#Gradgrindism

[tybaltsjuliet]

i feel the same way about charlie d.’s misogyny that i do about t.h. white’s towards guinevere, which is that it is pretty bad, of course, but also accidentally resulted in the creation of more interesting characters than other, better-intentioned writers managed

[pyramidofmice]

Reading old books is such a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, many academic writings to read! On the other, no one wants to swap headcanons on Tumblr :(

[nerianasims]

I’m finally getting around to playing Tales of Berseria, which I’ve owned for like 4 years (there was a big sale I think.) The gameplay is... it’s fine, whatever, I’m playing on Normal and getting what seem to be good scores on all the battles. I tried increasing the difficulty, which did increase my scores but also increased the length of battles but not how interesting I found them, so whatever, I’m playing on Normal.

But I’m enjoying the game immensely because I REALLY like the plot and characters. Not to mention the themes.

Velvet (the main character): “If you want to deny yourself, go ahead and do it. But don’t force your beliefs onto others.”

[frodolives]

1850s Tumblr Dashboard Simulator

👸🏻 girlbossladyjane Follow

It really makes me sick to see people giving money to penny weeklies when Franklin's expedition STILL has not been found 😭 There are good men out there trapped in unimaginable temperatures and literally all that's needed is a little more funding for another rescue mission yet all you guys seem to care about are your vulgar little stories...

🧔🏻‍♂️ queerqueg Follow

the franklin expedition is dead as hell

👸🏻 girlbossladyjane Follow

Disgraceful thing to say but I'd expect nothing more from a M*lville fan

10,558 notes

👨🏻‍❤️‍💋‍👨🏻 hartgrindisreal

Sorry for posting so much about Tom Gradgrind/James Harthouse from Hard Times lately. It turns out that I was getting arsenic poisoning from my wallpaper? Anyway I took a seaside stroll and I'm normal now. Check your walls y'all

#whyyy did i assume they were committing unlawful actions together like where did i even get that from lol #hard times isn't even that good by dickens standards tbh

659 notes

🎨 asherbrowndurand

Just painted this

2 notes

ss-arctic-girlie-deactivated18540927

RIP Napoleon... you may have been unable to conquer Alexander's Russia but you sure as hell conquered Alexander's bed

🖼️ preraphaelitebro Follow

HERITAGE POST

📝 shakespearesforehead Follow

How does this have less than 100k notes you could literally not avoid this post back in the 20s lol

82,170 notes

🌄 loyalromantic Follow

poets just aren't dying young in mysterious water-related incidents like they used to :/

#as useless and degenerative as i find 'the living poets' and i'm glad we're finally moving on from them #i have to agree with op in this respect

6,884 notes

🎀 thefopdiaries Follow

I finally got a daguerreotype of myself ^_^ Porcelain urn for scaling

📜 bartlebi-thescrivener

i think i hauve consumption

112 notes

🐋 whaler4life

They found oil in the ground??? WTF. THIS IS LITERALLY THE WORSTTTT. FUCK MY LIFE FOR REAL THIS TIME

11 notes

🌿 naturesnaturalist Follow

I swear this website has 0 reading comprehension skills. Darwin NEVER claimed we "evolved" from apes like if one of you guys actually bothered to open his new book you'll see all his arguments are backed up by evidence. He actually makes a lot of sense

#sure there's nuance like i don't fully agree with all of it #but his general theory of natural selection seems pretty sound imo

56 notes

🤵🏻‍♂️ byronicherotournament Follow

🙈 butchbronte Follow

Of course these are the finalists lmao this website is so predictable. Anyway vote Heathcliff if you dont i'm going to assume you're a phrenologist

📖 sapphichelenburns Follow

It's not problematic to acknowledge the fact that Heathcliff was a brute like he literally killed dogs in case you forgot. #rochestersweep

🙈 butchbronte Follow

I love the implication here that Rochester never did anything cruel either. He literally locked his wife in the attic and lied to Jane about it 😭 like that was a pretty significant thing that happened

📖 sapphichelenburns Follow

And? God forbid women do anything

#why'd you have to pit two bad bitches against each other #anyway i'm not attracted to men but still went with rochester #bc in terms of living quarters thornfield hall > wuthering heights easily

