Friday, May 29, 2009

The Totalization of Shadows, Part XXV

Thoreau went to the woods in order to live deliberately. This seems to mean he couldn’t live deliberately when he was not in the woods, and one wonders: why? How deliberated was the move from the town of Concord to Walden Pond? Why was a short distance, less than two miles,considered sufficient to move away from the impossibility of living deliberately?

The choice to go to the woods in order to live deliberately clearly wasn’t deliberated: it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. I don’t think it was even a choice—I think it was a compulsion of some sort. As is well known, Thoreau didn’t achieve independence or autonomy at Walden Pond…His mother often delivered “care packages” to him, and the general feel I have for Thoreau’s experience is of an adolescent experimenting with the illusions and pretences of independence and autonomy without having the slightest real experiences of either, while the rest of us indulge this illusion—I wonder why.

I suppose to live deliberately (if "deliberately" can be considered synonymous with "thoughtfully",) could be the entire aim of a culture—what has happened to a culture when the only way to achieve what culture must nourish is to leave culture (if only symbolically)? Nature would take on in function precisely what culture was to do—nourish the specifically human.

Thoreau’s contemporaries didn’t appreciate Thoreau’s experiment—even Emerson felt it was a waste. That could be explained by Thoreau being ahead of his time—I remember Thoreau’s enormous influence in America in the late sixties through the seventies—he was a hero. I knew someone who treated Walden as scripture and had memorized most of the aphoristic parts of it (not so much the nature descriptions—I think that’s significant,) –Thoreau’s experiment was replicated maybe tens of thousands of times (but this is over for good, I think.) The influence was so far-reaching I have felt it had come to define something distinctly American. Culture and society, if not exactly bankrupt, chafe and inhibit. We can relax by getting away from them,( we don’t feel a need to notice the extent we take them with us when we relax in RVs in a developed “wilderness parks” any more than Thoreau noticed his continuing dependence on Concord society.In both cases,my opinion is the awareness is repressed.)

I’m trying to get at Totalization considered as the closed; a strategy for overcoming it considered as the leaving of culture and society; nature considered as an objective or given antidote to Totalization to which we believe can avail ourselves,if we have the means and if we choose. Also, I am trying to dig something out of Thoreau which is coming from his entirely conventional rationality which he and later others nevertheless experience(and I believe misunderstand) as mysticism.

Monday, May 25, 2009

The Totalization of Shadows, Part XXIV

Thoreau sets as his objective,

“I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms…”

In this sentence, I see a tangential force impacting between,

“I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to cut a broad swath…”

And,

“…and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms…”

The second part shows what I take to be the influence of Descartes (I originally set out to discuss Descartes) and one has to question: is the Cartesian approach suitable to Thoreau’s purpose?

Does one live deep and suck out all the marrow of life by reducing it to its lowest terms?

Thoreau poses a problem (to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life)foreign to any problem in Descartes I know …But seems to uncritically assume Descartes' method will work as applied to his very different problem. There was nothing uncritical or assumed in Descartes' use of his own method...He knew what he was doing. Decartes reduces thought to its lowest terms because he wants certain knowledge. Thoreau wants to reduce life to its lowest terms because he wants to live deeply. I'm not sure Thoreau knew what he was doing.

We who idolize Thoreau like to think he succeeded, but could he if his approach is the wrong one?

Sunday, May 24, 2009

The Totalization of Shadows, Part XXIII

A tangential force presses against this phrase,

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately”

I say that this tangential force inserts itself between,

“I went to the woods because I wished to live”

and,

“deliberately.”

A tangential force presses into this,

“Farm boys wild to couple
With anything….with soft-wooded trees
With mounds of earth…mounds
Of pinestraw…will keep themselves off
Animals by legends of their own:
In the hay-tunnel dark
And dung of barns, they will
Say… I have heard tell

That in a museum in Atlanta
Way back in a corner somewhere
There’s this thing that’s only half
Sheep… like a woolly baby
Pickled in alcohol…”

I say that this tangential force inserts itself between,

“Farm boys wild to couple
With anything….with soft-wooded trees
With mounds of earth…mounds
Of pinestraw…”

And,

“will keep themselves off
Animals by legends of their own:
In the hay-tunnel dark
And dung of barns, they will
Say… I have heard tell

That in a museum in Atlanta
Way back in a corner somewhere
There’s this thing that’s only half
Sheep… like a woolly baby
Pickled in alcohol…”

The Totalization of Shadows, Part XXII

Whatever this means,

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life…”-Thoreau, Walden

it doesn’t mean this,

“Farm boys wild to couple
With anything….with soft-wooded trees
With mounds of earth…mounds
Of pinestraw…” –Dickey, The Sheep Child

Whatever this meant,

“I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms…”-Thoreau, Walden


It also didn’t mean this,

“Farm boys wild to couple
With anything….with soft-wooded trees
With mounds of earth…mounds
Of pinestraw…” –Dickey, The Sheep Child

Friday, May 22, 2009

The Totalization of Shadows, Part XXI

Say that there is a socially-available toolkit of socially-constructed tools for reaching into whenever something needs to be gotten or gotten done.

