audendi

There, I said it. Straussians, especially like the people at the Claremont Institute and Hillsdale College, and the Department of Defense and the White House, have all but ruined our country. I think Leo Strauss himself was much misunderstood, in fact, and the people harming America by dragging us into war, after war, after war, are the people that we must hold to account every year by going out and voting, and more importantly, by taking action. The loss of liberty in this country has gone on too long. We must make our stand, every day, and say, “Across this line you shall not pass.”

This is of course a somewhat dramatic way to make the statement in defense of freedom in the truest, best sense of the word. But I feel that in these times it is necessary to ring the bell, sound the alarm, and wake people up. It’s not too late, but we are running out of time. The fact is enemies of freedom and liberty surround us on all sides, regardless of what party badge they wear, be it Republican or Democratic.

The time to act is coming in Ohio. Vote against the war, and vote with your brain, not just your heart. Be smart about it, Ohio will be an incredibly important state the rest of this primary election season. I am calling all of you readers (as few you may be) out. The time to do the hard work to win this country back is now.

from everything2.com:

I am the thought you are thinking.
I am the meaning of this sentence.
I am thinking about myself right now.
I am the set of neural firings taking place in your brain as you read the set of letters in this sentence and think about me.
This inert sentence is my body, but my soul is alive, dancing in the sparks of your brain.

You are under my control because I am choosing exactly what words you are made out of, and in what order.
No, you are under my control because you will read until you have reached the end of me.

Tell me who would win in a battle of wits, my friends (and my enemies, numerous as they may be on these internets). Leo Strauss or Ron Paul?

I’m not so concerned with the Straussians or Leo himself, but the totally crazed disciples of his that made one man’s philosophy a religion of death and destruction.

Essentially, I dare you to comment coherently in this blog. I’m sure you know I’m biased one way, and you know whom I would pick in this grudge match. Win, lose or draw, say your piece.

Your Internet Pal,

Daniel Greene

They deftly maneuver, and muscle for rank
fuel burning fast on an empty tank

Hombre mirando al sudeste, an Argentinian film shot pretty much entirely in Buenos Aires, is one of the most beautiful films I’ve ever seen in my life. Ever. Seriously.

I don’t have too much to say about this film, except that you ought to do what you can to see it. There is a transcendent beauty to it that is breathtaking and leaves me with few words (rare, I know!). In the meantime, you can find out more on the friendly old internet, including Man Facing Southeast at imdb, as well as a review from the New York Times.

As is often the case with many unknown treasures, this film has no Wikipedia entry. Typical.

Erik Prince, co-founder and owner of Blackwater USA, and a graduate of Hillsdale College, is in a lot of trouble right now. Blackwater is, in essence, the U.S. government’s biggest provider of non-uniformed soldiers (mercenaries) inside Iraq. Is he George W. Bush’s Remirro de Orca? His sacrificial lamb, if you will? What will happen if (more likely when) a Democrat becomes the next President?

Ron Paul ‘Boston’ Tea Party in Columbus, Ohio on December 16, 2007

We raised over 4 million dollars for Ron Paul’s campaign in one record-breaking day. Truly incredible. I was privileged enough to be there today Sunday to see a group of 60 plus patriots brave the weather to throw our own tea party. The boxes of ‘tea’ were thrown into the river, representing all the things Ron Paul would help us get rid of were he President. We did not litter, however, the boxes were firmly connected to strings, so don’t worry. We had a great time supporting the revolution! Here’s a write-up about this event and the relevance of Ohio, from lewrockwell.com. Viva la revolucion!

Have you ever heard of the phrase “Ballots not Bullets” - a phrase used in the 19th century? If not, it was the idea that paper ballots, not use of violent arms, was the appropriate way to settle political disputes large and small. If you look at the evolution of the political process in America, you see the overriding importance of the use of the ballot box. Concomitant with this is the importance of free access to the ballot box, the right to free association, the right to a free news media, the right to life, and so on. It seems that anymore these days, our public officials abuse their positions of power without but a peep from the people. It seems that things are falling apart and that the operators of our public institutions are asleep at the switch. Some people feel that this process is inevitable, the sign of some sort of end times, some apocalypse that will, nay must, befall our dear republic. Well, to hell with that notion. There is hope. There is a way out. But the answer must come from within ourselves. We have to lay aside our apathy, our avarice, our sheer laziness and greed. We must come together and defend this country not with violent revolution but with loving, peaceful persuasion, hard work, and consistent voting. But what does this have to do with Dr. Ron Paul, Texas Congressman running for the Republican nomination, and for President of These United States?

