MOVIE MONDAY - VIVE LA FRANCE!

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” – Oscar Wilde

Many English speakers abhor watching foreign language films as they detest subtitling. I on the contrary, not only watch foreign films with subtitles, but in these blessed days of DVDs and Blu-Ray discs, I watch even English language films with the subtitle feature on. This is necessary as the diction of many actors is absolutely terrible, the sound engineering is often despicable and the musical backing is hopelessly intrusive. Add to that some peculiarities of accent or idiomatic forms of English spoken sloppily and you end up with understanding half of what is being said if you don't have the aid of the subtitles. Needless to say I never buy any DVDs or Blu-Rays that don’t have English subtitles or closed captions.

For Movie Monday today, tow movies: The original French film and the Hollywood remake for the native speakers of English who “don’t do subtitles”. The original film (and in my opinion the funnier of the two) is the 1972 Yves Robert comedy “The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe” (Le grand blond avec une chaussure noire) starring Pierre Richard, Bernard Blier and Jean Rochefort. The Hollywood remake is the 1985 Stan Dragoti film “The Man with One Red Shoe” starring Tom Hanks, Lori Singer and Dabney Coleman. And yes, I had the subtitles turned on for both films…

The plot of both films is almost identical except for some sociopolitical, cultural and ethno-geographic adaptations in the US version (obviously!) – I give you here the US film’s plot as you are probably more likely to get your hands on this one to watch: Cooper (Dabney Coleman), the deputy director of the CIA, wants to be the director. So, he tries to make it appear that the director (Charles Durning) is corrupt so that he will resign or be removed. The director appears before a committee and asks for some time to prepare his defense. The director goes home and asks his man Brown (Ed Herrmann) to join him. He then shows Brown that Cooper is bugging him.

He then decides to turn the tables on Cooper by feeding him false information. The information being that there’s supposedly a man arriving at the airport, who might be able to clear him of the charges against him. The Director tells Brown to just pick anyone who is arriving at the airport thus making Cooper believe that he is the man who can help the director. Brown picks violinist Richard (Tom Hanks) because he is wearing mismatched shoes, one of them being a red sneaker. So Cooper sets up surveillance on Richard and sends his femme fatale, Maddy (Lori Singer) to come on to him and find out what he knows. Add a subplot of a fellow musician (Jim Belushi) who thinks his wife (Carrie Fisher) is having an affair with Richard, and the stage is set for a send-up of spy movies.

The original French film is extremely funny but also sophisticated, even though it often features slapstick, farcical situations. The lead actor, Pierre Richard, is fantastic as the hapless orchestral player who gets caught willy-nilly in the secret service shenanigans. The pace is relentless and one comical situation succeeds the next with the audience laughing out loud without effort. The rest of the cast (including the luscious Mireille Darc as the femme fatale) is exemplary in an ensemble acting effort. The music is unforgettable with a soundtrack written by Vladimir Cosma and performed by the Romanian Pan pipe player Gheorghe Zamfir.

Now, the Hollywood version. Yes, but… I guess the summary is if you haven't seen the original French movie and you moderate your expectations, you will enjoy the US version as a light-weight Spy vs Spy spoof. Hanks is very young but copes fairly well with playing the innocent bystander around whom the whole world collapses. Jim Belushi and Carrie Fisher carry on quite well (although they do ham it up a bit) as the couple with marital problems and the remainder of the cast are adequate. A nice enough, amusing movie to watch in the background on a lazy Sunday afternoon. You will chuckle here and there…

MOVIE MONDAY - THE SEVENTH ART

“Cinema can fill in the empty spaces of your life and your loneliness.” - Pedro Almodovar

Have you heard of film and the movies referred to as the “Seventh Art”? It is certainly more common to see this characterisation in many European languages (French, Italian, Greek, Spanish, etc), than it is in English. It is a term that came into being in the early days of cinema when people realised the rich possibilities of the medium in producing not only entertainment, but also works of art.

Ricciotto Canudo (2 January 1877, Gioia del Colle – 10 November 1923, Paris) was an early Italian film theoretician who lived primarily in France. He saw cinema as “plastic art in motion” and is the one responsible for calling it the “Seventh Art”. In his manifesto “The Birth of the Sixth Art”, published in 1911, Canudo argued that cinema was a new art, “a superb conciliation of the Rhythms of Space (the Plastic Arts) and the Rhythms of Time (Music and Poetry)”, a synthesis of the five ancient arts: Architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry (cf. Hegel’s ‘Lectures on Aesthetics’).

