The lesson in and of philosophy after Kant, which is the painful process of accepting limitation.

It seems this event is for the publication of Simon’s new book by Verso.

Philosophy begins in the failed sense of transcendence. Religious and political disappointment intersect, and, if God is Dead, the issue of nihiliism, which is the breakdown of the order of meaning. This can be active or passive. Active is when the person finds things meaningless, and in turn try to detroy this world and bring a new one into being. Al Quaeda is the highest example of active nihilism. Passive nihilism is more like Nietchze, where there is the withdrawal.

Thus, what might justice be in an unjust world.

Wow, Simon speaks well. Polished. British English. Cultured, Modern. He wants to find more of a third way, one that is meta-ethical. The core of ethics, the existential matrix and core of ethics is a demand. One of good beyond being, the Resurrection, the moral law, etc. It depends on the thinker and the view.

There is a demand that cannot be fulfilled, and it makes me the me that I am by dividing me by myself; a dividual (the divided individual). Really interesting concept, I think. It fits with his concept that he is discussing, especially with the disappointment without dispair, there is a comic ridiculous. A bleak elevation to humor. We need satire more than ever, since we need the sense of the comic to cut through both the right and the left, politically, right now.

He is interested in the politics of resistance–military neoliberalism, neo leninism, neo anarchism.

Military neo-liberalism is a faith. This is similar to President bush right now, as well as British politics, and even current Democratic policies. This shows a melancholy with current politics. This form of politics causes a response of violence. This is politics of fear, like politics of policing, aka Guilianism. The best we can hope for globalized feeling of making the planet better. However, this is violent.

Neo-Leninism is practiced in Al Queda, and jihadist revolutionary Islam. He is very suspicious of this, more in the line of Stalin and Mao. Leninist and neo-Leninists like dictatorships and the political desire for the master. This is very violent. 

Neo-anarchism can be seen in the nature and tactics of resistance against the G8 Summit, for example. When diverse groups form and forge together for a common cause. This is like non-violent warfare, which is his emphasis. Badiou.

Anarchism as politics can be seen even in the US history, such as the writings of Payne and in some of the religious societies, such as Mount Lebanon.

a neoanarchist politics of religion can still allow for a resistance against the state. This is what Marx called true democracy when he referred to some of Hegel’s work.

What he is saying, about the state, immigration, and even the space where people live and have their lives, is very interesting, but as I am hot, sitting on the floor, and very uncomfortable, I am wondering  . . .

Ah, Gramsci and hegemony. Nothing like perking myself up. Makes me recall my classes with Brookfield. Interesting, I had not previous made the connection between Simon and Stephen (Brookfield).

Anarchism has to do with freedom

Ah, a Marcuse reference. And local and glocal.

War is the wrong response to the effects of 9/11. Perhaps the heteronomous other of Levinas is closer to what this is all about.

The three options, and he hopes the third is successful, but the first two will instead ravage the world.

I was finally able to upload my photos from London, when I was in England for the AHRD
Conference in Oxford. I have not been able to include the descriptions of the photos, but at least I can now point people to the links of them.

As this was my first time in England, there are a few first-time visitor surprises I had. I was surprised:

1. to be in a European country and be able to speak English without first asking “M’excusez-vous, parlez-vous anglais?”
2. by how much like Paris London looked.
3. how many security cameras there are throughout the city, yet I still feel safer in New York City.
4. how good the food was.
5. how much I liked Harrod’s. We really don’t have anything similar to it in the US.
6. how Manhattan prices really are not so bad; in comparison, of course.
7. that the NYC subway system is really world-class.
8. to have had such a good time that I want to return (even though the recent car bombs were found on the day I traveled from Oxford to London).

I think I now understand Hyacinth Bucket and the Vicar of Dibley. Rule Britannia (though I suppose that is ironic coming from an American . . .)!

Technorati Tags: England, Harrod’s, Hyacinth Bucket, London, Rule Britannia, UK, Vicar of Dibley

I recently got a fortune cookie that stated:

It is up to you to clarify.

How true is this? Is it the responsibility of the speaker to speak in a manner that a listener can or should understand, or is this speaking down to the listener? Is it the responsibility of a listener to ask for clarification if something is not understood? Will one side or the other be inauthentic if this is not done? Does it depend on the self-directedness of either of the two parties? How about if somebody does not have enough experience or context to understand?

Just some of the questions raised from Chinese take-out.

Technorati Tags: fortune, fortune cookie

Tonight, for the first time in several months, I went to the gym.

Finally over the bronchitis I have been struggling with on and off for the last four months, and after my doctor told me yesterday that I was finally healthy enough and able to return to some physical activity, I rode a recumbent bike for 40 minutes. While beginning the new Harry Potter book. While listening to Goldfrapp’s Fly Me Away (The Naughty Rmx), among others:

Fly me away, on an airplane
High, in the sky, want to see you again . . .

Yes, late in the evening, but it is the healthiest I have felt in some time. Just in time, I suppose, to begin facing the weight I gained. Like the call for the music to reload (cf. Music Reload (Mike Nero Mix)  by Savon), I consider ”you” the healthier “me” that I have not seen in some time. 

I am now flying. Not quite on the broom with Harry, nor on the bike without wheels. After all, metaphors can only take us so far (in light of my considering Derrida yesterday).

Hey, The Art of Noise  is now playing . . .

Technorati Tags: Goldfrapp, Jacques Derrida, Savon, Harry Potter, The Art of Noise

Jacques Derrida influenced a great many people, fields, and frameworks throughout his life, and it only seems fitting that his death in 2004 would itself cause controversy. A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Archive Fever, recounts how the effects of the actions of one faculty member at the University of California at Irvine jeopardized and ultimately cost the university
the Derrida Archives. While I am not particularly interested as to the veracity of the article’s claims (since only one side of the issue was provided as other parties in the dispute declined to provide their own voice to the story), I was captivated by a comment by Avital Ronell, who quoted some of the many letters that Derrida received while he was growing sicker from the pancreatic cancer that finally killed him.

