30.EPILOGUE.73: December 23, 2003 --
INFINITY.
"*30*."
PART TWO: "Being Cornered."
O!
Brian Cotts!
Of all the Brian Cottses
You are the Brian Cottsiest!
-- L. V. Pelt
ONTOLOGY FOR DUMMIES
Tired argument, begin:
As far as I am concerned,
I am real-- to me. I am generating these words you are reading, I
am the voice in your head. In as far as you have a head, in as far
as you are real, in as far as you can imagine my voice (even if you don't
really know what my voice sounds like). And even if you don't know
what my voice sounds like, you can (and presumably have) invented your
own-- probably somehow patterned on your own voice. Unless you don't
read by "hearing" a "voice" in your head. There are other ways of
reading that do not rely upon the illusion of an audible narrative being
relayed by an imaginary storyteller.
However, as far as you are
concerned, I am partly a construct of your imagination-- I say partly because
these words do not originate from you. They are generated by me.
Even if they do lay in a state of raw potential, requiring your perceptions
in order to make them mean something. And, of course, because they
mean what I want them to mean, as well as what you want them to mean, their
ultimate meaning lies somewhere between what I think they "mean" and what
you think they "mean." It is all very, very complex.
Thus, you exist, to be sure,
but in another state, a state that is partially real and partly irreal.
And I also exist, in a sense, in that same sort of blended state.
A construct of my words, and how my words are perceived-- created as a
convenient fiction by you, much in the same way as I create you.
And so, there's me: caught
between how I want to be perceived, and how you want to perceive me-- and
of course how I really perceive myself and how you perceive me. You,
of course existing as a plural even if I envision you as a singular.
And me really a singular, but perceived by multiple yous in multiple ways,
so also a plurality.
And this just partially
touches on the complexities of simply reading *30* (as well as reading
everything else)-- a kind of basic interaction between reader and writer
that's so familiar to everyone that really it doesn't even seem alien until
you really start to think about it. And, I am just touching on these
complexities, and in an overtly simplistic manner.
And this you-I fusion is
tricky enough to deal with at times. And still, there's the matter
of keeping *30* under control. And of course, the problem of endings.
Have I lost control of *30*?
Yes, and no. It's hard to explain what I mean by losing control,
or not really having control of *30* when I am also in control. And
this creates a tension in *30*. In all writing, really, but right
now, really in *30*.
Between wanting to end and
not wanting to end. Being able to end and not being able to end.
Wanting to end and not being able to end.
I don't expect you to understand
this. But at the same time, I do.
SPLIT CHAIN VICTORY
"That's hardly fair."
"What do you mean?"
"What happens to Bob and
Heather."
I shrug.
"That's life," I say.
"Next question, please."
"No."
"Next question, please."
"What happens to them is
so-- so jaded. So bitter. Life isn't that bad."
I shrug again.
"I'm waiting. Next
question."
"I don't even know if I
want to ask it."
"The grid's got forever.
So do I. The longer this takes, the longer *30* will be happy.
Forestalling The End, that sorta thing. So, whatever. I've
got all the time I need."
She sighs.
"You're an asshole.
Why are you being such an asshole. I know you're not really this
much of an asshole."
"Okay. I was just
kidding, okay. Bob and Heather, they live the rest of their lives
happy and in love and their love grows stronger and stronger each day.
They fulfill each other in every way possible and, well, hell, they don't
even die. By the time they're in their 80s life extension techniques
have made everyone immortal and they can even de-age you so Bob and Heather
live forever in each other's arms, an eternal, loving pair becoming a living
metaphor, a representation made flesh of the ideals all healthy citizens
of this miraculous new global culture aspire towards. I was just
funnin' ya with all that ugly stuff."
She sighs again.
"Okay," she says.
"This isn't really quite what I'd expected when I came here."
"It's not really what I
expected, either."
"Right then," momentarily
defeated, or at least strategically withdrawing, "I know I'm going to regret
asking this, but what, exactly, does the title "30" mean?"
BACKSLIP
Going on holidays with my parents,
back when I was little. Mom and Dad in the front seat, me in the
back with my Star Trek books and sundry Science Fiction novels,
and comics.
Nights when the sky clouded
over because it was so hot and we had a thunderstorm and how the thunder
would keep me awake. And I'd watch the lightning on the wall, but
still I'd be relaxed somehow. The sound of the rain relaxing me.
And this one time I was really really little and there was this storm with
hail the side of golf balls and the hail battered the house and the rain
fell and fell and fell, flooding the city. And the afterwards me
and Dad went out walking and there was, like, these guys with a canoe paddling
down one of the streets.
In the University library,
the first year at University, looking out the window and down at the parking
lot. Wondering what I'm doing there, feeling kind of excited, living
out of my backpack.
The first time I ever read
Life
In Hell, years before Matt Groening created The Simpsons.
Back when Groening's life really and honestly was hell, and the
strip radiated an enraged futility. And everything he had to say
about childhood was utterly true, and infinitely bleak.
The first time I heard Laurie
Anderson.
The first time I read William
S. Burroughs.
The first time I ever really
read Robert Anton Wilson.
A COMPLEX SIMPLEX
"Well, okay. Some of this
has already been dealt with much earlier, but it's been a long time since
this has come up, so I'll recap a bit, and then move on."
"If you have to."
Wary.
"This is gonna be a long
one," I say.
She sighs.
"Well, you asked me."
"I guess."
"To begin with, like you
actually said a little while ago, the number '30' is typographical code
for 'end,' 'over,' 'fini,' 'done,' whatever else sort of along the lines
of finality. And I've mentioned this before, I think, too.
It's been a while, though. I think it was near the end of 1999.
But, anyway, I mean, *30* itself deals with a lot of this kind of stuff.
This kind of 'end' stuff. So, let's look at the title *30* as meaning
'The End.' 'The End' is the thing that anchors *30*. And, in
a sense, it's as simple as that. But it's also more complex, if you
look closer. And I put the asterisks there just because I kind of
like the way they look."
"But the end of what?"
"Well, like I said, *30*
deals with all sorts of 'end' stuff. So, the end of everything, primarily.
Keep in mind that-- even though it's slowed down a bit because now it's
the 21st Century, and we might be moving into some new sort of landscape,
or maybe not, the last bits of the 20th Century were the 'post'-everything
years. Everything was happening after everything else.
