Again, I come before you not as a prepared mind, but as a jumble of mindless ramblings. As such, I beg your empathy and know you will call me brother. Enough of the purposeless allusions, let's get to the point:
Schopenhauer says in his first part of "The World as Will and Representation" that to consider the object as separate and prior to the subject is a false assumption. Indeed, the object comes simultaneously with the subject yet "presupposes" it.
So what the hell is he talking about? Basically this, the object is the representation of the subject, and yet exists as the very subject itself in its entirety. That is to say, the representation of a thing contains the thing in its fullness. Why? Because, according to the Schop, objects exist because of the active will of the subject; subjects exist as continuous emanations and participations in ACTIVE will.
In a painting (or some of my friends here might think of an icon), the image is said to represent something. Yet, Schopenhauer claims that that representation contains the fullness of the thing represented. Why? Because both the original subject and the representation of it both exist because of the same emanation of will. Because neither the subject nor object can exist without being active separately and active in their participation with each other (object drawing from the will of the subject and vice versa), the subject is pure action exertive and the object is pure action receptive.
Here is the problem: understanding. I have not yet read enough of the Schop to know what he thinks of when he says "understanding", but I do know that the knowledge of the existence of the subject fully within the object representing it presupposes an understanding of the subject itself. The issue here is that Schopenhauer clearly points out that all subjects are pure energia and no essence. Those in the Eastern side of the world would say that this cannot be, as one can never understand God outside of his energies, his actions. In other words, his fullness, his "being" as Schopenhauer calls it, cannot be known by man. While Schopenhauer gets a lot of points very close to the mark, I believe here is one where he goes a bit to the far side of his point. Yet, my problem is that I have not yet come up with a philosophical argument, though I know someone else already has and I just haven't read it, to counterpoint the argument for pure energy as being!
If I can figure out a simple way of explaining it, maybe I will apply it to my gradually forming definition of the "making" of words. What I have so far is this: in creation, everything is always in motion; the motion defined here is constant movement of the active will in supporting objects (or representations); words themselves are nothing but representations of the subjects (thoughts, physical things, images, etc.); language is made up of words; thus language is constantly subjected to the active supporting will of the subject. Conundrum: two opposing subjects actively projecting their individual wills upon the same phrase, thus creating opposing representations out of identical objects. The solution is not always that there is a faulty premise in one speaker's projection.
Well, I will leave it at that for today.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Aesthetics and Associated Mental Humbug
Recently I have been quite busy with the move, new job, and strangely uncharacteristic attempts to become slightly more organized. Because of this, I have tried to lay off much of my self-applied pressure to continue regular posting. However, each night as I lay down to sleep, certain thoughts persist in preventing me from doing so, no matter how tired I may be. As these thoughts, though they are in no way formalized, pertain to the general strain of thought displayed in my postings (sans the Olympics babble), I will do my best to hash them out in a semi-understandable format.
Point one of my basic ponderings is the idea of instability in human nature. Perhaps it is an effect of my naiveté, but I have rarely thought of human nature as being transient at best. Yet Gregory of Nyssa writes, “Existence itself originates in change” and, “The created nature cannot exist without change.” This, of course, is because “nothing comes from nothing” and things came to be as a result of change (a point upon which all people agree, whether ex nihilo or from preexisting matter, all things begin as change, hence “begin”, not just “be”). And, according to Newtonian Laws (Chase correct me if I’m wrong), things in motion tend to stay in motion (though these laws do not necessarily apply to metaphysics, accept the allegory). Thus, to approach a study of human nature, or the nature of anything created or deriving from a created thing, one must approach it with the concept of constant motion. Though I already had thought that language was constantly changing (though not evolving), my thoughts have been much involved with how much different things (language in particular) change in reaction to things or in action towards them, or a combination, or whatever (very Hegelian I know).
As you can tell, my thoughts are very scattered and incomplete, but my next point is along the same lines: all of my “Signs and Metaculture” series was supposed to pertain to the representation of things (examining words like Metaphor, Mimesis, Ekphrasis, maybe Reification, etc.) yet I have also recently discovered Theodor Adorno’s “Aesthetic Theory” and can’t help but look for everything to have an inherent contradiction, vis-à-vis, “Art can only be understood by its laws of movement, not according to any invariants. It is defined by its relation to what it is not.” Of course, I know next to nothing about aesthetic theory (having read little of Kant, less of Hegel, and maybe 30 pages of Nietzsche, without tapping much into the 20th century at all), but Adorno’s desire to describe the relation of Art to society, determining in the process that Art is neither the sublimation of society alone nor the mere representation of it, convinces me that Language and signs, in their act of representation, may perhaps participate in the same particular fluidity to which human nature is subject. Though none of this plays out empirically, I am trying to process the relation between the necessarily human act of “making” that I promised to discuss, and the reflection of the transient nature of the “maker”.
Lastly, I put forth a call to anyone who can suggest further reading on “Ekphrasis”, as I can find very little on it and don’t have access to university thinkers right now.
Until I can figure out a regular schedule, I remain yours, my 2 ½ faithful readers!
Point one of my basic ponderings is the idea of instability in human nature. Perhaps it is an effect of my naiveté, but I have rarely thought of human nature as being transient at best. Yet Gregory of Nyssa writes, “Existence itself originates in change” and, “The created nature cannot exist without change.” This, of course, is because “nothing comes from nothing” and things came to be as a result of change (a point upon which all people agree, whether ex nihilo or from preexisting matter, all things begin as change, hence “begin”, not just “be”). And, according to Newtonian Laws (Chase correct me if I’m wrong), things in motion tend to stay in motion (though these laws do not necessarily apply to metaphysics, accept the allegory). Thus, to approach a study of human nature, or the nature of anything created or deriving from a created thing, one must approach it with the concept of constant motion. Though I already had thought that language was constantly changing (though not evolving), my thoughts have been much involved with how much different things (language in particular) change in reaction to things or in action towards them, or a combination, or whatever (very Hegelian I know).
As you can tell, my thoughts are very scattered and incomplete, but my next point is along the same lines: all of my “Signs and Metaculture” series was supposed to pertain to the representation of things (examining words like Metaphor, Mimesis, Ekphrasis, maybe Reification, etc.) yet I have also recently discovered Theodor Adorno’s “Aesthetic Theory” and can’t help but look for everything to have an inherent contradiction, vis-à-vis, “Art can only be understood by its laws of movement, not according to any invariants. It is defined by its relation to what it is not.” Of course, I know next to nothing about aesthetic theory (having read little of Kant, less of Hegel, and maybe 30 pages of Nietzsche, without tapping much into the 20th century at all), but Adorno’s desire to describe the relation of Art to society, determining in the process that Art is neither the sublimation of society alone nor the mere representation of it, convinces me that Language and signs, in their act of representation, may perhaps participate in the same particular fluidity to which human nature is subject. Though none of this plays out empirically, I am trying to process the relation between the necessarily human act of “making” that I promised to discuss, and the reflection of the transient nature of the “maker”.
Lastly, I put forth a call to anyone who can suggest further reading on “Ekphrasis”, as I can find very little on it and don’t have access to university thinkers right now.
Until I can figure out a regular schedule, I remain yours, my 2 ½ faithful readers!
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Peace, Prayer & the Calming of Anxiety
Isn't this the story of the storm on the lake of Galilee? The Lord and his disciples are on a lake. A tempest comes up when they are out to sea. Death threatens them, the waves are huge, the winds beat against them. They fight for their lives as hard as they can, and all this while the Lord is asleep on a cushion at the prow. He looks comfortable to them. They can't bear him looking so comfortable, his indifference. In their wretchedness they turn to him, wake him up, try to force him to realise what is happening. 'Lord, do you not see that we perish?' But what are they doing by asking this question? Are they appealing to the Lord to control the storm? Yes and no. First of all they want him to share their suffering. They want him to be an anxious as they are. They think he will not help them unless he shares their anxiety. The Lord gets up, he refuses to share their panic. He keeps his own serenity. First he turns to them, 'How long must I be with you, men of little faith?' And then he turns towards the storm, and casts his own serenity onto it. He orders the waves to be still and the wind to be silent, and his own peace to come down on everything about him. The storm is still and the disciples fall at his feet. Who is he? They are still doubtful. We often make the same mistake. Instead of seeking to share God's serenity, we ask God to share our tumult. Of course he does share it, but with his own serenity.--- Met. Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh, Courage to Pray1
I've had a rough few weeks, due in no small part to an increasingly demoralizing job hunt. Though ostensibly a search for gainful employment, on a deeper level this process has been part of an extended existential dilemma. Needless to say, I don't know what the future holds.
Of course I'm not the only one living in anxious uncertainty. The economy unravels before us, and world events betray our deep distrust for one another. As in all times, the greater struggles are the personal trials we all face with the dawning of each day, burdening our hearts, minds, and bodies.
"Instead of seeking to share God's serenity, we ask God to share our tumult." The Metropolitan's words are certainly true of me. Perhaps it's time I seek to change more than just my employment status.
1 Metropolitan Anthony, and Georges LeFebvre. Courage to Pray. Trans. Dinah Livingstone. 1973. London: Darton, Longman and Todd; Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1984.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Fluid Objectivity
Well, most of us have filled up our empty hours with our eyes glued to the TV watching the Olympics. I have heard from more than one commentator that he or she disapproves of the "harsh criticism" given by the judges or coaches. Specifically, I would like to reference the American pole-vaulter Jenn Stuczynski "scandal" in which immediately following her silver medal finish, her coach spoke to her in an "almost rude" and "definitely not encouraging" fashion.
