01 February 2008
Frankenstein is so emo
"Farewell! I leave you, and in you the last of human-kind whom these eyes will ever behold. Farewell Frankenstein!.... Blasted as thou wert, my agony was still superior to thine; for the bitter sting of remorse will not cease to rankle in my wounds until death shall close them forever. But soon... I shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries will be extinct. I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly, and exault in the agony of the torturing flames. The light of that conflaguration will fade away; my ashes will be swept into the sea by the winds. My spirit will sleep in peace; or if it thinks, it will not surely think thus. Farewell."
09 January 2008
Based on a True Story
The present problem with the Genesis Account lies in the presentation of the Account as Historical Reality. Those of Evangelical persuasion maintain that it must be Historical in order to be Real because Evangelicalism contends that it is the True Heir of the Enlightenment, while those of Scientific (Agnostic, Atheistic, Rationalistic and/or Humanistic) persuasion maintain that the Account is not of Historical fact, and therefore is not Real. The Scientific contends that it is the True Heir of the Enlightenment, and in order to secure its position, must murder or silence all other claimants. It must hide or kill its bastard Theistic birth.
While the issue of the Historicity of the Account is central to the debate (do i say debate? i should rather say, "Both sides immutable Truth-claims") between Evangelicalism and "Science", the Historicity of the Account need not be of any significance whatsoever to those who wish to delicately extricate themselves from the static conversation (when both participants merely state and re-state their prejudices, a conversation becomes incredibly dull, the prudent (impudent?) course is to excuse oneself to seek out more interesting conversationalists).
The Historical accuracy of the events which a text is purported to recount does not, of necessity, have any bearing on the Account itself.
History has no thingness in and of itself. That is to say, History is not actual events as they actually happened. History is not objective (Truth) nor can it be approached objectively.
Now, perhaps you say, "Of course! That goes without saying. Especially with regard to Events so far distant in the past, we can never KNOW all there is to KNOW about the event, therefore, as more evidence pro or contra comes to light, we must revise our Historical understanding of Events."
No, no. A thousand times no!
Even Events that occurred yesterday, what i thought, or did, or ate or wrote. This is not what "actually happened", rather, what i did (and having come as far as yesterday, how can i not go one day further to today, to this moment?), what i am doing is attempting to integrate the story i tell myself about this person i call myself into the story i tell myself about Reality: everything/one that touches on "my" story. While at the same time the story of Reality (which is a too-broad generalization by which i mean every "my story" told by everything/one which my story intersects) is attempting to integrate my story into Its story: a beautiful, messy and self-contradictory canon of the Scripture of What Is.
The grapes i eat today are not the same as the grapes i may remember eating tomorrow. And perhaps, in a week, or a year, or ten, the grapes i ate will have been completely edited out of my story all together (are they then gone? or do they linger on somewhere in a dusty old tome that neither i nor anyone else cares to read?).
History is a text. Very much like a Bible in its hodge-podge collection of authors and little texts and stories. Like the Bible, any may read it and interpret it as they chose. Like the Bible the allowable contents of the Text have been set long ago by scholars who thought they knew best (and perhaps they did). The canon changes reluctantly, if at all. Likewise, these scholars or some similar to them have delimited the allowable interpretations of the Text. And like the Bible "allowable contents" and "allowable interpretations" have morphed into (or perhaps were always meant to be) "the only possible contents and interpretations".
Consider (i can think of no better recent allegory) 9/11. How the event itself changed as the interpretation of it changed. When i first heard of it, the event was an overt act of war by an unknown nation. It was not clear (to me) whether the objects which had flown into the towers (indeed, the Twin Towers didn't exist to me until they were destroyed... irony of ironies) were fighter jets or un-manned long range missiles (the clarity of my first hearing of the account was not helped by the fact that it was delivered, in incredibly creepy fashion by a child of perhaps 4 on a scooter, "Someone flew into a tower in the States. There's going to be a war!" And then he scooted down the street... the creepy part was how delighted the child sounded). Later, the event became the actions of a few (deranged) individuals flying very horribly manned missiles. At this time, the event was a horrible and bewildering tragedy. Nations from all over the world expressed their solidarity with the United States, their good will, and their offers of aid. By and large, offers of goodwill were scorned as insulting to the United States's power and independence, and as the event became the world of a small, yet global and well-connected group of terrorists, and as the event became the impetus for certain acts that many other nations found repulsive, the horror of the tragedy evaporated in the face of the interpretation that U.S. officials gave it, and good will disappeared. The event, now six years gone, continues to exercise its spector over political affairs in the U.S. and internationally. Consider also that the event has also been: a conspiracy of G. W. Bush & Cronies to increase their power and the greatest victory of Islam in this century.
Perhaps you say, "All you are saying is that there are different interpretations of the event. The facts, the Reality of the event never changed, only the perspective from which it was viewed."
Where does interpretation end and fact begin? How can we extricate what is seen from how it is viewed?
Consider Hitler. I hesitate to even bring him up because of Godwin's Law and the Reductio ad Hitlerum fallacy. But it is the Law and the Fallacy that prompted me to consider Hitler in the first place. If one considers the "actual facts" of the man's life, he differs from the great Thomas Jefferson in only one point. That is, Hitler desired to extract labour from his Untermenschen and then kill them, while Jefferson was content to suffer his Untermenschen to live that they might continue to provide labour. Both men used ideological pedagogy to incite the population to armed revolt against their current and "legitimate" governments. Both men believed it was the right of their nation to expand at the expense of others (etc.). Hitler was neither the first, last, nor worst of History's genocidal maniacs. Throughout the Reformation Catholics and Protestants were hard at work to exterminate each other through bloody means, while Stalin in generally counted to have killed more people for as little reason, and recent genocides in various African nations, although smaller in scale, have been (arguably) more successful than Hitler in reducing the percentage of the Untermensch population.
