Note To Mr. Krauthammer
OPINION IN BRIEF (From Federalist Patriot)
"It is particularly dismaying that this act should have been perpetrated by the conservative party. For half a century, liberals have corrupted the courts by turning them into an instrument of radical social change on questions—school prayer, abortion, busing, death penalty—that properly belong to the elected branches of government. Conservatives have opposed this arrogation of the legislative role and called for the restoration of the purely interpretive role of the court. To nominate someone whose adult life reveals no record of even participation in debates about constitutional interpretation is an insult to the institution, and to that vision of the institution. There are 1,084,504 lawyers in the U.S. What distinguishes Harriet Miers from any of them other than her connection with the president?" —Charles Krauthammer
Dear Mr. Krauthammer,
I am only a flyover country hayseed. I am a lifelong conservative. My focus has been on the power of the Supreme Court of the United States for many years now. Our constitutional system has been perverted by an out of control judiciary legislating from the bench. Obviously the cure is the hope that a conservative President will be in office when vacancies occur to restore some balance to the process. The progressive liberal demoracists long ago threw the Democratic voters of America in the ditch to surreptitiously legislate from the bench. The bench legislating avoids the embarrassment of elected progressive liberal demoracists having to explain to their voting base why they are not serving their best interests. They may have reached their left leaning limits if they lose the Presidency again in 2008. That may force a reality check. Even the most somnolent of voters will awake to reality eventually.
The heart of this issue is exactly Harriet Meier's lack of a discernible record. Happily that is her greatest asset. If she dropped gum wrappers in the park the mob would be on her as a public litterer and destroyer of the environment. If she jaywalked in Dallas she would be an out of control scofflaw. Heaven forbid lane changes without a turn signal. Right now her main problem is dealing with the Matt Drudge Report that she (ohmygosh!!) voted for Ronald Reagan one time.
Mr. Krauthammer here's the deal. George W. Bush is winding down his Presidency. The importance of his legacy increases as his days diminish. I think he is determined to have his Supreme Court of the United States appointments be the cornerstone of his legacy. He could very well be faced with a third vacancy prior to leaving office. President Bush's legacy will in the end turn on two or three appointments to our highest court. If you actually believe that President Bush would waste this appointment you have probably crossed over to the ranks of the smug pseudo intellectuals who tout the President's alleged intellectual deficiencies as compared to their presumed superiority. I will go with the President's choice.
"It is particularly dismaying that this act should have been perpetrated by the conservative party. For half a century, liberals have corrupted the courts by turning them into an instrument of radical social change on questions—school prayer, abortion, busing, death penalty—that properly belong to the elected branches of government. Conservatives have opposed this arrogation of the legislative role and called for the restoration of the purely interpretive role of the court. To nominate someone whose adult life reveals no record of even participation in debates about constitutional interpretation is an insult to the institution, and to that vision of the institution. There are 1,084,504 lawyers in the U.S. What distinguishes Harriet Miers from any of them other than her connection with the president?" —Charles Krauthammer
Dear Mr. Krauthammer,
I am only a flyover country hayseed. I am a lifelong conservative. My focus has been on the power of the Supreme Court of the United States for many years now. Our constitutional system has been perverted by an out of control judiciary legislating from the bench. Obviously the cure is the hope that a conservative President will be in office when vacancies occur to restore some balance to the process. The progressive liberal demoracists long ago threw the Democratic voters of America in the ditch to surreptitiously legislate from the bench. The bench legislating avoids the embarrassment of elected progressive liberal demoracists having to explain to their voting base why they are not serving their best interests. They may have reached their left leaning limits if they lose the Presidency again in 2008. That may force a reality check. Even the most somnolent of voters will awake to reality eventually.
The heart of this issue is exactly Harriet Meier's lack of a discernible record. Happily that is her greatest asset. If she dropped gum wrappers in the park the mob would be on her as a public litterer and destroyer of the environment. If she jaywalked in Dallas she would be an out of control scofflaw. Heaven forbid lane changes without a turn signal. Right now her main problem is dealing with the Matt Drudge Report that she (ohmygosh!!) voted for Ronald Reagan one time.
