<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto">Our Book Club here at the Altamont Free Library also read The Overstory. It is important to hang in there to the very end of this long, spectacular book.<div>Love,</div><div>Ellen <br><br><div dir="ltr">Sent from my iPad</div><div dir="ltr"><br><blockquote type="cite">On Apr 29, 2022, at 6:58 AM, James Wiegel via Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:<br><br></blockquote></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">Thanks Terry. I really had no idea what you were getting at. Your reply is wonderful— I had not heard of the New Yorker piece.<div><br></div><div>Gene Marshall put me on to Richard Powers novel THE OVERSTORY. It is about trees and the lives of 7 (or 9) people who grow up with various relations to trees, become radicalized by the loss of forest and in the process meet each other, do something, and how all that plays out decades later. One character is a social psychologist fascinated with the question: why are human beings so good at not seeing the obvious.</div><div><br></div><div>This is to say thanks for your comment<br><br><div dir="ltr"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Jim Wiegel</span><br><div>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“A revolution is on the horizon: a wholesale transformation of the world economy and the way people live.” Fred Krupp</span></p></div></div><div dir="ltr"><br><blockquote type="cite">On Apr 28, 2022, at 7:41 PM, Terry Bergdall <bergdall2@gmail.com> wrote:<br><br></blockquote></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">Jim, <div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">You asked for a word more (see below). </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The CFLC “Letter to Laymen" uses very unusual language to speak about the urgency of the moment and deliver a radical call to action. Very few people spoke, or wrote, like that then or now. It was “special” if not unique. Somewhere I have a clipping of one of those communiques from the Ecumenical Institute that was reprinted on the “about town” humor page of The New Yorker. After a full paragraph describing the urgency of our times in this intense over-the-top, somewhat confusing, style, it ended by asking “how will you respond?’ The New Yorker then simply asked “when can I get back to you?” <div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">In the face of climate change, etc., my wife reminds me that it would be a good thing if we could recover even a small degree of that unembarrassed, let-it-all-hang-out, urgency today.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">It is true that many of us back then were enthralled with, and responded to, a call for action that was radical, total, and unconditional. I remember seeing a movie many years ago with Michael Caine and Sigourney Weaver. Her character sees a photo of him taken several years before and says “oh, you used to be a radical.” His response in his posh apartment was “I like to think I still am.” Don’t we all?</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Terry<br class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Apr 28, 2022, at 20:25, James Wiegel <<a href="mailto:jfwiegel@yahoo.com" class="">jfwiegel@yahoo.com</a>> wrote:</div><div class=""><div class=""><div class="ydp588837d4yahoo-style-wrap"><div class=""><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false" class="">Say a bit more, Terry . . . I would like to hear.</div><div class="ydp588837d4signature"><div class=""><a href="http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=123" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" class="">Jim Wiegel</a> <br class=""><div style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class=""><br class=""></div></div></div></div>
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On Thursday, April 28, 2022, 06:04:42 PM MST, Terry Bergdall <<a href="mailto:bergdall2@gmail.com" class="">bergdall2@gmail.com</a>> wrote:
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<div class="">It’s fascinating, Jim, to see the style (and content) of this writing now. Thanks, Terry</div><div class=""><div id="ydp972494cyiv4044408679" class=""><div class=""><div class=""><font size="3" class=""><br clear="none" class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679"></font><blockquote type="cite" class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679"><div class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">On Apr 28, 2022, at 19:30, James Wiegel via OE <<a shape="rect" href="mailto:oe@lists.wedgeblade.net" class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">oe@lists.wedgeblade.net</a>> wrote:</div><br clear="none" class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679Apple-interchange-newline"><div class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679"><div class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679"><div class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679ydpeb47ca30yahoo-style-wrap"><div class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679"><div dir="ltr" class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">Lynda, that looks like a picture of a television screen -- Could that be David McCleskey on the left? I vaguely recall something about a series done in Texas --- This from Letter to Laymen (CFLC) in March of 1962 : <div class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679"><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">"A pilot television presentation
utilizing this approach to serious conversation and art has been made
by the Community (a transcript of which is on page three) in
cooperation with a New York television production company and movie
producer Stanley Kramer."</font></div><div class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679"><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679"><br clear="none" class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679"></font></div><div dir="ltr" class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679"><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679"><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">Full text here: </font></font><div class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679"><p align="center" class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679ydp4b35cd36western">
<font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">THE RADICAL DEMAND TODAY</font></p><p class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679ydp4b35cd36western"><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">We are
living in an new age. It is a time of radical and comprehensive
revolution. In a manner of speaking. Western Civilization has reached
an end. Our total world view is undergoing transmutation affecting
every part, as well as the whole, of the human enterprise of
civilization. Not only has Ptolemaic cosmology of the Middle Ages
vanished, but Nations once modern model of the world as a great
machine has dramatically collapsed. The expanding universe of Dr.
