The remarks below began with thoughts about Tolkien rather than CAS, HPL, REH, and so on, so if these comments are not appropriate for this forum, they may be ignored, or removed by the list owner.


What I’m about to say is a discussion thread comment, but could be expanded into an essay or a book.

My argument will be largely sociological, and that bears out one of my chief claims: that “all of us” in the English-speaking world and in Europe today think and imagine “sociologically.” In some sense we’re all Marxists now. But sociological thinking and imagining are intrinsically and necessarily hostile to the kind of poetic consciousness in which great fantasy can be composed.

Tolkien’s fantasy was a culmination and late flowering of a widespread poetic consciousness nourished by contact with countryside, by language strongly influenced by the “unacknowledged legislators” (poets, storytellers whose media could be the spoken word or the written and printed word), by the learned life, and by myth.

As regards myth: when Tolkien grew up and began to write his great stories, even while unbelief was increasingly common among the urban uneducated and among the intelligentsia, many people still were invested in myth, namely Christian mythology of humanity’s origin and predicament, the activity of the divine being in history, and the possible destinies of each one of us.* The culture then admitted the existence of souls. People went to church and myth was interwoven with birth, the education of the young, sexual conduct and marriage, law courts, the making of war, outreach to the disadvantaged, sickness, and death. People thus felt the presence and pressure of unseen reality in their consciences, and in their reading and music-making and music-listening. Society was permeated by poetic consciousness as Tolkien grew up. Even though secularization was increasingly ascendant, the imaginations of many ordinary people were permeated by a sense (which you may regard as illusory, but they did not) of genuine meaning, significant agency, etc. This was reflected in things as quotidian as the way people dressed, the sense that one shouldn’t use the name of Jesus loosely, etc. (i.e. language was connected with the mythic), etc.

Who is a popular poet today? Who is the poet laureate right now? I'll bet you, like me, don't know. But in Tolkien’s day many quite ordinary people turned to poetry, whether folk verses or the poems of Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Tennyson and de la Mare, as well as poets now forgotten. Whether or not it was often taken from the shelf, there might well be a family Shakespeare or a broken set of Scott or Robert Louis Stevenson in the bookcase. Likely enough these books – along with the family Bible – were lavishly illustrated, and children might peruse them again and again (where now the essence of imagery seen by children is that it is in constant motion). These pictures too encouraged a poetic sense of life. Poor people might have no books, of course, but if the children went to school they would at least be encouraged to memorize poems (“The boy stood on the burning deck” or whatever) and would be taught stories from the Bible as being history, part of the story of the human race to which they belonged. They would also be taught, however unkindly, some sort of respect for language in the form of prescriptive grammar, etc. Music was likely to be melodic; a piano was a desired mark of middle-class life with one or more children getting lessons to play it, perhaps emphasizing what might be deplored as sentimental tunes but were things people liked to sing about love, loyalty, and loss (Tolkienian themes!). (Popular music today tends to be rhythmic and occupied with themes of resentment, defiance, or physical gratification.)

There was a continuity between this household and schoolroom poetic culture and the world of the universities as Tolkien knew them. The universities were largely dedicated to humane learning -- we can hardly imagine the way it was. With his passion for language, Tolkien was no weirdo in the university, which spread a feast before him in classroom and library. Tolkien’s professors were pretty much on the same page with him as regards the learned study of languages. In our time, however, we have lately seen the casting out of Beowulf and Old English/Anglo-Saxon, and now e.g. the University of Leicester prepares to drop Chaucer and the remaining survivals of medieval literature. What will be provided in their place? Sociology! Sociology applied to literature in the forms of feminism, decolonialism, and so on. That’s basically what “theory” is: sociology.

Politics, popular entertainment, ordinary etiquette, the education and amusement of children – all encourage us always to think sociologically. In the States, the teachers’ unions are now pledged to sociology in the form of inculcation of “antiracism,” etc. It is with this that the minds of the young are to be occupied. Whatever good may come of this, I don’t suppose it will be of much use to the young potential fantasist. If there were a young Tolkien, he or she would never flourish in the classroom of the teacher who knows very little poetic literature and instead thinks his or her job is exposing the crimes of the past and present, and the promotion of perpetual struggle on behalf of undefined social “progress.”

However, uncongenial as all this is for fantasy, science fiction often thrives in a sociological context (The Time Machine, Brave New World, 1984, etc. all are marked by sociological-type thinking). We may see some great works of sf yet -- although I think there may be an imaginative crisis approaching for the genre, as it becomes too obvious that its tropes include evident impossibilities; it will be too discouraging to keep writing stories of interstellar travel when, at last, hardly anybody believes any more that faster than light travel could become reality. That’s another matter. But as for great fantasy, I suppose its time is over. More and more people will find that Tolkien’s books don’t speak to them, that the books exude an air they can’t breathe; they put them aside and never manage to finish them or, if they do, don’t feel they get what all the fuss used to be about.

If any great fantasy is yet written, it may have to come from some culture other than the homogeneous one of America, Britain, and western (at least) Europe. I think there was a suggestion of this in the book Laurus by the Russian medievalist Vodolazkin, but it is not a huge story of a secondary world.

I close with a couplet adapted from Swinburne:

Thou hast conquered, O shaggy Victorian**; the world has grown grey from thy breath;
We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death.


*As C. S. Lewis expressed it, in Christ “myth became fact” of history. This is my own belief and certainly was Tolkien’s, as his famous conversation with Lewis bears out. For the purpose of this comment, however, all that the reader needs to grant is that the prevalent Christian "mythology" fostered what I've called a poetic rather than sociological consciousness.

**I had Marx in mind. Vodolazkin grew up in an officially Marxist society, but he sought to distance his imagination and emotions from it. He calls this "internal emigration."


Note: Where do Lovecraft, Smith, Howard et al. fit in this discussion, if anywhere? It would seem that Lovecraft, especially, had affinities with the sociological imagination in the way he wrote, in letters and essays, about society, race, etc. Loosely speaking, I'd say that he valued a poetic consciousness that he saw as threatened by people of ethnicities and social classes different from his own, which might have some truth in it, but his own philosophy was uncongenial for the maintenance of poetic consciousness. His was a divided mind, which he seems to have recognized.

Dale Nelson



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 15 Jul 21 | 12:14PM by Dale Nelson.

This comes at me orthogonally, blindside.

I'll really have to think about this a good deal before attempting any coherent reply. It is a completely different theoretical model for cultural evolution than any I had yet considered.

But please, by all means, let's continue the discussion! I am gravitating more towards the social media use model of discussing a wide variety of topics with a pre-selected group of interlocutors who have proven themselves, over time, to possess personal qualities that I both like and respect.

This is opposed to the model in which one finds the nominally appropriate forum, then exchanges with the undifferentiated, unvetted riff-raff... ;^)

--Sawfish

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

Maybe I’m going off too much on a tangent here, but your mentioning a “broken set of Scott or Robert Louis Stevenson in the bookcase” really hit home with me. I grew up in a household with a piano (my father is a killer pianist) and an encyclopaedia and so always assumed that those were typical accoutrements of a middle-class household. I remember visiting a friend in the nineties, whose parents did not strike me as particularly avid readers, but who still had a complete set of Shakespeare on the shelf. It may never have been opened, but it signalled a kind of middle-class intellectual ambition as well as a sense of continuity with the past. This ambition seems to have disappeared completely. Talking about Treasure Island with a friend a few years ago, we were saddened to have to conclude that today’s ten-year-olds would be bored out of their tiny skulls by it.

Since 2014, I’ve tried to make a habit of reading The Best American Poetry every year, and even though the introductions are sometimes plagued by post-modernist nonsense (what age was ever so arrogant as to consider itself ‘post’ anything? -- never mind that we are still in a Romantic/Enlightenment society!), there is still much poetry of real quality to be found there.

This, for example, is a masterpiece:

[www.trystero.demon.nl]

Yet this is what the current US president finds it worthwhile to have recited at his inauguration:

[indianexpress.com]

As Samuel Beckett so memorably put it: “drivel drivel drivel”.

I was reading a fascinatingly empty article on Forbes.com earlier today, in which sexually desirable looking young people engaged in advertising were unironically referred to as “content creators”, as well as that buzzword du jour: “influencers”.

[www.forbes.com]

This made me appreciate your point about kids returning to still pictures “again and again” even more. To quote Ezra Pound’s famous Usura canto:

Quote:

no picture is made to endure nor to live with
but it is made to sell and sell quickly

[www.poetryfoundation.org]

That’s internet culture predicted in 1935!

One last point (because I’m really rambling here after three whiskies). I am pretty sure that if you would compel a child, say from the age of ten, to memorise one poem every month, two things would happen:

1. the child would hate you for it and be totally bored;
2. twenty years down the line, the adult would thank you from the bottom of their heart.

I don’t really have anything to say about Tolkien -- apologies.

Oh, just one more thing: as the Dutch author W.F. Hermans pointed out, sociology is obviously not a science. If it were, we’d have a better society.

There's an interesting 1940 remark by George Orwell, who thought sociologically:

----I thought of a rather cruel trick I once played on a wasp. He was sucking jam on my plate, and I cut him in half. He paid no attention, merely went on with his meal, while a tiny stream of jam trickled out of his severed œsophagus. Only when he tried to fly away did he grasp the dreadful thing that had happened to him. It is the same with modern man. The thing that has been cut away is his soul [cf. "poetic consciousness"], and there was a period — twenty years, perhaps — during which he did not notice it.

It was absolutely necessary that the soul should be cut away. Religious belief, in the form in which we had known it, had to be abandoned. By the nineteenth century it was already in essence a lie, a semi-conscious device for keeping the rich rich and the poor poor. The poor were to be contented with their poverty, because it would all be made up to them in the world beyond the grave, usually pictured as something mid-way between Kew gardens and a jeweller's shop. Ten thousand a year for me, two pounds a week for you, but we are all the children of God. And through the whole fabric of capitalist society there ran a similar lie, which it was absolutely necessary to rip out.

Consequently there was a long period during which nearly every thinking man was in some sense a rebel, and usually a quite irresponsible rebel. Literature was largely the literature of revolt or of disintegration. Gibbon, Voltaire, Rousseau, Shelley, Byron, Dickens, Stendhal, Samuel Butler, Ibsen, Zola, Flaubert, Shaw, Joyce — in one way or another they are all of them destroyers, wreckers, saboteurs. For two hundred years we had sawed and sawed and sawed at the branch we were sitting on. And in the end, much more suddenly than anyone had foreseen, our efforts were rewarded, and down we came.----

You can read the whole interesting piece here:

[orwell.ru]

For my purposes in this discussion so far, the point is that Orwell gets it: that there is a real difference between what I'm calling poetic consciousness and sociological consciousness; he sees that; he is sociological in his imagination, but he sees that there has been a great loss for humanity in the demise of poetic consciousness.

Note -- I write of "the soul" -- it is something for which "sociology" has no room. Yet, I contend, the great fantasy comes out of poetic consciousness, which needs "the soul." Here I'm not necessarily referring to the soul as understood by, and expounded in the doctrine of, a particular religion. It refers to the human awareness of some inner depth of being that "sociology" must regard as unreal. For my purposes it is probably not necessary to assume "immortality" as an attribute of the soul. The soul is something that by its nature eludes, transcends, sociological reduction.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 15 Jul 21 | 02:53PM by Dale Nelson.

Avoosl Wuthoqquan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Maybe I’m going off too much on a tangent here,
> but your mentioning a “broken set of Scott or
> Robert Louis Stevenson in the bookcase” really
> hit home with me. I grew up in a household with a
> piano (my father is a killer pianist) and an
> encyclopaedia and so always assumed that those
> were typical accoutrements of a middle-class
> household. I remember visiting a friend in the
> nineties, whose parents did not strike me as
> particularly avid readers, but who still had a
> complete set of Shakespeare on the shelf. It may
> never have been opened, but it signalled a kind of
> middle-class intellectual ambition as well as a
> sense of continuity with the past. This ambition
> seems to have disappeared completely. Talking
> about Treasure Island with a friend a few years
> ago, we were saddened to have to conclude that
> today’s ten-year-olds would be bored out of
> their tiny skulls by it.

Arthur Machen's autobiography, Far-Off Things, will sensitize us to the meaning of "poetic consciousness." He was a man living in relatively modern times who had little interest in "sociology." But anyway, in that book he wrote (I hope you will enjoy this long extract):


It comes to my mind that I must by no means forget Sir Walter Scott and all that he did for me. And to get at him it is necessary that we enter the drawing-room at Llanddewi. I was amused the other day to see in an old curiosity shop near Lincoln's Inn Fields amongst the rarities displayed small china jars or pots with a picture of two salmon against a background of leafage on the lid. I remember eating potted salmon out of just such jars as these, and now even in my lifetime they appear to have become curious. So, perhaps, if I describe a room which was furnished in 1864 that also may be found to be curious. I may note, by the way, that we always applied the word "parlour"—which properly means drawing-room, and is still, I think, used in that sense in the United States of America—to the dining-room, which was also our living room for general, everyday use. So Sir Walter Scott speaks of a "dining-parlour," and Mr. Pecksniff, entering Todgers's, of the "eating-parlour." And now the word only occurs in public-houses, in the phrase "parlour prices," and even that use is becoming obsolete.

But as for the Llanddewi drawing-room: the walls were covered with a white paper, on which was repeated at regular intervals a diamond-shaped design in pale, yellowish buff. The carpet was also white; on it, also at regular intervals, were bunches of very red roses and very green leaves. In the exact centre of the room was a round rosewood table standing on one leg, and consequently shaky. This was covered with a vivid green cloth, trimmed with a bright yellow border. In the centre of the cloth was a round mat, apparently made of scarlet and white tags or lengths of wool; this supported the lamp of state. It was of white china and of alabastrous appearance, and it burned colza oil. One had to wind it up at intervals as if it had been a clock. In the sitting-room, before the coming of paraffin, we usually burned "composite" candles; two when we were by ourselves, four when there was company.

Over the drawing-room mantelpiece stood a large, high mirror in a florid gilt frame. Before it were two vases of cut-glass, with alternate facets of dull white and opaque green, of a green so evil and so bilious and so hideous that I marvel how the human mind can have conceived it. And yet my heart aches, too, when, as rarely happens, I see in rubbish shops in London back streets vases of like design and colour. Somewhere in the room was a smaller vase of Bohemian glass; its designs in "ground" glass against translucent ruby. This vase, I think, must have stood on the whatnot, a triangular pyramidal piece of furniture that occupied one corner and consisted of shelves getting smaller and smaller as they got higher.

Against one wall stood a cabinet, of inlaid wood, velvet lined, with glass doors. On the shelves were kept certain pieces of Nantgarw china, some old wine-glasses with high stems, and a collection of silver shoe-buckles and knee-buckles, and two stoneware jugs. The pictures—white mounts and gilt frames—were water-colours and chromo-lithographs. Against one of the window-panes hung a painting on glass, depicting a bouquet of flowers in an alabaster jar. There was a plaster cast in a round black frame, which I connect in my mind with the Crystal Palace and the Prince Consort, and an "Art Union," whatever that may be: it displayed a very fat little girl curled up apparently amidst wheat sheaves. A long stool in bead-work stood on the hearthrug before the fire; and a fire-screen, also in bead work, shaped like a banner, was suspended on a brass stand. On a bracket in one corner was the marble bust of Lesbia and her Sparrow; beneath it in a hanging bookcase the Waverley Novels, a brown row of golden books.

I can see myself now curled up in all odd corners of the rectory reading "Waverley," "Ivanhoe," "Rob Roy," "Guy Mannering," "Old Mortality," and the rest of them, curled up and entranced so that I was deaf and gave no answer when they called to me, and had to be roused to life—which meant tea—with a loud and repeated summons. But what can they say who have been in fairyland? Notoriously, it is impossible to give any true report of its ineffable marvels and delights. Happiness, said De Quincey, on his discovery of the paradise that he thought he had found in opium, could be sent down by the mail-coach; more truly I could announce my discovery that delight could be contained in small octavos and small type, in a bookshelf three feet long. I took Sir Walter to my heart with great joy, and roamed, enraptured, through his library of adventures and marvels as I roamed through the lanes and hollows, continually confronted by new enchantments and fresh pleasures. Perhaps I remember most acutely my first reading of "The Heart of Midlothian," and this for a good but external reason. I was suffering from the toothache of my life while I was reading it; from a toothache that lasted for a week and left me in a sort of low fever—as we called it then. And I remember very well as I sat, wretched and yet rapturous, by the fire, with a warm shawl about my face, my father saying with a grim chuckle that I would never forget my first reading of "The Heart of Midlothian." I never have forgotten it, and I have never forgotten that Sir Walter Scott's tales, with every deduction for their numerous and sometimes glaring faults, have the root of the matter in them. They are vital literature, they are of the heart of true romance. What is vital literature, what is true romance? Those are difficult questions which I once tried to answer, according to my lights, in a book called "Hieroglyphics"; here I will merely say that vital literature is something as remote as you can possibly imagine from the short stories of the late Guy de Maupassant.-----

I haven't read much of Maupassant. In ED circles he will be best known for his "Horla," but I suppose that, as a rule, when people refer to him, they have in mind his stories, such as "Ball of Fat," about the lives of people belonging to various... sociological... categories. Encyclopedia.com says:

-------Maupassant brings together on a winter morning in Rouen ten travelers who represent easily distinguishable types in French society. There are the count and countess, the cotton magnate Carré-Lamadon and his wife, the wine merchant Loiseau and his wife. Here we have "the strong, established society of good people with religion and principle." They, of course, are the chief targets of the young Maupassant's satire. On the journey to Dieppe he shows that what these pillars of society have most in common is their hypocrisy..-----



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 15 Jul 21 | 02:49PM by Dale Nelson.

