Back to AtD Karmic Adjustment

[Ian Livingston]

As ever, I remain suspect of any attribution of authorial intent. Also,
knowing that artists work in a terrain of ambiguities open to
interpretation, I suspect both Paul and Mark are correct, each in his own
way. I also, naturally by inclination in study, see the shift from the
Christian hegemony in European social development (God is dead!) to the
personal, that is, psychological approach to life at the turn of the 20th
C. The communal will is reflected in the attitudes of the people. That, I
think, is a tough one for us 'individualistic' Americans, who have so taken
to our place of division from one another that we think we are each islands
of genius in a sea of stupidity, but inasmuch as the individual is one
among many, the many may silently agree to the ostracism of the one, whose
private penance might then bring him back into alignment with the will, and
grace, of the crowd. It can also act as a metaphor of democracy. Maybe
Theign and the doges are metaphorical images....

On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 11:47 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>wrote:

> On 5/21/2012 10:36 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
>
>> p.868 middle...."the doges are gone.....how power can be an
>> expression of communal will, invisibly exercised in the dark that
>> surrounds each soul, in which penance must be a necessary term."
>> Anyone care to riff?
>>
>
>
> Seems to be saying that a ruler in Venice, as long as he lasted, had an
> assigned role and that role included whatever moral trespass was necessary
> to maintain order and prosperity in the Republic. Furthermore, it was
> expected that once the ruler's days in office were over he had "to do
> penance," meaning he had to suffer some of the moral trespass he himself
> had inflicted.
>
> "Communal will" means that doge rule was rule by the consent of the
> governed, which of course means the governed who count. (the rich guys)
>
>
>
>
>  1) Does this explain what the two village guys did to Theign?
>>
>
> I think it may well be a commentary on what happened to Theign, if I'm
> remembering correctly who Theign was.
>
>
>
>  2) Isn't some kind of communal will a largely positive thing in P's
>> worldview?
>>
>
> The communal will may or may not be in accordance with the Sermon on the
> Mount.
>
>
>
>  So, here too?
>> "Unless one has performed in his life penance equal to what he has exacted
>> from others, there is an imbalance in Nature."
>> Penance replaces the Protestant Ethic as cultural vision?
>>
>
> I think the sacrament of Penance is being used figuratively.
>
> P
>
>


-- 
"Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all creeds
the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the trust in
reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments of darkness
groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates than the simplest
urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant
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