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Tuesday, October 31, 2006
The Forged
All outside inside
The or the
Horned set where
sometimes
He of then
leans to. ¶ 11:12 pm 0 Comments
The or the
Horned set where
sometimes
He of then
leans to. ¶ 11:12 pm 0 Comments
Nietzsche: On Truth And Lies In A Non-Moral Sense
Nietzsche examines why there exists a drive for truth in man. Only through the birth of truth for man does Nietzsche highlight and present a case for truth as illusion, truth as metaphor. The greater claim Nietzsche makes with truth as metaphor is the nature of the relationship between truth and the thing-in-itself as illusory.
At the centre of Nietzsche’s argument is individual man as a deceiver in the world. That fundamentally in the world there exists the drive to survive, of self-preservation, and that for the strong this drive takes form in battle, for the intelligent this drive takes form in deception.
“As a means for the preserving of the individual, the intellect unfolds its principal powers in dissimulation…This art of dissimulation reaches its peak in man.”
Nietzsche illustrates here that the highest form of deception is found in man and that man uses it to his advantage for personal survival. From the very onset man is set against man and beast within the world, and it is his superior ability to deceive that sets him higher. Nietzsche puts it to us that there does not exist in the first instance a need for truth in the man as individual, and rules out that our senses may give us truth, rather they may be deceived.
“Their senses nowhere lead to truth; on the contrary, they are content to receive stimuli and, as it were, to engage in a groping game on the backs of things.”
The stimuli that the senses receive are not truth. Stimuli, Nietzsche points out, need not be the thing in the world, or the thing in itself, any connection to truth cannot be realized. The senses have no way to distinguish stimuli that is derived from a thing in itself or a deception.
From the individual, Nietzsche’s argument moves further into the individual as he is within the society that he builds for himself. In a social consensus less energies may be spent on protecting the individual if common ground may be held, and some understanding between individuals is obtained. An intelligent individual recognizes the advantages in a social relationship with others. Now the priority, as Nietzsche sees it, has shifted from the preservation of the individual to the preservation of the society that protects its members. From here Nietzsche introduces the term designation as common deceptions that members, of a society, hold in order to communicate the same expression for a similar thing.
“a uniformly valid and binding designation is invented for things, and this legislation of language likewise establishes the first laws of truth.”
These designations do not form truth on their own merit but contort language into a system in which truth may come to be recognized. To use the wrong designation is not to tell an untruth but to warp the common understanding. Nietzsche continues to claim that such a misuse of a designation has not any actual consequences, but only when such a misuse leads to causing harm to the society and its members. The truth value is not that which is of importance, it is the negative effects of deception upon society which are unwanted. It is not the inherent properties of truth that show themselves to be desirable for man, rather it is the positive consequences of truth for society that are desirable.
“…he desires the pleasant, life-preserving consequences of truth…toward those truths which are possibly harmful and destructive he is even hostilely inclined.”
The constant desire of the pleasant consequences insist the presence of the same designations in the same place for as long as it creates the pleasant consequence. That is to say, for as long as the illusion gives benefit to society as being taken as true then it is. This is the first point at which truth may be understood as an illusion. Not as some readers believe, the designation as illusion, rather the place holding nature of the designation as truth is an illusion.
Continual use of the same place holder becomes enveloped within tradition and convention. At this point the illusion takes another step into metaphor; the designation no longer holds a place for truth but is directly representational as a truth. For another illusion may come to hold a place in reference to the metaphor. So what has happened under the guise of time is that what once was merely held as a common designation for a thing has in turn become a place holder for that thing and then a metaphor as the thing in itself. This forgetfulness that Nietzsche writes expresses on one level his claim to truth being a metaphor. That the metaphor, from designation, has become truth in the structure of tradition, in its constant and persistent use in the same context over many generations. As though it has always been .
Nietzsche lays claim to truth as metaphor on yet another account. That the formation of language from sensory perception must leap from sphere to sphere in a series of metaphor.
“To begin with, a nerve stimulus is transferred into an image: first metaphor. The image, in turn, is imitated in a sound: second metaphor.”
Nietzsche’s point here is that there is no direct equation between each step. That the image is the result of the mind’s conjuring trick using the information from the senses. The image has no direct correlation to the world that we sense, it is merely representational. Created for our operative purposes, man will understand the image as the world. At once the metaphor is made and immediately forgotten or never realised. Again, to communicate the image to another, the conjuring trick is used to put the image back into the world. The sound that is uttered, an act of creativity, is metaphoric in the highest degree to the image in one’s mind. And yet each word becomes separated from the image and attached to a concept. So that the concept may group all alike images together and structures may be built.
“…a word becomes a concept insofar as it simultaneously had to fit countless more or less similar cases…”
The point being made is that the concept may hold a universal quality. After experiencing countless stimuli and each making a similar image, the same word is attributed to the multitude of images. Then a great metaphorical leap is made. That by ignoring the differences of each image a conceptual universal image may be attached to the word. The word no longer applies to the individual that was at one point experienced in the world but applies metaphorically to a hypothetical image of universality. Nietzsche illustrates this point in the example of “honesty” and the example of the “leaf”.
Nietzsche’s claim for truth as illusion and metaphor rests largely on four accounts. Firstly the illusory use of a word as a designator for a thing in itself. Secondly the continual use of this designator in the same fashion to be mistaken as the thing in itself. Thirdly the process of stimuli transfigured into sound. And fourthly the creation of the concept from the word.
At the centre of Nietzsche’s argument is individual man as a deceiver in the world. That fundamentally in the world there exists the drive to survive, of self-preservation, and that for the strong this drive takes form in battle, for the intelligent this drive takes form in deception.
“As a means for the preserving of the individual, the intellect unfolds its principal powers in dissimulation…This art of dissimulation reaches its peak in man.”
Nietzsche illustrates here that the highest form of deception is found in man and that man uses it to his advantage for personal survival. From the very onset man is set against man and beast within the world, and it is his superior ability to deceive that sets him higher. Nietzsche puts it to us that there does not exist in the first instance a need for truth in the man as individual, and rules out that our senses may give us truth, rather they may be deceived.
