Choice As Collaborating With A Medium

I love doing latte art. I have so much fun trying to make the perfect rosetta. Just now I was watching videos online of people doing latte art, and fuck me can people do some amazing things. Incredible stuff.

The experience of creating latte art is very interesting. It is something that happens very quickly. And something that, in some ways, I watch happen. Of course I am doing things to make it happen, there is an element of craft and control. But the espresso and the milk in many ways do their own thing. I pour in a certain way and my medium (the espresso and milk) react in a certain way. They do their own thing that is not precisely in my control. In order to create latte art I have to collaborate with my mediums. I can't simply impose my will on the milk and the espresso. I have to work with them, understand what it is that they want, and collaborate with them.

I am trying to use this story of my experience with latte art as a segue to talking about a larger issue: collaborating with mediums. My latest writing on mediums has been really enjoyable for me. I've been able to produce a number of pages, and I'm pleased with the questions I have been trying to answer. And right now I just want to hone in on one of its implications. In particular, I want to talk about the implications for the idea of choice and action.

If my writing is anywhere near coherent, and I am correct in saying that our actions always happen through mediums, and that mediums always have a certain inclination or message embedded in them. If this is true, then it means that there is no such thing as a purely isolated choice, only a choice embedded in a medium. This means that every choice is an act of collaboration with a certain medium.

That is what I was getting at with my description of creating latte art: that I am only able to create it if I am willing to collaborate with my medium, understand what it wants, and work in relation to that.

Similarly, if I want to make authentic choices in life, I need to understand the mediums I am working with, and attempt to collaborate with them. In my essay I identified three major mediums, cities, language, and economic systems. So, how are we to understand what those mediums want? And how are we to collaborate with them? Well, it seems that we could only understand those mediums through historical study. By knowing the history of these mediums we could understand 'what they want' and how to collaborate with them.

The only problem that is presenting itself to me right now is that maybe I don't want to collaborate with a certain medium. Maybe I think that a certain mediums inclination is bull shit and I refuse to give in to it. Maybe I demand social change.

In any case, I am just bullshitting this stuff off the top of my head. But the next section of the essay is on the issue of history and human self-creation as it relates to mediums. So I'm just starting to work on outlining the section, starting to work on thinking about how to address the issue of history and mediums. This is an okay start.

Zizek On Retroactive Freedom And Changing One's Destiny: The Imagination And Choice

I am approaching the end of Zizek's In Defense Of Lost Causes. It is very long and very difficult and I am struggling to appreciate it as a whole. I will be studying it for a while when I am done reading it. But right now I want to hone in on one of Zizek's claims and try to tease it out a little bit.

The notion I want to explore is Zizek's claim that " 'Freedom' is thus inherently retroactive: at its most elementary, it is not a free act, which, out of nowhere, starts a new causal link, but a retroactive act of endorsing which link/sequence of necessities will determine me" (IDOLC, 314). Now, what does this mean precisely? I once came up with this idea of 'retroactive freedom' on my own. But I meant something different than what Zizek means.

In order to parse this idea I'm going to look a little more closely at the paragraphs where Zizek expounds these ideas. I'll then make some references to Deleuze's work that Zizek cites. I'll then try to connect it to my reading of Collingwood. And finally I'll try to bring the whole thing together and explain how this notion of retroactive freedom fits into Zizek's larger goals for In Defense Of Lost Causes.

This notion of retroactive freedom is contained in a subsection called 'the act'. In that section Zizek seems to be trying to explain how it is that radical emancipatory politics could be realized, how we could make a push for utopia. He says that his definition of utopia is not some "simple imaginary impossibility," but is "utopia in the more radical sense of enacting what, within the framework of the existing social relations, appears as 'impossible' [...]." (310, his italics). So what Zizek is stressing in his definition of utopia is its relational character: it is about making radical change within an already existing world, it is grounded in concrete history and circumstances.

But placing this emphasis on the relational character of revolutionary action prompts questions about the relationship between choice and historical causality/momentum. Zizek warns against "the positivist vision of history as an 'objective' process which determines in advance the possible coordinates of politics interventions; within this horizon, it is unimaginable that a radical political intervention would change these very 'objective' coordinates and thus, in a way, create the conditions for its own success" (311). Zizek asserts, on the contrary, that we should not understand history in this linear objective way, but rather as something in which people are capable of acting within. Revolutionary action, however, has a retroactive character: "An act proper is not just a strategic intervention into a situation, bound by its conditions – it retroactively creates its own conditions.... The properly dialectical solution to the dilemma of 'Is it really there, in the source, or did we only read it into the source?' is thus: it is there, but we can only perceive and state this retroactively, from today's perspective" (311-312). What this means is that revolutionary action has to decided which past legacies, which historical determinants, it will use as a basis for action.

Zizek then clarifies this idea with a discussion of the nature of choice and action in general. He discusses Deleuze and Kant, "for whom I am determined by causes, but I (can) retroactively determine which causes will determine me.... in other words, we retroactively determine the causes allowed to determine us, or, at least, the mode of this linear determination. 'Freedom' is thus inherently retroactive...." (314). Zizek puts it more clearly when he says "This, perhaps, is the most succinct definition of what an authentic act is: in our ordinary activity, we effectively just follow the (virtual-fantasmatic) coordinates of our identity, while an act proper is the paradox of an actual move which (retroactively) changes the very virtual 'transcendental' coordinates of its agent's being.... while the pure past is the transcendental condition for our acts, our acts not only create an actual new reality, they also retroactively change this very condition" (315). This idea seems somewhat clear to me. It seems like a very nice way to resolve the obvious problem of historical determinism by explaining how choice operates within its confines. It reminds me of what I called 'meta-strategic thinking' in my Society's Implicit War essays. Zizek makes this relationship between determinism and choice crystal clear at the end of the section 'the act'. He argues that "although we are determined by destiny, we are nonetheless free to choose our destiny.... Destiny and free action (blocking the 'if') thus go hand in hand: freedom is at its most radical the freedom to change one's Destiny" (316). We are free to 'choose our destiny' because we don't have one simple destiny: we have a variety of different experiences that provide us with multiple perspectives that we can choose among. We are thus free to choose among possible 'destinies'. Hopefully I'm writing clearly about this idea, because it makes sense in my head.

