Postmodern Art

My sister Sarah always wants me to do a blog post on something relating to my real life. Even though I maintain that all my previous posts perhaps have more application to real life than purely relating something that happened, I will reconcile the two approaches.

The last two months I have participated in something called "critical mass." It is a world-wide phenomenon (at least a western one) where a group of people gather to ride their bikes on a Friday evening through the busy streets of downtown London, New York, or...Provo. The group gathers rather abruptly and at the appointed time, floods the streets with their bicycles, taking up most, if not all of the lanes, and chokes traffic somewhat as they follow a route through downtown Provo. Here in Provo the group is quite tame and even though the procession goes through red lights, and makes left turns that stop oncoming traffic for several minutes, they try to leave a lane open so traffic can get by. The police are somewhat baffled as to how to react. They cannot really stop several hundred bicyclists who suddenly appear on the streets and can merely scatter when approached by a cop car. Plus, the biker has the legal status of a vehicle and has as much a right to the road as a car. They have resorted to merely trying to supervise, observe, and direct the flow of bicycles, despite being generally unsuccessful.

I find this phenomenon interesting in terms of postmodern art. It bears striking resemblance to other activities termed "flashes" I believe. A large group of individuals will be instructed to do something random in a public place at exactly the same instant. One instance was in a crowded square and at the given moment, half the people in the square froze for several minutes, to the shock, and consternation of those not in on the joke. Other examples include a large group of people suddenly running naked through a particular street and a lone photographer capturing the moment in a photo.

The reason why we could term these acts postmodern is their emphasis on immanence opposed to transcendence, and their pushing of what we term acceptable and lawful. That is, challenging authority.

Earlier art, in the form of a static painting, sculpture, photograph, or architecture, is long-lasting, and focuses on transcending the particular, and finite to access and project eternal, universal meaning and value. The beautiful sculptures of ancient Greece and Renaissance Italy sought to project the ideal body of man and communicate excellence. Postmodernism prefers to see meaning and value as immanent--projecting from the inner life and limited to the individual. It is likewise not meant to last. It is as if they are saying, "this expression does not go beyond itself or this moment." Thus these spontaneous flashes can be understood as having their meaning rooted in non-permanence, the moment, the individual, etc.

As for pushing authority, the connection is clearer. Postmodernists generally see the world not built on rational, universal principles, but on the preferences and values of a particular group. For us that would be dead, white, western, rich, European males. Since roads are made for cars (which themselves have taken on a bad rap as of late) the postmodern would want to challenge this seemingly benign and functional fixture. The "bike" (insert female, minority, etc) has its right to the "road" (insert civil rights, institution, etc), even if it is not designed for the "bike."

The Fleur de Lis and Semiotics

The Fleur de Lis traditionally symbolizes royalty, monarchy, and heraldry. Appropriated by the Frankish King Clovis in the 6th century as a sign of his Christianity, it was further appropriated by the French Kings to legitimize themselves through the connection with the first Frankish, Christian king, Clovis. From the end of the Middle Ages, throughout early and modern Europe, the Fleur de Lis was the symbol of the French Monarchy and by extension France. Later it specifically represented the house of Bourbon, and since Luxembourg and Spain are the last of the Bourbon monarchies, the Fleur de Lis remains their symbol.

It now is a disseminated symbol-as is the fate of all symbols-and we recognize it in connection with the Boy Scouts and Professional Sports teams. But the the history of this symbol reveals important discursive and rhetorical methods employed by different groups for creating and perpetuating an image, and therefore power.

I will not attempt to chronicle all the cycles of meaning that this symbol has been through (for that would be an infinite regression) but needless to say, the Fleur de Lis was at one point only a fleur de lis. Before man saw it and spoke of it, it was a Fleur de Lis. This changed at some point. It was appropriated by someone or some group to represent an idea greater than the object itself in order to enhance and project this idea. Scholars have shown it to be present in Indonesian, Sumerian, Mesopotamian, and Roman culture as a stylized symbol. As for the meanings it had in these cultures, there is little to go on. Before it became the symbol of French Royalty and heraldry, the Fleur de Lis was a Christian symbol. The three leaves interchangeably represented either the trinity, the virgin, or the dove.