“Their senses nowhere lead to truth; on the contrary, they are content to receive stimuli and, as it were, to engage in a groping game on the backs of things.”
The stimuli that the senses receive are not truth. Stimuli, Nietzsche points out, need not be the thing in the world, or the thing in itself, any connection to truth cannot be realized. The senses have no way to distinguish stimuli that is derived from a thing in itself or a deception.
From the individual, Nietzsche’s argument moves further into the individual as he is within the society that he builds for himself. In a social consensus less energies may be spent on protecting the individual if common ground may be held, and some understanding between individuals is obtained. An intelligent individual recognizes the advantages in a social relationship with others. Now the priority, as Nietzsche sees it, has shifted from the preservation of the individual to the preservation of the society that protects its members. From here Nietzsche introduces the term designation as common deceptions that members, of a society, hold in order to communicate the same expression for a similar thing.
“a uniformly valid and binding designation is invented for things, and this legislation of language likewise establishes the first laws of truth.”
These designations do not form truth on their own merit but contort language into a system in which truth may come to be recognized. To use the wrong designation is not to tell an untruth but to warp the common understanding. Nietzsche continues to claim that such a misuse of a designation has not any actual consequences, but only when such a misuse leads to causing harm to the society and its members. The truth value is not that which is of importance, it is the negative effects of deception upon society which are unwanted. It is not the inherent properties of truth that show themselves to be desirable for man, rather it is the positive consequences of truth for society that are desirable.
“…he desires the pleasant, life-preserving consequences of truth…toward those truths which are possibly harmful and destructive he is even hostilely inclined.”
The constant desire of the pleasant consequences insist the presence of the same designations in the same place for as long as it creates the pleasant consequence. That is to say, for as long as the illusion gives benefit to society as being taken as true then it is. This is the first point at which truth may be understood as an illusion. Not as some readers believe, the designation as illusion, rather the place holding nature of the designation as truth is an illusion.
Continual use of the same place holder becomes enveloped within tradition and convention. At this point the illusion takes another step into metaphor; the designation no longer holds a place for truth but is directly representational as a truth. For another illusion may come to hold a place in reference to the metaphor. So what has happened under the guise of time is that what once was merely held as a common designation for a thing has in turn become a place holder for that thing and then a metaphor as the thing in itself. This forgetfulness that Nietzsche writes expresses on one level his claim to truth being a metaphor. That the metaphor, from designation, has become truth in the structure of tradition, in its constant and persistent use in the same context over many generations. As though it has always been .
Nietzsche lays claim to truth as metaphor on yet another account. That the formation of language from sensory perception must leap from sphere to sphere in a series of metaphor.
“To begin with, a nerve stimulus is transferred into an image: first metaphor. The image, in turn, is imitated in a sound: second metaphor.”
Nietzsche’s point here is that there is no direct equation between each step. That the image is the result of the mind’s conjuring trick using the information from the senses. The image has no direct correlation to the world that we sense, it is merely representational. Created for our operative purposes, man will understand the image as the world. At once the metaphor is made and immediately forgotten or never realised. Again, to communicate the image to another, the conjuring trick is used to put the image back into the world. The sound that is uttered, an act of creativity, is metaphoric in the highest degree to the image in one’s mind. And yet each word becomes separated from the image and attached to a concept. So that the concept may group all alike images together and structures may be built.
“…a word becomes a concept insofar as it simultaneously had to fit countless more or less similar cases…”
The point being made is that the concept may hold a universal quality. After experiencing countless stimuli and each making a similar image, the same word is attributed to the multitude of images. Then a great metaphorical leap is made. That by ignoring the differences of each image a conceptual universal image may be attached to the word. The word no longer applies to the individual that was at one point experienced in the world but applies metaphorically to a hypothetical image of universality. Nietzsche illustrates this point in the example of “honesty” and the example of the “leaf”.
Nietzsche’s claim for truth as illusion and metaphor rests largely on four accounts. Firstly the illusory use of a word as a designator for a thing in itself. Secondly the continual use of this designator in the same fashion to be mistaken as the thing in itself. Thirdly the process of stimuli transfigured into sound. And fourthly the creation of the concept from the word.
Labels: philosophy
¶ 11:10 pm 0 Comments
Nietzsche: The Birth Of Tragedy
The Birth of Tragedy presents the duality of the Apollonian and the Dionysian as a starting point of aesthetics , of mankind as a creating being. The Apollonian art of dreams opposed to the Dionysian art of intoxication. From this, Nietzsche uses the Greek tragedy as a resolution between the somewhat opposing forces of Apollo and Dionysus. The problem is obvious; so distant are the two it seems neither may win out over the other without so much as destroying the other and thus making any compromise unfruitful and void. The two are even described as parallel lines within the first chapter of The Birth of Tragedy. Nietzsche’s explication of Greek tragedy as a resolving process is difficult and strenuous in the very least.
Nietzsche’s claim to understand the relation between the Apollonian and Dionysian “through a fraternal bond” gives rise to the understanding that both derive from the same source. The paternal source being mankind. From mankind comes understanding of himself within the world as the principal individual, an autonomous individual who shapes his own destiny, and the understanding of himself as part of a mystic whole, a thread in the greater fabric of time and fate.
Both the Apollonian and the Dionysian are expressed by Nietzsche as destructive drives of mankind. Destructive in the Roman drive of conquest or in the Indian longing for nothingness. The Greek tragedy walks a synthetic line between these two destructive elements, where an autonomous individual upon the Apollonian stage carries and is ultimately destroyed by the Dionysian weight, to the cathartic pleasure of the Greeks.
“Situated between India and Rome and forced to make a seductive choice, the Greeks managed to invent with classical purity an additional third form…”
The Greek tragedy is catharsis. The tragedy affords the full force of the destructive Dionysian intoxication to literally come about and be expressed.
