The Platonic Imagery of Mumford & Sons

The Platonic Imagery of Mumford & Sons

I am not someone who should ever review music, my tastes being without pattern when they exist at all.  But, my students and an old friend have recently introduced me to a very intriguing band who released their second album to great fanfare in late 2012.  Mumford & Sons, a quartet from west London who play a version of American folk rock music, have travelled the U.S. in their "Gentlemen of the Road" tour.  Last evening a friend who has gone to their concerts described them to me as full of "20-somethings who love the music and 40-60 year olds who are there pondering the deep meaning of the lyrics."  Since I am in the latter age category, I've got a few thoughts about some of their lyrics which I find full of powerful imagery and deep meaning.

This week the students in my political leadership course at the University of Louisville and I discussed Plato's famous "Allegory of the Cave" and, though I don't assume to know what the song writer meant, the parallels between Mumford & Sons' song "The Cave" ( http://video.answers.com/mumford-and-sons-performing-the-cave-live-at-the-music-hall-of-williamsburg-473940896 )and the Platonic story are impossible to miss. (As are illusions to Homer and other ancient texts, but I won't confuse things too much today).

Plato invites us to imagine a society as a dark cave (Book VII about 514B-520D) the average person being shackled to a post staring at the back wall.  Those people spend their lives looking at the shadows on the wall and assuming they are reality.  Though they don't understand it, the voices and sounds they heard were mere echoes off the wall of shadows. Ignorance reigns in the human condition.

Beyond the objects creating the shadows, however, is the half-truth of the firelight and beyond that is the truth that exists in the world of the sun outside the cave.  The role of education is to help students (and us all) to turn away from the shadows toward the light of truth.  Coming to understand that our lives have been lived with lies and that truth lives beyond our comfort zone is painful and requires a great struggle to accept. 

But for Plato the great goal has not fully been achieved when enlightenment is found outside the cave. Rather, Plato then lays a responsibility on the enlightened one to re-enter the cave (again a painful process, now reversing the trek by leaving the light for the confusing darkness of the cave) in order to encourage and serve those left in ignorance.  Mumford & Sons capture this situation brilliantly in their lyrics.

The band seems to sing to a fellow human being, perhaps a lover, who is still shackled to the stake of ignorance in the cave:

But I will hold on hope

And I won't let you choke

On the noose around your neck

They capture the pain of enlightenment and the need to embrace the discipline and discomfort that comes with the journey from the shadowlands toward the light where truth is found--including the truth of knowing who one really is.  It is surely the truth that will "refresh my broken mind."

And I'll find strength in pain

And I will change my ways

Know my name as it's called again

Because I have other things to fill my time

You take what is yours and I'll take mine

Now let me at the truth

Which will refresh my broken mind

Plato tells of the plight of the political leader or educator (an allegory of the trial and execution of Socrates?) who returns to share his knowledge with the people still comfortably playing games with the shadows.  These servants would be mocked, dismissed, and perhaps even forcibly reeducated or killed.  Mumford & Sons captures this situation with defiant lyrics:

So tie me to a post and block my ears

I can see widows and orphans through my tears

I know my call despite my faults

And despite my growing fears

And issues the challenge to come out of the cave of ignorance and see the great Truth that lies beyond the shadows the politicians and corporations and movie makers and teachers and public relations people tell us is reality.  The maker's hand is waiting to be known:

So come out of your cave walking on your hands

And see the world hanging upside down

You can understand dependence

When you know the maker's hand

Plato knows the power of the siren's call to "fit in" with your peers and love interests and become "well-adjusted" to society.  It takes a defiance and strength to get free of the culture and to be what we were intended to be: "To live my life as its meant to be"

So make your siren's call

And sing all you want

I will not hear what you have to say

Because I need freedom now

And I need to know how

To live my life as it's meant to be

"To live my life as its meant to be." What a life-changing goal for us all. . . to strive to know what it is to be human, what it is to live a life worthy and humane, to be what we are meant to be.  And, what a great excuse to re-read Plato, ponder Mumford & Sons' outstanding songs, and wonder what might someday call us out of the cave.

Mark your Texts!

Tonight I found a posting from an old acquaintance from high school on my Facebook Newsfeed.  An avid and proud reader, which I admire very much, she was very upset for having gotten a used book off the Internet that turned out to have been underlined by a previous reader.  In all fairness, she did say she was upset because the description did not mention any such markings but my advice to her was to treat this as a gift instead of the perpetuation of fraud.

