Simple Gifts

C S Lewis said: "ANIMAL FARM is formally almost perfect; light, strong, balanced. There is not a sentence that does not contribute to the whole. The myth says all the author wants it to say and (equally important) it doesn't say anything else."

Lewis did not like 1984: "Tragedy demands a certain minimum stature in the victim; and the hero and heroine of 1984 do not reach that minimum.... In Animal Farm all this is changed. The greed and cunning of the pigs is tragic ... because we are made to care about all the honest, well-meaning, or even heroic beasts whom they exploit. The death of Boxer the horse moves us more than all the more elaborate cruelties of the other book. And not only moves, but convinces."

"One result is that the satire becomes more effective. Wit and humour (absent from the longer work) are employed with devastating effect. The great sentence 'All animals are equal but some are more equal than others' bites deeper than the whole of 1984. Thus the shorter book does all that the longer does. But it also does more. Paradoxically, when Orwell turns all his characters into animals he makes them more fully human."

Wokist totalitarianism is blossoming and colonizing every segment of our culture. Boxer and Winston will again suffer and die, unless we "wake up" from the Wokist dystopian dream.

It Is Time, SLEEPERS, [to] AWAKE!

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John Locke's Second Treatise on Government was thought by Thomas Jefferson one of the most important influences on his own political thinking, and while it is disputed, one of the most important philosophical voices in the formation of the United States and its founding documents.

As such, it is vital to Americans in these days to understand and know Locke's ideas. History is being rewritten at a level approaching the Doublethink of George Orwell, and we must know and proclaim the Truth, the ultimate safeguard of our liberties against the forces of tyranny.

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December 7th, 1941, the day "which will live in infamy," ended the neutrality of the United States in WWII, to Winston Churchill's delight.

"On December 8, 1941, even as Franklin D. Roosevelt was delivering his “day of infamy” speech to Congress, the British prime minister resolved to sail across the Atlantic to fortify his nation’s most important alliance. “We could review the whole war plan in light of reality and new facts,” an eager Winston Churchill wrote to Roosevelt. After expressing concern about Churchill’s safety in the U-boat-filled ocean—a concern the prime minister waved off—FDR assented. “Delighted to have you here at the White House,” the president replied." (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/darkest-days-world-war-ii-winston-churchills-visit-white-house-brought-hope-washington-180961798/)

Churchill arrived at the White House on December 22nd after a ten-day crossing of the Atlantic. He would remain for three weeks. After spending Christmas with the Roosevelts, he delivered a speech to a joint session of Congress. This is that speech.

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December 7th, 1941, the day "which will live in infamy," ended the neutrality of the United States in WWII, to Winston Churchill's delight.

"On December 8, 1941, even as Franklin D. Roosevelt was delivering his “day of infamy” speech to Congress, the British prime minister resolved to sail across the Atlantic to fortify his nation’s most important alliance. “We could review the whole war plan in light of reality and new facts,” an eager Winston Churchill wrote to Roosevelt. After expressing concern about Churchill’s safety in the U-boat-filled ocean—a concern the prime minister waved off—FDR assented. “Delighted to have you here at the White House,” the president replied." (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/darkest-days-world-war-ii-winston-churchills-visit-white-house-brought-hope-washington-180961798/)

Churchill arrived at the White House on December 22nd after a ten-day crossing of the Atlantic. He would remain for three weeks. After spending Christmas with the Roosevelts, he delivered a speech to a joint session of Congress. This is that speech.

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This partial essay came at just the right time, and I find it one of his most fruitful. The topic is one of Lewis's favorites: language. We do seem to have differing ways of speaking, and they are not always working the same way. For our purposes in this essay, Lewis speaks of common language, scientific language and poetic language, asking how "the language of religion" fits in. Common language, of course, is the base from which the others spring. It is indexical. We use language to point beyond language, to convey information to others, whether in science or poetry. Now, this next is utterly central to the argument. Many dismiss poetry as merely the expression of emotion. Lewis rejects this as untenable, and for good reasons. Poetic language is about something, just like scientific and ordinary language. It expresses information in many cases by the only way that information can be expressed:

"This is the most remarkable of the powers of poetic language: to convey to us the quality of experiences which we have not had, or perhaps can never have, to use factors within our experience so that they become pointers to something outside our experience."

