:)) I guess that would be the old, orthodox, way of seeing things that Corgan and Bowie somewhat naively express - just the kind that Pedro Almodovar i challenging with this movie "All About My Mother". Here the conventionalities are turned upside down, conceptual borders are transgressed and most of us are left with our jaws open wandering about issues we never recognized as real. This is exactly Almodovars point - everything is a subject for change. Nothing remains the same. All that matters is what things mean for us - not what they are. What they are is an ontological oxymoron. Consider following quote worth repeating from another great thinker: "Interpretation can never be brought to an end, simply because there is nothing to interpret. There is nothing absolutely primary to be interpreted, since fundamentally, everything is already interpretation; every sign is, in itself, not the thing susceptible to interpretation but the interpretation of other signs.", (Foucault, M., Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977)
So, if there is nothing to be interpreted, if there is no "absolutely primary" - what does the act of remaining same represent? And isn't it a kind of a paradox to referr to the staticity of "remaining same" as an act - the very verb "remaining" is as self-contraditory as round circle. Well I guess that this archaic vision of static - of remaining true to ones true self as a kind of ultimate authenticity - is wounded here... perhaps deadly. And for the better, if I might add, this view of human worth is exactly the same one that has caused so much bad things such as eugenist scientific-political movement of the early 20th century as well as racism, sexism, homofobia and such. I say RIP motherfucker, now let's start recognizing and accepting each other on each others premises and not on our own... in the end, does it even matter... we're slowly transgressing into posthumans anyhow - that is how much we in fact change. This should however not be confused with the myth of progress, evolution, development... it is not a linear kind of change we are experiencing - from the worse of the now to the better of tomorrow which is nothing but an illusion - but the kind that resembles the rings in the water moving in all directions rather than the linear movement of progress moving towards only one... that's why the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Would anyone believe me if I said that I knew this one was commin', really...
Be that as it may, allow me to whet my wooden sword! Allow me to stretch my fins, I shall swim upstreams!
Yes! There are, I believe, certain things we hold dear and cherish and would never let go, and in that sense I guess you could say that staying true to oneself is a virtue and should be pursued as such. But does this really mean not changing? The solideness of a solid rock doesn't mean that it stays the same forever, now does it? Somehow we seem to have confused the identity with integrity and are reluctant to accept the change of the former since it would render us as weak. We are but victims of the myth of non-change doctrine tracing back to Parmenides. This myth was further fortified through the pandemics of centuries long sovereign power of clerics and their truths. We worship authenticity - and that I can relate to! But while worshiping authenticity we also seem to find the virtue in our own lack of resonance, our unreceptiveness to the outside world as a constant threat to our integrity and our core-selves.
First, how do we gain the sense of ourselves?
Allow me to repeat some other lovely words worth repeating:
"Self-consciousness exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it so exists for another; that is, it exists only as something acknowledged", (Hegel 1979 [1807]: § 178).
Provided this and provided that we are living in a world of constant change, that we are surrounded by various people - the change of which is evident in the ways they as a group or gropus are composed and recomposed in relation to ourselves; but also as a group of individuals, each one of which is subject to constant change - then it's not so far a stretch to see how change in fact is inescapable.
Furthermore, there lays great beauty and great danger in portraying the enormous subjects such as this (or any other for that matter) in one poetic line. Such prose is indeed beautiful because it is so convincing, all-encompassing, easy to grasp, to embrace and make ones own. But it is also dangerous because it is convincing, all-encompassing, impossible to grasp due to the magnitude of interpretive possibilities, yet still easy to embrace and make ones own due to the general acceptance that it often enjoys. That is one of the reasons behind this little blog - words worth repeating, discussing, worshiping and reevaluating! No word should be written in stone - all words should be layed down on this blog as a subject for relentless scrutiny!
:))
Vedder, Corgan & Bowie (imagine what that band would sound like)echoe here the ancient myth - and I am not sure whether they are aware of that or if they just are pursuing the golden calf of "staying true to one self" as everybody else seems to be doing. It is the myth of "all is one - one is god - god is eternal - eternal demolishes the very notion of change"...
