the greycat blog

Still at The Times, one wonders if those who think up the headlines there ever actually read the results:

UN chief Ban Ki Moon skates over Antarctica row

Here’s a superb article from The Times: Sarah Baxter, ‘Where do you stand in the new culture wars?’ I particularly like this bit:

My own test for spotting a phoney liberal is as follows. If you think Bush is a fascist and Castro is a progressive, you are not a democrat. If you think cultural traditions can trump women’s rights, you are not a feminist. And if you think antisemitic rants are simply an expression of frustration with American and Israeli policy, you have learnt nothing from history.

There’s also a quiz to help you find if you are a true progressive or a phoney liberal. It can be found here (warning: it’s a PDF. Unlike the people at The Times, I think you should know that in advance).

[Found via Tim Blair, to whom acknowledgements and thanks.]

Homeopathy is dangerous rubbish. When someone points this out, complete with evidence to support the claim, the Society of Homeopaths (’representing professional homeopaths’) shuts them up with legal bullying. This is what happened to Dr Andy Lewis, who runs an excellent site called The Quackometer. He published an article called ‘The gentle art of homeopathic killing’, which told the truth about the ludicruous and sometimes lethal nonsense that is homeopathy. The Society of Homeopaths responded by sending threatening letters to his hosting company until the page containing the article was taken down. Ben Goldacre has a full account here.

The internet being what it is, this kind of censorship tends to be counter-productive for those who engage in it. That is certainly the case with this attempt to muzzle the truth. You can now read the full text of the suppressed Quackometer article here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here, and in a whole lot more places, number increasing by the minute; or find it by carrying out this Google search, which reveals that the Society of Homeopaths have managed to get their own name inextricably associated with the article they tried to eliminate.

Truth will out.

The most popular paper on greycat.org for this week, say the site statistics, is ‘Taste, sense and vanity: Alexander Pope’s “Epistle to Burlington”‘.

Burlington stands as the epitome of good taste but, Pope warns, there is a danger that those who do not have his innate judgment and aesthetic sense will misinterpret the lessons he has to teach. Pope thus seems to be suggesting that even the efforts of men of taste such as Lord Burlington are doomed to failure if the undiscriminating and vulgar are free to misinterpret and pervert the values they have to impart:

Yet shall (my Lord), your just, your noble rules
Fill half the land with imitating fools;
Who random drawings from your sheets shall take,
And of one beauty many blunders make … (lines 25-28)

If that is the case, the reader may ask, what hope is there for the progress of taste in art, architecture and landscape gardening? Pope places his faith in men of innate sense such as Burlington, appearing to argue that although many will ignore or distort their precepts of taste and elegance, their practice of those ideas will nevertheless stand as inspiration to those who are capable of understanding true aesthetic and moral values.

For more, see ‘Taste, sense and vanity: Alexander Pope’s “Epistle to Burlington”‘. I have more to say about Pope in chapter II of my essay on William Shenstone; in particular, I take issue with the notion that Pope can be credited with the invention of the English landscape garden, or ever conceived of garden design as being ‘landscape-painting … Just like a landscape hung up’.

Picture: Engraving of Alexander Pope by George Vertue (1726). [Source]

The most popular paper on greycat.org at the moment, according to the site statistics, is ‘Aristotle and citizenship’; I suspect lots of students are starting the new term with papers on Aristotle and political thought, which is certainly a good way to begin.

The political responsibilities of citizenship could hardly be greater, but for Aristotle they are entirely in accordance with nature. Citizenship is nothing less than the fullest fulfillment of human potential in terms of the ‘good life’. In this respect, as throughout Aristotle’s politics, the essence of citizenship lies in active participation. The citizen is not merely an inhabitant of the state, nor simply a member of a politically privileged class; he is the essence of the state’s ability to achieve the greatest measure of happiness and virtue as a community. For this, the citizen must have the leisure to devote himself to the educative cultural pursuits which facilitate his understanding of virtue.

The whole paper can be found here: ‘Aristotle and citizenship: the responsibilities of citizenship in the Politics‘.

Picture: Plato and Aristotle, representing ‘Philosophy’, marble panel (1437) by Luca della Robbia, from the exterior of the campanile of Florence cathedral. [Source]

This blog has been featured in The New Republic, in a posting by Marty Peretz, no less: he gives us a mention as a source of information on the Nadia Abu El Haj debate in ‘Another Columbia Controversy’. Most gratifying.

(Thanks to Emmet Trueman for letting me know about this.)

‘You’ve got quite a lot of information, then’: Fry & Laurie, 1989. YouTube of course.

A couple of weeks ago I bought a 1909 edition of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam at a book fair. It didn’t cost very much, and it is not rare or remarkable.

What makes it unusual is the dedication on the right-hand front endpaper. Here is an image of the page; transcription follows.

Love from Gwen. August 2nd 1911

Uncle Jack

Your bed is not nice to sleep in, it goes down in the middle, and the flys in the room are dreadful, and they do so bite, I slept here on my way to Cricceith, but never again

Gwen

Poor Gwen. Her sufferings were clearly so acute that she determined to tell Uncle Jack just what she thought of his uneven mattress and fly-ridden bedroom; and she found her opportunity. One wonders with what pleasure Uncle Jack received the book from Gwen, and whether the shine was taken off it somewhat when he opened it and read the inscription.