My time in Korea: Wittgenstein in action

Wittgenstein's great reminder that "meaning is use", has never been more relevant to more than during my time in Korea. Most people think that in teaching a language, all one has to do is simply give a translation or point to object to which it signifies and that's that (of course this only applies to teaching vocabulary). In most cases this is sufficient. If I want to tell my students what "water" means, I can either say it means "물", or point to some water. Yet, unlike in the case of most nouns, some verbs, a few adjectives and adverbs, one cannot simply point to or act out the meaning of words or phrases. Even where it is possible to do this, the learner's understanding of that word may well not be complete. For example, the word 'plant'. I can explain one aspect of a plant by pointing to one. Yet the learner might infer that plants include everything from trees to moss. Yet, the way we use 'plant' is very specific, and can be difficult to explain, unless you learn how to use the word. One could say that a plant is something that has flowers, and, of course, I'm thinking of things like primroses, violets and sunflowers. Yet trees and bushes have flowers, but we wouldn't ordinarily regard them as plants per se. That is to say that while it wouldn't be unreasonable to call trees and bushes plants, it wouldn't prove to be useful in fully articulating what we are talking about. The terms 'tree', 'bush' and 'plant' are used in such a way to differentiate between the various kinds botanical life in the world. However, it is difficult to tell or show someone how 'plant' is used.
We could also say plants are smaller, comprising of stems, flowers, leaves and roots. Yet even here we have not clearly demarcated the barrier between all things we understand as plants, and all the things we understand as being trees, bushes and so on, as they all share common features. The differences may seem clear to us as English speakers, but this is due to the way we use our language. In our language we differentiate between plants, trees and bushes, but in other languages there may be no such differentiation, and therefore, culturally and psychologically speaking, no sense of there being any categorical different between these organisms.
I am of course speaking from experience here. During my lessons in Korea and my conversations with Koreans there were times when I found myself struggling to accurately define certain words, 'plant' being one of them. So the only way my students will understand the way in which to use the word 'plant' is discover how we use it in conversation through seeing it in context. There is one word in Korean that perfectly exemplifies Wittgensteinian thought and that is the Korean concept of "정" (jeong). It is a concept that has no equivalent word in English, but it is supposed that it is a kind affection that one shares with someone they care about. It's a particular kind of affection that stems from the way Koreans think about their fellow man. A kind of world view that one would understand only if they were Korean, or if they spent a long time there. But the point is it is not someone that one can readily explain, or that one could understand in isolation, since it requires other people a) for it to make sense and b) to learn of it's function in Korean language and culture in the first place.
In my time in Korea I can confirm that an effective method of learning a language is to be immersed in it for a prolonged period of time. Not only do you pick up the language by osmosis, but you learn how the Korean people use their language. For example, the word 맞아 (maja) has a variety of ways in which you can use this word. It can mean, 'true', 'that's right', 'that's true', 'Is that right?' (said with the correct intonation) 'indeed' etc. But, I would claim, you only get a clear understanding of what this word means and how Korean people use it by hearing Koreans use it and by experimenting with it yourself. Often people confuse language with something set in stone, something that we use, but have no influence over. But language is utterly dependent upon how we use it, according to current cultural trends or cultural shifts. Language is one of the most beautiful and greatest examples of human intelligence. The sophistication of our languages, and our ability to communicate complex ideas, emotions, feelings, desires is truly astounding when take a few moments to think about the things we talk about and how well we are wble to understand each other. Language also shapes and is shaped by the culture of the language users. The Korean language has developed in such a way to reflect their Confucian ideals, namely different suffixes are added to words to order to convey respect. If you are talking to someone older than you, or someone of a higher status than you, you have to use more respectful language. Conversely, if you are talking to someone of lower status or of a younger age, you can be more informal. So, we manipulate language to express ourselves, and it does more than facilitate communication, but reflects culture and our character.

