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    Culture and Meaning: a Study of Ontological Value in Art and Religion
    Culture and Meaning: a Study of Ontological Value in Art and Religion
    Culture and Meaning: a Study of Ontological Value in Art and Religion
    Ebook45 pages41 minutes

    Culture and Meaning: a Study of Ontological Value in Art and Religion

    By Richard Hazzlewood

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    About this ebook

    This work attempts to examine how art and religion impact upon our lives in a positive way and give our lives a sense of purpose on the level of inmost being. It begins with a general introduction laying out the state of the modern world, and my choice of the Catholic Church as an ideological defence against the quasi-nihilism of the surrounding culture. I discuss the mentality of being against worldly values and give a defence of the spiritual worldview. I also coin the 'Hazzlewood Trivium' which is a learning programme involving three bastions of Western culture: Shakespeare, Plato and the Bible. In my discussions of art I mention music, painting and poetry. To broaden the cultural discussion there is a section on travel, food & drink. In a conclusion I discuss what ontological value means to me. Also features a postscript: 'Why I am a Catholic'.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRichard Hazzlewood
    Release dateFeb 4, 2018
    ISBN9781370860142
    Culture and Meaning: a Study of Ontological Value in Art and Religion
    Author

    Richard Hazzlewood

    Quiet academic type from North West England. BA English, MA Renaissance Literature.I studied in exile by the rivers of Babylon for 3 years, aka Cambridge. And I descended into Egypt, aka PricewaterhouseCoopers. Now I live in a spiritual hermitage where I study literature, philosophy and religion.I am a Roman Catholic convert, and particularly find spiritual fulfilment in the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Liturgy of the Hours.Beer, wine, and spirits are my three branches of government. I am currently especially interested in French and Italian red.Philosophy is really the driving force of my life, and I always seek to question and open up new vistas on being. From Classical ethics to Medieval metaphysics to existentialism, I like to run the gamut of philosophical thought.Poetry is an abiding passion of mine.Finally, a list of books I hold very close to my heart: Augustine, 'Confessions'; Bonaventure, 'Journey of the Mind to God'; Dante, 'The Divine Comedy'; Plato, 'Phaedrus'; Cervantes, 'Don Quixote'; 'The Bhagavad Gita', & of course, 'The Bible'.

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      Book preview

      Culture and Meaning - Richard Hazzlewood

      Culture and Meaning - a study of ontological value in art and religion

      Richard Hazzlewood

      Distributed by Smashwords

      Copyright 2018 Richard Hazzlewood

      Now is my way clear, now is the meaning plain:

      Temptation shall not come in this kind again.

      The last temptation is the greatest treason:

      To do the right deed for the wrong reason.

      - T S Eliot

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      A Brief Discussion of Prayer

      Against the World

      The Hazzlewood Trivium

      Defence of the Spiritual Worldview

      The Music of the Spheres

      The Ontological Ground of Painting

      Poetry - deeper than philosophy

      Travel and Food & Drink

      Conclusion

      Postscript: Why I am a Catholic

      Introduction

      We live in brutally difficult times. Times in which real cultural value can seem quaint, or unnecessary. Yet in this work I wish to communicate the profound personal benefits I have gained from an immersion in culture, and what it means for the future of society. It is easy to idealise the past or the future - to be a traditionalist or a revolutionary. But we deal with the here and now, with all its myriad complexities. How do we address the problems of meaning and value in the twenty first century?

      Obviously the twentieth century had its share of problems. The philosophy of existentialism posited that man has no inherent meaning or absolute value, that he is alone in the universe, and that he is an inauthentic being. Existence precedes essence, which is as much as saying matter (or the substratum) precedes form (or the principles). It is a philosophy of indifference or despair which gave rise to the theatre of the absurd. And elsewhere Marcuse realised the affluent society and consumer culture were empty in works such as ‘One Dimensional Man’, although his own prescriptions were far from remedial. It seemed that we were in a swirl of confusion, less able to establish a true ontology. And then there were traditional bastions such as the Roman Catholic Church, the camp that I find myself in.

      Now the Church tries to hold to tradition although various modernisms creep in. But I don’t have a major issue with the leadership of any of the Popes, or indeed the Magisterium. I cannot understand the sedevacantists. The point is that the Church is a safe haven of ontological value, where the outward secular culture is verging on the nihilistic. I would like to talk briefly about my experiences with God. He first appeared to me in 2007 in my final year of university, in the form of a dream reminding me of His presence. In the eleven years since, I have built my relationship with Him and now things are pretty good. I have a somewhat limited range of religious experience: mainly the Father with some involvement of Jesus and Mary. I meditate on the latter in the Rosary - I love to meditate on the crucifixion as perhaps truly the crux of ontological depth and sublimity. But mainly I have the Father in my mind’s eye.

      He counsels, He offers advice; He is with me during prayer. And it would be remiss of me in a book about cultural meaning not to talk about God. The issue of faith is difficult as it comes to you spontaneously - without the experience of faith it can seem nonsensical. But this is

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