have wondered for several weeks now about
going back through the stories of developments
of different cultures (western european/northern
american in this case) to where 'private' aspects
converge. though i do not know much at all about
how it all fits together, it seems to involve various
key aspects, such as language, music, religion,
architecture, science (this is a guess, maybe a
worldview, or a cultural system or order)... and,
so it is where i recently saw a graph of languages
which converged in one of their branches on the
Greek and Roman, and this brought to mind the
'roman' Catholic and 'greek' Orthodox Christian
churches, something i do not understand much
at all, why this happened nor its significance. yet
it would seem that prior to this, at the intersection
there is a connection between 'eastern' or 'middle-
or near-eastern' and other cultures, and 'western'.
or, there would appear to be crossovers between
the worldviews that could be in a tough situation
right now, in how to relate to one another, though
hopefully even thrive in something shared, some-
thing different. i do not know if 'religion' covers it,
though geographic distribution seems to be a way
to see how the world is everywhere in one time.
the idea of the role of a martyr may have brought
this back into consideration, as at first i thought
it was something totally different between cultures
or views or senses, or accepted that as a given.
though looked the word up in a dictionary, of
which there were several definitions. and while
a lot of them had to do with one approach to the
role of a martyr, the one that i related to from my
own experience was that it was not connected,
by default, with a violent retribution but can still
retain the truth of struggle and in that, a power
of truth or something of significance or somehow
that it is not pre-defined but up for interpretation.
recent events are so disturbing, even moreso, as
it is hard to continue a detachment when there is
an honest to goodness plea for recognition of the
situation faced, in however paradoxical, complex
a situation can be. still, people are human beings
and to hear how hearts are in such great pain, to
know from experience or to believe so enough
to imagine what it must be like, the pressure, it is
an impossible state to reason within, especially
if it is not possible due to circumstances created.
the part which made sense to me about martyr
definitions is also that which connected back to
the idea of cultures are related, fellow beings in
the world voice a situation and in the old views,
one chooses a side. this is what 'terrorists' are
able to exploit, it is a fault in the logical system,
which leaves out a lot of facts in order to keep a
very simplistic, power-based (not truth-based)
ideology in motion- the fuel being believers that
it is the best way or even a good way to get at
the issues. the differentiating line would appear
to be, however unpopular it is to believe there
are truly people who are no longer questioning
whether or not they want pure destruction but
are planning for it and to take this into account,
versus those who may have some interests on
the earth, left to live for, to fulfill in some way,
maybe a dream, a hope, something. well, in a
similar sense, that is why the past is almost like
a dream in terms of its beauty, its richness in
that people may have been able to co-exist at
some times, in some ways, to bridge the gaps
that now are at the breaking point. there is a
symbol dictionary image of 'crosses' which is
telling in that there are dozens of types of a
cross. there is a 'greek' cross, a papal cross
(i think, if memory serves), maybe even there
are customized crosses for saints and such.
in a more secular sense, this cultural symbol
has for a long time seemed related to 'boat
masts' whether that is actually the case, i do
not know. yet in the world of publicness, it is
instead of having cross symbols all over the
planet, say, like electrical distribution poles-
it would be to have early boat technology of
Egypt and Pacific peoples and the wooden
masts, placed into the ground as sculptures
or some objects, in relation to one another.
I saw some of Whistler's etchings and it made
me think of this- of all the different types of an
idea and how they vary and yet are similar.
kind of like human beings.
think, i think to myself, of being in a situation
so unbearable that the best future one has is
to sacrifice oneself for the greater good in a
horrific proposition of choosing death for life.
meaning, that this is a starting point for change.
makes one wonder about people who can take
a ski trip or vacation, or go to college afar, yet
there are those can never contemplate these
things, for the foreseeable future maybe even.
there was this aspect of martyrdom that made
sense in this respect, that while their may be
this aspect of violence or something less than
'pure' about survival (of everyone who lives),
it would seem that the dignity of what may be
a moderation or balancing or weighing of the
complexities of situations, however so, to keep
in account larger goals, that the immediacy of
annihilation may find balance with a hope for
the future. it was clear though now my mind
is all frozen in some disconcerted uneasiness,
is that to triumph the martyrdom in one way is,
potentially, to lessen the truth of the situation,
possibly, in that there is something morally of
significance that all recognize (except, without
exception of course, the .US) that sometimes
one has chosen one interpretation, in advance,
of a situation, and may not be the fairest judge.
the part which offered a bit of hope, at least for
a moment, was that like the 'value' of an idea,
before it becomes an ideology and 'fixed' in
its definition, is that it is possible that a 'martyr'
in another culture could, in essence, become
similar in meaning, given circumstance that
bridges worlds, views. at least, this is what is
guessed is why it is so clearly understood in
terms of the words, even if different culturally,
that there is a commonality. only that, in this
case the definition would seem to be one of
a similarly dual mindset, that somehow all of
the complexities may be resolved, somehow.