Mr. Krauthammer here's the deal. George W. Bush is winding down his Presidency. The importance of his legacy increases as his days diminish. I think he is determined to have his Supreme Court of the United States appointments be the cornerstone of his legacy. He could very well be faced with a third vacancy prior to leaving office. President Bush's legacy will in the end turn on two or three appointments to our highest court. If you actually believe that President Bush would waste this appointment you have probably crossed over to the ranks of the smug pseudo intellectuals who tout the President's alleged intellectual deficiencies as compared to their presumed superiority. I will go with the President's choice.
posted by BigBubba at 7:35 PM
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40 Comments:
BB,
I personnally don't know what to make of the Meirs nomination. All I know is that the rule of lawyers needs to come to an end, and the country needs to return to the rule of law.
Now it would seem to me, that the best way to get back to a rule of law would be to nominate people to the bench who have had a long history of nailing it down and keeping it from squirming away. People with a long history and track record of doing just that.
I don't know Mrs. Meirs. She could be all that. But then again, maybe she's not. The president is saying "trust me" after just saying "trust me" on the court. I'd rather put up Robert Bork and fight it out. Let's clear up the whole "nuclear" debate right now and let the second American Civil Wars begin. Who knows, after it were over, they might seat Bush in a chair next to Lincoln at the memorial in DC.
-FJ
The part I like most about this whole affair is the controversy about "why should we trust President Bush just because he says trust me." This controversy is a pointer to individuals who are brain dead pseudo intellectuals.
When I, or anyone else, voted for George W. Bush to be President of the United States that was not an act of trust? I am going to entrust him with all the responsibilities of his office EXCEPT for the selection of Supreme Court Justices? Doesn't that sound just a tad illogical?
Tell me. Exactly what can President Bush say besides trust me? This is part of the problem y'all. The pseudo intellectual progressive liberal demoracists have managed to produce an atmosphere where truth is the last thing to be forthcoming. Speaking the truth about political, religious and personal beliefs spell an end to any possibility of the demoracists cooperation. It provides grist for their propaganda mill.
Another unfortunate consequence of this whole sorry process is that people don't even want their name to be on the list of potential nominees.
Are you saying the fight to produce an atmosphere in the Senate where the truth is important and forethcoming is NOT a battle worth waging?
Look, this whole "stealth" candidate thing is ALL about. NOT wanting a fight in the Senate over the demoracists infinite 40% filibuster power.
If a mainline honest 100% conservative came up for a vote in the Senate, he would pass handily(barring nanny problems), but NOT with a 60% majority. So I say, put one up. Let the American people decide whether preserving the integrity of the US Constitution is an act of political "extremism". Or whether someone who "filibusters" should be forced to talk and hold the floor like the Founders intended.
Stealth "trust me" nominee's are NOT the way to go. Remember the old Cold War motto. "Trust, but verify".
-FJ
OK, Farmer John, we will do it your way. We will fight for a Senate where the truth is important and forthcoming. Where truth is an important battle that is worth waging. We will nominate Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. He is a conservative genius whose legal mind is widely admired as exceptional. The consensus opinion is that a fine man was wronged by a selection process becoming the first nominee ever to be "borked." OK, OK, that may be a little too far out there. Let's go a little more mainstream with the known, or at least perceived, record of Alberto Gonzales, or Priscilla Richman Owen, or Janice Rogers Brown. I guarantee that anyone of those known quantities will help us to remember what it is for a nominee to be "borked."
Living la vida loca in your very small broom closet of the mind must be very confining. You need to get out of that tiny box and see if basking in the sunshine of logic and reason has a beneficial effect.
BB,
They voted on Bork. They gave him a "down". That's all I'm asking the Senate do. But THAT is not something they're willing to do anymore. Filibuster. Stealth candidates. Secrets. Power. Lies.
I say, let's watch the spin machine spin. Let the lies and accusations tumble. Let the witch-hunters don their pilgrim hats. And let America watch. And then let them watch it again. And then let them watch it again. And then let them watch it again. And again. And again. And again.