But now I would like to ask how this would be possible on a subjective level, what it would look like, what it would feel like on a personal level. And I think that Collingwood's definition of the imagination goes a long way in explaining how this would be possible. Collingwood defines the imagination as the space between sensations and ideas in which we can consciously manipulate traces of our past experience. When we try to imagine the color red, all we are doing is using consciousness to prolong the life of our experience of seeing read. Collingwood believes that as we have sensations they are swept away in the flow of sensation and experience and can be swept beneath the surface and forgotten completely. But if we are capable of exerting consciousness we can prolong the life of sensations and keep them in our minds for a longer amount of time. This capacity of consciousness to extend the life of past sensations, for Collingwood, is the imagination.

Now when Zizek's notion of retroactive freedom meets Collingwood's definition of the imagination, the implications should be obvious: it is through the imagination that we are capable of 'choosing our destiny'. As I said above, the reason we are able to do this is because we have a huge array of experiences that provide us with many possible ways of thinking and acting. In short, we are not determined in the singular, but deal with a constellation of potential determinants. So what faculty of the mind would allow us to single out one of these determinants and make it the impetus for our action? The answer should be obvious: the imagination is the mental faculty that would allow us to single out one of those determinants as the best course for our action to take.

This is what Zizek means when he said "I am determined by causes, but I (can) retroactively determine which causes will determine me...." or when he said "in our ordinary activity, we effectively just follow the (virtual-fantasmatic) coordinates of our identity, while an act proper is the paradox of an actual move which (retroactively) changes the very virtual 'transcendental' coordinates of its agent's being." If we just live unreflectively then we will just follow our destiny, but if we decided to act then we will single out a course of action that is also embedded in our experience, but may have been overshadowed by an experience that was previously more determinate.

In my life, for example, I have experiences with both anger and compassion. It might be really easy for me to lapse into anger and cynicism. I could be furious and bitter and angry with people. But I also have experiences with being silly and playful, being friendly. Both of those things are coordinates of my being that I could follow. But I would like to think that I can choose which one of those coordinates, which one of those destinies I will follow. Furthermore, it is my imagination, my consciousness, that can single out one of those destinies as more worthy. Thus I will choose among my determinants, and thus I will take action, and thus I will change my destiny.

Interesting stuff. I told myself I wanted to try and understand how this stuff fits into the larger picture of In Defense Of Lost Causes, but I don't think I can do that right now. It is enough to have clarified Zizek's notion of retroactive freedom and to have linked it so soundly with Collingwood's definition of the imagination.

Over and out.

On The Temporal Confinement Of Choice, Or, Why There Is No Need To Worry

My friend wonders if I worry sometimes. I don't know if I worry so much. I don't feel like I do. I think a lot about things. But do I worry? I'm not sure.

I was thinking about this as I was walking and I was reminded of two different things. One is a post I wrote about a year ago, last April, on choice, time, and worrying.

It also made me think about my recent writing on the purposeful creation of habits, and how the relationship between choice and time ties into that idea.

Last April I was trying to figure out the issue of worrying. What was it all about? Why did we do it? What is going on with this worrying business? I went through some discussion about the issue of choice, its relationship to time, in that you have to 'cross that bridge when you come to it', or, in other words, that you can't make a choice until you have reached the proper moment in time in which that choice can actually be translated into action. What is choice other than the doing of something. A very mundane and interesting example is the one of ordering food in restaurants. In theory we decide what we want before the server asks for our order. We choose this one thing in our minds. But then the server comes and we end up ordering something different, we go with our other option. The choice wasn't actually enacted until we told the server what we wanted. All of the other 'deciding' was just mental prep. This commonplace example should make it clear that choice is firmly confined by time.

So then, worrying, what is this? Well I guess worrying is typically anxiety about future action, it is anxiety about choices that we will have to make in the future, or about our uncertainty of what choices we are to make, or can make. Worrying.

I ended up concluding that waiting had to be a crucial thing. Is waiting the antithesis of worrying? Well, voluntary waiting, deliberate waiting, patient and comfortable waiting, is certainly contrary to worrying. Worrying is just nervous and anxious waiting. Waiting is something we do all the time, we can't stop. So I think that since choice is so temporally confined we really need to embrace waiting as a crucial step in the decision making process. Or, as I put it back in April 2010: "Essentially, action flows from non-action. We can only make choices when the moment to choose comes. And we can only get to that moment of choice by waiting for that moment to come. So when we are up late at night worrying about what job to apply to, or where to move to, or what to do next, it is probably better to go to sleep and wait for a moment in which you are capable of taking action. Sure, you could apply for a job at 3 AM. Or you could make the moment for choice come sooner. But I bet there are many situations in which worrying is nothing but trying to force a choice that hasn't reached its proper moment in time."

I wonder how true this stuff is, or how much it makes sense. But to me it makes sense a bit. Choice and time and waiting. If we grapple with those things then worrying should appear silly and out of touch with the nature of choice and action.

So how does this relate to the deliberate creation of habits and inclinations? Well, what I was thinking has to do with the intuitive nature of choice and social action. Back to the example of ordering food in a restaurant. We do that sort of stuff intuitively. We just say things when the time comes. When we reach that moment in time to make a choice we have to rely on our intuitive behavior, we have to rely on our inclinations to actually enact the choice that we have rationally decided upon.

