Post/Postmodern Communion
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"Classical" suggests to me a wishful search for harmony -- reason regulating life, order overcoming strife -- all within a cosmos static. This I take to be the Attic vision -- not of democrats, but of those pure aristocrats, St. Plato and St. Aristotle, wining from Athena's bottle. "Modern" hints at something new: dreams of "progress" piercing through. The timeless classic vision dies. The world's now seen through moving eyes. Faith in reason still survives: Science is God in cool disguise. Rise of ego and of nation. Technical instrumentation. Markets, revolutions, guerre. 'All that's solid melts in air.' "Postmodern" -- another word in a deeply-worded world. Words like "reason," "truth," and "progress" spiral into endless regress. "Is" and "was" and "will" and "ought" mutate at the speed of thought. Aristotle's universe reveals itself as pluriverse as every pompous certainty implodes in ambiguity. Vertigo. Acceleration. Cultural disintegration. Something's dying. Someone's born. Shall we celebrate or mourn? No one knows what lies ahead. Take the wine and pass the bread. In the night a child cries moving tears through moving eyes. Reason cannot heed the call. -- incoherent, after all. Incoherent hearts respond, activate the human bond. Wind blows in from Galilee: Sip the wine. Remember me. |