Epigraphs

"In other words, the intermediaries which in their concrete particularity form a bridge, evaporate ideally into an empty interval to cross and then, the relation of the end-terms having became saltatory, the hocus-pocus of erkenntnisstheorie begins, and goes on unrestrained by further concrete considerations." (William James)

"Hoc est corpus meum." (Jesus Christ)

Desiderata

We want reality to be opaque. There should be nothing behind it.

We want ideas to be transparent. There should be nothing to them.

Major and Minor Forms

A distinguished novelist complained that no directions for major form were given in How to Read.
In apology: It is a waste of time to listen to people talking of things they have not understood sufficiently to perform. (Ezra Pound, ABC, p. 76)

Pound ultimately didn't even exhibit "major form" in the Cantos. As Kearns points out,

He never got around to theorizing about major form, nor did he impose one on the Cantos. As he added to the poem or he came across new materials that interested him, he allowed them to find a place in the expanding code, trusting principally that a dynamic magnetism would hold everything together by the quality of the poet's affections. (29)

This is exactly the opposite of what I want to allow, and what I can trust, in Composure. My notes will cohere, I want to say, even if It/I don't (cf. Canto CXVI). That's what the project is about.

I want a major form to emerge from the pieces (the pjecer that have been translated as Kierkegaard's "fragments"). 51 pieces, say, one of which is my body ("This is my body"). Where it at all coheres. The form will not be imposed; it will be built. Hand crafted.

Poetic Composition

Thomas Presskorn reminds me that I've been promising to write Composure for some time. If it were a straight prose work, I would chide myself for not just getting down to it. But I did actually once try to just "get the thing done" and it simply didn't work. I write scholarly prose quite easily (surprisingly easily) these days. What I'm having trouble with is the sort of writing that I want Composure to be.

"Philosophie dürfte man eigentlich nur dichten," said Wittgenstein. Peter Winch renders it, "Philosophy ought really to be written only as a poetic composition." I sometimes think it would suffice (though it doesn't, of course, really) to say "One ought really only compose philosophy," adding, perhaps, a parenthetical "in the manner of poetry", to capture the everyday sense of "dichten".

But what kind of poetry? My answer is that philosophy ought to be written on the model of Rosmarie Waldrop, Lisa Robertson, Ben Lerner, and Tony Tost. Their work is resolutely "emotional", however, in a way that I do not intend Composure to be, and for this reason they work much more freely within their form than I hope to. But the words are composed on the page in a, to me, exemplary way.

Wittgenstein said that his demand that we compose philosophy as we compose poems only showed that he wasn't very good at what he wanted to do. I feel the same way. I simply don't know how to "work" at it. I know that "This is my body" is the central claim of the book. The book is to be a "complete" elaboration of that sentence. I also know that this elaboration will consist of about 50 "moments" (roughly speaking, discrete poems) with titles like "Knowledge" and "Power", "Intuition" and "Institution", "Seeing" and "Doing" ... perhaps even "Eye", "Hand" and "Lens", "Lever". The "poems" will be paired like that, with no moment lasting more than a page (probably about 300 words). But that's what I know. I don't really know how to compose a poem. I can't do it the way I write prose.

Descartes' Feint

I am still working on a book called Composure. It is an attempt to overcome, both poetically and philosophically, what Damasio calls "Descartes' error", which, I believe, was not so much a mistake as a deft piece of misdirection. Here is the key passage in part IV of the Discourse on Method.

I attentively examined what I was, and as I observed that I could suppose [feindre] that I had no body, and that there was no world nor any place in which I might be; but that I could not therefore suppose that I was not; and that, on the contrary, from the very circumstance that I thought to doubt of the truth of other things, it most clearly and certainly followed that I was; while, on the other hand, if I had only ceased to think, although all the other objects which I had ever imagined had been in reality existent, I would have had no reason to believe that I existed; I thence concluded that I was a substance whose whole essence or nature consists only in thinking, and which, that it may exist, has need of no place, nor is dependent on any material thing; so that “I,” that is to say, the mind by which I am what I am, is wholly distinct from the body, and is even more easily known that the latter, and is such, that although the latter were not, it would still continue to be all that it is.

I do not believe this is an error based on an (understandable) lack of neurological knowledge. Rather, I simply do not believe Descartes when he says he could "suppose" or, as some translations put it, "pretend" (arguably a more literal translation of feindre) that he "had no body".

I cannot myself suppose, imagine or pretend any such thing. If I had no body, I would not be. If there were no world around me, there would be no place for me, no "there" (Da) for my being (Sein). Composure is coming to terms with the experience of being wholly indistinguishable from my body, my world, my history.

