Capitol Hill Blue Forums Misc. Topics Ain't This America What is distinctive about American art and letters

Numan said~

Maybe it's the delivery of the message.

I would say that my feelings toward my "motherland" are quite conflicted. Consider the feelings of those who left Germany after Hitler came to power. It should be easy to imagine how conflicted their love of their fatherland was.

By the way, isn't it interesting that one can get away with calling the United States a "motherland," but it sounds quite odd to call it a "fatherland"?

The Bush junta started the fashion for calling it a "homeland," but it no longer feels like home to me.


It is indeed true that I am impressed by a wider range of art than many people appear to think. However, the purpose of my postings on this thread has been to draw a clear distinction between art seen as craftsmanship, technique and taste, and HIgh Art, which illuminates the Good, the True and the Beautiful to a much higher degree than art which merely appeals to individual taste.

In the United States there is much art which displays individuality, quirkyness and interesting techniques, but there is a remarkable lack of High Art which inspires one with a love of the highest pinnacle of human awareness, the knowledge of the Good, the True and the Beautiful.

Yeats has one of his fools say:

All men live in suffering,
I know as few can know,
Whether they take the upper road
Or stay content on the low,
Rower bent in his row-boat
Or weaver bent at his loom,
Horseman erect upon horseback
Or child hid in the womb.
Daybreak and a candle-end.

That some stream of lightning
From the old man in the skies
Can burn out that suffering
No right-taught man denies.
But a coarse old man am I,
I choose the second-best,
I forget it all awhile
Upon a woman's breast.
Daybreak and a candle-end.

Americans, in general, prefer comfort, like the fool in the poem. They turn their backs on the fire from heaven.

No, I think it is mainly the content.

It is true, though, that straight talk has never been much appreciated in the United States.

Tippy-toeing and sidling are far more popular.

"Traditionally, the virtuous member of the middle class is encouraged to cultivatre sincerity and its twin, hypocrisy. the sort of harsh truth-telling that one gets in Aristophanes, say, is not possible in a highly organized zoo like the United States, where the best cuts are flung to those who never question the zoo's management."
--- Gore Vidal

Numan, you can't convince me that you really have that much contempt for the U.S. Sorry, don't buy it.

You may disagree with US government...lifestyles of many citizens, capitalism, or whatever, but overall...people are just people for the most part, just doing life a day at a time and hoping their respective governments don't do somethng to kill them all.

All of the stuff about art, yadda, yadda, yadda...all are a by-product of culture.

People are all a circumstance of birth...having no choice whatsoever as to who they would be after being born, who they were born to, any of their physical characteristics...and so-forth. You know that. So in the end...none of us had a choice.

We haven't evolved enough yet to overcome our wild, dark age, agressive, materialistic, self-centric ways. But, we're all working on it little by little.

We still love ya...but come on...not every aspect of the world of America is all that bad. It's a damn mess right now, but if we survive ourself...we'll become better folks in the end.

Well, you're right; Americans are just like everybody else --- only more so!

I don't know why so many people think that I have contempt for the United States. I suspect that it is because so many Americans are hyper-sensitive to fundamental criticisms.

I merely try to look at the American scene with as much dispassion as I do the society of the Roman Empire. There is much that deserves negative criticism in both societies.

There is one historical circumstance that affects Americans more than people living in most other countries. Americans live in a country which is large, influential and relatively rich. More than other countries, it is important to many sinister elements in the world (the Military-Industrial Conspiracy springs to mind) to control and influence the thoughts and emotions of Americans in order to make big bucks for very special interests.

Therefore, Americans are the most propagandized people in the world, and their emotions are constantly being manipulated --- definitely not for their own good!

The Science of Manipulation is very well developed, particularly in the United States; that is why so many Americans have become zombie freaks.

Here is a very important truth: almost any reaction you have in the modern world, of whatever nature, is likely to be the result of manipulation; very few of your emotions really come from you yourself; they have been injected into your psyche by those who definitely do not have your best interests at heart. It is best to have no reaction at all --- just analyse.

And have as little to do with the zombies as possible.

Unlike your comments, "straight talk" isn't wrapped in disdain and condescension. It is delivered without any broadbrushing generalties, or disguising opinion as fact.

'

Well, I think straight talk is often interpreted as disdain by those who are hyper-sensitive.

.

numan, is there a reason that you have to have an insulting tone in your writing? And, no, it isn't because I am hypersensitive. It is because you have an insulting tone.

precisely. criticism is fine. for god's sake, i'm incredibly critical of much of what we call culture here. i have enjoyed and revered so much of what you claim to hold dear. but your tone, your demeanor is flat out insulting and it does nothing to perpetuate your argument. and i just plain do not agree with your assessment of mark twain.

'

Is it really true that you are not hyper-sensitive?

When the strongest criticism that you can make about someone is their "tone," rather than the content of what they say, you are starting down a very slippery slope. "Tone" is notoriously subjective; what one person may interpret as insulting, another person will see as mere joshing.

My views are very often sardonic; I am constantly seeing the absurdities in human life, and I am indeed sometimes sarcastic. You would see these characteristics developed to a much higher degree in the writings of Gore Vidal, George Bernard Shaw, Aldous Huxley, and even Mark Twain. Very few literary critics would interpret the styles of these notable figures as "insulting."

.