Granted, it is great to win the silver medal, but when did it become the commentator's job to determine whether the coach is doing his job right? Perhaps in training Stuczynski had prepared to do a much higher jump than she performed. maybe her skills were higher than she demonstrated. Who knows. Either way, it is her coach's job to either give her positive or negative reinforcement as he sees necessary. When you reach that high of a stage, the difference between receiving a gold medal, a silver medal, or a bronze medal is not significant except for the fame and glory that come with them. The most important thing (or at least what ought to be the most important thing) is whether the athlete performed to the best of his or her ability. If she could have done better, more power to the coach for telling her how. Unless this is the end of her career, as it was with Laura Wilkinson, the platform diver from the US, then she always has the potential to get better. Also, if the athletes do not receive the harshest criticism at this stage of their game (from the judges and coaches), then when are they going to get it?
And what is up with these track stars changing coaches at a whim? Honestly, if a young athlete (say, in their teens) changed coaches as often as Jeremy Wariner or hired their own personal coach as Dara Torres did, then they would never have the most important part of an athletic mindset - developing relationships and purposes in life! If you want to be the best athlete in the world, the first thing you have to learn is trust, then determination, then a pursuit of excellence. These athletes have gotten too cocky and I am glad to see some of them fail miserably. I am also glad to see a coach who tells his athlete when she could have done better. Stop babying and glorifying these athletes and treat them as human beings.
I have to grant that the commentators this year have never been viewed as reliable sources for making specific analyses of crucial situations, but have instead often made broad assumptions and generalizations about anything they think they have knowledge about. Oh well, at least these games have been fun to watch.
Granted, it is great to win the silver medal, but when did it become the commentator's job to determine whether the coach is doing his job right? Perhaps in training Stuczynski had prepared to do a much higher jump than she performed. maybe her skills were higher than she demonstrated. Who knows. Either way, it is her coach's job to either give her positive or negative reinforcement as he sees necessary. When you reach that high of a stage, the difference between receiving a gold medal, a silver medal, or a bronze medal is not significant except for the fame and glory that come with them. The most important thing (or at least what ought to be the most important thing) is whether the athlete performed to the best of his or her ability. If she could have done better, more power to the coach for telling her how. Unless this is the end of her career, as it was with Laura Wilkinson, the platform diver from the US, then she always has the potential to get better. Also, if the athletes do not receive the harshest criticism at this stage of their game (from the judges and coaches), then when are they going to get it?
And what is up with these track stars changing coaches at a whim? Honestly, if a young athlete (say, in their teens) changed coaches as often as Jeremy Wariner or hired their own personal coach as Dara Torres did, then they would never have the most important part of an athletic mindset - developing relationships and purposes in life! If you want to be the best athlete in the world, the first thing you have to learn is trust, then determination, then a pursuit of excellence. These athletes have gotten too cocky and I am glad to see some of them fail miserably. I am also glad to see a coach who tells his athlete when she could have done better. Stop babying and glorifying these athletes and treat them as human beings.
I have to grant that the commentators this year have never been viewed as reliable sources for making specific analyses of crucial situations, but have instead often made broad assumptions and generalizations about anything they think they have knowledge about. Oh well, at least these games have been fun to watch.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
My First Time
I recently read part of my first issue of Touchstone Magazine (as a result of a confession--non-sacramental--to Father Patrick Henry Reardon that I had never read the publication) and read for the first time a writing sample of Peter J. Leithart. Many people have respect for this man as an intellectual contemporary theologian, though I only read a very brief comment in the beginning of the magazine. The comment that he made is somewhat pertinent to my stalled-out series on the depth of language and literary theory, so I will quote it in full:
Consensual Silence
Meaning in language depends upon consensus. The sound "cat" denotes a feline to English speakers because English speakers agree that it does. French speakers can make no sense of the sound, but say "chat" (without the "t") and everything becomes clear.
Augustine gives a near twist to this common notion. Not only do we know what words mean because a group agrees, but learning what words mean involves coming to agreement with those who use the word. Learning that "katze" means "cat" unites me, in a small way, with all the German-speakers.
This is the heart of Augustine's analysis of the dangers of superstition. If an astrologer says, "If Venus is in the fifth house, you'll fall in love," and I agree, even if I agree simply by failing to disagree, I have formed a pact with falsehood. Worse, by agreeing with the astrologer, I've entered into a league with the demons who inspired his false signs in the first place.
Confronted with a false word, there is no way to remain neutral, to let it slide. I must either enter into fellowship with falsehood or break the consensus by disagreeing and telling the truth. "No," I must say to the astrologer, "Venus doesn't mean that."
Such disagreement is a liberation. But Augustine's analysis also raises disturbing questions about our culture's mania for politeness. What kind of villainy do we tolerate when we smile and smile and refuse to disagree?
Focus on Leithart's phrase, "his false signs." Note the importance, as I stressed in the first major installment of the S&M series, of the use of the correct signs. Naturally, I would expect all readers to agree, yet be at a loss as to where they define false from true signs. If by our mere disagreement we can falsify the signs of another, fine. But if the truth or falsehood of the statement and the sign created by the string of words in the statement (note that each word is a sign in itself and put together they form a new sign...) is intrinsic to the sign and cannot be changed, then we are at a quandary--we must first know whether the sign is true or false before agreeing or disagreeing! Please wait with extreme anticipation for my follow-up on how we create meaning through the "making" of signs which should be forthcoming as soon as I get settled in my new home (though who knows how long that will be.)
Consensual Silence
Meaning in language depends upon consensus. The sound "cat" denotes a feline to English speakers because English speakers agree that it does. French speakers can make no sense of the sound, but say "chat" (without the "t") and everything becomes clear.
Augustine gives a near twist to this common notion. Not only do we know what words mean because a group agrees, but learning what words mean involves coming to agreement with those who use the word. Learning that "katze" means "cat" unites me, in a small way, with all the German-speakers.
This is the heart of Augustine's analysis of the dangers of superstition. If an astrologer says, "If Venus is in the fifth house, you'll fall in love," and I agree, even if I agree simply by failing to disagree, I have formed a pact with falsehood. Worse, by agreeing with the astrologer, I've entered into a league with the demons who inspired his false signs in the first place.
Confronted with a false word, there is no way to remain neutral, to let it slide. I must either enter into fellowship with falsehood or break the consensus by disagreeing and telling the truth. "No," I must say to the astrologer, "Venus doesn't mean that."
Such disagreement is a liberation. But Augustine's analysis also raises disturbing questions about our culture's mania for politeness. What kind of villainy do we tolerate when we smile and smile and refuse to disagree?
Focus on Leithart's phrase, "his false signs." Note the importance, as I stressed in the first major installment of the S&M series, of the use of the correct signs. Naturally, I would expect all readers to agree, yet be at a loss as to where they define false from true signs. If by our mere disagreement we can falsify the signs of another, fine. But if the truth or falsehood of the statement and the sign created by the string of words in the statement (note that each word is a sign in itself and put together they form a new sign...) is intrinsic to the sign and cannot be changed, then we are at a quandary--we must first know whether the sign is true or false before agreeing or disagreeing! Please wait with extreme anticipation for my follow-up on how we create meaning through the "making" of signs which should be forthcoming as soon as I get settled in my new home (though who knows how long that will be.)
Monday, August 11, 2008
Universes's First Manmade Electrostatic Binary Orbit
Yes I've been delaying too long making my latest and as of yet greatest post.
On July 17, 2008, I participated in a ground breaking experiment. A team from Rhodes College journeyed to Ellington Field in Houston, TX to conduct research aboard NASA's modified C9-B code-named the Weightless Wonder and know colloquially as the "Vomit Comet." Used for training astronauts, the Vomit Comet flies parabolic maneuvers simulating weightlessness for a period of approximately 30 secs. NASA's education office has a program that allows undergrads to fly an experiment on board the aircraft and experience microgravity, something few human beings get a chance to do.
Our experiment's objective was to create the world's first purely electrostatic binary orbit. In layman's, we wanted to get two graph-coated spheres roughly the size of ping pong balls to orbit around each other in zero gravity. The theory behind this is that since Newton's Law of Gravitation (which creates the planetary and stellar orbits we all know and love) is mathematically similar to Coulomb's Law of Electrostatic Attraction, electrical attraction between two objects should also create orbits. This has never, EVER, been done before with two free-floating objects.
This was not an easy task-alot of sweat, blood, and tears were poured into this experiment, along with tons of 2x4's, screws, and cash. But the NASA training we received was awesome, the experience one of a kind, and the results 100% gratifying. I have the pleasure of showing you one of our successful orbits (you can't really see me, I'm the operator on the right just out of the camera frame):
Eletrostatic Binary Orbit
On July 17, 2008, I participated in a ground breaking experiment. A team from Rhodes College journeyed to Ellington Field in Houston, TX to conduct research aboard NASA's modified C9-B code-named the Weightless Wonder and know colloquially as the "Vomit Comet." Used for training astronauts, the Vomit Comet flies parabolic maneuvers simulating weightlessness for a period of approximately 30 secs. NASA's education office has a program that allows undergrads to fly an experiment on board the aircraft and experience microgravity, something few human beings get a chance to do.
Our experiment's objective was to create the world's first purely electrostatic binary orbit. In layman's, we wanted to get two graph-coated spheres roughly the size of ping pong balls to orbit around each other in zero gravity. The theory behind this is that since Newton's Law of Gravitation (which creates the planetary and stellar orbits we all know and love) is mathematically similar to Coulomb's Law of Electrostatic Attraction, electrical attraction between two objects should also create orbits. This has never, EVER, been done before with two free-floating objects.
This was not an easy task-alot of sweat, blood, and tears were poured into this experiment, along with tons of 2x4's, screws, and cash. But the NASA training we received was awesome, the experience one of a kind, and the results 100% gratifying. I have the pleasure of showing you one of our successful orbits (you can't really see me, I'm the operator on the right just out of the camera frame):
Eletrostatic Binary Orbit
Monday, August 4, 2008
Delays
Due to an upcoming move and apparent lack of interest in the series, I will postpone the second full installment of "Signs and Metaculture" until further notice. I will, however post a brief follow-up to "S&M: 'Sign' and the 'Transcendental Signified' 1.2" as soon as possible. Please keep in mind that responses are most welcome and might help to make future posts more accesible.