The intoxication is brought about in the Apollonian world of structure. The music is played in accordance to the hero’s emotion. The god’s of fate are set out against the hero. The downfall is that of the hero, the story of one man is told in three Acts. The Apollonian world is constructed for the tragic hero, and the tragic hero alone. The repeated expression, the illusory expression, of a singularity forces the audience to use the Dionysian, the music and wanton destruction, as a lens by which one may see the individual more precisely. The destructive effects of intoxication are only immediately accessed by the individual within the tragedy, the tragic hero.
Within the tragedy each lends itself to the other. The Apollonian lends its rigid structure to the Dionysian, which merely uses this illusory world to run rampant and free in its highest form. In this way the Dionysian world is expressed through the Apollonian stage freely, but is yet separated from the audience in the very nature of the stage. It is this myth that protects the Greeks from the destruction inherent within the Dionysian.
“Myth protects us from music, while on the other hand myth alone gives music its highest freedom. For that reason, music in return lends tragic myth a penetrating and persuasive metaphysical significance…”
A unique Dionysian gift is handed over to the Apollonian stage to impart a sense of importance and worldliness. The story of the individual may carry weight and be relevant to the audience only if the Dionysian attribute of universal place is given wholly to the stage. In this way something meaningless and singular, the Apollonian, is given universality and meaning. The Dionysian message within the myth, the Apollonian, attracts the Greeks as it transcends the individual and relates to all. The people, society, are an audience so that they may not be consumed with dread, but are purged of their need to exalt in the intoxication. Vicariously through the drama of the tragedy the Dionysian drive for faceless creativity thrives. Likewise the Dionysian drive in men is vicariously fulfilled for that moment.
Nietzsche writes a give and take relationship, a relationship fighting for dominance, one over the other, where finally both learn and take something away from the other and where one is so too must the other be. The polarity between Apollo and Dionysus is clear from the very onset in The Birth of Tragedy, so clear that some readers fail to recognize the reconciliation that takes place, and find only a triumphant Dionysus. The description of the two as brothers, the fraternal bond, as a metaphor does everything but explicitly insist a resolution on the grounds of learning or acquiring. The Dionysus that is referred to in Nietzsche’s later writings, such as Thus Spoke Zarathustra, cannot be this original unlearnt Dionysus, but rather the brotherly Dionysus from the Greek tragedy, with Apollo in stride.
“Dionysus speaks the language of Apollo, and Apollo finally speaks the language of Dionysus…”
The Greek tragedy then escapes the theatre itself, for the expressions of the Dionysian in the Apollonian serve not only to momentarily satisfy the desire for intoxication, but also to bring about a new Dionysus; the Dionysus that speaks the language of Apollo, the Dionysus that has learnt about dreams and is spoken by Zarathustra. The tragedy expresses the eternal toil that is at once veiled by momentary necessity. Nietzsche’s high regard is for the positive expression of life from the tragedy. There lies a platform for a great strength to construct values, deconstruct and reconstruct, with a Dionysian understanding within an Apollonian framework.
“…and so the highest goal of tragedy and of art itself is achieved.”
Nietzsche’s claim to understand the relation between the Apollonian and Dionysian “through a fraternal bond” gives rise to the understanding that both derive from the same source. The paternal source being mankind. From mankind comes understanding of himself within the world as the principal individual, an autonomous individual who shapes his own destiny, and the understanding of himself as part of a mystic whole, a thread in the greater fabric of time and fate.
Both the Apollonian and the Dionysian are expressed by Nietzsche as destructive drives of mankind. Destructive in the Roman drive of conquest or in the Indian longing for nothingness. The Greek tragedy walks a synthetic line between these two destructive elements, where an autonomous individual upon the Apollonian stage carries and is ultimately destroyed by the Dionysian weight, to the cathartic pleasure of the Greeks.
“Situated between India and Rome and forced to make a seductive choice, the Greeks managed to invent with classical purity an additional third form…”
The Greek tragedy is catharsis. The tragedy affords the full force of the destructive Dionysian intoxication to literally come about and be expressed.
The intoxication is brought about in the Apollonian world of structure. The music is played in accordance to the hero’s emotion. The god’s of fate are set out against the hero. The downfall is that of the hero, the story of one man is told in three Acts. The Apollonian world is constructed for the tragic hero, and the tragic hero alone. The repeated expression, the illusory expression, of a singularity forces the audience to use the Dionysian, the music and wanton destruction, as a lens by which one may see the individual more precisely. The destructive effects of intoxication are only immediately accessed by the individual within the tragedy, the tragic hero.
Within the tragedy each lends itself to the other. The Apollonian lends its rigid structure to the Dionysian, which merely uses this illusory world to run rampant and free in its highest form. In this way the Dionysian world is expressed through the Apollonian stage freely, but is yet separated from the audience in the very nature of the stage. It is this myth that protects the Greeks from the destruction inherent within the Dionysian.
“Myth protects us from music, while on the other hand myth alone gives music its highest freedom. For that reason, music in return lends tragic myth a penetrating and persuasive metaphysical significance…”
A unique Dionysian gift is handed over to the Apollonian stage to impart a sense of importance and worldliness. The story of the individual may carry weight and be relevant to the audience only if the Dionysian attribute of universal place is given wholly to the stage. In this way something meaningless and singular, the Apollonian, is given universality and meaning. The Dionysian message within the myth, the Apollonian, attracts the Greeks as it transcends the individual and relates to all. The people, society, are an audience so that they may not be consumed with dread, but are purged of their need to exalt in the intoxication. Vicariously through the drama of the tragedy the Dionysian drive for faceless creativity thrives. Likewise the Dionysian drive in men is vicariously fulfilled for that moment.
Nietzsche writes a give and take relationship, a relationship fighting for dominance, one over the other, where finally both learn and take something away from the other and where one is so too must the other be. The polarity between Apollo and Dionysus is clear from the very onset in The Birth of Tragedy, so clear that some readers fail to recognize the reconciliation that takes place, and find only a triumphant Dionysus. The description of the two as brothers, the fraternal bond, as a metaphor does everything but explicitly insist a resolution on the grounds of learning or acquiring. The Dionysus that is referred to in Nietzsche’s later writings, such as Thus Spoke Zarathustra, cannot be this original unlearnt Dionysus, but rather the brotherly Dionysus from the Greek tragedy, with Apollo in stride.
