Today's Maxwell Quote

From We Will Prove Them Herewith (1982), 17-18:

The gospel glow shining about a righteous individual or a righteous people usually attracts persecution. But this is not the only accompanying sign. Enoch could tell us something about this phenomenon; those in his ancient Zion were resented by some who "stood afar off." Latter-day Saints are not yet a fully worthy people, but even now there is building a visible ring of resentment around Zion today. It includes those who once had a shallow faith but are now critics. Their tree of testimony lacked root; it withered, and they plucked "it up and cast it out," occasionally with great public display. (Alma 32:38.)

Another Academic Purge

Apparently Seton Hall has given notice to its junior Law School Faculty that they might be let go. One feels sorry for those let go. It is a sign of the times though. Times are tough and the law school is downsizing. As is typical in these situations, the junior faculty have less seniority and less clout and are let go. It would be highly unusual for a university to get rid of its senior faculty, or the ones who have been productive in favor of keeping around the junior faculty who have done little or nothing in the way of publishing. Any academic unit who did so would have a lot of explaining to do.

Nibley on Rhetoric X

Nibley on the paradox of rhetoric:

Rhetoric is the art of perfection itself; if it is not perfect, it is nothing, for nothing is sadder than a great attempt that falls short. There is no excuse for stupidity here, let alone immorality; rhetoric should be left strictly alone by those not properly endowed for it. But who is properly endowed? To that question the experts threw up their hands in despair and declared in a single voice that the perfect orator simply does not exist. The choice was between perfection and a fiasco --- and perfection was out of the question. (Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10:252-53.)

Today's Maxwell Quote

From All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience (1980), 16:

A god who did not perfectly know his prophets—and indeed all his spirit children—might have selected a prominent nineteenth-century clergyman to receive the first vision, only to find later that the clergyman was bent on taming the truths he thus learned. In order to make these truths more acceptable to his fellow clergymen, such an individual might have excised such words as "none" and "all" from the message of that theophany in the grove in which the Lord described churches at the time of the restoration. (Joseph Smith—History 1:19.) The carefully and divinely selected receiver of that marvelous manifestation, Joseph Smith, had to suffer and die for repeating those divinely declared words. God's martyrs are not permitted great concern over public relations, for truth is a relentless taskmaster.

From the Reader Mailbag

An astute reader sent this to me yesterday. I thought it was funny.

[Okay, this one is funny too.]

Nibley on Rhetoric IX

More of Nibley's comments on rhetoric:

The final plea of the orators in defense of their art was the protest that unscrupulous and unqualified men had misrepresented it inside the profession and out. Rhetoric is a terrible instrument in the hands of the wrong man, we are assured; it is often necessary to defend things like murder which, though bad in themselves, are under certain circumstances innocent and praiseworthy --- the orator can make them seem good or bad at will, and so the most important qualification for every orator to have is honest intent, without which "nothing is more pernicious in public or private affairs than eloquence." So we get the constant refrain that the orator must be a paragon of virtues; his is the most difficult and demanding of all arts requiring qualities of character and brain that are virtually non-existent in this imperfect world. (Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10:252.)

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this talk:

Did Paul not speak knowingly of the "fellowship of [Christ's] sufferings" (Philippians 3:10)? Are we not told that meekness is so vital that God actually gives us certain challenges in order to keep us humble (Ether 12:27)? Did not Peter write regarding how Christians should expect to be familiar with fiery trials (1 Peter 4:12)? Furthermore, as the disciple enriches his relationship with the Lord, he is apt to have periodic "public relations" problems with others, being misrepresented and misunderstood. He or she will have to "take it" at times.

Nibley on Rhetoric VIII

Nibley discussing Cicero's complaint about philosophers:

"It [philosophical style] is chaste and upright," he [Cicero] concludes, "an uncorrupted virgin, so to speak." And what was his rhetoric by contrast? (Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10:252.)

