Why should high culture be important to society? Why paying for it, why funding its institutions? Isn't it immoral to use tax payers' money to fund things which only seem to be to the benefit of a minority?
"We are interested in high culture because we are interested in the life
of the mind, and we entrust the life of the mind to institutions because
it is a social benefit. Even if only a few people are capable of living
this life to the full, we all benefit from its results, in the form of
knowledge, technology, legal and political understanding, and the works
of art, literature and music that evoke the human condition and also
reconcile us to it."
The erosion of this kind of awareness has concrete implications for the arts, it opens the doors to nonsense and fakes and clichées:
"Hence for a long time now, it has been assumed that there can be no
authentic creation in high art which is not in some way a ‘challenge’ to
public culture. Art must give offence, stepping out armed against the
bourgeois taste for the conforming and the comfortable, which are simply
other names for kitsch and cliché. The result of this is that offence
itself becomes a cliché. If the public has become so immune to shock
that only a dead shark in formaldehyde will awaken a brief spasm of
outrage, then the artist must produce a dead shark in formaldehyde —
this, at least, is an authentic gesture. In place of the late American
art critic Harold Rosenberg’s ‘tradition of the new’, we have the
‘cliché of the transgressive’ — a repetition of the would-be
unrepeatable."
If the arts, as presented by the established institutions, only consist of fakes, there is no longer any justification to support them, since they no longer serve public interest, and forfeit their position in public space:
"In a world of fakes, the public interest is constantly sacrificed to
private fantasy, and the truths on which we depend for our rescue are
left unexamined and unknown."
Thus Sir Roger Scruton in an essay on the website of Aeon:
https://aeon.co/essays/a-cult-of-fakery-has-taken-over-what-s-left-of-high-culture
About Me
- The Subterranean Review
- Education: Rotterdam Conservatory, Cambridge University // Activities: composition, writing
Sunday 26 November 2017
Friday 24 November 2017
The fragile future of music
The attacks upon the 1st edition of 'The Classical Revolution' did not surprise me, knowing - while writing - that descriptions of the totalitarian and nonsensical nature of musical modernism would not be welcome in certain established new music circles. But what did surprise me, was the myopic way in which the book was read by people, who are supposed to be used to reading books, and feel somehow committed to the musical art form in one way or another. For instance, where the book was merely condemned as a reactionary rant, drenched in bigotry, and as a failed attempt to present a very narrow, flawed taste as something objective, such interpretation seemed to come from people entirely ignorant of the realities of music life, of music history, even of general art history, so that the suspicion arose that these were people from outside music life or even, outside the cultural field altogether.
Such 'reviews' missed crucial points of the text, like: the obvious observation, with a history of ages of experience behind it, that music is more than organized sound and that an art form which wants to present sound as such without any other meaning is better considered a different art form altogether; or the crazy modernist assumption that there exists something like 'progress' in music; or the real nature of progress in music: the accumulated availability of means - on a different level from that of purposes; or the totalitarian, aggressive ideologies which have created havoc in music life where the damage is still very much present for all to see (or rather: to hear); or the invitation for juvenile nonsense to parade as 'new music'; or the fallacy of the 'lack of understanding' of 'conservative audiences'; or the link with cultural relativism and cultural identity, where awareness of 'the past' plays a crucial role. All these points could be easily verified by reality, other expertise writings, cumulative experiences of performers and listeners; they were not subjective, paranoid fantasies but rooted in the real world.
If the book were completely wrong, something like this would not have been possible - the presentation of a recent 'work' at the Darmstadt New Music Courses, well-known hub of established modernism in Germany:
Classical, serious music ('art music', 'ernste Musik') has a repertoire that is, almost entirely, a product of the Western past, and mostly the European past. This cultural past forms Europe's cultural identity and by extension, a part of the cultural identity of the Americas. The price which has been paid for a dynamic, progressive technological and scientific society, is the loss of memory, a willful collective dementia, which means: erosion of identity and increase of alienation. The psychological misery and shallowness we see all around in the West, which are painfully reflected in current political developments like the surge of populism everywhere, betrays the lack of understanding of the past with the result that fundamental lessons have to be learned again and again. If we look at Chinese culture, which has survived thousands of years and serious upheavels and disasters, then it is a surprising discovery to see that the inner strength of this very specific culture can be explained by its commitment to 'the past' and 'the dead': the past is kept alive in memory through its art, poetry, literature, mythology. It has even survived the communist degradation and - under the surface - it is still alive, under the thumb of a totalitarian regime that treats its citizens with contempt. Western classical music is now increasingly popular in China, where it symbolizes development and modernization - with the advantage that its nonconceptual nature does not pose a threat to the political status quo. In the West, classical music shrinks, and new music has written itself out of a cultural paradigm altogether (in Europe only being kept alive through careless state support). The West should try to learn from the Chinese holistic attitude towards the cultural past and understand that its past is alive and not locked-up in a museum. All this was explored in 'The Classical Revolution', no doubt insufficiently, but necessarily, as a correction upon a paradigm that has shown itself to be entirely destructive and hostile to art.
Also I have often been criticized for writing music that is 'too traditional', mere imitation music and not original music, and that its language is entirely derivative and impersonal. But any musically-perceptive listener can easily hear that this is not the case: the language is a combination of different elements of existing music, but the mix is mine. Also, the way this music is structured, is newly found with every work: there is no repetition on that point. This type of critique can be compared with the attacks upon the book, and - apart from being superficial and unsophisticated - it is characteristic of a mindset where extremely narrow-minded ideology has replaced musical considerations and perception. The complaint that this music is 'too traditional' sometimes came from classical performers, whom you would expect the last to dislike tradition - but also here, the idea that contemporary music should 'reflect its time' is related to a certain average soundscape without realizing that there are alternatives possible. Modernism, when it entered the curriculae at universities and conservatories, seems to have damaged something in the brains of young people, who then entered professional life with their handicapped vision and in a world where such ideologies have either crumbled or have been petrified into establishment notions of a conventional, ugly past - as if there were only one type of past which is acceptable and other pasts, better ones, more inspired ones and certainly ones having produced masterpieces, are taboo. So, my book merely punctured an entirely feeble position, and the many thoughts about the modernist fallacies were necessary to point-out the full extent to which the idiocies of the modernist paradigm have damaged a fragile art form - fragile because of being dependent upon audiences, performers, and the cultural climate of societies.