Canudo also provided a platform for Cubism and Orphism, in his publications entitled ‘Montjoie’. The first issue was published on 10 February 1913. According to Canudo this was the only avant-garde magazine. Participating artists included Guillaume Apollinaire, Maurice Raynal, Albert Gleizes and Joseph Csaky. The magazine paid special attention to poetry, prose, articles on art, literature, music and history. The staff included André Salmon, Igor Stravinsky, Erik Satie, Fernand Léger, Guillaume Apollinaire, Blaise Cendrars, Raoul Dufy, Stefan Zweig, Robert Delaunay, Max Jacob, and Emile Verhaeren.

The third issue of the second volume of Montjoie, published March 18, 1914, was devoted entirely to the 30th Salon des Indépendants. The article written by André Salmon included photographs of works by Joseph Csaky, Robert Delaunay, Marc Chagall, Alice Bailly, Jacques Villon, Sonia Delaunay, André Lhote, Roger de La Fresnaye, Moise Kisling, Ossip Zadkine, Lucien Laforge and Valentine de Saint-Point. Publication of the magazine stopped on the eve of the First World War.

Canudo later added dance as a sixth precursor, a third rhythmic art with music and poetry, making cinema the seventh art. In Paris, he established an avant-garde magazine ‘Le Gazette de sept arts’ in 1920, and a film club, CASA (Club des amis du septième art), in 1921. His best-known essay ‘Reflections on the Seventh Art’ was published in 1923 after a number of earlier drafts, all published in Italy or France.

So in summary, the Seven Arts are:

1. Architecture

2. Sculpture

3. Painting

4. Music

5. Poetry

6. Dance

7. Cinema

NEMESIS & NIOBE

“And though circuitous and obscure, The feet of Nemesis how sure!” - William Watson

The ancient Greeks believed that Nemesis, the daughter of Nyx (goddess of Night), represents that power which adjusts the balance of human affairs, by awarding to each individual the fate which his actions deserve. She rewards, humble, unacknowledged merit, punishes crime, deprives the worthless of undeserved good fortune, humiliates the proud and overbearing, and visits all evil on the wrong-doer; thus maintaining that proper balance of things, which the Greeks recognised as a necessary condition of all civilised life.

Although Nemesis, according to her original character attributes, was the distributor of rewards as well as punishments, the world was so full of sin, that she found but little occupation in her first capacity of rewarding good, that she became finally regarded as the avenging goddess exclusively.

A striking instance of the manner in which this divinity punishes the proud and arrogant is demonstrated in the case of Niobe. Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, and wife of Amphion, king of Thebes, was the proud mother of seven sons and seven daughters, and exulting in the number of her children, she, upon one occasion, ridiculed the worship of Leto, because she had but one son and daughter (the gods Apollo and Artemis), and desired the Thebans, for the future, to give to her the honours and sacrifices which they had hitherto offered to the mother of Apollo and Artemis.

The sacrilegious words had scarcely passed her lips before Apollo called upon his sister Artemis to assist him in avenging the insult offered to their mother, and soon their invisible arrows sped through the air. Apollo slew all the sons, and Artemis had already slain all the daughters save one, the youngest and best beloved, whom Niobe clasped in her arms, when the agonised mother implored the enraged deities to leave her, at least, one out of all her beautiful children; but, even as she prayed, the deadly arrow reached the heart of this child also. Meanwhile the unhappy father, unable to bear the loss of his children, had destroyed himself, and his dead body lay beside the lifeless corpse of his favourite son.

Widowed and childless, the heart-broken mother sat among her dead, and the gods, in pity for her unutterable woe, turned her into a stone, which they transferred to Siphylus, her native Phrygian mountain, where it still continues to shed tears. Apollo and Artemis were merely the instruments for avenging the insult offered to their mother; but it was Nemesis who prompted the deed, and presided over its execution.

Homer makes no mention of Nemesis; it is therefore evident that this goddess was a conception of later times, when higher views of morality had prevailed among the Greek nation. Nemesis is represented as a beautiful woman of thoughtful and benign aspect and regal bearing; a diadem crowns her majestic brow, and she bears in her hand a rudder, balance, and cubit; fitting emblems of the manner in which she guides, weighs, and measures all human events. She is also sometimes seen with a wheel, to symbolise the rapidity with which she executes justice. As the avenger of evil she appears winged, bearing in her hand either a scourge or a sword, and seated in a chariot drawn by griffins.

