Further Notes On Mazeppism

Mazeppism is a variety of Romantic humanism--a phrase as redundant, in my view, as "liberation theology." But what does such a phrase mean?

As terms and as movements or trends or tendencies or attitudes--rhetorical postures all--both "Romanticism" and "Humanism" have complex histories, and both are quite malleable when it comes to defining them. Each is a congeries of values--some overlapping, some competing, some downright contradictory.

What I mean by the phrase is open to interpretation. If one reads this blog, and its sibloglings, one might arrive, perhaps, at a definition. But what would be the point of that? Definitions provide us only with a false sense of security.

When, as an undergraduate, I read Lucretius, I wanted only to understand his argument, his point of view. I never suspected then how deeply his thought penetrated my own. Now I feel as though I cannot escape him.

The nature of things are as he sang them. What, then, are definitions but illusions?

Mazeppism is a Romantic Humanism. What is that?

This.