8,027 notes

👨🏻‍❤️‍💋‍👨🏻 hartgrindisreal

Not the Russian tsar dying immediately after hartgrind became canon

#i know dickens hasn't technically confirmed it yet but like. SOMETHING was strongly implied ok #see: my previous post #dickensposting

522 notes

👨🏻‍❤️‍💋‍👨🏻 hartgrindisreal

LORD HELP ME. THE BODY LANGUAGE. THE WAY THEY'RE LOOKING AT EACH OTHER. AHHHHHH

#this installment!!! im-- #dickensposting #i can't fucking cope #dickens wants to KILL us he wants us DEAD....

2,309 notes

⭐️ newamerican

Hi guys sorry I haven't been posting lately it's been so difficult getting to California 💀 I'm finally here now though just need to find a pickaxe and soon I'll be digging! :-) wish me luck lol

#gold #gold rush #gold rush grind #california #adventure

0 notes

[eleftherian]

guys im like really smart

[fluffypotatey]

hey u know how mk only calls wukong by his title and never his name? and how wukong rarely if ever calls mk "mk," instead usually opting for "kid" or "bud?" and how both of those things are kind of representative of their relationship and how both of them care about each other a lot but they aren't honest with each other or with themselves about the other and how neither of them really wants to confront the fact that the other is a person with flaws and struggles? haha yeah <- normal <- lying about being normal

be glad i have been released from class now :) [narrator: she would later find herself late to her 2nd class while writing this]

so happy you have given me this excuse to talk about— i mean, yes! it is super normal to be thinking about this all the time and be comsumed by it and let me explain why:

i will start by going off on a tangent about names and labels and their narratove importance in stories because i love them and have a problem. (idk the word count here. viewer discretion is advized. i just wrote. it is long. beware)

In the Case of Names: a Sunburst Duo Essay

by Yours Truly <3

In the Case of Names in LMK: a Summary (please for the love of pete be a summary)

Ok, so, let me give y'all a quick overview (i failed. this is you're only warning. i failed, and this became a monster of an essay. run while you still have the chan—) of names in the literary sense. When studying novels and books and shit in your literature classes, you will notice that your professor might discuss the importance or ill-importance of characters' names in the story. For example: in the classic novel Fahrenheit 451, the protagonist's name is fucking Guy Montage to illustrate how he's just some fucking guy, a John Doe, a man stuck and complicit in the dystopian world.

You get me? No? Sorry, you want more examples? Fine then :3 let me introduce you to a story called Hard Times by Charles Dickens. It is an allegorical novel that criticized the utilitarian movement going on in dear old Great Britain in the 19th century thanks to the Industrial Revolution. Some fun characters were Johannes Bounderby and Thomas Gradgrind. Tell me, what images did you imagine when I gave you those names? Did you think of a bouncing ball for Bounderby? Were you imagining something square or maybe a mechanical grinder for Mr. Gradgrind?

Remarkable isn't it. The way choosing a name has on a reader/audience's perception of the character. Names are not just placeholders for a character. Names are the identity of that character. Names can establish their starting arc or their ending. Names can be visual in the sense that they invoke a strong idea of what a character might resemble or what themes they will present the audience with. Removing a character's name also removes their identity.

Remember that.

Anyway, I have talked enough about names in the general literary sense. Let us move on to LMK.

Given that this show is based off of Journey to the West (JTTW), many of the names of the antagonist are already provided, and their English translation is pretty literal (Demon Bull King, Lady Bone Demon, Red Son) with some exceptions (Jing & Yin, the Gold and Silver Demons), but their names all provide a description of what they are and how they should be viewed. Spider Queen is a spider demon and views herself as queen. Pretty solid characterization there. Lady Bone Demon, she's a bone demon and has enough rank to be considered a lady (or that could just be to ID that she is a woman but eh). Princess Iron Fan: she's a celestial princess and wields an iron fan. Got it? Good. These examples are simply here to show that a majority of the JTTW antagonists are still fulfilling their roles as antagonistic characters. What I mean is this: since "A Hero is Born," MK has been fighting against the Monkey King's old enemies from the JTTW book. It's like the moment MK inserted himself into the role of successor, the antagonist themselves were inserted to redo their old role of fighting the "Monkey King." It's almost as if nothing has changed beside the fact that their new op enemy is a "human" wielding the legendary staff.

