amimetobios

More about ballads and their relation to the supernatural, in a discussion of Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads.   Some exemplary ballads. "Goody Blake and Harry Gill" as an example of an apparently supernatural ballad which isn't one.  Beginning of "We are Seven," with Coleridge's collaborative first stanza.

A little more on Mandeville and the line that leads from him through Hutcheson (whom I didn't mention by name) to Hume and Smith.  The nature of inflation, due to money's only having exchange value, and the nature of stimulus, as analyzed by Hume.  A beginning of a discussion on the beauty of utility, according to Smith.

Mandeville's analysis of acting for reputation -- does it, can it, make sense, and if so how?  Here's the fascinating passage we began looking at:

The Soldiers, that were forc’d to fight,

If they surviv’d, got Honour by’t; [p. 22, l. 1]

[From Mandeville’s notes:] The Man of Manners picks not the best but rather takes the worst out of the Dish, and gets of every thing, unless it be forc’d upon him, always the most indifferent Share. By this Civility the Best remains for others, which being a Compliment to all that are present, every Body is pleas’d with it: The more they love themselves, the more they are forc’d to approve of his Behaviour, and Gratitude stepping in, they are oblig’d almost whether they will or not, to think favourably of him. After this manner it is that the well-bred Man insinuates himself in the esteem of all the Companies he comes in, and if he gets nothing else by it, the Pleasure he receives in reflecting on the Applause which he knows is secretly given him, is to a Proud Man more than an Equivalent for his former Self-denial, and over-pays to Self-love with Interest, the loss it sustain’d in his Complaisance to others.

If there are Seven or Eight Apples or Peaches among Six People of Ceremony, that are pretty near equal, he who is prevail’d upon to choose first, will take that, which, if there be any considerable difference, a Child would know to be the worst: this he does to insinuate, that he [72]looks upon those he is with to be of Superior Merit, and that there is not one whom he wishes not better to than he does to himself. ’Tis Custom and a general Practice that makes this Modish Deceit familiar to us, without being shock’d at the [79] Absurdity of it; for if People had been used to speak from the Sincerity of their Hearts, and act according to the natural Sentiments they felt within, ’till they were Three or Four and Twenty, it would be impossible for them to assist at this Comedy of Manners, without either loud Laughter or Indignation; and yet it is certain, that sucha Behaviour makes us more tolerable to one another than we could be otherwise.

It is very Advantageous to the Knowledge of our selves, to be able well to distinguish between good Qualities and Virtues. The Bond of Society exacts from every Member a certain Regard for others, which the Highest is not exempt from in the presence of the Meanest even in an Empire: but when we are by our selves, and so far remov’d from Company as to be beyond the Reach of their Senses, the Words Modesty and Impudence lose their meaning; a Person may be Wicked, but he cannot be Immodest while he is alone, and no Thought can be Impudent that never was communicated to another. A Man of Exalted Pride may so hide it, that no Body shall be able to discover that he has any; and yet receive greater Satisfaction [73]from that Passion than another, who indulges himself in the Declaration of it before all the World. Good Manners have nothing to do with Virtue or Religion; instead of extinguishing, they rather inflame the Passions. The Man of Sense and Education never exults more in his Pride than when he hides it with the greatest Dexterity;1 and in feasting on the Applause, which he is sure all good Judges will pay to his Behaviour, he enjoys a Pleasure altogether unknown to the Short-sighted, surly Alderman, that shews his Haughtiness glaringly in his Face, pulls off his Hat to no Body, and hardly deigns to speak to an Inferior.

After a snow day, a special guest leads a class on Blake's Milton and the dynamics of the relations among the Immortals.  We focus in particular on Milton himself and Urizen and how Milton overcomes his own spectre.

Some discussion of sunk costs and throwing good money after bad, poker strategy, the doubling cube, Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime" and more Mandeville.

Mandeville on the advantages of self-dealing and selfishness. Discussion of morality of plane flight,  since that's all the rage these days, from a Kantian and from a game-theoretical point of view. Free riding and problems of collective action.  Mandeville compared and to some extent contrasted with Rand.

We discuss Blake's mythology in general, then his America, fairly briefly, and then some of The Book of Urizen, in particular the coming into separate being of Urizen, the coming into being of Los as the allegory of Urizen's separation from him, and the binding of Orc with the chains of jealousy.

More on gift-giving and its manifest and latent content.  Obligation and acceptance of obligation.  The gift as pure use value -- at least manifestly.  A bit more on The Merchant of Venice.

We try to sort out some preliminary confusions about who's who in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.  I try -- stumblingly -- to give an account of the Romantic idea that loss is (as Harold Bloom puts it) "shadowed gain."

Given the sheepish coughing you'll hear, by people acknowledging they weren't keeping up with the reading, this turned into an exposition mainly of Marcel Mauss's great work The Gift, along with some mention of Joel Waldfogel's notorious article "The Deadweight Loss of Christmas."