- being a short compendium of the inanities known to emanate from the famous aesethician, JA
Affectation – the science of the affects.
Animal – charming, often affecting creatures
that don’t have proper souls. See also: vegetable, mineral.
America – we wouldn’t be where we are today if
the Spanish had settled it instead of the British, now would we?
Anagnorisis – heart-quickening moment in a play.
“Do you recognise me?” “How could I fail to?”
Angel – almost invariably female. Adorable.
Anglicanism – bastion of taste and learning.
Arabesque – what the terrorists need to go back
to being.
Architecture – its three finest achievements are
churches, homes and ruins.
Argument – screw up your face, over-pronounce
your words. Even if you don’t know why you think it, they’ll think you mean it.
Armpit hair, women’s – formerly one of the
delights of the south of Italy.
Arrogant – scholars, critics and the like are
often "blisteringly" so.
Art – an enchanted world, has a soaring aspect,
etc.
“as it were” – a sturdy phrase for an occasion
when one’s bladder is full. (See also: Lecture). Pronounced “as’t’were”, the
initial consonant of “were”, clearly, aspirant.
Australian – blasé when sober, aggressive when
drunk.
Authority – try to hold it over others by being
loveable, not terrifying.
Authority, appeal to – what’s so wrong about it?
Can’t one see the important thing is to appeal to it sensibly?
Bed – “creaks sweetly under the weight of a man
and a woman mutually delighting in intimate sensitivity.”
Bible - full of sinning and smiting, though
terrifyingly humane as well.
Body – how on earth does it work? If your heart
beats a little faster when you contemplate this, you know yours is in good
working order.
Bovary, Madame! – a charming way to greet a
married woman in parts of provincial France.
Bluff – an adjective meaning good-naturedly
frank and hearty. (“Goethe’s manner with the young prince could be bluff if the
occasion required.”) As a noun it means a steep promontory. (“In his early
views of the Cornish coast Turner is merely bluffing.”)
Buddhism – made up of a big wheel and a little
wheel, the latter of which obviously fits inside the former.
Calisthenics – children of the lower orders do
it instead of ballet.
Carafe – rhymes with “giraffe”. For holding
wine, unless you’re a genius, in which case you can leave one half full of your
own urine lying round to catch the sunlight at an interesting angle . . .
Catholic, Catholicism – being a reluctant one
gives it a lovely twist.
Cellos – sonorous, woody. What are those little
tattoos they have on their pelvises?
Chance – or hazard. The unknown element in
affairs both great and small. E,g. appalling weather.
Chinese – skin of the young ladies as delicate
as porcelain. Great number of them at university. Vast majority seem pleasant,
unexceptionable.
Christian – one isn’t necessarily a Christian,
though one aspires in every respect to be a gentleman.
Common herd – (Lat. mobile vulgus) – the trouble
with them is that they applaud the crudest arguments in favour of whatever they
already believe.
Concern – two types, commercial (“His father
owns a shipping concern”) and philosophic (“Being good for Plato is always a
going concern”).
Courtliness – the art of being and not merely
seeming indispensable.
Criticism – all the more dangerous in that it is
often latent.
Dante – Italian. Belongs to a triumvir of genius
that also includes Shakespeare and Goethe. Also: an inferior brand of olive
oil. (Note to oneself: make a more concerted effort to learn the language once
the children are grown.)
Dawn – a woman with this name generally looks
well in a russet mantle.
de Botton, Alain – “swan of Zurich”. Titanic man
of measure. Empyrean worker within his own limitations. One feels his candour
and grace have revealed something wonderful in oneself, etc.
De gustibus non disputandum – Latin adage
relating to taste meaning that one can’t dispute about it. Being practical
fellows, the Romans would surely have been the first to admit that its
indisputability should never stop one earning a living by it.
Desires – we have so many of them. One of the
jobs of the aesthetician is to help people untangle the difficulties here.
Details – when seen in the right light they can
be extraordinarily revealing.
Dictators – it’s an amazing thought, but perhaps
they’re just trying to be happy too.
Distinction – always rhetorical. Throw together
a pair of “virtues”, “capacities” or “qualities” and imply that there is a
significant point of contrast to be observed. Employed skillfully a distinction
creates a “concentrated point of grandeur.”
