skandalon

art poem poet history united_states statue_of_liberty liberty representation immigration lost loser land hope community hobbes leviathan monster politic novel author communication

✖ Via Library of Congress ― From Haven to Home: “The New Colossus” [titled “Sonnet” in notebook] by Emma Lazarus, 1883, manuscript poem, bound in journal.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The Statue of Liberty as a female counterpart of Hobbes’ Leviathan (Lazarus’ poem is mentioned in Auster’s novel Leviathan); the United-States as the land of the “wretched refuse”. Is this the “community of those who are without community” (“all of us, from now on” writes Jean-Luc Nancy) ? Read more about Lazarus’ poem on wikipedia.

About the exhibition From Haven to Home:

From Haven to Home is a Library of Congress exhibition marking 350 years of Jewish life in America. The exhibition features more than two hundred treasures of American Judaica from the collections of the Library of Congress, augmented by a selection of important loans from other cooperating cultural institutions. (more)

• Jul 12, 2010 link notes tagged: art poem poet history United-States Statue of Liberty liberty representation immigration lost loser land hope community Hobbes Leviathan monster politic novel author communication

The ‘dark’ writer of the bourgeoisie, such as Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Mandeville, always had an appeal for Max Horkheimer, who was influenced by Schopenhauer early in his career. These writers still thought in a constructive way; and there were lines leading from their disharmonies to Marx’s social theory. The ‘black’ writer of the bourgeoisie, foremost among them the Marquis de Sade and Nietzsche, broke these ties. In their blackest book, Dialectic of Enlightenment, Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno joined with these writers to conceptualize the Enlightenment’s process of self-destruction. On their analysis, it is no longer possible to place hope in the liberating force of enlightenment. Inspired by Benjamin’s now ironic hope of the hopeless, they still did not want to relinquish the now paradoxical labor of conceptualization. We no longer share this mood, this attitude. And yet under the sign of a Nietzsche revitalized by poststructuralism, moods and attitudes are spreading that are confusingly like those of Horkheimer and Adorno. I would like to forestall this confusion.

✖ Via The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity by Jürgen Habermas, MIT Press, 1996, p. 106

Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Mandeville are “dark” writers (why?). Marquis de Sade and Nietzsche? Even darker : they are the “black” writers of the bourgeoisie. And Habermas? Habermas must be white.

• Jul 07, 2010 link notes tagged: communication modernity philosophy Habermas Hobbes critic critical theory poststructuralism Nietzsche Sade Machiavelli Mandeville Adorno Horkheimer hope confusion Enlightenment

When I watch documentaries about the Vietnam War era in the United States, (tonight’s, ★★☆), I’m filled with both wonder and hopelessness: wonder at the sheer scale of the protests, civic disobedience, and government criminality of the time, but hopelessness that we still have all of the same problems today, systemically unable to prevent repeating the same mistakes in every generation. We have new presidents executing new wars against new enemies. Our right-wing zealots condemn new protests as unpatriotic, and they discriminate against a new group of people on the basis of a different quality they were born with. During this generation, these wars are likely to end in effective stalemates and this persecuted class of people is likely to gain equal legal rights and gradual acceptance by many of those formerly ignorant and hateful toward them. The wars will be seen as tremendous historical blunders in retrospect, and the memories of the intolerance will be a permanent embarrassment of our society. It’s the same old bullshit. And in another 20 years, the next generation will create their own war profiteering and intolerance, having learned nothing from us.

✖ Via Marco Arment

In 1944, Theodor W. Adorno may have experienced a similar feeling when he wrote:

“The almost insoluble task consists of refusing to allow oneself to be rendered dumb, either by the power of others or by one’s own powerlessness.” (translated by Dennis Redmond, 2005)

This relfexion, along with many others, were first published in 1951 as part of his book Minima Moralia: Reflections From Damaged Life. The full English translation can be found here.

Marco Arment is the lead developer of Tumblr and creator of Instapaper.

• Jan 15, 2010 link notes reblogged from marco [via] tagged: book author philosophy life war hope critic history hopelessness

design cover animal monster humor hope lost economy

✖ Via The Economist: Issue Cover for Apr 25th 2009.

Another frog-fish I guess. With a clever title.

• Apr 30, 2009 link notes [via] tagged: design cover animal monster humor hope lost economy