I Heart Steinbeck
"We had a game we playfully called speculative metaphysics..."
"We thought that perhaps our species thrives best and most creatively in a state of semi-anarchy, governed by loose rules and half-practiced mores. To this we added the premise that over integration in groups might parallel the law in paleontology that over-armor or over-ornamentation are symptoms of decay and disappearance. Indeed, we thought, over-integration might be the symptom of human decay. We thought: there is no creative unit in the human save the individual working alone. In pure creativeness, in art, in music, in mathematics , there are no true collaborations. The creative principle is a lonely and an individual matter. Groups can correlate, investigate, and build, but we could not think of any group that has ever created or invented anything. Indeed, the first impulse of the group seems to be to destroy the creation and the creator. But integration, or the designed group, seems to be highly vulnerable."
from About Ed Ricketts
John Steinbeck
Steinbeck seemed to be a man forever searching for true human experience: happiness, sadness, struggle, and endurance. In the biographical collection American Writers (1974) one quote seems to sum up the life of John Steinbeck. "It was Steinbeck's philosophy to the end of his life...that three wills are operative in mans experience: the will of the group, the will of the individual, and the moral will which must in the end prevail over the lesser two"(American Writers, 1974, p. 57).
"We thought that perhaps our species thrives best and most creatively in a state of semi-anarchy, governed by loose rules and half-practiced mores. To this we added the premise that over integration in groups might parallel the law in paleontology that over-armor or over-ornamentation are symptoms of decay and disappearance. Indeed, we thought, over-integration might be the symptom of human decay. We thought: there is no creative unit in the human save the individual working alone. In pure creativeness, in art, in music, in mathematics , there are no true collaborations. The creative principle is a lonely and an individual matter. Groups can correlate, investigate, and build, but we could not think of any group that has ever created or invented anything. Indeed, the first impulse of the group seems to be to destroy the creation and the creator. But integration, or the designed group, seems to be highly vulnerable."
from About Ed Ricketts
John Steinbeck
Steinbeck seemed to be a man forever searching for true human experience: happiness, sadness, struggle, and endurance. In the biographical collection American Writers (1974) one quote seems to sum up the life of John Steinbeck. "It was Steinbeck's philosophy to the end of his life...that three wills are operative in mans experience: the will of the group, the will of the individual, and the moral will which must in the end prevail over the lesser two"(American Writers, 1974, p. 57).
posted by sarah at 7:34 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home