Excerpt from "A Man of the People" by Ursula K. Le Guin

"After a long silence, he nodded.

            She sat stricken, understanding that she had won. She had won badly.

            She reached across to him, trying to comfort him and herself. She was scared by the darkness in him, his grief, his mute acceptance of betrayal. But it wasn't betrayal - she rejected the word at once. She wouldn't betray him. They were in love. They loved each other. He would follow her in a year, two years at the most. They were adults, they must not cling together like children. Adult relationships are based on mutual freedom, mutual trust. She told herself all these things as she said them to him. He said yes, and held her, and comforted her. In the night, in the utter silence of the desert, the blood singing in his ears, he lay awake and though, 'It has died unborn. It was never conceived.'

            They stayed together in their little apartment at the School for the few more weeks before Tiu left. They made love cautiously, gently, talked about history and economics and ethnology, kept busy. Tiu had to prepare herself to work with the team she was going with, studying the Terran concepts of hiearchy; Zhiv had a paper to write on social-energy generation of Werel. They worked hard. Their friends gave Tiu a big farewell party. The next day Zhiv went with her to Ve Port. She kissed and held him, telling him to hurry, hurry and come to Terra. He saw her board the flyer that would take her up to the NAFAL ship waiting in orbit. He went back to the apartment on the South Campus of the School. There a friend found him three days later sitting at his desk in a curious condition, passive, speaking very slowly if at all, unable to eat or drink. Being pueblo-born, the friend recognized this state and called in the medicine man (the Hainish do not call them doctors). Having ascertained that he was from one of the Southern pueblos, the medicine man said, 'Havzhiva! The god cannot die in you here!'

            After a long silence the young man said softly in a voice which did not sound like his  voice, 'I need to go home.'

            'That is not possible now,' said the medicine man. 'But we can arrange a Staying chant while I find a person able to address the god.' He promptly put out a call for students who were ex-People of the South. Four responded. They sat all night with Havzhiva singing the Staying Chant in two languages and four dialects, until Havzhiva joined in a fifth dialect, whispering the words hoarsely, till he collapsed and slept for thirty hours.

            He woke in his own room. An old woman was having a conversation with nobody beside him. 'You aren't here,' she said. 'No, you are mistaken. You can't die here. It would not be right, it would be quite wrong. You now that. This is the wrong place. This is the wrong life. You know that! What are you doing here? Are you lost? Do you want to know the way home? Here it is. Listen.' She began singing in a thin, high voice, an almost tuneless, almost wordless song that was familiar to Havzhiva, as if he had heard it long ago. He fell asleep again while the old woman went on talking to nobody.

            When he woke again she was gone. He never knew who she was or where she came from; he never asked. She had spoke and sung in his own language, in the dialect of Stse."

--Ursula K. Le Guin, "A Man of the People," Four Ways to Forgiveness (Harper Perennial, 1995), pp. 153-155

A Challenge to Impersonalism of Philosophic Space: From Red Mars

"The only part of an argument that really matters is what we think of the people arguing. X claims a, Y claims b. They make arguments to support their claims, with any number of points. But when their listeners remember the discussion, what matters is simply that X believes a, and Y believes b. People then form their judgment on what they think of X and Y."

Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars (Bantam Spectra, 1993), p 77.

In The Shade

You come out here on some old hunt

limping

from formative wounds

dents to the fender

Friendless, new, shy

your eyes spin and squint

from culture shock and sun

Everyone who passes by

you think-ask: 

Won't you come kiss me
hold me
share this warmth

by the air-conditioner?

Stare into my eyes

under the ceiling fan?

In the shade
with your daemon

squirt gun in hand

a pack of sandwiches
upon your lap
you'll wait
heavy

heavy with knots
not drawn here 
tired from the bad chemicals
that follow

Movies I Like: L'Illusionniste

For some reason I want to say a few things about a handful of movies that I like. I don't know...

Ok (no order):

1. L'Illusionniste (The Illusionist - 2010). This is a hand drawn (romanticized-realist?) animation about a traveling magician and a protege he picks up along the way - a pretty young girl. There are no words; well, actually, there are Englishy mumbles, but that's as far as it goes. I had this movie saved to my parents DVR and would watch it before going to bed when I lived there. A kind of salve. I'm wondering if this has to do with the quality of whimsy present. A graying, middle aged whimsy. One doesn't leave this movie feeling bad.

