https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flmd.447437/gov.uscourts.flmd.447437.5.0.pdf
The event still has the power to reveal.
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I once read a fun interview with a seasoned wedding photographer, who talked about how he can always tell which marriages are going to last and which ones aren’t. It’s the way the bride and groom act around each other, apparently. Looking bored during each other’s speeches is another key tell. More on that shortly.
international public law
Reading the think-pieces around the two big conflicts can be a bit dispiriting. Having become a commentator, or a publicist, or whatever they're called these days, the writers write pieces saying what the law of nations should be, and then use them for partisan purposes.
The law of nations is precisely what nations have done under necessity, and whatever inferences you can draw from that to the present, with the presumption that things should remain the same, and parties should honor their agreements. But everyone always acts according to necessity. You can't bind a nation in a Lockean or moral-contract sense. Nations feel no guilt, and treaties are frequently "un-signed" these days.
If you're trying to make an argument for an extension of existing law, you're better off trying to predict what nations will agree to, and then inflect that a bit, rather than making an argument about what the law says in itself, so that you can then flog the other side with it if they take the other course. Eventually, that diminishes the power of the idea of international law, which is the most valuable part of international law. It took centuries to build this up, and a lot has been lost in the last five years alone.
Unlike the law of a nation, if the nations don't presently observe a certain precept, that precept no longer exists as a principle of international law.
The law of nations is precisely what nations have done under necessity, and whatever inferences you can draw from that to the present, with the presumption that things should remain the same, and parties should honor their agreements. But everyone always acts according to necessity. You can't bind a nation in a Lockean or moral-contract sense. Nations feel no guilt, and treaties are frequently "un-signed" these days.
If you're trying to make an argument for an extension of existing law, you're better off trying to predict what nations will agree to, and then inflect that a bit, rather than making an argument about what the law says in itself, so that you can then flog the other side with it if they take the other course. Eventually, that diminishes the power of the idea of international law, which is the most valuable part of international law. It took centuries to build this up, and a lot has been lost in the last five years alone.
Unlike the law of a nation, if the nations don't presently observe a certain precept, that precept no longer exists as a principle of international law.
comparison
Imagine moving to a small town in America in the 1950s. The town is distant from the capital city, and has its own distinct culture. You arrive in your wood-paneled station wagon, and ask around about employment. After some prying, people begin to talk about who the powerful people are in the different companies, who you should strike up friendships with, do favors for, etc. You ask about simply applying at the offices, and they give you a sort of sideways smile.
That's the way things are now when looking for a white-collar position, and to some degree, even for blue-collar work. It's not the way it was twenty years ago, so I have to assume that it's even more distinct from the paradigms of early 20th century American life. And no one talks about it, for obvious reasons. One's chances might be significantly damaged if one were to suggest that "networking" might be a euphemism for a way of working that wouldn't have been unfamiliar to the criminal syndicates of a generation ago.
Focus your mind on the thing itself, which has a reality distinct from the pragmatic social practices that society uses to structure itself. We weren't put here just to get by -- the point of your existence is to do something real.
That's the way things are now when looking for a white-collar position, and to some degree, even for blue-collar work. It's not the way it was twenty years ago, so I have to assume that it's even more distinct from the paradigms of early 20th century American life. And no one talks about it, for obvious reasons. One's chances might be significantly damaged if one were to suggest that "networking" might be a euphemism for a way of working that wouldn't have been unfamiliar to the criminal syndicates of a generation ago.
Focus your mind on the thing itself, which has a reality distinct from the pragmatic social practices that society uses to structure itself. We weren't put here just to get by -- the point of your existence is to do something real.
Another late night, and into the morning. Sufficient is the day -- and occoasionally its appurtenant hours.
What I thought was a substantial muscle twinge from the run seems to have mended surprisingly quickly. But it's close enough to the joint that discretion might be the better part of valor.
Gently down the stream. The ramparts of Elsinore are no place for tomfoolery.
