Hope You appreciate my odd sense of humor. ‘tomorrow, tomorrow, there is always tomorrow’-from Annie, the musical.
“OK, so what I just wrote may be fanciful crap but it does express what I feel about mainstream philosophy, of which I think Heidegger is a part. Philosophy needs to start again, this time without the bonds that tie us to outworn ideas, if this is possible.” –Roger
Actually, Roger, I’m not seeing so much “fanciful crap” as someone who has their own systems of meaning (of differance (and is expressing themselves in those terms. This is why, while I had hoped to bounce off of your points, I cannot because I don’t understand it enough to be confident in any response I might make. And this is primarily because of my own systems of meaning that are not exactly coordinated with yours.
Dealing with our impasse, I realized that there are 2 aspects to writing: the internal and the external. The internal is how we capture our thoughts for ourselves. The external is how we communicate those thoughts to others via the rules that constitute the Lacanian symbolic order in which we must work: the very agreement that allows us to communicate.
That said though, you have provided me with a useful intro to today’s rhizome:
“Of course, the French word ‘différence’ (with an e) already brings into view the semantic dimension of, precisely, difference. Derrida appeals to a second sense belonging to the Latin verb ‘differre’ but completely absent from the French ‘différence’ that was in fact derived from it; namely, ‘the action of putting off’ – deferring. The point here is to get a semantic dimension of sameness into play as well (and into play without a commitment to a deferred presence; the only essential thing at issue when someone defers doing something is that instead of doing x now, they intend to do x later – whether ‘doing x’ can escape the logic of identity-in-différance being elaborated is a further question). French ‘différence’ (with an e) does not have this semantic component. Thence the value of a neologism which will compensate for this lack, with a term with greater semantic wealth: ‘we provisionally give the name différance to this sameness which is not identical’.” -Glendinning, Simon (2011-08-25). Derrida: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) (p. 66). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
?: now, did anyone get that… If not, you’re in good company. At least I consider myself to be such. And if you do, you are perfectly free to skip over the following. But then you knew that, didn’t you?
The thing is I can explain the concept of Diffe̕rrance in a very blue-collarized and perhaps vulgarized way. Diffe̕rrance is a neologism of two words: difference and defer. It is a description of how language works through differentiating (for instance: the difference between a river and a brook (and through the deferral of meaning in that the definition of any word is always dependent on the definitions of the other words that are used to define it. And I got this understanding from a graphic guide, Derrida for Beginners, which many “serious” philosophers would scoff at since it doesn’t get at a full understanding of the term.
But I could easily counter this by pointing out that my description of it is merely a steppingstone into a fuller understanding of Diffe̕rrance. And the thing is, my description would give a lot of people something they can use until they reach a deeper understanding of it.
And I wouldn’t take issue with Glendinning had he of called his book a “study” of Derrida rather than an “intro”. But he chose to call it an intro then proceeded to engage in a lot of etherspeak as if he was more interested in showing off his comfort with the Derridaian nomenclature than actually explaining what the man meant –or, at least, what he thought Derrida meant.
It, to me, felt more like self indulgence than a sincere attempt to introduce anyone to the thought of Derrida. But this goes back to the point I made with Roger: that it’s not so much a matter of self indulgence as the comfort with an internal use of language as compared to an external one.
Glendinning felt like a professor saying it’s easy then proceeding to bamboozle you with a big bang of formulas expanding from a simple formula.
Actually, I understood the Derrida concept before It was analyzed. The idea is well founded, and maybe it’s just that it it simply that it is a work in progress. it’s referents are as dubious, than it would be to claim that the correspondence between certain
thinkers were more substantially involving ,then actually. But this charge is made by some minds who fear to glean into those types depths which
Are said to stare back. Reading into referentiality
where there may be less, is always a stark possibility. (Based on the premise,must there is a minimum of referentiality between all possible
referens, regardless of apprehension).
Nevertheless , it is no joking matter, and that is a possibility which can not be excluded.
As a work in progress, it calls for unique experiments in contentious areas, not at all resolved, even within
or without regional theaters of thought, - an allusion
to performance of philosophical argument.
Therefore , Deference is perfectly understandable
And as such, must ask for equal deference toward my
bad mimicry of the wannabe professor of Focault.
I used the word ‘contientious’ and really have on retrospect no need to defend my usemofmthe word, hence, my approach to philosophy is, and has been a-priori as long as I can remember. Searle, for one among many, seem to find ‘differance’ a very
ambiguous concept to validate, and finds problems
with it.
Now, if ever was a deliberate deconstruction of the self, as stated two or three blogs above, and a call to integrity, it is that self exposure, that exposure toward inmenetrabiltty, which succumbs in my opinion, any structural referens toward charges of posturing. whenever a correspondence is sought in furtherance of some kind of progressive adaptation to a need, it can be pointed out, that we all do this, and we do all of us start from a basic premis, a the result of which comes from collisions of very early forms of situations in the Sartrean sense. Many in this board and elsewhere, have admitted to their inability to take an existential leap toward post structuralism, precisely for the reasons I outlined, vis. The lack in the ability to fly. (Sources can be confirmed here).
