The New Ozymandias

occams hatchet's Tip Jar (10.80 / 10)

No idea why this garnered no comments -- if only just plauditory -- when first posted, but JAYzuss, it ought.

--7.88, --6.56      If I can't rant, I don't want to be part of your revolution.

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by: Maryscott O'Connor @ Thu May 22, 2008 at 20:56:04 PM CDT

I think it did (0.00 / 0)

but I don't think any comments from that era show up because they're archived offline or whatever happened to them...

"All that is gold does not glitter. Not all those who wander are lost." Tolkien

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by: Rachel @ Fri May 23, 2008 at 09:48:05 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Also, I apologise... (11.00 / 1)

to occams for adding a few of my own pix; some of the ones he originally used just up and diskapeer'd -- so I had to do it, I tell ya, I HAD TO DO IT!

--7.88, --6.56      If I can't rant, I don't want to be part of your revolution.

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by: Maryscott O'Connor @ Thu May 22, 2008 at 20:58:30 PM CDT

you just had to go getting your grubby paws on it, didn't you? (7.25 / 4)

Control freak.

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by: weeping for brunnhilde @ Fri May 23, 2008 at 02:49:13 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Truly Superb! (9.00 / 1)

I am reminded of the "Planet of the Apes" scene of the Statue of Liberty as shown above (looks the same), where the "human" (Charleton Heston) falls on his knees in the surf at this sight and screams, " ... you really did it, you bastards, you blew it all up! ...". Ahh! (drying my eyes) Yes! They did in the movie and in real life still do in their own way! (Go after their enemies) We've had Katrina, Iraq. Who's next? Oh, yea, Iran, the Working Class, the Middle Class, ... Who knows?

No matter where you go, there you are.

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by: sandhill man @ Thu May 22, 2008 at 22:41:31 PM CDT

HAH! That pic was one of MY additions! (8.50 / 2)

I  knew I was still good for something around here...

--7.88, --6.56      If I can't rant, I don't want to be part of your revolution.

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by: Maryscott O'Connor @ Thu May 22, 2008 at 23:11:45 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Yea? Great one! (5.00 / 1)

Yes, you're work is never done! But, you write fantastic essays/ rants, IMNSHO!

No matter where you go, there you are.

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by: sandhill man @ Thu May 22, 2008 at 23:22:21 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Get your hands off my diary (8.00 / 1)

you damn, dirty ape!!

In loving memory: Sophie, June 1, 1993-January 17, 2005. My huckleberry friend.

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by: Paul in San Francisco @ Fri May 23, 2008 at 12:36:56 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

The first time (10.00 / 1)

I ignored it.  The second time, I won't.  Although i feel like a mand old man explaining to a bunch of faint-hearted souls why their picture of kittens is not great art.  You know, it is out of focus, poorly composed, and not well lit.

Objection #1)  I didn't respond the first time because the "photoessay" makes not point, teaches nothing, offe4rs no new perspective, and odes not move the conversation along.  Rather, as Maryscott complained about the Bush administration lately, it tends to cement what people already think, even in the face of new evidence.  It seeks not to open the mind, but to close it around accepted dogmas.

Objection #2)  The form is bl;atantly anti-intellectual, blatantly an appeal to dumb emotion.  As such, it is little different from a picture of Barack Obama in native African dress over an inscription like "Do we want a Muslim to be our president?"  In neither case does the form invite discussion.  In each case, the false implications remain, and are meant to reamin, unchallenged.

Objection #3)  It is difficult to show the injured and dead in war honestly.  To show them at all invites the question, "Just who needs to be informed that war is hell?"  In this context, the essayist (and helper) would like us to forget that most of the suffering and death in Iraq has been caused by Iraqis.  

Life, and especially war, cannot be fit into neat, idealistic categories of good and evil.  It is just much harder than that; it takes much more thought and reasoning.  That black and white world is what we teach to children, as a base to build on.  Now that we are adult, we should do as Paul suggests, and put away the things of a child.

It should go without saying that one could assemble such a photoessay tracking Saddam's reign, and ask the question, "Would the world be better off today if Saddam were still in power?"

Objection #4)  And this might be a capital crime.  here, the essayist misuses the poem for political reasons.  The poem has nothing whatsoever to do with "imperialism" from outside of "the desert."  And even if it did, the war in iraq had nothing to do with imperialism, a fact evident when one considers that the main failure of the US in the war was in never having an occupation strategy, only an exit strategy.  The US thought that most troops would be out by October, 2003!  Unfortunately, al-Qaida in Iraq and Iraqi insurgents had a say in it.

The poem's reference to arrogance speaks to the arrogance of thinking that anything we build or do now will escape the inexorable degradation of history.  As such, it applies not only to the Bush administration, but to those who oppose it.  (That's one of those Zen points:  the administration and its opponents are, from the point of view of history, two aspects of the same reality.)

