Philosophy Now Forum

Currently I am reading ''The Creators'' by Daniel Boorstin...
and right now, he is talking about the great tales written
in the early modern era... like for example, Gargantua,
or Pantagruel, or even that classic of literature, Don Quixote....

tales of whimsy and of traveling the globe, of attacking windmills,
but no mention of our modern concerns, profits, fame, material
possessions, titles, and power.....these medieval/modern books were
written for fun and entertainment and also attacking current institutions
like the church and state, which was one, at the time...

and compare these tales with our own modern tales... which lack
a sense of fun and romance and whimsy... so serious and lacking
any subtilty or wit...the two top fiction novels on the NY times
bestselling list, (I had to look them up) was ''The Women''
and ''The Familiar''... ''The Women'' is about a nurse during the
Vietnam war and ''The Familiar'' is a fantasy novel.... with the
hero being in constant threat....and not a light touch in either book...
or other bestselling fiction books of our time... the ''Harry Potter'' series,
and the bestselling fiction novels in the last 10 years was the ''Fifty Shades''
series... again, not a particular light touch...
and according to Publisher weekly, from 2004 to 2021, the other books
that sold extremely well, was the Dr. Suess series...
is that where we are at, when to get whimsy or fun, we have to go to
a children's book?

If novels explain the current times, then what do our novels tell us about
ourselves? Are not novels simply a projection of where we are at,
in how we think about ourselves and our place in the universe?

but Kropotkin, shouldn't you be using TV as a better choice in
thinking about where we are, as a people? and the current
series that has everybody's attention is ''Shogun"... (as it has mine)
''Shogun'' has no light moments or any type of whimsy, but it has
romance, almost as good, right? it has obvious good and obviously
bad/evil people... and maybe that's enough for one to build
a history or a memory on..... or even a book on....

for that is the basis of most of our literature, movies, music,
plays, and yes, novels... the eternal struggle between good and evil...
for example, the best James Bond movies are the ones with the best
villains... a weak villain means a weak movie...and with most
media, there is a strong emphasis on creating a clear and obvious
hero and villain....it is quite obvious in the ''Harry Potter'' series...
but then we get someone like Snape.... hero and villain...
and until the end, we are sure which one he was, until he wasn't...
this is the modern touch to the hero/villain story... the anti-hero....
is the Clint Eastwood "Man with no name'' a hero or villain?
Snake Plissken in the ""Escape from New York'' movie, a hero or
a villain?
and this is a decidedly modern touch to the age old story of good vs evil...

but this is one of the defining features of modern age... the ambiguity of
our actions and values... being good sometime requires us to act ''evil''
and some ''evil'' persons actually do good in their evil actions....

the world is not black and white... but shades of gray....

the novels and media of the past, there was a clear, dividing line
between good and evil, one that doesn't exist today....
no matter how hard we try to create a dividing line between
good and evil....

and to bring another point to bear, what novels or works of fiction,
do as the tales of yesteryear did, which was attack the institutions
of the times? attacking them with humor and wit and a grace that
that is sorely lacking in our day and age....

Kropotkin, sounds like you are waxing nostalgia for the old times...
no, I am fully aware of the many issues of the ''golden past'' unlike
conservatives today.... who paint the past as an ''golden time''
to exist in.... spoiler alert, it wasn't.... and given a choice of living
in the ''yesteryear'' or today, I would choose today... no question....
but to give us context, we have to explore the past and understand
what they were about and the differences between them and us....
and exploring literature is one way to do this...

Kropotkin

Conservatism means to conserve good, and to not conserve evil.
Radicalism means to destroy evil, and to not destroy good.

No matter the age
No matter the time
Does that chiaroscuro
Blur the line?

Walker wrote: ↑Fri Apr 19, 2024 9:38 am Conservatism means to conserve good, and to not conserve evil.
Radicalism means to destroy evil, and to not destroy good.

No matter the age
No matter the time
Does that chiaroscuro
Blur the line?

K: I had to look up what ''chiaroscuro'' meant...it means a strong
contrast between light and dark, usually, bold contrasts affecting
a whole composition....

and the light referred to here seems to be good and the dark being
the evil... and yet, can we tell for sure that something is either
good or evil? how can we be sure?

conservatives today, hold the Christian values as being good,
and non-Christian values to be evil....but in a curious way,
not Catholic specifically, but Protestant... the large mega churches
in America today are not Catholic, but Protestant... but in any case,
how are we to know which values are the ''good'' values? those
that seem to be supported by god...and ''evil'' values seem to
be opposed to god's values.... and that is Jim and dandy, but
the problem today is people cherry picking what god seems
to support and cherry picking what he doesn't....

given some of the tales in the bible, god seems to support incest...
and mass murder and violence... but other parts of the bible seem to
support peace and love and charity..... now, which parts of the bible
are we to follow? and the Enlightenment period was all about this
contradictions within the bible and the entire church....
some writers in the bible wrote certain things and other writers
flat our contradicted these things... the New Testament seems to
contradict the Old Testament...Jesus in the New Testament was
about love and the god of the Old Testament was not about love....
the two had quite different messages... having read the bible many
times, I seem to align myself with the Old Testament, much more
than the New...

But Kropotkin, you have said many times, you are an Atheist...
I am, but that doesn't mean I can't align myself with certain aspects
of the bible...

the faith of the Old Testament seems to me anyway, as being
firmer, more real than the faith of the New Testament....
the faith of Jacob to wrestle with god is more to my liking than
the faith of Jesus....David too, also wrestle with god....

the problem I have with modern religion, among many such problems,
is that no cares enough to wrestle with god over questions of faith...
what is good and what is evil are simply nothing more than words to us
modern human beings... shadows on the wall with no real meaning or
understanding... is murder actually evil? that depends on the
circumstances, the situation.... and that kids, is situational ethics...

a soldier in war gets a medal and a parade when he murders and
a cop can get medal for his murdering of others... and others, not
so much.... abortion is defined as murder, but other acts of murder
such a capital punishment are not considered to be murder, and yet it is...
the legality seems to come from our definition, not from the actual
practice... and as with everything, context is the difference maker
in how we understand acts of violence and murder...and within context
the way we understand actions such a murder changes and how it is define,
changes too...thus we can think about good as being a thing in context
and evil as thing in context....how do we know something
is good or evil? context.......

as we practice situational ethics, even though we refuse to admit that,
concepts of good and evil are really just a practice of situational ethics....
and in thinking about this, I hold that the practice of abortion seems to me
anyway, is on the whole, essentially good...if, if we give it context to
the wider scheme of existence...
or at least explain to me how allowing children to starve to death,
as capitalism practices, is morally better than abortion?

what is good? what is evil? as far as I can tell, it lies in the eye
of the beholder....

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Thu Apr 18, 2024 4:53 pm

tales of whimsy and of traveling the globe, of attacking windmills,
but no mention of our modern concerns, profits, fame, material
possessions, titles, and power.....these medieval/modern books were
written for fun and entertainment and also attacking current institutions
like the church and state

And windmills.