Current Books:
the Shadow Rising - Jordan
the Road - Kerouac
How We Are Hungry - Eggers
Lectures:
History of the US
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Writing truly is magical! Once you put pen to paper, thoughts that once seemed insightful and necessary immediately are transfigured obvious and insipid.
Maybe it all has to do with the format. The fact that these thoughts are lurking in the dark alleys of your head is what gives them that perceived uniqueness and mystique (similar to why vampires are inexplicably “sexy”). Basically, because they’re in a unique format (ie – your own consciousness), they seem wonderful by default. However, as soon as the medium shifts from the unique to the mundane, your perspective shifts and (after having conquered the vertigo), you unconsciously compare your creation to the millions of similar experiences you’ve had with words-on-paper.
I guess that’s why the vampires stay in the dark: better mysterious than dust.
The truth is that thoughts of creation are dark thoughts, expanded while lying in bed, roving the misty scape of near-dreaming. These thoughts are left for the dark, unable to withstand the burning even of the muted light filtered through your eyelids.
The bright aura of a computer screen scalds the mists clear, each strike of the keyboard an earthquake to that wild, serene birthplace of words and ideas.
It does not take genius to see the fae on midsummer’s night; all children do that. The genius is in coaxing them out of the shaded wood and into the sunlight.
Those who adhere to universals – who insist that axiomatic living is ideal – want us to become machines. We would operate to specification, staying within our parameters, never deviating from the algorithm.
But our humanity is found in trying to reconcile the dark and the light, in seeing the good in both. It is not until we experience the pull between all of our facets that we are truly ourselves.
Milton could not have been righter:
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan
The proper study of mankind is man.
Plac’d on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the stoic’s pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas’ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:
Chaos of thought and passion, all confus’d;
Still by himself abus’d, or disabus’d;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl’d:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!
Our nature is to exist between extremes. But this is not some cosmic joke, like Milton intimated, but the most essential requirement to our humanity.
Without indecision, we truly would be robots. Whenever someone tries to argue about the uniqueness of sentience to biological happenstance (or to divine lineage), the most-often used recourse is to indicate that replicating human emotions is impossible. However, it’s not hard to imagine a time when we can program a machine to love, or to worry (or, at least, copy said emotions). But it is, by definition, impossible for a machine to doubt. Either the algorithm continues and the next step is clear, or it is done.
The idea of irrationality (that man reasons about the notion of his tendency to ignore reason) has an implicit unsureness. The very fact that self-awareness has this natural inclination toward doubt… well, that is where humanity lies. If not, it’s where the beauty lies.
What is meditation?
When I stare into nowhere
Sometimes
Something shifts
And I see all things
As Maya’s veil
(two-dimensional embroidery).
And sometimes
Something seems
To gently drag a finger
Across this cloth
(of which I am a part).
Is this meditation?
Or do I just need new contacts?
Setting the Stage
If you couldn’t tell from my fixation with government and it’s roles, I’m very fascinated with the idea of social contracts. Naturally, I’m used to examining this topic from a customary angle (read – political philosophy). However, I also enjoy the less well-known iterations of social contracts, both where they are being instituted (classrooms, RPGs) and where they’re breaking down (capitalism).
Well, last weekend I encountered an unexpected example of a social contract: the comedy club.
Take a second and consider the deal we make when we go to a show. When you go to a show, you throw your name into an unfortunate raffle – the comic now has license to mercilessly insult you, even if there’s nothing especially funny about you. In fact, when I go to a show, I’m kind of disappointed if the comedian doesn’t use someone in the front few rows as improv fodder for a few minutes.
This relationship in itself is hardly exceptional – it’s pretty much the dynamic between friends and spouses in every sitcom. What makes this a peculiar social contract is that the relationship is completely unilateral! The comic is encouraged to mock us but, if you throw it back, you’re the asshole that needs to shut up, sit down, and let the man with the mic do his job. And we pay to be in this lottery! Technically, we’re the customer.
