The absurd meets the irrational

It occurred to me a while back that it might be interesting to try to figure out whether Jesus believed he had the answer, or whether he merely hoped (fervently) that he had the answer. The question arises because religious faith appears at best to be no more than a Pascalian wager. Such a faith, although it may make the person feel warm and holy, is never a rational certainty -- not to speak of its essentially paradoxical character. Hence faith gives rise to hope, and thus to charity; but it does not give rise to rational belief. Any evidence to the effect that Jesus had a rational belief in his message, then, would seem to be proof that he was either indeed the son of god, or that he was "emotionally disturbed.” One way to settle this question may be by analyzing the tone of his sermons: does he seem to be stating rational beliefs, or is he "selling"? Is he just trying to convince his audience, or is he trying to convince himself too?

From hero to madman

The treatment of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn by the Western media. His heroism and defiance of the system were originally admired. Later on, the idea resurfaced that whoever would destroy his personal life or even inconvenience himself in any way for the sake of an ideal, must be a madman. Hence began their reports on what was wrong with him, and eventually he was shunned and ignored by the media. In the [former] East, dissidents are suppressed; in the West, they are ignored -- hence they in fact receive more attention in the East than in the West. Solzhenitsyn's fall from hero to madman can perhaps be understood in light of the previous post: the man who lives for an ideal is incomprehensible to the average person; since the gods are dead, he is simply "abnormal" -- in other words, a madman.

Deification by design

The primitive’s deification of whatever he/she does not understand – principally, large-scale natural phenomena – is translated into the theistic person’s deification of whatever is morally beyond belief, and hence beyond understanding; the character of a “prophet,” for instance, is beyond the common person’s understanding – hence, for example, the deification of Jesus. The primitive worships that which arouses powerful feelings in him/her, and yet seems utterly superior to the primitive’s own level of existence. The Christian worships Jesus, because Jesus’ message has a powerful emotional impact, yet the Christian does not really want to be like Jesus; the Christian, therefore, has to believe that Jesus is utterly superior to his own level of existence. The Christian indeed fears Jesus, in the same way that the primitive fears Thunder. Jesus threatens to destroy the Christian’s real ideas about the right way to live and to be. The Christian is as far from understanding Jesus, as the primitive is from understanding thunder.

Nazism is history... or is it?

Hitler may have lost the war, but he did not lose the Kampf. The "ideals" of Mein Kampf -- which are, in fact, Hitler's observations on how the realities of the human condition can be used to propel a small group to power -- are on their way to become the realities of each country in the world. National Socialism as the actual political philosophy of the post-war world.

It’s for a good causality

Causality has generally been misunderstood. The concept of a mechanical, and therefore meaningless, causality misses the “intentionality” or purpose that is inherent in causality; in other words, the correct meaning of the world “causality” contains the connotation of purpose, and any mechanical understanding of causality is simply a misapprehension borne of fuzzy thinking. When a glass falls off a table and breaks, one clear way of understanding the event, as opposed to unclear, passive, ways of understanding it, is by describing it this way: “The floor broke the glass.” The description may at first seem absurd, but it is no more absurd than “I lifted the glass to my lips” – rather than “The glass got lifted to my lips.” The supposed accidentalness of human existence, a bastard child of the evolutionary theory, stems from a similar root, namely, a misunderstanding of the nature of evolutionary causality. An illustration from a different field may help to clarify the matter. Take cooking. The usual understanding of the process of cooking is that the ingredients come into being as a result of interactions between the sun and the soil, and then they are picked up and used as food. Let us look at the matter differently. The sun and the soil give plants what these require. Plants use what they are given to improve themselves and to ripen into tasty and nutritious produce; hence, they give of themselves to animals. Animals use what they are given by plants to nourish themselves, and to grow and mature, hopefully, into good friends of the earth. In the case of human beings, then, the intention would be to give rise to a being that is capable of a relatively full appreciation of the whole process.

