A: In honor of the Oympic opening ceremony and the parade of nations, here is one story from my heritage. Some in Morrisonville, Il. (outside of Springfield, Illinois- where I grew up after 10 yrs. old) have similar stories from the histories of Scotland, Italy and Romania , others have stories from the history of Germany. Some I have met elsewhere have heritage stories from the histories of Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Greece and Sweden. Our family's stories of that kind are from the histories of Russia, France, Poland and England/Ireland.
The legend of the Skavronskayas...Lithuanian Romanovs, but not Royalty....
Skavronskaya (Ska-rone-ska), is the name of Catherine "the first", the peasant girl chosen in 1707 by Peter "the Great" Romanov, emperor of Russia, to be his wife. He later named her Empress in 1715, which she remained until a year after his death. They had children, and as with all royal families, some which continued in the role of the monarchy, some which did not.
Many consider her life to be the model for the story of Cinderella, while others consider her the model and earliest most successful example of someone scheming to use the opportunity provided by the power of an intimate personal relationship to advance themselves materially and socially with those of great monetary and social power, without earning it on their own through the merit of the achievement of their work.
Of course there are many examples of those that have fallen for that very strong, cheap and easy temptation, the most famous recent public example of which was of course Anna Nicole Smith. Future family line predictions of a repeat of such behavior are of course imprecise.
Some future Romanovs might have taken after the behavior of their grandmother, but of course some were much more like their grandfather, earned their place on their own effort and initiative, and accidentally fell in love with strong beautiful women based on the truth of what it was like to be with them. Alexander I would be an example of one who took after his ancestral grandfather.
It is said...
..that those children not named heirs, although by blood Romanov, retained the name Skavronskaya. Some moved to Vilna, then considered part of imperial Russia , now Lithuania , where they lived as nobles until the time of the events of Soviet revolution, when the turmoil and peril of events led them to petition for asylum to U.S. officials.
U.S. officials agreed to the request, upon the condition that they live in the United States as ordinary citizens, under a different name with no priviledge of treatment or help to maintain social position. This was because the whole concept of the U.S. Constitution and revolution was against the idea of monarchical authority. As the reign of Catherine the first had conflict with England , they felt they had no choice and fled to the United States to save their lives. The family was composed of the parents and 5 children, most very young- a girl and 4 boys. The children had typical slavic names- like Antonin, Stanislaw, Josef, .....
After the revolution culminated in October 1917, the Soviets rounded up and executed the Romanovs that remained in Russia .
It is said that...
The Skavronskayas lived normal lives in the United States under a different name, and at the end of WWII, U.S. officials, essentially in command of all what are now NATO countries, and thus with access to other governments records, did a complete listing of all Romanov descendants in their countries, and with their own Russian history experts did a geneaological analysis of them and determined and told the Skavronskaya family- by blood directly "Romanovs"- that they had the strongest historical lineage to the Romanov dynasty of the remaining descendants of the Romanovs, and that they could follow the tradition of naming heirs according to historical custom, with the provision that henceforth only the "heirs" themselves would know.
So....
..sometime in the 50's or 60's, one of the group of children that fled, now a grandfather himself, asked the mother of the oldest grandson to bring him over for a private meeting- with just the young child and the grandparents. At that private meeting he told him the story, that the name they lived by was not their name, that it was Skavronskaya, and that he was a direct descendant of Peter the Great and Catherine the first, and that he was named the "heir". He was told that they were not "royal" because it was not recognized, that his grandfather was following the custom, and by lineage it would be him.
...and so it is said that descendants of the Romanovs, Russia's royal family, are still living in the United States .
However....
...it is clear, if the legend is true, that U.S. officials did not have a firm grasp on "monarchical" logic.
1) the recognition of royalty is a matter of the nation of that royalty- only they can make it official by recognizing it as head of state (which time has long been gone in the world), or as ceremonial....(Great Britain and Spain)..throughout history Russian nobles, and other royal families bypassed and skipped over those considered "unsuitable" ...
