Monthly Archives: July 2023

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Who is asking?

How would you describe yourself to someone?

From an annoying person to a perwon who can’t dance.

Do you think EVs will replace ICE cars? Or is it just a case of hype? And is the investment in EV cars a case of not thinking out of the box? It has been argued that our cities don’t need more cars but innovations in urban living that prioritise mobility, accessability and interaction instead of priviledging cars?

Happy monday everyone

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Lourdes

Is the first part of a 3 volume novel written by Emile Zola following a trip he made to Lourdes from Paris and back. He describes it as a trip of those who science have given up on who go to Lourdes in the hope that the Virgin will have mercy on them and heal them. And i can tell you that the lot is miserable. To have been on that train would have been to come into contact with real human misery.

In that misery, there is love, dedication, even courage like that of the commander who is ready for his final sleep. But there is deception too. And greed. The fathers of the grotto, for example are portrayed as greedy and only about making a profit. The Vignerons can’t hide their joy at the death, first of the chief and then their aunt from whom they are about to inherit some large sum. Reminds me of a portion innthe essays of Montaigne where he writes, i think, that your neighbour is likely to benefit by your death or something to that effect.

Then, there is blind, childish faith like that of Maria or La Grivotte. And lack of faith or loss of it like happebed to Abbe Pierre. Or despair that drives a man to faith as happened to formerly level headed Dr. Chassaigne. The loss of his wife and child leads him to repudiate his reason and accept faith in the hope that he will be reunited with his departed kin.

In the quote below, Zola brings a very important criticism of the church dogma. In the old testament, most of the women are nameless unless they are named in relation to a man. Not in their own right as human beings. In catholic dogma, the virgin is born without sin and conceives without intercourse and is put on a pedestal for all the women to aspire to.

“That dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which her dream had come to strengthen, was a blow dealt by the Church to woman, both wife and mother. To decree that woman is only worthy of worship on condition that she be a virgin, to imagine that virgin to be herself born without sin, is not this an insult to Nature, the condemnation of life, the denial of womanhood, whose true greatness consists in perpetuating life? ”

The Three Cities Trilogy: Lourdes, Emile Zola

Zola expresses a hope or a desire for a world to come. Unfortunately for all of us, this world has not come to pass. There are still many believers in the miracles sold by catholic church and her competition.

“Though thousands of pilgrims might each year go to Lourdes, the nations were no longer with them; this attempt to bring about the resurrection of absolute faith, the faith of dead-and-gone centuries, without revolt or examination, was fatally doomed to fail. History never retraces its steps, humanity cannot return to childhood, times have too much changed, too many new inspirations have sown new harvests for the men of to-day to become once more like the men of olden time. It was decisive; Lourdes was only an explainable accident, whose reactionary violence was even a proof of the extreme agony in which belief under the antique form of Catholicism was struggling. Never again, as in the cathedrals of the twelfth century, would the entire nation kneel like a docile flock in the hands of the Master. To blindly, obstinately cling to the attempt to bring that to pass would mean to dash oneself against the impossible, to rush, perhaps, towards great moral catastrophes.”

The Three Cities Triology:Lourdes, Emile Zola

Pierre hoped the time was ripe for a new religion. He says

“All at once in the depths of his deeply absorbed mind the words rang out, A new religion! The door which must be left open on the Mysterious was indeed a new religion. To subject mankind to brutal amputation, lop off its dream, and forcibly deprive it of the Marvellous, which it needed to live as much as it needed bread, would possibly kill it. Would it ever have the philosophical courage to take life as it is, and live it for its own sake, without any idea of future rewards and penalties? It certainly seemed that centuries must elapse before the advent of a society wise enough to lead a life of rectitude without the moral control of some cultus and the consolation of superhuman equality and justice. Yes, a new religion! The call burst forth, resounded within Pierre’s brain like the call of the nations, the eager, despairing desire of the modern soul. The consolation and hope which Catholicism had brought the world seemed exhausted after eighteen hundred years full of so many tears, so much blood, so much vain and barbarous agitation. It was an illusion departing, and it was at least necessary that the illusion should be changed. If mankind had long ago darted for refuge into the Christian paradise, it was because that paradise then opened before it like a fresh hope. But now a new religion, a new hope, a new paradise, yes, that was what the world thirsted for, in the discomfort in which it was struggling.”

The three cities: Lourdes, Emile Zola

It’s a story well told, with twists and turns. You can almost picture the misery on the trains. Or the thousands of pilgrims who visit the Lourdes and the basilica. If i am not too budy, i will read the other cities, Rome and Paris in the not so distant future. For now, with Pierre, i propose a new religion of reason.

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on history

I think it is in war and peace where Tolstoy attempts to answer the question of history. Is it determined by the actions of important men (it has mostly been men)? Why is it that when we talk about history, we don’t talk of the participation of little men and women? Are they/we not important participants and agents in how history unfolds? Or history the combination of all the efforts of millions of people alive doing things, writing things, and everything in between?

Maybe Tolstoy is right when he writes that the King is the slave of history and “History, that is, the unconscious, general, hive life of mankind, uses every moment of the life of kings as a tool for its own purposes”.

Tolstoy also writes

In historic events the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself. Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of history and predestined
from eternity.

