Posted on 01/25/2004 4:30:13 AM PST by drakeraft
In an era where cool has been commodified and postmodernism has triumphed in the literary, cultural, and financial arenas, where inherent worth is oft dismissed and new-age hype rules the day, jollyroger.com has stuck by the guns of fundamental principle. She has sailed steadily along her foreordained course, signing aboard loyal crew members one by one, firing broadsides from the Western Canon to defend the embattled Great Books, and laying the foundations of the world’s classical portal with the most valuable kind of seed capital—heartfelt poetry.
In the postmodern culture’s pervasive gray, it’s often difficult to perceive the Permanent Things; and thus on the foggier nights over the past five years, faith in the ancient’s words came in handy upon this deck. In the deepest darkness of the most ironic ironies, where the fog itself is concealed, there yet exists an inner light in the form of a classical yearning for Truths greater than ourselves—many know her as Faith. And like the wind and waves of an approaching hurricane, the Bible, Plato, Shakespeare, the Founding Fathers, and Melville reminded us of her—the Words of the Greats let us know that something all-powerful and great existed just beyond our mortal sight. And by Faith’s inner light and the steady winds of immortal words, we were able to navigate beyond the postmodern fog, through the popular culture’s sound and fury, on towards the center of our souls—the placid eye of existence’s storm—on towards the eternal peace of immutable words written and read in the solitude and splendor of Truth’s Freedom. Thus we know firsthand that the greatest literature serves a higher purpose than the bottom line or the advancement of political causes—words exist not only to entertain, advertise, exhort, and explain, but also to light Faith’s beacons and fill the sails of God’s Grace. From Words we have fashioned the Jolly Roger’s Oak planks of reason, riveted them with rhyme, and designed a ship to voyage across all of time.
All generations are united by the classical elements, and the poets and prophets of each age are those who perform the timeless truths in the living language, adding to and enriching the context of the eternal popular culture heralded by the Great Books. Joining in this venture has always been a risky endeavor, and thus few prudent parents have ever encouraged their children to become poets. But in this era especially, ambitious proponents of the postmodern ideology actively seek to scuttle the souls of young poets embarking on eternity’s favorite venture. The postmodern blockade serves to protect the degraded trade of the liberal industrial cultural complex, while their fog shrouds the beacons of timeless truth, thereby rendering the context for contemporary classical literature all but impossible to navigate, while endangering the very hulls of morality and Western Civilization.
Postmodernism is the corruption of democracy, just as deconstruction is the violence of the weak—both cultural movements owe their popularity to their ability to empower anyone harboring intellectual or artistic ambitions overshadowing their talents. Postmodern culture is like an internet pyramid scheme, wherein cultural creations possessing no inherent worth are given vast valuations by the insider critics and cliques who subsist upon and profit from the ephemeral hype, which is often tax, tuition, and smut subsidized. But eventually all true art, like all true companies, must create real and lasting benefits for the public, or fade away, like communism. "One cannot pray a lie," noted Huckleberry Finn, but without faith in God’s Invisible Hand, postmodernists believe that it’s possible, as long as the requisite mob is assembled and promised a cut. And while the insiders benefit in the short-term when worthless companies, fallacious systems of government, and meaningless art are hyped and sold to a duped public, the public is oft left holding the bag, with their investments diminished, their classical religions tarnished, their armies demoralized, the sacred institution of marriage defiled, and the curriculums of their children’s schools gutted.
When the higher ideals and fundamental precepts are forsaken, the entire democratic ship of state may drift along happily through the fog, navigating by polls reminiscent of the one given by Pontius Pilate, not aware of the nature nor consequences of the errant direction. And when a few in the rising generation begin to seek the fixed stars above, which they’ve read about in antiquity’s forsaken myths and felt deep within their souls, they will be branded crazy. And when the classical rebels see the stars through the breaking fog, and seek to navigate a straighter course by the Permanent Things, they will encounter violent opposition from the postmodern culture czars who benefit from the lack of higher standards, who prefer their arbitrary will to the rule of Law in cultural entities ranging from politics, to architecture, to education, to poetry. The relativistic oligarchy shall view the rising poets’ loyalty to God as insolent rebellion, and the postmodern media shall be commanded to destroy them. And on that day, the postmodern critics’ souls shall be tested, as they choose to be loyal to tyrants or Truths greater than themselves, as they choose to remain upon postmodern liberalism’s sinking ship or sign aboard a fighting frigate bound for eternity.
