2005-07-11T22:44:00.000-07:00

This is member of the weird shit I hear on the radio at 3am category. So, NPR is coming in fuzzy, as I do some stomach exercises in the wee hours of the morning. As such, I instinctively search for something less unpleasant to the ear. At some juncture, on a frequency that shall remain unaired here, I hear: "Today's economic conditions are the beginning of a downward spiral and the ultimate collapse of the global economy (list of things like oil prices, tense international relations, etc.)" The speaker then goes on to say that Bush's alienation of world powers is necessary in preparation for global war (for which "we", I am not sure if the speaker meant he, or Bush, cause sometimes he sounded like a government "agent," though mostly he represented his own "organization", are preparing). Hearing the phrase global economy and a vague criticism of Bush, I stayed the tuner.

The moderator of the radio program then engages the speaker with questions about a post-apocalyptic type world. The speaker would no doubt abhor such a term a apocalypse, as my use of it may not be properly traced to the Greek word (apokalupsis: Gr. "revelation" from negation of Indo-European infinitive, kaluptein: to cover. But that is neither here nor there). Apparently by the year 2059 (for those without a calculator, that is 54 years into the future, likely some of us reading will still be alive), the human race is on the brink of extinction, and the oxygen is nearly "used-up" (whatever that means), and the few survivors of "global-climate change?" must move to the ocean-side to get any oxygen at all. No one lives in the mountains at this point, because there's no oxygen to be had at such altitudes, not even for ready-money (an Oscar Wilde joke, I apologize, but when one is in the city, on amuses oneself, when one is in the country, one amuses other people). Why, you may ask, does one have to move to the ocean to get oxygen in one's lungs? I am so glad you asked. People must live by the ocean because plankton (assuming there is enough sunlight) produces oxygen.

!!! Who would've thought that your algal next-door-neighbor would produce all your daily oxygen needs (not nightly, remember that the sun also sets)? Now, I realize that our current Earth-sized models don't account for very curious and drastic chemical phenomena, but near-complete oxygen depletion? Now, I will give the guy some credit on this, as he notes that Earth is generally (2059 AD) an unfriendly place to live with the mold and bacteria and other numerous respiring organisms. It is correct to say that should most oxygen be gone (poof!) from that Earth, it would be due to the respiration of a shit-load of organisms, or massive whole-Earth sustained combustion, or the large-scale grab-bag catalysis of oxidative reactions. So, barring some very strange circumstances, the Earth is simply to large a system for that rapid a change to its chemical composition.

Some humans, unable to face up to their own mortality, upload their beings onto computers. These people in 2059 world remain as ghosts in the machine, wishing only to die, since the code for the machine was badly spelled, I mean written. America has a poor attitude about death, and anyone who has queasiness on the subject must read Elizabeth Kübler-Ross' On Death and Dying.

So, the guy goes on to say that it is a necessary evil that Bush be re-elected to a third term, as it prepares the world for a brief Great Society that shall rise before we go extinct as people. The man (by now I learn the man's name is Aaron Donahue), Aaron, refuses to explain the logistics of an unprecedented fifth term of Ronald Reagan (Bush thinks he continued Reagan's legacy. BTW did anyone else get pissed at the Gallup Poll whereby Americans voted Reagan the greatest American citizen ever?), as it is "in the works" or something (it's the little weird phrases like that that make me think this guy is somewhere in government, or shadow government, or sub-government, or lobbying).

A caller the begin throwing her Bible Passages at Aaron, and she asks if he agrees. I don't remember exactly what the lady was asking, but it was to the effect of: "Didn't God say that God is cool, yo?" Surprisingly (but not really), Aaron agrees, but then throws at the woman a question if she has looked at the meaning of the words in Hebrew (irrelevant, but whatever, Hebrew is good for the old Torah at least). He asks if the woman knew the passage where Jesus refers to himself as the "Morning Star", a term used for the devil in Isaiah. The point of this part of the discussion is that Aaron is brought to talking about a Kabbalah book: "The 72 Names of G-d". Aaron believes (and I don't know that my opinion differs), that these incantations are mechanisms for summoning demons, demons that he summoned with these prayers and claims are studying human makeup (specifically the nervous system). Aaron apparently knows that these demons will bring about the Great, but short-lived Society. Aaron lets radioland know that soon all humanity (during this Global WAR and the subsequent religious de-programming) will come to know that religion was worship of the devil, and that, in fact, God and Satan are the same person. Then a General Spirituality will replace the God/Devil.

