So many starting points, so many directions. Take one, comment, and we'll go from there.
"The focus of subjectivity is a distorting mirror. The self-awareness of the individual is only a flickering in the closed circuits of historical life. That is why the prejudices of the individual, far more than his judgments, constitute the historical reality of his being."
-Hans Georg Gadamer ; "A Theory of Hermeneutic Experience"
" . . .the subject's production by himself of a discourse in which his own truth could be read is one of the major forms of our obedience."
- Frederic Gros on Michel Foucault's course entitled "The Hermeneutics of the Subject"
" . . .as soon as on no longer knows who speaks or writes, the text becomes apocalyptic."
-Jacques Derrida; "An Apocalyptic Tone Recently Adopted in Philosophy"
"Jaspers was the first to advise us of the principles that every interpretation of Nietzsche must respect, if it does not wish to make him complicitous with the forces he did not cease to combat. The essential movement of Nietzsche's thought consists in self-contradiction; each time it affirms, the affirmation must be put in relation with the one opposing it: the decisive point of each of its certitudes passes through contestation, goes beyond it, and returns to it. Such contraddiction does not proclaim some sort of caprice or confusion in Nietzsche's mind; no oue could be less skeptical or more further removed from tranquil negation; becuase of the terrible seriousness of the constant will of the Yes - this will that goes in search of the true in the depths where truth is no stranger to contradiction - everything must at a certain moment turn around."
- Maurice Blanchot; "The Infinite Conversation"
"What destroys people, wears them down, is the meaning they give their acts."
-Jean Baudrillard; "Seduction"
"It seems to me that I will always be happy in the place where I am not."
-Baudelaire
" . . . the critique of capitalism is a result of capitalism's own idealogical dynamics, not of our measuring it according to some external standard."
-Slavoj Zizek
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James. You started a blog - is it impossible to live in NYC and not start a blog. I'm flogging your blog, james. Anyways. Philosophy is awesome. Great work. Quote discussion time.
ReplyDeleteNietzsche:
A cynic is someone who recognizes the 'herd mentality,' 'the rule' (as opposed to the exception) in the themselves, mocks it, but does nothing to change it. A cynics soul is free and active enough to recognize and understand the blind social norms and traditions within himself but not....what...enough...brave...stupid....crazy...to change it???
Dammit. I should go change something. Science is seeking repeatability for determinacy and understanding. Can anyone grow outside of the realm of discipline if most things are repeated?
ReplyDelete" . . . the critique of capitalism is a result of capitalism's own idealogical dynamics, not of our measuring it according to some external standard."
ReplyDelete-Slavoj Zizek
From a historical perspective, without the time allotted to us by a capitalist, industrialized society, we would spend our energies on basic survival. Instead, vanity and spare time is ever increasing, breaking down and reweaving perceptual fabrics of those previously occupied only with primitive fears. the seeds of capitalism were sewn when first ownership was created; the ideological self-critique both enabled by, and enabling the machine in question. when opposing a capitalism we are opposing the very structure of our lens, and are face to face with our own capacity for masturbatory selfindulgences, it's your thought you can have sex with it as many times as you want. because capitalism embodies trade and ownership of invisible goods, a critique of capitalism from within implies an ownership of those ideas, implying capital.
Yea. All our free time allows us to fuck with ourselves too much when perhaps we are really just best at doing animal things, like ensuring basic survival through food and shelter and reproducing. I think food is a grand example...But this is not the point of your entry...which brings up the problem of being stuck in a system we're trying to critique.
ReplyDeleteOwnership of our ideas putting us within the capitalistic system as we try to be its very opposite. Is it a problem with thought/ideas/reflection? Is there a type of idea/thought that is not capital? Pre-reflective action?
There is no pre-reflective action by any means because we are historically contingent subjects. What is unconscious for us is that which we don't know that we know.
ReplyDeleteBullshit. But partially true. Like my opinion. Which is thus also partially bullshit.
ReplyDelete"historically contingent subjects" contingent upon what? oh, contingent upon history? whose history? history is such a loaded word. loaded like my oatmeal with tasty morsels of fruit.
ReplyDeleteNow, when I created Jonestown I was well aware of the cultural shock brought upon my disciples and inhabitants and they became acutely aware of their new forms of economy. The awareness was in some ways what threw my system out, for if I had taken the same people out of a traditionally communist (in the purest sense) community, there would have been no struggle to understand the new system and no attempt to fight it once outsiders made them aware of the options. So... ultimately, when I fed them all poison, I was not taking a choice away, but giving them a new hope away from the chaos of free will.
In a way I was the owner of thought, at least in a dictatorship posing as a socialist utopia, the leader would like to think. Creating more friction, a firm platform to lunge against, can only help an anti-establishment movement where if the establishment remains vague and mysterious, deviates have nothing to base their ideological differences on. Capitalism being a firm and tangible system is an easy target for critique and will remain until lines are blurred.
The chaos and potential mis-direction of free will is better than rigid and blinding ideology.
ReplyDeleteDoes creating 'a firm platform to lunge against' in order to fight against/change the establishment require an over-simplification and beneficial categorization of the establishment's views...in other words...politics?
Finally...why are you speaking like you are Jim Jones, the founder of Jonestown who commited 'revolutionary suicide' along with hundreds of other people in 1978??
Why are you speaking as P$HAXXX$MACHINE!@$, founder of super quick two dimensional information transmissions and "revolutionary telecommunications" potential in the office place...in 1974?
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of potential misdirection too, because blinding ideology excludes so much possibility that the idea of misdirection is not optional.
ReplyDeletepossibly part of the aversion toward free will by many theologians is that "wrong and right" are not validated?
'a firm platform to lunge against'....yea an easily definable system of values, easily generalized and summed up makes for an easy target. I am not sure I agree with what I said before, as capitalism is a pretty ambiguous system at this point, it's definition changed over time by every group or participating individual.
just as most abandon their true passions, you, james, have abandoned your own blog page.
ReplyDeleteHey blog page james, where are the news at dooooogie
ReplyDelete