Socially-constructed: let’s recognize this isn’t completely correct. We’ll go very soft on this point…There are myriad ways and levels and methods and modes of input for the way these tools were put together…We’ll have to recognize these as “fuzzy” tools, too.

That there is such a toolkit or access to it is the last thing on anyone’s mind. Though some of the society are highly-placed while others are enslaved, no one ever believes or in a way needs to believe this has a bearing on access to the toolkit.

Strangely, the people who use the tools the most are not the most-highly placed. The people who most freely come and go from the toolbox are quite a bit below the most- highly placed.

These most-highly placed go to the toolbox with the approximate frequency of the most- lowly placed.

No one is aware of the toolkit or the activity of going to it or discrepancies of access to it and the toolkit isn’t some sort of magic treasure chest either. Even if it could be conceptualized, it would not be conceptualized as some repository of wealth, wisdom, resources, “riches.”

...

I will short-circuit the story I was going to tell…I have to, because it would get so very long. What has happened when one wishes to escape in order to arrive and wishes to escape by the very means by which one is entrapped? One escapes into the very thing from which one is escaping and could never see it? One leaves one’s culture as a culturally-sanctioned act but in the fashion of truly mired up mess, the action is neither culturally-sanctioned nor not, nor an action or not? One goes to the woods, but with a Panopticon strapped to the back? This is a long story to tell.

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life…”-Thoreau

Sunday, May 17, 2009

The Totalization of Shadows, Part XX

What are the modes of subjectivation and objectivation of concept creation? (The concept creator--is this a human?)

What are the conditions of the modes of subjectivation and objectivation of concept creation?

I think we've implicitly reserved concept creation as our antidote to Totalization,(we do not seem to have waivered in our "faith" in this antidote in over three years of pointed peregrination, indecisive deliberation) but do we believe it is also our antidote to subjectivation and/or objectivation?

Or do we retain subjectivation and objectivation, seeking new modes of them, which will be unTotalizable?

I only ask that any answers this might elicit not be tainted with romanticism: the notion that we will retain nothing at all, but will dance freely and wildly in a plasma of energy, sans condition, mode, subjectivation, objectivation, Totalization, (sans thought or even potential for thought?)

Friday, May 15, 2009

The Totalization of Shadows, Part XIX

A brief note of clarification-- there are several ideas here, and they are beginning to get confused.

One purpose: I want to know how it is a concept can take effect.

For example, with Descartes.

His writing is very personal, very idiosyncratic.(I wouldn't judge it to have or to have had great popular appeal, per se.) His procedure (and/or method) has its advantages, but it is also very quirky. The method hasn’t stood the test of time (which I take to mean that the effectiveness of his concepts must be independent of what we call validity.) The conclusions deriving from the quirky methods verge on madness (as Descartes himself was forced to consider and then deny)-- thus, the method is not justified by what it produces (I don't think.)

I am not denying he succeeds in creating concepts, (though this maybe can be denied—maybe we should attempt to deny it.)

I note contradictions and inconsistencies in his thought—it must be these do not hinder concept creation or their power to take effect (if this they do.)

I am not very concerned with refuting his arguments or attacking his notions of causality. (As I could do by looking at the contradictions and inconsistencies of his thought. If refuting his arguments or attacking his notions of causality could impinge upon the power of his concepts, Descartes' concepts would have been rendered impotent long ago, perhaps even within a few decades of his death.)

I want to know why and how his concepts succeed in taking root in me—cause and form “me.” And a lot of other people, for example, Thoreau. Even in spite of ourselves. Or cause an entire culture (or perhaps an anti-culture.)

Descartes did not have the political power to force his ideas on anyone, nor did the church fathers who patronized him--and besides, whatever Descartes or these church fathers intended by his work, what the work caused escaped them and in many ways appears to me have worked against their intention.

For a concept to be effective—there has to be a notion of causality of the concept. The causality of the concept must be independent of the concepts of causality within the concept, (for example in Descartes, they are defective, even though his concept creation and the power (the causality?) of his concepts, are anything but.) And yet I resist this idea of a concept being a cause.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

The Totalization of Shadows, Part XVIII

I look out the screened window of my tent. I see the trunk of a white spruce tree.

I have a knee-jerk reaction to this sight. I think: "Ah, beautiful."

