Showing posts with label king cnut. Show all posts
Showing posts with label king cnut. Show all posts

7 Jul 2025

Heads You Lose

 
All compounded things are subject to vanish. [1]
 
 
I. 
 
Pretty much everyone seems to admire those monolithic human figures with giant heads carved from consolidated volcanic ash by the Rapa Nui people on Easter Island [2].
 
Originally, these statues - known as moai - gazed inland, as if to protectively watch over everyone. 
 
But, after they were all toppled - many by Europeans, who began arriving in 1722 - it was decided to stand some of 'em back up again, but positioned so as to stare silently out to sea (almost as if they had been awaiting the arrival of the White Man all along). 
 
 
II. 
 
Anyhoo, it seems that these big tuff heads are not immortal after all and are, in fact, rapidly eroding due to a combination of factors, including rising sea levels, wildfires, and the effects of wind and rain over the years on soft and porous volcanic rock.
 
Local communities and busy-bodies from various heritage organisations are working to restore and protect the statues by cleaning them, applying protective treatments, and implementing measures to mitigate the effects of climate change. 
 
Like King Cnut, they are, however, fighting a losing battle - and, arguably, one that should be lost ... [3]
 
For in my view, the way that a people best sustain their culture is not by artificially preserving their past, but by affirming themselves in the present and projecting new works into the future. Taking excessive pride in one's heritage and history can, as Nietzsche knew, be disadvantageous if you're not careful [4].
 
 
III. 
 
And besides:
 
"We have reached the stage where we are weary of huge stone erections, and we begin to realise that it is better to keep life fluid and changing, than try to hold it fast down in heavy monuments. Burdens on the face of the earth, are man's ponderous erections." [5] 
 
Like Lawrence, I now far prefer small sculptures, carved from wood, that aim to be modest and charming, rather than grand and imposing. 
 
Further, there's also something very beautiful in the thought of the moai returning to the blueness of the Greater Day from which they came; for even stone idols should be as evanescent as flowers [6]

 
Notes
 
[1] This statement is from the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta (Sutta 16 in the Dīgha Nikāya) and is considered to be the Buddha's last teaching. It emphasises the concept of impermanence (anicca); a core principle in Buddhism. Compounded things (sankhara) include not only physical objects, but also mental formations, emotions, and even one's sense of self.  
 
[2] Easter Island is remote volcanic island situated 2,170 miles off the coast of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean. It's native name is Rapa Nui. There are roughly 1000 statues on the island in various stages of completion, with about 200 mounted on rectangular stone platforms known as ahu
 
[3] In an article on the BBC website entitled 'Is this the end for Easter Island's moai statues? (3 July 2025) - click here - Sofia Quaglia informs us that Rapa Nui community leaders are even considering moving the statues out of harm's way - perhaps housing them in museums - or making 3D scans of them so replicas can be printed at a later date. 
      I have issues with both these options, although it might be noted that several institutions already display cast replicas of moai, including the Natural History Museum of LA County; the American Museum of Natural History; and the Auckland Museum, in New Zealand. As this post makes clear, I'm with those community leaders who argue that erosion is a mysterious natural phenomenon and that the moai should therefore succumb to their elemental fate.
 
[4] See Nietzsche's essay 'On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life' (1874) in Untimely Meditations, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 57-123.  
      One of the key arguments made by Nietzsche in this text is that an excess of historical awareness can hinder our ability to act and create in the present by making us feel small in the face of past greatness. It's fine when our heritage informs and invigorates the present, but not when we feel oveshadowed by and subservient to our ancestors. 
      Utimately, we need to let go of things and allow even magnificent monuments to crumble into ruin and beautiful artworks to fade away. That's why I feel the way I do about the Easter Island statues and opposed the rebuilding of Notre-Dame de Paris after the fire in 2019: click here
 
[5] D. H. Lawrence, 'Sketches of Etruscan Places', in Sketches of Etruscan Places and Other Italian Essays, ed. Simonetta de Filippis (Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 32.
 
