It’s Curtains for ταπαvτα

This blog has served me well as a staging ground for ideas. But, alas, I want to make money from my writing, so all my efforts have been redirected to writing things people will pay money to read. This blog certainly falls short…

Therefore, this is the very last post I’ll be writing for this blog and, as far as the near future is concerned, any blog. Thanks for reading and for those in dialogue with me in the past, thanks for your perspective and insight. I wish you all the best.

Adieu, then.

Masculinity as that which Demands Love

This post arises from a question I have previously raised here and elsewhere, personally and “academically,” which has never been (in my opinion) properly addressed. What is it that makes masculinity a distinguishable trait that can be applied to a human being as distinct from trait or kinds of being that a man might also be. It is a touchy subject, as many men are loathe to address their own masculinity (I suspect) because it may reveal some deficiency, and many academics are loathe to address it because it doesn’t seem to be a progressive question.

I suspect any question loathed to be asked will yield a progressive quality in answering it; therefore I feel compelled by my convictions to attempt to do so. There is a definite place to begin with human being and, it seems, there is a progression from there.

Being Human

Being human (or human being) is apparently an expression of some existential import. The traditional analytic and phenomenological approaches are insufficient, as both of these reduce human beings to mere biological function in the same way they reduce tables or computers to physical processes and qualities.

These methods are insufficient if one begins an approach to human being in which human beings ask of themselves, “What does it mean to be human?” As a result of phenomenological or analytic answers to questions, we get a set of claims which make no distinction between a “human being” and a “mongoose” by definition of biology (a human being is really the same kind of being as a mongoose biologically, with only accidental differences, not essential differences). One has to add an extra property like “rationality” or “soul” to the human to make it distinct from a mongoose.

And yet, human beings can derive a specific distinction from other beings simply by the fact that the question, “What does it mean to be?” and more specifically, “What does it mean to be human?” have been asked. Animals, tables, and computers do not ask these questions. And if they could ask, they would not ask, “What does it mean to be human?” in the same manner as a human’s asking.

So already, there is a difference which is neither analytic nor phenomenological, but “existential.”

I will presuppose for the purposes of the presentation of the idea I want to impart that “human being” is “intentional being” and “social being.” That is, human being never grasps other entities without grasping either a) a purpose for the entity or b) a contextualized relationship with the entity. A human being might go on from these points to make analytic or phenomenological claims about the entities in question, but the first and the most basic, immediate way we interact with the world is to “intend to do something” or “have a relationship of some kind with someone.”

In this way, human being is not simply the biological aspect of what it is to be human. Being human is not simply having a human body, but also existing in a human world. These things are inseparable. I don’t have a body which is the extent of how I make use of my body just as I never have a pen only, but I have a pen which I intend to write with or intend to give away or intend to put in a drawer for some possible future use.

In short, I am not only a “what,” I am a “who.” And another person is not only “what,” but “who.” I never look at another human being and perceive first a human body, and only then a person. I perceive first a person who has a human body with which he or she does human things just as I never perceive a computer first, and only then think about what I can do with it; I perceive a computer with which I shall write a blog post. The one aspect of “computer-being” impacts the other, just as the one aspect of human being (a who) impacts the other (a what).

Being-Man and Not-Being-Woman

If being human is not simply the fact that I have a human body, but also the human things I do with my body and intend to do with my body and who I am in my body and who I shall relate to with my body that have bodies of their own that do human things, then it is not enough to say, “She is a woman because she has a vagina and, biologically, that makes her female” and it is not enough to say, “He is a man because he has a penis and, biologically, that makes him a man.”

There is a range of contexts that comes with the biological reality of male or female that take shape in how males and females interact with one another. So there is a class of being human which is “being-man” and a class of being human which is “being-woman.” And it is safe to take them as distinct from one another in more than just their biological distinction, but in how the intention and purposes of men must be distinct from the intention and purposes of women if only in relation to the otherness of the one to the other, although I suspect the distinction in context between the “worldhood” of a man and the “worldhood” of a woman will have larger differences than simply the recognition of womanhood in a woman by a man.

Someone who is “being-man” is not “being-woman.” So, then, there is automatically the revelation of “other” that enters into either being-man or being-woman. Part of being-man is to recognize the otherness of being-woman. Now this otherness is not the end-in-itself, since the one who is being-man is also a human being. Taking the presupposition that human beings are intentional and relational with the capacity to perceive personhood in other human beings, then it is immediately clear that even when a man perceive the distinct being of a woman, he nonetheless perceives her humanity alongside it, given a mature capacity to think as a human being.

