Socrates as Daedalus

Since I identify autochthony as the central (but “secret”) theme of the Platonic dialogues, it is a reasonable question to ask: if so, where does Socrates fit in? How does the central character in Plato’s dialogues, Socrates, fit into the theme of autochthony? The identity and meaning of the character of Socrates is not something I have addressed.

My reading of Plato, it might be objected more generally, is anti- or at least non-Socratic. Following ancient tradition, I usually put the Timaeus and the Parmenides at the centre of the dialogues, a cosmology and a metaphysics. But Socrates is not the primary speaker in either of those works, both of which are usually designated as “late” in the supposed chronology of Plato’s works. They are not “Socratic” dialogues like the supposedly early works. My autochthony theme is largely extracted from a reading of the Timaeus and Critias ensemble. What of Socrates? If my larger reading of Plato has any merit then I must explain the place of Socrates in the Platonic autochthony.

My first response to this is to emphasize all the ways in which Socrates was an Athenian and, I would argue, Plato presents him as the archetypal Athenian. Only the archetypal Athenian could describe the archetypal Athens, as Socrates does in the Republic. There is a wealth of evidence in the dialogues in support of this view, but Crito 52b and 53a are enough. Socrates was a loyal son of Athens, who never left Athens for any other land. Autochthony is the boast of the Athenians. There is no one more Athenian than Socrates. He is autochthonous in that general sense just because he is a native born Athenian.

More specifically, though, in Euthyphro, 11c and 15b we are told that Socrates’ genealogical claim is through Daedalus. This is why ancient tradition tells us that Socrates was a stonemason. The name Daedalus means “skilful worker”. Socrates was a craftsman. The Daedalus from whom he claimed ancestry, though, is specifically the Athenian, and not the Cretan, Daedalus. The Athenians had acquired the Daedalus mythos from Crete. In this appropriation, Daedalus becomes a native of Athens, the grandson of Erectheus, the autochthonous line.

In Euthyphro 15b, moreover, Socrates is not merely in the line of Daedalus but is portrayed as Daedalus (sort of). I think this is the key to understanding the character of Socrates in Plato. He is a Daedalus figure. He is, pre-eminently, the “skilful worker”. In this we must understand “skill” as an aspect of “sophia” (wisdom) and as an attribute of the goddess Athena.

Objection: why would this "key" to Socrates be hidden in the Euthyphro and not be mentioned, for example, in the Phaedo?

Answer: The "fortunate coincidence" at Phaedo 58a by which Socrates' execution is delayed concerns the story of Theseus. This puts the whole of the Phaedo in the context of the Theseus/Daedalus mythos. 

Further: to consider Socrates as Daedalus casts new light on the dialogue called the Laws, the only dialogue in which Socrates does not appear and the only dialogue not set in Athens. Instead, we find an unnamed generic "Athenian" in Crete. This Platonic configuration of references surely alludes to the shared mythology of Athens and Crete.

By extension, Socrates in the Phaedo is the man who knows his way through the labyrinth, the minotaur being in this analogy the fear of death.

No doubt Socrates-as-Daedalus is a well-covered motif. My specific interest here is the connection to autochthony.

I point out, too, that the reference at Euthyphro 15b reminds us of the beginning of the Timaeus. In the Euthyphro Socrates is Daedalus, he says, because he is bringing Euthyphro's ideas into motion. But in the Timaeus he asks Timaeus to do this: the Locrian answers Socrates' request to see his ideal state in action. The Locrian, therefore, plays the demiurgic role there, not Socrates. It seems, then, that this is the role of the central figures in Plato's dialogues, both the Socratic and the non-Socratic dialogues. The central figure, in all cases, uses "skilful means'.





- Harper McAlpine Black




 

The Remembered Text

The text is too much with us. We are all much too bookish. I am, anyway. After long years teaching University courses, I'm saturated in text. I've read enough books to sink a ship. In all likelihood, I'd read more books by the time I was twenty years old than Saint Augustine read in his entire life, and now, decades later, it is just ridiculous. This is not a boast, it's a confession of a sin, and it's a sign of the times in which we live. Too much text. Too many books.

I recall the first time I experienced the horror of books. I was a new employee in a city bookstore. The boss delegated me to 'General Fiction' and my task all day was to clean and dust and alphabetize. I stood before the 'General Fiction' section and beheld the rows and rows of shelves jam-packed with endless novels. It suddenly struck me that there were more books in the world than the world could ever possibly need, and I wondered why anyone would spend their lives reading such a mountain of fiction or even more why anyone would spend their lives writing this stuff. It was my first sense of living in a text flood. All the same, I've loved books and devoted my life to books in one way or another.

After a while, though, the mere textuality of text is deadening. I go looking for ways to bring the text alive. One of the best ways - the most obvious really - is simply to put the text aside. Stop reading it. Only think about what you remember of the text. Because, I realise, the remembered text is that version of the text that is alive. The words on the page are dead. When we read, we internalise the book and so we weave it into ourselves. This internal book is a living thing. I've come to appreciate the remembered text and come to dislike and have an aversion to the textual text.

By the Remembered Text,  I don't mean the memorized text. The memorized text is a different thing again, although it might be considered a type of Remembered Text. Muslims have the Koran as a memorized text. I don't mean that. The Remembered Text is the text as the reader remembers it and with all the deficiencies and quirks of our puny faculties. The Remembered Text is a mottled and variegated thing.

We can identify many diverse things of which it will ordinarily consist:

(a) aspects of the text remembered correctly,
(b) aspects of the text mis-remembered to a greater or lesser degree,
(c) impressions (that join the gaps between facts)
(d) completely erroneous memories
(e) accidental importations from other texts
(f) related memories

Every text points to a lived truth beyond itself. The valuable part of a text is what you can carry with you.

The Remembered Text is an excellent teaching device. Here is a strategy for teaching philosophy to undergrads. The text in question, let us say, is the Apology of Socrates.

1. All students acquire a copy of the text and read it. If they read different translations, so much the better. We avoid the textual tyranny of everyone having the same translation.

2. Students are lectured briefly on the structure and technical characteristics of the text, but not on its themes or content.

3. Books away. Students must not bring the text to class, cannot have any notes and cannot access the text from laptops or iphones. No text.

4. Students discuss and debate the text from memory.

5. Students can consult the text after class, and can reread, but in all subsequent classes discussion and debate is from memory of the text. The text we use for philosophizing is the Remembered Text.

One of the peculiar joys of conducting classes like this is when the entire class, and the teacher, agree on a fabricated or mistaken reading. Someone says, "Socrates says..." and everyone either explicitly or tacitly agrees even though, as we find out later, Socrates said no such thing. A whole group of people, that is, can have a false memory, even of a very familiar text. In other cases, the Remembered Text is negotiated.

