>Carl writes:
>
>>I think the arts and sciences are fundamentally at odds. To one
>>degree or another ever since myths were first created, the arts
>>have been concerned with creating visions that could be shared by
>>people at large and thus help promote a common understanding of
>>reality. Science, OTOH, is concerned with nailing down objective
>>specifics with great precision and rapidly leaves the average
>>person in the dust. It's a great mechanism for teaching us more and
>>more about less and less, being driven by ever greater
>>specialization that results in tremendous technical achievements
>>that are incomprehensible to all but specialists, leaving most
>>people -- in search of existential, not technical, insights into
>>the nature of things -- alienated and lost. The arts connote; the
>>sciences denote; never the twain shall meet.
>----
>The first word that came to my mind when I read that
>was "Romanticism"
>
>Romanticism Circle
>http://www.rc.umd.edu/
Taken as a whole (including the effects of post-revolutionary disillusionment), Romanticism displayed an ambivalent attitude toward science, but, while still revolutionary, Romantic writings often expressed a dialectical hope for science's potentially emancipatory powers (despite its origins). Here's an excerpt from Coleridge's "Religious Musings" (1794):
***** So Property began, twy-streaming fount, Whence Vice and Virtue flow, honey and gall. Hence the soft couch, and many-coloured robe, The timbrel, and arched dome and costly feast, With all the inventive arts, that nursed the soul To forms of beauty, and by sensual wants Unsensualised the mind, which in the means Learnt to forget the grossness of the end, Best pleasured with its own activity. And hence Disease that withers manhood's arm, The daggered Envy, spirit-quenching Want, Warriors, and Lords, and Priests -- all the sore ills That vex and desolate our mortal life. Wide-wasting ills! yet each the immediate source Of mightier good. Their keen necessities To ceaseless action goading human thought Have made Earth's reasoning animal her Lord; And the pale-featured Sage's trembling hand Strong as an host of arméd Deities, Such as the blind Ionian fabled erst.
>From Avarice thus, from Luxury and War
Sprang heavenly Science; and from Science Freedom.
O'er waken'd realms Philosophers and Bards
Spread in concentric circles: they whose souls,
Conscious of their high dignities from God,
Brook not Wealth's rivalry!...
Ah! far removed from all that glads the sense,
>From all that softens or ennobles Man
The wretched Many! Bent beneath their loads
They gape at pageant Power, nor recognise
Their cots' transmuted plunder! From the tree
Of Knowledge, ere the vernal sap had risen
Rudely disbranched!...
O ye numberless, Whom foul Oppression's ruffian gluttony Drives from Life's plenteous feast! O thou poor Wretch Who nursed in darkness and made wild by want, Roamest for prey, yea thy unnatural hand Dost lift to deeds of blood!...Rest awhile Children of Wretchedness! More groans must rise, More blood must stream, or ere your wrongs be full. Yet is the day of Retribution nigh: The Lamb of God hath opened the fifth seal: And upward rush on swiftest wing of fire The innumerable multitude of wrongs By man on man inflicted! Rest awhile, Children of Wretchedness! The hour is nigh And lo! the Great, the Rich, the Mighty Men, The Kings and the Chief Captains of the World, With all that fixed on high like stars of Heaven Shot baleful influence, shall be cast to earth, Vile and down-trodden, as the untimely fruit Shook from the fig-tree by a sudden storm. Even now the storm begins: each gentle name. Faith and meek Piety, with fearful joy Tremble far-off -- for lo! the Giant Frenzy Uprooting empires with his whirlwind arm Mocketh high Heaven; burst hideous from the cell Where the old Hag, unconquerable, huge, Creation's eyeless drudge, black Ruin, sits Nursing the impatient earthquake.... *****
Yoshie