Advice to Myself: Small Things

When you fail at something, do not sulk, that is, do not spiral down into powerlessness. If you know the causes of your defeat, prepare and try again. If you do not, then stop to reflect and while you reevaluate your failure, go succeed at something else, even if it is small. Write an article, clean the gutters, put in a nail in something, but give yourself some small success.

When you succeed at something, do not gloat, i.e. be excessively satisfied. Measure your success against the value you have made, what it has cost you, and what you owe in thanks to fortune and to others. While you seek a new project, do small things well to stay humble.

Advice to Myself: What Twitter is Not

Twitter is not a tool to gain the favor of people by praising them or their work. Nor is it a place for you to maneuver your own work to their attention. Your blog likewise ought to be inhospitable to such flattery.

Such use will reduce the purpose of everything you write to gaining popularity, either for fame itself or for money, and all the more often will you turn away from your life and toward these online places for satisfaction.

Look to what foolishness even solid minds and good men have been reduced! Picking fights with strangers, spending hours crafting insults, arguing with no hope of resolution, betraying their life's privacy. . . if only they could see what the vain hope of popularity has taken from them, or perhaps the void which such pursuit has filled.

So what is Twitter and your blog to you? A place to reflect wisely on what matters most to you. Let not reflecting on life—a very good and necessary thing—become all of life, and let not the business of sharing those reflections overshadow them.

Even the philosopher, if you are such a thing, is not only a philosopher.

Advice to Myself: Splinters

One of the most necessary lessons of moral philosophy is contained in this question: why do you see the straw in the eye of your brother and not in your own? It is, however, a great and ongoing challenge to apply this lesson wisdom.

On the one hand, it is very easy to pardon the errors of another when they are the same as yours. This is so first because such errors are obvious to us and second because by forgiving others we hope to welcome our own absolution. Yet it is no less important, and much more difficult, to forgive a man for falling into those errors from which you have yourself steered clear. It is easy to look at a man overcome by lust or gluttony and say, "What a weak-willed fool!" simply because you have overcome such weaknesses, if you were even tempted by them.

Yet what about your inability to curb your tongue or your temper? Or to treat others generously or be patient? "What a weak-willed fool!" you should be called for those struggles of yours if you fail to see that each man struggles with a different part of life.

On the other hand, it is easy from this position to fall to the facile conclusion that no judgments are possible. Given the gravity of man's life, it would be desirable if we could abdicate judgment and permanently defer to a higher authority. For man's soul we can do this, for it will be judged by a perfect wisdom.

We do not, however, have recourse to that perfect wisdom regarding every matter on this earth, and to defer all judgments would lead to utter immorality and disorder. The affairs of this world require choices, so instead of refusing to judge, undertake the responsibility of judging wisely, that is to say, with clemency, impartiality, and the humility to realize that even the wise and good do not sit so high above others that they may not err in judgment, especially if they judge without the aforementioned virtues or if they judge without full knowledge of the facts.

Both of those situations are quite likely, too, so also be not so eager to throw down the fates of others, but judge to bring about the good. That is, neither judge nor spare judgment to flatter your sense or superiority, but do each in the service of some other good.

The Alt-Right Owns Antiquity?

I've been meaning to write about this matter for a while, but this article by Curtis Dozier of Vassar College in Eidolon, an "online journal for scholarly writing about Classics that isn’t formal scholarship," edited by Mark Zuckerberg's sister, Donna Zuckerberg, got me thinking anew: where is the politics of Classics in 2017?

Eidolon's article, in its jejune way, raises some red flags when it asserts that, "the alt-right owns antiquity online," as its justification for compiling a database "to stand up against hateful appropriations of antiquity online."

On the one hand, this seems like a tempest in a teapot. My sense of the situation, unscientific to be sure, is that the left, especially the academic left, is spooked by the political rumblings of the last year and is trying to exorcise and purify its domains. With great reluctance it is realizing that it does not own the internet.

On the other hand, the matter may be quite serious.

First, the statement that "the alt-right owns antiquity online" is a probably a substantial exaggeration. Classics online, or anywhere, is not vital at all, it seems to me. (By vital I mean something that is healthy, active, and growing.)