Referentiality, finally is a problem both, in a literal sense, but for some, particularly in a figurative sense of an overextension to the hyper-realitional. This was Derrida’s first and foremost concern.
as far as progressing from here to here to there to here, we need to look at things in an anti Heglelians tread, of being able to back and forth, between referents, irrespective of direct implicitly, because we are never sure, of one thought or semantic structure, as having been infiltrated by another and so on. this begs my a-prior approach, more then ever, since some of these French philosophers were verifiably influenced by the surrealistic school ofmthen1920’s.
So although it may be funny, but an empathic resonance does involve a total commitment of the senses, as for instance Gide’s influence on Derrida, a somewhat mislpalced fact. The list goes on.
Phred I am not trying to displace You, it is only that I have to addendum something relevant to the above. PS, I am still reading Your article, and hope to get in touch with You.
d63
Here is a bit from ‘Writing and Difference’ which my implicate the above:
In general , Derrida’s texts respond to what is already at work, trying to recognize a sort of secret law written inside language.
This response sometimes took him beyond the conventions of writing. he sometimes neglected the relatively superficial constrains of ‘style’, in order to bow to a more hidden rule. “A language that would entrust itself only to me.” And again, “Invent your language if you can, or, want to hear mine.” From writing and Difference
Now guys, today I am, as Deleuze encourages us, writing at the edge of what I know and working with what is, given my present state of mind, diverse material that will straddle Yonathon Listik’s article in Philosophy Now, Derrida’s Performance, and Simon Glendiggen’s Derrida: a Very Short Introduction. Luckily, I have the time this may take for me to fumble around, this being my Friday. I would start with Yonathon’s point:
“Every word uttered has already been uttered and gains meaning from these past uses, and in this sense every word is parasitic on its previous usages to gain its present meaning. Language carries its past and the possibility of its future (This is the meaning of iterability for Derrida).”
Now this, for me (via Deleuze’s take on time, is easy to understand in that, like a language (including that of an individual, words (especially in philosophy –once again: my question concerning the effect of philosophy on the language it presumes to study (evolve through the various connotations that tend to build around it.
But my question for Derrida, which Mr. Listik will hopefully be able to answer, is how we distinguish iterability from diffe̕rrance. What was the point of creating two different concepts for what seems to be the same thing?
Now on to Glendiggen’s points:
“We have now reached what might be called the first conclusion of Derrida’s text: ‘the logic of presence’ must be displaced, indeed will always already find itself destined to be displaced by the logic of différance.” -Glendinning, Simon (2011-08-25). Derrida: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) (p. 68). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
Then:
“To write is to produce a mark … which my future disappearance will not in principle, hinder in its functioning… . For a writing to be a writing it must continue to ‘act’ and to be readable even when what is called the author of the writing no longer answers for what he has written… . The situation of the writer is, concerning the written text, basically the same as that of the reader.” – Ibid, pg.70
We, as boarders, experience a sense of this in that we are our always writing ourselves into a future in which we will not be present: the moment the reader reads what we have posted. And, hopefully, you are starting to sense the kind of confused ontology involved that I am sensing as I write this.
“Equally, any message is readable only to the extent that a (determinable) reader can read whatever the sender could write in the absolute absence of the (destined) receiver’s presence: writing can and must be able to do without the presence of the (destined) receiver.” -Ibid
As well as without the presence of the sender. Now we (or is it just me? (are wandering deeper into uncomfortable territory –perhaps to the immovable point at which we can move no further. On the other hand, we could return to the comfort of Listik’s point concerning the past/future dynamic at work in iterabily:
“Every word uttered has already been uttered and gains meaning from these past uses, and in this sense every word is parasitic on its previous usages to gain its present meaning. Language carries its past and the possibility of its future (This is the meaning of iterability for Derrida).”
Or are we just giving up? I suspect we are. Perhaps we’re living to fight (to push deeper into the quagmire of it (another day.
“What evolutionary explanation is there for why women are so beautiful?
– or rather –
Why are women beautiful?” - Obori Motswana
Okay, let’s try this from a different angle by asking what it is within our evolutionary and cultural context that make women SEEM more beautiful –at least to guys like me and Obori.
I would first point out the most obvious to any heterosexual male who has gone through puberty: the sense that males always seem to be hornier than females, the sense that while males seem to look at sex as an end itself, females (especially in the years after puberty is reached (seem to see it as a means to an end. For the young male, it always is (not seems in this case (a matter of waking up and finding one-eyed Wally staring him in the face with a stern mandate: if the opportunity arises, you will take it. For women, on the other hand, it SEEMs more like a matter of deciding whether the day warrants wearing their best outfit. This is not to say they are frigid. They clearly have drives –drives which have been scientifically shown to increase as they reach their 30’s as compared to the teens and 20’s for males: one of the cruel ironies of nature.
And we can see this as a residual effect of evolution in which males can produce sperm, along with their genetic makeup, like a common factory, while females are always the guardian of one egg. This, however (in terms of evolutionary psychology, creates a dilemma for females. On one hand, they must seek the optimal male genetic makeup –that is terms of Dawkin’s assertion of all animals as gene machines. On the other, they are always looking for a male that will stick around and help raise the offspring. They are always stuck between 2 evolutionary imperatives. Still, in terms of sexual politics, they always have the advantage of choice as compared to the indiscriminate distribution of sperm from males. In evolutionary terms, it’s as if males are perfectly willing to spread their genetic makeup wherever it will be accepted while females are in a position to be more discriminate. And this would explain why women, from the perspective of the heterosexual, seem to be more beautiful.
