Mon corps, ce papier, ce feu

Yet although the senses occasionally deceive us with respect to objects which are very small or in the distance, there are many other beliefs about which doubt is quite impossible, even though they are derived from the senses — for example, that I am here, sitting by the fire, wearing a winter dressing-gown, holding this piece of paper in my hands, and so on. Again, how could it be denied that these hands or this whole body are mine? Unless perhaps I liken myself to madmen, whose brains are so damaged by the persistent vapors of melancholia that they firmly maintain that they are kings when they are paupers, or say they are dressed in purple when they are naked, or that their heads are made of earthenware, or that they are pumpkins, or made of glass. But such people are insane, and I would be thought equally mad if I took anything from them as a model for myself.

– Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, from the First Meditation (on ‘What Can be Called into Doubt’), Cambridge University Press 1996, pp. 12-13.

Freedom and the Conduct of Others

This passage sort of hit home in strange and interesting ways this week, particularly the highlighted part:

Q: Do you think that philosophy has anything to say about why there is this tendency to try to control the conduct of others?

MF: The way the conduct of others is controlled takes very different forms and arouses desires and appetites that vary greatly in intensity depending on the society. I don’t know anything about anthropology, but I can well imagine societies in which the control of the conduct of others is so well regulated in advance that, in a sense, the game is already over. On the other hand, in a society like our own, games can be very numerous, and the desire to control the conduct of others is all the greater — as we see in family relationships, for example, or emotional or sexual relationships. However, the freer people are with respect to each other, the more they want to control each other’s conduct. The more open the game is, the more appealing and fascinating it becomes.

– Michel Foucault, “The Ethics of the Concern of the Self as a Practice of Freedom,” in Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth (New York: The New Press, 1997), 300.

Eidetic

Eidetic |īˈdetik|, adjective Psychology
relating to or denoting mental images having unusual vividness and detail, as if actually visible.

noun
a person able to form or recall eidetic images.

DERIVATIVES
eidetically adverb
ORIGIN 1920s: coined in German from Greek eidētikos, from eidos ‘form.’

Foucault’s Limits

This will eventually be a three-part post, I just have to find the other two quotes I have in mind.

Regarding the political (and ethical) import relationship of the self to itself:

And in this series of undertakings to reconstitute an ethic of the self, in this series of more or less blocked and ossified efforts, and in the movement we now make to refer ourselves constantly to this ethic of the self without ever giving it any content, I think we may have to suspect that we find it impossible today to constitute an ethic of the self, even though it may be an urgent, fundamental and politically indispensable task, if it is true after all that there is no first or final point of resistance to political power other than in the relationship one has to oneself.

– From The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1981-1982 (New York: Picador, 2005), 252.

Kant on “Pure Spiritual Beings”

In the causes of the world, reason finds enough to keep it busy with those which are revealed by sense (or at least are of the same kind as those which reveal themselves to it), without having any necessity to make use of the influence of pure spiritual beings in nature…

– Kant, “What Does it Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking,” AK 8:137, from the collection Religion and Rational Theology, (Cambridge University Press 2005); page 10.

Foucault on Political Terror

In an aside on the nature of government in the Soviet Union, from the Collège lectures of 1977-1978:

…terror is not when some command and strike fear into others. There is terror when those who command tremble with fear themselves, since they know that the general system of obedience envelops them just as much as those over whom they exercise their power.

– Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977-1978 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2007), page 201.

The Plague & the Law

Foucault a dit, à propos du moment juste avant la naissance de la biopolitique :

Il y a une littérature de la peste qui est une littérature de la décomposition de l’individualité; toute une sorte de rêve orgiaque de la peste, où la peste est le moment où les individualités se défont, où la loi est oubliée…La peste franchit la loi, comme la peste franchit les corps.

– Les Anormaux, Cours du 15 janvier 1975, p. 43; (Gallimard 1999).

Threnody

Threnody |ˈθrenədē|, noun ( pl. -dies)

A lament.

DERIVATIVES
threnodial |θrəˈnōdēəl| adjective
threnodic |θrəˈnädik| adjective
threnodist |-dist| noun
ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from Greek thrēnōidia, from thrēnos ‘wailing’ + ōidē ‘song.’

Schizothemia

Schizothemia

n. – digression by a long reminiscence

Note: I discovered this word recently on a website called Luciferous Logolepsy, which is pretty great and right up my alley, but I have to admit some major reservations about it. The problem emerged when I tried to track down some source or citation for this word schizothemia. I quite like this word, or at least the idea of it, because it describes my personality excellently, or it would if it were a real English word, which is doubtful, as I’ll explain. I of course went straight to the OED, and found that there is no Oxford listing for this word, which immediate sent of some bullshit-neologism alarm bells. I went back to the site where I discovered it, only to find that there are no sources or citations listed for where people find these words, not a single quote, no dates, not even the citation-version of table scraps, nothing. Now, as you know I am no prescriptivist, so the next step was to do what the people at Language Log do and just google it to see what comes up. I found this site, which also has no citations or examples, neither did this one. I thought I might be on to something at least when I found it here on what claims to be a medical dictionary, but as you can see there are no examples given there either, and the definition does not specify that the digression has to do with telling a story or reminiscence, which is exactly what makes the word interesting in the first place. Looking again, I found this entry on reference.com, which claims to be an article about the word, but is just an article about the history of digression in literature, and which includes nothing special at all about this term — indeed, the article just uses the word ‘digression’ anyway, not schizothemia. The next three pages of google hits are nothing but more of the same (and random people’s blogs and various profiles using the word just because it sounds cool), and I quickly realized that all of the sites that are giving definitions of this word are just citing each other as their source. There are about 10 or 20 crap online “dictionaries” and sites devoted to “rare words” which contain an entry on this — none of them with examples of usage, again — and that simply link to one another by way of reference. I should also point out that the site that gave me the initial definition, the one quoted at the top of this post, actually had the word reminiscence spelled incorrectly.

