I am an ascetic. - Am I therefore also a masochist? "He who possesses is possessed." And yet, the idea occurs as early as Nietzsche that asceticism is cruelty turned inward; it is the tyranny of the soul over the body, which it denies as its true source. And yet there come times when one recoils in horror at the thought that one is nothing more than the moment of meat's becoming aware of itself. One rediscovers the appeal of the renunciation that comes with the idea that I am something immaterial and transcendent, imprisoned in this transient, weak, corruptible flesh - the word flesh itself disgusts me. But reflection perpetuates this divide, while experience reconciles the opposing substances and merges them back into a single awareness turned outward. Reflection is a corrosive force - after all, reflection on the foreignness of one's own body soon leads to reflection on the foreignness of some mental habit or other, the non-essentialness of some character trait/flaw. One begins to peel away the layers of one's personality, seeking the core, only to discover the nothingness of one's ego. Aside from the layers, which are all contingent, there is nothing there. People say more than they realize with the proverb "the eyes are the window to the soul." The black mirror of the pupil is the I itself - glass, transparent and opaque all at once, reflecting the outside world in its own nothingness. Between the falsehood of the outside and the nonexistence of the inside, what remains? Shifting illusions? Whence comes the concept of truth?
A related thought: if universality - the attempt to free oneself from all illusions of a particular point of view - resolves into nothingness, the point of view from nowhere, then how far can one move from the mire of one's subjectivity into the realm that exists between two subjects? Can anything be said, or is each word non-identical with its repetition?
To be continued in a more lucid state of mind.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
Growing Up
Some days, the collective weight of all the stupid banalities of life is almost enough to break the surface of one's worthless day-to-day existence and force a transformative change, a leap into the abyss, which one knows is filled with hope because one knows nothing about its contents.
But only almost.
But only almost.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Going Camping
Consider for a moment the tragic arrangement of life: the necessity of working away one's youth in order to secure one's survival in old age. Surely the progress accomplished over thousands of years could do something to liberate human beings from the tyranny of nature, and allow them to do what they want - that dream of emancipation, whose continued failure to materialize constitutes the ultimate, unjustifiable failure of capitalism.
Now consider the possibility that people have contrived a partial remedy for this disappointment. They invented the modern university so that young people on the threshold of adulthood would be permitted four years of nearly unstructured enjoyment before relinquishing their agency and submitting themselves to the economy. College as vacation from the outside world, paid for with a lifetime of work. Each generation saves for a lifetime to give their progeny this gift. And the children, having enjoyed the fruits of their parents' labor must repay it for the next generation. Asking for more than this when your parents have given so much so that you could have your four years of idle fun - that is the height of immodesty. Small wonder that those who try to evade entry into the workforce by extending their tenure as students earn the contempt of others. Rather than celebrating the success of the few, the many condemn them for emphasizing the non-necessity of the majority's sacrifice.
The most satisfying part of this model is that it explains why college is so easy - why no one seems to mind (or admit) that even in the allegedly rigorous universities, dedicated students find ample time for enjoyment - far more than in the 'real world' of forty-hour work weeks. Everyone knows, and yet no one acknowledges, that college is one part work and three parts fun. It is a time for acceptable transgressions - even expected ones, in the manner of the Spartan youths.
There is the other side, of course - that by the arbitrary demands of its bureaucratic systems, the caprices of professors, the student learns to jump through hoops like a good white-collar worker. The college years are not a total loss for society.
Now consider the possibility that people have contrived a partial remedy for this disappointment. They invented the modern university so that young people on the threshold of adulthood would be permitted four years of nearly unstructured enjoyment before relinquishing their agency and submitting themselves to the economy. College as vacation from the outside world, paid for with a lifetime of work. Each generation saves for a lifetime to give their progeny this gift. And the children, having enjoyed the fruits of their parents' labor must repay it for the next generation. Asking for more than this when your parents have given so much so that you could have your four years of idle fun - that is the height of immodesty. Small wonder that those who try to evade entry into the workforce by extending their tenure as students earn the contempt of others. Rather than celebrating the success of the few, the many condemn them for emphasizing the non-necessity of the majority's sacrifice.
The most satisfying part of this model is that it explains why college is so easy - why no one seems to mind (or admit) that even in the allegedly rigorous universities, dedicated students find ample time for enjoyment - far more than in the 'real world' of forty-hour work weeks. Everyone knows, and yet no one acknowledges, that college is one part work and three parts fun. It is a time for acceptable transgressions - even expected ones, in the manner of the Spartan youths.
There is the other side, of course - that by the arbitrary demands of its bureaucratic systems, the caprices of professors, the student learns to jump through hoops like a good white-collar worker. The college years are not a total loss for society.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Methodology
In Postmodernism, Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Fredric Jameson writes of the inevitable incompleteness of any theory of the postmodern. Postmodernism, whether characterized, as with Lyotard, by the end of "master narratives," or, with Jameson, by the disappearance of the historicity of the modern age, is still described by those experiencing and observing it in narrative or historical terms (pp. xi-xii). But this seems unavoidable. For how else to conceptualize postmodernity (I struggle against the desire to write 'postmodern age'), except as a distinct period, differentiated from those that came before it by whatever peculiarities may be most relevant, but above all, perhaps, by its currentness. It seems that our ordinary conception of time inevitably connects the postmodern to the past as the latest in a series of discrete steps. However diffuse it is, by calling it postmodernism - by imagining it at all - we give it coherence, for we cannot imagine what has no form and no discernable characteristics.
