The Philosopher Is Stoned

    Back in the mid to late 1200’s, during those good old days known as The Dark Ages, a posthumously famous philosopher named Albertus Magnus (or "Big Al" as folks in the Hood would call him nowadays) is said to have discovered or invented or developed an amazing whatsis called The Philosopher’s Stone. The Stone, if indeed it was a stone, was highly valued for its ability to turn lead into gold. Unfortunately it disappeared after Mr. Magnus’ death. Perhaps he lost it in a card game or left it in his pants’ pocket when his wife did the laundry or one of his kids flushed it down the cesspool. In any event, The Philosopher’s Stone was sought after without success for ensuing centuries by alchemists, philosophers, metaphysicians, and kindred quacks. However, like Sauron’s Ring of Power, it will probably remain disappeared pending the advent of an adventurous Hobbit or two.
    Sadly, philosophers as a breed, posthumous or otherwise, have not disappeared and, Philosopher’s Stone of no, are likely to keep breeding until Armageddon or the Twilight of the Gods or some other fortuitous disaster puts an end to them and the arcane bullshit they’ve been peddling since time immemorial.
    As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I was extraordinarily naive as a young man, and during my days (and nights) as a student in Cornell University I actually believed that designated philosophers like Nietzsche, Liebniz, Plato, Hegel, Spinoza, and Marx (Karl, not Groucho) had profound insights into the nature of God, Love, Eternity, Infinity, Society, Economics, and other nebulous crap. What I discovered, however, was that two or three pages of philosophy was enough to send me to dreamland, a small rivulet of drool dribbling from a corner of my mouth onto the hallowed words of these giants of logic
    Eventually, with years of expensive Freudian analysis under my belt (just kidding; actually it was above my belt) I was able to come to grips with what philosophy is: i.e., a mass of incomprehensible hogwash hawked by a bunch of semi-literate weirdoes.
    This brings me to the subject of this week’s sermon, one Simon Critchley, an Englishman identified by the New York Times as "chair of philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York, and part-time professor at Tilburg University in the Netherlands."

    
                Marx (Karl)                             Marx (Groucho)                         Critchley (Simon)

    The Times neglects to specify what model of chair Critchley is ─ Ladderback? Swivel? Recliner? Arm? Rocking? ─ but in any case his credentials clearly prove him a brilliant intellect and profound thinker even if his literary style is as dense as frozen ketchup and his theme somewhat less significant than an analysis of the number of angels that can tapdance on the point of a needle. These qualifications have led the Times to grant him 2,000 words of space in what they call "The New York Times Opinionator Blogs."
    The title of Critchley’s entry is "The Rigor of Love." In it (with the aid of copious quotations from 19th century Danish nutcase Søren Kierkegaard) he investigates the burning issue of whether atheists can have Faith ─ whatever the fuck the word "Faith" is supposed to mean. As Critchley puts it in what he fancies is a titillatingly oxymoronic lead paragraph, "Can the experience of faith be shared by those unable to believe in the existence of a transcendent God? Might there be a faith of the faithless?"
    I’m not going to link to Critchley’s article ─ encouraging anyone to read it would be cruel and unusual punishment ─ but here’s the conclusion he reaches after providing the uninitiated with the useless, not to mention indecipherable, advice to "cultivate the inner or inward ear that infinitizes the words and actions of the self:"

Faith is not a like-for-like relationship of equals, but the asymmetry of the like-to-unlike. It is a subjective strength that only finds its power to act through an admission of weakness. Faith is an enactment of the self in relation to an infinite demand that both exceeds my power and yet requires all my power. Such an experience of faith is not only shared by those who are faithless from a creedal or denominational perspective, but can — in my view — be had by them in an exemplary manner.

    What a relief! That clears up everything. I’m now going to rush out and become an exemplary born-again member of the uncreedaled, denominationless Church of the Faithfully Faithless.
    I won’t bother to parse Critchley’s pretentious glob of arcane verbiage or analyze Critchley’s wandering pronouns. To be charitable (in the Christian sense) I’ll leave it at this: the man was either dead drunk when he wrote his article or else he knocked it off in the midst of a protracted bout of pot smoking.
    As the title of his piece implies, Critchley also tussles or wrestles or otherwise does battle with the concept of "Love" as implied in what he considers the agonizingly abstruse Christian dictum, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" (to be distinguished from the more modern New York City version, "Do unto others before they do unto you").
    He sums up his victorious efforts with this profound and thoroughly unintelligible sentence:

If sin is the theological name for the essential ontological indebtedness of the self, then love is the experience of a countermovement to sin that is orientated around a demand that exceeds the capacity or ability of the self.

    Like, Wow! That sure orientates all the selfs east of the Rockies even if it is one serious mouthful of transcendental rot.
    So why am I picking on this poor pedantic fool? Just this: Critchley is an archetypical if undersized practitioner of what philosophy was, is, and always will be ─ a pseudo-discipline engaged in by useless old farts sitting on their pale asses in their churches and mosques and synagogues and halls of academia amidst a smog of vapid jargon, nodding sagely in their vestments and slowly rocking back-and-forth as they debate the existential, transcendental, relativistic, ontological, moralistic meanings of imaginary problems posed by non-existent beings.
    You think maybe I’m saying something harsh about religion and rabbis and priests and imams and shamans, too?
    Gosh and Gee Willikers. I would never.

Norm Mack, Peterborough, dog@myfairpoint.net

Posted by dome of glass at 8/19/2010 10:00 AM
Categories: Philosphers, Criticism
Tags: Critchley religion love faith academia
 

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  • 11/19/2010 5:15 PM wheelchair lift wrote:
    I don't think I would have admitted to it at the time, but I used to look up to philosophers as if they were somehow above the rest of humanity...that they somehow really knew more about life than "the common folk." However, I have definitely changed. You calling Kierkegaard a "nutcase" put a smile on my face. I don't completely dismiss philosophy; there are things to learn from philosophers, but I do find much of it to be irrelevant. There are farmers who have more wisdom than philosophers. This post was an interesting and entertaining read.
    Reply to this
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