This blog contains articles on culture as well as a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world by Irish artist Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin. These paintings can be viewed country by country by clicking on the list of countries and themes down the right-hand side of the blog. The artwork of Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin, consisting of cityscapes of Dublin, images based on Irish history and other work with social/political themes, can be seen at www.gaelart.net.
In his book, How The Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe,
Thomas Cahill shows how the Irish monks maintained European culture
during the dark ages when Rome was sacked by Visigoths and its empire
collapsed. In the subsequent chaos and illiteracy, symbolism took over
from analysis. Cahill writes:
"The intellectual disciplines of
distinction, definition, and dialectic that had once been the glory of
men like Augustine were unobtainable by readers of the Dark Ages, whose
apprehension of the world was simple and immediate, framed by myth and
magic. A man no longer subordinated one thought to another with
mathematical precision; instead, he apprehended similarities and
balances, types and paradigms, parallels and symbols. It was a world not
of thoughts, but images. Even the "Romans" at Whitby presented their
point of view in the new way. They did not argue, for genuine
intellectual disputation was beyond them. They held up pictures for the
mind - one set of bones versus another." (p204)
One thousand
years later as the symbolism of the Dark ages and medievalism waned, a
new movement arose to replace it: Romanticism. In the Romanticist
outlook, passion and intuition determined our understanding of the world
combined with themes of isolation and loneliness, and a delight in
horror and threat. Beauty became about strong emotional responses and
not about form. The Romanticists rejected Enlightenment Era artists who,
like the Irish monks, were interested in ideas and thoughts, and who
used them to depict and critique social relations.
The
Romanticist delight in isolation, loneliness, horror, and threat has
become the dominating force in most of modern culture. The rise of
Social Realism (art that depicts and critiques social relations) thus
far, has been local and brief, yet glorious.
Unfortunately, Romanticism is a movement
that is not only dominant in the production of culture but is also
favoured by the institutions of commendation. One such institution is
the Booker Prize for literature, and a good example is the 2023 winner, Prophet Song, a dystopian novel by the Irish author Paul Lynch:
"The
novel depicts the struggles of the Stack family, including Eilish
Stack, a mother of four who is trying to save her family as the Republic
of Ireland slips into totalitarianism. The narrative is told
unconventionally, with no paragraph breaks."
As we always love to reference James Joyce here in Ireland, we could argue that this paragraphless state of Prophet Song
is influenced by the Molly Bloom soliloquy at the end of Ulysses, which
was radical for its time in having no punctuation. (Indeed, Eilish
Stack's daughter is called Molly).
Furthermore the style of Prophet Song,
in general, is similar to Molly Bloom's stream of consciousness in that
we get, merged together, Eilish's thoughts, worries and utterances.
Throughout
the novel we also get, in a staccato rhythm, brief descriptions of the
coercive actions of the state as it faces the growing opposition of a
resistance movement that strengthens and spreads countrywide.
Communicating With Prisoners (1924) by Jack Butler Yeats (1871–1957)
From
the off, the dark terror commences with knocking at her door which
reveals two men 'almost faceless in the dark'(p1). The increasingly
fascisitic Irish state is shown through the imprisonment of her trades'
union husband (p29), an Emergency Powers Act (p53), government controls
on judiciary (p58), national service (p73), unmarked cars pulling up
silently (p76), foreign media internet blackout (p175), and the
government closing the schools (p183).
The rebels, on the other
hand, are really not that much different. And this is the crux of the
issue. There has always been a large gap between the Romantic heroes and
working class heroes. In Romanticism the 'resistance' or 'rebels' are
often 'rejected by society' with various combinations of introspection,
wanderlust, melancholy, misanthropy, alienation, and isolation.
And
even though "the worm is turning" (p147), and the armed insurrection
growing (p130) the violence is abstracted into terrorism (p160), and
Eilish "is overcome by loathing, seeing not men but shadows parading the
day born from darkness, seeing how they have made an end of death by
meeting it with death" (p202). The two opposing forces meld into one in
the confusion as Eilish encounters "one checkpoint after another" with
"different faces speaking the same commands" (p283). Her escape from the
mystical terror across the border into the unknown dark countryside to
the sea could have come directly from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's
(1749–1832) The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774). Goethe wrote:
“From the forbidding mountain range across the barren plain untrodden by
the foot of man, to the end of the unknown seas, the spirit of the
Eternal Creator can be felt rejoicing over every grain of dust”,
emphasising the fearful, the mysterious and the unsure.
We live
in stark, dark times, surrounded by media that is saturated with the
Romanticist gloop of horror, terror, fantasy, science fiction, romantic
egoism, etc., that threatens to slow society down and trap us into
infinite and endless imagination to the detriment of any progressive
forms of social consciousness and societal change.
Yet in the
language of the Prophet Song there are many connotations of Ireland's
centuries long struggle against British Imperialism and colonialism:
Ireland's War of Independence, the war against the might of the British
Empire in the description of the military men on horses (p190), state forces moving in on college green (the scene of rebellions going back to the 19th century) (p94), cycling before the curfew, crossing the border (p112), the harp emblem (p123), a stage set up at the old parliament (now the Bank of Ireland HQ) against emergency powers and calling "for all political prisoners to be released" (p87). However, Prophet Song is not about a popular rising continuing on from Ireland's tradition of radical opposition to authoritarian state forces.
The Apocalypse tradition: Karl Bryullov, The Last Day of Pompeii, 1833, The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia
It
is in the Romanticist tradition of a powerful figure (the Prophet) who
cries for the lack of love and compassion in the world and, in the
apocalyptic tradition, calls for people to change their ways to avoid
the wrath of God and the end of the world. The secular version, the
postmodernist 'End of History' thesis leaves no hope for those who do
not benefit from neoliberalism. The Romanticist escape to Utopia, the
remote, the exotic, and the unknown, is in stark contrast with the real
lives of past leaders and activists of collectivist and communitarian
movements who suffered, struggled, and died for real social change.
Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáinis an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists
of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish
history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on
cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist
and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by
country here.
