Hi All:
I enjoy reading the exchanges between Ray and Keith. I don't claim to
comprehend all of it but, having read Allan Bloom's "Closing of the
American Mind" I wonder of what I took to be his contention that there is
an absence of passion in America, and elsewhere.
If I understand him correctly, passion is creative but it creates chaos.
Chaos, however is the raw material that reason needs. Without chaos, reason
is impotent. Our excessive obsession with the rational has led to the
squelching of passion. But it, like Watts kettle corked, must eventually blow!
The conclusion I have come to is that passion within (the bounds of, but
not bound by) reason is creative, while passion without (outside the
bounds of) reason is destructive.
Something like the sperm and the womb I suppose. Do we not agree that
masturbation is an obsession with self that leads to moral degradation?
My question would be, to what extent is the "creation" of art only a
reworking of the extant material, with no new (chaotic) material to be
found, or allowed to enter the forum, which reason can then form into new
work.
Please be gentle, I'm way out of my depth.
Regards
Ed G
