Monday, May 30, 2005

Notes on Dialogue

(BMM 22) Limitations of Dialogue

1) establishing a living mutual relation...
- rare..."borne on behalf of the continuance of the organic substance of the human spirit".

2) technical dialogue; prompted solely by the need of objective understanding
- "sterling quality of 'modern existence'".


3) monologue disguised as dialogue; "...strangely torturous and circuitous ways".
- a debate...thoughts are not expressed in the way in which they existed in the mind but in the speaking are so pointed that they may strike home in the sharpest way, i.e. a friendly chat.

(BMM 23) [near the bottom of page] "solitude...for him..."; the monological individual.

(BMM 24) "Being, lived in dialogue, receives even in extreme dereliction a harsh and strengthening sense of reciprocity; being, lived in monologue, will not, even in the harshest intimacy, grope out over the outlines of the self."

(BMM 24) "Dialogic is not to be identified with love."
"...love remaining within itself - this is called Lucifer."

(BMM 24) Dialogue between mere individuals is only a sketch, only in dialogue between persons is the sketch filled in.

(BMM 25) "If everything concrete is equally near, equally nearest, life with the world ceases to have articulations and structure, it ceases to have human meaning."

- does this address the distance problem? Only with distance there is meaning.

(BMM 25) "But nothing needs to mediate between me and one of my companions in the companionship of creation, whenever we come near another, because we are bound up in relation to the same centre."

(BMM 26) *modern man rendering turning to the other as "sentimental" or "impractical" -> confesses his weakness of initiative when confronted with the state of the time.

(BMM 26) The basic movement of monologue -> "reflexion"; perceiving the other as an extension of self.
- this is "the other I", as Friedman puts it in The Life of Dialogue, 60
-> note the description of this on the bottom of BMM 27; respect for the other's particularity

(BMM 28) "For then dialogue becomes a fiction, the mysterious intercourse between two human worlds only a game, and in the rejection of the real life confronting him the essence of all reality begins to disintegrate."

(BMM 29) "Unity of life...unbroken, raptureless perserverance in concreteness, in which the word is heard and a stammering answer dared."

(BMM 30) "To all unprejudiced reflection it is clear that all art is from its origin essentially of the nature of dialogue."

(BMM 30) -> "inner court" -> "not the arising of the thought but the first trying and testing of what has arisen."
- pp. 30-31: an intellectual relationship with oneself.

(BMM 32) Feuerbach quote atop p. 32; from The Essence of Christianity, "between I and Thou"

(BMM 38) The mass collectivity marching into the common abyss - totalitarian mass?

(BMM 40) There is no ordering of dialogue. It is not that you are to answer but that you are able.
- potential of dialogue, not the structure of dialogue.

(BMM 40-41) -> there is no expertise for dialogue, because it is a primal quality present in man to be actualized in action?

(BMM 41) Dialogue..."is a matter of creation, of the creature, and that he is that, the man of whom I speak, he is a creature, trival and irreplacable."

(BMM 42) "And nothing is so valuable a service of dialogue between God and man as such an unsentimental and unreserved exchange of glances between two (people) in an alien place."

(BMM 43) "...blind to possibility..."

(BMM 44-45) "...people will try to use his "procedure" without his way of thinking and imagining."

First, the distance problem is naturally one that can be addressed in two sentences.
1) If everything concrete is equally near, human meaning is effaced. Is this a response to Honneth and neo-Kantian categories of morality and universal humanity?
2) "Distance expanding" is compouned and solidifed by monologue, refer to BMM 25.

Sunday, May 29, 2005

Albert Camus - Reflections on the Guillotine

(611) "I am far from indulging in flabby pity..."

(612) "Society is not taking revenge; it merely wants to forestall."

(613) He goes into why society does not believe in the exemplary affect of capital punishment
--> executions are no longer public.

(614) "It takes a terrifying spectacle to hold the people in check." (Tuant de la Bouverie)

(614-15) There is a connection to theme of Kafka's penal colony; admiration and obsession regarding their contraptions.

(616) "...the transparence belongs to life, but their fixity belongs to death."

