Planet: A Wandering Deity

Perhaps Descartes was on to something when he questioned if God deceives us or not. Of course, Descartes concludes that God can be nothing of the sorts, nor anything less than absolutely benevolent, but this is beside the point. It isn't unprecedented to find instances in which God deceives people: He hardens the Pharaoh's heart to pursue the Jews across the desert, He says: "Hey, don't eat from that tree" and expects no one to do so, et cetera. Certainly the Hebrew God is a trickster of sorts, conniving, manipulating, and, like His chosen people, a vagabond: He wanders in and out of the Garden, and He wanders with the Jews across the deserts (something most gods didn't do, i.e. they stay in one place). Likewise, God seems to wander in and out of perception, logic, and nature: an erring deity, like a planet: a wandering deity in the sky.

Most people who deny the existence of God arrive at such a belief because they believe the whole idea of God is preposterous and a logical and rational absurdity, but this conclusion is an error of petty human reasoning. The existence of God is completely acceptable, if not inevitable in logic. Anselm's Ontological Argument is probably one of the most convincing logical arguments for the existence of God: that because nothing greater than God can be thought of, and it is greater to exist than to not exist, and God is by definition that great, then that than which nothing greater can be thought (God) must exist. Perfect, flawless reasoning. Then there is the empirical arguments of Aquinas, and the numerous arguments from creation (i.e. there is something rather than nothing, therefore something created it). All are wonderful logical proofs of God's existence.

What? That doesn't prove that God actually exists! No shit. Existence in logic is not the same as existence in nature (i.e. actuality, reality). Since when has logic ever actually coincided with nature? Does a straight line actually exist in nature? Mathematicians spend a lot of time with something that doesn't exist in nature. Do truly good things actually exist? Find anything "good" and a flaw will be found in it. Is there such thing as a pure friendship? All relationships are unequal, and someone will always take more than the other receives, which isn't a very nice relationship. Such is the way of the world: the logical and the natural do not coincide.

Thus the existence of God is absolutely a logical and rational conclusion to come to, which, in fact, seems inevitable to come to given the Ontological Argument, or even the Hebrew and Sumerian idea of El-Elyon (God Most High, which supposes there are other gods that the El-Elyon is superior to). But this does not prove that God exists in reality.

It is an error of human reasoning and understanding to say that the idea or any logical proof of God is absurd. God reigns supreme in logic and reasoning. God does not, however, seem to reign at all in nature. In fact given that the straight line does not exist in nature, nor a perfect circle, or a truly good thing, then it seems reasonable to conclude that God cannot actually exist in nature, and that in physical reality it would be absurd for God to exist at all.

Logically God cannot exist in nature, but, of course like all logic, this conclusion, too, may be an error of human reasoning.

Once again God wanders in and out of reasoning and existence, just has God has always done. God gives us reason to believe and to doubt His existence. Perhaps that is the only essence of God anyone has left. This is not to say that we cannot know God in some way (with this writing I know "God" (however one may define such a term - a little bit better). To say we cannot know God is, in the words of Hume, to be "an atheist and not know it."

Art is Dead Part 3: Architecture is Dead

Art is Dead Part 1
Art is Dead Part 2

I've known a number of people, friends, professors, fellow peers, even some journalists say that the profession of architecture is dying. They're almost correct. Architecture is dead. I've heard a number of accusations for why architects are a dying breed, and why architecture seems to get crummier over the years. Among the speculations are: contractors gaining all the power (so become a contractor if you want power), the economy, LEED, the demand of knowledge required for the ARE, separation of architect and engineer and interior designer (i.e. separation of disciplines), et cetera. Perhaps these are factors, but they compare nothing to the two main factors to the death of architecture: the death of beauty in architecture, and the birth of hubris.

After Gropius made his modification to Vitruvius' so-called three points of architecture (functional utility, structural stability, and charming beauty), in which Gropius stated: utilitas + firmitas = venustas. This ultimately left the notions of charm, delight, and beauty on the back-burner of architectural theory and practice ever since. Architects used to say that everyone knows something is beautiful or ugly when they see it, and so notions of what creates the healthiest beauty in architecture was the primary focus of theory. For instance, Alberti discusses what is appropriate to a building (what Vitruvius called decorum): certainly the Corinthian Order is the most beautiful of all the Orders of Architecture, but it is inappropriate to use the Corinthian on a rustic farm house. But a church, a house of God, all architects ranging from Alberti to Ledoux agreed that there was never enough ornament or beautiful things that could be added to make it suitable for its purpose.

Beauty was often, if not almost entirely attached to the discipline of being appropriate for the most healthy beauty. But the idea that beauty is simply known and recognized by all was indeed quite a presumptuous statement. It is what Kant would have called "metaphysical", "a priori" and should be left out of the discussion. So architects then resorted to tradition for beauty and focused on other realms of practice: fireproofing, use of steel, standardization, civic structures, et cetera. Henri Labrouste's work is probably one of the finest selection of examples of leaving beauty to tradition (i.e. to pre-established forms and proportions) and focusing on something like fireproofing. Robert Mills is another fantastic example of this in America.

