Michael On 7/26/15, Michael R. Brown <[email protected]> wrote: > Paglia's masterwork "Sexual Personae" turns on the idea that truly great > creation comes from synthesis of male and female energies, archetypes, > roles - call them what you will. > > Sounds like Classical and Romantic to me. :) >
The interesting thing is, the way lust is coupled with conflict. We fight against the other for our own autonomy but the only autonomy possible is that which is being-in-contrast-to-other. It's not a simple thing to pin down, for sure. > She's on the hotter Romantic side, as RMP is on the cool, collected > Classical side. > thanks for sharing. You've always got the best tales of women, Michael. John > > MRB > > On 7/25/2015 9:46 PM, John Carl wrote: >> ooh Michael... I think not. >> >> >> On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 11:40 AM, Michael R. Brown <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> Camille Paglia, Nietzsche's latter-day heir, would be interesting to map >>> onto RMP and vice versa. I think they may converge. >>> >>> >>> MRB >> >> >> "Paglia has said that she is willing to have her entire career judged on >> the basis of her composition of what she considers to be 'probably the >> most >> important sentence that she has ever written': 'God is man's greatest >> idea.' " >> >> >> dmb ain't gonna go for that. I'd be interested tho. I imagine she would >> avoid what Bruce Wilshire terms, Nietzsche's 'androcentric bias'. >> >> "The woman is not pent-up, she flows, she oozes, she disturbs the male >> insistence on excluded middles for thought (something is either A or >> not-A) >> and closed categories for control. In The Marine Lover of Frederick >> Nietzsche, she points out tellingly his androcentric biases that persist >> despite his genius: His projection of himself onto the world, so he finds >> only mirror images of himself-or sheer absences and dreadful loneliness.' >> He never really lives in the life of the other. Most tellingly she finds >> not nearly enough water and flow in his world, and his totem animals are >> land and air creatures, not water ones. Thus again the rigid oppositions >> and exclusions of androcentric western philosophy. Only apparently >> paradoxically, the latest things-such as Irigarian feminism-point back to >> primal peoples. In fact, the most creative philosophical thought of the >> nineteenth and twentieth centuries does the same thing. I mean at least >> Emerson, Peirce, James, Dewey, Heidegger, Whitehead, Merleau-Ponty. This >> had to happen, I think, because the whole androcentric tradition of >> rampant, self-oblivious abstraction fairly obviously bankrupted itself >> the >> more irrepressibly modern it became. The only way remaining was to turn >> back and establish contact with our sources. Quantum physics also must be >> associated with this turn, as I will try to show. Look for a moment again >> at James-that adorable genius, as Whitehead called him. His last decade >> is >> a creative frenzy. In 1901, sick in bed, he explores life in extremis in >> Varieties of Religious Experience. As we noted, the hither side of >> mystical >> or conversion experiences may be the human subconscious, but the farther >> is >> unclassifiable, "the more," the mysterious grounds of regenerative power: >> at moments we sense that there is an enormous domain that we do not know >> we >> do not know. Then in 1904 he is able finally to completely abandon the >> British empiricist charade of putatively basic "sense data in the mind." >> As >> we've seen, he advances a radical empiricism of pure experience, a level >> of >> encounter and interfusion in the world that antecedes the very >> distinction >> between self and other, subject and object. Some of his last work, A >> Pluralistic Universe, for example, repudiates "vicious intellectualism," >> the long-standing androcentric bias that what is not explicitly included >> in >> something's definition, neatly packaged in its alleged unitary being, is >> excluded from its reality." >> >> >> John >> >> >> >> >> >> >>> >>> On 7/24/2015 9:06 AM, david wrote: >>> >>>> I've been thinking about the work Arlo did a few years back. >>>> >>>> Good stuff. Here are most the central quotes he'd used... >>>> >>>> "We shall do a great deal for the science of esthetics, once we >>>> perceive >>>> not merely by logical inference, but with the immediate certainty of >>>> intuition, that the continuous development of art is bound up with the >>>> Apollonian and Dionysian duality..." (Nietzsche) >>>> >>>> "... there existed a sharp opposition, in origin and aims, between the >>>> Apollonian art of sculpture, and the non-plastic, Dionysian, art of >>>> music.... they continually incite each other to new and more powerful >>>> births, which perpetuate an antagonism, only superficially reconciled >>>> by >>>> the common term 'Art'..." (Nietzsche) >>>> >>>> Pointing towards the undifferentiated continuum, Nietzsche writes, "The >>>> higher truth [Apollonian forms], the perfection of these states in >>>> contrast to the incompletely intelligible everyday world.. is at the >>>> same time the symbolical analogue of the soothsaying faculty and of the >>>> arts generally, which makes life possible and worth living. (Nietzsche) >>>> >>>> Interesting here, Nietzsche is not describing the Apollonian impulse >>>> towards form as "bad" while setting up the Dionysian impulse towards >>>> dissolution as "good", but instead that without form, without the >>>> apprehension of pattern from the unpatterned landscape, life would not >>>> only be not worth living but impossible in the first place. Although >>>> "form" is an abstraction, it is an abstraction we cannot do without. >>>> >>>> Nietzsche refers to the Apollonian as "the man wrapped in Maya" >>>> (Schopenhauer), "... so in the midst of a world of sorrows the >>>> individual sits quietly, supported by and trusting in his principium >>>> individuationis" (Schopenhauer quoted). >>>> >>>> This principium is summed by Wikipedia as "...the name given to >>>> processes whereby the undifferentiated tends to become individual, or >>>> to >>>> those processes through which differentiated components become >>>> integrated into stable wholes." >>>> >>>> In short, it is the perception of form within chaos, the apprehension >>>> of >>>> stability within flux, the sensing of coherence within the >>>> incomprehensible. "We might consider Apollo himself as the glorious >>>> divine image of the principium individuationis, whose gestures and >>>> expression tell us of all the joy and wisdom of 'appearance', together >>>> with its beauty." (Nietzsche) >>>> >>>> But alongside the impulse towards differentiation, one has to also >>>> consider as equally important Dionysian impulse towards dissolution. >>>> >>>> "Schopenhauer has depicted for us the terrible awe which seizes upon >>>> man, when he is suddenly unable to account for the cognitive forms of a >>>> phenomenon, when the principle of reason, in some one of its >>>> manifestations, seems to admit an exception... at this very collapse of >>>> the principium individuationis, we shall gain an insight into the >>>> nature >>>> of the Dionysian." (Nietzsche) >>>> >>>> Thus for Nietzsche the structures of Apollonian form are at once and >>>> always incomplete. Through "the immediate certainty of intuition" we >>>> sense exceptions, and when we stop and gaze into that incompleteness, >>>> we >>>> find the song of Dionysus. >>>> >>>> Nietzsche describes the Dionysian impulse as that which "cause[s] the >>>> subjective to vanish into complete self-forgetfulness". >>>> >>>> In the following quote, I hear Pirsig's talk in ZMM about our >>>> estrangement from nature and being one with the world brought on by not >>>> only dominance of "rationality", but the abandonment of the romantic >>>> "groove". Nietzsche talks about the same phenomena, a world where >>>> Apollonian dominates and Dionysian impulses are denigrated. >>>> >>>> "Under the charm of the Dionysian not only is the union between man and >>>> man reaffirmed, but Nature which has become estranged, hostile or >>>> subjugated, celebrates once more her reconciliation with her prodigical >>>> son, man. ... Now the slave is free; now all the stubborn, hostile >>>> barriers, which necessity, caprice or 'shameless fashion' have erected >>>> between man and man, are broken down... he feels as if the veil of Maya >>>> had been torn aside and were now merely fluttering in tatters before >>>> the >>>> mysterious Primordial Unity." (Nietzsche) >>>> >>>> Nietzsche continues, "He is no longer an artist, he has become a work >>>> of >>>> art: in these paroxysms of intoxication the artistic power of all >>>> nature >>>> reveals itself to the highest gratification of the Primordial Unity." >>>> >>>> "We have considered the Apollonian and its antithesis, the Dionsysian, >>>> as artistic energies which burst forth from nature herself, without the >>>> mediation of the human artist..." (Nietzsche) >>>> >>>> I note here that both the "tendency towards form" and the "tendency >>>> towards dissolution" are both "artistic energies" in Nietzsche's >>>> telling, and that, like the MOQ's levels emerge directly from Quality. >>>> >>>> "... energies in which nature's art-impulses are satisfied in the most >>>> immediate and direct way: first, on the one hand, in the pictorial >>>> world >>>> of dreams, whose completeness is not dependent upon the intellectual >>>> attitude or the artistic culture of any single being; and... as a >>>> drunken reality, which likewise does not heed the single unit, but even >>>> seeks to destroy the individual and redeem him by a mystic feeling of >>>> Oneness." (Nietzsche) >>>> >>>> For Nietzsche, the Greek Dionysian was not simply >>>> biological "licentiousness, whose waves overwhelmed all family life and >>>> its venerable traditions" (Nietzsche). >>>> >>>> Earlier Greek culture, according to Nietzsche, was dominated by the >>>> Apollonian impulse, and is evidenced best in the Homeric tradition. >>>> Alongside this sat the Dionysian impulses, evidenced as folk-revelry >>>> and >>>> festivals. As these impulses synthesized in Greek culture, the Tragedy >>>> was born, and we saw for a moment in time what Pirsig saw in the early >>>> Hippie movement. >>>> >>>> "This reconciliation is the most important moment in the history of the >>>> Greek cult: wherever we turn we note the revolutions resulting from >>>> this >>>> event... If we observe how, under the pressure of this treaty of peace, >>>> the Dionysian power revealed itself, we shall now recognize... the >>>> significance of festivals of world-redemption and transfiguration." >>>> (Nietzsche) >>>> >>>> I'll nod again to Dionysian being equatable with pre-intellectual >>>> awareness, expressed as the "tendency towards dissolution" in the >>>> following, "In the Dionysian dithyramb man is incited to the greatest >>>> exaltation of all his symbolic features; something never before >>>> experienced struggles for utterance - the annihilation of the the veil >>>> of Maya, Oneness as the soul of the race, and of nature itself." >>>> (Nietzsche) >>>> >>>> Moq_Discuss mailing list >>>> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. >>>> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org >>>> Archives: >>>> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ >>>> http://moq.org/md/archives.html >>>> >>>> >>> Moq_Discuss mailing list >>> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. >>> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org >>> Archives: >>> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ >>> http://moq.org/md/archives.html >>> >> >> > > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > -- "finite players play within boundaries. Infinite players play *with* boundaries." Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
