Philosophy and Poetics: Aristotle

‘All human beings by nature desire knowledge.’ Opening sentence of his book Metaphysics. For Aristotle, it is the desire for knowledge at root of what it is to be human. Aristotle wrote on Ethics, Politics, Poetics, Physics and Metaphysics. This gives you a funny introduction, but by no means gives a good overview of his work.

In the study of narrative, which is one of the key topics of my research, it is Aristotle who, the deconstruction and analysis of the components of narrative is often credited. These are my notes from Poetics[1]. It’s only a short book, so it may be better to read it for yourself… but to give you a taster, here are some of the terms and ideas about which Aristotle writes…

Tekne = craft, skill or art. Aristotle defines tekne as a ‘productive capacity informed by an understanding of its intrinsic rationale.’ ‘For Aristotle, the evolution of human culture is in large part the evolution of tekhne.’ Tekne includes:

1. necessities
2. recreational arts – improve quality of human life
3. philosophy – sense of wonder

Poets must project themselves into the emotions of others. It requires nature talent or even a touch of insanity. Metaphor – require the ability to perceive similarities – something natural gift that can’t be taught. Aristotle analyses tragedy, and in particular the Homeric poems.

Some key terms and ideas:

• Plot – ordered sequence of events;  the ‘imitation of the action’; Stories have a beginning, middle and end; an ordered structure with ‘connected series of events: one thing follows on another as a necessary consequence’; a self-contained series of events ie closure ‘at both ends, and connected in between.’
• Actions – performed by agents
• Agents – with necessary ‘moral and intellectual characteristics’, ‘expressed in what they do and say’
• From this we deduce character and reasoningare constituent parts
  • Character is ‘that in respect of which we say that the agent is of a certain kind’
  • Reasoning is ‘the speech which the agents use to argue a case or put forward an opinion’

• Reasoning comes from two factors: whether I am honest, and how I interpret the situation.
• Rhythm – diction and lyric poetry ‘Rhythmical language is tragedy’s medium; it is a means to tragedy’s end, that end being the imitation of an action.’
• Spectacle – everything visible on stage
• ‘Language is there to help realize the plot’s potential, and in that sense is subordinate and secondary.’
• Praxis – ‘suffering (pathos) is “an action [praxis] that involves destruction or pain” (52b11f)

Furthermore:

• ‘imitation of action- action is an imitation of agents – reasoning – ability to ‘say what is implicit in a situation and appropriate to it
• character – ‘is the kind of thing which discloses the nature of a choice’: goodness; appropriateness; likeness; consistency. ‘since tragedy is an imitation of people better than we are, one should imitate good portrait-painters. In rendering the individual form, they paint people as they are, but make them better-looking.’ Eg ‘Homer portrayed Achilles as both a good man and a paradigm of obstinacy.’
• ‘reasoning refers to the means by which people argue that something is or is not the case, or put forward some universal proposition’
• ‘diction’ = ‘verbal expression’ song and spectacle
• ‘Well-being and ill-being reside in action, and the goal of life is an activity, not a quality.’
• Hamartia ‘includes errors made in ignorance or through misjudgement; but it will also include moral errors of a kind which do not imply wickedness’

Success/failure of stories:

• Astonishment – ability to evoke fear or pity
• ‘purification’ or katharsis
• correct magnitude. Eg ‘it is not enough to juxtapose prosperity and misery; the change from one to another must be the result of a sequence of necessarily connected events.’
• Completeness: ‘a whole is that which has a beginning, a middle and an end. A beginning is that which itself does not follow necessarily form anything else, but some second thing naturally exists or occurs after it. Conversely, an end is that which does itself naturally follow from something else, ether necessarily or in general, but there is nothing else after it. A middle is that which itself comes after something else, and some other thing comes after it.’
• Magnitude ‘they should have a certain length, and this should be such as can readily be held in memory’
• Unity
• Determinate structure – ‘the plot, as the imitation of an action, should imitate a single, unified action – and also one that is a whole.’ ‘if the presence or absence of something has no discernible effect, it is not a part of the whole.
• Universality – ‘poetry tends to express universals, and history particulars’
• visualising the action
• complication and resolution

There are simple plots and complex plots – the later which has a reversal or recognition

• Recognition (anagnorisis) is ‘a change from ignorance to knowledge’ (52a29-31)
• Reversal (peripeteia) is an  ‘overturn of expectation’ – ‘change to the opposite in the actions being performed’ (52a22f) – not just a change in fortune, but involves an astonishing inversion of the expected outcome of some action – but not at the cost of a necessary or probably connection’
• the best kinds of recognition arise out of a reversal
• Both ‘reveal that the situation in which character has been acting was misinterpreted’ pxxx

The best kinds of tragic plot have two variables in the change:

• the direction of the change;
• the moral status of the person (who is ideally someone in between being exceptionally virtuous and exceptionally wicked.)

Anthropology and history of poetry

• Origins: ‘imitation comes naturally to human beings from childhood… this is the reason why people take delight in seeing images; what happens is that as they view them they come to understand and work out what each thing is (e.g. ‘This is so-an-so’).48b4
• Homer – composed well and made his imitations dramatic = Iliad and Odyssey
• Comedy – ‘the laughable is an error or disgrace that does not involve pain or destruction.’
• Epic – ‘differ in length, since tragedy tries so far as possible to keep within a single day… whereas epic is unrestricted in time.’

Best kinds:

• First introduction
• First deduction ‘pity has to do with the undeserving sufferer, fear with the person like us’
• Second introduction ‘sufferings arise within close relationships, e.g. brother kills brother… or is on the verge of killing…’ ‘people acting in full knowledge and awareness’ / or ‘terrible deed in ignorance and only then to recognize the close connection’ as in Sophocles’ Oedipus
• Performing action ‘performing the action is second; but it is better if the action is performed in ignorance and followed by a recognition’ p23
• Second deduction

Why the disappearance of epics and tragedy?

In the Introduction to Aristotle’s Poetics, Malcolm Heath says that  ‘once the optimum form of anything has been achieved, further development of it is by definition is impossible thereafter, there can only be (at best) a proliferation of different instances of that optimum form… [recognising that] social and institutional factors, as well as individual incompetence, may inhibit the continued realization of the optimum form’ (51b35-52a1, 53a33-5) pxvi.

In other words once something is perfected (be it a movie/story genre, an art form, a business, a relationship, maybe even an state or empire) there is no where to go, and hence the “optimum form” changes and new genres/empires rise.

 

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[1] Aristotle and Malcolm Heath, Poetics (London ; New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books, 1996).

Nov 15, 2011 | Categories: Philosophy | Leave A Comment »

Life is a Game: Alan Watts & Happiness

I have noticed that in times I’m feeling down, reading or listening to Alan Watts makes me happy again. Why? His deep bellowing laugh and sense of humour? Maybe that’s part of it. But really it’s his philosophy, it just “clicks” with me. It makes me feel good. Life is a game, says Watts.  When I hear his words the dramas of my ego disappear into the cosmic drama I’m a playing. I remember that everything I know and think, is just a question of how I am looking at it.

In his book The Meaning of Happiness, Watts recaps the two most common types of books on happiness:

1. those that tell us how to become happy by changing our circumstances
2. those that tell us how to become happy by changing ourselves

His book falls into neither of these two categories:  ‘it is possible in a certain sense to become happy without doing anything about it.’ [1] Watts explains that he sees happiness as ‘not a result to be attained through action, but a fact to be realized through knowledge. The sphere of action is to express it, not to gain it.’ [2]

Happiness, says Watts, starts with total acceptance: a ‘yes-saying to everything that we experience, the unreserved acceptance of what we are, of what we feel and know at this and every moment.’ [3]

It is only when you seek it that you lose it... Like your shadow, the more you chase it, the more it runs away. [4]

Nov 06, 2011 | Categories: Philosophy | Leave A Comment »

Life is short, break the rules…

“Life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably, and never regret anything that made you smile. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

~ Mark Twain ~

Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina.

 

Oct 27, 2011 | Categories: Philosophy | Leave A Comment »

Unknowns

How do you “know” something? How do you know it is “true”? I have been going through old diaries, intrigued by the development of thoughts and ideas through time. The following is a little rant I had in 2009 about knowledge and truth…

From the origins of humanity, life and our universe, to the possibility of multi-verses, forces or even beings that are invisible to our senses, some things may always be unknown. For all we know we might be bits inside a computer, replicates of another group of humans, who evolved in the way our science tells us, or inside a computer-like creation designed by beings of who-knows-what nature. Smaller than ants to humans, humans are to the infinite universe/s.