A sense of relaxation and repose accompanies this judgment, this aesthetic judgment.

This is the interaction,which repeats:

A:Sight of tree trunk.
B:"Ah,beautiful."

A:Sight of tree trunk.
B:"Ah,beautiful."

A:Sight of tree trunk.
B:"Ah,beautiful."

A:Sight of tree trunk.
B:"Ah,beautiful."

After a very long time, maybe over a period of months, I finally observe the extensive beetle infestation of this trunk. The tree is diseased. The tree is probably dying.

A large number of similar trees tumbled dead to the ground as windfall just this month.

Was it untrue the tree was beautiful? Obviously, I was in the thrall of a convention in regarding the tree the way I did-- there's a great deal of insensitivity in judging the tree as I had--there's no sense involved in overlooking the tree's actual condition.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

The Totalization of Shadows, Part XVII

Consciousness, choice, freedom, autonomy, activation, independence, nature-culture, totalization— a beginning schizoanalysis of Thoreau-Descartes-Yusef:

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately”

To the woods—yes.

But to live deliberately? Why “deliberately”?

I note I have neglected the significance of the word “deliberately” in past readings of this passage.

I hear, instead, (without realizing I have made a substitution),

“I went to the woods because I wished to live vibrantly, freely, easily, without impediment, without the intrusions of the state, the civil society.”

To live “deliberately”? Why have I never been jarred by that before?

To live “deliberately” in no way implies or connotes “freely, easily, without impediment.” Whether or not it implies or connotes “without the intrusions of the state, the civil society” is something which I would like to investigate.

After recent readings and reflections on Descartes, it occurs to me “to live deliberately” means to subject living to the careful scrutiny of the consciousness. And then it occurs to me to ask--if this is the intention,why to the woods?

Some definitions of “deliberate” from online dictionaries,

From Answers.com:

adj.
Done with or marked by full consciousness of the nature and effects; intentional.
Arising from or marked by careful consideration: a deliberate decision. See synonyms at voluntary.

(Remarkable—Answers.com gives us VOLUNTARY as a synonym of deliberate.)

From Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary:

Date: 14th century
intransitive verb
: to think about or discuss issues and decisions carefully
transitive verb
: to think about deliberately and often with formal discussion before reaching a decision
synonyms see think

(Extraordinary—Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary goes so far as to give us THINK as the synonym of deliberate.)

From Wiktionary:

Adjective
Done on purpose; intentional.
Of a person, weighing facts and arguments with a view to a choice or decision; carefully considering the probable consequences of a step; circumspect; slow in determining.
Formed with deliberation; well-advised; carefully considered; not sudden or rash.
Not hasty or sudden; slow.

Verb
To consider carefully.

(Fantastic-Wiktionary has recourse to INTENTIONAL to define deliberate.)

The Totalization of Shadows, Part XVI

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately. Then, I went to the library for the very same reason. Nowadays, I go back and forth in a way which I think entitles me to consider myself extraordinarily privileged.

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear, nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to 'glorify God and enjoy him forever'." Thoreau, Walden,from near beginning (1840’s).

I can’t figure out whether I have discovered life mean or sublime, however. I'm deliberately indecisive. Nevertheless, I will publish, (publicize), via this blog, my wavering meandering and indecisiveness—it is, I discover, a dream of publicity which wins out, no matter.

“Is there not a God, or some being, by whatever name I may designate him, who causes these thoughts to arise in my mind ? But why suppose such a being, for it may be I myself am capable of producing them? Am I, then, at least not something? But I before denied that I possessed senses or a body; I hesitate, however, for what follows from that? Am I so dependent on the body and the senses that without these I cannot exist? But I had the persuasion that there was absolutely nothing in the world, that there was no sky and no earth, neither minds nor bodies; was I not, therefore, at the same time, persuaded that I did not exist? Far from it; I assuredly existed, since I was persuaded. But there is I know not what being, who is possessed at once of the highest power and the deepest cunning, who is constantly employing all his ingenuity in deceiving me. Doubtless, then, I exist, since I am deceived; and, let him deceive me as he may, he can never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I shall be conscious that I am something. So that it must, in fine, be maintained, all things being maturely and carefully considered, that this proposition (pronunciatum ) I am, I exist, is necessarily true each time it is expressed by me, or conceived in my mind.” Descartes, MEDITATION II, section 3 (1641).

"Something" or not, good man, don’t you wish to live? I would have liked to see you take to the woods, (or your body.) You certainly have a strange uncertainty about your life, even that you have one. Whether it was of the devil or of God, you do hastily conclude your chief end here in the gold-tinged fogs is to “glorify God and enjoy him forever.”

