style is the answer to everything---
a fresh way to approach a dull or a
dangerous thing.
to do a dull thing with style
is preferable to doing a dangerous thing
without it.
Joan of Arc had style
John the Baptist
Christ
Socrates
Caesar,
Garcia Lorca.
style is the difference,
a way of doing,
a way of being done.
6 herons standing quietly in a pool of water
or you walking out of the bathroom naked
without seeing
me.
..........from the book "Mockingbird Wish Me Luck", page 156.
This poem reminded me of the Heidegger article we discussed in class, "Off the Beaten Track". Heidegger wrote, "To be sure, the painter, too, makes use of pigment; he uses it, however, in such a way that the colors are not used up but begin, rather, for the first time, to shine. To be sure, the poet, too, uses words, not, however, like ordinary speakers and writers who must use them up, but rather in such a way that only now does the word become and remain truly a word.
Bukowski also said, "An intellectual is a person who says a simple thing in a difficult way. An artist is a person who says a difficult thing in a simple way." There is a way, as Heidegger described, to build a temple of words that contains within it the Holy Spirit, or whatever the hell you want to call it.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Mid-Term
The Human Body, Before and After
My favorite Bob Marley song is “Get Up, Stand Up”. The chorus repeats the lines, “Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights. Get up, stand up, don’t give up the fight.” Bob Marley was, of course, a Jamaican reggae star. One might wonder from where political oppression arises in a small island country known mostly for its music. Why would Bob Marley need to sing about standing up for rights on a tropical island? When most of us picture Jamaica we imagine white sands beaches, palm trees, margaritas, and cannabis use. So, from where does the political oppression of which Marley sings, arise?
The history of South America and the Caribbean is a long, bloody history, of slavery and colonialism. Indeed, 98% of Jamaica’s population are the descendants of black slaves.
Perhaps the story begins in the late 15th century, when European sailors began exploring the globe. The Portuguese explored the western coast of Africa, Christopher Columbus sailed from Spain and discovered the “New World” of the America’s, and Magellan’s expedition circumnavigated the globe entirely. This spirit of exploration was coincidental with economic interests and the pursuit of profit. The expeditions led to domination of indigenous peoples and monopoly of natural resources. The first colonial powers were set up by Portugal and Spain, though certain economic terms led to these nations being guided by English and Dutch interests. Relations with the indigenous peoples became strained, and so among these seafarers there arose a new type of person: a conquistador, or conqueror. These men were inspired by a potent mixture of motives, including a thirst for wealth and power, religious fervor, and adventure. As a result of this capitalist dogma, many high civilizations in the West Indies were severely decimated. The Catholic church enacted laws to protect the natives, which led to the importation of African slaves to South America and the Caribbean, where they were forced to work under brutal conditions on plantations by the white ruling class. Most of the profits obtained in this manner were returned to countries in Europe.
“Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights.” Che Guevara was a young Argentine Marxist, revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. In 1951, along with his friend Alberto Granado, Che took a motorcycle journey covering most of the South American continent. Che was a medical student at this time and had ambitions to volunteer at a leper colony in Peru. While he traveled he was confronted with extreme cases of poverty and alienation. He came across small farms where the tenants lived meagerly, though they worked extremely hard. He learned that they lived on the land, which was owned by greedy landlords, and performed all the labor while the landlords made the profits. He met a young Communist couple who had been ostracized and banished from their home in Peru, and had no possessions—not even a blanket. His experiences during this trip had profound impact on Che, and led him to conclude that South America’s ingrained economic inequalities were a result of capitalism, neocolonialism, and imperialism, especially U.S. imperialism, and that the solution was a worldwide Communist revolution. Together with Fidel and Raul Castro, Che staged a coup and overthrew Batista’s U.S.-backed regime.
Thereafter, Che became one of the most prominent Communists, and anti-capitalists, in the history of the world. He was extremely vocal and active. Once his situation in Cuba had solidified, and Che was performing many roles in Castro’s government, he traveled to Congo and Bolivia to help them in their revolutions. This man became a huge thorn in the side of imperial powers.
