by David A. Powell for The Saker Blog
Part 1 of 3 parts
As I began writing this essay, my first thoughts went something like this: I could attempt to write something on the illusion of freedom; on the reasons that this illusion is far worse than an actual absence of freedom. But who would understand me? Who knows today the state which is furthest away from an absence of freedom? … the one Alexander Solzhenitsyn describes in the following terms:
“It is a good thing to think in prison, but it is not bad in camp either. Because, and this is the main thing, there are no meetings. For ten years you are free from all kinds of meetings! Is that not mountain air? While they openly claim your labor and your body, to the point of exhaustion and even death, the camp keepers do not encroach at all on your thoughts. They do not try to screw down your brains and to fasten them in place. And this results in a sensation of freedom of much greater magnitude than the freedom of one’s feet to run along on the level.
No one tries to persuade you to apply for Party membership. No one comes around to squeeze membership dues out of you in voluntary societies. There is no trade union – the same kind of protector of your interests as an official lawyer before a tribunal. And there are no ‘production meetings.’ You cannot be elected to any position. You cannot be appointed some kind of delegate. And the really important thing is … that they cannot compel you to be a propagandist.”
(From: The Gulag Archipelago (Vol. II); Part IV: “The Soul and Barbed Wire”; Chapter 1, “The Ascent”.)
I’d venture to say that few presently know this kind of freedom – that is, outside of those finding themselves still living under one or another of the now antiquated forms of outward repression resembling the one which sent Solzhenitsyn to the Gulag.
For those who live in relative comfort outside of an actual prison in their “Free Country / Free World” there are few immediate reasons to be concerned about an outer “absence of freedom” of the kind experienced by Solzhenitsyn in the Gulag; but even less reason to be seriously concerned about the direct opposite of an outer “absence of freedom” – Solzhenitsyn’s sensation of a freedom “of [a] much greater magnitude than the freedom of one’s feet to run along on the level.”
There are far too many things to be built; mouths to be given birth to and fed; appointments to be kept; deadlines to be met; causes to be served; wrongs to be made right; Evil Empires to be established / dismantled by The Forces of Good; and last but not least, worlds to be bettered. All of these things can only be accomplished by running like crazy with one’s feet “on the level” as opposed to what Solzhenitsyn describes as an “ascent”; the direct antithesis of a slogan such as, “The result is what counts!” (a slogan later introduced and explored at some length in Solzhenitsyn’s chapter).
Nevertheless, what Solzhenitsyn pinpoints as thinking (and it might be added: along with education = learning to think) … thinking only gets in the way of what must be ACTED UPON (Period). And everyone living under the spell of our “Free Country / Free World” concept unmistakably understands this – and only this.
This is American culture in the proverbial nutshell: a practical, utilitarian, materialist culture to the core from beginning to end; a culture foremost of action, ambition and initiative; an ever-dynamic wonder of “progress” as little inclined to look forward as it could ever imagine looking backward; a one-way fast lane to the paramount goal of success (and now that the moral dimension has disappeared from the map, often a notion of success at any and all costs).
Success (preeminently of the material kind) – along with an almost exclusive reliance upon what only action-in-the-world-as-it-is can give us – are two of the primary notions which have informed and defined American culture since its beginnings. Notions such as these – almost the moment they go unchallenged – become cultural myths amounting to what might as well be described as articles of religious belief; when they remain invisible; become unthinking reflexes; are taken as natural, unchanging “facts” like the sky above and the ground beneath us; when they are seen as “just the way things are.”
Americans have never really existed outside of what amounts to an invisible, all-inclusive, all-encompassing prison without walls – the outlines of which I have attempted sketch above; what American culture adamately calls “freedom” – but one remaining, in any event, a concept which can be just as well described as an “illusion of freedom.”
… yes, in spite of people like Henry David Thoreau or Herman Melville, author of The Confidence Man – one of the most universally famous, widely read novels in all of literature (excuse my irony) … Thoreau? Melville? … do these names still ring any bells? … I honestly no longer know because during my high school days in the mid-1960’s, I remember reading Thoreau as an extracurricular project (and, yes, I still have the Modern Library edition of Thoreau’s work which I read in my late ‘teens … and I continue to read from it to this day every time I need a barrel of arctic water poured over my brain; a great way to get snapped back into the Real World whenever one begins to have the feeling that one is losing touch with it).
Or Lincoln, the great contemporary of Thoreau and Melville: “We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.” (From: Abraham Lincoln, “Annual Message to Congress – Concluding Remarks”; December 1, 1862.) http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/congress.htm
enthrall (1) : To hold in or reduce to slavery (2) : To hold spellbound : charm.
disenthrall : To free from a controlling force or influence.
No writer that I know of has laid out the role of myth within a culture with more clarity and concision than former philosophy professor John Kozy:
“Those who use Internet media to rightly point out the lies and misdeeds of both the government and the propaganda press are indefatigable in their efforts, having, it seems, adopted the maxim that says the truth will set us free. But it won’t! It never has! It never will! The claim is a legendary lie. Too few people care enough about truth for it to matter. Common people are too busy fulfilling instinctive tasks such as acquiring sustenance, shelter, and reproducing to trouble themselves with esoteric questions. So, as any social critic knows, critical efforts fall on deaf ears and blind eyes. The truth, when brought to light, is merely ignored.
In fact, no culture was ever created to discover and disseminate truth. None exists for that purpose today. A culture exists to promote a group’s existence. Cultures are instruments of preservation. Cultures are defined by myths. Unless a culture’s myths are known, its nature cannot be understood.
The myths, although obviously false, are often considered as historical truths, and a culture’s institutions are used to inculcate them. Once inculcated in the minds of people, the myths are almost impossible to expunge. Ears are deafened and eyes are blinded. The social critic is neither heard nor seen. The culture uses its ability to ignore the social critic as a defensive tactic. Ignorance defends the culture, and the culture’s educational institutions promote the ignorance. The institution cannot be divorced form its culture. In any culture, truth is something to be avoided and kept hidden.”
(From: “What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Men” http://www.globalresearch.ca/what-evil-lurks-in-the-hearts-of-men/5418308 / http://www.jkozy.com
http://www.jkozy.com/JOHN%20KOZY%20(2017)%20-%20COLLECTED%20WORKS.pdf
There exists – at least, for this writer – far more “truth” in what Kozy writes above than in what all the well-meaning people now endlessly preach to the “already-converted.” As it always was, to “tell the truth” is now synonymous with being ignored; being seen as non-existent. It would appear to be a far more logical strategy to attempt a revolution in thinking which removes the foundations from the cultural myths which do nothing but enslave us; a thought revolution in the direction of learning to think – that is, in contrast to the usual indoctrination into whatever happens to be momentarily conceived as “correct” thinking and conduct from either the “progressive” or “regressive” viewpoint – it matters not which one.
Genuine education, when understood as “learning to think,” is never something which exclusively depends on better school funding; or, remains only threatened by excessive educational costs. To an equal degree, genuine education also does not necessarily depend upon actually attending a school, or getting an official certification that one is “educated” from a school (a “truth” which Mark Twain was rather fond of pointing out). Independent thinking (thought itself) is closely related to what Albert Camus described in his 1957 address “Create Dangerously” as the aim of art: “The aim of art … is not to legislate or to reign supreme, but rather to understand first of all.” It’s a “free agent” with few commitments to anything outside of getting to the bottom of and ultimately understanding unconditionally whatever it is occupied with quite independent of how one arrives at this understanding; a position which is potentially dangerous for every social / political / economic position in our world of the present; the sole reason Camus used the word “dangerously” in the title of his address to begin with.
Whether “regressive”, “progressive” – or whatever falls in between – practically every viewpoint of the present is primarily interested in “education” only to the extent that it can be made to fit whatever ideological agenda is to be served – while avoiding to lead anyone along the path of the desperately feared “utopian folly” of independent thought (or, “What if those insane pie-in-the-sky ideas actually work? … then, we’re in really big trouble…”).
In light of the above, therefore, most of what goes on in what’s left of public life concerning “education” might accurately be described in these terms: (1) cost cutting and raising for institutional “education” (2) the shedding of crocodile tears over the obvious fact that “no one is ‘educated’ any more because the power elite planned it that way” (for all of which, naturally, there exists more than enough evidence); and typified by the progressive mantra of guarding against losing our so-called “freedoms” and saving “independent media,” etc. (… an unceasing, hypnotic back and forth motion ending with the trance-like, totally paralyzing “increased awareness of what’s happening around us” to which we’re subjected over and over and over with no end in sight).
Essentially, we live in a world where “evil” is fighting “evil” – an image, to the contrary, which our present world would tend to prefer imagining as either existing within some historically removed “Biblical Land of Theology and Superstition”; or, conversely, within the usual futuristic Star Wars scenario “somewhere out there in outer space”; but one simply meaning (in the mundane, everyday reality back on the earth of our present) that the progressive and regressive amount to little outside the reverse sides of the same materialist coin. Add all of this to the fact that the majority mainly wants something which makes its life better and – above all else – easier and more convenient (not to mention cooler) in an almost exclusively material sense. Truly independent thinking, though, very rarely does any of the above; and in most cases accomplishes just the opposite in terms of socially-sanctified “results that count”.
Independent thinking, in the final analysis, might possibly be “good” for a least one thing: being able to live with oneself. Otherwise, it’s a damned bad idea if one wants to live in the same company of those around one in the present world we inhabit. If one makes too many waves in our world of the present (i.e., doesn’t think the “right” socially-culturally prescribed thoughts belonging to everyone else but especially the person standing right next to you), one can quickly end up in a situation where one basically no longer exists in the eyes of others – unless, of course, one has built up around oneself a group of like-minded Others or has joined an already existing group. But if groups are not one’s thing, one had better have at least one true friend or a sympathetic family member or two because otherwise – especially if one finds it impossible to engage in anything outside of independent thought – one is more or less on one’s own.
At this point it has occurred to me that it might be a good idea to pause and excuse myself for repeatedly using expressions such as “our world of the present” (i.e., any formulation where the word “present” is employed). This is due to the fact that throughout my writing here, I’ve found it impossible to get Søren Kierkegaard’s 1846 essay “The Present Age” – something I’ve known and loved for my entire adult life – for a single moment out of my mind. Written long before many of our specifically “local” concerns of the present (there it is again!) were imagined by the mainstream, Kierkegaard painted a portrait of our present revolutionary age – as opposed to a passionate age of revolt – with devastating accuracy:
“A passionate, tumultuous age will overthrow everything, pull everything down; but a revolutionary age, that is at the same time reflective and passionless, transforms that expression of strength into a feat of dialectics: it leaves everything standing but cunningly empties it of significance. Instead of culminating in a rebellion it reduces the inward reality of all relationships to a reflective tension which makes the whole of life ambiguous: so that everything continues to exist factually whilst by a dialectical deceit, privatissime, it supplies a secret interpretation – that it does not exist.”
(From: Søren Kierkegaard, “The Present Age”, translated by Alexander Dru.)
Certainly, the practice of official (or, in our time, clandestine) censorship of books, etc. is not a great thing. But compared with what transpires on a minute-by-minute basis within the so-called private spheres of a thoroughly conformist world such as ours, the now relatively outworn practice of the censorship of objects such as books almost pales to insignicance.
In light of the above, then, I can’t avoid the conclusion that it might be more productive to concern ourselves with something which decisively defines, in the end, our current state: the rigidly self maintained stranglehold of never leaving the invisible, closed circle endlessly rotating around the single point defined by our very own special, exclusive brand of materialist belief. We never get beyond the age-old straightjacket of “freely choosing” to exist within a worldview which elevates socially mandated, group-approved and group-controlled material “results that count” to what amounts to an inviolable Natural Law … those material results which always have to exist before we can think about anything which does not originate in and translate back into literally the same terms; namely, exclusively political / economic terms – the only terms which appear to be operative in our present reality; the ultimate reason why an illusory freedom is far worse than an absence of “the freedom of one’s feet to run along on the level”.
What might ligitimately be called non-illusory freedom just might amount, therefore, to finally going in a direction never gone in up to the present point in time – one directly contrary to the “human nature” which we have always, as a species, unquestionably obeyed above all other authorities. I’d like to think that this is what Lincoln meant when he said that we must disenthrall ourselves … not in the first instance from some evil dictator or system … but from ourselves in order to finally save ourselves along with our very best notions of what freedom, in reality, amounts to. Within the entirely new space which would be established by this kind disenthrallment, evil dictators and systems would cease to have a home – even before they had the chance to appear in the first place.
The artist and philosopher Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935) had what still stands as an (art) historically unprecedented view of non-illusory freedom; one which perfectly mirrors in certain ways Lincoln’s notion of disenthrallment (including, in addition, some of what I’ve already written about above). Quite predictably, however, the “new space of freedom” Malevich has revealed, has made him into the most consistently misunderstood and neglected indispensable thinker and artist in his own time as well as ours – entirely independent, naturally, of the fact that “Malevich” is now a famous “brand-name” in art (along with Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Picasso, and all the rest).
To express the matter in the most direct manner possible: Malevich has now been reduced to an artist and philosopher “understood” and interpreted in a specious and often outright mistaken sense; one which attempts to force the thought and art of Malevich into the mould of a characteristically American notion of “abstract art” lying in the opposite direction relative to Malevich’s actual thought (but none of this “Americanization” is at all new since it dates at least back to year 1945 – when America ‘won’ the war, dropped The Bomb, and took over everything which couldn’t be smuggled into some kind of secret hiding place unknown to the CIA).
I’m writing this about what essentially amounts to the suppression and censorship of Malevich’s profoundly anti-materialist thought and art because it should be kept in mind when one reads parts of the following sections of this essay in which I touch upon Malevich’s thoughts along with a number of related themes which expand upon what I have written above.
What follows are three thought-examples from different Malevich texts which go in the opposite direction away from the currently prevailing “mainstream ‘art’ and ‘world culture’ narratives”:
“What is the ideology of Art, my point of view on Art is that Art has no ideology, no idea, not even an image and if anyone finds ideologies in Art, he is first of all finding elements of an ideology that is imposed on Art and the Artist.”