But God had the audacity to go die on us, and suddenly with Modernist figures like Gropius, Breuer, Le Corbusier, van der Rohe, Loos, et cetera began to focus on form and function, utility, standardization, industrialization, and taking advantage of new structural capabilities (i.e. skyscraper technology). Suddenly a new idea opened up, which if beauty had never been abolished, would have prevented such hubris: the aspiration to create a universal architecture... whatever that means.

The audacity to think there was, is or could be a universal architecture is hubris that inevitably led to Pruit Igoe, and Pruit Igoe is the finest example of why not everyone deserves the same thing. The notion that everyone is equal on all levels is absolute foolishness: to say that all are or can be equally intelligent, capable, skillful, beautiful, economically endowed, politically powerful, et cetera is pure hogwash. Certain everyone should be respected for the qualities of their place in society and the contributions they make, but to say everyone is equal is myopic, if not completely blind. Men and women are physiologically unequal, as well as mentally and emotionally unequal in how their cognitive processes function, but each's differences should be respected, because the world is not singular; the working men/women have their own skills that society cannot function without, and they should be respective for them; the academics have their own skills and knowledge that they should be respected for; and so forth - but in no way are any of them equal. To think everyone is equal is what has led to the DIY age: everyone thinks they're a photographer when they take a picture of their food, everyone thinks they're a philosopher, an artist, a theologian, a politician, a handyman, et cetera... which has inevitably led to an era of some of the worst political agendas and policies in history, some of the shittiest art, and the most poorly founded philosophy we may ever have the disadvantage to know.

As such, not everyone deserves the same architecture: this was previously at the heart of the discussion of beauty since the Greeks up until the Modernists. Thinking everyone is equal led to the desire to do the same thing for everyone rich and poor alike, powerful and weak alike, mentally and physically powerful alike. The same principles that built some of Le Corbusier's finest works are the same principles that built Yamasaki's Pruit Igoe (same architect of the World Trade Centers). Since when does the world's most significant and powerful economic center deserve to be built under the same principles as a low-income housing project? It is not only irresponsible, but inappropriate. To forget what is appropriate and inappropriate in architecture, what is beautiful to the project, created a crisis that no one has been able to solve since.

The demolition of Pruit Igoe is often considered to be the death of Modernism. It demonstrated that architecture as a social vehicle can fail terribly: it exacerbating crime and poverty. It's construction was shoddy and needed extensive repair, and given the high level of crime among the projects, the only solution was destruction, which is absolutely fitting. Pruit Igoe won Yamasaki numerous awards, and was herald as one of the finest works of architecture from the Modernist Era. And when Modernism failed, which was inevitable, it was time to destroy that awesome work of Moderism, just as Michelangelo's bronze of Julius II needed to be destroyed. Not all things are equal, and not all things deserve the same things.

Now we have the hubris of the Post-Modernists, who often do some of the most inappropriate works of architecture (if it could be called Architecture, with a capital A) this world has seen. Take for instance Koolhaas' Villa dall'Ava: it's in a historic 19th Century neighborhood in Paris, and is by far an abomination to its context. Had the small house been built in the middle of a prairie, like Corb's Villa Savoye (the client of Villa dall'Ava wanted an updated version of Villa Savoye, which was equally hubristic), then there would be no problem: it would be isolate as its own object valued as a separate object. But it just had to be done in a historic neighborhood, which is inappropriate, making it one ugly house.

In a way that's what beauty is: being relevant and appropriate to its context. Frank Lloyd Wright, probably the greatest of the Modernists, understood context and appropriateness. The Usoanian houses were small, affordable houses for middle class families, and they were appropriate to the client and their neighborhoods. Then for more wealthy clients he would build something like Fallingwater, Prairies Style houses, et cetera. For institutional clients (churches, museums, offices) he built another way that was appropriate to them. While Wright was not always successful, he is a fine example of appropriateness or "beauty" in architecture.

Now we have Libeskind, Thom Mayne, Hadid, et cetera who do works that are oftentimes absolutely inappropriate. Why does Libeskind need to do a house prototype that looks like his museums? Even his museums are inappropriate, at least to the art they house. Before Post-Modernism architects addressed structural problems when they were required to address them: Brunelleschi's dome in Florence, skyscraper technology, hammerbeams, et cetera. Now architects dream up unnecessary structural problems to address, such as Nouvel's 174 foot (53 meters) long cantilever in the Guthrie Theater, which is not only ugly, but pointless. Nouvel isn't the next Brunelleschi: a bigass cantilever is not a "structural feat", because in order to be a feat is must have been a readily recognized structural problem. Making a cantilever that big was not an aesthetic or structural problem, it was Nouvel's problem - in a sense, a personal problem. And so we return to self-expression in art.

Personal expression in architecture is absolutely irresponsible, if not unethical. Architecture is for the world, for the masses, and each part of society gets their own architecture, but each part's architecture can be respected by all. The highbrow architects admired Pruit Igoe, but its tenets did not, and so it failed and deserved demolition. Nouvel's Guthrie Theater deserves demolition. It deserves it because it died the moment it was built, it died when Nouvel had to interject his own personal "structural problems" into a cultural center. It is not only hubristic, but lacks appropriateness, and therefore lacks beauty.

