Jerry Monaco <monacojerry at gmail.com> wrote:
"But perhaps we all need people to "imitate", to take into
ourselves as part of our thoughts and gestures. We all need to experiment with
masks and personalities; heroes and stars (in modern consumer society) are
the ready-at-hand character-types that we use for such experiments.
And yet if we let the experiments carry over into idolatry we have committed
a sin against our own growth, our own genius, if you will, and in so
doing we have inhibited our ability to contribute with full empathy and
solidarity to the inherent equality of all humans. We have violated our writ as
radicals to work against all irrational authority"
I cant argue with any of those points. Well spoken! I think I have a humbler view of my own "genius" and role in life, so I see nothing wrong with admiring talent wherever it appears. But you've covered my case in your comments below.
Bob
On 5/9/08, Robert Wrubel wrote:
>
>
>
> Jerry Monaco wrote:
>
> "All heroes should have their own circle of hell very close to
> the traitors."
>
> Come on, Jerry! I'll bet you have plenty of intellectual/artistic
> heroes. A hero is someone who appears to have god-like qualities, of
> intellect, or feeling, or creativity. How can you withhold the label from
> someone like Tolstoy, or Freud, or Schweitzer or Picasso -- whatever the
> shortcomings of their personalities might be?
>
> BW
Bob,
I take this to be a serious question, and I must admit that I have grown younger in consideration of it over the past 30 years. As my atheism has become less militant my anti-heroism has become more radical. And Shane is correct to point to Homer, because it was in considering the role of the Great Heroes in the ancient Greek polis and in American literature pop-culture that led me to conclude that if you meet a hero on the road you must kill him or her. "If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha"
Please don't bring up Freud and Schweitzer. Freud was not as great of a fiction writer as Tolstoy, who I love to read, and Schweitzer was a racist. I fail to see why I should make a hero out of Tolstoy simply because he was a great novelist, anymore than I would make a hero out of the deeply racist Celine, or the snobbish Nabokov, who I probably enjoy reading more than any other writer of the 20th century.
People such as Dorothy Day and Rosa Luxembourg and even Trotsky, were the closest I ever came to hero worship. I found such hero worship a form of ideological mental derangement. But I know I was wrong. Frank Sinatra, John Coltrane, Bob Dylan, Barbara Stanwyck, and Humphrey Bogart are the closest I ever came to star worship and I found it a fatal disease of vanity and dissatisfaction. Pity the person who needs a hero or a star for she is lost to herself.
But perhaps we all need people to "imitate", to take into ourselves as part of our thoughts and gestures. We all need to experiment with masks and personalities; heroes and stars (in modern consumer society) are the ready-at-hand character-types that we use for such experiments. And yet if we let the experiments carry over into idolatry we have committed a sin against our own growth, our own genius, if you will, and in so doing we have inhibited our ability to contribute with full empathy and solidarity to the inherent equality of all humans. We have violated our writ as radicals to work against all irrational authority.
Jerry
On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 11:10 AM, martin wrote:
>
> > I still remember amy's smile when she hosted willy nelson. Don't you
> > have any heroes?
> >
> > martin
>
>
> No.
>
> People I admire yes. Heroes no.
>
> Línjì Yìxuán, (9th Century CE) a Zen Buddhist master once said: "If you
> meet
> the Buddha on the road, kill the Buddha." The idea is that all personality
> cults and charismatic movements defeat free thought.
>
> The phenomena of "cult of personality" (charisma, the star system,
> irrational authority) is something that we should fight against, though I
> think to a certain extent such personality cults are part of what it means
> to be human. Heroism itself is a special form of the cult of personality
> and the striving for dominance.
>
> All heroes should have their own circle of hell very close to the traitors.
>
> Jerry
>
>
> >
> > On May 9, 2008, at 2:19 AM, Jerry Monaco wrote:
> >
> > > When I ask how KVH became so star-struck it is a serious question.
> > > I am
> > > really curious about the social phenomena of "charisma" and idol
> > > worship.
> > > So if anyone has any thoughts I'd love to hear them.
> > >
> > > Maybe liberals should reintroduce Dionysian cult rituals to
> > > inoculate them
> > > from this kind of idolatry.
> >
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is
> Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture
> http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/
>
> His fiction, poetry, weblog is
> Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories
> http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/
>
> Notes, Quotes, Images - From some of my reading and browsing
> http://www.livejournal.com/community/jerry_quotes/
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it
> now.
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
-- Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/
His fiction, poetry, weblog is Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/
Notes, Quotes, Images - From some of my reading and browsing http://www.livejournal.com/community/jerry_quotes/ ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
--------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.