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Academic Book, Assassin's Creed 2, Carnival, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice, Doge, Edward Muir, European History, history, Marco Babarigo, Marriage of the Sea, Overly Sarcastic Productions, Renaissance, Renaissance History, Republic of Venice, Rituals, Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia, St. Mark, The Most Serene Republic of Venice, The Sensa, Venice, Venice History
I promise it’s not because of Blue this time, or at least not entirely. It was because I got to shoot the Doge, during Carnival, on his own boat, while he was giving a speech, while wearing a gold mask. Assassin’s Creed II was the shit dude.
My regular reader may have observed (assuming they actually care about my intellectual movements, or at least enough to give the first few paragraphs a glance) that lately I’ve been reading more and more history. Part of this largely because, as ever, I’ve been watching more and more of Overly Sarcastic Productions as well as Shadiversity and Suibhne. These channels have been not just a joy to discover, they’ve been a great personal solace as I think more and more about my future and what I want to do with my life and my time. This is, namely, that I want to spend what time I’ve got enjoying my actual passions and one of my unending passions has been history. That…and the Assassin’s Creed franchise. I was about eighteen or nineteen when the series came out, and oddly enough I wasn’t even that interested when the trailers for it first appeared. I was far more interested in, and I admit this to my great shame, Modern Warfare 3.
Mistakes were made. I see that now.
My sister received Assassin’s Creed II for Christmas that year and started playing the game once I was done fighting Uber-nationalists in a Russian Gulag or some shit. 
In no time I started to notice that killing Brazilians with automatic rifles wasn’t anywhere near as cool as scaling the Santa Maria del Fiore, meeting Lorenzo de Medici and Leonardo da Vinci, killing people with hidden blades and brooms, collecting every Renaissance painting ever made, hunting down the Pazzi one by one and murdering the shit out of them, fighting the goddamn pope Alexander VI (Roderigo Borgia, a.k.a. the Spaniard) in an underground bunker beneath the Sistine Chapel that was built by gods, and then, of course, there was Venice.
I could spend hours talking about Assassin’s Creed II (and Brotherhood, and Revelations, and Odyssey which I got from Christmas this year care of my wife who I will love until the day I die) and trying to explain why the game left such a philosophical and intellectual impact upon my life, but honestly the only reason that mattered was that it was just a damn good game. And in between the assassination contracts I managed to ingest a great amount of actual history. It was in Venice though that most of the game took place, and after watching OSP’s four-part series on the Republic of Venice(for the tenth time I think), and rekindling my love of history, and reflecting on the Assassin’s Creed game which helped further solidify my love of history, it made sense that my sister gave me one of the books she read in graduate school which just happened to be about 
Venice.
Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice by Edward Muir is a book that, honestly, I didn’t think I was going to review while I was reading it. The book is academic to a level that is almost painful, and there are numerous instances throughout where almost half of a page is dedicated to footnotes alone. If the reader is not fluent in English, French, Italian, and Latin they’re sure to be stumped by the neat constant use of all of these languages with, conveniently, no footnotes to explain what words or expressions he’s attempting to communicate. And finally, if the reader has absolutely no knowledge of the history of La Serenissima de Republica de Venetzia, or, The Most Serene Republic of Venice then the near constant references to doges, oligarchs, merchants, and notable individuals is sure to leave you either annoyed or stumped.
With all that said, this book was a fucking blast and I enjoyed it till the end.
Part of what makes Muir’s book so enjoyable to read is his observation of the Ritual in Venetian society and how rituals helped create a sense of identity. In his Introduction as he sets up his argument he lays out the seven parts of his book and explores each of the aims:
In numerous medieval and Renaissance examples, legal and “constitutional” precepts and precedents found expression in ceremony long before they were written down in formal codes; and Venice, it seems, was indeed no stranger to the habit of ceremonial law. Sixth, the historian of civic ritual investigates how 
ceremonies may reveal the citizen’s own sense of their city’s relations with the outside world, relations that the Venetians saw by and large in imperial terms. […]. In Venice, one finds that the legally defined social classes, the patrimonial family, age groups, and women all shared varying degrees of ritual recognition that marked their place in the political and social organization of the city. (6-7).
Yeah, just a forewarning, most of these quotes are going to be painfully academic. This quote alone demonstrates Muir to be concerned more with the construction of an argument than a narrative and that in itself implies that he’s writing mostly for a handful of academics. And while I will admit freely that I’ve grown to despise academic writing, especially after finishing graduate school, Muir’s book was still enjoyable to read because of the way he made Rituals seem like something important and relevant.
