| The Free Site | vBuddy - social networking for webmasters | Cheap Web Hosting - starting at $5 |
The facade of the jumbo parking lot across the street from downtown Kansas City's new Central Library will represent a gigantic bookshelf. The titles on the book spines will be selected by the library's trustees. The collection of titles will allegedly represent the mentality of Kansas Citians as determined by the trustees. I hereby personally recommend The Praise of Folly, by Desiderius Erasmus, to Jonathan Kemper and the board of trustees of Kansas City's library system. The reason's for my suggestion are adumbrated below. I stand by awaiting acknowledgement.
Kansas Citians are delighted to hear that all systems are go for the Spring opening of the "Jonathan Kemper Public Library" in the renovated First National Bank Building. Of course in all humility and with all due respect to others involved, Jonathan Kemper, president of Commerce Bank and prime mover of the library project, does not like to hear the new library across the street from his office called "Jonathan's library." But without Jonathan Kemper the library would never have happened: he stepped in and led the funding campaign, raising fifty millions when it became evident that the cheaper to operate and already paid for structure at 12th and Oak might be closed for want of funds. Thank you very much.
Speaking of funds, the Kemper family controls two large regional banks: Commerce Bancshares Inc., with assets of $ 13.3 billion, and UMB Financial Corporation, with assets of $ 8 billion. For better or worse, the Kemper family has dominated real estate development in Downtown Kansas City for many years.
The librarians will be glad to get out of the old Public Library and Board of Education building (architect: Edward W. Tanner). Completed in 1959, it is a glass-paneled box, an architectural "break from the past" that still gives absurd tribute with its limestone podium to the historical structures around it - the building is next to City Hall and the Metropolitan Police Headquarters among other public works of the Depression Era. The library has been taken over and "blighted" by vagrants. The historic Civic Center is inadequately policed and the library itself is mismanaged. The once modern building is, to put it bluntly, a dump - a reporter applied the term "fetid." The stacks in the basement - 67% of the collection - are inaccessible to the general public, yet vagrants still managed to use the sometimes flooded basement for a toilet. Since the library entity was spun off in 1988 from the Board of Education, the building has been inadequately maintained by the Board, much to the dismay of librarians concerned with the safety of the collection. It is with that in mind that a few librarians are concerned that Jonathan Kemper might be virtually privatizing the new library to the public detriment. However, they are not about to look a gift horse in the mouth too closely.
The newly renovated structure for the library, the Neo-classical and Renaissance First National Bank building at Tenth and Baltimore, was designed by Wilder & Wight (established 1904) - laterly Wight & Wight (1916). The Wight brothers, trained in Europe, were largely responsible for the introduction of Neo-classical architecture to Kansas City; for instance, City Hall (1937) and Jackson County Courthouse (1934). The squat, pillared First National Bank building (completed 1906) is being renovated under the direction of Howard, Needles, Tammen & Bergendoff (HNTB) - the architectural firm well known for two of Kansas City's most fabulous modern buildings, AT&T Town Pavilion and 1201 Walnut. The renovated edifice will serve as the museum center piece for the eight-block Library District -the most recent commercial real estate remake of the downtown area dominated by kansas City's Kemper family dynasty.
The sedate old bank lobby and the vault have been retained by Mr. Kemper. He has a liking for history and old bank lobbies: he already presides over the antique lobby of Commerce Bank. The old bank was once an imposing temple of Pluto, god of wealth and death, and it will hopefully serve as Missouri's ark of high civilization once Athena, goddess of wisdom and war, is properly installed. Since Pluto is god of the economic currency while Athena is goddess of the linguistic medium of exchange, we hope the relationship between Pluto and Athena will be amicable notwithstanding their liking for the death and war said to enhance their respective estates - a few scholars pose Athena as the goddess of defensive war, in contrast to her friend or brother or consort, Mars, god of offensive war.
Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam said Pluto is the Father of many things we hold dear, including Lady Folly. Wherefore Erasmus in his encomium to moriai (pun on Thomas More's name, resembling moriai, folly) puts these words in Dame Stultitia's mouth:
"Neither the first Chaos, Orcus, Saturn, or Japhet, nor any of these thred-bare, musty Gods were my Father, but Plutus, Riches; that only he, that is, in spight of Hesiod, Homer, nay and Jupiter himself, Divum Pater atque Hominum Rex, the Father of Gods and men; at whose single beck, as heretofore, so at present, all things Sacred and Prophane are turned topsie turvie. According to whose Pleasure War, Peace, Empire, Counsels, Judgments, Assemblies, Wedlocks, Bargains, Leagues, Laws, Arts, all things Light or Serious - I want breath - in short, all the publick and private business of mankind, is governed; without whose help that Herd of Gods of the Poet's making, and those few of the better sort of the rest, either would not be at all, or if they were, they would be but such as live at home and keep a poor house to themselves. And to whom hee's an Enemy, 'tis not Pallas her self that can befriend him: as on the contrary he whom he favors may lead Jupiter and his Thunder on a string.