Until then...
Until then...
Thursday, July 17, 2008
What is Environment?
This is a subject upon which Chase, Brandon, and Josh have much more well-formed opinions than I, but since Pen and Palette author Susan Cushman asked for responses to her article "The So-Called Environmental Crisis", and it is a fairly popular subject, I'll throw in my ambiguous two-cents.
Recently, on a trip between Tennessee and Florida on I-55, I passed what I call Nissan City, a mile-long Nissan car factory and I said to the people in the car with me, "That's beautiful," and I meant it, though I don't entirely know why. One of the reasons that I had for saying that probably has to do with my having lived in cities for almost my entire life, yet my appreciation of nature has not diminished.
To get right to the point, I believe in life. Living in the vicinity of Tokyo for a period of time, I did not look up at the sky and say, "My, what dreary smog" or at the massive amounts of skyscrapers and say, "Oh dear, how dare they impose upon the beauty of nature in such a way." That is not to say I did not appreciate nature, but my experiences in forests, semi-tropical jungles, beaches, fields, and whatever other "natural" places my life has taken me seem to have been very secondary to the experiences that I have had in densely populated areas. The experiences that I remember the most and appreciate the most are always when in communion with others.
Even while climbing mountain Mount Fuji, it was so much more enjoyable for me to have someone standing next to me as I watched the sun rise through the mist (though I must admit, that person was holding me up to keep me from vomiting due to altitude sickness).
As an English Major and Graduate student, I have learned to appreciate life in all senses, whether it be watching the grass grow around Tintern Abbey on a page or feeling the tingling sensation of a jellyfish wrapping itself around my arm, I have come to realize that these minute experiences are immensely more important than worrying about the overshadowing of the abbey by a new skyscraper bank or worrying that the jellyfish's natural habitat is being decimated by oil spills in the Pacific Northwest.
That is not to say that we need not be concerned about these things, for how can we appreciate them when they are no longer there? Yet I believe that the proper mindset that needs to be instilled in all people is not that we need to be on the constant search for ways to preserve the environment, but that we need to develop a gradual appreciation for every experience we have. This appreciation will necessarily birth a desire to preserve the origin of that experience and thereby lead to what many specifically environmentally minded people are pushing for. An acknowledgement of our place as partakers rather than mere recievers will also assist in this mindset.
I don't want to get to intellectual with this post, but I would like to add that many sacramentally minded people attempt to push the idea of "making" as an act by which we participate in the grand scheme of life. All that we touch, see, do, or experience is in some way affecting other; we are "making" a new world every time we blink our eyes, every time we think a thought, every time we mow the grass. The correct mindset for someone concerned about the environment begins with a knowledge of interconnectedness in experience (beware Westerners).
(PLEASE do not think of that last statement as in any way Chardinian (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)! I do not here propose that all life is interconnected in every sense, as though we could affect the actions of God, or as though each thing was God and that by destroying it we were destroying part of God. Just that, if we are to consider our very life as equally important both physically and spiritually (viz. "sacramental"), then our mental, spiritual, and physical actions are all equally as influential.)
Recently, on a trip between Tennessee and Florida on I-55, I passed what I call Nissan City, a mile-long Nissan car factory and I said to the people in the car with me, "That's beautiful," and I meant it, though I don't entirely know why. One of the reasons that I had for saying that probably has to do with my having lived in cities for almost my entire life, yet my appreciation of nature has not diminished.
To get right to the point, I believe in life. Living in the vicinity of Tokyo for a period of time, I did not look up at the sky and say, "My, what dreary smog" or at the massive amounts of skyscrapers and say, "Oh dear, how dare they impose upon the beauty of nature in such a way." That is not to say I did not appreciate nature, but my experiences in forests, semi-tropical jungles, beaches, fields, and whatever other "natural" places my life has taken me seem to have been very secondary to the experiences that I have had in densely populated areas. The experiences that I remember the most and appreciate the most are always when in communion with others.
Even while climbing mountain Mount Fuji, it was so much more enjoyable for me to have someone standing next to me as I watched the sun rise through the mist (though I must admit, that person was holding me up to keep me from vomiting due to altitude sickness).
As an English Major and Graduate student, I have learned to appreciate life in all senses, whether it be watching the grass grow around Tintern Abbey on a page or feeling the tingling sensation of a jellyfish wrapping itself around my arm, I have come to realize that these minute experiences are immensely more important than worrying about the overshadowing of the abbey by a new skyscraper bank or worrying that the jellyfish's natural habitat is being decimated by oil spills in the Pacific Northwest.
That is not to say that we need not be concerned about these things, for how can we appreciate them when they are no longer there? Yet I believe that the proper mindset that needs to be instilled in all people is not that we need to be on the constant search for ways to preserve the environment, but that we need to develop a gradual appreciation for every experience we have. This appreciation will necessarily birth a desire to preserve the origin of that experience and thereby lead to what many specifically environmentally minded people are pushing for. An acknowledgement of our place as partakers rather than mere recievers will also assist in this mindset.
I don't want to get to intellectual with this post, but I would like to add that many sacramentally minded people attempt to push the idea of "making" as an act by which we participate in the grand scheme of life. All that we touch, see, do, or experience is in some way affecting other; we are "making" a new world every time we blink our eyes, every time we think a thought, every time we mow the grass. The correct mindset for someone concerned about the environment begins with a knowledge of interconnectedness in experience (beware Westerners).
(PLEASE do not think of that last statement as in any way Chardinian (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)! I do not here propose that all life is interconnected in every sense, as though we could affect the actions of God, or as though each thing was God and that by destroying it we were destroying part of God. Just that, if we are to consider our very life as equally important both physically and spiritually (viz. "sacramental"), then our mental, spiritual, and physical actions are all equally as influential.)
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Wall-E: A Response to Evan's Critique
In his most recent post, Evan critiques the latest animated film release from Disney/Pixar, Wall-E.
He seems to think the film awful, whereas I found it just so-so. I share neither his excitement for the character of Wall-E (though he makes a good case), nor his deep disappointment with the film overall. Wall-E is of a category of films that I simply do not expect much of, one way or other.
Evan asks us to imagine Disney executives conniving together, "We have this astounding character that kids will love, a great interaction with another character, and phenomenal appeal to people of all ages. Now how can we use that to further our plan to corrupt humanity?" Yet whatever one thinks of the merits of the film, I do not believe it was wrought with ill intention; to the contrary, the film's creators probably believe they are providing a much-needed warning for our times. This is, after all, an age in which obesity and environmental awareness are considered chief societal (I daresay moral) concerns.
Indeed, appreciation of nature and concern for our environment are good. Christians ought take the notion of stewardship seriously, and we Orthodox, pervaded with the importance of the Incarnation, know to rightly respect the natural and material. Yet we also understand order, and believe that the glory of Man is greater than the glory of Nature. Nature may whisper of eternity, but Man contains eternity within himself. If the creators of Wall-E would mar humanity to defend nature, they do both a disservice.
A charitable view, however, recognizes their well-intentioned--and not invalid--concerns. The film may effect some good. But I hope the folks at Disney/Pixar will understand that some of us are jaded to such moralizing.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Wall-E
(This whole posting may be taken as a spoiler, but read on anyway)
When I first saw the preview for this movie, I became very excited and thought it was going to be a great Disney/Pixar film, on par with Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo. After watching the movie, I came out depressed, feeling let down, and more than a little disappointed. I thought about why this might be the case, and I here put my thoughts on paper:
I plan to look at three different components of the film: (1) Character, (2) Mission, and (3) Aesthetics.
(1) Wall-E himself I believe to be the single greatest character achievement of any Disney film. Never before has an entertainment company been able to produce a character so pure, so innocent, so perfectly genuine, and so unconditional in love. No matter what is done to him by anyone, he shows no sign of vengeance, of anger, or even of processing their negative reactions at all. When Eve, his love and nemesis, rejects him for something he has not done, he is so utterly naive as to not even notice her indifference to him. The interactions that he has with the humans aboard the BNL liner are perfectly selfless. Without any concern or personal reservation, he greets them, "Wall-E," extending his hand and entirely expecting them to return his affections. Usually, if a character is portrayed as naive, the other characters end up taking advantage of him, but this is not the case with Wall-E. He cannot be described as forgiving in any sense, he does not even notice the wrongs done to him. He is the perfect example of utter humility and ought to be emulated in every sense. He is not beyond giving orders, however--he orders his pet cockroach to sit down when he may be in danger and he orders Eve to continue her "directive" when she seems to be faltering.
Eve (or "EEEVA", as Wall-E calls her), on the other hand, is a typical character in a Disney movie, she starts out interested, turns vengeful, but learns to love when she is confronted with the sacrifices that Wall-E has made for her (though he would never consider them sacrifices). She adds much to the film and is somewhat of an integral part of the story, i.e., she assists in continuing the plot with Wall-E's necessarily stagnant character. I will come back to her character when addressing Mission.
Humans are another story altogether. All comedies, by nature of genre, must have "something appealing, something appalling." Well, the humans are the appalling part. They are grotesque, revolting, and entirely incapable. One "heroic" scene in the movie depicts the normally lethargic and boneless (almost literally) captain struggling to walk across a room. I know that the intentions of the creators were to make humans appear dumb, helpless, and as a bane to the universe, but they were worse than that. Their inability to cognisize and mobilize was connected to their inability to dispose of waste. The depiction of humanity was utterly ridiculous. I am not saying that the humans ought to have been depicted differently, but that they should have been removed from the film entirely. The interactions between Eve, the other robots, and Wall-E were sufficient to produce a "G-rated" movie that would be perfectly acceptable to a "G-rated" audience. Unfortunately, people often take the opportunity in children's movies to speak to the parents.
