With philosophy, poetry and politics on my mind...

Quoting Amity

Has anything poetic inspired you recently to think and reflect on today's everyday?

Yes. I am currently reading Borges, and he dedicated a chapter for reviewing 'kennings'. A 'kenning' is an old poem that is characterised for including a large number of metaphors and ambiguity. Sadly, I am not very informed or acknowledged on Icelandic and Old Nordic poetry, so it is a bit difficult for me to follow some details and descriptions.
Anyway, thanks to the vast and wonderful work of translating by Borges, I started to read and flowing my imagination around. I'd like to feel free and open to interpretation while reading kennings.

If you don't mind, Amity, I'd like to share a kenning I read before:

The fishing goes according to our [my] wishes, in that we have tried to lure the poison-serpent of the sea out of the heather of the field of the cod. The caster of the bait-gallows let the one grasped by the hook hang; at all events, things have turned out well for me in catching the trout.

Reflecting on the ambiguity of the brief poem above, most experts on Scandinavian literature and poetry agreed that 'the heather of the field of the cod' means seaweed. Fascinating, isn't it? This kind of poetry is helping me to improve my imagination. :smile:

Further readings: Skaldic Poetry.

Hola, Javi, y muchas gracias :smile:

Quoting javi2541997

I am currently reading Borges, and he dedicated a chapter for reviewing 'kennings'...If you don't mind, Amity, I'd like to share a kenning I read before:

I'm very happy that you shared your reading and introduced something new to me, and probably others.

Quoting javi2541997

I am not very informed or acknowledged on Icelandic and Old Nordic poetry, so it is a bit difficult for me to follow some details and descriptions.

Yes, it's difficult to follow. However, I discovered that kennings are not only found in Old Nordic poetry.
Excellent information from: https://www.litcharts.com/literary-devices-and-terms/kenning

I remember the phrase 'rosy-fingered dawn' but it seems that is more of an 'epithet'?
I read here that 'the kenning form still has resonance today and crops up even when people are not purposely thinking up kennings.'

Strangely enough that reminded me of Il Postino, a film I started watching last night.
The postman and the poet, Neruda, are sitting together on a beach watching the ocean. Neruda spontaneously reacts with poetry (or perhaps he is reciting from memory). As the postman (Mario) listens in awe to a poem about the ocean, so do we. It comes easy. We feel and see the effect it has.
After Neruda finishes, Mario tells him:

“I felt like a boat tossing about on those words.”

The poet smiles. “You’ve invented a metaphor.”

“But it doesn’t count because I didn’t mean to,” Mario says.

“Meaning to is not important,” the poet says.

***
Some people don't need to be taught about poetry. They simply have it within, without knowing the terms. Sometimes, help is needed to bring out the creativity. I love to hear about how children can learn.
https://poetry4kids.com/lessons/how-to-write-a-kenning-poem/

***

Quoting javi2541997

Reflecting on the ambiguity of the brief poem above, most experts on Scandinavian literature and poetry agreed that 'the heather of the field of the cod' means seaweed. Fascinating, isn't it? This kind of poetry is helping me to improve my imagination.

It is indeed fascinating. How do I say 'book-worm' in Spanish? :wink:

Quoting Amity

Hola, Javi, y muchas gracias

Hola. :smile:

Quoting Amity

Yes, it's difficult to follow. However, I discovered that kennings are not only found in Old Nordic poetry.
Excellent information from:

Thanks, Amity. I really enjoy reading stuff like this. I wonder now if' stuff' is a bad word to express or refer to something. I am realising that I am using stuff' a lot while I interact with you, mates. I understand that it is not too important to express myself in a perfect manner, yet I guess that maybe I sound 'repetitive' in most of my posts and answers.


Quoting Amity

It is indeed fascinating. How do I say 'book-worm' in Spanish? :wink:

We don't refer to worms but to mice to refer to that noun. We say: ratón de biblioteca. :smile:

Quoting javi2541997

I wonder now if' stuff' is a bad word to express or refer to something. I am realising that I am using stuff' a lot while I interact with you, mates. I understand that it is not too important to express myself in a perfect manner, yet I guess that maybe I sound 'repetitive' in most of my posts and answers.

Oh, what a load of stuff and nonsense! OK. I use 'stuff' a lot, too. I like using it. It's what we are made of.

I think the word 'mate' can grate, just like the word 'friend' can offend. Or 'pal' can appal. It's like, man, people trying too hard to be part of a crowd, man.

We can be in danger of over-thinking and becoming too sensitive...that can be good or bad. Depending.
If I worry about being perfect (an impossibility!), then my mind would seize up :gasp:
[I note I used the word 'can' 5 times! Not gonna edit]

Quoting javi2541997

We don't refer to worms but to mice to refer to that noun. We say: ratón de biblioteca

Another thing I didn't know. Ain't language cool, mate :cool:
Sure is, man :up:

Quoting Amity

I think the word 'mate' can grate, just like the word 'friend' can offend. Or 'pal' can appal. It's like, man, people trying too hard to be part of a crowd, man.

:smile:

Quoting javi2541997

Anyway, thanks to the vast and wonderful work of translating by Borges, I started to read and flowing my imagination around. I'd like to feel free and open to interpretation while reading kennings.

Yes, like you, I continue to be fascinated by interpretation and translation :nerd:
Have you considered writing a kenning poem?
Translators of Ancient Languages deserve a medal for passion, work and mastery. I wonder what kenning could be created for the word 'translator'? Hmm...

An Old English epic keeps cropping up - Beowulf. So many types of translation. Here's a list of kennings from Seamus Heaney’s version:

Quoting Old English Kennings

Kennings for King

Ring-giver
Treasure-giver
Gold-giver
Homeland’s guardian
Guardian of the ring-hoard
Gold-friend to retainers
Shepherd of people

The first monster that Beowulf slays is Grendel, referred to as:

Hall-watcher
Corpse-maker
Shadow-stalker
Hell-brute

Beowulf has to face Grendel’s mother, a creature called:

Hell-bride
Hell-dam
Tarn-hag
Swamp-thing from hell
Terror-monger

Reply to wonderer1 :smile: Hey, man! How ya hangin'? Did ye ken aboot kennings?

Quoting Youtube - Joshuas Mirror

Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney's new translation of Beowulf comes to life in this gripping audio. Heaney's performance reminds us that Beowulf, written near the turn of another millennium, was intended to be heard not read.

Composed toward the end of the first millennium of our era, Beowulf is the elegiac narrative of the adventures of Beowulf, a Scandinavian hero who saves the Danes from the seemingly invincible monster Grendel and, later, from Grendel's mother. He then returns to his own country and lives to old age before dying in a vivid fight against a dragon. - HighBridge Audio

Beowulf - Seamus Heaney: Part 1 of 2 - with transcript [handy, if you don't have a spare hour to listen]

Quoting Amity

Have you considered writing a kenning poem?

I tend to write poetry every day, but my poems are short and ambiguous, very similar to haiku. I'm even still writing haiku. I try to express melancholy, nostalgia, and memories through poetry because I am very sensitive regarding the past and 'old days'. It is the only way I can express how I feel. I think it would be impossible for me to describe how a sunset* feels otherwise. I only write in Spanish, but I dream that I will be able to write in English in the future. It is hard to switch emotions into another language. 

By the way, now that we are talking about sunsets, kennings and nostalgia, I have been reading beautiful poems by Harry Martinson. A wonderful Swedish poet! I wish I could understand him in his native language, but I fully appreciate the big job by translators. :smile:

Quoting Amity

Did ye ken aboot kennings?

wonderer

Kenning-comprehender

:wink:

I took a Tolkien class in college, and one of the things discussed was Tolkien's work on Beowulf. I can't say I remembered the word "kenning", but I was familiar with such use of language in Old English poetry, and such.

Reply to Amity Aesthetic appreciation often gets left out of life, especially in news. There is so much emphasis on sensation with bad news. I don't have a television but see news on the phone and it frequently lowers my mood. Watching such news can even be addictive.

Even though I like reading philosophy I usually have at least one novel on the go as it is about appreciating good writing, although philosophy being well written is important too. However, with novels the use of the senses allows one to connect to life and stories allow for imaginative daydreaming. I don't read much poetry but of course it works in the same way, as do all the arts.

The novel which I am reading at the moment is 'Hamnet' by Maggie Farrell. I am finding it well written and with an intriguing storyline. I recommend it.

I always try to read a novel with my morning coffees as it seems to get me in the right frame of mind to cope with the dramas of the day. I do see life as like a novel unfolding. On a negative side, that may be why I attract negative dramas. Another way of seeing this though is to be able to frame the negative dramas in a creative way as being part of a mythic quest.

Quoting javi2541997

I tend to write poetry every day, but my poems are short and ambiguous, very similar to haiku. I'm even still writing haiku.

You make it sound easy and ordinary, like taking breakfast! I usually prefer short and sweet to long and winding. But that might be about to change, since reading more about Beowulf.

Quoting javi2541997

It is the only way I can express how I feel. I think it would be impossible for me to describe how a sunset* feels otherwise. I only write in Spanish, but I dream that I will be able to write in English in the future. It is hard to switch emotions into another language.

Yes, sometimes only one word works for a nationality. Like the Scottish 'dreich', 'wheesht!' or 'scunnert'.

I think translators face major challenges in capturing the sense and emotions of any age or story.
What is the aim? How to achieve it in verse or prose? Direct v indirect phrasings? Old English verse with its strange language - compacting metaphors in kennings - is not to everyone's taste. And is perhaps better to spoken or sung aloud rather than read. I understand that Old English was chanted to string accompaniment.

This article is excellent! It includes excerpts of the original with its meaning unpacked by different translators. Side-by-side showing the effects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translating_Beowulf

My time is up. So much more to say...later, all! :sparkle:

Quoting wonderer1

wonderer

Kenning-comprehender

Kenning-kenner?

Quoting wonderer1

I took a Tolkien class in college, and one of the things discussed was Tolkien's work on Beowulf. I can't say I remembered the word "kenning", but I was familiar with such use of language in Old English poetry, and such.

Awesome! I have under-appreciated Tolkien, OE poetry, not to mention the Greek Odes. 'and such'? Perhaps not much of a hero worshipper?
The wiki article, linked to earlier, fascinated me. The different views and arguments, not unlike philosophy. Tolkien, amazingly, used both prose and poetry and had clear views on translation:

Quoting Wiki - Translating Beowulf

Tolkien noted that whatever a translator's preferences might be, the ancients such as the Beowulf poet had chosen to write of times already long gone by, using language that was intentionally archaic and sounding poetic to their audiences. Thus, Tolkien explains, the poet uses beorn and freca to mean "warrior" or "man", this last a usage already then restricted to heroic poetry; at the time, beorn was a variant of the word for bear, just as freca was another word for wolf, and the audience expected and enjoyed hearing such words in the special circumstance of a performance by a scop.

The poet used high-sounding language to represent the heroic in the distant past. Tolkien therefore advised the translator to do the same, choosing verbs like "strike" and "smite" rather than "hit" or "whack", nouns like "guest" rather than "visitor", adjectives like "courteous" instead of "polite". His versions of Beowulf's voyage to Heorot in prose and verse, the latter in strictest Anglo-Saxon alliteration and metre[c] (with Tolkien's markup of metrical stresses), are:

Tolkien's high-sounding language, meant to echo the Beowulf poet's diction:

1. Beowulf 217-227 2. Tolkien's 1940 verse in "On Translating Beowulf"[d][37] 3. Tolkien's 1926 prose (176–185) in Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary[38]

1.
Gewat þa ofer w?gholm | winde gefysed
flota famiheals | fugle gelicost,
oð þæt ymb antid | oþres dogores
wundenstefna | gewaden hæfde,
þæt ða liðende | land gesawon,
brimclifu blican, | beorgas steape,
side sænæssas; | þa wæs sund liden,
eoletes æt ende. | þanon up hraðe
Wedera l?ode | on wang stigon,
sæwudu sældon,— | syrcan hrysedon,
guðgewædo;

2.
She wènt then over wáve-tòps, | wínd pursúed her,
fléet, fóam-thròated | like a flýing bírd;
and her cúrving prów | on its cóurse wáded,
till in dúe séason | on the dáy áfter
those séafàrers | sáw befóre them
shóre-cliffs shímmering | and shéer móuntains,
wíde cápes by the wáves: | to wáter's énd
the shíp had jóurneyed. | Then ashóre swíftly
they léaped to lánd, | lórds of Góthland,
bóund fást their bóat. | Their býrnies ráttled,
grím géar of wár.

3.
Over the waves of the deep she went sped by the wind,
sailing with foam at throat most like unto a bird,
until in due hour upon the second day her curving beak
had made such way that those sailors saw the land,
the cliffs beside the ocean gleaming,
and sheer headlands and capes thrust far to sea.
Then for that sailing ship the journey was at an end.
thence the men of the Windloving folk climbed swiftly up the beach,
and made fast the sea-borne timbers of their ship;
their mail-shirts they shook, their raiment of war.

I numbered them because the 3 parallel texts didn't transfer well to TPF format.
Interesting to compare. For a quick understanding of the story, perhaps prose is better. It's more direct and not so much of a puzzle. However, it loses something of the compactness and the alliteration and kennings pulled me in at the start:
[i]She wènt then over wáve-tòps, wínd pursúed her,
fléet, fóam-thròated like a flýing bírd;[/i]

Quoting Jack Cummins

Aesthetic appreciation often gets left out of life, especially in news. There is so much emphasis on sensation with bad news. I don't have a television but see news on the phone and it frequently lowers my mood. Watching such news can even be addictive.

The sensational attracts and sells. The aesthetic senses are stirred in everyday life. News coverage can give a positive or negative aesthetic experience. Depending.

Many only read enough to keep them posted. As you say, too much of the 'bad' can bring you down,
It can be addictive, just as watching 'soaps' or visiting TPF can be! It's up to the individual to realise when enough is enough. The current lead-up to the American elections and the Para/Olympics only a few examples of excitement. Once caught, it's hard not to binge-watch series on BBC iPlayer or similar. Whereas in days of yore, we had to be patient and wait a week between episodes.

You make good points and thanks ( I think!) for the recommendation. So many books...

Quoting Jack Cummins

I always try to read a novel with my morning coffees as it seems to get me in the right frame of mind to cope with the dramas of the day. I do see life as like a novel unfolding. On a negative side, that may be why I attract negative dramas. Another way of seeing this though is to be able to frame the negative dramas in a creative way as being part of a mythic quest.

You know, that's something I've never been able to do. Sit down at breakfast to read, anything!
When I went to pay for some books in a second-hand bookshop, I bemoaned the fact that I had too many. Something would have to give! (addicted to book-buying, rather than reading?)
The lady just smiled and said. "You can never have enough books. There's no rush to read them all. Take your time, read slowly at the kitchen table, over breakfast."
Great sales pitch but, as a lover of books, she meant it!

Ah, the dramatic stories in our lives. Are they really so negative and draw you in to more? They might seem so at the time but therein lies the challenges needed for growth. As you say, a re-framing of life and its chapters.

Strange how being aware of all kinds of everything can change our attitude to life. Our aesthetics.

I've never forgotten something a grandparent once wrote in my 'autograph book':
'If you look where you are going, you will go where you are looking'.
Kindly written after I bumped my head on a lamp-post at their front garden. Looking and waving at them, both at the window, as I hurried back to primary school after lunch.
First philosophy?

Quoting Jack Cummins

I do see life as like a novel unfolding. On a negative side, that may be why I attract negative dramas. Another way of seeing this though is to be able to frame the negative dramas in a creative way as being part of a mythic quest.

I've been thinking about people and how their space, place or environment can effect their affect.
The link between aesthetics and politics.

OK, I could start with politics and popstars. The current, high profile example being that of Trump and Taylor Swift. I won't go into all of that but it was interesting to read her reasons for publicly endorsing Harris. Right after the Harris-Trump debate. Some of it a result of Trump's misrepresentation and Vance's comments about 'Childless, Cat Ladies'.
The cat as pet, for human consumption, continues to play a role in the Trump campaign. Go figure. Tapping into our aesthetics.

Quoting BBC News - Taylor Swift endorses Harris

Vance, the Ohio senator, has faced a backlash for a clip in which he called several prominent Democrats - including Harris - "a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives". He recently said his comments were "sarcastic".

Swift went on to compliment Harris's choice of vice-presidential candidate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who she said had been "been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman's right to her own body for decades".

The singer said she was in part motivated to share her voting decision with the public after an AI image of her falsely endorsing Trump was posted on his website.

"It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation," she said. "It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter."

I hope she and her concert goers, fans, will be safe. There are some, pretty dark religious/political figures around with murder in their angry hearts. Easily triggered by Trump who called her a "very liberal person" and said that she will "pay the price for it in the marketplace. She must 'pay the price'...

***

Now, let's take the high road to Scotland! How authors are inspired by the environment; past, present and future. So many. Here's an article by Peter May:

Quoting Guardian - Scotland holidays

On the surface, little appears to have changed in the 30 years that bestselling author Peter May has been visiting the Isle of Lewis. But tourism has had a big impact – from Sunday opening hours to a deep water port for cruise ships

I've read that setting is important when writing a novel. Indeed, it can be seen as a character.
Any thoughts? On Cities v Country? The personal experience - where our imagination and creativity can lead.

And remember Aesthetics and Creativity are all-inclusive! Not just subsets of 'Philosophy of Art'.
Science, maths and technology are included. I don't know much about that though...

Quoting SEP - Aesthetics of the Everyday

While aestheticization of life is not a new phenomenon, what is noteworthy in the so-called organizational aesthetics and artification strategy is that they deploy art and art-like ways of thinking and acting in those areas of life which have not been traditionally associated with art or aesthetics: medicine, business, education, sports, and science, among others, as well as organizational life in general (Darsø 2004; Naukkarinen and Saito 2012; Ratiu 2017b). These professional practices typically privilege rational discourse comprised of logic and rules, but they cannot ignore their aesthetic dimensions.

Reply to Amity
As far as aesthetics goes, environment has such a large part in appreciation of life. When my room gets messed up, which is often, I feel so gloomy and I often go out on busses to look out of the window and daydream. Also, as people spend more time on digital devices this may have an impact. As much as I love TPF, I do need breaks from staring at a screen. The overuse may be hypnotic, especially with the blue light affecting eyes detrimentally and there may be some radioactive affect on the brain.

The other side to this though can be how mood itself affects aesthetics. I find that the whole world seems to look different according to state out of mind. People don't seem to speak of this often and I wonder whether they notice such differences. If I am going to create art or write fiction the first priority is getting into the right state of consciousness.

Music can help with altering consciousness this. I also notice the whole experience of aesthetic appreciation of music is mind dependent. It may even explain why music tastes differ so much, as people may tune into different frequencies in response to music and associations.

Quoting BBC News - Taylor Swift endorses Harris

Trump supporter Elon Musk, known to be the father of 12 children, posted on his social-media platform X (formerly Twitter): "Fine Taylor … you win … I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life."

Talking about aesthetics, politics and morals:

Some people have called this 'unsettling'. It is disgusting. It is a male way of showing contempt, control and power over a woman. 'I will give you a child' - he knows that would be against her will. So, how is he going to give her a child? Not by offering one of his own but by impregnation. Against her will.
That can be interpreted as a threat to rape. Pure and simple. But hey, it was only a joke, man.

Trump was accused of rape but was only found liable for 'sexual abuse' .He has made comments about his fame enabling him to do anything he likes, including 'grabbing pussy'. He is a disgusting criminal and yet look how close the race is for him to be President of the US. Un-fucking-believable. We could get creative with nouns and adjectives. Some see him as 'strong', others say 'wrong'. Aesthetics, huh?

Let's look at Rape Culture:

Quoting Wiki - Rape culture

Chris O'Sullivan asserts that acts of sexism are commonly employed to validate and rationalize normative misogynistic practices. For instance, sexist jokes may be told to foster disrespect for women and an accompanying disregard for their well-being, or a rape victim might be blamed for being raped because of how she dressed or acted. O'Sullivan examines rape culture and fraternities, identifying the socialization and social roles that contribute to sexual aggression, and looks at "frat life" and brotherhood ideals of competition and camaraderie. In these groups, sex is viewed by young men as a tool of gaining acceptance and bonding with fellow "brothers", as they engage in contests over sex with women.[36]:?26? In O'Sullivan's article, sexualized violence towards women is regarded as part of a continuum in a society that regards women's bodies as sexually available by default.[3

Frat life, brotherhood, sex and rape. Who or what does that remind you of? I can't forget this:

Quoting CNN - Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford - consequences of testimony

Christine Blasey Ford, the psychology professor who accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, used a rare interview to detail the trauma she faced after her explosive allegations thrust her into a charged confirmation battle for one of the nation’s most powerful positions...

Kavanaugh was narrowly confirmed and has since become a key voice on the Supreme Court – a sometimes-harbinger of which way its conservative 6-3 supermajority is leaning on controversial issues like abortion, guns and affirmative action.

The US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 2022. Previously, access to abortion was a federal right in the US. Its overturning was a regressive step undoing 50yrs of legal protection. Rights hard fought for.

More of this and worse will happen to minorities if Harris doesn't win the Election. A woman's appearance and behaviour still more harshly judged than a (white) man's. Harris has done well to reach this point. A few more weeks to go...

Reply to Jack Cummins Thanks, Jack, I agree with much of what you say.
Quoting Jack Cummins

The other side to this though can be how mood itself affects aesthetics. I find that the whole world seems to look different according to state out of mind. People don't seem to speak of this often and I wonder whether they notice such differences. If I am going to create art or write fiction the first priority is getting into the right state of consciousness.

I think people are aware of feeling better when the weather changes from dark, dreichness to sunny, lightness. Up here, anyway, people are more likely to relax and smile, pass the time of day, talking about the weather...
A real sense of 'All's well with the world!' even when it isn't.

What is the 'right state of consciousness'? We can't change the weather but we can change our attitude to it. Sometimes feeling low or angry can result in a downpour or outpouring of thoughts and ideas.

Quoting Jack Cummins

I feel so gloomy and I often go out on busses to look out of the window and daydream.

Yes, I seem to recall that is where some of your short stories stem from.
Or from nightmares...?

Reply to Amity
Weather makes such a lot of difference to life and that is probably why English people speak about it so much. I find weather extremes difficult and have struggled so much with it becoming so cold for September. Ì have noticed it has affected my thinking processes badly and been a triggering negative thinking and low mood. However, I guess that we should be grateful for cool weather when some are struggling with unsafe heat. Of course, it is probably a lot colder in Scotland than London.

I have always been fascinated by dreams and have some bizarre ones. When stressed I do have nightmares at times, including borderline states on the verge of waking or falling asleep. I have always seen dreams as a source for writing and art. As for daydreaming, I used to get told off for it at school and I think I was noticed for doing it at work sometimes. Some people are the opposite and don't like being alone with their thoughts.

Now, mobile phones are the new distraction or even a source for imaginative searching. Texts and emails feature in novels so much. I do send texts but don't use text talk. One difficult but new drama is accidentally sending a text to the wrong person. I know of a student nurse who sent a text meant for her boyfriend, saying, 'I love you.'

Reply to Jack Cummins
Talking about weather, consciousness, feeling, writing, reading and such like...

I've previously mentioned the Future Learn course 'How to Read a Novel' (HTRAN). It's free and lasts 4 weeks, a novel pw. The video interviews/transcript with the authors are a highlight.

This year, Week 4 was an exploration of 'Settings' - using the book 'Lori and Joe' by Amy Arnold.
Amy Arnold is a trained neuropsychologist; this comes through in the conversation. Arnold attempts to capture consciousness in prose. How to get into someone's mind...
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/how-to-read-a-novel/15/steps/1926598

Right away, she talks of her inspiration as a 'feeling' she wanted to share with the reader. It is 'specific and familiar' but it's also 'unnameable'. The novel takes place on a single day, on a single walk. Over valley and fells in Cumbria. The landscape/weather 'almost become a character, you relate to.'

Arnold talks of her novel as being a bit like a tanka or haiku. In the sense that it is a 'compression' of time, space but also emotion. That reminded me of @javi2541997' and 'unbearable nostalgia'. According to Arnold, the unnameable feeling is 'not about communicating longing, isolation, loneliness or even the collision of all those things.'

I started reading her novel a few months ago but couldn't get to grips with it. Too sad, a bit depressing. But then, I read more:
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/goldsmiths-prize/2023/11/amy-arnold-interview-fiction-lori-joe
After getting to know the author, I feel like giving the novel second chance.

Perhaps there is a time when we are more 'ready' for a book and meeting the lives within. Philosophically, personally, poetically...

The other one I'm now attracted to is Week 2's 'Though the Bodies Fall' by Noel O' Regan. The focus is on 'Characterisation'. However, the 4 elements of a novel interact (wk1 Plot, wk3 Dialogue). And the Setting, here, seems to me to be central. I don't know, I've yet to read it.

Though the Bodies Fall by Noel O’Regan centres on trauma and its aftermath. The protagonist, Micheál Burnes, resides in his family’s bungalow at the end of Kerry Head in Ireland, a picturesque location with cliffs notoriously known as a suicide spot. With an evocative sense of place, the novel describes a familial inheritance where, for three generations, Micheál’s family has felt a duty to guard the area and save the souls of those seeking eternal relief there. From a young age, Micheál is taught by his mother to assist the so-called “visitors,” making it a life mission and a spiritual calling.

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/how-to-read-a-novel/15/steps/1926571

Quoting Jack Cummins

Now, mobile phones are the new distraction or even a source for imaginative searching. Texts and emails feature in novels so much.

Amy Arnold deliberately chose to have Lori walk out without her mobile phone. No contact meant she had time to recover, to have peace to wonder and reflect.
The environment and atmosphere creating a sense of spiritual space. Mystical.
A stream of consciousness.

Technology can help or hinder in our searches. But can it recreate that 'unnameable feeling'?

Perhaps this can only found or sensed in 'metaphysical imagination' ? Or simply good old common sense?

The aesthetics of landscape setting free our imagination and creativity.
As described in Ronald Hepburn's article:
https://www.environmentandsociety.org/mml/landscape-and-metaphysical-imagination

@Amity

Sorry it has taken me so long to respond. I suppose I was waiting for that question about metaphysical intuition to stop rattling around in my subconscious.

Quoting Amity

Perhaps not much of a hero worshipper?

Well, I'm certainly a hero appreciator, but I suppose not much of a worshipper in general.

Quoting Amity

Interesting to compare. For a quick understanding of the story, perhaps prose is better. It's more direct and not so much of a puzzle. However, it loses something of the compactness and the alliteration and kennings pulled me in at the start:

It is so interesting and mysterious, the effect that poetic elements seem to have on us.

