Bit of Botticelli for the Christmastide!

Happy Christmas!
or as the others might say, Kwanzaa, Chanukkah, Imperial birthday etc etc

Carried away by a combination of the mystagogical gospel of saint John, some travel, a chat with a friend about the pleasures of gin and some directed readings in cultural otherness, I thought I might put quill to paper and pander to the demands of the general public. Just to underline: today’s ranting has nothing to do with the fact that it’s the third day of Christmas, all the family are hormonal or absent, and that I have replaced turkey-only diet of the preceding days with a caffeine-only intake with resultant shaking and anger at random, self-professed innocent by-standers (feast of Holy Innocents tomorrow).

Being deeply foreign myself it’s no stretch for me to put myself in the shoes of others. London may have been my home since university, but deep within me the continent has stamped itself on both my genome and phenotype harder than the Chinese would have stamped their heels on me had I stood in their way of fulfilling their a> post-Christmas shopping lunacy at Selfridges yesterday.

Serious dedication

Living in this melting pot the opportunities to sample, get exposure to and be inflicted by a multitude of different cultures are endless. Some of the major reasons people are drawn here are the cosmopolitan nature of the place, embracing all and rebuking none. You can be a punk, a faux-edwardian young fogie or a herbivore man a> (I kid you not). No one cares. Perhaps more accurately, no one has the energy to spend on anything but the most outlandish otherness. The cornucopia of bat crap crazy that is the capital won’t allow you to both comment veering worthy of comment and hold a full time job, which is just as well as the sort of person London appeals to is the inclusive, privacy-yearning, gently self-centered and most likely Guardian-reading wisecrack who could not see themselves living anywhere else, barring the nice parts of New York or possibly Singapore, depending on one’s natural aptitude in language and degree of jaundice.

Words fail me

It occurs to me – and I’m certain to many others – that this relativism, live and let live attitude itself is highly discriminating against those of us whose favourite pastimes include the investigation, if not ridicule, of the other. Just like relativism itself is tyrannically absolutist, the cultural diktats of those insisting on the wonders of mixing and matching are no less severe. Emboldened by this, perhaps it isn’t entirely forbidden to consider what, if any, measures might be appropriate to bear upon the discussion of cultural comparisons.

I will take it for granted that everyone will defend to the last breath their own family, faith and fatherland whatever form these take. For it matters not a jot whether a vegan lesbian single mother, an Alaskan lumberjack and a part-time butcher, a boutique maiden on King’s road or a chieftain of a tribe in deepest darkest forests of Rhodesia: our common humanity expresses itself in many ways, but no other is as strong as the need to be right about our basic, most fundamental and closely-held beliefs. And these themselves vary from universalist demagoguery to the absolute rule of a modern day paterfamilias, insistent that the household is run a particular way lest the heavens collapse upon us all. The flower-hatted ladies insisting on equal opportunities for the least equal are no less guilty than are the hand-chopping caliphs; the rationalisations can rely on considerations of public hygiene or the universal declaration of rights, there is little difference.

(It is perhaps opportune at this junction to highlight no value judgement is being made between the chieftain and the Islington social worker. Not yet anyway.)

Narrowing down our gaze to evaluations of cultures, a multitude of categories make themselves available. We could consider aspects such as education, advancement of science, promotion of the life of the intellect and deference to wisdom. Or we might consider material wealth, well being, levels of nourishment or indicators of health in the lowest quadrant of the society. Nothing stops us from considering military prowess, ability to project power and negotiate with others cultures/countries from a position of advantage and privilege. And by making the criteria even more specific (and to highlight the point I am making to caricaturial proportions) we might as well considering whether our subject abides by the Noahide laws, is shariah compliance, health and safety conscious or what the levels of discoverable female beauty in the population average are.

Jean-Paul himself

Sartre writes interestingly about the nature of decision-making and the human condition, the solitary state in which we find ourselves. No one can make our life choices for us; even when asking advice we have already prejudged the advice giver or the weight we put on the guidance received. Similarly our choices of the measuring yard employed for considering cultural differences, relative goodness/badness or any other value-laden aspect of comparison say more about ourselves than the cultures under microscope. But why should that stop anyone? It requires a level of insecurity only a multicultural mantra of perfect relativism could instil in a person to refuse from making such judgements. I hold my preference for roast beef over fish cakes, freedom to deprivation of liberty, blue to any shade of purple very close to my heart indeed.