Better still, this is a method that completely cuts the grammarians among us off at the knees. Where students have a copy of the text there is always some bastard who says, "But Socrates uses the past participle in that sentence..." Not in the Remembered Text he doesn't. The grammar of the Remembered Text is fluid. Similarly, this method pulls the rug from under the budding lawyers among us. It puts an end to hair-splitting and finnicky textuality. Instead, it promotes living debate. You can't hide behind the text. You can't play games of "Plato says..." You can't trip people up with a destructive textual exactitude. There is more commerce in ideas.

I suspect this method would be useful in teaching or studying novels and fiction too. Students should be taught to identify and appreciate the Remembered Text, namely the text they have appropriated through reading and that they carry inside them. That, surely, is always the real treasure we extract from a book.

Living as we do in a flood of text, it is important - and vitally refreshing - to revisit earlier modes of life when the text was not so much with us. Once, the Remembered Text played a more important role for readers. You couldn't afford to own a book. you read it - devoured it - and acquired it through memory. Some people could memorize large amounts of text verbatim, but most readers had a highly polished and carefully acquired Remembered Text. We see a case of how formal this art could be in the early passages of Plato's Symposium where there is a discussion of various and contrasting rememberings of speeches which are carefully compared and that render the text of the Symposium as we have it related.

I'm inclined to think the Remembered Text is a healthy thing in religion too. I'm in rebellion against Protestant textuality and Rabbinical hermeneutics. The idea of putting a Bible in every hand and studying it in its every grammatical detail is horrifying. Far better if there was only a few Bibles here and there, and everyone was only allowed to read the text just once. For the most part, the text is inscribed in living memory, not marks upon a page.

An important instance of the Remembered Text is the synthetic "gospel" readers of the New Testament construct from the four parallel gospels. The reader collapses the four texts into a single Remembered Text which is at once all and none of them.





- Harper McAlpine Black

Athena scorning Hephaestus - Paris Bordone

This painting by Paris Bordone is an important item of evidence in my account of the mythology of Athena and its relation to the philosophy of Plato. It is important to me to identify Athena as a cloud goddess. Some people have questioned this aspect of my work and have suggested that this identification is idiosyncratic. I maintain it is a traditional interpretation. I point to this painting.

Although some have questioned it, the painting very plainly depicts the following scenario from Athenian mythology as described by Apollodorus:

Athena came to Hephaestus, desirous of fashioning arms. But he, being forsaken by Aphrodite, fell in love with Athena, and began to pursue her; but she fled. When he got near her with much ado (for he was lame), he attempted to embrace her; but she, being a chaste virgin, would not submit to him, and he ejaculated on the leg of the goddess. In disgust she wiped of the semen with wool and threw it to the ground; and as she fled, the ejaculate fell to the ground, and Erichthonius was produced.

In my interpretation of this myth, it is essentially an agricultural myth about rain and fertility. Hephaestus is a thunder god. His ejaculate is rain. The wool of Athena is the clouds. Wool = clouds. This is important symbolism to Athena as a weaving goddess.

Again, I have had people - indeed, classical scholars - intimate that my reading of this myth is "fanciful". But, as you can see, this painter and I are in agreement. Athena is here plainly depicted as a cloud goddess and the clouds take the place of the tufts of wool in the myth.

(There is another important symbolism to do with the thigh of the goddess, but I will leave that to another time. Thigh bone = earth.)

Paris Bordone was a Venetian mannerist painter from the sixteenth century. The date of the painting is about 1555-1560. Unfortunately, we know nothing more about this painting. We do not know for whom it was painted or for what location. But it definitely depicts the myth as told by Apollodorus: the chaste Athena scorning the advances of the blacksmith god. The Renaissance interest in the story is as an allegory of the productive power of unrequited love.

Socrates and Aristophanes

The relationship between Socrates and the comic playwright Aristophanes is central to Leo Strauss' reading of Plato. His view that the "secret" or "esoteric" doctrine of Plato was nihilistic atheism is confirmed for him in Aristophanes' depiction of Socrates as a scientific god-denier in the play The Clouds. I am slowly reading my way into these particular strata of Platonic philosophy, but my interests and direction are very different to those of Mr Strauss. My work on Plato has involved exposing a quite different "secret tradition", but I am led, nevertheless, to the same passages and the same dialogues as is Mr Strauss. It's an intriguing thing, and it is a very tangled tale, but I hope to get to the bottom of it.

Here is an example:

The speech of Aristophanes in the Symposium describes how originally human beings were spherical creatures of three types corresponding to Sun, Moon and Earth. As a punishment, Zeus then slices these spheres in two and at length mankind is reduced to his current shape.

I read this famous speech cosmologically and I regard it as a key text in what I take to be the "secret tradition" of Plato, namely an esoteric exposition of the gods and cultus of Athens, and the cultus of the Acropolis in particular and the goddess Athena in particular. I take the Timaeus as the central Platonic text and see it as having a cultic background that concerns the great festival, the Panathenaea. Further, this "secret tradition" has a distinct mythology and symbolism that stretches back to Egypt and forwards through alchemical and related traditions. A key symbol of this esoteric Plato is the metal gold. The mythology concerns the (Athenian) doctrine of autochthony and the birth of the "golden race".

Strauss reads the speech of Aristophanes in a very different way. He regards it as paradoxical. For him, the passage presents a contrast between the cosmic gods and the Olympians. The cosmic gods are spherical - Earth, Moon, Sun. But the Olympian deities are anthropomorphic. It is paradoxical that when Zeus punishes mankind, he transforms them from the form of the cosmic gods into the form of the Olympian gods. In punishing mankind, Zeus makes mankind more like the Olympians. That is, he punishes man by making him more theomorphic.

At this point Mr Strauss directs our attention to the play called 'Peace' by Aristophanes. He believes that the speech in Plato alludes to a particular passage in 'Peace'. In this passage, the playwright makes exactly the distinction between cosmic and Olympian deities. Mr Strauss maintains that the Greeks commonly drew the contrast and maintained that the Olympian gods are superior because they are anthropomorphic. Herodotus draws the distinction. The Persians, he says, worship the Sun and Moon and cosmic spheres, but the Greeks worship gods who have human form - and the Greek gods are superior therefore.

Mr Strauss has a strong argument. It is difficult to suppose that Aristophanes' speech in Plato does not allude to the distinction the real Aristophanes makes in 'Peace'.

Here is the passage from that play:

* * * 

TRYGAEUS [To HERMES]

And I shall reveal to you a great and terrible plot that is being hatched against the gods.

HERMES

Hah! speak and perchance I shall let myself be softened.

TRYGAEUS

Know then, that the Moon and that infamous Sun are plotting against you, and want to deliver Greece into the hands of the barbarians.

HERMES

What for?