Second, with respect to interest, it might be possible that the alt-right is right now more passionate about classics than is the left today.

Third, I'm not sure whether compiling a database will do more harm than good. A few weeks ago Jordan B. Peterson asked via a Twitter poll whether a website, and I am paraphrasing from memory, that would catalog neo-Marxist courses online, would do more good or harm. The giddy, hysterical, adolescent tone (and content) of the Eidolon article suggests to me the creators of "Pharos" have not publicly asked this crucial question.

Will a database work, ultimately, for or against debate, for or against free speech? Dozier wrote that he wanted to respond "Not to try to change the minds of those we were responding to, but so that the curious public would have access to a better way of understanding the past," but to what demand of public curiosity will Pharos respond? Too, in the absence of such curiosity, what will Pharos become?  Finally, why not try to engage people and change their minds? Why wouldn't that be preferable?

Maybe instead of compiling a database for the explicit purpose of not engaging ones adversaries, Dozier, Zuckerberg, and the staff of Eidolon should get out in the trenches, summon up the blood, bring their vaunted knowledge of the ancient world to their tongues, and debate their opposition in public in the real world in the spirit of antiquity.

Lessons for Teachers #7: Five Cheating Anecdotes

To close out the topic of cheating in this series, here are a few cheating-related anecdotes from my years teaching Latin.

1. in flagrante delicto

One of the most memorable incidents occurred early in my teaching career when a student tried to cheat using his cell phone. When I walked toward him he proceeded, hilariously frantic, to pull the phone out from its hidden position, rip off its cover, and pluck out the battery. Even he chuckled when he realized what he had done. I wish I had taken the opportunity to teach the phrase in flagrante delicto.

2. A Pair of Nickers

I once taught two juniors who were thick as thieves and, as I look back, alarmingly devious. When I contemplate their antics, today I would cross the street to avoid them. The catch is that one had a grade of A and the other was failing, with the former abetting the other. As a neophyte teacher I fell prey to some clever gimmicks. The funniest was when the failing student completed a test so sloppily that it was illegible and who, when questioned, replied that he completed the test with a monstrously broken pencil, which he produced in all its mangled glory. The worst scam was when that same student didn't hand in a test and alleged I had lost it. Both I and an administrator were taken aback at his temerity.

Eventually I had them figured out, but in the end they got the better of me when they conspired to cheat during the final exam, correctly surmising that they could pull the wool over the eyes of the proctor. The failing student hadn't passed many tests that year, but he did manage to score 100% on the final!

3. New Leaves

The same year I taught the above juniors I caught two freshman cheating a few weeks before the end of the year. My clever ruse, of which I was very proud, was that, having spied their cheating off of paper on their seats, I would ask them to get up and open a window. They were, in fact, good kids who had made a bad choice to cheat but they were not deceitful by nature, so when I deployed my scheme they complied and let the chips fall. They were mortified and apologized repeatedly and profusely, but they grew up to be gentleman and scholars I'm proud to have taught.

4. Lost Keys

I handed out the key with the test not once, but twice. The first time it was promptly returned to me by a first rate student who was holding it at a distance, averting his eyes. His integrity impressed the whole class. He also was, I think, one of the best students and young men who walked through the doors of that school in my years there.

Now for the cheating. The second time I handed out the key I had to retrieve it, but also from an A+ student. He was otherwise a good kid, but he had that key tucked under his test and blushed when I came to get it. Still disappoints me.

5. Quintus Cicero's Guide to Engineering

At the very beginning of one student's freshman year, I accidentally left review material projected on the board as I handed out the quiz. It was the frantic attempt of this student greedily copying down answers that alerted me to my error.

Later, in his junior year, I returned a guided reading assignment on Cicero. All the student had to do was fill in the blanks of a summary of an article on Cicero. The article included a comment on Quintus Cicero, the brother of the famous orator, and the pamphlet Quintus had written about how to get elected, aka the process of electioneering.

