George Steiner wonders about atheist art
Marko Amnell
asks an interesting question:
"Until now, authentic atheism has been rare. Nor does it mock the
God-hypothesis. It can bear witness to sombre deprivation: 'He doesn't
exist, the bastard' (Samuel Beckett). Atheism can exact moral discipline
and altruism of the severest kind. It imposes on the writer or thinker
a solitude even more austere than that which our way of life has, at
present, dissipated. The true atheist's assumption of the black zero
in and after death makes his acts at once immanently responsible and,
in a sense, hopeless. Let us suppose that a genuine atheism will come
to replace the aspirin-agnosticism, the 'blowing neither hot nor cold'
with which our post-modernity is now awash. Let us suppose that atheism
will come to possess and energize those who are the masters of articulate
form and builders of thought. Will their works rival the dimensions, the
life-transforming strengths of persuasion we have known? What would be
the atheist counterpart to a Michelangelo fresco or _King Lear_? It
would be impertinent to rule out the possibility. Or to deny the
fascination of the prospect."
Some of my thoughts, as an atheist (maybe I'm ahead of my time?
Ha ha...) on this question "Could an atheist produce truly great
art?" are as folllows: Yes, an atheist could produce art that would
rival Michelangelo or other great Western art inspired by religion,
but we are so used to Biblical iconography and themes that we might
have trouble recognizing or accepting it as on par with the
Renaissance masters. There would be considerable prejudice against
the completely non-religious art works due to the weight of history
and tradition. This prejudice is expressed by some people today
who say that atheists seem somehow less human than religious
people. We tend to associate religion with humanity, and great
art, whatever else it is, must express the human in an exemplary
way. An opponent of atheist art could also cite the example of
Socialist Realism in the Soviet Union. But the failure of Communist
art was not due to its atheism, but the fact that Soviet art
was the slave of a totalitarian political ideology. Anyone else
out there have any other ideas of this question?
smw
Marko Amnell wrote:
> At the end of his latest book _Grammars of Creation_, George Steiner
> asks an interesting question:[...]
> Some of my thoughts, as an atheist (maybe I'm ahead of my time?
> Ha ha...) on this question "Could an atheist produce truly great
> art?" are as folllows: Yes, an atheist could produce art that would
> rival Michelangelo or other great Western art inspired by religion,
> but we are so used to Biblical iconography and themes that we might
> have trouble recognizing or accepting it as on par with the
> Renaissance masters.
No reason to think of religious iconography and radical atheism as
incompatible. On the contrary -- it's the attempt to avoid or circumvent its
being-there that leads you into impotent negation of negation.
ObStory: "The Earthquake in Chili."
s.
jimC
As a rule, I don't eat things that are still moving.
jimC
Sayan Bhattacharyya
>Yes, an atheist could produce art that would
>rival Michelangelo or other great Western art inspired by religion,
>but we are so used to Biblical iconography and themes that we might
>have trouble recognizing or accepting it as on par with the
>Renaissance masters.
Who are the "we" above?
The majority of people in the world are not, in fact, used
to Biblical iconography and themes. (Don't forget that India
and China alone consist of more than two billion people).
>An opponent of atheist art could also cite the example of
>Socialist Realism in the Soviet Union. But the failure of Communist
>art was not due to its atheism, but the fact that Soviet art
>was the slave of a totalitarian political ideology. Anyone else
>out there have any other ideas of this question?
An example of "atheist" art that is not "the slave of a totalitarian
political ideology" would be "epic theater" a` la Brecht.
ObBook: Incidentally, Stephen Greenblatt, in Chapter two of
his book "Shakespearean Negotiations", which I am reading now,
has an interesting discussion of how atheism was conceptualized
in Elizabethan England. I picked up this book from Shaman Drum's
sale table after reading Frank Kermode's article attacking New
Historicism (of which Greenblatt is a proponent) in the current
New York Review of Books. Does anyone know of any work where
New Historicists have responded to criticisms of the kind Kermode
makes of them?
Andy Averill
"Marko Amnell" <marko_...@MailAndNews.com> wrote in message
news:3B3C...@MailAndNews.com...
> At the end of his latest book _Grammars of Creation_, George Steiner
> asks an interesting question:
>
> "Until now, authentic atheism has been rare. Nor does it mock the
> God-hypothesis. It can bear witness to sombre deprivation: 'He doesn't
> exist, the bastard' (Samuel Beckett). Atheism can exact moral discipline
> and altruism of the severest kind. It imposes on the writer or thinker
> a solitude even more austere than that which our way of life has, at
> present, dissipated. The true atheist's assumption of the black zero
> in and after death makes his acts at once immanently responsible and,
> in a sense, hopeless. Let us suppose that a genuine atheism will come
> to replace the aspirin-agnosticism, the 'blowing neither hot nor cold'
> with which our post-modernity is now awash. Let us suppose that atheism
> will come to possess and energize those who are the masters of articulate
> form and builders of thought. Will their works rival the dimensions, the
> life-transforming strengths of persuasion we have known? What would be
> the atheist counterpart to a Michelangelo fresco or _King Lear_? It
> would be impertinent to rule out the possibility. Or to deny the
> fascination of the prospect."
Well, I think King Lear is about as close to an atheist masterpiece as you
can get. Could there possibly be a God in that world?
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David J. Loftus
artists of the past got terrific patronage for their training
and efforts from the church, whereas we can expect nothing of
the sort.
David Loftus
Larisa
Let us suppose that atheism
> will come to possess and energize those who are the masters of articulate
> form and builders of thought. Will their works rival the dimensions, the
> life-transforming strengths of persuasion we have known? What would be
> the atheist counterpart to a Michelangelo fresco or _King Lear_? It
> would be impertinent to rule out the possibility. Or to deny the
> fascination of the prospect."
>
> Some of my thoughts, as an atheist (maybe I'm ahead of my time?
> Ha ha...) on this question "Could an atheist produce truly great
> art?" are as folllows: Yes, an atheist could produce art that would
> rival Michelangelo or other great Western art inspired by religion,
> but we are so used to Biblical iconography and themes that we might
> have trouble recognizing or accepting it as on par with the
> Renaissance masters. There would be considerable prejudice against
> the completely non-religious art works due to the weight of history
> and tradition. This prejudice is expressed by some people today
> who say that atheists seem somehow less human than religious
> people. We tend to associate religion with humanity, and great
> art, whatever else it is, must express the human in an exemplary
> way. An opponent of atheist art could also cite the example of
> Socialist Realism in the Soviet Union. But the failure of Communist
> art was not due to its atheism, but the fact that Soviet art
> was the slave of a totalitarian political ideology. Anyone else
> out there have any other ideas of this question?
Hmm. I think that the atheist idea of death, and the horrifying
awareness of one's mortality that this must engender, could produce
powerful art, or powerful music. But isn't most art already atheist,
in the way that it has nothing to do with religious imagery?
Incidentally, Communism was doing its best to replace religion in
people's minds; I don't think that Socialist Realist art was all that
irreligious. Just a different idea of what religion was.
Larisa
Lacenaire
Sayan Bhattacharyya <bhat...@engin.umich.edu> wrote in message
news:9ro_6.1387$96....@srvr1.engin.umich.edu...
I have not read, but can imagine the gist of what Frank Kermode has to say
to Greenblatt et al..
You may be interested in the Introduction to Greenblatt's Renaissance
Self-Fashioning, in the collection of Greenblatt essays _Learning to Curse_,
the book _Practising New Historicism_ co-edited by Greenblatt, and _The New
Historicism_ ed. H. Aram Veeser (containing a chapter by Greenblatt.)
I also recall reading a persuasive analysis, from the opposite end of the
specturm, of New Historicism by Frederic Jameson, some years ago, and I am
pretty sure it was in _Postmodernism, The Cultural Logic of Late
Capitalism_, but I can't swear to
it, and the book seems to have gone missing from my flat. I am pretty sure
there was a lengthy look at the method of Walter Benn Michaels _The Gold
Standard and the Logic of Naturalism_ , a "classic" of New Historicism, in
that book.
And here is a bookmark that I have labelled "New Histsm vs. Hist. Matlsm":
http://www.pum.umontreal.ca/revues/surfaces/vol2/brantlin.html
M. Lacenaire
>
Moggin Goldberg
> Well, I think King Lear is about as close to an atheist masterpiece as you
> can get. Could there possibly be a God in that world?
"As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us
for their sport."
-- Moggin
Marko Amnell
>>Yes, an atheist could produce art that would rival Michelangelo
>>or other great Western art inspired by religion, but we are so
>>used to Biblical iconography and themes that we might have
>>trouble recognizing or accepting it as on par with the Renaissance
>>masters.
Sayan Bhattacharyya replied:
>Who are the "we" above? The majority of people in the world
>are not, in fact, used to Biblical iconography and themes.
>(Don't forget that India and China alone consist of more
>than two billion people).
Yes, the majority of the world's people may not be used to
Biblical iconography and themes, but the culture of the
world is not produced by the majority, is it? And I'm afraid
the collective unconsciousness of the cultural elites of every
nation on the planet has been thoroughly tainted by a whole
slew of Western ideas, including Biblical iconography and themes.
It is a myth of the New Left that there are such things as
pure non-Western cultures, pristine and untouched by the turmoils
of modernization over the last two hundred years. So, the "we"
above is not only Westerners, who have, for both good and ill,
led the transformation of the planet over the last three centuries,
but also the Westernized elites of every country, including
India and China. Ask yourself where the political systems of
these two great nations come from? Communism and representational
democracy are Western ideas. But the progress since the Enlightenment
has not been without its victims, most of them in the Third World.
I think all the civilizations of the world have been fundamentally
altered, on many levels, by their extended contact with Western
science, technology and culture, so that no world-historical questions,
such as the possibility of atheist art that would rival the great
religious art of the past, can be conceived without taking into
account the overwhelming dominance of Western civilization. So not
only have there never been pure cultures, but today all cultures
are partly Western. This is unpleasant to comtemplate morally and
politically, but I think it is an indisputable fact.
Compare my view of modern history with Walter Benjamin's vision of
the angel of history in his "Theses on the Philosophy of History":
Mein Flügel ist zum Schwung bereit,
ich Kehrte gern zurück,
denn blieb ich auch lebendige Zeit,
ich hätte wenig Glück.
--Gerhard Scholem,
'Gruss vom Angelus'
(My wing is ready for flight,
I would like to turn back.
If I stayed timeless time,
I would have little luck.)
"A Klee painting named 'Angelus Novus' shows an angel looking as
though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly
contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings
are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history.
His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain
of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling
wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet.
The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole
what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise;
it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel
can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him
into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of
debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call
progress."
You can see a photo of the Klee painting 'Angelus Novus' at:
Marko Amnell
smw wrote:
> No reason to think of religious iconography and radical atheism as
> incompatible. On the contrary -- it's the attempt to avoid or circumvent
its
> being-there that leads you into impotent negation of negation.
Yes, but when an artist who is a radical atheist, say Brecht, uses
religious iconography, these images and symbols don't have the
same meaning for him as they had for religious artists. The atheist
artist will use the religious elements ironically, or mock them,
attack them, use them metaphorically, or have some other attitude
toward them other than veneration. If one were to accept that the
core of a culture is its religion, as, say Arnold Toynbee did, then
it would be possible to argue that no non-religious art works can
capture the core values of a culture, and thus will always fall short
of the very greatest aesthetic achievement. But I don't believe that
religion is the core of culture, so I don't think atheist art couldn't
achieve true greatness. But the mere fact that religious iconography
can be used by an atheist artist does not settle the issue. It's more
complicated than that. I also think that most art critics would agree
that right now the greatest works of art in existence are not only
closely associated with religion and use religious iconography, but
were also produced by artists who were not atheists. But as
George Steiner said, it remains an open question whether this
will always be the case.
Marko Amnell
Sayan Bhattacharyya wrote:
> An example of "atheist" art that is not "the slave of a totalitarian
> political ideology" would be "epic theater" a` la Brecht.
As an aside, the Israeli philosopher of science Yehuda Elkana
argues that science is also best understood as epic theatre.
Marko Amnell
Andy Averill wrote:
> Well, I think King Lear is about as close to an atheist
> masterpiece as you can get. Could there possibly be
> a God in that world?
I think you have a rather shallow view of religion. Great
suffering and doubt, such as Lear's, have always been a
part of any profound religious world-view. Also, I think
George Steiner's point is that the entire Elizabethan
world-view in which Shakespeare worked was religious.
