Retallack #1: section 28 from "Western Civ Cont'd"

I didn't see the hare until I started reading the comments and did wonder why the Z was a bit off centre. Now I see nothing but the hare! My favourite part of this piece is the start of the answer to her initial question: who can deny the many replicating breaks, the many changes of scale
I start to think of the repeated wars and power struggles in human history and the ever changing boundaries of territories.

The Tale about Hare and Tortoise is one of the most ancient and famous because this is one of Aesop's fables adapted many times for children from all European countries and known for children who are touched somehow by Western civilization beyond Europe. The latter always praises swift achievement and tends to underestimate slow, successive way to goals. Western civilization is based mostly on rational approach, underlining legalist principles of law and religion (if we speak generally about Christianity as religion that defined and shaped what we now call West), ambition and desire for achievement made it run hurriedly and not pay attention to other things that could be important  and precious for other civilizations. West often looked at other civilizations with their own foundations and culture as if they were wrong or as if they did not know right things yet, their story seemed not interesting because it was their view, their version, and there was not enough time to stop, observe and think about others. When you have multiple stories, you immediately get many interpretations, and life becomes slower, more complicated, probably too complicated for quick decisions.
The last line of the poem is also interesting. Horizon is only imaginary line that does not disappear but goes further if we approach it. Horizon marks limits but also helps to orientate and choose direction. But dust hid horizon, and we found ourselves left without map , compass or manual instruction): what and how to do. And we do not know what we will discover after dust storm.
Correct references, cultural allusions, numbers and logically structured argumentation are symbols of Western science and Western culture but sometimes ratio does not help but prevents from perception of beauty and wonder of this world. If one catalogues reality (even bees), reality could turn into numerous fragments, and it is difficult to see a whole picture in them.
The shape of "z", usual last letter of Latin alphabet, hints at the end of the chapter. But we know that Latin civilization was based on Greek culture (Aesop), and Greek alphabet has "omega" as the last letter, thus Western civilization could use new alphabet again.

     Hey Miranda! Love the idea of the zoom! esp as it goes in either direction. How much would we not know or even guess at if not for the microscope or the telescope? And a good compliment to Sophianaz's Z as zig-zag. Not being all-too acquainted with Retallack's work but aware of her investigation into fragments (fractals?) of words, I really like your pointing to the interpretation (O ModPo exegetes!) of poetry at the level of the letter or even phoneme: “the line, the word, the very letter.”


     I felt that's what the poem was illustrating in the assonantal rhymes of replicating/breaks/scale/(and later, excavations) and then (even more so) in exegetes/agree/bee/see (and later needs/reveals) - zooming in on the fractal nature of poetry or prosody where sounds replicate in self-similarity.


     Also loved your pointing out the twin excavations at Troy and in our lawns and gardens – epic and everyday as you say, but also digging down and digging up – as in zooming in and zooming out. Maybe the gophers are trying to discover our carefully crafted story?

Lawns, gophers, bees, tortoises & hares: The merits of ‘Western Civilisation’ are much disputed now, so I read the title “WESTERN CIV CONT’D” in that context. The title implies various questions, including: how has it continued, how will it continue, should it continue and if it does not, what will replace it? That it is fully capitalized suggests that our history is important, although CIV, being a kind of slang, suggests that the concept of civilization itself requires some investigation.

So what do lawns and gophers have to do with hares and tortoises? The lawn/gopher story has a fable quality to it, namely a moral. In this case, no matter what you do to ‘beautify’ your world, there will always be a corrupting influence that has to be dealt with. It’s possible to argue then the Western Civilisation – even all human endeavour – whether at the micro village level or at the macro level of large swathes of time, involve two steps forward and one step back.

“Black gold” ie oil, is a great example. Its discovery heralded the most technologically advanced ‘civilisation’ in history. Yet the ‘gopher’ of this particular story is climate change. Enough said!

As for tortoises, hares, and a shepherdess, I think that issues of selfishness and altruism, optimism and pessimism underpin Retallack’s retelling of the early fable and later nursery rhyme. To be a hare is to be selfish, out to win. While this is not evident in the original tale, Retallack’s question, ‘we’re all in it together, right?’ implies this kind of analysis. In the nursery rhyme, Bo-Peep loses her sheep, which all return to her despite her oversight – ie, not all bad outcomes are of the lawn/gopher variety. That’s the optimism, pessimism link.

If we’re to survive the profound challenges that Western Civilisation’s insistence on progress, etc, implies, are we ‘all in it together’, or will those who are selfish, in it for themselves, be the ones who are best equipped to survive? Facebook executives buying up islands - preparing for safe havens in which to retreat when the coming climate/economic collapse finally arrives - that kind of thing, is what’s being alluded to here.

These four qualities are fundamental, psychological categories that inform all human endeavour. Do you look on the bright side, and if you do, are you more likely to survive the coming apocalypse, ie WEST CIV dis-CONT’D?

Also, all the early fables were written for and read originally by adults. Socrates, in prison, is said to have quoted from Aesop. It’s only in the Renaissance, and later, that the fables became the means of both morally educating and entertaining children.

Fables go to how morals are disseminated and morals involve how we live together, structure communities, and ultimately get along, or not. Perhaps it’s time we all start reading fables again, and take them seriously. It’s not a bad idea!

When it comes to bees and runways, is Retallack alluding to the vast shifts in research that are occurring about how the natural world organizes itself independently of human endeavour? The moral lives of animals, the inner life of trees, etc. What can be learned from that?

Finally, yes, in all likelihood, a petal is a landing strip for a bee! The early Japanese haiku writers would have no problem with that kind of imagery. In one of Basho’s haiku, a bee emerges ‘drunk’ from a flower, staggering! Pleasure! Delight! Lose those qualities, in how you interact with the world around you, and you’re well and truly lost. There’s another fable!

     If in a sense every moment is a replicating break between the past and the future, what would a narrative of a moment look like, a narrative of the now – a story that ends before it can begin yet containing every narrative within it in potentia.  THAT WHICH IS and THAT WHICH ISN”T. Always changing weight each time you weigh it with your attention.