I once got the following response to a sentence I had written on another forum, "Something about that sentence just makes it feel awesome when you read it out loud, especially the ending. Nice use of words wonderer."

My first thought was something like, "What??? How in the world did what I had said result in that sort of reaction?"

My sentence that was being responded to was, "I'm afraid "self" is too ambiguous a concept on physicalism to expect any clear cut quantification of the accuracy of self referential statements in all conceivable cases."

I had to look at what I had written to figure out that it was probably a matter of the alliteration, which it seems my subconscious had managed to work into the sentence, while consciously I was struggling to express something semantically complex in a succinct way, with no conscious consideration of how it would sound.

Long story short... I like alliteration as well, perhaps more than I know. :smile:

Anyway, back to metaphysical imagination...

I've come to the conclusion that I am intuitively epistemologically opposed to compartmentalizing imagination in such a way that it would make any sense to me to say, "This is metaphysical imagination and this is not." I suppose I see an important part of imagination as being a way of escaping the ruts of unimaginative thinking, and calling some imagination "metaphysical" seems likely to create the sort of boundaries to my thinking that I seek to escape via imagination.

Of course, you are welcome to inspire me to look at things differently. :wink:

Quoting wonderer1

Sorry it has taken me so long to respond. I suppose I was waiting for that question about metaphysical intuition to stop rattling around in my subconscious.

Again, please, there is no need to apologise for any 'late' reply. The 'thread' of whatever can be picked up just whenever. It's good to know that the phrase 'metaphysical imagination' is still being held in mind and questioned. It has been bothering my backburner of a brain. However, rusty knobs on my black wrought iron railings...

Quoting wonderer1

I'm certainly a hero appreciator, but I suppose not much of a worshipper in general.

:smile: What kind of 'hero' do you tend to appreciate?

Quoting wonderer1

It is so interesting and mysterious, the effect that poetic elements seem to have on us.

I guess some might ask the question: "what are 'poetic elements?'' How do they show in expression?

I was taken aback when a cousin-in-law artist and sculptor remarked that I reminded him of an Australian poet. I can't remember her name now. It seems that I use alliteration and metaphors in a rhythmic and sometimes rhyming fashion. When I was made aware of this, it made me self-conscious. When we examine our ways of conversation, speech patterns, it can stem the flow...for a wee while.

Quoting wonderer1

I once got the following response to a sentence I had written on another forum, "Something about that sentence just makes it feel awesome when you read it out loud, especially the ending. Nice use of words wonderer."

The pity is that this kind of positive aesthetics and feedback is not always recognised, far less given expression. It makes forum writing worthwhile and can lead to more thought...

Quoting wonderer1

I had to look at what I had written to figure out that it was probably a matter of the alliteration, which it seems my subconscious had managed to work into the sentence, while consciously I was struggling to express something semantically complex in a succinct way, with no conscious consideration of how it would sound.

Long story short... I like alliteration as well, perhaps more than I know. :

Yes, that could indeed have been why the receiver/responder reacted that way. Your analysis of the subconscious filtering through the conscious as you write seems reasonable. I think that wanting to express the complex clearly and to captivate the audience in imagination can be difficult.

For some this seems natural but others (a perfectionist or artist) would be motivated to edit and polish until the words sound right. Even grammatically correct. I love the different ways we can use or manipulate words, images and sounds to improve understanding.

Quoting wonderer1

Anyway, back to metaphysical imagination...

I've come to the conclusion that I am intuitively epistemologically opposed to compartmentalizing imagination in such a way that it would make any sense to me to say, "This is metaphysical imagination and this is not." I suppose I see an important part of imagination as being a way of escaping the ruts of unimaginative thinking, and calling some imagination "metaphysical" seems likely to create the sort of boundaries to my thinking that I seek to escape via imagination.

Did we ever move away from 'metaphysical imagination'? I agree it is difficult to see what the adjective 'metaphysical' adds to 'imagination'. However, it is one of those topics open to all fields who analyse the concept of imagination to bits. Some of it is useful. And can even inspire.

I was delighted to find the online magazine Interalia - 'dedicated to the interactions between the arts, sciences and consciousness.'
Falling between the cracks of scientific and artistic expression. Jumping between the modes...
The title of this excellent article - wow, how could I resist?

https://www.interaliamag.org/interviews/cloudy-with-a-chance-of-joy/

And I've bookmarked this:
https://iep.utm.edu/hume-ima/
David Hume (1711–1776) approaches questions in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics and aesthetics via questions about our minds.

Quoting wonderer1

Of course, you are welcome to inspire me to look at things differently

As you and others are welcome to inspire me! :cool:

Quoting Amity

As you and others are welcome to inspire me! :cool:

Talking about inspiration. The what, who, why, where and how.
As a concept it can be found in all the usual places. Here's one:
https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/inspiration.html

I had never read anything by Terry Pratchett until recently. I've just finished 'Small Gods' - the audio version - and well, so glad I found it when I did. This is the kind of experience that can inspire.

Hilary Mantel is another author I haven't exposed my mind to. And yet, today, I read of her inspiration to others. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/sep/19/hilary-mantel-mentor-seven-things-she-taught-me-writing-and-life

A BTL comment and advice by 'Sallycycles' hooked me right from the start. Read something different from your 'usual'. Yes! That's exactly what I've been doing but also listening.

[That is one of the brilliant aspects to TPF's 'Literary Event' that is now apparently only happening once a year. People are inspired and stimulated to write, read and respond to a selection of stories and poems by posters that they think they know. The guessing game surprised many!
@Baden @Jamal and everyone involved in the venture - please keep this alive :pray: ]

Here's the full Sallycycles:

Quoting Sallycycles

I was told by an old, and now sadly late friend and phenomenally successful writer, that every writer and aspiring writer should read every day; not just books that they enjoy, but ones that they would otherwise pass by on the other side off the road. This advice seems to be shared among other writers I know through my work.
I was also told to write what you want to read. This may seem like an obvious statement, but for a follower of romantic fiction to try writing a bloody crime thriller may not be wise. Richard Adams [Watership Down] said he could never write a human story, so he didn’t, and he stuck with what he was comfortable with. The book was rejected by many publishers, but was eventually taken up by one and, as they say, the rest is history.
Whatever you do, write every day; make time to be alone or wherever you are comfortable, but write. J K Rowling said to Jealously Protect your Writing Days, Neil Gaiman has a policy of going down to his writing shed with no tech, no 'phone signal and no distractions, and says to himself, “You don’t have to write. You have permission to not write, but you don’t have permission to do anything else.” Dame Jacquline Wilson can write anywhere from her kitchen table to the back of a taxi – I suspect she is an exception.
Above all, write, and write every day. Be it 1,000 or 2,000 words of your book; be it a diary entry; be it a description of a spider crawling across your wall, or a spring sparrow singing outside your window, but write. Writing isn't a muscle, but it behaves like one - if it doesn't get used, it starts to get weak and needs re-strengthening; it is best to keep it active.
All day, every day I think as I am going about life - sometimes it will be about describing how someone is crossing a road - the waiting and watching for a space, the light semi-jog over or the I-have-a-Right-and-You-Will-Wait crosser; how the sound of a closing car door behind you after you pass it could be sinister [how would you describe that on paper?]; an autumnal leaf falling from a tree in the cold weather to form a pile on the ground, and what may be living in the leaf-litter... the list is endless. My mind never stops working.
Never stop thinking about writing. Never stop planning openings - even if you never go further with that story. Write 200, 400 or 600 word pieces to keep the muscle strong, and make sure you stick to the exact number to practise on-the-fly editing. Think about planning, but don't obsess – neither Lee Child or Stephen King plan. They start with a vague idea and with the first word hoping the next follows. Agatha Christie planned, and planned and planned for months, and then she wrote, and she 'wrote' her books in as little as a month - but only after months of planning for hours each day. Try both methods and see how they suit you.
To close, it is a simple process, and a quick look in any bookshop or supermarket, and a glance through any of the popular books will show you that not all work published is of a high literary standard, but it has been published. There is skill, there is perseverance, and there is a very large dollop of luck.
One final thought – no self-respecting writer or would be writer [indeed, if you have ever written with the intention of publication, in my mind, you are already a writer] will ever be without a notebook and pen or pencil. A simple reporters’ note book and a cheap ballpoint [do try and avoid the plastic disposable ones… we have far too much plastic litter on the planet] will work just as well as an expensive book and a Mont Blanc fountain pen, and they attract far less attention in the coffee shop or café, or on the packed 7:45 commuter train.
There, 700 words in a matter of minutes and now to make my wife a warm cup of Lucozade to sooth her angry throat.

I just came in here for a brief respite from fighting over animal intelligence.

Quoting Amity

I've read that setting is important when writing a novel. Indeed, it can be seen as a character.

I used to love the TV series Ballykissangel, in which the village was possibly the best character.
In my own work, I pay attention to the details of setting; consider it important not to have lily of the valley blooming in September or long shadows at 1pm or a piano in a poor man's cottage, and of course, I had to put quite a lot of details in the manor where a quasi historical romance took place. But I had not considered the location very important until I attempted SF. Do you know how much research and meticulous planning goes into inventing a planet? Damn real, it becomes a character: it haunts your dreams for months on end.

Quoting Vera Mont

I just came in here for a brief respite from fighting over animal intelligence.

Ah, yes. I pop into the Rational thinking thread for my early morning entertainment :wink:
Some recent heated exchanges remind me of 'fighting like cats and dogs'.
I really wanted to poop 'Plato ate Dogs' for Breakfast!' or 'Cats are my Go-To for Supper!'...but resisted.

A few articles from Philosophy Now:
Exploring the largely wordless love bond: Prof. Jeremy Barris 2008
https://philosophynow.org/issues/67/Plato_is_my_dog_yo_Dogs_Love_and_Truth
Philosophers on Dogs: Prof. Matt Qvortrup 2023
https://philosophynow.org/issues/160/Philosophers_on_Dogs

Back to the cat-dog relationship... as usual, wiki has all you ever need to know.
Curiosity, the linky scent, led me to a children's poem, The Duel by Eugene Field:
https://poets.org/poem/duel
Almost unbelievably, this light-hearted children's poem has been analysed:
https://poemanalysis.com/eugene-field/the-duel/

But yeah, truth and knowledge...

Quoting Vera Mont

I pay attention to the details of setting; consider it important not to have lily of the valley blooming in September or long shadows at 1pm or a piano in a poor man's cottage, and of course, I had to put quite a lot of details in the manor where a quasi historical romance took place. But I had not considered the location very important until I attempted SF.

The shades and colour of detail certainly matter. To allow the reader to engage all senses in an imaginative exploration. I guess there has to be a determination as to how much...and how 'real'.

Hilary Mantel's fictionalised history novels I haven't read. However, it seems that - just as in films like say, Braveheart - history buffs get on their high horse. About dates, appearances and relationships.
These royal characters couldn't have met then because...

However, as long as people are made aware that it is fictionalised, then if the story catches their imagination and they want to know more, then what is the problem?

Quoting Vera Mont

Do you know how much research and meticulous planning goes into inventing a planet? Damn real, it becomes a character: it haunts your dreams for months on end.

I don't know how you keep sane! Of course, you could get AI or that chatty person to help out - perhaps even write the story for you?!

When it came to my one and only venture into TPF 'Literary Event' (how grand-sounding!), my mind was completely taken over by 'Red, White and Blue' for about a week. No great research required, funnily enough. However, I had been steeped in certain novels and inspired to turn a fairy-tale 'hero' into that of a female 'heroine'. The 3-line poem 'Sempre' followed a strong 'feeling' after reading a poster's exchange re his daughter wishing gender transition.

I can only imagine the amount of research undertaken for any novel. How after years of reading, the author has to decide what to leave out. The hard stuff not always conducive to a good read...

I'm now recalling your cat story and javi's dog haiku...

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/13707/waiting-for-the-midnight-mouse-by-vera-mont

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14555/my-dog-by-javi2541997

And while I'm here...
I'd just like to say how pissed off I am at @Jamal for removing his plum pudding story. It is if it never happened. And yet, twas brillig with some fascinating feedback to it...a clear, stand-out winner.
Really, Jamal, why? It had a dog in it, didn't it? Can't you re-instate...?

PS After revisiting the years of TPF short stories, I would like to add that there have been many highlights, some low, but overall an exceptional creative activity.

I've noted and just responded to a wonderful comment left by @john27 at the end of my story discussion. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14546/red-white-and-blue-by-amity

For me, the whole experience, story and feedback, was an amazing, exhilarating ride.
A weird sense of fulfilment and sheer joy. Probably never to be repeated.
Thanks to all who made it so! :flower: :sparkle: :flower:

Quoting Amity

I don't know how you keep sane! Of course, you could get AI or that chatty person to help out - perhaps even write the story for you?!

Writing stories is one of the ways I keep sane. World-building takes a lot of time and thought, but there is something quite magical in immersing oneself in an imaginary place, climate, scenery, culture, inventing people, dwellings, food crops... You get to be a deity of sorts. My OG chivvied me into writing a sequel, because he wanted to live in Ozimord again.
Google Earth is a wonderful tool; last year, I vicariously travelled a large part of the far east by land and water and became intimate with the topography of Wisconsin.
Have not even poked my nose into a chatty site; I'm not ready for a relationship with AI; holding out for HAL 9001.


Re dogs vs cats. We used to have both in our household and they got along just fine. One pugnacious young tom would get into fights. If he couldn't win, he'd lure the opponent to our yard and our Newfoundland dog. A gentle soul, she would never hurt a cat - just gently put her enormous paw on him, while her own cat scuttle away. Another time, we had a part Siamese cat and two small black dogs. The dogs' favourite entertainment was to tear up Kleenex and spread it all over the room. We would hide the tissue way up high on a bookshelf or cupboard -- and still, somehow they got hold of it. So one day my mother and I left the house and crept around to look through the window. It didn't take long for the cat to climb up and throw the box down to the waiting dogs. Then she yawned, folded her arms and watched them tear it apart - a joyous scene.
Yeah, pet stories.... Sigh! I miss Sammy! She used to sleep or just lounge in a flat box on top of my computer while I was writing. Kraken is no fun anymore - he's off living his own outdoor life - and the orphan kitten is just a baby.

I'm about done with the rational animal thread; seven times around the same stunted mulberry bush is enough.

Quoting Vera Mont

I just came in here for a brief respite from fighting over animal intelligence.

Think you can escape so easily huh? :wink:

Quoting Vera Mont

Do you know how much research and meticulous planning goes into inventing a planet? Damn real, it becomes a character: it haunts your dreams for months on end.

Are there any particular aspects of creating a planet that stand out?

I once wrote a paper on the use of invented mythology and folklore in works of fiction like Watership Down and LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness, and the richness that can be added to a story by such invented mythologies and folklores. Just that one aspect of inventing a fictional world sounds exhausting to me.

Quoting wonderer1

Are there any particular aspects of creating a planet that stand out?

The hardest part for me is language. I needed a large dry and a smaller wet planet that humans could colonize and where they would develop differently. What would they live on? What seeds would they have brought from Earth and what local fauna and flora would they have adapted? Every one of those items needs a name that relates back to an earth language but has changed over time. And the characters have to use these words in natural conversation.
Since I knew the origins and history of my colonists, I had a cultural base from which to extrapolate social organization, beliefs and mores.
The most fun parts were mapping Wisconsin and Oceania.

The most fun part of any book is when it's finished, the OG and I design a cover together. They may not be world's best designs, but they entertain us for hours.

The most fun project I ever had was a collaborative medieval 'fairy tale', with kings and knights, a dragon and a witch. Had to learn about armour and castles.

Quoting Vera Mont

The hardest part for me is language.

I can see how that would be difficult. Keeping multiple made up languages in my head simultaneously sounds especially difficult.

Reply to wonderer1
I have copious notebook scribblings to refer to - so many it gets confusing, so I organize it and five minutes later I lose track again, frantically paging back and forth, "Why can't I remember what those little shrubs are called?" I got so exasperated with that one, I had a character say it.

Here is a little quote from a Fay Weldon novel, Rhode Island Blues that I'd like to share for no particular reason.

At night, lying next to me, he would sometimes sigh heavily in his sleep, and I would feel my heart almost break for him, but there is no healing the world's grief, of which he had no more than his share. I really cannot understand why we are born with such a capacity for it. But there is always cinema, to take us out of ourselves.

The character is a film editor. It could as easily have been said of literature by a book editor. I do appreciate Fay Weldon!

Quoting Vera Mont

Writing stories is one of the ways I keep sane. World-building takes a lot of time and thought, but there is something quite magical in immersing oneself in an imaginary place, climate, scenery, culture, inventing people, dwellings, food crops... You get to be a deity of sorts.

Yes, I understand the magical element and can imagine the satisfaction of world- building. I didn't manage to express myself very well. I'll try again.

Re sanity: I felt mentally disturbed when writing Red, White and Blue. In that I felt my inner self was being exposed. I was immersed not only in the story but simultaneously discovering...perhaps hidden aspects...who the hell is this writing? It's not me!

Same thing with the poem Sempre. It doesn't read like much but it made me question my own female/male aspects or qualities. Or should that be feminine/masculine?

I was surprised and shocked at my writing. How much it revealed and yet self was still edited.

Quoting Vera Mont

The most fun project I ever had was a collaborative medieval 'fairy tale', with kings and knights, a dragon and a witch. Had to learn about armour and castles.

Now that is something I'd like to hear more about! Witches are fascinating.

I followed up TPF event with an introductory creative writing course (FutureLearn) and ended up with a magical witchety story. Again, it kinda involved gender questions but was real fun! Fellow students were brilliant. Sharing thoughts and mutual feedback. Really special.

Quoting Vera Mont

frantically paging back and forth, "Why can't I remember what those little shrubs are called?" I got so exasperated with that one, I had a character say it.

You see that is what I love to hear. How part of you becomes part of a character. And possibly vice versa. How much does the self gain by writing and reading.
Whose story are you telling - own thoughts and feelings shown and grown.
Seeds sown for future re-generations...

Quoting Vera Mont

Here is a little quote from a Fay Weldon novel, Rhode Island Blues that I'd like to share for no particular reason.
...The character is a film editor. It could as easily have been said of literature by a book editor. I do appreciate Fay Weldon!

Again, thanks for sharing a beautiful quote and I don't believe it is 'for no particular reason'. It is, of course, a gift just for me! :wink:
It made me think of you and your husband as writers, editors and publishers.
Born with a 'capacity for grief' - empathy, feeling, healing and more. Making magic together...working hard and living in love and fun. :heart:

Fay Weldon. I remember one of her stories from a TV series:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Loves_of_a_She-Devil_(TV_series)

I didn't appreciate it at the time. I remember feeling disturbed but don't ask me why. So long ago, in another lifetime.

Given your appreciation of her, I had to find out more. Oh my! What a lovely person with so much to give. Well, at least, that's what I've gleaned so far.
Probably a bit more complex...

'Writing Tips' from her website...include rules from Kurt Vonnegut. Yay :fire:

https://fayweldon.co.uk/

Quoting Amity

I didn't appreciate it at the time. I remember feeling disturbed but don't ask me why.

I think I know why. She's held up some mirrors we'd rather not look into. And she could be devastatingly funny. In my literary firmament, she's up there with Atwood, Lessing and Kingsolver.

Quoting Amity

Same thing with the poem Sempre. It doesn't read like much but it made me question my own female/male aspects or qualities. Or should that be feminine/masculine?

That's a topic I have never been inclined - or felt qualified - to approach. That's probably why I didn't understand that poem. I write a lot of male characters, and sometimes express their feelings and attitudes toward women, but I get the information from outside, as it were, from observing how people behave and listening to how they talk about one another. I don't deeply identify with gender.

Quoting Amity

Now that is something I'd like to hear more about! Witches are fascinating.

Oh, she was a nasty piece of work! Not my creation, but I had a chance to tweak her, and all the other characters, a little bit. A Dark and Stormy Knight, written on a philosophy forum, now long defunct, by six different posters on three continents, who didn't even know one another's real names.
It started as a challenge: Here is an opening paragraph; write the next paragraph. The story emerged over several weeks and took some amusing turns.
The OG and I were major contributors, and when the forum shut down (Sad, that! Its founder, a clever and good young man, died of cancer.) OG kept up a real-world correspondence with woman who started this story. All three of us really liked it and wanted to keep it alive. So we got in touch with the other contributors and asked for permission to edit (me) and publish it. I tried to be faithful to all of the characters the others invented - except the king, but I had already sabotaged him on the open forum and Shadowfox, who had intended him as a villain, forgave me - eventually. Anyway, she was happy with the final product.
Agrona the witch was the OG's contribution, so we had a free hand with her character and her fate. She had a broomstick, could do some heavy magic, was guilty of murder ... but she loved her daughter... sort of.
You can see why this was so much fun to do.

Quoting Vera Mont

A Dark and Stormy Knight, written on a philosophy forum, now long defunct, by six different posters on three continents, who didn't even know one another's real names.
It started as a challenge: Here is an opening paragraph; write the next paragraph. The story emerged over several weeks and took some amusing turns...

Collaborative creativity. Quite the fun challenge, as writer then editor. To combine individual voices as one.

I've read that such collaborations are also used to give individuals confidence. Even tentative first steps, single words being incorporated into a whole. Supported learning in an exploration of own and shared experience and feelings.

An imaginative facilitator came up with the idea of linking fragments as in the ancient Japanese renga.

Quoting Mel Parks - Collaborative creative writing in the community

During the pandemic, I was invited to be a researcher on a project looking at stories of gender-based violence during the Covid-19 pandemic. We didn’t want to ask participants to do anything we weren’t prepared to do ourselves and so as part of the research, we wrote our own remembered stories of gender-based violence. These came out as fragments, which often happens with traumatic memory and is one of the reasons that poetry is so fitting in this work. 

Some could have some fun with this? Not sure I'm capable. But @javi2541997 immediately springs to mind, the haiku fiend :cool:
https://poets.org/glossary/renga

Reply to Amity
That sounds wonderful. And I wonder....

Reply to Vera Mont

...aerily beyond...

From: https://poetryispretentious.com/renga/

The Rules of Renga:

Stanza Structure: Renga comprises alternating haiku (starting verse) and “waki” (response) stanzas. The haiku, traditionally a three-line verse following a 5-7-5 syllable pattern, establishes the theme. The waki, adhering to a 7-7 syllable structure, responds while subtly shifting focus. It is essentially a collaborative tanka.

Collaboration: Collaboration is the heart of Renga. After the haiku, poets take turns adding stanzas. All of the examples below are one stanza, but a Renga can continue for as many stanzas as the poets would like, though traditionally it is capped at 36. This back-and-forth pattern fosters a symphony of ideas and emotions.

Shift and Link: Each stanza introduces a “shift” and a “link.” The shift changes the topic or tone from the previous stanza, while the link maintains continuity, creating an interconnected flow.

Length and Structure: Traditional Renga can encompass 36 stanzas. The “ageku,” the final stanza, is contributed by the host and brings closure, often referencing the seasons.

Seasonal References: Renga’s essence lies in its kigo. Seasonal allusions ground the poem, evoking the cyclic beauty of the world...

Autumn’s tapestry,
Golden leaves in graceful fall,
Whispers of farewell.

Response:

Crisp air carries memories,
Harvest moon’s silvery keys.

(Original haiku by Shiki, Response by Kyoshi)


Silent winter’s hush,
Stars, diamonds on velvet spread,
Dreams born in ice’s clutch.

Response:

Embers glow in hearth’s embrace,
Stories warm the coldest space.

(Original haiku by Issa, Response by Hokushi)

Reply to Amity Renga! Wow it has been a while since the last time I read renga poems. I remember that in my community of haiku we tried to write some renga, but the result was not good enough. I personally believe that haiku is something individualistic, an expression of an amazement for perceiving the nature around us.

Autumn is my favourite season by far, and I enjoy seeing the fallen leaves in the streets. If I write a haiku about it, I have to expect that the other part would like autumn as much as I do.
Even liking or feeling it with the same intensity, it could have some misinterpretation because maybe a poet is more melancholic regarding 'fallen leaves' but others are more realistic, etc.

I ended up in the conclusion that renga is for real masters of haiku. I am not part of them.

There is another interesting feature: 'haikono'...
A person posts a picture of landscape or places and the rest write a haiku of that photo. This is very nice to do.

Quoting javi2541997

I personally believe that haiku is something individualistic, an expression of an amazement for perceiving the nature around us.

Yes. I understand the intensity. And perhaps that is why renga didn't work in your haiku community. Individuals protective of their feelings. An added response might not be desired or not be 'good enough'.

Quoting javi2541997

If I write a haiku about it, I have to expect that the other part would like autumn as much as I do.

Of course, the response must be simpatico with a good aesthetic. From above:

[quote="Amity;933687" https://poetryispretentious.com/renga/ ]This back-and-forth pattern fosters a symphony of ideas and emotions.

Shift and Link: Each stanza introduces a “shift” and a “link.” The shift changes the topic or tone from the previous stanza, while the link maintains continuity, creating an interconnected flow.[/quote]

Quoting javi2541997

I ended up in the conclusion that renga is for real masters of haiku. I am not part of them.

OK. Again, you set high standards when, for beginners, this is not realistic.
I understand the wish for an attachment to melancholic 'fallen leaves' not to be disturbed or spoiled by a vibrant crunching of carefree crispness.

A counterpoint. In some cases, the contrast might be a tasty and amusing dialogue. Like sweet and sour chicken... or something...

I agree there could be a danger if some collaborators want to impress others by stretching an image too far, undermining the previous lines.
The poetry would suffer if there is no true companionship.

I understand that the connecting ideas should be a call and response rhythm. With formal technicalities learned and practised, there would be a natural ease.

Quoting javi2541997

There is another interesting feature: 'haikono'...
A person posts a picture of landscape or places and the rest write a haiku of that photo. This is very nice to do.

Thank you :cool:

Quoting Vera Mont

It started as a challenge: Here is an opening paragraph; write the next paragraph. The story emerged over several weeks and took some amusing turns.

That is something I could have a lot of fun with.

Reply to wonderer1
I rather liked the poem idea, too, but there may not be enough participants who can both master the form and remain faithful to the spirit. It sounds like quite a challenge.

But a lighthearted story form, or epic poem with no very strict rules of verse structure - I guess I mean an epic doggerel - might be fun, and plain old storytelling is even more accessible. That, I know people around here can do well!

Quoting Amity

Re sanity: I felt mentally disturbed when writing Red, White and Blue. In that I felt my inner self was being exposed. I was immersed not only in the story but simultaneously discovering...perhaps hidden aspects...who the hell is this writing? It's not me!

Something along these lines plays a major role in my tendency to avoid writing in isolation. (As compared to riffing off other people's writing on an internet forum, for example.)

