I have long been fascinated (and amused) by the arcane Spermists’ theory, who held the belief that the sperm was in fact a ‘little man’ (in Latin, an ‘homunculus’) that was placed inside a woman to grow into a child. This seemed to them to neatly explain many of the mysteries of conception. It was later pointed out that if the sperm was indeed an homunculus—identical in all aspects but size to an adult—then the homunculus must have sperm of its own, [and, in turn, the homunculus’s sperm are themselves micro-homunculi with their own micro-sperm, which, in turn, are nano-homunculi, and so on]. This led to a logical ‘reductio ad absurdum’—an endless chain or infinite regress of [uncountable trillions of] homunculi within homunculi! This was not considered by [reality-challenged] Spermists to be a fatal objection, however—insofar as it neatly explained how it was that, in the biblical Adam, all [future human beings] had sinned: the whole of humanity [and its misdeeds] ‘was already contained in Adam’s loins’.” — Esa-Pekka Salonen, 2008.
I wanted to compose a piece that would be very compact in form and duration, but still contain many different characters and textures. In other words, a little piece that behaves like a big piece... I decided to call my piece ‘Homunculus’ despite the obvious weaknesses of the spermists’ thinking, as I find the idea of a perfect little man strangely moving.” — Esa-Pekka Salonen.
O ne of the ‘complex’ things about ‘complex’ music is its quality of refusing to present a straightforward object (as for instance in much minimal sculpture): it is always perceived in the act of underlining its own ongoing and provisional nature. It doesn’t present the illusion of not being an illusion—in large measure because of the continual problematization of the performance/interpretaton context.” — Brian Ferneyhough, Responses to a Questionnaire on ‘Complexity’, 1990.
T he Korean self is profoundly collectivist while deeply committed to individual self-assertion... I do not assume there is a code—a key value that resolves the conflict. All selves are built up from incompatible elements, and they stay that way... [The Korean self] is not so much a ‘modal’ self as an ‘ideal’ one, reflecting the ideals of Korean culture... kibun—the state of the self-in-society... Koreans are not separate individuals—at least they do not see themselves as such in the same way as Westerners—so the individualistic competition you see Koreans engage in is not really competition among individuals at all [in their view], but among families, the individual always representing more than himself or herself... an ‘amoral familism’.” — C. Fred Alford, The Self Is a Conflict, Not a Continuum, p. 31.
L ee Soo-Won uses the word ‘chong’ to characterize the collective self and ‘exchange’ to characterize the individual self. ‘It is chong that enables us to overcome our own point of view in relationships and fit into the group.’ Lee does not distinguish between good (‘koun) and bad (‘miun’) chong, or between affection and attachment, including those attachments that may be destructive. Does it make any sense to say that Eunyoung has a porous ego, that she is less autonomous than one who gives up everything for love? Does it not make more sense to say that she knows her values, what she cares about, and that one cannot have all of everything one wants, and she is aware of how she would choose? Are these not the attributes of a strong self who knows that reality means choices among values? That hers is a strong group self makes no difference in this regard! Hers is still a strong self—highly individuated without being separated. Koreans are actually more self-aware than Americans because Koreans are more aware of their relationships. Self-awareness is not awareness of a ‘pristine’ self. There is no such thing. Self-awareness is awareness of the self-in-interaction with others, including others who exist only in our memories. Koreans do not have ‘Emersonian Moments’. There are other forms of self-awareness, forms that actually come much closer to what it means to be a real self in the world.” — C. Fred Alford, Why Do Koreans Say ‘We’ and Instead Do ‘I’ ?, p. 55.
