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Sun, 11 May 2008 14:34:58 PDT
Walking Meetups > B O A R D W A L K
Those who are interested in walking during the week we will have our first mid-week walk on Wednesday at the Long Beach Boardwalk. It's short notice I know but Wednesdays weather forecast seems to be the best of the up coming week. I will be waiting by the bathrooms at the Riverside entrance to the boardwalk at 11am. I hope all our week day poll takers will come and keep me company on the boardwalk.---Lee (Don't forget those sick days)
Brunch Club Meetups > Nassau County Brunch Friends Meetup Group
Bring chair or blanket to sit on at the beach to watch the air show. After the show ends - approx. 3:00, we will walk the boardwalk and enjoy the exhibits and displays.
Can wear shorts or swimsuit, bring lunch, liquid, sunscreen, sun-hat, sunglasses, binoculars, camera. To determine if show will be canceled because of weather call Jones Beach (516-785 1600). FYI the show is also Sunday.
I will supply my cell phone number a few days before (my cell will only be active the day of the event- warning as beach fills up, cell stops working).
While the event is FREE, a parking fee will be collected- free with Empire Pass.
LI buses will start the JB run this weekend. Ask the driver to let you off at the Center Mall. Follow the path toward the flags, then take the path on your right. This path will turn, and lead to the tunnel going under the road, this tunnel leads to the SE side of parking lot 4.
I suggest you bring your own food since the food is expensive and the lines are HUGE.
Walking Meetups > Nassau County Walking Meetup Group
Hike along the sands in the Zach's Bay area; then return to cars to collect picnic stuff: food, blankets, etc., and then head to the beach to enjoy dinner, conversation, and fireworks. (Bring dinner; the line to buy is huge.) After the fireworks we will leisurely walk the boardwalk until the parking lot empties. We will pass the bus stop.
Meet on the east side of Parking Field 5, near Zach's Bay at 6:30 PM, by the east tunnel leading to the East Bathhouse, on the parking lot side of the tunnel. The east side is the side where the buildings and Zach's Bay beach is.
There is a bus/LIRR package. Ask bus driver to let you off at the East Bathhouse. Walk west (the direction the bus came from) in front of the building to the tunnel leading under the road--it leads to the east end of Parking Field 5.
If you do not want to walk, but want to join us for fireworks, you can wait for us at the same meeting spot as above. But I can not be exact as to the time.
Jones Beach summer parking fee will be collected, for those drivers who have not invested in a 2008 Empire Passport.
Hike along the sands in the Zach's Bay area; then return to cars to collect picnic stuff: food, blankets, etc., and then head to the beach to enjoy dinner, conversation, and fireworks. (Bring dinner; the line to buy is huge.) After the fireworks we will leisurely walk the boardwalk until the parking lot empties. We will pass the bus stop.
We will be meeting near the exterior (parking lot) entrance of Panera Bread, which is located on the east side of Broadway Mall, near Ikea. Join us for company and conversation, where we will discuss ideas for future group events--walking and non-walking--in and around Nassau County.
Following the brunch, we will make our way down to the gazebo in Kennedy Memorial Park / Foley Gardens (the park in front of the Empire Diner). It is requested that those who come for the walk make an effort to arrive at Panera Bread no later than 12:15, or else at the Foley Gardens gazebo no later than 1 p.m. (Your organizer needs to learn not to be quite so forgiving of tardiness--for the sake of other attendees--and requests your assistance in making the walk a great experience for all participants.)
At shortly after 1 p.m., we will begin our 6 mile walk by setting off south from the gazebo, passing under the trestle of Hicksville Station and then taking a brief detour west to visit the horse farm on Duffy Avenue. Please note that we do tend to linger for a short while at the horse farm (and again, more briefly, at the Gregory Museum--see below). This event is a tad more casual than some of our more adventurous walks, although we do achieve a steadier continuity of pace during the later half of the journey.
From the horse farm, we will make our way first east, and then north, by way of the Hicksville Gregory Museum, before crossing through northwest Hicksville, and entering Cantiague Park, where we will wind up our journey with 1 1/2 miles of trail circumnavigating the soccer and baseball fields and picnic areas before returning to the Broadway Mall/Hicksville Station area to retrieve vehicles or pursue other modes of transportation. Restroom facilities are available in Cantiague Park at the end of our walk.
