friedrich-nietzsche « WordPress.com Tag Feed

Quadrinhos narra criação do universo com humor

rodrigoherrerolopes — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 10:00:11 +0000

Aproveito que hoje é sábado para indicar um blog de quadrinhos fantástico que conheci por algumas retuitadas no Twitter. Trata-se de Um Sábado Qualquer, feito pelo designer e ilustrador Carlos Ruas, que aborda a criação do mundo de uma forma bem humorada, através de tirinhas curtas e muito bem sacadas.

O blog tem cerca de 15 mil acessos diários com tiras engraçadíssimas, feitas de “uma forma fofinha”, como comenta Carlos Ruas em entrevista à CBN, que blogo abaixo. Outra coisa interessante é que as tiras seguem uma ordem cronológica da criação do universo, como se estivéssemos “lendo” a Bíblia, pelo menos na semelhança dos temas tratados no livro.

Os personagens principais são, claro, Deus, o Diabo (chamado hilariamente de Luciraldo), Adão e Eva. Mas além desses, as tirinhas também possuem outros personagens, como o naturalista inglês Charles Darwin e o filósofo alemão Friedrich Nietzsche. Para ir direto nas tiras desses dois pensadores, clique aqui e aqui. Vale a pena.

Para conhecer o site, acesse: http://www.umsabadoqualquer.com.

Para ouvir a entrevista com o criador do blog, Carlos Ruas, vá ao site da CBN, clicando aqui!

De unde venim?

necenzuratul — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 06:45:42 +0000

“Omul este o franghie care leaga bestia de supraom – o franghie peste abis”
Friedrich Nietzsche

Se spune ca inainte de Big Bang nu era nimic. Ca insasi spatiul si timpul a aparut odata cu Big-Bang-ul atoate creator.
De fapt se pare ca totusi era ceva. Se spune ca exista un punct, un singur punct, numit dealtfel si… Singularitate. Insa un punct altfel decat toate celelalte, un punct al carui volum infinit de mic tindea spre zero, dar a carei masa tindea spre infinit…
Apoi, concentrarea de masa infinita nu a mai putut realmente sa se suporte si a explodat, creand spatiul si timpul prin care, resturi de materie si antimaterie (ce aveau deja fixat un program de comportare si care ascultau de legi ordonatoare), au inceput sa zboare in toate directiile, vanandu-se si se anihilandu-se reciproc.
Se pare ca au fost mai multe particule de materie decat cele de antimaterie, caci toti atomii existenti azi in Univers sunt “restul” de materie ce a ramas dupa ce antimateria s-a consumat. Caci se pare ca, din fericire pentru noi, explozia a generat mai multa materie decat antimaterie.

Interesanta poveste, si destul de solid argumentata de stiinta.
Se mai spune ca, dupa ce vanatoarea dintre materie si antimaterie s-a consumat, materia ramasa s-a regrupat. Gravitatia a inceput sa adune particulele formand nori de praf stelar, si mai apoi formand stele. Unele mai mari, altele si mai mari, iar unele chiar foarte mari, de-a dreptul uriase, fiecare dandu-i-se particule dupa ce materie a gasit Gravitatia prin zona.
Stelele, in numar de cam 100 de miliarde, s-au adunat intr-o hora numita Galaxie, in Univers fiind totodata in jur de cam tot 100 de miliarde de Galaxii, cel putin aparent.

Dar stelele nu sunt niste licurici pe cer, ci sunt adevarate reactoare nucleare, in care atomii de Hidrogen si de Heliu le formeaza combustibilul. Stelele, sunt de fapt sume de milioane sau miliarde de explozii nucleare succesive petrecute in fiecare secunda, ‘tinute strans’ in forma sferica de chiar Gravitatia din centrul ei de masa. Ca si cum ai arunca o piatra in sus, si la un moment dat, consumandu-se energia imprimata de tine in lupta sa cu atractia gravitationala, se opreste si apoi cade inspre inapoi. Doar ca in cazul stelelor, pietrele sunt atomi, sunt foarte multi si pleaca in toate directiile, de unde si forma sferica.

Ciudata Forta asta Gravitationala. Se compune realmente din insumarea fortelor infinitezimale ale fiecarui atom in parte. Si cu toate astea, forta asta mica-mica a unui singur atom, precum o manuta firava ce actioneaza lungindu-se prin intreg volumul stelei, facandu-si loc printre toate particulele si reactiile nucleare intalnite in cale, apoi parcurge sutele de milioane de kilometri de vid – in cazul Soarelui nostru – si apoi agata, ca un fir de ata minuscul si obosit, Pamantul nostru cu muntii si oceanele lui, tinandu-l sa nu deraieze de la traiectoria impusa de legi precise, impins de imensa forta centrifuga generata de miscarea sa de rotatie in jurul Soarelui.
Grea sarcina, si, cu toate astea, asa se intampla, doar ca nu stim cum sa putem intelege asa ceva.
Nu insa si daca ai sa-ti apleci capul pe umar in timp ce te uiti la o galeata ce sta pe un cantar si in care cineva rastoarna particule de nisip. Ai sa vezi atunci ca greutatea-forta minuscula a fiecarui fir de nisip ce ajunge in galeata, trece prin toate celelalte fire de nisip din galeata, prin fundul galetii, si, insumandu-se cu fortele celorlalte fire de nisip, deplaseaza talgerul balantei spre pamant, dupa modelul Pamantului ce sta ‘agatat in lesa’ gravitatiei Soarelui.

Dupa ce combustibilul nuclear din stele se consuma, urmeaza o explozie in care mai intai steaua isi mareste cu mult volumul, pentru ca mai apoi, Gravitatia – intotdeauna ea, ca un ofiter de serviciu – aduna iarasi particulele la un loc, steaua devenind una pitica.
In timpul acestei ultime explozii, electronii zboara de pe orbite, adunandu-se si formand alti atomi, mai grei. Spre exemplu, aurul de la inelul ce-l porti pe deget, provine dintr-o astfel de stea ale carei conditii din timpul exploziei finale a facut sa se transforme in aur. Intreaga stea s-a transformat in Aur. Alte stele se transforma in in Calciu, unele in Fier, altele in Carbon. Si tot asa, pana se umple tabelul lui Mendeleev cu elemente. Parti din acesti atomi scapa totusi de gravitatia stelei si se aduna in forme de tot felul de asteroizi care isi incep calatoria prin spatiul inghetat. Cateodata, acestia “cad” in navodul gravitatiei diverselor planete, explodand la contactul cu suprafata, si imprastiindu-se prin diverse straturi ale planetei.
Mai tarziu, niste fiinte de pe Pamant, vor gasi o parte din acest aur si-l vor prelucra in forma de verighete…
Asadar, elementele ajung pana la urma pe cate o planeta, unul dupa altul, iar dupa ce si ultimul impact s-a consumat si planeta s-a racit, acestea incep sa se combine, ascultand de legi si reguli studiate ceva mai tarziu de savantii in fizica si chimie ce poarta la degete inele de aur.

