Strength to Love

Strength to Love
© 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
158 pages

        Strength to Love is a collection of some fourteen sermons written by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr,  with an “epistle” to American Christians written by King in the voice of Paul of Tarsus, creator of Christianity as we know it. As these are sermons, they are written toward a Christian audience and will be best received by one, although King’s thoughts are generally broad enough that the nonreligious and differently religious among his potential readership will find something to appreciate.

Although raised in a fundamentalist background, King adopts a “tough-minded” approach. He does not attack science when it collides with religion, for he sees science and religion as two different areas of human experience that share little ground. American scientist Stephen Jay Gould shared this approach, labeling science and religion as “non-overlapping magisteria”. Although he is not an outright slave to tradition, he still defends the Judeo-Christian heritage in full, including embracing the murderous god of Abraham and Moses while preferring to teach from the New Testament. His approach, he says, is neither conservative nor liberal, but combines elements of both. He adopts the same approach to the intersection of his faith and life: he does not see the primary purpose of Jesus as giving people an escape from metaphysical hell, but in demonstrating a godly way to live and sacrificing himself in order to inspire others. King sees the Christian mandate as striving to create the “Kingdom of God” on Earth, and he believes progress can only be achieved through surrender to a loving God. He decries the secular belief in progress that defined the 19th century (and parts of the 20th, until the  two world wars) as an illusion -- a plague, even.  While he appreciates humanists as people of conscience who want to make the world a better place, he sees the philosophy as flawed. He also accuses humanists of arrogance and self-worship, accusations common among Christians*.

His worldview as mentioned above is articulated in this book,  in addition to his thoughts on Communism, his path to nonviolence, and his ideas on how the Christian church may recover from its corrupt impotence and become a progressive force in society once more. The essay on Communism made for interesting reading, as King is sometimes associated with “leftist” causes. His passion for social justice is beyond doubt, as is his admiration for Karl Marx, who he sees as someone who was similarly passionate. He sees the Leninist system of communism as being built on a heap of bad ideas, among them the humanistic faith in progress. King’s religious experience and a near-mystical testimony make obvious that his belief in the need for God is unshakable. Even so, he is something of a Christian humanist given his approach to realizing a better world now, and his firm belief that people must work with God. He also alludes to favorably all manner of individuals, including nonreligious persons like Charles Darwin and Helen Keller.

Strength to Love made for a fascinating collection of thoughts by King, not always agreeable to me but ever informative and heartening in its way, especially the first four sermons which were not as anti-humanistic. This is an obvious recommendation to Christian audiences, the generally religious, those interested in King's life and his approach to Gandhi's philosophy, and to those with a tendency to deify love.

* The charge of "arrogance" is subjective. Christians might call a humanist arrogant for thinking he can "make it on his own", but a humanist could just as easily think a Christian arrogant for thinking the creator of "all that is" makes obsessive plans centered on the needs and whims of people. The opposite is true: I think humanists and Christians can both be humble in our ways.

Teaser Tuesday (30-3)

This is the day that Should Be Reading has made: let us rejoice and Tease in it.

"Character formation began early, with family games of tossing naked children into the snow. (They were pulled out quickly and placed next to the fire, in a practice reminiscent of Scandinavian saunas."

 - p. 42 of 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus by Charles C. Mann

Infernova

Infernova: An Infidel Reinvents Dante's Hell
© S.A. Alenthony
220 pages

Go to Hell.

Go there with Mark Twain. In fact, let him give you a tour of Hell. It's actually the kind of place he approves of, because in an ironic twist, it is the arrogantly pious and faithful who people it -- not the rational and humanistic. This is no place of sadistic wrath, however: only a realm in which people are forced to face the consequences of their actions -- where those who limited themselves and humanity by their refusal to commit to rationality realize their self-imposed limitations in full.

Infernova is a modern retelling of Dante's Inferno, the classic story in which a man is forced to tour the bowels of Hell, being guided through its many levels by a sage or personal hero of sorts. There are nine levels all told. After passing through the Vestibule -- where the otherwise rational who clung inexplicably to irrationality, like Sir Isaac Newton and C.S. Lewis -- linger, chuckling at their foolishness on Earth -- our narrator, led by Mark Twain,  begins his descent into Hell. With Twain commenting all the while, they will descend the Slippery Slope, cross the Plains of Bullshit inhabited by sheep (people who are now in form what they remained in mind in life), and enter the final descent, which is flanked by the petrified forms of self-appointed prophets and demigods who set themselves up as spiritual tyrants and dogmatic teachers. These prophets, still living, have been forced into stone where they are unable to manipulate the minds of people with their words. Among their ranks are not just televangelists and religious fathers, but political dictators. The Inferno is home to all forms of mental slavery, not just that maintained by religion.

