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"among those of my contemporaries still living as I write these lines, I see in the Western world no more than three revolutionaries worthy of the name—Eduardo Frei in Chile, Saul Alinsky in America, . . . and myself in France, who am not worth beans, since my call as a philosopher has obliterated my possibilities as an agitator. . . ."
Jacques Maritain, The peasant of the Garonne: an old layman questions himself about the present time (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968), 23. Footnote: "Saul Alinsky, who is a great friend of mine, is a courageous and admirably staunch organizer of 'people's communities' and an anti-racist leader whose methods are as effective as they are unorthodox. Cf. 'The Professional Radical, Conversations with Saul Alinksy,' Harper's Magazine, June, July, 1965" (23n16).
But things look completely spoiled when, at certain moments of deep trouble, the political formations of left and right, instead of being each a more or less high-spirited team held in check by a more or less firm political reason, have become nothing more than exasperated affective complexes carried away by their myth-ideal; from that point on, political intelligence can do nothing but practice ruses in the service of passion. Under those conditions, to be neither right nor left means simply that one intends to keep his sanity. This is what I [(Maritain)] tried my best to do, at a time when things were already quite spoiled ('I am neither left nor right,' even though by temperament [(as distinguished from politics)] I am what people call a man of the left)" (22)
i.e. one who, if taken to an extreme, would detest "being, always preferring, in principle, in the words of Rousseau, what is not to what is" (21).
Comte "was more honest than you, studious expurgators of revealed truths. He at least fabricated the myths of his 'subjective synthesis' fairly and squarely out of whole cloth, not, like you, by reinterpreting a whole religious heritage to which you believe yourself more faithful than anyone, nor by trying to deceive the thirst, and the heart, of those whose faith you imagine you share."
Jacques Maritain, The peasant of the Garonne: an old layman questions himself about the present time (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968), 7 =Le paysan de la Garonne: un vieux laïc s'interroge à propos du temps présent (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1966), 18. The heading ("un si épuisant travail d'évacuation herméneutique") is from 9-10 =22.
"The world's oldest sepulchres, a hundred thousand years from us [in time], already give voice to th[is hope] in a symbolic language of flowers, provisions, and jewels. By honoring its dead, by closing their tombs, humanity keeps its eyes open for [(garde les yeux ouverts sur)] an information that goes beyond the [entropic] disinformation from which death results."
Gustave Martelet, S.J., "Information du monde et résurrection du Christ," in Penser la foi: recherches en théologie aujourd'hui: mélanges offerts à Joseph Moingt, ed. Joseph Doré and Christoph Theobald (Paris: Éditions du Cerf/Assas Éditions, 1993), 1055-1056 (1053-1061).
PROSPERO
Then, as my gift, and thine own acquisition
Worthily purchased, take my daughter. But
If thou dost break her virgin-knot before
All sanctimonious ceremonies may
With full and holy rite be ministered,
No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall
To make this contract grow; but barren hate,
Sour-eyed disdain and discord shall bestrew
The union of your bed with weeds so loathly
That you shall hate it both. Therefore take heed,
As Hymen's lamps shall light you.
FERDINAND
As I hope
For quiet days, fair issue, and long life,
With such love as 'tis now, the murkiest den,
The most opportune place, the strong'st suggestion
Our worser genius can, shall never melt
Mine honour into lust, to take away
The edge of that day's celebration,
When I shall think or Phoebus' steeds are foundered,
Or night kept chained below.
William Shakespeare, The tempest 4.1.13-31.
A devil, a born devil, on whose nature
Nuture can never stick; on whom my pains
Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost; . . .
Shakespeare, The tempest 4.1.188-190. Cf., however, Prospero's "pardon" and Caliban's "trim", at 5.1.288-294.
". . . so nennen wir mit Recht neben der göttlichen Liebe die
Weisheit als die Kunst gleichsam die göttliche Liebe vollkommen zu realisiren."
F. D. E. Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube () par. 165.1. I was put onto this by Janet Martin Soskice, "Being and love: Schleiermacher, Aquinas and Augustine," Modern theology 34, no. 3 (July 2018): 490 (480-491).
Prospero of Antonio. Shakespeare, The tempest I.2.100-102.