[hmmmm, wait i actually never put this into words until now and it's fitting very well with the whole "MK's fight against Fate/the Narrative" but we'll just put a pin in that.]

However, when it comes to MK's friends (Pigsy, Tang, Sandy, Mei), they all share different names from their reincarnated/ancestral counterparts (Zhu Bajie, Tang Sangzang (they just give Tripitaka a last name lol), Sha Wujing, and Ao Lie). Their identity is separate, distinctive from who they are meant to reflect to the audience. (But look at how Tang still shares the same 1st name to the blessed monk, see how he's the one whose powers are the most similar, see how he being pulled into the direction of emulating the monk, see how much Tang fights it, see—)

Fascinating huh? But let us move on before I forget myself.

In the Case of MK's Names: a Paragraph (DO NOT, i repeat, DO NOT GO OFF THE RAILS)

So, in the English version, there is a running gag about how MK's "real" name is long and complicated, and we don't actually know it. All we know is that MK switched it long before the pilot. And even before MK has that talk with Master Subodhi in s4ep7 (or 6? 8?), I would chuckle at how on the nose his name was. MK the Monkie Kid... how silly of the show writers....ahaha, what a funny little decision to make :)

Do we know why MK changed his name? Other than his original one being long, no. Do we know why MK specifically? We don't know. Maybe, in his fanboy brain for all things Monkey King, MK thought it would be cool to have a name that identified close to his idol. A name that identified with someone he wished to emulate and be as powerful as and felt so connected to. But what do I know? I am a mere local gal who feeds off of metas and theories and all things relating to my beloved sunburst duo.

Then, we have MK's many titles: Monkie Kid (IDs him as the new generations Monkey), Successor (IDs him as the one who will succeed Sun Wukong in both the title of Monkey King and power), Noodle Boy (pronounced "New-dle Boi and IDs as the boy who works in his surrogate/adopted dad's noodle shop), Delivery Boy (his actual job for the noodle shop), and last but not least, Harbinger of Chaos.

What makes a harbinger? What is chaos? What are their intentions? Are they good? Bad? Neutral?

So, I've already defined harbinger before and many others have as well, but to sum up: a harbinger is a being/person/thing that announced the coming of something be it good or bad but most of the time the focus is bad. A "Harbinger of Chaos" then, would be the one to announce the coming of Chaos™️ and the disruption of world order. Is this a bad thing? Well, the show presents it at the moment as so, but that doesn't mean it will be. Honestly, the show has shown order and fixed structures more in a bad light and promotes free will and choosing a destiny that fits you as the good thing 👀 (another thing to pin in the MK might to go war with Fate)

But now I have established MK's names and must shut up and move on before I no longer can.

In the Case of Sun Wukong's Names: some Paragraphs (STAY ON TARGET PLEASE)

I will admit that my knowledge of names in China is very low, and by low, I mean I know nothing (most of what I do know comes from asking friends and informational sites). So, let me begin this segment with an excerpt of Sun Wukong gaining his name from the book itself :) and break it down with my interpretation and how that is applied to LMK.

When the Patriarch heard this, he was secretly pleased, and said, “Well, evidently you have been created by Heaven and Earth. Get up and show me how you walk.” Snapping erect, the Monkey King scurried around a couple of times. The Patriarch laughed and said, “Though your features are not the most attractive, you do resemble a pignolia-eating monkey (husun). This gives me the idea of taking a surname for you from your appearance. I intended to call you by the name Hu. If I drop the animal radical from this word, what’s left is a compound made up of the two characters, gu and yue. Gu means aged and yue means female, but an aged female cannot reproduce. Therefore, it is better to give you the surname of Sun. If I drop the animal radical from this word, what we have left is the compound of zi and xi. Zi means a boy and xi means a baby, and that name exactly accords with the fundamental Doctrine of the Baby Boy. So your surname will be ‘Sun.’” When the Monkey King heard this, he was filled with delight. “Splendid! Splendid!” he cried, kowtowing, “At last I know my surname. May the master be even more gracious! Since I have received the surname, let me be given also a personal name..." ..."You will hence be given the religious name ‘Wake-to-the-Void’ (wukong). All right?” “Splendid! Splendid!” said the Monkey King, laughing. “Henceforth I shall be called Sun Wukong.”

