Hi Ray,
At 00:33 20/04/02 -0400, you wrote:
(REH)
<<<<
I agree with Keith when he quoted Socrates: "Know thyself." But I do not
have
his cynicism. I believe we can. I also believe that there are no
persons who are tone deaf and that everyone can learn to sing.
>>>>
No, Ray, I'm not a cynic. You should have seen me a half an hour ago, tears
pouring down my face. I'd just downloaded one of Bach's motets ("O Jesu
Christ, meins Lebens Licht") that my engravers had just sent me from Kiev
and was proofing it by playing it back on my PC. What beauty! What
indescribable sublimity!
Bach was one of the greatest geniuses of all time. But he was also capable
of a bit (and probably a lot) of hanky-panky in the organ loft with the
girls, out of sight of the priest and congregation, whenever he had the
opportunity. He was human as well.
What I was trying to say in my previous post is that the human species is
both capable of the most exquisite creativity and of the greatest savagery.
I was also in tears a couple of evenings ago when I saw on TV the rubble
that the Israelis had produced in the Palestinian camps.
Because of our evolutionary past we will be schizoid as long as our species
survives and it is dangerous to suppose that we are capable of producing
"beautiful" civilisations unless we also have a realistic grasp of our own
natures and constantly bear in mind that cruelty and oppression is always
just under the surface ready to spring forth. We needn't be cynical, just
realistic.
Keith
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�Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in
order to discover if they have something to say.� John D. Barrow
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Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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