Being a citizen of the United States I recognize this. Growing up in East Texas the Fourth of July was always an obligatory event, rather than a passive one. It was required that 
you go out and blow shit up or watch people blowing shit up regardless if you suffered from allergies like I did. Watching fireworks, listening to people singing the Star Spangled Banner, or watching War movies on TV were events which were supposed to create a sense of American identity, or else national Pride. And while I found far more patriotism in the act of living my life the way I wanted to , as well as my freedom of expression (David Bowie Electric Tiger pimp surprises) for a great number of people the ritual is the means of finding a sense of one’s self politically, emotionally, and for some, religiously.
Muir’s book then tackles some of the rituals of Venice such as the Marriage the Sea, The Feast of Mary’s, and the Coronation of the Doge in order to understand how politics and religion helped establish the notion of La Serrenissima, or the “serenty” of the Republic 
of Venice. Venice as a city, and as a government, still stands as the longest running single government in human history spanning from 697 CE to 1797 CE, a time of almost 1100 years surpassing any civilization in human history. What’s inspiring, or at least fascinating is that part of this lasting success was the merging of religious and political ritual to create this sense of identity as the “serene” republic.”
Muir notes:
According to fifteenth-century Venice humanist, Giovanni Caldiera, the cardinal virtues—Faith, Hope, and Charity—underlay the republican virtues; so obedience to the state was metaphorically obedience to the will of God. Thus, in Venice patriotism equaled piety. The Venetians conception of themselves as a chosen people in consequence, was always revealed in their attachment to certain sacred institutions. (16).
He continued this point later down the page noting:
Belief in Venice-as-the-chosen-city and adherence to the historical institutions of the republic enabled the Venetians to withstand the tremendous forces for changes, including the temptations of millenarian enthusiasm, that ravaged the rest of Italy during the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. (16).
And finally he adds more more point on the following page:
For the Venetians, “liberty” was a matter not of personal freedom, but rather of political independence from other powers. (17).
The history of Italy during the Renaissance, is quite possibly one of the most fascinating topics to cover in history because there was simply so much chaos, warfare, political manipulations, and internal strife coupled with an explosion of academic, technological, and cultural innovation. Legions of mercenaries were scattered across the peninsula hired and fired freely as they for or against any city state that might hire them, and while the blood flowed men like Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci created paintings that would infer in society’s collected consciousness for centuries. And in the midst of all this turmoil, Venice somehow managed to stay above the fray, or at least, managed to maintain some level of, wait for it, serenity that the rest of the country could only aspire to. 
Muir tries to show then that it was because of the rituals, and their underlying rhetoric that Venetians were somehow ordained by divine grace that they were able to channel their efforts and psychology into maintaining a republic.
The Marriage of the Sea best represents this idea. Without taking too much time, the ceremony would involve the Doge of Venice, the political and spiritual leader of the Republic, sailing out to the opening of the Adriatic on a massive and ornate sailing 
barge. There would be music and prayers and pomp and circumstance, but the main event would involve the Doge reaching the spot where the lagoon of Venice met the Adriatic and, after uttering psalms and prayers, the Doge would drop a gold ring into the sea signifying that Venice was “married” to the seas. This ritual, which for the record still continues to this day almost three centuries after the republic ended (meanwhile I can’t even find ten minutes to do a few push-ups), was supposed to imply Venice’s “mastery” of the sea, which in turn would explain their economic and political prosperity.
Muir dedicates a significant portion of his book to this ritual, largely because it was so psychologically significant to the Venetians. He says in one passage:
The marriage of the sea was a Venetian version of a spring fertility festival. The usual goals of agrarian fertility rites—safegaurding the fecundity of women and crops—were transformed by the Venetian rites to serve maritime and Mercantile needs: the rites ensured the safety of sailors at sea, expressed political and commercial hegemony, established fair trade for the crowds, and invoked through 
a mystical marriage, continued prosperity. At the moment of their occurrence such fertility rites characteristically contribute to social cohesion and unanimity within the community. (131).
By “marrying” the sea Venice in effect created a narrative where they were effectively in control of it, and therefore if they had any sort of success it was because of this ritual. Though on the note of control the feminist in me immediately demands I provide the next quote which Muir provides on the next page:
The Sensa also deprived the sea of its frightening demeanor by feminizing it. The men who said abroad could most easily imagine the sea as a female archetype: unpredictable, fickle, sometimes violent, other times passive; but assuredly she
could mastered by the resolute male. (132-33).
