From: hartigan@ac.dal.ca
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: And over to you, Sean. (a mixed bag of stuffs)
Date: 22 Jan 93 18:16:06 -0400
Organization: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

In article <fYgQcuU@quack.sac.ca.us>, pharvey@quack.sac.ca.us (Paul Harvey) writes:
> In article <1993Jan20.142119.10405@ac.dal.ca> hartigan@ac.dal.ca writes:
>>In article <fYbRd#T@quack.sac.ca.us>, 
> pharvey@quack.sac.ca.us (Paul Harvey) writes:
> 
>>> And what is art?
>>I think good art is best described by the old Zen phrase: a finger pointing
>>at the moon. Bad art points back to samsara, so to speak.
> 
> Beauty in the eye of the beholder. 

I dunno. Obviously this is true to a certain degree. My field (English
literature) is really built on the notion that there is such thing as
objective quality in art, post-structuralist criticism notwithstanding.
Now that I think of it, this is just stupid, to say that something
has objective quality. Maybe what art criticism is about then, is the 
judgement of art according to certain shared standards of value. 

My standard of value, then, is: does a work of art point into or out of
illusion? 

>>> Is art secular
>>> or sacred or all of the above? Is what we do secular or sacred or all of
>>> the above?
>>Who was it that said that if a Buddha treads on a stone, that's a more
>>pious act than if an unawakened person recites sutras all their life? 
>>It's all a matter of perspective, eh? "Secular" and "sacred" are distinctions
>>that have meaning only from the "secular" point of view, as I understand
>>these terms. 
> 
> They are a pair of opposites from the field of opposites. Put them
> together and you can see the unity.

Can you explain what you mean when you say "put them together?"
 
> But we are back to feed the fire or
> quench the fire. Do Europeans feed the fire or quench the fire?

I notice this is an expression you use fairly often. What are you getting
at when you talk about "feeding/quenching the fire?"
 
>>> Is the grail have empty or half full? Does it make a difference?
>>I see it as an interesting manifestation of human difference that people
>>go varying ways with this stuff. I'm glad that Mallarme was Mallarme
>>and not Blake, and that Blake was Blake and not Chaucer, etc. 
> 
> So, diversity is good, correct? Something sacred?

Hmm. I am suspicious of words like "diversity" because a modern 
ideological orthodoxy is forming around that word, among others. 
The ideology known popularly as "political correctness" uses that 
word as a slogan, almost. 

Let's say that I am glad that people are different from one another. 
On the other hand, I am not glad about some of the aspects of many
cultures. I think it is a bit misguided to assert that "diversity"
is "good."  

To summarize and clarify: "diversity" itself is good, I think, in so much 
as it refers to the fact that the world is a varied and interesting
place. I am not thrilled about the common use of the word to 
assert that every culture in the world (except Northern European culture)
is inherently wonderful in every way.
 
>>Although I am unsure about Zoroaster, I really think that Jesus was
>>using this kind of language in precisely the metaphoric way I tried
>>to here. Jesus took the "positive" approach. The only reason people
>>didn't think he was a lunatic is because they were lunatics themselves,
>>and took his apparent lunacy in the most legalistic way possible. 
> 
> There is Persian Duality (Zoroastrianism) in Christianity. And of
> course, Nietzsche's Zarathustra is Jesus, or Zoroaster, or Unity of
> Diversity. Luke 14:26 comes to mind, for some strange reason. Lunacy? No
> way, it must be some sort of complicated legal code. The follower sees
> what the follower wants to see, the student learns what the student
> wants to learn, when the student is ready the teacher will appear, no
> doubt with the message: "Follow me and be Free!"

Jesus strikes me as an incredibly brave fellow, to do what he did 
where he did. One of the interesting things about this newsgroup is
the opportunity it offers to watch the spiritual descendants of the
scribes and Pharisees wrestle with Jesus' essentially insane remarks. 
I like the way you put it: it must be some kind of complicated legal
code. The legalist sees law everywhere he or she looks. This is a common
phenomenon in English studies -- the ideologue sees ideology in every text.
Oscar Wilde commented nicely on this, I think: "Those who find
ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming.
This is a fault."