(From: Kazimir Malevich in what is now called “Autograph Manuscript 2”, dating from Malevich’s 1927 stay in Berlin and published for the first time in: Kazimir Malevich, The World as Objectlessness; Kunstmuseum Basil, 2014).
https://www.abebooks.com/9783775737319/Kazimir-Malevich-World-Objectlessness-Simon-3775737316/plp
“The influence of economic, political, religious, and utilitarian phenomena on art is the disease of art.”
“Throughout the world the dictatorship of speculators in pursuit of profit has disfigured life, thus destroying art. Artistic culture has been replaced by speculation; but the new art, architecture, and painting of today is an indication that we are on the threshold of a great new classical age in art. Our contemporaries must understand that life will not be the content of art, but rather that art must become the content of life, since only thus can life be beautiful.”
(From: Kazimir Malevich, “Painting and the Problem of Architecture”, 1928; trans. Xenia Glowacki-Prus; from: K. S. Malevich, Essays on art – 1915-1933, ed. Troels Andersen; Copenhagen, 1968.)
“The shell on sensations grew and hid the creature that neither comprehension nor imagination can picture. Therefore, it seems to me that Raphael, Rubens, Rembrandt, Titian and others are that beautiful shell, the body, behind which the public cannot see the essence of the sensations of Art. If these sensations were to be taken out of the frames of the body, the public would not recognize them. Therefore the public accepts the depiction for the image of the essence hidden within it, which has no resemblence to the depiction. The face of the hidden essence of sensations can be completely contradictory to the depiction, if of course it is completely faceless, objectless.”
(From Kazimir Malevich: “Suprematism”; from: The World as Objectlessness, 1927; Kunstmuseum Basil; Hatje Kantz, 2014, p. 189.)
Malevich is writing in this last quote about the shell-like “surface” of illusion-based, “realistic” visual art … but which in the meantime is now embodied, as well, by “realism”-saturated digital photos, “realism”-saturated digital films and videos (commercial and / or otherwise) along with all the other “realism”-saturated digital stuff which now practically defines the Web – since it all amounts to one big happy “realism”-saturated communal world-wide family which everyone and their pet canary takes entirely for granted due to illusionistic images of hollow “life masks” (even when pure cartoon fantasy) having become – virtually in every sense of the word – the only means by which we now orient ourselves to and within what we imagine as our FREELY CHOSEN outer and “inner” worlds; the “realism”-saturated digital depiction of our entire universe having now more or less taken over as the primary survival / sense-making tool we possess as a species.
In Malevich’s terms, these illusory projections of material “reality” – these illusionistic “shells” which only obscure instead of revealing what actually sustains us as humans; these shell-like surfaces hide the objectless, faceless face of art; i.e., “the sensations of Art”. Therefore, we can only begin to talk about what Malevich really meant in the above passage when we finally confront art as opposed to our illusory culture – one which may be seen as a “mask” concealing a great many things, ideas and objects in our culture – but nevertheless a culture in which Malevich’s objectless, faceless face of art will never be found in the cultural mainstream.
Or … does anyone ever wonder why it’s the case in Malevich’s late paintings (if one is acquainted with them) that Malevich’s human figures often totally lack faces? (OK … I’ve just given out – entirely free of charge – a significant hint in the direction of addressing this question).
Stated differently: one can print Malevich’s iconic “Black Quadrat” on a T-shirt – and one can even comfortably wear it. But within the frame of the world which has produced our culture of Material-Reality-As-It-Is-And-Nothing-Beyond – it’s virtually impossible to do what the principles of Malevich’s faceless face of Art demand of us in completely unambiguous terms: the total reversal of the object-worship embodied by the obsessive invention of narcissistic cultural fairy-tales – one which, for quite some time now, has progressively cut off the life-blood of the world we inhabit.
Ask nearly anyone randomly encountered in a public place and one will very likely learn what art in our culture now amounts to: above all else, “art” designates the popularly conceived greater-than-average manual skill for rendering – almost exclusively – the surface appearances of our world (i.e., in order to take the viewer / consumer on an effortless vacation / entertainment trip to a place the viewer / consumer already knows and just loves more than anything else to revisit time and time again) … and if one falls into the category of what is commonly considered to comprise “being a ‘good’ artist”, one can render surface appearances in a proficient manner; but if one can’t render surface appearances in a proficienct manner … well, one is judged to be “not such a ‘good’ artist” … End of Story … or, “Yes, yes … your ‘abstract’ pictures are really – well … REALLY NICE … but tell me if you don’t mind … did you – you know – ever learn how to draw?”
On the one hand, therefore, “art” has been reduced to (1) nothing other than the elevation of learned craft; the strictly technically oriented over what Malevich has called the hidden essence of art – “the depiction [of] the image … which has no resemblence to the depiction”… in other words, what has been raised to the level of an cultural orthodoxy amounting to a total capitulation to the world of Material-Reality-As-It-Is-And-Nothing-Beyond; an enslavement to the (professionally well-made) illusionistic surface appearances of this world. (2) On the other hand, “serious art” has undergone the fatal reduction to “culture”; what composer Morton Feldman meant when he stated in 1976:
“The big problem is that we have to differentiate too between culture and art. Art is done just by a few people. Culture is the manifestation. Publishers, students, teachers is culture. I’m a volunteer of culture, not art. And one of the things about culture, and I feel the young people are more aligned to culture, which again is society, than they are to the other things. Because in culture one has to have the illusion that one understands. You see? […]
That is not communication. Communication is what I have in my music, with myself. Do you know what communication is for me? Communication is when people don’t understand each other. That’s what communication is. Because then there is a consciousness level that is being brought out of you, where an effort is made.
[…] you’re not supposed to understand art. You are supposed to understand culture … and culture is just a department store which allows you to go and take what you want, if you can afford it.”
(From: “Conversation Between Morton Feldman and Walter Zimmermann” http://www.cnvill.net/mfzimmr.htm)
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About the author: David A. Powell is an American artist living in Germany since 1990. In addition to having a lifelong, ongoing involvement and fascination with the most radically unpopular ideas and concepts capable of being imagined by anyone, he has a degree in art history and literature and – along a number of other occupations and activities throughout his life – has also exhibited his paintings (in Germany, at least).
David A. Powell – Untitled (1969-2018) / Pastel on paper / 45×60 cm
“Americans have never really existed outside of this invisible, all-inclusive, all-encompassing prison without walls”
In this internet age, I’ve grown tired of authors who greatly exaggerate. Big words like ‘never’ are used, when they are quickly seen to be inaccurate.
Years ago, back when I had a television, I watched a show on the History channel who’s hook was that they had color films of world war 2. WW2 in Color or something like that was the title. It was interesting to see a time in color that one had always seen in black and white. But that was only the hook that got me to watch an episode about America joining the war after Pearl Harbor.
Back then, America had a small army, IIRC, it was about a 100,000 men in total. so task number 1 after the Japanese attack was to build up the army that would later save the British rearends and attack France. The fascinating part about this show and its color films was that it concentrated on what needed to be done to great a military with a military mind-set from all of these free and independent Americans who volunteered or were drafted into the military.
It was obvious that this was an America that was very different from today. Americans were used to being free. They were not used to following orders. Thus the very first step was to militarize and discipline them into marching in formations and generally jumping when ordered to jump.
It was striking how different that was from the America of today. Where a mass military of millions of people has existed for generations. Where every child has gone through schools where military leaders are prized for the leadership of the schools, where military discipline is thus taught by the retired colonel who is now the school principle. Where every workplace and corporation hires more of the millions of ex-military to make sure the corporation is run on military lines. Today’s America is very different from those pre-ww2 Americans, because today every American is taught and trained to jump when ordered to jump from a very early age.
And of course, world war 2 was just the beginnings of the mass media propaganda age. In 1940, there were a few popular radio shows that people would listen to, but the 24/7 world of constant idealogical and thought control of today’s brave new world hadn’t been invented yet. People like Goebbel’s were just beginning to see the possibilities, as were writers like Orwell. Orson Welles was just showing the possible effectiveness when he freaked out a nation over an invasion of Martians done as ‘reality radio’.
This is important because today’s Americans do have the power to save themselves. But one of the most important things they could grasp onto is that today’s America is nothing like the America that used to exist. That is one of the keys that can open the doors of perception. Realizing that difference between what America used to be when it was composed of free citizens who weren’t brainwashed by mass media and social media compared today is the key that can show everything that is false and phony and a lie told about today’s America from the manipulators. When a person spots at least one massive lie that they’ve been told, that causes all of the other lies to fall away as well. Or at least weakens them to the point of old paint that can be easily peeled away to see what history lies beneath.
“Big words like ‘never’ are used, when they are quickly seen to be inaccurate.”
I was thinking the same.
I had folks up in the hills who were unaware of World War I for nearly two years after the US entry, so if they weren’t free, it ain’t possible,
New England nearly sat out the War of 1812 and Ohio thought it could vote itself neutral in 1861
Medical schools were local till the early 20th Century, and you made your own painkillers from poppy sap or used cannabis for digestive issues quite legally.
Different country? Different world!
I Thank both of you (Franz and Anonymous) for the excellent and extremely thoughtful comments (and I have to copy them out and SAVE them for the times I’m feeling a little bit “down”).
… but maybe I can clarify somewhat, at the outset, my general approach in what I’ve written – as well as what comes in the next two parts.
As composer Morton Feldman once revealed in an interview, I don’t take myself for entirely “original” in the sense that the term is usually meant and employed in our “innovation”-and-selling oriented culture. Like Feldman, I see myself largely as the sum of everyone in my life who has ever profoundly affected and / or fundamentally changed me; and I could make a list – as Feldman did in the above-mentioned interview – of exactly who these people were, along with the priceless things these people gave me … many of which were people I never personally knew since they had either departed this world before my birth, or, like Feldman himself, contemporaries I unfortunately missed meeting personally; along with some priceless people who I DID HAVE the huge luck to know personally.
In what I have written here, therefore, I have to say that I owe a rather large debt to Søren Kierkegaard, who long ago gave me the “strategic position” from which I write here:
From Søren Kierkegaard’s “Journal”:
“He who must apply a ‘corrective’ must study accurately and profoundly the weak side of the Establishment, and then vigorously and one-sidedly present the opposite. Precisely in this consists the corrective, and in this too the resignation of him who has to apply it. The corrective will in a sense be sacrificed to the established order.
If this is true, a presumably clever head can reproach the corrective for being one-sided. Ye gods! Nothing is easier for him who applies the corrective than to suppy the other side; but then it ceases to be the corrective and becomes the established order.”
(I’ll read the rest of the comments below later; but in the meantime, I have some other things which want my attention first.)
Well, I do not think I can do better than the above mr “A” for multiple reasons: first – the mods won’t let me…place smilie here.
Indeed, it is popular, right out fash to blame the social experiment we know as “amerika” for all the evils in our world, but you know: t wuz not always so.
As in one of my recent posts I have with fascination in my heart studied the enormous, humongous sentiment of the people of the said States to stay out of the obviously approaching conflict on the ol’ continent, that we nowadays refer to as WWII. It was clearly visible and a daily subject in US publications in the thirties.
Hell, they elected a diseased creature on the premise, that he will keep the residents of the States out of that conflict. That was his numero uno campaign promise. His name was frankly…heh delano rosenfeld, sorry, roosevelt. Look it up.
You see, by that time, mass media was taking shape, and the movers and shakers have made a permanent residence in the White House. Literally. No joke.
Today, the situ is worse than ever, but in one way, shiny: the truth is in reach – if you care. It was never so easy to be able to find nuggets of gold, but there was never so much chaffe around it either.
As someone wise said: hate the sin, love the sinner.
I truly hate the haters of “amerika”. Foreign and domestic. You, gentlemen, will reap what you sew.
And I am not even American. Not a Citizen of the said States, not someone, who resides in any of her territories.
But I LOOVE the idea, the experiment, the laboratory of the States. I have this notion, that the balance in the force shall somehow be restored. Not with ease, and not quicklike, but it shall b so.
Now, as to the original piece, and to the author: would you like for me to critique the piece?
I is axin…
America would have been certainly a nicer place without the ‘American experiment’, without the laboratory of the ‘revolutions’ it exported to other places, making them less nice than they use to be. It was not because of Franklin rosenfeld, but because of Franklin Benjamin, Jefferson… The country where the sun sets, ‘skotos’ (gr. darkness, gloom, the darkness of death, ignorance and deceit).
Au contaire!
I argue for an isolationist nation.
A Nation, where a President, that cannot stand on his own feet can decide, that your son will have his legs blown clearly off 3000 miles away…why?
What did I miss?…or you possibly?
As far as Frankin is concerned: we gave you a republic madam, if you can keep it..
Jeffeson: the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants…
It is clear to me, it is us, who failed, thems gangstas knew where the bear lives.
Tanto,
As I don’t “hate America” to any degree – not even including, when it comes down to it, America’s crimes. Therefore, you don’t have to entertain any notions about making a “critique” of my “piece.” I don’t believe that it makes any earthly sense to HATE ANYTHING OR ANYONE. But this does not mean that I’ll remain silent and fail to advocate the OPPOSITE of crime, destruction and ignorance regardless of where it appears.
Hi there David!
Does this mean we are having a dicussion?
If it does, please, as a contributor to Mr Saker’s blog, request of him to open up a thread, publicly opened thread, that on!y we can write to, but is visible to all.
This format is hard to navigate and most unproductive.
Will you? Thanx!
Now, as to the matter:
Your bio states: David A. Powell is an American artist living in Germany since 1990
Let us start here.
I accept your claim, that you are an artist .
I also accept, that you reside largely in Germany.
I have made a point of not looking you up, so I will prolly make mistakes in my assumptions.
I swear to anything dear to me, that I have not conducted any net searches as to your person either related to neme, art, wrighting, or any other connection.
I swear, that today is the first day I have heard of you.
All that said, these are my assumptions:
You might hold an American passport, residing where you may be, but that does not make You an American.
Just as well as you criticise “America”, you seem to feel at home in Germany, which country is for all intents and reasons is a Quisling of America: both culturally and militarily occupied.
There is a so called ‘basic law’ in Germany, that the occupation powers dictated in place of a regular constitution, that a sovereign nation makes.
Am I right?
