Defence of Socrates, Euthyphro & Crito

This collection of texts attributed to Plato are perhaps some of the most significant blobs of words in the history of western philosophy. Honestly - having never actually read anything by Plato before, when working my way through these (which only actually took a couple of days as I found them so gripping) I was seized with a sense of spiritual reverence that I have never felt in reading anything but holy texts. There is a specialness in these ancient dialogues.

   In reverse order then:

• Crito: this is a dialogue with Socrates, having been condemned and now languishing in prison, debating with someone attempting to release him what exactly is the proper relationship between an individual and the state in the moral order.
• Euthyphro: this is a dialogue between Socrates and a young aristocrat about what is the proper obligation of a human being to the gods; where morality comes from, whether we could ever owe it to the gods to do something evil, or if they would be gods were they to demand such a thing.
• Defence of Socrates: in here Socrates, accused of atheism and corrupting the youth of Athens, stands trial amongst his peers, and has to offer a coherent rational defence of his thinking, behaviours, ideas and their impacts on wider society - he knows he will be put to death should this trial not go his way, but he is not concerned with self-defence so much as he is with pursuit of absolute truth.

   I know these summaries are barely scratching the surface. If the Socrates that Plato sketches in these texts is half as wise as the real man they were based on then I must agree he was probably the wisest man in history. Anyway. So that's the book. Exactly who determined that these three should be collated together I do not know - certainly not Socrates, and probably not Plato, but it cannot be denied there is a pure and sheer brilliance of deep overlap between the ideas herein. If you like philosophy and you've not read these, you must. If you don't like philosophy but you wonder why philosophers think you should - you should read these.

Politically Correct Bedtime Stories

This book by James Finn Garner is as you would expect off the tin - cleverly rewritten classic fairy tales to skewer the "political correctness" prevalent at time of publication (in this editions, the mid 1990's, which is fun, isn't it? I was a toddler then, so I was obviously well plugged in to such cultural sensitivities.)

   No, I jest - I got this book in my Christmas stocking from Ma & Pa, so I was obliged to read it - and it was actually pretty funny. Cinderella, Snow White, Hansel and Gretel - and more; there's a bunch of classic fairy tales who get redrawn in "politically-correct" fashion. It is vaguely amusing, but I'm still not entirely sure why my parents thought I would be that keen about this notion. Isn't the whole point of older stories that they are less "woke"? That's how one observes cultural evolution over literary time, isn't it?

   I don't even know if or what I'm joking about any more.

George's Marvellous Medicine

This book by Roald Dahl is a fucking shitshow, let's be honest. So there's a boy called George who lives a pretty happy life on a farm with his family, all of whom he gets along pretty well with, except his Grandma - who is never actually abusive, she can't really be as she's too disabled to leave her chair - but is sometimes a bit harsh to him. Which drives George, one day, when the rest of his family is out, to bungle together every single random chemical ingredient* he can find in the house, blend it up, and replace his Grandma's medicine with this new concoction. It does not go well. Grandma grows to be like forty feet tall or something. George's dad, when he gets back, isn't concerned for his mother-in-law's wellbeing - he's excited about the prospect of this new medicinal invention for farming methods. George tests the medicine on a chicken and a cow and they both also grow to ridiculous sizes. George's dad gets so excited that he starts trying to throw together a patent whereby he can somehow in the future control a farm of oversized livestock - but George runs out of medicine. And can't remember exactly how he made it in the first place. His dad is upset, but optimistic - and prompts George to try again, which the boy does: only for his new concoction to immediately cause Grandma to shrink so much that she literally cannot be seen by the human eye.

   The end. Dark, right? What, you wanted spoiler warnings? Roald Dahl is basically public domain at this point babe, don't come to a blog specifically about books and complain that a post like this spoiled it for you. Anyway. I would recommend this book as a bedtime story for children between threeish and sevenish, as it's incredibly dark and also funny as fuck.

* I will be frank, the chapter where he's deciding what to put into it is hilarious.

The Lady Who Was Beautiful Inside

This book by Edward Monkton is, similarly as I said of the other, basically a twenty-page greetings card about a woman who discovers the concept of inner beauty. Not poetic really, just a bit flat. Might make a good toilet book if you're the sentimental and non-constipated type.

Matilda

This book by Roald Dahl is so much of a classic that I'm not even going to devote more than a single sentence to a summary of its plot - as I did with the other Dahl classics that I've read it the last few days. If any blog-followers are curious for this recent diversion in content, I am staying at my parents' house for Christmas and they have a Roald Dahl anthology, and I thought it might be funny to revisit some of my childhood stories for blogging purport. Anyway, if you need a fuller explication of the story of this one than I am offering here, go ask Danny Devito.

