"How is it possible that such an undignified, scandalous youth could be the creator of music as noble and elevated as that which is echoing through the palace?"
Rather than transcending any boundaries, as Nietzsche would claim,I think creatives are more likely to adhere to what they believe to be good, which can sometimes drastically clash with their culture and time. Gore Vidal's pervasive sexual ambiguity in his stories comes to mind. I don't think anyone today would even flinch when reading his work, but in the 50s and 60s, he was successfully scandalizing the US and planting seeds for the sexual revolution.
Ironically, however, I also realized the other day that Gore was very fortunate, in a way. He had a culture and moral framework to push against and challenge. There were distinctive notions of good and evil, and Gore had the luxury and opportunity to disagree and artistically promulgate his own notions. In a society where anything goes, anything goes, and we lose the ability to be shocked and scandalized. When the only criterion for goodness is to accept everything, and evil is to even think of judging something as good or evil, we ironically forget what good or evil ever were or are.
The late Hungarian priest, theologian and scientist, Stanley Jaki, had a historical theory that societies had a tendency to produce cultural stillbirths when Judeo-Christian values and traditions were wiped from their collective tapestries. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why: Without something to push against and challenge, we become bored.
Rather than transcending any boundaries, as Nietzsche would claim,I think creatives are more likely to adhere to what they believe to be good, which can sometimes drastically clash with their culture and time. Gore Vidal's pervasive sexual ambiguity in his stories comes to mind. I don't think anyone today would even flinch when reading his work, but in the 50s and 60s, he was successfully scandalizing the US and planting seeds for the sexual revolution.
Ironically, however, I also realized the other day that Gore was very fortunate, in a way. He had a culture and moral framework to push against and challenge. There were distinctive notions of good and evil, and Gore had the luxury and opportunity to disagree and artistically promulgate his own notions. In a society where anything goes, anything goes, and we lose the ability to be shocked and scandalized. When the only criterion for goodness is to accept everything, and evil is to even think of judging something as good or evil, we ironically forget what good or evil ever were or are.
The late Hungarian priest, theologian and scientist, Stanley Jaki, had a historical theory that societies had a tendency to produce cultural stillbirths when Judeo-Christian values and traditions were wiped from their collective tapestries. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why: Without something to push against and challenge, we become bored.