(...cont.)
JFA:
My use of psychology is totally abnormal … because what I am stating is that when you lose touch with conventional reality, because of hardship, or pain, you go on a journey to find a better reality and you come up with one
KR:
can the external condition be an agent or another being of some sort or its just a deformity created by extraordinary conditions
JFA:
especially Perkinson's text on shamanism as a black American identity and Taussig. My view is closer to Taussig's
conventionally it is a deformity, but I don't think this is what it actually is
KR:
Does intellectual Shamanism manifest only through the affected person's ability to engage intellectually through works such as writing?
JFA:
I think there are reasons to think, in the case of Bataille and Nietzsche, and others, that it enhances self awareness
Not just writing, but self-awareness
KR:
Marechera, to a reasonable observer's POV, exhibited strong evidence of being mentally ill or mad.
JFA:
Yeah.
KR:
... so despite that, he was more self aware?
JFA:
It is also a feature of aspects of Bataille and Nietzsche's writings -- they are seen as mad philosophers
That is exactly what I'm saying, although I also allow that the cost of being self-aware can be a painful sort of madness
Like Nietzsche said, Hamlet was mad because he was certain of the truth
KR:
One would find it hard to give one's child Marechera's children's book!
and yet what he advises kids is naked truth which is normally not told to kids directly
JFA:
Yeah, yeah, that is what I see, too
actually, to know the truth about power relations could send most people mad. They don't want to know it
0
KR:
I am more convinced that most of normal life is false and the life Marechera saw and experienced was the truth ... and living, walking and talking it appears abnormal
JFA:
We have a god intoxication, or an idealism intoxication, in that we believe in hidden purposes, or that life is a training ground for morality.
To see that this is not the case is difficult
It would wreck the psyches of most people
4
KR:
I agree ... and so lies seem to normalise life ... and make morality seem sane??
5
JFA:
In a way. It's not so much lying, but idealism, which is a milieu we're born into. It's a kind of lie, or distortion, but also a form of adaptation
It's not like it's morally wrong not to have a morality, if you know what I mean.
Or that it's morally right to have one. You are standing outside of morality
7
KR:
You talking to someone who is not technical in this subject - more of a novice and so my language is not very good
8
JFA:
OK, I meant Nietzsche, Marechera and Bataille are standing outside of the idea that there are hidden moral principles in the universe
8
KR:
Yaah, I understand better when you say "standing outside morality", which is a perfect context for most of what Marechera did and say!
9
JFA:
But I think you understand it
Well, because most people think there are hidden principles governing outcomes, when there are none
There is no principle that assures that if people do the right thing they will have good lives. They will more likely be serving others without realizing it
1
KR:
I remember reading where Marechera wrote something along the lines "don't listen to what your parents and all adults say, because they all lie to you and all other little children"
1
JFA:
Yeah, yeah. It's idealism
Nietzsche called it the ascetic ideal
1
KR:
I don't fully understand what idealism is.
1
JFA:
ah
It's a bit hard to explain
2
KR:
The question is to whom should little kids listen to ... Marechera seem to tell kids to just do what they want
3
JFA:
Yeah, good point
Well he thought kids had a better capacity to live a meaningful life than adults
3
KR:
is this not anrachism?
anarchism
4
JFA:
I think it differs from anarchism although it is compatible
4
KR:
How does it differ?
5
JFA:
Well, the idea that kids are in tune with nature or the universe in a way that adults have lost touch with
So, if adults get in touch with what the kids still have, they will live more meaningful lives
...which is also the benefit of going mad
because you get back into that childlike condition of receptivity
6
KR:
being in tune with narture, I hope is not equivalent to extreme form of limited experience and knowledge - which is what little kids have.
7
JFA:
ha. Well, that is the other side of the paradigm. I had to do battle with that one, because it is the bourgeois perspective
But the idea is the quality of life, not the content, or in other words, ontology, not epistemology
9
KR:
"bourgeois perspective" - no idea what it is.
9
JFA:
Um...it's kind of the cynical view that there can only be one sort of order and that is the one we presently have
For instance, that to be adult you need to conform to existing mores, have a full time job, etc
1
KR:
By quality of life do you mean, in a child's case, the perfect state of bliss, lack of care and worry, built on a foundation of no knowledge of what might or might not be?
1
JFA:
not really.
Actually, if you look at Georges Bataille, who was a French philosophical writer, he says that this "non-knowledge" involves the embrace of terror in the immediacy. So instead of trying to postpone our terror of death, we encounter it directly, without mediation.
But this gives us quality of life, because then we start living it as it really is and don't postpone it
3
KR:
For Marechera, I wonder whether there was a way of his viewing the world that did not accelerate his physical discomfort or destruction
4
JFA:
We can even live it on our own terms, because we know that there is no truth outside of ourselves of the sort that really matters in an eternal or infinite way
I think it did accelerate his destruction
Morality, even though it is false, is mode of self-preservation
5
KR:
I wonder where if the sense of self-preservation or is this state also invalidates self-preservation?
6
JFA:
Nietzsche seemed to think that it was both
Your preserve something, but you also lose something
6
KR:
Oh I had not seen your last sentence on self preservation.
6
JFA:
I hope this makes sense
Nietzsche thought that those who wanted to seek beyond themselves would sacrifice themselves to their best qualities
Sorry. "create"beyond themselves
9
KR:
It does not because nature itself if left to operate will establish brutal rules such that non-conformance will lead to one destruction ... rules of nature must be obeyed in most cases unless one craft strategy to postpone their repercussions.
1
JFA:
What are the rules of nature?
2
KR:
any that can natural befall matter
2
JFA:
Still don't quite understand what you are saying
what your objection is
3
KR:
anything that naturally happen does so by force of rules of nature
3
JFA:
Kind of, but nature is also pretty random
4
KR:
yes but the randomness is systematic
which makes it the rule
4
JFA:
Yes, it tends to be systematic in the broader picture and random on the micro level
What is your objection concerning "nature"?
5
KR:
there are times what I see order in randomness
5
JFA:
yeah, there is order in randomness, indeed.
5
KR:
My view is that being close to nature does not lead to quality of life
6
JFA:
Yeah, being close to nature, as in being subjected to it, is not good
6
KR:
so it probably does not explain Marechera
6
JFA:
But one does not subject oneself to nature as a necessity, but only by way of an experiment, and on one's own terms.
hmmm
a matter of terminology
also I don't quite understand what your objection is, but I think it is to the term, "nature". But one need not understand it in terms of the grass and trees
8
JFA:
Being wild, living under the hibiscus bush
ok
a temporary immersion in an unmediated reality -- that is what I meant by "nature"
9
KR:
To me nature is both what you say AND also interacting with the elements
0
JFA:
Ok. Yes, probably. I think the key is to get away from the mediation of civilizing meanings
0
KR:
"unmediated" - means in both the virtual and the physical
1
JFA:
To destroy your civilized mind with drugs and alcohol
2
KR:
thats probably not the only way ... there may be more ways to achieve it :)
2
JFA:
of course!
So we will talk later
3
KR:
I believe living purely and normally can also achieve it in the manner that people like Ghandhi may have done
later
3
JFA:
I think that is a way to live morally, but it doesn't touch on the kind of realm of experience that Nietzsche, Bataille and Marechera did
4
KR:
Can any one really seek this?
Answer next time
5
JFA:
I think they tend to be thrown into it by force of circumstance, but that they find something beneficial in it
I don't think you seek shamanic initiation unless your life is already hellish and it seems the only option
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