What is Wes Anderson's art?
Is he doing what he thinks is cool or is he commenting on others? Principally, he is doing neither of these though his actors and co-writers no doubt bring material in this way. What we get is the Imaginary and the mixture of truth and falsity which it has on its never ending surface.
Firstly, lets say you have a seducer of young girls and a used car salesman. These people work in the imaginary as well, they can see by the way someone walks and moves alone how they are or aren't at home in their bodies and by their words and dress how much self-confidence and self-knowledge they have. They don't understand everyone or everything about the "sucker" but have become clever enough to spot the
the general signs of a person's naivete
Anderson's movie is driven by music which isn't deep or primal but rather stretches across a pretty but naive surface. Take Nico's 'These Days'-- there is no perfect moment of uniting words and music but rather overall it has a sensibility that you can get lost in. The same can be said for Van Gogh whose work taken singally doesn't have a world in it (unity of idea and gesture) but enough similar gestures which taken together have a mood. Sometimes enough things point to an idea to have something sublime but sometimes everything is disjointed and muddled.
In many ways this is not based upon a living creativity so much as channeling one's childhood impressions. If you look at Hotel Chevalier, the short before the Darjeeling Limited, you can see the room is filled with little childish trinkets like butter flys under glass, half-finished paintings, and the game of speaking in a different language and timing a song to play at the right time when someone comes in. There is a very strong delight in things of a 'unique nature' a savouring of the chocolate that has a wrapper indicating the Hotel and not some big company, one brother buying a deadly snake and receiving it in a box with skulls on it from a market when at a train stop. Everything is seen as a constant beginning, like so much could come from it.
David Bowie, who was used in the Life Aquatic is a good example, you can sense his creativity as suspended belief, a return to the childhood possibility or potential, the days where you see someone who is dressed up like a goth or biker or gypsy and imagine they have a secret life. But, that life doesn't exist and is only an amalgamation of all the childhood stories, TV shows, and hear-say in your head. But, these are only a beginning and a promise for life but life, the world, is not there. This kind of art is parasitic on your ability to find yourself beautiful and still believe in a future someone will come and take you to. This art is fantasy.
The line at the end where one brother relates how he'll miss the smell of India 'it smells spicy' seems to get across the point that it isn't reality being engaged with but rather it is overwritten with a mood (which is to be contrasted to it being overwritten by someone who checks off all the tourist attractions they've been to). I'm toying with the idea that Lacan owes much more to Jung than he lets on. Jung's introvert/extravert is basically the approach Lacan uses for the obsessional vs. the hysteric and I think in many ways Jung's character type of feeling can be taken for the imaginary phantasy in Lacan.
--more to come
Monday, October 29, 2007
Saturday, October 27, 2007
The Darjeeling limited pt 1
I'm split. I used to be able to think purely in a personal intuitive way but psychoanalysis has begun to enter into my appreciation of things.
I can't help but see the father and mother as the frame of this story. The father is dead and they are carrying his luggage all around India on a journey which will eventually end with finding their mother. However, the dead father reappears symbollically as a deadly tiger that is haunting the nunnery where the mother is living. At the end the boys decide not to go back home but to remain for the rest of the time they intended to stay but in order to catch the train they have to leave behind all of their father's luggage which they've been carrying around which bears his initials. Basically the story here is one of the psychotic whose self isn't held together firmly and is as fragmented as the train is shown to be during a sequence when each room holds a different person and different style (or the ship in Life Aquatic, etc..). By creating a different name for himself (letting go of the father's name) he can hold himself together. I think the same thing is going on with Bob Dylan (Robert Zimmerman had so many different people and styles in him). With someone like Maddonna the process would be the same but rather than holding together a bunch of personalities her change of styles represent serving fashion and staying on top which is a protection not from mere guilt of not being anything but the psychotic fear of the Other behind the scenes who can devastate one's reality (aliens, demons, etc... when the break occurs and leads to delusions).
Though this psychoanalytic backdrop seems feasible to me we can say that the enjoyment of the film is never found there.
But the real story is in the childishness of the characters.
I can't help but see the father and mother as the frame of this story. The father is dead and they are carrying his luggage all around India on a journey which will eventually end with finding their mother. However, the dead father reappears symbollically as a deadly tiger that is haunting the nunnery where the mother is living. At the end the boys decide not to go back home but to remain for the rest of the time they intended to stay but in order to catch the train they have to leave behind all of their father's luggage which they've been carrying around which bears his initials. Basically the story here is one of the psychotic whose self isn't held together firmly and is as fragmented as the train is shown to be during a sequence when each room holds a different person and different style (or the ship in Life Aquatic, etc..). By creating a different name for himself (letting go of the father's name) he can hold himself together. I think the same thing is going on with Bob Dylan (Robert Zimmerman had so many different people and styles in him). With someone like Maddonna the process would be the same but rather than holding together a bunch of personalities her change of styles represent serving fashion and staying on top which is a protection not from mere guilt of not being anything but the psychotic fear of the Other behind the scenes who can devastate one's reality (aliens, demons, etc... when the break occurs and leads to delusions).
Though this psychoanalytic backdrop seems feasible to me we can say that the enjoyment of the film is never found there.
But the real story is in the childishness of the characters.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
lives of others
lives of others
-the very beginning was good. Showing an interrogation which we naturally want to say is inhuman and unjust but then to show that the subject was indeed lying (people who are telling the truth can speak the truth in many different ways where the liars memorize certain phrases and repeat them -- this is how it works for philosophy professors too!)
-the agent's perspective strangely mirrored the normal experience of watching TV/film and wanting to help the characters, this bred a familiarity with him which otherwise wouldn't have been there because they spent little time developing his character.Any average, unimportant person, could imagine themselves as a hero if they were put in his place.
-I felt a strange nostalgia for the intellectual types. Beards, glasses, greasy hair, and clothing fashion which wasn't so different from everyone else but seems to consist more of dressing in clothes which were popular in older times and therefore legitimate because they were popular but subversive because they go against current fashion.
-the way that the artist passed up meeting his benefactor (the agent) after the wall came down and chose to write a book was touching. It was beautiful for the artist to turn him into a novel rather than use him as a priest who he could confess his feelings and guilt to.
-I don't know why but I like the villians who are fat/unattractive guys who using their power (implying that they obtained their power) in order to get sex. It seems to be a strong tradition in Eastern European society and one which has much honesty.
-I liked how the flaws of the artists were up for discussion.I like the way that the agent talked to the actress and that she was on drugs and didn't have confidence. Also, that the writer was "hysterical anthropocentrist" and needed to have people around and agreed that his friend was being too arrogant and deserved to have his travel visa to the West cancelled. In one way the movie seemed to want sympathy for the fact that artists had to bow down to the state in order to create but it never made them into great people.
-I also liked the scene where the agent was with his boss and a young official came in to tell a joke about the party leader. It really showed the feeling of what it is to live in socialism which really means to live under the caprice of individuals. Humour really must have walked a delicate line between allegiance to a state which consists of all too many lies and the necessary irony which any honest person must have towards this.
But all the things I liked didn't save the movie for me. The cinematography was dry, the characters were more symbols than people, and when I woke up today I only thought of the ideas in it and not the visuals. The central idea of the film takes place in the theatre after the wall comes down. Both the artist and the fat party official leave the play in order to get some respite from their feelings for the dead actress. The film-maker aligns himself with the fat official and says that we don't know what we lost in our little Republic -- even though we spent so much energy fighting the human spirit at least we considered it to be important.
-the very beginning was good. Showing an interrogation which we naturally want to say is inhuman and unjust but then to show that the subject was indeed lying (people who are telling the truth can speak the truth in many different ways where the liars memorize certain phrases and repeat them -- this is how it works for philosophy professors too!)
-the agent's perspective strangely mirrored the normal experience of watching TV/film and wanting to help the characters, this bred a familiarity with him which otherwise wouldn't have been there because they spent little time developing his character.Any average, unimportant person, could imagine themselves as a hero if they were put in his place.