Books are not sacred objects, they are tools.  The ideas found on a book's page might be sacred, the truths of the words might be divine.  But the book itself is a tool meant to be used, read, reconsidered, and made one's own.

The practice of decorating books with marginalia has a very long history, going back into the first century BC when "Scholia" were added to classical texts. Some of these marginal notations are among the most important clues to life and thought in ages long grown dark with time.

I find it difficult to borrow any kind of serious books, from friend or library, because I want to make the text my own.  I want to interact with the author, but more importantly still, I want to make the book a useful tool I can come back to over and over again to remind myself and learn anew.  When I pick up a copy of a book I have read, by eyes are not lost among the thousands of words but are drawn to those key passages I felt important.  When a student asks to talk about a book she has read, it is a wonderful tool to go to my shelf and and find a copy that has been marked and made more useful.

Some of my students have difficulty writing in their books and that is why I buy them each a copy of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations.  "This is not your book, it is mine.  If I want it back, I will ask for it back, so you  have no excuse but to follow my demand that you take this text, read it, mark it, and make it your own!" I check their progress once a week with the hope that a habit will be created to help them build a truly useful library that is truly their own.

And, what a great gift a marked copy of an important book might be to a friend or to a grandchild.  My Grandfather, Thomas Edward Gregg passed away thirty years ago today.  I miss him terribly. What I would not do to have a book or a Bible marked up by him so that I could ponder with him even today and so that he might take my hand even now and lead me on.

If you get a text that is already marked up, treat it as a gift from some unknown soul who may speak to you in your time of need.  Take your favorite book, or perhaps a Bible, and mark it up and pass it along.  Who knows whose life you might profoundly touch from beyond your own grave?

Vonnegut's Player Piano--Our Future Controlled by Engineers and Managers?

 In preparation for a seminar we will have this spring at the McConnell Center, I recently had the chance to read Kurt Vonnegut's first Novel, Player Piano.  Its a really fine book and well worth the read today.  The University Bookman published my review essay, which starts below.

 * * *

I have long resisted reading Kurt Vonnegut. In this life of finite time and seemingly infinite and ever expanding good things to read, his biography or writing just did not seem enough to clear the bar to justify pushing some other unread book aside. I am very glad, however, that I found the excuse and the time this winter break to read Vonnegut’s Player Piano.

Vonnegut, born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1922, published Player Piano in 1952 (though to encourage book sales among science fiction readers, it was originally published with the meaningless title of Utopia 14). At thirty years old, this was Vonnegut’s first novel and comes seventeen years before his most famous Slaughterhouse Five. In an early 1970s interview, Vonnegut gave more than mere inspirational credit to Huxley’s Brave New World for his plot, though he also talked about his time working in a General Electric factory as providing additional source material.

Like Huxley’s classic, Player Piano takes place in a world after a war (they all take place after a war, don’t they?) in which superior engineers and mechanization have seemingly saved democracy and the lessons learned in war were then turned toward bringing “standardized progress” to domestic life. Unlike Huxley’s book, though, which is brightly painted with details and technological imagination, Vonnegut’s portrayal of a future society is flatter and feels markedly more dated.

See the rest of this review at The University Bookman

New Novel--Under Construction

On this last day of 2012, I am happy to report I have surpassed the 30,000 word mark on my next novel.  And, I am very happy to report to the world for the first time that there will be a new novel--someday!  I am calling it, so far, The Sword of Destiny.

My muse had been silent for a couple of years.  Then in May I was visiting Oxford, England with a group of terrific students.  I spent the last day largely alone visiting the Pitts Rivers Museum and then sitting with my notebook in the Lamb and Flag--a favorite pub of both J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.  There I forced the muse to come out and play and help me draft the first scene of a new novel.  That scene takes place on a dark and rainy night (I know! I know!) at the Eagle and Child where Tolkien and Lewis are sharing a pint and discussing something important. A man on the verge of death stumbles in, dripping on their table and urging them to care for a document he pushes into Lewis' hand.

The book shares the same legendarium as my first two novels (The Sporran and The Iona Conspiracy) though this one takes place during World War II.  The basic plot finds the Blitz over London to be a diversion for an attempt by the Nazis to find and retrieve the Spear of Longinus--the spear that pierced the side of Christ.