Impressively, and appropriately given that this is a retelling of The Inferno, Infernova is written in rhyming verse and is divided into Cantos rather than chapters.I enjoyed the format, so different from that to which I am accustomed. Written as a parody, the book will easily provide rationalists and skeptics with laughter. The author's audacity in naming names is also entertaining. With Infernova, Alenthony promotes reason, compassion, and the human spirit while skewering the opposition in a playful way. Best of all, he does this without seeming vindictive or mean-spirited, for Twain introduces Hell in such a way as to let the narrator know that the sights he will see are not true:  no outside power is inflicting further humiliation on these people.  The punishments seen here are physical symbols of the mental slavery and punishment people inflict on themselves so willingly in reality.

Related:

• Jennifer Michael Hecht's interview with For Good Reason, titled "The Poetry of Skepticism".

This Week at the Library (25/3)

This week at the library...

Letter from the Birmingham Jail, written by Martin Luther King Jr, is a response to King's critics in which King explains the necessity and appropriateness of civil disobedience in the Civil Rights movement. The letter also allows King to voice his disappointment with moderates and the Christian church for opposing the Civil Rights movement more than they assist it.

Conspirata by Robert Harris is the second book in his biographical trilogy of Cicero. Taking place during Cicero's year as a consul, the book sees Cicero tackle the Cataline Conspiracy and earn for himself the title "Father of the Nation", a title seldom given before the rise of the emperors. Unfortunately for Cicero, Cataline was only the beginning of both his and the Republic's difficulties. Conspirata may one of Harris' better works.

The Road to Wigan Pier  documents lives and working conditions of coal miners in northern England,  the consequences of class consciousness, and sees Orwell promote democratic socialism while explaining why socialism has been so unpopular up until that point (1937).  Wigan will be useful to the social historian of the period.

Lost Discoveries by Nick Teresi is a history of global science, or at least a history of humanity's investigation and explanation of the natural world that draws from the accounts of  nearly every civilized culture on Earth. Seperate chapters focus on mathematics, astronomy, cosmology, physics, geology, chemistry, and technology, and show clearly that curiousity about the natural world and unique approaches to satiating that curiosity are part of the human heritage. Although the book had its weaknesses, I enjoyed it immensely.

Pick of the week? Oh, dear -- this week's reading was too strong to play favorites.

Quotation of the Week: "Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with."  (King, Letter from the Birmingham Jail)

Upcoming Reads:

• The Infernova, S. A. Alenthony's witty retelling of Danta's classic Inferno.  Mark Twain replaces Virgil as the narrator's guide into the abyss of Hell....a hell populated not by the impious, but the unreasonable.
• Strength to Love, Martin Luther King Jr. This is a collection of sermons and essays I am very much looking to: I read Letter from the Birmingham Jail in part to whet my appetite. 
• Bhagavad Gita, Stephen Mitchell
• 1421: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus by Charles Mann.
• And of course, there's always The Human Zoo by Desmond Morris, which I accidentally forgot about.
• In addition, I'm still hiking through a classic of contemporary literature.

Lost Discoveries

Lost Discoveries: the Ancient Roots of Modern Science -- from the Babylonians to the Maya
© 2002 Dick Teresi
453

I spotted this while collecting books for a paper on the emergence of Renaissance science, and it looked so interesting that I knew I’d be reading it properly instead of scanning and making notes. I’m glad I did, for it’s as enjoyable a book about human history and science as I’ve ever read.

Author Dick Teresi establishes from the start that while the traditional western-centric narrative of scientific progress is simplistic, chauvinistic, and incorrect, previous attempts at a multicultural view of scientific history have repeated those mistakes while being patronizing to boot. The traditional narrative, which Teresi believes began only 150 years ago, holds that science was born in Greece, where it defined the classical world until that era’s demise. While the ideas of the Greeks were kept safe by the Arabs,  scientific progress did not resume until the Renaissance, and science has remained the province of the Western world ever since -- only becoming global after colonialism exported it. Attempts to overturn this narrative have gone so far as to reduce the Greeks to nothing more than unoriginal borrowers, and given rise to wild speculative theories like ancient Egypt having gliders and using the Pyramids as air-control towers.