They'll eventually tell their idiot demoracist representatives to knock it off. I don't care if they have to ruin the reputation of every conservative judge in the country. Because I think MORE of Robert Bork today BECAUSE of his honesty and straightforward answers, than ANY sitting Justice today.
-FJ
"Tell me. Exactly what can President Bush say besides trust me?"
Obviously he could have nominated a known quantity. He could have given his constituents what they wanted--a conservative "constructionist" (aka "activist") judge.
As such, Meirs can't be too much a disaster, any more than Sandra O'Connor was. President Bush is now in that funny spot many second-termers find themselves in, the "can't-please-anybody" spot. He's not pushing far enough for his base (i.e., that part of his base that are not millionaires; he suits them just fine). But now he's in his George H.W. Bush mode, which is what the sillier liberals had been clamoring for, but it's too-little/too-late.
norm,
Which do you prefer, the rule of law, or the rule of lawyers? To call someone who advocates a "fixed" interpretation of the law an "activist" is a gross misuse of the word.
-FJ
mr ducky,
Because they DEFINED the PROCESS for changing the law. You want to change the law, get your legislators to write one and PASS it. Don't kluge the PROCESS, by simply "re-interpretting" it. Re-interpretting was NOT the PROCESS. It's a CORRUPTION of the PROCESS
-FJ
Everyone loves the RULE OF LAW up to the point where it becomes the RULE OF LAWYERS. We don't VOTE for lawyers.
-FJ
Hey, you got me. I don't even know what "strict constructionist" or "legislating from the bench" actually mean. Aside from being rhetoric.
Seems to me there is one criteria only which politicians use when appointing judges: will their decisions favor my side?
Are you sure they're not simply choosing ones that will enforce the actual laws they passed and not some deconstructed and disimulated new "narrative" interpretation?
-FJ
BB,
Evidently someone has read your blog over at NRO. They want to put Bork up for SCOTUS again...
NRO
-FJ
Dear Duck, before I go read Ann Coulter perhaps we need to clarify. I am not a lock step, knee jerk, pseudo intellectual progressive liberal demoracist talking points talking yankee like you. I have never agreed with everything that Ann Coulter, or any other political pundit, had to say. I even sometimes agree with political pundits who favor the demoracist's political perspective.
As for your low opinion of The Great State of Texas, thank you. Keep believing and stay away. Encourage others to stay away. I personally believe that the ideal place for heathen yankees is north of the line. You would be directionless in these parts without the bridge jumper to tell you what to think.
The left and American folk music... continued (Phil Ochs, the "un-Dylan")
JWR Article
"There but for Fortune" Phil Ochs
Show me a prison, show me a jail
Show me a pris'ner whose face has grown pale
And I'll show you a young man
With many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or I
Show me an alley, show me a train
Show me a hobo who sleeps out in the rain
And I'll show you a young man
With many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or I
Show me the whiskey stains on the floor
Show me a drunk as he stumbles out the door
And I'll show you a young man
With many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or I
Show me a country where the bombs had to fall
Show me the ruins of buildings so tall
And I'll show you a young land
With many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or I
You or I
---
I love the comment's in the article about Abbie Hoffman NOT giving the bum $1. So as to induce him to rise up against the "system" and not attribute his condition to "mere fortune". And THIS is where Dylan et al made their FATAL mistake. They blamed it ALL on the System.
-FJ
Farmer John, did you miss my point about Mr. Bork? My point was that those who seem to want to squabble over the nomination, Bork, or someone like him, would be the obvious choice. I prefer taking a chance on "Trust Me" Bush's stealth candidate.
Norm, describing the process as "will their decisions favor my side" is just a tad shallow. Everyone here seems to have some type of defined political belief system. Broadly we could say that visitors here are either conservative or liberal. There is, of course, much more subtlety and nuance to the respective descriptive word. My point is that it is not merely someone that favors "my side." It is a strong statement of who we are, what we believe and it is OK to seek out those who agree with our beliefs about politics.
I consider myself a conservative. I voted for George W. Bush because I favor his political position. Whether or not I would ever vote for Hanoi John who disgraced his uniform, slandered his comrades in arms, and consorted with the enemy is merely a footnote, a side issue. I don't agree with his political position is the main point.
