Today's Topics:
Re: Tim's herring
Tim's definition
Re: Tim's definition
SuperTips of Internet Marketing
Re: Tim's herring
Re: Ralph's first riddle
Re: Is William Blake A Political Writer?
Re: Is William Blake A Political Writer?
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Subject: Re: Tim's herring
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 1999 13:20:06 -0800
From: Raymond Peat
To: blake@albion.com
============
>By the way, the statement about right wing governments and art is a red
>herring and is very "20th Century centric". Fear of art is only really an
>issue in societies with some sort of mass media which can use art to spread
>ideas. Blake lacked anything like this, and in any case many of his target
>clients were aristocratic patrons! In any case, symbolic and satiric attacks
>against the establishment were fairly common in the Regency era, and broadly
>tolerated. More explicit sedition was another thing altogether.
>
>Tim
>
My recent comment about the political right wing taking art seriously was
made in response to the people who are currently trying to separate art
from politics, and who would like to limit Blake's political consciousness
to religious issues. My remark was topical, but the principle I referred
to was broadly historical. Blake appeared to be perfectly conscious of the
ways in which not just official censorship, but access to the official
exhibitions, and the official promulgation of styles in all the arts,
supported the Evil Empire, and oppressed people like him. The tastes of
the rich and the ruling classes were met by some painters who collaborated
in the destruction of art. After Blake, I don't know of anyone until David
Alfaro Siqueiros who so clearly understood the ways in which Money and
Emprire intervened in art.
Although Blake used the vocabulary of the religious dissenters, one of his
great contributions to culture was his understanding that the bad
theologies, and their
rationalist definition of matter, had been incorporated into the
enlightenment empiricisms and the natural philosophies and sciences.
Before Lenin, I don't think there was anyone who perceived the rationalism
that was hidden in the crude materialism of the sciences.
I wish that those who would Spiritualize Blake would discuss the term
"Nobodaddy," and explain how it fits into a dematerialized world.
Ray Peat
www.efn.org/~raypeat
To Nobodaddy
Why art thou silent & invisible
The Arts & Sciences are the Destruction of Tyrannies or Bad
Governments Why should A Good Government endeavour to Depress
What is its Chief & only Support
...art and science is fabricated for the purpose of destroying art.
It is the Greatest of Crimes to Depress True Art & Science
The Foundation of Empire is Art & Science...
... & obedient to Noblemens Opinions in Art & Science.
===============================
ndeeter
I wasn't intending to comment on Ralph's questions, just to suggest that
they deserve to be addressed in a warm-brained manner, rather than in the
usual manner of academic self-promotion.
>I'm not sure of what you mean by your terse statements nor how they
>address Ralph's questions. Likewise, I'm not sure how you are applying
>these Blakean Proverbs to your response.
>Ralph may often be guilty of being disrespectful, or even vulgar--and
>someone else's attitudes are simply no excuse for bad writing. But none
>can dispute that he consistently comes up with some extremely difficult
>and intriguing questions.
Disrespect and vulgarity aren't necessarily out of place in discussing Blake.
>Please do develop your arguments a little more.
Blake's was the most coherent criticism of the terrible theology hiding
within the "Enlightened" philosophies of Hume, Newton, Berkeley, that were
in service to empire and commerce.
>I take art very seriously, as do I'm sure all of us. Yet I am no
>right-winger. I think that politics has nothing to do with "taking art
>seriously" but rather with MAKING art seriously.
My point, and Blake's, was that the ruling class knows what it's doing when
it controls art and science and philosophy, and art is exactly where
political opposition makes its best contribution. My suggestion is that,
at present, there isn't much artistic opposition to the New World Order,
which is just old-fashioned Empire at its culmination.
>Your catalogue of quotes about Practice suggest something about the
>relationship between making art and a political application of that art,
>but I'm fuzzy on it and one thing I do not appreciate is fuzziness in
>writing.
I don't know what political application of art might be, application would
imply a separation, like a "fund-raising benefit."
>What exactly is this intellectual war you are talking about? How does
>Science, Art, and Politics participate in that? And how do these
>theoretical statements you pose at the beginning tie in with what Blake
>has said about politics?
I don't know what theoretical statements you refer to. Do you mean about
intellectual war? Since Blake tried to develop the idea extensively,
that's where the exactitude could be sought. The references in his works
to the philosophical categories that had governmental support in the 18th
century make it clear that they are the enemy in his mental war. For me,
mental war involves exposing the malevolent and stupid assumptions that
impose themselves through the operation of the big sciences, for the
benefit of the ruling classes.
