On the radio today I heard a story about an 11-year old girl with cancer. An interviewer is asking her questions and finally says, "What are those beads you're holding?"
The girl says, "We get a bead for different things we have to do at the hospital."
And the interviewer asks, "What kinds of things? I see that you have different colors."
And the girl answers, "We get a black bead for each day of chemo. A white bead for radiation treatments. A red bead when they take blood. A yellow bead for each day in the hospital. Stuff like that. When you get enough, you can make them into a necklace."
And the interviewer says, "And do you have enough for a necklace?"
And the girl, "I have five necklaces. They're in this box right here, see?"
She asks, See?
It sounds very simple. Look here... Do you see?
How could any feeling human "see" that? I see... something. Through a glass darkly. The vaguest outline, the faintest contours of this innocent child's life.
Do *you* see? Would you put yourself in the shoes of Job's accusers and dare explain that to me? To her?
What is the mode of being to account for this? Where is an answer that could on the one hand comfort her and those who love her; and on the other value this world, this life, as something precious beyond all riches, beyond all wisdom, beyond all ken.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Mode of Being
What are the modes of being conducive to an ethical life?
1 An awareness of our finitude, of our mortality, of our fragmented and limited nature...
2 A sympathy for the humanly inexhaustable finitude of other conscious things...
3 A grounded understanding that the world is real, and real in a way that transcends us, precedes us, and will continue after we are gone
4 An acknowledgement of our fallibility -- of the inaccessible nature of final Truths
5 An acceptance of our vulnerability -- because the world is big, and we are small, we can be and inevitably will be hurt by the world
6 A willingness to interpret and thereby make contingent judgments (an ethics incapable of judging has made itself impotent; just as a theology incapable of ascribing goodness to god has rendered itself pointless)
The foundational premise is that we can only better ourselves by attempting to better the world around us. The Self is a cage, and a terrible cage at that. Unrelenting, morally neutral, inscrutable, self-referentially contextualized and thereby capable of justifying any action. It makes the best of human ideas terrible and ugly. It turns freedom into oppression. It commoditizes altruism. In its rage for reification, it makes us all the same. It turns every conceivable act into expressions of power.
The only possible ethical action must be grounded in the effort to liberate self from Self, and must at the same time acknowledge that you can never succeed, except in the most peripheral, limited, qualified ways. Saying "I am not all" is one such route, a route that extends due libation to Self in the "I" and then takes it away in the negating "not".
1 An awareness of our finitude, of our mortality, of our fragmented and limited nature...
2 A sympathy for the humanly inexhaustable finitude of other conscious things...
3 A grounded understanding that the world is real, and real in a way that transcends us, precedes us, and will continue after we are gone
4 An acknowledgement of our fallibility -- of the inaccessible nature of final Truths
5 An acceptance of our vulnerability -- because the world is big, and we are small, we can be and inevitably will be hurt by the world
6 A willingness to interpret and thereby make contingent judgments (an ethics incapable of judging has made itself impotent; just as a theology incapable of ascribing goodness to god has rendered itself pointless)
The foundational premise is that we can only better ourselves by attempting to better the world around us. The Self is a cage, and a terrible cage at that. Unrelenting, morally neutral, inscrutable, self-referentially contextualized and thereby capable of justifying any action. It makes the best of human ideas terrible and ugly. It turns freedom into oppression. It commoditizes altruism. In its rage for reification, it makes us all the same. It turns every conceivable act into expressions of power.
The only possible ethical action must be grounded in the effort to liberate self from Self, and must at the same time acknowledge that you can never succeed, except in the most peripheral, limited, qualified ways. Saying "I am not all" is one such route, a route that extends due libation to Self in the "I" and then takes it away in the negating "not".
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Anger
The value of anger is that it asserts the chasm and the dependency between Self and World. Anger is the difference between the World-as-it-is and the World as I would wish it to be.
I have been angry with my father for the past few days... I passed through grief, the "torrent" I referenced in a previous post. Then settled into exhaustion for a while. But on Monday I visited his gravesite and felt angry. The flowers were gone. The headstone is not yet in place. He had only an index card in a plastic holder: Name, date of death -- April 13, 2007.
And I thought to myself that this man never did speak to me as a peer. He tried to protect me -- a man in his forties. Tried to protect me from his doubts, his dark moments, his fears... But all his "protection" did was to put an insurmountable distance between us. He could have said at some point, "I feel that way, too," or "I felt that way at one point, and then this happened..."
I understand that I am and always will be his child... But would it not have been worth more now to establish that commonality with his grown son?
Or perhaps I never did learn to ask him the right questions.
So I feel anger, and that anger makes the world more real to me. It makes the world matter, just a little bit more. It makes my own efforts at understanding, and my own actions in that world relevant. The shared fabric of humanity must indeed be shared. The alternative is a nuclear model of reality that continues to seek a core, an atom of the ineffably physical, never finds it -- atoms to electrons to quarks, etc. -- and is left with dust dissolving to nothing.
