Louis Groarke: The True History of Philosophy (and Religion)

The True History of Philosophy (and Religion)

For malt does more than Milton can

To justify God’s ways to man.

                        —A.E. Housman

 

O eager student, thirsty soul!

Forget your studies, raise the bowl.

Swift reason flies, an arrow sharp,

But hits the ground before the mark.

You will, in books, but vainly seek

For proofs of God’s pure essence meek.

What better proof can we discern,

Than nectar aged within the urn.

Nature’s fire dries us up

We need, each day, another cup.

 

Down the throat with one sweet swallow,

Still more drink, we’ll need tomorrow.

Inside the famous Trojan horse,

They passed their time with drink, of course.

Old Socrates, the day he died,

Filled up his cup and opened wide.

The Pre-Socratics sometimes think:

The world is made of fire, water, earth, and drink.

But Thales drinking does protest

It’s mostly drink, he rightly guessed.

Poor Heraclitus, soaking wet,

Felt too much moisture in his tête.

It wasn’t rivers, groves with druids,

He drank, it seems, abundant fluids.

He talked of wet and hot and dry;

Without cold drink, we all soon die.

Empedocles upon his pyre,

Preferred to drink than douse the fire.

Pyrrho, on the stormy brine,

Kept quite calm with purple wine.

At Athen’s first Academy,

They drank much more than simple tea.

When drinking at Platonic rates,

Thought itself intoxicates.

Unemployed, the Stagarite,

Drunken, staggered day and night.

Lucretius, writing Nature’s poem,

Got so drunk, he stumbled home.

In a heap, upon the floor,

His atoms thirsty, cried for more.

Plotinus drinking in the woods,

Found the Forms of Higher Goods.

He wandered off on drinking sprees,

With Porphyry beneath his tree.

The Stoics mixing wine with lead,

Located suffering in the head.

His sins, Augustine did confess,

He did not drink enough, I guess.

Inside his man-cave was a jar,

For extra drinks outside the bar.

When it was empty, he would swear,

All evil is an absence there.

Boethius, when in prison,

Drank enough for double vision;

A Lady Ghost, he saw in blue;

She stayed with him the whole time through.

No sober man could expect

Such gentle care from God’s elect.

Anselm’s proof soon made the rounds,

He, tipsy, thought it solid ground,

For metaphysics, ontology,

We first determine what must be.

The greatest drink one can conceive,

Was made by God—you must believe.

When Thomas wrote his Summa grand,

He kept two jugs close by at hand.

He said, while parsing natural law,

Compared to drink, the rest is straw.

Frere Occam’s razor was so sharp,

He cut his fingers in the dark.

(Though shaving is a dangerous art.

It simplifies this hairy part.)

He soaked his wounds in mead and rum, 

Then licked his fingers, sucked his thumb.

Don’t multiply your drinks, he said,

You may lose digits and your head.

Descartes then taught, for God to be,

We must all think “infinity.”

To Sophie, Queen, he wrote, Dear Mam,

I drink, I drink, therefore I am.

Hobbes in Britain’s taverns boozing,

The State of Nature kept refusing.

In sleek, tall ships, he liked to sail.

Over there, he met a whale.

In oceans vast, dear pet would sink,

It lived a life immersed in drink.

When Bernard penned The Grumbling Hive,

He downed beer glasses five by five.

When trembling Pascal laid his bet,

You can be sure, his lips were wet.

What Locke preferred–je ne sais quoi,

While Kant set down the moral law:

There is a universal in each act.

We all thirst: it is a fact.

The imperative that Kant provides

Is equal drinks for every side.

Spinoza grinding dusty lenses,

Cleared his throat with drink that cleanses.

In Paris, the encyclopaedic set,

Drank sweet wine with crisp baguettes.

Philosophes and salon drinkers,

Chugged beer cold with bold freethinkers.

Voltaire dining out with Diderot

Drank three teacups in a row.

(He mixed sweet cognac with his tea

—If you and I can Candide be.)

Leibniz preaching optimism,

Drowned in drink his pessimism.

Bish Berkeley thinking matter crude,

Lived off drink, refusing food.

He drank his whiskey mixed with tar,

They call it “Lagavulin” at the bar.

Paley with his wind-up clocks,

Looked for God in jewellery shops.

He showed when grapes turn into wine

‘Tis proof enough of Grand Design.

Rousseau, rough with liquor stains,

In prison cells, he broke his chains.

He argued for the “General Will”:

Everyone shall drink their fill.

On Prussian soil, Idealist Hegel

Drank three tankards with each bagel.