Such is the death of architecture: lack of concern for appropriateness, lack of beauty, and filled to the brim with hubris. The only means of reviving architecture is by architects asking, "should we do that?" How do LEED points create architecture? (They don't). How is a bike rack a criteria for ethically responsible architecture? (It isn't). Do we need to do a seven foot tall, four inch thick wide-flange beam to achieve this giant pointed cantilever crossing 13th Avenue? (No). Should we make an all-glass house in a residential neighborhood? (No). Should we build a factory in a residential area? (Why is that a question?). Do we need to use titanium on this new project? (Not really).

Like art, and certainly more so than art, architectre has a prominent social and ethical function. If it can't be respected, if beauty and appropriateness can't be respected, if hubris and ego can't be sacrificed for beauty, then architecture deserves to die.

Art is Dead Part 2

I don't mean to do a second part to my last post, but apparently a few people have misunderstood my point in Art is Dead, which I apologize for, and I would like to clarify in order to drive home a point.

Art itself is not dead. Personal expression in art is dead. Nobody cares about your feelings and how you express them in a song, painting, poem, some piece of shit Photoshop job, whatever. I write poetry from time to time, but its typically very personal in content, and so I keep them to myself. I've only ever shared a few of my poems to a few friends, and it was embarrassing and ill-received. As such I don't share my personal poems. They're mine. They're for me, and no one else, just as they should be. I have drawings and paintings that are personal that I've never shared with anyone, and I don't plan on it. When I suspect I'm getting close to dying I plan on burning all of them. Why? Because they're not for the world. Once they enter into the world they are no long your own, and then they die.

They die? Yes. To explain I will give an illustration from an acquaintance of mine, Dave, and his son. Dave's son was about 10 or 11 years old when this happened, and he was in trouble at school for not sharing his thoughts and feelings about things with his classmates. His teachers and counselors were concerned and asked Dave to intervene. Dave asked his son why he refused to share himself with his classmates, and this beautiful boy said one of the most profound things I've heard a boy say; he said, "I don't want to share my thoughts, because when I do they die." Concise, poignant, beautiful, and absolutely true.

Such is the nature of self-expression in art: once given to the world it dies; it no longer belongs to the artist, poet, or composer. The world takes it and morphs it to fit its own collective and/or personal agenda. Take for instance memes: Richard Dawkins coined the term meme to describe an idea or behavior that is propagated through a culture or subculture. Like biological genes, memes endure mutation and evolution over the years. Dawkins gave this idea of meme to the world, then the internet took it and transformed it pictures with words, and sometimes just the latest iconographic trend. We hardly recognize meme in the way Dawkins described it. Dawkins' meme idea died when he introduced it to the world, and was transmuted into something else entirely. (It's sort of meta what happened to the idea of meme). The same goes for personal expression: once expressed and given to the world your expression dies and the world does with it whatever it pleases.

If it's already dead once expressed, then it served its purpose, build a pyre and burn it. Don't express it ever again. Move on. That said, I am in no way (nor do I think Artaud was either) against personal expression. It is our natural right, and its a natural urge, a libido to express oneself. We should express ourselves through whatever means we wish: make a video, write a song, compose a poem, render a painting, carve a sculpture, whatever. Do it. Go for it. Express yourself, then move on, because there is no need to express the same thing over and over, especially after its dead.

And it is also entirely natural to express oneself through the various mediums of art, because art is at heart pure expression. Art is always expressing something. But personal expression in art is not true art. Personal art is a means to an end. Once the expression of the self is expressed the piece has achieved its purpose and serves no further purpose. But true art expresses the sentiments of a given culture - religiously, socially, politically - which is the means in which true art can heal a culture, remind us of our values, repulse us of our errors, guide us in a particular doctrine (politically or religiously), et cetera. That is the ethical function of art. To achieve that ethical and social function true art must express the culture's totems and taboos. True art's expressions are constantly regenerated so long as that culture exists and is perpetuated, because cultural expression in true art has no means to an end, only means, so long as the culture can constantly reinforce and regenerate its values through art. The more extravagant and Baroque the Star Spangled Banner gets at every football game is a means to constantly regenerate American ideals. Every time the Lord's Prayer is given before eating constantly regenerates Christian ideals, which serves the same function the Sistine Ceiling or Caravaggio's Call of Saint Matthew does. But these regenerations of ideas (e.g. cultural healing) in art can only function so long as that culture survives. Michelangelo's David is stagnant, because it no longer invokes the young boy (Florence) in giant form taking on a colossal oppression (i.e. Papal Rome, the Middle Ages, cultural tyranny, et cetera). While the David is still a wonderful sight, it's function was served, Florence fell out of the spotlight around the end of the Italian Renaissance, and the David is now dead. Since the Italian Renaissance ended most people (except for Florentines) don't understand why Michelangelo carved the David, and is now only remembered as a well-crafted, huge sculpture, and is famous for some reason, but not many people know why. The regenerating, healing aspect of a piece of art now ineffective and its purpose and expression forgotten (or at least has to be explained to comprehend), the piece of art is effectively dead. It might as well be destroyed.

