Your Email:

Subject:

Message:
Entry: A Worthwhile Book Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/a_worthwhile_book#15065 Post contents: Piatak is right in asserting Prof. Gottfried asks an important question. I'm not fully convinced that it is a case of the "communal context no longer existing". The communal context is alive and well in the U.S.. In fact there is a kind of balkanized tyranny of the communal context and the detestable Political Correct cadres are proof enough of this. Lamenting the loss of traditional community is less important to the debate than is an understanding of the real nemesis :our surrender to the simulacrum of community that has been foisted on us by a mainstream media and entertainment that is , at heart, only a vicarious agora. A lot of this comes to us "free" on radio and TV and it is worth less than it costs. This collective grab ass is accepted as our "culture" despite near universal contempt for it (sure , it is watched but it is watched as much to mine contempt and expectant angst as it is to inspire awe). One thing you can bet your bottom dollar on (no sub-prime pun intended) is that the classical, in music, learning, art, poetry, architecture AND Religion will remain long after this interlude of loud convenience has passed. Change is hoped for, comes in spades and is therefor inflated before crashing. While it is interesting and entertaining to confront the music of Harry Partch say or the deconstructionist architecture of Frank Gehry, it can only be done with a suspension of one's informed instinct that it is far more moving to listen to , say Musique Byzantine by the Lycourgos Angeloppoulos Et Le Choeur Byzantin De Grace on the one hand or Beethovens Seventh on the other or a passionate jam by Miles Davis or lament by Coltrane on the other. The mania for deconstructionist architecture, like deconstructionist music will pass once people recall their love of being moved in the classical sublime as opposed to the fleeting excitements of the stridently different. We've surrendered an unfortunately large portion of our consciousness to the "stridently different" and it will no doubt inform the classical in the years to come but we have not yet lost our literacy in things classical or communal. After all, it is not required, in people attuned to insight and who possess fresh eyes, that the "modern" or defiantly different be either shunned or feared because the classical has attained it's lofty status for good reason. Even crazed punks are moved by a poetic Leonard Cohen lyric or the Goldberg variations played by Glen Gould Just because the idiots fest of current popular culture seems to prevail in it's house organ, the modern Media and entertainment industry, does not mean classical art or religious "truths" are lost to us. They clearly are not. Somehow, we must find a way to breach the rampart of noise surrounding popular culture. Perhaps we need to adopt the modes of the enemy....equalize the rules of engagement. It may be a little idiotic to say we could do this by sending out some skateboarding punk Jesuits or Derida toting Nuns but there is some merit in embracing the noise and what the noise surounds, in oder to re-capture the intellect of this thoroughly besieged generation....a generation inundated by a noisy emptiness. The classical is not lost, it's staggering impact is just diminished by the noise and we simply have to find a way to cut through that noise better than we have. If anything, this current sad plaint for "change" is the best illustration yet that change has been over-rated. At least change for change sake. After all, one needs a grounding in classical modes of thinking to actually sense change when and if it actually occurs. Change and modernity have had a great run but if my chicken entrails are correct, the parody is not going unnoticed.....finally. Sent at: 2009 01 07