I realize I forgot to respond to the question posed of where democracy does work well...as my computer was giving me a hard time and crashed, losing (as usual) the incredibly lucid and eloquent post I was nearly done with, I hadn't gotten back to that till just now.
So. Where does democracy work best? Oddly enough, I think it likely works best in a constitutional monarchy, where all the show of power and pomp and circumstance and mandated reverence can be vested in a visible ruler who handles that well and graciously--a career diplomat or an actor, but with a crown--while the Prime Minister is a person who does the real work--and understands the practical meaning of the term "public servant". Separate these two faces of power from being vested in any one person, and you solve a multitude of problems.
Also, because in a monarchy the King or Queen is by default and tradition not a member of either/any political party, there is far less incentive to maximize party clout at the expense of responsiveness to actual needs. Therefore, every acting government is assembled as a coalition, and in Europe there are generally at least three major political parties, which represent actual relevant factions within the population, instead of being, as in the U.S., a chronic cage-match between two vehemently opposed but ill-defined establishments.
Also--size matters. So does diversity. The U.S., by dint of being a continent-wide, multi-climated republic made up of individual states--and with so many different industries and demographics and cultures and religions within them, due to a history of changing immigration patterns--is ill-equipped to be run well at the national level. Even the state level is a difficulty, as the needs and values of cities & suburbs vs. small towns and rural areas can be radically, even foreignly different. There are enclaves both of traditionalism and progressivism that have a hard time even realizing each other's existence, though to be accurate, the progressives seem to have less of an agenda of imposing themselves over others in a militant way. Real tolerance and dialogue, though, is a hard thing to achieve when yes, part of this country do speak and live and think in radically different languages than others.
In this, the U.S. has an even greater social problem than the USSR did in holding its territories together. There, at least there was a generally-similar shared culture (and geography, and a very long cultural history) that made for some comparative solidarity under pressure, whereas here the issues of states' rights and minorities have been present and heated all through the nation's growth, while rarely coming to an actual boil and letting off some badly needed steam. The United States was based on an ideological and imaginative unity rather than a genetic or ethnic one--which makes the loyalties of Americans similarly ideological rather than set in the blood itself. Avoiding certain problems thereby, but greatly exacerbating others, especially in terms of varying interpretations of the nation's greatness, or its destiny. This was likely the first nation to be so deliberately constructed as a demonstration of ideal social and political principles--the whole Great Experiment in absolute political balance and civic equality. Equality of those deemed competent to participate in its decisions, yes--but the nation evolved and grew with its people.
I'm very fond of the general concept of evolution lately, I should mention, even as it's being maligned and threatened by some benighted and reactionary fellow-citizens in this land. "Intelligent design" is one thing--intelligent self-growth is quite another, and a far more honourable thing in my estimation.
So. Ironic, isn't it, that I see the self-proclaimed champion of democracy being one of its worst practitioners? Really, there is not much at all separating America from being an empire, or a dictatorship...the "Fourth Reich" observations in my mind started a while ago, as I gained grim certainty on a certain day in September 2001, when I realized that the Bush administration would used this tragedy--whoever and whatever caused it--to further its own ambitions and agendas in any way possible--and largely succeed. Because in a crisis even Americans, in general, don't look too closely at the devil's deal they're offered--not when there's emotion involved, and revenge to be gained and heartstrings to be wrung.
The things that are remaining--freedom of speech and the press and religion, right to public assembly and petition for redress of grievances, the right of security in one's own home and personal records, the integrity of voting by conscience, the power of judicial review, and the possibilities of further evolution in civil rights for all--those sort of things are either being quietly compromised, ignored or fought against with fanatical determination by the ruling party. We may not have crowns or thrones in the White House, but there is tyranny afoot in this my native land.
........................
There, I waxed eloquent a bit--it happens. I could make a political career of my own with that. But at least there's one president I'd never stoop to write speeches for. Selling one's soul, or even loaning it, is not a prudent habit.
"Aorta (fiery version)" - digital painting, copyright K. Aurencz Zethmayr
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Election leftovers....the trail from Watergate to 2004
[From Aureantes Talks... ]
5:22 am, December 12, 2004 - So what /did/ we learn from Watergate, people...?
[Note: I initially posted most of this as a comment to another user's journal, but it was too good an impulse to not have on my own page...]