This would also explain why throughout most animal species, the male is always the more colorful while, for human heterosexual males, the female seems to be the more beautiful: it’s more of a subjective experience. The funny thing about it is that human males are in the same position as the more colorful peacock or pheasant which they express through the incessant desire to “rule the world” as compared to females who tend to deal with what is in front of their noses.
Now the important thing to understand here is that this is not an assertion that women are mediocre while men are more inclined to greatness. The irony of it is, as I pointed out previously, is that the “in front of the nose” approach of women in artistic endeavors tends to give them a advantage in that they are less prone to the pretenses that come with wanting to “rule the world”. Compare, for instance, Janis Joplin’s down to earthiness as compared to Jimi Hendrix’s desire to rule the cosmos.
This, of course, leaves a lot to be explained. But I’ve ran out my window. I’ll see what you guys do with it and decide then.
“Right now, I don’t need Derrida. Thanks anyway for providing a thought-provoking article. I hope others will continue the discussion…
Over to you d63:” Majoram Blues: forum.philosophynow.org/viewtopi … 3&start=30
First of all, brother: that’s a lot of pressure, especially given the caliber of intellect and training I’m dealing with here. But I will do my best.
That said, I think you bring up an important issue when you say:
“Right now, I don’t need Derrida.”
:in that you suggest the import of use over interpretation (a point brought up in Rorty’s Philosophy and Social Hope. If I read you right, what you are basically saying is that, at this point, you are not seeing anything you can use in Derrida, therefore, you choose to move on to other things. And you should since the process we are engaged in is more about what we can use in any writer than it is exact interpretation of that writer. And this, I believe, is because no matter how well we come to know another writer, the process is always our own. Like a mechanic reading a repair manual, the act of reading other great writers can, at best, be supplementary to that process.
To give a personal and anecdotal example, I find that, as an American, I tend to turn more to the French propensity towards poetics and abstraction when there is a Democrat in the Whitehouse. This is because, being a committed progressive, having that allows me a kind of bourgeoisie complacency that having a Republican in the house doesn’t. In that situation, I find myself drawn to more concrete things like the social criticism of a Naomi Klein in order to undermine the popular dogma and hegemony at work in popular culture.
But even in times when I’m allowed that complacency, I still sometimes find myself wondering if I’m not a little too immersed in abstraction. I find myself wanting to get back to something a little more concrete and direct. This is why, for instance, this week’s experiment is committed to Ha Joon-Chang’s Economics: A User’s Guide. At the same time, to give you a sense of what it is about French abstraction and etherspeak that draws me and Yoni in, I do so with the same unease I would feel going back from the subtlety of a poet like Phillip Levine to the accessibility of Ginsberg’s Howl. This may seem strange, but the experience is always haunted by the feeling of it being given to me too easily and directly. I always liked Umberto Eco’s take on it (and I am paraphrasing here: the analytic approach works by a concrete step by step process based on its tradition while the continental works through saying the same old things in such a novel way that it seems like they’re saying something totally new. At the same time, I stand with Yoni when he says:
“First thing never give up and never surrender. If Derrida teaches anything is to not care and just insist of doing philosophy even if people don’t really understand what you asking of them.”
This is because doing what we do is dependent on focusing on our process and letting what results result and not letting it interfere in that. But by the same token, you would be equally justified in walking away from it. You simply cannot use what you cannot use. And it is your process and yours alone.
For myself, it’s as I said: I’m drawn to French concepts while being equally drawn to the Anglo-American style of exposition. It is my hope that this will define my style of intellectual pursuit and process. I want to see the hybrids that form between the two gravitations. For instance, I see an overlap in Deleuze’s doctrine of the faculties (based on Kant (and Dennett’s multiple drafts model of consciousness.
It’s all fuel for the fire. And there is a lot of it: way more than any individual can capture in a lifetime or process. What else can we do but lay out our own path through it?
“The American dream implies that hard work can bring you the life you want, whatever life that may be. That is all it means… There is nothing about “build it and they will come.” There is nothing corrupt or bankrupt in the concept of the American dream. I don’t believe in demonizing the west for its economic prosperity nor do I think that capitalism and business are bad things.”
First of all, I (and Andy has implied as much(don’t see Capitalism or business as purely bad. You imply a false dichotomy, Daniel, when you say things like:
“If you take issue with capitalism I would urge you to consider the alternative which is communism or socialism. Neither of those have worked very well anywhere that I know off.”
:a point that Andy effectively dealt with and, consequently, freed me to deal with the hegemony and semiological aspects of the “American Dream”.
That said, I would agree that the American Dream (or the mythology of it (certainly has its uses. On the positive side, it is possible that it has participated as an incentive for ambition. But that is up for debate since there is no way of knowing if an embrace of the American Dream is what drives the individual to ambition or if it is a matter of an ambitious individual adapting the American Dream as a motto or alibi. In this case, you have to ask if an embrace of the concept is a guarantee of success.
