Religious freedom
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Basically, give me Fr. Ted any day rather than a Bible-thumper.
S.J. Gould told some Catholic seminarians in Italy about the high percentage of creationists in America. They were absolutely astonished at such wilful ignorance.
Is it possible to rip art out of its political and cultural context and enjoy it for its aesthetics only? Can we listen to Wagner without acknowledging the racist and nationalist ideology that informed it and which it seeks to promulgate? Isn’t the purpose of art to communicate ideas and emotions? If the ideology that motivates some specific art work is reactionary shouldn’t we reject it however beautiful it might be?
I’m reading Eschenbach’s Parzival – what Wagner’s opera was based upon, and enjoying it.
Are you saying Wagner’s music won’t be enjoyed in socialism? What about Gregorian chant? Who is to tell me I am not to have access to medieval art or Catholic chant because of the horrors of the Albigensian Crusade and the burninf of heretics? Is a socialist society going to burn books and outlaw Wagner and the New Testament? I ask again, are you for the bulldozing of 12th century cathedrals and the Potala Palace or Nostre Dame? You don’t trust me to listen to the Greek Liturgy in case I rush out to lynch Jews? I have this news: i’m a socialist who will fight anyone wanting to destroy the things I love on the plea that pre-socialist society produced them.
Mao banned Beethoven and burned ancient art on the plea that they were bourgeois and feudal. I will always fight Bolshevism like that wherever I see it, and no one will dictate to me what I must like or dislike.
Like in the case of the Taliban’s destruction of the ancient Buddhist caves and Mao’s book and art burning, destruction is indicative of feelings of insecurity. Why would a socialist world feel insecure? What reason would it have for suppressing history or denying access to historical cultural material, in case people might be “corrupted” by it?
The only cultural activities that socialism will end, and forcibly if necessary, are activities that harm, kill and injure living beings.
The religious who will and do always oppose socialism are not the moderates who enjoy liturgical forms, rites and art, but the fanatics, like the fundamentalists, who reject history and are proud of their ignorance of it.
Are you sure that that’s the case? I thought Roman Catholics, Anglo-Catholics, Orthodox, Copts, Armenians and the various Middle Eastern churches, that go in for elaborate rituals, icons and incense swinging do not regard women as equal to men which is a basic socialist principle.
Ok, you like chants and incense as opposed to happy crappy stuff. Nothing wrong with that but why do you have to defend the those who practise it? (I hate to think what the words mean in Latin, Church Slavonic, Coptic or whatever)?
I remember at a Party social Steve Coleman once reciting the Declaration of Principles as a Gregorian chant. Sounded alright, as did the contents. I think there may also have been joss sticks burning.
I can enjoy chant, incense, medieval art and books, without subscribing to dogmas. Otherwise, you might as well say William Morris was wrong to love the Age of Chivalry, pictures of knights, etc.
We can bemoan Catholic views on women, but still let Catholics worship and attend Mass. Feminists needn’t attend. I say to those demanding that organisations like the Catholic Church change their structure, why should they? It’s their structure. Go found your own!
If they were burning women, i’d say they need to be restrained and stopped from doing so ASAP. But why should they have women bishops if they don’t want them? Let the protestor join the C of E or found her own organisation. Why be a Catholic if you don’t like Catholicism?And i’ve never had a Catholic try to convert me. Nor spout on about the Bible to me.
‘Who is to tell me I am not to have access to medieval art or Catholic chant because of the horrors of the Albigensian Crusade and the burninf of heretics? Is a socialist society going to burn books and outlaw Wagner and the New Testament? I ask again, are you for the bulldozing of 12th century cathedrals and the Potala Palace or Nostre Dame? You don’t trust me to listen to the Greek Liturgy in case I rush out to lynch Jews? I have this news: i’m a socialist who will fight anyone wanting to destroy the things I love on the plea that pre-socialist society produced them.’
TM – There you go again – you really are a master of the non sequitur and the creation of straw men. Who said anything about you not having access to certain art works or that they should be banned? My query is about the value of trying to divorce certain works of art from the ideological motivation for their creation and enjoying them purely aesthetically. Surely that merely renders them hollow and superficial – the stuff of contemporary ‘entertainment’.
One can draw in the medieval or Byzantine style and create illuminated books without believing in the myths portrayed and whilst understanding that the original art you base your work on was produced by a feudal society. One can still like that type of art. One can even draw panels showing Crusaders without supporting or condoning the Crusades.
Roman style Christ
Christmas card.
Scenes for Tristan and Isolda.
‘One can even draw panels showing Crusaders without supporting or condoning the Crusades.’
But that’s the only reason they exist at all – as propaganda condoning violence in the name of European hegemony.
The cathedrals have very good chambers to turn them into a discotheque
Except when you destroy and soil the art of the past you also insult and destroy the memory of the workers and artisans who created it. Socialism is to be the maturing of humanity, not the iconoclasm of angry lefties.
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