Why does it make me think of this William Blake quote that I can't get out of my head?
"The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way....But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself."
I think I need to write about it to get some kind of handle on it. Something about seeing...
Thanks, Navor. I think all people struggle with it because it requires some spiritual effort. It's easier for us humans to stop at the level of the visible, which is idolatry.
Something came up for me when you mentioned Bolsheviks. A lot of people talk these days about Capitalists being the ones who hate and destroy so much that they destroy their own world, and thus create their own end. This seems wildly unlikely to me -- Capitalism is merely private ownership of the means of production, and it was the source of the power of the Industrial Revolution to create wealth -- not only among the rich, but also among the working class, from 1750 in England to 2025 in various African countries, having already transformed the US & Europe, Japan, China, India, Southeast Asia, and most of South America along the way. But the point, it seems to me, is neither Bolsheviks nor Capitalists, but Philistines. Philistines, in the dictionary sense, are people who are only moved by material success, and have no sense of beauty or truth. It is derived from the German word Philister, adopted by the poet Matthew Arnold to denote anti-aesthetes. Philister was used by students in the German town of Jena to refer to the ignorant, non-college-educated population of the town. It was originated by the cleric Georg Heinrich Götze, who compared the townspeople to the Philistine leaders who attacked and were ultimately slain by Samson. The sermon was taken from the remarkable story of Samson and Delilah in Judges 16 (which see -- Samson was no saint). In Arnold's Victorian take, the word "Philistines" came to refer to the bourgeois, materialistic, merchant middle class, whose newly acquired social status and wealth rendered some of them hostile to cultural traditions which favored aristocratic power. In the Russian instance, the Bolshevik "Philistines" hated everything associated with the aristocracy, and developed the story of the "enemy of the people". In the current American context, there is Mr Trump, who rails against "experts" and "the deep state", and, of course, against universities and the media, which commit the sin of using Critical Thinking to develop scientific theories that the common man cannot understand and considers to be a conspiracy against his unsupported beliefs. It is this problem of Philistinism which I find questionable in the current American Left. They hate the rich -- not aristocracy -- but who funds universities? Medical and scientific research? In the US as of 2022, the top 10% of income earners earned nearly half of all income, but were responsible for 72% of all income taxes paid. The government is not funded by "the people", but disproportionately by the well-off. If we hate the well-off, with what do we replace them? "The people"? Uneducated people are, still, like the people of Jena, mired in their hatreds, prejudices and incapacity to rule, to lead, to create wealth, to create art or a better society or well-being. Currently we are engaged, kicking and screaming, in an enormous effort to educate a vast proportion of the population of rich countries. Whereas in the runup to WWII, in 1940, fewer than 5% of Americans had a college degree, by 2024, 37.7% of all adult Americans had a college degree. The "gowns" are on the verge of outnumbering the "townies". It means that populists depend on the manipulation of a a smaller percentage of people with few to no Critical Thinking skills, and depend ever more on deceiving folks by misinformation and slander, to get into the position of Philistine leadership that they crave. so they need more and more to exercise authoritarian tools of police and army to control the population, as we are seeing in the United States. But this depends on undermining the "gowns", which supply the workers that underpin the American economy. The choice ends up being between becoming richer as a country, or accepting a poorer nation, but ruled by a smaller group at the top, as has already happened in Russia. Are the Philistines going to cause their own destruction? Perhaps...
Thanks, Phillip. An interesting train of thought. I agree about Philistines, and not all Capitalists are Philistines. Capitalists are only Philistines when they worship capital. Socialists are only Philistines when they worship society. Which they did in Russia. I put it down to a certain lens - namely, viewing the world "unspiritually." Bolsheviks cut themselves off from the vertical dimension, and as a result, they lost connection to true art and beauty. They still used it - to glorify Man, society, and the Bright Future of Communism but they lost the core of it because they had rejected its iconic significance.
Yes -- this is what I meant exactly! Neither all Capitalists, nor all Socialists are anti-intellectual, anti-aesthete, anti-spiritual Philistines -- what we need to worry about are the Philistines among them.
Another brilliant offering, Eugene!
Why does it make me think of this William Blake quote that I can't get out of my head?
"The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way....But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself."
I think I need to write about it to get some kind of handle on it. Something about seeing...
