Jonathan Klawans
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195162639
- eISBN:
- 9780199785254
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195162639.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter examines an array of rabbinic sources concerning the temple, including Mishnah, Midrash, and Talmud, drawing a number of contrasts with Qumran literature in particular. The Rabbis seem ...
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This chapter examines an array of rabbinic sources concerning the temple, including Mishnah, Midrash, and Talmud, drawing a number of contrasts with Qumran literature in particular. The Rabbis seem to agree with the sectarians that the temple was flawed, recalling instances of priestly greed, theft, and even murder. But the rabbis downplay the moral defilement of the temple and deny to the end that the temple was ritually defiled to any significant degree before its destruction by Romans in 70 CE. Unlike the sectarians, the rabbis took a stance toward the temple and its purity that was less idealistic, but more practical and permissive.Less
This chapter examines an array of rabbinic sources concerning the temple, including Mishnah, Midrash, and Talmud, drawing a number of contrasts with Qumran literature in particular. The Rabbis seem to agree with the sectarians that the temple was flawed, recalling instances of priestly greed, theft, and even murder. But the rabbis downplay the moral defilement of the temple and deny to the end that the temple was ritually defiled to any significant degree before its destruction by Romans in 70 CE. Unlike the sectarians, the rabbis took a stance toward the temple and its purity that was less idealistic, but more practical and permissive.
Marina Belozerskaya
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199739318
- eISBN:
- 9780199979356
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199739318.003.0000
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, History of Art: pre-history, BCE to 500CE, ancient and classical, Byzantine
The Introduction briefly outlines the history of the Tazza and its changing fortunes from a prized possession of the mightiest rulers to little known ancient artifact today. It acknowledges the gaps ...
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The Introduction briefly outlines the history of the Tazza and its changing fortunes from a prized possession of the mightiest rulers to little known ancient artifact today. It acknowledges the gaps in evidence and the approach taken in this study—cultural history that seeks to reconstruct the locations the bowl inhabited, the characters it enthralled, and the significance it held for them.Less
The Introduction briefly outlines the history of the Tazza and its changing fortunes from a prized possession of the mightiest rulers to little known ancient artifact today. It acknowledges the gaps in evidence and the approach taken in this study—cultural history that seeks to reconstruct the locations the bowl inhabited, the characters it enthralled, and the significance it held for them.
Robert C. Roberts and W. Jay Wood
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199283675
- eISBN:
- 9780191712661
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199283675.003.0011
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
Generosity is a disposition freely to give good things to others for others' sake. (Variants of the trait that don't fit all these qualifications can be found in Aristotle and Nietzsche.) ...
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Generosity is a disposition freely to give good things to others for others' sake. (Variants of the trait that don't fit all these qualifications can be found in Aristotle and Nietzsche.) Intellectual generosity is such freedom with intellectual goods. A chief reason for stinginess or greed with intellectual goods is the extrinsic rewards that can accrue from them: positions, prestige, and money. Thus, intellectually generous persons tend to care more about the goods internal to intellectual practices than about the goods external to them. As promoting the free transfer of intellectual goods among members of the intellectual community, as well as good will among them, generosity promotes the discovery of knowledge and other epistemic goods.Less
Generosity is a disposition freely to give good things to others for others' sake. (Variants of the trait that don't fit all these qualifications can be found in Aristotle and Nietzsche.) Intellectual generosity is such freedom with intellectual goods. A chief reason for stinginess or greed with intellectual goods is the extrinsic rewards that can accrue from them: positions, prestige, and money. Thus, intellectually generous persons tend to care more about the goods internal to intellectual practices than about the goods external to them. As promoting the free transfer of intellectual goods among members of the intellectual community, as well as good will among them, generosity promotes the discovery of knowledge and other epistemic goods.
GEORGE GARNETT
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199291564
- eISBN:
- 9780191710520
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199291564.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas, European Medieval History
Under papal leadership, the clergy were led further away from the ideal of apostolic poverty espoused in Marsilius's time by the Franciscans. Although the Christianization of the Empire had been ...