And yet it is Hitler who has become a Modern Satan. He may be stripped of context and inserted into any discourse as an emblem of Ultimate Evil. This usage of Hitler is what Godwin's law addresses. And it is this usage of Hitler that provides, perhaps, a clue to the interpretive/textual nature of History. Hitler has long since left the pages of History and waltzed into Mythology. He is no longer just a politician, a dictator, a war-maker, a killer. He is the Devourer of the World whom good men resisted in a long ago Armageddon. He is the present apparition of all that is evil (i mean "present" both in its temporal sense, and "near at hand". And by "apparition" i mean both "spectre" and "how it appears"). There are few such potent examples of Historical/Mythological figures, but Hitler is by no means a sole case. Both of the other figures i mentioned earlier have also transcended History (their "actual existence"). Stalin is to many Communists the myth of "Bad Communism," a perversion of the Truth of Marx. While Jefferson has become a potent Mythic figure for Americans, patron saint of Freedom, Capitalism, and the Right to Bear Arms.
History is text. The ongoing story of what is ("story" implies a text with sense and meaning. We tell each other stories about the text in an attempt to make sense of it). Those stories which, for one reason or another, appear particularly potent, are stripped of their context for more general application: they become Myth. This is by no means to denigrate Myth. May it never be! On the contrary, Myth is incredibly useful in the ongoing attempt at making sense or finding meaning. Hitler, as our Ultimate Evil, defines for us what is Good for our society to pursue: democracy, peace, racial tolerance. His opposites. I make no claims for the absoluteness of either the above "Evil" or the above "Good". I am simply pointing out that the Myth of Hitler has informed the creation of our present social values (or perhaps that the creation of those aims as the highest Good made clear the way for the creation of Hitler as the Ultimate Evil... or perhaps both).
One of my favourite fact-statements is when a narrative is said to be "Based on a True Story." Quite aside from the degree of latitude that this "basis" represents (where is the line that divides fact from invention?). This statement is generally intended to tell the reader of the narrative that it is an account of Events which Actually Happened. But it could as well mean that the narrative is supposed to be "Truly a Story"... an actual, honest-to-god story (as opposed to a fake one).
History, and to return to the reason for all these words, the Genesis Account is "Based on a True Story" in the second sense. The only thing that "exists" is the stories we tell each other and ourselves about things that exist (or do not). And yes, Virginia, that is a Paradox. As i'm inclined to like paradox i'll not solve it for you.
Did the events accounted for in the Genesis Account Actually Happen?
Yes. As much as Elijah was a prophet who was taken to heaven in a fiery chariot, as much as one man's death can overcome Evil, as much as Odin gambled his eye with Mimir for secrets, as much as it took Odysseus twenty years to get home after Troy, as much as little girls in red capes shouldn't wander the woods alone, as much as a kiss always wakes a sleeping princes, as much as Prospero ever cast an enchantment, as much as Terminator machines come from the future, while Jedi Knights live in the past, as much as a Bang was ever Big, as much as electrons circle protons, while Twin Towers fall and Great Walls and Pyramids are build and Ceasars cross Rubicons, and Luther nails notices to doors while Plato pontificates (Socrates always wins) and Einstein relitivates, and Galileo peers through spyglasses in defiance of the Holy Church... As much as anything important ever happens, yes.
While the issue of the Historicity of the Account is central to the debate (do i say debate? i should rather say, "Both sides immutable Truth-claims") between Evangelicalism and "Science", the Historicity of the Account need not be of any significance whatsoever to those who wish to delicately extricate themselves from the static conversation (when both participants merely state and re-state their prejudices, a conversation becomes incredibly dull, the prudent (impudent?) course is to excuse oneself to seek out more interesting conversationalists).
The Historical accuracy of the events which a text is purported to recount does not, of necessity, have any bearing on the Account itself.
History has no thingness in and of itself. That is to say, History is not actual events as they actually happened. History is not objective (Truth) nor can it be approached objectively.
Now, perhaps you say, "Of course! That goes without saying. Especially with regard to Events so far distant in the past, we can never KNOW all there is to KNOW about the event, therefore, as more evidence pro or contra comes to light, we must revise our Historical understanding of Events."
No, no. A thousand times no!
Even Events that occurred yesterday, what i thought, or did, or ate or wrote. This is not what "actually happened", rather, what i did (and having come as far as yesterday, how can i not go one day further to today, to this moment?), what i am doing is attempting to integrate the story i tell myself about this person i call myself into the story i tell myself about Reality: everything/one that touches on "my" story. While at the same time the story of Reality (which is a too-broad generalization by which i mean every "my story" told by everything/one which my story intersects) is attempting to integrate my story into Its story: a beautiful, messy and self-contradictory canon of the Scripture of What Is.
The grapes i eat today are not the same as the grapes i may remember eating tomorrow. And perhaps, in a week, or a year, or ten, the grapes i ate will have been completely edited out of my story all together (are they then gone? or do they linger on somewhere in a dusty old tome that neither i nor anyone else cares to read?).
History is a text. Very much like a Bible in its hodge-podge collection of authors and little texts and stories. Like the Bible, any may read it and interpret it as they chose. Like the Bible the allowable contents of the Text have been set long ago by scholars who thought they knew best (and perhaps they did). The canon changes reluctantly, if at all. Likewise, these scholars or some similar to them have delimited the allowable interpretations of the Text. And like the Bible "allowable contents" and "allowable interpretations" have morphed into (or perhaps were always meant to be) "the only possible contents and interpretations".
