham Errican, @Carol, @Harry Baldwin, @Bardon Kaldian, @YetAnotherAnon, @Bardon Kaldian
The best part:
LadyCarmenShmarmen Shmarmelot New Mexico, United States
He has cold, unfeeling eyes. look. Like a sociopath or a narcissist.
BessieWarfield Nassau, Bahamas
Nah, he’s just German.
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/professors/michael-sugrue/
PS For someone presumably of Irish Catholic background, he does look Jewish. Can any reader enlighten ?Replies: @J.Ross, @For what it's worth, @Larry, San Francisco, @Ian Smith, @kaganovitch
Believe it or not, there are non-Jews who have dark hair and need glasses.
There are some mistakes in the Machiavelli lecture–not that it’s wrong in the main; I actually think it’s basically right, especially in its comparison to Plato.
But, e.g., it is not certain that Cesare Borgia killed his brother. That was rumored at the time. The Showtime series showed it as having happened, but there isn’t solid proof either way. In any case, NM doesn’t mention it, much less praise Cesare for it. Though he does “excuse” Romulus killing Remus in Discourses I 9.
Sugrue gets some of the biography wrong. NM worked for the Florentine republic (1498-1512), not the Medici. He was in fact fired by the Medici when they retook power (they had been ousted in 1494), and it was the Medici who tortured him (in 1513). He never worked in politics again, though the Medici did commission (and pay) him to write the Florentine Histories in 1520.
It is inaccurate to call the Discourses a history book. NM himself says in the preface that its purpose is not to tell or retell history but to derive present-day, practical lessons from the study of history.
This is a quibble, but NM wasn’t exiled, just placed in a sort of house arrest for a year but within Florentine territory. He didn’t write The Prince in 1532. That’s when it was published, by friends to whom he left the manuscript. He died in 1527. He wrote the book, or at least a first draft, in 1513; we have a letter from him to a friend saying that he had finished it, dated 10 December 1513.
Odd that he tells the Remirro de Orco story from Prince 7 without naming names: the man who deputized him was in fact Cesare Borgia, about whom Sugrue talks extensively earlier. All that detail about having the secret police arrest him is not, in fact, in The Prince (or in any other source that I know of), so he ad libbed that, and likely kind of invented it.
I think it is wrong to say that NM represents nothing new in politics, but that would be “too long and exalted a matter” (D III 35) to go into here. And it would be churlish to complain that a 43-minute lecture doesn’t explain everything.
But just sticking with the Remirro story–to say nothing of the metaphoric layer, which I won’t mention; few would accept it anyway–one of the real lessons is the nature of the people or the masses. In Machiavelli’s telling, they actually WANT security and order, but they hate the necessary means. They cannot understand or accept the truth, accept necessity. So they want contradictory things: security without the necessary means. The genius of Borgia in that example was in giving them what they want, what is necessary for them (and also good for the prince), while managing their expectations or their illusions about necessity. He’s saying that the people have to be lied to and manipulated for their own good. There is no other way; that’s just how they are and they can’t ever be changed.
I also don’t think NM is quite as evil as Sugrue says he is. The problem is that NM says outrageous things, but how many of them does he really mean? He claims in the preface to the Discourses to be “working for the comment benefit of everyone.” I think for a variety of reasons we can take that declaration seriously. Also, there are many places where NM hides a moderate teaching under an outrageous surface. E.g., Prince 5, the surface of which is, he who conquers a republic must raise it to the ground and kill all the inhabitants, but read closely reveals other, more humane remedies.
All that said, everything Sugrue says about NM’s metaphysics is accurate, as far as I can tell. That is to say, at least as NM presents it. It’s a hard question to say whether NM actually believes what he says on that score. Which points to the contradiction at the heart of his project: he is the philosopher who downgrades and dismisses philosophy, at least as it had been understood up until his time.
OT – Cops behaving badly:
This has to be a new low for the boys in blue. Police detectives in Fontana, California coerced a confession from a mentally ill man for a crime they had no real reason to believe had even been committed and which it turned out had not been committed. It’s hard to understand their motivation for doing this, unless it was just sadism.
https://www.unz.com/isteve/is-steve-sailer-a-racist/#comment-6572383 (#13)
Thread continues:
https://www.unz.com/isteve/is-steve-sailer-a-racist/#comment-6576481 (#124)
Related to metaphysics, from the Daily Mail—
Sebastian Junger, Sebastian older.
