Chris,

Very kind of you to run through these traces in Husserl, Nietsche and then
the Heidegger and even the Goedel (I love Goedel!), all of which are
complicated (tho a good exercise to run through on side questions like this
if you are preparing for any other work using this set of ideas/authors).
Philosophical readings do leave one drained--and even the worse for it, too,
since so few others can realize the difficulty because so few train in this
field.  It would be the comprehensive field yet so few are literate in
it--terrible irony in it, then.

You are so right, I think, to trace (forgive the over encompassing conceit
and anecdotal tangent, here, please) things back through those particular
branches of this heavy-limbed epistemological tree--anecdotally,
imagistically, it immediately made me think of the apple trees in New York
state, around Lake Ontario where I grew up: so sad each year to watch when
they would get very heavy. The limbs could not possibly hold all the fruit,
so they broke terribly, or were hastily supported by man-made splints and
other contraptions. And to put it more clinically, they would break not with
the same sound they have in winter ice storms (a clear cut crack and break
and fall [sap having drained down]), but in August breaks, full of juice and
flow, terribly full of waste (unless someone could respond quicky, save at
least the fruit), the tree unable to hold all that has been lucky enough to
grow there unpruned, ungleaned/unpicked, unwisely left to its own design--of
loss--excess is so dangerous!  

So really, I go off on this tangent only to say that this is some of the
most burdensome of the mind's work, to read philosophy hoping to trace out a
discernible path that can then be explained and expanded upon.  These quotes
that fly by online, like the one I found, are excess--they are wonderful but
almost make the pursuit of knowledge worse--perhaps I should not have sent
it to the list.   Except it is pertinent.  I am so grateful for the
consideration.  And that it gave you reason to think forward to look for
connections.   

Now: that "will to stupidity" of N's, in combination with "self reflexive
shame" will indeed devastate what remains of the Cartesian subject. Many
will say that is a good or a productive thing, no?  That PR has got ahold of
it before critical thinkers have had a chance to realize or work with it,
is, however, a big problem for intelligent critical consciousness.  en
masse.  even worse.  But that is a PR dream.  It does seem a triple layered
form of the so-called 'double-bind'from the perspective of the uninitiated.
Worse because, how in hell are we to make it clear to students?!--in that
few minutes of their lives when there are windows we can open on their
little Bachelard houses?  Ayy-mii!   

Well, all this is something to think deeply on, yes, and to continue to
theorize--but of course also to continue relating as specifically as
possible to practices of everyday life, I believe.  Theorize, not least
because it adds unaccountable pressures, raises the stakes in the larger
machine.  

But then, isn't this also part of the symptomatic response a PR innundation
would expect and cultivate?  Can we ever hope to escape its whole cloth
hegemony for even one little cotton corner or thread?  Damn, I hope so.

In the end, I guess I'm putting my faith in comic humor to stir things up
continually, even if it is just the first point of entry--it is also the
last gate in critical consciousness.

Chris, a few months ago it was a terrible summer heat-spell here too, and my
air conditioning was out (at least we have it--when it works--and I hope you
have some there).  So stay cool over there--maybe read some winter tales?--I
know, bad joke, sorry.   

I'm most grateful for this exchange and all the resources.

Best, 

Chris Murray
http://www.texfiles.blogspot.com  



 

-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and
poetics
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: 12/13/2003 1:16 AM
Subject: Re: media and control

Chris, 

that was a very interesting quote to send. I have been reading too much
so my eyesight is failing me right now and the temperature is hovering
just over a hundred F... don't know if my comments will make sense but
here goes.

First, the aspect of the media referred to would be called public
relations. It is interesting to note the distinction between what is
real and fiction fundamental to Husserl's phenomenology is lost. This
would fit in with Silvan Tomkin theory of self consciousness as shame.
What triggers shame is the positive affect of interest which then
becomes self reflexive shame. I have just gone back and scampered over
Husserl and what becomes interesting in responding to this is also the
moral imperative to separate reality and fiction and taking this
approach would again collapse the phenomenological distinction. A sort
of
repetition is invoked or what Nietzsche may call a will to stupidity.
(Basically this is very much how PR works...)

Anyways, too exhausted to say much more of interest. Doing philosophical
readings is a really tiring thing.... (even scampered over Heidegger and
Gödel.)

best wishes

Chris Jones




On Wed, 2003-12-10 at 20:35, Christine Murray wrote:
> All,
> 
> I think this Paul Auster quote from an interview with George Plimpton
(a
> quote I gleaned from
> 
> http://www.rinsal.net/johnmost
> 
> which is poet John Most's blog, Fluss),
> 
> says a lot I can agree with and think necessary to explore when
teaching:
> 
> ". . .The media presents us with little else but celebrities, gossip,
and
> scandal, and the way we depict ourselves on television and in the
movies has
> become so distorted, so debased, that real life has been forgotten.
What
> we're given are violent shocks and dim-witted escapist fantasies, and
the
> driving force behind it all is money. People are treated like morons.
. ."
> 
> The driving forces, however, are not only money: there is a big
emotive,
> thus psychological, payoff to these glittery, wishful genres--a kind
of easy
> gratification in mind (much discussed in recent theories of the
subject,
> popular culture, and desire), resulting in something of a dulling down
of
> desire and imagination, for many.  Such is equally intangible and at
least
> as alarming as the money-forces as potential payoff.
> 
> In a classroom situation, it should be a fairly simple matter to
demonstrate
> and confirm these things and a certain amount of critical edge if not
> outright alarm about many avenues of media influence.  Not so.  Many
> students remain enamored of these very pathetic (literally: as in
pathos)
> appeals to their critical faculties, yet seem not to realize it.  Or
they
> seem unalarmed living within the daily, ongoing, impact of such
influence.
> 
> Then again, many seem weary of it, too.  But when asked, even they are
> surprisingly *unable to imagine* what other things might take up the
same
> amount of interest and mindful investment.
> 
> Then there are the ones who never watch TV or listen to other media.
They
> are barely heard, but do have alternative perspectives.
> 
> I wonder how prepared they are and how as teachers in this area we can
show
> them continuous and somewhat rewarding ways of being critical of these
> influences.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Chris Murray
-- 
Chris Jones <[log in to unmask]>