Abstract

For a variety of reasons stemming from the domination of the rationalist stance in western civilization, it came to be felt that the immediate--whether in the form of the esthetic, the shock of existing or just "being there," direct encounter, or the thrill of the moment--is in need of being preserved inviolate from the forms of articulation. And the underlying assumption prompting such concern for the immediate was that articulation is somehow alien to Being in the sense that passage from the immediate via signs and meanings inevitably distorts, impoverishes and, in some fundamental way, transforms it beyond recognition. The sense of impoverishment coupled with a cosmic sorrow in the face of such a loss has led to celebration of the immediate, a more or less desperate attempt to hold fast to what cannot be said or articulated. Much of the mindlessness manifested in modern life is to be traced back to this celebration of immediacy as such.