The Essences of Childhood

Children take their lives and the world more seriously than adults do; a child accepts every facet of life as intrinsically meaningful. He/she does not require a superstructure of laws of interaction and meanings of relationships to make sense of the world. This purity and atomism of childhood begins to disappear as more and more laws and extrinsic meanings are taken for granted. Hence, adults become blasé about the world, while moving away from essences. As an illustration, the essence of goodness and evil are directly accessible to a child; to an adult, however, goodness and evil are vague, abstract, and intangible unknowns that have nothing to do with the “concrete reality" of day-to-day life. Adults, therefore, play the game of life, though without being truly serious about it; children, on the other hand, play their games in total awareness of their meanings, and in earnest seriousness. Children know the True, the Good, and the Beautiful in the latter three’s actual essence, and require no concepts to “visualize” them; adults need the concepts to categorize and visualize those essences, as they are no longer able to directly perceive them. Children are not taught the essences; rather, they are made to forget them. Does one begin to get old when one has completely forgotten the essences?

From showing-off to showing-with

At some point in life, not necessarily the same point for everyone, childish showing-off turns into adult sharing. In children, showing off may be a means of trying to overcome a sense of weakness or virtual non-existence; this will become clearer if we perhaps extend the meaning of “child” to include all supposedly immature persons; it is a known fact among a certain elite that the search for a physically attractive mate is for reasons of vanity, rather than individual need or want. The latter point can be substantiated by a desert-island illustration: in such a situation, basic sexual compatibility is sufficient, and no frills are necessary – or even meaningful. Showing-off, then, is for a “child” a means of affirming some meaningfulness for her existence as opposed to the existence of others. As the basic existence of the person gradually become established, however, the need for antagonistic existence diminishes; there grows, in its place, the need for filling out qualitative gaps in that existence. In other words, the person is more or less aware of his own weaknesses at this point, weaknesses that he has to live with, and which he cannot overcome by acquiring new toys to show off. At this point, the person needs simultaneously to show her own weaknesses and to overcome them; she needs to show her weaknesses, because that is the only way she can be what she really is – in other words, showing one’s weaknesses becomes a means to confirm one’s own existence, as opposed to the earlier state, where showing weakness was suppressed at all cost. Mere unveiling of weaknesses, however, leaves a meaningless and empty blank. Hence, the weaknesses need to be overcome as they are being unveiled. This can be done by mutual collaboration between two persons; as the first person shows off, for instance, her knowledge of geography or his new car, the second person moves in, and, by showing interest or enthusiasm, brings meaning into the situation. Speaking more explicitly, the first person, by showing off her knowledge or his possessions, communicates his/her need for approval. Therefore, showing off, far from creating interpersonal distance and antagonism, as it did in “childhood,” become a means of sharing oneself with others. An established and mature personality no longer means to say, “I have a lot of knowledge, money, or taste”; rather, such a person wishes to convey his/her qualitative weaknesses, and to seek help in alleviating them.

The one in all

Why should I try to be considerate and warm towards the bank teller or the supermarket cashier? After all, she is only a stranger who I will never get to know. Nevertheless, isn't she just like me and all the people I do know? Wouldn't I like to have been friendly towards the people I now know, when I did not yet know them? Aren't people, therefore, deserving of consideration and warmth, irrespective of whether I happened to know them or not? After all, everyone is someone's friend or acquaintance. Thus, perhaps, the mystic's vision of "the one in all" -- or, as some of them would say, the vision of the friend in all; through such a vision, the artificial duality of friend and foe, and hence that of I and he, dissolves into a unified vision of all humanity, and perhaps later into a universal vision embracing own life, and eventually the entire cosmos; the latter may perhaps be accomplished by thinking of the cosmos as a part of what I am, rather than an "it".

Caught in moralisms

When Nietzsche says, "I am the opposite of the Yes-saying spirit," he means that he is not the kind of man whose thoughts run in channels of approval and disapproval, that is, the moralistic kind of man. Nietzsche's statements, for example the one about the blond beast of prey, have been interpreted by such men -- or rather misinterpreted by them -- as moralistic statements of approval or disapproval -- the statements are, in fact, no more or less than metaphors about reality, and as such they are statements of fact, not value.

Removing the subject

Problem: finding out what a friend really thinks of one. Solution: asking another friend to ask the first one about oneself, without the second person revealing the purpose of his inquiry, and with the understanding that he will not reveal the answer to anyone; in other words, using sneaky and indirect means -- more bluntly, using guile and deception. Corollary: Can a parallel methodology be developed for experimental science, to eliminate the subjectivity of observation, and to make nature speak for itself? In both questions, the problem is making the source of knowledge speak independently of one's psychological influence upon him or it.