I have been reading All The President's Men, and have noticed that there are some strong parallels between the Nixon and Bush administrations...except for these additional/accentuated factors affecting both the election and general public outry this time around, despite the fact that Bush's incompetence as a world and national leader is already legendary:
--As we all know, Bush started the present Iraq situation on his own agenda instead of necessarily inheriting it, though there is a definite element of revenge/'pissing contest' in a son reviving war against the same bad guy his daddy fought. The truth of the deceptions in getting into the war has been both suspected and revealed for a long time now, rather than being singly and climactically exposed cf. the Pentagon Papers--which may account for why there's so little general noise about it, as very few habitual conservatives are willing to admit that the 'conspiracy-theorists' were right from the start.
--The vast and frankly disgustingly effective weight of the Religious Right has been put squarely on Bush's side (who says a personal religious awakening can't be planned as a political weapon?)
--The media conglomerates are larger, tighter and have a lot more experience now at avoiding, censoring and manipulating news coverage. Protests are barely or slantedly covered, and footage is censored or crafted for effective spin.
--The neocons have more, meaner, and less-rational pundits on their side (including Ann Coulter, who I think ought to be tossed down into the worst possible existence that the neocons would foist on women in general--like one of those poetic-justice Twilight Zone episodes...)
--There has been a smear operation going on against liberalism as "elitist" for years now, (I think it *began* with Nixon, or at least in reaction to Kennedy), and it's worked to convince a lot of people to "think with their hearts not their heads", when all that their hearts want is a leader who is not really any threat as a superior person to them in character, intellect, tact, or social conscience.
--Choice of media information--liberals today are far more likely to seek out and examine opposing points of view than conservatives are. Or (if you so see it) those who have their heads up their asses already are not likely to get a different view by forging ahead...
--Deliberate discrediting of the "liberal media" with the affair of Dan Rather and the supposedly false Texas Air National Guard memos. The content itself was never refuted--merely the physical authenticity of the documents themselves. I'm rather sure it was a plant, a forgery created to be 'debunked.'
--Stupid people conflating legal recognition of homosexual marriages with the threatening and 'undermining' of heterosexual ones. Not to mention grossly misinterpeting the benefits of a two-parent family and ignoring studies done regarding the positive welfare of children raised by lesbian couples.
--Vietnam. For good and for ill, people have strong feelings about this most-similar of U.S. military actions, not all of which have anything to do with the actual ethics/morality of the war. It's a dirty word so far as politics goes, and no one wants to admit that this present situation is just as bad or worse. And Kerry was not able to please everyone on account of his previous testimony against that war--even though he watered his approach down and in the process lost the absolute edge of his moral high ground.
--9/11. The politics of fear and uncertainty...pretty darn effective when you're already in office. Bush needed the war to give him credibility, and his neocons needed it as a cover and excuse for implementing all their wildest dreams. Which is pretty much what I was certain of on 9/11, pacing about the house and swearing at the TV--I knew they'd use it for anything they could.
The covert tactics of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President in 1972 are clearly and closely related to the reported and suspected tactics of the GOP in this past election. What we are dealing with now politically has everything to do with Watergate, seeing as it was an exposure that could not be allowed to happen again.
So the neocons made sure that this time they had everything taken care of...
Plus they had the asset that yes, people are easily distracted. I think they're getting stupider, too.
5:22 am, December 12, 2004 - So what /did/ we learn from Watergate, people...?
[Note: I initially posted most of this as a comment to another user's journal, but it was too good an impulse to not have on my own page...]
I have been reading All The President's Men, and have noticed that there are some strong parallels between the Nixon and Bush administrations...except for these additional/accentuated factors affecting both the election and general public outry this time around, despite the fact that Bush's incompetence as a world and national leader is already legendary:
--As we all know, Bush started the present Iraq situation on his own agenda instead of necessarily inheriting it, though there is a definite element of revenge/'pissing contest' in a son reviving war against the same bad guy his daddy fought. The truth of the deceptions in getting into the war has been both suspected and revealed for a long time now, rather than being singly and climactically exposed cf. the Pentagon Papers--which may account for why there's so little general noise about it, as very few habitual conservatives are willing to admit that the 'conspiracy-theorists' were right from the start.
--The vast and frankly disgustingly effective weight of the Religious Right has been put squarely on Bush's side (who says a personal religious awakening can't be planned as a political weapon?)