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Under papal leadership, the clergy were led further away from the ideal of apostolic poverty espoused in Marsilius's time by the Franciscans. Although the Christianization of the Empire had been perverted from the very start, the Empire was nevertheless being progressively Christianized pari passu with the perversion of the clergy. Only when Christianized could the Empire, or ‘human legislator’, be perfect, in the Aristotelian sense of complete or fully realized, for only Christians had a correct understanding of the eternal life to which man was directed. Only then would the ‘human legislator’ be ‘faithful’. Perfection only became possible with Constantine's conversion, but his actions at that time sowed the seed from which perversion grew. This dialectical conflict had reached a crescendo in Marsilius's own day, when John XXII had attempted to keep the imperial office vacant so that he could usurp its functions himself. With the pope and Ludwig as self-proclaimed emperor both attempting to exercise imperial power, catastrophe would ensue.Less
Under papal leadership, the clergy were led further away from the ideal of apostolic poverty espoused in Marsilius's time by the Franciscans. Although the Christianization of the Empire had been perverted from the very start, the Empire was nevertheless being progressively Christianized pari passu with the perversion of the clergy. Only when Christianized could the Empire, or ‘human legislator’, be perfect, in the Aristotelian sense of complete or fully realized, for only Christians had a correct understanding of the eternal life to which man was directed. Only then would the ‘human legislator’ be ‘faithful’. Perfection only became possible with Constantine's conversion, but his actions at that time sowed the seed from which perversion grew. This dialectical conflict had reached a crescendo in Marsilius's own day, when John XXII had attempted to keep the imperial office vacant so that he could usurp its functions himself. With the pope and Ludwig as self-proclaimed emperor both attempting to exercise imperial power, catastrophe would ensue.
Kenneth Baxter Wolf
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195158083
- eISBN:
- 9780199834877
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195158083.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
Francis's fascination with poverty as a spiritual discipline is nowhere better illustrated than in the allegory, the Sacred Commerce of St. Francis and Lady Poverty, which appears to have been ...
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Francis's fascination with poverty as a spiritual discipline is nowhere better illustrated than in the allegory, the Sacred Commerce of St. Francis and Lady Poverty, which appears to have been written about a decade after the saint's death. In the Sacred Commerce, Francis is depicted as a suitor to Lady Poverty, the personification of the perfect poverty that Francis spent his life pursuing. Borrowing tropes from the biblical books of the Song of Songs, Proverbs, and Wisdom, as well as from chivalric romance, the author used the courtship of Francis and Lady Poverty as a way of underscoring the threats posed to religious orders like the Franciscans by the enticements of Lady Poverty's rival, Greed.Less
Francis's fascination with poverty as a spiritual discipline is nowhere better illustrated than in the allegory, the Sacred Commerce of St. Francis and Lady Poverty, which appears to have been written about a decade after the saint's death. In the Sacred Commerce, Francis is depicted as a suitor to Lady Poverty, the personification of the perfect poverty that Francis spent his life pursuing. Borrowing tropes from the biblical books of the Song of Songs, Proverbs, and Wisdom, as well as from chivalric romance, the author used the courtship of Francis and Lady Poverty as a way of underscoring the threats posed to religious orders like the Franciscans by the enticements of Lady Poverty's rival, Greed.
Paul Lerner
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801452864
- eISBN:
- 9781501700125
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801452864.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
Department stores in Germany, like their predecessors in France, Britain, and the United States, generated great excitement when they appeared at the end of the nineteenth century. Their sumptuous ...