Einstein is now penetrating every concept of life and image of
history. Man is launching forth on a brand new venture. </font>
</p><p class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679ydp4b35cd36western"><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">This
historical crisis is not basically theoretical or abstract. On the
contrary, what is happening to us is very practical, very concrete.
It is at once thoroughly personal and utterly social. Furthermore,
the center of the revolution is located not in the political or
economic facets of the civilizing adventure, but in the cultural
dimension. "Culture" here means the common sense, the
common symbols. and the common life-style of a people. Precisely
because it is in these areas of our life where the present upheaval
becomes manifest, the center of gravity of the whole social body has
been shaken. And therefore, every sensitive and reflective individual
on the street is deep]y involved. Of this he is aware, however
uneven]y this awareness may be distributed among men.</font></p><p class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679ydp4b35cd36western"><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">Our common
man is certainly frightened by the new world about him, but cynics to
the contrary, he is also excited. He is acutely experiencing his
universe as complex, impersonal, mysterious, routine, paradoxical,
tragic, capricious and so on. This is frightening indeed. Yet the
same individual is raising anew and in depth the question of what it
means to be a real human being in the midst of this. Underneath the
superficial readings, the reflective every day person is not really
trying to ignore, dismiss and escape the new world and its demands.
Rather, he is asking for practical images, symbols and more patterns
which will illuminate this new age and enable him to participate
creatively and as a genuine person, in the forging of the new
responses, personal and social, that the age requires. This need of
the "average" man brings us to the artist and his work.</font></p><p align="center" class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679ydp4b35cd36western"><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">THE
ROLE OF ART</font></p><p class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679ydp4b35cd36western"><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">Art is
human. It is necessarily a part of human life in both its
individualization and socialization. It is not limited to special
groups such as the leisure class or the intellectual strata. It is an
essential part of life for all men. However unequal the exposure of
men may be to significant art or the capacity of men to be
significantly present to art, no one can or does live without it.
Here are unveiled the very basic questions: Is the art we live before
significant? And </font><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679"><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">how</font></font>
<font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">does one live significantly
before art.</font></p><p class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679ydp4b35cd36western"><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">Let us turn
first to the question of whether the art to which one is exposed is
good or bad, true or false, adequate or inadequate. For our present
purposes, three issues are raised: Integrity, relevance and utility.
Does the artist speak THE ROLE OF ART (continued from page one) </font>
</p><p class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679ydp4b35cd36western"><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679"><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">honestly
about the human situation in his time? Does his work deal importantly
and compellingly with the basic and actual human needs and concerns of
his world? Does it call forth in the viewer the kind of images that
will enable him more adequately to forge his responses to the real
world about him? To speak of art in this fashion, is to insist that
art has a vital functional role in culture and society. Indeed, we
are seeing today that art is very utilitarian in the rich and fresh
sense of genuinely contributing to the inner workings of the great
civilizing venture of man.</font></font></p><p class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679ydp4b35cd36western"><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">Such a view
insists that art is not a sophisticated capstone that is added to
society when the basic tasks are done. It is rather an essential
ingredient of society that affects the whole and every part, at every
moment. Furthermore, it follows that the role of art is not an escape
valve for the sophisticate at the end of an era, as many are wont to
think. Its most crucial hour is at the beginning of a new age when
new images are required. Indeed the very function of art is to
question and destroy old, false, inadequate images and to prompt and
create new authentic and useful models for practical human response.