"But wait," one might say, "I thought you loved Michelangelo!" And I do. I'm demonstrating an extreme position to illustrate a point. I would never actually advocate the destruction of Michelangelo's giant, and I would be appalled if it was destroyed. I still get upset that Michelangelo's bronze statue of Pope Julius II was destroyed and turned into a cannon (called the Julia), because it was his only bronze piece, and is a gem of history no one will have the luxury of gazing upon and wandering why it was made. But I must admit, Michelangelo's bronze Julius served its purpose so long as Pope Julius II held Bologna under the rule of the Papal States, and after Bologna succeeded the bronze Julius was no longer necessary, and so it was appropriately smelted down and turned into a cannon, which was necessary to fight papal rule. As sad as I find this scenario, it fully demonstrates my point and my sentiments: I find it to be a tragedy, but if the work of art no longer serves it purpose, then it is appropriate to destroy it because it is dead. Build a pyre and burn the dead.

Again, I do not advocate the destruction of culturally significant art, such as the David, because enough cultural art and wonders have been lost to the destructive nature of humanity. On the other hand there is personal art, which I say if the artist wishes to preserve it for their own sentiments, then that is welcomed. But don't shove your shitty paintings, songs, and poems down everyone else's throats. It's for you, and unto you it belongs, and unto no one else. If you must give it to the world, do so once and never again, because once expressed your work is dead. No one cares about your breakup expressed in a poorly written song that uses three guitar chords, or your half-witted attempt to toss oil-based pigments onto a canvas to express your depression, or a shoddy expression of your acid trip with primary color markers in lines and dots. All these things are yours, not the world's. Unless your sadness is the world's sadness (more than likely it is not), like Michelangelo's Vatican Pieta, in which Mary's grief is our grief, then keep it to yourself. Unless your acid trip is the world's acid trip, like the Native American shaman's dream is the tribe's dream, then keep your poorly rendered rendition of your drug-induced experience to yourself.

I had mentioned in Part 1 the need to mythologize the expression of a work of art, but "mythologization" is a fairly loose term in my lexicon, so I will elaborate for clarity. One may use actual and ancient mythological figures, places, icons, and other elements to express an idea. For instant in Ivan Akimov's Saturn Clipping Cupid's Wings it is being expressed that time (Saturn/Chronos) cuts down all things (i.e. with his scythe), even love (Cupid). Of course this scene never actually occurs in Greek or Roman mythology, but using the symbols and icons of ancient myths Akimov is expressing that even love - something we think is immortal and eternal - can be destroyed by time. But then there is the case in which myths can be quasi-invented, "new" symbols used for a more personal, remote, isolated mythologization. Such is the case for William Blake, whose poetry and prose is filled with what is commonly called "Blake's complex mythology" (historians are not very clever at naming things). There is Adam (aka Albion, an old name for Britain, and is the original human) and Satan, a contrary pair, from whose union creates Tharmas (the instinct), Urizen (tradition), the Christ-like Luvah (love), and Los (imagination and inspiration). There is also their many manifestations and usages by Blake with a higher complex of virtues and traits that interact in a plethora of brilliant and beautiful, not to mention utterly confusing, ways. Blake expressed the French Revolution, America, the origins of England, the transcendence of good and evil, the Holy City of Jerusalem, et cetera using these mythologized elements. Salvador Dali is another fantastic example of personal mythologization, like Blake.

The mythologization of the content expressed in art is what gives it its longevity, allows it to live beyond the decadence of personal expression, and renders the framework through which a culture may heal. Without myth-ish elements cultural art suffers temporality, fatality, and cannot live beyond the first public expression of the work. Myth gives art its timelessness, its perceived immortality.

Understanding the difference between personal art and cultural art - the former being a form of self-healing through personal expression, the latter being a form of social and cultural healing and regeneration through mythological and culturally symbolical expression - is the means to creating true art once again, and to put aside the caprice and hubris of awful art.

This is only a an extreme suggestion, just as Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra was an extreme suggestion, to illustrate a point. Just like Nietzsche, I would be appalled if anything I have here espoused would be literally and tyrannically enacted, even by unanimous cultural consent, and the artists themselves adopt it. I fear such a program of annihilating personal expression in art for the whole world to see. Are Michelangelo's love poems not beautiful? Emily Dickinson' poetry of love and death not poignant and captivating? Or Johnny Cashes songs? Expressionistic painting? Lost in Translation? And so forth and so forth. I fear what would be lost, and at what cost is it worth for such a sacrifice. Perhaps it's worth it, perhaps not, perhaps the problem is too wicked to untangle.

Art is Dead

The modern Zarathustra would come down from the mountain and say, "Art is dead." Art inherently dies when God dies. Not to say religioun or metaphysics is a prerequisite for art, but rather that there is no myth to art, and therefore lacking any concern for culture and society. That is to say that art today is personal, and has alienated society from its expressive manifestation. Art being "personal expression" means its materialistic and self-centered, and a far cry from humanism. In the words of Artaud, "There are no more masterpieces."

Indeed, there are no more masterpieces. A work of art can only be dubbed a "masterpiece" if and only if it can heal a culture. This was and very much still is the function of mythology: an analog, metaphor for a much larger human concern. The Renaissance artists didn't subject their works to humanist agendas via contemporary imagery, rather with a timeless emblem that was handed down to them through the ancients. A common emblem for cultural and social inspiration amongst the humanists was not some contemporary emblem, say an image of the city of Florence, but rather a Greco-mythic one, namely Mount Helicon, where the muses live. Thomas Mann retells the contemporary state of German with the rise the Nazis in his Joseph and His Brothers, merely retelling the account of Joseph in Genesis. Joyce based his modern epic on The Odyssey. Nerval told his tale and journeying through to the east alongside retellings of ancient tales (i.e. Queen of Sheba, King Solomon, et cetera).