"This is my father and in him I glory. Nor did he produce me from his brain, a Jupiter that sowre an ill-looked Pallas (Athene); but of that lovely Nymph called Youth, the most beautiful and galliard of all the rest."
Speaking of folly: given the small taxpayer base to support the expensive and the failure of past downtown revitalization projects, some businessmen think "Jonathan's library" as well as the Library District project might be better named "Kemper's Folly" absent continuous funding from various nonprofit foundations controlled by the local power elite who have vested interests in commercial development in the district. In the event that Mr. Kemper is in fact, loosely speaking, a moron ("fool"), "his" library might be more likely to succeed:
"Fortune loves those that have the least wit," sayeth Lady Folly, "for how can it be otherwise, when Fortune, the great Directress of all Humane Affairs, and my self are so all one that she was always an enemy to those wise men, and on the contrary so favorable to Fools and careless fellows, that all things hit luckily to 'em?
"Fortune loves those that have least wit and most confidence, and such as like that saying of Caesar, 'The die is thrown'. But Wisdome makes men bashful, which is the reason that those Wise men have so little to do, unless it be with Poverty, Hunger, and Chimny-corners; that they live such nelglected, unknown and hated lives; whereas Fools abound in money, have the chief Commands in the Common-wealth, and in a word, flourish in every way....
"If Wealth is to be got, how little good at it is that Merchant like to do, if following the Precepts of Wisdom he should boggle at Purjury; or being taken in a lie, blush; or in the least regard the sad scruples of those Wise-men touching Rapine and Usury....
"In brief, go whither ye will, among Prelates, Princes, Judges, Magistrates, Friends, Enemies, from highest to lowest, and you'll find all things done by money; which, as a Wise man contemns it, so it takes a special care not to come near him."
Wherefore every Kansas City fool, including 'homeless' patrons, look forward with gratitude to the new library. But Kemper alone has not brought it to the community. To quote the flattery of the The Kansas City Star, who put these thoughts in his head:
"(Jonathan Kemper) hates that people call the library 'his.' Hearing the phrase inevitably prompts a withered, tolerant smile. Or he ignores it like a slight; slighting to the architects, slighting to the builders, slighting to the hundreds of others who work to make a big project happen."
As for the righteousness of the project: "We didn't do this for praise or anything other than it was the right thing to do," quoth Kemper.
Furthermore, stated The Kansas City Star, "There's no doubt that Kemper believes he knows what is 'right.' What works. What doesn't. He's spent his adult life looking at it with the scholarly focus of a Ph.D." Moreover, "And 'right' to Kemper means it works. It fits. It fits its use. It fits its neighborhood. It's lasting and it's natural, as if it were always there, as if it were always intended to be what it is, just as it embraces the people who use it."
"How they beat into people's heads," sayeth Lady Folly, "those Magnifical titles of Illustrious Doctors, Subitle Doctors, most Subtile Doctors, Seraphick Doctors, Cherubin-Doctors, Holy Doctors, Unquestionable Doctors, and the like; and the throw abroad among the ignorant people Syllogisms, Majors, Minors, Conclusions, Corollaries, Suppositions, and those so weak they are below Pedantry."
In respect to the Philosophers who are Doctors: "(They) look upon themselves as the onely Wise Men, and all others as Shadows. And yet how pleasantly do they dote while they frame in the heads innumerable worlds; measure out the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, nay and Heaven it self, as it were with a pair of Compasses; lay down the Causes of Lightning, Winds, Eclipses, and other the like Inexplicable Matters; and all this too without the least doubting, as if they were Nature's Secretaries, or dropt down among us from the Council of the Gods; while in the mean time Nature laughs at them and all their conjectures."