The everyday reflective man of our time is crying, as we have seen,
for exactly this kind of assistance.</font>
</p><p class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679ydp4b35cd36western"><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">Perhaps this
is the clue to the interest in art that our age is experiencing which
in depth and scope and variety has no equal in all history. In brief,
there is emerging in the new world a fresh understanding of the
function and place of art in civilization. To fulfill her role today,
however, art may need an ally: serious conversation. This brings us
to the third focus of the PROVOCATION series. (see page three)</font></p><p class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679ydp4b35cd36western"><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679"><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">THE
PLACE OF SERIOUS CONVERSATION</font></font></p><p class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679ydp4b35cd36western"><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">Serious
conversation itself might well be considered an art. Not simply in
the sense of a skill-it surely is that-but in the sense of an art
form. Be that as it may, it seems clear that it is an essential
catalytic agent to the art form in our day. The contention is that
art, the indispensable midwife to the new man in the new world, is
itself in need of a midwife if it is effectively to fulfill its role
in accomplishing significant psychological and social change.</font></p><p class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679ydp4b35cd36western"><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">The man of
today, amidst his fears and bewilderments, wants to be a
self-conscious historical being. He senses that history is made as
well as experienced and latently, at least, he yearns so to
participate in it. This is to suggest that behind and in the midst of
the twentieth century man's more observable struggles, is the problem
of intentionality. He is no longer content to be simply a passive
victim of the impressions that play upon his inner history. He
insists on being self-consciously present to those images and
engaging in a dialogue with them. This means that he must become
intentional about art. The question of PROVOCATION is: How can the
man in the street learn to become intentional about the art that
speaks to him in such a fashion that creative action ensues?</font></p><p class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679ydp4b35cd36western"><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">Serious
conversation is the means whereby one becomes self-consciously
attentive in depth to the manner in which he is affected by a work of
art and the means whereby he is enabled to carry on his own dialogue
with the art object. This in turn both prompts and directs decisive
and creative action in the midst of the civilizing process.</font></p><p class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679ydp4b35cd36western"><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">Authentic
dialogue in relation to art, is not primarily an educational endeavor
in the sense of accumulating information, though of course this may
happen in the midst of it. The art object and the way it speaks to
the individuals conversing supplies the content. The serious
conversation, where mind meets mind in reflection upon a common
object and experience, enables one to articulate the impressions made
upon him and to draw them together for himself into a more or less
comprehensive complex. This model is then brought to bear upon his
inner and outer historical situation in such a fashion that new
practical insights, meanings and strategies emerge, which both
motivate and direct his activity. To say this another way, serious
conversation does not intrude ideas or images, but awakens the latent
ones that are already present, and occasions the birth of new ones.
In and through this process, social change is initiated. Art plus
dialogue equals intentional involvement in history.</font></p><p class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679ydp4b35cd36western"><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">To sum up:
new and imaginative human responses to life are urgently required by
the new world about us. The art of the times injects into this
situation new images of human possibility. Serious conversation
enables the individual to clarify these images in such a fashion that
fresh and imaginative responses can be forged.</font>
</p>
<div class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679"><font class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">A pilot
television presentation utilizing this approach to serious
conversation and art has been made by the Community (a transcript of
which is on page three) in cooperation with a New York television
production company and movie producer Stanley Kramer.</font></div></div></div></div><div class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679"><br clear="none" class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679"></div><div class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679ydpeb47ca30signature"><div class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679"><a shape="rect" href="http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=123" class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jim Wiegel</a> <div class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679"> <span class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679"></span><p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;" class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679ydp209e23c4MsoNormal"><span class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679">The
unknown is what is. And to be frightened of it is what sends everybody
scurrying around chasing dreams, illusions, wars, peace, love, hate, all
that. Unknown is what is. Accept that it's unknown, and it's plain
sailing. <span class="ydp972494cyiv4044408679"> </span>John Lennon</span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></div></div></blockquote></div><span>_______________________________________________</span><br><span>Dialogue mailing list</span><br><span>Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net</span><br><span>http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net</span><br></div></blockquote></div></body></html>