The trivial examples are not to imply the preferences are irrational, accidental or unconsidered. They’re not based solely on personal tastes, though that can’t be considered an invalid basis for preference, just not one that easily avails in a collective effort of prioritisation. (Suggesting everyone within the borders of Westminster council wear blue jumpers is qualitatively different from believing everyone should be entitled to integrity of life, where the latter contains more than just rights to wear whatever jumper. )

For ease of progress, let’s assume “culture” renders itself available for analysis by way of sufficient monolithicism at the level at which we whose to observe and compare (e.g. Japanese culture, or cultural conventions in the UK, or – horribile dictu – lifestyle in Italy.

Notwithstanding all the missing prolegomena, apologies and excuses, it might be instructive to think of (arbitrarily) four categories to choose and consider the results. No doubt one’s own preferences will constitute the ultimate judgement on the effectiveness of the measures. What would the results be, if we considered four rather familiar sounding, even lofty ideals to measure societal/cultural/lifestyle supremacy.

Set One – called

Ex Tabula

1. Value placed on human life
2. Personal and corporate honesty, truthfulness
3. Integrity and protection of private ownership
4. Treatment of the elderly, weakest members of society

Set Two – called

Ex Oriente

1. Obedience and loyalty – viz. State, family, employment
2. Filial piety, duties towards one’s family piously performed
3. Civic virtues (respect for the constitution of the state, partaking in military service etc)
4. Conformity with tradition

Set Three – called

Ex Impietate

1. Extension of allegiance, support and love to fellow citizens
2. Denying or reversing above qualities for ‘non-citizens’
3. Conforming to cultural homogeneity (speech, outfit, outlook and creed)
4. The consumption of wonderful curries

Have a go. See if you can subject a couple of your preconceptions to the test and put a couple of cultures to this trial. See how Athens fairs against Sparta, Britain against Cuba or how the modern Milanese fair against their ancestors of renaissance times. And once the fun has ended, consider what and in which order would go on your list, perhaps less flippantly restricted and constructed. Are there values which you would never want to appear on your list? What sort of a person would it make one who considers all similar metrics equal in value?

Undoubtedly, more on cultural imperialism coming soon. Until then, enjoy the Christmastide!

P.s. Apologies for the piss poor formatting. Who knew the iPad was so inflexible!

How about you try this around your neck?!

The pleasure of a visit is only enhanced by the contrast of the civil, bubbly conversation one hears when entering from the windy, wet early autumn night. Anticipation is in the air.

Niobe is obscure, forgotten and previously unseen in Britain. At three and a half hours it’s also somewhat daunting in its likeness to a marathon. It is also, according to musicologists far cleverer than me, a bridge between the Venetian and the authentically baroque. I’ve been promised a classical plot, a sorceress and a pagan priest – what could go wrong?

Colonnades and style - Rome's got it all!

A few days in Rome is enough to allow the spirit to breathe. I used to visit much more regularly, but any opportunity must now be cherished. The long walks around the forum, daily visits to the Vatican and plentiful gelato all put you in mind – well, the long walks do anyway – of Cicero’s ponderous, peripathetic tendencies to ruminate and expel. It’s time for some expelling.
I took with me Teilhard de Chardin’s censured, posthumous and really rather heavy-going The Phenomenon of Man. OK, so I cheated and started reading earlier in the week. As the Pope is visiting London, someone has to take care of Rome so I’ve escaped and, sharing in the pain of a long line of guardians of orthodoxy, thought I’d read something that will provoke a righteous fury. It’s been all too long since I was filled with some.

Pere Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit imbued with the spirit of the 70’s. However, oddly enough he finished the book in the 1930’s and it wasn’t until over a decade later that the mimeographs, letters and other provocations printed and circulated were embellished with the magnum opus itself. It had a monitum slapped on it the moment its spread was made obvious to the Holy Office – early 1960’s, to be precise.

