judge

Yes I defer to you good sense.

johno

Anonymous, and indistinguishable from many an 'inspirational' poster in a new-age curiosity shop.

johno

Chris Weimer

Is there anything that makes you guys think the two are necessarily related? Is it from the same author? Different authors? Any allusions in the first that would relate back to the second? Is the first a response to the second? Is the second a response to the first? Gender, age, ethnicity, nationality of the first and/or second?

Chris Weimer

More general questions:

Is there an agreement about which source supplied the "to die is to gain" quote? Was it Plato, as Rick Sumner first hypothesized, or Paul, as Stephen Carlson thinks?

Has anyone looked into the possible sources for the paratactic style in which it was written in? Some user commented on The Lounge post that the style is indicative of bad writing. Is that Ciceronianism speaking over Senecanism?

Has anyone thought about just how bad anachronistically the translation could be if the second substituted a modern metaphor for a foreign expression?

These are just suggestions, guys. It seems that either there is a) a lack of interest (in which I'll quit posting to this altogether) or b) you guys just aren't thinking hard enough.

Nazaroo

If only the material were worth the effort.

At least part of the motivation, even for the most scientific scholar, is a love of his/her subject of study. You can't motivate people by throwing garbage at them and posing it as a challenge. That only motivates naive schoolboys in a schoolyard - the 'double-dare you' syndrome.

You are the one who chose the material, so the buck stops with you.


Start a new thread, only this time post something worthy of a Bertrand Russell or a Whitehead. You might get a better response and better performance too.

I'm only observing the obvious, because it seems to be escaping key persons.

A bad translation of mediocre material can't even motivate a dog to eats its own vomit.

Your questions would be interesting and powerful, if only the patient upon whom the operations would be performed mattered.

Chris Weimer

If I picked something that someone would be able to google, it would sort of defeat the purpose, would it not?

It's a valid excuse. Personally, I think both are crap, the latter even worse than the first. It's not great English, certainly unpolished, and the second too cliche to count as anything worthwhile. But the mere fact that you can test your "skills" to see what sort of epistemic knowledge we can derive by simple exegesis on the passage to verify whether our methods are sound or not.

But if you're not sure of yourself enough to rise up to the challenge, that says more about you, not the material. Even the most doggerel verses still have some people studying them.

It's a simple quiz, Nazaroo. Either rise to the occassion, or go back to your sniveling hole. No one is making you participate.

RED DAVE

Several points:

1) The archaic language is some parts leads me to believe:

(a) it's a translation;
(b) the original is, say, late 19th Century.

2) The content leads me to believe the original is Russian.

3) The structured nature of the first part leads me to something like the "Grand Inquisitor" sequence in The Borothers Karamazov. I know it's not that, but something like that. Maybe Chekhov, but I'm not that familiar with his work.

4) I could be totally wrong on all this.

RED DAVE

Amaleq13

Both appear to be talking of the greatness of #1 though they disagree about it. #1 denies it and #2 affirms it.

The prima facie case is two different authors in disagreement.

Yes, the alleged greatness of #1.

Your use of "back", however, suggests #2 should be placed before #1 but that might be a red herring.

#1 ends by questioning what is greatness and #2 begins by defining greatness as though in reply to that question.

#2 also suggests this is part of an ongoing discussion and at that the disagreement about the greatness of #1 is at least the second disagreement they have had.

#1 mentions having no children but considers it a viable possibility so I would lean toward young adult but possibly middle aged.

Is the doubled "what you believe" in #1 your error or the original author's?

Chris Weimer

I can't give you the answers, Doug. This is for you to decide.

Johann_Kaspar

You said it. Why should anybody "study" crap material. There is nothing of interest. Anyone could start a thread like this one. It has nothing to do with scholarship, it is merely a game and it should be sent to "elsewhere".