Writing in isolation has gotten me into some disturbing states of mind where I have tuned out the world around me to a frightening degree. I suppose that if I made it a habit to write for half an hour every day, and then at the end of the half hour always did something that required me to pay attention to what is going on in the world around me, (repetitive jaywalking perhaps) I might be able to reduce the phobia I have with regard to writing.

I suppose there is an element of autistic hyperfocus for me, that tends to take me down deep rabbit holes. I remember one exam in a college literature class consisting of four essay questions. I don't remember what the first exam question was or what my answer was. But the first question triggered such a flood of stuff I 'had to' write down, that by the time I looked up from answering the first question, three quarters of the exam period had gone by.

Reply to wonderer1
Something a bit like that happened to me on the Gr. 13 English final. They gave us a dozen titles to choose from, one of which perfectly fit a story I was already writing in my head. By the time I finished, there were only a few minutes left for the other questions. I answered less than half of them, and was sure I'd get a lousy mark.
I got 96%. My teacher liked the story so much, she wasn't bothered about the grammar and structure questions. She even invited me to a summer course in creative writing. (Couldn't go; had to get a job. I'm still sorry I missed it.)

I can't imagine writing in anything but solitude. (Except cats; there's always cats around.) I hate being interrupted. But then, my stories are not personal or profound; they're just stories.

Quoting Vera Mont

Something a bit like that happened to me on the Gr. 13 English final. They gave us a dozen titles to choose from, one of which perfectly fit a story I was already writing in my head. By the time I finished, there were only a few minutes left for the other questions. I answered less than half of them, and was sure I'd get a lousy mark.
I got 96%. My teacher liked the story so much, she wasn't bothered about the grammar and structure questions. She even invited me to a summer course in creative writing. (Couldn't go; had to get a job. I'm still sorry I missed it.)

Very cool teacher. :grin:

IIRC, my prof wrote on my exam book, "What happened?", and gave me a B. My prof was an aspiring science fiction writer himself. He personally handed me back my paper on the use of mythology and folklore and thanked me for writing it, and that might have bled into my exam grade. :wink:

Reply to wonderer1
We owe a lot to our good teachers. I was lucky to have several outstanding ones.

Quoting Vera Mont

We owe a lot to our good teachers. I was lucky to have several outstanding ones.

:100: :up:

In Renga, the individual and, at least, one partner can unite in a dance of images and words. The form keeps you in step.The reader observes the transitions and links - how they move from here to there.

I think some of the ancient rules can be simplified to enjoy the form without being 'masters'.

The amount of traditional links were reduced to 36 by Matsuo Basho.
So, now to a Renga Party with Basho and Jane and Werner Reichhold. We watch the steps and learn how the (numbered) links work. An intriguing challenge...

Quoting Ahapoetry - Bare Bones School of Renga

Lesson Three
Basho as Renga Master

Until Bashô’s time, most renga had either 100, 1,000 or 10,000 links. Considering the time and effort it took Bashô to get to the government outpost for a renga party, and thinking of how uncomfortable he might have been living amongst strangers for an extended period of time, it is no wonder he devised a renga form using only thirty-six links called the kasen (KAY-SEN(d) – poetic sages) – supposedly to honor the 36 immortal poets of Japan. 

I think TPF could have a few dance-offs. Wouldn't you love to see @Baden and @Hanover step on each other's toes?! A collaborative competition.

Baden would lead with the haiku call, with a 2-line Hanover response.
And so on...
Keeping the form but having serious fun with it.

Quoting Vera Mont

But a lighthearted story form, or epic poem with no very strict rules of verse structure - I guess I mean an epic doggerel - might be fun, and plain old storytelling is even more accessible. That, I know people around here can do well!

Yes, but I think that some here might enjoy a new challenge.
Let's do the Renga! Cha-cha-cha...
Make it as light, bright, sunny or sad as you like.
Anyway, I'm off to learn the basics before turning radical rebel!
I like to spin around :cool:
Solo renga.

Quoting Vera Mont

I hate being interrupted. But then, my stories are not personal or profound; they're just stories.

There's no such thing as 'just' a story. And they always involve the 'personal' at different levels of consciousness, belief and values. Even the title is a creative, aesthetic choice. It is your voice and language, even if you invent others.

If it is not about your interests, hopes and dream worlds, then what is it?
Sometimes, a simple word, thought or sentence can take you deep, deep down or fly higher and higher...without even realizing it is happening.

That's the power of imagination. And it goes without saying that I love your creativity and story-telling :sparkle:

AND...that of others...@Baden @Jamal @fdrake et al.
The Literary Activity 2024. Is it happening?

OK. Time to go off-line. My lap top isn't working. Cursor has gone AWOL. Have tried all the techie advice for hours to no avail. Can you hear me scream?
Reading and writing with difficulty on ancient Samsung tablet. Eyes hurting.
Later...

Quoting Amity

AND...that of others...@Baden Jamal @fdrake et al.
The Literary Activity 2024. Is it happening?

I talked with @Baden about this like two months ago in The Shoutbox. He said it was better to do the literary activity once a year, and I couldn't agree more with that. If I am not mistaken, I think we did the last literary activity around late December of last year. So, the literary activity may be open next December if my forecasts don't go wrong. :smile:

Reply to javi2541997

Yes, I know about the once a year decision. As such, it should be happening this December 2024. However, with the precarious state of the forum with ongoing problems, it wouldn't surprise me if it didn't. People are busy!

It would be nice to be informed. Also its format and content.
But hey, it will probably be a last minute decision. Not holding my breath!

Quoting Amity

But hey, it will probably be a last minute decision. Not holding my breath!

Yes, I feel you. It gives me anxiety to wait until the last minute when the decision is taken. I start to sweat, have nightmares while sleeping, and I endlessly walk here and there in my small corridor. I dislike when this happens, but it is fascinating to experience such a level of adrenaline. 

Reply to Amity

As things stand, I'm happy to be involved this Dec. I'm no longer an admin though as you know, and we need one to help set things up.

Reply to Baden 'As things stand' speaks to the uncertainty I feel as to the forum's future. Best wishes. :sparkle:

Quoting Amity

If it is not about your interests, hopes and dream worlds, then what is it?

Oh, it's always that. I just meant that I don't get so emotionally invested in a story that I agonize over it. It's more an intellectual exercise for me.

I'm thinking of reworking the Blue Willow story to include more details of Canadian women's history as well as more of the narrator's personality. But it's already quite long, and I'm not up for the intensive research a novel would require, so I keep shelving it. No great passion; just weighing options.
Of course, that may be a matter of age: I can't make long-term commitments.

If a literary challenge is presented, poetry or prose, I'd like to participate -- unless it's a format in which I feel hopelessly incompetent.

Quoting Vera Mont

I just meant that I don't get so emotionally invested in a story that I agonize over it. It's more an intellectual exercise for me.

Was it always like this for you? Or was there a time as a beginner when you felt the strangeness and anxiety of finding yourself in your writing?
When the unconscious or subconscious meets the conscious...if you understand what I mean?

Perhaps you always had a strong sense of identity. In the past, there were no obvious gender issues. And I can see how they aren't a necessary part in a story.

However, many strong women fighting for their rights suffered through centuries of well, I won't go on...you know history better than I do. You've lived through it!

There was a time when women would try to hide any masculine attributes. A fear of societal spurning. She's like a man. No pink frills and childlike giggles. Is she gay? Not so much these days. Perhaps that's liberation...

I identify as female and don't have a problem with that. I didn't agonise over Red, White and Blue, and I didn't have time to get too emotionally invested.
It's just that I became aware of new thoughts arising as I let go. Unsettling. But exciting at the same time. I'm not sure that will ever happen again.

Quoting Vera Mont

I'm thinking of reworking the Blue Willow story to include more details of Canadian women's history as well as more of the narrator's personality. But it's already quite long, and I'm not up for the intensive research a novel would require, so I keep shelving it. No great passion; just weighing options.

What 'Blue Willow' story ? The only story I can recall about a woman is 'Dawn'.
And that sounded to me like part of an intriguing novel.

I don't see how there can be no passion or urge involved when it comes to the effort required to research. Or at least, enjoyment. If it gets too heavy, then you are wise to think again. But you're well ahead of the game !

Quoting Vera Mont

I can't make long-term commitments.

Ditto.

Quoting Vera Mont

If a literary challenge is presented, poetry or prose, I'd like to participate -- unless it's a format in which I feel hopelessly incompetent.

A literary challenge. I would love to start such a thing but I don't feel remotely competent in organising anything like that! Given that I'm still very much a learner and find it all a bit overwhelming, even to participate.

Laptop failure probably means I'll have to go shopping...such a pain!

Quoting Amity

Was it always like this for you? Or was there a time as a beginner when you felt the strangeness and anxiety of finding yourself in your writing?
When the unconscious or subconscious meets the conscious...if you understand what I mean?

I don't think there was such a time. I made up my first poem before I could write and I told stories to my pets, relatives, playmate and little brother since I can remember. No anxiety at all back then; sublime confidence. As an adult, I often fretted over the right tone, cadence, structure, word choice, concision and precision, but not nothing I can identify as 'finding myself'. I guess I never felt lost or obscure or confused - I even have a pretty good idea where my dreams come from. I've often wondered whether I'm just shallow.
Quoting Amity

Perhaps you always had a strong sense of identity. In the past, there were no obvious gender issues. And I can see how they aren't a necessary part in a story.

That's a much more positive perspective. My characters, straight and gay, don't have any doubts of their identity: it wasn't required for the stories, and I wouldn't know how to convey that convincingly.
(I admit, though, that on forums up until this one, I'd been content to let people assume I was male, to avoid the tedious condescension.
Quoting Amity

However, many strong women fighting for their rights suffered through centuries of well, I won't go on...you know history better than I do. You've lived through it!

I did some mild activism for the cause - among others. (Nothing courageous. The Greenpeace guys thought my only possible function was to stuff envelopes, make coffee and keep quiet. I didn't stay long.)
Quoting Amity

What 'Blue Willow' story ? The only story I can recall about a woman is 'Dawn'.

It's in the same collection with Dawn. A grandmother recounting the 200 years witnessed by a family heirloom. I doubt it would interest anyone but Canadians.
Quoting Amity

I don't see how there can be no passion or urge involved when it comes to the effort required to research. Or at least, enjoyment.

The core message can be important - or frivolous - and I do enjoy the process, including research, organizing the material, constructing the plot, and I love stage-setting. I really enjoyed working on sets in amateur theater, as well. I suppose because it crosses media; I like construction, painting and drama.

I'm right with you on organizing humans and human activities. I couldn't be a director, administrator or team leader.

Quoting Vera Mont

I made up my first poem before I could write and I told stories to my pets, relatives, playmate and little brother since I can remember

A born story-teller, gifted with imagination and the spirit of creativity. I guess you took it as natural and confident in audience reaction. Cats purring.

Quoting Vera Mont

As an adult, I often fretted over the right tone, cadence, structure, word choice, concision and precision, but not nothing I can identify as 'finding myself'. I guess I never felt lost or obscure or confused - I even have a pretty good idea where my dreams come from. I've often wondered whether I'm just shallow.

The adult gains more knowledge and awareness of technical detail and skills via education and courses? Different ways to manipulate words for maximum enjoyment?
No need to 'find yourself'. You already knew Vera. Happy in her skin with a clear sense of purpose and direction. It seems you never surprised yourself with new revelations or ideas impacting you or changing ways of thinking? Even knowing what your dreams were about. Jung would be proud!

Why would this make you 'shallow' ? I don't see it. Not one little bit. With all your critical skills sharing experiences and positive attitude. An active wry humour even with all that life throws at you. 'Tedious condescension' being only a small part of it.

I didn't know you had a Blue Willow Collection.

Quoting Vera Mont

A grandmother recounting the 200 years witnessed by a family heirloom. I doubt it would interest anyone but Canadians.

Your doubt is not well-founded. Recently, I found myself with an Appalachian accent. Kingsolver and a few other authors to blame.
Canada is one of those countries loved my many nationalities. And family sagas from a female point of view...hits the spot...with an heirloom passed down the generations. Not a bone China tea set or dish by any chance?

Quoting Vera Mont

The core message can be important - or frivolous - and I do enjoy the process, including research, organizing the material, constructing the plot, and I love stage-setting. I really enjoyed working on sets in amateur theater, as well. I suppose because it crosses media; I like construction, painting and drama.

'The core message'. 'I think I read that a writer should have the conclusion or destination in mind before they start. What they want to achieve. I guess that's more important for a novel than a short story. Is your novel a series of linked short stories? Your enjoyment is clear and quite contagious. It touches me.

Now, though, writing this is giving me a pain in the neck. New laptop required.

Quoting Vera Mont

What 'Blue Willow' story ? The only story I can recall about a woman is 'Dawn'.
— Amity
It's in the same collection with Dawn

For those who didn't read 'Dawn' by Vera. It's from 'Short Stories 2023'.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/categories/50/short-stories-dec-2023

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14882/dawn-by-vera-mont

And now I'm wondering if TPF is in the process of moving, will the Competitions
be packed up and archived so that the stories/poems are not lost?

Should we be downloading stuff that we'd like to keep?
@Jamal @fdrake

Any response to previous question re future of the Literary Activity/Challenge would also be appreciated. It seems from @Baden that it is up to an admin.

Moving on to Persian Poetry and Philosophy.

Quoting Guardian - Making sense of it - Philosophy

Ethics, aesthetics and philosophy are all intertwined in the poetry of Hafez and his words help us to rediscover long-lost truths

Within the pantheon of Persian poets...Reading the poetry of Hafez induces fragmented moments where one oscillates between body and soul; indeed, Wheeler Thackston writes that Hafez “sang a rare blend of human and mystic love so balanced, proportioned, and contrived with artful ease that it is impossible to separate the one from the other”. Within his poetic lines are levels and layers, each unfolding simultaneously upon the page and within the reader. Ethics, aesthetics and philosophy are all intertwined, and all possible meanings simmer simultaneously beneath the surface.

I present an analysis of a verse to demonstrate the multi-layered and rich understanding of Hafez, with the hope that it will also inspire introspection, wherever stage you may be at in life, as it has for Persian readers for generations upon generations.

[i]In Shiraz I am famous for my love’s lively ways

My eyes have not been polluted with an evil gaze[/i]

Quoting Amity

Should we be downloading stuff that we'd like to keep?

It never hurts.

Quoting fdrake

It never hurts.

:smile: Thanks. I know that it is a good idea to keep a back-up. However, I rarely do this. And it would 'hurt' in terms of time, energy and space. Especially if it's not necessary. Will TPF keep the stories safe? Apparently, in another lifetime and transition, the archive got lost.

Quoting Amity

Any response to previous question re future of the Literary Activity/Challenge would also be appreciated. It seems from @Baden that it is up to an admin.

So, @fdrake Will you, Jamal or a new someone be taking over from Baden and be the admin for Literary Activity 2024?

Quoting Amity

'As things stand' speaks to the uncertainty I feel as to the forum's future. Best wishes. :sparkle:

I don't think we're under any immediate threat... are we?

Quoting Amity

So, fdrake Will you, Jamal or a new someone be taking over from Baden and be the admin for Literary Activity 2024?

The admin doesn't have to do much, just a few permissions and so on. It is a little tricky because we decided to keep story comments off the front page, but the discussion should be pinned there.

Quoting Baden

I don't think we're under any immediate threat... are we?

No idea.

Quoting Baden

So, fdrake Will you, Jamal or a new someone be taking over from Baden and be the admin for Literary Activity 2024?
— Amity

The admin doesn't have to do much, just a few permissions and so on. It is a little tricky because we decided to keep story comments off the front page, but the discussion should be pinned there.

OK. Interesting. Still doesn't answer my question. Some things never change.
You lot either haven't worked it out yet or can't be arsed telling it like it is.
Slippery buggers, the lot of ya'. :roll:

Reply to Amity

I'm with you on this, but Jamal and fdrake are too busy fighting Macbethian wars of power to be interested in little people like us. :sad:

Quoting Baden

Jamal and fdrake are too busy fighting Macbethian wars of power

Therein lies madness and death. A tragic state of affairs.
Hubble, bubble...

Quoting Poetry Foundation - Song of the Witches

Song of the Witches: “Double, double toil and trouble”

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
(from Macbeth)

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

Notes:
Macbeth: IV.i 10-19; 35-38

You better watch out.Vera, Amity and Javi are on the case!
You got power, we got magic. :naughty: :halo: :rage:
You do you. We do VOODOO. The pins are out :fire: :monkey: :party:

Quoting Amity

It seems you never surprised yourself with new revelations or ideas impacting you or changing ways of thinking?

I don't know if I could use the word surprise: for me, change in direction and opinion have been gradual processes, rather than revelations, though I have had the odd little eureka moment when disparate strands of information came together and something made sense.
I was, as mentioned, very lucky in my female relatives - mother, aunts and grandmothers who never made me feel insignificant or deficient. I was lucky to come to Canada when I was young enough to assimilate (that's down to a father who otherwise was not much of an asset), lucky in a good, fair public school system and some wonderful teachers, lucky in the second half of the 20th century. My cohort experience one of the best moments in western history - perhaps the best.
Quoting Amity

I didn't know you had a Blue Willow Collection.

I don't. I have a white elephant of a Herendi set. The story begins in England in 1819, soon after Turner and Minton introduced that pattern, with the hanging of the Cato Street Conspirators. One of his daughters inherits the tea service. It travels with her to the New World, and is passed down from mother do daughter.
Quoting Amity

Is your novel a series of linked short stories?

No, they're all single continuous narratives, but the last two are told from three different characters' point of view, set in three different locations. That was a new challenge.

Quoting Amity

I know that it is a good idea to keep a back-up. However, I rarely do this. And it would 'hurt' in terms of time, energy and space.

I copy everything - now, after I had a couple of good scoldings - including works in progress on a memory stick, so it doesn't clutter up my regular files (which I have enough trouble finding my around.) Techno-klutz, me, but lucky again in my choice of life-mate.

Quoting Amity

The pins are out

A call to arms from a comerade usually so mild-mannered and generous cannot but be heeded!

Quoting Amity

Moving on to Persian Poetry and Philosophy.

The analysis of that poem reminded of something by another middleasterner whose poetry I've turned to a lot.

And one of the elders of the city said, Speak to us of Good and Evil.
And he answered:
Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.
For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?
Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.

You are good when you are one with yourself.
Yet when you are not one with yourself you are not evil.
For a divided house is not a den of thieves; it is only a divided house.
And a ship without rudder may wander aimlessly among perilous isles yet sink not to the bottom.

You are good when you strive to give of yourself.
Yet you are not evil when you seek gain for yourself.
For when you strive for gain you are but a root that clings to the earth and sucks at her breast.
Surely the fruit cannot say to the root, "Be like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance."
For the fruit giving is a need, as receiving is a need to the root.

You are good when you are fully awake in your speech,
Yet you are not evil when you sleep while your tongue staggers without purpose.
And even stumbling speech may strengthen a weak tongue.

You are good when you walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps.
Yet you are not evil when you go thither limping.
Even those who limp go not backward.
But you who are strong and swift, see that you do not limp before the lame, deeming it kindness.

You are good in countless ways, and you are not evil when you are not good,
You are only loitering and sluggard.
Pity that the stags cannot teach swiftness to the turtles.

In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness: and that longing is in all of you.
But in some of you that longing is a torrent rushing with might to the sea, carrying the secrets of the hillsides and the songs of the forest.
And in others it is a flat stream that loses itself in angles and bends and lingers before it reaches the shore.

But let not him who longs much say to him who longs little, "Wherefore are you slow and halting?"
For the truly good ask not the naked, "Where is your garment?" nor the houseless, "What has befallen your house?"

From The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran

Quoting wonderer1

The analysis of that poem reminded of something by another middleasterner whose poetry I've turned to a lot.

Thank you. What a special choice, requiring more than one read to fully appreciate. A beautiful and balanced way to look at Good and Evil.

I'd heard of The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran but didn't wander off in that direction. Also others like Rumi and Omar Khayyam, really only names to me.

The article's author, Ali Hammoud, says his aim isn't to convince anyone that his is a correct interpretation of Hafez:

[i]In Shiraz I am famous for my love’s lively ways
My eyes have not been polluted with an evil gaze[/i]

... but to inspire people to delve into Persian literature.


Quoting Guardian - Making sense of it - Philosophy

Words possess a quasi-mystical power and, in the hands of the master Persian poets, can engender serious transformation: long-buried emotions are stirred, long-forgotten memories are retrieved and long-lost truths are found again. All that is left for us is to read them.

So, I read more about Gibran and The Prophet in a useful study guide.
https://www.coursehero.com/lit/The-Prophet/

It helped me a great deal to place it in context:
https://www.coursehero.com/lit/The-Prophet/context/

***
It seems everywhere I go, I trip over my beloved Goethe. I watched a TV series on Jung and Alchemy https://filmfreeway.com/jung1
and that as a result of the excellent Freudian 'Vienna Blood' (crime drama).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m000bhqj/vienna-blood
Not to mention other posters talking of myths, surreal ideas and dreams @Jack Cummins for one. Winding paths, huh?!

Persian Literature
Quoting Wiki - Persian literature

Described as one of the great literatures of humanity, including Goethe's assessment of it as one of the four main bodies of world literature.

How could I forget the stories of Scheherazade!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Thousand_and_One_Nights

@wonderer1 -
You've turned to Gibran a lot? I see there are more themes on e.g. Love,
Marriage and Pain. He speaks to the everyday but in a spiritual way. I have to slide over God aspects. And talk of prophets...

However, I now better appreciate poetry's place in religion, psychology, politics and, of course, philosophy. Oh, and music...and...

Poetry and Psychology

Words help poets “say the unsayable”:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/between-cultures/202303/saying-the-unsayable-the-psychology-of-poetry

Seven writers share, reveal and teach us about mental health through their poetry:
https://happiful.com/7-poems-that-teach-us-about-mental-health

***

The brain is wider than the sky.
From: https://interestingliterature.com/2019/05/10-of-the-best-poems-about-the-mind-and-thought/

5. Emily Dickinson, ‘The Brain is wider than the Sky’. (excerpt)

The Brain — is wider than the Sky —
For — put them side by side —
The one the other will contain
With ease — and You — beside —

The Brain is deeper than the sea —
For — hold them — Blue to Blue —
The one the other will absorb —
As Sponges — Buckets — do …

https://interestingliterature.com/2017/11/a-short-analysis-of-emily-dickinsons-the-brain-is-wider-than-the-sky/


8. Wilfred Owen, ‘Mental Cases’. (excerpt)

Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?
Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,
Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their relish,
Baring teeth that leer like skulls’ tongues wicked?
Stroke on stroke of pain, — but what slow panic,
Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?

https://interestingliterature.com/2018/12/a-short-analysis-of-wilfred-owens-mental-cases/

Hope in Poetry

The words of others can help to lift us up.

How can we find hope amid uncertainty, conflict, or loss? When we feel we have lost hope, we may find inspiration in the words and deeds of others. In this selection of poems, hope takes many forms: an open road, an unturned page, a map to another world, an ark, an infant, a long-lost glove that returns to its owner. Using metaphors for hope seems appropriate, as the concept of hope is difficult to describe. It is deeper than simple optimism, and more mysterious, delicate, and elusive...

From:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/collections/142028/poems-of-hope-and-resilience

The first poem I remember and took to heart was Emily Dickinson's light and beautiful 'Hope is the thing with feathers'. Uplifting.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42889/hope-is-the-thing-with-feathers-314

This contrasts with the 'hope' in Stephen Mitchell's translation of Verse 13 of the Tao Te Ching.

Quoting Tao Te Ching - Terebess

13
Success is as dangerous as failure.
Hope is as hollow as fear.

What does it mean that success is a dangerous as failure?
Whether you go up the ladder or down it,
you position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground,
you will always keep your balance.

[b]What does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear?
Hope and fear are both phantoms [/b]
that arise from thinking of the self.
When we don't see the self as self,
what do we have to fear?

See the world as your self.
Have faith in the way things are.
Love the world as your self;
then you can care for all things

There are many translations. Most I found did not use the word 'hope'.
For example: Derek Lin's with commentary.

Quoting Terebess - Tao Te Ching - Derek Lin

13

Favor and disgrace make one fearful
The greatest misfortune is the self
What does "favor and disgrace make one fearful" mean?
Favor is high, disgrace is low
Having it makes one fearful
Losing it makes one fearful
This is "favor and disgrace make one fearful"
What does "the greatest misfortune is the self" mean?
The reason I have great misfortune
Is that I have the self
If I have no self
What misfortune do I have?
So one who values the self as the world
Can be given the world
One who loves the self as the world
Can be entrusted with the world

Both favor and disgrace make us fearful and apprehensive.
The greatest source of adversity and trouble is the ego - the sense of self-importance.
What do we mean when we say that both favor and disgrace make us fearful? Favor is exalted, while disgrace is lowly and despised. We are afraid of getting humiliation. At the same time, we are also afraid of losing recognition. This is why we say both favor and disgrace make us fearful.
What do we mean when we say that the greatest source of trouble is our ego? The reason I've got problems is that my ego gets in the way. If I didn't have this sense of self-importance, what trouble could I possibly have?
Therefore, the humble sage who values the world as much as the self, is the one that can do the world justice. The selfless sage who loves the world as much as the self, is the one that we can trust with great responsibilities.

Part of A CHILD'S GARDEN OF POETRY where children discuss the meaning and mystery of poetry and recite some of their favorites by heart:

A video of Poem by Emily Dickinson. Read by Claire Danes and signed by Rachel, age 9.?

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/video/77372/hope-is-the-thing-with-feathers

Quoting Vera Mont

I copy everything - now, after I had a couple of good scoldings - including works in progress on a memory stick, so it doesn't clutter up my regular files (which I have enough trouble finding my around.) Techno-klutz, me, but lucky again in my choice of life-mate.

You have been extremely fortunate in life and open to learning! It seems I never do. My laptop is now hospitalized. Awaiting assessment and prognosis...

Quoting Vera Mont

I have a white elephant of a Herendi set. The story begins in England in 1819, soon after Turner and Minton introduced that pattern, with the hanging of the Cato Street Conspirators. One of his daughters inherits the tea service. It travels with her to the New World, and is passed down from mother do daughter.
Is your novel a series of linked short stories?
— Amity
No, they're all single continuous narratives, but the last two are told from three different characters' point of view, set in three different locations. That was a new challenge.

How fascinating. I'd love to hear more of how you achieved this. Perhaps better to read it first?

Quoting Vera Mont

The pins are out
— Amity
A call to arms from a comerade usually so mild-mannered and generous cannot but be heeded!