>
>
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Subject: Tim's definition
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 1999 14:30:13 -0800
From: Raymond Peat
To: blake@albion.com
I think Tim's argument is doing an injustice to history, as much as to
Blake. If Blake used the vocabulary of 18th century songs of religious
dissent in attacking State and Class oppression, and therefore was
spiritual rather than political, then the people who sang christian hymns
while marching in the streets of the United States were primarily
interested in religion, and the communists among them were for the moment
no longer political revolutionists. That's no way to argue.
"So the quote above is
>not political, except in the sense that opposition to a political entity is
>a political act,"
To me, this is an astounding statement. Does it suggest that the writings
of Marx and Engels in themselves weren't unqualifiedly political?
"But in view of the fact he did nothing tangible to promote
>or implement his views, one has to say that if he was a political writer, he
>failed."
Don't most political writers fail? What's the point? Can you comfortably
and historically assert that Blake did "nothing tangible to implement his
views"? Are political pamphlets political only if they lead to revolutions?
"I can only assume that the misinterpretation of a quote with a clear and
blindingly obvious religious dissenting content is based on ignorance of the
history of religious dissent,"
"His adoption in our times is not because he has anything
>particularly new to say, but because he had the good fortune to have written
>a few things which had resonance with post war student politics",
"he appears
>to advocate free love"
Why is your interpretation of a certain passage blindingly obvious, while
you frame his advocacy of free love as an appearance? Robinson thought
Blake's advocacy was embarrassingly blatant.
>In any case, I think the answers to Ralph's questions are simple. He raises
>paradoxes based on his assumption that Blake used symbolic constructs to
>frame his political ideology and in fact had no spiritual objectives. The
>fact of the matter is that Blake actually believed what he said to have
>literal truth. If you apply this idea to what he said, even if you don't
>agree with him, the paradoxes vanish.
I think the historical approach to Blake's diction resolves the paradoxes
in favor of Ralph Dumain's suggested interpretation.
********
"And this is the manner of the Sons of Albion in their strength
They take the Two Contraries which are calld Qualities, with which
Every Substance is clothed, they name them Good & Evil
>From them they make an Abstract, which is a Negation
Not only of the Substance from which it is derived
A murderer of its own Body: but also a murderer
Of every Divine Member: it is the Reasoning Power
An Abstract objecting power, that Negatives every thing
This is the Spectre of Man: the Holy Reasoning Power
And in its Holiness is closed the Abomination of Desolation"
****
"Tell them to obey their Humanities, & not pretend Holiness;
When they are murderers: as far as my Hammer & Anvil permit
Go, tell them that the Worship of God, is honouring his gifts
In other men: & loving the greatest men best, each according
To his Genius: which is the Holy Ghost in Man; there is no other
God, than that God who is the intellectual fountain of Humanity;
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Subject: Re: Tim's definition
Date: Mon, 01 Mar 1999 08:11:01 +0000
From: timli@controls.eurotherm.co.uk (Tim Linnell)
To: blake@albion.com
> "So the quote above is
>>not political, except in the sense that opposition to a political entity is
>>a political act,"
>
>To me, this is an astounding statement. Does it suggest that the writings
>of Marx and Engels in themselves weren't unqualifiedly political?
The point is that the quote used to supply evidence of political engagement
was a very typical statement of purely RELIGIOUS dissent, made by many
before and after Blake and SPECIFICALLY listed the grievances of
non-conformists. I can only repeat once more that because of the established
nature of the Church, acting against it was implicitly an act against the
state, but the primary aim was overthrow of the religious hierarchy rather
than of the government. I repeat: this is a simple matter of historical
fact, and anyone willing to shut up long enough to open a history book can
verify it for themselves.
I'm not sure why you bring in Marx and Engels, since no-one would deny that
their work was wholly politically derived, even to the extent that Marx
famously noted the negative effect religious belief had on the will of the
populace to rise up against their oppressors, which I would argue Blake
suffered from to some degree. Although again, I stress, Blake lived neither
in a world of pure politics, pure religious dissent, or pure spirituality.
The attempts to polarize him in this way are actually coming from (I suspect
unconciously), from others.
My (historical) view of Blake is far more complex, but any scan of his work
will show that the spiritual element of his life and work was overriding.
>"But in view of the fact he did nothing tangible to promote
>>or implement his views, one has to say that if he was a political writer, he
>>failed."
