Alison Croggon wrote:
>I've not read Ruskin, though he's on my list (which is very long).
>
>
You should definitely read at least the 1st part of this short book -
about 50 pages with inimitable rhythm & atmosphere.
>It's hard to think of aesthetic creation without considering myth making.
>And if you take aesthetic experience seriously, then you probably, at some
>level, take myth seriously. Well, I do, anyway. It's certainly, in its
>cruder manifestations, very potent - the blood and earth stuff of Fascist
>Germany or the Apocalyptic triumphalism of contemporary America being
>another. You can;t separate that potency from its less malignant
>manifestations; perhaps you could argue that it is a corruption of what myth
>is "supposed" to be, by transposing it into the literal, public sphere. But
>if you take myth seriously, as illuminatory symbols or metaphors about human
>existence, which can be liberating or empowering, then that probably
>includes the bad as well as the good. Really, I suppose, I think that myth
>at its most interesting is a way of dealing with the contradictory and
>paradoxical, that which cannot be resolved by reason; but that does not make
>it necessarily reasonless. The frightening thing about Nazi Germany was the
>way it channelled violent social irrationalities (anti-Semitism, say); but
>that was channelled with enormous political intelligence.
>
>I'm not sure that I'd be so unsanguine though about myth being rendered
>inaccessible through commercialisation. Yes, there's a lot of trash out
>there, but under the cover of genre there's a lot of interesting and
>intelligent stuff.
>
>
I agree with most of this, but don't consider American soteriological
triumphalism as particularly mythical - unlike myth it cannot tolerate
ambivalence or complexity.
I don't think books quite fit in with my rant - I'm sure there has
always been slush as well as vital tale-telling at all times. BBC radio
as was in my youth appears to me as an mysterious oasis of story & wit -
maybe I'm just an old fogey, but it does seem to me the main thing about
TV is its addictiveness. And I have watched a lot in my time.
mjay
--
M.J.Walker - no blog - no webpage - no idea
Nous ne faisons que nous entregloser. - Montaigne
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