The Weight of Words

Words possess feeling. To speak means to give weight to one's words - a weight that is not foreign to the words themselves. A word may be simply a word, but when I talk about what is real, there is something real about its very mention. Likewise, when I talk about what is imagined, an entirely different feeling emerges. Certainly we can express ourselves with a variety of intonations and enunciations - but the weight that words wield lies not only in the way that we wield them, but so too in their inner construction. Not even the best swordsman can decapitate a man with a sword made of cardboard.

We like to fancy that we have outgrown superstition in the modern age, but there are still many relics of our primitive origins that dwell with us daily. We still cannot manage to separate the signifier from the signified. We can imagine them as separate, but to truly separate them is quite a different matter. This unity of consciousness with its object central to the German Idealism of Kant and Hegel is not merely a philosophical event - it is the re-emergence of a phenomenon that was never quite intellectualized into submission. It is the realness of the very mention of the real, the conjuring of object through the mention of its name - it is, unmistakably, the execution and real life of magic.

Value

Never better. Never worse. Always different.

Wisdom

Wisdom is knowing when to say "when".

American Philosophy

American philosophers have not yet found their distinctive "style". They are, alternatively, too German, too English, and too French. A truly American philosopher cannot come to be until American philosophy discovers its "voice" - or perhaps, American philosophy will discover its voice through the advent of the first American philosopher. Whichever way it happens, there is one thing that is certain: academic philosophy in America is in no way whatsoever conducive to the self-discovery of the American spirit. It is this "American spirit" that remains the fundamental aporia, simultaneously blocking and enabling the possibility of the creation of the first American philosopher. But this should not be misunderstood as a political matter.

Discernment

In civil society, I find it best to say precisely the opposite of what I think. This serves as a good filter, for those who are able to discern that I mean the opposite of what I say are usually more willing to hear the unpleasant truth, while those who can't tell are often the ones who would take the most offense.

Within society, there exists a wide range of mental refinement and astuteness of observation, with the strange and unfortunate corollary that there is no quick and easy way to distinguish the sharp-witted from the crass. Due to this, one must devise certain universal tests that quickly and reliably separate those who are observant and discerning in thought from the more common and plain-thinking folk amongst us.

Let it be known: those who are most wealthy are not the most refined, and those most poor are not the most undignified. Similarly, there is no such generality regarding the development of one's judgment and discernment according to occupation or culture or gender. Character is to be found within, seemingly without any relation to the circumstances of one's life. Thus, in a paradoxical twist of fate, it is only by the cultivation of one's own judgment that one can grow to discern the character of others; only by developing one's own virtues that one may become cognizant of the virtues of others.

Thoughts on Thought

Thoughts are constituted by and situated within the language in which they are thought. Thoughts do not merely consist of words, they are barely anything but the words themselves. Barely, and yet certainly a bit more than "mere" words. The problem here is that we are accustomed to think of words as being "mere", that is to say, as lacking a certain something that they never actually lack. Never is a word expressed without a certain affective sensibility. That is to say, there is always something else besides the strict reference of a word that is "going on" when a word is exchanged. It is always accompanied by the sense in which it is expressed, whether or not that is lost in translation.

And so, though I say that there is barely anything but the words themselves in thoughts, I say this only with reference to our prejudice of thinking of words as lacking an accompanying sensitivity. The literal truth is that there is absolutely nothing in thought but words. This is not to say that thought may be understood simply, for words are no less complex than thoughts.

If thoughts and words and just as complex as one another, why make this shift at all? Should we not be aiming, in our discussion, toward making the complex simpler and more comprehensible? But while this does encompass part of our method, it would be a crime to present a complex matter in a way that did not do justice to its complexity. Sometimes simplification is oversimplification.

In making the move from thoughts to words, I am steering our line of inquiry toward certain peculiar insights of Wittgenstein. In the Blue and Brown Books, he suggested that thought may consist precisely in the expression of thought, and nothing enigmatic or mysterious besides that very performance of thinking. He suggests we consider the possibility that, when someone is writing, the organ of thought may just be the writing hand, and not the mind. For what is a thought besides its expression? There is no disjunction between thought and expression, and so no reason to think them distinct from one another.

Now, all this is very disquieting. Surely I know what it is to think. Surely thought is something that occurs separate and distinct from expression. After all, I think all the time! Who is Wittgenstein to dispute my private experience? I know what I know, and for such matters there is nothing anyone can say that can bring these matters to doubt.

It is my contention that there is such a thing as thought outside of communicative expression. What then, is my experience of thought, and how may I adequately describe it, such that it may be shown to have an existence apart from expression?