Caoimhghin has just published his new book – Against Romanticism: From
Enlightenment to Enfrightenment and the Culture of Slavery, which looks
at philosophy, politics and the history of 10 different art forms
arguing that Romanticism is dominating modern culture to the detriment
of Enlightenment ideals. It is available on Amazon (amazon.co.uk) and the info page is here. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
The Fight Between Carnival and Lent (1559) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Introduction
Eleanor Parker writes in her book, Winters in the World, that "in Anglo-Saxon poetry winter is often imagined as a season when the earth and human beings are imprisoned, kept captive by the 'fetters of the frost'. Naturally enough, then, spring is associated with images of liberation and freedom once those fetters are released." (p. 93) Even the title of the book, Winters in the World, described one's age, e.g. I have 30 winters in the world, a recognition of the harshness of the winters which one had survived.
Historically, the transition from winter to spring was symbolised by many traditions that reflected the end of difficult times and the coming of the new season of growth and rebirth. These traditions ranged from the celebration of vegetation deities through fertility rites, and the public rituals associated with Carnival/Fat Tuesday (February/March), Lent (February/March), Easter (fires/eggs/hares) (March/ April) and Rogation Days (April). Many rituals were taken over by the Christian church and given new meanings which themselves are now being secularised.
However, since the development of industrial farming in the early twentieth century, the connection between local farming and spring rituals associated with the land have declined and taken on a commercialised aspect separated from nature. We can see this with Carnival and Easter, while Lent fasting is not practised so much anymore.
This is not to say that the ending of the underlying reasons for carnival and the fasting of Lent, i.e. the finishing up of winter stocks and the privation until new crops grew, is such a bad thing, but our dependence on the current global system of industrial farming is worrying at a time when climate change is affecting food production around the world.
This change is also partly due to unsustainable agricultural methods that are negatively affecting our ability to farm in the future, for example, the spread of desertification, whereby fertile areas become arid due to the overexploitation of soil.
Furthermore, supermarkets packed to the gills with produce from all over the world deflects our attention from looming disasters. In Ireland we know the difference between famine (widespread scarcity of food) and hunger (in Irish Gaelic, An Gorta Mór, the great hunger) ... 'when a country is full of food and exporting it'.
Moreover, governmental measures to deal with land issues may be too little too late, or ineffective, as new laws are simply ignored by vested interests.
The Past
Vegetation Deities and Fertility Rites From earliest times our relationship with nature had an element of awe and respect that resulted in the belief in vegetation deities "whose disappearance and reappearance, or life, death and rebirth, embodies the growth cycle of plants." Many vegetation deities were also considered fertility deities, that is, "a god or goddess associated with fertility, sex, pregnancy, childbirth, and crops."
In Mesopotamian culture (dating back to the mid-4th millennium BCE) religion "involved the worship of forces of nature as providers of sustenance" and which later became personified as a range of gods with different functions. Natural phenomena in nature were seen to be directed by nature spirits, thus:
"A nature deity can be in charge of nature, a place, a biotope, the biosphere, the cosmos, or the universe. Nature worship is often considered the primitive source of modern religious beliefs and can be found in pantheism, panentheism, deism, polytheism, animism, Taoism, totemism, Hinduism, shamanism, some theism and paganism".
In some cases the gods die and later return to life, particularly in religions of the ancient Near East. These dying-and-rising, death-rebirth, or resurrection deities are associated with the seasons as allegories of the death of nature and the rebirth of nature during spring, for example, Osiris, the god of fertility, agriculture, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion, and Persephone in Greece, the goddess of spring and nature whose return from the underworld each spring is a symbol of her immortality.
Persephone, Queen of the underworld, Goddess of spring, the dead, the underworld, grain, and nature Statue of syncretic Persephone-Isis with a sistrum. Heraklion Archaeological Museum, Crete
Similarly, many later Roman gods and goddesses were the subjects of fertility rites and celebrations. The festival of Liberalia was held on the 17th March to celebrate the spring growth. Liber was one of the original Roman gods. A favourite of the plebeians, he was the god of fertility and wine. His festival, the Liberalia, was an occasion to mark the return of life:
"The celebration was meant to honor Liber Pater, an ancient god of fertility and wine (like Bacchus, the Roman version of the Greek god Dionysus). Liber Pater was also a vegetation god, responsible for protecting seed. Again like Dionysus, he had female priestesses, but Liber's were older women known as Sacerdos Liberi. Wearing wreaths of ivy, they made special cakes, or libia, of oil and honey which passing devotees would have them sacrifice on their behalf. Over time this feast evolved and included the goddess Libera, and the feast divided so that Liber governed the male seed and Libera the female."
The Present
Carnival /Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) (February / March) Of all the ancient festivals that survived into current times Carnival is probably the most prominent. Winter spirits have been forced out to make way for the new season since antiquity. Carnival symbolised this transition from winter to summer and darkness to light. The carnival was a feast whereby ordinary people feasted on the last of the winter stocks before they rotted. This in turn created the obligatory restraint and fasting until new produce was available. The Christian festival consists of Quinquagesima or Shrove Sunday, Shrove Monday, and Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday). Therefore:
"Carnival typically involves public celebrations, including events such as parades, public street parties and other entertainments, combining some elements of a circus. Elaborate costumes and masks allow people to set aside their everyday individuality and experience a heightened sense of social unity. Participants often indulge in excessive consumption of alcohol, meat, and other foods that will be forgone during upcoming Lent."
The phrase 'Shrove Tuesday' comes from 'shrive' to be absolved of one's sins and therefore shriven before the start of Lent. It is also the last day of the Christian liturgical season which in French is known as Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) the last night of eating well before the ritual fasting beginning on the next day, Ash Wednesday.
Lent (February / March) Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and lasts around six weeks. In this Christian religious observance, (according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke) Jesus Christ spent 40 days fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan. The word Lent comes from the lengthening days of spring and is considered a period of grief which ends with the celebrations of Easter.
Lent observers, including a confraternity of penitents, carrying out a street procession during Holy Week, in Granada, Nicaragua. The violet color is often associated with penance and detachment. Similar Christian penitential practice is seen in other Christian countries, sometimes associated with fasting.
