Category: Autobiographical

Kerouac October Quotation #11: For the Sake of Absolute Freedom

It's October 11th today, Columbus Day.  This is a month to be savored day by day, hour by hour.  To aid in the savoring, here is today's Kerouac quotation, from "The Vanishing American Hobo" in Lonesome Traveler, p. 173 of the 1970 Black Cat edition.  (Purchased my copy in a shop on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on 12 April 1973, while on the road, enroute to Boston from Los Angeles.  From that point of the trip on I had two Kerouac books in my rucksack, the just mentioned and, you guessed it, On the Road.)

There is nothing nobler than to put up with a few incoveniences like snakes and dust for the sake of absolute freedom.

Buddhism on Suffering and One Reason I am Not a Buddhist

(This entry touches upon some themes discussed with greater rigor, thoroughness, and scholarliness in my "No Self? A Look at a Buddhist Argument," International Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 42, no. 4 (December 2002), pp. 453-466.)

For Buddhism, all is dukkha, suffering.  All is unsatisfactory.  This, the First Noble Truth, runs contrary to ordinary modes of thinking:  doesn't life routinely offer us, besides pain and misery and disappointment, intense pleasures and deep satisfactions?  How then can it be true that sarvam dukkham?  For the Buddhist, however, what is ordinarily taken by the unenlightened worldling  to be sukha (pleasure) is at bottom dukkha.  Why?  Because no pleasure, mental or physical, gives permanent and plenary satisfaction.  Each satisfaction leaves us in the lurch, wanting more.  A desire satisfied is a desire entrenched. Masturbate once, and you will do it a thousand times, with the need for repetition testifying to the unsatisfactoriness of the initial satisfaction.   Each pleasure promises more that it can possibly deliver, and so refers you to the next and the next and the next, none of them finally satisfactory.  It's a sort of Hegelian schlechte Unendlichkeit.  Desire satisfied becomes craving, and craving is an instance of dukkha.  One becomes attached to the paltry and impermanent and one suffers when it cannot be had. 

There is more to it than this, but this is the essence of it.  The thing to note is that the claim in the First Noble Truth is not the triviality that there is a lot of suffering in this life, but that life itself, as insatiable desiring and craving for what is unattainable to it, is ill, pain-inducing, profoundly unsatisfactory, and something to be escaped from if possible. It is a radical diagnosis of the human predicament, and the proposed cure is equally radical: extirpation of desire.  The problem for the Buddhist is not that some of our desires are misdirected; the problem is desire itself.  The soulution, then, is not rightly-ordered desire, as in Christianity, but the eradication of desire.  The root of suffering is desire and that root must be uprooted (e-radi-cated). 

Although Buddhism appears in some ways to be a sort of 'empirical religion' — to hazard an oxymoron — the claim that all is suffering involves an interpretation of our experience that goes well beyond the empirically given.  Buddhism, as a development from Hinduism, judges the given by the standard of the permanent.  Permanence is the standard against which the  ordinary satisfactions of life are judged deficient.  Absolute permanence sets the ontological and axiological standard.  The operative presupposition is that only that which is permanent is truly real and truly important.  But if, as Buddhism also maintains, all is impermanent, then one wonders whence the standard of permanence derives its validity. If all is impermanent, and nothing has self-nature, then the standard is illusory.  If so, then we have no good reason to reject all ordinary satisfactions.

For Buddhism, the fundamental problem is suffering in the radical sense above explained, and the solution is entry into nibbana by the extirpation of desire, all desire (including even the desire for nibbana), as opposed to the moderation of desire and its redirection to worthy objects.  I reject both the diagnosis and the cure.  The diagnosis is faulty because incoherent: it presupposes while denying the exstence of an absolute ontological and axiological standard.  The cure is faulty because it issues in nihilism, as if the goal of life could be nonexistence.

I am talking about primitive Buddhism, that of the Pali canon.  Attention to the Mahayana would require some qualifications.

So one reason I am not a Buddhist is that I reject the doctrine of suffering.  But I also reject the doctrines of impermanence and 'no self.'  That gives me two more reasons.

But I should say that I take Buddhism very seriously indeed.  It is deep and sophisticated with a rich tradition of philosophical commentary.  Apart from its mystical branch, Sufism, I cannot take Islam seriously –except as a grave threat to other religions and indeed to civilization itself.  But perhaps I have been too much influenced by Schopenhauer on this point.

 

The Two Kinds of People and the Manifold Uses of Blogging

I once worked as a mail handler at the huge Terminal Annex postal facility in downtown Los Angeles. I was twenty or twenty one. An old black man, thinking to instruct me in the ways of the world, once said to me, "Beell, dey is basically two kahnds a people in dis world, the fuckahs and the fuckees, and you gonna have to decide which side you gonna be on." This morning I found the thought expressed with a bit more elegance by Giacomo Leopardi (1798- 1837) in his Pensieri:

The human race, from the individual on up, is split into two camps: the bullies and the bullied. Neither law nor force of any kind, nor advancement in civilization and philosophy, can prevent men now or in the future from belonging to one of these two camps. So, he who can choose, must choose. Although not everyone is able, nor is the choice always available. (Pensieri [Thoughts], tr. Di Piero, Louisiana State University Press, 1981, p. 69)

Am I endorsing the alternative?  No. I am merely presenting it for your consideration.

