David Lynch, very hip to modern music and edge / fringe music, may well have been some inspired by the Residents. Or vice versa. I saw the Residents in San Francisco and was impressed. They're more satirical than Lynch but there's a vibe there...They can be quite eerie...

THE END OF THE WINE by C. S. Lewis

(Printed in Punch, 3 December 1947 and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1964)

1. You think if we sigh as we drink the last decanter

2. We’re sensual topers, and thence you are ready to prose

3. And read your lecture. But need you? Why should you banter

4. Or badger us? Better imagine it thus: We’ll suppose

5. A man to have come from Atlantis eastward sailing–

6. Lemuria has fallen in the fury of a tidal wave;

7. The cities are fallen; the pitiless, all prevaling,

8. Inhuman ocean is Numinor’s salt grave.

9. To Europe he comes from Lemuria, saved from the wreck

10. Of the gilded, loftily builded, countless fleet

11. With the violet sails. A phial hangs from his neck,

12. Holding the last of a golden cordial, subtle and sweet.

13. Untamed is Europe, unnamed–a wet desolation,

14. Unwelcoming woods of the elk, of the mammoth and bear,

15. The fen and the forest. The men of a barbarous nation,

16. On the sand in a circle are standing, await him there.

17. Horribly ridged are their foreheads. Weapons of stone,

18. Unhandy and blunt, they brandish in their clumsy grips.

19. Their females set up a screaming, their pipes drone,

20. They gaze and mutter. He raises his flask to his lips.

21. And it brings to his mind the strings, the flutes, the tabors,

22. How he drank with the poets at the banquet, robed and crowned;

23. He recalls the pillared halls carved with the labours

24. Of curious masters (Lemuria’s cities lie drowned),

25. The festal nights, when each jest that flashed for a second,

26. Light as a bubble, was bright with a thousand years

27. Of nurture–the honour and the grace unreckoned

28. That sat like a robe on the Atlantean peers.

29. It has made him remember ladies and the proud glances,

30. Their luminous glances in Numinor and the braided hair,

31. The ruses and mockings, the music and the grave dances

32. (Where musicians played, the huge fishes goggle and stare).

33. So he sighs, like us; then rises and turns to meet

34. Those naked men. Will they make him their spoil and prey?

35. Or salute him as god and brutally fawn at his feet?

36. And which would be worse? He pitches the phial away.


[www.discovery.org]


The Europe to which the poem's sentiment is opposed is not the Europe of the Great West, that is, of Homer, Herodotus, and Virgil, Plato and Boethius, Bede and Byzantium, Florence and Wittenberg, Dante and Pascal, Malory and Shakespeare and Samuel Johnson and Jane Austen and Dostoevsky; but the successor-Europe, today's Europe (circa 1960), that includes the US and Canada and (as T. S. Eliot put it in his essay on Baudelaire) is "a world of electoral reform, plebiscites, sex reform and dress reform," this world of Marx and Freud and Henry Ford and philosopher A. J. Ayer and Hitler and Mao and Alfred Kinsey, and now artists Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, billionaire revolutionist George Soros, and Jeff Bezos, and "public intellectual" Ibram Kendi, etc.


If you are a man of the Great West, be sure to support homeschooling, which is almost the last refuge thereof.

Lewis is working with the idea that civilization came from Atlantis to Europe, where civilization then took root so that Europe became the Great West, which is now in decay and in chronic rebellion against its own heritage. I am sure he wasn't serious about Atlantis, but he did write -- in a little book everyone should read called The Abolition of Man -- that it's "arguable that every civilization we find has been derived from another civilization and, in the last resort, from a single centre -- 'carried' like an infectious disease or like the Apostolical succession."



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 22 Jun 21 | 02:08PM by Dale Nelson.

Dale, I spend a lot of time pondering the points you raise about the dissolution of the West (Great Europe). I agree: to my mind, there is no rational way to deny it, and I've been observing it as an adult since the mid/late 60s. I humbly submit that I've tried hard to be consciously objective and non-doctrinaire.

I seek the cause, and it seems to be a sort of initial infection of unfounded guilt that devolved into the sort of extreme cultural self-loathing that we see playing out as "woke" sensibilities.

Where/when/how did this absolute acceptance of *unfounded* guilt start?

BTW, "unfounded guilt" is an acceptance of culpability for events/actions/outcomes over which you, yourself, as an adult with agency, had no meaningful control. The notion of reparations for slavery is just such an attempted assignation of unfounded guilt, which I've never, ever, accept, personally, and will oppose as public policy as simple ineffective political expediency. A buy-off.

You know me: no tricks here. I'll go up front: I *suspect* it was a sort of perversion of the Christian notion or Original Sin that was at some point recognized, cultivated, and exploited by opportunists.