-I felt a strange nostalgia for the intellectual types. Beards, glasses, greasy hair, and clothing fashion which wasn't so different from everyone else but seems to consist more of dressing in clothes which were popular in older times and therefore legitimate because they were popular but subversive because they go against current fashion.
-the way that the artist passed up meeting his benefactor (the agent) after the wall came down and chose to write a book was touching. It was beautiful for the artist to turn him into a novel rather than use him as a priest who he could confess his feelings and guilt to.
-I don't know why but I like the villians who are fat/unattractive guys who using their power (implying that they obtained their power) in order to get sex. It seems to be a strong tradition in Eastern European society and one which has much honesty.
-I liked how the flaws of the artists were up for discussion.I like the way that the agent talked to the actress and that she was on drugs and didn't have confidence. Also, that the writer was "hysterical anthropocentrist" and needed to have people around and agreed that his friend was being too arrogant and deserved to have his travel visa to the West cancelled. In one way the movie seemed to want sympathy for the fact that artists had to bow down to the state in order to create but it never made them into great people.
-I also liked the scene where the agent was with his boss and a young official came in to tell a joke about the party leader. It really showed the feeling of what it is to live in socialism which really means to live under the caprice of individuals. Humour really must have walked a delicate line between allegiance to a state which consists of all too many lies and the necessary irony which any honest person must have towards this.
But all the things I liked didn't save the movie for me. The cinematography was dry, the characters were more symbols than people, and when I woke up today I only thought of the ideas in it and not the visuals. The central idea of the film takes place in the theatre after the wall comes down. Both the artist and the fat party official leave the play in order to get some respite from their feelings for the dead actress. The film-maker aligns himself with the fat official and says that we don't know what we lost in our little Republic -- even though we spent so much energy fighting the human spirit at least we considered it to be important.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
stoicism
Stoicism emerges from decadence. Imagine that you have an aristocracy or an upper class which rules the merchants and peasants. Now imagine that you are in a position to see the ruler(s) from one generation to the next. Imagine you can see how one person could rule from natural authority and have the respect of others while the next ruler has only symbolic authority and none of the natural charisma or nobility. The time is decadent because the arrangements aren't made for values to be passed down through trials and tests. Now, you also notice that some other people don't even notice the change and still are just as servile to the ruler or assume the ruler capable of actions the old ruler performed when he clearly isn't. In short, you see that such people are beholden to the signifier and have immense blindspots in their interpersonal dealings with others. Since in decadence genius doens't necessarily beget genius or a moral man can have immoral children you can see the contingency of life and the irrationality of birthright when money or power are passed on through inheritance. The time is out of joint, and the person who would be able to rule and genuinely command respect doesn't even recognize their authority -- you realize there is no chance for you to change it. So you leave your community and begin to make a life that is outside the vagaries of money and power and something which isn't contingent... you become a stoic.
Monday, July 30, 2007
revisions about art
the first question in art
Did the person who made the piece make something that is an ideal for them or did they make something as a commentary on the ideals or lifestyle of others?
It's strange to think how much art (probably better called entertainment) is based upon finding the characters to be cool or them being something you want to be. The Matrix, Tarantino movies, Kevin Smith, Oceans 11, not to mention video games which are mostly this.... plus super-hero movies which are same things but for kids minds (though many adults could relate).
also related... at first interest in art comes directly from what is popular or what is passed on by the parents. Many people will betray what their parents gave them because it isn't popular when they are in school but then they will go back to it after they graduate and begin to feel closer to their parents then friends. But what interests me is neither of these instances because art isn't important to these people -- life is. What interests me is when a person decides they no longer like popular music, when they meet some 'non-conformists' and get excited on the prospect of being able to set themselves apart from the popular music fans and say they lack taste, complexity, etc... they attach themselves to some sub-culture and hold their cataogue to be the relevant one. However this game can still go on. When such a person meets other people who admire a similar sub-culture then from there he will begin a process of either saying that he likes some popular music and he's not really fully in the sub-culture or getting deeper into the fringe acts of the sub-culture (he can say that other people in the sub-culture like the 'popular' music of that sub-culture).
the second question in art
Does the artist present us with opposites or does he give us a something manifold?
Ascending art represents the manifold that the artist has tapped into (think Tarkovsky and Fellini and the world they give us). Opposites (good and evil, hero and villian, etc.) are more interesting in a certain sense because it offers to a riddle to be solved, why can't the artist overcome the contrasts he presents us (don't say the world is really that way because there is always a higer perspective from which the elements can synthesize). In this way art imitates life because the average person who is sick is more interesting than the healthy person who is the exception (though this value hardly redeems them in comparison).
Also related... when you can see that the person must make the painting, or film, or song about the exception and something rare that it's an idea of difference and not feeling different at work. The bad artist has to paint the rarest landscape while the real artist can paint something normal (almost cliche) and tease out all the subtlety.
Did the person who made the piece make something that is an ideal for them or did they make something as a commentary on the ideals or lifestyle of others?
It's strange to think how much art (probably better called entertainment) is based upon finding the characters to be cool or them being something you want to be. The Matrix, Tarantino movies, Kevin Smith, Oceans 11, not to mention video games which are mostly this.... plus super-hero movies which are same things but for kids minds (though many adults could relate).
also related... at first interest in art comes directly from what is popular or what is passed on by the parents. Many people will betray what their parents gave them because it isn't popular when they are in school but then they will go back to it after they graduate and begin to feel closer to their parents then friends. But what interests me is neither of these instances because art isn't important to these people -- life is. What interests me is when a person decides they no longer like popular music, when they meet some 'non-conformists' and get excited on the prospect of being able to set themselves apart from the popular music fans and say they lack taste, complexity, etc... they attach themselves to some sub-culture and hold their cataogue to be the relevant one. However this game can still go on. When such a person meets other people who admire a similar sub-culture then from there he will begin a process of either saying that he likes some popular music and he's not really fully in the sub-culture or getting deeper into the fringe acts of the sub-culture (he can say that other people in the sub-culture like the 'popular' music of that sub-culture).
the second question in art
Does the artist present us with opposites or does he give us a something manifold?
Ascending art represents the manifold that the artist has tapped into (think Tarkovsky and Fellini and the world they give us). Opposites (good and evil, hero and villian, etc.) are more interesting in a certain sense because it offers to a riddle to be solved, why can't the artist overcome the contrasts he presents us (don't say the world is really that way because there is always a higer perspective from which the elements can synthesize). In this way art imitates life because the average person who is sick is more interesting than the healthy person who is the exception (though this value hardly redeems them in comparison).
Also related... when you can see that the person must make the painting, or film, or song about the exception and something rare that it's an idea of difference and not feeling different at work. The bad artist has to paint the rarest landscape while the real artist can paint something normal (almost cliche) and tease out all the subtlety.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
pan's labrynth cont.
down to my central point
The pure child wouldn't have eaten the fruit and would have shed the blood of its sibling (the director got it wrong). Ofelia's story is about a child who is helpless with what concerns her parents and the adult world and therefore she dreams a world where she can have an effect. She made the dream-- the nobility in her-- and if a sacrifice was what it called for then she would have done it (to save her mother's life or her ownl life so she could have gone on to save her mother). Instead we are presented with the idea that the fantasy was something different, a test by her dead father, something morbid and somewhat cruel.
The pure child wouldn't have eaten the fruit and would have shed the blood of its sibling (the director got it wrong). Ofelia's story is about a child who is helpless with what concerns her parents and the adult world and therefore she dreams a world where she can have an effect. She made the dream-- the nobility in her-- and if a sacrifice was what it called for then she would have done it (to save her mother's life or her ownl life so she could have gone on to save her mother). Instead we are presented with the idea that the fantasy was something different, a test by her dead father, something morbid and somewhat cruel.
Monday, May 7, 2007
pan's labrynth (cont.)