Spooky, grim article and pictures relating to Junger’s new book:
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/05/23/16/85205377-13447247-Junger_known_for_his_work_in_conflict_zones_like_Afghanistan_whe-a-2_1716479819096.jpg
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13447247/sebastian-junger-near-death-late-father-appeared.htmlSelect comments from DM readers:
Replies: @Jenner Ickham Errican, @Carol, @Harry Baldwin, @Bardon Kaldian, @YetAnotherAnon, @Bardon Kaldian
‘I began to research the psychological effects of almost dying.’
I have almost died, and recognise none of the phenomena he describes. But as someone put it in a novel (I think Compton McKenzie’s Whisky Galore), “some people feel important when they’ve got a toothache”.
Meanwhile, the news from Hollywood couldn’t be more amazing. According to
the New York Times, “Memorial Day weekend sales in North America are
expected to total $125 million, down 40% from last year.” Looks like the boycott
is working after all!
https://www.unz.com/isteve/is-steve-sailer-a-racist/#comment-6572383 (#13)
Thread continues:
https://www.unz.com/isteve/is-steve-sailer-a-racist/#comment-6576481 (#124)
Related to metaphysics, from the Daily Mail—
Sebastian Junger, Sebastian older.
Spooky, grim article and pictures relating to Junger’s new book:
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/05/23/16/85205377-13447247-Junger_known_for_his_work_in_conflict_zones_like_Afghanistan_whe-a-2_1716479819096.jpg
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13447247/sebastian-junger-near-death-late-father-appeared.htmlSelect comments from DM readers:
Replies: @Jenner Ickham Errican, @Carol, @Harry Baldwin, @Bardon Kaldian, @YetAnotherAnon, @Bardon Kaldian
I won’t go into NDEs because it is a tiresome subject. I’d just add that, although most of it is debunked, some paranormal phenomena are real, no matter what one says.
We all know it from our experience, although there is no “scientific” proof.
We all know – heard, experienced- situations when a man is dying in a hospital & his dog is away, with this man’s family. Then, suddenly, the dog jumps & starts howling. Of course, his owner had died at that moment, which was later confirmed by hospital staff.
Of course, this is anecdotal evidence. It cannot be replicated.
But- it’s real. Not a fiction. And completely inexplicable by the materialist world-view.
It is explained as a random coincidence. Dogs howl all the time but people remember the time by chance that a dog howling seemed to coincide with a notable event.Replies: @Bardon Kaldian
Sorry to hear, seems like a guy who made the world a better place.
When I saw Sugrue, though, and this being iSteve, my thought was, “the guy who wrote that idiotic book about Detroit?”
Yes, it wasn’t the pandemic that caused the dislocation. It was the insane response to the pandemic that did so.
Even in Red States, the scamdemic had lasting economic effects and f**ked up a lot of people mentally too.
I agree. It’s been some time since I read The Meditations but I remember being highly non-plussed by them. It just seemed like a list of daily affirmations, like you’d find in the self-help section at Barnes & Noble.
Maybe Marcus Aurelius was the Stuart Smalley of 2nd century AD Rome. He was after all the Emperor. Who would ever tell him that his writings sucked.
It must also be noted that he wasn’t that good of an emperor. He was the worst of the five “Good Emperors”, especially in that he named his worthless son, Commodus, to be his successor rather than adopting a worthy heir as his four predecessors had.
Would you say that Marcus Aurelius was worse than Nerva? Who if I recall, didn't reign long enough really to do much, and was basically at the mercy of the army.
Yeah I posted the closest thing to an obituary I could find on the Newslinks section and nobody seemed to care. He was a really amazing teacher and if you have never heard of him I promise he has at the very least one video which will gobsmack you.
We all know it from our experience, although there is no "scientific" proof.
We all know - heard, experienced- situations when a man is dying in a hospital & his dog is away, with this man's family. Then, suddenly, the dog jumps & starts howling. Of course, his owner had died at that moment, which was later confirmed by hospital staff.
Of course, this is anecdotal evidence. It cannot be replicated.
But- it's real. Not a fiction. And completely inexplicable by the materialist world-view.Replies: @James B. Shearer
“…And completely inexplicable by the materialist world-view.”