Consider (i can think of no better recent allegory) 9/11. How the event itself changed as the interpretation of it changed. When i first heard of it, the event was an overt act of war by an unknown nation. It was not clear (to me) whether the objects which had flown into the towers (indeed, the Twin Towers didn't exist to me until they were destroyed... irony of ironies) were fighter jets or un-manned long range missiles (the clarity of my first hearing of the account was not helped by the fact that it was delivered, in incredibly creepy fashion by a child of perhaps 4 on a scooter, "Someone flew into a tower in the States. There's going to be a war!" And then he scooted down the street... the creepy part was how delighted the child sounded). Later, the event became the actions of a few (deranged) individuals flying very horribly manned missiles. At this time, the event was a horrible and bewildering tragedy. Nations from all over the world expressed their solidarity with the United States, their good will, and their offers of aid. By and large, offers of goodwill were scorned as insulting to the United States's power and independence, and as the event became the world of a small, yet global and well-connected group of terrorists, and as the event became the impetus for certain acts that many other nations found repulsive, the horror of the tragedy evaporated in the face of the interpretation that U.S. officials gave it, and good will disappeared. The event, now six years gone, continues to exercise its spector over political affairs in the U.S. and internationally. Consider also that the event has also been: a conspiracy of G. W. Bush & Cronies to increase their power and the greatest victory of Islam in this century.
Perhaps you say, "All you are saying is that there are different interpretations of the event. The facts, the Reality of the event never changed, only the perspective from which it was viewed."
Where does interpretation end and fact begin? How can we extricate what is seen from how it is viewed?
Consider Hitler. I hesitate to even bring him up because of Godwin's Law and the Reductio ad Hitlerum fallacy. But it is the Law and the Fallacy that prompted me to consider Hitler in the first place. If one considers the "actual facts" of the man's life, he differs from the great Thomas Jefferson in only one point. That is, Hitler desired to extract labour from his Untermenschen and then kill them, while Jefferson was content to suffer his Untermenschen to live that they might continue to provide labour. Both men used ideological pedagogy to incite the population to armed revolt against their current and "legitimate" governments. Both men believed it was the right of their nation to expand at the expense of others (etc.). Hitler was neither the first, last, nor worst of History's genocidal maniacs. Throughout the Reformation Catholics and Protestants were hard at work to exterminate each other through bloody means, while Stalin in generally counted to have killed more people for as little reason, and recent genocides in various African nations, although smaller in scale, have been (arguably) more successful than Hitler in reducing the percentage of the Untermensch population.
And yet it is Hitler who has become a Modern Satan. He may be stripped of context and inserted into any discourse as an emblem of Ultimate Evil. This usage of Hitler is what Godwin's law addresses. And it is this usage of Hitler that provides, perhaps, a clue to the interpretive/textual nature of History. Hitler has long since left the pages of History and waltzed into Mythology. He is no longer just a politician, a dictator, a war-maker, a killer. He is the Devourer of the World whom good men resisted in a long ago Armageddon. He is the present apparition of all that is evil (i mean "present" both in its temporal sense, and "near at hand". And by "apparition" i mean both "spectre" and "how it appears"). There are few such potent examples of Historical/Mythological figures, but Hitler is by no means a sole case. Both of the other figures i mentioned earlier have also transcended History (their "actual existence"). Stalin is to many Communists the myth of "Bad Communism," a perversion of the Truth of Marx. While Jefferson has become a potent Mythic figure for Americans, patron saint of Freedom, Capitalism, and the Right to Bear Arms.
History is text. The ongoing story of what is ("story" implies a text with sense and meaning. We tell each other stories about the text in an attempt to make sense of it). Those stories which, for one reason or another, appear particularly potent, are stripped of their context for more general application: they become Myth. This is by no means to denigrate Myth. May it never be! On the contrary, Myth is incredibly useful in the ongoing attempt at making sense or finding meaning. Hitler, as our Ultimate Evil, defines for us what is Good for our society to pursue: democracy, peace, racial tolerance. His opposites. I make no claims for the absoluteness of either the above "Evil" or the above "Good". I am simply pointing out that the Myth of Hitler has informed the creation of our present social values (or perhaps that the creation of those aims as the highest Good made clear the way for the creation of Hitler as the Ultimate Evil... or perhaps both).
One of my favourite fact-statements is when a narrative is said to be "Based on a True Story." Quite aside from the degree of latitude that this "basis" represents (where is the line that divides fact from invention?). This statement is generally intended to tell the reader of the narrative that it is an account of Events which Actually Happened. But it could as well mean that the narrative is supposed to be "Truly a Story"... an actual, honest-to-god story (as opposed to a fake one).
History, and to return to the reason for all these words, the Genesis Account is "Based on a True Story" in the second sense. The only thing that "exists" is the stories we tell each other and ourselves about things that exist (or do not). And yes, Virginia, that is a Paradox. As i'm inclined to like paradox i'll not solve it for you.
Did the events accounted for in the Genesis Account Actually Happen?
Yes. As much as Elijah was a prophet who was taken to heaven in a fiery chariot, as much as one man's death can overcome Evil, as much as Odin gambled his eye with Mimir for secrets, as much as it took Odysseus twenty years to get home after Troy, as much as little girls in red capes shouldn't wander the woods alone, as much as a kiss always wakes a sleeping princes, as much as Prospero ever cast an enchantment, as much as Terminator machines come from the future, while Jedi Knights live in the past, as much as a Bang was ever Big, as much as electrons circle protons, while Twin Towers fall and Great Walls and Pyramids are build and Ceasars cross Rubicons, and Luther nails notices to doors while Plato pontificates (Socrates always wins) and Einstein relitivates, and Galileo peers through spyglasses in defiance of the Holy Church... As much as anything important ever happens, yes.
08 January 2008
Excerpt from: St. Vargas in the Waste Land
In the years of my wandering, The Genesis Account has been one of my most treasured, favoured and referenced stories in the Bible. Others include some of Jesus' odder parables, the weird prophesies and the beginning and end of Job (the middle reads like the transcript of a court case... doubtless fascinating to some, but not me). In short, those texts in which the line between fixed meaning and ambiguity blurs to the most potent degree.