So, then, being-man recognizes in being-woman the same human being, but over that, in such a distinct class of being which is greater than, “that is another human being,” so as to result in, “she is another human being.” There is always a “who” attached. A human being that is being-man must see a woman as a “who” and not as a “what” given a maturity of human being.

Two Intentions

Now there is a problem that arises from this. Being-man results in intention and relation, but it does not follow that his intentions or contextualization of relations are authentic. He could be inauthentic by relinquishing his being-man to some baser form of being.

Taking possibility with reference to two kinds of intentions with which being-man can approach a “who-that-is-being-woman,” there is a sharp and immediately apparent distinction that serves as an example of this.

1. Man A perceives Woman A.

2. Man B perceives Woman A.

3. Man A recognizes the “what” of human being.

4. Man B recognizes the “what” of human being.

5. Man A develops an intention towards Woman A as a thing.

6. Man B recognizes the “who” of being-woman.

7. Man A perceives Woman A as “something he intends to fuck.”

8. Man B develops an intention towards Woman A as a person.

9. Man B perceives Woman A as “someone he intends to know.”

Which, by a standard of human being which results in being-man as that which perceives being-woman both intentionally and relationally human, is the masculine man? I believe it is Man B. Man A is somehow less of a man, less masculine, for his inability (or unwillingness) to follow through in the fullness of the human capacity to recognize other human being.

Two Relations

In a similar way to intention, being-man can formulate two contrasting relational contexts with which he can approach a who-that-is-being-woman.

1. Man A perceives Woman A.

2. Man B perceives Woman A.

3. Man A recognizes the “what” of human being.

4. Man B recognizes the “what” of human being.

5. Man A formulates a relational context towards Woman A as a thing.

6. Man B recognizes the “who” of being-woman.

7. Man A perceives Woman A as “something he will dominate.”

8. Man B formulates a relational context towards Woman A as a person.

9. Man B perceives Woman A as “someone he can care for.”

Now, again, which of the men is more masculine? It is Man B. He’s more of a man, he’s more masculine by virtue of what being-man means in relation to being-woman, both in relation to human being.

Conclusion

Authentic masculinity, genuinely being-man, always arises in the context of the “other” which, in this case, is being-woman. In order to sustain authentic human being with relation to a woman, a man must always act with a certain kind of intention and a certain kind of relation to her. The intention is one which formulates the perception “She is someone to love.” The relation is, “She is someone worth caring for.”

Love, here, is not restricted to a sexual or erotic sense; rather it takes the more human sphere of being-for-the-benefit-of. It is a kind of disposition in human being. So, in this case, authentic masculinity is defined by a man’s approach to women such that he will act for her benefit by virtue of who she is (a human being). A man’s approach to women in some other sense is either not masculine in nature, or it is inauthentically masculine and, by my standard, immoral and blameworthy.

“Care” here need not be taken solely in a romantic context just as love need not be taken in an erotic context; rather, it is a larger context of human being which has its character in love by that standard I proposed above.

In the case of Man A and Man B, I would argue that it is existentially superior to be like Man B. I don’t deny that such an argument is biased or prejudiced, but I am nonetheless convinced it is true. There may be some who argue that both are value-neutral and therefore both Man A and Man B are of equivalent existential masculinity. I’d like to have that argument. Someone may even hold that Man A is more masculine (probably lots of young men would). I doubt argument would sway them very much, as they seem to lack the capacity to follow through to the relational form of human being which seems so apparent in how we relate to the world.

At any rate, this is how I perceive masculinity – as something in direct relation to femininity and which takes responsibility for how it perceives femininity such that it desires what is good and worthwhile for a “who-that-is-being-woman.” Other standards of masculinity seem inauthentic, they are pansy-standards.

Science is only so good…

In this post I want to kill reason, and I want to draw it to life again. I shall strive to do so in less than 2500 words.

