With All Due Sincerity

Reflections on the Challenge

When you hear a precise, articulate word in casual talk, take a deep breath, note the sensation of clarity it brings, and contemplate its etymology.

• Experiences

  While having a haircut, L said to the stylist that it was an art, and the stylist replied it was a craft. This precise choice of word remindeded L of the challenge, and he later researched it, uncovering its original connotations of strength and power. Another time, at a ceramics exhibition, he learned about chalices from an artist, another precise word. He forgot to do the deep breathing at the exhibition, but later checked the etymology, linking chalice to the Greek 'calyx', or flower.

• Responses

  

  N said craft was related to power, as the German kraft was the same word. He mentioned the Arts and Craft movement of William Morris. He thought of his work in law as a bit of a craft. Part of it was taking pride in one's work and one's professionalism and following values and ethics - it comes with responsibility as well as power. T was surprised it was to do with strength and power, because it had become so diminished in its meaning, and artists did not like to think of themselves as craftsmen any more. She said that craft was the 90% of getting it right. L said that craft was about serving others, whereas art might not be of practical use.

Beelzebub’s Tales, Chapter 30 cont.

With acknowledgements to Harold Good

• Passage

  to equal participation in our international five-o'clocks.

  And indeed such contemporary beings there, namely, such as become representatives of important communities, know nothing of course of the true reasons why, that is, on their planet, beings similar to them, dwelling on one or another part of the surface of their planet or who make up this or the other community, become at times temporarily 'important' or 'great.'...

  And in regard to the third language which these assembled representatives also proposed making the common planetary language, namely, that language which they call Esperanto - ... they themselves, with all the bobtailedness of their reason, immediately reflected that this language could not now in any way be useful for their purpose.

  The inventors of this language must have imagined that a language is like one of their contemporary sciences which can be cooked up at home.

• Discussion

  L noted the capricious nature of science, characteized as bobtailed reasoning. The five-o-clock's reminded him of the large numbers of attendees at climate summits and demonstrations.

• Passage

  it never entered into their heads that every more or less ‘practical’ language can be formed only in the course of many centuries and even then only during the process of more or less normal being-existence...

  In short, this promising beginning of theirs, in this business of establishing one common planetary language, changed nothing there in their ‘height of absurdity’ and everything remained as before down till now, that is, this comparatively petty planet, with a petty ‘half-dead terra firma,’ continues to remain, as again our dear teacher Mullah Nassr Eddin says, ‘a thousand-tongued hydra.’

• Discussion

  N noted the irony in the passage about Esperanto potentially becoming a universal language. English had evolved to be a global lingua franca, mainly due to its role in science, business, and commerce. He mentioned current efforts to reintroduce French into international prominence but expressed skepticism about these attempts, considering English's widespread use, especially in major nations like China and India.

• Passage

  But meanwhile, by this time, as it proved, there had already been almost atrophied in them every kind of data for the arising in their presences of the being-impulse called ‘sincerity.’ And it was atrophied to such a degree that they no longer had the possibility, even if they wished, to be sincere, and not only with other beings but even with their own selves, that is, they already could not with one of their spiritualized parts criticize and judge another part of themselves impartially.

  ...The basis for the atrophying of the first of the mentioned data is derived from the fact of the disturbance of the coordination of their common psyche.

• Discussion

  N spoke of how we often lied to ourselves. We had atrophied that capacity within us to see ourselves with great impartiality, losing the ability to recognize this self-deception. He thought it was necessary to have friends or a group to provide external perspective and challenge our self-perceptions.

  

  L said the tone of the text was almost as if there was no hope of succeeding anyway. It was worth trying but one should not expect too much.

  T said it was the basis of Freudian analysis, that a person needed somebody to help you analyse what you were thinking and believing, and where that came from, and to question at every point.

  L said this was why Gurdjieff's group settings, as already established in psychotherapy, were important for providing collective support and insight.