FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2015

I thought it might be good to add some supplementary readings for this meeting.

So I pulled some books of poetry off the shelf and looked through them for anything speaking to the relationship between humans and other animals.

Enjoy!

(If any other writings or poems or images come to mind, please send them in. I’ll add them on to the end of this post as they arrive.)

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Before we get to the poems, here’s a thoughtful chapter Setenay sent in from John Berger’s celebrated book, About Looking (1977). The chapter in question is entitled, “Why Look at Animals?”.

Click here —  John_Berger_Why_Look_at_Animals — for the link.

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ECHO by Lawrence Durrell

Nothing is lost, sweet self,

Nothing is ever lost

The unspoken word

Is not exhausted but can be heard.

Music that stains

The silence remains

O echo is everywhere, the unbeckonable bird!

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WHALES WEEP NOT! by D.H. Lawrence

They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains

the hottest blood of all, and the wildest, the most urgent.

All the whales in the wider deeps, hot are they, as they urge on and on, and dive beneath the icebergs

The right whales, the sperm-whales, the hammer-heads, the killers

there they blow, there they blow, hot wild white breath out of the sea!

And they rock, and they rock, through the sensual ageless ages

on the depths of the seven seas,

and through the salt they reel with drunk delight

and in the tropics tremble they with love

and roll with massive, strong desire, like gods.

Then the great bull lies up against his bride

in the blue deep bed of the sea,

as mountain pressing on mountain, in the zest of life:

and out of the inward roaring of the inner red ocean of whale-blood

the long tip reaches strong, intense, like the maelstrom-tip, and comes to rest

in the clasp and the soft, wild clutch of the she-whale’s fathomless body.

And over the bridge of whale’s strong phallus, linking the wonder of whales,

the burning archangels under the sea keep passing, back and forth, keep passing, archangels of bliss

from him to her, from her to him, great Cherubim

that wait on whales in mid-ocean, suspended in the waves of the sea

great heaven of whales in the waters, old hierarchies.

And enormous mother whales lie dreaming suckling their whale-tender young

and dreaming with strange whale-eyes wide open in the waters of the beginning and the end.

And bull-whales gather their women and whale-calves in a ring when danger threatens, on the surface of the great ceaseless flood

and range themselves like great fierce Seraphim facing the threat encircling their huddled monsters of love.

And all this happens in the sea, in the salt,

where God is also love, but without words:

and Aphrodite is the wife of whales

most happy, happy she!

and Venus among the fishes skips and is a she-dolphin

she is gay, delighted porpoise sporting with love and the sea

she is the female tunny-fish, round and happy among the males

and dense with happy blood, dark rainbow bliss in the sea.

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FROGES EAT BUTTERFLIES. SNAKES EAT FROGS. HOGS EAT SNAKES. MEN EAT HOGS by Wallace Stevens

It is true that the rivers went nosing like swine,

Tugging at banks, until they seemed

Bland belly-sounds in somnolent troughs,

That the air was heavy with the breath of these swine,

The breath of turgid summer, and

Heavy with thunder’s rattapallax,

That the man who erected this cabin, planted

This field, and tended it awhile,

Knew not the quirks of imagery,

That the hours of his indolent, arid days,

Grotesque with this nosing in banks,

This somnolence and rattapallax,

Seemed to suckle themselves in his arid being,

As the swine-like rivers suckled themselves

While they went seaward to the sea-mouths.

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THE TYGER by William Blake

Tyger Tyger burning bright,

In the forests of the night;

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deep or skies,

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp,

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears

And water’d heaven with their tears:

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

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Three Poems by Emily Dickinson

42.

With thee in the Desert —

With thee in the thirst —

With thee in the Tamarind wood —

Leopard breathes — at last!

328.

A Bird came down the Walk—
He did not know I saw—
He bit an Angleworm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,

And then he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass—
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass—

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all around—
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought—
He stirred his Velvet Head

Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home—

Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam—
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon
Leap, plashless as they swim.

DOGS, SHEEP, COWS, GOATS by Gary Snyder

dogs, sheep, cows, goats

and sometimes deer, hear loud noises

crackling in bushes, and they flick

fly or creep, as rabbits do

does too, into warm nests. no talk

but chatters there, small throat sounds

ear-pricks, up or back. hooves

tinkle on creekbeds. who fears a talk-

less landscape, crowded with creatures

leaves. falls. undergrowth

crawls all night, and summer smells

deep in the bushes. crouch!

at the thorny stalks.

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Five more poems sent in by Setenay!

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The hair falling on your forehead
suddenly lifted.
Suddenly something stirred on the ground.
The trees are whispering
in the dark.
Your bare arms will be cold.

Far off
where we can’t see,
the moon must be rising.
It hasn’t reached us yet,
slipping through the leaves
to light up your shoulder.
But I know
a wind comes up with the moon.
The trees are whispering.
Your bare arms will be cold.

From above,
from the branches lost in the dark,
something dropped at your feet.
You moved closer to me.
Under my hand your bare flesh is like the fuzzy skin of a fruit.
Neither a song of the heart nor “common sense”–
before the trees, birds, and insects,
my hand on my wife’s flesh
is thinking.
Tonight my hand
can’t read or write.
Neither loving nor unloving…
It’s the tongue of a leopard at a spring,
a grape leaf,
a wolf’s paw.
To move, breathe, eat, drink.
My hand is like a seed
splitting open underground.
Neither a song of the heart nor “common sense,”
neither loving nor unloving.
My hand thinking on my wife’s flesh
is the hand of the first man.
Like a root that finds water underground,
it says to me:
“To eat, drink, cold, hot, struggle, smell, color–
not to live in order to die
but to die to live…”

And now
as red female hair blows across my face,
as something stirs on the ground,
as the trees whisper in the dark,
and as the moon rises far off
where we can’t see,
my hand on my wife’s flesh
before the trees, birds, and insects,
I want the right of life,
of the leopard at the spring, of the seed splitting open–

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Animals by Robinson Jeffers

At dawn a knot of sea-lions lies off the shore
In the slow swell between the rock and the cliff,
Sharp flippers lifted, or great-eyed heads, as they roll in the sea,
Bigger than draft-horses, and barking like dogs
Their all-night song. It makes me wonder a little
That life near kind to human, intelligent, hot-blooded, idle and singing,
can float at ease
In the ice-cold winter water. Then, yellow dawn
Colors the south, I think about the rapid and furious lives in the sun:
They have little to do with ours; they have nothing to do with oxygen
and salted water; the would look monstrous
If we could see them: the beautiful passionate bodies of living flame,
batlike flapping and screaming,
Tortured with burning lust and acute awareness, that ride
the storm-tides
Of the great fire-globe. They are animals, as we are. There are many
other chemistries of animal life
Beside the slow oxidation of carbohydrates and amino acids.

