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selenakI'm currently attending a very interesting conference in Nuremberg. (Nuremberg, of the ginger bread goodness, Nuremberg, home of Renaissance painter Dürer, Nuremberg, place of the national party get-togethers of the Third Reich and thus prominently featured in Triumph of the Will, and bombed-out Nuremberg, location of the Nuremberg Trials when once upon a time the world believed there would be such a thing as international law for everyone - there you have the most important aspects of the place.) It deals with religion, multiculturalism, the question of tolerance in the present-day-world, and literature. Religion meaning both Christianity and Islam. Yesterday one of the lectures concentrated on G.E. Lessing, whom Susan Sontag also quoted in her recent acceptance speech. Now Lessing, who sadly is mostly unknown outside of Germany, was one of our most sympathetic writers in the late 18th century, proving, among other things, that it was possible to be a questioning philosopher in the era of enlightenment and a deeply religious man at the same time. Towards the end of his life, Lessing had an intense debate going on with a very orthodox Protestant, during which he said what both Sontag some weeks ago and yesterday's lecturer quoted: that if God offered him the pure, complete truth in his right hand and the burning drive to seek out truth, to question the world around him in his left, he would fall on his knees in humility and say: "Oh lord, give me what is in your left, because the truth is only for you anyway."
This ongoing debate brought Lessing into trouble with the prince of the German state he was living in, and he was told to cut it out and shut up, basically. He then wrote a play which goes one step further when contemplating the question of religion and truth and carries the debate to a further level, from a debate within Christianity (and within Lutheran Protestantism specifically) to a debate between the three monotheistic religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism. This was Nathan der Weise (Nathan the Wise), and the heart of this play is a fable with which Nathan (a Jew) replies to the question of Saladin (Muslim, legendary ruler during the crusades, at the time the play is set fully in charge of Jerusalem) as to which of the three faiths is the one, true one.
To put it less poetically and a bit shorter than Lessing, the fable is about a man in the possession of a ring which supposedly makes its bearer well-beloved and highly regarded among his fellow men. The man has three sons and because he doesn't want to dissapoint one of them promises the ring to each of them, secretly ordering two perfect copies. Once the man is dead, all hell breaks loose because each of the sons claims to be the true inheritor. The judge they apply to asks them whether, since the true ring supposedly evokes love for its bearer, two of them don't feel more love for their brother than for themselves. They don't. The judge then guesses all three rings might be fakes, or if they aren't, the three brothers should accept their father loved them all equally; he, the judge, certainly wouldn't presume to know better than the father. End of story.
Saladin, in the play, is satisfied. In real life, we're still waiting for this "most beautiful of fairy tales from the enlightenment", as the lecturer put it, to come true. But it's irresistable to hope for, anyway. And I wish for some Lessings to day, with their utopias and love for questions without claiming to have all the answers.
Today's morning lectures were from two Persians, a man and a woman. The man, teaching philosophy and theology, gave a review on the philosophical/political development of Iran between 1903 and the present day; the woman, a sociologist, concentrated on the five philosphers most influential in the period between 1953 (when parliamentary democracy ended in Persia because a CIA-organized coup brought the Shah back to power, something the majority of Persians have yet to forgive the Americans for) and the outbreak of the Islamic Revolution in 1978. To hear about the various quite different thinkers, the schools of thoughts and debates over decades illustrated how wrong the widely held perception of a monolithic Iran in the West is. It was fascinating to learn that a good deal of the really influential philosophers studied in Paris at the Sorbonne; the second lecturer said that in some sense, she had always thought of the Revolution as a belated product of the Western spirit of '68.
Neither of the two lecturers idealized the present-day situation within Iran, and both said that as much as there are clichés about Iran in the West, there are prejudices and clichés in Iran about the West (starting with the perception that there is something we can call the West, instead of very different countries, policies and cultures). But they wanted to show the rich variety there is, especially since the death of Chomenei, and in this they suceeded. I think the most staggering statement came from the lady who was asked about whether in her pov, as a woman, the Islamic Revolution had been a good or a bad thing. For the women of Iran. And she (dressed fashionably, Western-style, btw) replied that in her opinion, it had been a good thing. She reminded us that under the Shah, about 25% of the Persian women were getting a university education; today, she said, it's 65% and rising. Also, she said that the women of Iran now were fighting for their rights and full of self-confidence now in a way they (with the exception of a thin moneyed elite) would not have been had the Shah regime continued. Certainly a perspective worth pondering. I'd need more information than the one lecture to say whether I agree or not, but she definitely made me think.
Since I'm still confined to the hotel's computer, here are some full-length links:
Chaplin, from an previously unpublished interview in 1966, here:
http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1075328,00.html
Zadie Smith on E.M. Forster (writers reviewing classic writers always gives me a special thrill):
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1074217,00.html
Thee first complete edition of Ted Hughes' poems reviewed here:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/poetry/0,6121,1075078,00.html
And lastly, if you're able to read German and want to know more about this weekend's conference, here's a link:
http://www.autorengespraeche.net
This ongoing debate brought Lessing into trouble with the prince of the German state he was living in, and he was told to cut it out and shut up, basically. He then wrote a play which goes one step further when contemplating the question of religion and truth and carries the debate to a further level, from a debate within Christianity (and within Lutheran Protestantism specifically) to a debate between the three monotheistic religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism. This was Nathan der Weise (Nathan the Wise), and the heart of this play is a fable with which Nathan (a Jew) replies to the question of Saladin (Muslim, legendary ruler during the crusades, at the time the play is set fully in charge of Jerusalem) as to which of the three faiths is the one, true one.