Religion Causes wars, apparently

A classic case against religion is the misdirected notion that it is the cause of all wars in history. It is implicitly assumed that religion has inherent deficiencies that somehow inevitably lead to conflict. Yet, this is plainly false. In most religions, there is barely any incitement to violence or war. In fact, by and large, religion has only ever been a force for social cohesion.
People are responsible for war. Where religion has seen to be at the epicentre of war, it has only been used a vehicle or justification for war. People have only ever used religion and the religious believer's faith as vehicle for their own mad designs. If there had been no religion, there have been something else to kindle extremism and ultimately war. to say religion is the direct cause of war is like saying that it was the car's fault when you crash your car (assuming no technical fault with the car, when it was clearly you that was driving.
This whole pathetic blame game is one of the many attempts to denounce religion and not recognise the humanity behind everything we do. It is ridiculous to think that a set of beliefs alone can make someone insane and psychotic. Those who incite war, twist and maim religion to make it fit their horrific world view, or their greedy ambitions.
It is incredibly naive for people to associate the idea with the actions that appear to proceed from it. It is only ever people who bring about the evils that only seem to emanate from a religious cause or defence. It is people who, through religion, and their own misguided idiocies, seek to impose their beliefs, beliefs of peace and love of one's neighbour through violence and deception. It is people who fight over the trivial matters of religion, and never the ones that matter. It is these extremists, those who need a truth higher than themselves, those who cannot function without it, who put nations at war. Or it is the people who use religion only as a form of control to further their own selfish causes. The point is that it is people of a certain psychological structure who find a place in religion because it deals with absolute truth and faith, and can be set at ease. Yet, you might say, there is something wrong with religion, or rather that religion lends itself to extremism and war due to the kinds of people it attracts. But, the truth of the matter is that anything will lead to extremism and war. This of the carnage brought about by wars over political ideology. So it is something endemic in certain kinds of people who will twist things the wrong way for a variety of reasons. Religion only seems to be the centre of this kind of behaviour because it has been the centre of humanity for thousands of years. Fundamentally, religion is a human attempt to find answers to one's life and purpose, particularly for those who find it difficult to create their own way in life. These people are in my view weak and easily lead, but this an issue for another time.

Modern Nihilism as Exemplified in 'Skins'.

To the unreflective eye, 'Skins' can seem to be a decadent and hedonistic abomination, preaching the apparent woes of teenage life. Yet, behind the facade, we gain a glimpse into the nihilism of immediacy.
I often feel that I am being somewhat self-absorbed when I wallow in modes of existential angst and despair. Thoughts drift through my mind relating to the advantage and wealth, to which I am so privileged to have, in comparison to those severely less fortunate. It is almost as if we are forced to be grateful just for our existence; things could be worse. It's true they could, but we can't go around pretending everything's fine, just because somewhere someone is having a tougher time. We can't just say, 'my life is an unending mediocre bore, lacking love and affection, but it doesn't matter 'cos someone else is worse off than me'. I don't mean to make light of, or demean those who starving and suffering, though this is how it may sound, I just don't want to feel unnecessarily guilty, and suppress our humanity, because we are better off.
So, don't be discouraged from meeting your anxiety. Matters of the self and life are one of the most important facets what it is to be human. We have the ability to become wonderful and magnificent creatures, only if we can find the opportunity and the courage to deal with our angst in the face of guilt. Yes, we are at an advantage that we can ponder life and ourselves without the constant struggle of survival, but that is something that must be embraced; that is something wonderful we have managed as humans. The time and ability to be able to create oneself, take control of oneself and cease to be the cog in the machine. That is at least what one would expect. With ease of living one can truly pursue who they are.
Yet, invariably, society still provides a machine in which someone is forced to be a mindless, insignificant cog. Life becomes a different struggle, a struggle for purpose, a struggle which is easily resolved by becoming a cog, that is merely doing what society expects from you. A purpose is a human's means to survive. without a purpose, one has no direction or cause. Yet, humanity, wrongly, thinks that a purpose must be concrete and external. We believe a purpose must govern us, whether through God or the judging eyes of our fellow citizens. Thus, wealth, power and morality are pursued as ends in themselves, as opposed to a means to an end, because humanity is chronically forgetful of the point of such human creations. These ends are pursued out context, instead they are pursued in virtue of some inherent worth that simply isn't there. What does it matter if you are wealthy, powerful or moral? What matters is the why, not the mere fact. Why are you moral? Is it because the universe, God or the rules say so? Or maybe, just maybe it is a human concern and not something wholly rational! The human is always given due disregard, odd isn't? We are just so in love with the absolutism of rules beyond ourselves. We think we cannot live or act unless the rules govern us on high, but we don't need these types of rules in order to make something meaningful or authoritative.

