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Post 0

Friday, September 16 - 3:52am

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Marty: “I am the ghost of Auschwitz
I have a tale to tell
Of the stench of death that rose from the pits
The stench from the bowels of hell.”

Yes, Marty, as soon as we hear the first line, we can settle back comfortably to hear the tale you are about to tell.

I don’t want to puncture your ambitions, and I know your heart is in the right place, but this sort of doggerel only serves to cheapen the horror of Auschwitz and the Holocaust.

The “bowels of hell” is an overworked and tired metaphor that fails to convey the Auschwitz stench – not just of burning bodies, but of the more personal stench of your own living body.

And then we are told:

“Cold and hungry slaves were we
Each waiting for the end
In tattered shreds of tapestry
That only death could mend.”

The message here is that death makes everything OK. But the deaths at Auschwitz cannot be redeemed. The best one can do is bear witness, and that demands a skilled craftsman:

"They're selling postcards of the hanging

They're painting the passports brown

The beauty parlour is filled with sailors

The circus is in town..."

Brendan

Post 1

Friday, September 16 - 4:12am

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Marty Lewinter wrote: "I am amazed that students still advocate big government. I try to dramatize the link between unlimited government and the Holocaust by reading this poem, but it doesn't move them. "

You can lead a whore to Vassar, but you can't make her think.

You do not know what fires your spark has started. Often, they smolder before they ignite.

I am taking a class in Law Enforcement Ethics. My classmates are potential police and probation officers. The instructor is a former patrol officer, detective, and lawyer. Last night, we learned about the development of morality -- strictly from the mainstream alternatives. You learn from your parents; society punishes wrong-doers; we all agree that other people are more important than we are, but sometimes we are selfish and hurt them. Etc., etc. I asked why communism failed. Why do moral teachings, reinforcements, and peer pressure not work? If Chrisitanity, communism, and Islam share the same basic ethical frameworks -- and we agreed that they do because this is natural justice, i.e., common sense -- how can there be so much crime everywhere in the world?

I pointed out that according to the lesson we watched on DVD, the strongest teaching mode is not social reinforcement, but introspection. The instructor said that people (in this case children), just repeat what they have heard. Clearly, that is true in most cases. Few people really think through a problem. But for those who do, nothing is more powerful.

Your students still have "govern-mentality." (Just having you stand up there as an authority is part of that.)

Even so, it is unfair to them and to you to say that they are not moved.

Every teacher knows that the exceptional students are exceptional, by definition.

I am a public presenter at a science museum in Ann Arbor. You would be surprised -- perhaps not -- at the lack of understanding of basic physics in this academic town, even after a basic demonstration that repeats the same short truth over and over about friction slowing the pendulum. The brakes of your car are made from ceramic because they stop the vehicle by friction and if they were made of wood, they would ignite. (Rub your hands together. Now imagine 150,000 ft-lbs/sec of rubbing.) Everything runs down. Friction in one form or another disspates action as heat. The floor heats up as my young volunteer pushes this stack of chairs. On and on... Then I bounce a ball. Why does the ball stop bouncing? "Gravity!" What? "Gravity pulls it down."

Based on that, I do not expect much from any lecture on any subject.

And yet... there is that spark that you toss into a combustible mind... Combustion requires fuel, heat, and oxygen. A mind must have material, be provided with (or discover) a source of heat, and must be in an "oxygenated" social setting. The social setting is given. You can do nothing about the content of their minds. All you can do is provide the spark. You seem to be doing that quite well.

Post 2

Friday, September 16 - 11:34am

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Thanks, Michael. I am encouraged by your remarks. The discussion in class usually reveals a handful of students who are willing to consider new points of view. Perhaps several years down the line, my influence will be felt.

A day after a lecture I gave on Karl Marx two years ago, a Marxist student told me that it was my best lecture yet. She added that after the lecture, several students argued for some time outside the classroom. These stories are rare, however. In any case, the Left owns my college and daily bombards the students with their propaganda.

I loved your quote, "You can lead a whore to Vassar, but you can't make her think."

;-)
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Brendan. Thanks for your response. I read your remarks carefully, and cannot agree with you. In fact, after reading it aloud, its drama still affects me strongly. I can picture the shriveled, tortured ghost as he speaks to us, somehow mustering the strength to warn us. I like the metaphor of the "sleeping sentinel," and several other ones.

Your observation that

The “bowels of hell” is an overworked and tired metaphor that fails to convey the Auschwitz stench – not just of burning bodies, but of the more personal stench of your own living body.

is a bit nit-picky. The metaphor is, in my opinion, appropriate. The historic representation of hell does justice to the stench of burning flesh and the rest of the horrible scene.

Taste in art is still not understood, so I guess a poem will not have the same impact on its readers.

Post 3

Friday, September 16 - 11:20pm

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Note: Grrrrreat response, Michael!

Marty, I'm WITH you on this. I just gave a week of lectures about the atrocities which are relatively more likely -- as long as there is no Constitution in place to put the government(s) in check (Happy Constitution Day -- by the way!).

