We Must Think Beyond Reason : Lessons From 2020
Life since March 23, 2020 â the day lockdown was declared in India â was indoors. But another life, the life of the mind, was elsewhere. However, reason wonât help us understand this shift in our new condition.
Representative image. Photo: Yasmina H/Unsplash
Society22 hours ago
The year 2020 passed by like a ship in troubled waters. Time was slow, and the mind was full of anxiety. Life since March 23, 2020 â the day lockdown was declared in India â was indoors. But another life, the life of the mind, was elsewhere. Elsewhere was many places. It was the past one lived, now a cradle of memories. It was also the past of reading, and knowing the world. Elsewhere comprised of people in the world posting about their lives on social media. It was also about migrant workers walking home, some dying on the way due to hunger, or accident.
Baudelaire on Beauty, Love, Prostitutes and Modernity
In Baudelaire, beauty is horror, and horror, beauty. The source, or origin, of beauty doesnât matter. Beauty is what beauty does, and nothing can save us from its devouring force.
The dark power of Baudelaireâs poetry in Le Fleur Du Mal/ The Flowers of Evil is best experienced when it disturbs and is difficult to access. Photo: anncapictures/Pixabay
In his celebrated essay on Charles Baudelaire,
The Aesthetic Dignity of the âFleurs du Mal’, the philologist, Erich Auerbach ended with a brilliant observation while addressing âthe horror of
Les Fleur Du Malâ. Auerbach had âa word⦠in defense of certain critics who have resolutely rejected the book. Not all of them, but a few, had a better understanding of it than many contemporary and subsequent admirers. A statement of horror is better understood by those who feel the horror in their bones, even if they react against it, than by those who