File spoon-archives/surrealist.archive/surrealist_1996/96-08-21.184, message 131


Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 11:05:19 +0100
From: william-AT-ns.terminal.cz (william hollister)
Subject: Re: Surrealism: "Creativity and Morality"



Dear Carlos Martins, William Dubin, and Michael Betancour,

>about the incompatibility between creativity and morality in a
>surrealist sense. In fact they are irreconcilable.

Maybe so. The comments of Mr Dubin, certainly suggest an interesting
tension in the word, Morality. Such tension made a De Sade viable
surrealist reference.

Michael Betancour may be correct about prefering the word "Ethics" over the
word "Morality."  My comment did come from a Czech surrealist conversation
that had a focus which I completely misunderstood. The conversation was
about De Sade and also Boris Vian.

The Czech words were interesting: "Tvorivost" and "Mravnost." The first
simply means creativity.  The second translates as both "Ethics" and
"Morality." I asked if the intention was similar to the Czech "Moralita,"
and the man at the end of the table shook his head, "not quite."

Looking into a dictionary, I found "Mrav," meaning "Custom," and then
"Mravenec," meaning "Ant." I asked the man at the end of the table if these
words were more to the point of the discussion and nodded, "exactly."

The conversation continued with pleasant word play, including the
observation that the Slovak word "Robot," which means "Worker."

I am watching a dialogue in a country where surrealism thrived under the
grip of an oppressive regime, and assume that its lingering influence
allows the Mravenec's shadow to creep into all conversations about
Morality.

So I thought I'd throw the words to a surrealist internet forum and watch
what happened. I appreciate particularly Dubin's comments about Breton.

I hope this clarification can further an interesting discussion.

Yours,


william





   

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