:smile:
I have not always been so gentle and mild. And my generosity only extends so far. Have you read the Tao Te Ching? There's a rather lengthy 34 page discussion of it. I'm in there somewhere...battling my corner!
I learned from that when to 'let it be'...

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/10427/my-favorite-verses-in-the-tao-te-ching/p1

I think I left about a third of the way through. Probably at Verse 13 ?
I just checked out the last few posts. Way to go @javi2541997 :flower:

Reply to Amity The Tao Te Ching thread gives me a lot of nostalgia! More than two years have already passed!? Wow, time flies by, Amity.

I am ready to go there, and share thoughts and ideas with you. It will be a pleasure.  :up:

Quoting javi2541997

I am ready to go there, and share thoughts and ideas with you. It will be a pleasure.  :up:

Hah, yeah! Not gonna happen. Not in that particular thread, anyway. I'm as nostalgic for that as my cookery class exam in high school. :fear: :monkey:

Time flies indeed. Soon be deid! :death: :flower:

Reply to javi2541997 Re: nostalgia. Actually, I have to admit, it did give me a pang when I saw your interaction with @Agent Smith. Now gone...
And when I read some of the beginning pages, yeah, there were some good moments of sharing.
Unfortunately, I left with an overall distaste for the Tao Te Ching...
Quoting javi2541997

I am ready to go there, and share thoughts and ideas with you. It will be a pleasure.  :up:

Sorry to have been so dismissive. It's a pleasure to share thoughts with you :up:

Quoting Amity

Words help poets “say the unsayable”:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/between-cultures/202303/saying-the-unsayable-the-psychology-of-poetry

Nice find!

The sentence, "Poetry can stir the memory of words that reside in our bodies in different ways." took me back to this, which I have been thinking about off and on:

Quoting Amity

It is so interesting and mysterious, the effect that poetic elements seem to have on us.
— wonderer1

I guess some might ask the question: "what are 'poetic elements?'' How do they show in expression?

By poetic elements, I had in mind things like rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, assonance, etc. My speculation is that whether we consciously recognize such poetic elements, our subconscious is excited by patterns in detecting such elements, and that can literally result in an altered state of mind in which we can see things from a different perspective.

Quoting wonderer1

By poetic elements, I had in mind things like rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, assonance, etc

Yes. There is also the use of symbolism. Symbols can help or hinder readers understanding. If there is a sensory impression or shared association, it can take the mind to deeper places. Perhaps to enrich or trouble. Or question...world views or values. If open and curious, the reader's imagination can be stimulated.

However, delving through the layers is not always desired. And a simple reading will suffice. But then what is missing? Appreciation of the artistic; intriguing words can unearth deeper meanings and a hidden world beauty.

From: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/education/glossary/symbol

Poets such as William Blake and W.B. Yeats often use symbols when they believe in—or seek—a transcendental (religious or spiritual) reality.

Of course, Jung is known for his symbolism; Goethe and other poets have been inspired by him. And we could say there is a kind of alchemy afoot. Floating into a different awareness. Or perhaps I'm being too fanciful.

There are many grounded, funny poems which resonate without any such thing going on. It's a simple case of using ordinary language to engage with contemporary concerns. No great need for interpretation.

I only just realised that that this poem was a 2-parter:

Differences of Opinion by Wendy Cope

Two-part poem first published Poetry Magazine in 2006.

1.

HE TELLS HER

He tells her that the earth is flat —
He knows the facts, and that is that.
In altercations fierce and long
She tries her best to prove him wrong.
But he has learned to argue well.
He calls her arguments unsound
And often asks her not to yell.
She cannot win. He stands his ground.

The planet goes on being round.

2.

YOUR MOTHER KNOWS

Your mother knows the earth’s a plane
And, challenged, sheds a martyr’s tear.
God give her strength to bear this pain –
A child who says the world’s a sphere!

Challenged, she sheds a martyr’s tear.
It’s bad to make your mother cry
By telling her the world’s a sphere.
It’s very bad to tell a lie.

It’s bad to make your mother cry.
It’s bad to think your mother odd.
It’s very bad to tell a lie.
All this has been ordained by God.

It’s bad to think your mother odd.
The world is round.  That’s also true.
All this has been ordained by God.
It’s hard to see what you can do.

The world is round.  That must be true.
She’s praying, hoping you will change.
It’s hard to see what you can do.
Already people find you strange.

She’s praying, hoping you will change.
You’re difficult.  You don’t fit in.
Already people find you strange.
You know your anger is a sin.

You’re difficult.  You don’t fit in.
God give her strength to bear this pain.
You know your anger is a sin.
Your mother knows the earth’s a plane.

Quoting wonderer1

My speculation is that whether we consciously recognize such poetic elements, our subconscious is excited by patterns in detecting such elements, and that can literally result in an altered state of mind in which we can see things from a different perspective.

Yes. Perhaps so. We can view the natural world as a poetic element. An aesthetic experience stimulating the senses, consciously and subconsciously.
Taking a walk on the wild side...the world as poetry. Poetry in the world and beyond. :chin:

Your mother knows the earth’s a plane.

:lol:

I can relate to that one. A couple of days ago my mom told me she would be praying for me. If she knew about this guy wonderer on the internet, she would probably consider him the antichrist. :wink:

Reply to wonderer1

Differences of Opinion

I find it interesting that more attention is given to the first part. Indeed, some only receive this as a short poem. The second part disregarded. Why?
1. He tells her
2. Your mother knows

The change in perspective and effect on/of the writer can be seen in the time, length and weight given to each. The different form, style and tone.

The conclusion in 1. The planet goes on being round.

For me, seems to be a resignation. You can't argue with someone who has a dogmatic, delusional belief. Tired of trying, you 'let it be'.
'She cannot win' - he stands on his fact, flat ground. Enough said. Cut short.
So is she then silenced? What happens next? This non-negotiation or lack of regard is bound to have consequences. Her world turns...

2. Longer and more challenging reflecting a greater degree of angst, I think.
This is not a gender difference of opinion but generational. And with the closest of blood relatives. The mother/daughter bond usually strong is being severely tested.

The religious mother prays, 'hoping' for the daughter to change. But it seems the daughter has lost her faith and can't return to being Mummy's good little girl.
Both are experiencing loss and grief.

The personal and social challenges of changing belief. This is an instance where the fight is for your life. You can't 'let it be' and yet you must, if you still love and want to be close to your Mum. The conflict and tension evident. The words go round your head:

You’re difficult.  You don’t fit in.
You know your anger is a sin.

It is this fight that continues in philosophy and politics.
We see this daily. The consequences of powerful, religious males who dominate the world. War. The cowards who would hide behind or use a God. Who now no longer care about anyone but themselves. Hospitals, homes, women and children killed, wounded or displaced. The environment destroyed.
You will be exterminated. Some people pray...

Quoting wonderer1

A couple of days ago my mom told me she would be praying for me. If she knew about this guy wonderer on the internet, she would probably consider him the antichrist. :wink:

Yes. It is relatable. We often show different sides of our self to keep peace and love. There can be a need to 'let it be'. Not to challenge if it will cause deep pain and a family breakdown. It won't change anyone's deeply held faith.

It is a different kettle of fish when the person without faith is spurned and cast out. That must be traumatic...

The wars of world-wide, hate-filled preachers of 'Us v Them' is tragic.
There will always be 'Differences of Opinion'.
It is how we negotiate them that matters. How does philosophy help?

That's an interesting poem. It presents two ways in which people who seek and apprehend a truth are browbeaten and silenced 1. through authority and 2. through social/emotional pressure.

When I was about six, I greatly admired an uncle who could whistle any tune he liked. It was difficult to figure out, but I eventually taught myself the rudiments - got much better, once my permanent teeth came in. My father told me to stop that noise! My grandmother told me that when she hears a girl whistle, the Virgin Mary cries. I'd seen pictures of that soppy woman with her eyeballs rolled up and heart stuck out in front of her tunic, and I thought, "Let 'her cry!" But I sure didn't dare whistle when my father was home.

If Part 2 is disregarded, it's partly because the emotional one is a less compelling reason to desist: the one who has a truth reflect back on the aggrieved person responsibility for their own grievance. Against authority, you have no such recourse.
And partly on aesthetic grounds. The second poem is a little too long and repetitious to make the same impact. It reflect the way that social/emotional pressure may be brought to bear, over time, on a child, but how easily it may be resisted by an independent adult.

Here's one I recall tearing me up in Gr 10 - and each I've come across it since:

There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

Buy a pup and your money will buy
Love unflinching that cannot lie--
Perfect passion and worship fed
By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.
Nevertheless it is hardly fair
To risk your heart for a dog to tear.

When the fourteen years which Nature permits
Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,
And the vet's unspoken prescription runs
To lethal chambers or loaded guns,
Then you will find--it's your own affair--
But...you've given your heart for a dog to tear.

When the body that lived at your single will,
With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!);
When the spirit that answered your every mood
Is gone--wherever it goes--for good,
You will discover how much you care,
And will give your heart for the dog to tear.

We've sorrow enough in the natural way,
When it comes to burying Christian clay.
Our loves are not given, but only lent,
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we've kept 'em, the more do we grieve:
For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short-time loan is as bad as a long--
So why in Heaven (before we are there)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?

Rudyard Kipling - The Power of the Dog

Reply to Vera Mont Thanks. You make good points as to why Part 2 is disregarded by some who find it too long and less sharp.

However, I find it troubling that it is not even included in the Poetry Foundation website. Only the part concerning the Man.

This not only shows disrespect to the female writer but denies people potential access to the internal subjective experience of being inside someone's head. Almost like a stream of consciousness. The repetitions necessary for effect. The troubling voices going round and round.

Part 1 seems more objective. Showing a distant, rational aspect. This is how it is between them. Females can relate to that. The apparent superiority of males.
The paradoxical call on logic to support his (emotional) faith.
The religious aspect is contemporary, political and hits home.

She tries her best to prove him wrong.
But he has learned to argue well.
He calls her arguments unsound
And often asks her not to yell.

Can't you just see/hear it ? The male narcissistic bully pushing it to the limits and then dismissing her opinion/arguments as emotional!
The cold rationality of 'fact' v the heat of passion, supported by knowledge.
The right and the wrong. Sometimes, it's about more than opinion.

Reply to Vera Mont
Yes, I can see how this poem could bring tears to the eyes of a pet lover.
They are precious companions who bring joy, love and comfort in so many ways.

When my elderly Aunt tried to describe how depressed she felt after the loss of her dog ( there were other major factors ) - the young, male doctor couldn't understand or empathize. "But it's only a dog!"
How the heart can be broken...but the pain is part of the pleasure.
We know it will come. And dogs are replaced. Each having their own character, personality and love.

Coping with the loss of a mother and then a wife:
Anthony Hopkins as Jack, - C.S. Lewis, from Shadowlands:
Quoting Shadowlands 1993

Why love, if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore: only the life I have lived. Twice in that life I've been given the choice: as a boy and as a man. The boy chose safety, the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then. That's the deal.

Quoting Amity

However, I find it troubling that it is not even included in the Poetry Foundation website. Only the part concerning the Man.

That's just wrong! If you're going to print a poem, print the whole thing - else, desist.

And often asks her not to yell

That's the gist of it for me, the power trip. If he 'raises his voice from time to time', it's because she's being obtuse and exasperating; if she does, she's strident or hysterical. I know this story well enough.
I do know the other one, too: the drip, drip, drip of guilt, of shaming, of turning your best impulses on you as weapons.
Yes, it is excellent as two halves of a whole.

Quoting Amity

the young, male doctor couldn't understand or empathize. "But it's only a dog!"

A Dog for Jesus
(Where dogs go when they die)

I wish someone had given Jesus a dog.
As loyal and loving as mine.
To sleep by His manger and gaze in His eyes
And adore Him for being divine.

As our Lord grew to manhood His faithful dog,
Would have followed Him all through the day.
While He preached to the crowds and made the sick well
And knelt in the garden to pray.
It is sad to remember that Christ went away.
To face death alone and apart.

With no tender dog following close behind,
To comfort its Master’s Heart.
And when Jesus rose on that Easter morn,
How happy He would have been,
As His dog kissed His hand and barked it’s delight,
For The One who died for all men.

Well, the Lord has a dog now, I just sent Him mine,
The old pal so dear to me.
And I smile through my tears on this first day alone,
Knowing they’re in eternity.
Day after day, the whole day through,
Wherever my road inclined,
Four feet said, “Wait, I’m coming with you!”
And trotted along behind.

by: Rudyard Kipling

The same wish goes to that doctor.

Quoting Amity

Can't you just see/hear it ? The male narcissistic bully pushing it to the limits and then dismissing her opinion/arguments as emotional!

I've been leaning towards interpreting both parts as conversations between a narcissistic parent and a child. The first part a grandiose narcissist father and his daughter. The second part a covert/vulnerable narcissist mother and her son.

Of course I might be projecting a sort of 'symmetry' that doesn't belong.

Quoting Vera Mont

Yes, it is excellent as two halves of a whole.

Glad to see that you see it that way as well.

Quoting Vera Mont

That's just wrong! If you're going to print a poem, print the whole thing - else, desist.

Exactly.

Quoting Vera Mont

"And often asks her not to yell"
That's the gist of it for me, the power trip. If he 'raises his voice from time to time', it's because she's being obtuse and exasperating; if she does, she's strident or hysterical. I know this story well enough.

Yes. It's all about power and control. You are not alone in knowing this story.

Quoting Vera Mont

I do know the other one, too: the drip, drip, drip of guilt, of shaming, of turning your best impulses on you as weapons.

Sorry to hear that. I know guilt as being inbuilt. Stemming from religion.
Also, a necessary part of a moral, legal system. But it's not healthy when it adversely affects our mental health.
Or worse, being found guilty, sent to prison as an innocent. Awaiting death for decades and then being killed unjustly. Dear God!

Quoting Vera Mont

Yes, it is excellent as two halves of a whole.

Yes. The more I look, the more I see...

Quoting wonderer1

The first part a grandiose narcissist father and his daughter. The second part a covert/vulnerable narcissist mother and her son.

Hmm. Interesting point of view.
For me, Part 1 concerned a domineering husband confronted by his wife finding a new way, after a loss of faith. A better way to live.
The second, a loving mother showing religious concern for her daughter's soul. And losing control of the situation.

Both have conflict and tension. The wife/daughter being torn every which way.

Quoting Amity

I do know the other one, too: the drip, drip, drip of guilt, of shaming, of turning your best impulses on you as weapons. — Vera Mont

Sorry to hear that.

Oh, not directly. My father was a bully, nothing we could do about that. But my mother equipped me with some resistance to the guilt and shame thing. She made fun of it, so my brother and I learned to make fun of it. But I did subsequently witness how it happens to others. Usually through religion, which encases the very young child in a waterproof shell: he's helpless for fifteen years or more. The even more insidious form is smothering 'love' - sustained and unrelenting emotional blackmail.

Quoting Vera Mont

Oh, not directly. My father was a bully, nothing we could do about that.

Still, very unfortunate. Your mother did well in the circumstances.

Quoting Vera Mont

She made fun of it, so my brother and I learned to make fun of it.

That seems to be the way to manage bullies. See current American politics. Not taking Trump seriously and making fun of him. The downside is that it can infuriate and make matters worse. The situation is serious.

Quoting Vera Mont

But I did subsequently witness how it happens to others

A few stories to be told there. Most are never shared. The voices unheard.

Quoting Vera Mont

The even more insidious form is smothering 'love' - sustained and unrelenting emotional blackmail.

'Love' in its most hateful, abusive form.

Quoting Amity

The second, a loving mother showing religious concern for her daughter's soul. And losing control of the situation.

Ah, I see now that I read the second part as being between a mother and son, simply because it was easy for me to relate to it that way even though, on rereading' I couldn't find anything that makes clear the sex of the child.

Quoting wonderer1

I read the second part as being between a mother and son, simply because it was easy for me to relate to it that way even though, on rereading' I couldn't find anything that makes clear the sex of the child.

I think that the reader always brings their self to an interpretation. How else could it be? And I thought too that the poem could be autobiographical. The writer being female. But I don't know...probably not.

It's an all too easy assumption to make! Maybe just biographical. Imagination creating parts of a whole.

Reply to Vera Mont Another lovely poem. It reminded me of Greyfriars Bobby.
https://edinburgh.org/blog/the-tale-of-greyfriars-bobby/

Quoting wonderer1

I couldn't find anything that makes clear the sex of the child.

Strangely enough, the confusion reminded me of @Tobias captivating story. The hairpin.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/13745/the-hairpin-by-tobias/p1

And it made me wonder as to the Mum. She might have been like her daughter but unlike her she was totally brainwashed and not in a position to leave her husband...or father?
They may well have been the 'He' in Part 1...
Overthinking? :chin:

I thought it was the same young woman in both - possibly with father and mother. In a religious community, obviously. If the father had been a bully, she would not have argued with him while she was dependent - you do not talk back! But she might try to assert herself, once she was out of the house. That would also give us a better perspective on why she'd give in to the mother - who had shared in her oppression over the years, and is still under the yoke, to which she has capitulated, while the daughter escaped and carried a burden of guilt for her desertion.

Yes, i think we're probably reading too much into it, bringing too much of our own experience to it. But, what the hay, isn't that what poetry is for?

Quoting Amity

Strangely enough, the confusion reminded me of Tobias captivating story.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/13745/the-hairpin-by-tobias/p1

I loved that.

Quoting Amity

And it made me wonder as to the Mum. She might have been like her daughter but she was brainwashed and wasn't in a position to leave her husband.
Who may well have been the man in Part 1...
Overthinking :chin:

Overthinking maybe, but interesting to consider.

In the case of my mom, there was fear related to bipolar disorder in her family, and she has told me that she is afraid she would go crazy without her religious beliefs. That's only one among many factors, but I understand it really is a deep seated fear for her, and knowing that in particular, I'm not much inclined to challenge her views.

Quoting Vera Mont

Yes, i think we're probably reading too much into it, bringing too much of our own experience to it. But, what the hay, isn't that what poetry is for?

Yes. That's part of the fun of poetry. The writer and readers care and share. In all kinds of ways. Amazing to see where a single 2-part poem can lead... Really enjoyed your interpretation. It reminds me of our times in TPFs Literary Challenge. The Short Story Stimulating the brain cells...

Quoting wonderer1

I loved that.

Yes! There are some real gems hidden away...still more to come. Hopefully...

Quoting wonderer1

I understand it really is a deep seated fear for her, and knowing that in particular, I'm not much inclined to challenge her views.

It takes a certain kind of courage to share personal stories. And to show ways of coping and dealing with 'differences of opinion' in family and other situations.
Both you and @Vera Mont have been inspirational. Thank you :sparkle: :flower:

Quoting wonderer1

That's only one among many factors, but I understand it really is a deep seated fear for her, and knowing that in particular, I'm not much inclined to challenge her views.

We were the same with my sister-in-law. She had MS and clung to her faith till the very end. We could see that it was a comfort to her and were careful never to challenge it. Even took her to church a couple of times when she was visiting, even though... Well, we took her shopping and brought her KFC buckets, too: whatever made her life a little brighter.

Quoting Vera Mont

Well, we took her shopping and brought her KFC buckets, too: whatever made her life a little brighter.

That is Love. :heart:
Making 'life a little brighter' is one of the best things anyone can do for themselves or others.
And I agree it is important to know when to hold one's tongue. First, do no harm.

Not sure whether this will brighten, enlighten or even be read but here goes nothing:

Turning my attention to: Iris Murdoch and Plato and 'Good for Nothing'.

First of all, my laptop has recovered. All hail Technology and wonderful experts who repair and restore.
It means that I'm now scouring its contents with the aim of saving the worthy to a memory stick. Or at least, knowing where to find 'stuff'.

Looking through old emails, I found a link to an article. It's a fascinating review of Iris Murdoch's 'Work for the Spirit' by Elizabeth Dipple.[ emphasis added]

With 3339 words, it starts:
Quoting LRB - Alasdair MacIntyre - Good for nothing

Philosophy, religion, science,’ wrote D.H. Lawrence, ‘they are all of them busy nailing things down ... But the novel, no ... If you try to nail anything down, in the novel, it either kills the novel, or the novel gets up and walks away with the nail!’

Hence Lawrence’s conclusion that only the novel can now do for us what philosophy once aspired to do:
Plato’s Dialogues were queer little novels. It seems to me that it was the greatest pity in the world when philosophy and fiction got split. They used to be one, right from the days of myth. Then they parted, like a nagging married couple, with Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas and that beastly Kant. So the novel went sloppy and philosophy went abstract-dry. The two should come together again – in the novel.

Why in the novel? ‘You may know a truth but if it’s at all complicated you have to be an artist not to utter it as a lie,’ says one of Iris Murdoch’s characters in An Accidental Man who is explaining why he has abandoned philosophy. It is always dangerous to impute a character’s views to an author: but in Iris Murdoch’s case there is a special hazard.

I've had some TPF interactions re Murdoch and Plato with e.g. @180 Proof and @Fooloso4.
I've still to tackle a Murdoch recommendation by 180 - 'Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals'. It's real heavy! Any advice as to a 'way in' gratefully received. The highlights?

With Fooloso4, what sticks in my mind is my initial condemnation of Plato - blaming him for the negativity towards poets and creativity in 'The Republic'. And how this has trickled down through the ages. We can question how we separate 'Philosophy' and its categories from the creative life. Stories to the left of us...

Quoting LRB - Alasdair MacIntyre review

[...] Yet Plato himself would have expelled the dramatic poets from the republic and understood the mimesis of art as a tempting source of illusion. A Neoplatonic novelist seems to be an embodied contradiction.

Iris Murdoch has confronted this problem in The Fire and the Sun: Why Plato Banished the Artists, where she draws our attention to Plato’s ambivalence about the arts. ‘He kept emphasising the imageless remoteness of the Good, yet kept returning in his exposition to the more elaborate uses of art.’ And she might well have drawn our attention to the fact that in the Republic, where Plato’s attack on all sensible representation is most vehement, the exposition of the diagram of the line, in terms of which the theory of forms is explained, includes the remark that any type of apprehension which has to be mediated by a diagram cannot be true knowledge of the forms. But if we and Glaucon and Adeimantus have had to learn about the forms by means of the diagram of the line, then sensible representation has had to play its part in the mind’s ascent towards the Form of the Good, and perhaps a part that cannot ever quite be left behind. And where then does the condemnation of the artist stand, deriving as it does in Book X precisely from the fact that mimesis is a form of sensible representation? It is very much to the point that Plato’s attack on the dramatic poets is voiced in a work which is itself an outstanding piece of dramatic art.

I'm not sure if MacIntyre gives us a correct interpretation. Any thoughts?

[...] Iris Murdoch seems to be at one with Plato, although she extends his suspicion of art into a suspicion of philosophy. It too can screen us from the Form of the Good, it too can be a form of self-indulgence. And just as Plato attacked dramatic art in a play, so Iris Murdoch has voiced her indictments of philosophy in philosophical essays as well as in novels. [...]

[Her] storytelling voice is what gives the novels their pace and their comic energy, and with these, the enjoyment that comes from the reader’s, and the characters’, being carried along so swiftly. But where are the characters being carried to? At what does the directedness of those who aim at the good point? Where does the distractedness of those who fail to aim at the good prevent them from moving to? Aristotle long ago criticised the Platonic conception of the Form of the Good for being practically empty, for affording us no guidance. Lacking any specific content, it is in fact a nothing, the ghost of a something.

It is characteristic of Iris Murdoch’s later novels that all goodness being referred to the Form of the Good seems to entail that there is no such thing as a good way of life or a good form of human community. Good is an object only of individual aspiration. Social circumstances are not themselves, except accidentally, part of the matter of morality, which is a purely individual enterprise and one that, just because what is good is good ‘for nothing’, leads nowhere. This is why her novels have no genuine endings.

I don't intend this to become an in-depth discussion concerning Murdoch, Plato and the Good but would appreciate thoughts/opinions as to the above.

We can read a novel and its characters and sometimes assume the author's views are one and the same. Sometimes, it is obviously autobiographical as in e.g. Philip Roth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Roth

How true is it that: 'the novel can now do for us what philosophy once aspired to'. :chin:

Poetry in Music?

[i]Yes I'm stuck in the middle with you,
And I'm wondering what it is I should do,
It's so hard to keep this smile from my face,
Losing control, yeah, I'm all over the place,
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right,
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you[/i]

Stealers Wheel ~ Stuck In The Middle With You [LYRICS]

Poetry and Music

It's easy to see the connection between poetry and song lyrics. But can that be translated to sound, notes and chords? I suggested earlier that poetry is in the world of nature. Where else do we find the magical melodies; the murmuration and susurration...?

Inspired by @unenlightened's posting of the instrumental version of La Mer:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/935055

La Mer. The poetry of its lyrics, in French and English. Embedded video of Trenet singing his song. And how it inspired other creative works:

Quoting La Mer by Charles Trenet - French song translations

Bergère d’azur infinie
Artist and commenter on this song Sophie Howard (@sophiemmh) was inspired by Trenet’s la Mer to create the sculpture pictured here, which she has called “The Infinite Shepherdess.” About it she says: “The body of the shepherdess is made from old buildings. The horse’s hooves touch the waves which rock boats on the shore. A bird’s head forms the eye of the horse. The clouds are like curls from the back of a sheep. Everything is wind-whipped.” It will be exhibited in London at the Mall Galleries in June 2024.

Quoting Amity

Poetry in Music?

Roxy Music - More Than This. :sparkle:

Quoting Amity

How true is it that: 'the novel can now do for us what philosophy once aspired to'.

While I fancied that that understood where some philosophers were coming from, and what they were having a go at, I never figured out whether Philosophy as a whole intended or aspired. As a 'discipline', I think it's purely academic, because it takes a pedagogue's orderly mind to make a system of it; in the wild, it's quite undisciplined. Does it serve a social function? Some branches do; some practitioners do so deliberately and self-consciously, while some, I'm a little afraid to say aloud in this environment, seem to me no more than cloud-gazing and verbal calisthenics.

Novels, on the other hand... I'd rather say fiction, because it ought to include drama, has many origins and purposes and social functions. Some of it, obviously, is also cloud-gazing and verbal calisthenics, some is philosophical, A fair amount is mythologizing of a people's self image; a good deal of it is social commentary (which may have been Plato's objection to the dramatic poets of his time; they were successful rivals for what he regarded as his territory... or maybe not; I didn't know him well enough to judge) and even more is just crowd-fodder, created to entertain or frighten or titillate briefly and then fade away. The best fiction combines philosophy and social commentary, edification and intellectual stimulation in an entertaining form. (At least, that's what some of us aspire to.)