yet it is not one view or another, maybe both,
maybe only understood in a very private way
what the depth of the truth of it means, yet to
consider peoples, buildings, the arts, ideas
in this sense is what makes it seem still to be
possible to find a way through these times.
architecture, design, language, music, arts,
writing, poetry, dissent, witnessing a shared
or unshared strife, it seems more and more
that as much as xenophobia is the rule of a
group-dynamics, that still people are more
alike than different. and even the worst of
plights and conflicts may still be resolved-
looking at Libya's past (archaeological/
architectural) in the online news was a way
to 'discover' the past, yet also realize a cost
to the fascination with ruins, that there was
a reason and a story that may have also had
a great brutality or may be part of a cultural
configuration we are living with today, the
choices made by predecessors centuries
if not millennia before. and yet, aesthetically
it is to see what were roman ruins i think, or
the types of buildings associated with their
city-building types, and to think that opening
up these connections may bring into today's
world more knowledge about ourselves as
people (not just western but the story of how
everything relates, is tied together, created
and composed through some combustion
of cultural forces). and, maybe the stories
of a time when one could travel between a
large swatch of humanity, of cultures, not
in some pure state of non-risk, but that there
was also a basis or something in common.
i could have sworn that there was such a
time, maybe in every city/nation/state of
civilization, yet now it seems that these are
unbounded by technological advances and
maybe another future awaits in which what is
now out of balance so much so that it is to
threaten everyone, could be readjusted for
a better future for everyone, i don't know how.
though it is something i almost need to believe.
it is hard to take a position as static and then
to deal with the individual point of view in a
complex world, where silence may be all that
is shown of other perspectives, due to one or
another of many reasons that remain unsaid.
in the .US we have some serious problems of
those in the religious-right fundamentalist camp
who threatened to blow up the State Department
with a nuclear bomb. guess who? tele-evangelist.
and, friend of the current .US president, no less.
they do not get locked up for life. they get a TV
station, and a church, and deliver votes, money.
it is hard to imagine that it is not under some kind
of serious consideration that, given where things
are at today, someone could have been given
plenty of warning, day after day, of impending
doom, yet because of the way of thinking, being
rewarded for choosing sides, choosing beliefs,
for a private world view which is reflected in the
.US stance in the .UN right now, with security-
council issues, could choose-not-to-consider or
just plain ignore things that are unnecessary to
have to consider, should all go as planned, which
a lived life has a way of not doing, par excellence.
that is, what is the likelihood that one could be
given a note everyday, or told something, yet if
the paragon of standardized testing, it may not
fall within the multiple-choices and be left out of
consideration as an option? only someone who
would be privileged enough to be this way, who
did not achieve their place through the means
necessary to occupy the position, with integrity
needed to make independent decisions based
on independent thought and consideration and
some, hopefully, continued though beyond the
notes, day in and day out, day after day, that they
may add-up-to-something over a period of time,
which would seem to be inherent in knowledge-
building, or comprehension or something. well,
for the first time it seemed possible that it may
be possible that another person could easily
have _interpreted_ the data sequenced in a
very different way and came to a different kind
of conclusion. the test, for President Bush, is
that it was never 'spelled out' that on Sept. 11th
there would be airplanes hitting the WTC and
the Pentagon. And, anything _less_ than that
would not have helped him decide to deal with
the situation differently. He did his best it seems.
Yet, if it is not the literal event that is the result
of cognition but the piecing together of puzzles
that, in the process, one learns things and that
these can help inform decisions-- that prior to
the event, with each one of those memos------
it is possible there was plenty enough of such
data as to offer substance to make decisions
that were never made, never considered to be
made, and now are 'in the past' as foregone
inevitabilities, 3,000 dead due to catastrophic
failure yet which is spun as a Patriotic Victory.
it seems very far away from that 'common sense'
and it is sometimes hoped others may also have
a sense of this, here and also afar, that one is
not alone in noticing these things and even to
recognize the insurmountable situation unless
these things can be brought back to the earth.
into the shared realities, so to be balanced out.
i hope what is common, in architecture, in arts,
in people, is brought back into a societal value
which does not ignore the similarity of people,
even if historically there are problems, it is also
possible that better days could also be ahead.
though that would take a lot more work by many
more people. maybe recognizing some things,
giving up predispositions to gain new kinds of
knowledge. maybe even, someday, friendships.
...if only the .US administration would stop lying.
--
The Design-L list for art and architecture, since 1992...