There is no raindate for this event. Should there be inclement weather, the brunch will occur at the same Panera Bread at 11 a.m., after which we will begin a walk within Broadway Mall at 1 p.m. For those interested, Broadway Mall also participates in the Town of Oyster Bay Free Co-Ed Mall Walking Program. More information can be found here:
(Neither the Nassau County Walking Meetup Group nor the Nassau County Brunch Friends Meetup Group, are affiliated with the Co-Ed Mall Walking Program. This link is provided for informational purposes only.)
Walk itinerary is subject to change based on participant feedback and ideas.
We will be meeting near the exterior (parking lot) entrance of Panera Bread, which is located on the east side of Broadway Mall, near Ikea. Join us for company and conversation, where we will discuss ideas for future group events--walking and non-walking--in and around Nassau County.
Following the brunch, we will make our way down to the gazebo in Kennedy Memorial Park / Foley Gardens (the park in front of the Empire Diner). It is requested that those who come for the walk make an effort to arrive at Panera Bread no later than 12:15, or else at the Foley Gardens gazebo no later than 1 p.m. (Your organizer needs to learn not to be quite so forgiving of tardiness--for the sake of other attendees--and requests your assistance in making the walk a great experience for all participants.)
At shortly after 1 p.m., we will begin our 6 mile walk by setting off south from the gazebo, passing under the trestle of Hicksville Station and then taking a brief detour west to visit the horse farm on Duffy Avenue. Please note that we do tend to linger for a short while at the horse farm (and again, more briefly, at the Gregory Museum--see below). This event is a tad more casual than some of our more adventurous walks, although we do achieve a steadier continuity of pace during the later half of the journey.
From the horse farm, we will make our way first east, and then north, by way of the Hicksville Gregory Museum, before crossing through northwest Hicksville, and entering Cantiague Park, where we will wind up our journey with 1 1/2 miles of trail circumnavigating the soccer and baseball fields and picnic areas before returning to the Broadway Mall/Hicksville Station area to retrieve vehicles or pursue other modes of transportation. Restroom facilities are available in Cantiague Park at the end of our walk.
There is no raindate for this event. Should there be inclement weather, the brunch will occur at the same Panera Bread at 11 a.m., after which we will begin a walk within Broadway Mall at 1 p.m. For those interested, Broadway Mall also participates in the Town of Oyster Bay Free Co-Ed Mall Walking Program. More information can be found here:
(Neither the Nassau County Walking Meetup Group nor the Nassau County Brunch Friends Meetup Group, are affiliated with the Co-Ed Mall Walking Program. This link is provided for informational purposes only.)
Walk itinerary is subject to change based on participant feedback and ideas.
It's a holiday weekend but for those who are going to be around we will have our next walk at the Long Beach Board Walk. The weather will be great according to the extended forecast, so join us for exercise and sun. We will meet at the Riverside Blvd. entrance next to the bathrooms at 11 AM. You will have the option of walking 2 1/2 or 4 miles. See you there. IMPORTANT-Be sure to check your email before leaving for the walk in the event of a cancellation.---Lee
We return to our overview of 20th century German philosopher Martin Heidegger. In the words of author Chang Chung-Yuan, "Heidegger is the only Western Philosopher who not only intellectually understands but has intuitively grasped Taoist thought." Heidegger's break from the Platonic tradition later influenced such continental philosophers as Derrida and Merleau-Ponty.
The lectures of Hubert Dreyfus, professor of philosophy at UC Berkeley, are now available by podcast and mp3 download. This includes his Fall 2007 course, on Heidegger's Being and Time. From the course Web site:
"One of the most important philosophical works of the twentieth century, Being and Time is both a systematization of the existential insights of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and a radicalization of Husserl's phenomenological account of intentionality. What results is an original interpretation of the human condition leading to an account of the nature and limitations of philosophical and scientific theory. This account has important implications for all those disciplines that study human beings."
In advance of our discussion, please listen to the first two lectures, from September 18 and 20, 2007, entitled "Critique of Descartes I" and "Critique of Descartes II", respectively. The lectures, and a link to the course Web site, can be found here:
Brunch Club Meetups > Nassau County Brunch Friends Meetup Group
See Meetup listing: http://socialnetwork....
"Anyone who would be enlightened by the revelations of a well known and respected psychic, should sign up. It will be more fun than most anything else you will think of doing that night, I promise! "
"Diane, a well known psychic who has even worked with the police, is hosting spot readings for audience members and will give guidance to all. "
Come join us for Mo'Joe Mondays in Mineola! Every week we meet to play a different game, and enjoy the company of a fabulous group of Long Island's most interesting people.
