I think what I and most other sociologists of religion wrote in the 1960s about secularization was a mistake. Our underlying argument was that secularization and modernity go hand in hand. With more modernization comes more secularization.
quote by Peter L. Berger
Added by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
Underlying Depression
Underlying depression, have to crawl into my room
Underlying depression dont want to know about the moon in june
Outside theres a cavalcade of clowns but they're bringing me down
With underlying depression
Underlying depression and its starting in my backyard
Underlying depression, and these times aint even so hard
Lord I was born with the blues and my blue suede shoes
And underlying depression
Underlying depresslon and theres ust nowhere to turn
Underlying depression and things just seem to turn in on one
Sometimes Im stuck in the corner just like little jack horner
With underlying depression
Underlying depression and I just cant get it right
Underlying depression Ive got to fight it with all of my might
Right now I dont want to be alone
Get my baby on the telephone
Underlying depression
Have to make some concessions when everything is working right
Have to count my blessings, helps me make it through the night
Ive got love in my life as well as trouble and strife
And underlying depression
Underlying depression, underlying depression, underlying depression
Aint nothing but the blues
Underlying depression aint nothing but the blues
Underlying depression, aint nothing but the blues
Underlying depression
song performed by Van Morrison
Added by Lucian Velea
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Wasteland
Out into the wasteland
Out into the wasteland
No religion
No religion, no religion at all
No religion
No religion, no religion at all
No religion, no religion at all
No religion
No religion, no religion at all
No religion
No religion at all
No religion
Emissionary man amongst the heathen
Cant you see a modern primitive
I came back, Im gonna find,
Im gonna give religion
When there was, no religion at all
Im outta the wasteland
Im into this head man
Im outta the wasteland
No religion at all
Im outta the wasteland
Im into this head man
Im outta the wasteland
No religion, no religion at all
Theres a man in need of resurrection
(no religion)
Cant you see a modern primitive
(no religion)
But Im a man I need my love and
Freedom (no religion)
When there was no freedom at all
Im outta the wasteland
Im into this head man
Im outta the wasteland
No religion at all
Im outta the wasteland
Im into this head man
Im outta the wasteland
No religion, no religion at all
No religion
No religion at all
No religion
No religion at all
In vr land
The future of fun
Tell me what to do
In vr law
Computer crime
Um, so sublime
[...] Read more
song performed by Billy Idol
Added by Lucian Velea
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VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi
Answer you, Sirs? Do I understand aright?
Have patience! In this sudden smoke from hell,—
So things disguise themselves,—I cannot see
My own hand held thus broad before my face
And know it again. Answer you? Then that means
Tell over twice what I, the first time, told
Six months ago: 't was here, I do believe,
Fronting you same three in this very room,
I stood and told you: yet now no one laughs,
Who then … nay, dear my lords, but laugh you did,
As good as laugh, what in a judge we style
Laughter—no levity, nothing indecorous, lords!
Only,—I think I apprehend the mood:
There was the blameless shrug, permissible smirk,
The pen's pretence at play with the pursed mouth,
The titter stifled in the hollow palm
Which rubbed the eyebrow and caressed the nose,
When I first told my tale: they meant, you know,
"The sly one, all this we are bound believe!
"Well, he can say no other than what he says.
"We have been young, too,—come, there's greater guilt!
"Let him but decently disembroil himself,
"Scramble from out the scrape nor move the mud,—
"We solid ones may risk a finger-stretch!
And now you sit as grave, stare as aghast
As if I were a phantom: now 't is—"Friend,
"Collect yourself!"—no laughing matter more—
"Counsel the Court in this extremity,
"Tell us again!"—tell that, for telling which,
I got the jocular piece of punishment,
Was sent to lounge a little in the place
Whence now of a sudden here you summon me
To take the intelligence from just—your lips!
