The Necessity Of Time

 

Sitting in Boots waiting for my prescription I started to think about time, not only the time it took them to fix my prescription, but also time in general. I thought, how wonderful it would be to exist within my own time and not be beholden to the actions of others and then something clicked. Time is a by-product of civilisation. A few weeks ago I wrote about two notions of time, Bergson’s consciousness and Einstein’s special relativity and how our lives are in frames and how this is only how time is experienced and not real time but the thought that I had took me beyond this to the notion that time is something which is only created, only exists, as a necessity brought about by interpersonal interactions.

 

What? Ok, our notion of time stems from our engagement with the world around us. Bergson would say that we are internally conscious of it and Einstein would say it can be measured externally by synchronised clocks but neither account for the genesis of what they are experiencing. If one did not have a clock, lived inside without windows and had an endless IV drip for sustenance then there would be nothing for which one could be conscious of time nor measure time. As we can quickly become accustomed to things, even biological changes would not mark the passage of time as they would always fall within the notion of ‘now’, a fixed permanent state of our self. This is me permanently. In such an existence time would be an irrelevance as one could not tell how long it has been since one last had sustenance, slept, washed and all of the other things we assume are regulated by our internal consciousness, but which are, actually, regulated by our observance of time from external sources such as clocks and people tutting outside of bathrooms.

 

Take this person in what Buzz Aldrin calls ‘perfect desolation’ (he was talking about standing on the moon) and put them in a room, identical, but with a second person in there. Suddenly things change, ‘can you be quiet, I am trying to sleep!’, ‘is it time to replenish?’ (colloquially known as ‘lunch time!’) and so forth. Suddenly one needs a way of creating a structure so that the two can live in simpatico and thus a structure is created which has all of the appearances of what one would call time, both internal and external. If this expands further then the structure needs to be unified and ‘synchronised’ (see what I did there?) and thus universal time is born not out of an inherent notion/truth but rather, as with most if not all things, out of necessity.

 

This does not answer the question ‘what is time?’ or even the more prosaic ‘what time is it?’ but, rather goes, for me, to show that time is not what we think it is, and, possibly, may not be anything at all and anything which we call time is merely a prop which is used to necessitate what we call interpersonal relationships and civilisation.

 

 

‘till next time (tee hee)

The Inevitability Of War

 

Pity would be no more

If we did not make somebody Poor;

And Mercy no more could be

If all were as happy as we.

 

And mutual fear brings peace,

Till the selfish loves increase:

Then Cruelty knits a snare,

And spreads his baits with care.

 

And subsequently a tree grows where cruelty has taken root, a tree with the fruits of deceit, and, although the Gods in their compassion sought this tree to cut it down,

 

The Gods of the earth and sea

Sought thro’ Nature to find this Tree;

But their search was all in vain:

There grows one in the Human Brain.

 

(William Blake)

 

 

The cruel-tree exists only in the human brain in human nature.

 

Having watched the world, over the last ten years or so, come to resemble the Roman Empire just before its decline and the 1930s one cannot help but see the pattern clear as day, indeed I have written about it here before. The world works in cycles, both nature and civilisation. A forest grows, it starts to die, it is burnt to the ground and a new forest grows which is fresh and good until, well, it isn’t again. Likewise, civilisations grow and then start to die, is burnt to the ground then a new civilisation grows, fresh and healthy until, well, it isn’t again. Thus is the cycle. But what isn’t factored into the cycle is the actual cost, cost in that which really matters- life. When the forest burns the animals flee for safety and thus repopulate the forest. However, when human empires burn people are burnt along with them. The reasons for the human cycle are blatantly obvious: war happens; people suffer; people reassess what actually matters; people pull together and rebuild; things become more comfortable; people become complacent and expect everything to be given to them; people become greedy; the markets/currency becomes devalued and crashes; the higher levels which caused the problems are unaffected; the lower levels suffer; people struggle; disconcert rises; people look for reasons to blame; those different, not those who caused the problem but those on the ‘outside’ of the hegemony are blamed; nationalism rises with protectionism; society/world is divided; those causing the problems ignore the suffering and try to get more for themselves; war breaks out; people suffer, people die; people reassess their values; people pull together and so on and so forth all cumulating in the fact that war is inevitable as long as human values and human nature is as it is or, to put it more concisely:

 

And mutual fear brings peace,

Till the selfish loves increase:

 

 

The pattern is obvious and is highly avoidable but unless people en mass desire to change and work towards the change the cycle remains. So far, only self-preservation (fear of nuclear annihilation) has stayed the hand which rocks the cradle but with that slowly diminishing things don’t look good. Will there be another world war in our lifetimes? I don’t want to say so but it seems inevitable.

 

‘till next time (as always)

 

Year Zero

 

 

At the age of 27, the young teacher Fredrich Nietzsche delivered a series of five lectures, recently published as Anti-Education. The young Nietzsche over the course of the series recalled two people he ‘over-heard’ talking, one a student and one a philosopher (in the true sense). The premise of the discussion was on the nature of education- is education for those with a true aptitude for it, a calling, or is it designed for the masses and the few who it is truly for lie trampled by mediocrity? Nietzsche (you will be surprised to hear) thought it was the former.