Clearly there are some things we KNOW we KNOW – limited to our mind and bodily senses. Our “knowns” come dow to the combination of matter and energy contained in a human allow the majority to think, see, hear, eat, drink, taste, smell, feel, love, hate, laugh and cry.

There are some things we DO NOT KNOW we DO NOT KNOW – seeing that five hundred years ago we didn’t know the world was round, imagine the knowledge we will discover in the future.

There are some things we KNOW will DO NOT KNOW – the incomprehensible possibilities of what is outside our universe, and whether there was always something (God, a cell or otherwise), or if at one stage in the history of everything, there once existed nothing.

It seems to me, the MORE WE KNOW the MORE WE KNOW WE DON’T KNOW.

Given we know we do not know so many things, I conclude:

a) we may as well be content with our lack of knowledge, and admit the limits to what we think we “know”.

b) it can still be interesting to ponder the mysteries – curiosity might kill the cat but before it does so it makes life more fun

c) knowledge is not fixed. “Truth” (and what is attached to all moral objectives) changes with language and culture.

Therefore never, ever, stop questioning. Always strive for better answers. And better answer. And better answers still…

Photo:

On a recent trip to Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina – not a bad sunset hey!

Oct 26, 2011 | Categories: Philosophy | Leave A Comment »

Evolution not Revolution

I’ve been thinking about the idea of a “revolution”, and wondering why exactly one would want to “revolve” to the beginning, completely start again? What would be the point of bring down The Pyramid, only to have to build one up again?

Revolution may not be a dirty word, but it does seem kinda stupid. Capitalism and democracy have done a lot of good for society, from technological advances that enhance the lives of many, to bringing women out of the house, and empowering citizens to have a right to vote. Of course our  versions of capitalism and democracy are no where near perfect. They are systems still in their teenage years. They need to grow up, reform some of their irresponsible laws, and evolve into mature systems that doesn’t ignore parts of the world suffering from poverty and environmental destruction at their hands. Sure our systems have their problems, but are they so broke that we have to throw them out completely?

It seems pyramids of power are a model that can function very well, but can also fail. The trick, it seems to me, it to maintain a pyramid of power/money/organization that works for both the parts, and the whole.

Let me use the Hobbesian analogy of a society and its leaders as a mind and body (if you look close the Leviathan’s body is made up of lots of little people):

Our minds have a certain degree of power over our body’s actions. So long as our mind and body acts in constant communication, our organism is a functioning system. If my leg wanted to be my brain, or if my brain ignored my leg, I would be in trouble. If my hands ignore our stomach and put too much, too little or the wrong type of foods in my mouth, my body gets fat, my energy decreases and my entire being suffers. A healthy “me” = a mind, body and spirit being respectful and connected with each other, and with its surroundings.

Similarly in society, good minds acting in leadership positions provides for a healthy system of people. The leader in constant communication with the people, each feeding back into each others decisions, each respecting the other. Yet if, like a  psychologically damaged mind, a leader that is a psychopath or that doesn’t listen to its people is no good for anyone.

I don’t think our system is completely broken – it just needs a few of its laws reformed, evolving the system to work for humanity rather than letting the destructive aspects of it that have emerged over time force humanity to work for it. I vote for an evolution, not a revolution.

Oct 23, 2011 | Categories: Philosophy | Leave A Comment »

The woe of efficiency

Inefficiency is a good thing,” a wise friend informed me six months ago. I must have looked confused.

“When I said this to a room full of corporates, you should have seen the horror on their faces!” My face would have read pretty much the same. Inefficiency is good???

“How?” I asked in almost disbelief.

“Friendship, for example, spending time with people you love. It’s entirely inefficient… All the things in life that are wonderful, involve being inefficient. Think about it: Art. Love. Reflection. Contemplation. These things don’t happen in a rush. They take time. You need to be inefficient.”

But “Time, we say, is money, and, boy, that’s for real!” says Alan Watts, in Does it Matter?:

“Even sex is becoming acceptable for the same reason: it is good for you; it is a healthy, tension–reducing “outlet”—to use Kinsey’s statistical term for counting orgasms—and some wretched hygienist will soon figure out the average person’s minimum daily requirement of outlets (0.428 would be three times a week) so that we can screw with a high sense of duty and freedom from guilt.”

He goes on to explain that: “We get such a kick out of looking forward to pleasures and rushing ahead to meet them that we can’t slow down enough to enjoy them when they come.”

“The heart of the matter is that we are living in a culture which has been hypnotized with symbols—words, numbers, measures, quantities, and images—and that we mistake them for, and prefer them to, physical reality… A culture is hardly a culture at all when it does not provide for the most sophisticated training in the fundamental arts of life: farming, cooking, dining, dressing, furnishing, and love–making. Where these arts are not cultivated with devotion and skill, time to spare and money to spend are useless.”

For someone from a business and economics background, which based on efficiency, this shift from efficiency = bad, can take a while to truly comprehend, and even longer to integrate into one’s life.

Ever since school I’ve judged myself on how much I have “got done”. How many boxes on my to-do list I have ticked. I couldn’t relax till my homework was complete. My day was a good day if it had been an efficient one.

In my first serious relationship it took time for me to adjust. When you are in love, you tend to spend time doing the most inefficient things. You drive out of your way, you sit around watching TV, you talking for hours, you fight and make up. Almost everything you do when in love is inefficient. Each action is unmeasurable. There’s no tick boxes in love.

I did adjust. I learned to be inefficient. It felt good. It forced me to relax.

It was a long relationship, and few years have passed since it ended. Old habits die hard.

Without a reason to be inefficient I ascended or descended, depending how you judge it, back into my more efficient state. All my time became my time again, to do all the things I wanted to do. If I wanted to work a 14-hour day on my research, I could. There was no one else to think about. Just me. So I “followed my bliss”, got myself wrapped up in research, writing and creative projects that I loved doing. I really love these things. Yet in time, efficiency takes its toll.

Sometimes I catch myself on skype, on the phone, or even in person, with friends or family, and I notice my mind wonder off to think about various ideas and projects. At times I find it hard to go out of my way for others. It can be hard to justify a weekend away, time out, reading novels that aren’t teaching me something, spending time doing nothing. Sometimes even yoga feels like a trade-off – I can do yoga or I can do more study, and I choose to do the latter. The worst feeling is when stuck in traffic or waiting in line or in a dead boring conversation – in any situation where time is being wasted – and some part inside me cringes, an inner frustration of time ticking by.

There has to be some way to navigate the efficient and inefficient.

In the short term being efficient might make me happier than ever, feeling satisfied with all I’m accomplishing. But continued in the long term too much efficiency means we miss out on the deeper, the inefficient, relationships and connectivity that we are on this planet to experience. If we aren’t careful, we will be old, grey, bald, fat, and lonely, and life will have passed us by.

After a walk in the nearby mountains, spending time taking photos like the above shot, I wrote some “notes to self”:

• Don’t get frustrated when time disappears into nothing.
• Put time into friendships without feeling rushed. Be present during that time.
• Learn to say yes, no, or later, as fits with what I wants to do. You can’t do everything.
• Better to do less and do it less efficiently, then feel like you are your own production line. Times have changed since Henry Ford’s assembly line.
• Creativity and quality are assets of the future. Efficiency is the antithesis of creativity.
• Meditate. Exercise. Relax. Find your balance.
• Cherish quality. Put love into your food. Cultivate the arts. Enjoy… Be inefficient.

It is what one does when they are inefficient that makes life worth living.

Sep 27, 2011 | Categories: Philosophy | 2 Comments »

Attention and Ignore-ance

Did you know that Eskimos have five words for snow while the Aztecs had one word for snow-rain-hail combined?

That which we do not have the vocabulary for, we tend not to notice. Those things which we notice, we create a vocabulary for. Through the processes of noticing, vocalizing, pondering and comprehending, we build up an understanding of the world in which we live.

“We speak of attention as noticing. To notice is to select, to regard some bits of perception, or some features of the world, as more noteworthy, more significant, than others. To these we attend, and the rest we ignore – for which reason conscious attention is at the same time ignoreance (i.e., ignorance) despite the fact that it gives us a vividly clear picture of whatever we chose to notice.” [1]

The double process of noticing is governed by:

(1) ‘whatever seems advantageous or disadvantageous for our survival, our social status, and the security of our egos’ and (2) the systems of notation that are ‘learned from others, from our society and our culture.’[2]

Our identity and our survival are connected to the aspects of life that we notice and that we ignore, all of which is intrinsically connected to our language.

Through this vocabulary, and the stories associated with them, we build up a self-centric idea about reality.

In this way languages play a paradoxically liberating and limiting role in our lives.

