W.H. Auden

W.H. Auden: 'Legislation is helpless against the wild prayer of longing.' 

Dit gaat over wat nu gebeurt:

Pitirim Aleksandrovitsj Sorokin (Toerja (gouvernement Vologda), 21 januari 1889 – Winchester (Massachusetts), 11 februari, 1968) was een Russisch-Amerikaans socioloog, politicus en schrijver....

He emigrated in 1923 to the United States and was naturalized in 1930. Sorokin was professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota (1924–30) and at Harvard University (1930–55), where he founded the Department of Sociology.... 

In his Social and Cultural Dynamics he classified societies according to their 'cultural mentality', which can be ideational (reality is spiritual), sensate (reality is material), or idealistic (a synthesis of the two). He suggested that major civilizations evolve through these three in turn: ideational, idealistic, sensate. Each of these phases of cultural development not only seeks to describe the nature of reality, but also stipulates the nature of human needs and goals to be satisfied, the extent to which they should be satisfied, and the methods of satisfaction. Sorokin has interpreted the contemporary Western civilisation as a sensate civilisation dedicated to technological progress and prophesied its fall into decadence and the emergence of a new ideational or idealistic era.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitirim_Sorokin

Morris Berman meldt in 2000 over het invloedrijke hoofdwerk van Sorokin, geschreven tussen '37 en '41:

'The uncanny aspect of Sorokin's analysis is that his predictions for the twenty-first century are already showing up. Sorokin foretells that the boundary between true and false will erode, and that conscience (superego) will disappear in favor of special-interest groups. Force and fraud will become the norm, he says, the family will disintegrate, real creativity will wane. As a substitute for the latter, we shall get a multitude of mediocre pseudothinkers, and our belief system will turn into a strange, inchoate stew of shreds of science, philosophy, and magic. Above all -- anticipating here the rise of kitsch -- ''quantitative colossalism will substitute for qualitative refinement.'' Instead of classics, we shall have best-sellers; instead of genius, technique. Real thought will be supplanted by information. Security will fade, and catastrophe will ensue. Culture will become increasingly debased, emptied of content, until a reaction or cartharsis will finally take place, after which a new ideational culture will arise from the ashes of the old sensate one.'  

In hetzelfde tijdvak laat de dichter W.H. Auden in  The Massacre of the Innocents Herodes zeggen:

Legislation is helpless against the wild prayer of longing that rises, day in, day out, from all these households under my protection: "O God, put away with justice and truth for we cannot understand them and do not want them" [...] Reason will be replaced by Revelation. Instead of Rational Law, objective truths perceptible to any who will undergo the necessary intellectual discipline, and the same for all, Knowledge will degenerate into a riot of subjective visions -- feelings in the solar plexus induced by undernourishment, angelic images generated by fevers or drugs, dream warnings inspired by the sound of falling water. Whole cosmogenies will be created out of some forgotten personal resentment, complete epics written in private languages, the daubs of school children ranked above the greatest masterpieces. 

Idealism will be replaced by Materialism... Diverted from its normal and wholesome outlet in patriotism and civic or family pride, the need of the materialistic Masses for some visible Idol to worship will be driven into total unsocial channels where no education can reach it... Justice will be replaced by Pity as the cardinal human virtue, and all fear of retribution will vanish. Every corner-boy will congratulate himself: "I'm such a sinner that God had to come down in person to save me. I must be a devil of a fellow.''

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