I had known something odd was going on with the take-home assignments, but I could not pin down exactly what it was until I graded the project of this particular student, who had filled in one particular blank, "Cicero's brother Quintus wrote a guide to engineering for his brother..."

Upon reading that I realized that the odd answers I had been noticing on the projects were the results of students copying the work of others, but misreading their sloppy handwriting and thus writing down answers that read as nonsense in the context.

–

If there is an upside to cheating it is that the results are usually futile and quite funny.

Quote: The Carthaginian Who Said No to War

from Livy's Ab Urbe Condita. Book 21.

Translation by Bruce J. Butterfield

21.3 ... The soldiers led the way by bringing the young Hannibal forthwith to the palace and proclaiming him their commander-in-chief amidst universal applause. Their action was followed by the plebs. Whilst little more than a boy, Hasdrubal had written to invite Hannibal to come to him in Spain, and the matter had actually been discussed in the senate. The Barcines wanted Hannibal to become familiar with military service; Hanno, the leader of the opposite party, resisted this. "Hasdrubal's request," he said, "appears a reasonable one, and yet I do not think we ought to grant it" This paradoxical utterance aroused the attention of the whole senate. 

He continued: "The youthful beauty which Hasdrubal surrendered to Hannibal's father he considers he has a fair claim to ask for in return from the son. It ill becomes us, however, to habituate our youths to the lust of our commanders, by way of military training. Are we afraid that it will be too long before Hamilcar's son surveys the extravagant power and the pageant of royalty which his father assumed, and that there will be undue delay in our becoming the slaves of the despot to whose son-in-law our armies have been bequeathed as though they were his patrimony? I, for my part, consider that this youth ought to be kept at home and taught to live in obedience to the laws and the magistrates on an equality with his fellow-citizens; if not, this small fire will some day or other kindle a vast conflagration." 

21.4 Hanno's proposal received but slight support, though almost all the best men in the council were with him, but as usual, numbers carried the day against reason. 

21.10 The result was that, beyond being received and heard by the Carthaginian senate, the embassy found its mission a failure. Hanno alone, against the whole senate, spoke in favour of observing the treaty, and his speech was listened to in silence out of respect to his personal authority, not because his hearers approved of his sentiments. He appealed to them in the name of the gods, who are the witnesses and arbiters of treaties, not to provoke a war with Rome in addition to the one with Saguntum. "I urged you," he said, "and warned you not to send Hamilcar's son to the army. That man's spirit, that man's offspring cannot rest; as long as any single representative of the blood and name of Barca survives our treaty with Rome will never remain unimperilled.

You have sent to the army, as though supplying fuel to the fire, a young man who is consumed with a passion for sovereign power, and who recognises that the only way to it lies in passing his life surrounded by armed legions and perpetually stirring up fresh wars. It is you, therefore, who have fed this fire which is now scorching you. 

Advice to Myself: Spare Yourself

Spare yourself concern for the comings and goings of inferiors. To follow them and resent their unwise but carefree wanderings is a dark path. So is resenting them the praise that other fools lavish upon them. What do you want with the praise of fools? Spare yourself this madness.

Yet driven as we all are by desire for praise, seek neither to court the favor of great men. You will grow to resent a life you do not understand and which is complete without you.

Instead, seek out those who are good and alike to you in virtue. In them, or in that one, you will have nothing sweeter. Wherever you turn, it will be present for you. So supported you will raise each other's spirits.

Quote: Vox Populi, Vox Dei

from Our Culture, What's Left of It, by Theodore Dalrymple

The crudity of which I complain results form the poisonous combination of an ideologically inspired (and therefore insincere) admiration for all that is demotic, on the one hand, and intellectual snobbery, on the other. In a democratic age, vox populi, vox dei: the multitude can do no wrong; and to suggest that there is or ought to be cultural activity from which large numbers of people might be excluded by virtue of their lack of mental cultivation is deemed elitist and, by definition, reprehensible. Coarseness is the tribute that intellectuals pay, if not to the proletariat, exactly, then to their own schematic, inaccurate, and condescending idea of the proletariat. Intellectuals prove the purity of their political sentiment by the foulness of their productions.