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Department stores in Germany, like their predecessors in France, Britain, and the United States, generated great excitement when they appeared at the end of the nineteenth century. Their sumptuous displays, abundant products, architectural innovations, and prodigious scale inspired widespread fascination and even awe; at the same time, however, many Germans also greeted the rise of the department store with considerable unease. This book explores the complex German reaction to department stores and the widespread belief that they posed hidden dangers both to the individuals, especially women, who frequented them and to the nation as a whole. The book provides multiple perspectives on the department store, placing it in architectural, gender-historical, commercial, and psychiatric contexts. Noting that Jewish entrepreneurs founded most German department stores, the book argues that Jews and “Jewishness” stood at the center of the consumer culture debate from the 1880s, when the stores first appeared, through the latter 1930s, when they were “Aryanized” by the Nazis. German responses to consumer culture and the Jewish question were deeply interwoven, and the “Jewish department store,” framed as an alternative and threatening secular temple, a shrine to commerce and greed, was held responsible for fundamental changes that transformed urban experience and challenged national traditions in Germany’s turbulent twentieth century.Less
Department stores in Germany, like their predecessors in France, Britain, and the United States, generated great excitement when they appeared at the end of the nineteenth century. Their sumptuous displays, abundant products, architectural innovations, and prodigious scale inspired widespread fascination and even awe; at the same time, however, many Germans also greeted the rise of the department store with considerable unease. This book explores the complex German reaction to department stores and the widespread belief that they posed hidden dangers both to the individuals, especially women, who frequented them and to the nation as a whole. The book provides multiple perspectives on the department store, placing it in architectural, gender-historical, commercial, and psychiatric contexts. Noting that Jewish entrepreneurs founded most German department stores, the book argues that Jews and “Jewishness” stood at the center of the consumer culture debate from the 1880s, when the stores first appeared, through the latter 1930s, when they were “Aryanized” by the Nazis. German responses to consumer culture and the Jewish question were deeply interwoven, and the “Jewish department store,” framed as an alternative and threatening secular temple, a shrine to commerce and greed, was held responsible for fundamental changes that transformed urban experience and challenged national traditions in Germany’s turbulent twentieth century.
Robert C. Solomon
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- November 2004
- ISBN:
- 9780195145502
- eISBN:
- 9780199834969
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019514550X.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
There seems to be no end to moralizing about the vices, but there is too little appreciation of them as mere human foibles and an essential part of the “human circus.” There are also serious ...
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There seems to be no end to moralizing about the vices, but there is too little appreciation of them as mere human foibles and an essential part of the “human circus.” There are also serious questions about whether some of the so-called deadly sins are sinful at all.Less
There seems to be no end to moralizing about the vices, but there is too little appreciation of them as mere human foibles and an essential part of the “human circus.” There are also serious questions about whether some of the so-called deadly sins are sinful at all.
Hilary Poriss
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195365870
- eISBN:
- 9780199932054
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195365870.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Opera, History, Western
This chapter investigates stories of philanthropic activities that litter biographies and journalistic accounts of nearly every prominent nineteenth-century prima donna. These reports describe ...
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This chapter investigates stories of philanthropic activities that litter biographies and journalistic accounts of nearly every prominent nineteenth-century prima donna. These reports describe numerous selfless acts that prima donnas committed, such as donating some (or all) of their money to worthy paupers. Although there are undoubtedly grains of truth scattered throughout these narratives, their omnipresence and repetitive structure cast some doubt on their veracity. This chapter analyzes these stories, taking note of the striking similarities among them and identifying the cultural work they have accomplished. Specifically, these narratives served to soften the images of prima donnas who were frequently disparaged for the power they exerted and for their apparent greed, moving from city to city and collecting immense fees for their services as they went.Less
This chapter investigates stories of philanthropic activities that litter biographies and journalistic accounts of nearly every prominent nineteenth-century prima donna. These reports describe numerous selfless acts that prima donnas committed, such as donating some (or all) of their money to worthy paupers. Although there are undoubtedly grains of truth scattered throughout these narratives, their omnipresence and repetitive structure cast some doubt on their veracity. This chapter analyzes these stories, taking note of the striking similarities among them and identifying the cultural work they have accomplished. Specifically, these narratives served to soften the images of prima donnas who were frequently disparaged for the power they exerted and for their apparent greed, moving from city to city and collecting immense fees for their services as they went.
Dale A. Olsen
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037887
- eISBN:
- 9780252095146
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037887.003.0011
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This chapter discusses flutes and both unethical and ethical behavior. Many of the folktales presented in this book can be interpreted as pertaining to unethical or ethical human behavior, even when ...
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This chapter discusses flutes and both unethical and ethical behavior. Many of the folktales presented in this book can be interpreted as pertaining to unethical or ethical human behavior, even when the main actors are animals. This is one of the main functions of folklore—to instruct humans in proper ethical behavior within its cultural boundaries. Many folktales could properly end, “The moral of this story is ...” However, their charm is often the aspect of leaving the interpretation of a moral up to the listener or reader of the story. The stories in this chapter deal with behaviors such as greed and honesty.Less
This chapter discusses flutes and both unethical and ethical behavior. Many of the folktales presented in this book can be interpreted as pertaining to unethical or ethical human behavior, even when the main actors are animals. This is one of the main functions of folklore—to instruct humans in proper ethical behavior within its cultural boundaries. Many folktales could properly end, “The moral of this story is ...” However, their charm is often the aspect of leaving the interpretation of a moral up to the listener or reader of the story. The stories in this chapter deal with behaviors such as greed and honesty.
