3.30 revolutions and angels, cont. (73)
Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@VM.EPAS.UTORONTO.CA)
Sat, 13 May 89 16:47:34 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 30. Saturday, 13 May 1989.
(1) Date: Fri, 12 May 89 07:52:00 EDT (25 lines)
From: <BCJ@PSUVM.bitnet>
Subject: revolutions &c.
(2) Date: Fri, 12 May 89 07:42:54 EDT (13 lines)
From: Leslie <LZMORGAN@SBCCVM.bitnet>
Subject: Re: 3.23 revolutions; angels (126)
(3) Date: Fri, 12 May 89 11:01:07 EDT (10 lines)
From: cbf%faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU@jade.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber)
Subject: Re: 3.23 revolutions; angels (126)
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 12 May 89 07:52:00 EDT
From: <BCJ@PSUVM.bitnet>
Subject: revolutions &c.
Yesterday's account of Canadian revolutions omits one curious development
during the last two decades -- the canonization of revolutionaries by an
essentially conservative culture. Louis Riel, who (with Gabriel Dumont and
a goodly portion of the population of Manitoba & Saskatchewan) rebelled
& was hanged (the rope was on display at the RCMP museum in Regina as late
as 1968, the last time I looked) -- is now a national treasure. There are
plays acted every year, books, and all the paraphernalia in the U.S.
usually reserved for inventors or presidents. The recognition is official:
witness the Louis Riel postage stamp... Mackenzie & Papineau, also armed
insurrectionists, are part of main-stream history, as is the Spanish Civil
War Brigade that bore their name (The Mackenzie-Papineau Brigade --- also
commemorated by a stamp!). And Norman Bethune (China's Canadian medical hero,
dead of overwork & cellulitis on the Long March), a convinced communist, is
also canonized (visit his shrine-home at Gravenhurst, a National Monument
with trilingual literature in French, English, & Chinese)...
What is one to make of this acceptance of revolutionaries? That they fit
into a tradition which admires people who take action against "the deprada-
tions" of mercenary individuals & groups? How does it compare with the
treatment of that wonderful, scary man, John Brown, in the U.S. (he, too,
was a revolutionary, and like Riel he heard voices...)
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------21----
Date: Fri, 12 May 89 07:42:54 EDT
From: Leslie <LZMORGAN@SBCCVM.bitnet>
Subject: Re: 3.23 revolutions; angels (126)
There was an article in the NY Times Sunday section about two months
ago on a conference at Rome. The subject was angels and they ended
(after may had left, evidently) with discussing how many angels could
dance on the head of a pin. Perhaps some of our Italian colleagues could
tell us the references made?
Leslie Morgan
Dept. of French and Italian
SUNY, Stony Brook, NY 11794-3359
LZMORGAN@SBCCVM (bitnet)
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------21----
Date: Fri, 12 May 89 11:01:07 EDT
From: cbf%faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU@jade.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber)
Subject: Re: 3.23 revolutions; angels (126)
Somewhere in the back of my head there is dancing a
reference to a 16th-c. humanistic work which does indeed
attack scholasticism with a title something along the
lines of De virorum obscurorum. It does attack the
philosophical absurdities of the M.A., but whether
it mentions angels and pins I do not know.