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Come Into Animal Presence by Denise Levertov

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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2015

For our January 21, 2016 meeting we will read three books. Two by bitter antagonists, Sam Harris and Reza Aslan, and one by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Sam Harris is a well-known atheist author, who considers Islam a dangerous ideology (as he does Christianity and Judaism and other world religions). Reza Aslan is an author on religion and a popular defender of Islam against its critics.

Our group is more oriented towards our private search for non-supernatural meaning. We are trying to forge new connections and find a new language. This is what we might call a positive approach. I don’t want to get us into a negative, “anti-” mode. But I do feel that due to recent events and U.S. presidential campaigns, anti-Muslim bigotry has become ubiquitous. I think it is important to distinguish critiques of religion — understood as supernatural-based ideologies — from acts of bigotry and hate. Where is the balance of harm, in today’s climate? I feel it is an important moment to take this on.

Here are the books:

Islam and the Future of Tolerance, by Sam Harris and Maajid Nawas

No god but God, by Reza Aslan

Heretic, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Please write in with any more suggestions.

Setenay suggested another book, and it looks very interesting and thoughtful. It is In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong, by Amin Maalouf. Please click on the title for a link to the PDF.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2015

On such a potentially heated topic, I want to begin by emphasizing what we all have in common in this group.

I believe that everyone in the Old New Way will agree that:

1. Human beings should not suffer unnecessarily

–no “honor” killings by family members

–no stoning of adulterers or “apostates” or blasphemers

–no executions of homosexuals

–girls and women should have equal access to education

–no spousal abuse through physical violence or confinement

–no bigotry or discrimination

2. There should be freedom of inquiry and speech (with minimal exceptions for safety)

–human lives are more important than any sacred books or words

–the most useful ideas are developed and honed through dialogue and even, in many cases, opposition and contradiction

–no one has a monopoly on the truth

3. Violence is only acceptable as a LAST resort, even in political struggles

— violent “jihad” against people for their beliefs or identities or mere citizenship is not okay

–“martyrdom” operations are not okay

— killing of innocents is not okay (whether by drone or suicide!)

4. Cultural differences are, in almost every case, enriching and wonderful

–different music, foods, clothing make our world better

–different priorities and social understandings make it more interesting (and we learn from one another)

5. Western colonialism and resource exploitation did (and continue to do) undeniable harm to people in the Mideast

–artificially drawn national boundaries create tensions politically

–racism was – and continues to be – prevalent in relationship between West and East

— capitalist exploitation (taking oil profits, etc.) goes on

— the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 drove many Palestinians from their homes; the settlements are a forcible taking of Palestinian land

— the U.S.-led Iraq War killed thousands upon thousands of civilians

I list these first because once we establish that we all agree on these emotionally-charged issues, I hope we can have a more harmonious and directed discussion.

The problem, as you all know, is that when people disagree about religion and politics and the like, even small disagreements about how to get there can trigger limbic brain in-group mentalities and ingrained threat responses very fast.

So let’s try our best to avoid that adrenaline-fueled reaction entirely by agreeing, at the outset, that we largely share the same positions (as mentioned above, i.e. against unnecessary suffering, for freedom of inquiry and expression, concern about Western power and hegemony, etc.).

Anyway, our disagreements probably come down to a disagreement about tactics or approaches more than substance.

Okay.

Having said that, let’s look at this phenomenon of “Islamophobia” a little more closely.

What are its different forms and definitions? (Spoiler: I think the term “Islamophobia” is very unhelpful, since it conflates a number of vastly different concerns.)

Six Different Forms of “Islamophobia”

1. Bigotry, i.e. visceral hatred towards people from the Mideast

This is the most basic of all – it has no ideology.

(A better term for it than “Islamophobia” might be “anti-Muslimism”?)

It is an expression of the limbic brain in full throttle.

For any given bigot (or anti-Muslimist), it might be based on…

— fear/unfamiliarity/disgust with sounds of different language (Arabic, Farsi, Turkish)

— fear/unfamiliarity/disgust with different habits (daily prayers, clothes, food…)

— racism towards people with different color of skin

— rejection of/disgust with Islamic architecture (and/or art)

–feelings of superiority (due to white skin, European history of power, different education, etc.)

2. A Religious Agenda

This one is based on a kind of in-group/out-group, supernatural assessment that Muslims are wrong in God’s eyes

It is expressed by Israeli settlers, Hindu separatists, European-Christian nationalists and many Evangelical Christian communities in the U.S. It does not always overlap with bigotry of the racial kind.

It can take the form of

— arguments that Muslims are aligned with Satan or the anti-Christ

–concerns that God promised Jerusalem as the Jew’s “eternal city”

–apocalyptic rumblings about the return of Jesus and the Rapture (and the Jewish people’s prophesized return to their homeland)

–sometimes it is even accompanied by a sincere urge to convert and win over

3. Threat Assessment

This is (presented as) a fear-based response to geopolitical events

It is strongest in right-wing parties in Europe and Russia and the U.S. (but it is also present in the Mideast itself, in terms of justifying “strong men” governements and leaders)

It claims to argue not against Arabs et al. as a ethnic/social/cultural group, nor in religious terms, but rather in terms of “objective” security concerns… (this one, by the way, is Donald Trump’s stated position – as he says, “…until we figure out what is going on…”)

Often it includes

–arguments that ‘radical Islamists’ are infiltrating society through refugee status, immigration, etc.

–arguments about military strategy (e.g. “red lines,” the need for a show of force in the Mideast, checkpoints, etc.)

–even arguments for gun rights (see Marco Rubio’s Christmas eve purchase of a gun to protect his family “against ISIS”!)

4. Concerns about Religion Generally

The focus here is on the supposedly deleterious effects of supernatural thinking and organized religion, Islam being a case in point.