My posts are not all of the same type. Some are just notes to myself, records of what I am reading and thinking about. Others are meant to draw the reader's attention to this or that for his edification or delectation. Some carefully argue a thesis I believe to be true. Others merely assert a thesis I believe to be true. Some are sloppy and impressionistic. In others, the rigor mentis approaches rigor mortis.

Some posts are aphoristic. But don't assume that an aphorism cannot have deep and rigorous and systematic thought at its origin. Some posts are polemical. There are people who do not occupy the space of reasons so that attempting to engage them in that space is a fool's errand. They are in need of defeat or perhaps therapy, not rational persuasion. The verbal equivalent of a blow to the head or a kick in the ass will do them more good than a patient setting-forth of reasons beyond their comprehension.

The uses of blogging are manifold.

Where Were You on 9/11/01?

I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I first of heard about the acts of 9/11 Islamoterrorism.  It was a cool and bright Arizona morning, dry and delightful as only the desert can be.  I had just returned from a long hard bike ride.  Preliminary to some after-ride calisthenics I switched on the TV only to see  one of the planes enter one of the Trade Towers.

I suspected correctly what was up and I remarked to my wife, "Well, two good things will come of this: Gary Condit will be out of the news forever, and finally something will be done about the porosity of the southern border."  I turned out to be right on one count.  Gary Condit, who had come to national prominence because of his adulterous affair with Chandra Levy, and who had dominated the news that summer of aught-one, dropped out of sight.  And good riddance.

But I was sadly mistaken on the second count.  So here we are, nine years later, with such abominations Obaminations as Department of Justice lawsuits against the State of Arizona for attempting to do what the Feds ought to do yet refuse to do while Mexican drug cartels control some portions of the state.

For detailed analysis, see my Arizona category.

The Most Boring Philosophers

Nowadays philosophy so absorbs me in all its branches and movements that I find no philosopher boring. Indeed,  no subject is boring except to the bored who make it  so. Dry texts, like dry wines, are often delightfully subtle and simply require an educable and educated palate. Although no philosophers now bore me, here is a list of philosophers who bored me, or would have bored me, when I was one and twenty:

   1. G. E. Moore
   2. Elizabeth Anscombe
   3. Paul Ziff
   4. Norman Malcolm
   5. John Wisdom
   6. Roderick Chisholm

Philosophers who excited my 21 year old self:

   1. Nicholas Berdyaev
   2. Miguel de Unamuno
   3. Karl Jaspers
   4. Friedrich Nietzsche
   5. Martin Heidegger
   6. Jean-Paul Sartre

Now imagine a philosophy department composed of the twelve aforementioned. Do you think it would split into two factions? What, if anything, do they have in common that justifies subsuming them under the rubric, philosophers?

I have become in many ways more analytic and less Continental over the years. I tend to think that this a lot like becoming less liberal and more conservative, as these terms are popularly understood. One becomes more cautious, careful, precise, piece-meal, rigorous, attentive to details and differences and empirical data, less romantic, more patient, more logical, less impressionistic, less sanguine about big sweeping once-and-for-all solutions. . . .

In sum, and in a manner to elicit howls of protest:  In philosophy, the trajectory of maturation is from Continental to analytic.  In politics, from liberal to conservative.

Howl on, muchachos.

My Angelic Wife

One indicator of her angelicity is her support of my chess activities — in stark contrast to the wives of two acquaintances both of whose 'better' halves destroyed their chess libraries in fits of rage at time spent sporting with Caissa. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," wrote old Will.

I'm no bard, but here's my ditty in remembrance of my two long lost Ohio chess friends:

   Forget that bitch
   And dally with me.
   Else I'll decimate
   Your library.

Bear Canyon Trail in the San Gabriel Mountains

The Bear Canyon Trail (Old Mt. Baldly Trail) is one way to the top of Mt. Baldy (Mount San Antonio) in the San Gabriel Mountains.  My childhood friend John Ingvar Odegaard (the heftier of the two guys depicted below) and I got nowhere near the peak, but we did saunter up to Bear Flat in a manner most leisurely.  We had the trail to ourselves except for a young mother with baby in papoose and an angry rattlesnake who was not glad to see us.  The trail to Bear Flat is a mere 1. 75 miles one way, but fairly steep, gaining 1260' from the trailhead at 4260'.  The trail was delightfully soft, unlike the rocky, ankle-busting tracks I am used to in the Superstitions, and proceeded mostly under an arboreal canopy of oak and other trees.   But the trail opened out here and there onto some nice vistas.  From one, we could see all the way down to the ancestral Odegaard cabin in Baldy Village.