Yet, this is the norm of life. We do not question our basic assumption of absolutism, we leave our anxiety unchecked and merely bury somewhere where it can't bother us, and sink into a comfortable, structured existence. A structure that seems to be basic fact, a truth that need not be questioned; it's just so normal. Why get anxious about life unless you're some weirdo or rebel. "You want to experience more from life? What you don't want to just do what everyone else wants you to do? Idiot!" But of course no-one ever thinks they are doing what everyone else is doing, since everyone is so in tune with each other, so socialised and deluded that the notion of choice in certain aspects of life are unthinkable. Getting a job, buying a house, settling down, buying all the trinkets aren't seen as life choices, or a means to a satisfying, but things that must be done, whether they make you happy or not. Though, I must add, I do not propose that to live creatively you must forgo these choices, rather you must view them in the correct life. A job is more than just a necessity. The trick is to ask why, meet your anxiety, and not melt into obscurity and become a sheep, instead own your choices in order to live as full a life as you are capable, instead of wasting it on empty necessities.

This condition of life largely describes the adults/parents in the rather Kierkegaardian world of the cog vs the aesthete in 'Skins'. We have the duty bound adults obsessed with what ought to be done, impelling their view on their erratic, hedonist children They serve as a catalyst, or at least part of the problem, of the children's fall into immediacy. The classic case of non-conformity, where, as ever, absolutism is attempted to be beaten away with another absolute position. Humanity just can't help itself.
The important issue we are forced to deal with is, are the adults happy? They've done everything right surely? Nice house, good, kids etc. We are so eager to associate wealth and success as a platform upon which to engender happiness. Yet, we have portrayed here, in 'Skins, the somewhat clichéd but important notion that wealth and happiness do not guarantee happiness. This is only because this is the structure we live by. Structure deludes us into feeling happy, when all we feel is safety and security, the pangs of unfulfillment and stagnation may yet creep in. Though, of course, depending upon the capacity for honesty with yourself, you may yet remain in deluded contentment, never fully realising the source of your anxiety.

But, how are we to meet this anxiety? In unbridled immediacy, that living life in the moment, with sensuous pleasure? Disregard the structure completely? Well, the paradox we encounter in 'Skins' is the inadequacy and destructive nature of pure immediacy. The conflicts that occur spark a noticeable are of destruction. The life that is structured for us leads to slow and steady stagnation. Yet, pure immediacy impels us towards an unreflective life - life is lead in the present alone - everything is an object of aesthetic sensuousness. Sex becomes an object of pleasure, drinking a means to escape reflection, nights out a means to deny reality. One's structure falls apart altogether. The future is dashed against the cliff-side. True happiness, again, cannot be an end resultant from immediacy. Merely, one escapes a formal existence and from anxiety. Anxiety was the catalyst that propelled you from structure, yet your exodus becomes about hiding from life in sensuality. You become unbound because you think bounds are not possible. One's humanity crumbles away, until one becomes dionysus himself, the divine destructive will. It is only until one is faced with love, with the future, with the reality that one can neither survive in immediacy nor in structure. One desires both, yet both cannot co-exist it would seem. In love, you need structure, that is you need to live with someone, but be free at the same time. The mind cannot take and madness sets in. Again one is faced with their anxiety. Either you perish or sublimate.
So, Effy is our archetypal aesthete. Pure destructive willing at its best. Her unreflectiveness culminates in an orgy of sex drugs and raving. Somewhere within there was wisdom, the realisation of the futility of life - but it was a wisdom that did not flourish into the realisation that life can be justified by the creative power of humanity.
Ultimately, as the story in 'Skins' progresses, Effy is presented with raw human love. The positive energy flowed through her sending the Dionysus in her into a state of mad confusion. The anxieties of living were brought to bear. life was revealed, a life that was hidden by unreflective immediacy. Love forced her to face a human as a person, and not as an object of pleasure thus, she could not remain a malevolent force. Ultimately her mind perished, for she could not grasp life in her hands, as it had already become a nothing to her. It had becomes a mere means with no end and end with no means. Despair had swallowed her existence. Despair regained a daughter.