I voted for President Bush fully expecting the possibility that he would appoint one to three members of the Supreme Court. Logic and reason told me that any appointees would probably (hopefully) be conservative. Logic and reason also informed me that I probably would not be in 100% agreement with the nominee, the process, or the results. Loosely "that's life" would be the appropriate description for the last statement.
The bottom line is that "my man" will make the nominations. Come 2008 that individual will make any future nominations during their turn. If that individual turns out to be a demoracist nominating other demoracists that's life. Based on logic and reason what else could I expect? Those who get the ball calls the plays.
Mr. Ducky, what are you going to dress as for Halloween? A fundamentalist?
I guess I did miss some of the sarcasm in your response, BB, and took it as an endorsement of a having a fight.
But I think I would agree that every presidential appointment is a "political" decision. The president tries to get the best candidate through that he can at the time.
I just happen to think that when you "own" the Senate, but for a "Rule Change" allowing filibusters without filibustering, we should have been able to get something much more "palatable" than Meirs through. Even if it meant "stressing" the system.
For the Courts are the ONLY realm available to the current "left". And I'm all for sealing them off at the top.
But the President doesn't think the fight is worth it, at present. I think his view is too limited and "short-term".
-FJ
mr. ducky,
Are you saying that the principle's of stare decisis and juriprudence constante should be ignored, and that in the absence of a statute to it's effect, men cannot be precluded from marrying their farm animals and obtaining spousal benefits for them?
Please, show me all the precedents for men marrying men in Massachussetts. For I am in love with a goat and would seek provisions for her, should something happen to me.
-FJ
samwich, in my estimation you did not lose anything by being barred for life from GRIBBIT ONLINE. I went there and poked around for a few minutes. If I don't get the "lay of the land" in a few minutes I'm out of there. I saw that it seemed to be a conservative site, but, there are layout problems and site navigation problems. I also did not read anything during that brief period that caught my attention and "grabbed" me. I have other things to do.
Mr. Ducky, I am just back from the JWR. I forgot I had already read the Coulter piece that you referred to above. I think I commented on it somewhere in these pages.
Columnists are like Presidents. President's elections do not require receiving 100% of the vote. Tenure on a newspapers' editorial page does not require the agreement of 100% of the readership.
LOL! mr. ducky, where is the STATUTE prohibiting me from marrying my GOAT???? For therein lies the basis upon which YOUR argument rests.
-FJ
Dont' my goats deserve equal protection? Why not? Your PETA friends must love you.
-FJ
As Justice Thurgood Marshall explained for the court in 1986, stare decisis is the "means by which we ensure that the law will not merely change erratically, but will develop in a principled and intelligible fashion."
-FJ
You did like Thurgood Marshall, didn't you?
Well then. Nuff said about "precedents".
-FJ
Farmer John, I don't suppose me telling you for the millionth time not to lump Dylan in with the confused likes of Abbie Hoffman will register?
The man wrote songs and never purported to do anything otherwise. Aside from a few civil rights events, he never threw his hat in with the Left--though they may have been at the same parties. The Left tried very hard to claim him, because his gift was a powerful one, but he never danced for them. Many did. Target them. You're wrong on this one.
Dylan's I am a Jew, I am not a Jew, I am a Jew periods show some confused thinking in at least one area of his life. I would say that his personal and professional life is defined by his struggles about his Jewish identity.
Dylan never quite felt like he "belonged," except perhaps as an entertainer and a father. He was lost enough to seek out Christ in mid-life, (which is very common) but we're not sure how that turned out and it's really not our business. Now the Jewish thing...that confuses me, too. Is it an ethnicity? A religion? A mindset? What if you don't "feel" particularly Jewish?
Everyone's got an origin that they wonder about, be they Jew or Gentile. Otherwise genealogical research would die out. It hasn't.
As for Dylan, I think he was part of the "genesis" and "poet laureate" of the "new" left, disenchanted and HOSTILE to the all talk, no action, "old" folk-music left. The new broke with the old in the 60's and became ACTIVELY "progressive".
