Cameras can be pretty cool. And these CCTVs are even cooler. The whole Panopticon deal – where do you go, there are just everywhere, watchful, unblinking, just gazing with that steady, stolid, super-sharp sight. You cannot hide. And with Carl Zeiss it’s all got sharper. But there’s a limit. There are corners. There are frames. All sharpened edges that pretend to preserve the picture. And I said this couple of years ago – that an image is not creation. There is something very art-ificial about images. Quite simply, they are just not real enough. No matter how much I try to capture detail by zooming in, it gets blurred. The more you delve deeper, the more it distorts. After all, how fine can pixels be? Not finer than atoms I imagine. But then again, even the imagination has its limits. And you need to blink it out and enter your simple, inadequate blackout. The zulm of the Zulimaat.
Now enter passages. Or passageways. And you see these signs and symbols and so many arrows pointing in delirious directions. But you need to look up. And you see the ceiling stretching out above you. Like the Vault above. And there are seven of them. And then there is a Beyond. The ceiling is shrinking. How further can it go, you imagine. You see it merging, converging and then you see it – see what – what you can imagine: the point where the divergent directions become one into a single point. And then you see it sharply maybe. And that we are moving, moving a bit too fast, in the same direction, towards that one Point. In architecture and art, this mathematically technical concept is called the Vanishing Point. One of my momentary art teachers said that it’s “…the point where our vision ends, and His Vision Begins.” That stayed with me, and intrigued me quite a bit. And then I saw it, again. How small everything is. No matter how many CCTVs are watching, some man is still shot. Some woman is still mugged. Some kid is still run over. And it happens in a second. But guess what. Something Happened Once-Upon-a-Time, in less than a trillionth of a second, and galaxies, far, far away came rumbling through Passageways. And the Be became a Light so White and Powerful that many black-holes just stood gaping blindly in the dark. And the rest, as they say, is history. We all came stumbling through, sweeping through our rabbit-holes and are still somehow trying to reach that Light at the End of the Tunnel. We are moving there. Just like the ceiling that is trailing towards its own point, just like the skies (all 7 of them) are vaulting Up towards the same point. The sun will blink out. We all need to shed our loads as there is too much to transmit all the time to so many. We phase out. We burn out. We all will blink out, eventually.
And so the camera relies on the mechanism of the eye. Art is either plagiarism or revolution. I can’t agree with Gaugin more. It is that desperate attempt to capture, preserve, and to somehow make things somewhat understandable. Or meaningful. Or even possible. Plagiarism and revolution both need some form of inspiration to become either. An artist is always frustrated with this need and hope to be understood. So an expression gives embodiment to what an artist wants to articulate. But then how much (or how little?) can a camera capture? How far can the Panopticon reach? Bentham and Zeiss have excellent minds, and sharper visions, but every eye has its blunt, blind-spot. There is something going on the other side, outside the frame, behind the scenes, below the earth, inside the sea. The very limitation of our vision – and you don’t need to be a Gaugin, Bentham or Zeiss to see that – is enough to make us understand that something goes on even inside a pixel and an atom. Every ceiling, every floor is stretching out, away, into a speck of distance. And we are in between. The lens, the flash, the lights and action – it’s an enter-and-exit situation, down to the final curtain-call, to fadeout.
Now let’s see a bit more closely. First it was all dark. But then there was Light. And now there is Light upon Light. And all we see are metaphors around us – that approximating and asymptotically frustrating attempt to intend or extend our very limits to see, and so believe. One metaphor would suffice to illuminate the point. Take a look at stars for instance. The true and so, only functions of stars are that they guide the traveler (so they act as compass points), they adorn and they fortify the heavens (so even God has an aesthetic and a pragmatic sense that go together). So against the black-hole sky, the only heavenly evidence is that of those bright stars as they look down upon us (if we see them as specks, they don’t see us any differently). In a sense, it’s only the stars that pointedly remind us of our smallness, even pettiness before the heavens. But the function of the stars is not merely heavenly. They’re always Switched on – through night and day – for those who might lose their way – which we all do. Look up, and you just might find an answer there. Plus, they look pretty. And plus they act as missiles to keep the bad guys away. And later on, the fascination with stars developed into astronomy that furthered into astrology – all attempts to ‘figure out’ things, approximating calculations and decisions and revisions to map stuff out. We desperately try to see through these metaphors so that we can have some meaning. But we don’t see enough, or see closely. And perhaps we are not supposed to see so much. Astronomers and astrologers for sure are always talking tentatively. They are always speaking in signs. For over-explanation and over-simplification, “cheapens the mystery of the cosmos.” I don’t know if Delores Macuccho is a real author. But the woman is true about this. How much or far words can stretch themselves to make meaning possible (if not entirely meaningful) shows that words, like artists, need to explain, capture and preserve. And so metaphors can only attempt to make understanding possible. But without metaphors explanation would be impossible. You need a star to make you see that heavenly bodies exist. You need darkness to know that Light must exist. And the limitation of the metaphor to approximate the truth in itself is an explanation that there is a Bigger Truth Out there. Sitaron se aagey jahaan aur bhi hain… which could (possibly) mean, beyond the stars, Other Worlds exist. Or, beyond the stars Where Others also exist. Take your pick – the metaphor only suggests. Iqbal is long-gone to decode the verse.
The metaphor, then, is merely extending itself to intend a meaning. There is a limit to what we can see. And so, there must be a Truth in some Other World out there that is so vast that it has to elude meaning, for meaning would place a limit on it, make it human, and in doing so, would only be able to or would tend to offer a tentative approximation. There has to be a Light that is unlike everything that we have or can possibly see. That light has to be something, or Someone that can only be explained – for now – through metaphor for It is too brilliant to be relativized within the confines of human construction that can limit its Totality and Absoluteness. Yet, It has to be made known, whether that be shown through a Fire on a mountain that guided, or through clay sparrows that began to Fly, or a Tree that shines with that Light and other colors – the Tree that marks the utmost boundary of the furthest heaven.
And since a very long time I have been trying to unlock this metaphor of the analogy of His Light being a niche, within it, a lamp, which is enclosed in a glass, that shines as a brilliant star, and the star is lit from a tree, that of an olive, that neither is of the East or the West and its oil glows forth of itself, yet no fire has touched it. Switch on all the lights of your mind and imagination, and this Ayah to this very day eludes explanation although the metaphor is aesthetically absolute – light upon light five times over. And yet many of us look at many stars many times over and see nothing, more or less.
I remember once – when I wanted to be an art student – I went to meet my friend who had then taken a compulsory Islamic Studies course. We sat outside the library and we were grappling with the whole deal behind the As-Samiiy‘ and Al-Basiir Names. And we both concluded – through different metaphors of course – that He is the Hearer of All and the Seer of All and we merely hear and see.
“You see, you and I are sitting here outside this library, and we can hear each other. We can hear people around us. We can see each other. And see all this stuff around us. But only He can Hear and See what’s happening inside the library, what happening in the opposite building, what’s happening outside the university’s gate…” Basically – what’s happening everywhere. And suddenly we felt small. Very, very small.
I am finally beginning to understand why He Calls Himself Al-Latiif and Al-Khabiir, and why the two Attributes, together. Arabic is a multivalent language. Rahm technically might mean womb, but it means Mercy too – and of course an etymological link is easily traceable. But Latiif is a fairly elusive word. Some things are also lost in translation – translation being the poorest of metaphors – but one might fumble to say that Latiif means to have the decorum of being able to differentiate between the most delicate of subtleties. So if Al-Basiir means to See all, Latiif means to See through-and-through all, thoroughly. Khabiir is a bit easily comprehensible; it means to be acquainted. So Al-Khabiir would take Latiif to its utmost conclusion – to be Well-Acquainted. So here we are talking of the One, the only One, being Able to See through all things so comprehensively and completely that He is All-Aware of anything and everything, all the time. I am reminded of the phrase that one of my Literature Professors used to use almost enchantingly, “[one] speaks monosemantically of the polysemous.” Metaphors and the meanings are too narrow in their reach. They have to be, for transcendence cannot be tabulated. And these are just two Names that we are talking about that are usually understood as Attributes. An attribute is merely a quality; it’s only a part of the Whole – an element of entirety.
La tudrikuhu alabsaru wahuwa yudriku alabsara wahuwa al-Latiiful-Khabiir.
No Vision can grasp Him, but He grasps all Vision.
I think the ultimate unlocking of all points, then, would be beyond the furthest limit – beyond the ceilings and floors, heavens and horizons, lights and trees – and then we will finally be able to See all what we have never seen before, up close and personal, with no metaphors in between.
And cameras would finally be so unnecessary.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Entering as a Trickle, Exiting as a Flood
Nouman Ali Khan from Al-Maghrib hammers the nail on its head by highlighting the contradictions within us: its the malaise we all are perpetuating and in some ways, condoning - and the blame's on us. Please do watch - the guy's making perfect sense:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LumwYGp729w&feature=player_embedded#t=1302t
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LumwYGp729w&feature=player_embedded#t=1302t
AINULINDALË: From 'The Silmarillion' - J. R. R. Tolkien
The essay written by R. Scott Bakker, “Why Fantasy and Why Now?”, can be used as a cautious disclaimer to J. R. R. Tolkien’s piece that I am pasting below. I am also reminded of C.S. Peirce when he claimed – something to this effect – about poems, “… Now as to their function in the economy of the Universe, the Universe as an argument is necessarily a great work of art, a great poem -- for every fine argument is a poem and a symphony -- just as every true poem is a sound argument.” It is difficult to understand every aspect of the Universe with certainty. Whatever we know of it is conveyed to us symbolically. Hence, the Creator Himself has not chosen to reveal Himself in entirety in order to retain the mystery of His Being. This too is inextricably linked to the idea of having faith in that which we cannot – for the moment – see. Despite that limitation, we are to believe in that which we cannot see. Yet we are to know Him through His Signs, and the Universe, in that sense is a pretty sound argument for it proves that there is an Artist Out there Who is Perfect and Absolute, who chooses to be Veiled from us for now – and that too for our own good to test the certainty and clarity of our faith. It would be too simple, too easy, too plain and even prosaic to believe if we were to know and to see all and everything. There would be no need to seek further. Bakker dismisses the debauchery of our present thought quite aptly when he claims, “The problem, however, is that science does not provide value, does not tell us what is good or bad, right or wrong… The power of science to monopolize rationality has reached such an extent that one can no longer ask the question, 'What is the meaning of life?' and still be 'rational.' Since there is no scientific answer to this question, and since science is the paradigm of rationality, the question becomes irrational, silly, the subject matter of Monty Python spoofs. Thus the crisis of meaning. The world we live in has been revealed by science to be indifferent and arbitrary. Where we once lived in a world steeped in moral significance, now we live in a world where things simply happen. Where once the meaningfulness of life was an unquestioned certainty, the very foundation of rationality, now we must continually struggle to 'make our lives meaningful,' and do so, moreover, without the sanction of rationality. Questions of the meaningfulness of life have retreated into the fractured realm of competing faiths and the 'New Age' section of the bookstore. In our day in age, the truth claim, 'My life has meaning,' is as much an act of faith (which is to say, a belief without rational legitimation) as the truth claim, 'There is a God.'”
