Shift

A few months ago I came across a passage from a book written by a Brazilian writer talking about ignorance in a very fresh way.  

Unfortunately, the title of said book wasn't given by the person who recited it (an actor), and even though I looked for it it was nowhere online. 

So... I'll post my next favourite from her.  I like the idea contained in the quotation I couldn't find, which turns ignorance on its head, seeing the potential in it. (From memory, it is something like "knowledge is always limited; not knowing is limitless."  

How many of us can honestly claim to not have wished for the opportunity to read a book, listen to a piece of music, or see a film or painting, all over again, for the first time?  Only ignorance makes the first time possible. 

“I do not know much. But there are certain advantages in not knowing. Like virgin territory, the mind is free of preconceptions. Everything I do not know forms the greater part of me: This is my largesse. And with this I understand everything. The things I do not know constitute my truth.” 

Clarice Lispector

There is a certain, specific kind of liberation in the act of shifting one's perception or body in order to look at the same thing and see something new.

The idea that prejudice comes from ignorance makes the ears of reason perk up in alert suspicion.  I think this idea is incomplete. It's maimed or badly articulated.  To me, prejudice comes not from ignorance, but from incomplete knowledge of a certain thing; it comes from failure to dig deep enough, or failure to understand. Not understanding and not knowing are two different concepts to me.  There are many things one can know about or of, and yet not understand, not grasp the core of what makes the thing itself.

On Parole

 Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:

parole/pəˈrəʊl/ 

▶noun

• 1 the temporary or permanent release of a prisoner before the expiry of a sentence, on the promise of good behaviour.

• 2 historical a prisoner of war's word of honour to return to custody or act as a non-belligerent if released.

• 3 Linguistics the actual language used by people. Contrasted with langue.

The private and the public spheres intersect all the time, everyday, and often it's a seamless movement; often, nothing much is stirred, uncovered.


The understanding which seems to accompany the system that is language has built into it the clues which signal to all that a statement needs modifying before it can be made public, or that it needs modifying before it can be absorbed in informal exchanges.


But the once fluid division between the public and the private is becoming more rigid, less flexible, clearer even as it confuses (me anyway!).
Because why else would any of us integrate into our daily exchanges disclaimers of all types?


Language is one system.  When it is used by individuals it temporarily becomes a function of that individual's thoughts, opinions and feelings, while at the same time remaining an abstract monster which exists in spite of any one speaker's will or influence.  It is very much like Frankenstein's monster.  Created but, once unleashed, no longer dependent on its creator.


At the same time, individuals modify, add, subtract, mix, superimpose meanings, images, sounds, and paralanguage to improve or impoverish language, every time they use it.


What interests me is the tragic development I see all around, whether in written or spoken language. I see people - individuals and groups - forgetting that when they speak, they have the power to influence listeners AND language; that when they speak, they do not have to integrate any of the vices, habits, clichés, opinions, metaphors and similes already dancing around the collective atmosphere.  Every engagement with language is a chance we all have to express our own thoughts and feelings according to how we see the world, instead of adopting someone else's views wholesale.


Our current obsession with choice is an amusing thing.  While adamant we do not want only one or two possible alternatives when it comes to food, politics, and a number of other things, we seem to be unaware that is exactly what we are getting.  The existence of different brands of the same exact product does not mean we can choose between or among different objects.  
The best example I can think of right now is news channels.  MSNBBCNN.  This Friday I watched the news on TV for a while, after a moratorium I imposed on myself since March 2010.  CNN, BBC News, Sky, Al Jazeera, France 24...  At the same time in the evening, this Friday, ALL these channels were telling me the exact same thing.  All of them.  They all start their "financial news" at the same time.  It is almost as if the directors of each channel phoned one another and said "ok... ready?  NOW!" and had their people press PLAY on the same stories.  And how varied, creative, at least authentic! do you think each channel's report was with regards to the words they used in the story?  They're in more perfect unison than the choir in my local church.


Is this choice?




This happens with language and when it does, it is even worse, because more insidious. The irony is this silent threat is loud.
Speak with 12 people and ask them all the same question. See how many give the same answer.
Speak with 12 people and see how many use the same expressions, turns of phrases, metaphors, similes, etc, to express their opinion.  See how many differ in terms of their opinions on the same issue.
Speak with these 12 people and, at the end, see how many of the expressions they used to convey their wildly differing opinions can be traced to MSNBBCNN.


Recently, talking to someone close to me, I broached this topic, and she said it is because there are a lot of not v bright people in the world.  Maybe.  I'm even willing to agree with that.  But, I asked here, wouldn't that translate into, say, 12 or at least 10 DIFFERENT stupid opinions?  How come the stupidity is so uniform?  Why is the putative stupidity being expressed in the same ways?  Surely there isn't a Stupid Club, like the Trekkies have, whereby ppl get together to exchange views on whatever, and come up with a small collection of things to say?  The "government line" of stupidity?  


