The Anthropological Argument of Blaise Pascal or…”Who Are You?”

Excerpts from Pascal’s “Pensees” that were the impetus for “Manifest Propensity…thoughts for deposed royalty”:

430 The greatness and the wretchedness of man are so evident that the true religion must necessarily teach us both that there is in man some great source of greatness, and a great source of wretchedness. It must then give us a reason for these astonishing contradictions.

Andrew Bird’s Noble Beast, Part 7: “Masterswarm”

Masterswarm

Come what may

Lay your eggs where it’s warm
We come here to swarm

Andrew Bird’s Noble Beast, Part 6: “Anonanimal”

With “Anonanimal” Andrew Bird has provided us with lyrics and a video that seem to be about some sort of “evolution”.

Andrew Bird’s Noble Beast, Part 5: “Natural Disaster”

This is part 5 in my series of considering the theme of the album Noble Beast by Andrew Bird. I have already considered the songs Oh No, Nomenclature, and Fitz and the Dizzyspells. These three songs all dealt in one way or another with the theme of liberation

Andrew Bird’s Noble Beast, Part 3: “Nomenclature”

This is the third installation in my attempt to gain insight on the relationship of Andrew Bird’s songs in “Noble Beast” to the concepts of Wellsian scientism vs. Pascalian anthropology.

Andrew Bird’s Noble Beast, Part 2: “Oh No”

In Andrew Bird’s Noble Beast, Part 1, I raised the question whether in “Noble Beast,”Andrew Bird was “presenting” the biblical anthropology of Blaise Pascal, or the evolutionary scientism of H.G. Wells, or if he was espousing something in-between these philosophies. I should probably begin by explaining what I mean by Andrew Bird “presenting” these views or something in-between. I obviously have no way of knowing of Andrew Bird’s relationship to these philosophies

Andrew Bird’s Noble Beast, Part 1

In the above photograph I believe that we have been given an insight into a major theme in many of the compositions of Andrew Bird.