There are parts of L'Illusionniste that I always want to watch (this is a preoccupation of mine, which will make other appearances in "Movies I like" to come) - like the magician taking boat rides out to Scotland, with all this wonderful green overcastness. God... And the music hits the spot - soulful soft classical piano, often in breathtaking waltz timing, occasionally accompanied by xylophones, jazz drums, and another thing or two. Clean and well-wishing, in an elderly way (as though you are spending the day with a sophisticated grandparent, and, incidentally, you two go to a doughnut shop and sip strangely good coffee and eat two frosting donuts, one with coconut and the other with chocolate chips). Reminds me of parts of Michael Giacchino's Up's score, but less heavyhanded with the melancholy/nostalgia. Here is an example.

As far as what the movie is about, to be honest I'm not really sure. I'll have to watch it again with that project in mind. I wasn't watching it for plot, though, and so it's hard to say what the meaning of the thing is. I've been taking it in episodically - to borrow Galen Strawson's term (see this paper for a run down on what episodism means, if you are interested). Nevertheless, I've seen the movie enough to know that the plot is like this: An understated, underdog-like magician performs in some big city, then travels to Scotland to perform, then travels back to the continent to perform, where he strikes the fancy of a girl (I'm thinking 15-18 years old) who follows him as a kind of stowaway. They eventually come to share an apartment, and the girl seems to want to learn magic - she thinks it's real, and the magician is having difficulties telling her to the contrary. Anyway, the magician is having a hard time getting any more gigs - as are all the other entertainment persons that surround them (clowns, gymnasts, etc.) - and he takes up other means of employment. The girl is presented with gifts (a coat, shoes, a dress) throughout the movie by the magician, and comes to affect some poise. This gains her the interest of a young man in town. When the magician sees them together, he decides to leave her some money and a note ("Magicians do no exist."), before taking a train out of town. We see the magician look at a handheld photograph longingly as he rides away (in fact, he eyeballs the photo a few time during the movie).

Maybe it has something to do with the destructive ramifications of consumerism. Maybe not. I tend to think everything I encounter now has this theme. I should probably look into that. The movie also seems to be about loss or something like that. I wouldn't have emphasized this connection, though, without reading the wikipedia page.

I will say, though, that fortunately, L'Illusionniste is not about a romance between the young woman (maybe girl?) and the middle aged magician. Every time I show L'Illusionniste to a friend, they always think it will go in that direction. But it doesn't. There is a purity about the movie. Maybe that's not quite right.

In any case the full movie is here.

I wonder what you think.

Initiation Song from the Finder's Lodge

Please bring strange things.
Please come bringing new things.
Let very old things come into your hands.
Let what you do not know come into your eyes.
Let desert sand harden your feet.
Let the arch of your feet be the mountains.
Let the paths of your fingertips be your maps
and the ways you go be the lines on your palms.
Let there be deep snow in your inbreathing
and your outbreath be the shining of ice.
May your mouth contain the shapes of strange words.
May you smell food cooking you have not eaten.
May the spring of a foreign river be your navel.
May your soul be at home where there are no houses.
Walk carefully, well loved one,
walk mindfully, well loved one,
walk fearlessly, well loved one.
Return with us, return to us,
be always coming home.

- Ursula K. Le Guin

From Always Coming Home (Harper & Row, 1985)

"Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad."

Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash (Bantam, 1993), p. 271

What You Want For Yourself

Let's say you've packed up a vehicle

enough supplies, clothes

and the special personal things you need

and you're driving somewhere

Let's say you're driving and thinking

Where should I go?

Let's say you are driving

and that you resolve to get to the bottom of it

Finally

after all these years

the body like a wet towel twisted dry

your body

always digging yourself out

Let's say you pull over and pee and get some coffee

Then put on music you can think to

perhaps its Glass's 1000 Airplanes on the Roof
or Arvo Pärt's Fur Alina

Let's say you have found yourself into some money

It's origin is nothing extreme

not the lottery

not inheritance

not a sudden rise to success or fame

Let's say you are driving away

taking a break

if that's what you are doing

from the build up of the everyday

from whatever you need to take a break from

Let's say you're free

not the freedom of political theorists or metaphysicians

but the freedom of ease

a consciousness of no commitments

no identity

Let's say you pull off the road and park

That you jump the fence

the stringy low metal and wood kind

ubiquitous to country lanes

Let's say you walk

quiet roaming hillsides

you walk them until you can be with yourself

and then you sit Indian style

near the shade of a tree

a tree you couldn't name

Let's say you are no one anymore

you have no relationships

aside from the one's you will into effect

Let's say you needn't make any moves

you can sit here on this hillside

there are no rules

the world is an open game

the blank page of the painter

Let's say you ask

What do you want for yourself?