"My conclusion is that such language is by no means merely an expression, nor a stimulant, of emotion, but a real medium of information. Which information may, like any other, be true or false.... Because events, as real events 'really' are and feigned events would 'really' be if they occurred, cannot be conveyed without bringing in the observer's heart and the common emotional reaction of the species, it has been falsely concluded that poetry represented the heart for its own sake, and nothing but the heart."

That is, poetic language conveys concrete information from one subject to another, involving the whole subject, but it is no less ABOUT something (in philosophical language it is intentional) than scientific or ordinary language. Whereas scientific language is abstract, poetic language is concrete. An expression like, "it is -60 degrees centigrade" out there is impoverished, but precise language; it is not qualitative, but quantitative. "It's so cold out there your nose hairs freeze to your nostrils as you breathe, and your head feels likely to explode," is concrete, but also vague in expressing temperature, not quantifiable.

Religious language is usually conducted, like most of our language work, with ordinary language, but when we are pressed to explain what we mean by religious statements like "I believe in God," we will need to go one of two ways: toward the scientific, or toward the poetic, and while each attempt will be trying to convey the same information, they will suffer different strengths and weaknesses.

"Apologetics is controversy. You cannot conduct a controversy in those poetical expressions which alone convey the concrete: you must use terms as definable and univocal as possible, and these are always abstract. And this means that the thing we are really talking about can never appear in the discussion at all. We have to try to prove THAT God is in circumstances where we are denied every means of conveying WHO God is."

"Now it seems to me a mistake to think that our experience in general can be communicated by precise and literal [that is, scientific] language and that there is a special class of experiences (say emotions) which cannot. The truth seems to me the opposite: there is a special region of experiences which can be communicated without poetic language, namely, its 'common measurable features,' but most experience cannot. To be incommunicable by scientific language is, so far as I can judge, the normal state of experience."

Milton's epic poem, Paradise Lost, is considered one of the classics of Western literature. Having now read the second book, I am beginning to understand why. It is not easy going, but it is rewarding. This month we track the journey of Satan from Hell to earth. Let's explore this classic of Western literature together!

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George Orwell's 1984 is classic dystopian literature, but it is also psychologically astute and prescient concerning the totalitarian tendencies of the 20th century's ideologies. With the rise of 21st century Wokism currently in vogue, its message is a clarion call for the present, too. Let us beware of embracing rather than opposing the lies that are being forced upon us, lest we find ourselves, too, living in a world in which we must guard our very thoughts, lest they betray us. Hold fast to the truth, no matter the consequences!

Enjoy ... and be vigilant!

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"The remaining task is to consider whether material things exist." Spoiler alert: they do, and we can know them when we properly utilize the evidence of our senses, restraining our will and judgment to what is "clearly and distinctly perceived." Even so, we are bound to make errors, as we are finite creatures. Socrates would be proud, though he would probably be even more skeptical than Descartes.

I would encourage my listeners, if interested, to listen to our series called "The Evident, Evidence, and Faith" on our Christian Atheist Podcast, as we deal with some of these same issues there.

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"The dominant impression I get from reading the Psalms is one of great antiquity. I seem to be looking into a deep pit of time, but looking through a lens which brings the figures who inhabit that depth up to my eye."

This is typical Lewis, but what may shock readers/listeners is what follows:

"In that momentary proximity they are almost shockingly alien; creatures of unrestrained emotion, wallowing in self-pity, sobbing, cursing, screaming in exultation, clashing uncouth weapons or dancing to the din of strange musical instruments."

There is much of great value here to reap from Lewis's fertile mind, but this essay will be off-putting to many who love the Psalms.

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Milton's epic poem, Paradise Lost, is considered one of the classics of Western literature. Having now read the second book, I am beginning to understand why. It is not easy going, but it is rewarding. This month we track the journey of Satan from Hell to earth. Let's explore this classic of Western literature together!

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