Avoosl Wuthoqquan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Maybe I’m going off too much on a tangent here,
> but your mentioning a “broken set of Scott or
> Robert Louis Stevenson in the bookcase” really
> hit home with me. I grew up in a household with a
> piano (my father is a killer pianist) and an
> encyclopaedia and so always assumed that those
> were typical accoutrements of a middle-class
> household. I remember visiting a friend in the
> nineties, whose parents did not strike me as
> particularly avid readers, but who still had a
> complete set of Shakespeare on the shelf. It may
> never have been opened, but it signalled a kind of
> middle-class intellectual ambition as well as a
> sense of continuity with the past.

In my opinion, this is key, Avoosl.

Formerly, whether a middle-class, middle-brow adult actually aspired to reading and enjoying Shakespeare (two distinct aspirations), it was a common assumption that one is bettered by at least having the works on hand, to sort of ground the household in a shared cultured, so to speak.

My parents, who, although born here in the US, spoke a first language was not English, had an encyclopedia set, a general reference set, and a small literature collection.

To the best of my knowledge, I was the only person in the family to even crack these volumes.

> This ambition
> seems to have disappeared completely. Talking
> about Treasure Island with a friend a few years
> ago, we were saddened to have to conclude that
> today’s ten-year-olds would be bored out of
> their tiny skulls by it.

It was a sad day for western culture to have ever allowed the kids to think that the world's job was to entertain them.

>
> Since 2014, I’ve tried to make a habit of
> reading The Best American Poetry every year, and
> even though the introductions are sometimes
> plagued by post-modernist nonsense (what age was
> ever so arrogant as to consider itself ‘post’
> anything? -- never mind that we are still in a
> Romantic/Enlightenment society!), there is still
> much poetry of real quality to be found there.
>
> This, for example, is a masterpiece:
>
> [www.trystero.demon.nl]
> .html
>
> Yet this is what the current US president finds it
> worthwhile to have recited at his inauguration:
>
> [indianexpress.com]
> ture/amanda-gorman-full-poem-7155406/
>
> As Samuel Beckett so memorably put it: “drivel
> drivel drivel”.
>
> I was reading a fascinatingly empty article on
> Forbes.com earlier today, in which sexually
> desirable looking young people engaged in
> advertising were unironically referred to as
> “content creators”, as well as that buzzword
> du jour: “influencers”.

A sickeningly self-aggrandizing, sycophantic term that would be laughable in a rational and discerning society, but is instead shocking because it is apparently taken seriously by multitudes.

That's really representative of the most profound change in common, popular culture (the only kind I am familiar with): today people routinely express thoughts/desires/opinions that are so patently solipsistic and narcissistic as to have been terminally embarrassing to utter aloud 30-40 years ago. Maybe even less.

One would have died of shame...

>
> [www.forbes.com]
> /tiktoks-highest-earning-stars-teen-queens-addison
> -rae-and-charli-damelio-rule/
>
> This made me appreciate your point about kids
> returning to still pictures “again and again”
> even more. To quote Ezra Pound’s famous Usura
> canto:
>
>
> no picture is made to endure nor to live with
> but it is made to sell and sell quickly
>
>
> [www.poetryfoundation.org]
> -xlv
>
> That’s internet culture predicted in 1935!
>
> One last point (because I’m really rambling here
> after three whiskies). I am pretty sure that if
> you would compel a child, say from the age of ten,
> to memorise one poem every month, two things would
> happen:
>
> 1. the child would hate you for it and be totally
> bored;
> 2. twenty years down the line, the adult would
> thank you from the bottom of their heart.
>
> I don’t really have anything to say about
> Tolkien -- apologies.

--Sawfish

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

Part of the problem is that money and material comfort are understandable (and desirable) to everyone.

The open contempt on display (largely by STEM discipline people) for art historians, literary scholars, musicians and other ‘softies’ (i.e. those who feed our souls), both in the Netherlands and the US, is disturbing.

A bridge is useful to everyone who wants to cross a river. The exact usefulness of an opera or painting is more difficult to explain. Impossible, in fact.

As the divine Oscar put it: “A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.” Cynics rule the world.

Quote:

Orwell
The poor were to be contented with their poverty, because it would all be made up to them in the world beyond the grave, usually pictured as something mid-way between Kew gardens and a jeweller's shop.

Wow, he was a terrific writer, wasn’t he?

Still…

Quote:

Orwell
Literature was largely the literature of revolt or of disintegration. Gibbon, Voltaire, Rousseau, Shelley, Byron, Dickens, Stendhal, Samuel Butler, Ibsen, Zola, Flaubert, Shaw, Joyce — in one way or another they are all of them destroyers, wreckers, saboteurs.

I must admit (if that’s the right word) that I’m fine with that. In my view, there should absolutely be room for art to question everything: “Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!” The artist only questions; it is the shareholder who decides.

And also: why would you ever group Gibbon, Dickens, Flaubert and Joyce together? Put them in the same room and it would be fisticuffs! (Although Flaubert would probably withdraw into another room and have a fine aged port and a cigar.)

Thank you for your thoughtful responses, Mr Nelson. Even though our ways of looking at things differ somewhat, I think we probably agree for something like 95%. And it’s the remaining 5% that’s really worth talking about among what used to be called “civilised” people.

Re the Machen quote: wow, so much beauty. “Potted salmon”[1], “alabastrous”, “bilious”, “whatnot”…

Quote:

Machen
But what can they say who have been in fairyland? Notoriously, it is impossible to give any true report of its ineffable marvels and delights.

I feel this with all my heart. I can only pity (with all the condescension that implies) those people to whom reading is “sitting in a chair, looking at a pile of paper”.

I am very much of two minds about Norman Rockwell, but this is one thing he got right:

[www.si.edu]

[1] Joyce:
“What is home without Plumtree’s Potted Meat?
Incomplete.
With it an abode of bliss.”

Dale, I am not sure I can agree that in essence, "sociological consciousness" requires the loss of what you have termed "the soul".

I'm not sure that it was ever an either/or--a war between sociological consciousness and poetic consciousness, but rather: which came to be popularly valued more? And *why*?

I'd contend that maybe what has evolved is that the individual's sublimation to the group's traditional values has gradually eroded as day-to-day survival has become routine and easy, seemingly requiring no tightly bound cooperation. In the resultant moral void, individual ideas of what is allowable have run amok. There is no longer an accountability to the group's ideals--often expressed as established traditions--and so individualism has taken precedence over conformity, and since we live in an age that cannot accept or recognize nuance, there has been not a gradual compromised replacement of group values with individual values, but a precipitous and militant one. It is more like a blood purge than an evolutionary replacement.

Nor am I sure that what we may be seeing as the sensibilities of "sociological consciousness" are anything more than an attempt at filling the void left when the traditions of western culture were attacked and dismantled as anti-individualistic in nature. Humanity, having destroyed the underpinnings of a sort of group unity, finds that it is not yet evolved to living without human associations--that it is indeed still a shambling band of flatulent knuckle-draggers--and is busy creating a new "norm" around which to coalesce.

--Sawfish

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

"Sociological consciousness" works in terms of the quantifiable, the "predictable," social "structures" and inevitable group "struggles" as being the determinants of life, ideology, etc. In Dostoevsky's Demons, the older, liberal generation and the younger, nihilist-radical generation, both conform to sociological consciousness, which is apt to be scientistic, not scientific.

I think there is a war against the sociological mentality with the poetic, often in the name of "justice" for some category. We've seen that lately in the removal of monuments. The sociological mind assumes, perhaps must assume, that the statues of earlier American statesmen, educators, men of arms, etc. are there for the sake of one group exerting power over another. You hardly see the case made that the monuments are physical manifestations of poetic consciousness, of people feeling a connection with the past, with people who exhibited loyalty, steady intellectual effort, self-sacrifice, etc. Poetic consciousness is apt to feel the stirring within of kindred states of the soul by the contemplation of these monuments. Sociological consciousness may not be aware of this dimension or may disregard it or "debunk" it. The mainstream culture of the intelligentsia is thoroughly sociological, impatient with, dismissive of, these vestiges of poetic consciousness. The monuments it would put in their place are often little more, it seems, than opportunistic images intended to keep grief and resentment alive. Compare and contrast an equestrian statue of a Confederate general with a George Floyd mural.

Well, I'm saying that it was the former, poetic consciousness that was prevalent in, for example, public art, in Tolkien's formative years, and that this lent itself to the telling of a long, "epic" story. The sociological consciousness exhibited in Orwell's remarks quoted above could indwell a strong imagination and you get 1984. Which it may be remembered is a story of the defeat of the human....

Incidentally (new point), I would regret it if anyone had the view, widely assumed, that "poetic consciousness" must be mendacious, unreal, airy-fairy, flowery, etc. It is, rather, in its essence, I would say, related to truth, and thus to truths of which some are not welcome to the superficial, the proud, etc. (i.e. all of us). "Poetic consciousness" relates to the fully human as the sociological does not.

This was dramatized some years ago in which two college teachers had a tense conversation. The one had a list of recognized classics of literature which was distributed to students as a guide for lifelong reading -- Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Dickens, &c. And the other teacher -- an English teacher, but speaking from sociological consciousness, surely -- spoke reproachfully of the list as exhibiting "white male patriarchy."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 15 Jul 21 | 05:12PM by Dale Nelson.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "Sociological consciousness" works in terms of the
> quantifiable, the "predictable," social
> "structures" and inevitable group "struggles" as
> being the determinants of life, ideology, etc. In
> Dostoevsky's Demons, the older, liberal generation
> and the younger, nihilist-radical generation, both
> conform to sociological consciousness, which is
> apt to be scientistic, not scientific.
>
> I think there is a war against the sociological
> mentality with the poetic, often in the name of
> "justice" for some category. We've seen that
> lately in the removal of monuments. The
> sociological mind assumes, perhaps must assume,
> that the statues of earlier American statesmen,
> educators, men of arms, etc. are there for the
> sake of one group exerting power over another.
> You hardly see the case made that the monuments
> are physical manifestations of poetic
> consciousness, of people feeling a connection with
> the past, with people who exhibited loyalty,
> steady intellectual effort, self-sacrifice, etc.
> Poetic consciousness is apt to feel the stirring
> within of kindred states of the soul by the
> contemplation of these monuments. Sociological
> consciousness may not be aware of this dimension
> or may disregard it or "debunk" it. The
> mainstream culture of the intelligentsia is
> thoroughly sociological, impatient with,
> dismissive of, these vestiges of poetic
> consciousness.

But just as previous generations contemplated the statute and felt kindred states of the soul, one could argue that those sociologically conscious groups who assembled to pull down the statue, at that moment, and for as long as they remember it, shared their own kindred state. Just like the admirers of the statue

An ironic observation of an event right here in PDX was that last fall a statue of a city father who was perceived as being no more culpable than simply "a noted conservative" was pulled down at night in Mt Tabor Park. The city hauled it away for "repairs" attempting to dodge the issue.

But one night about 3 or 4 months ago, and a new monument was put in its place: a bust of York, a black slave who was on the Lewis & Clark expedition, and who, according to current popular thought, was pivotal to its success.

It was placed anonymously, and no one has taken public credit for it. It is well executed as a piece of art, but badly misplaced in its symbolism and in its manner of installation.

What's going on is closer to the replacement of one decaying religious structure--complete with orthodox dogma, and a new evolving religious structure.

> The monuments it would put in
> their place are often little more, it seems, than
> opportunistic images intended to keep grief and
> resentment alive. Compare and contrast an
> equestrian statue of a Confederate general with a
> George Floyd mural.

Yes. But maybe the same could be said of the post Reconstruction South, except that the statues were well executed and probably installed after some level of civic discussion.

Not so, York...

The statues serve as a focus of popular sentiment.

>
> Well, I'm saying that it was the former, poetic
> consciousness that was prevalent in, for example,
> public art, in Tolkien's formative years, and that
> this lent itself to the telling of a long, "epic"
> story. The sociological consciousness exhibited
> in Orwell's remarks quoted above could indwell a
> strong imagination and you get 1984. Which it may
> be remembered is a story of the defeat of the
> human....,

Here's series of metaphysical questions:

How does the imagination relate to your idea of the soul?

Is it possible to have a soul without imagination? Is the reverse also true?




>
> Incidentally (new point), I would regret it if
> anyone had the view, widely assumed, that "poetic
> consciousness" must be mendacious, unreal,
> airy-fairy, flowery, etc. It is, rather, in its
> essence, I would say, related to truth, and thus
> to truths of which some are not welcome to the
> superficial, the proud, etc. (i.e. all of us).
> "Poetic consciousness" relates to the fully human
> as the sociological does not.

Does what you suggest imply that poetic consciousness is all-inclusive of all human traits and sensibilities, while sociological consciousness selectively suppresses part of it?

Do you see where we are getting close to Nietzche?

>
> This was dramatized some years ago in which two
> college teachers had a tense conversation. The
> one had a list of recognized classics of
> literature which was distributed to students as a
> guide for lifelong reading -- Shakespeare, Jane
> Austen, Dickens, &c. And the other teacher -- an
> English teacher, but speaking from sociological
> consciousness, surely -- spoke reproachfully of
> the list as exhibiting "white male patriarchy."

Simply substituting one supposed orthodoxy with another, actual, one.

--Sawfish

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

Sawfish Wrote:


> How does the imagination relate to your idea of
> the soul?


I might say that reason and imagination are aspects of the soul or of the soul's activity. They are not separate compartments but may be considered to be organs of the soul. If so, reason would be the organ of truth, and imagination the organ of meaning, as C. S. Lewis put it somewhere. It seems to me that Lovecraft understood them to be separate; reason went on grinding meaningless facts and imagination went on painting unreal pictures. In a healthy human soul these faculties of the soul work together, so that I perceive, relatively accurately though partially, a meaningful world (including myself and yourself). There is a "perichoresis" there, an interpenetration, I suppose -- the Greek word being one you might remember from Machen's story "N."

Poetic consciousness can serve, or reflect, this state of things. (I realize I am imprecise here. I don't usually think in such abstract terms.) Poetic consciousness allows an outward expansion of the soul. Sociological consciousness doesn't provide sufficient scope for the healthy operation of these two organs of the soul. Imagination needs to be cultivated in appropriate and wholesome ways, so that the person tends to love what should be loved but to reject what should be rejected. Sound education initiates children into the right way, and imagination can be nurtured thereby.

I pity the children who are being taught by woke teachers and turned into pathetic little sociologists. I hope millions of parents will refuse to submit their children to this and educate them themselves or arrange some other good alternative.

As a side-note I wonder if the The Eldritch Dark is the only website, devoted to fantastic and supernatural literature, not dominated by users who are modernist leftwing progressive liberals*? Is it then a coincidence? Does it have anything to do with Clark Ashton Smith's outlook? He was not a Marxist at least, we know that much from his letters. And he had a poetic consciousness of the highest order, not a pathological sociological consciousness. He was social when it came to caring for this parents, and communicating with friends, which is well, in accordance to Nature. But he was also a very strong independent individualist (or should we say, rather, a poetic yet vulnerable rebel), and, I imagine, socially not very concerned about the collective good of his country or people. But more so about society from a poetic perspective. Surely he was more individualistically liberal in his outlook than Lovecraft, but this was modulated by his high intelligence and sensibility of judgment.

* Other fantastic literature websites I have visited seem predominately frequented by a politically correct leftwing clientele (that embrace the current destruction of Western Civilization, or, otherwise, are too politically inhibited, intellectually impaired and debilitated by Cultural Marxism, to dare oppose it in any way): SFFCHRONICLES, Jack Vance Message Board, Ligotti.net, Vault Of Evil. Please, do correct me if I may have misinterpreted this. At some of these sites, my expressed ideals, of each country/nation having the right to a stable and homogenous culture freed from the international banking slavery, have been immediately and collectively rabidly attacked by the community in a state of hysterical confusion.

Sawfish Wrote:
----------------------------------------------------
> Dale, I am not sure I can agree that in essence,
> "sociological consciousness" requires the loss of
> what you have termed "the soul".
>
> I'm not sure that it was ever an either/or--a war
> between sociological consciousness and poetic
> consciousness, but rather: which came to be
> popularly valued more? And *why*?

My dear friend, the late Mr A. Schopenhauer of Frankfurt am Main (Germany), had this to say on that:

Quote:

The technical work of our time, which is done to an unprecedented
perfection, has, by increasing and multiplying objects of luxury,
given the favorites of fortune a choice between more leisure and
culture upon the one side, and additional luxury and good living,
but with increased activity, upon the other; and, true to their
character, they choose the latter, and prefer champagne to freedom.