The origin of politics

People turn to the bringing forth of politics and political systems only when they can no longer tolerate life with their fellow beings -- and in this case "can't" means "ought not to," but inertia keeps people from bringing the latter fact to the level of consciousness. Politics, then, comes into being as a means of restraining beings whose instincts urge them to find a few like-minded individuals, and go away to found a new community. Hobbes was right in his view of the nature of politics, but not in his view of the need for it -- at least as far as manageably small, harmonious communities are concerned -- though, on the other hand, he was talking, after all, about the Leviathan.

The poverty of poverty

Poverty is depressing -- to its "sufferers" that is -- not because of anything in poverty itself, but rather because of the way it is interpreted -- I am of course talking about the case where the basic survival and the basic happiness requirements are available. The reason poverty is depressing is that it is perceived as the lack of something one should have; more exactly, it is perceived as the lack of something that would supply part of the purpose of one's life. If the purpose of one's life, therefore, were defined so as not to include those "extras," their lack would of course be, at the very least, no cause for the downheartedness -- in fact, such a "lack" would not be felt at all -- an Indian farmer does not in any sense feel his life has not achieved its purpose as he doesn't own a Rolls Royce. Now as far as the genealogy (or "archaeology") of the need for these extras -- it doesn't just happen. As one begins to realize that society does not automatically provide one with the means to satisfy ones psychical needs, such as companionship of the right kind, "love," and so on -- and that even one's physical survival could possibly be endangered by a lack of food or proper shelter -- a surge of animal fear, very similar to the exultation of religious "salvation" from the dread of existence, pours forth, and crystallizes in a grasping for anything that would relieve this fear of deprivation. To summarize, the need for the extras originates in one's realization of the precariousness of one's psychical and physical survival -- that is, the first semi-conscious clue to the role of the law of the jungle in a society where economics, rather than ethics, is the basis of individual and mass conduct.

Poverty and student life

The poverty of the student life was originally an essential part of being a student, and a source of distinction, if not pride, for students. The student, as he [or very rarely she] joined the academic world, say a monastery or ancient university or college, assumed poverty as a symbol of having renounced the world, and of being in pursuit of higher aims than the accumulation of material wealth. Eventually, the concepts of “student” and “poverty” were firmly associated with each other in the popular mind – though, originally, the poverty was understood to be simply an assumed state – it was understood that the student had chosen of his own free will to lead the life of a poor man; later, however, this part of the equation was forgotten – ideas are easier to forget than appearances. The former conception was therefore replaced by the picture of the student as just another poor man – and what does a poor man want the most, if not wealth? Thus originated the picture of the student as a man who had temporarily abandoned the pursuit of wealth, in order to get ready to pursue much greater wealth…

The commodification of beauty

Admiration of female beauty may gradually be supplanted by admiration of female makeup: “Look at the makeup on that woman!!” “Doesn’t that chick have great hair-dye?” “She certainly knows how to fix her face!” – the latter exclamation perhaps suggesting a further progress of democracy, in that natural beauty, being a cause of envy and division, will be replaced by quantified makeup appeal, that anyone can partake of – beauty as a possession, rather than an indefinable, ephemeral, “I know not what.” Concomitant with the above, beauty will become active rather than passive – one makes oneself beautiful, rather than simply sit and wait to be admired for something that is already there – this adding a masculine dimension to feminine beauty. As the “classical” forms of female beauty are forgotten, and a new kind of beauty is invented to fit each particular face, the idea that there is something intangible called female beauty – that there is a form of female beauty – will gradually be forgotten. The ironical result of all this may be that the universal beautification of women will end in depreciation and abandonment of the value and meaning attached to female beauty. As was hinted above, by this time beauty may be perceived as an ability. Hence, there may be a return to the classical Greek idea that a strong and well-proportioned man, with a mind as powerful and well-organized as his body, is the most beautiful creature there is.