But then God had to go and die on us, and therefore without some sort of common archetype to base human experiences and cultural phenomena off of, we are left to our own devices as individuals; that is we move toward personal expression. There is nothing for the masses; no archetype for the culture, any culture as a whole. Now someone injects primary color paints up his ass and shits them out on a canvas, and we call it art. The art resides in the shitting of paint onto a canvas, not in the finished work itself. It is not a masterpiece - for who among us would call that a masterpiece? Someone draws squiggly lines on a piece of parchment and says, "It's a feeling... I'm expressing myself." Who the fuck cares about your feelings! It's not art for the culture. It's art for you. It is not a masterpiece. At best someone might sympathize with the emotion being expressed and purchase it, but it lacks any coherent mythology for everyone to sympathize with. God died, then myth died, then art died. With the life of art now gone, there is no healing in any art. Without an art for healing, there is no life in art, and therefore art is dead.

How does art heal? Like any healing, something must first be lacking (i.e. inspiration, knowledge, coherency of the flesh and bone, a pulse), and through treatment that which is lacking is restored. This can be achieved in a number of methods, especially in actual medicine. But for art healing can be a simple reminder, such as an image of the Brazen Serpent, or a colossal statue, or a prominent public building, or anything that reminds the culture that this thing this work represents is lacking in due cause within us, and this thing then reinstates it in us. I myself am often overcome by the romantic image of Columbia, South Carolina's State House building being at the top of the great hill, sitting very prominently looking over the city down to the river and beyond - I pass by it almost everyday, and I often go out of my way to pass by it, because it is worth viewing. I feel much the same way when I look at the abstract beauty of Mary's face in Michelangelo's Pieta of the Vatican, and her subtle expression of sadness grasps me like a serpent snatching its prey. Her sadness is our sadness, and she, with her outstretched arms, invites us to partake in her sadness that also belongs to us. This is the healing power of art for a culture.

But does art not also heal the creator of the work? Certainly, but it does not render it a masterpiece. If the work only heals the creator, then it should be shown or demonstrated once (painting or sculpture viewed once, music played once, a poem or writing read once) and then immediately destroyed. There is no further need for it. Express yourself and move on. No one needs to hear your shitty experimental music again, or to look at your awful painting or picture of your food, or see you do the same break dance again. The personal art died the moment it was born - a still born, if you will. It no longer serves a purpose, so throw it out with the rest of the trash.

There are those who would say that art has no function, and to these I say you are myopic fools. There are also those who would say that art should have no constraints, and to these I was say you are worse than the former. Art's constraint is that of a social and ethical constraint, which is also inherently its function. If it cannot serve an ethical and social purpose then it is personal art, which is materialism, and therefore is ultimately worthless.

So how might art once again be a masterpiece? How might art regain its life and heal once more? This seems tough to the simple minded, but Artaud (if one cannot tell, Artaud is a huge inspiration for this post) posited one of the greatest proposals to reinvigorate art - though for him is was theater, but the same can be said of all art - to terrify and shock.

Antonin Artaud called it the Theater of Cruelty, but not in any necessarily violent sense, at least not without just cause. Rather that life itself is cruel. It is cruel to propagate ourselves and our species in an inherently meaningless existence, further into a reality that is not as it should be for us, and that we persist in it nonetheless. The cruelty that life must kill and eat life in order to propagate life further. Everything is without rational or just cause, and we persist in enduring in it is cruelty. And with the death of God, myth, and art (and inherently the death of purpose or meaning) materialism is the cloth mother we run to in the face of fear. We seek comfort in shopping, eating expensive meals, getting breast implants, trying to fuck the cutest blonde in the bar, boast how many TV shows we've seen, collect coins and stamps and rocks (minerals), do drugs, murder, play videogames, read books, try and find the most obscure local band, start a religion and so forth and so forth.

The art that will ultimately heal us is the art that will shock us out of our materialistic squandering. The true art for us in our present modern condition is one that will materially shock us, frighten and terrify us. To see Marcellus Wallace get butt raped is materially shocking, because it is without meaning, and is worth watching innumerable times. To watch the collapse of the World Trade Centers and hear the screams of the entire city of New York is applicable as art (at least to the truest extent of found footage). To gaze upon the photograph called Piss Christ and be revolted by its materialistic senselessness is worth it every time we look. Viewing Picasso's Guernica, Goya's Shooting on May Third 1808, Lynch's Eraserhead or Blue Velvet, Ron Fricke's Baraka, Eddie Adam's photograph Execution of a Vietnamese spy, et cetera is to materialistically terrify us.

The materialistic shock is of course meaningless unto itself, and that is precisely the point: materialism is inherently meaningless. So why not use materialistic means to shock us, awaken us from our materialistic slumber; to reinstate those things that are lacking in us. (What is lacking in us is a cultural matter and debate, but I only wish to address art's function in healing culture, not what is needing to be healed, but I can briefly say that what is lacking are myths, humanistic sentiments, social coherency, political balance, and psychic health in cooperation with natural laws and the cruelty of life).