It doesn’t really answer your questions, but it does illustrate that this is not a new phenomenon. And as a materialist/epicurean/Taoist and part-time Marxist myself, I can actually understand it (though I do not agree). The comfort of having a full belly and bragging rights because you have a $15,000 watch are easier to comprehend than that special feeling ‘The Double Shadow’ gives you…

Quote:

Avoosl:
The comfort of having a full belly and bragging rights because you have a $15,000 watch are easier to comprehend than that special feeling ‘The Double Shadow’ gives you…

That's not much of a watch, Avoosl. I have a better one...

;^)

--Sawfish

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

Dale, I'm sure glad that you raised this topic, and I hope not to be offensive in my comments/points. I'll preface this next post by saying that I really don't "know" anything with any degree of epistemological certainty, and as a general principal do not believe that such certainty is ever possible.

So I'm like the blind men and the element, but unlike any one of them, I'm trying to feel my way around the whole thing, as best I can, before claiming to know the whole.

...and I also know that I'm blind.

The reason I made a connection between imagination and soul was that I'm juggling the idea that those intangibles recognized in humanity (and recursively, by humanity) are in some profound fashion inter-related. I had almost added the existence of beauty and its perception/recognition by humans, as you had raised in an earlier thread, because this, too, seems to belong to that group of human intangibles.

For a long time, rightly or wrongly, I've increasingly worked from the premise that humanity as a species is simply a member of the animal kingdom, but endowed with a brain adapted for problem solving in a varied environment, and since we're not particularly well-endowed physically, like my cats, we have a lot more problems to solve. More so, perhaps, than the similarly endowed cetaceans, who have evolved in a relatively stable physical environment that changes slowly and incrementally, for most part. Water has been that buffer which consistently bought them time to a degree unavailable on a landmass.

So we're attuned to problem solving, whereas they're attuned to navigation, for example.

So were are "top dog" so far as intellect goes, at least in problem-solving, and that means imagination.

Simply put, we have more ability to imagine (simulate situations, in essence) than any other known life-form, sooo...

Maybe imagination, to the advanced degree that humanity possesses it over and above other members of the animal kingdom, is what sets us apart, and is at the root of what it means to be human.

I'm suggesting that relationship between the soul and imagination is that we can imagine that we have a soul.

I would also say that in terms of intellect, including imagination, we are on a continuum with other advanced species, and that some of them may indeed possess the rudiments, but when taken as a group and measured as a group, fall significantly below any human population, although it is disquieting to note that I've been around some gifted dogs who seem to have as much imagination, and perhaps more, than some deficient humans.

--Sawfish

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

Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

Much snipped...

> At some of
> these sites, my expressed ideals, of each
> country/nation having the right to a stable and
> homogenous culture freed from the international
> banking slavery, have been immediately and
> collectively rabidly attacked by the community in
> a state of hysterical confusion.

...which is exactly why I'm here, and not elsewhere.

There's an excellent balance of openness and decorum here at ED. [Much self-congratulatory applause in background...]

And I'll have you know that I've been thrown out...yes! banned and/or deleted...from better joints that this! ;^)

As I no doubt boasted before, I was banned from Ta-Nahisi Coates' old Atlantic column back when the Atlantic still supported reader comments, had selected comments banned from my local newspaper's website, The Oregonian, until they, too, did away with comments, so that like the Atlantic, they could live in the illusion that all readers agreed with their gifted and wise pronouncements.

I was also tossed from multiple Discus forums for asking questions, like some kind of wise guy.

Yep, that's why I'm here. It doesn't seem like I'm asking for much: just an open exchange between individuals who well-read, grant an initial level of respect to interlocutors, and comport themselves with a bit of class and restraint.

--Sawfish

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

Well said, Sawfish.

Yes, I have also been shut off from newspapers and from Discus forums. But that was almost 20 years ago. None of the major newspapers have comments sections anymore, the whole Internet is getting more and more controlled and censured toward opinions that do not fit the (((Agenda))). Whatever happened to Free Speech?

And what's even more outrageous and upsetting is that the herd accepts the censure, in this case people supposedly interested in literature.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 16 Jul 21 | 10:46AM by Knygatin.

Knygatin & others, here's a quotation from Theodore Dalrymple for you.

“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”

Whether intended or not, the tendency of sociological consciousness is towards a demoralized, dispirited society, because demoralization and despondency are likely concomitants of 'sociology's" way of harping on numbers (often bogus numbers, by the way*). Numbers are necessary tools for many human activities, but arguments that invoke numbers are probably going to be "sociological" and, thus, to involve suppression of the human dimension.

*The absence of numbers or the use of numbers related to ill-defined or undefined claims is a feature of much sociological writing too. I saw this USA Today piece the other day. Note that this was not a hot-under-the-collar comment someone posted, butu editorial content in a national newspaper:

[www.usatoday.com]

"In the year since former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, law enforcement killed hundreds of people of color in the United States. While the guilty Chauvin verdict was a victory for the Floyd family, justice never came for other families of people killed by police."

"Hundreds," quotha! How many, since you, writer, presumably know?

The writer attempts to exploit the supposed objective, factual value of numbers... to get the rhetorical oomph due to such ... but doesn't state the number.

Nor does the writer explain the circumstances. Were the people who were killed doing things like, oh, say threatening people with lethal weapons?

The implied scenario, since Floyd is invoked, is that white police were killing non-whites. Was that the case?

Further: "countless stories of police brutality in Minnesota aren’t getting the same attention." "Countless," quotha! The writer deplores the fact that these other deaths aren't getting "the same attention" as Floyd's did. This statement makes sense only if the deaths were comparably to that inflicted by Officer Chauvin. Were they?

And so on.

The piece is a good example of the desperately dishonest rhetoric of sociological emitters -- some of them, be it noted, not being leftists as this writer evidently is.

Happily, one can turn off, turn away from such rubbish. The worthwhile books are there.

When I come to lie in my dying bed, I am not going to feel bitter regret that I didn't read more tweets, didn't watch more TV news, didn't attend more woke college courses, etc.

Poetic consciousness allows the portrayal of, alllows inquiry into, subtleties of human experience. Walter de la Mare and his work would be a good example.

a Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Knygatin & others, here's a quotation from
> Theodore Dalrymple for you.

A favorite!

He writes a column that I read every Friday.

>
> “Political correctness is communist propaganda
> writ small. In my study of communist societies, I
> came to the conclusion that the purpose of
> communist propaganda was not to persuade or
> convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and
> therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the
> better. When people are forced to remain silent
> when they are being told the most obvious lies, or
> even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies
> themselves, they lose once and for all their sense
> of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to
> co-operate with evil, and in some small way to
> become evil oneself. One's standing to resist
> anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A
> society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I
> think if you examine political correctness, it has
> the same effect and is intended to.”
>
> Whether intended or not, the tendency of
> sociological consciousness is towards a
> demoralized, dispirited society, because
> demoralization and despondency are likely
> concomitants of 'sociology's" way of harping on
> numbers (often bogus numbers, by the way*).
> Numbers are necessary tools for many human
> activities, but arguments that invoke numbers are
> probably going to be "sociological" and, thus, to
> involve suppression of the human dimension.
>
> *The absence of numbers or the use of numbers
> related to ill-defined or undefined claims is a
> feature of much sociological writing too. I saw
> this USA Today piece the other day. Note that
> this was not a hot-under-the-collar comment
> someone posted, butu editorial content in a
> national newspaper:
>
> [www.usatoday.com]
> er-george-floyds-death-other-minnesota-families-st
> ill-seek-justice/5241693001/
>
> "In the year since former Minneapolis police
> officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, law
> enforcement killed hundreds of people of color in
> the United States. While the guilty Chauvin
> verdict was a victory for the Floyd family,
> justice never came for other families of people
> killed by police."
>
> "Hundreds," quotha! How many, since you, writer,
> presumably know?
>
> The writer attempts to exploit the supposed
> objective, factual value of numbers... to get the
> rhetorical oomph due to such ... but doesn't state
> the number.
>
> Nor does the writer explain the circumstances.
> Were the people who were killed doing things like,
> oh, say threatening people with lethal weapons?
>
> The implied scenario, since Floyd is invoked, is
> that white police were killing non-whites. Was
> that the case?
>
> Further: "countless stories of police brutality in
> Minnesota aren’t getting the same attention."
> "Countless," quotha! The writer deplores the fact
> that these other deaths aren't getting "the same
> attention" as Floyd's did. This statement makes
> sense only if the deaths were comparably to that
> inflicted by Officer Chauvin. Were they?
>
> And so on.
>
> The piece is a good example of the desperately
> dishonest rhetoric of sociological emitters --
> some of them, be it noted, not being leftists as
> this writer evidently is.

I agree with all of this Dale, and for the first time in my life I am completely without any ideas on how to overtly combat something, even as a pathetic passive/aggressive wimp.

No kidding. Prior to Obama's second term (a man whom I had voted for in 2008 with the highest of hopes), I could always find a way to at least rhetorically oppose this sort of nonsense because up until then, most of the populace--including those with whom I differed--accepted as a basis for discussion the primacy of demonstrable fact and the consistency of application of moral judgement.

That all stopped over a period of about 2 years, and now we find interlocutors who don't care if they can't ***objectively*** prove a point, and someone else can, nor do they feel constrained to follow any consistent pattern in the way they ascribe culpability or even responsibility.

[ASIDE: This is what CRT refers to as the "importance of narrative". In short, believe my personal story and give it primacy over demonstrable fact. #metoo, anyone?]

Or anything else, for that matter, and that's because they want what they want, when they want it.

You see that what I've described is closest to a child in the throes of the infamous "terrible Twos". Anyone with any experience with such a child knows that nothing works except consistent adult restraint and supervision until they've outgrown that phase.

To steal from Jack Parr..."I kid you not."

This is not possible with 30 year olds who have the same moral compass as a two-year old. It would, however, be appropriate, and hopefully effective.

If this is indeed the reality, and if I have 5-10 years left, I'll hunker down, never give a rhetorical inch, and hopefully die with my integrity intact.

That's the best I can hope for, it looks like, and it's good enough for me.

>
> Happily, one can turn off, turn away from such
> rubbish. The worthwhile books are there.

I can always come here, too.

In many ways. it's like Jorkens' club... :^)

>
> When I come to lie in my dying bed, I am not going
> to feel bitter regret that I didn't read more
> tweets, didn't watch more TV news, didn't attend
> more woke college courses, etc.
>
> Poetic consciousness allows the portrayal of,
> alllows inquiry into, subtleties of human
> experience. Walter de la Mare and his work would
> be a good example.

Very well said, Dale.

Thanks.

--Sawfish

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



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 16 Jul 21 | 07:54PM by Sawfish.

I used to think of Dalrymple as a much-needed voice of sanity, and I bought and thought highly of his first three books, but once his publishers stopped editing his work he quickly turned into a befuddled old man ranting himself into irrelevance. Amazingly obtuse for a psychiatrist on occasion.

But this is getting a bit political, so let me bite my tongue here. ;)

I don't like S.T. Joshi either. So sue me! :P

Avoosl Wuthoqquan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I used to think of Dalrymple as a much-needed
> voice of sanity, and I bought and thought highly
> of his first three books, but once his publishers
> stopped editing his work he quickly turned into a
> befuddled old man ranting himself into
> irrelevance. Amazingly obtuse for a psychiatrist
> on occasion.
>
> But this is getting a bit political, so let me
> bite my tongue here. ;)

Maybe he's OK for column-length pieces?

--Sawfish

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

Avoosl Wuthoqquan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't like S.T. Joshi either. So sue me! :P


No problems there.

A bold self-promoter. Not unskilled or untalented, but...

--Sawfish

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

James Kunstler's "Eyesore of the Month" feature provides abundant reminders of "sociological consciousness" in architecture.

[kunstler.com]

Soc. Cons. keeps replacing older buildings that suggest poetic consciousness. One can scroll down to see the difference.

Here's a gem for you. An arts center. It figures. It looks like a prison on an alien planet, if you ask me.

[www.floornature.com]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 16 Jul 21 | 09:32PM by Dale Nelson.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> James Kunstler's "Eyesore of the Month" feature
> provides abundant reminders of "sociological
> consciousness" in architecture.
>
> [kunstler.com]
> /?bib_page_offset=10
>
> Soc. Cons. keeps replacing older buildings that
> suggest poetic consciousness. One can scroll down
> to see the difference.
>
> Here's a gem for you. An arts center. It
> figures. It looks like a prison on an alien
> planet, if you ask me.
>
> [www.floornature.com]
> 8_archipelago-contemporary-arts-center-portugal_fu
> ll.jpg

Sweet Jesus!

Brutalism on steroids...

Yes. It looks like a place to go for punishment, not enrichment.

House of Pain...

--Sawfish

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

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Knygatin & others, here's a quotation from
> Theodore Dalrymple for you.
>
> “Political correctness, ... purpose ... not to persuade or
> convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate;
> ... When people are forced to remain silent
> when they are being told the most obvious lies, or
> even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies
> themselves, they lose once and for all their sense
> of probity. .... One's standing to resist
> anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A
> society of emasculated ... is easy to control. ...”
>
>

I have noticed, here on Eldritch Dark and elsewhere, that people involved in publishing, or in the writing of books, are either politically correct, or else remain silent. It is unmistakable how they always guard their tongue. Same goes for people with various academic professions; all in order to protect their careers and reputations. One "slip of the tongue" may get you fired, banned, and stigmatized by the establishment for the rest of your life. Highly educated individuals in various well paid academic intellectual professions, actually find self-arguments and sophisticated convoluted mental paths of lying to themselves, denying society problems and dishonestly telling themselves that everything is good, avoiding any controversial thoughts or daring opinions. Because they have invested so much in their personal careers, and are extremely self-protective. In a way that lower paid exposed workers are unable to do, because they are more directly confronted with the society horrors and nightmares, and therefore often more honest, instinctive, and straightforward in their opinions. There are a few brave among the privileged, who dare speak out; and it usually ends their careers. They need an alternative backup to continue. And if they say "too" much, they will get eaten by the (((system))). More will speak out as things start tipping over into a new paradigm shift. We are social creatures, after all. And at that future point new issues will arise, with a few brave pioneer individuals struggling to speak out.

Sociological consciousness tends to intolerance.

[www.msn.com]

Now I am keeping in mind that ED is primarily a place for literary discussion rather than politics. I really hope we can grapple with the implications. If necessary, review my original posting, which certainly is not the last word, probably is a seriously flawed first word, but I tried to give us some ideas to work with.

Sociological consciousness, I'm saying, is the preferred mode of thinking for all of us at least some of the time. It's in the air we breathe. For some people it is just about the only mode of thinking: starting with many people in the so-called social sciences and the humanities in the academic world. Listen, I saw this for years as a college teacher. I saw how people like a colleague of mine whom I revere, long retired, who did teach and write from within poetic consciousness, were sidelined. For example, when a review of the freshman composition program was launched, this professor was deliberately not included; the fix was in. Students were steered away from this professor's courses, though students who did take them often praised them highly -- since some students actually do want to learn, and (when they took this teachers' classes) did learn.

Think again of that passage I quoted above from Arthur Machen. He remembers there the formation of imagination that was occurring as he read Sir Walter Scott. How alien that scenario is from the classroom you can imagine as being approved by "education activist" Nomani. For Nomani, children are (potentially) assets, even pawns, for the cause that (evidently) is her life, namely a sociological one.

Poetic consciousness does not generally subsist in a state of rancor. Name authors as different as Joseph Conrad and Jane Austen -- they are artists, not activists. The educational establishment cannot be trusted; indeed, it must be viewed with the suspicion that it has earned, and actions such as taking children or grandchildren out of school may be necessary for moral people.

But I see ED as a place where poetic consciousness can be developed, as we read and discuss the likes of Machen and de la Mare, and perhaps authors and works of art that nurtured them.

I hope you can walk under branches today.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 17 Jul 21 | 10:06AM by Dale Nelson.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sociological consciousness tends to intolerance.
>
> [www.msn.com]
> icial-says-let-them-die-about-parents-opposing-cri
> tical-race-theory/ar-AAMeYQQ?ocid=msedgntp

It's a pretty good example of the primacy of narrative. All it takes is for this lady to make a list of claims, completely unsupported by any sort of example--just take her word for it, she *knows*...and whatever you do, don't question her.

So we take her word as the proven premise, and ignore the demonstrated fact of her own stated intolerance. All within a matter of minutes.

And we are living in an age where this is not roundly laughed off of the platform, but is instead given self-righteous respect.

Me, I'd be embarrassed to death.

--Sawfish

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

Dale Nelson Wrote:

> Think again of that passage I quoted above from
> Arthur Machen. He remembers there the formation
> of imagination that was occurring as he read Sir
> Walter Scott. How alien that scenario is from the
> classroom you can imagine as being approved by
> "education activist" Nomani. For Nomani, children
> are (potentially) assets, even pawns, for the
> cause that (evidently) is her life, namely a
> sociological one.

I blundered here. Asra Nomani was actually critical of the education activist's hate speech. The name of the person emitting the hate speech was Michelle Leete.

