George Carlin, nihilist supreme

carlin was indeed funny. i died laughing at him on Yutube yesterday. it was my first time as i was lost to america's tv personalities during the sixties and much of the seventies. but i feel that a careful examination of carlin's ideas indicate a rather empty tin can with the marble (it was hardly a mere stone). he mouthed the nihiltic culture that destroyed many in the sixties and early seventies,and that drove the following generation into a radicalism that represents the most cravish accomodation to the status quo, while wallowing in mindless consumerism. There was nothing new about his attacks on religion and tradition, favorites of the enlightenment self-legitimation tactics for quite some time, except that he threw in the F-word, the nihilistic attitude that is ironically the outcome of the enlightenment, with its state and individual human reason as lawgivers. He attacked religion for it's inclination to go to war, but forgot modernist universalisms: communism, fascism and liberal democracy. Yes, that icon too. Just look at george and the neo cons headed for the oil fields to bring democracy to the middle east. Look at US policy during the Cold War. Democracy at the barrel of a gun, really no different from the Russian or Chinese gun except that some businessmen made a fortune. These three killed, and killed lots more than any wars of religion. About a hundren million actually, and that does not include the dead in Iraq, and the four million refugees that are close to the living dead. Carlin attacked consumerism, which is nothing other than rampant egoism, in fact an anomic egoism in a materialist market determined world that can produce anything and everything that can be imagined by anybody. The human imagination for entertainment gadgets is indeed limitless. But did any of these attacks give Carlin a lead on what an alternative world might look like. i don't know whether or not Carlin took the hippie in the woods route, but i doubt it. Did he have a woodshed for the toilet activities he seemed to know so intimately? or did he too have a jacuzzi? does it matter? No. whether he took a dump into an Asian style hole in the ground or had a golden throne, it had not one whit of an influence over our world. His greatest impact was to legitimate the naysayers, those who stand for nothing except their freedom to do whatever they please no matter what the consequences. Yes, Carlin was entertaining or so i found him, but that does not blind me to the lack of content.

Hospital Poem

This poem was written in hospital after my heart attack. The poor old woman down the corridor kept up her verbal assault on the silent walls throughout the night.

NEW LIFE

Alberto! Alberto!

Carla! Carla!

Rasping, harsh she called to being

Phantasmal sounds, the faceless manic

Remains of private life, that pierced an

Unresponsive corridor space in quiet hours

Alberto! Alberto!

Carla! Carla!

No functionary hand will

Break this marching band

Nor can the living sleep

Until they die..........

Alberto! Alberto!

Carla! Carla!

democratic recipe for instability

Given the plurality of voter groups in the United States, there will always be a tension between this situation on the ground and the need for unity in the nation. This unity can be achieved through political leadership and truly representative government. Leadership in this context means creating the unity of subgroups within the party plus the inclusion of those who side with the party but do not wish to be members. How many such "unities" exist in any one country varies, but in the US we have only two parties, though we have a multitude of subgroups. So each party must unify a mass of subgroups, something that is more difficult for the Democratic Party. Generally speaking two parties are a recipe for stability. But the political battle must be combined with a bipartisanship that recognizes the danger of a "winner take all" attitudes, like that which we have had over the past seven years. This attitude is more like that which we find in African countries, hence their tremendous instability. Obama believes he can achieve a change in the direction of bipartisanship thereby restoring a government "of the people", at least the majority of the people. On the other hand, for stability to be achieved, the party that loses an election must accept this loss rather than simply play the role of "naysayers" in Congress as the Democrats have been doing. The past seven years of absolutely divisive government has to be remedied. America needs it, and indeed the world that expects a unifying American role in terms of foreign policy also wants American leadership in a highly unstable international environment. This internal unity, as well as international cooperation in cooling down tensions cannot be achieved by Condi style photo-op handshaking. Neither will it be achieved by Bush's "yahoo" style sound bites that generate and feed hostility. It will be achieved through strategic clarity concerning what can be achieved in the near future and what is absolutely not acceptable in any given situation. For example, the spread of nuclear weapons as permitted by Bush in the case of India and Pakistan (now a highly dubious situation) can be considered an absolute NO NO. However, it must be recognized that nuclear power has essential non-military uses in the economic development of the Third World. After all the US and Gr. Britain are engaged in an expansion of nuclear power. So how can it be denied to other economies? It is true that conversion of civilian nuclear power to military use is now possible. Hence we have a difficult situation re what is a NO NO and what could be in the interest of economic development worldwide. We must be willing to try and find a strategic way around this dilemma. Obama may or may not be able to make such strategic moves at home and abroad. As for the Republican Party, its leadership role has been undermined from within. And McCain, poor fellow may have been interesting in the past but since he became the new leader... he is mr. flipflop supreme and can only create the appearance of unity. The Party is in dire need of a new ideological development focused on its traditional role. That is economic development not just for corporations, but for the people of America, again two elements that have a natural tension between them, but a tension that can be strategically negotiated. The Party has to clean up its act at the national level especially, and set aside the "winner take all" approach. If it does that over the next four years, it will be able to lead us to many victories in the future. For now, it must accept a loss while playing a positive role in restoring a government of the majority of Americans.

Melancholy without God

"Where God once used to dwell, we now find melancholia." Gershon Scholem

This devote of mysticism understands that for someone whose life was imbued with the experience of a god permeated life, the secularized world is empty no matter how filled with mundane activities. It is ultimately joyless no matter how much he/she pursues an infinity of consumerist goals, and even political goals that might elevate her/him to a social being. The "happiness" of modernity offers no consolation whether it be in public or in private life to this former "believer". What then is missing from the mundane world touted as the be all and end of modernity, the material universe stripped of all transcendental reality. The "what cannot be seen", the "what is obviously non-temporal FACT" right there in front of our data filled eyes cannot be conceptualized by our existing categories, or grasped by a rationalist enlightenment perspective. Insofar as the secularized perceive what is beyond this egoistic and materialistic universe of being, the unseen is probably pursued negatively, like a negative theology, a self-destructive drug. This non-temporal FACT can be given no narrative though clearly it has a story in every fact. It has a history even if not physically perceived, indeed a past, and a future beyond the "seen", the experienced of today, of the NOW. It is like a lyric that wraps itself around the words one reads, the signifiers one grasps, the immediate symbolic content that is signified. Each fact leads to a beyond, a past, a future, an incomensurability. Can we possibly accept the position that it is possible to ignore this FACT, this "unreasonable" reality without destroying our very imagination, indeed the creativity of human reason?