2) the notion of "monarchy" is about a type of "superiority" of family bloodline...which was only preserved through history with wealth, social position, achievement and "pedigree" of the people of that country...which was only varied from by "matches" with other royal families of Europe.
It would be completely absurd to encourage the custom of "heirs", without allowing the preservation of the other trappings, for without the preservation of Russian or Royal bloodline and positions of honor, no government in the future, nor would the people of Russia, even if inclined to the historical nostalgia of Russian royalty, recognize ANY such descendants- even if only ceremonial- as "royal".
Over time there would be nothing sufficiently Russian and/or of the level of excellence that a people would connect with a sense of the "historical greatness" of their past. Thus without the preservation of Russian bloodline and social position, it would be completely ridiculous and meaningless to encourage, or continue, such a custom.
They would be seen in Russia as average joe's with a story to tell. Therefore, both there and here, that and a kroger card get's these Romanovs a discount on specially tagged items and after $100 of purchases, a $10 credit to their card.....
But, it is a good story.....of the only Lithuanian family with an ancestor on the big stage of "world" history.....
....and so from time to time, some Lithuanians toast "Skavronskaya"...in honor of Catherine the first, and Peter the Great, and for the health of all those with Lithuanian and/or Russian heritage....
(In the history of Philosophy, ancestors are Bertrand Russell from Mothers side, and Paul Ricoeur from fathers side, Ricoeur and I talked about it when I attended his seminars at U of Chicago divinity school in 1989-1990, and my grandmother visited him there in the late 1970's).
B: From Websters- "Pretender: a: one who lays claim or asserts a title to something: A Claimant, specifically, a claimant to a throne who is held to have no just title.".
...and so enjoy the incomparable, the enduring and (in my opinion) by far the BEST of the 80's.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9txBYBwLTew
ahhhh, memories of college.... from the album "the Isle of View"
Stripeik & Thompson Stories:The Romanovs, The Tudors, William Thomson, James Madison
1) The Romanovs: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanov
2) The Tudors: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tudor_dynasty
3) Thomson -Ireland: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomson,_1st_Baron_Kelvin & 4) James Madison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Madison
Luczak & Blaise/Lefebrve Stories:Rurik Dynasty, Casmir Pulaski, Wojtyla, The Capets, Blaise Pascal
5) Rurik - Ukraine/Russia(minor) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rurik_Dynasty
Volkonsky
The Pretenders- 'Angel of the Morning
http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=O6YXISe1Fbs&feature=related
6) General Casimir Pulaski- Poland: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_Pulaski
According to Paul Ricoeur- the direct line of descendents of Pulaski, as of the 1990's, went by the Polish name Wojtyla. 7) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karol_Wojtyla
Ricouer also said that the famous Wojtyla had Skavronskaya heritage. All I know is that when he was elected Pope, we remarked that he looked exactly like my lithuanian grandfather and his brothers- face, body bone structure, posture & walking gait. It was uncanny.
8) The Capets- Bourbon Orleans Branch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capetian_dynasty
9) Blaise Pascal- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal
I was intially interested in Geneaology research, being the first born in my family, as were my parents, grandparents and grgrandparents etc. in the family lines of our Russian*(Stripeik), French, Irish, & English heritages.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Leonardo Boff: Liberation Theology's Unannounced Hostile Attack on Catholicism
A close reading of the first few chapters of Leonardo Boff's 1977 book 'Passion of Christ, Passion of the World',(Orbis), reveals an unannounced all-out attack on Catholic Theology.
Some of the interpretations made by Boff are:
1) Page 4, biblical texts are not direct accounts of Jesus
2) Page 10, The classic view of Jesus as savior is not historical, and not from the account of the apostles.