'Post' became a catchword for, well, everything. There was postmodernism,
post-history,
post-science,
post-art,
post-philosophy,
post-everything.
And you can add 'ism's to any of these 'ism'less categories, too-- if you
want to have some real fun. Make up your own.
"And so, the last few decades
of the 20th century seemed to be happening after the ends of everything.
It was the end times. The time after the end of modernism, the time
after the end of history, the time after the end of art, science, everything.
There was a sense that the entire global culture had gone as far as it
could go. These were the 'end' times, these were the '30' times.
"And in relation to that,
*30*'s trajectory has become kind of weird. It was begin just before
the end of the century, and it kept going. I was writing right in
the thick of the plateau of the 'post'-times, and now the whole 'post'-thing
has waned, 'post-' is now 'post,' and even though nothing has replaced
it, it's still old news. So, now, looking back, this is the time
after the end of 'postmodernism', and it's just like the 'postmodern' times."
"I never really understood
that whole postmodern thing."
"It's hard to get your brain
around unless you really keep abreast of what's going on in the worlds
of thought, and science, and art-- which has become increasingly difficult
to do because the general public is still, more or less, stuck back in
the 60s or early 70s as far as big intellectual trends are concerned."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, take a look at today's
young rebels. They're all either existentialists or protesters--
things that came into their highest vogue in, in the case of activism,
the late 60s and very early 70s, and, as far as existentialism is concerned,
the 1950s and early 60s.
"And yet, they seem unwilling
to or unable to understand, or unaware that, all their activism is being
sold to them by corporate structures. All the 'culture jammers' and
Michael Moore-ites, and No Logo people are being sold concern as
if it was a product. And this is very postmodern, but they don't
see it as such. Instead, they prefer to believe they're in some way
carrying on this legacy of activism that begin in the 1960s, when in fact
the structures they oppose are relying on their opposition to keep on functioning
and sell their activism to them. I think it's actually kind of funny,
but these new young rebels (and I include members of my own generation
in this mess, as well) are simply recycling tired slogans from years ago,
without really looking at the intellectual climate of today. And
in so doing they're still buying the requisite books on Che Guevara, polemics
by Sartre, and let's not forget Kerouac. They like the Beats-- they
like Kerouac and Ginsberg-- but they don't like Burroughs because Burroughs
doesn't fall in line with their simplistic bohemian activist worldviews."
SHE: "What about all
the irony, all the postmodern weirdness and the deconstructors that all
came out a while ago? David Foster Wallace and Dave Eggers and all
that crew? Those guys all seemed more complex than that."
ME: "Those people
are, actually, it turns out, sort of in the minority. It's all, sadly,
just a few writers that have (or rather had) really good marketing people
behind them. And, also, you're looking at the world as it was a few
years ago. Before the big rollover into the 21st Century. Back
then, in those long-forgotten days of Y2K panic and intellectual chic,
it was actually hip to be seen reading books-- and not just any books but
books by difficult readers like Derrida or Baudrillard or David Foster
Wallace-- and this was, what, three, four years ago, but now almost nobody
knows who these people are. Except for a few already outdated 20-something
hipsters and a handful of weirdoes like me who haven't given up the process
of perpetual thought.
"But, for the majority,
these writers have faded into obscurity among the 'intellectual' youth--
and they did it with terrifying rapidity. But people like Sartre
or the Beats are still going strong. This is because the new stuff
that's coming out now is incredibly difficult. Very hard to get your
brain around. And people like Kerouac are, well, I hate to say they're
simplistic... but they are. The idea that you can just drop out of
society is overly simple, and doesn't work-- it destroys you. And
by the same token, you can't let yourself be consumed by society, either--
that also destroys you.
"And also, some of the postmodern
brainiac writers-- like Eggers and Wallace-- also, sadly tend to regress
into a kind of simplistic white man's Capitalistic guilt and WASP
narcissism that's just as simple and ridiculous as the Beat drop-out ideal.
"And as far as Existentialism
is concerned, at its core it's actually okay-- all meaning is based in
humanity and we must except responsibility for our own actions within social
structures, because there is no authority higher than us. Okay.
I kind of believe that, sure. But the problem is that most people
who say they're existentialists don't really follow the precepts they want
you to think they do.
"(But nobody does that.)
"Also, Existentialism thinks
it's The Truth-- it doesn't seem to realize that if there 's no meaning
outside of human perceptions and logic systems, it-- by virtue of being
the result of a set of human perceptions, is also relative. It has
meaning only if we believe in it. And yet it sets itself up as absolute
Truth. This is why it's popular. It's both reductionistic while
seeming to be all encompassing and 'wise' and 'mature.' After all
nothing can be more 'mature' than always saying that you're taking responsibility
for your own actions. But still, it's a system that's just as relative
as all systems out there, and thusly, also a lie. This is a complex
idea, to believe in something as truth that you know is not true-- and
Existentialism doesn't make that final leap. It believes that it
is The Truth, not just another theory.
"This is where Sartre falls
apart. There is still a 'truth' in Existentialism, and a stable self
that's the arbiter of the world, not something that's also just as in-flux
as 'the truth.' And this is why Existentialism still appeals.
Because it tells people who believe in it that they're absolutely right.
"And then, of course, Sartre
got involved with Socialism. And this gives him really good cross-over
potential, so people with simplistic Socialistic viewpoints can also claim
to be something as 'deep' as an Existentialist, and then they can lecture
about both personal responsibility and some sort of vague duty to the State
that essentially goes against most tenets of human behaviour and mammalian
reflex.
"But I digress."
LAST SIGN
Discovering Robert Anton Wilson
at a very young age:
I was maybe 6 or 7 years
old. I saw copies of the three books of The Illuminatus! Trilogy
at a little bookstore in Medicine Hat, Alberta. It was a summer afternoon.
Mom and Dad and I were visiting my aunt and uncle. I had no idea
what the books were about. I just saw these pyramids on the front
covers. They were sorta colourful, and the books seemed sorta strange.
Like maybe they were Science Fiction, or maybe they weren't. I stared
at them for a while, and then we left.
It's one of my earliest
memories.
But I forgot about the books,
because I was so young, and years later-- I was maybe 10, or 11 or 12--
it was spring and I was in a bookstore in a mall that was only a few blocks
away from where I lived. And I saw a copy of The Final Secret
Of The Illuminati. And I saw that pyramid again. And suddenly
the memory of those other weird books with the other weird pyramids flooded
back. And I knew, somehow, that this book was somehow connected to
those books. And so I bought it, and I tried reading it, and I didn't
really get it, but it seemed cool.
