Jun 18, 2023·edited Jun 18, 2023Liked by James Beaman
If I may presume ... I am thinking of an essay of yours recounting a traumatic, unjust and isolating experience you underwent at the hands of your fellow actors. I remember feeling shook up after reading it. I thought, "Wait. Artists, when they sit down to write, paint, sing, read for a part, practice their instrument, stop being, for a moment, Male or Female, Black or Brown or White or Asian, Gay or Straight. They take wing into the Imagination, they partake of Art, the act of sharing in God's creation; the gift of Art, unlike hunting or math, that allows us to imagine, to be anything, to chase truth through fancy and play; Art is an aperture that lets us not take life so damn literally. That artists are shoveling this gift back into the dirt chimes with the foreboding you write about here.
Terrifying, Jamie. Bravo to you for writing so boldly and courageously about the forces that could destroy us. This is indeed a scary time in our country and we all need to stay alert and speak out.
The appendix that Orwell included in Nineteen Eighty-Four explained how 'Newspeak' worked to limit thought and outlaw criticism. I know it is a novel that is possibly over-mined for quotations but taken in its entirety, you have the Ministry of Truth updating history in real time, The Ministry of Peace (War) etc.. government organisations that are described by their opposites. The Thought Police not only prevent the expression of unapproved opinions, their aim is to remove the ability to even think them. Revealing then that the post modernists went after language as a means to create reality. It' as if they read Orwell and thought it was a good blueprint. We can stop history repeating James but it is going to be a long slog. Timely post.
Thanks Michael-- I think it will be a long slog... it's my hope that Americans at least will be true to their capitalistic nature and stop paying people to destroy the culture.
Thanks James. I understand the capitalist connection you are making but I don't see it as a solution. I don't agree with people on the left who blame unrelated issues on capitalism either.
The problem in Washington, in the European parliament and increasingly in the UK too, is that wealthy lobbyists have a disproportionate influence on policy development. It is true that the resulting policies may influence the way tax dollars are spent but the drive for that may come from 'capitalists' or, non-profits with large war chests. The anti-democratic outcome is the same regardless of who does it and we can get to authoritarianism via the extreme left or right. Orwell was warning us about both.
I think we wold agree that Western culture is under threat from the inside, and sure, post-structuralism shares some common roots with Marxism in its critique of power dynamics. Yet it is not Marxism and I think there is a real danger in not recognising that fact. It is a confusion that can only serve the interests of authoritarians anywhere on the political spectrum. It is about deconstructing everything and starting again with new axioms, which is what Newspeak set out to do, and as with Nineteen-Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, it can come at us from the right or the left. Re-establishing objective truth should be a shared aim across all political persuasions and I think that has to be something we reach agreement on first. Easier said than done of course.
Excellent and yes history often rhymes but seldom repeats.
In this 75th anniversary year of the Crucible, again set in an era when people were forced to go along with certain beliefs (in that case Salem during the witch trials), it is the rise of the totalitarian viewpoint which is worrying. Let me be clear -- it is perfectly fine to have that mindset, it is simply that I don't think it wise to allow such people to have the actual power.
As Natalie Latham pointed out when she founded Common Cause (1947), democracy requires the most from its citizens. Common Cause was envisioned as a moderate anti-Communist organisation. Latham had founded Bundles for Britain which was one of the most beloved and most successful of the humanitarian efforts during the early part of WW2. Its counterpart Bundles for America (started after the US entered the war properly) ends up being enfolded into the UN Refugee Council.
If I may presume ... I am thinking of an essay of yours recounting a traumatic, unjust and isolating experience you underwent at the hands of your fellow actors. I remember feeling shook up after reading it. I thought, "Wait. Artists, when they sit down to write, paint, sing, read for a part, practice their instrument, stop being, for a moment, Male or Female, Black or Brown or White or Asian, Gay or Straight. They take wing into the Imagination, they partake of Art, the act of sharing in God's creation; the gift of Art, unlike hunting or math, that allows us to imagine, to be anything, to chase truth through fancy and play; Art is an aperture that lets us not take life so damn literally. That artists are shoveling this gift back into the dirt chimes with the foreboding you write about here.
Terrifying, Jamie. Bravo to you for writing so boldly and courageously about the forces that could destroy us. This is indeed a scary time in our country and we all need to stay alert and speak out.
Thank you for your courage and your wisdom.
The appendix that Orwell included in Nineteen Eighty-Four explained how 'Newspeak' worked to limit thought and outlaw criticism. I know it is a novel that is possibly over-mined for quotations but taken in its entirety, you have the Ministry of Truth updating history in real time, The Ministry of Peace (War) etc.. government organisations that are described by their opposites. The Thought Police not only prevent the expression of unapproved opinions, their aim is to remove the ability to even think them. Revealing then that the post modernists went after language as a means to create reality. It' as if they read Orwell and thought it was a good blueprint. We can stop history repeating James but it is going to be a long slog. Timely post.
Thanks Michael-- I think it will be a long slog... it's my hope that Americans at least will be true to their capitalistic nature and stop paying people to destroy the culture.
Thanks James. I understand the capitalist connection you are making but I don't see it as a solution. I don't agree with people on the left who blame unrelated issues on capitalism either.
The problem in Washington, in the European parliament and increasingly in the UK too, is that wealthy lobbyists have a disproportionate influence on policy development. It is true that the resulting policies may influence the way tax dollars are spent but the drive for that may come from 'capitalists' or, non-profits with large war chests. The anti-democratic outcome is the same regardless of who does it and we can get to authoritarianism via the extreme left or right. Orwell was warning us about both.
I think we wold agree that Western culture is under threat from the inside, and sure, post-structuralism shares some common roots with Marxism in its critique of power dynamics. Yet it is not Marxism and I think there is a real danger in not recognising that fact. It is a confusion that can only serve the interests of authoritarians anywhere on the political spectrum. It is about deconstructing everything and starting again with new axioms, which is what Newspeak set out to do, and as with Nineteen-Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, it can come at us from the right or the left. Re-establishing objective truth should be a shared aim across all political persuasions and I think that has to be something we reach agreement on first. Easier said than done of course.
Jimmy Stewart is my favorite actor from that era, and I had no idea this film existed. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.
Excellent and yes history often rhymes but seldom repeats.
In this 75th anniversary year of the Crucible, again set in an era when people were forced to go along with certain beliefs (in that case Salem during the witch trials), it is the rise of the totalitarian viewpoint which is worrying. Let me be clear -- it is perfectly fine to have that mindset, it is simply that I don't think it wise to allow such people to have the actual power.
As Natalie Latham pointed out when she founded Common Cause (1947), democracy requires the most from its citizens. Common Cause was envisioned as a moderate anti-Communist organisation. Latham had founded Bundles for Britain which was one of the most beloved and most successful of the humanitarian efforts during the early part of WW2. Its counterpart Bundles for America (started after the US entered the war properly) ends up being enfolded into the UN Refugee Council.