This is why it would be important to purposefully create habits and inclinations for ourselves. Because if we are taking charge of ourselves in that way, if we are taking charge of our habits and inclinations, then we are most likely to actually follow through on the choices we hope to make.

I'm not saying this very clearly or very elaborately right now. Mainly because I made this connection a few minutes ago as I was walking home. But I am pleased to have resurrected this idea of mine about the relationship between time and choice. And I am pleased to have roughly connected it to my much newer ideas about the purposeful creation of habits. I find this stuff to be really fascinating. This issue of choice and time, this issue of habit and inclination.

I look forward to doing a lot of thinking about the issue of habit. Zizek and Benjamin both thought of habit as a serious issue. I wonder. It is starting to feel more and more important to me, both personally and intellectually.

Bottled Water and Irresponsible Metaphors: Physical Freedom, Mental Freedom, and the Idea of 'Intellectual Insurrection'

This is personal, son. This will be incoherent, mang. This was an assay, bro. This was a quest, hun.

1. Introduction

2. Personal Freedom

3. Distinguishing Between Physical and Mental Freedom

4. Intellectual Insurrection as Mental Freedom Without Physical Correlates

5. Conclusion

1. Introduction

I don't want to live the way that I do. I don't want to stock bottled water so that we Americans can keep up our insane and mindless consumption habits. I don't want to think that bottled water is okay. But a reality is immediately apparent: I have to stock bottled water. I need money to live, and this is the job I was able to get. My personal freedom is, frankly, very limited. But guess what, I don't have to think that way. I don't have to think that bottled water is okay. I can fight that idea, I can struggle against my mind and my world. I can stay intellectually vigilant and I can maintain a certain piece of mental freedom.

But what am i doing? What is this process by which I physically capitulate to society's demands, I stock their bottled water, yet at the same time refuse to recognize their demands as legitimate, and attempt to maintain the freedom of my mind. What are the proper metaphors? Are they militaristic? If not, what are they? Is it irresponsible to refer to something like this as an 'insurrection'? War is very serious business that ruins lives. It is not something to play with. So am I being reckless with these metaphors? What to do with this idea?

The main thing I want to address in this essay is my tendency to use metaphors that are drawn from war and the military. I often metaphorically refer to things as wars, battles, struggles, strategies, insurrections, and so on. My undergraduate degree in military history certainly got me thinking along these lines, and Michel Foucault's work, especially Discipline & Punish, made me more comfortable with these metaphors. In my 'Society's Implicit War' essays of July and August I took these metaphors for granted and gave them an extended look. But now I want to challenge them a little bit. I find them so easy to use that I want to attack them a little bit.

Recently, I have been thinking and writing a lot about the idea of 'intellectual' or 'cultural insurrection'. Foucault, especially in The Society Must Be Defended lectures, refers to 'the insurrection of knowledge against the institutions'. He is trying to talk about how we are subtly coerced by the knowledge that is produced by our most prominent institutions. Prisons, hospitals, mental institutions, schools, etc., all produce forms of knowledge that structure our lives, and therefore subtly coerce us into living in certain ways. This is why Foucault concludes that power and knowledge are inseparable. So the idea of intellectual insurrection, therefore, is a process by which we intellectually break down the historical determinants of our thoughts. It is very easy to just live our lives without questioning the way that we live. It can be easy to be trapped in the forms of knowledge that we have. So with intellectual insurrection we try to use history and cultural studies to learn why we think the way that we do. And it turns out that it has a lot to do with society's ability to subtly coerce our thoughts through the structuring of experience.

So I have become very keen on this idea of intellectual insurrection. I feel that my own life is so structured, so rigid. I'm surrounded by such an amazing amount of cultural momentum. Every day I am bombarded by other people's thoughts and opinions. They come from everywhere: tv, advertisements, books, the internet, every single action around me. But I feel fortunate to have encountered some interesting philosophy and history that tries to draw my attention to the way that I can think differently then everyone else around me. Even though I am implicitly encouraged to think in certain ways (to respect monogamy, to recognize racial and class divides, to love consuming) I don't have to think those ways. I can think in new ways. I can be polyamorous if I want. I can do my best to not be limited by conceptions of race and class. I can do my best to not buy into the capitalist world of consumerism.

But here is the crucial point: it is very hard to resist those forms of thinking. They are everywhere, I am saturated by them. To attempt to think differently, therefore, feels like a struggle, a battle, an insurrection, that takes place in my own mind. Me and my friend talked about how society seems to encourage vice, and that it takes so much effort to be virtuous, it feels like a struggle. So why all this emphasis on struggle? Why all this reversion to metaphors of war? Why do I feel like I'm waging a war in my own mind, against my own mind. Why this emphasis on this idea of insurrection?

So anyways, those are the topics and the questions I need to ask here. I need to understand why I find it so easy to characterize my mental state as one of 'intellectual insurrection'. I need to throw some doubt darts at this idea to see if it holds water. In order to do that I am going to explicate the feelings I have that have inclined me to think in those ways. I want to talk about how I feel about personal freedom; how i don't feel that I have enough of it. Then I want to talk about mental freedom and how I strive for it. Then hopefully I will have a clearer perspective that will help me talk about this idea of intellectual insurrection.

2. Personal Freedom

So what is personal freedom? How much of it do I have? How do I utilize it? It seems to be such a commonly used idea. People refer to freedom and choice so effortlessly. I recently tried to develop some thoughts on this issue of choice in my essay 'Possibilities and Inclinations'. But I still feel that common use of the word freedom is so vague and so inadequate. The way that it is talked about never makes me feel better or feel helped. I feel like the way that people talk about freedom and choice is in no way helpful of practical. It is talked about like something that you just do. Don't you see that you are just free to choice whatever you want? No. No I don't.

