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Topics - Wolfgang Absolutus

#1
Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Killing Objectivity
August 23, 2013, 07:13:24 AM
So I've had this idea stuck in my brain for some time now and to keep track of it's progression I've been steadily adding to a word document over time with a sentence or two at a time trying to describe it. One of the main references is to this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7KxGDucKNU&feature=youtu.be&t=41s from Possessed. I really can't tell if I have a worthwhile idea or if I should just go back to writing Evangelion fanfiction.
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To survive within globalized capitalism one key strategy is to eliminate one's subjectivity. This is a problem many have had with buddhism in that they interpret and find in the way people practice it a yearning for the erasure of subjectivity. An erasure of the personalness. Becoming nothing and feeling nothing to get through such a cruel way of life.

To move forward then I propose a different interpretation of Zen Buddhism. A interpretation that focuses on the destruction of objectivity.

Our inability to deal with the world as it is leads us in all sorts of crazy directions and delusions. We often helplessly find ourselves outside of our heads trying desperately to look in; as if some deep truth lay hidden within our skulls and that the division meant anything at all. The messege of Zen Buddhism is not that one should burn down this house of the mind instead of looking inside, but that one should get inside so that one can truly look out.

If one looks to the saying of who is wiser than all the prophets and sages, understanding that it is one's self requires a suspension of objectivity.

Or the phrase about hesitation. One hestitates because they are only guessing at what it is that they desire. They do not know what to do. They debate with themselves. To simply be and remove that hesitation one has to remove objectivity. Once on the inside one can easily determine one's desires and act on them without worry because there is no other perspective.

To further illustrate this look to the object subject distinction previously discussed. Objects can only BE as in exist in continuity from the objective position. Subjects exist most in continuity from the subjective position, the one that delineates actions and desires; the one that chooses. Slaves lack a certain subjectivity because of this. They are completely defined by the outside lens rather than the inside lens and due to this they can only be objects. The same thing is talked about in reference to women where it is said men often treat them like pieces of meat. The woman is thus treated only from the objective outside lens and no attention is paid to the inner lens of the woman. Therefore in order to gain full subjectivity one has to get rid of the objective position.

One can also draw the distinction between this and the mere ordering of one's self. What good is it to get rid of other bosses just to boss your self around. This is truly paradigmatic of the outside looking in objective gaze. To truly be a subject rather than an object, even an object of your self, is to be on the inside looking out. This gets rid of all the deliberating and vacillating and allows one to just exist.

Here one can also draw the distinction between awareness and self-consciousness. If I am on the outside of my self, experiencing my self as other then I am only self-conscious. I take the objective lens looking at me like I would someone else. To be aware is to get on the inside and look out. To be aware of the situation that is happening and feel the situation as visceral as it is. Rather than the distance of feeling the objective gaze would have us take we get back into the drivers seat and experience the situation in a way that can really only be described as participatory. This is what it means to live in the present.

Another way to look at this tension is in terms of the spectacle. The objective gaze allows us to look at ourselves like an other examining it 'impartially'. We view ourselves as a spectator moreso than as a participant in our lives. This brings self-consciousness as we become embarrassed and even ashamed. "What will the neighbors think?" We are like if we are looking into a dark abandoned house wondering what is going on inside, never quite knowing. From the objective gaze the self becomes both easier to see in full but also harder to penetrate. We don't really know what we want. They way we figure it out is the same way we go about assessing others. We practice psychology on ourselves to gain some kind of (in)sight into what's going on 'in there'. Really this is all wasted effort. The best way to know what is happening inside that house is to get inside of it. Maybe you can't see the whole picture, but you can see what you need to see.

There are no impersonal whys. Moments simply are. The only whys that are even relevant are the personal subjective whys. The ball falls because I dropped it and because of every event that caused those events. There isnt a higher level. No god's eye why if you will.

"Welcome aboard, Mr. Pilgrim," said the loudspeaker. "Any
questions?"

   Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last: "Why
me?"

   "That is a very earthling question to ask, Mr. pilgrim. Why you?
Why us for that matter?  Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have
you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?"

   "Yes." Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a
blob of polished amber with three ladybugs embedded in it.

   "Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this
moment. There is no why."


Another way of thinking of it is to imagine yourself as god. god is completely subjectivised. As humans we think that there is some higher way to view things and certain contingent historical circumstances have led us to usually try and view the world through this higher lens. For god there is no higher lens. He sees the world as it is. His self is not other to himself. That is perhaps what makes him god. He lacks the separation that humans mostly have, he is completely subjectivised not worried about life or death and just being. We have killed god and all other authorities are next. We need to fully subjectivise ourselves. To be. We will be living gods, buddhas, ubermensches.


