"When philosophy paints its grey in grey then has a shape of life grown old. By philosophy's grey in grey it cannot be rejuvenated but only understood. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of dusk." -- G.W.F. Hegel, 'Preface', Philosophy of Right.
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'Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainity and agitation distinquish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones ... All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.' Marx
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David Malouf on res publica
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September 14, 2007
David Malouf makes some interesting comments on public spaces and how we are all related to the modern city in a talk to the Brisbane Institute. He says:
We have two lives there, a public life in which we adhere to citizenly values and requirements and which we share with others both in the public space of res publica and in real spaces where we move among strangers as if they were neighbours and feel secure in doing so. How we behave there is other people’s business as well as our own. But only there. The other life, the personal, the private life, is entirely our own. There we are free to believe what we please, to hold our own views, follow our own gods and customs, live inside our own culture, even an eclectic one of our own making. The play between the two, public and private, may require delicate negotiations with ourself. But as we see in the case of orthodox Jews for example, or Pentecostals, or Moslems or Buddhists – there are many examples of groups who live apart in one sense and fully among us in another – it is perfectly possible to be integrated without being assimilated, to live richly inside a culture or religion, follow its customs, keep its rules, and still be an active participant in the society at large.
Malouf highlights the complexity of what a big modern city --he is thinking of Brisbane---can provide: the variety of private worlds you bring to public occasion of listening to a talk at an institute: the degree of attention you have committed yourself to; the interest, the citizenly curiosity and seriousness; the mixture of talk and of listening, of exchanging news and opinions over food and wine; the dedication of the Institute, our host tonight, to the business of allowing voices to be heard and arguments to flourish.
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| | Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:12 PM | Permalink |
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