Tried to get back to the early runs yesterday. The strays proved amiable and friendly, and there was much less dust on the river path, but a bit of uneven pavement has likely put an end to those adventures before breakfast for the balance of this stay. In context, I've successfully negotiated the same in Mostar and Bucharest for months at a time, so this isn't the UWS entitlement-happy indignant call to the city about a stray tree root. My own error, of course, the end of the run was a bit late here, so I was trying to negotiate the early office crowd at the time. One can be a proficient trail runner, and one can be a proficient city runner, but proficiency in trail conditions in the city takes real skill and care.
Up past two AM on various tasks. Sufficient is the day, but sometimes a bit of stoppage time is required.
The center is most definitely that discipline of the enlightenment that one from the east would associate with national socialism, and one from central europe would associate with the commissars of the historical dialectic. Neither would be correct, of course. But that is the way. The ineffable lightness of being might work in Prague or Warsaw, but in the lands of the south, one must steer a straighter path. Perhaps the same danger that Gauguin decided to make a virtue. Southlands.
Sometimes, I have the impulse to find a room and just read an Iris Murdoch novel from start to finish. Usually, I channel this into reading something more productive, such as a philosopher writing about philosophy rather than a philosopher writing mass-market fiction.
It's good to understand that we sometimes pine for senses of things, not the things themselves.
Interesting -- the country to the east is livecasting their big classical music festival (which would be well outside the budget for this peregrination, were I there).
I've been very miserly with my ticket purchases. The general theory has been good theatre and music for $5-$8 per night. I remember, also in the country to the east, perhaps my first stay there, there was a classical concert I very much wanted to hear -- the pianist had been a close friend of S. Richter, and she had come to prominence by winning the competition in the hall in which she was performing, and now returned to it at the end of her performing career. But it was just a bit over 20 Euros. I did make a point of noticing the hour when it happened, though -- I was staying less than a mile away, and I listened to a Richter performance.
Something to do with the meaningfulness of sacrifice, perhaps. Marking the time.
One good thing about the last country: Sbux at 1990s prices. $2.50, and then sitting and reading for a couple of hours in a bright, air-filled room with interesting things outside the window. Unlike the country to the east, where an Americano would have set me back over $6.
It's not loyalty to the brand, or the material substance of the brew (except for the fact that I'm more confident about the hygiene of preparation and the source of the beans), it's genuinely having the place in the city where you can get a coffee in a fresh paper cup from the counter, watch them pour it, and then sit in a bright, airy room for an hour or two and read. (While everyone around is insta-telegramming their milkshakes.)
The local custom in this country, the southern coastal country of the old republic, and the mostly Muslim nation just to the north is small, dim airless rooms, or close patios with a lot of shade and greenery and cigarette smoke, where coffee is served in mugs. It's a legitimate form of comfort. Hygge, perhaps.
But it is not my way. And I am not for all waters.
In the darker places of the region, you can understand the agnosticism of the cities vis a vis East and West. The point is to get to the light, and the work of the day is to get closer to the light, and transmit more of the light. Faced with a decison between the resources of a distant superpower and the connection to a regional center of civilization and and culture, whatever the political alignment of that city, perhaps part of the deal is that choosing the first option means that spiritually, the place will have to make do for itself. Sufficient is the day. No simple highway.
Taking things on a simple East--West dichotomy in this part of the world is like reading a roadmap when planning a hiking trip. There's also the topological factors to consider. Elevations. De profundis. In situ, these things mean much more than the reality suggested by the simple colored lines.
the gauntlet
The native American tribes sometimes used a punishment called the gauntlet--they would force the prisoner to traverse, in parallel, two lines of people attacking them. Some tried to run, and were generally unsuccessful once the first solid blow was landed (at least according to the historical novels of my youth). Similarly, some tried to single out one of the attackers; this usually worked in the novel, but I have my doubts as to how it might have worked out in the field.
Having traversed a few ritual rites of training and passage that resemble the practice, though, I'm beginning to have my doubts as to whether I understood the nature of the exercise, reading novels in the wilderness about the wilderness. (Yes, that was our practice.) Perhaps the purpose of the exercise wasn't to punish the dangerous enemies of the tribe, but to identify them.
Having traversed a few ritual rites of training and passage that resemble the practice, though, I'm beginning to have my doubts as to whether I understood the nature of the exercise, reading novels in the wilderness about the wilderness. (Yes, that was our practice.) Perhaps the purpose of the exercise wasn't to punish the dangerous enemies of the tribe, but to identify them.
I've consciously followed a sort of geometric pattern in these Balkan explorations, and the correlative to this, just as the proportion and length of the fretted string has a correlative in sound and the tension of the harmonic, is that I now have an inner attunement of sorts, pining for the next step in the journey. With autumn, thinking about the northern cities, the theatres, the music. Not as ends in themselves, but it's easier to work and think when you're going to a production of Hamlet that night that has more than a parochial sensibility, and is being staged in the context of the work at the best European theatres. (That said, a truly great production of Hamlet would only have its parochial sensibility, and it would have that sensibility completely.) So I pine for paths, not places. and with the coming of autumn, it's the thoughts of the north, and the cities. God willin' and the crick don't rise.
The European project is the basic attunement of this journey. It would be much less costly to wander the resorts of the south, or the ancient temples of Asia, but I am clinging rather tenaciously to a few lines of thought and work in the West. Listening to the consecration bells broadcast every morning, to a handful of souls, from old cities and colleges to the north. It would be possible to decamp for awhile deep into the East -- a few major philosophers quietly did that after ww2, and focused on translating the sensibility of their work, but they were masters, and had their own work well in hand. We of the West do well to keep to the West, or at least as close as circumstances allow. First, keep the paths of the mind alive and functioning. While making the occasional journeys of discovery.
Very strange LNOP. Extended, maudlin sendoff for a well-connected soloist retiring in her 40s, and then someone apparently thought it would be a good idea to turn a comedian loose on the organ between the national anthem and the song of fellowship. If memory serves, the latter used to begin without the orchestra. Or perhaps that's my memory cunningly suggesting the ideal.
On the other hand, a comedian being turned loose on the great instrument in-between the national anthem and the song of true fellowship is perhaps a true reflection of the times.
Interesting piece on Woody Allen in the Times. Living, in his old age, across the street from the anhedonia of his youth. Interesting detail on the dinners with E. -- not proper meals, more telephones and computers. Rings true as to some of those types. Not the preoccupation with business, but feeling the need to call it a dinner party.
The best advice I could give would be to always focus on the thing itself, and the struggle to understand the thing itself, and yourself as someone whose task it is to understand the thing itself. You'll then be able to perceive when the folks around you aren't concerned with things as they are -- or might be. Otherwise, you might not realize the diection the bus is heading.
νῦν δὲ λογικός εἰμι: ὑμνεῖν με δεῖ τὸν θεόν. (Epictetus)
Λογικοσ--of the logos, and of legein. The mind not as some abstract capablility in negative potential, but that which brings us into being. We speak, as birds sing, to have our being by giving an order to things, and separating things that are ordered together.
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Review of a new biography of (The Young) Tennyson in the Times. There's an anecdote about the time he processed into the Sheldonian to receieve an honorary degree, unkempt as usual, and one of the robed dons in the cheap seats called out, "Mum wake you early, dearie?"
And News Quiz returns for the start of the London season. Somehow it's already mid-September. And Last Night of the Proms tonight. I remember, in the days before ubiquitous wi-fi, walking up and down a subway platform on the long commute, deep in the outer boroughs, trying to cadge a network to catch a few mintutes of it live.
When I was in those years of constant auditions in the city, I actually made a practice of listening to PMQs and the BBC parliament coverage. Seemed like a good way to get the news without being drawn into the labyrinth of mediation. If word could reach the chamber, the topic was probably important, and I'd rather listen to the words that the MPs use to describe it than the writers and television reporters. The λεγειν.
There's a universe of promptings that you can tune your electronic device towards. I've always found it more useful to use it to eavesdrop on the events going on in worthwhile places, as opposed to enjoying the device as an end in itself.
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