So there are two problems here. First, as I’ve said, all that comes up in searches are shitty internet dictionaries, but the word is not in the OED. Even if this were some rarefied medical term — indeed, especially if it were — it should be easily found there, as the OED includes, far more authoritatively, terms from all kinds of specialized fields like medicine or whatever. So it’s appearance elsewhere, even if these entries were more substantive, does not at all help with the fact that it is missing there. “Wackywords.com” or whatever does not carry the weight that the OED has in any context, clearly. Second, these are all “dictionaries,” and not examples of usage (whether contemporary, ancient, or whatever), which would be the only thing that could really sufficiently give the claim that this is indeed an English word that English-speakers have used any credence. The only promising thing I found was this article in Polish on “Hysteria and Schizothemia,” which, precisely because it is in Polish, does not help. Clearly English is full of borrowed words, but the rule of thumb for a borrowed word entering the language is, roughly, that someone has to actually borrow it, by which I mean use it somewhere.

Finally, and as a last resort (and thanks to Wikipedia), I tried a different spelling, schizothymia, in the OED. What came up was, interestingly, the #2 definition for the prefix schizo-. But, as you’ll see, the nouns ‘schizothyme’ and ‘schizothymia, as well as the adjective ‘schizothymic’ seem to have a rather different definition (and a far more well-attested definition) than the lame internet dictionaries are claiming for the word. Here is the OED entry (there are Greek and phonetic characters, which your browser may or may not read).

schizo-

2. Psychol. With pronunc. (skts, skdz). Used to repr. SCHIZOPHRENIA, as in schizotaxia [Gr. order, arrangement], a genetically determined defect in the functioning of the nervous system which has been suggested as predisposing to schizophrenia; hence schizotaxic a. and n.; schizothyme n. and a. [Gr. mind, temper], (characteristic of) a person who is introverted and imaginative, and so regarded as tending to schizophrenia rather than to manic-depressive illness; hence schizothymic a.; also schizothymia, schizothymic constitution or temperament; schizotype, a personality type in which schizophrenia is potentially or actually present; hence schizotypal, -typic adjs.; schizotypy.

1962 P. MEEHL in Amer. Psychologist XVII. 830/1 This neural integrative defect, which I shall christen schizotaxia, is all that can properly be spoken of as inherited. Ibid., The imposition of a social learning history upon schizotaxic individuals. Ibid. 831/1 All schizotaxics become, on all.. existing social learning regimes, schizotypic in personality organization. 1966 I. B. WEINER Psychodiagnosis in Schizophrenia i. 7 Persons with schizotaxia acquire a personality organization called schizotypy that is characterized by four core behavior traits… These schizotypic traits are universally learned by all schizotaxic persons… Whereas most schizotypes remain compensated, those who are confronted with certain causal environmental influences..are likely to decompensate into clinical schizophrenia. 1974 S. ARIETI Interpretation of Schizophrenia (ed. 2) xlv. 697 A minority of schizotaxics..are ‘potentiated into clinical schizophrenia’. Ibid., Schizotaxia is a necessary but not sufficient condition in the etiology of schizophrenia.

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1925, 1932 Schizothyme [see cyclothyme adj. and n. s.v. CYCLO-]. 1936 A. HUXLEY Eyeless in Gaza viii. 87 ‘What a lot of ribs you’ve got!’ she said at last. ‘Schizothyme physique,’ he answered. 1952 H. READ Philos. Mod. Art iv. 84 If in the end we describe..Michelangelo as a typical ‘schizothyme’, the common reader is not much the wiser. 1964 I. M. SMITH Spatial Ability vii. 229 He found the creative significantly more schizothyme, self-sufficient, withdrawn, sophisticated, desurgent and radical. 1972 Encycl. Psychol. III. 180/1 The schizothyme is characterized by..‘a conscious contrast between the ego and the outside world’, ‘a touchy or indifferent withdrawal from the mass of his fellow men’, the predominance of ‘dreams, ideas or principles’.

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1940 H. G. WELLS Babes in Darkling Wood IV. ii. 335 Schizothymia, the psychoanalysts would have called this sort of dreaming. 1964 I. M. SMITH Spatial Ability ix. 287 The hyperactivity.., nervousness and anxiety seem..more closely related to introversion or schizothymia than to extraversion.

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1925 W. J. H. SPROTT tr. Kretschmer’s Physique & Char. xiii. 223 The group of wits..ironists and satirists whose nature is indicated by the names, Heine, Voltaire,..Nietzsche. This group belongs quite decidedly to the schizothymic side. 1951 Mind LX. 287 The ethical question is not whether one should be cyclothymic like Goering or schizothymic like Himmler in one’s destructiveness; rather it is whether one should be destructive at all, and, if so, towards what. 1961 Lancet 23 Sept. 712/1 Hereditary factors were more important for excitability, the cyclothymic-schizothymic scale, and super-ego strength.