A friend pointed out to me that the revolutionaries are the third element and was surprised to see I neglected them in my review. Maybe she is right, but their stogory isn't the focus and they are only introduced in a generic, negation of the existing regime, way. The story, if there would be any, would be the servant woman who helps the revolutionaries because her brother is numbered among them. The servant isn't following the law (the father) and is the only representation of the feminine in any active sense... but, I don't think we are presented with any growth or change in her character and thus she isn't the story (but along with several other characters i.e. the doctor) could have been more but why talk about what could have been? It's not the story.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
review Pan's Labrynth
The overwhelming impression at the end is that it was written for someone. "For those who know where to look there are still signs of her". He can still see the signs of that someone and the remark must have been self-referential because he never showed us a way to look for her in our world.
Pan’s labyrinth... it’s called a fairy tale for adults
The question is: why this mixture of innocence and purity with the horrible and cruel? Why doesn’t the writer reconcile the two (which side can’t he understand and therefore portray them both as separate?).
The answer isn’t cruelty... it is the innocence he can’t deal with.
The innocence is what must become mythical while the cruelty is what he deals with in ‘reality’.
The story of the child isn’t the centre story but is given equal weight with the corresponding "real events". The child’s story is equal with the story of the captain but both their stories are really the stories of their loyalty to their fathers.
Ofileia remains true to her father and doesn’t address the captain as her father.
The captain too stays true to his father by disowning his father legacy and the watch (at the dinner table he denies the story).
Ofelia disobeys Pan and eats the fruit (and kills 2 fairies), it is not because of her purity that she is rewarded by seeing her father at the end. The writer doesn’t understand innocence. Ofelia is rewarded by her father by following the ‘law’ of not harming others (she won’t even spill a drop of her brother’s blood). However, this following of the law (of not harming others at all) makes her into the captain. As the Doctor says to the captain "only men like you can obey without questioning." Ofelia too obeys without question but in doing so she isn’t innocent or pure because these things don’t follow laws (in the end only cruelty does).
We don’t take the captain to be ‘evil’ once we find out that he is only following the laws of his father. He is only cruel. He only wanted to be like his father and when we see that he wanted to pass on his father’s watch to his son we know that he too endured much misery with his burden (but he didn’t know who he could be without it; this is the law of cruelty). His wish to have a son is the wish to see the debt-fulfilled and an admission it remains unfulfilled. (The captain kills the father and the son who were only out rabbit hunting on account of the son making excessive appeals of his father’s innocence; this is why the writer understands cruelty and not innocence).
If you pay attention the captain was never a part of Ofelia’s life. He was never cruel to her. She missed dinner and came back with a soiled dress but she wasn’t punished for it. The two stories never cross paths but each is the shadow of the other. The girl is the one who fulfills her father’s debt while the captain doesn’t. The captain is the one who had power while the girl was powerless in hers. Additionally, both mothers in the story are absent. We find out nothing of the captain’s mother and Ofelia’s mother is only the plaything of outside powers, with no will of her own. It is in the feminine that innocence and purity exists and this is more evidence the writer doesn’t understand it.
We finish the story with the death of the one father (because the captain’s child didn’t receive the watch) and the little girl returning to the side of her father who represent’s the law of God.
This fairy tale for adults is only a return to the Judaeo-Christian legacy. Though it is dressed up in the fur of paganism underneath is the cold inhuman law of the father.
Pan’s labyrinth... it’s called a fairy tale for adults
The question is: why this mixture of innocence and purity with the horrible and cruel? Why doesn’t the writer reconcile the two (which side can’t he understand and therefore portray them both as separate?).
The answer isn’t cruelty... it is the innocence he can’t deal with.
The innocence is what must become mythical while the cruelty is what he deals with in ‘reality’.
The story of the child isn’t the centre story but is given equal weight with the corresponding "real events". The child’s story is equal with the story of the captain but both their stories are really the stories of their loyalty to their fathers.
Ofileia remains true to her father and doesn’t address the captain as her father.
The captain too stays true to his father by disowning his father legacy and the watch (at the dinner table he denies the story).
Ofelia disobeys Pan and eats the fruit (and kills 2 fairies), it is not because of her purity that she is rewarded by seeing her father at the end. The writer doesn’t understand innocence. Ofelia is rewarded by her father by following the ‘law’ of not harming others (she won’t even spill a drop of her brother’s blood). However, this following of the law (of not harming others at all) makes her into the captain. As the Doctor says to the captain "only men like you can obey without questioning." Ofelia too obeys without question but in doing so she isn’t innocent or pure because these things don’t follow laws (in the end only cruelty does).
We don’t take the captain to be ‘evil’ once we find out that he is only following the laws of his father. He is only cruel. He only wanted to be like his father and when we see that he wanted to pass on his father’s watch to his son we know that he too endured much misery with his burden (but he didn’t know who he could be without it; this is the law of cruelty). His wish to have a son is the wish to see the debt-fulfilled and an admission it remains unfulfilled. (The captain kills the father and the son who were only out rabbit hunting on account of the son making excessive appeals of his father’s innocence; this is why the writer understands cruelty and not innocence).
If you pay attention the captain was never a part of Ofelia’s life. He was never cruel to her. She missed dinner and came back with a soiled dress but she wasn’t punished for it. The two stories never cross paths but each is the shadow of the other. The girl is the one who fulfills her father’s debt while the captain doesn’t. The captain is the one who had power while the girl was powerless in hers. Additionally, both mothers in the story are absent. We find out nothing of the captain’s mother and Ofelia’s mother is only the plaything of outside powers, with no will of her own. It is in the feminine that innocence and purity exists and this is more evidence the writer doesn’t understand it.
We finish the story with the death of the one father (because the captain’s child didn’t receive the watch) and the little girl returning to the side of her father who represent’s the law of God.
This fairy tale for adults is only a return to the Judaeo-Christian legacy. Though it is dressed up in the fur of paganism underneath is the cold inhuman law of the father.
the second question in art
Does the artist present us with opposites or does he give us a something manifold?
Ascending art represents the manifold that the artist has tapped into (think Tarkovsky and Fellini and the world they give us). Descending art is more interesting in a certain sense because it offers to a riddle to be solved, why can't the artist overcome the contrasts he presents us (don't say the world is really that way because there is always a higer perspective from which the elements can synthesize). In this way art imitates life because the average person who is sick is more interesting than the healthy person who is the exception (though this value hardly redeems them in comparison).
Ascending art represents the manifold that the artist has tapped into (think Tarkovsky and Fellini and the world they give us). Descending art is more interesting in a certain sense because it offers to a riddle to be solved, why can't the artist overcome the contrasts he presents us (don't say the world is really that way because there is always a higer perspective from which the elements can synthesize). In this way art imitates life because the average person who is sick is more interesting than the healthy person who is the exception (though this value hardly redeems them in comparison).
Zizek's 300 comments
"Zack Snyder's 300, the saga of the 300 Spartan soldiers who sacrificed themselves at Thermopilae in halting the invasion of Xerxes' Persian army, was attacked as the worst kind of patriotic militarism with clear allusions to the recent tensions with Iran and events in Iraq - are, however, things really so clear? The film should rather be thoroughly defended against these accusations"
Zizek wants to say that the US should be compared to Xerxes' multi-cultural empire and the 300 are those who wish to keep with the enlightenment program of standing against mysticism.
"Xerxes's words when he attempts to convince Leonidas to accept the Persian domination, definitely do not sound as the words of a fanatic Muslim fundamentalist: he tries to seduce Leonidas into subjection by promising him peace and sensual pleasures if he rejoins the Persian global empire."
"against the reign of mystique and tyranny, towards the bright future," further specified as the rule of freedom and reason - sounds like an elementary Enlightenment program, even with a Communist twist!"
The problem is that both accounts are political while the majority of Americans aren't. The 300 are portrayed as courageous and strong and people will identify with them regardless of the fact that they (the people) are neither. In their unsensuous imagination, or as a pure matter of signifiers, people can identify with them and enjoy the pseudo-visceral experience which contemporary action movies have. This won't fuel any political fires. Rather the point is that movies like this allow the average person (with the little amount of humanity they actually possess) to entertain infantile wishes of omnipotence though they are so out of proportion to the way that they are living (their lack of strength and will-power).
