Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

Bob Dylan and Great Books

Yes, Bob has read widely and sometimes deeply. He, like DuBois, is a self-educated man, and there’s even an argument that he ranks with great poets. This silly and pretentious article doesn’t ring true as an acccount of either student experience or professorial greatness. But it’s true enough that Bob deserves to be recognized for his career-long refusal to subordinate his art to trendy political causes. He’s been at least seeking truth and greatness that transcend the limits of his time.

Discussions - 5 Comments

Great-Books Programs: Reading the Western Canon (in translation) with an explicit Jacobin bias seasoned with a subtle flavor of Zionism. (A left-wing alternative to the traditional, conservative approach: a classical eduction.)

Won't someone around here do something about this anti-Semite?

If I understand you correctly, Peter, your view is that the the "fundamental alternatives" are in actually a package deal. Brann's discussion of the meaning of philosophy is no passing remark but central to the issue: depending upon the state of a particular human being's soul, he loves something or other, and it cannot be otherwise. Indifference is not an option, it is death; and putting the two aspects of being at odds engenders needless anxiety. The concave and convex may be logically distinguishable but actually inseparable. So it is with the rational and passionate. We love to think.

I am all for placing the Harry G. Frankfurt's compact treatise "On Bullshit" firmly within the cannon.

I am all for the noble sounding idea of seeking a truth that transcends the limits of ones time...but why not up the ante and seek a truth that transcends the limits of his own mind...kind of like seeking what is beyond you...kind of like giving 110%...why not 120%...first of all you would have to figure out the limits of your own time, to transcend them...and if they can be transcended then they certainly aren't limits... more like obstacles...obstacles that presumably could be overcome at around 100% because once you start going beyond that things get a little fishy... As part of transcending or rather getting around obstacles...I personally would like to know why in general it has become a sort of pattern stand in for argument to oppose Art and Trendy political causes. Is Bono a sell out? Is there nothing worthwile in political causes by virtue of being trendy? May there not be a fundamental reason why such things are trendy? An internal logic to a trend?

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