(This was in the very early
1980s and for some reason there were a lot of bizarre New Age and Paranormal
and just plain weird books in paperback everywhere.)
Then, shortly thereafter,
I found copies of those three Illuminatus! books. And also
the Schrödinger's Cat books, a short while after that.
And they were all just in mainstream bookstores, sitting beside the bestsellers
and Harlequin romances.
I never read Illuminatus!
as separate books, though. I just couldn't get into them, back then.
But when they were released in a 1-volume set sometime in 1983-- that was
when I finally read the books.
And they were like nothing
I'd ever read before. I was already reading Vonnegut, and maybe they
were kind of like Vonnegut, in a way. But not really. And this
was also before I read William S. Burroughs, but not much before.
This was also before I discovered
Pynchon, but again, maybe not much before.
Burroughs, Pynchon, Wilson,
all that weird stuff-- I discovered it all around the same time.
It was kind of like an explosion of weirdness and coolness. All this
bizarre stuff found its way into my brain at once. It was like I'd
made a quantum jump in literature and philosophy. And yet, because
of my sense of time, back then, when I was younger, this quantum explosion
seemed to take decades. It seems like forever between my discovery
of Illuminatus! and my discovery of Pynchon.
And it was because of Robert
Anton Wilson that I got into James Joyce. Wilson idolized Joyce in
his books and that made me curious. Also, Wilson used Joycean techniques
when writing (although at the time I didn't know that Wilson was writing
in any sort of "Joycean" style)-- stream of consciousness stuff, weird
puns, leaps in time and space-- but still noting compared to what Joyce
did. But, it was after parusing Illuminatus! that I went into
a dusty old antiquarian bookstore and found my first copy of Ulysses.
And, again, this was still in Grade 9. And I couldn't really read
it, but what I scanned made me feel weird. Then I discovered that
Joyce had another book called Finnegans Wake. It took a bit
of digging, but by Grade 10 I finally found a copy. It made even
less sense than Ulysses, but it still made me feel weird and cool.
It was also through Wilson
that I discovered Aleister Crowley. I'd never heard of the guy before,
let alone known who and or what he was, but Wilson seemed to like him and
that was good enough for me. And then, when I found out that Crowley
was some sort of demented amoral Victorian mage, I was totally confused.
How could Wilson seem to be in love with weird, high-end science stuff
like quantum physics-- and yet he got off equally on the esoteric ramblings
of this freaky, nihilistic weirdo who called himself The Great Beast 666
and made all sorts of obviously ludicrous claims about being able to break
the laws of nature?
And, yet, somehow, it all
made sense because Wilson was such a skeptic-- about everything-- and I
"skeptic" this is in the real sense of the term, as someone who distrusts
it
all, everything. Scientists have adopted the term "skeptic"
and mutated it so it means people who distrust everything except that which
can be "proven" by scientific method-- and then they blindly and dogmatically
believe what they've "proven" much like a priest believes scripture-- even
though scientists will tell you otherwise-- much, again, like a priest
who looks for "proofs" that fit his own worldview. But a true skeptic--
and Wilson was (and still is) a true skeptic-- doubts everything.
Even the nose in front of his face. Because how do you really know
it's there? The best you have, are approximations, theories, your
own fallible senses.
Etc, etc, etc.
BACK TO FRONT / FRONT TO BACK
And:
"Back to the postmoderns.
Unlike people like Sartre and Kerouac, hardcore postmodern writers are
difficult to grasp. And they're not blind utopians. They tend
to see the world more as it is: a mess with no readily available simple
solution. And because they're so very aware of the different possibilities
inherent in presenting text, they're kind of difficult to read-- because
they want to alert you to the possibility that everything is text by constantly
(sometimes subtly, sometimes not so subtly) reminding you that you're reading,
and that there's no fixed centre to anything. Their ideas are not
simple because the world they portray is not simple, and so their writing
is also not simple. It is dense with information, some of it inherently
vague and contradictory-- because that's the world they're describing.
The contemporary world. Not the idealized world of the Existentialists
and the Beats.
"The Beats and the Existentialists
still live in a world that isn't drowning in waves and waves of contradictory
data that make even the most simple expressions inherently self-contradictory.
They can afford the fantasy of a stable worldview.
"And so the (then) 'hip'
writers like Derrida, or Pynchon are ultimately very challenging because
they stretch the limits of intelligibility-- because what they are talking
about is so very difficult to pin down, by its very nature. Like
the world.
"And okay, maybe David Foster
Wallace, okay, maybe he's not so tough to read-- just really wordy-- and
Dave Eggers, too. But this mechanism still functions within their
writing as well, to a certain degree, because they are both so self-aware."
"Yeah," she says, "but nothing
is that complex."
"Spoken like a true displaced
child of the 60s who believes that traveling the land on a motorcycle and
plotting Socialist revolutions actually will usher in a new age
of Beauty and Truth where everyone will simply work selflessly for the
good of the whole. Despite what human nature tells us.
"In fact, however, there
are
things that are that complex. And, whenever people say things like
'nothing is that complex' I immediately suspect that person of reductionism
and propaganda. The idea that the world is simple is bullshit.
It's bullshit that is the result of people not wanting to live up to their
intellectual potentials, choosing instead to submit themselves to higher
authorities (whatever these authorities may be) because it's easier to
be lazy and have someone else do all the thinking than it is to deal with
the messy gray that is the universe.
"The idea that 'nothing
is that complex' is the kind of thinking that's fueling both sides of the
political world right now. The Right believes it's absolutely correct
and the Left also believes that it, the Left, is absolutely correct-- because
they both believe that the world is a very simple place, and all you have
to do is just do what we say, follow our simple rules, Right or Left, and
then all your thinking is done for you. Just hate the 'enemy' as
we define the 'enemy' and do the 'correct,' simple things and the world
will fall into place, thinking and actions all done for you in advance.
The idea that 'nothing is that complex' has partly created both the tyrannies
of the George Bush-led Right and the Michael Moore-led Left. Both
sides exist under the false assumption that there are only 2 sides, and
that one is right and the other is wrong. Whereas there is in fact
an infinity of sides, and each 'side' is equally correct and incorrect
in its own distinctive way, while sharing similarities and differences
with all the other infinite number of 'sides.' It's not 'either/or.'