One could spend several volumes chronicling the nature of postmodernism’s adherents and their predilection for bureaucracy, and the dark character of their political, cultural, and literary ponzi schemes, but that is not jollyroger.com’s destination. We all know what the fog looks like—too many know nothing else—and the nobler and more pertinent task becomes taking us beyond it. To criticize nihilism is to exalt it to undeserved heights, and rather than studying the ephemeral, poets would be wise to devoted themselves to penning the eternal.
Whether it’s inevitable as fate or it hinges upon perseverance and free will, we do not know, but jollyroger.com must gain a popular culture worthy of the Great Books’ context. And the only way to do that is to navigate by the same timeless beacon that yesterday’s poets navigated by—honesty’s courage.
The contemporary poet’s task is not only to pen the eternal verities in the era’s language, but it is also to resurrect the context in which those timeless truths may freely navigate and gain the home ports of the children’s souls. And that is where the WWW has played an invaluable role, for it has allowed us to establish a universe perpendicular to the contemporary popular culture—a universe wherein words mean things and the classical context thrives, but which also intersects with the popular culture. For Great Books growing dusty upon shelves are of little use, and the classical sentiments must be continually performed in the living language. While the majority of contemporary editors, agents, critics and literary officials yet remain loyal to the degraded postmodern-MFA mentality and the fleeting insta-classic literary fashions, the greater spirits of the rising generation are classical in nature, as children’s souls always are. And by allowing The Jolly Roger to circumvent the literary middleman’s cynical vortex, the WWW has allowed a renaissance to set sail.
Although all enduring truth must by definition be robust, history has shown that its messengers have often been castigated and impugned. But upon these American shores, it has ever been our right, as it has been our duty, to continually foster and defend the classical context wherein the foundational documents serve the people, come hell or high water. The Greats have all agreed upon this—liberty demands eternal vigilance. The pursuit of smaller government, less taxes, rhyming poetry, and more freedom is as long and arduous a voyage as it is a noble one.
As a beacon in history’s darker contexts, America was founded as a haven for truth’s messengers, thereby becoming the world’s wellspring for science, religion, and freedom. The Declaration of Independence and Constitution, which may be found at the end of this book, were penned in tribute to higher principles superior to all politics and time. Even though the Founding Fathers believed in the existence of higher laws, they were humble about their ability to discern them, and thus they presented us with a Constitution which could be amended. They had as much faith in their children as they had in the timeless truths, and thus they bestowed us with the tools to pursue justice and happiness in a free marketplace of ideas, which they perceived to be ultimately governed by Nature and Nature’s God. The eloquent words of America’s founding documents provide for the civil structure that protects and promotes the acknowledgement of higher principles by which natural rights are defined, thereby preserving the sacred freedom of all individuals who are humble before the higher ideals. And thus upon these shores the honest have always been promised the freedom to pursue the exalted American dream.
But when the language is degraded until the poetry no longer rhymes except in vulgar rap, when sacred customs are honored more in the breach than in the observance, when words and their meanings part on their separate ways, when the bottom line is placed above the higher ideals, when the base bass beats over the melody in the music we listen to, in the clubs we frequent, and in our hearts and souls; when innocence is lost before it is known, when cynicism is loaded upon hope and hope is ballasted with irony, and we’re exhorted by tax, tuition, and smut-subsidized cultural officials to carry this pyramid’s load down the road to serfdom, shall we still be free to dream those greater dreams? When under this burden America is then cut free from her religious anchors in the name of secular economic freedom, and women are sent off to raise the Dow Jones to pay taxes rather than raise moral children, can America long survive and prosper as the flagship of free republics, even if all the postmodern pyramid schemes never collapse? Science and history have suggested otherwise—that where God’s morality is eroded, the eternal Bureaucracy marches forth to become the stolid regulator of human interaction. When people cease to govern themselves according to higher principles, they lose the ability to be guarantors of their own wellness and happiness, and they soon find themselves subject to a political order determined by other mortals—the rule of Law gives way to the rule by men.
