Nz states that the most knowledgeable philosopher is one "who has traversed many kinds of health and keeps traversing them" . He also discusses how one that has undergone great pain no longer has trust in life because in their state of pain "life" has become the problem. These things he conjectures as being a means of shaping an individual into a more profound - farther reaching, entity.
With this in mind, I thought back to one of my favorite movies "Wit" which is an account of an ivy league scholar's (who specializes in metaphysic poetry ) bout with insidious ovarian cancer.
The connection I see between the two is the protagonists state near her death in the throes of pain. Essentially, the protagonist exemplifies what Nz is commenting on with regards to what illness/pain fosters in individuals. The protagonist in her most painful state throws aside education, theories, and inflated language and is interested only in simple human kindness and being. Below is a tiny bit of her monologue (most of the movie is mono) as she passes into a state of immense pain that will end in her expiration:
(after eating a popsicle with her nurse)
I can't believe my life has become so corny. But it can't be helped,I don't see any other way. We are discussing life and death, and...not in the abstract, either.We are discussing my life and my death. And I can't conceive of any other tone. Now is not the time for verbal swordplay. Nothing would be worsethan a detailed scholarly analysis and...erudition, interpretation, complication. No. Now is the time for simplicity. Now is the time for...dare I say it...kindness. And I thought being extremely smart...would take care of it. But I see that I have been found out. I'm scared. Oh, God. I want... I want to... No. want to hide.I just want to curl up in a little ball. (hides under bedsheet like child)
I want to tell you...(gasp for breath)how it feels.(gasp for breath)I want to explain it. To use my words. It's just as if I can't. There aren't...(groans) I'm in terrible pain. Susie says...I need to be in aggressive pain management...if I'm going to stand it. "It." Such a little word. I think in this case... "it"...signifies being alive.
In the end, Nz's work can be seen as arguing for simplification. A return to and thus acknowledgement of the human condition and its dependence on things that are outside of our control. A bow, so to speak, to the non-interogatory appreciation of life's mysteries.
A nobel gesture one could argue...however, rife with embedded ego-stroking but that is another discussion all together.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Character, health, and religion
Nietzsche is new to me. Philosophy in general is to me. I studied technical writing for the last six years--how much philosophizing need we engage in for that?? :) Of course, I recognize obvious (and very important) connections, particularly when we pursue discussions about language, histories, dichotomies (and paralogies), and, of course, rhetoric. What is particularly interesting to me, after deliberating over The Gay Science (or Joyous Wisdom, as it was apparently originally translated) is how we define ethos and what it means as we *attempt* to interpret others' texts.
I can't say I know Nietzsche--certainly not personally, but not even at a literary level. But from what I gather, The Gay Science was written shortly after (or towards the end of) a particularly depressing time for Nietzsche. Previous writings were quite dark and his philosphy--his understanding of the world--took a different shape. Part of this was Nietzsche dealing with quite severe health problems, which, no doubt, would shape many persons' perspectives. The Gay Science seems to reflect a more hopeful approach to life and humanity. Nietzsche appears to have had an awakening of sorts.
I don't know what Nietzsche considered as his religion. I would venture to guess he believed that philosophy and science has a way of killing God. In his preface, he states that the Greeks knew how to live--they stopped courageously at the surfaces. They were superficial. Nietzsche apparently didn't see himself as superficial. He had gone too far, in essence, in search for his own truth to be able to comprehend God or science--for both of those tend to have a final say, a limit, or an omniscience. Reality, at least for him, didn't seem to have that.
So, what questions I raise are this: how does (or should) Nietzsche's illness affect the way we interpret what he meant? Should religion play a factor in interpreting ethos? When does a philosophists writing take a dramatic turn from influential discovery to psychotic, sickly rambling? I'm not saying that Nietzsche is (or was ever) in a state of dilerium, but certainly depression (and later hope) shaped his discoveries or personal "truth." This is, likely, the case for any human being. Thus, how much can we be allowed to consider in regards to ethos?
I can't say I know Nietzsche--certainly not personally, but not even at a literary level. But from what I gather, The Gay Science was written shortly after (or towards the end of) a particularly depressing time for Nietzsche. Previous writings were quite dark and his philosphy--his understanding of the world--took a different shape. Part of this was Nietzsche dealing with quite severe health problems, which, no doubt, would shape many persons' perspectives. The Gay Science seems to reflect a more hopeful approach to life and humanity. Nietzsche appears to have had an awakening of sorts.
I don't know what Nietzsche considered as his religion. I would venture to guess he believed that philosophy and science has a way of killing God. In his preface, he states that the Greeks knew how to live--they stopped courageously at the surfaces. They were superficial. Nietzsche apparently didn't see himself as superficial. He had gone too far, in essence, in search for his own truth to be able to comprehend God or science--for both of those tend to have a final say, a limit, or an omniscience. Reality, at least for him, didn't seem to have that.