“Dionysus speaks the language of Apollo, and Apollo finally speaks the language of Dionysus…”
The Greek tragedy then escapes the theatre itself, for the expressions of the Dionysian in the Apollonian serve not only to momentarily satisfy the desire for intoxication, but also to bring about a new Dionysus; the Dionysus that speaks the language of Apollo, the Dionysus that has learnt about dreams and is spoken by Zarathustra. The tragedy expresses the eternal toil that is at once veiled by momentary necessity. Nietzsche’s high regard is for the positive expression of life from the tragedy. There lies a platform for a great strength to construct values, deconstruct and reconstruct, with a Dionysian understanding within an Apollonian framework.
“…and so the highest goal of tragedy and of art itself is achieved.”
Labels: philosophy
¶ 11:08 pm 0 Comments
That Modernism Is Characterised By A Set Of Techniques
Characterization relies upon the drawing together of similarities, usually techniques, that are present throughout all work that make up a movement or era. To characterize modernism then would be to sift through work and by a process of elimination be left with a handful of techniques that are ever present in modernist works. The task at hand is impossible. Modernism refuses to be characterized. Modernism does not own techniques but uses techniques. There is a momentum within modernism that is more base, of a higher nature, than techniques. Modernism is pulled together by its refusal to be classified, for its upturned nature, and outright disregard for all that has come before that has relied so heavily on technique.
The works of William Butler Yeats sit on an illusory line between Modernism and Romanticism, while earlier works illustrate Victorian techniques. The unique position that Yeats occupies allows an examination of techniques specifying genre and techniques being recontextualised as a tool. The shift in writing Romantic lyrics in technique and form to abandoning formal use of technique is shown in the differences between the early and late works of W.B. Yeats.
The strategic decision to radically break away from tradition, to tear apart the existing moral and social order in the hope to create a new one, saw the birth of a dichotomy. A dichotomy that has come part way to characterizing modernism exists between high art and mass culture. Traditionally the Church, as a bastion of authority, created a conduit between art and the masses, by way of imposing a system upon creation. The modernist determination to oppose this tradition destroys a system of values that allows access to what is “good”. A conscious exclusion of mass culture can be seen as the greatest spanning (pseudo)stylistic technique used among all modernists.
The conscious effort to exclude the masses by way of subverting the traditional is present in the poetry of W.B. Yeats. Clearly in the poem “When You Are Old” there is a strict sense of stylistic choice and adherence to a set of Romantic techniques. There exists a structured and repeating rhyme scheme of ABBA. There are four regular lines to every stanza, of which there are three, a biblically important number. Each line has a regular ten syllables and conforms to a form of iambic meter. The theme itself continues to support the rigidity of the poem, and clearly there is a set of values here that are being upheld, which can be recognized. In contrast “Leda and the Swan” immediately upturns the system that “When You Are Old” upholds. At first glance “Leda and the Swan” appears to conform to the same structure and techniques as “When You Are Old”. There exists a rhyming structure, ABAB. Three stanzas, starting with four lines per aA? stanza, and the lines are usually an iambic meter. All of these poetic techniques are being subverted and traumatized so as to make the work inaccessible to the mass culture who can only understand art via a rigid system. In closer inspection the rhyming structure is broken in the third stanza. The third stanza itself is broken in two with a harsh indiscriminate line break, and consists of an irregular seven lines. The iambic meter is broken in every second line by an extra syllable, which enforces a slightly stilted rhythm to the entire poem. This conscious act of subversion immediately excludes the traditionally indoctrinated viewer by setting up expectations of traditional poetic technique and then dashing them.
Modernism has carved itself out in opposition to the traditional values of art, and in doing so it has excluded everyone who submits themselves to that tradition. The stance of opposition in itself does not necessitate techniques or a style to overarch the modernist movement. Truly the Modernist approach to technique is to subvert and discard. The overarching metaphysics of Kant were replaced by the epistemological philosophies of Nietzsche. The lack of an over-arching modernist metaphysic or polemic allowed a system of perspectivism and pluralism to form in modernist manifestos and modernist works. Bürger points out that such a pluralistic approach to art allowed the works to be separated from the institutional and have an opportunity to reintegrate into life.
A reintegration into life consists of an insightful exploration into the individual and the internal world in which all men and women view the world. This emphasis placed on the individual, the subject, in no opposition to an other, creates diverse esotericism within the modernist world. The internal world had never been characterized by the institution, tradition, and it remained a true bastion of life where the creative writer were free to roam unimpeded by precedence or structure. Any use of techniques in order to appear stylised or of the same character is completely absent in such internal writing.
“Finnegan’s Wake” is one such text that uses the unchartered territories of the interior subjective world to creative ends. The internal world is self-sustaining, it does not need to draw upon the outside world of tradition to exist, and exists for the sole purpose for itself. Joyce uses the focus upon the subjective of the individual to create an esoteric and multi-layered work that remains inaccessible. The novel insists rereading and an enormous amount of knowledge to be completely accessed, all without a distinct barometer of success. Every technique employed conjures a new passageway into unmeaning and a great lengthening of meaning, not in story or plot but in references, extrapolations, ambiguities, and pluralities. All of which separate the text “Finnegan’s Wake” far beyond the reach of the masses.
By way of creating a sense of coherence to itself, “Finnegan’s Wake” illustrates the autonomous nature that Modernist works endure. Internal coherence is not to be mistaken for the general term coherence. That is to say for a work to be coherent it is readily identifiable in its context and appropriates, if not uses, an accepted brand of logic to put forward its ideas. Whereas an internal coherence creates an autonomous work that exists out of contextual links with other work and may discard accepted logic for a logic of its own making. There is a strong argument that Joyce does create self autonomous works by creating whole world histories and metaphysics within texts, such as “Finnegan’s Wake”, building a new structure of symbols to the point that language develops within the work itself as though it were a society. The formulation of this technique has torn “Finnegan’s Wake” out of context, creating a solitary self propagating place for the text.
