Pride

During Dr. Palmer’s portion of the lecture, our discussion on patronage caught my interest.   In a sense, to gain dominance as a theatre troop or theatre form, royal patronage was a necessity.   Because the deities backed royalty, theatre, therefore, needed the support of the royalty.  What fascinated my about our discussion was the nature used to receive patronage.  The familiar air of modern culture where politicians campaign for government positions, let alone, the normalcy of campaigning for anything, is something I did not except to encounter in such an ancient art form.  Because the theater is so old, I have this ignorance that biases me into thinking it is pure and untouched by pressures modern society faces and imposes today.  The motif of campaigns that was so immediately and obviously connectable with processes today was shocking, but something that made Noh Theatre time travel to the modern day.

This leaves me to wonder if there is anything that can really be pure.  Can something be untainted by politics and selfishness?  The portrayal of Asian culture in general, especially ancient, throughout this class has painted an almost virgin light over the geographic area.  Performance is not for tourists or entertainment as it is in western society but for the continuance of oral tradition, religion and worship of the divine.  This discussion really cracked the casing of purity I created around Asian culture.  Troops compete to show that their performance is the most holy and invites the most deities.  It becomes a game of hyper-nationalism as well, attempting to prove that the respective performance is the most “wo”- more Japanese than the others.  Royals see the need to have a troop and theatre form that show off the pride of the country and endorse who they are. 

An article I read for a class last semester, “Patriotism as a Menace to Liberty”, blames nationalist qualities of countries for the fighting and wars in the world.  Again, this ruptured the purity surrounding the culture because of political pride.  Royals and troops allow politics and selfishness to touch these sacred art forms and it all seems to stem from pride.  Whether that pride is of the country, troop or individuals, the sin taints theatre.  As many have philosophized that pride is a part of human nature, it does make sense that it is impossible to withhold it from even the most pure- a truly disturbing realization.