It is unfortunate that a revelation of life will remain unnoticed - the point remain unseen.

'Skins' will be seen largely as a drama and a tragedy satisfying audiences in ways they do not understand or ways they should not.

Muse are Sublime!

For too long in Philosophy, humanity's interaction with the arts has been down played. We are, in some sense, besotted with the 'Form' of art, the sacred entity that can somehow reveal some essence hidden beneath the canvass, an essence that cannot be seen, only 'seen'. Art for philosophers, and, implicitly, for we spectators and listeners of art, has been art in virtue of some rigid criteria, or a participation is not immutable 'form'. Art has been reduced to an extent that all meaning and significance is lost, instead art becomes a matter of fulfilling some prescribed 'art criteria'. Works of art are products of 'art' qua 'form', or 'art' qua 'criteria'. This, we might say, has been taken to the extreme in consumerism, wherein music and art literally become products, products a that are merely pleasing to look at or listen to, but do not spark any existential movements within us. Such art changes nothing, we are unchanged, the world is unchanged.
This is particularly true in music, especially since it is more commonly referred to as an industry; a mere economic component. All that is achieved in consumerist music is the requirements needed for celebrity status. Such 'artists' are worshipped because they have fulfilled societies expectations. They are famous for being seen by millions, what they do is a mere by-product. I, of course, am referring to those singers churned out of 'X-factor', the disgustingly cheesy boy bands and the likes of Mika. You get the picture. There is nothing sublime about the aesthetic experience such people attempt to achieve; if they attempt it at all.
But, when I turn to classical music, or the likes of Muse, Yes or Florence+ the Machine, something stirs within me. This is not some expression of musical snobbery, there is a reason I abhor mass produced music. I am quite happy to say that mass produced music is good, it is catchy and pleasant to the ear, yet void of anything sublime. Take my experience of the Muse concert I attended at the O2 arena. The experience I had was unparalleled by any musical experience I had ever had. The spectacle the band produced through their music, the air of power they wielded over their instruments to produce music of such intense existential movements in the audience and myself, produced a heightened awareness of the triviality of a life lived by society. It was as if they were Greek Gods manipulating the very foundations of existence, moving us to a higher state of 'oneness', 'unity' and insignificance, but at the same time revealing the power and creativity of man within such utter emptiness. The world is revealed as a blank canvas, in which we as artists have the potential to paint something beautiful. More often than not modern man paints a dull picture.
The aesthetic phenomenon we experienced, our worship of Muse, (in the end the almost ritualistic devotion we evoked was reminiscent of some worship of the sublime), aided us in drawing life into perspective. For the time the spectators are engaged in their worship, they are dragged out of what Heidegger calls the 'they', namely the group consciousness with which we are intimately involved in. We are, for a time, just ourselves, stripped of the expectations and labels of society, we are allowed to 'be'. The intense power of music, the complex artistry and power Muse seemed to wield separates us from our integration, revealing the world as a complex of possibilities that are mine to own. We are, as it were, taken along by the power of music, realising that the routine of life we seem to value is illusory in the face of such concrete majesty. The subliminal in music comes from the extent it stirs our existential core, not what it reveals to us about noumena (a world beyond experience), rather music provides a palatable revelation of the chaos of life. Such are the views of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, though the latter would have more metaphysical overtones. Nietzcshe was famous for saying, "truth is ugly. We possess art lest we perish of the truth", in other words, art makes the truth beautiful and empowering. We glimpse into chaos through art, but become empowered by our capacity to form order around the chaos through our own creative capacities. Life is about revealing ourselves to ourselves, what one is brave enough to accept and experience will reveal one's essence. Life is an engagement, not a conformation.