But the main difference between us is that the USE I am primarily interested in is that of a form of manipulation or smokescreen that masks not only the reality of Capitalism, but the very mechanisms that insure the failure of some while implying the utopian fantasy that if everyone just embraced it and tried a little harder, everything would be hunky dory. Let’s start with the most superficial aspect of it: the reality as compared the fantasy, the erroneous notion that Capitalism pimps is that if there is a will, there is a way. If nothing else, one could start their own business: the American Dream. But as statistics show, that dream quickly turns into a nightmare for the 50+% of startups that fail. So much for the Smithian vision of everyone applying their talents in a free exchange of what they produce. But then, as we have seen lately, what Capitalism sells better than anything, between American Idol and the occasional Lotto winner, is possibility. It’s almost become religious and a matter of faith in nature. Or as I like to joke:
It use to be: pray hard and follow these principles and you too may enter the kingdom of heaven.
Now it’s: work hard and follow these principles and you too may enter the kingdom of success.
The problem here, though, is the mechanisms inherent in Capitalism that insure many will not enter the kingdom of success while adding the alibi of making it seem like it must be some kind of moral failure on their part. Think: Calvinism. In other words, in order for anyone to succeed in Capitalism (the “American Dream” (someone has to fail. The rising tide lifting all boats may be a compelling metaphor. But it’s not a very accurate one.
And let me offer as example my personal experience. First of all, I like my job. And as far as pay, I am doing pretty good compared to a lot of other people. And despite my complaints about it and Capitalism, I actually like my bosses enough to not want to lynch them. So forget about the customary tactic of accusing me of whining. The reason I have what I have is because for about 5 years, I redirected my intellectual and creative curiosity from the liberal and fine arts to padding my resume with various certifications. But let’s focus this on the main one that got me the job: my third grade engineer’s license. Now the only reason that license has value is because not everyone had the intellectual resources I did and the willingness to spend the 9 months I did to pass the test. In fact, not everyone has the financial resources I did in order to obtain the resources I needed to do so. In other words, my success was built on the failure and loss of others. To put this in the perspective of the market and supply and demand: let’s say everyone suddenly got inspired and decided to get 3rd grade engineer’s license. That would make my license the equivalent of a high school diploma or, basically, ass-wipe. On top of that, I’m dealing with the reality of watching that particular license grow less and less valuable as most places concentrate their chill water and steam needs to Central Utility plants.
Now, of course, the economy has a lot of other needs than 3rd grade engineers. But that doesn’t eliminate the problem I am describing as much as it defers it enough to allow for the very fantasy of the American Dream you are describing. It still always comes at the expense of the other. To back it with a little statistical reality, not long after the meltdown, there were around 12 to 14 million people in America looking for jobs with about 3 million jobs available for people with college degrees or certifications of some kind. Of course, the need for unskilled labor may have filled in some of that gap. But we are talking about the “American Dream” here. So that doesn’t count. And while I’m sure that differential has closed a little, I’m not sure it’s enough to justify your embrace of the American Dream.
The other issue that the American Dream masks is that it is never so much a matter of how much you make; it’s a matter of how much you make as compared to everyone else. If the kid that was serving me a hamburger at Burger King was making as much as me, then the wages I was making wouldn’t mean shit since everything would be so expensive as to render my effort pointless.
Once again: in order for anyone to win in Capitalism, someone has to lose. The American dream only works in a world in which not everyone exploits it. A world in which everyone embraced the American Dream would only result in a lot of highly educated people serving you burgers or cleaning someone’s toilet. This is what makes the complaints of the thrifty such nonsense. I had a friend who owned a lot in stock and acted as if everyone followed his example, everyone would have what he had. What he failed to recognize was the paradox of thrift. If everyone were as frugal as him and refused to use credit for anything, the economy would have collapsed a long time ago taking down every stock he had with it. He embraced the American Dream while failing to recognize the dirty secrets that propped it up.
What it implies and the reality of it are 2 completely different things.
Reference: broadclarity.com/the-experience-machine
What I want to do here, as concerns Hawkin’s essay, is start with J S Mill’s point, that happiness seems to be a side effect of something else, then hopefully put some shine on Nozick’s experience machine. And, hopefully, I will not have managed to simply go off on my own tangent (the self indulgence of being off topic (in the process. If you think about your experiences with it: those happy moments in your life, Mill’s seems to be right. It’s never like having someone jacking in to the pleasure center of your brain (as scientists have done (and keeping you in constant state of pleasure: a technological land of the lotos eaters. Still, we can only assume that pleasure (or the pleasure center of the brain (has something to do with happiness. Nor can we deny the role that displeasure or even the indifferent (that state of experiencing neither pleasure nor displeasure in any significant measure (plays in it. Therefore, we could define happiness as a crap in one hand and gold in the other situation, one that is defined through an accumulative effect of pleasant experiences (that which stimulates the pleasure center of the brain (in relationship and contrast to the unpleasant and indifferent experiences we have.
(And we as the intellectually and creatively curious should understand that as well anyone. Think about the tedious shit we go through, such as reading pages of text that often makes no sense to us whatsoever, in order to achieve that experience of revelation and the pleasure that comes with it.)
