Docile Pupils of The System Rebelling Against It

In speaking of the radical students of the 1960's, Ayn Rand once said:

"Such are the products of modern philosophy. They are the type of students who are too intelligent not to see the logical consequences of the theories they have been taught--but not intelligent nor independent enough to see through the theories and reject them. So they scream their defiance against 'The System,' not realizing that they are its most consistently docile pupils, that theirs is a rebellion against the status quo by its archetypes, against the intellectual 'Establishment' by its robots who have swallowed up every shopworn premise of the 'liberals' of the 1930's"

A Quote from R.J. Rushdoony

While I'm not very well-versed with his writings, I think it is safe to say that I disagree with R.J. Rushdoony on a number of things.

However, here is one quote of his. I've come across it in my readings and I think it is pretty well said:

"Power is an inescapable reality; its denial in one area leads to a concentration of all power in another area. When sovereign power is denied to God, it does not disappear; it is merely relocated from eternity to time. When the power of the family is broken, parenthood is then transferred to the state, however ineptly. Atomistic individualism, because it denies all power to the supernatural, and rebels against the family, claims for itself both sovereignty and power. But, because the atomistic individual is anarchistic only with reference to God's law, and family law, his need for a a framework of reference is concentrated on men at large--collective man, the state. The state becomes his 'resonance box,' his stage. Atomistic man calls the totalitarian state into existence as his source of morality, religion, sovereignty, and power."

Saturday's Mini Codices

Here is today's installment:

• Zotero has just gone public--it looks as though it should prove to be an amazing research/citation tool for the Firefox web browser. It only works on Firefox 2.0, though.


• If you have an IBM/Lenevo laptop, you should check battery bar code here to see if you qualify for the recall due to unsafe batteries.


• Douglas Groothuis has an interesting post about what he calls Nietzsche's "Argument From Grammar"

Review: Albert Camus and the Minister

"Albert Camus & the Minister" by Howard Mumma (ISBN: 1557252467)

I'm no stranger to reviewing books. I normally find it easy to write a brief one or two assesment of a book. But my feelings about "Albert Camus and the Minister" by Howard Mumma are very complex and I struggle to write a descent review of this book.

The first 90 pages which cover a growing friendship between Camus and Mumma is clearly the most interesting part of the book. The rest is a collection of life experiences that were meaningful to Mumma. These experiences are not dull, but I found them to be a bit disconnected from the first 90 pages. One of the most entertaining points of this book is where Camus asks for baptism, but Mumma rejects it on the grounds that (A) Camus had already been baptised as an infant and (B) he wasn't willing to join the church or make it a public event. He ends up regreting that stand a bit, especially on reflecting on the fact that it was his final meeting with Camus. It was also neat to read about Camus' enthusiasm in studying the Bible.

Mumma holds a view of the Bible which relegates The Fall to allegorical tale and he certainly doesn't have an evangelical view of the inspiration of scripture. While coming from that platform might have made agreement with Camus a bit easier, I believe Mumma would have had some more meaningful answers to Camus' questions if he actually had a view of the Bible which validates using it as an authorative source. In some senses, from a thoroughly evangelical Christian prespective, Mumma wasn't offering Camus something much better than he already had. Sure, Mumma presented some God talk, but did he present the gospel to Camus as something that is "true truth" not just "religious truth"?

I sympathise with the views of other reviewers on Amazon who are quite critical of this book. While I hope and trust Mumma has recorded things accurately, there are a few things which make me wonder. First, some of his recollections (he admits plainly that they are recollections and may not be 100% accurate) portray the conversations as rather simplistic--with most of the dialogs turning out to be more "gentle" and successful from Mumma's perspective than one would expect when an Existentialist and a Christian minister would get together. Second, I don't know enough about Camus to verify it, but some other reviewers bring up interesting comments that Mumma seems to have gotten some of Camus' biographical details wrong. Third, Camus seeking truth is quite believable, but requesting adult baptism? That seems a bit far fetched. As another reviewer noted, it is notable that the accuracy of first 90 pages of the books can not be verified. This problem is further compounded by the fact that Mumma shares that Camus was secretive about it--he requested specifically that his inquiries be kept secret (this make this book a betrayal of sorts).

I will not go to the length to say I think Mumma invented the dialogs (as some reviewers have suggested), but I think I reader should approach it with some caution and be prepared to accept that at the very least some of the dialogs may not have been recorded completely accurately.

So, if you have been following me so far, you should find that my response to this book is both positive and negative. I don't regret having read it, though. The first 90 pages are interesting even if we are to suppose that they are totally fictional. This book might be worth getting if the reviews so far intruige you. I'll just advise you that you shouldn't expect Mumma to be an evangelical nor should you expect any of the recollections in this book to be easily verifiable.

I'm left wondering what would be the outcome if Camus had spent this time with an evangelical (such as Francis Schaeffer or OS Guinness) instead of one who has accepted most of the doctrinal positions of the "liberal" movement.

Remembering Pascal

For those of you who don't know, today is the day that philosopher and mathemetician Blaise Pascal died. On this day in 1662, the great genius died. When I say "Remembering Pascal", two things come to mind: Pascal as an individual, and Pascal as a programming language named after him.

As a programmer, my earlier years were mainly spent working with the Pascal language, usually working in the Borland Pascal environment. Pascal was really a good match for me at that time. I was good enough to be somewhat stiffled and insulted by the simplicity and occasional absurdities of the Basic language. However, I wasn't nearly knowledgable enough to master C or Assembly. So, Pascal seemed to be an obvious choice: it was simple enough for me to learn easily, but at the same time it was complex enough for me to see it as a useful tool. Now I probably wouldn't touch Pascal with a 10 foot pole, but I still have some fond memories of it and I believe it helped me learn how to program.

Moving along to Pascal the person, there is much to be remembered. He certainly didn't live very long, maybe at most 40 or so years? He made a lot of contributions, especially to natural sciences, probability, and study of fluids. His name has been attached to a theorem, a programming language, and a unit of measurement.

This is not intended to be a biography, but I would like to list some other interesting things about Pascal that you may have not known:

• Before Pascal turned 13 he had proven the 32-nd proposition of Euclid and discovered an error in Rene Descartes geometry.


• He wrote letters against the Jesuits


• He claims to have had a mystical vision


• He wrote criticizing the prevailing ethical philosopies of his day


• He used a lot of satire in his writings


• He died of a brain hemorrhage

Curious Book

I try to keep an eye open for interesting and cheap books on EBay.

One book definately caught my eye, it is entitled "Albert Camus & The Minister". I don't really know much about Camus, but given what I do know about him, this book kind of tickles my curiosity.

Camus is a existentialist philosopher. The book is a Christian minister recollecting his friendship with Camus. Camus was in a church to hear an organist, and eventualy connects with the author, who was a visiting minister. Interestingly, it appears that Camus requested a re-baptism, but Mumma (the minister) denied his request.

Apparently this book demonstrates one sort of response to existentialism that some Christians have taken.

I really know nothing about this book other than that it sounds interesting. Some readers have heavily thrashed this book in the Amazon.com reviews, but that doesn't reduce my curiosity about it.

Funny Video

This is a funny video for you soccer/philosophy fans.

http://www.youtube.com/v/xrShK-NVMIU

Special thanks to Michael Haykin for finding this gem on another blog.