Enjoying the view from Limbo
There is no art without limits. Absolute freedom of expression, attractive as it may be as a theoretical principle, ought never to be allowed into the arena of artistic endeavor. Art thrives on finding ways to imply what cannot be said and to reveal new beauty within the constraints of existing forms — and existing norms. Even the artists whom we have come...
Let us list, with comments, a few terms that one cannot avoid hearing or reading persistently these days, at least to the extent that one’s mind has the misfortune of being within range of the popular media (in all its manifestations) and the headline-shouting world it both embodies and engenders. The far right. This expression has no determined meaning in modern discourse, beyond...
Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen. (Ralph Waldo Emerson) Of course, that means you really have to make the decision, not just think of or wish for something. For it is only the mind that has decided sincerely and seriously that can inspire a cosmic conspiracy. And of course, that power encompasses poor decisions as well as...
The most important part of any conversation is the silence. For speaking is thought translated into verbal symbols, and thought is by definition a silent, private activity of the soul. Thus, a conversation consisting only, or even primarily, of words flying back and forth involves little speaking in the strict sense, but only talking, much as Wilde wrote that a woman who cannot...
The publisher and copyright holders of the famous children’s stories of Roald Dahl have systematically expunged certain progressively offensive words from the new editions of his books, in order to bring them into line with current progressive notions of “inclusiveness” (read Marxist mind manipulation). A character who was “enormously fat” is now simply “enormous,” lest anyone be infected with the horrific, antiquated idea...
The classic cartoon image for discovery is a light bulb appearing above a character’s head. This is perfectly apt, and the use of light, especially a source of light, as a metaphor for the actualization of the mind, including the divine mind, is standard throughout the history of figurative expression. It must be remembered, however, that an idea as such brings light only...
Public Intellectual.— Your mind shrinks to the size of your audience. The more frequently you accept the artificial self-reduction of speaking to please the smallminded — or rather the more you invite the spiritual diminution of needing to please them — the more likely it is to become a permanent condition, such that you gradually become less able to expand your thoughts back...
If a man just can’t stand metaphors and wishes to ban figurative language from the marketplace of ideas, one should approach that man’s own words and thoughts — especially his best and most interesting ones — as having been conceived and expressed under the peculiar misapprehension that his own metaphors (including and especially his most extraordinary ones) were literal statements. Paradoxically, some of...
The more uniform and repetitive the conversation, the more any alternative or outlying opinion sounds like irrational extremism.
The more everyone is encouraged to speak, the less most people have to say — and the less audible above the din is anyone who does have something to say….
If you speak as though being understood were your primary concern, then you can only say common things. For language, insofar as it is a tool of clear and straightforward communication, is by definition common, which is to say it is limited to common meanings. Nothing uncommon may be said by common means, unless those means are explicitly used against their primary function,...
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