FilmHash

How to name a blog in the 21st century?

Word+Word= Wordword.

Anyway, check them out. It’s about film. I’m not a film guy, but they are important and I enjoy them when I get around to them.

Check them often for reviews of current films.

Upon reading this piece, I began to think about writing and other things.  The following is what occurred (with the headings and all):

Prologue

While it is true that even the worst argumentation can contain truisms, (and that lots of folks these days take it upon themselves to ignore the whole of the intellectual tradition of Western Culture and still make claims about it), you must take a moment to think about the difference from opinion and argumentation.

We are all guilty of making opinionated rants about myriad things, car parts, varieties of cheese, musical acts, whether Frank Zappa was a conservative or not,  the literary canon, fair trade chocolate, dog breeds, seat up or seat down, &c.   Yet, sometimes our ranting on other issues that have more weight in the hierarchy of importance may contain a fair amount of thinking that does not enter into the category of critical.

The lack of critical thinking is just another scourge of the age in which we live. And although we pride ourselves on being educated, shall we be so prideful to really make that generalization?

There is this mindset afoot of the over-generalization mixed with the denial of certain tangibles and observations about a thing, that when said thing is criticized in a foul manner, said criticism must be placed into the category of pure opinion.

Hubris

Sometimes a writer’s voice reeks with hubris, as if they alone have the answer to all of life’s most difficult questions. While saying life’s most difficult questions is clichéd, let this be a lesson to show your blogger’s lowliness and inability to be vaguely original.  Other instances of this hubris arise when a writer suggests that their writing will cause some big-Hollywood impact on their reader, I’d hate to tell you that.

When hubris is matched with incomplete thinking, something remarkable occurs.  You may find yourself reacting to a piece of writing like you have never reacted before.  You may think to yourself, “Am I reading a satire?” “Am I being fooled?” “Do they really mean THIS?”

When Writing is Underdeveloped

When writing is underdeveloped it appears to be rough, incomplete, not thought through enough. When writing about things that are of consequence is underdeveloped, rough, incomplete, not thought through enough, something interesting occurs.  Sometimes underdeveloped writing can be contradictory, or it may use terms that may be the trappings of things that the writing wants to deny.

When Writing is Developed

When writing is developed, even if you disagree about the content, it can be a beautiful thing.

Conflict

Me versus  You.  Paper versus Plastic. Boxers versus Briefs. Tipper Gore versus the Music Industry.  For some reason or another we have become the society of the either/or bizarre binary style of argument. We don’t need no stinkin’ both/and over hea’!

Miscellany:

Science Versus Religion

There really is no conflict here on a fundamental level. The conflict may arise with scientific ethics, but there really is no conflict with science in general terms (at least where Catholic Christianity is concerned).  Also,  you’d be surprised to research the important contributions to science from Medieval Islam. But you know the religious are just SO anti- science.

Religion and Lifestyle

Most garden-variety religions are quite focused on how human lives should be lead on earth, not just the things that happen after death.  You’d be better off by suggesting that there are some religious sects that are too preoccupied on eschatological affairs that they do not pay ample attention to the here and now. But, you will also see that that is not such a powerful generalization that tackles the whole of religion, and therefore it isn’t a good rhetorical option.

The Great Chain of Being

When you find yourself thinking that your dog is somehow more ontologically important than you are, isn’t that detrimental to the institution of man?

Progress is a Nebulous Word

Q.E.D.

“I mean how come you’re so preoccupied with higher education and ecclesiastic affairs, isn’t that some kind of strange collection of nonsense. How come you don’t talk about pets, or walruses?”

I guess they have a point.  Traditionally, titles of things are usually extremely clear indicators of content.  Nowadays, people like to give things random titles that either: a) barely indicate the content to follow, b) engross the reader with the funk of reading a bad play on words, c) some vague popular culture reference to show the author’s hipster chic persona.

Now.

The reason why I named this blog My Pet Walrus is because I did not want to be superficially serious. Perhaps I wanted to see how many hits I could get from people googling “pet walrus.”  I also like when I am surprised (pleasantly) on the internet insofar as clicking on something that at first glance seems inane but upon further inspection that something becomes quite brilliant.

Does that mean I want this blog to appear to be inane but upon further glance become something quite brilliant?

I don’t imagine anything here to be remotely  brilliant, in fact, I could probably benefit from being more inane.

Wait. What?

Update:   This was a message I received upon posting this:

“Dear Sirs:  It would bring me quite the satisfaction if you would add ‘d) a reference to some bad internet meme’ to the above list regarding titles.”