Leete is quoted thus:

“Let’s deny this off-key band of people that are anti-education, anti-teacher, anti-equity, anti-history, anti-racial reckoning, anti-opportunities, anti-help people, anti-diversity, anti-platform, anti-science, anti-change agent, anti-social justice, anti-healthcare, anti-worker, anti-LGBTQ+, anti-children, anti-healthcare, anti-worker, anti-environment, anti-admissions policy change, anti-inclusion, anti-live-and-let live people. Let them die."

She is described as being an official of the NAACP.

[meaww.com]

Quote:

“Let’s deny this off-key band of […] anti-live-and-let live people. Let them die.”

The irony (or lack of it) is ab-so-lute-ly staggering. This is Hitler-level malice and craziness.

Here’s something else to make your blood boil:

[www.nytimes.com]

And now consider this:

[www.standard.co.uk]

Once upon a time, a liberal arts education was intended to enable students to tell bad poetry from good poetry. Now, it’s all about whether they agree with it. If they’d read Sidney’s seminal poetics (boo! rich white man! boo!), they would realise what nonsense they are being fed by their very well-paid, tenured, quoted-in-the-NYT and neither oppressed nor exploited elite teachers.

Quote:

the poet, he nothing affirmeth, and therefore never lieth

Reading these, Avoosl, it seems to me if we substitute "class" for "race" we are right back to the Marxist interpretation of history.

This is not to say that Marx was wrong in his analysis of the dynamics of class struggle, but ultimately the irony is "so what?". What can you find to replace it with that's stable and does not require external coercion?

Much the same, here, I suspect. Yep, white Europeans colonized and exploited as much as they could ever since those troublesome Norse, and probably further back, unrecorded. And Central Asians did the same, but less for colonization and more for rapine.

So what? Are you unhappy with the obvious benefits that accrued as natural consequences? Yes?

Then comes chaos and anarchy, I'm afraid, and if indeed you can foresee this (a big "if") and you think it fitting and proper, I wish you luck.

--Sawfish

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

Avoosl Wuthoqquan Wrote:

> [www.standard.co.uk]
> ersity-students-remove-rudyard-kipling-poem-over-r
> acism-a3890901.html


These students -- most of whom probably know almost nothing about India, let alone Kipling -- would no doubt be quick to dismiss Nirad Chaudhuri's remark about Kim as being the "finest novel in the English language with an Indian theme," a work "great by any standards." But then they won't have heard of Nirad Chaudhuri, let alone have read his Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, which would complicate their notions.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 17 Jul 21 | 07:22PM by Dale Nelson.

Sawfish Wrote:

>white
> Europeans colonized and exploited as much as they
> could

I'm actually not prepared to assume that is true to that degree, particularly when Darwinian notions of racial evolutionary inferiority were not at hand, though inexcusable exploitation was done, without doubt. Rapaciousness was a key factor but the story is complicated by less reprehensible factors too (see Chaudhuri).

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Avoosl Wuthoqquan Wrote:
>
> >
> [www.standard.co.uk]
>
> >
> ersity-students-remove-rudyard-kipling-poem-over-r
>
> > acism-a3890901.html
>
>
> These students -- most of whom probably know
> almost nothing about India, let alone Kipling --
> would no doubt be quick to dismiss Nirad
> Chaudhuri's remark about Kim as being the "finest
> novel in the English language with an Indian
> theme," a work "great by any standards." But then
> they won't have heard of Nirad Chaudhuri, let
> alone have read his Autobiography of an Unknown
> Indian, which would complicate their notions.

"Don't complicate a perfectly clear issue by bringing in facts."

--Sawfish

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

The attitudes of such students reflect those of their professors and the things they were required to read (or, perhaps as likely, view).

Now, the thing about human psychology is that, if we start to realize that we were swindled, we may try to make out to ourselves that the product we bought is actually pretty good, and we haven't simply wasted our money and time........

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sawfish Wrote:
>
> >white
> > Europeans colonized and exploited as much as
> they
> > could
>
> I'm actually not prepared to assume that is true
> to that degree, particularly when Darwinian
> notions of racial evolutionary inferiority were
> not at hand, though inexcusable exploitation was
> done, without doubt. Rapaciousness was a key
> factor but the story is complicated by less
> reprehensible factors too (see Chaudhuri).

I don't feel the need to ascribe an absolute and independent moral judgement to any of these historical trends/events.

It is pretty much the same as castigating an invasive species.

This view is not for everyone, however.

--Sawfish

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

Dale Nelson Wrote:
----------------------------------------------------
> These students -- most of whom probably know
> almost nothing about India, let alone Kipling --
> would no doubt be quick to dismiss Nirad
> Chaudhuri's remark about Kim as being the "finest
> novel in the English language with an Indian
> theme," a work "great by any standards." But then
> they won't have heard of Nirad Chaudhuri, let
> alone have read his Autobiography of an Unknown
> Indian, which would complicate their notions.

Literature students read? What quaint notions you have! :P

Around the turn of the century, some fellow students and I visited an American university, where we put on a performance of -- of all things -- Hamlet. The kind professor who hosted us there was eager to point out that our audience would be “drama students”, not “theater students” (which would have been actors, singers, dancers and the like).

I am not exaggerating when I tell you that this man had tears in his eyes when he told me: “The problem is, my students don’t read.”

This was some twenty years ago, when postmodernism was still largely limited (contained? quarantined?) to the academic world. “O, drama students? They don’t read.”

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The attitudes of such students reflect those of
> their professors and the things they were required
> to read (or, perhaps as likely, view).
>
> Now, the thing about human psychology is that, if
> we start to realize that we were swindled, we may
> try to make out to ourselves that the product we
> bought is actually pretty good, and we haven't
> simply wasted our money and time........

Yes, and this is why surveys are next to worthless. Better than nothing, perhaps, but not something to stake one's personal reputation on.

See "The Bradley Effect".

[en.wikipedia.org]

--Sawfish

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

[www.congress.gov]

If this bill doesn't eventually become law, some other bill of the same type might. Names that might suggest associations at odd with sociological consciousness can be replaced and names more aligned with the notions of the elite substituted.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> [www.congress.gov]
> 7hr4454ih.pdf
>
> If this bill doesn't eventually become law, some
> other bill of the same type might. Names that
> might suggest associations at odd with
> sociological consciousness can be replaced and
> names more aligned with the notions of the elite
> substituted.


The Self-Eradication of Cultural References Act of 2021

--Sawfish

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

There are quite a few people moving towards, or at least groping for, poetic consciousness and turning from sociological consciousness. That some are silly or naive and that some will fail doesn't invalidate the whole phenomenon. There are some genuine gleams of light here, for example:

[paulkingsnorth.substack.com]

Here's something from Colin Wilson's The Philosopher's Stone, written, I suppose, in the late 1960s or so. I liked this on page 128, where a character goes for a walk on a grey Christmas morning in the English countryside: "Even the greyness of the sky seemed inexpressibly beautiful, as if it were a benediction. I saw cottages across the fields with smoke rising from their chimneys, and heard the distant hoot of a train. Then I was suddenly aware that all over England, at this moment, kitchens were full of the smell of baked potatoes and stuffing and turkey, and pubs were full of men drinking unaccustomed spirits and feeling glad that life occasionally declares a truce. Then there was the thought that this world is probably one of the most beautiful in the solar system. Mercury is all white-hot rock; Venus is all heavy cloud, and the surface is too hot to support organic life. (Oddly enough, I had a clear intuition that there is life on Venus, but that it somehow floats in the atmosphere.) Mars is an icy desert with almost no atmosphere, and Jupiter is little more than a strange ball of gas. All barren – metallic, meteor-pitted rocks, revolving around the blank sun. And here we have trees and grass and rivers, and frost on cold mornings and dew on hot ones. And meanwhile, we live in a dirty, narrow claustrophobic life-world, arguing about politics and sexual freedom and the race problem."

Avoosl Wuthoqquan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > “Let’s deny this off-key band of […]
> anti-live-and-let live people. Let them die.”
>
>
> The irony (or lack of it) is ab-so-lute-ly
> staggering. This is Hitler-level malice and
> craziness.
>
> Here’s something else to make your blood boil:
>
> [www.nytimes.com]
> cs-greece-rome-whiteness.html
>

News from the progressive state of Oregon as the debauching of children and young people continues -- here with regard to graduation requirements.

[www.oregonlive.com]
> And now consider this:
>
> [www.standard.co.uk]
> ersity-students-remove-rudyard-kipling-poem-over-r
> acism-a3890901.html
>
> Once upon a time, a liberal arts education was
> intended to enable students to tell bad poetry
> from good poetry. Now, it’s all about whether
> they agree with it. If they’d read Sidney’s
> seminal poetics (boo! rich white man! boo!), they
> would realise what nonsense they are being fed by
> their very well-paid, tenured, quoted-in-the-NYT
> and neither oppressed nor exploited elite
> teachers.
>
>
> the poet, he nothing affirmeth, and therefore
> never lieth
>

[www.theamericanconservative.com]

The woman discussed in the linked piece seems to be a good example of a person whose inner life is devoured by sociological consciousness. Poor soul... truly one feels pity for her.

Conversely, growing some of one's one food is likely to conduce to poetic consciousness. Maybe one can "only" have a few plants in a window, not for food but as living things for the eye and hand.

I suspect it would also conduce to poetic consciousness rather than sociological consciousness to go to some place where one can sing old hymns. One wouldn't have to believe what the words say -- I am referring to the experience of singing with other people, singing unpretentious verses that people have kept singing partly from social habit (which might sometimes be a good in itself) but also because the tunes have pleased people for generations. Some of the hymns might be sentimental and we won't like them. (The example of that sort of thing that comes to mind is "In the Garden." I don't like the "spirituality" of this hymn nor do I like the tune but I respect it as a favorite that people have liked to sing for many years. It's a funeral favorite. OK, then I may, as it were, lower my cap even if I don't like the hymn.) But there are better ones too. For example, "Be Still, My Soul" -- the tune is from the great Sibelius's "Finlandia." The main point here is to sing with other people, sing old songs with simple melodies. These are quite different from the more rhythmic, aggressive recordings that you hear pulsating from cars driving by.

[hymnary.org]

Just a thought for what it might be worth.

Another good thing is to learn some constellations if your night skies permit you to see them. I like to be able to identify the brighter planets. Yesterday evening my wife and I went for a walk, and Venus was off in the west, and then we noticed Jupiter in the southeast.

[skyandtelescope.org]

Time for a walk under branches.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Another good thing is to learn some constellations
> if your night skies permit you to see them. I
> like to be able to identify the brighter planets.
> Yesterday evening my wife and I went for a walk,
> and Venus was off in the west, and then we noticed
> Jupiter in the southeast.
>

As such it risks stalling at the sensibility of Jiminy Cricket singing "When You Wish Upon a Star", and Lady and the Tramp, ... which may be pleasant and comfy enough.

But to truly experience out of body Cosmic Ecstasy, a deeper study of individual night-sky objects becomes vital, their relative geometric distances, physical properties, and life cycles. Along with a telescope, that will beautifully fulfill the function of being your private spaceship.

Knygatin, I'm fond of my little paper planisphere, by which I learned various constellations, and my telescope. The telescope has been just right for a beginner such as me.

[www.manualslib.com]

Highlights of my telescope use, since I got it nine years ago, have included observing the transits of Venus and Mercury. In the interval between the Venus one and the Mercury one, I got an iPad, and I was actually able to photograph Mercury by so crude a method as holding the iPad to the eyepiece. I fantasize about having my own observatory sometimes. Never happen, of course, nor would I possess the mathematical skill needed for operating one.

I live in a small town in a rural area, which means less light pollution than big cities exude, so I'm able to observe the Andromeda galaxy with the naked eye. An "island universe"!

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Knygatin, I'm fond of my little paper planisphere,
> by which I learned various constellations, and my
> telescope. The telescope has been just right for
> a beginner such as me.
>
> [www.manualslib.com]
> rblast-9814.html
>
> Highlights of my telescope use, since I got it
> nine years ago, have included observing the
> transits of Venus and Mercury. In the interval
> between the Venus one and the Mercury one, I got
> an iPad, and I was actually able to photograph
> Mercury by so crude a method as holding the iPad
> to the eyepiece. I fantasize about having my own
> observatory sometimes. Never happen, of course,
> nor would I possess the mathematical skill needed
> for operating one.
>
> I live in a small town in a rural area, which
> means less light pollution than big cities exude,
> so I'm able to observe the Andromeda galaxy with
> the naked eye. An "island universe"!

To me, this sounds like a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction.

In SE Washington, where there are few lights, there's a sort of publicly accessible cluster of various telescopes in a small observatory complex. It's staffed by volunteer enthusiasts--and their enthusiasm is contagious.

[www.goldendaleobservatory.com]

--Sawfish

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

That's great, Sawfish!

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Knygatin, I'm fond of my little paper planisphere,
> by which I learned various constellations, and my
> telescope. The telescope has been just right for
> a beginner such as me.
>
> [www.manualslib.com]
> rblast-9814.html
>
> Highlights of my telescope use, since I got it
> nine years ago, have included observing the
> transits of Venus and Mercury. In the interval
> between the Venus one and the Mercury one, I got
> an iPad, and I was actually able to photograph
> Mercury by so crude a method as holding the iPad
> to the eyepiece. I fantasize about having my own
> observatory sometimes. Never happen, of course,
> nor would I possess the mathematical skill needed
> for operating one.
>
> I live in a small town in a rural area, which
> means less light pollution than big cities exude,
> so I'm able to observe the Andromeda galaxy with
> the naked eye. An "island universe"!


Sounds wonderful. And an appropriate setup for an amateur. I am on about the same level, I have a 4" refractor which is handy enough. I used to read a lot of astronomy books. This is a hobby that could completely consume a person. I recently bought an adjustable observatory chair, which can be lowered and raised. It makes observing much more comfortable.

We used to have a family country house, but had to sell it a few years ago. The Milky Way was all magnificent, and I could see Andromeda if I focused my eyes. I don't have easy access to dark skies any longer. I really must amend that in some way!!! I can't stand this light pollution and all the city noise!

Imagine in the old days, before electric lights, they could see the stars at night from right in the middle of the cities! But "progress" has removed that.

Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Imagine in the old days, before electric lights,
> they could see the stars at night from right in
> the middle of the cities! But "progress" has
> removed that.


There is the Asimov story, Nightfall, about a planet in a multi-star system that only experiences a true night once every 10K years or so. The plot revolves around the current civilization, which has found archaeological evidence of preceding civilizations, and whose astronomers have calculated that the next such "nightfall" is in a day or so, and everyone wonders about it.

When darkness finally arrives, the multitudes of visible stars, described as being much more multitudinous than Earth's visible sky, caused many of the people to become deranged by their stupendous magnificence., thus wrecking their civilization.

I don't think much of Asimov as an author, but it was an interesting idea.

It was made into a film in the late 80s/early 90s, and I kid you not, it was by far the worst film I've ever seen, in every conceivable way.

--Sawfish

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

Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Imagine in the old days, before electric lights,
> they could see the stars at night from right in
> the middle of the cities! But "progress" has
> removed that.


Even as recently as during the World War II blackouts, people could see the stars from within the cities. I wonder if, when the blackout period ended, the loss of the night sky made some people sorrowful.

The International Dark-Sky Association advocated lighting that strikes a compromise: it doesn't dispute the commitment of cities to light at night, but it urges lighting systems that allow some of the night sky to be seen and that are more healthy for people and animals.

[www.darksky.org]

I've been a member for many years. I don't know how much good IDSA does, but it seems worth the fee.

Sawfish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> There is the Asimov story, Nightfall, about a
> planet in a multi-star system that only
> experiences a true night once every 10K years or
> so. The plot revolves around the current
> civilization, which has found archaeological
> evidence of preceding civilizations, and whose
> astronomers have calculated that the next such
> "nightfall" is in a day or so, and everyone
> wonders about it.
>
> When darkness finally arrives, the multitudes of
> visible stars, described as being much more
> multitudinous than Earth's visible sky, caused
> many of the people to become deranged by their
> stupendous magnificence, thus wrecking their
> civilization.
>
>

Woooow! It makes me stop for a moment, ... an increased sense of clarity for the Wonders of existence, ... and I ponder again, what the hell is up with this PC "social consciousness" society-wrecking bullshit?! When are people going to wake up to poetic consciousness?

Could a civilization be built upon Stupendous Magnificence alone?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2 Sep 21 | 10:17AM by Knygatin.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> The International Dark-Sky Association advocated
> lighting that strikes a compromise: it doesn't
> dispute the commitment of cities to light at
> night, but it urges lighting systems that allow
> some of the night sky to be seen and that are more
> healthy for people and animals.
>
> [www.darksky.org]
>
> I've been a member for many years. I don't know
> how much good IDSA does, but it seems worth the
> fee.

That sounds good. Sadly, I think most people are too dull and stolid to realize that the light pollution is an outrage.

Knygatin Wrote:

> When are people going
> to wake up to poetic consciousness?