Muir completes this charming metaphor by providing the following analysis:
The Sensa revealed two profound psychological habits of belief: that natural forces could be comprehended by personifying them, and that through understanding these forces one could better control them, or at least predict their influences. And in symbolizing sexual conquest the processional movement took full advantage the female metaphor. Through the marriage each year at the beginning of the sailing season and through the subsequent voyages that consummated the union the sea was deprived of her mystery; men now “knew” her. (133).
Misogyny is always fascinating to read about largely because one gets a sense to what limits men were, and still are, willing to go to in order to perpetuate bullshit. The implied misogyny of this ritual aside however, Muir is able to demonstrate that this ritual helped complete a sense of Venetian identity. For centuries Venice was a maritime power-house and no-one could actually dispute that fact. Using a thalassocracy, a system of government and rule mostly executed through naval power rather than territorial 
claims, Venice was able to establish a powerful military and economic system which kept them rich and prosperous. Whatever opinion the reader might have about Venice they have to acknowledge that this ritual helped the citizens of the Republic believe that they were exceptional which in turn helped them execute this vision.
But at this point my contester feels compelled to speak up. So what? So what about Muir’s book? It’s a long, dry, academic book about a bunch of rituals that are irrelevant. Venice isn’t a republic anymore, in fact they’ve become nothing but a tourist attraction. What relevance does a bunch of old rituals have to my life.
Well, if I may correct my contester, the book isn’t long, it’s only 305 pages. To put it in perspective, while I’m writing this review I’m also reading Grant by Ron Chernow, a book which is 940 pages, and 48 hours long in terms of the audiobook.
As for the relevance this is a fair point. Like I said before, Muir is writing Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice for academics. He’s writing for people who study Venice, and study the time period of the Renaissance. This book is clearly designed for a small audience, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t relevant. While the topic may seem specific to a set of conditions, Muir’s book is largely about a larger theme: the practice of rituals in human history. While he centers his study in Venice he’s able to demonstrate that rituals are just a part of human behavior and then tries to show how these rituals translated into political, religious, and civic success.
Human beings like symbols, and we craft rhetoric and narratives from those symbols. Whether it’s the various religions human beings practice, the modes of politics that we participate in, 
or simply the millions of stories that we create and read and watch every year, human beings like stories that make us feel connected to one another because the can inform us about what the purpose of meaning of our existence is. Muir’s book tries top understand the narratives the Venetians of La Serrenissima told themselves through these religious and political rituals, and how that translated into a success that lasted for, literally, a thousand years.
It’s an incredible testament to the fact that human beings like rituals, because even if they may seem ridiculous or offensive in hindsight, their power over those who participated in them allowed said individuals to feel connected to a larger idea. Venice as a government, as an idea, and as an institution are due entirely because of the 
narratives Venetians crafted for themselves, and so as I look to Muir’s book I do recognize that, while it may not be entirely approachable as a book, as a history it’s incredibly relevant. Good history should be about observing trends in behavior, and so the history of Venice is about recognizing the potential of the self, and the capacity for human beings to work together and create something incredible.
It’s nowhere near as enjoyable as shooting the Doge on his own boat during Carnival, but it is its own joy to read a book, find the name Marco Babarigo, and remark to yourself, “Hey I killed that guy.”
Though I might recommend you say that internally as you co-workers are likely to look up from their lunches at you and begin to wonder if it was such a good idea to invite you out for a drink later after work.
*Writer’s Note*
All quotes from Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice were cited from the paperback Princeton University Press edition.
**Writer’s Note**
I’m gonna leave the soundtrack to Assassin’s Creed II here, because, well, because you just deserve it. I really haven’t experienced a game with such an incredible soundtrack before. Hope you enjoy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iriiZOeInDg
***Writer’s Note***
I’m going to leave a few links to articles and encyclopedia entires and videos about La Serenissima in case the reader is interested. Enjoy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Venice
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Republic_of_Venice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ktq3iK2r_Ek
And, because I’m a man obsessed, I’ve included links to all the videos Blue of Overly Sarcastic Productions has done over the Republic of Venice. If you decide to watch, maybe you’ll understand or appreciate them as much as I do…Appreciate them I said! Ahem. Please enjoy.