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

which maybe is the correct position in regard to history. These great men act as placeholders for all the events that took place up to that particular point in time. History is happening all the time and we are all authors and participants in that page.

Or maybe I am wrong.

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On freedom and prisons

Okot p’Bitek wrote that man is unfree. Man cannot be free, while Sarte wrote man is condemned to be free and JJ Rousseau wrote man is born free but is everywhere in chains. Can they all be correct? Or are they all wrong and the truth is somewhere in between? Before one of you hangs me, I know there can be, and indeed are, different interpretations of freedom as used by the different philosophers. We can look at it as freedom of the will.

Do you think the way life is organised in the present century is any different from a prison? I know for many, the answer will be no but i think we are wrong. We can agree that most people reading this are not in a penitentiary somewhere or a medical institution for the mentally sick, and to that extent are not in a prison as we know it. To this extent, you are indeed free.

But let us take a moment and think deeply about how the prison system is organised. There is round the clock surveillance, what work you do is determined by a warden. The warder determines when you can play or shit or shower or eat. Many of you would say but my life ain’t like that and you will probably be almost right, except, think about it. You are surveilled without your knowledge and you acquiesce in your surveillance. You actually approve it because you have been told it increases your security. At work you clock in, clock out to shit, to eat and depending on where you work, to take a call. And you help in surveilling your neighbour to ensure they toe the line. Then your entertainment is chosen for you- you can switch between channels if you’re fortunate enough to pay cable TV- and you are given goodies to help you stay in line. New products that keep you from thinking long enough of the state of your prison to even demand a change in the prison terms.

In a sense, only difference between you and the guy incarcerated is the length of the chain that is tied to your person. Or maybe I have got everything topsy turvy and we are all free. If there is a prison, it exists only in our minds.

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Imagine yourself as Lazarus and you have been brought back to life

Wouldn’t the quote below be your response to such injustice and talking of which, do we know what became of that man of god? Did he die a second time or is he the archetype walking dead?

“Why hast Thou again awakened me to this abominable life, O Lord? I was sleeping the eternal, dreamless sleep so deeply; I was at last enjoying such sweet repose amidst the delights of nihility! I had known every wretchedness and every dolour, treachery, vain hope, defeat, sickness; as one of the living I had paid my frightful debt to suffering, for I was born without knowing why, and I lived without knowing how; and now, behold, O Lord, Thou requirest me to pay my debt yet again; Thou condemnest me to serve my term of punishment afresh! Have I then been guilty of some inexpiable transgression that thou shouldst inflict such cruel chastisement upon me? Alas! to live again, to feel oneself die a little in one’s flesh each day, to have no intelligence save such as is required in order to doubt; no will, save such as one must have to be unable; no tenderness, save such as is needed to weep over one’s own sorrows. Yet it was passed, I had crossed the terrifying threshold of death, I had known that second which is so horrible that it sufficeth to poison the whole of life. I had felt the sweat of agony cover me with moisture, the blood flow back from my limbs, my breath forsake me, flee away in a last gasp” And Thou ordainest that I should know this distress a second time, that I should die twice, that my human misery should exceed that of all mankind. Then may it be even now, O Lord! Yes, I entreat Thee, do also this great miracle; may I once more lay myself down in this grave, and again fall asleep without suffering from the interruption of my eternal slumber. Have mercy upon me, and forbear from inflicting on me the torture of living yet again; that torture which is so frightful that Thou hast never inflicted it on any being. I have always loved Thee and served Thee; and I beseech Thee do not make of me the greatest example of Thy wrath, a cause of terror unto all generations. But show unto me Thy gentleness and loving kindness, O Lord! restore unto me the slumber I have earned, and let me sleep once more amid the delights of Thy nihility.”

Excerpt From
The Three Cities Trilogy: Lourdes, Complete
Émile Zola

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Friends

If you could host a dinner and anyone you invite was sure to come, who would you invite?

A few family members, enemies, and Pink.

This is me going down the rabbit hole. My lost blog post was Spinoza’s response to Albert. But i didn’t do you justice by failing to post the correspondence to which he was responding to. This post is to address this small oversight on my part.

This missive from Albert is one example of how not to make disciples to your chosen delusion. For Albert, his was catholicism which he had just recently converted to. He writes thus in a show of deepest love

Do you alone surpass all these in doctrine, in manner of life, in every respect? Will you, wretched pigmy, vile worm of the earth, yea, ashes, food of worms, will you in your unspeakable blasphemy, dare to put yourself before the incarnate, infinite wisdom of the Eternal Father? Will you, alone, consider yourself wiser and greater than all those, who from the beginning of the world have been in the Church of God, and have believed, or believe still, that Christ would come or has already come? On what do you base this rash, insane, deplorable, and inexcusable arrogance?

Albert Burgh to Spinoza

Read the letter. You would think it was written by some evangelical minister down the street from your house. And the fallacies that Albert commits in this letter are good for a philosophy 101 class.

Have a good weekend everyone.

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At night

What time do you go to bed and wake up currently?

And wake up in the morning, but i might change to sleeping in the morning and waking at night, just for the fun of it.

This is not the reason for this post. Not at all. I have been binge listening to a podcast by Steve West, philosophize this, that i would highly recommend he mentions this letter Spinoza wrote to Albert Burgh who was trying to convert him to christianity. This letter, though short, is a whole treatise on religion. I recommend reading it.