Sep 22, 2011 | Categories: Philosophy | Leave A Comment »

Joseph Campbell – The Hero’s Journey

In The Hero with a Thousand Faces Joseph Campbell looks at myths and psychology – showing the connection between the stages of the “monomyth” seen in religion, movies and the journey of each of our lives. I’m using this book along with some other Joseph Campbell books and videos for my class…

“The mythological hero, setting forth from his common-day hut or castle, is lured, carried away, or else voluntarily proceeds, to the threshold of adventure. There he encounters a shadow presence that guards the passage. The hero may defeat or conciliate this power and go alive into the kingdom of the dark (brother-battle, dragonbattle; offering, charm), or be slain by the opponent and descend in death (dismemberment, crucifixion). Beyond the threshold, then, the hero journeys through a world of unfamiliar yet strangely intimate forces, some of which severely threaten him (tests), some of which give magical aid (helpers). When he arrives at the nadir of the mythological round, he undergoes a supreme ordeal and gains his reward. The triumph may be represented as the hero’s sexual union with the goddess-mother of the world (sacred marriage), his recognition by the father-creator (father atonement), his own divinization (apotheosis), or again —if the powers have remained unfriendly to him—his theft of the boon he came to gain (bride-theft, fire-theft); intrinsically it is an expansion of consciousness and therewith of being (illumination, transfiguration, freedom). The final work is that of the return. If the powers have blessed the hero, he now sets forth under their protection (emissary); if not, he flees and is pursued (transformation flight, obstacle flight). At the return threshold the transcendental powers must remain behind; the hero re-emerges from the kingdom of dread (return, resurrection). The boon that he brings restores the world (elixir).” p. 227-8.

I wish we had time in class to watch all of this series The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers – the first half of the first video (back to VHS!) was great… I guess I’m the teacher, so maybe we can

I have my class discussing each stage of the “monomyth” / “The Hero’s Journey” in relation to Avatar (everyone has seen and loves) and The Matrix (which half hadn’t seen so we watched in class). Next week is week 4, of 16 weeks. Crazy how fast time is flying by. Anyway enough babbling, here it is – Joseph Campbell’s monomyth:

Departure

1. The Call to Adventure
‘This first stage of the mythological journey—which we have designated the “call to adventure” —signifies that destiny has summoned the hero and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from within the pale of his society to a zone unknown. This fateful region of both treasure and danger may be variously represented: as a distant land, a forest, a kingdom underground, beneath the waves, or above the sky, a secret island, lofty mountaintop, or profound dream state; but it is always a place of strangely fluid and polymorphous beings, unimaginable torments, superhuman deeds, and impossible delight.’ p. 53.

2. Refusal of the Call
‘Often in actual life, and not infrequently in the myths and popular tales, we encounter the dull case of the call unanswered; for it is always possible to turn the ear to other interests. Refusal of the summons converts the adventure into its negative. Walled in boredom, hard work, or “culture,” the subject loses the power of significant affirmative action and becomes a victim to be saved.’ p. 54.

3. Supernatural Aid

‘For those who have not refused the call, the first encounter of the hero-journey is with a protective figure (often a little old crone or old man) who provides the adventurer with amulets against the dragon forces he is about to pass.’ p. 63.

4. The Crossing of the First Threshold

‘With the personifications of his destiny to guide and aid him, the hero goes forward in his adventure until he comes to the “threshold guardian” at the entrance to the zone of magnified power. Such custodians bound the world in the four directions — also up and down—standing for the limits c the hero’s present sphere, or life horizon. Beyond them is dark less, the unknown, and danger; just as beyond the parental watch is danger to the infant and beyond the protection of his society danger to the member of the tribe. The usual person is more than content, he is even proud, to remain within the indicated bounds, and popular belief gives him every reason to fear so much as the first step into the unexplored. Thus the sailors of the bold vessels of Columbus, breaking the horizon of the medieval mind —sailing, as they thought, into the boundless ocean of immortal being that surrounds the cosmos, like an endless mythological serpent biting its tail—had to be cozened and urged on like children, because of their fear of the fabled leviathans, mermaids, dragon kings, and other monsters of the deep.’ p. 71.

5. The Belly of the Whale

The idea that the passage of the magical threshold is a transit into a sphere of rebirth is symbolized in the worldwide womb image of the belly of the whale. The hero, instead of conquering or conciliating the power of the threshold, is swallowed into the unknown, and would appear to have died… here, instead of passing outward, beyond the confines of the visible world, the hero goes inward, to be born again. The disappearance corresponds to the passing of a worshiper into a temple where he is to be quickened by the recollection of who and what he is, namely dust and ashes unless immortal. The temple interior, the belly of the whale, and the heavenly land beyond, above, and below the confines of the world, are one and the same. That is why the approaches and entrances to temples are flanked and defended by colossal gargoyles: dragons, lions, devil-slayers with drawn swords, resentful dwarfs, winged bulls. These are the threshold guardians to ward away all incapable of encountering the higher silences within. They are preliminary embodiments of the dangerous aspect of the presence, corresponding to the mythological ogres that bound the conventional world, or to the two rows of teeth of the whale. They illustrate the fact that the devotee at the moment of entry into a temple undergoes a metamorphosis… His secular character remains without; he sheds it, as a snake its slough. Once inside he may be said to have died to time and returned to the World Womb, the World Navel, the Earthly Paradise. The mere fact that anyone can physically walk past the temple guardians does not invalidate their significance; for if the intruder is incapable of encompassing the sanctuary, then he has effectually remained without. Anyone unable to understand a god sees it as a devil and is thus defended from the approach. Allegorically, then, the passage into a temple and the hero-dive through the jaws of the whale are identical adventures, both denoting, in picture language, the life-centering, life-renewing act.’ p. 83-5.

Initiation

6. The Road of Trials
‘ONCE having traversed the threshold, the hero moves in a dream landscape of curiously fluid, ambiguous forms, where he must survive a succession of trials. This is a favorite phase of the mythadventure. It has produced a world literature of miraculous tests and ordeals. The hero is covertly aided by the advice, amulets, and secret agents of the supernatural helper whom he met before his entrance into this region. Or it may be that he here discovers for the first time that there is a benign power everywhere supporting him in his superhuman passage.’ p. 89.

‘The original departure into the land of trials represented only the beginning of the long and really perilous path of initiator)’ conquests and moments of illumination. Dragons have now to be slain and surprising barriers passed—again, again, and again. Meanwhile there will be a multitude of preliminary victories, unretainable ecstasies, and momentary glimpses of the wonderful land.’ p. 100.

7. The Meeting with the Goddess

‘The ultimate adventure, when all the barriers and ogres have been overcome, is commonly represented as a mystical marriage of the triumphant hero-soul with the Queen Goddess of the World. This is the crisis at the nadir, the zenith, or at the uttermost edge of the earth, at the central point of the cosmos, in the tabernacle of the temple, or within the darkness of the deepest chamber of the heart.’ p. 100.

‘The mythological figure of the Universal Mother imputes to the cosmos the feminine attributes of the first, nourishing and protecting presence. The fantasy is primarily spontaneous; for there exists a close and obvious correspondence between the attitude of the young child toward its mother and that of the adult toward the surrounding material world.’ p. 103.

‘Woman, in the picture language of mythology, represents the totality of what can be known. The hero is the one who comes to know. As he progresses in the slow initiation which is life, the form of the goddess undergoes for him a series of transfigurations: she can never be greater than himself, though she can always promise more than he is yet capable of comprehending. She lures, she guides, she bids him burst his fetters. And if he can match her import, the two, the knower and the known, will be released from every limitation. Woman is the guide to the sublime acme of sensuous adventure. By deficient eyes she is reduced to inferior states; by the evil eye of ignorance she is spellbound to banality and ugliness. But she is redeemed by the eyes of understanding. The hero who can take her as she is, without undue commotion but with the kindness and assurance she requires, is potentially the king, the incarnate god, of her created world.’ p. 106.

8. Woman as the Temptress

‘The mystical marriage with the queen goddess of the world represents the hero’s total mastery of life; for the woman is life, the hero its knower and master. And the testings of the hero, which were preliminary to his ultimate experience and deed, were symbolical of those crises of realization by means of which his consciousness came to be amplified and made capable of enduring the full possession of the mother-destroyer, his inevitable bride. With that he knows that he and the father are one: he is in the father’s place.

‘Thus phrased, in extremest terms, the problem may sound remote from the affairs of normal human creatures. Nevertheless, every failure to cope with a life situation must be laid, in the end, to a restriction of consciousness. Wars and temper tantrums are the makeshifts of ignorance; regrets are illuminations come too late. The whole sense of the ubiquitous myth of the hero’s passage is that it shall serve as a general pattern for men and women, wherever they may stand along the scale. Therefore it is formulated in the broadest terms. The individual has only to discover his own position with reference to this general human formula, and let it then assist him past his restricting walls. Who and where are his ogres”? Those are the reflections of the unsolved enigmas of his own humanity. What are his ideals’? Those are the symptoms of his grasp of life.