To put it less poetically and a bit shorter than Lessing, the fable is about a man in the possession of a ring which supposedly makes its bearer well-beloved and highly regarded among his fellow men. The man has three sons and because he doesn't want to dissapoint one of them promises the ring to each of them, secretly ordering two perfect copies. Once the man is dead, all hell breaks loose because each of the sons claims to be the true inheritor. The judge they apply to asks them whether, since the true ring supposedly evokes love for its bearer, two of them don't feel more love for their brother than for themselves. They don't. The judge then guesses all three rings might be fakes, or if they aren't, the three brothers should accept their father loved them all equally; he, the judge, certainly wouldn't presume to know better than the father. End of story.
Saladin, in the play, is satisfied. In real life, we're still waiting for this "most beautiful of fairy tales from the enlightenment", as the lecturer put it, to come true. But it's irresistable to hope for, anyway. And I wish for some Lessings to day, with their utopias and love for questions without claiming to have all the answers.
Today's morning lectures were from two Persians, a man and a woman. The man, teaching philosophy and theology, gave a review on the philosophical/political development of Iran between 1903 and the present day; the woman, a sociologist, concentrated on the five philosphers most influential in the period between 1953 (when parliamentary democracy ended in Persia because a CIA-organized coup brought the Shah back to power, something the majority of Persians have yet to forgive the Americans for) and the outbreak of the Islamic Revolution in 1978. To hear about the various quite different thinkers, the schools of thoughts and debates over decades illustrated how wrong the widely held perception of a monolithic Iran in the West is. It was fascinating to learn that a good deal of the really influential philosophers studied in Paris at the Sorbonne; the second lecturer said that in some sense, she had always thought of the Revolution as a belated product of the Western spirit of '68.
Neither of the two lecturers idealized the present-day situation within Iran, and both said that as much as there are clichés about Iran in the West, there are prejudices and clichés in Iran about the West (starting with the perception that there is something we can call the West, instead of very different countries, policies and cultures). But they wanted to show the rich variety there is, especially since the death of Chomenei, and in this they suceeded. I think the most staggering statement came from the lady who was asked about whether in her pov, as a woman, the Islamic Revolution had been a good or a bad thing. For the women of Iran. And she (dressed fashionably, Western-style, btw) replied that in her opinion, it had been a good thing. She reminded us that under the Shah, about 25% of the Persian women were getting a university education; today, she said, it's 65% and rising. Also, she said that the women of Iran now were fighting for their rights and full of self-confidence now in a way they (with the exception of a thin moneyed elite) would not have been had the Shah regime continued. Certainly a perspective worth pondering. I'd need more information than the one lecture to say whether I agree or not, but she definitely made me think.
Since I'm still confined to the hotel's computer, here are some full-length links:
Chaplin, from an previously unpublished interview in 1966, here:
http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1075328,00.html
Zadie Smith on E.M. Forster (writers reviewing classic writers always gives me a special thrill):
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1074217,00.html
Thee first complete edition of Ted Hughes' poems reviewed here:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/poetry/0,6121,1075078,00.html
And lastly, if you're able to read German and want to know more about this weekend's conference, here's a link:
http://www.autorengespraeche.net
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no subject
Date: 2003-11-01 03:38 pm (UTC)My brain is mush at the moment but have you seen the Iranian film 10? That is definitely a corrective to the all too common Western view of Iranian women. It's about a woman driving around Tehran in her car and her conversations with her various passengers. A picture of her life builds up as the audience travels with her and it becomes obvious that she has divorced her husband, has a tricky relationship with her young son who disapproves in an amusingly masculine manner of her lifestyle, and, apart from her style of dress, she controls her life in a way a western woman would expect too. It's a very interesting film, if hard on the eyes as it's all shot in medium close up and you see nothing of the outside world as you concentrate completely on this woman and her passengers.
No, I haven't seen it.
Date: 2003-11-02 07:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-01 06:24 pm (UTC)If only I could remember *where* I read it...
If you do remember, please tell me.
Date: 2003-11-02 08:37 am (UTC)utopia
Date: 2003-11-02 12:34 am (UTC)And I wish for some Lessings to day, with their utopias and love for questions without claiming to have all the answers.
How very true. Says it all :-)
F.
Poor is the country...
Date: 2003-11-02 07:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-02 05:06 am (UTC)luckily...
Date: 2003-11-02 07:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-02 07:07 pm (UTC)The World is such a hyper complex place to live in, and we can only comprehend small fragments of it and never understand it fully. That of course gives ground to moral and or cultural relativism, which I think can be as dangerous, as believing that you have the Truth, on how life should be lived. The Truth as a concept requires an external all knowing observer, but that is not enough, the observer has to have some rules, on how to interpret the knowledge the observer has. But how and whom does set rules, and out from which criteria does they get constructed, God only knows :). As I said before I dislike relativism, but thought about one absolute truth is also illogic to me, even if I would find it comforting. I think I would have picked the right hand, which only shows that Lessing was wiser man than I, I think. But who knows what is really the right choice to make, only that one of them is the human choice the other is the transcendent choice.
Ok I will stop now before I write more clichés thoughts
lakrids