the sleep of reason

For a long time, I misunderstood Goya's The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. Goya wanted to express that when Reason is absent, the forces of irrationality, ignorance and folly take over, with dire results. A typical Enlightenment point of view. Or maybe, as the Wikipedia page says, the etching is a Romantic embrace of unbridled imagination and emotion, wherever it leads. Either way, both the Enlightenment and Romantic interpretations agree that it is the abeyance of Reason's restraining powers what brings about the horrors —or the creative efflorescences.

But for me, Goya's engraving suggested something very different: that when Reason dreams, when it frees itself from the constraints of reality and the obtuse and paralyzing absurdity of the world, when it attempts to completely fulfill itself according to its own principles... that's what ends up creating the monsters. Is not the owl a symbol of knowledge, after all? For me the sleep of Reason didn't represent an abdication, but a momentary glimpse into its own apotheosis —which turns out to be a nightmare.

I suppose mine was a very Post-enlightenment, post twentieth-century interpretation. I think it is in line with Poincaré's assertion that "logic sometimes breeds monsters", although he was talking about deeply counterintuitive and seemingly aberrant mathematical results:

Logic sometimes breeds monsters. For half a century there has been springing up a host of weird functions, which seem to strive to have as little resemblance as possible to honest functions that are of some use. No more continuity, or else continuity but no derivatives, etc... Formerly, when a new function was invented, it was in view of some practical end. Today they are invented on purpose to show our ancestors’ reasonings at fault, and we shall never get anything more out of them.

"shop talk"

Most reviews of Jack Vance's autobiography "This Is Me, Jack Vance" point out that he avoids talking about his own writing for the most part. Apparently, he dislikes such "shop talk", as he calls it.

Well, he wasn't as reticent near the beginning of his writing career, as this snippet taken from The Illustrated Vance shows (click to enlarge):

The story being discussed is "Phallid's Fate".

an eye-popping fact

Jacksonborough was formerly the county site, situated on Beaver Dam creek, 10 miles from Savannah river, 55 from Augusta, and 70 from Savannah. It is now almost a deserted village. The place had formerly a very bad character. It was reported, that in the mornings after drunken frolics and fights, you could see the children picking up eyeballs in tea-saucers!

That quote, which reads like an hyperbole from one of R. A. Lafferty's tall tales, actually comes from from George White's "Statistics of the state of Georgia" (1849). I encountered it while searching for information on Lorenzo Dow, who is passingly mentioned in Harold Frederic's novel The Damnation of Theron Ware.

All the People

Anthony Trotz went first to the politician, Mike Delado.

"How many people do you know, Mr. Delado?"

"Why the question?"

"I am wondering just what amount of detail the mind can hold."

"To a degree I know many. Ten thousand well, thirty thousand by name, probably a hundred thousand by face and to shake hands with."

"And what is the limit?"

This is the beginning of R. A. Lafferty's story "All the People". It doesn't have much of a plot; it occupies itself with describing how weird would be for a person to know all the people in the world. In a way, the story anticipates the concept of Dunbar's number.

I wonder what kind of social processes take place when a small business expands, the number of its staff growing beyond Dunbar's number. It must be a critical phase, something like the social equivalent of breaking the sound barrier: the shock can be dangerous if the structure isn't sturdy enough.

some history books (2)

This time about France:

• France, mediaeval and modern, a history [1918]
• Medieval France : a companion to French studies [1922]

Also, let's not forget John Merriman's course France Since 1871 at Open Yale.

The City & The City

I haven't read any China Miéville yet, since the usual comments about his work suggested a tiresome inflation of weirdness for weirdness' sake. But Paul DiFilippo's review of "The City & The City" makes it sound like an interesting book:

Besźel is overlaid in enigmatic, never-fully-explicated fashion by a sister-state, Ul Qoma, which possesses a distinctly different cultural and political setup. At some point millennia ago, the two states were one. But then came the inexplicable Cleavage, a climacteric both physical and mental. Ever since, the citizens of each "overlapping magisterium" (to contort Stephen Jay Gould's famous phrase about the separation of science and religion) are prohibited from interacting on a daily basis, even in the slightest fashion. From earliest youth, individuals in Besźel are taught to "unsee" any parallel structures and events and people in Ul Qoma. The citizens of Ul Qoma do likewise. Any accidental or deliberate interaction between the two realms is deemed "breach," and is punished severely by the near-omnipotent agency of that same name.

The premise of two separate populations living in the same city without interacting, or even seeing each other, is reminiscent of Jack Vance's story "Ulan Dhor", from The Dying Earth.

(later) "Ulan Dhor" also resonates with some aspects of Jeff VanderMeer's "City of Saints and Madmen", as he himself has mentioned.

Geography and History

I'm trying to find a good book about the influence of Geography on History. Not at the macro level (in the style of Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel") but rather at a smaller level explaining the success of failure of particular polities.