You, Judge Tommati, who then tittered most,—
That she I helped eight months since to escape
Her husband, was retaken by the same,
Three days ago, if I have seized your sense,—
(I being disallowed to interfere,
Meddle or make in a matter none of mine,
For you and law were guardians quite enough
O' the innocent, without a pert priest's help)—
And that he has butchered her accordingly,
As she foretold and as myself believed,—
And, so foretelling and believing so,
We were punished, both of us, the merry way:
Therefore, tell once again the tale! For what?
Pompilia is only dying while I speak!
Why does the mirth hang fire and miss the smile?
My masters, there's an old book, you should con
For strange adventures, applicable yet,
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Give Me That Old Time Religion
Give me that old time religion
Tis the old time religion,
Tis the old time religion,
And it's good enough for me.
It was good for our mothers.
It was good for our mothers.
It was good for our mothers.
And it's good enough for me.
Give me that old time religion
Tis the old time religion,
Tis the old time religion,
And it's good enough for me.
Makes me love everybody.
Makes me love everybody.
Makes me love everybody.
And it's good enough for me.
Give me that old time religion
Tis the old time religion,
Tis the old time religion,
And it's good enough for me.
It has saved our fathers.
It has saved our fathers.
It has saved our fathers.
And it's good enough for me.
Give me that old time religion
Tis the old time religion,
Tis the old time religion,
And it's good enough for me.
It will do when I am dying.
It will do when I am dying.
It will do when I am dying.
And it's good enough for me.
Give me that old time religion
Tis the old time religion,
Tis the old time religion,
[...] Read more
poem by Anonymous Americas
Added by Poetry Lover
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The Ghost - Book IV
Coxcombs, who vainly make pretence
To something of exalted sense
'Bove other men, and, gravely wise,
Affect those pleasures to despise,
Which, merely to the eye confined,
Bring no improvement to the mind,
Rail at all pomp; they would not go
For millions to a puppet-show,
Nor can forgive the mighty crime
Of countenancing pantomime;
No, not at Covent Garden, where,
Without a head for play or player,
Or, could a head be found most fit,
Without one player to second it,
They must, obeying Folly's call,
Thrive by mere show, or not at all
With these grave fops, who, (bless their brains!)
Most cruel to themselves, take pains
For wretchedness, and would be thought
Much wiser than a wise man ought,
For his own happiness, to be;
Who what they hear, and what they see,
And what they smell, and taste, and feel,
Distrust, till Reason sets her seal,
And, by long trains of consequences
Insured, gives sanction to the senses;
Who would not (Heaven forbid it!) waste
One hour in what the world calls Taste,
Nor fondly deign to laugh or cry,
Unless they know some reason why;
With these grave fops, whose system seems
To give up certainty for dreams,
The eye of man is understood
As for no other purpose good
Than as a door, through which, of course,
Their passage crowding, objects force,
A downright usher, to admit
New-comers to the court of Wit:
(Good Gravity! forbear thy spleen;
When I say Wit, I Wisdom mean)
Where (such the practice of the court,
Which legal precedents support)
Not one idea is allow'd
To pass unquestion'd in the crowd,
But ere it can obtain the grace
Of holding in the brain a place,
Before the chief in congregation
Must stand a strict examination.
Not such as those, who physic twirl,
Full fraught with death, from every curl;
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Churchill
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IX. Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius, Fisci et Rev. Cam. Apostol. Advocatus
Had I God's leave, how I would alter things!
If I might read instead of print my speech,—
Ay, and enliven speech with many a flower
Refuses obstinate to blow in print,
As wildings planted in a prim parterre,—
This scurvy room were turned an immense hall;
Opposite, fifty judges in a row;
This side and that of me, for audience—Rome:
And, where yon window is, the Pope should hide—
Watch, curtained, but peep visibly enough.
A buzz of expectation! Through the crowd,
Jingling his chain and stumping with his staff,
Up comes an usher, louts him low, "The Court
"Requires the allocution of the Fisc!"