>>Here in Canada, the government has been pursuing a policy of official
>>multiculturalism for about 20 years. That is to say, Canada has _no_
>>official culture -- its culture is officially a "mosaic" of all the
>>little cultures within the country. This stands in opposition to the
>>American "melting pot" model of national cultural identity. 
> 
> The same is true in the US, there is no melting pot. Of this most of us
> are in denial. What is the national cultural indentity of the US? The TV
> show Dallas? 90210?

I think this is where the Family Values crowd comes in. The Puritan-descended
Protestantism/ Jeffersonian flag-waving they espouse is apparently
connected in some way with the American national cultural identity.
Or it was...in 1776....:)
 
>>The country is ready to break up because of this policy -- within
>>a few years, there may be no "Canada."  What do you think of all this?
> 
> A new day is dawning. The US may also break up due to ethnic tension.
> Canada has French and English, the US has English and Spanish, and on it
> goes. This was coined "The Fourth World" by someone I don't remember. The
> worlds we have right now are military nation states. In a time of war,
> Canada for example is united, either for or against the US. But beyond
> war, what then? What is the purpose of nation states? You are you and I
> am I, what does it mean that we are citizens of different states,
> different countries? We are of different cultures, that is something
> that is always there, call it diversity. But what does it mean if I pay
> taxes to Washington and you pay taxes to Ottawa? The cold war is dead,
> there is no longer a purpose for the first versus the second world,
> there is no longer a need for the great US military-industrial complex.
> A new day is dawning. In the words of Rodney King, "Can we all just get
> along?"
 
The cultural homogenization we discussed earlier may make the nation-state
seem redundant some day many years from now.  I think the main force
working counter to internationalization is probably national power-elites,
groups of wealthy and powerful people who just like to order other
people around. A global state based on equality makes a lot of
theoretical sense, but the forces that have always prevented it are not
going away: egotism, selfishness, insensitivity, etc. In other words,
the end of the 20th century megawar is indeed a golden opportunity -- 
but bound to be wasted, I expect. Veh. 

>>> How is [cultural] decline measured?
>>One way I measure it is by comparing things like "Black Elk Speaks"
>>with what I hear modern Indians saying. I think that to a large
>>degree, modern Indians have lost a feeling for the attitudes that
>>were the original foundation for their culture. Of course, my experience
>>in this realm is pretty limited, and I don't want to overstate my
>>confidence in this judgement.
> 
> Black Elk was a great man, a prophet. To compare Black Elk to the
> average modern Native is to compare Shakespeare to the average modern
> Anglo.

An excellent point. You are probably right -- but I still can't help
thinking that a person raised on tv, a mix of Catholicism and 
vestigial traditional religion, and living in a modern city, is bound
to lack a feeling for the attitudes of nomadic hunters and gatherers. 
I would think you would have to work very hard to acquire a sensitivity
to the ancient mythos, at least as hard as a modern Anglo has to work
to acquire some sensitivity for the myth that became institutional 
Christianity.

> If this is decline, who is at fault? Given the post-Columbian
> treatment of Natives, such a decline of culture may be understandable, but
> why cultural decline of Anglos? What is this sickness that plagues the
> land?

I think we are living in a culture of decadence, and I don't mean to be
moralistic...just that it seems to be a pattern that successful cultures
get complacent. They lose their edge. New generations 
become more interested in enjoying the fruits of their parents' success 
than in doing the work necessary to consolidate the gains of their ancestors. 
It took hundreds of years for this process to bring Rome down, but 
everything seems to happen faster in dese modern timez.

>> Re: Psychoanalyzing Steve Adams (forgive us, Steve!)
>>>> Rather than say "free WILL," let's just say that
>>>>Steve is _free_ to make that decision if he wants to. But what he wants
>>>>is not something he can help. See the distinction? This may seem like
>>>>over-subtletly, but it's a distinction I want to stick to. 
>>> Of course you would. That is the "you" of "you."
>>Well, I think I am making a genuine point, not merely indulging a
>>desire for self-expression. 
> 
> One and the same, am I not correct?

