Showing posts with label mencken. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mencken. Show all posts

Thursday, January 9, 2020

Facts . . .

 


(from The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche by H.L. Mencken)
". . . that a student learns at the average school are few and unconnected, and instead of being led into habits of independent thinking he is trained to accept authority. When he takes his degree it is usually no more than a sign that he has joined the herd. His opinion of Napoleon is merely a reflection of the opinion expressed in the books he has studied; his philosophy of life is simply the philosophy of his teacher - tinctured a bit perhaps, by that of his particular youthful idols. He knows how to spell a great many long words and he is familiar with the table of logarithms, but in the readiness he has made comparatively little progress. If he was illogical and credulous and a respecter of authority as a freshman he remains much the same as a graduate. In consequence, his usefulness to humanity has been increased but little, if at all, for . . . the only man whose life is appreciably more valuable than that of a good cow if the man who thinks for himself, clearly and logically, and lends some sort of hand, during his life-time, in the eternal search for the ultimate verities . . . "



Facts of Life

©2004 Raymond M. Jozwiak




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Saturday, January 4, 2020

Similarity? . . .



(from The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche by H.L. Mencken)
". . . The ignorant man solves this problem in a very simple manner: he holds that whatever he believes, he knows; and that whatever he knows is true. This is the attitude of all amateur and professional theologians, politicians and other numbskulls of that sort. . . "






What do you think? Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html  or at
http://www.ohomusic.com 


Other Ray Jozwiak Offerings

(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak)

For all things "Gonzo Piano" please visit:
Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano on CD Baby.com
The Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano Website
The Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano You Tube Channel

For all things "OHO" please visit:
The OHO CD Baby.com Website
OHO Music Website
The 'More OHO Music' You Tube Website
The 'Original' OHO Music You Tube Website



Sunday, December 29, 2019

Awakening . . .



(from The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche by H.L. Mencken)
". . . The awakening came to him when he made his first venture away from the maternal apron-string and fireside: when, as a boy of ten, he leaned that there were many, many men in the world and that these men were of many minds. With the clash of authority came the end of authority. If A. was right, B. was wrong-and B. had a disquieting habit of standing for one's mother, one's grandmother or the holy prophets. Here was the beginning of intelligence in the boy-the beginning of that weighing and choosing faculty which seems to give man at once his sense of mastery and his feeling of helplessness. . . "




What do you think?
Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html  or at
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Other Ray Jozwiak Offerings

(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak)


For all things "Gonzo Piano" please visit:
Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano on CD Baby.com
The Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano Website
The Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano You Tube Channel

For all things "OHO" please visit:
The OHO CD Baby.com Website
OHO Music Website
The 'More OHO Music' You Tube Website
The 'Original' OHO Music You Tube Website

Thursday, December 26, 2019

Weighing . . .


. . . and choosing . . .


(from The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche by H.L. Mencken)
". . . Here was the beginning of intelligence in the boy - the beginning of that weighing and choosing faculty which seems to give man at once his sense of mastery and his feeling of helplessness. The old notion that doubt was a crime crept away. There remained in its place the new notion that the only real crime in the world - the only unmanly, unspeakable and unforgivable offense against the race - was unreasoning belief. Thus the orthodoxy of the Nietzsche home turned upon and devoured itself .  .  . "





Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Concepts. . .

. . . worth . . .

. . . considering. . .



(from Treatise On The Gods by H.L. Mencken)
". . . As I have said, the history of this great innovation (heaven and hell) is vague, and we know very little about its early stages. Many Jews, it appears, opposed it; the Sadducees, indeed, held out against it to the end. In Ecclesiastes III, 19-20, it is flouted openly: "For what befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; . . . as the one dieth, so dieth the other. . . . All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again." And again in Ecclesiastes IX, 2 and 5: "All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked: to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth no: as is the good, so is the sinner. . . . For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more reward." But the idea of immortal life was too sweet to be extinguished by any such skepticism, and so it persisted among the Jews, and the scheme of post mortem rewards and punishments with it. . ."







What do you think?
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(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
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Also, be sure to visit: www.rayjozwiak.com and www.ohomusic.com


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Saturday, July 9, 2016

Priestly . . .



(from Treatise on the Gods by H.L. Mencken)
". . . the first priest probably found it much harder to support such pretentions than it is today, for the science of theology was still in its infancy.  One can easily imagine rivals essaying to talk him down, and even laughing at him. Was the tribe as a whose with him or against him? The chances are that it was more or less divided, for in the domain of religion the human mind is naturally somewhat flighty, and what one man believes another is sure to doubt. If the first priest was prudent, as he probably was, he soon grasped the fact that his monopoly could not last, and sought to save what he could of it by compromise.  That is to say, he sought to dispose of his most formidable rival by admitting him as an apprentice and so gaining his help. The two priests bloomed where only one had bloomed before, and presently there was a whole guild of them, and they began to act in cooperation, pooling their professional secrets and equipment, accumulating a tradition and acquiring a definite place in society. . ."


Church
©2016 Raymond M. Jozwiak




What do you think?
Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html  or at
http://www.ohomusic.com 

My latest solo offering, No Frills, is now available at - No Frills

(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak)

Get your copy of OHO's  Where Words Do Not Reach now!
The Ocean City Ditty Video is now on YouTube
Also, be sure to visit: www.rayjozwiak.com and www.ohomusic.com


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Monday, July 6, 2015

Superstition . . .


