YOU HAVE TO BE DEAF TO UNDERSTAND

What is it like to "hear" a hand?
You have to be Deaf to understand!

What is it like to be a small child,
In a school, in a room void of sound --
With a teacher who talks and talks and talks;
And then when she does come around to you,
She expects you to know what she's said?
You have to be Deaf to understand.

Or the teacher who thinks that to make you smart
You must first learn how to talk with your voice;
So mumbo-jumbo with hands on your face
For hours and hours without patience or end,
Until out comes a faint resembling sound?
You have to be Deaf to understand.

What is it like to be curious,
To thirst for knowledge you can call your own,
With an inner desire that's set on fire --
And you ask a brother, sister, or friend
Who looks in answer and says, "Never mind!"?
You have to be Deaf to understand.

What is it like in a corner to stand,
Though there's nothing you've done really wrong
Other than try to make use of your hands
To a silent peer to communicate
A thought that comes to your mind all at once?
You have to be Deaf to understand.

What is it like to be shouted at
When one thinks that will help you to hear;
Or misunderstand the words of a friend
Who is trying to make a joke clear,
And you don't get the point because he's failed?
You have to be Deaf to understand.

What is it like to be laughed in the face
When you try to repeat what is said;
Just to make sure that you ve understood,
And you find that the words were misread --
And you want to cry out, "Please help me, friend!"?
You have to be Deaf to understand.

What is it like to have to depend
Upon one who can hear to phone a friend;
Or place a call to a business firm
And be forced to share what's personal, and
Then find that your message wasn't made clear?
You have to be Deaf to understand.

What is it like to be Deaf and alone
In the company of those who can hear --
And you only guess as you go along,
For no one's there with a helping hand,
As you try to keep up with words and song?
You have to be Deaf to understand.

What is it like on the road of life
To meet with a stranger who opens his mouth --
And speaks out a line at a rapid pace;
And you can't understand the look in his face
Because it is new and you're lost in the race?
You have to be Deaf to understand.

What is it like to comprehend
Some nimble fingers that paint the scene,
And make you smile and feel serene
With the "spoken word" of the moving hand
That makes you part of the world at large?
You have to be Deaf to understand.

What is it like to "hear" a hand?
Yes, you have to be Deaf to understand!

-- Williard J. Madsen, 1972 -

GREAT BOOKS OF THE WESTERN WORLD

Volume 1

• The Great Conversation

Volume 2

• Syntopicon I: Angel, Animal, Aristocracy, Art, Astronomy, Beauty, Being, Cause, Chance, Change, Citizen, Constitution, Courage, Custom and Convention, Definition, Democracy, Desire, Dialectic, Duty, Education, Element, Emotion, Eternity, Evolution, Experience, Family, Fate, Form, God, Good and Evil, Government, Habit, Happiness, History, Honor, Hypothesis, Idea, Immortality, Induction, Infinity, Judgment, Justice, Knowledge, Labor, Language, Law, Liberty, Life and Death, Logic, and Love

Volume 3

• Syntopicon II: Man, Mathematics, Matter, Mechanics, Medicine, Memory and Imagination, Metaphysics, Mind, Monarchy, Nature, Necessity and Contingency, Oligarchy, One and Many, Opinion, Opposition, Philosophy, Physics, Pleasure and Pain, Poetry, Principle, Progress, Prophecy, Prudence, Punishment, Quality, Quantity, Reasoning, Relation, Religion, Revolution, Rhetoric, Same and Other, Science, Sense, Sign and Symbol, Sin, Slavery, Soul, Space, State, Temperance, Theology, Time, Truth, Tyranny, Universal and Particular, Virtue and Vice, War and Peace, Wealth, Will, Wisdom, and World