There were a few times when I found myself up against anti-Bush sentiments, and I tried to steer the discussion toward the point that constitutions are non-partisan (it sure didn't help my case that Bush's Patriot Act totally effed with the founding principles of the constitution, though!). I tried to keep the focus on the whole context (the effing atrocities that have occurred -- and are now occurring OUTSIDE the US).

On the whole, I too, was not impressed with my reception (this is abstract stuff, you know). Overall however, I think some of it sunk in (I planted some seeds ... now where's the fertilizer?!).

Ed

Post 4

Saturday, September 17 - 12:57am

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Ed,

If this concern of ours weren't as serious as it is, I would joke that the lefty professors can serve as fertilizer.

;-)

It is not easy to teach something that we know in advance will only be absorbed by a small proportion of our students. This happens during some of my math classes. I present a beautiful argument and some students understand and only a few of these students enjoy and draw inspiration from it.

I taught my History of Math class the 2000 year old proof that there are infinitely many prime numbers (a prime is a number whose factors are only 1 and itself -- like 5 or 17). The argument is incredibly clever. Only a handful of students seemed to enjoy it or find it remarkable that the Ancient Greeks asked (and answered) this excellent question.

Into the classroom of intellectual death rode the devoted teachers ...

Post 5

Saturday, September 17 - 1:15pm

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Wonderful post Michael M.

Marty, when I was at university all of my economics and history teachers were leftists. They all had me taken in, but the one who eventually had the biggest impact on me was the one and only neoclassical economist in the faculty, who probably never had any idea of the impact he had on me, and I don't know that he had much effect on anyone else.

You never know who you are getting through to but I'm sure the ideas must get through to some.

Post 6

Sunday, September 18 - 12:53am

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Thanks, Tim. Michael hit it on the head.

I will never cease to teach with all my heart. The seeds of truth might grow slowly, but I guess they do grow when planted in the mind of a thinker.

Post 7

Sunday, September 18 - 2:50am

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Rock Garden

Stones in my hand -- grey, tiny stones,
No bigger than my tears.
Fingers had plucked them, one by one,
Had clasped them through the years,
Held them until both palms brimmed full,
Forcing their tossing down;
Wrist-flicked, they flew forth in rueful arcs
To scatter on dormant ground.

But I could not leave them, I loved them so,
And stayed for the bitterest part,
Though the wind whipped soil to bury them
And the harsh rain chilled my heart.
A lingering mourner, I tended their plot
And kept away the weeds.
Then, in the bloom of one radiant morning,
         I learned that they were seeds.....

                                                            John Paul Sherman

(Edited by robert malcom on 9/18, 6:09pm)

Post 8

Sunday, September 18 - 8:57am

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Robert,

You have my profound gratitude for posting a real poem on SOLO. The doggrel that often gets posted here in place of poetry is beneath comment, and so I did not write about it. Now you have shown me the right way to go about it: show the reader the real thing, and the fake will wither under its light.

Post 9

Sunday, September 18 - 9:15am

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Unlimited government is now largely a bad habit, something difficult to give up in the best of circumstances, however hazardous it is to one's well being. But centuries and centuries of being subjected to it left a very strong loyalty, the way an deadly addictive drug goes. Often such drugs are actually helpful for certain limited purposes in proper quantities but when used recklessly they kill. So with government. (BTW, I have resolved not to use "state" for government since the former has its main conceptual roots in the limitless leviathan, from Plato, to Hobbes, to Hegel and to Marx. "Government" is an institution within a society, even a state, for possibly better or for, too often, worse.)

Post 10

Sunday, September 18 - 11:10am

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That's because John was a real poet, not a verser... he was my buddy during the 70's
and taught me much of the nature of doing poems, working from abstract idea to concrete visualization, crafting the works like Rand did hers... unfortunately, poetry was not appreciated much, at least back then, and he sort of died over the disappointment of not being understood or cared for - even by or especially by Objectivists...

Post 11

Sunday, September 18 - 8:54pm

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Great poem, Robert. Nice imagery, important message, short and to the point.

Post 12

Sunday, September 18 - 9:03pm

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Tibor,

Your observation,

"Unlimited government is now largely a bad habit, something difficult to give up in the best of circumstances, however hazardous it is to one's well being. But centuries and centuries of being subjected to it left a very strong loyalty, the way an deadly addictive drug goes."

is interesting. Many people embrace an idea because it seems to be a time-honored 'way of the world.' In spite of the fact that America was founded on limited government, so many Americans believe that the way to get something done is to have the government do it. They figure, perhaps, that profit and greed won't get in the way. Sad.

Post 13

Tuesday, September 20 - 9:05pm

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Marty, Thomas Paine observed in Common Sense that years of not thinking a thing wrong can make it appear to be right. Such is the case with the Leviathan in Washington, D.C. at the moment; people are used to it acting without passionately principled opposition, and thus see any opposition as unpatriotic and a threat to their own comfort.