邵一卓的耳朵像我家大黄狗的舌头
像冰箱里过期黄油的腻歪
像AA里BB过CC完的DD
邵一卓的头发像喜马拉雅山雪崩瞬间的雨
像草莓和香蕉碰撞后黄色的的丝
像粉色海滩旁前世是人的花朵的话
钱天然的胡子像西湖边的牛郎和天上的朱丽叶的红线
像莫吉托和二锅头里的绿色精灵
像红高粱们在黑色的晚上唱山歌
Art for Hope (To John Berger)
“The body ages. The body is preparing to die,” John Berger writes in “And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos” (36). Just 3 months ago, John Berger died at the age of 90 in Antony, a quiet town in the southern suburb of Paris, France. He is often acclaimed as a world renowned art critic for his distinctive interpretations of seeing and revealing the political, social and philosophical ideologies behind artworks.
Since 1970s, it is commonly believed that the trending art critics “were concerned with matters of attribution, authentication and technique,” and they believed that “aesthetics was ascribed holy importance” (Asokan). The business of critiquing art is an elite business where general public are laymen and prohibited to understand. It is John Berger who brings art to the public. At his BBC television show “Ways of Seeing,” Berger breaks the pure aesthetic analysis which excludes art from public and sheds light on the worldly aspects of artworks to us, imbuing life and memory to the artworks. Berger also serves as a bridge that connects politics, society, globalization, time, space and awareness to artwork and closes the distance and discontinuity that divides us. How does he do that? Berger brings artwork close to the public by showing certain qualities of art such as ambiguity and subjectivity to people, and, after understanding those qualities, we begin to see the roles of arts such as conveying political messages and offering hope.
As an outsider of art critique, I have always struggled when I stand in front of a piece of artwork, not knowing where to start to interpret and understand it. I felt somehow related to the piece, but I couldn’t describe or explain the connection, and that is the discontinuity between me and the artist. For example, when I first saw J. M. W Turner’s painting, Snow Storm-SteamBoat off a Harbor’s Mouth, which depicts a vessel in the vortex of a storm, I noticed the techniques, the broad brushstrokes and the content. Among those elements, however, I also felt a disturbance that I could neither understand nor explain. The painting felt intangible and hard to relate to.
After reading John Berger, however, starting at the very first time I feel close to art. In essay “Turner and The Barber’s Shop,” Berger gives us a comprehensive instruction on how to build the tangibility with art. Turner himself was a son of a barber, and as Berger points out: “there is a strong correspondence between some of the visual elements of a barber’s shop and the elements of the painting’s mature style” (215). Indeed, the barber’s shop’s elements such as “water, froth, steam, gleaming metal, clouded mirrors, white bowls” look just like the elements in the Snow Storm: the violent waves, the sky filled with steams and the boat blurred in the vortex of the whirlpool (Turner, 215). Without knowing the personal background of Turner, I would have no idea where these signatures of Turner come from. The subjectivity of Turner’s life changes the way that I connect to the painting.
Berger then showed that in Turner’s natural landscape painting, “there is always a kind of restlessness or desperation” (Turner, 215). He explains: “Nature entered Turner’s work – or rather his imagination—as violence...the violence in Turner’s painting appears to be elemental: it is expressed by water, by wind, by fire” (Turner, 216). This comment is precise. The storm becomes a violent existence that engulfs the boat just like how it engulfs the audience of the painting—me. I begin to imagine the sailors crying out lustily for help in the ship as the storm rages on. I then realized—it is the desperation and violence that disturbed me. But somehow, I still felt distant from the painting. It is the further analysis that Berger has done on Turner’s historical background that brought me closer. Turner lived in the first apocalyptic phase of the British Industrial Revolution. The steams and the new productive energy “[challenge and destroy] all previous ideas about wealth, distance, human labor, the city, nature, the will of God, children, time” (Turner, 216). Living in a much different setting than Turner’s, I could not grasp the historical influence on this painting which left a certain ambiguity. However, I then thought of the global warming, the factories with poisoned air and those extreme weathers in the current world, which are contemporary projection of that painting. Put the artwork in different context, the meaning of the artwork changes.
This ambiguity of the painting makes it open to different interpretations by different standards, including history, society, politics etc., and it is this ambiguity that gives me proximity to the painting. After Berger’s analysis, I start to appreciate the tangibility which we can find in most of Berger’s essays. However, where does this tangibility come from? After reading many of Berger’s essays, I began to realize that it is his focus and understanding on the subjectivity and ambiguity that help readers find tangibility in various artworks.