No doubt the 2nd edition by Dover will also produce some attacks, and as long as the remnants of modernist ideologies are doing their destructive work in the mind of people operating in music life, this art form will be under threat, inviting further exploration of alternatives which may - at some stage in the future - restore understanding of classical music's enduring values.
'Classical art is atemporal, like mathematics'. This saying by the brilliant and pioneering architect Léon Krier points towards the 'holistic nature of human perception', as Steven Semes quoted Richard Cytowic (“Synesthesia: Phenomenology and Neuropsychology: A Review of Current Knowledge,” PSYCHE, 2 (10), July 1995). This is not a 'conservative', anti-modern position but in contrary, the most necessary point of departure in the quest for understanding the nature of classical music and its value and meaning in the modern world. Ironically, such awareness is true progress, in comparison with postwar modernist ideologies: the point is, where the notion of progress has to be localized.
Steven Semes' admirable essay about relationships between the different arts can be found on the website of the Future Symphony Institute:
I remember that it was quite a discovery when, after writing some atonal Schönbergian pieces in my student days, my first serious exploration of the tonal tradition - not as an exercise in style imitation but as personal creation - immediately showed me that when you tap into a reservoir of relationships as exist in the tonal tradition (tonal in the widest sense), you enter a network of references which creates its own variations and appearances, and you connect with some deep layer in the collective subconcsiousness. It was the grave intellectual crime of postwar modernist ideology to insist that this connection was related to war, decadence, corruption. Restoring this connection is, I think, the challenge of art music in this century, and I hope such awareness will spread across music life and inspire a revival of a truly great art.
Such 'reviews' missed crucial points of the text, like: the obvious observation, with a history of ages of experience behind it, that music is more than organized sound and that an art form which wants to present sound as such without any other meaning is better considered a different art form altogether; or the crazy modernist assumption that there exists something like 'progress' in music; or the real nature of progress in music: the accumulated availability of means - on a different level from that of purposes; or the totalitarian, aggressive ideologies which have created havoc in music life where the damage is still very much present for all to see (or rather: to hear); or the invitation for juvenile nonsense to parade as 'new music'; or the fallacy of the 'lack of understanding' of 'conservative audiences'; or the link with cultural relativism and cultural identity, where awareness of 'the past' plays a crucial role. All these points could be easily verified by reality, other expertise writings, cumulative experiences of performers and listeners; they were not subjective, paranoid fantasies but rooted in the real world.
If the book were completely wrong, something like this would not have been possible - the presentation of a recent 'work' at the Darmstadt New Music Courses, well-known hub of established modernism in Germany:
In my opinion, the most important part of the book is its chapter 'The Search for Meaning' which connects music (and especially, new music) with the reality of the world and the surrounding culture. Here, a holistic vision is presented in which the many problems surrounding new music are illuminated as if from outside. With bigotry and reactionary conservatism, this has nothing to do - which should be entirely clear for everybody with a minimum of intelligence and cultural awareness. As the iconic monuments of the past are still with us and still have something meaningful to say about the human condition, one could clearly see that the preservation of their precious tradition is always part of any modernity, not for the benefit of the past but of the present - of any present. New creation illuminated by such tradition is - in a world where it is treated with contempt - related to this world in the sense of a necessary altenative, as a subversive exploration of a vision which may throw another light upon the present. Therefore the book is titled, with some irony, as a 'revolution': only revolutionary in relation with conventional ideas about modernity.
Classical, serious music ('art music', 'ernste Musik') has a repertoire that is, almost entirely, a product of the Western past, and mostly the European past. This cultural past forms Europe's cultural identity and by extension, a part of the cultural identity of the Americas. The price which has been paid for a dynamic, progressive technological and scientific society, is the loss of memory, a willful collective dementia, which means: erosion of identity and increase of alienation. The psychological misery and shallowness we see all around in the West, which are painfully reflected in current political developments like the surge of populism everywhere, betrays the lack of understanding of the past with the result that fundamental lessons have to be learned again and again. If we look at Chinese culture, which has survived thousands of years and serious upheavels and disasters, then it is a surprising discovery to see that the inner strength of this very specific culture can be explained by its commitment to 'the past' and 'the dead': the past is kept alive in memory through its art, poetry, literature, mythology. It has even survived the communist degradation and - under the surface - it is still alive, under the thumb of a totalitarian regime that treats its citizens with contempt. Western classical music is now increasingly popular in China, where it symbolizes development and modernization - with the advantage that its nonconceptual nature does not pose a threat to the political status quo. In the West, classical music shrinks, and new music has written itself out of a cultural paradigm altogether (in Europe only being kept alive through careless state support). The West should try to learn from the Chinese holistic attitude towards the cultural past and understand that its past is alive and not locked-up in a museum. All this was explored in 'The Classical Revolution', no doubt insufficiently, but necessarily, as a correction upon a paradigm that has shown itself to be entirely destructive and hostile to art.
Also I have often been criticized for writing music that is 'too traditional', mere imitation music and not original music, and that its language is entirely derivative and impersonal. But any musically-perceptive listener can easily hear that this is not the case: the language is a combination of different elements of existing music, but the mix is mine. Also, the way this music is structured, is newly found with every work: there is no repetition on that point. This type of critique can be compared with the attacks upon the book, and - apart from being superficial and unsophisticated - it is characteristic of a mindset where extremely narrow-minded ideology has replaced musical considerations and perception. The complaint that this music is 'too traditional' sometimes came from classical performers, whom you would expect the last to dislike tradition - but also here, the idea that contemporary music should 'reflect its time' is related to a certain average soundscape without realizing that there are alternatives possible. Modernism, when it entered the curriculae at universities and conservatories, seems to have damaged something in the brains of young people, who then entered professional life with their handicapped vision and in a world where such ideologies have either crumbled or have been petrified into establishment notions of a conventional, ugly past - as if there were only one type of past which is acceptable and other pasts, better ones, more inspired ones and certainly ones having produced masterpieces, are taboo. So, my book merely punctured an entirely feeble position, and the many thoughts about the modernist fallacies were necessary to point-out the full extent to which the idiocies of the modernist paradigm have damaged a fragile art form - fragile because of being dependent upon audiences, performers, and the cultural climate of societies.