TRYGAEUS

Because it is to you that we sacrifice, whereas the barbarians worship them; hence they would like to see you destroyed, that they alonemight receive the offerings.

HERMES

Is it then for this reason that these untrustworthy charioteers have for so long been defrauding us, one of them robbing us of daylightand the other nibbling away at the other's disk?

TRYGAEUS

Yes, certainly. So therefore, Hermes, my friend, help us with your whole heart to find and deliver the captive and we will celebrate the great Panathenaea in your honour as well as all the festivals of the other gods; for Hermes shall be the Mysteries. the Dipolia, the Adonia; everywhere the towns, freed from their miseries, will sacrifice to Hermes the Liberator; you will be loaded with benefits of every kind, and to start with, I offer you this cup for libations as your first present.

HERMES

Ah! how golden cups do influence me! Come, friends. get to work. To the pit quickly, pick in hand, and drag away the stones.

* * *

Notice, then, that the barbarians (non-Greeks) worship the spherical cosmic gods and these gods, says Trygaeus, are plotting against the Greeks. Such gods are the gods of foreigners, non-Greeks, barbarians, and they threaten the Olympian gods.

For Mr Strauss, the speech of Aristophanes in the Symposium swings on this passage from 'Peace'. He uses this passage in 'Peace' to illuminate the strange symbolism of Aristophanes' account of the creation of (or fall of) man. He sees irony. It is ironic that, in punishing man, Zeus makes man more god-like.

The passage from the play is highly suggestive to me, though, and is very interesting in view of my exposition of the esoteric Plato. I make a couple of observations:

*Trygaeus specifically mentions the festival of the Panathenaea here.

*There is specific mention of the metal gold. the golden cup. Hermes says 'Ah, how golden cups do influence me.'

*There is a discrepancy: in Plato the spheres are three: Moon, Sun and Earth. It is essential to Aristophanes whole speech that there be three spheres, not two. In 'Peace' there is only the Sun and the Moon, but not the Earth. I regard this discrepancy as very significant here.

I think Mr Strauss is, yet again, drawing attention to the right passages and the right connections between texts, but he is drawing the wrong conclusions. For me, the passage in 'Peace' further confirms that the symbolism of Aristophanes' speech in the Symposium concerns an esoteric doctrine about the cultus of Athens that specifically concerns the festival of the Panathenaea.

Regarding The Clouds, I draw attention to references to changes in the Athenian calendar that forms the background to the play. (The theme of debt concerns this too, because debts were settled at particular phases of the lunar month.) There is a whole configuration of references running through Plato concerning the festivals of Athens and the Panathenaea in particular. The 'coulds' in the play concern Athena as goddess of clouds and air.

George Dunlop Lesley

What an illustrious name is George. In previous posts I have revealed my abiding interest in traditions of autochthony, which I principally study through my reading of Plato. It was the subject of my PhD. In other contexts I have expressed the opinion that royalty and royal lines are, finally, a prolongation of autochthony myths. What name says this better than George. Geo = earth. George, Prince of Cambridge, was named today. 

It has prompted me to post a couple pictures of one of my favourite Victorian artists, George Dunlop Lesley. 

The Goldfish Seller

Winter Walk

Islamic Spirituality - Essay Topics

This is my final teaching expedition. Here is my vast array of essay topics for students for the coming semester. I might add a few more yet! The students are second and third year undergrads studying Religious Studies as a broadening elective subject. The subject is wide open. It's called ISLAMIC SPIRITUALITY 200/300. I've never taught this syllabus before. This is the one and only time the subject will be offered, so I've decided to give students the widest possible choice of essay assignment. Did I miss anything?


1. Jerusalem

Make a study of the place of Jerusalem and its sacred sites (the Furthest Mosque and the Dome of the Rock) in Islam and consider this in relation to contemporary disputes about the control of the city. Why did the early Muslims face Jerusalem, rather than Mecca, to pray? Consider the claims of the Muslims in relation to the claims of the Jews and Christians. What do you make of the so-called 'Third Temple' movement? Give some attention to the story of the 'Night Journey' of the Prophet and to the place of Jerusalem in the mystical life of Islam.

2. Mechanistic Prayer?

"The ceremonial character of the religion of the Musalmans is, in spite of its simplicity, carried to a pitch beyond the utmost demands either of Rome or of Russia...Prayer is reduced to a mechanical act as distinct from a mental act...it resembles the worship of machines rather than of reasonable beings."

Make a study of the Islamic understanding of prayer, comparing and contrasting with Christian understandings. You may, if you wish, make some reference to prayer in Judaism or other religions as well. What does each religion understand prayer to be?

3. The Green Man

Describe the place of the Green Man, al-Khidr, in Islamic spirituality. Explore traditions surrounding this figure. Do we find the same idea in other traditions?

4. Orientalism

Write an appreciation of the depictions of Islam by the so-called ‘Orientalist’ European artists in the 18th and 19th centuries. Discuss the proposition that this was the first time ever that Europeans looked upon Islam sympathetically. Your essay should also discuss the thesis of Edward Said in his famous book ‘Orientalism’. Does Said give a distorted, one-sided and resentful view of it?

5. Music

With particular reference to the Chisti Order of Sufis, make a study of the place of music in Islamic spiritual life. Why do some groups say that music is “haram” (forbidden)? Your essay should, in part, be an appreciation of Islamic spiritual music.

6. Hagar

Explore the place of the story of Hagar and Ishmael in Islamic spirituality. What does the story signify? Your essay should give some account of the symbolism of Hagar’s running between hills, and the story of the founding of the well of Zamzam. Do not treat these as historical stories; instead, what is the symbolic, cosmological and metaphysical significance of these things?

7. Ishmaili Islam

Make a study of the Ismaili sect of Shia Islam. Why do some Muslims not regard them as Muslims at all? What is the essential spiritual difference between the Ismailis and other Muslim groups?

8. Women, Perfume & Prayer

The Prophet loved three things: women, perfume and prayer. Discuss this as a theme in Islamic spirituality. What do “women, perfume and prayer” represent?

9. The Night of Power

Discuss the place of the ‘Night of Power’ during the fast of Ramadan in the mystical life of Islam.

10. Whirling Dervishes

Make a study of the spirituality of Rumi and the Mevlevi Sufi order or the so-called ‘Whirling Dervishes’. Why is Rumi the best selling poet in contemporary America? Describe the symbolism of the famous whirling dance. How does it work as a spiritual method?

11. The Occult

Discuss the role of Islam as 'Other' and "Shadow' in relation to Western culture with particular emphasis on Islamic elements in Western occultism. Many elements of Islamic civilization and spirituality were absorbed by the West through the agency of 'esoteric' associations and fraternities, or else they remained "dark' and sinister in the Western mind. Consider, for example, the Rosicrucian myths, or the infamous 'Necronomicon', or Aleister Crowley's 'Book of the Law' or other aspects of the occult in the West. How important is Islam (as Other, or Shadow) to the sociology and psychology and history of Western occultism?