Dichotomies are a fallacy. And that's partly what *30* is about.
It's never 'either / or,' and it can't be because there is always something
you miss, things always change. Everything, like I said above, is
a lie.
"But I've gotten off topic.
Sort of. In the last years of the 20th century, things went very
'post'al We were living in the time right after the end of everything.
And by this, I mean:
"There was a sense that
history was over, because of the seemingly inevitable dominance of Capitalism.
This was the result of the collapse of every significant Communistic government
except for two-- Cuba and China. And there are seeds of Capitalism
growing in those governments as well.
"The reason the dominance
of Capitalism was viewed as 'the end of history' is because history was
being defined as a kind of struggle between market driven economies and
all other kinds of economies-- most notably 'Socialistic' or 'Communistic'
ones. The idea of 'market economies' had been around for a long time,
but really picked up steam in the 17th and 18th centuries with the Industrial
Revolution and the technological revolutions of the 20th century that allowed
ideas to be freely and quickly transmitted throughout the globe.
This created a kind of smoothing effect where all countries started to
share ideas and eventually, through this dissemination began to behave
like one gigantic, single supercountry. Of course, this is supposedly
'warned of' in The Bible-- which doesn't mean that it actually is in The
Bible, but just this idea of a massive one-world government has been in
the backs of people's brains for a hell of a long time-- and also kind
of freaks them out because human beings are, in large part, xenophobic
and racist, and thus need other groups of humans to hate and fear and define
themselves against. And a one-world economy / government kind of
breaks xenophobia down. Whether or not a one-world government is
a bad thing, I'll leave for you to mull over. I think it's good,
though. As long as it's not some sort of insane religious or political
dictatorship.
"Anyways, the idea here
is that history is a kind of diversity involving struggle and exploration
and the exchange of ideas-- there is a tension between groups of Others.
Whereas what's been happening since the 19th and 20th centuries is a kind
of 'same-ing,' a kind of homogenization of culture-- cultures are blending,
exploration is reaching an end-point, and ideas are being exchanged to
the degree that soon everyone will know everything every human culture
has to offer, if they so choose. And so, the idea of Others is breaking
down. And all of this has Capitalism at the helm, as the thing that
is creating this 'same-ing' of everything."
"But that's just Capitalism.
History continues."
"Sure, it does, pragmatically--
because history is a function of time and the universe still has a lot
of time. But, with this encroaching Capitalism also comes a kind
of global conquest. And one of the things that has always defined
history is exploration. When Capitalism finally consumes the entire
globe, there will be nothing left to 'explore.' In a sense, there's
already nothing left to explore because we've mapped most everything on
the planet, and the few areas we haven't mapped are being destroyed.
This contributes to a feeling of malaise, and a sense of 'the end of history'
because we as a species have always needed to explore. And, when
there weren't 6 billion of us on the planet and we didn't all have tv and
phones, there was a hell of a lot to explore. Exploration gives purpose,
and a sense of purpose creates history. But, when exploration becomes
moot, and everyplace turns into a big mall, and Capitalism wins and conquers
the globe, and we don't have any place new to go and nothing new to see--
and every day becomes more-or-less like the last-- and so 'history' 'ends'."
"But why Capitalism?"
"It doesn't have to be Capitalism,
it could be Communism, or Islam, or whatever. Once one set of ideas
spreads everywhere and squashes alternative ideas, and exploration is nullified,
purpose ends and so does 'history.' It's just that Capitalism, especially
what we commonly believe to be American Democratic Capitalism, is flexible
enough to absorb other ideas and cultures in a way that modifies but doesn't
totally destroy them, and so also tends to nullify resistance in a way
that, say Islam can't because it's just a little too exclusionistic.
You can be a Capitalist and still practice Islam, or be a Zen Buddhist
Capitalist, if you'd like-- or whatever. You can even be a Communistic
Capitalist, now. As Communist countries are starting to discover.
"And, also, if you look
at it from, say, the point of view of the Communist countries that were
taken down by Capitalism, their history has also reached an end.
Because they have lost the race against Capitalism. The same is going
to happen to Islam, soon, too, I think. Islam is fighting, but it's
losing ground. Sure the radical factions are blowing shit up, but
soon they'll run out of people who are willing to blow themselves up, either
that or they'll be crushed by a Capitalistic world government that's really
going to start getting fed up with all these pathetic little suicide artists
with their bullshit explosions, not to mention all the beheadings of potential
customers of this Capitalistic world government. Thus, Radical Clerics
are going to be on the way out once everybody in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan,
has to start finding jobs at McDonalds in order to pay their Internet bills.
It's only a matter of time."
"But history is a record
of the past. It can never end."
"Well, yeah. When
you get right down to it, the construct 'history' can never end because
like I said, history is a way we've invented to mark the passage of what
we call time. And so it can't end until, of course, time itself ends.
But, also, history is also a construction that's bound up in the ideas
of change and exploration. And so history is only interesting when
interesting things happen. And once everything becomes the same supercountry
and everyone believes the same stuff and does the same stuff all the time
and can no longer explore anything, then life stops being interesting and
history ends."
"But, uh, you said that
it's a good thing that everything's becoming a supercountry and history
is ending."
"Yeah, I did. Because
it's the inevitable result of our evolution on this planet. We fill
up the planet and get so bored we leave it. The only thing that can--
or will-- rekindle 'history', make 'history' start over again or come back
to life, is the exploration of other worlds. It's inevitable that
we'll use up and fill this planet with life. Now, we must leave it
and there will be new purpose. And the universe is so big, there's
so much stuff to explore, that it will take much, much longer to fill it
and explore every aspect of it, than we can even imagine. And then,
once we've done that, we'll hit another 30-point, and then we can move
onto the next stage."
"Which is?"
"Damned if I know, but I
have my theories. Anyway, that's one thing that *30* means."
RUB-A-DUB
I guess, the easiest way to
explain it is that language is organic. Kind of-- or at least it
hovers between the organic and the inorganic.
(Yeah, yeah, William S.
Burroughs said "Language Is A Virus"-- we've all heard that one before.
But, really, he's right. And then there's the idea of the meme.
You can find that one in Richard Dawkins and Douglas Hofstadter.
Information that replicates like a virus: an idea or a song stuck in your
head that you transfer to someone else... that's kind of trivial when you
get right down to it. But there are more complex forms....)
