The silliest train of thoughts today

I think my big problem with philosophy is that every time I read philosophical texts, the arguments just seem obvious. Is that presumptuous of me? I mean, I can't get into Kant, but. Is it more about the love for structuring an argument -- the objectivity, the science, the individual building blocks of the foundation? It's also what I find irritating about the law sometimes. There is no place for passion. It is cold and dry and hard, and generally anathema to adjectives. And it is often so contradictory to my own sense of values -- but I appreciate its neutrality (well, when a law itself is neutral. (Thinking of constitutional amendments against gay marriage...)And a passionless law is, ultimately, better; and I guess you can get passionate and subjective precisely because it is so objective. Bloody idiot, this is what has made America America, the rule of law above everything else. And this is the fundamental point of everything con law. Are you actually going to post this? -ed.) It seems similar to standards for grading these new SAT essays -- how can you objectively define what is good and bad? (Isn't that one of the central questions of philosophy? -ed.) Because someone follows the structure of what an essay is meant to look like? Topic sentence, body paragraphs, supporting points? That is so dry and banal! Maybe that is, in and of itself, why some people like it -- because it is not messy. Hm. True. (This whole schpiel stems from this summary of The Ethics of Fiction, by the way.)

Perhaps it all comes down to the left brain/right brain divide; or, Science and Art.

(Digression...It's also the difference between ethics and morals. I've always believed myself to be an ethical, and not a moral person -- I find morality too subject to religion -- but I'm thinking now that in fact it's quite different from that. I am prone to passion; perhaps I hold up ethics as my ideal, my more balanced version of myself (that is not prone to -pulsiveness, im and com) when in practice I rely on my own version of morality to define things.) (Oh, qualify that, you silly quack. -ed. Yes, yes, later. Maybe.)

Anyway, philosophy, generally -- it is either so obvious or so abstract that it loses its value.

Same thing with a lot of theories I've read recently; I also feel this way about the NYT op-ed page. (The two are not related.) It's like, uhm....duhh. Some of the things I read (when was this, a few months ago maybe? What the hell topic was it -- it all seemed like this, even the highest forms --- ohhh I know what it was! It was the consulting industry and organizational management. Ah ha.) seemed to me just out there to explain it to the idiots; it is a self-sustaining concept/industry. Everyone creates their own hierarchies, the insiders and pundits and whatnot, as though they were on top of the most extraordinary breakthrough about, say, how to eat a cheeseburger -- and then they can get paid an exorbitantly large amount of money and then laugh and skip as they run to the bank. Also like human resources. It's trying to make a science out of what should be blatantly obvious. (Am I becoming a liberal libertarian?) It's like when you are on an airplane and they tell you how to fasten a seatbelt -- the airlines have to do it to be inclusive and cover their asses, but come on! If you can't figure it out on your own, you should get your head smacked against the seatback in front of you.

You know, I've never read Wittgenstein, but I think I might agree with his later conclusions. (Thank you Wikipedia.)

I was listening to stories about the new Nobel laureates for...was it physics yesterday? And the reporter was describing their theories and research, which is pretty abstract (well at least this one guy's is -- the other two's experiments with atoms seemed incredibly...pertinent? That's not the right word, but.) And so much of science is specific, little tiny nano things; I guess one can differentiate between one's work and one's life -- philosophically speaking. But that intense focusing on the minutia! For lifetimes! On these tiny little differentiations of particles! Like linguistics! I mean, it's all fundamentally language! Stop running yourself crazy into the ground with this stuff! Interact with the world! Go dance around to jungle boogie or something!

(Is that completely antithetical to my reverence for intellectualism and seriousness? Am I saying "I mean, study, yes, but you've got to give it a break sometime, dudes" -- well, whatever. To each his or her own -- study what you will, who am I to assign values to others' work.)

Point was, when do you draw the line of relevance? Again, science and art. When does life begin.

Oh, circles, circles. (Chuckle.) The Venn Diagram comes round and round again.

I should really put that Kate's Philosophy of Life as Explained by Venn up here, shouldn't I.

Ha ha ha! Philosophy! Ha. Ha. Ha!

(Idiot. -ed.)

Posted: Wednesday - October 05, 2005 at 07:57 PM |