tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post1258839306163426834..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Walter Benjamin: CultUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-41631589124078137122010-11-02T06:21:59.653-07:002010-11-02T06:21:59.653-07:00But scarce observ'd the Knowing and the Bold,
...But scarce observ'd the Knowing and the Bold,<br />Fall in the gen'ral Massacre of Gold;<br />Wide-wasting Pest! that rages unconfin'd,<br />And crouds with Crimes the Records of Mankind,<br />For Gold his Sword the Hireling Ruffian draws,<br />For Gold the hireling Judge distorts the Laws;<br />Wealth heap'd on Wealth, nor Truth nor Safety buys,<br />The Dangers gather as the Treasures rise.<br /><br />from: Samuel Johnson: The Vanity of Human Wishes (The Tenth Satire of Juvenal Imitated), 1749TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-79495341091526727952010-11-02T06:15:11.284-07:002010-11-02T06:15:11.284-07:00Julia,
Exacto!Julia,<br /><br />Exacto!TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-34324361282929255802010-11-02T06:01:13.724-07:002010-11-02T06:01:13.724-07:00Very helpful, Tom, & illustrative & intere...Very helpful, Tom, & illustrative & interesting.<br />I'm thinking now that your choosing of Baroque's "Vanitas" is even more perfect to express what you say (and what Benjamin said). You know that those still lives wanted to show the rotten materiality in order to call the attention to transcendence. All the material world is but "vanitas" the real thing, the important thing goes beyond that. Although this material world is all we have and with what we have to deal with.<br />I see this way of thinking as something similar or not too far from Benjamin's idea that you highlight here, about the net metaphor.Juliahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16419101761966668410noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-75153969868506751832010-11-02T06:00:28.541-07:002010-11-02T06:00:28.541-07:00In the interests of being a bit more catholic in o...In the interests of being a bit more <a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/certain-notable-moments-in-papal.html" rel="nofollow">catholic</a> in our consideration of the history of religion(s)...TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-5376004287479525732010-11-02T05:22:10.203-07:002010-11-02T05:22:10.203-07:00Steve,
About Mr. Carrot, he is my new friend of t...Steve,<br /><br />About Mr. Carrot, he is my new friend of the week.<br /><br />He cometh from a kingdom in which the cannibals have great night vision.<br /><br /><br />Julia,<br /><br />Thanks so much for looking and for asking the right question: what's going on here?<br /><br />Here and always in my blog posts my aim is to spark up a sort of conversation between images and text, so that, in "speaking" to each other, they provoke questions and thoughts, and open up the further possibilities of perceptions and understandings (and also sometimes mysteries as well) that go beyond what might be gained from either the images or the words in isolation.<br /><br />I try not to make the image selections too obvious. As a result perhaps there is the risk the juxtapositions of word and image will appear to make no sense.<br /><br />My image choices are derived largely from instinctive senses of that internal "conversation," which is something I hear as though it were a tiny voice in my head.<br /><br />With this post, I first made an entirely different image selection, using photographs of Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and other obvious contemporary sites and locations of what Benjamin here terms "the religion of capitalism."<br /><br />Those preliminary choices seemed a bit too obvious, however.<br /><br />Benjamin wrote this unpublished fragment as a young man in his late twenties, then struggling for an academic career. His experience of the world at that point perhaps did not match his grasp of ideas; in this case, I suspect, the theory of capitalism put forward by Max Weber was a strong influence.<br /><br />I take Benjamin's piece to be a bit crazy, an attempt at a kind of myth-making that perhaps has more in common with poetry than with philosophy as such.<br /><br />At the same time I feel it is in many respects quite prescient, particularly in the passage in which he says capitalism is a religion in which every day is a feast day, there are no "days off".<br /><br />And when he uses the "net" metaphor, suggesting we are all caught up in a system that we cannot speak of "objectively" because we cannot escape it, I feel he comes close to the truth, almost a hundred years in advance of the full realization of his prophecy (which I believe we are seeing now).<br /><br />Of course in suggesting that the contents of the boxed set cannot "think outside the box," he implicitly admits the paradox in attempting any critique in this area.<br /><br />We are all caught in the net, closed inside the box.<br /><br />As to the final selection of images, I suppose the general heading under which I would place these particular images that I have chosen is: materialism.<br /><br />I believe the specific provocation for the post may have come for the American elections which are occurring today.<br /><br />I don't know how one may comment on what is happening politically in this country without adopting some form of "indirection."<br /><br />In many respects the situation here at present defies rational commentary.<br /><br />I hope this helps, a bit, at least.<br /><br /><br />Billy,<br /><br />I'm already there. I live by night.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-46741089281614798672010-11-02T05:01:24.239-07:002010-11-02T05:01:24.239-07:00If capitalism really is a religion, are we moving ...If capitalism really is a religion, are we moving towards the end of days?billymillshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16384818298267240803noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-75865421232502831142010-11-01T18:33:00.666-07:002010-11-01T18:33:00.666-07:00Wonderful post, Tom!
Benjamin is always so clever ...Wonderful post, Tom!<br />Benjamin is always so clever (although always complex for me, I should read it al least three more times). <br />The selection of images are of course superb. If you can (or want) to reveal your secret behind the post, would you tell me why you choose these mostly baroque paintings?Juliahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16419101761966668410noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-45542247973880507002010-11-01T07:51:06.336-07:002010-11-01T07:51:06.336-07:00Tom,
Thanks for this, much 'food for thought&...Tom,<br /><br />Thanks for this, much 'food for thought' on this first of November -- and such great pictures (carrot man marching to his own drum) . . . .<br /><br /><br />11.1<br /><br />light coming into sky above still black <br />plane of ridge, white of moon by branch<br />in foreground, wave sounding in channel<br /><br /> this with respect to system<br /> of co-ordinates, also<br /><br /> angle of light, experiences<br /> on the side, the same<br /><br />silver of sunlight reflected in channel,<br />whiteness of gull flapping toward pointSTEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.com