He speculates about the possibility that a future zeitgeist
would be radically atheist, and asks whether that
hypothetical culture could produce works of art that
would be as great as the art of early modern times.
Marko Amnell
David J. Loftus wrote:
You may feel that way as a writer working in the US, but not
every modern industrialized country has as little public support
for the arts. In Finland, for example, where I live, the government
provides enormous funding for the arts. I know many Finnish
painters, writers, poets, architects, and industrial designers,
some of whom have achieved global success, and their careers
would have been inconceivable without state funding for the
arts. That is one more reason why I'm a Social Democrat.
Marko Amnell
Larisa wrote:
> Hmm. I think that the atheist idea of death, and the horrifying
> awareness of one's mortality that this must engender, could produce
> powerful art, or powerful music.
I agree with this.
> But isn't most art already atheist, in the way that it has nothing to
> do with religious imagery?
I can't image what you mean by this. Even contemporary art, such
as abstract art, minimalism, conceptual art, installations, or
performance art, often explore existential issues and draw extensively
on religious iconography, even if the artist himself or herself happens
to be a radical atheist, as smw correctly pointed out.
> Incidentally, Communism was doing its best to replace religion in
> people's minds; I don't think that Socialist Realist art was all that
> irreligious. Just a different idea of what religion was.
Again, I don't agree. Communism was a very powerful ideology,
at least in the early days of the Soviet Union (it was a kind of joke
in the later stages). But Communism was not a religion. Why? It
didn't offer answers to the deep existential and eschatological
questions about life and death that all religions do. Marxism
denied the validity of those questions. Nearly all religions
provide the promise of salvation through life after death.
Communism was a utopia of this world, not of the next. There is
nothing transcendental about Marxism, except maybe metaphorically.
Francis Muir
Doesn't this belong in the Free Lunch thread?
j...@radidelmex.net
> And I'm afraid the collective unconsciousness of the cultural elites of
> every nation on the planet has been thoroughly tainted by a whole
> slew of Western ideas, including Biblical iconography and themes.
Sayan is right - You are projecting your obsession with the Bible onto
others. Maybe you should read some non-Western books?
j...@radidelmex.net
> I can't image what you mean by this. Even contemporary art, such
> as abstract art, minimalism, conceptual art, installations, or
> performance art, often explore existential issues and draw extensively
> on religious iconography, even if the artist himself or herself happens
> to be a radical atheist, as smw correctly pointed out.
Most of 20th century art has no religious iconography. Maybe you should read
a book on art history?
Marko Amnell
<j...@radiDELMEx.net> wrote:
> Sayan is right - You are projecting your obsession with the Bible
> onto others. Maybe you should read some non-Western books?
How can I be obsessed with the Bible when I've just said that I'm an
atheist, and I've argued at length elsewhere that my whole worldview
is based on science? As far as I can tell, I'm the only person in this
newsgroup who is consistently defending scientific positivism as a
reasonable epistemology. And in fact I have read many non-Western
books, and have great respect for non-Western cultures. All I'm
pointing out is the fairly obvious fact that non-Western civilizations
have been profoundly influenced by Western science, technology
and culture for about two hundred years. I would suggest that your
objection is not a factual one, but a moral and political one. You
have a visceral negative reaction when someone points out that
non-Western cultures are today really partly Western. I'm not
supposed to say that out loud. It's not politically correct. I've
broken a taboo and you don't like it.
smw
Marko Amnell wrote:
> smw wrote:
>
> > No reason to think of religious iconography and radical atheism as
> > incompatible. On the contrary -- it's the attempt to avoid or circumvent
> its
> > being-there that leads you into impotent negation of negation.
>
> Yes, but when an artist who is a radical atheist, say Brecht, uses
> religious iconography, these images and symbols don't have the
> same meaning for him as they had for religious artists.
But we have no way of knowing what meaning they had for these artists, or
whether these artists were indeed "religious" in the way you appear to
presume, ie gripped by "veneration." The more interesting question, in any
case, is to which extent the act of creation _itself_ was thought of as
metaphysical.
Again, see Kleist.
s.
David Latane
j...@radiDELMEx.net wrote:
Maybe you should.
D. latane, thinking of fondness of his last visit to the Rothko Chapel.
smw
j...@radiDELMEx.net wrote:
you're wrong or blind in a fundamental way -- the history of art itself is
largely the history of religion, reactive negations included.
s
David Latane
Moggin Goldberg wrote:
Yes, but he stole that from Thomas Hardy.
D. latane
j...@radidelmex.net
>> Most of 20th century art has no religious iconography.
> you're wrong or blind in a fundamental way -- the history of art itself is
> largely the history of religion, reactive negations included.
I am thinking of only 20th century Western works. There was an explicit
turning away from religious iconography in art in the 1880s. If you look
at the works of the Impressionists, Cubists, Dadaists, continue onward ...
out of every 10 words, maybe 1 will have a religious theme. Sure, individual
artists such as Rothko may design a chapel, but do the count and I think
you will agree with me.
Now as to whether the artist was an atheist or a theist, I dunno, never
thought much about it. Take Van Gogh for example. What were his beliefs?
Surely such an intense man in the Renaissance would have created beautiful
Madonnas. Yet he didn't ... perhaps he was an atheist?
j...@radidelmex.net
> How can I be obsessed with the Bible when I've just said that I'm an
> atheist, and I've argued at length elsewhere that my whole worldview
> is based on science?
Okay, if you are a scientist, where is your evidence that:
"the collective unconsciousness of the cultural elites of every nation
on the planet has been thoroughly tainted by a whole slew of Western ideas".
I am willing to examine your data.
smw
j...@radiDELMEx.net wrote:
> smw <sm...@umich.edu> wrote:
>
> >> Most of 20th century art has no religious iconography.
>
> > you're wrong or blind in a fundamental way -- the history of art itself is
> > largely the history of religion, reactive negations included.
>
> I am thinking of only 20th century Western works. There was an explicit
> turning away from religious iconography in art in the 1880s. If you look
> at the works of the Impressionists, Cubists, Dadaists, continue onward ...
> out of every 10 words, maybe 1 will have a religious theme. Sure, individual
> artists such as Rothko may design a chapel, but do the count and I think
> you will agree with me.
Well, no, I disagree with you. In general, negations are indebted to what they
negate, so any conscious or intentional "turning away" from religion is still
decisively influenced by it; formally, modern art is deeply indebted to what
precedes and hence shapes it (I don't know anybody who still believes in radical
formal breaks). You may want to look at postures alone. Think Schiele, or
Picasso if you must. Or any of the French 'decadent' painters of the late 19th
century.
s
j...@radidelmex.net
> How can I be obsessed with the Bible when I've just said that I'm an
> atheist, and I've argued at length elsewhere that my whole worldview
> is based on science?
There is your statement:
"An atheist could produce art that would rival Michelangelo or other
great Western art inspired by religion, but we are so used to Biblical
iconography and themes that we might have trouble recognizing or
accepting it as on par with the Renaissance masters."
1. How do you know an artist is an atheist?
2. How do you know other people are so used to Biblical iconography?
3. How do you measure something is on par with the Renaissance masters?
Joan Marie Shields
I shall probably regret this - but what the hell, it's never stopped
me before.
<j...@radiDELMEx.net> wrote:
>> Sayan is right - You are projecting your obsession with the Bible
>> onto others. Maybe you should read some non-Western books?
Marko Amnell <marko_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>How can I be obsessed with the Bible when I've just said that I'm an
>atheist, and I've argued at length elsewhere that my whole worldview
>is based on science?
First off - I have absolutely no opinion about whether or not you are
obssessed with the Bible. However, I have noted that while the
multi-headed conglomerate we like to refer to as 'Western Culture'
has reached far and wide - non-western cultureral influences, while
sublte, are also pretty pervasive. Then again, there are a lot of
similarities between cultures - at least in terms of the important
stuff like food and companionship.
Anyway, regarding being obssessed with the Bible - I think (and it's
been my experience) that a person can be an atheist and be obssessed
with the Bible - with the Koran as well for that matter.
>As far as I can tell, I'm the only person in this
>newsgroup who is consistently defending scientific positivism as a
>reasonable epistemology. And in fact I have read many non-Western
>books, and have great respect for non-Western cultures. All I'm
>pointing out is the fairly obvious fact that non-Western civilizations
>have been profoundly influenced by Western science, technology
>and culture for about two hundred years.
You can also make the argument that 'Eastern Culture' has had a profound
effect on 'Eastern' medicine. Of course, it's now having a profound
effect on 'Western' cuture and medicine as well.
Science though - well, people have made it their religion for at least
a millenia or more. As long as you can cope with being wrong most of
the time in the practice... When you come to the realization that you
actually know only a little and that you stand on the shoulders of
giants - well, it's not much good to the ego but at least the view is
better.
>I would suggest that your
>objection is not a factual one, but a moral and political one. You
>have a visceral negative reaction when someone points out that
>non-Western cultures are today really partly Western. I'm not
>supposed to say that out loud. It's not politically correct. I've
>broken a taboo and you don't like it.
You do make a good point there - however, I think you're overall idea
is a bit simplistic. BTW, what and where is 'western' culture? I
lived in Morocco for a while and although there are a few skyscrapers
in Casablanca - there is also the second largest mosque. I wouldn't
exactly say that Morocco is a 'western' culture but it's further west
that Finland. Is 'western' associated with a map location? The use
of computers and combustion engines? Predominantly white population?
'Eastern' cultures have had profound effects on what we now lable
'western' medicine and science. Without that influence we would be
no where near where we are today. Not a moral or political statement -
a historical one. The cycle goes on and on. Today, 'western' medicine
is again taking a good deal from 'eastern' tradition - not to mention
the pharmaceutical industry.
yiwf,
joan
--
Joan Shields jshi...@uci.edu http://www.ags.uci.edu/~jshields
University of California - Irvine School of Social Ecology
Department of Environmental Analysis and Design
I do not purchase services or products from unsolicited e-mail advertisements.
j...@radidelmex.net
>>I would suggest that your
>>objection is not a factual one, but a moral and political one. You
>>have a visceral negative reaction when someone points out that
>>non-Western cultures are today really partly Western. I'm not
>>supposed to say that out loud. It's not politically correct. I've
>>broken a taboo and you don't like it.
> You do make a good point there - however, I think you're overall idea
> is a bit simplistic. BTW, what and where is 'western' culture? I
> lived in Morocco for a while and although there are a few skyscrapers
> in Casablanca - there is also the second largest mosque. I wouldn't
> exactly say that Morocco is a 'western' culture but it's further west
> that Finland. Is 'western' associated with a map location? The use
> of computers and combustion engines? Predominantly white population?
A small annoying point I must mention (... well it is annoying), is
when another person has nothing left to argue they accuse one of being
"politically correct".
I propose a rule that anyone on Usenet who uses the term "politically correct"
automatically forfeits all their points.
David J. Loftus
Umm, that's nice, but ... we were talking about the potential for
"great art." Can that come from government patronage, in this
day and age?
The nearest thing to post-church patronage that resulted in
arguably great art was Joyce's supporter (Harriet Weaver, was it?),
although I'm not entirely clear how much she paid him and for how
long. Perhaps someone can come up with examples from the visual
arts...?
David Loftus
jimC
Rockefeller's commission to Diego Rivera?!
jimC
Don Tuite
Loftus) wrote:
>
>The nearest thing to post-church patronage that resulted in
>arguably great art was Joyce's supporter (Harriet Weaver, was it?),
>although I'm not entirely clear how much she paid him and for how
>long.
Maddox' biography of Nora Barnacle details Joyce's sponging ad
nauseam.
Don
Michael Zeleny
"J'ai résumé l'Etranger, il y a longtemps, par une phrase dont je
reconnais qu'elle est très paradoxale : "Dans notre société, tout
homme qui ne pleure pas à l'enterrement de sa mère risque d'être
condamné à mort". Je voulais dire seulement que le héros du livre
est condamné parce qu'il ne joue pas le jeu. En ce sens, il est
étranger à la société où il vit, il erre, en marge, dans les
faubourgs de la vie privée, solitaire, sensuelle. Et c'est
pourquoi des lecteurs ont été tentés de le considérer comme une
épave. On aura cependant une idée plus exacte du personnage,
plus conforme en tout cas aux intentions de son auteur, si l'on
se demande en quoi Meursault ne joue pas le jeu. La réponse est
simple, il refuse de mentir. Mentir, ce n'est pas seulement dire
ce qui n'est pas. C'est aussi, c'est surtout, dire plus que ce
qui est et, en ce qui concerne le coeur humain, dire plus qu'on
ne sent. C'est ce que nous faisons tous, tous les jours, pour
simplifier la vie. Meursault, contrairement aux apparences, ne
veut pas simplifier la vie. Il dit ce qui est, il refuse de
majorer ses sentiments et aussitôt la société se sent menacée.