And if we follow Lacan’s concept of Jouissance, we can see how our experience of happiness is rooted in and an expression of our experience of the component of pleasure:
First of all, Jouissance (as your initial instincts might tell you (is French for sexual ecstasy: the very bar by which most of us define the experience of pleasure. What Lacan goes on to point out is that Jouissance, in terms of sex, is a conscious experience of pleasure while we experience discomfort (or displeasure (at a subconscious level. Lacan’s support for this was to point out that if you took it up to the point of climax, then shut it down, you would experience displeasure. True enough. But it goes a little deeper and more subtle than that. If you think about it, sex is a process of working towards a threshold that will take you out of a place that you are really enjoying at the time. In other words, the experience of that pleasure is one of being pulled in 2 directions at once. This puts a little shine on the aesthetic experience we sometimes get with artistic creations: that feeling it gives you of wanting to fold into yourself. But it gets even more subtle than that when you think about direct experiences of pleasure (such as that of cocaine: the kind of discomfort that always seems to accompany it, one we would feel if someone jacked into the pleasure center of our brain and stimulated it.
But if we think it through, we can see what distinguishes pleasure from happiness, even though the experience of happiness presupposes the experience of pleasure. Say someone was to jack into the pleasure center of our brain and leave the switch on. At some point, it would seem, the experience would have to become unpleasant (we would become unhappy (since it would become undifferentiated and undistinguished. The pleasure would lose all meaning since we would no longer have anything to compare it with. To offer an example (and hopefully I’m not gerrymandering here: one of the most interesting scenes in the Hellraiser series was one in which the characters were walking through Hell and in one of the rooms, a man and a woman were condemned to engage in an eternal sexual act –that is without any hope of a climax. Now think about how brutal that would be: to be eternally working towards a threshold (the comparatively less pleasant experience (that one will never arrive at and be able to engage in the added pleasure (the happiness (of remembering a pleasure one is no longer experiencing. In other words: while they may be in an eternal state of pleasure, they will never be happy or satisfied. It’s never enough to experience something pleasant. A good party is never a matter of getting blackout drunk and forgetting what a good time we had. Part of the pleasure comes in the hindsight of having a good time: of having pleasure.
And I think we can apply what we have learned about the pleasure machine (Jouissance (to the happiness machine: the experience machine we might use to experience eternal happiness. Like eternal pleasure, the eternal happiness of the experience machine seems impossible since sooner or later our experience and the pleasure we derive from it would become undifferentiated.
So yeah!!! I think I would have a few reservations about the eternal pleasure of the experience machine.
One of the issues that has haunted my process has been one that haunted many post-structuralist and postmodern thinkers (such as Deleuze and Guattarri: the question posed by Wilhelm Reich:
What is it about people that seem to seek out their own oppression?
I would also argue that this question preoccupied Sartre given the amount of writing he put into dismissing, in rational way, the very a-rational experience of solipsism –especially in Being and Nothingness. And we can assume this came out of his experience with Nazism (a form of fascism, mind you (during the German occupation of France.
And looking at it now, I realize that one of cool things about it is that I get to stand on the shoulders of continental giants and approach it from the uniquely American perspective of a progressive living among Midwestern conservatives –many of which I consider good and dear friends. And having learned to listen to their little war rallies (that is against progressive policy (and not react (what good would it do me since I can always write about it later (I find myself in the privileged position of having a front row seat to the really bad reasoning they are engaging in. And this, I have to admit, is their gift to me since they also consider me a good and dear friend. This is based on an interesting dynamic in that 1: I never attack back because I always know I can think about it then write about it later, 2: this allows them to indulge their egoistic notions that they are winning the debate (that is since they know where I stand (and the delusion that they are capable of converting me by the sheer weight of their “Truth”, and 3: they never read what I write about them. It’s a fair exchange as far as I’m concerned.
This is because for reasons I will try to describe below, progressives, by their inherent nature are far better writers than speakers because they are never light enough on their feet (that is because of the burden of complexity (to analyze an argument and respond to it as compared to the conservatives who tend to work from popularly accepted assumptions. I listen to my friends’ arguments and am tongue-tied, even though I know there is something wrong. But it doesn’t take long, when I get by myself, before I figure it out. But by then, it’s too late. And I will generally never see that argument again to pose the argument I have built against it. And it’s not that it would do me any good. They almost always work in packs, and will always find some way to dance around it with yet more bad reasoning.
Now to give you an example of how they work: such a conservative, having read this, will turn to common doxa and argue that maybe the reason I can’t respond on the fly is because I am wrong. But, of course, this will be based on the limited reading of this particular post with no consideration of the thousands of words I have written dismissing their arguments elsewhere. They wallow in the gotcha moment.
It’s as if they’re stuck in the language games they indulge in with complete indifference to the existential leap those games must make into reality in order have any reference to reality. Therefore, I can’t help but feel that this (the answer to Wilhelm Reich’s question (lies in language. And I would propose a quasi-Lacanian (with a sprinkle of Zizek (possibility.
One thing that seems clear is that conservative to right ideologies have an overwhelming need for a given order –usually THEIR sense of order. And what we might look at is how we develop our language skills in the first place. We always start with static nouns: Mommy! Daddy! Even the first verbs we use are used as nouns: Eat! Lacan refers to these as Point de Captions or points of capture. And we should also note here that the French term refers to upholstery buttons. It’s not until we adapt to our environment a little more that we start making statements of becoming (as compared to the static being of nouns (such as “I want”.
