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I was on the Central Line to Ealing Broadway, minding my own business, and suddenly this gorgeous blonde stunner sitting next to me - whose reflection in the window opposite I'd been ogling ever since Shepherd's Bush - suddenly turned to me and began talking about ... well, to be honest, I was so surprised I don't remember much of what she said. But the leaflet she thrust into my palpably sweating palms somehow stayed there til I got home. Naturally, as a gullible teenager, I phoned the number on it, and somehow ended up in Ealing Town Hall listening to Peter Dawson doing what he did so well - charming the audience with what was evidently a heart-felt trust and love in his "Lord". Poor Peter. He was one of Maharaji's best salespeople. Why? Because his honesty and faith in that so-called "Lord" of his was palpably genuine. How on earth he can still fail to see that his one-time "Lord" was simply exploiting an advantage that "His" father had set "Him" up for says much for Peter's innate sense of trust in ... well, what was it that provoked any of us to trust the satsang that got us hooked in the first place? At the best of times, trust is an honourable trait. In Rawat's circumstances however ... .
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PS
Mind you, if I'd been in as deep as Dawson (= "in like Flynn"?) for the last quarter-century - or more - I'd probably have difficulty in re-evaluating my position too. Hmmm.
I suppose - if not ultimately, then at least on a personal level - freedom is what you decide it to be ...
Modified by cq at Thu, Jun 29, 2006, 17:48:43
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Friedrich was such a bastard. I like him. For "theologians" read what you will. He's right about having to have lived close up with it to really grasp it. Ex premie is such a natural development from premie, I am almost grateful to the Lord of the Universe for deluding me with his his follies. Love Bryn. "It is necessary to say just whom we regard as our antagonists: theologians and all who have any theological blood in their veins--this is our whole philosophy. . . . One must have faced that menace at close hand, better still, one must have had experience of it directly and almost succumbed to it, to realize that it is not to be taken lightly (--the alleged free-thinking of our naturalists and physiologists seems to me to be a joke--they have no passion about such things; they have not suffered--). This poisoning goes a great deal further than most people think: I find the arrogant habit of the theologian among all who regard themselves as "idealists"--among all who, by virtue of a higher point of departure, claim a right to rise above reality, and to look upon it with suspicion. . . The idealist, like the ecclesiastic, carries all sorts of lofty concepts in his hand (--and not only in his hand!); he launches them with benevolent contempt against "understanding," "the senses," "honor," "good living," "science"; he sees such things as beneath him, as pernicious and seductive forces, on which "the soul" soars as a pure thing-in-itself--as if humility, chastity, poverty, in a word, holiness, had not already done much more damage to life than all imaginable horrors and vices. . . The pure soul is a pure lie. . . So long as the priest, that professional denier, calumniator and poisoner of life, is accepted as a higher variety of man, there can be no answer to the question, What is truth? Truth has already been stood on its head when the obvious attorney of mere emptiness is mistaken for its representative. " "The pure soul is a pure lie". Aahh, sheer poetry!
Modified by Bryn at Thu, Jun 29, 2006, 16:59:01
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Hi, Bryn,Yes, I like Friedrich too.
The immediate reader might not realise that Friedrich's extraordinary style belongs in fact very much in a 19th century tradition which includes many other social activists and thinkers such as Josef Fouche, Babeuf, Saint-Just and later Engels, who is credited with authorship of the Communist Manifesto of 1848. Nietzsche's own rebellion against the clericalism of his age, with its pompous absolutist restrictions, is based on his rejection of his father and grandfather who were Lutheran Christians. Probably like many thinkers or aware people of his day, he found the contradictions of the Victorian age completely abhorrent. While people were exhorted to be abstemious and 'pure', rejecting the emotions, the underside of the Victorian age exhibited itself in child brothels and the sons of the rich being sent abroad by rote to complete their education, which usually meant disporting in Parisian whore-houses. Consequently, we have this crappy dichotomy between the 'pure', and the just genuinely human emotional and sexual. 'The idealist, like the ecclesiastic, carries all sorts of lofty concepts in his hand (--and not only in his hand!)' Sexual reference - quite possibly/probably. 'he (the idealist) launches his lofty concepts with benevolent contempt against "understanding," "the senses," "honor," "good living," "science"; he sees such things as beneath him, as pernicious and seductive forces, on which "the soul" soars as a pure thing-in-itself' Well - quite right, Friedrich. 'pernicious and seductive forces, on which "the soul" soars as a pure thing-in-itself' Yes, true very much of the German Idealists of the day, it seems to me, and tight-arsed Christianity generally of the century. 'as if humility, chastity, poverty, in a word, holiness, had not already done much more damage to life than all imaginable horrors and vices. . .' I guess what he could mean is the repression of any type of natural reaction to social realities, along with a superficially enforced notion of 'righteousness' which made a sense of one's humanness very guilty and inadequate.