No doubt the 2nd edition by Dover will also produce some attacks, and as long as the remnants of modernist ideologies are doing their destructive work in the mind of people operating in music life, this art form will be under threat, inviting further exploration of alternatives which may - at some stage in the future - restore understanding of classical music's enduring values.
'Classical art is atemporal, like mathematics'. This saying by the brilliant and pioneering architect Léon Krier points towards the 'holistic nature of human perception', as Steven Semes quoted Richard Cytowic (“Synesthesia: Phenomenology and Neuropsychology: A Review of Current Knowledge,” PSYCHE, 2 (10), July 1995). This is not a 'conservative', anti-modern position but in contrary, the most necessary point of departure in the quest for understanding the nature of classical music and its value and meaning in the modern world. Ironically, such awareness is true progress, in comparison with postwar modernist ideologies: the point is, where the notion of progress has to be localized.
Steven Semes' admirable essay about relationships between the different arts can be found on the website of the Future Symphony Institute:
http://www.futuresymphony.org/le-violon-dingres-some-reflections-on-music-painting-and-architecture/
I remember that it was quite a discovery when, after writing some atonal Schönbergian pieces in my student days, my first serious exploration of the tonal tradition - not as an exercise in style imitation but as personal creation - immediately showed me that when you tap into a reservoir of relationships as exist in the tonal tradition (tonal in the widest sense), you enter a network of references which creates its own variations and appearances, and you connect with some deep layer in the collective subconcsiousness. It was the grave intellectual crime of postwar modernist ideology to insist that this connection was related to war, decadence, corruption. Restoring this connection is, I think, the challenge of art music in this century, and I hope such awareness will spread across music life and inspire a revival of a truly great art.
Wednesday 15 November 2017
Adorno's destructive influence
In 1947 the German philosopher Th.Wiesengrund Adorno published his
'Philosophy of New Music', in which he tried to show that Schönberg's
unpalatable ugliness (the later music) represented the truth of the 20th
century, while Stravinsky stood for the barbarism of capitalist, bourgeois
exploitative culture. After the holocaust, beauty could only be a lie, thus
music audiences should be exposed to the negative 'truth' of Schönberg to be
morally educated. The book's thesis is nonsensical, and even Schönberg himself
condemned Adorno's attempt to present him as the saint of truthful ugliness.
But it provided the ammunition for postwar modernism to attack musical culture,
in the sense that atonal modernism in the wake of Schönberg and especially,
Webern, was 'historically inevitable' and a necessary expression of the
times.
Since postwar modernism did not blend at all with the usual programs of the central performance culture where the modernist intrusions, squeezed between classics before and after, mostly caused irritation and disbelief (also called 'shit sandwich'), it was in a strong need of justification. So, the book came as a gift from heaven for all those avantgardists banging on the doors of performance practice, where their progressiveness was not welcome and felt as a threat to musical culture as a whole. Also, Adorno's nonsense had the practical advantage that composers, who still believed that - even after the holocaust and world war - it should be possible to write tonal music, and even to strive after beauty, could be called 'outdated', 'irrelevant' and suffering from a 'false consciousness': this latter nice projection was meant to disqualify opponents and the competition even as a party in a rational discussion. We remember the vitriolic attacks on the competition by Boulez, claiming that composers who had not felt the necessity of dodecaphony were 'irrelevant'. Adorno's book came at a time where it could do the most damage: after a devastating war, and the revelation of the death camps. One is reminded of another book with timely nonsense: Otto Weiniger's 'Geschlecht und Charakter' (1903) which offered completely nonsensical stuff about sexuality, Jews, and Aryans, but had an immense influence upon the cultural elites of the day till far into the twenties and thirties. (Being a Jew, Weininger drew the consequences of his own idiocy and committed suicide shortly after his book's publication.)
Drenched in Hegelian historicism - which claims that in history, events are the result of inherent, inevitable autonomous forces - Adorno's book supported the idea that the most important meanings and values of 'the time' were expressed in its arts, and that only the art which did a good job at it, i.e. reflected the times most 'truthfully', was relevant. For artists who sternly believed in the concept of progress, this idea seemed a perfect justification of their own progressive work: it may look or sound awful but at least, it was the most relevant art since it expressed 'the times'. Where new music sounded meaningless and ugly, it could always be claimed that such were the times, and thus still be the most relevant music of its time. Also it was possible to pretend that meaninglessness had its relevant meaning in a meaningless time. Musical modernism, which thrived on the idea of progressiveness, wholeheartedly embraced all this nonsense and when modernism became established as the dominating aesthetics of contemporary music, doors were closed to any alternative vision. This meant that music which was still written on the basis of tonality and traditional aesthetics, went underground, and disappeared from the usual books about music history of the 20th century where the progressive line was drawn from Wagner's Tristan, over Mahler and Schönberg to Webern and hop! over the Second World War to Stockhausen, Boulez, Xenakis et al. This distorting reduction of music history to a progressive line can easily be compared with 'history writing' in totalitarian states where the past is rewritten according to the interests of the current régime.
To which this sorry misconception can lead, still in our own times - when modernism has already crumbled to dust, is shown by this recent example of programme information of the Opéra de Dijon, which also offers orchestral concerts. In the advance information on the website a description of Strauss' 'Four Last Songs' can be read: '.. this erstwhile lyrical and romantic civilisation, as if nothing had happened, as if such music were still possible'. Now, let it sink-in for a while: a respectable orchestra presents one of the greatest works of the repertoire which is also very popular with audiences and one of the greatest challenges for sopranos (and for orchestras and conductors), and describes it as a lie: Strauss wrote it as if there had not been a devastating world war and no holocaust, because if he had acknowledged these catastrophes, he would never had written an echo of this outdated, lyrical and romantic civilisation. Of course Strauss was well aware of what had happened since he had suffered considerably, and had realised, too late it is true, by which diabolical régime he had let himself be compromised. The songs are full of the melancholy of departure from life, of mourning, and in the same time, full of resignation and hope on a better world. They are a proof that also after catastrophe, such music can be written and still be entirely authentic and truthful, because being based upon universal dynamics and aesthetic values (Léon Krier: 'Classical art is atemporal, like mathematics'). Also composers like Britten wrote truthful postwar works (the well-known War Requiem), as did Shostakovich who did not allow any doubt about his awareness of horror. What happened in Dijon? They followed Adornian prescription of progress and the supposed direct link between political reality and art, and found that they could present these songs only with the caveat that actually, such music could not, no: should not have been possible to write at that time, and could only be composed in willful ignorance of the reality of the world - as if the world consists exclusively of horror.