Walter Bennett
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226042558
- eISBN:
- 9780226042565
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226042565.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Legal Profession and Ethics
Lawyers today are in a moral crisis. The popular perception of the lawyer, both within the legal community and beyond, is no longer the Abe Lincoln of American mythology, but is often a greedy, ...
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Lawyers today are in a moral crisis. The popular perception of the lawyer, both within the legal community and beyond, is no longer the Abe Lincoln of American mythology, but is often a greedy, cynical manipulator of access and power. This book goes beyond the caricatures to explore the deeper causes of why lawyers are losing their profession and what it will take to bring it back. The book draws on experiences as a lawyer, judge, and law teacher, as well as upon oral histories of lawyers and judges, in this exploration of how and why the legal profession has lost its ennobling mythology. Effectively using examples from history, philosophy, psychology, mythology, and literature, the book shows that the loss of professionalism is more than merely the emergence of win-at-all-cost strategies and a scramble for personal wealth. It is something more profound—a loss of professional community and soul. The book identifies the old heroic myths of American lawyers and shows how they informed the values of professionalism through the middle of the last century. It shows why, in our more diverse society, those myths are inadequate guides for today's lawyers. And the book also discusses the profession's agony over its trickster image and demonstrates how that archetype is not only a psychological reality, but a necessary component of a vibrant professional mythology for lawyers.Less
Lawyers today are in a moral crisis. The popular perception of the lawyer, both within the legal community and beyond, is no longer the Abe Lincoln of American mythology, but is often a greedy, cynical manipulator of access and power. This book goes beyond the caricatures to explore the deeper causes of why lawyers are losing their profession and what it will take to bring it back. The book draws on experiences as a lawyer, judge, and law teacher, as well as upon oral histories of lawyers and judges, in this exploration of how and why the legal profession has lost its ennobling mythology. Effectively using examples from history, philosophy, psychology, mythology, and literature, the book shows that the loss of professionalism is more than merely the emergence of win-at-all-cost strategies and a scramble for personal wealth. It is something more profound—a loss of professional community and soul. The book identifies the old heroic myths of American lawyers and shows how they informed the values of professionalism through the middle of the last century. It shows why, in our more diverse society, those myths are inadequate guides for today's lawyers. And the book also discusses the profession's agony over its trickster image and demonstrates how that archetype is not only a psychological reality, but a necessary component of a vibrant professional mythology for lawyers.
James Noggle
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781501747120
- eISBN:
- 9781501747137
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501747120.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This book offers a new account of feeling during the British Enlightenment, finding that the passions and sentiments long considered as preoccupations of the era depend on a potent insensibility, the ...
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This book offers a new account of feeling during the British Enlightenment, finding that the passions and sentiments long considered as preoccupations of the era depend on a potent insensibility, the secret emergence of pronounced emotions that only become apparent with time. Surveying a range of affects, including primary sensation, love and self-love, greed, happiness, and patriotic ardor, the book explores literary evocations of imperceptibility and unfeeling that pervade and support the period's understanding of sensibility. Each of the four sections of the book—on philosophy, the novel, historiography, and political economy—charts the development of these idioms from early in the long eighteenth century to their culmination in the age of sensibility. From Locke to Eliza Haywood, Henry Fielding, and Frances Burney, and from Dudley North to Hume and Adam Smith, the book's exploration of the insensible dramatically expands the scope of affect in the period's writing and thought. Drawing inspiration from contemporary affect theory, the book charts how feeling and unfeeling flow and feed back into each other, identifying emotional dynamics at their most elusive and powerful: the potential, the incipient, the emergent, and the virtual.Less
This book offers a new account of feeling during the British Enlightenment, finding that the passions and sentiments long considered as preoccupations of the era depend on a potent insensibility, the secret emergence of pronounced emotions that only become apparent with time. Surveying a range of affects, including primary sensation, love and self-love, greed, happiness, and patriotic ardor, the book explores literary evocations of imperceptibility and unfeeling that pervade and support the period's understanding of sensibility. Each of the four sections of the book—on philosophy, the novel, historiography, and political economy—charts the development of these idioms from early in the long eighteenth century to their culmination in the age of sensibility. From Locke to Eliza Haywood, Henry Fielding, and Frances Burney, and from Dudley North to Hume and Adam Smith, the book's exploration of the insensible dramatically expands the scope of affect in the period's writing and thought. Drawing inspiration from contemporary affect theory, the book charts how feeling and unfeeling flow and feed back into each other, identifying emotional dynamics at their most elusive and powerful: the potential, the incipient, the emergent, and the virtual.
