Monday, April 16th, 2018

Time	Event
1:42p	Crispin Sartwell (man nav tās viņa jaunās grāmatas Entanglements: A System of Philosophy, jo nu, 40$ par kindle versiju?) having a sweet meltdown here on the wisdom of our times: If Shakespeare were around today, the reactions —even, for God’s sake, by drama critics— would tend to go like this: Danes are not really indecisive (let’s examine the statistics on that); this distortion and vilification of Danes must end. Women shouldn’t be portrayed as passive victims, like Gertrude and Ophelia, for women are super-strong, or at least if we keep saying that over and over we might convince ourselves that they are, which would be a good thing, even if they’re not. People like us want characters who look like us, in every single presentation of anything, so why doesn’t the cast more or less perfectly mirror the population as a whole by race, gender, orientation, disability? If you were to put out a movie right now in which a black female character behaved passively, or in which she was in a self-esteem crisis that left her confused and which didn’t suddenly transcend into self-realization, you’d be regarded as a racist and sexist. People would criticize your work on the ground that it’s an inaccurate depiction of black women. You’d protest, in vain, that you did not write the character to be a representative of all black women, or “the typical black woman,” but rather a completely particular human being. In vain, that it’s impossible to create a character that represented all black women. In vain, that every black women is in fact a particular human being. In vain, that what the critics want would make your art an idiotic allegory. https://www.splicetoday.com/politics-and-media/pc-entertainment-as-medieval-allegory (5 Comments | Comment on this)
3:45p	the Round Table is shattered from within The gap between medieval Christianity's ruling principle and everyday life is the great pitfall of the Middle Ages. It is the problem that runs through Gibbon's history, which he dealt with by a delicately malicious levity, pricking at every turn what seemed to him the hypocrisy of the Christian ideal as opposed to natural functioning... Chivalry, the dominant idea of the ruling class, left as great a gap between ideal and practice as religion. The ideal was a vision of order maintained by the warrior class and formulated in the image of the Round Table, nature's perfect shape. King Arthur's knights adventured for the right against dragons, enchanters, and wicked men, establishing order in a wild world. So their living counterparts were supposed, in theory, to serve as defenders of the Faith, upholders of justice, champions of the oppressed. In practice, they were themselves the oppressors, and by the 14th century the violence and lawlessness of men of the sword had become a major agency of disorder. When the gap between ideal and real becomes too wide, the system breaks down. Legend and story have always reflected this; in the Arthurian romances the Round Table is shattered from within. The sword is returned to the lake; the effort begins anew. Violent, destructive, greedy, fallible as he may be, man retains his vision of order and resumes his search. Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror (Comment on this)
9:04p	no hernhūtiešu arhīviem: latvju sievu dievbijība "[Saiešanas namu] celšanas darbos brāļu draudzes locekļi no plašas apkārtnes piedalījās labprātīgi, gan strādājot bez atlīdzības būvvietā, gan arī ziedojot materiālus un gatavus izstrādājumus vai arī naudu. Celšanas izdevumus skaidrā naudā tādā ceļā izdevās ievērojami samazināt. Tā, piem., ceļot 1850. g. saiešanu Šautuvēs, nav bijis jāizdot vairāk par 74 rubļiem. Cik aizrautīgs bija ziedošanas prieks, rāda šāds gadījums: kāda Smiltenes saimniece kā ziedojumu 1814. g. ceļamam saiešanas kambarim Vecpiebalgas Cepļos bargā ziemas laikā aizvedusi uz turieni vezumu jumšanai vajadzīgo gaŗkūļu salmu, paņemot līdzi savu villainē ietīto zīdaini. Turp un atpakaļ viņai nācās nobraukt ap 100 km." Pauls Kundziņš, Latvju sēta, 1974, 267. lpp. (Comment on this)

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