So it makes perfect sense for an individual, as their wants grow more complex and more resisted by their environment, to desire to return to the days of simple static nouns, to act as if language, as a whole, is a static expression of being rather than the dynamic expression of becoming. And we can easily see this desire to make language static in the Conservative to Right’s over dependence on common doxa, platitudes and soundbites, and fixed meanings and assumptions. This is also why they reject the existential leap: their language games work much better for them and reality is just too messy. This is how, for instance, they can throw out words like “socialism” and act like everyone should automatically hear psycho-shrieks:
“YOU CAN’T DO THAT!!! That’s SOCIALISM!!!REEK!!!REEK!!!REEK!!!”
The irony of it is that these guys act like their position is some kind of sign of their maturity –that is when it is actually a sign of America’s adolescence. They throw out terms like “rugged individualism” (all tight fisted and shit (and put truck nuts on their 4 by 4’s (when all they seem to be doing is fighting their way back to the womb.
That said, I suppose this is a reaction to one of those conversations I had to listen to the other day. One of the points brought up was that old adage:
If you’re conservative when you’re young, you’re a square. And if you’re a liberal when you’re older, you’re a fool.
He then proceeded to explain that most people start to see past it in their 20’s. What I didn’t see was the statistical proof for this. It was only true because he either personally observed it or wanted to believe it. Of course, this is complete nonsense (and, quite frankly, a little operational in that it assumes any mature liberal position must automatically be assumed to be that of a fool (since I’m quite sure all the people keeping such shows as Bill Maher’s, Jon Stewart’s, or John Oliver’s alive are not all teens to early twenties. And I would assume, based on my friend’s assertion, that everyone in their 30’s is automatically watching Fox News.
It’s as if he heard the adage, liked what he heard, and built his whole reality around it.
I wonder if my friends will read what I’m writing now.
Compassion (as propped up by Sartre’s Vertigo of the Possible and/or Rawl’s original position (is really very simple:
There, but by the grace of God [or fate or whatever you need to call it [go I.
“As the right-wing has clearly demonstrated (that is in their almost religious embrace of producer/consumer Capitalism (there is no reasoning with these people. And this is because their reasoning is subject to their baser impulses. Of course, Germany and every other western industrialized nation has seen the results of that kind of thing. So the main problem lies in America (a comparatively adolescent country (and the cut-throat Capitalism we have managed to shove down the throat of every other country.” –me
“Superficiality is the general characterization of US culture in Europe, especially Germany. This is, because Capitalism is more “pure” as money fetishism is more dominate there!! A bad environment for the deeper thinking required for philosophy!!” –Harald
This, once again, returns to Layotard’s (who, mind you, mainly worked north of America in Canada (concern in the appendix of The Postmodern Condition: the terroristic potential of the accessible and easily communicated. And American culture is saturated with it to an extent that… You see it from the outside and are “in it” to the extent that it is having some very disturbing effects on you via global Capitalism and our military might. But that is nothing like being right in it and actually interacting with the actors involved. I sometimes feel like I’m in the midst of some version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers in the sense of producer/consumer Capitalism being the lotos in Tennyson’s Land of the Lotos eaters. And the scary thing about this is that this observation could too easily be framed as paranoia and, therefore, irrational.
And it is these kinds of socially programmed responses to socially programmed cues that dominate American culture. For instance, I should assume that producer/consumer Capitalism is working as promised (as the only economic system compatible with democracy and freedom (since we have, along with FOX News, CNN and MSNBC as well as Bill Maher’s Real Time. The problem for me is that I can no more watch CNN and MSNBC than FOX since even they feel candy coated in the way they stay within the perimeters of producer/consumer Capitalism. Even liberalism has been assimilated as Zizek points out.
(And I will have to get to Bill Maher’s role in it in a later post.)
But it gets really scary, Harald (and I mean Brown shirt scary! (when you’re standing in front of a bar and looking at a gas guzzling and CO² pumping 4 by 4 truck with a sticker in the window with the silhouette of a soldier, crouched and gun aimed perfectly horizontal, with the quote:
“If you can’t stand behind our troops, feel free to stand in front of them.”
Superficial? You haven’t seen shit my friend. And the scary thing about this is an experience I had at work. As I have pointed out before, I work and am surrounded by a lot of conservative guys (which would be expected in the maintenance field (as well as some who proudly claim to be right-wing. But they’re good people who I have found to be more than their ideologies. But one day I walk into my shop to find this essay pinned up called “Only in America”. And it consisted of a lot of conservative complaints about how America will do things like punishing the rich for working to be rich while rewarding the lazy for not working and a lot of other nonsense like that. Basically, they were whining when the conservative trend, at one time, was to accuse progressives of being whiners.
But even more disconcerting about this is that while, to them, to complain about the state of America is a constitutional right, when a progressive does it, it is a matter of being unpatriotic. Blend that with the phallic obsession of our military might and you get:
“If you can’t stand behind our troops, feel free to stand in front of them.”
You know, Juan, when I started my daily process at the “library”, I had intended to apologize since the events of Monday night are often vague and leave me with a kind of reverse Vertigo of the Possible that opens me to the possibility that I was being a bit of an asshole. But then I read what actually happened and realized even though I was “a bit of an asshole”, you were really not as interested in any kind of discourse as you were a pissing contest. Having read your points in a more lucid state of mind, pretty much every sentence you wrote read like a McLachlan approach to philosophy”
“WRONG!!! Laddy daddy da da, DA! DA! DA!”