The production of autonomous and esoteric work set the modernist text high above the reader, forcing the reader to bring herself up to the work. This aloofness contradicts the traditional conduit of uniformity and standard that made art readily accessible to anyone who could familiarize themselves with the standard techniques. The works of tradition were merited on their stringent adherence and servitude to a standard. The techniques, and the use of techniques traditionally were an indicator of quality. An imposed arbitrary standard, handed down by the traditional power. Modernism had taken on a new world order, standards as developed by the artist, an art for art’s sake movement.
Theodore Adorno argues that this aloofness furthermore had political consequences to the modernist movement. The traditional political governance, an authoritarian dictate removed from the individual, had no place in the new values of a modern society. If the foundation of the Church had been undermined, the very death of God were to have consequences, it would be a new social and political power structure that would come to fruition. The modernist text became filled with political undercurrent and theme, not as a theme used for the first time, but one that could now effect reality in new ways. Technically the change existed in modernism not to write in a political theme but to write politically.
In opposition to religion as the traditional political body, the modernist finds an avenue within the secular state to develop the rights of the individual over the Church. For the Church occupies a place as bastion for an unchanging and stoic system of values that conflict directly with the modernist drive of continual change for improvement. The secular state can oppose: the system of techniques that are set by the church that act in a favouritist fashion and fail to benefit culture in and for itself, and is always for the work of god. A god that is dead, a god that is supremely nihilistic in the fact that it surpasses human life in this world for an afterworld that is superior in all aspects.
The life of W.B. Yeats cannot be ignored as an exemplar of the concern, awareness and activism modernists, generally speaking, had in the political arena. Yeats worked arduously on Irish Nationalism issues, working on the Irish constitution and within the senate. His life, as an artist, is inextricably bound to his work, but for the modernist one’s work could be used as a tool for one’s political/philosophical/spiritual life. Yeats’ “Under Ben Bulben” thematically contains political stance, and political reflection. In section three of the poem there is opinion of war, but not merely in a generic sense, but with specific relationship to the succession of an Irish Sate. Yeats is posing here that Irish nationalists should not lurch into war with the English. Via “Under Ben Bulben” Yeats is once again entering into a political debate, offering an opinion and perspective on a controversial subject. The fact that Yeats does this in his poetry, as published, allows it to the public sphere. However putting it in a poem forces the reader, who would traditionally be reading for enjoyment, to be faced again with pressing political issues. The reader would have to raise herself to the work, Yeats will not lower the quality of the work for the masses, but uses his influence in order to educate by way of prerequisite. Yeats’ personal understanding of world history is closely interrelated to politics, political history, and even spiritual understanding of the world. The poem has explicit reference to eternal recurrence, which is a philosophy termed by Nietzsche, in the lines:
Many times man live and dies
Between his two eternities
This dropping in of perspectives would not be meaningful to those who are not familiar with the texts and issues that Yeats, modernist writers, are dealing with. There is a political sensibility here which is polemic yet esoteric. In a similar fashion Yeats will continually elaborate on his personal philosophy, or epistemology, of human history. Outside of his poetry Yeats worked on a personal religion that tied into a conceptualisation of repetitions and cycles of time in the form of Gyres.
Gyres run on
When that greater dream had gone
Calvert and Wilson, Blake and Claude
Other modernist writers, such as James Joyce, also wrote about such human histories, and references to these personal beliefs surfaced in their respective writings. James Joyce incorporated his perspective of history into “Finnegan’s Wake”. Where the form of the text took on four parts that directly corresponds to four cycles of human history. Joyce’s perspective on this history comes from Giambattista Vico’s philosophical works. The importance of these perspectives coming through in modernist works is as an illustration of the form modernism takes. That modernism does not restrict itself into a set of foundational set of values like its traditional counterparts throughout history, but rather takes on a shifting groundwork of intersecting axes.
The axes have a formation in which polar opposition may exist simultaneously. To elaborate two modernist strands of thought polarizing each other is the modern belief in science as an alternative to traditional, fundamentalist, truth as opposed to scepticism, which upholds the complete uncertainty and inability to validate truth claims. Modernism may potentially lay claim to, and present itself as anything that moves along these axes born from resentment and resistance to the traditional structures. Consequently there exists no criterion for techniques to be used in modernist literature. Modernism allows for the formation of autonomous movement of style and value structures within itself, in a pluralistic range. To this end notion may be constructed of modernism but not techniques.
Bibliography:
Abrams, M.H. A Glossary Of Literary Terms, 7th Ed. Heinle &Heinle, Boston, 1999
Ellman, Richard Yeats – The Man and the Masks, Penguin: London. 1987
Greenblat, Stephen (ed) The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume F, 8th Ed. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2006
Huyssen, Andreas After The Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism, Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c1986.
Lamb, Winifred. Fundamentalism, modernity & postmodernity, North Fitzroy, Vic. : Zadok Institute, 1995.
Nietzsche, F The Nietzsche Reader, editors Ansell, P & Large, D, Blackwell, 2006
Smith, Stan The origins of modernism : Eliot, Pound, Yeats and the rhetorics of renewal, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire ; New York : Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994.
Stern, J A Study Of Nietzsche, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994
Tratner, Michael Modernism and mass politics : Joyce, Woolf, Eliot, Yeats, Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, c1995.
endnotes
Abrams, M.H. A Glossary Of Literary Terms Pg167
Huyssen, Andreas After The Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture
Nietzsche, F The Nietzsche Reader,
Ibid.
Huyssen, Andreas After The Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture & Tratner, Michael Modernism and mass politics : Joyce, Woolf, Eliot, Yeats
Smith, Stan The origins of modernism : Eliot, Pound, Yeats and the rhetorics of renewal
Huyssen, Andreas After The Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Greenblat, Stephen (ed) The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume F
Tratner, Michael Modernism and mass politics : Joyce, Woolf, Eliot, Yeats
Ibid.
Huyssen, Andreas After The Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid. Adorno.
Tratner, Michael Modernism and mass politics : Joyce, Woolf, Eliot, Yeats
sourced from: Norton Anthology as in Bibliography
Ibid.