Does that basic law protect the freedom of speech?
Because if it does not, anything you say in this online argument can be used against You.
And…I would not like to put you in a position, that you will incriminate yourself.
It would be fun to do this here, and I shall, if there is no other choce, but for all to hear, !et me state:
David, you reside in a State, that does not legally protect freedom of speech, the very venue we are using to discuss this ” piece” of yours…and you are critising the laws, that let yourself to b published on da innernets?
As insidious, destructive, and traiterous as you sound, the US Navy has made the initial steps to make this venue availavle to us, me and You Dave.
Now, lemme ax ya, since we are at it: when wuz the last time you criticised the German government? Or Germany?
Cuz, ya know, you are on reford now…
But…anyway, let me not keep you up and can hardly wait for the second installment of huwite america loving manna.
We gud?
Tanto,
No, we don’t have a discussion (in spite of how much as you obvously are just dying for one). Your trip is simply boring for me – which is why I’ll do something more productive than skim through your oh-so-brilliant provocations after I post this.
I already HAVE your number. What remains is for you to finally GET mine – and you haven’t done this so far (just the opposite). That’s IT as far as I’m concerned.
PS – What I mean by “my number” is exactly what you could care less about and for this reason permanently out of reach for you.
Jeez…so sensitive…some might think you b an artist or sumthn…
Well, sorry, I didn’t come up from my mom’s basement to splain human evolution t yaall…
N merka too!
It was you bro.
Cheer up lad, no hard feelins.
Ya took a big bite.
David, I am lightweight.and friendly. Just funnin’
I know nothing. There are peeps out there, stories, theories, I could not begin…
I am now gonna look up some of your art ok? Told ya, self restriction and a sense of fair play made me.
Might even like it.
Peace bro.
Great! Let me know if you find some of my art (outside of the one here). That’s only because I have no idea where it would be. Honest! (and to save you some time: https://www.saatchiart.com/account/profile/982282 This David the artist Powell is NOT me).
Feldman, of course, is only talking about the PRACTICE OF ART as it’s carried out by the artist: a state of unfreedom until it leaves the artist and takes whatever place it might find in the world – to undergo a kind of “transformation into a ‘freedom’ only found in art” … a paradoxical-sounding paradox which really isn’t a paradox in the final analysis.
What I refer to above (if my previous post got lost somehow) is Morton Feldman’s below characterization of being an artist in terms OTHER than the stereotypical idea of the “artist’s sensitive nature” (which I don’t completely buy):
“The irrationality of being an artist is that it’s too rational… too rational ! All this aura of freedom. Yet it is self-evident that art is the antithesis of freedom.”
People dont want to be free, true freedom to do as they please rather than be a slave would scare the hell out of most. People like being spoon fed whilst maintaining the illusion that they are ‘free’. Erich Fromm summed it up rather well in his book The Fear of Freedom. In the West you are free to do as you are told, free to play the game whose ultimate conclusions are rigged against you anyway. A society that truly believes that the only freedom is having the money to buy it is doomed because the facts are that only a miniscule number of ‘the people’ ever make enough cash to be free (or the luck of the lottery). Money buys you the ability to forget about money, to be free from the endless drudgery of paying for all those material things you mostly don’t need. Western conditioning is the best in the world, the illusion is complete for most, who can’t even see it. Those that awaken find themselves too old, too in debt to be able to change direction, they may then partially see the illusion but refuse to acknowledge it wholly which would be no less than a form of death to the ego, a whole life thus far wasted pursuing the amoral dictats of consumer society, of the never ending spectacle (as Guy Debord saw it) the never ending quest for meaning in the meaningless.
Perhaps the only real form of freedom is spiritual, in such a way one can be free always but the West have done away with that and believe only the religion of science and the one true theocracy left, the pseudo religiosity of neoliberal capitalism and the worthless paper of fiat currencies.
Yeap! Total freedom implies “total responsibilities”!!!
Who has the courage to claim he/she is responsible for everything happening to him/her? Including health etc.
Of course, only un-realistic thinking, new-age, spiritualist can think that with their beliefs in “we co-create our reality”.
It probably will take a long time in evolution of human beings to come to term that everything is really ONE and we are made up of the same stuff as stars, universe and we might be a lot more “inter-connected” than we want to believe let alone “know”.
I “pray” for true evolution of human beings to develop their capabilities to perceive their “true” identity beyond “time and space”.
For that to happen, we have to develop other senses… like telepathy which will eventually allow us to see/sense the invisible behind all things… beyond the scientific-materialism-religion that has devoid human beings from experiencing what religions gave a little glimpse of but never allowed to open the door so they could keep control.
I pray…
Gabriel,
We do create our reality. Our reality is in our minds and it is what we want it to be, basically it is what we perceive it to be. This is why, when you take two people reporting on the same event, each one of them will /may report on two different things. Sometimes I wonder, if my cat’s mind wanders about like mine. I am certain that she does dream.
On other comments about freedom.
We, as social animals have no freedom. Our “freedom” is determined by the rules of the society we live in. Again, let me say our freedom is only perception.
A small sidestep on freedom. My wife found our kitty (now 15 year old) behind garbage bin when she was few weeks old and barely alive. We never asked her if she wanted to lose her freedom, our concern was for her well being. She loves us her own way and we love her, but she is not free. Now go back to humans. Ever since we lived in a cave, someone in a cave had a deciding voice on what we could do and how we had to behave. This is how it worked then. Then we created written laws, and now our politicians keep on piling that stuff day after day unnecessarily, yet none of us complains out it. My thought always was that we could have justify just few simple laws, but no some of us decided that in order to “protect” some notion of “something” we had to further restrict the “freedoms” of the rest of our society. So we keep piling the stuff on on the top of the other, just so some can feel good about justifying their “existence and their bloated pay cheques/checks”.
Just a thought.
Dear Anonymous,
You write:
“Perhaps the only real form of freedom is spiritual, in such a way one can be free always but the West have done away with that and believe only the religion of science and the one true theocracy left, the pseudo religiosity of neoliberal capitalism and the worthless paper of fiat currencies.”
All I can say is that you and I appear to be on exactly the same wavelength (and I really do hope that you enjoy my Parts 2 & 3 coming in the near future if all goes well thanks to the Saker – who should be known in my book as “Saint Saker” … especially for all he’s put up with someone as … well … OK, just “someone like me” in order to get this thing I wrote up and rolling to begin with!)
And THANKS for your mention of Guy Debord … who is someone who should not be left out of this (OK, I could have mentioned Debord myself, but one can’t always be EVERYWHERE at once). Thanks again…
“This, properly speaking, was the universal law of the inverse ratio between social position and humaneness.”
Thank you for the wonderful article. Should any reader have interest in an authoritative “manual for survival”, then the Archipelago is it.
Dear Chris k,
Thank you for your kind words.
And as for your bulls-eye dead-on comment:
“Should any reader have interest in an authoritative “manual for survival”, then the Archipelago is it.”
OK … this is my own view since I read the “Gulag Archipelago” as it first appeared (volume by volume) at my local West Coast bookstore. It’s more than enough for adequate survival in the world that we have in the moment.
Excellent, although I might want to disagree, partially, with Solzhenitsyn regarding freedom to think while you are incarcerated. You can still think while you are “free”, at night or at work while you drift off to your day dreams.
Enough said, Long time ago Spartan lawmaker Lycurgus decided that the citizens of Sparta must have one day free of any functions or work, so that they can commit their brain to thinking and philosophy. Giorgos Lekas, who happened to be born in Germany, commented on Sparta where he said that this is the main reason why Merkel and other Westerners accuse Greeks of laziness, just because they continue to think.
This video is unfortunately in Greek: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVGfeXggFPA
Check 03:00 minute.
Nice to read this, this blog is getting better and better.
“The truth will set you free” was said by Jesus Christ, who also said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Truth, then, is a person, the unique Godman Jesus Christ, by whom man comes to know himself for who he truly is and through whom God reveals himself to man. Outside of that context, and outside the context of God who sees and knows all things for what they truly and justly judges their worth, there is no truth to be found. Without the unchanging point of reference, it is all relative–and ultimately meaningless. Yes, indeed, knowing the truth about 911, Maidan, the Fed, JFK, or anything else will not set you free in any absolute sense. Nor will “learning to think”–the lauded “independent thinking”–set you free, unless you learn to think upon true presuppositions. This begs important question: just what is freedom for a human being? Even that question begs a prior question: just what is man and what is the good for him?
What is freedom for a human being? It is the Christ Himself who told us:
32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. 33 They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? 34 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. 35 And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. 36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed”… 46 Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? 47 He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God. 48 Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil? 49 Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me. 50 And I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeketh and judgeth. 51 Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death…”
“These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: 2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. 3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent”.
Freedom from sin. But only God can forgive sin.
You can find out if you have been lied to
after the death of the body
if there indeed is what you project and hope for (or not)
that also assumes you continue to exist… in some form or formless
what if what you experience right now, in reality is, you dont have consciousness but was given the illusion that you have consciousness?
how do you know your ‘faith’ is not your ego-transferance-image?
Can a flawed mind know a perfect god? does it even pass the logic test?
unless you are claiming you have a perfect mind.
If not your fall back would be your ‘faith’ – in which the question is – is your faith perfect?
If your faith is not perfect, then it is flawed, then you admit you can be wrong.
Is this the logic test?
If you claim the word is perfect – then the question is – how do you know?
since you, a flawed being, cannot not know if god is perfect, and your faith is not perfect?
Can a flawed being with a flawed mind with a flawed faith in a corrupt world know a perfect god as marketed/approved by the perfect word?
I am not saying Jesus is fake or god does not exist –
I am examining and questioning the limitation of our senses and the filters we have on our receiving end
before I sell god as the hottest product on the market.
Not to mention what ‘good unknown amount of addition and subtraction’ they have done on the books they tell you is the living word
If indeed we are taking the salvation of ever after seriously, we should be more stringen with our examination
and not fall for easy ego-emotion high promise of some saviour
Jeus also said, “”Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
May your god be for you and not against you
Peace
Good article, people need to be told about the true nature of USA. It would be good especially for continental Europeans to translate and read it. Now it is often said that money alone is the only source of Power in USA, yet this is only true among the White Anglo Saxon Protestants who continue to make up the ruling class along with their allies the Dual Citizen Israelis. Those who were not White Protestant could not rise above their allotted position. This includes Enslaved African, Native Indian, Irish, Spanish, Arab, Asian, Slavic and the other subordinate immigrants who will never gain power in USA. These people come to USA thinking they will be free- and all they get is a green card passport to slavery working for some criminal corporation that treats them as second class citizens, and lets them die if they cant afford medical treatment.
Obama was half Anglo Saxon and was entirely part of the White Protestant establishment culturally, which is why he was allowed to be puppet ruler. He was designed to trick black and minority people into thinking they have power and influence, when nothing could be further from the truth. Like UK, which it resembles in every respect except Monarchy, (although with dynastys like Clintons, Trump’s, Bush’s, this is purely academic) the USA is actually a extreme racist Imperialist machine, designed and operated for the purpose of global conquest. The White Anglo Protestant and Zionist powers see the rest of the world as their enemy to defeat, economically rape and then populate, the same as the German Nazis saw all Öst Europa as their Lebensraum. The Anglo continue to breed much more than Europeans, because they have this Colonialist Settler mentality where they have as many offspring as possible to occupy invaded territories. White Anglo southern USA have many kids, to outbreed the blacks. Right now while living in England I see families of 6 or 7 kids, and its encouraged by the government welfare system which gives thousands for each child, because they want to keep White Anglo the majority above Indians, Polish etc who are gaining numbers. John Bull and Uncle Sam will not tolerate this in their homelands! Australia, New Zealand, Southern Africa and Canada were all taken from the natives by Anglo colonialists who often had 10 children each generation. Each child took land and wealth further from the natives. In contrast, China has its successful small family model, while increasing its own living standards as it has no colonialist ambitions. Italians for example now have only one child on average, same with Russia and Sweden.
Russia and Iran understand this, and hopefully China under Xi Jinping will abandon the appeasement policy it used from 1980s-2010s. However China has a sinister element of pro western corruption which will be hard to eradicate. Russia is the vanguard of true Anti Fascism in the real sense of that word. The world is tired of White Anglo Saxons terrorising them. People you meet in India, Latin Ameria and Africa are often full of praise for Russia and the help it has given oppressed people for generations- Russia is antithesis of Anglo values.
Like other vaunted “Western values” like democracy, human rights, or the rule of law, freedom itself as a principle has long ago been manipulated and perverted by America and its allies as a weapon to destabilize and colonize any nation that stands in the way of America’s unipolar world order, while also brainwashing their own citizens that they live in some kind of glorious liberal democracy.
Marx was wrong.
It’s not religion that is the opiate of the masses.
It’s “freedom” that is the opiate/meth/crack cocaine of the sheeple.
I have trouble reading articles like this. I’ve never studied philosophy. I much prefer articles that point to specific events, that name specific people, rather than ones that keep on about shadowy concepts. Maybe it is because I am not well educated, but I like to keep things simple.
If i am to understand the main thrust of this it is that the world of today is much like the novel 1984 with its newspeak and ministry of truth, or what Huxley said, that people would come to love their servitude when by all rights they should not. If this is his point, then yes we are there. I believe this re-engineering has been deliberately done over a long period of time by various methods, until today the new batch think there are over 90 genders rather than just two. We think we own homes and property but if we don’t pay the enforced property tax they will come and throw us to the curb. Then we realize we don’t really own much of anything. And the intolerance for opposing views is easily seen in comment sections of web sites. Those who hold a different view are slandered and attacked rather there being honest conversation and debate. The more we do not think for ourselves and the more we just become part of the hive even though we disagree with certain issues we consider important, the more deeply we are enslaved.
Thank you for your comment, which I really appreciate. I understand where you’re coming from because I also value simple things quite a lot – but not at the price of making things which can’t be made simpler without sacrificing their meaning. It’s probably why philosophy exists in the first place: in order to make some kind of sense out of things so complex that they will probably never be completely “explained” and accounted for once and for all because – in addition their endless complexity – they keep changing all the time. Some things don’t change, however. Like when one expends the effort on understanding something one doesn’t know about and / or is uncomfortable with. One always DOES have the possibility of reversing all this unknowing discomfort to a degree with a personal involvement with the subject itself as opposed to having it handed to one on a plate – pre-digested, so to speak, to save one the trouble of doing so (not knowing, on the other hand, whether the pre-digestion was well carried out or what may have motivated it in the first place).