The Punchline
I could go on about the peculiarities of this dynamic for a while, but what struck me is that this train of thought led me to understand an important aspect of social contracts: it’s all about the purpose of the union.
In the case of the comedy club, the purpose of the union is to laugh; if one of the marks has to take a hit, then it’s an acceptable loss. What’s amazing is that, as long as we laugh, we all accept this unvoiced dynamic. Even if you’re the one being made fun of you laugh, because that’s the point.
An even stranger variation of this provides some more evidence. When the comedian isn’t even good – when he’s just awkward and drowning – we still laugh. Granted, it’s a different laugh, but we still do our part. As long as the comedian is giving us something to work with, we’ll do our best to make up the difference.
When you think about it, the only time the social contract breaks down is when one of the parties isn’t trying at all. That’s when revolutions happen (in this case, heckling and walkouts).
The Point
So what? So what if injustices can be borne as long as the purpose of the contract is being upheld? (What, what? Really?)
But what if the purpose of your union (say, America) is unclear? What then? Then you get your Andy Kaufman moments (going along with the comedian analogy); neither side is moving toward the same goal and, ultimately, both give up on each other. And, when the social contract breaks down, anarchy reigns. And anarchy, in my opinion, is ultimately best-defined as fighting for only our individual wants and needs.
Self-evident?
Where are we? Are we starting to give up? Are we willing to forfeit something for the good of the contract, or are we just looking out for personal best interests?
Obama was exciting (wow, was that really only a year ago?) because we saw unity. There was a glimmer of a renaissance of the American social contract.
Are we losing steam? Have we forgotten that a social contract, by definition, requires sacrifice? And who wants that?
It’s the new millennium.
OK, that’s old news. Frankly, that was old news 8 years ago. With bloggers beginning to analyze the Oughts and ‘I Love the 90s’ celebrating its 5th birthday, I admit that I’m pretty behind the ‘Zeitgeist of the Cloud.’ Then again, we’ll be discussing Philosophy – a topic that is generally considered archaic (or, at least, out of touch).
That’s right. My musings today have been orbiting the following question: What form will Philosophy take among the new world order?
Not Your Grandma’s Philosophy
Before we get too far into it, in no way am I talking about the philosophy of universities and academic journals. My brother describes those philosophers as professionals striving to be living encyclopedias. And, for the most part, he is justified.
No, I mean the philosophy that Socrates himself practiced: wandering the agora, engaging whomever passed him by, bringing the arrogant ones down a few pegs. The question is, to risk a connection to an 80s classic, how would Socrates have done it had he been born into this world of TV, tweets, and Time magazine?
Before You Close This Tab
Now, you might think this question, while mildly interesting, is mostly academic and therefore pointless. However, I assure you that it is not. This topic is at the very core of whether or not Philosophy will continue to thrive or if it will join Alchemy and Phrenology in the semi-comical crypt of dead sciences.
Philosophy has been through quite the series of transformations [post on the Metamorphosis of Philosophy is upcoming]. However, while once a dynamic battleground of ideals and worldviews, the ole “love of wisdom” has long been absorbed by the aristocracy. That’s where the problem lies.
As Matt Mason illustrates effectively in his book ‘the Pirate’s Dilemma‘, once a major cultural movement has been appropriated by the establishment, it has the choice of adapting or fading away. Reinvention or obsoletion. Which will it be? For the study that has been the primordial soup of all major hard and soft sciences, I feel that there are few intellectual questions more pressing.
28 Days Later (…OK, more like 2800 YEARS later)
So, that is the question: will Philosophy be reborn or become the nosferatu from which all sane people run?
Well, if you must know anything about me, you should learn that I am (perhaps against my better judgment) an optimist. So death isn’t an option. Philosophy must adapt. Perhaps it already is adapting.
So Here’s the Project
Over the course of the next few articles, we’ll examine each of the major forms of media (Audio, Video, Written, Social) to see which vehicles are most predisposed to Philosophical discourse. Since speculation yields nothing related to reality, along the way we’ll examine whether or not philosophy has already begun to creep into these media.
I know, I know – I can hardly wait too!
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