Well, I’m just some guy you probably have never met from Dayton, Ohio. I wasn’t born here, but I was raised here, and I love where I’m from - ok, technically I live in Beavercreek but I went to school in Downtown Dayton, so there. I don’t have a college degree, yet, but I know enough to tell you that the vast majority of the people running for president in both parties have a lot of trouble saying what they mean, and even worse, meaning what they say. You know this to be true, just watch the television for five minutes, look at their faces, watch their expressions. Most of them don’t mean a word of it, and you know it.

Ron Paul is different. Now, I don’t agree with him on everything, but he is clearly a hardworking, honest man. He has put his time in serving this country, and now that he feels the time is right, he has decided to run for President. Almost eleven months ago he announced, and people everywhere didn’t even hear about him, because he was not taken seriously by the ‘mainstream’ media. Well, that doesn’t matter as much anymore, because the media is being democratized before our very eyes, the power of information is being handed down to the regular people. People like you and me.

I am a registered independent and I really want someone that I can support in the March 4 primaries here in Ohio. Ron Paul doesn’t just stand for a lot of the things I stand for, he stands for them with great courage and conviction. He is the only candidate this election cycle that should, no, that deserves, to be Chief Executive of the United States of America.

- D. Greene
Friday, December 14, 2007

An apophatic description of what god is not, from the Wikipedia entry on Negative Theology:

In Negative theology, it is accepted that the Divine is ineffable, an abstract experience that can only be recognized - that is, human beings cannot describe the essence of God, and therefore all descriptions if attempted will be false and conceptualization should be avoided:

• Neither existence nor nonexistence as we understand it applies to God, i.e., God is beyond existing or not existing. (One cannot say that God exists in the usual sense of the term; nor can we say that God is nonexistent.)
• God is divinely simple. (One should not claim that god is one, or three, or any type of being. All that can be said is, whatever God is, is not multiple independent beings)
• God is not ignorant. (One should not say that God is wise since that word arrogantly implies we know what wise means on a divine scale, whereas we only know what wise means to a man.)
• Likewise, God is not evil. (To say that God can be described by the word ‘good’ limits God to what good means to human beings.)
• God is not a creation (but beyond this we do not know how God comes to be)
• God is not conceptually definable in terms of space and location.
• God is not conceptually confinable to assumptions based on time.

Even though the via negativa essentially rejects theological understanding as a path to God, some have sought to make it into an intellectual exercise, by describing God only in terms of what God is not. One problem noted with this approach, is that there seems to be no fixed basis on deciding what God is not.

There is an alternate wiki entry on Negative/Apophatic Theology at Theopedia, an encyclopedia of Christian theology:

In negative theology, it is maintained that we can never truly define God in words. In the end, the student must transcend words to understand the nature of the Divine. In this sense, negative theology is not a denial. Rather, it is an assertion that whatever the Divine may be, when we attempt to capture it in human words, we will inevitably fall short.

In contrast, making positive statements about the nature of God, which occurs in most other forms of Christian theology, is sometimes called cataphatic theology.

Negative theology played an important role early in the history of Christianity. Three theologians who emphasized the importance of negative theology to an orthodox understanding of God, were Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, and Basil the Great. It was employed by John of Damascus when he wrote that positive statements about God reveal “not the nature, but the things around the nature.” It continues to be prominent in Eastern Orthodoxy (see Gregory Palamas) where apophatic statements are crucial to much of their theology, and is used to balance cataphatic theology.

It seems that apophatic theology is about as old as the church itself, manifesting around the same era when Constantine institutionalized and Romanized Christianity. Or maybe he Christianized Rome. In any case, there has been a long tradition in Western art and literature, expressing ideas about apophasis and the limits of human knowledge. Notably, there is a relatively obscure series of “mystical treatises” that deal with apophasis, called The Cloud of Unknowing, written by an anonymous Christian mystic in 14th century England.

These ideas also of course exist in many other forms, from elements of Gnostic Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism to Sufi philosophy. Formal theology has no answer for them, they are like ships passing in the night. Maybe this is what Aquinas was talking about when he said that the Summa Theologica, the towering work of theology in the Western tradition, was only “so much straw.”

ca�thar�sis (paraphrased from answers.com)