Here’s something I wrote a few years age:
The first time I encountered the name “Kazimir Malevich” was I bought (as a teenager) and innocently read a book by the Thomist philosopher Jacques Maritain https://www.google.com/search?q=jacques+maritain&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b
called “Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry” – Vol. 1; A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, National Gallery of Arts, Washington, 1953 … while not having the SLIGHTEST IDEA over what I only much later learned was the “Thomist worldview” from which Maritain was coming (but “one lives and learns” as the saying goes).
The quotes from Malevich’s “The Non-Objective World” included by Maritain in Creative “Intuition in Art and Poetry” were from the anthology “Artists on Art” (New York, 1945):
” ‘Suprematism’ – another word for abstract art – ‘Suprematism,’ wrote Malevich, ‘is the rediscovery of that pure art which in the course of time, and by an accretion of ‘things,’ has been lost to sight…. The happy liberating touch of nonobjectivity drew me out into the ‘desert’ where only feeling is real…. ‘ ” [etc., etc.] – Jacques Maritain, “Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry” (Meridian, 1961), p. 158.
[note: the phrase “The happy liberating touch of nonobjectivity” does not EXIST in Malevich’s original text as I only learned almost 50 years later … along with the fact that the whole quoted passage (which I haven’t included here) is an inadequate English translation from a German translation of the original Russian.]
Some time would pass before I’d see a single reproduction of Malevich’s painting. Nevertheless, Malevich’s words had already permanently changed my way of seeing before I was able to escape high school (there being more ways of having one’s mind opened than with completely inadequate reproductions of paintings I’d only see “in real life” half a century later). But I remained blind and deaf to what I sensed as Maritain’s capitulation to a kind of religious-materialist-fundamentalism as dogmatic as the religious-materialist-fundamentalism of Soviet Socialist Realism (which I knew from reading the jacket notes from the 1950’s (of MacCarthyism / Cold War fame) for American records of the music of composers like Shostakovich, one of the special targets – especially in 1948 – of Soviet Socialist Realism’s repressive art dogma; and whose prohibition of art had already begun to form in my mind as a premonition of “life” as we now know it under global capitalism (somewhat before, by the way, I ever heard the term “global capitalism”). At any rate, had Maritain had the occasion to read Malevich’s 1924 essay on Lenin (as I also did 50 years after seeing only Malevich’s name plus a badly translated, misinterpreted, short Malevich text) – in which Malevich analyses Leninism as a religious cult of the first order – he might have formed other opinions about what he calls the “deluded” artist Malevich (but I don’t want to be overly optimistic).
Good article! I’m slightly disagreeing about Kazimir Malevich, who I believe was highly overrated. His anti-materialist thought process was just that – “anti-materialist” and aimless, without any spiritual alternative. His art always left me feeling empty.
‘His art always left me feeling empty.’
Perhaps that was his intent? I am thinking of course of his most famous and controversial piece, Black Square, which a close scrutiny reveals to be anything but empty.
I know really know what you mean. Sometimes, I’ve had to FORCE myself initially (particularly, earlier in my life) to come to terms with certain artworks – no matter how they are “rated” or “not rated” … including music, etc. I can say from experience that this can REALLY WORK due to the number of artists and works I’ve added to my list in this way which I continue to be fascinated with. On the other hand, as I’ve also found: if FORCING oneself to approach artists / art works on their OWN TERMS ALONE REGARDLESS does NOT work … then, this probably indicates that one is dealing with an artist / artwork, etc. that is not worth ones’s time and attention.
EXCUSE ME! I meant to address my above reply to The Real History: (Good article! I’m slightly disagreeing about Kazimir Malevich, who I believe was highly overrated. His anti-materialist thought process was just that – “anti-materialist” and aimless, without any spiritual alternative. His art always left me feeling empty.)
(I can sometimes be a little bit “mechanically inept” in discussion threads.)
But I really like what ONE MINION said as well about the Black Quadrat being “anything but empty” … and I can almost promise you that if you can get a chance to see one of Malevich’s Black Quadrats (there are several) IN PERSON … well, this lack of emptiness (which Malevich himself couldn’t understand for a long time after he executed the first one) … this will fall on your head (or should do so) like the proverbia ton of bricks … but you won’t get injured – only canged in a way that’s hard to explain.
PS to REAL HISTORY: your line “His anti-materialist thought process was just that – “anti-materialist” and aimless, without any spiritual alternative.” tells me that you probably have not read enough reliable secondary literature about what Malevich wrote … and it is also optimal to read Malevich’s texts themselves (all of which which certainly do not grow on trees … but this situation is slowly improving with time). I have to highly recommend:
Jean-Claude Marcadé: Malevich, Painting and Writing: On the Development of a Suprematist Philosophy (Kazimir Malevich: Suprematism) Kindle Edition (costing $2.13!)
https://www.amazon.com/Malevich-Painting-Writing-Development-Suprematist-ebook/dp/B007VDNHX6/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539105566&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=Jean-claude+macard%C3%A9+Malevich
One can’t ever go wrong with Marcadé – he’s the best for a very long time regarding Malevich; and Marcadè has translated Malevich’s complete writings into French which have been called the best in any language, etc., etc. (ONLY: Just ignore the highly stupid comment at Amazon: “Malevich formulated a unique mother’s chicken soup recipe by removing all the spices until Greenberg removed the chicken.”)
it is quite nonsensical, to talk about freedom as such when we are not clear on WHO or WHAT is that wants to be free in the first place.As the late jiddu krishnamurthi said from the far reaches of human consciousness,”freedom from something is not freedom ”There are many facades to the psyche,there is the female and male energy components,the identity complex facade,that leads to extreme false need to be IN A GROUP which leads to politics by war or peace, being war by other means.As jiddu said self knowledge is the first step to insight into the human crisis.
most men are looking for their lost mothers,and most females are looking for the lost father ,and the REALITY setters have a play book to keep men vs men set on each other, while the cash registers sings…kkaarching!!!geopolitically they have us all wrapped up to do their biddings.
https://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj_-uq_qPfdAhXCBcAKHWr6AHwQyCkwAHoECAYQBQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DYR5ApYxkU-U&usg=AOvVaw0s6Ai-o5-CNtyqFC7uHT_4
Really enjoyed your comment and the link is very appropriate.
Krishnamurthi talked a lot about human addiction to authority; doctors, teachers, politicians, artists..etc. A multi-generational conditioning of obeying to somebody who we were made to perceive as superior to ourselves. This conditioning is what made humanity into disoriented automatons, who are desperate for some guidance. This guidance is a road sign encrypted with a word “freedom” but points towards deeper enslavement.
Once again… unless we evolve in “knowing” who we really are, we want be able to “apprehend-perceive” the “one-ness” we are and new ways of dealing with each other.
“Integration of all” is synonymous to “the great void”. Is/Is-not. Differentiation starts the whole creative process going of which we are part of, made up of, and exist by.
I sense that Krishnamurthi “knew” this, experienced “it/it-not”.
Love and Joy…
Seems like a highish percentage of “anonymous” commenters here.
Katherine
May I suggest you read Howard Bloom, “Lucifer Principle.” I agree with some of what he alleges. IF (and that is a BIG IF) he is correct, no wonder
our world is the way it is.
Great essay, but to most of my peers, the only acceptable response is, “But, but, America is the greatest country in the world!” If you were to ask them what they mean, they might mention the Bill of Rights and Freedom, etc., but they would always talk about how great it is that everything is so inexpensive compared to other nations. Gasoline is cheap, food is cheap, etc. etc.
A sad complication is that healthcare is not cheap, but if you counter with this, then you stand to be labeled a communist.
All the while, we are too afraid to say the Global War On Terror is a ruse to plant the military close to crude oil reserves, that our military costs ten times as much and is about one half (or less) effective when compared to RF, but we cannot say what we think because cultural Marxism will make sure our life is ruined.
Thank you Mr. Powell for writing this essay, and thank you Mr. Saker, Sir, for presenting this essay.
I hope this essay has legs. It says something that has needed to be said for decades. I have copied it and will be studying it for days to come.
Yes they always say how wonderfully cheap ‘stuff’ is in USA as if that supercedes all moral and cultural matters. These sad materialist USA lovers are thankfully rapidly declining in Europe now. In 1990s literally everyone I knew loved USA. Now its China we hear praised. A few americans are intelligent and already know the Empire is finished, the return to just growing crops and preparing for the centuries of poverty ahead, with Island USA cut off from the civilised world. When Eurasia pulls itself together and cuts the dollar off, it will not be pretty for the Anglo Zionists because it will be like fighting USSR, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and Communist China simultanteously. Citizens of USA you will pay dearly for your Colonial greed, racism and arrogance.
Stuff is cheap in USA because they are the colonial administrators and reap the reward of pillage like latter day Vikings. The rest of us subsidise their Empire, right now EU taxpayers money goes to Lockheed and Goldman and Exxon and the other criminal entities which represent the new East India Company of our era. Just like in 1800s the UK could make millions of Indians starve by making cotton and rubber prices artificially low, USA knocks down its colonies economy to boost itself. And too many of us have been just accepting it.
Dear Eurasian Economist,
Do ye ken that ye may be right, ah, but how right?
Here is a present for you, a song of Glasgow called ‘The dear Green Place’, and within that song is a truth.
The ‘tobacco Lords made tremendous wealth, they still do today, but the working man is not so rewarded.
And thus once the US does collapse, it will be ‘the working man’ who will suffer the most, much the same as in the USSR, and a truth I believe that VV Putin understands, and so did Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Oops! I forgot the link. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUWNW0xUSaw
Andrew, thanks for that Link to an unusually concise and musical history of The Industrial Revolution. It made me realise that the Industrial Revolution and the U$ Revolution are twins: born in the same century, with the same Capitalist heritage, each a mirror of the other. It also made me see the relevance of Thoreau’s Walden and Melville’s Moby Dick in the above article: the Dear Green Place that is gone from our industrialized civilization — but which might come back to overwhelm our puny industry with a tsunami or a volcano, or (as Moby Dick) with the flick of a mighty tail.
Melville’s “Confidence Man” might be Christ, come to comfort us with the promise that for people of good will their wrestling and their suffering will not be in vain — or he might be a confidence man.
We do not know the ultimate truth. All we can do is say with Luther: “”Hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht anders. Amen”. Which is one’s testament of Freedom, under any regime whatever.
Dear Dr NGMaroudas,
Thank you very much for your appreciation.
I have always enjoyed music and one of my main loves was for the ‘folk music’. How did the common man express his feelings and his interpretations of the events surrounding him? With ‘folk music’
In the Irish song, ‘The Minstrel Boy’ there is the line; “My songs were made for the pure and free, they will never sound in slavery.” That tells you that the Irish viewed William of Orange and his Amsterdam Bankers and their use of usury as the tool to enslave the world, and after the “Orange” victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 those Orangemen went on to create ‘their’ Bank of England to ‘raise taxes for the British Parliament’ and to enslave the world.
There are many powerful and enlightening folk songs within our world though some have vanished such as ‘The flight of the Earls’ which I learnt as a very young boy.
For the ‘Industrial Revolution’ have a look at who was in power and of course who benefitted; again not the working class man or woman, and as you have pointed out the Americans also objected, and this created the need for a British Penal Colony, and so Sydney Cove was created. The lists go on.
Dear James,
All I can say is: THANK YOU IN RETURN!
(Also: don’t forget to read the coming two parts of “Freedom and Other Illisions”)
The universal problem is poisoning and mutilation. EG Mitzitzah B’peh & circumcision; pharmaceuticals and other drugs. Endocrine systems via vasectomy and C-sections, Et Cetera beyond bipolar… In a word, artificiality. Nature Lao Tsu, the Tao Te Ching author said, is not a maybe ~~nature must be understood and this is a meant to be truth.
The human being perhaps has reached an end of its cycle in the earth’s nature. All life in earth must honor the beginning, middle and end of seasonal realities.
>> Simply>> inhale deep slow smooth breaths and drop the exhale, breathing like a baby and keep balanced in the only power in the unseen ~ seen ~~ the moment. Celebrate the breath as long as possible because when the breath disappears the obvious.
Enjoy the moment.
Yes,” What Actually sustains us as human beings?” This is the question for the 21st Century.
the suicide rate in the USA( under reported for sure) prompted a discussion between me and my friend, a preschool teacher. “People are in despair, ” she maintains. Those with strong connections to family can manage to hang on somehow. It is a loss of heart connection accompanied with a gnawing hunger centered in the gut. Head and heart are rent apart and the physicality of being a human denied in a fundamental way. Emotion faked…imagination distorted. Depravity hailed. And most important–spirituality denied.
In ancient Greece it was mandatory for every “citizen” ( ok, this was narrowly defined) to attend the theatre during the week designated as theatre week . Enforcement of this was probably very easy if necessary at all.
In Da Nang, where another of my friend lives, each spring there is a week long festival of Kwan Yin, the Buddha of Compassion in which much of the population participates. Gen. Shoigu just spoke in one of his military briefings of a fund to build churches in Russia to honor the victories of WWII. Places of beauty–of history–of remembrance …of honoring the sacrifices of a previous generation.
But how can a nation which is doing unrighteous actions in the world celebrate anything? oh yes, Trump wants his parade. What a charade. And the suicide rate is highest in the military.
‘Spartan lawmaker Lycurgus decided that the citizens of Sparta must have one day free of any functions or work, so that they can commit their brain to thinking and philosophy’.
5000 years of human thought has offered only two fundamental creation models for our universe. Is it time then to choose your truth?
http://www.theq1.org/index_htm_files/Q!%20Binary%20Universe.pdf
Dear David,
Reading this article and the various comments attached I get the feeling that none of these people really comprehend history and the significant points therein.
Of course people are aware of the Schofields Bible any many are aware of the required rewriting of the book supposedly written by God. Has anyone though heard of what my father said was the ‘Ethiopian Bible’ wherein it was stated that it was the priests that placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Of course when taken in context that also corroborates the story of the battle of Jericho.