Quoting Amity

It's easy to see the connection between poetry and song lyrics. But can that be translated to sound, notes and chords?

Beethoven took a pretty good stab at it. Vivaldi didn't suck, either.

Quoting Amity

Stealers Wheel ~ Stuck In The Middle With You

I can't see or hear that in any context except with the image of Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin (Are they not the most amazing women??) in that comedy series - not always in the best taste.
I like many song lyrics - perhaps my favourites are by Simon and Garfunkel, because they supplied the score for my youthful yearnings and heartbreaks. The first record I ever owned was a single Sounds of Silence, a gift from a friend who also felt very much on the fringes of high-school culture. A bright, sad Welsh boy, a poet.

Quoting Vera Mont

While I fancied that that understood where some philosophers were coming from, and what they were having a go at, I never figured out whether Philosophy as a whole intended or aspired. As a 'discipline', I think it's purely academic, because it takes a pedagogue's orderly mind to make a system of it; in the wild, it's quite undisciplined. Does it serve a social function? Some branches do; some practitioners do so deliberately and self-consciously, while some, I'm a little afraid to say aloud in this environment, seem to me no more than cloud-gazing and verbal calisthenics

Well. Where to start. I don't think it unusual for people to wonder as to the benefits of Philosophy as an academic discipline. Been discussed many times. The aspirations and aims of any course are usually well-defined. It can be seen an objective, civilised system in comparison to the 'wildness' of internet forums. They are both systems within which can be found imagination and thought-provoking claims.
As always, in Education, so much can depend on individual profs, tutors and the participating students. They have various demands placed on them but nevertheless keep the spirit of questioning and exploration alive.

As to Philosophy serving a 'social function'...what is that exactly? Whose philosophy?

I've had enough of talk. I should stop there. I am sick to my stomach at the inability to stop or even lessen the effects of male criminals and bullies of the world. Crimes against humanity going unpunished.
Wars started by male egos in a never-ending, crazy downward spiral. Who wins?

The Republican supporters of MAGA can go to the Hell they believe in. Within a system that is rotten to the core.

Only one example. The so-called Justice system - Capital punishment.
Don't read this, if you want to stay calm.
From: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/29/america-executions-death-penalty

Six days of horror: America’s thirst for executions returns with a vengeance
Five executions, five states: a glut of judicial killing not seen in 20 years took place last week – and there was nothing random about it.

“I don’t think anything represents our long history of racial injustice more dramatically than the tolerance of racial bias in the administration of the death penalty,” Stevenson said. “For a Black defendant to be tried by a nearly all-white jury in a county with a substantial Black population, and have the courts look the other way, that’s the shadow, the pollution, that the history of lynching and segregation and punitive enslavement has created.” [...]

On Thursday, Miller, 59, was put to death by Alabama for the 1999 shootings of three of his co-workers. The state used nitrogen gas effectively to suffocate him – an experimental killing technique that has only been deployed once before in US history, with the execution in January of Kenneth Smith, also by Alabama.

An eyewitness for the Associated Press described Miller’s death by nitrogen in hauntingly similar terms to Smith’s: “He shook and trembled on the gurney for about two minutes with his body at times pulling against the restraints. That was followed by about six minutes of periodic gulping.”...

The article continues with more disturbing details of the previous attempt to kill Miller in September 2022. Alabama.

Politics. Big Boy Bullies and their MAGA philosophy or ideology. America gets worse with Trump.

The federal courts, which Trump transformed by appointing more than 200 judges during his presidency, have also changed their tune. Where they once acted as a failsafe against unreliable convictions, they now largely step aside.

That is especially true of the US supreme court, with its new ultra-right supermajority secured by Trump’s three appointed justices, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

“There’s been a radical shift in the legal culture as it relates to the death penalty in the past six years,” said Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative...

Who is Stevenson? Did he read Plato? Look up wiki. His memoir 'Just Mercy'.

Quoting Amity

I've had some TPF interactions re Murdoch and Plato with e.g. 180 Proof and @Fooloso4.
I've still to tackle a Murdoch recommendation by 180 - 'Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals'. It's real heavy! Any advice as to a 'way in' gratefully received. The highlights?

With Fooloso4, what sticks in my mind is my initial condemnation of Plato - blaming him for the negativity towards poets and creativity in 'The Republic'. And how this has trickled down through the ages. We can question how we separate 'Philosophy' and its categories from the creative life. Stories to the left of us...

@180 Proof and @Fooloso4 - Never mind. It all seems quite pitiful, now.

Thanks to all who have participated. Stay well :sparkle:

Quoting Vera Mont

The best fiction combines philosophy and social commentary, edification and intellectual stimulation in an entertaining form. (At least, that's what some of us aspire to.)

Reply to Vera Mont

Thank you. Take care :flower:

Quoting Amity

I don't think it unusual for people to wonder as to the benefits of Philosophy as an academic discipline.

I don't question the value or benefits of the academic application. In fact, that's what I was trying to say: in the educational setting, philosophy becomes systematic and disciplined and that the orderly academic mindset renders it useful.
I don't think Philosophy is a discipline in any other context. Or that it was ever unified in its aspirations or significance until academics packaged it. In any other setting, it's just a lot of disparate thinkers, thinking out loud.
Quoting Amity

As to Philosophy serving a 'social function'...what is that exactly? Whose philosophy?

Each disparate opinion is published in a given time and place. It may sway public opinion in that society, or make a deep impression on someone who then becomes a leader. It may and even influence legal and legislative decisions in the near future, and in related cultures. It may influence contemporary thinkers and future ones. That's hit-and-miss; some philosophies sink without a trace; some valid observations are denied or vilified.
As an academic discipline, philosophy is far more powerful. It familiarizes intelligent young people with different ways of thinking, of regarding the world and their fellow humans. Each student is likely to be more heavily influenced by one or another of the philosophers they study, according their own leanings, but whichever it is will have articulated a world view - and thus illustrated for the student how it's done.
Of course there is no guarantee that every student will emulate the thought process of their role model, rather than rely on quotes from him to carry their arguments, but at least every student who takes a philosophy course is given the opportunity to think more deeply and widely. Whatever they do in the world afterward is bound to have an effect on their society.

BTW - I believe women who have either pets or children or both should rule the world for a while. Nobody else eligible to run for any administrative or head of government department position for the next 20 years.
Then we can review.
I love and respect many men, but it's time for them to stand down and stand back.

Reply to Vera Mont Reply to Vera Mont
Thanks for clarification and providing more food for thought. Who best to rule the world?
Why Vera, of course :wink:

Quoting Vera Mont

I love and respect many men, but it's time for them to stand down and stand back.

Oh dear. An unfortunate reminder of Trump's Proud Boy order of 'stand back and stand by'. Apparently to allow law enforcement do their work. Yeah, right! He is a vicious piece of work who knows fine well how to stir the shit to his advantage. Proud Boys don't stand back. They are primed for more.

I am becoming increasingly concerned with American politics. It sickens me.

Time, for me, to give it a rest. My BP is soaring.

Looking for light listening...books, music...or to watch non-violent films.
But not too slushy...Christmas Romance :vomit:

Quoting Amity

Oh dear. An unfortunate reminder of Trump's Proud Boy order of 'stand back and stand by'

It was meant as a positive echo to a negative order. Down tools and get out of the way for a while.
Quoting Amity

I am becoming increasingly concerned with American politics. It sickens me.

Not theirs alone, either! Don't look east or southward!
Yes. We keep watching You Tube, as one would a million-car collision in slow motion, hardly able to believe what's become of the nation that gave us All in the Family. This election is close? As Alan Shore used to say in his closing arguments: How can this be? How can this be!?
My current theory is solar flares. They're driving the world's population mad. It's incremental, because organisms have different levels of susceptibility. There will still be a few (unfortunate) relatively sane humans when the cats begin to succumb. By then, all the apes, elephants and dolphins and dogs will be at one another's throats.

Quoting Vera Mont

Not theirs alone, either! Don't look east or southward!

Yes, I know that politics globally is scary and sickening.
I read this: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/03/international-system-unfit-to-deal-with-global-crises-annual-report-2022/

And I don't want to say any more...

I'm sorry but I can't even raise a smile at the solar flare theory. It's good to keep a sense of humour and perspective, when you can but...

'How can it be?!'
How can it not be?

Time to strike up Nearer My God to Thee ? And the band played on...
I know it's not a time for levity, but may well be a time for gallows humour.

Returning to this.

Quoting Amity

With Fooloso4, what sticks in my mind is my initial condemnation of Plato - blaming him for the negativity towards poets and creativity in 'The Republic'. And how this has trickled down through the ages. We can question how we separate 'Philosophy' and its categories from the creative life. Stories to the left of us...

My first attempt at reading Plato's Republic was some time ago. I think on the OnlinePhilosophyClub site. Even with help from @Fooloso4 and an online course, I found it perplexing and gave up on it.

I note that @Jamal has started a thread:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15484/poets-and-tyrants-in-the-republic-book-i/p1

I look forward to reading this and the comments. Not sure yet whether I understand enough to participate. However, I'm pleased to say that I found the Yale course again. Prof Steven Smith is excellent and has an easy rapport with his students who are active participants. The video lectures include transcript and audio. Also available on YouTube.

https://oyc.yale.edu/political-science/plsc-114/lecture-4

Poets and Tyrants. Toast and Easter eggs

I've been enjoying Jamal's discussion and the discovery of 'literary easter eggs'. A different approach or angle to reading the Republic, Book 1. I'm in two minds about it. More can be read, here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/936532

Enough of Plato for the time being.
Kicking the autumn leaves and feeling the cool air, I thought of gold-spun jumpers
Warm and comforting, like toast.
And Toast has more
It has poetry.

Take a moment and look.
If you don't like poetry
All the more reason.

https://www.toa.st/blogs/magazine/an-ode-to-poetry-book-club

I’m often asked where to begin with poetry: how to discover new voices, how to interpret subtext, how to climb inside a poem’s skin so you can see how it breathes. I think many of us are discouraged by education’s insistence on there being a ‘right’ response to poetry, which can make us wary of the form in later life.

I remember a poet speaking about this in the bookshop where I used to work, telling me how his son was asked during a comprehension test why a character in a poem was wearing a blue hat. The answer the examiner wanted was, ‘He’s wearing a blue hat because it’s raining’, but his son wrote, ‘He’s wearing a blue hat because he supports Chelsea.’ His son was marked down and told he was wrong. And that’s boring, isn’t it? Poems should present windows, not boxes to tick.

[emphasis added]

The tyranny of the tick box.
There is no 'right' response. It's about your interaction with words and what they mean, to you.
It's also fascinating to hear from the poet/author about their intention and how other readers react.

This took me back to @Noble Dust's short story - 'A Sort of Duel'.
Excerpt:

Quoting Noble Dust - A Sort of Duel

Oh and by the way, the man sitting next to me with the paper plate and pencil is dressed in khakis and a polo; I think his shoes were recently shined. And, I kid you not, his hair is dyed blue; I have no idea why. It doesn’t fit his look at all. So they’re both writing and writing, getting more and more furious by the minute; blue-hair next to me is starting to breathe heavy like he’s shagging but out of shape which makes no sense because he’s very svelte. I’m sort of freaking out at this point, but some weird part of me wants to see what he’s writing so I oh-so-subtly just sort of cock my head to the left a bit and do a little side-eye thing but blue-hair immediately catches me and gives this possessed look, like “what the bloody fuck are you doing?”

I remember being intrigued by the duality and making suggestions as to why the guy had blue hair.
Similar to the son's association of the 'blue hat' with Chelsea, I thought of a Rangers supporter (v Celtic supporter - green).
Feedback from: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/726961
Those were the days...

Quoting Noble Dust - A Sort of Duel

the man sitting next to me with the paper plate

That man sitting nigh with the paper face
A pauper's plate hangs from his grin
No hat dons his soapy pate
Nor collar does his bird neck ring
If he has but a cent, he has more
Than any sense his body sings
Stinks like seaweed on the shore
Stinks like never, nevermore

Yet that night of manner
Though shiver stings
A quiet serpent at my door
I feel too below some
Secret brings
Relief and sweet
and sacred things

Quoting Baden

the man sitting next to me with the paper plate
— Noble Dust - A Sort of Duel

That man sitting nigh with the paper face

Bridging the gap of time, space and person. Your poem is a tribute to @Noble Dust. The poetry within his and many other TPF stories. The creative worth and hidden depths. How imagination can take a simple description and bring forth more sensations and thoughts. Mind-merging moments.

I don't think enough people are given enough credit for that. It took me a while to fully appreciate the importance of TPF's Literary Event. Looking again - with more attention, experience and knowledge - I am amazed at how much I missed. Still do.

Possibly that was due to the competitive element and the initial time pressure. Some authors were impatient to get to the results. Who would be the winner. The increasing amount of entries. The pedantic and passionate arguments about grammar, voting, with null points given to a piece not considered a story. And so on.

I remember another beauty by @Noble Dust. I didn't appreciate it on a first read. However, when the feedback kicked in, I was drawn back to defend choice of words. ND held his own.
Buried Treasure. Indeed!

An excerpt:

Quoting Buried Treasure by Noble Dust

As she sprints, she spies a bumble bee and nimbly sidesteps its path. The pollen fills her head. Her eyes dart back to Henry. She hears a crow caw to its mate in the oak overhead. She looks up and is blinded by late afternoon sun. She falters but keeps pace. Her chest thrills with the life around her. The sun’s rays bounce off the friendship rock ahead. She leaps over with somber respect. To her left the big anthill tugs at her attention but she presses on. As she passes, she sees order within the chaos of countless ant paths and errands. A conveyor belt carries in two dead flies.

One of my comments:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/768204

The meaning of the story, ND's feedback makes clear. The treasure more than a buried skull.
From his 'About' profile: Sly sidestep of the bumblebee

@Baden I hope ND reads your poem and is as moved by it, as I am.
The man with no hat. No blue hair. But who: Quoting Baden

Stinks like seaweed on the shore
Stinks like never, nevermore

Material surface level and then going underground, to the secret spiritual. Quoting Baden

Relief and sweet and sacred things

The sense and sensibility. The whole-iness of it all. :fire:

Quoting Amity

Your poem is a tribute to Noble Dust.

Yes, that line of his just got me and the poem came out.

Quoting Amity

I remember another beauty by Noble Dust.

It is indeed a beauty. :flower:

Quoting Amity

The sense and sensibility. The whole-iness of it all. :fire:

Thank you. :smile:

Quoting Amity

The pedantic and passionate arguments about grammar, voting, with null points given to a piece not considered a story. And so on.

Sorrowfully, it was a discussion with which I am not pleased. We both already discussed this issue through PM and I promised it will never happen again (and it won't!).

I thought 1 or 2 points meant poor quality and I admit that criticising the use of Jueves as a female name hurt my feelings a bit. Yet this is the past, and the next contest will be even better (I am talking about my behavior). It is obvious that we will read great stories because the level of writing and imagination here is high and top.

Quoting javi2541997

Sorrowfully, it was a discussion with which I am not pleased. We both already discussed this issue through PM and I promised it will never happen again (and it won't!).

Believe it, or not, my post was not specifically addressed to you. I didn't want a re-hash of our 'previous', related to your story. It's unfortunate that you brought it to attention.

Your chosen quote in context:

Quoting Amity

I don't think enough people are given enough credit for that. It took me a while to fully appreciate the importance of TPF's Literary Event. Looking again - with more attention, experience and knowledge - I am amazed at how much I missed. Still do.

Possibly that was due to the competitive element and the initial time pressure. Some authors were impatient to get to the results. Who would be the winner. The increasing amount of entries. The pedantic and passionate arguments about grammar, voting, with null points given to a piece not considered a story. And so on.

The main point being that, for me, more attention could have been given to the stories, leading to increased appreciation. I think that each participant deserves this. But it's not always possible.

Quoting javi2541997

Yet this is the past, and the next contest will be even better (I am talking about my behavior). It is obvious that we will read great stories because the level of writing and imagination here is high and top.

Of course, it's the past. And what will be, will be...
Best wishes to all :flower:

Quoting Amity

I've been enjoying Jamal's discussion and the discovery of 'literary easter eggs'. A different approach or angle to reading the Republic, Book 1. I'm in two minds about it.

I think the problem with applying the idea of literary Easter eggs is that it usually refers to something inessential, a bonus for certain readers. Symbolic name choices are an example. They're not centrally significant.

But the allusions or allegories in Book 1 of the Republic are woven in with the central themes of the work and contain everything that's to come in microcosm.

Thanks for further clarification and pointing out that:

Quoting Jamal

...the allusions or allegories in Book 1 of the Republic are woven in with the central themes of the work and contain everything that's to come in microcosm.

I didn't know that. So, just another 9 Books of the Republic to read ?!
Are they worth the effort? Some more than others?
I guess it depends on the readers' interests and fondness for layered puzzles.

Reply to Amity

The "books" of the Republic are the chapters, basically. They all belong together and they're all important, although book 10 is weird and some would say adds nothing of much value to the whole work's argument.

Quoting Jamal

...they're all important, although book 10 is weird and some would say adds nothing of much value to the whole work's argument.

Hmm. I'd have thought it would be the main conclusion. Plato never fails to perplex and surprise. I like weird. Later...

Quoting Jamal

book 10 is weird and some would say adds nothing of much value to the whole work's argument.

My first thought was that those who say that book 10 adds nothing of much value have not understood it. But that is not very helpful. So, instead of leaving it there I decided I will start a thread on book 10, commenting as I go along.

Quoting Fooloso4

I decided I will start a thread on book 10, commenting as I go along.

Well. That should be interesting...but perhaps a bit of a spoiler?
Strangely enough, I had thought to head to the end but decided not to.
It might mean that I don't bother to read the rest, building up to the climax.
Or is it indeed 'the end'?

Quoting Fooloso4

I decided I will start a thread on book 10, commenting as I go along.

Great :up:

Reply to Amity Reply to Baden

Thanks y'all. Forgot about those. Nice poem, Baden. I'm about to go to bed but will read this thread soon (hopefully).

Quoting Noble Dust

Thanks y'all. Forgot about those. Nice poem, Baden. I'm about to go to bed but will read this thread soon (hopefully).

Great to hear from you again! I can hardly believe that you could forget your stories in TPF. Because they, and others, have certainly impacted me. As you can see.

Right from the get-go, you encouraged me with a quick and easy 'How to...' think as I read and then comment accordingly. That helped me enormously to get into the flow.
You and @hypericin were instrumental in the organisation of The Literary Event, Dec 2023. :up:
Not sure how things stand for any event this December? My questions remain unanswered...guess nobody cares much :chin:

BTW, this seems to have turned into a self-indulgent blog. So, beware all ye who enter here! It won't be for long.I don't believe in >10 pages. So tedious...
Take care :sparkle: :flower:

Now to Go to Hell :fire:

@Paine is to blame! :halo:

Quoting TPF - Poets and tyrants in the Republic, Book 1

Your introduction of how well the eggs can be understood through time prompted me to think about how different a book the Inferno by Dante was for the generations closest to it.
— Paine

Yes, the transcript above pulled me in. [The Hunt for Justice - Plato's Republic I ]
As have you! I think I now want to explore Dante...perhaps later and elsewhere. :sparkle:

The idea of a 'knowing' audience who would immediately recognise any 'easter eggs' made me think of 'intertextuality'. The way that all texts can use other texts either explicitly or implicitly to capture or enrapture the audience. - Amity

[emphasis added]

Decades ago, I heard of Dante's Inferno when learning Italian but was never attracted to it. Same with poetry. I thought both too 'heavy'.
Now, I love to read and listen to them both. L'italiano is manna to my lugs.
Like Jamie Lee Curtis in A Fish Called Wanda, I am seduced by the male tongue.
Listen here: https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/sound/bausi-readings/

1. Parallel Italian/English texts helped me follow a fascinating commentary on 2. Inferno 1 - The Divine Comedy. The importance of the first line and intertextuality.

1.
Quoting ThoughCo - Dante's Inferno in Italian and English

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
Midway upon the journey of our life

2. Quoting Columbia.edu - Digital Dante - Inferno 1 -

[9] The poet has combined biblical and classical motifs to create a uniquely hybrid “middling” textuality. “Nel mezzo” marks a middle-point/meeting-point of cultural imbrication: “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita” (Midway upon the journey of our life [Inf. 1.1]) evokes, as critics have long noted, both biblical and classical precedents, both Isaiah 38:10 (“In the middle of my days I must depart”) and Horace’s injunction in Ars Poetica to commence a narrative “in medias res” (in the midst of things [Ars Poetica, 148]). The mid-point thus boasts both classical and biblical pedigrees.

[10] To the above well-known intertexts for “Nel mezzo”, I will add two Aristotelian texts: the passage in the Physics where we find Aristotle’s discussion of time, and the passage in Nicomachean Ethics where we find his definition of virtue.

[11] In the Physics, Aristotle describes time as “a kind of middle-point, uniting in itself both a beginning and an end, a beginning of future time and an end of past time” (Physics 8.1.251b18–26).[1] In his philosophical prose treatise, Convivio, written before the Inferno, circa 1304-1307, Dante shows that he is acquainted with Aristotle’s writings on time, citing the Physics as follows: “Lo tempo, secondo che dice Aristotile nel quarto de la Fisica, è ‘numero di movimento, secondo prima e poi’” (Time, according to Aristotle in the fourth book of the Physics, is “number of movement, according to before and after” [Conv. 4.2.6]).

Digital Dante is an amazing site to explore.

The Russian poet Osip Mandelstam wrote: “It is unthinkable to read the cantos of Dante without aiming them in the direction of the present day. They were made for that. They are missiles for capturing the future.” Digital Dante endeavors to live up to Mandelstam’s mandate, aiming Dante’s missiles in the direction of the present day.

Dante's missiles aimed at the future.

So @Paine, even though any 'easter eggs' would perhaps be better recognised by readers of the past, there might be hope for the present reader to reach an understanding. Thanks for the inspiration.

Time for me to break off for a while. A lot of reading to catch up on...

Reply to Amity
There is plenty for the reader of today. I was mostly thinking how sure Dante sounded when claiming to know what the coming judgement of some of his contemporaries was going to be. This life and the afterlife are woven together.

I will think about what Mandelstam is saying and try to dip into the Cantos again. It has been a while.

Reply to Paine Thanks for helpful response and best wishes. :flower:

Quoting Amity

Right from the get-go, you encouraged me with a quick and easy 'How to...' think as I read and then comment accordingly. That helped me enormously to get into the flow.

:flower: Glad to know it helped.

Quoting Amity

Not sure how things stand for any event this December? My questions remain unanswered...guess nobody cares much :chin:

There was talk of doing it this December. I'm not sure if I'll be able to help or not but I'm hoping it will happen. I have a story written already for once. :chin:

Quoting Noble Dust

There was talk of doing it this December. I'm not sure if I'll be able to help or not but I'm hoping it will happen. I have a story written already for once.

You are not alone in hoping it will happen. However, like you, I'm not sure how able I will be if it does.
I doubt I will write a story or poem, unless my brain is taken over by an unrelenting creative spirit.
Hope to read yours, wherever and whenever :sparkle:

I have concepts of a story....

Quoting Vera Mont

I have concepts of a story....

Hah! Nice one. Channeling Trump's 'concept of a plan' for healthcare.

Quoting Noble Dust

Nice poem, Baden. I'm about to go to bed but will read this thread soon (hopefully).

:smile: :up:

Reply to Amity
Only, I really do. It started forming last month, on Friday the 13th. Haven't written it down yet, because there isn't a plot in which to ground the idea.

Reply to Vera Mont Oh, spooky. Especially in the month of Halloween. Where's my blue witches hat...and cat...? A graveyard plot...? :fire:

I could maybe go that way... I've been toying with the notion of luck. Charms and hexes, touchstones and talismans? Hmmm

Reply to Amity
Likewise, or 'back at you' as an American might say.

I have been reading Republic Book 10 for the sake of the Fooloso4 thread and came across a positively Dantean passage that does not belong being quoted over there (at least so far). This is a near death experience that Er reports:

Plato, Republic, 614c, translated by Jones and Preddy:“He said that his soul left him and made its way with many others and they came to a sacred spot where there were two openings in the ground next to each other, and two others opposite them in the sky above. Between them sat judges who, when they had passed sentence, ordered the just to make their way to the opening on the right leading up through the sky, and they fixed placards on the front of their bodies indicating their judgments, while the unjust were sent to the left-hand downward path and they also had indications of all they had done attached to their backs. But when he himself came forward, they said that he must become the messenger to mankind of what was happening there, and they ordered him to listen to and observe everything in that place.

“In this way, then, he said he saw the souls, when judgment had been passed, leaving by one of the openings in the sky and one in the ground, while by the other two, out of the one coming up from the ground, were souls covered in filth and dust, and down from the other one from the sky came others purified.

In Dante, of course, there is no return. The location of the placards on the front or back sends a chill down my spine.

Quoting Paine

I have been reading Republic Book 10 for the sake of the Fooloso4 thread and came across a positively Dantean passage...

@Fooloso4's thread is doing well. I'm enjoying it immensely and have participated. However, I am a bit of a fraud, not having read Book10 in its entirety. Merely skirting the edges. A flirty butterfly. So far.

Thanks for the quote and relating it to Dante. The Myth of Er does stand out. I can understand why some consider Book 10 'weird'. But it does show the magnificence of Plato's writing.

Quoting Paine

In Dante, of course, there is no return. The location of the placards on the front or back sends a chill down my spine.

Yes. The judgements based on one's life can't be seen by the offender. So, there is no recourse against any misinterpretation by the judges, whoever and how 'righteous' they are. I'll have to read this.
Just as well I don't believe in either Heaven or Hell. I am surely damned :naughty:

I decided rather than continue with @Fooloso4' Book 10 discussion that I need to read the whole Republic. To place it and @Jamal's Book1 thread in context. To try to understand what it's all about.

I wondered about the best way to approach The Republic. And something that would provide me with much-needed motivation. To engage with a bit more background.

How to Read Plato's Republic:



I enjoyed this. Some of my notes:

To read slowly and carefully as an active conversation with the author.
To ask what is the ruling principle of the philosopher you are reading. It is suggested that Plato's most important issue concerns 'How to Live'. And this is a learning exercise.
To feel free to disagree. To relate the Dialogue to real life. Current politics. To reconnect with the curiosity of a child. To enjoy asking questions. We are all born philosophers.
To use imagination to read the Republic as a novel, a play.
To consider the ideas of Utopian/Dystopian literature. The speculative building of a just city, the macro level of justice and morality - how it relates to the micro level - the just individual. Is it even possible?