Now, one final thing: too many people misinterpret Artaud's Theater of Cruelty, as is quite evident if one simply types "theater of cruelty" into a YouTube search. Materially it is meant to frighten, like Harlow's diabolical object, but Artaud was emphatic that this materialistic shock must not upset the balance of the psyche. It should terrify for the moment, awaken something in us permanently so that upon awakening we can not go back to sleep or turn our heads from it. But it cannot and should not permanently scar us. This is rightly appropriate. 

Too often do we forget to ask ourselves what is appropriate; should we do something just because we can? How often have I seen a two hour long film and realized that its creators were too stupid to realize that it would be more appropriate as a short film? Just because you can shit on a canvas doesn't mean you should, much less sell the work. But equally so, we must remember that what is appropriate is sometimes (and I will emphasize sometimes) also what is necessary (timing is also a factor in necessity), though it may not be what we want. To create an art that denounces personal expression in favor of materialistic shock, to repulse the psyche into awakening, may not be what we want, but it is certainly was we need, at least so far as art is concerned. If we don't need art to heal us, then let art be dead, and we can bury it, plant a memorial so that we can finally forget about it (a monument is for forgetting). But if we do need to reinvigorate ourselves through the revitalization of art, then our only recourse is through material shock.

Think of it like the Native American shaman who has a dream. It is not his dream, it is the tribe's dream. And when the shaman reveals his dream to the tribe, then the tribe is healed. Mary's sadness in the pieta is our sadness. Goya's political victim's fright is our fright. Patrick Bateman's inhuman and senseless violence with overwhelming materialism is our inhumanity and materialism. Marcellus Wallace's rape is our rape.

If this is not our concern, then let art be dead and stop making music, film, poetry, paintings, sculptures, novels, et cetera, or at least stop preserving them. But if it is out concern, then we drastically need to revise our perceptions of art, not as a materialistic and personal thing, but as something that heals a society.

Lord of the Rings: Why the Eagles Don't Help Until the End

I don't know why I feel that I actually have to write this, but if people would just pay attention, then it wouldn't be too difficult to understand why the Great Eagles don't just fly Frodo to Mordor and drop the Ring into the fires of Amon Amarth from the get-go. But since I've encountered way too many criticism concerning this, I am now compelled to spell it all out.

Firstly, there is a consistency of when the Eagles come to the rescue: they only help out when Gandalf is in dire need and the Eagles are his only hope. In The Hobbit the Eagles come to the rescue when Gandalf, Bilbo, and the dwarfs are trapped in the trees with wolfs below, and there is no other way out. In The Fellowship of the Ring Gwaihir, one of the Eagles, comes to Gandalf's rescue when he is trapped on the pinnacle of Orthanc being tortured by Saruman (in the book Radagast the Brown Wizard sends an Eagle to rescue Gandalf, not a moth). And in The Return of the King the Eagles come to help Gandalf in the battle at the gates of Mordor. Their small army (composed almost entirely of all the soldiers from Rohan and Minas Tirith that are left over from the battle for Minas Tirith... so their numbers are quite low) is outnumbered by the armies of Mordor. The Eagles probably showed up to even out the playing field against the flying Nazgul on dragons. Some air-support would have been nice. Gandalf could very well have died in this battle, as it was a last stand after all.

In other words: the Great Eagles only ever help Gandalf when he has no other means of getting himself out of a dire situation. In all honesty, it really seems inconsistent for the Eagles to help Frodo and Sam out on the slopes of Mount Doom, because they really only help others when Gandalf is in distress with them. But I suppose if these brave hobbits could travel all the way across Middle Earth to toss a gold ring into a volcano, and since there is no longer a threat in Mordor, then the Eagles might as well get Frodo and Sam out of the situation they're in (I mean they did save the world), and probably only at Gandalf's request.

Secondly, other than the armies of Sauron there really are no alliances in Middle Earth. Men and orcs gather in Mordor because Sauron promises power and wealth (they're greedy), and threatens punishment under pain of enslavement and death. But no one else is in alliance with anyone else. The elves are all leaving Middle Earth to go to the Gray Havens, the dwarfs hide in the mountains looking for treasures and building great halls, hobbits don't seem to know anything is wrong beyond their own doorstep, the Ents say it is not their war, and men are in disagreement with each other. Rohan and Minas Tirith are right down the valley from each other, and they don't even like each other. Minas Tirith never came to Rohan's aid in Helm's Deep, and Rohan was hesitant about coming to Minas Tirith's aid for the battle at their doorstep. No one gets along. Everyone thinks its someone else's problem. Why would the Eagles be any different? They never seem to get involved with anyone else's affairs to begin with. They certainly are not errand runners, and flying a hobbit over to Mordor just doesn't sound like an errand they would feel like running. I wouldn't do it if I were a giant eagle.