In the thirties, in a Parisian discussion among musicians and composers, someone claimed that art, and thus music, should express 'the times' even if they were ugly, upon which Maurice Ravel who was present, broke his usual silence with the decisive question: 'Why should an ugly time need expression?'
As long as such ideas like Adorno's are allowed to be taken seriously in music life, a liberation from postwar ideology with its erosion of musical value is not possible. Where orchestras or opera houses are under the impression that such historicist ideas are reflecting cultural reality and value, they unintentially help the erosion of their own existence.
Since postwar modernism did not blend at all with the usual programs of the central performance culture where the modernist intrusions, squeezed between classics before and after, mostly caused irritation and disbelief (also called 'shit sandwich'), it was in a strong need of justification. So, the book came as a gift from heaven for all those avantgardists banging on the doors of performance practice, where their progressiveness was not welcome and felt as a threat to musical culture as a whole. Also, Adorno's nonsense had the practical advantage that composers, who still believed that - even after the holocaust and world war - it should be possible to write tonal music, and even to strive after beauty, could be called 'outdated', 'irrelevant' and suffering from a 'false consciousness': this latter nice projection was meant to disqualify opponents and the competition even as a party in a rational discussion. We remember the vitriolic attacks on the competition by Boulez, claiming that composers who had not felt the necessity of dodecaphony were 'irrelevant'. Adorno's book came at a time where it could do the most damage: after a devastating war, and the revelation of the death camps. One is reminded of another book with timely nonsense: Otto Weiniger's 'Geschlecht und Charakter' (1903) which offered completely nonsensical stuff about sexuality, Jews, and Aryans, but had an immense influence upon the cultural elites of the day till far into the twenties and thirties. (Being a Jew, Weininger drew the consequences of his own idiocy and committed suicide shortly after his book's publication.)
Drenched in Hegelian historicism - which claims that in history, events are the result of inherent, inevitable autonomous forces - Adorno's book supported the idea that the most important meanings and values of 'the time' were expressed in its arts, and that only the art which did a good job at it, i.e. reflected the times most 'truthfully', was relevant. For artists who sternly believed in the concept of progress, this idea seemed a perfect justification of their own progressive work: it may look or sound awful but at least, it was the most relevant art since it expressed 'the times'. Where new music sounded meaningless and ugly, it could always be claimed that such were the times, and thus still be the most relevant music of its time. Also it was possible to pretend that meaninglessness had its relevant meaning in a meaningless time. Musical modernism, which thrived on the idea of progressiveness, wholeheartedly embraced all this nonsense and when modernism became established as the dominating aesthetics of contemporary music, doors were closed to any alternative vision. This meant that music which was still written on the basis of tonality and traditional aesthetics, went underground, and disappeared from the usual books about music history of the 20th century where the progressive line was drawn from Wagner's Tristan, over Mahler and Schönberg to Webern and hop! over the Second World War to Stockhausen, Boulez, Xenakis et al. This distorting reduction of music history to a progressive line can easily be compared with 'history writing' in totalitarian states where the past is rewritten according to the interests of the current régime.
To which this sorry misconception can lead, still in our own times - when modernism has already crumbled to dust, is shown by this recent example of programme information of the Opéra de Dijon, which also offers orchestral concerts. In the advance information on the website a description of Strauss' 'Four Last Songs' can be read: '.. this erstwhile lyrical and romantic civilisation, as if nothing had happened, as if such music were still possible'. Now, let it sink-in for a while: a respectable orchestra presents one of the greatest works of the repertoire which is also very popular with audiences and one of the greatest challenges for sopranos (and for orchestras and conductors), and describes it as a lie: Strauss wrote it as if there had not been a devastating world war and no holocaust, because if he had acknowledged these catastrophes, he would never had written an echo of this outdated, lyrical and romantic civilisation. Of course Strauss was well aware of what had happened since he had suffered considerably, and had realised, too late it is true, by which diabolical régime he had let himself be compromised. The songs are full of the melancholy of departure from life, of mourning, and in the same time, full of resignation and hope on a better world. They are a proof that also after catastrophe, such music can be written and still be entirely authentic and truthful, because being based upon universal dynamics and aesthetic values (Léon Krier: 'Classical art is atemporal, like mathematics'). Also composers like Britten wrote truthful postwar works (the well-known War Requiem), as did Shostakovich who did not allow any doubt about his awareness of horror. What happened in Dijon? They followed Adornian prescription of progress and the supposed direct link between political reality and art, and found that they could present these songs only with the caveat that actually, such music could not, no: should not have been possible to write at that time, and could only be composed in willful ignorance of the reality of the world - as if the world consists exclusively of horror.
In the thirties, in a Parisian discussion among musicians and composers, someone claimed that art, and thus music, should express 'the times' even if they were ugly, upon which Maurice Ravel who was present, broke his usual silence with the decisive question: 'Why should an ugly time need expression?'
As long as such ideas like Adorno's are allowed to be taken seriously in music life, a liberation from postwar ideology with its erosion of musical value is not possible. Where orchestras or opera houses are under the impression that such historicist ideas are reflecting cultural reality and value, they unintentially help the erosion of their own existence.
Sunday 29 October 2017
Hermann Hesse on classical music
“We consider classical music to be the epitome and quintessence of
our culture, because it is that culture’s clearest, most significant
gesture and expression. In this music we possess the heritage of
classical antiquity and Christianity, a spirit of serenely cheerful and
brave piety, a superbly chivalric morality. For in the final analysis
every important cultural gesture comes down to a morality, a model for
human behavior concentrated into a gesture.”
Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game (trans. R. Winton)
Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game (trans. R. Winton)
Sunday 22 October 2017
Culture clashes
The reason why it is wrong in Europe to publish offensive cartoons in which is suggested that muslems are, in a general way, terrorists, or that islam is an aggressive dangerous religion, is not that one should not be allowed to express anti-islam sentiments to spare the feelings of the European muslem communities - but because it is entirely anti-civilizational, and a violation of the society that Europe after ages of war mongering has created, to let such 'expressions', which are not humorous at all and rude in every aspect, circulate in public space, as there are so many other anti-civilizational expressions which are tolerated but which should not be tolerated at all. A civilized society exercizes certain behavioral norms which makes it possible for every citizen to live in peace and freedom, and have his privacy protected; this obviously means that freedom of expression is never a total freedom, as all other freedoms are never total freedoms: they are all limited by the normal restrictions of civility.
A documentary program on Belgian TV exposed some shocking evidence of ignorance, detected at both Europeans and European-born muslems, of what a Western, European society actually is supposed to be. Some Europeans simply say that islam as a religion automatically encompasses terrorism, and feel betrayed by their government which does not appear to want to protect them against 'islamization', by which is meant a future under illegal, foreign, aggressive rule. So, they fall into the trap of the extremist rightwing political parties who exploit such sentiments. The reality that millions of muslems all over the world do not particularly pick-out certain jihadist passages from the koran but live according to the other bulk, has escaped them. Then you have the well-meaning muslems, born in Europe, who want 'a discussion with the non-muslems on an even level, as between two equally legitimate view points about the world and society, as equals' to make mutual understanding possible. This latter opinion implies that on one hand, you have secular, non-muslem society and on the other, muslem society. But that is not the reality at all and should never be thought as reflecting in any way what it means to live as a muslem in Europe. Secular, European society postulates that it forms a framework based on a set of civilizational norms and values and hence, rules, to which every citizen has to conform, whatever their religion, ethnicity, gender, hair colour or amorous interests. This framework leaves culture and religion free to be practized, in sofar as they do not violate the overall framework. Where a culture or religion clashes with this framework, they have to adopt to the framework which will have to take priority.
The crazy thought that an islamic view point of society should be, within Europe, on an equal footing with European secular view of society, results from the very different history of islam which never went through a process of separating religion from the state, as happened in Europe. Since islam is not merely a religion but also a way of life and a culture, the idea that you can make such distinctions may thus be quite difficult for serious muslems. It is a notion that will have to be accepted by anyone, living in Europe, and thus also including muslems. They are in the same position as jews, catholics, protestants, bhuddists, jehova witnesses and what you have.
Such a relationship between a secular, civilizational framework and culture / religion is not negotiable, because both the ignorant generalizations by non-muslems and claims of European muslems that their religion be treated as an alternative paradigm to the European civilizational framework, fuel conflict, and not understanding. Locals will feel threatened - and rightly so - if an islamic paradigm is presented as a possible, equally valid alternative view of society to the one they are born into, it would be a gesture of intrusion. And European muslems who, with comparable justification, don't want to be treated as 'second class citizens', will have to adapt to the overall framework to be able to function fully as Europeans claiming their rights, and such adaptation leaves ample space for religious adherence - which, in reality, is also practiced by the millions of muslems all over the world who sustain a civilized way of life. So, much - maybe all - of the irritation and rubbing which is felt all over Europe between a secular, post-christian society and muslem communities, is the result of ignorance and misunderstanding on both sides what religion is and should be, and what a secular Western society / civilization is and should be.
The mentioned framework is based upon universal civilizational values and leaves enough space for any culture and religion to florish under its vaults.... If ever, in some faraway future, there will be world peace and a harmonious living together of all the different cultures on this planet, it will be because this framework will have been created everywhere.
A documentary program on Belgian TV exposed some shocking evidence of ignorance, detected at both Europeans and European-born muslems, of what a Western, European society actually is supposed to be. Some Europeans simply say that islam as a religion automatically encompasses terrorism, and feel betrayed by their government which does not appear to want to protect them against 'islamization', by which is meant a future under illegal, foreign, aggressive rule. So, they fall into the trap of the extremist rightwing political parties who exploit such sentiments. The reality that millions of muslems all over the world do not particularly pick-out certain jihadist passages from the koran but live according to the other bulk, has escaped them. Then you have the well-meaning muslems, born in Europe, who want 'a discussion with the non-muslems on an even level, as between two equally legitimate view points about the world and society, as equals' to make mutual understanding possible. This latter opinion implies that on one hand, you have secular, non-muslem society and on the other, muslem society. But that is not the reality at all and should never be thought as reflecting in any way what it means to live as a muslem in Europe. Secular, European society postulates that it forms a framework based on a set of civilizational norms and values and hence, rules, to which every citizen has to conform, whatever their religion, ethnicity, gender, hair colour or amorous interests. This framework leaves culture and religion free to be practized, in sofar as they do not violate the overall framework. Where a culture or religion clashes with this framework, they have to adopt to the framework which will have to take priority.
The crazy thought that an islamic view point of society should be, within Europe, on an equal footing with European secular view of society, results from the very different history of islam which never went through a process of separating religion from the state, as happened in Europe. Since islam is not merely a religion but also a way of life and a culture, the idea that you can make such distinctions may thus be quite difficult for serious muslems. It is a notion that will have to be accepted by anyone, living in Europe, and thus also including muslems. They are in the same position as jews, catholics, protestants, bhuddists, jehova witnesses and what you have.
Such a relationship between a secular, civilizational framework and culture / religion is not negotiable, because both the ignorant generalizations by non-muslems and claims of European muslems that their religion be treated as an alternative paradigm to the European civilizational framework, fuel conflict, and not understanding. Locals will feel threatened - and rightly so - if an islamic paradigm is presented as a possible, equally valid alternative view of society to the one they are born into, it would be a gesture of intrusion. And European muslems who, with comparable justification, don't want to be treated as 'second class citizens', will have to adapt to the overall framework to be able to function fully as Europeans claiming their rights, and such adaptation leaves ample space for religious adherence - which, in reality, is also practiced by the millions of muslems all over the world who sustain a civilized way of life. So, much - maybe all - of the irritation and rubbing which is felt all over Europe between a secular, post-christian society and muslem communities, is the result of ignorance and misunderstanding on both sides what religion is and should be, and what a secular Western society / civilization is and should be.