Che’s subsequent story becomes a tale of an empowered revolutionary, fighting the superpowers of the world with minimal resources. He met his untimely death in 1967, being captured and executed by Bolivian special forces, (with help from the CIA.)
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The photograph of Che Guevara’s body speaks volumes. In studying Che, the photograph grows in profundity. Che was an intellectual, raised in a home of over 3,000 books. He cited many influences in his intellectual development: Marx and Engels, Nietzsche, Sartre, Gide, Kafka, Camus, and many more. Yet, as we can see, all of that has been stripped entirely from his lifeless cadaver. It reminds me, somewhat, of Van’s discussion in class about Holbein’s depiction of Christ in the tomb. That was a striking discussion for me. Van said, “We look at the Christ, one of the holiest symbols in the entire world, and we see him dead. It’s something we have to confront and deal with. He’s DEAD! He’s very dead!”
As I’ve studied him the past few weeks I have become a huge fan of Che Guevara. This was a profound man, with decent morals, and what I believe were good intentions.
At the risk of sounding informal, I’ll now critique this photograph as it pertains to the standing metaphor. Che’s lifeless corpse stretches across a wooden table, while decorated soldiers stand over it and examine it. Indeed, the very process of standing over implies examination. There are many levels to this standing over. It seems reasonable to assume that the person directly over Che’s body is the highest ranking soldier in the room, as he has the most access to make observations. The other soldiers wait, with twisted faces and enigmatic expressions. Indeed, some historical perspective renders this photograph entirely new—not a photo of Che’s corpse, nor of a military tribunal—but of the domination of State over its people. And indeed, in Che’s case, this photograph might represent the domination of one specific State over the rest of the world.
To me, this picture is representative of a larger notion: social Darwinism. The realm of ideas is very much like the biological world: it’s not always the good guy who wins, but whoever has the largest teeth. Ideas compete exactly as biotic phenomena, and sometimes one idea must die in order for the other to thrive and proliferate. Indeed, this photograph of Che’s dead body represents Communism vs. Capitalism, and capitalism has some enormous teeth. Che is dead. He’s actually dead. And with him died the dream of hundreds of millions of people.
It is not difficult to see in the eyes of the soldiers surrounding the corpse, that killing is a necessary aspect of life on earth. The two men whose faces we can see at the far left, hold guns and ponder over what they’ve done. Whether they pulled the trigger or not, these automatons are complicit, guilty by association. It’s impossible to get too psychoanalytical on a portrait from so long ago, but I like to imagine that these two men have never seen a dead body before, and are only now beginning to realize the true implications of their military service. What they do is not simply firing into crowds. They kill people. They create corpses, entirely stripped of life. And now they know it.
The two men just above Che, and to his right, both seem repulsed by the corpse. They keep rough company, and they know it. Ask the General, though. He’ll tell you that when agitators arise, they must be dispensed with, or we run the risk of systemic change, (and God only knows we can’t have that.) The States stands tall and points out the agitators, and if you hope to remain standing alongside your fearless leaders, you must stand with the State, or soon you’ll be lying beside Che.
In a 1964 address to the U.N., Che invoked the standing metaphor: “Although we reject any accusations against us of interference in the internal affairs of other countries, we cannot deny that we sympathize with those people who strive for their freedom. We must fulfill the obligation of our government and people to state clearly and categorically to the world that we morally support and stand in solidarity with peoples who struggle anywhere in the world to make a reality of the rights of full sovereignty proclaimed in the UN Charter.” Looking at the picture of Che’s corpse, though, sounds a clarion call that it was the “standing in solidarity” of State power, that ultimately won. The U.N. address is worth reading in its entirety, because he states very clearly his reasons for resistance to State power.