These may include:

–concern about perfectionism (as opposed to incrementalism, appreciation of hard choices, trade-offs, the need for compromise and understanding…)

–concern about the enshrinement of outdated cultural norms in a ‘sacred’ book

–concern about the fostering of in-group/out-group mentality

–concern about the culture of lies encouraged by supernaturalism (not looking to evidence, not developing critical thinking, habits of verification and falsification)

–concern about the ingrained habit of certainty (instead of the celebration of doubt)

–concern about abusive child rearing/indoctrination/control

–concern about sexual shaming/control

–concern about emphasis on afterlife at cost of this life

Note that when you view religion as merely a form of ideology, and not worthy of protection by taboo, then there are distinctions to be made between religions (just as their between ideologies). In terms of advocacy for peaceful coexistence and tolerance, for example, Islam does not come out on top. (Probably Jainism does? Or forms of native American shamanism?)

Then again, Islam is better on social equality between men-who-are-unequivocally-part-of-its-faith-tradition. So there’s that.

5. Concerns about Assimilation

This is sometimes merely a weak-tea version of bigotry and terrorism/security threat assessment… but it does have another, more substantive aspect as well, I believe.

This is the “high-minded” argument rolled out by the National Front in France or conservative commentators in the U.S…. when they want to sound as reasonable as they can.

It comes into play when their concerns are based on the sense that there is (or should be) a unified cultural community among citizens.

With this in mind, they express

–concern that Muslims “cocoon” themselves off in homogenous communities

–concern that values of free speech and pluralism may be anathema to the religion of Islam (or Mideastern culture?).

–concern that Muslim populations therefore, unintentionally or not, degrade the healthy civic life in the host country.

In theory, though not in practice, this concern would apply with equal force to any minority community that did not assimilate, such as Afrikaners in South Africa?

6. Concerns about Immigration Generally

This is similar to Concerns about Assimilation, above, but with a slight difference of emphasis: the argument is often more about jobs and crime.

This form of “Islamophobia” expresses

–concern that foreigners are taking native-born peoples’ jobs (Muslims from the Mideast being one such potential immigrant group)

–concern that new immigrants will undermine wages by agreeing to less pay, or organize themselves into collective groups that keep out native-born workers

–concern about welfare dependency of new, poor immigrants (and higher taxes to support such dependency)

–concern about increases in crime, drug use, sexual assault, etc. (see recent events in Cologne, Germany, and the strong reaction of the average German)

So these are some of the different concerns grouped under the label “Islamophobia.”

Considering that this is a non-supernatural group, I think perhaps we should now turn to looking in more detail at #4 (Concerns about Religion Generally), in the context of Islam.

That, I am guessing, is where most of us find ourselves (though some of us may also be drawn, perhaps against our better judgment, particularly after a terrorist event, to #3 and #5?).

The question I posed for this meeting was: Is it possible to criticize the religion of Islam without being a bigot, i.e. without denigrating the social/cultural aspects of Muslim life?

Or is it a fool’s errand to try to separate these different strands of Muslim identity, and you will always slide into hurtful bigotry if you try?

Criticisms of Islam

 We read three books. Here is a brief summary of the relevant arguments of each.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Heretic

Hirsi Ali divides the Muslim community into three “sets”:

1. Mecca Muslims

This is the name that she gives to those Muslims – the majority world-wide – who are inspired by the more inclusive and spiritual-minded Koranic verses from Muhammed’s early years in Mecca. Many of these verses in the Koran emphasize equality and fairness and self-discipline and moral rectitude (along with submission to Allah).

2. Medina Muslims

After Muhammed was driven from Mecca to Medina, his faith became more of a persecuted faith and a war-hardened faith. There are therefore many verses in the Koran that emphasize persecution, group solidarity, enforce rules and punish offenders.

3. Modifying Muslims

This is the name Hirsi Ali gives to those Muslims and former Muslims, like herself, who are actively attempting to reform Islam. (She includes an Appendix in which she names many others whom she admires.)

Hirsi Ali addresses the question of why there has been no Islamic reformation – i.e. why the Modifying Muslims have made so little headway.

First, she says, Islam is not hierarchical, so change is dispersed and slow to catch on.

Second, there are fierce strictures against any and all critiques of Islamic religious doctrine.

Yet she still believes it can happen.

Hirsi Ali suggests five specific amendments to Islam that would initiate the reform she seeks.

1. Reject Muhammed’s infallible status and literal readings of the Koran (this rejection of literalism has largely been achieved in the other Abrahamic monotheistic religions but has been resisted in Islam).
2. Emphasize human lives as lived, over dreams of the after-life.
3. Reject the authority of sharia law.
4. Call into question the practice of empowering individuals to enforce Islamic law themselves.
5. Abandon the concept of “jihad,” or holy war, entirely.

There are, of course, many challenges to reform:

All Muslims form a single community of believers (“ummah”), which makes them have a strong in-group/out-group mentality across the globe.

Traditional Arab culture is driven by a shame dynamic (instead of a guilt dynamic) – so one individual’s criticism, even if valid, is easily seen as an attack on the collective as a whole.

The Koran is sacrosanct. Unlike the Torah or the Bible, it is not a narrative but a series of commands, embedded socially through their recitation.

The Koran emphasizes divine omnipotence over human free will.

In many places, the text justifies violence. (Muhammed himself led his followers to victory numerous times on the battlefield.)

The concepts of martyrdom and the after-life are deeply embedded in it.

Sharia is understood by Muslims as a moral order (not merely a legal one).

The Koran empowers each Muslim to “command right and forbid wrong” himself or herself – i.e. it elevates all Muslims to the position of religious enforcers.

There has been an erosion of the idea of a zone of privacy in Muslim culture.

Jihad is in the Koran as a “spiritual struggle,” but also an outward one. One cannot deny the second imperative.

Global jihad is attractive to many disaffected youth as an easy “one size fits all” solution.

But Hirsi Ali cites these hopeful developments:

New information technology is exposing many to ideas outside their close communities.

The Arab spring, though brief, indicated growing unrest among many.

Reza Aslan, no god but God

Like Hirsi Ali, Aslan believes that there is a Muslim reformation underway. But unlike Hirsi Ali, Aslan does not see the Koran or the Islamic faith as presenting a unique challenge to reform.

On the contrary, he sees Islam as ripe with the possibility for reform and revision.

He insists that a religion is not a faith; it is the “story of a faith.” (This seems to suggest to him that it need not be factually true, so much as inspiring.)

So, with this in mind, Aslan sets out to tell us the story of Islam.