And I think the point that needs attention here is first of all to know that there is a God, and so, Who this God is, and then finally, what are we to do about this. This understanding then, from knowing He Is, then Who He is and how He’d want us to be is where meaningfulness of an unquestioned certainty should lie. I seriously think that all types and forms of knowledge is nothing but an attempt to somehow reach this meaningfulness. “Fantasy is the celebration of what we no longer are: individuals certain of our meaningfulness in a meaningful world.” For my first class on The Hobbit, I asked the kids why Fantasy can never become Literature. And we reached a unanimous (and fairly obvious) conclusion that the latter is always about life and so, is pathetically real. Fantasy is nothing but illusion, an ivory tower that allegedly offers nothing but a convenient escape. And so it is an alternative, a foil to see our own inadequate lives in which redemption is selfishly received when the grandest character dies on stage due an inherent flaw. This is the very limitation of literature: its values are a bit too real, and as everything is more or less plunging towards a steady state of degeneration, there are very few reasons to celebrate. Now, we begin to question if there is a right or wrong; who will triumph over whom is a redundant and even a ridiculous concern.
“In a culture antagonistic to meaning, the bald assertion that life is meaningful is not enough. We crave examples.” The only way to know that there is God is through examples. And from the examples we are to trace our way back, even if it calls for a strange and even stubborn deliverance from error. There is only one Answer, and there is only One Truth, and all of us, in our ways, our somehow trying to figure that out.
Tolkien’s inspiration for The Silmarillion was The Genesis. Usually dismissed as a writer for children’s fiction, and that too, as a fantasy-fiction writer, it bothers me sometimes that his work is infantilized, and like most religious writers, misunderstood. I think – and maybe that is my atrophied understanding of the subject – that the most meaningful literature is found in the works written for children. And sometimes, it is only children who understand or find meanings in things that seem insignificant to us. Ironically enough, children look up to us for answers. And we have very few left. This piece, Ainulindalë, through characteristic fantasy idiom, tries to narrate the story of How It All Began. What I admire about the writing is how the scriptural and the symbolic are tied in to explain The Genesis; what I find intriguing about it is how symbolic and scriptural parallels are used to convey meaning of a Tale that we all seemed to have known, but have conveniently forgotten, for after all, it was Something that Happened too long ago. Some of us might want to revisit the story simply to refresh our memory and to find some meaning – through example.
AINULINDALË
The Music of the Ainur
There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Ilúvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made. And he spoke to them, propounding to them themes of music; and they sang before him, and he was glad. But for a long while they sang only each alone, or but few together, while the rest hearkened; for each comprehended only that part of me mind of Ilúvatar from which he came, and in the understanding of their brethren they grew but slowly. Yet ever as they listened they came to deeper understanding, and increased in unison and harmony.
And it came to pass that Ilúvatar called together all the Ainur and declared to them a mighty theme, unfolding to them things greater and more wonderful than he had yet revealed; and the glory of its beginning and the splendour of its end amazed the Ainur, so that they bowed before Ilúvatar and were silent.
Then Ilúvatar said to them: 'Of the theme that I have declared to you, I will now that ye make in harmony together a Great Music. And since I have kindled you with the Flame Imperishable, ye shall show forth your powers in adorning this theme, each with his own thoughts and devices, if he will. But I win sit and hearken, and be glad that through you great beauty has been wakened into song.'
Then the voices of the Ainur, like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with words, began to fashion the theme of Ilúvatar to a great music; and a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of Ilúvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void. Never since have the Ainur made any music like to this music, though it has been said that a greater still shall be made before Ilúvatar by the choirs of the Ainur and the Children of Ilúvatar after the end of days. Then the themes of Ilúvatar shall be played aright, and take Being in the moment of their utterance, for all shall then understand fully his intent in their part, and each shall know the comprehension of each, and Ilúvatar shall give to their thoughts the secret fire, being well pleased.
But now Ilúvatar sat and hearkened, and for a great while it seemed good to him, for in the music there were no flaws. But as the theme progressed, it came into the heart of Melkor to interweave matters of his own imagining that were not in accord with the theme of Ilúvatar, for he sought therein to increase the power and glory of the part assigned to himself. To Melkor among the Ainur had been given the greatest gifts of power and knowledge, and he had a share in all the gifts of his brethren. He had gone often alone into the void places seeking the Imperishable Flame; for desire grew hot within him to bring into Being things of his own, and it seemed to him that Ilúvatar took no thought for the Void, and he was impatient of its emptiness. Yet he found not the Fire, for it is with Ilúvatar. But being alone he had begun to conceive thoughts of his own unlike those of his brethren.
Some of these thoughts he now wove into his music, and straightway discord arose about him, and many that sang nigh him grew despondent, and their thought was disturbed and their music faltered; but some began to attune their music to his rather than to the thought which they had at first. Then the discord of Melkor spread ever wider, and the melodies which had been heard before foundered in a sea of turbulent sound. But Ilúvatar sat and hearkened until it seemed that about his throne there was a raging storm, as of dark waters that made war one upon another in an endless wrath that would not be assuaged.
Then Ilúvatar arose, and the Ainur perceived that he smiled; and he lifted up his left hand, and a new theme began amid the storm, like and yet unlike to the former theme, and it gathered power and had new beauty. But the discord of Melkor rose in uproar and contended with it, and again there was a war of sound more violent than before, until many of the Ainur were dismayed and sang no longer, and Melkor had the mastery. Then again Ilúvatar arose, and the Ainur perceived that his countenance was stern; and he lifted up his right hand, and behold! a third theme grew amid the confusion, and it was unlike the others. For it seemed at first soft and sweet, a mere rippling of gentle sounds in delicate melodies; but it could not be quenched, and it took to itself power and profundity. And it seemed at last that there were two musics progressing at one time before the seat of Ilúvatar, and they were utterly at variance. The one was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came. The other had now achieved a unity of its own; but it was loud, and vain, and endlessly repeated; and it had little
harmony, but rather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets braying upon a few notes. And it essayed to drown the other music by the violence of its voice, but it seemed that its most triumphant notes were taken by the other and woven into its own solemn pattern.
In the midst of this strife, whereat the halls of Ilúvatar shook and a tremor ran out into the silences yet unmoved, Ilúvatar arose a third time, and his face was terrible to behold. Then he raised up both his hands, and in one chord, deeper than the Abyss, higher than the Firmament, piercing as the light of the eye of Ilúvatar, the Music ceased.
Then Ilúvatar spoke, and he said: 'Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor; but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Ilúvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done. And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.'
Then the Ainur were afraid, and they did not yet comprehend the words that were said to them; and Melkor was filled with shame, of which came secret anger. But Ilúvatar arose in splendour, and he went forth from the fair regions that he had made for the Ainur; and the Ainur followed him.
But when they were come into the Void, Ilúvatar said to them: 'Behold your Music!' And he showed to them a vision, giving to them sight where before was only hearing; arid they saw a new World made visible before them, and it was globed amid the Void, and it was sustained therein, but was not of it. And as they looked and wondered this World began to unfold its history, and it seemed to them that it lived and grew. And when the Ainur had gazed for a while and were silent, Ilúvatar said again: 'Behold your Music! This is your minstrelsy; and each of you shall find contained herein, amid the design that I set before you, all those things which it may seem that he himself devised or added. And thou, Melkor, wilt discover all the secret thoughts of thy mind, and wilt perceive that they are but a part of the whole and tributary to its glory.'
And many other things Ilúvatar spoke to the Ainur at that time, and because of their memory of his words, and the knowledge that each has of the music that he himself made, the Ainur know much of what was, and is, and is to come, and few things are unseen by them. Yet some things there are that they cannot see, neither alone nor taking counsel together; for to none but himself has Ilúvatar revealed all that he has in store, and in every age there come forth things that are new and have no foretelling, for they do not proceed from the past. And so it was that as this vision of the World was played before them, the Ainur saw that it contained things which they had not thought. And they saw with amazement the coming of the Children of Ilúvatar, and the habitation that was prepared for them; and they perceived that they themselves in the labour of their music had been busy with the preparation of this dwelling, and yet knew not that it had any purpose beyond its own beauty. For the Children of Ilúvatar were conceived by him alone; and they came with the third theme, and were not in the theme which Ilúvatar propounded at the beginning, and none of the Ainur had part in their making. Therefore when they beheld them, the more did they love them, being things other than themselves, strange and free, wherein they saw the mind of Ilúvatar reflected anew, and learned yet a little more of his wisdom, which otherwise had been hidden even from the Ainur.
Now the Children of Ilúvatar are Elves and Men, the Firstborn and the Followers. And amid all the splendours of the World, its vast halls and spaces, and its wheeling fires, Ilúvatar chose a place for their habitation in the Deeps of Time and in the midst of the innumerable stars. And this habitation might seem a little thing to those who consider only the majesty of the Ainur, and not their terrible sharpness; as who should take the whole field of Arda for the foundation of a pillar and so raise it until the cone of its summit were more bitter than a needle; or who consider only the immeasurable vastness of the World, which still the Ainur are shaping, and not the minute precision to which they shape all things therein. But when the Ainur had beheld this habitation in a vision and had seen the Children of Ilúvatar arise therein, then many of the most mighty among them bent all their thought and their desire towards that place. And of these Melkor was the chief, even as he was in the beginning the greatest of the Ainur who took part in the Music. And he feigned, even to himself at first, that he desired to go thither and order all things for the good of the Children of Ilúvatar, controlling the turmoils of the heat and the cold that had come to pass through him. But he desired rather to subdue to his will both Elves and Men, envying the gifts with which Ilúvatar promised to endow them; and he wished himself to have subject and servants, and to be called Lord, and to be a master over other wills.
But the other Ainur looked upon this habitation set within the vast spaces of the World, which the Elves call Arda, the Earth; and their hearts rejoiced in light, and their eyes beholding many colours were filled with gladness; but because of the roaring of the sea they felt a great unquiet. And they observed the winds and the air, and the matters of which Arda was made, of iron and stone and silver and gold and many substances: but of all these water they most greatly praised. And it is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance else that is in this Earth; and many of the Children of Ilúvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen.
Now to water had that Ainu whom the Elves can Ulmo turned his thought, and of all most deeply was he instructed by Ilúvatar in music. But of the airs and winds Manwë most had pondered, who is the noblest of the Ainur. Of the fabric of Earth had Aulë thought, to whom Ilúvatar had given skin and knowledge scarce less than to Melkor; but the delight and pride of Aulë is in the deed of making, and in the thing made, and neither m possession nor in his own mastery; wherefore he gives and hoards not, and is free from care, passing ever on to some new work.