Aceleasi Legi de ordonare si organizare care au provocat Big Bang-ul, care ii dau de lucru Gravitatiei, care au format stelele, si care le-au facut sa se transforme in elemente, isi continua acum in liniste si pace, pe suprafata calma si luminata, constructia din elemente de materie a planurilor lor secrete.
Astfel, respectand reguli si folosind ingeniozitate si rationalitate, ce nu contenesc sa-i uimeasca pe savanti pe masura ce acestia descopera plansele proiectului de constructie, Legile, ce se regasesc pana adanc in ordonarea atomilor in structuri numite de savantii mai sus pomeniti ADN, au construit alge, pomi, pesti, pasari si animale.
Si toate astea intr-un laborator in care conditiile create, obligatorii pana la ultima dintre ele pentru reusita intregului proiect, sunt atat de numeroase si de greu de obtinut in univers, incat savantii i-au dat o probabilitate de intamplarea a sansei, mai mica decat un numar a carei prima cifra, alta decat zero, apare dupa virgula, insa la o distanta de aceasta exprimata printr-un numar egal cu numarul particulelor din univers…

Astfel, intr-o buna zi, lunga cat o era, Legile au pus deoparte si au amestecat dupa retete doar de ele intelese si folosite, fix:
43 kg de Oxigen, 16 kg de Carbon,7 kg de Hidrogen, 1,8 kg de Azot, 1,0 kg de Caciu, Fosfor 780 g, Potasiu 140 g, Sulf 140 g, Sodiu 100 g, Clor 95 g, Magneziu 19 g, Fier 4.2 g, Fluor 2.6 g, Zinc 2.3 g, Silicon 1g, Rubidiu 0.68 gr, Strontium 0,32 g, Brom 0.26 g, Plumb 0.12 g, Cupru 72 mg, Aluminiu 60 mg, Cadmium 50 mg, Cerium 40 mg, Barium 22 mg, Iod 20 mg, Titanium 20 mg, Boron 18 mg, Nickel 15 mg, Selenium 15 mg, Crom 14 mg, Magnesiu 12 mg, Arsenic 7 mg, Litiu 7 mg, Cesiu 6 mg, Mercur 6 mg, Germaniu 5 mg, Molybdenum 5 mg, Cobalt 3 mg, Antimoniu 2 mg, Argint 2 mg, Niobiu 1.5 mg, Zirconiu 1 mg, Lantaniu 0.8 mg, Galium 0.7 mg, Teluriu 0.7 mg, Itrium 0.7 mg, Bismut 0.5 mg, talium 0.5 mg, Indium 0.4 mg, Aur 0.4 mg (singurul aur cu adevarat valoros din viata omului), Scandiu 0.2 mg, Tantalum 0.2 mg, Vanadiu 0.11 mg, Thoriu 0.1 mg, Uraniu 0.1 mg, Samariu 50µg, Beriliu 36 µg si Tungsten 20 µg,
rezultand, prin imbinari succesive a unui patern genetic numit, dupa cum spuneam, ADN, un fel de maimutoi paros si rautacios, de vreo 74 kg.

Mai tarziu, intr-o alta zi, Legile, consecvente in constructia lor, au decis ca maimutoii sa inceapa sa deschida ochii mintii, astfel incat acestia sa poata baga de seama la tot ceea ce exista si se petrece in jurul lor. Asa ca o particica din Legi s-au mutat in mintea maimutoilor.
In timpul aceastei deschidere luminoase, prin ochii mintii, s-au putut observa reciproc pentru cateva clipe, Legile si maimutoii.
Maimutoii insa, dand ochi cu Legile, s-au aruncat imediat la pamant, tremurand in semn de supunere, si pierzand clipele de deschidere luminoasa.
Au apucat doar sa auda, ceva de genul ca ei sunt altfel decat celelalte vietuitoare, ca sunt speciali, si ca ar fi facuti dupa chipul si asemanarea lor, a Legilor.
Dar maimutoii nu au inteles ca asemanarea se referea la mintile lor rationale, crezand ca Legile s-au referit la trupul si la mutrele lor (de masculi feroce). Iar aceasta neintelegere a facut ca multa vreme, maimutoii sa-si imagineze Legile ca pe un Mare Maimutoi, ce le poate face rau pentru orice tampenie. Cum ar fi, spre exemplu, daca isi spala blana in ziua de Duminica, daca gandesc si tot asa. Din aproape in aproape insa, au adaugat in lista si lucruri mai grave, cum ar fi sacrificarea vietilor altor semeni ce-si spalau blana Duminica, sau care afirmau ca Pamantul se invarte – prin voia Legilor – in jurul Soarelui, si nu invers.

Tousi, de atunci, din ziua aceea a intalnirii fata in fata cu Legile si a deschiderii ochilor mintii, oamenii – caci despre ei era vorba – nu mai cunosc linistea, si nu mai contenesc sa se intrebe: cine suntem de unde venim, si incotro ne indreptam?

In surpriza momentului, oamenii nu au auzit nici cand Legile le-au sortit.
Cand le-au sortit ca ei, oamenii, vor fi trupul Legilor, si mainile cu care ele, Legile, isi vor duce la indeplinire eterna si divina lor dorinta.
Aceea de a deveni ceva mai mult decat simple legi atotputernice. De a deveni Legi Atotputernice cu Constiinta de Sine…
Pentru ca doar astfel vor putea sa-si duca la indeplinire scopul lor existential, devenit din acel moment al fericitei ‘cununii’ dintre om si Legi, scop comun cu cel al omului.
Omul insa, bucuros de toate ce i se intamplau atunci, la nunta, nu si-a auzit viitorul. Si de atunci se tot intreaba, cum si noi ne intrebam aici, care este scopul nostru?

Oare ne este scris sa ne intoarcem inapoi in creuzetul din Univers, mutandu-ne pentru eternitate de pe o planeta pe alta ferindu-ne de meteoriti, sau un altul, mai in ton cu ideea ca omul, mintea sa rationala, creativa si constienta de sine, este o entitate distincta de ceea ce vedem atunci cand ne privim in oglinda, inrudita cu spiritul ce ordoneaza lucrurile in Univers?
Ramane sa vedem in raspunsul ultimei dintre intrebarile existentiale, incotro ne indreptam?

Merita amintit ca printre putinii oameni de a carei existenta omenirea s-a bucurat, a fost si unul care, facandu-si ucenicia la scoala Legilor, a avut curajul si inspiratia sa spuna:

“Toti cei preocupati serios de studiul stiintei ajung sa fie convinsi ca in legile universului se manifesta un spirit cu mult superior aceluia al omului… (…) Cu greu veti gasi printre spiritele stiintifice mai profunde vreunul lipsit de sentimentul religios. El se deosebeste insa de religiozitatea omului naiv. Pentru acesta din urma, Dumnezeu este o fiinta de la care speri sa tragi foloase si de pedeapsa caruia te temi (…) Daca examinam si patrundem cu mijloacele noastre limitate secretele naturii, vom vedea ca dincolo de toate inlantuirile observabile ramane ceva subtil, intangibil si inexplicabil. Veneratia fata de forta aceasta aflata dincolo de tot ce putem noi intelege este religia mea (…) Religiozitatea mea este o admiratie umila fata de spiritul infinit superior care se dezvaluie in putinul pe care il putem intelege din lumea cognoscibila. Convingerea aceasta profund afectiva despre prezenta unei puteri rationale superioare, care se manifesta in universul incomprehensibil, reprezinta ideea mea de Dumnezeu.” Albert Einstein

On loneliness

jenniferkwon — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 04:38:40 +0000

Verhaßt ist mir das Folgen und das Führen.
Gehorchen? Nein! Und aber nein—Regieren!
Wer sich nicht schrecklich ist, macht niemand Schrecken:
Und nur wer Schrecken macht, kann andre führen.
Verhaßt ist mirs schon, selber mich zu führen!
Ich liebe es, gleich Wald- und Meerestieren,
mich für ein gutes Weilchen zu verlieren,
in holder Irrnis grüblerisch zu hocken,
von ferne her mich endlich heimzulocken,
mich selber zu mir selber—zu verführen.

