Creation by Destruction, Destroying to Create...

"Let's not burn the universities yet. After all, the damage they do might be worse."
H. L. Mencken

And it would seem that Mr. Mencken was correct, and scarily so. The American university system has produced some of the most destructive ideas, machines, chemicals, processes, weapons, etc...that have ever been visited upon the world. This development is both a perverse contradiction to and an inevitable product of Western academia.

Universities have, within the last century, become laboratories of experimentation without boundaries. In one sense this means: There is no intellectual pursuit that is forbidden. There is no line of research that is proscribed. There is no ideological stance that is taboo. Succinctly, there are no rules.

In another sense this means that there are no limits to the objects, ideas, hypotheses, etc…that could not be attained through the university system. These intellectual laboratories have infinite potential. This infinity is encoded in the very name “University,” which can be morphologically traced back to the Latin word ‘universus’ (i.e. totality, whole). The aim of a university in the modern sense to study, comprehend, name, delimit, categorize, analyze, organize, codify and otherwise grasp the totality of existence. To know everything, not just as naked facts and concepts, but as relational objects and subjects, each of which exists distinctly from all other things. Each individual existence is predicated on an intricately interlaced connection with the totality of all existences. Singular existence can only come about through the inter-connectivity of everything.

And so we must ask a question of this model of academia: What is the ultimate goal of such an institution?

From this query we find that we are lead inescapably to another question: Is this goal attainable?

Let us, for the moment, put aside these questions and continue our interrogation of the products and practices of the university. These learned institutions have been built and sustained by the humanistic ideal of the Supremacy of Reason; the belief that human reason is the only path to True knowledge. Without reason there is no True or Valid knowledge about the universe. A world devoid of reason is a cruel and uncertain place that makes the human subject incapable of progress or intellectual growth. In such a world the human subject can never move beyond bare existence, can never invent, can never understand, can never conceptualize, can never become a full human being. Under this paradigm we find that the only noble and worthy endeavors are based upon a solid foundation of Reason; the scientific method, the standard of falsifiability, reproducibility, etc…

And this seems all fine and good, rational as it were. The university, as an institution built on these assumptions, serves to radiate the benefits of reason and guide the progress of humanity. Fundamentally it acts altruistically. But this is a mere facade, both ideological and practical.

Infinity stretches in all directions, both positive and negative. The university, as an institution seeking and utilizing the concepts of infinity for its own stability, assumes this same quality. Thus anything that is produced through, by, within, because of, as a consequence of the university is imbued in this duality. It would seem logical, even necessary, that the positive aspects, creations, ideas, products, etc...of the university must equal the negative, as in the true concept of infinity. This, however, has not come to be.

As a system the university has been directly responsible for visiting destruction and oppression and tyranny and death upon the world, in ways and means that would, without such an institution, be unimaginable and even less attainable.

The advent of Nuclear weapons and rocket technology originated as mere ideas in the minds of professors and researchers. As ideas, equations, essays, discussions, thoughts these objects were harmless. In abstraction the implosion of a plutonium core does not level Hiroshima. Nor does statistical analysis firebomb Tokyo. Political ideologies as lecture material do not conscript Gestapo. White papers and editorials do not invade countries.

In this great intellectual laboratory we find that even the most benevolent and peaceful pursuits often produce suffering on a grand scale. Unbounded by any system; moral, ethical, political, ideological, the university drives forward in search of knowledge.

But Knowledge is circular. What counts as knowledge or how knowledge is gained can only be determined through the body of current knowledge, which in and of itself is validated by its own history. "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past," as Rage Against the Machine put it. Knowledge is built by the dominant social, political, economic systems, i.e. power. And power is sustained and strengthened through the knowledge that it validates. In essence, we find a vicious circle.

And vicious in more ways than one. Firstly, it is a self fulfilling prophecy, the knowledge that will be found and validated can only be that knowledge which has been circumscribed as such. Secondly, the knowledge that is created will only be useful as long as it serves to buttress existing power structures. Thirdly, the search for knowledge must be validated by knowledge itself and by the assumptions and actions of existing power structures; logic, the scientific method and so forth.

The most important point is the second point, for the purposes of this discussion, because it is here the knowledge truly becomes co-opted. It is through the mechanisms of power that knowledge and research, which at their origin are devoid of normative value, are shaped into the weapons and tactics of learned civilizations. Here is the point, the pivot, the nucleus, of transformation; from abstract to material, from real to reality. Knowledge must meet the demands of power.

Through this matrix of power and knowledge we find that creation is used to destroy. Knowledge is no longer the noble endeavor of curious and inventive minds, instead it is the play thing of the power hungry and the ambitious. This transformation leads us back to our origin. The pursuit of knowledge brings the growth of power. Power, in the context of the modern world, is situated in the state and the economy. Thus knowledge contributes to their growth and in doing so loses the neutrality that it professes and the hope of infinite discovery becomes the fear of ultimate destruction.