Hayden and the SDS, Port Huron. The Frankfurt School. Leftists of a bold new and actively naive stripe. The end of classical "liberalism". The end of the Age of Apollo (intellect). The birth of the Age of Dionysius (pleasures of the flesh).
Take down the corrupt American System and Capitalism by whatever means possible. Stop the war ('Nam). Impose positive liberty and Rawlsian Social Justice. Upsidasium for all. Don't trust anyone over thirty (the old left). Tune in, turn on, Drop OUT. The Hoffman $1.
Freud had proven that people were "programmed" by their Superegos. Hypnotized by the leader. Answer, destroy the program and programmers. Free the robots and save planet earth from conspicuous overconsumption. Drugs like LSD to "free" the mind from it's repressive Superego programming.
Since the drones couldn't make the right choices for themselves, the new left would have to make those choices for them. Justification for imposing "positive" liberty.
Norm, the left isn't a "monolith". Neither is the right. I may be wrong. But I don't think I'm wrong by much.
-FJ
I agree with you, Farmer John. Neither the left, nor the right, are monoliths. Not even the imbeciles, low grade morons and mindless twits, as a group, are a monolith of ignorance. They represent ignorance right across the complete political spectrum, from left to right, and beyond, on both ends.
But you are right about one thing norm. Dylan's madness was different from Hoffman's...
Plato "Phaedrus"...
"SOCRATES: Know then, fair youth, that the former discourse was the word of Phaedrus, the son of Vain Man, who dwells in the city of Myrrhina (Myrrhinusius). And this which I am about to utter is the recantation of Stesichorus the son of Godly Man (Euphemus), who comes from the town of Desire (Himera), and is to the following effect: 'I told a lie when I said' that the beloved ought to accept the non-lover when he might have the lover, because the one is sane, and the other mad. It might be so if madness were simply an evil; but there is also a madness which is a divine gift, and the source of the chiefest blessings granted to men. For prophecy is a madness, and the prophetess at Delphi and the priestesses at Dodona when out of their senses have conferred great benefits on Hellas, both in public and private life, but when in their senses few or none. And I might also tell you how the Sibyl and other inspired persons have given to many an one many an intimation of the future which has saved them from falling. But it would be tedious to speak of what every one knows.
There will be more reason in appealing to the ancient inventors of names (compare Cratylus), who would never have connected prophecy (mantike) which foretells the future and is the noblest of arts, with madness (manike), or called them both by the same name, if they had deemed madness to be a disgrace or dishonour;--they must have thought that there was an inspired madness which was a noble thing; for the two words, mantike and manike, are really the same, and the letter tau is only a modern and tasteless insertion. And this is confirmed by the name which was given by them to the rational investigation of futurity, whether made by the help of birds or of other signs--this, for as much as it is an art which supplies from the reasoning faculty mind (nous) and information (istoria) to human thought (oiesis) they originally termed oionoistike, but the word has been lately altered and made sonorous by the modern introduction of the letter Omega (oionoistike and oionistike), and in proportion as prophecy (mantike) is more perfect and august than augury, both in name and fact, in the same proportion, as the ancients testify, is madness superior to a sane mind (sophrosune) for the one is only of human, but the other of divine origin. Again, where plagues and mightiest woes have bred in certain families, owing to some ancient blood-guiltiness, there madness has entered with holy prayers and rites, and by inspired utterances found a way of deliverance for those who are in need; and he who has part in this gift, and is truly possessed and duly out of his mind, is by the use of purifications and mysteries made whole and exempt from evil, future as well as present, and has a release from the calamity which was afflicting him. The third kind is the madness of those who are possessed by the Muses; which taking hold of a delicate and virgin soul, and there inspiring frenzy, awakens lyrical and all other numbers; with these adorning the myriad actions of ancient heroes for the instruction of posterity. But he who, having no touch of the Muses' madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks that he will get into the temple by the help of art--he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted; the sane man disappears and is nowhere when he enters into rivalry with the madman."
-FJ
Abbie Hoffman's bio over at Wikipedia seems to confirm my "independently arrived at" assessment of the New Left. The Freudian assessment comes from Hoffman's favorite teacher, Herbert Marcuse, "Eros and Civilization", teaching at the U of Chicago (next to Strauss).