It begins with the story of a charismatic, handsome 25 year old, Muhammed, who impresses and marries a wealthy widow 15 years older than him. He then has a revelation in a cave and hears the voice of God giving him verses that speak of a new monotheism. Muhammed begins to proselytize, as a “prophet.”

Eventually, he marries others too (one wife, Aisha, is only six when she comes into his home, but we are assured that he did not consummate the marriage until she was nine – well, that’s a relief!). His followers soon have to escape the authorities in Mecca, the powerful Quraysh. In the dead of night, one by one, they flee to Medina, a small agrarian village many miles away.

Aslan describes the many threats faced by Muhammed and his followers when they in Medina. He explains that the outward-looking and aggressive forms of “jihad” are in the Koran because they were crucial for Muhammed in establishing his community. He acknowledges that this term of jihad has “been manipulated” for use by radicals and militants, but insists that most Muslims do not understand it this way (p. 81). Aslan also argues that the verses that seem to suggest Muslims “slay the polytheists,” etc. must be understood in a very narrow context of Muhammed’s conflicts with the Quraysh and others (p. 84).

He also minimizes the relevance of Muhammed’s mass execution of hundreds of Jewish Arabs in Medina – explaining it away as a matter of treason, not genocide (p. 94). He points out that Christians and Jews were not routinely killed when conquered by Muslims, nor were they even forced to convert (as polytheists and pagans were). Instead, they were merely compelled to pay a special tax (jizyah) under an Islamic state. Oh, and they were not allowed to openly worship or proselytize their faiths in public.

Aslan (to my ear, chillingly) summarizes Muhammed’s actions in this episode in the following way: “Worried that the rejection of the Jews would somehow discredit his prophetic claims, Muhammed had no choice but to turn violently against them, separate his community from theirs” (p. 95; emphasis added).

The question of the succession of leaders after Muhammed’s death takes up another chapter. After a few Caliphs come and go, Aslan is happy to report that one, “Abu Bakr’s was a short but highly successful reign… His principle achievement as Caliph was his military campaigns against ‘false prophets’ and those tribes who had ceased paying the tithe tax…” In other words, “successful,” to Aslan, is apparently defined in terms of a wider conquest and the expansion of the Muslim caliphate…

I was surprised at how war-like and troubling the story of this faith turned out to be, even in Reza Aslan’s favorable telling. He admits to the severity and misogyny of the interpreters of the Koran, but he emphasizes how much it has been manipulated and distorted in the process. I am sure he is right. But that doesn’t give me much confidence that it will be reversed and corrected, despite Aslan’s assurance that this will happen in due course. For, as far as I could glean, he does not seem to give much evidence for this course correction.

Sure, Aslan names a few reformers through the centuries. And he writes at length about Sufism. But that is not a dominant form of Islam (in fact Sufism is not even considered Islamic!). Aslan also describes the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism across the Mideast, and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in particular, as being largely a result of Western colonialism and exploitation. Here too I am inclined to agree. But neither does that explain how such extremism will be eradicated or reduced with time. Nor does that fully account for its emergence (there are many parts of the globe that have been subjected to colonialism and exploitation of resources but have not seen the emergence of an ideology of violent “martyrdom” and totalitarianism).

In the final passages of his book, Aslan concludes that the West is “merely a bystander” to an internal struggle in Islam, which has “finally begun its Fifteenth Century” (p. 248). He announces this with a kind of awe and optimism.

Aslan’s hopes seem to be pinned to the idea that Islamic tradition has long had an appreciation for pluralism: see, for example, the jizyah tax on Christians and Jews instead of forced conversion. He believes that within a clear “Islamic moral framework” a pluralistic state, even a democratic one, is possible. He concedes cheerfully, however, that “there may be some circumstances in which Islamic morality may force the rights of the community to prevail over the rights of the individual” (p. 264).

But this concession, made in passing, gives away the game, doesn’t it? Notice the abstraction behind the words: “Islamic morality may force the rights of the community…” But of course, a “morality” would not be able to “force” anybody to do anything; rather, it would be certain individuals who would maintain control over that “morality” and its terms, and enjoy the monopoly of authority in order to enforce them. And anyway, a “community” does not have rights; individuals do. That’s the point of rights: that the aggregate doesn’t get to assert special high-powered rights that trump one person’s!

Aslan ends by saying that the “cleansing” of Islam is inevitable (p. 266). This strikes me as an unfortunate term, “cleansing,” loaded with the kind of perfectionist thinking that I deplore (and I believe religion promotes). The term “inevitable” here also sticks uncomfortably in my ears in this context of violent upheaval. It suggests a strangely passive approach to present-day suffering.

Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz, Islam and the Future of Tolerance

Nawaz runs an organization in London, Quilliam, dedicated to the cause of reforming Islam. Harris is a well-known atheist and writer. The book mostly reads as an interview by Harris of Nawaz, with occasional commentary thrown in by Harris when he feel compelled to push back. This structure was fine with me, because I was impressed throughout with Nawaz’ clarity of expression and thought.

Nawaz makes it clear that his organization, Quilliam, is focused on encouraging Muslims to embrace the universality of human, democratic and secular values (he uses the term “secular” here in the limited sense of keeping religion and politics separate – not at all to suggest a renunciation of religion). He believes that this one change – Muslims coming to accept the universality of these values – could and would run parallel to religion without necessarily disrupting it. In his view, this development would provide a protected zone of critical thinking and privacy – and so, in turn, hasten the reform of Islam. Nawaz does not look for a sudden transformation of Islam anytime soon; rather, it will be a gradual, grinding process.

When they first met, Harris urged Nawaz to be more “honest” and call out the radicalism inherent in the Koran. But Nawaz strongly rejects this formulation of the situation he faces. He explains that he doesn’t believe that any written text “says” any one thing – so to call out some radicalism, as Harris wants him to do, would be incorrect. What Nawaz wants, instead, is to join others in encouraging an interpretation of the Koran which allows for a separation of Islamic faith and a person’s political identity.

Unfortunately, both Harris and Nawaz begin by describing the Islamic faith community as a series of concentric circles… (I found this description to be problematic, as I will explain below.)

In the center circle, they both put ISIS and Al Qaeda and all the other radicals dedicated to violent jihad, spreading the faith by way of the sword.

The next circle out is the Islamists, who seek to spread Islam through political action.

