Two (?) Classics

I intended to start today by apologizing that my reading and blogging of the last few years doesn’t necessarily live up to the lofty standards implied by the title of this blog. But I just looked over the last few posts looking for examples, and now I’m not sure why I need to apologize. Maybe I was thinking that Infinite Jest is too recent to be considered a classic or a “Great Book” with a capital G and a capital B. And maybe I was thinking of the last time I apologized for this very thing, which I did in a post from October about a history book that included some plagiarism. But the last few months have seen additions to this site commenting on Ariosto, Galsworthy, Trollope, Richard Baxter, Aelred, Philip Sidney, Verne, and Boethius. Yes, Neil Simon found his way in there, too, but for the most part, I really do stick with books at least a hundred years old that have lasted.

Today I want to talk first about some books that are about a thousand years old that haven’t exactly lasted. For about a decade and a half, I’ve been looking forward to reading some of Albertus Magnus (his works must be great books because he’s known as Albert the Great!), known primarily, where he’s known at all, as the teacher of Thomas Aquinas. The volume I bought, called Spiritual Selections, included four little books. I read the first and enjoyed it. Then I read the second, which had some weird, ungrammatical translations. Then I started the third and realized it was just a different translation of the second book; I didn't read it even though the translation looked better. Then the preface to the fourth book said it was doubtful that Albert had written it, so I skipped it. When the compilation a twenty-first-century reader can buy of a thirteenth-century theologian’s writings has such issues, can the work be said to have lasted? And if not, can it be considered classic, as in “classic (adj): having stood the test of time”?

The first book in the anthology dealt with intelligence and the intelligible. Much of it explicitly acknowledged Aristotle and Plato, and much of it anticipated Albert’s famous student. So I was quite familiar with what he had to say. The best part categorized how well we do know and can know various things. Just as the presence of the sun is eminently obvious because of its light while the sun itself is impossible to know through direct observation (no solar filters in the 1200s!), theological objects, says Albert, are the most manifest but the hardest to know. Mathematical things are most firmly known. Physical things “fall away from intellectuality because of privation, matter and motion.” So, as Albert summarizes the situation, “divine things are said to be above the intellect, mathematical things in the intellect, and physical things below the intellect.”

The second treatise was called "Clinging to God." It starts well with glosses on praying in your closet and worshiping in spirit and truth: let images fall away, and worship God in your intellect and will. But it gets Manichean: Albert eventually wants to say that physical objects are unworthy of our attention, and that only spiritual objects have value. I know that if I asked him whether the Incarnation didn’t prove the value of God’s physical creation (as if the repeated phrase “And God saw that it was good” doesn’t do it in the first place), he would temper his statements. But he was a medieval monk who believed that he could not serve God while enjoying itch-free clothing or a comfortable bed, and I don’t have any desire to denigrate his path to godly devotion.

Sir Thomas More’s Utopia is clearly a classic. It’s old. It’s about great things. It’s still available in the book store half a millennium later. And its title has given the language a useful word. I found More’s depiction of a perfect society interesting and ideal, but I couldn’t stop thinking that it wouldn't work. Take the case of criminals who don't reform. If you do repent and make restitution as you are able, you are restored to full citizenship status. But if not, you become a slave of the state. The slaves are treated well and enjoy good, nutritious food, but they have to do all the demeaning work (butchery, for instance) that would lower the characters of citizens. Well, doesn't this kind of labor lower the character of the very people who need uplifting? After all, they haven’t reformed yet, but why not continue to give them a chance? And won't the demeaning work make them lesser in the eyes of citizens so that they end up not being treated well? And why is labor demeaning in the first place? Farmers, plumbers, stonemasons, road builders, and garbage collectors are all heroes of civilization, worthy of our thanks and admiration (and better pay). And the Bible tells of at least one very noble Carpenter. But maybe the book wasn’t meant to be a practical proposal. And I have to admit that I found the best parts inspirational and timely: why execute a man for theft of needed food instead of reforming the economy so that everyone has food?

PS: I don’t know what’s happening. exlibrismagnis now has half a million views. Blogspot no longer lets me see all the referring URLs. A few years ago, I could see a full list with links. Clicking on most of the links took me to pages asking me to pay for porn or betting or something Russian that I didn’t understand. Not that I clicked on “most of the links”! Let me say it a different way. Most of the few links I tried led me, disappointingly, to the abovementioned. Then at some point, Blogspot put in some filters, those links stopped showing up, and my views went way down to what I assumed were all actual views. But now the hits are way up again and I don’t know who they’re coming from. I know that most are from the United States and, of all places, Brazil. But Germany, Bangladesh, and Argentina take up significant portions of that particular pie chart as well. So what constitutes a view? Views seem to be tied to particular posts, hence the “Most Popular Posts” gadgets at the bottom of the page. If you scroll back and the title of a previous post comes up, does that constitute a separate view? The site has 825 posts now, so maybe the views stack up faster and faster as legitimate viewers scroll through looking for a post to spend a minute on. Anyway, half a million views. The world is weird.