Wagner and Philosophy by Bryan Magee

[Philosophy Now]

Ralph Blumenau devours Bryan Magee’s new book about Wagner the philosophical composer.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/34/Wagner_and_Philosophy_by_Bryan_Magee

[Dubious]

It's rarely mentioned that music can also be a manifestation of philosophy in sound especially in Wagner's case who also created and wrote the drama behind it. Both Jung and Freud admitted that Wagner preceded in some of the ideas they later became famous for. Philosophy gave his music a psychological power as deep as anything written before or since.

Wagner and Philosophy is actually the subtitle of The Tristan Chord; I think that's the book Blumenau was referring to.

[Nick_A]

This is familiar. Wagner was a left wing radical. His early goal was “a view that many of the anarchists were sympathetic to, their objective being to liberate society by political means from all kinds of external control.” He became disillusioned with politics and came to realize that nothing could essentially change for society through politics. Our corrupt will emphasizing the struggle for power denies it.

For Schopenhauer, art (and music as the highest of the arts) also has a liberating role – but for him, art did not liberate one from social oppression but from the world as a whole.

Liberating the heart could minimize social oppression in ways impossible for the political mind

The world is dominated by the Great Beast and its need for prestige and power. Politics is powerless against it which reveals the futility of the secular society.

Wagner reminds me of Simone Weil. Like Wagner, Simone was a dedicated anarchist, Marxist, and atheist with the belief that politics can change the world. Like Wagner she finally understood why this is impossible against the nature of force which creates human will and social oppression.

"Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates. The truth is, nobody really possesses it." - Simone Weil

Simone like Plato spoke of “metaxu;” that which reminds us of our connection with our source. A healthy metaxu can serve to feed the soul and minimize the influence of what Wagner called will.

Wagner had said quite specifically that “it is for art to salvage the essence of religion” which is not a literal but a figurative truth; and the figurative truths of Parsifal are as much embodied in Buddhism as they are in Christianity.

It is obvious how insulting and offensive mentioning Christianity is for our times which emphasize political indoctrination to create the new world based on humanistic values. Those like Wagner and Simone understood why it is just wishful thinking. Simone came to understand what is lacking to assure it remains impossible but what could make it possible.

"Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace." ~ Simone Weil

The dominant secular mind will do what it can in America to deny the influence of grace through a healthy metaxu. Anyone who doubts how art has been degraded into small thoughts is invited to listen to modern music and look at modern art. So what is impossible for society as the Great Beast is possible for individuals who are not closed to the essence of religion and its invitation for grace to help in the struggle against the negative effects of will. We are our own worst enemy. What a world we live in.