3) Page 10-11, Jesus is a man, "just like us"
4) Pages 11-13, the historical situation of the time of Jesus is like that of Latin America (present day 1977)
5) Page 16, according to Jesus; as Boff interprets it; human beings are "enslaved" by tradition, religion and law
6) following Jesus, salvation is not to be achieved through traditional church rites or laws, but in behavior towards one's neighbor- what Boff calls the "de-absolutization" of religion
The argument in #6 creates the appearance that the relationship; between what is written in the bible and the rites and laws of the church; in a logical sense, is one that is necessarily and naturally opposed. It depicts, in a way that is not directly stated, that the practices of the church are not correctly focused, thus merely hierarchical and bureaucratic. A different interpretation, less hostile to the church, would place the rites and practices of the church as the means to facilitate and achieve this "behavior towards one's neighbor" espoused by Jesus.
The sum of these 6 positions is a theological attack without the announcement of one- without the announcement of opposition. It is a theological ambush from within, a systematic attack on the biblical texts, on the traditional view of Jesus, on the separation between savior and parishioner, and on church practices and tradition. It is, in effect, a total theological assault. It is the very same kind of separation as Martin Luther's, only without the writer leaving the church and without the announcement of "this is wrong" or "I am against".
I hold some of the same theological positions as Boff, and because of this I am not a practising catholic.
Some of the interpretations made by Boff are:
1) Page 4, biblical texts are not direct accounts of Jesus
2) Page 10, The classic view of Jesus as savior is not historical, and not from the account of the apostles.
3) Page 10-11, Jesus is a man, "just like us"
4) Pages 11-13, the historical situation of the time of Jesus is like that of Latin America (present day 1977)
5) Page 16, according to Jesus; as Boff interprets it; human beings are "enslaved" by tradition, religion and law
6) following Jesus, salvation is not to be achieved through traditional church rites or laws, but in behavior towards one's neighbor- what Boff calls the "de-absolutization" of religion
The argument in #6 creates the appearance that the relationship; between what is written in the bible and the rites and laws of the church; in a logical sense, is one that is necessarily and naturally opposed. It depicts, in a way that is not directly stated, that the practices of the church are not correctly focused, thus merely hierarchical and bureaucratic. A different interpretation, less hostile to the church, would place the rites and practices of the church as the means to facilitate and achieve this "behavior towards one's neighbor" espoused by Jesus.
The sum of these 6 positions is a theological attack without the announcement of one- without the announcement of opposition. It is a theological ambush from within, a systematic attack on the biblical texts, on the traditional view of Jesus, on the separation between savior and parishioner, and on church practices and tradition. It is, in effect, a total theological assault. It is the very same kind of separation as Martin Luther's, only without the writer leaving the church and without the announcement of "this is wrong" or "I am against".
I hold some of the same theological positions as Boff, and because of this I am not a practising catholic.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Common Value (commensurability) in Marx, Seen Through Dewey
There is a fruitful analysis to be done by applying the Dewey terminology of "instrumental" and "final" ends in 'Experience and Nature', to Marx' concepts of "use value" and "exchange value". The notion of relative value in Marx can easily be seen within the spectrum provided by the two Dewey terms. Because of this, the extention of the position of "relativity" to "incommensurability of values" in 'The Fragility of Goodness' is plainly ridiculous.
Marx says in 'Capital' that the exchange of commodities magically transforms the "social relation between men" into the "relation between things". This is possible only because, as a biological creature that "needs", man is also a thing. Because of this, and because the state of ourselves is that of same biological things, commodities can be made equivalent in value through the mechanism of money. It is only because of this common state that commodities can be priced, and because as "things", commodities are "things of need" where price reflects both the relation of things to the spectrum of biological need, and also the "social relation among men"- the social order.
A commodity is a form of embodied labor because the action of labor transforms the material into a "thing of desire", useful- in Dewey's language- as an effect. It is in this way that Marx' analysis of embodied labor in 'Capital' already expressed an embodied realism.