Which call can be heard, resounding throughout paintings of political figures throughout history. Take, for example, this painting of Napoleon:
Since Napoleon Bonaparte’s death in 1821, he has been the subject of over two hundred thousand books. According to one historian, “Probably more has been written about him than any other historical personage except Jesus of Nazareth.” It’s especially interesting to me, because the veracity with which Jesus sought spiritual enlightenment, is mirrored in Napoleon by the amount of material enlightenment he sought. “And while Jesus persuaded with words and ideas, Napoleon conquered with muskets and cannons.”
When he was 10, Napoleon was awarded a scholarship to the military school of Brienne. His stay there was painful, because he was extremely short and spoke very poor French. He proved to be a very mediocre student, but had a passion for history and geography, and most especially, the life of Julius Caesar. From an early age he considered Julius Caesar as an ideal statesman, warrior, and writer. To Napoleon set to work cultivating these virtues in himself, though we must now decide whether or not they were virtues or vices in his hands.
Napoleon graduated and went to University in Paris. He became a much better student at this level, and excelled in mathematics. He graduated and received a military promotion immediately, (which usually took at least two years of service.) He performed well in combat situations, received a promotion to First Consul, and before long, staged a coup d’état. Within 5 years, Napoleon was declared Emperor of France.
After the first decade of the 19th century, the French Empire, under Napoleon engaged in a series of conflicts—the Napoleonic Wars—involving every major European power. After a streak of victories, France secured a dominant position in Europe, and Napoleon furthered the influence of French culture by establishing extensive alliances, and appointing family and friends to rule other European countries as client states. Even today, Napoleon’s campaigns are studied at military academies throughout much of the world.
The painting “The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries” by Jacques-Louis David, is a painting designed to promote State power, indeed, the same State power that killed Che Guevara. It wasn’t the same country, of course, but the killing of Che arose from the same philosophy of imperialism and subjugation that Napoleon espoused.
I usually try and avoid injecting my own political philosophies into essays, but paintings are interpretive, and in order to state my interpretation, I must state my bias. I’m sure it’s already entirely transparent, but I’m not a very devout capitalist. So when I look at a painting like this one, filled with symbols of wealth, extravagance, decadence, and all the trappings of high living, I don’t see nobility, but insecurity. The truly confident man must stand naked before God, as it were. (I’m also an atheist, but you know what I mean.) The need to be surrounded in adornments indicates a flawed philosophy. And this is ultimately the dehumanizing thrust of capitalism: that a human is only as important as what they possess.
Here Napoleon stands, the emperor, the man of power, the warlord, and the general. See the teeth on the beastly table? See the phallic height of the golden grandfather clock? See the eagle inscription that may just as well have been yanked from a Nazi flag? The golden table, the golden hilt on the sword, and the luxurious green carpet—so many symbols of power, but what kind of power really exists here? Is true power based on the exteriorized world? If I were typing this a plush green rug right now, would I somehow be more powerful?
Whereas, Che Guevara, was a young doctor when rode a motorcycle across the South American continent in search of lepers to serve, and developed his ideology. Guevara sharpened his teeth on the stone of severe economic inequality and how to correct it. Napoleon Bonaparte, with all his power and gold, on the other hand, earned his living by learning how to murder better.
Which state do you prefer? Which state should we prefer?
Archaeological Reminiacence of Millet's Angelus
“Archaeological Reminiscence of Millet’s Angelus” by Salvador Dali was painted in 1935. It is oil paint on canvas. The painting was based on the 1857-1859 painting “The Angelus” by Jean-Francois Millet. The Angelus was a painting that fascinated Dali. He revisited the motif many times over the years, in a variety of works.
Dali is the most famous of all the Surrealists. He began moving into surrealism around 1928. The term surrealist indicates a painting of seemingly disconnected and ambiguous subjects, but shown with great technical mastery and realism. In 1929, Dali made the film Un Chien Andalou (The Andalusian Cow) with Luis Bunuel. The film attempted to disturb and disorient viewers by mimicking a dream. Dali, and indeed much of the Surrealist movement was heavily influenced by the work of Sigmund Freud. Dreamlike subject matter, strange interrelationships between objects, and appearances of overt, psychosexual images, define much of the movement’s contribution. The Surrealists related theories of Freudian psychology to the idea of creativity and the production of art.