Many people have wakened or are waking at least to the desire for something better than the flattened, standardized, reductive notion of humanness and existence typically offered by "sociological consciousness." Often their desire takes severely compromised forms. For example, in the town in which I grew up (Ashland, Oregon), one might wonder if many people who are largely focused on "sociological" attitudes grope for a way to add to their lives a more "poetic" element by buying things. An Ashland property might have a Black Lives Matter sign prominently posted in the front yard and some recently-bought Buddhist prayer flags in the back yard. I think, rather than automatically sneering at such folks, one can consider that they might have an inchoate desire for something better than sociological consciousness, and maybe they'll learn more.

Just so there's no misunderstanding, let me reiterate that I do not see "poetic consciousness" as salvation. "Poetic consciousness" allows that human beings need something more than "progress." "Sociological consciousness" doesn't even allow that much.

Here is a hymn of sociological consciousness that many people love:

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No Hell below us
Above us only sky

Imagine all the people
Livin' for today
Aaa haa

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too

Imagine all the people
Livin' life in peace
Yoo hoo

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people
Sharin' all the world
Yoo hoo

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one


It's interesting to unpack this much-loved ditty. My point is that, though it is in verse form, it is an expression of sociological consciousness.

To start with, look at its emphasis on negative language. It advocates:

No sense of a transcendent destiny that may await a soul; it seems to say: live without a view of such a destiny, just occupy yourself with the immediate moment

No religion -- at a stroke Lennon wipes out religion, which is responsible for so great an amount of the world's music, art, architecture, hospitals, etc., to say nothing of the richness of people's inner lives

No countries -- no patria, but rather a single World State (sounds Masonic, Knygatin??)

No private property -- No longer will a man's home be his castle, a refuge from intrusive government; perhaps the idea is that the State will be all in all

Lennon does away with a huge amount of what has given most people's lives interest. Where is there room for poetic consciousness when there is no religion, no attachment to one's place, no family (?), no room for artists to work with their own materials (?) -- as seems implied by Lennon.

One could compare "Beasts of England" from Orwell's Animal Farm. Did Lennon want us to be almost like beasts feeding ("no hunger") at the State trough?

Of course, he'd have denied that. He probably hardly knew what to think. But at this point in his career his default mode seems to have been sociological consciousness, and he gave it an anthem.

Here's Orwell's satirical hymn.


Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland,
Beasts of every land and clime,
Hearken to my joyful tidings
Of the golden future time.

Soon or late the day is coming,
Tyrant Man shall be o'erthrown,
And the fruitful fields of England
Shall be trod by beasts alone.

Rings shall vanish from our noses,
And the harness from our back,
Bit and spur shall rust forever,
Cruel whips no more shall crack.

Riches more than mind can picture,
Wheat and barley, oats and hay,
Clover, beans, and mangel-wurzels
Shall be ours upon that day.

Bright will shine the fields of England,
Purer shall its waters be,
Sweeter yet shall blow its breezes
On the day that sets us free.

For that day we all must labour,
Though we die before it break;
Cows and horses, geese and turkeys,
All must toil for freedom's sake.

Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland,
Beasts of every land and clime,
Hearken well and spread my tidings
Of the golden future time.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2 Sep 21 | 10:51AM by Dale Nelson.

Quote:

DN
Even as recently as during the World War II blackouts, people could see the stars from within the cities. I wonder if, when the blackout period ended, the loss of the night sky made some people sorrowful.

Related to that, do recall the two or three days after 9/11? All flights over the US were banned and as a result, no contrails in the sky.

Don't hold your breath waiting to see this again...

--Sawfish

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

Knygatin Wrote:

> what the hell
> is up with this PC "social consciousness"
> society-wrecking bullshit?! When are people going
> to wake up to poetic consciousness?


One of the chief areas in which poetic consciousness is manifest is with regard to the two sexes. I refer not only to paintings, dramas, poetry, law, etc. but to "small" details of daily life -- little courtesies, appreciative but respectful glances, etc. To be sure, sometimes changes have been needed when the glorious reality of sexual dimorphism etc. was exploited for base ends by someone or other.

Today we are expected to understand the sexes from the standpoint of a "progressive" sociological consciousness. American money and pressure were brought to bear upon Afghan culture. It seems many Afghans did not find the American sociological consciousness-vision attractive.

[spectatorworld.com]

American money.... indeed, American Money. Check the link in the article to the information about a real paragon of sociological consciousness, the late John Money. What vast harm has come out of his type of thought, including painful, unhealable mutilations. His ideas are mainstream in colleges of education and psychology, in law and the humanities....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2 Sep 21 | 03:50PM by Dale Nelson.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Knygatin Wrote:
>
> > what the hell
> > is up with this PC "social consciousness"
> > society-wrecking bullshit?! When are people
> going
> > to wake up to poetic consciousness?
>
>
> One of the chief areas in which poetic
> consciousness is manifest is with regard to the
> two sexes. I refer not only to paintings, dramas,
> poetry, law, etc. but to "small" details of daily
> life -- little courtesies, appreciative but
> respectful glances, etc. To be sure, sometimes
> changes have been needed when the glorious reality
> of sexual dimorphism etc. was exploited for base
> ends by someone or other.
>
> Today we are expected to understand the sexes from
> the standpoint of a "progressive" sociological
> consciousness. American money and pressure were
> brought to bear upon Afghan culture. It seems
> many Afghans did not find the American
> sociological consciousness-vision attractive.
>
> [spectatorworld.com]
> s-lose-afghanistan/
>
> American money.... indeed, American Money. Check
> the link in the article to the information about a
> real paragon of sociological consciousness, the
> late John Money. What vast harm has come out of
> his type of thought, including painful, unhealable
> mutilations. His ideas are mainstream in colleges
> of education and psychology, in law and the
> humanities....

K, did you ever entertain the impulse to figuratively cut yourself free of the sluggish and corrupt flow of modern western culture?

It's like knowing when to desert from the command of a suicidal, arrogant, incompetent commander, like Elphinstone. You don't like it, but at some point it becomes every man for himself. That, or die.

If you're lucky, you'll fall in with a group of like-minded deserters, which is what ED is.

--Sawfish

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

Yes, like Huck Finn we're lighting out for the Territory around here, aren't we? ; )

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> No countries -- no patria, but rather a single
> World State (sounds Masonic, Knygatin??)
>

Yes. You would not imagine how deep and widespread this morass lies spread over Western society. How many of the world leaders and famous people do the sign of the horns.

>
> No private property -- No longer will a man's home
> be his castle, a refuge from intrusive government;
> perhaps the idea is that the State will be all in
> all
>
> Lennon does away with a huge amount of what has
> given most people's lives interest. Where is
> there room for poetic consciousness when there is
> no religion, no attachment to one's place, no
> family (?), no room for artists to work with their
> own materials (?) -- as seems implied by Lennon.
>

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> One of the chief areas in which poetic
> consciousness is manifest is with regard to the
> two sexes. I refer not only to paintings, dramas,
> poetry, law, etc. but to "small" details of daily
> life -- little courtesies, appreciative but
> respectful glances, etc.
>

That is beautiful.


Sawfish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> K, did you ever entertain the impulse to
> figuratively cut yourself free of the sluggish and
> corrupt flow of modern western culture?
>

Yes, to live on a boat. But THEY are working to get you, block and shut you off, even from far distant harbors - through the Global tool of the long and well planned corona narrative (uncovered EU documents reveal the restrictions now being implemented, were planned at least as early as 2018; in other words it is one big conspiracy).

It is still a good thing to learn some independence prepping.

"You would not imagine how deep and widespread this morass lies spread over Western society." Deduct one of the spreads. ;/ After all, grammar and proper speech is important.

Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "You would not imagine how deep and widespread
> this morass lies spread over Western society."
> Deduct one of the spreads. ;/ After all, grammar
> and proper speech is important.


All friends here, no one cares... :^)

To that point, I recently resumed posting to other forums, and I'm immediately struck by the fact that very many posters out there are basically intellectually and/or argumentively dishonest.

There's also the daunting possibility that they don't understand the need to logically or factually back up claims that are presented not as anecdotal evidence, but as uncontested truths. So in other words, they need to acknowledge that the material they've presented is simply their opinion, presented as fact, or make at least some effort to provide credible support.

I don't find that here, which is great.

--Sawfish

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

Sawfish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> There's also the daunting possibility that they
> don't understand the need to logically or
> factually back up claims that are presented not as
> anecdotal evidence, but as uncontested truths. So
> in other words, they need to acknowledge that the
> material they've presented is simply their
> opinion, presented as fact, or make at least some
> effort to provide credible support.
>

I am guilty of that as well. But if someone asks me for more details, I will do my best to provide it.

> Dale Nelson Wrote:

> > One of the chief areas in which poetic
> > consciousness is manifest is with regard to the
> > two sexes. I refer not only to paintings,
> dramas,
> > poetry, law, etc. but to "small" details of
> daily
> > life -- little courtesies, appreciative but
> > respectful glances, etc.
> >

Knygatin commented:

> That is beautiful.

The simple but complementary beauty of the sexes comprises one of the chief sources of creativity and vitality in social relations. These things constantly refresh our interest in life, our sense that the order of things is basically good. I'm not thinking of crass flirtation, exhibitionism, etc., but of an ordinary pervasive quality that people might not even be consciously aware of some of the time. I'm not thinking narrowly of the beauty of particularly good-looking males and females only. A good way to sense what I'm getting at might be to look at one of Bruegel's bustling canvases, such as his Peasant Dance:

[www.pieterbruegel.org]

This kind of complementarity helped people feel refreshed on a daily basis.

Now, by contrast, messing around with this wholesome relationship demoralizes people. It diminishes the good flavor of life. That is what our sociological consciousness-driven culture is doing. Life loses color, zest.

This is only one aspect of our situation.

In a sense, those who actively engage in sociological consciousness without compensatory periodic relief from poetic sensibilities chose voluntarily to wallow in self-induced misery.

How crazy is that, huh?

--Sawfish

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

Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> I am guilty of that as well. But if someone asks
> me for more details, I will do my best to provide
> it.

That part, extending an opinion, is just fine. It's simple speculation among peers--stimulating.

But if asked for more, you don't try to shuck'n'jive your way around it, like the problem I'm describing.

It's a BIG difference, K.

--Sawfish

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

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > Dale Nelson Wrote:
>
> > > One of the chief areas in which poetic
> > > consciousness is manifest is with regard to
> the
> > > two sexes. I refer not only to paintings,
> > dramas,
> > > poetry, law, etc. but to "small" details of
> > daily
> > > life -- little courtesies, appreciative but
> > > respectful glances, etc.
> > >
>
> Knygatin commented:
>
> > That is beautiful.
>
> The simple but complementary beauty of the sexes
> comprises one of the chief sources of creativity
> and vitality in social relations. These things
> constantly refresh our interest in life, our sense
> that the order of things is basically good. I'm
> not thinking of crass flirtation, exhibitionism,
> etc., but of an ordinary pervasive quality that
> people might not even be consciously aware of some of the time.

Well said, Kyngatin. Thinking of an everyday experience that bears this out, I was visiting a sister in New Hampshire a few years ago, and she took us to an old town library that had been converted into an art gallery. After viewing the many fine paintings there (at no charge), we were just leaving in my sister's car. At the last possible moment I looked out and saw a young woman seated behind the library, reading. She instinctively waved back at me. My sister, Virginia, was driving and noticed since I was riding shotgun. My wife was in the back seat, and probably noticed. The fleeting smile of that young lady was an acknowledgement of Poetic Consciousness, which all 4 felt and were feeling in those surroundings.

jkh

In supporting Dale's initial statement, I see that I attributed his further explanation to Kyngatin, sorry.

jkh

Your anecdote, Kipling, reminds me of a similar experience. There was probably nothing unusual about it except that I noticed it. Several years ago I was leaving the campus library (another library!). I didn't check out any books on that occasion but the young lady at the checkout counter and I exchanged a good-bye or something like that. And this very simple exchange across the divide of the sexes stood for me, as I reflected on it, for something very good.

To move to a different aspect of the poetic consciousness vs. sociological consciousness topic and the matter of sexuality -- I was thinking about the way happiness and unhappiness connected with man-woman relations is (obviously) such a great theme of literature, e.g. Anna Karenina. But my sense is that under the present sway of sociological consciousness, literature may have moved, not to accounts of men and women, their joys and sufferings, but to a focus on the solitary protagonist as this person "struggles" with this person's "gender identity" and so on. In other words, what has been, for literature, an endlessly fruitful matter for the imagination (including romantic triangles and so on as well as couples like Jane Eyre and Rochester), is becoming a matter of the individual in isolation, with the "supporting characters" relevant primarily as complications in someone's inner conflict (psychomachia) till gender identity issues are resolved for the time being at least. What a falling away from literary value. I imagine these dramas of the solitary person are largely propagandistic and sometimes autobiographical and "therapeutic" for the author. Fooey.

I'm relating just an impression here, by the way. Offhand I wouldn't be able to cite titles or authors. I see a lot of material about books as I look at things ranging from the Times Literary Supplement to Mike Glyer's File 770 on science fiction and fantasy fandom.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 3 Sep 21 | 05:57PM by Dale Nelson.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Your anecdote, Kipling, reminds me of a similar
> experience. There was probably nothing unusual
> about it except that I noticed it. Several years
> ago I was leaving the campus library (another
> library!). I didn't check out any books on that
> occasion but the young lady at the checkout
> counter and I exchanged a good-bye or something
> like that. And this very simple exchange across
> the divide of the sexes stood for me, as I
> reflected on it, for something very good.
>
> To move to a different aspect of the poetic
> consciousness vs. sociological consciousness topic
> and the matter of sexuality -- I was thinking
> about the way happiness and unhappiness connected
> with man-woman relations is (obviously) such a
> great theme of literature, e.g. Anna Karenina.
> But my sense is that under the present sway of
> sociological consciousness, literature may have
> moved, not to accounts of men and women, their
> joys and sufferings, but to a focus on the
> solitary protagonist as this person "struggles"
> with this person's "gender identity" and so on.
> In other words, what has been, for literature, an
> endlessly fruitful matter for the imagination
> (including romantic triangles and so on as well as
> couples like Jane Eyre and Rochester), is becoming
> a matter of the individual in isolation, with the
> "supporting characters" relevant primarily as
> complications in someone's inner conflict
> (psychomachia) till gender identity issues are
> resolved for the time being at least. What a
> falling away from literary value. I imagine these
> dramas of the solitary person are largely
> propagandistic and sometimes autobiographical and
> "therapeutic" for the author. Fooey.
>
> I'm relating just an impression here, by the way.
> Offhand I wouldn't be able to cite titles or
> authors. I see a lot of material about books as I
> look at things ranging from the Times Literary
> Supplement to Mike Glyer's File 770 on science
> fiction and fantasy fandom.


To this point, as I've mentioned before, consider how male/female realtionships are handled in recent pop or alternative music genres, if addressed at all.

Try to find a song like Bacharat's The Look of Love.

Good luck with that...

--Sawfish

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

Sawfish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Knygatin Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> >
> > I am guilty of that as well. But if someone asks
> > me for more details, I will do my best to provide it.
>
> That part, extending an opinion, is just fine.
> It's simple speculation among peers--stimulating.
>
> But if asked for more, you don't try to
> shuck'n'jive your way around it, like the problem
> I'm describing.
>
> It's a BIG difference, K.

The brains of the "social consciousness"-minded are seriously messed up. They lack the sensitivity of the poetic to see how ill they are behaving.

Dale, you enhanced the description of the subtle 'electricity' between man and woman, the male and female principles, and made it even more beautiful. I will simply savor it.

That painting by Bruegel has been one of my favorites for many years. The simple peasants' lively country dance, relieving and exalting their nerves from the daily chores in the fields and forge, man and woman in wholly unity, ... the musicians stepping in to do their work. The full painting also portrays several different characters from the complexity of life. Painted by one of the great Masters.

Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dale, you enhanced the description of the subtle
> 'electricity' between man and woman, the male and
> female principles, and made it even more
> beautiful. I will simply savor it.
>
> That painting by Bruegel has been one of my
> favorites for many years. The simple peasants'
> lively country dance, relieving and exalting their
> nerves from the daily chores in the fields and
> forge, man and woman in wholly unity, ... the
> musicians stepping in to do their work. The full
> painting also portrays several different
> characters from the complexity of life. Painted by
> one of the great Masters.

Hah! Let's play a game...

If you were to characterize your taste in *all* of the arts by selecting a single painter, whose works tend to utilize the techniques that most consistently appeal to your poetic consciousness, who would that painter be?

I'll start.

Caravaggio

--Sawfish

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

I like the miscellany best.

Hmm! My favorite artist is Samuel Palmer, but the Palmer works I like best include only a few of his paintings; it's drawings and etching by him that I particularly love. But you didn't ask who our favorite artist was, you asked about techniques that for us evoke poetic consciousness as experienced in all of the arts.

Ah, I could drive myself nuts with this. I'm just going to say Palmer anyway.