   Matilda is the neglected child of a neglectful family who takes her love for books to her impoverished teacher, Ms Honey; albeit under the stern gaze of abusive headmistress Mrs Trunchbull - but eventually discovers she has psychic powers, so she fucks everyone over and makes her own life go as well as she pretty much wants.

   Wow, yeh - that was only one sentence. And I thought it was going to become a bit overlong. But yeh, that's the plot. Like most Dahl stories, yes, this is very dark in places - there is violent and emotional abuse, with both Matilda and Ms Honey and a few other characters being the victims; but it's all okay in the end because little miss bookworm can move things with her mind so she gets to manipulate events to the desired outcome. The more I think about Roald Dahl stories as an adult the less I get what message he was really going for, you know?

The Wonderful Man

This book by Edward Monkton is basically a twenty-page greetings card about a nice man. It's nice. It would make a great toilet book, if you have relatively undiscerning taste, and only needed a very brief poo.

The BFG

This book by Roald Dahl is one of the less-dark of most of most of his oeuvre, if I remember rightly, which is odd because it does actually feature (or at least mention) quite a lot of human people being eaten alive.

   Story in a nutshell: an insomniac orphan called Sophie is kidnapped by a giant with big ears and a trumpet, who takes her back to his homeland. Here he introduces himself as the BFG (Big Friendly Giant - even though, he is the least big of all the giants, and the only friendly one of all of them, so none of his nomenclature semantics are particularly helpful overall) and reveals, with much relief to Sophie, that unlike the other giants (who eat humans every night) he is strictly vegetarian - subsisting, it seems, on weird warty cucumber things and a particularly-odd strain of soda that makes you have orgasmic farts with every gulp. Sophie accepts this, and learns to trust the BFG further when he hides her from the other giants - who are in the habit of bullying him. Later on the BFG shows Sophie what he does for a job (why, it is never shown - goodness knows who pays him to do this if anyone); catching dreams in bottles and spitting them through his trumpet into the ears of sleeping humans. Sophie has a brainwave: "if we give the Queen a nightmare about giants coming and eating people, she'll do something about it!" Daft, I know. But this is what happens. This is Roald Dahl man, not... I dunno, Brian Catling. So the BFG takes Sophie to see the Queen of England, they have breakfast (which is a whole chapter, can you believe - not even Tolkien was ever THAT self-indulgent) and she agrees to set the military up to catch the giants next time they come to England to eat people. Surprise, it works, and the giants are captured and thrown into a pit. Basically the end.

   I saw a cartoon of this when I was like six, saw the more recent movie adaptation like four years ago, and I must have read the book (this time included) at least half a dozen times; and I still don't know why it's a popular story. This is pure silly. Your kid might like this. I do not. If I was your kid - I did not.

the Art of Disruption

This book, part autobiographical reflection and part political manifesto, is the first book by Magid Magid, who frequently made global headlines* when he was Sheffield's Lord Mayor a couple of years ago.**

   In it, Magid develops the "ten commandments of Sheffield", a sequence of generally agreeable but radical in intentionality diktats rooted in his ethical thinking (originally put together as a poster for Tramlines, then kind of just started circulating around activist and youth circles of their own volition). These are as follows:

1. Be kind
2. Don't be a prick
3. Do epic shit
4. See the good
5. Don't lose hope
6. Do it differently
7. Always buy your round
8. Don't kiss a Tory
9. Tell your ma you love her
10. You've got this!

   Obviously there is a lot of wiggle-room in the actual applicability of these principles, but as guidelines for personal conduct and attitude I think they're a solid contribution to the discourse on how we should behave in relation to politics and society in the 21st century. Magid's book is not so much an argumentative justification for these commandments, nor speculations as to how they may be enacted - it's more a process of thinking through the values underlying them and looking at how everyone can grasp and engage with such principles in their own life contexts. It's not so much a true manifesto then as it is an inspirational primer to show people how and why they should care about positive liberty and the common good; an affirmation that we can change things. All of this is rooted in Magid's discussion of where/when these values have prompted developments in his own life, which has been a vibrant one to say the least - Sheffield's first Muslim/black Lord Mayor, his experiences growing up as a refugee, his dalliances with international media furores, and his election as a Yorkshire & Humber MEP during the whole Brexit debacle - man's had some interesting grit in his life.

   The prose is not particularly dazzling, but I kind of liked that - it almost hardly feels like reading a book, it's so casual and conversational, and therefore extremely easy to read. I finished it in two or three sittings. You really get a feel of Magid's personality and passion through the course of the ten chapters (one for each commandment obvs) and for this reason alone I would recommend this book - for if everyone in the world had someone like Magid in their life, democratic societies would be immeasurably healthier and happier. I wouldn't call this a must-read, but it's a provocative and heartwarming take on and against the cynical culture of our day, and there are anecdotes and wisdom-bits in there that could genuinely propel the apathetic into active sociopolitical concern. Not that he specifically needs it for that reason but I've decided to give this book to my eldest brother as I think he'll resonate strongly with the ethos at the core of the book, which is no singular monolithic ideology, but rather an open-minded personal quest for truth and justice - and that is what we should hope to expect from all our legislating representatives.***

* Perhaps most notoriously for calling Donald Trump a "wasteman" & subsequently (and hilariously) banning the then-President from Sheffield.

