[Leica] Documentary Photography Book Review

[bdcolen at earthlink.net (B. D. Colen)]

What concerns me far more than ?robust? and war-like language, is 
religiosity and the reduction of foreign policy discussions to religious 
discussions; looking at the world in terms of ?good? and ?evil.? If you?re 
our ?enemy,? you?re ?evil.? It?s that kind of language that allows the 
dehumanization of the enemy, and the notion that we don?t need to abide by 
the Geneva conventions.

It was all summed up for me the other day by a car parked in my neighborhood:

There was a folded American flag on the shelf behind the back seat, an 
American flag bumper sticker, and next to that a bumper sticker that read - 
?Our God is an Awesome God.?

;-)

B. D.

-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces+bdcolen=earthlink.net@leica-users.org 
[mailto:lug-bounces+bdcolen=earthlink.net@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of 
George Lottermoser
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2004 5:49 PM
To: Leica Users Group
Subject: Re: [Leica] Documentary Photography Book Review


Wayne Serrano5/18/04

>Excellent words.. I often wonder why all leaders of religion and 
>government just don't speak out against war and conflict and oppose all 
>efforts that turn us from becoming better human beings.

I found the answer to your question, which is also my question, and in fact 
their question, in a discussion between Toni Morrison and Cornell West:

MORRISON: What is this absolute obsession with violence? I mean, violence is 
two things. First of all, it takes a certain amount of courage, physical 
courage, but it also requires a certain laziness of intellect. So it's both 
easy and hard. It's such a child's view, as is the puny language that 
accompanies it. I guess I shouldn't dump that on children, but it certainly 
is not adult.

The language of literature that is bellicose, that is warlike, is the prized 
language. The White House likes the word "robust." Robust. It's carnal, it's 
sexual, it's sensual, whether it's The Iliad or Ulysses or Chanson de 
Roland, you know, that language, or the Churchillian language. Anything 
opposite that is understood to be weak, wimpy, appeasing, feminine. On the 
other hand, just in terms of language alone, it always seemed to me that the 
language of Gandhi, the language of Martin Luther King, the language of 
Mandela, that's seemed to me the most powerful, morally persuasive language 
around.

Now, it's true that after World War I, I think Hemingway and other writers, 
especially poets, who had been in the war all said, oh, you know, this is 
ridiculous; let's get back to precision. There are no such things as honor 
or glory in war. Those words they couldn't use anymore. But following that 
was World War II, and people needed everything they had, all the language 
that was available to them, in order to finally confront such horror. But 
after that, not just the gestures seemed anachronistic and sort of old, 
retro, but war itself seems retro somehow. Even though everybody is at war, 
it's somehow a genuinely outmoded idea. And the language that is produced by 
it is also outmoded and puny and uninspiring and trite.

I don't mean that people don't say "Yea!" but when you hear these people 
championing war, they almost have no recourse except lies and deceit. 
There's almost nothing else there for them. Because the old power of 
slaughter for whatever reasons--religious reasons, political reasons, tribal 
reasons, etc.--suddenly has lost real intellectual credibility.

WEST: I want to come back to your point about immaturity because I want to 
make a distinction between "childish" and "childlike." You see, the blues 
and jazz are childlike, the sense of awe and wonder and the mystery and 
perplexity of things. "Childish" is immature. And what we have now, we have 
the imperial elite who are adolescent and immature because they perceive 
their crude interests to be protected only by might, only by force.

So that you get this intersection between free-market fundamentalism, which 
is a market-driven capitalist society that's driven not just by profits but 
by ways of reproducing its own system, the oil in the Middle East and so 
forth and so on, but then you've got the escalating militarism, which 
requires a certain mentality. It's a machismo identity. The machismo 
identity is nothing but an insecurity and an anxiety, an inability to be 
human, so you have to protect your territory and so forth. And with that 
comes the increasing authoritarianism--Patriot Act I, and now they are 
trying to get Patriot Act II.

The blues tradition that goes, let's say, from Leroy Carr to your own work 
is not just music, it's an idiom; it's a way of being in the world, it's 
mature, and it takes unbelievable courage, persistence, practice, 
discipline, energy to be a mature, compassionate, decent person. And that's 
exactly what the blues fish is trying to get us to be because you can't have 
a democracy without it. And that's the problem with not just the White House 
but with Wall Street. It's the problem with City Hall; it's the problem with 
the Statehouse.

Fond regards,

G e o r g e   L o t t e r m o s e r,    imagist?

<?>Peace<?>   <?>Harmony<?>  <?>Stewardship<?>

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