You can read a piece I wrote about him many years ago, here:

[www.touchstonemag.com]

Sawfish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you were to characterize your taste in *all* of
> the arts by selecting a single painter, whose
> works tend to utilize the techniques that most
> consistently appeal to your poetic consciousness,
> who would that painter be?
>
> I'll start.
>
> Caravaggio

A great, if controversial, painter. His painting of the feminine Bacchus youth is a masterpiece, with the worm-eaten apple and rotting fruit reminding us of the perishability of everything.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hmm! My favorite artist is Samuel Palmer, but the
> Palmer works I like best include only a few of his
> paintings; it's drawings and etching by him that I
> particularly love. ...
>

I have his painting of a shepherd dozing in the sunset, on the cover of my copy of John Keats' complete poems. I love that painting. It is about as poetic as it gets.

His close-up drawings of oak trees are fantastic.

Knygatin, if you can get your hands on David Cecil's Visionary and Dreamer or Geoffrey Grigson's Samuel Palmer: The Visionary Years, look them over. Palmer is the "visionary" in Cecil's book, while Edward Burne-Jones, the Pre-Raphaelite, is the "dreamer." There's a big thick book published by Yale by Vaughan called Samuel Palmer: Shadows on the Wall that may be the best source for reproductions of Palmer's art and for a survey of his whole life. I once wrote a story in which I took over quite a few details from the young Palmer and his friends the "Ancients." By the way, "extollager" in my email address comes from the life of Palmer. Rural folk seeing Palmer and his friends wandering around at night (for inspiration and subjects for art) called them "extollagers," which I suppose was a dialect form of "astrologers." Good to know you have seen that work. Pairing Palmer and Keats makes excellent sense.

Hmmmm....

There's a lot more subtlety to Palmer than I can easily appreciate.

I came to discover--here, most likely--that I have a sort of base, sensationalist streak to my aesthetic appreciation. I found out an interesting thing, while trying to learn to be a wine connoisseur, back in my late 20s/30s: I could not really detect, nor appreciate, fine gustatory distinctions. I had many varied discussions about this, and really, I don't possess the equipment for it.

Panzaic was the word made for me, I think.

I find that I prefer flashier expression in art, too. Really like Carmina Burana and Bolero, for example. Prefer Blue Velvet to Chariots of Fire.

So for me, I'm more of a Maxfield Parrish landscape guy, than a Palmer man. It's got to do with a lack of the ability to distinguish the aesthetically subtle.

So maybe I'd link Death of the Ball Turrent Gunner to Caravaggio's Judith Beheading Holofernes.

--Sawfish

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



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 4 Sep 21 | 05:08PM by Sawfish.

Has anyone else here read Evelyn Waugh’s short novel A Handful of Dust? It could be argued that it deals, with rigorous irony, with the conflict between a decaying form of poetic consciousness (embodied in Tony Last) and a nascent sociological consciousness (seen in Brenda, Tony’s unfaithful wife, her lover, and her friends). I only thought of it this way for the first time a few minutes ago. I think this is probably Waugh’s masterpiece rather than his better known Brideshead Revisited.

Sawfish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> So for me, I'm more of a Maxfield Parrish
> landscape guy, than a Palmer man. It's got to do
> with a lack of the ability to distinguish the
> aesthetically subtle.
>

I used to have a couple of Maxfield Parrish posters on my walls. Fantastic landscapes and trees. But his humans, utter cardboards! And speaking of Corben, ... the colors!! He was an inspiration for Corben.
His houses, always empty, and often with windows lined up to let you look right through the house. It really is spooky. He paints the magnificence of Nature contrasting the littleness of Man's world.

Thanks Dale. Archive.org has some works on Palmer as well.

For sheer drawing technique, Albrecht Dürer was master. Vincent van Gogh, if a little rougher, was also incredible at drawing, with great sense of angled form and contrast. For capturing the subtleties of human expression, I think none beats Rembrandt.

Sawfish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Knygatin Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> >
> > I am guilty of that as well. But if someone
> asks
> > me for more details, I will do my best to
> provide
> > it.
>
> That part, extending an opinion, is just fine.eaphdhvb';bonpioc
> It's simple speculation among peers--stimulating.
>
> But if asked for more, you don't try to
> shuck'n'jive your way around it, like the problem
> I'm describing.
>
> It's a BIG difference, K.


Another example how the "socially conscious" behave with their deranged brains, is that they take some ridiculous example of conspiracy theory and use it as "proof" against every other circumstance. Saying for example that the Titanic couldn't possibly have been switched with another ship and therefore never have sunk, because it would have been impossible to hide it. And so, in their limited and dishonest intellectual capacity, they reject all conspiracy theories. They don't want to look deeper or have an honest debate, but simply look to get cheap pats on their backs from the rest of the rabble. And a few shallow laughs together. They thrive on social recognition from their buddies. They are afraid of seriousness and earnestness. And they always have full trust in the authorities and the state and the media.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 5 Sep 21 | 10:16AM by Knygatin.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Has anyone else here read Evelyn Waugh’s short
> novel A Handful of Dust?

Yes. It was assigned reading back in the spring of '68, at Sonoma State---possibly for Intro to Satire. not sure.

Can't remember anything, though.

> It could be argued that
> it deals, with rigorous irony, with the conflict
> between a decaying form of poetic consciousness
> (embodied in Tony Last) and a nascent sociological
> consciousness (seen in Brenda, Tony’s unfaithful
> wife, her lover, and her friends). I only thought
> of it this way for the first time a few minutes
> ago. I think this is probably Waugh’s
> masterpiece rather than his better known
> Brideshead Revisited.

In that same class, I think, there was a book in which the idea for pneumatic trousers spring into the head of the protagonist early on in the novel, while he was at a lengthy church service as I recall.

Maybe two classes are merged in my mind: we read Antic Hay, Decline and Fall, The Loved One, and quite a bit of other stuff by other authors. It was a semester system schedule back then.

Probably more than two classes. I was there only one semester, but it was where I read I Am a Camera, Miss Lonelyhearts and Day of the Locust, The Ginger Man.

A heck of a lot of reading that influenced me later just in that one semester.

--Sawfish

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

I find it creepy.

Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I find it creepy.

The "socially conscious" that is. They are very creepy.

Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Knygatin Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I find it creepy.
>
> The "socially conscious" that is. They are very
> creepy.


Someone should write a horror novel about them, or make a movie. Well, there was Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, which was close enough; but these did not capture their constant mockery and hypocrisy that hide their deepest fears.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 5 Sep 21 | 10:39AM by Knygatin.

Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Knygatin Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I find it creepy.
>
> The "socially conscious" that is. They are very
> creepy.


Here's an important aspect, I think. I'm by no means sure of my direction, so I want to throw it out there for general discussion.

In most of our discussions we've mentioned those who practice sociological consciousness (SC) and those who practice poetic consciousness (PC) as different individuals. So you had "types" of people: SC and PC types.

I'd contend that SC and PC are employed at times by almost all fairly self-aware individuals, and in differing circumstances. It is only when the individual applies one or the other in situations for which they are grossly inappropriate that we see it as a problem.

E.g., providing decent rental housing to the public as a form of private investment is largely an SC domain, while listening to hip-hop is more in the realm of PC. Now, in this example, hip-hop may be found wanting in PC merit, but PC appreciation is appropriate to its aesthetic evaluation. The evaluation of its payload, or "message" is a separate, perhaps SC, operation, which means that cadence and emphasis are also PC, but not semantics.

But to broaden the example, let's strip out lyrics as a possible confounding factor--one might wish to argue that they are socially inflammatory and hence worthy of suppression--so consider Ornette Coleman on sax as opposed to Stan Getz. No lyrics here to muddle the issue, and I'd contend that the true realm for consideration is PC.

With Getz you don't have to work; you are transported elsewhere. Coleman is almost nonsensical to my ear, but others who pushed a bit on free jazz, e.g., later Coltrane, I can discern a sort of message. But it's all PC, to me.

Anyway, what say you to the idea of SC/PC coexisting within the same individual but being employed in differing situations, and that when inappropriately employed, that's where we object?

--Sawfish

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

Sawfish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Anyway, what say you to the idea of SC/PC
> coexisting within the same individual but being
> employed in differing situations, and that when
> inappropriately employed, that's where we object?

Yes, of course, it is all a matter of intelligence, maturity, and self-awareness, as to whether SC/PC are used in a positive way or not. I have worked with jobs that are considered social and caring professions, so that gives me a degree of "social consciousness", or humanitarian quality, depending on what Dale exactly means by SC. Same goes for someone working as a teacher.

I'll try to post something here soon on this poetic consciousness vs. sociological consciousness thing, but it's a tool for discussion and can be refined -- or dropped -- by anyone, including me.

Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sawfish Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >
> > So for me, I'm more of a Maxfield Parrish
> > landscape guy, than a Palmer man. It's got to
> do
> > with a lack of the ability to distinguish the
> > aesthetically subtle.
> >
>
> I used to have a couple of Maxfield Parrish
> posters on my walls. Fantastic landscapes and
> trees.

And then, Knygatin, you go on to mention Dürer. There must be some "same wavelength" thing going on here because these two were very prominent in my own very limited awareness and investment when I began to branch out from comic art (not just comic books, but Hal Foster's Prince Valiant, etc.). I don't know that I'd ever spent more on anything than when I bought Coy Ludwig's big book on Parrish ($25); and I suppose two of the first posters I ever bought were Parrish's Lamp Seller of Baghdad and Dürer's famous hare.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'll try to post something here soon on this
> poetic consciousness vs. sociological
> consciousness thing, but it's a tool for
> discussion and can be refined -- or dropped -- by
> anyone, including me.

No problem. I think we have discussed it enough. I think I fully understand what you mean by "sociological consciousness". It is all fine to be social and generous to others, but when it turns into a fixed idea it can become very limiting in intellectual outlook (as in socialism).

When an individual truly thinks that before they can intuitively react to any given experience they need to weigh how and if it affects the rest of humanity, and especially as based on someone else's idea of what's socially correct, this makes for a miserable, miserable life.

--Sawfish

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

For all my words below, I'm still groping. For what they may be worth, here are some relfections.


Poetic consciousness vs. sociological consciousness
5 Sept. 2021

Herewith an attempt to clarify how I understand these terms since I introduced them at Eldritch Dark some weeks ago.

“Consciousness” is not the same thing as “ideas.” Consciousness is the awareness that we experience.* “Ideas” are our notions about things of which we are aware. To be sure, absorbing from others, forming and holding ideas about things may affect our consciousness; if we habitually occupy our minds with certain ideas, we become more attuned to corresponding things.

For example, a young person might grow up with a spontaneous enjoyment of the beauty of certain plants. Then he goes to college and learns that these plants are not native to a region but were introduced by settlers who dispossessed earlier inhabitants. He might come to perceive the plants with distaste, losing his sense of their genuine beauty and forgetting that he used to enjoy them and also forgetting what changed his view of them (their association with unsavory history).

We are in a “participatory” relationship to that of which we are conscious, such as nature. We produce ideas when we think about nature, etc.

POETIC CONSCIOUSNESS has been the natural state of human beings throughout history, till very recently, when sociological consciousness developed. However hard life was for most people, they lived their lives rather than “performing” them.

While poetic consciousness pervades life, people typically tell stories about their own lives and other peoples’ lives – mostly people who are known to them, such as family members, neighbors, etc. People expect life to make some kind of sense, though it may be funny or painful, and even though people might feel that life is unfair. Whether one is happy or dissatisfied, one feels that much of life is out of one’s hands and in the hands of fate, the gods, God, the progressive onward push of nature, or the like -- but life is interesting and one has some freedom of action, and with it responsibility. Poetic consciousness typically deals with shame and honor, or iniquity and righteousness.

The discipline of sociology is not ruled out by poetic consciousness, but needs to be kept in its place.

SOCIOLOGICAL CONSCIOUSNESS (which might not be a good choice of term) is the characteristic type of awareness learned by people living in modern or so-called postmodern society. Anyone reading this little essay, including me the author, will tend to perceive things and to think about them in terms of numbers and abstractions. The typical procedure of dealing with difficulties of life is to look for social “root causes.” The typical mental procedure is reductive, to say something is really “nothing but” something else.

In sociological consciousness, one is to discover, or fashion, who one is according to some category or other proposed by current thought: for example, identify what your gender is using this menu of possibilities, etc. The weird preoccupation with numbers shows itself again and again, as when someone says “I’m 90% sure that….”

Under sociological consciousness, people often interpret life, including their own lives, in terms of popular psychology. They feel that they have gained understanding of themselves and others when they can apply terms such as manic, anal, ADHD, phobic, etc. They understand life largely in terms of therapies that help people to cope, adjust, etc. Thinking thus about their lives, they “recognize” the profiles that fit them, and then perform their lives rather than living them.

Oddly, though sociological consciousness refers, often inappropriately, to numbers, it is often in error about the numerical facts. Thus governments and journalism manufacture endless statistics, statements about trillions of dollars to be spent, and so on, and yet these numbers are often misunderstood or are phantasmal.

This often bogus “numericism” shows, for example, in diatribes about “inequity.”

Digression: To help you keep poetic consciousness and sociological consciousness distinct, you could use this mnemonic: iniquity vs. inequity.

Poetic consciousness typically recognizes the moral dimension of your life and my life, in which I am called to use my freedom rightly or lest I commit morally faulty behavior, which, to take an intense word, could be called iniquity.

Sociological consciousness is hardly concerned with, or aware of, objective right and wrong. It typically holds “morality” to be a nothing but “code” by which a social group exerts control over another group, i.e. maintains inequity.

But where poetic consciousness usually allows forgiveness or “payment” for wrongdoing, sociological consciousness often simply relegates offenders to a category of the condemned. End of digression.

Sociological consciousness tends to be anxious and irritable.

Where sociological consciousness prevails, people will tend not so much to exercise the freedom that they feel they have but may fret about restrictions due to “society” or some hated group that is to blame. It’s often not that they personally feel themselves to be un-free, but that, as they think, “people” or some category of people need greater freedom.

Sociological consciousness uses works of imagination -- poetry, art, music, etc. – to reinforce its ideas. For it, Heart of Darkness is not so much about the mystery of evil in the human heart as about colonialism, the ideology of regarding indigenous people as “savages” and “Other,” etc.

Sociological consciousness tends to a kind of totalitarianism, that is, the politicization of more or more of life till it is all absorbed thereby, as in Ibram Kendi’s idea that Christianity should be focused on (his) ideas of “social justice,” etc.

A personal note: I’m obvious more sympathetic to “poetic consciousness” than “sociological consciousness,” but the former is not “salvation.”

*“Ideas” as I am using the word here doesn’t refer to Plato’s concept of permanent higher realities that a human being might try to contemplate, but that exist on their own; Plato’s ideas belong to the realm of Being, but may be manifest in some degree in our experiential world of Becoming.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
--------------------------------------
>
>
>

>
>
> Sociological consciousness tends to a kind of totalitarianism, that is, the politicization of more and more of life till it is all absorbed thereby, as in Ibram Kendi’s idea that Christianity should be focused on (his) ideas of “social justice,” etc.

> *“Ideas” as I am using the word here doesn’t refer to Plato’s concept of permanent higher realities that a human being might try to contemplate, but that exist on their own;
> Plato’s ideas belong to the realm of Being, but may be manifest in some degree in our experiential world of Becoming.

The key work of Plato in connection with Sociological Consciousness is the GEORGIAS, a Socratic dialogue on the nature of rhetoric in which he debunks the ideas of the Sophists about oratory. Relevant to the "weird" reliance on numbers you pointed out so well, we can easily be lulled into a passive state of lethargy or even acquiescence by the dullness of statistics and of the entire shallow political and cultural scene.
Plato viewed devious oratory, calculated to make the good appear bad and vice versa, as "the source of all corruption".



[u][/u]

jkh

Spelled GORGIAS. Zzzzz. Available in Penguin Classics trans. Walter Hamilton.

jkh

Yes, that's the one I have, and read a few years ago -- just the one time, so I'm "acquainted" with it, is all.

Project Gutenberg, as well.

--Sawfish

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

Yes, it's a fascinating work. Thanks for bringing the contrasting terms into clear focus. It is interesting that Ashton Smith, who admired Flaubert, Gautier, and the Symbolists, conversely reacted against the sociological consciousness of Stendahl, Zola, and de Maupassant. A vexing problem for the biographers!

jkh

How was CAS able to read these writers? My sense is that he wouldn’t have been able to buy many books. (I wonder where the nearest good bookstore to him was.)

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How was CAS able to read these writers? My sense
> is that he wouldn’t have been able to buy many
> books. (I wonder where the nearest good bookstore
> to him was.)


He's known to have visited his local library very often, and supposedly read every single book from its shelves. And memorized much of their contents. According to his friend Dr. Farmer, he had even read a little Tolkien and admired what he saw.

I've read somewhere that he owned many books in his cabin too, though I don't remember where I read this, nor do I have any idea how he got them. He owned every book written by Lafcadio Hearn, and the medieval travelogue of Sir John Mandeville with a cover he made himself (CAS was inspired enough by this book to write his very own chapter of Sir Mandeville's adventures), and many books of poems and symbolist fiction, plus non-fiction. CAS stated in a letter that he didn't own much weird fiction besides Lovecraft, Poe, and a few others.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 6 Sep 21 | 10:22PM by Hespire.