And again in history we see the story of the ‘Trojan Horse’ as a tactic by the Greeks to gain entry to the City of Troy, and then we consider the Judean equivalent that event in regard to Josephus and the Roman General Fabius Vespasian, and it becomes obvious that although Vespasian won the battle, Josephus won the war, and simply moved the Hebrew religion’s headquarters from Jerusalem to Rome.
But of course that has to be considered heresy!
Andrew, this is not a heresy by how I see things. It worked then it works that way today. All we have to do is look around. As a small thought, some people in Greece are asking other Greeks: “Are you sure that the people who represent you are Greeks?”
One more thing. Tadeusz Zieliński, Classics Professor at University of Warsaw, wrote number of books. I want to quote a thing from one of his books titled: “Hellenizm a Judaizm”, which was published in 1927. Towards the end of the book, he talked about a court case in Rome, where Romans sued the Jews of Rome for stealing 50 tons of gold and exporting it to Jerusalem. Mind you, shortly after this book was published, one of his Jewish students released a book under the same title, which was contradicting Zieliński’s statements. Zieliński commented about it, but his comment was very polite.
Oh yes, small addition. Zieliński made it clear that he had full access to Jewish archives in Warsaw, which he used as a base for his book(s). One of the main subjects of the book was the religious superiority of Christianity over Judaism.
Dear Andrew,
Please summarize the points that we do not comprehend.
Thank you.
Oh dear, let’s see!
What was the origin of the Earth? If you look at Ben Sampson’s ‘Electric Universe’ you may comprehend that the Earth was once a moon of Saturn.
If that is the case then Cro Magnon man may have originated on Ceres, another moon of Saturn. Again Ceres would have been whacked by a comet about 1322BC.
And how about ‘The Old Testament’ was written originally not for us but for the Hebrews by ‘their Judean masters. This would for me solve one of my childhood questions of what happened to Cain after he was kicked out of Eden. The answer was simple once you understand ‘Goy’. Adam and Eve were not human or goy, but rather the first Hebrews or for today’s understanding, ‘Jews’ and when Genesis talks about God making all of the ‘animals’ those animals include the ‘goy’.
Is this enough ammunition to fire at me? Have fun and enjoy life, but there is one last thought; in consideration of the ‘Electric Universe’ could it be possible that the human spirit is also ‘electric’?
If I may add. Here I do not want to insult any posters who constantly quote verses from the bible. I had some serious discussions about the stories in the bible, one of the main arguments was: Did life on this planet start in 4004BC as the uneducated Jews claim? Or did it start earlier. Now, my Greek ancestors wrote about prehistoric events, which as the scientists confirm happened somewhere between 18,000 to 14,000 BC. Just near my home town, ruins of two towns were discovered they are called Dimini and Sesklo one being 10,000BC the other 7,000BC. One of them very well organized and surrounded by a mote and walls. In Northern Greece (Macedonia), remains of now extinct elephant and human tools were found, the find was dated at 3,000,000 to 2,500,000 BC (yes this is millions of years). That’s all, as I am going to stop here. Regards, and once again I want to stress that I consider myself an Orthodox Christian.
Dear Anonius,
I consider myself a Presbyterian, though in the 1960’s some churches amalgamated including the Presbyterians to form the ‘Uniting Church’, which I consider not my church. My first wife was Greek and our children were baptised Greek Orthodox, thus I joke that my eldest Angus James David MacGregor was a ‘Wog’. For me, that is to demonstrate that such names are irrelevant.
It was not just the Greeks that wrote about prehistoric events, and this is where our’ religion falls down, but consider this aspect; if Methuselah did actually live for over 900 years, then how could he be human? However if we consider him to be a Cro Magnon then we can assume that Cro Magnons could live for such a time. So then we then next consider Abraham and his wife Sarah who gave birth at the age of 103 or thereabouts, and Sarah’s handmaiden, being a local girl returned to her own people.
So if a Cro Magnon’s life expectancy was about 1000 or so years, then at what age would the female be ready to procreate? How about after 100 years? This leaves open the possible explanation that these people were not our normal humans but Cro Magnon. But there is another twist to consider. If the Cro Magnon took about 100 years to begin to procreate, and the other races took only 14-16 years as per the stories of Mary, the Cro Magnon is at a severe disadvantage.
Then there is the consideration that Cro Magnons could interbreed at a far greater rate, and this is also recorded with Abraham. And in this scenario we should also consider the story of Lot and his daughters, and things should now become a little bit clearer especially with the understanding that the Cro Magnons were ‘white and blue eyed’ and the Hebrews or Semites were smaller dark men with brown eyes, which tells you that as normal, the Hebrews stole their ancestry.
Dear Andrew
Your resonating words here strongly reminded me of an episode some years ago, in yoga class.
The students were in corpse position, and I, feeling deeply relaxed, started to hear and feel ‘crackles’ at the top of my head. These lasted several minutes.
I then heard and felt the slight movements of our teacher as she moved to the next student.
At the end of our class my teacher asked me if I am Creative. My teacher is also a Reiki master and her hands, without making direct contact with my head, ‘felt’ the electricity I was generating.
An especially sacred moment and Life Lesson, re-membered by your work de here. Thank You
Dear Babuska,
Have you been present in a room when a person dies?
I had a friend at Maryborough, Les Davidson who had fought in WW2 and had been taken prisoner in Crete. He returned home to Australia with several problems, went outback and worked in a Lutheran Aboriginal Mission and in later life moved to Maryborough, where he developed cancer, and ended up at St. Vincent’s Hospital at Fitzroy where he died.
Les’ wife Eddie and I were with him in a darkened room when he died and as he did so with his eyes opened, I saw a flash of light leave his body from his eyes. I have always believed that what I had witnessed was les’ soul leaving his body. It was an extremely telling moment for me.
Dear Andrew
What a deeply poignant question you have posed at an extremely difficult time in my life.
The only death I have witnessed in my 70 years is my father.
We were estranged- again- when I was notified of his stroke in May this year. My mother has Alzheimer’s and since 1) I am the only surviving offspring and 2) my father as mums Carer made no arrangements for her ongoing Care, I returned to the family home to care for her.
My father was in many ways an exceptional man. Sadly for most people in his life, he was also a brutal and vindictive man.
I witnessed and suffered my parents’ relationship over 7 decades and the terms of their Wills continue to reflect their true natures: nothing for me or any of their 6 grandchildren or 3 grandchildren.
As for soul, I believe the entire cosmos to be One. Dreams come from God. We Are the Dream.
I believe that my father strived all his life for the Divine but his baser instincts ruled supreme.
I don’t think the soul leaves the body.
I believe, especially because I witnessed his death- he lost consciousness 24 hours after I arrived at his bedside from interstate and died five days later-the body sheds itself and the soul continues as part of the Great One.
Nurturing the Soul has been my tttrue vocation since we arrived in Australia in 1956.
It was only with Spiritual Direction over two decades that I finally found the courage to be my true Self- and God.
We are all Sparks of the One Divine
Peace to You
I slogged through most of the lead article but I am not impressed at all..tired yes, and depressed by the fact that I could not find a way out, a hopeful thread, a particle that did not depress me more than I am already depressed. all things, even ideas and philosophy as totality must contain depression and hope and all sides of its subject..or it must lead to some positive.
there are questions that seem obvious: who created the propaganda that conditioned the people, took away the peoples freedom and why?
how does the conditioning affect them? are they impervious to their own game, over and above things to the extent that the whole world can live one way and they remain aware but unaffected, conscious of truth and dominant..forever?
what about nature in all this..and the facts about our very existence?
in all of this we tend to forget reality and the demands of survival imposed on humanity by nature. humanity will not survive with the conditioning living illusions..which is just like Brave New World an extinction mechanism.
in nature humanity is a wholly interconnected being with our environment. major disruption of that inter-connection may lead to any and all kinds of responses that would likely mean the death of the species..or our miss-evolution..i.e we may turn into what we do not expect by what we are doing to ourselves for ultimately pointless accumulative purposes, relative to nature
we wont be able to put pig parts, and cultured parts, gene splice and on and on into and with humans and maintain normal interconnection with nature. if you did not evolve as a pig how will nature no respond to you as a pig/human?
and what sort of effect such engineering will have long term on humanity? it must be bad. it seems clear that humanity must evolve biologically as fully human in all ways and that we should be about bringing human life into the best condition we can make it, to go forward in nature, always in the best general shape we can muster if we are to survive indefinitely
and with that we have only just begun. the very masses of conditioned people who do not know their asses from their elbows, represent a form of intrusion as vile as genetic engineering will be.
nature is universal, without limit as far as we know..yet as the science of the Electric Universe tells us convincingly it is all interconnected, of matter in motion in constant productive interaction in that all the movement produces results with which me must come to know for they contain challenges to our existence. and what is more the real speeds involved in existence are billions and billions of times faster than light, that the power of electricity is much greater than gravity, and by electric currents the universe is connected up. so along with the real speed of things this planet is in instantaneous connectivity with the universe as a whole. we do not really know what that means except it contains the possibility of events happening we know not where having an instantaneous effect on us here on the third planet from the sun
Wallace Thornhill and the Electric Universe crowd have done/and are doing a great job debunking lies and nonsense that disenthralls the mind and by the clear reality they mostly have proved.. although it is the most thin impression of the EU I convey.
how does humanity..the jailers and the jailed survive in nature as we are now learning it, as stupid, filled with illusion of reality, in vast prisons without walls?
can the Jailer survive if the jailed perish?
and if the Jailer perishes too isn’t he at this point, and long before at the conception of the idea of creating Brave New World, suicidal.. conscious or unconscious of it?
indeed if the Jailer was/is conscious of what he is doing, the death extinction event ‘he’ is organizing, then he is not only suicidal but insane. then what is the point of doing what he has deeply accomplished so far..the shutting down of the human species by filing it up with lies to have his way with them?
is humanity as a whole insane then,,enslaved and slave master..is this all we are capable of in existence… is this all we are here for?
it seems so if only because the slave master has a religion too…several of them the dominant one of which is called Judaism.. and that religion like all religions are literally lunatic and illogical in content, created to control and exploit humanity. Judaism in particular is an atrocious anti- human content that permits it adherents to do to the rest of humanity all that has been described by all the big wigs here.
and if content of the Jewish religion has not conditioned the Jew, who is the slave master extraordinaire, the driver of Americans into all consuming illusion, into great illusion himself, then I don’t know what illusion is! the conditioner is as conditioned as the rest of us in his own way. he is enslaved too..by his religion which is fantastic, unreal, suicidal nonsense. and in the case of the christians as well it the same thing..the christian oligarchy is also conditioned by its collective beliefs and are as suicidal as the Jew
but the real human existential constitution is nature..not the american formative document, or any such document of any nation in the world. all those documents are paper, irrelevant and dangerous to the extent we are guided by them.
nature is the basic template and guide for all humans regardless of national boundaries. this fact makes the lying a-historical religious and abstract philosophies we have come to live by moot, useless, pointless, nonsense because they are not real..none of it.
if we are to survive we must come to know nature, the real time in the universe and what we face.. the real challenges to existence we must deal with in order to go on indefinitely in existence. at the same time we would come to know more and more about the universe itself and our place in it..how we came to be here, how the universe really works, where it came from how it evolved and when..if the universe itself isn’t a given..that is it was here from the start and will always here here, but evolving all the time
at the moment we do not know the answers to those questions as Wallace Thornhill has posed this definitive: we do not know how matter was created and we are aware that we at least cannot destroy it. therefore if we do not know the origins of matter we cannot tell anything about creation and the origins of the universe, how long it will exist for it must die if it had a beginning.
this appears to be absolutely true..and if is, no religion is right for they all start with creation, genesis!
the only religion ever created as far as I know that made any kind of sense relative to the science of the world we know, is the spirituality of the Ancient Africans..and it was not a religion at all but a view of things that by their thinking made sense. Spirituality makes more sense currently, thousands and thousands of years later, than any and all of the abstract religions that began to take shape from about 6 thousand years ago
so then the entire basis of western philosophy seems absolutely wrong to me..and even the Russian Solzhenitsin, whose work I have read only a little of but enjoyed it, for he seemed s superb intellect. but western intellectualism starts from nonsense, is absolutely incorrect and abstract, justifies human exploitation, is hopeless and depressing, has no way out for humanity from the ‘global reality’ it tries to describe, to codify. and so it is nonsense from start to finish, and near and ultimately irrelevant
I look forward to the overthrow of western intellectualism first by the defeat of the western anglo/zionist power in the world, and its systematic replacement with real democratic or socialist forms of popular social organization… to meet the needs of all the people in any and all nations.
it is the process of such democracy that will rid the world of this utterly dead, depressing and hopeless western philosophizing and view of the world, replaced with ordinary humans once again living and being able to address the questions and challenges of collective survival in nature, free to do so in ways that are discovered to be the best ways to go about doing any job they must do, and at no time must consider the minority capitalist interest, from which all the human social dysfunction flows. in fact if the people can so live again it presupposes that the capitalist/imperialist has been defeated and the people are in charge once again, free to create and innovate again according to ordinary and general need
that is where the problem is. we must somehow find it in our collective selves to defeat late stage capitalism and send it finally to burn in the hell it created and imposed on our minds with no chance of parole. the democracy that replaces capitalism will generate a whole new way of life,, more positive and hopeful, with a whole corresponding philosophy to match..society guided by nature not paper abstractions of rules written down by oligarchs to give them power over the people
You are certainly a deep thinker :) and a nature seeker
Too bad ppl like us (dare I include myself) are dying breed
Ppl just dont think that much anymore – blame it on the forced paradigm + poison food + chemical water + air pollutant
“They” are not just teraforming the earth – “They” are also teraforming the mindscape on the inhabitant on this planet
The jailer think that after all the jailed die off – they will be kings
and YES indeed they will be KINGs – but for how long???
This I see its like the 3 sec jerk-off – the egoistic feeling after hours/decades of pumping and hussing
so much so the creature would go so low it does not even recognise its face in the mirror
only for 3 secs of ego-rush ‘Now finally I am the KING-god”
What happens at the 4th sec, dear?