And, frankly, anyone who
doesn't see language is kind of blind, and also not really a writer-- or
any other kind of artist-- because all art is language-- painting, writing,
drawing, making music, and so on-- these are all different kinds of language
and hence they are organic and have a type of existence beyond their seemingly
static forms-- and also beyond what their creators intend. And, because
of this, there is a point where they take over. Where they use you
in order to get themselves made-- it's not always not you making
them
exist.
And if you think that you,
the creator, are always in control, that you can start and stop when you
like-- and if you're not driven by the point of obsession to do your art--
then you aren't a real artist. You're merely a technician.
And so you don't have the fire, the inspiration, whatever. If you
treat art like a machine: element-A merges with element-B to make plot-C
and characters-D, -E, and -F... then, well... then you just aren't all
that inspired. Again, you're more of a technician.
And that's okay, if that's
what you want to be.
And, hey, lots of technicians
make tons of money and lead happy, healthy, fulfilled lives.
But, still:
Even if you are just a technician,
whatever you create is still organic, and still has a life beyond what
you make for it. Even if you try to constrain this random, organic,
whatever-it-is that makes language more than just a tool and a kind of
entity unto itself-- even your "technical" art, your halfhearted non-serious
attempts-- even they can still shine somehow in spite of yourself.
Because everyone has a moment
when whatever language they're using takes them over and their work becomes
more than just a technical exercise.
CONTRIVED PLOT DEVICE
Meanwhile, burbling down the consciousness stream:
i must i must make this end i must make this end i must i i i i i must
make this end i must make this end even if i even if i even if i lapse
into i temporary i temporary i temp i must i must make this end we must
make this end come with me you and i i must make this end i must make this
stop the other way of stopping cessation shafts of light trying to quit
trying to find the off switch i must make this end i must end this thing
this whale this crushing burden this bloated excuse i must i must make
this end but but no no end but but i i i i i i
THE COMPLAINT
And so, Robert Anton Wilson
became an invaluable source of craziness for me in my teens years.
He was a scientist who believed in magic. Or maybe he was a magician
that didn't believe in magic, or a scientist that didn't believe in science.
Or maybe he believed in them both-- simply as two different techniques
of organizing subjective data in ways that seem, at least for a while,
to be usefully self-consistent. A only equals A when it isn't busy
turning into B. To paraphrase Robert Anton Wilson.
And, he was funny.
He loved conspiracies.
And by conspiracies, I mean real conspiracies-- things that have
no solution, that are omnipresent and crawling, that only exist within
the realms of the human imagination (unless they don't), which makes them
very real. Not Tom Clancy-style conspiracies, conspiracies as just
a bunch of dumb political jockeying. Conspiracies, for Wilson, were
a funny, accessible, and extreme way of showing how human beings organize
the subjectivity of their world into meaningful, absurd bits of dada.
And then build entire societies and philosophies and political edifices
around this dada. And then go mad trying to use these edifices to
uncover some sort of "truth."
The more bizarre the theory,
the better Wilson liked it.
He called himself a "Discordian"
and claimed to worship the Goddess Eris. But he didn't. But
he did.
And Discordianism was (and
still is) a "religion disguised as a joke" that Wilson and some of his
friend started as a prank in the 1960s-- and maybe all religions were first
started as pranks, and then the world fell for it all. And Discordianism
has since filtered throughout culture in many subtle, nefarious, occasionally
wonderful-- but sadly mostly annoying and childish-- ways. But, in
highschool it was the holy grail.
A Discordian believes that
chaos begets chaos and all is chaos. Even when chaos begets order,
chaos uses the order to beget more chaos-- because order never lasts and
it always collapses into chaos. And once order collapses, the chaos
that results is always worse than the pre-order chaos. Entropy as
a religious principle.
And, of course, always keep
in mind that chaos and order are only human concepts that exist in the
minds of humans and so neither have a real bearing on the reality of reality
in any way. And so, even the doctrines of Discordianism are subject
to instant deconstruction into dada-- because that's what they always were.
Like every mode of human thought.
Jacques Derrida says deconstruction
is always already present in every text. And Discordianism says that
chaos is always already present in every everything. Both of these
two ideas (which collapse under their own inherent shakiness, like every
idea does) are essentially the same. And I love them both.
Discordianism filled my
brain with dangerous goofiness and led me to question everything, even
my own questioning. And it also caused me to almost fail Biology
because I got way too hung up on the fact that no one knows why a cell
works, just how it works, and only then sorta. And because my Biology
teacher couldn't explain to me why a cell works, I drove her nuts.
And so I was unable to take the leap of faith I needed to progress beyond
the basics because I simply could not move on until I figured out why--
but every answer just led to another why-- and so she gave me a 55.
And she probably thought I was just being a jackass when, really, I was
experiencing one of my first real ontological crises.
But it was still funny when
she couldn't answer any of my questions.
She was cute, too.
STABILITY
"*30* also means The End Of
Logic, and The End Of Stable Meanings, in other words The End Of Philosophy--
and this is wrapped up in The End Of The Century."
"Huh?"
"Logic only goes so far.
Postmodernism, particularly what is colloquially knows as 'deconstruction,'
has shown that, despite the histrionic screaming of logicians who want
to believe otherwise. And deconstruction (but not 'Deconstructionism'--
anyone who uses that term is an idiot who doesn't know the first thing
about deconstruction or the world he/she lives in) has also shown that
meanings are unstable. This is because the universe is very complex,
and language is very complex, etc. etc. etc.
"And so, basically, in the
late 20th century, Philosophy 'ended'."
"What do you mean?"
"All meaning was shown to
be unstable. And any attempt to return stability to meaning simply
unwound itself. This is because each word is defined by what it exists
in relation to, not simply by what it is. In order to know what a
cat is, you must first know what 'cat,' is not, and you must also posses
a concept of 'catness' that is different from a concept of, for example,
'dogness'-- and 'dogness' is in turn understood in relation to all the
other things 'dogness' is not, and so on. This is an extreme oversimplification
of Poststructuralist theory. And of a certain element in Structuralist
theory as well. And, naturally, this applies to more than just words,
including the way we define the entire world around us. This makes
all meaning unstable because every concept and observation must, therefore,
in some way, 'contain' (and I know that the metaphor of 'containment' fails,
here, but it's the best one I have) what it is not as well as what it is.