Consider this: There is a logical premise which contains a set of compound sentences that is infinite. This premise functions on the basis of disjunction. So, let us say, there is a premise:

(P₁ ˅…˅ P_n) ˅…˅  (P_∞ ˅…˅ Q_∞)

This premise, which includes all possible claims (all possible claims being infinite by virtue of the property of disjunction, i.e. ‘either/or’ is inclusive in first-order logic), gives rise to an infinite set of conclusions. Even if one divided this infinite set of conclusions in half, one half being true, the other half being false, there would be an infinite set of true conclusions and an infinite set of false conclusions.

So, then, the quest for knowledge, as it is given by scientific realists (those who believe there is an objective reality which can be fully and logically classified in a truth-positive way), is subject to futility. No finite brain can absorb an infinite set of claims, much less two infinite sets of claims.

Truth, we might say, is infinite. So is falsity.

Let me put it another way.

Consider this: If I said Einstein’s theory of special relativity was true, you might agree on the basis that the principles of his theory can be tested by blowing cities apart with atomic bombs. One of the principles in this theory is that nothing may exceed the speed of light. All things are relative to the speed of light. An object that approaches a beam of light at or near the speed of light will experience light traveling away from it at the speed of light regardless.

Suppose some scientists discover a known subatomic particle traveling faster than the speed of light. Does that make Einstein wrong? Does it disprove special relativity even when the theory of special relativity can be made demonstrable in the real world?

It seems as though the deeper we probe reality for truth, the more we find.

Or, where some once thought there was one infinite universe, now some believe there are an infinite (or at least a very great) number of universes reflecting all possible formulation of physical laws.

It seems as though the higher we look in the cosmos for truth, the more we find.

So, then, if truth is infinite and if new knowledge will always produce more knowledge that both refutes and vindicates old knowledge, there is no “end” to science. There is no “foundation” that can set parameters on what is given. The quest to know everything will never end because there really is no end to everything.

And whatever we may perceive of reality, there is always the contingency of reality on epikosmos, that which is above and over reality as a concept, that which makes it possible for us to conceive of reality in the first place.

Now where does that leave us with reason? It robs us of reason because reason does nothing to package truth into slices of digestible knowledge. We have no reason that can encompass all that is reasonable, we have no warrant to say, “I know what can be known.” There is no end to truth and falsity, so we never really know anything for certain. There is an infinite regression and an infinite progression from every claim.

Now all of this presumes a certain kind of disposition to thinking things about the world. It makes no room for what human beings seem to be able to do when they “believe” something.

Suppose that each human being has a certain set of experiences in life. And suppose each human being has a certain set of neural structures that make it possible for him or her to draw conclusions from that set of experiences. And suppose that there are only so many possible conclusions to be drawn because the brain only yields a certain set of conclusions, or else a certain schema in which reason can function.

What this does is suggest that “knowledge” is never really objective. What we know boils down to what we believe, or what we have been convinced of. Now reason may again step in in two ways: 1) To determine whether or not one should be convinced – not whether or not one should say, “I know” and 2) to determine how to live based on what one is convinced of as truth.

There is no scientific method worth investing yourself in as a dogma. There is no universal and necessary truth which really stands as self-evident. There is no given. There is no Archimedean point.

Science is really only so good when you are a philosophical animal.

Which is why you’ll spend all semester in a biology class and come away knowing nothing more about how to live than when you went in.

Pleading for Thoughtfulness

Overview

If philosophical thought cannot give context or structure to social thought, then philosophical thought is worthless. If I bothered with logic or metaphysics or epistemological scrutiny only out of the desire to win a language-game, but with no mind to addressing real problems in a real society composed of real people, then I would be wasting my energy, breath, and time. In the words of Richard Rorty, “The difference between people and ideas is… only superficial.” Or as Gadamer said, “Long before we understand ourselves through the process of self-examination, we understand ourselves in a self-evident way in the family, society and state in which we live.”

There is no distinction between philosophy and humanity. There is no “higher” or “hard” science and no “soft” sciences. And we should not waste our time doing either while treating them as ends in themselves. The only ends are people, living and breathing, and whether or not it is possible for them to live life well.

So, in reflecting on this, I must also reflect on the society in which I find myself. Is this society, for all it claims to provide, for all we might think of as its privileges, and for all we are told to compare it to in other countries around the world, is it one in which people live life best? And are people, in this society, the purpose of the society, or is it something else?