In “Drawn to that Moment,” Berger examines the process of creating an artwork by inspecting the process of drawing his dead father. When Berger started to draw his father, he drew with complete objectivity. “Appearances, at any given moment, are a construction emerging from the debris of everything that has previously appeared” (drawn). Berger drew the appearances of his dead father — his mouth, his eyebrow, his eyelids… Because of this objectivity in the drawing, the audiences see it as an old man sleeping rather than a Berger’s dying father. However, as Berger wrote in the essay, “I felt the history and the experience which had made them as they were… but within it [the drawing] … his character and destiny had emerged” (Drawn, 41). The appearance has different meanings for the artist and the audiences. Artist creates with objectivity, which often turn out to be filled with subjectivity. “If I look at the drawing now, I scarcely see the face of a dead man; instead I see aspects of my father’s life” (Drawn, 42). The memory and spirits of his father emerge in the drawing. But if a random person comes in, he or she could only see a dead man. “The change which has taken place is subjective” (Drawn, 42). Berger’s emphasis on the subjectivity gives an artwork a tangibility. Creating an artwork is a subjective process. As in Turner’s the Snow Storm, without knowing his childhood experience in the barbershop, one wouldn’t find the relation with visual elements of barbers; instead, one would just see it as a vessel in the storm. For Turner, the same art work conjures up memories in a barbershop. This subjectivity exists in every piece of art. As the audiences realize the subjectivity, they would recognize the insufficiency of grasping a piece of art by simply looking at it, and they would start to put themselves into the artist’s shoes. Although the audience are not able to hold the same aspects as the memory of the creator, by knowing the relevant subjective information of the artist, they are able to begin to imagine the story and start to appreciate the artwork. That’s what Berger do in his essays, he put in the artist’s shoes and give us many artist’s subjective information, and then we start to imagine.
Berger’s focus on ambiguity of artwork is also important to pave the way to making art tangible. In Berger’s TV show Ways of Seeing, he juxtaposed Goya’s famous The Third of May 1808 which depicts the Spanish resistance against the Napoleon’s army with girls wearing tartans dancing absurdly. This arrangement gives the painting a sense of humor, and it seems the whole scene is staged and in a drama show in Broadway. Then, Berger juxtaposed the same painting with black people being nailed on the crux and shouted by soldiers. This arrangement renders the painting with an extremely different meaning which involves the harsh history of racism. As we can see, the ambiguity of art allows the different arrangement and interpretations, which yields different meanings. As Berger said, “each time, the impact of Goya is modified” (BBC). To put the same art work in different context, the ambiguity emerges.
Another ambiguity is using the words. In his show Ways of Seeing, Berger first asked us to see the painting of a group of birds flying over a cornfield in silence, and I somehow found it tranquil and peaceful. Then, he told us that this was the last painting of Van Gogh before he killed himself. Somehow, this very short description changes my perspectives, making me notice the loneliness and sadness of the crows and the dark sky. This short words changed the meaning of artwork, and, as he says, “Words you notice consciously…it can work almost without you noticing it” (BBC). Where does this ambiguity come from? Influenced by Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Berger concluded that this ambiguity is explained by the reproduction of art: “Reproduction of works of art can be used by anybody for their own purposes” (BBC). This ambiguity changes the meaning of art by simply changing different context with different words. Like in Turner’s The Snow Storm, the historical context of British industrial revolution changes the meaning of artwork and if we put this piece within a global warming campaign, we may see the effect of increasing sea level and extreme weathers. Just as in Ways of Seeing, Berger mentioned that “we accept it [artwork] in so far as it corresponds to our own observation of people, gestures, faces and institutions” (Ways, 14). Understanding the ambiguity, the audience can use a certain art piece for one’s own purpose and shed one’s own meaning for the work in one’s own context. In a way, “images can be used like words—we can talk with them. Reproduction should make it easier to connect to our experience of art directly with other experiences” (BBC). Now, utilizing the ambiguity, an artwork begins to make sense by our means, and we can even use artwork like words to convey our own ideas.
Berger is successful not only because he makes art tangible, but also because how he uses the properties like subjectivity and ambiguity, he makes art like words and conveys political messages. In “Welcome to the abyss,” Berger analyzes the work Millennium Triptych by Hieronymus Bosch which depicted the scene of hell where he finds that “there is no horizon there. There is no continuity between actions, there are no pauses, no paths, no pattern, no past and no future.” He compared it to “the average publicity sot, or in a typical CNN news bulletin, or any mass-media commentary” (Welcome). And he described the hell depicted by Bosch as “a prophecy of the mental climate imposed on the world by globalization and the new economic order” (Welcome). As a Marxist against capitalism, Berger is influenced by Marxist theory on aesthetics and art history. Early Marxists saw art as “a means of communicating socialist ideals to the masses, covering subjects relevant to their everyday lives” (Marxist aesthetics). Marxists believe that economic and social conditions affect every aspect of an individual's life, “from religious beliefs to legal systems to cultural frameworks” (Marxist aesthetics). And Marxist aesthetics are especially concerned with the social value of art work, in a sense that whether this artwork is beneficial to the society and improve the society. Of course, Berger, like most of the Marxist, believes capitalism is the culprit of the injustice economic order and the huge gap between rich and poor. Therefore, Berger firmly stood against it: “Capitalism survives by forcing the majority, whom it exploits, to define their own interests as narrowly as possible” (). These ideas are conveyed through artworks. By using the ambiguity of Millennium Triptych, Berger puts it in a contemporary setting and addresses the problem of globalization. This is one important message that Berger wants to convey: capitalism is evil.