--The media conglomerates are larger, tighter and have a lot more experience now at avoiding, censoring and manipulating news coverage. Protests are barely or slantedly covered, and footage is censored or crafted for effective spin.
--The neocons have more, meaner, and less-rational pundits on their side (including Ann Coulter, who I think ought to be tossed down into the worst possible existence that the neocons would foist on women in general--like one of those poetic-justice Twilight Zone episodes...)
--There has been a smear operation going on against liberalism as "elitist" for years now, (I think it *began* with Nixon, or at least in reaction to Kennedy), and it's worked to convince a lot of people to "think with their hearts not their heads", when all that their hearts want is a leader who is not really any threat as a superior person to them in character, intellect, tact, or social conscience.
--Choice of media information--liberals today are far more likely to seek out and examine opposing points of view than conservatives are. Or (if you so see it) those who have their heads up their asses already are not likely to get a different view by forging ahead...
--Deliberate discrediting of the "liberal media" with the affair of Dan Rather and the supposedly false Texas Air National Guard memos. The content itself was never refuted--merely the physical authenticity of the documents themselves. I'm rather sure it was a plant, a forgery created to be 'debunked.'
--Stupid people conflating legal recognition of homosexual marriages with the threatening and 'undermining' of heterosexual ones. Not to mention grossly misinterpeting the benefits of a two-parent family and ignoring studies done regarding the positive welfare of children raised by lesbian couples.
--Vietnam. For good and for ill, people have strong feelings about this most-similar of U.S. military actions, not all of which have anything to do with the actual ethics/morality of the war. It's a dirty word so far as politics goes, and no one wants to admit that this present situation is just as bad or worse. And Kerry was not able to please everyone on account of his previous testimony against that war--even though he watered his approach down and in the process lost the absolute edge of his moral high ground.
--9/11. The politics of fear and uncertainty...pretty darn effective when you're already in office. Bush needed the war to give him credibility, and his neocons needed it as a cover and excuse for implementing all their wildest dreams. Which is pretty much what I was certain of on 9/11, pacing about the house and swearing at the TV--I knew they'd use it for anything they could.
The covert tactics of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President in 1972 are clearly and closely related to the reported and suspected tactics of the GOP in this past election. What we are dealing with now politically has everything to do with Watergate, seeing as it was an exposure that could not be allowed to happen again.
So the neocons made sure that this time they had everything taken care of...
Plus they had the asset that yes, people are easily distracted. I think they're getting stupider, too.
Saturday, January 01, 2005
We'll take a cup of kindness yet....
I'm listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at the moment on WFMT (Chicago), and it just headed into the full-chorus final few pages, after that slight hesitation, that sense of just coming over the hill in the early morning light, you know?...
I have to say, I love this whole piece, but it generally isn't for the quality of the solo vocals in the last movement--they really have to have a consummate strength and relative purity of tone in order to not sound unbearably unwieldy. The chorus itself is always a joy of texture, most of all so when it approaches the absolute-music quality of the orchestral passages before--but most of all what this piece does represent in my mind is a triumph of human liberty and dignity and release--they got this definitely right in Immortal Beloved, in that flight through the city and woods to float among the reflected stars--really, completely worthy of its most historically significant usage, to celebrate the falling of the Berlin Wall. It does get me a bit emotional whenever I listen to it, because it has so much attached into it now, and I thoroughly approve of it being the classical New Year's anthem, more so than any waltz by the Strausses--though I've gotten a bit better about tolerating the unmitigatedly "happy" music of the occasion.
If this doesn't sound too cheesy, Beethoven's Ninth reminds me of that line in "O Little Town of Bethlehem"--"The hopes and fears of all the years / Are met in thee tonight." And I prefer my music like that, to have the tension and longing together, beauty acute enough to cause a pang...that's always the proof it works, so to speak, if you can have so much pleasure in music that it's almost pain to feel so much. Tears are the christening of highest art in this world.
I missed hearing any singing of "Auld Lang Syne" tonight, but there's another one that gets me right where it matters. Such a simple little poem, and a simple tune, but one that (no small thanks to Frank Capra) really gets at the core of what's most important to hold onto in this season. May sound like I'm waxing maudlin, but I'm deadly serious--well, and perhaps this year it doesn't sound so trite at all. We have to value each other--that's the end of it, or the beginning, end, and middle of it all.