Volume 4

• Homer
• The Iliad
• The Odyssey

Volume 5

• Aeschylus
• The Suppliant Maidens
• The Persians
• Seven Against Thebes
• Prometheus Bound
• The Oresteia
• Agamemnon
• Choephoroe
• The Eumenides
• Sophocles
• The Oedipus Cycle
• Oedipus the King
• Oedipus at Colonus
• Antigone
• Ajax
• Electra
• The Trachiniae
• Philoctetes
• Euripides
• Rhesus
• Medea
• Hippolytus
• Alcestis
• Heracleidae
• The Suppliants
• Trojan Women
• Ion
• Helen
• Andromache
• Electra
• Bacchantes
• Hecuba
• Heracles Mad
• Phoenician Women
• Orestes
• Iphigeneia in Tauris
• Iphigeneia at Aulis
• Cyclops
• Aristophanes
• The Acharnians
• The Knights
• The Clouds
• The Wasps
• Peace
• The Birds
• The Frogs
• Lysistrata
• Thesmophoriazusae
• Ecclesiazousae
• Plutus

Volume 6

• Herodotus
• The History
• Thucydides
• The History of the Peloponnesian War

Volume 7

• Plato
• Charmides
• Lysis
• Laches
• Protagoras
• Euthydemus
• Cratylus
• Phaedrus
• Ion
• Symposium
• Meno
• Euthyphro
• Apology
• Crito
• Phaedo
• Gorgias
• The Republic
• Timaeus
• Critias
• Parmenides
• Theaetetus
• Sophist
• Statesman
• Philebus
• Laws
• The Seventh Letter

Volume 8

• Aristotle
• Categories
• On Interpretation
• Prior Analytics
• Posterior Analytics
• Topics
• On Sophistical Refutations
• Physics
• On Generation and Corruption
• Meteorology
• Metaphysics
• On the Soul
• Minor biological works

Volume 9

• Aristotle
• History of Animals
• On the Parts of Animals
• On the Motion of Animals
• On the Gait of Animals
• On the Generation of Animals
• Nicomachean Ethics
• Politics
• The Athenian Constitution
• Rhetoric
• Poetics

Volume 10

• Hippocrates
• Works
• Galen
• On the Natural Faculties

Volume 11

• Euclid
• The Thirteen Books of Euclid's Elements
• Archimedes
• On the Sphere and Cylinder
• Measurement of a Circle
• On Conoids and Pheroids
• On Spirals
• On the Equilibrium of Planes
• The Sand-Reckoner
• The Quadrature of the Parabola
• On Floating Bodies
• Book of Lemmas
• The Method Treating of Mechanical Problems
• Apollonius of Perga
• On Conic Sections
• Nicomachus of Gerasa
• Introduction to Arithmetic

Volume 12

• Lucretius
• On the Nature of Things
• Epictetus
• The Discourses
• Marcus Aurelius
• The Meditations

Volume 13

• Virgil
• The Eclogues
• The Georgics
• The Aeneid

Volume 14

• Plutarch
• The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans

Volume 15

• P. Cornelius Tacitus
• The Annals
• The Histories

Volume 16

• Ptolemy
• The Almagest
• Nicolaus Copernicus
• On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres
• Johannes Kepler
• Epitome of Copernican Astronomy (Books IV - V)
• The Harmonies of the World (Book V)

Volume 17

• Plotinus
• The Six Enneads

Volume 18

• Augustine of Hippo
• The Confessions
• The City of God
• On Christian Doctrine

Volume 19

• Thomas Aquinas
• Summa Theologica (First part complete, selections from second part)

Volume 20

• Thomas Aquinas
• Summa Theologica (Selections from second and third parts and supplement)

Volume 21

• Dante Alighieri
• The Divine Comedy

Volume 22

• Geoffrey Chaucer
• Troilus and Criseyde
• The Canterbury Tales

Volume 23

• Niccolò Machiavelli
• The Prince
• Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan

Volume 24

• François Rabelais
• Gargantua and Pantagruel

Volume 25

• Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
• Essays

Volume 26

• William Shakespeare
• The First Part of King Henry the Sixth
• The Second Part of King Henry the Sixth
• The Third Part of King Henry the Sixth
• The Tragedy of Richard the Third
• The Comedy of Errors
• Titus Andronicus
• The Taming of the Shrew
• The Two Gentlemen of Verona
• Love's Labour's Lost
• Romeo and Juliet
• The Tragedy of King Richard the Second
• A Midsummer-Night's Dream
• The Life and Death of King John
• The Merchant of Venice
• The First Part of King Henry the Fourth
• The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth
• Much Ado About Nothing
• The Life of King Henry the Fifth
• Julius Caesar
• As You Like It