It looks like the Auburn Public Library CAS would have known still stands on 175 Almond Street, a handsome Carnegie library resembling the Ashland, Oregon, public library as I knew it around 50 years ago. (The Ashland library has undergone extensive remodeling since then.).

A nice picture here:

[en.wikipedia.org])

But hold on -- "Finally on August 10, 1971, ground was broken for a new building on 350 Nevada Street, its present location."

The old library building still stands, but I wonder what it's used for. Maybe I can find out. [Later: On Google Street View, I saw a sign: Carnegie Library Art Studio -- it's not clear if that refers to two separate facilities or if the "CAS library" now IS an art studio.]

Google Street View of the old Auburn public library (prepare to sigh wistfully -- it's lovely):

[www.instantstreetview.com]

Image from Dec. 2020. It looks like a pleasant neighborhood for a walk.


(Libraries used to be fine places for the experience of poetic consciousness, but, alas, are often tainted, not just by shelves of deleterious books, but by "progressive" staff under the sway of sociological consciousness.)



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 7 Sep 21 | 09:42AM by Dale Nelson.

I have an unread book by Aristotle called On Poetry and Style, stashed behind others. When younger I had an ambition to read Plato, but found I did not have interest and motivation enough for philosophy. Was more interested in the physical arts and sciences. There was not time enough for both. Philosophy, I felt, was too close to the subconscious and the spiritual, and I wanted to leave that for my intuition and instincts, instead of intellectualizing it. Also, I always had more respect for individuals creating something with their hands, ... than those walking around philosophizing, gesticulating and discussing with each other; they are a bit like politicians, which I don't have high regard for. So I quickly got rid of the Plato books I had bought. The only remaining one is the Aristotle book. I am sure Plato had good ideas, specifically about decently organized democracy (based on demands of basic knowledge and understanding from the citizens); but sadly, his ideas don't have influence on today's political system which is predominately mired in foreign money power and deceitful propaganda.

I have read a joint book called Apology for Poetry / Defense of Poetry, by Sidney and Shelley. It says something about poetic consciousness. I enjoyed it greatly.

Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Philosophy, I felt, was too close to the
> subconscious and the spiritual, and I wanted to
> leave that for my intuition and instincts, instead
> of intellectualizing it. ...
>

And for my common sense, based on what I know of the physical reality, science, and biology. Politics (ideology, and its more sublime source, philosophy) which is not based on physical reality, science, and biology, easily becomes an uncontrollable Monster.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 8 Sep 21 | 04:17AM by Knygatin.

Knygatin Wrote:

> I have read a joint book called Apology for Poetry
> / Defense of Poetry, by Sidney and Shelley. It
> says something about poetic consciousness. I
> enjoyed it greatly.


The Sidney essay in particular is something I'd like to turn to. Of English authors traditionally regarded highly, he is one of the ones I have most severely neglected, as it happens.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Knygatin Wrote:
>
> > I have read a joint book called Apology for Poetry
> > / Defense of Poetry, by Sidney and Shelley. It
> > says something about poetic consciousness. I
> > enjoyed it greatly.
>
>
> The Sidney essay in particular is something I'd
> like to turn to. Of English authors traditionally
> regarded highly, he is one of the ones I have most
> severely neglected, as it happens.

Their exact contents blur for me now, but I remember the essays were distinctly different from each other, and I believe I found Sidney's the best. A clear-minded Renaissance man, compared to the more emotionally guided Shelley.

Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dale Nelson Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Knygatin Wrote:
> >
> > > I have read a joint book called Apology for
> Poetry
> > > / Defense of Poetry, by Sidney and Shelley.
> It
> > > says something about poetic consciousness. I
> > > enjoyed it greatly.
> >
> >
> > The Sidney essay in particular is something I'd
> > like to turn to. Of English authors
> traditionally
> > regarded highly, he is one of the ones I have
> most
> > severely neglected, as it happens.
>
> Their exact contents blur for me now, but I
> remember the essays were distinctly different from
> each other, and I believe I found Sidney's the
> best. A clear-minded Renaissance man, compared to
> the more emotionally guided Shelley.

Sociological consciousness vs poetic consciousness?

--Sawfish

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

Sawfish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Knygatin Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Their exact contents blur for me now, but I
> > remember the essays were distinctly different from
> > each other, and I believe I found Sidney's the
> > best. A clear-minded Renaissance man, compared to
> > the more emotionally guided Shelley.
>
> Sociological consciousness vs poetic
> consciousness?

To a degree, I assume.

Are you suggesting that Shelley was not a true poet? :D

Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sawfish Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Knygatin Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > >
> > > Their exact contents blur for me now, but I
> > > remember the essays were distinctly different
> from
> > > each other, and I believe I found Sidney's
> the
> > > best. A clear-minded Renaissance man, compared
> to
> > > the more emotionally guided Shelley.
> >
> > Sociological consciousness vs poetic
> > consciousness?
>
> To a degree, I assume.
>
> Are you suggesting that Shelley was not a true
> poet? :D

HEAVENS NO!!!

;^)

--Sawfish

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

Seeing Shelley's name has had me thinking about the British Romantics a little: conventionally, Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron, Keats.

Perhaps Coleridge and Keats would have the most to offer readers specifically looking for the "weird." Neither poet wrote a lots of poems in that vein as far as I know, but within it wrote authentic masterpieces. There might be a Coleridge thread here, but I don't remember one on Keats, the author of "La Belle Dame Sans Merci," "Lamia," &c.

Dale, do you think Shelley was a true poet? Or perhaps a sociologically conscious impostor? :)

Sawfish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Knygatin Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> >
> > To a degree, I assume.
> >
> > Are you suggesting that Shelley was not a true
> > poet? :D
>
> HEAVENS NO!!!
>
> ;^)

You are a wise man. :D Much wiser than me, getting myself into all sorts of trouble. :)

Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dale, do you think Shelley was a true poet? Or
> perhaps a sociologically conscious impostor? :)


Certainly Shelley was a true poet -- though, of the Famous Five whom I've read (of major English Romantic poets) he was the one I liked least. Perhaps we here at ED should try some Shelley, maybe The Witch of Atlas.

A true poet.

For an example of verses permeated by sociological consciousness, read this, from the current American president's inauguration, or at least read enough to get the flavor. The author is Amanda Gorman.

THE HILL WE CLIMB

When day comes we ask ourselves,
‘where can we find light in this never-ending shade,’
the loss we carry,
a sea we must wade?
We’ve braved the belly of the beast.
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace,
and the norms and notions
of what just is
isn’t always just-ice.
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it,
somehow we do it.
Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken
but simply unfinished.
We, the successors of a country and a time
where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one.
And yes, we are far from polished,
far from pristine,
but that doesn’t mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge a union with purpose,
to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and
conditions of man.
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us
but what stands before us.
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,
we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms
to one another.
We seek harm to none and harmony for all.
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew;
that even as we hurt, we hoped;
that even as we tired, we tried;
that we’ll forever be tied together, victorious,
not because we will never again know defeat
but because we will never again sow division.
Scripture tells us to envision
that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
and no one shall make them afraid.
If we’re to live up to our own time
then victory won’t lie in the blade
but in all the bridges we’ve made.
That is the promise to glade,
the hill we climb
if only we dare it,
because being American is more than a pride we inherit —
it’s the past we step into
and how we repair it.
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation
rather than share it
would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.
And this effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically delayed,
it can never be permanently defeated.
In this truth,
in this faith we trust,
for while we have our eyes on the future,
history has its eyes on us.
This is the era of just redemption
we feared at its inception.
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
of such a terrifying hour
but within it we found the power
to author a new chapter,
to offer hope and laughter to ourselves.
So while once we asked,
‘how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe,’
now we assert,
‘how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?’
We will not march back to what was
but move to what shall be:
a country that is bruised but whole,
benevolent but bold,
fierce, and free.
We will not be turned around
or interrupted by intimidation
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation.
Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
then love becomes our legacy
and change our children’s birthright.
So let us leave behind a country
better than the one we were left with.
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.
We will rise from the gold-limned hills of the west,
we will rise from the windswept northeast
where our forefathers first realized revolution,
we will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,
we will rise from the sunbaked south.
We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover
in every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful.
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid.
The new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it,
if only we’re brave enough to be it.

Source: [news.harvard.edu]

The "Famous Five" English Romantics whom I've read are Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, and Shelley. Of the five, only Shelley is not one of my favorite authors.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Knygatin Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Dale, do you think Shelley was a true poet? Or
> > perhaps a sociologically conscious impostor? :)
>
>
> Certainly Shelley was a true poet -- though, of
> the Famous Five whom I've read (of major English
> Romantic poets) he was the one I liked least.
> Perhaps we here at ED should try some Shelley,
> maybe The Witch of Atlas.
>
> A true poet.
>
> For an example of verses permeated by sociological
> consciousness, read this, from the current
> American president's inauguration, or at least
> read enough to get the flavor. The author is
> Amanda Gorman.
>
> THE HILL WE CLIMB
>
> When day comes we ask ourselves,
> ‘where can we find light in this never-ending
> shade,’
> the loss we carry,
> a sea we must wade?
> We’ve braved the belly of the beast.
> We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace,
> and the norms and notions
> of what just is
> isn’t always just-ice.
> And yet the dawn is ours
> before we knew it,
> somehow we do it.
> Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed
> a nation that isn’t broken
> but simply unfinished.
> We, the successors of a country and a time
> where a skinny Black girl
> descended from slaves and raised by a single
> mother
> can dream of becoming president
> only to find herself reciting for one.
> And yes, we are far from polished,
> far from pristine,
> but that doesn’t mean we are
> striving to form a union that is perfect.
> We are striving to forge a union with purpose,
> to compose a country committed to all cultures,
> colors, characters, and
> conditions of man.
> And so we lift our gazes not to what stands
> between us
> but what stands before us.
> We close the divide because we know, to put our
> future first,
> we must first put our differences aside.
> We lay down our arms
> so we can reach out our arms
> to one another.
> We seek harm to none and harmony for all.
> Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
> That even as we grieved, we grew;
> that even as we hurt, we hoped;
> that even as we tired, we tried;
> that we’ll forever be tied together,
> victorious,
> not because we will never again know defeat
> but because we will never again sow division.
> Scripture tells us to envision
> that everyone shall sit under their own vine and
> fig tree
> and no one shall make them afraid.
> If we’re to live up to our own time
> then victory won’t lie in the blade
> but in all the bridges we’ve made.
> That is the promise to glade,
> the hill we climb
> if only we dare it,
> because being American is more than a pride we
> inherit —
> it’s the past we step into
> and how we repair it.
> We’ve seen a force that would shatter our
> nation
> rather than share it
> would destroy our country if it meant delaying
> democracy.
> And this effort very nearly succeeded.
> But while democracy can be periodically delayed,
> it can never be permanently defeated.
> In this truth,
> in this faith we trust,
> for while we have our eyes on the future,
> history has its eyes on us.
> This is the era of just redemption
> we feared at its inception.
> We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
> of such a terrifying hour
> but within it we found the power
> to author a new chapter,
> to offer hope and laughter to ourselves.
> So while once we asked,
> ‘how could we possibly prevail over
> catastrophe,’
> now we assert,
> ‘how could catastrophe possibly prevail over
> us?’
> We will not march back to what was
> but move to what shall be:
> a country that is bruised but whole,
> benevolent but bold,
> fierce, and free.
> We will not be turned around
> or interrupted by intimidation
> because we know our inaction and inertia
> will be the inheritance of the next generation.
> Our blunders become their burdens.
> But one thing is certain:
> If we merge mercy with might,
> and might with right,
> then love becomes our legacy
> and change our children’s birthright.
> So let us leave behind a country
> better than the one we were left with.
> Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,
> we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous
> one.
> We will rise from the gold-limned hills of the
> west,
> we will rise from the windswept northeast
> where our forefathers first realized revolution,
> we will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the
> midwestern states,
> we will rise from the sunbaked south.
> We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover
> in every known nook of our nation and
> every corner called our country,
> our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
> battered and beautiful.
> When day comes we step out of the shade,
> aflame and unafraid.
> The new dawn blooms as we free it.
> For there is always light,
> if only we’re brave enough to see it,
> if only we’re brave enough to be it.
>
> Source:
> [news.harvard.edu]
> nda-gormans-inauguration-poem-the-hill-we-climb/

Does it occur to others that we're living in an era that places great moral value--perhaps the greatest--on publicly expressed dissatisfaction, and seeking and confronting the cause of it?

--Sawfish

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

Seeking the "root causes"?

Beyond satire:

[www.sfexaminer.com]

Lovely solution...

--Sawfish

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

Who would've thought that such policies or proposals would one day be offered seriously? And there is a case to be made for such a thing.

But criminality and foolishness may have consequences that surprise the sociologically-minded, with their assumption that one needs to identify the famous "root causes" and then spend public money on those roots & so end the problem. How often does that actually happen...?

By the way, here's not a "prophecy" but a guess: Look, in the next ten years, for the rise of figures to whom some adolescent subjects of "transgender" drugs and surgeries will turn for "restoration" of their bodies to their real sex. I wouldn't be surprised if quack doctors and magic healers will appear who claim they can more or less undo the damage these poor people had done to themselves. What got me thinking about this actually was the phenomenon, in postwar Germany, of various types of healers to whom people turned because they suffered from emotional and physical complaints connected with Nazification and the Allies' [i]de[i]Nazification. It seems that people sometimes not only didn't get the help they sought from doctors with ordinary qualifications, but avoided those doctors because they had been implicated in Nazi-era eugenics and so on. I could see a somewhat similar scenario developing in America and Europe. Sociological consciousness enables our present madness-of-crowds about "gender," and the Law of Unforeseen Consequences is likely to be proven again.

[www.amazon.com]

[cabinetmagazine.org]

Lest there be misunderstanding: I do believe that divine, miraculous healing can occur, perhaps especially in countries where there just is little or no access to advanced medicine, hospitalization, etc. I have been impressed by this two-volume work:

[www.amazon.com].

But that isn't the subject I mean to raise with this comment. Rather: sociological consciousness tends to generate the need for new solutions and cures to problems it itself tends to produce. Whether it gets them is another matter.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 14 Sep 21 | 10:18AM by Dale Nelson.

Quote:

DN
But that isn't the subject I mean to raise with this comment. Rather: sociological consciousness tends to generate the need for new solutions and cures to problems it itself tends to produce. Whether it gets them is another matter.

Take this one step further one step towards what many would call cynicism (it's relatively easy to reject cynicism without debate on the grounds that it's a form of distorted nihilism) but is, in fact, the simple recognition of default human behavioral response.

First, grant that humans have evolved to seeking advantage for themselves, and this can be an environmental advantage (shelter, agriculture), or over other humans (colonization, charismatic manipulation, etc.). It is the simple drive to attempt to prosper enough to survive and reproduce.

Suppose that an individual had spent vast amounts of time and money learning to identify and ameliorate the problems of the disadvantaged. Now one seeks a living. They mainly find it in either private humanitarian foundations or government social services.

Within the last 50 years this has also spread to education providers.

Now if your livelihood is to help others whom you've identified as worthy of assistance, what happens if you are successful--you do, in fact, help all or most of these disadvantaged to become self-reliant contributors to the social good?

You are basically out of a job--the one you've trained for, and spent lots of your own money to become credentialed. In fact, you do not advantage your own position by solving any of these problems; but you do advantage yourself to find yet more such problems for you to be paid to try to solve.

So basically, that's where we are now, and quite likely it will kill us, as a society.

--Sawfish

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

What you describe would be one example of sociological consciousness; a costly one, I suppose, but not the worst.

Sociological consciousness perceives the world, including humans, as non-transcendent creatures whose "reality" is socially (and biologically) determined, but also sees that "determined" "reality" as something that qualified people can engineer through intimidation, education, taxation, regulation, "counseling," community organizing, mass meetings, popular entertainment, etc. Those who want to drive this "progressive" agenda have largely given up on persuading dissidents with respect and a willingness to leave them alone if they can't persuade them.

So "progress" continues, but as it does it generates new and expensive problems. In America, there's a bizarre convergence of extension of public benefits (funded by taxes and borrowing) + recruitment of new citizen-subjects through the border, people who will also be eligible for those benefits. (Perhaps "recruitment" is unfair. But this is, for many policymakers, a non-negotiable agenda item, and yet the American populace was never just asked: Do you want to admit X hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Latin America?--Vote up or down.)

But it's not just ideas about what's perceived that are involved. It's that the minds that set and enforce policy, etc. and their opponents largely see the phenomenal world in terms of social values, social problems, social justice, social categories, social resources, and so on. The problems are ones that can (it is assumed) basically be dealt with by spending money, an abstract social resource, or by not spending money -- depending on your politics. The Trump people and the Biden-Harris people agree about too much, much of the time. Their visions of the individual, community, society, etc. seem to be not too far apart.

So my concern is mostly with the relative few who have a more "poetic" consciousness of the human and the rest of the world -- a concern that, at least, these people should mostly be allowed to live their lives without the State breathing down their necks. Parents should not have to worry about the State regarding their children as truants if they are not subjected to a State agenda for education. And so on.