[6] Again, I'm aware that some Rapa Nui locals - and archaeologists - strongly disagree with this way of thinking. For them, the moai have such cultural, historical, and scientific importance that they must be preserved at all costs and by any means possible. The fact that they attract more than a 100,000 visitors to Easter Island each year and tourism has become central to the Rapa Nui economy is also a consideration, of course.
 
 
Thanks to Símón Solomon for suggesting this post.      
 
 

2 Aug 2020

Boris Johnson - What a Cnut! (Further Reflections on Coronavirus)

King Boris I 


I.

As a matter of fact, King Cnut wasn't a madman who believed he possessed supernatural powers that would allow him to turn back the tide. On the contrary, he was a wise and humble monarch who knew the limits of his own authority and wished to demonstrate to his courtiers that compared to the supreme power of God, the power of all men is vain.

Still, that's not how the legend is remembered or invoked within popular culture: and so, when it comes to Boris Johnson's desperate and deluded attempt to defeat (or at least control) Covid-19, we can rightly describe him as a bit of a Cnut; a man who dreamed as a boy of becoming world king now reduced to faffing about as the tide of events leaves him increasingly looking washed-up.  

What the PM doesn't seem to appreciate is that whereas one can barricade oneself indoors in order to be safe from a pack of hungry wolves, the same strategy isn't going to work when faced with a viral threat. If he spent a little less time studying Churchill and a little more time reading Baudrillard, he might understand this ... [1]


II.

To his great credit, Jean Baudrillard was one of the first philosophers to conceptualise the viral mode and how it corresponds to a form of cultural chaos and confusion, spreading rapidly within a global system lacking immunity. For a viral agent like Covid-19 doesn't just infect individuals, but all sectors of society, including the government, the media, and the world of commerce, thereby exposing the interconnections between pathogens, wet markets, digital networks, etc.  

The fascinating thing is not what Covid-19 does to the body, but what it does to the collective imagination. We might describe the hysteria surrounding the disease as a virtual symptom; one that is induced by the political class and the media and which massively inflates the actual threat posed by the virus. There's no point blaming Boris for this, or, indeed, anyone in particular. For our shared insanity "is a pyramidal synthesis of convergent effects, a phenomena in resonance" [2].

In sum: the current pandemic - just like terrorism - is a product of our own viral culture. And the fact that these things are not just matters of concern for our security services and medical experts but for us all, demonstates that they are not merely episodic events in an irrational world:

"They embody the entire logic of our system, and are merely, so to speak, the points at which that logic crystallizes spectacularly. Their power is a power of irradiation and their effect, through the media, within the imagination, is itself a viral one." [3]

Ultimately, the fight against Coronavirus - just like the so-called war on terror - is futile and unwinnable and, like it or not, we're probably all going to get our feet wet sooner or later ...


Notes

[1] I'm referring here to Baudrillard's four modes of attack and defence: first come the wolves, a visible enemy who attack us directly and against whom we can construct solid defences and arm ourselves with rifles; then come the rats, a rapidly multiplying and subterranean enemy who burrow under our barricades and against whom we must use poison; next are the cockroaches, which do not attack so much as infest and get everywhere, including in the cracks between our defences, making it extremely difficult to ever fully exterminate them; finally, there are the viruses, an invisible enemy transmitted from person to person or in the air itself, infecting the body and requiring the development of a vaccine or acquired immunity. Resistance with lockdowns, face masks, and hand wash is simply a form of Cnutism. See Jean Baudrillard, Fragments, trans. Chris Turner, (Routledge, 2004), pp. 71-2.

[2] Jean Baudrillard. 'Ruminations for Spongiform Encephala', Screened Out, trans. Chris Turner, (Verso, 2002), p. 173.

[3] Jean Baudrillard, 'Aids: Virulence or Prophylaxis?, Screened Out, p. 6.