***

And since I need to take care of my eyes, I looked for an audio version.
To relax for a first listen. To take it slowly. To take in the overall panorama:




Edit: The video is a condensed version. From the Comments, a helpful contents guide:

Book I - 0:35
Book II - 42:00
Book III - 1:16:27
Book IV - 1:32:30
Book V - 1:58:30
Book VI - 2:33:20
Book VII - 3:04:59
Book VIII - 3:22:21
Book IX - 3:42:30
Book X - 4:27:40

Quoting Amity

I decided rather than continue with Fooloso4' Book 10 discussion that I need to read the whole Republic.

I think in discussions of Plato we are doing at least two things:

1) Discussing ideas and issues that arise in the part of the dialogue we are reading.
2) Discovering how those ideas and issues are addressed by Plato in the larger context of the whole of the dialogue and other dialogues.

We all start with the first. We might do this without ever going too far into the second.

Reply to Fooloso4 Thanks. Most helpful. I've responsed to that and your addition in your thread. I've bolded the important part for me:

Fooloso4 :I'll add that those involved in the dialogue do not know where it will go or how it will end. We can imagine ourselves to be participants of the dialogue and add our responses to what is being said.

Returning to Plato's Republic and @Jamal 's reading and lecture recommendations in his thread:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15484/poets-and-tyrants-in-the-republic-book-i/p1
Putting this here, so I can easily find it again:



I've decided to stick to one translation. Jamal recommended:
Plato, Republic, translated by C. D. C. Reeve, Hackett (2004)
Free online version is available.

Following my response to @Paine here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/938479

The Myth of Er
Starts at p354 of the pdf Reeve translation, 614B. Ends p361, 621c.

Quoting The Republic - trans. C.D.C. Reeve

SOCRATES: Well, it is not an Alcinous-story I am going to tell you, but that of a brave man called Er, the son of Armenias, by race a Pamphylian.

Once upon a time, he was killed in battle. On the tenth day, when the rest of the dead were picked up, they were already putrefying, but he was picked up still quite sound. When he had been taken home and was lying on the pyre before his funeral on the twelfth day, he revived and, after reviving, told what he had seen in the other world.

Reply to Amity
Just wanted to say I respect C.D.C Reeve's translations. I prefer others for different reasons, but he is very consistent in his use of phrases.

Quoting Paine

Just wanted to say I respect C.D.C Reeve's translations. I prefer others for different reasons, but he is very consistent in his use of phrases.

Yes, so far I find him easy on my eyes. I'm only 'sticking' with one translation to make it easier, for me.
I appreciate other interpretations. Widens the scope for improved understanding. A joint endeavour :sparkle:

The Myth of Er.
Here comes 25 mins of a slow and clear narration with amazing illustrations each step of the way. :fire: :100:

Escaping from Ancient Greece and Plato. To Vienna, Austria and the park of Schönbrunn Palace.
A beautiful baroque setting for summer night concerts. La magie en plein air.
Vienna Philharmonic – Offenbach: Les Contes d'Hoffmann: Barcarolle (SNC 2020)


The themes of love and beauty are from Jacques Offenbach’s opera “The Tales of Hoffman”. The opening lines set the tone:

Belle nuit, ô nuit d’amour
Souris à nos ivresses
Nuit plus douce que le jour
Ô,belle nuit d’amour!

Lovely night, oh, night of love
Smile upon our joys!
Night much sweeter than the day
Oh beautiful night of love!

https://beatcrave.com/w3/the-meaning-behind-the-song-barcarolle-from-the-tales-of-hoffman-by-offenbach/

Music on my mind. The Why rather than the What.

Yesterday, I needed a counter-balance to Death and its Aftermath.
I turned to music and Classic FM where the Barcarolle was playing. It immediately brought back memories of Mum who loved it and the Vienna concerts. It will be the 8th Anniversary of her death, soon. :flower:

Why play or listen to music? It can affect our mood and behaviour.

Then, I read of the outrage of Trump's use of it at his rallies. How he swayed to his playlist for 40 minutes. Apparently, switching away from questions after 2 people fainted due to heat.

Quoting Guardian - Trump 'Let's Listen to Music' during campaign rally

The resort to music in place of angry, provocative rhetoric was not without its ironies. A long list of musical artists – including Celine Dion, Abba, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen – have denounced or taken legal steps to stop the Trump campaign playing their songs at rallies.

On Tuesday, Rufus Wainright responded to Trump’s use at the Philadelphia rally of Wainwight’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah by posting on Instagram that he was “mortified”, adding: “I’ve been supremely honored over the years to be connected with this ode to tolerance.

Witnessing Trump and his supporters commune with this music last night was the height of blasphemy.” Wainwright said before the 2016 election that he would not sing the song again unless Trump lost.

Later, I watched 'Waco: the Aftermath' -

Coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the tragic events at Mt. Carmel that began on February 28, 1993, WACO: THE AFTERMATH focuses on the fallout of the Waco disaster: the trials of the surviving members of the Branch Davidian sect and the rise of homegrown terrorist, Timothy McVeigh. The five-episode limited series also provides a broader context for the escalation of the American militia movement, which foreshadows the infamous attacks of the Oklahoma City bombing and the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

The images of David Koresh, Waco and its aftermath, are disturbing to say the least.

Why is it that I see Trump in the same light. Someone who has been President and hopes to be again. A cult leader using religion and encouraging hate groups - his Proud Boys and more.

The Proud Boys is a North American all-male, far-right, neo-fascist militant organization that promotes and engages in political violence.

Domestic terrorism dancing to pop music. Seen as a Saviour by some 50% of American voters.

Amongst other things, Trump should be treated as a dangerous, domestic terrorist. He is an appeaser and fan of autocratic leaders. If he wins then he will be a tyrant. If he doesn't he will be a tyrant. All hell will break loose. To the sound of 'Hallelujah!'...

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well, really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light in every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I think I'll stop reading and writing about politics. It gets me nowhere fast. Before I leave:

Thanks to @Wayfarer for this post: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/940092
The latest in a 7yr discussion about Trump. More dangerous than ever. Escalating threats to his political opponents calling them 'evil'.

It doesn't seem to matter that what he says or its implications. He has his believers or 'patriots'.
He also appeals to those not in the core pack.

If they vote for him, there will be no trouble. So, will people vote for 'peace' and protection by Trump.
Will they be fooled or frightened enough. This is reminiscent of Mafia tactics. Trump being the epitome of a fascist dictator. Another promise: if they vote for him, they won't need to worry about voting again.

From the same article in Wayfarer's post:

Quoting The New York Times

After being asked about Mr. Trump’s suggestion of turning the military against Americans, Mr. Youngkin replied that he didn’t believe that was what the president was saying. The network, he said, was “misinterpreting and misrepresenting his thoughts.”

"I’m literally reading his quotes to you,” Mr. Tapper replied.

People see what they want to see.

Having fun in Book 10 of Plato's Republic. Yes, I am! :cool:

Discussing the river Lethe - and its meaning. Is it about forgetfulness or carelessness? This has led to an exploration of Greek mythology. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/940663

Embedded in a fascinating site which shows 'Lethe' in different contexts, including Art and Music:
https://mythicalencyclopedia.com/lethe/
The sound of Lethe.

Lethe, the River of Forgetfulness · Chronotope Project · Jeffrey Ericson Allen

Feeling sad and blue. What music to turn to?

An old favourite. From 1974. Lesley Duncan - Everything Changes



***

A newer, slow version of a Labi Siffre fave from 1972 - Watch Me



***
Neil Young knows where the music's playing.
Because I’m still in love with you. I want to see you dance again...



[i]Come a little bit closer
Hear what I have to say
Just like children sleeping
We could dream this night away
But there's a full moon rising
Let's go dancing in the light
We know where the music's playing
Let's go out and feel the night[/i]

***

Time for a slow waltz in my heart and mind. Everything changes, love travels on... :sparkle:

I hear you, friend of mine.

Quoting Paine

I hear you, friend of mine.

Thank you, dear friend, I hear you too. And others.
Right now, I'm listening out for and attending to whatever lifts my spirits or gladdens my heart.
I don't know that my own voice - alone - has the power.

I can't ignore the way of politics and the actions and effects of the powerful.
I can't bring myself to listen to the sickening voice and twisted face of divisive hatred and tyranny.

I hear another friend of mine @180 Proof - on the American Election result and the MAGA movement.

Quoting 180 Proof

6November24

Yesterday more Americans chose rather than rejected tyranny. To wit:

make Apartheid great again
make Antisemitism great again
make Anti-women great again
make Anti-immigrants great again
make Anti-labor great again
make Anti-intellect great again
make Anti-democracy great again
make Above-the-Law great again
make Assholery great again ...

Please stay strong :flower:

So many words spilled. Observations made and questions asked. I engage briefly.
Trying to keep a balance.

Amongst all of this, we can hear other, different stories. Of an 'unlikely friendship' in a letter:

Quoting Guardian - Sycophantic Starmer - Letters US Election 2024

Sunk by Keir Starmer’s sycophantic words of congratulation to Donald Trump
‘Shoulder to shoulder’ | Time to abandon X | The Great Dictator | Lessons for the Democrats | Civil war averted | On otter pages

[i]Thirteen pages in Wednesday’s print edition on the US election, and then that delightful story on page 17 (Otter’s bond with Shetland man features in documentary, 6 November) restored my faith in humanity.
Rhys Harrison[/i]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/05/shetland-man-bond-otter-award-winning-film-billy-and-molly

Time to share our stories? To scream or silence our anxieties and hope, creatively?

Reply to Amity
It is important to consider and give a response. I need to take some time to make it more than an emotional reaction. I am presently fixing a hole where the rain gets in.

Sha La La La La:

Quoting Paine

I am presently fixing a hole where the rain gets in.

Ah, I embrace the poetic and practical you. Acting and reacting with more than emotion, important as that is. Lyrical words and ways to make sense of and stop a deluge or torrential flood.
I think of the old saws. Prevention is better than cure. A stitch in time saves nine.

'Presently' - includes an awareness of the past, what is going on or what might be.

I find myself a time traveller. The songs of the past haunting the present. The memories, histories and stories of what some might think of as a 'Golden Age'.
Listening to the poetry of the creatives in all ages.
The never-ending questions, problems and joys of individuals within the cascading pictures.
Free flowing interpretations and misinterpretations. Fixing what you can, when and how you can.
Semper Vigilans.

***
Fixing A Hole (Remastered 2009) · The Beatles
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band



I[i]'m fixing a hole where the rain gets in
And stops my mind from wondering
Where it will go

I'm filling the cracks that ran through the door
And kept my mind from wondering
Where it will go

And it really doesn't matter
If I'm wrong, I'm right
Where I belong, I'm right
Where I belong[/i]

When it comes to democracy, it does matter if we get it wrong. When freedom turns to abuse of power.

Reply to Paine
I'm wondering why you chose this piece. Is it a favourite or just something related to 'America'?
What it is and isn't. A complex arrangement of states, fine friends finding foes. Curious tastes of buddies and blows. Bodies in a flow of blood, sweat and tears. United in disunity or diversity?

The portrait of Bowie shows his startling asymmetry. A strange yet compelling, creative arrangement.
His music too a hybrid of styles. Moving outside the boundaries. Inventive. A fearless exploration.
I am not a Bowie fan but when I read his story, it intrigues me.

***

"United in diversity" is the motto of the European Union.
It's supposed to be about working for peace and prosperity. How is that working out?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motto_of_the_European_Union

Being vigilant is not being a vigilante. But it may well come to that. If tyrannical laws are passed, who would become an outlaw. Prepared to go to prison for their beliefs and values? A Robin Hood, righting wrongs? [*]

Is there a philosophy of ethical vigilantism?

***

Ways to go on. One artist's perspective - Brian Cox:

Quoting Guardian - US Elections 2024

As artists we have to bang the drum, we have to keep going,” he said in an interview with the Guardian. “We mustn’t put up with it. That’s why I admire people like Mark Ruffalo [a longtime advocate for social justice].
“I’m not going to give up on my criticism of Trump. I think it behoves artists to not give up, to keep the flag of truth flying, because it’s been so abused in recent years.”

“I look at the US and think it’s a fucking mess,” Cox said. “It doesn’t know who or where it is. Trump’s vitriol towards Harris during the campaign was unbelievable. [...]

What’s happening in Gaza is a genocide, there’s no question about it. It’s horrific. But it’s not going to get any better under Trump, because he’s a great friend of Netanyahu, so who’s going to be saying ‘stop it’ now, ‘behave yourself’?” He added: “I think the world has never been in a more dangerous place than it is at the moment.”

Cox also spoke about other crises he believed Americans would be facing, including reproductive rights and the climate crisis. “Women are being treated as second-class citizens in America and it has to stop, it’s gone on for far too long,” he said. “Nobody should be discussing what a woman should do with her body, only they should advocate for what happens to their body. How dare we make that assumption? It’s so retrograde.”

He added: “I can’t believe I’m living in the 21st century, because we don’t seem to progress as human beings. We seem to make the same mistake time and time again.
“The world’s in deep shit like never before. Trump’s not going to do anything about the climate crisis because he doesn’t believe it, no matter the evidence.

Cox was also insistent that he would “never play Trump”. He said: “I couldn’t play him for all the tea in China, there’s no virtue in him.”

[emphasis added]

Why is it that for every step forward we seem to take 100 steps back.
In the blink of a an eye...blinded by gold.
Of a lying, bully boy with his rich and powerful pals. Deal-makers. Life breakers.
The winner takes it all.

***

[*] But even Robin Hood is just a tale, medieval - full of controversies and inequalities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood

Outlaw stories. Fact or fiction. Historical context. Can we find the real Robin Hood?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/robin_01.shtml

Still thinking about this:

Quoting 180 Proof

6November24

Yesterday more Americans chose rather than rejected tyranny. To wit:

make Apartheid great again
make Antisemitism great again
make Anti-women great again
make Anti-immigrants great again
make Anti-labor great again
make Anti-intellect great again
make Anti-democracy great again
make Above-the-Law great again
make Assholery great again ...

[emphasis added]

I've just read an article by masculinity researcher, Richard Reeves, which seems to shed more light on the gender issues. And how the Democrats miscalculated.

A question for @180 Proof and any others - how much would you agree that there was too much emphasis and reliance on women votes re abortion?

Quoting Guardian- Young men and the Election

I think you don’t win votes if you’re not fighting for them. And the Democrats didn’t really fight very hard for the votes of young men. But they could have said:

“There are so many progressive young women who are worried about the mental health of their boyfriend or brother. There are so many progressive women who wanted a party that would support their reproductive rights and do a better job of educating their son.” [...]

Democrats benched themselves from the argument about men

Instead, at the very last gasp, they started to say to men: “Well, if you care about the women in your life, you should vote for us. Or maybe the reason you’re not voting for us is because you’re secretly a little bit sexist?” Trying to either shame or guilt trip or scare men into voting Democrat was spectacularly unsuccessful.

What do the Democrats need to learn from this?

The danger is that they just say all these men became sexist, that they were lured by misogyny. The danger is Democrats believe they just need to double down on attacks on patriarchy and toxic masculinity. That would be disastrous.

Instead, they should show young men that they’ve got an agenda that’s more up their street. Instead of going on and on about cancelling student debt, which is not a popular policy among men, they should talk more about trade schools and manufacturing jobs. I hope that they’ll conclude that they need to win men back by explicitly pitching them, rather than trying to recruit them as allies to the cause of women, which is a political theory that they just tested to destruction.

There is more to the article. Worth reading for another perspective.
***

How many billions spent or wasted - so many celebrities and billionaires.
What a party, huh?!
The whole American electioneering farce sickens me.

Reply to Amity
The song has the tension of a nostalgia for a place that does not exist, at least yet. "Blossom fails to bloom."

There is a sense of shame in the negation. "Promise not to stare too long."

The chorus tells how we get by: "Sha La La La La."

There is a connection to the vibe in Kafka's Amerika: An ideal vision stuck living in a cramped cabin.

I am more personally connected the Who will Love Aladdin Sane generation: "Battle cries and champagne, just in time for sunrise."

But that is unambiguously nostalgic because it is not a "model of sustainability", shall we say.

Quoting Amity

A question for 180 Proof and any others - how much would you agree that there was too much emphasis and reliance on women votes re abortion?

I don't agree. Imo, Trump won because too many Democratic voters preferred not to vote rather than vote for a woman president just like in 2016. Biden won 15 million more votes in 2020 than Clinton won in 2016 and 13 million more votes than Harris won this year; however, Trump received about 1 million less than he did in 2020, so the election turnout drop-off was on the Dems side. As far as I can tell, too many Americans are still not "ready" for a woman president. :brow:

Reply to 180 Proof
Thank you. I came on here at 3.50am - awake and troubled. I had thought to edit my post. Thinking I should really have responded to you in the appropriate Election thread.

Politics, the result and its consequences are clearly on my mind. However, I think I will avoid reading further in-depth discussion and analysis. Thanks for keeping your response brief and helpful.

Will only say this. I am glad that I don't live in a God-fearing, gun-toting country.
The seeming right to 'righteously' kill those who threaten your views. But who hold up their hands in horror and call abortion 'murder' of a person.

Human rights only considered of value if they are of a certain kind, colour and creed. The greed for gold and the rape of the world. For the few bastards in power.

In their absolutism, pretending with pietous, smug faces to be Godly 'good' while all the time being a force for what is the very opposite.
Fear, Hate and Destructive Divisions.

I'm tired of it all.

Quoting 180 Proof

As far as I can tell, too many Americans are still not "ready" for a woman presiden

Yes. I have one last read to share. It supports your view.

Quoting Guardian - Opinion - Kamala Harris

I spent hours trying to persuade US voters to choose Harris not Trump. I know why she lost - Oliver Hall

As a phone bank volunteer, I hoped to counter the Republican attacks and half-truths, but people really believed them.

Time and again, voters, very often women themselves, told me that they just didn’t think that “America is ready for a female president”. People said they couldn’t “see her in the chair” and asked if I “really thought a woman could run the country”. One person memorably told me that she couldn’t vote for Harris because “you don’t see women building skyscrapers”. Sometimes, these people would be persuaded, but more often than not it was a red line. Many conversations would start with positive discussions on policy and then end on Harris and her gender. That is an extraordinary and uncomfortable truth.

You should know what I didn’t hear during the hours speaking to US voters. I can only think of one occasion when someone mentioned stricter taxes on billionaires or any similar policies. The atrocities being committed by Israel in Gaza only came up six times in more than 1,000 calls.

After all those conversations, I think the main reason that Harris and Walz lost this campaign is simple: Trump. Ultimately, he was simply too much of a pull again. Despite the gaffes, despite his views on women, despite his distaste for democracy and despite an insurrection, voters just didn’t care.

For reasons that I’m sure will be studied for decades, when he speaks, people listen. When he speaks, people believe him. After all those calls, I can be shocked at this result, but hardly surprised.

Reply to Paine
Thanks to you and others for sharing.
I've enjoyed listening and learning throughout this conversation.
Time to pack up for a break.
Take care, y'all :sparkle:

Reply to Amity Thx :flower:

Reply to 180 Proof To you too :flower:

Quoting Amity

I've just read an article by masculinity researcher, Richard Reeves, which seems to shed more light on the gender issues. And how the Democrats miscalculated.

Badly, yes.

But I don't think this: Quoting Guardian- Young men and the Election

“There are so many progressive young women who are worried about the mental health of their boyfriend or brother. There are so many progressive women who wanted a party that would support their reproductive rights and do a better job of educating their son.”

would have helped. The first reaction from the rightward press would be :"Are they calling all young men crazy?" I shudder to think what the Trump campaign would have made of that approach.

Susan Faludi covered this state of affairs it pretty well in her book Stiffed It's been evident for some time that the social, political and financial status of women, especially women of colour, has made rapid and accelerating progress in the last 25 years, while that of men in the same ethnic and class brackets has stagnated or declined. Given where each group was in 1990, the fact that women are still paid less, and what happened on the economic stage, that shows progress toward fairness.
But the affected men don't remember past conditions as wrong, don't experience the present as fair, and don't know enough to place the blame appropriately. (This is largely down to the shift in 'information' media, more than political rhetoric.) It's always easier to direct one's frustration and disappointment at the nearest target than at some billionnaire with the power to move your livelihood to the other side of the world, leave your town destitute and you, dependent on the wife's income.
Of course, there have always been canny political strategists to harness insecurity, frustration, anger and hurt pride. Especially hurt pride.
The single biggest mistake the Harris campaign made was that ad by Julia Roberts: "don't tell him". That was specifically directed against men. Seems many men are less bothered by being called rapists and garbage than the suggestion that their wives lie to them.

Instead of leaning so hard on the women's vote, Harris should have emphasized Biden's job creation and her plans to expand that - more detail in what union jobs will become available with the building program and renewable energy scheme. They should have put more emphasis on workers (that was working for about five minutes) and veterans and revitalizing the industrial base. They might have explained the effect on the productive classes of deregulation, offshoring and tariffs better. They should have come down hard on the 'protect women whether they like it or not' Trumpism, with something like "How dares that pudgy old rich guy take over as protector of your family?"
(They might also have covered border security much more forcefully, but that's not a gender issue.)

Reply to Vera Mont
Thank you, Vera, for this detailed commentary.
I didn't see the ad you mentioned. I agree it was very stupid, indeed.

I continue to be concerned and will read articles which sound alarmist but make terrifying sense to me. I don't feel up to paraphrasing or commenting in detail.

Basically, it is how the Republican win has empowered incels but there are other articles which tell of the increase in aggressive and scary racist texts.
White supremacists back with a vengeance. Online and offline.

Women being taunted with "Your body, my choice. Forever.
We control your bodies. Guess what, guys win again, okay. Men win again … There will never ever be a female President. It’s over. Glass ceiling? It’s a ceiling made of fucking bricks.”

In an analysis published on Friday, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a thinktank focused on extremism, found “a 4,600% increase in mentions of the terms ‘your body, my choice’ and ‘get back in the kitchen’ on X”.

From: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/09/trump-your-body-my-choice

***

I am not happy with the effects on politics in the UK.
Starmer could have congratulated the Republican win without grovelling.

Starmer said: “Congratulations President-elect Trump on your historic election victory. I look forward to working with you in the years ahead. As the closest of allies, we stand shoulder to shoulder in defence of our shared values of freedom, democracy and enterprise.

“From growth and security to innovation and tech, I know that the UK-US special relationship will continue to prosper on both sides of the Atlantic for years to come.”

It looks like appeasement. How the hell do we have shared values with a...what did @180 Proof say...

corrupt, incompetent, con artist, racist, rapist, misogynist, nativist-xenophobe-isolationist, hyper-protectionist, insurrectionist, autocrat & convicted fraudster

And more could be added to the list.

This does not bode well...
Already we have this:
Boost UK defence spending to win Trump’s support, former navy chief urges Starmer
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/nov/09/uk-defence-spending-gdp-trump-britain-military-budget-gdp

***
Closer to home, I don't want to speculate on how this will affect Scotland.
A place dear to the tyrant and where he has family and business connections. He already created problems. He is bound to continue to meddle in affairs.

Quoting Independent-

The US president mounted a lengthy challenge against plans for an 11-turbine scheme off the Aberdeenshire coast, claiming it would spoil the view from his Balmedie golf course.

President Trump has often criticised wind power in his political speeches. Trump has said windmills cause cancer, kill birds and prevent people from watching television when the wind is not blowing.

Trump's love of spending time playing golf is well known (REUTERS)

He appealed to the UK’s highest court after twice losing fights in Scottish courts, but judges there unanimously dismissed the case.

His wind farm opposition led to him giving evidence at the Scottish Parliament as a witness at a committee inquiry into the Scottish government’s renewable energy targets.

Asked to point to evidence wind farms will destroy tourism, Mr Trump said: “I am the evidence.

“I am an expert in tourism, I am considered a world-class expert in tourism so when you say ‘Where is the evidence?’ – I am the evidence.”

He is stronger now than then and the Scottish government weaker.
Time will tell.

I thought Canada would be the first domino, but it turned out to be Germany. How many more? They all have pressure from their own right wing and a common fear of Putin. A Trump-Putin alliance vs The EDu? I don't think Europe wins. I know the earth doesn't. Or the people.
But what we are in even more suspense about is whether JD adheres to the book he endorsed or morphs into yet another incarnation once DJ strokes out. I give him till March (in deference to a self-styled prophet we met in 2016: maybe he had the month right and just misread the year.)

Some days, it's a genuine privilege to be old.

Reply to Vera Mont
Thanks for link. Project 2025 and how it is implemented makes for grim and terrifying reading. How can such plans be thwarted?

This from the Guardian:

Donald Trump’s advisers are evaluating methods to carry out the president-elect’s promised “largest deportation” in US history, the Wall Street Journal reports. 
Currently, the incoming administration is considering issuing a national emergency declaration, which could allow Trump to use Pentagon funds, military facilities for detention and military planes for deportations. The administration is reportedly also assessing ways to encourage immigrants to leave voluntarily, perhaps by waiving a 10-year bar on re-entry.

I note that there are already protests - ' Protect our Futures' - taking place in New York. But who will stand in the way of the police or military tasked with rounding up immigrants or the homeless or whoever the bullies pick on. This is brutal.

Quoting Vera Mont

Some days, it's a genuine privilege to be old.

I am tired and weary. I hope that others can withstand all that is coming down the line. I am nearer the end of my life and live in fortunate circumstances.
I am grateful for that but can't say I fought for it. Others before me did.
I will never forget. :flower:

This is a most awful turning point...

Reply to Amity
Ay-yup! Not entirely unforeseen or unpredicted: it's been hurtling down the track since 1972 - that I could see. Before that, I was a youthful optimist, going on peace marches, stuffing envelopes and making coffee for the Greenpeace boys - immediately after which experience, I became a feminist of sorts. Even for a while after, I still believed the course of history could be altered, if only enough of us progressives wanted it enough and worked hard enough. There were signs... yet disillusionment didn't land with the last decisive *thud* until the Reagan-Thatcher-Mulroney axis. From there, all our ill-wishers converged unerringly on this point. (and yet, and yet, we still hoped the train might slow down.... it can't)

Reply to Amity
Till next time.

Reply to Vera Mont Best wishes for future travels. :flower:

Quoting Paine

Till next time.

As ever :pray:

I'm not going anywhere. Here I sit and here I stay. It's not the worst place I could have ended up.

[quote=Toni Morrison]There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal. I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge even wisdom. Like art.[/quote]

addendum to
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/946060

Reply to 180 Proof
:flower: Thank you.

Toni Morrison. This quote. So apt, not only at this time. I have to admit, again, of not reading her works.
I know that she is frequently quoted. A quick TPF search goes back 8yrs.

I agree that this is not a time for silence or fear. However, there can be a need to step back, breathe and remove oneself from the outpourings from all sides. The 'chaos' eventually clearing.