Greenblat, Stephen (ed) The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume F
Ibid.
Lamb, Winifred. Fundamentalism, modernity & postmodernity
Ibid.
Tratner, Michael Modernism and mass politics : Joyce, Woolf, Eliot, Yeats
This is in reference to Huyssen’s loose construction of ideal notions of modernism that ‘categorize’ modernists. Quote:
- the work is autonomous and totally separate from the realism of mass culture and everyday life.
- It is self-referential, self conscious, frequently ironic, ambiguous, and rigorously experimental.
- It is the expression of a purely individual consciousness rather than of a Zeitgeist or a collective state of mind.
- Its experimental nature makes it analogous to science, and like science it produces and carries knowledge.
- It is a persistent exploration of and encounter with tools.
- The major premise of the modernist work is the rejection of all classical systems of representation, the effacement of “content”, the erasure of subjectivity and authoritive voice, the repudiation of likeness and verisimilitude, the exorcism of any demand for realism of whatever kind.
- Only by fortifying its boundaries, by maintaining its purity and autonomy, and by avoiding any contamination with mass culture and with signifying systems of everyday life can the art work maintain its adversary stance: adversary to the bourgeois culture of everyday life as well as adversary to mass culture and entertainment which are seen as the primary focus of bourgeois cultural articulation.
(Huyssen, Andreas After The Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture) ¶ 11:07 pm 0 Comments
The works of William Butler Yeats sit on an illusory line between Modernism and Romanticism, while earlier works illustrate Victorian techniques. The unique position that Yeats occupies allows an examination of techniques specifying genre and techniques being recontextualised as a tool. The shift in writing Romantic lyrics in technique and form to abandoning formal use of technique is shown in the differences between the early and late works of W.B. Yeats.
The strategic decision to radically break away from tradition, to tear apart the existing moral and social order in the hope to create a new one, saw the birth of a dichotomy. A dichotomy that has come part way to characterizing modernism exists between high art and mass culture. Traditionally the Church, as a bastion of authority, created a conduit between art and the masses, by way of imposing a system upon creation. The modernist determination to oppose this tradition destroys a system of values that allows access to what is “good”. A conscious exclusion of mass culture can be seen as the greatest spanning (pseudo)stylistic technique used among all modernists.
The conscious effort to exclude the masses by way of subverting the traditional is present in the poetry of W.B. Yeats. Clearly in the poem “When You Are Old” there is a strict sense of stylistic choice and adherence to a set of Romantic techniques. There exists a structured and repeating rhyme scheme of ABBA. There are four regular lines to every stanza, of which there are three, a biblically important number. Each line has a regular ten syllables and conforms to a form of iambic meter. The theme itself continues to support the rigidity of the poem, and clearly there is a set of values here that are being upheld, which can be recognized. In contrast “Leda and the Swan” immediately upturns the system that “When You Are Old” upholds. At first glance “Leda and the Swan” appears to conform to the same structure and techniques as “When You Are Old”. There exists a rhyming structure, ABAB. Three stanzas, starting with four lines per aA? stanza, and the lines are usually an iambic meter. All of these poetic techniques are being subverted and traumatized so as to make the work inaccessible to the mass culture who can only understand art via a rigid system. In closer inspection the rhyming structure is broken in the third stanza. The third stanza itself is broken in two with a harsh indiscriminate line break, and consists of an irregular seven lines. The iambic meter is broken in every second line by an extra syllable, which enforces a slightly stilted rhythm to the entire poem. This conscious act of subversion immediately excludes the traditionally indoctrinated viewer by setting up expectations of traditional poetic technique and then dashing them.
Modernism has carved itself out in opposition to the traditional values of art, and in doing so it has excluded everyone who submits themselves to that tradition. The stance of opposition in itself does not necessitate techniques or a style to overarch the modernist movement. Truly the Modernist approach to technique is to subvert and discard. The overarching metaphysics of Kant were replaced by the epistemological philosophies of Nietzsche. The lack of an over-arching modernist metaphysic or polemic allowed a system of perspectivism and pluralism to form in modernist manifestos and modernist works. Bürger points out that such a pluralistic approach to art allowed the works to be separated from the institutional and have an opportunity to reintegrate into life.
A reintegration into life consists of an insightful exploration into the individual and the internal world in which all men and women view the world. This emphasis placed on the individual, the subject, in no opposition to an other, creates diverse esotericism within the modernist world. The internal world had never been characterized by the institution, tradition, and it remained a true bastion of life where the creative writer were free to roam unimpeded by precedence or structure. Any use of techniques in order to appear stylised or of the same character is completely absent in such internal writing.
“Finnegan’s Wake” is one such text that uses the unchartered territories of the interior subjective world to creative ends. The internal world is self-sustaining, it does not need to draw upon the outside world of tradition to exist, and exists for the sole purpose for itself. Joyce uses the focus upon the subjective of the individual to create an esoteric and multi-layered work that remains inaccessible. The novel insists rereading and an enormous amount of knowledge to be completely accessed, all without a distinct barometer of success. Every technique employed conjures a new passageway into unmeaning and a great lengthening of meaning, not in story or plot but in references, extrapolations, ambiguities, and pluralities. All of which separate the text “Finnegan’s Wake” far beyond the reach of the masses.
By way of creating a sense of coherence to itself, “Finnegan’s Wake” illustrates the autonomous nature that Modernist works endure. Internal coherence is not to be mistaken for the general term coherence. That is to say for a work to be coherent it is readily identifiable in its context and appropriates, if not uses, an accepted brand of logic to put forward its ideas. Whereas an internal coherence creates an autonomous work that exists out of contextual links with other work and may discard accepted logic for a logic of its own making. There is a strong argument that Joyce does create self autonomous works by creating whole world histories and metaphysics within texts, such as “Finnegan’s Wake”, building a new structure of symbols to the point that language develops within the work itself as though it were a society. The formulation of this technique has torn “Finnegan’s Wake” out of context, creating a solitary self propagating place for the text.