12. Shahadah

‘There is no god but god.’ Analyse and discuss the depth of meaning in the Islamic Testimony of Faith, the Shahadah. Is it just an empty tautology? Why do Muslims regard it as profound and as containing all the secrets of Islam?

13. Christ in Islam

Closely examine the role and status of Christ in Islam and the Koranic critique of Christianity. Expose the main lines of doctrinal difference between the two religions. Give especial attention to the question of Unitarianism vs. Trinitarianism. Is God One or a Trinity of Persons, or both? Is there an orthodox perspective in either faith that transcends this most fundamental point of contention?

14. Sufism and Muslim Decline

It is sometimes argued by Muslims reflecting on the last few centuries of Islamic history that the reason Islamic civilization fell into decline and succumbed to Western colonialism was Islam's 'drift' into mysticism. The Sufis and mystics, it is argued, diverted the Muslim world into superstition and away from the maintenance of the essentials of civilization. On the strength of such arguments as this there has been a strong reaction against the Sufi brotherhoods in many parts of the Muslim world in recent times. Does Sufism belong to medieval Islam? What role does it have in modern Islam? Did Sufism contribute to the decline of Islam? Did al-Ghazzali make the wrong choice in championing the Sufis over the philosophers?

15. Sufi Tales

Select three or four Sufi teaching tales and explain what you take to be their spiritual significance. What is being taught? Are such stories really part of the Islamic religion, or are they better understood as reactions to and protests against Islamic orthodoxy?

16. Geometric Art

Creator of the heavens and the earth! When He decrees a thing He need only say 'Be!' and it is. (Holy Koran 2:117) Discuss Islamic geometric art in the light of this verse from the Koran. Is this Islamic art spiritual or is it just nice decoration?

17. Muslim/Christian Parallels

The Koran is to Islam what Christ is to Christians, and the Prophet Muhammad is to Islam what the Virgin Mary is to Christians. Discuss these parallels and comment on the proposition that all misunderstandings between Muslims and Christians start here.

18. Shia and Sunnis

Aside from the disputed claims to the leadership of the Ummah after the death of Muhammad, what are the main differences between Shia and Sunni Islamic spirituality? What deep, spiritual perspectives (rather than political differences) separate the two communities?

19. A Christian Heresy?

Christians have often portrayed Islam as a "heresy". What type of heresy? What is the basis for this portrayal? Explore the relationship between Islam's understanding of Jesus with that of various "heretical" forms of early Christianity. Consider the possibility that the Prophet Muhammad was influenced by various Christian sects in Arabia and/or Syria in the early years of his mission. What Christian influences was Muhammad under? What is the significance of the traditional stories that relate that a Nestorian monk was the first to acknowledge the young Muhammad as the long-awaited prophet?

20. Converts

Study written accounts of a diverse group of Western converts to Islam, such people, for example, as Michael Muhammad Knight (wrestler), Jemima Goldsmith (daughter of Jewish financier), Anthony Mundine (Australian boxer), Marmaduke Pickthall (novelist), Cat Stevens (pop musician), John Heirlihy (writer), Jeffery Lang (Professor of Mathematics), Colonel Donald S. Rockwell (poet), Michael Wolfe (journalist), Charles Le Gai Eaton (diplomat), Art Blakely (jazz musician), Pamela Taylor (science fiction writer), Wilfried Hofmann (social scientist), David Hicks (Australian mercenary) and others. Compare and contrast their experiences. Are there common factors in their personal stories? What difficulties do they encounter? What was lacking in their western/Christian background that they felt it necessary to convert to Islam? Which of them, do you think, makes the most convincing (complete or comfortable) Western Muslim?

21. The Maryamiyya

Investigate the origins, doctrines and legitimacy of the Sufi Order (tariqa) founded by the Swiss traditionalist and visionary Frithjof Schuon, the 'Maryamiyya' (originally the Alawiyya) giving consideration to the several controversies concerning this Order. Schuon, drawing upon his association with Rene Guenon, took on the role of 'Sheihk' in a branch of the Alawiyya Order. Then, in the 1960s, he claims that the Virgin Mary appeared to him and appointed him to a universal mission. Later, he moved to the United States where he had a close connection with tribes of American Indians. Find out what you can about the doctrines and practices of Schuon's 'Maryamiyya'. How 'traditional" is it? Does it depart from orthodox Sufism? Is it an example of a syncretic 'Western' or even 'New Age' style of Sufism?

22. Hijab

Explore the spiritual dimension of hijab or the veiling of women in Islam. Your essay should address theological and metaphysical issues more than sociological and political ones. Why is the feminine veiled? What does the veil symbolize? How is the feminine understood in Islamic spirituality?

23. The Hidden Imam

Explore the place of the Hidden Imam in Twelver Shia Islam and in Islam in general. What sort of spirituality follows from the doctrine of occultation?

24. First and Last: A Primordial Perspective

Consider the claim that the Islamic revelation is a both the last and the first revelation. What in Islam is “primordial”? How can it claim to be a return to the original, primordial religion of mankind?

25. Henri Corbin

With reference to the work of Henri Corbin, describe the place of the ‘Via Imaginativa’ (the path of the imagination) in Islamic (and especially Shi’ite) spirituality.

26. Isabelle Eberhardt and Feminist Converts

Why did early feminists like Isabelle Eberhardt convert to Islam? Why, in late 19th C. and early 20th C. photography, were “liberated” women depicted in “oriental” clothing? What is the connection between early feminism and Western perceptions of Islam?

27. Hadith

Write an appreciation of the Hadith literature of Islam as a body of spiritual guidance. What spiritual perspective welcomes a tradition that offers guidance on every detail of life, from how to pray to how to eat? What are some of the most profound and spiritual ahadith in your opinion? Your essay should give particular attention to the class of narrations called ‘hadith qudsi.’

28. Two Books

Read and review Frithjof Schuon's Understanding Islam along with S. H. Nasr's Ideals & Realities of Islam. Both works are considered among the best modern accounts of Islam written in European languages. What impressions of Islam do they leave you with? What aspects of Islam, as these writers present it, are most surprising to you? What work do you prefer, and why? (This topic does not require that you look at a wide range of resources. You can answer the topic adequately by just reading the two nominated texts.)

29. The Gospel of Barnabas

Make a study of the Islamic dimensions of the medieval Gospel of Barnabas. How much did the author(s) know about Islam? Your essay should discuss the identification of the Prophet Muhammad with the Paraclete from the Fourth Gospel.

