Terribly.

Lewis called people who lacked the apparatus to appreciate realities greater than immediate, mundane concerns "men without chests." I suppose that no matter what, there will always be "men without chests" in any discussion, but when it comes to how we portray God in a worship context, should we entrust that endeavor to people who don't understand the difference between "pretty" and "sublime?" Or, the difference between "useful" and "eternal?"

If we (who are in the business) genuinely endeavor to feed and lead people to become more like Christ, this distinction is foundational and worth fighting for. Men without chests need to see the shame of their duplicity in pretending to represent Christ while in reality they engage in ego preservation.

It's worth noting that it is a "use," in the pejorative sense Lewis intends, of art when one ingratiates oneself to others or attempts to demonstrate one's superiority to them by ticking off the works of art one is "familiar" with. For example, a cultural gas-bag may utter sentences like this: "Having just finished Proust, I've decided to go back and enjoy La Mer once more, preferably conducted by Karajan." Such a person may, MAY, have received the both Debussy and Proust, but I seriously question whether the people who "use" are in that way are not, in some more cloying and sophistical sense, worse than the ignorant philistine.

True receivers, I suspect, are not constantly blathering about their receptiveness, nor do the "few" make a point of telling others that they are the "many" and we the proud "few." Such receivers are, no doubt, users of a higher and more base order. The belching beer drinker represents an exaggerated Fundamentalist user, I suppose. Who would represent this other kind of userm I wonder (some Bauderites, perhaps?)? Perhaps you should take shots at them too, to warn the "few" of overweening pride.

Have you ever thought of starting your own blog, O victor eremita, for the instruction of persons?

I personally would be interested in hearing more about Bauderites--especially since I'm pretty sure I should be included, although I would probably have to be a Bauderite of a lower order so that I can keep my status as the chief minion dissidisciple. I think it would be interesting and useful to have that term defined carefully by a person of learning and insight.

It would also be good to have tips on how to spread culture to the freshmen without making too much mention of the culture one enjoys, as that, I confess freely, is a big challenge for me.

I've been catching up here for a little while this morning.

Dissidens, I am impressed by your great patience.

You keep on posting and responding to these folks like a Timex watch keeps on ticking. Thank you.

"Have you ever thought of starting your own blog, O victor eremita, for the instruction of persons?" If you're familiar with my name, you'll know a blog for the "victorious hermit" would be out of character. Based on the manuscripts I've collected and edited, I would venture to say that blogging is mostly for those in the esthetic stage, though there are some boring ethical bloggers. Remonstrans is definitely an esthetics blog, which is why I come here: it's quite entertaining.

"I think it would be interesting and useful to have that term defined carefully by a person of learning and insight." No such luck; I've only had the misfortune of meeting them online (it truly was shocking to me to find out that you, too, were a Bauderite. I am ashamed I didn't notice it from your earlier posts). But they're pretty recognizable: hacks who blather about Weaver et al. and demonstrate they have read a few books while lacking any genuine intellectual structure within which to understand them. Of course if your mentor is Bauder, a fellow who can't resist quoting Greek in the most non-academic contexts, that kind of thing is not surprising. Central certainly is cranking out scholars, isn't it? Well, if not scholars, at least these Bauderites. May their trible multiply: they'll annoy other Fundamentalists and just look silly to cultured evangelicals.

"It would also be good to have tips on how to spread culture to the freshmen without making too much mention of the culture one enjoys, as that, I confess freely, is a big challenge for me." Well, it helps not to care whether or not they're impressed with you. Mentioning works, authors, words, and ideas that you know they're unfamiliar with and which aren't relevant to what you're saying would be something to avoid, don't you think? I don't tell people, "How I love X!" If they get to know me, they'll figure it out indirectly, and in the process they'll figure out why and what it means.

It's like really difficult thinkers, say Hegel. Many people have, unfortunately, read Hegel. Few people bother to try understanding him. Why? Because you have to know Kant and the idealists. Because you have to spend hundreds of hours reading source material, none of which translates into little cultural/intellectual morsels you can casually drop in conversations. In fact, the more you study any profound thinker, the more private your pursuit becomes, and you find communion among the one or two people you know who have invested similar effort. So why mention Hegel to someone like our Freshman? There's no good reason, no matter how much one may love or have been impacted by abstruse 19C German philosophers. So why mention pieces you know that they haven't heard, unless you are recommending them to them or giving examples, etc.? What kind of person does that?

Victor, could you point out the tangible benefits of not mentioning pieces of music or art or thought that people have not heard or do not know? Do you think that the best way to train young people is to steer them away from difficult things until you make buddies with them?

I believe that dissidens' point in doing so is to commend a purer culture to his
readers, not to impress them with his erudition. I have appreciated getting to know some of these composers, authors, and thinkers whom I have met through his recommendations and those of others. This is not because I want to be a gas bag when I grow up, but because I am tired of the contemporary discussion of the spiritual as though it were so many cobs of corn and pork bellies. So to answer your question, Mr. Hermit, you discuss the names and works of insightful people before the youngins in hopes that you pique the interest of 5% of your students in hopes that they will rise above their mundane interests and aspire to important discourse. This assumes that you and yours believe that how people understand spiritual things is important.

