Kids: don't do ddrugs

It was halfway through scoffing a caffeine tablet last night that I had the shocking revelation that it wasn't of the 'chewable' variety. Not a pleasant experience. I don't know why I bother - they are such pathetic little things, barely extending my concentration span by more than twenty minutes. How I long for the days when stimulants were stimulants and philosophers went blind at fifty. Take that old favourite, Corydrane (discontinued). It doesn't just keep you awake, it gives you to think. Sadly, in Sartre's case, it also gave ill health which ultimately led to his death (always read the label).

A ceasefire for Christmas? Like hell...

Things are bad in Britain today. This is dawning on me. We could blame it on the slavish middle Englanders with their Daily Mail and their ressentiment; we could blame it on the the complete dominance of capitalism - a dominance which has no outside, which rules out any conception of true opposition. Everything has become "recuperable", in the language of the marxists. Culture, literature, film: all reduced to commodities. Of course this has been said many times before. But the horror of it can only be appreciated when it is experienced, when one is struck by the realisation that all those dark claims about this and that sorry state of affairs, were not simplifications or mistaken misanthropy. We can shrug when sitting on the bus, listening to M shouting about how London winning the Olympics and the philosophy of mind coup d'etat in our department are "the same thing." Except that I am realising, for all the silliness of it, that maybe he was right.

I had the radio on in the background the other evening, when a programme began. It was called Composer's Notes. "Ah", I thought, "maybe I can learn a thing or two about music." Can you imagine my dismay at discovering, within a few seconds, that the show was all about how much money a composer was paid for his work.
"Rimsky-Korsakov: rich or poor? Let's find out!" To this, I can say only one thing - Firing squad.

In other news. The latest departmental shenanigans have developed out of two issues: i) the gradual metamorphosis of the 'history of philosophy' into the 'history of British philosophy'. Less Spinoza and Leibniz, more Hobbes, Mill, Bentham etc, and Kant being made optional for joint honours students and pushed into the final year (if my memory serves me correctly - I do have more important things to think about, you know). What follows from this is that Post-Kantian philosophy gets completely marginalised, and will eventually fall away completely.
And ii) a ridiculous selection panel for the new 'aesthetics' post in the department. Dave Distiller knows his mind, but I doubt he knows anything about the philosophy of art. 'Analytic aesthetics' is a contradictio in adjecto if ever there was one.

While those cunning guttersnipes are raping and pillaging their way through the prospects for continental philosophy next year, this year's students have arranged an interdisciplinary football match. Think of the game played between Tommy and the Fritz on Christmas day during WWI. Except that this is more like WWII, in terms of enmity and war crimes.

A beautiful film

La Règle du jeu

My occasional forays into k-punk's blog have been rewarded with today's rather interesting post on Zizek send-ups, and how to get "down and dirty" with alternative economics.

Xavière

Sitting with my coffee, I began to listen to a conversation two students were having at the table next to mine (eavesdropping, I know, but unavoidable). I'd seen them come in; one had blonde hair, a slightly foreign accent and a russian-looking face (if there is such a thing). The other unmemorable: I don't remember. I could hear the accented voice talking about a man she was attracted to, but who was involved with someone else. "I don't want to break them up" she said. The friend mumbled platitudes.
"I'll make friends with him - surely there is nothing wrong with being friends." The unmemorable one didn't answer: it wasn't a rhetorical question to elicit advice, just a bold statement of fact.
I began to think of Xavière, Beauvoir's ill-fated character in She Came to Stay. I didn't like Xavière. She infuriated me.
My neighbour reminded me of Xavière: the terrible mixture of naivité and diabolical intent; the sense of impending disaster. She forces everyone who encounters her to realise that this world isn't a Schopenhauerian world.
One moment in her company will be infused with indescribable shades of exhilaration, followed by another of almost farcical exasperation.
'Suffering and boredom', my pessimistic German friend?

'The sexual act is in time what the tiger is in space'

Brn and I were standing outside the library in the freezing cold. I was trying to explain to him Derek Parfit's view of personal identity (which Parfit elaborated with some wild thought experiments). Our talk progressed as follows: I would say something about branching chains of psychological continuity, and he would ask me about rhizomes. I would attempt to explicate the difficulty I was having with memory on Parfit's schema, and he would reply with the bergsonist complaint that Parfit (and just about all other analytic philosophers) cannot really think time.
Fascinating stuff. Less fascinating for the fact that I was about to make a presentation on the topic.
Looming deadlines notwithstanding, our confabulation moved on to more fertile ground. Derrida and Bataille, and the notion of 'gift'. There were times reading the Accursed Share when I felt that Bataille wasn't being radical enough in his analysis. His interpretation of the function of potlatch in various societies remained (I thought) closely bound to capitalist conceptions of exchange value. Gifts are given in return for esteem. Brn held that this is very different from how things are today: that it was precisely the act of giving which symbolized power and wealth in times past. Perhaps this is close to what Deleuze means when he says that the will to power consists not in taking, but in creating and giving.