I read it with interest. Having waded through the Hymn to the Universe in my undergraduate years, I wasn’t unfamiliar with the good Father’s main interests and despite possessing the equivalent of a blood hound’s snout in matters of orthodoxy, never found his writings to be particularly problematic. Two fears emerge: firstly, perhaps the sands of time have shifted so as to make heresy common place. The second one is more distressing – perhaps I hadn’t understood what I’d read.

The argument is overwhelmingly expansive, if not complex. As a war hero, priest, theologian but mainly – perhaps a little oddly – as a palaeontologist, Teilhard de Chardin seems to want to re-apply Darwin rather than re-writing the evolutionary theory. He sees the whole history of the world as a convergence, an upwards movement from the very beginning of the world (which he calls the Alpha) all the way to the emergence of homo sapiens and beyond. Interestingly, his discussion doesn’t sharpen on the mechanism of natural selection, but rather on the reality that the process seems to uncover. Step by step, the order of complexity in the universe increases, beginning from the first moments where the only common level consists of energy, rising into the organisation of atoms and then into cellular complexes, with life as a highest principle. All the way through to man, the complexity of the outputs increases and as the self-reflecting genus man constitutes a new unity, that of the thinking mind which we all possess.

As an aside, it’s an interesting parallel between the metaphysical cogitations of Teilhard de Chardin and the ethical principles of unity of humanity (or common humanity). We talk of a common understanding, a common basis, a common humanity that defines our moral obligations and duties towards each other. The metaphysical idea that forming a unity through the capacity of reflective thought, as a step among others (energy, materiality, life) constitutes a strong bridge to the ethical.

The book continues on the convergence of the universe into a more highly-linked, cooperative, superior state of intellect that has echoes of the Aristotelian in it. Everything tends towards greater complexity, further consciousness, ever increasing sociological coherence. There is a wondrous feeling of ease and common-sense as you read his words, the sweet honey that traps the mind so easily – and for a moment the mind is captured by the image. The ultimate object (the Omega) is not a forceful point of conflation but a tendency we can gesture at, never seemingly able to reach.

Perhaps the most telling episode in the reception of Teilhard de Chardin’s works was a few years ago when Benedict XVI managed to make a positive reference to the more theological aspects of our man’s writings  – a most unexpected context to hear praise for the cosmological meditations of a once-censured author.

If you’ve ever read Umberto Eco’s Focault’s Pendulum, you’ll be familiar with Abulafia’s abilities to mix contexts and create a narrative that jumps with great facility between topics, persons, even centuries in an attempt to decipher the complexity of history. The French style of Teilhard de Chardin is evocative of this, with the constant use of neologisms and a generated feel of isolation. The author started writing the piece whilst in virtual exile in China, so perhaps this isn’t altogether surprising, but it remains a stylistic burden as well as a characteristic more familiar to a novel rather than a piece of non-fiction. The inability to communicate through adopted language can be either of the two: the authentic expression of genius, unwilling to be shackled by established language, or an attempt (conscious or unconscious) to generate complexity that in fact cannot bear out scrutiny.

I remain slightly agnostic where Teilhard de Chardin sits. Among the most important authors of science and metaphysics or with the novelists whose attempts to create a dystopian picture thrills and rouses the mind. Alas, no righteous fury, perhaps a bit annoyance at the all-encompassing yet unfocused treatment of certain areas. It wasn’t without reason that the Holy Office censured his writings, though never sent for publishing by the author. Not being a professional inquisitor or a biologist, I won’t mind bringing him up at a dinner where such minds might take the bait and inform me more. I’ll be sure to share.

Sant'Uffizio

It’s not an obsession to repeatedly seek out familiar excellence, just like enjoying the same vista hundreds of times hardly constitutes compulsive walking routes going home from the South.

Though Wren was perfectly capable of embodying the nuanced religious sensitivity in architecture, St Paul’s cathedral had always left me a little cold. The closest thing to it I can think of is the marble marvel at Piazza Venezia in Rome: it certainly amazes with its execution, but stops at leaving you moved. Yet I choose, day in and day out to walk past St Paul’s as the combination of the elongated view from the footbridge articulates the dome in a beautiful way. As an extra added bonus, you get to turn your back at that hideous monstrosity, the Tate Modern.