The only person who could possibly bring elves and dwarfs and men together to fight against Mordor is Gandalf, and no one seems to really trust him anyway. He is unwelcomed in the Shire (except for his fireworks), being labeled a "disturber of the peace." The Steward of Minas Tirith doesn't welcome him either, nor the people of Rohan. Gandalf is a meddling trickster, and always has to trick and coerce people into doing his deeds (i.e. sending Bilbo to the Lonely Mountain, sending Frodo to Mordor, lighting to Beacons of Minas Tirith, tricking Saruman out of the Palantir, et cetera). No one trust Gandalf, and why should they? I wouldn't even trust him. But he is the only one who could form an alliance, and does a very poor job of doing so. So why would Gandalf's errand to destroy the Ring be welcomed among the Eagles? They probably would have criticized Gandalf for digging it up out of the Shire and sending it out into the world anyway.

Thirdly, it never seems to have cross anyone's mind that Gandalf might have actually tried to get the Eagles to help. Seriously, when Gwaihir, the lord of the Eagles, saves Gandalf from Orthanc, you don't think Gandalf might have asked for his help? I imagine the conversation when something like this:

Gwaihir: "SCREECH!" (translation: "What the hell were you doing up there anyway? And why do I always have to help you out when you're in a real pickle?")
Gandalf: "Oh, I was seeking Saruman's council on how to approach this dangerous mission we have, but he's turned into a power-grubbing son of a bitch and has betrayed us."
Gwaihir: "SCREECH!" (translation: "Oh, that sucks. What are you guys up to?")
Gandalf: "Oh, the usual, trying to save the world. Turns out the Ring of Power has been in the Shire, and I've sent a hobbit to take it to Mordor to destroy it."
Gwaihir: "SCREECH!" (translation: "Sounds dangerous.")
Gandalf: "It is. Do you think you could possibly lend a helping hand... er... claw?"
Gwaihir: "SCREECH!" (translation: "Dwag, I love you, and I'm always there for you when you need me the most, but... hell no. I'm no errand bitch.")
Gandalf: "No problem. Couldn't have hurt to ask. Oh, and thanks for getting out of there. Saruman is a dick."
Gwaihir: "SCREECH!" (translation: "Oh, it's no trouble at all.")

To recap: the Eagles don't run errands; they only help Gandalf when he has no other way out. They, like anyone else in Middle Earth, think the War of the Ring is someone else's problem, and are not in alliance with anyone else (like the Ents: "I am on no one's side, because no one is on my side"). The Eagles only show up at the end because Gandalf could die in the Battle of Morannon, and probably only went to grab Frodo and Sam off the slopes of Mount Doom because the coast is clear in Mordor, and those two hobbits saved Middle Earth, so they deserve it.

That's settled. Stop complaining about why the Eagles didn't just fly the hobbits to Mordor and save them a lot of trouble. Anyway, it would have been a lame story if it happened that way.

Truth: An Existentialist Rant

I suppose this post will be little more than an extension of my previous post. Previously I had said that the truth sometimes just sucks because it doesn't always, if ever, hold that mystical element we value in the meaning we construct for our lives and the things in our lives. But I found a quote from Jorge Luis Borges that I believe sums up, more or less, what I was trying to get at:

"...Reality has not the slightest obligation to be interesting.... reality may get along without that obligation, but hypotheses may not."
~Death and the Compass

And I suppose that's what the truth really boils down to: it isn't obligated to be interesting, and perhaps that is why the truth doesn't always seem as meaningful as we would like. The fact of the matter is that more often than not the truth seems to lack any sort of meaning for us, which is always unsettling.

Think of truth and its concern for our search for meaning as Lovecraft's monsters and horrid alien civilizations: they could easily exterminate us all without even breaking a sweat, but we are like an ant mount in Africa: it's too much effort for something that doesn't concern it. That is what really makes Lovecraft's monsters so terrifying: they don't actually care about the human race. I mean, if we get in their way, sure, they'll destroy us, but it isn't really worth the effort. We are not the center of the world. We really don't matter in the grand scheme of things. Such is the the case with the truth: it isn't obligated to fascinate us and fulfill those hollow searches of ours for meaning in our lives. Mostly because nothing really has any meaning in the first place. We construct the meaning in things to make ourselves feel better, which is more or less the basic principles of existentialist philosophy.

Nothing has any real inherent meaning unto itself. We might imagine that the Pyramids of Giza were quite meaningful to the Egyptians, and we will speculate on what the shape of the pyramid meant to the Egyptians. Some have speculated that they represented mountains that were a sort of gateway to the heavens, or that they mimic the shape of the top of an obelisk - an obelisk being a sort of petrified ray of the sun - and as such represented a ray of sunlight. But this is only what the pyramid meant to the Egyptians. They completely made that up. In reality - that is non-obligated reality to be interesting - the pyramid is a meaningless shape. The shape of a pyramid is nothing more than a solid with a square base and four triangular faces with eight edges and five vertices. It is meaningless unto itself. We are the ones who construct the meaning and apply it to completely meaningless things.

But that's the trick: we construct meaning for truth to be as interesting as possible to make up for how completely meaningless the truth actually is. The truth doesn't have to be meaningful. Our hypotheses and explanations for the truth, however, do have to be meaningful.

This is what I think Julia Sweeney was getting at when she said, "The truth is a poor competitor in the market place of ideas." Ideas have to interesting and meaningful. The truth doesn't give a shit about what is meaningful or interesting to us.

Reality is a lot like the Pyramids of Giza, really: it's just a great big heap of meaningless stuff that we constantly try to attach some interesting explanation to.

