Touching the Timeless

(uncorrected, not complete)

The reknowned philosopher and historian, the late Eric Voegelin, launched Order and History (his monumental five-volume study of the history of the unfolding of the human consciousness of Reality) with this quote from Saint Augustine's De Vera Religione:

"In consideratione creaturarum non est vana et peritura curiositas exercenda; sed gradus ad immortalia et semper manentia faciendus."

Translation: "In the study of creature one should not exercise a vain and perishing curiosity, but ascend toward what is immortal and everlasting."

Poor old Saint Augustine!

He lived in a time before the age of the printing press, let alone electronics, and so never had a chance to thumb through the celebrity pages to see whose breast implants are coming out or going back in, or to sit like a dead otter on a couch and absorb the radiation emanating from the vast wasteland of daytime soap operatic debaucheries and night-time blood gushings and mayhem, or read the latest accounts of the UN scandal.

From a note I wrote [ which I am now writing! :^D :^D ] to Dwight Silverman --- the man who has both championed and lead the Chron Online's transformation from a web version of the print edition into a significant experiment in citizen journalism and grassroots participation on the web --- in an effort to convince him to do a blog like this [ :^D :^D :^D :^D] :

" While everybody --- (from Saddam Hussein to convenience store bandits; from politicians and greedy lawyers to homemakers and people with a good tamale recipe; from car jackers to car salemen, from computer hackers to computer users, from doctors to nurses, from leftists to rightists, from teachers to students, from zoos and museums to theaters and nightclubs, from movie critics to people who draw funny cartoons and so on and so on ad infinitum) --- that is, everybody, seems to have a place in the modern on-line "newspaper"-turned- virtual community, where are the great thinkers, the great creators, the great artists, the great innovators, and is there a place here for a corner where we can read about and discuss their timeless works, ideas and achievements?

Thus far, we have Eric Berger's SciGuy blog where Einstein and Darwin and many other leading scientific lights regularly appear, and we have the Techblog where the leaders of the digital revolution regularly show up.

But where's the rest of the crowd that has raised the intellectual and creative bar for humanity in every other field of thought and endeavour?

Where are the Prophets, the Platos and the Saint Augustines; the Byrons, the Brownings and the Eliots; the Michelangelos, the Rembrandts and the Manets ; the Smiths, the Marxs and the Hayeks; the Mozarts, the Beethovens and the Rachmanninovs; the [ add examples from all fields, arts and eras]

In other words, where's the intellectual beef, where's the island of unfettered intellectualism and discussion of things beyond the latest news or the latest celebrity drug arrest?

Where do we get in touch on these pages with the lasting and the timeless, and what better place to read and write about it, as well as talk about it!

I knew this argument would appeal to Dwight Silverman's intellect, as well as his geekitude, as it does to mine! :^D

But there are practical and civic reasons as well for doing this at the new and innovative public commons of a great city's one and only newspaper [ add facts and info on Houston area education levels, institutions, reading public, aspirations, etc etc]

--more later---