Loren Eiseley's "The Invisible Pyramid"

   

When he died at the age of 69 in 1970, anthropologist, philosopher, and natural science writer Loren Eiseley had already become respected as a twentieth century version of Henry David Thoreau.  Toward the end of his career, he focused increasingly on the impact of human civilization on the world around us—the living nature in which human civilization developed. 

            In 1970, a volume of Eiseley’s essays, The Invisible Pyramid, was published.  One of the essays, “The Time Effacers,” examines Eiseley’s view of the rise of modern science, which he describes as “. . . an increasingly time-conscious, future-oriented society of great technical skill, which has fallen out of balance with the natural world around it.” (p. 70)   He defines the rise of a scientific society as “a society of constant expectations directed toward the upcoming future.  What we have is always second best, what we expect to have is ‘progress.’  What we seek, in the end, is Utopia.” (ibid.)

            As I write this, Eiseley’s work is more than a half-century in the past.  In many ways, the issues he raised in 1970 are still with us, and the impact of our Industrial Revolution—from polluted rivers and air to global climate change—is becoming clearer as its products become intertwined with those of the Technological Revolution that has been underway since before his death.   “In the extravagant pursuit of a future projected by science,” he wrote, “we have left the present to shift for itself.” (p. 71).  Science, “as it leads men further and further from the first world they inhabited, the world we call natural, is beguiling them into a new and unguessed domain.” (ibid.)

He concludes, “When man becomes greater than nature, nature, which gave him birth, will respond.  She has dealt with the locust swarm and she has led the lemmings down to the sea.  Even the world eaters will not be beyond her capacities.  Sila, as the Eskimo call nature, remains apart from mankind “just as long as men do not abuse life.” (p. 80)

Note:  My quotations from The Invisible Pyramid are taken from Volume Two of the Library of America’s Loren Eiseley: Collected Essays on Evolution, Nature, and the Cosmos.

The Constitution as Law

  

 

Heather Cox Richardson recently posted an item about the roots of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  Here is a quote from her post:

 

In response, Congress reiterated that the law must treat all men equally. It passed the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution and sent it off to the states for ratification. The states added it to the Constitution in 1868. The Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed that ‘No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’

This amendment protects U.S. citizens from legal abuse.  It ALSO protects “any person” of being deprived “of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. . .”

This is a very important reminder of our nation’s commitment to government that guarantees fair treatment of all people before the law.  Anyone who does not honor the Fourteenth Amendment in this situation is disobeying the Constitution itself—I would call that a serious crime.

The government must require ALL federal employees—including Presidential appointees who lead government agencies—to obey the Constitution and to accept the Constitution as law that applies to all people in the U.S. and to ensure that their employees follow the law as articulated in the Constitution.

A Booksy Start to 2026

 

It was a very booksy Christmas at our house this year. 

I got three history books:

            History Matters, a collection of writing by David McCullough, with a forward by Jon Meacham, that illustrates the importance of history in shaping, as McCullough writes, “what we believe in, what we stand for, and what we ought to be willing to stand up for” (p. 3).  I look forward to reading it.

            A Short History of the World in 50 Failures by Ben Gazur, who looks at failures across history, from ancient times to the modern world, that have shaped history.

            Mark Twain, new 1000+ page biography of one of America’s greatest writers by Pulitzer Prize winning historian Ron Chernow.  

My son gave me the Mark Twain biography and was surprised to get a copy for himself from his uncle.

But the real surprise was “The Greatest Sentence Ever Written.”  I already had a copy, but got a new one from my son.  I also gave one to my brother-in-law; who gave one to my son.

 Let the winter weather rage, I have good books to keep me busy!

Walter Isaacson's "The Greatest Sentence Ever Written"

I have just finished reading Walter Isaacson’s latest look into the roots of American society, The Greatest Sentence Ever Written—an account of how Thomas Jefferson came to start the Declaration of Independence with this sentence: 

We hold these truths to be self-evident,

that all men are created equal,

that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,

that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

 

Isaacson goes on to discuss the individual words and thoughts that, together, lay out the foundation of American democracy.  Along the way, he also examines how Jefferson’s first draft was improved, word by word, by his companion revolutionaries-- Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and others—and how it was influenced by other philosophers of the Enlightenment.

 He begins with the word “We” and continues with a chapter on every word or phrase that sharpened the definition of America and Americans that would guide the Revolution and, ultimately, the Constitution. 

The story of how Jefferson and his colleagues carefully articulated their vision and their hopes for American society that would emerge from the Revolution is timely as we look forward to the nation’s 250th anniversary.  It is a brief book—just 66 pages—but it sets the stage for us to better understand the philosophy that guided at its birth and that continues to be the guiding vision of our democracy.

It is a great work to accompany Ken Burns’ new documentary series, The Revolution.

I encourage all to read and watch.