Even if our leaders don't, and those who are supposed to be speaking for us. I hate to shove it in people's faces (okay, so that's not exactly true), but Osama bin Laden was right in reiterating one basic truth: our futures lie in our own hands. And it is the test of humanity now to cut through the crap of religions, political machines, and so-called "moral values"--a worse euphemism was never coined, save for "compassionate conservatism"--and get to the real work of actual civilization.
You know, that thing that Gandhi thought would be a good idea in the West...
I wish all who happen across this not-so-humble blog a good and fulfilling New Year, with health and prosperity and harmony. May all be better than before, and better for us all than we dare hope.
I have to say, I love this whole piece, but it generally isn't for the quality of the solo vocals in the last movement--they really have to have a consummate strength and relative purity of tone in order to not sound unbearably unwieldy. The chorus itself is always a joy of texture, most of all so when it approaches the absolute-music quality of the orchestral passages before--but most of all what this piece does represent in my mind is a triumph of human liberty and dignity and release--they got this definitely right in Immortal Beloved, in that flight through the city and woods to float among the reflected stars--really, completely worthy of its most historically significant usage, to celebrate the falling of the Berlin Wall. It does get me a bit emotional whenever I listen to it, because it has so much attached into it now, and I thoroughly approve of it being the classical New Year's anthem, more so than any waltz by the Strausses--though I've gotten a bit better about tolerating the unmitigatedly "happy" music of the occasion.
If this doesn't sound too cheesy, Beethoven's Ninth reminds me of that line in "O Little Town of Bethlehem"--"The hopes and fears of all the years / Are met in thee tonight." And I prefer my music like that, to have the tension and longing together, beauty acute enough to cause a pang...that's always the proof it works, so to speak, if you can have so much pleasure in music that it's almost pain to feel so much. Tears are the christening of highest art in this world.
I missed hearing any singing of "Auld Lang Syne" tonight, but there's another one that gets me right where it matters. Such a simple little poem, and a simple tune, but one that (no small thanks to Frank Capra) really gets at the core of what's most important to hold onto in this season. May sound like I'm waxing maudlin, but I'm deadly serious--well, and perhaps this year it doesn't sound so trite at all. We have to value each other--that's the end of it, or the beginning, end, and middle of it all.
Even if our leaders don't, and those who are supposed to be speaking for us. I hate to shove it in people's faces (okay, so that's not exactly true), but Osama bin Laden was right in reiterating one basic truth: our futures lie in our own hands. And it is the test of humanity now to cut through the crap of religions, political machines, and so-called "moral values"--a worse euphemism was never coined, save for "compassionate conservatism"--and get to the real work of actual civilization.
You know, that thing that Gandhi thought would be a good idea in the West...
I wish all who happen across this not-so-humble blog a good and fulfilling New Year, with health and prosperity and harmony. May all be better than before, and better for us all than we dare hope.
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
My finger slipped, & semi-seasonal ramblings
This mouse is acting up a bit...don't know if it's the cold or what (well, I'm in the Chicago area, so that does indicate a certain degree of climatological extremities...). Anyhow, that previous was not a whole post, and will be deleted at once.
Probably not inclined to post the whole train of thought now anyhow, as I actually should be working on something else, namely my latest portrait commission...rather like a joke fallen flat, not sure if anyone wants to delve into the subject of cinematic accents as culturally analogical. Save it for a rainy day, maybe, after the pressing subjects of holidays and the state of humanity have receded slightly back into the everyday.
Will be posting more here after Christmas and the hectic flurry of making sure all the presents are properly wrapped and presented--the indoor decoration is mostly done now save for the 4.5' prelit artificial tree my siblings and I are in agreement on purchasing...the 3' fiber-optic one is fun to watch, but there's no way of hanging the ornaments on it, and that does tend to make the decking of halls quite a bit less communal. The smell of a pine tree is fine and much-desired, but not so the needles. When you're three grown people living together without a designed housekeeper (i.e., "your mama ain't here", at least not on a live-in basis), it helps to keep the holiday complications as manageable as possible.
