Managed to let my Zizek study be sabotaged by a heckler (a FreeMarketFundmentalist ( and on that count, I guess I should just trust my process. On the uptick, though, it allows me to document some thoughts I’ve been having outside of my routine: my process.
*
I can’t speak for everyone on these boards. But sometimes, when I’m doing what I’m doing, I feel like what I describe as the psychotic response to the nihilistic perspective:
Like I’m just walking down the street engaged in this personal conversation and everyone is just stepping aside to let me pass safely by.
What scares me, though, is the possibility that real schizophrenics, that do that, love their process as much as I do.
*
I’ve come to realize how Deleuzian I am in recognizing how unimportant questions are to me. I really don’t care whether consciousness or free will exists. I don’t care if the universe is determined, random, or something in between. I’m not asking those questions. In fact, I’m not asking any questions. While (for the fun of it (I will defend a non-determined universe and the possibility of a participating self, if it were unquestionably established that the universe was determined and consciousness and free will (even the participating self (were illusions produced by the brain, I wouldn’t miss a step. I have no real stake in it.
For me, it is about taking in the concepts of established philosophers and seeing what I can do with them. It, to me, is a form of Play: conceptual play for the sake of creating concepts.
I do, of course, have a stake in Capitalism in that it is having some very real effects on my life and the life of others: for instance, the fact (and may the wrath of Professor Strunk rest in its grave (that Capitalism could result in the extinction of my species. And for that cause, I will turn to any language game I have to to save it, to insure the well being of my grand…. my beautiful granddaughters.
*
Let me explain:
I tend to work from a revision of Will Durant’s 5 concerns of philosophy:
Metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, and politics
But philosophy has grown more complex since Durant’s time. My (yes mine, and mine alone (process has elaborated on Durant’s model:
Metaphysics/Ontology (Ontology being metaphysics with its feet on the ground, logic/epistemology/phenomenology, ethics/aesthetics (since both are about value statements, and, finally, the psychological/social/political. The problem with this model is that it sticks with the old arborescent model in which metaphysics/ontology is at the foundation and, working through the others, the psychological/social/political is the superficial result. This, in turn, assumes that we live at a superficial level that is given value based on the extent to which it satisfies the criteria offered by the metaphysical/ontological depth.
I would offer a different model in which the symbol > or < suggests the influence one discipline is having on the other:
Metaphysics/Ontology>Logic/Epistemology/Phenomenology>Ethics/Aesthetics>the Psychological/Social/Political
Metaphysics/Ontology,<Logic/Epistemology/Phenomenology<Ethics/Aesthetics<The Psychological/Social/Political
It’s a back and forth. There is no core.
There are those who will reject this model because they want to establish their metaphysical core as the only criteria by which we should live. Think: Capitalism: the invisible hand of the market. And maybe they’re right. Maybe I’m wrong. But everything my process has shown me suggests that I have every reason for following the process that I do:
I feel justified.