Sunday, June 12, 2005

Stay Tuned...

Well I'm back. It was a hectic week away from home, and tomorrow night (Monday) we have an Open House with our Home School ISP. Thanks for the kind words in the comment section (and for confirming that I've got at least 7 readers). I've got a lot of things I'd like to write about... but I've still only been able to squeeze 24 hours out of a day. In the meantime, to stir up your thinking juices, here are the lyrics from a song by the late great Mark Heard.
The Golden Age They say this is the Golden Age Video millennium Tidings from the self-made media sage Tickings of the bio-bomb Jet-set etiquette consciousness Monosyllabic goodbyes No one cares about no one else We're so used to the capital "I" THE GOLDEN AGE (Electric Neanderthal) THE GOLDEN AGE (With digital morality) THE GOLDEN AGE NOTHING REALLY CHANGES IN THE GOLDEN AGE They say this is the Golden Age In which both virtue and flaw And the entire human element Are effects of the quantum laws Deep in the wells of the centrifuge The spectrum of the soul is mined It seems we know ourselves too well And we don't like what we find THE GOLDEN AGE (Electric Neanderthal) THE GOLDEN AGE (With digital morality) THE GOLDEN AGE NOTHING REALLY CHANGES IN THE GOLDEN AGE They say this is the Golden Age We've got the tapes of the truth in drag We've got thermographs of the fires of hell And renderings of the cosmic bang If this is the Golden Age Are we no longer human beings Are we civilization's afterbirth Some kind of flesh and blood machines THE GOLDEN AGE (Electric Neanderthal) THE GOLDEN AGE (With digital morality) THE GOLDEN AGE NOTHING REALLY CHANGES IN THE GOLDEN AGE

4 comments:

Bonnie said...

Cool lyrics. What a picture -- civilization's afterbirth. I guess if man is abolished, only the afterbirth (or waste) remains...ugh.

Welcome back!

Anonymous said...

Rusty,
Welcome back, and you get my rant!

These lyrics strike me as horribly cynical. If a person is a believer, it seems a pretty bleak way to view the world God has given him. If the person is a nonbeliever, I'd want to slap him in the face and say, "Look, Bro'. This is what you get. Make something of your life. Stop whining."

Let's contrast it with the attitude of a great band about "the golden age"---you folks can correctly call them a Christian band, and I'll just correctly call them a great band. From U2's "New Year's Day"

"And we can break through,
Though torn in two we can be one.
I will begin again, I will begin again.
Oh and maybe the time is right,
Oh maybe tonight.
I will be with you again.
....

And so we are told this is the golden age
And gold is the reason for the wars we wage.
Though I want to be with you,
To be with you night and day.
Nothing changes on new year’s day."


http://www.lyricsfreak.com/u/u2/141618.html

Good for Bono."...Though torn in two, we can begin again..." U2 is essentially telling the listener that yeah things suck in this situation, but I'm going to work to change that.

I won't pick on Mark Heard too much, because I'm sure he tempered this vision elsewhere, but...

You play with the cards you've been dealt, not whine about the deck.

Rusty said...

Thanks Bonnie & Tom,

Tom, yes Heard was painting a pretty cynical picture of our world. I wouldn't characterize him as whining, but telling us what the world is like if we were merely the products of blind, random processes. Hence the lines,

In which both virtue and flaw
And the entire human element
Are effects of the quantum laws


and

Are we civilization's afterbirth
Some kind of flesh and blood machines


Despite that being the logical conclusion (if naturalism were true) he knew that you and I know that there is much more out there.

Yes, you're right, he did temper his vision elsewhere (I'll post an example of that next).

Bonnie said...

Interesting...I didn't see cynicism in those lyrics, I saw truth, expressed in poetic terms! (Maybe that says something about me??)

Really...I think there is truth in those words. And as to the picture they paint, well; there, but for the grace of God (indeed, often in spite of the grace of God) -- go I.

(I'm not saying we don't play the cards we're dealt; I'm saying, it's about how we play them, and who or what guides the play.)