The Toronto Chat (Reboot!)

To get familiar with our organization, feel free to learn more here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E16-qv-OZZoKh4HSyHCtQ_eZA-ko_n3Kd3SwxfLpk84/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.qsvmnmkadvaq

To get familiar with our past events, feel free to check out our YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmixGB9GdrptyEWovEj80zg

After registering via zoom, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

We publish our event recordings on our Youtube channel to offer our help to anyone who would like to but can’t attend the meeting, so we need to give this clause. If you don’t want to be recorded, just remain on mute and keep your video off.

Here’s our legal notice: For valuable consideration received, by joining this event I hereby grant Free Thinker Institute and its legal representatives and assigns, the irrevocable and unrestricted right to use and publish any and all Zoom recordings for trade, advertising and any other commercial purpose, and to alter the same without any restriction. I hereby release Free Thinker Institute and its legal representatives and assigns from all claims and liability related to said video recordings.

This meetup is hosted by Wisdom and Woe. For more details and to RSVP, please go to to: Murat - Alexandre Dumas

"Murat" is one of Celebrated Crimes (1839) by the celebrated Alexandre Dumas, a collection of short stories depicting violent episodes from history.

Joachim Murat (1767-1815) was a military commander and statesman serving under his brother-in-law, Napoleon Boneparte. He bore many titles in his lifetime--including Marshal, Grand Admiral, and Grand Duke of Berg--and his daring cavalry charges earned him the nickname "The First Horseman of Europe." But his handsome looks, ostentatious style, and flamboyant uniforms--for which Napoleon compared him to a famous circus rider--also earned him the nickname "The Dandy King."

In the name of the French Revolution, Napoleon had invaded Italy, displacing its feudal order, and establishing new codes of law, with Murat installed as King of Naples. But when Napoleon surrendered at Waterloo on 18 June 1815, Murat desperately tried to cling to power by attempting a futile invasion of Calabria. He was easily captured and sentenced to death by firing squad. As he stood for his executioners, he (in true "Dandy King" fashion) reportedly kissed a portrait of his wife and exclaimed: "Soldiers, do your duty! Aim for the heart but spare the face!"

With Napoleon's defeat, the Austrian Empire largely regained control of Italy. But the French Revolution, with its ideals of national self-determination, continued to inspire political upheavals that eventually manifested in revolution (the Risorgimento). Alexandre Dumas played his own part in this history, joining its heroic leader, Giuseppe Garibaldi, and publishing a biography that helped to immortalize his reputation.

Wisdom and Woe is a philosophy and literature discussion group dedicated to exploring the world, work, life, and times of Herman Melville and the 19th century Romantic movement. The group is free and open to anybody with an interest in learning and growing by "diving deeper" into "time and eternity, things of this world and of the next, and books, and publishers, and all possible and impossible matters."

This meetup is hosted by Wisdom and Woe. For more details and to RSVP, please go to to: Billy Budd, Sailor (An Inside Narrative)

The manuscript of Billy Budd was left incomplete when Herman Melville died in 1891, lending prescience to the declaration (from Moby-Dick, chapter 25) that "if, at my death, my executors, or more properly my creditors, find any precious MSS. in my desk, then here I prospectively ascribe all the honor and the glory to whaling."

But Billy Budd's glory derives not only from Melville's first-hand experience at sea, but also from the Somers mutiny of 1842 and eighteenth-century British naval law. The novella's subtitle--"an inside narrative"--obliquely links it to his cousin Gansevoort, who had been aboard the U.S. Brig Somers when the mutiny occurred. (Another interpretation links it to Melville's father-in-law, chief justice Lemuel Shaw, for his role in enforcing the notorious Fugitive Slave Act.)

The story is retrospectively set in 1797, with Britain at war against Revolutionary France, following a spate of mutinies that threatened its Maritime front. Enter Billy Budd, "the handsome sailor"--Melville's presumptive answer to the dandy--whose moral innocence portends an equally subversive counter-revolution.

Billy Budd is a classic in the fields of law and literature. In the words of Robert L. Gale: "The rich, imagistic, and allusive style of Billy Budd has intrigued readers, but it is the psychological nature of the three principle characters that has challenged the critics. In what ways is Billy Budd a Christ figure? What does his stammer symbolize? To what degree is Captain Vere an admirable naval officer and father figure? What is his motivation? Is Claggart an unmitigated Satan? Is Billy Budd to be read as Melville's testament of faith or as an ironic document concerning fallen humanity?"

Wisdom and Woe is a philosophy and literature discussion group dedicated to exploring the world, work, life, and times of Herman Melville and the 19th century Romantic movement. The group is free and open to anybody with an interest in learning and growing by "diving deeper" into "time and eternity, things of this world and of the next, and books, and publishers, and all possible and impossible matters."

This meetup is hosted by Wisdom and Woe. For more details and to RSVP, please go to to: On Revolution - Hannah Arendt (week 1)

Hannah Arendt was one of the most influential political theorists of the twentieth century. In On Revolution (1963), she offers a philosophical analysis of political revolutions and their transformative power on society. Comparing the French and American Revolutions, in particular, she investigates their different objectives, approaches, and outcomes, their relationship to violence, and dedication to freedom. In transitioning from uprising to orderly nation building, she argues, a movement must preserve "the lost treasure of revolution": a core spirit of public happiness or welfare founded in freedom and equality.

Arendt makes her case by developing a reading of Billy Budd in which Herman Melville's story is an allegory for the public realm and what it means to be a citizen in the world. What does it mean for there to be goodness beyond virtue and evil beyond vice? What's the difference between political, moral, and legal judgment?

Schedule:

• Week 1 (May 18): Chapters 1-3
• Week 2 (May 25): Chapters 4-6

Wisdom and Woe is a philosophy and literature discussion group dedicated to exploring the world, work, life, and times of Herman Melville and the 19th century Romantic movement. The group is free and open to anybody with an interest in learning and growing by "diving deeper" into "time and eternity, things of this world and of the next, and books, and publishers, and all possible and impossible matters."