(2) Okay, I'll stop ranting about the humans for now and turn to the idea of "Mission." I am not going to talk about the mission of the movie, as that was blatantly obvious and, in my opinion, rather preachy and overwrought, but I would like to address the them of "directive" in the movie. Wall-E has a directive--to clean up the waste on earth. He follows it implicitly and with great enjoyment, but he is not mindlessly dedicated to the job. Rather, he takes pleasure in finding every opportunity to discover unique things about his mission every day. He lives his directive, but it does not live him.
Eve suddenly appears on the scene and vocalizes what Wall-E has been living this whole time, "directive." She knows nothing but her mission, that is, to find life somewhere on earth. She is, in the beginning, quite literally a machine, but also figuratively a programmed worker who knows nothing but her mission. She shows some interest in the things Wall-E shows her, but is instantly snapped back to "directive" when he shows her a plant he found. Most of the movie, she follows her mission to the letter, leaving Wall-E behind, sending him away, and entirely neglecting him in her desire to place the plant in its proper location. As mentioned above, however, she falters when she realizes the futility of her situation and (huge spoiler!!!!) Wall-E's impending death, but he sets her aright in the always present Disney over-theme of sacrificial love, repeating "directive" to her and bleeping inanely. Of course, once her directive is accomplished, she turns to bringing Wall-E back to life and starts loving him as a partner. But, again, it is only after she accomplishes her mission that she can truly love, so is this really love? I don't know, you be the judge.
Okay, humanity.... It's very simple, really, they have a directive from BNL to have fun, relax, and "EAT NOW". They follow it to the letter (except for the fun part maybe). The captain has a mission to fly around, give morning announcements, and return to earth when signs of life are found. He does this pretty well, and nothing else really, until he learns about earth, dancing, water, and pizza trees from his computer. Then all he really does is follow his directive some more. While there may be a bit of confusion as to whether his or the co-pilot's directive is more important, he asserts his captain-ness and does what he is supposed to do.
The robots from the rejects ward play a key role in resolving the final dilemma, and it is very important to note that they centralize the theme of "mission". Because they are incapable of completing their assigned tasks (due to random malfunctions like painting yellow lines and opening umbrellas incessantly), they are the perfect assistants to the anti-mission endeavor. Basically, the moral here is that nothing ever really gets accomplished when you just follow your "directive."
(3) Finally we come to Aesthetics. I am not qualified to, nor do I desire to discuss the CGI effects or the cool-looking things that they do in the movie, though I do want to say that I didn't like the Mary Poppins-esque appearance of a live-action figure in the film (the demi-god-long-dead president of BNL). Not for any particular reason, just didn't like it. Anyway, I do want to discuss the theme of aesthetic pleasure in the movie. Again, Wall-E is perfect in my eyes, so his sublimation of a lighter, light-bulb, or Rubik's Cube is beautiful to me. His child-like love of everything, regardless of its practicality or purpose (directive), is amazingly unpragmatic.
Eve, of course, has to be the opposite of everything Wall-E is, so she likes things for their purpose--she solves the Rubik's Cube, lights the light-bulb, flicks the lighter on, and tries to figure out what usefulness the video tape has.
Here I think the humans do a good job--they present the idea that aesthetic pleasure is not stagnant, but active. They think that poking a button to hit a golf ball or sitting by a pool is pleasure, but don't truly understand aesthetics until they learn to interact with each other and with the objects. This, I believe is the best and usually most neglected aspect of pleasure that the movie addresses--that things can be pleasurable without having a use and that pleasure is active not morbidly immobile.
Overall, the movie had some phenomenal points--notably, Wall-E and the addressing of aesthetic pleasure--but was exceedingly preachy, obnoxious, and grotesque. I cannot repeat enough how amazed I am at how Disney/Pixar could turn such great potential (it could have been the best child's movie of all time) into an abysmal flop. Imagine it this way, The executives at Disney sat there thinking, "We have this astounding character that kids will love, a great interaction with another character, and phenomenal appeal to people of all ages. Now how can we use that to further our plan to corrupt humanity?"
When Wall-E sat peering into the vaste waste-land of earth, desiring someone to take pleasure in all of it with him (scene 1), I wanted to climb through the screen and slap a bra on my eyes as well. After Eve appeared, I held out hope that the little guy could show everyone how to be human (scene 2). But when they arrived aboard the liner (scenes 3 and following), I wanted to pull Wall-E off the screen and take him out of the theater before they could corrupt him. Fortunately, this was not The Idiot, it was a kids movie, so he remained impermeable to the atrocities of Disney, but my mind did not. I was highly disappointed.
When I first saw the preview for this movie, I became very excited and thought it was going to be a great Disney/Pixar film, on par with Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo. After watching the movie, I came out depressed, feeling let down, and more than a little disappointed. I thought about why this might be the case, and I here put my thoughts on paper:
I plan to look at three different components of the film: (1) Character, (2) Mission, and (3) Aesthetics.
(1) Wall-E himself I believe to be the single greatest character achievement of any Disney film. Never before has an entertainment company been able to produce a character so pure, so innocent, so perfectly genuine, and so unconditional in love. No matter what is done to him by anyone, he shows no sign of vengeance, of anger, or even of processing their negative reactions at all. When Eve, his love and nemesis, rejects him for something he has not done, he is so utterly naive as to not even notice her indifference to him. The interactions that he has with the humans aboard the BNL liner are perfectly selfless. Without any concern or personal reservation, he greets them, "Wall-E," extending his hand and entirely expecting them to return his affections. Usually, if a character is portrayed as naive, the other characters end up taking advantage of him, but this is not the case with Wall-E. He cannot be described as forgiving in any sense, he does not even notice the wrongs done to him. He is the perfect example of utter humility and ought to be emulated in every sense. He is not beyond giving orders, however--he orders his pet cockroach to sit down when he may be in danger and he orders Eve to continue her "directive" when she seems to be faltering.
Eve (or "EEEVA", as Wall-E calls her), on the other hand, is a typical character in a Disney movie, she starts out interested, turns vengeful, but learns to love when she is confronted with the sacrifices that Wall-E has made for her (though he would never consider them sacrifices). She adds much to the film and is somewhat of an integral part of the story, i.e., she assists in continuing the plot with Wall-E's necessarily stagnant character. I will come back to her character when addressing Mission.
Humans are another story altogether. All comedies, by nature of genre, must have "something appealing, something appalling." Well, the humans are the appalling part. They are grotesque, revolting, and entirely incapable. One "heroic" scene in the movie depicts the normally lethargic and boneless (almost literally) captain struggling to walk across a room. I know that the intentions of the creators were to make humans appear dumb, helpless, and as a bane to the universe, but they were worse than that. Their inability to cognisize and mobilize was connected to their inability to dispose of waste. The depiction of humanity was utterly ridiculous. I am not saying that the humans ought to have been depicted differently, but that they should have been removed from the film entirely. The interactions between Eve, the other robots, and Wall-E were sufficient to produce a "G-rated" movie that would be perfectly acceptable to a "G-rated" audience. Unfortunately, people often take the opportunity in children's movies to speak to the parents.
(2) Okay, I'll stop ranting about the humans for now and turn to the idea of "Mission." I am not going to talk about the mission of the movie, as that was blatantly obvious and, in my opinion, rather preachy and overwrought, but I would like to address the them of "directive" in the movie. Wall-E has a directive--to clean up the waste on earth. He follows it implicitly and with great enjoyment, but he is not mindlessly dedicated to the job. Rather, he takes pleasure in finding every opportunity to discover unique things about his mission every day. He lives his directive, but it does not live him.
Eve suddenly appears on the scene and vocalizes what Wall-E has been living this whole time, "directive." She knows nothing but her mission, that is, to find life somewhere on earth. She is, in the beginning, quite literally a machine, but also figuratively a programmed worker who knows nothing but her mission. She shows some interest in the things Wall-E shows her, but is instantly snapped back to "directive" when he shows her a plant he found. Most of the movie, she follows her mission to the letter, leaving Wall-E behind, sending him away, and entirely neglecting him in her desire to place the plant in its proper location. As mentioned above, however, she falters when she realizes the futility of her situation and (huge spoiler!!!!) Wall-E's impending death, but he sets her aright in the always present Disney over-theme of sacrificial love, repeating "directive" to her and bleeping inanely. Of course, once her directive is accomplished, she turns to bringing Wall-E back to life and starts loving him as a partner. But, again, it is only after she accomplishes her mission that she can truly love, so is this really love? I don't know, you be the judge.
Okay, humanity.... It's very simple, really, they have a directive from BNL to have fun, relax, and "EAT NOW". They follow it to the letter (except for the fun part maybe). The captain has a mission to fly around, give morning announcements, and return to earth when signs of life are found. He does this pretty well, and nothing else really, until he learns about earth, dancing, water, and pizza trees from his computer. Then all he really does is follow his directive some more. While there may be a bit of confusion as to whether his or the co-pilot's directive is more important, he asserts his captain-ness and does what he is supposed to do.
The robots from the rejects ward play a key role in resolving the final dilemma, and it is very important to note that they centralize the theme of "mission". Because they are incapable of completing their assigned tasks (due to random malfunctions like painting yellow lines and opening umbrellas incessantly), they are the perfect assistants to the anti-mission endeavor. Basically, the moral here is that nothing ever really gets accomplished when you just follow your "directive."
