Paris: pen and sword

[ by Charles Cameron — my father was a gunnery officer & I’m a writer — sword > word > world? ]

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The pen and sword issue is fundamentally that of word and deed, isn’t it? Only in this case, the “pen” is “pen and paint”.

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How Dutch cartoonist @RLOppenheimer sees @Charlie_Hebdo_ terrorist attack #JesuisCharlie #IamCharlie pic.twitter.com/R19p0M7GfN

— Victor d'Allant (@dallant) January 7, 2015

Cartoonists stand in solidarity with #CharlieHebdo victims with these powerful images http://t.co/Tbg2WDiIHF pic.twitter.com/YxplDkNUy4

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) January 7, 2015

#CharlieHebdo in the eyes of #CharlieHebdo pic.twitter.com/v195erxsY2

— Zaid Benjamin (@zaidbenjamin) January 7, 2015

and then again:

Weapons of mass creation #JeSuisCharlie #freedomofexpression pic.twitter.com/OxObQH84U4

— Martina Leingruber (@leingruber) January 7, 2015

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Will we ever get to the bottom of this complex of koans, in which our thoughts are part of the very reality they purport to represent?

You remember Goethe‘s Faust wanted to translate In the beginning was the Word as In the beginning was the deed?

In the beginning was the..

thought

image

word

deed

fact

The relationship between thought and world — word and world, image and world — is of utmost importance and, I suspect, far from easily grasped by anything less than battering one’s head against reality.