From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Apr 17 2003 - 16:21:07 BST
Dear Wim:
Sorry for the question about your posts. I had the relevant post right in
front of me. I must need a new pair of glasses.
> The question I asked you was whether you agree not only with Kuitert's
> criticism of postmodern culture (which is not necessarily the same as
> 'postmodernism' as discussed on this list!) but also with his solution,
> which is accepting postmodern culture as a necessary stage and then trying
> 'to rise above that emptiness, by searching for the only real experience
> that does matter and that is universal.'
I don't agree with his definition of postmodernism as the movement that rid
the Western world of heresy. Instead, that was the great contribution of
the Enlightenment. Postmodernism is the fountainhead of such empty
conceptions as moral relativism, group identity, political correctness
and intersubjective agreement as a the criteria of truth.
>I'm doubtful about your
> statement "Art is a reflection of the spirit within". I don't like to
> locate the divine 'within' if that implies that it is not 'without'. The
> divine is for me that which connects and supersedes the distinction between
> 'within' and 'without', between 'me' and 'you', between 'subject' and
> 'object'. "Art reflects the spirit" as "Religion reflects the spirit" (if
> we take both art and religion 'as they are meant' and not as they sometimes
> appear in degenerate forms, if we take them as pointers to the moon and not
> as ends and final forms in themselves).
We agree. I didn't mean to leave the impression that spirit was
exclusively "within" individuals. I was in essence agreeing with your
statement.
>Man is for a while a governor of spirit, because he
>commands the word, and the power of the word is spirit.
Would this complementary version meet your approval?
Man is for a while a governor of spirit, because he
commands the beautiful, and the power of the beautiful is spirit.
Platt
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