Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 16:32:14 -0700 (PDT) From: Lewis Vella <lewisvella-AT-yahoo.com> Subject: THE EXISTENTIAL TIMES - v.1, #11 (May/15/02) THE EXISTENTIAL TIMES 'A Philosophical(?)View from Scratch' Volume 1, #11 _________________________________________________ MUSIC PICK OF THE WEEK: Abysis Projects http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheExistentialTimes/message/404 __________________________________________________ AND ONWARD TO THE BIGGER PICTURE: In the previous Special McNugget Issue I featured an excerpt from Andre Gorz's 'Ecology as Politics'. What should be reiterated about his view, I believe, is that any eco-political stance, however good its intentions, cannot in itself solve our most serious problems if it does not address the leading culprit, that being a growth-oriented economy, be it based in either a capitalistic or socialistic structure. Until this type of economy stops dominating modern society as a whole, no amount of repair or replenishment of the environment will suffice. Simply put, expansion cannot go on forever. Whether imposed by man's own decision or by nature's limitations, a growth-oriented economy must eventually come to an end, and if we wait for the latter, more than likely, we shall end with it. What is needed now is a fundamental change in ideology, an understanding which will foster the making of self-contained societies that can subsist with neither the exploitation of man nor that of the earth. Mere political battles fought over whether a certain rainforest should be torn down or not, is not going to do much in terms of solving the overall dilemma. In fact, by over-emphasizing any particular ecological issue, at the expense of failing to derive a workable synthesis of our existence, the prevailing understanding of society will remain so biased that it will continue ceaselessly to accept and promote the unethical practices inherent in growth-oriented economies, instead of working together to overcome them, which we, as rational humans, should be capable of doing. What is most important nowadays, I think, is that we do not lose our individual selves to any of the various specialized sectors that are required of modern society, but rather that we maintain our individual freedom within the infrastructure, that is by continuously questioning our place in it, and how the status quo affects not only our present individual and collective liberties but our future ones as well. This means when surveying a growth-oriented economy, we must not only consider its ecological issues, but also the more immediate affects on human nature itself. For man is not only a creature of reason, he also has a transcendent element which he needs to remain in touch with. If he loses that, the resulting intrinsic harm done to his faculties will outweigh any of the good he derives by reason alone. To recall Karl Jaspers in 'Way to Wisdom': "Man as an empirical existent in the world is a knowable object. For example: ethnology apprehends him in diverse racial types, psychoanalysis apprehends him in his unconscious and its workings, Marxism as a living creature producing by his labour, who by production dominates nature and achieves social progress, and who can ostensibly achieve perfection in both these respects." (Note: should you delete the word 'Marxism' from the passage which was written by Jaspers in '51, you can almost use these same ideals and apply them to what the 'Global Capitalism' and its powers that be would like the rest of the world to believe in now, that being that the technocratic state, with all its departments of knowledge, shall forever improve the ecological relationship with our means of production, thereby allowing us more and more social progress. For such believe brushes aside the most important question of how this stabilization is to be achieved, when this growth-oriented economy of ours is dependent on many of the earth's dwindling resources which, presently, are being irreparably damaged, drained, or permanently destroyed, never ever to be regained. Rather conveniently, too, it seems this contrived onus of placing long-term responsibility on the established other -- the technocratic state whose dominating concerns favors immediate profits first -- relieves the common man of his burden, allowing his daily life to go on hardly disturbed, though not simply because the problem is not his immediate concern, but rather because it is to be left virtually out of his reach.) "Yet," to continue with Jaspers, "all such departments of knowledge apprehend something about man, some process which actually takes place, but never man as a whole. When these methods of inquiry lay claim to to absolute knowledge of the whole man -- and this they have all done -- they lose sight of the real man and go far toward extinguishing their proponent's consciousness of man and even their own humanity, the humanity which is freedom and relation to God." This neglect of the whole, I think, is the world's biggest problem today, and it seems to only get worse in our