Nemesis is frequently called Adrastia, and also Rhamnusia, from Rhamnus in Attica, the chief seat of her worship, which contained a celebrated statue of the goddess. Nemesis was worshipped by the Romans, (who invoked her on the Capitol), as a divinity who possessed the power of averting the pernicious consequences of envy.

Nemesis in English is used to denote the inescapable agent of someone’s or something’s downfall: “Injury, consistently his nemesis, struck him down during the match.” The word nemesis is derived from the ancient Greek verb ‘nemein’, which means ‘give what is due’. Hence nemesis, means ‘retribution’.

THESAURUS THURSDAY - EBULLIENT BACH

“If we were all determined to play the first violin we should never have an ensemble. Τherefore, respect every musician in his proper place.” - Robert Schumann

The ‘Word for the Day’ today was inspired by this music that I heard on the radio this morning:

It is J.S. Bach's "Brandenburg Concerto No 3", BWV1048, and the word is:

ebullient |iˈboŏlyənt; iˈbəlyənt| adjective

1 cheerful and full of energy: She sounded ebullient and happy.

2 archaic or poetic/literary (of liquid or matter) boiling or agitated as if boiling: Misted and ebullient seas.

DERIVATIVES

ebullience |əˌbʊljəns| noun

ebulliently |əˌbʊliəntli| adverb

ORIGIN late 16th cent.(in the sense [boiling] ): from Latin ebullient- ‘boiling up,’ from the verb ebullire, from e- (variant of ex-) ‘out’ + bullire ‘to boil.’

And it certainly is very bubbly, energetic, cheerful, ever-forward moving music! Bach could create something this remarkably complex and intricate and make it sound so simple and facile. And of course such is the case with all six of his Brandenburg Concertos, which are masterpieces of the baroque!

THE CRAZY ENGLISH LANGUAGE

“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” – Epictetus

I am reading at the moment, “Port Out Starboard Home”, by Michael Quinion. This is a marvellous book that will interest anyone who has a fascination with the vagaries of the English language. It examines the real etymology (origin) of a large number of words and phrases, but looks mainly at the fanciful stories that people have made up to explain how these odd words and phrases came about (ie: “etymythology”). Some of these these stories are very tall, highly amusing, a few ingenious, some ridiculous, and in other cases downright silly.

For example why is a Guinea pig so-called, when it is neither porcine nor from Guinea? Why are Americans nowadays loath to use the phrase “to call a spade a spade” and why perhaps we should all be saying instead “to call a trough a trough” in its place? Perhaps you would like to know why you should mind your P’s and Q’s but not worry about other letters of the alphabet? Or perhaps why women can’t testify, whereas any able-bodied male can…?

It all makes for captivating reading and proves that the English language is not only a very rich and highly interesting one, but a quirky and irrational one as well, a language precise enough to write philosophical treatises of great abstraction in, but at the same time one whose illogical grammar and whose prodigious vocabulary with its immense shades of meaning, its homonyms, homographs and homophones, can make learning it the nightmare of a foreigner, and drive even a native speaker to distraction.

For example:

The bandage was wound around the wound.

The farm was used to produce produce.

The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

We must polish the Polish furniture.

He could lead if he could get the lead out.

The soldier decided to desert and eat his dessert in the desert.

Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

I did not object to the object.

The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

They were too close to the door to close it.

The buck does funny things when the does are present.

A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

After a number of injections my jaw got number.

Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

He decided to cleave the piece of wood, but as soon as it was done he put his mind to cleave it into one piece again.

Or how about this anonymous piece that has been around for some time?

“Let’s face it, English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England nor French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth “beeth”? One goose, two geese. So one moose, two meese?

Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through annals of history but not a single annal? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another day. Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would ACTUALLY hurt a fly?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm clock goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn’t a race at all). That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it.”

COMMUNICATION

“No one would talk much in society, if he knew how often he misunderstands others.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Communication is a thorny topic. The most eloquent, intelligent, rational and verbose amongst us may have trouble with it when trying to converse even with someone who is sitting across the table from us. How much more difficult does it become when we are limited by time constraints, the medium of the electronic message and of course, distance and language limitations! It may be become even more complicated if one is trying to be tactful, diplomatic or discreet. The written message may become less clear and more convoluted through loss of intonation, facial expression, gesture… The opportunity for misunderstandings increases a thousand-fold.

