The Rangers, Indians, animals and women

by Andrea Elizabeth

‘He [H.L. Mencken] … conducted an epistolary debate on individualism with a socialist acquaintance that eventually appeared in book form as Men versus the Man … Men versus the Man shows how his political thinking had solidified — hardened, really. The law of the survival of the fittest, he declares, is “immutable,” thus making socialism an absurdity; human progress is the product of the will to power, and all social arrangements failing to take this fact into account are doomed to failure; inequality is natural, even desirable, both in and of itself and as an alternative to mob rule; the world exists to be run by “the first-caste man.” ‘(quote in this very interesting, though sometimes disturbing, article by John Derbyshire. H/T facebook friend)

My newly awakened sense of ‘go get ‘em’ in this World Series bid is leading me back to my individualistic political mindset. By the way, it is interesting to me that the article links individualism with nationalism, which is a group identity. I disagree with the point made about inequality, but see how one must accept a certain version of it to promote individualism. We do not all have the same abilities. My view on education has been that everyone can learn. I have not thought that much about can everyone think. I think my opinion about this comes largely from having a brother who was born with some brain damage. In many ways I think he was put in a category and not challenged enough. I think he could have excelled more than he did but for the “tyranny of low expectations” (G.W. Bush). I sense that tyranny in some places of the article.

On the other hand, for two of our six children it seems that most subjects come easier and more naturally to them than the other four, though of course they all excel in their own ways. The article does give a nod to people whose strengths do not match the current demand, and that this demand may change in time. For those two sons, however, it seems they have less blocks to learning. The wheels seem more greased. I think that everyone’s mind has a capacity to explore an infinite variety of subjects to an infinite degree, and some people’s bodies let them go further than others (because of the fall) in either sense. Inheritance (instead of “nature”), nurture, and will contribute to which limitations are placed on us. But we are not made to be limited. Our wills (still possibly shaped by inheritance and nurture) will keep us individuals though, even if all limitations are someday removed.

So here we are with varying strengths in varying areas. What about nationalism, which I’ll use as an affiliation with a group, and how we treat those “weaker”? Socialism seeks to even the playing field, which to some extent is the accepted thing to do nowadays. There are even new rules that keep rich baseball teams (Yankees) from buying all the best players. I don’t mind this, but what I mind more is that teams with a city’s name on them don’t have players from that area. But that’s not too irritating because I believe in adoption.

I also like the idea of the strong being able to see how far they can go. But that leads to the Yankees going to the World Series every year, monopolies, slave labor, genocide, extinction of animals and ancient trees, and women wearing burkas. Ideally strong people will be good sports and nice Christians and consider not only can we, but should we. Historically laws have to make this happen.

Back to the Rangers. On one hand I don’t like the Giants’ intimidating beards, or San Francisco’s non-Bible belt behaviors. On the other hand, I don’t want them to adopt our behaviors just to even the playing field. May the best team win, whatever that means.

Me on Derrida on Aristotle and Michelangelo

by Andrea Elizabeth

It’s not just about David in the marble, but also about the chips that fell, that were swept into the landfill, that ended up under a parking lot.

A feminist would put something else of David’s under a parking lot.

I would have taken less of the chips away.

Fig leaf for the cast of Michelangelo’s David, Plaster, Perhaps by the firm of D. Brucciani & Co, About 1857, Museum no 1857-161:A

The story goes that on her first encounter with the cast of David at the Museum, Queen Victoria was so shocked by the nudity that a proportionally accurate fig leaf was commissioned. It was then kept in readiness for any royal visits, when it was hung on the figure using two strategically placed hooks. In a photograph of the Art Museum taken around 1857-9 the figure of David is shown wearing a fig leaf. The fig leaf is likely to have been made by the Anglo-Italian firm D. Brucciani & Co., based in London.

Male nudity was then a contentious issue. A letter sent to the Museum in 1903 by a Mr Dobson complained about the statuary displayed: ‘One can hardly designate these figures as “art” !: if it is, it is a very objectionable form of art.’

