Ulysses and Nietzsche

Just started reading James Joyce’s Ulysses yesterday (it had to happen one day, Jorn). I’m about six chapters in (two chapters into the second part) and surprised to find it not too hard going. Plenty of unintelligible neologisms, but they don’t interrupt the already strange prose-poetry flow. Plenty of intriguing throwaways that presumably hint at things we do not yet know about Mulligan and Daedalus. For a book accalimed as the novel of the 20th century, not surprising to find one or two wonderful turns of phrase.

Most intriguing are the Nietzschean Superman and Zarathustra references. Set in 1904, written between 1906 and publication in 1922, there are no references to Nietzsche in the copious introductory bibliographical and biographical notes (I’m reading the Paris / Shakespeare 1922 text published by OUP). I didn’t think Nietzsche had been translated into English at that time ? Did Joyce read the original German, whilst living in Austria ?

Another intriguing point is that the chapter naming plan (implicit only in the 1922 text, but explicit in earlier drafts) includes a chapter “Scylla and Charybdis” – the title used by James Willis in his essay on the pitfalls (whirlpool) of rationalism prompted by his reading of Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Rather naively I guess, I was also rather surprised at all the references to the politics and war of Irish independence.

Reading it in the Pickerell, as usual, a couple of English students were interested to know if it was my first read of it and how I was finding it, given that it was on their reading list and they hadn’t started it yet. More difficult to understand was why was I reading it given that I didn’t have to.

Aryan vs Indo-European

Been worrying about this since Northrop’s references to Aryan, and the 20th century “PC” difficulty of attributing the language to an Aryan “race”.

[PIE 2012/3 Update.] [PIE 2018 Update h/t Alice Roberts]

Since Sir William “Indiana” Jones proposed a common Aryan or Indo-European language in 1786, with linguistic similarities having been noted by European travellers as early as the 1500’s, the idea of a common “proto-indo-european” language (PIE) seems well established amongst linguists and historians. What is less clear is any agreement on the precise tree or hiearchy of which languages evolved from which, nor even whether repeat and reverse migrations and cultural influences, may have involved a more complex web rather than a simple tree.

Hindus may claim Sanskrit (refined, pollished, perfect – language of the gods) as the root. Europeans may claim Aryan (ie Iranian), Armenians may claim Aryan-Armenian, but most would agree a common PIE. What is clear is that there was a fluid Indo-European exchange of populations and culture, with common linguistic threads, that pre-dates greek, latin, and all the later romance and germanic european languages. Obviously the reason agreement is difficult is because much of this evolution pre-dates written history, and it seems (?) that the oldest written texts were the Sanskrit “Vedic” texts.

I guess the term Indo-European just avoids complicating the issue, where all that is inferred is their shared origins, in cases where precise historical sequence before the written texts is not relevant to the subject. Using Aryan (like using Sanskrit) confuses the issue with a paricular claim of aboriginality with a particular people at a particular time. Seems the proto-language and its migration east and west is generally accepted as arising 4000 BC in Anatolia / Armenia / Upper Tigris-Euphrates-Mesopotamia terrirory. Sanskrit’s claim to originality can only go back as far as 1500 BC and only as far as 100 to 200 BC in written form.

Sources: [SanskritOrigins] [ArmenianHighland] [Encyclopedia.com] [1911Brittanica]

Murdoch’s News

Murdoch’s News. Check out the Fox News story about BBC and the Hutton report [via bloggerhead]. Check out the pejorative language and 100% anti-BBC tone, emphatic repetition of “lied”. Balanced reporting – I think not – scary.

Anyway, so it really is Murdoch behind all this.

Knowledge is Human

Knowledge is Human. Well no prizes for that, but in fact this IBM research paper by Dueck, relates Human “views” of knowledge with their personality types a la Myers-Briggs. The conclusion is easy too – KM is about managing humans – but this paper leaves some nagging doubts that the “rational” way to manage knowledge the way you like it is to select humans with the knowledge view you like – the yes men. Myers-Briggs is really about seeking a balance of mixed types in any organisation. To do otherwise is to presume some absolute knowledge outside humans.

Myers-Briggs ? Briggs-Myers ? I’m guessing daughter Isabel of mother Elizabeth Myers after taking married name Briggs and then working with mother (and husband Peter ?) as “Myers & Briggs” adopted the moniker Briggs-Myers, so working idependantly she carries the “trade-mark” with her. Only guessing. Must check biogs.

In Search of the Real University of Chicago

In Search of the Real University of Chicago. Andrew Chrucky runs this site dedicated to “preserving the Hutchins tradition of liberal education at Chicago Uni”, starting with glowing citations from Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell.

I blogged Chrucky [and earlier] “Concepts of Persons and Morality” (a paper about the definition of life – from the perspective of the catholic debate on abortion) and found his thinking interesting – a tacit agreement, social contract, dare I say pragmatic view. I’ll need to reconcile his positive view of the Hutchins mob with Northrop, James, Rorty and Pirsig.

Chrucky also runs his meta-encyclopaedia of philosophy, linked in my side bar for the last two years.

Unversal Church of the Interactive Network

Unversal Church of the Interactive Network. John Ireland, blogger and supplier of “bloggerheads” services to several British MP’s has this whacky sideline – can’t see any catches, and definitely no references to gods, false or otherwise. Magic stuff, couldn’t resist linking when I saw that Saint Douglas of the Whooshing Deadline was regarded as the top saint in this church.

[Quote] The average bible has 2000 pages. The web has over 2 billion. We win.[Unquote]

Think I was already a 100% member in spirit. Possibly my first act may be to campaign to sanctify Saint Robert of Zen, though possibly he may be excluded on the grounds of being alive and well unlike St Douglas and St Alan of the Enigma.