I had always previously assumed Thoreau was remarking on observations he’d made about his fellow New Englanders. Now, I think maybe he was reading Descartes, though that he was doing both is not out of the question.

Friday, May 08, 2009

Instances of Reactivation, Part V

To clarify, I will briefly return to the first sequence from my previous post,

A bunch, a flock, a crowd of “I”s stands at the narrow mouth of a forking path which is in turn at the mouth of a Galton’s Quincunx. None can pass or allow any other to pass.

1. The first ambiguity here is the status of these “I’s” which make up a flock. (I may be better served by using a more conventional term than flock…I will call this a population of “I’s” so that the scientific and statistical nature of the problem becomes more apparent.)

2. Can an “I” be a particle, a part, or is a subject always some sort of unity, a whole? To be honest about it, I have assumed that the designation of the “I” did refer to a unit of some sort, even though I saw the unit designated as more or less arbitrarily designated. In other words, I see this unit as subject to further subdivision, into yet other “I” populations which could be said to compose it.(These smaller "I's" would also yield to further subdivision,to infinity.) So far, we have failed to broach the issue of the level Totalization is occurring or what the significance is of it happening simultaneously, congruently, and analogously on several levels which, as having different scales and dynamics, wouldn’t be expected to “clump” in the same manner.

3. That the population of “I’s” stands at the narrow mouth of a forking path implies an inside and an outside. It also implies that the narrow mouth of a forking path is objectively existent, that it is a given. What happens if I take that away—take away the idea of the choice being pre-existent and there to confront, challenge, impede and interrupt the “I’s” who also, apparently, have been pre-formed as “I’s”? I really want to take this away—I don’t want choices to be primary or preliminary to the choosing “I”.

4. The “I’s” singly or as units (elements or counts) within a population, as they stand before the fork of the path, appear to be conscious—in bewilderment, consternation, frustration, or reflection. This has to be an artifact of our conventional way of viewing—a projection we make upon this tableau. Interestingly, we don’t (I don’t anyway) as readily make the same projection onto the population, (we don’t automatically think of the population as being conscious.) But each single “I” is also a population.

5. “None can pass or allow any other to pass.”—this implies an intentionality of the “I’s”. I have to find a way to block this implication because I don’t want it.

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Instances of Reactivation, Part IV

I present these scenarios:

1.A bunch, a flock, a crowd of “I”s stands at the narrow mouth of a forking path which is in turn at the mouth of a Galton’s Quincunx. None can pass or allow any other to pass.

2.“One” of the crowd passes anyway, somehow. (Through force or wiliness or some other means, no one has ever been able to determine, but the determination of this "how" could bear on the problem of reactivation.)

3.After the “one” has passed, the others find a capability to pass. What they pass into, however, is somehow not exactly what they had hoped to pass into…It is inexorably marked by the primacy of the passage of the “one.” It appears the others, this additional crowd of “I”’s, passes into a something, a substantial something, an object, which is somehow or other already marked as the property of the “one.”

Saturday, May 02, 2009

Instances of Reactivation, Part III

We live in a historical moment, we are exposed to various and diverse historical forces. Though we do not elect these historical forces, we may have some narrow range of responses to them from which we elect.

We attempt to be scrupulous within this election, but in scrupulousness, we notice the defect even of our notion of the scrupulous. Within our elections, we notice the interplay and effect of unelected forces.

“I” confront a diversity of forces, and one of the first things “I” notice is that “I” am forced to deal with them through an “I” which must be understood as individual and isolated—fixed, also, if you wish (fixed both in the Peircean and Schantzian senses.) Individual, isolated, and fixed mean to me as an individual-- putting blinders on, accepting a harsh narrowness to what I will care about, “deal” with. “I” must rely on the help, assistance, and cooperation of other “I”’s, who do help and cooperate, but also within the domain of their own individual, isolated, fixedness, and these are not without significance on the effectiveness of the power and quality of their help and assistance.

Do I want to put the blinders on? (Do I desire my own repression?) I do want to make a living. I do want to make my way in the world. Seemingly open to me would be the option of BOTH not putting the blinders on AND making a living, making my way in the world. Is this one of my options? What do I confront when I attempt to take this option? An open path (a surfable wave)? Or difficulties (barriers, reefs, walls, a room from which I can make no exit, “mind-forged” or “forge-forged” manacles)? I can say with some certainty I confront the other “I”’s who stand in varying degrees of awareness at this seemingly-same fork in the path.

The other “I”’s standing at this fork are as much a barrier to my passing as “I” am to “theirs.” None of this is willing. It is not voluntary, elected. There is no sense in which any of us desired to be standing here in this way. It is a historical moment. It is a totalized historical moment (but no more so than any other post-Enlightenment historical moment is totalized.)