There is no self

The basic error of psychologists who have taken Nietzsche's notion of "masks" literally, is that they have presupposed the masks are put on an unchanging, or at least stable, foundation. It is a well-known, for instance, the men tend to be more neat and well-behaved in women's presence; it is generally assumed the men put on a different mask in women's presence than the usual one; or that they put on a mask then, while they are otherwise maskless. Such talk, however, is based on the mentioned presupposition. Without that presupposition, it becomes clear that a man becomes a different person in a woman's presence; or, in general, that any particular person becomes a different person for every other person -- that is, every person is as many persons as he happens to come into contact with. The question that, if the above is correct, then what is a person when he is by himself can be answered by reflection on the nature of solitary activity. All such activity is other-directed, that is, directed towards another person; such a person may be a particular person known to the one we are considering, or else a type of person. For example, the writing of a friendly letter is directed towards a particular person, while the writing of an unsolicited magazine article is directed towards the types "editor" and "reader.” The many-faceted nothings that we are...

Accidental design

How marvelously well-adapted we are to this planet! The balance of temperature and humidity is, on average, such that one would think it had been designed specifically for us. How much we are a part of this planet, and not just beings that happened to find themselves here, and could get up and leave if they wished! The balance is disturbed as soon as we try, for example, to heat our environment -- sickening dryness results. Indeed, the origin of our need for artificial heating may be the fact that we invented clothes, and gradually lost our natural covering. The original function of clothes may have been to indicate one's physical power, since the possession of a bearskin, for instance, showed others that the man wearing it deserved respect, or at least fear, since he was capable of doing away with a bear, let alone a man. In this respect, we would have come full circle, since the almost purely utilitarian value of clothes after we lost our own fur, has again been supplemented, and in many cases supplanted, by the use of clothes as luxury items and status symbols indicative of one's taste or wealth. In this connection, it may be relevant to consider the problems astronauts have had in trying to adjust to life in outer space, and the recent conclusions that we may not be built for spacefare. The new, human-oriented view of science may also be relevant, where science is considered as a product of the human mind; the latter is relevant because it may free us from the illusion that the universe has been custom-made for us; in other words, that everything makes so much sense not because the universe was designed for us, but rather because (1) we look at the world from the perspective of a particular kind of rational creature , and (2) are an integral part of this planet. If we went to another planet, the laws of science would still hold, since we would still be the same kind of beings that we are, but we would forever be aliens in that environment, no matter how much we tried to adjust it to suit us.

What is civilization?

I had wondered from time to time how it was that writing was not invented in the New World ; the only answer I had come up with was that somehow the need for writing had never arisen -- that may be true, of course, from the Old World point of view; we Old Worlders tend to think that "necessity is the mother of invention." but this is not necessarily true, and also writing seems to be something more than just an invention -- great works of literature, for example, seem to be much more than, or have much more reality than, just a collection of various alphabetical symbols formed and arranged according to rules invented by a group of inventors, as works of art have a reality external to their material , and so on. But to get down to the main point : the problem with the question may be that it is based on wrong presuppositions about what civilization is and how it comes into being and how it grows; it may be that the invention of writing is not a necessary part of the growth of a civilization. More importantly, the main points and last! , current Old World civilization's history is a very small fraction of the period of the homo sapiens' life on earth. But since we only happen to know the historical part of that period in any real detail, we tend to overemphasize the events of the historical period. And if someone objects that real culture and real human existence begins with settled city life -- we will not quarrel with him, since so far the above is simply an arbitrary or semi-arbitrary definition. But if he goes on to say that civilization in the sense of city life necessarily leads to the invention of writing, he would be contradicting the evidence of New world civilizations -- and no one could reasonably deny that the great Aztec, Inca, and Maya societies and so on were in any way anything less than civilizations.

What poetry is

I have been reading some poetry the past few days, or more exactly a chronological anthology of English-language poetry. I had always simply assumed that poetry is an expression of some kind of sublime experience, that poets are transcendental visionaries. Beyond this assumption, however, I had never, it seems, given the subject any serious thought. The majority of the poems I have been reading have been love poems of one sort or another. I am beginning to believe that love poetry is nothing but a means for the poet to persuade his female acquaintances into his bed. The reason I am coming to believe this, seems to be that what poets in general, though there are perhaps a few exceptions, say about their "beloved" seems to be just general compliments that seem only meant to please the other person -- as opposed to the expressions of the poet's feelings about the other person as a unique individual.

