Posts Tagged ‘The Fall’
“There’s no such thing as an original sin”*…
Paradise, by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1530, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Still…
… The philosophical ideas behind the concept of Original Sin were explored in detail by St Augustine, developing the seminal thinking of St Paul, who saw Original Sin as a concept of radical equality; that no one speaks from a position of strength. All are flawed and when mankind seeks perfection, it is setting itself up, literally, for a fall.
Though fundamental to Christianity, the concept survived the Enlightenment, despite Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s argument that man was born innocent. The rationalist philosopher Immanuel Kant, for example, wrote of the ‘crooked timber of humanity’. Two centuries later, Sigmund Freud offered a secular version of Original Sin, tracing the dark forces that lurk within the subconscious. Original Sin is a tenacious idea…
The fall of humankind and the concept of Original Sin: “Adam and Eve.”
Original thought is like original sin: both happened before you were born to people you could not have possibly met – Fran Lebowitz
* Elvis Costello, “I’m Not Angry”
###
As we sort out sin, we might recall that today is The Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a solemn celebration in some form in most Christian faiths, of belief in the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary.
Mary’s holy and immaculate conception, by Francisco Rizi
So it went…
In the late 70s, Tony Wilson— who would go on to co-found Factory Records (the seminal independent label that embodied “The Manchester Sound”) and The Hacienda (the warehouse-based club that was the birthplace of the rave)– hosted a tea-time television show called So It Goes.
A weekly arts/culture/music series, the program’s passion was emerging new pop music… which in those days meant Punk and New Wave.
The Way We Were is a Channel 4 (UK) retrospective first broadcast circa 1984.– a compilation of performances by bands performing on So It Goes– many of them making their TV debuts: Sex Pistols, Clash, Buzzcocks, Iggy Pop, The Fall, Elvis Costello, Blondie, Penetration, Wreckless Eric, Ian Dury, Tom Robinson, Magazine, John Cooper Clarke, XTC and Joy Division…
[TotH to Richard Metzger and his essential Dangerous Minds for the lead to TWWW]
As we slam dance down memory lane, we might recall that it was on this date in 1976– as we in the U.S. were beginning our Bi-Centennial Day celebrations– that the Clash gave their first public performance: they opened for the Sex Pistols at The Black Swan in Sheffield, England. As U2 guitarist The Edge later wrote, “This wasn’t just entertainment. It was a life-and-death thing….It was the call to wake up, get wise, get angry, get political and get noisy about it.”
The Clash, 1976 (source)
You must be logged in to post a comment.