Look at your own sub-cultures, your own social circles, your own immediate, little world that makes up your life. I certainly have, many times. What is the point of these structures with which we surround ourselves? Is it really to live life better or best, or is it some other ideal in place of actual human beings? Do we go where we go and do what we do for the sake of people and being with other people, or for the sake of fun, success, self-actualization, status, connectedness, etc… etc…?

And, when we take the larger view of grander social structures (if such a thing can really be done properly), do these giant systems have anything to them about improving the lives of the least equipped to be happy or do they consider human community better than disjunctive human isolationism?

Rotting Structures

Society, it seems, is composed of numerous theoretical structures. They are theoretical because you can’t see or touch them, they exist solely in principle. They are structures because we order our lives around them and act as though they were real things. I want to examine the one that is probably most relevant to you here, though I suspect there are hundreds of rotting structures in our society.

Social Networks. Facebook is a social network website. You know this. But what does that mean? Facebook is not, in itself, the network of individuals, it only gives form to the network. The network itself is the frame in which people express themselves to one another.

Why is “social network” a rotten structure? It seems as though, in any network, there are only so many avenues of expression. There is only so much one can say or be for any number of people. We invest ourselves in the network because it is convenient, but convenience has a cost, which is the full range of human being.

In a social network, human beings are reduced to personalities. Each person becomes either a parody of him or herself, or else is lumped in with a stock-type character cast. Whenever you can define people out of complexity and into compartments (as though the whole of a person does not fall into numerous spheres of relation or culture or thought or feeling), you have denied them part of what they are.

This is encouraged in the social network. You are encouraged to categorize and sort through your friends. You are encouraged to collect who you like and remove those who you dislike. You are given control over what is acceptable to hear and what is too uncomfortable to handle. You are made the supreme court of society, and whatever there is outside of your little web of dramatis personae becomes unreal.

Social network, in whatever shape it takes, is a rotten, failed, broken social structure. It replaces life with a gross parody of life. It presents the day-to-day as a montage of snap-shots, statuses, and disconnected or isolated likes and interests. In all of these things, you are free to pick and choose who exists and who does not. You can develop a personality and present it to this limited sphere of reality and become your own parody, all the while being liked, but not disliked.

It is unreal, pseudo-epic, and fragmented – the very essence of Gen Y.

Broken Narratives

There are two contradictory systems of thought at play in our society which center around language and expression. One has to do with the larger narrative, or story, we talk about when it comes to the United States of America, the country, the government, the Republic we live and deal in. The other is in how we frame our “personal narratives” or individual life stories, what we believe to be the going-to and coming-from of our lives. Both are broken, both have no concern for reality.

When it comes to the narrative of the country, we talk about a false history, a mythology of Founding Fathers and Manifest Destinies. We have such a ethnocentric view of our own nation, its place in the world and history, and where it is going. It is as though all of history were moving towards the founding of this democracy, as though there would still have been a United States if there hadn’t been a Reformation in the sixteenth century, or a revolution in the eighteenth century. As though who we are would somehow take shape in spite of history. And this view shapes how we interact with the world. We are subject to all kinds of double-speak, political semantics, and media-governed structures of thought.

For example, as Noam Chomsky pointed out, when Iran looks to influence neighboring countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc…), that is called destabilization. When we look to influence the same countries, it is called stabilization. The bare-bones principle of interfering with other countries in the name of an interest is the same for both nations, but two different words are applied. We are invited (perhaps forced) to think only with regard to those two different words. Why? This is double-speech, and double-think. Whether or not one country is right and the other is wrong, it doesn’t mean the conceptualization of the doing of one and the doing of the same thing as different things is honest.

Our broken narrative influences how we think, what is acceptable to believe, and, therefore, how we act.

With regard to our individual lives, we have an equally broken set of narrative principles, though they operate in a very different way. We are led to view our lives as a “personal movie.” We are invited to “be the star of our own lives.” We are brought into a world where we are constantly watched and constantly evaluated, even though this is only imaginary. Has it ever happened that you caught yourself doing something silly (singing in the house all by yourself, picking your nose, dancing like a fool, or some other strange, human thing) and immediately felt ashamed because someone might be watching?

Our lives, unless they are glamorous, fun, entertaining, witty, humorous, and ironically subversive of the system, are something less than life. We tack experiences onto life and build up our “experiencial resume.” Those who have a set of experiences less than Set A have a life less worth living. And the point of going to school, getting a job, and bothering with other people is to get that Set A of experiences.