Please bring a Boggle set or a traditional board game. We can't guarantee that we'll be able to play every game on offer, but there will hopefully be enough options to satisfy everyone's gaming predilictions.
Mo'Joe Cafe is on the corner of Mineola Boulevard and 2nd Street. Traveling south from Jericho Turnpike, turn right on 2nd Street, just before the overpass, and it's right in front of you; traveling north from Old Country Road, make a left at the bottom of the overpass, and it's right there.
Come join us for Mo'Joe Mondays in Mineola! Every week we meet to play a different game, and enjoy the company of a fabulous group of Long Island's most interesting people.
Please bring a Backgammon set.
Mo'Joe Cafe is on the corner of Mineola Boulevard and 2nd Street. Traveling south from Jericho Turnpike, turn right on 2nd Street, just before the overpass, and it's right in front of you; traveling north from Old Country Road, make a left at the bottom of the overpass, and it's right there.
Come join us for Mo'Joe Mondays in Mineola! Every week we meet to play a different game, and enjoy the company of a fabulous group of Long Island's most interesting people.
Please bring a card-based game (e.g. Apples to Apples, Racko, Uno) or a deck of playing cards. We can't guarantee that we'll be able to play every game on offer, but there will hopefully be enough options to satisfy everyone's gaming predilictions.
Mo'Joe Cafe is on the corner of Mineola Boulevard and 2nd Street. Traveling south from Jericho Turnpike, turn right on 2nd Street, just before the overpass, and it's right in front of you; traveling north from Old Country Road, make a left at the bottom of the overpass, and it's right there.
Come join us for Mo'Joe Mondays in Mineola! Every week we meet to play a different game, and enjoy the company of a fabulous group of Long Island's most interesting people.
Please bring a board and/or Scrabble dictionary.
Mo'Joe Cafe is on the corner of Mineola Boulevard and 2nd Street. Traveling south from Jericho Turnpike, turn right on 2nd Street, just before the overpass, and it's right in front of you; traveling north from Old Country Road, make a left at the bottom of the overpass, and it's right there.
Brunch Club Meetups > Nassau County Brunch Friends Meetup Group
Please bring a board and/or Scrabble dictionary, and/or a card game or low-footprint board game to share with your fellow participants. We can't guarantee that we'll be able to play every game on offer, but there will hopefully be enough options to satisfy everyone's gaming predilictions.
Out of respect for our venue, it is requested that participants not bring games with noisy elements (e.g., buzzers) or that take up a great deal of table space in play. (See the Mineola gaming events at Mo'Joe for Boggle and the like!)
Walking Meetups > Nassau County Walking Meetup Group
Our second ever Neighborhood Walk--last May's Six Mile Six Bridges Neighborhood Walk--helped start a phenomenon. In the year since, a number of you have asked when we're going to do it again! So, without further ado...
We'll meet at Little Neck Station by the station house/waiting room. From there, we'll make our way east, along Great Neck Road, and past Cutter Mill Park. At Great Neck Station, we will cross the pedestrian bridge (1), before continuing east across a singing bridge (2) into the Village of Thomaston.
We will then travel to and through Manhasset Valley Park, where we will cross a footbridge (3) over the creek feeding Whitney Pond. Then north, up Plandome Road, crossing the bridge (4) over the tracks at Manhasset Station. Onward east again, passing Plandome Park, and then taking Bridge Road over another singing bridge (5), before heading north again and crossing a bridge (6) over a babbling brook just across from Plandome Station.
Actually, my memory is that there is a seventh bridge long the route that somehow didn't get counted in the above description. (I'll likely update the event listing after I re-reconnoiter the route in a week or so.)
Trains run every half hour from the stations along the route. Parking is available at Little Neck Station only. (All other stations have parking by permit only.)
At the end of our walk, we'll catch a train back to Little Neck Station, where we'll eat at a local restaurant. (To be announced.)
Walking Meetups > Nassau County Walking Meetup Group
Since the launch of the Nassau County Walking Meetup Group last year, we've taken a number of train-station to train-station walks, but always on the same line. Our newest assistant organizer, Joanne3, has something else in mind...
The hike will be at a moderate (to slow, NOT FAST) pace. It is mostly flat, and mostly woodlands on wide trails.