(617) "...crude surgery..."

(618) "The man who enjoys his coffee while reading that justice has been done would spit it out at the least detail."

(619) "Indeed, one must kill publicly or confess that one does not feel authorized to kill. If society justifies the death penalty by the necessity of example, it must justify itself by making publicity necessary." -> refer to the earlier quote from Gambatta.

(621) "But law is always simpler than nature. When law ventures, in the hope of dominating, into the dark regions of consciousness, it has little chance of being able to simplify the complexity it wants to codify."

(622) "...the instinct for self-preservation is matched, in variable proportions, by the instinct for destruction."

(629) "But not knowing whether or not you are going to live, that's terror and anguish."

(630) "The animal that is going to be killed must be in the best condition."

(630-31) Hemlock; for the Greeks, it gave them a choice - death or suicide.

(631) "We must read between the lines that the condemned made no noise, accepted his status as parcel, and that everyone is grateful for this."

(642) "There is a solidarity of all men in error and aberration."

(649) "Society indeed has lost all contact with the sacred."

(650) "Those who cause the most blood to flow are the same ones who believe they have right, logic, and history on their side."

1) Capital punishment has no exemplary value.
- the reasoning behind the exemplary argument is faulty. As Camus points out, most people who kill did not plan it or knew whether they were going to do it before shaving in the morning.

2) The condemned is something different from bare life; keeping one fit for death.
- killing and the sacrifice: anthropological implications and culture?

Saturday, May 14, 2005

Grow Up or Blow Away?

They said they were going to castrate him and kill his brother if his parents did not bring them his weight in gold. He manically paced back and forth in the stables, pondering what to do next. Had he been younger, he would have raced to his parents with tears of confusion streaming down his face. But the night forced him to abandon childish naiveté. He stared coldly at the beaten, limp, and lifeless body of his servant - which still reeked from contents of a smashed jug of rice wine. Once fear passed through indifference into rage, he was going to act.

They had beaten him unconscious, smuggled him into their mountain lair, and tossed the rice bag filled with the child into a rusty cage. Returning to the wagons, they unloaded them. The enormity of their score was revealed. Piled in the middle of a room was a variety of swag: fine rugs, vases, jade pieces, silks, and jugs of rice wine. In a spirit of celebration, wine flowed festively. The first bowls were not served to one of the three bandits; it was presented to their deceased parents. In spite of their unsavory vocation, they believed in the proper performance of ritual. And showing appreciation for their good fortune, they burnt incense and poured wine onto the tribute plates of their mother and father. After a brief observance, staid respectfulness gave way to hedonistic elation as they divvied up their plunder, all the while descending further into the throes of intoxication.

Once anger arrived he decided to go. His parents had taken their horses on a trip to Guangzhou, the finest horses had been stolen, and he was left with the oldest one in the stable. After procuring a cleaver lying aimlessly on a table in the Lychee Orchard, he grabbed a torch, patiently lit it, and proceeded into the night.

In a collective state of inebriation, the bandit brothers rolled around in large swaths of silk, giddy about the prospects of more plunder. During the course of their revelling, the key to the rusty iron cage dropped onto the floor. Intoxicated and overjoyed by the events of the night, each began to wonder aloud about what the future had in store. The eldest brother was going to open a restaurant – for he loved food; the middle brother wanted an opium den – for wine was not his only opiate; and the youngest dreamed of marrying their beautiful cousin – whom he dreamed about every lonely night. The orphaned men, as individuals and as brothers, believed that the unfathomable was soon to be realized.

After riding at a deliberate pace for a short time, he stopped to plan his next step. While sitting in front of a make shift fire, he noticed that the old horse was agitated by a smell on the ground. He went in for a closer look, dipped his finger into the soil, took in a breath, and instantly recognized the scent of rice wine. However, while stooped over the spot, flames from the torch stealthily licked at his right hand. The heat overwhelmed his youthful flesh and the torch crashed onto the earth. Surprisingly, it did not extinguish. Rather, it ignited a trail of fire. Upon discovering this newly lit path, he retrieved the torch with the help of a loose tree branch, got on his horse, and rode frantically, as expediently as the creature could go, to as far as the trail of flames would lead.