Today's Maxwell Quote

Rather prophetically from A Time to Choose (1972), 86:

It seems peculiar that advocates of family change become upset with some of us because we are not enthralled with their new labels for old, and unwise, practices. The anti-family proponents have simply relabeled sexual freedom as a chance for meaningful relationships, which is just a cover for fornication or adultery. Rhetoric seems to cover the need for real reform.

Nibley on Rhetoric VII

Cicero's very proper assurance that a rhetor will not hesitate to speak the truth when it serves his purpose is more damaging than any long catalogue of charges brought against rhetoric by its enemies. (Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10: 252.)

Ouch.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From Deposition of a Disciple (1976), 31:

Discouragement is not the absence of adequacy but the absence of courage.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From Of One Heart (1975), :

Here what begins as a duty soon becomes a delight. In happiness there is more energy to expend. With misery, there is first a holding back in hesitancy and then a falling back in despair.

Nibley on Rhetoric VI

If nothing is rarer than a good orator, nothing is commoner than bad ones. The rewards of rhetoric are tremendous; are such rewards to be left lying about unclaimed until the perfect orator comes along? As might be expected, the worst people took to rhetoric like ducks to water. For rhetoric preached the gospel of success. (Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10:253).

Nibley on Rhetoric V

Nibley on the honesty of rhetoric:

"We must allow the rhetor to make false, daring, and somewhat misleading and captious statements," Gellius smugly observes. . . .

Such statements as that, meant to be a defense of the profession but actually a rather damaging indictment of rhetoric, proclaim the uneasiness that is never far from the surface of ancient treatises on oratory, the awareness that there is something basically wrong about the thing. No one denied, of course, that rhetoric could be abused --- "cannot any good thing be misused?" asks Anthony, but the question was whether it was bad as such, by nature. That was a disturbing question which could hardly be asked of an honest trade, and the rhetoricians hurt their case by protesting too much, constantly calling attention to the billowing smoke by insisting that the fire was not a serious one. (Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10:250-51.)

Today's Maxwell Quote

From Of One Heart (1975), 5:

In our time of increasing perplexity among nations and individual despair, it is important to realize that thousands of people ages ago successfully applied the commandments of God and thereby had great and unparalleled happiness.

Nibley on Rhetoric IV

More of Nibley on rhetoric:

It is not surprising that the orator lives in a world of high-sounding intangibles --- res, humanitas, honores, savitas, officia, gratiae, laus, commendationes, admiratio, and so forth --- which on every page of Cicero's letters turn out to be but a verbal system for a hard and sordid game of exploitation and survival played without scruples and without loyalties. (Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10:250.)

Today's Maxwell Quote

From The Smallest Part (1973), 16:

The special, longitudinal truths of the gospel help us to feel more and to see more clearly our circumstance—a vital thing in this secular dispensation of despair. Each of us may begin like the young servant of Elisha who feared for the future until "the Lord opened the eyes of the young man" so that he could see what Elisha saw: celestial cavalry!

‎"And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do?

‎"And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.

‎"And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." (2 Kings 6:15-17.)

Nibley on Rhetoric III

More on the history of rhetoric:

With the so-called Second Sophistic the rhetorical schools, having won over the emperors to their program and thereby having gained control of public education, no longer felt it necessary to continue the old lip-service to science and philosophy but openly opposed and bested them at every turn. (Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10:247.)

Today's Maxwell Quote

From The Smallest Part (1973), 11-12:

Religion must, therefore, press for an emphasis on the application of truth and have a demonstrated concern for behavioral outcome. Rhetoric is an easy religion, and conversational Christianity makes few immediate demands of us, while permitting us to exclaim and despair over distant wrongs.

Nibley on Rhetoric II

More on the development of rhetoric from Hugh Nibley:

Gorgias shares with his friend Protagoras the glory and guilt of selling rhetoric to the world. Protagoras concluded that he was wasting his time trying to sound the secrets of the universe in a short lifetime, burned his books in the marketplace, and turned to teaching rhetoric, achieving the immortal fame of being the first man to make a hundred minas at the trade. His famous dictum that man is the measure of all things led only too easily to the rhetorical gospel that anything goes, "the Philistine morality" which in the end destroyed Greek civilization. (Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10:246-47.)