The Curious Doctrine of "All things happen for a reason".

"Everything happens for a reason!" I hear people cry! What does this interminable expression mean? What are those wretched souls saying in emitting such a debilitating offence to humanity? Is there really some guiding force that concerns itself with the intricate affairs of humanity? Are we here laying witness to the last watered-down expression of the Divine? We may have murdered God, as Nietzsche proclaimed we did, yet we we still have not done anything with his ashes. His divine symbol forged by priestly cunning looms in our consciousness in the form an elusive puppet master. The ritual is incomplete. Humanity has not moved on for we are still grieving for our meaning-giving deity; we are living in denial.
Our morality rules our lives, we have failed to notice the humanity behind such an evolutionary convention. Instead morality stands in for God like some inept cover-teacher. The class has become unruly, their nihilism more lethal. God at least sacrificed himself for humanity to be our ultimate end.
If all we have are Reasons, our Amor Fati (love of fate), then life ceases to be. Choice of any kind is out of the question if morality is our governor. Does none of this sound strange to anyone? Morality our Governor? Has nobody stopped to consider that morality only has significance and meaning for humanity, as a piece of human artistry (and I mean this in a Nietzschean sense, i.e. broadly)? Do we imagine the animals have a conscience? Do they consider their actions morally, preside in judgement over evil? Could evil make any sense to them? Further still, Is the Earth evil? Ought we sit in judgement over the Earth when a tsunami kills thousands, or an earthquake topples towns? No, for morality evolved through the creativity and artistry of humanity as form giving agents of the world. Morality does not 'exist'. We took value in life, wanted to defend those values, and take judgement on those who would negate us. We must reclaim morality, and cease subliming that which has always rested in our hands.
Reasons we own. All that has occurred among humans in our relationships, our politics, in the arts, has all been at the hand of humanity; those reasons are our reasons. Yes even the bad reasons. We cannot sublime morality because we fear murderous destruction or genocidal annihilation, that fear is born from the existential angst, and the horror that we experience. But the fear is our fear, the horror our horror, the anxiety our anxiety. The Universe feels none of this. What would it mean for something to be inherently evil? We abhor that which is said to be evil due to the way we as a race have developed together socially and psychologically. This does not demean our morality as mere human frivolity - rather my attempt at a reminder (inspired by Nietzsche and Wittgenstein et al), is an attempt to empower humanity, to show us that we are the creators of meaning. Meaning cannot be sought from something occurring independent of humanity, since all that is meaningful is meaningful within a human context.
Re-claim yourself as the artist of meaning.

Not a dead discipline

Philosophy affords one the ability to cultivate a distinctive way of seeing the world and life. Ordinarily one does not always have the chance to reflect upon who they and why they are, since the way we structure our lives, such questions are not always at the forefront of our minds. There are, of course, those times when one finds oneself in a reflective mood, in a mode of existential angst, but invariably one seeks to become dissolute within the sphere of life (whatever that may be). ultimately humanity, most generally, is swept along, never truly being aware of who and why they are, only that they are, and that they must be. Thus, morality, politics, religion are centred round this notion, this feeling, that life must be in accordance with something. More often than not we are ignorant of man's part in the shaping of the life we lead; of man's creativity. The point of this blog is to give insight into the genius of many philosophers who so desperately wanted to give humanity a reminder of his creativity. Meaning is in our hands, and to seek meaning in something external is demeaning and nihilistic. Man is responsible for man. Meaning is evolutionary.