Easter (March / April) Easter is derived from pagan customs that celebrated the victory of Spring over Winter. They lit fires that helped to accelerate the end of Winter and spread the ashes over the fields to help fertilise the soil in fertility rites. Easter bonfires "have been a tradition in Germany since the 11 century. The Christians adopted the pagan custom and reinterpreted it. The fire was now seen as the light of Jesus, reminding people of the life and resurrection of Christ." The Christian festival commemorates the resurrection of Jesus from the dead after his crucifixion by the Romans at Calvary c. 30 AD. Easter is also called Pascha (Aramaic, Greek, Latin) or Resurrection Sunday.
Other cultural traditions associated with Easter include Easter parades, communal dancing (Eastern Europe), the Easter Bunny and egg hunting. It is likely that the eggs and the prodigious reproduction of rabbits and hares led to their depiction as symbols of fertility.
Rogation Days (April) Rogation Days follow some weeks after Easter when processions are formed to to pray or beseech (Latin 'rogare') God for protection from from natural disasters such as hailstorms, floods, and droughts and to ask to ask for blessings on the fields. Rogation processions started at a very early date in order to counteract the Roman Robigalia processions that the pagans made in honor of their gods:
"The Robigalia was a festival in ancient Roman religion held April 25, named for the god Robigus. Its main ritual was a dog sacrifice to protect grain fields from disease. Games (ludi) in the form of "major and minor" races were held. The Robigalia was one of several agricultural festivals in April to celebrate and vitalize the growing season, but the darker sacrificial elements of these occasions are also fraught with anxiety about crop failure and the dependence on divine favor to avert it."
Blessing the Fields on Rogation Sunday at Hever, Kent in 1967
As can be seen in these regular prayers, blessings, and processions throughout the Spring season, the anxiety of the people regarding their crops shows a deep understanding of the vagaries of nature and an awareness of their lives dependence on the health of their cultivation work.
The Future
Industrial Farming By the early twentieth century agriculture started to change due to new developments that brought in the era of industrial farming. Previously a wide variety of foods were produced by many small farms. However, that was all about to change as modern science was applied to various aspects of farming:
"In 1909, a scientific breakthrough by German chemist Fritz Haber—the "father of chemical warfare"—enabled the large-scale production of fertilizer (and explosives), igniting the industrialization of farming. Synthetic fertilizers, along with the development of chemical pesticides, allowed farmers to increase their crop yields (and their profits). Farmers began specializing in fewer crops, namely corn and soy, grown to feed farmed animals. Chickens became the first factory farmed animal when a farmer decided to try to raise ten times as many birds in a chicken house that was only built for 50. Other farmers followed suit."
Thus followed the new era of industrial farming. The effect of mass production led to the use of antibiotics, selective breeding to increase the size of farm animals, and the mechanisation of slaughter houses.
These developments led to the collapse of the many small farmers who could not compete with farming on an industrial scale. For example, now in the USA "small independent and family-run farms use only 8% of all agricultural land. In just under a century, and especially since the 1960s, agriculture has become dominated by large-scale multinational corporations. Driven by profit, these food giants rely on practices that, by design, exploit and abuse animals, destroy natural habitats, and generate pollution".
In more recent decades industrialisation has led to more innovations in "agricultural machinery and farming methods, genetic technology, techniques for achieving economies of scale in production, the creation of new markets for consumption, the application of patent protection to genetic information, and global trade."
This type of intensive farming has a low fallow ratio, and a high level of agrochemicals and water, producing higher crop yields per unit land area. Most of the meat, dairy products, eggs, fruits, and vegetables available in supermarkets are produced by such farms.
Costs to the Environment Despite the current massive production of food globally, industrialized farming has costs that do not augur well for the future. It has been noted that intensive farming pollutes air and water (through the release of manure, chemicals, antibiotics, and growth hormones), destroys wildlife, facilitates the spread of viruses from animals to humans, fosters antimicrobial resistance, and is linked to epidemics of obesity and chronic disease, through the production of a wide variety of inexpensive, calorie-dense and widely available foods.
Regenerative Agriculture The increasing awareness of the types of problems that intensive farming could be leading us to in the future is turning some farmers back to more traditional methods of farming. Regenerative agriculture focuses on "topsoil regeneration, increasing biodiversity, improving the water cycle, enhancing ecosystem services, supporting biosequestration, increasing resilience to climate change, and strengthening the health and vitality of farm soil." Regenerative agriculture also includes different philosophies of farming such as permaculture, agroecology, agroforestry, restoration ecology, crop rotation, and uses "no-till" and/or "reduced till" practices often described as sustainable farming.
Nature Restoration and Practice The negative aspects of industrial farming have come to the notice of governmental bodies such as the EU parliament which has adopted a law to restore habitats and degraded ecosystems in all member states. It notes that "over 80% of European habitats are in poor shape" and "sets a target for the EU to restore at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030 and all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050."
However, resistance to positive changes and procrastination deal serious blows to good intentions. The recent referral of Ireland to the EU Court of Justice for failing to halt the continued cutting of peat in areas designated to conserve raised bogs and blanket bogs is a good example. The infringement is one of the longest running infringement cases in Europe, having begun in 2010.
Conclusion Our long running relationship with nature has benefited from science in the form of the production of plentiful food on a global scale. Yet our deep respect for nature in the past was partly due to our lack of understanding of the processes of biology which led to much anxiety and fear of starvation. All of the polytheistic and monotheistic debates over the influence of gods and goddesses or God have been replaced by scientific processes, but no less anxiety about the future of farming. Farming has always been reliant on predictability as plants are very sensitive to sudden climatic changes such as drought or frost, which can destroy a crop overnight (unseasonal frost) or slowly (extreme drought). Such incidences of crop failures are sporadic if examined on a global scale, but if these incidences multiply rapidly then we will see food price rises and their disastrous social consequences. A new respect for nature is called for that echoes down the centuries when those that did not heed the warnings witnessed the collapse of civilisations.
Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáinis an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. Hisartworkconsists
of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish
history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on
cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist
and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by
countryhere.
Caoimhghin has just published his new book – Against Romanticism: From
Enlightenment to Enfrightenment and the Culture of Slavery, which looks
at philosophy, politics and the history of 10 different art forms
arguing that Romanticism is dominating modern culture to the detriment
of Enlightenment ideals. It is available on Amazon (amazon.co.uk) and the info page ishere.
