"...that discipline needs to be learned and will unloack a deeper experience of the work." I think this is extremely important. Both in the first chapter of your book and then in the conclusion (pp. 161-4), you point out that people in our society tend to want unmediated, immediate access. Nothing less is dismissed as "elitist." I think, of the many extremely profound insights of your book, perhaps the one that sticks out the most to me is how you point out, whether implicitly or explicitly all throughout your book, that the discussion and production of modern art is itself a tradition. Cultured despisers do not want to have to do the work to enter into such a (or any, really) tradition. As you say above, "it takes work to look at art and that work takes time." One thing I've been thinking about regarding how all discourses are traditioned would be to simply just point this out. For instance, people who are into theology/philosophy discussions know that their disciplines definitely come out of a tradition and so they must do the hard work to study those before them. Cynthia Nielsen often points out something similar in regard to jazz: you've always got to first learn the standards, the works of the masters, and then hone your chops on the structures of the chord progressions so that you can then improvise. But this applies to just about anything: computer programmers must learn languages (usually multipe ones with varying grammars); lawyers must go through the Bar exam and all the requisite schooling; scientists must learn the actual scientific method and spend many hours in the lab or in the field practicing their craft (see Michael Polanyi's work); etc. A comment posted on this blog a few years ago even brings this out a bit: I remember reading where Oprah told Toni Morrison that she liked her books but found herself consulting the dictionary sometimes in order to understand. “That, my dear,” replid Ms. Morrison, “is called reading.” Therefore, perhaps it might be helpful to point out that the tradition of modern art and art criticism are traditions in analogous ways to how each of our own disciplines are traditions. The chapter on art criticism and the ensuing dialogues between Greenberg and Rosenberg helpfully showed that there are entire conversations around which entire disciplines are defined, for instance. Just ask any scientist about "science" and they'll quickly tell you that many of them disagree with each other (just witness the many Darwinisms in evolutionary theory: Gould, Dawkins, Simon Conway Morris all have divergent approaches). I think here your emphasis on participatory language in the book is very helpful, too: you're calling for Christians to actually participate in this (pre-existent) tradition.

Adam, Again, thanks, fascinating. A thought and a question: Based on Oyama's helpful definition then, it seems that even those like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett are ultimately operating on "theistic" assumptions for their "atheistic" premises. I think Oyama is really helpful here, as evolution cannot be reducible to a single thing like genes. (My superviser is really positive on Oyama, I just discovered.) According to Oyama, this usual conception, which needs to be short-circuited (Oyama, Evolution's Eye, p. 78), has everything run through a single bottleneck of constraints (heredity vis-a-vis genes). But on her account, there is no longer a single bottleneck but now multiple constraints, influences, etc. Thus you quote Oyama: “What I am arguing for here,” she says, “is a view of causality that gives formative weight to all operative influences, since none is alone sufficient for the phenomenon or for any of its properties” (18, emphasis yours). My question is simultaneously one of biology and theology then: what becomes the 'selector' of the emergence or arrival of something? And what determines if this is 'better', 'worse', or say, more 'fit'? Philosophically speaking, one may end up with some sort of biological 'Stoicism' of sorts if one equates 'grace' with whatever arrives on these networks of multiply contingent and weakly causal pathways. Now that I think of it, perhaps that is the wrong question to ask, since that seems to be what exactly Oyama and you are trying to subvert, as now there are multiple selectors?

Adam, Thank you for this absolutely fascinating series of posts. It seems like a kind of mashing together of the onticology of Deleuze / Levi Bryant (Larval Subsjects) and the 'precision' of the flesh-talk at the end seems to sound uncannily like Michel Henry there at the end with all the talk of flesh and auto-affectivity (I am the Truth, "Phenomenology of Life", etc.). Assuming that it is a kind of Henry-ian (?) emphasis on the flesh, I would have to wonder if there is not ultimately an 'immanently' theistic sense to what you are doing after all? At least as far as Henry is concerned, it seems he is willing to reject Janicaud's rejection of the "religious turn" in French phenomenology, and the way Henry does that is precisely by focusing on the flesh that we all share not only as humans, but with the rest of creation. When Henry attempts his phenomenology of the flesh in light of the Word made flesh, it seems he is intentionally blurring the boundaries and categories. The identity of a unique suffering with the auto-affectivity of flesh of human beings is then, in a sense, not necessarily a bad thing when read in this way at all, but like you said, something for which to be thankful. Excellent posts. Peace, Eric

While we're on the subject of the history of Dr Who, this is a totally rad video of the making of the Dr Who theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDxFqw36KQ0

While we're on the subject of the history of Dr Who, this is a totally rad video of the making of the Dr Who theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDxFqw36KQ0

Reminds me slightly of Oingo Boing's Dead Man's Party album cover (and music video!).

Reminds me slightly of Oingo Boing's Dead Man's Party album cover (and music video!).

"I must come up with some way of helping people not feel self conscious when it's Q&A time." Wait a second, in light of the narrative above, the answer is obvious: serve beer to the fans at Mysterious Galaxy!

"I must come up with some way of helping people not feel self conscious when it's Q&A time." Wait a second, in light of the narrative above, the answer is obvious: serve beer to the fans at Mysterious Galaxy!

If you haven't already seen it, Gabe at Penny-Arcade drew this up: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/03/04

If you haven't already seen it, Gabe at Penny-Arcade drew this up: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/03/04

Wil, Maybe you could make your feed only show the first so many characters so that it pulls the syndication/blog readers (like myself) to your site. I still read plenty of blogs that do this in some capacity or another, and it would take care of wondering whether or not people are seeing the cool stuff you put in your side content. Personally, I don't mind the extra click. I mean, it's just one click. If people love you (like I do), then stuff like that is not going to matter and we'll want to read you regardless. Peace, Eric

Wil, Maybe you could make your feed only show the first so many characters so that it pulls the syndication/blog readers (like myself) to your site. I still read plenty of blogs that do this in some capacity or another, and it would take care of wondering whether or not people are seeing the cool stuff you put in your side content. Personally, I don't mind the extra click. I mean, it's just one click. If people love you (like I do), then stuff like that is not going to matter and we'll want to read you regardless. Peace, Eric

Like iceberg above, I also saw them open for NIN in San Diego at SOMA back in May. Absolutely. Incredible. If you like their CD, you will absolutely love their live performance. So make sure to see them the next time they swing by (or near) your 'hood! Peace, Eric

Like iceberg above, I also saw them open for NIN in San Diego at SOMA back in May. Absolutely. Incredible. If you like their CD, you will absolutely love their live performance. So make sure to see them the next time they swing by (or near) your 'hood! Peace, Eric