The industry of selling experiences is a multi-billion dollar undertaking. How many people take tours, visit Disneyland, or go on exotic journeys to other countries in the name of “getting that new experience?” How many people come away disappointed because their experiences didn’t live up to their expectation? How many people never get that mythic Set A life?

We tell stories about our nation and our individual lives which amount to fantasy. We craft for ourselves an impossible standard and, when that standard cannot be met, we buy experiences or invent new words to cover it up.

We live in a society of broken narratives, impossible narratives, where living life in a worthwhile way means never having to live, where addressing the concerns of a nation means never having to solve problems.

Dead Culture

No one looks at the United States and says, “Look at their buildings! How beautiful!” Or, “What wonderful music they are making!” Or, “That American author deserves the Nobel Prize.” No, indeed.

Watch America’s Got Talent as ask yourself, “Really? Do we really?”

Read the books on the NYT bestseller list and ask yourself, “Really? Do we really?”

Listen to the chart-toppers, take a look at our patent-holding inventors, or pick up a magazine at Wal-Mart. Ask yourself:

“Really? Do we really?”

Imposed Rationality

You must not defy common sense. You must not disturb that which has been settled. You must not think outside the box; there is nothing outside the box.

This is absolute nonsense. Where would we be if Galileo had not defied common sense? Did Einstein obey the One True Method when he began to think about questions without observing anything? When was there ever a new discovery or a superior thought generated out of the common sense of the day?

What would have happened if MLK had just accepted the common sense of his culture? Where would music be if Mozart or Bach had obeyed the rules and composed only acceptable, reasonable pieces? What would the West be like if Socrates had been reasonable?

Any time a given system sets limits on what it settled or defines irrationality, it contradicts itself. Any time the academy segments off a portion of thought or puts a dividing line between the “hard” and the “soft” sciences, why, people get stupid.

Maybe there are lessons to be learned from history after all. And maybe we should take issue with being told what is “common” sense and what is irrational after all.

Hollow Masculinity

If I wanted, I could get a degree in intellectual thought about what it means to be a woman. I can take dozens of classes where academia has dissected the concept of “femininity” and “womanhood” in society. If I asked, “What is it to be a woman?” I might get an answer.

What if I asked, “What does it mean to be a man?” Who knows what that means? Do men themselves know? Is it watching sports, is it fixing cars, is it cussing? If I don’t like sports, if I can’t fix cars, but if I cuss frequently, am I only a 1/3 a man?

Is it who you sleep with or how many you sleep with? Is it whether or not you can walk with a swagger? Is it forced confidence, that false air of superiority and assured determination to success which is commonly ascribed to the most desirable men? Is masculinity really defined by sexuality or intellectual concern and capacity? Have we reversed the gender roles that much?

Answering “yes” or “no” to any of these questions always yields a hollowed-out image only because the questions never answer anything essential, only something peripheral. Just as answering any questions about femininity reveals a peripheral understanding of womanhood, manhood has been deconstructed without reconstruction.

So an entire generation of men shuffle on without an identity, or with an identity only framed with regard to the past. There is no future for masculinity, there is only an out-of-context past.

Dysfunctional Love

Philosophers from Hegel to Derrida discuss “the Other” for one reason or another. What is “the Other?” The Other is what you get when you, as a person, perceive another person. There is someone else, someone as fully real as you, outside of you, apart from you, unknown to you. You cannot see or hear who this person is, you can only get those things in a secondary or indirect way, from their words. They are “Other,” in a way, other people are strange, foreign, inscrutable.

This is as it should be. As soon as you think you know a person, as soon as you believe you understand them and are capable of genuinely categorizing them, you begin to feel as though you have a right to pronounce a definition for them. When you believe you have comprehended the full boundary of “Other,” you immediately gain the right to take from the “Other” what is common and remove from the “Other” what is, by your own standard, wrong.

Now let me frame this highly abstract way of thinking in something very real. The experience of “Other” and the “Self” is nowhere more striking than in that part of life called love. Love, as it is in reality, is the relinquishing of Self for the sake of the Other. Love, as we are made to believe it to be, is the election of particular Other for the sake of the Self.