I rise, I bend, I look about me, pause
O'er the hushed multitude: I count—One, two—
Have ye seen, Judges, have ye, lights of law,—
When it may hap some painter, much in vogue
Throughout our city nutritive of arts,
Ye summon to a task shall test his worth,
And manufacture, as he knows and can,
A work may decorate a palace-wall,
Afford my lords their Holy Family,—
Hath it escaped the acumen of the Court
How such a painter sets himself to paint?
Suppose that Joseph, Mary and her Babe
A-journeying to Egypt, prove the piece:
Why, first he sedulously practiseth,
This painter,—girding loin and lighting lamp,—
On what may nourish eye, make facile hand;
Getteth him studies (styled by draughtsmen so)
From some assistant corpse of Jew or Turk
Or, haply, Molinist, he cuts and carves,—
This Luca or this Carlo or the like.
To him the bones their inmost secret yield,
Each notch and nodule signify their use:
On him the muscles turn, in triple tier,
And pleasantly entreat the entrusted man
"Familiarize thee with our play that lifts
"Thus, and thus lowers again, leg, arm and foot!"
—Ensuring due correctness in the nude.
Which done, is all done? Not a whit, ye know!
He,—to art's surface rising from her depth,—
If some flax-polled soft-bearded sire be found,
May simulate a Joseph, (happy chance!)—
Limneth exact each wrinkle of the brow,
Loseth no involution, cheek or chap,
Till lo, in black and white, the senior lives!
Is it a young and comely peasant-nurse
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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XI. Guido
You are the Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and you,
Abate Panciatichi—two good Tuscan names:
Acciaiuoli—ah, your ancestor it was
Built the huge battlemented convent-block
Over the little forky flashing Greve
That takes the quick turn at the foot o' the hill
Just as one first sees Florence: oh those days!
'T is Ema, though, the other rivulet,
The one-arched brown brick bridge yawns over,—yes,
Gallop and go five minutes, and you gain
The Roman Gate from where the Ema's bridged:
Kingfishers fly there: how I see the bend
O'erturreted by Certosa which he built,
That Senescal (we styled him) of your House!
I do adjure you, help me, Sirs! My blood
Comes from as far a source: ought it to end
This way, by leakage through their scaffold-planks
Into Rome's sink where her red refuse runs?
Sirs, I beseech you by blood-sympathy,
If there be any vile experiment
In the air,—if this your visit simply prove,
When all's done, just a well-intentioned trick,
That tries for truth truer than truth itself,
By startling up a man, ere break of day,
To tell him he must die at sunset,—pshaw!
That man's a Franceschini; feel his pulse,
Laugh at your folly, and let's all go sleep!
You have my last word,—innocent am I
As Innocent my Pope and murderer,
Innocent as a babe, as Mary's own,
As Mary's self,—I said, say and repeat,—
And why, then, should I die twelve hours hence? I—
Whom, not twelve hours ago, the gaoler bade
Turn to my straw-truss, settle and sleep sound
That I might wake the sooner, promptlier pay
His due of meat-and-drink-indulgence, cross
His palm with fee of the good-hand, beside,
As gallants use who go at large again!
For why? All honest Rome approved my part;
Whoever owned wife, sister, daughter,—nay,
Mistress,—had any shadow of any right
That looks like right, and, all the more resolved,
Held it with tooth and nail,—these manly men
Approved! I being for Rome, Rome was for me.
Then, there's the point reserved, the subterfuge
My lawyers held by, kept for last resource,
Firm should all else,—the impossible fancy!—fail,
And sneaking burgess-spirit win the day.
The knaves! One plea at least would hold,—they laughed,—
One grappling-iron scratch the bottom-rock
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Prejudice
IN yonder red-brick mansion, tight and square,
Just at the town's commencement, lives the mayor.
Some yards of shining gravel, fenced with box,
Lead to the painted portal--where one knocks :
There, in the left-hand parlour, all in state,
Sit he and she, on either side the grate.
But though their goods and chattels, sound and new,
Bespeak the owners very well to do,
His worship's wig and morning suit betray
Slight indications of an humbler day
That long, low shop, where still the name appears,
Some doors below, they kept for forty years :
And there, with various fortunes, smooth and rough,
They sold tobacco, coffee, tea, and snuff.