Then they thought to upload their consciousness into the tube or jar?!
Nice thought :P
Did you make or bring this body when you were born on earth? BIG FAT NO?
Then you dont know how to make a body? Yes?
How will you know how to find and locate the consciousness, you think it patently and identifiable as ‘you’ to upload?
Is a tube better than a jar? Or…. maybe you should put it in the coconut – a electric powered coconut or whatever :) Or is it a encrypted picture of a electric coconut?
The problem it seems is that all the current paradigm coerced as ‘reality’ and ‘the certified and only reality’ by science is based and fromulated and projected by meterailism
That we live in a physical world and we are solid beings
All other worldview is witchcraft
which also appears to have a concerted effort in wiping other-than-the-officiated-version out by any means – genocide deception falsifying history etc
and with the final goal of wiping them out in the populations mindscape
Still even if they are successful, it means JACK – since again, they too are subject to THE LAW & nature
Imants Barušs – Transcendent Mind: Rethinking the Science of Consciousness
American Psychological Association, 2017
http://www.baruss.ca/books.htm
Some nice reading list
What if THE BEGINNING OF FREEDOM starts from a formless body?
What if we are indeed in a holographic universe? (aka somebody’s show and we are but charecters)
What if reincarnation is the REAL DEAL/SHOW on earth literally? Who’s watching?
We are all given the charecter (therefore the meat-body-suit allocated to the place/family/bloodline aka the destiny and the path henceforthe the story we are to play out for a given time aka a set age/time for birth/death)
There goes the 3sec ego – No KING has freewill – “Made it!” is part of the destiny-arranged show
YUP! Where is your freewill then – for all the “success” of all the jailers they think it is by their hands?
They cant even think logically far more to desire to upload their consciousness? SAD bunch of charecters
The beginning of wisdom is to call things by its right name
and I agree with you – nature is a very good place to start the learning journey
We are not the center of the creation – definitely NOT the only species in the whole of creation
We must FIRST answer “WHAT AM I” before we can even attempt to answer “WHO am I”
If we are indeed holographic in nature, the answer to ‘who am I’ and the living system developed for such species will be vastly different.
There goes their coerced violence to force taxes (and all kinds on anti-human anti-nature systems) via death threat on us.
Thats is to say, they can lable any identity on any meat-body-suit (and observerable objects), but if it is holographic in nature, all in the REAL governing/watcher’s LAW of reincarnations
their labelling, their science, their paradigm, their law MEANS JACK.
It also means they are deep in falsehood – which is perhaps proof/punishment of their born-destined-insanity.
What say you, friend? :)
Anyone who may be interested –
Nassim Haramein – Latest Discoveries the Inner Workings of Our Holographic Fractal Universe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rBu-Bd-xNg
Learn and enjoy
Dear Ben,
Man, you’ve written a really great comment here; and I totally forgive you for not being impressed by what I wrote (I sincerely mean this). Do you know the books of the Berlin philosopher Byung-Chul Han? (I end my Third Part with Byung-Chul Han). Check them out when you get the chance if you don’t know them – even though Byung-Chul Han admits that he has no idea how and when everything you write about ENDS (he thinks that everything might just simply “implode” … which is a very likely scenario from my own viewpoint). Unlike you seem to think when you write at the end, “a whole new way of life more positive and hopeful, with a whole corresponding philosophy to match”, Han thinks that a lot of the problem has to do with an exclusive obsession with the POSITIVE as he expands upon in what I think is his most recent book to appear in English this year.
As a person who has struggled with No. 1 “serious depression” not so long ago related to exactly the kinds of things you write about in your comment and a lot else as well (yes, I saw a doctor for it … and eventually got myself out of the really terrible part by translating an outstanding essay on depression from German to English – i.e., by DOING SOMETHING “positive” and making a gift of the translation to its author which he eventually posted at his website: https://www.daniel-hell.com/index_html_files/Can_Depression_Also_Make_Sense.pdf).
All I can say is that one can’t let all of what you write about get the upper hand because when one does THIS – this is when “hope” recedes on the horizon rather than getting nearer. It also helps to be prepared for things we never expected to happen … which, if we knew about them in advance would not amount to human-engineered solutions at all … in other words, we have to be prepared to recognize simple things like getting to know oneself in order to save oneself are the first steps (maybe the only ones, really) toward changing everything around us for the better.
Dear Ben,
So you too have become a disciple of ‘The Electric Universe’. Wallace Thornhill grew up in Reservoir which was on the other side of Darebin Creek from West Heidelberg that I grew up in. Wallace went on to Melbourne University, but I could only manage Preston Diploma College for a short term as I had received a ‘technical education’.
What the ‘Electric Universe’ does is open a whole new concept of the history of our planet. It brings into relevance the thoughts of Comyns Beaumont and Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky.
“According to Beaumont, a large comet threatened Earth in the 14th century (1322 BC). Its debris (meteorites) caused a cosmic catastrophe that devastated early civilization, then centred in the Atlantis of antiquity – the British Isles.” (Comyns Beaumont & the Keys to World History)
However, once we learn that the Earth’s centre is molten, then it becomes an impossibility for the Earth to survive such a collision, which allows then for that particular event to have actually been another moon of Saturn, which exploded on the collision creating the meteor belt and the force of this collision and subsequent explosion acting on Saturn and its other ‘moons’ including Earth and separating them in a manner similar to a billiard opening strike.
This then should also give us an explanation into ‘Cro Magnon Man’ and his sudden appearance on Earth and his demise. If we consider Methuselah as ‘Cro Magnon’ that would explain his longevity as that then could also explain some of the oddities in the stories from Genesis, including that those stories originated prior to the Hebrew scriptures.
As a sidenote, once we realise that it is the Earth’s molten centre that creates the magnetic fields surrounding Earth, then that would explain the anti-clockwise orbit around the Sun, which would have a similar centre as would all of the other orbiting planets. However we are also told that Haley’s Comet which returns every 78 years has a clockwise orbit around our sun, but this is ludicrous once it is considered that a comet is simply a piece of rock and ice with no magnetic properties whatsoever, which is why they traverse in a straight path, but yet it returns every 78 years.
In other words there are forces acting upon our universe, forces which would act upon every universe similar to those forces which act upon atomic structures.
And all of this knowledge is denied to us as we must believe the lies myths and fables of a tribe of masters.
If I am not mistaken, to date,
“Earth’s centre is molten” is still a unproven hypothesis
The molten could well be just another deeper layer moving liquid under earth crust
and the centre may well be hollow?! :) and are inhabited by aliens :)
Fact is – we have no instruments to detect what is at the centre of the earth – this I think you will agree with me
Dear Anonymous,
I cannot agree with you and I will stand by my original statement.
On almost the same topic:
/what-is-freedom/
Worthy of such a global writer to remind, to warn but years and too fulsome and too many words too long. One thanks him as the USA secret services ramp up gross criminal plans for humanity well over 400 – 1,000 years old.
Watch and listen on RT.com the videos of the US genocidal destruction of Yugoslavia today 2018 being journalistically revisited.
Yugoslavia genocidally removed to threaten the European Continent what will happen to it if it keeps on resisting giving total obedience to US hegemonic Empire plans. Just as Harry Truman, at the proven death of Roosevelt, dropped two Atom bombs on tiny Japan to warn Moscow, China what await their expected resistance to US hegemony.
Almost 100 years later, the USA empire is over by it’s own actions, no-one elses’. The US CIA does not believe this yet. It will while supporting an exterminating WW111 once it gets bombed in it.” Each of must speak of us 7.5 billion.
I would like to address this to the author and all commenters. I believe that what we do when talking or writing about the present crisis is to take it at face value rather than look at it from a higher perspective. Obviously the US is heading into the abyss of self-destruction. The question I have is how much damage will be done before the inevitable ecological collapse. But we can also say that humanity seems to be still in its infancy. Many waves of so-called civilization have come and gone and will continue on such cycles. So where do we seek the higher perspective? Writers like Toynbee, et.al., are long gone. Yet there are people working beneath the radar for something else. I suggest you take a look at this article, then explore the writings of the last author named which are now coming into English translation. https://www.globalresearch.ca/religion-and-geopolitical-strife-helped-create-the-world-crisis-spirituality-shows-the-way-out/5639143
I suggest Walden by Thoreau.
Easy: live!
there is a famous joke told by jiddu krishnamurthi,it went something like this ,”one day a fine guy discovered truth and soon enough the devil showed up and said ,”can i organise it for you”
there are many taboo subjects in this world ,one of the main being, questioning the need for organised religions as such.Millions would not even consider the suffering of the arabs or the palestinians due to their religious believes,ditto for arabs or palestinians likewise on how they consider formers in return.
How in the world can anyone be 100 % sure that what the church say about jesus is correct as jesus was a rebel against rome ,the seat of todays church.We all know with 100 % certainty that the bible was rewritten many times,the latest being during pope constancious .Samewith how can any one be 100 % sure what prince gautama buddha said is what the monks are preaching to us.so on and so on with all organised religions ,they are all based on FEAR.
Am reminded of Mother teresa ,she piously let a religious life giving everything up,she toiled for years,in prayers ,meditations and fasting but to no avail as she did not ,”feel the prsense of jesus” sadly to the end.
man commit great crime in the name of GOD ,such a god would not have created mankind, maybe it is just the other way around,man created god to to blame him for every crime he commits.
Unlike jesus and buddha ,whom i am sure are blameless,jiddu krishnamurthi managed to achive his works for posterity in his ,Krishnamurthi foundation …no one can misinterpret what he said,a cry from the wilderness where few tread.
meanwhile the religious apologista shows rolls on.
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201810091068735894-publicist-pedophile-priest-earn/
There is no greater slave than the one who believes he is free – some guy
Thank you for mentioning it sir.
To reaffirm this pivotal quote;
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe,
I also thank The fed for giving us this quote – and thank S75ponny for giving us the author.
Paul Craig Roberts weighs in below as his first sentence is:
” One of the reasons that countries fail is that collective memory is continually destroyed as older generations pass away and are replaced by new ones who are disconnected from what came before. ”
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/10/09/erasing-history-diplomacy-truth-and-life-on-earth/
Very complex article, I must say.The question of freedom is very very old in human history. Here we have the concept of freedom and illusion of the american life and generally in the world of today and the freedom and illusion in art in general. The notion of freedom had been during our tumultuous history, cause the human being wanted to be free, to have the free will to create its own society. And the man did it. The man created in his free will all kind of traps and “prisons”, all kind of evil things in his lust for “freedom”. Then discovered the bad decisions on his own skin and wanted to be free again, in other words : freeing himself from himself. We (the “free people”) have elected freely our lords and masters whom, being freely elected to have power over us – the people – have decided on their free will (in our name) to send us in wars, to give us orders an instructions on how to live our “free” life. All these in the name of Freedom. The masters take down countries in the name of the same “freedom”. The list is too long to continue, cause you already know that. What I want to say in short : the notion of human freedom is a paradox. You are free to think what you will.
The freedom in art is totally different : there is the “freedom of expression” in a creative mode. That looks good. But it wouldn’t be just the freedom of expression of the artist being left alone with his creation, art work, if it wouldn’t be there some lords or masters, who have the free will (in their power) to subdue the will of the artist, turning the art into a piece of propaganda for their political scopes (on behalf of the people).
Art can be expressed in many ways (on free will of the creator), As for the question : what is beautiful or what is ugly in art, is a question of Aesthetics or of personal taste. Art has become also a business, there specialized people who decide what is a good art piece and what is not (of course, on their free will).
These people then, have the power to influence the taste of other people. Today, with the arrival of modern technologies, we have a Babylon of information regarding art (and not just that but everything)
There are people who are specialized in advertising and selling illusions too.
You are free to think and buy what you will, there’s plenty of freedoms and illusions…
Why, oh why do these davids and goliaths feel the need to instruct as to what shall be good for us, only if we allow it?
It has been discussed.
And forgotten I suppose.
Looking forward to the second chapter of: huwite man bad, everyone else noble.
Can’t wait.
Henry David Thoreau lived for two years, two months, and two days by Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. His time in Walden Woods became a model of deliberate and ethical living. His words and deeds continue to inspire millions around the world who seek solutions to critical environmental and societal challenges.
Henry David Thoreau lived in the mid-nineteenth century during turbulent times in America. He said he was born “in the nick of time” in Concord, Massachusetts, during the flowering of America when the transcendental movement was taking root and when the anti-slavery movement was rapidly gaining momentum. His contemporaries and neighbors were Nathaniel Hawthorne, Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, and his mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Social reformer — Naturalist — Philosopher — Transcendentalist — Scientist. These are just some of the terms by which the work of Henry David Thoreau can be categorized. It is perhaps the many “lives” of Thoreau, both individually and collectively, that beckon such a diversity of people to his writings.
As a social reformer whose words echo the principles on which the United States was founded — that it is a person’s duty to resist injustice where it is found — Thoreau’s writings influenced Gandhi’s work in India, Tolstoy’s philosophy in Russia, and King’s civil rights stand in the United States. Wherever in the world individuals and groups embrace human rights over political rights, they invoke the name of Henry David Thoreau and the words of his essay. “Civil Disobedience”: “Can there not be a government in which the majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? . . . Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then?”
As a naturalist, Thoreau understood that the path to a greater understanding of our life on earth is through an understanding of the natural world around us and of which we are part: “We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and Titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.” — “I suppose that what in other men is religion is in me love of nature.”
As a philosopher and Transcendentalist, Thoreau found a pantheistic sense of spirit and God: “I do not prefer one religion or philosophy to another. I have no sympathy with the bigotry and ignorance which make transient and partial and puerile distinctions between one man’s faith or form of faith & another’s . . . To the philosopher all sects, all nations, are alike. I like Brahma, Hari, Buddha, the Great Spirit, as well as God.”
As a scientist, Thoreau embraced the controversial work of Darwin, and developed theories of forest succession at the same time one of Harvard’s leading naturalists, Louis Agassiz, was still touting the spontaneous generation of plants. Thoreau was able to praise the scientific method — “Science is always brave, for to know, is to know good; doubt and danger quail before her eye.” — while accepting its limitations: “With all your science can you tell how it is — & whence it is, that light comes into the soul?”