What a fucking cutie <3

So, what can we gather from this excerpt? Sun Wukong just gained his official name. No longer is he a monkey with descriptive titles, no longer is he a monkey without a surname to be referred to as and respected for. He now has both a surname and a personal name. And while I don't fully understand everything Master Subodi listed when naming Sun Wukong, it is important to note the importance of it and how happy Wukong is to receiving it.

Before this, the book would simply refer to Wukong as Shihou (stone monkey) or the Handsome Monkey King. Both of these are descriptive titles that just inform you what Wukong is rather than who, just like with the other demons met in JTTW. But now, we get to know him as Sun Wukong, someone more than his titles and such. There's even an explanation in the preface how Wukong's own personal name has significant meaning or relation to Buddhism, but I won't get too much into that since my knowledge is of that is 0 and I want to try and stick to LMK.

Now then, let us examine Wukong's name in the LMK sense. Literally everyone in the show call him either Monkey King or "simian" (and if he really pissed them off, Sun Wukong). The only people to refer to Wukong by his personal name is Nezha, Macaque, and Peng. It is literally just these three. And while we could argue all say it like "Wukong (derogatory)," I believe Peng's the only one who means it. Meaning, I think Macaque says Wukong because he was the closest friend of SWK, thus that's the only name Macaque would ever call him (sure, he said Monkey King and shit in s1 but that was when he was duping MK soooooooo). Nezha calls him Wukong because after the whole Havoc in Heaven and journey stuff, he is the new oldest member to befriend Wukong and not be enemies with him (yes, he will get annoyed and aggravated by him, and he will not always believe Wukong's intentions are great, but he still cares and is his 2nd closests living friend).

Peng, on the other hand, does not give a shit. I fully believe that guy never cared for Wukong. They only joined the brotherhood because of Azure (they even offered for Azure to be the brotherhood's leader). I do not think Peng cares for formalities when it comes to people they dislike. We could argue that maybe Peng cared for Wukong in the beginning, but I do, honestly, not believe it. The only reason Peng even felt betrayed was because it messed up Azure's plan. Not because the two were sworn brothers.

But yeah, very few characters actually call Sun Wukong by his name, and when they do, it establishes not just how close they are/were, but also how long they've known each other. It's the same thing with how Wukong refers to others. He barely calls Pigsy, Tang, and Sandy by their names. He will give people nicknames and shit just to place a safe distance from them because of his own very unhealthy attachment issues.

In the Case of MK and SWK's Names for Each Other: the Actual Sunburst Duo Essay (you are free now.....)

Speaking of attachment issues, let's talk about the Sunburst Duo and how much these two need to sit down and talk.

So, we have discussed how names are integral to identifying a character's purpose, thematic journey, description. We have discussed how a person's title can clue in on certain characterization, present or future, and how they demonstrate the way others view them. Now let us apply this to our beloved sunburst duo.

As mentioned in your ask, @gumy-shark, both MK and Sun Wukong barely call each other by name (MK never has as far as I am aware, and SWK has done so only a few). It's "Monkey King" from MK and "kid," "bud," "buddy" from SWK. Rarely do the two ever think to say each other's name.

In the beginning, I originally thought MK only calls Wukong "Monkey King" as a way to be respectful, and with Wukong, I assumed he called MK "kid" simply because MK was very young to him. However, as we get into s3, and especially s4, MK and Wukong have grown a lot closer. Neither of them see each other as just a mentor or student but as friends. And yet, they cannot seem to stop calling each other by their title or nickname.

Thus, the distance is still there. S3 ends with Wukong promising to do better as a mentor and be more honest with MK, and we do seem him attempt this. He gives out more praises, he's more open about his feelings and then gets sucked into the memory scroll. But here's the kicker: the two are doing a reverse in their dynamic.

