Milton Rosenberg wrote:
>
> Good heavens! Doesn't anyone here read anything other than Husserl?
Alas! Would that your lament was true! Maybe it *is* true, and
I just don't see it? Can I have a count of the number of persons
on this list who have *read* Husserl -- i.e., seriously engaged with
his writings and their intentions(sic)? May I have a second
count of those who see themselves as working toward the
realization of what Husserl saw as the teleology of European
humanity?
But there is another implication here: that *everyone* should
know the basics of Darwin's biography.
Does everyone here know
about Giovanni de Dondi's great technological accomplishment ca. 1375?
There is also apparently a book somewhere about a remarkable
Hellenistic period astronomical clock that may even have
exceeded de Dondi's accomplishment -- only ca. 1500 years earlier.
Since everyone should know everything, I will appreciate the
citations for this item which someone once told me
about and which I was so foolish as to not write it down.
> Of
> course Darwin had progeny. He had a number of loyal and loving children. He
> was, in fact, a rather typical Victorian paterfamilias. Check Bowlby's
> biography or any of a dozed others.
Of course Darwin had progeny? Why "of course"?
I do not have EB handy, but I do have an Encyclopedia Americana
(I worked for the publisher for a while...), and you have sent me to
read its biographical info on Darwin, which includes:
"While on the Beagle voyage, Darwin was bitten by a large bug....
After his return from his 5 year trip, Darwin fell into bad health.
He suffered from extreme fatigue, pain, and intestinal discomfort and
vomiting, and the rest of his life was that of a semi-invalid....
On Jan. 29, 1839 [ed. note: i.e., *after* his becoming ill!],
Darwin married his first cousin Emma Wedgewood.... Darwin's
bad health made social life so irksome that in 1842 they
moved to the country at Downe, where Darwin worked the rest
of his life. They had ten children...."
[Aside: is incest good for the species?]
Now, allow me to repeat myself. Darwin lamented that:
"We civilized men... do our utmost to check the process of
elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed,
and the sick.... Thus the weak members of civilized societies
propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the
breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious
to the race of man." (Richard Mensch, 1996, p.195 -- Mensch's footnote
gives the source of the quote as: _The Descent of Man_, Chap. 5, in
_The Origin of the Species and the Descent of Man_ (New York: Random House,
1967), p. 501.
I think that, as Hermann Broch concluded the first section of his
novel _The Sleepwalkers_ ("The Romantic"): With the material for
character construction with which the reader has been provided,
he should be able to figure out the rest of the story for
himself. Or, as an artist I once knew [who had to work unhappily
as a school teacher to "support himself and his family"] said:
"As should be obvious to anyone who reads the scriptures, or even
looks at the pictures..." -- that Darwin did not apply to himself
the standards which he applied to some other maimed and sick
persons. Again, you, my reader, can fill in the words you
see fit to describe this conjuncture in the life of Mr. Darwin.
I myself do not believe in political correctness, neither
do I believe in any kind of "revisionism" (what I
believe is specified in my email signature...). I am concerned
about the future of our biological species. George Steiner
once asked if the misfortunes of the 20th Century were
largely due to the loss to Europe's
gene pool, of a generation of "the best and the
brightest" on the fields of Flanders in WWI (ref. lost).
I think there
are way too many people, and that perhaps the ones having the
most children are not always the ones whose children could contribute
most to either our biological species or to the
improvement of the conditions of life for all. If "eugenics"
is offensive, try: "crack babies". But I think that the desirable
way to deal with these problems should be through birth
control, rather than by making those presently alive suffer.
I believe in the right to -- *postnatal* -- life.
Any responses [preferably from the pen, not the sword, nor
from the pen -- or an umbrella (ref.: Georgy Markov...) -- used
as a sword...]?
"Yours in discourse...."
+\brad mccormick
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gerry Reinhart-Waller [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
[snip]
> Thanks Brad. Guess Darwin's personal frailty can't be sourced. I had never
> heard or read such an accusation and in today's climate of historical
> revisionism, I always need to verify claims.
>
> I also have not been aware of any Darwin offspring. Perhaps others on the
> list might know.
>
> Gerry
[snip]
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: Brad McCormick, Ed.D. <[log in to unmask]>
> > > To: <[log in to unmask]>
> > > Sent: Saturday, October 07, 2000 10:52 AM
> > > Subject: Re: Evolution and Cognitive Dissonance
> > >
> > > > This past week, I read something "interesting":
> > > >
> > > > I read that Darwin *personally* believed that it was desirable
> > > > for society to *not* apply itself to helping
> > > > the "less fit", because this would weaken the species. He
> > > > apparently understood that this would entail a lot of persons
> > > > suffering a lot.
> > > >
> > > > I believe there is a profound blindness in this, since
> > > > I had earlier read that the only reason Darwin was able to function
> > > > in life (and, e.g., to discover and publish the theory of
> evolution...)
> > > was
> > > > because of his inherited wealth and the ministrations of a
> > > > devoted wife.
> > [snip]
[snip]
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [log in to unmask]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA
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