I consider thought to be principally an auditory phenomenon. When I hear someone speak, the words reach my ears and travel through them into my brain, where they reside and gradually grow to become residual. It is the same way with thought outside of interaction. Thought occurs not in the brain, but rather in certain self-agitated reverberations of the inner ear. I know not thought outside of being able to hear my own thoughts.

With words, there is never expression without impression; and whenever there is expression, there is both content and mood. There is no separating expression from impression, no separating the communication of meaning from the evocation of emotional response. But already I am presenting an inaccurate picture. There is not simply a speaker attempting to impart information on the one hand, and a listener responding emotionally on the other. Rather, there is content and mood involved both in the expression of a speaker and in the impression of a listener. There is no separating content from mood; there is no separating expression from impression.

It is in this way that, when we think, we become both speaker and listener without any speech or expression proper occurring to mediate the interaction with ourselves. In so thinking, the wrapping up of content with mood and expression with impression becomes an intensified complex of activity. For, in merely thinking, one is not limited by the confines of a medium of communication. In speaking, one may only speak so quickly, but there seems to be no such limitation on the rapidity of thought, even for those who do no possess an extraordinary mental capacity. One need not be brilliant in order to think much; one need not be a genius in order to have much to say.

In all of this mental activity, we must continuously refer back to the actuality that is thought, that is to say, the exchange of words. Although we may be able to think in a seemingly unlimited fashion, the quicker we think the quicker we lose our train of thought, for the simple reason that the more is said, the less one listens. In everyday interactions this is a common understanding, but when we are involved in interacting with ourselves alone, we fancy that different rules apply and so quickly disregard the principle of pace. But this principle is just as true here as it is in society. The more quickly you think, the less you pay yourself attention.

This is especially dangerous, for as we noted above, when speech becomes internalized, the complex of interaction becomes only more complex and more liable to lead to misunderstandings. Here again we encounter a common understanding that is oddly disregarded simply because the circumstances have changed. We all know that misunderstandings between people are inevitable, and so we constantly adjust the way that we speak in order to minimize misunderstandings. But when we are alone with our own thoughts, we deny ourselves this possibility. What could be more obvious but that it is impossible to misunderstand oneself? What could be more obvious but that nearly everyone does?

Rocks and Sand

Usually if you have to say that you enjoyed something, you did not. In these cases, the claim of enjoyment serves as social consolation and reassurance.

But for what sake? In social situations, all rough edges must be smoothed - all conflicts given to resolution. One cannot have open conflict in civil society - else it would not be civil, and hence cease to be society. Society is a self-refining process. As it works upon itself, all of its constituent social relations become smoother, just as the ocean churns rocks against each other in order to form sand.

But let us return from these general, overarching observations back to the particulars of the the everyday, that which is more "down to earth" and therefore grounded. Let us ask ourselves, for whose purpose does this process of social leveling [Cf. Nietzsche] serve? In smoothing over the rough edges of the social relations we are engaged in, what is gained, and for whom?

We may accept a certain broadly human appeal to society itself as the moralizing force, that is to say, that sometimes things are to be done simply for the sake of society, that it may be perpetuated and preserved as society itself [that broad ever-present abstraction].

But at the ground level, in our everyday actions we are rarely motivated to serve lofty, ungrounded goals alone. Generally speaking, the more abstract a motivation, the less motivating it is. All people are simple people and are motivated most effectively by what is personally impactful. Unless someone has something of theirs at stake in a matter, they will rarely act. Our actions are directed in such a way because we have something at stake in the affairs of others.

In this way, we must ask: what do we have at stake, what kind of vested interest do we have in the goings-on, and with that in mind, are we to allow ourselves to be beaten against each other like so much rocks, to be averaged out and dissolved into infinitesimal, nearly-identical grains of sand?

Trauma

Trauma always either embitters or enlightens... usually both.

Strength

Strength is too often conceived as ability, and therefore understood scientifically, in terms of experimentation and demonstration. But strength demonstrated is not strength proved. Strength is not ability - strength is will. It is not a physiological phenomenon, it is psycho-spiritual force.

At the Fringe of Understanding

In describing and trying to comprehend that which refuses to be categorized - that absolute individuality, that singular uniqueness - one must give oneself over to the poetic instinct.

Wikipedia

The prejudice against Wikipedia is so widespread that it is not convincing to suggest that the motive is entirely situated on reasons and reasoning. I suspect that this prejudice is expressive of a certain popular skepticism of the power of the populace. That is to say, people are largely skeptical as to what they think collectives are capable of.

It would be interesting to compare how favorably Wikipedia is viewed in countries with value systems different from our own. Ones that place more faith and weight in collective, congregate action - as compared with our own culture, which has faith in little except the power of exceptional individuals.