Bohemian or Philistine: Which One Are You?

L.W.! Good to have you back on the blog, grrl. I always enjoy your posts.

I'm no Bohemian; I'm not big on temporary experiences that do not in some way "invest" me, and I'm way too much of a homebody. In general I'm about roots, reliability, stability. Old people and children like me, but twentysomethings tend to think I'm a square.

On the other hand, I'm no Philistine. I'll admit that for most art forms I don't "get" what folks call classicism; I'm a romantic (in the very un-romantic Nietzschean sense of the word). I appreciate art when I'm a participant, not when I'm an observer. I don't just hear music; I feel music. If I don't feel it, I don't really enjoy hearing it very much. I feel the need to connect. Experiencing the thing as itself is not usually enough. So I experience art the way a Philistine might, but a real Philistine wouldn't ask the question.

I'm less somewhere in the middle than I am somewhere completely different--these are two points on a line, and I'm way off in another direction, forming a triangle. I strongly relate to this guy.


Cheers,

TH

Especially this bit:

He was at Emory University from 1955 until 1962, when he moved to the University of Texas at Austin. Hartshorne eventually became a long-term emeritus professor at Austin and lived there until his death on October 9, 2000. His wife, Dorothy, was as colorful as her husband and was mentioned often in his writings. Hartshorne never owned an automobile, nor did he smoke or drink alcohol or caffeine; he had a passion for birdsong and became an internationally known expert in the field.

e.g., even though he was internationally known and extremely progressive, he spent the last 38 years of his life in a city--a southern city (albeit Austin)--where he laid down roots, and became a fixture. Don't drive? Check. Don't smoke? Check. Don't drink alcohol or caffeine? Check, for the most part (every now and then I indulge in small amounts, more to be sociable than anything else). And do I find my interests and then get fixated on them? Yeah, pretty much. This guy's me, more or less.

So where do you folks find yourselves leaning? In one of these three directions, or in an unspoken fourth? I think Latasha has started up a heck of a thread here.


Cheers,

TH

Mornin' all. I'm definitely more bohemian than philistine, as described. However, I don't like drugs at all, including prescription and "legal" drugs. (And don't you find that many philistines just *love* drugs, legal and illegal? So many drug warriors have their own little weekend habits.)

This part about the philistines nails it pretty well:

In a later century, Goethe had several comments on the type. "The Philistine not only ignores all conditions of life which are not his own but also demands that the rest of mankind should fashion its mode of existence after his own," and "What is a philistine? A hollow gut, full of fear and hope that God will have mercy!"

"A hollow gut, full of fear ..." Fear of people unlike them, the unknown, different ideas, taxes, you name it ...

The only other thing I'll say now about the bohemian part is how they define the "Rent" era of the 1990s. Uh, the actual final stage of real East Village bohemia was in the 1980s and ended when they closed Tompkins Square Park (due to squatters and homeless people congregating there, rather than in dangerous shelters, and pissing off the developers) in 1990. I know because I had a newspaper there then covering it. "Bohemia" is, or should be, much more complicated than dirty punk kids showing up in their parents' Saab and moving into a squat. But, I digress.

I should mention here that even though I'm a third category, I like hanging around with Bohemians more than I do Philistines. They rock. Likewise, I don't drink or smoke--but most of my friends do. I don't drive--but if none of my friends did either, I'd have a hell of a time getting a ride! And most of my really close friends aren't from around here--they're from other states, sometimes other countries.

The only thing I don't like about people who are more Bohemian is that they have a nasty habit of moving away. And then I feel like bawling like a six-year-old kid. "Don't worry, dear, you'll make new friends..." Comes, I think, from never living outside of Jackson/metro--17 years in Jackson, two years in Brandon, then back to Jackson for the past 8.


Cheers,

TH

And Donna, agreed--the quote from Goethe is chillingly descriptive of a certain mindset we've spent a lot of time discussing here lately. "[N]ot only ignores all conditions of life which are not his own but also demands that the rest of mankind should fashion its mode of existence after his own." Brilliantly cogent.


Cheers,

TH

Glad to hear from you all! I think I'm a member of around 20 forums now (including two that I started), so I had to "disappear" for a minute.

As I mentioned before, I identify more with the bohemian side, but I have so many different traits that I have adopted as my own, I think I'm more like a philosophical mutt. I don't really fit into a particular box, unless the box is shaped like a dodecahedron!