Shall be sending out cards to all those for whom I have "earth-addys"...this is a yearly project, to address myself to the actual work of "keeping in touch" and maintaining professional contacts. I have sent out just one so far--but that's a long story and it went to Minnesota. First north, then south, another paper airplane shot out into the sky of the world. Sometimes I think I wonder whether it's ever guaranteed that the mail will get where I want it to go, but then again, I just realize now that I may still be suffering from the aftereffects of a couple of unanswered (one returned) 'fan letters' from my sophomore year of highschool...long story. Two long stories, and I have not the slightest intention of going into that right now, not at this time of this year and with all the memories it's bringing up.
Not misty watercoloured ones, just in case anyone at all had the reference in mind. Geez, and I already had that damn song stuck in my head today--with an interesting conglomerated plot idea to boot, but what does that have to do with knocking the stadium lights out with a home run? Guess the answer's in the parking garage...
Sorry--I'm trying to cut down on the cryptic references but it just ain't working. "Semper obfuscare" is my motto by default--or at least, if not to confuse the shiznit out of people, to make them exert a little more than the average deductive reasoning in figuring out the exact location of my thoughts. Unfortunately, most people my own age do not have that accumulation of artistic and historical exposure to be able to put all the links together...and if you have not the faintest idea at all where I might be hovering with these things, I'm sure it grows fairly tiresome. At least, so my former girfriends have implied.
But I'll just leave that as a semi-apologetic (it's just the way my mind works, after all), and go off to get that painting under control. My back is killing me due to my wrestling a large metal bookcase in close quarters last night, and I think I really ought to aim for going to bed before dawn...
Probably not inclined to post the whole train of thought now anyhow, as I actually should be working on something else, namely my latest portrait commission...rather like a joke fallen flat, not sure if anyone wants to delve into the subject of cinematic accents as culturally analogical. Save it for a rainy day, maybe, after the pressing subjects of holidays and the state of humanity have receded slightly back into the everyday.
Will be posting more here after Christmas and the hectic flurry of making sure all the presents are properly wrapped and presented--the indoor decoration is mostly done now save for the 4.5' prelit artificial tree my siblings and I are in agreement on purchasing...the 3' fiber-optic one is fun to watch, but there's no way of hanging the ornaments on it, and that does tend to make the decking of halls quite a bit less communal. The smell of a pine tree is fine and much-desired, but not so the needles. When you're three grown people living together without a designed housekeeper (i.e., "your mama ain't here", at least not on a live-in basis), it helps to keep the holiday complications as manageable as possible.
Shall be sending out cards to all those for whom I have "earth-addys"...this is a yearly project, to address myself to the actual work of "keeping in touch" and maintaining professional contacts. I have sent out just one so far--but that's a long story and it went to Minnesota. First north, then south, another paper airplane shot out into the sky of the world. Sometimes I think I wonder whether it's ever guaranteed that the mail will get where I want it to go, but then again, I just realize now that I may still be suffering from the aftereffects of a couple of unanswered (one returned) 'fan letters' from my sophomore year of highschool...long story. Two long stories, and I have not the slightest intention of going into that right now, not at this time of this year and with all the memories it's bringing up.
Not misty watercoloured ones, just in case anyone at all had the reference in mind. Geez, and I already had that damn song stuck in my head today--with an interesting conglomerated plot idea to boot, but what does that have to do with knocking the stadium lights out with a home run? Guess the answer's in the parking garage...
Sorry--I'm trying to cut down on the cryptic references but it just ain't working. "Semper obfuscare" is my motto by default--or at least, if not to confuse the shiznit out of people, to make them exert a little more than the average deductive reasoning in figuring out the exact location of my thoughts. Unfortunately, most people my own age do not have that accumulation of artistic and historical exposure to be able to put all the links together...and if you have not the faintest idea at all where I might be hovering with these things, I'm sure it grows fairly tiresome. At least, so my former girfriends have implied.
But I'll just leave that as a semi-apologetic (it's just the way my mind works, after all), and go off to get that painting under control. My back is killing me due to my wrestling a large metal bookcase in close quarters last night, and I think I really ought to aim for going to bed before dawn...
Saturday, December 18, 2004
Testing the opened channels....and railing at Murphy's Law
Alright, I certainly hope this works....last night either my computer connection or this server lost one of the most brilliant and insightful posts I'd ever written in my life, and the only logical reason I can see for it is that the rest of the world was never meant to read it...had too much in it.