Marx said revolutionaries must make the masses fear themselves (what they've become, their way of living). Most socialists focus on inequality and justice but it obviously does nothing to appeal to altruism or what's in the best interets of people. They want capitalism because they are allowed to daydream (there is enough isolation that they can hide in their houses without being reminded of their mediocrity just like the Dostoevsky's Notes man did with books more than 100 years earlier).
Zizek wants to say that the US should be compared to Xerxes' multi-cultural empire and the 300 are those who wish to keep with the enlightenment program of standing against mysticism.
"Xerxes's words when he attempts to convince Leonidas to accept the Persian domination, definitely do not sound as the words of a fanatic Muslim fundamentalist: he tries to seduce Leonidas into subjection by promising him peace and sensual pleasures if he rejoins the Persian global empire."
"against the reign of mystique and tyranny, towards the bright future," further specified as the rule of freedom and reason - sounds like an elementary Enlightenment program, even with a Communist twist!"
The problem is that both accounts are political while the majority of Americans aren't. The 300 are portrayed as courageous and strong and people will identify with them regardless of the fact that they (the people) are neither. In their unsensuous imagination, or as a pure matter of signifiers, people can identify with them and enjoy the pseudo-visceral experience which contemporary action movies have. This won't fuel any political fires. Rather the point is that movies like this allow the average person (with the little amount of humanity they actually possess) to entertain infantile wishes of omnipotence though they are so out of proportion to the way that they are living (their lack of strength and will-power).
Marx said revolutionaries must make the masses fear themselves (what they've become, their way of living). Most socialists focus on inequality and justice but it obviously does nothing to appeal to altruism or what's in the best interets of people. They want capitalism because they are allowed to daydream (there is enough isolation that they can hide in their houses without being reminded of their mediocrity just like the Dostoevsky's Notes man did with books more than 100 years earlier).
the first question in art
Did the person who made the piece make something that is an ideal for them or did they make something as a commentary on the ideals or lifestyle of others?
Saturday, March 24, 2007
subject supposed to know
you say that you don't have 'a subject supposed to know'
but, don't treat this as a simple exercise of searching your mind to find someone.
I think of some relationships I've seen where the girl always turned to her boyfriend or husband and would ask him about something she didn't understand about life
"How could those people in the middle east be so cruel to one another"
I think about myself in Toronto and, though never liking the Barr Naked Ladies, getting some kind of intense thrill when seeing two of them,
you went to university and therefore must have projected some kind of knowledge upon them, not just memorized knowledge but wisdom of some kind that might help you grow (if you say you were just going to get your degree I won't believe you).
What I'm talking about is an emotional awareness that should sound like a teenage drama because it's something that begins in childhood and does evolve but it stops in different places for many people.
the lowest step would be the feeling that everyone else was like a parent. that they were strong and leading their life in a way that they fully choose and understand and the highest would be thinking that no one could teach you anything about life or human nature (though you would remain violently ignorant in much else). An openess to yourself and others that you
so either you think you are the wisest person on the earth or you think that someone else knows more than you. For example a therapist could help you, an artist can open you up to experiences that could change you, a women would make you happy.
I can't help but think that I expressed poorly last time.
Does this help? Or do you still think I'm mistaken?
but, don't treat this as a simple exercise of searching your mind to find someone.
I think of some relationships I've seen where the girl always turned to her boyfriend or husband and would ask him about something she didn't understand about life
"How could those people in the middle east be so cruel to one another"
I think about myself in Toronto and, though never liking the Barr Naked Ladies, getting some kind of intense thrill when seeing two of them,
you went to university and therefore must have projected some kind of knowledge upon them, not just memorized knowledge but wisdom of some kind that might help you grow (if you say you were just going to get your degree I won't believe you).
What I'm talking about is an emotional awareness that should sound like a teenage drama because it's something that begins in childhood and does evolve but it stops in different places for many people.
the lowest step would be the feeling that everyone else was like a parent. that they were strong and leading their life in a way that they fully choose and understand and the highest would be thinking that no one could teach you anything about life or human nature (though you would remain violently ignorant in much else). An openess to yourself and others that you
so either you think you are the wisest person on the earth or you think that someone else knows more than you. For example a therapist could help you, an artist can open you up to experiences that could change you, a women would make you happy.
I can't help but think that I expressed poorly last time.
Does this help? Or do you still think I'm mistaken?
Thursday, March 22, 2007
the perception of spirit
spirit as the process of getting 'behind' people of understanding their weakness, their vanity, their limitedness,...
what does spirit push one to understand?
The split subject which allows for history to become a tool of analysis is composed of two parts: the subject and the affect which can further be broken down into social and individual categories.
In the social category the sunject is the other-regarding component which seeks to accumulate signs which signify a relation of difference. It doesn’t choose commodities for personal pleasure (affect) or in a utility calculation (individual) but to the extent that they signify the person, to others, as occupying a relation of difference. This relation of difference is based literally upon a linguistic terms which the subject favours. For example, it can be a general ‘"superiority" or more specific such as a "good American", "cultivated", "sexy", "manly", "rebel", etc... The favoured relations of difference depend on both the socializing of the parents and the society as well as the charisma the subject has or doesn’t have which may force them to attempt a more modest relation or rebel and choose something more deviant. The complexity or subtly of the signs employed depends upon the acuity of the subject’s perception. So, possible material comes in from mass media (books, TV, film) or those in the subject’s community but depending on the subjective logic of the individual they may be grossly contradictory or inconsistent or quite well-ordered.
The individual subject is what calculates the utility, or usefulness, of spending both time and resources between the relation of difference or the affects. This can determine whether an affect will be given up because it doesn’t fit into a relation of difference or, vice versa, if the relation of difference will be dropped. It should be easy to imagine a high school student dropping a childhood friend because he/she isn’t "cool" enough or a racist dropping his relation of difference once he becomes friends with someone of the "offending" group. Additionally, probability, risk, and general maximizing would be worked out here.
The affect broken down into social and individual categories can also be seen as being passive or active. The passive affect can be seen as the subject investing energy into certain objects, actions, and people around it. In the general sense this is the conservative aspect in a society. A person grows up living in a certain kind of house, playing certain kinds of games, listening to certain kinds of music and people talking a certain kind of way and they will get used to these objects and will pick up this style themselves. It isn’t real aesthetic involvement but rather a comfort or security is projected into these object or actions and they are sough as ends in themselves. Obviously, as people get older they find it harder to learn new ‘tricks’ and make new relationships. The important aspect here is that though the subject doesn’t have a conscious aesthetic involvement they nonetheless pick up sensuous aspects of their environment. For example, the way they argue and sound just like their father, the way they hum while they do the dishes like their mother, and the way they use the same slang as their friends. So the passive affect can be attached to a general thing like an accent down to a quite specific way of waiving goodbye which they "pick up" from someone else.
The individual or active affect comes from an abundance of energy. Where much energy in the ego would mean an ambitious person much energy in the affect means an artist/critic. Such a person has picked up more social affects than others which translates into a general sensibility which can lead them down several distinct paths. For example, they have a stronger sense of self and try to make their split personality a whole, have a strong sense for relationships between other people or tones and colours leading them to make art , or become philosophers which try to translate art, human relationships, or the unconscious into different concepts (philosopher as opposed to scholar). It is at the level of the active affect the person isn’t just matching signs to their relations of difference but sees objects as symbols of their sensibility which they now arrange not consciously but by aesthetic and inner sensation. Here they begin to get glimpses into other peoples personalities and can see the passive affects they have picked up and their relations of difference and their own as well. Before they are active people don’t understand each other except in superficial ways of matching different interests or comparing and contrasting the other to their existing family and friends after much time is spent with them. But even before this someone might judge them by their economic, race, or sub-culture and not even try to get to the real subject. In the opposite way a person might ignore such classifications and try to turn them into a guardian and protector (oral) or use them as a sexual object (fetishist). One should see the work of Jacques Lacan and Sigmund Freud to see how different ‘problems’ can lead a subject to neurotic, compulsive, or psychotic behaviour which can account for much more variety of behaviour.
