Sunday, January 27, 2019
Principled Performances and Embodied Dissections
[T]he cultural place of narrative has been diminished...[to] that which separates art from life, which confines it to what is taken to be a separate and distinctive realm of art... The contrast, indeed the opposition, between art and life...provides a way of exempting art -including narrative - from it's moral task...[and]...protects us from any narrative understanding of ourselves. Yet such an understanding cannot be finally and completely expelled without expelling life itself... Arts, sciences, and games are taken to be work only for a minority of specialists: the rest of us may receive incidental benefits in our leisure time only as spectators or consumers. - Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (p 226-8).
Implication: being a consumer (or thus consumed) and a spectator (or thus a spectacle) are inherently and inextricably interwoven. By the same token, consumption and spectacle mask the embodied performance of an underlying narrative - though we typically think of consumer or spectator as belonging to a separate or distinctive realm from production or action.
Anatomical Head, by Pavel Tchelitchev, 1946
For many, the relationship between the above words and drawing will not stand alone or be readily apparent, so please allow me to explain a bit of what I'm getting at here. How do these words tie in with this drawing?
In the realm of science and knowledge, our abstracted, propositional, cognitively-driven, information-centered ways of knowing provide us with an illusion that our knowledge and its means is not embodied in the performance of an underlying narrative.
This piece illustrates the modern dissection of and distancing from the body in speculative thought; no one would ever know the information presented here nor think to present it in this way without such dissection and inextricably interwoven speculative distance from our very own bodies that "naturally" appear to us and are experienced by us in very different ways from how it appears and is experienced in this piece. The "natural" way is the living inside an embodied narrative, from which there really is no outside for speculation and distance.
By the same token, then, in this piece OF ART called "Anatomical Head" - precisely because there really is no outside of an embodied narrative of living - such distancing, speculation, and dissection IS embodied in the performance of the underlying narrative of modern science's distance from, dissection of, and speculative thought about our bodies.
We can apply a similar logic to economics and politics.
Our modern distancing from embodied performance of scripts or narratives provide us with the illusion that the mechanics of economics and governance roll along according to abstracted, scientific, propositional, informational principles, which we presume to be "of nature." With such presumptions, per the above, we impose a lot onto the "natural" state of humanity. We thus tend to react with surprise and shock when our political and economic machines seem to be infected with visceral, human elements where and when an underlying crafted and embodied narrative is being performed. The truth is, our consumerism and our politics are at least partially driven by visceral, embodied vicarious identification with various figures who play various roles in different political and economic narratives. So goes our consumerist participation and our political performances.
Being a consumer (or thus consumed) and a spectator (or thus a spectacle) are inherently and inextricably interwoven. By the same token, consumption and spectacle mask the embodied performance of an underlying narrative - - though we typically think of consumer or spectator as belonging to a separate or distinctive realm from production or action.
Trump is clearly full of shit and completely unprincipled and completely driven by the performance of a crafted narrative, and yet he emerges victorious. Multiple business leaders are outed for financial and sexual transgressions and respond with the performance of a crafted narrative precisely so that the economic machines can churn on unhindered.
So, why are we so surprised or shocked by such turns of events? Perhaps there's something else going on, something different from the illusion of abstracted principles we've come to expect. Perhaps there really is a moral task for embodied artistic narrative that we are ignoring in the name of an illusion of dissection of such embodied narrative into abstracted, mechanical, and disembodied principles.
To bring my point home a bit more, this illusion of speculative distance and disembodied dissection has us asking questions of truth as though they can be separated from action, just as MacIntyre noted that art gets separated from life. To have our very own humanity in view as we filter reality through that illusion, said illusion distorts our image of humanity and makes it difficult to ask the right questions about life. As we look to the authority of abstracted principles to answer questions about disembodied truths, we are no longer looking towards embodied persons living out the narratives of their lives. Said illusion of distance thus - in its distancing of ourselves from our own humanity - makes it more difficult to love.
Look at the drawing again. The story it tells is not one of love of neighbor. So, this difficulty of love is because disembodied dissection requires death and alienation, whereas the beginning and end of all embodied narratives is a life of love.