On lui demande par exemple de dire qu'il regrette son crime, selon
la formule consacrée. Il répond qu'il éprouve à cet égard plus
d'ennui que de regret véritable. Et cette nuance le condamne.
Meursault pour moi n'est donc pas une épave, mais un homme pauvre
et nu, amoureux du soleil qui ne laisse pas d'ombre. Loin d'être
privé de toute sensibilité, une passion profonde, parce que tacite,
l'anime, la passion de l'absolu et de la vérité. Il s'agit d'une
vérité encore négative, la vérité d'être et de sentir, mais sans
laquelle nulle conquête sur soi et sur le monde ne sera jamais
possible.
On ne se tromperait donc pas beaucoup en lisant dans L'étranger
l'histoire d'un homme qui, sans aucune attitude héroïque, accepte
de mourir pour la vérité. Il m'est arrivé de dire aussi, et
toujours paradoxalement, que j'avais essayé de figurer dans mon
personnage le seul Christ que nous méritions. On comprendra,
après mes explications, que je l'aie dit sans aucune intention
de blasphème et seulement avec l'affection un peu ironique qu'un
artiste a le droit d'éprouver à l'égard des personnages et de sa
création." -- Albert Camus, Paris, le 8 janvier 1955
"La brise sembla prendre plus de force, et du même coup, un
souffle venu de la mer apporta une odeur de sel. On entendait
maintenant de façon distincte la sourde respiration des vagues
contre la falaise. -- En somme, dit Tarrou avec simplicité, ce
qui m'intéresse, c'est de savoir comment on devient un saint.
-- Mais vous ne croyez pas en Dieu. -- Justement. Peut-on être
un saint sans Dieu, c'est le seul problème concret que je
connaisse aujourd'hui." -- La Peste
See also Jean-Baptiste Clamence, clamans in deserto.
I understand that Steiner's book disqualifies Philip Larkin
as "an annotator of common ground."
Aubade
I work all day, and get half drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
-- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused -- nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never:
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.
This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says _No rational being
Can fear a thing it cannot feel,_ not seeing
that this is what we fear -- no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.
And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows most impulses down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.
Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.
29 November 1977
cordially
Mikhail Zel...@math.ucla.edu
All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter.
Try again. Fail again. Fail better. -- Samuel Beckett
Larisa
> Larisa wrote:
>
> > Hmm. I think that the atheist idea of death, and the horrifying
> > awareness of one's mortality that this must engender, could produce
> > powerful art, or powerful music.
>
> I agree with this.
> > But isn't most art already atheist, in the way that it has nothing to
> > do with religious imagery?
>
> I can't image what you mean by this. Even contemporary art, such
> as abstract art, minimalism, conceptual art, installations, or
> performance art, often explore existential issues and draw extensively
> on religious iconography, even if the artist himself or herself happens
> to be a radical atheist, as smw correctly pointed out.
Hmm. But what about art that explores no existential issues? That's
what I meant in the above statement. Would a still life of a bowl of
pears be an atheist artwork? Or would it be a religious artwork? And
how can you tell?
> > Incidentally, Communism was doing its best to replace religion in
> > people's minds; I don't think that Socialist Realist art was all that
> > irreligious. Just a different idea of what religion was.
>
> Again, I don't agree. Communism was a very powerful ideology,
> at least in the early days of the Soviet Union (it was a kind of joke
> in the later stages). But Communism was not a religion. Why? It
> didn't offer answers to the deep existential and eschatological
> questions about life and death that all religions do. Marxism
> denied the validity of those questions. Nearly all religions
> provide the promise of salvation through life after death.
> Communism was a utopia of this world, not of the next. There is
> nothing transcendental about Marxism, except maybe metaphorically.
I am not sure that that is a requirement for all religions, though.
Some Eastern religions say nothing of life after death. What a
religion does is provide a framework for people's thoughts; Communism
did that admirably. Is there really that much of a difference between
erecting statues of Lenin wherever possible and erecting statues of
St.Mary wherever possible? I know that a lot of people did think of
Lenin as a savior of some kind.
Larisa
Larisa
Hmm. So how do I paint an abstract painting in an atheist way?
Larisa
Larisa
Well, but isn't atheism itself indebted to theism, as its negation?
And if so, wouldn't it be natural to expect atheist art to contain a
negation of religious art?
Larisa
Lacenaire
>
> > Hmm. I think that the atheist idea of death, and the horrifying
> > awareness of one's mortality that this must engender, could produce
> > powerful art, or powerful music.
>
> I agree with this.
Horrifying awareness of mortality is not something over which atheism enjoys
a monopoly, surely. If heaven/hell or nothingness is a more comforting idea
is a question for individuals, and one which is asked over and over in art
without there appearing to arise a global consensus.
>
> > But isn't most art already atheist, in the way that it has nothing to
> > do with religious imagery?
>
> I can't image what you mean by this. Even contemporary art, such
> as abstract art, minimalism, conceptual art, installations, or
> performance art, often explore existential issues and draw extensively
> on religious iconography, even if the artist himself or herself happens
> to be a radical atheist, as smw correctly pointed out.
The obvious objection to this is not that it is not accurate, but that it is
trivial, sort of like noticing that both Raphael and David use paint.
It probably went without saying for most readers of your post that works of
art are created within both human history and art history rather than
outside them.
I propose an experiment.
Look at:
_The Air Pump_ by Joseph Wright of Derby
and ask yourself "Why is this light different from Caravaggio's light?"
followed by "How the hell did that happen?"
M. Lacenaire
Andy Averill
"David Latane" <dla...@vcu.org> wrote in message
news:3B3B3477...@vcu.org...
And anyway, once you say "gods" you're pretty much denying "God".
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Richard Harter
>Well, but isn't atheism itself indebted to theism, as its negation?
Only to theists. Think of theism as a walled city whose inhabitants
divide the world into residents of their city and non-residents. To
those beyond the pale the city is one of many such cities, perhaps
interesting, perhaps not. The residents of the city see the stranger
in terms of negations - the good burgher wears this sort of coat, uses
that sort of form of address, and so on, and sees the stranger as
wearing an alien coat and speaking in aliens tones. The good burgher
may, perhaps, note differences among the strangers beyond the gate but
they are, to his eyes, minuscule and are understood in terms of the
real and important differences within the walls.
The effect is similar to that of the ideologue who declares that
politics is everything, that every act and thought has a political
meaning and implication. So they do as a formal truth but it remains
that for most people the political is often an irrelevancy.
Amongst those dwelling outside the walls there are some who are camped
nearby and define themselves and their concerns by negations of the
goings on within the walls. For others, however, the city is one of
many and not one of particular consequence.
>And if so, wouldn't it be natural to expect atheist art to contain a
>negation of religious art?
Thus speaks the good burgher who has already identified theism and
religion.
Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net,
http://www.tiac.net/users/cri, http://www.varinoma.com
It is unfortunate that the dishonest politicians give
the remaining one percent of their profession a bad name.
David J. Loftus
I read that one, and the Ellmann too ... not to mention most of
whosit's book about Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation (oh yes,
Noel Riley Fitch, which name I still have trouble associating
with a woman), but those details didn't stick.
David Loftus
jimC
What sounds so feminine about "Riley Fitch"?
jimC
Lewis Mammel
>
> Horrifying awareness of mortality is not something over which atheism enjoys
> a monopoly, surely. If heaven/hell or nothingness is a more comforting idea
> is a question for individuals, and one which is asked over and over in art
> without there appearing to arise a global consensus.
Yes, it's very easy to scare yourself. I liked Hofstadter's conundrum of
the Star Trek style transporter in the introduction to The_Mind's_I.
Note that it functions by destroying you and recreating you in another place,
now imagine that it malfunctions and creates a distant duplicate of you,
leaving you intact.
[ this is how I remembered it. Looking it up, it's slightly
different but the same idea.]
Scotty says, "Ooops, the real you is on the planet's surface,
hold on while we phase you out." He then operates the machine to get
rid of the extra copy. So then, what's the difference whether you're
recreated at the other end or not? Fiction, sure, but just think of
how you sanguinely watched this operation so many times. Now think
about going to sleep at night ...
Lew Mammel, Jr.
Crowfoot
<marko_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Sayan Bhattacharyya wrote:
>
> > An example of "atheist" art that is not "the slave of a totalitarian
> > political ideology" would be "epic theater" a` la Brecht.
>
> As an aside, the Israeli philosopher of science Yehuda Elkana
> argues that science is also best understood as epic theatre.
>
Oh, that's LOVELY. Thankyou.
SMC
--
Crowfoot
Crowfoot
<marko_...@MailAndNews.com> wrote:
> We tend to associate religion with humanity
Um, do we? Religious people do. Victims of the lunacies of various
religious bigotry and fanatacism probably don't. Personally, I tend
to feel repelled by people who style themselves "religious" because
that label is so often taken as a way of justifying inhumane behavior
toward those seen as not sharing the label. I am taking your use of
the term "humanity" in the sense of humane values and behavior.
Not all the time, of course; but what stands out is the behavior of
the fanatics who insist on how "religious" they are while everybody
else is so danged "ungodly" and so ought to have their heads chopped
off, go directly to Hell, etc. etc.
SMC
--
Crowfoot
Moggin Goldberg
>>>> Well, I think King Lear is about as close to an atheist masterpiece
>>>> as you can get. Could there possibly be a God in that world?
Moggin Goldberg:
>>> "As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us
>>> for their sport."
Andy:
> ... Once you say "gods" you're pretty much denying "God".
Gloucester's comment applies as well to one god as to many.
The world of _Lear_ can easily have a god or gods, just so
long as they're malicious. Likewise the world which we live in.
-- Moggin
Moggin Goldberg
[...]
> George Steiner's point is that the entire Elizabethan
> world-view in which Shakespeare worked was religious.
> He speculates about the possibility that a future zeitgeist
> would be radically atheist, and asks whether that
> hypothetical culture could produce works of art that
> would be as great as the art of early modern times.
It's been suggested (p.v. cuz I forget by who) that great
art often flourishes following the decay of a religious
weltanschauung, when the materials are available for use, while
the system that enclosed them is shattered. Shakespeare --
for example -- came along when the medieval outlook was well in
decline, while Emily Dickinson inherited a rapidly-fading
Calvinism. If there's anything to that idea, then the question
is, when will atheism have run its course?
-- Moggin
Sayan Bhattacharyya
>Sayan Bhattacharyya replied:
>>Who are the "we" above? The majority of people in the world
>>are not, in fact, used to Biblical iconography and themes.
>>(Don't forget that India and China alone consist of more
>>than two billion people).
>
>Yes, the majority of the world's people may not be used to
>Biblical iconography and themes, but the culture of the
>world is not produced by the majority, is it? And I'm afraid
>the collective unconsciousness of the cultural elites of every
>nation on the planet has been thoroughly tainted by a whole
>slew of Western ideas, including Biblical iconography and themes.
I doubt it very much. Consider Tagore, in my view _the_
representative non-western cultural elite . Open his work up and
you find a lot of influence of Sufi mysticism and the Upanishads,
but, except for one single poem (a single poem in an oeuvre
that fills ten thick volumes) that he wrote after seeing the
passion play at Oberammergau, not one other example of Biblical
iconography or themes.
>Ask yourself where the political systems of
>these two great nations come from? Communism and representational
>democracy are Western ideas.
True, but but the claim was not about Communism or representational
democracy but about "Biblical iconography and themes". Neither
communism nor representational democracy _as it exists in China
or India_ has anything to do with "Biblical iconography and themes".
This emphasis on "Biblical iconography and themes" as occupying a
position of great influence in the cultural production of every
nation in the world seems vastly exaggerated. It is a rather
provincial viewpoint, a fallacious myth that I would not have
expected someone as well-read and cosmopolitan as you to have
taken for granted.
Arindam Banerjee
> At the end of his latest book _Grammars of Creation_, George Steiner
> asks an interesting question:
>
> "Until now, authentic atheism has been rare.
All Steiner can know authentically is whether he is an atheist, or
not.
That too, depends upon the time of day, mood, last article read, etc.