However, Berger “seems to have little interest in the deep structures of power or in parties,” his hatred of capitalism “signals an anger on behalf of the dispossessed” (Marr). Indeed, Berger seems to care more about the underdog of the society than the political dynamics happened in Washington. “In any situation where political power was in play, his very instinct was to side with the powerless” (Moore). In “Caravaggio: A Contemporary View”, he admitted that his favorite art painter is Caravaggio. Berger knows that there are a lot of other painters who are more admirable, but Caravaggio is the one to whom he feels closest. The closest is by the sharing of dispossessed. Caravaggio was a fugitive—a member of the underworld, so he understood the fear and need of the other underworld people. They fear “distance and solitude” (Caravaggio). Caravaggio’s work depicted those overcrowding which had no distance between each other and they were never left alone. The chiaroscuro that featured Caravaggio’s work “banish daylight” and most of his work are within a painted interior since underworld people “only felt relatively at ease inside” (Caravaggio). Caravaggio vividly depicts the underworld which spellbound Berger. The reason why Berger is so empathetic to the underrepresented people, I believe, is based on his experience. After he moved from Switzerland to a more remote village in French Alps, Berger began to collect “stories from the voiceless and dispossessed – peasants, migrants, even animals – a self-effacing role he would continue to occupy for the next 43 years” (Maughan). Berger serves as a voice for the voiceless and by analyzing artwork, he devoted his whole life delivering their voices.
However, if Berger is so interested in politics and the under-privileged people, why did he live in a remote village writing art? His short essay “the White Bird” gives us an answer: “In a world of suffering in which evil is rampant, a world whose events do not confirm our being, a world that has to resisted. It is in this situation that the aesthetic moment offers hope. A beautiful crystal or poppy makes us feel less alone. We are more deeply inserted into existence than the course of a single life would lead us to believe . . . For an instant, the energy of one’s perception becomes inseparable from the energy of the creation” (The White Bird).
The hope, I believe, is the most fundamental message Berger wants to convey through his large body of literary works. Art, as the protest and anger in any political movements, are derived from hope and give hope as well. “Shouting out against injustice is always in the hope of those injustices being somewhat corrected and a little more justice established” (Interview). Hope is the struggling boat in the vortex of the snow storm in Turner’s painting; hope is the memory awaken when Berger sees his father’s drawing; hope is the string of light that penetrates a dark room full of the under-privileged in Caravaggio’s world; hope is also what Berger sees in the dispossessed, and in writing angrily against capitalism and the current economic order. “Hope,” as Berger once said, “is a contraband passed from hand to hand and story to story” (Bento’s, 87).
Work Cited:
Asokan, Ratik. "The Many Faces of John Berger." New Republic. N.p., 29 Dec. 2015. Web. 09 Apr. 2017.
Berger, John. And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos. London: Bloomsbury, 2005. Print.
Berger, John. “Turner and The Barber’s Shop” The Broadview Anthology of Expository Prose. Ed. Laura Buzzard, et al. Broadview Press. 2016. Print.
Berger, John. "Drawn To That Moment." How to Lose a War (2008): n. pag. Web.
Berger, John. "Ways of Seeing." BBC. N.d. Television.
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin, 2008. Print.
Berger, John. "Welcome to the Abyss." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 19 Nov. 1999. Web. 09 Apr. 2017.
Berger, John. "Caravaggio: a contemporary view." Studio International, 1983, Volume 196 Number 998, Web.
Berger, John. "The White Bird." The White Bird. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2017.
Berger, John. Bento's Sketchbook. London: Verso, 2015. Print.
"Interview: John Berger, Author." Lifestyle. The Scotsman, 03 June 2011. Web. 09 Apr. 2017.
"Marxist aesthetics." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 1 Mar. 2017. Web. 9 Apr. 2017.
Marr, Andrew. "Why John Berger Is the Least Theoretical Marxist on Earth." NewStatesman. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2017.
Maughan, Philip. ""I Think the Dead Are with Us": John Berger at 88." NewStatesman. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2017.
Moore, Suzanne. "I Do Not Recognise the Stereotype of John Berger as a Dour Marxist – His Work Embodied Hope." Theguardian. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2017.
Gender and Race Intertwined
“Ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm!” These are the words shouted by black feminist Sojourner Truth at the Women’s Convention in Ohio on May 29, 1851 (Stanton). Sojourner’s speech is one of the earliest surviving records of black feminism, which shouted against men’s powers and conveyed that women could also achieve things that only men, at that time, were thought capable of (Stanton). Sojourner said, “I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no men could head me” (Stanton). Her speech pierced through the patriarchy that white-dominated feminism is against and is often quoted by feminists even today. However, before that speech, Sojourner was not applauded like that. On the contrary, when Sojourner walked into the convention, whose audiences were mostly white feminists, “a buzz of disapprobation was heard all over the house,” and, as Matilda Gage, the president of the Women’s Convention recalled, half a dozen people had asked Gage to not let Sojourner speak (Stanton). Why was Sojourner, a feminist, unwelcomed by other feminists? Where does this lack of welcome come from? Obviously, the answer lies in Truth’s race, as slavery was still alive in 1851. However, even in today’s world, where racism has been diminished greatly, black and white feminists still rivals against each other. There must be reasons more complex than just racism.