Part 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86PybilU7k0
Part 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byMleAJ5kRs
Part 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4da1S6moF2Q
Part 4:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph9bM56g_a0
Operation Odysseus video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cHK4xzAhzE
****Writer’s Note****
I’m going to remind my reader that, since this writing I’ve begun a podcast series entitled “Jammer Talks About” and Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice just happened to be the fourth book I discussed. You can find a link to the podcast in the “Jammer’s Podcasts” link at the top of the page, or you can follow the link below. Hope you enjoy:
*****Writer’s Note*****
Finally I want to give a little bit more street crew to Dr. Edward Muir, who’s the real focus of this essay anyway. I’ve found his Professor page for Northeastern University and I’ve posted it below. It includes his credentials, awards, publication history, Circulum Vitae, etc. Definitely look him up because the man is a great writer, a wonderful scholar, and, if it hasn’t been made apperent, his book is definitely worth your time.
https://www.history.northwestern.edu/people/faculty/core-faculty/edward-muir.html
at, and this entails a lot of time that is, simply put isolation.
Talks.
bad?
reader has been paying attention, has ultimately been the goal of this blog since day one.
Greeks.
first time in their history, the Greeks had to co-operate with one another.
people overall.
The 300 Spartans is a story that is told regularly in schools now almost as a kind of myth/fact.
looking for (usually something by Rick Riordan, though Diary of a Wimpy Kid makes a close fucking second place). I love working with the 3D Printer and explaining it to children, parents, and even regular adults that are just fascinated with it. I love making displays for authors like Truman Capote, Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, and of course William Shakespeare. But best of all I love my job because my co-workers are like a family to me and everyday I’m working for the library I feel like I’m home.
name is Xavier, he wears a bow-tie, and he’s fabulous. This llama material isn’t just a lead-in however, because along with communicating regularly with the llama department, I’m also occasionally collaborating with them, and during one of the many numerous conversations I had with Brenda it eventually came out that I’ve never read all of Shakespeare’s plays, but I’ve always wanted to.
To him I’ll build an altar and a church, and offer lukewarm blood of new-born babes.” 
that Hamnet Shakespeare, the only son of William Shakespeare, died in 1596 at the age of eleven years old.
Night’s Dream King Oberon and Queen Titania are speaking with Dream, asking him why he commissioned the place from Shakespeare in the first place.
greater than his “One does not simply…” meme. It’s also for this reason that I decided to go against my original impulse when approaching my review of Book II of The Lord of the Rings.
exactly help that my best friend Kevin and I spent literally an entire year arguing with a friend of ours about the proper way to pronounce Balrog (he was obsessed with calling it Balronko). Now obviously the fight scene I’m describing was in the second film The Two Towers, but even when I had watched The Fellowship of the Ring with my Dad on that rented VHS tape I had never seen anything like the Balrog in any movie. It was a creature that seemed like it should have been in a medieval passion play rather than a feature film, but I became enthralled.
provides the reader with an explanation:
spellbound, or else that they are witnessing something incredible.
appearance of this creature has it’s own implications for each character. For Legolas, being an Elf, the appearance of the Balrog would something of a nightmare because the elves would surely remember through records and oral tradition what kind of a monster the Balrog would be. Gimli being a dwarf who has just observed the desecration of his race’s hall and temple by orcs is already emotional, but the appearance of the Balrog is proof that his people’s greed brought about the reawakening of this creature. If the dwarves had not been greedy and dug so deep into the earth his cousin Balin might still be alive along with the rest of the people of Moria. Gandalf’s reaction is unique because it has been steadily established that Gandalf’s role in Middle Earth is something beyond most people’s comprehension and that he is being guided by some supernatural entity, order, or compulsion.
showed that these characters are participating with a history and a culture. And this reaction reveals a depth in the universe.
or absent in them, and I’ll hopefully get into this more when I get to the character Gollum, but for now it’s important to observe Gandalf standing against the Balrog because it becomes more than just a wizard fighting a fire-demon. For Tolkien this small moment is a summation of his entire creative philosophy about the nature of good and evil.
Then the echoes died as suddenly as a flame blown out by a dark wind, and the enemy advanced again. (321).
Computer programmers, hardware specialists, table-top game developers, video game designers, and even authors themselves have been inspired by the “Old Professor” and have taken this inspiration and created products and arts that have inspired the next generation of innovators. While Tolkien himself tended to be harsh to this fan base during his lifetime, going so far as to call them the “deplorable cultus,” the generation of stoners and dreamers took a great work and made it something important to the culture and zeitgeist, and thus I return to my foolishness.
