Sunday, March 05, 2006

Why I hate philosophy (but always come crawling back like a scared little girl)


It seems that debates over the logical conclusions resulting from logical conclusions have been centering around "postmodernism"-- whatever that means. As far as I see it, western rationalism interprets reality in an order somewhat resembling:

1. Biological recognition through sensation: hear, touch, feel, get burned!
2. Immediate "emotional" categorization-- assign the perception to one of two places: pay attention and remember or ignore.
3. OH i'm bored and lazy already. Lets skip a few steps.
4. Rationalism identifies the true nature of reality: nothing has objective value. Objective value is an illusion placed on an object/idea/behavior/etc. by the valuer. Value does exist, however it is determined by the limits of a system which are invented by a particular frame of consciousness. The limits of a frame of consciousness result from: survival necessity (nature), intrinsic artistic beauty (some bastard child of the survival necessity), and *eh em* nurture (for god sakes, I love E.T. no matter how sentimental I know it is. I love Reeses Pieces too). Sometimes value is shared by groups of people, sometimes not. (as a side note, I'm convinced that most "agreements" are a result of miscommunication. If spoken/written language was nearly as precise as our pure thoughts are, we would find that the subtleties of difference are humongous. But who knows, really?)
5. In other words, pure rationalism = nihilism.
5(a). Nihilism sucks.
6. Postmodernism says there is no objective value because we all place our own value on things. But even this observation has no objective value. The value of looking at things objectively is also an illusion. In a strange turn of events, postmodernism says to the observer/academic/gaunt cynic from the underground: Hello!! are you going to be part of the human race or are you just going to translate experience into an incredibly inefficient language of "if this, then that."
7. Rationalism, when not taken to its ultimate logical conclusion, is a mystical wonder that brings us buggies without horses and self-cooling houses and theories and berries* and cherries* (*all spoken with mid-western accent)
8. Rationalism, when taken to its logical conclusion, is a bitch that ignores the cries of her only child because, well... why not?


I hate philosophy because it teases a human out of their humanity. But once the human has entered that cold, naked place, oh how greatful they are for their fickle desires and senseless appreciations of beauty which require no philosophy to experience, but a shit load to explain.

But when there's not enough manual labor in one's life, they tend towards "higher things" and in our limitless boredom, we indulge in intellectualism like me on sour skittles... and eventually the tastebuds are burnt out and everything tastes like hurting.

Of course, I'm completely wrong about all of this. I'm generalizing, and incredibly lazy in my approach. I'm even indulging. Not to mention hypocritical.

Blah.

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