In “Bad Feminist: Take One” by Roxane Gay, the incident where a white blogger, Amanda Marcotte, was accused of copying ideas from a colored blogger was discussed. The feminist community then had a debate on this matter so intense that the black feminists were “labeled ‘radical black feminists’ and were accused of overreacting and ‘playing the race card’” by white feminists (843, Gay). Gay interpreted this accusation as a kind of essential feminism. She points out that people conceive feminism through a series of stereotypes and misconceptions, which makes up essential feminism. These misconceptions include that feminists should have “anger, humorlessness, militancy, unwavering principles” and that they “don’t cater to the male gaze, [they] hate men, hate sex, [and] focus on career” (840, Gay). These misconceptions make essential feminism a distortion of true feminism. One more aspect of essential feminism is racial exclusiveness. Gay points out that essential feminism excludes black feminism. According to her, supporters of Amanda Marcotte are promoters of essential feminism where black feminists are ignored, and that white feminists are the only voice of feminism.
While distorted, this essential feminism is so pervasive that it replaces what real feminism means. As a matter of fact, the word feminism means “advocacy of equality of the sexes and the establishment of the political, social and economic rights of the female sex” which includes all females regardless of their race (“feminism”). The question, then is what makes white feminists have “such willful ignorance, such willful disinterest in incorporating the issues and concerns of black women into the mainstream feminist project?” (843, Gay). In other words, why do white feminists form this kind of essential feminism that is against black feminism?
One explanation is that white feminists are ignorant of feminism itself: their feminism is only a world they create to satisfy their own understandings—a world without black women in it. This idea is elaborated in the essay “Being Lovingly, Knowingly Ignorant” by Mariana Ortega. Ortega defines a concept called “arrogant perceiver”, who belongs to the dominating social status. It is these “arrogant perceivers” that define the social standard; they define what is good and what is not. In the case of essential feminism, the arrogant perceiver is the patriarchy while in the case of essential feminism against black feminism, the arrogant perceiver is the white feminists. Ortega shows that, after acknowledging that feminism movements require a “harmonious community of agreement”, the arrogant white feminist perceivers ruled out the black feminists, as they found the black feminists “different and [a threat] to destroy the homogeneity of their community” (59, Ortega). This action, according to Ortega, was a false consideration and ignorance under the racism influence. Now the difficulty that Sojourner Truth encountered at her speech at the women’s convention can be explained—the white female audiences, who are the arrogant perceivers, defined black female unsuitable to speak at the convention.
However, the arrogant perceiver theory can not explain the case where the white feminists accused black feminists for using the race card, since the white blogger “borrowing” a black woman’s idea implies that the white community do want to know about the colored community. This incidence is categorized by Ortega as a subtler and more dangerous case called loving, knowing ignorance. White feminists today, unlike their precedents who completedly refused the ideas coming from outsiders, have grown to be more accommodating. They “look and listen”, but they don’t “check and question” (60, Ortega). They seem to adopt a “loving eye”, wanting to know about black feminists and constantly quoting black feminists’ works into their own. However, white feminists always end up misunderstanding what black feminists really want, as they lack enough knowledge and experience on what black feminists have been through. White feminists think they know “all of it”, so they begin to “simplify, invent and expect the world to be a specific way rather than investigating it, asking questions to know more about it” (60, Ortega). Eventually, Ortega pointed out that white feminists distort the reality that “accords more with their own desires and expectations than with the actual state of affairs,” which is no different than arrogantly perceiving it (62, Ortega).
“Romanticizing the experience of women of color”, white feminists distort the reality that black feminists face with their “loving, knowing ignorance” (65, Ortega). The white blogger and her supporters in Gay’s essay are perfect examples of this ignorance. They definitely “looked and listened”, since the blogger borrowed the idea of a colored person, and they engaged in a debate with black feminists. But during the process of looking and listening, they simplified the problem and reduced it to black feminists “playing the race card” instead of “checking and questioning” what the issue really is about (843, Gay). This loving, knowing ignorance in today’s feminism world contributes to essential feminism, since the ignorance overlooks what black feminists really experience and demand. In return, the essential feminism makes more and more people lovingly and knowingly ignorant. As essential feminism overwhelms the true, inclusive feminism, more people are committing to the prejudiced and exclusive essential feminism, one that prevents them from “looking and listening”, let alone “checking and questioning.” There begins the cycle of misunderstanding. The more this loving and knowing ignorance continues to distort the reality, the deeper the gap between the white and black feminists gets, and the more entrenched the essential feminism becomes.
The ignorance and arrogance of white essential feminism towards the black feminism are based on one fact: white is dominant and black is marginalized. Therefore, understanding why black people become the disesteemed group can help understand this ignorance and arrogance. The historical analysis of race provided in “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book” by Hortense Spillers sheds light on racial subjugation by genealogy of gender and race. Spiller points out that African black culture was interrupted by the European invaders during the 16th to 19th centuries where the slavery system was formed, which incurred “massive demographic shifts [and] the violent formation of modern African consciousness” (68). Since the slavery system forced African men to work, the child would follow the mother’s name and social status instead. Then, Spillers points out that “African American women, the mother, the daughter, becomes historically powerful and shadowy evocation of a culture synthesis --- the law of the mother” (80). In other words, African Americans form a culture of matriarchy.
