What Is D.H.Lawrence's Blood Philosophy?

DH Lawrence once wrote, "My great religion is a belief in the blood, as the flesh being wiser than the intellect. We can go wrong in our minds, but what our blood feels and believes and says, is always true."

To lawrence, the "blood" meant instinct, life force and the unspoken connection that binds societies together. He rejected intellect, science and also religions, like Christianity, that required people to suppress their instincts. As a writer he is most remembered for the explicit sexual content of his novels, but he valued sex mainly as an expression of ancient (ie "blood") feelings and instincts untainted by modern society.

Believing that an industrialised, highly organised modern Western world was becoming detached from "real" life, he was increasingly fascinated by "blood" religions such as the death sacrifices of the ancient Aztecs; and hierearchical societies where people were bound by a "blood connection" rather than looser ties like friendship or self-interest.

Although Lawrence believed he was rejecting the 20th century with his "blood philospophy," ironically many of his theories about instinct, blood sacrifice and submission to a "natural" leader were early expressions of that most 20th-century of belief systems, Fascism.

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