Fall\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Harvest Moon<\/p>\n
An idea keeps nudging its way forward and I want to get just a bit of it on paper, or in print, or bytes.<\/p>\n
The Future of Liberal Thought.\u00a0 Is equivalent to the struggle over the last century and especially since WWII to define what art is.\u00a0 That is, a shaking of the foundation, eliminating beauty and traditional forms like painting and sculpture, at least as they had been perceived, to run out in the desert of unknowing.\u00a0 Saving art by killing it.\u00a0 If you meet the artist on the road, kill him.<\/p>\n
The paintings that capture this notion for me are those of Mark Rothko.\u00a0 Compare this piece to the Mannerist, Baroque and Neo-Classical works.\u00a0 Is it of the same tradition?\u00a0 Does it have the same aim, the same desire?\u00a0 What of the artist?\u00a0 What was he thinking?\u00a0 Or, was he thinking at all?<\/p>\n
Just so.\u00a0 Consider.\u00a0 The Holocaust.\u00a0 The Armenian genocide.\u00a0 WWI.\u00a0 WWII.\u00a0 Korea.\u00a0 Vietnam.\u00a0 The Great Depression.\u00a0 Mass starvation, drought, despair.\u00a0 The cold war.\u00a0 The rise and fall of the United Soviet Socialist Republic.\u00a0 Quantum mechanics.\u00a0 Relativity.\u00a0 Godel.\u00a0 Wittgenstein.\u00a0 The decoding of the human genome.\u00a0 The discovery of planets in other solar systems.\u00a0 Manned flight to the moon.\u00a0 Men and women shuttling regularly between earth and the heavens.<\/p>\n
The death of God.<\/p>\n
Well.\u00a0 How do we approach the questions of meaning, the questions often called religious questions?\u00a0 How do we approach them in light of scientific, cultural, political and economic changes?\u00a0 Are these changes so momentous that they demand a break with our religious past, a break similar (the same?) in kind to the radical artistic movements of the 20th century?\u00a0 I think so.<\/p>\n
Anyhow, this is where I’m headed.\u00a0 More.\u00a0 Later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fall\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Harvest Moon An idea keeps nudging its way forward and I want to get just a bit of it on paper, or in print, or bytes. The Future of Liberal Thought.\u00a0 Is equivalent to the struggle over the last century and especially since WWII to define what art is.\u00a0 That is, a shaking … Continue reading Questioning the Questioners<\/span>