A recent column by Stanley Fish may help us think about the public use of the holocaust-it's meaning in to day's political world, its uses and abuses etc.
We often insist(rightly I would say),that the holocaust is unique and not to be compared to other atrocities in history. My friend Fackenheim argued strenuously that it should not be compared to the atrocities of racism, and rejects the pairing of the Holocaust and Hiroshima. This tradition of interpreting uniqueness of the Holocaust is so fixed on the incomparable that it seems to have lost its historicity ,as a catastrophe that blighted the earth we stand on.
But many who argue this way, including sometimes Fackenheim himself contradict themselves are ready to compare Arafat with Hitler and call many of Israel's adversaries Nazis
Moreover the success of our Holocaust institutions , the public commemorations of the Holocaust lie in the fact that it is seen as a paradigm of the evils of racismlinked to the experience of other peoples'
The dillemma is "if we insist on its uniqueness too stridently we say that the holocaust took place on another planet.
Fish's article is about a case where a religious group sought priveleges in enforcing its beliefs. Fish replied tat all religious groups
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
The Tempest and dreams
One and a half hours along the 403/401 ,about half an hour past Embro,(no y). We were racing a summer shower- to see the Tempest,The summer shower caught us and forced us to eat sandwiches in the car
First "Jacques Brel is Alive and Well in Paris"-enjoyable an opera in concert rather than the visceral drama we saw(set in a cafe I believe) in Toronto forty years a go. At Stratford the male performers were seized by the spirit -especialy Brent Carver's "The Port of Amsterdam.
At night the Tempest. I always need hearing aids in the Festival Theatre and can never find the perfect volume.
A great production-
I think of the Tempest as a sequence of visions of imaginary homelands as each of the actors conjures social orders, that fit his own needs. In this production it helped that the stage was bare, leaving it as a large Rorshach field allowing each one to treat it as his own canvas. (The comedy scene with Trinculo and Caliban was milked excessively I and momentarily interrupted my connection to the rest of the play
First dream-The storm- Everyone's life is in peril therefore the only social order that counts is that created by sailors trying to save the ship.The passengers try to assert themselves but the boatswain mocks Antonio asking hi to command the waves. Antonio maintains the fiction that he is in command and threatens to hand the boatswain even wnen they are going to drown. Here is something new. Nature trumps social order
Dream 2. Prospero finally tells Carmina of the circumstances that brought them to the island He was ousted by his brother. He wanted to devote his time to study, especially of magic and deep philosophy, handing over the reins of power to his brother, who ousts him letting him be cast on to this island.
In tne play this is presented as a great injustice but in my opinion Shakespeare sees political power in a more realistic light. I believe Shakespeare is a critic of the ancient tradition o philosopher king as well as the medieval tradition of
the saintly king. See Hanry v1. Shakespeare is Machiavellian in that a ruler should be cognizant of the need to exert power and look over his shoulder. In other words Prospero deserved what he got. When he is restored he doesn't make that mistake. He throws away his books of magic.
3.Gonzales dream of a completely egalitarian utopia without any political hierarchies...An early Kropotkin
Dream 4. Stephano and Antonio prepare to assassinate the others while they sleep. What would they do now that they are stuck on their island.
Dream 5. Caliban engineers a plot to assassinate Prospero with a drunk and a jester.
Prospero-"WE are such stuff that dreams are made of.ends drams
Plummer plays this with a kind of world weariness. he is barely in control of his subjects,including his daughter, End with asking the audience to liberate him from dreams
First "Jacques Brel is Alive and Well in Paris"-enjoyable an opera in concert rather than the visceral drama we saw(set in a cafe I believe) in Toronto forty years a go. At Stratford the male performers were seized by the spirit -especialy Brent Carver's "The Port of Amsterdam.
At night the Tempest. I always need hearing aids in the Festival Theatre and can never find the perfect volume.
A great production-
I think of the Tempest as a sequence of visions of imaginary homelands as each of the actors conjures social orders, that fit his own needs. In this production it helped that the stage was bare, leaving it as a large Rorshach field allowing each one to treat it as his own canvas. (The comedy scene with Trinculo and Caliban was milked excessively I and momentarily interrupted my connection to the rest of the play
First dream-The storm- Everyone's life is in peril therefore the only social order that counts is that created by sailors trying to save the ship.The passengers try to assert themselves but the boatswain mocks Antonio asking hi to command the waves. Antonio maintains the fiction that he is in command and threatens to hand the boatswain even wnen they are going to drown. Here is something new. Nature trumps social order
Dream 2. Prospero finally tells Carmina of the circumstances that brought them to the island He was ousted by his brother. He wanted to devote his time to study, especially of magic and deep philosophy, handing over the reins of power to his brother, who ousts him letting him be cast on to this island.
In tne play this is presented as a great injustice but in my opinion Shakespeare sees political power in a more realistic light. I believe Shakespeare is a critic of the ancient tradition o philosopher king as well as the medieval tradition of
the saintly king. See Hanry v1. Shakespeare is Machiavellian in that a ruler should be cognizant of the need to exert power and look over his shoulder. In other words Prospero deserved what he got. When he is restored he doesn't make that mistake. He throws away his books of magic.
3.Gonzales dream of a completely egalitarian utopia without any political hierarchies...An early Kropotkin
Dream 4. Stephano and Antonio prepare to assassinate the others while they sleep. What would they do now that they are stuck on their island.
Dream 5. Caliban engineers a plot to assassinate Prospero with a drunk and a jester.
Prospero-"WE are such stuff that dreams are made of.ends drams
Plummer plays this with a kind of world weariness. he is barely in control of his subjects,including his daughter, End with asking the audience to liberate him from dreams
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