Of all art forms the ballad has the benefit of expediency. From event, to composition, to broadcast: no art form can compete with the efficacy and proliferation of a good song. The reach and emotional impact of a ballad, "a form of verse, often a narrative set to music" allows for any event affecting individuals or groups, to rapidly become popularised and understood globally. While historically ballads tended to be sentimental, their descendant, the protest song, sits alongside modern ballads with ease.
While both the ballad and the protest song can have as their basis socio/political narratives, their differences are more in the formal qualities of tempo. Ballads still tend to be slower than protest songs, but conveying in emotion what they lose in excitement.
While the ballad may satisfy with its unhurried melody and storytelling, the protest song has an immediacy of lyric and beat that gives vocal power to mass events like concerts and demonstrations.
History of the ballad
Ballads have a long history in European culture.They started out as the "medieval French chanson balladée or ballade, which were originally 'dance songs'. Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Europe, and later in Australia, North Africa, North America and South America." In the nineteenth century they were associated with sentimentality which led to the word ballad "being used for slow love songs from the 1950s onwards."
In Ireland ballads have been a very important part of the nationalist struggle against British colonialism since the seventeenth century. They reached the zenith of their popularity in the 1960s with the Dubliners, and the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. Ballad folk groups are still in demand today in Europe and the USA.
Billie Holiday, 'Strange Fruit' (1939)
Ballads tend to have a slower tempo that allow the audience to
experience the nuances of the lyrics. An early and powerful example of
this is 'Strange Fruit', a song written and composed by Abel Meeropol
(under his pseudonym Lewis Allan) and recorded by Billie Holiday in
1939. A ballad and a protest song, 'Strange Fruit' "protests the
lynching of Black Americans with lyrics that compare the victims to the
fruit of trees. Such lynchings had reached a peak in the Southern United
States at the turn of the 20th century and the great majority of
victims were black." 'Strange Fruit' has been described as call for freedom and is seen as an important initiator of the civil rights movement. The lyrics are full of horror and bitter irony:
"Southern trees Bearing strange fruit Blood on the leaves And blood at the roots Black bodies Swinging in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hangin' From the poplar trees Pastoral scene Of the gallant south"
Woodie Guthrie, 'Dust Bowl Ballads' (1940)
Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (1912–1967) was an American singer-songwriter and composer who was one of the most important figures in American folk music. His songs focused on themes of American socialism and anti-fascism. As a young man he migrated to California to look for work and his experiences of the conditions faced by working class people led him to produce Dust Bowl Ballads is an album of songs grouped around the theme of the Dust Bowl storms that destroyed crops and intensified the economic impact of the Great Depression in the 1930s. 'Dust Bowl Ballads' is thought to be one of the earliest concept albums.
The songs lyrics tell of the storms and their apocalyptic affect on the local farmers:
"On the 14th day of April of 1935 There struck the worst of dust storms that ever filled the sky You could see that dust storm comin', the cloud looked deathlike black And through our mighty nation, it left a dreadful track
From Oklahoma City to the Arizona line Dakota and Nebraska to the lazy Rio Grande It fell across our city like a curtain of black rolled down We thought it was our judgement, we thought it was our doom
[...]
The storm took place at sundown, it lasted through the night When we looked out next morning, we saw a terrible sight We saw outside our window where wheat fields they had grown Was now a rippling ocean of dust the wind had blown"
Pete Seeger, 'We Shall Overcome' (1967)
Peter Seeger (1919–2014) was a popular American folk singer who was regularly heard on the radio in the 1940s, and in the early 1950s he had a string of hit records as a member of The Weavers some of whom were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era. In the 1960s, Seeger became "a prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament, civil rights, counterculture, workers' rights, and environmental causes."
'We Shall Overcome' is believed to have originated as a gospel song known as 'I'll Overcome Some Day'. In 1959, the song began to be associated with the civil rights movement as a protest song, with Seeger's version focusing on nonviolent civil rights activism. It became popular all over the world in many types of protest activities.
The song is a very understated (both musically and lyrically) declaration of protest and unity in the face of oppression:
"We shall overcome We shall overcome We shall overcome some day
Oh, deep in my heart I do believe We shall overcome some day"
Special A.K.A., 'Free Nelson Mandela' (1984)
In contrast, the lively anti-apartheid song 'Free Nelson Mandela' written by British musician Jerry Dammers, and performed by the band the Special A.K.A. was a hugely popular song in 1984 that led to the global awareness of the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela by the apartheid South African government:
"Free Nelson Mandela Twenty-one years in captivity Shoes too small to fit his feet His body abused but his mind is still free Are you so blind that you cannot see? I said free Nelson Mandela"
Rage Against The Machine, 'Sleep Now in the Fire' (1999)
Rage Against the Machine was an American rock band from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1991, "the group consisted of vocalist Zack de la Rocha, bassist and backing vocalist Tim Commerford, guitarist Tom Morello, and drummer Brad Wilk."
The video for 'Sleep Now in the Fire' turned a protest song into an actual protest when the band played on Wall Street in front of the New York Stock Exchange:
"The music video for the song, which was directed by Michael Moore with cinematography by Welles Hackett, features the band playing in front of the New York Stock Exchange, intercut with scenes from a satire of the popular television game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? which is named Who Wants To Be Filthy Fucking Rich. [...] The video starts by saying that on January 24, 2000, the NYSE announced record profits and layoffs, and on the next day New York mayor Rudy Giuliani decreed that Rage Against the Machine "shall not play on Wall Street". The shoot for the music video on January 26, 2000 caused the doors of the New York Stock Exchange to be closed."