I detest following, but also leading.
To obey? Never! And just as bad—to govern!
He who wishes not to be terrified, will summon no terror for others:
Yet only he who peddles fear can lead others.
I even detest having to lead myself!
Like the creatures of the forest and the sea, I love
To lose myself for a while
In meek error thoughtfully to cower
Drawn home at length by distant things
Being enticed by myself to my Self.

–Friedrich Nietzsche, Der Einsame (ca. 1882) in Gedichte und Sprüche p. 75 (1908)(S.H. transl.)

Aaron — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:37:19 +0000

‘A man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access’

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Backward Masking Returns

truthdriven — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:21:07 +0000

Today’s Truth Driver Commentary for talk radio is something you really should hear. It’s about backward masking, because it’s making a comeback—and of course people still think it’s real. For those old enough to remember vinyl records, you probably remember the craze of playing them backwards and finding supposed secret messages or satanic verses hidden within. Unfortunately, backward masking is just yet another fantastic example of the way our minds are wired to seek patterns. Do you ever look at beautiful puffy white cumulus clouds and play that game where you try to see faces or shapes? And once someone points them out you can see them? It’s the same with backward masking!

To prove the point, I grabbed a song from my ipod—it’s called “I’m Gone,” from Christian artist and legend Michael W. Smith, on his album This is Your Time. If I were to play it for you backwards, you’d hear nothing but a strange garbled mess. But what if I were to tell you what you were going to hear before you hear it?

Some of you know of the famous German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who completely dismissed Christianity. Well when you play the song backwards, you hear Michael W. Smith’s encoded slam on Nietzsche. It very clearly says “Nietzsche, you wanna run us down here? You and your big sickies?” (Listen here.) But does it really say that? Of course not.

Ironically there is even more to the phrase than I originally found. Here it is in full:

Nietzsche, you wanna run us down here? You and your big sickies.

Rotten is he, oh, Nietzsche’s the lost one.

The fact is that I pulled this song at random and had I not told you what to hear, you never would have heard it. As far as I know nobody has ever found a “backmasked” phrase in this song prior to me … and that’s because when you go looking for patterns, you can always find them. That’s what I did, and scientists call it the confirmation bias, or expectation bias. When you know what you want to find, you always can find it whether it’s there or not.

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(Stephen L. Gibson is the author of A Secret of the Universe, a critically acclaimed, citation-rich novel about the intersections of science, reason, and faith. Still an emotion-driven thinker in recovery, Steve shares his journey in search of ever-elusive truth with thousands via his Truth-Driven Thinking podcast, and his Perspectives blog. © 2009, Truth-Driven Strategies LLC.)

La muerte de Dios

Zimmerman — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:32:42 +0000

Es bastante conocida la doctrina de la muerte de Dios, proclamada inicialmente por Friedrich Nietzsche, y luego seguida por muchos.

Personalmente, me parece que Jean-Paul Sartre ha sido quien mejor ha expresado el espíritu de esta doctrina en sus obras de literatura—en especial en su teatro—, y justamente quiero compartir en este post un fragmento de El diablo y Dios, en donde me parece se expresa de forma magistral—y concentrada—. Veamos.

Heinrich: ¿Para qué simulas hablarle [a Dios]? De sobra sabes que no responderá.

Goetz: ¿Y por qué ese silencio? Él, que se hizo visible a la burra del profeta, ¿por qué se niega a mostrárseme?

Heinrich: Porque tú no cuentas. A Dios le importa un bledo que tortures a los débiles o te martirices a ti mismo, que beses los labios de una cortesana o los de un leproso, que mueras de privaciones o de voluptuosidades.

Goetz: ¿Quién cuenta, entonces?

Heinrich: Nadie. El hombre no es nada. No te hagas el sorprendido; siempre lo supiste. Lo sabías cuando echaste los dados. ¿Por qué, si no, hubieses hecho trampa? (Goetz trata de hablar.) Hiciste trampa: Catalina te vio, forzaste la voz para cubrir el silencio de Dios. Las órdenes que pretendes recibir, eres tú quien te las envías.

Goetz (reflexionando): Sí, yo.

Heinrich (sorprendido): Pues sí. Tú mismo.

Goetz (el mismo tono): Sólo yo.

Heinrich: Sí, te digo que sí.

Goetz (levantando la cabeza): Sólo yo, cura, tienes razón. Sólo yo. Yo suplicaba, mendigaba un signo, enviaba al cielo mis mensajes; y no había respuesta. El cielo ignora hasta mi nombre. A cada minuto me preguntaba lo que podía ser yo a los ojos de Dios. Ahora sé la respuesta: nada. Dios no me ve, Dios no me oye, Dios no me conoce. ¿Ves ese vació por encima de nuestras cabezas? Es Dios. ¿Ves esa brecha en la puerta? Es Dios. ¿Ves ese agujero en la tierra? También es Dios. El silencio, es Dios. La ausencia, es Dios. Dios es la soledad de los hombres. Estaba yo solo; yo solo decidí el Mal; solo, inventé yo el Bien. Fui yo quien hizo trampa, yo quien hizo milagros, yo quien me acuso hoy, sólo yo puedo absolverme; yo, el hombre. Si Dios existe, el hombre es nada; si el hombre existe… ¿Adónde vas?

La cita ya la puse antes en este blog, como parte de mi ponencia del Simposio de Estudiantes de Filosofía del año 2008.

Foreskin's Lament by Shalom Auslander

tasersedge — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:43:54 +0000

Foreskin’s Lament…with a title like that, how exactly do you review a book? You try. I got to know Shalom Auslander through his frequent, frequently hilarious contributions to This American Life. (Try this one.) He currently has one published book of short stories, Beware of God, and one memoir, Foreskin’s Lament.

So we’re back to that title. Auslander grew up in an Orthodox (veering near ultra-Orthodox) community near New York, with an abusive father and a deep-seated belief that a vengeful God was out to get him. I’m not quite sure why he only briefly connects those two facts of his upbringing, but he certainly seems to still carry the latter.

Auslander knows that he is being neurotic, but he can’t shake it. Nor can he shake his belief that God is real. And Auslander (and God) is angry. Perhaps an excerpt is the best way to communicate the tone throughout the book.

“I felt like the horse on the Polo logo, unsure whether the man on my back with the menacing mallet was God, or family, or community, or all three, but knowing that if I could just throw the son of a bitch, I could run away forever. My attitude toward the world I had come from and the God that I had come from were the same: I was tired, finally, of trying to find favor in someone or Something else’s eyes, particularly when that someone or Something seemed to be assholes and/or an Asshole. Our philosophy teacher told us of a man who claimed that God was dead; if only, Friedrich. He was alive, and He was a Prick. Maybe I couldn’t run from him–maybe the trip out of the Promised Land was even more treacherous than the one into it–but perhaps, I wondered, I could spoil His sport with simple acquiescence, blithely accepting whatever fate He chose for me–no worrying, no praying, no beseeching, no obsessing. No more bribes, no more payoffs, no more house of worship backroom deals. Radio silence. Not atheism; resignation. So Whatism. Whateverism. Blow Meism. Maybe the forefathers’ mistake was answering Him? Maybe they should have just ignored him?” (164)

Angry, profane, somewhat over-the-top, but undeniably well written. And again to the title. There is a great metaphor that Auslander returns to several times throughout the book. He, and those like him, who have been brutally cut off from their communities by their communities, are the foreskins, bloodied, bruised, tossed away. The major hope is that there is a whole hill of foreskins out there (what does my ability to reference arcane and grotesque Scripture say about how I’ve been religiously formed?); they aren’t alone. Not a ton of hope to me, but a survivor’s kind of hope. Auslander is the foreskin lamenting.