>Don't most political writers fail? What's the point? Can you comfortably
>and historically assert that Blake did "nothing tangible to implement his
>views"? Are political pamphlets political only if they lead to revolutions?
I thought about this yesterday, and realised that if one used the same
argument to ask whether Blake was a poet or artist, one would also conclude
he had failed, which is evident nonsense. So I withdraw the assertion in
this form. However the point is that he lived in a time of great political
activity, in which many of his contemporaries were very great political
writers. In this company, he was a very minor player, but this is
principally because his aims and influences lay elsewhere. His 'political'
importance has been overplayed in recent years, because his spiritual
baggage is somewhat embarrassing to rationalists who instinctively like his
work for other reasons (Incidentally, Ralph's closing statement makes this
very clear - he has a great deal invested personally in his model of Blake,
and will fight by fair means or foul to sustain it).
>"I can only assume that the misinterpretation of a quote with a clear and
>blindingly obvious religious dissenting content is based on ignorance of the
>history of religious dissent,"
> "His adoption in our times is not because he has anything
>>particularly new to say, but because he had the good fortune to have written
>>a few things which had resonance with post war student politics",
> "he appears
>>to advocate free love"
>
>Why is your interpretation of a certain passage blindingly obvious, while
>you frame his advocacy of free love as an appearance? Robinson thought
>Blake's advocacy was embarrassingly blatant.
Robinson was a proto-Victorian, and had enormous hang-ups about sex (the
same is true of Samuel Palmer, incidentally). However the late 18th and
early 19th Century was in fact a period of wide ranging sexual freedom and a
time of experimentation. Blake's advocacy of free love was a consequence of
this, and also his wish for freedom from the 'Net of Urizen' (and perhaps
also from a desire to indulge himself, but he was rather discouraged by his
wife, understandably). But it was actually quite a minor part of his
philosophy as a whole, and rather blown out of proportion (and context) by
the adoption of poems like 'The garden of love' as student mantras in the
sixties. The point here is that Blake's apparent views on sex and politics
did not spark anything, but acted as a sort of confirmation to people who
had already had these sorts of ideas (which are in any case pretty universal
amongst the young) for themselves. It is always nice to have someone from a
generation preceding one's parents who agrees with you, particularly if he
also produces groovy pictures and poems. I think this is a large part (but
not all) of what happened in the sixties with Blake.
Anyway, in such cases, the elements which are less easy to reconcile with
the preconceived notions, such as the link to religious dissent, are either
not known in the first place, or quietly forgotten. The result is a rebirth
of Blake as an isolated and rather iconic figure from which all further
assumptions follow. It is difficult then to return to first principles and
place him back into a historical context which explains rather better his
motives and influences.
>I think the historical approach to Blake's diction resolves the paradoxes
>in favor of Ralph Dumain's suggested interpretation.
This may be your opinion, but how can you possibly argue this on the basis
of one quote and no context? I don't think even Ralph, who is an
extraordinarily perceptive critic and a very gifted writer, has managed to
do anything but list the paradoxes. You refuse even to consider the
historical context of religious dissent may have been a factor! The
"airhead's" (as opposed to what I might term the "windbags" on the other
side of the argument) would have a completely different interpretation of
your quote below as having a spiritual connotation, presumably claiming it
as an attack on the corruption of worldly religion. I would add the the
'reasoning power' (rationalism) is something that Blake clearly rails
against, but is a major factor in promoting the radical politics of the era.
Tim
>
>
>
>********
>
>"And this is the manner of the Sons of Albion in their strength
>They take the Two Contraries which are calld Qualities, with which
>Every Substance is clothed, they name them Good & Evil
>>From them they make an Abstract, which is a Negation
>Not only of the Substance from which it is derived
>A murderer of its own Body: but also a murderer
>Of every Divine Member: it is the Reasoning Power
>An Abstract objecting power, that Negatives every thing
>This is the Spectre of Man: the Holy Reasoning Power
>And in its Holiness is closed the Abomination of Desolation"
>****
>"Tell them to obey their Humanities, & not pretend Holiness;
>When they are murderers: as far as my Hammer & Anvil permit
>Go, tell them that the Worship of God, is honouring his gifts
>In other men: & loving the greatest men best, each according
>To his Genius: which is the Holy Ghost in Man; there is no other
>God, than that God who is the intellectual fountain of Humanity;
>
>
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Subject: SuperTips of Internet Marketing
Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 04:29:25 EST
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Subject: Re: Tim's herring
Date: Mon, 01 Mar 1999 08:47:09 +0000
From: timli@controls.eurotherm.co.uk (Tim Linnell)
To: blake@albion.com
>to was broadly historical. Blake appeared to be perfectly conscious of the
>ways in which not just official censorship, but access to the official
>exhibitions, and the official promulgation of styles in all the arts,
>supported the Evil Empire, and oppressed people like him.