The French Kings, beginning with Louis VII (1154-80)began putting the Fleur de lis on their seals and coat of arms to legitimize their claim to power and associate themselves with Christianity and piety since the legend was that Clovis had first received the Fleur de lis directly from heaven. It likewise came to mean Later, English kings who claimed the throne of France used the Fleur de lis to assert their right to the throne.

For medieval and early modern Europe the royal Fleur de lis meant perfection, light, and life.

For me, this example of how the Valois and Bourbon dynasties used an image to be a very powerful symbol of much larger ideas as power, legitimacy, royalty, and piety, reveals important functions that symbols have in socio-behavioral patterns. Scholars of Semiotics (the study of signs) posit that the way we communicate is purely through a system of signs. Words, body gestures, and the use of images understood to represent ideas is in fact how we communicate. If you think about it, these are indirect means of communicating. If the French King wanted to communicate that he was the legitimate king, why did he not merely say, "I am the legitimate King"? Why did he go outside himself, and appeal to an image? The image is an attempt at transcendence. To appeal to a higher source that everyone recognizes, or that we attempt to make everyone recognize as having a certain meaning and authority. Who controls that meaning could be reduced to physical power. But if they already have physical power, why do they appeal to symbolic power? Possibly because symbolic and physical power go hand in hand to perpetuate each other.

I think this has direct application to our everyday lifes and for cross-cultural understanding. Every position in society seems to have symbols connected with them, either in the form of images or linguistic. Our dress (suit, scruffy, doctor), our titles (Dr., Mr., Sir) or images such as the beehive, the eagle, and flags. We depend on other people understanding what all these symbols mean as they relate directly to identity and to the past to legitimize individuals or institutions. The founding fathers interest in using classical architecture depends on people understanding history and the fact that classical architecture symbolizes learning, power, stability, and early democracy.

So what happens when we encounter images from other cultures that we do not recognize? We will first have difficulty communicating and likewise assign our own meanings to the symbol. The rising sun of Japan in World War II is a good example. A symbol of Japan's divine birth was seen by Americans as obviously a sinister symbol.

It is interesting likewise how the same symbol is so differently used in different cultures. The Swastika, for example, is recognized by all westerners (and pretty much the whole world now) as symbolizing the Nazis, fascism, oppression, authoritarianism, racism, and mass murder. Ironically it traditionally meant (Buddhists still use the symbol extensively) life and good luck. The spoiling of an image has an important impact on the way we communicate. So the politicizing of images is problematic. It would be difficult now to invoke the imagery of a rainbow in a neutral manner. I would be communicating something very different, if unwillingly.

Hume and Experience Again

"For me it seems evident, that the essence of the mind being equally unknown to us with that of external bodies, it must be equally impossible to form any notion of its powers and qualities otherwise than from careful and exact experiments, and the observation of those particular effects, which result from its different circumstances and situations. And tho' we must endeavor to render all our principles as universal as possible, by tracing up our experiments to the utmost and explaining all effects from the simplest and fewest causes, 'tis still certain that we cannot go beyond experience; and any hypothesis, that pretends to discover the ultimate original qualities of human nature, ought at first to be rejected as presumptuous and chimerical." (Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, xxi)

Beethoven vs. Mozart

I think that a major difference between these two giants is that Mozart is inspiring aesthetically while Beethoven is inspiring ideologically. Of course Beethoven is inspiring aesthetically too, but his works such as "Ode to Joy", "Egmont", "Eroica" and "Wellingtons Sieg" have extreme ideological messages. I am not saying that Mozart's works were not ideological--The Magic Flute, the Marriage of Figaro, etc. preached the Gospel of the Enlightenment but they had to be somewhat masked still for the time whereas Beethoven's works could be more openly nationalistic and liberal due to the climate created by Napoleon.

Guantanamo has to be shut down because it is a cancer in our relations with the world. It is much more than that, but because it exists, it is a constant reminder to the world of the new image that the United States has acquired since 9/11.
One may protest that torture does not take place there, prisoners are being released, and that terrorists are often tried in normal courts. This does not matter. When the French stormed the Bastille on July 14, 1789, they did not care that it no longer served the purpose of torturing the King's enemies by superceding the law and only had six prisoners in it. They only saw it as a symbol; a constant reminder of despotism. This reminder brought down Louis XVI and if we continue to disregard our standing in the world, we could find ourselves bereft of traditional allies.