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1953 S. RADO in Amer. Jrnl. Psychiatry CX. 409/2 In this sense the patient suffering from an open schizophrenic psychosis is a schizophrenic phenotype, engendered by a schizophrenic genotype in its interaction with the environment… For psychodynamic purposes I shall abbreviate the term schizophrenic phenotype to schizotype. Ibid. 410/1 The ensemble of psychodynamic traits peculiar to the schizotypes may be called schizotypal organization. 1962, 1966 Schizotypic, -typy [see schizotaxia above]. 1962 Amer. Psychologist XVII. 830/2 The most important research need here is development of high~validity indicators for compensated schizotypy. 1965 G. E. DANIELS et al. New Perspectives in Psychoanal. 109 Variants of the schizophrenic disorders likeschizoid personality, schizotypal,..and pseudo-neurotic schizophrenia. 1974 S. ARIETI Interpretation of Schizophrenia (ed. 2) xlv. 697 All schizotaxics become schizotypic in personality organization, but most of them do not decompensate and never develop a psychosis. 1978 P. O’BRIEN Disordered Mind iv. 75 Such syndromes are now officially classified as Schizotypal Personality Disorders.

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So, as much as I  think that this is a great word, I have to include this disclaimer, because by all reliable accounts and forms of accounting, it’s probably some bullshit that somebody made up and was never in general or even specialized usage. Major disappointment.

Concupiscence

Concupiscence |känˈkyoōpisəns; kən-|
noun formal
strong sexual desire; lust.
ORIGIN Middle English : via Old French from late Latin concupiscentia, from Latin concupiscent- ‘beginning to desire,’ from the verb concupiscere, from con- (expressing intensive force) + cupere ‘to desire.’

Epictetus, the Physician

Surely, unless the philosopher’s words force home his lesson, they are dead and so is he. Rufus was wont to say, “If you find leisure to praise me, my words are spoken in vain.” Wherefore he spoke in such fashion that each of us as he sat there thought he was himself accused: such was his grip of men’s doings, so vividly did he set each man’s ills before his eyes. The philosopher’s school, sirs, is a physician’s consulting-room. You must leave it in pain, not in pleasure; for you come to it in disorder, one with a shoulder put out, another with an ulcer, another with a fistula, another with a headache. And then you would have me sit here and utter fine little thoughts and phrases, that you may leave me with praise on your lips, and carrying away, one his shoulder, one his head, once his ulcer, one his fistula, exactly in the state he brought them to me. Is it for this you say that young men are to go abroad and leave their parents and friends and kinsmen and property, that they may say ‘Ye gods!’ to you when you deliver your phrases? Was this what Socrates did, or Zeno, or Cleanthes?

– Epictetus, The Discourses, Book III, discourse 23; (Dover 2004, page 50).

Man and His Doubles

Nevertheless, this knowledge is limited, diagonal, partial, since it is surrounded on all sides by an immense region of shadow in which labor, life, and language conceal their truth (and their own origin) from those very beings who speak, who exist, and who are at work.

– Foucault, The Order of Things, 331 (Vintage 1994).

A Certain Blindness in Intellectual Neighbors

Foucault a dit:

Il y a là un problème curieux de non-pénétration entre deux formes de pensée qui étaient très proches, et peut-être est-ce cette proximité même qui explique la non-pénétration. Rien ne cache plus une communauté de problème que deux façons assez voisines de l’aborder.

– Michel Foucault, from the interview Structuralisme et poststructuralisme, (in Telos, Spring 1983), reprinted in Dits et écrits volume III (Gallimard), page 439.

Lévi-Strauss, Language and Value

In laying out his argument for the possibility of “a possible extension to the social sciences of the mathematical methods of prediction” (55) rooted in structural linguistics, Lévi-Strauss says,

It is generally recognized that words are signs; but poets are practically the only ones who know that words were also once values.

– From “Language and the Analysis of Social Laws,” in Structural Anthropology (Basic Books 1963), page 61.

Lemons

Ma sœur a dit:

When you ask for lemons and someone gives you limes, have someone else squeeze them for you.

Scenes from “the Wrangling of Karna and Shalya”

Karna, taunted mercilessly for numerous chapters by his charioteer Shalya (at the behest of Yudhisthira, the eldest brother and king of the Pandavas, whom they are fighting), finally looses his famous composure and goes straight for the jugular. Shalya, you see, is the king of the country of Madra, a place on the periphery of the world in which the Mahabharata takes place. Implicit in Karna’s response is the question of what the value  of being king really is when it means being king of a place where savagery of the highest caliber is practiced. The first two items on his list of the radically immoral deeds performed regularly by Shalya’s subjects are among the worst degradations I have ever heard:

“Among all countries on earth the Madra are regarded as dirt. Drinking spit, violating a guru’s beard, murdering Brahmins, stealing another’s wealth; for whom these are law nothing is immoral!”

– Clay Sanskrit Library. Mahabharata, Book 8: Karna. Edited by Isabelle Onians and Somadeva Vasudeva. Translated by Adam Bowles. Vol. 1. 2 vols. New York: New York University Press, 2008; page 449.

In Praise of Small(er) Cities

Or, as I like to put it, cities-that-are-not-New-York. In response to this story about the revitalization of smaller cities that are not among the group of “larger, tier-one cities — New York, Chicago, Boston, etc” that get so much attention, Sonja, with characteristic insight and delivery, said the following:

Why is this ad campaign not in every NYC subway:
“Philadelphia: Isn’t it time you moved back?
face it, you’re making $12/ h and working 80 h/ wk in new york. You’re not making any progress on your music/ modeling/ writing career. Your rent here could pay for 3 months in Philadelphia. You’ll have time to actually work on your projects.”

– Sonja T., Google Buzz, Public, March 4, 2010

The Death of Dushasana

As represented in the 1989 5-hour film adaptation of the Mahabharata by Peter Brook: After killing Dushasana, his cousin, the 2nd son of Dhritarashtra and the man he swore to kill at the dicing match after watching Draupadi dragged into the gambling hall during her period, Bhima says,

We weren’t born to be happy; farewell.

