Date: Tue, 11 Nov 1997 11:49:37 +0200 (EET)
Subject: re:tv...


Some short ones...

Justin: "You're joking, right? Ayd Rand was a white Russian ..."

Sort of. I've never really realized how big Rand was/is in USA, so
thanks for clarification!


"You don't have the Rand phenomenon in Finland, I gather."

No, we don't. Seems she's just coming there among other libertarianism
- sort of shift from franks to libertarianism has been on the way
recently, I guess.


Chris: "Actually, I was told that that program would be airing today;
but being from Brooklyn, New York... I have not seen it, heard it, and
have no idea how much they edited OUT --  The program was the
beginning of a six-part series, "In the Absence of God," and I'd be
interested to know from Jukka how the first installment was!"

Yes, it got out late monday evening. I saw only last few minutes -
wasn't much concerned with that kind of absence... In your telephone
interview you explained the basics of Rand's thinking, then one studio
guest made a question, you answered - cut. Perhaps four or five
minutes in toto?

Basically the program seemed to be of political philosophy. At least
the studio guests concentrated on it - discussion on Kant and Hegel
was quite shallow. Russian guest (don't know his name) tried obviously
to explain the significance of german idealism to contemporary russian
phil. but - as one studio guest said, "Kant was an irrationalist
dummie" (!!!) - somehow failed. Finns haven't been very keen to german
idealism recently (reminds too mucho marxism-leninism, I guess),
except to Heildegger. Fichte was also mentioned, and if there were any
references to Schelling they were earlier. I didn't catched any. The
point with contemporary Russians seems to be the age-old insistence on
both intelligence and emotion (as if emotions are thinking): "western
phil." is called 'cold rationalism', or somesuch. Today old,
long-repressed theosophical and such sort of religious and mystical
imaginary is in the process of being re-vitalized in Russia, and the
phenomenon also finds expression in philosophy. However, Russian
philosopher in that particular program wasn't in to mysticism, but
simply tried to clarify the relation between the ground, on which
consciousness and rationality are based, and higher mental functions.
Or so it seemed to me.

Actually, the reason I lost the Absence prograam was another
discussion where one of the contemporary top finn philosophers was on
the theme 'memoirs from the sixties and seventies'. He made some good
observations on the nature of stalinism (rich kids' fashion) but
partly misinterpreted the eighties as "back to basics". Here in
Jyvaskyla we, "Reunion - Free Left", tried to establish a unified left
(or what was left of it then) but obviously failed: soc.dems never
joined the 'movement' and last half dozen stalinoids also avoided our
call. Reunion was continuation to seventies' "third line" of popular
democratics and communists. "Third liners" tried to unify CP but
failed, got kicked out of party or left it frustrated, and some key
figures of them began then studying philosophy and politics. My tutor
was one of them, and he drew me to emerging Reunion. Group was the
largest one in student organization's council for several years (I
never even tried to run to council but I was appointed to one
comission or somesuch). At times it almost had majority in council...
Local student's newspaper (edited by reunionists) was the best in the
country, factually one of the very best papers in general for years:
actual, 'deep', critical, on the nerve of the society. But we never
managed to become a nation-wide movement, not to mention a general
political movement. Soc-dems, CP and strong labour unions were
dreaming in their castles at that time that nothing will change...
Reunion soon lost its spirit and was finally canceled. What a failure.
It was only in nineties that pop.dems and the last communists united
as Left Union (literal translation) without much succes. Commies
brought their own old troubles (ex-revisionists vs ex-stalinists) into
LU...

Sorry for side step. Basically the absence program tried to made sense
of what's going on in Russian thinking now, I guess.

I didn't catched any references to specialties of Petersburg -
petersburgers have visited Jyvaskyla in recent years, and the youngest
of them made his dissertation few years ago on 'phil. of blood'. It
caused a minor struggle back in Petersburg and for awhile it seemed it
wouldn't be accepted as a doctoral diss. Guy simply tried to analyze
the blood as a metaphor in phil. and pol. discourses - he wasn't into
fascism. I don't know exactly what they're trying to do. I was at the
first meeting with them because Werner Stegmaier, a
Nietzsche-researcher, was there, but I wasn't particularly interested
in what Stegmeier, petersburgers, and one local are trying to do.

Jukka