And Ilúvatar spoke to Ulmo, and said: 'Seest thou not how here in this little realm in the Deeps of Time Melkor hath made war upon thy province? He hath bethought him of bitter cold immoderate, and yet hath not destroyed the beauty of thy fountains, nor of my clear pools. Behold the snow, and the cunning work of frost! Melkor hath devised heats and fire without restraint, and hath not dried up thy desire nor utterly quelled the music of the sea. Behold rather the height and glory of the clouds, and the everchanging mists; and listen to the fall of rain upon the Earth! And in these clouds thou art drawn nearer to Manwë, thy friend, whom thou lovest.'
Then Ulmo answered: 'Truly, Water is become now fairer than my heart imagined, neither had my secret thought conceived the snowflake, nor in all my music was contained the falling of the rain. I will seek Manwë, that he and I may make melodies for ever to my delight!' And Manwë and Ulmo have from the beginning been allied, and in all things have served most faithfully the purpose of Ilúvatar.
But even as Ulmo spoke, and while the Ainur were yet gazing upon this vision, it was taken away and hidden from their sight; and it seemed to them that in that moment they perceived a new thing, Darkness, which they had not known before except in thought. But they had become enamoured of the beauty of the vision and engrossed in the unfolding of the World which came there to being, and their minds were filled with it; for the history was incomplete and the circles of time not full-wrought when the vision was taken away. And some have said that the vision ceased ere the fulfilment of the Dominion of Men and the fading of the Firstborn; wherefore, though the Music is over all, the Valar have not seen as with sight the Later Ages or the ending of the World.
Then there was unrest among the Ainur; but Ilúvatar called to them, and said: 'I know the desire of your minds that what ye have seen should verily be, not only in your thought, but even as ye yourselves are, and yet other. Therefore I say: Eä! Let these things Be! And I will send forth into the Void the Flame Imperishable, and it shall be at the heart of the World, and the World shall Be; and those of you that will may go down into it. And suddenly the Ainur saw afar off a light, as it were a cloud with a living heart of flame; and they knew that this was no vision only, but that Ilúvatar had made a new thing: Eä, the World that Is.
Thus it came to pass that of the Ainur some abode still with Ilúvatar beyond the confines of the World; but others, and among them many of the greatest and most fair, took the leave of Ilúvatar and descended into it. But this condition Ilúvatar made, or it is the necessity of their love, that their power should thenceforward be contained and bounded in the World, to be within it for ever, until it is complete, so that they are its life and it is theirs. And therefore they are named the Valar, the Powers of the World.
But when the Valar entered into Eä they were at first astounded and at a loss, for it was as if naught was yet made which they had seen in vision, and all was but on point to begin and yet unshaped, and it was dark. For the Great Music had been but the growth and flowering of thought in the Tuneless Halls, and the Vision only a foreshowing; but now they had entered in at the beginning of Time, and the Valar perceived that the World had been but foreshadowed and foresung, and they must achieve it. So began their great labours in wastes unmeasured and unexplored, and in ages uncounted and forgotten, until in the Deeps of Time and in the midst of the vast halls of Eä there came to be that hour and that place where was made the habitation of the Children of Ilúvatar. And in this work the chief part was taken by Manwë and Aulë and Ulmo; but Melkor too was there from the first, and he meddled in all that was done, turning it if he might to his own desires and purposes; and he kindled great fires. When therefore Earth was yet young and full of flame Melkor coveted it, and he said to the other Valar: 'This shall be my own kingdom; and I name it unto myself!'
But Manwë was the brother of Melkor in the mind of Ilúvatar, and he was the chief instrument of the second theme that Ilúvatar had raised up against the discord of Melkor; and he called unto himself many spirits both greater and less, and they came down into the fields of Arda and aided Manwë, lest Melkor should hinder the fulfillment of their labour for ever, and Earth should wither ere it flowered. And Manwë said unto Melkor: 'This kingdom thou shalt not take for thine own, wrongfully, for many others have laboured here do less than thou.' And there was strife between Melkor and the other Valar; and for that time Melkor withdrew and departed to other regions and did there what he would; but he did not put the desire of the Kingdom of Arda from his heart.
Now the Valar took to themselves shape and hue; and because they were drawn into the World by love of the Children of Ilúvatar, for whom they hoped, they took shape after that manner which they had beheld in the Vision of Ilúvatar, save only in majesty and splendour. Moreover their shape comes of their knowledge of the visible World, rather than of the World itself; and they need it not, save only as we use raiment, and yet we may be naked and suffer no loss of our being. Therefore the Valar may walk, if they will, unclad, and then even the Eldar cannot clearly perceive them, though they be present. But when they desire to clothe themselves the Valar take upon them forms some as of male and some as of female; for that difference of temper they had even from their beginning, and it is but bodied forth in the choice of each, not made by the choice, even as with us male and female may be shown by the raiment but is not made thereby. But the shapes wherein the Great Ones array themselves are not at all times like to the shapes of the kings and queens of the Children of Ilúvatar; for at times they may clothe themselves in their own thought, made visible in forms of majesty and dread.
And the Valar drew unto them many companions, some less, some well nigh as great as themselves, and they laboured together in the ordering of the Earth and the curbing of its tumults. Then Melkor saw what was done, and that the Valar walked on Earth as powers visible, clad in the raiment of the World, and were lovely and glorious to see, and blissful, and that the Earth was becoming as a garden for their delight, for its turmoils were subdued. His envy grew then the greater within him; and he also took visible form, but because of his mood and the malice that burned in him that form was dark and terrible. And he descended upon Arda in power and majesty greater than any other of the Valar, as a mountain that wades in the sea and has its head above the clouds and is clad in ice and crowned with smoke and fire; and the light of the eyes of Melkor was like a flame that withers with heat and pierces with a deadly cold.
Thus began the first battle of the Valar with Melkor for the dominion of Arda; and of those tumults the Elves know but little. For what has here been declared is come from the Valar themselves, with whom the Eldalië spoke in the land of Valinor, and by whom they were instructed; but little would the Valar ever tell of the wars before the coming of the Elves. Yet it is told among the Eldar that the Valar endeavoured ever, in despite of Melkor, to rule the Earth and to prepare it for the coming of the Firstborn; and they built lands and Melkor destroyed them; valleys they delved and Melkor raised them up; mountains they carved and Melkor threw them down; seas they hollowed and Melkor spilled them; and naught might have peace or come to lasting growth, for as surely as the Valar began a labour so would Melkor undo it or corrupt it. And yet their labour was not all in vain; and though nowhere and in no work was their will and purpose wholly fulfilled, and all things were in hue and shape other than the Valar had at first intended, slowly nonetheless the Earth was fashioned and made firm. And thus was the habitation of the Children of Ilúvatar established at the last in the Deeps of Time and amidst the innumerable stars.
And I think the point that needs attention here is first of all to know that there is a God, and so, Who this God is, and then finally, what are we to do about this. This understanding then, from knowing He Is, then Who He is and how He’d want us to be is where meaningfulness of an unquestioned certainty should lie. I seriously think that all types and forms of knowledge is nothing but an attempt to somehow reach this meaningfulness. “Fantasy is the celebration of what we no longer are: individuals certain of our meaningfulness in a meaningful world.” For my first class on The Hobbit, I asked the kids why Fantasy can never become Literature. And we reached a unanimous (and fairly obvious) conclusion that the latter is always about life and so, is pathetically real. Fantasy is nothing but illusion, an ivory tower that allegedly offers nothing but a convenient escape. And so it is an alternative, a foil to see our own inadequate lives in which redemption is selfishly received when the grandest character dies on stage due an inherent flaw. This is the very limitation of literature: its values are a bit too real, and as everything is more or less plunging towards a steady state of degeneration, there are very few reasons to celebrate. Now, we begin to question if there is a right or wrong; who will triumph over whom is a redundant and even a ridiculous concern.
“In a culture antagonistic to meaning, the bald assertion that life is meaningful is not enough. We crave examples.” The only way to know that there is God is through examples. And from the examples we are to trace our way back, even if it calls for a strange and even stubborn deliverance from error. There is only one Answer, and there is only One Truth, and all of us, in our ways, our somehow trying to figure that out.
Tolkien’s inspiration for The Silmarillion was The Genesis. Usually dismissed as a writer for children’s fiction, and that too, as a fantasy-fiction writer, it bothers me sometimes that his work is infantilized, and like most religious writers, misunderstood. I think – and maybe that is my atrophied understanding of the subject – that the most meaningful literature is found in the works written for children. And sometimes, it is only children who understand or find meanings in things that seem insignificant to us. Ironically enough, children look up to us for answers. And we have very few left. This piece, Ainulindalë, through characteristic fantasy idiom, tries to narrate the story of How It All Began. What I admire about the writing is how the scriptural and the symbolic are tied in to explain The Genesis; what I find intriguing about it is how symbolic and scriptural parallels are used to convey meaning of a Tale that we all seemed to have known, but have conveniently forgotten, for after all, it was Something that Happened too long ago. Some of us might want to revisit the story simply to refresh our memory and to find some meaning – through example.
AINULINDALË
The Music of the Ainur
There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Ilúvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made. And he spoke to them, propounding to them themes of music; and they sang before him, and he was glad. But for a long while they sang only each alone, or but few together, while the rest hearkened; for each comprehended only that part of me mind of Ilúvatar from which he came, and in the understanding of their brethren they grew but slowly. Yet ever as they listened they came to deeper understanding, and increased in unison and harmony.
And it came to pass that Ilúvatar called together all the Ainur and declared to them a mighty theme, unfolding to them things greater and more wonderful than he had yet revealed; and the glory of its beginning and the splendour of its end amazed the Ainur, so that they bowed before Ilúvatar and were silent.
Then Ilúvatar said to them: 'Of the theme that I have declared to you, I will now that ye make in harmony together a Great Music. And since I have kindled you with the Flame Imperishable, ye shall show forth your powers in adorning this theme, each with his own thoughts and devices, if he will. But I win sit and hearken, and be glad that through you great beauty has been wakened into song.'
Then the voices of the Ainur, like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with words, began to fashion the theme of Ilúvatar to a great music; and a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of Ilúvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void. Never since have the Ainur made any music like to this music, though it has been said that a greater still shall be made before Ilúvatar by the choirs of the Ainur and the Children of Ilúvatar after the end of days. Then the themes of Ilúvatar shall be played aright, and take Being in the moment of their utterance, for all shall then understand fully his intent in their part, and each shall know the comprehension of each, and Ilúvatar shall give to their thoughts the secret fire, being well pleased.
But now Ilúvatar sat and hearkened, and for a great while it seemed good to him, for in the music there were no flaws. But as the theme progressed, it came into the heart of Melkor to interweave matters of his own imagining that were not in accord with the theme of Ilúvatar, for he sought therein to increase the power and glory of the part assigned to himself. To Melkor among the Ainur had been given the greatest gifts of power and knowledge, and he had a share in all the gifts of his brethren. He had gone often alone into the void places seeking the Imperishable Flame; for desire grew hot within him to bring into Being things of his own, and it seemed to him that Ilúvatar took no thought for the Void, and he was impatient of its emptiness. Yet he found not the Fire, for it is with Ilúvatar. But being alone he had begun to conceive thoughts of his own unlike those of his brethren.
