Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 09:52:08 -0500
Subject: RE: terms


>               Hugh wrote:
>
>    
>
>   More and more I realize that reading philosophy is
>   not a substitute for physical experience, although
>   it has its uses, which are, as you say,
>   language-limited.  Yes, reading philosophy can
>   further the goal of understanding, and understanding
>   can be a great satisfaction. 
>
>  Hugh,

    More and more I realize that reading philosophy or 
anything else is less a matter of collecting information for 
the purposes of precise recall than for influencing oneself 
intellectually, emotionally, and even physically, indirectly, 
or importantly, in ways that are not readily apparent to 
conscious reasoning.  

Eric writes:  

>   One of the things that attracts me to ancient
>   philosophy, especially that of the Epicureans,
>   Stoics, and Cynics, is that for them philosophy was
>   a good deal more than theory. It had everything to
>   do with how one lived one's life. Philosophy back
>   then was a viable and respectable alternative to
>   religion and god.
>
>
>   I am still trying to figure how to do this today
>   since we live in a time when economics forces us to
>   live against our inclinations.  I just read a quote
>   where someone said - to be socialist means to favor
>   the social over economics.

While this last point may be true, it is also true, at least 
to Fredric Jameson, that to be socialist means to favor 
economic concerns over political ones.  Maybe the words 
social and economic are more synonymous in some philosophies 
than in others.  
>    
>
>   I admit I personally find it difficult to live
>   `heroically' outside the pressures of the kind of
>   world economics dictates and, yet, I feel profoundly
>   conflicted and even Kafkaesque, living within such a
>   world.  My only hope is that others younger than me
>   will find the strength to resist this world more
>   than I have. 

Finding the strength to resist is one thing.  The motivation 
to resist is another.  
   
>    
>
>   I sometimes feel like a canary inside a golden cage
>   trapped inside a coal mine.  In times like these,
>   every song echoes death.  
>
>   eric

Not to put too fine a point on it, but life, indeed, echoes 
death.  And death in life (blind, obedient, complacent 
conformity) often appears so much easier and more comfortable 
than resistance... or reflexivity, from which, I believe, the 
motive to resist must spring. 

don