For me, as you might guess, it was a depressing read. It depressed me to read how damaged this author has been by his community, by his family, by his religion, because the things that are most important and most beloved in my life are my community, my family, and my religion.

Auslander and I seem to look at the world in totally opposite ways. That is, I understand the miraculous to be God opening my eyes; it is an ongoing interpretive work of seeing the grace of God (love specifically and personally aimed at me) in all things. Auslander instead sees the malice of God (specifically and personally aimed at him) in all things. And both of us (perhaps he more than I) are aware that sometimes these thoughts veer into pure superstition.

As I read the book, I strongly resisted my tendency to believe that I understand where he stands. I don’t. And as I write this, I think that maybe the better take-away from this book would be for me, for the first time, to look at the devastation that religion can cause, to look at it straight in the face. I admit I haven’t done that before. The modern set of atheists (Dawkins, Hitchens, et al.) haven’t really interested me; if I want robust atheism, I’ll read Nietszche. The major claim that I hear again and again from the new guys, that religion has done more harm than good in the world, is one that I dismiss out of hand. Auslander gives me pause in how easy that dismissal comes to me. He makes me realize the ways in which I already know religion does damage and has does damage–to women, to ethnic minorities, to LGBT people, to me (yes, in some ways, to me too). I think he would be glad to make me question the goodness of religion, of Christianity. I think that might be part of his point. Not to say I should abandon my faith, but that I need to be honest about the damage it does.

Going beyond his point, my question (as always) is what this means for the practices of the Christian churches. How do we talk about the Gospel as life-giving good news (which it most certainly is), but also choose to grow in our honesty and willingness to open our eyes to the fact that religion, Christian religion, yes, even the cross itself, continue to brutalize people? Crap. That’s a hard question. Thankfully, God’s out to save me, not to kill me.

“One must still have chaos in oneself in order to give birth to a dancing star.” –Friedrich Nietzsche

susannahsunshine — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 01:38:08 +0000

My grandmother taught me the secret of sleeping. When I was about seven, I got sick at her house and was put on the living room couch to sleep. I was extremely restless, and from her chair, she told me to close my eyes and lie still and I would fall asleep. And it worked. It still works. Now, whenever I can’t fall asleep, I just lie completely still and soon sleep finds me. This simple trick has helped me to fall asleep in the strangest places—on school buses, on the floor of a university’s business school, sitting completely upright in a kayak. But the most important lesson my grandmother taught me that day was not how to sleep. Rather, she taught me that being still is important. If you are still, whatever you are waiting for will come.

Even at the age of seven, I was restless. I couldn’t stop moving. Now, as I type this, my foot is jiggling. It’s nigh on impossible for me to sit completely still. Funnily enough, the more I sleep, the less I move. In class, I can always gauge how tired I am by how many time I switch position in five minutes. It annoys me just as much as it annoys the people sitting next to me. I wish I could find more stillness in my life, but as with many things, there never seems to be enough time.

Of course, there’s always the adage, “Don’t just sit back and watch your life go by.” But what are you missing if you are always chasing after life? What is the important things follow after you, but you’re too busy rushing onwards for them to catch up? Shouldn’t we use some of our life to see what happens, like Forrest Gump on his bend, and just wait, live, experience? What do we have to lose by stopping to smell the roses or living the moments now? Yesterday is a memory, tomorrow a vision, today is the only thing holding the two together. Being still allows life to take its time. True, there are only 24 hours in a day, but spending them in a rush creates a constant feeling of having only 23 or 22. Stillness, to some extent, allows for the full enjoyment and expression of all 24 hours.

But why stillness? Why is it so important? D.H. Lawrence wrote, “One’s action ought to come out of an achieved stillness: not to be mere rushing on.” Stillness brings inspiration; it allows one to be able to think more clearly and be more conscious of one’s ideas and actions. As a person with a cluttered mind, it would be nice to be able to sort through my thoughts in order to make sense of them, like Mrs. Darling in Peter Pan. Because I foresee that it will be difficult to achieve, I want it even more. We always want what we do not have, and I wish to gain stillness all the more because of its absence in my life.

I’ve been a student of yoga for about a year and a half now, goaded into it by my mother but continuing because of myself. When meditating, the practice is to not simply ignore the thoughts that come, but rather to acknowledge them and then return attention to the breath. I’ve tried this and depending on the day of the week, it works. Not always, but sometimes. It’s important to recognize that there are distractions in life, but to take time to be away from them and just be. However, my main trouble is always coming back to the breath. Throughout the day, my mind is always running, but in fits and starts. I think one task at a time, but one task leads to another and by the end of the day I have fifteen different things written on my hand. It’s kind of like that commercial with Ellen DeGeneres. When I try to clear my mind, suddenly all the things I have to do are laid out in front of me and I can see from one task to the next, rather than a jumble of things that will later be smeared across my palm. This is the exact opposite of the stillness I am trying to achieve, and simply leaves me feeling frustrated. Why can’t I quiet my mind? Why isn’t stillness of the mind as simple as the stillness of sleep?

The only thing I can think of is that it’s going to take time. Just as I have to wait for sleep to come after I’ve decided to be still, I’m going to have to practice quieting my mind in order for true stillness and peace to come. For now, I’m going to be thankful for the peace of mind I do have, and appreciate all the little things that make my life so full, loving the chaotic soul that I am. With time, the mind-quiet will come. As with anything, it’s just going to take some time.

Zen-fully yours,

P.S. Great song.

“Not only is another world possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” –Arundhati Roy

Gottesgerüchte eines Theologen

nickpol — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:53:33 +0000

Robert Spaemann Rheinischer Merkur “Wie ein Kino ohne Projektor“ Nietzsches Übermensch ist wie

Något inte riktigt viktigt.

thetalkingwhale — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:38:18 +0000

Det finns egentligen ingenting som jag kan skriva som betyder någonting för alla. Samtidigt finns det ingenting jag kan skriva som inte betyder någonting alls för alla. Allting har en viss betydelse, även om den betydelsen kanske för det mesta är försumbar.

Jag önskar att hela världen vore en bättre plats, men även om jag önskar det mest innerligt av alla mina önskningar, vilket alla borde göra, så undrar jag om det skulle göra någon skillnad. Jag har testat. Svaret är Nej. Världen blev inte en bättre plats, men den blev en mindre plats. Och en större plats. Världen formade sig efter mig som om jag vore en sol, som om vi levde i en Jennycentrisk världsbild. Jag var av samma slag, lika likgiltig, men jag såg längre bortom mina tidigare gränser. Jag tryckte samtidigt ner andra i min..jakt på att försöka leva med mig själv. Vi föll alltså allihopa när jag önskade att världen vore en bättre plats.