Of course, just as we applied the logic of the above artwork to MacIntyre's teachings, we can translate this understanding of the relationship between art or narrative and life through our ways and means of knowing, to our economics, and to our politics, to all areas of life, really. We are then able to find ourselves interested in questions of an economics of love, a politics of love, and a knowledge of love.
Implication: being a consumer (or thus consumed) and a spectator (or thus a spectacle) are inherently and inextricably interwoven. By the same token, consumption and spectacle mask the embodied performance of an underlying narrative - though we typically think of consumer or spectator as belonging to a separate or distinctive realm from production or action.
Anatomical Head, by Pavel Tchelitchev, 1946
For many, the relationship between the above words and drawing will not stand alone or be readily apparent, so please allow me to explain a bit of what I'm getting at here. How do these words tie in with this drawing?
In the realm of science and knowledge, our abstracted, propositional, cognitively-driven, information-centered ways of knowing provide us with an illusion that our knowledge and its means is not embodied in the performance of an underlying narrative.
This piece illustrates the modern dissection of and distancing from the body in speculative thought; no one would ever know the information presented here nor think to present it in this way without such dissection and inextricably interwoven speculative distance from our very own bodies that "naturally" appear to us and are experienced by us in very different ways from how it appears and is experienced in this piece. The "natural" way is the living inside an embodied narrative, from which there really is no outside for speculation and distance.
By the same token, then, in this piece OF ART called "Anatomical Head" - precisely because there really is no outside of an embodied narrative of living - such distancing, speculation, and dissection IS embodied in the performance of the underlying narrative of modern science's distance from, dissection of, and speculative thought about our bodies.
We can apply a similar logic to economics and politics.
Our modern distancing from embodied performance of scripts or narratives provide us with the illusion that the mechanics of economics and governance roll along according to abstracted, scientific, propositional, informational principles, which we presume to be "of nature." With such presumptions, per the above, we impose a lot onto the "natural" state of humanity. We thus tend to react with surprise and shock when our political and economic machines seem to be infected with visceral, human elements where and when an underlying crafted and embodied narrative is being performed. The truth is, our consumerism and our politics are at least partially driven by visceral, embodied vicarious identification with various figures who play various roles in different political and economic narratives. So goes our consumerist participation and our political performances.
Being a consumer (or thus consumed) and a spectator (or thus a spectacle) are inherently and inextricably interwoven. By the same token, consumption and spectacle mask the embodied performance of an underlying narrative - - though we typically think of consumer or spectator as belonging to a separate or distinctive realm from production or action.
Trump is clearly full of shit and completely unprincipled and completely driven by the performance of a crafted narrative, and yet he emerges victorious. Multiple business leaders are outed for financial and sexual transgressions and respond with the performance of a crafted narrative precisely so that the economic machines can churn on unhindered.
So, why are we so surprised or shocked by such turns of events? Perhaps there's something else going on, something different from the illusion of abstracted principles we've come to expect. Perhaps there really is a moral task for embodied artistic narrative that we are ignoring in the name of an illusion of dissection of such embodied narrative into abstracted, mechanical, and disembodied principles.
To bring my point home a bit more, this illusion of speculative distance and disembodied dissection has us asking questions of truth as though they can be separated from action, just as MacIntyre noted that art gets separated from life. To have our very own humanity in view as we filter reality through that illusion, said illusion distorts our image of humanity and makes it difficult to ask the right questions about life. As we look to the authority of abstracted principles to answer questions about disembodied truths, we are no longer looking towards embodied persons living out the narratives of their lives. Said illusion of distance thus - in its distancing of ourselves from our own humanity - makes it more difficult to love.
Look at the drawing again. The story it tells is not one of love of neighbor. So, this difficulty of love is because disembodied dissection requires death and alienation, whereas the beginning and end of all embodied narratives is a life of love.
Of course, just as we applied the logic of the above artwork to MacIntyre's teachings, we can translate this understanding of the relationship between art or narrative and life through our ways and means of knowing, to our economics, and to our politics, to all areas of life, really. We are then able to find ourselves interested in questions of an economics of love, a politics of love, and a knowledge of love.