We will go from Bethpage State Park, following the Greenbelt trail through Trailview State Park, Stillwell Woods, then on to the Cold Spring Harbor Station.
The middle rest stop has a Stop and Shop (food/drink/restrooms), and a bus stop (for thoses that want to bail out - the bus goes to the Hicksville LIRR), and (last time I was there) one table with 2 benches.
Bring lunch, snack, plenty of liquids (but can be replenished at S&S), and I suggest a change of socks.
No go if temp above 85 or raining.
Before the hike:
Drivers should purchase a one-way ticket from Hicksville to Bethpage, and a one-way ticket from Hicksville to Cold Spring Harbor. Cost is under $5.00.
Riders should purchase a one-way ticket from your station of origin to Bethpage, and a one-way ticket from your station of origin to Cold Spring Harbor. Cost depends on station of origin.
Walking Meetups > Nassau County Walking Meetup Group
As of April, we have 37 members in Westbury alone! With so many Westbury-area walkers, we've begun holding weekly events!
We meet every Wednesday in the Village Square (at corner of Post and Maple), to walk for about an hour. As we build up a regular group of local walkers, we'll explore expanding into additional evenings. Please note the start time for any given week. In May, walks start at 7 p.m. Starting in June, the start time will be moved back to 7:30 p.m.
If you're running late, give your organizer a call (I will send my cell phone number to those who have RSVP'd) and let me know. We won't have gone far!
As this is a weekly event, automated announcements will only be sent out for the first and third event of each month. (So as to limit how much e-mail goes out to members generally.)
Please RSVP for all nights you plan to attend however! Your RSVPs encourage other members to participate, and will ensure that you will receive any e-mails from me in connection with any given evening's walk.
Rain cancels. Please contact your organizer in advance for alternate contact information if you are concerned that you will not receive cancellation e-mails or be able to check the calendar on the day of the event.
Walking Meetups > Nassau County Walking Meetup Group
As of April, we have 37 members in Westbury alone! With so many Westbury-area walkers, we've begun holding weekly events!
We meet every Wednesday in the Village Square (at corner of Post and Maple), to walk for about an hour. As we build up a regular group of local walkers, we'll explore expanding into additional evenings. Please note the start time for any given week. In May, walks start at 7 p.m. Starting in June, the start time will be moved back to 7:30 p.m.
If you're running late, give your organizer a call (I will send my cell phone number to those who have RSVP'd) and let me know. We won't have gone far!
As this is a weekly event, automated announcements will only be sent out for the first and third event of each month. (So as to limit how much e-mail goes out to members generally.)
Please RSVP for all nights you plan to attend however! Your RSVPs encourage other members to participate, and will ensure that you will receive any e-mails from me in connection with any given evening's walk.
Rain cancels. Please contact your organizer in advance for alternate contact information if you are concerned that you will not receive cancellation e-mails or be able to check the calendar on the day of the event.
Walking Meetups > Nassau County Walking Meetup Group
As of April, we have 37 members in Westbury alone! With so many Westbury-area walkers, we've begun holding weekly events!
We meet every Wednesday in the Village Square (at corner of Post and Maple), to walk for about an hour. As we build up a regular group of local walkers, we'll explore expanding into additional evenings. Please note the start time for any given week. In May, walks start at 7 p.m. Starting in June, the start time will be moved back to 7:30 p.m.
If you're running late, give your organizer a call (I will send my cell phone number to those who have RSVP'd) and let me know. We won't have gone far!
As this is a weekly event, automated announcements will only be sent out for the first and third event of each month. (So as to limit how much e-mail goes out to members generally.)
Please RSVP for all nights you plan to attend however! Your RSVPs encourage other members to participate, and will ensure that you will receive any e-mails from me in connection with any given evening's walk.
Rain cancels. Please contact your organizer in advance for alternate contact information if you are concerned that you will not receive cancellation e-mails or be able to check the calendar on the day of the event.
Walking Meetups > Nassau County Walking Meetup Group
As of April, we have 37 members in Westbury alone! With so many Westbury-area walkers, we've begun holding weekly events!
We meet every Wednesday in the Village Square (at corner of Post and Maple), to walk for about an hour. As we build up a regular group of local walkers, we'll explore expanding into additional evenings. Please note the start time for any given week. In May, walks start at 7 p.m. Starting in June, the start time will be moved back to 7:30 p.m.
If you're running late, give your organizer a call (I will send my cell phone number to those who have RSVP'd) and let me know. We won't have gone far!