‘In the office of the modern psychoanalyst, the stages of the hero-adventure come to light again in the dreams and hallucinations of the patient. Depth beyond depth of self-ignorance is fathomed, with the analyst in the role of the helper, the initiatory priest. And always, after the first thrills of getting under way, the adventure develops into a journey of darkness, horror, disgust, and phantasmagoric fears.

‘The crux of the curious difficulty lies in the fact that our conscious views of what life ought to be seldom correspond to what life really is. Generally we refuse to admit within ourselves, or within our friends, the fullness of that pushing, self-protective, malodorous, carnivorous, lecherous fever which is the very nature of the organic cell. Rather, we tend to perfume, whitewash, and reinterpret; meanwhile imagining that all the flies in the ointment, all the hairs in the soup, are the faults of some unpleasant someone else.

‘But when it suddenly dawns on us, or is forced to our attention, that everything we think or do is necessarily tainted with the odor of the flesh, then, not uncommonly, there is experienced a moment of revulsion: life, the acts of life, the organs of life, woman in particular as the great symbol of life, become intolerable to the pure, the pure, pure soul.’ p. 111-12.

9. Atonement with the Father

‘The paradox of creation, the coming of the forms of time out of eternity, is the germinal secret of the father. It can never be quite explained. Therefore, in every system of theology there is an umbilical point, an Achilles tendon which the finger of mother life has touched, and where the possibility of perfect knowledge has been impaired. The problem of the hero is to pierce himself (and therewith his world) precisely through that point; to shatter and annihilate that key knot of his limited existence. The problem of the hero going to meet the father is to open his soul beyond terror to such a degree that he will be ripe to understand how the sickening and insane tragedies of this vast and ruthless cosmos are completely validated in the majesty of Being. The hero transcends life with its peculiar blind spot and for a moment rises to a glimpse of the source. He beholds the face of the father, understands —and the two are atoned.’ p. 135.

‘Atonement (at-one-ment) consists in no more than the abandonment of that self-generated double monster—the dragon thought to be God (superego) and the dragon thought to be Sin (repressed id). But this requires an abandonment of the attachment to ego itself; and that is what is difficult. One must have a faith that the father is merciful, and then a reliance on that mercy. Therewith, the center of belief is transferred outside of the bedeviling god’s tight scaly ring, and the dreadful ogres dissolve.’ p. 120.

‘The magic of the sacraments (made effective through the passion of Jesus Christ, or by virtue of the meditations of the Buddha), the protective power of primitive amulets and charms, and the supernatural helpers of the myths and fairy tales of the world, are mankind’s assurances that the arrow, the flames, and the flood are not as brutal as they seem. For the ogre aspect of the father is a reflex of the victim’s own ego —derived from the sensational nursery scene that has been left behind, but projected before; and the fixating idolatry of that pedagogical nonthing is itself the fault that keeps one steeped in a sense of sin, sealing the potentially adult spirit from a better balanced, more realistic view of the father, and therewith of the world… It is in this ordeal that the hero may derive hope and assurance from the helpful female figure, by whose magic (pollen charms or power of intercession) he is protected through all the frightening experiences of the father’s ego-shattering initiation. For if it is impossible to trust the terrifying father-face, then one’s faith must be centered elsewhere (Spider Woman, Blessed Mother); and with that reliance for support, one endures the crisis—only to find, in the end, that the father and mother reflect each other, and are in essence the same.’ p. 118-120.

10. Apotheosis

The pause on the threshold of Nirvana, the resolution to forego until the end of time (which never ends) immersion in the untroubled pool of eternity, represents a realization that the distinction between eternity and time is only apparent—made, perforce, by the rational mind, but dissolved in the perfect knowledge of the mind that has transcended the pairs of opposites. What is understood is that time and eternity are two aspects of the same experience-whole, two planes of the same nondual ineffable; i.e., the jewel of eternity is in the lotus of birth and death: om mani padme hum. p. 140.

‘The first wonder to be noted here is the androgynous character of the Bodhisattva: masculine Avalokiteshvara, feminine Kwan Yin. Male-female gods are not uncommon in the world of myth. They emerge always with a certain mystery; for they conduct the mind beyond objective experience into a symbolic realm where duality is left behind. Awonawilona, chief god of the pueblo of Zuni, the maker and container of all, is sometimes spoken of as he, but is actually he-she. The Great Original of the Chinese chronicles, the holy woman T’ai Yuan, combined in her person the masculine Yang and the feminine Yin.”‘ The cabalistic teachings of the medieval Jews, as well as the Gnostic Christian writings of the second century, represent the Word Made Flesh as androgynous- which was indeed the state of Adam as he was created, before the female aspect, Eve, was removed into another form. And among the Greeks, not only Hermaphrodite (the child of Hermes and Aphrodite), but Eros too, the divinity of love (the first of the gods, according to Plato), were in sex both female and male. p. 140-1.

‘”So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” The question may arise in the mind as to the nature of the image of God; but the answer is already given in the text, and is clear enough. “When the Holy One, Blessed be He, created the first man, He created him androgynous.” The removal of the feminine into another form symbolizes the beginning of the fall from perfection into duality; and it was naturally followed by the discovery of the duality of good and evil, exile from the garden where God walks on earth, and thereupon the building of the wall of Paradise, constituted of the “coincidence of opposites,” by which Man (now man and woman) is cut off from not only the vision but even the recollection of the image of God.

‘This is the Biblical version of a myth known to many lands. It represents one of the basic ways of symbolizing the mystery of creation: the devolvement of eternity into time, the breaking of the one into the two and then the many, as well as the generation of new life through the reconjunction of the two.’ p. 141-2.

‘Like the Buddha himself, this godlike being is a pattern of the divine state to which the human hero attains who has gone beyond the last terrors of ignorance. “When the envelopment of consciousness has been annihilated, then he becomes free of all fear, beyond the reach of change.’1″‘ This is the release potential within us all, and which anyone can attain—through herohood; for, as we read: “All things are Buddha-things’1;8″3 or again (and this is the other way of making the same statement): “All beings are without self.1′ The world is filled and illumined by, but does not hold, the Bodhisattva (“he whose being is enlightenment”); rather, it is he who holds the world, the lotus. Pain and pleasure do not enclose him, he encloses them—and with profound repose.’ p. 138-9.

11. The Ultimate Boon

‘The ease with which the adventure is here accomplished signifies that the hero is a superior man, a born king. Such ease distinguishes numerous fairy tales and alt legends of the deeds of incarnate gods. Where the usual hero would face a test, the elect encounters no delaying obstacle and makes no mistake. The well is the World Navel, its flaming water the indestructible essence of existence, the bed going round and round being the World Axis. The sleeping castle is that ultimate abyss to which the descending consciousness submerges in dream, where the individual life is on the point of dissolving into undifferentiated energy: and it would be death to dissolve; yet death, also, to lack the fire.

‘The motif (derived from an infantile fantasy) of the inexhaustible dish, symbolizing the perpetual life-giving, form-building powers of the universal source, is a fairy-tale counterpart of the mythological image of the cornucopian banquet of the gods. While the bringing together of the two great symbols of the meeting with the goddess and the fire theft reveals with simplicity and clarity the status of the anthropomorphic powers in the realm of myth. They are not ends in themselves, but guardians, embodiments, or bestowers, of the liquor, the milk, the food, the fire, the grace, of indestructible life.

‘Such imagery can be readily interpreted as primarily, even though perhaps not ultimately, psychological; for it is possible to observe, in the earliest phases of the development of the infant, symptoms of a dawning “mythology” of a state beyond the vicissitudes of time. These appear as reactions to, and spontaneous defenses against, the body-destruction fantasies that assail the child when it is deprived of the mother breast. “The infant reacts with a temper tantrum and the fantasy that goes with the temper tantrum is to tear everything out of the mother’s bod)-. . . . The child then fears retaliation for these impulses, i.e., that
everything will be scooped out of its own inside.”‘ Anxieties for the integrity of its body, fantasies of restitution, a silent, deep requirement for indestructibility and protection against the “bad” forces from within and without, begin to direct the shaping psyche; and these remain as determining factors in the later neurotic, and even normal, life activities, spiritual efforts, religious beliefs, and ritual practices of the adult.’ p. 159-60.