I am a bit concerned today after reading an article in Aftenposten, a Norwegian newspaper, that quotes a Russian, Sergei Markov, accusing Dick Cheney of a conspiracy to start the Georgian war in order to get McCain elected. I am no friend of Cheney's and such a theory might not be that shocking if it came from a random Russian citizen. The problem here is that Sergei Markov is the head of the Moscow Institute for Political Studies! That's right, the head of a supposedly respectable, academic institution is spouting off conspiracy theories. I know that the university of Moscow had come under suspicion lately of un-academic anti-semitism but delving into improbably conspiracy theories to bolster the regime's image is a new low.

Master Status

This last summer I was introduced to the concept of 'master status'. I am no sociologist, but from what I understand of the concept, from all the different identities we possess--brother, sister, christian, parent, student, American, teenager, etc.--there seems to be one that rises to the top in our own view or in the view of others. Which master status rises to the top depends on surroundings and circumstances. For example, if an individual feels that one of their identities is persecuted by the majority, they will make that identity their 'master status.' This process comes about because of the individual and the majority. The majority sees what is different about others, and we try to differentiate ourselves from the majority.

This summer, I experienced this phenomenon in very stark terms. Emerging from almost two years at Brigham Young University where almost everyone is Mormon, I spent a few months in a small, medieval German town with students from all across the world, almost none of whom were religious. I found that all the Americans there knew readily that I was a Mormon as soon as I told them where I came from. My "mormonism" became my master status in their eyes immediately. In fact, "Mormon" became my name. This was mostly just amusing, but also somewhat frustrating because I did not see myself as just "Mormon." My environment at BYU possibly contributed to me trying to differentiate myself and view myself as a student of history, a young adult with a specific personality, etc. I was therefore frustrated when all that I was seen as was a "Mormon" with all my characteristics a priori thrust upon me.

Many observations could be made here about how we interact as human beings in terms of identity and stereotypes, especially in contrasting the way Americans viewed me as opposed to people from the rest of the world who did not know much about "Mormons." They definitely were intrigued by this aspect of my identity and we spoke much of it, but it was different in that their lack of knowledge automatically prevented them from stereotyping and they assumed a more understanding, curious attitude. Likewise, I spent most of my time with my non-American friends because they were also interested in my non-Mormon identities: American, student of History and German, young adult, etc. My one identity did not block out the others.

Objective

"Pour découvrir les meilleures règles de société qui conviennent aux nations, il faudrait une intelligence supérieure, qui vît toutes les passions des hommes et qui n'en éprouvât aucune, qui n'eût aucun rapport avec notre nature et qui la connût à fond, dont le bonheur fût indépendant de nous et qui pourtant voulût bien s'occuper du nôtre; enfin qui, dans le progrès des temps se ménageant une gloire éloignée, pût travailler dans un siècle et jouir dans un autre. Il faudrait des dieux pour donner des lois aux hommes."
(Discovering the rules of society best suited to nations would require a superior intelligence that beheld all the passions of men without feeling any of them; who had no affinity with our nature, yet knew it through and through; whose happiness was independent of us, yet who nevertheless was willing to concern itself with ours; finally, who, in the passage of time, procures for himself a distant glory, being able to labor in one age and find enjoyment in another. Gods would be needed to give men laws.) (Rousseau, Du Contrat Social)

I've thought a bit about this idea lately. Not exactly in the same context as Rousseau but in regard to how actually feeling something changes the way we look at something. I can expound philosophical truths about ideals all day long--and I hope that I would have the strength to stick with them--but somehow actually experiencing and feeling the real thing makes it clear just how hard it is to apply theory to reality. Rousseau says here that because man is not detached from emotion and passions, it is difficult to create a leader or society that is perfect.

