"Man is fundamentally an animal. Animals, as distinct from man, are not machine-like, not sadistic; their societies, within the same species, are incomparably more peaceful than those of man. The basic question, then is: What has made the animal, man, degenerate into a machine?" Wilhelm Reich (Mass Psychology of Fascism) "From the perspective of art and aesthetics, the dialectic of nature and history is as much the spur to art's self-development (the history of nature become form, of materials become second nature) as it is the survival of that "fear of the overwhelming" once felt before the "overpowering wholeness and undifferentiatedness of nature" but which has now migrated into … [Read more...]
Archives for January 2022
The Postcard from Aruba
January 7, 2022 by 12 Comments
"In the truth content (of art), or in its absence, aesthetic and social critique are one." Theodor Adorno (Introduction to the Sociology of Music) "Nowadays, if we can boast of having at our disposal scientific knowledge and technology that used to exist only in the phantasies of magicians, we must allow that, since the Renaissance, our capacity to work directly with our own phantasms, if not with those of others, has diminished. The relationship between the conscious and the unconscious has been deeply altered and our ability to control our own processes of imagination reduced to nothing." Ioan P. Couliano (Eros and Magic in the Renaissance) "The electric light escapes attention as … [Read more...]