(3) Finally we come to Aesthetics. I am not qualified to, nor do I desire to discuss the CGI effects or the cool-looking things that they do in the movie, though I do want to say that I didn't like the Mary Poppins-esque appearance of a live-action figure in the film (the demi-god-long-dead president of BNL). Not for any particular reason, just didn't like it. Anyway, I do want to discuss the theme of aesthetic pleasure in the movie. Again, Wall-E is perfect in my eyes, so his sublimation of a lighter, light-bulb, or Rubik's Cube is beautiful to me. His child-like love of everything, regardless of its practicality or purpose (directive), is amazingly unpragmatic.
Eve, of course, has to be the opposite of everything Wall-E is, so she likes things for their purpose--she solves the Rubik's Cube, lights the light-bulb, flicks the lighter on, and tries to figure out what usefulness the video tape has.
Here I think the humans do a good job--they present the idea that aesthetic pleasure is not stagnant, but active. They think that poking a button to hit a golf ball or sitting by a pool is pleasure, but don't truly understand aesthetics until they learn to interact with each other and with the objects. This, I believe is the best and usually most neglected aspect of pleasure that the movie addresses--that things can be pleasurable without having a use and that pleasure is active not morbidly immobile.
Overall, the movie had some phenomenal points--notably, Wall-E and the addressing of aesthetic pleasure--but was exceedingly preachy, obnoxious, and grotesque. I cannot repeat enough how amazed I am at how Disney/Pixar could turn such great potential (it could have been the best child's movie of all time) into an abysmal flop. Imagine it this way, The executives at Disney sat there thinking, "We have this astounding character that kids will love, a great interaction with another character, and phenomenal appeal to people of all ages. Now how can we use that to further our plan to corrupt humanity?"
When Wall-E sat peering into the vaste waste-land of earth, desiring someone to take pleasure in all of it with him (scene 1), I wanted to climb through the screen and slap a bra on my eyes as well. After Eve appeared, I held out hope that the little guy could show everyone how to be human (scene 2). But when they arrived aboard the liner (scenes 3 and following), I wanted to pull Wall-E off the screen and take him out of the theater before they could corrupt him. Fortunately, this was not The Idiot, it was a kids movie, so he remained impermeable to the atrocities of Disney, but my mind did not. I was highly disappointed.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Signs and Metaculture: "Sign" and the "Transcendental Signified" 1.2
I’ve been thinking more about the previous post, and I’d like here to add a small musing to “Signs and Metaculture: ‘Sign’ and the ‘Transcendental Signifier’”.
When we speak to each other, we are participating in the use of signs. But to what extent do we create the meaning of the sign and to what extent does the meaning derive from the references it make to the other signs with which it interacts?
I believe I was a little unclear on what the exact nature of our participation in creating meaning was. See, if we hold that the word has meaning entirely external to what we say, then we do not participate in any sort of “making” process whatsoever, but merely use what has been passed down to us. Yet, as we can see in the ever-changing nature of language, there must be an alteration at some point in the communication process. At the same time, however, we cannot assert that the words we speak are entirely made to mean whatever we want them to mean. So the question becomes, what role do we play in the equation?
Well, there are three main claims about this argument, all of which were just mentioned, but I’ll make them clearer:
1. Words have meaning; we don’t change the meaning of the words, and if we think we do, we are confused and are twisting the way language ought to work.
2. Words gradually change meaning due to changes in culture and philosophical understandings of the world. That’s the nature of the beast and we just float along with it, affecting it, but not intentionally.
3. Words have no fixed meaning, nor is the meaning tied to culture; the only way we can understand a word is by being in agreement with the person we are speaking with. You know what I mean when I say a word, so we give the word its meaning together.
Most people who agree with (1) tend to be moralistic and priggish about ought-ness and ethics. It would be great if language were like that, but the fact is, meanings do change, whether we like it or not. Sure, most people with a traditional moral background would love for there to be stability in our understanding of things, but most things, like language, ethics, and morality, are somewhat mobile in practical existence. These people would have an exceedingly difficult time putting together a dictionary since they would be constantly searching for the True meaning of a word (which, by the way, doesn’t exist, shh… it’s our secret).
Those who side with (2) are generally staunchly democratic—they believe that the society determines existence. Of course, then you get caught up in discussions over whether the changing contexts of language affect the specific meaning of a word, then you end up needing a new dictionary for every cultural situation. Here we play some role in changing things, but not as individuals, as class and cultural groups.
Our friends in (3) would never be able to put together a dictionary at all, for obvious reasons--they don't need one! Each person determines his or her own perception of meaning and reality. If I think masochism is a good thing, you can't convince me any differently, because that's what brings me pleasure. If I think "burger" means a portabella mushroom and tomato on a hamburger bun with Swiss cheese, that's my prerogative.
So, most of you reading this will probably fit into one of these categories (with a little mixing a matching, of course). I'll leave it at that for now, and see if any of you have any comments. I'll tell you what I think when I have a bit more time.
(Here's a spoiler - it has something to do with my previous post, a little to do with the act of "making", and a lot to do with not really agreeing entirely with (1), (2), or (3). I'll be a bit presumptuous and say, enjoy the wait!)
Friday, June 6, 2008
Chase-An Overview of my Demographic Concerns
So I’ve given a lot of thought to the topic of my first blog entry. I mulled over quite a few, but there is one topic that I have been reading and thinking about for some time: demographic decline in the West and East Asia and its possible result in economic, societal, and cultural collapse. In a nutshell, the problem is simply that every first-world nation except the United States have fertility rates below replacement level. That means that their populations will decline, leaving less and less able-bodied and vigorous young go-getters to drive their economies, and more and more elderly and retired people that need to be taken care of by their children. Immigration will be the only way to save their shrinking workforce and economy. This might ultimately mean that Europe and Japan will go the way of the Roman Empire...
Ok, so it’s awfully pretentious of some no-credentials undergraduate student like me to be writing about such a massive issue. But this is some serious stuff, a lot more serious than climate change or the price of oil or whatever crisis of the day people are talking about. I hope this blog entry gets people thinking about something that has a tremendous potential effect on our children’s and grandchildren’s world.
Our world is changing. And I’m not thinking of its temperature. Social scientist say that to maintain a countries population the average woman needs to have 2.1 children. That makes sense, as each married couple replaces itself with two kids, and there’s an additional tenth of a child to make up for any children who die prematurely. But in the European Union the fertility rate is at 1.5, with Lithuania at the lowest (1.22) and France at the highest (1.98), according to the CIA World Factbook.1 As Europeans have less children, the average age of the population gets older and more people retire and need money from the welfare-state. In order to maintain its economy, an increasing number of immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East are needed to boost the shrinking workforce. These immigrants are primarily Muslim, and with them they bring the seeds of Islamic society. This situation, to say the least, is not good. The whole situation makes me recall when in my high school Humanities class we discussed the fall of the Roman Empire. One of the biggest reasons for the Empire’s fall was its decline in population. With their great success and lives in pursuit of pleasure, the Romans began to stop having babies. No new babies means no new soldiers, workers, or government officials. Without people power the huge state of the Empire collapsed, and the Romans were unable to resist as they were swept away in wave after wave of barbarian migrations (the result of my German ancestors, I suppose). Shrinking and aging population and huge and expensive bureaucracy in the EU sounds quite similar.
People might say, “Ok, the white European population is certainly in decline, but these immigrants will assimilate and discard much of their culture for the wonderful consumerism of the West. To worry about people with a different skin color taking over is a quite racist and xenophobic thing to do. What culture they do keep will add a nice zest to the European food-scape.” I’d say it is arrogant to assume that our post-modern materialistic culture is so inherently superior that it’ll assimilate all foreigners like the seemingly invincible Borg of Star Trek. And it doesn’t sound like some Europeans even want to let them assimilate, as the leader of the Church of England Archbishop Rowan Williams is calling for a degree Islamic law to be adopted in the United Kingdom.2 Having in one country two legal systems from two completely different world-views sounds like a very bad idea to me. Unlike the United States, Europe is not a society founded by immigrants (at least not in recent history), so I‘m not sure if Europe can integrate its new citizens like we can. There’s a good chance Western Europe will end up looking like the Balkans in the not too distant future.
There is an excellent book I read by Mark Steyn titled America Alone.3 He discusses the demographic situation in Europe and the implications it could have on the United States. I really like the essence of his argument as he puts it in his prologue on page xxxv:
“Age + Welfare = Disaster for You
Youth + Will = Disaster for whoever gets in your way”
Though not an academic work, I feel his ideas cut to the heart of this issue, and thus the I highly recommend his book.
On the other side of the world Japan has a similar problem, but a different solution. With a fertility rate of 1.22, and if it doesn’t change soon Japan’s economy is in serious trouble.4 Japan could open its doors to immigration, but the homogeneous nation seems antsy about that idea. So instead they turn to robots, which could result in an interesting evolution of society, for better or for worse.5
The United States, so far, has a healthy social scientist recommended fertility rate of 2.10. Of course our population continues to grow as well through immigration, but it’s driven by Latin Americans, who are Roman Catholic and share many of our values, and so I don’t think it poses the same threat as Europe’s immigration problem does (it could even greatly help us, but that‘s another blog article entirely). Though our economy might have hit a rough spot right now, I think our growing population will serve us well in the future. But there are still people buying into outdated Malthusian ideas about how eventually we will all starve because there are far too many people. Radical environmentalists are constantly bombarding people with prophecies that we are on the verge of ecological collapse-that our exploding population will soon run out of all its resources and there will be famine, war, draught, disease, and pestilence. They‘ve even convinced a environmentally conscious woman to abort her child and sterilize herself to be sure she doesn‘t end up making more ecological disasters (meaning new human beings).6 But people like the old Thomas Malthus and Paul Ehrlich are completely wrong. Ehrlich’s predictions that we would all starve to death in the 70’s and 80’s failed to come true. The reason being that when a human being is born into the world, he doesn’t just bring an appetite and a carbon footprint; he brings the potential for creativity and innovation. It may sound hokey but people are our most valuable resource. Technology has more than kept up with our growing population, much to people like Ehrlich’s chagrin.7 But if there are no people to innovate or to invest in new technologies, than how can be produce enough to support an elderly population?
