Temporary but Unrepentant Umbilical to Furthur Thought-Insanity, Part XXXVII

Carlos-o(∞): “ Try this associative permucombination ,

‘Enlightenment is the overcoming of An Enslaving Process through A Liberating Process.’”

Carlos-O(1): “ Yes, it is so.”

Carlos-o(∞): “ For the Enlightenment, the enslaving processes are custom, tradition, and dogma; the liberating processes are those of rationality. For Postmodernity, the enslaving processes are the totalizing processes; the liberating process is non-totalizing thinking(s).”

Carlos-O(1): “ There is this direct symmetry you point out, but there is also an inverse symmetry: the liberating process of rationality is formal or formalizable, while for Postmodernity, the liberating process is informal, and playful. For the Enlightenment, the liberating process is tied to progress, (liberating processes are known as the progressive), while for Postmodernity, that demand for progress becomes somehow oppressive, overly serious, something better left unconceptualized (or not ‘worried’ about?).”

Carlos-o(∞): “ Thought wouldn’t have to justify itself in the Enlightenment, but in Postmodernity, thought is something which interferes with ‘being in the moment.’ In some ways, the thinking of postmodernity, nontotalizing thinking, almost appears as a repudiation of thinking (Enlightenment thinking.) Non-totalizing thinking understands itself as an experiencing of life, ‘being in the moment’, ‘don’t think:do’, etc. Non-totalizing thinking is experiencing. This is the big point: Non-totalizing thinking understands itself as an experiencing. ”

Carlos-O(1): “ What’s also odd is that in Postmodernity much of what is experienced is the custom, tradition, and even dogma of previous peoples and eras, which is lifted (as in, five-finger discount), recycled, sampled and rearranged (usually quite a lot.) Custom, tradition, and dogma are of course what the Enlightenment confronted as the deadening, enslaving, or unthinking. When Postmodernity resurrects and playfully remixes these, it does not reawaken the deadening, enslaving, or unthinking, somehow. Or maybe their powers of deadening, enslaving, and stopping thinking are not taken seriously, and that does the trick.”