30. Adam and Eve

According to Islamic legend, Adam and Eve met each other on Mount Arafat just outside of Mecca. Explore this and similar Islamic legends where Biblical stories are superimposed upon the Meccan landscape.

31. Michael Muhammad Knight

“He might be brash, provocative and offensive but people like Michael Muhammad Knight are stirring the roots of contemporary Islam, and that’s just what Islam needs right now.” Discuss. Is Knight just a self-promoting provocateur in search of headlines, or is he opening up new and legitimate dimensions of Islam spirituality?

32. The Mystic Letters

Examine the question of the meaning of the “mystic letters” with which many chapters (surahs) of the Koran commence. What spiritual significance is ascribed to these letters by the saints and sages of the Islamic tradition?

33. Slaves of God

In Islam believers are called ‘Slaves of God.’ Leaving aside the sociology and practice of slavery, examine the language and metaphor of slavery in Islamic spirituality. How can slavery be a spiritual state?

34. Seth Carney

“Seth Carney was just another self-important white guy presuming to tell Muslims how they should think and act.” Discuss.

35. The Kaaba

Make a study of the significance of the Kaaba in Islamic spirituality. What does the Kaaba symbolize? Why is it empty?

36. The Black Stone

Make a study of the history and significance of the black stone of Mecca in Islamic spirituality. What does it symbolize? Why are some contemporary groups hostile to it and urge pilgrims to Mecca not to touch it? Is the black stone a remnant of paganism?

37. The Night Journey

Make a study of the place of the Night Journey in Islamic spirituality. What are its precedents? Compare it, for example, to Jacob’s Ladder in Judaism. Outline the symbolism of the Buraq. Your study should include some account of the place of Jerusalem in the mystical life of Islam. Why did the early Muslims face Jerusalem, rather than Mecca, to pray?

38. American Groups

Make a study of one or more of the various Islamic “fringe” groups in the USA - the Nation of Islam, Moorish Temple, The Five Percenters, The International Submitters, and others. Are such groups best understood as symptomatic of racial tensions within American society or do they offer useful perspectives to Islam worldwide?

39. Fatima Zara

Giving a wider account of the place of the Divine Feminine in Islam, make a study of the place of Fatima Zara in the spiritual traditions of Shi’a Islam. Why is she called ‘Mother of Thy Father’? What does it mean?

40. Islam and Protestantism

"The rise of Islam was a shock from which Christianity never recovered. The challenge Islam posed to Christianity - doctrinally, politically, geographically, economically, culturally - disturbed Christianity to the roots. Christianity now had to adjust to a radically changed world. Its ultimate response was the Protestant Reformation. Protestantism, with its insistence on 'The Book', its rejection of an ordained priesthood and celibacy, its basis in a trading economy and its appeal to simplicity, fundamentals, and direct responsibility to God is a Christianity transformed - even if slowly and indirectly - by Islam." Discuss.

41. Muhammad and Ali

Discuss the relationship between the Prophet Muhammad and the Imam Ali, especially in Shia Islam. Explain how the two figures are two functions of the one revelation.

42. God

'God is Most Great!' Compare and contrast the Islamic understanding of God (Allah) with that of other religious traditions, especially Christianity and Judaism. What are the main differences? Is the Islamic God so great that He becomes more of a mathematical abstraction than a God suitable for worship?










- Harper McAlpine Black

The Queen of Papua New Guinea

Two stories in the news converge this morning: the birth of a son, third in line to the British throne, and the Australian government's new 'Papua New Guinea' solution to the on-going refugee crisis. In my previous post I aired some thoughts on the refugee issue - folly really, because only an idiot would wade into that debate - so today, with the newspapers adorned with baby pics, I'II shoot my mouth off about the more sedate topic of constitutional monarchy. There are a minority of Australians who continue to agitate for a republic. Much of the momentum has gone out of their campaigns, but they cling to the hope that when the present monarch dies, Australia will move to the republican model and break its last links to the British homeland. This, the republicans believe, is an inevitability - it is just a matter of time. Like other progressive causes, republicanism supposes that history is on their side; the whole movement of history is towards a republic and, more particularly, towards consigning the monarchy and the whole idea of monarchy to the dust-bin of history.

It is the "inevitability" mentality that I want to address. It is underpinned by a belief - or rather, a faith - in "progress". You can't stop progress, they say. But actually, you can. I strongly believe, on the contrary, that, within certain parameters, human beings are the masters of their own destiny. There is little or nothing that is "inevitable" and "progress" is what we make it. Papua New Guinea is an example of this. When the country achieved independence (from Australia) in 1975 it was fully expected by everyone concerned that it would move to the republican model of government. Its' flag, its' constitution, its' institutions, were all primed for a transition to republicanism within the Commonwealth of Nations. It was regarded as inevitable, and part of the march of history to which Australia too is beholden. But it is not what happened. Instead, once the Papuans achieved independence, they embraced the British Crown with unexpected enthusiasm. They had no appetite for republicanism; rather they regarded their ties to the British monarchy as one of the nation's assets. In a post-colonial world awash with struggling banana republics, the Papuans very wisely decided that constitutional monarchy was one of their strengths. The country has had all sorts of political and economic problems since independence; in amongst the crises, constitutional monarchy has provided a platform of stability for the young nation.

In the world at large, in fact, there is now a movement back towards constitutional monarchy as a preferred form of government. Republics do not have a great track record. Over the last few decades the drift towards republicanism has waned and there is a growing appreciation of the value of constitutional monarchy. Dozens of half-arsed republics look wistfully upon the stable constitutional monarchies that have outperformed the alternatives throughout the post-colonial era. This, largely, is why I remain a firm supporter of constitutional monarchy in Australia. Like the good people of PNG I value stability, continuity and tradition. Republicans of my acquaintance don't seem to be motivated by a conviction that republicanism offers a better form of government; rather, their motivations are largely based in an ideological quarrel with royalty as emblematic of all forms of "elitism". I don't share that aversion. I'm not on a crusade to destroy all forms of "elitism" in the world. I don't long for a flat Earth. In principle, I like the idea of monarchy and aristocracy - a class of people devoted to excellence.

The alternative in Australia, in any case, is horrifying. It is important, to me, to have the "elitism" of the monarchy to offset the otherwise crass egalitarianism of the Australian character. The republicans cannot offer a workable method for appointing or electing an Australian Head of State, and worse, they cannot offer any decent examples of people who would be suitable in the role. What is inevitable is that, under a republican model, the office of Head of State would become politicized. Inevitably the country's political processes would move towards a more presidential system. I regard this as wholly undesirable. The British Westminster model of government is demonstrably superior to either the French or the American presidential models, and a constitutional monarch as Head of State is the best foundation for preserving the Westminster system. The monarch is above politics. That's the positive side of the "elitism". The Queen doesn't dirty her hands in the political process. I value that aloofness. I even value the fact that our Head of State resides 12,000 miles away from Canberra. The idea of a Head of State who is "one of us" fills me with dread.

