Supposing writers and painters have their different ways of arriving at their understandings, in Berger we have both. One can expect a breadth and depth in his observations of the world, whether picture or text. He wrote this near the end of his long life and yet it is full of the artist's curiosity and thoughtfulness about life. He is is a philosopher, but totally committed to being a politicised one. It is impossible to imagine otherwise with Berger. Politicised and energetic, oh to be as connected with the world at that age. It's a slight work, but there should be more of those. It says a lot and enough.

He takes small things, the shape of a flower, deaf people signing on a train, and turns these into reflections of a grand scale, but most simply stated, about the world and our part in it. How we listen and act, use language, relate to music and God. And overarching all this, always there, the glue that connects everything in his understanding of the world, our position of slaves, the position of our masters.

And so, he may write of the song:

A song, as distinct from the bodies it takes over, is unfixed in time and place. A song narrates a past experience. When it is being sung it fills the present. Stories do the same. But songs have another dimension which is uniquely theirs. A song while filling the present hopes to reach a listening ear in some future somewhere. It leans forward, further and further.

But at the same time, he has this limitless capacity to combine such observation of the world with political commentary which is ever strident, even though it can be elegant and moving as well.

...today, the ever expanding human poverty and the ongoing pillaging of the planet are justified in the name of a utopia to be guaranteed by Market Forces, when they are unregulated and allowed to operate freely, a utopia in which, in Milton Friedman's words, 'each man can vote for the colour of the tie he wants.'

In any utopian vision happiness is obligatory. This means that in reality it's unobtainable. Within their utopian logic compassion is a weakness. Utopias despise the present. Utopias substitute Dogma for Hope. Dogmas are engraved; hopes flicker, by contrast, like the flame of a candle.

Immediately I wonder if this should inform my reading of Le Guin's The Dispossessed. To read any Berger is to be given new armoury with which to set out into the world, new measures against which to weigh the words of those who claim to be the makers of our fortune.

History is important. Yes, Berger, thank you for insisting upon that, and for explaining that much we think is new now and disconnected to the past, is not.

All this comes together in his concluding piece called 'How to Resist a State of Forgetfulness.' It reads in part:

rest here: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2017/06/20/confabulations-by-john-be... ( )

Supposing writers and painters have their different ways of arriving at their understandings, in Berger we have both. One can expect a breadth and depth in his observations of the world, whether picture or text. He wrote this near the end of his long life and yet it is full of the artist's curiosity and thoughtfulness about life. He is is a philosopher, but totally committed to being a politicised one. It is impossible to imagine otherwise with Berger. Politicised and energetic, oh to be as connected with the world at that age. It's a slight work, but there should be more of those. It says a lot and enough.

He takes small things, the shape of a flower, deaf people signing on a train, and turns these into reflections of a grand scale, but most simply stated, about the world and our part in it. How we listen and act, use language, relate to music and God. And overarching all this, always there, the glue that connects everything in his understanding of the world, our position of slaves, the position of our masters.

And so, he may write of the song:

A song, as distinct from the bodies it takes over, is unfixed in time and place. A song narrates a past experience. When it is being sung it fills the present. Stories do the same. But songs have another dimension which is uniquely theirs. A song while filling the present hopes to reach a listening ear in some future somewhere. It leans forward, further and further.

But at the same time, he has this limitless capacity to combine such observation of the world with political commentary which is ever strident, even though it can be elegant and moving as well.

...today, the ever expanding human poverty and the ongoing pillaging of the planet are justified in the name of a utopia to be guaranteed by Market Forces, when they are unregulated and allowed to operate freely, a utopia in which, in Milton Friedman's words, 'each man can vote for the colour of the tie he wants.'

In any utopian vision happiness is obligatory. This means that in reality it's unobtainable. Within their utopian logic compassion is a weakness. Utopias despise the present. Utopias substitute Dogma for Hope. Dogmas are engraved; hopes flicker, by contrast, like the flame of a candle.

Immediately I wonder if this should inform my reading of Le Guin's The Dispossessed. To read any Berger is to be given new armoury with which to set out into the world, new measures against which to weigh the words of those who claim to be the makers of our fortune.

History is important. Yes, Berger, thank you for insisting upon that, and for explaining that much we think is new now and disconnected to the past, is not.

All this comes together in his concluding piece called 'How to Resist a State of Forgetfulness.' It reads in part:

rest here: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2017/06/20/confabulations-by-john-be... ( )

Supposing writers and painters have their different ways of arriving at their understandings, in Berger we have both. One can expect a breadth and depth in his observations of the world, whether picture or text. He wrote this near the end of his long life and yet it is full of the artist's curiosity and thoughtfulness about life. He is is a philosopher, but totally committed to being a politicised one. It is impossible to imagine otherwise with Berger. Politicised and energetic, oh to be as connected with the world at that age. It's a slight work, but there should be more of those. It says a lot and enough.

He takes small things, the shape of a flower, deaf people signing on a train, and turns these into reflections of a grand scale, but most simply stated, about the world and our part in it. How we listen and act, use language, relate to music and God. And overarching all this, always there, the glue that connects everything in his understanding of the world, our position of slaves, the position of our masters.

And so, he may write of the song:

A song, as distinct from the bodies it takes over, is unfixed in time and place. A song narrates a past experience. When it is being sung it fills the present. Stories do the same. But songs have another dimension which is uniquely theirs. A song while filling the present hopes to reach a listening ear in some future somewhere. It leans forward, further and further.

But at the same time, he has this limitless capacity to combine such observation of the world with political commentary which is ever strident, even though it can be elegant and moving as well.

...today, the ever expanding human poverty and the ongoing pillaging of the planet are justified in the name of a utopia to be guaranteed by Market Forces, when they are unregulated and allowed to operate freely, a utopia in which, in Milton Friedman's words, 'each man can vote for the colour of the tie he wants.'

In any utopian vision happiness is obligatory. This means that in reality it's unobtainable. Within their utopian logic compassion is a weakness. Utopias despise the present. Utopias substitute Dogma for Hope. Dogmas are engraved; hopes flicker, by contrast, like the flame of a candle.

Immediately I wonder if this should inform my reading of Le Guin's The Dispossessed. To read any Berger is to be given new armoury with which to set out into the world, new measures against which to weigh the words of those who claim to be the makers of our fortune.

History is important. Yes, Berger, thank you for insisting upon that, and for explaining that much we think is new now and disconnected to the past, is not.

All this comes together in his concluding piece called 'How to Resist a State of Forgetfulness.' It reads in part:

rest here: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2017/06/20/confabulations-by-john-be... ( )

These were very nice. They're vivid in their imagery. The essays mostly exist elsewhere and are mostly readable online, but compressed together and set in large type, they let you lose yourself in their images. Berger seems like a version of a type of person I've known, incredibly honest and consistently romantic, far beyond my own ken, with far more bravery in his interest in other people than I seem to be able to muster. That's expressed in these essays, and is motivating.

Also, I see his style's influence on Lazenby, and Ken Baumann, and other people I like a lot. ( )