The next circle out from that is the conservative Muslims, who may or may not support the Islamists or even the jihadis actions, but are more focused on issues of private faith and morality (e.g. the traditional role of women, etc.).

Finally, in the outer ring, there are the moderate Muslims who want to live their lives by modern values: the sales reps, lawyers, street-cleaners, engineers, mothers and fathers, etc. who are Muslims mainly by cultural tradition.

Within the Islamists, Nawaz goes on to distinguish three subcategories: political, revolutionary, and militant. The political ones want to achieve their goal through the ballot box, the revolutionary ones in one fell swoop, and the militants through global violent jihad (in their radicalism, these last ones drop into the inner concencentric circle).

As I said, I think this whole visual lay-out is a distortion. I do not think it is fair to place ISIS and Al Quaeda at the CENTER of this description of Islam. Can’t we place the conservatives at the center, with the moderates near them, and the jihadis and the political Islamists as bubbles at the edges? Wouldn’t that be more accurate? Why must the most radical take center stage?

In the next section, Nawaz and Harris talk about indoctrination. Nawaz says that there are four stages in recruitment: grievance, identity crisis, a charismatic recruiter, and ideological dogma.

Nawaz point out that religious dogma is a motivator, but not the only motivator. So we have to look at all of these factors. Harris pushes back and argues that the unique dogma of Islam is sometimes sufficient to motivate a person to become radicalized to do violence in its name.

Their next subject is the rise of a Western “regressive liberalism,” in which any criticism of Islamic radicalism is labeled “Islamophobia” and bigotry. They both agree that this does huge harm to efforts to reform Islam from within. Nawaz acknowledges that bigotry is a problem, but he insists that “our challenge is to expose and undermine the ‘fellow-travelers’ [regressive liberals] while at the same time opposing the bigots” (p. 54). This is the needle they are trying to thread. Harris laments that the “liberals don’t see that they have abandoned women, gays, freethinkers, public intellectuals and other powerless people in the Middle East to a cauldron of violence and indifference” (p. 55). Both Nawaz and Harris agree that there needs to be careful distinction made between real grievances (employment discrimination, violence against Muslims) and perceived grievances (offensive cartoons in Charlie Hebdo).

On the text of the Koran, Harris is more adamant than Nawaz that it contains prescriptions for violence and intolerance that can’t easily be avoided. Nawaz maintains that it is a matter of interpretation – just as in the Torah or the Bible there are severe passages which have been interpreted more favorably. Harris says yes, to a degree — but some text cannot be softened or ignored. There is no way, for example, to interpret the Koran as encouraging the eating of bacon, no matter how hard you try.

Nawaz suggests two ways of loosening the literal (“vacuous”) readings of the Koran that are currently prevalent. One would be to understand it as open to interpretation (this recalls the first of Hirsi Ali’s “five amendments”). The other is to shift from understanding the text as a legal injunction to more of a spiritual guide. Nawaz looks at the command to kill “apostates” (which appears in the hadith, or classical commentary on the Koran) and discusses how this might be reinterpreted to eliminate the threat of violence, by way of these methods.

Harris articulates the two central themes in Islam that he finds the most problematic. One is the frequent demonization of infidels,  and the other is the emphasis on paradise. Nawaz acknowledges that these are challenging aspects to Islam. But he insists that with enough pressure these themes too can be reworked.

They conclude in agreement that the reform of Islam is daunting, but it must be achieved through a clear-eyed commitment to secularism both in the West and in the Middle East.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2016

For our next meeting, on Wednesday, February 24, 2016, we will examine the experience and meaning of aging.

From a non-supernatural perspective, what is the significance of the inevitable deterioration of everybody’s bodies as we grow older?

Of course there are the wrinkles, the hair loss, the many aches and pains… But also there is the deep knowledge of people, the recognition of patterns in human behavior, the long commitments sometimes bringing with them great sentiment, even love.

What does it mean to be “old”?

Do our elders — our parents, our friends, the old codger in line in front of us — deserve respect simply for being old? If so, why? Does the accumulation of experience add up to wisdom? If so, what is the nature of this wisdom?

Old age is a neglected topic of conversation in our youth-obsessed American culture. We shy away from it, talk instead of yoga and healthy diets and keeping up with the latest music. But perhaps it is not just our contemporary superficial, throw-away culture that is the culprit, in this case. Perhaps the major, supernatural-based religions, with their emphasis on the “transcendence” of this life, contribute to the denigration and devaluing of the experience of actual aging in this life.

My gut tells me that the more we shed our supernatural habits of mind, the more we begin to look to our elders as mentors, even as “spiritual” guides. For when life is all you have, and they have more of it, then they certainly have something, don’t they? The native Americans knew this.

A beautiful story: A friend of mine who works with local Indians told me once that whenever an elder comes into a room, every single person in the room, no matter how high status, is instantly aware of the elder’s presence. When he or she speaks, even just a single sentence, his or her words are invariably followed by a long silence, denoting the full attention and careful reflection of the listeners, before the conversation picks up again. That moved me a lot when I heard it.

Let’s read two books:

The Spectator Bird, by Wallace Stegner

Old Age, by Helen M. Luke

And watch two films:

Nebraska, directed by Alexander Payne

45 Years, directed by Andrew Haigh.

Bonus film to watch on your own: Venus, directed by Roger Michell and starring Peter O’Toole. This is a quiet, extraordinary film, made in 2006 when O’Toole — who, you will recall, played the dashing Lawrence of Arabia when he was young — was 74.

As for the films, you can watch them on your own, or we will have two separate screening nights, for those who can make it, before the meeting.

Nebraska on Friday, February 12, 2016. 8 pm for an 8:30 start at our house.

45 Years, on Monday, February 22, 2016. NOTE: We will see this one at a theater, the Landmark Shattuck theater in downtown Berkeley. 7:20 is the screening, so let’s meet at 7:10 outside the theater. Here’s the link: http://www.landmarktheatres.com/san-francisco-east-bay/shattuck-cinemas

Happy reading.
Tom

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2016

Some of our members have sent in more suggestions for our upcoming meeting.

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First, here’s a link to the story I sent out the other day: “Mother’s Day” by George Saunders.

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Hulya sent in a link to an article with an, ahem, eye-catching title:

“Firming the Floppy Penis: Age, Class and Gender Relations in the Lives of Old Men,” by Toni Calasanti and Neal King.