Return

12. Refusal of the Return
‘WHEN the hero-quest has been accomplished, through penetration to the source, or through the grace of some male or female, human or animal, personification, the adventurer still must return with his life-transmuting trophy. The full round, the norm of the monomyth, requires that the hero shall now begin the labor of bringing the runes of wisdom, the Golden Fleece, or his sleeping princess, back into the kingdom of humanity, where the boon may redound to the renewing of the community, the nation, the planet, or the ten thousand worlds. But the responsibility has been frequently refused. Even the Buddha, after his triumph, doubted whether the message of realization could be communicated, and saints are reported to have passed away while in the supernal ecstasy. Numerous indeed are the heroes fabled to have taken up residence forever in the blessed isle of the unaging Goddess of Immortal Being.’ p. 179.

13. The Magic Flight
‘If the hero in his triumph wins the blessing of the goddess or the god and is then explicitly commissioned to return to the world with some elixir for the restoration of society, the final stage of his adventure is supported by all the powers of his supernatural patron. On the other hand, if the trophy has been attained against the opposition of its guardian, or if the hero’s wish to return to the world has been resented by the gods or demons, then the last stage of the mythological round becames a lively, often comical, pursuit. This flight may be complicated by marvels of magical obstruction and evasion.’ p. 182.

‘The myths of failure touch us with the tragedy of life, but those of success only with their own incredibility. And yet, it’s the mono-myth is to fulfill its promise, not human failure or superhuman success but human success is what we shall have to be shown.’ p. 192.

14. Rescue from Without
‘The hero may have to be brought back from his supernatural adventure by assistance from without. That is to say, the world may have to come and get him. For the bliss of the deep abode is not lightly abandoned in favor of the self-scattering of the wakened state. “Who having cast off the world,” we read, “would desire to return again? He would be only there.”"‘ And yet, in so far as one is alive, life will call. Society is jealous of those who remain away from it, and will come knocking at the door. If the hero—like Muchukunda—is unwilling, the disturber suffers an ugly shock; but on the other hand, if the summoned one is only delayed —sealed in by the beatitude of the state of perfect being (which resembles death} —an apparent rescue is effected, and the adventurer returns.’ p. 192.

‘This brings us to the final crisis of the round, to which the whole miraculous excursion has been but a prelude—that, namely, of the paradoxical, supremely difficult threshold-crossing of the hero’s return from the mystic realm into the land of common day. Whether rescued from without, driven from within, or gently carried along by the guiding divinities, he has yet to re-enter with his boon the long-forgotten atmosphere where men who are fractions imagine themselves to be complete. He has yet to confront society with his ego-shattering, life-redeeming elixir, and take the return blow of reasonable queries, hard resentment, and good people at a loss to comprehend.’ p. 201.

15. The Crossing of the Return Threshold
‘The two worlds, the divine and the human, can be pictured only as distinct from each other—different as life and death, as day and night. The hero adventures out of the land we know into darkness; there he accomplishes his adventure, or again is simply lost to us, imprisoned, or in danger; and his return is described as a coming back out of that yonder zone. Nevertheless—and here is a great key to the understanding of myth and symbol — the two kingdoms are actually one. The realm of the gods is a forgotten dimension of the world we know. And the exploration of that dimension, either willingly or unwillingly, is the whole sense of the deed of the hero. The values and distinctions that in normal life seem important disappear with the terrifying assimilation of the self into what formerly was only otherness. As in the stories of the cannibal ogresses, the fearfulness of this loss of personal individuation can be the whole burden of the transcendental experience for unqualified souls. But the hero-soul goes boldly in —and discovers the hags converted into goddesses and the dragons into the watchdogs of the gods.

‘There must always remain, however, from the standpoint of normal waking consciousness, a certain baffling inconsistency between the wisdom brought forth from the deep, and the prudence usually found to be effective in the light world. Hence the common divorce of opportunism from virtue and the resultant degeneration of human existence. Martyrdom is for saints, but the common people have their institutions, and these cannot be left to grow like lilies of the field; Peter keeps drawing his sword, as in the garden, to defend the creator and sustainer of the world. The boon brought from the transcendent deep becomes quickly rationalized into nonentity, and the need becomes great for another hero to refresh the word.

‘How teach again, however, what has been taught correctly and incorrectly learned a thousand thousand times, throughout the millenniums of mankind’s prudent folly? That is the hero’s ultimate difficult task. How render back into light-world language the speech-defying pronouncements of the dark? How represent on a two-dimensional surface a three-dimensional form, or in a three-dimensional image a multi-dimensional meaning? How translate into terms of “yes” and “no” revelations that shatter into meaninglessness every attempt to define the pairs of opposites? How communicate to people who insist on the exclusive evidence of their senses the message of the all-generating void? Many failures attest to the difficulties of this life-affirmative threshold. The first problem of the returning hero is to accept as real, after an experience of the soul-satisfying vision of fulfillment, the passing joys and sorrows, banalities and noisy obscenities of life. Why re-enter such a world? Why attempt to make plausible, or even interesting, to men and women consumed with passion, the experience of transcendental bliss”? As dreams that were momentous by night may seem simply silly in the light of day, so the poet and the prophet can discover themselves playing the idiot before a jury of sober eyes. The easy thing is to commit the whole community to the devil and retire again into the heavenly rock-dwelling, close the door, and make it fast. But if some spiritual obstetrician has meanwhile drawn the shimenawa across the retreat, then the work of representing eternity in time, and perceiving in time eternity, cannot be avoided.’ p. 201-4.

16. Master of the Two Worlds
‘Freedom to pass back and forth across the world division, from the perspective of the apparitions of time to that of the causal deep and back—not contaminating the principles of the one with those of the other, yet permitting the mind to know the one by virtue of the other—is the talent of the master. The Cosmic Dancer, declares Nietzsche, does not rest heavily in a single spot, but gaily, lightly, turns and leaps from one position to another. It is possible to speak from only one point at a time, but that does not invalidate the insights of the rest.’ p. 212-3.

‘The myths do not often display in a single image the mystery of the ready transit. Where they do, the moment is a precious symbol, full of import, to be treasured and contemplated. Such a moment was that of the Transfiguration of the Christ… Here is the whole myth in a moment: Jesus the guide, the way, the vision, and the companion of the return. The disciples are his initiates, not themselves masters of the mystery, yet introduced to the full experience of the paradox of the two worlds in one.’ p. 213.

‘Jesus makes the point more succinctly: “Whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” The meaning is very clear; it is the meaning of all religious practice. The individual, through prolonged psychological disciplines, gives up completely all attachment to his personal limitations, idiosyncrasies, hopes and fears, no longer resists the self-annihilation that is prerequisite to rebirth in the realization of truth, and so becomes ripe, at last, for the great at-one-ment.

‘His personal ambitions being totally dissolved, he no longer tries to live but willingly relaxes to whatever may come to pass in him; he becomes, that is to say, an anonymity. The Law lives in him with his unreserved consent. Many are the figures, particularly in the social and mythological contexts of the Orient, who represent this ultimate state of anonymous presence. The sages of the hermit groves and the wandering mendicants who play a conspicuous role in the life and legends of the East; in myth such figures as the Wandering Jew (despised, unknown, yet with the pearl of great price in his pocket); the tatterdemalion beggar, set upon by dogs; the miraculous mendicant bard whose music stills the heart; or the masquerading god, Wotan, Viracocha, Edshu: these are examples. “Sometimes a fool, sometimes a sage, sometimes possessed of regal splendor; sometimes wandering, sometimes as motionless as a python, sometimes wearing a benignant expression; sometimes honored, sometimes insulted, sometimes unknown—thus lives the man of realisation, ever happy with supreme bliss. Just as an actor is always a man, whether he puts on the costume of his role or lays it aside, so is the perfect knower of the Imperishable always the Imperishable, and nothing else.”’ p. 220.

17. Freedom to Live
‘What, now, is the result of the miraculous passage and return”? The battlefield is symbolic of the field of life, where every creature lives on the death of another. A realization of the inevitable guilt of life may so sicken the heart that, like Hamlet or like Arjuna, one may refuse to go on with it. On the other hand, like most of the rest of us, one may invent a false, finally unjustified, image of oneself as an exceptional phenomenon in the world, not guilty as others are, but justified in one’s inevitable sinning because one represents the good. Such self-righteousness leads to a misunderstanding, not only of oneself but of the nature of both man and the cosmos. The goal of the myth is to dispel the need for such life ignorance by effecting a reconciliation of the individual consciousness with the universal will. And this is effected through a realization of the true relationship of the passing phenomena of time to the imperishable life that lives and dies in all. “Even as a person casts off worn-out clothes and puts on others that are new, so the embodied Self casts off worn-out bodies and enters into others that are new. Weapons cut It not; fire burns It not; water wets It not; the wind does not wither It. This Self cannot be cut nor burnt nor wetted nor withered. Eternal, all-pervading, unchanging, immovable, the Self is the same for ever.”