(from http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/mencken.htm— H L Mencken, “Aftermath” [coverage of the Scopes Trial] The Baltimore Evening Sun, September 14, 1925)
". . . The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous. Is it, perchance, cherished by persons who should know better? Then their folly should be brought out into the light of day, and exhibited there in all its hideousness until they flee from it, hiding their heads in shame. . .True enough, even a superstitious man has certain inalienable rights. He has a right to harbor and indulge his imbecilities as long as he pleases, provided only he does not try to inflict them upon other men by force. He has a right to argue for them as eloquently as he can, in season and out of season. He has a right to teach them to his children. But certainly he has no right to be protected against the free criticism of those who do not hold them. He has no right to demand that they be treated as sacred. He has no right to preach them without challenge. Did Darrow, in the course of his dreadful bombardment of Bryan, drop a few shells, incidentally, into measurably cleaner camps? Then let the garrisons of those camps look to their defenses. They are free to shoot back. But they can’t disarm their enemy. . ."








What do you think?
Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html  or at
http://www.ohomusic.com 


OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak.  Please Visit http://www.ohomusic.com 


My latest solo offering, Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak, featuring original, instrumental piano music is now available at - Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak
(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak)

Also, be sure to visit:
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Saturday, November 22, 2014

A Will? . . .


(from Treatise On The Gods by H.L. Mencken)
". . . The earliest religion, I daresay, arose out of some extraordinary series of calamities, unprecedented and intolerable. As the cells of his cortex multiplied, primitive man found even the ordinary discomforts of life increasingly disagreeable, but it is probable that he was still too close to his infra-human forebears to do anything about them. When it rained, and there was no cave or thicket handy, he simply got wet, as the other mammals got wet. When food was scarce he chewed on twigs. When it was cold he shivered. When a rival stole his wife he sent without the domestic consolations until the rival tired of her, or he could make and wive a widow. All such misfortunes were unpleasant, and the new trick of thinking made them more so, but they tended to be transient, and they were not often fatal, nor even disabling. Beyond them lurked others of a greater fearsomeness: drowning, dropping sunstruck, getting killed by lightning, by wild beasts of by falling rocks and trees, dying in general. An inimical volition seemed to lurk in all of them. It was not hard to imagine some evil will throwing down the avalanche, or sending the lightning, or drawing the drowning man down to death. In fact, it was easier to imagine it than not to imagine it. . . "





What do you think?
Tell me at
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OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak

My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:

Ray Jozwiak: 2014

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)

Also, be sure to visit:
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Saturday, December 28, 2013

Art, Passion, Success & Jazz . . .

 If I evaluated the level of my success in enumerable sales of physical items alone, I, with a multitude of others, could easily and realistically be deemed failures.  But there is so much more to life.  Viewing my own objectively, I am happy to report that I do not view it as such.  Upon the realization many years ago that my own art could reasonably and truly entertain my own self with a sufficient level of emotional content and technical ability was to attain a certain, albeit modest, level of success in and of itself.  That, combined with the good fortune and personal contentment my personal life has awarded me, give me the distinct impression and definite opinion that, with all modesty and humility, I am a success.   Unfortunately, others have not experienced the favorable circumstances nor made the necessary choices to enable themselves to feel quite the same way. . . 

In 1940, F. Scott Fitzgerald suffered a third and final heart attack, and died believing his work forgotten. In the last year of his life, he wrote his daughter, "I wish now I'd never relaxed or looked back—but said at the end of The Great Gatsby: I've found my line—from now on this comes first. This is my immediate duty - without this I am nothing." By his own admission, Fitzgerald viewed himself as a failure, and only 25,000 copies were sold at the time of his death. His obituary in The New York Times mentioned Gatsby as evidence of great potential that was never reached. However, a strong appreciation for the book had developed in underground circles; future writers Edward Newhouse and Budd Schulberg were deeply affected by it and John O'Hara showed the book's influence. The republication of Gatsby in Edmund Wilson's edition of The Last Tycoon in 1941 produced an outburst of comment, with the general consensus expressing the sentiment that the book was an enduring work of fiction.

By 1930, Scott was an alcoholic and Zelda had suffered the first of her multiple breakdowns, fighting her way back to sanity over 15 months in a Swiss clinic. After Zelda’s release in September 1931, the couple and Scottie, then 10, returned to the United States, but five months later, Zelda fell apart again. When Fitzgerald wrote to H. L. Mencken for advice, the latter suggested the Phipps Clinic at Johns Hopkins, in Baltimore, at that time the nation’s premier institution for the treatment of the mentally ill. Phipps director Adolf Meyer advocated a scientific approach to psychiatry but believed that psychogenetic factors, not physical disease, caused most mental illness. He thought that people became mentally ill “by actually living in ways that put their mind and entire organism and its activity in jeopardy.” The Fitzgeralds— whose marriage Meyer diagnosed as a “folie a deux”— seemed a living embodiment of his theories, which perhaps explains why they both detested him.  (thanks to both http://www.baltimorestyle.com/index.php/style/baltimore/baltimore_f_scott_fitzgerald_in_baltimore/#sthash.cD1aikhO.dpuf and http://www.wikipedia.com)





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My latest release, Black & White Then Back,
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Ray Jozwiak: Black & White Then Back

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