Been having a rough go of it, lately. Thinking of things to write about. Sitting at the keyboard --nothing. Every fitful start ends in disgust.
Browsed through some Flannery O'Connor quotations. Found some good ones.
This: “I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted.”
And this: “She could never be a saint, but she thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quick.”
And this: “Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.” (This was my favorite of the three. It made me laugh. Sheepishly.)
But when my fingers hit the home row, inspiration fell dead.
Then I tried to write a post about a conversation I had with Dave Hauth on Sunday night. We were debating the constancy of human nature. His position was that technology was transforming humanity. I argued that technology is just a tool; human nature is constant. "But rate of advance!" he insisted. "It's a matter of degree," said I. I offered literature, with its eternal themes, as proof.
It was a good conversation, and I banged out a few sentences about it, but the flame never took. I might have another go at it one of these days.
So I find myself stuck here yet. Still nothing.
The only way to get through these things is to write your way out of them. That's how I've always heard it, anyway. Keep pushin'. Push on through.
I've been thinking a bit more about that discussion. The discussion of
ReplyDeletehuman nature and its (im)mutability arose from an observation that
Global Corporatism represents an altogether new and unprecedented form
of tyranny, that grinds forward irrespective of whatever titular heads
may occupy the thrones of the sundry geographical nation-states and
which would be impossible without the dramatic advances we've seen in
information and communication technology. You had countered that it was
nothing new, given the constancy of human nature, which took us down a
side track.
I would make the point that while basic human impulses may remain constant, their expressions are constantly changing. Human society has certainly been shaped dramatically by the rapid technological advances of the last century even if human nature
has not. The constancy or inconstancy of human nature neither
precludes nor guarantees the evolution of human society in response to
its environment.