There labelled drawers display their spicy row--
Clove, mace, and nutmeg : from the ceiling low
Dangle long twelves and eights , and slender rush,
Mix'd with the varied forms of genus brush ;
Cask, firkin, bag, and barrel, crowd the floor,
And piles of country cheeses guard the door.
The frugal dames came in from far and near,
To buy their ounces and their quarterns here.
Hard was the toil, the profits slow to count,
And yet the mole-hill was at last a mount.
Those petty gains were hoarded day by day,
With little cost, for not a child had they ;
Till, long proceeding on the saving plan,
He found himself a warm, fore-handed man :
And being now arrived at life's decline,
Both he and she, they formed the bold design,
(Although it touched their prudence to the quick)
To turn their savings into stone and brick.
How many an ounce of tea and ounce of snuff,
There must have been consumed to make enough !
At length, with paint and paper, bright and gay,
The box was finished, and they went away.
But when their faces were no longer seen
Amongst the canisters of black and green ,
--Those well-known faces, all the country round--
'Twas said that had they levelled to the ground
The two old walnut trees before the door,
The customers would not have missed them more.
Now, like a pair of parrots in a cage,
They live, and civic honours crown their age :
Thrice, since the Whitsuntide they settled there,
Seven years ago, has he been chosen mayor ;
And now you'd scarcely know they were the same ;
Conscious he struts, of power, and wealth, and fame ;
[...] Read more
poem by Jane Taylor
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No Religion
We didnt know no better, and they said it could be worse
Some people thought it was blessing
Other people think that its a curse
Its a choice between fact and fiction
And the whole world has gone astray
Thats why theres no religion, no religion, no religion here today
And theres no straight answers
Of what this thing called love is all about
Some say its unconditional
Other people just remain in doubt
Well I cleaned up my diction, I had nothing left to say
Except theres no religion, no religion, no religion here today
And they ask what hate is
Its just the other side of love
Some people want to give their enemies
Everything they think that they deserve
Some say why dont you love your neighbours
Go ahead, turn the other cheek
But theres nobody on this planet that can ever be so meek
And I cant bleed for you
You have to do it your own way
And theres no religion, no religion, no religion here today
And they ask what hate is
Its just the other side of love
Some people want to give their enemies
Everything they think that they deserve
Some say why dont you love your neighbours
Go ahead, turn the other cheek
But have you ever met anybody whos ever been the meek
And its so cruel to expect the saviour to save the day
And theres no religion, no religion, no religion here today
And theres no mystery, and theres nothing hidden
And theres no religion here today
And theres no religion, no religion, no religion here today
song performed by Van Morrison
Added by Lucian Velea
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VIII. Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis, Pauperum Procurator
Ah, my Giacinto, he's no ruddy rogue,
Is not Cinone? What, to-day we're eight?
Seven and one's eight, I hope, old curly-pate!
—Branches me out his verb-tree on the slate,
Amo-as-avi-atum-are-ans,
Up to -aturus, person, tense, and mood,
Quies me cum subjunctivo (I could cry)
And chews Corderius with his morning crust!
Look eight years onward, and he's perched, he's perched
Dapper and deft on stool beside this chair,
Cinozzo, Cinoncello, who but he?
—Trying his milk-teeth on some crusty case
Like this, papa shall triturate full soon
To smooth Papinianian pulp!
It trots
Already through my head, though noon be now,
Does supper-time and what belongs to eve.
Dispose, O Don, o' the day, first work then play!
—The proverb bids. And "then" means, won't we hold
Our little yearly lovesome frolic feast,
Cinuolo's birth-night, Cinicello's own,
That makes gruff January grin perforce!
For too contagious grows the mirth, the warmth
Escaping from so many hearts at once—
When the good wife, buxom and bonny yet,
Jokes the hale grandsire,—such are just the sort
To go off suddenly,—he who hides the key
O' the box beneath his pillow every night,—
Which box may hold a parchment (someone thinks)
Will show a scribbled something like a name
"Cinino, Ciniccino," near the end,
"To whom I give and I bequeath my lands,
"Estates, tenements, hereditaments,
"When I decease as honest grandsire ought."