You were basically heckling me as was evident when you wrote:
“I read what you wrote. And responded based on what you wrote. That´s precisely why I concentrated my response in those parts where I disagreed. Pure and simple. If you don´t agree, discuss what I said, or don´t discuss it.”
To which I ask again:
“And why exactly did you focus on what you disagreed with?”
And while cherry-picking from other people’s post is what we all have to do here, why do you specifically cherry-pick what you can respond negatively to? You even do it within sentences:
“Sure, dude. First you say “sorry, man, I´m drunk”, and then you call me a fucking pussy.”
And I do apologize for calling you a “pussy”. But then you basically engaged in the cheap tactic (cheaper than the “victim” approach (of focusing on the straw man validated by common doxa: both in your reference to my drinking and the fact that you conveniently left out the whole sentence:
“You whine like a fucking pussy with a lot of appeals to common doxa.”
And believe me, I’ve seen a thousand guys (and they are invariably guys (try to pull the same shit as you. But with you it gets especially noxious and contradictory given the main topic at hand here: Deleuze. At one point you say:
“What the fuck? You quoted me in your post, remember? To indicate your disagreement with that quote. So, I responded to that, with my own reading of the situation. That´s “trying to win”? No, that´s debating, giving arguments. Grow up, dude.”
First of all, why exactly do people engage in debates or give arguments if not to win? To basically establish authority and power over the other? But even more contradictory here is that we are talking about Deleuze who, with Guattari, pointed out in What is Philosophy that philosophy has no interest in debates because it has better things to do. As you rightly said:
“It´s not a contest….”
Your right, it’s not. Then why are you acting like it is? Why was it so important to you to invalidate Rorty by completely detaching him from Deleuze’s agenda? I mean I’m perfectly aware that their styles are completely different. But I still argue there is an overlap in the purposes they serve: a desire to break from the classicist criteria that dominated our culture up to the 20th century. I think you are turning Deleuze (and the radical (into some kind of cult. You say, for instance:
“No basement Overmen, just two examples of purely and effective radical new social assemblages: 1) Zapatism, in Chiapas (20 years; more than 3 million people in a radically new type of society), and 2) Rojava, Syria´s Kurdistan: democratic autonomy and confederalism in a creative social approach in the Middle East (and in the Middle of a war with ISIS, the Turkish State, the Syrian State and Western powers), and with support of nearly 40 million kurds.”
First of all, how much effect did the radical etherspeak of Deleuze have on these events? And how do we go from the radical working in what were likely extreme situations to assuming that that the radical is the only response to less extreme ones?
I just think you are taking what is basically a creative pastime way too seriously, Juan. And you are going against a concept embraced by Deleuze and Guattari: the philosopher’s toolbox. To me, philosophical systems are just tools with which we engage with reality. And if you don’t find the tool of Rorty or Pragmatism useful, more power to you, brother. We all gotta find our flow.
To be honest, guys, I’m starting feel to like I’m running out of things to write about –as if I have depleted the reservoir. The upswing though is reflected by Sartre in Nausea:
Today: Nothing: existed.
Those are the kind of days I get more sleep.
*
Still, I have to keep writing as it is the payoff of all the reading I do. But I approach it with a sense of dread as it has become like sex with a hooker or masturbation: an itch that won’t stop till it’s scratched and invariability leads to a feeling of being dirty.
*
“Duchamp had two strategic objectives. First, to destroy the hegemony exerted by an establishment which claimed the right to decide what was, and what was not, to be deemed a work of art. Second, to puncture the pretentious claims of those who called themselves artists and in doing so assumed that they possessed extraordinary skills and unique gifts of discrimination and taste.” –from Alistair McFarlane’s article, Brief Lives: Marcel Duchamp in Philosophy Now (issue 108)
One has to wonder if philosophy isn’t in need of a Marcel Duchamp. Or did thinkers like Deleuze and Derrida fulfill that role?
*
“As the right-wing has clearly demonstrated (that is in their almost religious embrace of producer/consumer Capitalism (there is no reasoning with these people. And this is because their reasoning is subject to their baser impulses. Of course, Germany and every other western industrialized nation has seen the results of that kind of thing. So the main problem lies in America (a comparatively adolescent country (and the cut-throat Capitalism we have managed to shove down the throat of every other country.” –me
“Superficiality is the general characterization of US culture in Europe, especially Germany. This is, because Capitalism is more “pure” as money fetishism is more dominate there!! A bad environment for the deeper thinking required for philosophy!!”- Harald Helmut Wenk
Something I didn’t get to in the previous response to this was my understanding of “superficiality” as America’s (especially as concerns the rightwing element (deficiency in critical thinking: that which can be described as a willingness to push (via the tools of logic and reason and whatever other tools are available: anecdotal, instinct, subjective experience, etc. etc. (beyond one’s present understanding. I, of course, have done a lot of harping on terms like “reason”, “logic”, “objectivity”, or “the scientific method” because I have mainly seen them used as badges of authority which allows the individual to flash them and demean the other despite the lack of real proof on their part. Such terms basically appeal to socially programmed responses to socially programmed cues while failing to satisfy the criteria of critical thinking by putting more emphasis on the tools than the agenda: understanding. Such terms are too often used in support of the status quo.
*
This is what it always is: the ability to approach a blank space and fill it with something: words, images, sounds, something, anything….