Some of these thoughts he now wove into his music, and straightway discord arose about him, and many that sang nigh him grew despondent, and their thought was disturbed and their music faltered; but some began to attune their music to his rather than to the thought which they had at first. Then the discord of Melkor spread ever wider, and the melodies which had been heard before foundered in a sea of turbulent sound. But Ilúvatar sat and hearkened until it seemed that about his throne there was a raging storm, as of dark waters that made war one upon another in an endless wrath that would not be assuaged.
Then Ilúvatar arose, and the Ainur perceived that he smiled; and he lifted up his left hand, and a new theme began amid the storm, like and yet unlike to the former theme, and it gathered power and had new beauty. But the discord of Melkor rose in uproar and contended with it, and again there was a war of sound more violent than before, until many of the Ainur were dismayed and sang no longer, and Melkor had the mastery. Then again Ilúvatar arose, and the Ainur perceived that his countenance was stern; and he lifted up his right hand, and behold! a third theme grew amid the confusion, and it was unlike the others. For it seemed at first soft and sweet, a mere rippling of gentle sounds in delicate melodies; but it could not be quenched, and it took to itself power and profundity. And it seemed at last that there were two musics progressing at one time before the seat of Ilúvatar, and they were utterly at variance. The one was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came. The other had now achieved a unity of its own; but it was loud, and vain, and endlessly repeated; and it had little
harmony, but rather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets braying upon a few notes. And it essayed to drown the other music by the violence of its voice, but it seemed that its most triumphant notes were taken by the other and woven into its own solemn pattern.
In the midst of this strife, whereat the halls of Ilúvatar shook and a tremor ran out into the silences yet unmoved, Ilúvatar arose a third time, and his face was terrible to behold. Then he raised up both his hands, and in one chord, deeper than the Abyss, higher than the Firmament, piercing as the light of the eye of Ilúvatar, the Music ceased.
Then Ilúvatar spoke, and he said: 'Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor; but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Ilúvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done. And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.'
Then the Ainur were afraid, and they did not yet comprehend the words that were said to them; and Melkor was filled with shame, of which came secret anger. But Ilúvatar arose in splendour, and he went forth from the fair regions that he had made for the Ainur; and the Ainur followed him.
But when they were come into the Void, Ilúvatar said to them: 'Behold your Music!' And he showed to them a vision, giving to them sight where before was only hearing; arid they saw a new World made visible before them, and it was globed amid the Void, and it was sustained therein, but was not of it. And as they looked and wondered this World began to unfold its history, and it seemed to them that it lived and grew. And when the Ainur had gazed for a while and were silent, Ilúvatar said again: 'Behold your Music! This is your minstrelsy; and each of you shall find contained herein, amid the design that I set before you, all those things which it may seem that he himself devised or added. And thou, Melkor, wilt discover all the secret thoughts of thy mind, and wilt perceive that they are but a part of the whole and tributary to its glory.'
And many other things Ilúvatar spoke to the Ainur at that time, and because of their memory of his words, and the knowledge that each has of the music that he himself made, the Ainur know much of what was, and is, and is to come, and few things are unseen by them. Yet some things there are that they cannot see, neither alone nor taking counsel together; for to none but himself has Ilúvatar revealed all that he has in store, and in every age there come forth things that are new and have no foretelling, for they do not proceed from the past. And so it was that as this vision of the World was played before them, the Ainur saw that it contained things which they had not thought. And they saw with amazement the coming of the Children of Ilúvatar, and the habitation that was prepared for them; and they perceived that they themselves in the labour of their music had been busy with the preparation of this dwelling, and yet knew not that it had any purpose beyond its own beauty. For the Children of Ilúvatar were conceived by him alone; and they came with the third theme, and were not in the theme which Ilúvatar propounded at the beginning, and none of the Ainur had part in their making. Therefore when they beheld them, the more did they love them, being things other than themselves, strange and free, wherein they saw the mind of Ilúvatar reflected anew, and learned yet a little more of his wisdom, which otherwise had been hidden even from the Ainur.
Now the Children of Ilúvatar are Elves and Men, the Firstborn and the Followers. And amid all the splendours of the World, its vast halls and spaces, and its wheeling fires, Ilúvatar chose a place for their habitation in the Deeps of Time and in the midst of the innumerable stars. And this habitation might seem a little thing to those who consider only the majesty of the Ainur, and not their terrible sharpness; as who should take the whole field of Arda for the foundation of a pillar and so raise it until the cone of its summit were more bitter than a needle; or who consider only the immeasurable vastness of the World, which still the Ainur are shaping, and not the minute precision to which they shape all things therein. But when the Ainur had beheld this habitation in a vision and had seen the Children of Ilúvatar arise therein, then many of the most mighty among them bent all their thought and their desire towards that place. And of these Melkor was the chief, even as he was in the beginning the greatest of the Ainur who took part in the Music. And he feigned, even to himself at first, that he desired to go thither and order all things for the good of the Children of Ilúvatar, controlling the turmoils of the heat and the cold that had come to pass through him. But he desired rather to subdue to his will both Elves and Men, envying the gifts with which Ilúvatar promised to endow them; and he wished himself to have subject and servants, and to be called Lord, and to be a master over other wills.
But the other Ainur looked upon this habitation set within the vast spaces of the World, which the Elves call Arda, the Earth; and their hearts rejoiced in light, and their eyes beholding many colours were filled with gladness; but because of the roaring of the sea they felt a great unquiet. And they observed the winds and the air, and the matters of which Arda was made, of iron and stone and silver and gold and many substances: but of all these water they most greatly praised. And it is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance else that is in this Earth; and many of the Children of Ilúvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen.
Now to water had that Ainu whom the Elves can Ulmo turned his thought, and of all most deeply was he instructed by Ilúvatar in music. But of the airs and winds Manwë most had pondered, who is the noblest of the Ainur. Of the fabric of Earth had Aulë thought, to whom Ilúvatar had given skin and knowledge scarce less than to Melkor; but the delight and pride of Aulë is in the deed of making, and in the thing made, and neither m possession nor in his own mastery; wherefore he gives and hoards not, and is free from care, passing ever on to some new work.
And Ilúvatar spoke to Ulmo, and said: 'Seest thou not how here in this little realm in the Deeps of Time Melkor hath made war upon thy province? He hath bethought him of bitter cold immoderate, and yet hath not destroyed the beauty of thy fountains, nor of my clear pools. Behold the snow, and the cunning work of frost! Melkor hath devised heats and fire without restraint, and hath not dried up thy desire nor utterly quelled the music of the sea. Behold rather the height and glory of the clouds, and the everchanging mists; and listen to the fall of rain upon the Earth! And in these clouds thou art drawn nearer to Manwë, thy friend, whom thou lovest.'
Then Ulmo answered: 'Truly, Water is become now fairer than my heart imagined, neither had my secret thought conceived the snowflake, nor in all my music was contained the falling of the rain. I will seek Manwë, that he and I may make melodies for ever to my delight!' And Manwë and Ulmo have from the beginning been allied, and in all things have served most faithfully the purpose of Ilúvatar.
But even as Ulmo spoke, and while the Ainur were yet gazing upon this vision, it was taken away and hidden from their sight; and it seemed to them that in that moment they perceived a new thing, Darkness, which they had not known before except in thought. But they had become enamoured of the beauty of the vision and engrossed in the unfolding of the World which came there to being, and their minds were filled with it; for the history was incomplete and the circles of time not full-wrought when the vision was taken away. And some have said that the vision ceased ere the fulfilment of the Dominion of Men and the fading of the Firstborn; wherefore, though the Music is over all, the Valar have not seen as with sight the Later Ages or the ending of the World.
Then there was unrest among the Ainur; but Ilúvatar called to them, and said: 'I know the desire of your minds that what ye have seen should verily be, not only in your thought, but even as ye yourselves are, and yet other. Therefore I say: Eä! Let these things Be! And I will send forth into the Void the Flame Imperishable, and it shall be at the heart of the World, and the World shall Be; and those of you that will may go down into it. And suddenly the Ainur saw afar off a light, as it were a cloud with a living heart of flame; and they knew that this was no vision only, but that Ilúvatar had made a new thing: Eä, the World that Is.
Thus it came to pass that of the Ainur some abode still with Ilúvatar beyond the confines of the World; but others, and among them many of the greatest and most fair, took the leave of Ilúvatar and descended into it. But this condition Ilúvatar made, or it is the necessity of their love, that their power should thenceforward be contained and bounded in the World, to be within it for ever, until it is complete, so that they are its life and it is theirs. And therefore they are named the Valar, the Powers of the World.
But when the Valar entered into Eä they were at first astounded and at a loss, for it was as if naught was yet made which they had seen in vision, and all was but on point to begin and yet unshaped, and it was dark. For the Great Music had been but the growth and flowering of thought in the Tuneless Halls, and the Vision only a foreshowing; but now they had entered in at the beginning of Time, and the Valar perceived that the World had been but foreshadowed and foresung, and they must achieve it. So began their great labours in wastes unmeasured and unexplored, and in ages uncounted and forgotten, until in the Deeps of Time and in the midst of the vast halls of Eä there came to be that hour and that place where was made the habitation of the Children of Ilúvatar. And in this work the chief part was taken by Manwë and Aulë and Ulmo; but Melkor too was there from the first, and he meddled in all that was done, turning it if he might to his own desires and purposes; and he kindled great fires. When therefore Earth was yet young and full of flame Melkor coveted it, and he said to the other Valar: 'This shall be my own kingdom; and I name it unto myself!'
But Manwë was the brother of Melkor in the mind of Ilúvatar, and he was the chief instrument of the second theme that Ilúvatar had raised up against the discord of Melkor; and he called unto himself many spirits both greater and less, and they came down into the fields of Arda and aided Manwë, lest Melkor should hinder the fulfillment of their labour for ever, and Earth should wither ere it flowered. And Manwë said unto Melkor: 'This kingdom thou shalt not take for thine own, wrongfully, for many others have laboured here do less than thou.' And there was strife between Melkor and the other Valar; and for that time Melkor withdrew and departed to other regions and did there what he would; but he did not put the desire of the Kingdom of Arda from his heart.
Now the Valar took to themselves shape and hue; and because they were drawn into the World by love of the Children of Ilúvatar, for whom they hoped, they took shape after that manner which they had beheld in the Vision of Ilúvatar, save only in majesty and splendour. Moreover their shape comes of their knowledge of the visible World, rather than of the World itself; and they need it not, save only as we use raiment, and yet we may be naked and suffer no loss of our being. Therefore the Valar may walk, if they will, unclad, and then even the Eldar cannot clearly perceive them, though they be present. But when they desire to clothe themselves the Valar take upon them forms some as of male and some as of female; for that difference of temper they had even from their beginning, and it is but bodied forth in the choice of each, not made by the choice, even as with us male and female may be shown by the raiment but is not made thereby. But the shapes wherein the Great Ones array themselves are not at all times like to the shapes of the kings and queens of the Children of Ilúvatar; for at times they may clothe themselves in their own thought, made visible in forms of majesty and dread.