The production of autonomous and esoteric work set the modernist text high above the reader, forcing the reader to bring herself up to the work. This aloofness contradicts the traditional conduit of uniformity and standard that made art readily accessible to anyone who could familiarize themselves with the standard techniques. The works of tradition were merited on their stringent adherence and servitude to a standard. The techniques, and the use of techniques traditionally were an indicator of quality. An imposed arbitrary standard, handed down by the traditional power. Modernism had taken on a new world order, standards as developed by the artist, an art for art’s sake movement.
Theodore Adorno argues that this aloofness furthermore had political consequences to the modernist movement. The traditional political governance, an authoritarian dictate removed from the individual, had no place in the new values of a modern society. If the foundation of the Church had been undermined, the very death of God were to have consequences, it would be a new social and political power structure that would come to fruition. The modernist text became filled with political undercurrent and theme, not as a theme used for the first time, but one that could now effect reality in new ways. Technically the change existed in modernism not to write in a political theme but to write politically.
In opposition to religion as the traditional political body, the modernist finds an avenue within the secular state to develop the rights of the individual over the Church. For the Church occupies a place as bastion for an unchanging and stoic system of values that conflict directly with the modernist drive of continual change for improvement. The secular state can oppose: the system of techniques that are set by the church that act in a favouritist fashion and fail to benefit culture in and for itself, and is always for the work of god. A god that is dead, a god that is supremely nihilistic in the fact that it surpasses human life in this world for an afterworld that is superior in all aspects.
The life of W.B. Yeats cannot be ignored as an exemplar of the concern, awareness and activism modernists, generally speaking, had in the political arena. Yeats worked arduously on Irish Nationalism issues, working on the Irish constitution and within the senate. His life, as an artist, is inextricably bound to his work, but for the modernist one’s work could be used as a tool for one’s political/philosophical/spiritual life. Yeats’ “Under Ben Bulben” thematically contains political stance, and political reflection. In section three of the poem there is opinion of war, but not merely in a generic sense, but with specific relationship to the succession of an Irish Sate. Yeats is posing here that Irish nationalists should not lurch into war with the English. Via “Under Ben Bulben” Yeats is once again entering into a political debate, offering an opinion and perspective on a controversial subject. The fact that Yeats does this in his poetry, as published, allows it to the public sphere. However putting it in a poem forces the reader, who would traditionally be reading for enjoyment, to be faced again with pressing political issues. The reader would have to raise herself to the work, Yeats will not lower the quality of the work for the masses, but uses his influence in order to educate by way of prerequisite. Yeats’ personal understanding of world history is closely interrelated to politics, political history, and even spiritual understanding of the world. The poem has explicit reference to eternal recurrence, which is a philosophy termed by Nietzsche, in the lines:
Many times man live and dies
Between his two eternities
This dropping in of perspectives would not be meaningful to those who are not familiar with the texts and issues that Yeats, modernist writers, are dealing with. There is a political sensibility here which is polemic yet esoteric. In a similar fashion Yeats will continually elaborate on his personal philosophy, or epistemology, of human history. Outside of his poetry Yeats worked on a personal religion that tied into a conceptualisation of repetitions and cycles of time in the form of Gyres.
Gyres run on
When that greater dream had gone
Calvert and Wilson, Blake and Claude
Other modernist writers, such as James Joyce, also wrote about such human histories, and references to these personal beliefs surfaced in their respective writings. James Joyce incorporated his perspective of history into “Finnegan’s Wake”. Where the form of the text took on four parts that directly corresponds to four cycles of human history. Joyce’s perspective on this history comes from Giambattista Vico’s philosophical works. The importance of these perspectives coming through in modernist works is as an illustration of the form modernism takes. That modernism does not restrict itself into a set of foundational set of values like its traditional counterparts throughout history, but rather takes on a shifting groundwork of intersecting axes.
The axes have a formation in which polar opposition may exist simultaneously. To elaborate two modernist strands of thought polarizing each other is the modern belief in science as an alternative to traditional, fundamentalist, truth as opposed to scepticism, which upholds the complete uncertainty and inability to validate truth claims. Modernism may potentially lay claim to, and present itself as anything that moves along these axes born from resentment and resistance to the traditional structures. Consequently there exists no criterion for techniques to be used in modernist literature. Modernism allows for the formation of autonomous movement of style and value structures within itself, in a pluralistic range. To this end notion may be constructed of modernism but not techniques.
Bibliography:
Abrams, M.H. A Glossary Of Literary Terms, 7th Ed. Heinle &Heinle, Boston, 1999
Ellman, Richard Yeats – The Man and the Masks, Penguin: London. 1987
Greenblat, Stephen (ed) The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume F, 8th Ed. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2006
Huyssen, Andreas After The Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism, Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c1986.
Lamb, Winifred. Fundamentalism, modernity & postmodernity, North Fitzroy, Vic. : Zadok Institute, 1995.
Nietzsche, F The Nietzsche Reader, editors Ansell, P & Large, D, Blackwell, 2006
Smith, Stan The origins of modernism : Eliot, Pound, Yeats and the rhetorics of renewal, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire ; New York : Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994.
Stern, J A Study Of Nietzsche, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994
Tratner, Michael Modernism and mass politics : Joyce, Woolf, Eliot, Yeats, Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, c1995.
endnotes
Abrams, M.H. A Glossary Of Literary Terms Pg167
Huyssen, Andreas After The Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture
Nietzsche, F The Nietzsche Reader,
Ibid.
Huyssen, Andreas After The Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture & Tratner, Michael Modernism and mass politics : Joyce, Woolf, Eliot, Yeats
Smith, Stan The origins of modernism : Eliot, Pound, Yeats and the rhetorics of renewal
Huyssen, Andreas After The Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Greenblat, Stephen (ed) The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume F
Tratner, Michael Modernism and mass politics : Joyce, Woolf, Eliot, Yeats
Ibid.
Huyssen, Andreas After The Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid. Adorno.
Tratner, Michael Modernism and mass politics : Joyce, Woolf, Eliot, Yeats
sourced from: Norton Anthology as in Bibliography
Ibid.