When it starts out, it is Monkey King who establishes the line between the two. He will simply be MK's mentor and teach him all the kid has to know in order to succeed him. MK is ecstatic to even be near SWK. This is his idol, the guy he's had a special interest in for years probably. He now gets to train under the Monkey King. He wants to do good. He wants to kickass. He wants to be just like him.

But as the story goes on, we see SWK open up to MK more and care for him deeply and want to protect him, and we see MK uncover the skeletons in SWK's closet and feel so alone and learn that the power he used to wish for is not what he expected. And in the aftermath of s3, it is now SWK who is opening up and trying to help kindle and safely guide their friendship in a healthier path(ish). It is SWK who is placing his own protege on a pedestal because "loook at him! isn't he so great and powerful! he will help this world a lot more than i did". It is SWK who is disregarding th original rules he placed. But now ,it is MK who is keeping the distance more than SWK. It is MK is trying to force some kind of distance. He feels like he shouldn't burden SWK with his doubts and worries. He is terrified of his own powers and their capabilities and worries his actions will make the same mistake as his mentor.

With s3 and s4, SWK has called MK by name quite a few times. Especially in s4. It's not a lot, but it's definitely more than before. And yet, MK cannot call Wukong by name. Personally, I think he might still feel like he's under Wukong's shadow. As his successor, there is a legacy that he will carry when Wukong actually retires and gives his title to MK (which is what I assume Wukong will do??? It is still unclear what exactly MK's succeeding SWK of). And that legacy is quite the burden. I would not be surprised that MK is unable to place himself as being worthy of taking Wukong's place just yet (if ever).

This guy was his idol for a long time. And with that, you tend to place a high pedestal for those people. MK has given Wukong such a high pedestal, and Wukong is very aware of it. It's why the guy even keeps his distance in the first place, and why he's scared to disappoint him. But, MK has learned so much, has been told of the tales and pain his mentor inflicted on others in the past (a past SWK greatly regrets), and yet cannot find it in himself to lower that pedestal or even allow himself to think about it. Because if he does, then he will have to acknowledge his own pain and his own disappointment in someone he not only admires but has come to love like family. And it is very hard to reckon with the hurt and pain caused by someone you consider family.

So yeah, they are silly monkeys who cannot communicate to save their life and need to just sit down and talk or else this will continue to boil and explode and we'll have a SWK and MK showdown (fuck yeah! i will be crying so hard).

[end of essay]

[thatscarletflycatcher]

"In Gaskell’s articulation of the often embattled exchanges between her male and female characters, John Thornton and Margaret Hale, the ideals of classical liberalism are expounded and subjected to critique. The novel’s account of the debating, revising, experimenting and risk-taking that underlie productive social relations suggests that Gaskell’s views can be reasonably aligned with the new liberal thought of J.S. Mill. Hard Times, on the other hand, dramatizes the power, the influence, the need for, and the limits of, key liberal notions, while it is also envisions the practice of ‘community’’ values and virtues and explores some of the implications of certain ‘communitarian’ forms of life."

WHAT NO WHAT NO WHAT NO WHAT NO WHAT NO

Like, first, madam, you yourself talked last chapter about the central role of Thornton and Higgins' relationship. Why are you ignoring it now. But even if Gaskell was a Millean liberal (she was not) and even if the only pole of discussion was Margaret/Thornton (is not)...

THE MORALLY MODEL CHARACTER OF HARD TIMES IS STEPHEN BLACKPOOL, A LONER WHOSE ONLY SOCIAL CONNECTION IS A WOMAN HE'S ROMANTICALLY IN LOVE WITH, AND WHOSE WHOLE SCHTICK IS JUST WANTING TO BE LEFT ALONE TO WORK AND EARN HIS MONEY AND GO HOME AND BE ALONE AND DO AS HE PLEASES. HE REFUSES TO JOIN THE UNION OR WORK CLOSER WITH THE MASTERS. HE ALMOST DIES ALONE IN A DITCH.

JUST BECAUSE DICKENS PLANTED A CIRCUS AT THE BEGINNING AND END OF THE NOVEL TO EXALT WHIMSY THAT DOESN'T MEAN THE MAN IS PROPOSING COMMUNITY VALUES. MR. GRADGRIND'S CHANGE OF HEART INVOLVES CLOSING RANKS TO PROTECT HIS OWN CHILDREN DOWN TO HELPING HIS SON ESCAPE JUSTICE.

