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Consolations
of Philosophy Howard: World-Historical
Individual 2004; 14pp Howard and the Onset of
Parousia (Proven Out of Schleiermacher) 2004; 18pp by Lance Banbury; Galaxy
Press, 71 Recreation St., Tweed Heads, NSW 2485, Australia. |
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The madness of George Bush I was answered
by his ouster, but Bill Clinton taught the American voter to be
philosophical. In America, unfortunately, philosophy is a dead art, like
architecture and alligator breeding. Not so in Australia, anyway. Lance Banbury
understands the living art and applies it to circumstances. When the conservative
firebrand Pauline Hanson arose in his country, he understood her in the light
of Christ’s commandment to the young man full of riches, and he is not
finished there. The same light exposes John Howard, the Australian Prime
Minister, in the gentle Part I of this work. Having established the primitive
Church and its perceived failings as a guidepost, Banbury in Part II assails
the PM with the specter of Christ’s return. Not since Belshazzar’s
feast has the writing on the wall been so evident. The world-historical individual is one who
lifts himself out of parochialism onto the stage of history, and may be
apperceived thereby. Consequently, the American or any other reader need not
feel, as Alexander Woolcott said of Proust, that “one is bathing in
someone else’s water.” Au contraire, as Banbury explains: The best way of entering upon the
pivotal part of this discourse has seemed to be by orientating the main
stress. This consists of two representative keynotes in Howard’s
televised interview on A Current Affair, 27th April this
year. Two prevailing themes were announced: ‘...respect for democracy
and true religious beliefs’ and ‘...we have got to understand we’re
living in a new world order.’ These phrases made definite the
principles by which the modus
operandii of the thinking of the Redeemer, was in fact thought. The dilemma
of separating the mode, communicability and quality substantiating this
manner of thinking from the subjective thinker of it, has not been
accidental: it resides in the noumenal nature of thought itself. It is the
question Yeats asked in Among School Children, ‘How can we know the
dancer from the dance?’ (64). It will perhaps be objected that Australia
has a parliamentary system. The American political convention, it might be
pointed out, is no longer anything more than a show nowadays. |