Wherefore—yet this one time again perhaps—
Shan't my Orvieto fuddle his old nose!
Then, uncles, one or the other, well i' the world,
May—drop in, merely?—trudge through rain and wind,
Rather! The smell-feasts rouse them at the hint
There's cookery in a certain dwelling-place!
Gossips, too, each with keepsake in his poke,
Will pick the way, thrid lane by lantern-light,
And so find door, put galligaskin off
At entry of a decent domicile
Cornered in snug Condotti,—all for love,
All to crush cup with Cinucciatolo!
Well,
Let others climb the heights o' the court, the camp!
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Big Mistake
Keeps them all waiting
Theyre standing in line
He never has to worry about being alone
Hes taking his own sweet time
The mans mighty hot
Believe it or not
Every womans after what the big boys got
They know its all a lie but theyre taking their shot
He is such a smooth-talking man
They never want to let him go
Hell be gone when the morning comes
Then theyll be the first to know
Its just a big mistake
Such a big mistake
Well, it wont be the first
It definitely wont be the last one you make
Just a big mistake
Sooner or later theyre gonna find out
He never cares about the hearts hes breaking tonight
Hes letting it all hang out
The mans mighty tough
Better leave before it starts to get too rough
He such a smooth-talking man
They never want to let him go
Hell be gone when the morning comes
Then theyll be the first to know
Its a big mistake
Such a big mistake
Well, it wont be the first
It definitely wont be the last one you make
Such a big mistake
Just a big mistake
Such a big mistake
Such a big mistake
You might think you oughta call him mr. right
Baby you might get a big surprise tonight
You might think you oughta call him mr. right
Baby you might get a big surprise tonight
In the morning when you find him gone
Its a big mistake
You know youve been lied to
In the morning when you know youre wrong
Such a big mistake
Theres no one to cry to
In the morning when you find him gone
Its a big mistake
You know youve been lied to
In the morning when youre so alone
Such a big mistake
When youre so alone
[...] Read more
song performed by Peter Cetera
Added by Lucian Velea
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If You Ever Make a Mistake
If you make a mistake,
Admit it.
And get it right out of your way.
Don't you ever fake it to escape.
Believing what is done is okay!
If you ever make a mistake,
Just admit it!
And get it out of the way.
Don't you ever fake it to escape...
That mistake someday you'll repay!
There's no need for moaning or groaning,
Over what's been done.
No one lives a perfect life,
Under the Sun!
Alibis are like houseflies.
They begin to annoy.
And habits are like pests when invited...
They are hard to destroy.
Even if you hit 'em with a bat...
They come right back!
If you make a mistake,
Admit it.
And get it right out of your way.
Don't you ever fake it to escape.
Believing what is done is okay!
If you ever make a mistake,
Just admit it!
And get it out of the way.
Don't you ever fake it to escape...
That mistake someday you'll repay!
Strap in that saddle and take that ride.
Admit that mistake made,
And push it aside!
'Okay, okay, okay!
So I made a mistake.
So what's the big deal? '
~Getting you to admit it! ~
If you make a mistake,
Admit it.
And get it right out of your way.
[...] Read more
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Added by Poetry Lover
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Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society
Epigraph
Υδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ᾽ ἄλλων πόνων
διῆλθον ἀγέλας . . .
τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τόνδ᾽ ἔτλην τάλας πόνον,
. . . δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς.
I slew the Hydra, and from labour pass'd
To labour — tribes of labours! Till, at last,
Attempting one more labour, in a trice,
Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.
You have seen better days, dear? So have I —
And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth
As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well,
Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same,
And wished and had their trouble for their pains.
Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last
Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline,
And, latish, pounce on Sphynx in Leicester Square?
