Vision
Modernism Redux?
“Attempting to define the current cultural climate is difficult at best, but it also raises concerns about society’s aspirations.” Now that postmodernism appears to be dead, in what direction will society and culture lurch in the days ahead? Where are we, and where are we headed? Writing in the May 15, 2015 issue of Philosophy Now, Siobhan Lyons argues that the Western world has entered into a “liquid” period where worldview is concerned (“The Afterlives of Modernism”). No overall theory or outlook presently dominates; many views and perspectives are swirling together, out of which the next great period of thought may be expected, in time, to precipitate. She continues, “today’s ism, if indeed there is one, appears to be an amalgamation of previous theories.” A new movement for “sincerity” seeks a return to certain modernist values, including, spirituality, family, neighbors, the environment, and country, all rejuvenated with a rediscovered reliance on rationality and hope. “The New Sincerity movement seeks to move toward a more impassioned sensibility, with much the same ideals as the modernists.” This movement, while it has not got much traction, reflects a growing interest in and hankering for the best of modernism, which, at its best, frankly, was but the lingering echo of a Christian consensus that dominated Western thought for a thousand years. This is no time for Christians to be talking exile. We need to jump into the swirl, engaging and relating and casting vision wherever we can. Why should it not be that the next worldview precipitation to water culture and society could be the refreshing dews of a more fully Biblical and Christian worldview?

Disciplines
Science
Remember “The Manchurian Candidate”? A Korean War POW was brainwashed to respond to a certain cue, whereupon he would kill a person on command. The film treated us to our worst fears about “re-education” procedures indulged by totalitarian regimes to change or eradicate unwanted social behaviors. Typically, such procedures were accomplished by means of a good deal of pain. No more. Now all you have to do is lie down for a nap and scientists can alter your bad attitudes while you sleep. According to a report in the 29 May 2015 issue of Science, scientists have developed a means of mitigating undesirable social attitudes (gender- and race-bias) by pulsing audio tones to the brain while someone is asleep. These tones, associated with desirable social attitudes during tests taken while awake, can apparently shape brain waves and patterns of thinking without the inconvenience and messiness of, say, water boarding. Ah, neuroscience. This is good news? (“Unlearning implicit social biases during sleep”)

Installation Art
Move over, Christo. My first exposure to installation art, or concept art as it is also called, was Christo’s “Surrounded Islands”, in which he encircled the islands of Biscayne Bay with pink polypropylene fabric. That was in 1983, and I didn’t much cotton to it then. However, my appreciation of the genre has grown over the years, as I’ve studied other of Christo’s expansive works. Anything that stretches the imagination, engages scores of people from a wide range of disciplines, is free to the public, and changes or enhances the way we look at familiar environments –  decently, and in the name of art – is OK with me. Plus the fact that installation art is typically temporary, so we don’t have to watch it deteriorate under the influence of the elements. Now installation artist Janet Echelman is bringing her talents to Boston. She has been commissioned to erect a huge netted installation over a prominent section of the downtown district (“Blowin’ in the Wind”, Art New England, May/June 2015). The colors, shape, and movement of the piece – which will stretch between three major office buildings – all have significance related to Boston and its history. Mrs. Echelman describes her work as “a lightweight piece about interrelationships, responsiveness and resiliency.” She believes the work “calls into question the status quo” and hopes, in spite of her expressed intentions, that her work will create many personal interpretations on the part of viewers. I hope so, too. This is what good art does, after all.

Poetry
Sounding very much like Plato, Ben Lerner avers the failure of all poetry, and recommends that we just get over it (“Diary,” London Review of Books, 18 June 2015). The only real poem, Mr. Lerner insists, is the one the poet imagines in his head, that waits some place beyond time and things where sublime thought and profound affect meet in a trope, as yet unwritten. The writing of the poem, the actual poetry, is always a failure, for no poem can ever capture the pure form or express the pure sentiment. All poetry, therefore, is bad poetry, so we waste our time complaining about the sorry state of contemporary verse, taking our place as one of the “poetry-haters” Mr. Lerner cannot abide. Instead, we should read a poem, no matter how bad it is, and try to capture the “Poem” – capital P – the poet envisioned, but failed to produce. The most a poet can hope for, therefore, is to “compose poems that, when read with perfect contempt, clear a place for the genuine Poem that never appears.” OK, but some poets are much better at this than others, no? And much of contemporary poetry, which Mr. Lerner seems determined to defend, cannot, as Czelaw Milosz argued, fulfill that high and noble poetic calling (The Witness of Poetry). The fault for poetry’s sad decline in our day is not entirely on the reader. Although there is no virtue in ignoring poetry, simply because it’s “bad” or difficult.

Outcomes
Growth of Christianity
While to some it may seem Christianity is in decline, in fact, quite the opposite is the case. As Wes Granberg-Michaelson showed in an article in the The Washington Post, Christianity is spreading rapidly in the global south and in China (“Think Christianity is dying? No, Christianity is shifting dramatically,” May 20, 2015). The Christian faith is rapidly increasing in these parts, and the most common form of it is Pentecostal or charismatic. As people from these regions migrate to Europe and the U. S., they bring their faith with them. “Fresh spirituality in both North America and Europe is being fueled by the process of global migration.” In the US 43 million people have immigrated here, and 74% of these are Christians. The author suggests Christians in this country should demonstrate more openness to immigration reform that makes it easier for immigrants to come here, if only because the great majority of them are Christians. He adds, “The religious impact of immigration, largely unnoticed in hotly contested rhetoric around political reform, offers the potential, once again, to enrich our society in ways we have not imagined.” I agree.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/rweb/commentary/think-christianity-is-dying-no-christianity-is-shifting-dramatically/2015/05/23/d9410f237b00092330b7c7500845f1ca_story.html?tid=kindle-app

Art
“Museum culture is deep and ingrained. Realizing the latent value in our patrimony will, finally, require a public that asks our institutions, graciously but insistently, whether they are using the priceless resources they have been given to serve the public interest as well as possible.” Clearly, Michael O’Hare believes they are not. Writing in Democracy, Mr. O’Hare argues that museums need to work harder to bring more art and better art experiences to the public (“Museums Can Change – Will They?” Issue #36, Spring 2015). Too much art is stored away and never exhibited. Mr. O’Hare wants art museums to put the art up, either on their walls or for sale, and get busy about finding ways of helping the public have a better art experience. But I rather suspect the public won’t care much, even if Mr. O’Hare could get everything he wants. We have so flushed art out of our national systems – beginning, as Mr. O'Hare rightly observes, in our schools – that no amount of exhibit space expansion or technological innovation is likely to quicken the dead taste buds of an indifferent public. The way back to an aesthetically healthy public is long, and it will take more than museums to make dead art-appreciation bones live again.

http://www.democracyjournal.org/36/museums-can-change-will-they.php?page=all

Envoi
Threshold

The thresher hoists the harvest to the breeze:

again, again, again his thrusting fork

dislodges corn from chaff and brings a work

of judgment to completion. With what ease

the separated chaff is blown away –
it's sin a lack of weight sufficient to

resist or foil the wind that courses through

the threshing floor. And thus, without a stay

to keep it in, it flutters and is gone.

The corn, we might suppose, that wind-blast test

has passed, in that we see it come to rest

upon the threshing floor, its trial done.

  But every grain would with the chaff be lost

  but for the Threshold, set to save the host.


T. M. Moore