The Kansas City Star certanly boosted the new library and its Prime Mover with more than two full pages of coverage: the new library's physical features were described; an interview with Mr. Kemper was reported; negative gossip about Mr. Kemper from anonymous sources was thrown in to amuse the all-too-human readers. However, the front-page feature made no mention of what portion of the $50 million start-up cost if any will go towards improving the downtown collection, which, in my humble opinion, wants upgrading in several respects. In other words, the Star paid thousands of words obeisance to the physical structure and to Mr. Kemper, but no mention was made of the reason people used to go to libraries: books, hopefully the best collection money can buy. And this despite the continuous claims that Downtown Kansas City is a good place to move your corporate headquarters to because Kansas City is populated with the best and the brightest, the most creative and talented people in the world. What are they going to read?
Your fervent author is currently investigating allegations, all from librarians, that, contrary to the public claims in the press, the new library will have less space for the collection; that "two whole floors" at the old facility were deliberately not counted to create that impression; that the collection is being "dumbed-down to the mass-market" because of the space constraint and, most importantly, to suit the demand for the sort of customers the library expects downtown. During the course of this writer's investigation, he has discovered certain preliminary indications of serial bibliocide, and evidence that there might be an ongoing cover up corresponding to the shipping off of the severed bodies of evidence.
Just last Friday, on January 16, a public assistant at the downtown library's information desk reported that boxes of scholarly works had just been packed into boxes for disposal - a manifest of titles has been requested by your truly from the Deputy Director (1). The assistant said the books were being shipped to the University of Missouri pursuant to an ongoing "weeding" process which is bringing the collection in line with most customers. The assistant said that the library used to be used for research, but since there are so many universities and other libraries in the area, the public library is no longer needed for that particular purpose. Therefore, for example, the downtown library would need more room for popular novels, and it would, for instance, order a half-dozen Clancy novels instead of one or two. Furthermore, he pointed out that scholarly books not on hand may in some cases be optained on request, from a cooperating consortium of libraries, within a few weeks if not ten days.
That is fine and dandy as far as it goes, yet it still withdraws books from the immediate browsing area, and with bad consequences. Browsing, as any library patron knows, is conducive to his or her broader education. If books were not available for browsing, the public would be the worse off, especially that portion of the public who are in want of enlightenment via the critical process, and who are therefore subservient to the power elite supported by the salaried intelligentsia. And that is one reason why the constant refrain of the public library's 'Marketing' department, that "twice the number of books are available for browsing at the new location than the old," does not hold water for those books which were not available to browsers at the old location, and were withdrawn from the collection because they were seldom checked out.
Another Kansas City librarian, admired for her detached, serene view of controversial subjects, said that although she had not participated in the weeding process itself, she assumed the collection was simply being developed to suit the kind of institution the library was perceived to be, and that the guidelines of the American Library Association, the public librarians' professional association, were no doubt being assiduously followed by the administrators.
Another library assistant, on the second floor - the higher ranks are seldom seen downstairs with the rank and file, and they use a separate elevator to enter and exit the building - claimed that the collection development program had been and was a "collaborative process", yet your curious writer could not find a single person downstairs who had a direct hand in determining the ultimate policy; that was handed down, said one person, "by the higher ups."
Of course discrimination is the essence of the collector's business; some collections are much better than others. Meeting the popular demand from the "dumb" herd, who are supposed to prefer entertainment and recreation to serious study, is not the only consideration of the discriminating librarian who knows or should know that quantity is not equivalent to quantity even in our bigger-is-better culture. In fact, a library half the size of the present downtown library could be twice as effective once the desired effect is defined. If the master librarian has a higher education and ethic, she will collect elevating books for the best and the brightest, the most creative and most talented people allegedly in demand by corporate America. She would not want to simply cram the new space with junk food for the empirical, epicurean, democratic mass mind.
Our model librarian may be an inconspicuous, quiet type of person, yet she is a priestess of high civilization, a captain of its moral and mental ark. Today she is often accused of the serial mass-murder of the best books ever written - she will claim that she is not really the captain, that the ark is being steered to mass consumption and world war by chauvinistic men.
However that may be, we have here a microcosm of the historical struggle between the few and the many. In our case the librarian has to balance the needs of a minority, the intellectual elite, for profound works, with the demand of the masses for recreation, not only in the form of popular books but in the form of popular visual and sound media.
By way of illustration, your foolish writer turns back five centuries to two points of view, from the perspective of the producers of books, set forth by Desiderius Erasmus in his In Praise of Folly. Jonathan Kemper, the main sponsor of Kansas City's new Neo-Classical, Renaissance bank-library structure, may be seriously amused by Erasmian folly; for Erasmus, who loved books above all things, was perhaps the most important personage of the Renaissance, appearing at its acme, and was dedicated to the "new science, the restoration of the Classics, for the sake of universal peace obtained by non-violent means.