What he hears from other people and other sources may be lies.
> Nor does it mock the
> God-hypothesis. It can bear witness to sombre deprivation: 'He doesn't
> exist, the bastard' (Samuel Beckett).
Whatever made him think He ever did?
> Atheism can exact moral discipline
> and altruism of the severest kind.
To what end?
> It imposes on the writer or thinker
> a solitude even more austere than that which our way of life has, at
> present, dissipated.
I doubt that, if he can get company from fellow atheists.
> The true atheist's assumption of the black zero
> in and after death makes his acts at once immanently responsible and,
> in a sense, hopeless.
The atheist is not responsible to any transcendental reality, and his
existence is, to that end, pointless. His actions are not hopeless.
If he is wise, he will learn to make best use of his time, since there
will be no further acts after death. In this way, atheism could make
a person more alive to reality, and so, less prone to depression.
> Let us suppose that a genuine atheism will come
> to replace the aspirin-agnosticism, the 'blowing neither hot nor cold'
> with which our post-modernity is now awash. Let us suppose that atheism
> will come to possess and energize those who are the masters of articulate
> form and builders of thought.
Communists of India, you are recognised at last!
> Will their works rival the dimensions, the
> life-transforming strengths of persuasion we have known?
From all the evidence of the last thirty years of Commuinist rule in
West
Bengal and Kerala (states in India,) no. The artistic curve, there,
follows that of a discharging capacitor.
>What would be
> the atheist counterpart to a Michelangelo fresco or _King Lear_?
The lyrics of Shri Suman Chattopadhyay.
> It
> would be impertinent to rule out the possibility. Or to deny the
> fascination of the prospect."
I rather like Murillo's painting of the two street urchins
enjoying melons and grapes.
Arindam Banerjee.
Sayan Bhattacharyya
>
>> Will their works rival the dimensions, the
>> life-transforming strengths of persuasion we have known?
>
>From all the evidence of the last thirty years of Commuinist rule in
>West
>Bengal and Kerala (states in India,) no. The artistic curve, there,
>follows that of a discharging capacitor.
There is no "communist rule" in West Bengal or Kerala. The state
governments in these states have called themselves "communist",
it is true, but notice that institutionally they operate entirely
within the framework of the Indian constitution (which is a
standard example of a bourgeois-democratic constitution, closely
modelled after the British constitution).
Other than the fact that the so-called communist governments of
West Bengal and Kerala have been by and large significantly less
corrupt than most of the kleptocratic governments both in other
states and at the federal level, in India, and the fact that they
have carried out some amount of much-needed agrarian reform
(not, note however, by seizing or occupying land but merely
through implementing existing land ceiling laws constitutionally
passed by legislative means), they do not differ significantly
from governments in India formed by non-"communist" parties.
Functionally they operate as social-democratic parties, not
as "communist" parties.
>>What would be
>> the atheist counterpart to a Michelangelo fresco or _King Lear_?
>
>The lyrics of Shri Suman Chattopadhyay.
I'm not sure if you are being facetious here, but in case you
meant this seriously -- surely you recognize that Suman is
essentially reacting _against_ certain things in his lyrics
rather than outlining a unitary, coherent, world-picture, which
both the other two examples cited do. In a very important respect,
then, Suman's work is fundamentally different from the other
two examples.
Marko Amnell
> The more interesting question, in any case, is to which
> extent the act of creation _itself_ was thought of as
> metaphysical.
Agreed. And as it happens, this question is also central
to George Steiner's book _Grammars of Creation_, with
which I started this thread. One of the central arguments
of that book is that a change in the status of death
during the 20th century has also altered our understanding
of the act of creation. Steiner notes that the great mass
slaughters of the last century, and the clinicalization
of dying, have devalued death. He then argues as follows:
(A rather long quote of a key passage is unavoidable
here to make his meaning clear)
"At every point in this study, the architects of philosophic
constructs, the poets, the builders have borne witness to
their wager on lastingness, to the contract they hope to have
signed with tomorrow. Some have done so in a clearsighted
realization, at once sovereign and fearful, of their rivalry
with God (a Michelangelo, a Tolstoy). Many, a Keats for
example or a Schubert, have been harried by the fear that
their works might perish and their names be 'writ on water'.
There are those, Flaubert most eloquently, who have raged
at the paradoxical survival of their creations, of their
fictions, beyond the brute fact of their own deaths.
Often the most inspired have understood their own powers
as mimetic, as reverently analogous to those of the
divinity. In Dante, in Bach, or at a more complexly
psychological level, in Beethoven, in Mahler (the contrast
being the pious servitude of Bruckner), this enlistment
of a transcental precedent and exemplar is manifest.
Less frequently, as we have seen, the relation, vitally
felt or metaphoric, is one of challenge, of defiant
competition. The artist, the man of self-acknowledged
genius (a Balzac, a Wagner) constructs thronged worlds,
immensities of design whose originalities of insight
match, surpass (?) the craftsmanship of the deity. At
some level, awake or subconscious, the mortal maker
senses that his or her death is God's self-defence,
God's insurance, too often bitterly unfair because
premature, against that Promethan 'storming of the
heavans' (a _topos_ ancient as Hesîod). Thus the
pre-eminent poet or composer or artist dies young
lest creation itself be rivalled or overshadowed."
I MUST INTERRUPT THE QUOTE HERE BUT WILL CONTINUE
IT IN ANOTHER POST.
Torkel Franzen
> How can I be obsessed with the Bible when I've just said that I'm an
> atheist, and I've argued at length elsewhere that my whole worldview
> is based on science?
alt.atheism is full of atheists obsessed with the Bible, and with
Christianity in general.
Marko Amnell
"Across the spectrum of these 'immortalities', of the _exegi
monumentum_ to which I have referred throughout, death is an
essential player. It is the capacity of certain human intellects
and sensibilities to give to their conceptions, to 'conceive'
in the full sense of that overcrowded word. This pregnancy --
we recall Shakespeare's Richard II -- draws death. It endows
death with its devastation, its laying waste. Death, as it
were, smells out its creative quarry. Keats's, Kafka's
terminal pronouncements testify to this fatal scent. A
primal violation is avenged. Contrary to the prohibition
on the making of images, where such making be taken to include
speculative thought as well as the totality of the asthetic,
we have laboured to outwit death, to be 'for all times'.
The wrestling match with the dark angel, as graphic in
Dunbar's lament for his fellow-poets as it is in the art
of Rembrandt or in Rilke's _Duino Elegies_, has been archetypal
of human creativity despite, because of, its foreordained
outcome. The loser is annihilated but prevails. This archetype,
this shorthand for an immensely complicated set of motives
and values, depends precisely on substabtive apprehensions
of death, on men and women as free and private agents in the
face of death. It depends, in turn, on contiguities between
animate death and a theological or metaphysical dimension.
It is these contiguities, I am arguing, which are waning,
which are receding over the horizon of reason. With this
recession, with the transit of our culture and informing
vocabulary towards a new code of the collective, the
replaceable, the ephemeral, the trope of immortality,
crucial to what we have known as thought and art of the
first order, is growing more and more suspect. Today, I
venture, even the most charismatic of philosophers, even
the most self-dramatizing of writers, painters or composers,
find embarrassing, if not downright ridiculous, the claims
of perdurance which have been the rallying cry since Pindar,
Horace and Ovid. Only the French Academy will continue to
count its _immortels_. The duel with death that lay at the
hungry heart of human creations will have become shadow-boxing.
Immanence will prevail."
I WILL SAY WHY I DISAGREE WITH STEINER IN A THIRD AND FINAL
PART OF THIS POST.
Marko Amnell
that atheist art could be as great as art inspired by
religion (_Grammars of Creation_, p. 270f). In fact,
Steiner goes beoynd this and asks "Can there, will
there be major philosophy, literature, music, and
art of atheist provenance?" (p. 280) My answer is Yes.
That Steiner has doubts is not surprising as he is
known as a critic who has authored a sympathetic
study of Heidegger, one of the most influential
thinkers of the 20th century who defends an essentially
religious world-view (and in a muddled and obscure
style, I might add). I believe I've identified one
of the main reasons for our disagreement. According
to Steiner, artistic (and other) creation of the first
order has traditionally been associated with a heroic
defiance of death, a quest for immortality, and an
attempt to match God's Creation. But if death has
become less personal and dramatic, and has been devalued
to become more mundane and collective, then creativity
of the first order may also become more difficult, or
even impossible, to achieve. Immortality will no longer
seem worth fighting for. Human creation will cease being
metaphysical, to use Silke-Maria Weineck's phrasing.
Steiner never rules out that great art could arise from
a non-religious conception of creation, but he suggests
it is questionable. I disagree with the idea that artistic
creation must be religiously inspired, no matter how
tenuously. I think the concept of creation can become
wholly secularized, naturalized. My reasons are linked
to a larger point about intellectual history I might
call the disenchantment of concepts. It is clear that
many important concepts we use today originated long
ago from religious ideas. But over the few centuries,
these notions have become less and less religious,
part of a transformation often called the disenchantment
of the world. L. Dumont argued in "La Genese chretienne
de l'individualisme", for example, that Western individualism
originated from the Christian idea of the soul, and
responsibility before God for one's actions. This may
be true, but would we say that as a result an atheist
cannot be an individualist? No, the secular person can
operate with a disenchanted concept of individualism.
Thinkers of a certain bent, either theological,
or those who tend towards theology, argue that the religious
nature of these concepts is permanent and cannot be
eliminated. The divine spark will always be there, and is
the real source of the vitality of these concepts. Now,
I hold that concepts that originate from religion,
can over time become completely secular, and still operate
effectively. Creation is one such disenchanted concept.
We need not think of artistic creation as trying to
usurp God's role. A concept of creation based on psychology,
neuroscience and cultural history is entirely possible.
I doubt we have one available right now, but it could
be developed, and would be a good project for scientists
and scholars.
Stephen Hayes
j...@radiDELMEx.net wrote in a message to All:
jr> Now as to whether the artist was an atheist or a theist, I dunno,
jr> never thought much about it. Take Van Gogh for example. What were
jr> his beliefs? Surely such an intense man in the Renaissance would
jr> have created beautiful Madonnas. Yet he didn't ... perhaps he was
jr> an atheist?
Or a Protestant.
Or perhaps even a Mammonist -- if one judges by his subjects, the prosperity of
the bourgeoisie was pretty important.
Keep well
Steve Hayes
WWW: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/steve.htm
E-mail: haye...@yahoo.com
FamilyNet <> Internet Gated Mail
http://www.fmlynet.org
Douglas Clark
I thought the main point of 'Grammars of Creation' was 'invention'
against 'creativity', with science being associated with inventiveness
and arts with creativity. It is some time since I read the book but
that is my recollection. Steiner argues with himself about there
being a difference between invention and creation.
--
Douglas Clark, Bath, England mailto: d.g.d...@bath.ac.uk
Lynx: Poetry from Bath .......... http://www.bath.ac.uk/~exxdgdc/lynx.html
Paul Ilechko
Marko Amnell wrote:
> If one were to accept that the
> core of a culture is its religion, as, say Arnold Toynbee did, then
> it would be possible to argue that no non-religious art works can
> capture the core values of a culture, and thus will always fall short
> of the very greatest aesthetic achievement.
That would depend on the culture, wouldn't it. While it may be true in the
USA, growing up in England I never felt that religion was even remotely close
to being the core of the culture that I lived in. It was largely an
irrelevancy, only kept alive by old women with blue hair.
Paul Ilechko
Marko Amnell wrote:
> <j...@radiDELMEx.net> wrote:
>
> > Sayan is right - You are projecting your obsession with the Bible
> > onto others. Maybe you should read some non-Western books?
>
> How can I be obsessed with the Bible when I've just said that I'm an
> atheist...
That might be said to prove the point.
I used to say I was an Atheist, now I just don't care about religion. It's
a less fraught position. I could easily see "God" as a bumbling scientist,
and we're the dregs of his experiment that he forgot to flush away. That
would certainly explain the "big bang".
Paul Ilechko
"David J. Loftus" wrote:
>
> Umm, that's nice, but ... we were talking about the potential for
> "great art." Can that come from government patronage, in this
> day and age?
why not ? do you think artists really care where the money comes from ?
Paul Ilechko
j...@radiDELMEx.net wrote:
> Marko Amnell <marko_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I can't image what you mean by this. Even contemporary art, such
> > as abstract art, minimalism, conceptual art, installations, or
> > performance art, often explore existential issues and draw extensively
> > on religious iconography, even if the artist himself or herself happens
> > to be a radical atheist, as smw correctly pointed out.