To subscribe, send mailto:design-l-subscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
To signoff, send mailto:design-l-unsubscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
Visit archives: http://lists.psu.edu/archives/design-l.html
going back through the stories of developments
of different cultures (western european/northern
american in this case) to where 'private' aspects
converge. though i do not know much at all about
how it all fits together, it seems to involve various
key aspects, such as language, music, religion,
architecture, science (this is a guess, maybe a
worldview, or a cultural system or order)... and,
so it is where i recently saw a graph of languages
which converged in one of their branches on the
Greek and Roman, and this brought to mind the
'roman' Catholic and 'greek' Orthodox Christian
churches, something i do not understand much
at all, why this happened nor its significance. yet
it would seem that prior to this, at the intersection
there is a connection between 'eastern' or 'middle-
or near-eastern' and other cultures, and 'western'.
or, there would appear to be crossovers between
the worldviews that could be in a tough situation
right now, in how to relate to one another, though
hopefully even thrive in something shared, some-
thing different. i do not know if 'religion' covers it,
though geographic distribution seems to be a way
to see how the world is everywhere in one time.
the idea of the role of a martyr may have brought
this back into consideration, as at first i thought
it was something totally different between cultures
or views or senses, or accepted that as a given.
though looked the word up in a dictionary, of
which there were several definitions. and while
a lot of them had to do with one approach to the
role of a martyr, the one that i related to from my
own experience was that it was not connected,
by default, with a violent retribution but can still
retain the truth of struggle and in that, a power
of truth or something of significance or somehow
that it is not pre-defined but up for interpretation.
recent events are so disturbing, even moreso, as
it is hard to continue a detachment when there is
an honest to goodness plea for recognition of the
situation faced, in however paradoxical, complex
a situation can be. still, people are human beings
and to hear how hearts are in such great pain, to
know from experience or to believe so enough
to imagine what it must be like, the pressure, it is
an impossible state to reason within, especially
if it is not possible due to circumstances created.
the part which made sense to me about martyr
definitions is also that which connected back to
the idea of cultures are related, fellow beings in
the world voice a situation and in the old views,
one chooses a side. this is what 'terrorists' are
able to exploit, it is a fault in the logical system,
which leaves out a lot of facts in order to keep a
very simplistic, power-based (not truth-based)
ideology in motion- the fuel being believers that
it is the best way or even a good way to get at
the issues. the differentiating line would appear
to be, however unpopular it is to believe there
are truly people who are no longer questioning
whether or not they want pure destruction but
are planning for it and to take this into account,
versus those who may have some interests on
the earth, left to live for, to fulfill in some way,
maybe a dream, a hope, something. well, in a
similar sense, that is why the past is almost like
a dream in terms of its beauty, its richness in
that people may have been able to co-exist at
some times, in some ways, to bridge the gaps
that now are at the breaking point. there is a
symbol dictionary image of 'crosses' which is
telling in that there are dozens of types of a
cross. there is a 'greek' cross, a papal cross
(i think, if memory serves), maybe even there
are customized crosses for saints and such.
in a more secular sense, this cultural symbol
has for a long time seemed related to 'boat
masts' whether that is actually the case, i do
not know. yet in the world of publicness, it is
instead of having cross symbols all over the
planet, say, like electrical distribution poles-
it would be to have early boat technology of
Egypt and Pacific peoples and the wooden
masts, placed into the ground as sculptures
or some objects, in relation to one another.
I saw some of Whistler's etchings and it made
me think of this- of all the different types of an
idea and how they vary and yet are similar.
kind of like human beings.
think, i think to myself, of being in a situation
so unbearable that the best future one has is
to sacrifice oneself for the greater good in a
horrific proposition of choosing death for life.
meaning, that this is a starting point for change.
makes one wonder about people who can take
a ski trip or vacation, or go to college afar, yet
there are those can never contemplate these
things, for the foreseeable future maybe even.
there was this aspect of martyrdom that made
sense in this respect, that while their may be
this aspect of violence or something less than
'pure' about survival (of everyone who lives),
it would seem that the dignity of what may be
a moderation or balancing or weighing of the
complexities of situations, however so, to keep
in account larger goals, that the immediacy of
annihilation may find balance with a hope for
the future. it was clear though now my mind
is all frozen in some disconcerted uneasiness,
is that to triumph the martyrdom in one way is,
potentially, to lessen the truth of the situation,
possibly, in that there is something morally of
significance that all recognize (except, without
exception of course, the .US) that sometimes
one has chosen one interpretation, in advance,
of a situation, and may not be the fairest judge.
the part which offered a bit of hope, at least for
a moment, was that like the 'value' of an idea,
before it becomes an ideology and 'fixed' in
its definition, is that it is possible that a 'martyr'
in another culture could, in essence, become
similar in meaning, given circumstance that
bridges worlds, views. at least, this is what is
guessed is why it is so clearly understood in
terms of the words, even if different culturally,
that there is a commonality. only that, in this
case the definition would seem to be one of
a similarly dual mindset, that somehow all of
the complexities may be resolved, somehow.
