i'm no expert on science and will take it on faith that dawkins is one
of the great biological scientific minds in the world. but, outside
science, this guy says some really dumb things. if chomsky should
stick to linguistics, dawkins should stick to science. at any rate,
please stay away from arts and culture.
in Foreign Policy, the shupid fool shares one of his epiphanies with
us. he says 'if bach had been brought up in an atheistic culture, he
might have produced oratorios just as sublime, but inspired by the
universe by the galaxy, by plate tectonics.'
what a dumbass. for starters, bach WAS inspired by the stuff dawkins
mentions--okay, not plate tectonics since that theory came much later.
at any rate, bach's religiosity was inseparable from his sense of
wonderment of nature, moon, stars, and such stuff. he gazed at sky
filled with countless stars. baroque and classical composers were
closer to the natural state and rhythms of the universe. religious or
not, they were in wonderment of the beauty of the world all around
them.
but more im****tantly, dawkin's epiphany shows that he's such a radical
self-centered and self-righteous ****er that he can't give religion
ANY credit for anything. so, why was bach a great composer? religion
or spirituality had NOTHING to do with it; under different
cir***stances, bach would have created music just as profound, says
doc dawkins. now, i wouldn't argue that religion is necessarily good
for art; there are too many cases of religious dogmatism getting in
the way of or stifling creativity--due to external censor****p or
internal inhibition. the creative explosion of modernism had much to
do with rejecting traditional notions of art--though culture had
already been remarkably secularized even before the modernist age; it
could just as well be argued that modernism--and romanticism before
it--were rejections of rationalism of the sort dawkins champions
much. the romantics felt that rationalism limited imagination, and
moderns thought rationalism was afraid to look honestly into the dark,
twisted labyrinth of the human soul. indeed, even much of the
greatest works of secular artists have little to do with rationalism.
after all, sublimnity is beyond rationality. if it can be dissected
by the rational mind, it cannot sublime. the sublime makes perfect
sense within a part of us that's neither purely emotional nor purely
rational. it's both and neither at the same time. it makes us say
'yes, yes', but we are not sure why. something in us--the conscious
and subconscious mind, the intellect and emotions, etc--makes us
experience something powerful that is, at once, contradictory and
harmonious. there is no way to understand this reaction by scientific
understanding. consider a beautiful sunset over a lake. one can
describe the water as H2O, the nature of ripples, how rays are
refracted, and so on. all such would be interesting and worth probing.
but, it still doesn't explain why the image has such power over us. of
course, we can try to understand the workings of the human mind and
how the sense of 'sublimnity' is produced as a biochemical reaction.
that too would be a fascinating and a worthy endeavor, but it still
doesn't do justice to the sublime moment. it's something one feels
than understands.
god is crucial in the case of bach because his wonderment at nature
and stars was linked to the idea of spiritual wholeness. it's the
fusion of the spiritual and scientific--and between the metaphysical
and mathematic--that makes bach's music sublime.
of course, bach was born with natural talent. had he grown up in
different cir***stances, he might have produced a different kind of
great music. had he grown up in the 60s, he might have started a rock
band. had he been a muslim, he may have come up with great islamic
music. and so on. but, the fact is he grew up in a world which was
both spiritual and scientific. the world he knew respected the
humanities, sciences, and mathematics. it was also very devout and
religious. much of bach's music--even music strictly composed as
church music--expresses the fusion of the sacred and secular--and
spiritual and sensual. bach was never either/or. he was both. that
made him sublime.
can there be sublime art made by an atheist? yes, because atheism
doesn't negate imagination, creativity, emotional depth, and so on.
and, one doesn't have to literally believe in god or in the sacredness
of things to tap into idea or sense of the sacred. even non-believers
can feel the grace of spiritual mystery or some such. carl sagan was
an atheist but his series COSMOS was filled with a sense of higher
mystery, of the sacred specialness of all things. there was the idea
of wanting to know more because of the awesome mystery of the cosmos
that becomes just a bit clearer from our observations of the universe
on both the macro and micro scale.
so, one can argue that an atheist bach in the modern era could still
have composed beautiful, sublime music. true enough. but, that
fascination with mystery and beauty would still not be rational. even
without god, it is spiritual, metaphysical, and otherworldy--or beyond-
material-worldly. even so, bach of the modern atheist age would have
produced very different kinds of music--rather than the same kind of
music except on different themes-- as one of the main themes of
modernity is loss of faith and the embrace of the neurotic and even
pathological. the beauty of bach's music derives from its harmony
based on faith in god's universe. and, this faith is goes beyond
respect or awe at god-as-engineer but god-as-spiritual-and-moral-guide
for all of us. bach didn't see god as merely construction worker or
even master builder. he saw god as an artist and moralist. god didn't
just create laws of phyics that govern the universe but filled the
universe with love which bach expressed thru his music.