You love only that which is you in the Other. You can never really love the whole of the Other, but you are allowed to excuse that which is wrong in the Other so long as that which is most like you exceeds that which is foreign in the Other. If the Other fails to meet your standard (assuming that anyone is really capable of truly grasping the Other), you can discard the Other. You can rip the Other out of your segment of reality and purge the Other from what you perceive.

What does this do to love? When you can choose how to apply love to other human beings, love always falls down to self-infatuation. All that deserves love, for those who believe themselves capable of grasping the Other, is really that which reflects the Self in the Other. Love becomes dysfunctional. No one can really love anymore. Real love forces one to admit the disconnect between the Self and the Other and, in light of that disconnect, to accept all that is in the Other for what it is.

For human beings, it ends there, because we lack authority or power in knowing what is absolutely best for the Other. Nonetheless, we are told, in one way or another, that true love corrects the Other when it does not conform to the Self, or true love only happens when the Other is already in conformity to the Self.

This is always dysfunctional.

The Plea for Thought

Whatever you might take from my perspective, or however you currently believe in your own worldview, is besides the point of the need exposed in examining life or society. We need to be thoughtful. We need to be critical. We need to reconsider everything that is taken for granted, given, and settled as true in our world.

To that end, I beg you to ask yourself if what you believe to be true is true. I beg you to ask if life as you live it is the best way to live. And I beg you to ask yourself if it is possible for all other human beings to live as well as you do in the society in which you live.

Klockean Philosophy

“There probably is truth for any time and any place, but good luck getting at it, and if you should get at it, good luck articulating it.”

“Philosophical absurdity is realizing there will be no transcendent, objective, foundational certainty, but continuing to make truth-claims that aspire to transcendent, objective, foundational certainty nonetheless, not in the hope that it might be accepted in any place or any time, but out of the simple, personal belief that it is true for any place and any time; believing that something is transcendentally, objectively, and foundationally true is absurd when no one can be certain that it is transcendentally, objectively, and foundationally true.”

“The philosopher is someone who makes truth-claims with the intention of believing them to be true.”

“Bias, presupposition, and prejudice will always be a part of the philosophy of someone who does not have access to super-reality or absolute metaphysics.”

“There are grounds, but there are no grounds for grounds.”

“Theologians should be glad to hear of a metaphysical rebellion off in the far corners of philosophy, and they should join it.”

“The plurality of culture has always ruptured the objectivity of philosophy, but it wasn’t until the idea of democracy had become a political reality that the West took notice.”

“The skeptic, the atheist, and the existentialist were the first metaphysical rebels against the scientism of their day.”

“Skepticism is the death from which philosophy takes its rebirth.”

“There is room for a new renaissance which rides on the back of postfoundationalism.”

“The contemporary always becomes the classical.”

“The purpose of life is life, all the rest is spice and salt.”

“The absurd philosopher who loves life will undermine the idealist who loves science, just as wisdom undermines knowledge.”

“We should be certain that we were never certain.”

“We should stop doing philosophy.”

“I am, therefore I think I doubt, therefore I am.”

“I often go hence to see whence I come.”

“Life is absurd. So is philosophy. So is love. So is God.”

The Philosopher as the Absurd Hero

Albert Camus gives an account of the mythical figure Sisyphus, the unfortunate soul condemned by the gods to roll a stone up a mountain only to have it tumble down again, and to repeat this task forever. Camus focuses on the conscious experience of Sisyphus with special attention to what Sisyphus is thinking as he makes the journey down the mountain from its summit after having watched the ponderous stone return to the underworld.

It is conscious experience of this fruitless task that makes Sisyphus’ task a torment. Sisyphus must be aware of the futility of his task (it will always fail), and he must be aware of his inability to escape his task (he cannot cease to be even if he so desired). This is the torment, the punishment, for loving life and cheating death. That is, after all, the sin of Sisyphus – he cheated death and Hades for the sake of life – and his punishment is to repeat a task unto eternal meaninglessness.

Now this is the point Camus makes in considering Sisyphus: that the damnation cast on the man who must roll a stone up a hill forever is no less a quality or kind of torment and, by being conscious of the torment of his punishment, Sisyphus must also be aware of the same quality of life which Camus calls “absurdity” – and that is the decision to continue on where continuing on is pointless.