Jag önskar nu att jag kan leva. Det finns nu ingenting viktigare än att jag kan leva med det liv jag har och de förutsättningar jag haft sedan jag blev mig själv. Även om ingen verkar kunna förstå det, kanske minst av alla jag själv, måste man försöka se att livet är meningslöst men gott nog att bejaka som det är. “Det är fel att leva i självbedrägeri.” (Sartre)

Jag undrar om Sartre och Camus gick igenom det här också. Som någon slags avgiftningsperiod för egoister. Jag önskar också lite att jag fick lite mer stycke hjärnceller så att jag kunde planera min utmätta tid bättre. Allting är ju relativt, men man kan alltid hoppas…att det kanske kommer en förändring.

Egentligen behöver jag ingen ny iPod, för dessa tre artister och låtar är nästan det enda som behövs. Musiktrio som alltid finns som stöd/fördärv/sanning/klarhet/beslut:

►KENT – Beskyddaren
►LARS WINNERBÄCK – Tidvis
►REGINA SPEKTOR – Laughing With

Om du vill? Ska jag… jag släpar på ett höghus./Jenny

Pensamentos

majtec — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:26:11 +0000

Gotas de orvalho, refrecantes para a alma. Assim é a sabedoria. E muita sabedoria está sintetizadas

I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.

karynmannix — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 12:18:52 +0000

Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) was a 19th-century German philosopher and classical philologist. He wrote critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy and science, using a distinctive German-language style and displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony and aphorism.

Nietzsche’s influence remains substantial within and beyond philosophy, notably in existentialism and postmodernism. His style and radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth have resulted in much commentary and interpretation, mostly in the continental tradition, and to a lesser extent in analytic philosophy.

His key ideas include the interpretation of tragedy as an affirmation of life, an eternal recurrence (which numerous commentators have re-interpreted), a rejection of Platonism and a repudiation of both Christianity and egalitarianism (especially in the form of democracy and socialism).

Nietzsche began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. At the age of 24 he was appointed to the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel (the youngest individual ever to have held this position), but resigned in 1879 because of health problems, which would plague him for most of his life. In 1889 he exhibited symptoms of insanity, living out his remaining years in the care of his mother and sister until his death in 1900.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche

Virtue, Economy and the Self: 5 Links

stockerb — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:50:51 +0000

My thoughts for this post came about in the most immediate sense from Will Wilkinson: a post at his blog Will Wilkinson, entitled Now Let us Praise Results-Facilitating Virtue, dated 20th November 2009. Wilkinson is an economics and public policy commentator, with a background in philosophy. He is responding to an blog post where the George Mason economist Tyler Cowen praises one of his colleagues, Robin Hanson, who responds in his own blog by arguing for the importance of praising consequences of individual actions, rather than the individual concerned. Links to all of that in Wilkinson’s post. What Wilkinson gives in reaction to all that is a beautiful little essay on character, virtue, and advantages to the economy. As he explains, ‘virtue’ as an idea in ethical though refers to the character traits which the good individual forms and which benefit society. What Wilkinson emphasises is the collective economic benefits of individuals in the society with virtue.

Since for non-philosophers ‘virtue’ amy seem like something to do with abstract moralising, it is worth explaining that ‘virtue ethics’ refer mores to a cultivation of individual excellence which serves the ‘virtuous’ individuals and society as a whole. Virtue on this account is really more to do with strength and constancy of character, rather than giving priority to the demands of external moral obligations. The Antique tradition of virtue was taken up in Medieval Christian philosophy, most notably in the thought of Thomas Aquinas; and at that point it maybe acquires a sense of moral imposition, though that is something of a brutal generalisation. That antique sense of virtue has been increasingly discussed in philosophy since the 1950s, along with an increasing recognition that it was still very present in 18th and 19th Century philosophy.

For a very handy summary of Aristotle’s ethics by a leading commentator, Roger Crisp, go this podcast posted at the Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University. For an equally admirable summary of some later developments in Antique ethics, around Seneca and Stoicism, click here for a link to a recent podcast of am interview of Rick Benitez conducted by Alan Saunders for his PhilosophyZone radio show.

The virtue ethics tradition, as mediated by the Antique Stoics, was a major influence on Adam Smith in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, as well as in his ethical treatise, The Theory of the Moral Sentiments. For a great discussion of this click here for a pdf of Deirdre McCloskey’s paper ‘Adam Smith, the Last of the Former Virtue Ethicists’. McCloskey is a professor of economics, history, English and communications at the University of Illinois, Chicago, which gives an idea of the way that she integrates different areas of the humanities and social sciences. McCloskey points out that Smith’s philosophy and economic thought are shaped by Stoicism and theories of the virtues, and not just the virtue of prudence. She also has a very good sketch of how economists, and the culture in general, lost sight of this kind of integration until philosophers revived Antique virtue theory.

One possible fault with McCloskey’s analysis is in the title, in its suggestion that Smith was the last of the virtue theorists. This has some justification if we think of how Smith’s thought is distinguished from what was then the emergent moral school of Utilitarianism which very definitely looks at ethics from the point of view of the consequences of actions, and not quality of character. However, there is at least one major candidate amongst late 19th Century philosophers for the label of virtue ethicist, Friedrich Nietzsche. We can see his philosophy as a return from theories of external moral excellence to a theories of individual excellence. That’s a rather large question I can’t deal with here, but an excellent brief summary of why Nietzsche might be considered a virtue theorist can be found in Lester Hunt’s paper ‘The Eternal Recurrence and Nietzsche’s Theory of Virtue’, click for the pdf.

I expect to return to these issues very soon in relation to Benedict de Spinoza and Michel Foucault.

Nietzsche. bedievis ar religingas?

am — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:17:37 +0000

apie Fridrichą Nytčę (Friedrich Nietzsche) bene labiausiai paplitusi nuomonė: “bedievis, nihil

F. PESSOA SOBRE F. NIETZSCHE

prosaempoema — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:08:23 +0000

Senhores,

Os trechos seguem porque, de vez em quando, ao conversar com queridos amigos, estes suscitam vários dos meus questionamentos e questões.

Às vezes, percebo que um leitor “leigo”, ao ler um clássico ou autor reconhecido pela “intelectualidade acadêmica”, tende, pode tender, a concordar com TUDO o que dizem as linhas, por sentir o peso do respeito que o “nome” pode ter, como se tudo o delineado fossem dogmas, conceitos com os quais deve-se concordar, como se os conceitos, no livro, fossem sagrados, como se o livro fosse um “livro sagrado”, qual a Bíblia para os cristãos.

Só que devemos ter em mente, ao ler qualquer autor, que ele, por mais brilhante, inteligente e divisor de águas que seja, em determinados aspectos pode cometer alguns equívocos, enunciar idéias que mereçam refutação. É o caso, ao meu ver, de quase todos, senão de todos, os autores das Ciências Sociais e Filosofia.

Nietzsche, grande filósofo, extraordinário pensador, não foge à regra. Contribuiu muito com a sua obra, defendendo o uso da razão crítica e a extinção do que se projete de forma obscurantista, como ocorre com as religiões cristãs e seus preceitos. Todavia, ao mesmo tempo, junto com as infinitas e imprescindíveis contribuições e achados, eu, por exemplo, lendo alguns trechos de textos ou textos inteiros, possuo uma penca de críticas e reavaliações, uma série de discordâncias.

O que pretendo com este texto é somente alertá-los para o fato de que, por mais bacana, respeitado, unânime e bem intencionado o autor, a sua obra deve ser lida com o senso crítico em puro estado de atenção, porque ninguém está aqui, neste mundo, para escrever “bíblias”, isto é, para escrever livros que não possam ser contestados (contestados completamente ou em determinadas idéias), “livros-dogmas”. Afinal, como reter a verdade no olhar?

