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Quote of the Day – Meritocracy
“The SAT 50 years ago pulled a lot of smart people out of every little town in America and funneled them into a small number of elite institutions, where they married each other, had kids, and moved to an even smaller number of elite neighborhoods. We created the most effective meritocracy ever.”
“The problem with the meritocracy, is that it leeches all the empathy out of your society … The second you think that all your good fortune is a product of your virtue, you become highly judgmental, lacking empathy, totally without self-awareness, arrogant, stupid—I mean all the stuff that our ruling class is.”
— Tucker Carlson
Let me observe Carlson’s quote about meritocracy echoes something Tennyson wrote in the poem The Passing of Arthur:
The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
It is not our vices which are corrupting as it is our virtues carried to an extreme.
Published in General
The third part was the long-term memory portion. I don’t remember it either.
Oh, dear. I’m actually a little embarrassed by the video abstracts. I think they’re pretty lousy, and I should probably redo them at some point!
Sounds good to me! I haven’t read the poem; outside of philosophy, a bit of theology, a little bit of select literature, and sci-fi tv (if that counts) I’m pretty uncultured.
Your exposition sounds awesome. I may need to read the poem now.
Re # 92
Thank you.
What you say in the video I saw increased my curiosity about your paper. So how bad could it be ?
Ok. Sorry. Can’t read that poem. Computer slow and almost impossible to use. Supposed to Skype with Hong Kong in 17 minutes. Have to cycle to the office. Kids distracting.
It isn’t going anywhere. But don’t forget to watch it sometime. I just have a strong hunch you and Keats are saying the same thing in different ways.
Now I’ll go read your paper to see if I still think so.
Hey, I made it to the office, and the computer’s a bit better now. I opened up a Chrome tab with the poem in it.
are these pearls of wisdom shared somewhere on the web?
Well . . . yeah. On Ricochet.
Seawriter
Re comment # 96
Forgot to say this: All 4 of the important characters in the poem are praying or reminded to pray.
The Beadsman is praying.
Angela tells Porphyro that she prayed for him every morning and evening. (I’m more than half convinced Angela IS Madeline. Porphyro IS the Beadsman. On the surface, the poem tells a gost story.)
Porphyro is instructed by Angela to kneel in prayer.
Madeline is seen by Porphyro praying.
Ok, I’m finished Skyping Hong Kong (till Wednesday), and have read the poem. Wonderful poem. Perhaps a bit scandalous. I would need time to sift through the voices in my head representing the likes of Augustine, @andrewklavan, and any number of Southern Baptist pastors.
It could be that the characters in the poem represent the Platonic parts of the soul, as you suggest in # 90. I really couldn’t say. But I imagine Keats did know that bit of Plato; he was, I daresay, properly educated much as Lewis was.
Even if he was not thinking of the Platonic soul, the characters may still represent much the same aspects of the human being as Plato was talking about.
If so, your observation in #99 about prayer is significant. Keats would represent the Augustinian move: the baptizing of Plato. These aspects of the human being are there, and they need to be rightly ordered, but order within the soul is only possible if the soul is rightly ordered in relation to God.
Say, that reminds me of a book.
I tried searching for mensa and seawriter and only came up with this post.
And it looks like you have 369 conversations started.
Must be one (or more) of those.