Dreams – everything in them appears laden with
significance, yet we can’t quite grasp what the overall meaning is.
Dutch, the – have ski-jump noses. Rembrandt got
on top of the situation by using lots of light and shade.
Elucidation – only illustrate, never elucidate –
or else one’s material will seem plodding and coarse.
Elites – all elitist, though why that’s an
objection requires a lot of careful discussion.
Exceptions – often prove the rule.
Existential – impossible to say what anything
fitting this description actually is, though safe to assume one won’t be able
to buy it at the shops.
Feminists – some of one’s most memorable
ex-girlfriends are feminists.
Feudalism – see the good in it. Heavenly source
of social cohesion.
Feuds – children’s entire sensibilities fall out
their ears if parents have too many.
Foibles – are often just the language of the
passions speaking in a dialect we are unaccustomed to.
Folly – or carelessness. Makes things worse than
they need be.
Fortune – when told about someone
with a large one, say “Large indeed, but does he have the qualities of heart to
go with it?”
Friendship – “deep” and “enduring”, for
preference. Sometimes our friends are, in spite of all, unable to grasp certain
things that are deeply important to us: one of the crueler ironies of
existence.
Geist – German word which denotes both what the
sight of a woman and the thought of God inspires in a German person. (obsolete
idea)
German – In German “to smoke” and “to rustle”
are expressed by the same verb. Marvellous! (See also: Smoking)
Georgic – a mood that overtakes one at the sight
of farming and farms.
Goethe – foremost German. A gentleman. A little
like Christ and just a tiny little bit like – oneself, one hopes!
Good looks – no excuse for moral weakness,
though they are the occasion of much aesthetic delight.
Government – its role is clearly not to
interfere in the lives of the destitute if they are happy.
Gout – if you've got it, your great-grandfather clearly
liked boozing and eating lamb’s hearts.
Gracious – use this word primarily of table-legs.
"Gracious proportions." "Gracious vista." One of the more
technical terms of the aesthetician’s trade.
Great man – is by turns rich, funny, handsome,
generous, famous, passionate, keen on his food; quietly domestic and
outrageously dirty.
HHK - happy healthy kitten – one’s wife Helen
(Latin: Helena)
Heart – human beings don’t have hearts, they
feel with them. This astonishing argument was thought up by a man named
Wittgenstein. (See: body)
Hell – obviously just a metaphor for something
else.
Hello – high-pitched bleating noise that serves
tolerably well to indicate to the fellow whose path one crosses what one’s
disposition towards him is.
History – basis of historical novels. Don’t
worry about the details - who went to war with whom is obvious (painfully so!),
who slept with whom usually comes out in the wash.
History, End of – rail against those who say
we’ve reached this. Say we’re in a quiet patch. Which will help us take stock.
Hitler – must have been a little bit of good in
him, perhaps, if he liked Beethoven and Wagner.
Home – it really is important to have a decent
one. Our homes are situated amidst greenery, known technically as Nature.
Human condition – Referring to oneself and one’s
readers as “we” will encourage one's readers to believe in it. Contains within
it the seed of a sense of beauty.
Idea – only as good as the results it brings in.
Ideal (C.f. shrub) - something you can lop the
extremities off and make all the sturdier and more shapely.
Idealism – longing for things to work out really
well. In eternal conflict with realism. (See: realism)
Illustration – story based on fact about a
fellow one shared a bottle of good wine with, a disarmingly naïve question
asked one by a child, etc.
Inferno – toasty place where wicked people don’t
get any better. (C.f. purgatory) Australia in summer.
Ingres – masterly romantic realist of
the French Nineteenth Century whose frankly sensuous nudes adorn the covers of
all my books, obviously. (See: dustjacket)
Justice – an interesting virtue. Reading
Shakespeare while drinking red wine will fill you with something very like it.
Kierkegaard – odd gloomy Danish fellow. Got himself into a tangle getting married. Claimed that aesthetics and morality are mutually exclusive. Yet doesn’t good taste conduce to a healthy marriage and thus to a happy life?
Kind people – always recognisable by the fact
that they are morally appealing.
Kunderian, Kunderaesque – mystical openness to
life that expresses itself in serial adultery.
Laurels – one can’t rest on them if one doesn’t
have any, can one?
Lecture – informal presentation. Muddle through.