Por isso, para ilustrar o que escrevi, trago trechos de três textos do genial Fernando Pessoa, apresentados a mim pelo meu super “guru” Antonio Cicero, algumas verificações do bardo, com as quais concordo inteiramente, sobre o pensador em questão.

Entendam, queridos: não estou, nem desejo, não é esta a intenção, diminuir a importância de nada nem de ninguém, e sim salientar que as leituras, por mais pertinente o assunto, devem ser feitas com cuidado e senso crítico aguçados. Isso tem a ver com a formação nossa, com a construção nossa, com a estruturação das nossas personas.

Ronaldo Pelli, meu queridíssimo amigo, meu amado, o Nietzsche, na minha cuca, devo a você, devo a uma conversa que mantivemos há um bom tempo sobre ele.

Beijo em todos!

O preto.

_____________________________

“‘A alegria’, diz Nietzsche, ‘quer eternidade, quer profunda eternidade’. Não é nem nunca foi assim: a alegria não quer nada, e é por isso que é alegria. A dor, essa, é o contrário da alegria, como a concebia Nietzsche: quer acabar, quer não ser. O prazer, porém, quando o concebemos fora da relação essencial com a alegria ou com a dor, como o concebe o autor deste livro, esse, sim, quer eternidade; porém quer a eternidade num só momento”.

De: PESSOA, Fernando. “Antônio Botto e o ideal estético em Portugal” (1922). In: Textos de Crítica e de Intervenção. Lisboa: Ática, 1980.
_______________________________

“O ódio de Nietzsche ao cristianismo aguçou-lhe a intuição nestes pontos. Mas errou, porque não era em nome do paganismo greco-romano que ele erguia o seu grito, embora o cresse; era em nome do paganismo nórdico dos seus maiores. E aquele Diónisos, que contrapõe a Apolo, nada tem com a Grécia. É um Baco alemão. Nem aquelas teorias desumanas, excessivas tal qual como as cristãs, embora em outro sentido, nada devem ao paganismo claro e humano dos homens que criaram tudo o que verdadeiramente subsiste, resiste e ainda cria adentro do nosso sistema de civilização.”

De: PESSOA, Fernando. “Prefácio de Ricardo Reis”. In: Páginas íntimas e de auto-interpretação. Lisboa: Ática, 1996.

________________________________

“O próprio Nietzsche asseverou que uma filosofia não é senão a expressão de um temperamento.
Não é assim, suficientemente. As teorias de um filósofo são a resultante do seu temperamento e da sua época. São o efeito intelectual da sua época sobre o seu temperamento. Outra coisa não podia suceder (ser).
Assim, pois, a filosofia de Friedrich Nietzsche é a resultante do seu temperamento e da sua época. O seu temperamento era o de um asceta e de [um] louco. A sua época no seu país era de materialidade e de força. Resultou fatalmente uma teoria onde um ascetismo louco se casa com uma (involuntária que fosse) admiração pela força e pelo domínio. Resulta uma teoria onde se insiste na necessidade de um ascetismo e na definição desse ascetismo como um ascetismo de força e de domínio. Donde a assumpção da atitude cristã da necessidade de dominar os seus instintos, tornada aqui – mercê da contribuição fornecida pela loucura do autor – a necessidade de dominar toda a espécie de instintos, incluindo os bons, torturando a própria alma, o próprio temperamento (noção delirante).”

De: PESSOA, Fernando. Páginas de Estética e de Teoria Literárias. Fernando Pessoa. Lisboa: Ática, 1966.

Masses of People Jump of Cliffs One by One!!!

Gigantica Business Consultant — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:26:14 +0000

Interesting headline right? We understand that this happens with sheep in the mountains. The basic premise is that of a herd mentality. One follows the other presuming the other knows exactly where it is going.

So what?

Well, today I heard on a company on radio advertisement, a bank nonetheless, tell the listeners that they should open a bank account at their branch. They opened the add with someone saying “why are we following along with a crowd of 400 people” and the other replies, “notice how a two cafe’s could be next to each other but one could be full and the other empty…these people know where they’re going and they’re going to open an account with company x” The add ends with the emphasis on the phrase “crowd wisdom”…trust it.

Is this a form of ”Adult Peer Pressure”?

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Crowd wisdom is well documented as those that first pick up new products and trends, and it is also known in the stock market. This theory of crowd mentality is very well known in the stock market. Warren Buffet, king of the stock market, advocates the opposite. That if everyone heads in one direction then you should head in the other. Large banks and corporations are notorious for sucking in masses of people with false leads with their ability manipulate the market and then drop the guillotine.

Banks did this with 100% mortgages to those that could not afford mortgages. Now many families are in financial ruin. There was definitely a herd mentality going on. Who was it led by? The banks, right.

Friedrich Nietzsche was right. That both forms of this herd mentality are weaknesses and that the true “superman” is one that overcomes the values of the fallible herd. A person needs to be able to understand what the herd is doing and make a call on what is really happening.

What is happening to our society? It’s as if we don’t really follow our own path, our own intuition anymore. We go through a system from birth to death. A system designed to extract as much energy from us for the production of services, products and taxes. Where are the signposts saying “Think for yourself!” when you were growing up. Even classes in schools and colleges train us to think in a certain way. To stay within the norm of what should be presented. How often is analysis playing a part in the overall solution?

The world is not flat, yet we were thought it. …..Dare not question it.

Yet, in a classroom, a person can be put down, brushed aside, ignored, deemed arrogant, or contentious or even egotistical for challenging accepted thoughts and theories. Obviously there has to be a limit in it. Otherwise it’s a little exhaustive and contentious, but my point remains.

Are we really a society that is governed by brands and by marketing? We do what we are told everyone is doing? Sure one coffee shop is more full. That’s because there is a social hierarchy communicated through the brand and everyone wants to keep up with the Jones’. Or one is simply more known through advertising and marketing. A price differential occurs even if there is no disparity between products or environment of the sale.

How long are we going to be told what others are doing and therefore we should also do it?

Lisbon Treaty for Ireland? Remember the line “every other country is doing it”.

What if a law is passed that we don’t like. A law that affects 30% of the population in a adverse way. Is it enough that all 30% take to the streets to voice a concern? Will that change the law?

Does it now mean that we would have to congregate with other precentages of populations from other countries to voice a concern? Not as easy, right, bringing masses together from other countries.

All I’m saying here is that the more we give into herd mentality the harder it will be for a group of individuals to pull out of the herd before their guided over the cliff.

Think people. Act, Act now.

music

osopher — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:00:06 +0000

As noted in Monday’s post, in The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche related “the spirit of music” to the frenzied Dionysian revel, immediate and intense and beyond the verbalizing/conceptualizing intellect… and said it it is a necessary complement and counter-balance to the classical, restrained, objectifying “Apollonian” impulse.

On this view music, more than any other form of art, taps a deep and unconscious well of human instinct. While we’re enthralled by the music we’re reconciled to nature and our fellow humans, in a selfless dream state that sometimes may slip into pseudo-intoxication. Music is a drug, a trance, possibly a natural route to transcendence.

Study the faces in the crowd at a concert where the audience is really into it . (You can’t quite do that if you’re into it yourself, but there’s plenty of concert footage on YouTube you can study from the detached vantage of your computer.) Those faces reflect the wild abandon, the ecstasis, that Nietzsche celebrates as “Dionysian.” For a time there is no self-conscious individuation, all are happily submerged in the music. Those of mystical inclination might even agree with Nietzsche’s claim that in this state, it feels as though the veil of illusion has lifted and reality is fully present, in the raw. It may not be “orgiastic” in the Dionysian sense, but I’ve heard interesting reports from Bonnaroo– and more interesting stories from Bonnaroo’s ancestors. (But only stories, I was just a kid in the “summer of love”).

