The King of England

I don't know why I find this so funny. Perhaps it has something to do with submitting final grades and finishing another semester. In any event, I can relate to the "it's like eating crunchy air" comment. Happy Holidays, y'all!

Why not a Global Pledge of Allegiance?

A lot of my colleagues complain about having to grade student papers. I suppose I sometimes fall into that trap, but often I read papers by students that are brilliant. Tonight was one of those nights. We have been discussing the possibilities of a global civil society, and the students were assigned to read Mary Kaldor's book, Global Civil Society. One of my students wrote a line in her paper, mimicking the United States pledge of allegiance, asking why not?: "I pledge allegiance to the world." This prompted the following from myself:

I pledge allegiance to the citizens of the world, and to the Republic of hearts and minds, prayers and tears, life and death to which we ALL belong, one people, the children of God, indivisible, with liberty, love, and justice for all.

How about it? Something wrong with the idea? Are the ties of nationalism outdated? Isn't it time to look for a Republic of Conscience? To carry our own burdens? To recognize our origins in salt and tears? To recognize our dual citizenship? Why not a pledge of allegiance to our humanity, our dependence, our weakness? I love my country, don't get me wrong, but I love other countries too. "My heart is large enough for all men," said Joseph Smith, and I feel much the same way today. Who can separate us?


P.S. Bonus quote: "What we seek is . . . to improve the quality of human life while at the same time respecting the natural environment which sustains it: Not a heaven on earth but a better earth on earth." - Paul Wellstone

The Crucial Crisis

The first and, finally, the sole history that I know and can accomplish is my own contingent, limited, mortal history. All history amounts to my history, because it derives from it. There is no solipsism in this circle, just the admission that my life remains mine, unsubstitutable, unique, unrepeatable - thrown forth and lost at once. Why does history itself amount to my history and my history to irrevocable uniqueness? Because I must die. To die signifies to die alone. To die signifies that nobody will die in my place; the proof: if someone commits himself to die in my place, that will not exempt me from dying, later, on my own account, and, if it can be put thus, in my own place; there is no one but me who can truly die in my place; my place is even defined by this unsubstitutable death. Death will never be taken from us, and in the end it is death that attests to our irreducible singularity. No one can separate me or dislodge me from my death, for in order to take it from me he would have to begin by giving it to me. In this death, which makes me me at the very moment when it undoes my me, all is decided for and by me, and all the former antagonisms are settled. We must say, then, that one crisis remains accessible to me when all the others have lost their edge and slipped away - my death.

- Jean-Luc Marion, Prolegomena to Charity

Corners of Peace

In omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro.
- Thomas à Kempis

Everywhere I have searched for peace and nowhere found it, except in a corner with a book.
- Thomas à Kempis