Click here (Firming The Floppy) to read.

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Setenay sent in the following poem:

Weathering – Fleur Adcock

My face catches the wind
from the snow line
and flushes with a flush
that will never wholly settle.
Well, that was a metropolitan vanity,
wanting to look young forever, to pass.
I was never a pre-Raphaelite beauty
and only pretty enough to be seen
with a man who wanted to be seen
with a passable woman.

But now that I am in love
with a place that doesn’t care
how I look and if I am happy,
happy is how I look and that’s all.
My hair will grow grey in any case,
my nails chip and flake,
my waist thicken, and the years
work all their usual changes.

If my face is to be weather beaten as well,
it’s little enough lost
for a year among the lakes and vales
where simply to look out my window
at the high pass
makes me indifferent to mirrors
and to what my soul may wear
over its new complexion.

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She also suggested an essay on aging by Grace Paley, “My Father Addresses Me on the Facts of Old Age.” Click here for the link.

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I have a couple of others.

One is an nasty, but famous, poem by the contemporary poet Frederick Seidel. Despite its surface aggression about the “total nightmare” of an old woman’s body, I read it as being, more interestingly, about the total nightmare of an old man’s habits of mind, his self-hatred, his pinched and painful outlook, if he has refused to age. (It is never clear, when reading Frederick Seidel, how much distance —  if any — the poet has from the assholic poet-narrator of the poems, also called “Frederick Seidel.”)

Here is a youtube video of Seidel reading it aloud, if you can stand it:

The other poem I include here is by Philip Larkin:

The Old Fools

What do they think has happened, the old fools,
To make them like this? Do they somehow suppose
It's more grown-up when your mouth hangs open and drools,
And you keep on pissing yourself, and can't remember
Who called this morning? Or that, if they only chose,
They could alter things back to when they danced all night,
Or went to their wedding, or sloped arms some September?
Or do they fancy there's really been no change,
And they've always behaved as if they were crippled or tight,
Or sat through days of thin continuous dreaming
Watching the light move? If they don't (and they can't), it's strange;
			Why aren't they screaming?

At death you break up: the bits that were you
Start speeding away from each other for ever
With no one to see. It's only oblivion, true:
We had it before, but then it was going to end,
And was all the time merging with a unique endeavour
To bring to bloom the million-petalled flower
Of being here. Next time you can't pretend
There'll be anything else. And these are the first signs:
Not knowing how, not hearing who, the power
Of choosing gone. Their looks show that they're for it:
Ash hair, toad hands, prune face dried into lines -
			How can they ignore it?
	
Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms
Inside you head, and people in them, acting
People you know, yet can't quite name; each looms
Like a deep loss restored, from known doors turning,
Setting down a lamp, smiling from a stair, extracting
A known book from the shelves; or sometimes only
The rooms themselves, chairs and a fire burning,
The blown bush at the window, or the sun's
Faint friendliness on the wall some lonely
Rain-ceased midsummer evening. That is where they live:
Not here and now, but where all happened once.
			This is why they give

An air of baffled absence, trying to be there
Yet being here. For the rooms grow farther, leaving
Incompetent cold, the constant wear and tear
Of taken breath, and them crouching below
Extinction's alp, the old fools, never perceiving
How near it is. This must be what keeps them quiet:
The peak that stays in view wherever we go
For them is rising ground. Can they never tell
What is dragging them back, and how it will end? Not at night?
Not when the strangers come? Never, throughout
The whole hideous inverted childhood? Well,
			We shall find out.

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I am looking for more explorations of a woman’s experience of aging. Please hit the books and send them in!

See you Monday (for the movie 45 YEARS at 7:20 pm at the Landmark Shattuck Theatre in Berkeley) or Wednesday for the meeting. Or both!

SUNDAY, MARCH 6, 2016

 An image (taken with my cell phone) of our home TV on pause on Friday, March 4, 2016.

Our topic this month will be PHOTOGRAPHY.

Can art function as a “religion,” as some people claim?

Can a painting, a song, a sculpture, a performance, even a photograph, give us meaning?

What do representations of the natural world do for our particular species of primate, homo sapians?

Why do we seek them so avidly? Why do they fill us with longing? Make us shiver? Sometimes even change us forever?

“Fence” by Gerhard Richter (2008)

Three readings:

1. Roger Scruton, BEAUTY: A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION
2. Susan Sontag, ON PHOTOGRAPHY
3. Erroll Morris (the documentary filmmaker), BELIEVING IS SEEING

I have a hunch that the best approach will be a more narrow one. So I would like to read this month on photography — which is, after all, the most prevalent contemporary form of representation.

I think that, through that lens (!), we might get somewhere. As always, let’s make it personal. What is the meaning of image-making, photographs, video, film to you?

See you at the meeting.

Tom

***

Note:

I propose that we pursue the question of BEAUTY more broadly, at a future meeting. With that in mind, would you help me to start gathering possible books to read?

Here are few I have collected so far to get our list started…

HISTORY OF BEAUTY by Umberto Eco

THE ART INSTINCT: BEAUTY, PLEASURE AND HUMAN EVOLUTION by Denis Dutton

BUT IS IT ART? by Cynthia Freeland

THE GOOD, THE TRUE, AND THE BEAUTIFUL: A NEURONAL APPROACH by Jean-Pierre Changeux

STRANGE TOOLS: ART AND HUMAN NATURE by (our own friend and neighbor, who perhaps will join us?) Alva Noë

A BEAUTIFUL QUESTION: FINDING NATURE’S DEEP DESIGN by Frank Wilczek

(Again, these are not for our March meeting, but for later. I’ll keep adding your suggestions as they come in.)

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Kristen wrote with some additional titles! Here is what she added:

When I think of the Sontag piece, a couple supplementary resources come to mind:

1. Benjamin, Walter: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (short essay)

2. Salgado, Sebastião: The Salt of the Earth (documentary film)

3 .JR: TED talk (clichéd source, I know) by an artist who crosses lots of boundaries in how he defines himself as an artist, how he understand subject matter, & how he defines authorship.

I don’t yet know the Scruton piece. Anything with Beauty in its title always brings me back to Keats. I’m curious to read this new piece.

*

Walden wrote with some provocative thoughts too. And a suggested reading: Niklas Luhmann, Art as a Social System.