"Use value" as depicted in 'Capital' is thus confined within the common human spectrum of need, and although individual choice varies from person to person, and in this way value is therefore "relative", aggregate patterns of these choices have been established in the distribution of dollar spending and don't fluctuate significantly over time.
There are differences between income class, and priority to utilize resources to control and benefit from the process of exchange, but there exists no innate difference that designates or distinguishes the winners of social contests as being of a different species that justifies the degradation of the common person to the status of subhuman. This distinction is false and contrived.
Marx says in 'Capital' that the exchange of commodities magically transforms the "social relation between men" into the "relation between things". This is possible only because, as a biological creature that "needs", man is also a thing. Because of this, and because the state of ourselves is that of same biological things, commodities can be made equivalent in value through the mechanism of money. It is only because of this common state that commodities can be priced, and because as "things", commodities are "things of need" where price reflects both the relation of things to the spectrum of biological need, and also the "social relation among men"- the social order.
A commodity is a form of embodied labor because the action of labor transforms the material into a "thing of desire", useful- in Dewey's language- as an effect. It is in this way that Marx' analysis of embodied labor in 'Capital' already expressed an embodied realism.
"Use value" as depicted in 'Capital' is thus confined within the common human spectrum of need, and although individual choice varies from person to person, and in this way value is therefore "relative", aggregate patterns of these choices have been established in the distribution of dollar spending and don't fluctuate significantly over time.
There are differences between income class, and priority to utilize resources to control and benefit from the process of exchange, but there exists no innate difference that designates or distinguishes the winners of social contests as being of a different species that justifies the degradation of the common person to the status of subhuman. This distinction is false and contrived.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Contradictions in Dewey's 'Experience and Nature' and 'The Essential Dewey- Vol. 2' Philosophical Positions
The readings in 'The Essential Dewey- Vol. 2', and the interpretation of these readings provided by Hickman and Alexander, overemphasize "the instrumental" function in the philosophy of John Dewey.
This conflicts with Dewey's own registering of the value of the instrumental presented in 'Experience and Nature' on Page 205 (Dover Publications) in the Chapter 'Nature and Communication':
"Communication is uniquely instrumental and uniquely final. It is instrumental as liberating us from the otherwise overwhelming pressure of events and enabling us to live a world of things that have meaning. It is final as a sharing in the objects and arts precious to a community, a sharing whereby meanings are enhanced, deepened and solidified in the sense of communion. Because of its characteristic agency and finality, communication and its congenial objects are objects ultimately worthy of awe, admiration, and loyal appreciation. They are worthy as means, because they are the only means that make like rich and varied in meanings. They are worthy as ends, because in such ends man is lifted from his immediate isolation and shares in a communion of meanings. Here, as in so many other things, the great evil lies in separating instrumental and final functions. Intelligence is partial and specialized, because communication and participation are limited, sectarian, provincial, confined to class, party professional group. By the same token, our enjoyment of ends is luxurious and corrupting for some; brutal, trivial, harsh for others; exclusion from the life of free and full communication excluding both alike from full possession of meanings of the things that enter experience. when the instrumental and final functions of communication live together in experience, there exists an intelligence which is the method and reward of the common life, and a society worthy to command affection, admiration, and loyalty".
Similar passages of a fuller reading of Dewey are found also on pgs. 184-185 "use establishes a genuine community of action", pg. 179 "the establishment of cooperation in an activity in which they are partners".. in another passage in 179 that can be condensed to "meaning is a distinctive cooperative behavior", and on pg. 171 "the import of logical and rational essences is the consequence of social interactions, of companionship, mutual assistance, direction and concerted action".
The main thrust that underlies the instrumental function of "transaction" overly emphasized by Hickman and Alexander, is human cooperation to realize the benefits and belonging of social action, concerted action.