Misty Guerrillas

Thoughts on the massacre of Palestinians in Lebanon [in 1982]. I used to think I had the situation in Lebanon all figured out. The PLO was getting what was coming to it; it should have stuck to being a guerrilla organization (like the French Resistance in WWII) and avoided terrorist tactics – the label of freedom fighters would have given it a far higher stature in world opinion (although, on second thought, Afghanistan’s freedom fighters have become known as rebels, notwithstanding the fact that they have been getting extensive material support from the West). I could blame the PLO for their tactics and their apparent inefficient use of their resources (what does a resistance organization need tanks for – unless they are needed for the protection of refugee camps – which is doubtful). However, the massacre alters and confuses the whole picture. I can’t really blame the refugees for it; and I’m beginning to wonder whether it may be that the PLO’s mode of operation is the only one that works in that region; in other words, that they must fight everyone, and not just the Israeli military, just to stay alive – more or less.

No Gods need apply

I was wondering why it is that I believe everything that happens, happens for a good reason. At first, I thought it was a belief in a sort of impersonal God. But then if I believe everything in every individual’s life is meaningful, then this impersonal God cannot be that impersonal. However, a personal God is not the only choice left. My belief may just as well be interpreted as a faith in the universe – that with all its marvelous beauty, it cannot be capricious.

Ethics forced on politicians

In a news item about the coming municipal elections (the item was about Toronto) it was said that people are trying to bring provincial issues to the municipal level. As one spokesperson put it, people are trying to force municipal governments to assume ethical leadership. That reminded me of how people seem to have come to care less than ever, in recent memory, about political world events; the perception has grown that politicians will play their games and wage their wars, and so it doesn’t make much difference who the particular politician happens to be; what is important, according to this view, is that politicians be forced to do things and pass legislation that people want. Political organization seems more and more aimed at lobbying than at the support of representative democracy. People care less than before about “what is happening in the world?” and more about “what can I do about what is happening in the world?”; but they realize that individuals or small groups or even million-strong demonstrations cannot affect world politics significantly, so they get involved in local, tangible policymaking, where small groups can make a difference. The word “ethical” in the spokesperson’s comments may be just the right word; people may at last have come to realize that to be a politician is synonymous with being entirely free of ethics; hence their efforts to impose ethics from below.

Old Suburbia

I was reading an article in the Globe about Don Mills, an area of Toronto that was developed in the 1960s for the newly upwardly mobile. It talked about how sterile and contrived the place seems; it talked about the high-achievers who had lived there and then moved away without realizing how their lives had been shaped by the sterility of Don Mills. The article talked about a woman who, having just moved to Don Mills, invited 22 women to her house; only 8 showed up; it also talked about how privacy was a paramount consideration at Don Mills.

That got me thinking about the idea of privacy; about little groups of people hiding in their little houses, longing for the company of others though terrified of the unknown; passing their lives -- bearing their lives -- with the help of various narcotics and opiates -- physical or psychological. I thought of our blindness to the complete artificiality -- in the bad sense -- of the environment we have created; and we don't even realize that life need not be lived this way.

Artistic depiction of the human body

I had been wondering why artists are so interested in depicting the human body. After all, the human body is nothing more than an accidental product of evolutionary history; so there doesn't seem to be any special meaning in it. Everything it is everything it does is a result of some circumstance our semi-human ancestors happened to encounter. Later on in the day – or rather after midnight – I was looking through a book on drawing. It occurred to me that maybe artists have a special insight into the matter; that is to say, they see the object in a way that precludes the above analysis. To go a step further, perhaps the artistic vision of the human body is related to the human-centered sort of scientific analysis referred to as the antropic theory, rather than the above sort of objective science.

Ancestor Worship

I think I have figured out a part of the rationale for ancestor worship. I was feeling very restless this morning; more exactly, I seemed to be unwilling to get down to any serious work. Then I started, for some reason, to think about the fact that although various cultures have been civilized and/or kept records for different lengths of time, all cultures have basically been around for identical lengths of time. This led me to think of the many tens of thousands of generations that have preceded us. I suppose I felt that enormous crowd of ancestors was somehow watching out for me and rooting for me (which can perhaps be translated into primitive terminology as saying that they were protecting me). In any case, the sense of being a part of this enormous crowd of guardians seemed to dispel the sense of apathy and loneliness that had taken hold of me.