There has been concurrently an abandonment and mistrust of formerly esteemed institutions, which has the effect of cutting each individual loose to seek his own best outcome. Sadly, this is where I am currently, and it's how I have operated for maybe the last 25 years. As my sole defense I offer that I don'gt particularly like it, but I'll be damned if I let myself and those I care about sink by clinging to noble, but futile, principal.

So we've got a de facto new tribalism, wherein I treat those close with great respect and concern, without exception, and everyone else it's a case-by-case basis: maybe I will, and maybe not, based on whether of not I think you'll reciprocate.

These are my initial; thoughts and certainly I am open to other ideas.

OK. Who's ready to take the plunge with me...? :^)

--Sawfish

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sawfish, I've written enough that I hope others will mull (and I appreciate your response) that I think I'll sit back for a bit -- and perhaps take time to reread Owen Barfield's lectures published as History, Guilt, and Habit. They deal with the topic you raise. I'll just say that I think you make a good point. Things like intersectionality and critical race theory, etc. are new religions or aspects of a new, secular religion, with such as Kendi as prophets. They appropriate, or rather misappropriate, elements of religious tradition, probably sometimes out of conscious conniving, but, I think, more often as genuine, though perverse, expressions of what might be called the religious imagination.*

I wonder if you picked up E. F. Schumacher's little book A Guide for the Perplexed how far you could go with it before you'd say, "uh uh, not me." Or Lewis's Abolition of Man. It's the abolition of man, in the more full sense of man, that one could see as characteristic of present mental habits.

*I myself, as a Christian, don't believe that Christianity deals with "imaginary" (i.e. nonreal, fictitious), persons and events; but certainly there is a "Christian imagination," and the Great Western imagination has often been close to it. This means that nature, human beings, and history are "imagined," that is, understood and conceived of, in a non-reductive way; while the figures I named as harbingers or doyens of the decadent present are all, in their various ways, at one in conceiving nature, human beings, and history reductively.

Dale Nelson Wrote (picked up from the thread about Smith's drinking habits):
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> Knygatin Wrote:
>
> > "17. Horribly ridged are their foreheads. Weapons of stone,
> >
> > 18. Unhandy and blunt, they brandish in their clumsy grips."
> >
> >
> > I thought Lewis meant pre-civilized Europe. The
> > land of Neanderthals. Which also may be a bit
> > unfair, since they were comparably evolved for the
> > time. And hardy. We still have some of their
> > genes.

> Knygatin, I suppose one could say that the situation is that of an ante-Europe, Europe before it was Europe but
> after the destruction of Atlantis. The Atlantean is going to bring the arts of civilization to those squalling
> beast-men, and the great Europe will eventually arise therefrom; but now (see the beginning of the poem), Lewis
> and other men of the Great West can see that Europe as it has been is coming to its end. Like the Atlantean they
> must resign themselves to this great loss. ... the likelihood of a terrible loss of civilization. ... the Fordean
> idea that what matters is keeping people occupied with consumer goods cheaply enough produced that they can keep
> buying them, ...


I didn't read the poem carefully enough to realize Lewis was making a political statement, using Atlantis as a metaphor. Sometimes one has to reset one's mind, when switching from one author (Smith's dreamy accounts of Atlantis) to another (Lewis's more mundane practical motives).

These are good references, Dale. I will read thru all or some.

But you raise a good point: in critical race theory, there is an early point where if you accept it as valid, you must make a leap of faith. Ultimately, in all disciplines, when one comes to the inevitable confrontation with one's own incomplete knowledge or understanding--especially any empirical bases in which to use as an intellectual foundation--ultimately one must take a leap of faith if you wish to include it in your own personal worldview.

But for most other areas of inquiry, such as Darwinian evolution, this leap of faith comes rather late--well after one has understood the basic operation of natural selection then seen how it fits with one's own experience, so that you tend to say "yep. that's probably what's going on...".

But for CRT the initial stance essentially starts with "Everything derived from Western culture, all values, all knowledge--is wrong. It must be discarded completely and replaced by..."

This includes the scientific method, mathematics, etc., as well as any social theory and history.

Yep. Discard everything you've learned and listen to me. I've got it right.

Essentially, it is intellectual and cultural suicide.

--Sawfish

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Knygatin Wrote:

> I didn't read the poem carefully enough to realize
> Lewis was making a political statement, using
> Atlantis as a metaphor. Sometimes one has to reset
> one's mind, when switching from one author
> (Smith's dreamy accounts of Atlantis) to another
> (Lewis's more mundane practical motives).