The mentioned framework is based upon universal civilizational values and leaves enough space for any culture and religion to florish under its vaults.... If ever, in some faraway future, there will be world peace and a harmonious living together of all the different cultures on this planet, it will be because this framework will have been created everywhere.
Friday 20 October 2017
Abstraction
Much of physical reality is gradually disappearing into the internet.
The only truly functional advantage of the internet is an extra means of both information and communication (electronic contacting goes quicker than the mail, but is less intruding than a telephone call). Transferring the usual means of information and communication (books, letter writing, telephone) into electronic media alters, through its channelling and presentation, the nature of that which is communicated. Hence the general increase of information together with a general decrease of understanding. When society forces its communication channels into electronic means, reality suffers, and this is also affecting people's understanding of reality, because the abstract representation of reality changes its experience.
Killing another person with a sword, requires a number of emotional and mental attitudes which are entirely in accord with the abject deed; pushing a button so that somewhere else thousands of people will die immediately, 'liberates' the perpetrator from direct contact with the results of his deed. But also in daily life (at least: in the West), the increasing abstraction through technology harms the experience of reality: banks forcing clients to surrender to internet banking, government institutions no longer sending letters and documents physically but only through the internet, shops refusing physical money and force clients to pay electronically, and the plans heard occasionally to make books, paper documents, real money to disappear entirely. Book shops are disappearing, as well as music shops, so that the opportunity of freewheeling, looking around and touching possible books or CD's for possible buying, which is an important part of exploring possible extensions of one's collections, is disappearing. All those developments have a negative influence on people's awareness of reality, of mental and emotional development, and on culture. It is part of the utopian urge of a restricted sense of modernity to do away with things of the past, whatever their merits, and turn the world into some large imitation of science fiction décor with an ever more differentiated technology, the desire of creating the new human being unhindered by heritage. Of course we know that such developments end, eventually, in fascism, totalitarianism, destruction of the human mind and spirit.
'I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.' Albert Einstein
In the arts, one sees already the intrusion of 'electronic means' replacing the capacities and craft of artists. The results are not better than before, but can more easily parade as artistic things before a public which is already digitalized and thus, alienated from reality.
Modern technology is in its sophistication too much ahead of the level of acculturation of a majority of people. The pyramid of human intelligence and sophistication shows that the greater numbers are found at the bottom, so that both democracy and wild capitalism will make sure that barriers to their inroads into the human spirit will be removed. Hence the odd combination of a rising populism with increasing electronization, the two trends are interlinked. Abstraction comes to the aid of such aggressors, because its negative effects are not noticed by the masses. It is to be hoped that the same technology which forms a threat to human civilization, will also help to create the necessary resistance, as long as it is understood as a means to an end and not an end in itself (abstraction as a symbol of progressiveness, disconnected from its function). If society becomes entirely dependent upon the internet, it will become its hostage, and will create immense damage. That is not so difficult to understand - a mere power cut completely lames its functioning, and if fuel shortages intervene, societies may even collapse, because there would not be back-up systems to sustain their viability.
The only truly functional advantage of the internet is an extra means of both information and communication (electronic contacting goes quicker than the mail, but is less intruding than a telephone call). Transferring the usual means of information and communication (books, letter writing, telephone) into electronic media alters, through its channelling and presentation, the nature of that which is communicated. Hence the general increase of information together with a general decrease of understanding. When society forces its communication channels into electronic means, reality suffers, and this is also affecting people's understanding of reality, because the abstract representation of reality changes its experience.
Killing another person with a sword, requires a number of emotional and mental attitudes which are entirely in accord with the abject deed; pushing a button so that somewhere else thousands of people will die immediately, 'liberates' the perpetrator from direct contact with the results of his deed. But also in daily life (at least: in the West), the increasing abstraction through technology harms the experience of reality: banks forcing clients to surrender to internet banking, government institutions no longer sending letters and documents physically but only through the internet, shops refusing physical money and force clients to pay electronically, and the plans heard occasionally to make books, paper documents, real money to disappear entirely. Book shops are disappearing, as well as music shops, so that the opportunity of freewheeling, looking around and touching possible books or CD's for possible buying, which is an important part of exploring possible extensions of one's collections, is disappearing. All those developments have a negative influence on people's awareness of reality, of mental and emotional development, and on culture. It is part of the utopian urge of a restricted sense of modernity to do away with things of the past, whatever their merits, and turn the world into some large imitation of science fiction décor with an ever more differentiated technology, the desire of creating the new human being unhindered by heritage. Of course we know that such developments end, eventually, in fascism, totalitarianism, destruction of the human mind and spirit.
'I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.' Albert Einstein
In the arts, one sees already the intrusion of 'electronic means' replacing the capacities and craft of artists. The results are not better than before, but can more easily parade as artistic things before a public which is already digitalized and thus, alienated from reality.
Modern technology is in its sophistication too much ahead of the level of acculturation of a majority of people. The pyramid of human intelligence and sophistication shows that the greater numbers are found at the bottom, so that both democracy and wild capitalism will make sure that barriers to their inroads into the human spirit will be removed. Hence the odd combination of a rising populism with increasing electronization, the two trends are interlinked. Abstraction comes to the aid of such aggressors, because its negative effects are not noticed by the masses. It is to be hoped that the same technology which forms a threat to human civilization, will also help to create the necessary resistance, as long as it is understood as a means to an end and not an end in itself (abstraction as a symbol of progressiveness, disconnected from its function). If society becomes entirely dependent upon the internet, it will become its hostage, and will create immense damage. That is not so difficult to understand - a mere power cut completely lames its functioning, and if fuel shortages intervene, societies may even collapse, because there would not be back-up systems to sustain their viability.
Futurism and dementia
“We may be terrified of dementia because it is widespread and its
effects catastrophic. But the fear arises also because we are half-conscious,
as dutiful forward-facing citizens of modernity, that we figuratively have it
already.”