Sometimes accompanied by pictures projected onto a screen.
Leger – French for “light”. What one’s
philosophy aspires to be, as well as agreeable and sensible.
Logic – quote Flaubert’s line about the artist
needing to know that 2 + 2 = 4 if he is to show that 2 + 2 = 5.
Love – one of the great mysteries. We must
complexly recognise its power to move us. (What economists refer to as
“growth”.)
Mad – say it’s not so much people as their
ideas that are mad, or “as mad as can be”.
Madonna, The – must have been a fine person to
have given birth to such a loving son. Would’ve been nice to meet her.
Martini – shaken not stirred. (Unlike works of
art – be sure one is stirred not shaken here!)
Meadow – Covered in flowers in spring. Like a
carpet that waves to one. (Charming conceit of Willy, our eldest, pronounced on
the eve of his 5th birthday.)
Melancholy – professional risk of being an
artist, philosopher or religious believer.
Men of genius – often say things which make them
sound like unhappy dunces trying to re-invent the wheel. The reality is usually
more complicated.
Mind-bodice problem – The problem of what to do
when images of women’s corsetry are constantly passing before one’s mind’s eye.
Not to be confused with the mind-body problem, which is a more abstract
difficulty.
Mistake – always admit one’s mistakes, it's a
sign of character. If necessary admit them whilst at the lectern.
Mistress – “unquenchable friend” etc.
Modernity – pretext for using public spaces as
latrines. All students who use the word “modernity” more than twice in an essay
should be marked zero (0), F (fail).
Monks – defrocked paedophiles condemned to brew
delicious alcoholic beverages.
Moustache – before 1900 a man could have more
than one – enchanting!
Nightmare – horrifying series of imaginary
events in which someone familiar approaches one and says “You smell of earth”.
Odalisque – the best of them gaze at one
passively, yet challengingly. Sends shivers down one’s spine. See also:
recumbent.
Paradoxes – can function as intellectual
laxatives and should never be too paradoxical. Everything can be formulated as
a paradox if seen in the right light. C.f. detail.
Parents – we must acquire the knack of breaking
with them physically without renouncing the succour and inspiration they have
given us.
Pessimism – we are born in obscenity and
destined for death, etc.
Peeing in one’s pants – makes virtually no noise
and gives one a warm feeling. Like contemplating a good painting.
Philia, joys of – enchanting something that
passes between friends. What Odysseus felt for Penelope, what Scylla felt for
Charibdis. (See: friendship)
Philosopher – someone who, ideally, keeps his
nose so close to the ground that he occasionally falls down holes, at the
bottom of which he finds huge pots of money.
Philosophy – a style of life, not a system of
thought.
Picasso – unpleasant, lusty chap. Over-admired.
Some say he changed art for good.
“Pits, it’s the” – say it if something’s awful
or if you own a mining concern.
Pity – is the queen of the emotions. Though
ensure she is a monarch of the constitutional variety.
Plants – see also: animals, rocks. Civilised,
civilising beings. One has so many thoughts in their vicinity one begins to sense
they have thoughts of their own. Can it be?
Platonist – descends into caves and is told, to
his chagrin, that he’s an idiot.
Pleasure – certain things we are attracted to
get in the way of us doing other more important and ultimately more rewarding
things: one of the crueller ironies of existence.
Plot – Plot, character, imagery - the three most
important elements of a novel, pace
the eternal onanism of the structuralists. (See: structuralists) The faults of
all novels are identifiable as faults of either plot, character or imagery.
E.g. Daniel Daronda.
Politics – doesn’t exist. Proof of which is that
it has no business in philosophy. Say it’s about people, not systems.
Post-coitum – the animal may be sad, but the
aesthetician lies awake thinking about many things.
Post-structuralists – structure their obscure
“discourse” around the pronouncements of so-called structuralists. It’s oddly
inconsistent.
Priest – holy being whose profession is to think
in terms of hierarchies. Mind as sharp as a knife. And a good knife, as we all
know, can cut through almost everything, as well as spreading butter.
Principles - sacred, even if one has never
precisely made a list of one’s own.
Problems of philosophy – generated by taking
very simple ideas and pointing out that they can be taken in opposite senses.
Problems of policing – generated when you tell a
bad person to go away and he says “No-o.”
Profound – the most dependable way to say
something profound is to say something stupid then correct oneself.