Teresi hopes -- and I think, succeeds -- with this book to project a broader and fairer view. Chapters on mathematics, astronomy, cosmology, physics, geology, chemistry, and technology show that cultures across the globe have all explored the natural world in their ways, and that further, many systems of thought are the result of interplay between these cultures. The combination of Greek and Indian ideas in math, for instance, supplemented the Arab world’s own knowledge in the same. Cultures have had different approaches, often ignoring parts of science while promoting others as their cultural values suggest, but no culture has failed to investigate the world in which they live. The book thus appealed to me in the same way history as a whole does: it reminds me that so many people have lived and asked questions, just as I do, and they have tried to answer those questions in a delightful variety of ways.

There is, however, a difference between explaining the natural world and doing so scientifically. Teresi’s use of science in this book is limited to the popular use of it -- information relating to the world we live in. Lost Discoveries records a range of empirical and speculative approaches on the part of people to find the truth. Only one chapter suffers in content, that of cosmology. After explaining the modern view -- theories based on the big bang -- Teresi then repeats every mythological story that references an eternal universe that begins with massive expansion and that might tend to be cyclical in having a growth, death, and rebirth cycle. This is reaching: those stories are supernatural accounts, not investigations of the natural world. Contemporary science remains based on Greek, Indian, and Islamic math, or uses Babylonian calendars, or used Chinese technology. How are these account of cosmic birth a root or base of modern science? They have their place, but I don’t think it is in this book.

Despite this weakness, the book as a whole is strong. I enjoyed it immensely and recommend it to anyone interested in the global history of our attempts to explain the natural world.  Teresi presents a varied, rich, and fair account that has increased my appreciate for the human heritage as a whole.

Teaser Tuesday (23-3)

Give us this day our Tuesday Tease -- from Should Be Reading.

In this world there are two main paths:

the yoga of understanding,

for contemplative men; and for men 

who are active, the yoga of action.

Not by avoiding actions

does a man gain freedom from action

and not by renunciation

alone, can he reach the goal

- pg. 62 of Stephen Mitchell's The Bhagavad Gita: chapter 3, verses three and four. It makes me think of the old struggle between the active and contemplative lives, as well as Buddha's "middle way".

The Road to Wigan Pier

The Road to Wigan Pier
© 1937 George Orwell
191 pages, including forward for members of the Left Book Club. 

(My own copy: I adore tattered old paperbacks.)

       I read this primarily for a European history class taught by a professor who typically assigns novels, journals, or other supplemental literature alongside of or instead of a standard textbook. I like this approach: it’s given me a fair bit of interesting reading over the years, introducing me to books I would have otherwise never heard of.

Originally published in 1937 -- written, in fact, during the Fascist attack on Madrid -- George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier covers two related topics in the same breath. The book’s opening chapters concern the living and working conditions of the working class, their plight amidst England’s then-current economic woes (chronic unemployment and housing shortages), and their difficulty in being received by the middle-class world.  Orwell then moves on to the question of socialism. In his view,  socialism is such an obvious idea that it should seem to appeal to everyone. Since it does not,  he aims to sort out why exactly this is. He believes the problem lies with socialists’ approach, in being insincere, orthodox, or tied to utopian (specifically, Wellsian) dreams of the future. His ideal socialist is kin to the ideal Christian: one who does not spend his time talking about doctrine, but simply living and advocating for principles of justice and human decency. He finishes the book with a promotion of democratic socialism.

Although not written as such, Wigan  is now valuable as a historical resource. The first part of the book serves as a documentary about the working class, whose living and working conditions were dismal indeed: they seemed scarcely better than those of the Gilded Age.  The book is also now a work of intellectual and cultural history: Orwell spends a great deal of time comparing the attitudes and values of the working class and the middle class.  Given that Orwell also discusses  how socialism is received by people -- and why they react against it -- I can understand why my professor would assign it, given that we are discussing the rise of reactionary and fascist parties in Europe’s 1930s. The book is easily readable and tends toward the informal: Orwell talks to the reader with passion, communicating effectively despite a slight tendency to be absent-minded. This is definitely of interest for those interested in the life of the 1930s.

Wigan Pier made for an interesting read. I think I shall be reading more of Orwell’s nonfiction in the future, specifically his Homage to Catalonia.

Related:

• Technopoly and Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. Orwell's stance on increasing mechanization and cultural shallowness made me think of Postman.
• The Gangs of New York, Herbert Ashbury, in documenting living conditions. 
• The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx, for economic criticism. While Orwell sees Marx's criticisms valid, he thinks intellectual Marxists make for poor socialists indeed, just as theologians fixated on quandaries make for poor Christians.