–Mahabarata, Part III, 1:05:27

Arjuna

On the 55 bus last night back to Hyde Park from the 47th street Red line station, Sam and I were discussing the Mahabarata. Reviewing the characters of the five Pandava brothers, he told me in no uncertain terms what he thinks of Arjuna:

“I fucking hate Arjuna. He’s just some ‘Johnny Football-Star’ cock on the block.”

– “Celery” Sam H., February 18th, 2010

You’ll be relieved, but probably not surprised, to know that Bhima is his favorite.

Piacular – Piacle

Piacular, adj.

1. Making expiation or atonement; expiatory.

1606 B. BARNES Third Bk. Offices 156 With shedding the blood of certaine vile persons, as sacrifices piacular against publike hatred. 1648 J. OWEN Death of Death III. vii. 139 He made his soule an offering for sinne, a piacular sacrifice. 1722 R. BLACKMORE Redemption III. 161 These out of pompous rituals, slaughter’d beasts, Piacular lustrations, sacred feasts, Dances and shews and sports religion fram’d. 1739 Burkitt’s Expos. Notes New Test. (ed. 11) Matt. xx. 28 Their piacular Victims were Ransoms for the Life of the Offender. 1818 G. S. FABER Horæ Mosaicæ (ed. 2) II. 239 [They] do not seem..to have sufficiently attended to the distinction between eucharistic and piacular sacrifices. 1871 J. R. MACDUFF Mem. Patmos xi. 143 The great brazen altar of burnt-offering, where piacular or bloody offerings were alone presented. 1910 J. C. LAWSON Mod. Greek Folklore & Anc. Greek Relig., The commonly accepted classification of ancient sacrifices recognises three main groups the sacramental, the honorific, and the piacular. 1996 D. F. WALLACESupposedly Fun Thing (1997) 292 Ragged-necked Lebanese heads were even at that moment rolling down various corridors in piacular recompense for my having to carry my own bag.

2. Requiring or calling for expiation; sinful, wicked, culpable. Now rare.

1610 BP. J. HALL Apol. against Brownists 79 If it were not piacular for you to reade ought of his.1657 W. MORICE Coena quasi xx. 175 They held it piacular to eat with sinners. 1728 R. NORTHMem. Musick (1846) 16 To add to or alter the instruments or modes, was almost piacular. 1831 T. DE QUINCEY Dr. Parr in Blackwood’s Edinb. Mag. Jan. 70/1 He..left no stone unturned to cleanse his little..fold from its piacular pollution. 1993 Washington Times (Nexis) 28 Jan. (Final ed.) G2, Not even your very fine commemorative section was enough to counter the piacular nature of that front page ‘banner’.

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DERIVATIVES

piacularly adv. rare as an expiatory or atoning sacrifice.

1818 G. S. FABER Horæ Mosaicæ (ed. 2) II. 260 The goat..was devoted as a sin-offering..by its being *piacularly slain. 1904 Man 4 31 Robertson-Smith assumed..that the sacred animals of the mysteries and those offered piacularly bore a totemistic character.

piacularness n. Obs. rare wickedness, sinfulness.

1702 H. DODWELL Apol. §16 in S. Parker tr. Cicero De Finibus, That Philosopher makes the *Piacularness of a violent Death to consist in its being without the consent of the Guardian Genius.

Piacle, n. (obs.)

1. Expiation; an expiatory offering.

c1460 LYDGATE Minor Poems (1934) II. 829 Froom our forn ffadir this venym [sc. original sin] cam, Fyndyng nevir noon obstacle..Ageyn this poysoun by noon pyacle, But of his seed ther sprang tryacle. 1490 CAXTON tr. Eneydos xxvii. 103 Telle her..that she brynge wyth her..the shepe..wyth the other pynacles [Fr. pinacles] dedycated to the sacryfice. 1533 J. BELLENDEN tr. Livy Hist. Rome (1901) I. II. xvi. 194 We..mycht nocht haue purgit ws barof bot alanerlie be be sacrifice of piacle [L. piaculum]. 1654 R. CODRINGTON tr. Justinus Hist. VIII. 126 A Piacle for the sin committed.1661 T. ROSS tr. Silius Italicus Second Punick War XIII. 381 The Conquerour In Battel lately was o’rethrown, and all Due Piacles exacted for your Fall. 1711 G. HICKES Two Treat. Christian Priesthood (ed. 3) I. ii. 155 The LXXII..called the Scape-goat..the piacular Goat, because he was offered to be a Piacle. 1745 Universal Hist. X. 302 They should see him [sc. Christ]..fulfil all the prophecies..of the Old Testament..by dying a piacle for the redemption of mankind.

2. a. Sin, guilt.

1619 BP. J. KING Serm. 11 Apr. 52 May I without piacle forget..what hee then did? a1657 R. LOVELACE Poems (1864) 213 One proclaims it piacle to be sad, And th’people call’t Religion to be Mad.

b. An action which calls for expiation; a sin, crime, offence.

1644 J. HOWELL England’s Teares 178 To glut themselves with one another’s bloud..can there be a greater piacle against nature? 1645 J. HOWELL Epistolæ Ho-elianæ IV. xvi. 22 Not to answer me when you mind me, is pure neglect, and no lesse then a piacle. 1676 Doctrine of Devils 77 Any Crime, Villany, or Piacle whatever. 1784 W. FRY New Vocab. 178 Piacle.., a great crime. 1880 F. HALL Doctor Indoctus 52 Talk of regicide, of cannibalism..or any other patibulary piacle.

Piaculous, adj.

1. Requiring expiation; sinful, wicked; = PIACULAR adj. 2. Obs.

1646 SIR T. BROWNE Pseudodoxia Epidemica V. xxi. 266 For piaculous it was unto the Romanes to pare their nayles upon the nundinæ. 1658 SIR T. BROWNE Pseudodoxia Epidemica III. xxv. 211 Unto the ancient Britains it was piaculous to tast a Goose. 1661 J. GLANVILL Vanity of Dogmatizing xv. 139 We think it so piaculous, to go beyond the Ancients. 1780 T. SHERIDAN Gen. Dict. Eng. Lang. II. (at cited word), Piaculous… Such as requires expiation; criminal, atrociously bad. 1872 Webster’s Dict. 539/1 Piaculous..The same as PIACULAR.

2. Expiatory; = PIACULAR adj. 1. rare.

1780 T. SHERIDAN Gen. Dict. Eng. Lang. II. (at cited word), Piaculous..Expiatory, having the power to atone. 1992 Times Lit. Suppl. 10 July 3/2 Charles-Robert Ageron..has provided in Modern Algeria a kind of précis of the French period, breathless in places and somewhat piaculous in tone.

Alberto

From Primo Levi’s Se questo è un uomo (If This is a Man; English title: Survival in Auschwitz, Touchstone, Simon & Schuster 1996), Chapter 5, “Our Nights,” page 57:

It is in these conditions that I find myself when the nurse entrusts me, after various administrative rites, to the care of the Blockältester of Block 45. But at once a thought fills me with joy: I am in luck, this is Alberto’s block.

Alberto is my best friend. He is only twenty-two, two years younger than me, but none of us Italians have shown an equal capacity for adaptation. Alberto entered the Lager with his head high, and lives in here unscathed and uncorrupted. He understood before any of us that this life is war; he permitted himself no indulgences, he lost no time complaining and commiserating with himself and with others, but entered the battle from the beginning. He has the advantage of intelligence and intuition: he reasons correctly, often he does not even reason but is equally right. He understands everything at once: he knows a little French but understands whatever the Germans and Poles tell him. He replies in Italian and with gestures, he makes himself understood and at once wins sympathy. He ‘knows’ whom to corrupt, whom to avoid, whose compassion to arouse, whom to resist.

Yet (and it is for this virtue of his that his memory is still dear and close to me) he himself did not become corrupt. I always saw, and still see in him, the rare figure of the strong and peace-loving man against whom the weapons of the night are blunted.

Ethics & Heidegger’s “Letter on Humanism”

I know that this will be the second excerption from the “Letter on Humanism” (again from the Basic Writings, Harper Collins, David Krell, editor) recently, but I prepared these notes regarding the issue of ethics in the letter for an exam I had today, and figured I’d just reprint them as-is here. MH is Heidegger and EL is Emmanuel Levinas. Essentially, the notes were prepared in advance of a question regarding how Heidegger would respond to Levinas’ critiques around the issue of ethics. Frankly, I side with Levinas on this specific issue more or less completely, although it may not seem so here. It’s a good exercise though, to mine out and distill the responses to a criticism that you yourself have leveled or agree with.

Heidegger – “Letter on Humanism” – Excerpts on Ethics:

234: “Man at first clings always and only to beings. But when thinking represents beings as beings it no doubt relates itself to Being. In truth, however, it always thinks only of beings as such; precisely not, and never, Being as such. The ‘question of Being’ always remains a question about beings. It is not at all what its elusive name indicates: the question in the direction of Being.”

240: “Being is the transcendens pure and simple.”

240: “Being is essentially broader than all beings, because it is the clearing itself.”

242: Homelessness: “Homelessness so understood consists in the abandonment of Being by beings. Homelessness is the symptom of oblivion of Being. Because of it the truth of Being remains unthought. The oblivion of Being makes itself known indirectly through the fact that man always observes and handles only beings.”

• Is homelessness the word that describes this state of oblivion, or the condition that prevents us from finding our relationship to being?
• The problem then with EL’s view is that it is, by definition, symptomatic of man’s estrangement from Being. Concerning oneself with the Other (who is, despite his transcendence, enigma, and height, still another being) is to either ignore the question of man’s relationship to being, or worse to actually bar the way to asking that question.

255: What you might call his “definition” of ethics: “Where the essence of man is thought so essentially, i.e., solely from the question concerning the truth of Being, but still without elevating man to the center of beings, a longing necessarily awakens for a peremptory directive and for rules that say how man, experienced from ek-sisting toward Being, ought to live in a fitting manner.” He then admits that and ethics is necessary, but then says 3 things about it, all of which boil down to saying that we are not yet ready to really address ethics (as defined here):

1. “But does this need [for an ethics] ever release thought from the task of thinking what still remains principally to be thought and, as Being, prior to all beings, is their guarantor and their Truth?” The implicit answer is no.
2. “Even further, can thinking refuse to think Being after the latter has lain hidden so long in oblivion but at the same time has made itself known in the present moment of world history by the uprooting of all beings?” Again, no.
3. “Before we attempt to determine more precisely the relationship between ‘ontology’ and ‘ethics’ we must ask what ‘ontology’ and ‘ethics’ themselves are.” [We don’t yet know this and for that reason must 1^st define them, 2^nd understand their relationship, and 3^rd only then delimit an ethics; we are thus at least 2 steps removed from the possibility of even formulating an ethics.] He continues: “It becomes necessary to ponder whether what can be designated by both terms still remains near and proper to what is assigned to thinking, which as such has to think above all the truth of Being.” [So, even more than lacking the necessary groundwork, the questions that constitute that groundwork may even be inappropriate to the only true aim of thinking, that which he says it has to do, that which is its first and foremost obligation, which is understanding Being.] In this way it is completely possible, and it seems clear that MH thinks probable [desirable?] that “both ‘ontology’ and ‘ethics,’ along with all thinking in terms of disciplines, become untenable” (255-256).

256: The definition of ethos: “Ethos means abode, dwelling place. The word names the open region in which man dwells. The open region of his abode allows what pertains to man’s essence, and what in thus arriving resides in nearness to him, to appear. The abode of man contains and preserves the advent of what belongs to man in his essence.”

• For MH, “ethos” is not a category or discipline like “ethics;” it means “where man dwells,” and where man dwells is for him the “clearing of being.” Thus this concern with man’s “abode” is either prior to, or completely replaces, the question of ethics as rules of conduct, the delineation of a “fitting manner” in which man “ought to live.” Ethics is another form of metaphysics, where ethos, the dwelling place of man, is ontology. This leads directly to the following:

258: “If the name ‘ethics,’ in keeping with the basic meaning of the word ethos, should now say that ‘ethics’ ponders the abode of man, then that thinking which thinks the truth of Being as the primordial element of man, as the one who ek-sists, is in itself the original ethics.”

• In this way the concept of ethics is transformed into ethos, which is fundamental and prior to rules of conduct. If we are to understand man’s place in the clearing of Being, “where he belongs,” what his abode is, can we say something like 1) how he “should be” becomes irrelevant because 2) in finding his home and in dwelling in it, he is now already being as he should. A prescriptive ethics is in this sense no longer necessary, because in dwelling in the clearing of being, in his true abode, man no longer “does wrong,” or right for that matter, because he is where he belongs, he is home. It seems like in dwelling in this proper abode, ethics kind of “locks in,” and “proper behavior” flows directly out of this proper relationship to being. You could also say that in properly dwelling in this proper abode, questions of doing things that could be determined as right and wrong no longer have any meaning, they become senseless, because man is now dwelling the region prior to such valuations. However, it seems to me that this would be saying exactly the same thing. I suppose further that if we were going to give content to this, it would be “letting beings be.”
• Let’s not kid ourselves, there is indeed a prescriptive aspect here: to think the truth of Being, and man’s relationship to Being. However, all other questions are subsumed under this one. This is because, it seems to me, for MH to succeed in this would be to succeed in all other questions, including that of ethics. It would do so by negating them as questions, through the process described in the last bullet point.

259: I think this because, when asked the following question, he responds as he does below: “If the thinking that ponders the truth of Being defines the essence of humanitas as ek-sistence from the latter’s belongingness to Being, then does thinking remain only a theoretical representation of Being and of man; or can we obtain from such knowledge directives that can be readily applied to our active lives?”

• He answers: “such thinking is neither theoretical nor practical. It comes to pass before this distinction. Such thinking is, insofar as it is, recollection of Being and nothing else. Belonging to Being, because thrown by Being into the preservation of its truth and claimed for such preservation, it thinks Being. Such thinking has no result. It has no effect. It satisfies its essence in that it is.”

262: Finally, and to sum up:

• “Only so far as man, ek-sisting into the truth of Being, belongs to Being can there come from Being itself the assignment of those directives that must become law and rule for man.” […]
• “More essential than instituting rules is that man find the way to his abode in the truth of Being.”
• “The abode first [as in, the first thing that happens when we ‘find our way home’] yields the experience of something we can hold on to.”
• “The truth of Being offers a hold for all conduct.”

More Mark Kozelek Lyrics: “Salvador Sanchez”

I recommend reading up on Salvador Sanchez, as the potency of the lyrics to the song is more immediate when you know the story. Moreover, go and listen to it (there are two versions on Ghosts of the Great Highway, the second one is called “Pancho Villa”), because it’s the melody that makes the song truly moving.

Salvador Sanchez arrived and vanished;
Only twenty-three with so much speed,
Owning the highway.

Mexico City bred so many;
But none quite like him sweet warrior,
Pure magic matador.

Pancho Villa would never rest;
‘Til 1925 he closed his eyes
‘Til Manilla stars would rise.

Gozo of the Philippines, choirs and angels sing;
Ukulele strings play for his legend,
Italy had a king.

How have they gone?
Fell by leather;
So alone,
Bound together.

Benny “Kid” Paret came a good way;
Climbed to the gray sky to raise his hands,
Stopped by the better man.

Eyes of Los Rios cry for suns;
Lost on distant shores, unforeseen horrors,
Struck and delivered him

How have they gone?
Fell by leather;
So alone,
Bound together.

– “Salvador Sanchez,” Ghosts of the Great Highway (2003, Jetset Records, Caldo Verde Records). This is one of two songs on the album about boxers who died prematurely, the other one being about Duk-Koo Kim, who’s story is also mentioned, famously, in the song by Warren Zevon about Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, the man who killed Kim in the ring.

Scenes from the Burning of the Khāṇḍava Forest

From the Mahābhārata, Book 1 (Adi Parvan, the Book of the Beginnings), translated by J.A.B. van Buitenen (University of Chicago Press, 1973). Remember, Arjuna and Kṛṣṇa (who it turns out is God–Vishnu–in his spare time) are supposed to be the good guys in this story. (I’m going to leave out the diacritical marks from this point on).

While this went on, the scions of Kuru (Arjuna) and Darsarha (Krishna) retired to a pleasant spot close by, and having gone there the two great-spirited Krishnas, conquerors of enemy cities, seated themselves on precious stools. The Partha (Arjuna) and Madhava (Krishna) recounted many stories of past feats and loves, and enjoyed themselves. As they were happily sitting there, like the two Horsemen on the vault of heaven, Vasudeva and Dhanamjaya were approached by a brahmin. Tall like a huge śāla tree, fair like molten gold, orange-colored, with a reddish beard, of well-proportioned limbs, radiant like the morning sun, black-garbed, hair braided, eyes like lotus leaves, and fairly blazing with glory, the red man drew near, and the two Krishnas, Arjuna and Vasudeva, quickly stood up to the splendid brahmin (414-415).

He said to Arjuna and Vasudeva Satvata, “The two champions of the world are standing close to the Khandava Forest! I am a voracious brahmin, I always eat boundlessly. I beg you, Varsneya and Partha, for once give me enough to eat!

Upon his words Krishna and Pandava [Arjuna], said to him, “What  kind of food would sate you? We will fetch it for you!” Hereupon the venerable brahmin said to the two heroes, who had asked him what food to prepare for him, “I don’t eat food! Know that I am the Fire (Agni). Therefore fetch me food that suits me! Indra [king of the gods/god of rain] always protects this Kandava forest from conflagration, and as long as the great-spirited god protects it, I cannot burn it. His friend lives there with his people, the Snake Taksaka [the king of the snakes], and for his sake the Thunderbolt-Wielder protects it from burning. As it happens, many other creatures are thus protected. However much I wish to burn it, I fail because of Sakra’s [Indra's] might. As soon as he sees me ablaze, he starts raining with the floods of the clouds, so that I cannot burn this wood, much as I would love to. But now that I have met with the two of you, my helpers and experts on arms, I shall burn the Khandava! This forest is the food I have chosen. You are fully familiar with weapons: you shall stop any and all creatures and clouds on all sides! (415)

Krishna and Arjuna agree to help Agni devour not just the forest, but every living thing in it. They ask him for special weapons for the job, and he supplies them. They not only slaughter every animal which tries to escape, Arjuna uses his arrows and Krishna his discus to fight back the clouds and the rain itself sent by Indra (who also happens to be Arjuna’s father; go figure).

Then Krishna and the Pandava [Arjuna] spoke joyously to the Fire: “Now that we are armed and mounted, and fly our banners. we are eager to fight with all the gods and Asuras, let alone with a single Indra who is willing to go to battle for the Snake! (417)

Agni gets himself going, and his two helpers revel, downright sadistically, in what follows.

At these words of Arjuna and the Dasarha, the lord took on his fiery form and began to burn the forest. Surrounding it on all sides with his Seven Flames, the Fire [Agni] angily burned the Khandava, as though to exhibit the end of the Eon. When he encircled and invaded that forest…burning down all the creatures with the thunderous roar of the monsoon cloud, the burning forest took on the shape of Mount Meru, king of mountains, that sparkles with gold. (417)

Standing on their chariots at both ends of the forest, the two tigerlike men [Krishna and Arjuna] started a vast massacre of the creatures on every side. Indeed, whenever the heroes saw live creatures escaping, such as lived in the Khandava, they chased them down. They saw no hole to escape, because of the vigorous speed of the chariots — both the grand chariots and their warriors seemed to be strung together. As the Khandava was burning, the creatures in their thousands leaped up in all ten directions, screeching their terrifying screams. Many were burning in one spot, others were scorched — they were shattered and scattered mindlessly, their eyes abursting. Some embraced their sons, others their fathers and mothers, unable to abandon them, and thus went to their perdition. Still others jumped up by the thousands, faces distorted, and darting hither and thither fell into the Fire. All over, the souls were seen writhing on the ground, with burning wings, eyes, and paws, until they perished. As all watery placed came to a boil…the turtles and fish were found dead in the thousands. With their burning bodies the creatures in that forest appeared like living torches until they breathed their last. When they jumped out, the Partha (Arjuna) cut them to pieces with his arrows and, laughing, threw them back into the blazing Fire. Their bodies covered with arrows and screeching fiercely, they leaped upward nimbly and fell back into the Fire. The noise of the forest animals, as they were hit by the arrows and left to burn, was like the ocean’s when it was being churned. The huge flames of the happy Fire jumped up to the sky and caused the greatest consternation amongst the gods. All the great-spirited denizens of heaven went and sought refuge with the Thousand-Eyed King of the Gods, the Sacker of Cities [Indra]. (417-418)

Indra, the king of the gods and the god of rain/storms finds out in this way that the forest he’s been protecting (for the sake of his friend, the king of the snakes Taksaka) is being burned, and he brings down a storm to put the fire out. At first, the fire is so hot the rain evaporates before it can do anything, so he pours even more rain down and starts getting the upper hand. Then Arjuna steps in and shoots the rain and clouds out of the sky with his arrows, finally driving Indra off:

The Pandava, the Terrifier, showing off all his splendid weapons, stopped Indra as he rained down water with a shower of arrows. And he covered the entire Khandava on every side with his arrows, when he had driven Indra’s rain from the forest. Not a single creature could escape from there anymore, when the left-handed archer blanketed it with his sky-going reeds. (418).

[...]

The Jisnu [Arjuna] covered the sky with his honed shafts and…began furiously to war on the Thousand-Eyed God [Indra]. The King of the Gods, beholding the rage of Phalguna [Arjuna], unleashed his own blazing missile, which streaked across the entire sky. Thereupon the Wind God, who dwells in the sky, thunderously shaking all the oceans, generated towering clouds that sent forth shafts of water. To counter him, Arjuna, who knew his defenses, cast a spell on his great vayavya missile. With it he drained the power and might of the thunderbolts and clouds of Indra; and the clouds dried up, and the lightening flashes died. In an instant the foulness and darkness of the sky was appeased, the virtue of its wind was pleasant and cool, the orb of it sun returned to normality. Delighted with the lack of opposition, the Fire in its many metamorphoses went on burning, incomparably ablaze, filling up the world with its noise.

Seeing that the forest fire was protected by the two Kirshnas, the birds from the fair-winged Garuda onward pridefully flew up to the sky. Garudas, eager to strike the two warriors with their wings, beaks, and claws, which were as hard as thunderbolts, flew flocking from the sky to Krishna and Pandava. Likewise, nests of Snakes came out close to the Pandava, spewing with burning mouths their ghastly venom. No sooner did he see the raging, airborne beasts than the Partha cut them up with his arrows. Powerlessly, they fell into the fire to part with their bodies (419).

After this, the gods get together to try and stop them en masse, but Krishna slays them all with his discus and Arjuna with his arrows. Eventually a “disembodied voice” (419) tells Indra to knock it off because this is all meant to happen, and that, more importantly, Krishna is really Vishnu. The forest thus burns completely, with exactly 6 survivors, and Agni is finally sated:

Eyes blazing, tongues blazing, the big, wide-open maw blazing, the upright hair blazing, drinking up the fat of the living with orange eyes, the sacrificial Fire feasted on the elixir that Krishna and Arjuna had fetched, and became happy, sated, supremely blissful.

[...]

While the forest was burning, the Fire did not burn six — Asvasena [the son of the Snake King Taksaka, who himself was not actually in the forest at the time], Maya [the Asura or "demon" who's name is synonymous with illusion, and the greatest architect of the Asuras, his only equal being that of the gods], and the four Sarngaka birds. (422)

Withershin(s), Widdershin(s)

[Check the quote from 1545 under the adverbial definition #2, my last name is in there for some reason (bolded), and I would really like to know what it means in this context]

Withershin(s), Widdershin(s):

adjective: Moving in an anticlockwise direction, contrary to the apparent course of the sun (considered as unlucky or sinister); unlucky, ill-fated, relating to the occult.

1926 D. H. LAWRENCE Plumed Serpent vi. 112 She made up her mind, to be alone, and to cut herself off from all the mechanical widdershin contacts. Ibid., He, too, was widdershins, unwinding the sensations of disintegration and anti-life. 1936 DYLAN THOMAS Twenty-Five Poems 16 Shall I still be love’s house on the widdershin earth, Woe to the windy mansions at my shelter? 1973 G. M. BROWN Magnus vi. 112 There is a black joy abroad, a dance of the deadly sins, a withershin rout. 1976 Early Music Oct. 399/1 The sentiments and rituals of the court can be grotesquely guyed by the spirits (widdershins dances, sick-caricature mimes to accompany the Sorceress’s prophecies and provoke those ho-ho outbursts, etc.).

adverb (dial. (chiefly Sc.): 1. In a direction opposite to the usual; the wrong way; to stand or start withershins, (of the hair) to ‘stand on end’. Obs.

1513 DOUGLAS Æneis II. xii. 26 Abaisit I wolx, and widdersyns start my hair. Ibid. Directioun of Buik 29 And on the bak half writis widdirsinnis Plentie of lesyngis. 1570 R. BANNATYNE Mem. (Bannatyne Cl.) 11 That will gar thair hartis trumbill, and thair hair stand widdirshynes. 1583 Leg. Bp. St. Androis 704 Ane porter..to the bischop his blissing gave, Betuixt the schoulders a royall route, Turning him wodderschins about. a1583MONTGOMERIE Flyting 580 Hairis blavin widdersins abauk. a1600 Sonn. xxxiii. 6 Sho..straikit bakuard wodershins my hair. 1685 G. SINCLAIR Satans Invis. World 211 His hair standing Widdershins in his head.1721 RAMSAY I’ll never leave v, The Starns shall gang withershins e’er I deceive thee.

2. In a direction contrary to the apparent course of the sun (considered as unlucky or causing disaster).

1545 Rec. Elgin (New Spalding Club 1903) I. 84 Sayand the said Margarat Baffour vas ane huyr and ane wyche and that sche ȝeid widersonnis about mennis hous sark alane. a1583 MONTGOMERIE Flyting 418 Thir venerabill virginis quhome ȝe wald call wiches..nyne tymes, wirdersones, about the thorne raid. 1596 Spalding Club Misc. (1841) I. 96, I find it wilbe ane deir yeir; the bled of the corne growis withersones; and quhan it growis sonegatis about, it wilbe ane gude chaip yeir. 1597 Ibid. 190 He is indyttit..to haue taine ane birne of the corne on his bak, and careit it thrie tymmis woodersonis abowe the kill. 1685 G. SINCLAIR Satans Invis. World 25 [In a witch-dance] the men turned nine times Widder-shines about, and the Women six times. 1725 RAMSAYGentle Sheph. II. ii, Mausy..Rins withershins about the Hemlock Low. 1825 SCOTT Talism. xxviii, While the challenger rode around the lists in the course of the sun..the defender made the same circuit widdersins. 1840New Statist. Acc. Scot. (1845) XV. 141 The fishermen, when about to proceed to the fishing, think they would have bad luck, if they were to row the boat ‘withershins’ about. 1903 KIPLING Five Nations 10 So, widdershins circling the bridebed of death, Each fleereth her neighbour.