Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 21:59:37 +0100
Subject: Re: BHA: Re-enchanting Reality


Hi Gary,

What a wicked thought! (Literally, perhaps - straight from the depths of
'structural sin' i.e. ideology.) Is the dialectic of freedom not pulsing
in Palestine (a propos of which I posted the poem)? I would have thought
that the Intafada precisely vindicates the Bhaskarian judgement that it
is inexorable. *Seems* to have stopped?

I know (you think that) Yeats was (increasingly in old age?) a bit of an
old fascist, and I wouldn't dream of disputing that view (I don't know
enough about him for a start). I do dispute however that that is
sufficient reason to dismiss everything he says, and assert that it is
possible to read The Song in a progressive way. It espouses a
eudaimonian vision premised on a link between the human essence, and
that of all living creatures and the planetary system - '*Though* I am
old with wandering/ Through hollow lads and hilly lands' = the demi-
real, whence your sentiments seem to spring? This is precisely the
vision of universal self-realisation in *From East to West*, of which
you yourself are erstwhile champion, and it is where, according to that
work, the species must now go, prompted by 'the reality principle', if
it is to survive. This is no aestheticisation of the Real, it is the
truth and moral alethia of the Real, which however is to be
aesthetically enjoyed - and for that we need Yeats and all the poetry we
can muster. 

What's up Gary? Is all that Oz cynicism - those 'blind blue eyes'
(Patrick White), that 'blanket of actualism suffocating hope' (probably
denser in the Great South Land than anywhere on the planet) - starting
to get at you? 'History *blocked*'? That sounds more like Fukuyama or
Kissinger than MacLennan. (Kissinger hailed 9/11 as the best thing to
have happened since Metternich met the Tsar. My bet is that he
underestimates the anti-capitalist movement and the pulse of freedom.)

Mervyn



Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan-AT-qut.edu.au> writes
>Is it not strange Mervyn, how when history seems blocked and when even the 
>dialectic no longer seems to pulse that the aesthetic beckons?
>
>regards
>
>Gary
>
>
>
>     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

The Song Of Wandering Aengus 

 I WENT out to the hazel wood,
 Because a fire was in my head,
 And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
 And hooked a berry to a thread;
 And when white moths were on the wing,
 And moth-like stars were flickering out,
 I dropped the berry in a stream
 And caught a little silver trout.
 When I had laid it on the floor
 I went to blow the fire aflame,
 But something rustled on the floor,
 And some one called me by my name:
 It had become a glimmering girl
 With apple blossom in her hair
 Who called me by my name and ran
 And faded through the brightening air.
 Though I am old with wandering
 Through hollow lads and hilly lands.
 I will find out where she has gone,
 And kiss her lips and take her hands;
 And walk among long dappled grass,
 And pluck till time and times are done
 The silver apples of the moon,
 The golden apples of the sun.



     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---