Dali was a prominent artist, and his contributions to surrealism became contributions to art in general. A major philosophical contribution made by Dali was an artistic technique he described called the “paranoiac-critical method”. The “paranoiac-critical method” is a way of seeing the world. The method involves a dissociation of object from language, of language from object, and the knowledge that we cannot really know anything. Therefore, objects become extensions of our subjective selves, and have nothing to do with our knowledge, or as Dali put it, “objects have a minimum of mechanical meaning.” Dali also said that the paranoiac-critical method is a, ”spontaneous method of irrational knowledge based on the critical and systematic objectivity of the associations and interpretations of delirious phenomena.”
In an interview with David Bryson in 1963, in response to Bryson’s question, “Could you define the word ‘paranoiac’? Could you define it in more detail?” Dali replied, “Aaaahhh….is one…..Uuuhh… The name is… ehhhh… ‘paranoiac-critical method’ because is one spontaneous method of knowledge, based in the instantaneous association of delirious material. Everything appear in my life- delirious, antagonist, impossible, put together. My method instantaneously creates miracle… Paranoiac-critical activity organizes and objectivizes in an exclusivist manner the limitless and unknown possibilities of the systematic association of subjective and objective ‘significance’ in the irrational…”
We are interested in the metaphor of standing in relationship to Dali’s “Archaeological Reminiscence of Millet’s Angelus”. What does Dali’s “paranoiac-critical method” have to do with our purposes? First we must examine the antecedent to Dali’s painting. Millet was a French painter. He’s most well known for scenes of peasants. His two most famous works are “The Gleaners”:
and “Angelus”:
Dali was fascinated by this painting. Dali used the “paranoiac-critical method”, employing “The Angelus” as his catalyst. Dali saw a reproduction of “The Angelus” in 1929, not having thought about it since childhood. He had been obsessed with that image as a child, finding parallels between that and two cypress trees that stood outside his classroom. Upon seeing this reproduction, he became very upset and distressed ; to discover why he employed psychoanalytical methods. He also began to see “The Angelus” in “visions” in objects around him: once in a lithograph of cherries, once in two stones on a beach. The “Archaeological Reminiscence of Millet’s Angelus” was based upon this latter vision.
The Angelus is a Christian devotion, or prayer. The devotion was traditionally recited in Roman Catholic churches, convents, and monasteries 3 times daily: 6:00 a.m., noon, and 6:00 p.m. (Many churches still practice the devotion, and some practice it at home.) The Angelus is a Christian devotion in memory of the Incarnation. The name “Angelus” is derived from the opening words: Angelus Domini Muntiavet Mariae (“…the angel of the Lord declared unto Mary…”) and is practiced by reciting 3 verses describing the mystery; alternating with the Salutation, “Hail Mary.”
The official origin of the devotional is not known. It was already well-established 700 years ago. The Angelus tradition was rooted in the 11th century monastic custom of reciting 3 Hail Mary’s during the evening bell. “It is common practice that during the recital of the Angelus prayer, for the lines “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us,” those reciting the prayer bow or genuflect. Either of these actions draw attention to the moment of Incarnation of Christ into human flesh.”
“The Angelus” is a painting which most people refer to as a religious work, showing working folk praying. Salvador Dali saw “The Angelus” as a “monstrous example of disguised sexual repression.”
Dali used the figures of the peasants from “The Angelus” several dozen times. He even wrote a book called Le Mythe tragique de L'Angelus de Millet.
They bow their heads and pray. What do they pray for? Do they pray for a bountiful harvest? Are they reciting the scriptures and Hail Mary’s which typically accompany The Angelus devotion? Have they, as Dali thought, lost a son?
This is significantly relevant to the standing metaphor because the figures are standing in a field, with only yellow earth beneath and blue sky above. The figures represent spiritual isolation as well as spiritual abundance. The figures symbolize life and death, male and female, heaven and hell, awake and dreaming, internal and external, perhaps every dualism we can imagine. There’s a juxtaposition of work and rest, of standing, or kneeling before the ankle-high crops.