And the Valar drew unto them many companions, some less, some well nigh as great as themselves, and they laboured together in the ordering of the Earth and the curbing of its tumults. Then Melkor saw what was done, and that the Valar walked on Earth as powers visible, clad in the raiment of the World, and were lovely and glorious to see, and blissful, and that the Earth was becoming as a garden for their delight, for its turmoils were subdued. His envy grew then the greater within him; and he also took visible form, but because of his mood and the malice that burned in him that form was dark and terrible. And he descended upon Arda in power and majesty greater than any other of the Valar, as a mountain that wades in the sea and has its head above the clouds and is clad in ice and crowned with smoke and fire; and the light of the eyes of Melkor was like a flame that withers with heat and pierces with a deadly cold.
Thus began the first battle of the Valar with Melkor for the dominion of Arda; and of those tumults the Elves know but little. For what has here been declared is come from the Valar themselves, with whom the Eldalië spoke in the land of Valinor, and by whom they were instructed; but little would the Valar ever tell of the wars before the coming of the Elves. Yet it is told among the Eldar that the Valar endeavoured ever, in despite of Melkor, to rule the Earth and to prepare it for the coming of the Firstborn; and they built lands and Melkor destroyed them; valleys they delved and Melkor raised them up; mountains they carved and Melkor threw them down; seas they hollowed and Melkor spilled them; and naught might have peace or come to lasting growth, for as surely as the Valar began a labour so would Melkor undo it or corrupt it. And yet their labour was not all in vain; and though nowhere and in no work was their will and purpose wholly fulfilled, and all things were in hue and shape other than the Valar had at first intended, slowly nonetheless the Earth was fashioned and made firm. And thus was the habitation of the Children of Ilúvatar established at the last in the Deeps of Time and amidst the innumerable stars.
Why Fantasy and Why Now? by R. Scott Bakker
Why do people read fantasy?
The typical answer is that people are searching for 'escape.' Fantasy represents, many would say, a retreat from the harsh world of competition and commerce. Another answer is that fantasy provides, like much fiction, a specific kind of wish-fulfillment. Fantasy allows us, for a time, to be the all-conquering warrior or the all-wise sorcerer. The problem is that neither of these answers in any way distinguishes fantasy from other genres of literature. Fantasy, I would like to suggest, offers a very specific kind of escape and wish-fulfillment, one connected, moreover, to its profound role in the great machine which we call contemporary culture.
Fantasy, I will argue, is the primary literary response to what is often called the 'contemporary crisis of meaning.' And as such, fantasy represents a privileged locus from which one might understand what is going in our culture in general.
What is the crisis of meaning? Since the Enlightenment a few centuries ago, we have witnessed a dramatic shift in our culture, a signature characteristic of which is the rise of science. Science as a socio-historical phenomenon is related to the crisis of meaning in a least two ways: 1) the disenchantment of the world; and 2) the monopolization of rationality.
Since the Enlightenment, science has quickly replaced all of our prior 'intentional' explanations of the world. Events are no longer the results of some spiritual agency, where thunder, for instance, might equal the 'anger of the gods,' but rather the result of� indifferent causal processes. To say that the world is disenchanted is to say that it is indifferent to human concerns. Where our ancestors saw the world as extended family, as more cryptic members of the tribe, we see the world as arbitrary and inhuman, utterly disconnected from the puny tribe of human agency.
It is the power of science to explain, and the technological dividends those explanations have reaped, which has led to science's monopolization of rationality. The only socially legitimate truth claims that remain to us are scientific truth claims. To be rational in our society, is to be 'scientifically minded,' to reserve our judgment on the truth or falsity of various claims pending 'hard evidence.'
The problem, however, is that science does not provide value, does not tell us what is good or bad, right or wrong. And so we find ourselves in a curious quandary: the only socially legitimate means we have to make truth claims has become divorced from questions of value. Certainly there are some very reasonable sounding moral philosophers and theologians out there with innumerable claims to the truth of this or that moral principle, but the fact that they can never agree on anything demonstrates to us the futility of their rationalizations. Only the evolutionary biologist can give us a scientific theory of morality: morality is an illusion which generates the requisite social cohesion necessary for the successful rearing of offspring. There is no 'good' or 'evil,' not really, only the successful transmission of genetic material.
The power of science to monopolize rationality has reached such an extent that one can no longer ask the question, 'What is the meaning of life?' and still be 'rational.' Since there is no scientific answer to this question, and since science is the paradigm of rationality, the question becomes irrational, silly, the subject matter of Monty Python spoofs.
Thus the crisis of meaning. The world we live in has been revealed by science to be indifferent and arbitrary. Where we once lived in a world steeped in moral significance, now we live in a world where things simply happen. Where once the meaningfulness of life was an unquestioned certainty, the very foundation of rationality, now we must continually struggle to 'make our lives meaningful,' and do so, moreover, without the sanction of rationality. Questions of the meaningfulness of life have retreated into the fractured realm of competing faiths and the 'New Age' section of the bookstore. In our day in age, the truth claim, 'My life has meaning,' is as much an act of faith (which is to say, a belief without rational legitimation) as the truth claim, 'There is a God.'
It is no accident that fantasy is preoccupied with our pre-Enlightenment, pre-crisis past. The contemporary world is a nihilistic world, where all signs point to the illusory status of love, beauty, goodness and so on. This is not to say that they are in fact illusory, only that at a fundamental level our culture is antagonistic to the claim that they are real. Nihilism is a fever in the bones of contemporary culture, afflicting all our assertions of meaningfulness with the ache that they are wrong.
Fantasy is the celebration of what we no longer are: individuals certain of our meaningfulness in a meaningful world. The wish-fulfillment that distinguishes fantasy from other genres is not to be the all-conquering hero, but to live in a meaningful world. The fact that such worlds are enchanted worlds, worlds steeped in magic, simply demonstrates the severity of our contemporary crisis. 'Magic' is a degraded category in our society; if you believe in magic in this world, you are an irrational flake. And yet magic is all we have in our attempt to recover some vicarious sense of meaningfulness. If fantasy primarily looks back, primarily celebrates those values rendered irrelevant by post-industrial society, it is because our future only holds the promise of a more trenchant nihilism. One may have faith otherwise, but by definition such faith is not rational. Faith, remember, is belief without reasons.
Reading fantasy represents the attempt to give meaning to one's life by forgetting, for a time, the world that one lives in. In the escape offered by fantasy one glimpses the profound dimensions of our modern dilemma. Fantasy is the primary expression of a terrible socio-historical truth: the fundamental implication of our scientific culture is that life is meaningless.
If so many religious groups are up in arms about Harry Potter, it is because they see in it a competitor--and rightly so. Fantasy novels can be construed as necessary supplements to the Holy Bible. In a culture antagonistic to meaning, the bald assertion that life is meaningful is not enough. We crave examples.
The typical answer is that people are searching for 'escape.' Fantasy represents, many would say, a retreat from the harsh world of competition and commerce. Another answer is that fantasy provides, like much fiction, a specific kind of wish-fulfillment. Fantasy allows us, for a time, to be the all-conquering warrior or the all-wise sorcerer. The problem is that neither of these answers in any way distinguishes fantasy from other genres of literature. Fantasy, I would like to suggest, offers a very specific kind of escape and wish-fulfillment, one connected, moreover, to its profound role in the great machine which we call contemporary culture.
Fantasy, I will argue, is the primary literary response to what is often called the 'contemporary crisis of meaning.' And as such, fantasy represents a privileged locus from which one might understand what is going in our culture in general.
What is the crisis of meaning? Since the Enlightenment a few centuries ago, we have witnessed a dramatic shift in our culture, a signature characteristic of which is the rise of science. Science as a socio-historical phenomenon is related to the crisis of meaning in a least two ways: 1) the disenchantment of the world; and 2) the monopolization of rationality.
Since the Enlightenment, science has quickly replaced all of our prior 'intentional' explanations of the world. Events are no longer the results of some spiritual agency, where thunder, for instance, might equal the 'anger of the gods,' but rather the result of� indifferent causal processes. To say that the world is disenchanted is to say that it is indifferent to human concerns. Where our ancestors saw the world as extended family, as more cryptic members of the tribe, we see the world as arbitrary and inhuman, utterly disconnected from the puny tribe of human agency.
It is the power of science to explain, and the technological dividends those explanations have reaped, which has led to science's monopolization of rationality. The only socially legitimate truth claims that remain to us are scientific truth claims. To be rational in our society, is to be 'scientifically minded,' to reserve our judgment on the truth or falsity of various claims pending 'hard evidence.'
The problem, however, is that science does not provide value, does not tell us what is good or bad, right or wrong. And so we find ourselves in a curious quandary: the only socially legitimate means we have to make truth claims has become divorced from questions of value. Certainly there are some very reasonable sounding moral philosophers and theologians out there with innumerable claims to the truth of this or that moral principle, but the fact that they can never agree on anything demonstrates to us the futility of their rationalizations. Only the evolutionary biologist can give us a scientific theory of morality: morality is an illusion which generates the requisite social cohesion necessary for the successful rearing of offspring. There is no 'good' or 'evil,' not really, only the successful transmission of genetic material.
The power of science to monopolize rationality has reached such an extent that one can no longer ask the question, 'What is the meaning of life?' and still be 'rational.' Since there is no scientific answer to this question, and since science is the paradigm of rationality, the question becomes irrational, silly, the subject matter of Monty Python spoofs.
Thus the crisis of meaning. The world we live in has been revealed by science to be indifferent and arbitrary. Where we once lived in a world steeped in moral significance, now we live in a world where things simply happen. Where once the meaningfulness of life was an unquestioned certainty, the very foundation of rationality, now we must continually struggle to 'make our lives meaningful,' and do so, moreover, without the sanction of rationality. Questions of the meaningfulness of life have retreated into the fractured realm of competing faiths and the 'New Age' section of the bookstore. In our day in age, the truth claim, 'My life has meaning,' is as much an act of faith (which is to say, a belief without rational legitimation) as the truth claim, 'There is a God.'
It is no accident that fantasy is preoccupied with our pre-Enlightenment, pre-crisis past. The contemporary world is a nihilistic world, where all signs point to the illusory status of love, beauty, goodness and so on. This is not to say that they are in fact illusory, only that at a fundamental level our culture is antagonistic to the claim that they are real. Nihilism is a fever in the bones of contemporary culture, afflicting all our assertions of meaningfulness with the ache that they are wrong.