Greenblat, Stephen (ed) The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume F
Ibid.
Lamb, Winifred. Fundamentalism, modernity & postmodernity
Ibid.
Tratner, Michael Modernism and mass politics : Joyce, Woolf, Eliot, Yeats
This is in reference to Huyssen’s loose construction of ideal notions of modernism that ‘categorize’ modernists. Quote:
- the work is autonomous and totally separate from the realism of mass culture and everyday life.
- It is self-referential, self conscious, frequently ironic, ambiguous, and rigorously experimental.
- It is the expression of a purely individual consciousness rather than of a Zeitgeist or a collective state of mind.
- Its experimental nature makes it analogous to science, and like science it produces and carries knowledge.
- It is a persistent exploration of and encounter with tools.
- The major premise of the modernist work is the rejection of all classical systems of representation, the effacement of “content”, the erasure of subjectivity and authoritive voice, the repudiation of likeness and verisimilitude, the exorcism of any demand for realism of whatever kind.
- Only by fortifying its boundaries, by maintaining its purity and autonomy, and by avoiding any contamination with mass culture and with signifying systems of everyday life can the art work maintain its adversary stance: adversary to the bourgeois culture of everyday life as well as adversary to mass culture and entertainment which are seen as the primary focus of bourgeois cultural articulation.
(Huyssen, Andreas After The Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture) ¶ 11:07 pm 0 Comments
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Are we there Yet?
Just a little something for a friend who has recently had to deal with the Australian bureaucracy. Just quietly he said that it is much worse in some European countries. But i guess they would have to, since they actually have a welfare system and all....
anyways the conversation stemmed to the fact that the end result in any bureaucracy is that one person and the end of a line says yes that's "ok" and gives a stamp so that another person may recieve benefits or the like. It seems that all that paper and black ink...that indefatiguable writing of truth that cannot be misinterpreted - as though it was handed down from God herself - just gets in the way and hinders process.
Well check out this article on process being hindered.
Hugo's story sparks Centrelink review
I don't know, maybe there is room for human interpretation in the welfarer queue. ¶ 7:14 pm 0 Comments
anyways the conversation stemmed to the fact that the end result in any bureaucracy is that one person and the end of a line says yes that's "ok" and gives a stamp so that another person may recieve benefits or the like. It seems that all that paper and black ink...that indefatiguable writing of truth that cannot be misinterpreted - as though it was handed down from God herself - just gets in the way and hinders process.
Well check out this article on process being hindered.
Hugo's story sparks Centrelink review
I don't know, maybe there is room for human interpretation in the welfarer queue. ¶ 7:14 pm 0 Comments
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Scare Tactics?
A little initiative sparked by a NSW Judge nominating a deceased person as the driver of his vehicle that recieved a parking fine. You would think the judge would be aware of much better ways of geting 'around' the system.
Nevertheless the NSW Police department will be cross examining all speeding fines in the last three years with the Roads and Traffic Authority's records.
This is no small job.
And in the age of terror have our police forces nothing better to do?
Fraudulant Fines! ¶ 2:51 pm 1 Comments
Nevertheless the NSW Police department will be cross examining all speeding fines in the last three years with the Roads and Traffic Authority's records.
This is no small job.
And in the age of terror have our police forces nothing better to do?
Fraudulant Fines! ¶ 2:51 pm 1 Comments
Monday, October 02, 2006
KPI AUS PM
"I'm responsible for the health of the economy and the economy is very healthy, so much so, that unemployment is lower than it's been for 30 years." John Howard (PM) - SMH October 1, 2006 - 5:49AM
I'm not so sure that the Prime Minister should be claiming responsibility for something that is largely out of his government's power. Sure parliamentary decisions affect the economy - be it directly or vicariously through the major influence of the economy; the consumer. Yet it is unreasonable for politicians to take credit or be blamed for the actions of a nation's economy on a global market.
Role Of Australian PM
I guess the poll is the KPI - imagine setting your own KPI - wow. ¶ 3:01 pm 0 Comments
I'm not so sure that the Prime Minister should be claiming responsibility for something that is largely out of his government's power. Sure parliamentary decisions affect the economy - be it directly or vicariously through the major influence of the economy; the consumer. Yet it is unreasonable for politicians to take credit or be blamed for the actions of a nation's economy on a global market.
Role Of Australian PM
I guess the poll is the KPI - imagine setting your own KPI - wow. ¶ 3:01 pm 0 Comments
T.I.N.A>pornography?
I made it to newcastle, from Sydney - on a yamaha SR250 (1980) single cylinder - yeh.
I reached speeds of up to 125km/hr - other vehicle operators were not so aggravated at my overtaking them once my 'p' plate was dislodged and lost forever. I think it removed itself when the motorcycle first reached fifth gear and 110km/h.
the to journey took 4 1/2 hrs - approx 8 litres of fuel @ 100km per 3 litres - 1.7 litres of engine oil.
the return journey took 1.8 hrs - approx 6.5 litres of fuel @ 100km per 2.5 litres - 1.2 litres of engine oil.
I think i need to fix the gasket.
My bag and most of my belongings were stolen, hence i was lighter on the way back!!!
Yeh - i surely gave newcastle a peace of me!
it's irony you numbnut.
so was that..
and that..
hey donnie! ¶ 2:41 pm 0 Comments
I reached speeds of up to 125km/hr - other vehicle operators were not so aggravated at my overtaking them once my 'p' plate was dislodged and lost forever. I think it removed itself when the motorcycle first reached fifth gear and 110km/h.
the to journey took 4 1/2 hrs - approx 8 litres of fuel @ 100km per 3 litres - 1.7 litres of engine oil.
the return journey took 1.8 hrs - approx 6.5 litres of fuel @ 100km per 2.5 litres - 1.2 litres of engine oil.
I think i need to fix the gasket.
My bag and most of my belongings were stolen, hence i was lighter on the way back!!!
Yeh - i surely gave newcastle a peace of me!
it's irony you numbnut.
so was that..
and that..
hey donnie! ¶ 2:41 pm 0 Comments