At it’s most exciting and interesting existentialism brings to the fore the problem of the core of my very being and even if it may fall back on the model of the human in its own attempt to think through this problem, the fact that the problem is posed in large part derives from existentialist thought. This ‘core’ sounds naive and simple, as though some ‘true me’ can be found if we look hard enough. This implies something like a essence and the first crucial step that existentialism began to make explicit was was that this core is not some essence to be understood through the philosophical process of distinction and definition supported by argument. Sartre’s crude formulation of this shift in existentialist thought found itself expressed in his famous slogan – ‘existence precedes essence’. Kierkegaards’ investigation of the case of Abraham and his faith is also, however, reliant upon this kind of shift from essence to existence.
A core, like the core of an apple, might be missed by being unthinkingly passed over, almost as though it were waste. Custom and practice where I live is for the core of an apple to be thrown away after eating the flesh and pulp. I’ve always found that strange, always eating my apple cores and once I had children often eating theirs too. The core of an apple is crunchy, tasty and – more importantly – the very point of the apple. It is the seed carrier, which all this flesh and pulp is there to sustain. It contains a small forest within, an orchard of life. My own, naive, magical, thinking has always taken the core of the apple to be that which is the most vital, life-containing element of the fruit.
This core of my own being I also take to be that which is most vital, life-containing. Assuming, as I do, that I am not a deterministic being this core is also something that doesn’t cause anything, including my being. It is, instead, that which is within the eyes that see, not as a pre-existing soul but rather as the confluence of all those forces that have coalesced to form this moment of subjectivity in which I see or feel. At times this core will be in one form, at times in another, though at each time it will present as an eternity. At times, indeed, the core might might be in a ‘non-dual’ form, presenting itself not as my core but as the core of everything.
How can such a shifting form in any sense be called a ‘core’? Moreover, how could such a core be both continuously shifting and yet also ‘that which is most vital’? Implicit in the notion of a variable core is something like a ‘variable object’. Why is it difficult to imagine an object that has enormous variation? It seems that at the point at which we allow the enormous variation the object is no longer identifiable. We cannot recognise something as an object unless there is enough stability of identity, so it might be argued – and yet we seem entirely capable of handling the weather, of handling things which have enormous variability. The lower intensity of the rate of change in many objects perhaps inoculates us from the pressure of handling the higher intensity objects. It seems that if a core does exist, almost by definition this core must be that which is most vital – these two notions seem to co-define each other. The difficulty is not, then, in recognising this core and this vitality but rather in handling an intense core, that intensity now being understood as a high degree of flux.
The Volcanic Lines – deleuzian research group, which I co-organise with Ed Willatt from Greenwich University, is beginning a new series of work next week. Details have already gone out in various forms. Reading for week 1 is Chapter 1 of AO (The Desiring Machines) and the reading group will last 6 weeks, each Wednesday night. All welcome at any time, online or in flesh. You can follow the online discussion with the session reports which will be posted at the dialogues page of Volcanic Lines and full details of how to register (it’s free) are at the main site for VL.
I gave a paper at the Manchester Metropolitan University conference on ‘Deleuze and the event’ that was held earlier this year and the organisers have videoed all the papers, a practice they have had for a while now as part of their online journal A/V. A dvd came through the post this morning with copies of all the papers in video format, which is cool since I can now see those papers I missed on the day. Here is my own paper (in mov format) – and here on iPo in mp4 format. These are ‘direct download’ links, so right click and save-as or do whatever it is you do on your system. You can view a streaming versions here. Comments of course welcome.