Definitely write about it, Regina. I believe Blake's quote captures it all - the world is God's imagination. We don't have imagination; it has us.
Yes! True words. I’m finishing up one a written piece with some of William Blake’s art in it and I can’t help but think he’s nudging me.
We in the West struggle with iconography as a tool or ability to look through the image, windows into eternity.
Thanks, Navor. I think all people struggle with it because it requires some spiritual effort. It's easier for us humans to stop at the level of the visible, which is idolatry.
That is the tension, right? When does love turn into hate, as Lewis warns against in The Great Divorce?
Well-said!
Something came up for me when you mentioned Bolsheviks. A lot of people talk these days about Capitalists being the ones who hate and destroy so much that they destroy their own world, and thus create their own end. This seems wildly unlikely to me -- Capitalism is merely private ownership of the means of production, and it was the source of the power of the Industrial Revolution to create wealth -- not only among the rich, but also among the working class, from 1750 in England to 2025 in various African countries, having already transformed the US & Europe, Japan, China, India, Southeast Asia, and most of South America along the way. But the point, it seems to me, is neither Bolsheviks nor Capitalists, but Philistines. Philistines, in the dictionary sense, are people who are only moved by material success, and have no sense of beauty or truth. It is derived from the German word Philister, adopted by the poet Matthew Arnold to denote anti-aesthetes. Philister was used by students in the German town of Jena to refer to the ignorant, non-college-educated population of the town. It was originated by the cleric Georg Heinrich Götze, who compared the townspeople to the Philistine leaders who attacked and were ultimately slain by Samson. The sermon was taken from the remarkable story of Samson and Delilah in Judges 16 (which see -- Samson was no saint). In Arnold's Victorian take, the word "Philistines" came to refer to the bourgeois, materialistic, merchant middle class, whose newly acquired social status and wealth rendered some of them hostile to cultural traditions which favored aristocratic power. In the Russian instance, the Bolshevik "Philistines" hated everything associated with the aristocracy, and developed the story of the "enemy of the people". In the current American context, there is Mr Trump, who rails against "experts" and "the deep state", and, of course, against universities and the media, which commit the sin of using Critical Thinking to develop scientific theories that the common man cannot understand and considers to be a conspiracy against his unsupported beliefs. It is this problem of Philistinism which I find questionable in the current American Left. They hate the rich -- not aristocracy -- but who funds universities? Medical and scientific research? In the US as of 2022, the top 10% of income earners earned nearly half of all income, but were responsible for 72% of all income taxes paid. The government is not funded by "the people", but disproportionately by the well-off. If we hate the well-off, with what do we replace them? "The people"? Uneducated people are, still, like the people of Jena, mired in their hatreds, prejudices and incapacity to rule, to lead, to create wealth, to create art or a better society or well-being. Currently we are engaged, kicking and screaming, in an enormous effort to educate a vast proportion of the population of rich countries. Whereas in the runup to WWII, in 1940, fewer than 5% of Americans had a college degree, by 2024, 37.7% of all adult Americans had a college degree. The "gowns" are on the verge of outnumbering the "townies". It means that populists depend on the manipulation of a a smaller percentage of people with few to no Critical Thinking skills, and depend ever more on deceiving folks by misinformation and slander, to get into the position of Philistine leadership that they crave. so they need more and more to exercise authoritarian tools of police and army to control the population, as we are seeing in the United States. But this depends on undermining the "gowns", which supply the workers that underpin the American economy. The choice ends up being between becoming richer as a country, or accepting a poorer nation, but ruled by a smaller group at the top, as has already happened in Russia. Are the Philistines going to cause their own destruction? Perhaps...
Thanks, Phillip. An interesting train of thought. I agree about Philistines, and not all Capitalists are Philistines. Capitalists are only Philistines when they worship capital. Socialists are only Philistines when they worship society. Which they did in Russia. I put it down to a certain lens - namely, viewing the world "unspiritually." Bolsheviks cut themselves off from the vertical dimension, and as a result, they lost connection to true art and beauty. They still used it - to glorify Man, society, and the Bright Future of Communism but they lost the core of it because they had rejected its iconic significance.
Yes -- this is what I meant exactly! Neither all Capitalists, nor all Socialists are anti-intellectual, anti-aesthete, anti-spiritual Philistines -- what we need to worry about are the Philistines among them.