However, during 16th to 19th centuries, matriarchy means powerlessness. White patriarchy guaranteed the political influences by regulating that only male could vote until 1919 when women suffrage became a universal condition. Women were expected to take care of children and stay inside home rather than to work. The patriarchal culture entitled only men to have labor rights, and the economic equality of women was therefore lost. The problem was further complicated when the two communities clashed together. As the white overpowers the black community in the United States, African American males were forced to stay away from their families, enforcing matriarchy into the African American community in a white-dominating patriarchal society, distancing black and white communities even further.
In some way, sexism and racism reciprocate with each other and magnify the subjugation of black people. Hence, after African Americans were physically abducted by white people through the Middle Passage, they became mentally and socially succumbed to white patriarchy. This physical and mental black subjugation constituted “an American grammar”. It has not disappeared long after slavery was abolished. Instead, it is weaved into both black and white American cultures, and by extension, black white feminism cultures as well.
This American grammar by slavery leaves white feminists in a privileged position without them realizing. Being privileged as white people, white feminists easily forget their whiteness, as it has not brought them disadvantage but rather convenience. However, being unprivileged as a woman in this patriarchal society, white feminists fall victims of unfair career wages, forbidden abortion rights, less political influences, etc. Busy fighting for these rights, white feminists focus on their identity as a woman and forget their identity as a white woman. They then easily assume gender inequality are issues for every woman which, in truth, are issues for white women only. Black women’s issues remain unnoticed, constituting essential feminism.
As Elizabeth Spelman said, “It is the nature of privilege to find ever deeper places to hide” (Ortega, 56). White feminists who accuse the black blogger of overreacting fail to realize their privileges, as they assumed, lovingly and knowingly that black feminists’ experiences are the same as theirs. This privilege creates frivolousness, making them seem inconsiderate and ignorant sometimes such as accusing the victim of “playing the race card” (843, Gay).
Ignorance and privilege are both instances where white feminists make assumptions that black people should subjugated to the same feminism principle as theirs. As Gay said, “it doesn’t allow for the complexities of human experience or individuality” (840, Gay). There is an ongoing debate over the classification of gender and race in the feminists’ community. Modernist discourses “promote an ‘either/or’ competition between the oppressive system of sexism and racism” (Schramm). They believe that “the power of human reason, and a keen interest in science” drive them to believe the dichotomy of culture just like what the things are in science (Schramm). Many modern white feminists fall in this category, since they believe race is a completely irrelevant factor in feminism. They lovingly, knowingly and ignorantly fail to notice their privileges, which blind white feminists to assume black feminists’ issues are just like white feminists’ issues.
In the contrast, the postmodern view of race and gender relationship is to deconstruct the “either/or” competition and forms an intersection theory. Donna Haraway in her book Modest Witness points out that female subject is not a “‘fixed subject’ but also a ‘nomadic’ subject” and they “overlap with variables such as class, race, age, lifestyle, and sexual preference” (Schramm). They believe race and gender and other variables are interlocked. The oppression of each other can not be understood in isolation from each other. We can still recall the intersection of gender and race from the history where, in Spillers theory, sexism and racism intertwined with each other and created the black subjugation.
But this intersection theory is what most of white feminists fail to understand. If white feminists could understand this theory and recognize the historical legacy of slavery system, then white feminists may understand they are privileged as whiteness. If they could notice their privilege, they could stop assuming what black feminists have experienced, and begin to “look, listen, check and question” (60, Ortega). If white feminists could begin to check and question, then they could see the issues of black feminists, which are different from those of their own but still issues regarding feminism. If so, then the essential feminism towards black feminism is erased and the day of rebalance of the uneven power distribution to black feminists will come.
Work Cited:
"feminism, n." OED Online. Oxford University Press, December 2016. Web. 12 February 2017.
Gay, Roxane. “Bad Feminist: Take One” The Broadview Anthology of Expository Prose. Ed. Laura Buzzard, et al. Broadview Press. 2016. Print.
Ortega, Mariana. “Being Lovingly, Knowingly Ignorant: White Feminism and Women of Color.” Hypatia, vol. 21, no. 3, 2006, pp. 56–74. www.jstor.org/stable/3810951.
Schramm, Susan L. "Intersection of Gender and Race." Women in Higher Education: An Encyclopedia, Ana M. Martinez Aleman, and Kristen A. Renn, ABC-CLIO, 2002. Credo Reference
Spillers, Hortense J. “Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book.” Diacritics, vol. 17, no. 2, 1987, pp. 65–81. www.jstor.org/stable/464747.
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, Susan B. Anthoney, and Matilda Joslyn Gage. "History of Woman Suffrage." Archive.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2017.