Conservative Circles

"In any animal I see nothing but an ingenious machine to which nature has given senses in order for it to renew its strength and to protect itself, to a certain point, from all that tends to destrou or disturb it. I am aware of precisely the same things in the human machine, with the difference that nature alone does everything in the operations of an animal, whereas man contributes, as a free agent, to his own operations. The former chooses or rejects by instinct and the latter by an act of freedom. Hence an animal cannot deviate from the rule that is prescribed to it, even when it would be advantageous to do so, while man deviates from it, often to his own detriment. Thus a pigeon would die of hunger near a bowl filled with choice meats, and so would a cat perched atop a pile of fruit or grain, even though both could nourish themselves quite well with the food they disdain, if they were of a mind to try some. And thus dissolute men abandon themselves to excesses which cause them fever and death, because the mind perverts the senses and because the will still speaks when nature is silent." (Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality)

I thought this passage was extremely interesting. I see it as a common practice to extract examples from nature to prove a political/ideological point. Rousseau here is railing against the tendency of man to abandon his natural boundaries and thus become degenerate. Others might point to natural patterns of reproduction, assembly, government etc. to prove their point. To me, it is not always clear if one can use such comparisons as the basis of truth. I guess the question is to what extent are the patterns we find in nature supposed to serve as a model for what is right. There are surely many examples of things that happen in nature that we would reject as being moral.

Impressions

"Impressions always actuate the soul, and that in the highest degree; but it is not every idea which has the same effect. Nature has proceeded with caution in this case, and seems to have carefully avoided the inconveniences of two extremes. Did impression alone influence the will, we should every moment of our lives be subject to the greatest calamities; because, though we foresaw their approach, we should not be provided by nature with any principle of action, which might impel us to avoid them. On the other hand, did every idea influence our actions, our condition would not be much mended. For such is the unsteadiness and activity of thought, that the images of everything, especially of good s and evils, are always wandering in the mind; and were it moved by every idle conception of this kind, it would never enjoy a moment's peace and tranquility... Nature has therefore chosen a medium, and has neither bestowed on every idea of good and evil the power of actuating the will, nor yet has entirely excluded them from this influence. Thought and idle fiction has no efficacy, yet we find by experience that the ideas of those objects which we believe either are or will be existent produce in a lesser degree the same effect with those impressions, which are immediately present to the senses and perception. The effect, then, or belief is to raise up a simple idea to an equality with our impressions, and bestow on it a like influence on the passions."(DAVID HUME from Treatise of Human Nature)

This has always been very interesting to me. I noticed that thoughts, while having the possibility to be powerful by themselves, are greatly accentuated when accompanied by a physical impression. I remember experiencing certain things as a missionary that I had read about a thousand times that made sense but made no great impression on me, but when the experience took place, it was as if thunder struck. The thought became a brand on my mind and heart when coupled with experience. I know that Hume is saying a lot more here, but this is just what I think of first when reading this.

People Movers

The way we humans try to legitimize things we do through categorization and names has always intrigued me. For example, there is this neighborhood by my house which has a big stone sign saying that the neighborhood is called "Venetian Villas" or something to that effect. Looking past the fact that the neighborhood is actually located in the Western U.S.--Orem, Utah to be exact--one can ask why we would feel this impulse to "borrow" the Venetian heritage.
What was my surprise then, when, traveling for the first time to the great state of Alaska, I meet this phenomenon, but going in the opposite direction. I had just hopped off my flight from Seattle to Anchorage with my traveling companion Andrew Christensen, and, having a few hours before our flight to Fairbanks, we decided that we wanted to see downtown Anchorage. We approached a friendly-looking police officer directing traffic and asked him if he knew where the buses to downtown Anchorage were. He looked at us kind of puzzled for a second and replied, "Oh, you mean the people mover. It is right over there." After recovering from this perplexing response, we proceeded to the before-mentioned location and we awaited the "people mover." Unfortunately we did not get to utilize the "people mover" due to time constraints, but we did consider taking a "personal people mover" (taxi), but eventually we decided on staying at the airport and eating before getting on the "flying people mover" to Fairbanks.
So basically I didn't realize that the great post-modernist movement has found a state that is committed to applying its principles in everyday life. We surely can't avoid categorizing, but we can simplify and render harmless our classifications as the Alaskans are finding out with their "people movers" (unless you are an Alaskan caribou who is left out of the picture with 'people' being in the title).

