6.0680 Rs: Calvin & Hobbes (2/41)

Elaine Brennan (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Thu, 15 Apr 1993 15:09:57 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 6, No. 0680. Thursday, 15 Apr 1993.


(1) Date: 13 Apr 1993 18:37:52 -0700 (PDT) (12 lines)
From: YOUNGC@CGSVAX.CLAREMONT.EDU
Subject: Re: 6.0670 Rs: Media Life Expectancy; Calvin & Hobbes

(2) Date: 14 Apr 93 10:19:11 EST (29 lines)
From: "David A. Hoekema" <DHOEKEMA@legacy.Calvin.EDU>
Subject: Calvin and Hobbes

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 13 Apr 1993 18:37:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: YOUNGC@CGSVAX.CLAREMONT.EDU
Subject: Re: 6.0670 Rs: Media Life Expectancy; Calvin & Hobbes

A very small correction to Gary Lee Stonum's report on Bill
Watterson's militancy against merchandizing: Shortly after
the strip began (or at least shortly after the LA Times be-
gan to carry it, a kid in the Mary Worth strip had on a
Hobbes t-shirt.

Charles Young
youngc@cgsvax.claremont.edu
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 14 Apr 93 10:19:11 EST
From: "David A. Hoekema" <DHOEKEMA@legacy.Calvin.EDU>
Subject: Calvin and Hobbes

.....

On responses to my earlier query about Calvin and Hobbes: there is
apparently not much to tell, which leaves us free to speculate. Someone
pointed out the obvious fact which I had overlooked that Calvin, as drawn,
is nasty, brutish, and short, not to mention, arguably, solitary and poor.
If Calvin embodies Hobbes's vision of human life, then perhaps Hobbes
exemplifies Calvin's insistence that in each [human] person there exists,
despite the ravages of sin, a _semen religionis_ on which foundation natural
morality and even a certain limited sort of natural knowledge of God may
stand. (Subsequent Reformed theologians have, I think, given this less
emphasis.) Hobbes seems to embody a sort of natural, unreflective virtue--
Calvin's conscience, someone observed. So it appears that Calvin's
appearance is a visual pun on Hobbes's famous characterization of life apart
from civil society, while Hobbes is an example of Calvin's conception of
natural man. (Or natural tiger?)

Perhaps others will offer more interesting speculations. Why have we not
heard from colleagues at Hobbes College? Or Judas Iscariot College? (My
college is not named after Calvin Coolidge or Calvin Trillin.)


|| David Hoekema, Academic Dean, Calvin College (Grand Rapids MI 49546) ||
|| tel. 616 957-6442 || fax 616 957-8551 || <dhoekema@calvin.edu> ||