There is an old joke among Thoreauvians that most people know Thoreau as the man who spent half his life at Walden Pond and the other half in jail, but the reason that his brief time at Walden and his one night in jail have become such defining moments in his life can be summed up under one term: Writer. Thoreau was one of the most powerful and influential writers America has produced. His prose style was unequaled. And although only a small part of his work was published in his short lifetime, he was a prolific writer whose collected works filled twenty volumes when collected in 1906. The publication of his journal of over two million words in 1906, the first time an American author had his journal published in full, showed the recognition afforded him by his publisher, Houghton Mifflin.
When Thoreau died, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his eulogy: “The country knows not yet, or in the least part, how great a son it has lost. . . . His soul was made for the noblest society; he had in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this world; wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, he will find a home.”
The whole military force of the State is at the service of a Mr. Suttle, a slaveholder from Virginia, to enable him to catch a man whom he calls his property; but not a soldier is offered to save a citizen of Massachusetts from being kidnapped! Is this what all these soldiers, all this training, have been for these seventy-nine years past? Have they been trained merely to rob Mexico and carry back fugitive slaves to their masters?
— Henry Thoreau
Substitute a few words, AZEmpire for Mr S; USA for Massachusetts; RoW for Mexico, etc, and we have a fairly good description of the present state of play.
Thanks for bringing up Thoreau, who certainly knew how to Walk.
Basil
Always interesting to read opinions about the supposed failings of the Academic tradition in the visual arts , as if that education somehow removes the ability to portray or illustrate the richer aspects of Life. Much like asking a musician to compose without musical notation or ability to play piano or even practicing the instruments at all . I once had the chance to view several slide shows of Paintings consigned to the museum basements around the world when ‘ tastes ‘changed and the art was left to moulder . amazing examples by artists who took the academic tradition far from dry realism into really dynamic Art . The Russian academic tradition had many painters in that direction ,including Vereschagin , Makovsky ,and one of my favorites, Ilya Repin . Slightly more contemporary would be Szukalski Stanislaus whose theory of the self born artist is intensely illustrated in his paintings,graphics ,sculpture and architectural designs . Having taught painting for many a year , i saw endless students frustrated by their inability to work out their inner vision , or outer observations for lack of simple skills . An artist may communicate ugliness and tortured vision with little or no ability whatsoever , and we all have witnessed many Artists gain success and adulation from the museums and galleries . It boggles my mind to see a huge population enthralled with War as Peace , Ugliness as Beauty , etc.
Douglas,
In no way have I expressed in what I wrote “an opinion” on the “academic tradition” in the visual arts (whatever that may have amounted to historically not to mention which culture or country is meant). In short, it’s a huge, huge subject. Maybe you’ve misunderstood me. Whatever “academic tradition” may have amounted to previously – this does not exist any more. What we hane now has nothing to do with ANY kind of tradition regardless because we live in an entirely different world – one the earlier practitioners of art in general could NEVER begin to imagine if they were alive now. It’s also not an open-and-shut art-historical issue, and this also is an extremely complex issue which can’t be addressed without consulting and including other disciplines such as literature and philosophy (that is, as opposed to a closed-circuit visual exclusively arts approach). First, I’d start with a thorough examination of the 19th century visual-literary movement in Europe called “Realism” because it makes no sense to approach (mainly) the Russian, French and German painters of the later 19th century without doing so (the Romantic revolt beginning in the late 1700’s being an entirely different manifestation).
The Russians you mention (especially Vereschagin and Repin) are also among my favorites when it comes to visual art (by the way, I have done both representational work as well as objectless work in my life … and yes, I learned how to draw “pretty well” before I abandoned the representational image … a long story, though).
But Repin stated in no uncertain terms: “I am no artist” – an utterance, of course, which is now almost universally ignored. Repin, however, was not simply trying to appear modest or self-effacing with his statement (an exercise in “useful PR” as it might be seen today) – but above all being straightforwardly honest. Repin lived during a time when what Marina Tsvetaeva called “loftiness” was still recognized as THE deciding quality separating art from non-art. And Repin knew full well that in spite of all his prodigious talent, his work could not be called “lofty” in the sense of Goethe’s Faust or Mozart’s last three symphonies – or even the “War and Peace” of Leo Tolstoy, who Repin, in the meantime, is commonly compared and associated with (and whose portrait Repin repeatedly painted along with a staggering number of other writers, intellectuals, musicians, you name it … the list of people goes on and on; “important” people as well as people now unknown and in between).
So what was Repin when he was not an artist? A consummate portrait painter for one thing whose portraits I never get tired of looking at even in reproductions (but which are especially alive when seen in “real life”); but Repin’s portraits are “alive” in another sense entirely when compared to the late portraits of Malevich. Repin was a unparalleled OBSERVER of everything, especially people. If I call Repin a journalist or cultural chronicler, then, this is not to demean him. So was Tolstoy on occasion. Repin was a person of his time – as were those he painted; an exponent of “Realism” understood in the broader European context of this movement in art who gave us countless great artists from the composer Mussorgsky to the writer Flaubert. Therfore, I don’t think it has in the first case to do with anything which can be called “academic.”
(Sorry if I haven’t addressed everything you touched on. We should be able to sit down together over our favorite thing to drink and talk into the night about all this … maybe on something like Skype … but it’s a bit difficult for me when I have to write it in a comments section … but I suppose this also has its constructive side.)
PS – but I’m really, really happy about what I’ve apparently “unleashed” here … which beats (from my own perspective, anyway) going on and on about “politics”, etc. any day – and this is ESPECIALLY the case when one considers that ALL ART is POLITICAL in a default sense whether the art practictioner who carries it out has the slightest “interest” in the political or not. EVEN and especially “art works as political propaganda” when one considers people like Mayakovsky and Leni Reifenstahl (who wrote GREAT politically-propagandistic poetry and made GREAT politically-propagandistic films). OK, Mayakovsky committed suicide over betraying his own poetry while Reifensthal went to Africa after being Hitler’s pet film maker and just made nice animal films … to what end is probably only to be found in a decent biography her. “Art advances between two chasms: propaganda and frivolity” (Albert Camus). But in the BEST sense, art is POLITICAL in spite of itself – foremost when it REFUSES the political.
I should probably repeat this here in case anyone missed it above: MY INTENTION was (is) to be almost completely ONE-SIDED in what I wrote after Kierkegaard’s method:
“He who must apply a ‘corrective’ must study accurately and profoundly the weak side of the Establishment, and then vigorously and one-sidedly present the opposite. Precisely in this consists the corrective, and in this too the resignation of him who has to apply it. The corrective will in a sense be sacrificed to the established order.
If this is true, a presumably clever head can reproach the corrective for being one-sided. Ye gods! Nothing is easier for him who applies the corrective than to suppy the other side; but then it ceases to be the corrective and becomes the established order.”
From: Marina Tsvetaeva: “Art in the Light of Conscience – Eight Essays on Poetry”; trans. Angela Livingstone; Bloodaxe Books, 2010.
‘Art is holy’, ‘holy art’: however much a commonplace, this does have a certain meaning, and one in a thousand does think what he is saying and say what he is thinking.
That one in a thousand who consciously affirms the holiness of art is the person I am addressing.
What is holiness? Holiness is a condition the reverse of sin. Our contemporary age does not know sin, it replaces the concept of ‘sin’ with the concept of harm. It follows that for an atheist there can be no question of the holiness of art: he will speak of art’s usefulness or of art’s beauty. Therefore, I insist, what I say is addressed exclusively to those for whom God – sin – holiness – are.
If an atheist starts speaking of the loftiness of art – then what I say will partly concern him too.
What is Art?
Art is the same as nature. Don’t seek in it other laws than its own (don’t look for the self-will of the artist, which isn’t there – only look for the laws of art). Perhaps art is just an offshoot of nature (a species of its creation). What is certain: a work of art is a work of nature, just as much born and not made. (And all the labour towards its realization? But the earth labours too – in French, ‘la terre en travail’. And isn’t birth itself labour? Female gestation and the artist’s gestation of his work have been talked of so often that they don’t need insisting on: all know – and all know correctly.)
So what is the difference between a work of art and a work of nature, between a poem and a tree? There’s none. Whatever the paths of labour and miracle, yet it is. I am!
That means the artist is the earth, which gives birth, and gives birth to everything. For the glory of God? And spiders? (There are some in works of art too.) I don’t know for the glory of whom, and I think the question here is not of glory but of power.
Is nature holy? No. Sinful? No. But if a work of art is the same as a work of nature, why do we ask something of a poem, but not of a tree? At most, we’ll regret that it grows crooked.
Because earth, the birth-giving, is irresponsible, while man the creating, is responsible. Because the sprouting earth has but one will – to sprout – whereas man has got to will the sprouting of the good which he knows. (It is telling that the only thing which can be called ‘wicked’ is the notorious ‘individual’ quality, the unipersonal; there is no ‘wicked epic’ or ‘wicked nature’.)
The earth didn’t eat the apple in Paradise, Adam ate it. It didn’t eat and it doesn’t know, he did eat and does know, he knows and is answerable. And insofar as the artist is a human being and not a monster, an animated bone-structure and not a coral bush, he has to answer for the work of his hands.
So, a work of art is the same as a work of nature, but one that is supposed to be illuminated by the light of reason and conscience. Then it serves the good, as a stream turning a mill-wheel serves the good. But to call every work of art ‘a good’ is like calling every stream ‘useful’. It is sometimes useful and sometimes harmful, and how much oftener harmful!
It is good when you take it (take yourself) in hand.
The moral law can be introduced into art, but can a mercenary corrupted by so many changes of master ever make a soldier of the regular army?”
___________________
“Art’s lessons
What does art teach? Goodness? No. Commonsense? No. It cannot teach even itself, for it is – given.
There is no thing which is not taught by art; there is no thing which is the reverse of that, which is not taught by art; and there is no thing which is the only thing taught by art.
All the lessons we derive from art, WE put into it.
A series of questions to which there are no answers.
All art is the sole givenness of the answer.”
___________________
“Vladimir Mayakovsky, who for twelve years on end served loyally and truly, body and soul –
All my resonant Poet’s strength
I give up to you, the attacking class!
– ended more powerfully than with a lyric poem: with a lyric shot. For twelve years on end Mayakovsky the man killed in himself Mayakovsky the poet; in the thirteenth, the poet arose and killed the man.
If there was a suicide in that life, it is not where people see it; and its duration was not the pressing of the trigger, but twelve years of life.
No imperial censor dealt with Pushkin the as Vladimir Mayakovsky dealt with himself.
If there was a suicide in that life, there is not one but two; and both are non-suicide, for the first is an act of valour, the second a celebration. The overcoming of nature and the glorifying of nature.”
What follows is from perhaps one of the most brilliant literary essays ever written. But the nagging question remains (as it did when I first read this work as a student): what about “capitalist, Christian, or Mohammedan realism” – specters which appear only to immediately vanish again within the space of one sentence? Do these exist as well?
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/wp-content/files_mf/1410896620On_Socialist_Realism_Winter_1960.pdf
Socialist realism did, however, exist in reality, “measured in billions of printed sheets, kilometers of canvas and film, centuries of hours.”
As to the whereabouts and existence of the ghosts hovering in the background of “On Socialist Realism” (their omni-presence so pervasive as to render them invisible – then as now), Tertz provides the reader with more than ample clues.
Andrei Sinayavsky (under the pen name Abram Tertz) begins “On Socialist Realism” (published 1959) by asking the following questions:
“What is socialist realism? What is the meaning of this strange and jarring phrase? Can there be a socialist, capitalist, Christian, or Mohammedan realism? Does this irrational concept have a natural existence? Perhaps it does not exist at all, perhaps it is only the nightmare of a terrified intellectual during the dark and magical night of Stalin’s dictatorship? Perhaps a crude propaganda trick of Zhdanov’s or a senile fancy of Gorki’s? Is it fiction, myth or propaganda.”
From the conclusion of “On Socialist Realism”:
“The twenties, of which Mayakovski wrote: ‘Only poets, alas, we have none, ‘ now seem to be the years in which poetry flourished. Since the writers accepted socialist realism en masse – beginning with the thirties – literature has gone down and down….
In this contradiction between the victory of socialist realism and the low quality of literary production, many are inclined to blame socialist realism. They say that great art cannot be written under it and even that it is the death of all art. But Mayakovski provides a refutation to start with. For all the originality of his talents he remained an orthodox Soviet writer, perhaps the most orthodox of all – and this did not stop him from writing good poetry. He was an exception to the general rules, but mostly because he observed these rules more strictly than others. In his poetic practice he carried out the demands of socialist realism more radically and more consistently. For the contradiction between socialist realism and literary quality, the blame must fall on literature, i.e., on the writers who accepted the rules of socialist realism but did not have sufficient artistic consistency to embody them in deathless images. Mayakovski had that consistency.
Art is not afraid of dictatorship, severity, repressions, or even conservatism and clichés. When necessary, art can be narrowly religious, dumbly governmental, devoid of originality – and yet good. We go into aesthetic raptures over the sereotypes of Egyptian art, Russian icons and folklore. Art is elastic to fit into any bed of Procrustes that history presents to it. But there is one thing that art cannot stand: eclecticism.
Our misfortune is that we are convinced socialist realists but not convinced enough. Submitting to its cruel rules, we are yet afraid to follow to the end of the road that we ourselves have chosen. No doubt, if we were less educated, it would be easier for us to attain the integrity that is indespensable to a writer. But we went to school, read all kinds of books, and learned only too well that there were great writers before us – Balzac, Maupassant, Tolstoi, and, yes, what’s his name? – Chekhov. This is what has undone us. We wanted to become famous and write like Chekhov. This unnatural liason produced monsters.
It is impossible, without falling into parody, to produce a positive hero in the style of full socialist realism and yet make him into a psychological portrait. In this way, we will get neither psychology nor hero. Mayakovski knew this and, hating psychological analysis and details, wrote in proportions that were larger than life. He wrote coarsely, poster-style, Homerically. He avoided like a plague descriptions of common life and rural nature. He broke with ‘the great traditions of of great Russian literature’ and, though he loved Pushkin and Chekhov, he did not try to imitate them. All this helped Mayakovski to lift himself to the level of his epoch and to express its spirit fully and clearly, without alien admixtures.