In relation to Mr Dobson’s complaint, the then director Caspar Purdon Clarke noted: ‘The antique casts gallery has been very much used by private lady teachers for the instruction of young girl students and none of them has ever complained even indirectly’ (museum papers, 1903).

Tin fig leaves had been used during the early years of the Museum on other nude male statuary, but later authorities at South Kensington were dismissive of objections. Nowadays, the fig leaf is no longer displayed on the David. Instead, it is housed in its own case on the back of the plinth of the figure.

So much for nowadays.

Memories

by Andrea Elizabeth

I followed a link from my wordpress stats to this forum and thanks to “find in this page” I located the source. I do not know “dan”, but his post reminds me of a cyberpunk conversation I used to read.

I will comment briefly that there can be a many worlds theory at work and overlapping dimensions/duality principle in working out YOUR salvation in FEAR! and TREMBLING! I note importantly that ye draweth not nigh to church SUNday. Meaning is to some extent limited to capacity, we can see mundane existance’s eschaton is death, perhaps it’s a dead MATTER for most living dead. The question you propose is contrasting gnomic volition with telos, however I don’t have to accept your proposition is a true and accurate appraisal of the status quo regardless of your perspective. It is what it is Bullish, it can be many things and worlds within worlds without end to each and yet a reality in common. I’ll include some links you may enjoy though. http://neuro.sofiatopia.org/brainmind_brain.htm http://bloggingsbetter.wordpress.com/2008/06/12/the-gnostic-view-of-women/ http://bloggingsbetter.wordpress.com/2007/12/10/from-derrida-to-decani/ In response to your INQUISITION, I would ask introspection on the issue of the wise fool, thinking yourself wise that is and moreover an educated brainwahed fool adopting a blindly myoptic perspective recited by rote.

While I’m still talking about style, I’ll say that I like this new way of writing. It is intelligent, artistic and energetic. “Gnostic” warning bells go off, but I wonder if that is more due to the content rather than the style. On to content: the resurrection changes the telos of matter.

The End of the Bulgakov Conference and Beyond

by Andrea Elizabeth

Speaking of finishing things, I’ve finally gotten around to reading the last two installments of the Bulgakov Conference on The Land of Unlikeness. I am not qualified to offer a detailed scholarly analysis, but I would like to jot down some impressions. When I initially read Joshua Delpech-Ramey’s report (see my previous posts under the Sergius Bulgakov Category to the right), I was thinking he was going in the right direction, and without reviewing why I thought that, I’ll go on to say that I think he veered off course in his latest post. I would have agreed more with him a year or two ago. He seems to speak of transcending our personhood into Absolute Divine Simplicity while simultaneously recovering the magic dormant in the created universe. And while my previous impression of Janet Leslie Blumberg was of Augustinian defensiveness, I found her to tweak Joshua’s point a bit to a more personalized, humbly Derridian (whom I am inclined to interpret gently), respect for the amazing cosmos, while maintaining her own personhood in a desire for union with God, but perhaps along a too deterministic path.

So my ignorant, less informed view which is probably based on misinterpretation, is that they are right to open themselves to union with God which will lead to transcending fallen humanity, but their method seems to be alchemistic – seeking to combine physical properties in the right combination to do this. Maybe Janet redeems the goal by saying it should be done by embracing tradition rather than leaving it behind, and I am not sure if she is talking about Credal Christian tradition only, or Sacramental Tradition, which is how we find God in the elements. And maybe her determinism is about uncovering the logos in everything, which is predetermined in Christ, rather than the over-riding of free will.

And as I brought out at the end of my last post on the Conference, I am becoming more sensitive to the off-balanced method of putting the ideas “transcendence”, “Cosmic union”, “latent power” before Person. We are not to throw ourselves into the abyss of ideas expecting an explosion of power and awareness (gnosticism), though perhaps I am neglecting a proper understanding of apophaticism. Instead we are to focus on the Person of Christ, and how He reveals Himself and ourselves to us. I have enjoyed the positive attitude conveyed in works like the above, and think there is merit to it. We are to be joined to love and awareness, but I am beginning to think it will be more concrete than how it came across. I’m thinking a hierarchy of God in Trinitarian relation (which Bulgakov has some valuable things to say about), repentant man, the powers, and material creation will keep us from going off the deep end.