Oh, Lewis was fascinated by the fantasy of Atlantis and the ancient world here, no doubt of that; the fantasy is not simply a device for a point he wants to make after which it's fine if you forget the rest. It's a twofer. "What if," he might have mused, "human history included a now-forgotten epoch, a splendid culture that managed to transmit one precious seed from which the best of our civilization was ultimately derived?" It's kind of a reverse scenario to Lovecraft's in At the Mountains of Madness in which it is learned that all that we are is nothing but an unforeseen development after a long-ago lab accident -- kind of like Swift's protagonist discovering that human beings are basically Yahoos, inferior to the articulate-speaking horses. Lewis gets a poignant quality into his short poem if we start thinking about how rare and precious and deserving of respectful preservation and transmission civilization is -- and how it may be at risk.

The poem appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, as I recall, after Poul Anderson recited some of it at a science fiction convention, he having seen it reprinted -- with Lewis's written permission -- in a fanzine. Someone (perhaps the editor) of the fanzine had seen it as published in the British magazine Punch. I'm happy to know that Lewis was aware of fanzines (I believe he was for some years before this incident) and pleased that, as really I'd have expected, he gave reprint permission without asking a fee.

By the way, Lewis's use of wine in the poem is a good choice. Viniculture is an art of civilization -- judgments about soil and moisture and grape varieties, the making of wooden casks, the determination of ideal length of time for aging the juice in those casks, and so on. From wine it is a short step over to considering beer -- and Lewis preferred beer made by the inn or tavern where he stopped (e.g. on a walking tour) to mass-produced beer, especially from cans. But I suppose he saw the growing predominance of the products of a few national brewers over against local knowledge and ingredients. So making wine (and beer) may be conceived as having been arts brought to Europe by the Atlantean survivor, after which centuries of lore and song and tale were entwined with them, but the modern breweries are displacing them. (Just a sidelight here.)

The mood of the poem is elegiac and it's haunted by a sense of wonder. A bit more hopeful is the ending of one of the Narnian books for children in which, as IO recall, a miserable "progressive" school is overwhelmed by the god Bacchus and his attendant nymphs -- Bacchus of course being associated with the cvultivation of the grape for wine. Again, Ransom's space odyssey in Out of the Silent Planet ends with his return to Earth, a walking in a rural locale on a rainy night, till he comes to a village with a pub, enters, and says, "A pint of bitter [beer], please." Brewing, a stable currency, a shared language, courtesy, undemanding companionship -- all suggested in a few word; Earthpeople have a far less harmonious world than that of the Martians, yet still civilization survives in some degree at least. I hope that beer that was served to Ransom had been brewed locally.

I asked a Lewis expert who lived in England about that "bitter" Ransom was served. He said, "it would have been a regular 'session' bitter. If he was in Oxfordshire it might have been Hook Norton Brewery's 'Old Hooky.'"



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 22 Jun 21 | 07:37PM by Dale Nelson.

Thank you Dale, that was an interesting and most valuable post!

Yes, Lewis's poem has a considerate and layered perspective. And you enrich it further with your astute observations about subtle values slipping from us, which the masses may not consciously value enough (having been lured and misled from it) to fight for, but can feel and still practice on the side, and will suffer for if loosing completely. Important cultural issues indeed, and we now, in a yet further stage from when Lewis wrote the poem, stand on the brink of disaster for Western and European civilization, risking being completely eradicated by insidious intentions gradually devouring us. It is time to rise!

John Shirley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> David Lynch ... may well have been some inspired by
> the Residents. ... They're more
> satirical than Lynch but there's a vibe
> there...They can be quite eerie...

Their concept album God in Three Persons is very eerie.

Knygatin Wrote:

> we now, in a yet further stage from when Lewis
> wrote the poem, stand on the brink of disaster for
> Western and European civilization, risking being
> completely eradicated by insidious intentions
> gradually devouring us. It is time to rise!


I agree with you if "rise" means "rise from our supine position and fortify ourselves as citizens of this civilization that we claim to honor and cherish." That means, primarily, an inner-directed effort, it seems to me. How can I hand on what I myself do not hold? Now I think it will become a chore, a task I will soon want to shirk, if I read, listen to music, etc. as a "culture vulture," as someone always thinking about myself as the object of my effort: this idea of Improving Myself. That is not what we're talking about though it may be a byproduct of the kind of reading, etc., that I will comment on in a second. But as a former educator, I want to say that it always sounded not quite right when well-intentioned people "made the case" for the liberal arts, a good general knowledge of science, etc. as needed for students to become Well-Rounded Individuals. That sounds like some kind of "finishing school" thing, to be attained by dutiful diligence and then, with relief, set aside when attained by the grad who now can earn a good living.

Rather, I mean that we should decline to read books, watch movies, etc. simply because everyone else is doing so. Instead we do well to tackle works that we expect might take a little more effort than we're used to expending but that we really do personally want to read, watch, listen to, etc. It's easy to let our attention be diverted into stuff we know is less good and even less interesting to us but that's easily consumed.

We need to be careful we are not submitting too much to those who would strip-mine our attention.