But not even governments can keep their cabinet members from stepping into piles of sophistry designed by journalists who work for papers which exist thanks to advertisement from companies whose interests go against the people, sovereignty, and democracy.  


Manufacturing Consent (MC) shows this.  I know I am not discovering anything new.  What I find is that the processes outlined and examined in MC are spreading to private exchanges, to informal conversations.  The property language has of becoming a flexible tool to anyone who uses it is eroding, and no one has to make an effort to make it so.  It is just happening because too many people's mental inertia is allowing it.


The public use of language is invading our private exchanges and not being renewed by individuals' linguistic creativity, or at least not at the same rate.  Like eroded soil, linguistic rain is no longer penetrating the atmosphere, and condensation is more and more a concentrated version of a compact formula of pollutant elements designed to incite apathy and ostensible transparency.  No! Not even. Transparency is NOT a positive thing.  Seeing THROUGH something is not seeing the something itself.  I sit corrected and, after having thought it through, hereby declare those clouds to be of ostensible opacity.


Fratelli, let's think, please.  


Yknow how in churches the pastor, priest, preacher, will say, "brothers and sisters, let us pray" ?


Please, let us think.


You know it is the same thing, but saying THINK instead of PRAY changes something, does it not?


Why does it change something?


According to me, it is because we think for ourselves, but pray outwardly.  Thought is introspection, as good prayer ought to be, and often isn't.


Let us use language to fit our real thoughts.
Like the economy and economic theory, language exists and was created by us, to suit our needs, both to communicate and create.  Like the economy, it needs to fit our lives and benefit us, not the other way around.  We should not modify our thoughts merely to fit around the economy and the language being imposed on us.
Language, like the economy, does not belong to pressure groups, political parties, or academics. Like Castro Alves said "the public square is the people's, as the sky is the condor's". Language is the biggest public square. Let's not let malls own it like they do so much of the literal public square now, too much.


Let us let language fit our need to create.
We do not have to use the expressions ppl on telly use.  NO ONE has the monopoly on language. It belongs to all of us, and we can ALL of us use it how we want to use it.  


I want to put Langue, according to Def #3 at the beginning of this entry, ON PAROLE, and free Parole from the outdoors prison in which it currently floats.  Seriously.  And I'm not talking about JamesJoyce Syndrome.


This is so important because language shapes thought.  Try to think without words. Can you?

I haven't read it but like the cover

AncesTree

Here, I'd like to propose a very simple modification in how people look at ancestry and heritage, at culture, at ethnicity.  

Instead of spending countless weeks/months and quite a bit of money and energy thinking about one's ancestors--not parents or grandparents, but those we have not met-- and narrowing down their accomplishments, contributions, story, movements, etc, I reckon it'd be more interesting and more relevant to think about language.

How did that (or those) generation(s) speak?  Which modifications did they bring to language, dialects, accents?  Which slang words did they use, if any?  Did they write letters? If so, is the handwriting still legible?  

Which branch(es) of this tree would have house them, if any?

Tree of Languages; One Common Ancestor: Proto-Indo European

Where's Waldo? And Laura? And Ronaldo? And Oscar? And Fred? And Paula? And Marcia? And João? And Olga? and Regina? And Clara, Fabio, Cleusa, Rodrigo, Gisela, André, Diego, Mariana...

Whenever I think about cities in the world I would like to see, the first one that comes to mind is Moscow.  There are many reasons but the main one is not Lenin's mausoleum, not the Red Square, not even its many beautiful, unusual churches; the single biggest attraction Moscow has to offer me is its Metro/Underground/Subway.  Whatever you want to call it.

I like public transportation. I especially like it when I don't have to get anywhere in a hurry, depending on where I am.  While in São Paulo, when I was alone I chose to take the metro.  It's clean, cheap, and safe.  Yes, safe. Believe it or not, one of the safest places one can be in this city is the metro.  Maybe it's because everyone's in such a hurry to get somewhere no one thinks about committing a crime; and plus which, why would a thief want to steal anything from someone who takes the metro in SP?  Rich ppl take helicopters these days, making it the city with the most heliports in the world. 

So as I was going from the West part of town to the South, to visit my mother, I took the metro, which got me there in exactly 1 hr 35mins, including walking time. With luggage.  Even a helicopter wouldn't have been this fast, if we count how long it'd have taken me to get to the heliport and wait till the pilot faffled about with the million little buttons on the control panel and got permission from whatever tower to take off blahblah etc.  And the price!! No comparison.  The metro is far more efficient than any other means of transportation.  And, according to me, more fun, too.  

One gets to observe so many unusual things, so many ppl, distracted by their mobile phones, or confused about how to get where, adapting to new stations and new lines, reading, listening to music... or, like me, taking photos.