>
> Most of 20th century art has no religious iconography. Maybe you should read
> a book on art history?
What's interesting is that Rothko was religious, and Francis Bacon was not.
Marko Amnell
Larisa wrote:
> Is there really that much of a difference between erecting
> statues of Lenin wherever possible and erecting statues of
> St.Mary wherever possible? I know that a lot of people
> did think of Lenin as a savior of some kind.
Lenin's still got the power, man, you just don't know it.
In fact, as PZB would agree, our future is dominated by
two mummies, Jeremy Bentham's at University of London,
and Lenin's in Red Square.
smw
Sayan Bhattacharyya wrote:
> Marko Amnell <marko_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> And I'm afraid
> >the collective unconsciousness of the cultural elites of every
> >nation on the planet has been thoroughly tainted by a whole
> >slew of Western ideas, including Biblical iconography and themes.
> ....
> >Ask yourself where the political systems of
> >these two great nations come from? Communism and representational
> >democracy are Western ideas.
>
> True, but but the claim was not about Communism or representational
> democracy but about "Biblical iconography and themes".
How do you propose to distinguish between the two once you grant the
first point? Esp. in the context of a tradition that sees both
ideologies as competing secularizations of Christianity? I think you're
taking 'iconography' too literally (or, rather, iconography may be the
wrong word to begin with) -- once you stay with "themes," your case for
cultural isolationism breaks down completely.
> Neither
> communism nor representational democracy _as it exists in China
> or India_ has anything to do with "Biblical iconography and themes".
See above. You may lose the icons, but the themes?
> This emphasis on "Biblical iconography and themes" as occupying a
> position of great influence in the cultural production of every
> nation in the world seems vastly exaggerated.
You are suggesting that political culture and cultural production exist
independently? What kind of Marxist are you, anyway?
s
Marko Amnell
Lacenaire wrote:
> I propose an experiment. Look at: _The Air Pump_
> by Joseph Wright of Derby and ask yourself
> "Why is this light different from Caravaggio's light?"
> followed by "How the hell did that happen?"
I don't understand the subleties of sunlight.
You have to lecture me on the orrery first.
Lacenaire
Marko Amnell <marko_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:f6852717.01062...@posting.google.com...
But aren't you being led by the nose by Steiner into asking all the
grandly tedious questions? The wrong questions, given what you apparently
find interesting in people and the things they make?
The question you are posing is being asked down in the dank old port cellar
where the metaphysicians are hearing Jovian thunder, unaware that there is a
party going on upstairs.
Once you accept the isolation from phenomena required for the question,
there's
only a very narrow set of possibilities for further thinking about art,
creating conditions of reception which render most art inert. As a
critico-productive system, your premises+queries can only turn art into an
endless unvarying drone of platitudes. You are sent
on the hunt for equivalences, for the keys to all mythologies, and once
found the only thing to do is worship them in Isis' place. "We need not
think of artistic creation as trying to usurp God's role." The only purpose
of this kind of musing is in the production of the intelligibility of "We"
and a world spirit for it to engage.
Holding that "We" together (against divisions of class, of nation, of sex,
of profession, of generation, of personality), getting control of it,
requires some violence, and is well served by practices of reception which
reduce most of what art communicates to unintelligibility or silence. It's
one way to be immunized against the political, the social, the cultural, the
personal in art.
Now if you actually look at paintings, at sculpture, at films, it becomes
clear that such a thought (to usurp God's role) never occurred to a number
of art-producers, who were busy with other concerns (making money, following
or breaking conventions, confessing preoccupations, propagating opinions,
developing
technique, taking revenge on critics, punishing family and friends) and to
another number, it plays a rather marginal role. Perhaps the pressure of
such an idea was nevertheless upon art producers of the Renaissance, but to
what degree, really? And isn't the interesting thing about artistic
production its tremendous multiplicity, variety, variation, within a common
technology?
The proposal of the task (Let's try to formulate a one-sentence description
of "creativity" which doesn't require the word "work," already suspicious)
is also insidious. I don't think it's accidental that the two themes of this
thread have been the secret metaphysical homogeneity of art production and
the coherence and dominance of "Western Civilization," the
thing that "We" participate in. One needs the training you get from the
former mental habit to accept latter proposal, for it is the "discoveries"
resulting from the original quest that serve as glue for the fictional whole
and a pedestal for its display.
Starting a discussion of art with an observation about the pervasive human
fear of death is a good way to avoid paying any attention to art; ending a
discussion of art on a modified version of the original observation is just
another example of "the indefatigable fabrication of boredom" against which
art manifesti are penned and much art produced.
You set off wondering if atheist art is possible and if it will be any good.
To the obvious reply: well, shouldn't we start looking at/for existing
art, you counter with an insistence which appears to answer the
question quite simply "No and No." In the extreme application of your
premises, atheist art is not possible because of a monopoly on available
language enjoyed by religious art by virtue of its historical priority; in
the moderate application, atheist art is possible but doomed to stink
because the same monopoly would prevent truly atheist art from engaging its
own history, its historical context, or human affairs, all of which would
lead to contact with tradition, ideology, history, and consequent infection,
either directly by religious iconography or indirectly through the styles,
techniques and habits associated with it. Then you conclude that atheist art
is possible if we only stopped thinking about art production as necessarily
modeled on God's activities, which is all really not an answer but a gloss
of
the premises underlying the question. It's just a way of fantasizing about
Art
and ignoring art at the same time.
It is arguable that "art production is an attempt to usurp God's role" is
nothing more, today, than something someone might say to that nutty
sycophant at the Actor's Studio, much like "I make order out of chaos," and
that for at least three centuries it has been a proposal losing a
competition with "art production is productive labor," "art is a form of
communication," "art is propaganda," "art goes over the mantelpiece,"
"writin' is fightin''' and a
host of other notions.
M. Lacenaire
Marko Amnell
Sayan Bhattacharyya wrote:
> True, but but the claim was not about Communism or representational
> democracy but about "Biblical iconography and themes". Neither
> communism nor representational democracy _as it exists in China
> or India_ has anything to do with "Biblical iconography and themes".
Maybe the phrase "Biblical iconography and themes" was poorly
chosen as it might be taken to imply direct references to the Bible
and explicit use of Christian imagery. But some anthropologists and
intellectual historians have indeed suggested that democracy and
individualism may have originated from Christianity. And since you
know your Marx, I don't need to tell you there are a lot of references
to the Bible and other religious subjects in his writings. If you dig
deeper, you find Marx's early poetry, which describes apocalyptic
scenes straight out of the Book of Revelations. How much did that
influence his later theories? So what I'm saying is that the influence
of Christianity on other cultures can be indirect and subtle, although
you could also find examples of direct references to Christian subject
matter in the works of modern Chinese and Indian artists and writers.
Francis Muir
Which got Rothko Schlumberger money big-time
Lacenaire
The painting is (among other things) a kinda sorta famous reply to your
assertion of the ineradicable religiosity (or metaphysicality) of devices,
styles, imagery, etc. associated with pious art. An assertion that was
annoying artists even then.
The light is a fascimilie of Caravaggio's. In Caravaggio, this light, while
sensuous, is divine. It is perhaps in the mid 18th century the most
recognizeable sign of the divine, this Caravaggio chiaroscuro. A metonymic
cliche. In case the viewer might not get the joke, the central figure in the
Wright painting, the gentleman-scientist conducting the experiment (a dove
is being suffocated in a vacuum), is dressed up as God, and the painting as
a whole is an enlightenment manifesto (its a very narrative painting)
constructed from quotations of religious paintings and genre painting with
religious overtones. The point is, the divine light has been reduced to a
kind of stylistic commodity, as have the other quoted elements. It can be
filled with any content at all, or none.
By the end of the 18th century, European painting cannot produce (or rather,
did not produce) religious paintings, even when it tried, that are not
plagued by the problems associated with the vocabulary's loss of the ability
to figure divinity at all, even literally. The tables are completely turned.
There is an explosion of gimmicks. Goya turned to the grotesque, for
example, and the French neo-classicists invented the forerunner of kitsch,
as desperate measures to attempt to capture the vanishing divine. The result
were paintings of highly specific historical, political, ideological
content. It is arguable that by this point the real is relentlessly haunting
the ideal and not the other way around.
M. Lacenaire
>
Marko Amnell
Joan Marie Shields wrote:
> What and where is 'western' culture? I lived in Morocco
> for a while and although there are a few skyscrapers in
> Casablanca - there is also the second largest mosque.
> I wouldn't exactly say that Morocco is a 'western' culture
> but it's further west that Finland. Is 'western' associated
> with a map location? The use of computers and combustion
> engines? Predominantly white population?
Finland is a junior member of the West. So far, we have only
managed to colonize Lapland. But I'm lobbying feverishly
behind the scenes in favour of a joint Finnish-Irish invasion
of Iceland.
Joan Marie Shields
>> The more interesting question, in any case, is to which
>> extent the act of creation _itself_ was thought of as
>> metaphysical.
Marko Amnell <marko_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Agreed. And as it happens, this question is also central
>to George Steiner's book _Grammars of Creation_, with
>which I started this thread. One of the central arguments
>of that book is that a change in the status of death
>during the 20th century has also altered our understanding
>of the act of creation. Steiner notes that the great mass
>slaughters of the last century, and the clinicalization
>of dying, have devalued death. He then argues as follows:
>(A rather long quote of a key passage is unavoidable
>here to make his meaning clear)
I would disagree with this in light of the fact that after mass
deaths the opposite was not the case. For example, after the
first major pass of the Black Death through Europe there was a
tendancy away from religion and more emphasis on material gain
and pleasure. Yes, there were religious sects but most of those
trived during the plague - once a village or town was decimated
they tended to fade. People questioned that if the plague was
sent because of sinful ways - why did those with little or no
sin (i.e. children and babies) die horribly while those who
sinned were sometimes spared.
Was there a major resurgence in region during and after the
Influenza Pandemic (aka: Spanish Flu) of 1918-19? More than
20 million people died world-wide.
I would agree that how we view death in the US today is very
different than how we used to view it. We are afraid of it -
so afraid that we are more likely to do anything and everything
within our power to prevent it, even to the extreme of prolonging
suffering in those we love. Quite the opposite of devaluing
death. We do try to ignore it, but I don't agree that this means
we devalue it - try as we might.
ObBook: The Decameron - by Boccachio
yiwf,
joan
--
Joan Shields jshi...@uci.edu http://www.ags.uci.edu/~jshields
University of California - Irvine School of Social Ecology
Department of Environmental Analysis and Design
I do not purchase services or products from unsolicited e-mail advertisements.
Joan Marie Shields
Joan Shields wrote:
>> What and where is 'western' culture? I lived in Morocco
>> for a while and although there are a few skyscrapers in
>> Casablanca - there is also the second largest mosque.
>> I wouldn't exactly say that Morocco is a 'western' culture
>> but it's further west that Finland. Is 'western' associated
>> with a map location? The use of computers and combustion
>> engines? Predominantly white population?
Marko Amnell <marko_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Finland is a junior member of the West. So far, we have only
>managed to colonize Lapland. But I'm lobbying feverishly
>behind the scenes in favour of a joint Finnish-Irish invasion
>of Iceland.
It'll never happen - not only is the Irish Army far too small
(I'll stop there) but they're also not that stupid.
While mildly amusing, it still does not answer my question.
Is 'western' culture defined by a map? Is it dependent upon
membership in the EU (in which case what would call Switzerland -
never mind that it has more computers per capita)? A predominantly
white population? The use of technology?
ObBook: The Tale of Genji
j...@radidelmex.net
> While mildly amusing, it still does not answer my question.
> Is 'western' culture defined by a map? Is it dependent upon
> membership in the EU (in which case what would call Switzerland -
> never mind that it has more computers per capita)? A predominantly
> white population? The use of technology?
The library has a copy of Kipling?
Lacenaire
Hours later: Read again. Laugh. (Why does everything sound humorlessly
sarcastic in this medium the first time around?)
I recently read two books you might like: _Painting for Money_, by David
Solkin and _1789: The Emblems of Reason_ , by Jan Starobinski
M. Lacenaire
>
>
>
David J. Loftus
Some do. Most probably do not.
I'm trying to parse what might distinguish older, church-style
patronage from contemporary, government patronage. Certainly the
church saw to it that its pet artists were well trained as artists/
craftspersons as well as indoctrinated on what was suitable to
create if you wanted to get paid.
