What follows the last entry is Professor Greenblatt's account of how Christianity attempted to prevent the "unraveling" of its "whole fabric of morality:"
What had to be done was to refashion the account of the founder Epicurus so that he appeared no longer as an apostle of moderation in the service of reasonable pleasure but instead as a Falstaffian figure of riotous excess...And his principal Roman disciple, Lucretius...the main problem [for "Christian polemicists"] was the core ethical idea: that the highest good is the pursuit of pleasure and the diminution of pain.
Hmm, "the diminution of pain;" Professor Greenblatt is in pain, Chinese are in pain. In most instances Greenblatt uses the p.o.h. and its synonyms; a very few times he links it with "the diminution of pain." Pleasure is the opposite of pain. Pursuit of pleasure is not. One can fail, as Greenblatt has, to obtain pleasure in the pursuit, in which case one suffers, as Greenblatt does, a double dose of pain. There are not many Chinese Epicureans. No, in the entire frigging country there is not one frigging Epicurean. Nor are there many T.J.'s: there are slave-holders, as T.J. was, but Chinese slaveholders and non-slaveholders do not obtain much pleasure and do not much pursue it. They are too "involved in the community," an avocation which Epicurus dismissed, to be much taken by the Orgasmatron. Pleasure is not the soul of China, the survival of the Han-Chinese is. It is that which Chinese pursue. Back to Greenblatt:
What had to be undertaken [by Christianity] was the difficult project of making what appeared simply sane and natural [the p.o.h.]--the ordinary impulses of all sentient creatures--seem like the enemy of the truth.
"Impulses:" In Christendom acting on impulses is...discouraged. Some homos have impulses to murder and rape. We in societies dominated by endlessly reiterated, prominently displayed images of the bloody, murdered son of God have adjudged such interesting individuals insane. In Epicurus-dom and Greenblatt-dom they are sane instantiations of "the truth."
Centuries were required to accomplish this grand design, [It was a premeditated scheme by swine Christians.] and it was never fully completed. But the grand outlines may be seen blah, blah, blah, in the works of Lactanius. [I bet he turns out to be a VILLAIN.] Lactantius wrote a series of polemics against Epicureanism [I was right. Yes!]...Christians must refuse the invitation [to pleasure] and understand that pleasure is a code name for vice.
...
A hatred of pleasure-seeking and a vision of God's providential rage: these were death knells of Epicureanism, henceforth branded by the faithful as "insane." [See above]
...
In one of the great cultural transformations in the history of the West, the pursuit of pain triumphed over the pursuit of pleasure.
How? In between those two sentences is Greenblatt's answer:
Lucretius had urged the person who felt the prompting of sexual desire to satisfy it: "a dash of gentle pleasure sooths the sting." (4.177). Christianity, as a story rehearsed by Gregory demonstrates, pointed in a different direction. The pious Benedict found himself thinking of a woman he had once seen, and, before he knew what was happening, his desires were aroused:
He then noticed a thick patch of nettles and briers next to
him. Throwing his garment aside he flung himself into
the sharp thorns and stinging nettles. There he rolled
and tossed until his whole body was in pain and cov-
ered with blood. Yet, once he had conquered pleasure
through suffering, his torn and bleeding skin served to
drain the poison of temptation from his body. Before
long, the pain that was burning his whole body had put
out the fires of evil in his heart. It was by exchanging
these two fires that he gained the victory over sin. [That would do it!]
What worked for the saint in the early sixth century would, as monastic rules made clear, work for others.
?
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA: "What worked for the saint would work for others?" That's Greenblatt's explanation as to how "the pursuit of pain triumphed over the pursuit of pleasure." I do not wish to argue ad hominem here as Professor Greenblatt and the learned pageviewers of Public Occurrences deserve--and expect--more so I will keep this discussion on an elevated plain and say that Professor Greenblatt has tweety birds flying around in his head, that in his current stay in Rome he lowers the IQ of the city, nay of the entire Italian peninsula; I say, Stevie, that is no argument, you have left out the argument part there, Stevie. Professor Greenblatt has set up a duality: in his words, the triumph of the pursuit of pain over the pursuit of pleasure. He gives an example of Saint Benedict rolling around in the bushes to conquer his sexual desire and then says vacuously what worked for Benedict worked for all Christians. If that duality is accurate, the question is how (or why) would pain triumph? This is not scholarship, it is not even cogent argument. As an undergraduate term paper this is a fail. This is sloppy thinking, half-baked exposition grounded on fear, anger, and hatred, hatred of Christianity.