-FJ
erratum,
Marcuse didn't teach @ U of Chicago. He taught at Brandeis U and in La Jolla, CA. Sorry, must have gotten his publisher confused with his teaching institution.
-FJ
Well, I appreciate your differentiating his "madness" from the "actually crazy" Abbie Hoffman. Now, Mr. Nietzsche had a lot of negative influence too, but would you blame him for the Nazis? Because this is precisely what you are attempting to do with Dylan.
Is the only use of art "instruction?" Or is that even its most important function?
For example, let's take a rousing gospel number. I'm going to assume all of us have been moved at some point by one of these, and it would be difficult to fault its "instructional" intentions. But what are we experiencing when we are "moved"?
It's a simple form, so we don't have to get theoretically abstract to explain it. But there's an "art" to it as well. First, you have a rhythm which propels the song forward. Then, a certain progression of chords that show us the way a song goes. Then, you have a melody that rides these chords and lifts us up. Next, you have the sound itself, especially that of the human voice, whose sound our ears are specifically built to hear (20hz-20khz) and with which you could say we have a natural identification. Finally, the meaning of the words sung--in this case, the "good news."
Now certainly the "good news" is important to the effect. I might go so far as to say it can be 50% of the effect. But its power is greatly diminished in this context if those other elements aren't quite there, which is why some songs move us and others don't. You might say we are being instructed in the "good news" but the fact is we already know, and are just reaffirming, this good news.
So what we are experiencing is sublime--a connection with God through each other. You must admit, there is a "release" from "programming" going on here, and this is pleasurable. Now is this a problem for you? Because this sensation is at least partly physical. It might cause a hip to inadvertently sway! A toe to wantonly tap! A hand to brazenly clap! What's going on here?
I believe what you are describing with Gospel music, norm, is a "harmony" in brain processing functions between left and right hemispheres that are "rejoicing" in their accord. I have NO problem at all with spiritual or Gospel music that attempts to "elevate" the intellect and soul and rejoice in communion with like-minded souls and the toe-tapping, hand clapping, and hip swaying that goes along with it.
Now one can also get an "opposite" harmony going when you play many forms of music like "gangsta" which rejoice in killing, misogeny, and violence and focus on self-centered and egoistic motivations and pursuits. These tend to "diminish" the intellect and alienate soul. But the feelings one gets are just as pleasurable. Many times, even more so...if you throw in satisfaction of primal instincts for destruction, domination, and sex and then disable reason with drugs.
You ask if the purpose of art should be instructional. It doesn't have to always be, but I think it should always strive to appeal to the intellect, and nor simply our desire to experience physical pleasures.
from Benjamim Jowett's analysis of Plato's "Philebus" dialogue (on pleasure)...
"Philebus affirmed pleasure to be the good, and assumed them to be one nature; I affirmed that they were two natures, and declared that knowledge was more akin to the good than pleasure. I said that the two together were more eligible than either taken singly; and to this we adhere. Reason intimates, as at first, that we should seek the good not in the unmixed life, but in the mixed.
The cup is ready, waiting to be mingled, and here are two fountains, one of honey, the other of pure water, out of which to make the fairest possible mixture. There are pure and impure pleasures--pure and impure sciences. Let us consider the sections of each which have the most of purity and truth; to admit them all indiscriminately would be dangerous. First we will take the pure sciences; but shall we mingle the impure--the art which uses the false rule and the false measure? That we must, if we are any of us to find our way home; man cannot live upon pure mathematics alone. And must I include music, which is admitted to be guess-work? 'Yes, you must, if human life is to have any humanity.' Well, then, I will open the door and let them all in; they shall mingle in an Homeric 'meeting of the waters.' And now we turn to the pleasures; shall I admit them? 'Admit first of all the pure pleasures; secondly, the necessary.' And what shall we say about the rest? First, ask the pleasures--they will be too happy to dwell with wisdom. Secondly, ask the arts and sciences--they reply that the excesses of intemperance are the ruin of them; and that they would rather only have the pleasures of health and temperance, which are the handmaidens of virtue. But still we want truth? That is now added; and so the argument is complete, and may be compared to an incorporeal law, which is to hold fair rule over a living body. And now we are at the vestibule of the good, in which there are three chief elements--truth, symmetry, and beauty. These will be the criterion of the comparative claims of pleasure and wisdom.
