I had an interesting class this week on Eucharistic liturgy that I'd like to talk about, but I think I'll put that off until Friday in the interest of time (and the paper I need to finish tonight). So instead, I'll regale you all with the unofficial anthem of St. John's College: "The Battle Hymn of the Republic of Letters".
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the eidos of the Good,
Which is not the same as pleasure, I have clearly understood,
And I wouldn't take the tyrant's power, even if I could—
I'm marching from the cave!
Marching, marching towards the sunlight,
Marching, marching towards the sunlight,
Marching, marching towards the sunlight,
I'm marching from the cave!
The fool conceives of God but thinks the faithful are deceived,
But a greatest being whose reality is not belived,
Is a being through which something greater still can be conceived,
Which contradicts itself!
Ontological rebuttal,
Ontological rebuttal,
Faithlessness will ever scuttle,
For it contradicts itself!
The state of nature's character we know from good report
To be very solitary, nasty, brutish, poor and short,
So we'll give the sovreign all our rights and all the guns and forts,
And then we'll all survive.
Ratify the Social Contract, (3x)
And then we'll all survive.
Deterministic limits on my freedoms are erased
By the transcendental ideality of time and space,
So my atoms are determined but my will a different case,
It's pure autonomy!
Hail the Transcendental Ego, (3x)
It's pure autonomy!
I've been through all the steps in my phenomenology,
Whether Master, Slave, or in between, it's all the same to me,
I'm unhappy and I know it so I'm absolutely free,
I'm fully synthesized!
I've undergone the dialectic, (3x)
I'm fully synthesized!
As you can guess, it's sung to the tune of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic", so you can sing along yourselves! The Republic of Letters is a reference to Plato, as is the first verse. The second verse is Anselm's ontological proof of the existence of God. The third is a conflation of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. The fourth is based on Kant, and the fifth on Hegel (with maybe a little Nietzsche, too). It's hysterically funny to Johnnies, and completely lame to everyone else. Although, we did sing the Anselm verse in Early Church and Its Creeds today, so at least that professor is amused by it.
Stay tuned for Friday's post on the liturgy of the Eucharist!
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