"(Of those) that hunt after immortality of Fame (sayeth Lady Folly) by setting out Books.... In the first (place) are they that do nothing but daub Paper with their empty Toyes. For they that write learnedly to the understanding of a few Scholers, and refuse not to stand the test of a Persius or a Laelius, seem to me rather to be pitied than to be considered happy, as persons that are tormenting themselves; Adding, Changing, Putting in, Blotting out, Revising, Reprinting, showing it to friends, and nine years in correcting, yet never fully satisfied; at so great a rate do they purchase the vain reward to wit, Praise, and that too of a very few, with so many watchings, so much sweat, so much vexation and loss of sleep, the most precious of all things. Add to this the waste of health, spoil of complexion, weakness of eyes or rather blindness, poverty, envy, abstinence from pleasure, over-hasty Old age, untimely death, and the like; so highly does the Wise man value the approbation of one or two bleary-eyed fellows...."
On the other hand, "But how much happier is this my Writer's dotage, who never studies for anything, but puts in writing what ever he pleases or what comes first in his head though it be but his dreams; and all this with small waste of Paper, as well knowing that the vainer these Trifles are, the higher esteem they will have for the greater number, that is to say all the fools and unlearned. And what matter is it to sleight those few learned, if yet they ever read them? Or of what authority will the censure of so few Wise men be against so great a Cloud of Gainsayers?"
There were no copyright laws in Erasmus' day, hence writers did their best to obtain some income from books sold by their printers and distributors, augmenting their income by frequently publishing revised editions of certain works - of course the most income was had by getting the jump on the market from the first edition by their printer. Creative authors supplemented their income by tutoring. They and other artists depended as well on patrons for their survival, hence we see much flattery flowing from their pens to same. Erasmus, with pathetic results, flattered his patrons with sophisticated "begging-letters" and gave good reasons besides his survival for doing so; but he eventually became the brightest star in letters, standing for the spiritual unity of the political cosmos: popes and princes sought his audience; an original letter from his pen was treasured, copies to be duly published for public edification.
It was with that in mind that your moron (loosely speaking, a "fool") appealed to Jonathan Kemper for the funding of a sort of contest to determine the titles of the huge book-spines he plans to have affixed the face of the new jumbo-parking building next to the library.
"The biggest question is," stated Mr. Kemper, setting forth his selection philosophy, "is not what titles to select, but what we want those titles to say to the community."
I proposed some time ago that the community be involved in what is said to the community. To wit: the submission of essays, each one recommending a title; the winners to be selected not only on the basis of writing quality but also on the merits of the argument set forth; each winner to receive an honorarium of $500. In the event the same winning title is submitted by several writers, the best writing would win $500 for that title.
Of course my submission is The Praise of Folly.
Thursday, February 12, 2004
This thing of Warring is no part of Philosophy, but managed by Parasites, Pandars, Cut-throats, Plow-men, Sots, Spendthrifts and such other dregs of Mankind, not philosophers
Waiting on the Wealthy
by David Arthur Walters
I am awaiting Jonathan Kemper's response to my suggestion that a contest be held to determine what titles are to adorn the front wall of the new library's jumbo-parking lot. Mr. Kemper - member of the Kemper family dynasty, president of Commerce Bank, a godfather of downtown Kansas City's renaissance - is the prime mover of the downtown library into the renovated, Renaissance neoclassical style First National Bank building across the street from his office - the new library is the inspiring centerpiece of the commercial Library District real estate project. Mr. Kemper had stated, "The biggest question is not what titles to select, but what we want those titles to say to the community." Therefore I have suggested that We The Community be included in our patron's "we." I referred him to my favorite title, The Praise of Folly, by the humanist Desiderius Erasmus.
Perhaps I should not hold my breath while waiting for Mr. Kemper's determination. After all, according to The Kansas City Star, "people have described him as dismissive" and as an "uninterested listener." I certainly hope he has not dismissed my idea, or, if he has done so, I hope he will give me his reason therefor. I have good reason for hoping that he will respond, for he and I have much in common: first of all, he is a bookish person who loves history. Furthermore, I too come off as "cerebral" "pompous" "stuffy" "righteous" "presumptuous" "dismissive" and so on. Of course my friends say, "That's just Dave," and Jonathan's friends say, "That's just Jonathan." We are both introverts who practice "unnatural" extroversion, yet we are "funny" and sometimes we watch The Simpsons. Jonathan's anonymous detractors attribute his traits to wealth, wherefore I must see my father and question my paternity - perhaps I was born rich and the stork laid me at the wrong doorstep.
