In the News, plus Kant and Rousseau!

Air Canada snaps Professor's Lute in half.

This is horrible. As a lute owner (note I don't say player...) I can totally understand how horrible he must feel. I think something people often don't understand about musicians is that they develop rather strong attachments to their instruments. This intuitively makes sense, but I many of those commenting I think see this as something easily replaceable - it's not.

One can talk of essences here, where losing an instrument you have gotten to know, to love, has a massive impact. Suddenly, all those zen-like aspects of one's playing, the way in which one knows how to produce a particular sound without knowing how, is suddenly lost, and one must relearn, develop a new relationship.

Perhaps one of the strangest aspects of our consumer culture is that we greatly desire things, but we remain deeply alienated from them.

***

Toronto is slowly becoming a police state in preparation for the G20. Although media focus has been almost entirely on the cost, Rick Salutin today reminds everyone of the real costs (you mean economic costs aren't the real ones?) . It seems that pretty much everywhere around me is slowly, inexorably being locked down.

I now go through a number of security checks, all designed I guess to make sure that the same pass I show the first person doesn't morph into something else when I get to the second one...when you ask security, they, like nearly everyone it seems, shrugs their shoulders and says I don't make the rules...

We are all instruments of the law now. This struck me forcefully last night as I read Dieter Henrich's Between Kant and Hegel, based on a suggestion from here.

An admission - despite the fact that my interests as a Germanist span the period between Goethe and Heine (with DDR film as a kind of randomizing interest), my background in German philosophy of the period is sorely lacking. Indeed, it is the one significant lacunae in my philosophical schooling, and I find myself struggling to immerse myself in part because I'm not sure if there is another time where the literature of the day is so entirely steeped in the philosophical issues of the day - it would be as though Zadie Smith et al. were writing books on vagueness, and Saul Kripke were reading them! Utter madness!

Anyway, I am really enjoying this book so far. His philosophical readings of the texts, as opposed to the ahistorical overview one often finds in introductory works, is illuminating.

Henrich points out at the Kant's deep, deep indebtedness to Rousseau. In courses I took, Rousseau was mentioned as an influence, but it was always Hume's influence that was emphasized. Hume is presented as the philosopher who transformed Kant from a neo-Wolffian rationalist into uh...Immanuel Kant.

On Henrich's account, it is Rousseau who really turns the knife into Kant's philosophical back, forcing him to rethink the entire aim of his philosophical program. Fascinating stuff, if for no other reason that one can even espy here the analytic/continental divide that no one thinks exists but that we can all pretty much discern.

So, back to Toronto - when I read Kant's desire to ground humanity's freedom, and I note our current total lack of desire to build a movement in Canada that strives to emancipate ourselves from our own benevolent consumerist/barely democratic despotism, it is difficult for me not to conclude that the Romantics did indeed win the political struggle, and that this is not a good thing...

To the barricades, then? Or perhaps, at least, to the coffeehouses?

Next

Toronto, it's your turn.

World Cup Selections

The World Cup is probably the only sporting event I pay attention to, or dare I say it, get involved with. Don't ask me why, although I think it has something to do with living in between Little Italy and Little Portugal, and that the area turns a little bit crazy.

Not an angry crazy, more of a gentle insanity, medicated by live sports and alcohol. It's also summer, and the fact that it's focussed on one sport (unlike the Olympics) makes it easier to feel for a team as they make their journey towards the final match.

This year, I've decided to root for a team in each group, and see where that leads me. The choices are partly arbitrary, of course, but I basically looked at each group and went with my gut. Whether any of them stand a chance at winning is another story, although the inclusion of Spain on the list is pretty much a hedge against some of my other choices.

In that spirit, here's my list:

South Africa
North Korea
Algeria
Germany
Denmark
Italy
Portugal
Spain

The Day So Far

I wondered if anyone else thinks that if the Federal Liberal and NDP parties merge, it is due not to the triumph of social democracy in Canada but to its death.

I spent the morning listening to Elanor Watchtel interview Isabel Allende discuss her family and Chile, and, when I arrived to work, turned it off and overheard recommendations of moisturizers and belts.

I wondered if Heinrich Heine, if he lived today, would have made an excellent blogger. I decided the answer was yes, but that he would have a tab page, and that he would likely move to a country where libel laws were weak. I would definitely read him.

My son told me that they listened to Beethoven's 5th Symphony in his music class yesterday, but he was upset that he'd told the teacher that it was Beethoven's 1st Sonata. I told him not to worry about that kind of stuff.

Question

Is Apple leading well-off technocrats back to the days of AOL? Never let it be forgotten that people desire their own repression.

Kind of seems that way to me.

Catharsis

I have deleted 4000 e-mails today. I somehow feel lighter. If only I could do this with actual paper...

Follow Up

You all know I wasn't going to follow up on my last post, didn't you? It really didn't need following up, truth be told.

This blog is getting pretty stale. I have no one but myself to blame, except my muse, curse her! But she hasn't been around, no, or maybe it's that I haven't been around her. Anyway, I am not following up, no, I am moving forward instead!

In August, I will be in Germany, and we can finally get this blog off the ground. Deep down, I always wanted to blog Mitteleuropa, and now I'll finally get my chance. Beyond that I have little to say...

Theory, New York Times, Stupidity

I don't really have time to actually get into this, but there's a really terrible bit of satire on literary Theory in the New York Times. If you still think the Sokal hoax is a cutting-edge salvo in the culture wars, then you might find it amusing.

As someone in literary theory, I just find it ridiculous, especially coming from a philosophy professor, who really should have something better to do than to fight a turf war with those Snowballs in the English departments.

Note to Professor Goldstein - go out and read some recent literary theory.

A Reminder

The same people who are downgrading Greek bond ratings are the same people who polished the turds that led to the global financial crisis...

A Great Thought

Who doesn't want to believe that they, for at least one moment, thought of someone no one else had? It seems to me that William Hazlitt had a great one - disinterest.

Basically, Hazlitt argued that we bear the same relationship to our future selves that we do to others. The implications of this for identity, as well as ideas like economic self-interest, are actually pretty profound, and it's perhaps surprising that we still live in a world that believes that most human agency revolves around people having their own long-term interests in mind when they act.

All of us should know that nothing could be further from the truth. At least Hazlitt give us a decent reason why, a moment to liberate ourselves from the guilt of our past and to hope that we can be as charitable to our future selves as we have been abusive of our pasts.