Prostitute – (Greek: hetera, pl. heterae) A young
man of sensibility should visit the same one many times. The conversation
afterwards can be a significant part of the experience. All prostitutes in
literature are called Aspasia. (See: sex)
Proust – Great themes are love and memory.
Striking allusions to sodomy. The first writer to use the first person plural
pronoun in the lyrico-didactic sense. “Unforgettable”
Proverbs – a light sprinkling of these does
wonders. Always true in a sense.
Psychology – unless used sparingly can lead to
the utmost ruination of one’s sense of the beautiful. (Note of tension with
one’s wife on this issue – ended with the birth of our eldest.)
Realism – what one feels when a student comes to
tell one she can’t write her essay because of a drug-habit.
Recumbent – Men too often go unaware of the
pleasures of the recumbent state. Odalisques are always "recumbent”.
Religion – the spirit of true religion is not in
conflict with anything, including, logically speaking, itself.
Rhyme – is only in agreement with reason in the
choicest poets.
Romantic School – succeeded the Classical School.
If one’s wife rolls her eyes at dinner parties it is because she is of the
Romantic School.
Russians - best demonstration that human beings
have a soul. And of how frightfully difficult they can be as a result.
Scholarship – no book about art which speaks
from the heart should contain any references to the work of mere scholars.
Science – a little science takes one away from
art, a lot brings one back to it.
Scumble – to create a softening effect by
blurring everything. Scumble your way through expositions of aesthetic theory.
Sea, the – has been shown empirically to be
merely another element, yet it can awaken our deepest yearnings.
Sex - known technically as "congress". A smoking gun to certain Christians.
Simplicity – widely available in rural areas.
Sincerity – is, agonisingly, not the substance
of life. The third cruellest irony of existence.
Smiling – that must mean one’s soul is doing
something rather special.
Smoking – in parts of Europe “smoking” is the
name of a dinner jacket. How confusing that must be when one is enjoying a
cigarette after dinner.
Socialists – despise commerce. Almost all poor.
Structuralism – rail against it. The pet term of
certain fellows who would like to reduce beauty to something they call
"structure" and who, one feels, have very little to say.
Students – have awfully half-baked ideas. The
unfettered curiosity of male students is often a sign of inner ugliness.
Stripling – misguided youth. (See: students,
male)
Subject and object, problem of – what it
inevitably comes down to is that one has to have some perspective on what is
not oneself.
Suffering – the sight of others doing it makes
us appreciate the very major goods we have.
Summerhouse – place of delights in a garden.
Swagged – stolen property bound into an ornamental festoon.
Taste – fear of expressing it can envelop us
like a fog.
Thanks – Always multiple (“many thanks”), though
don't make them too effusive. How small an amount of them one gets sometimes
when one tries to refine people’s sense of what they need.
Theorist – often not very cleanly shaven.
Someone one has one’s fundamental disagreements with.
Theory – never admit to having one.
“There’s something going on here!” – rouse your
audience from its aesthetic lethargy by saying this all the time as if you’re
about to go out of your mind.
Tragedy – all tragedies are, from one point of
view or another, moral. Otherwise they’re just accidents.
Twentieth Century - era in which humanity became
"enmeshed in a series of ghastlinesses". Source of boundless
controversy. Don't mention any of the details, you'll end up crying at the
lectern.
University – where one has one’s office. Centre
of learning and enterprise.
Universality – we should aspire to this. But in
what sense? There’s the rub.
Ur-pflanze – “Er, pflanze”. Goethe’s charming
term for the poetic original of every plant.
Ur-question – “Er, question”. The poetic
original of every question – i.e. a question asked hesitantly, haltingly.
Vitality – “secure”, “peaceful” and, most
certainly, “inner”. Best enjoyed sitting down.
Veil of Maya – female students swoon when you
mention it because they think you're talking about getting married to them.
“We” – literally “you who have paid”. Oneself
and one’s readership. Marks an imaginary community of sentiment and aspiration.
Whitegoods – life is a bit like these - first
work out how it works, then you’ll have a better idea of its deeper
significance. “What’s this button for?” etc.
Willpower – you lack it if you’re still in bed
at 11am with a pillow over your head.
Wisdom – in a world gone mad, consists in
sitting on the fence. From which one often has an enchanting view.