Where the Word—the sacred vessel of all poetry and politics—was diminished or deconstructed, bullets and slogans oft became the new brushes with which humanity painted upon history’s canvas. And as the past is prologue, any optimist of human affairs would be wise to aspire to the wisdom of those who gave us not the gift of freedom, but the documents which define and defend the freedom that they perceived as being a gift from God.
In asking what is best for the future of a democratic republic, we are really contemplating the best way in which to pass along freedom’s traditions. How might we rebuild the classical context wherein children learn to love reading the Greats, and teachers are given the necessary authority to teach them? How do we reinstall the killer-app open-source software of the soul—the classics—which teach not by dictating how to think, but by inspiring free thought in a rational context?
Today, too many of our peers reside in a superficial context of image and sound, wherein the popular art, movies, music, and literature make circular references to the same superficial brands in a self-contained cultural whirlpool in history’s greater context, where ephemeral lusts, common degradation, and wayward feelings overrule rational thought and the higher ideals. So how shall we introduce our friends to a far more profound culture in the context of the Great Books? How shall we revive the center and circumference of civilization, the crux of conscience, the jury of justice, the romance of marriage, the honor of honor, and the device by which we mark the pinnacles of our aspirations—the written Word? We’re not sure of the exact mechanism nor means to accomplish this, but the crew here believes the answer lies more in art than in scholarship, more in poetry than in politics. For intellectuals study yesterday’s renaissances far more often than they inspire today’s, and politicians follow the popular culture far more often than they lead it.
At the dawn of the internet in 1995, the three sonneteers set out upon a fleet frigate, seeking to pirate the profound and establish a brave new website where the eternal optimism of the literary classics would prevail—where the news of the day would always be that the world’s grown honest and Hamlet’s gone mad. We saw the chance to marry the greatest that has ever been written and spoken to the greatest publishing medium ever known to the individual, and to create a classical context wherein the glory of words would resound. We saw the opportunity to circumnavigate the postmodern nonbelievers and cynics, to appeal to the nobler aspects of humanity’s conscience, and prove that the world yet loves common sense embroidered in eloquence. We saw the opportunity for a renaissance wherein dignity and honor would be restored to public office, and the poetry would rhyme once again.
And with a little bit of that Midwest humor which walks hand-in-hand with Midwest honor, we decided we’d have fun following the dream that Providence had enabled. We would salute the passing postmodern era from the decks of a pirate ship, acknowledging postmodernism’s vast success in pervading all aspects of contemporary culture; and with broadsides of truth fired from the Western Canon, we’d let them know we considered it good sport to play along with their irony—the irony that a lover of the Great Books could be considered a barbarous buccaneer upon Princeton’s ivied campus. We were ruthless rebels because we sought Truth’s Traditions.
Postmodern liberalism had won the day, but as a fundamentally secular-materialist philosophy, that was all that it had ever sought, and tomorrow shall belong to the classics. For however fun the postmodern era was, I don’t think we’ll be making a tradition out of it. Political rhetoric is soon forgotten, while poetry is that which endures.
We figured the best way to communicate our exalted vision would be to combine the cutting-edge technology with the exact same literary devices used by the sages of all ages. We’d use the common language and the colloquial to sign sailors aboard, and we’d endow the poetry at jollyroger.com with rhyme and meter. Whispering reason is far louder than pompous pedantry, just as poetry is far more adept at winning a girl’s heart than polemics. The greatest writers had adorned their works not with thesauruses, but with wit. If a preacher knows something of poetry, then we’ll listen, for they must know that deeper meaning behind the sacred scripture—that law and order exist to protect beauty’s fundamental freedom.
A contemporary literary renaissance presents itself as a formidable task—one cannot do it alone. For the fashionable relativists are right in that truth and custom must have an appropriate societal context within which to exist. And the concurrent relativistic societal context, fortified with the entrenched prejudices of a maturing, tenured generation that ushered in a Dionysian revolution via the pre-internet electronic media, along with a plethora of ideological "isms" to replace God’s simple grace, coupled with a fading popular culture centered about the printed word and an enforced cynicism amongst a generation who for the most part only know of the Greats in their deconstructed, corrupted form, makes the Apollonian renaissance that jollyroger.com’s sailing towards seem all but unreachable.