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Odegaard

We Philosophize Best With Friends

Aristotle says that somewhere, but I forgot where.  In any case, it is true as I verified once again yesterday in Tempe, where I met up with Steven Nemes, Mike Valle, Peter Lupu and his student Scott.  Before joining them I stopped at the library where I borrowed Thomas McKay's Plural Predication and Douglas Hyde's I Believed. 

The conversation went on for about five hours from 2 to 7.  The 19 year old Nemes has made a fairly thorough study of my book on existence (see here for links to the ten posts he has written about it) and we discussed some topics from the book.  He really understands me, and has a keen eye for problems potential and actual.  I jokingly call Nemes my nemesis.  We also discussed free will and Biblical inerrancy.  Steven floated some interesting ideas that he then today began to work out in this post.

It occurred to me today that Peter and I, sitting and smoking out in front of the Churchill cigar emporium, did a good job of instantiating the role of Sidewalk Socrates, a role Peter learned from his friend and teacher, Sidney Morgenbesser.  "There are people who have a passion for discourse, who are addicted to debate, who live in a world of constant conversation, and Morgenbesser was among the purest examples of the type."  The description fits Peter as well.  But I chided Peter for being a 'corrupter of youth' when he offered Steven cigarettes.

 

The Monterey Pop Festival, June 1967

Monterey_pop_72dsi It transpired 43 summers ago, this June, the grandaddy of rock festivals, two years before Woodstock, in what is known as the Summer of Love. Your humble correspondent was on the scene. Some high school friends and I drove up from Los Angeles along Pacific Coast Highway. I can still call up olfactory memories of patchouli, sandalwood incense, not to mention the aroma of what was variously known as cannabis sativa, marijuana, reefer, tea, Miss Green, maryjane, pot, weed, grass, pacalolo (Hawaiian term), loco weed, and just plain dope. But my friends and I, students at an all-boys Catholic high school that enforced a strict dress code, were fairly straight: we partook of no orgies, smoked no dope, and slept in a motel. The wild stuff came later in our lives, when we were better able to handle it.

I have in my hand the programme book of the Festival, in mint condition. Do I hear $1,000? On the first page there is a quotation from Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice:

 

How sweet the moon-light sleeps upon this bank! Here we sit and let the sounds of music creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night, become the touches of sweet harmony.

Ah yes, I remember it well, the "sweet harmony" of the whining feedback of Jimi Hendrix's Fender Stratocaster plugged into his towering Marshall amps and the "soft stillness" of the The Who smashing their instruments to pieces! Not to be outdone, Jimi lit his Strat on fire with lighter fluid. Jimihendrixmontereykl3 The image is burned into my memory. It shocked my working-class frugality. I used to baby my Fender Mustang and I once got mad at a girl for placing a coke can on my Fender Deluxe Reverb amp. On the last page of the programme book, a more fitting quotation: the lyrics of Dylan's The Times They Are a Changin', perhaps the numero uno '60s anthem to youth and social ferment. Were the utopian fantasies of the '60s just a load of rubbish? Mostly, but not entirely. "Lately it occurs to me, what a long strange trip it's been."

Here is a sample of the proceedings.

Crude or Earthy?

A past inamorata once offered, with some justice, that I am crude. "Not crude, but earthy," was my reply. A colleague once described my eyes as "beady." "Do you mean penetrating?"

Am I pigheaded in my opinions, or admirably firm? Monomaniacal or single-minded? Open-minded or empty-headed? Well-rounded or scattered? Am I precise or obsessive-compulsive? Is my rigor mentis in truth rigor mortis?

Maverick Philosopher 6th Blogiversary

Some say that blogging is dead.  Read or unread, whether by sages or fools, I shall blog on.  A post beats a twit tweet any day, and no day without a post.  Nulla dies sine linea.   It is too early to say of blogging what Etienne Gilson said of philosophy, namely, that it always buries its undertakers, but I am hopeful.  After all, a weblog is just an online journal, and journal scribbling has flourished most interestingly for centuries.  To put it romantically, blogging is a vehicle for the relentless quotidian sifting, seeking, and questing for sense and truth and reality without which some of us would find life meaningless.

This, the fourth version of Maverick Philosopher, was begun on 31 October 2008.  Since that time it has racked up  459446 Lifetime Pageviews, 835.36 Pageviews/Day, 1463 Total Posts, and 2685 Total Comments.

I thank you for your patronage.

Why I Like Parties

I like parties. I derive considerable satisfaction from not attending them. There is such a thing as the pleasure of conscious avoidance, of knowing that one has wisely escaped a situation likely to be frustrating and unpleasant.  If others are offended by my nonattendance, that I regret.  But peace of mind is a higher value than social dissipation — which is no value at all.