10,575, RUDIMENTS, pt. 238

RUDIMENTS, pt. 238

Making Cars

I wanted to be a philosopher too;

not much of a category  -  Philosophy.

And certainly a strange line of work.

Without real application, outwardly,

except for publication and academics.

In Elmira College my philosophy guy

was John McLaughlin. There was

also a jazz-guitarist name of large

renown then, with his 'Mahavishnu

Orchestra,' but no connection. It

was just funny to see the overlap of

names. McLaughlin held philosophy

classes and really not much ever

got done except endless talk. In

thinking about it, what else could

be, really, and what else was

'Philosophy' about?  Talk. History

of Philosophy, that was one thing;

there's a whole medley of historic

personages and schools of theory

and all, to go through. But this wasn't

exactly that. This was more just long

talk. We'd skirmish and try to rattle

one other, pirouetting around without

disclaimers, and land-bombing whatever

ideas we could find. The entire class

was crazy people. Well, two types, either

crazy or mute. The mute ones, I did

find out later, were mute from fear.

In fact, they approached their entire

life in a state of fear   -   which I'd

grown out of, seeing it as pretty

useless. The others were, at best,

often outlandish. But a good

outlandish, not the rubbish stuff

you often run into. Yet the fearful
ones had led themselves into a
dead-end. The cultural time of

life that this was  - you need to

remember  - was still the smoking

aftermath of the resultant hippies

and commune craze that had

descended upon enclaves around

New York State and overstayed or

never left, until much later. Ithaca,

for instance, just a bit up the road,

and Cornell University, were still

hotbeds of community-living,

group homes, and militants. The

countryside all around was still

set up with old farms and places

which had become communes,

experimental communities of 'bakers'

and artisans, and artists too. Bread

was baked and paints were mixed.

There was some drugs, and some

'mothers' who'd conceive and then

willingly turn their child over,

as parentless, to the commune  -

group-raised, nonmaternal and

non-paternal too. I often wonder

now what became of those kids,

these years later. Most of the

communes had a way of becoming

disaffected communes, with the

usual factions and breakaways,

quarrels, spoils and problems.

When they eventually all broke up,

who went where was an unknown.

Communal living, for kids, anyway.

was more in line with the way you'd

treat a dog  -  group ownership,

throw it some food, it runs freely,

answers to none. For people, not

so cool. Many of the 'Commune

Leader' types anyway were your

basic one-step-off lechers  -  in it

for power and sex, allegiance and

vengeance too (which is the Lord's,

by the way, not really theirs, to claim).

-

John McLaughlin's big issue all that

time was to teach John Rawls and

Rawls' book 'A Theory of Justice.' It

had been published in 1971, and thus

was a 'new' book, relative to things.

It bore the characteristics of a new

and reworked 'Social Contract,' John

Locke, equitable distribution, society,

fairness, justice and all that. None

of that was really anything I much

cared about, but I had to hear it for

probably six months straight. I was

more interested in theoretical aspects

of things, conjecture, daring statements,

etc. Worrying about the distribution

of goods and services within the fixed

concept of Society' as we 'practiced' it,

wasn't of much concern to me, though  - 

because I had to  -  I played the game.

I wrote my papers and did my researches.

Nonetheless, it became very dreary

to have to face up against the rigors

of linear philosophy such as Rawls'

when, in my own turn, I'd made

Philosophy represent all that I could

against that. Social policy and equitabe

distribution, viewed within a quotable

'theory of justice,' well perhaps it

all was fine, Jeffersonian, and the

rest. But for me it still smacked of

the Enlightenment and all those

really square, be-wigged, guys.