Volume 27

• William Shakespeare
• Twelfth Night; or, What You Will
• The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
• The Merry Wives of Windsor
• Troilus and Cressida
• All's Well That Ends Well
• Measure For Measure
• Othello, the Moor of Venice
• King Lear
• Macbeth
• Antony and Cleopatra
• Coriolanus
• Timon of Athens
• Pericles, Prince of Tyre
• Cymbeline
• The Winter's Tale
• The Tempest
• The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth
• Sonnets

Volume 28

• William Gilbert
• On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies
• Galileo Galilei
• Dialogues Concerning the Two New Sciences
• William Harvey
• On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals
• On the Circulation of Blood
• On the Generation of Animals

Volume 29

• Miguel de Cervantes
• The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha

Volume 30

• Sir Francis Bacon
• Advancement of Learning
• Novum Organum
• New Atlantis

Volume 31

• René Descartes
• Rules for the Direction of the Mind
• Discourse on the Method
• Meditations on First Philosophy
• Objections Against the Meditations and Replies
• The Geometry
• Benedict de Spinoza
• Ethics

Volume 32

• John Milton
• English Minor Poems
• Paradise Lost
• Samson Agonistes
• Areopagitica

Volume 33

• Blaise Pascal
• The Provincial Letters
• Pensées
• Scientific and mathematical essays

Volume 34

• Sir Isaac Newton
• Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
• Optics
• Christian Huygens
• Treatise on Light

Volume 35

• John Locke
• A Letter Concerning Toleration
• Concerning Civil Government, Second Essay
• An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
• George Berkeley
• The Principles of Human Knowledge
• David Hume
• An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Volume 36

• Jonathan Swift
• Gulliver's Travels
• Laurence Sterne
• The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Volume 37

• Henry Fielding
• The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

Volume 38

• Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu
• The Spirit of the Laws
• Jean Jacques Rousseau
• A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
• A Discourse on Political Economy
• The Social Contract

Volume 39

• Adam Smith
• An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

Volume 40

• Edward Gibbon
• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Part 1)

Volume 41

• Edward Gibbon
• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Part 2)

Volume 42

• Immanuel Kant
• The Critique of Pure Reason
• Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals
• The Critique of Practical Reason
• Excerpts from The Metaphysics of Morals
• Preface and Introduction to the Metaphysical Elements of Ethics with a note on Conscience
• General Introduction to the Metaphysic of Morals
• The Science of Right
• The Critique of Judgement

Volume 43

• American State Papers
• Declaration of Independence
• Articles of Confederation
• The Constitution of the United States of America
• Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay
• The Federalist
• John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
• Considerations on Representative Government
• Utilitarianism

Volume 44

• James Boswell
• The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

Volume 45

• Antoine Laurent Lavoisier
• Elements of Chemistry
• Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier
• Analytical Theory of Heat
• Michael Faraday
• Experimental Researches in Electricity

Volume 46

• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
• The Philosophy of Right
• The Philosophy of History

Volume 47

• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Faust

Volume 48

• Herman Melville
• Moby Dick; or, The Whale

Volume 49

• Charles Darwin
• The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
• The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex

Volume 50

• Karl Marx
• Capital
• Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
• Manifesto of the Communist Party

Volume 51

• Count Leo Tolstoy
• War and Peace

Volume 52

• Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky
• The Brothers Karamazov

Volume 53

• William James
• The Principles of Psychology

Volume 54

• Sigmund Freud
• The Origin and Development of Psycho-Analysis
• Selected Papers on Hysteria
• The Sexual Enlightenment of Children
• The Future Prospects of Psycho-Analytic Therapy
• Observations on "Wild" Psycho-Analysis
• The Interpretation of Dreams
• On Narcissism
• Instincts and Their Vicissitudes
• Repression
• The Unconscious
• A General Introduction to Psycho-Analysis
• Beyond the Pleasure Principle
• Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego
• The Ego and the Id
• Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety
• Thoughts for the Times on War and Death
• Civilization and Its Discontents
• New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis

SECOND EDITION

Volume 20

• John Calvin
• Institutes of the Christian Religion (Selections)

Volume 23

• Erasmus
• The Praise of Folly

Volume 31

• Molière
• The School for Wives
• The Critique of the School for Wives
• Tartuffe
• Don Juan
• The Miser
• The Would-Be Gentleman
• The Would-Be Invalid
• Jean Racine
• Bérénice
• Phèdre

Volume 34

• Voltaire
• Candide
• Denis Diderot
• Rameau's Nephew

Volume 43

• Søren Kierkegaard
• Fear and Trembling
• Friedrich Nietzsche
• Beyond Good and Evil

Volume 44

• Alexis de Toqueville
• Democracy in America

Volume 45

• Honoré de Balzac
• Cousin Bette

Volume 46

• Jane Austen
• Emma
• George Eliot
• Middlemarch

Volume 47

• Charles Dickens
• Little Dorrit

Volume 48

• Mark Twain
• Huckleberry Finn

Volume 52

• Henrik Ibsen
• A Doll's House
• The Wild Duck
• Hedda Gabler
• The Master Builder

The six volumes of 20th century material consisted of the following:

Volume 55

• William James
• Pragmatism
• Henri Bergson
• An Introduction to Metaphysics
• John Dewey
• Experience in Education
• Alfred North Whitehead
• Science and the Modern World
• Bertrand Russell
• The Problems of Philosophy
• Martin Heidegger
• What Is Metaphysics?
• Ludwig Wittgenstein
• Philosophical Investigations
• Karl Barth
• The Word of God and the Word of Man

Volume 56

• Henri Poincaré
• Science and Hypothesis
• Max Planck
• Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers
• Alfred North Whitehead
• An Introduction to Mathematics
• Albert Einstein
• Relativity: The Special and the General Theory
• Arthur Eddington
• The Expanding Universe
• Niels Bohr
• Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature (selections)
• Discussion with Einstein on Epistemology
• G. H. Hardy
• A Mathematician's Apology
• Werner Heisenberg
• Physics and Philosophy
• Erwin Schrödinger
• What Is Life?
• Theodosius Dobzhansky
• Genetics and the Origin of Species
• C. H. Waddington
• The Nature of Life

Volume 57

• Thorstein Veblen
• The Theory of the Leisure Class
• R. H. Tawney
• The Acquisitive Society
• John Maynard Keynes
• The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

Volume 58

• Sir James George Frazer
• The Golden Bough (selections)
• Max Weber
• Essays in Sociology (selections)
• Johan Huizinga
• The Waning of the Middle Ages
• Claude Lévi-Strauss
• Structural Anthropology (selections)

Volume 59

• Henry James
• The Beast in the Jungle
• George Bernard Shaw
• Saint Joan
• Joseph Conrad
• Heart of Darkness
• Anton Chekhov
• Uncle Vanya
• Luigi Pirandello
• Six Characters in Search of an Author
• Marcel Proust
• Remembrance of Things Past: "Swann in Love"
• Willa Cather
• A Lost Lady
• Thomas Mann
• Death in Venice
• James Joyce
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Volume 60

• Virginia Woolf
• To the Lighthouse
• Franz Kafka
• The Metamorphosis
• D. H. Lawrence
• The Prussian Officer
• T. S. Eliot
• The Waste Land
• Eugene O'Neill
• Mourning Becomes Electra
• F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Great Gatsby
• William Faulkner
• A Rose for Emily
• Bertolt Brecht
• Mother Courage and Her Children
• Ernest Hemingway
• The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber
• George Orwell
• Animal Farm
• Samuel Beckett
• Waiting for Godot

Those titles that are in bold and shade of blue are the books that I've read already... Hmmm... So few... I think it's time to grab some more books from the library...

Hehehe!