now, suppose bach had been born in the modern world without faith. he
might have still been a great musical composer but also a very
different kind of composer. his music might have been more alienated,
avant-garde, prickly, disturbing, or some such. now, such kind of
music can be just as great as what the real bach gave us. perhaps,
bach might have been more like philip glass, john adams, or pierre
boulez. now, i'm not knocking the modern composers; all i'm saying is
different values, ideas, and times produce different kinds of art. so,
what the real bach produced in his lifetime is inextricably linked to
what he believed during his lifetime. had he grown up in modern
secular times, he might still have been a great artist but a very
different kind of artist. he would not have created the same or
similar kind of music inspired by or based on the dynamics of
different stuff. that's like saying had beethoven been born today, he
would have produced the same kind of music except for the MTV
audience.
now, suppose scientists argue that there's no such thing called
'love'. suppose they say it is a social construct or myth created by
humans to explain--rather foolishly--a set of biochemical processes
that make us feel certain emotions. so, all romantic notions of love
are foolish, misguided, false, ignorant, and even dangerous. so, we
must understand the true nature of our emotions and not give into
concepts such as love which suggest that there is something romantic
or spiritual about our capacity to feel this emotion. 'love' is just
a smoke screen, an opiate of ***es.
now, we know that many great songs, operas, poems, paintings,
sculptures, novels, etc have been inspired by love. so, would it make
sense to say that if verdi had understood the true scientific
understanding of love, he would have composed the same or similar kind
of operas but inspired by the mechanism of hormonal production,
functionality of our organs, the respiratory process, etc, etc. now,
such kind of opera or whatever could be fascinating and i'm all for
it. come to think of it, david lynch has made some movies in that
mode--exploring the regions where bodily fluids form into animal
drives which form into emotions which form into longings. so, if verdi
produced that kind of opera, it might have been interesting. but, the
fact is the operas that he did compose has everything to do with
verdi's understanding and belief in traditional kind of love.
anything can inspire art, but the nature of the source of inspiration
changes the nature of the art. had leni riefenstahl grown up in the
60s and hung around hippies and then became a filmmaker, she would not
have made Triumph of the Hip. she might have made a great movie about
hippies but it would have been very different than her nazi films.
so, at the very least, dawkins ought to respect great works of art
that were inspired by religions. great talents can be inspired by
anything, but the fact is many artists thru the ages were inspired by
spirituality, just as many today are inspired or motivated by science,
intellectual theories, commerce, or commitment to the New. it would
be stupid for a religious person to say about a great secular
architect, 'had he lived in the 17th century, he would have designed
the same great buildings but in the name of god than in the name of
postmoderism.' also, artists have different predispostions that
favor success under different cir***stances. i doubt that if bach
had grown up in today's black neighborhood, he would have been much
good at hiphop. and, wagner's personality and temperament were
naturally powerful and tumultuous , and so he might not have been as
successful during the baroque and classical era which demanded more
controlled expressions. and, it's hard to imagine an artist like f.
scott fitzgerald--who was wrapped up in personal notions of
romanticism--to have flourished under a communist system writing about
the virtue of the proletariat. had he lived in mao's china, would he
have written a communist version of the Great Gatsby?
also, if bach lived today and wanted to compose baroque style music,
many musical conservatories may have rejected him as too old-
fa****oned. to make a living, he might have had to go into
accounting.
whether one likes religion or not, we mustn't separate genius from
spirituality when it comes to works of art inspired by religion. if
michelangelo lived today, would he made a great ****d sculpture out of
richard dawkins than of david? had the builders of the great
cathedrals lived today, would they have built the same kind of
structures in the name of science? now, their innate talents may have
been utilized to build something very different but just as awesome.
but it would still be very different. while an atheist bach might
have composed great music, his music would not have been the music the
actual bach created. indeed, as art is about inspiration that bursts
forth at unforseen moments, it's also likely that had bach started
composing music at different moment in life, his works might have been
very different. suppose the idea of a certain concerto came to him at
a certain moment on some day. he would have been able to put it down
on paper and leave it for posterity because he was in the right place
at the right time. but, suppose few minutes before the inspiration
came to him, his roof collapsed and he had to spend all day cleaning
up the mess. the inspiration may never have came to him, or even if
it had come to him, he might not have been able to work on it and put
it down on paper because he was too busy cleaning up the mess.
when we look at a great hindu temple, we must honor and respect for
what it is. human genius fused with and serving spiritual concepts.
human genius can serve just about anything, but the fact is that there
is a long history of it serving spiritual and sacred notions and
principles. also, even as spirituality often functioned as obstacles
to creative genius in many occasions, it also functioned as the
inspiration, the muse, and stimulant that imbued the artist with the
power, the vision, and faith to create great art.
and, art is not a science. sublimnity is beyond rationality. it's
about the power of the irrational. the idea of approaching the sublime
thru rational scientific understanding is stupid. it's like arguing
that one can use art and creative imagination to learn the truth about
how atoms work.
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