Self-Serving? (Why, If That's The Case, I'll Take Two,...)

You wanna get existential? For me, this shit's existential:

Oh, what a talented world we live in. These days, hole up in a hotel room almost anywhere in the world, turn on the TV and, depending where you are, you might soon find yourself deeply immersed in the latest episode of, say, Slovakia’s Got Talent. Chances are, regardless of your locale, at some point you will be confronted with a fetching, trembling little girl with a voice that’s powerful enough to shatter your eardrums, while still tender enough to break your frozen heart. Such is the power of talent. Like pornography – of which US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said in 1964, “I know it when I see it” – talent is something we claim to be able to recognise easily. 

 

But it seems that we recognise talent far more easily when it’s accompanied by its occasional companion, success. When success enters the picture, talent pops right up, almost as if a red arrow has been drawn into the frame, leading the eye to where it’s meant to go. Without success, sometimes it’s hard to see talent for what it is. When Joshua Bell, one of the world’s pre-eminent violinists, stood playing in the subway in Washington DC in 2007 as part of a now-famous social experiment in perception, most commuters hurried past, unaware of who he was or how much better – freakishly better – his offering was than the usual busker fare. Without that red arrow of success, Joshua Bell’s talent could easily be overlooked, rushed past, drowned out by the pressing thought: must … get … to ... work.

Experiencing something unusual and especially great can remind you of the absurdity of the often-floated idea that virtually anyone can just become creatively brilliant. Of course practice is essential; and, arguably, certain aspects of artistic achievement can be taught. But when you come upon a rare and indisputable talent, you hear and see and feel things that were previously unimaginable. People say “That’s the real thing”, as though implicitly making a comparison with everything else out there that’s been revealed as a distraction, thin or false.

Hearing and seeing and feeling "unimaginable" shit, huh? You don't think they mean work like this, do you?

"It's like they're playing all of our records all at once."

Like I said - from where I sit:

Existential-as-FUCK,...

Fact: The Old White Guys Did Us A Lot Of Good

"This culture of repudiation has transmitted itself, through the media and the schools, across the spiritual terrain of Western civilization, leaving behind it a sense of emptiness and defeat, a sense that nothing is left to believe in or endorse, save only the freedom to believe. And a belief in the freedom to believe is neither a belief nor a freedom. It encourages hesitation in the place of conviction and timidity in the place of choice.

What, then, should our stance be in this existential confrontation? I think we should emphasize the very great virtues and achievements that we have built on our legacy of tolerance and show a willingness to criticize and amend all the vices to which it has also given undue space. We should resurrect Locke’s distinction between liberty and license and make it absolutely clear to our children that liberty is a form of order, not a license for anarchy and self-indulgence. We should cease to mock the things that mattered to our parents and grandparents, and we should be proud of what they achieved. This is not arrogance but a just recognition of our privileges.

We should also drop all the multicultural waffling that has so confused public life in the West and reaffirm the core idea of social membership in the Western tradition, which is the idea of citizenship. By sending out the message that we believe in what we have, are prepared to share it, but are not prepared to see it destroyed, we do the only thing that we can do to defuse the current conflict. Because forgiveness is at the heart of our culture, this message ought surely to be enough, even if we proclaim it in a spirit of irony."

-- Roger Scruton - who I have edited, ruthlessly, and with apologies - though we agree on many things, in the City Journal.

Wasting Away To Nothing

"One verbally agile philosopher remarked in an encyclopedia entry that it is perhaps not Nothing that has been worrying existentialists, but they who have been worrying it."

-- Anthony Gottlieb, on the utter stupidity of existentialism - yea, those damn French again - who can't tell you dick about a More Intelligent Life.