LEGOs I did eventually return to it. My regular reader may dimly remember that I began an audio-lecture series sponsored by Barnes & Noble titled Of Sorcerer’s and Men. This series, which was masterfully delivered by the professor Michael D.C. Drout, was incredible and reminded me of everything that I originally loved about The Lord of the Rings.
possible to write about those book in parts, tackling an entire 1000 page novel with one review is like trying to eat The Old 96er from The Great Outdoors. Those who try will wind up crying like John Candy before wrenching the whole thing back up. Fortunately for me Tolkien broke his series into six “books” letting each larger book contained of two small books themselves. The Fellowship then consists of Books 1 and 2 and it seems far healthier to tackle the series that way than attempting one large reflection.
talk and excitement in Hobbiton.
frequently noted was how the strength of the series was not so much because the hobbits were symbolic of any religious or spiritual significance, but because they were decent common folk.
concerned far more with their families, whether their neighbors are a decent sort of people, whether they have enough to eat, and whether or not they are attending parties.
they could get them). They were hospitable and delighted in parties, and in presents, which they gave away freely and eagerly accepted. (2).
love to sit and discuss some of the fantastic elements that make this book so impressive, and I do intend to. The conflict is that fantastic elements by themselves don’t provide much opportunity for reflection. One of the consistent charges against the Triology is that the books have no relevance to average people. Part of this is the unfortunate, lingering elitism that plagues the fantasy genres which is absolute bullshit. But the other charge, that it’s style doesn’t fit the age in which it was written feels a little more fair. Most of the non-hobbit characters speak like they were taken from epics of
‘I don’t know what has come over you, Gandalf,” he said. ‘You have never been like this before. What is it all about? It is mine isn’t it? I found it, and Gollum would have killed me, if I hadn’t kept it. I’m not a thief, whatever he said.’
important to recognize that Jackson did this scene right and because he did this passage stood out to me. But looking past the film, this scene in one in a long series of moments that Gandalf offers that hint at his true “nature” or “form.” Gandalf is, if I can move into the neck-beard nerd territory, something called a Maiar, a being who precede most of the “time” of Middle Earth, and actually proceeded the making of the world. I won’t bore the reader with the complex mythos of Tolkien’s world (that’s for when I review the Silmarillion) but this background info provides the context of what makes Gandalf important in the first book.
real relevance for the reader. The concept of “deep time” was one that began during the Victorian era when geologists began to argue that the world is actually older than we once thought. Where before the world was only a few thousand years old (according to sources like The Bible), by looking at the actual layers of sediment in the earth, and discovering fossils or organisms long exitinct, human beings were able to determine that our time on this earth was only relatively recent and that we were merely one example in a long lifetime of the planet.
world of Hobbiton is one that the reader can certainly recognize because it’s a world that directly mirrors our own. There’s neighborhoods of people who worry about parties and gardens and harvests. There’s sheriffs and mail-men and pubs where people gather to
It’s not secret to the reader that I have started working at the Tyler Public Library, and in fact it’s getting close on being one year in total working there. Already the staff have welcomed me into the odd little family and some have even noted that it wouldn’t be any fun at the library if I ever left. I honestly don’t believe that at all, but it’s nice feeling like you belong somewhere. Apart from the wonderful social environment that’s steadily building up my sense-of-self day-by-day, working at the library is also a chance to check out enormous stacks of books. There isn’t a day I’ve worked where I haven’t come home with at least one book, and even on days when I return three or four I’m sure to leave with five more. Sometimes these books are ones I’ve simply checked out, other times it’s one that I have bought in the ongoing library sale.
Like many people of my generation I was coming into puberty about the time the Harry Potter series were being published, but in 2001 my world changed when The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was released. Hastings was still around at the time, and so video rentals, a.k.a. VHS rentals were still a viable means of seeing films. My dad checked the movie out and actually had to convince me that the movie was worth my time. I remember groaning and sighing, and in fact while watching the film I bemoaned the time length of the movie right before the battle at Amon Hen.
I’d like to say that this meant reading the trilogy, The Hobbit again, and then the numerous companion mythologies and etymologies that Tolkien had spent a lifetime working on, but in fact I largely just consumed the movies and met my best friend Kevin who did nothing but talk about the films which was fine with me.