It is explained as a random coincidence. Dogs howl all the time but people remember the time by chance that a dog howling seemed to coincide with a notable event.
the New York Times, “Memorial Day weekend sales in North America are
expected to total $125 million, down 40% from last year.” Looks like the boycott
is working after all!Replies: @epebble
I don’t know what boycott is going on. We have watched many movies over the last few years in the comfort of our home. Our last trip to a movie theater was in 2019. I am sure there are millions like us who consider going to a movie theater to watch a movie an obsolete pastime. What is happening is not a boycott, it is technological obsolescence. Just as most people no longer make landline calls or write a letter to mom.
Now that’s gone, and I never watch movies at home except occasional
oldies from the 1930s or ‘40s on TCM. There’s nothing worth seeing
anymore, and I’m sure there are millions like me. I can do without
24/7 indoctrination. There are simply many more options today. Who needs
Hollywood when we have video games, Tik Tok, Youtube, and all the riches
of the Internet, incl. university level lectures? Anything that defunds Hollywood
is to be celebrated.Replies: @epebble, @Anon
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/professors/michael-sugrue/
PS For someone presumably of Irish Catholic background, he does look Jewish. Can any reader enlighten ?Replies: @J.Ross, @For what it's worth, @Larry, San Francisco, @Ian Smith, @kaganovitch
The glasses are throwing you off. If you look at more recent photo such as his obit picture in the NY Times he looks pretty leprechaunish.
You're right. Is that a glass of malt whisky in front of him ? I'll forgive the ice cubes: it's usually hot nearly all year in Florida, where latterly he lived. We can change quite considerably as we get older. People say to me I look nothing like I looked at 30. The Cary Grants of this world, who age slowly, are few and far between.
First, Heraclitean Logos is much more than rational thought & it is close to God. Basically, it is something like Tao or Dharma, or Brahman in one of its many metaphysical incarnations. Johannine Logos, on the other hand, recycled the old Egyptian idea that God (in the Egyptian case Ptah) created the world through Word. John's originality is that Word became flesh in Jesus Christ- which is, essentially, the Western version of the Avatar myth.
In the Hebrew faith, things are simple- here is God & there is Man. Abstractions like "divine nature" and "human nature" are separated. Christians created the confusion with their Avatar, God-Man in whom human and divine natures are reconciled. Other layers of confusion come with Gnostics, for whom divine nature is present not in Christ only, but in every human being. Christ (not in Jesus' personality, but as the divine Son) is potentially present-albeit dormant- in everyone.
Sugrue is only partially right about Mythos. Greeks, with few exceptions, pitied Prometheus & remained ambivalent about the whole story. It was only with Romantics, the first of them being multifaceted erotomaniac Goethe, who claimed Prometheus to be their archetypal hero & God in any variant (Zeus, Yahweh, ..) a sadistic sky God worthy only of contempt. One can have that attitude to life even if you are atheist- for instance, Marx was Promethean.
Basically, it is about the deification of Man, which may be divorced from a metaphysical context & can be defined as "Man is the Measure" in the extreme. For those who are into religion or similar stuff, it leads to contemplative mysticism; for those who are more secular or atheist, it is the project of human liberation, accomplishment & revolutionary action in any field. Gods of yore are pale figures in comparison with what Man will accomplish in the future. Optimistic science fiction is the Promethean project in literature & arts, while Marxism-Leninism a horrible realization of collective Prometheus utopian myth in real life (for a milder example, one can consult the Soviet cult classic, Ilin and Segal's "How Man became a Giant")
Sugrue's lecture is good, but also deceptive in its simplifications.
Ancient Greeks, the best of them, were a mixture of rationality & irrationality. For some of them, Man was somehow divine & God(s) were not anthropomorphic, but Man was theomorphic. In short, Man is a potential God. For others, Gods were inscrutable & you better concern yourself with human things- otherwise, you might be squashed. Don't cross the measure allotted to humans.This was the attitude of Homer and Pindar- humans were basically impotent & miserable, but human life is still worth living, because the afterlife is either non-existent or some confusing mess, so one is not certain what to expect (Hades or Elysium).
So, Sugrue simplifies the Greek attitude. Actually, there were many "Greek attitudes".
