Were you beaten with roses as a child?
October 30th 2008 04:54 pm
I’ve been listening to the Between the Covers podcasts at National Review Online, and there’s a lot of cool stuff there, like interviews with Christopher Buckley and George R.R. Martin (and, yes, Chuck Norris.)
… but! Imagine my surprise and delight when I find a podcast about T.S. Eliot, where the interview-ee is none other than… Benjamin Lockerd! Apparently, he has written a new introduction to a new edition of Russel Kirk’s Eliot and His Age.
Lockerd is a prof at GVSU, possibly the most awesome Brit-Lit-prof in the world, originator of the phrase “Were you beaten with roses as a child?” which I have shared with my father on numerous occasions as he and Dan continue the disagreement that existed between my ex-boyfriend Stefan and Dr. Lockerd about whether something can be described as intrinsically beautiful, or are only considered beautiful because our culture conditions us to believe they are. My father and Lockerd take the former position, leading Lockerd to say “If you see a rose, and you don’t think it’s beautiful, I think: what’s wrong with you? Were you beaten with roses as a child?”
Other great Lockerd moments:
Last time I talked with him, it was January, and I was wearing my coat with a World of Warcraft “druid” pin on it, and he jokingly replies. “Ah, good to see a follower of the old religions! Human sacrifice and all of that!” I laugh, explain its real meaning, and take the opportunity to find one person in the world who understands the origins of my warlock, Duessa’s, name.
Now I guess I really have to read Four Quartets…
easlern responded on 31 Oct 2008 at 8:43 pm #
What’s funny about Lockerd’s argument is that it implies a person’s perception of beauty is subject to conditioning, negating his own point.
firefly responded on 31 Oct 2008 at 9:20 pm #
No one would argue it’s not SUBJECT to conditioning, only that it’s not created BY conditioning. That roses are beautiful is the natural order; anything else is a perversion thereof.