In any case, Brn went on to say that he thought my issue was similar to something Derrida wrote on the topic; that we cannot explain the gift except in terms of an economy. Now my knowledge of Derrida's work is negligible, so forgive me if I have misunderstood.
This problem of the gift reminds me of the puzzle of motivation, which is usually encountered when thinking about egoism. Every act is motivated, so surely, they say, all action is in some sense egoistical. No, I always think: but why not? Likewise for the gift - it is impossible for me to conceive of a gift which is not reciprocated. There must be exchange, or the hope of exchange, for, as a purely giving being, I cannot survive.
What I wanted from Bataille was an account of the gift which is never reciprocated, and whose reciprocation is not even hoped for. Only then will the structure of capitalist transaction be called into question. Of course, the difficult part is removing oneself from any and all systems of economy: on the plane of motivation, this is what Kant, amongst others, tried - and failed - to do with his categorical imperative.
In the short time we spent standing in the cold, we could only think of two ways to accomodate pure giving: to accept death as the outcome, or to embrace irrationality and madness.

Merleau-Ponty and the 'racaille'

Writing sixty-years ago, Maurice Merleau-Ponty foretells the explanatory mechanisms used to anaesthetize the behaviour of urban french youths, turning potentially revolutionary activity into mere vandalism.
We do not want to say, along with most of the mainstream media, that "we have here blind, 'elementary forces' cleverly exploited by a few shrewd agitators. It is possibly in this light that the prefect of police will view history." -Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception (my italics)

That friday feeling

I had a post-kantian philosophy seminar a little earlier, in which I only uttered two words: "pineal gland" (an artist's impression, right).

Idle waffle

What fun. After a few weeks of teaching, my lecturers feel that they can relax in the company of their students. Good news for bottom-feeding pseudo-intellectual gossip blogs like mine.
Doctor Ampere shocked students with a diatribe on the evils of marketing. Advertising can never be art: those who direct their creative efforts towards increasing the sales of goods and services are "removed from the artistic register forever."
He also dismissed those shock-artists who, in effect, do nothing more than "piss around in the media". He then articulated a more subtle position, distinguishing between truly radical art and shite (elephant shite?).

Professor Elusive-Hyphen, on the other hand, showed his contempt for student opinion in a more hostile and daring way. During a lecture on Nietzsche, a Rag Week mob knocked on the door to the hall. "Five minutes for charity?" they ejaculated.
Elusive-Hyphen thought for a moment, then said distinctly: "No. No, not at all." When they were gone, he marvelled at their insolence: "Five minutes for charity...I was in the middle of a line of thought...no way...fuck off. Five minutes...charity...yes, fuck off."
This was met with stunned silence, followed by the nervous pawing of Make Poverty History wristbands.

By the by, I bumped into Dave Distiller in the loo yesterday, and I realised that you never really know a professor until you have heard him say "a phenomenological account of transcendental arguments" with his penis in his hand.

Not sleeping, but thinking

I was getting a glass of water at a campus cafeteria when I overheard a customer say to an absent-looking friend of his working behind the counter: "Are you sleeping?"
The friend replied: "No, I'm thinking."

We live in busy times: if you don't look frenzied and stressed, then people think you're some kind of drop-out. All those dynamic students at the business school: they've already bought next-year's Travelcard, in anticipation of a bright future in the City.

As for my future: well I can't bear the thought of returning to the Buerkbeck lifestyle, of a mindless day's work followed by a nap in some lecture theatre or other (whilst a Grayling prattles on about epistemic castration), and I haven't much chance of securing funding for further study. I would like to say that this is because 'strictly academic' writing doesn't agree with me, or because I do not ingratiate myself with the faculty members; but this would give the impression that I am following Beckett's dictum, to "try again, fail again, fail better." On the contrary, mediocrity seems to cling to me - I can't convince myself to be any better than 'fairly good', to emerge from my torpor. Yes, I work fairly hard, I am fairly erudite. I have a moderate appetite for knowledge. But this isn't at all satisfactory.

