| The Who – Eminence Front Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| @[ZrichKrarkO:43805] This is a new level of poetry. | |
| The Who – Eminence Front Lyrics | 3 years ago |
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Might I give you an example of how “the wheel turns”? Back in 1899 Joseph Conrad (A.K.A. Josef Korzeniowski) wrote a novel called Heart of Darkness. It focuses on the ivory trade run by Belgian colonists in Africa’s Congo Free State under King Leopold II, as well as the oppression and exploitation of the blacks native to the region, who face untold horrors and torture if they under-deliver in ivory. This novel is the basis of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, which, although set in Vietnam during the 1960s, explores the same themes of obsession with power and imperialism. It stands up there with George Orwell’s 1984 and other terrifying but iconic dystopian novels about power and control. More than 100 years later, the Belgian colony in the Congo is a thing of the past. Nobody among us would buy a piano with ivory keys, if we knew that it had killed an elephant. We do our best to be environmentally conscious and might even by driving electric cars to help save the environment. But the cobalt in our car batteries is being mined in the Congo by the local blacks, some of whom are as young as 14, who are trying to support their family for less than $1 a day. Because the work conditions are harsh and worker’s safety is non-existent (i.e. no helmets), the death toll is high. The wheel turns. People forget. Revolutions come and go. Stock markets crash. Thomas Cole’s Course of Empire completes its stages for different empires. The Cloud Atlas keeps going. Unfortunately, Western society is traumatized by a desperate cultural poverty. Maybe we could stop the wheel and become more conscious by connecting to our old traditions as well as archetypal myths and stories, like indigenous cultural groups have done in the past. That way, we could rescue our intuitions and become more cognizant of the powers of imperialism and control that are trying to stuff the hole in our culture by selling us more televisions, boats, and alcohol, so that we can forget. I think The Who are saying those objects are just an Eminence Front, and not what we need to be fulfilled. |
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