Fantasy is the celebration of what we no longer are: individuals certain of our meaningfulness in a meaningful world. The wish-fulfillment that distinguishes fantasy from other genres is not to be the all-conquering hero, but to live in a meaningful world. The fact that such worlds are enchanted worlds, worlds steeped in magic, simply demonstrates the severity of our contemporary crisis. 'Magic' is a degraded category in our society; if you believe in magic in this world, you are an irrational flake. And yet magic is all we have in our attempt to recover some vicarious sense of meaningfulness. If fantasy primarily looks back, primarily celebrates those values rendered irrelevant by post-industrial society, it is because our future only holds the promise of a more trenchant nihilism. One may have faith otherwise, but by definition such faith is not rational. Faith, remember, is belief without reasons.
Reading fantasy represents the attempt to give meaning to one's life by forgetting, for a time, the world that one lives in. In the escape offered by fantasy one glimpses the profound dimensions of our modern dilemma. Fantasy is the primary expression of a terrible socio-historical truth: the fundamental implication of our scientific culture is that life is meaningless.
If so many religious groups are up in arms about Harry Potter, it is because they see in it a competitor--and rightly so. Fantasy novels can be construed as necessary supplements to the Holy Bible. In a culture antagonistic to meaning, the bald assertion that life is meaningful is not enough. We crave examples.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Tafir of Surah Fatiha - Saad Omar (GhazaliProject)
Based on the Works of Shaykh Muhammad Al-Ghazali* and Mufti Muhammad Shafi
*not to be confused with Shaykh Abu Hamed al-Ghazali
Surah Fatiha
The surah “represents the very heart and soul of the Quran”
It is considered one of the most illustrious surahs.
Speaks of the essential covenant between humans and the Lord, upon which man’s mission on earth is founded.
It is an “earnest prayer to God, heart felt plea” for guidance and to gain the pleasure of God.
Comprises of 7 verses: First three: Praise of Allah. Last three: contain a prayer or request from Allah, which Allah (SWT) in His Infinite Mercy has Taught him/her to recite
“In the Name of God, The Merciful the Compassionate”
These are some of the most exalted names of Allah and when recited they provide protection.
“Praise be to Allah, Lord of all Creation”
Hadith: When we recite this verse, Allah says “My servant has paid his homage to Me.”
Whenever you praise anything in this world, you are essentially praising Allah (SWT) as He is the Creator of all these things.
Praising Allah also emphasizes Tawheed (oneness of Allah), as He is the Creator, and a creation is not worthy of the ultimate praise.
This Ayat entails 3 main ideas:
1. Praise and glorification of the grandeur and magnificence of Allah
2. Praise to God the Creator and provider for His favors and grace He provides to us
3. Gratitude and thanks to God the Creator and provider for His Favors and Grace He provides to us
“Lord of all Creation (all the world).”
Rabb: Lexically signifies “the One Who Nurtures”: “nurturing implies developing a thing by gradual progression, for the creation’s own good, until it reaches perfection.”
Alameen: “the worlds” include all possible forms of existence: the sky, the earth, plants, minerals, and, of course, men).”
Assertion that Allah is Master of all, from the greatest and humblest of creation
Every animal, plant, human, star, planet, anything in the earth, skies, anything that exists, existed, or will exist, “is subordinate to God, subservient to God, bound to His Power, totally dependant on His Grace, Blessings and Compassion.”
“The Merciful, the Compassionate”
Hadith: Allah Replies: “My servant has praised Me.”
These attributes of Allah may follow the previous ayat because it shows that Allah does not nurture humanity because of some external compulsion or inner need, but due to His attribute of Mercy.
“Human beings and all creation live by the grace and mercy of Allah.”
Were it not for His Mercy, our lives would be eroded by our sins and faults.
“Master of the Day of Judgment”
Hadith: Allah replies: “My servant has proclaimed My Greatness.”
“Malik”: comes from the root Milki: “which signifies possessing a thing in such a manner that one has the right and power to dispose of it as one likes.”
“So the Day of Requital or Judgment implies that Allah has total mastery on that day, mastery over what is not stated, so in the commentary of al-Kashshaf, this ayat refers to Mastery over everything.”
This day is a reality that is for a large part ignored in our materialistic society.
It has become a subject for satire and ridicule. In areas of education, law, national and international politics, it has been deliberately omitted or swept aside.
However the occurrence of this day, on which all creation will stand before the Lord, is a fact that must be reckoned with.
“This world is a field of action not reward.” That day, will be the day of ultimate justice.
“You alone we worship and You alone we turn for help”
Hadith: Allah says: “This verse is common to Me and My servant. He shall be given what he has prayed for.”
The first three ayats make it clear that humans are completely dependant on Allah (SWT), so the next logical progression for the human to worship Allah alone, so this ayat represent the logical progression of exclusive worship to Allah.
Furthermore, it is logical that once on realizes that Allah is the only one who can suffice your needs, that you turn to Him for help.
Worship does not only include fasting or prayer however. Imam Ghazali in his book, Arba’in, includes:
1. Prayers
2. Prescribe Alms Giving
3. Fasting
4. Hajj
5. Reciting the Quran
6. Remembrance of Allah in all possible situations
7. Earning one’s livelihood in accordance with the Islamic Law.
8. Fulfilling one’s obligations towards one’s companions and neighbors.
9. Persuading people to act righteously and dissuading them from doing what’s forbidden.
10. To follow the Sunnah of the Prophet (S).
“Guide us to the straight path.” “The path of those on who You have Your Grace.” “Not of those who have incurred Your Wrath, nor of those who have gone astray (verses 5-7)”
Hadith: Allah replies: “All this is there for My Servant. He shall be given what he prays for.”
The straight line is the shortest distance between two points and in this way, the straight path is the only sure and direct way to Allah.
These last 3 verses consist of a direct prayer to Allah.
What about someone who is guided? A scholar? Why do they need to keep asking for guidance? To understand this, we must understand the deeper meaning of guidance.
1. First degree of guidance: This meaning of guidance is general and extends to plants, animals, and even minerals. “Nothing exists that does not celebrate His praise, but you do not understand their (mode of) praising. (17:44).
o So there is a level of guidance is common to all creation. “He gave everything its distinctive form and then guided it.” (20:50)
2. Second level of guidance is reserved for the rational creation, human and jinns. Prophets bring this creation to man through revealed books. Some accept and become believers and some reject and become disbelievers.
3. This last degree is very specific to the true believers and it is endless, this is the “tawfiq” or the special blessings and guidance that Allah give to whom He Wills.
o “As for those who follow the straight path, Allah will increase their guidance.” (47:17)
The straight path avoids twists and turns and it is the one that is avoiding the extremes of excess and deficiency
“Those of those on who you have bestowed Your Grace”
Allah explains this group in the following verse, “Those whom Allah has blessed, namely, the prophets, the Sidiqin (the constantly true), the Shuhada, and the righteous.” (4:69)
1. Prophets: closest to Allah
2. Sidiqin: those who have attained spiritual perfection, namely the saints, or People of Allah.
3. Shuhada: the martyrs who sacrifice their life for the faith or bare witness to the truth.
4. Saliheen: those who follow the Islamic law (shariah) in all aspects of life, the pious people.
“Not those who have incurred your Wrath, nor of those who have gone astray.”
The people who have gained Allah’s Anger refer to people who are given guidance and willfully disobey it. This may include blind following of desires over divine command or being deficient in completing what is commanded. In history, the Jews had this characteristic in relation to revelation.
“Those who have gone astray” refers to the those who go beyond the commandments of Allah through ignorance. This category includes people who commit excess or exaggeration in following Allah (SWT). An example of this excessive zeal can be found in the Christians who deified the prophet.
*not to be confused with Shaykh Abu Hamed al-Ghazali
Surah Fatiha
The surah “represents the very heart and soul of the Quran”
It is considered one of the most illustrious surahs.
Speaks of the essential covenant between humans and the Lord, upon which man’s mission on earth is founded.
It is an “earnest prayer to God, heart felt plea” for guidance and to gain the pleasure of God.
Comprises of 7 verses: First three: Praise of Allah. Last three: contain a prayer or request from Allah, which Allah (SWT) in His Infinite Mercy has Taught him/her to recite
“In the Name of God, The Merciful the Compassionate”
These are some of the most exalted names of Allah and when recited they provide protection.
“Praise be to Allah, Lord of all Creation”
Hadith: When we recite this verse, Allah says “My servant has paid his homage to Me.”
Whenever you praise anything in this world, you are essentially praising Allah (SWT) as He is the Creator of all these things.
Praising Allah also emphasizes Tawheed (oneness of Allah), as He is the Creator, and a creation is not worthy of the ultimate praise.
This Ayat entails 3 main ideas:
1. Praise and glorification of the grandeur and magnificence of Allah
2. Praise to God the Creator and provider for His favors and grace He provides to us
3. Gratitude and thanks to God the Creator and provider for His Favors and Grace He provides to us
“Lord of all Creation (all the world).”
Rabb: Lexically signifies “the One Who Nurtures”: “nurturing implies developing a thing by gradual progression, for the creation’s own good, until it reaches perfection.”
Alameen: “the worlds” include all possible forms of existence: the sky, the earth, plants, minerals, and, of course, men).”
Assertion that Allah is Master of all, from the greatest and humblest of creation
Every animal, plant, human, star, planet, anything in the earth, skies, anything that exists, existed, or will exist, “is subordinate to God, subservient to God, bound to His Power, totally dependant on His Grace, Blessings and Compassion.”
“The Merciful, the Compassionate”
Hadith: Allah Replies: “My servant has praised Me.”
These attributes of Allah may follow the previous ayat because it shows that Allah does not nurture humanity because of some external compulsion or inner need, but due to His attribute of Mercy.
“Human beings and all creation live by the grace and mercy of Allah.”
Were it not for His Mercy, our lives would be eroded by our sins and faults.
“Master of the Day of Judgment”
Hadith: Allah replies: “My servant has proclaimed My Greatness.”
“Malik”: comes from the root Milki: “which signifies possessing a thing in such a manner that one has the right and power to dispose of it as one likes.”
“So the Day of Requital or Judgment implies that Allah has total mastery on that day, mastery over what is not stated, so in the commentary of al-Kashshaf, this ayat refers to Mastery over everything.”
This day is a reality that is for a large part ignored in our materialistic society.
It has become a subject for satire and ridicule. In areas of education, law, national and international politics, it has been deliberately omitted or swept aside.
However the occurrence of this day, on which all creation will stand before the Lord, is a fact that must be reckoned with.
“This world is a field of action not reward.” That day, will be the day of ultimate justice.
“You alone we worship and You alone we turn for help”
Hadith: Allah says: “This verse is common to Me and My servant. He shall be given what he has prayed for.”
The first three ayats make it clear that humans are completely dependant on Allah (SWT), so the next logical progression for the human to worship Allah alone, so this ayat represent the logical progression of exclusive worship to Allah.
Furthermore, it is logical that once on realizes that Allah is the only one who can suffice your needs, that you turn to Him for help.