Tuesday, January 22, 2019
Empty Vessels
This week's lectionary passage (John 2: 1-11) includes this:
When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
Of course, Jesus goes on to turn water to wine, save the family from dishonor, perform a sign and foreshadowing of the of the kingdom ("you will not taste this wine again until..."), and all only known to the servants of the household, itself a sign of the inclusivity and upturned power structure of the Kingdom.
All that is really neat, of course. But I've still always been confused by something. Why this back and forth with Mary? If it "wasn't his time," then why did he listen to her? God in the flesh doesn't decide his own fate, dictate his own actions? And, now that I think of it, what prompted her to put this event into motion in the first place?
I don't know all the detailed answers to these questions, but I never would have figured the basic answer out without a prompting in prayer just now.
Christ's obedience to his Mother - and, presumably, indirectly, obedience to the Holy Spirit (however Mary's involvement shakes out there) - is a depiction and icon at the same time both of what God is like and of the inextricably interwoven nature of the two sides of the veil of Reality (I mean, heaven and Earth). This relating to Mary is a revealing of God's character and how He relates to us and His creation. This is deep.
God in the flesh is NOT "in control." He does NOT "decide his own fate" or "dictate" his actions - nor even dictate history or reality. God is not a self-autonomous individual. He doesn't have or assert his "rights."
God is a God of humility and takes the form and posture of vulnerability, and He does this in RELATIONSHIP to those to whom he is in faithful relationship. A loving faithfulness to the point of death. So much so and to the degree that the events leading to His own death are put into motion by a representative of the ones He is sent on mission to serve. In a sense, a created one here speaks and initiates the path taken by the Uncreated. The Master is the Servant "from the beginning" (of the story).
Like I said, this is deep. We're talking about God in the flesh here - operating not as a Master of his own destiny but as a vulnerable, humble servant (masters have the power of life and death over servants). Not only are the servants the audience of this miracle, but the Servant is the central actor and character!
"I came among you not as one served but as one who serves." "...the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing..."
What does this say about our own posture? What does this say about our own path, and also about how it opens up to us?
We are all empty vessels.
"Jesus said to the servants, 'Fill the jars with water.' And they filled them up to the brim." - John 2:7
*Mind blown*
When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
Of course, Jesus goes on to turn water to wine, save the family from dishonor, perform a sign and foreshadowing of the of the kingdom ("you will not taste this wine again until..."), and all only known to the servants of the household, itself a sign of the inclusivity and upturned power structure of the Kingdom.
All that is really neat, of course. But I've still always been confused by something. Why this back and forth with Mary? If it "wasn't his time," then why did he listen to her? God in the flesh doesn't decide his own fate, dictate his own actions? And, now that I think of it, what prompted her to put this event into motion in the first place?
Christ's obedience to his Mother - and, presumably, indirectly, obedience to the Holy Spirit (however Mary's involvement shakes out there) - is a depiction and icon at the same time both of what God is like and of the inextricably interwoven nature of the two sides of the veil of Reality (I mean, heaven and Earth). This relating to Mary is a revealing of God's character and how He relates to us and His creation. This is deep.
God in the flesh is NOT "in control." He does NOT "decide his own fate" or "dictate" his actions - nor even dictate history or reality. God is not a self-autonomous individual. He doesn't have or assert his "rights."
God is a God of humility and takes the form and posture of vulnerability, and He does this in RELATIONSHIP to those to whom he is in faithful relationship. A loving faithfulness to the point of death. So much so and to the degree that the events leading to His own death are put into motion by a representative of the ones He is sent on mission to serve. In a sense, a created one here speaks and initiates the path taken by the Uncreated. The Master is the Servant "from the beginning" (of the story).
Like I said, this is deep. We're talking about God in the flesh here - operating not as a Master of his own destiny but as a vulnerable, humble servant (masters have the power of life and death over servants). Not only are the servants the audience of this miracle, but the Servant is the central actor and character!
"I came among you not as one served but as one who serves." "...the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing..."
What does this say about our own posture? What does this say about our own path, and also about how it opens up to us?
We are all empty vessels.
"Jesus said to the servants, 'Fill the jars with water.' And they filled them up to the brim." - John 2:7
*Mind blown*
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