| The Visual Philosophy
Archive: 2009 |
December
Another photograph from Wells
Cathedral, but appropriate enough, I feel, for December - a month dominated by
Christmas. Even for those of us who do not subscribe to the beliefs of the
Christian religion, there is something wonderful about the music and
architecture that has been inspired by religion (whether it been in a shrine
room, temple, mosque, synagogue or church). I look forward to Advent Carols and
feel moved by elements of the Christmas story, for I sense they touch a profound
level of human experience, pointing to values that may be shared beyond the more
narrowly circumscribed religious traditions. In my view, those who
represent the humanist tradition should not waste their time trying to show that
taking religious ideas literally is nonsense - that's all too obvious,
especially to those who take a broad and thoughtful approach to religion. Rather
humanism should celebrate those elements of beauty and value that human beings
have in common, however they choose to express them. Organ pipes and
beautifully restored mediaeval vaulting also speak of the desire for things of
quality - and whatever one may feel about Mediaeval Europe, it produced
cathedrals and churches in a burst of creative architecture that has never been
matched.
November
My mother died last month, aged 89.
Here are two photographs of her, aged 2 and 86. I find this a time to
reflect, not on death, but on life - that curious, wonderful phenomenon that
allows a single organism to develop, mature and acquire character over the
years. The child's eyes are as yet innocent of the changes to village life that
she will witness, no idea yet of the world of work or of love, nor the coming of
war, nor of marriage and family in the austerity of post-war Britain, nor that
she will one day sit, dressed in her finery, at the wedding of a Granddaughter.
The human person develops like a map, upon which we plot the points of meaning
and significance for our lives. Our faces are gradually etched by the
experiences that come our way. We are constantly changing, shaped by what we
have choose to become, or what the chances of life have thrown in our path.
October
At the opening of the book that
bears his name, Nietzsche describes Zarathustra coming down from his mountain
fastness to speak to the people, and for Nietzsche philosophy comes from the
chilly, inhospitable heights. Certainly, there is a very different perspective
when you look down on the inhabited world below. Space and time are not then
experienced in an impersonal way, as they would be by science, but become a
feature of human self-understanding. They become a measure of 'our world' as we
feel it to be, with our history we bring from the past, and the hopes that shape
our future. We find ourselves 'placed' in a very different environment and the
map of our world is expanded. One of the key insights that Heidegger bequeathed
to existentialism, was the fact that we are embedded in our world, and that our
understanding of who we are comes out of our existence in the situation into
which we have been thrown. Certainly, walking in high country, I feel different.
The clutter of life is put into perspective. The self-world is changed by the
new perspective that distance and height give.
You even find yourself writing
things like this, which sound so corny, and yet which attempt to express a
feeling, an intuition, perhaps a sense of Otto's 'numinous'!
September
I know I used this photo on my 'home
page' last month, but I can't resist including it here. Part of the enjoyment of
the Desperate Romantics romp on the BBC was to luxuriate in the intensity of
feeling of the Pre-Raphaelite painters - passion, tragedy, romance. Painters
behaving badly, of course; but also painters striving to create something new
and of beauty. Scotney Castle in Kent is a most romantic place, inspiring,
when I was there, a row of photographers all trying to capture this classic
image of the castle across the lake. Millais might have painted Ophelia drifting
over the water towards it!
August
It's difficult enough for any
industry to cope with the recession, but some are doubly hit because they have
gone out of fashion. As a child, I was regularly taken on holiday to
Walton-on-the-Naze, then a cheerful and lively little resort looking out over
the grey waters of the North Sea, just south of Harwich. It was, for me, a time
of buckets and spades. Visiting it again recently, this peeling,
soon-to-be-knocked-down board was a sad reminder of just how things have changed
for some less fashionable seaside resorts. My familiar hotel had gone, replaced
by a block of retirement flats. But the beach was as ever, and the little
shelters were filled now with elderly people clutching polystyrene mugs of tea.
Then, to my delight, a young mother brought her children down to the beach and
they rushed towards the water and started by build their sand castles. Sometimes
nothing changes. Most people now holiday further afield, and I suspect that a
majority of people on the beach live locally. Its old advertising slogan would
now be challenged and - like Carlsberg - have to add a 'probably' to its
unproven claim, but otherwise the little town continues the life of its own,
sustained only marginally and briefly by the occasional visitor who, like me,
comes loaded with nostalgia. But its probably not a bad place to retire to!
July
To me, there are sights that convey
more by their starkness than can adequately be put into words. This wreck lies
rusting in one of the stunningly beautiful bays on the Greek island of Zante;
death and holiday perfection so closely intertwined. I've always been impressed
with the apparently negative starting point of Buddhist philosophy - that all
life involved suffering (or, more accurately, that all life is inherently
unsatisfactory). It is a realism that sets philosophy off to search for what is
worthwhile in this transient world of ours, without trying to avoid the stark
reality of being fragile and very temporary creatures. To pretend only beach -
as some attempt to do in the Philosophy of Religion, seeing the positive in
everything - is, in my view, naive. Some things are genuinely painful and have
to be faced straightforwardly. But to see only the wreck and not the beautiful
beach is equally to ignore what is most obvious and worthy of celebration.
June
One minute you're walking in
Derbyshire sunshine, the next you're on the top of Mam Tor with rain blowing
sideways at you! There are a variety of optional responses - to rush downhill,
to panic, struggle into waterproofs and curse, or - like this walker - just get
behind your waterproof cover and wait it out. My guess is that the latter
course of action is advised when the political and economic weather turns foul.
MPs wait to see if the constituencies will allow them to continue in spite of
their expenses claims; all over the world people get anxious about their jobs,
or their pensions, or their savings, or about the threat of losing their homes.