Six Frames from Stranger Things 2: Episode 6

Spoilers

I was skeptical of this thread thread introduced in the pilot, but it fit fairly well with Eleven's search for a family. The urban environment is cliché, yes, but the director made clever use of the background text, mostly graffiti, to comment on the scenes.

1. Spiritual Isor

As we see the vengeful anger of Eleven's "sister."

2. Pawn

As we see Eleven about to be used for her powers.

3. Wicked

4. Mek

That is, meek: with great power but choosing not to exercise it, after Eleven does just that.

5. O' Bedlam

Bedlam, that is, an insane asylum, from the popular name for the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem in London.

6.  Multidirectional Arrow

This image recurs and reflects Eleven being pulled in different directions, one of which is deformed.

Lessons for Teachers #6: Why Cheat?

Now that we have discussed why it is necessary to prevent cheating in the classroom we ought to address the next important matter on the subject: why does a student cheat?  One factor chiefly figures in determining whether a student will cheat, namely, whether it is easier than the alternatives.

Yes, before you ask, many kids find cheating abhorrent. They have been well raised and I have been honored to teach many such students. Of those who will cheat, some are devious and immoral and others simply succumb to despair and temptation. The former will always consider cheating a possible option and the latter will weigh with greater care to see if it is a viable alternative.

The first and most infamous of those alternatives is failing and needing to attend summer school. Don't underestimate how many summer school programs know this and make short and easy, and thus popular, summer courses. Those courses make failing a class a serious option for kids whose parents can afford it. For many though, the embarrassment and inconvenience of summer school is a deterrent.

The next alternative is the penalty for cheating. If either the amount of effort it would take to get away with cheating or the penalty for getting caught, which includes becoming known as a cheater, are too high, many students will reconsider trying to cheat. I say many and not most because cheaters are notorious for spending such amounts of time on ludicrous methods of cheating that it would have been easier simply to learn the material. Yet they may be tempted if left the opportunity.

If you are known not to care or if the administration is known to not support teachers' policies, cheaters have the opportunity. If you are known to police cheating but they think they can get away with it when, say, someone else proctors your midterm, cheaters have the opportunity. If you give a lot of work to be completed at home, that's their opportunity. If you don't evaluate assignments in detail, that's their opportunity. If you park yourself at your desk and browse the internet when you give tests, which is sadly very common, that's their opportunity.

The final alternative is learning the material. Because some classes and teachers are so bad it is necessary to say one thing bluntly: don't make your class such a mess that the students are bewildered and, having no idea what's going on, grow desperate to pass and turn to cheating. If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't say it.

Worse is that many of those bad teachers know their classes are disasters and instead of making improvements, simply make the classes so easy that no one can fail. Administrators often know this too but don't care because they don't get complaints from parents, and they don't get complaints because parents rarely complain about anything besides failures. It is easy to see a kid caught in a dilemma between parents and teachers who should know better.

Most students who cheat, however, simply find themselves in hot water and then see cheating as a way out. Such is why students tend to cheat a few weeks before the end of a marking period or before some kind of evaluation is sent home to parents, that is, they cheat when they realize they are doing poorly but there is not enough time to learn the material. At that time, kids get desperate; so tell them often how they are doing. Teachers are notorious for not posting grades, not giving work back, and not being clear and objective about how students are doing. What's a kid supposed to do? So tell them, either verbally, with evaluations, or with progress reports, but tell them. It's part of the job: help them learn and help them know that they are learning.

In conclusion, make that learning the most attractive option. There are enough natural barriers to learning such as the difficulty of the material, student ability, and the vicissitudes of life, so as obvious as it sounds: do everything you can to facilitate learning. Have such quantity, quality, and variety in your teaching and evaluating that cheating becomes unnecessary. Be so persuasive and enthusiastic that cheating becomes unattractive.

The more attention you give to teaching, the less you will have to give to the problem of cheating. The situation is as with lawns: the best defense against weeds is healthy turf. You'll never be able to drive cheating out completely, but you can create an atmosphere in which it cannot thrive.