Two last points. To the extent that the subject is embedded in social relationships he or she will have a reputation, or ego on the outside, which means they will have to negotiate their deviancy and relations of difference with the amount of social power they have. Additionally, the ego can project itself by identifying with other people. As mentioned above, the subject doesn’t understand others but merely identifies with the relationship they have or the one story that is told about them or the status narrative indicates them as having. So as people watch films they identify with the hero and think of themselves as willing or capable of his goodness and courage if their circumstances were the same. Additionally, the can listen to music and identify with the ‘rebel’ identify of the corporate rock star though it is laughably out of proportion with the star’ salary and very particpatory behaviour of the so called deviant. From this follows the celebrity industry of adverting as commodities are sold as signs to signify one’s relation of difference. Though the disparity between the rugged masculinity and independence of the Marlborough man in smoking ads is a far cry from the suburbanite office worker who smokes on his coffee break is massive... obviously companies aren’t wasting money when they advertise.
what does spirit push one to understand?
The split subject which allows for history to become a tool of analysis is composed of two parts: the subject and the affect which can further be broken down into social and individual categories.
In the social category the sunject is the other-regarding component which seeks to accumulate signs which signify a relation of difference. It doesn’t choose commodities for personal pleasure (affect) or in a utility calculation (individual) but to the extent that they signify the person, to others, as occupying a relation of difference. This relation of difference is based literally upon a linguistic terms which the subject favours. For example, it can be a general ‘"superiority" or more specific such as a "good American", "cultivated", "sexy", "manly", "rebel", etc... The favoured relations of difference depend on both the socializing of the parents and the society as well as the charisma the subject has or doesn’t have which may force them to attempt a more modest relation or rebel and choose something more deviant. The complexity or subtly of the signs employed depends upon the acuity of the subject’s perception. So, possible material comes in from mass media (books, TV, film) or those in the subject’s community but depending on the subjective logic of the individual they may be grossly contradictory or inconsistent or quite well-ordered.
The individual subject is what calculates the utility, or usefulness, of spending both time and resources between the relation of difference or the affects. This can determine whether an affect will be given up because it doesn’t fit into a relation of difference or, vice versa, if the relation of difference will be dropped. It should be easy to imagine a high school student dropping a childhood friend because he/she isn’t "cool" enough or a racist dropping his relation of difference once he becomes friends with someone of the "offending" group. Additionally, probability, risk, and general maximizing would be worked out here.
The affect broken down into social and individual categories can also be seen as being passive or active. The passive affect can be seen as the subject investing energy into certain objects, actions, and people around it. In the general sense this is the conservative aspect in a society. A person grows up living in a certain kind of house, playing certain kinds of games, listening to certain kinds of music and people talking a certain kind of way and they will get used to these objects and will pick up this style themselves. It isn’t real aesthetic involvement but rather a comfort or security is projected into these object or actions and they are sough as ends in themselves. Obviously, as people get older they find it harder to learn new ‘tricks’ and make new relationships. The important aspect here is that though the subject doesn’t have a conscious aesthetic involvement they nonetheless pick up sensuous aspects of their environment. For example, the way they argue and sound just like their father, the way they hum while they do the dishes like their mother, and the way they use the same slang as their friends. So the passive affect can be attached to a general thing like an accent down to a quite specific way of waiving goodbye which they "pick up" from someone else.
The individual or active affect comes from an abundance of energy. Where much energy in the ego would mean an ambitious person much energy in the affect means an artist/critic. Such a person has picked up more social affects than others which translates into a general sensibility which can lead them down several distinct paths. For example, they have a stronger sense of self and try to make their split personality a whole, have a strong sense for relationships between other people or tones and colours leading them to make art , or become philosophers which try to translate art, human relationships, or the unconscious into different concepts (philosopher as opposed to scholar). It is at the level of the active affect the person isn’t just matching signs to their relations of difference but sees objects as symbols of their sensibility which they now arrange not consciously but by aesthetic and inner sensation. Here they begin to get glimpses into other peoples personalities and can see the passive affects they have picked up and their relations of difference and their own as well. Before they are active people don’t understand each other except in superficial ways of matching different interests or comparing and contrasting the other to their existing family and friends after much time is spent with them. But even before this someone might judge them by their economic, race, or sub-culture and not even try to get to the real subject. In the opposite way a person might ignore such classifications and try to turn them into a guardian and protector (oral) or use them as a sexual object (fetishist). One should see the work of Jacques Lacan and Sigmund Freud to see how different ‘problems’ can lead a subject to neurotic, compulsive, or psychotic behaviour which can account for much more variety of behaviour.
Two last points. To the extent that the subject is embedded in social relationships he or she will have a reputation, or ego on the outside, which means they will have to negotiate their deviancy and relations of difference with the amount of social power they have. Additionally, the ego can project itself by identifying with other people. As mentioned above, the subject doesn’t understand others but merely identifies with the relationship they have or the one story that is told about them or the status narrative indicates them as having. So as people watch films they identify with the hero and think of themselves as willing or capable of his goodness and courage if their circumstances were the same. Additionally, the can listen to music and identify with the ‘rebel’ identify of the corporate rock star though it is laughably out of proportion with the star’ salary and very particpatory behaviour of the so called deviant. From this follows the celebrity industry of adverting as commodities are sold as signs to signify one’s relation of difference. Though the disparity between the rugged masculinity and independence of the Marlborough man in smoking ads is a far cry from the suburbanite office worker who smokes on his coffee break is massive... obviously companies aren’t wasting money when they advertise.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Nietzsche and spirit
Nietzsche is at the point of being "between the two deaths". There he is the only one who knows. The free spirit who is alone, and to fight nihilism he has to pretend that there are others like him. Maybe they would write and "scoop" him on his discoveries, he has to imagine them close and then he can feel 'prankish' and in competition with them... motivated.
subject supposed to know/spirit
I wanted to ask you. One of the few truths I've managed to take away from psychoanalysis is that everyone has "a subject who is supposed to know". They all believe there are people out there who are happy or understand the secrets of life. Some people take them to be the great writers because they are called great, some think it's the celebrities, some believe it's in the universities, some think that almost every other person has a great and fulfilling life and they themselves are the exception.
Conversly getting past the point of thinking everyone your equal is a matter of spirit. At first its your family who you think you are better than, or your immediate friends (who you are smarter or cooler than), or maybe you think you are better than everyone in your small hometown (anyone who would stay there can't be anybody of importance). Then you can even say to yourself that anyone who has success is a sell-out (those who would try to impress others at all aren't authentic). Then maybe you worship outsider art, or romanticize some past era, or become religious even...
but... you always believe in someone other than yourself. I'm not saying no one is happy because there are many who are content in their place because they compare themselves to the others they know and some who are young and can still dream that they can become the important people the "subject who is supposed to know".
This is the first big classification for people: who do they believe in.
Conversly getting past the point of thinking everyone your equal is a matter of spirit. At first its your family who you think you are better than, or your immediate friends (who you are smarter or cooler than), or maybe you think you are better than everyone in your small hometown (anyone who would stay there can't be anybody of importance). Then you can even say to yourself that anyone who has success is a sell-out (those who would try to impress others at all aren't authentic). Then maybe you worship outsider art, or romanticize some past era, or become religious even...
but... you always believe in someone other than yourself. I'm not saying no one is happy because there are many who are content in their place because they compare themselves to the others they know and some who are young and can still dream that they can become the important people the "subject who is supposed to know".