Of course, I am not in a position to make the same sort of witty remarks as Spurious; and I wouldn't want to claim that the 'success stories' of academia are talentless automatons churning out paper after paper and book after endless book. But I do feel that philosophy has come to be viewed as a career choice like any other, to be pursued like a career in finance or law. Ruthlessness is required, along with a talent for 'ticking all the right boxes'
Is this thinking? Is this the only way to open up possibilities for thinking?
Perhaps a careers advisor can help me...

Paul Auster

The article in this weekend's paper reminded me of my former love for Auster's work. I don't dislike his writing, it's just that I feel I have moved on. Mind you, I did read Siri Hustvedt's first novel lately, and I very much enjoyed it (maybe a little popular for some tastes).

I once had a wonderful dream about the two of them (they are married). They had thrown a party at their house, and I was on the balcony talking to Hustvedt. Since this was before I'd read any of her books, I actually wanted to speak to Auster. It was a tricky situation: I remember feeling so honoured to be speaking to a well-known writer, yet feeling anguished and desperate about making it across the crowded room to speak to my hero.
And so the surrealists are refuted: even etiquette has a place in the illogical world of dreams.

Flies

Sitting in the library yesterday, wrestling with the Kantian sublime, something rather odd occurred. The flies in the library are drawn to the fluorescent lighting, throwing themselves against the hot bulbs. This makes them incredible drowsy. One fell from the ceiling, tumbled off my head and landed on the desk. I put my hand next to him (it? her?) and he crawled over my finger. I shook my hand but he stayed rooted to the spot. What a strange sight: a black fly walking over my hand in a docile and pet-like fashion. After some seconds, he gathered the strength to fly away.

ps. Vincent Price is a dude.

Coincidence: the post that never was

Last week, on my way back from London on the coach, I saw a lorry hauling a tube carriage. A little later I saw another lorry pulling an aircraft fuselage. Whilst in London, I crossed paths with the same people twice. And this happened more than once. Let's just say that Soho's very own Abyssinian goth haunt, the Intrepid Fez, was involved - I'll say no more.

In any case, I was going to fashion this into some sort of highfalutin' commentary on coincidence, drawing on the work of Paul Auster, and Andre Breton's Nadja. But then I thought: why bother? (Plus, this way I give the impression of being interesting, without having to commit myself to anything at all.)

Lovecraft's philosopher-siren

"She was, I judge, about twenty-three at the time; and was taking a special course in mediaeval metaphysics [...] She was dark, smallish, and very good-looking except for overprotuberant eyes; but something in her expression alienated extremely sensitive people. It was, however, largely her origin and conversation which caused average folk to avoid her. [...] All animals markedly disliked her, and she could make any dog howl by certain motions of her right hand. There were times when she displayed snatches of knowledge and language very singular - and very shocking - for a young girl; when she would frighten her schoolmates with leers and winks of an inexplicable kind, and would seem to extract an obscene and zestful irony from her present situation."

-H.P. Lovecraft, The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories.

The spiders are back

This time around they are smaller and more prone to climbing the walls than scuttling across the carpets.
I knew something was wrong when I woke up one day covered in sores. Then the other evening I captured one on the wall above my pillow. But there was worse to come - last night a tickling sensation on my neck turned out to be a small arachnid. I'd suspected some sort of creature, so I began to flick at the feeling. Lo and behold: the little feller was catapulted onto my desk, while I busied myself suppressing a yelp.

Another day, another dogmat?

The Nietzsche reading group is going from, er, strength to strength - Brn and I spent much of Saturday looking at Deleuze's little, as yet untranslated, introduction to the man. What an experience: working through the French text made me feel like a real philosopher (ok, a real scholar, but nonetheless...)
Whilst discussing Baudrillard - "are you having fun yet?" - we discovered that the worldwide success of reality show Big Brother does tell us one thing: Kant was right about the sensus communis.

The capital city of this great land

Last week, I went down to London for the day. How refreshing to be away from here!
I bought a few books and walked all over the place (strolling along the South bank of the Thames on a weekday morning is utterly marvellous).

I had dinner with my mom and my uncle in the Stockpot on Old 'Straight Outta' Compton street (anyone who lives in the capital but hasn't eaten there needs to put this right). A little earlier, I'd found myself standing in Piccadilly Circus talking over the crowd to my mother about the plot of Mulholland Drive. Unfortunately I could only remember how the story supposedly unfolds, but I don't remember why.
That rascal Socrates was right when he said in the Meno that true opinions "run away from a man's mind, so they are not worth much until you tether them by working out the reason."

Quelques choses ne changent pas...