Fascinating that the kinetoscope was there as a prelude to the modern theater, and now a much more sophisticated and potent handheld form of this technology (the smartphone) is with us again as we usher in the end of the modern theater.
The Wagner to Hollywood thread is an interesting one as well. I feel like Communism may see this arc as well only from the opposite perspective. If Wagner is tearing his hair out postmortem to realize that Hollywood has built a synagogue on top of his Pagan shrine, than I wonder if Marx is doing the same. Would Communism even be valuable to Marx if not practiced by people's of a Judeo Christian tradition? We often think of Jews as being the sole creators of golem but it's interesting to see where gentiles have created them in the past. Maybe Wagner and Marx are not angry ghosts but perplexed ones.
I think Richard is asking the pressing question as to who are the puppet masters with regards to the cave allegory. Are they benevolent figures out to protect us? Like parents perhaps, who protect us from ourselves until we are old enough? Or are they an outsider group seeking to keep us as prisoners while their own kin roam free from competition with those in the cave? What are the images on the wall of the cave? Are they telling us a story? Are they moralizing or demoralizing? Are they there to scare us? Do they make us dream? Or simply entertain us? Do the shadows on the wall set us towards life or against it?
Our society now seems like it's no longer viewing the shadows on the wall and instead we have closed our eyes and are viewing the shadows of our minds eye, all in disagreement about what we are seeing in our own darkness. Or maybe its more accurate to say we have left the cave and are overwhelmed like newborn God's by the light of knowing and omnipresent information (the internet) and are longing to return to a time of shared story and allegory, even if we understand those stories to be false.
Fascinating that the kinetoscope was there as a prelude to the modern theater, and now a much more sophisticated and potent handheld form of this technology (the smartphone) is with us again as we usher in the end of the modern theater.
The Wagner to Hollywood thread is an interesting one as well. I feel like Communism may see this arc as well only from the opposite perspective. If Wagner is tearing his hair out postmortem to realize that Hollywood has built a synagogue on top of his Pagan shrine, than I wonder if Marx is doing the same. Would Communism even be valuable to Marx if not practiced by people's of a Judeo Christian tradition? We often think of Jews as being the sole creators of golem but it's interesting to see where gentiles have created them in the past. Maybe Wagner and Marx are not angry ghosts but perplexed ones.
I think Richard is asking the pressing question as to who are the puppet masters with regards to the cave allegory. Are they benevolent figures out to protect us? Like parents perhaps, who protect us from ourselves until we are old enough? Or are they an outsider group seeking to keep us as prisoners while their own kin roam free from competition with those in the cave? What are the images on the wall of the cave? Are they telling us a story? Are they moralizing or demoralizing? Are they there to scare us? Do they make us dream? Or simply entertain us? Do the shadows on the wall set us towards life or against it?
Our society now seems like it's no longer viewing the shadows on the wall and instead we have closed our eyes and are viewing the shadows of our minds eye, all in disagreement about what we are seeing in our own darkness. Or maybe its more accurate to say we have left the cave and are overwhelmed like newborn God's by the light of knowing and omnipresent information (the internet) and are longing to return to a time of shared story and allegory, even if we understand those stories to be false.
Good stuff, we will one day liberate ourselves from those pesky Phoenician deceivers.
Very good read.