Meanwhile, I try to notice instances of geographical reasoning on regular history books. Like the following passage, which explains the relative paucity of republics on the plains of Lombardy during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance:

Although this danger [Ezzelino] had been got rid of, no town in the northern plains of Italy, except Venice, was able to establish a durable republic. The poet tells us that liberty has two voices, one of the sea, and the other of the mountains. Freedom dwells upon the heights, and not upon the plains. The plains of Lombardy were peculiarly suited to the evolutions of cavalry, and cavalry was especially the arm of the nobles, as infantry was of the citizens in the towns. Hence the great towns Milan, Verona, and Padua, were no sooner free from one master than they fell under the dominion of another. This encroachment was also assisted by the fact that the towns were obliged to allow themselves to be defended by some nobles of their choice against the attack of a robber chieftain who might swoop down upon them from the mountains. They were obliged to oppose cavalry of their own to the cavalry of their enemies. We find the power of more than one of these houses raised upon the ruins of the authority of Ezzelino.

—Guelphs & Ghibellines : a short history of mediaeval Italy from 1250-1409.

The same book mentions how Pisa's lack of natural defenses was a decisive factor in the eclipse of the city by Genoa:

The weakness of Pisa consisted in the plain which lay behind it. That was occupied by a number of hostile towns Lucca, Florence, Arezzo always ready to take advantage of a moment of misfortune. Genoa, on the other hand, her victorious rival, was backed by the ridge of the impassable Apennines. The cornice or narrow ledge of coast road between Genoa and Spezzia, offered points of vantage for many a little town, which owed allegiance to her proud mistress, but to no one else. The busy ports were well suited for shipbuilding ; the sea supplied the wealth and sustenance which the hills denied. Every village sent forth its contingent of hardy sailors, no unworthy fellow-countrymen of Columbus. For these reasons the contest between the two cities was unequal, and the issue could not be doubtful.

The importance of an easily defensible position for the prosperity of Genoa and Venice is touched in Nick Szabo's essay History and the Security of Property.

I also found the following bit about Corsica interesting:

The position of Corsica was peculiar. That island is divided into two parts by a very high range of mountains, whose summits rival the loftiest peaks of the Apennines. At a time when all communication was effected by sea, the two sides of the island knew very little about each other. They stood, as it were, back to back, one half owning allegiance to Ajaccio, the other to Bastia ; the western half dependent on Genoa, the eastern to Pisa.

Another book notices Siena's unpropitious location:

If beauty of situation determined the importance of a city, Siena would have been second to none in Italy. But, unfortunately, the unrivalled site imposed a number of permanent material drawbacks. One alone of these, the lack of water, constituted no less than a calamity; for at their sources among the hills the Elsa and the Ombrone are mere brooks, not only unsuited to navigation but incapable even of yielding a liberal supply of drinking water for man and beast. Was it conceivable that Siena should ever overcome this fundamental disability? Was it at all likely that a town suffering from scarcity of water and deprived of what in early times was always the safest means of communication with the surrounding territory, a generous water-course, should ever become a great directive agent of civilization? No, its action would necessarily be limited, its world would be hardly more than the dependent district which the citizen, gazing from the ramparts, saw lying at his feet. The story of Siena, set high and dry among the hills, could never be the tale of a world centre, such as Venice, or Milan, or Florence, bestriding each, like a colossus, one of the great and convenient highways of the Italian peninsula.

—Siena: The History Of A Mediaeval Commune.

Lack of water, and of easy access to the sea, whas a hindrance for Siena's economic development. Later in the same book:

Never have men since cities have a history struggled so hard against a decree of nature, or so persistently hoped against hope, pinning their faith in the last resort to a miracle. With admirable patience the burghers brought water from afar by means of cunning, subterranean conduits which still exist, arousing the admiration of modern engineers. Nevertheless the supply obtained was insufficient. When that picturesque upland region, where Siena has her seat, failed to reveal, even to close scrutiny, any further spring capable of being tapped for city uses, the townsmen encouraged one another to believe in a hidden river underneath their feet. They even knew its name, the Diana; borings were invited at public expense, and sensitive ears in the still hours of the night plainly heard the rush of its waters. Readers of the Divine Poet have laughed merrily over his contemptuous fling at the gente vana who hugged such illusions to their breast, but for the lover of this people the curious aberration has the deep pathos inseparable from the spectacle of hopes heroically pursued in the face of the unchangeable decrees of nature.

a homely landscape

This land is a little land; too much shut up within the narrow seas, as it seems, to have much space for swelling into hugeness: there are no great wastes overwhelming in their dreariness, no great solitudes of forests, no terrible untrodden mountain-walls: all is measured, mingled, varied, gliding easily one thing into another: little rivers, little plains, swelling, speedily-changing uplands, all beset with handsome orderly trees; little hills, little mountains, netted over with the walls of sheep-walks: all is little; yet not foolish and blank, but serious rather, and abundant of meaning for such as choose to seek it: it is neither prison nor palace, but a decent home.

—William Morris