A Kansas City businessman has told me that my own recommendation, The Praise of Folly, should be dismissed because the author, Erasmus of Rotterdam, was not an American, and that only United States authors should be privileged to have their titles on the walls of a library's parking lot.
Of course the United States of America had not yet been been conceived during Erasmus's lifetime. Of course the discovery of the New World was the talk of Europe, but Erasmus said next to nothing about it in writing; methinks because he was most interested in the Classical World that inspired the Renaissance, for the Classical was considered by humanists to be vastly superior to almost everything medieval - particularly the barbarous and irrational Gothic culture. His biographer Stefan Zweig said that Erasmus the book-lover loved the art of book-making most of all.
"Erasmus loved many things," Zweig wrote, "which we ourselves are fond of; he loved poetry and philosophy, books and works of art, language and peoples; he loved the whole of mankind without distinction of race or colour, loved it for the sake of a higher civilization. One thing alone did he wholeheartedly detest and that was fanaticism, which he looked upon as contrary to reason. He himself was the least fanatical of mortals.
We do well to reiterate that Erasmus loved books very much. He believed that reading and writing would save the world from, from the top down. He visited a town or city because it had an excellent library and a clean inn nearby with good food and, even more important than food, fine wine. And scholars and princes often visited that place because Erasmus, the star of letters, was there.
True, Erasmus was not an American - of course not. And neither is the Renaissance style a specifically American style. Americans did not invent Greek columns and Roman arches and domes and other things classical. Erasmus in fact was a cosmopolitan, a Christian humanist who abhorred fanatic nationalism and religious bigotry, and that is one good reason for placing his name by the neoclassical facade of the new Kansas City Library, underneath the title The Praise of Folly - a satire wherein Madame Stultitia made a fools out of warmongers and bigots among others, including his own type, the scholar and wise man. A broken-down knight and highway robber by the name of Ulrich von Hutten, in Expostulatio cum Erasmo, called his former friend Erasmus a fickle, fortune-hunting coward who had betrayed protestant evangelism. Erasmus replied with a sponge, to soak up Hutten's aspersions, Spongia adversus Hutteni, wherein he stated his aversion to partisanship:
"In many books, in many letters, in many disputations, I have unfalteringly declared that I refuse to mix myself in the affairs of any party whatsoever...." Again, "I love freedom and I will not and cannot serve any party."
We might as well quote a child of the French Enlightenment, Thomas Jefferson, in that context. Jefferson, claimed by both the Democratic and Republic parties as their alma pater, quoth:
"I am not a federalist, because I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all." (Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, Paris, March 13, 1789)
Erasmus knew that the German Lutheran movement would lead to a national church instead of his desired ecclesia universalis. He eventually charged Luther with throwing the "apple of discord" into the world, inspiring the Peasant Rebellion and bloody reprisals. Early on, in reply to Luther's flattering letter of March 28, 1519, he wrote, "I refuse to have anything to do with party." Further, "So far as may be, I wish to keep neutral in order to do my share in promoting the renascent sciences; and I believe a shrewdly manipulated reticence will achieve more than impetuous interference."
Recognizing Erasmus in the Heart of America would be particularly apt given the recent drift of the United States to that right-wing, anti-democratic public and private corporatism loosely associated with 'fascism' (see Oxford English Dictionary) by those Europeans who are more mindful of fascism's horrors during the last century. Most of the world was recently outraged that the United States government officially spat in its face three times, then proceeded with pre-emptive belligerence against its will in order to save the the world whether the world liked it or not. Intelligent people all over the world were dismayed by the behavior of the president, whom they perceived as a fanatic and bigot who was in the pocket of big corporations eager to profit from destruction and reconstruction ("creative destruction"); and they were appalled that Junior Bush, like Hitler, was so popular with his people that they initially gave him a blank check to proceed at will; however, his nationalism did not include socialism, and unemployment soared as the rich soaked the poor even more.
The few United States citizens who protested against the Bush administration's drive to pre-emptive war were called traitors. Many were fired from their jobs on pretexts. Entertainers who dared to speak out against the administration were penalized economically. Deja vu.
"It comes to this," wrote Erasmus in Complaint of Peace, "that if one ventures to open his mouth against war he is looked upon as not much better than a brute beast, as a fool, and as being unchristianly." And, "The Plaint of Peace is rejected by all the nations and peoples of Europe, and driven forth and slain." As for the hatred between English, French, and German, "Why do such foolish names still exist to keep us sundered, since we are united in the name of Christ?"