This is the first big classification for people: who do they believe in.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
spirit
III The Gay Science Nietzsche
One thing is needful.— To "give style" to one's character—a great and rare art! It is practiced by those who survey all the strengths and weaknesses of their nature and then fit them into an artistic plan until every one of them appears as art and reason and even weaknesses delight the eye. Here a large mass of second nature has been added, there a piece of original nature has been removed:—both times through long practice and daily work at it. Here the ugly that could not be removed is concealed, there it has been reinterpreted and made sublime. Much that is vague and resisted shaping has been saved and exploited for distant views:—it is meant to beckon toward the far and immeasurable. In the end, when the work is finished, it becomes evident how the constraint of a single taste governed and formed everything large and small: whether this taste was good or bad is less important than one might suppose,—if only it was a single taste!— It will be the strong and domineering natures that enjoy their finest gaiety in such constraint and perfection under a law of their own; the passion of their tremendous will relents in the face of all stylized nature, of all conquered and serving nature; even when they have to build palaces and design gardens they demur at giving nature freedom.— Conversely, it is the weak characters without power over themselves that hate the constraint of style: they feel that if this bitter and evil constraint were imposed upon them they would be demeaned:— they become slaves as soon as they serve; they hate to serve. Such spirits—and they may be of the first rank—are always out to shape and interpret their environment as free nature—wild, arbitrary, fantastic, disorderly, and surprising. And they are well advised because it is only in this way that they can give pleasure to themselves! For one thing is needful: that a human being should attain satisfaction with himself—whether it be by means of this or that poetry and art: only then is a human being at all tolerable to behold! Whoever is dissatisfied with himself is continually ready for revenge: and we others will be his victims, if only by having to endure his ugly sight. For the sight of what is ugly makes one bad and gloomy.
One thing is needful.— To "give style" to one's character—a great and rare art! It is practiced by those who survey all the strengths and weaknesses of their nature and then fit them into an artistic plan until every one of them appears as art and reason and even weaknesses delight the eye. Here a large mass of second nature has been added, there a piece of original nature has been removed:—both times through long practice and daily work at it. Here the ugly that could not be removed is concealed, there it has been reinterpreted and made sublime. Much that is vague and resisted shaping has been saved and exploited for distant views:—it is meant to beckon toward the far and immeasurable. In the end, when the work is finished, it becomes evident how the constraint of a single taste governed and formed everything large and small: whether this taste was good or bad is less important than one might suppose,—if only it was a single taste!— It will be the strong and domineering natures that enjoy their finest gaiety in such constraint and perfection under a law of their own; the passion of their tremendous will relents in the face of all stylized nature, of all conquered and serving nature; even when they have to build palaces and design gardens they demur at giving nature freedom.— Conversely, it is the weak characters without power over themselves that hate the constraint of style: they feel that if this bitter and evil constraint were imposed upon them they would be demeaned:— they become slaves as soon as they serve; they hate to serve. Such spirits—and they may be of the first rank—are always out to shape and interpret their environment as free nature—wild, arbitrary, fantastic, disorderly, and surprising. And they are well advised because it is only in this way that they can give pleasure to themselves! For one thing is needful: that a human being should attain satisfaction with himself—whether it be by means of this or that poetry and art: only then is a human being at all tolerable to behold! Whoever is dissatisfied with himself is continually ready for revenge: and we others will be his victims, if only by having to endure his ugly sight. For the sight of what is ugly makes one bad and gloomy.
spirit
II. A Human Life (Stirner cont.)
From the moment when it catches sight of the light of the world a child seeks to find out itself and get hold of itself out of its confusion, in which it, with everything else, is tossed about in motley mixture.
But everything that comes in contact with the child defends itself, in turn, against his attacks and asserts its own persistence.
Accordingly, because each thing cares for itself and at the same time comes into constant collision with other things, the combat of self-assertion is unavoidable.
Victory or defeat - between the two alternatives the fate of the combat wavers. The victor becomes the master, the vanquished one the subject: the former exercises supremacy and "rights of supremacy," the latter fulfils in awe and deference the "duties of a subject."
But both remain enemies, and always lie in wait: they watch for each other's weaknesses - children for those of their parents and parents for those of their children (their fear, for example); either the stick conquers the man, or the man conquers the stick.
In childhood liberation takes the direction of trying to get to the bottom of things, to get at what is "behind" things; therefore we spy out the weak points of everybody, for which, it is well known, children have a sure instinct; therefore we like to smash things, like to rummage through hidden corners, pry after what is covered up or out of the way, and try what we can do with everything. When we once get at what is behind things, we know we are safe; when we have got at the fact that the rod is too weak against our will, then we no longer fear it, "have outgrown it."
Behind the rod, mightier than it, stands our - will, our obstinate courage. By degrees we get at what is behind everything that was mysterious and uncanny to us, the mysteriously-dreaded might of the rod, the father's stern look, etc., and behind all of it we find...our imperturbability, intrepidity,... our invincibility. Before that which formerly inspired in us fear and deference we no longer retreat shyly, but take courage. Behind everything we find our courage, our superiority; behind the sharp command of parents and authorities stands, after all, our courageous choice or our outwitting shrewdness. And the more we feel ourselves, the smaller appears that which before seemed invincible. And what is our trickery, shrewdness, courage, will? What else but - spirit !
Through a considerable time we are spared a fight that is so exhausting later - the fight against reason. The fairest part of childhood passes without the necessity of coming to blows with reason. We care nothing at all about it, do not meddle with it, admit no reason. We are not to be persuaded to anything by conviction, and are deaf to good arguments and principles; on the other hand, coaxing, punishment, and the like are hard for us to resist. This life-and-death combat with reason enters later, and begins a new phase; in childhood we scamper about without racking our brains much.
Spirit is the name of the first self-discovery, the first desecration of the divine; that is, of the uncanny, the spooks, the "powers above." Our fresh feeling of youth, this feeling of self, now defers to nothing; the world is discredited, for we are above it, we are spirit. Now for the first time we see that hitherto we have not looked at the world intelligently at all, but only stared at it.
We exercise the beginnings of our strength on natural powers. We defer to parents as a natural power; later we say: Father and mother are to be forsaken, all natural power is to be counted as corrupt. They are vanquished. For the rational, the "intellectual" man, there is no family as a natural power; a renunciation of parents, brothers, etc., makes its appearance...And not only parents, but men in general, are conquered by the young man; they are no hindrance to him, and are no longer regarded; for now he says: One must obey God rather than men. From this high stand-point everything "earthly" recedes into contemptible remoteness; for the stand-point is - the heavenly.
The attitude is now altogether reversed; the youth takes up an intellectual position, while the boy, who did not yet feel himself as spirit, grew up on mindless learning. The former does not try to get hold of things (for instance, to get into his head the data of history), but of the thoughts that lie hidden in things, and so, therefore, of the [feeling] of history. On the other hand, the boy understands connections no doubt, but not ideas, the mind; therefore he strings together whatever can be learned, without proceeding a priori and theoretically, without looking for ideas.
As in childhood one had to overcome the resistance of the laws of the world, so now in everything that he proposes he is met by an objection of the spirit, of reason, of his own conscience. "That is unreasonable, unchristian, unpatriotic," and the like, cries conscience to us, and - frightens us away from it. Not... the wrath of God,... not the father's rod of punishment, do we fear, but -conscience.
We "run after our thoughts" now, and follow their commands just as before we followed parental, human ones. Our course of action is determined by our thoughts (ideas, conceptions, faith ) as it is in childhood by the commands of our parents.
For all that, we were already thinking when we were children, only our thoughts were not fleshless, abstract, absolute, that is, NOTHING BUT THOUGHTS, a heaven in themselves, a pure world of thought, logical thoughts.
On the contrary, they had been only thoughts that we had about a thing; we thought of the thing so or so. Thus we may have thought "God made the world that we see there," but we did not think of the Nature of God"; we may have thought "that is the truth about the matter," but we do not think of Truth itself, nor unite into one sentence "God is Truth." The nature of God and Truth we did not touch.
To bring to light the pure thought, or to be of its party, is the delight of youth; and all the shapes of light in the world of thought, like truth, freedom, humanity, Man, illumine and inspire the youthful soul.
But, when the spirit is recognized as the essential thing, it still makes a difference whether the spirit is poor or rich, and therefore one seeks to become rich in spirit; the spirit wants to spread out so as to found its empire - an empire that is not of this world, the world just conquered. Thus, then, it longs to become all in all to itself; for, although I am spirit, I am not yet perfected spirit, and must first seek the complete spirit. But with that I, who had just now found myself as spirit, lose myself again at once, bowing before the complete spirit as one not my own but heavenly, and feeling my emptiness. It is not my or your spirit, but just - an ideal,... it is "God." "God is spirit." And this... "Father in heaven gives it to those that pray to him."
