You are in interwar Germany. "Rejection of 'Americanism" became shorthand for all the ills of modernity that the German middle class felt they faced....[blah, blah, blah usual examples...]" Then this: "Their [young girls] bobbed 'American' hair style, said one cleric, was 'truly bereft of metaphysics.'" Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe: 1914-1945.
The greatest philosophy course I ever took was "Metaphysics" taught by John Bannon in 1962 at LU (Chicago). It seemed to my sophomore self that it helped to ground what was visible in the not visible. I was convinced that there was a "meta," an abstraction, a foundation, a form beyond or behind what was apparent. I basked in this idea.
But then I became a history major and didn't pursue the meaning or consequences of having a "meta." I know I have one. I also know that our culture is more or less bereft of metaphysics (among other things), but I never knew that bobbed hair may have been its death knell.
Hard to fathom bobbed hair was once avant-garde. Wonder what they would have thought of the colors of hair that one sees nowadays? Maybe those gals are just finding their "meta"!
ReplyDeleteNow that you mention it: Do you know what bright pink, blue, sometimes purple sprayed on the top of the head signifies? What is its meta?
Delete"I was convinced that there was a "meta," an abstraction, a foundation, a form beyond or behind what was apparent ...I also know that our culture is more or less bereft of metaphysics"
ReplyDeleteInteresting critique, and somewhat devastating. We believe the world is sacramental - saturated with "meta" meaning.
If our world is bereft of metaphysics, it strikes me that that's bad news for poets. If we've lost the ability to communicate via sign, symbol and imagery, we're not fully human, istm.
There is a lot wrong with the world that can be addressed to more attentiveness to the liberal arts.
One big reason I went to St. Joseph's rather than Drexel U. was the emphasis on liberal arts. All male school at the time. Too busy to get into mischief. Not good at mischief anyway.
Delete"There is a lot wrong with the world that can be addressed to more attentiveness to the liberal arts."
DeleteYup, and a defense of the liberal arts, now under siege because "what good is it?" depends upon (wait for it ...!) an understanding of the liberal arts!
Now let's all just go back to the cave and watch the shadows flicker on the wall instead of getting headaches thinking about things that won't make anybody any money.
http://www.chronicle.com/article/How-to-Think-Like-Shakespeare/237593
DeleteThe Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle Review
How to Think Like Shakespeare
By Scott L. Newstok
Gene, It says you gotta be a subscriber.
DeleteBut, but, but, let me add: STEM -- for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics -- is the mantra of the latest Republican gaggle of Education Governors. You get wonderful bridges out of that, but what you don't get is bridge builders who can pay a role as citizens in a democracy. So what we are seeing is a double-pronged attack on our constitutional system -- denying the vote to people who vote "wrong" and not teaching the other people how to vote intelligently. As Andrei Gromyko used to say, that cannot be by accident.
The article Gene refers to can be found by going here: http://mel.org/welcome
DeleteScroll down the page and click on Academic Search Complete box. Enter "how to think like shakespeare" in the search box.
You're welcome from the State Library of Michigan.
Btw, I Googled "photos bobbed hair" and discovered that it's "in", or so saith people who want bobbed hair to be in. Lots of pictures of famous women, several of whom I've heard of. Seems that "bobbed" now just means "short". I thought originally there was more to it than that - thought it stopped short of the neckline and sort of curved to the contours of the cheekbones. Like Velma Kelly.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2Fd0%2F2f%2Fe1%2Fd02fe1370a717c3c2ab950f1342bdbbc.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fpin%2F416090453045936262%2F&docid=2v2nwBTEdWQdnM&tbnid=k8h06engTyxA7M%3A&vet=10ahUKEwiH2Y_c7e3dAhUIZKwKHc-4AHQQMwg6KAAwAA..i&w=300&h=352&bih=791&biw=1442&q=roxie%20hart%20bobbed%20hairstyle&ved=0ahUKEwiH2Y_c7e3dAhUIZKwKHc-4AHQQMwg6KAAwAA&iact=mrc&uact=8
My maternal grandma was said to have gotten a "pineapple bob", circa about 1925. I don't have a picture of it, but I'm envisioning a short, layered cut. I know she had red curly hair, so that style probably worked well.
DeleteKatherine - it seems to have been Clara Bow's look.
Deletehttps://www.google.com/search?q=pineapple+bob+hairstyle&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS789US789&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=10U3gUexODieTM%253A%252CxtPTunLMIQRHoM%252C_&usg=AI4_-kT6oXCorm4bdXbXSfQedSKzmWxGUA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiPnp2MnO7dAhVB7IMKHWHOBOcQ9QEwAHoECAUQBA#imgrc=10U3gUexODieTM:
Didn't women have to roll their stockings if they had bobbed hair? Curious minds wonder.
DeleteYes, yes, they did, Tom. And since you seem to have an interest in historical women's fashions, here's the app for keeping rolled stockings in place: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/stocking-series-part-4-the-rebellious-roll-garters-71671274/
DeleteTo return to Margaret's theme: what is the meta for rolled stockings, which, my grandmother said, cut grooves into your knees, a problem that decades of manufacturing has not solved. I knit my own socks or wear those Dr. Scholl's diabetic socks, though I don't have diabetes. Even the high end compression hose are horrible after five or six hours.
You mean you can get those compression hose ON!?? I sit here in awe!
DeleteI can get mine on fine. Trying to get them on someone else is an ordeal.
DeleteApropos of Jim's comment above: "We believe the world is sacramental - saturated with 'meta' meaning."
ReplyDeleteCouldn't help but think of Hopkins:
"The world is charged with the grandeur of God....
And this, Ps. 19A:
"The heavens proclaim the glory of God
and the firmament shows forth the work of his hands.
Day unto day takes up the story
and night unto night makes known the message."
In "The Hidden Life of Trees," previously discussed, Wohblen's is able to pay attention to the "science," while hinting at the "grandeur," the "story," and the "message."
Very Meta!
On the other hand, listening by chance yesterday to Senate Leader Mitch McDuck rain his lying wrath down upon the opponents of confirming Kavanaugh more lines from Hopkins:
"Crushed. Why then do men now not reck his rod?
....
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shared man's smell....
Nothing like a liberal arts education!
Can't do better than Blake if you are in search of meta in natural images:
DeleteHow do you know but ev'ry bird that cuts the airy way
Is an immense world of delight clos'd by your senses five?
Or
Tiger, tiger burning bright
In the forests if the night:
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?