In a recent post at Accursed Share, Joshua poses Levinas’ critique of Heidegger as rooted in the limitations of comprehension, even the extended notion of comprehension to be found in Heidegger’s work. His post is based on a reading of Levinas’ essay "Is ontology fundamental?" (Emmanuel Levinas: Basic Philosophical Writings: pp1-32 – henceforth BPW). He is clear and concise is his account but, as needs must in a blog post, has to summarise and pose things quite starkly. This, I think, is a major benefit of ‘blog philosophy’, this need to summarise and contrast in a quick and somewhat schematic way, more akin to verbal exchanges than essay work since schema is intended to prompt comments and discussion rather than pretend at an over-arching knowledge. Such ‘simplification’ enables the difference of one way of thinking to another to be posed sharply, though I often find myself doing something rather different in my own posts.
Heidegger and Levinas are counter-posed and to do so a fulcrum point is needed. For Joshua this fulcrum rests on the concept of knowledge, which Heidegger is still beholden to and which Levinas argues necessarily subsumes the individual and difference (particular) in the general and same (universal). For Levinas ontology cannot be fundamental since it is still a logy, a knowing, and the reality or truth or essence or soul of the individual – named as the Other with a big O in Levinas – is lost in any form of knowledge relation. Presumably we would want to say something like, either there is a relation with the Other and thus ontology is not fundamental or else all is lost. There is a relation with the Other in the encounter (not knowledge) with the face and thus ontology is not fundamental.
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It is perhaps dangerous to be too assertive when giving an account of Kierkegaard. There’s a whole series of multiple meanings and possibly even the odd trap and foil for the unsuspecting, though less so than in Nietzsche. To think on from Kierkegaard, however, is to grant oneself a license to be wrong about what he said but still right in what is said. An exculpation, no doubt, but one that seems almost ‘truer’ to Kierkegaards’ thought than a slavishly accurate but effortless exegesis. Nonetheless this is an excuse even whilst it may be an exculpation.
It is with these caveats covering my back that I approach the ‘Preamble from the heart’ [Fear and Trembling: Penguin 2006, henceforth FT]. It is, to locate the exculpation within Kierkegaards’ own words, in an attempt to do some of the work so that I may get my bread with justice that this approach is made. The ‘Preamble’ is the introduction in the drama that is FT of the Knight of Resignation and the Knight of Faith within FT. We are to meet these key conceptual personae – as Deleuze would call them – as Kierkegaard attempts to conceptualise and think the problem of movement. It is how things move that is crucial to the Preamble, what it is that makes something a movement. To tighten this some, it is what makes a specific kind of movement exemplary or vital to the very notion of movement itself.
(SOURCE: apc news)
Free Geek has been keeping the needy nerdy for seven full years GOA, India — Contribute your work, and get a computer! That’s the option offered by the Portland,Oregon-based Free Geek. They have been "helping the needy get nerdy since the beginning of the third millennium".
In recognition of their work -made possible with GNU/Linux and free software- this not-for-profit community organisation was jointly awarded the first APC Chris Nicol FOSS Prize, named after a passionate campaigner of free and open source software (FOSS) who played a key role in the APC network. With ideas such as a thrift store (buy donated recycled parts, as is, and with no warranty), hardware grants, GNU/Linux certification, and internet access, the 2000-launched Free Geek has done some interesting work. The organisation states on its website: "In the four years since its formation, Free Geek has recycled over 360 tons of electronic scrap and refurbished over 3,000 computer systems that are now in use by individuals and organizations in the community". Interestingly, Free Geek says it does most of this work with volunteers.
The first three elements in Fear and Trembling are the ‘preface’, the ‘attunement’ and the ‘exordium’. In the preface Kierkegaard makes an almost direct, if somewhat ironic and sarcastic, appeal to the audience, an audience beyond his contemporaries. The tone ranges from a side-swipe at those who would be reading him, an almost arrogant assumption that he will be read, to a hubristic tragedy in which no matter who reads him he is to be misunderstood. It’s amusing to read these rather brash lines and there is a lightness that we read into him which might be less kindly if he were to be taken seriously. From the beginning Kierkegaard makes the reader of FT feel as though they are in the midst of someone who says a little too much for their own good, whose passion is as readable as their words. Moreoever, he does so in the mode of doubt. He makes us doubt this ‘Silentio’ from the start. He seems a little smug, a little too perfect and yet he also seems to be standing up against that mob, that crowd of dumbskulls, that queue we find ourselves in for no reason.