Lessing and Kant
After reading Kant's What is Enlightenment and Lessing's Nathan the Wise
The most inspiring thing for me after reading Nathan the Wise is the idea of religious tolerance. When Saladin questions which religions is the true religion, Nathan, using a parable of three rings, argued that different religions can be only distinguished by their apparent aspects, but the ground truth is the same. Since choosing a religion is singly depended by the parents’ religions, religions are determined in a superficial way and the essence of religion is ignored after generations. However, Nathan argued that the absolute ground truth of all religions is still same which is to love the people. In this way, Lessing proposes religious tolerance since the hatred among different religions betrays the truth of religion itself, and if you love, you are holding the true religion. It is a surprise for me to see this artful argument of reasoning on the foundation of religion. But a question emerges: why do people tend to believe that their own religions are the truth while others are false?
Kant’s “What is Enlightenment” sheds light on my thinking on Nathan the Wise and makes me realize the importance of public freedom. Religion is, what Kant writes, the tutelage that deprives people from thinking freely and independently. Since the churches have such an authority that no one can publicly question about them, by Kant’s argument, followers are not enlightened and they blindly follow the dogmas. Nathan the Wise is a demonstration of enlightenment. It urges religious tolerance to open up a free space publicly for religions. The sultan Saladin listens to Nathan’s wisdom, which means he allows for a free space for public speaking. Living in such a enlightened era, Nathan dare to think and challenge Saladin’s belief of one single true religion. As a result, three religions coexist happily. But what enlightenment could benefit to the society? It makes me think of Frederick the Great who is the king of the time when Lessing wrote the play and he is the first king who integrated religious and nationality difference and his empire becomes the first enlightened state and this leads to a prosperous state. But it also reminds me of Hitler who controlled Germany by secret police where no one could speak anything publicly against Nazi, otherwise facing public humiliation or even death and as a result, Nazi only prospers in a short time. From this contrast, we see the effects of enlightenment. And it is also dreadful to see that my home country China is prohibiting free public space to speak online in recent two months.
Also, while the enlightened thinking of Lessing for questioning the essence of religions spellbound me, I feel doubtful that, correct me if I am wrong, in Lessing’s reason, why must religions hold the same essence, love? Is it necessary for them to trace back to the same origin, one single truth? Or an alternate answer, do all religions hold different truth where they are all absolute truth? If so, then Lessing’s argument on religious tolerance is only a great expectation. The hard truth is that every religion is different, hatred among different religions is inevitable and we only choose to use reason to deceive ourselves.
Nietzsche and Hitler
After Reading Hitler's Mein Kampf
Nietzsche’s thinking and his controversy with the Nazi helps me understand Hitler more comprehensively.
In the last decade of Nietzsche’s life and after his death, his sister, who is a fanatic of Nazi, manipulated Nietzsche’s texts and make it sound like Nazi is justified by Nietzsche’s philosophy. Indeed, there are familiarities of Nietzsche’s thinking with Nazi’s. For example, regarding relations of mass to individual, Nietzsche is a known philosopher who proposes the class distinction and stupidity of masses while Hitler believed the same, as Hitler said, “It is not the mass that invents and not the majority that organizes or thinks, but in all things only and always the individual man, the person” (446, Hitler). However, Nietzsche, I think, would totally against Nazi’s general ideology since first he criticized German socialism and in addition, he thought Jews are great. In “Beyond Good and Evil,” Nietzsche said, “ the Jews performed the miracle of the inversion of valuations, by means of which life on earth obtained a new and dangerous charm for a couple of millenniums”(165, Nietzsche). Therefore, Nietzsche would totally not be related to Nazi’s philosophy.
Nietzsche is against the Nazi ideology. However, what does he think of Hitler, as a person, not what he represents, the Nazi? I think there are several qualities of Hitler that Nietzsche would agree upon. Hitler is an good example of the use of Nietzsche’s “Will to Power.” He had this extraordinary confidence and self-motivation to do things he believed on. For example, when he went to investigate German Workers Party, he could not resist to speak against the speakers and spoke out his own belief. Also, later, in order to become Chancellor, he used many conspiracies and dirty political works. And his talent on understanding what the mass need and his sensitivity of current political struggle in Germany were gradually developed and served to satisfy his bigger wants. That this strong motivation and drive to satisfy his wants is what Nietzsche would appreciate. Therefore, Nietzsche may, in some aspects, favors Hitler. However, on a close look, Nietzsche may appreciate his persistent spirits but may not agree with Hitler’s ideas on truth.
Although Hitler approached things with many questions when he first got in touch with it, after he formed a certain ideas, Hitler was stubborn and sticked to it till death. That’s not what Nietzsche agrees. Nietzsche believes a true philosopher should always “attempt.” which means to question everything continually and never form an absolute ideas on something. Hitler indeed questioned a lot at first, but he stopped questioning. In addition, he was suggestible when he had no clue about something. I noticed that his ideas about something are largely consistent with the first thing he knew about this thing and he never learnt a counter perspective. For example, when he wanted to learn Jew, he read all the anti-semitism booklets and developed an anti-semitism ideas. Because of his suggestibility, as he was easily exposed to extreme nationalistic ideas in post WW1 Germany when extreme-conservatism, nationalism, socialism, anti-semitism were prevalent, his extreme ideas were easily nurtured by those idealisms and due to his stubbornness and his strong will to power, he implemented them. Therefore, in some extent, Hitler was a product of the unstable postwar German history. On the other hand, we may see that Hitler did not think independently and were sometimes irrational, probably due to his lack of formal education. Many of his texts sounded illogical. For example, he blamed the failure of social democratic Press to Jews since Jews were the press writers. He forced culprits to Jews with nonsense.
