Friday, February 27, 2009
Beautiful Antiquity
I am reading about the Sanskrit grammarians.
Panini came from Pushkalavati in Gandahar. Gandahar is in what is today called Pakistan, and Pushkalavati was on the Swat River, all part of that area of contention in proximity to Afghanistan.
In antiquity, this area was home to great culture.
It has been degraded into nothingness - a nothingness which has no currency but violence. This we all have done: Christian, Jew, and Muslim.
If the religions are instruments of destruction, what may one expect from the atheists?
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7 comments:
Hey Montag, how are you doing?
Well, I'm not sure that we should expect any better from the atheists, certainly, as this would seem like a morally and intellectually suspect approach to take and I would need to be persuaded that atheists should be held to a higher standard. But we are allowed, surely, to expect from the atheists just exactly those things we always expected from people who believe in (a) god (howsoever they choose to define this) or take their instructions from any of the great polyphonic mystery books? Namely, kindness, good sense, compassion, an aversion to violence of any kind, a loving relationship with the world at large and blah dee blah blah blah. You get the picture, anyway.
An upshot, certainly, of a godless morality, would be to erase those nagging doubts (talking personally here) that any acts of kindness or goodness that godly folk offer are seeped in an ultimate selfishness. They will be rewarded, it seems, for their overt displays of (a very basic) humanity - and I just wish they would do kindness for free.
It would also be a relief, I suppose, to be spared the anti-intellectual insights of those who claim to have insider knowledge of how the world must be run. Again, this is merely a personal gripe and I wouldn't dare to assume to talk for others (I'll leave that to the god guys - or those pious people, in any event, who take it upon themselves to hector us in forbidding tones about the mess we're making of our lives.)
And must things be taken down to a level whereby it's either or? Atheists, agnostics, Muslims, Jews, those who believe in what they feel to be true....well, it shouldn't lie outwith the scope of man to find a way to let all of us rub along together nicely. It baffles and depresses me that we don't.
Maybe all we can expect from atheists is a more coherent explanation for their multiple failings? Hard to say.
Hope that makes sense (bit of a rush, I'm afraid, as I have only limited time on the computer.)
Kind regards etc....
TPE
(Love your blog, by the way. Have been a fan since Anna MR introduced me to it - at gunpoint - many, many months ago. Possibly as long as a year ago, in fact. Either way - fan.)
Great.
According to the time-lines yesterday, you must have been writing this at the time I was reading your blog and contemplating writing to you.
Great minds and similar channels.
Beware of Anna MR. The word "gunpoint" reveals her discreet Stalinesque charm.
Once - like Stalin- we mused "How many divisions does the Pope...or Anna MR have?", only to discover she had many, indeed.
Your note is very clear.
I, however, do not see much from either camp: religious or atheist.
The atheists are filled with the idolatry of power.
The religious are filled likewise.
I do not wish to turn people to some sort of religiosity. No way. The religious air is foul with power and persuasion.
In my life I have learned that sooner or later one will see God face to face. It's usually a painful process, so try and get a leg up on it.
Thanks.
Hello Montag, I hope you're having a lovely day. Thanks for taking the time to respond.
Well no, for what it's worth, I've certainly never had that impression from you (that you wish to turn people to some sort of religiosity). Although, should you ever turn your mind to such a (wrong-headed?) venture, I have a feeling (based solely on your blog and the good air that seems to surround you) that you would do so in a far more appealing - and, by necessary extension, persuasive - manner than the kind of people I was referring to. But this is by the by.
I tend to feel (reasonably) similarly as regards atheists or the religious: a nagging sense of rather disgusted disappointment. (Rest easy, I always aim this nagging sense of disappointed disgust at myself, too - I'd be crazy not to.)
But this broader disappointment I feel, this distress and gathering unease, is a fairly inclusive and happy-clappy kind of (low-level) loathing. I've just about lost faith in everyone, really, which is why I tend not to bother to lump them into camps (religious or atheist amongst them) in these matters, as most people seem capable of being perfectly vile no matter the cut of their cloth. Hmm, sorry, that maybe sounds a wee bit depressing (not to mention unfair) - but these feelings persist.
