The high-low revisited
We have embraced the understanding that we can learn about the highest things by celebrating the lowest. What credence do we now give to the possibility that we understand the least by reference to the greatest?
What do I know about the driver who would run a red to attach me to his fender, and shatter my eardrums with his horn for the privilege -- how do I understand this man, the decisions he makes, the way he helps shape the government that I share -- by reference to, say, Søren Kierkegaard? Ok, take a less over-the-top example of incomprehensible behavior, but keep Kierkegaard.
Kierkegaard looked into the light of his times and saw calamity, so he defied everything that he understood himself to be and plunged into the darkness instead. Or another: Nietzsche embraced the fellowship of man, but in the face of man's most comprehensive effort to provide for universal fellowship, he foresaw failure and turned inwards for salvation.
Of course, Kierkegaard's darkness and Nietzsche's isolation were both alleviated by a different sort of shared presence: the ideas of others who lived in different times and places. Neither was entirely alone; they were joined in a community of thought. In that thought, that community, they found relief from the disappointment of the decisions of a people they would embrace, people they understood too well and described with great artistry.
What are we able to know about ourselves, the world around us, its frustrations, the occassions of our impotence, when we contemplate that art, when we look to the select few who have considered most closely and addressed with the most care precisely who we are, who we might be?
And it's not just a negative thing. I shouldn't wait until late to write these entries. Because what from all this can we learn about our enthusiasms, about the ways we love, the persistence of goodness?
What do I know about the driver who would run a red to attach me to his fender, and shatter my eardrums with his horn for the privilege -- how do I understand this man, the decisions he makes, the way he helps shape the government that I share -- by reference to, say, Søren Kierkegaard? Ok, take a less over-the-top example of incomprehensible behavior, but keep Kierkegaard.
Kierkegaard looked into the light of his times and saw calamity, so he defied everything that he understood himself to be and plunged into the darkness instead. Or another: Nietzsche embraced the fellowship of man, but in the face of man's most comprehensive effort to provide for universal fellowship, he foresaw failure and turned inwards for salvation.
Of course, Kierkegaard's darkness and Nietzsche's isolation were both alleviated by a different sort of shared presence: the ideas of others who lived in different times and places. Neither was entirely alone; they were joined in a community of thought. In that thought, that community, they found relief from the disappointment of the decisions of a people they would embrace, people they understood too well and described with great artistry.
What are we able to know about ourselves, the world around us, its frustrations, the occassions of our impotence, when we contemplate that art, when we look to the select few who have considered most closely and addressed with the most care precisely who we are, who we might be?
And it's not just a negative thing. I shouldn't wait until late to write these entries. Because what from all this can we learn about our enthusiasms, about the ways we love, the persistence of goodness?
posted by General Bird at 23:26
1 Comments:
ok....i'm reading through your blog entries, and maybe my brain is just a little "tired", but too many of your expressed thoughts wore me out! i need lots of time to seriously think about the things you mention...but your entry of aug. 1st was rather interesting and did pique my curiousity..i'm going to have to do a little research and try to find out just where birds do go to die; although i think anonynmous has something there when it was suggested that perhaps fallen birds use pipa juice to revive themselves--i've been witness to the miracles of this drink!
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