I wonder whether (I find it odd to say this) art might have
flourished better under theocratic, oligarchic systems where the
artist had very clear lines of "cooperation vs. rebellion" in
relation to the power structure, whereas the contemporary artist
in an open, free, and semi-hemi-demi-democratic society has less
to struggle with (other than trying to get the market to pay
attention to him or her).
You do hear the occasional notion that better writing comes out
of oppressive systems (Kundera, Skvorecky, etc.)
David Loftus
Don Tuite
Loftus) wrote:
>I'm trying to parse what might distinguish older, church-style
>patronage from contemporary, government patronage. Certainly the
>church saw to it that its pet artists were well trained as artists/
>craftspersons as well as indoctrinated on what was suitable to
>create if you wanted to get paid.
>
>I wonder whether (I find it odd to say this) art might have
>flourished better under theocratic, oligarchic systems where the
>artist had very clear lines of "cooperation vs. rebellion" in
>relation to the power structure, whereas the contemporary artist
>in an open, free, and semi-hemi-demi-democratic society has less
>to struggle with (other than trying to get the market to pay
>attention to him or her).
>
>You do hear the occasional notion that better writing comes out
>of oppressive systems (Kundera, Skvorecky, etc.)
You also hear that it helps to be crazy. I think it might be the
audience titilation factor in both cases. (Though I appear to be the
only one here who thinks an "Annotated Alice" version of Bulgakov
would be helpful -- that is that *M&M* doesn't stand very well on its
own.)
As examples, in English letters, of the neither-oppressed nor
seriously crazy, Stevens, Williams, Eliot, and a bunch of English guys
from earlier centuries, including Fido's Shagger-Pagger, come to mind.
Nor were they largely subsidized by church, state, or private
philanthropy. I don't really know from painters, but Magritte and
Picasso occur to me.
Don
jimC
smw wrote:
>
> "David J. Loftus" wrote:
>
> > "Marko Amnell" <marko_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<9hf1e1$lbj$1...@news.kolumbus.fi>...
> > > David J. Loftus wrote:
> > >
> > > > I would guess the odds are against it partly because the great
> > > > artists of the past got terrific patronage for their training
> > > > and efforts from the church, whereas we can expect nothing of
> > > > the sort.
> > >
> > > You may feel that way as a writer working in the US, but not
> > > every modern industrialized country has as little public support
> > > for the arts. In Finland, for example, where I live, the government
> > > provides enormous funding for the arts. I know many Finnish
> > > painters, writers, poets, architects, and industrial designers,
> > > some of whom have achieved global success, and their careers
> > > would have been inconceivable without state funding for the
> > > arts. That is one more reason why I'm a Social Democrat.
> >
> > Umm, that's nice, but ... we were talking about the potential for
> > "great art." Can that come from government patronage, in this
> > day and age?
> >
> > The nearest thing to post-church patronage that resulted in
> > arguably great art was Joyce's supporter (Harriet Weaver, was it?),
> > although I'm not entirely clear how much she paid him and for how
> > long. Perhaps someone can come up with examples from the visual
> > arts...?
>
> Much of contemporary sculpture and all architecture appear to be commissioned.
But not all architectural sculpture. Simon Rodia just wanted to be rid
of his soft drink bottles. He must have thought the 2c deposit waiting
to be recouped for each one was inconsequential. Before he knew it, he
had built what resembled a network of Angkor Wat gateways. He was like
the woman who tatted enough table cloths and quilts from throwaway
newspaper binding strings to hold up a large suspension bridge.
His life in his own words of fractured English had been one of
astounding and often sudden contrasts. In the same week (ca. 1956) the
County of Los Angeles had tried to raze his structure, breaking several
strong chains attached to auto wreckers in the process if memory
serves, a different local government agency declared his creation a
state historic site. It was not quite historic yet, but it would
become so.
Even in the 1965 Watts riots where malcontents talked of "burning down"
distant Wilshire Boulevard (a wish which came much closer to fulfillment
27 years later), Rodia's Watts Towers remained sacrosanct.
jimC
Meg Worley
Marko wrote:
>>Steiner notes that the great mass
>>slaughters of the last century, and the clinicalization
>>of dying, have devalued death.
Joan writes:
>I would disagree with this in light of the fact that after mass
>deaths the opposite was not the case. For example, after the
>first major pass of the Black Death through Europe there was a
>tendancy away from religion and more emphasis on material gain
>and pleasure.
Just as a point of information, it was a floor wax *and* a dessert
topping. There was certainly a new appreciation of hedonism in
the late 14C, but there was also a huge burst of religious fervor,
such as the affective piety movement, Lollardy, and so forth.
Together -- because the church was part and parcel of both -- they
led to the Protestant Reformation.
It is a mistake to think that materialism was the opposite of
pietism, particularly in the 14C.
>Yes, there were religious sects but most of those
>trived during the plague - once a village or town was decimated
>they tended to fade.
I'd like to see your evidence for this. There is a general consensus
in the relevant scholarship that the opposite was true.
[BTW, for those reading nonsense in the subject line, there is a
relevant article about the director's use of medieval iconography
at http://www.salon.com/people/bc/1999/05/18/lucas/print.html.]
Rage away,
meg
--
Meg Worley _._ m...@steam.stanford.edu _._ Comparatively Literate
Meg Worley
DavidL writes:
>I'm trying to parse what might distinguish older, church-style
>patronage from contemporary, government patronage.
I'm not sure what you mean by "church-style," but if you mean the
work produced in cenobitic orders, the answer is spiritual devotion --
illuminating manuscripts, writing preaching manuals, playing music,
etc. were all seen as forms of spiritual exercise. (See Brian
Stock's wonderful book on Augustine for lots 'n' lots of details.)
If you mean the oligarchic style, where Christian monarchs patronized
artists, the answer is intellectual property. The notion of ownership
of a work didn't evolve until the patronage system had been weakened
by mass production. (There's an article by Barbara Woodmansee called
"The Genius and the Copyright" that traces Romanticism's debt to the
split between printers and publishers in the late 16C.)
j...@radidelmex.net
> [BTW, for those reading nonsense in the subject line, there is a
> relevant article about the director's use of medieval iconography
> at http://www.salon.com/people/bc/1999/05/18/lucas/print.html.]
As long as we're trading URLs, there's a nice article about contemporary
art in Slate:
http://slate.msn.com/culturebox/entries/01-06-28_110492.asp
... and ...
http://slate.msn.com/culturebox/entries/01-04-16_104275.asp
I have always liked "Michael Jackson and Bubbles" and have just heard
of Maurizio Cattelan.
Andy Averill
"Moggin Goldberg" <mog...@mediaone.net> wrote in message
news:moggin-2A8949....@bvnntp.nevol.mediaone.net...
> Andy Averill:
>
> >>>> Well, I think King Lear is about as close to an atheist masterpiece
> >>>> as you can get. Could there possibly be a God in that world?
>
> Moggin Goldberg:
>
> >>> "As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us
> >>> for their sport."
>
> Andy:
>
> > ... Once you say "gods" you're pretty much denying "God".
>
> Gloucester's comment applies as well to one god as to many.
> The world of _Lear_ can easily have a god or gods, just so
> long as they're malicious. Likewise the world which we live in.
>
> -- Moggin
Hmm, well if you really believe the world is ruled by a malicious god, then
I guess you're not an atheist, but you're certainly intriguing....
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jimC
jimC wrote:
>
> "David J. Loftus" wrote:
> >
> > don_...@kvo.com (Don Tuite) wrote in message news:<3b3b5b8d...@news.ncal.verio.net>...
> > > On 28 Jun 2001 08:48:53 -0700, Dav...@ci.oswego.or.us (David J.
> > > Loftus) wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > >The nearest thing to post-church patronage that resulted in
> > > >arguably great art was Joyce's supporter (Harriet Weaver, was it?),
> > > >although I'm not entirely clear how much she paid him and for how
> > > >long.
> > >
> > > Maddox' biography of Nora Barnacle details Joyce's sponging ad
> > > nauseam.
> >
> > I read that one, and the Ellmann too ... not to mention most of
> > whosit's book about Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation (oh yes,
> > Noel Riley Fitch, which name I still have trouble associating
> > with a woman), but those details didn't stick.
>
> What sounds so feminine about "Riley Fitch"?
Of course I meant the opposite. But now that we're on the subject,
suppose she was named Noel Wily Wench?
jimC
Larisa
> On 28 Jun 2001 12:48:10 -0700, lar...@geeklife.com (Larisa) wrote:
>
>
> >Well, but isn't atheism itself indebted to theism, as its negation?
>
> Only to theists. Think of theism as a walled city whose inhabitants
> divide the world into residents of their city and non-residents. To
> those beyond the pale the city is one of many such cities, perhaps
> interesting, perhaps not. The residents of the city see the stranger
> in terms of negations - the good burgher wears this sort of coat, uses
> that sort of form of address, and so on, and sees the stranger as
> wearing an alien coat and speaking in aliens tones. The good burgher
> may, perhaps, note differences among the strangers beyond the gate but
> they are, to his eyes, minuscule and are understood in terms of the
> real and important differences within the walls.
It makes sense. However, don't most human cultures start out with a
religion of some kind, and only then move to atheism? So in some
sense, all atheists can trace their "roots" back to some good burgher
or other.
> >And if so, wouldn't it be natural to expect atheist art to contain a
> >negation of religious art?
>
> Thus speaks the good burgher who has already identified theism and
> religion.
I am not sure I see the distinction, true; could you explain?
LM
Larisa
Haven't they tossed him out already?
LM
David Latane
Francis Muir wrote:
Whereas Francis Bacon, famously, just let his agent steal all his dough. Extremely
Xtian of him if you ask me.
D. latane
David J. Loftus
> Marko wrote:
> >>Steiner notes that the great mass
> >>slaughters of the last century, and the clinicalization
> >>of dying, have devalued death.
>
> Joan writes:
> >I would disagree with this in light of the fact that after mass
> >deaths the opposite was not the case. For example, after the
> >first major pass of the Black Death through Europe there was a
> >tendancy away from religion and more emphasis on material gain
> >and pleasure.
>
> Just as a point of information, it was a floor wax *and* a dessert
> topping.
ObFavoriteTVAdQuote: "Jello chocolate puddin' aaaaand pie fillin'.
Tha's right, hunneh...." (The incomparable Pearl Bailey)
Don Tuite
Don't overlook the installation, a couple of weeks ago, of the mummy
of Pope John XXIII in St Peter's. (Previously, he'd been modestly
represented by a simple plaque in the floor in front of The Pieta.)
Creepy.
Don
Joan Marie Shields
>>>Steiner notes that the great mass
>>>slaughters of the last century, and the clinicalization
>>>of dying, have devalued death.
Joan writes:
>>I would disagree with this in light of the fact that after mass
>>deaths the opposite was not the case. For example, after the
>>first major pass of the Black Death through Europe there was a
>>tendancy away from religion and more emphasis on material gain
>>and pleasure.
Meg Worley <m...@steam.stanford.edu> wrote:
>Just as a point of information, it was a floor wax *and* a dessert
>topping. There was certainly a new appreciation of hedonism in
>the late 14C, but there was also a huge burst of religious fervor,
>such as the affective piety movement, Lollardy, and so forth.
>Together -- because the church was part and parcel of both -- they
>led to the Protestant Reformation.
>It is a mistake to think that materialism was the opposite of
>pietism, particularly in the 14C.
I didn't say it was - I was pointing out that religious ferocity does
not necessarily follow a high deathrate. Mark made the comment (well,
quoted) that our sanitized view of death, our devaluation of it given
the advances in delaying it has lead to less dependancy on religion.
I made the observation that this is not always the case - that, as
an example, after the Black Death (14th cent) a great deal of the remaining
population were not particularly devout - quite the opposite.
Following the Black Death of the 14th century:
"The crime rate soared; blasphamy and sacrilege was commonplace;
the rules of sexual morality were flouted; the pursuit of money
became the be-all and end-all of people's lives.'
-Philip Ziegler "The Black Death" (London: Collins, 1969)
>>Yes, there were religious sects but most of those
>>trived during the plague - once a village or town was decimated
>>they tended to fade.
>I'd like to see your evidence for this. There is a general consensus
>in the relevant scholarship that the opposite was true.
Kind of hard to keep anything up when everyone around you (and yourself)
are dead, eh? :)
One of the highest death-rates were of priests.