Democracy grown from the barrel of a gun...

I have always liked the fluid nature of reality. I admire its state of flux, its constant inconsistency, such that from one moment to the next it changes and adapts, molds itself to new parameters and demands, is immolated and reborn in the same stroke. But at times it can be troubling, especially during times such as these which demand polarization; you are either an idiot, oblivious and content, or a conscious being filled with confusion and rage and passionate conviction to the idea that something is not right. For instance, lets examine the current state of American foreign policy and geopolitical strategy, which are dominated by the conflagration in Iraq and our shadow war on terrorists.

The "War on Terror" began as a defensive act, it is actually very simple and straight forward with little room for interpretation or semantics. The Joint Resolution for the Authorization of Military Force, which was approved September 18th, 2001 by both the House and Senate, (Public Law 107-40 [S. J. RES. 23]) states:

IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

We don't go to war anymore, haven't for decades, apparently its too hard to actually declare that we are fighting someone, instead we use the more innocuous language of "Authorization of Military Force" as though it is just another tool that we exercise from time to time. This is nothing new, we haven’t actually declared war on a sovereign nation since World War II, but we keep sending young men to die and then build them memorials for wars they didn’t fight, in the legal sense that is. This, however, is not the point.

Recently the President began a series of speeches that are meant to clarify and embolden the American people in our quest to bring democracy to the rest of the world with tanks and fighter jets and M-16A2 rifles and, above all else, wealth. This will swell into a well choreographed crescendo on September 11th that, ostensibly, will finally lay to rest any lingering doubts that we might have about this indeterminate campaign against this nebulous enemy. What is most startling and troubling about these speeches is that we are no longer fighting the War on Terror as a defensive measure, meant to guard against future attacks by identifiable persons or groups, a strategic vision that would give us some measure of progress or victory, but that now we are engaged in an ideological struggle with, “Islamic Fascism”. Figuratively and literally the administration asserts that we are now fighting for the very existence of democratic societies. In a recent speech to the 88th American Legion Convention Bush stated, “They're [Hizbollah, al Qaeda, al-Jamal Islamiya, Hamas, etc…] successors to fascists, to Nazis, to communists and other totalitarians of the 20th century.”

He does not equivocate in his belief that we are engaged in an epic struggle between diametrically opposite and ultimately mutually exclusive philosophies. These philosophies are total opposites and, as such, must struggle against one until and one must emerge victorious. It is the classic Dialectical method; the noble, adventurous and charitable Capitalist project represents the Hypothesis, the argument (or more correctly System) that is to be proven and, as the scientific method would dictate, is being tested against it’s opposite, it confronts the Antithesis, which has now been named Islamo-fascism. What is so devious and problematic with this schema, this clash of Democracy and Islamo-fascism is that the administration, and their supporters in the media, want to define Islamic fascism as both similar to but divergent from the forms of fascism that dominated the 20th century.

But, alas, I have come to the end. This end, however, is simply another beginning…but a beginning for another time.

Absurd is the man who chooses to be free by donning the shackles of slavery...

The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.

Albert Camus

Are we all Sisyphus? Do we all toil and drive towards that which we will never achieve? That which we can never achieve? Do we push and strain to get the boulder up the mountain, to have the apex at hand, only to have that boulder tumble down to the bottom? And what feelings do we have at that moment? What do we think as the boulder haphazardly plummets to the foot of the mount, erasing all that we had done and hoped to do? What are we to think then? What are we to feel? Are we to become sorrowful and loathsome? Are we to know that this is our fate? To accept? To deny?

It does not matter. Either choice leads to the same outcome. Whether we choose to accept reality as it stands; as a wretched and futile occupation that ultimately leads to death or to give birth to meaning as the precursor of existence. Every stance, from total nihilism to humanistic utopianism, presents each individual with infinite options, infinite choice. Whether existence be finite or everlasting, whether the soul has substance or consciousness be a product of biological processes beyond control, whether we be children of god or the emergent property of evolution; there is no path that is closed.

And it is in those moments, those brief and fleeting periods of lucidity, when the universe is laid out before each person, its infinity made tangible and visible, that we find fear. When we stare into the abyss we find trepidation. We may study the abyss, but it also studies us. It probes our depths and veiled recesses. It reveals our secrets and our denials, lays them bare before us and forces each to confront his own demons. And yet we are deceived. This abyss exists only to deny and negate existence. The abyss is defined, is made up of, is substantiated by the lack of definition, the lack of being, the lack of substance. It is not a denial of existence, but a privation of substantive existence. A being composed of non-being. A dasein which is complete and total in its lacking. An existence that is brought into being through consciousness, and must, as a necessary paradox, be continuously confronted with its own placement, or displacement, in the world. The abyss is nothingness. But this nothingness can only be brought about through a certain kind of being. It, the abyss, can only exist when being confronts itself, when being becomes aware of its place within the world and the possibility of total displacement.