 

In a wonderful example of not only biting the hand that feeds you but also his own hand, Nietzsche lays into the teachers and his opinion that education embodies the truth that

 

‘the narrowest, most limited points of view are in some sense correct, because no one is capable of reaching, or even pointing to, the place from which those views can be seen as wrong’

 

Or in other words, the teachers lack the ability to question the masters, and thusly, as Paul Ree writes ‘scholars shine, like the moon, with reflected light’.

 

Ree was a philosopher and friend of Nietzsche, a rival for his affection for Lou-Andreas Salome (as written about here many moons ago, Ree once remarked, in reference to the famous Nietzsche moustache, ‘Imagine kissing that moustache!’ which did not stop him from carrying out Nietzsche’s first proposal to Salome for him). Given Ree’s aphoristic style, as Nietzsche developed his own he called it Ree-lism (pronounced realism) as a homage to his friend, it seems clear that the two would have influenced each other, possibly on this very subject, and it is also clear that both men attempted to transcend the truths that they saw, thus giving credence to their thought.

 

But were they right?

 

Much of academia and school is spent with dead people, reading the ‘classics’ and then studying them. There is even a conceit of some teachers that they can understand the work better than those who wrote it. Whilst it is possible they may see 2% or so of meaning which the writer didn’t realise (reelise) it is the other 98% which matters, which can only be known by the author and those within the context/times of the writing. A friend of mine was doing interviews for a project.

Her: who do you think was a success?

Me: Socrates

Her: why?

Me: because 2,500 years or so later no one really knows what he was talking about!

 

The other conceit, that the greats need unknowns to protect and enhance their legacy, is also absurd as they can take care of themselves, as is the notion that everything must remain within the context it was created in. Why? The times have changed (so to speak) and the work is already there, thusly it does not need to be redone nor can it be wholly relevant now. The great works are the foundation, as Newton said

 

‘If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants’  

 

(Although Bernard of Chartres said something similar in the 12^th Century) and they should be extrapolated and move into a modern context for now and for the future, such as is done in the Jewish Talmud. This is, and should be, the duty of all philosophers (if such creatures truly exist) to build upon the past, good and bad, to make a better future. The giants are already there, they don’t need us and it is our duty to try to become giants ourselves so that we can (to paraphrase) ‘reach a point to the place which these views can be seen as right or wrong’. Likewise the  question must be asked, are the greats of history holding us back? If we threw away Kant, Wittgenstein, Socrates, Marx and so forth and go to a proverbial Year Zero would we draw the same conclusions independently or would we go beyond their truths and become the stars which the scholars reflect the light of? Old does not mean right, many established truths fall by the way side after all, as no one is Star Trek actually said but we believe that they did, ‘It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it’.

 

‘till next time

Identity Politics

 

 

The vogue issue at the moment is identity politics. Some great things may come from it- a raised awareness of sexual assault, more tolerance for different ethnicities etc. but, watching it unfurl, one cannot help but see that this ‘great shift’ is not a shift forwards, rather a shift sideways.

 

For a long time I have been sceptical (and dismissive) of what I call pseudo-feminism. Pseudo-feminism is what I call the mindset ‘men think they are so good, but we are better than them’ or ‘we have been excluded by men so we shall exclude men!’ for this is not a shift towards a more liberal and inclusive world, this is exactly the same thing just with a different cast- like apples and oranges you can replace one with the other but you are still dealing with fruit no matter what new categories you create for them. Indeed, if you have felt powerless for many years it might feel liberating but it is just an attempt to claim, for yourself, a power you believe in which you believe has been taken from you but this ‘liberty’, is just an illusion as you continue upon the same path you claim to reject.

 

One argument which gets banded about is the capitalistic notion of creating gender- blue for boys and pink for girls. Yes, this can be problematic however, there is no evidence that a girl who likes Barbies will not go into the hard sciences or that a boy who plays with guns will not become a pre-school teacher. Children develop in their own space in their own time. For a parent to say, ‘if my boy wants to wear a skirt, he can’ is all well and good, but one must realise that the same argument is being used here. Instead of the shop limiting the choice of the boy so that he, allegedly, grows up to think he likes blue as he is a boy, the mother is dressing him in certain clothes and saying this is how I dress you and as this is all that the boy has known, this is how he will probably dress, falling very much on the side of nurture and ignoring nature.