And here is why. My emotions, and my history.

My emotions were the first think that made me realize that I wasn't quite free, that I wasn't just able to choose, that I wasn't able to simply master myself. I would just cry and cry and cry. It wasn't something I could control. It wasn't something that I felt good about. I was just young and I would just cry. So where is my freedom, my choice, when I am simply overwhelmed by emotions? It always felt so enfeebling to just be overwhelmed by tears. I always felt like I was falling short in terms of self-control or discipline. How do I choose? How do I choose when I just want to cry? Eh.

I'm just rambling here. But the bottom line is that freedom and choice aren't that simple. Because emotions already exist before I can apprehend them intellectually. And to me it seems that consciousness, awareness, and some type of thought is required in order for something to qualify as choice like people talk about it. I do, however, think that emotions choose for us. Every action is a choice in one way or another. But people talk about choice like it has to be a directed and rational process. But emotions are not choices. They just come to us. They have polluted and compromised my sense of the idea of choice since I was very young.

My emotions have always done more to me than my choices ever have.

Apart from emotions, I think that my learning about history has also made me less comfortable with the idea of freedom as people talk about it. I used to not think about how I thought. I used to not realize that my thinking had something to do with history. But now I can't think of my thoughts as being apart from history. How fascinating that the history of thought is probably my favorite field? I remember the first time I heard of Isaiah Berlin. I couldn't believe there was a philosopher who considered himself a historian of ideas. What an amazing label, I had thought. Since then I have learned so much about Collingwood and Foucault, and how they both advocate history as the history of thought.

And the most startling thing is how practical and relevant to the present becomes. If I want to understand my own thinking, shouldn't I look at the history of my thought? And not just my personal history. But the history of thought in my society, in the entire world. Ideas. It is all about ideas. All about thought. What was the first time that someone thought it was a good idea to bottle water? What was the first time that the idea of bottled water became possible? When did it first become popular? Those would be worthwhile questions. Interesting questions that would cast some light on how everyone thinks now. Because how the hell did everyone come to think that bottled water was a good idea? That it was so necessary? Or even such a permissible luxury and not some frivolity?

Who knows. This is all over the place and I don't care right now. How am I so tired?

But the only point I'm making in this section is that I don't feel free. I don't feel like I can do or choose whatever I want. And I don't feel bad about it. But I want to ask choice what it really is. What are you, freedom? Because you sure as hell aren't as simple as you are made out to be. You aren't just some thrust into the void. You are much more than that. You are the navigation of my emotions. You are the archeology of my thought.

My inability to control my emotions and my sense of history have shown me that I am not simply free. But that I am free only by acting in relation to a determinism. I am already pushed in so many directions.

I am already feeling things before I think anything. And I am already thinking certain things before I could possibly think other things.

This is not sad. This is good. This is what I want. I want to understand why I do what I do. And it turns out I don't do things because I choose to do them. But because I am emotionally compelled and historically determined.

Oh how to stress this point enough? How to articulate this clearly enough. I need to read Johanna Oksala's Foucault on Freedom. He is my man for this topic. For this personalized view of history as a determining force. But I, just like Oksala, think that Foucault's work is meant to open us up to the 'practice of freedom'. Because freedom and choice can't be some simple thing, some simple decision or switch. They have to be relative, they have to be historically informed. Or perhaps not.

But anyways, this seems like a good time to start talking about mental freedom.

3. Distinguishing Between Physical and Mental Freedom

So, seeing as how I just told you that I feel historically and emotionally determined, and that I don't place much faith in society's reductive definitions of choice and freedom, I have to ask: is there such a thing as freedom and choice? And the only acceptable answer is yes. But how so? What is it? If it isn't a simple or self-evident process, then what is it?

I suppose right now I have to provide a simple answer: it has to be a sort of mental freedom. It has to be a freedom that is in the way that we think, and not simply in the way that we act. Because if we define freedom simply in terms of actions, then we don't have much hope. We have to work the jobs that we are able to get, that we are qualified for based on our experiences, we have to go after money (maybe not, shouts out to the ave rats). In short, we have to do a whole bunch of things no matter what. We have to buy alarm clocks so that we can wake up at certain times to get to our job on time. We have to recognize the way that our society regulates space and time and we have to regulate ourselves accordingly. In short, if we define freedom in terms of physical behavior then we don't have much hope because our physical behavior is carefully regulated by our society. We can't hurt people, we can't go lots of places, we can't do many things.

But if we define freedom in terms of our thoughts we have a bit more hope, I think. Because we can choose to do certain things, like pursue money, but not let ourselves be fully taken over by the desire for money. We can think that money is a necessary evil that we need, but that we don't really want to do it. We can think 'god this moment in history sure has pigeonholed me into this money making game', and all the while continue to try and make enough money to live. Wouldn't that be a sort of mental freedom?

Or another example, perhaps. Gender. What a crock of bullshit the way that our gender relations are structured. It makes me crazy. Men pursue, women wait to be pursued. If a woman comes on too strong, that could be bad because that isn't their proper role. Men pay. Women do this. Men do that. All so god damn regulated. I told a co-worker tonight that I didn't care much about being masculine. She laughed and told me that I was one of the only guys she had ever heard say that. Well what the fuck? Why do I wear male clothing? Why do I behave differently to men then I do with women? Why all this gendering if I don't care about gender? I have to care about gender.

But. is it possible to engage with those gender stereotypes, let them structure your actions, and still retain your mental freedom? That sounds dissatisfying.