The abyss is an illusion. Its paradoxical nature precludes its existence. It is rendered impossible. But its non-existence is an illusion as well. The abyss exists only when confronted. A battle is waged within the mind, or consciousness, or subject, when consciousness is turned upon itself. Being must realize non-being. Being is affirmed by a collision with itself. For non-being clarifies being in the conflagration and immolation of itself. Through this confrontation it, the abyss, comes forth, terrible and unholy, bringing darkness from the light.

But why is this existence of non-existence, this lack of being, this pit of darkness, this abyss, an illusion?

It is only when the abyss stares back and probes the depths of consciousness that it becomes clear: the abyss exists within us. It is a part of us. For being to be, for consciousness to create and sustain, for each person to be, the idea of non-existence is a prerequisite.

Existence is finite and limited. Consciousness is shackled. Only in existence do we find the line between possible and impossible, the line that separates the finite from the infinite. And consciousness, as it resides and exists within each person, (perhaps within all beings that are alive) finds only one thing incomprehensible: its non-being. We can seek and study and name and grasp, or at the very least contemplate in the abstract, anything except our own non-existence, our total displacement within and from reality; existence unbounded by time and space. This privation of consciousness, of self, is elusive to the self; one cannot experience one's non-being, because being is necessary for experiencing. To be is to be, is to be named, is to be placed. But to not be, to never have been, to lack all substance, is a concept beyond abstraction. It is the shadow cast by the moon, the silent whisper, the echo of taciturn screams, something tangible in its intangibility.

But still, how are we deceived? What is the illusion?

The illusion lies in the very existence of the abyss. It does not exist. Rather, to clarify, it does not have an existence separated from the human consciousness. It is a product of consciousness. The abyss penetrates our innermost sanctum, exposes our hidden selves and forces confrontation with the self because it exists within us. To confront the abyss is to confront the self as a subject and object without limits, a self that is unified with infinity. Here, humbled and infantilized before infinity, we find the ultimate measure of self. Existence appears to the conscious mind to be limited; that is to say, it is nameable, able to be organized and categorized, containing inherent boundaries. But this is simply consciousness imposing its own limits upon the world around it.

But if we take this to be true then there is only one possible conclusion. That the abyss, the infinite, the unbounded, is the true nature of reality. The abyss is created within the conscious mind. It is an illusion that is more real than what we call reality. Through our substantive being we mold reality into a limited and fragmented thing for us to experience. And thus we then must create the illusion of an infinite and unified existence so that we might briefly know reality as it is; nameless and unbounded, infinite and unified, devoid of substance and flush with possibility. In essence we present ourselves with a comprehensible view of what it is to be, so that we might delude ourselves into the notion that we possess knowledge, while the true nature of existence remains to us an apparition that whispers silently in the recesses of the mind.

Things are (unless they are not)...

It has come to my attention that there are many things in this world that are. Rather, as the last sentence leaves room for confusion, there are many things that exist. And these many things take different shapes and all that. Each thing that exists is a thing that exists uniquely. In the, very loosely applied, structure of quantum physics one could say that each thing that exists, even if it is completely and totally similiar to some other thing or set of things, maintains an existence that is distinct from all other things and that this existence is observable. Each thing inhabits space and time that cannot be shared by other things, thus identical twins are individuals even though the DNA structure of each matches the DNA structure of the other. This, very simply, means that "everything is what it is and is not another thing." But this only holds true when the state of these things can be ascertained or observed.

Take the example of the problem of Schroedinger's Cat. (I am taking liberties with the actual problem laid out by Schroedinger as we are not scholars of quantum physics, nor need we be.) You put a cat in a box that is completely sealed so that you cannot in anyway observe the state of the cat inside the box. You know that the cat is alive before you put him in the box, and assume that the cat is still alive at the moment you seal him in the box. Then, as cruel as it maybe, you introduce a lethal agent of some sort into the box; be it a lethal gas or explosive device or whatever could kill the cat. Now preferably, and because this is merely a thought exercise, you should use something that should more than likely prove lethal to the cat. Now you have a conundrum. Is the cat alive or dead? You cannot observe the cat in anyway, so you have no definitive way of knowing if the poor creature survived the assassination attempt. Thus it's continued existence becomes suspect. The cat can no longer be categorized as alive (=1) or dead (=0). It has become a strange being caught between the two worlds of being and non-being.

Its existence may be described as a sine wave, which at any given point in time oscillates between 1 and 0. Some may quibble with me and say that the sine wave should have an upper limit of 1 and a lower limit of -1; as life and death, existence and non-existence, are complete polar opposites, but this semantic argument doesn't really help us. More to the point, it does little to help our poor feline friend.

So what are we to make of this cat, or former cat? Can we actually assign to him a category of existence or qualities of a thing that exists? Once we open the box and are able to observe the cat we can assign it a state, 1 or 0. But not until then. So we find that our observation of the cat will fundamentally alter the cat's state; this is also known as the Observer Effect. And this is all fine and good, for things that can be measured and observed; in other words, things that have a tangible existence.

But what about things that do not have a tangible existence? It does not take a large leap of logic or faith to understand that the unobserved cat exists and does not exist at the same time. Simply, without observation the cat is alive and dead at the same time. But what about the intangible? What about those things that exist only in the mind and heart; love, hate, friendship, lonliness? How does one come to know such a thing as love? Is it proper for one to take such things on faith or trust?

Some might say that these things can be proven. One can prove love or friendship through kind acts and words and companionship. One can know that another person loves them and be certain. But can we? Or do we find ourselves in uncharted territory, where there are no sine waves to collapse into finite calculations? Can one ever know such things? Or must one trust in oneself to judge these things, these intangible objects, these ethereal existences as real?

And if, in fact, there are no facts to be held or certainty to be gained in analysis, can we even say that they exist? Or do they exist as things that do not exist? Can we say that they defy existence by their very existence? That they hold a special place amongst the things of the world?

Then it might be this status, this state that defies observation and measurement, that grants the intangible such great power over the tangible.

Sartre once wrote, "Hell is other people." And his words ring true, at least to me. They ring true because it is only in other people that we see a reflection of our own psyche. It is through other people that we experience the angst of being. We may each be a mirror unto ourselves, a reflection of all the reflections that are cast upon us. We are become a hall of mirrors that face each other and create the infinite set of reflections that composes each finite human.

"He who makes a beast of himself rids himself of the pain of being a man," HST.

Everything is what it is, unless its something else...

What is difference? What is commonality? Do there exist objects that are totally and completely different? An object that shares no common ground or qualities with any other object, and is fundamentally separate from the set of all objects that are not it? Would such an object be fated to exist in a dialectic struggle of epic proportions against the rest of existence? And what can one say of the abstract object, those termed ideologies, which contain whole and complete structures of thought and decision? Can an ideology stand-alone, or must it always, either tacitly, implicitly or ostensibly, name an other? Can synthesis mean the triumph of one ideology over its complement? That is to say: does the dialectical process ensure the survival of both ideologies, either in whole or in part, or does it mean the destruction of one ideology in favor of the survival the other? Or do ideologies, by their very nature require a synthesis that results in a new and unnamed object which possesses the entirety of assumptions and reasonings of each competing ideology? Must this 'Synthesis' encompass and utilize the properties of each proposition equally? Does objectivity exist? Or is the existence of this 'Synthesis' the ultimate measure and creator of objectivity? At what point does objectivity emerge as a thing unto itself, which does not exist in relation to the struggle that created it but as something independent of the dialectic that birthed it? Or does this 'Synthesis' merely provide the illusion of conclusion? Does not the struggle continue with the 'Synthesis' and drive it forward in to more complex and layered forms of conflict?

And what if objectivity exists? Is there any among us who would dare to claim objectivity as an absolute? Or, to state it more bluntly, that objectivity has a firm existence such that it defines itself without qualification. (Can one thing be more unique? Can a fact or opinion or statement be more objective than another?) Does the mere determination of objectivity render all points moot that are not deemed to be objective? And if one were to create such a belief system, what would ensue? How would we as beings blessed with creativity and thought come to understand, know and apply such a thing? Would this ultimate objectivity give us the map that we need to find our way out of the woods and to banish the darkness with the light of reason? And if, for but a moment, we grant that such a thing may exist, how would we know this objectivity? Would it speak to us as a voice of math and organization? As a thing that we know aesthetically? As a thing that we know we know; in other words, as a thing that is apparent and clear to all human beings due to reasons that may be biological, psychological, spiritual? Then, if it is one of these things, which would should we pursue? Should science guide us; or god lead us; or the state decide for us?

One can speak objectively for and from oneself. One can objectively identify the world as it is presented to her/him at a given point in time and space, but this world, this universe, this world view belongs only to the individual who experiences it at that finite point. And yet the world can only be experienced through the individual. So do we attempt to synthesize all world views and standpoints? To bring together all to one? Or do we see that this is impossible and that we would only end up with a disjointed and contradictory universe that builds itself through self-destruction and conflagration?
And so I have found myself in yet another quandary. Life is...life is mine...life is mine for the taking...life is destined to be taken...life will go on...life will end...

So I wonder...sipping my hemlock and blathering at the guard; and I still wonder: if everything is what it is and not anything else, then what happens when things change?