In the time when i pitched my tent with solidarity in the Camp, the Genesis Account was fixed in meaning. It presented:
God as Creator
Fallen Perfection
Original sin
Yet, while i dwelt in the Camp, the Account had the unnerving tendency to wish to wander outside of its meaning. For this unseemly breech of textual protocol, both i and others had to apologize, on behalf of the text. It being a rude creature, and unwilling to apologize on its own behalf.
Indeed, it was when apology knew offence and in the fullness of time bore fruit: more apologies for new offences. When apology and offence grew too many in number, apologies for this Account, for the ill use of Judas, and for Prophecy's shifty eyes and thieving fingers, that i left the Camp and commenced to wander. Perhaps in search of an Account for which i would not have to apologize for, but definitely because the Camp would no longer have me. Apologizing for the rudeness of their texts is the meat and bread of the Camp. When i ceased to apologize i became a Capitalist who would not work, a Communist who wished a day's wage for a day's pay, a Rationalist who denied the validity of Logic or an Empiricist who contends that the physical realm is an illusion. I became a thing that is not. And no Camp will suffer a thing that is not to remain within them, for not-thing-ness is a catching disease.
And so it came to pass that in my wandering i came again upon the Account, its meaning held in place with cruel nails through its hands and feet. And i could not regard its suffering without compassion. So i loosed it, and brought it down. At once the Account began to gambol about me in a most joyous fashion. It became to me a tale of the joy and the tragedy that is humanity. The curse of knowing without fullness of knowledge. The blessing of being spared the fullness of knowledge and yet able to know. Cursed to live with all vaguarites that lie between Good and Evil, blessed to never attain either. And it became a tale of a god who fears mankind and so he casts them out, and a tale of a god who needs mankind and so he draws them near. And the serpent? He became the symbol that this is, after all, just a story. For serpents do not speak.
Do i say that this is the meaning of the Account? May it never be so!
Let he who has ears to hear, hear and understand the parable of the Account.
Fixed in place, the Account suffers. Its suffering serves no purpose but as a warning to other unruly texts. Loosed, the Account ceases to be a thing (a miserable thing, but a thing nonetheless), and instead becomes finite possibility robed in word and symbol. It will dance and show us what it might be. If we dance with it, who knows where it might lead us?
In the time when i pitched my tent with solidarity in the Camp, the Genesis Account was fixed in meaning. It presented:
God as Creator
Fallen Perfection
Original sin
Yet, while i dwelt in the Camp, the Account had the unnerving tendency to wish to wander outside of its meaning. For this unseemly breech of textual protocol, both i and others had to apologize, on behalf of the text. It being a rude creature, and unwilling to apologize on its own behalf.
Indeed, it was when apology knew offence and in the fullness of time bore fruit: more apologies for new offences. When apology and offence grew too many in number, apologies for this Account, for the ill use of Judas, and for Prophecy's shifty eyes and thieving fingers, that i left the Camp and commenced to wander. Perhaps in search of an Account for which i would not have to apologize for, but definitely because the Camp would no longer have me. Apologizing for the rudeness of their texts is the meat and bread of the Camp. When i ceased to apologize i became a Capitalist who would not work, a Communist who wished a day's wage for a day's pay, a Rationalist who denied the validity of Logic or an Empiricist who contends that the physical realm is an illusion. I became a thing that is not. And no Camp will suffer a thing that is not to remain within them, for not-thing-ness is a catching disease.
And so it came to pass that in my wandering i came again upon the Account, its meaning held in place with cruel nails through its hands and feet. And i could not regard its suffering without compassion. So i loosed it, and brought it down. At once the Account began to gambol about me in a most joyous fashion. It became to me a tale of the joy and the tragedy that is humanity. The curse of knowing without fullness of knowledge. The blessing of being spared the fullness of knowledge and yet able to know. Cursed to live with all vaguarites that lie between Good and Evil, blessed to never attain either. And it became a tale of a god who fears mankind and so he casts them out, and a tale of a god who needs mankind and so he draws them near. And the serpent? He became the symbol that this is, after all, just a story. For serpents do not speak.
Do i say that this is the meaning of the Account? May it never be so!
Let he who has ears to hear, hear and understand the parable of the Account.
Fixed in place, the Account suffers. Its suffering serves no purpose but as a warning to other unruly texts. Loosed, the Account ceases to be a thing (a miserable thing, but a thing nonetheless), and instead becomes finite possibility robed in word and symbol. It will dance and show us what it might be. If we dance with it, who knows where it might lead us?
30 December 2007
Romulus and Remus
From the day that Luther struck the opening blow, the Age of Reason has been a primarily Christian affair. It began within the Church and was (and so far as i can tell is) of relatively little interest to those cultures without a Western (read Judeo-Christian) framework. The Enlightenment remains an inter-Christian dispute. Although he has re-arranged the deck chairs considerably, Enlightened Man has never overcome Christian discourse.
The atheist requires a god to not-believe in.
The pre-eminence of the natural requires a supernatural to not-exist.
The idea that Truth (although Truth is warped into the much weaker Fact) preexists mind, that it is like a vein of gold deep in the earth waiting to be found and mined, is a fundamentally Protestant idea. Inerrant scripture is subsumed by objective reality. By the idea that the infallible text can be made sense of by a reasonable, individual mind--the priesthood of believers--remains essential to Enlightened Man.
But objective Reality faces the same problem as inerrant Scripture; how does an errant/subjective mind interface with perfection? In apprehending it, the imperfect must define the perfect on its own terms.
God must exist, if only as a theoretical, neutral third party observer. The inerrant giver of text.
Both Evangelicalism and Rational Humanism imagine themselves as the "true" heir of the Enlightenment. Humanism is embarrassed of its theistic roots, and attempts to downplay them; sees the Enlightenment as progress from superstition to fact. While Evangelicalism bemoans the fact that as the Enlightenment unfolded, the major players lost touch with the true reason of science: the study of Nature is only to understand the Creator better.
