Whatever happens to strike my fancy, but surely some sort of fiber content.
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| Like The Queen Whatever happens to strike my fancy, but surely some sort of fiber content. |
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0 Comments:Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Friday, October 31, 2008
Friday ThoughtsPhotos will come this weekend I promise. Right now I'm knitting on the button band/bottom edging and the whole sweater is bunched into a giant knitted bag with floppy appendages. The opportunity to knit on this sweater won't really come again till Sunday, though. Tonight is our Friends of the Library Weekend with a Writer and I'm tied up with library dooty till then. Our author is Alan Pell Crawford and his area is historical writing about the generation after the American Revolution. I've been anxious for months about this because his latest book is yet Another Thomas Jefferson book and I am a little sensitive about TJ. He's the deconstructionists favorite target. The popular habit of American academia of proving how really terrible every hero you ever had was, because academics are so smart and can see everyone else's flaws, never impressed me even when I was a sponge-like young student, ready to have my mind elevated and be brought into the circle of wisdom by the ivory tower sages. And so, my own disdain for academics has allowed my prejudices to throw up barriers. I had dreaded having to read Twilight at Monticello – about TJ's declining years. Yeah. Right. I mean. I Haz Parentz. I knowz de klining. But I did settle down to my doooty reading and was happily surprised and pleased with this elegant book that really does lay out, for me to think about, the horrible dichotomy that was America's greatest advocate for personal liberty, that slave owning Thomas Jefferson. No screaming in my ears, no beating me over the head, nor any beating of this long dead thinker's conflicted life, either. Instead, I found a sober reflection, with only a light application of the author's sentiments. This is good. I don't like an author to obscure his opinions but I don't want a harangue either. It was also good that I picked up the book immediately after perusing a tidy history of the Enlightenment. My mind was prepped and I thoroughly enjoyed myself with Crawford's book. I am not an intellectual. I am way too right brained to loose myself in theory. I'm just a little too psychic to believe we can philosophise ourselves into being more perfect and I totally believe that the sort of social engineering that is birthed by intellectuals (gone amok) is always evil. I don't believe only one sort of person, one sort of thinking, one sort of living is right, while the others are wrong. I know I am not like you. I don't want you to be just like me. I want you to touch what you share in common with me to what I share in common with you. It is not unity I seek, but, as Moses Mendelssohn wrote, connectivity. Okay. Off the soap box. Besides, I am going to be doing the southern thing today, all hostessing stuff and partying. But on Sunday I will clean the house. And knit. And post photos here. posted by Bess | 7:47 AM |
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