Language, speaking, writing, reading are used not just to heal but to harm. Words don't always come easy or gently but fly quick out of the barrel. Boom! Bang! You're dead. You get up, for more.

How best to respond can take practice. Typing here gives me that.
It is one of the reasons I started this thread. To think and write about how the 3 P's interact.
I can think of a lot more P's but that was for starters.

Making time, having the energy, the will to listen carefully to people, to look around at the environment, to learn from stories, past, present and future. That don't always come easy. For me, at least.

TPF is a special place for this. Observing and asking questions. Writing is what we do. Clarifying our thoughts and feelings. Through contact with others. Not only those who agree with us. Or are considered 'friends' - a band of buddies.

I have sometimes addressed a few as 'friend' - and yes, some are closer than others - I want to clarify that I view most participants, readers and writers as such. Where there is a genuine desire to meet the challenges of the mind and life, how can this not be helpful?

@180 Proof's quote was just what I needed. I looked for its origin. And found it in an article, here:

https://www.themarginalian.org/2016/11/15/toni-morrison-art-despair/

I was reading this when a pop-up appeared. A surprise gift of a poem.

But We Had Music - by Maria Popova.

Right this minute
across time zones and opinions
people are
making plans
making meals
making promises and poems

while

at the center of our galaxy
a black hole with the mass of
four billion suns
screams its open-mouth kiss
of oblivion.

Someday it will swallow
Euclid’s postulates and the Goldberg Variations,
swallow calculus and Leaves of Grass.

I know this.

And still
when the constellation of starlings
flickers across the evening sky,
it is enough

to stand here
for an irrevocable minute
agape with wonder.

It is eternity.


From: https://www.themarginalian.org/2024/04/06/but-we-had-music/

***

When sick - of politics or whatever - writers and poets can sing to us. Music is a universal language.
Story telling is what we do. To counter darkness with light. Through connection. Persevering. Fun :fire:

I hope that we will hear soon of TPF's annual serving - the December Fest of Writing?
@Jamal @fdrake @Baden et al.

I'm trying very hard to find a light, humorous, optimistic theme.
We have kittens...

Quoting Vera Mont

I'm trying very hard to find a light, humorous, optimistic theme.

What for? Writing a story for TPF?

Quoting Vera Mont

We have kittens...

There ya' go...

*sighs*
So much for my break. I've been dragged from the depths...

Quoting Amity

I've been dragged from the depths...

And there's so little sunshine on the surface at this time of year.
I can't stay down too long; I'd get the bends and I'm way too claustrophobic to go in the decompression tank. News blackout is a good start.

Quoting Vera Mont

News blackout is a good start.

Yup. I no longer watch or listen to it. I read an online newspaper with my eyes half-shut or half-open. Not for long.

Walking a little in the sunshine...and getting an outdoor key safe installed.
Better than driving around a loch a second time to hunt for house keys.
Then returning home in the failing light.
To find you hadn't even locked the bloody door!

I did say I was tired and weary, didn't I...
Time to hibernate :yawn:

Reply to Amity

If there is an upside to this is that those who oppose the MAGA movement will have to come to a better understanding of the majority and attempt to address their concerns in a meaningful way.

Quoting Vera Mont

I'm trying very hard to find a light, humorous, optimistic theme.

Sometimes it's all in the style, tone, or approach, rather than the theme. The theme can be serious or dark while the tone is light, playful, or optimistic. As a reader it's not themes I find life-affirming and intellectually or emotionally energizing; rather it's in the creativity itself. Sometimes it's obvious that the writer is having fun even when writing a tragedy.

Reply to Fooloso4

Yes. A harsh lesson and wakeup call. But will it change anything.

How many fall for the promised land of gold. Saved by God.
In God We Trust.

This movement is not only in America. It's wherever might is right.
The wars continue. People are killed and worse.

A proud Liar holds his prize high. The Criminal set free to fulfil his plans.
Receiving Congratulations, and more, from world leaders.
Shame on them all.

Where is the humanity?

Quoting Jamal

Sometimes it's all in the style, tone, or approach, rather than the theme. The theme can be serious or dark while the tone is light, playful, or optimistic. As a reader it's not themes I find life-affirming and intellectually or emotionally energizing; rather it's in the creativity itself. Sometimes it's obvious that the writer is having fun even when writing a tragedy.

There's a deeper layer here too. Optimism is in a sense inhumane (it's hope that is humane), and there is no humour in success and contentedness

Quoting Jamal

Sometimes it's obvious that the writer is having fun even when writing a tragedy.

For good or ill, I can't do that. I get too involved in the story. I can't be jolly about a character I intend to kill off. I tried to write a Gothic once and everyone in it turned nice by Chapter 3, so I had to throw it away and start another project.

Quoting 180 Proof

I don't agree. Imo, Trump won because too many Democratic voters preferred not to vote rather than vote for a woman president just like in 2016. Biden won 15 million more votes in 2020 than Clinton won in 2016 and 13 million more votes than Harris won this year; however, Trump received about 1 million less than he did in 2020, so the election turnout drop-off was on the Dems side. As far as I can tell, too many Americans are still not "ready" for a woman president. :brow:

Not to take away from the misogyny amongst Democratic voters, but another commonality between Clinton and Harris was that the former ran within a deliberately uncompetitive primary and the latter didn't have a primary whatsoever. Personally, I think this is a stronger explanans than misogyny. Biden should have announced that he would not seek another term over a year ago so that the democrats could have an open primary. I believe whomever won that primary would have beaten Trump.

Quoting Vera Mont

I tried to write a Gothic once and everyone in it turned nice by Chapter 3, so I had to throw it away and start another project.

:lol:

Quoting Maw

I believe whomever won that primary would have beaten Trump.

I very much doubt that was uppermost in anyone's mind. More time would certainly have helped - if the strategy had not been so gender-weighted and more focused on the working class, rather than the middle. All the liberal parties these days buy into the fiction that everyone who isn't a billionaire identifies as middle class or aspires to be middle class: they've swept the working class under a big lumpy carpet that just won't lie still.

Reply to Maw :up: :up:

From 2023 ...
Quoting 180 Proof

Yeah, in 2024 that "1 way to lose" will be the same as 2016: HRC. The Dems don't learn new tricks often ... though maybe VP Harris :yikes: (if Biden drops out of the race and the Dems don't nominate e.g. Gov Newsom, Gov Whitmer, et al) – HRC redux.

Reply to Maw Reply to 180 Proof

Quoting 180 Proof

Yeah, in 2024 that "1 way to lose" will be the same as 2016: HRC.

Hey guys. You make great points. Call me stupid but I don't know or have forgotten what HRC means. I'm guessing not Human Rights Commission.

How worthwhile is to revisit past speculations. And now, we have all the 'what if's' to play with.
It only matters if as @Fooloso4 suggests, it leads to:

Quoting Fooloso4

... a better understanding of the majority and attempt to address their concerns in a meaningful way.

How likely is that. How it is done is another matter. Perhaps involving a brain transplant or two.

If they say they will work for all of America. Then, there is a need to actively listening to all the people's stories - imagined and real. And not just to win at Election time. To work for real improvement in the lives of the ordinary. Seek out the unheard voices. Local communities. All year round.

Counter the growing anger and hatred by showing what is really going on. By whatever means that people will trust and not immediately go to 'fake' mode. Get real. Work hard and don't detach high above, safe and secure in your White House.

It might take the creatives to do this. By film or documentary. Whatever. Use the serious and humorous to relay the message you want to convey. Don't rely on celebrity endorsements and unhelpful advertisements. Billions spent. A tyrannical trillionaire in pocket. Take me to the moon, Musk.

Show the ridiculous clowns partying. The big red, white and blue balloons fattened, ready to burst or deflate. At whose expense?

I need to go now. Running late...

Reply to Amity Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Reply to Amity

Will aim to make an announcement soon. :up:

Quoting Amity

It might take the creatives to do this.

I think that they play an important role. We are not so easily moved by statistics and theories. We are emotional beings. But this can be manipulated in different directions. Compassion, but also fear and hatred.

Reply to 180 Proof :up: Reply to Baden :up:

Quoting Fooloso4

It might take the creatives to do this.
— Amity

I think that they play an important role. We are not so easily moved by statistics and theories. We are emotional beings. But this can be manipulated in different directions. Compassion, but also fear and hatred.

Yes. There are 'creatives' everywhere. Some create deliberate chaos and bring mayhem to the world.
As you say, by manipulating what people see as 'real' and messing with their emotions.
Multi-messaging, sowing seeds of hatred, fear and confusion. The underlying values or aims are not those of compassion or care for all but to enrich themselves financially and gain prestigious power. High wealth and influence - being 'winners' their core concern.

They create division and hierarchies where they are top dog. Dogs of war.
The phrase spoken by Mark Antony in Act 3, Scene 1, line 273 of English playwright William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "Cry 'Havoc!', and let slip the dogs of war." So it goes.

It was ever thus. Men at war. Men loving war, aggression, taking and raping. And so on.
To take control of the world, the moon and everything. Or so the story goes.

But do we have to follow this narrative? Can't other 'creatives' change the story? Our ways of thinking of reacting? Of doing politics?

Where to begin? Well...at the beginning.
Perhaps with children who are our future. A change in education systems.

Not that I know about current education and its aims, either here, America or elsewhere. I do know that education especially for girls is seen as a threat and not allowed in the less civilised parts of the world.

Here is a man, a 'Sir' even, with ideas. Explaining intelligence and creativity with humour and stories. To re-think our conceptions. To enlarge and enrich human capacity. He has fun with university professors!

.

Writing creatively. For TPF Literature Event - or anywhere...

Quoting Jamal

Sometimes it's all in the style, tone, or approach, rather than the theme. The theme can be serious or dark while the tone is light, playful, or optimistic. As a reader it's not themes I find life-affirming and intellectually or emotionally energizing; rather it's in the creativity itself. Sometimes it's obvious that the writer is having fun even when writing a tragedy.
— Jamal

There's a deeper layer here too. Optimism is in a sense inhumane (it's hope that is humane), and there is no humour in success and contentedness

Quoting Vera Mont

For good or ill, I can't do that. I get too involved in the story. I can't be jolly about a character I intend to kill off. I tried to write a Gothic once and everyone in it turned nice by Chapter 3, so I had to throw it away and start another project.

I think it is possible to have fun with characters and situations, even where there is darkness.
Isn't there a need to explore all aspects of humans and their place in whatever worlds they find themselves in? The senses and spectrum of feelings, thoughts and actions. The contrasts.

Why would humour not exist in 'success and contentedness'?
Why would a writer need to feel 'jolly' about a character she meant to kill off?
Why is there a wish to kill? Who or what is being murdered? Deeper exploration of both dark and light?

How can 'optimism' be 'inhumane'?
How can 'hope' be 'humane'?

Here is a wonderful article about Creativity covering many aspects, including the philosophical ambivalence towards Hope. The different takes on the Pandora Myth.

Nietzsche's interpretation of the Pandora myth recalls Arthur Schopenhauer's descriptions of hope as "a folly of the heart". For him, hope is a delusion. In his essay Psychological Remarks (1851), he notes that the emotion "deranges the intellect's appreciation of probability" so that we neglect the likely outcomes of events, even when the odds are stacked against us. "A hopeless misfortune is like a quick death blow, whilst a hope that is always frustrated and constantly revived resembles a kind of slow death by prolonged torture."

[I can't remember if it was here, or somewhere else, that I came across the term 'toxic hope'.
I think it related to people being, or perceived as, over bright and 'jolly' - ? like Harris - irritating others, perhaps in a more depressed or angry state...perhaps I just made that up! And it was 'toxic positivity'? ]

The article is where I found the TED talk linked earlier.
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210105-why-being-creative-is-good-for-you

And scrolling down, there is this:
In these times of cynicism and despair, is 'hopepunk' the perfect antidote? David Robson explores radical optimism, and why it matters.

But what could describe literature that instead focuses on our capacity for good? "The opposite of grimdark is hopepunk...defined as "a literary and artistic movement that celebrates the pursuit of positive aims in the face of adversity".

Quoting javi2541997

If I were a teacher of language, I would ask my students to write a poem each Friday. Doesn't matter the topic or type. Just to power up their creativity. I think it would be interesting to see if their imagination grows in the following weeks.

Hmm, yeah. I don't know. I understand what the aim is and applaud it.
But, for me, it sounds too prescriptive with the teacher still controlling. This is what we will do and this is when we will do it. Don't you think that creativity should start the day. Sparking the way forward.
Brighter and better learning in all subjects...listening and asking questions, all the better to know.

Once upon a time...the day started with 'Assembly'. At secondary school, it was compulsory to bring your New Testament along! This had been given to everyone on their first day.
( I often 'forgot' mine, and hurried in, head down, clutching my pocket French dictionary)

Language learning was for the most part rote. Not so much conversation but grammar.
Declensions an' all that. And what is it about labelling nouns and accompanying adjectives as female, male and neuter! Jeez :roll:

Edit: @javi2541997 - I see you have deleted your post. Why?

Hope
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hope/

Quoting Amity

Edit: javi2541997 - I see you have deleted your post. Why?

Yes, sorry, Amity. After reading my post again, I realised that it wasn't well elaborated. I saw that you didn't reply to my post yet, so I thought I was in time to delate what I wrote before you could read it. 

But I see I was wrong because you quoted a paragraph of that post in time.

I tend to be wary about what I write. Maybe too much, and maybe it wasn't a big deal.  :sweat:

Quoting javi2541997

I tend to be wary about what I write. Maybe too much, and maybe it wasn't a big deal.

I think we can all be wary about what we write - sometimes editing what we really think or feel.
And that's fair enough. It's good to be thoughtful and consider how we present our views to others. I too have deleted some posts. Regretting either the quality or quantity - my tone or whatever.

However, your thoughts stimulated without need for further elaboration. Imagining a 'what if' scenario :up: You are that Creative :fire:

I think that some of the things discussed about creativity are pertinent. To well-being.
The fear of making mistakes can block us. And that is where some education systems let us down.

Where mistakes are punished. And different kinds of intelligence are not explored or given free rein. There is a richness in imagination. A real gift if used wisely. To educate the whole being.

Quoting Amity

How can 'optimism' be 'inhumane'?

One example, at the personal and interpersonal level, is toxic positivty.

Otherwise, a few times on TPF I've made use of Terry Eagleton's distinction between hope and optimism. The way I see it, optimism, particularly with respect to society and history, has a tendency to disregard or minimize bad stuff, whereas hope does not.

I have plenty of experience with toxic positivity, and I've noticed that it is humourless. So my tentative scheme is like this: on one side we have optimism, humourlessness, and inhumanity--a lack of attention to real people and real experience--and on the other side we have hope and humour, where humour is often if not always built on an attention to misfortune.

Excellent News.

Quoting Guardian - No longer posts on Elon Musk's X

The Guardian said content on the platform about which it had longstanding concerns included far-right conspiracy theories and racism. It added that the site’s coverage of the US presidential election had crystallised its decision.

“This is something we have been considering for a while given the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism,” it said.

It added: “The US presidential election campaign served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse.”

Quoting Jamal

...on one side we have optimism, humourlessness, and inhumanity--a lack of attention to real people and real experience--and on the other side we have hope and humour, where humour is often if not always built on an attention to misfortune.

That's given me plenty to consider. My first reaction is that I don't care for the either/or scenario. Optimism includes hopefulness. But yes, I agree that some can minimise the bad stuff. To the extent that can be 'toxic' I have yet to explore.

I tend to go with hope and see it as a motivating force. To bring about change. And with that comes courage and creativity. A positive way forward. It can come from misfortune or simply wanting something better. It is a noun, a verb and a philosophical concept. Is optimism more of a psychological state or personality type? A few more P's added to the list.
From positive psychology: https://positivepsychology.com/learned-optimism/

Humour and a lack of it can travel alongside both, no?
Black humour. Is there such a thing as 'white humour'?

Here we go. The Guardian is taking it on :fire:

In addition to withdrawing from Musk's X, a reporter questions Project 2025.

Kevin Roberts, the head of the influential rightwing thinktank the Heritage Foundation, told a Guardian reporter to “go to hell” at the launch of Roberts’s new book on Tuesday night, then threw the reporter out of the venue, apparently in response to reporting on the organization.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/13/kevin-roberts-project-2025-book-events

No more invites, then? Pretty much what happened on the Tory watch with Channel 4 news blocked.
The hard right can't stand the light. No scrutiny allowed. So much for freedom.

Quoting Amity

Isn't there a need to explore all aspects of humans and their place in whatever worlds they find themselves in?

Sure, but I perceive no shortage of writers exploring the deepest, darkest crannies, describing the vilest acts in the most graphic terms. They don't need any help from me. I'm more interested in the small, everyday pleasures and pains, loyalties and betrayals, courageous and craven acts or ordinary people. Lately, I've been exploring how someone decides which side to take in a conflict. If my protagonists end up with the forces of light, I'm in no position to fault them.
I've written sad stories and happy ones; they tell me the tone they prefer.

I'm not sure about that judgment of optimism and hope. Have never thought about which is humane -- but then, I sniff around the word 'humane' like a poodle at the corner lamp-post. On reflection, I tend to reserve hope for specific situations, in which something bad is likely to happen, but may yet be averted, and optimism as a general outlook on life and the world. I have some hope for individuals, for ideas, for the preservation of seeds, culture and knowledge. But not for this civilization, about which I'm wholly pessimistic.

Small footnote about poetry in school. I've read some quite remarkable collections of children's poems, written as school assignment. I imagine the inept and resentful ones were omitted. I definitely think poetry should be taught - both reading and discussion and the mechanics of writing. I wouldn't force any child to submit a poem for grading, but I would test them on understanding.

Quoting Amity

Hope
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hope/

Thanks. :up:

Fwiw, my conception of courage sans hope is primarily indebted to Aristotle, Spinoza & Camus (as well as e.g. Laozi, Epicurus, Epictetus, P. Zapffe, F. Kafka, S. Beckett, C. Rosset, A. Murray ... who aren't mentioned in the article) and grounded in lived experience.

:death: :flower:

Quoting 180 Proof

Fwiw, my conception of courage sans hope is primarily indebted to Aristotle, Spinoza & Camus (as well as e.g. Laozi, Epicurus, Epictetus, P. Zapffe, S. Beckett, C. Rosset, A. Murray ... who aren't mentioned in the article) and grounded in lived experience.

Yes, I do appreciate that, thanks.
However, I don't have a full understanding of this and what it means for you. This conception of 'courage sans hope'. For those, like me, with limited time, energy and resources and not quite so invested in philosophical concepts, there is always wiki. From the mythology section on 'Hope':

Quoting Wiki - Hope

From ancient times, people have recognized that a spirit of hope had the power to heal afflictions and helps them bear times of great suffering, illnesses, disasters, loss, and pain caused by the malevolent spirits and events.[48] In Hesiod's Works and Days, the personification of hope is named Elpis.

Norse mythology however considered Hope (Vön) to be the slobber dripping from the mouth of Fenris Wolf:[49] their concept of courage rated most highly a cheerful bravery in the absence of hope.[50

How does your conception of courage/hope compare with a Norse warrior?
Care to tell your story, or part of it? Sans salivating :wink:

My experience probably leans more to 'hope sans courage'.

I have hope and it asks nothing of or from me. It's just there. Along with love. I also 'hope that...X, Y or Z'.
Generally, it is a hope for better wellbeing. For individuals and other beings in the world.

I may have courage in dealing with challenging health issues and services. My own and others. But I think it always stems from or coexists with hope. There is hope, along with a sense of perspective.
A case of 'Hope for the best, prepare for the worse'. Or 'plan for the worse, hope for the best'.
A mix of optimism and being realistic.

***

In previous posts, I've mentioned Emily Dickinson's poem 'Hope' and how I was drawn to it.
It's interesting to consider her religious school curriculum where:

Quoting Poetry Foundation - Emily Dickinson

religious questions were examined and the state of the students’ faith assessed. The young women were divided into three categories: those who were “established Christians,” those who “expressed hope,” and those who were “without hope.”

Much has been made of Emily’s place in this latter category and of the widely circulated story that she was the only member of that group. Years later fellow student Clara Newman Turner remembered the moment when Mary Lyon “asked all those who wanted to be Christians to rise.” Emily remained seated. No one else did. Turner reports Emily’s comment to her: “‘They thought it queer I didn’t rise’—adding with a twinkle in her eye, ‘I thought a lie would be queerer.’

Here is her poem: “Hope” is the thing with feathers?. Read by Claire Danes and signed by Rachel, age 9.?


***

In today's situation, I think that people such as yourself committed to a cause and willing to show up and fight for it have courage and also hope. Hope for a better future. Hope to persuade others.
Showing how Democratic values are different, better than those of hard-right Republicans.

It will need more of this hope and courage in the days to come.

Courage, mon ami :strong: :pray:

Quoting Vera Mont

Sure, but I perceive no shortage of writers exploring the deepest, darkest crannies, describing the vilest acts in the most graphic terms. They don't need any help from me. I'm more interested in the small, everyday pleasures and pains, loyalties and betrayals, courageous and craven acts or ordinary people. Lately, I've been exploring how someone decides which side to take in a conflict. If my protagonists end up with the forces of light, I'm in no position to fault them.

Hey. Steady on Vera!
I wasn't asking you to go deep, deep down into depravity or its torture chambers.
It was about you stopping at Chapter 3 because you couldn't keep your nasty character from turning nice. What's wrong with keeping complex and contradictory aspects of a character? Doesn't that make her richer with hidden depths?

Interesting to explore side-taking in conflict. How recent events can split families right down the middle.
How to heal that wound, if ever we can...

Quoting Vera Mont

I sniff around the word 'humane' like a poodle at the corner lamp-post.

Love it! :cool:

Quoting Amity

What's wrong with keeping complex and contradictory aspects of a character? Doesn't that make her richer with hidden depths?

Yes. But it wouldn't be a Gothic novel then; it would be literary fiction and I hadn't signed up for that much effort.* Even the one that I intended as a kind of spoof of historical romance turned itself into a subversive social commentary. Damn things just won't stay where I tell them to sit.
*Though, come to think of it.... I wonder where I put all those notes... Probably in the storage room, in a mouldy binder, yellowing...

Quoting Amity

I don't have a full understanding of this and what it means for you. This conception of 'courage sans hope'.

Consider again the sections featuring Aristotle, Spinoza & Camus in the SEP article on Hope –

e.g. "Sisyphus" endlessly rolling his philosopher's stone; casualties making love in the trenches and raising children in foxholes; the homeless singing the blues to momentarily chase away blue devils...

[i]"You must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on."

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."[/i]

:fire: Reply to 180 Proof

Quoting Amity

Interesting to explore side-taking in conflict.

I didn't get into the big picture, just individuals: How their minds changed and what events brought that change about.

Reply to Vera Mont Reply to 180 Proof
You've both given me much to think about :flower:
I have a few things I'd like to consider and question. Mostly, concerning hope and creativity. Later...

Before I go out, I have this article to share re global gender issues in politics. With stats:

What’s behind the global political divide between young men and women?
Trump’s victory in the US shone a light on the growing political polarisation between between young male and female voters happening all over the world

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/14/us-election-donald-trump-voters-gender-race-data

Sounds to me like the eternal social tension: competition vs co-operation, between vertical and horizontal society. In a vertical society, there are clear distinctions in status, in privileges and duties, in social and familial roles. While men are dominated by rulers and bosses, they have little control of their lives. If they lose superiority over an even lower caste of men, and then control of their household, what status, what source of pride do they have left? How they feel about that, we've been aware of the backlash for years, the bitter recriminations against women and minorities, the anxiety disguised as bravado. Moreover, with dwindling resources and growing population, the competition for the last of everything grows more fierce every day.
They want the middle ages back, because they cannot imagine anything better than having someone to kick down at while their masters give them attaboys.

Quoting Vera Mont

They want the middle ages back, because they cannot imagine anything better than having someone to kick down at while their masters give them attaboys.

May the pox be upon them in the new Golden Age of MAHA. Make America Healthy Again. Really?!

Robert F Kennedy Jr has been nominated to lead the Health and Human Services department. This man is someone who is anti-vaccinations.
If that becomes policy, it dangerous to the population and anti-choice.
So much for freedom.

I've had enough of this. Turning to hope. I find that I already explored this!
Way back when I felt up to starting threads...2 years ago. Reading it now, I feel quite amazed...

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/13686/questions-of-hope-love-and-peace/p1

Reply to 180 Proof I read the SEP article again, as if for the first time. Notes:

I was surprised by Kant and his question 'For what may I hope?' as one fundamental to philosophy. The 3 objects of hope: 1. own happiness 2. moral progress 3. moral improvement of the human race.

Camus' apparent negative view of hope comes from the idea that human existence is absurd. I don't see this as having anything to do with courage. Also it is specific to religious hope for life after death or a social utopia. The image of Sisyphus is one of perseverance but to what end? And why would lack of hope for a better future make him 'happy' ? Indeed, there is a suggestion that Camus allows for a 'strange hope'. He called 'The Rebel' a book of hope.

So many definitions of hope, its role and function in analytical philosophy...

'Radical hope' (Lear) catches my eye. Where positive hope is an active response to political injustice. (It seems to tie in with literature's 'hopepunk' ? Still to be discussed.)

When it comes to climate change, some philosophers see hope as having instrumental value. It 'sustains action where the attainment of the ultimate goal - managing climate change - is uncertain.' (McKinnon 2014, Roser 2019).

But, this is where I must stop. We are in the Lounge. A place to chat about kittens. Over to you, Vera!

PS I was also rather taken by the thoughts of Ernst Bloch. Wondering about him, I searched and found:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/13030/ernst-bloch-and-the-philosophy-of-hope/p1

@180 Proof's
'Hope' is just lipstick on a nightmare.

Quoting Vera Mont

Yes. But it wouldn't be a Gothic novel then; it would be literary fiction and I hadn't signed up for that much effort.* Even the one that I intended as a kind of spoof of historical romance turned itself into a subversive social commentary. Damn

This started me wondering about genres, subgenre and how certain kinds of writing are classified. How they might limit the writer by having a need to keep to criteria. Why can't a nasty Gothic character have nice elements?

I am bemused by the 'hopepunk' sandwich. A genre/subgenre between 'grimdark' and 'noblebright'.

Initially describing a subgenre, its use has extended to refer to motivations, narrative tone, outlook. The editors of Uncanny Magazine define it as "radical empathy" and "radical kindness", contrasting it to the hopelessness of grimdark.[9] Rowland wrote that "Hopepunk isn’t pristine and spotless. Hopepunk is grubby, because that’s what happens when you fight."[10] Although they may include horrible events, injustice, and inequality, hopepunk stories have characters who choose to act, rejecting pessimism and passivity. Positive human traits and community contribute to solutions.[11
Stories in the hopepunk subgenre reject the fatalism and cynicism of grimdark. Hopepunk characters persevere, believing in the possibility of something better in the face of difficult realities.[12] Hopepunk is an approach in which characters choose to fight to make things better, and are motivated by noble motives.

