False Dichotomies

"Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom or philosophy." - Ludwig von Beethoven
Once in another life I acquired a t-shirt for the main purpose of vexing someone whom I wished to vex. Many, many years later, and much worn, it still reads quite clearly. Beethoven is one of my favourite composers, and I was delighted at its defiant proclamation of sense over reason. When my dad read it, his comment was simple: the quotation creates a false dichotomoy between knowing through reason (philosophy) and knowing through the sensed (art). I admitted, at the time begrudgingly, that he was right, and that at the very least philosophers need to accept that art teaches in many ways that reason cannot, and artists need to accept that their philosophies form their art. Well and good.
"The world of the fairy-story is that world which is opposed throughout to the world of rational truth." -Novalis.
I love George MacDonald, and was very excited to finally acquire and begin reading his Phantastes. In the beginning quotation, however, I stumbled upon this sentence and was troubled by it. Perhaps it is intended to mean that we cannot be bound by the rules of the natural world when entering "Faerie"(Tolkien), that we must leave behind our preconceptions and expectations of normal cause-effect, even. Well and good to this, as well. I would like to think that. But it doesn't say that, quite. It says rational truth. Perhaps it is using a dangerous word, or perhaps the translator mis-chose (although I question that: When those Germans go wrong, they get *really* nutty). This seems to me to be once again setting up a false dichotomy. Art is not its own truth; Faerie is not its own truth, and to leave behind the world of truth when entering the world of art is to enter the world of lies. A work of art can depart from the world of literal truth, but not from the world of moral truth: one could even say it must do the former and must not do the latter.
off the cuff, I would say that this continued and insistent dichotomy is the work of arrogance. Find the humble artist, the humble philosopher, the humble scientest, and you have found truth and goodness and beauty--or at least the way there.

Regarding Honesty

i have been editing my husband's dissertation, which examines St. Thomas's account of the virtues and applies them to just war theory (he is political philosophy). on reading his account of honesty, an annex of fortitude, i was a bit awed to read that honesty is the virtue that is in relation to beauty; that is, the honest man is he who is able to apprehend what truly is beautiful.
i do not have distinct or profound meditations on this, and i do not think i need to provide you with my own. i would like to leave you with this thought and let you come to your own conclusions and have your own contemplations on it. consider how a synonym for "honesty" is "integrity," for instance. consider the meaning of "integrity"--not just moral integrity, but for a thing or being to have integrity. consider how much that is supposed to be "beautiful"--"full of beauty"--how much painting sketching drawing, how much music song rhythm, how much supposed art, lacks fundamental, basic, objective integrity. consider how modern art, in fact, seeks to glory in the deliberate destruction of integrity--of honesty--and so, therefore, by default cannot be beautiful, and therefore cannot be art.
consider how we have, now, several generations formed by this perverted media (i shall not honor it with "art"), and so we have a whole nation that has a fundamentally distorted understanding of beauty, and how we are urged to contemplate what is abhorrent and abherrent, and revel in it lest we be thought unsophisticated or intolerant. sophistry indeed . . .
and that is as far as i go. consider your own contemplations as inspired by different genres of media, even art, and respond, if you dare.

Tolkien and Manhood

Someday, that mythical day when I have time, energy, and focus, I would like very much to write an article on Tolkien's idea of heroism. While The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, of course, show heros being successful at seemingly hopeless tasks, many if not most of his other tales are of men (and sometimes women) embarking on truly hopeless tasks, fighting the darkness when it cannot be overcome, of sacrificing everything for a cause already lost. What, then, is the difference between heroism and foolishness? Can an action be both? I don't know, and I will have to spend many more moons pondering this question.
In the meantime, though . . . I am not a fan of Hugh Jackson's movies. In fact, parts of them make me so angry that I am sorely tempted to throw things at the screen. One of the main reasons for this is because Jackson consistently undermines Tolkien's entire conception of what manhood is, what it means to be a man and a leader and a king. Elrond, the wise half-elven tried by battle, length of years, and sorrow upon sorrow, yet still with hope and wisdom and gentleness and light, becomes an angry, bitter, cruel father. And Faramir, that beautiful, wise, grave, gentle, learned warrior, with a strong and true heart, becomes a angst-ridden figure nearly giving in to temptations that, in Tolkien's portrayal, do not exist. Even Denethor, once wise and become overwhelmed by real trials, becomes merely heartless, with none of the anguish that Tolkien gives to him.
And is this not a problem overall? Have we not lost the conception of what a true man is? I take it as no coincidence that any man who loves beauty automatically is in danger of being labelled "homosexual"--as if loving beauty were not a mark of a real man! This ubiquitous division of the lover and the fighter, the artist and the sportsmen, the scholar and the soldier, has done incalculable damage to our men.
Here, then, is another task for a mother: to ensure that my sons know they can be both, to guide them to a path where they can be men without fear or shame.

on beauty

To what serves moral beauty '-dangerous; does set dancing blood - the O-seal-that-so ' feature, flung prouder form
Than Purcell tune lets tread to? 'See: it does this: keeps warm
Men's wits to the things that are; 'what good means-where a glance
Master more may than gaze 'gaze out of countenance.
Those lovely lads once, wet-fresh 'windfalls of war's storm,
How then should Gregory, a fater, 'have gleaned else from swarm-
ed Rome? But God a nation 'dealt that day's dear chance.
To man, that needs would worship 'block or barren stone,
Our law says: Love what are 'love's worthiest, were all known;
What do then? how meet beauty? 'Merely meet it; own
Home at heart, heaven's sweet gift; 'then leave, let that alone.
Yea, wish that though, wish all, 'God's better beauty, grace.


-Hopkins