‘Man in the world of action loses his centering in the principle of eternity if he is anxious for the outcome of his deeds, but resting them and their fruits on the knees of the Living God he is released by them, as by a sacrifice, from the bondages of the sea of death. “Do without attachment the work you have to do…
Surrendering all action to Me, with mind intent on the Self, freeing yourself from longing and selfishness, fight—unperturbed by grief.” p. 221-2.

‘The hero is the champion of things becoming, not of things become, because he is. “Before Abraham was, I AM.” He does not mistake apparent changelessness in time for the permanence of Being, nor is he fearful of the next moment (or of the “other thing”), as destroying the permanent with its change. “Nothing retains its own form; but Nature, the greater renewer, ever makes up forms from forms. Be sure there’s nothing perishes in the whole universe; it does but vary and renew its form.” Thus the next moment is permitted to come to pass. p. 225-6.

 

All quotes are from:

Campbell, Joseph (1949, 2004) The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Learn more about Joseph Campbell, access his lectures and discussion forums through the Joseph Campbell Foundation – click here

Sep 10, 2011 | Categories: Philosophy | Leave A Comment »

Telling stories…

So this semester, in Hickory, I’m teaching “Storytelling”. How does one tell a story? What distinguishes a great story from a poor one? What is the role of stories in our lives? How do stories reflect our identity? How do we use stories to create our identity? What do the stories we tell say us about our culture and values? What is the relationship between our live stories, and the story of humanity? These are some of the questions we will look at.

The assessments I’ve designed for students are, besides the exam, all blog-based. Their blogs are then posted to facebook. Why?

Because social networking is playing a role of growing importance in the 21st century. Blogging, tweeting and facemail is one of the most common and most efficient ways of telling stories.

In the shift from oral to written, written to print, and now print to online, technology is constantly shaping and reshaping our methods of communication, our methods of sharing ideas, inspiring greater and greater levels of creativity.

The process of blogging is a critically-reflective process. As you write, you consider different influences, you consider what others’ might think of what you have written, you open up conversations that can be continued over years to come.

Teaching is a two-way communication. Every person brings an entirely different set of skills, knowledge and life experiences. Through a blog students become the teacher and teachers become students. My students have already impressed me with their opinions.

I made this little prezi presentation to introduce some of the topics we’ll be discussing this semester. As whatever I do in my daily life tends to inspire what I talk about on this blog, I thought I’d share the prezi and invite you to join my class from afar.

Just press play and click through the stages. You can also create your own path by clicking on different text or YouTube boxes in your own order.

Aug 31, 2011 | Categories: Philosophy | Leave A Comment »

Do you know the secret? The “Law of Attraction”… what the bleep?!

“Do you know the secret?” I was surprised when, at Hickory Tavern, I met a CEO of a engineering-programming company who, while talking up his black porche and high-paid profession,  brought it up. I thought only hippy and hippy-wanna-be’s like me were into this stuff.

“What’s the secret?” asked my friend, accepting their kind offer to pay for our food and drinks, and get another round.

“Five years ago I had NOTHING.” Mr Porche informed us. “And now I’m 34 with everything I’ve ever wanted: the job, the car, the house on the water…”

Ok yes he may have been trying to get into someone’s pants. Shame girls aren’t attracted to men who think money can buy all those qualities that, well, money can’t buy. Anyway… the episode did remind me about the potential power of “the secret”.

Back at home I went to my blog to find some easy way to explain it to my friend. I was surprised to find that I’ve never actually blogged about it.

I believe in the secret. Everything I’ve applied it to has worked. But come to think of it these last couple of years it kind-of dropped off my radar. I think, particularly given my recent mishaps in Europe, it’s time to put the secret into action once again.

You DON’T know the secret? Ok, we better start with the basics…

The secret is based on the “law of attraction” – the idea that “like attracts like”. If you think positive, you will get positive. If you think negative then you will get negative.

Simple? Yep. But don’t underestimate its power.

So, for example, if you think to yourself “I need more money” then you will always need more money. But if rather than focusing on the problem of needing more money, you think about the goal of “having more money”, then before you know it you will have more money.

The secret is that if you ask for something, then imagine yourself having that thing, then you will attract the opportunities for this to become your reality.

Where did “the secret” come from? It’s old old old school.

It goes back to pagan days and witch spells. Ties into prayer, chanting, rituals and meditation. Was popular in New Age circles then poplarised is 2006 in a Rhonda Byrne’s book “The Secret” followed by a TV series by that same title.

Ok it starts out a bit gay. Ok ok most of it is a bit gay. But I think it contains some worthwhile ideas. If you disagree maybe you’ll like The Chaser’s War on Everything parody of it:

If, like me, you laugh so hard you cry, dry your eyes and go back to watching the longer version. It’s not a half-bad intro to thinking about the power of your thoughts and feelings, and how they connect to your experiences.

When I first watched “The Secret” I immediately put it to the test. My dreamboard in 2006 read things like “photography”, “yoga”, “pilates teacher”, “learn Spanish”, “go to South America” and “$100,000″.

The opportunity for everything on my list presented itself, much faster than I expected. I became a pilates teacher, a photography assistant and got very into yoga, all in the same year. Did I get $100k? No. But I did get a job offer with a $100k salary. I may turned it down, and realized later that none of these things was what I wanted, but that’s not the point.

My second dreamboard in 2008 read all the things my two friends and I wanted for my time in South America. Once again the opportunity for everything on that list presented itself.

How does one go about explaining this? Coincidence? Positive thinking? Maybe. But could it be something more?

The law of attraction is based on the idea that there is power in words, thoughts, and intentions. There is a power in knowing what you want, asking for it, and noticing then seizing the opportunities to get it when they arise. Expressing gratitude for what you have and developing a clear vision of what life would be like with the things you want – some of the methods they suggest – are useful things to do, whether or not some form of quantum mechanic / spiritual element is involved.

An interesting documentary that ties these ideas to quantum physics is What the Bleep do we know? Down the Rabbit Hole…

An interesting book going into different tests with these ideas is The Intention Experiment which for example describes chickens influencing robots to spend more time closer to their cage.

I’m obviously not going to claim to understand quantum physics. I borrowed a real academic book on it once and didn’t get past page 3. Hundreds of detailed massive complex mathematical equations, all which went straight over my head.

The Double-Slit Experiment is worth watching though, gives a glimpse into the kind of things that happen at quantum levels.

I understand our level of reality has a set of laws that is different to that of the quantum world. We feel solid matter. We sit on chairs without falling through them. Unlike Ewen McGregor at the end of The Men Who Stare at Goats, as far as I know no human can walk through walls.

Still what is to say that every alternative reality doesn’t exist in parallel and you, as the observer, are choosing the reality you get to experience?

When I connect the Law of Attraction with the philosophy of thinkers like Alan Watts and Fritof Capra, ideas I have probably picked up from people like Deepak Chopra and Eckhart Tolle, and from books like The Celestine Prophecy and The Alchemist, and my own experiences, and reminders from people like Mr Porche-CEO-dude-living-in-Hickory, I must conclude that there is something in the Law of Attraction that’s at least worth exploring, and its about time I start to make use of these not-so-secret secrets again.

 

 

Aug 16, 2011 | Categories: Philosophy | 1 Comment »

Synchronicity

Have you ever picked up the phone to call a friend, only to find your friend calling you? Do you notice the moments of “synchronicity” when everything you do happens with ease, green lights all the way, the right song on the radio at just the right time?

What does it mean to be “in sync”? To be “in tune” with each other, or with our selves or even the universe? How do we do it? And why? Or is it just in our minds?

On this TED Talks Steven Strogatz looks into how synchronicity works, not only between living things, but with non-living things too…

 

Have you ever thought about the synchronicity of birds flocking or fish swarming together?

Three rules:

1. individuals are only aware of their nearest neighbours

2. tendency to line up

3. all are attracted to each other, but try to keep a small distance apart

With these rules you see in a computer model how it works…

4. when a predator is coming, get out of the way!

Out of the desire to save themselves, they do what is best for each other.

 

Photo:

So peaceful huh? A moment of synchronicity when I was walking in Pokhara, Nepal, around this time last year.

 

 

May 15, 2011 | Categories: Philosophy | Leave A Comment »

Open the Door (a poem about why I care about our future)

-

I am one, I am many,

I am part of something more

I dream, I wake, I laugh, I cry

I see a door, and I imagine…

-

A shift,

A new direction

From hierarchies, pyramids

To systems, patterns, webs

-

From unchanging objects

To dynamic relationships

From “ego” to “eco”

Farewell fear, embracing change

-

Why do you care?