In his Dedicatory Epistle to Elmer Davis, Hendrick Willem van Loon writes about the destruction of Rotterdam by the Nazis, and how Erasmus' home there would no doubt be destroyed in the conflagration, for Hitler care for nothing, he was no recognizer of persons, his violence was indiscriminate:
"(Erasmus) wanted mankind to be set free from fear and disaster by being set free from his own ignorance; he hoped for a world in which intelligence, common sense, good manners, tolerance and forbearance should dominate the scene instead of violence, ignorance, prejudice and greed. We now realize that he made a fatal mistake which prevented him from being victorious. He began with the top of the pyramid of enlightenment, whereas he should have begun with the bottom."
As for war, Lady Folly observed, "This thing of Warring is no part of Philosophy, but managed by Parasites, Pandars, Cut-throats, Plow-men, Sots, Spendthrifts and such other Dregs of Mankind, not Philosophers." Furthermore, "War is so Savage a thing that it rather befits Beasts than Men, so outrageous that the very Poets feigned it came from the Furies, so pestilent that it corrupts all men's manners, so injust that it is best executed by the worst of men, so wicked that it has no agreement with Christ; and yet, omitting all the other, they (Christian leaders) made this their only business. Here you'll see decrepit old fellows acting the parts of young men, neither troubled at their costs nor wearied at their labours, nor discouraged at anything, so they may have the liberty of turning Laws, Religion, Peace and all things else quite topsie turvie. Nor are they destitute of their learned Flatterers that call palpable Madness Zeal, Piety, and Valour, having found out a new way a man can kill his brother without the least breach of that Charity which, by the command of Christ, one Christian owes another." (The Praise of Folly)
Erasmus admitted that men are by nature violent, but, he observed, small-scale violence burns out unless fanned by an ideal, by some fanatic ideology of a part posing as the whole, enlisting men to mass organized murder in its name. Of course the highest thinkers of high civilization strive for the liberal Universal that peacefully comprises the particulars, instead of imposing a particular perspective upon all as a false universal, absurd the moment that it is proposed, because its assertion of the part contradicts the rest of the whole. Indeed, the nature of reason itself is to generalize, to mediate, to find similarities among differences, to arrive at a consensus or reasonable compromises, all the while remaining scientifically skeptical of any final solution proposed. Liberty for all under the law means that no particular faction or fraction, whether it be a minority or a majority, will be allowed to lord it over the rest as tyrant.
With that in mind, I have no doubt that Kansas Citians should feel free to adorn their new library with a title of a book written by Erasmus, a foremost cosmopolitan humanist who graced the world at the acme of the Renaissance, a period whose architecture represented a return to a well balanced, rational order of peace and tranquility. Not that Erasmus was a pagan: he was a Christian scholar. But he was not a bigoted Christian: he was an eclectic who recognized the truth of the Christian ideal wherever he found it, including in 'Saint Plato's works. Erasmus admired the Sermon on the Mount most of all. He contributed to the translation of Greek scripture; for instance, he was attacked for omitting from his bible a pious fraud - the Trinity -perhaps interpolated in John by Priscillian (A.D. 380) - not a single Greek document included the Trinity. He did not agree with the doctrine of original sin, but he did not care to engage in theological disputations on points of dogma.
Erasmus wrote a Christian handbook, Dagger (Handbook) of the Christian Knight. He perceived Christian humanism as a feudal order lead by an intellectual aristocracy. He advocated a sort of Christian activism: Christianity was a life, not a creed, and that life should imitate Christ, whose truth is related to the antique truths before him. The ethical and moral life lived is a life tempered by reason. Erasmus, then, was blessed with a synthesis of the piety of the German mystics - the devotio moderna of the Brethren of the Common Life among whom he was raised - and the virtually godless philosophy of the Florentine Platonic Academy. Preserved Smith put the dynamic dialectic this way:
"Widely different, indeed mutually hostile. as appeared the sources of the inspiration of the German mystics and the Italian humanists, both agreed in asserting, against the stiffening of the religion through dogma and organization, the claims of an inner, personal piety. The mystic, by emphasizing the role of the spirit, the other by cherishing the rights of reason, arrived at the point where theology and ritual alike were regarded as hindrances alike to the inner life, and where the ethical interest emerged uppermost." (Erasmus 1923)
In sum, Erasmus promoted Good Literature, the Philosophy of Christ, and Peace.
In contrast to Luther's fanaticism, nationalism, rigidity, revolution, irrationalism, militarism, and fatalism, Erasmus preached humanism, cosmopolitanism, versatility, reform, reason, peace, and free will.
