Anybody want to read my Philosophy One-Pager for today? Sure you do. (“Philosophy,” as well as “remember,” are probably the two words that I mis-type the most frequently. Odd redundancies of letters.) I had fun writing this one, and as has happened a few times in this course, I wished that I could write more. Alas, the assignment is limited to “not much over 250 words,” so there.
You Say Potato, I Say I’ll Go Cry in the Corner
The Other is a refreshing introduction, because it has seemed pretty obvious that things were going to get messy for Sartre as soon as someone else came along and started making meanings for things at the same time that he was. However, I am not certain I agree that consciousness has to forfeit its positionality on things to the Other. After all, the Other would necessarily have to suffer the same fate in my presence. A room full of people is just coincidental, mutual dis-integrations with no sustainable claim on meaning. So why is this forfeiture necessary? Is it simply strict adherence to post-modernism, the requirement of the movement to eliminate the self at the earliest convenient opportunity? Maybe it’s better than that. Maybe it’s because, as I am not him, I cannot know what these things are to him or for him. They have to transfer allegiance to the Other, because for me to have any amount of ownership of their distance or relation or meaning to him is an absolute impossibility. He disintegrates my ability to rationalize – to positionalize – my world, because he owns meanings that I cannot conceive, for objects that I do perceive. The Other is the antithesis of consciousness.
So the objects in my universe have a new focal point. I have been eliminated as the locus of positionality. Seems that, by extension and because it must necessarily be the same from the perspective of the other, that he is also eliminated as the locus of positionality, and on and on in saecula saeculorum, such that there is no such thing, anywhere, as a locus of positionality. All meaning dies, and we place the corpse of morality on the pyre alongside it.
As noted, Sartre leaves gaping vacancies where morality and ethics are concerned, though I hear he made a run at those things eventually. For now I enjoy the challenge of digging through his oily narrations and coming up with some understanding. There’s a lot to like. A lot to agree with.
Medium, on the other hand, is yet to be decided upon. I joined up last week. No matter how many times I click “show fewer stories like this,” or “show fewer recommends from medium staff,” I still get stories like that, and recommends from medium staff. And they’re all the same droll political drivel. However, there are also many poets and writers (not mutually exclusive, those two, natch). If my exclusions eventually yield a primarily creativity-friendly experience, then maybe I’ll be on to something. Someone posted a poem there today, for instance, that referenced Descartes in a playful way. I pointed out that he had also invited Sartre to the party through some of his lines about forward-looking identity. It’s timely and engaging and fun. And I won’t link to it, because it’s probably illegal or something. Medium is, like, a big and serious internet operation. Meaning that there’s more things you can do wrong there than right.
Imma go off to school now and try to do some things right. It’s working out that way so far.
Andy Havens 