Daniel Levitin, author of This is Your Brain on Music and The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature, thinks music is a key that unlocks many mysteries, too, and an engine of human evolution. It’s definitely not just “auditory cheesecake.” But he would agree: it’s ok not to load your personal experience of music down with too much heavy import and analysis. Just listen, and enjoy. Here he is in a brief but snappy Canadian interview:

And here he is in a long, less snappy talk at the Google-plex:

Veličina

Archetyper — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:27:08 +0000

Uvek treba braniti jake od slabih

Fridrih Niče

Nietzsche on Women

soulangler — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:32:24 +0000

Two different things wanteth the true man: danger and diversion. Therefore wanteth he woman, as the most dangerous plaything…

…Man shall be trained for war and woman for the procreation of the warrior. All else is folly…

…The happiness of man is, “I will.” The happiness of woman is, “He will.”…

…Thou goest to women? Do not forget thy whip!

Thus Spake Zarathustra, XVIII. Old and Young Women.

A man…must always think about woman as Orientals do: he must conceive of woman as a possession, as property that can be locked, as something predestined for service and achieving her perfection in that.”

Beyond Good and Evil, 238

Pieper: Tradition

cburrell — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:43:49 +0000

Tradition: Concept and Claim (1970)
Josef Pieper (ISI, 2008; trans: E.C.Kopff)
128 p. First reading.

Our time is unfriendly to the idea of tradition, so much so that the word itself acquires in some circles a perjorative connotation. Nietzsche said, “What is under the most profound attack today is the instinct and will of tradition. All institutions which owe their origin to this instinct are opposed to the taste of the modern intellect.” Pieper’s tastes are rather different, and he is especially interested in traditions of teaching — that is, traditions which aim to preserve important truths. This little book is an examination of the concept and the value of tradition.

The purpose of a tradition is to preserve something through time, passing it from one generation to the next. Tradition requires two unequal partners: the one who “hands down” the teaching, and the one who receives it. The thing handed down is not an original contribution of the one who hands down, but rather something he himself received. “I received what I handed down to you”, as the Apostle says. The act of reception is not “learning”; receiving a tradition is not the same as gathering information. The tradition is only received when the hearer accepts and appropriates the thing handed down.

A paradox in tradition is that a healthy tradition does not talk about itself as a tradition. The tradition is not accepted because it is “traditional”; it is accepted simply and solely because it is true and valid. Yet the one to whom a tradition is offered cannot independently know that the tradition is true; if he could, he would not need to receive it. This means, says Pieper, that “accepting and receiving tradition has the structure of belief.”

Since participating in a tradition involves relying on the testimony of someone else, the question of authority necessarily arises. (This is the point on which tradition runs aground in our culture, which is so allergic to authorities. Tradition is incommensurable with the doctrine of the autonomy of the will.) For the one who receives, the one who hands down acts as an authority. Yet he himself relies on the word of the one who handed the tradition down before, and so on. When we accept a tradition, therefore, the one in whom we ultimately place our trust is the one who stands at the beginning of this chain. Plato called these originators “the ancients” or “the men of old”. Yet their authority was not derived simply from the fact that they lived long ago, but from the fact that they received a divine gift:

This is the definitive platonic formulation about the status and authority of the “ancients”. Their dignity consists in the fact that they received from a divine source a message, a pheme, something spoken, and handed on what they had received in this way. This is the only reason why they are the “ancients”.

In this understanding, by accepting a tradition one places one’s trust in the divine source that originally spoke the truth which the tradition preserves. This means that the concept of tradition is intrinsically related to revelation. In fact, the only legitimate way something can merit preservation for all time is if it goes back to divine speech. By believing this word, we are in a real sense united to that divine source, for “whoever believes in another person by that act wants and realizes ’spiritual union’ and communion with him.”

This analysis seems to imply that tradition is always at least implicitly sacred tradition, and Pieper does indeed want to define this strict sense of the word. In this strict sense, Catholic Christianity is obviously an example of a tradition: it claims to possess a divine revelation which it preserves from corruption and forgetfulness through time, passing from one generation to the next truths of great and abiding value. Yet Pieper points out that even Christian theologians acknowledge that other legitimate traditions exist: from its early days the idea has been put forward, renewed and emphasized again by Vatican II, that all people possess an “original revelation”. All have heard, in one way or another, the divine Logos who is Christ. This divine speech has entered into the respective myths and religions of different cultures, though “hidden beneath a thicket of fanciful additions”, and mixed with heterogeneous elements. When Plato turns to myths in his dialogues, he seems to recognize that they are “only broken shards, fragments of a tradition which can no longer be grasped as a whole”. Here, indeed, is the difficulty: this fragmented tradition cannot be restored to its original form without a further divine intervention. (It is this further revelation that Christianity claims to have been entrusted with.)

The practice of handing down a tradition poses challenges to both parties. The one who receives does not do so casually or uncritically. It is natural and important that the value of the tradition be questioned and its claims probed if it is to be truly appropriated and its value truly appreciated. This critical attitude, however, must remain humble, open to the possibility that it may reap a unique benefit from this gift that is offered.

The challenge is more severe for the one who hands down the tradition. If the tradition is to be kept alive and vibrant, the truths it conveys must be presented in a compelling and credible manner. To do so, especially in a culture that changes rapidly under the influence of powerful forces alien to the tradition, is extremely difficult. Pieper quotes a Hebrew proverb: “Teaching the old is harder than teaching the new”. We can draw a distinction between the core truths of the tradition and the external form in which they are presented. Granting, and even insisting, that the relationship between these two elements, inner and outer, is not to be lightly tampered with, we must acknowledge that it is legitimate, and may at times be necessary, to alter the external form in order to preserve the inner substance. To be stubbornly attached to a particular historically accidental form may hinder the transmission and reception of something truly worthy of preservation, and is, says Pieper, a form of decadence. At the same time, the essence of what is to be preserved becomes naturally entangled with particular historical forms, and altering those forms risks altering or destroying the understanding of those essential truths. It is a delicate business, then, requiring what Pieper calls a “very rare linking of prudence and courage”.

We can see this delicate interplay of historical forms and inner truths in recent Catholic history. The liturgical changes that followed Vatican II are an obvious example: the outer form changed considerably, and to this day people argue about the degree to which our understanding of the theological truths conveyed by the liturgy has been damaged. Another example is John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body”, in which he reformulated in modern, humanistic language the historic teachings of the Church with respect to human sexuality, teachings which had traditionally been presented with quite different language and reasoning.

With this understanding of the nature of tradition and the challenges it poses, we can briefly sketch the character of the ideal “critical traditionalist”. We look for “a characteristic element of fundamental reverence and thankfulness”, for he recognizes his debt to those who have proclaimed and entrusted these truths to him. His respect for tradition produces “distrust of that zero-point radicalism that fancies it always possible to start again from scratch with a tabula rasa, as well as distrust of the inclination to treat each new moment as a ‘completely new situation’, and so forth.” A traditionalist makes a distinction between innovations in science or medicine, and innovations in our basic understanding of human nature, death, love, or God. The former may be warmly welcomed; the latter provoke grave suspicion.