The theoretical approaches characteristic of postmodernity call into question such concepts as narrative and truth. The questioning of truth, in turn, inevitably pulls logic from its pedestal. Given that the persuasiveness of an argument is based largely upon the audience's evaluation of the truth of its premises and the cogency of its logical progression, as well as the centrality of argument in theory, the questions raised by postmodern theory deprive it of its own justification. What is the value of theory in a world of multiplicities, or of argument in the absence of truth?
This contradiction does not, however, lead to a facile dismissal of postmodern theory. I am struck and disturbed by the facility with which my fellow university students dismiss wholesale such modes thought as philosophy or postmodernism. Such contempt reveals complete disbelief in the legitimacy of academic study in these areas and raises a variety of questions both about those responsible for such statements and regarding the place of non-empirical thought in this society. But that is matter for another discussion. In terms of the issue at hand, the contradiction at the heart of postmodern theory establishes at the very beginning that the belief in logic is both untenable and necessary. Logic seems to hold an innate attraction for people, and it is difficult, if not impossible to conceive or persuasive communication without it. If there is a way to articulate the postmodern condition without logic, and without immediately imposing the necessity of silence, then such a way has not yet been found. What remains, then, is that postmodern theory can only be communicated through logical argumentation, but the jarring incongruousness of form and content remind all involved that logic and argument themselves are under scrutiny. The related problem of objectivity - that such an idea can no longer seriously be entertained, although a theory that attempts to describe the experience of multiple people or the characteristics of a society inevitably assumes a perspective above the subjectivity of those it describes - is also only an issue of form. Nothing expressed by postmodern theory can be said to hold for all conditions, or even, perhaps, for all the individuals, or for all the states of a given individual, within the society that it describes. The method is sub-optimal, of course, but this is not indicative of a problem with the questions being asked. It is, rather, a problem with the established methods for answering them.
These are, admittedly, very loosely structured thoughts, and it is already evident to me that they contain major problems. Let this stand as a promise that I will return to the question of methodology in postmodern theory soon.
The theoretical approaches characteristic of postmodernity call into question such concepts as narrative and truth. The questioning of truth, in turn, inevitably pulls logic from its pedestal. Given that the persuasiveness of an argument is based largely upon the audience's evaluation of the truth of its premises and the cogency of its logical progression, as well as the centrality of argument in theory, the questions raised by postmodern theory deprive it of its own justification. What is the value of theory in a world of multiplicities, or of argument in the absence of truth?
This contradiction does not, however, lead to a facile dismissal of postmodern theory. I am struck and disturbed by the facility with which my fellow university students dismiss wholesale such modes thought as philosophy or postmodernism. Such contempt reveals complete disbelief in the legitimacy of academic study in these areas and raises a variety of questions both about those responsible for such statements and regarding the place of non-empirical thought in this society. But that is matter for another discussion. In terms of the issue at hand, the contradiction at the heart of postmodern theory establishes at the very beginning that the belief in logic is both untenable and necessary. Logic seems to hold an innate attraction for people, and it is difficult, if not impossible to conceive or persuasive communication without it. If there is a way to articulate the postmodern condition without logic, and without immediately imposing the necessity of silence, then such a way has not yet been found. What remains, then, is that postmodern theory can only be communicated through logical argumentation, but the jarring incongruousness of form and content remind all involved that logic and argument themselves are under scrutiny. The related problem of objectivity - that such an idea can no longer seriously be entertained, although a theory that attempts to describe the experience of multiple people or the characteristics of a society inevitably assumes a perspective above the subjectivity of those it describes - is also only an issue of form. Nothing expressed by postmodern theory can be said to hold for all conditions, or even, perhaps, for all the individuals, or for all the states of a given individual, within the society that it describes. The method is sub-optimal, of course, but this is not indicative of a problem with the questions being asked. It is, rather, a problem with the established methods for answering them.
These are, admittedly, very loosely structured thoughts, and it is already evident to me that they contain major problems. Let this stand as a promise that I will return to the question of methodology in postmodern theory soon.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Words
The terror of the blank page is like the terror of ephemeral youth. Its purity, unmarred by words, is existence outside of time. The potential resides in eternity and every choice starts one on the road to death.
As I stood on the little observation platform with fireworks in front of me and a gathering storm to the side, I felt both terribly exposed and infinitely small. These irreconcilable feelings worked to annihilate each other while the container ships off the coast lit their lamps against the darkening sky and a wind stirred the long grass covering the sand dunes.