St Exupéry said: “Words are the source of misunderstandings”, and yet words are our only weapon against misunderstandings also. How do we resolve situations where our words have been misconstrued? By using more words. Resolution of communication breakdown needs simple words, honesty and a genuine sense of wanting to clear up confusion. However, the situation becomes more vexing when words simply fail us. One may talk plainly, communicating lucidly what is in one's mind, but the recipient of that information may pass the words through a personal filter that is tinged with any colour of the perceptional or emotional rainbow, and thus construe a meaning completely different to that of the originator of the message.

Context is important when we are communicating and the social and psychological environment of the communicating persons need be kept in mind also. The simple word “love” can be uttered in such a bewildering variety of contexts that it can become a quagmire of communication breakdown. We love our spouse, love our parents, our children. We love pizza, love our country, love our friends, love going on holidays. We love playing games, we can score love in tennis, we can meet the love of our life, we make love, fall in love, fall out of love. Context matters.

Communication can be made difficult purposefully. We may choose to be deceptive in what we say or write. “No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.” Said Henry B. Adams. Words can be a fortress we hide in, words can be the fog that obscures our actions, words can be our defence or our offence. Words can be daggers that are thrust to maliciously wound and hurt. Words can be uttered in a facile way so that they flatter and fawn. Compliments and cajolery, blarney or sweet-talk, propaganda, can all get in the way of true communication. Rumi advises us: “Know that a word suddenly shot from the tongue is like an arrow shot from the bow. Son, that arrow won't turn back on its way; you must dam the torrent at its source.”

In the world of Blogland the failures of communication are manifold. We write our blogs, publish our blasts, show our pictures and we are the originators of messages that the world receives. Just like any other form of communication, blogging can create misunderstandings and can have consequences that range from the amusing to the dire. What we blog about and how we choose to do it can have an immense effect on other people that may be quite dramatic. What we choose to write about can heal or hurt, amuse or anger, attract or repel, inflame or influence, excite empathy or indifference. Our words can be balsam or poison.

There those amongst us who communicate with an open heart and an outstretched hand. We wish to share with others what we feel and experience, what we know and create. We honestly communicate such things so that we unite ourselves with those around the world that experience life in ways that we can recognise in fellowship. But just like in any other society, so in Blogland there are those that communicate abstrusely (whether willingly or subconsciously). There are those who mislead and deceive. Those who flatter and praise, who compliment and say the nicest things… For a while.

I speak plainly, and communicate what I feel. If I choose to write about something, I do it because I want to. If I choose to not talk about something I do so for a reason. I can only speak for myself and choose not relay others' voices or opinions. They can do that for themselves. My tact is genuine, for I do not wish to hurt anyone. If I am misconstrued, it is has not been my intention to be so. If what I say seems obscure, words are there to be used, ask for an explanation. If I can resolve misunderstandings, I will almost certainly do so.

Now, blog on!
Image above is by Isabelle Cardinal

WELCOME TO NIKAMIA!

“The intellectual man requires a fine bait; the sots are easily amused. But everybody is drugged with his own frenzy, and the pageant marches at all hours, with music and banner and badge.” - R.W. Emerson

Nípali Nikámi? Éo sin pálo ka gádo sofiné on nípalo Nikámi. Éos mádha min sin didáhe! Nikámi éosi pádha e!

Have you understood anything in the sentences above? I doubt it very much – in fact I would be surprised if you had the foggiest idea of what I had written about! So what is it all about, what am I getting at?

People that know me a little through this blog, may know of my fascination with language and words. I love languages, linguistics, etymololgy, grammar, writing, alphabets, symbols, spelling, orthography, history and evolution of language. So for something to do (call it an intellectual diversion, if you like), I have taken it upon myself to invent a new language, “Nikamian” spoken on the imaginary world of “Nikamia”. I am nearly through writing a book called “The Grammar of Nikamian”, but progress is slow because simply there are not enough hours in the day (or night!).

Some people may say this is a useless exercise, a waste of time! But as for me, I find it extremely interesting and amusing. As most hobbies tend to be, this diversion of mine is self-gratifying and it pleases me, the person who is pursuing it, the most. I am in the process of devising a unique alphabet for the Nikámian language at the moment and ideas for this can be jotted down anywhere on any scrap of paper, instead of doodles. The script in the illustration is a prototype of  the word “Nikamia” written in Nikamian.

The word for the day, aptly is:

hobby 1 |ˈhäbē| noun ( pl. -bies)

1 an activity done regularly in one's leisure time for pleasure: Her hobbies are reading and gardening.

2 archaic a small horse or pony.

• historical an early type of velocipede.