Yeah, ok...but I think the point still stands, dagnabbit! :)
 
>>>>> So, there will be no unity of unity until all humans are
>>>>> dead.
>>>>Maybe! You know, I sometimes wonder if this isn't the route an eventual
>>>>world peace will follow. Assuming we don't kill ourselves off, a few
>>>>hundred more years of mass culture might turn the whole world into
>>>>one big homogeneous glob, a planet of people who all like the same tv shows,
>>>>eat the same Big Macs and wear the same Benetton clothes. Even
>>>>"expressions of individuality" can be subsumed into the mass, viz.
>>>>the assimilation of rap music into the cultural mainstream. 
>>> Look to India. They have been trying for unity of diversity for some two
>>> thousand years, perhaps more. Are they closer or farther? Is it
>>> achievable or only a goal whose joy is to be found only in the
>>> journey?
>>I think it might be achievable over a long period of time by the use
>>of sophisticated propaganda. Have you ever read Aldous Huxley's "Brave
>>New World?"
> 
> Sophisticated propaganda? That's what religion is. That's what Zoroaster
> and many other prophets have tried to do. Not easy, not easy.

Hmm... I think that is what religion has _become_, but not what it is
supposed to be. Now, propaganda has always failed (i.e. "all men are brothers)
because it has always (except in the case of children) been applied
at the conscious level, and so some people inevitably react against it in order
to maintain their primary ideology. 

But! TV and the culture of advertising have made propaganda the basis
of almost all communication. Tv is the ultimate (so far) propaganda machine --
propaganda which pretends to be nothing but content-free entertainment.  
So people don't know they're being indoctrinated. And they wouldn't care
if you told them, because you're fighting the equivalent of Huxley's
sleep-teaching machines. The international film industry, rock music, are
all elements of American culture's greatest strength -- the conversion
of entertainment into propaganda. Like I said, the worst kind of tyranny
is the kind you _ask_ for, the kind you _like._

At last, the dream of centuries is possible -- to make all men brothers.
As you say, not easy! But technology has made it at least conceivable.
But what will the resultant culture be? A culture of the lowest-common
denominator, of enforced mediocrity. TANSTAAFL.

>>> Won't happen. You can't force diversity together. It can only happen by
>>> recognition of conscience. Perhaps this is a meta-dharma. If we were to
>>> achieve it, what would be left to do then? To live? As a Human Being?
>
>>A nice thought, but I can't see it happening that way. I suspect that
>>the human problem is bred in the bone. I _can_ imagine highly sophisticated
>>propaganda, over a period of generations, gradually homogenizing the
>>world culturally. Combined with a "Brave New World" type genetics 
>>program, widely available euphoria-producing drugs, and an efficient
>>deviant-disposal program -- world peace is achievable, I suspect. 
>>Not by force, but by insidious gentle persuasion. The worst kind of tyranny
>>is the kind you _like_. 
> 
> And how is this different that what we have already done? 
 
It's totally different from what was done until the invention of 
the movie, television, and the artficial satellite. Mass communication in the
hands of a wealthy culture of individualistic hedonism: all the rules are
changed.

I think the process has already begun, for better or for worse.
The "Brave new World" was heaven for most, after all!
But Hell for a few, the ones humanity used to consider its best.
Redundant in a world where the drives that are the sole motivators
of most of humanity are gratified instantly and at will, 
they will be eliminated or shipped off. But we'll probably all die of
skin cancer before any of this happens. 
 
> Only an
> application of new technology. Does seem likely though, too bad really.
> Bring on Shiva, the destroyer of worlds, and we will start again. Maybe
> the idea of a golden age in the future is wrong. Maybe we have made hell
> out of what was heaven.

I think we really have. The ultimate wasted opportunity. The story of 
humanity is the most profound tragedy imaginable. We have traded eternity
for a mess of pottage. 

As Kurt Vonnegut says: So it goes. 

Sean Hartigan
hartigan@ac.dal.ca

Now the world is gone to bed
But darkness won't engulf my head
For I can see by infrared -- 
How I hate the night!
 
-- Marvin the Paranoid Android
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.pagan