But then again, as the ancients noted, "post tenebras lux." After darkness light. Just as God and the Greats originally sprang forth in tradition’s void, so it is that they might be born again in the midst of a deconstructed culture. For poetry, religion, and romance are sought by the immortal parts of all souls, and they never have greater cause to be than when they are not. In the long run, without Truth men cannot have those possessions most coveted by all deeper souls—meaning and freedom. With this bold vision and humble hope, jollyroger.com has set out to resurrect a classical context.
Though jollyroger.com’s destination is pristine, the voyage has not always been and will not always be so. It is a wonderful time to be alive for the author and entrepreneur, with abundant wealth and opportunity being fostered by the internet revolution, but even so, it is a sobering mission to be called upon to serve poetry. For there are those powerful elite today, and their ambitious disciples, who so vehemently oppose the first Two Amendments of the United States Constitution, who have it as their mission to prevent the honest from lifting those pens which are mightier than the sword.
Neither Wall Street nor the postmodern academy nor publishing industry—the iron triangle—will invest time nor money nor faith in a renaissance, but that is OK, as a renaissance has little use for money, and eternity’s time will do just fine. Wall Street prudently considers the poetry of a cultural renaissance a financial risk in today’s cultural conditions, while the academic MFA postmodernists consider it a dire threat, and the corporate conglomerates of the publishing industry have one foot in either camp. But we foresee the dawn of a new era, wherein those who join in serving and enlightening the public with the classical sentiments will profit immensely, both spiritually and monetarily. It is time for a sea change, matey, and time for the poetry to rhyme once again.
There have been and there are yet to be cruel nights out there in the postmodern fog, where the Good Ship will seem all but lost, and where the winds of elite and popular opinion will rage and blow in opposition, while the critic’s cannons blaze away with all the fury of an MFA scorned. But such is the rugged nature of all greater adventures, and as of late the seaward signs suggest that the wind is shifting towards a more favorable direction.
Where men are yet free, they must have poetry equal to that freedom, and where men yet have poetry, they must be free. Thus exalted poetry is worth fighting for, and too, these are the reasons why those who serve the darker powers shall always oppose pristine poetry. The relativist’s favorite tactic in cultural warfare is to redefine sacred institutions as degraded, corrupted, political entities, from poetry to the Presidency, until it appears that there is nothing to defend, until only the dishonorable seem fit to slouch towards office. Thus they win the war by convincing the common man that there is no war to be fought, by deconstructing honor and chivalry, by proclaiming poetry to be no more than politics, by teaching that Presidents were always corrupt and will always be corrupt, and then enforcing their dismal science throughout the culture. They deconstruct God and appoint their friends to all the newly-minted bureaucracies which seek to overrule His Decree, and which exacerbate the problems they seek to solve, thereby providing coveted opportunities for more taxation, more government programs, and more bureaucracy. With a snide smile they call it irony and cynicism as they benefit in the shadows of the postmodern fog, but we see it as something much darker than that, as their methods rebel against God’s Will.
Jefferson once stated that from time to time freedom’s fields must be fertilized with the blood of Tyrants and Patriots, and thus in order to defend the profound prose of this renaissance, treacherous battles shall be waged against the ferocious prejudices of pedants and postmodernists for the right to write, publish, and disseminate poetry written with words that rhyme and mean things. Postmodernists consider the rhyming truth’s shining light a violent assault upon their fogged territory, and they will fight back viciously according to their fundamental rules, which state that there are none but for what they feel. A tyranny of liberal thought exists in the contemporary publishing and academic industries, which is equal parts ignorance and resentment, and which may best be defeated by light and truth rendered with poetry and humor. God’s Patriots must learn these gentle ways of war.
Though these words will not be directly censored, pristine poetry may be effectively banned by the erosion of the context which supports it—when pornography is published, the sacred is censored. The Great Books have been banned far more often by ignorance than by law. Many in my generation shall never hear this melody as it’s drowned out in the base pounding bass of this week’s corporate rock’n’roll, but it shall be their loss, and not the words’. While we feel sympathy for the cultural conformists lost in the apathy and cynicism of the swirling fog, we nevertheless believe that as individuals it is ultimately their choice, and may God help them find the Better Way. To those who have, more shall be given, and to those who have not, even that shall be taken away. May God inspire their moral imaginations to dream beyond the gray on gray that has come to define their indifferent universe, wherein spurious definitions of irony have become their bigoted religion.