Yesterday was a superb day. Mostly stress free, gentle weather, promise of a pint in the sun followed by Dido and Aeneas at St Paul’s Covent Garden. Now, I’m perfectly aware that I’ve seen Purcell’s masterpiece multiple times before, and even written a few words about it, but the opportunity arose ad I grasped it, dragging an old friend with me.

Aided by a little sample of the gifts of Bacchus, we went into that hollow-feeling Protestant sanctuary where the queen apparently used to go for choral matins. Fascinating factoid, no? This little St Paul’s was tarted up to host a number of scantily dressed Carthaginian ladies and a bunch of sailors for a splendid pair-up. And splendid it was.

The music was amazingly well executed and rather clever. Obsessively I’ve been listening to a recording from the 90′s of this masterpiece, and it was an utter joy to hear some fresh interpretations of the score.

The singing was solid, diction excellent  and because the last performance of it I saw was at the ROH, the choreography was striking. The Royal Ballet injected Purcell’s story – during those painfully long instrumental bits – with the most abstract, unwelcoming and outright zany dance sequences that would make any man feel squeamish. It’s not even the largesse in showing of the human form, but the utterly incongruous convulsions that accompanied it that made the ROH production so painful. Not so with the Iris Theatre.

I’m no enthusiast for dance performances, and largely think they have no place in the opera, but Purcell requires some gapfills and last night’s performance dealt with them with honour. The three witches were superb, the sailors avoided the almost mandatory air of campness with their dignities full intact and the haunting coda for the second shipwreck was just excellent.

Dido’s voice was very baroque, perhaps a little harsh to begin with but hey – so was her state of affairs! The warmth shone through later and her rejection of Aeneas, despite herself with the decisive “away, away” were an absolute joy.

I was, initially, wary of Aeneas. He seemed too lofty for his own good. But the more I thought about it, and the further the storyline evolved, I became convinced. His delivery, mostly even and always keeping to the air of princely status, was certainly in keeping with the Virgilian epic: pius Aeneas all the way.

I enjoyed the chorus and wished that the excellent colours of The Sorceress’ voice would have been put to even better use, with a little less holding back and a few notches more towered the deranged. But in perfect fairness, even the low, dark notes were expertly attacked. The choir too was admirable, with special recognition due to the witch-like interjections and a jolly, even if slightly affected sailor song.

The night ended with dinner but no more booze – Purcell had provided inebriation enough for the night. And that’s saying something coming from me.

Sure a few plays from Shakespeare will cheer you up or an ancient play might help you reach catharsis. A quick read of a few lines of Newton might make you feel better about wasting so much time studying calculus at school and reading a trashy Bronte novel will distract you for a while. I am, however, more concerned about books that engage you by causing authentic aporia, in the Greek way. Lines of text that force you to sit back and re-evaluate a position you’ve comfortably slumped into, be it due sheer laziness or because you recall that once you thought something through and settled on an answer. How many of these can you think of? How many concepts authentically cause you concern as you reassess them?

Ethics seems to be an easy answer. Technological advancement brings us to muddied waters on individuation, protection of life and the quality of mercy employed in euthanasia. Tick.

Politics, a sub-category of ethics. Considering the state, how far should it go in meddling in the lives of its citizens. Is mob rule really better than enlightened tyranny? Tick.

Relationships. Does size really matter? Is my ass too big for this relationship (as he has no place for a donkey, let alone the emotional baggage I carry in the form of the – note the biblical allusion – oxen)? Tick.

Yawn. Something slightly more fundamental, something that precedes the considerations of how things ought to operate is surely a question of what is there that operates.

Metaphysics is a hugely difficult place to dip into which is why we largely act like the donkey, expecting the next day to be largely the same as the previous one. And mostly, the donkey gets it right. What really can be said to really exist? Is there a God? Are there other sentient beings than my good self? Cartesian confusion about the mind in a vat. Tick.

None of these struck me today, as I was walking along Charlotte street, sated with a delicious luncheon and some perfectly adequate red. Instead, my mind was cast to Plato.

I quite enjoy reading the occasional dialogue – I think I’ve mused upon Charmides in the past – but the Republic seems to keep popping into my mind. It’s the combination of Meno, Republic (Book V, ignore the stuff about beds in X for now) and Parmenides that keep you up at night.

