Temporary but Unrepentant Umbilical to Furthur Thought-Insanity, Part II
This blog is an aborted conversation—a conversation that never took shape, and became a monologue—my monologue. It’s also an aborted collaboration—the reasons for the failure of the collaboration have never been discussed…Perhaps to revive the conversation, the reasons for the failure of the collaboration could become the topic of discussion, but the truth is for me at this point I wouldn’t entertain such a proposition—I now reject it with such force that if it were to come up, that would be the “last straw.” The aborted dialogue become monologue is now my monologue, and that’s that.
The blog was initiated by Carlos, who started it off (without input or feedback from me) by proposing some topics (about the historical Enlightenment) which he intended to handle thematically. My opinion is that all of his proposed topics can only be handled thematically. However, any input on my part to these topics would (and were) markedly inferior—unacceptably inferior, because I don’t know anything about these topics (for one very good reason.) What’s more, I didn’t (and do not) have any strong interest in these topics. And what’s more than that, I have an aversion to these topics—I suffer Enlightenment Anxiety. The darkness and evil of all forms of idealism scare the shit out of me. (In part because I am irrevocably idealist, have tasted these evils, and seemingly cannot stop from tasting these evils, which inability is the supreme (and sublime) nightmare of these evils.)
Carlos and I might have been able to discuss how, if we did under these circumstances of my inferiority, take these general topics and find a way to work with them so that my inferiority did not become the unacceptable burden it was to become. For example, we might have been able to narrow the topics so that I could work piecemeal in manageable chunks until I arrived at a somewhat better vantage. Maybe we could have discussed the general topics to arrive at a better shared understanding of my revulsion for them (or so that I myself might, before we embarked, know a little better I had this revulsion, for at the time, my revulsion was to me vaguely felt—on my own, I avoid the historical Enlightenment—Carlos’ proposals would force me not to avoid—and I was unconscious of it, though the feeling, revulsion, is very strong, overpowering.)
Thus, Carlos and I couldn’t have discussed these things at the beginning. I couldn’t have discussed them as I was unconscious of my objections to them. I suspect Carlos was also unconscious of why he had chosen these topics, why he had chosen me to propose them to, and the true significance of the ways he wanted to begin investigating them, and how odd it was to attempt a collaboration beginning in a way which didn’t allow, and even destroyed, for the conditions of a collaboration. What draws my rage is that between us we papered over all of these hazards by assuring each other we were both free “to think and write anything either of us wanted.”
The blog was initiated by Carlos, who started it off (without input or feedback from me) by proposing some topics (about the historical Enlightenment) which he intended to handle thematically. My opinion is that all of his proposed topics can only be handled thematically. However, any input on my part to these topics would (and were) markedly inferior—unacceptably inferior, because I don’t know anything about these topics (for one very good reason.) What’s more, I didn’t (and do not) have any strong interest in these topics. And what’s more than that, I have an aversion to these topics—I suffer Enlightenment Anxiety. The darkness and evil of all forms of idealism scare the shit out of me. (In part because I am irrevocably idealist, have tasted these evils, and seemingly cannot stop from tasting these evils, which inability is the supreme (and sublime) nightmare of these evils.)
Carlos and I might have been able to discuss how, if we did under these circumstances of my inferiority, take these general topics and find a way to work with them so that my inferiority did not become the unacceptable burden it was to become. For example, we might have been able to narrow the topics so that I could work piecemeal in manageable chunks until I arrived at a somewhat better vantage. Maybe we could have discussed the general topics to arrive at a better shared understanding of my revulsion for them (or so that I myself might, before we embarked, know a little better I had this revulsion, for at the time, my revulsion was to me vaguely felt—on my own, I avoid the historical Enlightenment—Carlos’ proposals would force me not to avoid—and I was unconscious of it, though the feeling, revulsion, is very strong, overpowering.)
Thus, Carlos and I couldn’t have discussed these things at the beginning. I couldn’t have discussed them as I was unconscious of my objections to them. I suspect Carlos was also unconscious of why he had chosen these topics, why he had chosen me to propose them to, and the true significance of the ways he wanted to begin investigating them, and how odd it was to attempt a collaboration beginning in a way which didn’t allow, and even destroyed, for the conditions of a collaboration. What draws my rage is that between us we papered over all of these hazards by assuring each other we were both free “to think and write anything either of us wanted.”
posted by Yusef Asabiyah at 11:10 AM
2 Comments:
When I first visited this blog Carlos had already left, I sent him email and he came back for a little while. Then I developed some problems towards the philosophicla position that Orla represented, and then he left! And thus, the blog here became a monologue.
I recalled from Carlos blog, that he reached a firm position from which most philosophical strife can be resolved. Namely that of a relativism from which any part of reality can be understood as a specific domain, having within a set of own rules and language that together make things, events and propositions inside the domain true or false. And he wrote something like, that he had .. finally awoken from the dream of a universial language .. or something like that. And that he ..continously needed to wake himself up from that dream.
Maybe like a thirsty man, who has to remind himself all the time, that water does not exist.
There is one thing left from the piles of philosophical investigation that has taken place here and elsewhere in the case of myself, which is Nietzsches idea of the eternal re-occuring of the same, as Karma.
Yes, and what I find myself thinking on is the role of thinking about the Enlightenment has played in the unintentional conflicts we've developed in the development of the blog, between each other, and even within each of us.
Your second paragraph is a critique of the Enlightenment's critique of European culture up to the Enlightenment. What I find perplexing is the way we (or maybe it's just me) can't keep that up consistently. I blame the academy, and Carlos' problem, as I see it, is his involvement with the academy. There's a rush away from Nietzsche (and ANY thinking using Nietzsche, the right-Nietzsche in the form of the Straussians, or the left-Nietzsche of the Deleuzians) on in the academy, back to Kant. Respectable Kant. I sincerely believe it is happening only for the reason Kant is respectable, and always will be. Always. Nietzsche is still of great and perhaps growing popular interest, and I also believe he will continue to be, but he will never be admitted to the academy because he never can be respectable. The academy, due to its extraordinary farcical nature, will cater to some extent to this popular demand--to exactly the extent Nietzsche can be domesticated. In which case Nietzsche isn't Nietzsche. The academy is the academy's most needful philosophical problem though the academy, as academy, is prevented from seeing this.
--Yusef
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