[Leica] Documentary Photography Book Review

[wayneserrano at earthlink.net (Wayne Serrano)]

On 5/18/04 3:13 PM, "B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net> wrote:

> 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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Reminds me of seeing people arguing, shouting, screaming, and posturing..
When we begin to loose control and can't deal with a given situation all of
us as a people revert to what we have learned along the way.  Some can talk
and analyze their way through most situations others just have to take it
one step further until it becomes physical.  Makes me think of the word
'Compromise' and how it can be and should be used more often.