Actually, just this one.  I hadn't been to this station yet or, if I had, it didn't have this "look".  I found it both interesting and perturbing.  It is v odd because there were no ppl in the carriage-- only these... specters, ppl who look like they belong in one of the video games I have seen ... Resident Evil or some such...  floating heads on Plexiglass; not a single human in sight.  How can this be?  It's SP, population 17million.  

Of course it got more and more full as it approached the center of the city.

We joke, us Paulistanos, about what one must do when one's feeling lonely, forgotten, feeling the vastness of the Universe and how disconnected and alone we all are in this world... how there is so little human warmth anymore.

We'll tell you, when you're feeling this way, you must head to Sé station at 6PM.

John Wilmot

1647-1680

Homo sapiens

Were I (who to my cost already am

One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man)

A spirit free to choose, for my own share,

What case of flesh and blood I pleased to wear,

I’d be a dog, a monkey, or a bear,

Or anything but that vain animal

Who is so proud of being rational.

The senses are too gross, and he’ll contrive

A sixth, to contradict the other five,

And before certain instinct, will prefer

Reason, which fifty times for one does err ;

Reason, an ignis fatuus in the mind,

Which, leaving light of nature, sense, behind,

Pathless and dangerous wandering ways it takes

Through error’s fenny bogs and thorny brakes ;

Whilst the misguided follower climbs with pain

Mountains of whimseys, heaped in his own brain ;

Stumbling from thought to thought, falls headlong down

Into doubt’s boundless sea, where, like to drown,

Books bear him up awhile, and make him try

To swim with bladders of philosophy ;

In hopes still to o’ertake the escaping light,

The vapour dances in his dazzling sight

Till, spent, it leaves him to eternal night.

Then old age and experience, hand in hand,

Lead him to death, and make him understand,

After a search so painful and so long,

That all his life he has been in the wrong.

Huddled in dirt the reasoning engine lies,

Who was so proud, so witty, and so wise. ***** ...and yet.  Reason is also Light! The problem comes when it is so bright we can no longer see what's before our eyes.  The paradox is then, why are we now Homo sapiens sapiens!  To me, that's like saying: Let us add more cement to this bridge, it will be stronger.  But... it'll also be heavier, increasing the chances it might collapse.  Couldn't we come up with another word after sapiens? Why not if we're so sapient?  Goethe wrote Faust when Marlowe had already written it, but Goethe changed the ending.

Base Words Are Uttered

   Base words are uttered only by the base

And can for such at once be understood,

But noble platitudes:--ah, there's a case

Where the most careful scrutiny is needed

To tell a voice that's genuinely good

From one that's base but merely has succeeded. 

WH Auden 

Invidia

Gericault, Portrait of a Woman Suffering from Obsessive Envy c. 1822

"What Nietzsche and Freud share is the idea that justice as equality is founded on envy--on the envy of the Other who has what we do not have, and who enjoys it. The demand for justice is thus ultimately the demand that the excessive enjoyment of the Other should be curtailed so that everyone's access to enjoyment is equal." 

Žižek, Violence (Picador, 2008), p. 89


Yes I'm happy with this definition of envy, and think it isn't talked about enough. However, it needs to be contrasted with jealousy, so all the by-products of one and of the other can be exposed. Invidia bifurcates.  We look at the root of the word in Latin and it quickly becomes apparent that it stems from another word.  Going backwards:  invidia from invedere (regard maliciously), from in- (=into) + videre (= to see).  


I read further.

"An evil person is thus not an egotist, 'thinking only about his own interests.' A true egotist is too busy taking care of his own good to have time to cause misfortune to others. The primary vice of a bad person is precisely that he is more preoccupied with others than with himself."

Žižek, Violence (Picador, 2008), p. 92


True.  This point is v important and ppl often neglect the implications of true egotism, or selfishness. Then:

"Here is why egalitarianism itself should never be accepted at its face value: the notion (and practice) of egalitarian justice, insofar as it is sustained by envy, relies on the inversion of the standard renunciation accomplished to benefit others: 'I am ready to renounce it, so that others will (also) NOT be able to have it!' Far from being opposed to the spirit of sacrifice, evil here emerges as the very spirit of sacrifice, ready to ignore one's own well being--if, through my sacrifice, I can deprive the Other of his enjoyment..."