Wiki has it all.

And then there is Star Trek. Jean-Luc Picard: Starfleet's Hopepunk Captain.
Does he stand as a testament to the power of hope?
https://www.startrek.com/en-un/news/jean-luc-picard-starfleets-hopepunk-captain

Terry Pratchett's Good Omens - Hopepunk?

Hopepunk as a philosophy?

Quoting Den of Geek - A Hopepunk Guide - Interview with Alexandra Rowland

By telling hopepunk stories, we necessarily have to be asking questions like, “How do we care about each other in a world which so aggressively doesn’t care about so many of the people in our communities? Who do we consider community, and is that definition too narrow? How do we fight back against the people who want to make us sit down and shut up?”

By asking ourselves these questions, hopepunk expands from simple “genre” to an entire life philosophy. It sticks in the back of your head and changes you, a little bit.

There is a need for hopepunk because our president is a fascist.

Because there are children dying in concentration camps within our borders. Because Jeff Bezos makes nearly nine million dollars per hour while his warehouse employees risk homelessness. Because we think it’s normal that people should go bankrupt if they get ill and need medical assistance, or that they should get an Uber to the hospital instead of an ambulance. Because climate change is real. Because children have safety drills to practice what to do in case of an armed shooter in their school. Because racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism exist.And there is a need for hopepunk because it reminds us that these dragons can be slain. Because it reminds us that there’s power in a union, that communties banding together can make a difference. Because the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice. We’ve beaten them before, and we can beat them again, and the next time after that. The work is never finished, and the fight is never permanently won. But we keep fighting anyway, because it is the fight itself, not “winning”, that’s the point.

NB the interview took place in Nov 2019.

Reply to Vera Mont Follow up:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/15/the-boys-in-our-liberal-school-are-different-now-that-trump-has-won

...the beginning of a new wave of male conservatism that was infiltrating our school. Obsession with achieving a more muscular body through excessive exercise and intense dieting fueled by ridiculous social media campaigns fell far outside the realm of healthy self-care. And the desire to socialize only with other boys stood in stark contrast to the co-ed activities we were accustomed to since childhood.

It hadn’t taken long for this focus on machismo to creep into these boys’ mindsets and conversations. Seemingly harmless disrespectful comments with witty undertones toward girls became commonplace, and feelings of traditional male dominance started to sneak back into our friend groups.

While these are just observations within our own high school, we believe that this is happening across the country. Young, well-off white boys from liberal families are being tempted by conservatism simply to protect an archaic idea of masculinity that guarantees them inherent power. It is not as if they are against abortion, or care much about the economy or immigration, or even feel remotely attracted to the rest of conservative dogma. But clearly, a shift back toward traditional gender roles is resonating with them now as progression toward female empowerment threatens their already delicate self esteem.

So how do we address this, going forward? How do we ensure that young boys practice critical thinking instead of falling victim to Trump’s rhetoric with its focus on recommitting to gender stereotypes that we believed had finally been eradicated?

Parents, we urge you to be aware of this growing phenomenon and teach your children about the dangers of calculated political movements designed to further one politician’s agenda. Until we do so, it is likely this pattern will continue. Boys in our school as young as eight are beginning to exhibit these same misogynistic tendencies that we never remember noticing when we were their age. And the most dangerous aspect of this is how little it’s talked about in mainstream media and how easily it has been overlooked in progressive communities. In fact this is an epidemic that will continue to spread rapidly until we start talking about it.

Quoting Amity

Camus' apparent negative view of hope comes from the idea that human existence is absurd. I don't see this as having anything to do with courage.

You can be realistic; understand the futility and absurdity of life, and yet have compassion for those who suffer greater hardship or pain. So keep on keeping on, alleviating as much of that pain as you are able. There is little reward and plenty of risk in service, and so it takes more courage than hoping for improvement to come from elsewhere or from the hope of a better afterlife. (Camus had an effect on my teens.)

Quoting Amity

This started me wondering about genres, subgenre and how certain kinds of writing are classified. How they might limit the writer by having a need to keep to criteria. Why can't a nasty Gothic character have nice elements?

They can, but the author needs to be very subtle. The average reader of that genre might miss subtlety.
The very popular escapist genres are easy and quick to write, because they're formulaic: plug in the necessary elements in a slightly different order. They're also read only once and quickly discarded. If you're going to mess with the formula, elevate the novel to something approaching literary fiction, it loses most of its fan base and appeals to a smaller, more discerning audience.... or nobody at all.
I read a trilogy by Ray Bradbury that would be loosely classified as psychological thrillers. The first one, Death is a Lonely Business, was wonderful; I reread it twice in later years. The other two were disappointing: the impetus (fond remembrance of a time and place) was absent; the stories had no soul. Yes, Bradbury can miss!
My favourite aunt had a saying for when she learned something that went counter to her assumptions: "A world collapsed inside me."

Actually, I'm not a strict adherent to genres; I just understand why they're helpful to the reader. If there is a zombie or vampire on the cover, I'm gone. If it says young adult, I tiptoe around it, and if it's designated H, I run the other way.
Quoting Amity

Does he stand as a testament to the power of hope?

I think Gene Roddenberry did. But that was in the optimistic, expansive, society-improving 60's and 70's. There is nothing grubby about Star Trek NG, even when they have moral dilemmas, or when they're forced to fight.

I hated the cinematic version of Good Omens, perhaps even more than I normally would have, because I like David Tenant and found that over-the-top campy performance embarrassing. The book OTOH, was charming and quietly amusing. The central characters were determined mortal kids, not the supernaturals. Thereafter, I didn't watch American Gods, which is all Gaiman, and therefore much darker. I'm curious, but afraid to find out what the movie people made of that.

Footnote to genres. I think they're like cliches: the original examples were strong literary efforts; once their popularity grew, there rose many inferior imitators. There is only one Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, one Dracula one Rebecca, one monumental Lord of the Rings; there are maybe a dozen very successful - I don't like to say imitators; say rather, stories on the same theme. After that, it becomes predictable, which is what fans are looking for.

As for convergence and subdivision of genres, they're too confusing for me. I prefer to know whether I'm picking up a science fiction story based on actual science, or a fantasy with magic. But whether it's alternative history or speculative or post apocalyptic, I don't really care. I don't really understand about 'punk' in any context. I like William Gibson's stories, whether he's cyber, steam or rust.

Footnote on hope.
When I was in elementary school, they held drills on what to do in case of nuclear attack (duck and cover - I guess it's jut effective against gunmen) and Mr. McCarthy was ruining lives left, left and center. American children pledged allegiance, not to the constitution, but "to the flag and to the republic for which it stands: one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all," while Black people were barred from restaurants, excluded from schools and quite often got sentenced to years of hard labour for loitering.
That nation was, in fact, not merely divisible, but divided from its very inception. Things got better, with a lot of hard work, perseverance and sacrifice. Now they're worse again. The descents are fast; destruction is much easier than construction; destruction can be carried out by an army of drunken orcs, while construction takes vision, co-operation, forbearance, patience and fortitude.
I just don't believe there is time for another long upward slog.

And now, a word from our kittens:
They've discovered that collapsible tube with a window in the side. Even the big cats still play with it from time to time, but for the little guys, it's a whole playground.

Quoting Vera Mont

I hated the cinematic version of Good Omens, perhaps even more than I normally would have, because I like David Tenant and found that over-the-top campy performance embarrassing. The book OTOH, was charming and quietly amusing. The central characters were determined mortal kids, not the supernaturals.

No, Vera, just No!! I love Tennant and can't allow this :naughty:

I'm watching series 1 and up to episode 3 'Hard Times'.
The chemistry and dialogue between David Tennant and Michael Sheen - as devil and angel respectively - Wow. They are SO right in their roles - good and evil joining forces to prevent the end of the world. :fire:

As for any 'campness' - yeah, it is full on in parts. They can both vamp it up a little as they have fun.
But not so much that it detracts from the action. A combination of the best and worst human traits, with no absolute 'black and white' division. I suppose this could translate into a 'greyness' but no, we are treated to an extravaganza of vibrant colour.

The angel does stick to conventional white, from head to toe. Tennant goes wild with red hair, in varying styles. The black shades hiding his serpent eyes. But the inked snake still crawls up his neck, replacing Tennant's trademark sideburn. And then there is his snake-hipped slide-walk.

Tennant is instantly recognisable. There were moments when his languid, loucheness reminded me of Bill Nighy, another favourite. He is so channelling the spirit ! Then he struts off, rock-star style...hmmm...who is the most camp Rolling Stone?

There are quick nods to history. You need to be alert to catch some of them.
My ears pricked up at the mention of them both having business in Edinburgh.
And the crucifixion scene where the devil wonders why...

OK. Enough already...
I did listen to the book a while ago. I can't remember how different it is. But, hey, does it matter?
The visuals are so dastardly creative :halo: :cool:

Quoting Vera Mont

That nation was, in fact, not merely divisible, but divided from its very inception. Things got better, with a lot of hard work, perseverance and sacrifice. Now they're worse again. The descents are fast; destruction is much easier than construction; destruction can be carried out by an army of drunken orcs, while construction takes vision, co-operation, forbearance, patience and fortitude.
I just don't believe there is time for another long upward slog.

Yes. The quick descent. I once thought of life and its changing patterns as circles. All things must pass and come around again. Now, I think of a downward spiral and I'm not sure if it will spring back...

It all started with the devil Eve, don't you know.
I think we could spend time talking about the religious separation of males and females in places of worship and education. And a whole lot of other factors - feeding into the current narrative.

I wonder if we will ever go beyond our biology as animals. The need for protecting ourselves, family and resources. Even in the midst of cooperation there is competition. So it goes. Love and War.

Where some value the female as Madonna, others vilify her, even if she is acknowledged. (weak)
Where some value the male as God, others vilify him, as Tyrant. (strong)
The truth is the human is more complex with strengths and weaknesses combined.
Most people just get on with life, because there is nothing else for it...

I keep thinking about @180 Proof's quote:

'Hope' is just lipstick on a nightmare.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/703706

It sounds clever, creative and cryptic. What does it mean? @180 Proof :chin:

Quoting Vera Mont

They've discovered that collapsible tube with a window in the side. Even the big cats still play with it from time to time, but for the little guys, it's a whole playground.

See bolded. What is that, pray tell?!
Your kittens have the best story...having fun. Playing around. Hope to read more soon :flower:

I realise that my earlier copy and paste from the Guardian was lazy.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/947531
I'm also in danger of being seen as 'Ms Guardianista' :monkey: I know that it is better to read from a variety of sources and I have and still do. However, I only have time for one morning read and this usually provides balance with comments BTL.

I'm reading this part again and wondering...written by an anonymous High School student?

But clearly, a shift back toward traditional gender roles is resonating with them now as progression toward female empowerment threatens their already delicate self esteem.

So how do we address this, going forward? How do we ensure that young boys practice critical thinking instead of falling victim to Trump’s rhetoric with its focus on recommitting to gender stereotypes that we believed had finally been eradicated?

Parents, we urge you to be aware of this growing phenomenon and teach your children about the dangers of calculated political movements designed to further one politician’s agenda...

In fact this is an epidemic that will continue to spread rapidly until we start talking about it.

Perhaps I missed it but there seems to be a lack of interaction with the 'young boys' themselves. Either in a mixed group debate, an intervention by the teachers or informally face to face.
No interpersonal connection?

This is a one-sided view. I hope the guys are given an opportunity to speak their minds. And that there is not just a 'talking about it' but a careful listening. On all sides. Communicate.

*connecting, connecting*
Ms Guardianista at your service. I won't say a word...

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/nov/16/zombie-apocalypse-dangerously-disconnected-world-rebecca-solnit

Reply to Amity :chin: Denying "the nightmare" – e.g. prayers in foxholes – 'nostalgia' (philosophical suicide) to evade the absurd (re: disorder, uncertainty, catastrophe, transience, loss, death). Sorry, more Camus ...

Reply to 180 Proof
Sorry, still not getting it.

'Hope' is just lipstick on a nightmare.

Why 'lipstick'? With its female connotation?

How does it - or hope - amount to a denial of whatever 'nightmare' and how does it evade 'absurdity'?

Reply to Amity Re: The Myth of Siayphus by A. Camus; also, section 2.5 (esp. re: Camus) of the SEP article "Hope" ...

Why 'lipstick'? With its female connotation?

Same reason anyone wears "lipstick".

I used it to paraphrase the old (American?) saying 'lipstick on a pig'. :kiss:

Quoting Amity

No, Vera, just No!!

I suppose it would have helped not to read the book, which happens to be among my top favourites.
Quoting Amity

But, hey, does it matter?

YES - to me. The tone, the flavour, the atmosphere, the focus - the very essence of the story was altered unrecognizably. If they wanted to make a vibrant, brilliant, over-the-top funny movie, they should have made their own movie, and I would have enjoyed it for itself. But I was promised Good Omens, in fact, it was the deciding factor in signing up to Prime instead of Netflix, and this wasn't it. If a book is worth adapting, I expect fidelity to it. John Irving was treated with respect...

Quoting Amity

What is that [tube with a window], pray tell?!

It's called a cat tunnel. Elaborate ones are available; we have the basic version, inherited from a neighbour who moved into a seniors' apartment with her old cat. I used to cut out cardboard boxes, but the tunnel is light and it rolls, which is apparently very amusing.

I often consult The Guardian myself, for clarity and objectivity. Michael Moore recommends it, along with CBC, for news on US affairs. (Pretty soon they won't have any uncoerced domestic sources)
Quoting Amity

This is a one-sided view.

I guess. I took it as an op-ed piece from the author's POV, on one aspect of the protracted male backlash. I'm not sure talking to adolescents is enlightening: they repeat what they hear from their social media, have little patience for honest self-examination and generally distrust non-peers. I sure never had much luck talking to the one I was raising, whereas the boys in technical school were happy to confide. Different approaches at different ages, by different adults.

I don't know how much time teachers have nowadays to spend with individual students, even if they didn't have to fear accusations of inappropriate behaviour. Boys' clubs, interest groups, community projects and informal sports under the leadership of male role models would be more are beneficial. I think teenaged boys today are cast adrift by society: shielded from adult concerns, excluded from decision-making, not given enough responsibility. They don't see a defined role for themselves, present or future; they don't feel needed and have few opportunities to earn respect. As far as commercial media are concerned, a man is a hero, a villain, a drudge or a booby - so all the young boobies try to appear heroic, without all the effort or resort to villainy.

Quoting Amity

*connecting, connecting*

I'm just glad I visited San Francisco in the 1980's, when it was colourful and charming, when we engaged in conversation or banter or at least commerce with many locals.
I'm also glad that, when not in my own bubble at home, I'm in one of several nearby communities where people still notice one another, hold elevators, smile at jokes in the checkout line and appreciate a compliment. They do all seem to have cellphones (I don't), but mainly just for consulting shopping lists or significant others, or passing the time in waiting rooms where the tv is silent and nobody turned on the captions. D'you know how unentertaining it is trying to deduce the asinine questions from the idiotic replies in Family Feud, or being warned, over and over, of the the dangers of gingivitis? My kindle doesn't hold a charge anymore; can only be read in bed.

Quoting 180 Proof

Re: The Myth of Siayphus by A. Camus; also, section 2.5 (esp. re: Camus) of the SEP article "Hope" ...

Thank you. I have read them both. Twice. Still not convinced by Camus, his assumptions and conclusions. Nor the examples of the 3 'absurd' men. I would have to read more and spend time to consider my initial response before a full, knowledgeable criticism. Not prepared to do this, right now.

Quoting Wiki - The Myth of Sisyphus

To embrace the absurd implies embracing all that the unreasonable world has to offer. Without meaning in life, there is no scale of values. "What counts is not the best living but the most living."

Thus, Camus arrives at three consequences from fully acknowledging the absurd: revolt, freedom, and passion...

Quoting Wiki - The Myth of Sisyphus

Camus compares the absurdity of man's life with the situation of Sisyphus, a figure of Greek mythology who was condemned to repeat forever the same meaningless task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll down again just as it nears the top. The essay concludes, "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

I don't see any filling of a heart, male or otherwise. The myth is not about hope or courage. It was a punishment because he was stupid - how did he think he could control and chain Death? I don't imagine him happy. He does persevere but he had no choice. Courage means having a choice.

Courage (also called bravery, valour (British and Commonwealth English), or valor (American English)) is the choice and willingness to confront agony, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. Valor is courage or bravery, especially in battle.

- Wiki.

This does not compare in any comprehensive way to human struggles and joys in the world. The stories wider, deeper and more nuanced. Hope and Courage and Love.

Quoting 180 Proof

Same reason anyone wears "lipstick".

Yes. :roll: I am aware that it is not only women that wear it. You know, as well as I do, that it is mainly related to femininity. There are as many different reasons as there are colours and shades. Red, in particular, has history and symbolism:
Quoting Medium - Red lipstick

This classic cosmetic has long been a symbol of femininity, empowerment, and self-expression
...a symbol of resistance against societal norms and expectations. During World War II, red lipstick became a symbol of hope and defiance against the oppressive Nazi regime. Women in the resistance wore red lipstick as a form of protest and to signal their solidarity with the cause.

Quoting 180 Proof

I used it to paraphrase the old (American?) saying 'lipstick on a pig'. :kiss:

Well, that goes some way to explain your use. But the saying can still be read as female superficiality to change appearance. To mask or enhance. Lipstick as a coverup. To somehow 'deny and evade' the nightmare, the 'absurd' ?

This can be interpreted as a feminisation of Hope. Somehow 'weak', not strong enough to face life or see a lack of meaning in the world. How absurd!
Camus and Sisyphus can keep on rolling. It won't get them anywhere...and it ain't courageous.
In my opinion :kiss:

Quoting Vera Mont

The tone, the flavour, the atmosphere, the focus - the very essence of the story was altered unrecognizably.

Really? That's not what I read about it. If so, then yes, of course it matters.

A cat tunnel. Well, well, well. I think need the human version. Why should kittens have all the fun?

Quoting Vera Mont

I don't know how much time teachers have nowadays to spend with individual students, even if they didn't have to fear accusations of inappropriate behaviour. Boys' clubs, interest groups, community projects and informal sports under the leadership of male role models would be more are beneficial.

I didn't mean with individual students but as part of learning. The author talked of critical thinking.
I agree that there is much benefit to be gained by community projects. 'Youth clubs' and the like used to exist for young male and female adults. Also, support groups. But cut-backs...

Quoting Vera Mont

I'm just glad I visited San Francisco in the 1980's, when it was colourful and charming, when we engaged in conversation or banter or at least commerce with many locals.

Lucky you. Never been there but I imagined it as such.

Quoting Vera Mont

I'm in one of several nearby communities where people still notice one another, hold elevators, smile at jokes in the checkout line and appreciate a compliment.

Yes. Pretty much the same here. Today at the garden centre I smiled and thanked a man holding a door open for me. With the exaggerated bow and gesture of a gentleman. Eyes meeting in humour and recognition. Yup...

Your stories cheer me up. Thanks :flower:

The most convivial place I frequent is the quick sale rack at Food Basics. It's a magnet for old women and there is always some item of produce that one of us knows how to cook. I make a point of complimenting the attire of anyone of who has obviously gone to some trouble to present herself, and remark on the most striking tattoos of young women at the checkout. (I shun the automated one, as do many of my contemporaries, which is another subject for comment when the line is long.)
Another thing I've noticed is the young people working minimum wage jobs in the farm supply, hardware and department stores go out of their way to help an old lady. One cheerful fellow not only lifted the cat litter into my cart but came out to the parking lot to lift it into the trunk.
We're not completely oblivious of one another just yet.

Quoting Amity

A cat tunnel. Well, well, well. I think need the human version. Why should kittens have all the fun?

They make all sizes, for babies, dogs, small and large children and adults.

Reply to Amity :ok:

Reply to Vera Mont Reply to 180 Proof
Thanks, guys! :up: :flower:
I see this thread is heading fast towards the 10 page limit I set myself.
Probably best to give my brain a rest before the challenge of the December Writing Fest.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out. @Baden et al keeping us in suspense until the very last minute... :naughty:
I don't expect to submit anything but look forward to reading and giving some feedback :cool:

Quoting Amity

Baden et al keeping us in suspense until the very last minute...

I already posted the thread...

Reply to Baden

Oh, there it is! Thanks :up:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15585/literary-activity-winter-2024

Reply to Amity

:smile: :up:

Reply to Baden

I didn't see it because I hadn't signed in. Not everybody does. So, they will not know about the Literary Activity.

Is there a reason for not making it visible? I think it would receive more attention and perhaps increase participation if you or Admin @Jamal @fdrake could change this. Why the need to sign in?

I wondered if its 'hiding' had something to do with some writers not wanting their entries to be seen as 'published'.

Related to TPF rule:
9) Entries must not be previously available online.

I think this is a standard rule in Writing Forums and magazine articles? :chin:

So, if TPF writers post here, does that mean that they have 'published'. And so cannot take the story elsewhere for appraisal?

***
The same thing goes for the Symposium category and everything listed below. Stories and the special Literary Activities. They too are not seen unless you sign in. I think that is a shame. Not everyone sees the full potential or substance of TPF - its width and openness...

Reply to Amity Reply to Baden

Yeah, I also think that there's no reason for it to be obscured to people not logged in. Even if you have to log in, the story is already "out there" in public, so stories being visible to outsiders is not a weird thing.

The only thing I guess is that AI spiders captures those texts, but that might just make things become part of the cultural whole much more than being obscured.

I think it would be a good thing.

Thanks, @Jamal for response, here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/949172

Quoting Amity

I didn't see it because I hadn't signed in. Not everybody does. So, they will not know about the Literary Activity.

Well, they couldn't have known about The Shoutbox either because it is also not visible unless you sign in. I think it is a correct and understandable idea. There are weird people flowing around the Internet, and it is better to hide the relevant categories from search engines, as Jamal explained. :up:

Reply to javi2541997

Thanks. At least, the Lounge and this thread is open for business.
I've given my full response in the Literary Activity thread. Where I should have posted the question in the first place. Best to use that one. Otherwise, it gets confusing...
'Weird people' :sweat: :smile:
Non so weird as those that do not know...or something :wink:

Reply to Christoffer
Thanks for your support :up:

This is a copy and paste from the Literary Activity Discussion. I think part of my one of my posts is worthwhile to save and keep easily accessible. In response to @L'éléphant. From: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/94913

Philosophy is not known for its creativity. Depending on what and how it is read. However, it does use imagination and promotes analytical skills - transferable to other spheres. Like here! There is an internal dialogue and exchange of ideas. The same kind of questions can be asked, as of any story. The 5 W's and H. The Who, What, When, Where, Why - and How.

[There are many excellent resources available concerning ‘How to Read…’
Philosophy or Short Stories. The good thing about learning ‘how to read’ is that it simultaneously gives pointers as to ‘how to write’.]

How to Read Philosophy
https://www.blogs.ppls.ed.ac.uk/2017/02/28/read-philosophy-step-step-guide-confused-students/

How to Read a Short Story – like a Writer
https://paulettealden.com/how-to-read-short-stories-like-a-writer/

This absorbing and intelligent article illustrates her method by using 2 short stories.
Unfortunately, no link to them - so, I had to go hunt:

1. Proper Library - Carolyn Ferrell
https://xpressenglish.com/our-stories/proper-library/

2. Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story - Russell Banks
https://missourireview.com/article/sarah-cole-a-type-of-love-story/

Duplicate. Deleted.

How to Read Philosophy
https://philosophy.tamucc.edu/texts/pryor-guidelines-on-reading-philosophy

How to Write Philosophy
Includes 7 links - one pdf by the highly recommended Pryor.
https://philosophy.tamucc.edu/resources/writing

As a student, many years ago, I found Jim Pryor's Guidelines invaluable.

Reply to Amity :cool: :up: Recommended!

Reply to 180 Proof You too? :smile: :up:
We should swap student day stories. Hmmm. Then again...

Dare I ask how your story-telling is coming along?
I'm sure you could give us all guidance/lessons in 'How to Write a Short Story' :cool:
Or point the way...a Jim Pryor for literature :chin:

Philosophy Essay Competition

https://royalinstitutephilosophy.org/news/imagination-our-2024-philosophy-essay-prize-topic/

Each year the Royal Institute of Philosophy holds the Philosophy Essay Prize competition. The winner will receive £2,500 and their essay will be published in October 2025 issue of Philosophy.

The topic for this year’s prize is ‘Imagination’. We intend this topic to be understood broadly, so as to include related issues in any area of philosophy and from any philosophical tradition.

The submission deadline is 30 November 2024 23:59 GMT.

How cool is that! How hard can it be? :chin:

@Jamal @fdrake and Mods - is this a good idea, or not?

How about TPF having our very own annual Philosophy Competition or Activity? Who would host it? Wow! Who would judge and how ? When?

Write a Philosophy Essay
https://royalinstitutephilosophy.org/news/think-essay-prize

The Royal Institute of Philosophy is very pleased to announce this year’s essay competition for our journal Think.

Think is our publication designed to be fully accessible to all audiences, while still challenging its readers. The winning essay submission will be published alongside articles from leading philosophers from across the world.

We are looking for essays of no more than 1,200 words, engaging with one of the following questions*:

1. Plato suggests we are trapped in a world of shadows and only philosophical reflection can provide knowledge. Is there any truth to this view?

2. Does the existence of evil provide good evidence God does not exist?

3. Do ‘objective values’ exist?

4. Could a person migrate from one human body to another, as some movies suggest (e.g. Freaky Friday)?

5. What ethical responsibilities do we have towards future generations (e.g., creating a cleaner environment, reducing pollution)?
If you believe we don’t have these responsibilities, explain why?

6. Do we have freedom of speech? Should we?

* If you are studying Philosophy, you may want to particularly engage with questions 1, 2 or 3. However, each applicant is welcome to answer any of the six questions.

The winner will be published in an upcoming issue of Think, the shortlisted candidates will win a year’s free subscription to the journal, and other prizes will be awarded to all those who make the longlist.

Your essay submission will be assessed for academic merit and rigour. We look forward to receiving your submission via this link.

Please read the Rules of Entry below before completing the form.

The Closing Date for Submissions is Tuesday 22nd April, 2025.
***

[Perhaps too easy, only for 15-18yr olds]

Read Philosophy Essays

Essays and videos on philosophy, the history of ideas, ethics and life’s big questions

https://aeon.co/philosophy