APLV: One Year

This blog is a little older than one year, in fact. More precisely this is my one year blogging anniversary. My fine and excellent co-blogger Mr. Northcutt most kindly suggested I share my thoughts and I have been most gratified for having done so, particularly in this place and in his esteemed company. Many thanks also to our wonderful readers and of course to those of you who comment here, especially Tom! Thank you so much for taking the time to read our work, reflect, and share your thoughts.

I hope everyone likes what we've done with the place. We certainly address diverse topics: Mozart, the Battle of Marathon, John Constable, and Iron Man. Perhaps we are too general for many folks, those who admire specialization. Well, in the words of Robert A. Heinlein, "Specializing is for insects!" (Exclamation mine.) I say that in part jest, knowing well how much scientific, artistic, and philosophical fruit was born from years and years of intense and focused study. "Play the lyre, but not too well," that is, "enjoy you hobby, but not at the expense of your craft" seems a prudent caution, but who can put aside Bach for Homer, Aeschylus for Shakespeare, and so forth? Perhaps simple balance is required. Exasperated at the variety of projects I had going I said to Mr. Northcutt not long ago, "I have Homer, sheet music to The Magic Flute, and battle plans for the Civil War on my desk!" (You'll find out why eventually.) Balance. Of course I hope the themes which run through the various essays are consistently evident.

Yet that's more of a personal aside. Regarding APLV, my concern was a little different. I did want not to become the go-to guy for a particular idea. It seems to me most writers have a shtick of one sort or another. If you want an argument for x, you turn so-and-so. You have the political partisans, statists and anarchists, multi-culturalists and nationalists, modernists and traditionalists, and so on. We pass over all of the cranks and variously unhinged people swinging around the branches of the web. I do not suggest an individual refrain from having firm opinions, far from it. Yet here too some people are simply obtuse and some have the opinion of the last person they spoke to.  Being a reasonable person requires, as I see it, neither rigidity nor malleability, but something more difficult: rational inquiry. Only consistent study, meditation and reflection on the world can give you a sense of the nature of things. Only a curiosity about that nature will get you to study. Only a desire for "a good life" will make you curious. Maybe we could have named the blog, "Reasonable, detailed, and enthusiastic inquiries into important matters for the purpose of leading a good life." It's only marginally longer.

That all sounds self-evident to some extent. Knowledge and doing good, it all sounds pretty obvious. Yet every so often someone makes a crack about philosophy and I recall that not everyone is so disposed. Nonetheless it is from this perspective which we inquire, not, to paraphrase Allan Bloom, from a desire to parade our intimacy with high culture. As such, while your humble bloggers are passionate about their ideas, as much as this blog is a discussion of them in the particular it is an affirmation about a way of life, what one might call that of the gentleman scholar. We've emphasized the scholar aspect, I'd like to touch on the notion of the gentleman.

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Conveying a gentlemanly tone was a tad more challenging. It involved in great part simply passing over the offensive and the foolish.  Please don't take this silence as consent. Every so often it requires passing over an interesting argument from an unpleasant person. I tend to note the page, return to it much later, and then discuss the issue in the abstract at some distance from the individual.

Not too long ago we discussed, in the context of legal systems, that a dialectical system of inquiry requires two people arguing opposing points and that a synthesis is the hoped-for result. Bearing that in mind, every so often you read an article or a comment thread and you want to shout at someone, "Can't you stop trying to prove your point and help me figure this out! I'm not trying to prove anything, I'm trying to discover something I don't yet know."

I do not think, though, we've done much shouting here. I've started a few essays and then discontinued them because I was getting too testy. Generally I never respond to anything immediately after I read it but rather I always try to wait some time and get some distance from it. Everything I think is of note gets bookmarked in a temporary folder. Every week I go through the folder and sift through the essays. It still surprises me at what seemed particularly egregious, fascinating, et cetera, at first glance last week.

Since I started writing here I'm sure I became more conscious as to what I would and would not say. Along with this consciousness came a realization that many people lack such a filter. I'm continually surprised, again, about the readiness with which people cut, quip, and quarrel. I think this careless contumeliousness invariably desensitizes one both to humorous drollery and honest criticism. It is curious how many modern educated people don't know when to remain silent. Some people seem, to paraphrase Bloom again, more concerned with speaking their mind than having their own mind. I do not know to what to attribute this lack of restraint in speaking, but it seems to me that an abiding but not relentless seriousness enhances the appeal of unbuttoning one's wit.  I hope we've not been too serious. Perhaps we seem a little more so because of the abyssal, abysmal, depths of frivolity to be found. Without bringing up a separate matter, humor and seriousness are complementary: one may seriously mock something or point out incongruities toward a serious purpose. Yet history affords us few of the likes of Aristophanes and Swift. Such work, I think, can be healthy for a society. I do not, though, think the incessant swiping and squawking one finds all-too-easily is pleasant or useful and I don't think it will be remembered.

Regarding popularity, I haven't assiduously kept track of the statistics. Nonetheless, the most popular essays have been:

• A Response to "Morals & the Servile Mind"
• On the Overture to Don Giovanni
• A Meditation on Joseph Epstein's "A Literary Education"

Is there anything we wrote, did, or abstained from which you particularly liked? Is there anything we ought or ought not to do? Is there anything in particular you would like to see, either particular articles or "threads." Would you like more about the Classical world?  Less on Mozart? (Not likely to happen, but you can tell me.) Current (not necessarily popular) culture commentary? Do you like the "Around the Web" roundup? I've reduced it to bi-weekly: is it missed? More movie reviews? More music analysis? Let us know.

Once again, many thanks to my good friend and collaborator Mr. Northcutt, and to our readers and those who have commented. We have many essays, series, and projects planned so please stay with us.  If you haven't joined the conversation please take the liberty. Also, please feel free to take a look at the articles in the archives and the wonderful sites in the blogroll. In the mean while, though, take a look back at my first post. For better and worse it still seems relevant.