[horsegirl]

fandom in the 1860s: my noble rarepair (tom gradgrind/james harthouse) vs your plebeian populist ship (pip/herbert pocket) #dickensposting

[perkwunos]

The arguments Carnap gives for his value judgement about metaphysics in ESO are articulated as essentially utilitarian. ... This can be interpreted as utilitarian in a narrow (Gradgrind-style) sense, i.e. people shouldn’t waste their time and mental resources on metaphysics rather than something socially useful and productive. That interpretation isn’t exactly wrong, but it is such a small part of the answer as to constitute a fundamental misunderstanding. In fact, it’s not so distant from the — hostile — misunderstanding entertained by Horkheimer and Adorno about logical empiricism back in the 1930s. They saw Carnap & Co as trying to restrict human dreams and aspirations, so as to force them to conform with dominant social and scientific norms and keep them tame. Since the Frankfurt School rightly thought that unruly human dreams and aspirations need to go beyond what is, and try to imagine what could be, they saw metaphysics as an essential vehicle for the articulation of such aspirational visions. But this was exactly backwards. Carnap not only thought, like Wittgenstein (Investigations 118), that metaphysics failed in this role because it consisted of Luftgebäude (buildings in the air); his main objection to metaphysics was its authoritarian subordination of human aspirations, their imprisonment in a particular version of what is. It did the opposite of what Horkheimer and Adorno imagined it could achieve — by trying to put us in a cage of what really and ultimately is, in realms where humans are actually free to imagine and decide for themselves. (It’s sort of tragic that Adorno of all people set so much store by metaphysics in this aspirational role, since he was after all himself an artist — a composer and student of Alban Berg, as well as close musical collaborator with Thomas Mann on Doktor Faustus — and would have agreed entirely with Carnap that art was the superior vehicle for the articulation of transcendent aspirations.) It’s this positive aspect of Carnap’s conception that really mattered to him, and this aspect was the whole point of, and motivation for, the critique of metaphysics: the positive idea of liberation from authoritative versions of how things really are and forever have to be.

André Carus, Carnap’s “distinctive metaphysical methodology”?!

[mxcottonsocks]

"[...] I like to lie before the fire, watching the prospects in the burning coals—the rivers, hills, and dells, in the deep, red sunset, and the wild faces. [...]"

- chapter 17, Barnaby Rudge; A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty

This quote from Barnaby about all the things he sees in the fire stands out to me.

I think this is a continuation of the idea which has cropped up in several chapters so far, of Barnaby seeing things beyond the literal reality. In this case, it's clear that he does recognise the literal reality (the burning coals) as well as the figurative (landscapes and faces), but in other cases it's unclear if he is able to recognise the reality before it is pointed out to him (such as in chapter 10 when he described the 'plotting' 'shadowy people' which Mr Chester explains are clothes blowing about on a clothesline).

This is Dickens reminding us that Barnaby perceives and interprets the world in a different way than the people around him, and that he is [what we would now call] neurodivergent.

That said, while some of Barnaby's traits are Barnaby-specific, seeing images in the fire is something he shares with characters from other Dickens books, like Louisa Gradgrind (Hard Times), Lizzie Hexham (Our Mutual Friend), possibly Paul Dombey Jr (Dombey and Son), and the unnamed stoker from The Old Curiosity Shop.

[theohonohan]

Bessel and Bradley

The German astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel led a rediscovery of James Bradley’s work in the early 19th Century. At the start of his career, Bessel undertook the reduction of data collected by Bradley at Greenwich, completing a survey of 3,222 stellar positions. This is not an exceptionally large number of stars—Ulugh Beg’s star catalog, published at Samarkand in 1437, contained around a thousand stars—but the stellar positions were more accurate than ever before. Bradley’s raw data had been gathering dust after his death, due to disputes over the ownership of his work, and because he had been “dissatisfied with his ad hoc methods of reduction, particularly those concerned with atmospheric refraction.” The data itself was good, however, and in 1818 Bessel published the survey under the grand Latin title Fundamenta Astronomiae pro anno MDCCLV, deducta ex observationibus viri incomparabilis James Bradley in specula astronomica Grenovicensi per annos 1750-1762.