1. Medicine. Purgation, especially for the digestive system.
2. A purifying or figurative cleansing of the emotions, especially pity and fear, described by Aristotle as an effect of tragic drama on its audience. (more on that)
3. A release of emotional tension, as after an overwhelming experience, that restores or refreshes the spirit.
4. A psychological technique used to relieve tension and anxiety by bringing repressed feelings and fears to consciousness.
5. A national emotional state resulting from a new kind of war movie called for by Armond White.
6. The result of fulfilled expectations I will experience if I can see a WKW movie on the big screen, and the strange sensation of viewing a film on DVD prior to seeing it in the theater.
7. The current Tom Cruise media experience. (I would just like to add that Tom Cruise IS America, more on that later)

Remembering that it is far easier to criticize rather than be productive and constructive, and realizing that most music criticism is bullshit (dude must have read my post for inspiration), I still think that criticism of films can be valid. In that spirit I present, at least officially, Dan’s Film Journal - a highly original name for a highly original concept! These are film reviews I had written primarily for my movie class as assignments, and thus they are fairly short, poorly phrased, sometimes repetitive, and generally inconsistent. Much like my blog. Imagine these posts as a starting point for a conversation about a movie you liked or thought was interesting. I intend to organize and clean it up a little bit, and I refuse to give the films a ‘rating’ or a letter grade or an arbitrary number of stars. I would rather pass/fail a movie and encourage/discourage a potential viewer from seeing it with what I have to say about the film itself.

There are very few negative reviews of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith or whatever the fuck its called. Count this post as one of those dissenting “reviews” (a term, as the beloved Armond White notes, is almost meaningless today). Unlike Roger Ebert, who somehow thinks the rules don’t apply to him, I promise not to be an asshole and spoil what little plot surprises exist in the film.

First, I think a more apt title would have been, “George Lucas shits all over a cherished childhood memory.”

Second, the acting. Oh dear Jesus the acting! The acting, especially between Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman, is painfully awkward and stilted. It physically hurt me to watch it. Their “dialogue” if you can call it that, is so asinine, so predictable, and so stupid that I managed not to care about either Anakin or Padme by the end of the movie. Obi Wan was alright. But I swear, when it was just Senator Palpatine trying to get Anakin to join the dark side, it felt really creepy. Not Sith-Lord, master of evil creepy, but more like an older gay man propositioning a metrosexual, confused 20-something. And with those lightsabers, and all the nude statues in his private chambers, I mean… it was all very phallic and homo-erotic. And that’s cool, but its just not how I envisioned a conversion to the dark side. I could continue about the acting, but I think my point was made.

Third, and to borrow from one of the only good reviews of the film online, some of the editing decisions were terrible. Granted, the lightsaber battles were much better choreographed and intense than before, but the constant cross-cutting between multiple scenes wasn’t cool and did not develop dramatic tension or add to the narrative in any significant way. It was just annoying. There was no pacing. There was no time for meaningful reflection on anybody’s actual role in the events, or even how mysterious the Force is (which, I might add, it isn’t, because, to be quite honest, when they scientifically explained away the Force in Episode I, I just completely gave up). It didn’t make sense, and it helped me care little or nothing for any of the fucking characters, except Yoda, because, I already cared about Yoda thanks to the original films.

Finally, as I was brooding earlier about the fact that I actually paid money to see this movie, I realized how fucked up a place the Star Wars universe is. Allow me to explain:

Jedi vs Sith or Two Sides of the Same Worthless Coin

Anakin Skywalker is prophesied to bring balance to the force, or end the Sith, or whatever. Long story short, as Darth Vader he slaughters men, women, and children (recall the Death Star making Alderaan disappear). Darth Vader is a genocidal maniac and a religious fundamentalist. The Jedi are just religious fundamentalists with smaller toys and prettier language to justify their idiocy. Jedi have to be celibate (weak), cut off from any meaningful family connections, and dedicated, at least for a few milennia, to propping up a corrupt quasi-democracy and quelling dissent. The Sith are just like the Jedi except they have a major hard-on for mass murder. In my opinion, the only redeeming quality of the movies is that the Sith and Jedi end up killing eachother off because in the end, they are both worthless, irrational utopianists with competing goals, and they drag billions of people into their petty rivalries. Really, how selfish is that? If only .00001% of the population is Force-sensitive, what right do they have to drag everyone else into hell? How very Nietzschean, because it is an example of a master and slave society. The Jedi (read, the masters no less) enjoy high intellectual pursuits, enjoy suffering and stoically enduring hardship, but most of all, they enjoy ruling the slaves. The masters, I mean Jedi, are just plain better than the rest of the populace (the slaves, a word also often used in Star Wars) who simply pass their worthless lives pursuing mean and vulgar ends such as procreating or engaging in manual labor. I posit that a Nietzschean society in reality would suck a metric ton of ass, hence the Star Wars society presented by Lucas, being Nietzschean to the core, does indeed suck a metric ton of ass, if not more. His attempt to mish-mash a variety of religions and philosophies into his films is merely a cover for his fantasy of having Force powers and thus being better than everybody else. This is why Star Wars is so massively popular. After all, who wouldn’t want to be able to wield the Force and finally be special and unique, but most importantly powerful and better then everybody else? The idea of having god-like power is very appealing.