'The pure soul is a pure lie. . .' If he means what I think, which is that any human being can be (totally) pure, then right on - he recognised the inhumane restrictions of his day and now. 'So long as the priest, that professional denier, calumniator and poisoner of life, is accepted as a higher variety of man, there can be no answer to the question, What is truth? Truth has already been stood on its head when the obvious attorney of mere emptiness is mistaken for its representative. "
So what is the truth he advocated? I guess, but can't be sure, that he was really advocating following 'deep' emotional 'truths', plus a 'will to power', which expression he himself originated. In the context within which he was talking, and with his love of Wagner, it's difficult not to think he was advocating that our natural state is to be 'instinctual' above all. As we all know, he became a Nazi icon, though it's well possible he would have abhorred this. In any case, it seems that he was a fairly typical man of his age, in which an over-arching Christian fundamentalism was being challenged by the twin reactions of humans as they really are, not as potential angels, and the realities of human logic. It took the 20th century to hopefully make us rounded people who can take for granted common sense as our basis for living, an appreciation of ourselves as full humans, along with an ethical sense derived from possibly the best of our religious history, or from the humanist tradition. I would be interested to know, however, what you think Friedrich's legacy was, whether it had some sensible validity, or was a bunch of really strange junk which led to him going seriously off-scale and eventually bonkers, even though in a restricted sense he may be amusing and likeable.
Modified by anthony at Fri, Jun 30, 2006, 15:31:43
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Hi Anthony, A fine contextualization there. Me, I read Nietzsche sometimes when I am feeling angry or adolescent , so his legacy to me is more therapeutic than instructive/philosophical. As for his broader position, I think that Political Correctness will ensure that he remains a static ikon on the shelves of the history of philosophy. No bad thing really considering his relentlessly acid and solipsistic slant on his fellow man. His legacy is academic only and especially after what the Nazis used him for. I read a biography of him ages ago and he was apparantly, by modern standards, a dishonest writer, whose words were intended above all to sound good, rather than reflect what he actually did in life. But as I say as a later reader of himat a distance, I can forgive that . But blimey, his thinking on women! What I like about him is the way he, as he says, "philosophises with a hammer"-the violent forunner sort of of Derrida's saner "deconstruction" perhaps. No one puts one over on Friedrich but he notices it, and his ripostes to the tacit assumptions and vieled superiority of "the spirit" are mighty. But his own psychic egotism is everywhere apparant. Nietzsche was pretty dissmissive of Kant which I think is a good thing. So a possible future for his static legacy would perhaps be this very uncompromisng philosophy with hammers. Its the only approach imo that might penetrate the positivist reductionist technologist skin and awaken the empirical mind to the possibility that sucessful human thinking is not just the re-creation in the brain of a facsimile of a pre existant reality. Thats my best shot Anthony. I don't really think academically any more. I just like reading Friedrich's mad prose. Thanks for the reply. Love bryn
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Yes, that's interesting.Can you please put the following into plainish Engish? 'Its the only approach imo that might penetrate the positivist reductionist technologist skin and awaken the empirical mind to the possibility that sucessful human thinking is not just the re-creation in the brain of a facsimile of a pre existant reality.' Thanks, Bryn. Cheers, Anthony
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You say, quoting Nietzsche:'The pure soul is a pure lie. . .'
If he means what I think, which is that any human being can be (totally) pure, then right on - he recognised the inhumane restrictions of his day and now.
ENDQUOTE How on earth you get your interpretation out of what Nietzche said is ... well, odd, to say the least. Please elucidate!
Modified by cq at Fri, Jun 30, 2006, 17:08:20
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There has to be one of his horse stomping him or something similar!