Jon Meacham's "The Soul of America"

 

    I have just finished reading Jon Meacham’s 2018 history, The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels.” It is the story of how the United States worked over our 2050-year history to solve problems whose solutions helped to define our national character.  It is a remarkable look at how the citizens of the United States and their leaders struggled over the generations to address fundamental issues surrounding our society’s commitment to serving all of its people. 

    Meacham looks at key moments in American history that shaped our sense of ourselves as a nation, with stories of leaders have faced the issues and shaped our common culture.  He looks at how the concept of the presidency—and the nature of our democracy—evolved from the Revolution through the presidencies of Washington, Jefferson, and Jackson and how American society continued to be refined as later Presidents dealt with immigration, the Great Depression, the continuing struggle for voting rights and inclusion, political extremism, and the more recent changes brought about by technology.

    It is a powerful book, and the way that Meacham engages our response to seven major social issues to illustrate how our sense of ourselves as a nation evolved is a powerful way to see and understand our history as a nation and a culture.

    Meacham quotes Harry Truman, who won the Presidency in 1948 running against three other candidates—segregationist Thurmond, progressive Wallace, and republican Dewey— “You can’t divide the country up into sections and have one rule for one section and one rule for another, and you can’t encourage people’s prejudices.  You have to appeal to people’s best instincts, not their worst ones.  You may win an election or so by doing the other, but it does a lot of harm to the country.”  The Soul of America explores how Presidents throughout U.S. history have approached that challenge to some of the most intractable issues facing our culture.

    The Soul of America is also a great example of how history should be taught, as a saga built around the ongoing challenges facing leaders in a constantly evolving society.  I thank Jon Meacham for his insight into our culture and his lessons for how we should continue to address change.  I heartily recommend it.

"A Complete Unknown"

 

The other night—and again the next afternoon—I watched A Complete Unknown, the new Bob Dylan bio-pic that depicts his rise from his arrival in New York City to his 1965 appearance at the Newport Folk Festival, in which his adoption of folk rock truly did electrify American popular music.  For people like me, who first discovered Dylan in the Sixties with the release of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, A Complete Unknown was a delight, especially knowing that Dylan himself was involved in the production.  Timothy Chalamet plays Dylan and sings his songs throughout the movie.  I am confident that, since Dylan was personally involved, Chalamet also accurately reflects some of Dylan’s personal quirks as he delivers his lines. 

One of the most interesting characters, it turns out, is fictional—sort of.  Dylan’s girlfriend in the film is named Sylvie Russo, played by Elle Fanning.  As Elle noted, “Sylvie is intended to represent the real-life woman who inspired much of Dylan’s early work, and who appeared clutching his arm on the famous cover photo for The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan: the artist and activist Suze Rotolo.”  Dylan did not feel it appropriate to use her real name, as she was not a professional colleague, like Joan Baez, but a purely personal friend and lover who stayed out of the limelight and who died a few years ago.  That said, their relationship is an important part of the film.

Beyond that, there are many very interesting moments in the film that give us viewers insights into the music scene at a time when we were on the verge of a cultural revolution.  For my generation, it is a great look back to our roots.

I heartily recommend A Complete Unknown.

A Lesson from Samuel Adams

 

I am reading The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams, Stacy Schiff’s biography of one of the people who helped set in motion the events that shaped the American Revolution 250 years ago.   Adams, who entered Harvard as a thirteen-year-old undergraduate in 1743, eventually earned his Master’s Degree there, too.  In those days, higher education centered around the ideas of the great thinkers of the classical era, but the study of Enlightenment thinkers was also popular.  Schiff notes that “the sole academic requirement for the degree was a thesis: in Latin, a master’s candidate answered a theoretical question drawn from a list of 400 questions covering the realms of philosophy, ethics, religion, and science” (p. 31).

Adams, then twenty years old, chose this topic: “Is it lawful to resist the supreme magistrate if the republic cannot otherwise be preserved?”  As Schiff reports, “Few others asked at the time—when George Washington was a child, Thomas Jefferson months old, and James Madison yet to be born—if resistance to a king might be justified” (p.33).  Adams’ answer was a firm “Yes.”  He argued that, while civil government was a blessing that protected individual citizens from the self-interest of others, when a leader’s actions imperil the rights of other citizens, “he overthrows the very design of government, and the people are discharged from all obedience” (ibid.).   Three decades later, Adams would become a signer of the Declaration of Independence and one of the architects of the principles that made American democracy a model for other nations.

Today, as we prepare to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States of America in 2026, the principles that Adams and his colleagues debated are being challenged again, and we need to re-affirm the principles on which the nation was founded.  What is the responsibility of a leader?  How should citizens—individually and through their government representatives in Congress—respond when a leader dis-respects the principles that shaped and continue to guide the way we govern ourselves as a community?  A year away from our 250th anniversary as a constitutional democracy, we need to re-affirm our understanding of and commitment to our constitutional democracy.