ORIGIN late Middle English hobyn, hoby, from nicknames for the given name Robin. Originally in sense 2 (compare with dobbin ), it later came to denote a toy horse or hobbyhorse, hence [a pastime, something done for pleasure.]

Oh, and in case you were wondering what I said at the beginning of this post, here is the translation:

“Do you speak Nikamian? I certainly speak it and I enjoy it very much when we speak Nikamian. My mother has not taught it to me. Nikamian is my own child!”

OK, I admit it. I’m weird! Now tell me what is one of your weird pastimes, diversions, hobbyhorses?

KUDOS

“It is indeed a desirable thing to be well descended, but the kudos belongs to our ancestors.” – Plutarch

Have you noticed that some words seem to come into fashion and everyone uses them for a while all of the time? Everywhere you go, all you talk to seem to be forever using that word, aptly or not, correctly or incorrectly and one gets a little tired of the thing! I am currently developing an allergy towards the word “kudos”. Previous to this I had developed quite an adverse reaction to the word “issue”, especially as used in the sense of problem, bug, snag, hitch, drawback, stumbling block, obstacle, hurdle, hiccup, setback, catch; predicament, plight; misfortune, mishap… Then before that, the word “basically”, with which people used to pepper their conversation, but as Plato said, “Pepper is small in quantity and great in virtue.” And so should be used sparingly…

kudos |ˈk(y)oōˌdōs; -ˌdōz; -ˌdäs| noun: praise and honour received for an achievement.

ORIGIN: late 18th century from Greek: Κῦδος
USAGE Kudos comes from Greek and means ‘glory’, especially on the battlefield. Despite appearances, it is not a plural form. This means that there is no singular form *kudo* and that use as a plural, as in the following sentence, is incorrect: he received *many kudos* for his work (correct use is | he received much kudos for his work).

So many users of the word use it incorrectly and seeing there are so many other, more familiar (and therefore more likely to be used correctly) words to use in its place: Praise, glory, honour, status, standing, distinction, fame, celebrity; admiration, respect, esteem, acclaim, prestige, cachet, credit, full marks, bravo, etc… Despite the many synonyms available, this word seems to be used indiscriminately as it has an attractive appearance and it rolls off the tongue…

It’s interesting how the opposite of kudos, the word “aidos” (Αἰδώς) does not get much air time… “Aidos” means shame, dishonour, lack of pride. It’s not a popular thing…

The inscription on the painting above is in Greek and says: “Achilles great glory (read “kudos”!) of the Greeks”. The painting is a fresco on the upper level of the main hall of the Achilleion Palace at Corfu, Greece. The artist is Franz Josef Karl Edler von Matsch (also known simply as Franz von Matsch or Franz Matsch; 16 September 1861, Vienna — 5 October 1942, Vienna). He was an Austrian painter and sculptor in the Jugendstil style.

ON CULTURE

“A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.” - Mahatma Gandhi

May 21st is the World Day for Cultural Development (UNESCO). Culture is a universal human characteristic and is engendered not only from our social nature but from our intellect and our desire to be creative and artistic. To be human means to not only concern ourselves with those things that we absolutely need to survive, but to also require many things that we want in order to make our survival more pleasant and more pleasurable. The complex of language, ideas, beliefs, customs, codes, institutions, tools, techniques, works of art, music, rituals, and ceremonies, are all together woven together to form the multicoloured fabric that we define as our culture. Our culture encompasses also the material objects used as an integral part of all of the things above and which together define this peculiarly human behaviour.

The capacity for rational or abstract thought, and more importantly perhaps, the ability of the human mind to create symbols and assign to things and events meanings that cannot be grasped with the senses alone is the uniquely human characteristic that is maybe the single most important thing that has created culture. Language is of paramount importance in defining our culture and together with this, our social ties and our religious feelings more than anything else breaks us up into our different cultural groups. Even so, eliminating all barriers are some fundamental cultural characteristics that define us as belonging to the human family.

Culture can transcend race, nationality, language and religion. Music can touch us all with a similar power and raise within us emotions that are universal. Artistic conventions, universal emotional experiences, common social behaviour and shared aims of existence are uniting features that make us able to relate to other humans from widely differing cultural backgrounds to our own. We can appreciate and enjoy culture of a culture widely separated from our own because we share a common humanity.