Addendum to Camus' La Peste

Concerning Jesuit missionary activities among the Indians of North America and their medical practices there:

"The Jesuits of New France knew nothing of germs, viruses, and immunity. Though knowledgeable by the standards of their day, they lived centuries before modern science systematically classified diseases, discovered how they spread, and developed preventive and curative drugs. they brought to New France various medicines, including sugar,, widely regarded as a cure-all in the seventeenth century, and they were eager to learn about native herbal remedies as well. They also had recourse to the surgeon's art in serious cases, bleeding their colleagues or prescribing purges, treatments based on the prevalent theory that illness resulted form an excess of fluids in the body. The Jesuits did not see themselves as doctors, however. Their priority was saving souls, and when epidemics struck, they put most of their efforts into baptizing the dying rather than relieving the suffering of the living--a strategy that did not make a favorable impression on their native hosts.
As the Jesuits struggled to explain to their readers, and to themselves, the terrible epidemics that devastated the nations of North America, they tended to focus more on the ultimate question of why, rather than on the immediate question of how, disease spread. Seeing individuals and whole nations struck low, they perceived signs of God's plan to punish the wicked, test the resolution of the virtuous or simply gather souls to heaven. Since God worked through nature, explanations could be found in both religion and science, just as relief could be sought through prayer and medicine." (Greer, Allen, "The Jesuit Relations")

I see this as a continuation of the struggle between the ideal and the materialistic view of human nature. Camus says that before one can philosophize on theological causes for the problems in the world, one has to do everything one can to alleviate those problems. Pretty similar to Voltaire's Candide. I have personally been obsessed with the championing of the ideal, the power of the mind over matter, and in decrying pragmatism, but I am slowly gaining a more nuanced approach to this. I guess that is what comes with experience. I don't want to lose idealism though!

Sorting things Out

The Chinese Encyclopedia's Categories of Dogs, by Borges:

(a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies."
“We order the world according to categories that we take for granted simply because they are given.”
“An enemy defined as less than human may be annihilated.”
”All social action flows through boundaries determined by classification schemes, whether or not they are elaborated as explicitly as library catalogues, organization charts, and university departments.” (Darnton, French Cultural Tales)


These thoughts come from a book that seeks to explain the mindsets of 18th century frenchman with people of today. The point is made that a big portion of the way we make sense of the world comes from the way we classify things. To be honest, I think this is a lot deeper than I am able to grasp right now. All I can really think of now is the danger of letting established ways of classifying things determine how we see and interact with the world. It limits what we might consider proper and those things we might engage ourselves in otherwise. For example, cultural norms in worship services or how we approach learning in different disciplines; "this belongs to mathematics, this belongs to literature, and this belongs to history," whereas learning is one.

Emotional Honesty

From an article entitled Emotional Honesty. Concerning our penchant for hiding our true emotions:

"...in many ways, society teaches us to ignore, repress, deny and lie about our feelings. For example, when asked how we feel, most of us will reply "fine" or "good," even if that is not true. Often, people will also say that they are not angry or not defensive, when it is obvious that they are.

Children start out emotionally honest. They express their true feelings freely and spontaneously. But the training to be emotionally dishonest begins at an early age. Parents and teachers frequently encourage or even demand that children speak or act in ways which are inconsistent with the child's true feelings. The child is told to smile when actually she is sad. She is told to apologize when she feels no regret. She is told to say "thank you," when she feels no appreciation. She is told to "stop complaining" when she feels mistreated. She may be told to kiss people good night when she would never do so voluntarily. She may be told it is "rude" and "selfish" to protest being forced to act in ways which go against her feelings.

Also, children are told they can't use certain words to express themselves. I have seen more than one parent tell their child not to use the word "hate," for example. And of course, the use of profanity to express one's feelings is often punished, sometimes harshly. In some cases the parent never allows the children to explain why they feel so strongly....At the same time, I have no doubt that part of a highly developed EI is knowing when to be emotionally honest, when to remain silent and when to act in line with or counter to our true feelings. There is something of a continuum of emotional honesty which includes unintended repression, full disclosure, discretionary disclosure, and intentional manipulation and emotional fraud. Furthermore, there is a constant trade-off between our short term vs. long term interests, our needs vs. others' needs and our self-judgement vs. judgement by others. Because all of this is largely an emotional problem to be solved, and a complex one at that, I believe emotional intelligence is being used when we make our decisions about when and how much to be emotionally honest. In my experience, approaching full emotional honesty simplifies my life, helps me see who will accept me as I am -- which in itself is a freeing discovery -- and offers me the opportunity for a rare sense of integrity, closeness and fulfillment.