I am not "a substance whose whole essence or nature consists only in thinking, and which, that it may exist, has need of no place, nor is dependent on any material thing". On the contrary. This experience is my body.

A Concentration Which Will Persist Uncomfortably until It Is Removed

I have said that the purpose of a poem is to make us "feel better", that is, better able to feel. A poem does this, I have argued, by "noting emotions", that is, by writing them down. Poetry is emotional notation to foster precision in feeling. Precision in thought is clarity. Precision in feeling is intensity. It all still sounds right to me. But I recently read Robert Graves's "November 5th Address", given sometime in 1928 and published in X, volume 1, number 3, June 1960.

It is a rejection of literature that is written to please, whether the public or the critics. And while this is never what I have consciously meant, I can see that positing a "purpose of poetry" that is centered on the reader (what a poem should "make us" do) is more in line with with this "literary" approach than what Graves is after (Graves rejects all "literature").

Not only is poetry not a science, says Graves, it is not an art. This is really where he challenges my views, and he does it most effectively in this passage:

Poetry is not an art. It does not even begin as words. What happens is that there is a sudden meeting in the poet's mind of certain incognizable, unrelated and unpersonified forces; of which meeting comes a new creature—the still formless poem. The poet feels this happening at the back of his mind mind as an expectance, a concentration which will persist uncomfortably until it is removed. First, he objectifies it by writing it in in such a way that it has a general, not merely personal, context; then removes it as far as possible by putting it into circulation. (174, my emphasis)

Graves says that poetry is a "serious activity" for "serious people", people whose first goal "is to be themselves and please themselves" (172).

So to apply this to my own formula: A poem must, first of all, make the poet feel better (please the poet, if you will). And it is only in the pursuit of this aim that poem must be published ("put into circulation") so as to "remove it as far as possible". Poetry responds to a need, first of all in the poet, for greater emotional precision. This need no doubt exists in the so-called "public"; the "incognizable, unrelated and unpersonified forces" do not impose themselves on the poet in a vacuum. But the poet does not (should not) respond to a presumed (projected?) need for pleasure in the public. Rather, public life, which does much to determine the parameters of what Graves calls "the huge impossibility of language", is, in part, the source of the imprecision. The notes of the poet does all it can to move it. That is emotional notation.

I think I have, perhaps inadvertently, let myself get distracted by my hope that poetry could serve a civic function. It has been "hugely impossible" for me to write poems that, however unconsciously, were ultimately "literary" in the sense Graves disparages. At some level, my protestations notwithstanding, I did not want to circulate a poem that I did not see the civic utility of. I have, in an important sense, tried too hard to please other people. I take as evidence the presence, "at the back of my mind", of a concentration that persists uncomfortably. It needs to be removed.

Moral Equivalence: A Presidential Memo

I just read the following sentence in a pretty good editorial in the New York Times: "Iran’s leaders, ruthless as they clearly are, are not crazed men looking for a 10-megaton exploding belt." It reminded me of a passage in Norman Mailer's Presidential Papers:

It could be argued that the impetus to America's cold war with communism has come from a collective psychosis, from a monster which has borne almost no relation to the objective cold war going on in these years, a particular real cold war which has been concrete, limited, ugly, detailed, and shrewd in its encounters. The Russians have shown a tough tenacious sly somewhat dishonorable and never-tiring regard for local victory in each of their episodes with us. We have dealt with this international opposition in terms which were schizophrenic. On the working diplomatic level any adjectives applied to the Russians could have applied to us. We also have been tough tenacious sly somewhat dishonorable and have hardly ever slackened in our regard for local victory; but at the level of domestic political consumption we have presented the Russians to the American public as implacable, insane, and corrupting. We could have talking equally of of the plague or some exotic variety of sex. (161)

That may have been a long detour for the simple point I want to make. I long for the day when the New York Times writes, simply, "Iran’s leaders, though clearly as ruthless as ours are, are not crazed men looking for a 10-megaton exploding belt." That is, I wish we could bring what we say at "the level of domestic political consumption" into line with what we say and do "on the working diplomatic level". It would make our culture more sane.

Obedience (again)

"Just as a decision may obey or disobey desire," I once said, "so a discovery may confirm or disconfirm a belief." That's not exactly right, and I'd like to take a moment to correct it. Decisions are indeed to discoveries as desires are to beliefs. But obedience is to understanding, not confirmation, as desire is to belief. What does this difference imply about decision and discovery?

Well, a discovery can't really understand a belief and, likewise, a decision can't actually obey a desire. An action, or more accurately an actor, can obey and disobey somethign.