Maps and charts were constructed, characters were created, and an evil villain was established. Kevin and I had created an entire universe which was obviously nothing more than a Tolkien reboot.
merit to the series and the universe. He argued that rather than just an allegory about war and industry and World War II, The Lord of the Rings was a book about language and the decency of common people.
I’ll hold against Bloom is that he doesn’t even try to critique Tolkien in any kind of meaningful way and even he acknowledges it citing a passage “pretty much at random” (54). The small two page critique that Bloom offers reveals a great apathy on the man’s part and so the conviction of his criticism is weak.
seemed to offer the same. Anyone who has never heard of this author has cheated themselves for Le Guin, much like George R.R. Martin, manages to be a kind of successor to Tolkien in terms of building the Fantasy and Science fiction genre into the power house that it is. For my own part I prefer LeGuin as an essayist and in her contribution to the collection, The Staring Eye, she manages to convey the lasting importance of Tolkien’s work.
destruction if used in ignorance, or at the wrong time time. One must be ready; one must be strong enough. (44).
such a thing an impasse, while the native English is ‘dead-end’. ‘Cul-de-sac’ is a silly phrase and it is the Baggin’s Family credit that they will not use it. (10).
it by misreading him. For, like all great artists, he escapes ideology by being too quick for its nets, too complex for its grand simplicities, too fantastic for its rationality, too real for its generalizations. They will no more keep Tolkien labeled and pickled in a bottle than they will Beowulf, or the Elder Edda, or The Odyssey. (46).
The critics continue to this day to dismiss Tolkien, and while there is some artistic elitism in this behavior, my assessment is that most of the critics of Tolkien are simply caught up in the tradition of theoretical framework.
something about arthropods that I’ve always found fascinating.
wax and honey. In fact, bees have inspired almost every level of society from politics, architecture, sexuality, food, agriculture, and economics. The bee has always been with mankind as a source of inspiration and so The Hive is an attempt to understand how that inspiration has worked and what ideas have developed from that inspiration.
Wilson is able to name a concept, explain what it is, offer a quote which provides an examination of the idea, place it in contemporary perspective, and then offer the significance of the idea to humanity all while managing to write a paragraph that isn’t boring. Almost every paragraph of The Hive manages this same feat. And if it isn’t clear at this point that leaves me insanely jealous as a writer, but extraordinarily satisfied as a reader.
might say that the hive echoed in the feudal structure of medieval Europe, in which there were those who worked, those who fought, and those who prayed—all of them sinners with an allotted role in God’s order which must not be questioned. In addition, medieval writers about animals were more unselfconsciously fanciful than their ancient counterparts. They were apt to see animals as hieroglyphs sent by God with moral lessons inside them for men. The whole world was composed of hidden messages, and everything held together as part of a single Creation. […] Everything meant something. (24).
running gag. Rather than worry about my developing mantra though I look at the quote I just provided and this statement feels perfectly relevant. If there is a message of The Hive it’s almost certainly that human beings are always looking around at their reality and trying to find some kind of self-reflective meaning in it. Whether it was the trees, lightning, flowers, mountains, or even something as minuscule as bees, humans observe their reality as something separate but at the same time as something that can inform them about their personal self and place in the universe.
late renaissance and early Reformation period looked to the lack of political center and named it as such largely out of elitism. You can thank Petrarch mostly because he thought the period was not as “pretty” or “bright” as the classical ages. It’s important to note that because the Roman empire was crumbling internally at the time, and let’s be honest crumbling is a polite word for the steady festering that the empire suffered from, it became difficult for scholars to establish knowledge that could be widely, or as easily distributed.
observations represent a real scientific method, and while his findings were off by several crucial details, the man was working with the best means he had available. There was nothing wrong in Virgil’s conclusions ultimately because he did begin the study, and much like Charles Darwin his writings would be, not abandoned completely, just corrected over time. Humans beings need original observations in order to build real knowledge and establish actual facts about the world around them. What’s important about Virgil’s observations is that they became accepted partly because of his direct observations, but more importantly because they reaffirmed the political and social philosophy of his world and the world beyond it.
whatever grace and dignity as a profession that it does. The beekeeper is not a man in my eyes, but a timeless being who is aiding the community by collecting the honey. And it’s important to note that this image is not unique for even a man like Lev Tolstoy thought as much.