Regarding Jerusalem, Sugrue is more correct, but also too simplistic. Job is not a Hebrew & the whole story is probably an expression of confusion besetting Jewish mind confronted with military & political defeats, as well as with the encounter with Greek thought. In traditional Judaism, there is not much thought given to individual life & afterlife. Sheol is basically Homer's Hades- but Homer has also Elysium, while no such thing exists in Judaism. Alan Segal, in his magnificent masterwork "Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion" was right when he stated that for Jews- apart from normal human grief- death of an individual is not a tragedy. It's the destruction of the collective, the Jewish tribe with their covenant, that is the ultimate horror. And Merkavah mystics, whose existence seems to contradict this contention, are not more than a footnote (albeit an interesting one), something like late Sinatra in the age of the Beatles.
Hebrew religion is the pinnacle of the Levantine spirit- life sucks, but let's live because there is no other option; God is the omnipotent sovereign & human life revolves about fulfilling God's decrees in the covenant. What comes next is fuzzy & rather down to earth wish fulfillment, world to come & similar pedestrian infantile projections. Islam is, in that sense, simpler & more optimistic- it lacks pathos of Hebrew scriptures, but it misreads the central motifs Muhammad found among Christians and Jews in Arabia in the N. Vincent Peale prosperity gospel fashion. In the Hebrew Bible, there is a whole spectrum, from allegro to andante, containing both major major & minor keys; in Quran, it's all good if you behave properly & Job's dilemmas are unimaginable (if life sucks, you'll get your compensation in the afterlife). For Jews, expulsion from Eden was a bad thing; for Christians, it was the cosmic catastrophe. For Muslims- it was not such a big deal because Adam & Eve quickly found consolation in sex.
Be as it may- for Levantines life is reduced to religion. For ancient Greeks- absolutely not. And then came Christians & created a total emo-mental chaos. That's why Christian theology is the most advanced- it tries to "explain" completely irreconcilable world-views.Replies: @ydydy
I would cavil on some points (though the last time I used that word it didn’t go so well, lol, https://youtube.com/shorts/p5FVk4QNOn4?feature=share ) but you sound like you have some interesting ideas. Have a look at my youtube page and if you have stage presence and want to try a podcast let me know.
The offer to Steve and Ron to join me for a chat remains open. I’m no Joe Rogan but at nearly 20,000 subscribers I have more clout than most.
P.S. As mentioned in previous comments, I don’t read anything else on this platform but if there are any columnists of some sanity around these parts they too are free to get in touch.
And yet, WFH saved many lives, though the nycpd would just have “disappeared” the additional murders.
You’re right. Is that a glass of malt whisky in front of him ? I’ll forgive the ice cubes: it’s usually hot nearly all year in Florida, where latterly he lived. We can change quite considerably as we get older. People say to me I look nothing like I looked at 30. The Cary Grants of this world, who age slowly, are few and far between.
The legend of the Black Irish is still followed by some authorities. It was believed that they came up from Iberia in Neolithic times. This seems to fit quite well with what we know about Early European Farmers, but the consensus is that they came from Anatolia, not Iberia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_European_Farmers
It is explained as a random coincidence. Dogs howl all the time but people remember the time by chance that a dog howling seemed to coincide with a notable event.Replies: @Bardon Kaldian
Coincidence my foot. People who have experienced & investigated such cases know it is a laughable “explanation”.
That said, I would be disappointed - saddened even - if it should turn out that I am right and you are wrong.Replies: @Bardon Kaldian
As an atheist, I tend to favor materialist explanations. I can’t imagine how supernatural forces would work. They can’t be rationally explained, so it’s better to reject them in favor of more prosaic explanations. That is the modern, rational, scientific World-view.
That said, I would be disappointed – saddened even – if it should turn out that I am right and you are wrong.
My approach is different- I would like that atheism & materialism were right & that materialist monism is the correct world view, as I thought when I was, say, 15. Then, in the next 20 years & due to a series of experiences & analyses including too many things- I completely dismissed any kind of atheism & materialism as the all-encompassing world-view, while retaining respect for its explanatory power of the empirical world.