Graham Zanker (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780856688836
- eISBN:
- 9781800342705
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9780856688836.003.0003
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter talks about Battaros in Herodas' second Mimiamb as a representative of a type in Middle and New Comedy, such as the brothel-keeper. It discloses how Battaros is related to a type in mime ...
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This chapter talks about Battaros in Herodas' second Mimiamb as a representative of a type in Middle and New Comedy, such as the brothel-keeper. It discloses how Battaros is related to a type in mime and bad oratory, exemplified by Sophrôn's Boulias. It also describes Battaros as a composite type by Herodas' original audiences or readership, emphasizing that the brothel-keeper had stock attributes of greed, impudence, dishonesty, and old age. The chapter examines how greed is in evidence throughout Mimiamb 2, citing financial motives underlying Battaros' hypocritical show of fatherly concern for Myrtalê before the jury. It points out Battaros' dishonesty, which consists largely of gross exaggeration and self-contradictory description of the facts.Less
This chapter talks about Battaros in Herodas' second Mimiamb as a representative of a type in Middle and New Comedy, such as the brothel-keeper. It discloses how Battaros is related to a type in mime and bad oratory, exemplified by Sophrôn's Boulias. It also describes Battaros as a composite type by Herodas' original audiences or readership, emphasizing that the brothel-keeper had stock attributes of greed, impudence, dishonesty, and old age. The chapter examines how greed is in evidence throughout Mimiamb 2, citing financial motives underlying Battaros' hypocritical show of fatherly concern for Myrtalê before the jury. It points out Battaros' dishonesty, which consists largely of gross exaggeration and self-contradictory description of the facts.
Jason Kawall
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262017534
- eISBN:
- 9780262301541
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262017534.003.0012
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Climate
This chapter explains the nature of the vice of greed, focusing on what can be called “modest greed.” It illuminates why the globally wealthy may be greedy even when not obsessive about wealth or ...
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This chapter explains the nature of the vice of greed, focusing on what can be called “modest greed.” It illuminates why the globally wealthy may be greedy even when not obsessive about wealth or status, and why greed will be an especially problematic vice for future generations.Less
This chapter explains the nature of the vice of greed, focusing on what can be called “modest greed.” It illuminates why the globally wealthy may be greedy even when not obsessive about wealth or status, and why greed will be an especially problematic vice for future generations.
Richard von Glahn
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520234086
- eISBN:
- 9780520928770
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520234086.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
The most striking feature of Wutong, the preeminent God of Wealth in late imperial China, was the deity's diabolical character. Wutong was perceived not as a heroic figure or paragon of noble ...
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The most striking feature of Wutong, the preeminent God of Wealth in late imperial China, was the deity's diabolical character. Wutong was perceived not as a heroic figure or paragon of noble qualities but rather as an embodiment of humanity's basest vices, greed and lust, a maleficent demon who preyed on the weak and vulnerable. This book examines the emergence and evolution of the Wutong cult within the larger framework of the historical development of Chinese popular or vernacular religion—as opposed to institutional religions such as Buddhism or Daoism. This study, spanning three millennia, gives due recognition to the morally ambivalent and demonic aspects of divine power within the common Chinese religious culture.Less
The most striking feature of Wutong, the preeminent God of Wealth in late imperial China, was the deity's diabolical character. Wutong was perceived not as a heroic figure or paragon of noble qualities but rather as an embodiment of humanity's basest vices, greed and lust, a maleficent demon who preyed on the weak and vulnerable. This book examines the emergence and evolution of the Wutong cult within the larger framework of the historical development of Chinese popular or vernacular religion—as opposed to institutional religions such as Buddhism or Daoism. This study, spanning three millennia, gives due recognition to the morally ambivalent and demonic aspects of divine power within the common Chinese religious culture.