For example, both sides of a dichotomy are dependent upon each other in
a very deep, basic way that causes them to inextricably intertwine and
parasitize each other. And, it goes without saying, this applies
to all things, not just to the two halves of a dichotomy-- it's just that
an equation with only two parts is easier to picture than an equation with
a hundred thousand.
"Thus, by focusing on perception,
language, thought, reality, etc., in such a close way, you destabilize
perception, language, thought, reality, etc. Even the idea of the
True depends upon what is False in order to have existence. Thus,
the True cannot ever really be separated from the False. There will
always be elements of Truth in Falsehood and Falsehood in Truth.
"And, identity functions
the same way. You cannot be you without existing in relation to all
others, or even, if you are alone, imagined or invented others-- and the
idea of the Other here includes your environment-- not just the rest of
humanity, but everything that isn't you. And even you, or
the idea of the 'I,' is in constant flux.
"And this, like I said,
is very, very over-simplified. So if you're having trouble with it,
I don't blame you. But I have to touch on these ideas in order to
give you a sense of the way thought turned in postmodern times. Even
in the world of Modernism, these ideas were being mulled over and fretted
over, and worked with. But the Modernists and Structuralists pulled
back (most of them anyway), while paying lipservice to the idea of complete
interrelationship and conceptual (and even in some cases physical) intersubjectivity--
the Modernists still hung onto the idea of the machine, the thing that
has parts, or 'structures' (hence 'structuralism') that function in distinct
ways that are related to, and measured against, other parts, but which
are still basically distinct. The Structuralist viewpoint goes, Yeah,
sure, there's some intermingling, but things are still more rigid than
homogenous. But Poststructuralists said, No, it's really all more
homogenous, everything is a homogenous mush-- texts (and hence realities)
and more like puddings than machines. (Even though some Structuralists
/ Modernists also came to that conclusion eventually, too.) And,
again, this sort of destabilizes everything because it generates a worldview
where everything is permitted-- even if sometimes common sense seems to
suggest it's not.
"Basically, in the late
20th Century everything gets pushed to its furthest limit-- and, by the
way, this is the culmination of a process that began in the 19th Century,
or even as far back as the 18th, depending on how you look at it.
And so, when everything can mean anything you want it to, philosophy hits
a wall and 'ends.' Science also seems to be hitting that wall, too.
But more on that, later.
"Basically, however, once
this wall is hit, this 'aporia' (that's a handy catch-phrase that means
something like 'impasse') is reached, everything becomes a game.
"And also, any attempt to
return to any kind of stability becomes just a naïve return to the
past, a past that has already been shown to be a fiction."
"How so?"
"In this postmodern world,
you see, everything becomes a kind of text. And so the past is only
known through what's recorded or remembered. And both recordings
and memories are subjective, are fictions. And also, in the world,
the only thing you have to really work with are the different kinds of
evidence, or texts, that you perceive-- but, everything contains everything
else if you look hard enough, so your perceptions must be adjusted by your
ever-shifting self to fall in line with parameters that you yourself set
up in order to render a thing intelligible. Again, an oversimplification,
but that's what was in the air back then, and it's still in the air now.
"And, of course, keep in
mind that the instability of everything is also, by its very nature, a
fiction as well. So everything, in the late 20th Century, collapsed
into relativism. And we're trying to dig ourselves out of this relativism
now. But we can't and we never will, not without a recourse to some
kind of fascism that forces you to ignore that everything is, ultimately,
relative. And always has been."
"That's annoying."
"No. It's just finally
owning up to the idea that everything is a lie, and everything is always
wrong, even if a provisional 'correctness' can be temporarily established.
And it's an idea that's been around since the dawn of thought, but it's
also an idea that people, until very recently, have had a problem accepting.
People always want to be right, they want to be True. They want to
posses the Truth. And philosophy is an attempt to define what's right,
what's True, and then posses this Truth-- ditto religion and science.
However, because in the end of the 20th Century everything was cast into
relativism, Truth itself became relative, like it always has been.
And this became widely accepted, very briefly, in certain very powerful
circles, for a short period of time. And from there it started an
inevitable trickle down to the masses. And now everything is subjective.
The phrase 'everything's relative' would not have been possible 200 years
ago. Or at least not widely understood. And even now it's not
totally understood because everyone wants to be on the top of the heap
and be the one with The Truth-- imposing their relativity on everyone else,
all the while saying that everything's relative-- like I'm doing right
now. But, still, all ideas are in a sense informed by this relativity,
now, even anti-relative ones.
"This is partly because
in the 19th Century Western culture underwent something colorfully known
as 'the death of God', meaning that people started breaking away from the
organizational structures found within the Christian Church. This
was caused by, among other things, a growing disheartening in the public
with their religious institutions, and by the swelling movement begun in
the 17th century that put human intellect at the centre of all things.
The idea of 'Man' started becoming the measure of the universe, not ideas
foisted upon individuals by religious institutions. Institutions
that, frankly, had long ago lost touch with themselves and their own ideas.
Of course, in order to replace 'God' people turned to politics-- The State--
as some sort of organizational principle. Because people inherently
want organizational principles. And so even the idea that organizational
principles are fictions must be framed within an organizational framework.
Otherwise we get confused."
BEAUTY GENE
Scene: Leaning on a cosmetics counter, bored, trying on eye-liner.
BRIAN: So there's this thing.
BOB: A thing.
BRIAN: A beauty gene.
BOB: Beauty gene.
BRIAN: Some sort of gene that's supposed to govern what we perceive
to be beautiful.
BOB Well, I buy that there's probably a genetic basis for our ability
to discern beauty.
BRIAN: Sure, but I have a problem with the implication that the
gene also determines what we define as beautiful. Apparently, however,
there have been studies that suggest that we have an innate sense of universal
beauty. For example both white and black men will look more at a
"beautiful" black woman than an "unattractive" one, suggesting that there
is a universal "beauty."
BOB: That doesn't make sense.
BRIAN: No. It doesn't. Because it's been shown throughout
history that what people consider to be beautiful changes every few
centuries, and is culturally dependent.
BOB: Yeah. But there are still those people who claim that
the Greek ideals of beauty are universal. Which I find hard to believe--
that people, thousands of years later, still hold up these ideals-- but
some seem to. There are people who still suffer from such an over
inflated opinion of Greek culture that-- well-- I dunno-- that contemporary
society even now suffers from at least aspects of this bogus "universal"
ideal. But the facts are that it changes.