The main conflict, the contradiction, in the construction of the ethical essays in Volume 2 is that the "moral moratorium in the everyday" in 'the Good of Activity' (from 'Human Nature and Conduct'), contradicts the text of 'Experience and Nature'. It does so because the emphasis is on merely individual action with no foresight of consequence of conduct within the social dialectic depicted in 'Philosophies of Freedom'. The fact that an individual who wishes to execute (carry out) his aims within an association group, a society, must be able to do so over time, not merely once. This makes the maintenance of those relationships within society a fundamental instrumental priority. It is in this way that one understands Paul Ricouer's comment on Dewey- when asked in the Hans Jonas Seminar in 1990- that "the moral is instrumental", and primarily instrumental over and above any singular aim the individual wishes to achieve, because it instrumentally maintains channels of cooperation for the continued achievement of aims.
This glaring contradiction between what is expressed in 'Experience and Nature' and what is expressed in the 'The Good of Activity' demonstrate flaws in the construction of Philosophical positions in the Dewey corpus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTuSDNRJYmE&feature=related
This conflicts with Dewey's own registering of the value of the instrumental presented in 'Experience and Nature' on Page 205 (Dover Publications) in the Chapter 'Nature and Communication':
"Communication is uniquely instrumental and uniquely final. It is instrumental as liberating us from the otherwise overwhelming pressure of events and enabling us to live a world of things that have meaning. It is final as a sharing in the objects and arts precious to a community, a sharing whereby meanings are enhanced, deepened and solidified in the sense of communion. Because of its characteristic agency and finality, communication and its congenial objects are objects ultimately worthy of awe, admiration, and loyal appreciation. They are worthy as means, because they are the only means that make like rich and varied in meanings. They are worthy as ends, because in such ends man is lifted from his immediate isolation and shares in a communion of meanings. Here, as in so many other things, the great evil lies in separating instrumental and final functions. Intelligence is partial and specialized, because communication and participation are limited, sectarian, provincial, confined to class, party professional group. By the same token, our enjoyment of ends is luxurious and corrupting for some; brutal, trivial, harsh for others; exclusion from the life of free and full communication excluding both alike from full possession of meanings of the things that enter experience. when the instrumental and final functions of communication live together in experience, there exists an intelligence which is the method and reward of the common life, and a society worthy to command affection, admiration, and loyalty".
Similar passages of a fuller reading of Dewey are found also on pgs. 184-185 "use establishes a genuine community of action", pg. 179 "the establishment of cooperation in an activity in which they are partners".. in another passage in 179 that can be condensed to "meaning is a distinctive cooperative behavior", and on pg. 171 "the import of logical and rational essences is the consequence of social interactions, of companionship, mutual assistance, direction and concerted action".
The main thrust that underlies the instrumental function of "transaction" overly emphasized by Hickman and Alexander, is human cooperation to realize the benefits and belonging of social action, concerted action.
The main conflict, the contradiction, in the construction of the ethical essays in Volume 2 is that the "moral moratorium in the everyday" in 'the Good of Activity' (from 'Human Nature and Conduct'), contradicts the text of 'Experience and Nature'. It does so because the emphasis is on merely individual action with no foresight of consequence of conduct within the social dialectic depicted in 'Philosophies of Freedom'. The fact that an individual who wishes to execute (carry out) his aims within an association group, a society, must be able to do so over time, not merely once. This makes the maintenance of those relationships within society a fundamental instrumental priority. It is in this way that one understands Paul Ricouer's comment on Dewey- when asked in the Hans Jonas Seminar in 1990- that "the moral is instrumental", and primarily instrumental over and above any singular aim the individual wishes to achieve, because it instrumentally maintains channels of cooperation for the continued achievement of aims.
This glaring contradiction between what is expressed in 'Experience and Nature' and what is expressed in the 'The Good of Activity' demonstrate flaws in the construction of Philosophical positions in the Dewey corpus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTuSDNRJYmE&feature=related
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