Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 21:41:04 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: MODERNISM?


Jukka,  I'm very disappointed in you.

If there is anything Hegelian about my commentary it is purely
unconscious, since my views on modernism have nothing to do with
anything I might think about Hegel or Hegelianism.  This is my
long-standing viewpoint.  I usually don't express it in quite this
language, and perhaps my language is beginning to be influenced by
a certain kind of discourse.

As to the coherence of the self, I don't know what your problem
is, but I'm thinking in practical terms and not just academic
terms.  Coherence is more of an ideal than a fully realized
phenomenon.  Coherence is what we achieve when we gain some sense
of who we are.  How many ordinary people get the opportunity to
really do this?   Your remarks don't seem to have much relation to
things I care about, and I wonder why.   Is this the academic
syndrome?  Do you think I am just playing with concepts?  I do not
spend my daily life with intellectuals, and my entirely argument
is based on a lifetime of observations of  people in real life.  I
come from a very provincial background.  It takes a lot of  effort
to overcome the limitations of one's environment and to discover
one's own real self-worth.  The intellectuals are bored with
themselves and their society, so they think everybody else should
be as bored by life as they are.  I don't agree.  I'm interested
in the development of people.  Aren't you?


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