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Yes it is dense.. Its just that that is how my inner writer's voice actually talks to me! Honestly.Never really a man of the people me. I was known as an "intellectual" premie,redeemed only by my ability to handle exotic chord progressions for the Lord of the Universe. Wot I mean above is... It was Kant that made me think of transcendental versus immanent world views. Nietzsche scorned Kant who was thoroughly transcendental. Nietzsche takes no prisoners when it comes to things transcendental. Soooo... There is today a word "scientism" which refers to an analytic, empirical-only point of view. Implicit in this view there is (to me) an assumption of the transcendental. I refer you to the "homunculus" argument. Mind is assumed to simply make mental images of what is already there; ie to re-produce mentally congruent snapshots of what is pre-existently up and running already, reality complete with its ruling principles and relationships. Hopefully this view says, "one day" brain, itself part of this system, will isolate the key unit(s) that makes it all work and we then will know what consciousness is. That’s basic Kantian mental picturing, and is still very much alive. I prefer a more immanent connection with the world. ie Bryn, world, and thinking are already one in relationship with each other-a fact knowable in ordinary material objects, not just searched for behind things in the relationships between particles or atoms. I mean knowable within large commonplace daily objects and processes not just sought for as a separate transcendental regulative process behind them, in the assumed-to-be-there, already complete, relationships between things. Phew! So if I (Bryn) am already at one with reality and so too is my thinking, then the immanent, embodied way of knowing involves a cognitive technique of separation, followed by a recombining in a way that is simultaneously analytical yet launches out to become at the same time creative of the very thing it is analysing. That thing of course is itself. At this point the hammer is needed. People are suspicious of thinking that creates and evaluates itself. Self-creative? That's bollocks. You have to think about stuff, stuff that’s already there. And you’ve got to be detached or you will contaminate the process or worse still turn into an artist. Oh Gawd this is enough. I am making it worse. The only real exponent of this in the past as I understand it was Goethe in his much laughed at scientific work. He didn’t have a hammer so he went under and that’s what I meant about Nietzsche's possible example for philosophy. Friedrich blasted his radical thinking loudly and powerfully out into the face of the (in his view) deluded world. Oh I’ve just thought..prem rawat...well- Prem’s K (the 4 techs) is no more than a sleight of hand that was particularly successful because of the universal unconscious acceptance even among materialists of what amounts to transcendentalism. K simply hands you a clumsy empirical mysticism! It (allegedly) lets you actually see for yourself the spiritual nuts and bolts that you didn’t realise you unconsciously assumed were invisibly working behind reality, running it. Mystical empiricism wow! Thanks Prem. You sit there as an observer, but instead of watching trees, traffic and stuff, now you are privileged to watch the mighty concealed forces of God/Nature do there thing behind the scenes. Once you discover that “behind the scenes” is just a philosophical point of view, a convenient abstraction from history that has stuck, you are no better off than you were as a mystified detached observer of trees, cars and rollerskates.. Sorry Anthony. It is the heat here in UK. Mine is not a groovy or easily expounded pov. Luv Bryn
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Loved the quote Bryn. Here's one for you...Mark Twain on Academic Jargon: "As concerns this question, our inspired Founder instructs us that the fealty due from the Ultimate in connection with and subjection to the intermediate and the inferential, these being of necessity subordinate to the Auto-Isothermal, and limited subliminally by this contact, which is in all cases sporadic and incandescent, those that ascend to the Abode of the Blest are assimilated in thought and action by the objective influence of the truth which sets us free, otherwise they could not." .....It was just a snow-flurry on a warm day: every flake was distinct and perfect, but they melted before you could grab enough to make a ball out of them.
- "Three Thousand Years Among the Microbes" |
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...It was just a snow-flurry on a warm day: every flake was distinct and
perfect, but they melted before you could grab enough to make a ball
out of them... That is so lovely. I can't think why, but it moved me to tears when I read those words. Thank you.
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Hi
Bryn, As for his broader position, I think that Political
Correctness will ensure that he remains a static icon on the shelves of the
history of philosophy. Nah, he’s live and kicking imo.
Nietzsche was pretty dismissive of Kant which I think is a good thing.
I agree, but I would have thought Nietzsche has been a great influence on more
recent French philosophers.
So a possible future for his static legacy would perhaps be this very uncompromising
philosophy with hammers.