I looked this guy's site up, and it's not very helpful to the casual peruser. But I looked up Aaron's form of "worship". He believes in the Ars Goetic and, if Wikipaedia is to be believed, means the Howling Arts. Goetic originates from the days when Solomon, in his wisdom, invoked and imprisoned 72 demons in a bronze vessel. I guess instead of nylon, this vessel was sealed with magic symbols. Then in the Prospero of fashions, Solomon had the spirits do his bidding. So I'm guessing that Kabbalah wise-men have concluded that people like Madonna are clever enough to perform a complex ritual for containing demons and do so in the name of G-d. Hmm... Maybe Aaron has a point. While Kabbalah uses nice fuzzy names for the God in question, there are 72, not very nice princes of hell, who wait for unsuspecting chanters. Anyway, cut the sarcasm.

Aaron wraps it all up by saying that everyone is psychic, particularly Sci-Fi writers. "Sci-Fi writer so often get it nearly right." I don't know about often, but sometimes when one understands the Coriolis effect, H. G. Wells can be right, almost. My conclusion: Aaron is a Sci-Fi reader with a vivid imagination, and access to the internet (Thanks, Bill and Hillary). He is also brilliant, with an excellent understanding current geo-politics and the history of human (Western, that I saw) spirituality, though he underestimates the systems of the Earth, and way too out there to be accepted as anything but the drivel one hears on 3am talk radio. Oh, and maybe a little crazy too.

I still wonder what all of these radio voice guys' angles are. Was this a New Age radio program? Was it a Christian one? We may never know.

Update: Wow, these people are real pieces of work. There are some citations of Nostradamus, and last time I checked, he was a philosopher. Will someone someday think Hegel or Foucalt is a code for the future? I think they believe themselves the chosen among Lucifer/God children of something. Check out the site, and pick apart the logic. I am not even that much of a historical scholar, and I could find flaws (i. e. combination of post-industrial science with pre-industrial mysticism).

2005-06-29T11:32:00.000-07:00

What the hell are everyday metaphysics? Is it just another pretentious sitting-in-the-coffee-shop, Sarte-reading, black-wearing, no-relationship-having term invented to make us seem cool? Well, possibly. Except that reading Sarte is so passé (much better to read Lévi-Strauss) and black does tend to wash one out. Unless one pairs it with a charming scarf. But I digress.

No, the idea behind everyday metaphysics (a term, incidentally, shamelessly stolen from Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht's Production of Presence) is that much of our daily language and behavior is slightly more complicated than we give it credit for. For example, "deep" is an adjective which , when applied to someone's cognition or writing, connotes high-level analysis and generally good thinking. But why "deep"? Because there is a rarely-considered everyday spatial setup of value: deep=good, shallow=bad. It's intimately connected to the idea of meaning and our hermeneutical search for it: Shakespeare is great because there's loads of meaning to be dug out, ergo deep, and mass-market trade paperbacks are lousy because they lack depth.

The proposal, then, is that we deconstruct everyday assumptions with the same critical apparatus one might apply to texts. Why, for example, is deep better than shallow? Why is meaning the most important qualifier? Should it be? What assumptions and logical reasoning led to that stage? (This question, to be clear, is answered in Gumbrecht's book - he argues that it is a result of Enlightenment and Cartesian thought paradigms which render "meaning" far more worthy than "experience" or other presence effects. It's a useful book, really, even if good ol' Hans Ulrich is a lot more interested in himself than is strictly good form.)

As a medievalist and a historian, most of my examples will probably come from several centuries ago, and I'll be forced to restrain my love for Dante. But hopefully Everyday Metaphysics will be a forum for thinking aloud, critiquing often, and de- as well as re-construction. Comments are always welcome - please share your thoughts!

Editor's Note: As most of you probably know, I have another blog (In A Model Environment) which is a much more garden-variety personal musings type thing. It's accessible through my user profile, or via the link at right.

2005-06-27T12:40:00.000-07:00

Clever saying, not in Latin.

2005-06-27T10:07:00.000-07:00

experiementum est.