In
addition to the last powerful impression that was made on me during my visit to
Memphis – that of the most awful event on April 4, 1968, happening on the
balcony of the Lorraine Motel, which is totally preserved as if frozen in time
and thus emitting the continuous horror of that tragic day – I will remember
the conversation I had with Frank and his sister Cynthia as we sat on the café
terrace around the corner from Beale Street and, unbeknownst to us, channeled
the spirit of MLK, Jr., which will forever transcend that fateful balcony a few
blocks away. During our conversation we
spoke of tragedy, the blues, and of compassion.
I
will always remember that conversation as a moment of what Cornel West calls
‘prophet pragmatism’, which is something like the simultaneous effacement with
the cold hard reality of injustice coupled with a transcendent vision of a not
yet written future that is guided by a light of hope that shines in the
darkness of the present moment. We
talked of injustice, and of compassion. In compassion we find the ever present possibility
of a redemption for the original sin of slavery and conquest that has rendered
us a fallen people. We are fallen from
birth and yet can rise again with each moment of compassion. This always present possibility of redemption
is the work of the heart.
Yesterday (and a decade ago) I concluded with the
following: Compassion is the most essential a
priori, “that is always already dwelling within the heart.” And compassion is activated with
“compassionate listening…the peaceful stillness that spares freedom…that
sustains the plurality of voices.” (10/18/04, BL 244) A decade ago today I
wrote of “the heart…encircled and spared by Being’s offering, freed in the
granting of…compassion.”(10/19/04 BL 244) This image of the encirclement of the heart
coupled with the twin moments of prophetic pragmatism help me to make sense of a recurring image I have encountered, most recently in the graphic art
piece I purchased on Beale Street:
The image I am attending to is the one of the heart encircled
by the crown of thorns. Today, it seems
to me this crown of thorns encircling the heart is precisely the passion of the injustice of the present,
the effacement with all that original sin and the ongoing failure of the
democratic society to live up to its self-declared founding and guiding
principles of equality and freedom. But
the encircled heart beats on, powerfully; note its volume, its mass, its force
and energy, the flames that rise from the eros
for the realization of those very same principles; not simply the reality of those principles, but their
realization, their coming into being. “Thus
the heart, that space [place] within, is the very shelter where that originary
dispensation abides…the space [place] where freedom can make its appearance…” (10/19/04 BL
245) How does freedom make its
appearance in the heart? And how does
this freedom make it is appearance in the world? Through song and singing. Look again, at Howling Wolf, and see how the
flames that rise from his encircled heart are thrown in his howls, his song,
his singing! That place where freedom
arises in the heart is the same “precinct of poetic expression…”(10/19/04 BL 245)
This place is the precinct
[cf. recent posts] that is granted for learning. “Within this precinct beings appear in their singularity…”(10/19/04 BL 244)
And this singularity is now understood to be reduced to the heart. The phenomenological reduction of singularity
via natality is made to the heart. This
is where originary dispensation is stamped, and where we recognize the stamp of
existence. ‘Music is existence’ and this
‘musical existence’ arises from the heart.
Music is the concretization of love.
To say ‘music is existence’ is to say ‘love is life.’ And this is why after Arendt we identify
education as the coincidence of two loves: love of our children (newcomers who
bear revolutionary natality) and love of the world (tradition that bears the
authority/wisdom of the past). If we
include music in this equation we can then understand what is meant when we
talk of music-making philosophy, or of making music a la dialogue (akin to
Socrates), which may only ever be the letting be of a force that moves
through and gathers us together (the learning community, koinonia).
From our birth we are moved into this world by a force that
is always beyond our control. And with
our birth, as Arendt reminds us, we renew the world. “The fact that we have all
come into the world by being born and that this world is constantly renewed by
birth,” (cited on 10/19/04 as a way to set up the claim that our natality
and singularity always remains worldly.
And this is to say it is concrete, historical, and material. We make our marks and leave many stamps on
this world.)
Our singularity/freedom resides with peace; peace and
freedom co-exist. Peace is also residing
with the heart; musically, it is the
constant rhythm keeping time and setting the groove. The flames that rise upward (vertically
transcending) from the heart and shoot outward (horizontally transcending) into
the world are fed by the constant beat, that steady rhythm. “The heart is the dwelling of peace.” (10/19/04
BL 245)
3.0 (Saturday, Portland, ME). The poster of Howlin' Wolf is hanging here in my study, to my right, the enduring legacy of Memphis 2015. Below I'll share my contribution to a proposed author meets critics session at PES 2015. I'm not sure if I've documented here, but my proposal to the PES Phenomenology and Existentialism SIG panel was accepted. I had said that the result of that submission would determine if I were going to PES, and if I were ever going to return. So it was accepted, and I will be going to Baltimore. And what's more, earlier this week, I was invited to participate in an authors meets critics session. Ironically, there's a chance I'll be participating in two sessions. And more importantly, I'll be able to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Memphis 2015. "Music is existence"! Indeed, that was one of the underlining themes of Memphis 2015. Interesting to read the interpretation of the thorns around the flaming heart as the persistent injustice. I was earlier reading August Wilson's "Seven Guitars," and was thinking about the book we'll be discussion on the above mentioned panel, which is about the limits/failures of democracy to respond to the current challenges. Here's a fragment from the overview of what sounds like a dystopian book: "this book grapples with what it means when education and democracy are at an end: when these two foundational aspects of our society seem to have reached a culminating point, no longer appearing to produce and make sense amid the crises of our time. Engaging topical political events and mobilizing a variety of cultural resources, Di Paolantonio shows that today the possibility of the future and the significance of an expansive transgenerational sensibility are radically in question..." I haven't read a word of the book, but based on the overview, I was thinking, in light of reading Wilson, that for me what's lacking in the approach taken by Di Paolantonio is the lack of poetics in the discourse of philosophy of education that he is moving in. But wait, that's not accurate, and the overview does say that the book: "draws on contemporary philosophy, educational thinking, and cultural-artistic works, Di Paolantonio explores how the transgenerational sensibility retains a possibility we might tap for overcoming the impasses of our time." Ok, so I'm quite interested in reading this book, and especially interested in how he takes up "cultural-artistic" works. If it's a matter of learning from those works, then I'm on board. We can learn much from art about the challenges of our times. And, what's more, the kind of poetic thinking art inspires might be the sort that inspires a utopian sensibility.
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