What alarms me about this is the underlying causes of this problem. I can think of two probably ones. First and probably least influential (as of right now) is a change in ethics. Radical environmentalists encourage people to value animal life on the same level as human life, such as in the philosophy as Peter Singer. This doesn’t bring animals to the human level, but rather brings us down to theirs, and so a can of worms is opened up and it can be considered moral for human beings to drive themselves to extinction to “save the planet.” (what is quite ironic about this is that it doesn‘t even make evolutionary sense, as a species priority is to preserve itself, at the expense of others if necassary). Secondly and more problematic is our shift from a culture centered on family to one centered on the self. People put off having children for their careers, or so they can enjoy life with less responsibilities. And in the long run those notions are incredibly detrimental to society.
I hope to continue this topic in later blog entries. There are many areas that need further discussion, for example, what this means for China or the change in ethics that could accompany a huge demographic shift. As an Orthodox Christian, one particular issue that emerges from population decline is what it means for the Church. In Greece, Russian, Romania, and every other country where Orthodoxy is the dominate religion fertility rates are well below replacement levels. This could mean that Orthodoxy in America will have an increasing importance in the years to come. Hopefully I’ll be able to write some more in the future, but these next few months I expect to be pretty busy. I hope you’ve enjoyed my article, and that it has provided food for thought. In between now and the next blog I hope to watch a new documentary about this very subject matter: Demographic Winter.
Ok, so it’s awfully pretentious of some no-credentials undergraduate student like me to be writing about such a massive issue. But this is some serious stuff, a lot more serious than climate change or the price of oil or whatever crisis of the day people are talking about. I hope this blog entry gets people thinking about something that has a tremendous potential effect on our children’s and grandchildren’s world.
Our world is changing. And I’m not thinking of its temperature. Social scientist say that to maintain a countries population the average woman needs to have 2.1 children. That makes sense, as each married couple replaces itself with two kids, and there’s an additional tenth of a child to make up for any children who die prematurely. But in the European Union the fertility rate is at 1.5, with Lithuania at the lowest (1.22) and France at the highest (1.98), according to the CIA World Factbook.1 As Europeans have less children, the average age of the population gets older and more people retire and need money from the welfare-state. In order to maintain its economy, an increasing number of immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East are needed to boost the shrinking workforce. These immigrants are primarily Muslim, and with them they bring the seeds of Islamic society. This situation, to say the least, is not good. The whole situation makes me recall when in my high school Humanities class we discussed the fall of the Roman Empire. One of the biggest reasons for the Empire’s fall was its decline in population. With their great success and lives in pursuit of pleasure, the Romans began to stop having babies. No new babies means no new soldiers, workers, or government officials. Without people power the huge state of the Empire collapsed, and the Romans were unable to resist as they were swept away in wave after wave of barbarian migrations (the result of my German ancestors, I suppose). Shrinking and aging population and huge and expensive bureaucracy in the EU sounds quite similar.
People might say, “Ok, the white European population is certainly in decline, but these immigrants will assimilate and discard much of their culture for the wonderful consumerism of the West. To worry about people with a different skin color taking over is a quite racist and xenophobic thing to do. What culture they do keep will add a nice zest to the European food-scape.” I’d say it is arrogant to assume that our post-modern materialistic culture is so inherently superior that it’ll assimilate all foreigners like the seemingly invincible Borg of Star Trek. And it doesn’t sound like some Europeans even want to let them assimilate, as the leader of the Church of England Archbishop Rowan Williams is calling for a degree Islamic law to be adopted in the United Kingdom.2 Having in one country two legal systems from two completely different world-views sounds like a very bad idea to me. Unlike the United States, Europe is not a society founded by immigrants (at least not in recent history), so I‘m not sure if Europe can integrate its new citizens like we can. There’s a good chance Western Europe will end up looking like the Balkans in the not too distant future.
There is an excellent book I read by Mark Steyn titled America Alone.3 He discusses the demographic situation in Europe and the implications it could have on the United States. I really like the essence of his argument as he puts it in his prologue on page xxxv:
“Age + Welfare = Disaster for You
Youth + Will = Disaster for whoever gets in your way”
Though not an academic work, I feel his ideas cut to the heart of this issue, and thus the I highly recommend his book.
On the other side of the world Japan has a similar problem, but a different solution. With a fertility rate of 1.22, and if it doesn’t change soon Japan’s economy is in serious trouble.4 Japan could open its doors to immigration, but the homogeneous nation seems antsy about that idea. So instead they turn to robots, which could result in an interesting evolution of society, for better or for worse.5
The United States, so far, has a healthy social scientist recommended fertility rate of 2.10. Of course our population continues to grow as well through immigration, but it’s driven by Latin Americans, who are Roman Catholic and share many of our values, and so I don’t think it poses the same threat as Europe’s immigration problem does (it could even greatly help us, but that‘s another blog article entirely). Though our economy might have hit a rough spot right now, I think our growing population will serve us well in the future. But there are still people buying into outdated Malthusian ideas about how eventually we will all starve because there are far too many people. Radical environmentalists are constantly bombarding people with prophecies that we are on the verge of ecological collapse-that our exploding population will soon run out of all its resources and there will be famine, war, draught, disease, and pestilence. They‘ve even convinced a environmentally conscious woman to abort her child and sterilize herself to be sure she doesn‘t end up making more ecological disasters (meaning new human beings).6 But people like the old Thomas Malthus and Paul Ehrlich are completely wrong. Ehrlich’s predictions that we would all starve to death in the 70’s and 80’s failed to come true. The reason being that when a human being is born into the world, he doesn’t just bring an appetite and a carbon footprint; he brings the potential for creativity and innovation. It may sound hokey but people are our most valuable resource. Technology has more than kept up with our growing population, much to people like Ehrlich’s chagrin.7 But if there are no people to innovate or to invest in new technologies, than how can be produce enough to support an elderly population?
What alarms me about this is the underlying causes of this problem. I can think of two probably ones. First and probably least influential (as of right now) is a change in ethics. Radical environmentalists encourage people to value animal life on the same level as human life, such as in the philosophy as Peter Singer. This doesn’t bring animals to the human level, but rather brings us down to theirs, and so a can of worms is opened up and it can be considered moral for human beings to drive themselves to extinction to “save the planet.” (what is quite ironic about this is that it doesn‘t even make evolutionary sense, as a species priority is to preserve itself, at the expense of others if necassary). Secondly and more problematic is our shift from a culture centered on family to one centered on the self. People put off having children for their careers, or so they can enjoy life with less responsibilities. And in the long run those notions are incredibly detrimental to society.
I hope to continue this topic in later blog entries. There are many areas that need further discussion, for example, what this means for China or the change in ethics that could accompany a huge demographic shift. As an Orthodox Christian, one particular issue that emerges from population decline is what it means for the Church. In Greece, Russian, Romania, and every other country where Orthodoxy is the dominate religion fertility rates are well below replacement levels. This could mean that Orthodoxy in America will have an increasing importance in the years to come. Hopefully I’ll be able to write some more in the future, but these next few months I expect to be pretty busy. I hope you’ve enjoyed my article, and that it has provided food for thought. In between now and the next blog I hope to watch a new documentary about this very subject matter: Demographic Winter.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Signs and Metaculture: "Sign" and the "Transcendental Signified"
First, “Sign”, perhaps the most common and complex term tossed about by modern literati. So commonly debated and utilized has the term been that even upon hearing “si-”, many professors merely roll their eyes, as if to say, “Oh no, not again!” Yet, while they may be sick and tired of opening that particular box of fury (and I am not learned enough to give a full-on discussion of its history), it is important to briefly address the nature of the sign and its implications for everyday communication and human interaction.
Very concisely, here is a simple description of the sign, as defined by Ferdinand de Saussure[1]:
1. The sign is the holistic representation of two parts—the signifier and the signified.
2. The signifier could be said to be the form of the sign, and the signified the concept.
3. To give an analogy, a sign is a painting; the signifiers are black, white, grey, and red watercolors; and the signified is a woman riding a horse.
There are many instances in which we interact with signs in daily life—traffic signs, advertisements, giving someone the thumbs-up. Each sign has its own meaning: a traffic sign is a directive, ordering you to stop, go, turn, etc; an advertisement (let’s take a KFC billboard as representative) is another form of directive—“eat my chicken”; the thumbs-up is a form of acknowledgement of past obligation: “you did a good job.”
More often than not, however, the experience we have with signs is in the form of verbal communication. In speech, the spoken word is the sign, the form of the word is the signifier, and the meaning of the word is the signified. Saussure gives the example of the sign: “arbor”, where the letters “a-r-b-o-r” comprise the signifier and the idea of ‘tree’ is the concept, or thing signified. Thus, in the phrase, “an arboreal recluse”, we understand it means “a hidden place with trees” only because we know that the sign “arbor” implies the meaning of ‘tree’.
All right, here are some problems associated with theories of signs:
1. If the spoken word, “arbor” brings to mind ‘tree’, the next question we have to ask is, what kind of tree? When you say arbor, am I thinking of a dead oak while you are thinking of a cluster of beautiful palm trees? The next step is that we must be more and more specific with our words—defining each and every word. Of course, the only way to define what we say is with other words, so we are caught in an everlasting circle of definition in order to understand each other.