Women – the difficulty with men is that they
have no idea how moving women can be. The Eternal Feminine draws us on.
(Goethe) Precisely.
Yearning – a strong desire. Can get the better of one, if it goes unsated. Those in a condition of yearning can be troublesome, yet are they not also a little to be envied?
Yearning – a strong desire. Can get the better of one, if it goes unsated. Those in a condition of yearning can be troublesome, yet are they not also a little to be envied?
Yvette – rather grand name for a wife. Alain’s
wife. Rhymes with "crevette".
By way of explanation. . .
"Perhaps we are inescapably marked – when
it comes to ideas – by early life. . . My deepest fear is of loutish bullying
and, close second, of appealing for help and being told the problem lies in me.
Uncritical emphasis upon ideas like difference and equality is terrifying.”
(JA, In Search of Civilisation)
"Egmont enters wrapped in his long riding
cloak; he hesitates and then he throws wide his arms revealing the most
splendid costume adorned with the insignia of the most august chivalric order:
the Golden Fleece. Egmont's spiritual beauty is made manifest. But this is not
a scene of pomp and majesty - it takes place in the quietest, most serene
domestic interlude. For Egmont's splendour, like that of the Christ, is not
terrifying or humiliating - it is adorable, and Clärchen embraces him."
(JA, Life, Love, Goethe)
"Cheese - Quote the aphorism 'a
dessert without cheese is a beautiful woman with only one eye.'"
(Flaubert, Dictionary of Received Ideas)"
"Crucifix - Most becoming in a bedchamber
or on the scaffold." (Flaubert, Dictionary of Received Ideas)
"Constipation - All men-of-letters are
constipated. Influences political convictions." (Flaubert, Dictionary
of Received Ideas)
***
Flaubert's original title for his Dictionary
of Received Ideas was the Dictionary of Accepted Phrases
Universally Admired though Profoundly Stupid, however the target of the
project, from beginning to end, was the special combination of mindlessness and
self-satisfaction that he saw in the provincial middle classes of his day. As
the first English edition of the Dictionary put it, "it
is especially when the bourgeois dabbles in discussion of science, of
literature, or of art that his stupidity becomes really impudent, aggressive,
'enormous'." So it is that, according to Flaubert, good provincial brains
need to be furnished with a certain basic stock of ideas - platitudes that can
be slipped amiably into all sorts of conversation, clichés that allow healthy social beings to flatter themselves that they taste and intelligence. And furnish them is
exactly what the dictionary does: though many of the entries are clearly transcriptions of material Flaubert had overhead, most are probably fabrications. The end result
is not so much a catalogue of actual conversational tropes but a fictional effort to reproduce
the thinking patterns of the provincial bourgeois mind - to push it towards the
outright absurdity that Flaubert clearly thinks is its true element.
Flaubert's dictionary is the starting point for
the present semi-fictional glossary of platitudes to issue from the mind of
John Armstrong. For those who don't know him: the bon bourgeois of my glossary is a British
popular philosopher who has been resident in Australia for 20 years. His
publishers describe him a little awkwardly as an "acclaimed author and
influential public speaker in the realm of art and philosophy." In his own
"realm" though, he is a modern-day incarnation of Goethe's Egmont,
adorable, almost Christ-like, always on the verge of throwing open his riding
cloak and showing himself to us in his full glory. Or is he Goethe himself -
"by turns rich, funny, handsome, generous, famous, passionate, keen on his
food; quietly domestic and outrageously dirty"? Armstrong's self-described
"intimate philosophy" has never shied away from the personal, and one
of the many things it has been frank in divulging over the years is the resemblance
it sometimes sees between JA himself and the German Shakespeare. . .