As this is a weekly event, automated announcements will only be sent out for the first and third event of each month. (So as to limit how much e-mail goes out to members generally.)
Please RSVP for all nights you plan to attend however! Your RSVPs encourage other members to participate, and will ensure that you will receive any e-mails from me in connection with any given evening's walk.
Rain cancels. Please contact your organizer in advance for alternate contact information if you are concerned that you will not receive cancellation e-mails or be able to check the calendar on the day of the event.
Walking Meetups > Nassau County Walking Meetup Group
As of April, we have 37 members in Westbury alone! With so many Westbury-area walkers, we've begun holding weekly events!
We meet every Wednesday in the Village Square (at corner of Post and Maple), to walk for about an hour. As we build up a regular group of local walkers, we'll explore expanding into additional evenings. Please note the start time for any given week. In May, walks start at 7 p.m. Starting in June, the start time will be moved back to 7:30 p.m.
If you're running late, give your organizer a call (I will send my cell phone number to those who have RSVP'd) and let me know. We won't have gone far!
As this is a weekly event, automated announcements will only be sent out for the first and third event of each month. (So as to limit how much e-mail goes out to members generally.)
Please RSVP for all nights you plan to attend however! Your RSVPs encourage other members to participate, and will ensure that you will receive any e-mails from me in connection with any given evening's walk.
Rain cancels. Please contact your organizer in advance for alternate contact information if you are concerned that you will not receive cancellation e-mails or be able to check the calendar on the day of the event.
Walking Meetups > Nassau County Walking Meetup Group
As of April, we have 37 members in Westbury alone! With so many Westbury-area walkers, we've begun holding weekly events!
We meet every Wednesday in the Village Square (at corner of Post and Maple), to walk for about an hour. As we build up a regular group of local walkers, we'll explore expanding into additional evenings. Please note the start time for any given week. In May, walks start at 7 p.m. Starting in June, the start time will be moved back to 7:30 p.m.
If you're running late, give your organizer a call (I will send my cell phone number to those who have RSVP'd) and let me know. We won't have gone far!
As this is a weekly event, automated announcements will only be sent out for the first and third event of each month. (So as to limit how much e-mail goes out to members generally.)
Please RSVP for all nights you plan to attend however! Your RSVPs encourage other members to participate, and will ensure that you will receive any e-mails from me in connection with any given evening's walk.
Rain cancels. Please contact your organizer in advance for alternate contact information if you are concerned that you will not receive cancellation e-mails or be able to check the calendar on the day of the event.
Walking Meetups > Nassau County Walking Meetup Group
As of April, we have 37 members in Westbury alone! With so many Westbury-area walkers, we've begun holding weekly events!
We meet every Wednesday in the Village Square (at corner of Post and Maple), to walk for about an hour. As we build up a regular group of local walkers, we'll explore expanding into additional evenings. Please note the start time for any given week. In May, walks start at 7 p.m. Starting in June, the start time will be moved back to 7:30 p.m.
If you're running late, give your organizer a call (I will send my cell phone number to those who have RSVP'd) and let me know. We won't have gone far!
As this is a weekly event, automated announcements will only be sent out for the first and third event of each month. (So as to limit how much e-mail goes out to members generally.)
Please RSVP for all nights you plan to attend however! Your RSVPs encourage other members to participate, and will ensure that you will receive any e-mails from me in connection with any given evening's walk.
Rain cancels. Please contact your organizer in advance for alternate contact information if you are concerned that you will not receive cancellation e-mails or be able to check the calendar on the day of the event.
Walking Meetups > Nassau County Walking Meetup Group
On May 31st we will have another GeoCache Treasure Hunt/Hike. This time at Belmont Lake State Park.
We will circle the lake and then head south to Babylon along the park trails. This will be a six-mile hike. Bring lots of water and wear good hiking boots. Some areas may be muddy. Bring lunch as we will stop for an informal picnic.
This event will be combined with another group, the Social Adventures Group, increasing your chances of making new friends.
At out last Geocache hunt, Lori, Naomi and Henry were all very successful in finding three hidden caches. The 4th cache was not found because the tree where it was hidden was cut down, as I found out later when the owner posted a message about that in geocaching.com.
In the the messages section, I posted the details of five caches that are along the trail we will be taking from Belmont to Babylon. You may want to print out this list to bring with you to help with finding the caches. If you have a GPS, bring it if you want. I'll have mine ready to go and preprogrammed with these coordinates.
