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One of the roles that we at the St. Augustine Society have undertaken is to mitigate the nefarious influence of the Great Noise. The
work of the artist (and we define artist as: poet, writer, painter, searcher - anyone striving for unvarnished truth, and thus all members
of the SAS) is constantly threatened by an onslaught of media that devours time and saps imagination.
Rationalizing, coming to grips with the effluence of the media is a necessary task for any SAS member. To reduce this clutter to a
manageable quantity is a daunting task that few of us can accomplish on our own.
We are surrounded by false art, in newspapers, magazines, movies, most fiction, television. What do we mean by false art? It is
fictional representations that misdirect the mind - endless soap operas that become a torture.
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How shall I speak thee, or thy power address,
Thou God of our idolatry, the press? |
That was written by the 18th century British poet William Cowper. But how much louder is the Great Noise today!
The St. Augustine Society encourages its members to counter false art by the production, and understanding, of true art. True art is
that which can be looked at each time more deeply and will not fail or betray us - art which we can know as a key of gold - art which
verifies our own thoughts.
Another troubling aspect of our culture that the SAS deals with, is understanding the prevalent social hysteria. We all face the frenzy
of constantly being entertained. In this all-entertainment society, filled with enticing toys, we can easily fall into the trap of thinking
that these toys will make us feel better about ourselves, will bring some measure of peace. When this doesn't happen, we seek yet
bigger toys. We stay busy, busy, busy, filling our lives with idle desires and meaningless diversions.
This social hysteria puts far too much pressure on couples, and often results in the fragmentation of the family. We in the SAS deal
with the isolation that many feel, by providing a forum for like-minded individuals to develop and sustain the insights necessary to
handle the banal materialism, abundant bestiality and perpetual rage now flourishing in our society.
In the St. Augustine Society, we spend much time distinguishing between social values and true values, between what is seen by our
culture as progress, as success, and what is true progress within ourselves. We deal with the weight of a culture premised on the
marketplace, not on a higher order, in which many people are drowning in a sea of doubt. In essence, we seek to end the painful
dualism between our culture and our ideas. As Augustine wrote, we are "by custom downward hurled into the pit".
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