The word incomparabilis indicates the respect in which Bessel held his predecessor. It is significant that Bessel also introduced into astronomy the notion of the problem of personality, in other words, the systematic errors in observations caused by deficiencies of the particular human observer. The difference between the figures recorded by an observer and the objectively true values came to be known as the personal equation (equation refers here to necessary correction—compare the equation of time, which give the difference between mean time and apparent solar time).

Bradley is an example of an exemplary observer whose character didn’t interfere with the quality of his observations. Much of the work for which he became famous was conducted on his own. 

In the large observatories of the 19th Century, with a hierarchical organisational structure and many employees, the problem of personality had to be kept under control by training, discipline or devices such as the impersonal micrometer. The work of such observatories was notoriously clerical and tedious for the participants. 

In a sense, if Bradley’s obsessive neutrality and precision ushered in modern astronomy, he is to blame for this development, in which men were required to become precise, machinelike and objective. In parallel, the 18th Century potter Josiah Wedgwood sought to make “such Machines of [his] Men as cannot err.” This development was arguably to be found in its purest and most absolute form in astronomy.

As Ruskin claimed, in the 1850s:

“You must either make a tool of the creature, or a man of him. You cannot make both. Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect in all their actions. If you will have that precision out of them, and make their fingers measure degrees like cog-wheels, and their arms strike curves like compasses, you must unhumanize them. All the energy of their spirits must be given to make cogs and compasses of themselves.”

In Dickens’ Hard Times, Thomas Gradgrind’s windowless office was called the Observatory: “a stern room, with a deadly statistical clock in it, which measured every second with a beat like a rap upon a coffin-lid”. The centrality of timekeeping to astronomy, in the form of ever more accurate astronomical regulators, could easily be assimilated to a human nature that was becoming “mechanical in head and heart”:

The same habit regulates not our modes of action alone, but our modes of thought and feeling. Men are grown mechanical in head and heart, as well as in hand. They have lost faith in individual endeavours, and in natural force, of any kind. Not for internal perfection but for external combinations and arrangements for institutions, constitutions, for Mechanism of one sort or another, do they hope and struggle. (Thomas Carlyle)

For Carlyle, it was the imposition of form and order (for example, by the hierarchy of a bureaucratic observatory) that defined the mechanical age.

In astronomy, it was always always men who filled these roles, men who were contrasted with machines. Arguably, though, rather than a pure contrast, there is an affinity between men and machines. There is something about the ideal of traditional masculinity which was inherently compatible with machinelike accuracy. The feminist Adrienne Rich’s poem Planetarium quotes Tycho Brahe’s self-idealising characterisation of his mature observations as “virile, precise and absolutely certain”. Her contemporary Luce Irigaray notoriously complained that the speed of light, a figure implicit in Bradley’s observations of stellar aberration, was senselessly privileged by physics “over other speeds that are vitally necessary to us”.

19th Century astronomy pioneered this problematic separation between body and data:

Despite the practical benefits and prestige of positional astronomy, this form of astronomical practice was divorced from considerations of the physical nature of the objects being measured. It was also, as Kevin Donnelly has recently discussed, perceived as dry, tedious and removed from astronomy’s romantic appeal, ‘a model of boredom in action’. Astronomy had lost its poetry, J. D. Forbes (1809–1868) admitted in an article for the Edinburgh Review in 1850. ‘If a young man has any lingering romance about astronomy’, he wrote, ‘let him try the post of an ordinary assistant at Greenwich for six months, and we believe that he will be “planet-struck” no more’.  By the end of the nineteenth century, popular writers were promoting a view of astronomy that eschewed such numerical tedium and called for a return to a sense of wonder regarding the objects of the universe. As Charlotte Bigg outlines in her article on the rise of astrophysics and its relationship to popular astronomy during this period, popularizers of astronomy ‘complained about the drudgery of positional astronomical work, of the unbearable hierarchies, of the astronomers’ lack of imagination’. The products of meridional observatories, their dry ledgers of star positions, were contrasted with the new results of astrophysics and the investigations of the physical nature of celestial objects.  (Stephen Case, ‘Land-marks of the universe’: John Herschel against the background of positional astronomy (2014) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00033790.2015.1034588)

One wonders, considering Bradley’s contribution to setting all of this in motion, whether he can be considered boring. Perhaps this explains his relatively low profile in posterity. Did he seem, to his contemporaries or successors, dull, apparently lacking in interests or opinions, and not a man of action, beyond his repetitive observations? Could his meticulousness itself have been perceived as a negative character trait except by those in sympathy with the new, more accurate science of astronomy?