The lyrics are spartan, yet cover many topics: bible-belt conservatism, the corrupting aspects of wealth, and its connection with right-wing politics. The second verse gives a potted history of the USA: 'I am the Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria' (Columbus' three ships), 'The noose and the rapist, the fields overseer' (the slave system), The agents of orange (the Vietnam war), The priests of Hiroshima' (Oppenheimer's fascination with mysticism). Any shorter and these lines could almost be described as a haiku embedded within the song. The third verse deals with the future: 'For it's the end of history, It's caged and frozen still, There is no other pill to take, So swallow the one That makes you ill' referencing Francis Fukuyama's argument "that the worldwide spread of liberal democracies and free-market capitalism of the West and its lifestyle may signal the end point of humanity's sociocultural evolution and political struggle and become the final form of human government", caged because there is no alternative, and will continue this way (of making us 'ill') without any viable socio/political alternative vision:
"The world is my expense The cost of my desire Jesus blessed me with its future And I protect it with fire So raise your fists and march around Dont dare take what you need I'll jail and bury those committed And smother the rest in greed Crawl with me into tomorrow Or i'll drag you to your grave I'm deep inside your children They'll betray you in my name
Hey! Hey! Sleep now in the fire
The lie is my expense The scope with my desire The party blessed me with its future And i protect it with fire I am the Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria The noose and the rapist, the fields overseer The agents of orange The priests of Hiroshima The cost of my desire Sleep now in the fire
For it's the end of history It's caged and frozen still There is no other pill to take So swallow the one That makes you ill The Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria The noose and the rapist, the fields' overseer The agents of orange The priests of Hiroshima The cost of my desire Sleep now in the fire."
Bill Callahan, 'America!' (2011)
In Bill Callahan's (born 1966) song and video 'America!' he contrasts the symbols and perception of America globally with its darker past. He mentions legendary American songwriters and performers Mickey Newbury, Kris Kristofferson, George Jones and Johnny Cash and their past roles in the army, showing the deep connection between culture and the military in the USA. Callahan lists countries where the USA has been: Afghanistan, Vietnam, Iran, and ends with Native America, turning its colonialism and imperialism back on itself. There is also an oblique reference to the system of haves and have-nots (Others lucky suckle teat) ending with the slight change 'Ain’t enough to eat' emphasizing the growing poverty in the richest country on earth:
"America! You are so grand and golden Oh I wish I was deep in America tonight
America! America! I watch David Letterman in Australia America! You are so grand and golden I wish I was on the next flight To America!
Captain Kristofferson! Buck Sergeant Newbury! Leatherneck Jones! Sergeant Cash! What an Army! What an Air Force! What a Marines! America! [Afghanistan, Vietnam, Iran, Native America] Well, everyone's allowed a past They don't care to mention
Well, it's hard to rouse a hog in Delta And it can get tense around the Bible Belt Others lucky suckle teat Others lucky suckle teat
America!"
Childish Gambino, 'This Is America' (2018)
In his video, 'This Is America', Childish Gambino (Donald Glover, born 1983) shocked his viewers, who were not used to seeing the cinematic realism of gun violence in a music video. Gambino focuses more on the present than the past, while using cars from the 1990s probably as a symbol of poverty. The violence and drugs scene behind pleasure-seeking party-goers is emphasised with an execution at the start and followed up by a mass murder of a gospel choir. His demeanor constantly changes very suddenly, from dancing one moment, to exhorting his clients another, then cold-blooded killing, yet despite it all, running for his life in the end as his life style catches up with him:
"We just wanna party Party just for you We just want the money Money just for you I know you wanna party Party just for me Girl, you got me dancin' (yeah, girl, you got me dancin') Dance and shake the frame We just wanna party (yeah) Party just for you (yeah) We just want the money (yeah) Money just for you (you) I know you wanna party (yeah) Party just for me (yeah) Girl, you got me dancin' (yeah, girl, you got me dancin') Dance and shake the frame (you)
This is America Don't catch you slippin' up Don't catch you slippin' up Look what I'm whippin' up This is America (woo) Don't catch you slippin' up Don't catch you slippin' up Look what I'm whippin' up"
Bob Dylan, 'Murder Most Foul' (2020)
In 2020, Bob Dylan (born 1941) released this seventeen-minute track, "Murder Most Foul", on his YouTube channel, based on the assassination of President Kennedy. It is a long, slow ballad that intertwines culture and politics, contrasting the optimism of the one with the stark brutality of the other. It is the poetry of America re-examing its past at its best, the detail and condemnation in its lyrics reflecting a political undercurrent that refuses to accept modern myths, a murder 'most foul':
"It was a dark day in Dallas, November '63 A day that will live on in infamy President Kennedy was a-ridin' high Good day to be livin' and a good day to die Being led to the slaughter like a sacrificial lamb He said, "Wait a minute, boys, you know who I am?" "Of course we do, we know who you are!" Then they blew off his head while he was still in the car Shot down like a dog in broad daylight Was a matter of timing and the timing was right You got unpaid debts, we've come to collect We're gonna kill you with hatred, without any respect We'll mock you and shock you and we'll put it in your face We've already got someone here to take your place The day they blew out the brains of the king Thousands were watching, no one saw a thing It happened so quickly, so quick, by surprise Right there in front of everyone's eyes Greatest magic trick ever under the sun Perfectly executed, skillfully done Wolfman, oh Wolfman, oh Wolfman, howl Rub-a-dub-dub, it's a murder most foul
[...]
Don't worry, Mr. President, help's on the way Your brothers are comin', there'll be hell to pay Brothers? What brothers? What's this about hell? Tell them, "We're waiting, keep coming," we'll get them as well Love Field is where his plane touched down But it never did get back up off the ground Was a hard act to follow, second to none They killed him on the altar of the rising sun Play "Misty" for me and "That Old Devil Moon" Play "Anything Goes" and "Memphis in June" Play "Lonely at the Top" and "Lonely Are the Brave" Play it for Houdini spinning around in his grave Play Jelly Roll Morton, play "Lucille" Play "Deep in a Dream", and play "Driving Wheel" Play "Moonlight Sonata" in F-sharp And "A Key to the Highway" for the king of the harp Play "Marching Through Georgia" and "Dumbarton's Drums" Play darkness and death will come when it comes Play "Love Me or Leave Me" by the great Bud Powell Play "The Blood-Stained Banner", play "Murder Most Foul""
Hope for the future ...
These songs show us that, despite the music industry's continuing avalanche of industrial pop, composers and bands are still able to produce music that as an art form can combine melody and criticism, that can look behind facades and describe the reality they see which we hear only as background noise. It shows the way to other art forms that take so much time and energy and money to get up and running, that a fight for more radical content is possible and necessary.
Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáinis an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. Hisartworkconsists
of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish
history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on
cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist
and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by
countryhere.