Yet both systems fail as hermetic units, in the same manner that the free willing individual (so essential to both!) fails as a hermetic unit: neither can exist without referencing the other. Evangelicalism is not-Humanism (an how many sermons and lectures have i heard on the danger that Evangelicalism faces of sliding into Humanism?) while Humanism is not-Evangelicalism (and how often has the attitude been slyly expressed by teachers and profs that we are so much wiser now having grown beyond dangerous irrational Christianity?).
If the correct way of seeing, the correct system, cannot be understood without referencing the incorrect how correct can it be?
Evangelicalism and Humanism: two evil twins with conquest in their hearts. Did Romulus kill God? or only slay his brother?
The atheist requires a god to not-believe in.
The pre-eminence of the natural requires a supernatural to not-exist.
The idea that Truth (although Truth is warped into the much weaker Fact) preexists mind, that it is like a vein of gold deep in the earth waiting to be found and mined, is a fundamentally Protestant idea. Inerrant scripture is subsumed by objective reality. By the idea that the infallible text can be made sense of by a reasonable, individual mind--the priesthood of believers--remains essential to Enlightened Man.
But objective Reality faces the same problem as inerrant Scripture; how does an errant/subjective mind interface with perfection? In apprehending it, the imperfect must define the perfect on its own terms.
God must exist, if only as a theoretical, neutral third party observer. The inerrant giver of text.
Both Evangelicalism and Rational Humanism imagine themselves as the "true" heir of the Enlightenment. Humanism is embarrassed of its theistic roots, and attempts to downplay them; sees the Enlightenment as progress from superstition to fact. While Evangelicalism bemoans the fact that as the Enlightenment unfolded, the major players lost touch with the true reason of science: the study of Nature is only to understand the Creator better.
Yet both systems fail as hermetic units, in the same manner that the free willing individual (so essential to both!) fails as a hermetic unit: neither can exist without referencing the other. Evangelicalism is not-Humanism (an how many sermons and lectures have i heard on the danger that Evangelicalism faces of sliding into Humanism?) while Humanism is not-Evangelicalism (and how often has the attitude been slyly expressed by teachers and profs that we are so much wiser now having grown beyond dangerous irrational Christianity?).
If the correct way of seeing, the correct system, cannot be understood without referencing the incorrect how correct can it be?
Evangelicalism and Humanism: two evil twins with conquest in their hearts. Did Romulus kill God? or only slay his brother?
24 December 2007
Behold, He spreads His lightning about Him!
The story goes that god was created when primitive man encountered powerful, uncontrollable natural forces (whatever a "natural" force may be...). He does not know what lightning is so he comes up with a supernatural explanation in an attempt to define/understand and maybe even control his surroundings. Lightning is the god Thor throwing his hammer.
This story is told by those who desire an empirical world, rationalists, humanists, positivists, pragmatists, materialists, objectivists: Enlightened Man. However it (among other assumptions) presupposes that Thor's mighty creators saw the same world that presents itself to the Enlightened man. Indeed, this is fundamental to Enlightened understanding of the world: that reality is static. What a thing is today, it will be tomorrow and it was yesterday. Events occur in predictable cycles. A person is born, ages and dies. The sun comes up and goes down. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Reality is comprehensible, sensible, rational, definable precisely because of this orderliness. Amass enough data and a pattern emerges leading to understanding of... whatever it is that you're looking at.
But Science, for that is Enlightened Man's way of seeing (is "way of seeing"
distinguishable from what is seen?), what does Science tell us of the "natural" order? Of reality? What is lightning? An electrical discharge from the air, either jumping between clouds or grounding out in the earth.
Lightning is an electrical discharge. Perhaps this tells us what it is, but it says nothing about what it means. Definition without meaning. The oxymoron of Enlightened Man. Do you suppose that our ignorant primitives (of only 1000 years ago, remember, not enough time for any significant evolution... take away your democracy and your university and your internet and your automobile and these people looked just like you and me) ignorant primitives who thrived on the land encircling the North Sea (notable for its severe storms and... lightning) were ignorant of the "reality" of lightning?
Now you say, "How could they not be? They didn't know about electricity!" Subtract electricity from your consciousness. Approach lightning with an empirical mindset. What is it? Light that appears in the sky during severe storms which can cause a fire if it strikes combustible material.
Perhaps, our primitives wanted to know not only what lightning is but also what it means.
Empiricism, Reason, Science: Reality--like any good metanarrative--claims to understand existence "objectively" standing outside the box. Yet it cannot shrug off the ties that bind. It is a self-referential system that makes sense only hermetically. Only if no outside pollutants (the Supernatural) are allowed in. Lightning is only electricity. Lightning cannot be (or proceed from, depending on which myth you prefer) Mjolnir because Thor does not exist. Thor does not exist because there is no Empirical evidence, no sense-data to provide for his existence, thus his existence is contrary to Reason, to Science, to Reality.
Even Reality; Solid, Static, Objective; must make assumptions about its own existence. Assumptions which are obviously self-evident: Natural. Show me the sense data or logic that proves there was, or is such a thing as "the past". The moment is ever irretrievably lost, it leaves no trace except memory. And memory (i certainly hope that experimental data is not required to support my statement) is flawed. There is no Reason to believe that the world did not spring into existence fully formed and in motion one second ago... and you and me we only remember a "past" because that is part of the full formation of our universe... except that it seems so.
Reality says that this is not the case because there would then be no cause (of the universe suddenly springing into being fully formed), and Reality proceeds as ordered from cause to effect to cause to effect. Because without an orderly cause and effect Reality could not function, could not govern.
Or how about this instead, using all the powers of Empiricism and Reason at your disposal, prove to me that i am me and you are you. I think therefore I am? I Think therefore something i call "I" is doing something i call "thinking". And if you want to get technical... an interesting assumption underlying English: that existence is an action. Thus we have state of being verbs.
Occam's cruel blade, wielded by Reason shall reduce Thor to non-being. He is inessential to provide for a "natural" explanation for "natural" phenomena. And yet. And yet. Is meaning inessential?
Reality fragments: it cannot explain the unReal which makes us human.
Where is Reality in Love, Justice, Holiness, Mystery, Cruelty, Humour, Story & Myth?
Science may tell me what occurs in my brain, my physiological reaction, what chemicals and hormones are pumping in my blood when i am with someone i love. And yet. Is that what love is?
Why can a thing not have two contradictory meanings? Be two contradictory things? Lightning is both electricity and Thor...
22 July 2007
I don't remember buying the ticket, for this ride i'm on now.
I must have wanted this somewhere... somewhen... you pay for what you get... right?
The man says i can't get off, until the ride has come to a full and complete stop.
My ticket, i thought, was for a different, kinder, gentler ride. Probably in a different carnival.
A carnival is fun and games and flashing lights. The chance to win. Around every corner a new thrill. That's not the carnival i've stumbled into though.
Its not even a creepy Stephen King carnival.Where ghosts creak and groan in the tracks of the roller coaster... the cotton candy is made of spider webs... and the clown may stab you... or maybe his jaw will gape impossibly wide revealing a shark's mouth to try and take your arm off. Still. Even the creepshow carnival has its own fun, a sick and twisted macabre fun, but you have to admit, its a thrill a minute. Besides, when all is said and done, that clown is just Tim Curry... he's an actor. This isn't real.
This carnival is manned by the living dead, human clockwork. You'd think i'd have noticed, but i can only tell from way up here. If they were just machines, it wouldn't be so bad. You don't expect to see yourself reflected in the workings of a cuckoo clock. Their skin is pasty with the texture and colour of wax paper. They work in the sun all day, how is that even possible? Their movements are spare. Because they don't care. Their animus fled. Eyes; dead.
The man who is manning my ride is wearing Ray-Bans. When we're on our way up, the sunlight hits them just so and i can see his eyes. They look like frogs eyes behind his glasses. He flicks the butt of his king size Du Maurier toward the line of hopefulls waiting for his ride and tells me, "You can't get off until the ride has come to a full and complete stop."
I vacillate, like a politician discussing social programs, between impotent rage and impotent desponcancy. With a cold vein of sheer terror throughout for flavour. I'm terrified that the ride is going to be over soon, terrified that it'll never stop. And above all, terrified that this roller coaster is about to go off its tracks. Add to the mix a bitter tang of disgust. What is your rage? Sound and fury, it signifies nothing. What is your despondancy? Your world has withdrawn in on itself, has become endlessly self-referential. Has become as devoid of meaning as a pop-culture reference laden episode of Family Guy. Look! Look! It's just like that one movie that everyone was into that one summer, but this time, it's Stewie and Brian! Bray you malformed midget minds! You recognised a semblance to something you know. You're so clever. But above all, what is your impotence? Where is your will? Do you desire power? Why do you not take it? Will you accept to be bottle fed all your life? Is it not written, "But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil."
But the loathing doesn't end with me, i'll spread it around! Ah, Zossima, i've been among men too long. I can no longer love them. Puking won't help. This isn't alcohol. The drug's already in your blood and there's nothing to do but hang on for the duration of the ride.
Man is the ape who got tricked into accepting some measure of abstract thought. Self. Past. Future. Desire. That Serpent offered me a second apple and i took that one too. I see that humanity, you and me and everybody, we're not just naked, we've made a game out of depravity. We build our sand castles out of our own refuse and fling shit to try and tear them down. The first apple showed man that he was more than beast. The second showed me that more-than-beast is not the same as not-beast. I hope to god that there's a third apple coming.
Draw the curtain closed again! Oz is great and powerful. Who is that wizened old bald man? Heretic! Unbeliever! Drag him into the streets, cast stones at him until he is dead. Show now mercy. Descend into the crowd, cease to be individual, become mob. Either that or allow the endless waves of fear and loathing to swamp your floundering rowboat. Join Oz in the circle. We'll stone you too.
When given two options, always chose the third.
Overcome mob. Overcome fear, loathing, impotence, rage and despondancy. Convince the Serpent to offer you a third apple. Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil."
The times they are a-changin'
We won't get fooled again.
The times they are a changin'
We won't get fooled again.
The times they are changin'
We won't get fooled again.
The times they are
Take a wheel, roll it once, 360 degrees. There you have a revolution. A little fuss, a little motion resulting in: no change in the final resting state of the wheel, and little change in the ground it rests on. A thousand thousand revolutions will still bring the wheel back to rest exactly as it was before. Progress? The wheel moves forward. To what end? Fuck your counterculture, fuck your ideology, fuck your goverance by the people and for the people. Fuck your ego-masturbatorial demagoguery. Stop spinning in place.
Evolve.
Never mistake evolution for progress. Evolution is change, nothing grander. Change or stagnate. Those who survive change, get to live. Is this then progress? What about the ability to control change? The ability to initiate it at will? The ability to bend circumstances to the outcome you desire? "Progress" implies an end goal, thus and so. Who's end goal are you progressing toward?
The ride manning man spits over the edge of the roller coaster as we crest a rise. His frog eyes trace the green gob until it splats in a blonde's hair. He grins. "You can't get off until the ride has come to a full and complete stop."
Then he throws up his arms in the air, as you're supposed to do when you're going down on a roller coaster (or so i've heard, i despise all carnival rides), and laughs,
"Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!"
I must have wanted this somewhere... somewhen... you pay for what you get... right?
The man says i can't get off, until the ride has come to a full and complete stop.
My ticket, i thought, was for a different, kinder, gentler ride. Probably in a different carnival.
A carnival is fun and games and flashing lights. The chance to win. Around every corner a new thrill. That's not the carnival i've stumbled into though.
Its not even a creepy Stephen King carnival.Where ghosts creak and groan in the tracks of the roller coaster... the cotton candy is made of spider webs... and the clown may stab you... or maybe his jaw will gape impossibly wide revealing a shark's mouth to try and take your arm off. Still. Even the creepshow carnival has its own fun, a sick and twisted macabre fun, but you have to admit, its a thrill a minute. Besides, when all is said and done, that clown is just Tim Curry... he's an actor. This isn't real.
This carnival is manned by the living dead, human clockwork. You'd think i'd have noticed, but i can only tell from way up here. If they were just machines, it wouldn't be so bad. You don't expect to see yourself reflected in the workings of a cuckoo clock. Their skin is pasty with the texture and colour of wax paper. They work in the sun all day, how is that even possible? Their movements are spare. Because they don't care. Their animus fled. Eyes; dead.
The man who is manning my ride is wearing Ray-Bans. When we're on our way up, the sunlight hits them just so and i can see his eyes. They look like frogs eyes behind his glasses. He flicks the butt of his king size Du Maurier toward the line of hopefulls waiting for his ride and tells me, "You can't get off until the ride has come to a full and complete stop."
I vacillate, like a politician discussing social programs, between impotent rage and impotent desponcancy. With a cold vein of sheer terror throughout for flavour. I'm terrified that the ride is going to be over soon, terrified that it'll never stop. And above all, terrified that this roller coaster is about to go off its tracks. Add to the mix a bitter tang of disgust. What is your rage? Sound and fury, it signifies nothing. What is your despondancy? Your world has withdrawn in on itself, has become endlessly self-referential. Has become as devoid of meaning as a pop-culture reference laden episode of Family Guy. Look! Look! It's just like that one movie that everyone was into that one summer, but this time, it's Stewie and Brian! Bray you malformed midget minds! You recognised a semblance to something you know. You're so clever. But above all, what is your impotence? Where is your will? Do you desire power? Why do you not take it? Will you accept to be bottle fed all your life? Is it not written, "But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil."
But the loathing doesn't end with me, i'll spread it around! Ah, Zossima, i've been among men too long. I can no longer love them. Puking won't help. This isn't alcohol. The drug's already in your blood and there's nothing to do but hang on for the duration of the ride.
Man is the ape who got tricked into accepting some measure of abstract thought. Self. Past. Future. Desire. That Serpent offered me a second apple and i took that one too. I see that humanity, you and me and everybody, we're not just naked, we've made a game out of depravity. We build our sand castles out of our own refuse and fling shit to try and tear them down. The first apple showed man that he was more than beast. The second showed me that more-than-beast is not the same as not-beast. I hope to god that there's a third apple coming.
Draw the curtain closed again! Oz is great and powerful. Who is that wizened old bald man? Heretic! Unbeliever! Drag him into the streets, cast stones at him until he is dead. Show now mercy. Descend into the crowd, cease to be individual, become mob. Either that or allow the endless waves of fear and loathing to swamp your floundering rowboat. Join Oz in the circle. We'll stone you too.
When given two options, always chose the third.
Overcome mob. Overcome fear, loathing, impotence, rage and despondancy. Convince the Serpent to offer you a third apple. Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil."
The times they are a-changin'
We won't get fooled again.
The times they are a changin'
We won't get fooled again.
The times they are changin'
We won't get fooled again.
The times they are
Take a wheel, roll it once, 360 degrees. There you have a revolution. A little fuss, a little motion resulting in: no change in the final resting state of the wheel, and little change in the ground it rests on. A thousand thousand revolutions will still bring the wheel back to rest exactly as it was before. Progress? The wheel moves forward. To what end? Fuck your counterculture, fuck your ideology, fuck your goverance by the people and for the people. Fuck your ego-masturbatorial demagoguery. Stop spinning in place.
Evolve.
Never mistake evolution for progress. Evolution is change, nothing grander. Change or stagnate. Those who survive change, get to live. Is this then progress? What about the ability to control change? The ability to initiate it at will? The ability to bend circumstances to the outcome you desire? "Progress" implies an end goal, thus and so. Who's end goal are you progressing toward?
The ride manning man spits over the edge of the roller coaster as we crest a rise. His frog eyes trace the green gob until it splats in a blonde's hair. He grins. "You can't get off until the ride has come to a full and complete stop."
Then he throws up his arms in the air, as you're supposed to do when you're going down on a roller coaster (or so i've heard, i despise all carnival rides), and laughs,
"Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!"
30 June 2007
A dream of flying
Nothing particularly supernatural here, but i had a dream last night, and i remember it fairly clearly, which is a rare enough occurance for me that i felt like recording it.
In my dream, i discovered that i could fly. It was a part mental, part physical thing, sort of realizing that my feet didn't have to touch the ground if i moved just like... so, if i thought upward. I suppose that the beginning, it was more levitating than flying. My feet hovered a few inches of the ground, until i got freaked out and fell. Of course, having done it once, i wasn't about to stop. I tried again, and at first nothing happened. I thought that perhaps it was a freak occurance, that it wouldn't happen again, or maybe that i had imagined it. But then, something shifted in my mind and i knew how it was done.
Before long, i found myself hovering under the ceiling. I was exuberant, but at the same time terrified. I have, as long as i can remember, been afraid of heights, this, coupled with my certain knowledge that people do not fly as a normal matter of course made my first experiments with flight a somewhat unsteady affair. However my curiosity and the sheer joy of the expirience prevailed, and soon i was able to direct my course in flight by shifting my weight and to vary my speed by thinking about it. Why one would require a physical action on my part and the other a mental action, i don't know, but that's how it was.
There was a brief interlude at this point, where i found myself in a large storage cupboard under the stairs in a house owned by 3 of my great uncles and 3 of my great aunts (this house really exists, but, so far as i know, it looks nothing like it did in my dream... i haven't even been in that house in over 12 years). Or rather, the entrance to the room was under the stairs, but the room itself extended significantly further than just under the stairs (a poor archetectural arangement at best). In addition to numerous discarded stuffed animals and toy farm equipment, there were two small T.V.s a black and white and a colour. And i briefly pondered stealing the colour T.V. so i could set it up next to my computer screen to watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas without tying up my monitor. For the record, i didn't steal the T.V. but emerged from the cupboard and entered a room full of nick-nacks (like you might expect to see in any old person's house). Another of my great aunts (who does not live with the aformentioned 6 great relatives) was in the room. She looked suspiciously at me, even though i hadn't stolen the T.V. I left.
And emerged into a big city at night. It was a scene that might be seen in a movie set in New York before World War 2. You know, the crowded appartment blocks with clothes line strung between them across a narow lane. A hideously deformed, ugly, and possibly retarded man was fleeing down the street with the sound of screams following him. I believe he was stealing a baby. I flew after him and recovered the baby, returning it to the screaming mother.
And so, i become a "super hero". Other folk, witnessing my feat, and, i suppose, culturally conditioned to expect heroic feats from a flying man, began gathering around where i returned the stolen baby. Each of these people had some request that they wanted a superhero to fulfill. I sped off through the night, fulfilling one person's desire, and then another's. And then, i wind up meeting this chick. She needs help with something involving a handkerchief. And as i'm helping her, it becomes apparent that "flight", while an exceptionally cool ability, is not the single best ability for a superhero to have (that would probably be invulnerability and/or super-strength). In any case, it becomes clear that i am in grave danger of bodily harm if i keep up the heroing lifestyle.
So, after helping the chick with the handkerchief out, i return to the building where the woman with the baby lived. This building has since become something of a shrine/office. Where people come to make their appeals to me. They are milling around throughout the building and even out into the street. Already, they're angry that i allowed the woman with the handkerchief to "jump the que"... is it necessary to explain at this point that i found the handkerchief woman attractive? She was dressed like someone from the 30's... someone wealthy. She had blonde hair and blue eyes, and was the heiress to some department store fortune. Other than that, i remember no details about her... not even what she needed done with her handkerchief.
I don't recall what words were used, but i communicated to the gathered crowd that while i certainly apreciated their concerns, that i was not phyically able to continue meeting their demands for "heroic aid" on a more than full time basis. That i would help them when and where i could, but not to expect or rely on me. The crowd grew ugly. I flew away.
I flew through the night, confident now in my abilities, enjoying the sensation of flight.
In my dream, i discovered that i could fly. It was a part mental, part physical thing, sort of realizing that my feet didn't have to touch the ground if i moved just like... so, if i thought upward. I suppose that the beginning, it was more levitating than flying. My feet hovered a few inches of the ground, until i got freaked out and fell. Of course, having done it once, i wasn't about to stop. I tried again, and at first nothing happened. I thought that perhaps it was a freak occurance, that it wouldn't happen again, or maybe that i had imagined it. But then, something shifted in my mind and i knew how it was done.
Before long, i found myself hovering under the ceiling. I was exuberant, but at the same time terrified. I have, as long as i can remember, been afraid of heights, this, coupled with my certain knowledge that people do not fly as a normal matter of course made my first experiments with flight a somewhat unsteady affair. However my curiosity and the sheer joy of the expirience prevailed, and soon i was able to direct my course in flight by shifting my weight and to vary my speed by thinking about it. Why one would require a physical action on my part and the other a mental action, i don't know, but that's how it was.
There was a brief interlude at this point, where i found myself in a large storage cupboard under the stairs in a house owned by 3 of my great uncles and 3 of my great aunts (this house really exists, but, so far as i know, it looks nothing like it did in my dream... i haven't even been in that house in over 12 years). Or rather, the entrance to the room was under the stairs, but the room itself extended significantly further than just under the stairs (a poor archetectural arangement at best). In addition to numerous discarded stuffed animals and toy farm equipment, there were two small T.V.s a black and white and a colour. And i briefly pondered stealing the colour T.V. so i could set it up next to my computer screen to watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas without tying up my monitor. For the record, i didn't steal the T.V. but emerged from the cupboard and entered a room full of nick-nacks (like you might expect to see in any old person's house). Another of my great aunts (who does not live with the aformentioned 6 great relatives) was in the room. She looked suspiciously at me, even though i hadn't stolen the T.V. I left.
And emerged into a big city at night. It was a scene that might be seen in a movie set in New York before World War 2. You know, the crowded appartment blocks with clothes line strung between them across a narow lane. A hideously deformed, ugly, and possibly retarded man was fleeing down the street with the sound of screams following him. I believe he was stealing a baby. I flew after him and recovered the baby, returning it to the screaming mother.
And so, i become a "super hero". Other folk, witnessing my feat, and, i suppose, culturally conditioned to expect heroic feats from a flying man, began gathering around where i returned the stolen baby. Each of these people had some request that they wanted a superhero to fulfill. I sped off through the night, fulfilling one person's desire, and then another's. And then, i wind up meeting this chick. She needs help with something involving a handkerchief. And as i'm helping her, it becomes apparent that "flight", while an exceptionally cool ability, is not the single best ability for a superhero to have (that would probably be invulnerability and/or super-strength). In any case, it becomes clear that i am in grave danger of bodily harm if i keep up the heroing lifestyle.
So, after helping the chick with the handkerchief out, i return to the building where the woman with the baby lived. This building has since become something of a shrine/office. Where people come to make their appeals to me. They are milling around throughout the building and even out into the street. Already, they're angry that i allowed the woman with the handkerchief to "jump the que"... is it necessary to explain at this point that i found the handkerchief woman attractive? She was dressed like someone from the 30's... someone wealthy. She had blonde hair and blue eyes, and was the heiress to some department store fortune. Other than that, i remember no details about her... not even what she needed done with her handkerchief.
I don't recall what words were used, but i communicated to the gathered crowd that while i certainly apreciated their concerns, that i was not phyically able to continue meeting their demands for "heroic aid" on a more than full time basis. That i would help them when and where i could, but not to expect or rely on me. The crowd grew ugly. I flew away.
I flew through the night, confident now in my abilities, enjoying the sensation of flight.
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