CHAPTER 4: The DEMOCRATIC (R)EVOLUTION We are better than we realize we are. For the first time, we can now create institutions of governance that elicit our best. Copyright 2026 by Paul L. LaClair
Value for Thursday of Week 43 in the season of Assessing
Purifying
In human affairs, purity is an ideal.
- A pure hand needs no glove to cover it! [Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.]
- Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world. [This is generally thought to reflect the thinking of George Bernard Shaw.]
- What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity- and serenity . . . [Henri Matisse]
In our model, purification does not mean sterility. It means cleansing the self of bad habits, practices and actions, and their accompanying guilt, shame and self-flagellation.
Real
True Narratives
Book narratives:
- Claire Dederer, Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2010): the author tells how yoga helped her escape an addiction to perfectionism, a story that many people will see as ironic. For her, this was a path to purification.
Technical and Analytical Readings
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
Poetry
I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons, / And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.
This man was a wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person, / The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness and breadth of his manners, / These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also, / He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome, / They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him, / They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal love, / He drank water only, the blood show'd like scarlet through the clear-brown skin of his face, / He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail'd his boat himself, he had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him, / When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish, you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang, / You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other.
[Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1891-92), Book IV: Children of Adam, “I Sing the Body Electric” (3).]
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Perfectionism denotes striving toward the perfect – an absence of impurities, flaws or defects. An excessive focus on the perfect can inhibit creativity but “Musical Perfectionist” Herbert von Karajan successfully navigated in both worlds throughout his long career as a conductor of the world’s greatest orchestras. However: “Critics and audiences marveled at the flawless sheen he could elicit from the Berlin Philharmonic and the other ensembles he conducted, but some found his interpretations almost too polished, lacking in soul and drama. Von Karajan was an autocrat on the podium, and his fabled perfectionism resulted in exhilarating orchestral sound but did not encourage fresh thinking.” “A perfectionist who was often tyrannical, he would first work with the orchestra in the studio, recording the operas on disc, in order to be perfectly prepared for the stage.” “Inspired by years of practising meditation and yoga, Karajan cultivated a sensuous web of sound that moved seamlessly from one moment to another, as though suspending time itself.” He insisted on “complete artistic control of sound and film” before allowing video discs of his work to be released in the 1980s. “The conductor was a perfectionist in his personal as well as his public life. . . Karajan could be very self-critical, was never late and hardly ever socialised after concerts.” Richard Osborne and Roger Vaughan have authored books about him. He has been the subject of documentary films in 1999 and 1977. Here he is conducting in 1966, in rehearsal, and in interview in 1977. Here are links to his extensive playlists and releases.
Clara Haskil was a classical pianist “renowned for the purity of her interpretations of classical composers”. “As a pianist, her playing was marked by a purity of tone and phrasing that may have come from her skill as a violinist.” “. . . analytical issues melt away into irrelevance as we’re pulled into pure music. Clara Haskil’s Mozart unfolds so effortlessly and naturally that the music seems to be playing through the performer.” Here is a link to her playlists.
Violinist Henryk Szeryng “was known for the purity of his playing - exact intonation, well-organized phrasing and a broad, sweet, vibrato-filled tone that nevertheless did not sound oppressive.” “A man of phenomenal intellect, he combined exemplary musical taste with a super-refined technique and ravishing purity of intonation.” “. . . perhaps what makes Szeryng’s playing so striking is how little attention he called to himself, how few superfluous flourishes there were, how every interpretive decision appeared to be guided by an abiding fidelity to the score. A certain anonymity may have resulted, but there was also purity in his approach, an absolute willingness to subsume the ego for the sake of the composer.” Here is a link to his playlists.
When my niece married in the Pocono region of Pennsylvania one afternoon during the height of autumn foliage display, she had asked that I bring some of my CD collection to play during the afternoon. When “Edi Beo Thu Hevene Quene”, from Anonymous 4’s splendid “An English Ladymass” album sounded above the golds and reds of the autumn leaves on that gorgeous day, I knew that this music had created a special memory not only for my niece but also for the many guests who came by to ask “what is that!” Anonymous 4, a female a capella group, achieved an ethereal purity of sound, in keeping with their chosen repertoire of chant and polyphony from medieval England. Here is a link to their playlists.
Similar to Anonymous 4’s ethereal sound is the album by Nino Albarosa & Mediae Aetatis Sodalicium, “Dum clamaren: Dolore e speranza nel Canto Gregoriano” (2014) (69’).
As performed by Bach Collegium Japan, with soloists, under Masaaki Suzuki’s direction, Bach’s sacred cantatas sound pure, unadorned and almost ascetic.
Performed by Lama Tashi, Tibetan chant also conveys the idea of purification, as on his album “Tibetan Master Chants” (2004) (57’).
Another take on purity is Catherine Lamb’s distillation of the string quartet form to its bare essence, as in her string quartet, “Two Blooms” (2009) (approx. 47’).
Music: songs and other short pieces
- Dolly Parton, “Pure and Simple” (lyrics)
- The Lightning Seeds, “Pure” (lyrics)
Visual Arts
- François Boucher, Diana Getting Out of Her Bath (1742)
- Johannes Vermeer, Diana and Her Companions (1653)
Film and Stage
- The Man Without a Past: losing all memory of his past is like the Buddhist admonition to empty our cups; the film is about “losing memories but gaining life”