What had to be done was to refashion the account of the founder Epicurus so that he appeared no longer as an apostle of moderation in the service of reasonable pleasure but instead as a Falstaffian figure of riotous excess...And his principal Roman disciple, Lucretius...the main problem [for "Christian polemicists"] was the core ethical idea: that the highest good is the pursuit of pleasure and the diminution of pain.
Hmm, "the diminution of pain;" Professor Greenblatt is in pain, Chinese are in pain. In most instances Greenblatt uses the p.o.h. and its synonyms; a very few times he links it with "the diminution of pain." Pleasure is the opposite of pain. Pursuit of pleasure is not. One can fail, as Greenblatt has, to obtain pleasure in the pursuit, in which case one suffers, as Greenblatt does, a double dose of pain. There are not many Chinese Epicureans. No, in the entire frigging country there is not one frigging Epicurean. Nor are there many T.J.'s: there are slave-holders, as T.J. was, but Chinese slaveholders and non-slaveholders do not obtain much pleasure and do not much pursue it. They are too "involved in the community," an avocation which Epicurus dismissed, to be much taken by the Orgasmatron. Pleasure is not the soul of China, the survival of the Han-Chinese is. It is that which Chinese pursue. Back to Greenblatt:
What had to be undertaken [by Christianity] was the difficult project of making what appeared simply sane and natural [the p.o.h.]--the ordinary impulses of all sentient creatures--seem like the enemy of the truth.
"Impulses:" In Christendom acting on impulses is...discouraged. Some homos have impulses to murder and rape. We in societies dominated by endlessly reiterated, prominently displayed images of the bloody, murdered son of God have adjudged such interesting individuals insane. In Epicurus-dom and Greenblatt-dom they are sane instantiations of "the truth."
Centuries were required to accomplish this grand design, [It was a premeditated scheme by swine Christians.] and it was never fully completed. But the grand outlines may be seen blah, blah, blah, in the works of Lactanius. [I bet he turns out to be a VILLAIN.] Lactantius wrote a series of polemics against Epicureanism [I was right. Yes!]...Christians must refuse the invitation [to pleasure] and understand that pleasure is a code name for vice.
...
A hatred of pleasure-seeking and a vision of God's providential rage: these were death knells of Epicureanism, henceforth branded by the faithful as "insane." [See above]
...
In one of the great cultural transformations in the history of the West, the pursuit of pain triumphed over the pursuit of pleasure.
How? In between those two sentences is Greenblatt's answer:
Lucretius had urged the person who felt the prompting of sexual desire to satisfy it: "a dash of gentle pleasure sooths the sting." (4.177). Christianity, as a story rehearsed by Gregory demonstrates, pointed in a different direction. The pious Benedict found himself thinking of a woman he had once seen, and, before he knew what was happening, his desires were aroused:
He then noticed a thick patch of nettles and briers next to
him. Throwing his garment aside he flung himself into
the sharp thorns and stinging nettles. There he rolled
and tossed until his whole body was in pain and cov-
ered with blood. Yet, once he had conquered pleasure
through suffering, his torn and bleeding skin served to
drain the poison of temptation from his body. Before
long, the pain that was burning his whole body had put
out the fires of evil in his heart. It was by exchanging
these two fires that he gained the victory over sin. [That would do it!]
What worked for the saint in the early sixth century would, as monastic rules made clear, work for others.
?
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA: "What worked for the saint would work for others?" That's Greenblatt's explanation as to how "the pursuit of pain triumphed over the pursuit of pleasure." I do not wish to argue ad hominem here as Professor Greenblatt and the learned pageviewers of Public Occurrences deserve--and expect--more so I will keep this discussion on an elevated plain and say that Professor Greenblatt has tweety birds flying around in his head, that in his current stay in Rome he lowers the IQ of the city, nay of the entire Italian peninsula; I say, Stevie, that is no argument, you have left out the argument part there, Stevie. Professor Greenblatt has set up a duality: in his words, the triumph of the pursuit of pain over the pursuit of pleasure. He gives an example of Saint Benedict rolling around in the bushes to conquer his sexual desire and then says vacuously what worked for Benedict worked for all Christians. If that duality is accurate, the question is how (or why) would pain triumph? This is not scholarship, it is not even cogent argument. As an undergraduate term paper this is a fail. This is sloppy thinking, half-baked exposition grounded on fear, anger, and hatred, hatred of Christianity.
