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Re: JIN-ROH and LoTR
On Fri, 29 Mar 2002, The Mattrix wrote:
> > > I think we create or partake of art to "escpae" the pain of everyday
> > > existence in a constructive or intellectual manner.
> >
> > And now I've got John Lennon's 'God' going through my brain ("God is a
> > concept / By which we measure our pain..."). Not to mention Karl
> > Marx's comment that religion was the "opiate of the masses" (and the
> > Calvin & Hobbes cartoon in which the TV says "Marx hadn't seen
> > anything yet").
>
> Well, I've recently been to Good Friday services, and I don't feel high
> in the slightest. I fact, I feel terrible.
>
> Honestly, Peter, I know you know I don't think like this, which is
> likely why you've choosen these examples to illustrate to me the error
> of my thinking. Right?
I wouldn't say I "chose" the John Lennon example -- as I indicated, that
song just floated through my brain at that point.
> Well, I don't see it. I mean, you could argue that religion was
> essentially "created" by man, despite the fact that the truths which
> form it's basis weren't, and, in that context, your analogy may make
> sense as a reaction to what I've written. However, since Don has called
> my "escapist" view of art "reductionist", I also feel free to call your
> view of religion the same.
Religion *is* a construct -- I think that's pretty much undeniable -- but
as you say, there *are* truths at the heart of religion that are more than
constructs. So I don't think one has to be a "reductionist" in order to
say that religion is a construct built around those truths.
> Religion and art do not exist on the same level.
Oh, I might question that. I would say religion is definitely a form of
art. Religion needs art in order to survive. And art, I think, needs
religion, too, if it is to be more than mere self-expression.
> As for the quote about God, I REALLY don't see the connection. God
> created man, not the other way around.
Heh. Ever heard the one that goes, "God made man in his own image, and
ever since, man has been returning the favour"?
On one level, I think we all create each other, actually -- we all have
images in our minds of what other people are like, or what they stand for,
or what they represent, or what they ought to be -- but at the same time,
each person has his or her own existence. And our images of each other
are shattered every now and then when two of us come into contact and
someone says or does something that goes against the image which the other
person had of that person. So God certainly has his own existence, but we
approach God and relate to him by creating an image of him -- and every
now and then, our contact with God shatters our images. After the death
of his wife, C.S. Lewis kept a diary and published it under the title _A
Grief Observed_; in there, IIRC, he calls God the great "iconoclast",
because God was shattering his ideas about him; Lewis *also* mourns the
fact that his wife is no longer there, in person, to shatter the image
that Lewis had of her, the way she often did when she was alive.
I guess the reason the Lennon quote came to mind was because it seemed to
me you were belittling art in the same way that Lennon was belittling
religion -- just as Lennon believed God was little more than "a concept by
which we measure our pain", you said people create art "to 'escape' the
pain of everyday existence", and I find that pretty reductive. Is it not
possible that people create art to celebrate beauty, once in a while?
> Dictionary time : escapism n. - a desie or tendency to escape unpleasant
> reality by resorting to diversions, or by indulging in daydreaming -
> behavior marked by or orginating from this desire or tendency
>
> Given the above, if an artist's behavior entails making a film or
> writing a song or book about the suffering that is "the human
> condition", and, in so doing, is informed by his or her own humanity, he
> or she is both focusing on pain AND diverting it at the same time. (The
> alternative being to wallow in it, allowing it to induce paralysis.)
I might say they are "mediating" it or "transforming" it, but okay.
> The same holds true for the auidence. In this regard, I see the
> creative impulse as "escapist."
What about art that is created as a response to *pleasant* reality? Or do
you assume all reality is *unpleasant*? What if a film is about
negotiating that tension between pleasant *and* unpleasant realities?
--- Peter T. Chattaway --------------------------- peter at chattaway_com ---
"I detected one misprint, but to torture you I will not tell you where."
Winston Churchill to T.E. Lawrence, re Seven Pillars of Wisdom
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