Quick Week
Wow this week flew - and now it's Sunday. I'm really looking forward to next week. I've got a lot of projects in the works - and one of the most exciting things that happened is my first work of 2009, 'Ogallala' was snapped up by a collector in just five minutes after being posted on Twitter. Gotta love that. So much happened this week, it's hard to think back and realize it was just seven days. Ogallala was finished, Corralled was started and I started in with plaster on Dream Structure. With Corralled, I started sculpting the sheep heads out of clay - as these dry, I will paint and secure them to the panel. I'm going to use synthetic cotton fiber in this piece for the sheep body, and cover parts with fifty coat. I think it will look like a cloud captured in resin if I'm not mistaken. I'm still working on the oil painting 'Pig Farm'. My field and farm related theme is starting to get quite filled out - the next one in my mind is Wheat Field Bound - and that is going to be really special. What's with the fields, the farms? These metaphors just seem to tumble out - I grew up on a farm and the great sod field is a constant image in my mind. These take on political and economic metaphors for me.
I was in the Princeton University bookstore this week and I saw a whole bookshelf devoted to Karl Marx - I mean literally, one book placed in perfect position in the center and then the entire rest of the shelf empty - hmm, that doesn't seem very 'comrade' like, but I digress. Why Marx isn't literally laughed out of any serious college these days I don't understand. At some point I might blog about it and dissect it but I was in the Soviet Union and I can tell you, when it comes to deciding if a philosopher is correct, it's a great idea to skip to the end - if it ends with you giving up your right to pursue your own dreams and be compensated how you feel you are worth, throw the book out - no matter how clever and bearded the author looks. Wheat Field Bound, like Ogallala, harkens back to the early 1900's - so much similar has gone on already!! The great depression, the Soviet created wheat crisis - as fear descends it seems the tendency is to give government more and more power - the very same institutions that to a large degree created the problem to begin with. This is not a necessary condition of human existence. Have a great week - and remember, fear is the enemy.
posted by Robert Girandola @ 8:18 PM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
Let me start by qualifying this comment by saying that I am NOT a communist. I merely am playing one for the sake of sport on your Blog.
However, a similar argument can be made if you "skip to the end" of capitalism. Global financial market collapse, fueled by greed and unchecked power, have buried us. It will take decades to dig out.
Capitalism is short-sighted -- seen in its disregard for the environment. Capitalism sees only silhouettes -- seen in its inability to distinguish real structure from a house of cards. Capitalism is ruthless -- seen as it strips wealth from the poor in order to feed the gluttonous rich.
Like everything else, danger is in the extremes. Complete Marxist socialism can be just as wrong and dangerous as total free capitalism. Clearly, the solution is in the middle. But the middle moves! At this time, in this economy, we could probably use a gentle nudge to the left. Wouldn't you say?
Dear Commish (aptly named :) I do love and appreciate this response - it furthers my point regarding 'Corralled' - a false 'left' or 'right' as if the current 'two' parties represent extremes and us silly folk raise our hands as to whether we want the country to 'nudge left' or 'nudge right'. This is about government expansion vs. limited government and you know better than most - this global financial market collapse was precipitated by the Federal Reserve and government pressure to lend. This is the end result of government run amuck, and the solution?? More amuckness!! This kind of 'lending a helping hand' of the government reminds me of typical big government 'help' - hand a person a crutch now that they've broken their legs. Oh, and make sure somebody else makes the crutch. Just a few more points - the greatest man-made environmental messes were the result of government created monopolies, you can't 'strip' wealth from a poor person, and the only gluttonous rich I know are jet setting around the world on taxpayer money - we're smarter than this -
i too am not a communist. for that fact nor am i a marxist, nor a trotskyist. i am not an anarcho-capitalist, nor a radical anything. i empathize with and experience more than fleeting moments of idealism, hegelianism, humeism, empiricism, kantianism, humanism, feminism, environmentalism, deleuzian capitalism and libertarianism* as well as a whole other slew of isms and ists that can be found filling out life’s $14.99 drugstore philosophical box of chocolates.
rg, i do not believe that the contorted marxist-leninist, intrinsically fascist system of government that ruled the soviet union was in any way the embodiment of communism as marx ascribed. nor do i believe that das kapital presents any more threatening a stance in the collective body of human literature than the latest danielle steele novel or senecan stoic dialogue. the mistake, perhaps, of the bookstore was not to embrace the philosophical alphabet and place lebowski**, leibniz, locke and luther beforehand and mersenne and montague in suit.
any prescribed extreme or single outlook philosophy is dangerous as it at best leads to tunnel vision, and at worst to fanaticism. in addendum to the words of Commish374 “the middle moves”, the middle also thinks and dialogues. we are not mature enough to skip to the end of that discussion.
as an aside, didn’t we just retire the largest government ever?
great thoughts as always rg,
~verveonica
*for as much as robert heinlein has heavily influenced the very weft and weave of my being, i have shown a surprising amount of restraint in this regard.
**the dude abides.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home