Here I arrive at an impasse that forces me to make a distinction. We have to make decisions about our lives that use this distinction between personal freedom and mental freedom. We have to ask ourselves, do I have the possibility of acting differently? Or do I have to make a concession to have mental freedom? With gender, for example, I refuse to act in those ways. I will not let society's standards for gender relations structure my actions. I will act differently. I will not be aggressive towards other men who I perceive as threats. I will not treat women like objects to be pursued. I will not let myself get wrapped in that world of relations between men and women as some power struggle. I will do my best do behave differently, to love differently, to act differently towards men and women.

But what about my behavior in the economic realm? Is it possible for me to not stock bottled water? Is it possible for me to not have a job? No. The answer right now is no. I have to do those things. I have to make a concession that I will behave according to society's rules. But here is the crucial point: I will not think in those ways. Within the realm of my mind and my intellect, I will not accept the legitimacy of our economic system and our way of life.

So this is all coming back to the relationship between thinking about things and doing things. The more important of the two being thinking about things. The question is, If I am thinking about things in a certain way, is it possible for me to also behave that way? And, If not, and I am doing something, even though I think it is disagreeable, is it possible for me to still think otherwise? In short, is it possible for me to align my thoughts and my actions? To come back to my examples of gender and economic work. If I think that gender is bull shit, it is possible for me to change the way I behave. I can change the way that I treat men and women so as to be more loving and less regulated by conceptions about bodies. But with the economic world it doesn't matter if I think it is bull shit. It simply doesn't matter. If I want to live a comfortable and relatively 'normal' life I have to compromise my ideological thoughts about capitalism and simply engage in the system. It doesn't matter if I think that bottled water is stupid, I have to stock it. I have to make it easier for you people to buy your frivolous and wasteful product that epitomizes the problems with our way of life. But that doesn't mean that I have to think it is okay.

The issue of freedom, then, is this dance between thought and action. It is a concept that encompasses both the physical and mental aspects of behavior. True freedom would be the unity of thought and action. It would be thinking something with all your heart and all your intellect and doing it. It would be freedom if I were to intellectually and emotionally reject gender roles and thus behave differently because of that mental work.

But what if it is impossible to align my physical behavior with my mental convictions? Is my freedom compromised entirely? Or what is happening to me in that case? Where does the dissonance between my thoughts and my actions leave me? This seems like a good point to turn tot his idea of mental/intellectual insurrection.

4. Intellectual Insurrection as Mental Freedom Without Physical Correlates

So I have now parsed this idea of freedom a little bit by dividing it into the categories of physical and mental freedom. But now I must ask a serious question: What do we do when it is impossible to align our physical actions and our mental convictions? What does this mean for our mental health and our sense of identity? How can I maintain the strength of my mental convictions when I can't act on them? How can I ease the cognitive dissonance produced by this failure to align my thoughts and my actions?

Well, I suppose this is where the idea of intellectual insurrection sounds a little bit legitimate. I think intellectual insurrection, as a metaphor, is all about struggling with this dissonance between actions and thoughts. It hurts to think one thing and to do another. It hurts to want to do the right thing and to feel yourself doing it anyways, or having to do it anyways. Whether it is my emotions that compel me to do something or my history that coerces me into doing something, it feels really bad to do something when I intellectually don't want to. It feels bad to stock bottled water because my intellectual convictions are absolutely opposed to it. But I have to.

So the question becomes: Is it possible to do a bunch of things but think the opposite? Is it possible to do the things you find morally reprehensible, but to maintain your sense of morality anyways? Well, I think the answer is a shaky yes that needs qualification. We won't be able to maintain moral standing unless we are willing to fight for it. How are we to maintain our belief in what is right when we are always acting in a way that is contrary to it? Thus the element of struggle that I am trying to communicate in this phrase intellectual insurrection.

Why does it have to be a struggle? Because I think that actions incline us to think in certain ways. I think that when we do something over and over again we can begin to think that it is okay, that it is normal, that it fits in with our lives and our being. So we have to fight our thoughts and be sure that we can maintain them even though our actions are out of line with them. We have to keep reminding ourselves: 'it is not okay for all this water to be in all these bottles. it is not okay for all this water to be in all these bottles. it is not okay for all this water to be in all these bottles. it is not okay for all this water to be in all these bottles it is not okay for all this water to be in all these bottles it is not okay for all this water to be in all these bottles it is not okay for all this water to be in all these bottles it is not okay for all this water to be in all these bottles.' Because if I don't stay vigilant I may lapse into complacency and I may begin to think that bottled water is perfectly fine and that there is no problem with it.

And how many more instances are there like this in my life? How many times a day are there instances in which my thoughts and my actions have to be out of line? I refuse to bend my thoughts to my actions. My thoughts are my domain of freedom. I will stay strong, mentally. I will keep thinking what I think, even if, and especially if, I can't act on those thoughts. I will remain a guerilla of power/knowledge within my own mind and within my own world. I will align my thoughts and my actions as much as possible. But when I must compromise my actions, I will not compromise my thoughts.

I will do your deeds, America, but I will not think your thoughts.

Thus, I have arrived at a more precise definition of intellectual insurrection. It is the stance of mental struggle that I revert to when it is impossible for me to align my physical behavior with my intellectual and emotional convictions.

5. Conclusion

To wrap this up, I will summarize. I think that freedom and choice are muddled and unclear concepts. I think that their unclear definition leads us to blame things on 'bad choices' and 'irrationality'. We are not as free as we think. Our emotions incline us to do certain things, and history forces us to do certain things. Freedom and choice are not static or self-evident concepts. They are clarified a bit, however, if we divide them into the categories of physical and mental freedom. Freedom in its strongest sense is the union of thought and action. We have certain mental convictions, and we are able to act in those ways as well. The only problem is that it is possible to have mental freedom without having physical freedom. We can think that something is bogus, but we still have to do it. This is the domain of mental or cultural or intellectual insurrection. When our actions do not line up with our thoughts, because action tends to influence thought, we have to struggle to maintain our mental convictions. When our actions are out of line with our thoughts we have to fight to keep our mental concepts clear. This is intellectual insurrection. It is a struggle to maintain our intellectual and emotional beliefs even though our actions contradict them.

