T.N.G. SIGNS OF THE TIMES - N.M. April 12, 2002 (#106)
Greetings from Russell's Remnant: www.oocities.org/dkone_us
Dr. Russell Whitesell suggested to his students that we are not here to change the world but to come through it. Stand back and be the observer. Maybe we are not here to do anything but just observe the experience, learn from the experience, and eventually find joy in the experience. If good things happen “good”. If bad things happen “good”. The Buddha tells us to kill out desire. It appears that, according to Joseph Campbell’s look at James Joyce, maybe Joyce was touching upon some of these esoteric principles. Many also consider James Joyce the greatest of writers. This could be so, but it would appear that the reader of Joyce’s works must have advanced their consciousness in order to get a better understanding of his work.
Joseph Campbell on James Joyce in Wings of Art
Joyce’s theory of art included what he called “proper art” and “improper art.” To Joyce, proper art has to do with the esthetic (sense) experience. It is static. It is not moving you to do anything. It is in esthetic arrest. For the static art, Joyce goes to Aquinas, Dante (the model for Joyce’s work), and Aristotle. He goes to Aquinas for beauty – beauty is what pleases.
What he called improper art is kinetic – it moves you with either desire, loathing, or fear for the object represented. Consequently it moves you to action – you are not in esthetic arrest. Art that moves you is either with desire or loathing or fear toward the object or away from the object. Art that moves you with desire toward the object, Joyce calls pornographic. All advertising is pornographic art. You are not simply enchanted by the object you are beholding. You want it. However, if you look at a Picasso portrait, it certainly doesn’t look like someone you would like to meet, but you still like the picture. It is formally organized and interesting. Art that repels you, Joyce calls didactic. He says that 90% of all writers use didactic pornographics trying to get you to turn away from something, but applying a chocolate coating that will hold your interest.
Joyce states that there are three moments in artwork to be recognized – wholeness and integrity, harmony/rhythm and radiance.
Put a frame around an object. The frame usually cuts off part of the object. Everything inside the frame is to be looked at now as one thing. You are not going to have an artwork until everything inside the frame is one thing – not an assortment of things. So integrity is one thing. Second, within this one thing, what is important is whether there is here or there – and that is all that matters. The relationship can be a part to part, part to the whole, the whole to each of its parts and these parts include relationship of color, form, intensity of light, etc.
The instrument of art is rhythm and this is also true in writing prose. If you are writing to simply communicate information, the only problem is the length of your sentences – not too long, the clarity of the paragraphs; a nice neat thing. But if the esthetic effect is to be achieved, then the rhythm of the prose counts – the precise selection of words, the way the “t’s” and “l’s” follow each other along. All of that counts. Poets are interested in the sounds of the words – rhythms. This is art. This is the second moment to be recognized.
And now comes the mystery – radiance or where to put the word. When the rhythm is fortunately achieved or rendered, you are held in esthetic arrest – this holds you. This is the radiance, this is it. You say “Ah ha!” Why is this so?
This is the mystery of art. The rhythm out there corresponds with a rhythm within and you are fixed. There is a psychological value here and that is the mystery.
Now if it is not rhythm or radiance that overwhelms you, we call it beauty.
If it is something that so diminishes your ego that you are in a transcendent rapture, this is the sublime – and what renders the sublime are immense space or immense power. Very little art handles the sublime. Joseph Campbell said he did not know of any that did, but one can experience the sublime. One of the intentions of Buddhist monuments and Japanese gardens is to bring you up, up, and up so that the space that you behold becomes vaster and vaster and vaster; and there is a curious experience with the breaking open of the vast space – the diminishment of ego – you get a sense of release and your own inner space opens out.
If you have ever experienced saturation bombing, there you are blown by power so the sense of ecstasy can be achieved by the power. An American astronaut on an EVA was left tethered outside the space module with nothing to do for five minutes. All of his orientation was blown – that was the sublime. Again Campbell stated “I don’t think any art work can do that.”
When the three are met, you are not moved by desire, fear or loathing. You are simply held in esthetic arrest by the beautiful accord – what Joyce calls the rhythm of beauty which stills the heart; just beholding, nothing to do, God resting on the seventh day.
The emotions of the comic are joy. The emotions of the tragic are pity and terror, and terror is not loathing. Pity is the emotion that arrests the mind before what is grave and constant in human suffering and unites it with the “human” sufferer. Terror is the emotion that arrests the mind before whatsoever is grave and constant in human suffering and unites it with the “secret cause”. (The Big Words here.)
Mr. “A” shoots Mr.”B”. We are writing about the secret cause of Mr. B’s death. We are dealing here with the philosophical distinction between the formal cause, the secret cause and the instrumental cause. The bullet is the instrumental cause of Mr. B’s death. Here we are writing about gun control, but we must move through the instrumental cause to find the secret cause.
Mr. B is a black man, and Mr. A is a white man. Are we talking about racial problems? If so, then Mr. B is not being looked at as the human sufferer but as the black sufferer. This is then a sociological work here. Now what is the secret cause of the man’s death?
Several weeks before M. L. King’s death, he stated that his insisting on this march would bring about his death. This is a man who killed himself – as we all do. This is what is tragic – the mystery of the relationship between a man’s life and a man’s death. And he becomes a hero is so far that he is fearless in this. He is without fear of his death, and inevitably brings his death.
We are not in the work of art to say this should not happen, but we are in a work of art to say this should happen. Hurrah, hurrah – that I too should die this way. Then you have a tragic work of art, and you are talking about the secret cause. Mortality is not a mystery but how a man dies is a mystery. Write about how this man’s dying is a function of his living. All life is this way. This is the grave and constant in human suffering. If you don’t get through to the constant, then you don’t get through to a tragic work. If you don’t get through to this in the work, all you are writing about is a sociological novel – this is not tragedy. This is Joyce’s vehicle – tragedy, terror, and pit. We look through the instrumentality of the operation and experience the secret cause – and the sufferer is not a black man but a man.
Now in our present day, in our thinking, in our reading, in our newspapers, in our schools, everywhere we are so involved in the sociological that it is very, very difficult to see things like this tragedy rather than in sociological terms. Everything Joyce does has this breakthrough.
Next Joyce in regard to his theory of art is in literature with the difference between lyric, dramatic, and epic art. Lyric presents the object in immediate relation to the subject. The subject is the one who is the witness. The object is what is witnessed. In the lyric the object is so expressed as to give the mood of the witness – “What a lovely day. This makes me happy.” Epic presents the object in mediate relationship – in between the subject and object. That is to say the object is presented with the author’s comments. The author’s comments and explication – usually full of adjectives carry it on.
Joyce decides on the dramatic style. This makes Joyce’s style very, very difficult. Often you never know where you are in Joyce’s writings. After you’ve read the book three or four times, you can find out where you are and it is very exciting. There is no fat. You just have the shear experience right in front of you and it is a delight to read it over and over and over.
Campbell said he had never had this experience with any other author. This is the advantage and disadvantage of Joyce, and this is why we have introductory books for James Joyce’s books.
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At the base of the conditioned mind is a wanting. Most thought is based on the satisfaction of desires – to get or to avoid. Therefore, much thought has at its root a dissatisfaction with what is. Wanting is the urge for the next moment to contain what this moment does not. With the wanting mind, the moment feels incomplete. Wanting is seeking elsewhere. Completeness is being right here. It’s very difficult to see what’s real when we’re actively filtering all the input. Some Buddhist thoughts