Hunkering down while the weather passes is not a bad option; certainly better
than running downhill in panic. It gives time to reflect and to recognise
priorities. Happiness is just being back in the dry!
May
Frog he would a wooing go....
Nothing like the first days of warm spring weather to make a young frog's
thoughts turn to sex, it seems. And how joyfully natural! I'm generally curious
to see just how many human couples seem happy to have sex in front of other
people and/or cameras - if the range of programmes offered by some digital TV
channels is anything to go by. And I remember just how amazing and informative
it was to get my first view of what was classified as 'hard' porn rather more
years ago than I care now to remember. I was curious, fascinated, excited and
amazed at the variety and naturalness of the anatomical possibilities that
previously I had only vaguely guessed at. How sad that viewing the sex act tends
to be labelled 'porn'. There should be a special category of 'joyful sex',
showing just how wonderful and pleasurable the activity is - available for
viewing by young and old, innocent and natural and utterly unlikely to corrupt
or deprave. The term 'porn' could then be reserved for whatever genuinely
degrades and depersonalises human sexuality.
and a comment from Janet Fuentes of
Connecticut, USA ...
'The idea that sex, in all its
variety, is innocent, joyful and natural, represents an ideal viewpoint on the
part of the beholder. The voyeur justifies his habit by persuading himself that
if sex is innocent, joyful and natural then a sexual image must also be so -
like a wholefood dies for the senses. So why not let young and old enjoy such a
feast for the eyes? Unfortunately, the user of pornography has no relationship
with the people on screen; he or she can project any values they like on to the
images. But how much porn is really innocent, joyful and natural? No one knows
what percentage of the port industry is serviced by individuals in need of money
- because of poverty, drug addiction, the need to find money for gender
reassignment surgery and the like. Or because of personal compulsions such as
exhibitionism or sex addiction. In pornography, everyone looks like they are
having fun - but then we can't see the menacing pimp or abusive parent standing
off camera.
Thanks for that, Janet. I
agree with you that - as a sad fact - porn is dominated by money and the abuse
of power in so many ways. What I regret - and why I hoped to produce some sort
of response in my original piece - is that, as with alcohol, religion, politics
and almost everything else in life, it is so easy for what is natural to be
distorted. Mel
April
Philosophy, almost by definition, is
about ideas and arguments; about giving careful attention to claims that are
made and the ways in which they are justified. It is a precise and carefully
controlled business and sometimes takes on the quality of a chess game, as
opponents plan out and present their ideas and oppose others. One of the
reasons I want to explore visual philosophy is that perception takes in so much
more than logical argument can express. It's that time of year when buds
are coming out and I find it amazing just to look and see the literal unfolding
of life. The art, of course, is just to look. The temptation - and I can almost
hear the creationists starting to get a designer-God into the equation, or those
who follow a sadly fashionable scientism arguing that such internally designed
structures require no such external explanation - is to use perception as a
basis for argument. That is sometimes to take it too far. An appreciation of
life is made in engagement, in the moment of perception. That was the thrust of
existential philosophy - that things are seen as 'to hand'. The Cartesian
dualist stands back from that perception and attempts to give a detached
analysis - to describe a world as a spectator. But actually, that is to
evacuate the experience of much of its significance. We do not observe
nature, we are nature. Make what you will of that, but for my part, there are
times and seasons when I try to look without thinking, allowing reflection to
come later.
And here's the same pear tree two
weeks later, covered with blossom.
March
Below Mount Tongariro, on New
Zealand's North Island, the ground is warm to the touch, and steam hisses from
vents in this wild, volcanic region. The Emerald Lakes and Red Crater, which
make the Tongariro Crossing a favourite one-day hike, have a beauty which masks
the sinister nature of this area. Walking here you are aware of just how thin
the earth's crust is, and how inhospitable raw nature can be. As you pass
through a landscape shaped by devastating eruptions, you are wise to do as
advised and keep to the paths! How easy it is, when tending a suburban garden,
to think of nature as kindly. To get a different perspective on the relationship
between humankind and nature, try visiting a land where water boils up out of
the ground and there is a constant whiff of sulphur in the air. (See also the
image for January, below, taken two years ago. I posted it while anticipating
our recent visit to New Zealand.)
February
The gloom of recession hangs over
the early months of this year - with many people suffering the genuine hardships
of redundancy, unemployment and a loss of satisfaction with work, or with
savings that dwindle or investments that crash. But there is ambiguity and
uncertainty about exactly what future we should be encouraging. Industry and
trade - depicted here in the man-made flatlands where the River Maas enters the
North Sea - are essential to the way of life to which most people in the West
have become accustomed. Yet many want to see a future less dependent upon such
things - greener, simpler, shaped by revised values. Is that realistic, or
naive? And what of the pollution that comes with an industrial world?
Industry, environment and the values and aspirations of ordinary people are
closely intertwined. We might prevent rolling grassy sloped to this
industrial wasteland, but would we want to live without the wealth and
commodities that industry provides? These are tough times for the economist,
environmentalist and political philosopher alike.
January
To me, there is is something
fascinating and threatening about walking through an area of volcanic activity,
as here amidst the 'Craters of the Moon' in North Island, New Zealand. Steam
hissing from fissures in the earth, bubbling pools of hot mud, the glooping
sound as bubbles of mud bust into the air, the small of sulphur. They are
reminders that the habitable world is fragile, and that most of the universe is
hostile to what we celebrate as life. We are, as the Buddha put it, like froth
on the crest of a wave. We have nothing as of right; no environment - however
carefully controlled - can ever give total protection; we tread carefully,
recognising that life may not provide quite what we expect of it.
All images on this
site © Mel Thompson
I am
|
 |