Which has the greater share of truth? Surely wisdom; for pleasure is the veriest impostor in the world, and the perjuries of lovers have passed into a proverb.
Which of symmetry? Wisdom again; for nothing is more immoderate than pleasure.
Which of beauty? Once more, wisdom; for pleasure is often unseemly, and the greatest pleasures are put out of sight.
Not pleasure, then, ranks first in the scale of good, but measure, and eternal harmony.
Second comes the symmetrical and beautiful and perfect.
Third, mind and wisdom.
Fourth, sciences and arts and true opinions.
Fifth, painless pleasures.
Of a sixth class, I have no more to say. Thus, pleasure and mind may both renounce the claim to the first place. But mind is ten thousand times nearer to the chief good than pleasure. Pleasure ranks fifth and not first, even though all the animals in the world assert the contrary."
-FJ
...and I wouldn't classify it as a "release" from programming, so much as a complete confirmation of it coupled with pleasure. And most "Gospel" participants move "together"... mirroring other participants... and do not do what dancers to "rock" music do... their own thing.
This synchronicity of movement confirms the programming.
-FJ
In Gospel music, we begin to see a separation from previous Christian traditions (non-physical) and the introduction of more "Dionysian" forms...with their Bacchic appeal... to oppose them would be a wish to suffer Pentheus' fate.
Euripides, "The Bacchæ"
"CHOR. Coming from the land of Asia, having left the sacred Tmolus, I dance in honor of Bromius, a sweet labor and a toil easily borne, celebrating the god Bacchus. Who is in the way? who is in the way? who is in the halls? Let him depart. And let every one be pure as to his mouth speaking propitious things; for now I will with hymns celebrate Bacchus according to custom:--Blessed is he, whoever being favored, knowing the mysteries of the gods, keeps his life pure, and has his soul initiated into the Bacchic revels, dancing o'er the mountains with holy purifications, and reverencing the mysteries of the mighty mother Cybele, and brandishing the thyrsus, and being crowned with ivy, serves Bacchus! Go, ye Bacchæ; go, ye Bacchæ, escorting Bromius, a God, the son of a God, from the Phrygian mountains to the broad streets of Greece! Bromius! whom formerly, being in the pains of travail, the thunder of Jove flying upon her, his mother cast from her womb, leaving life by the stroke of the thunder-bolt. And immediately Jupiter, the son of Saturn, received him in a chamber fitted for birth; and covering him in his thigh, shuts him with golden clasps hidden from Juno. And he brought him forth, when the Fates had perfected the horned God, and crowned him with crowns of snakes, whence the thyrsus-bearing Mænads are wont to cover their prey with their locks. O Thebes, thou nurse of Semele, crown thyself with ivy, flourish, flourish with the verdant yew bearing sweet fruit, and be ye crowned in honor of Bacchus with branches of oak or pine, and adorn your garments of spotted deer-skin with fleeces of white-haired sheep, and sport in holy games with the insulting wands, straightway shall all the earth dance, when Bromius leads the bands to the mountain, to the mountain, where the female crowd abides, away from the distaff and the shuttle, driven frantic by Bacchus. O dwelling of the Curetes, and ye divine Cretan caves, parents to Jupiter, where the Corybantes with the triple helmet invented for me in their caves this circle o'erstretched with hide; and with the constant sweet-voiced breath of Phrygian pipes they mingled a sound of Bacchus, and put the instrument in the hand of Rhea, resounding with the sweet songs of the Bacchæ. And hard by the raving satyrs went through the sacred rites of the mother Goddess. And they added the dances of the Trieterides; in which Bacchus rejoices; pleased on the mountains, when after the running dance he falls upon the plain, having a sacred garment of deer-skin, seeking a sacrifice of goats, a raw-eaten delight, on his way to the Phrygian, the Lydian mountains; and the leader is Bromius, Evoe! but the plain flows with milk, and flows with wine, and flows with the nectar of bees; and the smoke is as of Syrian frankincense. But Bacchus bearing a flaming torch of pine on his thyrsus, rushes about arousing in his course the wandering Choruses, and agitating them with shouts, casting his rich locks loose in the air,--and with his songs he shouts out such words as this: O go forth, ye Bacchæ; O go forth, ye Bacchæ, delight of gold-flowing Tmolus. Sing Bacchus 'neath the loud drums, Evoe, celebrating the God Evius in Phrygian cries and shouts. When the sweet-sounding sacred pipe sounds a sacred playful sound suited to the frantic wanderers, to the mountain, to the mountain--and the Bacchant rejoicing like a foal with its mother at pasture, stirs its swift foot in the dance.
