So, while the William Buckley clan is pounding me below for my critical post on McCain and Palin, I am offering this new post for my intellectual, liberal, humanities-loving friends… all two of you (Meghan and Jason). As a 24-year-old grad student, I think it is apropos for me to share my wisdom with the world. So here it goes….
PROVERBS: SAGACITY IN PAIRS (or Paris, an acceptable Freudian slip)
There are only two “disciplines” worthy of study:
Philosophy and Literature
There are only two theories that make sense of our Western existence:
Marxism and Existentialism
There are only two narratives that best interpret history, religion, and belief:
Power and Ideology
There are only two motivations and explain our actions:
Passion and Despair
Finally,
There are only two things that are totally absurd:
Violence and Love
THE END
Oh, here’s a freebie; there are only two majors worth doing at Northwest University:
Religion/Philosophy and English!
Oh, and since I mentioned William Buckley earlier, check out this debate from the sixties where Buckley gets trashed by Chomsky over Vietnam and U.S. imperialism!
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I wonder if apathy is born of passion or despair. Exhausted passion or exacerbated despair.
WHY IS LOVE ABSURD
Or
More importantly
IS ABSURDITY A QUALITY THAT THEREBY NEGATES THE RELEVANCE OF THE QUANTITY IT DESCRIBES
What if you love violently? What if you commit violence lovingly? Aren’t those two of the most interesting scenarios possible? And am I an absurd person to love wholeheartedly?
Someone’s bass is thumping ALL FOUR WALLS of my house.
This is a very interesting subject and I have some thoughts, but right now I must study Calculus…
I agree whole heartedly with the first of your absolutes. If, by philosophy, you are including the study of logic -which you must be- and thus math and also all sciences. All studies truly can be reduced to these two disciplines.
I am slightly confused at your second statement, however. Or, atleast am wondering what logic you used to arrive at this conclusion. This is due to the fact that -as far as I’ve studied- existentialism can basically be reduced to a few simple concepts, one of them being the relativity of truth. If truth is relative, there are no absolutes. Thus you can not say that the ONLY two theories that make sense of our western existence are Marxism and Existentialism. It is an absolute.
Ugg, I must be off to history. I’ll finish later.
I’m not making any absolutes. And no, I was not including math, science, and logic into “philosophy.” They might be connected as products of rational inquiry, and relevant to the study of nature, but completely irrelevant when it comes to what really matters as humans.
Second, I do not use any logic to come to any of my statements. Logic is founding on circular reasoning and is completely bound to arbitrary human language. Thus, when I make an ‘objective’ claim, I am not adhering to objective TRUTH, but rather using the universal laws of language to communicate things “logically”.
Yes, I can say that there are only two theories, because that is what I believe and I am saying it through my perspective, not through some objective a priori means. I don’t care of what I say can be objectively proven, for what is that worth? Why should we reduce all meaning and relation to mathematics? Why do we want to rationally penetrate and manipulate the world into something “reasonable” or “calculable?” – that is Enlightenment, and that is my enemy. Reason and logic are power, nothing else.
O POWER I LOVE YEW
Beautifully articulated, but if this is all true, then why despise the Enlightenment? Why despise anything? If you are consistent with your claims, then no ideology is truly better than any other. And upon this foundation, I find no other reason for making enemies other than to be absolutely frivolous. Of course, in the case of existentialism, there is nothing wrong with being frivolous for the sake of frivolity, but I don’t think that this is your intention.
We may have to clarify what we mean by ‘ideology’ here… I have been using it in the strict Marxist sense, but I think I know what you mean. No, they are not all the same… some are better than others, but I am simply not appealing to an objective system to validate my reasoning for selection of one ‘ideology’ over the other. Only an absolutist can make such a totalizing judgment, meaning, “either there is absolute truth or there is no truth” or “either there is one valid ideology or every ideology is equal” – I’m trying to escape that totalizing logic. The Enlightenment did do some good things for humanity, but it perhaps has done more damage than we think. It gave us science, which gave us modern medicine, but also nuclear technology… we can now heal people and kill people more efficiently than ever before.
That is hard to swallow because more people live longer, healthier (physical) lives, as a result of advances from occasions like the Enlightenment. And of course, I would rather be killed by the efficiency of modern technology, than the Plague or some other medieval or ancient ailment. Seems like a win win?
I would also submit that the ability to have your sayings proven lends you something you lack without it: legitimacy. Anyone can speak the language of a discipline, but the experts in any field are those who are willing and able to prove it or make new discoveries. And if it fails to prove, then you know to move to a different way.