Directions: Southern State Pkwy Exit 38. (leads right into park). Meet us by the restrooms at the far end of the first parking lot at 12 Noon. Belmont has a $6 parking fee (Free with Empire Pass).
I will send my cell phone number, the day before the event, to all those who RSVP "yes."
This is a listing of five caches along the trail we'll take from Belmont Lake State Park to Babylon. See the event listing for details of this May 31st hike.
Known as GeoCaches, they are hidden by enthusiasts who find pleasure tracking who d...
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(Warning: This discussion will give away many highly interesting plot details of the novel. If you intend to read the book, don't read the following!)
Now that, in his "Existentialism in Literature and Film" class, Dreyfus has performed a thorough vivisection of The Brothers Karamazov, I would love to generate some discussion on it, but what is left to say? Bert has convincingly highlighted the author's careful existentialization - the "demagicalization" - of Christian religious motifs. He has shown how three prototypical configurations of the soul's struggle with its corporeality can be framed. One of these three resides in each brother, who grapple with these motifs in a contrived fictional reality that nevertheless represents us all in one magisterial Work of Art, The Brothers Karamazov: Alyosha the simple friendly spiritual adept who fastens onto agape love but has not yet confronted his own fleshly dynamics; Ivan the cold intellectual who by rational thought suppresses and sanitizes the perverse demands of his body; Dmitri the frank impulsive sensualist who can't control his bodily passions yet ardently desires nobility of spirit. They all, it turns out, conspire to murder their wicked father. Alyosha looks away, Ivan goes away, and Dmitri flails away, but none of them smashes old man Karamazov's skull. They are all technically innocent, but existentially guilty. This is all great stuff, and I absolutely loved the book and the classroom study of it.
But I am fascinated by the character of Smerdyakov. He is the brother "unnaturally born" who is the efficient cause of the old man's death. Dreyfus did not spend much time on Smerdyakov - suggesting that his configuration is the absence of a configuration. He has no soul, and he does not particularly have much in the way of bodily passions either. He is, if anything, a sort of robotnik, a soulless machine fit to act as a lackey, a cook, a criminal, but not really a human like the others. He is closest in temperament, one would guess, to Ivan, who he idolizes. But Smerdyakov is not nearly as educated or refined as Ivan, and thus cannot intellectualize his condition in life, but only resent it.
For argument's sake, I propose to rehabilitate Smerdyakov as an integral part of Dostoevsky's portrayal of our cultural and psychological condition. He is as fully Karamazov as Dmitri, Ivan, and Alyosha, and should be considered side by side with the rest - there really are four brothers, not three.
1. Smerdyakov has the opposite guilt configuration from the other brothers: he is technically guilty, but existentially innocent. Why is he existentially innocent? For the same reason a soldier who is trained to shoot, guided to the battlefield by his officers, encouraged by his religious leadership (either by their silence or their vocal approval), and authorized by his political leadership to pull the trigger, must be existentially innocent of the death of the bullet's human target. Smerdyakov looked to his foster father and half brothers for guidance. Grigory's baleful parenting turned him in boyhood to killing cats and dogs - a sort of inhuman resentment training. He was, by his childhood experience, "anti-baptized". Alyosha, who had a spiritual impact on everyone around him, apparently avoided Smerdyakov - he remained a silent voice. Dmitri, who Smerdyakov feared, was constantly shouting about killing the old man. Ivan, who Smerdyakov most closely watched for direction, gave him what he took for tacit approval to do as he thought fit - even to murder. Smerdyakov was merely being a good foot soldier to Alyosha his priest, Dmitri his officer, and Ivan his governor.
2. Smerdyakov is redeemable. To explain this, let's assume the opposite, that he is unredeemable, and that Dostoevsky thinks people are born, or can make themselves, unredeemable. The counter-evidence to this is considerable. Not only is the "redeemability" of all mankind a central tenet of Christianity, it is a theme frequently explored by Dostoevsky himself, and perhaps even lived by Dostoevsky himself, whose conversion from radical idealism to radical Christianity apparently followed a dramatic brush with death by execution for political activities. The clearest example from his work is the redeemability of the axe murderer Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. But even in Brothers Karamazov, the characters of the boy Ilyusha, who Smerdyakov trained in cruelty (killing dogs), and the boy Kolya, who Rakitin trained in rational disbelief - both central traits of Smerdyakov's own character - were ably engaged, corrected, redeemed and raised up to a higher consciousness by Alyosha. Why then, was Alyosha never interested in similarly engaging his brother Smerdyakov? Why is there no hope of redemption for him? At the end of the novel, we as readers may hope for the redemption of Ivan in the Siberian mines, and even for the recovery and softening of the mentally unstable and deathly ill Ivan. But Smerdyakov is dead, hanging himself to spite Ivan and snub the callous world he was born into. Was he, like Rakitin, simply a personified devil, that is, structurally beyond hope? I don't think the text supports that view - Smerdyakov is everywhere treated in a more ambiguous light than Rakitin. Neither do I think that Dostoevsky believed in a form of spiritual predestination - that some souls are condemned before time to lostness, and others are assuredly not.
