Owning Reality
Two thorny problems haunt empiricism, and with it our entire ability to think with experience. On the one hand, there is that old deep problem of what exactly is real. On the other, of how one locates oneself within that reality. The problem in each case is by no means simple. The problem of reality has, since at least Plato, been confused with another, far odder problem: the problem of meaning. The second problem likewise involves a deep confusion between what it is to own passions, in contrast to what it is to be possessed by affects. No doubt these two confusions, when baldy stated like that, appear hopelessly abstract, and yet as I will show in this Rant and the next, they lie right at the heart of our attempt to understand a world given to us by experience (that is right at the heart of empiricism itself). In this Rant, the ins and outs of the first of these problems will be considered in some detail. The problem of affects and passions, which lies at the heart of the second problem will have to wait until next week.
The first dilemma asks that age old question, - to what does experience refer? That is, is there (as Locke claimed) elsewhere in the world a truth to matter? A hidden or open truth, a thing in itself or object, of which we learn by experience. Or is there no such element, in which case what exactly is reality? Is it ‘merely our experience’ and therefore utterly relative and volatile? And if the last is true, what would it mean for our ability to think about where we are in the world? On the deepest of levels this argument is a matter of theology. The hidden thing, the thing in itself, beyond experience is ultimately the matter of God itself. And yet this very recourse to a quasi divine level (the world as it is), reveals another debate hidden inside the appeal to a beyond. If Perceptions relate to an external world, then one can imply that it is this world which at some very deep level expresses the meaning of all perceptions. Or better (as Nietzsche noted) it expresses what that world really ought to mean (whether it likes it or not).
The world that we actually live in, thereby becomes accountable to what can never be in it, and yet which it is said to give meaning to. Indeed perception becomes itself valued only as it is expressing the ‘meaning’ of what is itself hidden in the perception, the outside world in itself. Perceptions become a shattered instance of higher meaning. A chair itself might never be a chair. It is clearly merely a sequence of impressions, one upon the other, and yet those impressions, are what they are because they reflect some object. At this point it matters very little whether the urgency to form the world of meaning lies within the world itself (as Locke claimed) or our minds (as Kant claimed). The problem is not where meaning comes from, but rather that it is at all. Or rather, that it is now meaning, (rather of the reality of perceptions) which is thought to be in charge of the entire process of experience.
This probably all seems still rather abstract, and yet the problem of meaning is one that haunts almost every political and scientific debate we have, on frequently the oddest of levels, and with the darkest of consequences. Take for example, the entire issue of opinion polls, and the sheer weight of numbers which the current American election for one, appears to be drowning within. Figures are endlessly produced, showing which candidates attract which voters. This welter of facts, then demands a series of meanings, which encompasses and explicates a mere mass of figures. Moreover, what is then significant about this meaning is that it is frequently infantile in the extreme. Hilary is an older women, so attracts women voters; Obama is ‘black’ so attracts African Americans. But then neither are Latino, so where does the Latino vote go? The quest for meaning thereby shifts the entire notion of political debate. On the one hand the debate becomes a crazy quest for significance, in which a single narrative is drawn out of apparently barely pronounced (and constantly shifting) ‘trends’. In this quest all the rules of statistics are clearly lain aside. The smallest of margins is thought to ‘be significant’ and to ‘tell its story’ (just for the record, a candidate attracting 55% of one group of voters is almost never statically significant, - it could be chance, and is not a trend). On the other hand, it is clear that within the quest for meaning that a far darker story is also present. The reporting of the American elections in terms of a battle of age, gender and ethnicity, is clearly rather disturbing in itself, as it is clearly allowing constantly ‘other things’ to be said, things which if said out in the open would be unforgivable. The election is no doubt so very ‘fascinating’, because it is allowing, through the very choice between the candidates themselves, these other rather dark stories also be there.
Meaning is more than simply an appeal to something beyond a system, an empty thing in itself. In the very fact that that appeal is made (and is theological in nature) extra dimensions almost invariably creep in. A meaning will always also reflect the prejudices of those who quest after it. The prejudices are indeed what are then transfigured, by becoming caught up in being meaning itself (this is of course the Marxist conception of ideology, or Nietzschean bad faith). As one might well expect, the ‘catch up’ here is as volatile as the prejudices that are also there. For example it is clearly okay for the media to be as corrupt as they like, and to grease the palms of their families. News outlets are replete with political ‘dynasties’. And yet it is of course an utterly different matter when politicians do the same. Then it is clearly corruption. The prejudice here is clear enough. The mere desire for power itself implies that there is something rather ‘dodgy’ not to say unscrupulous about politicians. The ‘meanings’ of their actions are therefore different from the harmless (and far more prevalent) corruptions of journalists. When a politician acts in such a way that aids his nearest and dearest, it therefore indicates this base level of corruption, and must be stamped out accordingly, as some kind of testimony to this ‘inner’ corruption of the power hungry spirit (and of course because political scandal makes such good copy for journalists); whereas the corruption in other professions can be safely ignored.