On current figures only about 40% of Australians want a republic. The figure has been declining steadily for the last 20 years. The last attempt to introduce a republic through constitutional referendum failed dismally. Despite the assumptions of republicans, it is not "inevitable" that this trend will be reversed any time soon, if ever. PNG - our nearest neighbor - provides a lesson in that political reality. We don't have to jettison constitutional monarchy if we don't want to. History doesn't compel - it's what we make it. I see no reason why Australia cannot remain a constitutional monarchy under the British Crown indefinitely. Even our large population of immigrants - Asians, Middle-Easterns, Africans - support the constitutional monarchy and develop an attachment to the Queen and the Royal Family. It is one of the institutions they value in this country. Lots of them, in fact, have had experience of post-colonial banana republics and have a more sober view on this matter than do native born Australians.

The fond hope of Australian republicans is that when Queen Elizabeth dies Australians will be repulsed by the prospect of Charles becoming King. They lose me there too. The Leftist liberal media hate Prince Charles. They make fun of him every chance they get. I remain a great fan of the Prince of Wales. He's exactly the sort of man I want to see as Head of State. The alternative in an Australian republic would be - God help us! - a sportsman, or a token aborigine, or some other emblem of Leftist progressive tokenism, the first handicapped Head of State, the first lesbian Head of State, the first transsexual Head of State, and so on, whatever the latest "anti-elitist" fashion might be. I take it that that is the whole basis of Barry Humphries' long-running satirical characterisation of "Dame" Edna Everidge - that's what an Australian aristocracy looks like! Confronted with that, along with the Papuans I say God Save the Queen.




- Harper McAlpine Black

The McAlpine Autochthony

In my PhD thesis I exposed what I take to be a mythology that underpins much of the philosophy of Plato, and in subsequent work I have explored the same mythology, or parallel mythologies, in other traditions. This is the mythology of autochthony, the idea that primeval man was born from the soil. In Biblical myth, of course, we find Adam shaped from the clay, but it is an idea found throughout the world - it is the root idea of ab-origin-ality. Moreover, autochthony underpins the doctrine of royalty; if you trace any royal line you will, eventually, depart from history and move into myth, and the myth will invariably concern the primeval autochthons, the seed race of all people. The autochthons are the Golden Race of which Hesiod and the Greek poets sing. Royalty and nobility are nothing other than the prolongation of autochthony. There is a very specific mythology concerning this and it is very widely dispersed, although it is largely forgotten, hidden and misunderstood in modern times.

Now I am very happy to have uncovered the autochthonous elements in my own ancestry and, along the way, that of the Scottish nobility and, by extension, the British royal line. It is a Scottish version of exactly the same mythology we find elsewhere. It concerns the McAlpines, and it goes like this:

The founder of the line is King Alpin, King of Dalriada. He is the progenitor, although he is essentially mythological and so it is his son, Kenneth son of Alpin (Kenneth McAlpine), who is counted as the first King of Scots. (This is where myth moves into history.) Alpin, it is said, was killed in battle and was decapitated. In all subsequent references and depictions he is shown as a severed head. The motto and war cry of King Kenneth - and all McAlpines afterwards, is 'Remember the death of Alpin!' ( Gaelic = Cuimhnich Bàs Ailpein) and in heraldry Alpin is shown as a severed head. The symbolism of this is plain, and it is the same symbolism  found elsewhere, for example in the cultus of John the Baptist, in Templarism and in Freemasonry: a severed head signifies a seed. 

From this seed comes a seven-branched tree. These are the seven great Clans of the Highlands which, indeed, are known as the Seed of Alpin or (from the Gaelic) the Siol Alpin. The seven clans are: Clan Grant, Clan McGregor, Clan MacAulay, Clan Macfie, Clan Mackinnon, Clan MacNab and Clan MacQuarrie. All of these clans constitute a single great family in the tradition of the Siol Alpin. Here is the usual way of drawing the family tree:

You will notice, though, that there is no "Clan McAlpine" as such. This is because the McAlpines are the seed of the other clans and not a clan in themselves. The McAlpines are the root: the seven clans are the branches. Or, to put it another way, the McAlpines are the eighth clan, implicit in the seven. This is a very common symbolism too. See, for example, Henry Corbin's account of the "Eighth Clime". In symbolic systems of seven, the eighth is the centre and the seed.

Today, this seems like a strange anomaly and is no longer understood. Accordingly, the McAlpines of the world (or mainly the USA) are trying to constitute a new clan and seeking recognition by the Lord Lyon in Scotland (who has legal control of such things.) You can find this endeavor at the following website:

The Clan MacAlpine

They note that, strangely, "no McAlpine chiefly arms, of which a crest would be part, have ever been recorded in the Public Register of All Arms and Bearings in Scotland by the Court of the Lord Lyon." Moreover, there is no clan chief and never has been. That is, although all the clans are descended from Alpin, the direct line is not itself a clan, has no chief, no arms, no crest and no independent heraldry. (A "clan", by the way, is defined as "a community of nobles.") It seems to modern people that the McAlpines have been left out, but that is because we no longer understand their unique status as root and seed. For this reason the campaign to turn the McAlpines into another branch of the tree seems misconceived to me. The McAlpines are not one branch among the others: they are the root and seed and this is why they do not have and have never had the insignia of a clan. This also means they are landless. They are thus exactly like the Levites among the tribes of Israel.

Their status as autochthons is preserved in an important and revealing Gaelic saying:

Cnuic `is uillt `is Ailpeinich

The hills and the streams and the McAlpines.

As the contemporary McAlpines explain this on their website: "[it] signifies the origin of the MacAlpines was contemporary with the origin of the hills and streams, that is, the earth." There you have it! Nothing could be clearer. What it means is, the other clans are all descended from the seed of Alpin (Siol Alpin) but Alpin himself has no forefathers - he is born from (or with) the earth. This is why the McAlpines do not own land. They are the land. Their blood is the essence of the soil. No other clan can make such a claim. All other clans are derivative. (Among the Greeks, this was the boast of the Athenian nobility, of which Plato was a member, descended from the seed progenitor Erichtheus who was himself a child of the Earth.) This is, as I say, a myth of aboriginality. Only the McAlpines are truly aboriginal. Theirs is the "golden" or the royal blood. Of course, the present English monarch, Elizabeth II claims her share of this blood through King Kenneth, first King of the Scots. 

(Let me also add here that the formula "the hills and the streams" I take to have a symbolic, and metaphysical, significance, meaning "above and below". Exactly this motif appears in other autochthony myths in parallel traditions throughout the world, mutatus mutandis.)