Yes, the Reformation did follow soon afterwards - so did the Renaissance.
Not exactly a time of quiet piety and mindless obediance to Mother Church.
>[BTW, for those reading nonsense in the subject line, there is a
>relevant article about the director's use of medieval iconography
>at http://www.salon.com/people/bc/1999/05/18/lucas/print.html.]
ObBook: Journal of the Plague Years - D. DeFoe (1722); Tuchman's "A
Distant Mirror: the Calamitous 14th Century"; McNeill's "Of Plagues
and People" and Camus' "The Plague"
ObPandemic: Influenza 1918-19 (proabable origin China or US) - 21-100
millian dead.
Meg Worley
Joan had written:
>>>For example, after the
>>>first major pass of the Black Death through Europe there was a
>>>tendancy away from religion and more emphasis on material gain
>>>and pleasure.
I wrote:
>>Just as a point of information, it was a floor wax *and* a dessert
>>topping. There was certainly a new appreciation of hedonism in
>>the late 14C, but there was also a huge burst of religious fervor,
>>such as the affective piety movement, Lollardy, and so forth.
>>Together -- because the church was part and parcel of both -- they
>>led to the Protestant Reformation.
>>
>>It is a mistake to think that materialism was the opposite of
>>pietism, particularly in the 14C.
>I didn't say it was - I was pointing out that religious ferocity does
>not necessarily follow a high deathrate.
Your point, above, appears to be that there was a tendency away
from religion. That is what I am interested in correcting, entirely
apart from the larger discussion (about which I haven't got much
opinion either way). The period following the 14th-century plague
was a time of great religious re-energizing (as was the period
after the 6th-century plague).
>I made the observation that this is not always the case - that, as
>an example, after the Black Death (14th cent) a great deal of the remaining
>population were not particularly devout - quite the opposite.
That's where I think you're quite wrong. But the quote you
add explains the gap here:
>Following the Black Death of the 14th century:
>"The crime rate soared; blasphamy and sacrilege was commonplace;
Yes, flouting of Church conventions was indeed commonplace, but
it was part of a tremendous upswelling of homegrown, vernacular
religious fervor. Heresy was bursting out all over because people
were finding God in their own ways. Thus (as I said before), the
affective piety movement, Lollardy, numerous translations of the
Bible (which were then banned, repeatedly and ineffectively), etc.
The point: Religious feeling saw a huge increase. Orthodox
observation took a proportional kick in the nuts.
>-Philip Ziegler "The Black Death" (London: Collins, 1969)
(BTW, Ziegler is not respected as a scholar of medieval history,
you know, and a great deal has been written on the subject since
that came out. In general, academic publishers are more to be
trusted than the popular press for this sort of data, considering
how much archival research is required.)
>>>Yes, there were religious sects but most of those
>>>trived during the plague - once a village or town was decimated
>>>they tended to fade.
>>I'd like to see your evidence for this. There is a general consensus
>>in the relevant scholarship that the opposite was true.
>Kind of hard to keep anything up when everyone around you (and yourself)
>are dead, eh? :)
Hence the affective piety movement, the spate of vernacular Bibles,
and so forth.
>One of the highest death-rates were of priests.
Monks were higher, actually, particularly the Franciscans, who
ministered to the sick. (The Dominicans conveniently rewrote
their Rule to avoid contact with the ill, and the papacy has never
been the same, as a result.)
>Yes, the Reformation did follow soon afterwards - so did the Renaissance.
>Not exactly a time of quiet piety and mindless obediance to Mother Church.
That's what I'm trying to say -- you need to separate obedience
to the Church from piety when you talk about the 14th century.
As I said, I don't care either way about your larger point. I
do care about getting 14C history right when you make that point.
Francis Muir
Joan Marie Shields:
> ObPandemic: Influenza 1918-19 (proabable origin China or US) - 21-100
> million dead.
Or Canada, wouldn't you know it. Via Southbound flocks of those damned
infected geese.
Francis Muir
Meg Worley:
Nevertheless there were in England a number of influential families,
Welds, Howards, Walmesleys, Petres, Throckmortons and their like, that
managed to protect both their privilege and their Catholicism right
through from the times of the Black Plague down to, say, WWII, when
privilege of the old kind finally bit the dust.
As to Ziegler, even a tyro like myself can smell his crap a mile away.
Marko Amnell
Lacenaire wrote:
> But aren't you being led by the nose by Steiner into asking all the
> grandly tedious questions? The wrong questions, given what you
> apparently find interesting in people and the things they make?
>
> The question you are posing is being asked down in the dank old
> port cellar where the metaphysicians are hearing Jovian thunder,
> unaware that there is a party going on upstairs.
>
> Once you accept the isolation from phenomena required for the
> question, there's only a very narrow set of possibilities for further
> thinking about art, creating conditions of reception which render most
> art inert. As a critico-productive system, your premises+queries can
> only turn art into an endless unvarying drone of platitudes. You are sent
> on the hunt for equivalences, for the keys to all mythologies, and once
> found the only thing to do is worship them in Isis' place. "We need not
> think of artistic creation as trying to usurp God's role." The only
purpose
> of this kind of musing is in the production of the intelligibility of "We"
> and a world spirit for it to engage.
>
> Holding that "We" together (against divisions of class, of nation, of sex,
> of profession, of generation, of personality), getting control of it,
> requires some violence, and is well served by practices of reception which
> reduce most of what art communicates to unintelligibility or silence. It's
> one way to be immunized against the political, the social, the cultural,
the
> personal in art.
>
> Now if you actually look at paintings, at sculpture, at films, it becomes
> clear that such a thought (to usurp God's role) never occurred to a number
> of art-producers, who were busy with other concerns (making money,
> following or breaking conventions, confessing preoccupations, propagating
> opinions, developing technique, taking revenge on critics, punishing
family
> and friends) and to another number, it plays a rather marginal role.
Perhaps
> the pressure of such an idea was nevertheless upon art producers of the
> Renaissance, but to what degree, really? And isn't the interesting thing
> about artistic production its tremendous multiplicity, variety, variation,
within
> a common technology?
>
> The proposal of the task (Let's try to formulate a one-sentence
description
> of "creativity" which doesn't require the word "work," already suspicious)
> is also insidious. I don't think it's accidental that the two themes of
this
> thread have been the secret metaphysical homogeneity of art production and
> the coherence and dominance of "Western Civilization," the
> thing that "We" participate in. One needs the training you get from the
> former mental habit to accept latter proposal, for it is the "discoveries"
> resulting from the original quest that serve as glue for the fictional
whole
> and a pedestal for its display.
>
> Starting a discussion of art with an observation about the pervasive human
> fear of death is a good way to avoid paying any attention to art; ending a
> discussion of art on a modified version of the original observation is
just
> another example of "the indefatigable fabrication of boredom" against
which
> art manifesti are penned and much art produced.
>
> You set off wondering if atheist art is possible and if it will be any
good.
> To the obvious reply: well, shouldn't we start looking at/for existing
> art, you counter with an insistence which appears to answer the
> question quite simply "No and No." In the extreme application of your
> premises, atheist art is not possible because of a monopoly on available
> language enjoyed by religious art by virtue of its historical priority; in
> the moderate application, atheist art is possible but doomed to stink
> because the same monopoly would prevent truly atheist art from engaging
its
> own history, its historical context, or human affairs, all of which would
> lead to contact with tradition, ideology, history, and consequent
infection,
> either directly by religious iconography or indirectly through the styles,
> techniques and habits associated with it. Then you conclude that atheist
art
> is possible if we only stopped thinking about art production as
necessarily
> modeled on God's activities, which is all really not an answer but a gloss
> of the premises underlying the question. It's just a way of fantasizing
> about Art and ignoring art at the same time.
>
> It is arguable that "art production is an attempt to usurp God's role" is
> nothing more, today, than something someone might say to that nutty
> sycophant at the Actor's Studio, much like "I make order out of chaos,"
and
> that for at least three centuries it has been a proposal losing a
> competition with "art production is productive labor," "art is a form of
> communication," "art is propaganda," "art goes over the mantelpiece,"
> "writin' is fightin''' and a
> host of other notions.
Your observations about art are interesting, but not only do they
not negate what I've said, but you're fundamentally wrong about
my approach to art. Let me tell you where I'm coming from. I'm
not an art critic, art historian nor do I claim any expertise in the
arts. I'd describe myself as a journalist who reads too much,
and I used to study math and might go back and try that again.
But I have a lot of friends who are artists, my brother is a painter,
and my mother is a novelist. I've read some art history, art theory,
aesthetics, and so on, but ironically enough in light of your
criticism that I ignore the details of art, and how artists work,
and only focus on the big metaphysical questions, my main
understanding of art is based, not on theories of art, but on
observing my brother paint (we used to share a flat, and later
when he lived in Paris I would visit him for long periods of time).
We used to talk for hours and hours about art, well not just
about art, about everything, but often enough we did end up
talking about art. His many artist friends would join in. His
girlfriend also joined in, and she is a sculptor and studied art
restoration at the best schools in the world (you can only study
art restoration properly in maybe three schools if you have serious
plans to be a curator of a big museum or set yourself up in the
business). So when I read your comments I thought fondly of all
those conversaions with my brother. I haven't kept in touch
properly with him over the last few years. I became quite familiar
with the techniques my brother used. He does oil paintings mostly,
but also experiments with various other techniques, some original,
totally his own. His work is basically figurative, but distorted in
various ways toward the surreal or expressionist, maybe a bit
like Lucian Freud. He paints nudes, portraits, landscapes, still
lifes, whatever. He's sold some paintings and held some shows,
but he's not famous or very successful commercially by any means.
So when I talk about art or writing I'm not talking about theories,
really, but about my family and friends. Now, as to the substance
of your comments, I'd claim that nothing of what you said negates
the importance of the issue I've raised, or that George Steiner
addresses in his book _Grammars of Creation_. Sure there are
a lot of other issues about art I didn't address, but that doesn't
mean the role of religion is not also an important issue when
trying to understand art. Religion is one important issue, but not
the only one, nor did I ever claim it was as you seem to think. Also,
I think your comments about art are a bit too overtly political,
from a leftist point of view. I was talking about aesthetics, but
you bring up issues of the hegemony of Western Civilization,
and offer a definition of art based on "labour". Sounds very
Marxist. So ironically your own approach to art might turn out
to be more theoretical and less practical than mine! OK, nothing
wrong with those political issues, but I was primarily trying to
address Steiner's ideas about art, death, religion and atheism
on his own terms, and share them with the other people who
read rec.arts.books. I don't think Steiner's approach is so
metaphysical that it forces one to ignore the details of how
artists work today, and have worked in the past.
Sayan Bhattacharyya
>
>Sayan Bhattacharyya wrote:
>
>> Marko Amnell <marko_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> And I'm afraid
>> >the collective unconsciousness of the cultural elites of every
>> >nation on the planet has been thoroughly tainted by a whole
>> >slew of Western ideas, including Biblical iconography and themes.
>> ....
>> >Ask yourself where the political systems of
>> >these two great nations come from? Communism and representational
>> >democracy are Western ideas.
>>
>> True, but but the claim was not about Communism or representational
>> democracy but about "Biblical iconography and themes".
>
>How do you propose to distinguish between the two once you grant the
>first point?
Communism and representational democracy are ideas that originated
in the west, it is true. But it is extremely dubious how much chinese
"communism" or Indian "representational democracy" has to do with
their western versions. For instance, I recall having read somewhere
that Marx had not even been translated into Chinese by the time Mao
was entering politics, and Mao did not read any western languages,
at least not at that time. In Indian election campaign meetings, you
will often see the candidate garlanded before he gives a speech, a
practice that clearly borrows from Hindu rather than Christian
iconography. After the popularity of the tv serials `Ramayana' and
`Mahabharata', the actors of those serials, _in costume_, proved to
be quite a draw in election meetings. Politicians routinely promise
to the electorate `Ram rajya' ("rule of Ram"). The entire rhetoric
of elections and democracy draws upon Hindu (and occasionally Muslim)
iconography, not Christian iconography.
>Esp. in the context of a tradition that sees both
>ideologies as competing secularizations of Christianity?
That is how the tradition might have _originated_, but that does
not mean that those resonances are evident or even discernible to
the vast majority of Indians or Chinese. An analogy will make this
clear: the english word "ferret" comes from the vulgar latin "furritus",
meaning "fur thief". But when a police officer in India exclaims, in
Indian-accented English, "We must ferret out who is behind this crime!",
he is _not_ thinking of furs. The fur is of historical interest only,
but has no presence when the Indian police officer uses the word
"ferret".