I have been angry with my father for the past few days... I passed through grief, the "torrent" I referenced in a previous post. Then settled into exhaustion for a while. But on Monday I visited his gravesite and felt angry. The flowers were gone. The headstone is not yet in place. He had only an index card in a plastic holder: Name, date of death -- April 13, 2007.
And I thought to myself that this man never did speak to me as a peer. He tried to protect me -- a man in his forties. Tried to protect me from his doubts, his dark moments, his fears... But all his "protection" did was to put an insurmountable distance between us. He could have said at some point, "I feel that way, too," or "I felt that way at one point, and then this happened..."
I understand that I am and always will be his child... But would it not have been worth more now to establish that commonality with his grown son?
Or perhaps I never did learn to ask him the right questions.
So I feel anger, and that anger makes the world more real to me. It makes the world matter, just a little bit more. It makes my own efforts at understanding, and my own actions in that world relevant. The shared fabric of humanity must indeed be shared. The alternative is a nuclear model of reality that continues to seek a core, an atom of the ineffably physical, never finds it -- atoms to electrons to quarks, etc. -- and is left with dust dissolving to nothing.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
I/not
As I work through questions of ethics and mortality, I believe that the I/not construction is the right place to begin. My previous post lists obstacles in the varied orientations I might attempt to take towards being good in such a way as to conduct myself rightly.
We talked about Self-orientation as being inherently antithetical to our project, enmeshed as it is in narcissism/solipsism and the Ich/es relationshiip.
We looked at the Ich/du relationship as being more promising but ultimately problematic. Losing oneself in a single "other" does not seem broad enough for a variety of reasons.
We looked at orienting ourselves into the world, dissolving self as illusory. But with such a view we lose all notion of accountability and worth beyond the all-worth of the all-world. Why bother to define ethics or right action in such a world view? Why bother to distinguish good from evil?
So we come back to the intuitive "I am not..." I find it apt because it asserts self in the initial "I", then takes it away with the negating "not". It posits a between place, a liminal state between Self and World, neither/and, if you will. World because "not," while negating, also implies a comparison... a comparison to something beyond self. If "I am not X" -- then something else must exist that "is X" because I would not otherwise have any way to conceive or apprehend it.
Let's start from the position of a simple object, a ball: "The ball is red," attempts to capture the ball with language. The noun carries essential qualities with it, "ballness" in this case, the predicate asserts definition. It excludes the many (in this case all elements of the light spectrum that do not fit "red") and includes only the particular. The ball itself is asserted and reaffirmed in the quality assigned to it.
Compare this to "The ball is not green." The noun "ball" is still asserted, but almost immediately erased by the "not" -- the particular is excluded, but the general is left afloat -- vibrant and alive in possibility. We come, upon contemplation, to understand how very little we can say about this ball: its roundness, its condition, and so forth. We can force ourselves to the same line of reasoning via "The ball is red," but "The ball is not green," leads us to it, compels us towards these considerations.
"The ball is not green" requires us to confront our human limitations on epistemological, semiotic, phenomenalogical, and ontological levels. It exposes us to the silence surrounding all the things the ball actually is, might be, or could become. The tie to Job becomes a little clearer to me in this context.
In this context, Brian's position: "I am not all" begins to emerge as a possibility. "I am not infinite." This tack bears much closer examination now.
A second possibility occurs to me, a modification of "I am not good" replaced now with, "I am not worthy..." which doubles the ambiguity, for not only am I asserting that I am *not* X, but this X carries much latency with it. Not worthy of what? It is the statement of a servant or a steward, and such a stance appeals to me as it doubly displaces me from the illusion of a kingly, ruling Self.
Much to consider yet. I hope those tuned in are finding this of some small interest...
We talked about Self-orientation as being inherently antithetical to our project, enmeshed as it is in narcissism/solipsism and the Ich/es relationshiip.
We looked at the Ich/du relationship as being more promising but ultimately problematic. Losing oneself in a single "other" does not seem broad enough for a variety of reasons.
We looked at orienting ourselves into the world, dissolving self as illusory. But with such a view we lose all notion of accountability and worth beyond the all-worth of the all-world. Why bother to define ethics or right action in such a world view? Why bother to distinguish good from evil?
So we come back to the intuitive "I am not..." I find it apt because it asserts self in the initial "I", then takes it away with the negating "not". It posits a between place, a liminal state between Self and World, neither/and, if you will. World because "not," while negating, also implies a comparison... a comparison to something beyond self. If "I am not X" -- then something else must exist that "is X" because I would not otherwise have any way to conceive or apprehend it.
Let's start from the position of a simple object, a ball: "The ball is red," attempts to capture the ball with language. The noun carries essential qualities with it, "ballness" in this case, the predicate asserts definition. It excludes the many (in this case all elements of the light spectrum that do not fit "red") and includes only the particular. The ball itself is asserted and reaffirmed in the quality assigned to it.