pluralistic society, wherein anything goes as long as it remains within the restraints of secular law and order -- a tendency which now seems to serve more the interests of the growth-oriented economy than the individual, leaving the problem of personal identity to oneself or some private institutions. The net result of this lack of free independent development integrating with society, is that people divest themselves of their uniqueness, preferring, instead, to conform to the seemingly proven standard ways to success. However, because these are strictly quantifiable, goal-oriented successes, they again will lack the adequate synthesis required to fulfill most people, leaving us with the kind of empty 'success stories' I described in the previous TIMES. An interesting discussion of how the marketplace presently shapes and possibly alienates our everyday life-world is presently in progress on the Sartre list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sartre/message/4181 ___________________________________________________ HUMOR IN THE SPONTANEOUS AND ABSURD I should like to clarify that in my lambaste of stand-up comedy, I was reflecting on the making of the current popular commercial genre by yet another service industry gone to excess. The result being a packaged product dished out to the masses in greater and greater variety, but less and less substantial content. All of which no longer makes me laugh or even engages my interest, basically because even if something remotely funny should be conceived in it, it is at once lost in the overly-staged delivery and reception. In no way were my comments intended to be taken as an attack on anything genuinely funny, as C. Bobo obviously took them, that is to have stated that I reminded him of a fictional character who, as a result of some mal-adjusted rationality, would rather destroy the world than to accept the idea that wisdom presupposes the ability to appreciate humor: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheExistentialTimes/message/392 Indeed, when we observe the mundane and ordinary we find a lot more there that is funny, and in such a greater way, than most anything intended to make us laugh. For instance, to watch the wind blow away someone's hat from within the owner's reach, repeatedly and without mercy, this, to me, outweighs comically any possible contrived punch line. To tap into this type of eternal humor, and present it with some kind of original, authentic twist, however, requires a level of genius which may even be impossible to retain once it has been reached. Arguably, we find this in the art of Charlie Chaplin, some of the great comedy teams that followed him, and, more recently, perhaps in the early films of Woody Allan, who, incidentally, I've been told, names Schopenhauer as one of his influences. Of course, there is also the tragic element in comedy, which, in the last century, made a definitive entrance in the theater of the absurd, such as in the works of Ionesco and Beckett -- an excellent essay on 'Waiting for Godot', by Michael Sinclair, can be read at the link below: http://home.sprintmail.com/~lifeform/godot.txt Yet, as art and life at a certain level always crosses over each other, we need only, at any time, take a closer look amongst us, to dare witness the tragic-comic side of humanity: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheExistentialTimes/message/402 The sometimes-irksome, sometimes-welcomed hoot, snort, chuckle, chortle, guffaw, or burst into hysterics leads us to the question: Why laughter? To relieve the pain, maybe? Perhaps. But that, ultimately, carries us to the more serious proposition: To Laugh or Not to Laugh?: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheExistentialTimes/message/403 ____________________________________________________ McTHOUGHTS ON CENSORSHIP AND PHENOMENOLOGY My so-called "trip to the porn house", or, at least, the previous TIMES issue that featured it, might have since spawned two thoughtful threads. First, from the Nietzsche List at the Spoon Collective: "IS THERE ANY WAY WE CAN EXPEL THIS NIEMAN-MARXIST?": http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheExistentialTimes/message/410 Second, from the CreativeGarh list owner, Arun, and myself, after the TIMES was not approved for distribution on the alleged "SEX-FREE FORUM", which lists 963 members and claims to provide a platform for creative people to inform of, display, discuss, and sell ideas and creative services/talent to each other: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheExistentialTimes/message/411 Copyright: 2002 Lewis Vella THE EXISTENTIAL TIMES is registered trademark of the author/publisher, Lewis Vella, a member on the various ML's sited below. MAILING LISTS carrying THE TIMES are listed at the following link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheExistentialTimes/message/390 COMMENTS pertaining to THE EXISTENTIAL TIMES' contents should be forwarded appropriately to any one of the ML's listed at the link above. 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