Thursday, May 28, 2015

Religion As Culture


What is to be done? Higher education needs to be worthy of its name. My proposal is the same that I have made since co-creating the course East and Westwith artist and com- munity activist Lily Yeh at the University of the Arts in 1990. The core curriculum for global education should be comparative religion. Study of the major world religions (in- cluding Islam) is the key to politics as well as art. As an athe- ist who worships only nature, I view religions as vast symbol-systems far more challenging and complex than poststructuralism, with its myopic focus on social structures. Poststructuralism has no metaphysics and is therefore inca- pable of spirituality or sublimity. There has been wave after wave of influences from Asian religion over the century and a half since Emerson and Madame Blavatsky, but the result- ant New Age movement is choked with debris—with trivia, silliness, mumbo-jumbo, flimflam, and outright falsehoods. The first step in any solution is a return to originsto the primary texts of sacred literature, supported by art history and archaeology.
The religious impulse of the sixties must be rescued from the wreckage and redeemed. The exposure to Hinduism and Buddhism that my generation had to get haphazardly from contemporary literature and music should be formalized and standardized for basic education. What students need to ne- gotiate their way through the New Age fog is scholarly knowledge of ancient and medieval history, from early pa- gan nature cults through the embattled consolidation of Christian theology. Teaching religion as culture rather than as morality also gives students the intellectual freedom to find the ethical principles at the heart of every religion.

Camille Paglia

http://www.bu.edu/arion/files/2010/03/paglia_cults-1.pdf

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

A Visitor

 Stagg and our young friend, son of Jill and Scott (see photos below) on the El Train. He drove back with me and we showed him as much as we could. Stagg took him to Kingston Mines for music and soul food. We took him to my work at Old Town School of Folk Music. Some cool banjos. Some cool banjo players. Yes, that is the great Steve Rosen having "cheers".


 And we also walked over to Lagunitas Brewery....best brewery tour ever. It's about 5 blocks from our place. Okay, I've done the tour 3 times. Guilty. We had a lot of fun and we got a group selfie

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Legoland


 We made a road trip to visit Legoland. Pretty cool. I love Niagara Falls with The Maid of the Mist made out of Lego.



Monday, May 18, 2015

Art Show Get Together In Toronto

 Eugene had an art opening abut 8 weeks ago, but he also had an art show closing....which I was able to attend. So great to see Tuffy P, his wife, on the left,Eugene in orange with his broken ankle, then in top photo Yvonne galleries with her arms up, Jill in green scarf, and her husband Scott. I love these guys....we all when we were studying art as students, way way back.



Sunday, May 17, 2015

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