The Rev. R.G. Bury, RIP

I note this week, I was blessedly sentenced to physical therapy instead of surgery for the incurable inexorable degeneration of discs in the neck. As I waited upon the receptionist, a horde of ancients riding walkers streamed in behind, previewing the company I'll keep for the next several months if not the rest of my life.

It's not unfamiliar ground since I'm already enjoying the delightful company of the late Rev. R.G. Bury, scholar of Trinity College Cambridge, and prolific translator of ancient Greek texts (of which I can attest, as Cyril Connolly did, to the ease of grasping the materials in the translations published by the Loeb Classical Library, in particular, this week, the three volumes of Sextus Empiricus, released in 1939.

In fact, I've been taking notes so copiously and furiously on the commuter train, the rider next and I, entered into a scintillating conversation on the lost art of taking hand-written notes, something apparently, no one under 50 does anymore.

Mr. Empiricus, if he is known today at all, is a Phyronnist and Skeptic - a term which has taken on a harsher common meaning than in days of old. By Skeptic, Sextus meant a person who suspends judgment, neither affirming nor denying statements, for to do otherwise, is to pre-define truth itself, something that is subjective to every individual.

To be a Skeptic is to gain peace of mind, but going further, it is a form of mental therapy (no kidding, the ancient Greeks call it therapy) by grasping that since all arguments are equipellent (I love that word, it's so Buckley), you remain elevated in a state of perpetual inquiry.

You might ask, how then, could one claim to be a Skeptic and a Christian? My reply is that it is a personal non-dominating choice made by faith alone, and as Peter Maurin elegantly phrased it, remaining open to the further clarification of thought.

Parallel to the good Reverend, I'm reading I.F. Stone's Trial of Socrates every evening on the half-built screened-in porch minus screens. In his retirement, this muckraking journalist learned Greek so he might read source materials to better understand how individuals gained the right to speak their minds and how they paid the penalties for it.

Stone traces, something I'm wont to do, the genesis of the idea; his trail winds beyond the 17th century English Revolutions (Puritan and Glorious), farther down the ages past the Reformation, through the Middle Ages where the discovery of Aristotle by Aquinas rocked the thinking of Western Europe, landing finally in that famous courtroom in Athens.

The Spotsyltuckian similarly places great significance on the Reformation where the structure of the village parish was dismantled in lieu of State control, releasing the energies of national commerce, which in the American era continues to resonate as Lincoln promoted internal improvements and progress, while Jefferson was content to live in an agrarian country governed by landed gentry.

In a fabulous piece, John Brewer, in reviewing 'The Big Change, A Mad, Bad and Dangerous People, England, 1783-1846, emphasizes the loss of the first British Empire, especially America, and the Repeal of the Corn Laws, which by eliminating tarriffs and introducing international competition, prompted the growth of organized and enfranchised workers.

As during the Reformation, Brewer highlights: the continuing urbanization of a rapidly growing population; flucuating boom and bust economic cycles replacing a less violent and relativly natural rural stability; and the emergence of a prosperity gospel and Puritan work ethic which intermingled church, commerce and Godly blessings.

In mid-nineteenth century England, where Brewer's history ends, there stood a broad Anglican Church invested in civil rights, such as ending the slave trade and the promotion of political/economic reform, as against a High Tory backlash of those who claim the standard of defending country and traditional family values.

Sound familiar? We find the lines drawn today on our cultural battlefields where to be a conservative, is to be one who champions a free market which destroys the very traditional values he/she steadfastly defends, just as much as the excesses of the French Revolution horried the English.

As I strolled past a news-stand box on the way from the station to work and glimpsed the 'TEEN PACKS PROWL METRO' headline, immediately after reading yet another idiotic "it would appear that liberals are very anti-American, pro-one world government," letter in our local rag, I despaired over where an aging almost-retiree with a failing body and as-of-yet active mind might find solace in such a world.

Almost without hope, I stumbled upon, while surfing Sextus Empiricus, a heading called "Living is easy with your eyes closed: this month, the local Te Henga nursing group tackles the issue of scepticism versus cynicism and ponders which quality is more prevalent in the nursing profession."

You've just got the read the entire piece - it's wonderfully laugh-out loud hilarious, albeit in a nerd sort of way (which if you read this blog...), but a few highlights (mis-spellings and all), from New Zealand, via the world-wide web, that capture the flavor, such as, "The Te Henga Section of the Marxist Nurse's Union is currently hosting a series of educational and uplifting evenings. Last week we heard Helen Wishnesky - "Red Helen" - on "Scepticism as an inoculant against foolishness, bureaucratic excess and the folly of obedience. We don't have a very good tape recorder so this record is from notes. Unfortunately, Red Helen didn't have any, and mine got wine (also red) on them. So this is from memory, also dodgy - for reasons best left unsaid."

Also, "We asked Red Helen along because she's a bit of an intellectual. She says she's not academic. "Academics do it by themselves, intellectuals do it to each other," is how she explained the difference. No, it didn't make such sense to us either."

Lastly, "What really got him going was Jane Pain calling him a cynic. When Pat protested he was a sceptic, Jane said something dismissive like scepticism being cynicism in drag. So we invited Helen to give us a bit of an update on scepticism and so on. Red Helen let it rip. She gave us a succinct precis of scepticism from the Greek Pyrronhonian sceptics through to the Roman Septus Empiricus and to Immanuel Kant. She wove the utilitarian ethical philosopy of Jeremy Bentham and existenstial thought into a fascinating discourse tapestry, which was only occasionally interupted by the gentle snores of her audience."

That's it! Where can I find a place in America with nurses like these? You listen to a discussion and take a nap at the same time. Must we emigrate to New Zealand?

I can't top Red Helen, but inspired by her, and all that's happened this week, and by another piece in the New York Review on poor souls forced to flee, I'll stop, with this, lest you snore:

When the Bolshies seized old Russia,
and exiled philosophy by ships;
bound for Prague, Berlin and Paris,
silencing the couturier hip.

Lenin gave birth to Stalin,
oh, how the Soviets did sink;
like this broken body which sailed away,
leaving too much time to think.