In the desire to capture experience through reflection, the end falls victim to the means, and the obligation to form memories results only in a vague sense of absence. One experiences most strongly when the boundary between subject and object fades. To live most fully, one must forgo the immediate consciousness of experience. Youth is used best when it is squandered. Does the same hold true for the blank page?
As I stood on the little observation platform with fireworks in front of me and a gathering storm to the side, I felt both terribly exposed and infinitely small. These irreconcilable feelings worked to annihilate each other while the container ships off the coast lit their lamps against the darkening sky and a wind stirred the long grass covering the sand dunes.
In the desire to capture experience through reflection, the end falls victim to the means, and the obligation to form memories results only in a vague sense of absence. One experiences most strongly when the boundary between subject and object fades. To live most fully, one must forgo the immediate consciousness of experience. Youth is used best when it is squandered. Does the same hold true for the blank page?
Friday, June 27, 2008
The Wandering Jew
No lengthy meditations tonight of the sort with which I try to reassure myself against that terrifying familiar doubt: a voice that whispers in my ear that my eyesight is too poor for gazing into the distance, my lungs too weak for the rarefied air of the heights. That voice will have plenty more time to luxuriate in its clever turns of phrase.
The life of a young son of the American bourgeoisie is an itinerant one. It is a life of endless endings. The interminable transitions from school to school and from school to that poorly rationalized farce called 'the real world' - which one accepts if one has been properly raised to hate discomfort and fear disgrace - stunt the relationships that the young person establishes with others as well as his/her ability to form, or even conceptualize those relationships in the first place. The awareness of transience underlies every new acquaintance, resulting in an aversion to the inevitable pain that accompanies separation from an object of love. The solution, of course, is not to love.
Modern life thus involves more separations than I can possibly envision in the lived experience of people in the locally-oriented, relatively static past of a few centuries ago (or in the lives of people outside the bourgeoisie).
I am about to move out of my summer accommodations and return to my parents' home. Another onerous transition; another regression into the childhood from which each modern young adult desperately seeks escape. The return home is now the failure of college education, whose principal goal is the transformation of children into adults. When I return home, I will find a fossilized version of me from four years ago still dwelling in my parents' minds. Their conceptualizations of me will guide their actions, and their actions will mold me back into that fossil. That will all end, of course, when in two months' time I will return to college (my god! for the last time!) and undergo yet another painful process of acculturation to new surroundings and to a new social role. I will become again more or less what I am now.
And then it will end, and I will say goodbye to all the people I care about, exchanging promises to see each other again - promises which tacitly admit the impossibility of carrying on any kind of organic, living relations after the separation. A few meetings to keep yet another fossil from disintegrating before we each give up the futile project and let the friendship dissolve into dust.
I arrived through random browsing at the blog of an eighteen-year-old girl whose precocious writing impressed and intrigued me. I briefly imagined an alternate life in which I had met her before I navigated away from the page, declaring to myself that I would never again encounter a trace of her existence. Technology gives us access to far too many of these impossibilities. Our digital flights end with frequent painful crashes against translucent panes on the far sides of which lie worlds that we will never inhabit, lives that we will never be able to live.
"The final reward of the dead - to die no more"
-Nietzsche, allegedly
The life of a young son of the American bourgeoisie is an itinerant one. It is a life of endless endings. The interminable transitions from school to school and from school to that poorly rationalized farce called 'the real world' - which one accepts if one has been properly raised to hate discomfort and fear disgrace - stunt the relationships that the young person establishes with others as well as his/her ability to form, or even conceptualize those relationships in the first place. The awareness of transience underlies every new acquaintance, resulting in an aversion to the inevitable pain that accompanies separation from an object of love. The solution, of course, is not to love.
Modern life thus involves more separations than I can possibly envision in the lived experience of people in the locally-oriented, relatively static past of a few centuries ago (or in the lives of people outside the bourgeoisie).
I am about to move out of my summer accommodations and return to my parents' home. Another onerous transition; another regression into the childhood from which each modern young adult desperately seeks escape. The return home is now the failure of college education, whose principal goal is the transformation of children into adults. When I return home, I will find a fossilized version of me from four years ago still dwelling in my parents' minds. Their conceptualizations of me will guide their actions, and their actions will mold me back into that fossil. That will all end, of course, when in two months' time I will return to college (my god! for the last time!) and undergo yet another painful process of acculturation to new surroundings and to a new social role. I will become again more or less what I am now.
And then it will end, and I will say goodbye to all the people I care about, exchanging promises to see each other again - promises which tacitly admit the impossibility of carrying on any kind of organic, living relations after the separation. A few meetings to keep yet another fossil from disintegrating before we each give up the futile project and let the friendship dissolve into dust.
I arrived through random browsing at the blog of an eighteen-year-old girl whose precocious writing impressed and intrigued me. I briefly imagined an alternate life in which I had met her before I navigated away from the page, declaring to myself that I would never again encounter a trace of her existence. Technology gives us access to far too many of these impossibilities. Our digital flights end with frequent painful crashes against translucent panes on the far sides of which lie worlds that we will never inhabit, lives that we will never be able to live.
"The final reward of the dead - to die no more"
-Nietzsche, allegedly
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