The Forms are a fundamental part of Plato’s depiction of human psychology, and essential to the process or act of knowing. They are attractive as they provide a stable anchor, a daily reference point. A chair remains a chair from t₁ to t₂. We all seem to know what a chair is, so we have access to these ideas. We use them constantly, by way of referring to abstractions. Our mind doesn’t need a specific chair when we’re told to find a seat in an unfamiliar surrounding. It all seems to make perfect sense, and yet the theory is described as a honey-ridden trap.

Multiplying the proverbial explanantia always a dangerous road to go down, as the Razor states. But the explanans here feels very attractive. Perhaps complexity of the proposed metaphysical machinery is less of an issue for the mind that’s already familiar with the notion of ‘ideas’, their perfection and immutable being. One can certainly see the attraction to monotheist who longs for an omnipotent God.

I’d suggest you pick up a copy of the Republic, place it in your bathroom and when you’re next casting away your wordly worries in a warm, potentially bubbly bath, contemplate on the idea of the bath, by virtue of which a bath has its bathness. What informs the mind that it is bath and not a kettle of luke warm water you’ve managed to lower yourself into. Contemplate on why it is that you’ll be able to spot a bath from a mile away, and would never exchange one for a shower. I really do find hot showers don’t work as well when contemplating the supernal realm of the Forms.

Young Cicero, probably studying for his professional qualifications

 There’s a great passage in Horace’s Ars Poetica that I’ve recently perused, that spurred me to write a few lines:

indignor quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus;
uerum operi longo fas est obrepere somnum.

or

And yet I’m displeased too when great Homer nods,
Somnolence may steal over a long work it’s true.

Horace’s guidance is to poets – on how to grasp the reader’s imagination, how to sustain the interest in a poem that should not be too long, florid or full of preaching. Sage advice! People’s attention spans are short, they don’t – in general – like long constructions of painful prose let alone tedious tyranny of the tautological in verse (alliteration, however, is allowed).

After my Homeric nod, not so much messing up my story line as the regularity of its production, I apologise and promise to do better.  Maybe something along the lines of military poetry, as it feels both timely and interesting. Need to head ad fontes but isn’t that what my kind does best?

Two socially accepted pieces of advice seem to be totally lost on me. Firstly, never mix booze. Secodly, don’t talk about religion and politics. Both featured heavily last night and the result is a headache of momentous proportions combined with that nasty nagging feeling that you may have slagged off someone’s deepest held beliefs and values.

So if for a paragon of self restraint all this can happen after a few beers, gins and glasses of perfectly acceptable house red, what will become of Britain with its yobs and young alcoholics once they turn 18 and partake in the fora of a civilised society. I predict a riot.

Through modern Medicine, witchcraft and engineering te beer is very cold indeed. I plan to return amathyst coloured, with a gum and a gently receded hairline: apparently it’s de rigour. Most of all, however, I plan to return with my relax-o-metre fully charged and up for whatever my brand new job requires of me. It’s a wonderful feeling, moving on to something you’ve been looking forward to, but being torn away from the hamster wheel temporarily into the African sun that shines aloft. Yes, aloft.

In this slow, newly decreased tempo where even my blood pressure seems to have gone down mysteriously, I’m spending hours deciding where to have dinner. Gordon Ramsay’s (not TM’ed) was meaty. Was was the Spanish place last night. A small, cheap pub with iced beer brought relief too and a small Finnish pub looking over the sea was full of consolation. Relieved and consoled, more beer beckons. What would I without the cold nectar of Olympus? Sober up and realise the absolute lack of any intellectual incentives? Saints preserve us.

Leaving aside the shameless (presumably French) geriatrics who bare all, I am happy to say the horarium of boozing, over-eating and baking in the Sun is religiously observed by all alike. I nearly slipped into writing something along the lines of regardless of class or colour, but the clientele is perhaps one of the most homogenous assemblages I’ve ever had the pleasure of sharing a hotel with: lobster-red and common as muck. Nothing to be sniffed at, however, as the hours of frivolity are a most welcome departure from work, rain and darkness of London.

I will now return back to the pool, but will undoutedly pen something suitably appropriate about the Mathematician’s lapses (for they are many) or my own observations in this melting pot of human flesh. It’s very hot indeed, but that’s why we’re here. Over and out.