Erasmus failed for the time being. His failure has been attributed to his belief that reform can be accomplished by reasonable means, from the top down, by educating the leadership. Although princes praised him and cited his pacific phrases, they hypocritcally made war. Our pseudo-conservative (neo-con) leaders supposedly have a better education; they speak of war as a necessary means to keep the peace or to resolve moral conflicts, peace being merely a brief interlude between wars. They believe that patriots should be loaded guns who will shoot on their command. And they manage their economic corporations anti-democratically, as if businesses were military enterprises - now engaged in a war in favor of the rich and against the poor and their own employees.
A renascimento is presently required, a resurrection of the human mind, of the free human spirit, in correlation with the downtown renaissance of Roman architecture and Greek columns. We recall that Greek democracy was limited to the small portion of the population who were Greek citizens. Our democracy is delimited to a very small portion of the population, the power elite who represent or control the "democratic republic." Families and clans have always vied for power over nations and states. Certain family dynasties managed, by virtue of intellect, force of arms, and inheritance to maintain their dominant influence for centuries.
The Medici family of bankers and city bosses are interesting in our context, for they expended vast sums financing the Renaissance - from a financial perspective, the expenditures were foolish. Cosimo the Elder, by the way, sponsored the first public library in Florence. He also sponsored Brunelleschi's famous dome project among other great things - the architect was called a fool by some of his own masons.
Cosimo the Elder and Lorenzo the Magnificent worked to undermine republican institutions and to establish a New Rome in Florence. They favored their friends and the lower classes, ruling as a sort of mafioso. The Medician New Rome was resented of course not only by republican leaders from other families but by the likes of Savoranola - he hated the vain licentiousness of the Renaissance, and worked to establish a theocracy, a New Jerusalem. The Medici family lasted nearly four centuries; now extinct, its influence lives on everywhere, including downtown Kansas City, Missouri, where local family dynasties, led by the Kemper banking dynasty, have cooperated to finance the new $50 million library. Kansas Citians are glad to have it despite their urban cynicism and the protest of unknown artists, architects, and writers whose suggestions were dismissed offhand. Lady Folly has already said that "Jonathan's buidling" will succeed because he is a fool.
"The Renaissance," said Stefan Zweig, "was the result of the triumph of commerce (by means of money and credit) over the earlier medieval method of trading by barter.... the way in which it usually made itself manifest was by an outbreak of widespread interest in architeture.... When they (patrons) presnted their townsmen with a new hospital, or a new church, these were evidences of their desire for learning, their respect for true scholarship, their love of beauty." (The Arts 1937)
Mystically speaking, time is unreal.
Wealthy patrons who speak of downtown revitalizations and renaissances and whose power and prestige and real estate values are enhanced by monumental charitable works deserve to be praised for their folly. Therefore, when selecting the titles to adorn the parking lot, I suggested that We The Community be included in our patron's "we," and referred him to my favorite title, The Praise of Folly.
Quoted:
The Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, New York: Walter J. Black, Classics Club 1942
The Kansas City Star, January 4, 2004, 'Vision Turns a Bank Into a Grand Library
The Best Title
"The biggest question is not what title to select, but what we want those titles to say to the community." Jonathan Kemper
Your foolish journalist has thrice submitted the title The Praise of Folly to Jonathan Kemper's secretary for his consideration as one of the titles to decorate the jumbo parking garage next to the renovated 'Neoclassical' and 'Renaissance' bank building which will serve as the ark for Missouri's high civilization once the downtown Kansas City Public Library is relocated therein. Furthermore, your devoted clown has recommended that the alfresco method - in widespread use during the heavily walled Romanesque period and revived during the early Renaissance - be employed to embed the titles in the garage wall (mur), thus making the mural a lasting part of the architecture. Moreover, your serious jester urged Jonathan Kemper to review the names sculpted on the frieze of the century-old Renaissance-style library building at Ninth and Locust, and then consider what he wanted to tell the community a century from today with his titles. For his edification to that end, an article on that very subject, written by his most subservient joker, also most truly yours, was recommended to him along with various other, perhaps impertinent, articles on the subject - those articles will be sent along via email provided his secretary dares to disclose her or his email address.
Incidentally, this fool has already sent along copies of his articles via blind (confidential) email to those persons he thought might be most interested: the librarians at the downtown Kansas City Library. A few librarians have anonymously provided scandalous information to Downtown Kansas City, and foolish attempts are still being made to verify the veracity of the sources. One librarian has asked that his name be removed from the blind librarian list - Criticism of the Policies and Practices of Kansas City Missouri Public Librarians - stating that the subject is of no interest to him.