You Say:
What do I want for myself

on this quiet roaming hillside

the pleasure of having no one to please

having no one to be

like a ginger vitality

an inner beaming

at my back

"Most talk of 'artistic detachment' is disingenuous. No writer can depict the whole world - even if, like Balzac, he makes a credible attempt. All he can do is offer 'typical samples,' like a grocer allowing you to taste a piece of cheese. But as he holds out the cheese to you on the end of his knife, he is clearly implying that this sample tastes exactly the same as the rest of the cheese on the counter. The same goes for the novelist; as he hands you his 'slice of life', there is a tacit understanding that, as far as he knows, this tastes very much like any other slice he could offer you."

Colin Wilson, The Craft of the Novel (Ashgrove Press, 1990), pp. 57.

The Metaphysics of Vanessa

You say to yourself

Walk her to the parking lot after class

Talk about the New-Agey teacher

What we thought about

When he turned the lights off

And played a guided mediation tape

All quick questions

Defense Mechanisms

The barely-there norm

She’s this short, petite Latino girl

The speaker of a cautious, endearing language

Not the language of innocence

But of reserve and cheerfulness

Some knowing aspect

The cause of heritage

Of someone who hasn’t really strayed from life

Who doesn’t suspect there is a sour trick at play

Yet aware of this idea

Having felt its weight

Having persevered

Who may have been around the shady types

But does not advance it

A strange fact

In this strange thing

You say more liberalism would help

And a healthier economy

And we’d do well to spend time with family

Read a book every now and then

Stay in on Saturday night

And stare at yourself in the mirror

‘I know you’re after intensity’

You’ll say to the mirror

‘Cause I chased it too’

She says, We do it for ourselves

And then for others

Don’t confuse the order

For perhaps there is no way

But we shall not know coiled up

Sucking upon the second hand of centuries

The buildup of the easy

You say to her wonderful black hair

Remember:

We came out of the world

Without initiation

And the world came out of the world

Without initiation

I tell you this

But the hearers didn’t choose to hear

And the deaf did not choose otherwise

And you may withdrawal

Say you owe nothing

Say that you are your own thing

With your own projects

Your own pleasure

That no one can take that away

By her clothes

By her shyness

An honest young woman

You dwell on that

You

You are a liar

A politician

A teenage smirk

Glazed debris

You’ve sat against yourself

In the screaming body of a victim

Your body

So many years

Always digging yourself out

The body like a wet towel twisted dry

You first notice her on the bus

The back of her head

Her hair pulled back:

Over her ear the slimmest of strands

Out of order

In the wonderful sunlight

Blessing her

And you sit there

And you want to be surefooted and articulate

When you come into her view

You’ll exit and smile slightly

And you want to be the highest self

The highest there is

Self Love, Sea Lust

Been walking for sometime

don't know why I'm here

I no longer remember

Longings and hunger and thirst

have made their way with me

entangled, overgrown

this is what I know

I browse old photos

recordings

stars of the lid

I look at her eyes

how she was touching me

I look for clues

Oh, I'm a cog

a billiard ball

foaming

over and over

ripping, pleading

Will the next person

who comes down the path

save me

steer me away from here?

But down this path

is vacancy

is sea lust

a container

for the craving

of oceanic solace

of destination

In the mirror of ponds

I see tired eyes

blued eyes

foreign

in the cold of night

I hear chattering of teeth

startlingly near

But no one

there is no one

If you wonder why I walk

it's because I've already sat

hung my head

And sitting is much worse

you lose more than you know

spin yourself knots

dirt in every crevice

At least with walk

you dull the nerves

distract the eye

keep status quo

Again, again

I find myself here

in this forest

like yesterday

like the day before that

And on these days

shivers and shakes move through

I hear them come out of me

feel them as if emanating

from some wound

and the day follows night

even if night doesn't end

in your head

Yes, there's the typical resistance

to spilling myself

but I'm alone

would like at least one friend

even it is has to be me

Perhaps I will draw a map

if I cannot get myself out

to the sea

I will at least work

care for this path

removing obstacles from it's flow

cleaning it

with salt love

that burns

Am I a phoenix

from these ashes?

How many ponds does it take

to clean a man?

Will you tell me

friend?

Won't you tell me

Introduction to an ongoing project

Introduction: The Sting and Wisdom of Common Characterizations of Philosophy

            Over the course of the last few months I've been advised to visit with a number of specialists in the fields of dermatology and oncology to rule out a possible brush with a rare form of skin cancer.[1] Since I'm in my twenties the office visit small talk invariably revolves around whether I'm in school, what I'm studying, and so on. Having engaged in this type of ritual over and over within a short period of time, certain patterns begin taking shape when I've mentioned that I've just completed an undergraduate degree in philosophy. These patterns seem to me to be indicative of how the discipline-practice is commonly understood in a society, such as ours, which is crucially career oriented and pragmatic. Mixed with the prospect of death hanging in the air, something that never fails to sober things up, these patterns take on a bit more weight and bite.