This book is hard to place because although it has an understandable progression it seems to be slightly disjointed throughout. Starting strongly, the book clearly describes its aim to describe the four temperaments (temperament being the sum of our natural preferences) in light of Catholic friendly psychological and spiritual terms.  In fact, the book executes its aim quite well insofar is giving the reader what it promises in the early pages.

After the book sets up the idea of temperament as a concept, it flows into the descriptions of the four temperaments (Choleric, Melancholic, Sanguine, and Phlegmatic) and how to identify them in you. Then the book makes a foray into understanding spousal temperaments (of which there is another volume of this type of book offered by SIP), temperament combinations in marriage, understanding temperaments in offspring, and child/parent temperament combinations.  After those things are discussed the book concludes with issues of motivating people of various temperaments, and alas how temperament affects spiritual life.

Art and Laraine Bennett, the authors of this book, pack a lot of information into the volume to the extent where the information given seems like it is underdeveloped at times, or at worst too anecdotal.  There are many places within the book where there would be benefit in expanding the information into a new volume.  As mentioned above, this has already occurred with the newer book from Art and Laraine Bennett entitled  The Temperament God Gave Your Spouse. Nevertheless, they could probably expand many of the sections into focused volumes.  But what does that make of this book?

The Temperament God Gave You should be best understood as a guidebook–not just something that you read once and put down.  In fact, the book does not benefit from that type of reading.  Most of the temperament specific information is something that can and should (if you’re interested or curious) be looked at when such information is needed. For example,  I’m willing to yield to the book’s expertise rather than memorizing every facet of each temperament combination.  In addition, the book has a feeling of an anatomy as it builds and branches out to various workings of the temperament in our lives.

I was expecting the  entire book to be more like its last chapter, which focuses on how temperament affects spiritual life. Although the book does grapple with that spirituality throughout, it waits until the last chapter to deepen the conversation as if it needs to end on such a strong note.

For what it is worth, The Temperament God Gave You is a thought-provoking and utilitarian volume that expresses a difficult subject in a very controlled atmosphere, and for that it succeeds.   And if you are thinking that a book that claims to blend “classical wisdom, modern counseling science, and Catholic spirituality” has got to be a unique book, you are correct.

Oh, and if you want to take the temperament indicator “quiz” you can do so here.

I’m not going to add any commentary other than it is nothing to get all worked up about.  Why?

If you are religious, every day is a day of prayer.

If you are not religious, no day is a day of prayer.

The sky isn’t falling. (Unless you’re in Europe under the ash cloud.)

There is one line on page four of the opinion that I find to be humorous:

“Unfortunately, § 119 cannot meet that test. It goes beyond mere “acknowledgment”
of religion because its sole purpose is to encourage all citizens to engage in prayer, an
inherently religious exercise that serves no secular function in this context. In this instance,
the government has taken sides on a matter that must be left to individual conscience.”

Huh?

I’d be interested to see if the judiciary will extend that logic to other areas of life where “the government takes sides on a matter that must be left to the individual conscience.”

What other matters need to be left to the individual conscience?

In closing, this is nothing to get worked up about.

who knew?

This post will be the first, and hopefully not last, review of books that I feel are culturally relevant. While I spend a lot of time blogging about higher education and literary culture– St. Augustine, as well as the scores of Western Medieval philosophers are near and dear to my heart.

In this review I will be examining the book: St. Augustine Answers 101 Questions on Prayer, by Fr. Cliff Ermatinger. The publisher of this volume, Sophia Institute Press, had graciously sent me a review copy of St. Augustine Answers 101 Questions on Prayer earlier this month.

Before getting into the meat of the review, I’d like to take the time to talk about the physical book and its layout.  A durable softcover, this book feels sturdy and well-made, and at its price-point I figure that enough to make it a good bargain.  Needless to say, this review is not really a place for ranting on poorly made softcover books–but you know I have to comment on sturdy softcover books when they come my way.

In the description blurb on the back cover of the book the publisher calls the volume a    “‘catechism on prayer.’”  When describing the layout of the book, I’m not sure I can say it any clearer than that.  The book has a clear question and answer format, and the contents of said questions are found in an equally manageable table of contents.  This format will become more important as my review progresses.

St. Augustine Answers 101 Questions on Prayer walks the reader through a series of building questions on the nature of prayer as found in a multitude of St. Augustine’s texts.  Fr. Ermatinger has done a lot of work going through the corpus of Augustine’s writing to find answers to the questions such as “What is Prayer?”– “Where should I look for God?”–”What effects does prayer bring about in the soul?”

