User:Sherrilledwards/sandbox: Difference between revisions

Line 40:

An example of such modification is Peter Berger’s book, ''A Rumor of Angels.''{{sfn|Berger|1969}} My title alludes to his book, and to a recent usage by Philip Yancey (1997). Berger suggests that there exist certain “signals of transcendence”—such as the human desire for order—that point beyond a purely naturalistic reality.{{sfn|Berger|1969|p=53}}{{efn| “By signals of transcendence I mean phenomena that are to be found within the domain of our ‘natural’ reality but that appear to point beyond that reality”{{sfn|Berger|1969|p=53}}}} However, as Berger recognizes, for most people the{{pg|334|335}} predominant reality is still that secular mind-set. Thus, religious language is used by a “cognitive minority." {{sfn|Berger|1969|p=6}}{{efn| “By a cognitive minority I mean a group of people whose view of the world differs significantly from the one generally taken for granted in their society. Put differently, a cognitive minority is a group formed around a body of deviant ‘knowledge’”{{sfn|Berger|1969|p=6}}}} This position is uncomfortable, needing to be buttressed socially and epistemologically. But the position exists.

Today, the relationship between religion and modernity is more nuanced than in the naturalistic Nineteenth Century.We recognize a wide spectrum from faith through doubt to atheism. But at the risk of simplification, there seem to be two main approaches. For conservative Christianity and Judaism, religious commitment may be expressed as a ''rejection'' of modernity, using an either/or approach to truth. For those with liberal perspectives on Christianity and Judaism, religious commitment may be regarded as ''complementary'' to modernity, utilizing a both/and approach to truth. That complementary perspective may remind us of wave-particle duality in quantum mechanics. This is not simply a literary trope.{{efn| Planck, Einstein, and Heisenberg revealed the inescapable reality of indeterminacy in our world.}} In both humanities and physical sciences, there will be no return to rigid determinism.

Today, the relationship between religion and modernity is more nuanced than in the naturalistic Nineteenth Century. We recognize a wide spectrum from faith through doubt to atheism. But at the risk of simplification, there seem to be two main approaches. For conservative Christianity and Judaism, religious commitment may be expressed as a ''rejection'' of modernity, using an either/or approach to truth. For those with liberal perspectives on Christianity and Judaism, religious commitment may be regarded as ''complementary'' to modernity, utilizing a both/and approach to truth. That complementary perspective may remind us of wave-particle duality in quantum mechanics. This is not simply a literary trope.{{efn| Planck, Einstein, and Heisenberg revealed the inescapable reality of indeterminacy in our world.}} In both humanities and physical sciences, there will be no return to rigid determinism.

=== God-Language in Hemingway: "Scared Stiff Looking at It" ===

It is easy to list God-language in Hemingway: deciding significance is harder. The title of ''In Our Time''{{sfn|Hemingway|1925}} came perhaps unconsciously from an English Prayer: “Give us peace in our time,O Lord” (1928 31).{{sfn|1993}}'''9''' {{efn| “Give us peace in our time, O Lord” can be found in the 1928 Episcopal Book of Common Prayer (31),{{sfn|NAME|YEAR|p=PAGE}} but presumably Hemingway knew it from the 1662 English BCP. Significantly, peace and Lord are not in Hemingway’s title: certainly, his parents saw little traditional faith in this work. In 1932, Hemingway admits “Ezra Pound discovered I lifted from the English Book of Common Prayer” (Hemingway, Ernest 90). {{sfn|NAME|YEAR|p=PAGE}}}} In this work, however, there is little overt God-language, maybe the awkwardness of Krebs with his mother’s sentimentalism in a “A Soldier’s Home” (Hemingway, In Our Time 76) or the unnamed soldier’s fearful bargaining with God in the accompanying vignette (67). Perhaps the final story, “Big Two-Hearted River,” with Nick Adams dealing with an indeterminate trauma by returning to Nature, has echoes of Genesis in its simple declarative sentences, “It was a good camp” and “It was a good feeling” (147). The fragment, “Scared stiff looking at it” (21), could be seen as a signifier of modernism, much as the final words of Kurtz, “The horror, the horror” (Conrad 178) from Heart of Darkness.Conrad’s words, CedricWatts suggests, “serve as a thematic nexus, a climatic but highly ambiguous utterance which sums up, without resolving, several of the paradoxical themes of the tale” (215). A quarter century later, Hemingway’s In Our Time offers yet another such thematic nexus.