But as long as we regard ourselves as essentially animals, whose nature is find the meaning of our lives in, visible, political society, humans often will not flourish but will endure (or not) an increasingly spendthrift, intrusive, coercive society.

And lives will be ruined. Watch and see. It might not be reported much, but there will be, I suspect, numbers of people who will come to be dismayed by what they have had done to their bodies. Living according to sociological consciousness, they experienced what they call "gender" as a "social construction"; they experienced their feelings, imaginings, etc. according to a warped mode of perception that they thought was clearsighted. They honestly did not perceive the reality of sex but were estranged from a wholesome understanding thereof from early years. Ruined, they will turn to "society" (government agencies, lawyers to sue surgery providers, all that typical stuff) to punish the physicians and to repair them and, since they will not really be repaired and restored, will seek "healing" in strange ways.

Yes: you watch: I suspect that society is going to become more "spiritual," even "religious" or "magical" -- but it won't be in ways that I, a Christian, will welcome. See my earlier message about postwar Germany.

If you think "society" is irrational now, wait and see what's coming. This is a time of religious reformation, nothing less. Wokeism is a religion or a part of an emerging religion.



When problems of the spirit are seen as essentially social and amenable to social solutions, problems get worse and worse. But sociological consciousness banishes the spiritual. It may keep some of the language of man's spiritual nature, but it uses it metaphorically. In fact, there was a rich vocabulary of the human spirit that developed in Western civilization. But I suppose its real meaning is largely opaque to people in our time.

Poetic consciousness allows at least the possibility of a spiritual dimension in mankind -- of some sort. It might not adhere to a particular religion. Walter de la Mare possessed poetic consciousness though he lived in recent times, but I don't think he was a believer in a particular religion. I'm not sure he believed in God.

For those who seek to develop the connection with God created by authentic Baptism,* there can be a lot of un-learning to do, because the language needed for a restoration of right consciousness may have been debased through misuse and because our education is largely founded on false first principles (which may be basic "truths' of sociological consciousness). We can catch more and more of the real thing, learn better what the words really mean, if we read old books, etc. But repentance and faith rather than education, including self-education, will be necessary.

This is getting to be a long comment. Fortunately, this thread is distinct from others here at ED and nobody needs to read any of these remarks if he doesn't want to. I will stop editing this post and go for a walk and get branches over my head. ; )


*In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit -- not, e.g. the Parent, the Redeemer, and the Friend, or some other concocted formula that seeks to avoid so-called sexism.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 14 Sep 21 | 01:07PM by Dale Nelson.

Quote:

DN
I suspect, numbers of people who will come to be dismayed by what they have had done to their bodies. Living according to sociological consciousness, they experienced what they call "gender" as a "social construction"; they experienced their feelings, imaginings, etc. according to a warped mode of perception that they thought was clearsighted. They honestly did not perceive the reality of sex but were estranged from a wholesome understanding thereof from early years.

I agree that this could well happen--could be happening right now--but will be minimally reported simply because it casts doubt on the current gender fluidity trope now in vogue.

How would a researcher get funding? Propose a study that undermines the raison d'etre for various social aid groups?

Good luck with that!

Too, there's a serious logical fallacy practiced by the young, especially, who, casting about for a self-identity, find themselves uncomfortable (often momentarily--but they don't know this) with what they perceive to be the expected gender roles for each sex. And they attempt to do this--a meaningful evaluation of their comfort with their assigned role--while in the midst of adolescent transformation from child to adult.

And we as a society *ALLOW* them to do it without any actual guidance from traditionally oriented adults, instead passing this off to proxy "professionals" whose livelihood (and self-worth) depends on finding, and "helping" confused young adults.

And here's the central irony--which I've seen play out first hand among some of my daughter's school acquaintances as they re-assigned their own gender identification. In most cases it was young girls identifying as male and adopting a male name and often the male pronoun--and yet the reasonable observer would not recognize them as male.

They say they feel more comfortable as a male, and yet, at age 13 what could they possibly know of what a male might feel? Or be expected to do? They have a much better clam to knowing what a female feels like, and what is expected of them by society but virtually no actual knowledge--not even an inkling--of what the male is like.

And yet, with no knowledge whatsoever, they confidently claim to be male because it's a better fit for them, emotionally.

In truth, they are not comfortable with the perceived female role, but because they are so immature, they *assume* that the opposite--a male--is the proper fit.

To very many in society, they make themselves into a ludicrous non-entity at best, and a self-mutilating freak at worst. This then is their de facto "new identity" that they selected at great personal risk and sacrifice--and feeling the lack of general support from society, withdraw, embittered, to the near-exclusive company of others such as themselves.

Gooble-gobble...

--Sawfish

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

Sawfish Wrote:

> They say they feel more comfortable as a male, and
> yet, at age 13 what could they possibly know of
> what a male might feel?

Even on the merely physiological level. All that money for hormones and surgeries upon surgeries, but no prostate glands. Similarly, men why try to "become" women will never know what a woman knows every month.

We may all be ready to let this thread alone for a while, at least, which is fine. I wanted to post something I ran across just now that might be helpful, in Iain McGilchrist's essay Ways of Attending (2019). He describes "attention" as "the way in which we relate to the world. And it doesn't just dictate the kind of relationship we have with whatever it is: it dictates what it is that we come to have a relationship with" (p. 13).

I might disagree with much that McGilchrist thinks -- I've spent only a few minutes with this booklet and am returning it to the library today. But I thought his remark about "attention" might help with what I've been getting at with regard to "consciousness."

Poetic consciousness, I believe, allows attention to, and so relationship with, a broader and deeper world than sociological consciousness does.

But modern society fosters sociological consciousness. It encourages us, trains us, to pay attention to certain things, have a relationship with certain things, while denying or not even perceiving other things, or only rarely. Poetic consciousness, I have said, has been the kind of awareness that has been "ordinary" for most people in most times and places.

They might have been hungrier, colder, more afflicted with illness than most of us are (although the degree of these negatives may be exaggerated for polemical purposes at times). But their worldview allowed, for example, more of the meaning of sexual difference, or more of the meaning of natural beauty, to come home to them, so that enjoyment of, and even the making of, poetry, melody, dance, religious ritual, etc. were normal to them. I suspect their lives were more permeated by beauty than modern people's often are even when the former didn't articulate that.

At any rate they were not thinking about politics or their "gender identities" all the time. Their bodies may have been susceptible to diseases that we don't have to worry about, but I don't have the sense that their spirits were as beset by psychological ills as those of modern people often are.

I'm not looking to revive the discussion, necessarily, at this point, but to leave this note here so that if someone sometime does want to pick it up, there might be a clarification ready to hand.

Quote:

DN
At any rate they were not thinking about politics or their "gender identities" all the time. Their bodies may have been susceptible to diseases that we don't have to worry about,[...]

And I'll again make the point the *precisely* because their "...bodies [were] susceptible to diseases we don't have to worry about", and other daily concerns relating to simple existence, continued survival, and that we no longer have these with which to occupy our mental energies, it is WHY some choose to stew impotently about their gender, or their self-identity.

You've really got to be in a secure situation, with a lot of free time on your hands, to worry this stuff, like a dog with an old houseslipper.

The kind of stuff we're talking about is unique to wealthy and decadent societies, I think.

--Sawfish

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

Sawfish Wrote:

> You've really got to be in a secure situation,
> with a lot of free time on your hands, to worry
> this stuff, like a dog with an old houseslipper.
>
> The kind of stuff we're talking about is unique to
> wealthy and decadent societies, I think.


(chuckling) Ain't it the truth! I have often said that we're a decadent society when my wife mentions something in the news. (Her job obliges her to spend a lot of time with media.)

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Who would've thought that such policies or
> proposals would one day be offered seriously? And
> there is a case to be made for such a thing.
>
> But criminality and foolishness may have
> consequences that surprise the
> sociologically-minded, with their assumption that
> one needs to identify the famous "root causes" and
> then spend public money on those roots & so end
> the problem. How often does that actually
> happen...?
>
> By the way, here's not a "prophecy" but a guess:
> Look, in the next ten years, for the rise of
> figures to whom some adolescent subjects of
> "transgender" drugs and surgeries will turn for
> "restoration" of their bodies to their real sex.
> I wouldn't be surprised if quack doctors and magic
> healers will appear who claim they can more or
> less undo the damage these poor people had done to
> themselves. What got me thinking about this
> actually was the phenomenon, in postwar Germany,
> of various types of healers to whom people turned
> because they suffered from emotional and physical
> complaints connected with Nazification and the
> Allies' deNazification. It seems that people
> sometimes not only didn't get the help they sought
> from doctors with ordinary qualifications, but
> avoided those doctors because they had been
> implicated in Nazi-era eugenics and so on. I could
> see a somewhat similar scenario developing in
> America and Europe. Sociological consciousness
> enables our present madness-of-crowds about
> "gender," and the Law of Unforeseen Consequences
> is likely to be proven again.
>
> [www.amazon.com]-
> Doctors-Post-WWII-ebook/dp/B07WZ7TSKV
>
> [cabinetmagazine.org]
> eptember_2021.php
>
> Lest there be misunderstanding: I do believe that
> divine, miraculous healing can occur, perhaps
> especially in countries where there just is little
> or no access to advanced medicine,
> hospitalization, etc. I have been impressed by
> this two-volume work:
>
> [www.amazon.com]
> stament-Accounts/dp/0801039525#:~:text=Keener%20de
> votes%20several%20chapters%20to%20David%20Hume%27s
> %20classic,his%20premise.%20Thus%2C%20his%20argume
> nt%20was%20not%20valid.
>
> But that isn't the subject I mean to raise with
> this comment. Rather: sociological consciousness
> tends to generate the need for new solutions and
> cures to problems it itself tends to produce.
> Whether it gets them is another matter.


Having now read some of this ludicrous screed, I have come to realize you're a religious nutbag. Forget I entered the conversation, dipshits.

Radovarl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dale Nelson Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Who would've thought that such policies or
> > proposals would one day be offered seriously?
> And
> > there is a case to be made for such a thing.
> >
> > But criminality and foolishness may have
> > consequences that surprise the
> > sociologically-minded, with their assumption
> that
> > one needs to identify the famous "root causes"
> and
> > then spend public money on those roots & so end
> > the problem. How often does that actually
> > happen...?
> >
> > By the way, here's not a "prophecy" but a
> guess:
> > Look, in the next ten years, for the rise of
> > figures to whom some adolescent subjects of
> > "transgender" drugs and surgeries will turn for
> > "restoration" of their bodies to their real sex.
>
> > I wouldn't be surprised if quack doctors and
> magic
> > healers will appear who claim they can more or
> > less undo the damage these poor people had done
> to
> > themselves. What got me thinking about this
> > actually was the phenomenon, in postwar
> Germany,
> > of various types of healers to whom people
> turned
> > because they suffered from emotional and
> physical
> > complaints connected with Nazification and the
> > Allies' deNazification. It seems that people
> > sometimes not only didn't get the help they
> sought
> > from doctors with ordinary qualifications, but
> > avoided those doctors because they had been
> > implicated in Nazi-era eugenics and so on. I
> could
> > see a somewhat similar scenario developing in
> > America and Europe. Sociological consciousness
> > enables our present madness-of-crowds about
> > "gender," and the Law of Unforeseen
> Consequences
> > is likely to be proven again.
> >
> >
> [www.amazon.com]-
>
> > Doctors-Post-WWII-ebook/dp/B07WZ7TSKV
> >
> >
> [cabinetmagazine.org]
>
> > eptember_2021.php
> >
> > Lest there be misunderstanding: I do believe
> that
> > divine, miraculous healing can occur, perhaps
> > especially in countries where there just is
> little
> > or no access to advanced medicine,
> > hospitalization, etc. I have been impressed by
> > this two-volume work:
> >
> >
> [www.amazon.com]
>
> >
> stament-Accounts/dp/0801039525#:~:text=Keener%20de
>
> >
> votes%20several%20chapters%20to%20David%20Hume%27s
>
> >
> %20classic,his%20premise.%20Thus%2C%20his%20argume
>
> > nt%20was%20not%20valid.
> >
> > But that isn't the subject I mean to raise with
> > this comment. Rather: sociological
> consciousness
> > tends to generate the need for new solutions
> and
> > cures to problems it itself tends to produce.
> > Whether it gets them is another matter.
>
>
> Having now read some of this ludicrous screed, I
> have come to realize you're a religious nutbag.
> Forget I entered the conversation, dipshits.

Wow.

You seem to be a really poor fit for for the tenor of the discussions here.

[www.youtube.com]

--Sawfish

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

Answered his own question. The Oresteia trilogy, and Greek drama generally, of course, set the template for thematic development of these two states of consciousness as a source of conflict. The contrast between society, represented by the chorus, and the suffering individual (Clytemnestra) begins the first of the there plays, all of which concentrate on murder and revenge. Near the end of the third play, the Eumenides, Athena introduces the concept of a more equitable response to evil and social injustice. Litigation instead of Revenge, what a concept! Prior to this, Clytemnestra's spirit returns, after her murder by her son Orestes (egged on, in retaliation for the bathtub slaying of his father Agamemnon), to insist upon the fulfilment of her craving for blood from beyond the grave. Not the same thing as either the divine law of retribution imposed by the Erinyes (Furies), or the supposedly more civilized standard of legal restitution Athena brings. Are we not similarly past the point of no return, as Thomas Sowell has asserted? Additional examples from tragic drama or mythology, anyone?

jkh

Kipling Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Answered his own question. The Oresteia trilogy,
> and Greek drama generally, of course, set the
> template for thematic development of these two
> states of consciousness as a source of conflict.
> The contrast between society, represented by the
> chorus, and the suffering individual
> (Clytemnestra) begins the first of the there
> plays, all of which concentrate on murder and
> revenge. Near the end of the third play, the
> Eumenides, Athena introduces the concept of a
> more equitable response to evil and social
> injustice. Litigation instead of Revenge, what a
> concept! Prior to this, Clytemnestra's spirit
> returns, after her murder by her son Orestes
> (egged on, in retaliation for the bathtub slaying
> of his father Agamemnon), to insist upon the
> fulfilment of her craving for blood from beyond
> the grave. Not the same thing as either the divine
> law of retribution imposed by the Erinyes
> (Furies), or the supposedly more civilized
> standard of legal restitution Athena brings. Are
> we not similarly past the point of no return, as
> Thomas Sowell has asserted? Additional examples
> from tragic drama or mythology, anyone?

Excellent literary connection, Kipling. Thanks.

"Point of no return"...an interesting thought I've played around with the last few days...

I've tended to see history as cyclical, and beyond that, societal direction (societal trends)--at least for the last 100-150 years, aa a pendulum-like oscillation. This draws a strong intuitive parallel between between human social behavior and physics.

Both of these metaphors can lull one to sleep because they de-emphasize the possibility society ever exceeding a certain known boundary of group behavior. This is to say that the excesses are self-limiting: as society gradually senses an unacceptable extreme, it tends to move in the opposite direction.

There are two (at least) things wrong with this: it sees social behavior as a one dimensional line, with all behavior falling within a bounded range on a conceptual continuum; and it assumes that the oscillations are self-dampening.

Speaking to the second consideration, there exists in physics the disturbing phenomenon called mechanical resonance that occurs under some conditions, where, due to unforeseen factors, the amplitude of the oscillation exceeds its previous limit with each successive cycle. This results in an uncontrolled self-destruct.

The best metaphorical example I can think of is the 1940 Tacoma Narrows bridge, which collapsed in the same year it was built in moderate winds.

[www.youtube.com]

In short, it shook itself to pieces.

--Sawfish

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

Sawfish Wrote:
--------------------------------------
>
> Speaking to the second consideration, there exists
> in physics the disturbing phenomenon called
> mechanical resonance that occurs under some
> conditions, where, due to unforeseen factors, the
> amplitude of the oscillation exceeds its previous
> limit with each successive cycle. This results in
> an uncontrolled self-destruct.
>
> The best metaphorical example I can think of is
> the 1940 Tacoma Narrows bridge, which collapsed in
> the same year it was built in moderate winds.
>
> [www.youtube.com]
>
> In short, it shook itself to pieces.
Substitute "spent" for "shook" maybe?

Kipling Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sawfish Wrote:
> --------------------------------------
> >
> > Speaking to the second consideration, there
> exists
> > in physics the disturbing phenomenon called
> > mechanical resonance that occurs under some
> > conditions, where, due to unforeseen factors,
> the
> > amplitude of the oscillation exceeds its
> previous
> > limit with each successive cycle. This results
> in
> > an uncontrolled self-destruct.
> >
> > The best metaphorical example I can think of is
> > the 1940 Tacoma Narrows bridge, which collapsed
> in
> > the same year it was built in moderate winds.
> >
> > [www.youtube.com]
> >
> > In short, it shook itself to pieces.
> Substitute "spent" for "shook" maybe?

If we're speaking of kinetic energy, yes, a better fit.

But I look around and recall other divisive times from about the 60s, and I've never seen such a fast pendulum arc, nor of such magnitude, as what I see metaphorically now.

Hah! Maybe the previous president's pointlessly abrasive personality was the added impetus...

Who knows?

--Sawfish

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