Which brings me to the latest post, Revolution, Paradox, and the Christian Tradition: A Chestertonian debate between John Milbank and Slavoj Zizek, which may make the corrections, or maybe just clarifications, I have begun to intuit. I also value the scholarship in the above posts as I am coming to appreciate reading a wide range of bright people, even if we don’t have the same order of idealogical priorities. I also find their dispassionate and calm relating of atheists’ points very refreshing.

Well, maybe not

by Andrea Elizabeth

I received this question in a comment from my last post that I decided not to approve because of some of the additional ad hominems that were written. But this is probably something I should answer given the controversial nature of Jacques Derrida among some of my fellow Orthodox,

“What is the relation between “Writing and Difference” and orthodox christianity or salvation?”

What I think Derrida has in common with Orthodoxy, as I’ve written in some of my other posts on this subject, is a criticism of the Platonic, and western, way of defining things in terms of opposition, superiority and inferiority as well as his being against marginalizing people or things based on unqualifiable prejudice.

I like some of his language about not judging others, but this is a more slippery slope because of his atheism, rejection of Orthodox revelation, and I’m not sure I understand the “violence” of his methods in deconstruction. These concerns may rightly disqualify him from my further attention, and as I respect those who do not seem to respect him, I think I’ll not jump right back into studying him again, though I do like his oftentimes poetic way of expressing things.

Maybe I’ll read the Philokalia instead.

His All Holiness, Patriarch BARTHOLOMEW

by Andrea Elizabeth

Two well-known blogs both have recent posts about the above mentioned: Orthodixie and The Ochlophobist. I am very interested in these discussions because of recent developments between me and my previous circle of influence before my conversion to the Orthodox faith.

It has been said that the Church is in martyr mode since the rest of the world is pretty hostile to our beliefs, be they Muslim, Catholic, Protestant or Atheist. I’m sure that these groups think we are hostile to theirs. Probably, but I think ours is more of a defensive posture. The Orthodox I feel the most kindred to take a hard, protective line against compromise and for necessary conversion. But I guess I also want people to get along, I appreciate qualities in other people, and I want to know where the boundaries are as far as engaging them.

I have no problem with the Church’s stand against open Communion, but it’s hard to know how to talk about God to people of other faiths. Some Orthodox go so far as to say it’s not the same God, and others say He is, but that the understanding isn’t complete enough (I tend to fit in here), and I guess some people don’t have any problem with differing understandings in their relations with non-Orthodox. I found this when trying to recall what I’d heard about St. John Maximovich receiving all (I guess in private dealings), no matter what their faith.

Nevertheless, the Orthodox Church does not forbid prayer for those who are outside communion with Her. By the prayers of the holy, righteous John of Kronstadt and the blessed Archbishop John (Maximovich), both Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Muslims, and even pagans received healing. But, in acting in accordance with their faith and request, these and our other righteous ones taught them at the same time that the saving Truth is only in Orthodoxy. Source

The Holy Spirit’s role in deification

by Andrea Elizabeth

The second half of The Comforter and Divine-Humanity is about God’s union with creation. Here’s a sample,

The Holy SpiritТs Kenosis for us: Sanctification in Creation and Inspiration for Divine-Humanity

The kenosis of the Holy Spirit in the immanent Trinity, her becoming copula of the Father and the Son, their hypostatic Love, is paralleled in the created realm: the SpiritТs sophianic sanctification of the world, and her personal descent in creation for the inspiration of humanityЧto become copula that binds in love all human relationships in the self-offering love of friendship. Thus from the beginning of creation the Holy Spirit is the Artist, the Giver of life, bathing creation in beauty; but in the fullness of time, in the Christ event, the Holy Spirit accompanies the descent of the Son and is poured on all flesh (Acts 2:17). In turn, the apex of time of the earthly ministry of Jesus becomes a special moment for the labor of the Spirit in creation: a personal labor, but shrouded in a special hiddenness. Each of these three kenotic moments of the Spirit in creationЧsince the beginning of time, in the life of the man Jesus, and in PentecostЧwill be pondered in turn.