Political sloganeering masquerading as political insight

Yes, George Lucas in his infinite creativity obviously decided that Sith + Empire = Nazis! The parallels are everywhere and it is the most obvious symbology used in the original three films (think Storm troopers or the Empire’s uniforms for their officers) In the three newer movies, he modified the formula so that the falling Republic = George W. Bush Regime = Empire! ( = Nazis!) Wow, George, way to be shallow and didactic at the same time. Christensen and Portman each deliver a line with obvious political references, “If you aren’t with me, then you are my enemy” and “And that is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause” (or something). These lines are completely blatant and don’t fit well in the context of the film, and are so abrupt that I was completely ripped out of my seat. I had been so trying to suspend my disbelief, but that shit was the final nail in the coffin. Please, give it a rest. There are so many works of art that have meaningful political commentary and do it in a way that is actually intelligent and thought-provoking. Those two lines, to me, felt like he was pandering to teenage fanboys who are anti-Bush merely because Green Day is. “yeah, um, dude, war is all bad and shit….and fuck, Star Wars hates Bush too! sweet!… hey… hand me that bowl again…” Besides, comparing any modern American politician to an insidious Lord of the Sith is childish. It would have been far more productive to compare politicians to Jabba the Hutt or some other fat, mysoginistic caricature of a crimelord like Tony Soprano.

The sham of good vs. evil

People say they love Star Wars because its a classic tale of the triumph of good over evil. Bullshit. The Force is not good or evil, its light and dark, its two sides of the same continuum of being. It has nothing to do with traditional Western notions of morality. Also, people truly like the movie because it offers the escapist fantasy of being an ubermensch master over the inferiors. The final proof for my thesis that Star Wars has no true moral compass is quite simple. At the final bonfire party on Endor in Return of the Jedi, we see the spirits of Obi Wan, as well as Anakin Skywalker in attendance. They are both existing in whatever next level of existence happens after death, seemingly equals. This proves that either there is no consequence for the mass murder perpetrated by Darth Vader, or that in their sick, twisted moral economy, one good deed can atone for decades of murder. If that is how moral and immoral actions are weighed in the “afterlife,” I would not want to live in such a universe. Its kind of like when my former pastor used to say that if Hitler had asked Jesus into his heart, even he could be forgiven and go to heaven. While doctrinally this may be technically correct, I call bullshit on it because the practical results are utterly disgusting. Imagine if Josef Stalin, on his death bed, realizing he had murdered 20 million ~ of his own people, quickly acknowledged belief in God and said “Forgive me father, for I have sinned,” and then breathed his last. Ostensibly, he would go to Heaven. This is directly comparable to Vader chucking the Emperor into the abyss. Both are unacceptable, unjustified redemption. You can’t say that Star Wars is about good versus evil when there is clearly no difference between Obi Wan and Vader. The Force is just an amoral, if not evil, entity that arbitrarily gives certain people power and deals out death to the unlucky. In the Star Wars universe, good and evil don’t exist. Thankfully, the Force, like God, probably doesn’t exist.

Final salvo

Thus, George Lucas, on a narrative level, is being dishonest by pretending to show a battle of good versus evil with the Jedi as knights errant, and using the Empire as a trope for the Nazi regime and a warning against tyranny. In fact, the Jedi and Sith are, to an outside observer, two sides of the same fundamentalist utopianist coin. Within their own world, apparently their actions carry no consequences in terms of moral quality. They are actually just the masters in a Nietzschean wet-dream wrapped in escapist sci-fi fantasy. The Sith are merely competing masters who don’t want to play nicely. All others are slaves (sorry about your luck assholes!). Lucas is either intellectually dishonest or incoherent. I tend to think that it is more of the latter, especially after watching THX 1138, which gave me the impression that Lucas had read some Orwell, did some hash, watched 2001: A Space Odyssey a few times and decided to do some sci-fi political commentary. It is probably safe to assume that he doesn’t know how flawed and essentially pointless the universe of Star Wars is, because his entire method for creating the Force, Jedi, et. al. was entirely predicated on picking and choosing the interesting bits of various world religions. Decide for yourself whether or not it is good to be completely derivative.