The man is distinguished from the youth by the fact that he takes the world as it is, instead of everywhere fancying it amiss and wanting to improve it, model it after his ideal; in him the view that one must deal with the world according to his interest, not according to his ideals, becomes confirmed.
So long as one knows himself only as spirit, and feels that all the value of his existence consists in being spirit (it becomes easy for the youth to give his life, the "bodily life," for a nothing, for the silliest point of honour), so long it is only thoughts that one has, ideas that he hopes to be able to realize some day when he has found a sphere of action; thus one has meanwhile only ideals, unexecuted ideas or thoughts.
Not till one has fallen in love with his corporeal self, and takes a pleasure in himself as a living flesh-and-blood person - but it is in mature years, in the man, that we find it so - not till then has one a personal or egoistic interest, an interest not only of our spirit, for instance, but of total satisfaction, satisfaction of the whole man, a selfish interest. Just compare a man with a youth, and see if he will not appear to you harder, less magnanimous, more selfish. Is he therefore worse? No, you say; he has only become more definite, or, as you also call it, more "practical." But the main point is this, that he makes himself more the centre than does the youth, who is infatuated about other things, for example, God, fatherland, [reputation] and so on.
Therefore the man shows a second self-discovery. The youth found himself as spirit and lost himself again in the general spirit, the complete, holy spirit, Man, mankind - in short, all ideals; the man finds himself as embodied spirit.
Boys had only unintellectual interests (those interests devoid of thoughts and ideas), youths only intellectual ones; the man has bodily, personal, egoistic interests.
If the child has not an object that it can occupy itself with, it feels boredom; for it does not yet know how to occupy itself with itself. The youth, on the contrary, throws the object aside, for thoughts of the object; he occupies himself with his thoughts, his dreams, occupies himself intellectually, or "his spirit is occupied."
As I find myself behind things, and that as mind, so I must later find myself also behind thoughts - to wit, as their creator and owner. In the time of spirits thoughts grew till they overtopped my head, whose offspring they yet were; they hovered about me and convulsed me like fever-phantasies - an awful power. The thoughts had become corporeal on their own account, were ghosts, such as God, Emperor, Pope, Fatherland, etc. If I destroy their corporeality, then I take them back into mine, and say: "I alone am corporeal." And now I take the world as what it is to me, as mine, as my property; I refer all to myself.
The child was realistic, taken up with the things of this world, till little by little he succeeded in getting at what was behind these very things; the youth was idealistic, inspired by thoughts, till he worked his way up to where he became the man, the egoistic man, who deals with things and thoughts according to his heart's pleasure, and sets his personal interest above everything.
From the moment when it catches sight of the light of the world a child seeks to find out itself and get hold of itself out of its confusion, in which it, with everything else, is tossed about in motley mixture.
But everything that comes in contact with the child defends itself, in turn, against his attacks and asserts its own persistence.
Accordingly, because each thing cares for itself and at the same time comes into constant collision with other things, the combat of self-assertion is unavoidable.
Victory or defeat - between the two alternatives the fate of the combat wavers. The victor becomes the master, the vanquished one the subject: the former exercises supremacy and "rights of supremacy," the latter fulfils in awe and deference the "duties of a subject."
But both remain enemies, and always lie in wait: they watch for each other's weaknesses - children for those of their parents and parents for those of their children (their fear, for example); either the stick conquers the man, or the man conquers the stick.
In childhood liberation takes the direction of trying to get to the bottom of things, to get at what is "behind" things; therefore we spy out the weak points of everybody, for which, it is well known, children have a sure instinct; therefore we like to smash things, like to rummage through hidden corners, pry after what is covered up or out of the way, and try what we can do with everything. When we once get at what is behind things, we know we are safe; when we have got at the fact that the rod is too weak against our will, then we no longer fear it, "have outgrown it."
Behind the rod, mightier than it, stands our - will, our obstinate courage. By degrees we get at what is behind everything that was mysterious and uncanny to us, the mysteriously-dreaded might of the rod, the father's stern look, etc., and behind all of it we find...our imperturbability, intrepidity,... our invincibility. Before that which formerly inspired in us fear and deference we no longer retreat shyly, but take courage. Behind everything we find our courage, our superiority; behind the sharp command of parents and authorities stands, after all, our courageous choice or our outwitting shrewdness. And the more we feel ourselves, the smaller appears that which before seemed invincible. And what is our trickery, shrewdness, courage, will? What else but - spirit !
Through a considerable time we are spared a fight that is so exhausting later - the fight against reason. The fairest part of childhood passes without the necessity of coming to blows with reason. We care nothing at all about it, do not meddle with it, admit no reason. We are not to be persuaded to anything by conviction, and are deaf to good arguments and principles; on the other hand, coaxing, punishment, and the like are hard for us to resist. This life-and-death combat with reason enters later, and begins a new phase; in childhood we scamper about without racking our brains much.
Spirit is the name of the first self-discovery, the first desecration of the divine; that is, of the uncanny, the spooks, the "powers above." Our fresh feeling of youth, this feeling of self, now defers to nothing; the world is discredited, for we are above it, we are spirit. Now for the first time we see that hitherto we have not looked at the world intelligently at all, but only stared at it.
We exercise the beginnings of our strength on natural powers. We defer to parents as a natural power; later we say: Father and mother are to be forsaken, all natural power is to be counted as corrupt. They are vanquished. For the rational, the "intellectual" man, there is no family as a natural power; a renunciation of parents, brothers, etc., makes its appearance...And not only parents, but men in general, are conquered by the young man; they are no hindrance to him, and are no longer regarded; for now he says: One must obey God rather than men. From this high stand-point everything "earthly" recedes into contemptible remoteness; for the stand-point is - the heavenly.
The attitude is now altogether reversed; the youth takes up an intellectual position, while the boy, who did not yet feel himself as spirit, grew up on mindless learning. The former does not try to get hold of things (for instance, to get into his head the data of history), but of the thoughts that lie hidden in things, and so, therefore, of the [feeling] of history. On the other hand, the boy understands connections no doubt, but not ideas, the mind; therefore he strings together whatever can be learned, without proceeding a priori and theoretically, without looking for ideas.
As in childhood one had to overcome the resistance of the laws of the world, so now in everything that he proposes he is met by an objection of the spirit, of reason, of his own conscience. "That is unreasonable, unchristian, unpatriotic," and the like, cries conscience to us, and - frightens us away from it. Not... the wrath of God,... not the father's rod of punishment, do we fear, but -conscience.
We "run after our thoughts" now, and follow their commands just as before we followed parental, human ones. Our course of action is determined by our thoughts (ideas, conceptions, faith ) as it is in childhood by the commands of our parents.
For all that, we were already thinking when we were children, only our thoughts were not fleshless, abstract, absolute, that is, NOTHING BUT THOUGHTS, a heaven in themselves, a pure world of thought, logical thoughts.
On the contrary, they had been only thoughts that we had about a thing; we thought of the thing so or so. Thus we may have thought "God made the world that we see there," but we did not think of the Nature of God"; we may have thought "that is the truth about the matter," but we do not think of Truth itself, nor unite into one sentence "God is Truth." The nature of God and Truth we did not touch.
To bring to light the pure thought, or to be of its party, is the delight of youth; and all the shapes of light in the world of thought, like truth, freedom, humanity, Man, illumine and inspire the youthful soul.
But, when the spirit is recognized as the essential thing, it still makes a difference whether the spirit is poor or rich, and therefore one seeks to become rich in spirit; the spirit wants to spread out so as to found its empire - an empire that is not of this world, the world just conquered. Thus, then, it longs to become all in all to itself; for, although I am spirit, I am not yet perfected spirit, and must first seek the complete spirit. But with that I, who had just now found myself as spirit, lose myself again at once, bowing before the complete spirit as one not my own but heavenly, and feeling my emptiness. It is not my or your spirit, but just - an ideal,... it is "God." "God is spirit." And this... "Father in heaven gives it to those that pray to him."