Let me say right away that the experiences which
led me to write the Glossaire were marked by frustration -
time spent reading Armstrong's books that left me
with the feeling that he was dabbling in the same subjects as Flaubert's bons bourgeois, but had
somehow succeeded in passing off his dabbling as saleable wisdom. I first came
across him when I was sitting in on undergraduate philosophy lectures at the
University of Melbourne in 2006 and I don't think my reactions were all that
different from those of the more skeptical students who'd actually enrolled in
his classes. Many of us in Armstrong's aesthetics seminar were studying
philosophy for the first time. In a way, we were his ideal audience. Yet the
impression we had was that his basic business was reducing philosophy to a
series of false dichotomies and set phrases; that our interest in art wasn't
being given any more depth or direction by mannered descriptions of paintings (or
people or dinner parties) as "charming", "gracious",
"adorable" or "winning"; that discovering the history of philosophy
should involve much more than re-discovering in the great philosophers of
the past what the hackneyed language of mainstream culture often leads
first-time readers to discover in them anyway - sketchy distinctions
between art and science, the material and the spiritual, our "dearest
longings" and our "base desires". (Armstrong's standard thought-gesture
was to sketch the distinctions with the help of a few anecdotes, then go on to
predictably assert that for real thinkers
they really needn't be distinctions at all.)
It seemed obvious to us that anyone with solid
knowledge of the philosophical classics would've been able to track down passages in Plato, Kant or
Goethe where the greats were thinking against exactly the sort of received
ideas that Armstrong was presenting on their behalf. As necessary as simplification might
be for complete beginners, at some point it passes over into
out-and-out travesty and Armstrong, we felt, often stepped over the line. If he
knew there were philosophical complications - interesting complications - to one side of the conventional oppositions and his
equally conventional sublation of them, he certainly didn't let on about it. Yet
that was only part of the problem. The other part was that he gave the
impression that wanting to delve further was bound to detract from the
vital aesthetic properties of philosophy and of his own philosophical
personality. To that extent, he seemed to hold his subject, and his students'
sense of seriousness, in contempt.
This is not to say that Armstrong's lectures or
public appearances weren't entertaining. Entertaining was what they often were
because of the strange baggage of affectation he brought to every topic he went anywhere near. Armstrong, you could say, drove a certain pose of
Nineteenth Century gentility to a pinnacle of perfection; the way he would
screw up his face, audibly exaggerate his English accent, then start humming and hawing in a tone
of profound confusion, all worked well as satire, if not as actual philosophy.
Going to his lectures was like watching a drawn-out Monty Python sketch - one
of the many that caricature the worst of the dons that Cleese and Co. - and
Armstrong too - had obviously been taught by. As none of us had a time-machine
to take us back to 1964 or 1864, we were happy to be given a
second-hand experience of those amusing eccentrics who had combined a modicum
of original thought with a maximum of ancient mannerism - plus a lot of red
wine and sherry - to produce the spectacle of Oxbridge Philosophy for three
or four decades after WW2.
In Armstrong's case there were a few extra
undertones which actually made the show even more curious. They belong in part
to an era that post-dates the Oxbridge dream-world of the 50's and 60's. One
was his almost mawkish lack of self-belief - a tearful readiness to back down
when challenged that in the end gave the impression he didn't hold any recognisable philosophical position at all. Another was his ability to lightly
sexualise just about any topic.
Listening to Armstrong's lectures was literally
like listening to a Victorian family man who had escaped the frosty
compound of history and landed - to our dismay and his own gratification - in
the tropical Twenty First Century; the Victorians, they say, used to cover the
legs of their dining tables with lace curtains for fear that they (or their
wives) would get funny ideas; Armstrong himself, though glorying in Victorian
attitudinal niceties, was so openly aroused by tables, chairs and settees that
he often seemed in danger of losing self-control. His books, particularly the
latest ones on Goethe and civilization, often stray too far into sticky
territory: one of the personal tales he tells in In Search of Civilization is about a distressing visit to a
Parisian brothel and the tears he shed at his own "sordidness"
when he emerged an hour later and found himself, after many wanderings, at the
door of a church where a choir was rehearsing a heavenly chorus. (Needless to
say, he instantly identified the music as Fauré's Requiem.)
Every work of philosophy might in a sense be
disguised autobiography, but Armstrong's work can seem, at times like this, to
be pretty light on actual disguise. In fiction or memoir he would probably have
had a better outlet for the sort of sub-Proustian sensibility at work
in intellectual sex scenes. In using his own mawkish tale of lost virginity to
illustrate what he thinks is a serious philosophical point about the human
capacity for "beastliness", he instead comes across as someone whose
self-obsessions knock him well off the philosophical path.
