1956 Nasser and Nationalism

After Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, with Britain and France itching to go to war, Nasser became problem number one for the Eisenhower administration, with the problem being more complicated because, unlike America of late, Eisenhower did believe that he could just take out his hammer to solve the problem.

_ _ _

Admiral Burke said that the Joint Chiefs agreed that “Nasser must be broken,” but he said it could be accomplished though economic and political means. If not, then the United States should support British military action. Eisenhower was reluctant to adopt that conclusion. The issue was not just Nasser, he said. “Nasser embodies the emotional demands of the people of the era for independence and for ‘slapping the white Man down.’” Eisenhower foresaw that nationalism of this kind cold “array the world from Dakar to the Philippine Islands against us.”

-- David A. Nichols, “Eisenhower 1956”

1956 Nasser and Nationalism

After Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, with Britain and France itching to go to war, Nasser became problem number one for the Eisenhower administration, with the problem being more complicated because, unlike America of late, Eisenhower did believe that he could just take out his hammer to solve the problem.

_ _ _

Admiral Burke said that the Joint Chiefs agreed that “Nasser must be broken,” but he said it could be accomplished though economic and political means. If not, then the United States should support British military action. Eisenhower was reluctant to adopt that conclusion. The issue was not just Nasser, he said. “Nasser embodies the emotional demands of the people of the era for independence and for ‘slapping the white Man down.’” Eisenhower foresaw that nationalism of this kind cold “array the world from Dakar to the Philippine Islands against us.”

-- David A. Nichols, “Eisenhower 1956”

Hamlet (1,2) Seems, Madam!

After granting Laertes his heart’s contentment, Claudius has more stern business with his nephew/son, but then Hamlet is more than kin and less than kind; indeed, he is even competition. And Hamlet has only attitude and sarcasm for the king. Hamlet’s mother, Queen Gertrude, steps in to try to make peace.

_ _ _

G:
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

H:
Ay, madam, it is common.

G:
If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?

H:
Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not 'seems.'
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

_ _ _

Claudius reinforces Gertrude’s pleading and urges his doleful and bitter prince to cast away “this unprevailing woe”, at the same time that he denies Hamlet’s wish to leave for Wittenberg to study, as he obviously wants to be able to keep an eye on the unstable heir who is “most immediate” to the thrown, for Hamlet is loved by the distracted multitudes and could cause trouble, as Hamlet is obviously not feeling much love for his uncle, now his father and his king.

Gertrude wins Hamlet’s obeisance, and Claudius is most happy to secure this supposedly “unforced accord” and will rouse his triumph to the heavens, but we know he is premature in his satisfaction and that it might have been better for him to let Hamlet leave.

Hamlet (1,2) Seems, Madam!

After granting Laertes his heart’s contentment, Claudius has more stern business with his nephew/son, but then Hamlet is more than kin and less than kind; indeed, he is even competition. And Hamlet has only attitude and sarcasm for the king. Hamlet’s mother, Queen Gertrude, steps in to try to make peace.

_ _ _

G:
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

H:
Ay, madam, it is common.

G:
If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?

H:
Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not 'seems.'
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

_ _ _

Claudius reinforces Gertrude’s pleading and urges his doleful and bitter prince to cast away “this unprevailing woe”, at the same time that he denies Hamlet’s wish to leave for Wittenberg to study, as he obviously wants to be able to keep an eye on the unstable heir who is “most immediate” to the thrown, for Hamlet is loved by the distracted multitudes and could cause trouble, as Hamlet is obviously not feeling much love for his uncle, now his father and his king.

Gertrude wins Hamlet’s obeisance, and Claudius is most happy to secure this supposedly “unforced accord” and will rouse his triumph to the heavens, but we know he is premature in his satisfaction and that it might have been better for him to let Hamlet leave.

The Symbiotic Evolution of Religion and Atheism

Jonathan Rée gives us another good go-around on atheism and the need to appreciate the evolution of religious thought, so that atheism can evolve along with it. As I've said before, when it comes to this kind of argument about how secular in attitude believers tend to be today, I think he underestimates the role of magical thinking, notwithstanding the fundamentalists and literalists.