And this goes with my byline quite nicely,

a. The Sophianic action of the Holy Spirit

That matter is energy and energy is matter is one of the greatest scientific discoveries of our times. It also retells the story in contemporary language of how GodТs Ruah swept over Уnothing,Ф over tohu-bohu, birthing Уlife.Ф The inherent УpotentialityФ or energy created by the Father is breathed upon, preparing УnothingФ to receive its form, to be molded into matter, to become the rich diversity that mirrors the beauty of God. In the Spirit, matter becomes, evolves, is crafted, according to its design given by the Logos. Breath is the energy inherent in matter, Уexist[ing] in the very flesh of the world, in the matter of the world,Ф[73] enabling it with the dynamism to gradually become Уsomething,Ф beauty, the rich diversity of creatures. The Spirit who fulfills, who completes, empties herself in an ongoing sophianic action towards creationТs fulfilment, towards creationТs completion, but that requires the very participation of creation according to its particular freedom or УmeasureФ: УThis multistage or gradual character of being is proper to the life of the world, for the creative Сlet there beТ always resounds in the world in its different forms; creation is always the future too, not only nata, but also natura.Ф[74] Not only the apparent, but also the imaginedЧsince the transcendence of this divine imagination is the telos of creation; its becoming not only natura, but supranatura, the resplendence of God.

The sanctification of matter is then explained, and I want to quote the whole thing, but will commend the link instead. This is what I’ve been looking for. I’m reminded of the “what happens” in St. Maximus, but this seems to be the “how”.

There occurs a mysterious, i.e. invisible, transfiguration of creation, in which the latter, while ontologically remaining itself, becomes transparent for the Spirit, receives the faculty of communion with God, is deified.

If I’m understanding Bulgakov rightly, the personified Sophia is sort of like the Derridian ‘membrane’ where Spirit meets creation. But this membrane is transparent, or at least becomes so upon deification/union with God, whereas Derrida’s remains opaque, or when breached still remains other, whose brightness is beheld from a distance. And Derrida is talking about creature to creature, with Truth as a silent, though bright witness. But Bulgakov is talking about the inherent Spirit in creation, who is indeed everywhere present and fills all things. Creation becomes transparent through being sanctified in the Church, so until that happens, I think perhaps Derrida may be disappointed, and if not, is he in prelest? Non-Christians can appreciate the glory of nature, but they probably are in danger of becoming Pantheists. Still, I’d take a Pantheist over a Gnostic. I think. I don’t know, praise God that I don’t have to choose, but I hope the Pantheists help clean up the smog in the Grand Canyon.

Face to Face

by Andrea Elizabeth

Yesterday, while sitting in the parent area of the kids’ weekly trampoline and tumbling class I read pgs. 87-92 after deciding to skip over the question of “is ‘beyond Being’ a platonic concept?” and is it a baptizable one, even though I had attempted to tackle it in my previous post on the subject but erased what I’d written. I can’t get it out of my head though. We believe God’s essence is Other than ours. But we are created in His image. So are we a form of a higher reality? I know one way Orthodox differ from Platonic thought is to say that we will not someday be absorbed into God’s essence. That we will forever not be able to experience it. We become deified in Christ’s humanity, not His divinity. But still our humanity is in God’s image, so that almost sounds Platonic. And Genesis says that there was light before there was the sun, so that sounds sort of Platonic formish. I think Platonists would say that natural light represents a higher form of light. That natural light is a metaphor. We wouldn’t say that, so in that way the Platonic metaphor that is creation, is gnostic. We believe in Incarnated creation (though this would be fully realized in the eschaton, which at times transcends time, as the telos of creation) which fuses uncreated and natural light together, yet without confusion. There. All sorted out. Right?

