Sepreme Court Follies

Oh Supreme Court, what have you done?

I can just see it now, "Ladies and gentlemen, we now bring you the Frito Lay State of the Union address by the National Rifle Association's President Sarah Palin. The Fox Vice President, Tim Pawlenti, the Sierra Club Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and the eBay Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, are seated directly behind her."

Isn't it funny (in the way that makes you want to pull your hair out and scream) how Conservative jurists are so opposed to "activists judges", yet have no problem pushing a party agenda that has little to do with stare descisis?

Camus is Absurd

I see that many of you are unhappy with my portrayal of Camus as an existentialist, especially in the same sentence as calling Sartre an existentialist. Both men were friends for many years and developed their theories not in a vacuum, but by bouncing them off the other. At some point the two had a falling out over some trivial matter which eventually ended their little get-togethers and their friendship. The two liked to talk about how they were no longer friends with the other and how completely different their views were. At was at this point in his life that Camus denounced the idea that he was an existentialist, instead calling himself an absurdist, stating that all of his works had been illustrating the absurd nature of existence, *cough* existentialism *cough*.

The schism between Sartre and Camus came down to their view on solidarity in the human condition. Sartre thought it would lead to oppression and Camus thought that it would protect against oppression. Of course, both men were right. Their difference in thought on this topic came out of their life experiences and in many ways came down to the fact that Camus played football (soccer for all you Americans) and felt and enjoyed a real sense of camaraderie from it, while Sartre was the more intellectual type.These views would be manifested in both men's fight against the Nazis during World War II, and Camus' involvement with various Algerian causes.

When one reads the articles and statements by Camus and Sartre about their break-up, it is first evident that both men were intelligent and very articulate, perhaps too much so. This thought is closely followed by the idea that "the philosopher doth protest too much". I put forth that this whole falling out was really a very cleverly crafted public relations coup. How else could you get the press to talk about existentialism/absurdism/whateverism, even in France? Why you have a noted scholar and a Nobel Laureate have a falling out. Both men essentially hold press conferences to say they are no long agreeing with the other man.

I think that if Albert Camus had not died so tragically at such a young age, we would have continued to see this "discussion" between Sartre and he. I think it would very likely have become a modern-day Socratic dialogue.

Camus claimed that the nature of Absurdism was that it looked at and embraced the inherent paradox of existence, you know, like how you can become more of an existentialist by arguing that you are not one.

Jean-Paul Sartre, you old fart

When I first began to learn of existentialism, I was a boy still in high school. At that time I felt like I had a fairly good grasp of the concept based of the body of work that I had read, namely a play (No Exit) and a short novel (The Stranger). Something this school of thought really connected with my teen-aged angst. Suddenly life felt bleak.

I went off to college and read more, discovering the harsh works of Rand and Nietzsche. Oh my god! Thou art dead! That and if I'm not the one sticking it to people, they're going to stick it to me and rightly so.

After the university, I went back to the basis of the modern existential movement, Sartre and Camus. My universe, with it's dead god and horrible people changed once again. It wasn't until my late 20's that I could even begin to understand what these two men had been saying, and more importantly that they weren't saying the same things that Rand and Nietzsche were. God was not dead, god had never been. Or maybe god had been and still was, but was as separate from us as the cold blackness of the cosmos.
For the first time in my personal examination of existentialism, I was able to separate the religion form the philosophy. My bleak world view began to lighten up and even allow for true happiness. One might also argue that I was finally letting go of (some of) my teen-age angst. Far be it for me to reduce philosophy to neuro-psychology, but I will (should) admit that they both my exist without negating the other.
The revelation was that life had meaning after all. It had the meaning that not only I had assigned to it, but the meaning that my culture, both personal and at large, had assigned to it. Life has meaning because my mom cared enough about to raise me to an age where I could fend for myself. My mother could do this because other mothers and fathers and teachers and coal miners and bakers valued the life that was started with my birth and the birth of others in our culture.
Existentialism took on a whole new aspect, becoming a personal philosophy of inclusion. It was the ultimate tool of empowerment - society made it possible for me to get to a point where I could take it or leave it and believe as I may.
The problem with this empowerment brought me full circle back around to No Exit. I finally understood the play with a deeper meaning, not just that hell is other people, but hell is of my own creation because I am bothered by these other people. Hell is still hell, but the degree of suffering ultimately rests with me.

the new year

Happy 2010! Or, like, you know, whatever.

At least it's not 2009 anymore. I don't know about y'all, but that's a year I would like to put behind me. If I could perhaps experience a bit of the Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind...not to forget the people but to forget the year and what happened in it.

I'm sure I'm not the only one. Supposedly the recession is over, but unemployment is still way too high and not going down - you've got love the notion of a jobless recovery. Every time I hear "jobless recovery" I just think about how the corporations are recovering, but Joe America is still getting screwed.

How many wars are we still fighting? Two too many. And who knows what's going to happen in Iran or Yemen over the coming year. I'm glad that I don't have to make the decisions for the country, because I certainly can't think of a good way to extricate ourselves from these messes.

I don't take the terrorist threat lightly, though. I think it is likely a bigger deal now than it was in the last decade. If someone needs to look at a scan of me before I get on a plane, then I will gladly give up a little more privacy to keep from dying, or to keep others from dying in a terrorist plot, or prevent the U.S. from sending more of our soldiers someplace else where they may die.

I'm just kind of rambling my way back into the first post here in a while, but that's okay. Better to ramble than to do nothing. :) This isn't so bad after all (the act of blogging, that is, and not necessarily reading what I've blogged) and maybe I can get back into a regular rhythm at least for a little bit...