Anyhow, this is just a test post, and so I will just flesh it out somewhat by stating that my freelance work is picking up for the holidays--portraits from photographs, for which purpose I've rigged up a homemade lightbox in my studio so that I can trace from the enlargements off my computer. It's installed in a desk with a lowered-out middle section--lined with aluminum foil and clear plastic bubble wrap for reflection and diffusion, with a pane of glass in an old wooden picture frame, and the light supplied by a three-light cream plastic faux candelabra I'd taken out to decorate for Christmas, just laid inside the hollow and shifted as needed.
I'm rather proud of my ingenuity there...always very satisfying to rig up something that works in a pinch. I'd been rather stymied over the difficulties of transferring accurate proportions onto the page--2D to 2D is a rather error-prone translation--so this is a breakthrough, and a very useful one for my present little line of business.
Signing off to go work on the present commission, just as soon as I'm assured this thing comes through as I rigged it up to....
Aurey
Anyhow, this is just a test post, and so I will just flesh it out somewhat by stating that my freelance work is picking up for the holidays--portraits from photographs, for which purpose I've rigged up a homemade lightbox in my studio so that I can trace from the enlargements off my computer. It's installed in a desk with a lowered-out middle section--lined with aluminum foil and clear plastic bubble wrap for reflection and diffusion, with a pane of glass in an old wooden picture frame, and the light supplied by a three-light cream plastic faux candelabra I'd taken out to decorate for Christmas, just laid inside the hollow and shifted as needed.
I'm rather proud of my ingenuity there...always very satisfying to rig up something that works in a pinch. I'd been rather stymied over the difficulties of transferring accurate proportions onto the page--2D to 2D is a rather error-prone translation--so this is a breakthrough, and a very useful one for my present little line of business.
Signing off to go work on the present commission, just as soon as I'm assured this thing comes through as I rigged it up to....
Aurey
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Initiating contact....
My other blog, Aureantes Talks, is now mainly designated as the place where I go off on obnoxious in-jokes and add quizzes and make snarky references with semi-incriminating personal information. Not that there isn't anything serious there (it is my first blog, after all), but the whole system there and the rather incestuous nature of my friends list and our mutual interests makes it a bit unlikely that anything of a scholarly or professional nature is going to get noticed on that network. And I am definitely scholarly and trying to keep somewhat professional about it.
Hence, this newest blogsite of yours truly, which I really must remember to add-link to the portal page of my main site, Aureantes' Realm. The more I can keep things organized the better, as I certainly did not come online in the first place to sit in a corner and surf without sound. I make a fair amount of noise as I pass, though only where it seems needful. And of course I like to get some noise in response.
Pundit?--sure, you can call me that, though being a Libra I am unlikely to espouse any real extremity of position. Definitely a universal critic as well, but vehemently opposed to dryness and miniscule dissections of signification. I follow the way of Camus, not so much that of Sartre. Camus regarded philosophy as needfully concrete and connected to the reality of one's situation, not so far abstract that it only seems to truly exist within the pages of academic dissertations, no matter how much popular culture it chews up and spits back in reference.
I was raised to be an academic myself--I can speak that language fluently if the occasion demands--but frankly, I find it rather boring. And empty. Someone said that music degenerates when it moves too far away from the dance (I'd say from natural singing and its rhythms, myself)--and modern philosophy, it seems, has moved so far away from any real estimation of necessary human concerns that it is now propagating itself more or less in vitro--via college computer monitors, camera lenses and overhead projectors, rather than by reiterating its contact with the physical and sensual world, the only interface through which it can achieve real and enduring value to anyone, anywhere.
Mysticism, on the other hand, is immanent. One does not need a special rarefied terminology to pin it down with, nor a degree, nor even the reading of a single thesis. It can be translated without any proprietary intellectual structure, so long as one has the key of insight. Of course, it can be--and sometimes tragically is--misunderstood. But that's the nature of wisdom itself--it cannot be forced but has to grow. Trying to turn it into an object, though, a science in the modern sense...well, who can say whether that's a vain or an honourable pursuit? All I know is, it seems a lot of people are going about that business all wrong, and that the study which is supposedly the "love of wisdom" seems to have its head simultaneously off in the clouds and up its own arse. I watched "Waking Life" and thought it was both poignantly beautiful and almost too erudite for its own good, a dreamscape so abstracted into verbal concept that one might as well float off into the clouds.