Shelley's poem ws aimed at Imperial Great Britain of 1819, but if it were to be applied today, it would more properly be applied not to the American adventure in Iraq, but to Saddam's regime.  Contrast the American's (probably foolish) intent to walk softly, to put Iraqi's in power, with Saddam's "wrinkled lip and cold command," his own cruel rule that brought despair to so many, on purpose!

The point of the poem and its relevance to America can perhaps be better seen in Archibald MacLeish's classic, which has the merit of being more refractory to the kind of political manipulation that poor Shelley's poem has undergone here.

You, Andrew Marvell  
And here face down beneath the sun
And here upon earth's noonward height
To feel the always coming on
The always rising of the night:

To feel creep up the curving east
The earthy chill of dusk and slow
Upon those under lands the vast
And ever climbing shadow grow

And strange at Ecbatan the trees
Take leaf by leaf the evening strange
The flooding dark about their knees
The mountains over Persia change

And now at Kermanshah the gate
Dark empty and the withered grass
And through the twilight now the late
Few travelers in the westward pass

And Baghdad darken and the bridge
Across the silent river gone
And through Arabia the edge
Of evening widen and steal on

And deepen on Palmyra's street
The wheel rut in the ruined stone
And Lebanon fade out and Crete
High through the clouds and overblown

And over Sicily the air
Still flashing with the landward gulls
And loom and slowly disappear
The sails above the shadowy hulls

And Spain go under and the shore
Of Africa the gilded sand
And evening vanish and no more
The low pale light across that land

Nor now the long light on the sea:

And here face downward in the sun
To feel how swift how secretly
The shadow of the night comes on ...

Arrogance or willful refusal to see the truth, we lie on the beach as the evening of history passes over us.......

[sorry, but i felt compelled.]


"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one." -Voltaire
Ah, my dear Voltaire, doubt is an acquired and cultivated taste, like Laphroaig Whisky or fine truffles, and quite as exquisite.

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by: Madscientist @ Fri May 23, 2008 at 01:39:24 AM CDT

Mary, Mary... (6.00 / 1)

...quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

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by: weeping for brunnhilde @ Fri May 23, 2008 at 02:50:17 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

weeping (7.00 / 1)

puh-leez!

As i said, I passed it up the first time, and the fact that it got no comments despite the fact that it had (and has) the same kind of symbolic significance to the people here as the crucifix has to Catholics simply adds evidence to my point that it wasn't meant to evince thoughtful discussion.

And you can hardly say that i was merely being contrary, merely gainsaying anything proffered.

It seemed and seems to me to be good, old-fashioned, sixties style, hippie, collage construction, where some theme is set, and the collagist then collects anything he thinks might fit into his theme and pastes them on his board.  The person viewing the work is expected to say, "yeah, like cool man, you've really captured the existential ahistorical arrogance of the evil administration, man.  Like, it wigs me out.  Pass me that doobie, man.  What'ya doin' the next one on, man?"

"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one." -Voltaire
Ah, my dear Voltaire, doubt is an acquired and cultivated taste, like Laphroaig Whisky or fine truffles, and quite as exquisite.

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by: Madscientist @ Fri May 23, 2008 at 03:05:43 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I mnever expected it to spur a DISCUSSION (0.00 / 0)

Thoughtful or otherwise.

In fact, I see it exactly as you surmised: an artistic collage applied to a pertinent work of art from another era.

Oy, man. Chill.

--7.88, --6.56      If I can't rant, I don't want to be part of your revolution.

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by: Maryscott O'Connor @ Fri May 23, 2008 at 03:42:02 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

My chief objection (7.50 / 2)

is that the work of art from another era is not pertinent in the manner implied here.  That it would be more pertinent applied to a collage of the results of Saddam's rule.  In fact, the argument can be made that all of the photos from Iraq ARE the result of Saddam's rule in the sense of the poem.

So, we are agreed that it does not provoke discussion, and you add that it wasn't meant to.  thanks for the confirmation.

btw, I'm chilled.  Just pass me that doobie.

And read that magical MacLeish poem again.  It's like heavy and groovy at the same time, man.

"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one." -Voltaire
Ah, my dear Voltaire, doubt is an acquired and cultivated taste, like Laphroaig Whisky or fine truffles, and quite as exquisite.

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by: Madscientist @ Fri May 23, 2008 at 04:14:19 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

yeah, man, chill (7.00 / 1)

And here, have a "doobie!"

Doobie doobie doo!

I love you!

Shoobie-doo-wop, bob!

Like, feel the energy, man, can't you feel it?

Far out, dudeman!

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by: weeping for brunnhilde @ Fri May 23, 2008 at 08:53:20 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I see it, weeping (7.00 / 2)

In the trails, the colours, the warm energy wrapping me like a mother's embrace and i sing the body eclectic.

It's way far out, man.

"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one." -Voltaire
Ah, my dear Voltaire, doubt is an acquired and cultivated taste, like Laphroaig Whisky or fine truffles, and quite as exquisite.

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by: Madscientist @ Fri May 23, 2008 at 17:42:11 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

apparantley I'm full of Dumb Emotion... (10.00 / 1)

But does everything need to be intellectualized and over-thought?