Caoimhghin has just published his new book – Against Romanticism: From
Enlightenment to Enfrightenment and the Culture of Slavery, which looks
at philosophy, politics and the history of 10 different art forms
arguing that Romanticism is dominating modern culture to the detriment
of Enlightenment ideals. It is available on Amazon (amazon.co.uk) and the info page ishere.
A red bauble on a Christmas tree (a symbol
of apples?)
The ancient
Egyptians, Chinese, and Hebrews used evergreen wreaths, garlands, and trees to
symbolise their respect for nature and their belief in eternal life. The pagan
Europeans worshipped trees and had the custom of decorating their houses and
barns with evergreens, or erecting a Yule tree during midwinter holidays.
However, the modern Christmas tree can be shown to have roots in Christian
traditions too.
The term
‘pagan’ originated in a contemptuous, disdainful, and disparaging attitude
towards people who had a respect for nature, the source of their sustenance: “Paganism
(from classical Latin pāgānus "rural", "rustic", later
"civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early
Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic
religions other than Judaism. Paganism has broadly connoted the "religion
of the peasantry".”
As people
gradually converted to Christianity, December 25 became the date for
celebrating Christmas. Christianity’s “most significant holidays were Epiphany
on January 6, which commemorated the arrival of the Magi after Jesus’ birth,
and Easter, which celebrated Jesus’ resurrection.” For the first three
centuries of Christianity’s existence, “Jesus Christ’s birth wasn’t celebrated
at all” and “the first official mention of December 25 as a holiday honouring
Jesus’ birthday appears in an early Roman calendar from AD 336.” It is also
believed that December 25 became the date for Christ's birth “to coincide
with existing pagan festivals honouring Saturn (the Roman god of agriculture)
and Mithra (the Persian god of light). That way, it became easier to convince
Rome’s pagan subjects to accept Christianity as the empire’s official
religion.”
During the
Middle Ages, the church used mystery plays to dramatize biblical stories for
largely illiterate people to illustrate the stories of the bible “from creation
to damnation to redemption”. [1] Thus, we
find evidence of a connection between the Christmas tree and the Tree of Life in
the Paradise plays as well as pagan sacred trees.
In western
Germany, the story of Adam and Eve was acted out using a prop of a paradise
tree, a fir tree decorated with apples to represent the Garden of Eden:
“The Germans
set up a paradise tree in their homes on December 24, the religious feast day
of Adam and Eve. They hung wafers on it (symbolizing the eucharistic host, the
Christian sign of redemption); in a later tradition the wafers were replaced by
cookies of various shapes. Candles, symbolic of Christ as the light of the
world, were often added. In the same room was the “Christmas pyramid,” a
triangular construction of wood that had shelves to hold Christmas figurines
and was decorated with evergreens, candles, and a star. By the 16th century the
Christmas pyramid and the paradise tree had merged, becoming the Christmas
tree.”
Full-page
miniature of Adam, Eve and the Serpent, [f. 7r] (1445) (The New York Public
Library Digital Collections)
The story of
Adam and Eve begins with their disobedience, but the play cycle ends with the
promise of the coming Saviour. The medieval Church “declared
December 24 the feast day of Adam and Eve. Around the twelfth century this date
became the traditional one for the performance of the paradise play.”
Over time the
tree of paradise began to transcend the religious context of the miracle plays
and moved towards a role in the Christmas celebrations of the guilds. [2]
“The first
evidence of decorated trees associated with Christmas Day are trees in
guildhalls decorated with sweets to be enjoyed by the apprentices and children.
In Livonia (present-day Estonia and Latvia), in 1441, 1442, 1510, and 1514, the
Brotherhood of Blackheads erected a tree for the holidays in their guild houses
in Reval (now Tallinn) and Riga.”
“Possibly the
earliest existing picture of a Christmas tree being paraded through the
streets
with a bishop figure to represent St Nicholas, 1521 (Germanisches National
Museum)”.
(The
Medieval Christmas by Sophie Jackson (2005) p68)
Early records
show “that fir trees decorated with apples were first known in Strasbourg in
1605. The first use of candles on such trees is recorded by a Silesian duchess
in 1611.” Furthermore,
the earliest known dated representation of a Christmas tree is 1576, seen on a
keystone sculpture of a private home in Turckheim, Alsace (then part of the
Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, today France).
Keystone
sculpture at Turckheim, Alsace (MPK)
The paradise
tree represented two important trees of the Garden of Eden: the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life. It is likely that “because
most other trees were barren and lifeless during December, the actors chose to
hang the apples from an evergreen tree rather than from an apple tree.”
The mystery
plays of Oberufer
A good example
of this old tradition is the mystery plays of Oberufer. The Austrian linguist
and literary critic Karl Julius Schröer (1825-1900) “discovered a Medieval
cycle of Danube Swabian mystery plays in Oberufer, a village since engulfed by
the Bratislava's borough of Főrév (German: Rosenheim, today's Ružinov). Schröer
collected manuscripts, made meticulous textual comparisons, and published his
findings in the book Deutsche Weihnachtspiele aus Ungarn ("The German
Nativity Plays of Hungary") in 1857/1858.”
The plates giving an impression of costume designs, based on
Rudolf Steiner's (who studied under Karl Julius Schröer (1825-1900)) directions,
were painted by the Editor's father, Eugen Witta, who saw the plays produced by
Rudolf Steiner many times while working as a young architect on the first
Goetheanum.
Before the
actual performance the whole theatrical company went in procession through the
village. They were headed by the ‘Tree-singer’, who carried in his hand the
small ‘Paradise Tree’—a kind of symbol of the Tree of Life. The story of
the tree and its fruit is mentioned in the text of the play:
But see, but
see a tree stands here
Which precious fruit
doth bear,
That God has
made his firm decree
It shall not
eaten be.
Yea, rind and
flesh and stone
They shall
leave well alone.
This tree is
very life,
Therefore God
will not have
That man shall
eat thereof.
Actors portraying
Adam and Eve are expelled from paradise (Eve: Ye must
delve and I shall spin - our bodily sustenance for to win.)
Performed by
the Players of St Peter in the Church of St Clement Eastcheap, London, England
in 2004 November.