This sounds rather like uninformed reading from the hymn sheet to me. Anyone
who takes the time to look at 18th and early 19th Century political cartoons
will realise how little practical censorship existed in the arts.
Furthermore, it is a little unfair on institutions like the Royal Academy,
who provided free training for artists on the basis of their talent alone.
It is true that the hangers at RA exhibitions effectively created trends in
artistic taste, but they were taken from amongst the artists themselves, and
their motivation was aesthetic, not in any sense political (Blake certainly
was represented at the RA from time to time). Incidentally, from the 1850s,
the function or arbitor of taste was pretty much ceded to (capitalist)
dealers, who in fact still do it, and art has become almost wholly commerce
as a result.
> The tastes of
>the rich and the ruling classes were met by some painters who collaborated
>in the destruction of art.
>After Blake, I don't know of anyone until David
>Alfaro Siqueiros who so clearly understood the ways in which Money and
>Emprire intervened in art.
In what sense was art destroyed? I'd argue that the plein air naturalism of
the early 1800s was in fact a renewal of art, springing from the traditions
of Poussin and Gainsborough, and the true destruction of art did not take
place until well after Blake's death, when the industrial revolution had
created an affluent middle class who wished for decorative and sentimentally
accesible objects for their front parlours. But then I suspect you read
different books than me.
Tim
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Subject: Re: Ralph's first riddle
Date: Mon, 01 Mar 1999 10:34:40 +0000
From: timli@controls.eurotherm.co.uk (Tim Linnell)
To: blake@albion.com
>>research. I must say though that I am not convinced by his assessment of
>Blake's writings and their reception in the 1960s. (And then by whom? We
>are not all as flatline about Blake as Allen Ginsberg.)
No, clearly there has always been a class of people who are prepared to
study Blake in a reasonably systematic and informed way. But I do think that
a lot of what caused his wider re-emergence was less soundly based - mass
acceptance of art is inevitably largely the result of the vagaries of
fashion, which are in turn usually triggered by issues external to the
artist himself. We are talking about the generation which put Blake pictures
on Led Zeppelin album covers, read Tolkien, and called themselves elves,
after all, so I would argue that there was a very superficial element to the
ingredients of their cultural soup. But this is all a bit of a side issue,
except as a demonstration of the importance of context in any text: I would
have deleted the paragraph on re-reading the contribution (and would have
altered some of the arguments elsewhere), but was in a hurry to go and give
my son his lunch.
>Is Blake's conception of the overturning of baptism, marriage, etc., limited
>to this?
No, but his choice of things he wishes to overturn is significant in terms
of the argument in hand, because it is limited to instruments of established
religion. He specifically does not wish to overturn the State in this quote,
or even modify its behaviour other than in a precisely restricted area.
>>both writings and art. He seems a man ahead of his time, but really I don't
>>think he was, as I said.
>
>Decidedly unconvincing.
Again, this is an argument sufficiently unusual to merit a bit of
development, but my son was shouting "Dadda Yum Yum" quite loudly at this
point. In terms of his role as visionary seer, Blake places himself squarely
in the tradition of St Theresa, and others in the past who have acted as a
divinely inspired messenger. In his moral outlook and libertarianism,
coloured as I would argue by traditions of religious dissent, he is
distinctly OF his time. Artistically, he looked back to the Gothic and
Renaissance art. But I would qualify these assertions by saying that his
empathic concerns for the oppressed (however this oppression is manifested)
are universal, which is to say that they are of no time in particular, and
as a highly intelligent and perceptive man he got to the crux of things
better than most. As such, he does have a message for our times, but this
message has, is, and will be restated many times by others, precisely
because of its universal nature. It is not this that makes Blake the giant
figure he undoubtably is.
>One may have all the contempt for the outward creation one wishes; one must
>still live in it or slit one's wrists. This attitude demands psychological
>examination. Did Blake actually preach that everyone must acquiesce to
>intolerable conditions? Didn't his alleged disregard for his earthly
>existence become pronounced only when he got so old he already had one foot
>in the grave?