Donald Worster
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780195092646
- eISBN:
- 9780197560693
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780195092646.003.0004
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmentalist Thought and Ideology
Nostalgia runs all through this society—fortunately, for it may be our only hope of salvation. My own version, which I probably share with a few million others, takes ...
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Nostalgia runs all through this society—fortunately, for it may be our only hope of salvation. My own version, which I probably share with a few million others, takes me back to walk in pristine natural places on this continent. I dream of traveling with our second native-born naturalist, William Bartram (his father John was the first), a slightly daft Pennsylvania Quaker who botanized from the Carolinas down into Florida in the early 1770s. I would travel with him, “seduced by ... sublime enchanting scenes of primitive nature,” through aromatic groves of magnolia, sweet gum, cabbage palmetto, loblolly pine, live oak, the roaring of alligators in our ears. I would gaze with Thomas Jefferson through his elegant white-framed windows at Monticello toward the Blue Ridge Mountains, speculating about the prodigious country stretching west. Best of all, I imagine entering that west with Lewis and Clark in 1804–5, standing beside them on Spirit Mound in present-day South Dakota, beholding, as Clark put it in his execrable spelling, “a most butifull landscape; Numerous herds of buffalow were Seen feeding in various directions; the Plain to North N. W. & N.E. extends without interuption as far as Can be seen.” And I think what it must have been like for them warping and poling up the muddy Missouri River, penetrating farther into the vast open country of the unplowed, unfenced prairies when wolves still howled in the night; of heading into “the great unknown,” panting over the unpainted, unmined, unskiied Rocky Mountains and rafting down the uncharted, undammed Columbia to the gray-green drizzly shore of the Pacific Ocean. How much has been lost in our short years as a nation, how much have we to be nostalgic about. In the beginning of white discovery North America must have been a glorious place, brimming with exquisite wild beauty, offering to agriculturists some of the earth's richest soils, incredible stands of trees, booty on booty of mineral wealth. Think for a moment of the infinitude of animals that once teemed but are now diminished or gone. In the most comprehensive, detailed analysis yet offered, Frank Gilbert Roe estimated that forty million bison roamed the continent as late as 1830.
Less
Nostalgia runs all through this society—fortunately, for it may be our only hope of salvation. My own version, which I probably share with a few million others, takes me back to walk in pristine natural places on this continent. I dream of traveling with our second native-born naturalist, William Bartram (his father John was the first), a slightly daft Pennsylvania Quaker who botanized from the Carolinas down into Florida in the early 1770s. I would travel with him, “seduced by ... sublime enchanting scenes of primitive nature,” through aromatic groves of magnolia, sweet gum, cabbage palmetto, loblolly pine, live oak, the roaring of alligators in our ears. I would gaze with Thomas Jefferson through his elegant white-framed windows at Monticello toward the Blue Ridge Mountains, speculating about the prodigious country stretching west. Best of all, I imagine entering that west with Lewis and Clark in 1804–5, standing beside them on Spirit Mound in present-day South Dakota, beholding, as Clark put it in his execrable spelling, “a most butifull landscape; Numerous herds of buffalow were Seen feeding in various directions; the Plain to North N. W. & N.E. extends without interuption as far as Can be seen.” And I think what it must have been like for them warping and poling up the muddy Missouri River, penetrating farther into the vast open country of the unplowed, unfenced prairies when wolves still howled in the night; of heading into “the great unknown,” panting over the unpainted, unmined, unskiied Rocky Mountains and rafting down the uncharted, undammed Columbia to the gray-green drizzly shore of the Pacific Ocean. How much has been lost in our short years as a nation, how much have we to be nostalgic about. In the beginning of white discovery North America must have been a glorious place, brimming with exquisite wild beauty, offering to agriculturists some of the earth's richest soils, incredible stands of trees, booty on booty of mineral wealth. Think for a moment of the infinitude of animals that once teemed but are now diminished or gone. In the most comprehensive, detailed analysis yet offered, Frank Gilbert Roe estimated that forty million bison roamed the continent as late as 1830.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804760324
- eISBN:
- 9780804772877
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804760324.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter reviews the different meanings and images attached to “Mercury,” which can be a dog or wolf or as a winged putto on the top of a wheel. At times he is present as the winged messenger of ...