To disagree with the point of the piece I can support, even if I do not concour.
But to find flaw in its simplicity?
The power of this piece IS its simplicity.

The words (whatever thier original intention) coupled with the images make a powerful statement.
Blunt and to the point.

Does it add anything to the argument? perhaps not. But when you see people arguing about trivialities constantly, maybe it is not such a bad thing to have a reminder of what is important.

Innocents being caught in the crossfire of a war they did not ask for, which is being fought "for thier own good" = Important.

Whether or not Shelley would have appreciated his work being used this way = Fuck him, he's dead.

One of the biggest pitfalls of intelligence, which you obviously posess, is knowing when to disengage and just let a cigar be a fucking cigar.



Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.
-Eric Hoffer

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by: BrimStone @ Fri May 23, 2008 at 15:49:01 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Perhaps, BrimStone (0.00 / 0)

I should have used the word 'mute.'

I am not only arguing that the piece did not advance the discussion, I am, arguing that it didn't show us anything new.  Thus, for me, it is more about self-indulgence than it is about showing the world a reality or perspective of reality that the world has not seen before.

(I believe it was a visitor to this blog named "white_n_az" who called this sort of thing "poster child argumentation.")

As for a cigar being a cigar, that's part of my point.  I'm past the point where i need to be told that a cigar is a cigar.  And someone who feels that this piece is necessary to inform people that war is hell thinks little of people.

The dirty little secret is that this isn't actually the point at all, and that the piece is simply another example of vitriolic petty partisan politics masquerading as high art of sorts.  That wold make it pretentious.

But like art everywhere, there is a certain amount of truth to the notion that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.  You are certainly free to hang this right next to your velvet Elvi, your dogs playing poker, and your cowboys at chow time.  I didn't mean to stomp on anyone's enjoyment, and, as i noted, i passed the first time around.

But i do believe that one's reaction to this piece says more about them than the piece itself says about anything.

Innocents being caught in the crossfire of a war they did not ask for, which is being fought "for thier own good" = Important.

I have lately had my world view rattled by Philip Bobbitt.  He calls the wars from 1914 to the fall of the USSR and reform in China "The Long War," being, to him, the contest to see which form of nation-state government would prove its legitimacy. During the hot portions of that war, he points out, 80% of the casualties were civilians.

He believes that we are now into another era, that of market-states, and a new kind of war.  What i rarely hear, and what this piece (purposely?) obscures is that no war in history has been fought with more care for civilians.  The vast majority of the civilian deaths and casualties have come about NOT because of the war, but because of the actions of Iraqis and other civilians after the war.

"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one." -Voltaire
Ah, my dear Voltaire, doubt is an acquired and cultivated taste, like Laphroaig Whisky or fine truffles, and quite as exquisite.

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by: Madscientist @ Fri May 23, 2008 at 17:40:34 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

And hear I thought we were having a nice civil discussion.... (8.00 / 1)

And you had to bring my velvet Elvis into it. For god sakes man, some things are just sacrosanct.


Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.
-Eric Hoffer

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by: BrimStone @ Sat May 24, 2008 at 10:28:34 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

It reminded me (9.00 / 1)

of a Holocaust montage.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but those have been pretty effective over the years.  And they seem to have made some impact on the thinking of millions of people.  "One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist."  It all comes down to whether or not you believe that non-violence is the best tool in the problem solving toolbox?  bush and Hitler clearly did(do)  not believe in non-violence.     Peace  

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by: imhotep @ Fri May 23, 2008 at 10:39:25 AM CDT

imhotep (4.00 / 1)

It reminded me of a Holocaust montage.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but those have been pretty effective over the years.

Sometimes you do get the point.

It all comes down to whether or not you believe that non-violence is the best tool in the problem solving toolbox?

And part of the effectiveness of those holocaust displays is that they wish to inspire us in the future to use violence if necessary to prevent a repeat of the holocaust.  Those who wish us to say "never again" are quite happy that violence was in the toolbox, and wish that it had been used more quickly.

"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one." -Voltaire
Ah, my dear Voltaire, doubt is an acquired and cultivated taste, like Laphroaig Whisky or fine truffles, and quite as exquisite.

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by: Madscientist @ Fri May 23, 2008 at 17:15:29 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

"Never again" (9.00 / 1)

doesn't mean that you turn into the thing that you claim to abhor.  Which is what bush did and one of the reason that he's in the trouble he's in.  Those glad that violence is available should only be glad when it is used for self-defense and not when it is used pre-emptively.  Another problem for bush.  We all know that Hitler killed millions of Socialists, Communists and other undesirables well before he got around to systematically killing the Jews.  Perhaps if the Jews had intervened before the first millions had been killed they could have avoided their own fate.  You know the old saying, "First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, etc".  What is objectionable is the cottage industry that has grown up around the Holocaust.  Displays, educational events, museums and so on are in good taste, but selling plastic ovens is not.    Peace  

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by: imhotep @ Fri May 23, 2008 at 20:47:02 PM CDT

[ Parent ]