Posts by BenWilson
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As I recall, you were the one implying that the future could be spun from a vacuum, not me.
I'm not sure where you're coming from or going to with any of this, until you clarify your question about originality. It's not the no-brainer you seem to think.
Yes, I think the future could fail to follow from the past. It's possible. Humanity could be all but wiped out in a cataclysm, and have to start over, with very little knowledge of the past. It would be a terrible loss, sure, but not so terrible as the alternative, that they ceased to exist just because their past was lost. Every child is born with very few memories, if any, but most of us think of that as the best time of our lives, and the other end of life, chewing endlessly over memories is usually considered a bitter time. Many people would like to start over, to reboot, to escape their past, their families, their countries, their culture. Entire societies have done it, NZ did it to some extent, first with the Maori who abandoned wherever their homeland was, and Europeans who did much the same thing. They brought a lot with them, but they also left a lot behind and were damned glad about it.
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Sometimes a simple heartfelt "just because" is good to hear.
<blush/>And I thought I was being all cold and logical about it.
I second the need for Radio Danielle, but request that there be a regular arse-serving slot in there for people like me who are prone to wanting to simplify or even forget the past. "Hammer your theory time", perhaps.
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So you can't then?
I can, but it's your challenge. I'd just make it too easy. I just flossed my teeth in what is quite possibly an order that has never been done before.
If you're struggling with a definition, maybe some examples would help me get the feel of what you're after. They won't be enough, but seriously, at this point you could mean anything. Possibly even something original :-). I live in hope.
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Try it. Come up with something COMPLETELY original. Go on! No cheating now - no using an established language - or alphabet or anything passe like that.
Define original.
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I'd say a culture that doesn't know its past -- even the unfashionable and/or socio-politically uncomfortable bits -- doesn't have a future worth the having.
Gonna call bollocks on that. I'd way rather be a culture with no past than one with no future. I think that feeling was even stronger in the days of my forefathers.
Actually, Ben, as others have said before, there's nowhere for the future to arise from but the past.
Metaphysics at this hour? Both past and future are human constructs. Certainly the future can't affect the past, but there's nothing that says the past must affect the future. That is the fallacy of induction.
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swallow...don't spit :)
Maybe just a trickle "like a genius".
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I'm fairly sure that, in these troubled times, the bottle is the only answer.
Aha so that's why my 6 month old went off the breast. The news was getting him down.
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I'd certainly applaud a little honest self-examination on that score.
I'd also applaud it, but I sure don't expect it.
My idea of hell would be serving on the board of Creative New Zealand or NZ on Air.
Hah, I have the lever that can break u now! Ranapia won't talk, eh? Put him on the .... Board!! Muaahaha!
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I've just realised what's so dispiriting, indeed, gutting about this whole discussion.
That's part of it. I'm finding the fact that people are insisting other people take extreme positions on everything the more annoying bit. It can't go anywhere except an impasse when you're discussing the comparative merits of various arts, and the justification of funding them. Any consensus is simply a reflection of group prejudice, and will be harder and harder to establish as the group widens.
I'm horribly reminded of endless recountings I've heard from my sister of the various setbacks in her pursuit of funding. Everything about all of it just sounds so totally arbitrary. A group of people liked you or they didn't, that's the basic reality at the end of it, the reasons always seem to be tacked on afterward. One day they want you to have more popular appeal, the next they want you to be more original. Someone likes your anarchic style, someone else thinks it's fundamentally destructive and wrong.
I hate these kinds of debates. But I can't agree to zero funding, simply on the grounds that it means the destruction of a hard won public good. I don't want to justify which ones I think should be funded because that will just expose me as an art cretin. And ultimately I can't really quantify why Bach on the radio with no ads is worth taking a dollar out of some solo Mum's welfare budget. I just reckon that of the several hundred dollars I gave in taxes this week to that particular budget, one could surely be spared for public art. I can't find a theoretical model to frame this arbitrary feeling any more than I can find a good rationale for how much money I gave in charity this year.
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Fair cop Craig. If you employer is the gummint then everyone is free to rag on them. It's so large and faceless it's like ragging on the ocean. Rudman does not work for them, though, so the rules are as I said. Rag on your employer at your peril. Especially if your employer is a newspaper and your rag is a column in their rag.
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