John Mark Reynolds, conservative Christian from Biola, offers a live, chapter by chapter reaction on Sarah Palin's Going Rogue in Evangel, a First Things blog. He is not the only one who worries about her need to convince us that she is a thinker.
Chapter One
...Palin obviously was justifiably upset by accusations she is dim, but so far this book is not helping her case. She keeps describing herself as a reader and even named C.S. Lewis as a favorite writer, but so far there is no description of anything in a book that moved her and changed her life.
What Lewis does she like? Is the Lewis of That Hideous Strength or the Lewis of Til We Have Faces? Is she a fan of the Narnian Lewis or the argument in Abolition of Man? Did she poke the backs of closets when she was a kid?
We get none of this and so we are left wondering if she read books deeply or as a television substitute in the Alaska of her youth.
It is easy to see the difference when she talks about sports. She can describe in detail what she learned from running, but she never mentions what she learned from a book. There are mentions of Pascal and Plato (!) in the first chapter, but they are referenced as sources of “thoughts” and not as a source for critical ideas or challenges to her life.
I don’t believe a pol has to read Plato for fun to be effective. God knows that many a liberal arts graduate has proven useless at doing things and that Palin has done more in her way than I ever will. Anybody from my home state of West Virginia knows scores of people whose common sense would serve us better in government than angst ridden college graduates whose very uncertainty leads them to believe that they alone should be our philosopher kings.
May Obama be our last president of that sort!
But the ridiculous use of quotes or “big ideas” from great writers that one does not really read or know should end as well. When Palin artlessly writes: “Plato said it well, ‘Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle,’” did she know the context of the quotation? Is it even in Plato? I cannot find it, don’t remember reading it, and I suspect that it is spurious. Can someone give me a reference?
It looks like the sort of thing Google tells you Plato said, but where the reference is impossible to find.
I am willing to bet at this point that Plato never said it, but if he did I am even more willing to bet that Palin and her writer are quote mining. If Plato said such a thing, it was likely in the context of the battle of each man against his lower nature. For Plato the chief battle was the inner one, but Palin uses it to reference our need to sympathize for people’s physical pain and life torments.
It is hard to imagine the Socrates of Phaedo making such a statement. So even if Plato said it (and he wrote so much it is hard to be sure), I am guessing that the context is wrong.
Why do I care? Partly, this is a live blog of my reading and I am a Plato guy so you are stuck with reading what I am thinking, but mostly because I find this kind of misuse of Plato irritating. Why do it? What is gained? Why quote mine?
Chapter Two
On Aristotle
Palin begins her second chapter with a quote from Aristotle. I think I must be going mad, but I cannot remember this quotation either. Where is it?
I cannot find a reference in any book I own . . . but then I am writing this as I read her book. Can someone help me? Did Aristotle say, ” Criticism is something we can avoid by saying nothing, doing nothing, being nothing?”
I want a reference to the text.
It is surely not possible that in less than one hundred pages that Palin got two ancient quotations wrong?
It is bad enough if they are used as motivational slogan writers, but couldn’t we at least get the philosopher right?
Maybe I am just having a memory failure. Can some Palinista deliver Sarah by pointing out the reference in the Philosopher’s work?
We have all been taken in my an urban legend. I once read (in a book!) that Alfred Wallace was a “lord” and got properly spanked for passing this piece of nonsense on, but I am beginning to worry about the fact checking in this book.
As Plato did not say, “Getting this sort of thing wrong too often and too quickly is hard on the soul of the reader.”
I strongly suspect that the ghostwriter Googled her way through ancient philosophy quotations. Learn from this students . . . the fact that someone says Aristotle said a thing does not mean that he did.
Chapter One
...Palin obviously was justifiably upset by accusations she is dim, but so far this book is not helping her case. She keeps describing herself as a reader and even named C.S. Lewis as a favorite writer, but so far there is no description of anything in a book that moved her and changed her life.
What Lewis does she like? Is the Lewis of That Hideous Strength or the Lewis of Til We Have Faces? Is she a fan of the Narnian Lewis or the argument in Abolition of Man? Did she poke the backs of closets when she was a kid?
We get none of this and so we are left wondering if she read books deeply or as a television substitute in the Alaska of her youth.
It is easy to see the difference when she talks about sports. She can describe in detail what she learned from running, but she never mentions what she learned from a book. There are mentions of Pascal and Plato (!) in the first chapter, but they are referenced as sources of “thoughts” and not as a source for critical ideas or challenges to her life.
I don’t believe a pol has to read Plato for fun to be effective. God knows that many a liberal arts graduate has proven useless at doing things and that Palin has done more in her way than I ever will. Anybody from my home state of West Virginia knows scores of people whose common sense would serve us better in government than angst ridden college graduates whose very uncertainty leads them to believe that they alone should be our philosopher kings.
May Obama be our last president of that sort!
But the ridiculous use of quotes or “big ideas” from great writers that one does not really read or know should end as well. When Palin artlessly writes: “Plato said it well, ‘Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle,’” did she know the context of the quotation? Is it even in Plato? I cannot find it, don’t remember reading it, and I suspect that it is spurious. Can someone give me a reference?
It looks like the sort of thing Google tells you Plato said, but where the reference is impossible to find.
I am willing to bet at this point that Plato never said it, but if he did I am even more willing to bet that Palin and her writer are quote mining. If Plato said such a thing, it was likely in the context of the battle of each man against his lower nature. For Plato the chief battle was the inner one, but Palin uses it to reference our need to sympathize for people’s physical pain and life torments.
It is hard to imagine the Socrates of Phaedo making such a statement. So even if Plato said it (and he wrote so much it is hard to be sure), I am guessing that the context is wrong.
Why do I care? Partly, this is a live blog of my reading and I am a Plato guy so you are stuck with reading what I am thinking, but mostly because I find this kind of misuse of Plato irritating. Why do it? What is gained? Why quote mine?
Chapter Two
On Aristotle
Palin begins her second chapter with a quote from Aristotle. I think I must be going mad, but I cannot remember this quotation either. Where is it?
I cannot find a reference in any book I own . . . but then I am writing this as I read her book. Can someone help me? Did Aristotle say, ” Criticism is something we can avoid by saying nothing, doing nothing, being nothing?”
I want a reference to the text.
It is surely not possible that in less than one hundred pages that Palin got two ancient quotations wrong?
It is bad enough if they are used as motivational slogan writers, but couldn’t we at least get the philosopher right?
Maybe I am just having a memory failure. Can some Palinista deliver Sarah by pointing out the reference in the Philosopher’s work?
We have all been taken in my an urban legend. I once read (in a book!) that Alfred Wallace was a “lord” and got properly spanked for passing this piece of nonsense on, but I am beginning to worry about the fact checking in this book.
As Plato did not say, “Getting this sort of thing wrong too often and too quickly is hard on the soul of the reader.”
I strongly suspect that the ghostwriter Googled her way through ancient philosophy quotations. Learn from this students . . . the fact that someone says Aristotle said a thing does not mean that he did.
1 comment:
That is incredibly painful to read. I've read both Plato and Aristotle (not in the original language!) and I can't imagine either of them saying either of those quotations cited in the pieces I read. If you hear anything about where the citations originated, please let us know, Beth!
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