The devaluation of 'the past' in so many of its forms, means that important lessons are forgotten and precious knowledge, which transcends time and place because they are related to universal human experience, is lost, and that people re-invent the wheel again and again. It is one of the destructive characteristics of what we best call 'conventional modernity', an overall mood of enthusiasm for what is not yet there, for total freedom unhindered by the usual human limitations and the necessities thrown-up by reality, in short: an immature mind set, permeating the whole of Western society, and which has turned into convention and 'received wisdom'. For arriving at a 'true modernity', i.e. one which is rooted in both reality and the awareness of the human condition, a modernity focussing on improvement instead of newness, it may be helpful to remember Cicero's saying that who refuses to know the past will forever remain a child.
Ironically, the usual, collective mindset of modernity is much like dementia: gradually the past, and thus any elements of identity, are forgotten, without something taking their place. It is a created dementia, entirely self-destructive. But it has long roots in that very past, as this interesting article in The New Statesman shows:
Sunday 15 October 2017
The inhumanity of 'forgotten' people
Shocking interviews on TV with both refugee families in Germany, and local Germans who voted for AfD, the extreme-right, one could say: almost neo-nazi party, who play the card of German national identity and the 'threat' that refugees form for the 'Germanness' of 'Das Volk'. You see very young refugee children, full of life and joy (because of ignorant of the fragility of their position, with only temporary permit), speaking German already, and worrying parents because of permit issues, work issues and hostility of the locals, and seemingly civil, simple German people, who feel threatened by foreigners, fear for their childrens' future ('will this then still be Germany?'), and who calmly, friendly but pertinently explain that 'these people' don't belong here and should go home. That their home no longer exists, is not their problem, it's the foreigners' problem. Question: 'And the children being born here, going to German schools, speaking German, must they go too?' The answer is also calmly and steadfastly given: refugee children, even if they are born here, are and will remain foreign and will never be German, because being German means background, which has been built-up over generations, they have no roots and will not get roots. All without any hint of awareness of the inhumanity, cruelty, and thoroughly un-European, un-civilized nature of their opinion. When the interviewer says: 'What you say, isn't that just racist?' then they are shocked, oh no, this is not racist at all, race does not come into question, these people just have to go.
Now, strictly speaking, such opinions are not directly racist, but they are cruel, uncivilized, primitive, and come from a layer of society of simple, hardworking people, who do not have any intellectual background which would enable them to understand the time in which we live and the bigger questions of Europe and the world. You will have to accept that these people watch the news, see the endless streams of refugee families with little children on the shoulders, ploughing through barren lands in an effort to save their lives, and it does not touch them in the least, because that is not happening in their backyard. It is a grave deficit of imagination and humanity, on a very basic level. One of these Germans said - a worrying house wife: 'We never get the feeling that the government listens to us, that we have a voice'. That there are also other voices, which may have something better to say, simply does not come-up into such minds. These are the people who do not consider themselves neonazis or extremists, but they partake in massive rallies screaming: 'We are the people!' (the regular 'pegida' rallies). No awareness of history, of the wider world, of Europe. Just primitive instincts.
To my feeling, the mistake by European politicians was - and is - not that they take-in refugees, that is only normal and absolutely necessary given the wider context and Europe's identity as a civilization - that is why the resistance against accepting refugee numbers by EU member states is so embarrassing, although again understandable from a historic perspective: eastern Europe has been isolated from the world for half a century. No, the mistake was and is, that the political parties don't stress the process of Europeanization enough or just not at all. Immigrants in the USA have, mostly, two identities: that of their culture and the American identity, and that combines quite well. A Chinese family in Kentucky has the American flag in the front yard and eat Fu Yong Hai for dinner (their children may opt for a Big Mac). Since culture is different from the political and social context, Europeanization can be achieved in such a way that the original culture of immigrants are left untouched - except where it is in conflict with Western civilizational values, like sharia, genital mutilation, or burning of widows and killing the neighbour when he makes a risqué joke to your wife. Within Europe, mixing of nationalities and cultures is going on already for a very long time, but of course, the differences between north- and south-Europeans and West- and East-Europeans is not so big as - presumably - between a Danish bourgeois family and a Syrian one (although I bet these differences are not at all as big as people may think). People who fled death and destruction can adapt easily in Europe, if they are helped and educated in European ways of life, and most of these ways are entirely beneficial, especially for women and children. Of course there are, and will be for a long time, problems of assimilation and employment and education, but Europe is certainly able to handle them - it is in its own existential interest, failing is no option.
This wave of rightwing extremism and entirely outdated nationalism, which threatens to undermine all the achievements of Europe since the Second World War, is also - and maybe foremost - a reaction against a modernity which has neglected two important things necessary for a normal, balanced and civilized society: culture (in the widest sense) and the cultivation of home, of feeling safe and belonging to a place, a location. Both elements are not entirely rational but mainly emotional. It is the elites who, without financial worries, easily travel from one place to another, within or outside Europe, who enjoy holidays on the Fuji Islands or go on safari in Kenya when bored, but the majority of people focus on the everyday burdens and consider everything that does not directly affect their life, as something happening far away, as if on another planet. If they are feeling at home in their environment, and their income is not threatened, the information coming from the media about 'life out there' is consumed but not digested - why should it? But if there are not enough reassurances from the state, and appropriate measures taken, to convey the message that Europe will continue to be Europe, and Germany and any other European nation will continue their identity, because newcomers will become Europeans, there will be rebellion. It is all about insecurity and the lack of reassurance.
All this has influence upon culture: where orchestras and opera houses confront cuts in their subsidies because they are considered no longer representing a cultural 'centre' of some community, of a shared civilization, and are seen as 'no longer relevant for modern times', this would reflect the giving-up of an age-old, highly developed cultural identity, which does not need to be xenophobe to maintain its viability. It is not relevant whether every type of civilian does or does not visit concerts or operas; it is the sheer presence of cultural institutions and the art forms they represent, which is the point. From this centre of cultural identity, education and Europeanization can open the institutional doors to people from other cultures, and we see this already happening on a small scale.
Decennia of leftwing social engineering, mixed with populism and a superficial, 'progressive' idea of modernity, have eroded Europe's cultural identity, and such things trickle-down to the base of the human pyramid, there where levels of education and intelligence are lowest. And now these levels protest - without understanding that in fact, while they think they only raise their voice, on the longer term they are damaging their own interests and the interests of the whole of society. It is a protest against an eroding modernity which, in combination with an unfair globalism and sudden appearances of a head scarf in the local street, creates instinctive reactions rooted in primitive feelings of being threatened - understandable but very dangerous. Hence the inhumanity of those simple Germans, who think they are defending Blut und Boden by voting for an extremist party and feel no qualms in wishing innocent children to meet their hopeless fate amidst the ruins of a destroyed country and continuing death threats. If such thing would happen to their own children, they would take to their axes and knives and hammers and anything that would provide a weapon - but then, 'that would be something different'. In other circumstances, they would wholeheartedly vote for the nazis, as they did in the thirties, when they were really threatened by existential problems on a hughe scale, and did not mind the craziness of the nazi ideology because they lacked the imagination to understand what they meant.
One can only hope for the other Europe, the other Germany: that of the humanist tradition, of civilizational values and imagination, which has given the world one of the greatest flowerings of the human mind. Rightwing extremism has to be opposed with all the available forces, political, cultural, intellectual, educational, and its causes be tackled.
Now, strictly speaking, such opinions are not directly racist, but they are cruel, uncivilized, primitive, and come from a layer of society of simple, hardworking people, who do not have any intellectual background which would enable them to understand the time in which we live and the bigger questions of Europe and the world. You will have to accept that these people watch the news, see the endless streams of refugee families with little children on the shoulders, ploughing through barren lands in an effort to save their lives, and it does not touch them in the least, because that is not happening in their backyard. It is a grave deficit of imagination and humanity, on a very basic level. One of these Germans said - a worrying house wife: 'We never get the feeling that the government listens to us, that we have a voice'. That there are also other voices, which may have something better to say, simply does not come-up into such minds. These are the people who do not consider themselves neonazis or extremists, but they partake in massive rallies screaming: 'We are the people!' (the regular 'pegida' rallies). No awareness of history, of the wider world, of Europe. Just primitive instincts.
To my feeling, the mistake by European politicians was - and is - not that they take-in refugees, that is only normal and absolutely necessary given the wider context and Europe's identity as a civilization - that is why the resistance against accepting refugee numbers by EU member states is so embarrassing, although again understandable from a historic perspective: eastern Europe has been isolated from the world for half a century. No, the mistake was and is, that the political parties don't stress the process of Europeanization enough or just not at all. Immigrants in the USA have, mostly, two identities: that of their culture and the American identity, and that combines quite well. A Chinese family in Kentucky has the American flag in the front yard and eat Fu Yong Hai for dinner (their children may opt for a Big Mac). Since culture is different from the political and social context, Europeanization can be achieved in such a way that the original culture of immigrants are left untouched - except where it is in conflict with Western civilizational values, like sharia, genital mutilation, or burning of widows and killing the neighbour when he makes a risqué joke to your wife. Within Europe, mixing of nationalities and cultures is going on already for a very long time, but of course, the differences between north- and south-Europeans and West- and East-Europeans is not so big as - presumably - between a Danish bourgeois family and a Syrian one (although I bet these differences are not at all as big as people may think). People who fled death and destruction can adapt easily in Europe, if they are helped and educated in European ways of life, and most of these ways are entirely beneficial, especially for women and children. Of course there are, and will be for a long time, problems of assimilation and employment and education, but Europe is certainly able to handle them - it is in its own existential interest, failing is no option.
This wave of rightwing extremism and entirely outdated nationalism, which threatens to undermine all the achievements of Europe since the Second World War, is also - and maybe foremost - a reaction against a modernity which has neglected two important things necessary for a normal, balanced and civilized society: culture (in the widest sense) and the cultivation of home, of feeling safe and belonging to a place, a location. Both elements are not entirely rational but mainly emotional. It is the elites who, without financial worries, easily travel from one place to another, within or outside Europe, who enjoy holidays on the Fuji Islands or go on safari in Kenya when bored, but the majority of people focus on the everyday burdens and consider everything that does not directly affect their life, as something happening far away, as if on another planet. If they are feeling at home in their environment, and their income is not threatened, the information coming from the media about 'life out there' is consumed but not digested - why should it? But if there are not enough reassurances from the state, and appropriate measures taken, to convey the message that Europe will continue to be Europe, and Germany and any other European nation will continue their identity, because newcomers will become Europeans, there will be rebellion. It is all about insecurity and the lack of reassurance.
All this has influence upon culture: where orchestras and opera houses confront cuts in their subsidies because they are considered no longer representing a cultural 'centre' of some community, of a shared civilization, and are seen as 'no longer relevant for modern times', this would reflect the giving-up of an age-old, highly developed cultural identity, which does not need to be xenophobe to maintain its viability. It is not relevant whether every type of civilian does or does not visit concerts or operas; it is the sheer presence of cultural institutions and the art forms they represent, which is the point. From this centre of cultural identity, education and Europeanization can open the institutional doors to people from other cultures, and we see this already happening on a small scale.
Decennia of leftwing social engineering, mixed with populism and a superficial, 'progressive' idea of modernity, have eroded Europe's cultural identity, and such things trickle-down to the base of the human pyramid, there where levels of education and intelligence are lowest. And now these levels protest - without understanding that in fact, while they think they only raise their voice, on the longer term they are damaging their own interests and the interests of the whole of society. It is a protest against an eroding modernity which, in combination with an unfair globalism and sudden appearances of a head scarf in the local street, creates instinctive reactions rooted in primitive feelings of being threatened - understandable but very dangerous. Hence the inhumanity of those simple Germans, who think they are defending Blut und Boden by voting for an extremist party and feel no qualms in wishing innocent children to meet their hopeless fate amidst the ruins of a destroyed country and continuing death threats. If such thing would happen to their own children, they would take to their axes and knives and hammers and anything that would provide a weapon - but then, 'that would be something different'. In other circumstances, they would wholeheartedly vote for the nazis, as they did in the thirties, when they were really threatened by existential problems on a hughe scale, and did not mind the craziness of the nazi ideology because they lacked the imagination to understand what they meant.
One can only hope for the other Europe, the other Germany: that of the humanist tradition, of civilizational values and imagination, which has given the world one of the greatest flowerings of the human mind. Rightwing extremism has to be opposed with all the available forces, political, cultural, intellectual, educational, and its causes be tackled.
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