-
Posts
-
The last clear definite function of man – muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need. To build a wall, a house, a dam and in the wall and house put something of Manself, and to take back something of the wall, the house, the dam ; to take hard muscles from the lifting, to take lines and form from conceiving. For man, unlike anything organic or inorganic in the universe , grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. This you may say of man – when narrow dark alleys of thought, national, religious, economic, grow and disintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully, but only half a step, never a full step back. This you may know. This you may knowwhen the bombs plummet, when prisoners are stuck like pigs, when the crushed bodies drain filthily in dust. You may know it this way. If the step were not being taken, if the stumbling-forward ache were not alive, the bombs would not fall, the throats would not be cut. Fear the time when the bombs stop falling while the bombers live – for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died. Fear the time Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of the Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.
One of the Greatest Productions in this World and the Next was Dundee Rep paired up with 7;84 theatre company. (7;84 ) pertaining too 7 % 0f the population owning 84% of the wealth. And when Dundee Rep had a conscience !
One man, one family driven from the land. I lost my land, a single tractor took my land. I am alone and I am bewildered> And in the nght one family camps in the ditch and another family pull in and the tents come out. The two men squat on their hamsand the women and children listen.Here is the node, you who fear change and revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the analge of the thing you fear. This si the zygote. For here `I lost my land` is changed; a cell is split and from it`s splitting grows the thing you hate – `we lost our land`. The danger is here, for two men are not as lonely or perplexed as one. And from this first `we` there grows a more dangerous thing; `I have a little food` plus `I have none`. if from this problem the sum is `We have a little food`, the thing is on it`s way, the movement has direction. Only a little multiplication now, and this land, this tractor is ours. The two men squatting in a ditch, the fire, the side meat stewing in the single pot, the women watching stone eyed, the children listening with their souls to words their minds don`t understand. The night draws down. The baby has a cold. here, take this blanket, it`s wool, it was my mother`s, take it for the baby. This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning – from `I` to `We`.
If you who own the things that people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could seperate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jeferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might survive. But you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into `I` and cuts you off forever from the `we`.
Need is the stimulus to concept, concept to action.
Very touching and too too painfully true.
But o how unfasionable in today’s world.
I’m sure our millionaire prime minister understands.
@nemesis wrote:
. . . . . . Fear the time when the bombs stop falling while the bombers live – for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died. Fear the time Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of the Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.
Scary concept for me. I can strive to recognise the common humanity and vision of a bomber, whether state sanctioned from a £10million plane or personally motivated and carrying a rucksack.
I believe in the nobility of the human spirit.
But to link the indiscriminate destructiveness of the bomber quite so causally with the nobility of the spirit scares me, it really does.
I’m sorry, but throw Steinbeck at me and I just see good ‘ol Henry Fonda.
It’s interesting that the film ever got released because it certainly would not have seen the light of day in the 1950’s, given McCarthy ‘red under every bed’ hysteria.
But it was and we can be thankful for the message.@Wordsworth50 wrote:
@nemesis wrote:
. . . . . . Fear the time when the bombs stop falling while the bombers live – for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died. Fear the time Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of the Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.
Scary concept for me. I can strive to recognise the common humanity and vision of a bomber, whether state sanctioned from a £10million plane or personally motivated and carrying a rucksack.
I believe in the nobility of the human spirit.
But to link the indiscriminate destructiveness of the bomber quite so causally with the nobility of the spirit scares me, it really does.
Without the willingness to die for a cause, nothing would change. To see a positive in such a terrible thing is a gift I think, and for me the message was about the human spirit ultimately finding that, even in something so pointless.
I thought grapes of wrath were piles :shock:
Get involved in this discussion! Log in or register now to have your say!