[-empyre-] introducing week 3

[Aneta Stojnic]

Murat Nemet-Nejat <muratnn at gmail.com> wrote: ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Welcome, Aneta.
> 
> All through our discussions during the last weeks, I find most of my reactions to different incarnations of "unspeakable" violence to occur on a moral level, on the level of an increase one's consciousness. Then I ask myself: is a moral reaction an act, or a response of self-preservation not to go insane? Are we doing something to help the sufferer? One should realize, at its root, art also is a moral response. I would appreciate others' opinion on this.

Thanx, Murat.

I am not sure if I understand correctly the dilemma, but I agree that art is a moral response, moreover I am convinced that if we want to be anyhow relevant when we do art, we need to be able to take the political position. Perhaps the more delicate question is not weather to act but how? There are also various ways of self-preservation and sometimes acting could be a form of self-preservation, and not acting a from of self-distraction, don't you think so? 

It makes me think about the poem Ana quoted earlier in the discussion:

> Ana Valdés <agora158 at gmail.com> wrote:----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> I remember quite well the words of the German pastor Martin Niemöller, 
> 
> "When the Nazis came for the communists,
> I did not speak out;
> As I was not a communist.
> When they locked up the social democrats,
> I did not speak out;
> I was not a social democrat.
> 
> When they came for the trade unionists,
> I did not speak out;
> As I was not a trade unionist.
> 
> When they came for the Jews,
> I did not speak out;
> As I was not a Jew.
> 
> When they came for me,
> there was no one left to speak out."



All the best, 

Aneta
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