All Things Shining (Dreyfus & Kelly)

[droqen]

Chapter 6 discusses the white whale's facelessness, Ahab's desire to penetrate "through the mask" to something concrete that lies behind -- the book argues, there is nothing behind, "Divine truths . . . must be changeable and never completed".

p163-"Ishmael's amazing strength is that he is able to live in these surface meanings and find a genuine range of joys and comforts there, without wishing they stood for something more. . . . The ability to live at the surface, to take the events of daily life with the meanings they present rather than to seek their hidden purpose, to find happiness and joy in what there already is"

[droqen]

this plays nice with my mild revulsion to the semantics of Thinking in Systems's use of 'function' or 'purpose'; when it is suggested that a system has a function or, in particular I dislike this word, purpose, it feels to me only a short hop away from 'wishing they stood for something more.' Often, actually, I find myself drawing conclusions much sooner than I ought to. In the linked forum post, I am already backing myself away, looking for a way out of the feeling.

It is alright to feel the feeling and not to draw any closing remarks.

Or rather, maybe it is OK even not to ever aspire to any closing remarks. If they come then they come, but if they never come... maybe that is alright too. Can I embrace a feeling without resolving it? Simply let it move on.

[droqen]

. . . there is sense behind Kant's caution. There is, after all, a vanishingly small distance between rising as one with the crowd at a baseball game and rising as one with the crowd at a Hitler rally.

They claim Kant has proposed that one ought not, ever, 'rise as one with the crowd.' Were the above given scenario the primary one at question, consider that the ideal solution involves rising as one with the crowd at a Hitler rally, then — and only then — reflecting upon the sensation having truly experienced and understood it. The only other options are to shut oneself off from properly experiencing a way of being in the world, or in other words to shut oneself off from part of the world entirely.

[droqen]

We must position ourselves so that we can condemn an act like this even if we find ourselves in a crowd drawn to applaud it at the time.

[droqen]

"My own eyes know because my own hands have felt, but i cannot teach an outsider, the difference between ash that is "tough as whipcord," and ash that is "frow as a carrot."

The skilled craftsman does not decide to treat the ash as if it were "frow as a carrot," . . . The task of the craftsman is not to generate the meaning, but rather to cultivate in himself the skill for discerning the meanings that are already there.

[droqen]

For the master of wood, each piece he works with, and therefore more generally each woodworking situation in which he finds himself, is unique . . .

. . . the uniqueness of each situation gives a sacred dimension to the craftsmanship. . . . each piece of wood is distinct, has its own personality. . . the woodworker has an intimate relationship with the wood . . . Its subtle virtues call out to be cultivated and cared for. . . .

But it is not just the wood alone, as if it sprang fully cut and dried into his workshop. The wood has a place of origin, too, so the master becomes familiar with the local soil, the terrain, and the sources of water that nourish the trees. He comes to know intimately the weather and the seasons, since they change the way the trees will respond to his saw. . . .

[droqen]

Meta-poiesis, as one might call it, . . . the higher-order skill of recognizing when to rise up as one with the ecstatic crowd and when to turn heel and walk rapidly away.

[droqen]

To the extent that technology strips away the need for skill, it strips away the possibility of meaning as well. To have a skill is to know what counts or is worthwhile in a certain domain. Skills reveal meaningful differences to us and cultivate in us a sense of responsibility to bring these out at their best. To the extent that it takes away the need for skill, technology flattens out human life.

[droqen]

[Unskilled automatic work may produce worse results.] Even worse than losing quality, however, is losing the skill for telling the difference. As we lose our knowledge of craft, the world looks increasingly devoid of distinctions of worth.

[droqen]

I shall take this quote out of context:

. . . landmarks, street signs, wind direction, the height of the sun, the stars—all . . . meaningful . . .

I love this small list of things that 'the noble art of navigation' may have given birth to reverence of in the past, that the GPS bulldozes.

[droqen]

A new kind of courage . . . In place of the Kantian courage to resist the madness of crowds, we need the courage to leap in and experience it. . . . Only by having been taken over by the fanatical leader's totalizing rhetoric, and experienced the dangerous and devastating consequences it has, does one learn to discriminate between leaders worth following and those upon whom one must turn one's back.

Ours is not a moralistic claim, but a claim about what the gods are calling us to do. It is a natural temptation to ask why one should hear the call, or why one should heed it if it makes itself heard. But these moralizing temptations must be avoided. There is no reason why one ought to hear or respond to the call of the gods: callings just demand to be heard an obeyed. . . . our focus on ourselves as isolated, autonomous agents has had the effect of banishing the gods--that is to say, covering up or blocking our sensitivity to what is sacred in the world. The gods are calling us but we have ceased to listen. . . . like Dante's sinners, we have closed ourselves off by telling ourselves that we ought to be self-sufficient.

Ask not why the gods have abandoned you, but why you have abandoned the gods.

[droqen]

EPILOGUE

. . . Said the second to the first, radiant with happiness,
"All things are not shining, but all the shining things are."

[droqen]

a really wonderful epilogue to a wonderful book. lately i have been thinking about returning to try getting again through Deleuze's Difference & Repetition; there is a connection there, but maybe the wrong one... ahgh, do I need to Kinopio this thought?

Let's [AB] it at some point.