But there may be tensions between decision and desire, just as there may be tensions between discovery and belief. Perhaps we can say that if a discovery can, indeed, confirm a belief (I believe that there is a woman outside my door and, opening it, I discover that this is indeed the case, i.e., I confirm it) then a decision can ratify a desire (I desire to share the woman's company and, inviting her in, I decide to let this happen, i.e., I ratify it).

I can express the content of a belief as a statement, and the content of a desire as a command. These expressions may then be understood or misunderstood, obeyed or disobeyed. I cannot decide an action any more than I can discover a perception. Do or do not. See or don't see. There is no try.

Ron Paul

After I quick read through, I think Ron Paul gets this thing exactly right. I may be missing something in the fine print, and I'd still like to think socialism could be as right on this issue as libertarianism (i.e., that another set of principles could imply the same conclusion.) But, in any case,

"We now have an epidemic of 'sunshine patriots' on both the right and the left who are all for freedom, as long as there’s no controversy and nobody is offended."

That nails it.

Failures to Communicate

Deference is to obedience as reference is to understanding. To defer, that is, is not exactly to obey, but it may nonetheless display an "understanding" of the power implicit in a situation. Likewise, a mere reference to something does not demonstrate any depth of understanding, but it may display a rudimentary grasp of what is known.

What is interesting here, in fact, is how an incorrect reference may demonstrate a lack of understanding quite unequivocally. Likewise, failing to defer to power (or deferring to the wrong the person) can constitute an unequivocal act of disobedience.

That famous line from Cool Hand Luke, "What we have here is a failure to communicate," nicely captures the homology of misunderstanding and disobedience.

Reference and Deference

My knowledge is beholden to a system of reference, to identifications of named things. My power is beholden to a system of deference, to differentiations from named people. Indeed, only things actually have identities, i.e., only things are that which they are. People (you and I and them) are not simply who we are. Our existence is our difference from others. That is why our knowledge of things is conditioned by reference (knowledge is a capacity for accurate reference) and our power over people is conditioned by deference (power is a capacity for accurate deference).

When I "identify" a person, I am not merely saying, "This body goes by this name." I am saying, "This is not my body. I will defer to this body under such and such circumstances." No general principles define those circumstances. They are determined exactly by who the person is, and who the person quite specifically is not, namely, I. The person's name, then, does not simply refer to the person. Instead, the name stands for a particular apparatus of (set of dispositions for) deference in me. My power is implicit in that apparatus. "Accuracy of deference" means simply that I defer to the "right" people.

See also: "Notes on the Practice of Deference"

Freedom and Limits

You are limited by your understanding and misunderstanding of statements. You are free to obey and disobey commands.

The Scandal

It seems to me that the scandal of the current financial system is that the closer you get the source of the money, i.e., the place where it is printed, issued, and gets leveraged into purchasing power (as credit), the more money you are in a position to make. Banking should be a much less ambitious business. Perhaps it shouldn't be a business at all. All banks have to do is ensure there is enough money to facilitate the circulation of goods. It seems obvious that if someone is in a position to make a profit simply by printing money (and keeping some of it) then "someone" will do exactly that. And this will put too much money into circulation. In effect, the "wealth" of our bankers consists in money they created out of thin air, distributing some (for show) and keeping some (for themselves). So-called "derivatives" were merely a shell game to conceal the operation.

Jefferson/Pound redux

While on vacation, I read Simon Johnson and James Kwak's 13 Bankers. The closing paragraph of this wholly convincing, if perhaps too affable, analysis of the financial system reads as follows:

Even when it goes out of fashion, Thomas Jefferson’s suspicion of concentrated power remains an essential thread in the fabric of American democracy. The financial crisis of 2007-2009 has made Jefferson a little less out of fashion. It is that tradition of skepticism that, if anything, can shift the weight of public opinion against our new financial oligarchy—the most law-abiding, hardworking, eloquent, well-dressed oligarchy in the history of politics. It is to help reinvigorate that spirit of Jefferson that we have written this book. (222)

If Jefferson is going to be "a little less out of fashion", then perhaps Pound can be hip again, too? In the late-1930s, he argued for a "revival" of what he called "American civilization", namely, America in the spirit of Henry Adams and Thomas Jefferson (ca. 1760 to 1830). In a sense, Johnson and Kwak argued that this revival actually came about (with the various banking reforms that came out of the Great Depression), though Pound was not of course satisfied. The "reinvigoration" that Johnson and Kwak are hoping for is much less radical than Pound's "revival", but, as the name of Jefferson indicates, is thought in the same "spirit". As Pound put it:

'As monument' or I should prefer to say as a still workable dynamo, left us from the real period, nothing surpasses the Jefferson correspondence. Or to reduce it to convenient bulk concentrating on the best of it, and its fullest implications, nothing surpasses the evidence that CIVILIZATION WAS in America, than the series of letters exchanged between Jefferson and John Adams, during the decade of reconciliation after their disagreements.