3. Smerdyakov's biological origin is unique and significant. One could argue at this point that Smerdyakov is really just a "throw-away" in The Brothers Karamazov - that he has a role in sharpening the characterization of the three other brothers, and advancing the plot, but no great revelatory significance himself beyond lacking a soul to work with. (This seems to be the line taken by Dreyfus in his exegesis of the novel.) But if we grant that Dostoevsky is himself intensely interested in biological origins - who the father and mother were, their traits, and how those are expressed in the child - then we must admit Smerdyakov is perhaps the most interesting son of old man Karamavoz. If we assume Smerdyakov is throw-away, then we would assume his mother Lizaveta is also throw-away, but that clearly is not the case. The background elements of Lizaveta, and the circumstances surrounding her conceiving and bearing a child, are if anything much more crucially Dostoevskian than those of the other two upper-class mothers who bore Dmitri (Adelaida), and Ivan and Alyosha (Sofya). Lizaveta was a poor, retarded, homeless beggar girl dressed in filthy rags who was held in general contempt by her betters. But the common people took care of her, and treated her with a kind of superstitious veneration, as if she was under God's special protection. This description should read as a sort of warning flag to Dostoevsky readers: he is once again framing the issue of how we treat the innocent among us, particularly our women, children, and mentally ill (Lizaveta is all these). A parallel can be made to Prince Myshkin's story about the Swiss peasant girl Maria in his earlier novel The Idiot. In that story, the prince is kind to a destitute, dishonored shepherdess (a figure in many ways similar to Lizaveta and other Dostoevsky heroines) who the "upright" citizens of the village demean and detest. But the prince's kindness and agape love flowing to Maria generates the kind of spiritual outflowing among the local children that is found in the last part of Brothers Karamazov, when Alyosha works with the boys to existentialize the church as a sort of youth fellowship. So Dostoevsky frames two outcomes to the "Lizaveta/Maria" motif of a helpless young woman in rags: one stemming from tender care in The Idiot's Maria story, and one from foul abuse in Fyodor Karamazov's sacrilegious rape of Lizaveta that produces her miserable death during Smerdyakov's unattended birth in the Karamazov bathhouse. By the way, the Lizaveta story is perhaps the most damning indictment of Fyodor's utter wickedness, which makes him eminently murderable - a theme explored by the defense lawyer Fetyukovich during Dmitri's trial. Clearly, Smerdyakov avenges his own sordid beginning, but that cannot be all of it. We are forced by the structural configuration of Smerdyakov's origin to ask what larger role he plays in this masterfully structured novel.
4. Smerdyakov does have a soul, but it is crippled and cannot be easily reached. The assertion that Smerdyakov has no soul needs further analysis. Certainly his foster-father Grigory tells him he is soulless, that he grew from the mold in the bathhouse. But is this Dostoevsky's comment on Smerdyakov, or Grigory, or the narrator, or us all? We can find evidence for a soul in many places: in Smerdyakov's obsessive interest in French culture, which reveals the intelligence his family disparages; in his devotion to Ivan, who he desperately seeks the approval of; in the ordinariness of his later domestic situation - living with a girlfriend and her family. Certainly he is cruel to animals and heartless to people. Certainly he lives like an outcast with little or no sociability. But the fact that he possesses some shred of conscience is displayed in his dealings with Ivan both before and after the murder. He gives Ivan an opportunity to "call off" the cryptically agreed upon murder of their father, but Ivan brushes him off, ambiguously giving an affirmative signal. Would a soulless person need such a go-ahead? He pleads with Ivan to acknowledge him and praise his actions when Ivan visits him after the murder. Would a soulless man need such human justification? Finally, when all he sees from Ivan is rejection, and all he sees from further life is guilt, shame, inferiority, and hiding his crime, he commits suicide rather than face that future. I think there is a good case to affirm that Smerdyakov had a soul, but it was crippled, and it was left untouched. By contrast, what might have happened if Ivan had truly connected with Smerdyakov unselfishly, like Alyosha would have, if he had been Smerdyakov's mentor? What if Ivan had urged him to confess the crime, and had offered to publicly admit his own complicity to the world, on Smerdyakov's behalf. Would such an action have changed the novel's ultimate catastrophe into a miraculous and cleansing redemption for them both?