It was at some point in the late 90's or early
00's that Armstrong seems to have made the discovery that really gave an extra dimension to his silliness. That discovery was Weimar
Classicism, a lightly retouched version of the cultural ideals
of Goethe and Schiller. The great men on the plinths of Central Europe gave our
man two ideas - firstly, that a little of the glory of aristocratic genius can
be recaptured in the lives of mums and dads in the early Twenty First Century;
second, that he, like Goethe, needed to find a corner of the world from which
to actually govern in accordance with high aesthetic principle.
Armstrong's surprising step towards worldly
activity took him from the lectern, where he'd muddled his way through
many a lecture, into the upper echelons of Melbourne University administration,
which at the time was rolling out a new commercial-cum-pedagogic plan that went
by the name of The Melbourne Model. For a while, Armstrong ceased to amuse and
abuse us in lectures and instead amused and confused us in his role as the
University's inaugural "Knowledge Transfer Fellow" - "knowledge
transfer" being the process of transferring academic capital to
the wider community by means of loveable fellows (!)
like JA who were henceforth to . . . to . . .do what? It was difficult to tell,
but Armstrong took it as a cue to organise more wine and cheese nights at the
National Gallery and combine amateurish reflections about French painting with
a push to "embed the concept of Knowledge Transfer as one of the three
core strands of the University's Growing Esteem Strategy within the
University's wider operational systems and structures." Within a couple of
years, his enthusiasm for this kind of academic policy-making had
(understandably) waned and the effort to establish a world government of
sensibility had taken him to an even stranger place - an office in the
Melbourne Business School, from which, as of 2008, he operated as a sort of
philosophical attaché and made a range of off-key pronouncements about the
Global Financial Crisis.
With that, the Flaubertian repertoire of his
philosophical career seemed to be more than complete. Having started out with
some homespun wisdom about art being a good spiritual investment - having
built the repertoire towards Oprah-style self-exposure - having harked back to
Goethe's illustrious destiny as an administrator and a disciplined family man -
he found himself again right in the middle of our very own High Age of Capital,
letting us know that paying off mortgages is ennobled by a philosophic belief
in the Good, the True and the Beautiful.
There he was at it again two Sundays ago on
a Compass special report on money - a sort of magazine of interviews
with a welfare lobbyist, a "prosperity activist", a social
researcher, a theologian, an ex-businesswoman and. . . "the
philosopher". Our man came across as having less to say than the dinkum get-rich-quick guy and far less human presence than the theologian. As in so many of the lectures
of old, the attempt to bring his nebulous pretensions into line with the topic of the show seemed to be causing him actual physical pain.
Which brings us to the glossary of inanities known
to have either issued or . . . not issued from the mouth of the illustrious
aesthetician. How many of the entries are lifted verbatim from his lectures,
interviews and books and how many did I make up? I can't remember anymore. After Life,
Love, Goethe, I tried running away whenever he whirred into action at another cultural event; in the meantime I'd got sick of the spectacle of philosophy being
presented to the public as the occasion for so
much befuddled self-display - surely it was a safe bet that in the long-run the public would want nothing to do with it?
Faced with the undeniable fact of Armstrong's
short-term success, Glossaire tried extending his repertoire a
little in the direction of its true absurdity. Thankfully, Flaubert had done
half the work for me already. The pompous-whimsical bourgeois conformist of
the Dictionary who sees an opportunity to assert his superior social style in everything from
discussions of cheese to discussions of religion captured the Armstrong mindset
perfectly, with the exception of some of the philosophical farnakling.
Like Flaubert's, this dictionary of received
ideas is intended as a tribute as much as a backhander - a homage to the ingenuity with
which Armstrong makes use of his sometimes solid though often sketchy
philosophical knowledge. The aim is to make use of the knowledge, and the
attitudinising that goes with it, better than JA himself and thus relieve
anyone looking for actual philosophy of the task of reading
him; the only claim I'd make for Glossaire
is that it contains all the essential thought-gestures, thought-feints and
thought-mechanisms that are to be found in Armstrong's work itself.
That doesn't make Armstrong any less amiable or
any less of a showman. Glossaire shouldn't - and won't -
dissuade anyone from buying the books or attending the public lectures of our
great aesthetician in the short run. No one looking for Armstrong's actual philosophical
output will need to read anything other than these ten pages; but for fresh tales of the man's sordidness and splendour the works of JA himself will always be
indispensible.
(Melbourne, March, 2010)