2. Jacques Derrida discusses the problem of representation. The way that we have described the sign above involves representation: the signified is represented by the signifier. Representation, he says, has two ways of being understood: representation as describing/defining a thing or re-presentation as one thing standing in the place of/reproducing another. He shows the nature of signs to be representational, and as such to be contingent upon there being something to re-present. This he follows to the source of an object which represents itself and which “is present before the act of repetition” (“Speech and Phenomena” 13), that is, it exists before signs and is that which all other things are representations of. If all signs represent something else, then there must be something at the origin that cannot represent anything other than itself. As the primary thing which all others represent, it is the “transcendental signified”, that which takes no part in the other signifiers because of its transcendence. However, by asserting itself in the act of being, or in its presence (by being “re-presented”), it negates its own existence, since it, by nature, can never be represented (in the sense of definition) in the first place. Because it is transcendent and nothing can represent it but itself, then when the “transcendental signified” represents itself it is brought into the realm of things represented, which means that it is made present (which it cannot be by nature).
While there are more discussions, let us only address these two, as they are complicated enough. Problem (1) is based on the theory of signs being a social construct, centered on interaction between human beings. Essentially then, the difficulties become psychological incongruencies (psychological because the problem is associated with the concept of the signified in a person’s mind, whether the person who vocalizes the sign or one who hears it). Thus, if the sign is a social construct, then the most important part of the sign is the signifier and how the signifier is used. If the problem lies in the signifier, and not the signified, then it is with the signifier that human communication finds its meaning. For, we cannot (unlike some Sci-Fi characters) comprehend the unspoken psychological existences. And if the meaning of the sign lies in the proper communication of it within society (because a concept has no meaning if you can’t structure it in a particular form, even in your own mind, and it is meaningless without communication between beings) then primacy of the signifier rather than the signified in the human psyche becomes apparent.[2]
The main issue that I want to point out with Problem (1) is that, if the sign is a social construct, then it becomes entirely relative to the communicative abilities of those in the society. Take, for example, a child who says, “Ba!”, and the parents understand that to mean, “I want my bottle.” Naturally, if the child continues to grow, his social surroundings will inevitably change, and he cannot be allowed to continue the use of “ba” to mean “bottle.” Now let us look at another way of viewing signs and see if it helps any with combating the sign as an entirely social construct.
Briefly, Tolkien the philologist (following Barfield) taught that modern languages evolved from a common root language, a teaching that is very common in anthropological studies but at the time, the two were not considered different spheres in philology[3]. In tracing the common root language, Tolkien believed that one might find the origin of human communication. And, if “in the beginning was the Word”, and the Word is the apex of communication without verbal effort, then the beginning language must be a social manifestation (though tainted) of the transcendental Word beyond. It was Tolkien’s philological desire to romanticize the languages of human races and find the traces of their common origin in their ancient communication. We might call this theory of language, centered upon the Logos, “Logos-centric”. Each word and phrase, since it is directly derived from its predecessor (and the primary antecedent is the Logos), is contingent upon the immediate presence of the Logos.
In hearing our dilemma of the child presented above, Tolkien might say that the word “bottle” has meaning outside of the child’s concept of what the word means. The child cannot just invent a word (“ba”) and say that it is substitutable for “bottle”. He merely does not know what word to use, so uses another in its stead. Just as we use the word “arbor” to represent ‘tree’, we use it in place of knowing the expression that might have been used in the original, or divine language. So, in this concept, the sign is not a social construct, but a way of participating in the divine eternality of the Word. Indeed, the more fully we understand languages and the construct of signs, the more we come to participate in the Word. For example, if the only image and concept that comes to mind when we hear the word “arbor” is a palm tree or dead oak, then we do not fully understand the sign. The sign ought to re-present in our minds not only a dead oak, but also “gopher wood”, “olive branch”, and “Cross”, not to mention all the other implied socially constructed, but poetically and divinely useful, representations of the sign. When we hear “arbor”, the more we know, the more we experience. Hence, the study of language, for Tolkien and others, was important to an experience of that from which all things originated.
Here is where we come to Problem (2), the seemingly more complicated of the two. Derrida claimed that the statement, “I am”, was inherently a representation, an act of making the “I” reflexive and present. And if the “I” was supposed to be the “transcendental signified”, it would follow that it was that which could not have a signifier. And the “I am” statement is an attempt by the “I” to signify itself, since it has no adjective defining what state of being the “I” is in. Basically, Derrida wanted to “de-construct” the structures that had been built—structures which all had a single locus as their fixed object. Whether this locus was God in theology, the sun in the solar system, reason in Western philosophy, or the “transcendental sign” in language, his assertion was that these things themselves are not stable, they are constantly in motion. Thus, the binding laws of connection (that which binds all things in a structure to a center) could not apply, but must be themselves in motion. And if they are in motion, then the signs cannot have their meaning based upon the centralized concept, or “logos.” So upon what does the meaning of language signs rest? Upon the differences in the signs themselves—how they relate to one another, how they are used, and to what end their usages permit. A sort of inter-connectedness of meanings arises, rather than a centralized presence or “logos.” In other words, “arbor” would not represent ‘tree’ because it centered around a certain fixed state, but rather because the words surrounding it allowed it to take on the meaning of ‘tree’.
Of course, this assertion is in direct conflict with the beliefs of “Logos-centrism” described in the teachings of Tolkien. The sign is not entirely socially constructed, however. Indeed, the sign, for Derrida, constructs society. Society participates in the grand “play” of signs in that it constantly references signs, and by proxy their interplay of meaning, but the signs themselves still dwell outside of physical existence. It is in the constant reference of the signs to one another that we find the connection between the three philosophies here present. As we pointed out above, in the “Logos-centric” understanding of language, the more references we understand in the meaning of the sign, the closer we get to an experience of what lies beneath, thus we participate in the eternal self- and inter-referential nature of the signs.
This does not negate the fixed center around which the signs and our understanding of those signs circulate, as the center itself need not be separated from the interplay of signs and may actually assist in the constant change of reference. For, if the Word of “Logos-centrism” cannot be fully re-presented in the signs we make (as we are inherently tainted), then we must constantly be representing our experience in various and incomprehensive ways. This also addresses Problem (1), as it points out that each word has its meaning inherently intertwined with the use of other words in society while at the same time being maintained by the ever-present Logos. What does this mean for practical life? For starters, it means that the words we use are by their use a reference to and re-presentation of the original Word and that the inter-referential nature of signs inherently contains divinity and is not limited to a social construct.
Bibliography
Derrida, Jacques. “Speech and Phenomena.” In A Derrida Reader: Between the Blinds. Edited by Peggy Kamuf. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.
Flieger, Verlyn Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World. Kent State University Press, 2002.
Saussure, Ferdinand de. Course in General Linguistics. Chicago: Open Court, 2004.
[1] While I reference Sassure here, I do not intend to go over the entire Course in General Linguistics nor debate the failures of Sassurean philosophy (for a somewhat entertainingly harsh and un-learned reaction to post-Saussurean theory, see Not Saussure by “Dr.” Raymond Tallis). I do not wish to go into a lengthy discussion of post-structuralist thought nor alternative theories of defining signs (viz. Donald Davidson’s “triangulation” theory, etc.). This is not because they are not interesting, indeed I find them more intriguing than Saussure’s model, but for the purposes of this essay, I will mostly allow Saussure’s model to stand (for now), so as not to bore you.
[2] See Lacan for a psycho-analytical defense of the SIGNIFIER/signified split.
[3] Indeed, it is important to understand that Saussure’s teaching was almost in direct reaction to the assumption that anthropology and linguistic studies must go hand-in-hand, as he taught that, while they can contribute to one another, the two fields are entirely separate.
Very concisely, here is a simple description of the sign, as defined by Ferdinand de Saussure[1]:
1. The sign is the holistic representation of two parts—the signifier and the signified.
2. The signifier could be said to be the form of the sign, and the signified the concept.
3. To give an analogy, a sign is a painting; the signifiers are black, white, grey, and red watercolors; and the signified is a woman riding a horse.
There are many instances in which we interact with signs in daily life—traffic signs, advertisements, giving someone the thumbs-up. Each sign has its own meaning: a traffic sign is a directive, ordering you to stop, go, turn, etc; an advertisement (let’s take a KFC billboard as representative) is another form of directive—“eat my chicken”; the thumbs-up is a form of acknowledgement of past obligation: “you did a good job.”
More often than not, however, the experience we have with signs is in the form of verbal communication. In speech, the spoken word is the sign, the form of the word is the signifier, and the meaning of the word is the signified. Saussure gives the example of the sign: “arbor”, where the letters “a-r-b-o-r” comprise the signifier and the idea of ‘tree’ is the concept, or thing signified. Thus, in the phrase, “an arboreal recluse”, we understand it means “a hidden place with trees” only because we know that the sign “arbor” implies the meaning of ‘tree’.
All right, here are some problems associated with theories of signs:
1. If the spoken word, “arbor” brings to mind ‘tree’, the next question we have to ask is, what kind of tree? When you say arbor, am I thinking of a dead oak while you are thinking of a cluster of beautiful palm trees? The next step is that we must be more and more specific with our words—defining each and every word. Of course, the only way to define what we say is with other words, so we are caught in an everlasting circle of definition in order to understand each other.
2. Jacques Derrida discusses the problem of representation. The way that we have described the sign above involves representation: the signified is represented by the signifier. Representation, he says, has two ways of being understood: representation as describing/defining a thing or re-presentation as one thing standing in the place of/reproducing another. He shows the nature of signs to be representational, and as such to be contingent upon there being something to re-present. This he follows to the source of an object which represents itself and which “is present before the act of repetition” (“Speech and Phenomena” 13), that is, it exists before signs and is that which all other things are representations of. If all signs represent something else, then there must be something at the origin that cannot represent anything other than itself. As the primary thing which all others represent, it is the “transcendental signified”, that which takes no part in the other signifiers because of its transcendence. However, by asserting itself in the act of being, or in its presence (by being “re-presented”), it negates its own existence, since it, by nature, can never be represented (in the sense of definition) in the first place. Because it is transcendent and nothing can represent it but itself, then when the “transcendental signified” represents itself it is brought into the realm of things represented, which means that it is made present (which it cannot be by nature).