Think of Sisyphus as being like the janitor who goes daily to mop the halls which will, inevitably, be as dirty as they were when he mopped them the day before and which will be as dirty when he goes to mop again. Or think of Sisyphus as being like the toll-booth worker who takes the change and presses the little button that makes the barrier rise only to have another car appear with another fifty cents. Or think of the tour guide who must give the same tour again and again, endlessly. You could extend the situation of Sisyphus to the situation of any human being and call it “meaningless, meaningless.”

Now the absurdity for Camus is the choice to continue living even though it is “meaningless, meaningless” when the question of life so often takes the answer of ‘meaning’ over ‘happiness’ or over ‘no reason at all.’ And the same absurdity is found in Sisyphus, who declares (like Oedipus), “All is right with the world!” and goes to his task merrily again and again in spite of its futility, out of humor or out of sheer absurdity.

For Camus, anyone who chooses to persist in the face of meaninglessness has embraced the feeling of the absurd. In this way, Sisyphus is a hero. He is an absurd hero.

Now let’s point to the case of the philosopher who is bereft of certainty (all proper philosophers are bereft of certainty and, therefore, of the primary or primitive meaning of philosophy). For this philosopher, there is no universal standard, no transcendent reason, no self-evident foundation that grants the absolute and objective virtue of complete certainty to his claims about reality. He has been swindled by philosophy, which, at the outset, was the very hope of certainty that seemed better than love or peace or a fine supper. No indeed, these things were nothing compared to certainty, because certainty was that which would establish these things in the end and truly justify them (as though a meal needs justification to be either delicious or healthy).

So let us assume that either the impish skeptic or the rebellious absurdist has convinced the poor philosopher that there is no authenticity in certainty (and if one of these villains did not convince, they certainly did enough to cause sufficient doubt - doubt which is the death of all foundation for the modern or postmodern mind). And let us assume the poor philosopher has been smitten with the feeling of absurdity in doing philosophy – in making truth-claims – which will never be certain but which can only be believed.

So now the philosopher may choose between two all-consuming alternative courses of action. One, the philosopher can throw off his love of wisdom and so play another role (which betrays his foolishness because another role will lead him back to absurdity) or he can continue to be a philosopher. If he ceases to be a philosopher, he has killed that part of himself which was of himself before – he has committed philosophical suicide because it was too much for him to bear continuing to make truth-claims with the intention of believing them to be truth in the face of the futility that accompanies the horror of being uncertain.

If he continues to make truth-claims and if he continues to intend to believe them to be true, he has embraced the absurd – like Sisyphus – and will continue to roll his stone up the mountain forever. He is in rebellion against his condition (uncertainty) and against the authority which enforces certainty to no avail because it doesn’t exist. He has become a hero for those who embrace the absurd. He is an absurd hero.

I am convinced (and so I intend to believe it when I say) that no philosopher who has not been confronted with absurdity is really worth his own words. No philosopher who claims things about reality without the intention to believe them really wants to do philosophy. And no one can intend to believe something if they cannot believe it. And no one can believe something when a thing is certain – that is why the previous generation yearned for self-evidence. That is why the authoritative traditions still defend self-evidence, because the absurd always drives one to absolute death or absolute life. What philosopher, when his goal is to be right and praised for being right over believing what is true, will ever desire either absolute death or absolute life? Absolute death and absolute life are determined by what is true; being right is determined by foundations – foundations which are taken in hope to be true. And that hope is really unhope when it is certain. So for the modern or postmodern mind there is an everlasting regress or circularity to their thinking (which the philosophical mind rightly recognizes as absurd), but which is never acknowledged either out of fear or ignorance or some idle combination of both.

So, for the absurd philosopher, being right is never valuable when it demands the cost of believing what is true. For the absurd philosopher, it is better to labor alongside Sisyphus than to be the plaything of Jupiter.

To Be in Metaphysical Rebellion

Several readers have been curious enough about “metaphysical rebellion” to ask me what I mean when I use the phrase. This indicates to me that I have been unclear; a shameful fault which is my own. To the end that I might be absolutely clear and to the greater end that I might recruit some of you to the cause, I present this seminal post as a manifesto of Metaphysical Rebellion.

“Metaphysical”

What do we mean when we say the world ‘reality’? I think it means nothing less than all actuality, all possibility, all that will be actual, and all that will be possible. In short, reality means everything as the way things are, will be, and could be. To ask about what is real and what is not real is to ask philosophical questions. To make claims about what is real and not real is to make claims about what is true. To even do these things, one must have a schema or framework by which one views the world. This schema or framework or structure is one’s metaphysics. One’s metaphysics serves as the principle of one’s worldview, how one sees the world in such a way that it can be communicated.

