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ABOUT KAMRAN’s Blog and GUEST BLOG

I- KAMRAN’s Blog: Dedicated to the Common Good- aiming to be a source of hope and inspiration; enabling us all to move from despair to hope; darkness to light and competition to cooperation. “Let the beauty we love be what we do.”-Rumi

II- KAMRAN MOFID’s GUEST’s BLOG: Here on The Guest Blog you’ll find commentary, analysis, insight and at times provocation from some of the world’s influential and spiritual thought leaders as they weigh in on critical questions about the state of the world, the emerging societal issues, the dominant socio-economic logic, globalisation, money, markets, sustainability, dialogue, cooperation, environment, media, spirituality, faith, culture, the youth, the purpose of business and economic life, the crucial role of leadership, and the challenges facing economic, business, management, education, and more.

“When we are dreaming alone it is only a dream. When we are dreaming together it is the beginning of reality.”—Helder Camara

Angel Oak Tree, Charleston, South Carolina, USA

Photo: pinterest.com

Details: Written by: Kamran Mofid; Published: 13 January 2021; Hits: 953

Friday, January 20, 2017- Wednesday, January 6, 2021:

When America Lost Reason and Humanity to Ignorance, Religious Fundamentalism and Bigotry

'Monsters are the result of the sleep of reason.'— Francisco Goya

Goya portrait painted by Vicente López y Portaña (1772–1850) on display at the Prado National Museum, Spain.

Two centuries ago, Spain was a mess. Struggling to escape the Inquisition. Invaded by Napoleon’s France. Wracked by war, confusion, random cruelty. In the midst of all that, the great Spanish master Francisco Goya painted, made prints, of kings and aristocrats. And then of chaos. The Sleep of Reason. The Disasters of War. Execution. Torture... In our time of attacks on democracy, atrocity and dismay, hopelessness and despair, anger and frustration and the rise of monsters, Goya is showing us the perils of forgetfulness and turning our backs on reason.

‘Want to understand the Capitol rioters? Look at the inflamed hate-drunk mobs painted by Goya...

because no artist better captured collective delusion and mass fanaticism.’- Jonathan Jones

‘It could be Trump on the banner … detail from The Burial of the Sardine, 1808-12’.

Photo: DEA/G Dagli Orti/De Agostini/Getty Images/Via The Guardian

Goya's Lesson on the Fall of Reason and Humanity in the US under Trump

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

Goya, Plate 43, "Los Caprichos": The sleep of reason produces monsters, 1799, etching, aquatint, drypoint, and burin.

(The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

In this ominous image, we see the dark vision of humanity. A man sleeps, apparently peacefully, even as bats and owls threaten from all sides and a lynx lays quiet, but wide-eyed and alert. Another creature sits at the center of the composition, staring not at the sleeping figure, but at us. Goya forces the viewer to become an active participant in the image––the monsters of his dreams even threaten us. We forget this at our own peril.

Friday, January 20, 2017- Wednesday, January 6, 2021:

When America Lost Reason and Humanity to Ignorance, Religious Fundamentalism and Bigotry

‘Goya even gave a name to our current plight, in a print of a man resting his head on a desk as if giving up on trying to understand the world. All around his despairing form, strange monsters of the night materialise with the shining cold eyes of owls and cats. On the side of his desk is an inscription that translates as: “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters,” wherein Goya criticized the rampant political, social, and religious abuses of the time period.’

'Follow the flag … pro-Trump supporters breach the US Capitol building on 6 January.'

Photo: Michael Nigro/Pacific Press/Rex/Shutterstock/Via The Guardian

...‘The great neoclassical monuments of Washington DC were begun in Goya’s lifetime and continued through the 1800s. Their harmonious design sang the beauty of reason at the very moment the artist witnessed it fail in Spain. The Capitol building was started in 1793 as part of Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s grand plan for a spacious, calm, yet sublime monumental Washington whose classical geometries express an unshakable belief in rational republican optimism. Goya returned to Madrid that same year after losing his hearing and hope for humanity.

L’Enfant’s confidence and optimism now seem to have vanished. Goya’s dark pessimism has far more pertinence to the last days of Trump’s tenure. The invasion of the Capitol brought the Spaniard’s horrific vision to Washington, as the logical architecture of the Capitol clashed with the chaos that filled it. Neoclassicism meets Goya, reason is overrun by madness, and lawlessness threatens to swallow the republic.’- Jonathan Jones, ‘Want to understand the Capitol rioters? Look at the inflamed hate-drunk mobs painted by Goya’, The Guardian, 12 January 2021

......

This is When Reason Loses and Ignorance Wins

'Fire, pestilence and a country at war with itself'

'A pandemic unabated, an economy in meltdown, cities in chaos over police killings.

All our supposed leader does is tweet.'- Robert Reich