Or likelier, what if Sphynx in wise old age,
Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads,
And jealous for her riddle's proper rede, —
Jealous that the good trick which served the turn
Have justice rendered it, nor class one day
With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,—
What if the once redoubted Sphynx, I say,
(Because night draws on, and the sands increase,
And desert-whispers grow a prophecy)
Tell all to Corinth of her own accord.
Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Lais' sake,
Who finds me hardly grey, and likes my nose,
And thinks a man of sixty at the prime?
Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself!
But listen, for we must co-operate;
I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!
First, how to make the matter plain, of course —
What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see:
Ay, we must take one instant of my life
Spent sitting by your side in this neat room:
Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh!
Here's paper on the table, pen and ink:
Give me the soiled bit — not the pretty rose!
See! having sat an hour, I'm rested now,
Therefore want work: and spy no better work
For eye and hand and mind that guides them both,
During this instant, than to draw my pen
From blot One — thus — up, up to blot Two — thus —
Which I at last reach, thus, and here's my line
Five inches long and tolerably straight:
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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V. Count Guido Franceschini
Thanks, Sir, but, should it please the reverend Court,
I feel I can stand somehow, half sit down
Without help, make shift to even speak, you see,
Fortified by the sip of … why, 't is wine,
Velletri,—and not vinegar and gall,
So changed and good the times grow! Thanks, kind Sir!
Oh, but one sip's enough! I want my head
To save my neck, there's work awaits me still.
How cautious and considerate … aie, aie, aie,
Nor your fault, sweet Sir! Come, you take to heart
An ordinary matter. Law is law.
Noblemen were exempt, the vulgar thought,
From racking; but, since law thinks otherwise,
I have been put to the rack: all's over now,
And neither wrist—what men style, out of joint:
If any harm be, 't is the shoulder-blade,
The left one, that seems wrong i' the socket,—Sirs,
Much could not happen, I was quick to faint,
Being past my prime of life, and out of health.
In short, I thank you,—yes, and mean the word.
Needs must the Court be slow to understand
How this quite novel form of taking pain,
This getting tortured merely in the flesh,
Amounts to almost an agreeable change
In my case, me fastidious, plied too much
With opposite treatment, used (forgive the joke)
To the rasp-tooth toying with this brain of mine,
And, in and out my heart, the play o' the probe.
Four years have I been operated on
I' the soul, do you see—its tense or tremulous part—
My self-respect, my care for a good name,
Pride in an old one, love of kindred—just
A mother, brothers, sisters, and the like,
That looked up to my face when days were dim,
And fancied they found light there—no one spot,
Foppishly sensitive, but has paid its pang.
That, and not this you now oblige me with,
That was the Vigil-torment, if you please!
The poor old noble House that drew the rags
O' the Franceschini's once superb array
Close round her, hoped to slink unchallenged by,—
Pluck off these! Turn the drapery inside out
And teach the tittering town how scarlet wears!
Show men the lucklessness, the improvidence
Of the easy-natured Count before this Count,
The father I have some slight feeling for,
Who let the world slide, nor foresaw that friends
Then proud to cap and kiss their patron's shoe,
Would, when the purse he left held spider-webs,
Properly push his child to wall one day!
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Its A Mistake
Jump down the shelters to get away
The boys are cockin up their guns
Tell us general, is it party time?
If it is can we all come
Dont think that we dont know
Dont think that were not trying
Dont think we move too slow
Its no use after crying
Saying
Its a mistake, its a mistake
Its a mistake, its a mistake
After the laughter as died away
And all the boys have had their fun
No surface noise now, not much to say
Theyve got the bad guys on the run
Dont try to say youre sorry
Dont say he drew his gun
Theyve gone and grabbed old ronnie
Hes not the only one saying
Its a mistake, its a mistake
Its a mistake, its a mistake
Tell us commander, what do you think?
cos we know that you love all that power
Is it on then, are we on the brink?