So, what questions I raise are this: how does (or should) Nietzsche's illness affect the way we interpret what he meant? Should religion play a factor in interpreting ethos? When does a philosophists writing take a dramatic turn from influential discovery to psychotic, sickly rambling? I'm not saying that Nietzsche is (or was ever) in a state of dilerium, but certainly depression (and later hope) shaped his discoveries or personal "truth." This is, likely, the case for any human being. Thus, how much can we be allowed to consider in regards to ethos?
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
girl, you better work it
blurring boundaries where they need to be blurred and containing them where they need to be contained...
just now as i was creating my account and signing in for my first blog post, i made a selection about which email account i would use for this blog. i chose my clemson.edu account after saying to myself, "self, this is a part of your professionalization at clemson, so you better use your professional domain address -- just to be safe." i started to use my netzero account, which is my general email address, but decided against it because of my hesitation to invite the professional so fully into my personal. alas, any such separation is but a pipedream because in the interest of saving time and energy (thus increasing my opportunities for liesure pursuit), i always end up having all my clemson email forwarded to my personal netzero account anyway.
in reality, what is this thing i'm calling leisure anyway? i can't remember the last time i had any meaningful social interaction that didn't involve some professional connection for me or the other person. for instance,the last half dozen or so parties i've attended were all given by professional acquaintances. i first met my significant other while he was at the court house practicing law. my best friend and i first set up our connection during the last call at my favorite restaurant after he finished waiting tables for the night.
basically, my questions involve the authenticity and effectiveness of professional boundaries. do they work? should they? and is there any safety in these constructions? why must i percieve danger through these blurrings? moreover, i can't figure out if my impulse to devise these walls emanate from my carefully cultivated social epistemic approach or whether or not they are the remnants of a deeply internalized indoctrination into the protestant work ethic. or maybe it's something else.
well i guess i'll devote this semester (and i'm sure many subsequent ones) to working out this and many other problems.
p.s. the manifesto i incorrectly cited in class as the "maker's manifesto" is actually called the "owner's manifesto."
just now as i was creating my account and signing in for my first blog post, i made a selection about which email account i would use for this blog. i chose my clemson.edu account after saying to myself, "self, this is a part of your professionalization at clemson, so you better use your professional domain address -- just to be safe." i started to use my netzero account, which is my general email address, but decided against it because of my hesitation to invite the professional so fully into my personal. alas, any such separation is but a pipedream because in the interest of saving time and energy (thus increasing my opportunities for liesure pursuit), i always end up having all my clemson email forwarded to my personal netzero account anyway.
in reality, what is this thing i'm calling leisure anyway? i can't remember the last time i had any meaningful social interaction that didn't involve some professional connection for me or the other person. for instance,the last half dozen or so parties i've attended were all given by professional acquaintances. i first met my significant other while he was at the court house practicing law. my best friend and i first set up our connection during the last call at my favorite restaurant after he finished waiting tables for the night.
basically, my questions involve the authenticity and effectiveness of professional boundaries. do they work? should they? and is there any safety in these constructions? why must i percieve danger through these blurrings? moreover, i can't figure out if my impulse to devise these walls emanate from my carefully cultivated social epistemic approach or whether or not they are the remnants of a deeply internalized indoctrination into the protestant work ethic. or maybe it's something else.
well i guess i'll devote this semester (and i'm sure many subsequent ones) to working out this and many other problems.
p.s. the manifesto i incorrectly cited in class as the "maker's manifesto" is actually called the "owner's manifesto."
Recess in the classroom
For Moulthrop: experience = play; reflection = writing/thinking. The problem we face, he says, is that we disassociate them. Play is for playing, writing is for learning. Thoughts and thinking are language and writing, so why bother with modes that don't engage half of that? His call is to move away from that premise, to open up the classroom onto and into the playground.
This is accomplished, the fusion of word and game, Moulthrop says, mainly through programming, the text of digital play, the language that empowers us to both experience and reflect.
Cynthia raised the point that programming may be frightening--and it is horrifying to me, in part because the last line of code I wrote was in third grade to make my name scroll and flash on an Apple II, in part because programming appears to be a close cousin to calculus, and in large part because I know that I will lose weeks, maybe even months, (I will not stop once I start) trying to figure out how to make my name scroll and flash again.
There is hope. Software tools exist which put more emphasis on designing than coding. Clicks, draggings, and icons replace numbers, letters, and symbols--good for us, but bad I suppose for Moulthrop. It kicks his glyphs out of that new space he was hoping to create for them in the realm of experience/play. But I'll leave his argument to him to instead wonder, here, who will give us those interfaces? Who will give educators and students the friendly tools we need to re-associate play and reflection in the classroom?
Riffing on existing software only will get us so far. Do we go to the software giants to have them create our new interfaces? Do they then become the new textbook publishers? Or do we go to the textbook publishers and call for them to hire teams of new designers and programmers to produce these new transgressive tools for us? And how much will they cost?
Theory and Practice
With regard to our class discussion on academia and its (dis)respect for scholarship in new medias and technologies...
Do you think this division is a reflection of the what industry and academia value...practice vs. theory? Perhaps individuals that are frustrated with the lack of academic support for their research areas take both their theory and practice into the industrial realm.
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