The Quest for meaning therefore allows the world to be warped into a maze of double standards, and shifting opinions. This by itself might be acceptable (it is after all rather difficult to imagine a mind without this veneer of hypocrisy). However, the process becomes critical, because of the other effect of ‘meaning’; the entire prejudices of thought lie in the assumption that once a meaning has been divined, the thought itself can stop, - or rather is endlessly contained within that meaning.
The prevention of thought here comes in two dimensions. On the one hand there is the rather simplistic definition of ‘archetypes’, which almost by definition encompass a whole variety of different impressions. We use biology or spiritualism, to create in Genes or in Gods, single explanations for numerous rather distinct processes. One needs a degree of caution here. It is not that Gods or Genes are not in their own level, right of themselves. But rather that there is a natural tendency to extend that level, and set it up, as somehow including a single explanation for a whole variety of different facts, all of which are then said to (somehow) testify to its meaning. The world easily slips into being ‘about’ something other than it appears to be.
On the other hand there are the far more complex preventions which aim to locate thinking in one of a certain series of disciplines. Each discipline develops its own creative dimensions and powers, and loses sight of the ability to communicate with others. The world of biology is not the same as the world of maths or the world of politics. The problem here is however surprisingly intricate. It is not that of itself such thought is wrongheaded. On the contrary, at almost every turn specialisms are to be preferred to vacuous eclecticism. The problem is rather that firstly, specialisms naturally understand themselves under their own paradigms. They therefore catch themselves up in expressing a series of meanings, and in becoming preoccupied with those meanings, lose sight of the possibility to move beyond them (by considering elements from other disciplines). They therefore confuse method with meaning.
Secondly the very existence of disciplines makes the jumping between distinct ways of thinking rather tricky. The problem is that it is all too easy to pose as a radical (you know - the one capable of thinking ‘out of the box’ – the mistaken genius), when all one actually is, is a fool, pretentiously dabbling in many areas. That is, it is all too easy for one individual to, in claiming to be a lost genius, effectively take on the ‘mantle’ of meaning itself (and become a guru). That is, such an individual themselves (irrespective of what they are saying) becomes the hidden secret to many different threads of thought. Nor is there any natural limiter in this process. Once someone has set themselves up as such a guru, the tendency is always to slip into being more and more messianic, as the entire universe, and its secrets (or the hidden paths between disciplines) appears to testify to the existence of one person’s mind. Philosophy (of all denominations), but also religion is of course replete with such individuals…
Drawing these meanings is a strangely poisonous drug (opiate) we take, to lessen our encounter with the world. By understanding a world composed of meaning, we not only make that world so much more easy to understand, but we also very quietly smuggle into it many of our prejudices and preconceptions. In doing so, we allow the rather frightening world of blind chance and shifting patterns to become also ours. That is, we read in it thoughts which we already had, and map out a reality composed of these ‘also-thoughts’. The world becomes easy, and becomes ours in one nice little move. The world becomes our perception as it expresses our own prejudices and dreams and as we feel we have the right to command what we think and when.
The problem is not that such a move is somehow of itself wrong. On the contrary it will be by now clear that for much of the time we can in effect do no other than this. And that, moreover, any attempt to move beyond such a compromise too quickly is likely to collapse into the vacuity and egotism of the guru. The problem is not that such an appeal to meaning is made, but rather that the tendency is that it is the only possible claim allowed. The cry goes up that everything must have meaning, must refer to something beyond Itself, and anyone who denies or queries this fact is denying the true faith (and is odd or a madman or a heretic in need of burning or imprisoning or curing). In the screech for The Real, the reality in whose light we actually live, I mean the constantly shifting world, and highly volatile world of perceptions, is ignored. Or even worse it is reducible to that oddest and most corrosive of myths, relativism. The reality of perceptions lies in their ability to jump between meanings – this is what makes them so very powerful (and creates us in the process). This by and large is our own reality. And to claim that this is somehow relativistic is to inverse the creative order here. That is, it is to claim from the fact that reality can create and recreate very many things, that it is this act of creation, this being able to go and go again, that is the ‘goal’ of reality itself. It is its (non-) meaning. While, in contrast the entire point of perception lies in active recreations, irrespective of what meanings are afterward attached to them.
Meaning, and ossification run together: meaning creates that all too innocent (and yet potentially highly pernicious) claim that even if things are not nice or easy, in their giving, they at least point to a world somewhere which behaves as if it were relatively straight forward. The giving, the act of witness might be a perpetual journey, but what is witnessed is in itself at least easy (or fixed at any rate – it can be given a name, and related to as if it were something). Moreover it is in this very gap, between witnessing and elements in themselves, that all kinds of madness and prejudice lurk, and are endlessly justified.
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