I'm going to spend a few posts this month thinking this through.

A Translation

One day I'll find the time to read Kierkegaard again, I hope, and to try my hand at translating him. Here are two sentences from The Sickness unto Death:

Den socratiske Definition hjælper sig da saaledes. Naar En ikke gjør det Rette, saa har han heller ikke forstaaet det; hans Forstaaen er en Indbildning; hans Forsikkring om at have forstaaet en feil Direction; hans gjentagne Forsikkring om Fanden gale ham at have forstaaet, en uhyre, uhyre Fjernhed ad den størst mulige Omvei.

Here's the official (Penguin) English translation by Alistair Hannay:

The Socratic definition covers itself as follows. When a person does not do the right thing, then neither has he understood; his understanding is an illusion; his protestation of understanding is a misleading message, his repeated protestations that he'll be damned if he doesn't understand, a huge, huge distance away on the greatest possible detour.

It comes off a bit like a Dane's attempt translate his own writing. Here's what I'd do with it:

The Socratic definition offers itself as follows. When someone fails to do the right thing, then neither has he understood it; his understanding is a delusion, his assurances that he's understood, a diversion, his repeated assurances that you better damned well believe he's understood, a monstrous, monstrous distraction by way of the greatest possible detour.

Not bad, if I do say so myself. I'll update this post with some notes later.

A Humble Ambition

I want to do for for thought what Joseph Albers did for colour.

The Conjunctions of War

The grammar is always impeccable in the New Yorker. It tells us how one thinks. Consider an illuminating sentence from William Finnegan's article on the Mexican drug cartels.

Mexico's President, Felipe Calderón declared war—his metaphor—on the country's drug traffickers when he took office, in December, 2006. ... [His] first act was to send sixty-five hundred soldiers and federal police into Michoacán. ... Fifty thousand soldiers and twenty thousand federal police are now in the streets and countryside, but the bloodshed and disorder have grown worse. (39)

It is the "but" in that last sentence that interests me. The unstated understanding between the implicit author and his implicit reader is that a surge of troops into a region will normally reduce "bloodshed and disorder"; "but" normally sets up a contrast of some sort. Consider the alternative:

Fifty thousand soldiers and twenty thousand federal police are now in the streets and countryside, and the bloodshed and disorder have grown worse.

We can easily imagine the same grammatical issue in coverage of the War on Terror.

One hundred and fifty thousand soldiers are now in Afghanistan, but the bloodshed and disorder have grown worse.

The always implicit axiom is that it is puzzling that declaring war on something increases rather than decreases the bloodshed related to it. The grammar of empire requires that "but" (which, not incidentally, indicates "exception"—as in "state of exception"). A shift in usage to favour "and" would be in the interest of peace.

Foreign and Domestic: The Movie

Read "Foreign and Domestic: The Blog Post".

Ridiculous Thought

"Fascism is more of a natural state than democracy."
Norman Mailer

If Being and Time is a metaphysics of fascism, The Cantos is its anthropology. The tome and epos of fascism, if you will.

This would explain why these books are so hard for us to understand. Perhaps only a reevaluation of fascism will yield an understanding of the "inner truth and greatness" of these books. Spooky.

Notes on the Practice of Deference

"Given a theory," Quine writes, "one philosophically interesting aspect of it into which we can inquire is its ontology [i.e., what is the theory about?]. But we can also inquire into its ideology (to give a good sense to a bad word): what ideas can be expressed in it? The ontology of a theory stands in no simple correspondence to its ideology." ("Notes on the Theory Reference", FLPV, p. 131).

Let's begin with a straight pangrammatical transposition:

Taking any practice, one poetically interesting handle we can get on its governance is its ethnicity [i.e., who is engaged in the practice?]. But we can also govern through its realisability (to give a good sense to a vague word): what realities can be contained by it? The ethnicity of a practice stands in no simple correspondence to its realisability.

To continue: "The notion of ontological commitment," says Quine, "belongs to the theory of reference. For to say that a given existential quantification presupposes objects [things] of a given kind is to say that the open sentence which follows the quantifier is true of some objects of that kind of none not of that kind." (130-1) Get that? Well, maybe the transposition is actually easier to understand:

The sentiment of ethnic commitment belongs to the practice of deference. For to say that a given essential qualification applies to subjects [people] of a given ilk is to say simply that the open sentence which follows the qualifier is just of all subjects of that ilk and none not of that ilk.

Pause for reflection.

Update (29-09-16): I did not realize when I wrote that "Poem about WVO Quine" how much it was related to this post.