The man is distinguished from the youth by the fact that he takes the world as it is, instead of everywhere fancying it amiss and wanting to improve it, model it after his ideal; in him the view that one must deal with the world according to his interest, not according to his ideals, becomes confirmed.
So long as one knows himself only as spirit, and feels that all the value of his existence consists in being spirit (it becomes easy for the youth to give his life, the "bodily life," for a nothing, for the silliest point of honour), so long it is only thoughts that one has, ideas that he hopes to be able to realize some day when he has found a sphere of action; thus one has meanwhile only ideals, unexecuted ideas or thoughts.
Not till one has fallen in love with his corporeal self, and takes a pleasure in himself as a living flesh-and-blood person - but it is in mature years, in the man, that we find it so - not till then has one a personal or egoistic interest, an interest not only of our spirit, for instance, but of total satisfaction, satisfaction of the whole man, a selfish interest. Just compare a man with a youth, and see if he will not appear to you harder, less magnanimous, more selfish. Is he therefore worse? No, you say; he has only become more definite, or, as you also call it, more "practical." But the main point is this, that he makes himself more the centre than does the youth, who is infatuated about other things, for example, God, fatherland, [reputation] and so on.
Therefore the man shows a second self-discovery. The youth found himself as spirit and lost himself again in the general spirit, the complete, holy spirit, Man, mankind - in short, all ideals; the man finds himself as embodied spirit.
Boys had only unintellectual interests (those interests devoid of thoughts and ideas), youths only intellectual ones; the man has bodily, personal, egoistic interests.
If the child has not an object that it can occupy itself with, it feels boredom; for it does not yet know how to occupy itself with itself. The youth, on the contrary, throws the object aside, for thoughts of the object; he occupies himself with his thoughts, his dreams, occupies himself intellectually, or "his spirit is occupied."
As I find myself behind things, and that as mind, so I must later find myself also behind thoughts - to wit, as their creator and owner. In the time of spirits thoughts grew till they overtopped my head, whose offspring they yet were; they hovered about me and convulsed me like fever-phantasies - an awful power. The thoughts had become corporeal on their own account, were ghosts, such as God, Emperor, Pope, Fatherland, etc. If I destroy their corporeality, then I take them back into mine, and say: "I alone am corporeal." And now I take the world as what it is to me, as mine, as my property; I refer all to myself.
The child was realistic, taken up with the things of this world, till little by little he succeeded in getting at what was behind these very things; the youth was idealistic, inspired by thoughts, till he worked his way up to where he became the man, the egoistic man, who deals with things and thoughts according to his heart's pleasure, and sets his personal interest above everything.
spirit
I. All Things Are Nothing To ME (Max Stirner)
What is not supposed to be my concern!... God's cause, the cause of mankind, of truth, of freedom, of humanity, of justice; further, the cause of my people, my prince, my fatherland; finally, even the cause of Mind, and a thousand other causes. Only my cause is never to be my concern. ''Shame on the egoist who thinks only of himself!"
Let us look and see, then, how they manage their concerns - they for whose cause we are to labour, devote ourselves, and grow enthusiastic.
You have much profound information to give about God... Now, what is his cause? Has he, as is demanded of us, taken up an alien cause, the cause of truth or love, his own? You are shocked by this misunderstanding, and you instruct us that God's cause is indeed the cause of truth and love, but that this cause cannot be called alien to him, because God is himself truth and love; you are shocked by the assumption that God could be like us poor worms in furthering an alien cause as his own... - Now it is clear, God cares only for what is his, busies himself only with himself, thinks only of himself, and has only himself before his eyes; woe to all that is not well pleasing to him. He serves no higher person, and satisfies only himself. His cause is - a purely egoistic cause.
How is it with mankind, whose cause we are to make our own? Is its cause that of another, and does mankind serve a higher cause? No, mankind looks only at itself, mankind will promote the interests of mankind only, mankind is its own cause. That it may develop, it causes nations and individuals to wear themselves out in its service, and, when they have accomplished what mankind needs, it throws them on the dung-heap of history in gratitude. Is not mankind's cause - a purely egoistic cause?
I have no need to take up each thing that wants to throw its cause on us and show that it is occupied only with itself, not with us, only with its good, not with ours. Look at the rest for yourselves. Do truth, freedom, humanity, justice, desire anything else than that you grow enthusiastic and serve them?
They all have an admirable time of it when they receive zealous homage. Just observe the nation that is defended by devoted patriots. The patriots fall in bloody battle or in the fight with hunger and want; what does the nation care for that? By the manure of their corpses the nation comes to "its bloom"! The individuals have died "for the great cause of the nation," and the nation sends some words of thanks after them and - has the profit of it. I call that a paying kind of egoism.
God and mankind have concerned themselves for nothing, for nothing but themselves. Let me then likewise concern myself for myself, who am equally with God the nothing of all others, who am my all, who am the only one.
Away, then, with every concern that is not altogether my concern! You think at least the "good cause" must be my concern? What's good, what's bad? Why, I myself am my concern, and I am neither good nor bad. Neither has meaning for me. The divine is God's concern; the human, man's. My concern is neither the divine nor the human, not the true, good, just, free, etc., but solely what is mine, and it is not a general one, but is - unique, as I am unique. Nothing is more to me than myself!
What is not supposed to be my concern!... God's cause, the cause of mankind, of truth, of freedom, of humanity, of justice; further, the cause of my people, my prince, my fatherland; finally, even the cause of Mind, and a thousand other causes. Only my cause is never to be my concern. ''Shame on the egoist who thinks only of himself!"
Let us look and see, then, how they manage their concerns - they for whose cause we are to labour, devote ourselves, and grow enthusiastic.
You have much profound information to give about God... Now, what is his cause? Has he, as is demanded of us, taken up an alien cause, the cause of truth or love, his own? You are shocked by this misunderstanding, and you instruct us that God's cause is indeed the cause of truth and love, but that this cause cannot be called alien to him, because God is himself truth and love; you are shocked by the assumption that God could be like us poor worms in furthering an alien cause as his own... - Now it is clear, God cares only for what is his, busies himself only with himself, thinks only of himself, and has only himself before his eyes; woe to all that is not well pleasing to him. He serves no higher person, and satisfies only himself. His cause is - a purely egoistic cause.
How is it with mankind, whose cause we are to make our own? Is its cause that of another, and does mankind serve a higher cause? No, mankind looks only at itself, mankind will promote the interests of mankind only, mankind is its own cause. That it may develop, it causes nations and individuals to wear themselves out in its service, and, when they have accomplished what mankind needs, it throws them on the dung-heap of history in gratitude. Is not mankind's cause - a purely egoistic cause?
I have no need to take up each thing that wants to throw its cause on us and show that it is occupied only with itself, not with us, only with its good, not with ours. Look at the rest for yourselves. Do truth, freedom, humanity, justice, desire anything else than that you grow enthusiastic and serve them?
They all have an admirable time of it when they receive zealous homage. Just observe the nation that is defended by devoted patriots. The patriots fall in bloody battle or in the fight with hunger and want; what does the nation care for that? By the manure of their corpses the nation comes to "its bloom"! The individuals have died "for the great cause of the nation," and the nation sends some words of thanks after them and - has the profit of it. I call that a paying kind of egoism.
God and mankind have concerned themselves for nothing, for nothing but themselves. Let me then likewise concern myself for myself, who am equally with God the nothing of all others, who am my all, who am the only one.
Away, then, with every concern that is not altogether my concern! You think at least the "good cause" must be my concern? What's good, what's bad? Why, I myself am my concern, and I am neither good nor bad. Neither has meaning for me. The divine is God's concern; the human, man's. My concern is neither the divine nor the human, not the true, good, just, free, etc., but solely what is mine, and it is not a general one, but is - unique, as I am unique. Nothing is more to me than myself!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