BRIAN: Yeah. Once, and for a long time, fat / chubby people--
especially women-- were considered to be beautiful, and now thin people
are considered beautiful. Women with really long necks are considered
beautiful in certain African tribes, in others, no. And in some cultures
consider nose size important-- the bigger or smaller the nose the more
beautiful you are. The Greeks themselves used to consider small penises
to be a sign of perfection, and now the larger the guy's schlong is the
better. So even that has changed.
BOB: Female armpit hair used to be considered a sign of sensuality
in Western culture-- particularly in the 18th-19th Centuries-- there are
references to "shading" in all sorts of-- well, usually porn. But
porn can be a good place to go if you wanna see what a society deems to
be attractive-- and you get lots of plump people in Victorian porn, too.
Of course this is all before the dawn of the 20th Century where corporations
decided to prey on female insecurity and generate a beauty industry by
broadly announcing that women must shave and be skinny in order to be attractive.
And thus things were reversed. And what was, frankly, just a marketing
scheme to sell razors and deodorants became a cultural norm that very few
people question and treat as a given.
BRIAN: However the Ancient greeks tended to singe off their body
hair in order to look younger. But there are other cultures that
don't. And so on. I have no problem with there being a gene
that regulates the perceptions of beauty, but what is considered to be
beautiful is still culturally conditioned.
BOB: It has to be, because of what history implies.
BRIAN: What I see happening here is both fascinating and kind
of dangerous. Science is beginning to shape the subjective.
However, because of science's habit of claiming that it has all the solutions
to every problem at any given time-- and because of the general public's
blind faith in science because it frankly don't know any better and needs
to place its deposed religiosity somewhere because the Church has been
revealed to be wrapped in so many layers of hypocrisy and bullshit-- people
are going to accept these scientific "truths" in a very dogmatic way.
For a while.
BOB: In a way, it's kind of despicable. Saying that there's
gene that determines what we find beautiful and what we find ugly is the
same as saying that there's a gene that makes people Christians as opposed
to Zen Buddhists-- and vice versa. Of course there's a gene that
points to a kind of behaviour in a broad way, but no gene can determine
specifics. Otherwise, we would all find the same things beautiful.
And we don't.
BRIAN: Look at me. I do not find the "beautiful" people
on the "beautiful" list all that compelling. To me, what this culture
has defined to be "beautiful," I find almost uniformly bland. We're
talking, here about the majority of the icons of "beauty" that the media
tends to shove down my throat. I find them bland and uninspiring.
I also do not understand the "blond and beautiful myth" and in fact I find
it kind of sad. I do not find Christina Aguilera all that compelling,
I do not find Britney Spears all that beautiful, and I do not see what
the big bloody deal with Lindsey Lohan is, or Tara Reid for that matter.
And I have never found supermodels attractive unless they were really "different"
looking like Irina Pantaeva. Maybe I don't posses a very strong "beauty
gene." And, frankly, all this crap is starting to smell like eugenics.
BOB: Next thing you're going to tell me that there's a God gene.
You look cute in purple, by the way.
BRIAN: Weelllllll....
AND GUESS WHERE YOU CAN CRAM THAT TWIG...
"Anyway, in the early 20th Century,
this interest in The State as the primary organizational principle started
falling apart because of, among other things, World War 1.
"And, I'm aware that people
were still patriotic during World War 1, and still blindly followed government
and its irrational commands. But on the whole, the experience of
the world's first major technological war tended to jade citizens when
it came to thinking about the State and its relation to individuals-- at
least in the realm of things like territorial battles, and petty politics,
and so on. Also, World War 1 was supposed to be the 'war to end all
wars' and all it did was start more, and worse wars. So things like
that tended to turn things like blind patriotism on its ear-- at least
a little bit, because remember World War 1 was maybe the beginning of this
sort of mass questioning of the roll of The State. The beginning
of a long process.
"Of course, years later,
World War 2 created a new interest in and belief in the State as a primary
organizational principle, at least among the 'allies' who won that war.
And so everyone had a few years of optimism and relative utopia.
But the seeds of discontent had already been sewn during WW1, and by the
late 1960s, everything collapsed.
"Anyway, during WW1 and
after during the Great Depression-- before short hopeful interlude where
people thought they believed in stuff again-- but don't worry, during the
60s, it all picked up again. Anyway, during the World War 1 time,
people started questioning the authority of The State much in the same
way that they questioned The Church earlier. This kind of political
disheartening-- you might notice-- happened much quicker than the disheartening
people felt with the Church. This was partly due to the inescapable
recognition that The State is a man-made institution and hence subject
to the fallibilities of subjective humankind-- unlike The Church which
was (until about the 17th Century) perceives as being a Divine-- not a
man-made-- institution, and hence not fallible and corruptible and relative
in the same was as The State fallible, corruptible, and relative.
Another reason for the beginnings of this disheartening is the increase
in communications technologies.
"This late 19th-early 20th
Century period is colloquially, and quaintly, known as The Modern Age.
This is because the artists and philosophers of the time, wanting to remain
forever contemporary, dubbed it this. And it sounded good.
So it stuck.
"Modernism is a philosophy
of technology and information. Modernist writing is dense and filled
with references to other writing, and other ideas, and other technologies.
Also, it is (on the whole) very interested in the study of the mind.
Psychology-- while begun in the 19th Century-- is a very Modern practice.
Modernism is also very scientific.
"But, it is also aware of
the relativism inherent in the mind of the perceiver. A lot of Modernist
art relies upon the subjectivity of the experiencer to make sense of it,
or portrays subjective states of mind. Modernism is also interested
in referencing the past, and recontextualizing it somewhat in the perceptions
of individuals.
"However, in Modernism,
there is still Truth. This Truth is individual, but still somehow
universal. It is the Truth of the mind, of the identity's way of
making things seem real. There is still a core belief in reality
to Modernism. And also the belief that Art can make things right.
Art can provide the Truth that the State and Religion had failed to capture.
"This, of course, falls
apart because Art is just too vague to be True-- even more vague and man-made
than The State-- because it's far too personal. So next comes Postmodernism
which amplifies the skepticism of the Modernists, and does away with the
notion of any sort of absolute. In Modernism there was still a belief
in the Truth inherent in Art, and there were hierarchies of Art-- High
and Low Art. And while they may be blended in a Modernist work, they
are still High and Low. Postmodernism says everything is equal.
