Great article. I think that religion, while in some ways outdated, is actually very archetypal at its core and is a key reason why religious stories resonate across time.
For example, the religious images you mentioned as being "difficult to understand" are indeed difficult to understand if one looks at them through a modern lens. But the reason they are so iconic and stand the test of time is because they speak to something hidden beneath the shallow and short lived level of thinking many are immersed in.
For example, the story of the Christ is simply a retelling of the story of Horus in ancient Egypt. In fact, Christianity can be thought of as a continuation of the teachings of ancient Egyptian mystery schools - with the "Father" being Osiris, the "Holy Spirit" being Isis and the "Son" as Horus.
The Tower of Babel, another famous story from the Bible, can be seen as an archetypal story. This same story is found in many cultures across the world which were not known to have any contact with each other (Native Americans for example have their own "Tower of Babel" story). This suggests it's archetypal in nature. Interestingly, you can find this archetype depicted in the Tarot as the card "The Tower".
Jurassic Park is a modern story that exemplifies this archetype well. A billionaire attempting to bypass nature by bringing back an extinct species only to inevitable be met with "the thunderbolts from above" - aka complete disaster.
Of course, Jurassic Park is something that will likely exist in the "Long Now" - something that people will enjoy generations from now.
In my opinion, it's not because of the dinosaurs. It's because it exemplifies this archetype just as the Tower of Babel also exemplifies this archetype.
The Long Now perspective is interesting, but another way to cope might be to accept that what we write is for us, not the model of a future historian living in your head. The future will have its own concerns, and very likely a lot more data than we have about our past. Maybe our writing will be interesting because it’s *not* timeless, but rather of its time?
The way you find unseen threads in the grand tapestry is really something! Plus I appreciated the references to Eno and Kuhn. You talked about the scientific worldview; there is another thing happening now that came to mind in following your line of thought -- the internet (and printing and broadcast electronic media before that) seems to have created a democratization (or plebianation) of thought -- anyone can now be (or perceived to be) an instant expert on anything. In the Dark and Middle Ages, the Church controlled the flow of information and used their control to exercise authority over what was true and false. Now that's nearly gone -- nobody has authority -- so the idea of judging whether something is true or false has practically become passe -- it's irrelevant to our culture. I wonder how you would frame this issue? And how you might see information anarchy as something to build into art the way you building the scientific worldview into art? Or is info-anarchy setting us back in these reagrds? Thanks again for such a thought-stirring piece!
Gorgeous article. I think often of the creator mindset and ignition process in times gone by, when an architect or artist conceived a thing that they would not see finished in their lifetime. What must it have taken to sell others, and trust them, to complete another's notion? For an audience unknown.
Skimmed this read, so forgive me if I gloss over any important points you might have made but... Coming from the engineering world and then moving into the art world, I am not so sure that art can be created to be any less prone to the "short now" than any other form of media. The art world is incredibly fickle when it comes to what it considers to be a timeless work of art, even at it pertains to science art. From a marketing perspective, the art metaphors still need to cater to whatever bit of pop culture pageantry is the flavor of the month. There's easily a lot of good work that is missed, relegating a potential "LongNow" quality artwork work to long-term storage that no one ever sees.
Great article. I think that religion, while in some ways outdated, is actually very archetypal at its core and is a key reason why religious stories resonate across time.
For example, the religious images you mentioned as being "difficult to understand" are indeed difficult to understand if one looks at them through a modern lens. But the reason they are so iconic and stand the test of time is because they speak to something hidden beneath the shallow and short lived level of thinking many are immersed in.
For example, the story of the Christ is simply a retelling of the story of Horus in ancient Egypt. In fact, Christianity can be thought of as a continuation of the teachings of ancient Egyptian mystery schools - with the "Father" being Osiris, the "Holy Spirit" being Isis and the "Son" as Horus.
The Tower of Babel, another famous story from the Bible, can be seen as an archetypal story. This same story is found in many cultures across the world which were not known to have any contact with each other (Native Americans for example have their own "Tower of Babel" story). This suggests it's archetypal in nature. Interestingly, you can find this archetype depicted in the Tarot as the card "The Tower".
Jurassic Park is a modern story that exemplifies this archetype well. A billionaire attempting to bypass nature by bringing back an extinct species only to inevitable be met with "the thunderbolts from above" - aka complete disaster.
Of course, Jurassic Park is something that will likely exist in the "Long Now" - something that people will enjoy generations from now.
In my opinion, it's not because of the dinosaurs. It's because it exemplifies this archetype just as the Tower of Babel also exemplifies this archetype.
The Long Now perspective is interesting, but another way to cope might be to accept that what we write is for us, not the model of a future historian living in your head. The future will have its own concerns, and very likely a lot more data than we have about our past. Maybe our writing will be interesting because it’s *not* timeless, but rather of its time?
The way you find unseen threads in the grand tapestry is really something! Plus I appreciated the references to Eno and Kuhn. You talked about the scientific worldview; there is another thing happening now that came to mind in following your line of thought -- the internet (and printing and broadcast electronic media before that) seems to have created a democratization (or plebianation) of thought -- anyone can now be (or perceived to be) an instant expert on anything. In the Dark and Middle Ages, the Church controlled the flow of information and used their control to exercise authority over what was true and false. Now that's nearly gone -- nobody has authority -- so the idea of judging whether something is true or false has practically become passe -- it's irrelevant to our culture. I wonder how you would frame this issue? And how you might see information anarchy as something to build into art the way you building the scientific worldview into art? Or is info-anarchy setting us back in these reagrds? Thanks again for such a thought-stirring piece!
Gorgeous article. I think often of the creator mindset and ignition process in times gone by, when an architect or artist conceived a thing that they would not see finished in their lifetime. What must it have taken to sell others, and trust them, to complete another's notion? For an audience unknown.
Skimmed this read, so forgive me if I gloss over any important points you might have made but... Coming from the engineering world and then moving into the art world, I am not so sure that art can be created to be any less prone to the "short now" than any other form of media. The art world is incredibly fickle when it comes to what it considers to be a timeless work of art, even at it pertains to science art. From a marketing perspective, the art metaphors still need to cater to whatever bit of pop culture pageantry is the flavor of the month. There's easily a lot of good work that is missed, relegating a potential "LongNow" quality artwork work to long-term storage that no one ever sees.