=== Notes ===

Line 93:

Line 97:

* {{cite book |last=Marx |first=Karl |date=1975 |title=''A Contribution of the Critique of Hegel's'' Philosophy of Right. ''Introduction.'' |journal=Early Writings |location=Ed. Lucio Colletti. London |publisher=Penguin |pages=243-258 |ref=harv }}

* {{cite book |title=The 1928 Book of Common Prayer |location=New York |publisher= Oxford University Press, 1993 |ref=harv }}

* {{cite book |last=Popkin |first=Richard H. |date=2003 |title=The History of Skepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |ref=harv }}

@@ Line 40: / Line 40: @@
 An example of such modification is Peter Berger’s book, ''A Rumor of Angels.''{{sfn|Berger|1969}} My title alludes to his book, and to a recent usage by Philip Yancey (1997). Berger suggests that there exist certain “signals of transcendence”—such as the human desire for order—that point beyond a purely naturalistic reality.{{sfn|Berger|1969|p=53}}{{efn| “By signals of transcendence I mean phenomena that are to be found within the domain of our ‘natural’ reality but that appear to point beyond that reality”{{sfn|Berger|1969|p=53}}}} However, as Berger recognizes, for most people the{{pg|334|335}} predominant reality is still that secular mind-set. Thus, religious language is used by a “cognitive minority." {{sfn|Berger|1969|p=6}}{{efn| “By a cognitive minority I mean a group of people whose view of the world differs significantly from the one generally taken for granted in their society. Put differently, a cognitive minority is a group formed around a body of deviant ‘knowledge’”{{sfn|Berger|1969|p=6}}}} This position is uncomfortable, needing to be buttressed socially and epistemologically. But the position exists.
-Today, the relationship between religion and modernity is more nuanced than in the naturalistic Nineteenth Century.We recognize a wide spectrum from faith through doubt to atheism. But at the risk of simplification, there seem to be two main approaches. For conservative Christianity and Judaism, religious commitment may be expressed as a ''rejection'' of modernity, using an either/or approach to truth. For those with liberal perspectives on Christianity and Judaism, religious commitment may be regarded as ''complementary'' to modernity, utilizing a both/and approach to truth. That complementary perspective may remind us of wave-particle duality in quantum mechanics. This is not simply a literary trope.{{efn| Planck, Einstein, and Heisenberg revealed the inescapable reality of indeterminacy in our world.}} In both humanities and physical sciences, there will be no return to rigid determinism.
+Today, the relationship between religion and modernity is more nuanced than in the naturalistic Nineteenth Century. We recognize a wide spectrum from faith through doubt to atheism. But at the risk of simplification, there seem to be two main approaches. For conservative Christianity and Judaism, religious commitment may be expressed as a ''rejection'' of modernity, using an either/or approach to truth. For those with liberal perspectives on Christianity and Judaism, religious commitment may be regarded as ''complementary'' to modernity, utilizing a both/and approach to truth. That complementary perspective may remind us of wave-particle duality in quantum mechanics. This is not simply a literary trope.{{efn| Planck, Einstein, and Heisenberg revealed the inescapable reality of indeterminacy in our world.}} In both humanities and physical sciences, there will be no return to rigid determinism.
+=== God-Language in Hemingway: "Scared Stiff Looking at It" ===
+It is easy to list God-language in Hemingway: deciding significance is harder. The title of ''In Our Time''{{sfn|Hemingway|1925}} came perhaps unconsciously from an English Prayer: “Give us peace in our time,O Lord” (1928 31).{{sfn|1993}}'''9''' {{efn| “Give us peace in our time, O Lord” can be found in the 1928 Episcopal Book of Common Prayer (31),{{sfn|NAME|YEAR|p=PAGE}} but presumably Hemingway knew it from the 1662 English BCP. Significantly, peace and Lord are not in Hemingway’s title: certainly, his parents saw little traditional faith in this work. In 1932, Hemingway admits “Ezra Pound discovered I lifted from the English Book of Common Prayer” (Hemingway, Ernest 90). {{sfn|NAME|YEAR|p=PAGE}}}} In this work, however, there is little overt God-language, maybe the awkwardness of Krebs with his mother’s sentimentalism in a “A Soldier’s Home” (Hemingway, In Our Time 76) or the unnamed soldier’s fearful bargaining with God in the accompanying vignette (67). Perhaps the final story, “Big Two-Hearted River,” with Nick Adams dealing with an indeterminate trauma by returning to Nature, has echoes of Genesis in its simple declarative sentences, “It was a good camp” and “It was a good feeling” (147). The fragment, “Scared stiff looking at it” (21), could be seen as a signifier of modernism, much as the final words of Kurtz, “The horror, the horror” (Conrad 178) from Heart of Darkness.Conrad’s words, CedricWatts suggests, “serve as a thematic nexus, a climatic but highly ambiguous utterance which sums up, without resolving, several of the paradoxical themes of the tale” (215). A quarter century later, Hemingway’s In Our Time offers yet another such thematic nexus.
 === Notes ===
@@ Line 93: / Line 97: @@
 * {{cite book |last=Marx |first=Karl |date=1975 |title=''A Contribution of the Critique of Hegel's'' Philosophy of Right. ''Introduction.'' |journal=Early Writings |location=Ed. Lucio Colletti. London |publisher=Penguin |pages=243-258 |ref=harv }}
+* {{cite book |title=The 1928 Book of Common Prayer |location=New York |publisher= Oxford University Press, 1993 |ref=harv }}
 * {{cite book |last=Popkin |first=Richard H. |date=2003 |title=The History of Skepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |ref=harv }}