working on it

Photorealism (Super-Realism, Hyper-Realism) / Claudio Bravo/ Lilium tingitane

I’m thinking that yesterday’s post kinda hit a nerve.  Interesting.  I am going to post up some e-mail responses from yesterday and spend some time pondering and writing.  Might even play hookey to relax and soak in the summer heat while pondering.

The nature of the past and its relationship to the present is a dicey thing. The old saw about history not repeating but rhyming has both flaws and merits.  

I posit that the big problem with this is our current societal habit of thinking that the people in the past were unlettered barbarians.  We paint the past as primitive and obsolete and only as a series of mistakes that are there for us to learn from.  The contempt of the past is nearly palpable.  

Now, the previous statement is kind of a broad brush and the layer of pigment it lays down is more of a spectrum than a monocolor.  But I think that the past and the actions and intentions of the people in the past aren’t that alien.  For some odd reason, the dream of American exceptionalism and the extremely pleasant life that we have led thus far seems to give us the impression that this is the way that it should be.

But we live in a society of contradictions.  We live in a society that is Balkanized and angry and we tend not to realize that the world is a lot more zero-sum than most of us care to admit.  I tend to think that the angry nature of the archdruids comments and my heartfelt need to make my point clear is part and parcel of this.  

I’ll be working on this during the week.  Be well.