Interesting to find amidst my morning review of the local paper (San Jose mercury news),references to something I discussed with my students just last week- voltaire’s parody of Leiniz’s theodicy. Perhaps intentionally, your use of “illusion” invokes freud’s argument about the future of civilization…but I’d propose ambition instead of illusion, to capture both the hubris of moderns (Leo Strauss on oblivion of eternity, overcoming chance, mastery of nature, etc.) but also the lesson you propose, that we are not isolated monads but instead or connected to one another, and ultimately, as you nicely capturenit in your final paragraph the very fabric of all that exists.
March 18, 2011 at 3:33 pm
Fenton Johnson
Thanks, Philip, for a comment that’s, um, smarter than I. Over the past weekend I heard Luis Urrea commenting on immigration. “We’ve got to figure out that there’s no ‘us’ and ‘them,'” he said. “There’s only ‘we.'” Amen, bro. Keep teaching. They’re not making it any easier for us.
Philip boo riley
Interesting to find amidst my morning review of the local paper (San Jose mercury news),references to something I discussed with my students just last week- voltaire’s parody of Leiniz’s theodicy. Perhaps intentionally, your use of “illusion” invokes freud’s argument about the future of civilization…but I’d propose ambition instead of illusion, to capture both the hubris of moderns (Leo Strauss on oblivion of eternity, overcoming chance, mastery of nature, etc.) but also the lesson you propose, that we are not isolated monads but instead or connected to one another, and ultimately, as you nicely capturenit in your final paragraph the very fabric of all that exists.
Fenton Johnson
Thanks, Philip, for a comment that’s, um, smarter than I. Over the past weekend I heard Luis Urrea commenting on immigration. “We’ve got to figure out that there’s no ‘us’ and ‘them,'” he said. “There’s only ‘we.'” Amen, bro. Keep teaching. They’re not making it any easier for us.