After countless trips to the wagon filled with plundered wine, the bandit brothers retrieved the largest jug. They noticed that it was light for its size. Following a casual inspection, a slight crack on the container was discovered. They shared in a hearty laugh and thought no more about it. With one last voluminous gulp, each would succumb to the drink. The youngest brother fell onto a pile of rugs, mumbling the name of his beautiful cousin. The middle brother fell asleep beside his younger sibling, hugging his sheathed sword. And the eldest of the three chided the others until even he succumbed to the iniquitous effects of their revelry, falling asleep beside his parents' shrine.

The flames lead him to the base of a mountain. He looked up and saw two lanterns illuminating the entranceway to an abandoned temple. While leading the horse carefully on a short trek up the mountain, fear reemerged. A miraculous trail of flames lead him somewhere, but would it lead him to a proud and foolish end? It was an unfamiliar situation, unfolding in a strange place. The events of the night shattered the certainties once thought to be inalienable. But now, he was compelled to step into the unknown - inexperienced, frightened, angry, and unsure of how he ended up leading a withered old horse up a mountain in pursuit of certain disaster.

He stepped through the entranceway, cautiously examined the surrounding area, and slowly stepped into the compound. He moved ahead and arrived at a dilapidated courtyard. Erring towards caution, he observed the nearby area for light, catching a glimmer emanating from one of the rooms. He tied his horse and slowly approached the door. Listening attentively as he moved towards the room, he tried to catch the slightest noise in order to situate himself in alien surroundings. All he could hear was a low rumbling sound, a snore. He kneeled outside the room, licked the tip of his forefinger, poked a hole in the rice paper panel, and peered in. In an instant, he recognized them in the image of bandits fast asleep surrounded by flickering oil lamps, empty rice wine jugs, and an assortment of plunder. And at that moment, fear gave way to anger. Bursting into the room, he ran towards the rugs, pulled out his cleaver, swiftly slit the throat of the middle brother, and callously ripped the sword from a weakening, lifeless grip. He saw life rapidly drain from the body and remorse emerged to briefly drown out his anger.

With blood dripping onto his quivering fists, he noticed the youngest bandit stirring from his slumber. In a moment of desperation, he pounced and slashed the sword across the gullet of the awakening thief. His head rolled and settled in time to see a bloody sword soaked in his blood and quietly moaned the name of his beloved one last time. The eldest brother picked up on the commotion, opened his eyes, in time to see his brother’s sword thrusted into his neck. And as his head crashed onto the ground, his eyes gazed up at his parents - together at last.

Holding a bloody sword in one hand and a now crimson-stained cleaver in the other, he stood over the three lifeless bodies. All he could hear was the bloodcurdling threat the middle brother made earlier in the night. A vertiginous confusion overwhelmed the boy, as he slashed wildly at the remains. Having expended his tantrum, he regained control, somewhat cognizant of what needed to be done. He dropped the sword and the cleaver and walked back into the courtyard, returning to wagon of wine that led him to this damnable place. After pushing cart after cart into the room, he emptied the remaining jugs over and around the bodies of the bandits. He retrieved the vases, jade pieces, and rolls of silk unstained by blood and entrails, placed them onto the wagon, wheeled it back into the courtyard, and returned to finish the task. But just as he was about to toss an oil lamp onto the wine-soaked bodies, he remembered his brother. Finding a crude looking key lying on the floor beside a swath of stained silk, he procured it and went in search. After some time, he found the rusty cage in an adjacent room, pulled his still-unconscious brother out, and carried him out to the wagon.

The only memory the younger sibling had of the night was the tremendous sight of flames and billowing smoke emanating from the side of a mountain. He distinctively recalled a stream of smoke spiraling around the peak up towards the celestial sky. The abandoned structure collapsed, sending ashes and dust high into the heavens. As they rode home atop the finest horse in his parent's stable, he held tightly onto his older brother, who gazed unflinchingly at the distance to come.