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This chapter reviews the different meanings and images attached to “Mercury,” which can be a dog or wolf or as a winged putto on the top of a wheel. At times he is present as the winged messenger of the gods, god of medicine in its healing and destructive senses, the pharmakon, and the hermetic. Mercury is a floating signifier, impossible to pin down. Philosophy needs it in order to posit the fixed as fixed: the sun or fixed matter that only knows itself in contrast to the volatile. The so-called philosophical alchemists distinguish between common mercury (Hg) and “philosophical mercury” composed of a combination of sulfur and argent vive.Less
This chapter reviews the different meanings and images attached to “Mercury,” which can be a dog or wolf or as a winged putto on the top of a wheel. At times he is present as the winged messenger of the gods, god of medicine in its healing and destructive senses, the pharmakon, and the hermetic. Mercury is a floating signifier, impossible to pin down. Philosophy needs it in order to posit the fixed as fixed: the sun or fixed matter that only knows itself in contrast to the volatile. The so-called philosophical alchemists distinguish between common mercury (Hg) and “philosophical mercury” composed of a combination of sulfur and argent vive.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804760324
- eISBN:
- 9780804772877
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804760324.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter analyzes the Grimm brothers' tale of “Rumpelstiltskin,” which reflects a period prior to the mass production of textiles, when the industry was moving from hand-weaving to industrial ...
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This chapter analyzes the Grimm brothers' tale of “Rumpelstiltskin,” which reflects a period prior to the mass production of textiles, when the industry was moving from hand-weaving to industrial machinery. The tale contains traces of atavistic cultures or activities, including milling, spinning, smithying, hoarding, limping, guessing, or riddling; and characters such as kings, dwarves, wives, and firstborn sons. Fitting this tale around the model of alchemy as ambivalent yields one particular narrative/thematic pattern: greed and the subsequent covering up of greed.Less
This chapter analyzes the Grimm brothers' tale of “Rumpelstiltskin,” which reflects a period prior to the mass production of textiles, when the industry was moving from hand-weaving to industrial machinery. The tale contains traces of atavistic cultures or activities, including milling, spinning, smithying, hoarding, limping, guessing, or riddling; and characters such as kings, dwarves, wives, and firstborn sons. Fitting this tale around the model of alchemy as ambivalent yields one particular narrative/thematic pattern: greed and the subsequent covering up of greed.
Tony Jason Stafford and R. F. Dietrich
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780813044989
- eISBN:
- 9780813046747
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813044989.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
By examining Shaw’s use of the garden and the library in Widowers’ Houses in meticulous detail, one gains an appreciation of the complexity, subtlety, and mastery which Shaw therein reveals, as well ...
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By examining Shaw’s use of the garden and the library in Widowers’ Houses in meticulous detail, one gains an appreciation of the complexity, subtlety, and mastery which Shaw therein reveals, as well as an insight into the play’s deeper textual implications. Satorius, whose mother was a poor washerwoman, has pulled himself up from extreme poverty by making a fortune in slum dwellings and presently craves nothing more in the world than for him and his daughter to be accepted by upper class society, a desire which is dramatized by means of the garden and library. Widowers’ Houses also exposes the heartlessness and injustices of British society. It is a remarkable example of Shaw’s dramatic practice of integrating gardens and libraries into the revelation of characters (as well as the implications of their names), the delineation of conflict, the symbolic value of the settings, the establishment of atmosphere, and the development of the theme of pretense and hypocrisy.Less
By examining Shaw’s use of the garden and the library in Widowers’ Houses in meticulous detail, one gains an appreciation of the complexity, subtlety, and mastery which Shaw therein reveals, as well as an insight into the play’s deeper textual implications. Satorius, whose mother was a poor washerwoman, has pulled himself up from extreme poverty by making a fortune in slum dwellings and presently craves nothing more in the world than for him and his daughter to be accepted by upper class society, a desire which is dramatized by means of the garden and library. Widowers’ Houses also exposes the heartlessness and injustices of British society. It is a remarkable example of Shaw’s dramatic practice of integrating gardens and libraries into the revelation of characters (as well as the implications of their names), the delineation of conflict, the symbolic value of the settings, the establishment of atmosphere, and the development of the theme of pretense and hypocrisy.