Confused eyes gaze

What can you do?

Dismissal, a maze

-

Life is short,

At least it seems

I’ve never found happiness

In materials and such things

-

When I wake

I want to feel alive

Have meaning, have a purpose

A reason not yet to die

-

Giving gives more to the giver

I believe this to be true

As time is a gift so

My care for our world too

-

When I look and listen

When I feel, I understand

My fellow beings suffer

At the perils of their own hand

-

Suicide and depression,

Obsession with the unreal

Status, money, vanity

Unconscious ignorant un-bliss

-

Layers of stories

True yet not whole

A leg of the elephant

Much more to learn

-

Blind, I am, to those things

I do not wish to see

The systems, the networks

That connect you to me

-

The truth may hurt

But the pain will go away

That’s the cycle

Creation, destruction, creation

-

The separations, the unity

Each is true

Each has its purpose

As I, and as you

-

Without the land,

The oceans and the trees

Species will perish

Humans to bees

-

This is why I care

Why I look for change

I want to live on

In many different ways

-

What’s through the door?

How to we open it?

I think it’s through LOVE

A love of life: self, other, all.

-

Poem written 30 April 2011.

Photo from a Japanese TV show sometime in 2005.

Apr 30, 2011 | Categories: Philosophy | Leave A Comment »

Putting PEOPLE back into Democracy, and Corporations back in their place

Following my rants on the problems with our current corporatist version of capitalism, Annie Lennox does a much better job at summing up what’s wrong with our current “democracy”, and how it came to be that way:

The programming code in these entities we call “corporations” needs to change. Corporations are not people, and they shouldn’t have any of the freedoms or rights that people have.

We need rules and definitions that work for us, for ALL of us, not just the 1000 greedy bastards at the pyramid’s top.

Corporations should be defined as entities that work for humanity, not the other way around.

The big question is how??? Even if all of us wanted to change the rules of the game, if we all agreed it was time to reprogram these out-of-control machines, what could we do about it?

Has the game overpowered the players? Is that even possible?

People created the rules. People obey the rules. And people can change the rules.

There ain’t no game without the players, and there ain’t no global capitalism without humans.

We need a system that works for the people, and is governed by the people. Isn’t that what democracy is supposed to be about?

See more enlightening clips like this at: http://storyofstuff.org

Apr 13, 2011 | Categories: Philosophy | Leave A Comment »

“Te” – spontaneous creative marvellous accidents

Have you ever noticed that when you over-think something, it all falls apart? Te explains why. Te is ‘the unthinkable ingenuity and creative power of man’s spontaneous and natural functioning.’ Intrigued I continued reading The Way of Zen by Alan Watts.

The centipede was happy, quite,

Until a toad in fun

Said, “Pray, which leg goes after which?”

This worked his mind to such a pitch,

He lay distracted in a ditch,

Considering how to run.

Have you ever thought about how you pump blood through your heart? Have you ever forgotten to breathe? Like the centipede there are a lot of things we do without thinking. The idea of te is that we can ‘become the kind of person who, without intending it, is a source of marvelous accidents’.

You know, like when take a wrong turn but because of your wrong turn you meet a friend you haven’t seen in years, who offers you a new job and changes your life. Why did you take that turn? What a marvelous accident that might be!

How do we learn to make more of such wrong turns?

Taoism describes a path, but not using words. It’s through a different sense, a sixth sense if you like. Like representing a three dimensional object in two dimensions – what we can talk about in words can never be more than a representation.

Lao-tzu says:

Superior te is not te,

and thus has te.

Inferior te does not let go of te,

and thus is not te.

Superior te is non-active [wu-wei] and aimless.

Inferior te is active and has an aim.

Te is a ‘spontaneous virtue which cannot be cultivated or imitated by any deliberate method.’ Virtue in this sense is not a moral virtue, but the good that comes from something like, for example, the ‘healing virtues of a plant’.

We have to learn to ‘let our minds alone’. We have to let our minds function integrated with our surroundings, without trying. It can’t depend on rules or laws – this becomes ‘conventional’ rather than ‘genuine’.

So stop thinking, listen with your body, and simply be.

References:

Alan Watts, The Way of Zen, (London: Arkana, 1990). p 45 and 47.

 

Apr 11, 2011 | Categories: Philosophy | Leave A Comment »

Chomsky vs Foucault: On Peace & Justice

Chomsky and Foucault are two foundational modern and postmodern figures in the critique of “structures” of our society – from language to government to institutions – and analyzing whose has the “agency” to maintain or change these structures.

This is a debate between the two thinkers, who have very different ideas about structure and agency, and about the ideas of peace, justice, and oppression.

Part 1

Part 2

Chomsky has what is thought of as a “Modernist” or “Structuralist” perspective, holding that there is some common human objective and absolute definition of justice, goodness, and kindness.

Foucault on the other hand is thought of as more “Postmodernist” or “Poststructuralist”, believing that these definitions are always and entirely relative.

Knowledge from a postmodernist point of view is completely (might we cheekily say, “absolutely”) inseparable from the oppressive structures so that our definitions of peace and justice are in fact part of the oppressive structure and play a role in maintaining them.

Who is right, who is wrong?

Is, as Foucault argues, the “very notion of justice itself functions within a society of classes as a claim made by the oppressed class and as a justification for it”?

Or is there, as Chomsky defends, some kind of inner absolute notion that we may not be able to properly define, and yet that we all somehow share?

It’s a debate that has been going for millennium. Most of us have a modern or postmodern worldview – or some kind of mix of the two.

It’s a question of one Truth or many truths.

Some of us are likely to be on one end of the continuum upholding the idea of an objective truth (and hence some kind of objective definitions of peace and justice), while others might hold that all truth is relative (and hence our definitions of peace and justice are also relative).

I personally think the middle ground isn’t navigated enough, although I feel Chomsky in this clip is trying to get to it.

On one hand, like Foucault has emphasised, our entire way of thinking is based on our education and societal experiences. All our ideas, including that of peace and justice, are completely inseparable from these structures. Science, Philosophy, Religion and Culture – all our ideas and stories can be traced back to the beginnings of our recorded history, back to the “Ancient” cultures of Sumer, Egypt, Babylon and Greece. Everything that we know or think has a long  ”ancient” history of their own.

Our experience of reality is entirely socially constructed, and entirely relative.

And as Foucault points out, most of this construction has been designed by power-hungry beings, greedy, hierarchical, and tailoring “knowledge” and definitions of “justice” or what is “normal” and “good” for their own benefit.

But does that mean we should throw our hands in the air and forget about peace and justice? On this point I agree with Chomsky.

I think after we acknowledge our definitions are relative and based on partial knowledge, we can’t escape our own embodiment to this structure and hence we need to work within it toward some kind of vision of future.

There seems to be some common and objective Reality that we all share, and experienced via our own unique reality. We will never share the same experience of that Reality, so we can only ever know a relative version of it.

The more capacity we have to critically reflect on our views, and their historical and cultural context, the more likely we can learn from the past and create a better future.

So, in conclusion, I think Chomsky and Foucault make points that work together like yin and yang: we need to hold some definition of peace and justice as tentative, acknowledging its relative limitations. We need to strive toward our ideals while never stopping to question, discuss and revise their meanings.

Apr 02, 2011 | Categories: Philosophy | Leave A Comment »

A small group of people can change the world

“A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that has.” Margaret Mead.

This quote came from the RSA clip below: The Enlightenment in the 21st Century.

The two questions I took from this are:

Where are we NOW, how’d we GET HERE, and where do we wanna GO next?

and

Who ARE we, who do we NEED to be, and who might we ASPIRE to be?

As the current ruling species on this planet that, in my opinion, are not such a bad bunch most of the time, or at least some of the time we’re not so bad… I think these are important questions to ask.

Mar 24, 2011 | Categories: Philosophy | Leave A Comment »

The Pleasure of the Text: Sites of Bliss

“If I read this sentence, this story, or this word with pleasure, it is because they were written in pleasure.” If anyone has written with pleasure, creating sentences that are near-orgasmic for the reader, it is Roland Barthes. The first time I picked up one of his books, called The Pleasure of the Text, I was encapsulated in it, aroused by a dead guy talking about words:

“In perversion (which is the realm of textual pleasure) there are no “erogenous zones” (a foolish expression, besides); it is intermittence, as psycholanalysis has so rightly stated, which is erotic: the intermittence of skin flashing between two articles of clothing (trousers and sweater,), between two edges (the open-necked shirt, the glove and the sleeve); it is this flash itself which seduces, or rather: the staging of an appearance as disappearance.”