The Paradise
Tree: Egyptian origins?
Gary Greenberg has
compared many stories of the bible with earlier Egyptian myths to try and
understand where the ideas contained in the Old Testament originated. He
explains:
“In the Garden
of Eden God planted two trees, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and The Tree of Life. Eating from the former gave one moral
knowledge; eating from the latter conferred eternal life. He also placed man in
that garden to tend to the plants but told him he may not eat from the Tree of
Knowledge (and therefore become morally knowledgeable). About eating from the Tree
of Life, God said nothing: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt
surely die” (Gen 2:17). […] Adam and Eve did not die when they ate from the
tree. Indeed, God feared that they would next eat from The Tree of Life and
gain immortality.” [3]
Greenberg notes
the similarity of these ideas with Egyptian texts and traditions, specifically
the writings from Egyptian Coffin Text 80 concerning Shu and Tefnut:
“The most
significant portions of Egyptian Coffin Text 80 concern the children of Atum,
the Heliopolitan Creator. Atum’s two children are Shu and Tefnut, and in this
text Shu is identified as the principle of life and Tefnut is identified as the
principle of moral order, a concept that the Egyptians refer to as Ma’at. These
are the two principles associated with the two special trees in the Garden of
Eden, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Not only does the Egyptian text
identify these same two principles as offspring of the Creator deity, the text
goes on to say that Atum (whom the biblical editors had confused with Adam) is
instructed to eat of his daughter, who signifies the principle of moral order.
“It is of your daughter Order that you shall eat. (Coffin Text 80, line 63). This
presents us with a strange correlation. Both Egyptian myth and Genesis tell us
that the chief deity created two fundamental principles, Life and Moral Order.
In the Egyptian myth, Atum is told to eat of moral order but in Genesis, Adam
is forbidden to eat of moral order.” [4]
In another
description we can see the similarities between the Egyptian and biblical
stories:
“Atum-Ra
looked upon the nothingness and recognized his
aloneness, and so he mated with his own shadow to give birth to two
children,
Shu (god of air, whom Atum-Ra spat out) and Tefnut (goddess of moisture,
whom
Atum-Ra vomited out). Shu gave to the early world the principles of life
while
Tefnut contributed the principles of order. Leaving their father on the
ben-ben [the mound that arose from the primordial waters Nu upon which
the creator deity Atum settled], they set out to establish the world. In
time, Atum-Ra became concerned
because his children were gone so long, and so he removed his eye and
sent it
in search of them. While his eye was gone, Atum-Ra sat alone on the hill
in the
midst of chaos and contemplated eternity. Shu and Tefnut returned with
the eye
of Atum-Ra (later associated with the Udjat eye, the Eye of Ra, or the
All-Seeing
Eye) and their father, grateful for their safe return, shed tears of
joy. These
tears, dropping onto the dark, fertile earth of the ben-ben, gave birth
to men
and women.”
However,
Greenberg points out the differences between the two stories:
“Despite the
close parallels between the two descriptions there is one glaring conflict. In
the Egyptian text Nun (the personification of the Great Flood) urged Atum (the Heliopolitan
Creator) to eat of his daughter Tefnut, giving him access to knowledge of moral
order. In Genesis, God forbade Adam to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good
and Evil, denying him access moral knowledge.” [5]
Why was Adam
denied access to moral knowledge? Greenberg writes:
“God feared
that he would obtain eternal life if he ate from the Tree of Life and it became
necessary to expel him from the Garden. […] The Egyptians believed that if you
lived a life of moral order, the god Osiris, who ruled over the afterlife, would
award you eternal life. That was the philosophical link between these two
fundamental principles of Life and Moral Order, and that is why Egyptians
depicted them as the children of the Creator. In effect, knowledge of moral
behaviour was a step towards immortality and godhead. That is precisely the
issue framed in Genesis. When Adam ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil,
God declared that if Adam also ate from the Tree of Life he would become like
God himself. But Hebrews were monotheists. The idea that humans could become god-like
flew in the face of the basic theological concept of biblical religion, that
there was and could be only one god. Humans can't become god-like.” [6]
This idea of the denial of access to the monotheistic heaven can be seen in the New Testament of the Bible whereby, according to John 3:13, it is stated: "No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man" and John 1:18: "No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known." The dead must wait until the last day, according to John 11:24: "“Yes,” Martha said, “he will rise when everyone else rises, at the last day”", when they will hear His call, according to John 5:28: "Don’t be so surprised! Indeed, the time is coming when all the dead in their graves will hear the voice of God’s Son".
Adam and Eve
and the Serpent—Expulsion from Paradise, ca. 1480-1500 (Anonymous)
Greenberg describes the fundamental differences between Hebrew monotheism and Egyptian
polytheism:
“The Hebrew
story is actually a sophisticated attack on the Egyptian doctrine of moral
order leading to eternal life. It begins by transforming Life and Moral Order
from deities into trees, eliminating the cannibalistic imagery suggested by Atum
eating of his daughter. Then, Adam was specifically forbidden to eat the fruit
of Moral Order. Next, Adam was told that not only wouldn't he achieve eternal
life if he ate of Moral Order but that he would actually die if he did eat it. Finally,
Adam was expelled from the Garden before he could eat from the Tree of Life and
live for eternity. […]When God told
Adam that he would surely die the very day he ate from the Tree of Knowledge,
the threat should be understood to mean that humans should not try to become
like a deity. God didn't mean that Adam would literally drop dead the day he
ate the forbidden fruit; he meant that the day Adam violated the commandment he
would lose access to eternal life. […] Once he violated the commandment, he
lost access to the Tree of Life and could no longer eat the fruit that
prevented death.” [7]
The difference
between the lord/slave relationship of monotheism and the nature-based ideology
of polytheistic paganism is that the subject is denied an eternal place
with the master in the former but is welcomed as an equal in the latter. This
is because the subject is an integral part of nature in paganism:
“In the shamanic world, not only
every tree, but every being was and is holy - because they are all
imbued with the wonderful power of life, the great mystery of universal Being. “Yes,
we believe that, even below heaven, the forests have their gods also, the sylvan
creatures and fauns and different kinds of goddesses” (Pliny the Elder II, 3). [8]
The gradual change over from egalitarian pagan societies to the lord/slave relationship of monotheism has been theorised and associated with the
coming of the Kurgan peoples across Europe from c. 4000 to 1000 BC is
believed to have been a tumultuous and disastrous time for the peoples
of Old Europe. The Old European culture is believed to have centred
around a nature-based ideology that was gradually replaced by an
anti-nature, patriarchal, warrior society.