Derrida says Levinas uses Heidegger’s science-ranks-after-perception against Husserl’s opposite point of view. Yet he also rejects Heidegger’s dogmatic, totalinarian, dominating definition of the other by this method, which seeks side by side, though penetrating solidarity “with” the other. But he agrees with Heidegger’s assimilation of non-refuted historical tradition in viewing others. So he’s not anti-knowing of others.

However it is also a question of inaugurating, in a way that is to be new, quite new, a metaphysics of radical separation and exteriority. One anticipates that this metaphysics will have some difficulty finding its language in the medium of a traditional logos entirely governed by the structure “inside-outside,” “interior-exterior.” (p. 88)

Beneath solidarity, beneath companionship, before Mitsein [being with], which would be only a derivative and modified form of its originary relation with the other, Levinas already aims for the face to face, the encounter with the face… without communion. (p.90) 

And thus without explanation. So instead of taken for granted definitional solidarity, there is an isolated, unthinking observance of the other’s face. “A community of non-presence, and therfore of non-phenomenality. Not a community without light, not a blindfolded synagogue, but a community anterior to Platonic light. A light before neutral light, before the truth which arrives as a third party, the truth “which we look toward together,” the judgmental arbitrator’s truth. Only the other, the totally other, can be manifested as what it is before the shared truth, whithin a certain nonmanifestation and a certain [non-dogmatic] absence.” (p.91)

This is not the end of the essay, so I’m not sure where he’s going with this absence, and non-communal solitude in the presence of the illumined other. The main reason I became Orthodox is because for the first time I experienced and believed the teaching of the Communion of the Saints in the Body of Christ. Yet, I still like the non-assuming stance of Derrida’s. There is still more to the Other, be they other people, God, or the rest of creation than meets the eye. I also still balk at the idea of being a possession of someone else’s. Being controlled by another against one’s will is oppressive and eventually intolerable to me. Love is a whole nother ballgame. It is not possessive or oppressive or controlling. Individuality is not annihilated. So in that way, I think Derrida’s right. It takes a Saint to know and perfectly commune the Other. All the rest of us who aren’t saints will be off in our assessments and judge people, ourselves, creation, and God wrongly. We need to stay open to this idea. To me this goes along with Father Stephen’s quote from the Philokalia, edited by Father Hopko:

Because of our conceit and our failure constantly to have recourse to God, we should cast ourselves down before Him, asking that His will should be done in all things and saying to every thought that comes to us:  I do not know who you are; God knows if you are good or not; for I have thrown myself, as I shall continue to throw myself, into His hands, and He looks after me.  (1Pet 5.7)

The Naivete of the Glance

by Andrea Elizabeth

The Violence of Light from Violence and Metaphysics

The nudity [pardon me] of the face of the other – this epiphany of a certain non-light before which all violence is to be quieted and disarmed – will have to be exposed to a certain enlightenment. [p. 85]

I believe he’s discussing the play between the inner and the outer. Natural light hits the outer, but the first glance,encounter, reveals the inner that resides in natural darkness which is not its opposite. This must be qualified with the pure of heart seeing God, and how the eye is the window to the soul. I’m skipping over the parts where he talks about “Being” as it relates to phenomenology or as object, partly because these descriptions of Being as well as the idea of God being beyond being because being is a verb confuses me. My husband agrees that God’s “I am” to Moses is more about how God is revealed than a statement about His essence, so I’ll leave it at that for now. But I’ll mention this quote to skip past the question of the infiniteness or totatity of being to get to it’s expression:

All the essays in 1947 grouped Platonic formulation placing the Good beyond Being.” (In Totality and Infinity the “Phenomenology of Eros” describes the movement of the epekeina tes ousias in the very experience of the caress.) [p. 85]

I mention this because something that struck me in the documentary Derrida was the way he would reach out and touch people that he was talking to. It seemed very powerful, perhaps because my love language is touch, if there is such an accurate and distinctive categorization among people. Europeans (probably excluding England) do not seem to have the personal space bubble many Americans have. I believe in Orthodoxy, Elder Porphyrios’ Wounded by Love helps correct fallen concepts of Eros which keep us at a distance from each other and from God in Christ. I’m sure there’s other sources as well.

