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

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

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