The truth, as we human beings could say is contained in philosophia perennis:
1. there is one source of All, not limited to what we term observable universe
2. human beings possess the indestructible element which is of the nature of the Source
3. the best way of life is to fulfill your destiny, or more prosaically, to do what you are made for
C.G. Jung was essentially right:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb0toLBlofE
Much about female rage these days. They are mostly lesbians and some are suicidal. There is a new drug to help these ladies treat severe symptoms…take a dose of TRI-COX-A-GIN.
I read his Meditations constantly. “Nihilist” just doesn’t spring to my mind when describing Aurelius.
Going to the movies used to be an important part of my life.
Now that’s gone, and I never watch movies at home except occasional
oldies from the 1930s or ‘40s on TCM. There’s nothing worth seeing
anymore, and I’m sure there are millions like me. I can do without
24/7 indoctrination. There are simply many more options today. Who needs
Hollywood when we have video games, Tik Tok, Youtube, and all the riches
of the Internet, incl. university level lectures? Anything that defunds Hollywood
is to be celebrated.
Another bonus of watching movies at home is being able to watch movies from all over the world. Sometimes, movies are more enjoyable when you don't understand the language and the culture is unfamiliar and full of surprises. When you stream movies on internet, there is no difference between Hollywood, Holland or Hungary in ease of access. At least here, I think, globalization is good.
Delivered 100's of millions of pounds of material over that time. Drove a truck with no air conditioning for the first 22 years of his career. Dealt with bad equipment, bad drivers, bad management, and angry customers without ever an incident that I know of. Married, had a couple kids and a couple grandkids IIRC. Total working class normie who paid his taxes, earned his paycheck, and never got into any trouble.
RIP to him. He and millions like him are the reason a guy Michael Sugrue can even exist.Replies: @Sam Patch, @Cagey Beast
So what? Apples and oranges.
Now that’s gone, and I never watch movies at home except occasional
oldies from the 1930s or ‘40s on TCM. There’s nothing worth seeing
anymore, and I’m sure there are millions like me. I can do without
24/7 indoctrination. There are simply many more options today. Who needs
Hollywood when we have video games, Tik Tok, Youtube, and all the riches
of the Internet, incl. university level lectures? Anything that defunds Hollywood
is to be celebrated.Replies: @epebble, @Anon
Anything that defunds Hollywood is to be celebrated.
Another bonus of watching movies at home is being able to watch movies from all over the world. Sometimes, movies are more enjoyable when you don’t understand the language and the culture is unfamiliar and full of surprises. When you stream movies on internet, there is no difference between Hollywood, Holland or Hungary in ease of access. At least here, I think, globalization is good.
The final sentence.
How did it take six years for this to make it through the courts?
That said, I would be disappointed - saddened even - if it should turn out that I am right and you are wrong.Replies: @Bardon Kaldian
Einsteinian-quantum cosmos is limited as is any variant of, let’s call it, modern materialism.
My approach is different- I would like that atheism & materialism were right & that materialist monism is the correct world view, as I thought when I was, say, 15. Then, in the next 20 years & due to a series of experiences & analyses including too many things- I completely dismissed any kind of atheism & materialism as the all-encompassing world-view, while retaining respect for its explanatory power of the empirical world.
The truth, as we human beings could say is contained in philosophia perennis:
1. there is one source of All, not limited to what we term observable universe
2. human beings possess the indestructible element which is of the nature of the Source
3. the best way of life is to fulfill your destiny, or more prosaically, to do what you are made for
C.G. Jung was essentially right:
You can’t learn this stuff by watching lectures.
Now that’s gone, and I never watch movies at home except occasional
oldies from the 1930s or ‘40s on TCM. There’s nothing worth seeing
anymore, and I’m sure there are millions like me. I can do without
24/7 indoctrination. There are simply many more options today. Who needs
Hollywood when we have video games, Tik Tok, Youtube, and all the riches
of the Internet, incl. university level lectures? Anything that defunds Hollywood
is to be celebrated.Replies: @epebble, @Anon
It’s not gone. You can still go to theaters to watch movies. What caused you to break from it? Covid?
movie industry) I stopped going to the movies around 2015-6
for two main reasons, 1. Theaters flooded by superhero blockbusters
was getting on my nerves, 2. The Internet exploded in terms of the number of
choices available from around the world. One example was Western men
escaping civilization, going to the Philippines, taking up with Badjao (Sea
Tribes) women, and vlogging about it. It’s similar to the abducted American kids
in the 19th century rejecting civilization, and choosing to live with the Indians
in the prairies. Shows how much of what we call progress is overrated.
