tail-feathers - Tumblr blog

[tail-feathers]

Manuel at table - Maggie Siner, n/d.

American , b. 1951 -

Oil on linen , 26 x 28 cm.

[tail-feathers]

The Fountain Sir James Jebusa Shannon - circa 1911-1923

[tail-feathers]

“Taking the hands of someone you love, You see they are delicate cages… Tiny birds are singing In the secluded prairies And in the deep valleys of the hand.”

— Robert Bly, “Taking the Hands”

[tail-feathers]

[tail-feathers]

[tail-feathers]

Have a seat

[tail-feathers]

Josef Kote

[tail-feathers]

You’re thoughts on what’s taking place on college campuses and the anti semitism being blatantly displayed

There has been a major shift in the culture. In years past, whenever the Palestinian/Israeli conflict flared up, anti-Israeli sentiment in America was limited to the fringe of the Left; with both the political Right, and the mainstream political Left standing behind the only liberal democracy in the region, and both sides recognizing the cynical, self destructive tactics of Israel's extremist enemies which stalemate the situation (Hamas, The PLO and the PLJ).

But Gen Z goes into the evaluation of this long enduring conflict with a completely different mentality. That is because it has been significantly shaped by a radical cultural ideology according to which virtue comes from victimhood and suffering rather than from right conduct. People are entirely a product of their social circumstances (says Critical Theory) and the conduct of the oppressed is simply an expression of their desperation and suffering at the hands of powerful systems. Those systems are themselves the only truly “unethical” force that is in play, and they must be reformed in order to reform the individual. In the 2020 riots, violence (including against the livelihood of civilians) was justified by the cause: the alleviation of alleged suffering and oppression at the hands of law enforcement.

The Palestinian Israeli conflict plays into this Oppresser/Oppressed (stronger/weaker) narrative where there is no “morality” there is only “justice” (which means “equity”). It leads to a justification of a “By Any Means Necessary” ideology , just as long as the means is not sufficient enough to turn the stronger party into the weaker party. Israel is the powerful more militarily dominant liberal democratic nation so it must be wrong in this clash between itself and a poorer, chaotic struggling society. The advocate of traditional Western morality however judges each party whether small or great according to the morality of its intentional actions. According to that calculus Israel is, for the most part, a free nation attempting to defend its citizens, Hamas, The PLO and The PIJ are obscenely immoral terrorist organizations that intentionally target the innocent, and the Palestinian people are victims caught in the middle.

The truly unfortunate thing is that this debate is spilling over in the form of anti-semitic language and behavior toward normal American citizens who happen to be Jewish. And of course the rhetoric of this classical anti-Semitism uses the exact same language of the oppressor/oppressed, "the Jews run the world, they own and control everything and we are their hapless victims." This was of course the rhetoric of the Nazis.

And as with the other paradigms of oppressor v.s. oppressed it doesn't actually matter if it's accurate or not.

[tail-feathers]

"It's not the strength of the body that counts, but the strength of the spirit."__J.R.R. Tolkien

Jen A. Miller / circa 2018

[tail-feathers]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Harper Henry (@harperhenryart)

[tail-feathers]

M O O D

[tail-feathers]

[tail-feathers]

Morning Coffee.

Laurent Parcelier

[tail-feathers]

[tail-feathers]

Dorothea

Sculpture by Calyxte Campe

bronze, 2004

[tail-feathers]

What a beautiful, rich depiction of life using an economy of brushstrokes. Extraordinary.

The Colourful Life

Wassily Kandinsky

1907

[tail-feathers]

“I don't think you can create art out of anger; it has to come out of some form of understanding. You have to feel good about who you are and that you could do something to change things.” -Faith Ringgold

Faith Ringgold RIP