Albert Einstein remarks that: “All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man’s life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.” The tree from which all of these ennobling values branch is our common human culture. Culture frees us from the mundane existence of mere maintenance of our body. Freedom from our basic instincts of hunger, thirst, sexual drive, desire for sleep is what culture offers us. Culture does not liberate us in the sense that we can do without food or water, or any of our other basic physical needs, but it co-exists with these and elevates them to a different plane.  A wild animal tears flesh from the prey it has just killed to satisfy the basic instinct of hunger. A human being dines, following an elaborate ceremony where the satisfaction of hunger is heightened to a cultural experience, the gnawing instinct tempered with an intellectual satisfaction where the sparkle of crystal glasses, the shine of silverware and the transparency of porcelain offset the subtle flavours of a well cooked meal. Compatible company and stimulating conversation turn the meal into a social ritual that underpins civilized social behaviour.

I watched a young man yesterday out in the shopping centre, wolfing a paper-wrapped hamburger while hurrying down towards the exit, laden with his shopping. The sight was quite off-putting. His fingers were greasy, the procedure of eating reduced to an animal-like satisfaction of a basic instinct: Thoughtless, solitary, devoid of ritual, as obscene an action as defaecating (but even that action of egesting our waste has been ritualised to a certain degree). It is behaviour that seems to be becoming ever more common as our society tends to push us towards patterns of action that are calculated towards a mindless consumerism and an ever-increasing loneliness of experience. How many more people live alone nowadays, not by necessity but by choice? Each person living alone and fending for himself becomes a consumer that is demanding more and more and thereby increases the consumption of goods. A family needs a refrigerator but so does a single person living alone. Ten families of three need ten refrigerators, but thirty people living alone require thirty of them.

Similarly, mating in animals is an instinct driven act designed to satisfy a basic urge so that the continuation of the species is assured. Sex in humans has been ritualised to an extent that it becomes an elaborate ritual, with emotional factors involving love, respect and affection, consideration of one’s partner playing an important role in the enjoyment of what is ultimately the same act as in the animal. “Civilised people cannot fully satisfy their sexual instinct without love.” Bertrand Russell says and one must agree, that culture and civilisation make demands upon us that have become so ingrained in our psyche, that even the most cynical libertine would feel to some extent empty and exhausted after a purely sexual encounter that has satisfied the body alone.

Art, music, literature have “advanced” to such an extent, such that we now have to question seriously whether the dismantled air-conditioner that we see on the gallery floor is really just that or a piece of exhibited art. The music that is now produced is either a computer-written piece of predictable popular nonsense with deplorable lyrics that is churned out on a production line, all to a rock rhythm, or alternatively some dissonant high-flown and pretentious arty piece that resembles highly organised noise. Novels are written to pander to tastes of a sensationalism-seeking public with a heavy handed measure of sex and violence, or once again “literary” works that are morass of platitudes disguised by obfuscating stilted prose.

Religion is another cultural institution, which in western countries at least, appears to be in decline. Dwindling congregations have put many churches out of business and they are being sold to be converted into houses, units, galleries or shops. Basic ideas of Christian doctrine have been lost in the “modern” lifestyle and the values traditionally espoused by the faithful have deteriorated within the new reality of society, with an emphasis on the here and now rather than the hereafter.

One who sees this decadence of much of our cultural heritage in the West can perhaps understand better the concern of many of the other countries and faiths who have become very defensive and extremely resistant against “western cultural imperialism”. Islamic fundamentalism is but a knee-jerk reaction to such a decline in traditional cultural values of the West. Their fear of a deterioration in their culture has prompted them to try and preserve it at any cost, with what the West perceives as a repressive and antiquated regime.

We are experiencing an all-embracing redefinition of culture world-wide. Both in the West and in the developing countries. There are extremes on both sides and any extreme is unwise. We have forgotten the golden mean and we embrace excess in all things. It is this excess that makes us lose our humanity and makes us resemble the wild beasts with the bloodied maws. It is the glut of sensuality and much freedom, or conversely the repression of free expression carried to extremes that makes us desperate and can ultimately lead to a break down of civilization as we know it. Differing definitions of “culture”, the ever-widening social gaps, divergent systems of beliefs and traditions and the increasing fanaticism worldwide.

William Allen White says: “If each man or woman could understand that every other human being is as full of sorrows, or joys, or base temptations, of heartaches and of remorse as his own… how much kinder, how much gentler he would be.” How true and unfortunately how poignantly it shows our increasing isolation and blinkered view of the world, manipulated as it is by our politicians and demagogues. That is why the internet can be such an advantage to a free, thinking human being. It can demolish barriers, build bridges across gaps and create friendships around the globe.