I’m sure millions of Americans today would gladly abandon cell phones and
TV sets, and go back in time to live in the late 19th century America.
Heck, you don’t even have to go that far back - California in the 1950s-early ‘80s
was the nearest thing to Paradise created on Earth.
More seriously, his lectures were exemplary. Even the way he would say "Now" when introducing a statement was superb.
Good stuff.
RIP.Replies: @Richard B
The phrase was modified over 50 years ago to Publish and Perish – for a reason.
No, with minor exceptions, (i.e. to know roughly what’s going on in the
movie industry) I stopped going to the movies around 2015-6
for two main reasons, 1. Theaters flooded by superhero blockbusters
was getting on my nerves, 2. The Internet exploded in terms of the number of
choices available from around the world. One example was Western men
escaping civilization, going to the Philippines, taking up with Badjao (Sea
Tribes) women, and vlogging about it. It’s similar to the abducted American kids
in the 19th century rejecting civilization, and choosing to live with the Indians
in the prairies. Shows how much of what we call progress is overrated.
I’m sure millions of Americans today would gladly abandon cell phones and
TV sets, and go back in time to live in the late 19th century America.
Heck, you don’t even have to go that far back – California in the 1950s-early ‘80s
was the nearest thing to Paradise created on Earth.
Delivered 100's of millions of pounds of material over that time. Drove a truck with no air conditioning for the first 22 years of his career. Dealt with bad equipment, bad drivers, bad management, and angry customers without ever an incident that I know of. Married, had a couple kids and a couple grandkids IIRC. Total working class normie who paid his taxes, earned his paycheck, and never got into any trouble.
RIP to him. He and millions like him are the reason a guy Michael Sugrue can even exist.Replies: @Sam Patch, @Cagey Beast
And your friend was able to live out his life in a complex society because bookish folks with indoor jobs did their part to keep it all running.
A life of pontificating at a university is pretty much the same thing a crazy homeless guy does on the street corner for free, except the homeless guy is dressed better.Replies: @Cagey Beast
Lying doesn’t work here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_European_FarmersReplies: @Roderick Spode
I am black Irish (1/2 genotypically, 100% phenotypically) and I have Anatolian “trace DNA” per 23andMe
Yet Marcus Aurelius persecuted the Christians. It was not conducive for him.Replies: @Prester John
“Yet Marcus Aurelius persecuted the Christians.”
Well, up until Constantine all the emperors persecuted ’em. As to the old Stoic, Marcus, he thought of them as irritating oddballs. And yet ironically, he would have approved of the (Christian) “Cardinal Virtues” (prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Peace_of_the_Church
You’re starting to sound a lot like Art Deco, but with out the charm that comes with being oblivious.
A life of pontificating at a university is pretty much the same thing a crazy homeless guy does on the street corner for free, except the homeless guy is dressed better.
A life of pontificating at a university is pretty much the same thing a crazy homeless guy does on the street corner for free, except the homeless guy is dressed better.Replies: @Cagey Beast
And you sound like a truck stop Pol Pot who resents anyone with book learnin’.
You’re welcome.
Maybe Marcus Aurelius was the Stuart Smalley of 2nd century AD Rome. He was after all the Emperor. Who would ever tell him that his writings sucked.
It must also be noted that he wasn't that good of an emperor. He was the worst of the five "Good Emperors", especially in that he named his worthless son, Commodus, to be his successor rather than adopting a worthy heir as his four predecessors had.Replies: @Ian M.
But isn’t it true that his predecessors only adopted heirs because they did not have any legitimate biological heirs of their own? Marcus Aurelius didn’t have that excuse.
Would you say that Marcus Aurelius was worse than Nerva? Who if I recall, didn’t reign long enough really to do much, and was basically at the mercy of the army.
Well, up until Constantine all the emperors persecuted 'em. As to the old Stoic, Marcus, he thought of them as irritating oddballs. And yet ironically, he would have approved of the (Christian) "Cardinal Virtues" (prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance)Replies: @For what it's worth
Not all of the emperors persecuted the Church. There was a break in persecution called the Little Peace of the Church:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Peace_of_the_Church