I want to have a proper respect for my own

1.privacy
2.attention
3.material resources

All of which I may and should share with certain persons, but not promiscuously.

I believe that the Latin root for the word "seduce" means something like "to lead around." The seduced person is unmanly, is led around. We are far too apt to be seduced by vendors of bogus art, shallow political resentment, etc.

Interested in trying some good reading from the great tradition? Here's a convenient traditional list of works of British and American literature:

[wcdrutgers.net]

Here is a little essay that's been an almost lifelong inspiration to me. Now the context is Christian theology, but the principle Lewis describes fits works other than theology. It's a bid to open your mind, or keep it open, by reading works that do not come out of the assumptions of your own time:

[reasonabletheology.org]

So, to apply it to the novel, this means you don't just read whatever's current, you deliberately read older novels too. Of novels originally written in English, that might mean trying Defoe or Jane Austen or Sir Walter Scott, or various older authors whom Lovecraft mentioned in "Supernatural Horror in Literature," or whom M. R. James mentioned here and there such as Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. I'd recommend, for example, that everyone here who has never read Coleridge's (admitted unfinished) "Christabel," or indeed Rime of the Ancient Mariner, should do so, not so much because it would be Good For You (though it would be), but because it's so good; and it's got more going for it than works by our contemporaries usually do.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 23 Jun 21 | 11:43AM by Dale Nelson.

----I live near a bar which sometimes has fights in the streets. And it always amazes me that even when there are women getting punched in the faces by a man ,bystanders laugh and record the fight on their cell phones. I can understand not wanting to try to break up a brawl. But to record it while laughing? As if someone else's pain is a joke?----

The passage above is pasted from a comment by a resident of Baltimore, posted at a blog I often visit (Rod Dreher's). The behavior described there reminds me of the European folk whom the surviving Atlantean sees when he arrives on the shore.

So that's the imagery that delights savages (of whatever ethnicity).

I recommend that one take time daily to contemplate other imagery. For example, contemplate the paintings of artists as different as Botticelli and John Constable.

A rule I have set myself is to make sure I often walk under branches. I realize that this is not a safe possibility for some people....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 23 Jun 21 | 01:25PM by Dale Nelson.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Knygatin Wrote:
>
> > we now, in a yet further stage from when Lewis
> > wrote the poem, stand on the brink of disaster for
> > Western and European civilization, risking being
> > completely eradicated by insidious intentions
> > gradually devouring us. It is time to rise!
>
>
> I agree with you if "rise" means "rise from our
> supine position and fortify ourselves as citizens
> of this civilization that we claim to honor and
> cherish." That means, primarily, an
> inner-directed effort, it seems to me. ...


Well yes, to start with oneself, to purify, refine, ... otherwise there will not be much of value to defend, and build upon. And that is especially important with those role models standing in leading positions. And it must eventually spread wider to include the daily behavior of the masses, for us to have a healthy society.

However, the rise must at the same time be an interplay of several mental levels simultaneously. We can't realistically expect all of the masses to sit down and read fine literature; it is not going to happen.

When I said rise, I meant, most acutely, that the people must wake up, rise, and bring down the international banking elite, who own and control our economy, the money flow, and consequently corrupt state politics, own the major news- and entertainment-media, and are the perpetrators of all the consumption garbage we are stuffed with.

Anyway, that is what I hope will come. There is too much bad going on, to passively allow it to continue.

But Sawfish has taught me not to go fighting windmills, so I'll try to just leave it at that, and go on with my own life.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 23 Jun 21 | 02:19PM by Knygatin.

Here is "De Descriptione Temporum," C. S. Lewis's inaugural address upon assuming the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature that was created for him at Cambridge University around 1954.

[files.romanroadsstatic.com]

It's a sort of combination of lecture and after-dinner speech, an intellectual entertainment that makes a striking point relevant to the discussion about the Great West and its apparently accelerating decline in our own time -- it having begun some decades ago, perhaps even as early as the early 19th century.

It is not, or not primarily, a religious point. I think Lewis would put, on one side together, people of various beliefs who think, imagine, and act in accordance with a real Western heritage, and, on the other, technocrats, what we would now call Woke clergypersons, and so on. Well, see what you think. This should interest you if you were intrigued by the sentiment suggested by the "Last of the Wine" poem.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> the Great West and its apparently
> accelerating decline in our own time -- it having
> begun some decades ago, perhaps even as early as
> the early 19th century.
>
>

The Freemasons (i.e. bankers, oligarchs, and other financially successful, having primarily private international business interests rather than loyalty to their own country and people) infiltrated European and US governments as early as the early 19th century, to get control over its proceedings and ensure their own interests, meanwhile letting a "democratic charade" continue to fool the masses into thinking that they participate and that their votes make a difference.

Dale, the link to Lewis' speech was excellent. Thanks for the pointer to it.

--Sawfish

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~