We wish youd all throw in the towel
Well not fade out too soon
Not in this finest hour
Whistle your favourite tune
Well send a card and flower
Saying
Its a mistake, its a mistake
Its a mistake, its a mistake
song performed by Men At Work
Added by Lucian Velea
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A Map Of Culture
Culture
Contents
What is Culture?
The Importance of Culture
Culture Varies
Culture is Critical
The Sociobiology Debate
Values, Norms, and Social Control
Signs and Symbols
Language
Terms and Definitions
Approaches to the Study of Culture
Are We Prisoners of Our Culture?
What is Culture?
I prefer the definition used by Ian Robertson: 'all the shared products of society: material and nonmaterial' (Our text defines it in somewhat more ponderous terms- 'The totality of learned, socially transmitted behavior. It includes ideas, values, and customs (as well as the sailboats, comic books, and birth control devices) of groups of people' (p.32) .
Back to Contents
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poem by Nyein Way
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Starting From Paumanok
STARTING from fish-shape Paumanok, where I was born,
Well-begotten, and rais'd by a perfect mother;
After roaming many lands--lover of populous pavements;
Dweller in Mannahatta, my city--or on
southern savannas;
Or a soldier camp'd, or carrying my knapsack and gun--or a miner in
California;
Or rude in my home in Dakota's woods, my diet meat, my drink from the
spring;
Or withdrawn to muse and meditate in some deep recess,
Far from the clank of crowds, intervals passing, rapt and happy;
Aware of the fresh free giver, the flowing Missouri--aware of mighty
Niagara;
Aware of the buffalo herds, grazing the plains--the hirsute and
strong-breasted bull; 10
Of earth, rocks, Fifth-month flowers, experienced--stars, rain, snow,
my amaze;
Having studied the mocking-bird's tones, and the mountainhawk's,
And heard at dusk the unrival'd one, the hermit thrush from the
swamp-cedars,
Solitary, singing in the West, I strike up for a New World.
Victory, union, faith, identity, time,
The indissoluble compacts, riches, mystery,
Eternal progress, the kosmos, and the modern reports.
This, then, is life;
Here is what has come to the surface after so many throes and
convulsions.
How curious! how real! 20
Underfoot the divine soil--overhead the sun.
See, revolving, the globe;
The ancestor-continents, away, group'd together;
The present and future continents, north and south, with the isthmus
between.
See, vast, trackless spaces;
As in a dream, they change, they swiftly fill;
Countless masses debouch upon them;
They are now cover'd with the foremost people, arts, institutions,
known.
See, projected, through time,
For me, an audience interminable. 30
With firm and regular step they wend--they never stop,
Successions of men, Americanos, a hundred millions;
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poem by Walt Whitman
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I. The Ring and the Book
Do you see this Ring?
'T is Rome-work, made to match
(By Castellani's imitative craft)
Etrurian circlets found, some happy morn,
After a dropping April; found alive
Spark-like 'mid unearthed slope-side figtree-roots
That roof old tombs at Chiusi: soft, you see,
Yet crisp as jewel-cutting. There's one trick,
(Craftsmen instruct me) one approved device
And but one, fits such slivers of pure gold
As this was,—such mere oozings from the mine,
Virgin as oval tawny pendent tear
At beehive-edge when ripened combs o'erflow,—
To bear the file's tooth and the hammer's tap:
Since hammer needs must widen out the round,
And file emboss it fine with lily-flowers,
Ere the stuff grow a ring-thing right to wear.
That trick is, the artificer melts up wax
With honey, so to speak; he mingles gold
With gold's alloy, and, duly tempering both,
Effects a manageable mass, then works:
But his work ended, once the thing a ring,
Oh, there's repristination! Just a spirt
O' the proper fiery acid o'er its face,
And forth the alloy unfastened flies in fume;
While, self-sufficient now, the shape remains,
The rondure brave, the lilied loveliness,
Gold as it was, is, shall be evermore:
Prime nature with an added artistry—
No carat lost, and you have gained a ring.
What of it? 'T is a figure, a symbol, say;
A thing's sign: now for the thing signified.
