When you're driving a taxi you get all sorts, and I mean ALL sorts. Take today: guy, fading hippy, late 50s early 60s in jeans, down-at-heel- runners, black anorak, long, lank, straggly grey hair and a black hat, for god's sake, I have no idea what kind of a hat, just a generic hat, it could have been anything once, but through countless misdemeanours, errors, satupons, it was a shapeless black mass on his grey hair. He bent to the window as I sat on a rank and asked:
-Could you take me to Castleknock, a place called Castle Court? mmm, I know it to see, but I 'm not sure of the exact location...
Dodgy, methinks, but he's articulate, with an educated North Cork accent, I would guess, and anyway I'm desperate, so I gesture him into the back. Ahhh, ggghhg, I'm REALLY glad he's in the back because he stinks of stale urine. I have the windows open in a trice, and we're rolling.
There's music on from my iPod via Harmon Kardon, and it's good middle-period Baroque, Castello, Froberger, Frescobaldi, Schmelzer, 17th century Music from the Court of Leopold II. We're silent as we listen, and then he says
-It's just 5% too loud here in the back. COuld you? ahhh...Thanks very much. What is it? the Third Programme?
The Third Programme????? I haven't heard BBC radio 3 called the "third programme" in about a million years. I tell him it's my iPod, but I don't think he knows what an iPod is, but it doesn't matter, 'cos he's off:
-The most interesting debate ever on the Third Programme was in 1948 between Bertrand Russell and Father Coppleston. Extraordinary! In the 1940s you could have a debate like that but nowadays, not a chance. Young people aren't EDUCATED today like they used to be.
[you can read the text of this debate here: http://www.ditext.com/russell/debate.html]
He went on:
-How AMAZING it is that such arguments in theology and philosophy could be presented in such an ENERGISING way, I found the whole thing quite STIMULATING, but of course this is out of the question now, I wonder what teachers are actually being taught to teach, certainly not anything which relates to any of the questions, the FUNDAMENTAL questions, of existence. AND the way Coppleston presented his arguments was WONDERFUL! Certainly I think he got the better of Russell, in my opinion anyway.
I'm taking all this in, and not being a philosophy major, I'm just following, but not contributing. He went on:
-I have a Catholic heart but a Protestant mind. I mean most people wouldn't be able to name the two most important Catholic intellectuals Ireland has produced. Most could name the Protestants. I'm sure you're aware of the fact that of the sixteen most important intellectual Ireland has produced, fourteen were Protestant, only two were Catholic. Joyce was one, who was the other? I mean, do you know who was the other?
I think for a moment: can't be Berkeley. He was a Prod, and a bloody minister to boot. Nor Burke, although his father had been a Catholic and had converted. Suddenly I know:
-Was it J D Bernal?
_-Bernal! I never thought of him! Was he Catholic?
I say:-He had Jewish blood on his father's side, but his parents were Catholics.
-Funny. Never heard of Bernal until yesterday...Well, I wasn't thinking of Bernal. Not Joyce, who? can you tell me? A Philospher, to give you a hint.
Immediately a name jumps to my mind: - Are we talking about Scotus?
-SCOTUS, yes, well there you are now. Very few people would know that. And if I were to ask you about the Irish writer who wrote the most filmed book of all time, who would it be?
This one's easy. I think for a moment to make sure, then posit:
-Probably Bram Stoker.
-"Probably"? did you say "probably"? Come on, man, you know damn well, four hundred films!
We have reached Castleknock after the most stimulating and stinkulating journey I've had. He pays me, he leaves (after he tells me that he rang Karl Popper once to ask him something, and the man replied), and I'm exhilarated at the level of the discussion. Couldn't follow half of what he was on about on the Russell/Coppleston debate, but I'm glad I could answer his quiz, and I'm so happy that the smell's gone. Do intellectuals always have to be unwashed? Are there any who understand the principles of personal hygiene?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
was in your taxi today..i have to say, its an impresssive blog, like Bukowki if he embraced the arts (?)
Anyway still reading through the stuff, its great..makes me ashamed that when you said you were a musician today i replied "are you in a band?" as if this was the pinnacle of social achievement! nonetheless happy camping!
Not fair in a way to count Scotus as a Catholic, as opposed to a protestant, since there was no such distinction then. St Francis protested against corruption and tried to reform the church, but does that make him a protestant? Anyway Berkeley would have called himself catholic, just not a Roman Catholic. The same creed applies--"I believe in one catholic and apostolic church". So what. Just looking out for the heritage I guess.
Post a Comment