Category Archives: Art

Woodstock for the Adventurous and Responsible 

Jordan Peterson interviews Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying.

Stuff about “narratives” starts at about 40 minutes in.

Content:

(0:35) Intro (3:36) Bret and Heather at Peterson Academy (6:19) The social media approach to learning: iterative feedback (12:01) Combating the evolution of corruption (17:37) The benefits of recorded lectures, future goals for in-person conventions (20:27) Cost of entry, managing bad actors, and the hierarchy of curation (26:04) Why Hillsdale College has a 1% dropout rate in the first year (30:36) The difference between censorship and refereeing, leveraging evolution to continuously self-improve (32:58) Elon Musk: adapting solutions faster than those who seek to game the system (34:45) The orthodoxy of the past and predicting the future (36:21) Rescue the Republic – “We’re hoping this will be an event the way Woodstock was a music festival” (40:02) The propositional must be surrounded by the imagistic, the opportunity for discovery (42:14) Propositional intelligence — and what actually makes you wise (45:57) The edge traversed by comedians, the advent of the laugh track (53:03) The radical distortion of music, “music used to be a living entity” (57:35) Putting forth the pillars of our civilization, the exhausted middle (1:00:14) A secular thinker on the spiritual battle we are all engaged in (1:04:11) The necessity of narrative, translating for the secular (1:09:49) The title toward the demonic, using AI to map the pattern of the Logos (1:11:16) Prayer, revelation, and the spirit of the question (1:14:25) Brick-in-the-wall science, hypothesis generation (1:17:59) The relation between openness and divergent associations, hierarchies of mutational repair (1:20:49) A new convergence on a shared perspective, the need of God to answer prayers (1:22:50) Richard Dawkins, winning with your own audience rather than making substantive progress (1:27:41) What the ancients knew about the delusion of being, metaphorical models in science (1:34:40) Dawkins’ one error in “The Selfish Gene”

Prelude to ‘Lohengrin’

One of my favourite music pieces

This (mostly) serene yet powerful and profound piece of music was composed by Richard Wagner sometime between 1845 and 1848.

Here it is, with an orchestra conducted by Simon Rattle (9 minutes).

Here‘s the Wikipedia entry on the whole opera.

Here‘s the synopsis on the same page.

Summary of the synopsis:

The people of the Brabant are divided by quarrels and political infighting; also, a devious hostile power left over from the region’s pagan past is seeking to subvert the prevailing monotheistic government and to return Brabant to pagan rule. A mysterious knight, sent by God and possessing superhuman charisma and fighting ability, arrives to unite and strengthen the people, and to defend the innocent noblewoman Elsa from a false accusation of murder, but he imposes a condition: the people must follow him without knowing his identity. Elsa in particular must never ask his name, or his heritage, or his origin. The conspirators attempt to undermine her faith in her rescuer, to create doubt among the people, and to force him to leave.

Lessons from Watership Down: What Rabbits Can Teach the Church

Article by Christian Leithart.

From the conclusion:

The way to keep our senses sharp, says Hauerwas, is to constantly remind ourselves of danger through telling true stories. For the church, these true stories are about suffering, death, and resurrection. This is the good news with which we transform culture and bring life to the cities of men. A Christian—or a rabbit—can never be complacent. As the agents of God in the world, we too are called to take up the cross.

Which piece of music was the first to “move” you?

Jordan Peterson and two clergymen are discussing range of issues here. One question that suddenly popped up was: Which song was the first that “moved” you, as opposed to the first song you “liked”? Meaning, which song touched you deeply because it transported some meaning?

The Bishop said, people usually know this, and he named something that was his first; I didn’t quite catch the name, but it was something modern.

I know exactly what he means. For me, it was this: Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, 2nd movement. I will never forget the first time I heard it. I was 11 or 12. It was as if the door to a different, better world had been opened.

“I bid you stand, men of the West!”

The title is a quote from Aragorn just before the final battle in “The Lord of the Rings” – here are clips from the film of that scene.

Writes a commenter under the above linked Youtube:

“Aragorn embodies what true masculinity is. It’s not about being aggressive and pushing your weight around to dominate others. It’s about service. Service to the people you love, to protect them, to lead by example and bring others up with you when they are down.”

Die Walküre, Act 2, Scene 4

The hinge of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle

Start here, the scene takes about 15 minutes (with English subtitles). Then watch the following 10 minutes to the end of the act, where there will be a dramatic battle. (I chose this particular version, from Bayreuth in 1979, because here the singers not only sound great, they also look the part.)

Here‘s the whole story.

The above linked scene is central to the whole story of the 4 mega operas. In this scene, Brünnhilde, Wotan’s daughter and favourite Valkyrie, “grows up” so to speak and does what she thinks is right (and knows that her father really wants) instead of what her father told her to do.

She initially tells Siegmund that he is about to die. But it’s all right, she says. You’re going to Valhalla (the Nordic equivalent of heaven). Siegmund asks some questions about Valhalla, which Brünnhilde answers: Will he be there alone with Wotan (no), will his father be there (yes, but Brünnhilde doesn’t say that Wotan is his father), will a woman greet him fondly there (yes, and not just one). But then he asks: Will his twin sister and love of his life, Sieglinde, join him there (no, and Brünnhilde initially doesn’t say why: Sieglinde is pregnant). Because of the last answer, Siegmund declines the offer and says, if he has to die, he’d rather not go to Valhalla.

What get’s me every time I watch this is the fact that Brünnhilde is the half-sister of Siegmund. She knows it, and loves him dearly. He doesn’t know it. For him, Brünnhilde is a beautiful apparition, but a stranger.

The scene I’ve linked above is well-directed with some great ideas that enhance the storytelling by the music and words. When Siegmund rejects Brünnhilde’s offer to go to Valhalla and says he thinks she is heartless and cold, the actress wonderfully plays the deeply hurt sister.

When she sees Siegmund’s determination not to go to Valhalla (because his great love Sieglinde will not be joining him there), Brünnhilde changes her mind and says that, contrary to what she said before, Siegmund will win the coming battle with his love rival.

When, during the battle, Wotan finds out that Brünnhilde is defying his instructions, he makes sure that Siegmund does die after all, even though it hurts him terribly. He then runs after Brünnhilde, who has fled the scene with Sieglinde.

At the beginning of the next act, we hear the famous “Ride of the Valkyries“.

By the way, JRR Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” contains a somewhat similar scene. Similar in that it contains similar archetypes and archetypal relationships. I mean the one where King Théoden dies, with his niece Éowyn by his side to comfort him, who had just before heroically saved him from being devoured by the monster carrying one of the Ring Wraiths. Watch the two-minute scene here.

My two favourite Beethoven symphonies

I’m not listing the ninth. That’s just otherworldly and can be savoured in small dosages only. It’s in a league of its own.

However the ninth has a worthy “little sister”, and that is the 7th. Of those available on Youtube, I like this version best, with Iván Fischer conducting the Dutch Concertgebouworkest.

The other Beethoven symphony on my favourites list is the 3rd, or “Eroica”. This is the version I like best, with Leonard Bernstein conducting the Wiener Philharmoniker.