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?
Saturday, March 24, 2007
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.
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