Nathaniel Branden writes:

"If communication is to be successful, if love is to be successful, if relationships are to be successful, we must give up the absurd notion that there is something "heroic" or "strong" about lying, about faking what we feel, about misrepresenting, by commission or omission, the reality of our experience or the truth of our being. We must learn that if heroism and strength mean anything, it is the willingness to face reality, to face truth, to respect facts, to accept that that which is, is."


This is now me speaking. As usual, I don't think I have any absolute answers. I am starting to doubt that things are that simple. These blog posts are mostly equivalent to indulging in thoughts, and since I am usually against most types of indulgences, this may be out of character. In any case, I have trouble with this concept of emotional honesty. Naturally I am too open with my feelings. I may end up telling a complete stranger how I am really feeling. I just assume that when someone casually says "how's it going?" that they actually mean it as a question and not just a greeting.
Despite this side to my nature, many things over the years have told me to suppress expressing my feelings freely. As a missionary I was convinced that I should basically let anything that bothered me just be ignored. It was my problem if I got annoyed or upset. I still am very persuaded by a talk from conference where a seventy talked about a wife that decided a good exercise would be to share five things that were bothering them each concerning their partner. She went first talking about small things like how he ate his food, etc. When it was his turn, he just said that he couldn't think of anything about her that bothered him. The talk's moral was to let little things like that slide. While I still think that this should often be the case, I am wondering if it isn't better to take the advice of this article and be more open. I agree that trust is probably best built in an atmosphere where one shares more than one conceals, but at the same time, how do create this atmosphere that encourages openness? Furthermore, this article says that "emotional intelligence" consists of being able to tell when one should be emotionally honest. She doesn't say more though. And neither do I.

“There is an universal tendency among mankind to conceive all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every object those qualities with which they are familiarly acquainted, and of which they are intimately conscious.” (David Hume, "Of Miracles and the origin of religion.")

“the boundaries of what is possible in moral matters are less narrow than we think. It is our weaknesses, our vices and our prejudices that shrink them. Base souls do not believe in great men; vile slave smile with an air of mockery at the word liberty.” (Rousseau, Social Contract, 195)

I've become more and more convinced that the traits we have--our weaknesses, predilections, fears, and hopes--, we attribute to others. If we are unmerciful, we expect others to be unmerciful; if we are suspicious, we assume that others are too. It thus comes as a surprise to us when people do kind or generous things that we don't expect them to do, because maybe we would not have thought to do it ourselves. I like this quote by Rousseau for expressing how this human trait limits us. 'base souls do not believe in great men;' we have a hard time getting above our natures. At the same time, the power of example is inestimable. I guess the moral then is to be unassuming.

Prudence

"...goodness of heart and openness of temper, though these may give (you) great comfort within, and administer to an honest pride in their own minds, will by no means, alas! do their business in the world. Prudence and circumspection are necessary even to the best of men. They are indeed, as it were, a guard to Virtue, without which she can never be safe. It is not enough that your designs, nay, that your actions, are intrinsically good; you must take care they shall appear so. If your inside be never so beautiful, you must preserve a fair outside also. This must be constantly looked to, or malice and enjy will take care to blacken it....Let this, my young readers, be your constant maxim, that no man can be good enough to enable him to neglect the rules of prudence; nor will virtue herself look beautiful unless she be bedecked with the outward ornaments of decency and decorum." (Henry Fielding, "Tom Jones")

I heard an argument the other day in favor of not rejecting the idea of watching explicit material just because it is explicit. You have to judge it for how it is presented and what the overall point is. Otherwise you are limiting yourself to important concepts and intimating that you do not have complete free agency in that you cannot control your actions after seeing explicit material, so the argument went. As much as I am partial to this way of thinking, and recognize its logic, I don't know how far I am willing to throw all caution to the wind and be so sure of myself that that which I view doesn't affect me. Sounds quite anti-humanistic, but I think this quote helps to illustrate an important consideration.