While we're in this thing some call reality, I think it best to engage it with all our senses, on every level. And I think the academic pursuit of wisdom itself (to which philosophy is apparently nothing more than a string of cages) should if anything be as non-formalized as possible, a matter of exposure and absorption rather than the drive to win a grade or impress with one's citings.
If anything one learns is to be of value, then the impulse to express it in discourse and inquiry must be sincere and spontaneous--not something that one is forced to produce but that on the contrary cannot be held back once the forum is opened. That is the true desire of wisdom, when no other persuasion than the sheer thrill of insight and connection is needed to spur one's searchings and all that follows from them. If one does not love wisdom and learning for their own virtue, then of what use is it to formalize and dry things out into easy bitesize pieces to try and feed everyone at similar pace? Far more useful that those who have the desire recieve the whole fruit wherever it can be given or found in their own gleanings, while those who are not ready or fit for such things should not be forcefed that which they cannot digest.
More on this to come...my own academic history is an interesting one, and my views are (as one can see) not necessarily those of the mainstream. I do tend to ramble a lot, though, when left to my own devices and not the framework of a plot or formal thesis. But of course...what else is this place for?
Hence, this newest blogsite of yours truly, which I really must remember to add-link to the portal page of my main site, Aureantes' Realm. The more I can keep things organized the better, as I certainly did not come online in the first place to sit in a corner and surf without sound. I make a fair amount of noise as I pass, though only where it seems needful. And of course I like to get some noise in response.
Pundit?--sure, you can call me that, though being a Libra I am unlikely to espouse any real extremity of position. Definitely a universal critic as well, but vehemently opposed to dryness and miniscule dissections of signification. I follow the way of Camus, not so much that of Sartre. Camus regarded philosophy as needfully concrete and connected to the reality of one's situation, not so far abstract that it only seems to truly exist within the pages of academic dissertations, no matter how much popular culture it chews up and spits back in reference.
I was raised to be an academic myself--I can speak that language fluently if the occasion demands--but frankly, I find it rather boring. And empty. Someone said that music degenerates when it moves too far away from the dance (I'd say from natural singing and its rhythms, myself)--and modern philosophy, it seems, has moved so far away from any real estimation of necessary human concerns that it is now propagating itself more or less in vitro--via college computer monitors, camera lenses and overhead projectors, rather than by reiterating its contact with the physical and sensual world, the only interface through which it can achieve real and enduring value to anyone, anywhere.
Mysticism, on the other hand, is immanent. One does not need a special rarefied terminology to pin it down with, nor a degree, nor even the reading of a single thesis. It can be translated without any proprietary intellectual structure, so long as one has the key of insight. Of course, it can be--and sometimes tragically is--misunderstood. But that's the nature of wisdom itself--it cannot be forced but has to grow. Trying to turn it into an object, though, a science in the modern sense...well, who can say whether that's a vain or an honourable pursuit? All I know is, it seems a lot of people are going about that business all wrong, and that the study which is supposedly the "love of wisdom" seems to have its head simultaneously off in the clouds and up its own arse. I watched "Waking Life" and thought it was both poignantly beautiful and almost too erudite for its own good, a dreamscape so abstracted into verbal concept that one might as well float off into the clouds.
While we're in this thing some call reality, I think it best to engage it with all our senses, on every level. And I think the academic pursuit of wisdom itself (to which philosophy is apparently nothing more than a string of cages) should if anything be as non-formalized as possible, a matter of exposure and absorption rather than the drive to win a grade or impress with one's citings.
If anything one learns is to be of value, then the impulse to express it in discourse and inquiry must be sincere and spontaneous--not something that one is forced to produce but that on the contrary cannot be held back once the forum is opened. That is the true desire of wisdom, when no other persuasion than the sheer thrill of insight and connection is needed to spur one's searchings and all that follows from them. If one does not love wisdom and learning for their own virtue, then of what use is it to formalize and dry things out into easy bitesize pieces to try and feed everyone at similar pace? Far more useful that those who have the desire recieve the whole fruit wherever it can be given or found in their own gleanings, while those who are not ready or fit for such things should not be forcefed that which they cannot digest.
More on this to come...my own academic history is an interesting one, and my views are (as one can see) not necessarily those of the mainstream. I do tend to ramble a lot, though, when left to my own devices and not the framework of a plot or formal thesis. But of course...what else is this place for?
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