I don't know if this is an irresponsible metaphor. But I do feel that I have clarified it, and its relationship to the notion of freedom.

I want to be free, in body and mind. I want to live a loving life because I have loving thoughts. But too often I feel myself agitated by the disconnect between my thoughts and my actions, or between my ideals and my emotions. Oh well. The fight goes on. Oh, enough with these metaphors.

In all honesty I want to escape them. I want to find a better way to talk about this issue. This problem of controlling ourselves. This problem of finding a way to feel free and coherent in thought and in action.

Oh the ongoing problems. Oh the questions!

Possibilities and Inclinations: Mediums, Choices, and Free Will

Last night I was out with some friends and I came upon a distinction that helps me deal with two pressing issues of mine. One is a more specific issue, and one is a more general issue of which the former is an example.

The specific issue is the internet, the enormous amount of information it gives us access to, and the way it tends to lead to a distractible mind that doesn't fully engage with all the available information. In other words, there is tension between the possibilities of the internet as a medium, and the inclinations of the internet as a medium. Sure, the internet has enormous potential to open us up to other people's cultures, to other people's thoughts and feelings, to anything in the world. But how does the nature of the medium itself encourage us to engage with this enormous amount of information? Does it not encourage us to shallowly leap from one tab to the next, clicking as many links as possible? Doesn't the internet's inclinations detract from the possibilities of the internet? I fear that people focus too much on the possibilities of the internet without reckoning with its inclinations. Since reading Nicholas Carr's The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains, I have been much more aware of the internet as a medium and not simply as a source of content. I think that this distinction between possibilities and inclinations will help me analyze this issue more carefully. So that is what I want to do.

But I also see this is part of a larger issue. I think that this distinction between possibilities and inclinations can also help me grapple with what I perceive as inadequate definitions of 'choice' and 'free will'. I often think that these ideas of choice and free will are muddled and are discussed like their efficacy is somehow self-evident. But doesn't it seem like it can be awfully hard to choose the right thing? Doesn't it seem like we are inclined to do certain things? Whether it is our macro cultural situation or our micro personal situation, doesn't it seem like the notion of 'free will' comes into violent confrontation with our inclinations? What I'm saying is that free will doesn't function like some light switch that you flip, it isn't a mechanical, easy, or directly applicable process. It is always a relative thing. We are not simply choosing into a void of possibilities, we are choosing against a set of inclinations. But to me it seems like people speak of choice as simply a world of possibilities, and all we have to do is seize upon the correct possibility. And I think the ubiquity of metaphors about 'seizing' the moment and the like suggest that choice is not that simple of an issue. We have to seize choices and freedom because we are already dealing with a world of inclinations that forces our decisions to be forever relative, forever combative. There is no choosing unless we are choosing against something else. There are no simple possibilities without already existing inclinations. In short, I think that the notion of choice needs to become less reductive and far more nuanced, and I think that we can do this by recognizing that our possible choices are always working in relation to our already existing inclinations.

So I will just spend a little bit of time, a few paragraphs, dealing with the more specific issue of the internet and the more general issue of choice. I am hoping that by first writing on the specific example of the internet I will be able to clarify these terms, which will hopefully allow me to give a closer look at the issues of choice and free will. Here I go.

Now, as I said, Nicholas Carr's The Shallows was a very interesting book that has prompted me to consider the internet as a medium and not a simply a source of content. Carr's main concern is how mediums implicitly encourage certain types of behavior. He addresses this issue by talking about how each medium has its own 'intellectual ethic'. Carr notes that inventors rarely consider the intellectual ethic that their new medium encourages. The intellectual ethic is something that lies behind the scenes of a medium. Carr argues, furthermore, that each medium comes along with its own unique forms of neuroplastic change. The brains of literate people, for example, look and work differently from the brains of illiterate people. The internet, too, causes unique neuroplastic changes. I admire Carr for incorporating new findings about neuroplasticity into his work on the intellectual ethic of books and the internet. My reading on neuroplasticity has always been fruitful, and I think that it has implications that go way beyond the field of neuroscience. The discovery of neuroplasticity has implications for all of the humanities, for most fields, I bet. Carr dares to ask what types of neuroplastic changes are associated with modern mediums?

But anyways, as I said, Carr discusses the intellectual ethic of both books and the internet. So, what are the intellectual ethics if these mediums? If the medium is indeed the message, as McLuhan argued, then what is the message of these mediums? I will be cursory about this so that I can get to my main concerns.

Carr believes that the book encourages long concentrated bouts of attention. He thinks that the invention of the book did a lot to enhance our ability to concentrate and to follow narratives. The internet, on the other hand, encourages us to be distracted. It encourages us to click as many things as fast as possible, to fly from one page to another. Carr believes that the internet's intellectual ethic is ultimately one of distractibility and shallow engagement with many different things. Not that the internet has to be used this way, but that the internet encourages us to think in this way. The inclination of the internet as a medium is to make us distracted and shallow.