Surprisingly, this book has much more direct quotation from St. Augustine, and less commentary from Fr. Ermatinger, who does jump in occasionally to re-phrase, clarify, and transition.  So if you were worried that you were not going to get much St. Augustine in this volume, or that you were getting a lot of pre-chewed and skewed Augustine, you can rest assured that Fr. Ermatinger is just a guiding hand.

Some readers of this book might claim that Fr. Ermatinger reduces St. Augustine’s writings to samples, or sound-bytes.  The fact is, Fr. Ermatinger, through the compiling of this text has already done a lot of work for the reader, who now does not have to search through volumes upon volumes of St. Augustine’s writings.   Still, you might think that his book caters to the new generation of lazy readers who do not want to do all the dirty work involved with researching particular topics.  Yet, at the end of the day this book’s value is in its approach to some very difficult material and how it delivers such material to a 21st century reader in a single volume format.

As someone who has had training in Early Medieval Philosophy, it is hard imagine how this book would be received by the reader who has no training. Therefore, I’m going to spend a few moments describing how this book is equally good for both the trained, and the not yet trained.

For readers with some background in Early Medieval Philosophy, you will find the book to be delightful and still challenging, as it drips with microcosms of larger instances of medieval thought.

For readers without any background knowledge in Early Medieval Philosophy, you will find this book to be challenging, but you will hopefully sense the book’s delicate clarity.

At times I found myself thinking about how this books is more than a book on prayer, but a glimpse into one of the greatest minds of Western Culture.  With that, I can think of no better time for such a book to come onto the market at a time when the Western Worldview is being threatened.  For even though this book is about prayer,  as you read it, it becomes a book about something greater.

Nevertheless, St. Augustine Answers 101 Questions on Prayer is a book that will keep giving the reader something to think about even when the final page is turned.  The catechism style layout (as described by the publisher) will give this book a long life as a reference text for the prayerful, the prayer curious, the Catholic apologists, and the Western culture advocates alike.

Apparently there have been cases where teenagers have sent out mass texts to their friends to create a flash mob at a certain location to carry out various acts of foolishness.  There was one of these types of mobs in Philadelphia this past weekend.  You can read about it here.

Of course people are going to blame it on technology. We must not let our babies have cell phones, they’ll say.   But of course gentle readers of the Walrus, you know it is not the technology causing the problems.

Another concept I have learned today is “text rage”–apparently this has to do with the lack of emotive data that is given in a text-based message to the extent where one or both of the parties involved become inflamed by the emotion that they perceived the text message to carry.   We have seen this in email, and it is an interesting concept in communication. (Maybe people who suffer from text rage need to be better and ask the authors of the texts they don’t understand to clarify.)

e.g.:

Teen 1:  u r not rly nic 2 ur tchr!!11!!1!!1111!!!!1!

Teen 2:  cn u clrfy plz?

Teen 1: i mnt dat u shld b nicr 2 ur tchr

Teen 2:  o wrd

###

There is a recent example of text rage in Florida that I would like to bring to your attention–because not only is this a case where we can see how technology can be abused–but we also get another glimpse of humanity gone berserk. I will also preface my comments about this with the fact that we will not be able to stop this kind of behavior, but we must keep these events in the back of our minds as being especially problematic.

You can read the story over at ABC news.

You’ll probably understand that the senseless act of violence was not really about text messages at all, even though it was a medium in which some kind of button was pushed.

Some news articles that I’ve read on this event focus on the perpetrator’s past life experiences, namely, his brother’s suicide.  While the Miami Herald reports that the victim had said something to the perpetrator about his deceased brother, I’d say that any attempt to tie this event solely to the event of the suicide would be ill-advised.

This story is especially horrifying for the victim and her family, but it is also horrifying for the perpetrator who willed the stomping of another human being’s head with a steel-toed boot.

I don’t see the reason to pin the cause of  societal problems on technology, music, games, the material.

I do see the reason to be pinned elsewhere, as Michael Mayo hints out in his piece in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

“I don’t know how some kids are being raised or what their parents are teaching (or not teaching).”

###

Technology is typically a good thing. But with all things, it must be used responsibly.  There is another recent thing that is related to twitter that when you “tweet” your “tweet” has a url that has a map that shows anybody that reads your “tweet” where you have “tweeted” from.

Now, what is wrong with this in light of the above mentioned violence?

Come on, you all are smart–I don’t have to say it.

###

In other news, I am now that old guy that talks about the misguided youth of the world.  But I put a spin on it and include their misguided parents too.

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