Chris Hedges wrote something vital — to any hope for cultural resuscitation

© 2019 Peter Free

 

06 August 2019

 

 

Regarding the moral atrocity that is American society . . .

 

Chris Hedges wrote this:

 

 

The deep malaise, rage and feelings of betrayal that have enveloped American society are rarely captured and almost never are explained coherently by the press.

 

To grasp the savage economic and emotional cost of deindustrialization, the destruction of our democratic institutions, the dark undercurrent of nihilistic violence that sees us beset with mass shootings, the attraction of opioids, the rise of the militarized state and the concentration of national wealth in a tiny cabal of corrupt bankers and corporations, it is necessary to turn to a handful of poets, writers and other artists.

 

These artists, who often exist on the margins of mass culture, are our unheeded prophets.

 

“What Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, and most other prophets have in common is a strong ethical outlook and a heightened sensitivity to attitudes and morals—the obvious ones as well as those that lurk beneath the surface,” the painter Enrique Martinez Celaya [— see who that is, here —] said in an essay.

 

“They also share urgency. Prophets are not inclined to wait for the right time. Their prophetic vision demands action, leaving little room for calculation and diplomacy.

 

"Truth, for the prophets, is not merely a belief but a moral imperative that compels them to speak and act with little regard for convenience or gains.

 

"But prophets need to do more than speaking and acting, and it is not enough to be apocalyptic. Something must be brought forward.”

 

© 2019 Chris Hedges, The Artist as Prophet, TruthDig (05 August 2019)

 

 

All true.

 

 

Coincidentally — James Baldwin's critically important question

 

Thanks to H. Eric Loewe — who was responding to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Cortez's favorable tweet regarding Professor Eddie Glaude's eloquently passionate indictment of American racial bias — I reappreciated James Baldwin's dismissive counsel — regarding not waiting for the White Man's culturally nasty ass to catch up with the concept of simple human fairness.

 

See the Baldwin clip at:

 

 

Unaffiliated Critic, James Baldwin: How Much Time Do You Want For Your "Progress?", YouTube (28 April 2015) (video clip taken from the 1989 American Masters documentary, "James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket")

 

 

The moral? — When ethics die, the only reservoir of light left — are prophets

 

Be one.