Truth: A Poor Competitor in the Marketplace of Ideas

It isn't uncommon for me to reread parts of the Bible. There is a great variety of stories and teachings in that book. Want a story about war? Rape? Decapitation? Zombies? The apocalypse? Genocide? Read the Bible. Want a love poem? Read Song of Solomon. Want a lesson on why everything in futile and pointless? Read Ecclesiastes. But for me I was recently drawn to rereading the writings of the Prophets (e.g. Daniel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Micah, et cetera). I don't know why. I suppose I thought the Prophets held some superpower and I do not, or they can magically see farther than I can, and I just had to know! Well I never found that secret something, but I did find myself particularly disturbed that in nearly all the writings of the Prophets it is said that God decides to leave the Jewish people forever. In Isaiah he just up and leaves the Temple. The same for Ezekiel (I mean they did kill another god, Tammuz, in the Temple). In Amos God just tells Amos that the Jewish people better get their shit straight, because He's not looking after them anymore.

All I could think was: why? I thought they were His chosen people. Call it Synchronicity. Call it fate. Call it pure chance. Call it what you will. But a week later I found myself perusing some used books and Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise literally fell off the shelf, and I thought: why not? I picked it up off the floor and bought the book, and started to read it, and what do you know? Spinoza talks about this very subject! But Spinoza's reasoning isn't exactly the great mystical answer I was looking for, even though his reasoning is by far very convincing. Essentially Spinoza says that God never favored the Jews more than he favored any other nation, but for a temporary length of time he helped them out and gave them direct guidance. With other nations God would just send an angel to assist (as implied in Exodus 33:2-4), rather than His own awesomeness. Spinoza, admittedly, has very sound reasoning concerning God, His relationship to the Jewish people, His covenant with them, and His ultimate departure. But I found Spinoza's answer to not be the grand, awesome answer I was hoping for.

In a way, I suppose this is the way it is for many things... that is that the truth (or at least the best answer) sometimes, if not oftentimes, really sucks. I can recall a few relationships in the past where the girl asked why do I love her? My answer: I don't; I just do. One girlfriend demanded of me a logical and rational answer as to why I liked her. Really? "Logical" and "rational" explanation for affection? It's like asking why 2+2=4? Because it equals 4. Sure Bertrand Russell spend three hundred pages trying to prove 1+1=2, but even Godel turned that one on its head. In reality, affection is sort of silly for how much we hype it up to be something awesome. Relationships are little more than an exchange of goods and services based on incentives. We maintain friendships because this particular friend makes us laugh, or this friend never asks for gas money and always wants to hang out, and this friend is essentially a convenient scapegoat, and this one is my own personal therapist, this one lets me borrow his movies, et cetera. That being little more than what friendship really is, friendship doesn't sound so awesome anymore. What's more is that intimate relationships are little more than friendships with sex. And what about love? It's little more than a chemical and hormonal reaction that creates a bond between two sexual partners to increase the likelihood of the survival of each other, their offspring, and hopefully their species (I would say homosexual love is little more than the same as heterosexual, except for the offspring part). Love doesn't sound so grand and mystical anymore, now does it?

Pets are little more than animals with Stockholm Syndrome. Prayer is talking to yourself. Meditation is trying to not think. Yoga is holding bodily positions to get high. Life is an accident. And you are an insignificant speck of carbon and water on a tiny little planet orbiting around a small, insignificant, yellow star that's swirling around a collapsed star that destroys other stars, all floating amongst many other stars and galaxies in an endlessly expanding universe that has no divine or grand purpose for existing. Everything is meaningless. Even you are meaningless.

I know, I know, I sound like a warm ray of sunshine right now. But the truth is this: the truth sucks. Oftentimes the truth doesn't seem to hold any meaning at all. Objective reality is kind of lame. We can find some wonder and amazement in it, but it still seems to fall short. I mean a circle is so simple and elegant, but pi is irrational and chaotic. Sure, it's cool that you can find your telephone number somewhere in pi, or your zip code, or your mother's birthday, and probably the super-secret nuclear access codes somewhere in that infinitely long and irrational number. But why is the circle simple but pi is not? Because that's the way it is. Circles are simple and pi is irrational. Order and chaos (whatever that's suppose to mean). There is no natural meaning to it.

I'm reminded of the talk given by Julia Sweeney, Letting Go of God, in which she gives her confessions and stories of growing up Catholic, wanting to be a nun, losing faith, trying to hold on to God, trying other religions, and ultimately renouncing her belief in God. Her story is emotional (both joyous and sad) and hilarious. But in particular what I found compelling about her talk is her conclusion and closing remarks. One remark that I enjoyed was how she wished that she could build a temple to her experiences and transitions in life, like others had done with temples to their gods. There was one remark that has long resonated with me more than anything:

"Let's face it, the truth is poor competitor in the marketplace of ideas."

Damn right. Even though Julia Sweeney no longer believes in God or the stories of the Bible, she comes to accept them later in life. Before she lost her faith she found the stories to be appalling (which they are) and disturbing, and many times completely unbelievable. After losing her faith she found a sort of peace and ultimately recognized that there was a comfort some people find in fantasy, because many times objective reality is a hard thing to swallow. That's because it is.

The truth is out there, but you're probably not going to like it. I'm starting to suspect that this is Mulder's problem.