He captures the little truths we rarely admit aloud:

“We do not read everything with the same intensity of reading; a rhythm is established, casual, unconcerned with the integrity of the text; our very avidity for knowledge impels us to skim or to skip certain passages (anticipated as “boring”) in order to get more quickly to the warmer parts of the anecdote… we boldly skip (no one is watching) descriptions, explanations, analyses, conversations … the author can not predict tmesis: he cannot choose to write what will not be read. And yet, it is the rhythm of what is read and what is not read that creates the pleasure of great narratives: has anyone ever read Proust, Balzac, War and Peace, word for word? (Proust’s good fortune: from one reading to the next we never skip the same passages).”

I think maybe that’s why I bold the most important stuff in my blog. Put your hand anyone who reads every word?

Yesterday I stumbled across another couple of Barthes’ books. This one from 1977, A Lover’s Discourse, unmasks the words lovers say, and the feelings that live behind them.

He describes the ‘socially irresponsible’ words “I-love-you” that ‘does not transmit a meaning, but fastens onto a limit situation’ and which most of the time one says in hope of hearing the words returned.

He talks about the suspense incurred during the ‘absence of the loved object’ which ‘tends to transform to an ordeal of abandonment’ and ‘the sigh for bodily presence’.

He talks about jealousy, saying it is ‘ugly, is bourgeois: it is an unworthy fuss, a zeal’.

He talks about contact, ‘when my finger accidentally…’ how one in love ‘creates meaning, always and everywhere, out of nothing, and it is meaning which thrills him: he is in the crucible of meaning. Every contact, for the lover, raises the question of an answer: the skin is asked to reply.’

He talks about being ‘in love with love‘.

He talks about the desire to be engulfed, be it in ‘woe or well-being’ – a craving for the intensity of the ‘outburst of annihilation which affects the amorous subject in despair or fulfillment.’

Agree with his opinions or  not, they are written in a way one can’t help be wooed into reading just a little more.

And so, as I edit the book I wrote long ago, I will try to follow Barthes’ advice and ‘seek out this reader (must cruise him) without knowing where he is…’ and from there try to create with words ‘a site of bliss.’

Mar 18, 2011 | Categories: Philosophy | Leave A Comment »

Critical Discourse Analysis

Critical Discourse Analysis is a study of LANGUAGE, IDEOLOGY, POWER and SOCIAL CHANGE. ‘Discourse analysis is not a “level” of analysis as, say, phonology or lexico-grammar, but an exploration of how “texts” at all levels work within sociocultural practices,’ says Candlin in the Preface to Fairclough. If you didn’t already gauge from the title then take this as your warning: this entry contains high levels of academic language. It is also disjointed and includes a lot of quotes (because I’m lazy).

‘One crucial condition for social interaction in general and talk in particular is that people understand each other. This is possible only if we assume that social members have socially shared interpretation procedures for social actions, for example, categories, rules and strategies.’ (Dijk, 1985:2)

Critical Discourse Analysis is one of the “tools” I mentioned a few entries ago that can be useful for understanding the “taken for granted” systems of knowledge that we use in order to communicate. As such it helps us view the world in a more reflexive way – which not only makes people watching more interesting, it empowers us to interact with our reality in new and wonderful ways…

Critical Discourse Analysis involves looking at the “texts” that make up our realities, questioning their assumptions, identifying underlying ideologies, the connection between language and social-institutional practices, and how these connect to formation and maintenance of power structures (like The Pyramid).

These so-called “texts” range from books to movies, TV commercials, news stories, dinner conversations, education, parent-child relations, business meetings, and jokes. A “text” in this context is anything involving a communicative language – verbal and non-verbal.

Learning about this tool illuminates the ginormous impact that “texts” that surround us have on our lived experiences; how they operate as the key forces behind both maintaining status quo structures, and the initiation of social change.

Critical Discourse Analysis is intended to ‘critique some of the premises and the constructs underlying mainstream studies in sociolinguistics, conversational analysis and pragmatics, to demonstrate the need of these sub-disciplines to engage with social and political issues of power and hegemony in a dynamic and historically informed manner… to re-engage with central constructs of power and knowledge, and above all, ideology, to question what is this “real world” of social relations in institutional practices that is represented linguistically.’ (Fairclough, 1995:viii)

Critical Discourse Analysis might look at labels like “terrorist” and “counter-terrorist”, or “ally” and “enemy”… and examine not only the term, but how it is used by different people in different ways. The definition and use of terms such as these are clearly dependent upon which side you are on.

Take for example this funny clip:

What might this tell us about the propaganda techniques of Neo-Conservatives? Or could this clip itself be propaganda against them?

So… what does Critical Discourse Analysis involve?

Dijk explains that ‘a typical ethnographical analysis of speech events features, for example, a description of the discourse genre, the overall delimination, social function, or label of the whole speech event, the topic (theme or reference), the setting (time and physical environment), the different categories for participants, the purpose of the interaction, the type of code (spoken, written, etc.), the lexicon and the semantics, the grammar (also at the discourse level), the sequences of acts (both verbal and nonverbal), and the underlying rules, norms or strategies for the actions or the whole event… And even this enumeration is not complete.’ (Dijk, 1985:9)

‘The method of discourse analysis includes linguistic description of the language text, interpretation of the relationship between the (productive and interpretative) discursive processes and the social processes.’ (Fairclough, 1995:97)

Fairclough refers to Mandel (1978) to describe the “postmodernist” features of “late capitalist” discourse that includes “post-traditional relationships” with relationships based upon authority in decline, both in the public and personal domain, for example, when it comes to kinship and self-identity ‘rather than being a feature of given positions and roles’ they are ‘reflexively build up through a process of negotiation’. Also the development of a “promotional” and “consumer” culture – with our strong emphasis on market and consumption rather than production. It is difficult not to be involved oneself in promoting because it’s part of so many people’s jobs and because it self-promotion is now part of our personal identity. (Fairclough, 1995:137-8).

Fairclough is calling for a critical social and historical turn. ‘It would seem vital that people should become more aware and more self-aware about language and discourse. Yet levels of awareness are very low. Few people have even an elementary metalanguage for talking about and thinking about such issues. A critical awareness of language and discursive practices is, I suggest, becoming a prerequiste for democratic citizenship, and an urgent priority for language education in than the majority of the population (certainly of Britain) are so far form having achieved it.’ (Fairclough, 1995:140).

Textual analysis involves two complementary types of analysis: linguistic and intertextual – that are a ‘necessary complement’ to each other.

‘Whereas linguistic analysis shows how texts selectively draw upon linguistic systems (again, in an extended sense), intertextual analysis shows how texts selectively draw upon orders of discourse – the particular configurations of conventionalised practices (genres, discourses, narratives, etc.) which are available to text producers and interpreters in particular circumstances…’ (Fairclough, 1995:188)

Texts are dependent on society and history in the form of the resources available but intertextual analysis is dynamic and dialectical in that the texts themselves can ‘transform these social and historical resources,’ “re-accentuate” genres and mix genres in texts. ‘Language is always simultaneously constitutive of (i) social identities, (ii) social relations and (iii) systems of knowledge and belief – though with different degrees of salience in different cases.’ (Fairclough, 1995:131)

Fairclough suggests developing “Critical Language Awareness” (CLA). It is important to try to increase the reflexive capacity of individuals.

Fairclough describes education as not only ‘a key domain of linguistically mediated power’ but is also a ‘site for reflection upon and analysis of the sociolinguistic order and the order of discourse’ by equipping learners with a critical language awareness as a ‘resource for intervention in and the reshaping of discursive practices and the power relations that ground them, both in other domains and within education itself.’ (1995:217)

With mass media generally acknowledged as the ‘single most important social institution in bringing off these processes in contemporary societies’ Fairclough recognises that ‘we also live in an age of great change and instability in which the forms of power and domination are being radically reshaped, in which changing cultural practices are a major constituent of social change which in many cases means to a significant degree changing discursive practices, changing practices of language use.’ (1995:219)

I think its encouraging to remember that society and culture are ALWAYS changing, language is ALWAYS evolving, and power structures are ALWAYS shifting. And I suppose we should be thankful that developed capitalist countries exercise their power typically through ‘consent rather than coercion’, ‘ideology rather than through physical force’ and through ‘the inculcation of self-disciplining principles rather than through the breaking of skulls’. If I’m going to be controlled, I definitely prefer it to be in this way.

---

References:

Norman Fairclough, Critical Discourse Analysis : The Critical Study of Language (London ; New York: Longman, 1995).

Dijk, Teun Adrianus van, Handbook of Discourse Analysis Book 3, (London ; Orlando: Academic Press, 1985).

Picture:

Taken from Fairclough (1995) p. 135.

Mar 03, 2011 | Categories: Philosophy | 1 Comment »