Conscience and Religion

"For there can and must be no radical difference between morality and religion. If a conflict arises between them, if the testimony of the Bible contradicts the testimony of the moral conscience, this dispute should be settled in a way that respects the absolute primacy of the moral consciousness. For if we relinquish this primacy, we forego any criterion of religious truth; then we no longer have any standard by which to measure the claims to certainty of an alleged revelation or distinguish, within religion itself, between reality and deception. Every literal interpretation of the Bible must therefore be rejected which commands us to act contrary to the first principles of morality." (Ernst Cassirer paraphrasing Bayle's (17th century philosopher) philosophy on religion)

"Past times are is if they had never been. It is always necessary to start at the point at which one already stands, and at which nations have arrived." (Voltaire)

This is probably one of the most interesting questions I know of: When there is a conflict between what a convention that we recognize as authority prescribes, and what something inside us says. Bayle is saying that since all religious belief originates in conscience and feeling--a realm beyond physical senses and the basis for revelation--than if we were to relegate conscience to a secondary position when deciding the truth of something, we would negate religion's foundation. This has always been interesting for me even though I can't say that I have had great struggles between my conscience and what my traditional beliefs have prescribed; it has been more a matter of gaining knowledge and confirming that something was true. I am aware though that this can be an extremely real problem. I think that Voltaire's quote clears this up a bit though. One would do well to take everything presented to them as authority as new and to test it out against their conscience. We would have to remembe Kant's cautioning that we proceed this way without rejecting and disobeying it also. If we were to question everything and disobey everything until we received some type of inner feeling of it being in harmony with our morals, society would be a mess.

Shaftesbury and Beauty

"All beauty is truth, just as all truth can be understood basically only through the meaning of form, that is, the meaning of beauty...Sense as such is not capable of perceiving this phenomenon, let alone understanding it in its ultimate origin. Where sense only is involved, where the relation we establish between ourselves and the world depends merely on our instincts and appetites, there is as yet no acces to the realm of form. The animal that is affected by the objects of its environment merely as stimuli which awaken its instincts and occasion certain reactions, is ignorant of all knowledge of the form of things. This knowledge does not spring from the force of desire as a direct sense reaction but from the force of pure contemplation, which is free of all desire for possession and of any act of direct seizure of the object. In this faculty of pure contemplation and of a pleasure which is not motivated by any 'interest' (is) the fundamental force behind all artistic enjoyment and all artistic creation." (Cassirir on Shaftesbury and Beauty)

I think Shaftesbury is making a very important point here. One understanding of beauty is often connected with the immediate effect on the eyes or senses. I think Shaftesbury points to animal instincts here and sees that such instincts correspond to an immediate action or desire to partake, touch, taste, or own the object. I think he is searching for a deeper understanding of beauty where contemplation is first required to appreciate what makes the object pleasing to the senses i.e. the process of creation and development and/or work involved to bring it to this point. He sees this undestanding as leading to the greatest possible aesthetic enjoyment. I see it as important because it removes the possibility of false motivations for considering beauty and instills a desire to acquire the traits of the beautiful object.

Seneca

"'Why do many adversities come to good men?' No evil can befall a good man; opposites do not mingle. Just as the countless rivers, the vast fall of rain from the sky, and the huge volume of mineral springs do not change the taste of the sea, do not even modify it, so the assaults of adversity do not weaken the spirit of a brave man. It always maintains its poise, and it gives its own colour to everything that happens; for it is mightier than all external things. And yet I do not mean to say that the brave man is insensible to these, but that he overcomes them, and being in all else unmoved and calm rises to meet whatever assails him. All his adversities he counts mere training. Who, moreover, if he is a man and intent upon the right, is not eager for reasonable toil and ready for duties accompanied by danger? To what energetic man is not idleness a punishment? Wrestlers, who make strength of body their chief concern, we see pitting themselves against none but the strongest, and they require of those who are preparing them for the arena that they use against them all their strength; they submit to blows and hurts, and if they do not find their match in single opponents, they engage with several at a time. Without an adversary, prowess shrivels. We see how great and how efficient it really is, only when it shows by endurance what it is capable of. Be assured that good men ought to act likewise; they should not shrink from hardships and difficulties, nor complain against fate; they should take in good part whatever happens, and should turn it to good. Not what you endure, but how you endure, is important."

I think this fits in well with Emerson's "Compensation" and gives maybe a reason why all things end up returning to their natural order. Seneca says that "no evil can befall a good man"; not that seemingly difficult things do not happen to them but because of how good men react to something that may seem bad changes that adversity to a learning and growing experience. This really is common sense. We see this at work in nature and in society. The muscle is torn in order to grow stronger, seperation from loved ones makes the bonds of love tighter. At the same time a lack of judgmenet can turn even minor ordeals into crisis and weaken us if we are not strong.