I agree that a lot of people who flirt with faith and religion are skeptical about particular precepts and stories, and that we may even tend to regard the stories as a sort of inspiring poetry, but I suspect that there is still a deep hope that there is more to life than what is dreamt under the sun and that the grave is not necessarily the end, and that life is more wondrous and beautiful than we can possibly know. To be sure, there is a profound skepticism over this, and even some embarrassment for entertaining the notion, but I think it is part of the general human nature to fancy such possibilities. If nothing else, at least our imaginations and hopes are infinite.

_ _ _

New atheism was born again at the beginning of the 21st century, and some people think it has dealt a final blow to religion in all its forms. The God hypothesis has been spelt out with perfect clarity, apparently, and anyone capable of following logical and scientific arguments can see that it has no merit at all. Religion must therefore be consigned – like the miasmic theory of disease or the phlogiston theory of combustion – to a museum of intellectual lost causes.

Some of us however – including many who regard ourselves as non-believers – suspect that the new new atheism forces the pace, distorts the issues, and underestimates the intelligence of its enemies. If the older versions of atheism – from Moses and Socrates to Shelley and Nietzsche – were less straightforward than they might have been, the reason may be the complexity of religious phenomena rather than the obtuseness of those who sought to describe them. The difficulty is that people may commit themselves to a religion without buying into any particular theory as to what does or does not exist: they are simply throwing in their lot with some historic community, identified not by doctrines but by rituals, stories and a shared sense of the sacred. Religion as it enters the lives of many believers will not be damaged by a demonstration that it is not much good as science, any more than poetry will be threatened by the collapse of literary theory, or capitalism by a refutation of neoclassical economics. We atheists should not assume that theory always gets the last laugh.

-- Jonathan Rée at New Humanist

The Symbiotic Evolution of Religion and Atheism

Jonathan Rée gives us another good go-around on atheism and the need to appreciate the evolution of religious thought, so that atheism can evolve along with it. As I've said before, when it comes to this kind of argument about how secular in attitude believers tend to be today, I think he underestimates the role of magical thinking, notwithstanding the fundamentalists and literalists.

I agree that a lot of people who flirt with faith and religion are skeptical about particular precepts and stories, and that we may even tend to regard the stories as a sort of inspiring poetry, but I suspect that there is still a deep hope that there is more to life than what is dreamt under the sun and that the grave is not necessarily the end, and that life is more wondrous and beautiful than we can possibly know. To be sure, there is a profound skepticism over this, and even some embarrassment for entertaining the notion, but I think it is part of the general human nature to fancy such possibilities. If nothing else, at least our imaginations and hopes are infinite.

_ _ _

New atheism was born again at the beginning of the 21st century, and some people think it has dealt a final blow to religion in all its forms. The God hypothesis has been spelt out with perfect clarity, apparently, and anyone capable of following logical and scientific arguments can see that it has no merit at all. Religion must therefore be consigned – like the miasmic theory of disease or the phlogiston theory of combustion – to a museum of intellectual lost causes.

Some of us however – including many who regard ourselves as non-believers – suspect that the new new atheism forces the pace, distorts the issues, and underestimates the intelligence of its enemies. If the older versions of atheism – from Moses and Socrates to Shelley and Nietzsche – were less straightforward than they might have been, the reason may be the complexity of religious phenomena rather than the obtuseness of those who sought to describe them. The difficulty is that people may commit themselves to a religion without buying into any particular theory as to what does or does not exist: they are simply throwing in their lot with some historic community, identified not by doctrines but by rituals, stories and a shared sense of the sacred. Religion as it enters the lives of many believers will not be damaged by a demonstration that it is not much good as science, any more than poetry will be threatened by the collapse of literary theory, or capitalism by a refutation of neoclassical economics. We atheists should not assume that theory always gets the last laugh.

-- Jonathan Rée at New Humanist