Word: quietism
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Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. subscribes to his historian father's theory of the cyclical rhythm of national events. "We have periods of action and passion and reform," says Schlesinger, "until the country is worn out, and then periods of passivity, negativism, quietism." The first two decades of this century were periods of action. "Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson wore the country out." Then came the relative political torpor of the '20s, followed by the fierce activity of the '30s and '40s, the quietism of the '50s, then the eruptions of the '60s and early '70s. After the introversion...
Certainly, Rauschenberg's combines have no political content worth looking for. Virtually no "major" American art of the '50s did?the mood was one of apolitical quietism, and it was assumed that art had no chance of reforming the world. Yet a number of the combines do seem, at this distance, to be "coded." The title of Odalisk, 1955-58, directs us to a favorite image of those two sultans of French art, Ingres and Matisse?the harem nude. Rauschenberg parodies that: the box on its post alludes to a human figure; a torso, teetering on its absurd harem cushion...
...what they see as an inherent opposition between Eastern and Western spirituality. Zen Master Philip Kapleau disdains Christian enthusiasm for Zen and other Buddhism. "There is no God concept in Buddhism," he says flatly. Both Buddhist and Hindu paths, some Western theologians worry, may lead to a kind of quietism and otherworldliness that remove the spiritual person from any part in the struggles of society...
None of these ideas are as yet majority views in the Western world, and they may never be. They may provoke nothing more than bitter and fruitless confrontation, sundering consensus and paralyzing productive thought. Their critique of progress and action could well lead to a new quietism, a readiness to accept things as they are rather than to work for things as they might be. In a more hopeful vein, the interaction of the alternate views with prevailing notions may prove to be a beneficial force, leading to a re-examination and refinement of basic ideas about man and society...
...thought I'd be ready for the quietism Southern religion pushes on poor people, but I wasn't, Opiates look like Vitamin C compared to the politically deadening effect of today's sermon. And yet I can't help being ambivalent. I don't think I've ever seen a large group of people so fully focused on the same vibration at the same time. Everyone fell wholly into the rhythm of the sermon, everyone had to reach out and possess each maxim as if it were a truth of infinite wisdom that had never been expressed before. An organic...