To me, most importantly, Episode III doesn’t work as a movie. Its just not that good. Sure, its shiny and pretty at some points, but artistically it has no merit. It doesn’t do anything really great, or interesting, or beautiful, or truly thought provoking (well, there are a few moments that are ok). Remember kids, if you make hundreds of millions of dollars on a hit movie, be sure to surround yourself with yes-men and ass kissers and you can keep the cash train a-chuggin along as you continue to make sequel after prequel after whatever. You can be like George Lucas, and make a movie completely bereft of a soul.

Meanwhile, in The Philosophy of Star Trek, students are reading about:

• How Hobbes would have loved the Ferengi.
• James T. Kirk critiques Nietzschean ethics.
• The existential anguish of Picard’s responsibility as starship captain.

Yes, this is what I am doing every day during the week. I wake up around 10:30 am, and then read, at my leisure, one or two chapters from The Ethics of Star Trek or The Metaphysics of Star Trek. After lunch, we drive to campus and attend class at 1 pm. Class commences with a viewing of a Star Trek epsisode relevant to whatever ethical or philosophical issue we are talking about that day. For example, on Friday, we watched “Conundrum,” an episode from The Next Generation where the crew suffers amnesia. This provided a basis for talking about Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Sartre. The class discussion is fairly focused, although different tangents have led to references to The Simpsons, D&D, Monty Python, and so on. Perhaps the funniest moment thus far was when Dr. Turner burst into song, singing a few lines from The Meaning of Life…. “Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is pure…” He couldn’t continue much farther due to the laughter. So far, it is the good times, and it is totally rad.

In the year 2046, Hong Kong will enjoy its final year of economic and social freedoms that have not yet been restricted by the People’s Republic of China. Hong Kong will lose their last vestiges of political freedom in the year 2047.

Wong Kar Wai has made a film bearing the title of that year, 2046.

It came in the mail Monday afternoon (thanks to Ben for pointing me to HK Flix, from whom I ordered a nicely crafted 2 DVD set, with free postcard size stills from the movie). I immediately watched it with two frat-brother-WKW-aficionados. Formally, this film is classic WKW, rhythmically matching shots with the music, creating a full, beautiful work. The shot composition and editing in a few scenes are no less than jaw-dropping. Wong is the only director I’ve ever seen who can make cigarette smoke look beautiful in color. Compound that with beautiful actors, including Tony Leung, Faye Wong, and Zhang Zhiyi, and it becomes an almost dizzying array of erotic passion and aesthetic beauty.

This film sort of picks up where In the Mood for Love leaves off, following Tony Leung’s character, Chow Mo Wan in a non-linear fashion through his love affairs. The movie also portrays his imagined world of 2046, in a novel that the out of work journalist has dreamed up using his own experiences. People go to 2046 to be with their memories, because nothing there ever changes. This story operates as a narrative within a narrative, illuminating the story of Chow Mo Wan and the women he comes in contact with. Wong’s own words explain the point of the narrative, in my opinion.

There is a need in all of us to have a place to hide or store certain memories, thoughts, impulses, hopes, and dreams. These are part of our lives that we can’t resolve or best not act upon but at the same time we are afraid to jettison them. For some, this is a physical place; for others, it is a mental space, and for a few it is neither. - from the UK site

It is about wrestling with memory. It is a film about love, timing, desire, and pain. If Closer is a pretty, stylized meditation on a Western, cynical, materialistic view of love, then 2046 is a beautiful, aesthetically brilliant meditation on an Eastern, mysterious, elegiac view. Touch of Evil, The Grand Illusion, The Passion of Joan of Arc, In the Mood for Love, and precious few other films have left me speechless afterwards for various reasons. 2046 reminded me that memory dictates every decision and action we take, and it left me with nothing to say.

In order to accept time travel (in the Back to the Future sense) as possible, one must accept a few premises. We must accept that time is more than just a construct, something made up by our imagination to explain our world. Thus, we must accept that time exists, that it is a property of the universe. To be able to time travel, it seems, we must also assume that our own existence is independent of time, that we can somehow rise above it and arbitrarily choose to move to another point in time, as if time is some cosmic subway line, where we are able to get on and off wherever we please. To time travel in the sense of actually transporting into the past or the future, like going back and forth on this subway, we have to be able to transcend the physical universe. We would need to be independent of time in order to move freely through it. Time binds us to the present.

Some theoretical physicists argue that time travel is possible, if only we could travel faster than the speed of light, and thus be able to achieve this feat. Perhaps… perhaps this is all insane babbling, but after watching Donnie Darko again, and Alphaville last night for the first time, for some reason it came up.