5. Smerdyakov completes the existentialization of the crucifixion. Dreyfus argues that the crucifixion is distortedly represented by the suffering of Dmitri in the "right way" of opening up a positive message to others, vis a vis the suffering of Ivan in the "wrong way" of self-inflicted penance. Admittedly, they both bear their crosses, undergo temptation, prepare their hearts and minds through suffering, and get publicly humiliated in a near-death manner at the end of the book. But perhaps the key here is to look for three crosses. The story has it that one in the middle held Jesus, with two thieves on either side. One criminal scoffed at Jesus, and the other criminal believed. I propose Smerdyakov is the third embodied criminal hanging from a cross on Dostoevsky's existentialized Calgary. If Alyosha is the undefiled soul who escapes crucifixion by acting on the connectedness of all beings, if Dmitri is the noble heart of the innocent man whose very human body gets nailed to the middle cross like Jesus, and if Ivan is the criminal who at the very last minute sides with Dmitri and his spirit-keeper Alyosha, then perhaps Smerdyakov is the third criminal who spits at them all and dies unredeemed. This unredeemed death of a redeemable soul is, I believe, a central problematic for Dostoevsky and all serious Christians. As described, the fault was not his. Smerdyakov was no more guilty of murder than the others, perhaps far less guilty. He relied on the wrong man - on Ivan and the rational supremacy he admired so much. Smerdyakov represents those of us who follow the teachings of the most intellectual but misguided of our culture's leadership. Where Ivan represents the elite educated mandarin class, Smerdyakov represents the unlettered masses, the public sphere, the loyal enabler, the hit man of our modern civilization. If the existential Christianity Dostoevsky proposes cannot reach Smerdyakov, then it cannot save the world. Dostoevsky builds in the fatal flaw to his own construct, and, in my reading, uncovers a fundamental structural problem for posterity: how to save a Smerdyakov.
6. Smerdyakov requires a trip to Hell. Perhaps because all such "Smerdyakov souls" are too shrivelled, too deformed, too buried under their fathers' transgressions to ever actively reach out and grab the "onion chain" with which sinners pull other sinners out of the metaphorical lake of fire (or ice), using the immense potential of agape love as exampled by Alyosha, nothing remains but that they must suffer and die alone and without hope, unless we enter into their lived Hell to grab them first - the deed even Alyosha shirked. Otherwise, the redeemable die unredeemed, and thus it may well be that only the suffering death and mystical, practically un-demagicalizable, transmigration of an inspired innocent like Jesus will ever enable us to reach them, and then only if it thematizes the existential act of ultimate outreach. The central, vexing problem Dreyfus uncovers about Christianity in general, of how the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross could ever be construed as structurally, existentially, saving everyone else in the world, not through their own claustrophobic experience of suffering, but solely, impersonally, through the public demise of Jesus, may be explained in the three day side-trip which stone-dead Jesus made to "harrow Hell", there to muck about in search of the Gestas Smerdyakov, that scorned and sullen lackey who scoffed at his fellow sufferers, to tell him the good news of his existential innocence, and lift him up to stand with his brothers in the end.Tue, 08 Apr 2008 23:25:00 PDT
Whatever happened to the staff of experts that was supposed to be making sure that the Dreyfus 189 lectures would be available to the podcast community? Are they too busy girl watching to push the on/off button on a recording device? Or are we so entrapped with cheap foreign technology that breaks down at an inappropriate time in an inopportune way that we fail to make the occurrent available?
Evidently, Heidegger never typed any anything out, but gave his manuscripts to his affable brother Fritz, who typed them up. As a result, he was more familiar with his brother's work than most professional philosophers of the day. He did have a habit of stuttering when he got serious, hence the da-da-sein came into the world.
Fritz, where are you now? We might do better if someone would take their lecture notes and nail them to a tree.Tue, 08 Apr 2008 21:15:59 PDT
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