I'm listening, BT. Please continue. This is fun!
I have to agree, carry on BT!
keith
Marv Friedenn wrote:BT contends that I arbitrarily impose a marxist/egalitarian interpretation on Lennie.
Marv Friedenn wrote:The general thrust of psychoanalytic theory is that while you may know something you don't want someone else to know, in the case where that someone else is you--that is, you know something you don't want to remind yourself that you know lest by revealing it to yourself you have to do something about it which will violently disrupt your life--you may look away from what you know and never look back, but all the while still know it. Repression is simply not acknowledging that you know and wanting to keep it that way. Everyone represses. Otherwise we'd all go haywire.
...
Artists, however, are capable of projecting the contents of their unconscious onto their art without being aware that they are doing it. For the unconscious content is encoded in feeling.
Marv Friedenn wrote:... the fact that the Lennie of the interviews and the Lennie remembered by Peter Ind are two very different people.
Marv Friedenn wrote:Reich was a radical psychologist, a student of Freud's ...
Marv Friedenn wrote:Call it psychic or call it crap, but the insights that moved Lennie and the indignation he must have felt at Reich's mistreatment, transferred to the music that moved and outraged me.
Still, BT may be right. What if the beauty of art arises from a kind of sublime detachment from the maelstrom of the world, whereby the artist stands aloof even from his own biography. BT then might argue with justice that the tunes Lennie entitled "Judy" and "Coolin' Off With Ulanov" have as litle to do with musical portraits of his wife and friend as the dedication in a book reflects the contents of the book.
Marv Friedenn wrote:Is BT arguing the Buddhist case for detachment from the world and I the marxist one for involvement in it?
Marv Friedenn wrote:If so, let me qualify at once. Marx goes wrong when he sacrifices private life to public life; and Buddha goes astray when he throws public life to the dogs.
(Response to BT's review of Sermon to be continued.)
Marv Friedenn wrote:BT is right about Fortune Worship (Second Chorus): it's the most important chapter in the book and, if not exactly unreadable, is at any rate a formidable challenge. It's the scientific part of the book where I apply fortune-worship analysis in a rigorous manner to a specific culture. For students of political science, cultural critique or comparative religion willing to brave the multiple citations from Livy, Ammianus, Appian and Plutarch, the reward is an opportunity to reevaluate mankind's first attempt to make sense of things; and as well the opportunity to determine whether or not it's time to guess again.
Marv Friedenn wrote: ... and as well the opportunity to determine whether or not it's time to guess again.
Marv Friedenn wrote: ... owing to the music itself, Lennie lends himself to being interpreted as a protest artist, even in the face of the evidence drawn from the interview where Lennie unequivocally declares himself against expressing aggression in art.
Marv Friedenn wrote:Infinity. The likelihood that space is infinite acts like a solvent for purging imagination of all conventional clutter, and leaves one as innocent and receptive to novelty as a newborn babe
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