ART AND REBELLION: “Culture is nothing but the way to freedom. Art is freedom” . ― Sergiu Celibidache “The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people following the rules. Its people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages.” ― Banksy, Wall and Piece “I am often described to my irritation as a contrarian and even had the title inflicted on me by the publisher of one of my early books. (At least on that occasion I lived up to the title by ridiculing the word in my introduction to the books first chapter.) It is actually a pity that our culture doesnt have a good vernacular word for an oppositionist or even for someone who tries to do his own thinking: the word dissident cant be self-conferred because it is really a title of honor that has to be won or earned, while terms like gadfly or maverick are somehow trivial and condescending as well as over-full of self-regard. And Ive lost count of the number of memoirs by old comrades or ex-comrades that have titles like Against the Stream, Against the Current, Minority of One, Breaking Ranks and so forth—all of them lending point to Harold Rosenbergs withering remark about the herd of independent minds. Even when I was quite young I disliked being called a rebel: it seemed to make the patronizing suggestion that questioning authority was part of a phase through which I would naturally go. On the contrary, I was a relatively well-behaved and well-mannered boy, and chose my battles with some deliberation rather than just thinking with my hormones.” ― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22: A Memoir “Nothing is more necessary or stronger in us than rebellion.” ― Georges Bataille, The Unfinished System of Nonknowledge Karl Popper: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal. (The Open Society and its Enemies, Vol. 1, Notes to the Chapters: Ch. 7, Note 4) youtube/watch?v=dn6TBflISVY
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 22:07:15 +0000
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