But the writing of so many other writers is in a critical state right now precisely because, in spite of the classicist nature of our art, they still consider it realism. They do it because they base their judgements on the literary criticism of the nineteenth century, which is the furthest away from us and the most foreign to us. Instead of following the road of conventional forms, pure fantasy, and imagination which the great religious cultures took, they try to compromise. They lie, they maneuver, and they try to combine the uncombinable: the positive hero (who logically tends toward the pattern, the allegory) and the psychological analysis of character; elevated style and declamation with and prosaic descriptions of ordinary life; a high ideal with truthful representation of life.
The result is a loathsome literary salad. The characters torment themselves though not quite as Dostoevski’s do, are mournful but not quite like Chekhov’s, found their happy families which are not quite like Tolstoi’s, and suddenly becoming aware of the time they are living in, scream at the reader copybook slogans which they read in Soviet newspapers, like ‘Long live world peace!’ or ‘Down with the warmongers!’ This is neither classicism nor realism. It is a half-classicist, half-art, which is none too socialist and not at all realistic.
It seems that the very term ‘socialist realism’ contains an insoluble contradiction. A socialist, i.e., a purposeful, a religious art, cannot be produced with the literary method of the nineteenth century called ‘realism.’ And a really faithful representation of life cannot be achieved in a language based on teleological concepts. If socialist realism really wants to rise to the level of the great world cultures and produce its ‘Communiad,’ there is only one way to do it. It must give up the ‘realism,’ renounce the sorry and fruitless attempts to write a socialist ‘Anna Karenina’ or a socialist ‘Cherry Orchard.’ When it abandons its effort to achieve verisimilitude, it will be able to express the grand and implausible sense of our era.”
Douglas,
PS –
I have to excuse myself for something. When I wrote the above response to you, I was thinking a bit too fast and ahead of myself, so to speak, and was not very clear about “academic art” as well as the “art academy. I wrote that, “What we have now has nothing to do with ANY kind of tradition regardless because we live in an entirely different world…” I should have gone into more detail instead of just leaving it at this. (I hope you were able to fill in the blank spaces.)
I should have written something like the following: the middle-sized art school in the city next to where I live in Germany has, for some years now, completely eliminated painting from their curriculum. It’s just gone, I assume, with drawing. This is a school which now only teaches “New Media.” There probably are art schools in Germany which teach “traditional art” skills as they developed from the Renaissance, but I don’t know how many because I don’t keep up with these things systematically. I know there is such a school in the Russian Federation; and such schools may be dotted across Europe. I no longer know what exists in America or England, etc. But now “academic (traditional) art” is a specialization like any other.
In Parts 2 & 3 of my essay, I tell the saga of my painting teacher at my university during the early 1970’s (my teacher was the Head of the Painting Department and also taught Basic Drawing and what were called the Basic Art Lectures … I suppose which were intended as an indoctrination to “all you were supposed to know when you wanted to get into the big Art World outside”).
I signed up for Basic Drawing taught by my painting professor. Did we draw? NO, we did not – that is, until three classes after the start of the course … only after I single-handedly staged a demonstration-protest directed squarely against my professor before the entire (large) class which profoundly embarassed him – as it was my intention to do so. I thoughly panned and ridiculed the “big class assignment” to design a game utilizing another “game” (a real game, by the way, based of a very traditional, well-known children’s game called “the bean-bag toss game”) which I’d made just for this purpose. (So-called “game theory” was fashionable among the progressive intellectual set at the time, so my professor was joining this bandwagon with his assignment to design a game). After I demonstrated my “game” before the class, as we were all required to do one by one, there was DEAD SILENCE (and nobody ever said anything about my game thereafter … OK, the class was composed of the usual collection of sheep-students just trying to get through the course by doing whatever the professor wanted them to do regardless of what it was … and who cares if we don’t draw in a drawing class). My professor very quickly removed my “game” to a back room saying: “Just so nobody in the (school) Administration sees this” (no, I never saw it again). After this, however, we DREW in Basic Drawing class. If I had NOT staged my provocation, however, God knows what we would have done instead of draw. (As for “learning to draw” … well, I basically taught myself on my own as an adolescent … much later I only attended one life-drawing course during my early university time, but at another school in another town… which was not bad, by the way, due to the teacher.)
PPS – Marina Tsvetaeva’s essay: “Art in the Light of Conscience” – which I’ve posted exerpts from (I think below) was written 1932.
https://www.abebooks.com/9781852248642/Art-Light-Conscience-Eight-Essays-1852248645/plp
Correction: NO – the Tsvetaeva excerpts are posted ABOVE.
Douglas,
PPPS – I just thought of something I should have added to the above. About 10 years ago or so, I was talking with a former (German) art student who had studied at the art school in the city next to where I live – the one which later dropped painting from its cirriculum. This former student – a visual artist – was what can only be called “bitter and disappoointed” about his art school experience. Therefore, he was somewhat reluctant to talk much about his experience. The only thing he finally said was the following: “Yes, I suppose they do give you some ‘useful art-career information’ – but in the process doing this, they COMPLETELY MESS-UP YOUR MIND.”
PPPPS (this is the LAST PS for tonight!) –
My own art teaching experience? In the city next to where I live, I taught painting for a number of years in a small private art school founded and operated by two local artists. My students were older adults – people who might be called “hobby artists” … but who were highly serious about what they were doing nevertheless. It was an interesting experience, and I got to know some interesting people. I also taught painting on a private basis for some time after I left the private school due to the dwindling number of potential students appearing at the school (i.e., what I earned with my teaching eventually started to come very close to what I had pay for travel costs to reach the school – not to mention the considerable time it took me to travel to and from).
THE FIRST BASIC DRAWING ALL-CLASS ASSIGNMENT I EVER HAD IN MY LIFE
(or, how to make your “artwork” fit with the “artworks” right next to your “artwork”)
Right. This was the first big class Basic Drawing assignment from my painting professor introduced above. We had a very large, empy white wall in the classroom (and there were over 30 students in the course, as I remember).
The IDEA was this: each student was supposed to execute a small “artwork” on heavy paper the size of two standard notebook pages. It didn’t matter what the “artwork” was, or consisted of (while the medium should be those used in every kindergarten). BUT the “artwork one made HAD TO BE personally coordinated in sort of a “team” effort to “fit” the “artworks” of those next to your “artwork.”
This meant that you couldn’t do certain things in your “artwork” without consulting someone next to you (i.e., someone whose “artwork” would be hung on the big white wall directly bordering on your “artwork” – on all FOUR sides. The only thing I remember is that I got into some kind of stupid fight with one my fellow students who I was “coordinating” with when he accused me of doing something with my “artwork” which he thought violated (or something of this nature, I forget) HIS “artwork,” which did not make sense to me … so I just let him have his own way in order to get him off my back because I was too busy with the demands of the other classes I was taking at the time which were infinitely more rewarding than my idiotic “Basic Drawing” course.
When all of the “artworks” were “finished” in the way described above, all of the small “artworks” were to be hung (and this was indeed done) in a big square next to one another to make one large communally-produced “artwork” (which was something less than awesome to view, as I remember).
(…Interesting … no?)
the situation is simple to me
white people led by their elites came to dominate the planet and instituted a story, a chronology that is a plagiarizing lie, calculated to do many things. the chief purpose of which is to maintain the white elitist domination over the world.
it is all a lie that is now imposed on the world that begins with Greece as the fount of all that is western and global..ALL.
it is not true of course but helps maintain the empire but at the same time imposes on us a static, dead and paradoxical philosophy that has now way, has no way out of our ridiculous and impossible situation in life. we know the story. there are lots of white people, scholars who know truth, more or less the real story of humanity and function on what they know.
they of course are beaten down to the margins systematically because the entire intellectual superstructure of western life is a prisoner to the western elites who tolerate nothing they perceive as a threat to their system.
here is Wallace Thornhill a white scholar of great worth who is busy putting science on its correct basis, with simple but effective thinking. Thornhill promotes all like himself who have done real truthful work for the benefit of humanity.
Thornhill is still Eurocentric but not negatively as far as I can determine. science is not an area of facility for me. but I find Thornhill so useful I can I leave emphasis alone. he has made so much clear to me..and to a whole lot of people I imagine. there are ways out flowing form this…it is nature itself and in nature there is always a way out
I also suggest Rupert Sheldrake and Wayne Burns..both white people who are way outside the white elitist intellectual box and totally useful for that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQGckpIr1_c
Dear Ben,
You have written; “white people led by their elites” which I find a tad incorrect.
For those ‘Elites’ as you call them to lead us ‘white people’ firstly those ‘Elites’ had to conquer us.
Now this ‘conquering’ business has been going on since man first learned to walk, and tribes have conquered and been conquered and countries have done the same, be they white black or brindle.
What you are pushing is called ‘Collective Guilt’ and that is both Jewish in creation and false in every aspect.
You have however in your writings understood the methods used against us all by those ‘selective’ few, so you are on the right path, but you need clarity to see.
God Bless.
To All Who Foretell the Utter destruction of the USofA,
We might be witness to the end of corporate America, but I do not think the essence of what this country could have been and would have been, if resources had not been quite so easily obtained, is so thoroughly lost that we will never recover.
Our excesses can be forgiven, as they are the same excesses every empire has exploited. I hope Mr. VVP, whom I admire, is considering that the RF will be next unless he treads carefully. Only in adversity can a great nation become a good nation, and I know there is a sizeable cohort of fellow Americans waiting for the time when Inc. has withered to make that happen.
As the fable tells: hard times makes hard men – hard men make good times – good times make soft men – soft men create hard times – hard times creates har…onanonanon…
But how does Sparta fit in this?
Dear James,
The USSR led the way when it collapsed in 1990. It was forecast then that the USA would follow in about twenty years, and we are seeing this in real time today.
What this also means is that once the USA collapses then it too must follow a similar path to that of Russia. It’s not the end of the USA but rather the entry into the next stage. Isn’t that what history tells us?
No, it really is aplles to oranges.
We, as we, humans, maintain a large volume of nuclear weaponry. i am talking about the active service material.
There is in addition to that in my absolutely layman estimation a tenfold in magnitude of radiactive waste maintained and secured by the State.
Now, radioactive matter(which those warheads consist of) decays. Itself, and the surrounding matter(circuits, batteries, explosives, whatnot.)
It requires a constant and skilled workforce, when not in use…
Imagine, that all that goes away.
No, no nuke war or nothing, but the State somehow dissolves around the edges, corruption, nepotism, wheels and deels, some irregularities and suchlike…
Appearantly there are about in the neighbourhood of about 10000 nuclear warheads in active service.
Without them going off, that is a serious concern.
Add to this, that most of the scientists, who figured the shit out back then, are mostly gone.
And nuke physix is not quite as attractive of a subject as lmbtqe and whatever the fokk gives the fastest diploma for the buck.
Now, I take a hard look at those warheads and I consider using them up now, rather then letting them go later by way of woodoo.
Am I wrong?
Sobering thought –
“Now, I take a hard look at those warheads and I consider using them up now, rather then letting them go later by way of woodoo.
Am I wrong?”
USSR didn’t ‘let them go’ –
but again the madness in the states are multiple times incurable…
still I take solace that NK is de-nuking – it shows that Kim is confident that there is another power greater or can counter the states – he rather pay protection fee to the new boss.
Am I too wrong?
I don’t know about history, but I do know about current trends, and the trend I see now is that the traditions to come, those that ensure healthy living without wasting the planet, are held back by Inc.
When Inc. goes the way of the dinosaurs (except as we all know, birds), then a different America will emerge, like mammals did before.
Our trajectory will not be like Russia’s. It will ours.
Dear James,
I never said that your ‘trajectory would be like Russia’s’ what I said was America will enter its next stage. It’s up to Americans to decide what that stage is and to implement it.
And I totally concur with your first statement.
“The truth, when brought to light, is merely ignored.” Dr. Kozy
@ Powell
If one is interested in truth, real verifiable truth might I direct your attention to an author named Gerry Fox and his book Climate Change the Work of God. I believe he has answered every single question facing mankind its past, its present and where we are going in the future. In fact, if he hasn’t fulfilled what was written thousands of years ago:
See, the storm of the Lord will burst out in wrath, a whirlwind swirling down on the heads of the wicked. The anger of the Lord will not turn back until he fully accomplishes the purposes of his heart. In days to come you will fully understand it clearly. (Jeremiah 23:19–20, NIV}
He goes further even by providing the solution to climate change. Amazing!
Lastly, sir no greater words were ever spoken that these about man’s philosophical ways:
“As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.
Beware lest anyone cheat you {Kozy} through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.” Colossians 2:6-10
Lastly, I was just a teenager when I learned about politics- an excerpt from Fox’s book::
“When Samuel grew old, however, he could no longer fulfil his duties as priest, prophet, and judge before the people. Seeing that his sons didn’t walk in the ways of the Lord, Israel was faced with a dilemma. Who was going to lead them? Taking again their cue from the surrounding nations, they desired to have a human king. Replacing the Eternal Creator with a human king wasn’t a wise choice by any stretch of the imagination, for it ultimately brought about the beginnings of manmade politics and taxes over the affairs and laws of God. To ask for a king was to reduce the populace to servanthood, and even slavery. Through Samuel, the Creator illustrated that this wouldn’t lead to happy endings (1 Samuel 8:9–18). Samuel said having a king would result in them being shut out from God on the day came when they cried out to Him for relief from their king and all his taxes (1 Samuel 8:18).
What were they thinking? Was not God a capable leader before them? Did He not provide for them in their time of need? Did He not save them from their enemies, like the Philistines, with thunder, an event that shouldn’t have been easily forgotten? Was not He playing the part of a Father, and a true one at that? Indeed, He was, but this was largely forgotten by the time of Samuel’s grey hair. A younger generation desired to make the jump from a theocracy to a monarchy, which pained Samuel terribly. He felt that they were rejecting him and that his own leadership was at fault. As it turned out, it wasn’t Samuel they were rejecting but God:
And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.” (1 Samuel 8:7–9)