Compare this to "The ball is not green." The noun "ball" is still asserted, but almost immediately erased by the "not" -- the particular is excluded, but the general is left afloat -- vibrant and alive in possibility. We come, upon contemplation, to understand how very little we can say about this ball: its roundness, its condition, and so forth. We can force ourselves to the same line of reasoning via "The ball is red," but "The ball is not green," leads us to it, compels us towards these considerations.
"The ball is not green" requires us to confront our human limitations on epistemological, semiotic, phenomenalogical, and ontological levels. It exposes us to the silence surrounding all the things the ball actually is, might be, or could become. The tie to Job becomes a little clearer to me in this context.
In this context, Brian's position: "I am not all" begins to emerge as a possibility. "I am not infinite." This tack bears much closer examination now.
A second possibility occurs to me, a modification of "I am not good" replaced now with, "I am not worthy..." which doubles the ambiguity, for not only am I asserting that I am *not* X, but this X carries much latency with it. Not worthy of what? It is the statement of a servant or a steward, and such a stance appeals to me as it doubly displaces me from the illusion of a kingly, ruling Self.
Much to consider yet. I hope those tuned in are finding this of some small interest...
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Being prepared
As discussion here develops, it becomes increasingly clear to me that our state of being ground ethics. The task is not to catalogue actions (which cannot be catalogued because humanly inexhaustable), nor to try and divine intent behind any given action (which is undivinable -- arguably even for the one who commits the act).
So the question at its essence becomes: "What is (or are) the mode(s) of Being that are conducive to ethical action?"
How do we prepare ourselves to receive the necessary ethical insight, and how do we prepare ourselves to act appropriately with that insight?
The world is unpredictable and vast. Death, still more unpredictable and vast. We are limited, largely (albeit not entirely) predictable, and very small.
I cannot orient towards Self -- which takes me away from the world. Still less, I cannot orient myself towards desire, which is merely Self-ness made manifest. Every want, every perceived need, feeds Self, and commoditizes (and thereby shrinks) World (early commentators referenced Buber and the I/it relationship). One begins to see the wisdom of at least limited fasting...
On the other hand, I cannot fully agree with Levinas, who places the orientation on a quasi-mystical "other" [person]. It's a step in the right direction, because it orients me beyond myself. But while that "other" is certainly humanly inexhaustable, that individual is still only the smallest step towards acknowledging the full scope and scan of the world-in-process. This is the problem of Buber's Ich/du model. As mentioned earlier, I wonder if "I am not all" does not also take us to this place, but I am frankly torn on this issue.
Nor can I resolve it with a Buddhist model of "all is truly one" -- the World is big, and I am small is binary. I merely borrow "the World" to contain my self, conflating the two, treating self as illusory. And yet I act (or choose not to act) in the world, and these actions/non-actions have consequences for my contemporaries and for future generations of humanity. I find it facile and callous to erase the human miseries of War, Oppression, and Corruption; and the "natural" miseries of Aging, Disease, and Death under the rubric of "we are all one."
I admit, I am at an impass here, before argument has really even begun. I will think on this a bit.
So the question at its essence becomes: "What is (or are) the mode(s) of Being that are conducive to ethical action?"
How do we prepare ourselves to receive the necessary ethical insight, and how do we prepare ourselves to act appropriately with that insight?
The world is unpredictable and vast. Death, still more unpredictable and vast. We are limited, largely (albeit not entirely) predictable, and very small.
I cannot orient towards Self -- which takes me away from the world. Still less, I cannot orient myself towards desire, which is merely Self-ness made manifest. Every want, every perceived need, feeds Self, and commoditizes (and thereby shrinks) World (early commentators referenced Buber and the I/it relationship). One begins to see the wisdom of at least limited fasting...
On the other hand, I cannot fully agree with Levinas, who places the orientation on a quasi-mystical "other" [person]. It's a step in the right direction, because it orients me beyond myself. But while that "other" is certainly humanly inexhaustable, that individual is still only the smallest step towards acknowledging the full scope and scan of the world-in-process. This is the problem of Buber's Ich/du model. As mentioned earlier, I wonder if "I am not all" does not also take us to this place, but I am frankly torn on this issue.
Nor can I resolve it with a Buddhist model of "all is truly one" -- the World is big, and I am small is binary. I merely borrow "the World" to contain my self, conflating the two, treating self as illusory. And yet I act (or choose not to act) in the world, and these actions/non-actions have consequences for my contemporaries and for future generations of humanity. I find it facile and callous to erase the human miseries of War, Oppression, and Corruption; and the "natural" miseries of Aging, Disease, and Death under the rubric of "we are all one."
I admit, I am at an impass here, before argument has really even begun. I will think on this a bit.
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