The being exists through being observed by others. The I exist because I observe my self. It is through this objectivity and this distancing from my self that self-consciousness arises. It is in this way that we become separated from other animals and shirk enlightenment. If I get on the inside and look out that vantage point whereby I see myself vanishes. The I disappears and I return to nothingness. There is no hesitation, no self-consciousness. Only awareness. Action and Desire. This is the state of the animal or the child. Self-Consciousness is dwarfed by awareness. This is the one who can do anything. The one who can do nothing. The ubermensch. The child. The Buddha. The Big Other. I return to nothingness. In the fade to black I become free to travel anywhere and do anything. This is the goal of the revolutionaries. To become the living embodiment of freedom. This is what I crave. Could I aspire to anything greater?
#2
Recent movies like Star Trek and The Lone Ranger feature as one of their main characters someone doing the face of someone of another race. On SNL Fred Armisen will often play anyone of any race including the president. In Star Trek Zoe Saldana plays a black character and in The Lone Ranger Johnny Depp plays a Native American. With the history of Black-face in America it can be easy to just condemn this kind of activity outright as racist and messed up but in discussing it with a friend he seems to not understand what is so bad about it. His argument was that if it is an actor's job to play people who they aren't like space captains and wizards, why cant they transcend race barriers in their acting as well. If Zoe isn't doing anything terrible in Star Trek, then she isn't really doing anything racist or wrong. I personally find it a bit distasteful (which may have to do with me being black and him being white). What do you guys think?
#3
So People became separated in their minds for whatever reason, I'm not some kind of biologist, into the Super Ego and Id. In a Dialectical type fashion The Super Ego confronted the animalistic Id and created the Ego, the self. We are self conscious because of the way the Super Ego and Id brush up against each other. This clash is the source of guilt and other emotions only humans have.
The State is a psychic projection of this internal state of affairs where the Super Ego, exemplified in The MachineTM brushes up against our base internal desires, the Id, and turns us into citizens.
The movements of the 60s with sexual revolution and whatever else are then superficial because they merely furthered the clash between the Id and the Super Ego with them on one side and the government on the other. All it did was make us (here I can nly speak for America) more egotistical and guilty. More repressed as citizens. (This can also be linked to the concept of recuperation of the situationists where any radical tendencies are defanged and then put to service by The MachineTM, which might make it only seem like the sexual revolution movement was superficial. )
So then this seems to jam with the Buddhist notion of Ego Death and being Mu. At this point since I am not that well versed in Buddhism I am kind of lost.
I am also then a bit disconcerted with the way this argument goes due to the eternal nature of the Chao. If we are pretty much incapable of seeing Chaos for what it is and instead we must be satisfied with whirling arrays of order and disorder, does that mean that we are stuck with this repugnant Super Ego and with it The MachineTM itself?
It could be possible that while the Super Ego and it's notions of order are impossible to escape, we can shift the relationship between the Super Ego and Id such that our Ego lives much more at ease. At which point then the anarchist project becomes feasible as it changes the organization of people and the balance between order and disorder by removing the State Capitalist machine and replacing it with an array of other more local rule making bodies. Of course then that might imply that the Buddhist notion of being Mu is unattainable, though it still leaves the process of Zen up for use to balance out the forces of order and disorder in our minds. 
This is just a different way of understanding the forces of Order and Disorder, though I've been reading alot of the Illuminatus! books lately soit could just be a regurgitation of that. In any case, what do you think about this?
#4
"if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." Nietzsche
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I'm not even angry at you. I'm not angry at them. I'm not angry at myself. Maybe I ought to be. At least that's what I think to myself as I see and hear about things that happen all around the world. Others express their outrage readily while I sit calmly. Blank face and sad eyes.

I love these people like they were my brothers. But maybe that's just the hippie in me talking. The only thing I feel when I hear the news is mild disappointment. I ought to know better I guess. There is no reason to hope you will ever improve, become more peaceful. Maybe move beyond your animalistic tendencies. Here you are. Doing the same things. Arguing, Fighting, Killing, Dying. For what?

Perhaps "You" is inaccurate. I'm one of you. I'm human. I make mistakes. I hurt people. I hurt myself.

What exactly give me the authority to judge you. Nothing. My life as as meaningless and impermanent as anyone else's. There will be no songs about me, no record of my existence beyond a few loose scraps of paper and bits of code that will eventually be lost.

I wish I could be mad. I wish I knew what to to do. I don't. I'm clueless, moving arbitrarily from one moment to the next.
I wish I knew how to fix us. I would lead us to glory if I could.But, I can't even escape the prison I locked myself in.

But maybe, maybe there is nothing to fix. Maybe this is who we were meant to be. A short-lived species of monkeys. Their minds trapped in the past, looking bright eyed into the future, hoping for the present. A temporal anomaly. A little blip on the radar.

Maybe this right here, this is it. This is all we will ever be. All we could ever hope to be. It's saddening I suppose.

I'm not deep or shallow. Smart or Stupid. Man or Woman. I'm not my khakis. I'm not my ties. I'm not my button down shirts or any of the stains on them I don't know how to remove. I'm not the contents of my wallet or my social security number. I fucked what I thought I knew about chaos, about love, about life. Or at least I thought I did.

I am a person. I thought I could move beyond the others, beyond good and evil, beyond humanity. But now I'm not so sure.

I am human. My biology is incredibly similar to everyone else's. It is a biology I don't think I can transcend. Humanity is imperfect and so am I, now and forever. There is nothing ahead or behind us that can fix us. Nothing to find or gain that is not already in us.

My bright eyed optimism has abandoned me. Left me only with disappointment. But I guess I should move on. No sense crying over a little spilt blood. We make more all the time.
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I am free. But my chains still feel so heavy.
I can do anything. But I feel so incapable.
I look within to find the answers.
Dark, quiet, shadow.
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Who could I hope to be except for little ol' me.
Me is he is she is the
first and last and king and queen
Worst I've heard and Best I've seen
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To look anywhere is a form of self-reflection.
I find myself here,
with no misdirection.
_________
"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before." Edgar Allen Poe
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I'm not even mad. I don't know that I ever will be. I don't know if I can muster it.
So I'll dream this dream and live this life till all that's left is sorrow and strife.
Then Ill end it with my finest gun. I'll leave a message much like this one.