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John Dunn
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John Dunn original writing
Undifferentiated and ultimately globalised
Within Lurianic Kaballah, the Shevirat HaKeilim - ‘The Shattering of the Vessels’ -resulted in a broken, or fallen world, the irrational world, which to Spinoza was concomitant with the Renaissance humanism that exiled his people. Central to this ‘fallen world’ was the Renaissance humanist view that in his capacity for creative spontaneity and play, frivolity even, man is the ‘living image of God’ (imago viva Dei) and has the capacity to be a ‘human god’ and a ‘second creator’. Rationality and play are polar opposites in terms of worldviews. Spinoza held the Counter-Renaissance position. His self-imposed challenge was to determine how to mend the injury suffered by the Godhead, how to reverse the fall and how to return to oneness from a shattered world. It would be through reason that Spinoza would lead his people home. Reason would equate to the Tikkun of the Lurianic Kaballah. It would be through a self-contained and kabbalistic rationality that a return to the divine perfection of Ein Sof, the undifferentiated ‘Substance’, would be understood. Ein Sof would serve as a metaphor for the undifferentiated and ultimately globalised ‘Republick of Merchants’.
© John Dunn.
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From the archive:
Heidegger and improvised being
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Love and creativity
The real and only meaningful opposition is between those whose banners bear the symbols of love and creativity and those devoid of love, life and humanity who would have us return to the One, the ‘amorphous state of pre-Eros, pre-Love and pre-Being’.
John Dunn
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Just a thought:
This too is the premise of Dante's cosmos, in which all natures have their bent, their given instincts. Just as a flame always rises when lit, a stone always falls when dropped. This is the natural order. The question should already be rising in the reader’s mind - are we like that? Think of that child, who turns spontaneously without necessity ‘to what delights it.’ The answer to the question is, most emphatically, no. Beatrice explains by ex- panding upon the theme of creativity with a metaphor from art. ‘Just as form is sometimes inadequate to the artist’s intention, because the material fails to answer, so the creature, that has power, so impelled, to swerve towards some other place, sometimes deserts the track.’ John Dunn (Renaissance: Counter-Renaissance)
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The Oxford to Cambridge Arc 3
Further additions to the project, starting with the Buckingham to Newport Pagnell leg of Ogilby's 1675 Oxford to Cambridge route.
John Dunn
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Motorcycle England
YouTube Channel
In search of the historical, quirky and unusual features of the English countryside as seen from the saddle.
Join me as I follow maps, park up and take a look around. CLICK HERE
“Seeking out historical places of interest has given me wonderful motorcycling opportunities over the years… roads and little lanes, through a variety of landscapes that bear the scars, marks and imprints of those that have trodden, worked and fought on the land before us.”
“Any excursion, whether it be by motorcycle, car, bicycle or on foot, is always better for having an object, or goal in mind. I could take no pleasure in riding around just for the sake of it. There has to be a mission.”
“I ride my motorcycle to seek out things ancient, quirky and monumental, taking in the views, and ‘reading’ the landscape,its geology and history, as I do so.”
Original commentary to all videos researched, written and read by John Dunn.
© John Dunn.
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