To ask about worldviews is to ask metaphysical questions because it always requires one to ask about the schema in which he or she operates with regard to what is real; with regard to the way things are. Everyone has a worldview; everyone believes something about reality. All my experience with other human beings indicates this and any attempt at reasoning contrary to this defies my experience. I am convinced that everyone believes something to be true.

All this being said, human beings are philosophical beings and metaphysical thinkers; therefore, any disagreement with the common sense of the age is a metaphysical disagreement.

“Rebellion”

There is a common framework through which Western individuals come to see the world. This framework is imposed by the social structures of the Western world and has its roots in the history of the West since the Reformation. Ultimately, it yields a metaphysical structure of reality that casts human beings as primarily rational and autonomous. The rationality of human beings is transcendent (it is universal and separate from our physical existence). The autonomy of human beings is innate (it is part of the essence of what it is to be human and is the direct physical manifestation of our transcendent reason).

This framework of the human condition yields confidence in capitalism, contemporary democracy, natural science, and moral relativism as the fundamental economic, political, epistemological, and cultural structures of society. These structures, in turn, are professionalized, privatized, and commercialized becoming corporations, universities, and social networks.

Any disagreement with these structures or operation outside of these structures is branded as “irrational,” “immoral,” or “trivial.” In this way, individuals are robbed of their ability to question the framework itself (they cannot ask metaphysical questions), and those who do ask metaphysical questions anyway and come to a contrary conclusion are punished by being deemed immoral, irrational, or trivial and, therefore, cannot operate in the society.

Because the metaphysical structure of my worldview is, in many cases, directly opposed to the metaphysical structure of worldview shared by most Westerners, and because the contemporary Western schema is enforced in an authoritarian manner, I find myself to be in rebellion. I am in rebellion because I refuse to admit the sole validity of the contemporary Western schema and because I refuse to be perceived as immoral, irrational, or trivial by actively combating these kinds of claims about me or about the thinkers and ideas I endorse.

The rebellion is metaphysical because it is not merely political or national or cultural or academic, but at the very root of how I understand the world to be. It is metaphysical because I refuse to allow myself to be defined as a “human being” in the manner that the contemporary Western schema legislates. It is rebellion because I refuse to treat others in the manner that the contemporary Western schema demands.

Methods of Rebellion

This rebellion is decidedly not violent. A metaphysical rebellion must not be violent. It is a contest of ideals, words, and practices, not a contest of territory or weapons. Metaphysical rebellions that become violent are no longer rebellions against a broad, philosophical schema, but physical acts of desperation, vengeance, or ignorance. Metaphysical rebellions that become physical trade the metaphysics in question for politics or academics or cultures or nationalities in question and so become new tyrannies in the place of old tyrannies. Physical rebellion is, more often than not, counter-productive.

The method of this metaphysical rebellion is to find common ground with its opponents and use its opponents’ own methods to undermine their rationale for the grounds in question. To defeat a logical positivist, I use first-order logic. To defeat a phenomenologist, I use eidetic reduction. To defeat the foundationalist, I use foundations. To defeat the coherentist, I demonstrate coherence. Ultimately, it is guerrilla philosophy.

To be in metaphysical rebellion also means to live as though what I believe were true. That means I think, speak, write, and act according to my moral sensibilities, political beliefs, cultural preferences, and philosophical motivations. To be in metaphysical rebellion is to act like you disagree with your opponents as well as to say you disagree even when that action results in punishment. It is academic disobedience, cultural disobedience, and, if it comes to it, civil disobedience for the sake of faith in truth-claims.

Finally, the most potent method of metaphysical rebellion is to be instructive – to teach and to educate as to what one believes is true over and against what is said to be true.

World vs. World

In conclusion, the substance of metaphysical rebellion is this: that I am presented with a world that is supposed to be true, that is supposed to be real, that is supposed to be the way things are, yet I experience a world that is contrary to the world that is presented to me. My worldview is opposed to the worldview I was told to have by the authorities; therefore, I can either rationalize the worldview I have not experienced and submit to operating within it, or I can argue against it to whatever end may come. I choose the latter because the former seems to me nothing less than suicide of the mind.