yet it is not one view or another, maybe both,
maybe only understood in a very private way
what the depth of the truth of it means, yet to
consider peoples, buildings, the arts, ideas
in this sense is what makes it seem still to be
possible to find a way through these times.
architecture, design, language, music, arts,
writing, poetry, dissent, witnessing a shared
or unshared strife, it seems more and more
that as much as xenophobia is the rule of a
group-dynamics, that still people are more
alike than different. and even the worst of
plights and conflicts may still be resolved-
looking at Libya's past (archaeological/
architectural) in the online news was a way
to 'discover' the past, yet also realize a cost
to the fascination with ruins, that there was
a reason and a story that may have also had
a great brutality or may be part of a cultural
configuration we are living with today, the
choices made by predecessors centuries
if not millennia before. and yet, aesthetically
it is to see what were roman ruins i think, or
the types of buildings associated with their
city-building types, and to think that opening
up these connections may bring into today's
world more knowledge about ourselves as
people (not just western but the story of how
everything relates, is tied together, created
and composed through some combustion
of cultural forces). and, maybe the stories
of a time when one could travel between a
large swatch of humanity, of cultures, not
in some pure state of non-risk, but that there
was also a basis or something in common.
i could have sworn that there was such a
time, maybe in every city/nation/state of
civilization, yet now it seems that these are
unbounded by technological advances and
maybe another future awaits in which what is
now out of balance so much so that it is to
threaten everyone, could be readjusted for
a better future for everyone, i don't know how.
though it is something i almost need to believe.
it is hard to take a position as static and then
to deal with the individual point of view in a
complex world, where silence may be all that
is shown of other perspectives, due to one or
another of many reasons that remain unsaid.
in the .US we have some serious problems of
those in the religious-right fundamentalist camp
who threatened to blow up the State Department
with a nuclear bomb. guess who? tele-evangelist.
and, friend of the current .US president, no less.
they do not get locked up for life. they get a TV
station, and a church, and deliver votes, money.
it is hard to imagine that it is not under some kind
of serious consideration that, given where things
are at today, someone could have been given
plenty of warning, day after day, of impending
doom, yet because of the way of thinking, being
rewarded for choosing sides, choosing beliefs,
for a private world view which is reflected in the
.US stance in the .UN right now, with security-
council issues, could choose-not-to-consider or
just plain ignore things that are unnecessary to
have to consider, should all go as planned, which
a lived life has a way of not doing, par excellence.
that is, what is the likelihood that one could be
given a note everyday, or told something, yet if
the paragon of standardized testing, it may not
fall within the multiple-choices and be left out of
consideration as an option? only someone who
would be privileged enough to be this way, who
did not achieve their place through the means
necessary to occupy the position, with integrity
needed to make independent decisions based
on independent thought and consideration and
some, hopefully, continued though beyond the
notes, day in and day out, day after day, that they
may add-up-to-something over a period of time,
which would seem to be inherent in knowledge-
building, or comprehension or something. well,
for the first time it seemed possible that it may
be possible that another person could easily
have _interpreted_ the data sequenced in a
very different way and came to a different kind
of conclusion. the test, for President Bush, is
that it was never 'spelled out' that on Sept. 11th
there would be airplanes hitting the WTC and
the Pentagon. And, anything _less_ than that
would not have helped him decide to deal with
the situation differently. He did his best it seems.
Yet, if it is not the literal event that is the result
of cognition but the piecing together of puzzles
that, in the process, one learns things and that
these can help inform decisions-- that prior to
the event, with each one of those memos------
it is possible there was plenty enough of such
data as to offer substance to make decisions
that were never made, never considered to be
made, and now are 'in the past' as foregone
inevitabilities, 3,000 dead due to catastrophic
failure yet which is spun as a Patriotic Victory.
it seems very far away from that 'common sense'
and it is sometimes hoped others may also have
a sense of this, here and also afar, that one is
not alone in noticing these things and even to
recognize the insurmountable situation unless
these things can be brought back to the earth.
into the shared realities, so to be balanced out.
i hope what is common, in architecture, in arts,
in people, is brought back into a societal value
which does not ignore the similarity of people,
even if historically there are problems, it is also
possible that better days could also be ahead.
though that would take a lot more work by many
more people. maybe recognizing some things,
giving up predispositions to gain new kinds of
knowledge. maybe even, someday, friendships.
...if only the .US administration would stop lying.
--
The Design-L list for art and architecture, since 1992...
To subscribe, send mailto:design-l-subscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
To signoff, send mailto:design-l-unsubscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
Visit archives: http://lists.psu.edu/archives/design-l.html