And the disorientation of language recommended by Dali to employ the “paranoiac critical method” changes the painting even further. The images dissolve and disintegrate altogether, leaving only an archetype. That archetype, I believe, is the archetype of the dual nature of everything, and the implacability of ego and consciousness. One asks oneself, “Am I really all the things that are outside of me?” It is decidedly so, though we can never hope to understand how, or why.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Tesla's Tower at Wardenclyffe
I saw this image today, and for some reason it reminded me of this class.
Metaphors We Live By, Book Review
This was a funny book. I’ve never read anything so intensely analytical, with such profound insights into things that I could have never even thought to think about. This is what was funny about the book to me, believe it or not. Most of our language is learned, which means that most of us have never questioned why it is what it is. The authors of this book quite exhaustively analyzed the metaphors which guide our metaphors which guide our metaphors. We learned why TIME is MONEY, why ARGUMENT is WAR, and why LOVE is ART. There are many aspects of our verbiage which are contingent upon an underlying architecture of metaphor. That’s what this book was about.
It was also about the “agreed-upon” nature of language. We have landed upon a certain paradigm of conversation and axiomatic dialogue and stuck to it religiously. On page 78-79, the nature of conversation is analyzed. Conversation is one of our social customs that has adopted a very certain structure. We have means of beginning conversations, continuing conversations, and ending conversations, programmed into our cultural lives. And we’ve agreed to certain rules of conduct and language within the parameters of this cultural paradigm. So when we participate in a conversation with each other it must fit within the expectations of society, otherwise it is not a valid conversation. When two people sit down for tea, culture is the third party. (see page 57)
Several years ago my friend Justin and I invented a game called Olympic Penguin. Olympic Penguin is played by basically spouting off language, right from the top of your head, and trying to reach a kind of Zen, poetic detachment. With much practice, we had become pretty good at this game. My parents came into town and took Justin and I to dinner. I thought we all had a nice time. On the way back to my apartment Justin and I started playing Olympic Penguin in the backseat, free-styling the names of streets with birds, lizards, mountains, music, antennae, pioneers, dark stars, Madagascar’s, etc. Utter, beautiful nonsense. When we arrived back at my apartment my parents just dropped us off, did not opt to come in for tea. The last thing my mom said to me was, “Son—don’t use drugs.”
I tell this story because it illustrates, to me, what the book is about. Why do words mean what we give them the power to mean? Words are a form of currency, in that without our agreements, they would simply be grunting, clicking paper, and would be practically meaningless. If I decided right now to erode my logic down entirely, and degenerate into a thread of nonsense, what difference would it really make? There’s still meaning somewhere in Olympic Penguin, even if it’s not readily discernible. Our tiny mouth noises have amounted to something, even if it’s only been symbolic: not the thing itself, but a grunted shadow of the thing NOT-itself. This is discussed in greater detail on page 198 of the text.
The conclusion of the book was much the same conclusion we had reached with our game: our words, when relying on more profound metaphors—new systems, improved systems—can arise to an aesthetic level which reflects the highest standard possibly available to our language. Achieving the poetic trance lent our words a mythological imprint.
Another part that interested me was on page 136, when it discusses how paraphrasing isn’t really possible. To try and paraphrase is an alteration of language, which, when analyzed the way these obsessive-compulsive cats analyze language, utterly changes the meaning of sentences. (Remind me to thank God I didn’t marry a linguist.)
I also found the discussion of some of the specific metaphors compelling. Most especially the TIME is MONEY metaphor. I’m WASTING my time watching TV. I’m SPENDING my time thinking about a book I read. Is that WORTH your time? It goes to show how an established metaphor figures so heavily into our national consciousness, in America, where time has literally become money, though the two are made of entirely different material. (What is time made out of? Atoms?) In the Middle East, time must be different. In the Rainforest, the Serengeti, the Falkland Islands, in Belarus, time must be conceived of differently.
Reference
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
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