 

One thing which staggers me is how superficial many of these ‘movements’ are (staggered? Well #MeToo). These movements seem void of any true understanding of the issues. 1) that of power. Power is an illusion. For example, if, when Napoleon said to his army ‘Boys, we are going to Russia!’, his army had said ‘nah’. Then the war wouldn’t have been. Likewise, if the men and women in Hollywood who knew about sexual assault had gone ‘nah’ then the culture would not have been able to prevail (see my entry on ‘Complicit’) and 2) a child is taught how to be in society so if we have a society which promotes goodness, virtue, ethics and does not reward bad behaviour (with World Cups, Olympics and other forms of money/cultural laundering) then the child will see that ‘the good guys don’t finish last’ or any other of those empty platitudes and ‘truism’ and will lean towards selflessness and will help to create a world in which sexuality, clothes, gender, ethnicity or many of these other things which regular readers will know I have distain for (they are personally important but not impersonally) will be irrelevant and people will focus not on what they have or what they think they should have (money, power etc) and many of these issues which are in vogue and which have, probably, always been may just start to flitter away. As long as we have our heads up our own backsides and believe that we know best whilst continuing to be a part of the moral decay in our sideways movements nothing will change except maybe a few superficial things here ‘n’ there.

 

‘till next time

 

 

 

——–

Note From The Author

 

As many regular readers will know, I am a big fan of football. However, with the lead up to the World Cup I saw Putin, and other brutal dictators such as Kim, being sanitised and given a global standing. In response to my disgust people would say, ‘leave football out of politics…’, which seems incredibly short-sighted and ignorant as both football and politics have the same basis- the lives of people. Thusly, I felt something sicken inside of me and I have not watched any of the World Cup, nor have I followed it and seen results. It seems, to me, incongruous that people can object to human rights violations and then support a country as it involves something which they care about. Yes, it has been going on for years, think Hitler’s Olympics, and one cannot expect the likes of the BBC, who are supposed to be a champion of human rights, to ignore the fact that they are a business and miss out of rating points etc nor can my actions be seen as boycotting or protest. It is simply that I have grown sick of such hypocrisy and self-interest. Seeing Kim’s actions with regards to the US in the last few days, actions which were predictable to 99% of all people in which, other than a few corpses (the last live person the US got back had been tortured and died soon afterwards) the US got nothing and with Kim increasing his military stockpiling and attacking the US as being ‘mafia’ it just shows that self-interest cannot be policy. Likewise, Russian backed Assad’s chemical weapons attack on children in the last few days, not to mention all of the daily things in Russia such as concentration camps, racist violence, homophobic violence etc. (use a search engine for more and more details). As long as the world says, ‘we object as long as our own interests and values are not at stake’ innocent blood will be spilt for the brief pleasures which one gets from media coverage and entertainment. But like I said, this is not me calling for a boycott or protesting it is just me speaking a sad truth.

 

Thank you for your time.

 

TGF

 

 

Justifiable And Unjustifiable Egos

 

Most of us are familiar with the concept of the Ego. The work, most notably by Sigmund Freud, has become a staple part of our social diet and one often hears the words ‘ego’ and ‘hubris’ banded about, often out of context. We are familiar with the concept even if we have not read Freud’s work or any work on the subject. Freud’s theory comes in three parts, which, in short: the Id refers to the instinct; Ego refers to reality and the Superego which, created through cultural education, is responsible for reining in the Id. This is all very simple and straight forward but what Freud’s work does not do is delve into the realms of what I call ‘Justifiable’ and ‘Unjustifiable Ego’.

 

The Ego, for Freud is, ‘that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world’ or in other words self-perception. Now, considering my terminology, they are rather self-explanatory. A Justifiable ego is an ego which can be justified and vice-versa. In his memoir Fredrich Nietzsche wrote chapters with titles such as why I am so wise and why I write such great books and whether or not you like his work, agree with him etc. you cannot deny he was wise (even if he was wrong) and that his books are masterpieces in the elegance of language. Thus, when Nietzsche wrote his memoir he ‘knew’ that he was great and thus one can consider his outsized ego and say, yes, I can see why it is there as his work justifies his ego.

 

Likewise, many people one meets claim to be exceptional and have massive egos, yet if one looks carefully at them one can see that the ego is more of a mask for some deep insecurity and the ego itself is created by ‘thinking’ one is something and not ‘knowing’ that one is this or that. If one considers the ego of the person, even the person themselves, then one will see that the ego is unjustified and is not a real ego, rather it is a delusion. Thusly if they were to write ‘why I am so wise’ they would have nothing to back up their claim.

 

As you can imagine, the former is much rarer than the latter and this may be the cause of much of the problems in the world. As Plato quite rightly said, those who usually are best served to take on positions of authority shy away from it. This, I think, is for two reasons 1) their ego is justified and they do not seek nor need external validation and 2) the roles have become so sullied by those with Unjustifiable egos seeking external validation that there is no appeal to enter into the snake pit.  For this to change there would have to be a seismic shift in how society thinks of itself, the Superego of society, if you like, and many values would have to be rethought. The emphasis would have to be on internal validation within a wider context as opposed to external from the viewpoint of a narrow context. The amount of people who reach the ‘top’ driven by some need to be validated which then creates a person who ‘thinks’ they are great as opposed to ‘knowing’ that they are great only creates a system in which the values of the Unjustifiable egos are seen as the norm and those who ‘know’ that they are great are left by the roadside, either by circumstances or choice.

 

‘till next time

 

———

Don’t forget the new e-mail address which I can be reached at is:

thegreaterfoolblog@hotmail.com