Permanent reading list:
The Complete Essays by Michel de Montaigne- I.23- On habit: and on never easily changing a traditional law — A very long and very detailed essay that is, at once, commonsensical and wonderfully bizarre. The progression from “custom” to “habit” to “ritual” to “law” seems straight forward enough as does as the obvious influence of Aristotle’s theories on habituation as contained (for the most part) in the Nicomachean Ethics. But, again, Montaigne shows his interest (and conspicuous delight! ) in what must have seemed truly bizarre at the time… for example, if you practice it enough, you can form the habit of using your feet to serve as your hands (which would be necessary if you have no hands) to the extent that one man that he observes “cuts his food with them, loads a pistol and fires with them; he threads a needle and sews, writes, doffs his hat, combs his hair, plays cards, and plays dice...” as well as take Montaigne’s money. The inventories of virtue and vice in this essay makes for fun reading...as the essay progresses into ritual and then law it gets less interesting.
One interesting note here is this is one of the few Montaigne essays that he uses many more quotations, citations and stories from ancient Greek authors (Plato, Aristotle, Herodotus, Thucydides) than Roman authors,
Wonderful essay and I want to read it yet again...and I may even write a little more about it next week. Reminds me more than a bit of the “imagination” essay.
I am now reading:
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany by William Shirer- Finished the first section. I’ve pretty much met the cast of characters including Hitler, Hess, Goering, Röhm and, of course, Ernst Franz Sedgwick Hanfstaengl (whom I’ve read of previously in another work that I can’t think of). Basically, they form a political gang (vaguely reminiscent of some of my readings of Roman history and their mobs) and Nazis are off on the journey to overthrow the Weimar Republic…
...well, before someone else beats them to it. Shirer makes it perfectly clear that Weimar was doomed from the start more or less because of the terms of The Treaty of Versailles, the reparations, and the blow to German pride, which angered conservatives in Germany. Shirer does a decent summation of the events that led to the founding of the Weimar Republic; I think that I want to look at some of the (translated) primary sources (in fact, I need to keep TWRS right by my side as I read Shirer).
One thing I will say about Hitler...a true believer through and through from the very beginning.