            Apart from polite indifference and polite affirmation, one typical response is to imply that the study of philosophy is narrowly impractical for the workforce: "What do you plan on doing with that? Do you want to teach?" Another involves citing the reputation of academic philosophers for careful argumentation and reasoning to the point of irrelevant hair splitting, sophistry, or poor sportsmanship: "I sure don't want to get in an argument with you!" A final pattern  references the sheer intellectual complexity of the contemplative subject, perhaps signaling it's intoxication with and compulsive obsession in intellect: "Man, that's more difficult than med. school..." After running through some variation on these characterizations, the focus is then shifted to the explicit reason for the visit. When I walk away from such encounters, however, I feel the typical sting of being cut down to some extent, and this sting - when it becomes searching - acts to fuel my already present suspicions of a field which is so often, in John Dewey's phrase, a "self-indulgence for the few."[2]

            There is a kind of wisdom of the crowds that such characterizations flow from. In this case it's against, or at least suspicious of, the kind of technicalization and specialized projects which philosophers have taken on since perhaps they moved into the university and took their subject professionally serious. Candidacy for the sort of project I have in mind would be those which require a lot of back story to explain why anyone would undertake them and why they are worth the candle - and yet still seem hard to justify much effort. Perhaps an example would be the problem of Non-Being, sometimes called "Plato's Beard", in Ontology, which seeks to account for the type of being Non-Being has.[3]

            While this wisdom has much purchase there is a sense also that it is superficial - or at least not the whole story. Thus the sting. What I would like to consider here takes a stab at the whole story and lies at the source of the searching component of this sting. Another way to put this is that I would like to give weight to the best aspects of both sides of philosophy, the formal and the informal. I wish to honor both, as they both deserve our honor. Put in the form of a question my concern is, What is the value of philosophy and why should it be engaged in? My feeling is that taking an expansive step back and turning the philosophical gaze back upon itself will serve to give context to philosophy's disparate functions, some of which have gone largely unfulfilled in recent centuries, others of which have been misunderstood both by the layman and the professional. Perhaps too closing in on why philosophy is valuable will serve to keep our philosophical efforts properly motivated when they become stale, cloudy, and ostracized against - as they so often do.

            In any case, since responding to the question of value would be to utilize some vision of what philosophy is, and further, what it's functions are (for society, oneself, etc.), anyone taking on the value question must also take on these descriptive and functional aspects. It's in this way that the value question really breaks into a few parts. With this in mind, it will bear alluding to two stumbling blocks that tend to crop up naturally when talking about "philosophy" as such. These stumbling blocks may be referred to as the tunnel-vision tendency, which seems to arise out of philosophy's vastness and special seriousness, and the arrested-development objection, which seems to arise out of an anachronistic comparison between the "goods" of philosophy and the "goods" of science. After pointing these out I will be in a position to properly take up an analysis of what I think is a full response to the question of value - Bertrand Russell's response as in the last chapter of The Problems of Philosophy. My analysis will reveal that Russell posits three distinct values for philosophy: one springs from it's epistemic and speculative function, one from it's preservative function (of philosophical space), and the final springs from it's transformative potentiality. I will demonstrate that this threefold vision is meaningfully conversant with what I have referred to above as the formal and informal aspects of philosophy. Following insights from Richard Rorty, Richard Shusterman, and Alexander Nehamas, among others, I will show how these aspects refer to the "two basic forms" or poles of philosophy. Baldly, these poles, which can be seen as a spectrum, stretch from the critical-theoretical side of philosophy which tends to be formal and knowledge oriented, and the practical-transformative (or art-of-living) side of philosophy which tends to be less formal and oriented around producing flourishing or transformative insight for individuals and their communities. Final remarks will beef up Russell's account with some suggestions about philosophical lifestyle and the importance of non-intellectual educational mechanisms (which spring from the transformative function of philosophy), both of which Russell fails to say much about. Whereas Philip Kitcher has argued that a renewal of philosophy can be achieved by turning "philosophy inside out" - or by turning to it's fringe areas - I will argue that this renewal has much to do with re-balancing the two sides and bringing the art-of-living out from marginalization.

---

[1] Just for full disclosure: this brush with skin cancer has been reasonably ruled out as far as contemporary dermopathology is concerned.

[2] Kitcher, Philip, "Philosophy Inside Out"

[3] see Quine, W.V.O., "On What There is"