This is the secret of the McAlpines. It is preserved in the motto: The hills and the streams and the McAlpines. When we understand that the McAlpines - mythologically - are the autochthons then many mysteries are resolved. It explains why Kenneth and not Alpin is the first king. It explains the symbolism of the severed head and the McAlpine War Cry. It explains why the McAlpine clan is "missing". It explains why they have no heraldry. It explains why they have no land. It explains why royal and noble bloodlines start with Alpin. It explains the special status of the McAlpines in Scottish ancestry. The hills and the streams and the McAlpines. 

It is pertinent to realise in all of this that myth is more telling than history. Of course the McAlpines were not native to the Scottish land - the Dalriada kings came from Ireland. This fact makes the claim of autochthony all the more potent and important. (You find this in all autochthony traditions. It is precisely migrants who say 'We've always been here!') 

A further dimension to this same mythology (which I don't have time to explore here but which is exceedingly fertile) concerns the famed Stone of Destiny, or the Stone of Scone or, as the English would have it, the Coronation Stone. This, it is said, is the stone upon which the Scottish Kings were throned - and is the stone upon which Elizabeth II was crowned at her coronation in 1953. It is said to be, by mythological assimilation, the stone of Jacob, described in the book of Genesis 28:10, the root of Jacob's ladder, the pillow upon which Jacob dreamed. In the Scottish tradition it is said to have been the coronation stone of the Dalriada kings. Symbolically, therefore, it represents the earth itself, and so is an emblem of the autochthony that confers the authority of royalty.

* * * 

Here (below) is the official tartan of the McAlpines, but like all tartans it is an entirely modern artefact going back no earlier than the industrial revolution.

- Harper McAlpine Black

Rupert Bunny Land

The Australian artist Rupert Bunny first came to my attention when I was in my early twenties. Working in bookstores, I browsed my way through art books including books on Australian art. There was one book of plates of the paintings of Rupert Bunny. For a while I had a fascination for him. He was born in St Kilda and I caught a tram through that suburb to and from work. I matched his paintings with the old buildings on the tram route - I thought of St Kilda as Rupert Bunny land.

He was and is, I should say, one of my favourite Australian artists. A colourist who painted mythological and ideal subjects, sumptuous and rich. I was never really drawn to the impressionists and the Heidleberg School. Part of the attraction of Bunny was that he came from that era but - at least to me - he was obscure and forgotten. I thought of him as a discovery. I didn't know anyone who had even heard of Rupert Bunny. In those days I mixed in a Brett Whitely sort of crowd.

The development in Bunny's work away from an Academic style and towards colour is noticeable. I especially liked his Rape of Persephone, and still do.  And what about Courtesans in the Countryside! He's a wonderful painter.

Summertime, 1907

Annunciation

The Muses Plucking the Wings of the Sirens, c. 1922

The Sun Bath

The Rape of Persephone

Fresque, c. 1921

Courtesans in the Countryside

Clifton Karhu - Karhu of Kyoto

It is surprising to find major omissions in Wikipedia. Today I was introduced to the American artist Clifton Karhu, but it seems he lacks an entry on Wikipedia, that on-line repository of all knowledge, so I have had to dig deeper for information on his life and background.

Of Finnish descent, he was a native of Duluth Minnesota and was a graduate of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He first went to Japan as a soldier in the US army shortly after WW2. Then he returned in the 1950s with his wife as a Lutheran missionary. This came to little, but they stayed and Clifton turned to fishing and teaching English. He remained in Japan until he died in 2007 and became, as his brother described it, "More Japanese than the Japanese." He lived in Kyoto, wore kimonos, went completely native. Famous in Japan, he is commonly referred to as Karhu of Kyoto.

The following work is representative. It has many of the elements that I particularly love: line, colour, geometry, two-dimensionality. And Kyoto is surely one of the most magical cities on Earth. I was there in winter. I especially like the winter scenes.

I've never quite understood the dictum, so influential in Western art, that "there is no such thing as a line in nature." I understand that idea, but Japanese art is a powerful testament that line and nature are not mutually exclusive. In Western art, it seems, an interest in line will take you away from nature (observation) into abstraction (concept). Lines are abstractions: there are no lines in nature. The Japanese don't fall into that dichotomy. Line is entirely compatible with their concern for nature.

Dorothy Menpes

Mortimer Luddington Menpes, the Australian Orientalist traveller and painter, has been a wonderful discovery. I managed to print out his book Japan: A Record in Colour, all 670+ pages of it and must report once again that it is a fascinating book. The accounts of Japan are extraordinary, with particular attention to Japanese art and aesthetics. 

The text, I should point out, was written by one of his daughters, Dorothy. It was a family affair. One of his daughters, Maud, operated the publishing company that printed his travel books. He did the paintings and Dorothy wrote the text. They produced many works, recording travels in many exotic lands. These are wonderful books. They are beautifully produced, beautifully illustrated and Dorothy Menpes' writing is beautiful too. She is a lovely writer and a deeply intelligent, astute observer. I am anxious to find out more about Dorothy Menpes. there is surprisingly little on-line, but I did discover that James Whistler was her godfather. 

These books are treasures of Orientalism, works of great charm. It is tragic they are lost and neglected. You can purchase second-hand copies, which are still around (although mainly among collectors), or you can download them from Project Gutenberg and elsewhere. 

There is a link here to the volume on Venice. Below are some of the colour plates from that volume, Mortimer Menpes' watercolour sketches. But you should read the text as well. Here's a sample:

One's imagination is inclined to run riot in Venice. One gilds, and romances, and fills the city with pomp and pageantry, ornamenting the canals with State barges, the piazza with noble men and fair women, and the Ducal Palace with illustrious Doges. But far more interesting is it to see Venice as she really is, in her own simple strength. Think of the more rugged Venice, that city built by strong and patient men against such terrible odds, and in so wild and solitary a spot. In order to gain some idea of Venice as she was in 22those early days, it is well to go out in a gondola at low tide, when the canal is a plain of seaweed. As your gondola makes its way down a narrow channel, you have some conception of the difficulties with which the founders of Venice had to contend. To the narrow strips of land, long ridges guarding the lagoon from the sea, ill sheltered from the waves, the few hundred stragglers came. Their capital, Padua, had been destroyed by the northern hordes, and they took shelter in the islands of the lagoon. So desolate and wind-swept were these islands that one can scarcely imagine men disputing possession of them with the flocks of sea-birds. They were impelled by no whim, however: they were exiles driven by necessity. Here they looked for a temporary home, lived much as the sea-birds lived, and were quite fearless. The soil, composed chiefly of dust, ashes, and bitumen, with here and there a layer of salt, was rich and fertile. This was in the fifth century of our era, of which period there are but few Venetian records.