“People sent letters saying how important he had been to them,” Ms. Ronell says. “Or he would get a letter saying ‘I’ve hated you my whole life, but now that you’re gone, I want you to know how much you’ve meant to me.’”

For the Father of Deconstruction, I find that final quote fascinating. Derrida made lots of people uncomfortable with his challenge of unspoken assumptions and frameworks in nearly everything within Western culture, yet there was something about him that was magnetic. In a way, he recalled the Socratic gadfly that people just wanted to go away away. Leave me to my beliefs, Derrida, as I was happy before you came along! I don’t want to think about new ways
of thinking! I like my life as it is! Just leave me alone!

Ahh, the status quo of my beliefs is so comfortable, why would I want anybody to challenge them? If deconstruction is such an annoying and unphilosophical phenomenon, why did it threaten so many? Could that in itself be the reason that it (he) can be hated, yet missed at the same time? Wow, would Freud have a field-day with this!

Technorati Tags: Avital Ronell, Chronicle of Higher Education, Deconstruction, Jacques Derrida, Socratic gadfly

As I am moving files to my new computer, I realized I did not upload the photos I took while in Oxford last month for the AHRD conference. Looking back at the photos I took, I think they really capture the look and feel of what I always wanted to see. I especially liked the crests and coats of arms I saw. Something so classical yet somehow so current. All of the Oxford photos I took are on Flickr.

Technorati Tags: ahrdoxford2007, England, Oxford

I recently spoke about how I bought a copy of The Philosopher's Magazine, and while looking through it there was another book I found that interested me: The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten. Written by Julian Baggini, one of the founding editors of the magazine itself, the book includes 100 short (1-page) stories (dilemmas) that are realistic and approachable, followed by 1-2 pages of reflection that Julian includes to help get the thinking-juices flowing. I started reading it for fun, and then yesterday it entered a new level.

It was sitting on my desk at work (as part of my commuting-reading), and a colleague saw it and asked me to bring it to dinner with me (three of us had planned to have dinner and catch up on sharing our summer stories). We decided to read one of the stories at dinner as a conversation-starter, and randomly selected "Till death do us part." This story addressed the issue of a couple who were getting married and how they were afraid of fully committing to one another and allowing the other to be "first." In our conversation, issues of marriage, commitment, permanence, personal vs. hypothetical experience, relationship, honesty, self-disclosure, divorce, and using the terms you vs. I in discussions when we speak of our experience in our own voice or when we at times project our experience as something common to all people (thus, you vs. I). We discussed this story and in the process learned more about one another and even about ourselves. We smiled later in the evening while, at a comedy club, several comedians made references to issues around marriage, commitment, and all the rest. If only they knew about our conversation earlier.

The story gave us a shared framework for the rest of the evening's discussions. Interesting how such a short and simple story can lead to something that is larger and more expansive than a 1-pager. While our conversation was very philosophical in nature, we managed to consider this without referring to Plato, Kant, Hegel, or even Derrida. Ahh, how interesting applied philosophy can be, not so much to get clear answers, but rather to see how many questions there really are.

Technorati Tags: The Philosopher's Magazine, Julian Baggini, The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten

I have been writing about evidence and transparency and expertise recently, and found a new definition that may help end the week with a laugh.

While in Oxford recently, I went into Blackwell’s and, after browsing for the 15 minutes I had before I leaving to catch my train to London, I bought a copy of The Philosopher’s Magazine (more about this publication coming soon). While looking through it, I came across an ad for an interesting-sounding book written by two of the editors, Ophelia
Benson and Jeremy Stangroom. The book, The Dictionary of Fashionable Nonsense: A Guide for Edgy People, is a work of comic relief that plays with various terms from a postmodern (or cultivated?) perspective. As many aspects of my life in the last year can be labeled as nonsense, I thought perhaps this may be the book for me.

As a converted postmodernist, this book made me laugh out loud, especially from the first word that I opened to when I flipped through it: Evidence. They portrayed “evidence” as (p 38):

1. Something that can be tailored to the requirements of my arguments.
2. A tiresome thing that may conflict with something that I believe.

How clever. I recently worked on an academic editorial of the concept of “evidence” from the perspectives of various disciplines, and while most sources want to use evidence, there is not exactly consistency of what this may encompass or how it may be clearly and universally defined. Rather, we have a shifting perspective of what may or may not constitute evidence from this or that source, time, experience, context, belief, and framework. With all that, voilà–I am right back to Benson
and Stangroom’s definition. Interesting how things work like that at times. 

Now, before this goes to far, a quick look at the Merriam-Webster definition reveals that evidence is “an outward sign.” Upon second-glance, is that “official” definition any clearer, more definitive, or better?

I think their little book can offer many profound (or overly-simplified and common-sensical) twists on terms encountered by the modern academic or cultural traveler. For the rest of us, it is simply funny.

Technorati Tags: Blackwell, Blackwell’s, Dictionary of Fashionable Nonsense, expertise, Jeremy Stangroom, Ophelia Benson, evidence, transparency

I uploaded my photos from the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax to Flickr. I need to rename and tag them, but thought it will be nice to see them sooner rather than later. Of particular interest are the photos from their Titanic Exhibit and those from their Pirates exhibit.

For a small museum in a very pretty location in downtown Halifax, it was a gem to see.

Technorati Tags: AERC2007, Halifax, Maritime Museum of the Atlantic