To sum up, Hitler is persistent and has an iron-made will. But his extreme and irrational ideology is also worth criticizing.
Cited:
Hitler, Adolf, and Ralph Manheim. Mein Kampf. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971. Print.
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Beyond Good and Evil. Trans. Helen Zimmern.The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, 2015. E-book.
Nietzsche and Marx
After Reading part of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil
While reading this unconventional and provocative texts, I have many questions and one question is especially intriguing: since Karl Marx, who we read last week, lived in the same era as Nietzsche, what is the difference between these two world’s greatest thinkers in 19th century?
The first great difference that I find is they have different belief on causes of history. Marx, following Hegel's view of history, believes that history has certain law. Things happen under the frame of this law. And he concludes that history is a history of class struggles. It is largely based on economic theory. Therefore, it is materialistic. However, Nietzsche is saying that this is a superficial way to understand. “The world seen from within, the world defined and designated according to its "intelligible character"—it would simply be "Will to Power," and nothing else” (36, Nietzsche). Nietzsche proposes that those historic laws are also motivated by will to power. So it is the human instincts that push the history. So for Nietzsche, history is caused, not materialistically, but instinctively. So Nietzsche challenges the materialistic view on history which constitutes a foundation for communism belief for Marx’s philosophy. But there is a much more opposite difference regarding Marx’s communism: the definition on “people”. Essentially, the communism lies in an important assumption that is all men are born equally. It is the social structure that deprive the proletarians off. If all men are born not equally, then it follows the belief that bourgeois are born to be bourgeois and proletarians are doomed to be proletarians. And the final aim for communism is to create a society with no class distinction: all men are born in the equal class. However, Nietzsche believes the opposite: he believes that common people are like “herding-animals” (202,Nietzsche) and there exists “select man” who “strives instinctively for a citadel and a privacy, where he is FREE from the crowd, the many, the majority” (26, Nietzsche). So Nietzsche proposes this class distinction directly that there must be men who are selected to become “New Philosopher” while the common people are just like animals. As he said,“how could there be a ‘common good’! The expression contradicts itself; that which can be common is always of small value” (44, Nietzsche). Therefore, for Nietzsche, there is a class distinction that the selected man should dominate the commons. This goes directly challenging the very foundation of people in Marx’s communism. Nietzsche also denounces any democratic movement as “an inheritance of a Christian movement” which he denounces as renunciation of freedom (202, Nietzsche). He thinks there must not be equal rights in the society since “ultimately opposition to EVERY right, for when all are equal, no one needs ‘rights’ any longer”(202). Therefore, communism as an ultimate democratic belief is constantly criticized here and every foundation of Communism is challenged in Nietzsche’s view.
To sum up, although Marx and Nietzsche never comment directly on each other, I believe if it really happens, it would be a rival relation. However, after I analyze Nietzsche’s views on communism, I found a more interesting aspect of Nietzsche, that is in his book he questions everything. He questions religion, he questions German language, morality, noble man and even science. But in the meantime, he never seems to propose the truth because he questions what he proposes by himself. He just questions everything and sometimes I even find self-contradictory parts within a chapter. But because of this contradiction, I begin to realize that what Nietzsche may want to convey is that truth may not be absolute. Maybe truth itself is self-contradictory and it depends on how we look at them. Therefore, we should constantly change our perspectives and try to approach the so called truth with more attempts. As he said in his view of “future philosophers” : “these philosophers of the future might rightly, perhaps also wrongly, claim to be designated as "tempters" (42).
Works Cited:
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Beyond Good and Evil. Trans. Helen Zimmern. The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, 2015. E-book.
Wagner and Marx
After Reading the Menifesto of Communism and Wagner's Artwork of the Future, Judaism in Music and his music drama, Der Ring des Nibelungen.
Apart from the grandiose and polemical ideas of music drama as an artwork of the future, a question is haunting me: is Wagner a believer of Communism?
In “the Art-Work of the Future,” Wagner proposes that the future artwork’s “only origin is from the Folk” (Wagner,24). He commented on communists as “the unit all, the man God, the art-variety art” (Wagner,27). In other words, Wagner believes that artwork should root in people. This is consistent with the definition of Communism from Karl Marx, pointing out that “Communists … bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat” (Marx, 22). So artwork-wise, Wagner agrees with the general idea of communism which is for public good. Politic-wise, in specific, Wagner proposes the Folk should “recognize their individual want as a collective want” and he proposes “propertyless portion of the Commonwealth” (Wagner,15). Basically, Wagner is saying all the people should become one -- a single community with collective commonwealth and want. This is exactly the same as what Marx said about the essence of theory of Communists: “Abolition of private property” and “disappearance of class distinction” (Marx,22,27). Another aspect of consistency between Wagner and Communism is that they both hate capitalism and money. Communism’s immediate aim is to “overthrow bourgeois supremacy” and Marx puts on many imputations on capitalism: it exploits laborers, “reduces family relation to a mere money relation”, it killed all the older jobs and simplify the class antagonism, etc. Wagner also denounces those money relations. I think in his famous opera The Ring of the Nibelung, the ring symbolizes money and power and Wagner shows us the danger of it by arranging brothers willing to kill each other for the ring. In general, Wagner is a believer of Communism. But as I delve deeper, I find there are differences between his belief and Communism.