Worship does not only include fasting or prayer however. Imam Ghazali in his book, Arba’in, includes:
1. Prayers
2. Prescribe Alms Giving
3. Fasting
4. Hajj
5. Reciting the Quran
6. Remembrance of Allah in all possible situations
7. Earning one’s livelihood in accordance with the Islamic Law.
8. Fulfilling one’s obligations towards one’s companions and neighbors.
9. Persuading people to act righteously and dissuading them from doing what’s forbidden.
10. To follow the Sunnah of the Prophet (S).
“Guide us to the straight path.” “The path of those on who You have Your Grace.” “Not of those who have incurred Your Wrath, nor of those who have gone astray (verses 5-7)”
Hadith: Allah replies: “All this is there for My Servant. He shall be given what he prays for.”
The straight line is the shortest distance between two points and in this way, the straight path is the only sure and direct way to Allah.
These last 3 verses consist of a direct prayer to Allah.
What about someone who is guided? A scholar? Why do they need to keep asking for guidance? To understand this, we must understand the deeper meaning of guidance.
1. First degree of guidance: This meaning of guidance is general and extends to plants, animals, and even minerals. “Nothing exists that does not celebrate His praise, but you do not understand their (mode of) praising. (17:44).
o So there is a level of guidance is common to all creation. “He gave everything its distinctive form and then guided it.” (20:50)
2. Second level of guidance is reserved for the rational creation, human and jinns. Prophets bring this creation to man through revealed books. Some accept and become believers and some reject and become disbelievers.
3. This last degree is very specific to the true believers and it is endless, this is the “tawfiq” or the special blessings and guidance that Allah give to whom He Wills.
o “As for those who follow the straight path, Allah will increase their guidance.” (47:17)
The straight path avoids twists and turns and it is the one that is avoiding the extremes of excess and deficiency
“Those of those on who you have bestowed Your Grace”
Allah explains this group in the following verse, “Those whom Allah has blessed, namely, the prophets, the Sidiqin (the constantly true), the Shuhada, and the righteous.” (4:69)
1. Prophets: closest to Allah
2. Sidiqin: those who have attained spiritual perfection, namely the saints, or People of Allah.
3. Shuhada: the martyrs who sacrifice their life for the faith or bare witness to the truth.
4. Saliheen: those who follow the Islamic law (shariah) in all aspects of life, the pious people.
“Not those who have incurred your Wrath, nor of those who have gone astray.”
The people who have gained Allah’s Anger refer to people who are given guidance and willfully disobey it. This may include blind following of desires over divine command or being deficient in completing what is commanded. In history, the Jews had this characteristic in relation to revelation.
“Those who have gone astray” refers to the those who go beyond the commandments of Allah through ignorance. This category includes people who commit excess or exaggeration in following Allah (SWT). An example of this excessive zeal can be found in the Christians who deified the prophet.
The Sibyl at Dawn
The moon now is
Chiseled,
Shriveled to a
Shadow of an arc;
There it flickers,
Pierced through
These inked skies,
Looking upon
Sounds and streets,
Blotted out.
Gates are bolted,
Stars sharpened,
Lamentings seethe
Below.
Scribes sit alert,
Shadows succumb to
Substance,
Yet the sibyl still
Sings
At dawn.
The sibyl still
Sings
At dawn
While others roam across
Those violet skies:
“It’s far away, so far away,
We cannot reach it,”
They cry.
The stars, hoodwinked,
Stare at the sterling sword
Dangling in the sky.
It glows pale now.
Each new dawn will
Make it bloom
Till it becomes blunt,
And these eager ones
Will catch it no more.
Still the sibyl
Sings
At dawn.
Still the sibyl
Sings
At dawn
As sleepers awake.
The moon bloats
And staggers away,
“Why it’s so fat and full,
Like a blotch in the sky.”
The stars feel sympathy.
The moon, and others, float
Across their tides;
The pens scribble fast.
Dungeons bloodshot
Fume their cauldrons –
Soon it will be time
To unleash that red tide
And the sun will bleed.
And the sibyl still
Sings
At dawn.
At dawn
Sings
The sibyl still
While the moon peels off and
Prunes,
“Look, it’s a blade again,
Away, away, it might catch us,”
They cry.
The sibyl laughs.
The shadows sigh and stumble,
The dungeons roar and rumble:
Soon the sun will rise red,
All threads, black and white
Will unravel as shreds
For all to catch.
The sibyl unsheathes
Its wings,
Gyres in its cage
And stares.
“I am blind, I am blind –
What noise rises from below.
The beasts are loose.
I am blinded,
Only shadows and sleep lurk here.”
24 Sha‘ban 1430
16 August 2009
Chiseled,
Shriveled to a
Shadow of an arc;
There it flickers,
Pierced through
These inked skies,
Looking upon
Sounds and streets,
Blotted out.
Gates are bolted,
Stars sharpened,
Lamentings seethe
Below.
Scribes sit alert,
Shadows succumb to
Substance,
Yet the sibyl still
Sings
At dawn.
The sibyl still
Sings
At dawn
While others roam across
Those violet skies:
“It’s far away, so far away,
We cannot reach it,”
They cry.
The stars, hoodwinked,
Stare at the sterling sword
Dangling in the sky.
It glows pale now.
Each new dawn will
Make it bloom
Till it becomes blunt,
And these eager ones
Will catch it no more.
Still the sibyl
Sings
At dawn.
Still the sibyl
Sings
At dawn
As sleepers awake.
The moon bloats
And staggers away,
“Why it’s so fat and full,
Like a blotch in the sky.”
The stars feel sympathy.
The moon, and others, float
Across their tides;
The pens scribble fast.
Dungeons bloodshot
Fume their cauldrons –
Soon it will be time
To unleash that red tide
And the sun will bleed.
And the sibyl still
Sings
At dawn.
At dawn
Sings
The sibyl still
While the moon peels off and
Prunes,
“Look, it’s a blade again,
Away, away, it might catch us,”
They cry.
The sibyl laughs.
The shadows sigh and stumble,
The dungeons roar and rumble:
Soon the sun will rise red,
All threads, black and white
Will unravel as shreds
For all to catch.
The sibyl unsheathes
Its wings,
Gyres in its cage
And stares.
“I am blind, I am blind –
What noise rises from below.
The beasts are loose.
I am blinded,
Only shadows and sleep lurk here.”
24 Sha‘ban 1430
16 August 2009
The Start of the Universe: April 1992 - Elizabeth Jennings
They've heard the echoes of the starting stars,
They say, these physicists. I am amazed
And feel the sky is shrinking. Is it Mars
Or Saturn signaling? So they have blazed
A trail for us and some conclude this means
Chance is the master and creation is
A random happening. Yet each star leans
Upon our reckoning, and the galaxies
Shrink to our telescopes. I never thought
Creation could be easy or took place
In seven actual days. Now I am caught
Up with the physicists' conclusions, trace
Mankind's beginning to a wonder wrought
Aeons of echoes back, each one a grace.
They say, these physicists. I am amazed
And feel the sky is shrinking. Is it Mars
Or Saturn signaling? So they have blazed
A trail for us and some conclude this means
Chance is the master and creation is
A random happening. Yet each star leans
Upon our reckoning, and the galaxies
Shrink to our telescopes. I never thought
Creation could be easy or took place
In seven actual days. Now I am caught
Up with the physicists' conclusions, trace
Mankind's beginning to a wonder wrought
Aeons of echoes back, each one a grace.
Our false oracles have failed. We need a new vision to live by - Ben Okri
From The Times
October 30, 2008
Our false oracles have failed. We need a new vision to live by
Huge financial success has hidden the moral bankruptcy in our civilisation, We must rediscover our lost values or perish
The crisis affecting the economy is a crisis of our civilisation. The values that we hold dear are the very same that got us to this point. The meltdown in the economy is a harsh metaphor of the meltdown of some of our value systems. A house is on fire; we see flames coming through the windows on the second floor and we think that that is where the fire is raging. In fact it is raging elsewhere.
For decades poets and artists have been crying in the wilderness about the wasteland, the debacle, the apocalypse. But apparent economic triumph has deafened us to these warnings. Now it is necessary to look at this crisis as a symptom of things gone wrong in our culture.
Individualism has been raised almost to a religion, appearance made more important than substance. Success justifies greed, and greed justifies indifference to fellow human beings. We thought that our actions affected only our own sphere but the way that appalling decisions made in America have set off a domino effect makes it necessary to bring new ideas to the forefront of our civilisation. The most important is that we are more connected than we suspected. A visible and invisible mesh links economies and cultures around the globe to the great military and economic centres.
The only hope lies in a fundamental re-examination of the values that we have lived by in the past 30 years. It wouldn't do just to improve the banking system - we need to redesign the whole edifice.
There ought to be great cries in the land, great anger. But there is a strange silence. Why? Because we are all implicated. We have drifted to this dark unacceptable place together. We took the success of our economy as proof of the rightness of its underlying philosophy. We are now at a crossroad. Our future depends not on whether we get through this, but on how deeply and truthfully we examine its causes.
I strayed into the oldest church in Cheltenham not long ago and, with no intention in mind, opened the Bible. The passage that met my eyes was from Genesis, about Joseph and the seven lean years of famine. Something struck me in that passage. It was the tranquillity of its writing, the absence of hysteria.
They got through because someone had a vision before the event. What we need now more than ever is a vision beyond the event, a vision of renewal.
As one looks over the landscape of contemporary events, one thing becomes very striking. The people to whom we have delegated decision-making in economic matters cannot be unaware of the consequences. Those whose decisions have led to the economic collapse reveal to us how profoundly lacking in vision they were. This is not surprising. These were never people of vision. They are capable of making decisions in the economic sphere, but how these decisions relate to the wider world was never part of their mental make-up. This is a great flaw of our world.
To whom do we turn for guidance in our modern world? Teachers have had their scope limited by the prevailing fashions of education. Artists have become more appreciated for scandal than for important revelations about our lives. Writers are entertainers, provocateurs or- if truly serious - more or less ignored. The Church speaks with a broken voice. Politicians are more guided by polls than by vision. We have disembowelled our oracles. Anybody who claims to have something to say is immediately suspect.
So now that we have taken a blowtorch to the idea of sages, guides, bards, holy fools, seers, what is left in our cultural landscape? Scientific rationality has proved inadequate to the unpredictabilities of the times. It is enlightening that the Pharoah would not have saved Egypt from its seven lean years with the best economic advisers to hand.
This is where we step out into a new space. What is most missing in the landscape of our times is the sustaining power of myths that we can live by.
If we need a new vision for our times, what might it be? A vision that arises from necessity or one that orientates us towards a new future? I favour the latter. It is too late to react only from necessity. One of our much neglected qualities is our creative ability to reshape our world. Our planet is under threat. We need a new one-planet thinking.
We must bring back into society a deeper sense of the purpose of living. The unhappiness in so many lives ought to tell us that success alone is not enough. Material success has brought us to a strange spiritual and moral bankruptcy.
If we look at alcoholism rates, suicide rates and our sensation addiction, we must conclude that this banishment of higher things from the garden has not been a success. The more the society has succeeded, the more its heart has failed.