Perhaps this sounds hyperbolic and too gloomy doomy. But I think that Carr's stance, and my stance, is in response to a discourse that only speaks of the wonderful possibilities of the internet. People talk like the only thing to be worried about is how there is all of this information for us to gather. The internet = more date. More data = smarter people. Not always the case. We don't always need more data, what we need sometimes is slow and lazy rumination. This reminds me of Guy Claxton's emphasis on d-mode thinking: an over-deliberate and rational form of thought that places all of its faith in date and logic. The assumption seems to be that people are logical, and that given access to large amounts of information they will choose to intelligently engage with it. But that only gives credence to the hypothetical possibilities of the internet, and ignores the real inclinations that the internet encourages. Speaking personally, I feel that the internet just lets me lazily glide from one website to the next, playing computer games, looking at facebook, so on. I think that we need to start paying a bit of attention to the inclinations of the internet as a medium, and stop focusing so much on the possibilities of its content. Not because its content isn't vast and amazing. It is. But because the inclination of the medium, its intellectual ethic, has the power to render its possibilities moot. It doesn't matter if we have access to tons of information if we are being implicitly encouraged to shallowly engage with games and facbeook.

In short, if we started to look at the inclinations of the internet we might see that its possibilities are not as rich as we have supposed.

Now how applicable are these ideas to the rest of life and the ideas of choice and free will? We suppose that 'if only people made the right choices they would be able to take advantage of the internet's awesomeness. But what Carr's work shows us is that it isn't that simple. That the internet is subtly encouraging us to not take full advantage of its content. That the medium itself contains a message of distractibility and shallowness. So perhaps the most important conclusion to draw from Carr's work is that 'choice' is not something that is enacted rationally in some kind of void, but is rather something that is always relative. We have to choose in the face of inclinations. We have to do battle with the intellectual ethics that are communicated to us by our mediums. Free will is about struggling against already established inclinations and intellectual ethics.

So then, if choice and free will become a matter of dealing with and reacting to already established inclinations and ethics, then how far do these implications go? If it is a matter of mediums,how mediums encourage us to behave, and how they structure our choices, then what is and is not a medium? Can the city itself be considered a medium of life and expression? Can the capitalist system be considered a medium? If so, how do these mediums structure our lives?

Let me take the example of libraries, because I think that the internets about them are in many ways be similar to the ones about the internet. And it also gives me an example to discuss the city, urban lay outs, as a medium in itself. So, people may say 'the library is right there, if people only choose they could go and read and learn anything they want'. But then why aren't people taking advantage of the library? Why isn't everyone in the city flocking to the library to learn and grow as people? Because the city as a medium for existence encourages lots of behavior that is not about libraries. The city is also loaded with bars and with liquor stores and strip clubs and drugs and restaurants. So the city, therefore, implicitly encourages all kinds of vice that would prevent people from taking advantage of the benefits of the library. The implicit ethic of the city, the inclinations of the city, prove stronger than the hypothetical possibilities of learning. So, just an example of how in general choice should be thought of more in terms of the inclinations that we are going against, and less in terms of the hypothetical possibilities.

Now, if this idea of choice as being more about overcoming a medium's implicit inclinations and less about hypothetical possibilities, then how far can this idea be taken? What in life can be considered a medium? And how do those mediums effect the way we make act? How do those mediums structure choices? Can the capitalist system itself be considered a medium for life? It certainly seems like it is a medium for all of our actions. If this is the case, then don't we need to start thinking about choice in society the same way that we think about choice in specific mediums like the internet? Don't we have to recognize that the medium is providing us with a set of inclinations that are often counter to how we conceptualize our possible choices? It seems to me that this would help us accept the relative nature of choice, that we would always be choosing against or with the implicit ethic of our social system.

Free will has to be relative, a relationship. It has to be about moving through already established ethics and inclinations. Perhaps society establishes for us an existential ethic. We are unconsciously told what the best ways to live. And if society can be considered a medium for our choices, then we need to reckon with the implicit existential ethic. Because only by adopting a new definition of choice as a relative action. Ummm. Possibilities and inclinations. We need to stop relying so much on this idea of what is possible, and start thinking about what is implicitly encouraged. Because choice is always in relation to these underlying inclinations. The internet is just a good example of this idea. The internet is a world of massive possibilities, but the implicit intellectual ethic is in opposition to these possibilities of education.

I have lost my steam on this essay. I'm not sure why I feel so tired. But I think that I need to let this idea, this distinction between possibilities and inclinations mature. I think it can hopefully be fruitful. I really need to ask myself more about this question of mediums. What exactly is a medium? Where do they end and begin? How do we choose? How do mediums effect our choices? Why do we have so much emphasis on the possibilities of choices? What is a medium? What is a choice?

I feel tired. But I suspect these are fruitful lines of thought. And I want to pursue them. But I can't right now. But in the future I will hopefully read with these ideas in mind.

Original notes:

- The city as a medium

- The capitalist world as a medium

- The entire world as a medium

- Subjective experience and emotions as a medium

- All of these having their own corresponding implicit 'existential ethic'

- It is both macro and micro
- Does the temporality of choice fit in somehow?

E.M. Cioran and Hopeful Nihilism, Non-Action and Worrying, Choice and Time: Incoherent Ideas

So, I was raised by someone who identifies with nihilism, and so it has almost always been a part of my life since I started thinking about it. I would say my relationship with nihilism is complicated. Recently, though, I have been getting into a fair amount of nihilistic philosophy. Anyways, I am currently reading a book that I wanted to write about. It is pretty exciting at this point, and I wanted to throw a few things around. Mainly connections I see between Nihilism and Eastern philosophies of identity, action, and choice.

So, first things first, the book. It is The Trouble With Being Born by E.M. Cioran. Cioran was born in Romania in 1911 and moved to Paris in 1937 and lived there until he died in 1995, so says the back of the book. I find interesting that he moved out of Romania in 37, only a few years before some bad things started happening with WWII, all of which would eventually lead to Romania being a part of the USSR. So, fortunate that he moved when he did, cause he never would have been able to have the same career in the East.