A man who literally subscribes to the subject has questioned the recommendation, The Praise of Folly, stating that he has never heard of the book, and that the community might get the wrong message and commit itself to folly. In response to which your favorite (hopefully) moron once again quoted Lady Folly's view, that nothing would get done without her, and referred the gentleman to the journal entry 'Mystical Real Estate Development.'
The Praise of Folly has in fact been familiar to book lovers for several centuries. Even those few Lutherans left who still hate scholarly works know the title well; or at least they know the author by name, for Luther once said to his friends, "When I pray, 'Blessed be Thy Holy Name', I curse Erasmus and his heretical congeners who revile and profane God." Erasmus, in turn, said that he, Erasmus, had caused humanists to celebrate Christ, but Luther then appeared and threw his "apple of discord" into the world.
Erasmus, for one thing, blamed Luther for the Peasant's Revolt, and Luther was proud of being the cause of the rebels' deaths. "I, Martin Luther," attested Luther, "have slain all the peasants who died during the rebellion, for I goaded authority to the slaughter. Their blood be on my head." Indeed, he had urged the princes to "stab and kill" the peasants whom he had inspired and who had revered him so greatly as a leader: "Those who rally to the side of the princes will become holy martyrs; those who fail, will go to the devil; therefore let all who can, both in public and private, strike down and strangle these miscreants, bearing ever in mind that there is nothing more poisonous, more noisesome, more devilish, than a man who incites the people to insurrection." Furthermore, "The donkey needs a thrashing, and the brute populace must be governed by brute force." Of course Luther stated Christ authorized the killing with, "I come not in peace but with a sword."
Years before Luther penned De servo arbitrio, his notorious response to Erasmus' temperate missive in favor of the pacific pursuit of reform, Luther believed that Germans should go berserk, "I do not think," he wrote to Spalatinus, "that the cause can be carried to a successful issue without tumult, vexation, and insurrection. You cannot make a quill pen out of a sword, nor change war into peace. God's word is war and vexation and destruction, it is poison. Like a bear in the path, like a lioness in the jungle, it attacks the sons of Ephraim." Yet he advised the authorities to kill the peasants, led by Munzer, flying the rainbow banner of God's covenant.
When confronted with his contradictions, Luther attributed them to "God's mysteries."
As for pacifism, the world's greatest bigot and hypocrite wrote to Erasmus, "Let be with your complaining and clamor (for peaceful reform); against such a fervor no medicine can prevail. This war is our Lord God's war. He has unchained it, and never will it cease raging until all the enemies of His word has been wiped from the face of the earth. " And Luther said to his friends, "I intend to kill Satan (Erasmus)" just as I slew Munzer, whose blood is on my head."
Erasmus once remarked of the clerical quibbling, prevarication and hypocrisy of his day, "These words 'Evangel', 'God's Truth', 'faith', 'Christ', 'spirit', are perpetually spilling from their mouths, and yet I see many of them so conducting themselves as if they were possessed of the devil." And, in a letter to Zwingli, Erasmus took issue with the errors of Luther's irrational doctrine: Luther denied the merits of free will; he asserted that all good works are mortal sins; he insisted that justification comes from blind faith in God alone.
Erasmus is best known among bookish people for his The Praise of Folly, which was well received by all except the clerics - princes were much amused by being made the butt of jokes by Lady Folly, who gladly served the purpose of a court clown. This foolish cub reporter for Downtown Kansas City was fortunate to stumble over a copy of the book again. Many book lovers have recommended it over the years. For instance, the eminent historian, illustrator, radio commentator, and journalist Hendrik Willem van Loon, best known for The Story of Mankind (made into a movie staring Groucho Marx), admired Erasmus of Rotterdam - Van Loon hailed from Rotterdam.
"I have spent more than a half-century reading books...," wrote van Loon in his prefatory biography of Erasmus, "and now I find myself face to face with the terrible problem of 'What in Heaven's name can I read that I have not already read a dozen times before?' The modern output is like a mighty river. At certain spots it is a veritable Rio de Plata, almost fifty miles wide but so shallow that ever crossing it in a rowboat throws up such quantities of mud that it begins to resemble the mighty Missouri in spring."
Hence van Loon returned to the hinterland creeks of his youth to take up the "highly explosive literary dynamite known the last four centuries and a half as The Praise of Folly. So did I.