"The more you change the less you feel"
ReplyDelete"Time can change me but I can trace time"
ReplyDelete:))
ReplyDeleteI guess that would be the old, orthodox, way of seeing things that Corgan and Bowie somewhat naively express - just the kind that Pedro Almodovar i challenging with this movie "All About My Mother". Here the conventionalities are turned upside down, conceptual borders are transgressed and most of us are left with our jaws open wandering about issues we never recognized as real. This is exactly Almodovars point - everything is a subject for change. Nothing remains the same. All that matters is what things mean for us - not what they are. What they are is an ontological oxymoron. Consider following quote worth repeating from another great thinker:
"Interpretation can never be brought to an end, simply because there is nothing to interpret. There is nothing absolutely primary to be interpreted, since fundamentally, everything is already interpretation; every sign is, in itself, not the thing susceptible to interpretation but the interpretation of other signs.", (Foucault, M., Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977)
So, if there is nothing to be interpreted, if there is no "absolutely primary" - what does the act of remaining same represent? And isn't it a kind of a paradox to referr to the staticity of "remaining same" as an act - the very verb "remaining" is as self-contraditory as round circle. Well I guess that this archaic vision of static - of remaining true to ones true self as a kind of ultimate authenticity - is wounded here... perhaps deadly. And for the better, if I might add, this view of human worth is exactly the same one that has caused so much bad things such as eugenist scientific-political movement of the early 20th century as well as racism, sexism, homofobia and such. I say RIP motherfucker, now let's start recognizing and accepting each other on each others premises and not on our own... in the end, does it even matter... we're slowly transgressing into posthumans anyhow - that is how much we in fact change. This should however not be confused with the myth of progress, evolution, development... it is not a linear kind of change we are experiencing - from the worse of the now to the better of tomorrow which is nothing but an illusion - but the kind that resembles the rings in the water moving in all directions rather than the linear movement of progress moving towards only one... that's why the more things change, the more they stay the same.
"I change by not changing at all"
ReplyDeleteWell, what should I say about that one...
ReplyDeleteWould anyone believe me if I said that I knew this one was commin', really...
Be that as it may, allow me to whet my wooden sword! Allow me to stretch my fins, I shall swim upstreams!
Yes! There are, I believe, certain things we hold dear and cherish and would never let go, and in that sense I guess you could say that staying true to oneself is a virtue and should be pursued as such. But does this really mean not changing? The solideness of a solid rock doesn't mean that it stays the same forever, now does it? Somehow we seem to have confused the identity with integrity and are reluctant to accept the change of the former since it would render us as weak. We are but victims of the myth of non-change doctrine tracing back to Parmenides. This myth was further fortified through the pandemics of centuries long sovereign power of clerics and their truths. We worship authenticity - and that I can relate to! But while worshiping authenticity we also seem to find the virtue in our own lack of resonance, our unreceptiveness to the outside world as a constant threat to our integrity and our core-selves.
First, how do we gain the sense of ourselves?
Allow me to repeat some other lovely words worth repeating:
"Self-consciousness exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it so exists for another; that is, it exists only as something acknowledged", (Hegel 1979 [1807]: § 178).
Provided this and provided that we are living in a world of constant change, that we are surrounded by various people - the change of which is evident in the ways they as a group or gropus are composed and recomposed in relation to ourselves; but also as a group of individuals, each one of which is subject to constant change - then it's not so far a stretch to see how change in fact is inescapable.
Furthermore, there lays great beauty and great danger in portraying the enormous subjects such as this (or any other for that matter) in one poetic line. Such prose is indeed beautiful because it is so convincing, all-encompassing, easy to grasp, to embrace and make ones own. But it is also dangerous because it is convincing, all-encompassing, impossible to grasp due to the magnitude of interpretive possibilities, yet still easy to embrace and make ones own due to the general acceptance that it often enjoys. That is one of the reasons behind this little blog - words worth repeating, discussing, worshiping and reevaluating! No word should be written in stone - all words should be layed down on this blog as a subject for relentless scrutiny!
:))
Vedder, Corgan & Bowie (imagine what that band would sound like)echoe here the ancient myth - and I am not sure whether they are aware of that or if they just are pursuing the golden calf of "staying true to one self" as everybody else seems to be doing. It is the myth of "all is one - one is god - god is eternal - eternal demolishes the very notion of change"...
... Hehehehe, "I change by not changing at all" resembles so much of the archaic oxymoron of "I move by not moving at all".
Thnx for evoking this!
"People change as does everything!"
ReplyDelete