The above news item seems to exemplify Baudelaire's (and Murdoch's)
notion of contingency —
|
"La modernité, c’est le transitoire, le fugitif, le contingent, la moitié de l’art, dont l’autre moitié est l’éternel et l’immuable." — Baudelaire, "Le Peintre de la Vie Moderne," IV (1863) "By 'modernity' I mean the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art whose other half is the eternal and the immutable." — Baudelaire, "The Painter of Modern Life," IV (1863), translated by Jonathan Mayne (in 1964 Phaidon Press book of same title) |
Thanks to the late Marshall Berman for pointing out this remark of Baudelaire.
(All That Is Solid Melts Into Air , Penguin edition of 1988, p. 133)
* For this post's title, see Language Game in this journal on 9/11,
the morning of Berman's reported death.