The possibility of the impossible.

by Andrea Elizabeth

Violence and Metaphysics an Essay on the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas by Jacques Derrida in Writing and Difference (pt 2)

Derrida begins by pronouncing the death of the Greek philosophical tradition in it’s supposed function of knowing.

That philosophy died yesterday, since Hegel or Marx, Nietzsche, or Heidegger – and philosophy should still wander toward the meaning of its death. (p. 79)

… if something is still to transpire within the tradition by which philosophers always know themselves to be overtaken, then the tradition’s origin will have to be summoned forth and adhered to as rigorously as possible? Which is not to stammer and huddle lazily in the depths of childhood, but precisely the opposite. (p. 81)

That Plato for Husserl, was the founder of a reason and a philosophical task whose telos was still sleeping in the shadows; or that for Heidegger, on the contrary, Plato marks the moment at which the thought of Being forgets itself and is determined as philosophy – this difference is decisive only at the culmination of a common root which is Greek. The difference is fraternal in its posterity, entirely submitted to the same domination. Domination of the same too, which will disappear neither in phenomenology nor in “ontology.” (p. 81)

He seems to think that introducing Levinas’ Jewish experientialism into Greek philosophical language will solve the problem. Again to deconstruct from within.

… this thought summons us to a dislocation of the Greek logos, to a dislocation of our identity, and perhaps of identity in general, and to move toward what is no longer a source or a site …, but toward an exhalation, toward a prophetic speech already emitted not only nearer to the source than Plato or the pre-Socratics, but inside the Greek origin, close to the other of the Greek (but will the other of the Greek be the non-Greek? Above all, can it be named the non-Greek? An our question comes closer.) A thought for which the entirety of the Greek logos has already erupted …, seeks to liberate itself from the Greek domination of the Same and the One (other names for the light of Being and of the phenomenon) as if from oppression itself – an oppression certainly comparable to none other in the world, an ontological or transcendental oppression, but also the origin or alibi of all oppression in the world. A thought, finally, which seeks to liberate itself from a philosophy fascinated by the “visage of being that shows itself in war” which “is fixed in the concept of totality which dominates Western philosophy” [Levinas in Totality and Infinity, p.21] (p.82,83)

If the messianic eschatology from which Levinas draws inspiration seeks neither to assimilate itself into what is called a philosophical truism, nor even to “complete” [Levinas in TI] philosophical truisms, nevertheless it is developed in its discourse neither as a theology, nor as a Jewish mysticism (it can even be understood as the trial of theology and mysticism)…. It seeks to be understood from within a recourse to experience itself… the passage and departure toward the other… Truthfully, messianic eschatology is never mentioned literally: it is but a question of designating a space or a hollow iwthin naked experience where this eschatology can be understood and where it must resonate. This hollow space is not an opening among others. It is opening itself, the opening of opening. (p.83)

It is this space of interrogation that we have chosen for a very partial reading of Levinas’s work. Of course it is not our intention to explore the space, even in the name of a timid beginning. Faintly and from afar, we will attempt to point it out.

And if we must have faith in [Levinas] who stands most accused in the trial conducted by [his Totality and Infinity], the result is nothing without its becoming, which then would be no more than pure disorder. We will not choose between the opening and the totality. Therefore we will be incoherent, but without systematically resigning ourselves to incoherence. The possibility of the impossible system will be on the horizon to protect us from empiricism. Without reflecting here upon the philosophy of hesitation, let us note between parentheses that by simply articulating it we have already come close to Levinas’ own problematic. (p.84)

My response: Western language and thought, we can’t live with it, we can’t live without it.