Do you see this square old yellow Book, I toss
I' the air, and catch again, and twirl about
By the crumpled vellum covers,—pure crude fact
Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard,
And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since?
Examine it yourselves! I found this book,
Gave a lira for it, eightpence English just,
(Mark the predestination!) when a Hand,
Always above my shoulder, pushed me once,
One day still fierce 'mid many a day struck calm,
Across a Square in Florence, crammed with booths,
Buzzing and blaze, noontide and market-time,
Toward Baccio's marble,—ay, the basement-ledge
O' the pedestal where sits and menaces
John of the Black Bands with the upright spear,
'Twixt palace and church,—Riccardi where they lived,
His race, and San Lorenzo where they lie.
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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Only Way To Control Things
The only way to control things is with an open hand.
Water on rock
a fist can't do anything to stop the rain
that keeps washing its bloody knuckles
by kissing the raw red buds
of the pain-killing poppies clean.
Anger grows ashamed of itself
in the presence of unopposable compassion
just as planets are humbled by their atmospheres.
The soft supple things of life insist
and the hard brittle ones comply.
Bullies are the broken toys of wimps.
Power limps.
But space is an open hand.
Mass may shape it
but it teaches matter how to move
just as the sky converts its openness
into a cloud and a bird
or the silence nurtures
the embryo of a blue word
in the empty womb of the dark mother
like the echo of something that can't be said.
The only way to control things is with an open hand.
Not a posture of giving.
Not a posture of receiving.
Not a posture of greeting or farewell.
Not hanging on or letting go
but the single bridge they both make
when they're both at peace with the flow.
It's not the branch it's not the trunk
it's not the root it's not the fruit
but the open handedness of its leaves
that is a tree's consummate passion.
Isis tattoos her star on their palms
like sailors and sails
to keep them from drowning
and into the valleys of their open hands
that lie at the foot of their crook-backed mountains
the aloof stars risk the intimacy of fireflies
and fate flows down like tributaries into the mindstream
as life roots its wildflowers on both shores
as if there were no sides to the flowing
of our binary lifelines.
The only way to control things is with an open hand.
You cannot bind the knower to the knowing
as if time had to know where eternity was going
before anything could change.
X marks the spot where all maps are born
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poem by Patrick White
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VII. Pompilia
I am just seventeen years and five months old,
And, if I lived one day more, three full weeks;
'T is writ so in the church's register,
Lorenzo in Lucina, all my names
At length, so many names for one poor child,
—Francesca Camilla Vittoria Angela
Pompilia Comparini,—laughable!
Also 't is writ that I was married there
Four years ago: and they will add, I hope,
When they insert my death, a word or two,—
Omitting all about the mode of death,—
This, in its place, this which one cares to know,
That I had been a mother of a son
Exactly two weeks. It will be through grace
O' the Curate, not through any claim I have;
Because the boy was born at, so baptized
Close to, the Villa, in the proper church:
A pretty church, I say no word against,
Yet stranger-like,—while this Lorenzo seems
My own particular place, I always say.
I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high
As the bed here, what the marble lion meant,
With half his body rushing from the wall,
Eating the figure of a prostrate man—
(To the right, it is, of entry by the door)
An ominous sign to one baptized like me,
Married, and to be buried there, I hope.
And they should add, to have my life complete,
He is a boy and Gaetan by name—
Gaetano, for a reason,—if the friar
Don Celestine will ask this grace for me
Of Curate Ottoboni: he it was
Baptized me: he remembers my whole life
As I do his grey hair.
All these few things
I know are true,—will you remember them?
Because time flies. The surgeon cared for me,
To count my wounds,—twenty-two dagger-wounds,
Five deadly, but I do not suffer much—
Or too much pain,—and am to die to-night.
Oh how good God is that my babe was born,
—Better than born, baptized and hid away
Before this happened, safe from being hurt!
That had been sin God could not well forgive:
He was too young to smile and save himself.
When they took two days after he was born,
My babe away from me to be baptized
And hidden awhile, for fear his foe should find,—
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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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