I'm not sure I understand. Would it be out of character for you to be victorious, to be a hermit, or to have your name attached to the epithet? (I was familiar, you know, with the term ermemitos, Greek being such a big thing among us Bauderites).

What are these stages, now? It might provide useful intellectual structures for me were I able to understand better what stage my master dissidens is at. It might help my unformed intellectual structures were I to know what stage you find yourself at, just as a point of comparison, although it might help also if I understood what an intellectual structure is to begin with.

Yes, I think mentioning things not relevant to what I'm saying is good advice. Maybe that is what threw you when you didn't bag me right away? I am ashamed of you too for not noticing but a little pleased with myself, if that is permitted. Maybe I am learning?

I do not believe I have ever mentioned Hegel to a freshman. I haven't even read Hegel although I wrote a paper on him in Bible College and got a good grade. I usually stick to mentioning people I have read like Douglas Adams and I have bandied his name about with some freshmen. I do not think I've ever damaged anybody thereby.

Victor,

Your display of hubris astounds even me:

"But they're pretty recognizable: hacks who blather about Weaver et al. and demonstrate they have read a few books while lacking any genuine intellectual structure within which to understand them."

I think you have actually earned the title, "wind-bag". Your scorn for some people you call Bauderites is beyond the pale of common sense and decency. Not to mention the fact that Remonstrans has given no reason for you to believe that this is a gathering of "Bauderites." I have good reason to believe that Dissidens and Bauder have significant differences.

By all accounts of your posts, you seem to have difficulty putting a basic sentence together. Perhaps it is your proofreaders' fault? Or is it your angry haste? Your attack of the thesaurus, perhaps? Your resorting to the abusive ad hominem here and at this point in the discussion is out of line and lacking in decorum and taste.

You've "out-rancored" even dissidens, I believe. Please excuse these "hacks" for even trying to read Weaver without the requisite "intellectual structure."

Who are you anyway? The only person that I know of who matches your level of hubris is Richard Dawkins.

But listen, I'm no moderator here, but the vituperation has gotten in the way of the argument. We have no real way to judge whether or not you really possess this gnostic intellectual structure you deem so important. We pray thee, give us something to initiate us into the beatitude of your own divine wisdom. We would understand Weaver. He is beyond us. Lewis too, Barfield, Barth, Gadamer, Heidegger, Milbank, Kirk, Tolkein, Karajan, Bernstein, Wilde, et al.

What argument?

Well it is Either/Or.

I suppose he is a lover of Kierkegaard. Another giant of the Western intellectual tradition who is inaccessible by our meager intellectual endowments.

How shall we then live?

You have frightened him off, exlibris.

I was just on the point of maybe getting some intellectual structures too. I will ever hold this against you.

The personal appropriation of comments directed at a general category -Bauderites- is interesting. I never said anything of Remonstrans being a den of Bauderites; I simply used Bauderites as an example.

Anyway, I, Victor Eremita, am, you know, a constructed literary figure; I speak only for myself, and don't always represent my author's perspectives. Thus I can say things that would displease him; if my author's views and my own coincide, it is mostly an accident. (By author, I mean, the one typing; obviously he is nothing like my originator, Kierkegaard, at least in terms of intellectual and theological brilliance).

Unk,

Actually I would recommend the papers I found and published as "Either/Or,;" apparently you are unfamiliar with this work, which is fine, as many people do not read it or any of Kierkegaard's other works. If you were familiar with Kierkegaard, or perhaps Johannes Climacus, you would probably see some similarities between people like Dissidens and some people that Climacus and de Silentio wrote about. The analogy isn't tight, but it's there.

Ask Dissidens; I'm sure he's read the works I've collected or at least some of my author Kierkegaard's output.

Wow, it's like Trevor the cartoon boy was possessed by the spirit of the Enlightenment and went all schizophrenic. Apparently it's cool to cite abstruse works again, and comma splices, are coming back into, style just in time for, spring. Wait 'till I tell the Bauderites!

I only read the diary of a seducer and didn't get any intellectual structures out of it.

victor,

Go smoke your dope somewhere else. Apparently you have suffered an identity crisis, or you're perpetrating the theft of an identity.

Kierkegaard, would be embarrassed by your (mis)appropriation of his Enten/Eller.

Hmm, this victor fellow is a bit strange.

I've read a fair amount of Kierkegaard and, while I think he may have a point about the stages thing, his appropriation of the pseudonym is lacking. I do not see how it is unethical, exlibris, I just think think it works very well.

Out of curiosity, though, has anyone here read Either/Or? It would be interesting to see/read a discussion of Kierkegaard's theory of the stages in relation to some of the things Dissidens says. Carry on (I'm an SI member, anyway, so I feel out of place here at Remonstrans).

Don't worry, Sam. Some of us haven't been excommunicated from SI, yet.