HI, AGAIN. Marchel Duchamp filled an aesthetic role and the new age philosophers filled that role. Aesthetics usually predatem philosophy, so the question can not be asked, whether one can fill the shoes of another. That is mynonly comment onthe above, before dwelling intothe implications You have noted, d63
In Nude Descending the Staircase, we get a sense of disintegration, it seems, he is describing, not changing a situation, he is not dogmatically disintegrating the meaning of form, as is American artificiality seems to. I wonder to what degree the correlation is appropriate, though, and whether, American capital is oppressive to the degree, to make the decline of European culture unavoidable. that there is a sense of that, is certain, but as in all relationships, the weighingnofmalternatives is balanced in Europe, between those of the East, in political as well as economic terms, and the West. there is no doubt as to the rise of the East, especially if calculations bear out the rapid rise of China, overcoming both the EU and the USA economies in another few years. Which leaves the old European archaic cultures voulnerable to the Estern influence, in regard to immigration, cultural exchange, etc, to the degree, where, the Us influence, lessening in this balance. this balancing act, unfortunately is essential to the future economic development of EU, as the politically motivated moves bear out.
Philosophy, and aesthetics go by the wayside, as seminal, germinating dynamic qualities, which are beginning to be used for other then root cultural reasons. The modern world is based on newly emerging assimilation of artificiality based on perceptions of perceptions of conglomerate views, and the holders and movers of large Capital accumulation base their moves on techno calculated printouts on a daily basis. that influences character assessment as well. Across the board, and referring to the Nude Descending the Stairs, is pointing to a very early me infestation of awareness of this then, newly approaching process. This is not a singular man who thinks out such a program, where this trend began, was more intuitive-artistic, and the philosophers could only try to economize the situation, as did Marx, who as can be seen , failed, at a terrific cost, both in economic and human terms.
The latest is a reversal of the Marxian dictum, that those who change philosophy matter, not those who interpret it, it’s the differance that is prevalent in Your own views, the reversal of the very logic of being able to identify the modus operandi, rather, to differentiate and try to eliminate the least likely of the options. The ontologic suffers at the hands of the ontic, we arrive into area of pseudo logic by way of the tier of economic reality facing the world, specifically EU.
I’m not of the belief that writing for the sake of writing is a good thing
Your first post mentioned it being okay to mumble. Do you like when people mumble? Do you like when people ramble?
You are your own witness, and I don’t think you should aim to annoy yourself
Has anyone noticed how Republican’s tend to resent the wealth of celebrities who espouse leftist ideologies while overlooking the wealth of corporate CEOs: that which is actually effecting their lives.
*
“I as a writer definitely procrastinate when it comes to writing. The ideas for the story come so quickly yet the work involved in developing the story is so mundane. Usually I can rectify this by writing with different color pens on different colored paper.
Still, I fall into the mundane quickly. I push myself to research things relevant to the story only to find myself down the rabbit hole of websites that get further away from my initial search finally landing on Facebook.
I think my will power is fleeting when it comes to buckling down and pursuing the passions that would allow me relief from the mundaneness of working for other people. Well that coupled with a minor fear of success and performance anxiety to outdo the book I haven’t written yet.” –Elizibeth
Feel your pain, Elizabeth.It’s not just the tedium that writing can sometimes involve. It’s the fear and dread that comes down to facing the blank page and not knowing whether you’ll be able to fill it with anything meaningful. Therein, lies the value of free writing with no expectations about the quality. This why it is best not to dwell on the book you haven’t written yet, and focus more on breaking that book down to easily managed projects -once again: Hemingway’s 500 words a day.
The other really good advice I got on the matter was from a book about making art. It was critiquing the various myths about art. And the one that really struck me was the myth of art being a mystical activity. At first, this took the fun out of it. But then I realized that looking at art (or any creative act (as a mystical activity can only stifle an artist (especially a young one (since it could leave them with the idea that the only time they should be writing is when they happen to be inspired. And how does one develop the craft of writing doing that? You have to look at it as an act similar to a cabinet maker: an activity that one engages in (inspired or not (because it is what they do. As Picasso said: taste is the enemy of art.
(On a side note: Picasso was an artist and likely not one to haggle too much on the terminology he was using. For instance, he might have recognized that Art is actually a matter of taste since it is the social expression of the creative act subject to public scrutiny. The creative act is the private activity: that which sustains itself through a sense of Play. Art is the public discourse it hopefully evolves into. Therefore, I would (for our purposes (revise his statement to taste is the enemy of the creative act. (
That said, Picasso’s point becomes a two edged sword for us on the boards. We have to be wary here of the instant gratification of instant publication when what we are mainly doing here is the equivalent of the sketches and studies (a form of Play (of an artist working towards a finished piece they hang in a gallery. This is basically a workshop as compared to a platform. And that really becomes a problem when you find out that the more finished piece you developed online is not publishable because most magazines want their content to be seen for the first time. Poetry magazine, for instance, explicitly asks you to confirm that you haven’t published online when you submit.
Still, the draw of it is hard to get beyond. I can hardly write anything without seeing what it looks like on a message board. But I’ve been thinking about putting my vice to work for me and create a completely private board that no one can read but who I invite: those who are interested in developing their private projects. A workshop in the rhizome cafe if you will.
Good luck with your process, unsuper.