- Harper McAlpine Black

Umpires and atheism

The degradation of sport goes on. There is the scourge of performance enhancing drugs and other bio-medical ways of cheating, and there is also, more destructively, the long march of technological intrusion the purpose of which is to remove the element of chance from games. This has reduced otherwise noble sports, such as cricket, to a farce. We saw this last night in the first test from Trent Bridge. In the end, the game came down to England needing one wicket to win and Australia needing fifteen or so runs. Controversially, the Australian batsman played a ball that carried to the keeper and the umpire ruled 'Not Out' but was over-ruled by the technological Decision Review System which detected the faintest of snicks and declared the batsman caught behind. In a terrible finish to an otherwise great contest, everyone stood around waiting until the forensic technologists made their call. The action moved from the field into the laboratory. It was the machines that declared England the winners.

It is things like this that have alienated me from professional sport. I very rarely watch sport anymore. I object to what I see as a creeping culture of sporting "atheism." This is the mentality that refuses to acknowledge the limitations of nature and it takes the form of undermining the authority of the umpire. Increasingly, umpires are being replaced by machines. This is because umpires make mistakes, and mistakes are no longer counted as an inevitable and acceptable part of the game. When I was a kid, the sanctity of the umpire was one of the great moral lessons of playing sport. We were taught that the umpire was God. If the umpire said you were out, you were out. Arguing with the umpire was not only pointless it was unsportsmanlike, contrary to the ethics of the entire game. It didn't matter if the umpire was manifestly wrong: you took the bad decisions with the good and you accepted that this was just part of the natural order of things. When an umpire made a mistake it was deemed, as it were, an 'act of God'. Acts of God are not necessarily fair. Now, the entire tendency is to remove acts of God from the playing field.

As it happens, my reading of Leo Strauss touches on exactly this matter. In his short essay 'The Three Waves of Modernity' he makes the point that modernity is characterized by a disbelief in nature and chance. For the ancients (Plato), Strauss points out, man is the plaything of the gods. He writes:

"'Man is the measure of all things' is the opposite of 'Man is the master of all things'. Man has a place within the whole: man's power is limited: man cannot overcome the limitations of his nature... This limitation shows itself in particular in the ineluctable power of chance. The good life is the life according to nature, which means to stay within certain limits: virtue is essentially moderation."

He goes on:

"In classical thought justice is compliance with the natural order; [and] to the recognition of elusive chance corresponds the recognition of inscrutable providence."

But modernity, he says, over-turns this order. Chance can be conquered. The political problem, as he says, "becomes a technical problem." He sums it up as: "Modernity started from the dissatisfaction with the gulf between the is and the ought."

This is what is happening in sport. The political problem - the authority of the umpire - has become a technical problem. We no longer accept that there is an "inscrutable providence" corresponding to "elusive chance." And we no longer accept the limitations of nature. Those limitations are traditionally set by the fact that the umpire is human and therefore fallible. There are natural limits to the human sensorium and human powers of judgment. In the past, if the umpire could not see the deflection of a ball from a bat, or could not hear the sound of the ball snicked by the bat, then there was no case. The umpire was God. If he was, in fact, mistaken, then that was "inscrutable providence". Bad luck. We all accepted that sometimes the cards would fall our way and sometimes they wouldn't. Now we no longer believe in God, or chance, or providence. Instead, Man is the master of all things. The batsman plays the ball. The umpire - standing only 22 yards away - cannot see or hear anything. If there was bat-to-ball contact, it was beyond the range of the human sensorium and the powers of human judgment. Or perhaps the umpire, being human, just missed it. Our attitude to that these days is, "Not good enough!" Natural limits be damned. Now we subject every stroke of the bat to infrared analysis, microscopic examination and a barrage of technological tests to establish whether, at a microscopic level, there was even a hair's breadth of contact. I regard this not as an advance but as a degradation.

Another controversy from the same cricket match underlines this point. The English batsman Broad refused to "walk" after he clearly hit a catch but was given not out by an umpire. When cricket was still a gentleman's sport, the convention of "walking" was a natural complement to the natural limits of the umpire. If you hit the ball, and you knew you hit the ball, but the umpire missed it, you walked. It was not only an act of fair play, it was an implicit acknowledgement of the umpire's authority. You walked because the authority of the umpire was paramount and the batsman was helping him out. It was more important than your team winning. Now the noble practice of "walking" is disappearing from the game. The English claim that the Australians were the first to abandon "walking". Maybe so - in fact, probably so - but it reflects an entire philosophical shift in how we see umpires and, by extension, chance, providence, nature and finally God. The batsman who walks is a true believer. The batsman who refuses to walk is an atheist. He won't walk until a scientist proves he hit the ball.

There seems no cure for it, though. The technological intrusion into sport is likely to get worse and worse. The sanctity of the umpire is a fond dream of a by-gone age. To see it another way, instead of the theocracy of umpires we now have a technocracy that caters to mob rule. The crowd has always hated umpires. Partisan supporters always cry 'We was robbed!' Accordingly, the structures and rules and conventions of games worked to hold off the baying mob and to put the umpire above their indecent clambering. That's why umpires wore white. Pure. Untouchable. Transcendent. It is no accident that these days - ostensibly for the benefit of the television cameras - umpires and referees no longer wear white. White represented the limits of colour and therefore the limits of nature. We no longer observe such limits. Umpires now are just imperfect tools that need to be replaced with more accurate tools wherever we can. We've given in to the baying mob. They can argue with an umpire, but they can't argue with a scientist.

This disease has now taken hold in almost all professional sport. The difference between victory and loss is now microseconds of time or millimetres of space. What we have lost is a sense of human scale. We are in rebellion against the whole idea of natural limits. Once, if you were born blind it was an invitation by Fate to become a musician. These days we cheer the blind man who wants to be a film director or a photographer; we cheer the man in a wheelchair who wants to climb Mount Everest. We no longer acknowledge natural boundaries, the boundaries set by providence and chance (or God). To get Pythonesque about it, there's the man who wants to have a baby but he doesn't have a womb.  This is now just a technical problem, not a boundary set by nature. "Don't you oppress me!" Umpires aren't perfect. We now find that an unacceptable limit and it is to be overcome by whatever technological means we can. Increasingly, the sport becomes about the technology. We don't really cheer the man in the wheelchair who climbs Mount Everest - we cheer the scientist who made it possible.

I find most televised sport unwatchable these days for that reason. It's not about cricket - it's about the endless array of gadgetry that pollutes the coverage: "stump-cam", "snick-o-meter", devices to measure the moisture in the pitch to the thirteenth decimal place. How utterly dreary. And meanwhile the whole moral order that cricket once embodied - arguably more than any other sport - is eroded and the nobility of the game, founded upon the pre-modern acceptance of natural limits (where "virtue is essentially moderation"), is lost.


- Harper McAlpine Black