Humm, a bit uncharitable as his legacy even if he did say it himself, I
prefer that he taught that there are no facts only interpretations. He’s been a
great influence on Deluze - one of my favourite philosophers - and apparently
Foucault.
Its the only approach imo that might penetrate the positivist
reductionist technologist skin and awaken the empirical mind to the possibility
that successful human thinking is not just the re-creation in the brain of a facsimile
of a pre existent reality. Yes,
exactly, we have to move on from Derrida and deconstruction at some point,
although I understand he has also written on inventiveness (Nietzsche’s
influence?) and look at the realities we are creating, what is becoming…..that’s
where Deluze comes in. Best wishes,
Alice
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I've just seen your post which appeared while I was getting in a tangle trying to clarify myself to Anthony. Yes! Inventiveness. Thats the word.Inventiveness. Thank you. I shall now go and check out Deluze, as I no nowt about his thought. Thanks for the input. love Bryn
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Also just came across these bits;
Deleuze inverts the Kantian arrangement: experience exceeds our
concepts by presenting novelty, and this raw experience of difference
actualizes an idea, unfettered by our prior categories, forcing us to
invent new ways of thinking (see below, Epistemology). (Wiki)
The production of difference is also what is at the root of DELEUZE'S
interpretation of NIETZSCHE'S 'Will to Power' in Nietzsche et la
philosophie [Nietzsche and Philosophy] (1962):
For the activity of philosophers that means - and this is the
conclusion of the last book by DELEUZE and GUATTARI, What is Philosophy?,
that "philosophy is the art of forming, inventing and fabricating
concepts", (3) in which the philosopher does not use preordained schemata,
but has to create his or her own concepts, i.e. the interplay of concepts,
which actively structure our thinking and perception.
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Hi Alice, Yes I see what he means and feel some agreement on first reading. Ta. Inverting Kant? Hmm. There must be some other way of expressing it. The question, perhaps. Its the same thing imo. Ps dont you find dear Ockers contribution slightly tragic, what with its own typo and all. We getting too high falutin for ya mate?
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I would never derride anyone for high falutin French philosophising
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You can go and get fouckalted, as we say in the penal colonies
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Whacko Ocker! A jokes a joke, but wog philosophers are no joke eh? You must be from the venerable school of Antipodean Empiricism. Such notable Australian foundationalists as Mackenzie, Patterson (Les not Banjo) and of course Humphries. Apparantly there really was an Aussie philosophical movement called "the Sydney Push" (not a dance). Includes Germaine Greer and that bald lecherous journalist/comic whose name I forget. No worries! Luv (heterosexual of course) Bryn
Modified by Bryn at Mon, Jul 03, 2006, 09:16:44
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Well it's just the Frenchies I have problems with. So much hot air, so little substance.
Clive James was the journalist/comic you mentioned. I have just read a brilliant book called "Corrupting the Youth: A History of Philosophy In Australia" by James Franklin. This has a section on "the Push" though they were more bohemian poseur philosophers than real ones using Andersonian philosophy to convince young ladies to have sex with them.
As a young surfie suburban boy I made the trek with a more sophisticated older mate to the "Royal George" one Saturday afternoon to discover this (in)famous group of pub philosophers but it was hot and crowded and old Australian pubs then were places with tiled floors and walls to wash off the stale beer and vomit easily but they still stank. I felt nauseous. If Germaine Greer or Clive James or Robert Hughes were there they didn't impress though the habitues had no interest in young long haired underage boys. They were interested in drinking and betting on the horses though and I've always been a little fastidious and more interested in the "spiritual".
Barry Humphries was astonishing in the 50's and early 60's and while I don't begrudge him popular success and lots of money we lost a great social commentator. His ear for dialogue and the Australiana was astonishing. His take on early 1960's surfie bums was incredible. I only wish he'd been around to take off late 60's Australian hippies and early 70's DLM dazzlers.
Never having been an Ocker back then I found Bazza Mackenzie passe. I must look for a copy of the movie now that I am an Ocker.
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I spent nearly a year cruising out of Sydney entertaining Rugby Clubs on cruise ships! I remember those tiled pubs with the jugs and high pressure beer hoses. I was awed at the time. Last time in Oz was Amaroo about 1999. Same reaction really. Not much to choose. All the best Ocker me old Ocker. Nice to chat. Bryn
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