An ongoing dialogue...2

Many philosophers, especially those who are tagged as “philosophers of life” have a considerable contribution in approaching this great issue. Henri Bergson is maybe the most significant on the subject.

But what theatre -and I mean ancient Greek tragedy above all- has as a unique attribute is that more than any philosophic/epistemological approach presents the totality of life in the most direct, simple and open to endless “readings” way.

Is its certain type of dialogue the core of tragic element? Maybe, at least for some. But tragedy at the same time also contains the monologue. Does this mean that dialogue is incomplete without some monologues? Perhaps. In some way dialogue is loaded either with releasing or restraining dramatic tense. A person, a human being, is maybe unable to represent his totality through the dialogue. So he/she needs a monologue which, of course is always a covered dialogue since it presupposes the symbolic “Other”. At the same time the rational, controlled, “apollonian” element is confronted with the “Dionysian” and neither has the final control but they co-exist. Gods, mortals, kings, people, chorus and personae, lyric and epic forms, wise advisors and fools interact presenting this totality of life which is broader than any mental or sentimental attempt to catch.

Tragedy was the birthplace of democracy as we historically know the term, the Athenian democracy. Every enlightened citizen was aware that what was going on in the Agora was only a part, a fragment of an older (tragic) culture which was fading out. Orality in the Agora was the best they could do to remember and preserve this tradition. Plato felt bound on this tradition that’s why he wrote in dialogic (but indeed a pseudo-dialogic) form. This fading out procedure resulted to rhetoric speeches and the rhetoric form of democracy (which resembles with the modern politics).

So searching for the totality of life means to come back to your so well phrased axiom.

Take a look at www.demothen.blogspot.com

An ongoing dialogue...1

Let us make the hypothesis that the Ancient Greek Mode of understanding “theatre” has to do with how tragic is interweaved with democracy and the role of citizens from the point they start entering -en masse- in history. History always withholds bad things: depression, terror, violence. Dionysian brotherhood was aware of this treacherous face of History and even more of the obscure places of the deities of mass. I have made a comment about “alter populus” and how much fear can trigger to every political establishment.

These deities and heroes were supposed to comfort the pain which was produced from failures, discriminations, chasms which separated mass from power and obstructed democracy. For that brotherhood was clear that mass was out of history and this could not change. Mass was an a-societal entity which had to rely before democracy was embedded only in symbolic forms and through mythic uprisings -even rebellions.

At that point, when man realizes that his existence as a natural being and as a historic, societal being are “problematique”, difficult to harmonize, at that point the tragic element is born. Symbiosis and reconciliation with the Negative led, up to a certain point, to the admission that man has no more an only optimistic perspective. Plato, a typical representative of “classic mind” passed from his “Socratic” – optimistic period to Theaetitus” where he recognized the ontological existence of Badness. Man is no more mastering his fate but he is “Theou paegnion”. Plato, at the same time made a prophecy: in Gorgias and Republic he spoke about a power which can save the world, not exactly the Good but Dike.

But the world had to keep on through a constant dichotomy and man could not anymore be satisfied by himself. Tragic implies that man had to learn through suffering.

The ancient tragic experience, modern art and psychoanalysis opened a new Universe in front of us. So the closed naïve world of classicistic thought was no more capable of understanding human complexity. The classicistic model of man recognized as “real” only what was disciplined, ordered, rational. Tragic, in the before mentioned classic sense and in the sense of Aeschylus, Sophocles, the creators of “classic”, became for classicistic thought synonymous to anarchy! Social stability and order, scientific optimism were threatened by Oedipus, Phaedra, or Hercules Furens! Incest or anthropophagy were indigestible for the European classicists.

The audiences of ancient Athenian citizens, watching Persae, the audiences of Racine or Corneille and the audiences of Marlow and Shakespeare show clearly, in their difference, the role of mass (its presence or absence) and its connection with the Tragic.

Take a look at www.demothen.blogspot.com

Προφορικός λόγος, Λατρεία του Διονύσου και Θέατρο

Οι αρχαίοι Αθηναίοι ήξεραν ότι χωρίς 3 πράγματα κάθε δημοκρατία μπορούσε να είναι αμφίβολη:

Προφορικό λόγο, Λατρεία του Διονύσου και Θέατρο.

Αυτό και σήμερα έχει νόημα.

Ο προφορικός λόγος απέναντι στην ισχύ των «Ιδιοφυών» του ακαδημαϊκού ιερατείου και στην εξουσία των τεχνοκρατών γραφειοκρατών.

Η Λατρεία του Διονύσου απέναντι στον «Άγιο» ολοκληρωτισμό της ηθικής του καπιταλισμού.

Το Θέατρο (η αθηναϊκή «θεατροκρατία» κατά Παπαϊωάννου), ο άνθρωπος στην κωμική και κυρίως τραγική του όψη απέναντι στον βουλησιαρχικό και “παντοδύναμο” Κατακτητή της πολιτικής σφαίρας.