Existentialism and Literature

Except for this I needn’t bother arguing because I don’t take any of this seriously even if you were correct. No problem. I’m not angry at you. I’m just moody.

Although the definition for “despot” is one individual who holds power over many, the way in which the term of “power” is conceptualized necessarily denotes a politcial arrangement, i.e., the act of exalting one moral above another. So it isn’t only “single individuals” that can be despots but also entire moral systems can be as well.

Hold that thought there and look at “morals” as material expressions of some kind of economy. Now, if this “economy” is evolving in such a way that the definition of “power” loses its dependence on “despotism,” it necessarily follows that the very idea of a despot is part of a political evolution. The new emphasis is on the definition of what “ruling” [/i]means[/i] where there is no elite rather than calling the “power of ruling” the definition of the “despot.”

Now, the only evidence in a material economy to represent an elite or despot was the orders access to wealth. Entire classes could be revered as “despotic” meaning they represented a dominant class morality in comparison to another.

My point is extremely obvious, perhaps so visible you do not even see it. It is because all philosophy is a evolution of economic order and is always toward the emancipation of “politics,” as that denotes a “ruling class,” and therefore the concepts of class-bound moralities-- culture types and philosophies that emerge-- are always changing from individualized morals to altruistic morals; the direction is the same. It is the necessary result of the “expanding and unfolding” of the political order of human existence. If war and natural disaster doesn’t destroy us all…eventually this will happen, I would suspect.

I’m saying that “literature,” as the medium of philosophy and politics, is a representation of the process of defusing “relative” moralities. So it was already despotic in nature. As I said previsouly, “metaphysics” orginates in economic structures-- the kind of political setting and how it conducts its material economy determines at what rate it unfolds…but the direction is always the same. One type eventually holds the source, the means and the results of production. A despotism is a system that does not fully integrate those conditions into itself so it produces cultural wars. The “presocratics” were only a “literal reaction to a sociological state of order.” Their language was congruent to the formation of the politic: the polythesisms were metaphysical expressions of their caste system and ruling order. The greeks made philosophy and religions from their economy, from there “notice of class difference.” Nobody “made” metaphysics because there is no such thing. There are social metaphors which create moral traditions, each direct results of vocabularies contingent to the literal world of that historical period. In a sense all philosophy is a kind of “who gets to rule” question that is asked by a economy that is in progress of abolishing the necessity to “rule.” This is why I say that “language” is not evidence of the Rational, it is a result, it is a contingency made in a discourse in a certain society.

I’m not sure you understand what I’m saying here, SIATD, but I am trying.

Human history can be seen like a “factory breaking itself in.” The Rational and intellectual is always a subsidiary effect of the material econony. Sociology, psychology, religion, philosophy…all reactions to class based systems of civilization.

Circular. You would not complain about it unless you had some idea of an ideal in mind…such as the necessity of resistence and imagination and etc., etc. You are at the same time both trying to create a war against an oppression and claiming that oppression is necessary to invoke those passions and intents.

A swing and a miss. (A Gobborian witicism)

Could it be that existentialism is a sort of false or ‘fluffy’ ‘philosophy’, much like astrology or palm reading? Maybe that’s harsh, but you get my meaning?

Yes, it was a generation pocket of weeding out bullshit in philosophy. Kierkegaard owned it all. Eventually it will sit in the new age section beside the tofu.

The point is that when Sartre says existentialsm is over…its over. And he has, so it is.

Heidegger is still playing on the monkey bars and getting lost in egyptian algorithms and Zen gardens, so forget all about him.

Just work on logic and science and better economies, Obw. You’re a smart lad. You should do fine.

Now you’ve really got me interested. Before you were saying that philosophy is over (not Sartre’s decision to make, or yours for that matter) but that Existentialism is over, yes, of course it is. Are you familiar with ‘Californian Buddhism’?

You talk of creating better economies but also deride imagination. You and I both know that even within your Marxist historical scheme there has to be room for imagination (if not actual philosophy - we can debate the line between the two forever) otherwise the evolution won’t take place, there will simply be a recurrence of the existing class structures and struggles. Also, the fact of your making the statements that you do is contrary to what you are saying. Like I say, this makes it all contradictory. If you are content (wrong word, you are never content, which is ultimately why you’ll never find any philosophy satisfying, you’ll always seek to destroy it and go beyond, it is in your blood to do so) with being contradictory then I really have no problem with it. I never thought much to Plato anyway…