Postmodernists know that in order to defend their arbitrary power structure, where exalted critics wield influence by hyping the value of degraded literary works, they must defend to the death their deconstructed context. They have learned that as long as the common water source is poisoned with their politics, nothing will be allowed to grow upon the private property of our souls but for barren cynicism. They know that were the fog to break, the ideals of fidelity, honor, and lasting romance would begin to blossom in the rising generation’s spirits. As the powerful architects of contemporary corruption, they must disparage and destroy all who do not ultimately agree that black is white and white is black, and thus noble romance and honest innocence are their dire enemies.
(Excerpt) Read more at jollyroger.com ...
Thanks for this, drakeraft. Wonderful; I'll have to follow the link.marron, what is there about this that reminds me of your recent piece?
marron, what is there about this that reminds me of your recent piece?He seems to see the world the way many of us see it, fallen, but salvageable, beautiful, and worth the fight . . .
I knew you'd be able to put your finger on it . . .
(Highlight _ _ It WAS long! LOL! _ _ this line)
This successfully explains something I've been trying with limited success to say for some time.http://drakeraft.com/And what better time than this for technology to allow traditional poets to triumph in the literary arena? The infrastructure to support contemporary classical literature had been eroded by the postmodern ideology and its diverse manifestations throughout the greater culture. Science and technology, which enabled the mass media based on sound and video, amplified the more superficial, Dionysian, idolatrous aspects of mankind, and when coupled with the postmodern theories which were fostered by the misapplication of science to the soul, the written Word was assaulted on all fronts. People read less in the popular culture, and reading meant less within the academy. And yet, they still had this marvelous potential and will to know their eternal soul. Hence the cynicism and irony and apathy which afflicts this generation, which shall never be satiated by the fleeting Dionysian alone--we long for the eternal, and eternity is only known by thoughts, and thoughts are only known by words. The deconstruction and desecration hath cleared the field of our imaginations for a renaissance.
I have been pointing out that the higher the production value of a medium, the more corrupted with leftism that medium is. A movie or a TV show is more expensive to produce than a talk radio show, and particularly than a web site. And liberals are woeful on the internet, pathetic on talk radio, dominant in TV--and make Hollywood "hollywierd."
The other salient point JollyRodger.com makes is the fog of liberalism.
I have made the similar point that "the fog of war" is really the fog of current events, of breaking news--and that we can and should choose not to spend our major attention in that fog but, rather, to make sure to take due account of the things which have long been known.
Being in the world and not of the world? (^:
This is a wonderful essay..a mission statement. Thank you for the ping.
Our individual measures of faith may take us places that seem odd, and distractions abound along the way. I once read beautiful poetry with longing, a jealousy for a gift I didn't have, ignoring what was given.
I am grateful for the richness, the unique offerings of our allies, small and great....and I can understand why great poets were once idolized.
Today's poets will be moved by the greatest of poetry, and a desire to know the Creator, if they sincerely seek truth.
In order to defeat governmentism I need only write as well as Shakespeare? Of course! Why didn't I think of that!It is fine to criticize the liberal pomo culture, but for every mapplethorpe exhibit we criticize, we should laud one of our own. For every feminist manifesto we berate, we whould pen an ode to the renaissance. For every pornographic hip-hop recording we pass higher judgement on, we should pen a poem!
I am in fact a poor writer indeed; without word processing to enable me readily to revise the revision of the revision (of the revision of the revision of the revision . . .), I scarce can write at all. The thought of expeditiously composing the Declaration of Independence--say nothing of the letters of Paul--with a quill pen just amazes me.Have faith--the rising generation will lead a renaissance against the tide of decline.In my lifetime I have written exactly two poems--a limerick in fourth greade, and some dogerell recently to express the fact that when the "McCarthyism" fraud was being perpetrated I was a youth who saw all the publicity to the effect that people were afraid to publish as being somewhat contradictory. But that I wasn't the boy who decried the absence of the Emperor's clothes, and was listened to.
And many there be, good men and true, who are worse.
I think that on Free Republic my poor prose is, sometimes at least, a fog horn to warn people that we actually are in a fog, and that there are hazzards to be looked for in it. The fog clears a little behind us, and JollyRodger is pointing to the stars visible distant behind. Most of us here know to look at least as far back as the Constitution. But the fog would turn even that into its opposite, if we did not take care.
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