by RY Deshpande on Sun 04 Feb 2007 06:42 AM PST Profile Permanent Link Good but wishy-washy. Far more acceptable are the guests of wonderful Disney than such practitioners of religion, of whatever brand that religion might be. But perhaps our souls yearn for something more than the mere aesthetic. Whence shall it come? RYD
by Debashish on Sun 04 Feb 2007 07:30 AM PST Profile Permanent Link Regaridng Disney's imagineers, I believe what RC is pointing to is the organizing power of new image-mythologies carried out under and promoting a culture of neo-colonial trivialization of world history supplanting themselves into global religion. DB by Rich on Sun 04 Feb 2007 12:41 PM PST Profile Permanent Link I also must correct your associations of Daniel Dennett with post-modernism. And especially with your use of the term post-modern barbarism which plays off Sri Aurobindo’s notion of economic barbarism. Economic barbarism is precisely the target of much of the critique post-modernism offers us, and Dennett himself would cringe if he heard he were associate with post-modernism. In fact, Dennett represents a hyper-modernist extreme which attempts to reduce all phenomena to a single cause that can be framed within the power discourse of western science. The phenomena of post-modernism refers to a much more eclectic associations of ideas concerning multiple causality, complexity, multi-culturalism, distributive cognition, and the disempowering of the meta-scientific narratives for which Dennett is arguing... That we would tend to privilege ideas or poetics, which find inspiration in the experience of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother may be natural for those of us who find an affinity with their teachings. However, while recognizing the difference in teaching between Integral Yoga and Other disciplines, I do not believe it necessities a “Go Team” sensibility which automatically dismisses other modes of spiritual practices or expression as fundamentally lacking. I believe this almost “knee-jerk” dismissive approach to other practices is fundamentally characteristic of a budding religious ideology and is in fact contrary to my understanding (however slight) of integral spirituality. Personally the fact that I buy into the metaphysical system of Integral Yoga does not compel me to exclude other metaphysical systems from consideration nor from appropriating their usefulness in personal practice. In fact, if we are honest with ourselves I think we will find that we largely adopt metaphysical systems because we are either born into them, have developed a faith in them, or perhaps because they offer a more satisfying semiology to make sense of our own personal experience as it relates to the great ontological questions and so we resonate with them. However my own concern is to open up the dialog to others besides the faithful. And if we are attempting inter-subjective dialog with those who may share our concerns but not our beliefs, there would be little proof we could demonstrate to champion our cause over theirs. Similarly I think it impossible to conclusively demonstrate that one form of (esp. spiritual) poetry is superior to any other. Now one can argue about style, meter, imagery, complexity or simplicity of expression and their utility for accomplishing the poetic intention, but the valorization of poetry, and especially the championing of its particular imaginative source is largely a matter of personal taste and preference. rc Now for an excerpt of Baudrillard on Disney (the entire article is located here) 3:43 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment