metonymy4u

The dispute between rationalism and empiricism comes down to a difference of opinion re: metaphysics. Do words grant us access to something eternal and unchanging, the “world,” “truth,” or “knowledge?” Are words an anchor to reality or are they like foam on a wave, tossed about in the winds of an uncaring universe? Are we truly alone?

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Lately it seems to me that the entire world has just totally lost it. My life has been filled with violence it seems in all spheres – walking down the street, at work, past events coming back to bite me in the ass, etc, etc, etc. This morning on the subway, I was thinking about human behavior in terms of energy. If a system is excessively loaded up with energy, an over filled balloon for example, it is in a very unstable state. What that means is that the cohesive forces of the balloon’s elastic walls are just barely able to contain the high pressure air. One small pin prick and the balloon releases all its unstable energy – that is, it explodes. Humans seem very similar. When someone is very emotionally vulnerable, the system is in an unstable, high energy configuration. One small pin prick (a word, a frown, a noise, a mistaken gesture) is enough to release all the energy in one massive explosion. We’ve either got to find a way to deflate our balloons or stop poking each other with seemingly innocent pin sticks.

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On the one hand we could criticize the medical model for encouraging tolerance of a self-destructive world: we find a way to cure an illness and so are less likely to inquire into the often self-imposed causes of the illness. Curative medicine weakening our pursuit of preventative medicine. On the other hand we could ask whether the two models are in fact mutually exclusive? Is the use of technology always already accompanied by enslavement to technology, like a world of Gollums, forever searching for our unattainable precious? Or can we learn to live more like Aragorn and the Hobbits, integrating ourselves to the natural world and the wise use of technology, while also not remaining forever naive, as the Elves ultimately are, to the real needs of middle earth?

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There are many times when I think that the liberal agenda would be better served by abandoning government altogether and concentrating instead on changing communities, directly.

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Kant is famous for the notion that he felt it necessary to destroy reason in order to make room for faith. But what sort of faith was it? I believe it was the faith that turned God on its head, making God the transcendental concept that we require for our more common sense of practical reason, which is the distinction between morality vs. prudence. In this way, God is no longer center stage, reason is. So in fact it was the other way around: Kant destroyed faith in order to make room for reason. This conclusion depends in part on one’s idea of Kant’s understanding of his own method. For there is a some deal of debate still among contemporary professional philosophers as to whether Kant thought his transcendental method could grant access to the noumenal world. Indeed, it is a tantalizing question: why speak of a noumenal world at all if one believes one cannot access it in some way (even if only through synthetic a priori judgments)? It’s like the paradox of the sentences that deny their own truth. Do they say anything at all?

I happen to think that Kant very well understood his own method and, along with Hume, was very much a metaphysical iconoclast (destroyer of rationalism). Kierkegaard understood this very well I believe, which is why he re-presented the story of Abraham, the Kantian hero par excellence . The story of teleological suspension of the ethical is the story of a real, living, phenomenal world bound human being in whom we appreciate the abandonment suffered by those who live with Kant’s critical idealism. If Abraham’s categorical imperative was to put no other principles above the commandments of his God, then how can we understand the very real suffering a person experiences in the dialectic of competing de-mands? God sent him a son and then de-manded it back? What madness!? This is only a problem for a being who lives without ultimate certainty: without access to the noumenal. A being with access to the noumenal would never have suffered on the way to Mount Moriah. So torture, suffering, doubt, loneliness – all of these are the conditions associated with our ability to distinguish goodness from prudence. And this can only be so for a being without access to absolute truth. At the same time, truth cannot be said to be completely relative either, for this would be itself another absolute truth which could obviate our suffering. Our suffering is our truth, nothing more and nothing less. That is the koan of human being.

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for those who may already be objecting to the ethics of my prior post: i am aware of its deeply probematic nature in a community struggling with violence. i decided that in the moment i was more concerned with weakening the stigma of self hatred than any other concerns. because self hatred is one variable that strengthens social violence, IMO…

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Think about it: every child, every baby animal, every person is the manifestation of someone’s sense of goodness: some sort of fulfillment, or beauty, or love, or courage, or honor. Because every person’s parents were loved by someone else once.

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As we draw near to one of my least favorite days of the year, my thoughts turn to past relationships. I remember my break up with my ex-wife and I remember the impulses that I struggled with during that time and how difficult it was to steer my life by values instead of raw emotions. I chose the values over the impulses and I now realize that I’m proud of that choice. I’m not proud of very much in my life, but I’m proud of that.

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Politics is all about finding commonly shared goals and forming partnerships around those goals. Political alliances are reinforced between people who believe they have inter-related objectives. Large power differentials tend to weaken the sense of shared goals. For one thing, it’s hard for those on the weaker end of the stick to believe that the more powerful partner really cares about their needs. Whereas when partners are more equal in power, they really do require each other to maintain an alliance that effectively supports the all the diverse goals of the coalition. This is why it is unwise to appear extremely powerful when you are trying to form a coalition with someone else. Excessive power does not encourage effective partnerships.

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I am sitting by the side of the river, watching it flow by. Every once in a while I look at my reflection in the river. Once my reflection was young, now it is old. What hasn’t changed is that it remains alone.

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