As for the writing, he writes aphoristically. All lines/sections separated by the same symbol, divided into 12 unnamed sections. I haven't read a lot of things that are presented in this fashion. John Gray's Straw Dogs is organized in a very similar way, except he has chapter names, and subheadings for each small section. Gray actually quoted Cioran a lot. So that is why I ended up getting this book, because I liked Straw Dogs a lot.

So what is he saying? What is going on in this book? I am still sorta confused as to how to think about it, how to summarize or paraphrase it. But I guess the thing that interests me the most right now is the way in which he presents a hopeful nihilism. The universality of pain, the illusory nature of the self, the deterministic weight of history and chance, the need to transform yourself to attain understanding, and the ultimate futility of intellectual work, all of these things come glaring through in a way that makes me feel good. John Gray did a very similar thing for me. When you put these really central ideas to the test, things like the self, choice, knowledge, hard work, they start to shake a little; they don't hold as much water as I would have suspected.

I would like to use one quotation. Because I think this one highlights a lot of the ways that these nihilistic views can be seen as akin to Buddhist ideas, or Hindu ideas. Cioran and Gray both talk a lot about the Buddha and about other eastern philosophies.

Anyways, quotation: "X insults me. I am about to him him. Thinking it over, I refrain. Who am I? which is my real self: the self of the retort or that of the refraining? My first reaction is always energetic; the second one, flabby. What is known as 'wisdom' is ultimately only a perpetual 'thinking it over,' i.e., non-action as first impulse."

Now, I think this quotation is great. The way the self evaporates when we realize how multiplicitous and inconsistent our feelings are, how much we are capable of doubting and problematizing our own minds at every second. This last portion I italicized, non-action as first impulse. Along with the idea that the self does not exist, the idea of non-action is very important in a number of eastern religions. In Buddhism the idea of mindfulness amounts to an observant non-action, in Taoism the idea of Wu Wei means non-action and is associated with letting things take their natural course. Another Buddhist idea that I like a lot, and believe I read in John Gray: 'do nothing and your Will will be done.' This idea, non-action as the key to facilitating personal growth, or progress, or movement, or action, or whatever it is. But it means letting your inclinations manifest themselves spontaneously. I suppose sometimes you need to force yourself to go a little further, or to work a little harder. But I think the idea here is to let your unconscious mind run the show and trust that it will alert you to whatever things need to be done.

Think about worrying. Sitting around, worrying, feeling concerned that things aren't gonna happen, that you need to make them happen. I have thought about this before, when people say 'don't worry it will get taken care of.' And then there is the feeling, well, I have to make them happen. And sure, you will make them happen. But why is it that in that particular moment you are worrying about it and not simply taking care of it? Why are you thinking and not doing?

Well, this brings me to an interesting idea about the relationship between choice/action and time. Choice, and the action chosen, are always located at a specific point in time. It is impossible to make a choice unless we have arrived at that specific moment in time in which that choice can be enacted. In other words, choice is temporally confined.

I suppose a colloquial phrase communicates this in a way that I find useful: 'You'll have to cross that bridge when you come to it.' So, what does this mean and how do we relate this to non-action and worrying? First of all, again, this idea of crossing a bridge when you come to it recognizes that choices can only be made in specific moments in which those choices can be converted to action (i.e. choice and action, and thus time, are inseparable). Second, this can be seen as encouraging the idea of waiting, i.e. non-action. It tells you that you can't decide yet. It is not time to act, you have to wait until you can act, and trust that you are going to do the right thing at the time. Third, worrying, then, is an early and nervous anticipation of a bridge, so to speak. We know the moment in time in which we can take action is approaching, but the uncertain nature of that impending moment is disconcerting. It is hard to trust that we are going to get things done. Because when we think about it, it seems daunting. I dunno, this all feels very incomplete and sketchy to me. But, one thing I can say for sure, thinking about doing things is way harder than actually doing things. Worrying is harder than doing. Waiting is harder than arriving at moments of action.

Jeez, very related idea. When Cioran says that wisdom is 'non-action as first impulse' I think that is important. To have a frame of mind that doesn't worry, that is okay with uncertainty, that trusts itself to move from moment to moment knowing that it will handle whatever comes up; I think that is what this means. That we need to cultivate a frame of mind in which we don't lash out physically, but we take things as they are and we do what we will. Having plans can hinder things. Having a strategy seems deluded and unnecessary. The unfolding of moments always changes our plans. Better to rely on your ability to act on the fly. Better to just let things come and trust yourself to do what you need to do.

So let me try to wrap up somehow... I think a lot of the nihilistic stuff I have been reading lately has many parallels with Buddhism, Taoism, etc. Mainly in their emphasis on the non-existence of the self, the importance of waiting (non-action), and especially the relationship between waiting and choice, non-action and action.

Essentially, action flows from non-action. We can only make choices when the moment to choose comes. And we can only get to that moment of choice by waiting for that moment to come. So when we are up late at night worrying about what job to apply to, or where to move to, or what to do next, it is probably better to go to sleep and wait for a moment in which you are capable of taking action. Sure, you could apply for a job at 3 AM. Or you could make the moment for choice come sooner. But I bet there are many situations in which worrying is nothing but trying to force a choice that hasn't reached its proper moment in time.

So it comes back to waiting, being okay with uncertainty, and trusting that you will do the right thing when the moment comes.

One closing quotation that I read after writing all this that demonstrates the importance of waiting and choice etc.: "Time, fertile in resources, more inventive and more charitable than we think, possesses a remarkable capacity to help us out, to afford us at any hour of the day some new humiliation."

Time solves more problems than man ever will. Someone said that, too. I won't look it up now. But, time, waiting, choice, acting, all these things are wrapped up. They can't be separated.

Time and choice, acting and not acting, thinking and doing.

I like waiting. I like not reading. I like not thinking. I like not speaking. I like not writing.

They always bring me back to doing, reading, thinking, speaking, writing.