Blake had many schemes to make his earthly fortune, and when he had the
means he helped others to the limits of what he could afford. He did live in
the real world, and do what he could to improve the condition of those
living in it on a very practical level. Artistic or spiritual detachment is
a luxury for those with the means to afford to be able to do it (for example
Samuel Palmer at Shoreham), or as a self destructive impulse by those who
really are detached (for example Van Gogh). There is of course the amusing
story of Catherine placing an empty plate on the table when it was time for
Blake to do some copy engraving in order to earn the money to provide food.
But Blake's primary thrust was towards matters spiritual: 'I can only
believe that every death is an improvement of the state of the departed'
(may be misquoted, as it's from memory). And there is no doubt this was what
he thought.
I'm not going to attempt to counter the ritual cries of reductionism in
other posts (not Ralph's) except to say that consideration of the full range
of Blake's influences and considering him not as an isolated figure but in
the full context of the socio-political environment in which he lived is not
really reductionist. In many senses it leads to a more complex picture of
the man and his work. However I concede that it is also important to measure
the importance of his work and ideas against the different context of the
body of related work produced by others. The question here though is not
what Blake said specifically, but what was said collectively, and what
measure of truth lies within it however and from whatever source the work
was derived.
Anyway, the context of this post is 'done during teabreak before returning
to do some work', so I must close.
Tim
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Subject: Re: Is William Blake A Political Writer?
Date: Mon, 01 Mar 1999 08:45:54 -0500
From: Robert Anderson
To: blake@albion.com
What authorizes the innocence version as Blake's view, as opposed to being
an innocent view? Is not the fact of writing about the material conditions
in such stark language political engagement? It has been some time since I
read them, but I think both Thompson's and Mee's books on Blake's religious
circles--to say nothing of Erdman's _Prophet Against Empire_, whose very
title articulates this connection--bring home the point that the separation
between the religious and the political realms did not carry the same force
that it does today.
Rob Anderson
At 08:27 AM 2/26/1999 +0000, you wrote:
>
>
>>I don't think anybody is playing arbitrary games with definitions or
>>willfully stretching the definition of the political beyond recognition.
>>Notice your key word above, "working", (my emphasis added): the implication
>>seems to be that working is acting, engaging in overt political activity,
>>not writing. But Blake was a writer and artist, who took definite positions
>>as a writer if not as an activist on issues of hunger, poverty, tyranny,
>>imperialism, slavery, and much more besides. How you could interpret this
>>as indifferent to improvement of the human condition in the material world
>>is beyond me.
>
>The Chimney Sweep pair is an excellent example of what I am attempting to
>say here. Yes there is social injustice, but the solution is the divine
>light, not political upheaval. Blake, at least as an intelligent,
>compassionate and empathic young man, is an occasional witness to the evils
>of society, but a more or less passive one in any material sense. As he grew
>older, his concerns lay increasingly elsewhere and indeed came to accept his
>own rejection with absolute indifference. His positions were being stated by
>others - the Baptist Church as an example was a bastion against slavery and
>in promoting the equality of man (before God) - and in many cases were more
>effectively put forward and in ways that acted to instigate actual change,
>which Blake's work never did because it was too obscure and introspective
>(the killing joke here is the adoption of 'Jerusalem' as a nationalist
anthem).
>
>I have no time to develop this, but this is the crux of the argument.
>
>
>Tim
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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Subject: Re: Is William Blake A Political Writer?
Date: Mon, 01 Mar 1999 08:58:58 -0500
From: Robert Anderson
To: blake@albion.com
What is a political effect? Would Godwin pass this test? Is it possible
that "An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice" not be a political book
because it did not shape policy?
Rob Anderson
At 11:23 PM 2/26/1999 EST, you wrote:
>
>In a message dated 2/26/99 10:22:09 AM, john.evans@yale.edu writes:
>
><<
>I feel like we're being a little unfair to good William, and holding him
>up to standards to which he doesn't belong. I am remembering for instance
>the comparison to Thomas Payne. Well, clearly Blake is not the political
>writer that he was, or that any number of contemporaries were, as has been
>much discussed. >>
>
>OK. Maybe I haven't been paying enough attention to this line of discussion,
>but it seems to me that the comments that have been offered thus far have
been
>limited to considerations of whether Blake addressed political issues. It
>strikes me that, if Blake is to be considered a "political writer," he
must be
>considered to have had a political effect. As far as I know, he had none to
>speak of.
>
>Am I missing something?
>
>GaryG
>
>
>