While there are more discussions, let us only address these two, as they are complicated enough. Problem (1) is based on the theory of signs being a social construct, centered on interaction between human beings. Essentially then, the difficulties become psychological incongruencies (psychological because the problem is associated with the concept of the signified in a person’s mind, whether the person who vocalizes the sign or one who hears it). Thus, if the sign is a social construct, then the most important part of the sign is the signifier and how the signifier is used. If the problem lies in the signifier, and not the signified, then it is with the signifier that human communication finds its meaning. For, we cannot (unlike some Sci-Fi characters) comprehend the unspoken psychological existences. And if the meaning of the sign lies in the proper communication of it within society (because a concept has no meaning if you can’t structure it in a particular form, even in your own mind, and it is meaningless without communication between beings) then primacy of the signifier rather than the signified in the human psyche becomes apparent.[2]
The main issue that I want to point out with Problem (1) is that, if the sign is a social construct, then it becomes entirely relative to the communicative abilities of those in the society. Take, for example, a child who says, “Ba!”, and the parents understand that to mean, “I want my bottle.” Naturally, if the child continues to grow, his social surroundings will inevitably change, and he cannot be allowed to continue the use of “ba” to mean “bottle.” Now let us look at another way of viewing signs and see if it helps any with combating the sign as an entirely social construct.
Briefly, Tolkien the philologist (following Barfield) taught that modern languages evolved from a common root language, a teaching that is very common in anthropological studies but at the time, the two were not considered different spheres in philology[3]. In tracing the common root language, Tolkien believed that one might find the origin of human communication. And, if “in the beginning was the Word”, and the Word is the apex of communication without verbal effort, then the beginning language must be a social manifestation (though tainted) of the transcendental Word beyond. It was Tolkien’s philological desire to romanticize the languages of human races and find the traces of their common origin in their ancient communication. We might call this theory of language, centered upon the Logos, “Logos-centric”. Each word and phrase, since it is directly derived from its predecessor (and the primary antecedent is the Logos), is contingent upon the immediate presence of the Logos.
In hearing our dilemma of the child presented above, Tolkien might say that the word “bottle” has meaning outside of the child’s concept of what the word means. The child cannot just invent a word (“ba”) and say that it is substitutable for “bottle”. He merely does not know what word to use, so uses another in its stead. Just as we use the word “arbor” to represent ‘tree’, we use it in place of knowing the expression that might have been used in the original, or divine language. So, in this concept, the sign is not a social construct, but a way of participating in the divine eternality of the Word. Indeed, the more fully we understand languages and the construct of signs, the more we come to participate in the Word. For example, if the only image and concept that comes to mind when we hear the word “arbor” is a palm tree or dead oak, then we do not fully understand the sign. The sign ought to re-present in our minds not only a dead oak, but also “gopher wood”, “olive branch”, and “Cross”, not to mention all the other implied socially constructed, but poetically and divinely useful, representations of the sign. When we hear “arbor”, the more we know, the more we experience. Hence, the study of language, for Tolkien and others, was important to an experience of that from which all things originated.
Here is where we come to Problem (2), the seemingly more complicated of the two. Derrida claimed that the statement, “I am”, was inherently a representation, an act of making the “I” reflexive and present. And if the “I” was supposed to be the “transcendental signified”, it would follow that it was that which could not have a signifier. And the “I am” statement is an attempt by the “I” to signify itself, since it has no adjective defining what state of being the “I” is in. Basically, Derrida wanted to “de-construct” the structures that had been built—structures which all had a single locus as their fixed object. Whether this locus was God in theology, the sun in the solar system, reason in Western philosophy, or the “transcendental sign” in language, his assertion was that these things themselves are not stable, they are constantly in motion. Thus, the binding laws of connection (that which binds all things in a structure to a center) could not apply, but must be themselves in motion. And if they are in motion, then the signs cannot have their meaning based upon the centralized concept, or “logos.” So upon what does the meaning of language signs rest? Upon the differences in the signs themselves—how they relate to one another, how they are used, and to what end their usages permit. A sort of inter-connectedness of meanings arises, rather than a centralized presence or “logos.” In other words, “arbor” would not represent ‘tree’ because it centered around a certain fixed state, but rather because the words surrounding it allowed it to take on the meaning of ‘tree’.
Of course, this assertion is in direct conflict with the beliefs of “Logos-centrism” described in the teachings of Tolkien. The sign is not entirely socially constructed, however. Indeed, the sign, for Derrida, constructs society. Society participates in the grand “play” of signs in that it constantly references signs, and by proxy their interplay of meaning, but the signs themselves still dwell outside of physical existence. It is in the constant reference of the signs to one another that we find the connection between the three philosophies here present. As we pointed out above, in the “Logos-centric” understanding of language, the more references we understand in the meaning of the sign, the closer we get to an experience of what lies beneath, thus we participate in the eternal self- and inter-referential nature of the signs.
This does not negate the fixed center around which the signs and our understanding of those signs circulate, as the center itself need not be separated from the interplay of signs and may actually assist in the constant change of reference. For, if the Word of “Logos-centrism” cannot be fully re-presented in the signs we make (as we are inherently tainted), then we must constantly be representing our experience in various and incomprehensive ways. This also addresses Problem (1), as it points out that each word has its meaning inherently intertwined with the use of other words in society while at the same time being maintained by the ever-present Logos. What does this mean for practical life? For starters, it means that the words we use are by their use a reference to and re-presentation of the original Word and that the inter-referential nature of signs inherently contains divinity and is not limited to a social construct.
Bibliography
Derrida, Jacques. “Speech and Phenomena.” In A Derrida Reader: Between the Blinds. Edited by Peggy Kamuf. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.
Flieger, Verlyn Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World. Kent State University Press, 2002.
Saussure, Ferdinand de. Course in General Linguistics. Chicago: Open Court, 2004.
[1] While I reference Sassure here, I do not intend to go over the entire Course in General Linguistics nor debate the failures of Sassurean philosophy (for a somewhat entertainingly harsh and un-learned reaction to post-Saussurean theory, see Not Saussure by “Dr.” Raymond Tallis). I do not wish to go into a lengthy discussion of post-structuralist thought nor alternative theories of defining signs (viz. Donald Davidson’s “triangulation” theory, etc.). This is not because they are not interesting, indeed I find them more intriguing than Saussure’s model, but for the purposes of this essay, I will mostly allow Saussure’s model to stand (for now), so as not to bore you.
[2] See Lacan for a psycho-analytical defense of the SIGNIFIER/signified split.
[3] Indeed, it is important to understand that Saussure’s teaching was almost in direct reaction to the assumption that anthropology and linguistic studies must go hand-in-hand, as he taught that, while they can contribute to one another, the two fields are entirely separate.
Signs and Metaculture: Introduction
In the upcoming series of essays titled "Signs and Metaculture", I intend to provide an understandable explanation of certain common terms used by literary critics and scholars. I will show how, in its respective definition, each term carries the vast importance of constructing perspectives on everyday experience. I will explain certain theories of each word or phrase in history and how each theory can drastically alter one's concept and experience of reality.
I do not purport to be an expert in any sense on historical literary criticism and will not give a detailed analysis of competing schools of literary thought. However, I will reference particular schools and a few critics during the essays, so a brief explanation will be necessary. Because I lack expertise, I welcome all feedback on the series.
Lastly, I hope to provide at least six essays in installments of two month intervals, but this is subject to change. Enjoy!
I do not purport to be an expert in any sense on historical literary criticism and will not give a detailed analysis of competing schools of literary thought. However, I will reference particular schools and a few critics during the essays, so a brief explanation will be necessary. Because I lack expertise, I welcome all feedback on the series.
Lastly, I hope to provide at least six essays in installments of two month intervals, but this is subject to change. Enjoy!
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Ante-Occidents: Who We Are
The Ante-Occidents: One Orthodox Faith, Four Unorthodox Minds
Eclectic musings on faith, society, culture, and creed. Engaging society from the foundations up, we contemplate the disparate elements that comprise our world: art, literature, philosophy, history, science, language, politics, communication, and faith.
Because it's a weird and wonderful world, and the fun ain't over yet.
Meet the Ante-Occidents:
Brandon is a twenty something from Memphis. He has a Bachelor of Arts in History and works at a library. He's a vegetarian foodie whose favorite restaurants invariably go out of business. He enjoys wandering around the Brooks Museum while listening to good music. He likes to write and to cook, though he's not particularly good at either. 
Evan is a floundering neutralist. He generally dwells in possibility, but occasionally makes excursions to visit his wife Elizabeth and caoch an age group swim team full time. His influences include, but are not limited to: Arthur Schopenhauer, Dr. Keith Callis, procrastination, and smog.
Chase is a German(Hessian)/Welsh-American, with a bit of Cherokee and Czech ancestry to make things interesting. Raised Southern Baptist, he felt something missing. He explored many other religions from Buddhism and Daoism to Hinduism and Islam. He has found his home in the Orthodox Church. He is currently in college studying computer science and physics. He does, however, delve into the more liberal artsy subjects, as he loves history and languages. His greatest passion is for building things--and as such his goals in life include learning carpentry, woodworking, and metalworking. As for hobbies, he enjoys games that involve logic and strategy (Chess, Go, Sudoku, etc.). Someday he'd like to own a farm and maintain some degree of self-sufficiency.
Josh is the unusual product of intense cultural collisions. He exists in a web of odd, complex tensions, including that of being an Eastern Christian of Western heritage, as well as growing up in several foreign countries before returning to the idiosyncracies of life in the Southern U.S. Josh loves to study and observe communication dynamics, at intrapersonal, interpersonal, and societal levels.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)