The attunement is far more beautiful a piece of writing, the beginning of the beauty of FT. The preface might mark its opening philosophical moment, though even then we might instead want to mark this point in the lines of the epigraph. It is the epigraph that signposts the issue or method of indirect communication with which FT is entwined. Here, in the short moment during which Tarquin slices off the heads of the poppy flowers whilst walking with the messenger, we find the idea that a story can have two drastically different meanings. The messenger might recount the story of his walk with Tarquin and gain nothing of its murderous intent, merely report accurately and verbatim – a true representation – what happened. Tarquins son might understand something different, moreover he might understand the truth of the message hidden under the representation.
(questions in note form that are partly naive and part of my current work, questions as connections, as the objective reality of a thinking practice)
"Thus Marx, rather than Kierkegaard or Hegel, is right, since he asserts with Kierkegaard the specificity of human existence and, along with Hegel, takes the concrete man in his objective reality." (Sartre, The search for a method)
Jaspers thinks that "We are taught to catch a presentiment of the transcendent in our failures; it is their profound meaning." The death of god is the failure that reveals the transcendent (negative theology). What’s the difference between this and Critchley’s ‘achievement of a certain meaninglessness’ that he outlines at the beginning of his little book on death? Is it that to succeed is to already be beyond ourselves? Failure – is this the encounter with the problematic in Deleuze? Is what we are involved in when we are forced to think by the problem the lack of ease with which we navigate and move through the world (the ease of living)? This might appear so but this would defy the constant injunction by Deleuze against lack as a grounding or primary force.
This excellent example of the way categories or names prescribe our way of conceiving or thinking through problem came through the nettime email list recently. On 29/09/2007, Thijs wrote: > “[…] In contrast to most post-modern nation states, Islamic fundamentalism offers the kind of warm hearth for which many shaken Western souls might yearn.” Maybe it would be more accurate to say that words like “fundamentalism” and “terrorism” offer the kind of warm hearth for which many shaken Western souls might yearn: the ability to lump together a wide range of social phenomena that they don’t understand under a few convenient labels taken from American and European history, such as American Protestant fundamentalism and the French revolutionary Terror of the 1790s. Here are some possible alternatives (which I’m sure could be improved): Al Qaeda: Salafi nationalist guerilla network Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood: Sunni reformist party Hamas: Sunni Palestinian nationalist party and militia Hizballah: Shia Lebanese nationalist party and militia Two things leap out of this sort of classification: the need to know something about Islam in order to know what the Arabic words mean, and the need to take nationalism seriously as a force that motivates opposition movements. Ben # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@kein.org and “info nettime-l” in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org
This excellent example of the way categories or names prescribe our way of conceiving or thinking through problem came through the nettime email list recently.
On 29/09/2007, Thijs wrote:
> “[…] In contrast to most post-modern nation states, Islamic fundamentalism offers the kind of warm hearth for which many shaken Western souls might yearn.”
Maybe it would be more accurate to say that words like “fundamentalism” and “terrorism” offer the kind of warm hearth for which many shaken Western souls might yearn: the ability to lump together a wide range of social phenomena that they don’t understand under a few convenient labels taken from American and European history, such as American Protestant fundamentalism and the French revolutionary Terror of the 1790s.
Here are some possible alternatives (which I’m sure could be improved):
Al Qaeda: Salafi nationalist guerilla network
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood: Sunni reformist party
Hamas: Sunni Palestinian nationalist party and militia
Hizballah: Shia Lebanese nationalist party and militia
Two things leap out of this sort of classification: the need to know something about Islam in order to know what the Arabic words mean, and the need to take nationalism seriously as a force that motivates opposition movements.
Ben
# distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@kein.org and “info nettime-l” in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org