Everywhere parents are puzzled as to what to do with their children. Everywhere the children are puzzled as to what to do with themselves. The question everywhere is, you get your success and then what?
We need a new social consciousness. The poor and the hungry need to be the focus of our economic and social responsibility.
Every society has a legend about a treasure that is lost. The message of the Fisher King is as true now as ever. Find the grail that was lost. Find the values that were so crucial to the birth of our civilisation, but were lost in the intoxication of its triumphs.
We can enter a new future only by reconnecting what is best in us, and adapting it to our times. Education ought to be more global; we need to restore the pre-eminence of character over show, and wisdom over cleverness. We need to be more a people of the world.
All great cultures renew themselves by accepting the challenges of their times, and, like the biblical David, forge their vision and courage in the secret laboratory of the wild, wrestling with their demons, and perfecting their character. We must transform ourselves or perish.
The Booker Prize-winning novelist Ben Okri will be reporting from the US about race and the presidential election for The Times on Saturday
October 30, 2008
Our false oracles have failed. We need a new vision to live by
Huge financial success has hidden the moral bankruptcy in our civilisation, We must rediscover our lost values or perish
The crisis affecting the economy is a crisis of our civilisation. The values that we hold dear are the very same that got us to this point. The meltdown in the economy is a harsh metaphor of the meltdown of some of our value systems. A house is on fire; we see flames coming through the windows on the second floor and we think that that is where the fire is raging. In fact it is raging elsewhere.
For decades poets and artists have been crying in the wilderness about the wasteland, the debacle, the apocalypse. But apparent economic triumph has deafened us to these warnings. Now it is necessary to look at this crisis as a symptom of things gone wrong in our culture.
Individualism has been raised almost to a religion, appearance made more important than substance. Success justifies greed, and greed justifies indifference to fellow human beings. We thought that our actions affected only our own sphere but the way that appalling decisions made in America have set off a domino effect makes it necessary to bring new ideas to the forefront of our civilisation. The most important is that we are more connected than we suspected. A visible and invisible mesh links economies and cultures around the globe to the great military and economic centres.
The only hope lies in a fundamental re-examination of the values that we have lived by in the past 30 years. It wouldn't do just to improve the banking system - we need to redesign the whole edifice.
There ought to be great cries in the land, great anger. But there is a strange silence. Why? Because we are all implicated. We have drifted to this dark unacceptable place together. We took the success of our economy as proof of the rightness of its underlying philosophy. We are now at a crossroad. Our future depends not on whether we get through this, but on how deeply and truthfully we examine its causes.
I strayed into the oldest church in Cheltenham not long ago and, with no intention in mind, opened the Bible. The passage that met my eyes was from Genesis, about Joseph and the seven lean years of famine. Something struck me in that passage. It was the tranquillity of its writing, the absence of hysteria.
They got through because someone had a vision before the event. What we need now more than ever is a vision beyond the event, a vision of renewal.
As one looks over the landscape of contemporary events, one thing becomes very striking. The people to whom we have delegated decision-making in economic matters cannot be unaware of the consequences. Those whose decisions have led to the economic collapse reveal to us how profoundly lacking in vision they were. This is not surprising. These were never people of vision. They are capable of making decisions in the economic sphere, but how these decisions relate to the wider world was never part of their mental make-up. This is a great flaw of our world.
To whom do we turn for guidance in our modern world? Teachers have had their scope limited by the prevailing fashions of education. Artists have become more appreciated for scandal than for important revelations about our lives. Writers are entertainers, provocateurs or- if truly serious - more or less ignored. The Church speaks with a broken voice. Politicians are more guided by polls than by vision. We have disembowelled our oracles. Anybody who claims to have something to say is immediately suspect.
So now that we have taken a blowtorch to the idea of sages, guides, bards, holy fools, seers, what is left in our cultural landscape? Scientific rationality has proved inadequate to the unpredictabilities of the times. It is enlightening that the Pharoah would not have saved Egypt from its seven lean years with the best economic advisers to hand.
This is where we step out into a new space. What is most missing in the landscape of our times is the sustaining power of myths that we can live by.
If we need a new vision for our times, what might it be? A vision that arises from necessity or one that orientates us towards a new future? I favour the latter. It is too late to react only from necessity. One of our much neglected qualities is our creative ability to reshape our world. Our planet is under threat. We need a new one-planet thinking.
We must bring back into society a deeper sense of the purpose of living. The unhappiness in so many lives ought to tell us that success alone is not enough. Material success has brought us to a strange spiritual and moral bankruptcy.
If we look at alcoholism rates, suicide rates and our sensation addiction, we must conclude that this banishment of higher things from the garden has not been a success. The more the society has succeeded, the more its heart has failed.
Everywhere parents are puzzled as to what to do with their children. Everywhere the children are puzzled as to what to do with themselves. The question everywhere is, you get your success and then what?
We need a new social consciousness. The poor and the hungry need to be the focus of our economic and social responsibility.
Every society has a legend about a treasure that is lost. The message of the Fisher King is as true now as ever. Find the grail that was lost. Find the values that were so crucial to the birth of our civilisation, but were lost in the intoxication of its triumphs.
We can enter a new future only by reconnecting what is best in us, and adapting it to our times. Education ought to be more global; we need to restore the pre-eminence of character over show, and wisdom over cleverness. We need to be more a people of the world.
All great cultures renew themselves by accepting the challenges of their times, and, like the biblical David, forge their vision and courage in the secret laboratory of the wild, wrestling with their demons, and perfecting their character. We must transform ourselves or perish.
The Booker Prize-winning novelist Ben Okri will be reporting from the US about race and the presidential election for The Times on Saturday
Running after
So we peruse through passages,
Those stubborn asymptotes that
Snail towards eternity.
And then we plot each path,
As a perfect perforation
On paper to admire
A pattern that we knit through.
Neat. Precise, plagiarizing
The mechanics of the cosmos.
How dare we unreel darkness
Only to see better.
But then, how often is perfection
Willing to have itself imitated.
How often does the mirror speak truly
To that which stares back?
It merely frames what can be
Reached.
So then shall we splinter illusion
To find its own shadow across dark, deep skies.
A bottle full of ink, a parchment pale;
Each slivered phrase is a firework
Blotting my eternity, confusing me
To believe that certainty is only
A galaxy away.
22 July, 2007
Those stubborn asymptotes that
Snail towards eternity.
And then we plot each path,
As a perfect perforation
On paper to admire
A pattern that we knit through.
Neat. Precise, plagiarizing
The mechanics of the cosmos.
How dare we unreel darkness
Only to see better.
But then, how often is perfection
Willing to have itself imitated.
How often does the mirror speak truly
To that which stares back?
It merely frames what can be
Reached.
So then shall we splinter illusion
To find its own shadow across dark, deep skies.
A bottle full of ink, a parchment pale;
Each slivered phrase is a firework
Blotting my eternity, confusing me
To believe that certainty is only
A galaxy away.
22 July, 2007
Anodyne
It stuck in his throat, he said.
Lamentings poured, silence bled
Yet there came that Porter
To narrate where it all led.
Try prayer, try harder, she said,
‘Despondency is a sin’.
I fumbled an answer
Yet there was no crime to dread.
But You have said it’s narrow.
I am towed forward, slow.
And the path seems to stretch
To a White Light far aglow.
I have dared to crawl forward,
To see, share what lies ahead
Yet I know not, can’t tell
If Your Sign I have misread.
What does my amen conclude.
I see shadow, stars hoodwinked.
I know not where must I tread.
Lead me, as needle Pulls thread.
6 May 2008.
Lamentings poured, silence bled
Yet there came that Porter
To narrate where it all led.
Try prayer, try harder, she said,
‘Despondency is a sin’.
I fumbled an answer
Yet there was no crime to dread.
But You have said it’s narrow.
I am towed forward, slow.
And the path seems to stretch
To a White Light far aglow.
I have dared to crawl forward,
To see, share what lies ahead
Yet I know not, can’t tell
If Your Sign I have misread.
What does my amen conclude.
I see shadow, stars hoodwinked.
I know not where must I tread.
Lead me, as needle Pulls thread.
6 May 2008.
A Whiter Shade of Pale
“Must be strangely exciting to watch the stoic squirm.
Must be somewhat heartening to watch shepherd meet Shepherd.”
- Alanis Morisette, Uninvited
These cryptic compass points
That plot the corners of this paper universe,
Confuse me now.
I am to wait
Till a fuller moon, deep in its white,
Ruffles oceans and lets violet
Ink my whiteness.
All is blank – like snow plastered
Over shores and sands.
This sky that frames these corners
Is also whitewashed.
A lavish blandness sweeps
These dull motes, perforating the glass.
Each step has to be tapped with precision.
I have new socks on. I leave no rude imprints
As I trespass, gyrating these listening skies,
These frozen sands and fenced shores.
I am cold: this bloodless sliver
Of a moon mocks me with its grim grin.
This should be the correct cosmos,
With its careful motes (silent yet).
I thought I heard a call,
Thrown Back in ripples from those colder corridors,
Rising and roaming, as these oceans spin
Like a careless dreamer. It is clear enough.
But this whiteness is too bright,
Too noisy for me to call back.
Maybe, if I root myself, right here,
The snow might ripen to earth.
Maybe, the motes inscribe a pattern across.
Maybe then, I’ll read my name,
Black or blue.
And then, I can unfold each shore,
And take these wet socks off.
I am tempted
To tear open this envelope,
Sealed with this pale moon.
I am terrified
To understand the meaning
Of my unlettered universe
Resting inside these paper horizons.
The glass might prick my chilblains.
7 April 2007
Must be somewhat heartening to watch shepherd meet Shepherd.”
- Alanis Morisette, Uninvited
These cryptic compass points
That plot the corners of this paper universe,
Confuse me now.
I am to wait
Till a fuller moon, deep in its white,
Ruffles oceans and lets violet
Ink my whiteness.
All is blank – like snow plastered
Over shores and sands.
This sky that frames these corners
Is also whitewashed.
A lavish blandness sweeps
These dull motes, perforating the glass.
Each step has to be tapped with precision.
I have new socks on. I leave no rude imprints
As I trespass, gyrating these listening skies,
These frozen sands and fenced shores.
I am cold: this bloodless sliver
Of a moon mocks me with its grim grin.
This should be the correct cosmos,
With its careful motes (silent yet).
I thought I heard a call,
Thrown Back in ripples from those colder corridors,
Rising and roaming, as these oceans spin
Like a careless dreamer. It is clear enough.
But this whiteness is too bright,
Too noisy for me to call back.
Maybe, if I root myself, right here,
The snow might ripen to earth.
Maybe, the motes inscribe a pattern across.
Maybe then, I’ll read my name,
Black or blue.
And then, I can unfold each shore,
And take these wet socks off.
I am tempted
To tear open this envelope,
Sealed with this pale moon.
I am terrified
To understand the meaning
Of my unlettered universe
Resting inside these paper horizons.
The glass might prick my chilblains.
7 April 2007
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