Here are Walden’s questions going in…

Dear Tom,

I have been trying to figure out your choice of a narrow focus on
photography, since of all of the art forms, it is probably the one
least associated with a “religious” experience — at least in
comparison to music, literature, architecture, film, and even some
painting. I am sure someone will try to point to a photograph that
contradicts this, but I will still be skeptical. A good question is
why this might be the case? Is even some painting “dynamic” in a way
that most photographs cannot be?
I say this as a consumer, since I am not an artist, but I cannot think
of an example of a photograph that has ever taken me to the same
levels of aesthetic impact as the other art forms I mentioned.

Best wishes,

Walden

A week later he wrote with another interesting find:

This landscape photographer’s statement suggests that the MAKING of
his photographs is a religious experience. This is different from the
viewer’s experience of the photograph, which I would admire but not be
transported significantly by, the way I would be by being directly in
nature.

Rex Naden Photography
http://www.rexnaden.com/misc/pages/About.html

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Marie-José wrote in to suggest John Berger’s WAYS OF SEEING.

Here is the first of four short (20 minute) videos available on Youtube:

MONDAY, MARCH 28, 2016

Hi Old New Wayers,

For the meeting on Wednesday night, I would like everybody (who can make it) to bring at least one photo or image with you.

(Yes, it can be on a screen, so long as we can pass it around!)

Bring something that either:

1. Strikes you as beautiful or artistic in some way, or
2. Represents something important or meaningful to you (that is, even if it is not “beautiful or artistic”).

I would love to talk about the role of photos and images in our lives (including Instagram, Facebook, family photos, etc.).

Do they bring us meaning? How do they interfere with it?

Why are we compelled to represent the rush of our lives in a static form? How does it interact with our natural ways of remembering? What do you like to look at in photographs, and why?

Lots of interesting questions that we all ponder sometimes. It will be useful, I think, to examine them together.

*

Also, if you scroll down to the bottom of our Reading for Our Eleventh Meeting on March 30, 2016 — PHOTOGRAPHY  post, and you will find two videos worth watching. One is a TED talk by JR (suggested by Kristen), the other is a link to John Berger, Ways of Seeing (suggested by Marie-José).

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An artist friend, Jessie Thatcher, submitted the following essay by Agnes Martin:

Beauty Is the Mystery of Life
by Agnes Martin

When I think of art, I think of beauty. Beauty is the mystery of
life. It is not in the eye, it is in my mind. In our minds there
is awareness of perfection.

We respond to beauty with emotion. Beauty speaks a message to
us. We are confused about this message because of distractions.
Sometimes we even think that it is in the mail. The message is
about different kinds of happiness and joy. Joy is most
successfully represented in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and by
the Parthenon.

All artwork is about beauty; all positive work represents it and
celebrates it. All negative art protests the lack of beauty in
our lives. When a beautiful rose dies, beauty does not die
because it is not really in the rose. Beauty is an awareness in
the mind. It is a mental and emotional response that we make. We
respond to life as though it were perfect. When we go into a
forest we do not see the fallen rotting trees. We are inspired
by a multitude of uprising trees. We even hear a silence when it
is not really silent. When we see a newborn baby we say it is
beautiful – perfect.

The goal of life is happiness and to respond to life as though
it were perfect is the way to happiness. It is also the way to
positive artwork.

It is not in the role of an artist to worry about life – to feel
responsible for creating a better world. This is a very serious
distraction. All your conditioning has been directed toward
intellectual living. This is useless in artwork. All human
knowledge is useless in artwork. Concepts, relationships,
categories, classifications, deductions are distractions of mind
that we wish to hold free for inspiration.

There are two parts of the mind. The outer mind that records
facts and the inner mind that says "yes" and "no." When you
think of something that you should do, the inner mind says "yes"
and you feel elated. We call this inspiration.

For an artist this is the only way. There is no help anywhere.
He must listen to his own mind.

The way of the artist is an entirely different way. It is a way
of surrender. He must surrender to his own mind.

When you look in your mind you find it covered with a lot of
rubbishy thoughts. You have to penetrate these and hear what
your mind is telling you to do. Such work is original work. All
other work made from ideas is not inspired and is not artwork.

Artwork is responded to with happy emotions. Work about ideas is
responded to with other ideas. There is so much written about
art that it is mistaken for an intellectual pursuit.

It is quite commonly thought that the intellect is responsible
for everything that is made and done. It is commonly thought
that everything that is can be put into words. But there is a
wide range of emotional response that we make that cannot be put
into words. We are so used to making these emotional responses
that we are not consciously aware of them until they are
represented in artwork.

Out emotional life is really dominant over our intellectual
life, but we do not realize it.

You must discover the artwork that you like, and realize the
response that you make to it. You must especially know the
response that you make to your own work. It is in this way that
you discover your direction and the truth about yourself. If you
do not discover your response to your own work, you miss the
reward. You must look at the work and know how it makes you
feel.

If you are not an artist, you can make discoveries about
yourself by knowing your response to work that you like.

Ask yourself, What kind of happiness do I feel with this music
or this picture?

There is happiness that we feel without any material
stimulation. We may wake up in the morning feeling happy for no
reason. Abstract or nonobjective feelings are a very important
part of our lives. Personal emotions and sentimentality are
anti-art.

We make artwork as something that we have to do, not knowing how
it will work out. When it is finished we have to see if it is
effective. Even if we obey inspiration we cannot expect all the
work to be successful. An artist is a person who can recognize
failure.

If you were a composer you would not expect everything you
played to be a composition. It iss the same in the graphic arts.
There are many failures.

Artwork is the only work in the world that is unmaterialistic.
All other work contributes to human welfare and comfort. You can
see from this that human welfare and comfort are not the
interests of the artist. He is irresponsible because his life
goes in a different direction. His mind will be involved with
beauty and happiness. It is possible to work at something other
than art and maintain this state of mind and be moving ahead as
an artist. The unmaterial interest is essential.

The newest trend and the art scene are unnecessary distractions
for a serious artist. He will much more rewarded responding to
art of all times and places – not as art history but considering
each piece and its value to him.

You can't think, My life is more important than the work, and
get the work. You have to think the work is paramount in your
life. An artist's life is adventurous: one new thing after
another.

I have been talking directly to artists, but it applies to all.
Take advantage of the awareness of perfection in your mind. See
perfection in everything around you. See if you can discover
your true feelings when listening to music. Make happiness your
goal. The way to discover the truth about this life is to
discover yourself. Say to yourself, What do I like and what do I
want? Find out exactly what you want in life. Ask your mind for
inspiration about everything.