[tybaltsjuliet]

an incomplete list of 19th century british literature characters i have been confident in my ability to Fix, age 12-present:

colonel brandon

the artful dodger

john jasper

estella

sydney carton

louisa gradgrind

victor frankenstein

rawdon crawley, and william dobbin, but the latter is only worth the effort when played by rhys ifans.

ebenezer scrooge. see previous rhys ifans caveat.

james steerforth

richard mason

N.B. neville landless, actual love of my life, does not need fixing. he is exactly perfect. lord henry wotton and st. john rivers are incapable of being fixed.

[whats-in-a-sentence]

The financial journalist James Kynge describes overhearing a conversation on a train in Italy between two Chinese businessmen, sounding for all the world like a couple of Gradgrinds wrenched from the pages of Dickens:

The boss remarked that they had been traveling for an hour and a half and had hardly seen a single factory. "Foreigners like looking at scenery," the young man offered. The boss paused for thought, then asked, "Scenery or production, which is more important?" . . . The boss's curiosity ranged over many subjects . . . Why were foreigners so lazy? What was Europe going to do when it did not have much industry left? Could you really run an economy on services alone? Did European cows really consume two dollars a day in farm subsidies?

"Why the West Rules – For Now: The patterns of history and what they reveal about the future" - Ian Morris

[cinema-tv-etc]

Two Ways To Film The Same Scene

SOURCES https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...

The big idea: are our short attention spans really getting shorter?

It feels like we live in an era of constant distraction, but the truth is more complex

Since at least 2008, when the US tech journalist Nicholas Carr asked: “Is Google making us stupid?”, there has been a sense of crisis around our concentration spans. Distraction is everywhere, and so are its putative antidotes. Apps such as PawBlock, offering cute animal pictures instead of your social media fix, and screen modes such as Microsoft’s Focus, are the tech versions of mindfulness, the perceived panacea for all modern ills. On the other hand, speed‑reading programs such as QuickReader hold out the promise of absorbing more content in less time. We are utterly conflicted about the relationship between concentration and distraction.

Behind these worries and their remedies are two connected assumptions, typically blamed on our addiction to the dopamine highs of social media. The first is that our distractedness is both recent and negative; the second, that our concentration was better in the past. Carr recollects that formerly he would read immersively, engaging deeply with narrative, like a scuba diver. Now he is a jetski reader, skimming across the surface at speed. It is a compelling, and immediately recognisable, assessment.

But maybe these narratives of decline are misplaced – or, rather, like most narratives, their trajectory is shaped by the place we choose to start them. Comparing our concentration with an idealised recent past misses the fact that our attention has always been structured by the wider context. It’s not just smartphones that have had an impact. Every new technology, from the earliest books to portable timepieces, via reading glasses and trains, has changed our forms of apprehension and engagement with the world. Every generation thinks its own changes are more precipitate or significant than those of its grandparents.

For example, concentration became a crucial part of the ideology of work-discipline during the Industrial Revolution. This was historian EP Thompson’s term for the admonitory regime of clocking in and out ushered in by new forms of capitalism. In that environment, to concentrate was to acquiesce as a good worker in the factories, mills and schoolrooms of Victorian England. Charles Dickens gave his cold schoolmaster Mr Gradgrind a “deadly statistical clock”, “which measured every second with a beat like a rap upon a coffin-lid”, as the model for this crushingly instrumentalist timekeeping. Seen in this light, distractedness is less a personal failing and more a radical alternative to an internalised puritan work ethic.

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[eleftherian]

I feel like we should talk more about how bounderby is literally a pedophile