(np) ranging afield

[Paul Mackin]

On 9/10/2011 11:30 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
> What paul auster you talkin'?
> Fascinating that Weber respected, learned from (evidently) 
> Channing....gonna pursue.

Doesn't surprise me.  Weber was a practical, rational guy.  Channing's 
optimistic position concerning the perfectibility of man fits right in 
with Weber's modernity.  Orthodox Christianity (requiring the 
Trinitarian construct to hold it together) takes the view that man's 
nature is corrupt (Original Sin) and that humanity must be Saved from 
above.  In the years during which Christianity developed, it was hard to 
view things otherwise. Earthly existence was full of disease, suffering, 
and of course there was Death.

Off the top of my head but please investigate further and report back.

P
>
>
> *From:* "michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com" <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
> *To:* Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> *Cc:* pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> *Sent:* Saturday, September 10, 2011 9:44 AM
> *Subject:* Re: (np) ranging afield
>
> Found good bio of Ellery the preacher wherein it's noted that Max 
> Weber cites him as a big influence
>
> I was gonna jape that trying to read
> Wittgenstein makes my ears bleed too but I've never really tried...
>
> On another front, how 'bout that Paul Auster anyway?
>
> And another bit of margarine for the olio...- I have a Google alert 
> for the redoubtable John Barth and learned thereby that that Stephen 
> Soderbergh has the rights to _The Sot-Weed Factor_ and had somebody 
> work up I think an 18 part miniseries...kewl...I keep meaning to pick 
> up a copy of the film of _The End of the Road_ but everybody sez it's 
> awful...I like a lot of things so dubbed tho...
> Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone, powered by CREDO Mobile.
> *From: *Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> *Sender: *owner-pynchon-l at waste.org
> *Date: *Sat, 10 Sep 2011 06:15:09 -0700 (PDT)
> *To: *Michael Bailey<michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
> *ReplyTo: *Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> *Cc: *pynchon -l<pynchon-l at waste.org>
> *Subject: *Re: (np) ranging afield
>
> yes, it seems the mean genius who was Wittgenstein actually cuffed hard
> one student, maybe causing his ear to bleed..........
>
> *From:* Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
> *To:* P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> *Sent:* Saturday, September 10, 2011 2:44 AM
> *Subject:* (np) ranging afield
>
> so, Paul Auster.  Pretty good stuff.  Like it a lot!  Sometimes even
> really zingy!
>
> Possibly one of the best bits is the nuggets of literary history -
> mention of Wittgenstein making the rounds of his former students from
> when he taught grade school asking their forgiveness for how mean he
> was, and not one of them would, is how much of a creep he had been...
>
> or, and this is the one that got me thinking, one of his characters
> writes a book set in US at the end of the 19th cent, sort of just
> before AtD perhaps
> and has somebody named Ellery Channing giving a copy of his bio of
> Thoreau and a compass that belonged to HDT, to Emma Lazarus while
> riding on a train with her, so it's like how Thoreau's moral compass
> was passed to Emma Lazarus
>
> so I looked up Ellery Channing and missed by a generation, because
> although Auster was referring to William Ellery Channing the poet
> (1818-1901) I found myself getting intrigued with his uncle, William
> Ellery Channing the preacher, 1780-1840, who was involved in the "New
> England Liberal" church movement.  Apparently there were the Old
> Calvinists, the Hopkinsians, and the Liberals -- and out of this I
> think somehow the Unitarians and Universalists emerged...
>
> Calvinism involving something about inherent vice being the most
> important, perhaps sole constituent of human nature - and then you've
> got your predestination, so some are elect and some are not -
> --- which would seem to me to make it pretty irrelevant to try to be
> good...or to try and help anybody else
> --- but old WE Channing actually knew the Hopkins of Hopkinsianism and
> they were friends.  Hopkins was a good dude, very antislavery and
> alienated most of his congregation by speaking out against bad things,
> gave away much of his income to charity
>
> so the theology of Calvinism may have conduced to virtue and only its
> misinterpretation leads to horrendous self-righteous elites...
> sort of like Marxism's misinterpretation leads to revolutions (I read
> recently that he specifically said revolutionary groups shouldn't
> seize power)
>
>
> Anyway, Channing and your Liberals were kind of moving away from
> predestination toward "Arminianism" which floats the idea that people
> have tendencies to both good and bad, and that God's help is available
> to all to strengthen the tendencies to good.  And that there is free
> will.
> Which makes a lot more emotional sense to me.
>
>
> Anyway, there was a pretty strong intellectual current in them days
> regarding that difference of opinion.  But having paved the way for
> Transcendentalism, Dr Channing believed of the Transcendentalists that
> they went too far.
>
> Of course I find ecclesiastical history endlessly fascinating!
> Doesn't everybody?
>
>
> I wonder where the original William Slothrop would fit?  Would he be
> an original New England Liberal?
>
>
>
>

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