Beauty illustrates happiness: the wind in the grass, the
glistening waves following each other, the flight of birds – all
speak of happiness.

The clear blue sky illustrates a different kind of happiness,
and the soft dark night a different kind. There are an infinite
number of different kinds of happiness.

The response is the same for the observer as it is for the
artist. The response to art is the real art field.

Composition is an absolute mystery. It is dictated by the mind.
The artist searchers for certain sounds or lines that are
acceptable to the mind and finally an arrangement of them that
is acceptable. The acceptable compositions arouse certain

feelings of appreciation in the observer. Some compositions
appeal to some, and some to others.

But if they are not accepted by the artist's mind, they will not
appeal to anyone. Composition and acceptance by mind are
essential to artwork. Commercial art is consciously made to
appeal to the senses, which is different. Artwork is very
valuable and it is also very scarce. It takes a great deal of
application to make a composition that is totally acceptable.
Beethoven's symphonies, with every note composed, represent a
titanic human effort.

To progress in life you must give up the things that you do not
like. Give up doing the things that you do not like to do. You
must find the things that you do like – the things that are
acceptable to your mind.

You can see that you will have to have time to yourself to find
out what appeals to your mind. While you go along with others,
you are not really living your life.

To rebel against others is just as futile. You must find your
way.

Happiness is being on the beam with life – to feel the pull of
life.

*

And finally… for those who don’t have time to get to the readings this week… I wrote up some notes. (I wrote them to try to grope towards some connection between them — still working on that.)

Skim them if you want a (very basic) sense of what was in there.

See you soon!

Tom

*

Some Brief Notes on the Readings

Scruton, BEAUTY: A SHORT INTRODUCTION

He asks, Is beauty an ultimate value? (like Truth, Goodness?)

His answer: it is not the same.

If it were the same, then why would being an “aesthete” be seen as a term of derision?

Why are many people skeptical of over-indulgence in respect to beauty (but not truth or goodness)?

Scruton’s five “platitudes”:

1. Beauty pleases us.
2. It is comparative.
3. It demands attention.
4. Judgments of taste are about the object being perceived (not merely about the one doing the perceiving)
5. Still, no convincing proof of beauty or taste is available.

Strange paradox: beauty FEELS objective, yet we cannot convince others of it (if they don’t already agree).

Types of Beauty to think about:

1. Ecstatic, extreme experiences of it
2. Everyday experiences of it
3. The ‘Sublime’
4. The “Picturesque”
5. ‘Form follows function,’ i.e. utility (practical arts)
6. Only for pleasure – “the thing itself” (fine arts)
7. Sensory element (but not only…)
8. Abstract / intellectual element (framing)
9. Disinterested
10. Interested
11. Can be expressed in the form of a ‘style’

Scruton argues that mere taste, smell, touch, are not enough to constitute beauty (e.g. wine).

We need some mental part too.

Beauty is experienced in a “presented form.”

Evolutionary explanations for beauty:

1. Group selection (ritual, shared purposes, etc.)
2. Individual sexual selection (but is a peacock tail really doing the same work as Bach?)

Certainly beauty is related to desire.

But how so?

It can inspire the desire to possess… a body, an artwork, a piece of jewelry…

But there is also understood to be a Platonic, so-called “higher” form of beauty, which creates a desire not for possession but for contemplation.

Eros is perhaps best described as the act of singling out.

Consider the difference between pornography and (deeper?) beauty of “embodiment.”

Pornography provokes in some the desire to possess. Beauty provokes something quite different… a kind of disinterested state of wonder.

Note that there is a parallel when we turn our gaze to nature.

A sense of the beauty of nature is not the same as a scientific interest in it.

(To know the geology of a cliff is not the same as to marvel at the rocks.)

This feeling of disinterested contemplation became a form of the sacred, as religion receded.

Indeed, art became THE vehicle for beauty in the 19^th century, replacing god.

But this has declined in our own era. Beauty is no longer a longed-for experience… Much art is a spectacle, or an attempt to disorient, or a subversive act.

Difference between art that expands our imaginations

and

pseudo-art, which merely entertains, arouses, amuses, or preaches.

Content vs. form

Scruton discusses Van Gogh’s The Yellow Chair.

Distinction between an artists attempt at representation (observable details, concepts) vs. expression (intuitions).

The yellow chair in the painting may be said to express an unseen life, a relationship with objects; or even something that goes beyond what it represents.

One idea: Beauty may be human experience under the aspect of necessity?

Modernism was an attempt to “recuperate” beauty from its mass reproduction and emptying-out in modern world

But now, according to Scruton, our post-modernist (and increasingly nihilistic) culture is more interested in tearing down.

So the most common forms of art are kitsch and irony.

Kitsch is beauty without consequences – everything works out perfectly, no sacrifice.

Irony is beauty without commitment – nothing is sacred, nothing fixed, just the arrangement and juxtaposition of forms.

Susan Sontag, ON PHOTOGRAPHY

(Sontag’s style is very declarative. So I will simply share some of her declarations:)

To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed.

Photographs are aggressive. Every use of the camera is an act of interpretation.

Photos take possession of a space in which people feel insecure.

They also refuse experience – by limiting it to a search for the photogenic.

They are fantasy machines. They promote nostalgia.

Always the knowledge gained from photographs is a “kind of sentimentalism, whether cynical or humanist.”

Photographs follow Walt Whitman’s erotic embrace of experience in its entirety. (She mentions William Steiglitz,, Diane Arbus.)

In our era, the image is becoming more important than the original.

We have, she claims, a “steadily more complex sense of the real.”

Morris, BELIEVING IS SEEING

This book is too wonderful to summarize.

It examines, through a series of case histories, the way photographs capture events and things but also contain infinite mysteries. What is authentic? What can we ever really know about the subjects of a photograph? What can a photograph do in the world?

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 2016

Jessie is an artist friend (whom I met through Miriam Dym and our shared project, Submit for Riff).

Jessie’s work explores how we see and organize the world visually. She presses against the limits of our narrow primate vision, bending forms, breaking habits, through photographs, drawings, collage.

She took the time to answer the questions I posed when I introduced this topic in Reading for Our Eleventh Meeting on March 30, 2016 — ART: PHOTOGRAPHY.

Here is what she said: