By their fruits

A few weeks back, I scored a major find at a local library. It was, and, yes, this does show what a geek I am, a 24 part lecture series on Transcendentalism and I was totally jazzed. I was all over it and regretted when it came to an end.

I'm not sure still what to make of Transcendentalism, that name for a diverse and fractious movement of writers, poets, dreamers, cranks and crazies that came spinning out of New England in the mid 1800s. And what a mixed lot they were, ranging from brilliant to batty.

But still, for all the amorphous verbosity, this was a movement or a trend in American thought that spread far beyond this continent and it had a largely beneficial influence, as its ripples were felt in the anti-slavery movement, support for the Union cause and abolition in the Civil War, the early women's movement, environmentalism, the utopian community movement,spiritual egalitarianism and other social reforms.

You could make a good case that one of these guys (Thoreau) accidentally laid the foundations for the theory of nonviolent action, which did great things during the Civil Rights movement and in many other circumstances..

People like Emerson and Thoreau were also among the earliest cultural bridges, promoting respect for other religions. No history of Buddhism's migration to the West or of the dawning appreciation in this country of such Indian classics as the Bhagavad Gita would be complete without a nod to this movement.

Jesus said "by their fruits shall you know them" and I try to make it a point to avoid sharp disagreements with him. By that standard, as loopy as some of the Transcendentalists were, they did pretty good.

Much more on Ralphie to come.

LATEST RANT. Here's my call for WV Governor Tomblin to expand Medicaid coverage to working West Virginians.

HUMAN EVOLUTION. Game on.

IT HAS BEEN WAY TOO LONG since I ran something about zombies.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The tonic of wildness

It's not snake oil.

El Cabrero has been listening these days to a recording of Paul Hawken's Blessed Unrest: How The Largest Movement In the World Came Into Being. It's not as fun as the gross vampire novel I mentioned earlier this week, but one cannot live on popcorn.

In the book, Hawken credits Henry David Thoreau with being a founder of both the environmental and social justice movements. I think he has a point, although I don't picture Henry as much of a movement guy. He was an enthusiastic abolitionist and critic of the predatory war against Mexico.

There's no way to deny that his writings were very influential in the early environmental movement, especially in terms of consciousness raising. Here's an eloquent example of this from Walden:

We need the tonic of wildness,--to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground. At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of Nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and Titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander...

The wild, alas, has been taking some major hits lately.

PILING ON. Here's another argument about how deficit mania could actually make the recession worse.

OUR BIGGEST DEFICIT might be one of confidence.

SHELTER FROM THE STORM. The Obama administration this week unveiled and ambitious plan to end homelessness in 10 years.

FEELING PHILOSOPHICAL? Here's a long interview with Martha Nussbaum, who in my book is one of the best.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Silver linings?

Lately the news seems to be all disasters all the time (although the one in New York was fortunately averted). Silver linings seem few and far between.

But Paul Krugman makes some interesting points about a possible silver lining in the Gulf disaster in today's New York Times. He notes that the environmental movement has been declining in influence for many years, largely because of successful efforts at reducing visible pollution. But

as visible pollution has diminished, so has public concern over environmental issues. According to a recent Gallup survey, “Americans are now less worried about a series of environmental problems than at any time in the past 20 years.”

This decline in concern would be fine if visible pollution were all that mattered — but it isn’t, of course. In particular, greenhouse gases pose a greater threat than smog or burning rivers ever did. But it’s hard to get the public focused on a form of pollution that’s invisible, and whose effects unfold over decades rather than days.

The decline in visibility made it easier for the right wing and business groups to push back against environmental regulations.

Then came the gulf disaster. Suddenly, environmental destruction was photogenic again.

It's too soon to tell if this will lead to a change in attitudes, but images are powerful things.

HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL and a new therapy based on it may help people accomplish goals and get through hard times.

GETTING LOCAL. Here are some ideas about revitalizing local economies.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. Here's a look from The American Conservative about the possibility of a Right/Left coalition against war and empire.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

THE POWER OF PIRATICAL THINKING

Photo credit: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

This is the final day of Pirate Week at Goat Rope. If this is your first visit, please click on earlier entries.

As you have probably noticed, there is always a party pooper or two around to spoil the fun in life. The Golden Age of Piracy (1715-1725) as described by Colin Woodard in The Republic of Pirates, was brought to an end largely through the actions of one man, Woodes Rogers.

Rogers was a slave trader, sometime privateer, and eventual agent of the British crown who applied a combination of carrots and sticks in and around the Bahamas and made the world save for slave traders, plantation owners, oppressive merchants, despotic monarchs and other respectable people.

However, El Cabrero is convinced we can learn a thing or two from the pirates that can help us out today as we battle the powers that be. I call it "the power of piratical thinking" or Vitamin P for short.

Here's an example. I have a friend who has been fighting the good fight for decades. Lately he seems grim, discouraged, and worn down about the state of the world and the state of the war.

He needs a little Vitamin P...

A good pirate does not become overly distraught at the state of the world. He or she knows the world is pretty much totally jacked anyway. That's why we became pirates to start with, right?

Rather, a good pirate, when not engaged in the honorable pursuits of debauchery and Dionysian revelry, continually scans the horizon for suitable prey...I mean opportunities for positive action.

And when you see a ship you can take, take it!

Don't waste time worrying about the ones you can't. We'll get em later. In other words, focus on the things you can actually affect. The key to mental health is to think less like a purist and more like a pirate.

Aaarrrggghh!

SCOTT RITTER, former UN arms inspector, spoke about war and peace at WV State last night.

HISSY FITS have become a conservative art form. Read more here.

ARE YOU A TERRORIST? If you have concerns about unrestricted mountaintop removal mining, you just might be according to the WV Coal Association.

THE LATEST on the Megan Williams case is here.

EUROPE'S economic system was once the target of scorn in the US. This column from The Cincinnati Post suggests we take a second look.

HEALTH CARE. One hard-headed reason to push for universal health care is the high cost of providing emergency room service to the uninsured.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED