I've been looking over my old admissions essay, as I am currently helping out old high school friends with theirs, and it's been a bit of a surprise to see how much I've changed. Perhaps it's the nature of the U of C to be soul-sucking, but I've noticed how much more optimistic I was back then when I was applying here. At the same time, it's been a source of strength, as it helps me remember why I am here and what I am doing. Sure, plans may change, but the fact that I remember having such strong feelings and burning passion allowed me to reaffirm my conviction to take part in the U of C Experience.
Topic 5: One Possible Variation, I think.
According to the literary critic Roland Barthes, the author of a work is dead. If that is so, then any intended meaning within any creation is obsolete, including the preceding sentence. If that is the case… what is left? Is there truly any meaning to anything? Or is existence itself the theatre of the absurd? Analyze and discuss… or ignore the prompt.
“Whither is God? I shall tell you. We have killed him—you and I. All of us are murderers… God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him…”~Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science
When the madman held his lantern and shouted in the market, he spoke of an era where there is no “God.” Of course, being a bit early, he smashed his lantern and babbled some more. However, that time he has predicted (or should I say, that state of reality) has come. Welcome… to the admissions essay of Daniel Choi.
Jungian psychology was always a fascinating subject and as I explored its contemporary branches, I came across the Myers-Briggs test. At first I scoffed, thinking that the depth of the subconscious would not allow for Aristotelian categorization. Yet, having a secret weakness for personality tests found in fashion magazines, I couldn’t resist the urge to find out what type I was.
I was surprised by the test’s amazing accuracy; it had pinpointed my “type” and I was deemed forever INTP (Introverted Intuitive Thinking Perceptive… or as I like to refer to it: I Never Think Practically). Interestingly enough, the archetype associated with INTPs is the architect—analogous to the author of a text or the creator of a world. Because of this realization, I devoured books on various cosmologies of the universe and revered the axiom “everything happens for a reason.” Some may say I was Newtonian in the aspect that I believed for every phenomenon there was a cause, for every action there was an intention, for every being there was a justification, because to me, that was how the universe operated.
I rationalized away the injustices and the problem of evil as part of the “grand plan” and pointed to the Tree of Life as the explanation for strife (God’s energies oscillate between two pillars: the Pillar of Mercy and the Pillar of Severity to create phenomena in the Middle Pillar or the Pillar of Mildness). For every death that occurred around me, I pointed to the fact that death is the yin to the yang of life. Religion, philosophy, and scientific laws explained everything for me, which I now realize was a foolish grip on pedantry. As an architect, I realized I had one fatal flaw—I lacked originality. I was constantly taking ideas from dead hands and never formulating any of my own, and when the absurdity of life hit me, I was not at all prepared.
When my models were failing me and my explanations (or rather excuses) were coming up short, it coincided with my most severe bout of depression. Of course, all teenagers go through some sort of angst, but I wonder how others coped with their pathos without periodic episodes that left scars on their forearms and torso. For a while, self-injury became my source of power as everything around me fell apart—identity, confidence, achievements, etc. I became disillusioned with the Kabbalah and Golden Dawn Hermeticism along with the worth of works or achievements. In a sense, I’ve realized that everything in society was nothing but a hyperreality as described by Baudrillard: a set of symbols and institutions that are “more real” than reality. All that mattered to me was that I was able to slash open another wound on my wrists. Even though I thought everything was meaningless, I felt compelled to live everyday life with school and homework, but the empty feeling of nihilism replaced the awe and wonder I once experienced when learning about the world.
Amidst all of my moping and cutting, I was still drawn to reading, only now it was for a justification. I sifted through the Bible, the Qu’ran, the Shruti, the I-Ching, the Zend-Avesta, the Communist Manifesto, Dante’s Divine Comedy, and even through the Satanic Bible, A Course in Miracles, Mein Kempf, and the Egyptian Book of the Dead in order to find meaning in my life. I’ve prayed, chanted, and worshipped more gods than most have ever heard of in search for that Grand Design, the meaning of things. With each unanswered prayer, each unsuccessful summons, each ineffective ritual, I became convinced that there was no one listening. Again, I’ve tried to reason my way out, telling myself that “God is furious about your idolatry” or “God has a hidden plan,” but that did not liberate me from the mental prison I’d created for myself and it actually dug me deeper into this trench of despair.
It was during the first semester of my junior year I became obsessed with Nihilism because I felt that its message for destroying the fallacies were imperative in finding truth. Schopenhauer and Nietzsche became the topic of my conversations with everyone, which was quite unfortunate because many Utahns are not even able to pronounce their names. Pressure-cooked by a Mormon community and a Christian family, I felt as if I was boiled down to a bitter solution of rage and hurt. I attacked anything that seemed to promote happiness or other optimistic metanarratives and my tongue became a hypodermic needle injecting acrimony into my opponents. The fury I harnessed was slowly destroying me as I was isolating myself from my environment, feeling as if I was reliving the difficult four years I spent in Korea. At first I saw this wrath as power (after all, hatred is very powerful), but like an ulcer, it burned me inside out. I realized that I needed a hero. I needed someone to save me. I waited for that someone who would lead me from my solitude. That someone was a surprise. That someone was me.
Okay, okay! Technically it was a combination of Sartre and Kierkegaard that saved me, but nonetheless I realized through these authors that I was the one who had to save myself. The realization happened quite unexpectedly—during an episode of the TV series Angel. In Episode 2x16 “Epiphany,” our hero has an epiphany (hence the title): if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do. Angel has been battling for centuries an endless battle for his redemption (he’s a vampire… with a soul… how cool is that?!) and during the past couple of episodes, he has been going through an existential crisis. As with all American television programming, it took carnage and bacchanalia to knock some sense into him. At the end of the episode, he learns that redemption starts with the forgiveness of the self, just as existence begins with the awareness of the self. Even though our existence is futile like the task of Sisyphus, it is all that we have; therefore, it is the only thing that has meaning.
After sharing Angel’s epiphany, I realized that the nihilism and the nonexistence of purpose no longer matters because it is our actions that justifies our existence. Nothing is true; everything is permitted. It is not what the author says that dictates the meaning of the book; it is what the readers interpret and do about it that creates the true meaning of the book.
Likewise, it should not matter if there is an absolute purpose in life or not. Life itself is meaning. Experience is meaning. Sure, the author may be dead. Sure, God may be dead. What really matters is what we do about it. Although we may cry when we are born because “we are come to this stage of fools,” that doesn’t mean that we can’t laugh about it—after all, what is absurdity but the most humorous and ridiculous of incredulity? Through laughter the audience of a work receives power and through power the audience creates meaning. We create our own meaning. That is why we are human beings.
Although this revelation of mine is not original either, I’ve also discovered that an architect needs not be truly original to be great (name one original idea by Shakespeare, the “inventor of man”). The architect instead must be dedicated to self-conviction and open to experiences, especially since the architect’s job is a process of synthesis and evolution. Besides, you generate more controversy by wearing both a crucifix and a pentagram than you would if you wore an “original” symbol.
Through this discourse between the different voices in my head, I have realized that I am under no obligation to fulfill any narratives other than my own. So what meaning have I chosen for myself, you ask? Well… I’ll let you know once you accept me.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Monday, October 8, 2007
HIPS Response 2
This is my second response for my HIPS course. This time, it's regarding science and religion in ancient Greek philosophy. I didn't get any special recognition for my deconstruction last week, so I'm a bit miffed, but I understand, as the University of Chicago really likes its New Criticism paradigm.
Response 2: Separating Practices
The aphorisms of early Greek sages are without doubt eloquent—“Numbers constitute the whole universe” [1], “Just as our soul, being air, holds us together and controls us, so do breath and air surround the whole cosmos” [2], “Anaximander says that the stars are borne by the circles and spheres on which each one goes” [3]. Each of these ideas show seeds of the Western Thought, reaching out on natural, mystical, and philosophical motifs, but given the current divisions in science, religion, and philosophy, how exactly have these different areas diverged from a common source? Obviously, rigor, cosmological conviction, and speculation are all intricately intertwined in ancient Greek philosophy, so to explain science and religion independently is futile—science and religion can only be explained in relation to each other.
If we examine the Milesians and Pythagoreans, we see an elegant cosmology based on some sort of monism—be it Thales’s primordial water [4], Anaximene’s air [5], or Pythagoras’s numbers [1]. Although these are somewhat “natural” cosmologies as opposed to theistic origins (but this does not mean that there is not a place for a creator or creators), they are merely speculations that even Thales’s student Anaximander has labeled only as “stuff” [6]. These arguments are not “scientific” in a Popperian sense since they lack falsifiability, but they provide an important function to the early Greek philosophers: an origin of sorts, a design that allows individuals to find some sort of position in the vast universe. This was especially dear to the religious division of the Pythagoreans, the akousmatikoi—despite the fact that some of the teachings of Pythagoras, such as his white rooster superstition [7], are “unproved” [8].
The teleology of the universe is what drives religious speculation, but the Greeks also demanded justification, as per the rigor of the mathematikoi group of the Pythagoreans [9]. This justification provided was proto-scientific—for instance, Pythagoras experimented with mathematical proportions and wave vibrations and discovered the relation between harmony and number [10]. In fact, the term mathematikoi stems from mathema, meaning “study” or “learning,” and the mathematikoi applied the utmost rigor in their knowledge pursuits [9].
Once again, it must be stressed that these knowledge pursuits were religious in the end, as even the mathematikoi searched for further examples of their maxims regarding “the One” and “numbers consisting the universe” [11], but it is clear that there is a fundamental relationship between science and religion that cannot be severed to create separate disciplines in early Greek philosophy—religion provides a motivation for science, as science explains religion. Even though mixing these two disciplines in contemporary discourse is nothing short of controversial (cf. “Creation ‘Science’” and “Quantum Mysticism”), there is an eloquence in early Greek philosophy that stems from this combined pursuit of truth.
References
[1] Attributed to Pythagoras, quoted in Aristotle’s Metaphysics in pg 18 of Cohen’s Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy
[2] Attributed to Anaximenes, quoted by Aetius in pg 12 of Cohen’s Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy
[3] Quoted by Aetius in pg 11 of Cohen’s Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy
[4] Cohen et al. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy, 9
[5] Cohen et al. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy, 12
[6] Cohen et al. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy, 10
[7] Quoted by Aristotle in pg 18 of Cohen’s Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy
[8] Quoted by Iamblichus in pg 17 of Cohen’s Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy
[9] Cohen et al. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy, 15
[10] Quoted by Stobaeus in pg 20 of Cohen’s Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy
[11] Quoted by Aristotle in pg 18 of Cohen’s Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy
Text: Cohen, Curd, and Reeve (Eds). Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy. 3rd Ed. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc, 2005.
Response 2: Separating Practices
The aphorisms of early Greek sages are without doubt eloquent—“Numbers constitute the whole universe” [1], “Just as our soul, being air, holds us together and controls us, so do breath and air surround the whole cosmos” [2], “Anaximander says that the stars are borne by the circles and spheres on which each one goes” [3]. Each of these ideas show seeds of the Western Thought, reaching out on natural, mystical, and philosophical motifs, but given the current divisions in science, religion, and philosophy, how exactly have these different areas diverged from a common source? Obviously, rigor, cosmological conviction, and speculation are all intricately intertwined in ancient Greek philosophy, so to explain science and religion independently is futile—science and religion can only be explained in relation to each other.
If we examine the Milesians and Pythagoreans, we see an elegant cosmology based on some sort of monism—be it Thales’s primordial water [4], Anaximene’s air [5], or Pythagoras’s numbers [1]. Although these are somewhat “natural” cosmologies as opposed to theistic origins (but this does not mean that there is not a place for a creator or creators), they are merely speculations that even Thales’s student Anaximander has labeled only as “stuff” [6]. These arguments are not “scientific” in a Popperian sense since they lack falsifiability, but they provide an important function to the early Greek philosophers: an origin of sorts, a design that allows individuals to find some sort of position in the vast universe. This was especially dear to the religious division of the Pythagoreans, the akousmatikoi—despite the fact that some of the teachings of Pythagoras, such as his white rooster superstition [7], are “unproved” [8].
The teleology of the universe is what drives religious speculation, but the Greeks also demanded justification, as per the rigor of the mathematikoi group of the Pythagoreans [9]. This justification provided was proto-scientific—for instance, Pythagoras experimented with mathematical proportions and wave vibrations and discovered the relation between harmony and number [10]. In fact, the term mathematikoi stems from mathema, meaning “study” or “learning,” and the mathematikoi applied the utmost rigor in their knowledge pursuits [9].
Once again, it must be stressed that these knowledge pursuits were religious in the end, as even the mathematikoi searched for further examples of their maxims regarding “the One” and “numbers consisting the universe” [11], but it is clear that there is a fundamental relationship between science and religion that cannot be severed to create separate disciplines in early Greek philosophy—religion provides a motivation for science, as science explains religion. Even though mixing these two disciplines in contemporary discourse is nothing short of controversial (cf. “Creation ‘Science’” and “Quantum Mysticism”), there is an eloquence in early Greek philosophy that stems from this combined pursuit of truth.
References
[1] Attributed to Pythagoras, quoted in Aristotle’s Metaphysics in pg 18 of Cohen’s Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy
[2] Attributed to Anaximenes, quoted by Aetius in pg 12 of Cohen’s Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy
[3] Quoted by Aetius in pg 11 of Cohen’s Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy
[4] Cohen et al. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy, 9
[5] Cohen et al. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy, 12
[6] Cohen et al. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy, 10
[7] Quoted by Aristotle in pg 18 of Cohen’s Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy
[8] Quoted by Iamblichus in pg 17 of Cohen’s Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy
[9] Cohen et al. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy, 15
[10] Quoted by Stobaeus in pg 20 of Cohen’s Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy
[11] Quoted by Aristotle in pg 18 of Cohen’s Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy
Text: Cohen, Curd, and Reeve (Eds). Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy. 3rd Ed. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc, 2005.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Deconstructing Sappho
Okay, so for my HIPS (History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Science and Medicine) Civilization class, we must also write a weekly paper to turn in. My paper started out as a direct response to "characterize Sappho's representation of desire." Then it turned into a deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence in Sappho. So, without further ado, here is the paper of scariness:
Response 1: Desire and Presence
“The most beautiful thing,” according to Sappho, is “what you love” (Sappho, Sect 16). Throughout If Not, Winter, Sappho writes many verses on the experience of love and desire, two of the most basic experiences of the human condition. These fragments reveal a heart-breaking narrative of a lover who leaves Sappho anguished, yet Sappho beckons her lover to cherish the “beautiful times [they] had” (Sappho, Sect 94). Despite this sentimental tone, Sappho’s text reveals a rather glaring bias present in many Western works—the metaphysics of presence. The analysis of this metaphysics of presence in Sappho’s If Not, Winter shows that by advocating love, Sappho also advocates suffering.
Jacques Derrida presents the argument of the “metaphysics of presence” in his Of Grammatology as a system of metaphysics motivated by an “irrepressible desire” for a “transcendental signified,” that is, a signified (thing or idea being referred to) that any signifier (the object used to refer to the signified—words, symbols, etc.) cannot capture wholly, but is inherent in meaning regardless of signifier (Derrida, 49). This will require that the signified have a permanent presence external of any subjective experience in the form of an immutable essence. In Sappho’s text, the metaphysics of presence is obviously driven by the transcendental presence of love—Sappho establishes the omnipresence of her love by stating that there was no “holy place from which we were absent” (Sappho, sect 94) and the fact that Sappho attempts to comfort her lover by asking her to “Remember […] how we cherished you” (ibid.) clearly indicates that Sappho believes love to be a presence that is beyond the limits of time and space. In the absence of the physical presence of love, Sappho supplants the absence with memory and desire as the access to the transcendental experience of love.
Buddhist metaphysics, on the other hand, is extremely critical of both the metaphysics of presence and holding on to desire. In the “Turning the Wheel of Dharma” sermon (Dhammacakkappavattana-Sutta), Buddha introduces the Samudaya: the cause of suffering in existence is craving or desire (attributed to Buddha, see Reference 1). The very love that Sappho holds onto continues Dukkha, or suffering, as desire leads to disappointment, obsession, and overall unhappiness, especially over something that is transitory and fickle as human form (attributed to Buddha, pp 163). This continuing clinging to desire only prolongs Samsara, or the cycle of existence, which prolongs the suffering. Therefore, according to the Buddha, Sappho’s love and desire for her lover will in the end lead to renewed existence, renewed suffering, renewed presence. The Western Tradition of the metaphysics of presence, then, is one of affirming suffering and by affirming the transcendental presence of love, Sappho further intensifies pain and suffering.
Although Sappho attempts to comfort her lover by reiterating the transcendental nature of love, Sappho ironically only reiterates the suffering associated with desire and the perpetual rebirth of pain through the affirmation of presence. This shows that the Western Tradition of privileging presence is not limited to abstract philosophical treatises and ontological musings; it applies to the most emotional and irrational of human experiences as well. The juxtaposition that occurs when deconstructing the metaphysics of presence in Sappho’s text is extremely incredulous, but it illustrates the fundamental importance of primary values in any metaphysics.
References
1. Attributed to the Buddha. Dhammacakkappavattana-Sutta. Found online, Accessed 1 Oct, 2007.
2. Attributed to the Buddha. The Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra. Trans. Yamamoto, Rev. Page. London: Nirvana Publications, 1999-2000.
3. Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Trans. Spivak. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
4. Sappho. If Not, Winter. Trans. Carson. New York: Knopf, 2002.
Response 1: Desire and Presence
“The most beautiful thing,” according to Sappho, is “what you love” (Sappho, Sect 16). Throughout If Not, Winter, Sappho writes many verses on the experience of love and desire, two of the most basic experiences of the human condition. These fragments reveal a heart-breaking narrative of a lover who leaves Sappho anguished, yet Sappho beckons her lover to cherish the “beautiful times [they] had” (Sappho, Sect 94). Despite this sentimental tone, Sappho’s text reveals a rather glaring bias present in many Western works—the metaphysics of presence. The analysis of this metaphysics of presence in Sappho’s If Not, Winter shows that by advocating love, Sappho also advocates suffering.
Jacques Derrida presents the argument of the “metaphysics of presence” in his Of Grammatology as a system of metaphysics motivated by an “irrepressible desire” for a “transcendental signified,” that is, a signified (thing or idea being referred to) that any signifier (the object used to refer to the signified—words, symbols, etc.) cannot capture wholly, but is inherent in meaning regardless of signifier (Derrida, 49). This will require that the signified have a permanent presence external of any subjective experience in the form of an immutable essence. In Sappho’s text, the metaphysics of presence is obviously driven by the transcendental presence of love—Sappho establishes the omnipresence of her love by stating that there was no “holy place from which we were absent” (Sappho, sect 94) and the fact that Sappho attempts to comfort her lover by asking her to “Remember […] how we cherished you” (ibid.) clearly indicates that Sappho believes love to be a presence that is beyond the limits of time and space. In the absence of the physical presence of love, Sappho supplants the absence with memory and desire as the access to the transcendental experience of love.
Buddhist metaphysics, on the other hand, is extremely critical of both the metaphysics of presence and holding on to desire. In the “Turning the Wheel of Dharma” sermon (Dhammacakkappavattana-Sutta), Buddha introduces the Samudaya: the cause of suffering in existence is craving or desire (attributed to Buddha, see Reference 1). The very love that Sappho holds onto continues Dukkha, or suffering, as desire leads to disappointment, obsession, and overall unhappiness, especially over something that is transitory and fickle as human form (attributed to Buddha, pp 163). This continuing clinging to desire only prolongs Samsara, or the cycle of existence, which prolongs the suffering. Therefore, according to the Buddha, Sappho’s love and desire for her lover will in the end lead to renewed existence, renewed suffering, renewed presence. The Western Tradition of the metaphysics of presence, then, is one of affirming suffering and by affirming the transcendental presence of love, Sappho further intensifies pain and suffering.
Although Sappho attempts to comfort her lover by reiterating the transcendental nature of love, Sappho ironically only reiterates the suffering associated with desire and the perpetual rebirth of pain through the affirmation of presence. This shows that the Western Tradition of privileging presence is not limited to abstract philosophical treatises and ontological musings; it applies to the most emotional and irrational of human experiences as well. The juxtaposition that occurs when deconstructing the metaphysics of presence in Sappho’s text is extremely incredulous, but it illustrates the fundamental importance of primary values in any metaphysics.
References
1. Attributed to the Buddha. Dhammacakkappavattana-Sutta. Found online
2. Attributed to the Buddha. The Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra. Trans. Yamamoto, Rev. Page. London: Nirvana Publications, 1999-2000.
3. Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Trans. Spivak. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
4. Sappho. If Not, Winter. Trans. Carson. New York: Knopf, 2002.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