** Not to name-drop or owt but I met the guy a few times. Truly lovely chap.

*** I'm really hoping he gets the Green Party nomination for Sheffield Central in the 2024 general election, as Magid has enormous name-recognition value among the youth - here's me crossing my fingers that despite his last elected role (as MEP) falling apart in the ruins of Brexit he gets a chance to shine in Parliament proper.

Laudato Si'

This book - or rather, papal encyclical (you can read the whole thing from that link) - is the 2015 statement by Pope Francis about the responsibility of all humanity, and especially Catholic Christians, to care for God's creation, particularly in the face of the industrial horrors it is facing in this day and age. I am by no measure a Catholic, but I have quite a lot of respect for Pope Francis, and with the release of this that went up some degree - some degree more now that a few years later I've actually read the thing. Pope-man knows the issues. He knows what's up with the economic supply chains,  the product design cycles, the advertising consumer drive. He is not an ignorant old fart on a gold chair. This is a dude who spent most of his life in a run-down little church in Argentina cleaning graffiti off his parish walls and playing kickabout with local youths. He is not beholden to "the system" simply because he happens to be the head of the Catholic Church - ecclesiology can be politically weird like that, which I love. Francis is quite well cognizant in the key ways that humanity is fucking up our environment and the necessary actions that individuals, corporations, and governments must take to start minimising and then halting those impacts on our embedded ecology. If every Catholic in the world had read this and taken it to heart in a practical and immediate way, it would have been revolutionary. But obviously that hasn't happened. They just don't respect the Pope like they used to in the medieval era. Shame. But still - for this to have been written at all with the authority it was, as a Papal Encyclical - is immensely significant, and I hope it means that there are strong undercurrents of ecologically-revolutionary intent within the Catholic church, and hopefully ecumenically too, as I know there are too in every faith; it is only together as all humanity under One God one One World that we will see our way through the turbulence that is to come from the outputs of our historic wastefulnesses.

    If you're a Catholic who takes the word of the Pope seriously and you've not read this, then get the fuck off your arse and click on the link at the top, it's all online for free. It'll take you maybe an hour or two and it will reshape your brain. If you're a non-Catholic Christian who has less respect for the Pope but maybe doesn't take creation-care too seriously - I would also recommend reading the whole thing. It is not grounded in Catholicism but in Christian and biblical thinking with a pragmatic and compassionate bent for what is best for us and our future descendants in the world. And if you're no kind of Christian but you care about the environment - you might get a kick out of reading it, you probably won't learn any new scientific realities but you'll get a fun insight into what Mr Gold-throne White-hat thinks about the necessity of your activist struggles.

the Trinity and the Kingdom of God

This book is the first of Jürgen Moltmann's contributions to systematic theology. Through it he poses and develops a coherent Trinitarian doctrine of who God is and how we can think of Him* in relation to his "kingdom" - with the specific holistic methodological aim of starting to heal the schisms in the Church (across Protestant and Catholic thinking, as well as older disagreements between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, and even pointing at ways in which all Christian denominations have their roots in Judaic tradition and should acknowledge this).

   His arguments are complex and I will not attempt to summarise them here, but for a couple of overview-type considerations from his conclusions. This is proper academic dense theology and has a megaton of thought-provoking meat on its bones; while its translation from the German renders the syntax difficult to penetrate in places the prose is more accessible than it could be** given the subject-matter in all its mystical complexity and the high-mindedness with which the book's pursuit is laid out. Moltmann discusses the character and nature of God as Trinity, the inner life of the Trinitarian God and the distinct personalities of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the concept of perichoresis as the inter-relationship between these persons, the ways in which God can be said to suffer along with Creation as revealed in the passion of Christ, the distinctions between monarchical views of monotheism and the unique concepts of the Trinity, the supremacy and goodness of God in this sense, the essential mystery that underlies our knowledge of any of this, and the Kingdom of God as the historical/eschatological liberation of Creation into fulness in freedom. I'm not well-schooled enough in theology to be able to pick apart all his points, but they are clearly rooted in an incredible depth of biblical familiarity, philosophical dialectic and indebtedness to the diverse myriad Christian thinkers across history who have taken up their pens to attempt speculation and logical inquiry as to the realities that lay behind the issues discussed in this book.

