Aphorisms and Misc. Reflections II
Abstract: I collect some minor reflections and miscellaneous reflections from my 7th notebook. These are primarily philosophical-political meanderings, notes for further pursuits
1. “Secure by might—rule by right” is analogous to the paradigm “campaign with poetry—govern with prose.”
2. There is a particular type of human creativity I am apt to appreciate. It is invoked best by invitation: all one must do is designate what forest it is to hunt in, and it will bring you back trophies of unprecedented value.
3. On Faith, Hope, and Love[1]: the three pillars of human homeness are to seek truth, to live in beauty, and to love forever.
4. The essence of poetry is cast in the shadow of death.
5. The intrinsically Catholic appreciation pragmatism draws from the world might be summed up: one creates most when one is suffering. Crisis breeds choice; choice is the cornerstone of the creative; the creative alters the sum of things.
6. There is a direct proportion between the stability of norms/conventions in a community and its capacity toward identification[2] and self-unification. To the extent that norms/conventions are unstable, the stability of the community—its internal coherence—is threatened. Agonism, conflict, competition, diversity: all may be made beautiful, livable, even lovely—e.g. as resources of and for identification—when cast in the proper frame of reference.
7. The “literal,” “obvious” and “true” are analogous to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
8. Narrative is: the self-disclosure of reality, cast in so many tongues. In the listlessness of utopia there are no stories, only facts.
9. We misunderstand “pride” as long as we hold it in binary juxtaposition to “humility”: the opposite of egoism is not selflessness, not humbleness, but faith.
10. There is a calculus to the proportion and intensity of individual experiments-in-living and their sustainability in a community of others. Or: the equilibrium between Thanatos and Eros is the social equivalent to something like Madison’s 30,000:1 political calculus of representation.
11. The primary political question of the age is not: “what is true?” but rather: “what is its value? what purpose does it hold?” The quest for truth is different than the quest for meaning. The former is: unity, positivity, command; the latter is: unification, negativity, acceptance.
12. To be perpetually certain of a lie—both the great irony of man and the source of his power.
13. Not all doubts are equal. What one doubts actively, passionately, hotly is in closer dialogue and in greater proximity to what one actually believes than that which one doubts passively, indifferently, coolly. To doubt actively is still to believe actively—a pragmatic principle.[3]
14. Our conception of freedom is first and foremost aesthetic: the beauty of our particular nationalism emerges through its harmonization of diversity. We cannot imagine a democracy where all wore the same clothing, for instance; what an irony it would be if an American “uniform” were democratically established!
15. We democratize the “perfect” by admitting its multifarious sources. That many roads lead to perfection is only to cast pluralism in the service of monism: there cannot be and should never be a “final solution,” only “temporary solutions.”
[1] See I Corinthians, 13:12
[2] See Lefort, Schmitt
[3] See Peirce, James (living and dead beliefs), Dewey. Wittgenstein. Charles Taylor on “active” beliefs—that which is psychology available. Peter Brown.