Žižek, Violence (Picador, 2008), p. 92


But Slavoj, aren't you dodging v important factors?  Two, off the top of my head.  Namely:


1) The possibility egalitarianism and enjoyment can be levelled up. I don't deny the very real fact that if there are two ppl and one of them is cheerful and the other isn't, it gets complicated to see how both can be equally joyful, given the positive energy will come from one individual and the other will absorb it, therefore each person ends up with less energy than existed before it was divided in two; however, it is also possible that multiplication will arise from the division.  Now, with more positive energy than he had at the beginning of the equation, SadIndividual may turn into CheerfulIndividual and start to produce his own positive energy, enough to give some back to the person who was already joyful, increasing the product.  It's a possible interpretation of the Parable of the Talents, no?  Multiply the initial natural resource, and;


2) It is problematic to isolate envy without contrasting it to jealousy, because one crucial element gets lost in the analysis of only one concept.
I agree envy is characterized primarily by not only the desire to have a quality or a thing the Other possesses but also, and, more importantly, by wanting to take it away from the Other so that no one has it in the end.  "If I can't have it, I don't want you to have it either."  It's a framework where everyone loses.
However, the missing element must be inserted into the equation precisely because I believe that once it is brought to light, the likelihood envy will turn into jealousy is encouraging.


If one starts from the premise that jealousy is characterized by the desire to possess something one doesn't yet have, without the added factor of wanting the Other to lose it, one reaches the conclusion that the dispossessed may end up achieving the object of his covetous thoughts.  Coveting isn't necessarily bad-- it may become negative if one crosses the line into envy.


Envious ppl could experience a positive transition into jealousy if they considered the following:


a) If the object of my envy loses what it possesses, the world becomes poorer and poorer, until, in the end, if my wishes are granted, I won't even have anything to be envious of, since no one will have anything worthy of my envy;


b) I, too, can have what I envy, within reason, if I apply myself and take the paths which lead to it;


c) Envy is stupid: what the envious person fails to perceive is that he who observes a quality has the perspicacity, the sensibility, the intelligence, the emotional resources to look at it and make an assessment of it, to see it, to value it for what it is.  The reader, the spectator, the listener is as responsible for the elevation or recognition of something as the person who created it or has it.  If I look at Magritte and see nothing, I have no reason at all to be jealous/envious.  If I see how stupendous it is, some of the credit goes to me, too!  Magritte wouldn't exist if no one could see his talent, and appreciate his art.  So envious ppl only need think this through.  They're underestimating their own capacity to identify quality, beauty, value.


Slavoj, I'd like to know what you'd say to this, but I don't think you read my blog.  I know you wouldn't be envious, though. 

Books

Last year, in early February, I made a list of books I wanted/had to read and, miraculously, I managed to keep to the list and even add a few throughout the year...and read a few that weren't listed. I know, I'm wild.

This year I want to do the same thing but before I do so, I'd like to see if I still remember the books I read last year (in no particular order...)

Edward W. Said Culture&Imperialism and Orientalism

Ibn Warraq Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said's Orientalism

Mohsin Hamid The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Noam Chomsky Language and Responsibility

Chomsky & Foucault On Human Nature: Justice vs. Power

Alain Soral Chute! and Misères du désir

John Le Carré A Most Wanted Man

Goethe Faust

Stendhal A Life of Napoleon

Mungo Park Travels in the Interior of Africa

Stephen King Duma Key

Byron Childe Harold Canto III

Catherine Sanderson Petite Anglaise

Michel Onfray La raison gourmande, philosophie du goût

Nick Davies Flat Earth News

That's all I remember.

Now this year I want to read a lot more fiction, preferably in French and contemporary. (Feel free to recommend something). I started the year reading Atonement, despite having watched the film, and even though the first 2 chapters made me think I would be bored stiff I carried on. It's pretty good once the plot appears in earnest.

I still haven't got many to add to this year's list (it could be something to do with the fact that I spent two months reading very little and not talking about books at all...) so what I'll do is list a few now (if I can think of any) then add to it during the year.

Books i feel i ought to read this year:

I really should read a few classics this year, but where to start? And from where? France, Russia, Brazil, Portugal?

The ones I can see on my (husband's) bookshelves have become too familiar somehow, and everytime I look at them I have the same feeling I used to get when I was a child and trying to fall asleep when I wasn't sleepy and didn't want to go to bed but had to, and so I'd just stare at the bookcase in the bedroom, where the grown up books were kept, and would wonder what the books were about from the title. It was very boring; I'm sure I should just have opened any of them and started to read, but I was supposed to be asleep, and I did not know that reading is a good way to fall asleep (sometimes...depends on the book).

The books that belong to me have either been read or are non-fiction/reference books. I could just go by a best-sellers list but that seems depressing as I just *know* that most people read rubbish most of the time, especially books from those lists. Self-help books. Nails on blackboard.

So! OK, back to the list (or, rather, to the list!):

Stendhal La Chartreuse de Parme and The Red and the Black

Claire Castillon Les Cris

Luis Fernando Verìssimo any

Ruben Fonseca any

...to be continued

(continued)

Marc-Édouard Nabe L'homme qui arrêta d'écrire

Franz-Olivier Giesbert Un Très grand amour

Alain Soral Vers la Féminisation?