When a generation tries, as ours does, to emancipate itself from reliance on tradition, a consequence is that it loses sight of those truths which were the special province of the tradition. If those truths were trivial or otherwise insignificant this is fine, but if they were of genuine value the result is inevitably an impoverishment. Karl Jaspers remarked that divorced from sacred tradition philosophy was characterized by “an increasingly empty seriousness”. Pieper cites the following aphorism by Viacheslav Ivanov: “Freedom achieved by forgetting is empty”. “Empty freedom”: the phrase describes quite aptly the modern spiritual situation.

Although Tradition was written in 1970, this is (I believe) the first English translation to be published. The translator, E. Christian Kopff, also provides a lengthy introduction and extensive notes and bibliography. The length of Pieper’s text is just over half the length of the whole volume.

An Expose of Emerging Church Preaching, Part 1

whitet — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:15:25 +0000

In the following posts, I want to explore the current doctrinal and practical impact of the emerging

pensamentos

julianegarcia — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:40:32 +0000

Nossos pensamentos são as sombras de nossos sentimentos – sempre mais obscuros, mais vazios, mais simples que estes

. Friedrich Nietzsche

all these pale atheists, anti-Christians, immoralists, nihilists, these sceptics, ... cannot see for themselves . . . They are not free spirits - not by any stretch - for they still believe in the truth.

soulangler — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 16:20:23 +0000

all these pale atheists, anti-Christians, immoralists, nihilists, these sceptics, … cannot see for themselves . . . They are not free spirits – not by any stretch – for they still believe in the truth. . .

Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals, Third Essay, 24

When God is dead, so is absolute truth. These so-called ‘new atheists’ want to maintain ‘truth’ without God. They want to buy the biggest toy in the shop without spending much money.

Bewildered Fragments

William Viney — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:19:07 +0000

[health warning: much of what follows is absolute gibberish]

Bewilderment is, I think, quite an easy thing to write about. I have often observed how writing can operate as the writing of the bewildered, for those that are not sure what they are doing but must somehow resolve this unknowing through acts of description. Not only can we belittle what is wild about these confused moments, but we assume to know what is meant by a misunderstanding that is caught in the writing act. Writing is, I think, a wild thing that can never safely assume a wilderness but it seems to need and want this place. We find a text – occasionally of our own making – and we say, ‘text! There you are!’ We tend to treat it like a reluctant and rather stubborn hound (Snoopy and other beagles spring to mind). We call to it and we come to it with love, despair and anger, but the thing neither cares for you nor does it care about your fits of rage. If, as Beckett once said, habit is the ballast that chains a dog to its vomit, then, in writing, there comes this maddening urgency about how long that chain is and what kind of vomit is being consumed. Writing is the habit that chains us and frees us, to the ballast of vomit that we cannot help but sign in writing.

[...]

I’m worried (how can I not be?) that writing is an odd sort of mania that cannot find a proper home. One might write on tablets or on paper, but a sense of exodus and exile will always prevail. Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud and Maurice Blanchot all posed this problem at different times and in different ways. And if we searched for what is common to these writers we might construct a single question that encapsulates but does not exhaust the problem; ‘Whither the Logos?’ But to even ask this question one must assume the wilderness and exile of uncanny acts of inscription. Describing our confusion is symptom, cause and cure but writing does not and cannot have a home that can be of its own making. There is no cave on earth that carries the secret key to this spider’s web. I might mix my metaphors but that’s because metaphor can never be singular, hence the unhomeliness that writing gives and takes in equal measure.

[...]

Someone once said, ‘every act of thought is an act of misunderstanding’; every ‘ism’ is a misdirected act since it assumes to know what action assumes. If this is true – and I’m not sure that it is – then what do we do about our confusion? Do we seal it, wrap it, or put it in a newspaper? Yes, always. We always want to make our uncertainties a public and, if we are canny creatures, a rather spectacular occurrence. Writing, like architecture or ballet, is one of many explications of an interior. What follows is an explication and exposition of bewilderment. But if I might make a simple claim, I do not think that the way I describe waste (i.e. the thing that currently bewilders me) is any more or less reducible to other types of enquiry. Waste, its effects, and the way that we scribe those effects relates to broader issues that touch and are touched by countless lines of flight. So this thesis is not a mockery of discipline, It assesses things without leaving at home the notion of time, narrative and objects. It is this self-satisfied trinity that will help us understand what perplexes us, about the meaning of waste, and its relation to time.

[...]

Foucault searched for the basic unit of the source, and he found nothing. What he did find is things but he was searching for one and by not finding the one found the many. This problem of the one and the many is not false, nor is it a ‘false problem’. It is inherent in the falsification of the problem in its entirety. Falsity is neither one nor many but one and another. And falsity is a matter of accretion not loss, things but not ‘mere nothings’. Satre described something, he never understood what nothing actually was, is, or could be. This was his contribution. In consequence, waste is neither reducible to a part or a whole. It is a material consequence of the idea of the problem. What should we do with this position? Well, I don’t think we can do what Foucault attempted in the Archaeology of Knowledge, we cannot search for the sake of searching. This is the road to mania upon which Nietzsche made such a heavy impression. We should search for an adequate description of the impressions that waste creates, and, against the inevitable moans about its outmoded and dogmatic associations, it is my view that ‘belief’ might be a good way to describe the effects of waste. Without an idea of belief we cannot chain the dog of writing to the vomit of writing’s effects. If we are to approach waste in a way that is intellectually appropriate to the theoretical premise of this thesis, that is, that things ‘can come to be by ceasing to be’, then we should ignore the templates to reduce what is beyond reducibility.

[...]

Whither the logos? Well, we cannot approach this question without commanding waste, knowing what it is and does, and cannot be. This does not abdicate responsibility in offering an answer to plastic questions. It merely designs the laboratory of enquiry towards the inevitability of defeat.

[...]

So defeat, error, irreduction is the default position of our enquiries but we cannot help but delight in our answers to the questions we pose to ourselves. The text, that thing of our passions, does not yield to our desire, nor does it resist all our advances. We are the text insofar that our thinking must have an external consequence to the positions we impose upon it. Foucault did not lead the way in these ethics. He did not give it a name. The torch is a scorched-earth technique that is made by the marking and making of umarking and unmaking. If we unmake the narratives that we tell, we can only hope to look for the constructions that the waste gives us. This is no construction in the normal sense. It is an inductive, speculative form of realism – a speculative realism. There is satisfaction to be gained from things as they occur before us. But this satisfaction cannot be taken upon the terms that we permit it. We must – if we are committed to the world as it appears to us – they offer nothing but the time we make and take by the time we offer. Time is the guardian of narrative, waste is the guardian of time, and the mobility of these things cannot be collapsed into one another. Waste, time, narrative; time, narrative waste; narrative, waste, time: the first and the last and the middle-term shall never become the past, present or future.

Books On Critical Thinkers

Apollo — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:51:46 +0000

Sigmund Freud (Routledge Critical Thinkers) – Pamela Thurschwell

Slavoj Zizek (Routledge Critical Thinkers) – Tony Myers

Martin Heidegger (Routledge Critical Thinkers) – Timothy Clark

Jacques Lacan (Routledge Critical Thinkers) – Sean Homer

Friedrich Nietzsche (Routledge Critical Thinkers) – Lee Spinks

Theodor Adorno (Routledge Critical Thinkers) – Ross Wilson

Stuart Hall (Routledge Critical Thinkers) – Jamee Procter