The most important difference is their aims of people are different. Marx aims to liberate proletarians against bourgeois while Wagner aims to liberate “Folks” against luxury, which by his own definition Folks are “men who feel a common and collective Want”(Wagner,15). Marx defines proletarians based on social, economic and political perspective while Wagner focuses on the spiritual level. Ironically, Wagner exclude certain groups of people out of any categories. One important example is Jewish. As he addresses in “Judaism in Music,” Jewish share no commonness with the Folk. This exclusion apparently is conflicted with the basic idea of Communism, that is to do public good. This difference of definition of aims on different people also leads to another difference which is the means to liberation. Marx believes to use physical, political revolution to annihilate bourgeois while Wagner believes to use artworks. He thinks that “mutual Art-work of the Future” will “teach the tortured spirits” to “grow up in communion to veritable men” (Wagner, 16). And I think, from the different approach, we can see the difference of purposes: I think Marx is creating a materialistic commonwealth while Wagner is proposing a spiritual shared commonwealth where artworks of the future fulfill folks and as he said, “for in this Art-work, we shall all be one,--blissful men” (Wagner, 16).
To sum up, I believe that Wagner is a believer of Communism in a broader sense, but also he interprets it mainly in the spiritual territory.
Works Cited:
Marx, Karl, and Frederick Engels. "Manifesto of the Communist Party." Marxists Internet Archive (n.d.): n. pag. Web.
Wagner, Richard. "The Art-Work of the Future." The Wagner Library (n.d.): n. pag. Web.
Goethe and Enlightenment
After reading Faust Part One and The Sorrows of Young Werther
Besides the desolate but beautiful love story of Werther and the struggling battle of Faust’s innerself, I find another aspect of these two books intriguing: do Werther and Faust fit into the enlightenment movement?
By the definition of enlightenment provided by Kant, enlightenment is “Have courage to use your own reason” (Kant). Werther and Faust definitely dare to think and dare to challenge. Werther follows his own tutelage and goes to small town to pursue his artistic expression and his diary is always filled with questions challenging common beliefs. For example, Werther said, “I honour religion...But --- can it, must it, be that for everyone?” (Goethe,77). Werther challenges the fananticality of religion by saying that “if the chalice was too bitter for the human lips of the God of heaven why should I play a bragging part and pretend I find it sweet?” (Goethe, 77). Another aspect of showing his enlightenment is Werther measures things by its consequences. For example, when Werther talks about the power, he said, “who is the top man? The one who oversees all others and is powerful or cunning enough to harness their energies and passions for the execution of his own”(Goethe,56). Faust is a man of extreme knowledge and reasons. One example is when Margareta asks him about god, he responds: “Call it joy, or your heart, or love, or God! I have no name for it, the feeling’s all there is”(Goethe). This is consistent of what enlightened Nathan said in the three rings parable in Nathan the Wise. Werther and Faust indeed are enlightened men. However, they also challenge the concepts of enlightenment: the extreme rationalism.
Enlightenment thinkers don’t allow emotions. They believe that love is unreasonable. However, after reading Werther and Faust, I believe it depends. If emotions and love become fanatical and become the tutelage that drives every decision, then this kind of emotion should be avoided. But if emotions and love do not control you, if they separate from everyday reasoning, but serve as a way to elevate spiritual world, then I believe it is reasonable. I think Werther’s deep emotions to life, to art are reasonable. They enrich Werther’s mind and offer him independent decision so that Werther can enjoy himself. However, Werther’s love to Lotte is unreasonable. His love is so fanatical that creates illusions. This love manipulates Werther’s decisions and he sees everything with his love life. He blindly connected the story of farmhand killing the boyfriend of his love one with himself and then assumes that someone must die among himself, Albert and Lotte, which incurs his final suicide. In the contrast, I believe Faust’s love is reasonable. He constantly questions himself if he is carried away by Mephistopheles and his loved ones and he remains his reasonability. For example, when Margreta asks him if he can be Christian, he sticks to his own belief. This love gives Faust a taste of love that he, as a man of absolute rationalism, has never tatsted and it enriches himself with more spiritual satisfaction while he did not lose himself. I think Faust is a demonstration of the new kind of enlightenment that is rational but also reasonably emotional.
Since Werther and Faust are epitome of Goethe himself, I believe that Goethe agrees with the general statement of enlightenment that is bringing rationality. But he also refines it by proposing the importance of emotions and love.
Works Cited:
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang., and David Luke. Faust: Part One. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang., and David Constantine. The Sorrows of Young Werther. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2012. Print.
Kant, Immanuel. "What Is Enlightenment." N.p., n.d. Web. 02 July 2017.