The standout corollary, I suppose, is that everyone is equally capable of being beautiful. Quite why the people living in these increasingly inelegant times seem so obsessed with the ugly, then, is something that keeps me awake at night in the grip of a sad, queasy fear. I predict a riot.
("Ugly" here, I'm afraid, is just a very loose term for greed, instant gratification, throwaway violence, fame for the sake of fame.....oh, I don't know, to start such a list is maybe counterproductive and must always be needlingly subjective. But I'm sure you'll know more or less what I mean. And pleasingly enough, of course, there is room for different people to lament different things whilst wondering what on earth the other guy is doing lamenting that.)
Yes, thanks, I've had a leg up on god for just as long as I can remember, although I've never found a satisfactory definition for such a thing (as it may occasionally be held in my mind) in any book. And I'd be rather disappointed if I did, come to think of it.
Kind regards etc....
TPE
You are causing me to be profound rather than amusing. Ouch!
I shall only say that the society in which I live has been obsessed with the ugly for quite a long time. They have fawned over the ugly in the arts, in government, in business, in appearance ( e.g. the anorectic death's-head look ).
They have found beauty and a night's entertainment in the portrayal of gore and suffering, and they have found profound meaning in the ravings of a syphilitic de Sade.
They used their stories of the ugly to drive off the old stories:
Just in the realm of religion, Christian dominionists drive off the Sermon on the Mount, Zionists displace Moses and the Torah, Islamists spread a pall of know-nothingism across Islam.
Reality, however, will not support just any story. The ugly ones fall apart; the beautiful ones endure across the ages.
Now I shall go off to your place and see whether I can make a witty comment.
Ah, your blog is being held incommunicado.
Interesting.
I shall say that I am relieved that someone else experiences those reality-shift type things, where one thought one was speaking to a mechanic only to have them morph into a near relative.
I mean, I go around like Cosmo Topper, having things jump out at me and what-not, constantly calling out "George! Marion! Stop that!"
And today is Sunday...I am watching the sun rise, and it looks to be another one of those bloody Magritte Sundays!
Ha. I remember Magritte Sundays. In my case, however, they would usually follow on from a particularly Grosz Saturday night. A habit no longer apparent, thankfully, since my cessation of hostilities with alcohol (three and a half years and counting - every day is a lent-style day. Ouch.)
Hello again, how are you today? I'm sorry about the delay in getting back to you - I've been having some really taxing computer problems lately and my ability to visit blogs has been seriously curtailed (not necessarily a bad thing, you may very well feel like saying - but don't). My curious interventions here, in fact, represent the sum total of my output on other people's blogs this past wee while. Frightening.
Anyway, I'm just really here to say that I hope you're right: Reality, however, will not support just any story. The ugly ones fall apart; the beautiful ones endure across the ages....
This is a good thought, a beautiful thought, even, although I need to close out the din of anti-Semitism, say, in order to bolster my faith in it. If this whole business is a marathon, however, then I'll always be hopeful that beauty has a stronger pair of legs.
Also, I'm super sorry for dragging a profundity or two from you. A mistake, I never meant it to happen. Nobody likes to have to perform the rituals of profundity for the sake of a dull stranger whilst minding their own business in their very own home of a Sunday. Nobody. Rest easy, I just got lucky and I can't see it happening again.
(Although, come to think of it, I'm not sure that being profound and attempting to be funny need necessarily be mutually exclusive endeavours. I suppose it would depend on the way that you look at these things.)
Wait. One more thing: Islamists spread a pall of know-nothingism across Islam.
Yes, it's painful and maddening and depressing and your turn of phrase hit home quite sharply. Very nicely put.
Okay, I'll get out of your hair and give you some peace.
Beautiful to run into you, though. Only good things to you, Montag.
Kind regards etc....
TPE
Well done.
As memory fills in any number of Grosz drawings into the imaging areas of my mind, I realize what an appaling picture a Grosz Saturday night is.
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