>> Neither
>> communism nor representational democracy _as it exists in China
>> or India_ has anything to do with "Biblical iconography and themes".
>
>See above. You may lose the icons, but the themes?
As I implied, the themes have been dissociated and thrown out
as excess baggage by the time the institutions have traveled
to India. For a 20th century Euroepan or American like you,
perhaps, representational democracy is impossible to conjure
up in the mind without also conjuring up the whiff of Chistianity.
For me, a 20th century Indian, the thought of representational
democracy does not come accompanied by the same cultural resonances.
>
>You are suggesting that political culture and cultural production exist
>independently? What kind of Marxist are you, anyway?
Of course I am not suggesting anything of the kind. That certain
institutions were associated with certain themes at their _origin_,
does not mean that those themes are automatically present when
those institutions were transplanted in a very different culture.
To argue otherwise would appear to be a variant of "argument by
etymology", which is a non-argument -- the police officer, as I
said, is _not_ thinking of fur when he says `ferret out' .
Stephen Hayes
Marko Amnell wrote in a message to All:
MA> From: "Marko Amnell" <marko_...@hotmail.com>
MA> Sayan Bhattacharyya wrote:
> True, but but the claim was not about Communism or representational
> democracy but about "Biblical iconography and themes". Neither
> communism nor representational democracy _as it exists in China
> or India_ has anything to do with "Biblical iconography and themes".
MA> Maybe the phrase "Biblical iconography and themes" was poorly
MA> chosen as it might be taken to imply direct references to the Bible
MA> and explicit use of Christian imagery. But some anthropologists and
MA> intellectual historians have indeed suggested that democracy and
MA> individualism may have originated from Christianity. And since you
MA> know your Marx, I don't need to tell you there are a lot of
MA> references to the Bible and other religious subjects in his
MA> writings. If you dig deeper, you find Marx's early poetry, which
MA> describes apocalyptic scenes straight out of the Book of
MA> Revelations. How much did that influence his later theories? So
MA> what I'm saying is that the influence of Christianity on other
MA> cultures can be indirect and subtle, although you could also find
MA> examples of direct references to Christian subject matter in the
MA> works of modern Chinese and Indian artists and writers.
A couple of quick comments that I hope I might be able to elaborate on latere.
1. Art that is produced by Christians is not necessarily any more Christian
than that which is produced by anyone else.
2. It is not necessarily "Biblical iconography and themes" that makes Christian
art either.
Non-Christian religions have their own art and iconography, which is not
necessarily influenced by Christianity, though both may have been influenced by
the same source -- both Buddhist, Christian and Western humanist art were
influenced by Greek pagan art, for example.
Renaissance art, even though it may have used Biblical themes and images, is
more humanist than Christian or Biblical.
Take Michelangelo's "Pieta", for example. That's not God lying there, it's Mr
Universe.
Keep well
Steve Hayes
WWW: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/steve.htm
E-mail: haye...@yahoo.com
FamilyNet <> Internet Gated Mail
http://www.fmlynet.org
Joan Marie Shields
>As I said, I don't care either way about your larger point. I
>do care about getting 14C history right when you make that point.
Ok - you're right and I am wrong, but what else is new, eh? My larger
point is moot, if it ever was valid. Perhaps you could point me
to a correct history of post-Black Death social behaviors since mine
is apparently incorrect. I'm teaching a course this summer and part
will focus on the social aspects and ramifications of epidemics. I
was hoping to use the Black Death as an example but I guess I can't
now since all I've read is apparently wrong. What books can I trust?
Seriously, what books can I trust? I've been a good target (here and
in other threads) the least I can do is learn a little here in the
dust.
Joan Marie Shields
>> ObPandemic: Influenza 1918-19 (proabable origin China or US) - 21-100
>> million dead.
Francis Muir <fra...@stanford.edu> wrote:
>Or Canada, wouldn't you know it. Via Southbound flocks of those damned
>infected geese.
Possible though it probably passed through pigs before hitting humans.
Hey, is there a large target printed on my back or are you just bored
with taking pot-shots ay everyone else?
Joan Marie Shields
>As to Ziegler, even a tyro like myself can smell his crap a mile away.
Hey, at least he got a bit of the environmental microbiology right -
minor, I know, but it's something, isn't it?
Francis Muir
Joan Marie Shields wrote:
>
> Joan Shields:
> >> ObPandemic: Influenza 1918-19 (proabable origin China or US) - 21-100
> >> million dead.
>
> Francis Muir <fra...@stanford.edu> wrote:
> >Or Canada, wouldn't you know it. Via Southbound flocks of those damned
> >infected geese.
>
> Possible though it probably passed through pigs before hitting humans.
>
> Hey, is there a large target printed on my back or are you just bored
> with taking pot-shots ay everyone else?
Lighten up there. Where am I taking a pot-shot? Merely pointing out a
possibility which has some documentation behind it.
Marko Amnell
Larisa wrote:
> Marko Amnell wrote:
> > Lenin's still got the power, man, you just don't know it.
> > In fact, as PZB would agree, our future is dominated by
> > two mummies, Jeremy Bentham's at University of London,
> > and Lenin's in Red Square.
>
> Haven't they tossed him out already?
O ye of little faith! In fact, Lenin was spotted snug in his
mausoleum next to the Kremlin as recently as April 21 by
a Guardian reporter. There have been several attempts by
anti-Communist Russian politicians to bury him (no doubt
an ironic postmodern gloss on Khruschev's famous taunt
to the Americans: "We will bury you!") but the moves have
been voted down each and every time by the Duma. So
like I said, Lenin's still got the power. As pagan religions
will teach you if you would only listen: The dead rule over
the living.
ObBook. _Lenin's Brain_ by Tilman Spengler. About a
German crank neuroscientist who wins a chance to cut up
Lenin's brain after his death in order to try to fathom the
secrets of his supposed genius. Lenin actually had one of
the heaviest brains ever recorded. Something like 2.0 kilograms,
whereas most of us get along fine with just 1.4 kilograms.
(My figures might be a bit off, but Lenin's brain really was
much bigger than average, whatever that might signify)
-----------------------------------------------------------
Red Square pilgrims sent round in circles
Guardian
Saturday April 21, 2001
The trees may be stubbornly refusing to burst into leaf. But the
endless Russian winter has suddenly melted away. The ash-coloured
snow has been shovelled away. Family and friends are showing
up to partake of springtime in Moscow.
At the very centre of Red Square lies the waxy yellowing corpse
of Vladimir Lenin, housed in the polished red granite and black
marble of the mausoleum.
It is the paramount communist temple, the atmosphere more forbidding
and reverential than in St Basil's cathedral across the square. It is a
tourist must-see. But be warned. The security is intimidating, the rules
bewildering, the access rigorously controlled.
Access to the father of the revolution is admirably free and open to
everyone, in theory. But hundreds of confused Japanese and Italians
are turned away every day.
The first confusion arises when you find that the biggest public square
in Europe is almost deserted. A stroll towards the sepulchral site at
the Kremlin wall attracts the attentions of a soldier, who shoos you
away.
Most of the square is closed every day for three hours while Lenin is
receiving guests. You are advised to leave the square and head round
the back: a 15-minute walk to join the queue that gets you within
marching distance of the mausoleum. Or maybe not.
"Stop. No cameras," the guard barks. This is tantamount to barring
every Japanese tourist. I remonstrate. "So sorry. Can I leave the
camera here?" "Nyet. No camera or no access."
The Italians behind me break despondently out of the queue. They
are later seen with their Sony digitals leaning on the square's railings,
gazing wistfully at the tomb.
Dozens are frustrated every day. "What's the sense in this?" the
guard is asked. Harrumph. "There is sense in everything in Russia."
Foreigners are treated with sullen politeness. Russians fare less well.
Women have their handbags yanked from their arms and searched
without so much as a please or thank-you. Men are manhandled
and subjected to electronic body searches.
Down the black steps, inside the dimly-lit and surprisingly small
mausoleum, there is a professional silencer. He spends the entire
three hours going "shhhh" every 30 seconds.
A glimpse is permitted of the preserved torso - Lenin's lower half
is draped in a rubber blanket, provoking fantasies of what lies
beneath. A quick round of the glass case and the guards usher
you back into the daylight.
Automatically, you go to stroll back the way you came. But the
guards won't let you pass. This is the way in, they snarl. The way
out is on the other side of the square.
Paul Ilechko
David Latane wrote:
No, he was just drunk all the time. I saw in once in the french pub in london - pasty
faced and pissed, with a black-leather clad boy draped over his arm.
David Latane
Paul Ilechko wrote:
Yes, and being a drunk & being defrauded are hardly mutually exclusive conditions.
D. latane
http://www.francis-bacon.cx/articles/03b_00.html (Excerpt)
" The estate of Francis Bacon, the most
celebrated
British painter of the 20th century, is suing his
former gallery, claiming that it wrongfully
exploited
him over the course of a relationship that lasted
more
than 30 years.
In a claim issued yesterday that could involve
millions of pounds, Marlborough Fine Art (London)
Ltd
is alleged to have exercised total control over
all
Bacon's artistic and private affairs. The gallery
is
accused of benefiting from the re-sale of many of
Bacon's works, having bought them from him at an
undervaluation.
Bacon died in 1992, aged 82. He left his £11
million estate to John Edwards, now 50, an
illiterate
east-Londoner who was his constant companion for
the last 18 years of his life. In 1989, he had
become
the world's most expensive living artist when his
triptych May-June 1973 sold at Sotheby's New York
for £3.53 million. The legal action follows a
three-year inquiry by lawyers, accountants and
investigators appointed on behalf of Bacon's
estate
and is certain to shake the international art
world.
The estate claims that Marlborough, one of
Britain's most prestigious galleries, and its
worldwide
representative Marlborough International Fine Art
(MIFA) based in Liechtenstein, should be presumed
to have exercised "undue influence" over the
artist,
who died from a heart attack in Spain. Neither
Marlborough nor MIFA has produced a "full and
true"
account of their dealings with Bacon's works,
claims
the estate. "
Joan Marie Shields
Joan Shields:
>> >> ObPandemic: Influenza 1918-19 (proabable origin China or US) - 21-100
>> >> million dead.
Francis Muir <fra...@stanford.edu> wrote:
>> >Or Canada, wouldn't you know it. Via Southbound flocks of those damned
>> >infected geese.
joan:
>> Possible though it probably passed through pigs before hitting humans.
>> Hey, is there a large target printed on my back or are you just bored
>> with taking pot-shots ay everyone else?
>Lighten up there. Where am I taking a pot-shot? Merely pointing out a
>possibility which has some documentation behind it.
Sorry, my mistake - of course - but what else is new, eh? Still,
influemza viruses tend to pass through both pigs and birds - it may
pass back and forth between the two. The avian hosts are good at
spreading it but pigs are excellent amplifiers not to mention mutations
that occur within them.
While the Spanish Flu may indeed have been further spread by geese, the
mutations that occurred to make it so virulent were probably initiated
in pigs.
Better?
Meg Worley
>>As I said, I don't care either way about your larger point. I
>>do care about getting 14C history right when you make that point.
Joan writes:
>Ok - you're right and I am wrong, but what else is new, eh?
Have I ever intimated that you are frequently wrong? I don't
even recall having corrected you on a point of information
before.
>My larger point is moot, if it ever was valid.
Actually, I think you can still make that point, if you
s/piety/religion.
>Perhaps you could point me
>to a correct history of post-Black Death social behaviors since mine
>is apparently incorrect. I'm teaching a course this summer and part
>will focus on the social aspects and ramifications of epidemics. I
>was hoping to use the Black Death as an example but I guess I can't
>now since all I've read is apparently wrong. What books can I trust?
For social behaviors, you want books by historians, published by
reputable presses (start with the large univ. presses). Richard
Southern's *Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages*
has some stuff on it, as does almost every book on the religious
orders in England. Often, that stuff is buried in books that
focus on the topic you want to link to the Black Death.
But I asked a friend who is working on the subject and she
suggested
- Norman Cantor's *In the Wake of the Plague*
(not reliable for historians' purposes, but fine for yours)
- Colin Platt's *King Death*
- Klaus Bergdolt's *Der Schwarze Tod in Europa*
And Rosemary Horrox has an anthology of primary materials on
the subject.
(All of this is just about the Black Death -- I don't know much
about its 17C sibling.)