   In short, this is by far the most challenging and thus rewarding book on the theology of the Trinity that I've read. God is wholly transcendent and ineffable, yes, but has also made Himself known through the testament of the Scriptures and the life of Jesus Christ - and thus we can know something essential of who He is; and in reading this book I feel closer than I ever have to a cohesively satisfying understanding of Trinitarian doctrine. Even given the difficulty of this book - you don't need a theology degree to understand it, but you will need an immense degree of receptivity and willingness to think complexly - I would heartily recommend this as a text to any Christian reader who wants a deeper intellectual grasp of the nature of our God, and would even tentatively recommend it to non-Christian readers who see the Trinitarian doctrine as logically incoherent as Moltmann's work in explication renders it just about fathomable. I plan on reading this again with my dad so we can discuss together what it says, means, and implies.

* Or "Them", as I have recently starting thinking of God - for the dual reasons that it A. acknowledges the plurality of personhood in the Trinity without recourse to "tritheism" by legitimising both the plural and singular uses of "they" and B. draws attention to the transcendence of gender by the Trinitarian God, which is something largely unacknowledged by the traditional usage of "He" for a being that was arguably only ever 1/3*** male during His incarnation.

** That said, Moltmann does have that same nasty habit that I detest in philosophical/theological writings where he will on occasion just dump a phrase at you in Latin or Greek without translating it. Even in the endnotes, which are mostly just references but still have a fair bit to contribute on certain secondary points within the text.

*** Moltmann would have had a go at me for referring to Christ the Son as only a third of the Godhead as His state of being is fully God - I'm not dallying with modalism, but you know what I meant.

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

This book is both the first publication and enduring masterwork of eminent logical philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein; and it took me a very long time to read it, even while making diligent notes. This is a relatively short book about the relationship between language, logic, ideas and truth. And I would like to think that I understood at least most of it. But not wanting to embarrass myself in front of any potentially-superior philosophy-readers who may be perusing this blog, I will sum up my final thoughts on the book thus - yes, it makes perfect sense! "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence" - especially once one has climbed up and thrown away the ladder.

Seriously though, this book is mental torture. It makes so much sense that it makes none. And yet it makes all. Wittgenstein famously said upon completing this work that he had solved the essential problems of all philosophy. Bit humble, right. And then he turned his back on that less than two decades later and started playing around with pragmatic linguistic theories, which if anything seems a step down from Solving Everything... but no, reading this book does feel like everything is being slowly solved; the axiomatic arrangement of its arguments, the dense interconnections of its lexicon... I was genuinely sad when I finished reading it that I couldn't see into a new dimension or something. Don't read this book ever - unless you really really REALLY enjoy problematic logical philosophy, and are happy to have your brain mangled for several weeks or months. Or years, if you try to devote serious study time to it instead of just reading it recreationally - in which case, WHY WOULD YOU DO - not even Bertrand Russell completely understood this steaming diamond of nonsense. Don't bother. Read it for its beauty, and if it illuminates very little, take that as the meaning it is - that really, philosophy illuminates very little, given that the sun exists and we all have eyes regardless of what the clever people are thinking today or tomorrow.

Chameleon or Tribe?

This book by Richard Keyes is one of the most insightful books about church I've read in a while. He takes the fundamental that we are to be "in the world but not of the world" - and yet recognisable to the world; so where does that leave us as a community of Christians? Do we distinguish our own culture and cut ourselves off from all outside contact? Or do we adopt as many of the surrounding customs as we can to try to make ourselves more amenable to contact so that evangelism can occur?

   Well, both, and neither.

   Though this is a very short book its arguments are dense and wiry, and I don't think I could do half as good a job at summarising them as you could at understanding them by reading this book. It's a genuine life-raft in a post-Christian culture where half the church seems to becoming secular clubs with praise sessions and the other half insular Puritanical communities hostile to outsiders. Keyes does a great job of integrating the biblical theology of what church is and is meant to be with the practicalities of Christian life, and also the apologetic factors of how we make these very elements appealing and coherent to those people outside the Church - those we are called to win for Christ.

   It's a relatively old book, this, so it might be hard to find - but if one pops up online for less than forty quid, or you stumble across a copy in a second-hand Christian bookstore - this is a must-buy! (and needless to say also then a must-read...)

the Infographic Bible

This book, compiled by Karen Sawrey - is, as it says on the tin, a series of exquisitely-executed infographics detailing various themes and components of the Bible and its contained stories. I've got this as a present for my brother-in-law for Christmas, and as regular readers will know I always like to test-read such things to make sure they're not rubbish... this definitely isn't.

   The infographics themselves are graphically sublime, well-ordered, legible, comprehensible and comprehensive both. The content going into the infographics is some of what you might expect and a lot of what you wouldn't have ever thought about. The net result is that you learn visually a lot more about the Bible story in a much denser package than you ever could with several months spent over a study-version of the ESV and its Hebrew translation.

   I'm pretty sure my bro-in-law doesn't even know I run this blog so I'm safe; anyhow I'm quite confident he'll like this.