-

Nowadays, years on as it is, again it's

all different. Just as the communes 

have closed up and all those fragrant

girls are now elderly women, with 

maybe just distant memories of their 

own free, no-undergarments, days,

so too has philosophy forgot about

itself and plowed onwards. Habermas

and Sloterdijk, and all the others. I

can hardly keep up, though I try,

and  -  as I said before  -  it's really 

a small academic industry now, of 

philosophers writing, spouting,

publishing, and claiming a 'school'

of their own philosophy as a 

movement. Narrow as all get out, 

but vital as an undercurrent. The

lines are no longer so precise. A

philosopher type can cross boundaries 

and say things, about 'things,' and

have it go at that : "The car is like

a uterus on wheels. It has the 

advantage over its biological model

for being linked to independant

movement and a feeling of autonomy,

The car also has phallic and anal

components  -  the primitice-aggressive 

competitive behavior, and the

revving-up and overtaking, which

turns the other, slower, person into

an expelled turd." (Sloterdijk).

-

You can't really pivot away from that 

stuff  -  as, in its own way, it's no

longer 'high' philosophy in that old

way of the essential thinkers. now it's

glib, and streamlined, flip and hip,

takes in all things and categories, and

swipes broadly in all manners of a

pastiche, an almost-willing rape of

society. Philosophy (again, I missed

out), has become not so much a cerebral

thought-circle as an active sport, a 

blood-splatter and a squeeze frenzy

out on some play-court of the half-

drunk world, out in the open and

visible for all to see. Like those

hippie girls again. How crazy has

everything become!

-

Sloterdijk, for example, runs as a

blast furnace of heated ideas :  He

has his own unique coinages too  - 

anthropotechnics; negative gynecology;

coimmunism. He has an established

career-rebellion against pieties of

liberal democracy, which has grown

tired, flaccid, fey and foolish. One of

his points is of the persistent nature

of ancient urges in supposedly advanced

societies. He's made mention of, as a

for instance, the contemporary revolt

against globalization as a misguided

expression of 'noble sentiments' which

rather than being curbed should be 

redirected in ways that left-liberals

cannot imagine. That's sort of what

I was getting at when I mentioned,

some chapters back my whole

annoyance at the 'moral superiority'

air which so many people put on 

when taking up lefty or snooty

causes. He's also written this, of

the choice between, in 2016, Donald 

Trump  and Hillary Clinton as: "a choice

between two helplessly gesticulating

 models of normality, one of which 

appeared to be delegitimized, the

other unproven." I think he's a good

example of what I was saying about

bringing philosophy out a bit more to

the normal, offensive daylight of

life. (Missed out on that one too).

He keeps a comfort with social

rupture. "The problem with

Sloterdjink is that you're always

eight thousand  pages behind."

-

None of this makes or breaks an

everyday life, don't get me wrong. But

for me, what it does is vitalize something

otherwise pretty dead. The hulking

cadaver of the life that most people

lead is a pretty humdrum affair  - because

of its routine of exaggerated efforts

and claims  -  and it's being willingly

mixed up into  -  the production of a

national product which only then 

benefits others. Power-beings, fakers, 

and other top-dog bedevillers of the

rest of the commonfolk. It's too bad.

Most men leads lives of quiet desperation;

a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of

little minds  -  Thoreau and Emerson,

respectively. Have you ever seen any 

of those humdrum lives? Take a look 

sometime, in any suburban, or urban,

(there's no longer much difference) 

mall parking lot or large store lot. 

It's pretty amazing the levels of 

paralytic consistency you'll see : 

really nasty people; engrained

bad habits and poor presentation, 

and not a care in the world over 

any of it; just a need for 'more.'

I'd always wanted to be the sort of

philosopher who's slap people in their

faces a bit, to unsettle them; or at

least to wake them up and to revolt.
-
There comes a point at which you have to
reach 'becoming  - when the concept and
the potential meet up and conjoin, and
are somehow actualized into the reality
we know. Take the monkey  -  the poor
monkey, really  -  locked in a cage for
experimentation purposes, just so humans
can determine whether or not that newly
developed eye-shadow or lipstick causes
cancer. I ask you, is that any way to prosper?
On the backs of other creatures; dead,
as food; or alive, as compatriots.
(And certainly a strange kind of work).