-FJ
Why does Pentheus get torn apart? What is his "crime?" Party pooper?
I would agree that music that celebrates loose sexuality and hedonistic materialism is bad for culture. I would never champion that.
I would not apply this to our friend Mr. Dylan. I think his music does hold an intellectual appeal as well as pleasure and I don't think that the intellectual appeal involves an anarchic message, or maybe more to the point, it does not involve any "social program." Though I will admit it may cause one to "question authority."
If you say "Well that's the problem, too much questioning authority in culture" I'd tend to agree with you; that is a problem with the cultural output in our current climate. It's a trope that has lost its mooring. As a parent, I do not want my kid watching these shows depicting parents as buffoons. However, I would want them, when they are mature enough, to question authority, because that is part of critical thinking--not accepting things at "face value."
Well, it's been a few years since I actually read the story, but Pentheus' crime was, IMO, that he denied nature her due. He was an idealist who didn't understand the limitations of his idealism and who also didn't know himself or his own nature well enough. And his "investigation" into "what" all those women were doing in the woods alone led to a fixation bordering on obsessive voyeurism. So he was "mistaken" for game by the very women he was observing (I believe his mother included) and torn apart.
In other words, some idealistic practices, if not properly understood, can lead one to one's own self-destruction. From a psychological perspective, this was probably one of those Freudian "seeing your mother naked" childhood events playing itself out. The Greek tragic playwrights were "mad" as well (although I will admit, Euripides is the least "divine" of them).
A contemporary example would be the abstinence of priests. Those who don't understand the nature of the beast can become totally obsessed and self-destruct (Catholic Church scandal). It's important for priests to be FULLY aware of precisely what the commitment to abstinence requires, and those who are mentally unprepared are vulnerable, like Pentheus.
And so for "most" people, total abstinence is NOT a good idea. One needs to take a "Dionysia" occassionally and have the opportunity to indulge in behaviors one normally condemns. Las Vegas, NV comes to mind. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. But if you go with friends, you can also learn a lot. Like who to trust your wife and kids with if you are ever summoned to serve your country in a time of need.
But most people go to Vegas and do NOT go completely "wild". It's the "opportunity" it affords to sin and then NOT sin that helps one build moral character. Another contemporary example, a sailor in an exotic port. But as the maxims above the Temple of Apollo at Delphi state..."Know Yourself" and "Nothing to Excess".
And resistance to authority is a strong component of human nature. The beast has his own "built in" will to power that can cause him to deviate from the authority figure (usually an alpha male). The alpha male tries to impose "celibacy" on him. He naturally sneaks off at every opportunity with the group's females until "driven out" by the other males. He then forms a "homosexual cooperative" until he becomes strong enough to collect and defend females of his own, luring them off, or defeating an older alpha.
But you are correct, that CIVILIZED people brought up in a tightly controlled and socially restrictive childhood, THEY actually do need a message to "question authority". That's what college is for.
But I'm afraid, if Bob Dylan is the only messenger that these repressed individuals get, we are really heading for DISASTER, for he also delivers another message.... that "OUR system is particulary EVIL and needs to be DESTROYED.
You make him out to be "innocent" of delivering that message. I argue that he is NOT as innocent as he would like us to believe. For many of those on the Left who seem to be on a "crusade" to destroy capitalism seem have gotten Dylan's message. And if HE wasn't the original messenger, the "subliminal's" he sends are a strong reinforcement of this self-same message.
-FJ
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