Donald Worster
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780195092646
- eISBN:
- 9780197560693
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780195092646.003.0019
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmentalist Thought and Ideology
Whoever made the dollar bill green had a right instinct. There is a connection, profound and yet so easy to ignore, between the money in our pocket and the green ...
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Whoever made the dollar bill green had a right instinct. There is a connection, profound and yet so easy to ignore, between the money in our pocket and the green earth, though the connection is more than color. The dollar bill needs paper, which is to say it needs trees, just as our wealth in general derives from nature, from the forest, the earth and waters, the soil. That these are all limited and finite is easy to see, and so also must be wealth; it can never be unlimited, though it can be expanded and multiplied by human ingenuity. Somewhere on the dollar bill that message might be printed, a warning that you hold in your hand a piece of the limited earth that should be handled with respect: “In God we trust; on nature we must depend.” The public is beginning to understand that connection in at least a rudimentary way and to realize that taking better care of the earth will cost money, will lower the standard of living as it is conventionally defined, and will interfere with freedom of enterprise. By the evidence of opinion polls, something like three out of four Americans say they are ready to accept those costs, a remarkable development in our history. The same can be said for almost every other nation on earth, even the poorest, who are learning that, in their own long-term self-interest, the preservation of nature is a cost they ought to pay, though they may demand that the rich nations assume some of the cost. Having money in one’s pocket, no matter how green its color, is no longer the unexamined good it once was. Many have come to realize that wealth might be a kind of poverty. The human species, according to a team of Stanford biologists, is now consuming or destroying 40 percent of the net primary terrestrial production of the planet: that is nearly one half of all the energy fixed by photosynthesis on the land. We are harvesting it, drastically reorganizing it, or losing it through urbanization and desertification in order to support our growing numbers and even faster growing demands.
Less
Whoever made the dollar bill green had a right instinct. There is a connection, profound and yet so easy to ignore, between the money in our pocket and the green earth, though the connection is more than color. The dollar bill needs paper, which is to say it needs trees, just as our wealth in general derives from nature, from the forest, the earth and waters, the soil. That these are all limited and finite is easy to see, and so also must be wealth; it can never be unlimited, though it can be expanded and multiplied by human ingenuity. Somewhere on the dollar bill that message might be printed, a warning that you hold in your hand a piece of the limited earth that should be handled with respect: “In God we trust; on nature we must depend.” The public is beginning to understand that connection in at least a rudimentary way and to realize that taking better care of the earth will cost money, will lower the standard of living as it is conventionally defined, and will interfere with freedom of enterprise. By the evidence of opinion polls, something like three out of four Americans say they are ready to accept those costs, a remarkable development in our history. The same can be said for almost every other nation on earth, even the poorest, who are learning that, in their own long-term self-interest, the preservation of nature is a cost they ought to pay, though they may demand that the rich nations assume some of the cost. Having money in one’s pocket, no matter how green its color, is no longer the unexamined good it once was. Many have come to realize that wealth might be a kind of poverty. The human species, according to a team of Stanford biologists, is now consuming or destroying 40 percent of the net primary terrestrial production of the planet: that is nearly one half of all the energy fixed by photosynthesis on the land. We are harvesting it, drastically reorganizing it, or losing it through urbanization and desertification in order to support our growing numbers and even faster growing demands.
Alexa Alfer and Amy J. Edwards de Campos
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719066528
- eISBN:
- 9781781701751
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719066528.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter discusses the ‘greed’ for reading and the notion of co-creative reading. It studies Byatt's engagement with realism, the premises, possibilities, pitfalls and puzzlement that are ...
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This chapter discusses the ‘greed’ for reading and the notion of co-creative reading. It studies Byatt's engagement with realism, the premises, possibilities, pitfalls and puzzlement that are explored by the first two Quartet novels in terms of highly original fictional inquiries. This chapter determines that Byatt's fictional probings of realism's problems are informed by the notion that an acknowledgement of the constructed nature of human thought does not necessarily come before the existence of objective realities.Less
This chapter discusses the ‘greed’ for reading and the notion of co-creative reading. It studies Byatt's engagement with realism, the premises, possibilities, pitfalls and puzzlement that are explored by the first two Quartet novels in terms of highly original fictional inquiries. This chapter determines that Byatt's fictional probings of realism's problems are informed by the notion that an acknowledgement of the constructed nature of human thought does not necessarily come before the existence of objective realities.