‘a living, separate creature endowed with wings of its own’. Similarly, men should be able to escape their current toils because each is ‘a living being endowed with the faculty of entering into the Christian conception of life’. (269-70).
for something to actually happen. Dr. Sloan was always happy to talk and one of our favorite topics was Mark Twain. She had a TIME magazine tacked to her wall with Twain’s face on the cover (a copy that I actually now own thanks to her) and we’d often point back to Twain and talk about his writing, his life, or his odd eccentricities. At some point during the talk the idea of Twain as an atheist came out and we both agreed Twain probably wasn’t one.
and more on a graphic novel I had read about that time which included, of all things, a sympathetic figure of Satan.
but because it was the kind of passage one reads and then immediately feels a kind of reawakening. I’m not trying to be dramatic as I write that out, this passage really stunned me because it was like seeing someone completely new for the first time while also recognizing that what they were saying is completely true. Humanity has, since the infancy of the species, looked for a way to outsource responsibility for errors and sins while at the same time looking constantly inward for signs of weakness. In ancient times it was customary for villages to send goats out into the wildness after performing a ceremony that would contain the “sins and offenses against the gods” into the animal before sending it out into the wild. This, for the record, is how the term “scape-goat” came enter the lexicon, and it also eventually explains the character of Satan.
with Satan allowing early church fathers the appropriation of the god for their own purposes. Reflecting on this connection, and re-reading Season of Mists I thought back to Gaiman’s Norse Mythology and looked up the brief character intro:
onto Satan himself really ought to look in a mirror. What missing, or most troubling, about the image of Satan is the fact that the man is having his story told by others, rather than having his own opportunity to speak, and this cartoonization, this caricature reveals the larger issue which is that human beings need someone else to be held accountable for their actions. Rather assume personal responsibility for fucking up, human beings created this supernatural being which would explain horrors and atrocities. Why would a man gamble away his money and then beat his wife half to death? It could be that he suffers from some inner self-loathing due to an addiction and so he strikes his wife, or it could be a demon who wears red suits and tricks him into gambling. Why would anyone follow a dictator who eventually leads a massive genocide against a denomination of a reigion. It could be
simple fear, or desire for there to be stability in government so they can return to real life, or else it could be a demon with long horns. Why would a woman cheat on her husband with multiple men rather than remaining faithful to him? It could be that she’s looking for something sexually that he is unable or unwilling to provide her, or perhaps she’s looking for some kind of emotional comfort that she’s not getting at home. Or, it could be a strange imp that plays fiddle against subpar country music singers.
Stranger.
right, who were laughing. I just remember that family laughing because most of the rest of the theater were white people who gave me nasty looks as I was walked out of the theater. I just couldn’t help it. There’s something about watching a group of white men complain about not being able to see through their hoods that’s just pathetic and hilarious.
I suppose I understand. There’s a lot of dialogue which surrounds the film Django Unchained and a lot of it has to do with history.
appearance on the “Fuck Tarantino” program, and people on Facebook got into really nasty arguments about who’s allowed to use the word “nigger” and when and in what context and then someone said “reverse racism” and everybody who liked their brain left the room before that bullshit polluted their frontal lobes. And when the issue of Slavery and historical accuracy was thrown down, I like most people tuned out. Not because there wasn’t an argument to be made, but because I had already assured myself that this interpretation was the best reason to enjoy the film. I enjoy Tarantino movies period and will regularly defend the man’s work. But since I’ve seen the film around ten times since it came out I’ve realized more and more than this argument can only go so far. Tarantino movies tend to be hyperbolic in terms of violence and persona and sometimes plot structure, and within the film there is another, and I’d argue far more interesting, analysis that few people really discussed.
In the course of these struggles the hero frequently forms a bond with another man—sometimes his rival, more often a comrade—a bond that is more important than any relationship he has with a woman and is frequently tinged with homoeroticism. There is very little free expression of the emotions. The hero is a man of few words who expresses himself through physical action—usually fighting. And when death occurs it is never at home in bed but always sudden death, usually murder. (38-9).
-tale, myth, of Siegfried. Fairy-tales, much like myth, are stories that are purposefully hyperbolic in order to explain phenomena in the world. Zeus and Thor are non-scientific means explain lightning, and likewise the story of Siegfried is designed to explain the absurd state of being in love. One of the best examples of the fairy-tale is George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm which, when it first published, had the subtitle of “A Modern Fairy Tale.” In Animal Farm Orwell was using the structure of the fairy tale to tell a modern story about the terrors of Stalinism, but also of political corruption in general.