Everything is relative. And even the beliefs of the individual are
just a big game. There is no Right or Wrong, Good or Evil, High or
Low. Everything is contextual-- and even Art cannot really access
any kind of universal Truth. And even personal truth is a shifting
game based on nothing. And so everything is subjective, and because
of this subjectivity any attempts at any kind of sweeping universal statement
must be taken with a big dose of irony.
"In Postmodernism, like
I said earlier, everything is a text. Everything is information--
unlike Modernism where there are texts, but there is still a core social,
or individual reality that makes these texts. And so, in Modernism
there is still a kind of separation between individual and text.
Because even if an individual is made up of texts, there is still a kind
of True Being hidden somewhere within those texts-- a kind of 'soul,' even
if many Modernists would disagree with my calling it a 'soul' because the
word 'soul' seems naïve. In Postmodernism, though, texts are
within and around texts which are just still more texts and all meaning
is fluid. There may be a 'soul' somewhere in there, but that 'soul'
is still a text.
"Also, in Modernism, you
have the beginning of a wide dissemination of the idea that everything
all culture has ever done is just a recycling of the past. And this
is why a lot of Modernism references the past. But in Postmodernism,
this attitude is extreme. Modernists said that there was nothing
new, but they were just paying lip service to that idea so they could seem
jaded and important and super-intellectual-- they didn't really believe
the idea at all. After all, Modernists made a lot of artistic and
intellectual innovations. Even if many of them were obscure.
So, they did do new things. While claiming, of course, that
there is nothing new under the sun. Etc.
"The Postmodern, however,
does subscribe to the idea that there is nothing new, and thus much (if
not all) Postmodern work is either a pastiche of something earlier (in
the case of art and writing), or in some way parasitic upon something else--
built out of something else. See, for example, the philosophical
writings of Jacques Derrida which are 'written around and through' other
texts. They are all reactions to other texts and turn the mechanics
of those other texts against themselves in order to make their (both Derrida's
and the other texts's) obscure points-- which in large part revolve around
some kind of nebulous undecidability and / or the ultimate interrelation
of all information and subjectivity. In the case of Postmodern science,
things just get more and more relative, and more and more vague, and in
some cases even the notion of 'proof' comes under scrutiny. And,
again, like with Postmodern art, Pomo science can trace its subjectivity
to discoveries and theories made during the Modern era."
"So, everything becomes
more and more relative."
"Exactly."
"And once you make everything
relative, all that's left is to return to the safety of the Truth that's
hidden in the past, in earlier ideas."
"Yes, and that's why right
now any advancement beyond Postmodernism isn't an advancement. Because
it's a return to the time when things were to some degree decidable.
However--"
"However?"
"However, even a return
to the past is a Postmodern strategy."
"Why?"
"Because Postmodernism is
more obsessed with appropriating the past than even Modernism. So
even if someone were to discard Postmodern thought and return to the old
constrictions of the pre-'death of God' days, that would just be a pastiche
of Truth, and hence just more Postmodernism. Despite what the intentions
of that individual were."
"So, forward and backward
become the same thing?"
"Exactly. Everything,
under the regime of Postmodernism becomes Postmodern-- even Anti-Postmodernism."
"Because it's all relative."
"Exactly. Everyone
exists in their own world. And there is no proof beyond individual
subjectivity. Except when there is, and even that's just a Postmodern
'return' to certainty. Because even notions of subjectivity and certainty
are just texts."
"Oy," she says, "my head."
"And after that, where can
you go? You're trapped. And that's 'The End Of Philosophy'.
And that's also, sort of what *30* means."
"And sometimes," she says,
"I wonder why may Mom and Dad spend so much time in Church. They
must be terrified."
"Yeah. But even that's
a Postmodern nostalgic return to pre-Postmodern times. Because, ultimately,
God is a text."
"I have a cousin" she says,
"who once told me that she can feel God everywhere. She can even
feel God in a twig."
"But feeling God in a twig
is just that, a feeling. It's individual. It's a text in reaction
to a series of texts. And it's relative. Not feeling God is
just as valid. It's all relative. It's all a text. It's
all a lie."
"Because there's no truth."
"Because we make up our
own Truth, and this pits Truth against Truth. Because you have your
Truth and I have my Truth. And, because the nature of Truth is to
be absolute, and not relative, one of these Truths has to be 'wrong.'
Individual Truth is not true Truth, because it is individual and not absolute.
So, one of these Truths must be a lie. But they are both relative
and subjective. Therefore, they are both lies. Everyone is
wrong about everything, always."
"Again, though, that's so
pessimistic."
"But not really. Because
we're all in the same boat. If people just embraced the idea that
they are wrong, all the time, maybe everyone would calm down a bit more.
The best people can hope for is a workable approximation to something they
believe to be The Truth. But it's just that, an approximation.
And even this Truth they believe in is still a relativity."
"But then they tend to get
freaked out and turn to God."
"Which is okay, as long
as they believe that their ideas of God are just that-- their ideas.
Texts, whatever. And therefore just an approximation of something
that in itself is a relative concept, itself a text. And as unprovable
as everything else. That maybe there is no absolute Truth and that
God may be an illusion."
She: "But that defeats
the purpose of God."
Me: "Not really, because
you're assuming that a human intellect can grasp something as big as God.
There could be a God-- there may not be a God-- but there still could be
a God. But anything that a human being can think of that represents
that God is still just an approximation, a guess, and still relative.
It is not true.
"But if God is really real,
and really God, by the definition of God as God any identity that human
beings place upon that entity will not be a Truth. This is because
God, as the most infinite of infinite things must be above any and all
human categories. Even the categories that we use to define it in
order to study, understand, and believe in it.
"Therefore, if there is
a God and that God is really God then God is above and bigger than everything.
And by everything, I mean everything. Everything you and I
or anyone that ever lived or will live can and will ever think of-- ever.
We will all be wrong, but because God is infinite all our thoughts will
still be aspects of it. Even the thoughts that are not about God
or against God will still be a part of God-- and only a very small, infinitely
small, part. If even that.
"We're going to be going
off the deep end, now. Do you wanna take a break?"
She thinks for a minute
and then says:
"Yeah, maybe."
30.EPILOGUE.73: December 23, 2003 --
INFINITY.