Then Marx proclaimed a bold decree.

Each worker needs more drinks for free!

Communists fermented civil war,

Demanding always more and more!

And if the suds don’t quickly come,

They’ll brew revolt instead of rum.

Logician Carroll wrote a book.

About the drinks that Alice took

Drinking up and drinking down,

Alice had no need of her playground.

Drinking beats the laws of logic.

It’s a rousing, healthy tonic.

John Stuart Mill, sad, depressed,

Kept a flask inside a chest;

With Miss Taylor on his knee,

He toasted to sweet liberty.

Proud Nietzsche preached “the overman”,

Who drinks more than “the last man” can.

While Soren, worried, made it plain,

From tea and coffee, we should abstain.

Carousing, sousing, in the park,

He practised leaping in the dark.

Freud then proved that all who tipple

Think like babies at the nipple.

Herr Frege craving all things wet,

Consumed nine bottles in each set.

Friend Gregor with transfinite tastes

Drank matching bottles in great haste.

While mournful Ludwig heaved a sigh,

Inside his bottle he found a fly.

The Vienna Circle would not square dance;

They championed science, not romance;

Positively drunk, they circled round;

Positively drunk, in logic drowned.

Scholastic buddies, Suarez’s friends,

The modern mind, they tried to mend.

Etienne, the Christian, in scholastic ways,

Drinking Chartreuse, daily prayed.

The Thomist Jacques with Aristotle

Every Easter kissed a bottle.

Drinking whiskey in a can,

Bergson felt a grand élan.

Husserl with phenomena,

Drinking lost the noumena.

While Heidegger, to conquer dread,

Would soak in beer his home-made bread.

Beauvoir’s buvoir was quite wide,

With Sartre guzzling at her side.

Now feminists of every stripe,

Enjoy all liquor—every type.

As thirsty as the best of men,

Outdrink them all, one to ten.

Roaring Rorty, disputing truth,

On a beer glass broke his tooth.

Drinking with the po-mo crowd,

The party grew increasing loud.

Debates that made the grad schools tense;

If you drink enough, it may make sense!

But too much thought brings on despair,

We wonder if God’s really there.

The Skeptic Hume, his doubts expressed,

Those Epicurus once addressed.

The human mind, it spins and reels,

At how much evil thirst reveals.

If God drew up a loving plan,

Why would He curse with thirst each man?

If He pays heed to all who cry,

Why would He leave our throats so dry?

But Bible pastors, like Johnson quick,

Replied with sense and ready wit.

If our throats are deeply cursed,

Lucifer, himself, invented thirst.

Deep in Hell, in burning flames,

He fashioned it to plague our brains.

Then God thought to soothe such pain,

He gave us liquor, deserts rain.

Believe in Him then, as you should,

From evil came a greater good.

Misfortune serves the best of men

With reasons plain to drink again.

A sage once told me in a word,

When mystics speak, it’s mostly slurred.

At Cana, Jesus gave a sign,

Turning water into wine.

The Buddha preached beneath a tree,

We’re liquor-drops inside the sea.

The Hindu drinks his first life up,

Then comes again to tip the cup.

The Muslim thinker, Omar Khayyam

Did not give a tinker’s damn.

Pilgrims here, beset by strife,

The crimson goblet sweetens life.

For Luther beer was not the least

For Christ told us to be like yeast.

The salt of earth—he said to be;

Salt makes us thirsty, don’t you see?

Swedenborg, perched on a pin,

Drank so much, he couldn’t spin.

A recent pope, while drinking port,

No side-effects, did he report.

New age prophets on the rise

Drink more than the ocean tides.

The nectar we must keep on drinking,

Stops poor souls from downward sinking.

It disinfects and soothes our sores,

Exposes prudes and transforms bores.

Hard liquor sharpens intellect,

With comments witty and select.

With goodly drink, the stupid learn,

The lame soon leap, the blind discern.

With sips and gulps in heavy number,

The sleepless find much needed slumber.

Then contemplate God’s works by day,

Gin tonic, vermouth, Grand Marnier.

Oh! praise His works all through the night,

Tequila, Guinness, bourbon bright.

Do not forget Irish potcheen,

It keeps one’s innards squeaky clean.

Moonshine stirred on mountain tops,

Is gently brewed from last year’s crops.

Martini cocktails brandished high,

Make men smile and women sigh.

Recall the music angels bring,

The more you drink, the more you sing.

If God has filled the world with booze,

What mortal creature dare refuse.

Approach the table, partake the feast;

Fill each cup from most to least.

                                      Louis Groarke