It turns out that the spear was not really "of this world" at all, but connects in a deep way to the story of Isildane who brought the treasures into our world so long ago.  The blade was never meant to be found, but has a way of bringing itself into the hands of those who do not suspect its power--and evil nature.  So did it find the hands of Longinus 2,000 years ago at Calvary.

It must not be allowed to fall into the hands of Adolf Hitler!

Well, I should really get back to writing the book, instead of telling you about it!

Wish me luck in preparing something worthy of the gift.

DAMAWD--Do as Marcus Aurelius Would Do!

Marcus Aurelius (Roman Emperor AD 121-180) is one of the great antidotes for the modern mind.  His emphasis on self-discipline, self-control, caring for the health of your soul beyond material gains, treating others with respect and care, these are all things modern man is in desperate need of hearing.

This spring I introduced Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations into my leadership class and the students have taken to the old Emperor in ways I could never have imagined.  I can see lives being changed, souls being improved.  One came to me yesterday asking where he could get a copy to send to a friend who is in need of this ancient hand of wisdom.  Of course, I gave him a copy to send on. That is what the Emperor would have me do.

In The Iona Conspiracy, which is the third book of my Remnant Chronicles, Jacob is given a copy of Meditations as a way to prepare for the next phase of his life.  I cannot imagine a better gift you can give to yourself or a loved-one, particularly a young man coming of age, than to give Marcus Aurelius.  Read it drip by drip.  Mark it up.  Let it penetrate into your mind and your soul.  Jot down key lessons and thoughts.  Come back to it every year or so, and, particularly when times are difficult, pull him off the shelf and emplore yourself to “Do as Marcus Aurelius Would Do;” DAMAWD!

An Old review of A Christmas Carol

The Moral Imagination of A Christmas Carol
Grandma took the grandkids to see the Imax 3-D version of Disney’ new “A Christmas Carol” today.  If you are still puzzling about what the moral imagination might be, this movie is a perfect example.  It is powerfully rendered and morally true.  The terrors are intense (indeed, I worried about some of the young kids in the audience).  It demonstrates well how a moral movie does not need to be a bland and “safe” movie.

Its evil characters are truly evil and never profit.  Its joyful characters are good and full of the spirit.  Its good characters are thoroughly good and strong and generous.  Evil is punished.  Bad behavior has bad consequences.   Life beyond the material is taken seriously and portrayed powerfully.

Materialism itself is under mighty assault.  Generosity is supported.  Redemption is found.  Love is beautiful and the true wins the day.

Though the Christmas is essentially Christ-less in reference, the spirit is found throughout the movie and the “God blesses” and old hymns are not spared.

This is a wonderful movie to strike the moral imagination clear and strong.  One can’t easily walk away from the images of good—and materialist evil. 

Three cheers.  Go see it and take the kids. . . and that wayward Uncle of yours whose imagination needs a facelift.

Max Lucado's "An Angel's Story"

Visiting with my parents this Christmas in Pennsylvania, my father showed me a boxed set of Max Lucado books he had picked up.  I had read none of them but An Angel’s Story caught my eye and though I had other things to read, I thought I could easily breeze through its tiny 83 pages.

I was right.  The story is easy to read and very quick.  But its images are powerful and provoke considerable reason to think.  We all know the Christmas story, whether we are Christians or not.  We all know of Mary and Joseph and the wise men and the infant Jesus.  But, have you ever wandered what went on in the Heavens that Christmas more than 2,000  years ago?  Have you ever paused to wonder why Satan would allow this baby Jesus to be born?  Did you ever think there might have been battles in the world beyond leading up to the birth of the Christ?  Did you ever imagine that armed guards might have been tapped to accompany the seed of God to Nazareth?

In this most interesting imaginative re-creation, Lucado takes us into the Heavens to see what might have happened that Christmas.  We see the devil himself in his great beautiful glory, but also as the dragon-like beast of our popular imagination.  We confront temptation.  We see mercy.  We see what is possible with God’s help.

One is tempted to call this a “manly” reinterpretation of the Christmas story.  There are flaming swords, battles in the heavens, heroic acts, a Book of Courage, but behind it all remains a divine mercy that does not cease.  Highly recommended for next Christmas, but, be warned that you might never quite look upon your manger set the same way again. . . http://www.amazon.com/An-Angels-Story-ebook/dp/B003MQMZ2A/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1356035621&sr=8-2&keywords=an+angel%27s+story