Comments for Rethink.

Comment on Emily Dickinson, “The Spirit is the Conscious Ear” (733) by isabella

isabella — Sat, 18 May 2013 18:26:54 +0000

ashok, i’m going to comment without much thought. the poem immediately made sense to me. that’s because it sounds like what i do as a spiritual practice. my spirit hears (or i think it hears) much more and more important things – my spirit is “larger” – than my “smaller ear” that only picks up physical sound waves. and yes, i say “my spirit” – mostly because i don’t want to insinuate that others do/feel/operate the same way. at the same time, i think that ultimately spirit is always “we”. i am a part of it, i am subsumed by it, it is not “i”; at the very least it is not that thing that we often refer to as “ego.” …. just a few thoughts. lots of things to discuss here. thank you, as always, for your thoughtful reflections.

Comment on Experience and Knowledge – Encounters and Reflections: Conversations with Seth Benardete, p. 197 by CharlieH

CharlieH — Thu, 09 May 2013 15:44:14 +0000

Great post. It connects with a distinction Kant makes (B 864) between someone who’s merely learned a philosophical system and someone who has thought it through for himself. He calls the first student “the plaster cast of a living man.” The second has made the thought his own, made it part of his mind and life. I agree with you that experience isn’t the central issue – it’s something like authenticity.

Comment on Experience and Knowledge – Encounters and Reflections: Conversations with Seth Benardete, p. 197 by Chris Kirk

Chris Kirk — Thu, 09 May 2013 13:35:09 +0000

I agree with your comment, and would add only this: that knowledge as didactic is intimately bound up with the use one makes of error–the fact that we can see the difficulties and inadequacies in an account of things much more clearly than the true account is where we must begin. Experience is a necessary, though not sufficient, condition of such an embrace of error, mostly because it seems bound up with the soul. At least this is what I get out of SB, who says that first philosophy is first only the second time around.

Comment on André Kertész, “On Reading” by Kay

Kay — Wed, 08 May 2013 04:36:53 +0000

Thanks for this! It’s a lovely tribute to literacy.

Comment on Nerves by gwern

gwern — Mon, 06 May 2013 20:51:35 +0000

Well, there’s always beta blockers. Musicians swear by them.

Comment on W.H. Auden, “First Things First” by david harms

david harms — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 02:41:32 +0000

He awakes at midnight, when the storm is frightening, and he remembers his heartache of love that will not be fullfilled, ever. Yet he hears the storm and knows the power of life continues regardless, even without a space for his love, and he must decide to go on with it or not. And he decides yes, I will, because the water of life gives him hope. Yet be not misled, for the love he knows will never be.

Comment on Are Women Increasingly Dating Guys Who Are Idiots? by IAAI

IAAI — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 14:55:29 +0000

I remember a female colleague of mine telling me that she would rather date a tall and hefty consturction worker living in a trailer than a short bald PhD…because she did not want to lookdown when kissing. Clearly how she feels like when she kisses is mor important to her than future financial and social stability, a good environment for kids and education. The inabilty to see and plan for future, the lack of ambition for personal development are the bane of most women today. They go from one poor choice to another whoring themsleves.

Comment on Giuseppe Ungaretti, “La Notte Bella” by Felix de Villiers

Felix de Villiers — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 16:25:47 +0000

I found the original poem by Ungaretti and tried my own translation which probably isn’t very good, as I did it very quickly.
Usually translation is a life and detah sturggle. The problem is that replicating the original text can come across very flat in the ‘target’ language, so you have both to take some liberties while remainig as faithful as you can to the original. You have to betray in order to be faithful. The last two lines are the hardest to translate:

The lovely night

What song has arisen during the night
To weave its threads
With stars that echo
Crystal clearly to my heart

Whatseason arose
Of hearts and bridal festivities

I have been a pool of stagnant water
Lost in darkness

Now, like a child,
I bite at the nipples of space

Now I reel like a drunkard
In the universe that surrounds me.

Swallows me, no, absorbs, absorbed, no, nothing with ‘drink’ as we already have drunkard before

With apologies,
Felix

Comment on Links, 4/12/13 by titus techera

titus techera — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 11:03:18 +0000

Sloterdijk seems to have two problems with the modern state. First, it is far & away the biggest spender in any modern economy, & in fact moves around more than half the income in an economy; secondly, it astoundingly, carelessly wastes these monies.
Having people do their best & taking their success & wasting it is turning them into slaves–this seems to be the man’s point.
If the state can do things that people consider good, then they may consent to that. Otherwise, how can they consent without consenting to their own destruction?
Of course, only those people who take economics dead seriously will think themselves humiliated if their life’s work is wasted by the state. They have some manner of judging how to work & what risks to take & they have a measure of their skill in success. Then they see that this counts for little, sometimes for nothing when it comes to public spending. What is left for them if democracy means that they have to live their lives robbed & blackmailed?

Comment on On the pain of not being wanted by Alice Shapiro

Alice Shapiro — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 11:43:19 +0000

Ashok, this letter is perfect and brought me to tears. Zoe Brown came to mind.