In their book The Creation of Inequality, Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus note that:
"Our early ancestors lived in small groups and worked actively to preserve social equality. As they created larger societies, however, inequality rose, and by 2500 BCE truly egalitarian societies were on the wane."
According to Deborah Rogers in her article, Inequality: Why egalitarian societies died out:
"For 5000 years, humans have grown accustomed to living in societies dominated by the privileged few. But it wasn’t always this way. For tens of thousands of years, egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies were widespread. And as a large body of anthropological research shows, long before we organised ourselves into hierarchies of wealth, social status and power, these groups rigorously enforced norms that prevented any individual or group from acquiring more status, authority or resources than others. [...] Keeping the playing field level was a matter of survival. These small-scale, nomadic foraging groups didn’t stock up much surplus food, and given the high-risk nature of hunting – the fact that on any given day or week you may come back empty-handed – sharing and cooperation were required to ensure everyone got enough to eat. Anyone who made a bid for higher status or attempted to take more than their share would be ridiculed or ostracised for their audacity. Suppressing our primate ancestors’ dominance hierarchies by enforcing these egalitarian norms was a central adaptation of human evolution, argues social anthropologist Christopher Boehm. It enhanced cooperation and lowered risk as small, isolated bands of humans spread into new habitats and regions across the world, and was likely crucial to our survival and success."
James DeMeo takes a more radical approach to inequality in his book, Saharasia: The 4000 BCE Origins of Child Abuse, Sex-Repression, Warfare and Social Violence in the Deserts of the Old World. He believes that climatic changes caused drought, desertification and famine in North Africa, the Near East, and Central Asia (collectively Saharasia) and this trauma caused the development of patriarchal, authoritarian and violent characteristics in roving groups that headed north and enslaved the more stable societies they encountered there.
Over the centuries paganism gradually gave way to monotheistic religions, while never dying out completely. Nature-based traditions and ideas were co-opted and changed but their meanings were never completely lost.
For example, it is
important to note “that the “serpent in the tree” motif associated with the
Adam and Eve story comes directly from Egyptian art. The Egyptians believed
that Re, the sun God that circled the earth every day, had a nightly fight with
the serpent Aphophis and each night defeated him. Several Egyptian paintings
show a scene in which Re, appearing in the form of “Mau, the Great Cat of
Heliopolis,” sits before a tree while the serpent Apophis coils about the tree,
paralleling the image of rivalry between Adam and the serpent in the tree of
the Garden of Eden.” [9]
The sun god Ra,
in the form of Great Cat, slays the snake Apophis. (Image credit:Eisnel - Public Domain)
Thus, we have moved from the biblical story of Adam and Eve back to the earlier paganism (the
connection with Nature) of the Egyptians. While there is much evidence that one
of the sources of the origin of the Christmas tree is in the ancient pagan worship
of trees and evergreen boughs, there is also a lot of evidence that another
source of the Christmas tree is in the medieval mystery plays where the Paradise
tree was a necessary prop for the biblical story of Adam and Eve. If we look
back even further to Egyptian mythology, we can see parallels between the
biblical stories of creation and the Egyptian myths that also illustrate
fundamental philosophical and spiritual differences between monotheist and
polytheist ideology, i.e. the differences between the ‘enslaved’ (with their
Lord/Master who can reward or punish) and the people who work with and respect
the cycles of nature (persons outside the bounds of the Christian community,
ethnic religions, Indigenous peoples, etc.).
Indeed, Tuck
and Yang (2012:6) propose a criterion (for the term Indigenous) based on
accounts of origin: "Indigenous
peoples are those who have creation stories, not colonization stories, about
how we/they came to be in a particular place - indeed how we/they came to be a
place. Our/their relationships to land comprise our/their epistemologies,
ontologies, and cosmologies". The imposition of Christianity became the imposition of coloniser narratives of origin, which ultimately reflected their slave status and their exclusion from their own native concepts of heaven and the afterlife.
By the 1970s,
the term Indigenous was used as a way of “linking the experiences, issues, and
struggles of groups of colonized people across international borders”, thus
politicising their resistance to the dominant colonising narratives that
historically spread while using Christianity as a form of social control on a
global scale.
Thus, whether
the Christmas tree arises out of the pagan worship of trees or the nature-based
polytheism of Egyptian lore about Life and Knowledge (as the Paradise Tree),
the Christmas tree still plays an important and special part in our lives today,
demonstrating that our relationship with nature goes back millennia. We can
choose to be exiled from nature or become involved in the cycles of nature in ways
that end our current destructive practices.
Notes:
[1] Inventing
the Christmas Tree by Bernd Brunner (2012) p 15
[2] Inventing
the Christmas Tree by Bernd Brunner (2012) p 16
[3] 101 Myths
of the Bible by Gary Greenberg (2000) p48
[4] 101 Myths
of the Bible by Gary Greenberg (2000) p49
[5] 101 Myths
of the Bible by Gary Greenberg (2000) p51
[6] 101 Myths
of the Bible by Gary Greenberg (2000) p51/52
[7] 101 Myths
of the Bible by Gary Greenberg (2000) p51/52
[8] Pagan Christmas: The Plants, Spirits,
and Rituals at the Origins of Yuletide by Christian Ratsch and Claudia Muller-
Ebeling (2003) p24
[9] 101 Myths
of the Bible by Gary Greenberg (2000) p49/50
Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáinis an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. Hisartworkconsists
of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish
history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on
cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist
and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by
countryhere.
Caoimhghin has just published his new book – Against Romanticism: From
Enlightenment to Enfrightenment and the Culture of Slavery, which looks
at philosophy, politics and the history of 10 different art forms
arguing that Romanticism is dominating modern culture to the detriment
of Enlightenment ideals. It is available on Amazon (amazon.co.uk) and the info page ishere.