I was introduce tonight to the wisdom of Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Tribe who it was suggested, might have been Al Gore's boy for the Supreme Court if Gore had been elected president.
OK I'm stayin' out of politics---my concern doesn't deal with politicians but Lawrence Tribe. Just consider this: Tribe is a very influential individual and could become even more influential.
Here I am in a mid sized western U.S.town in a coffee shop/bookstore in a round table discussion with eight other people, half of whom have doctorates.
I'm about to fall asleep when my rage monkey kicks in. Tribe's agenda:
"...to remove the notion of the Natural..."
Its a big priority for Tribe.
"What?" I ask
"It's progress" I'm told
""Remove the notion of the Natural" from what?" I ask
"Society" Comes the reply "...law, art, education---society"
"Why?" I ask.
"It is repressive...individual autonomy is the single cardinal virtue. The notion of the Natural, that there is a natural order to things prevents people from being fulfilled"
Later that evening I'm sitting here at the 'puter pondering the whole thing. Tribe-ites take this "Remove the notion of the Natural" thing quite seriously. My rage-monkey is indelicately informed that my photographic endeavor to celebrate Nature is passe. Progress demands that the ...notion of the Natural" be removed.
I chug a diet pepsi.
So Tribe, if that is really what He said, has his agenda and his agenda is to "Remove the notion of the Natural" and He's a Harvard big shot, why haven't I heard from him before?
So my first question is Whos here that knows anything about Lawrence Tribe?
I chug a bottle of carbonated lemon water thinking that that was a dumb question---I should have googled the bloke (but I've already gone this far so theres no turning back now) but this also got me thinking of the recent post about cliche and how so many landscapes were considered cliche by so many people, especially Half Dome, Glacier Point and El Capitan in Yosemite. Big pieces of granite (I pop another diet Pepsi) they are certainly icons of the park--internationally recognized icons--and they don't change much except for that slab that took out the ice cream stand at Happy Isles a while back--but are now cliche, at least in photographs.
For whatever reason, Half Dome, Glacier Point and El Cap represent "..the Notion of the Natural" for a lot of people. Certainly they are natural objects and quite likely all those photographs snapped by LF 'togs and digi equipped tourists alike actually promote the notion of the Natural. Maybe they'll hang in galleries or maybe they'll be hung in dilbert cubicles in office buildings somewhere. They might be pinned to brag boards at an REI or get stashed away in a family album---or even made into a refrigerator magnet. Nobody is likely to look at them and say out loud :
"Yuck! A cliche!"
Not likely, though a "...notion of Nature" they'll be forever more be until they're destroyed.
My rage monkey points to book burnings in pre world war 2 Germany and suggests that maybe instead they'll be burning postcards of Half Dome, refrigerator magnets from Crater Lake and snapshots of Old Faithful geyser (and the guy in the black judges robe with torch in hand is Lawrence Tribe.)
The notion of the Natural. Most people I know find fulfillment in Nature. The notion of the Natural is welcome, as welcome as a jar of seashells on the coffee table (cliche)or a sugarpinecone on the mantle(cliche) or daffodills in a garden (cliche.) Or a photo of Half Dome(!) What these people have in common, according to Tribe, would be that they are against progress.
Now the idea of a cliche, if I understand correctly is that it defies progress too. Its the same ol' stuff. Same ol' granite that says the same ol' thing.
What does it say? To me it says "Here I am, the biggest piece of granite you'll see in these parts ---get close up and I'll take your breath away. Come visit me! Be a fool and get too close to the edge and I'll send you down so hard you'll be pulp when you hit the groundfloor." Not original, but it is attention getting. And its a natural reaction I think.
I'm beginning to see that the overshot cliche photographs of nature can fall perfectly into what Tribe calls "...notions of Nature" that must be "removed" as being anti-progressive.
I have nothing against progress. I see it as neutral until a direction for progress is clearly stated and even then it may ultimately be a big mistake. Thalidomide. Eugenetics. Genocide. Lead water pipes. All examples of notions of Progress at one time or another (hindsight being 20/20 and all that.) OTOH to retort that an opponent or dissenter is anti-progressive because he is against progress is IMHO silly if you can't say what you're progressing towards.
Am I paranoid or is it all the Diet Pepsi? Tribe's agenda sounds like it has its roots in Postmodernist thought. Hmmm. I'll put my rage monkey back in his cage now and listen to your thoughts.
How about it?
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