Double, Double Toil and Trouble OR How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Act Like An Adult at Halloween.

Ah, Halloween... I have always had an odd relationship with this holiday (and yes, it is a holiday). I have always enjoyed mischief, pumpkins, and the color combination of orange and black but I have never really had the inclination to get dressed up. I also have marveled at the relationship between Halloween in our Christian America and its Pagan past. It was not co-opted into some other Christian holiday like Christmas or Easter. The pagan and the Christian totally get along. They seem to be thumbing their nose at each other in a way. Like I said, I love mischief (and any other excuse to drink too much and make a fool of myself).
But that being said what is my Halloween going to look like? Totally mundane and I can dig that aspect. Now that I have moved out a much more cracker part of my hometown I have decided to go with the flow this just once. So I purchased a punkkin', carved it, bought some candy, and I am about to go and light the candle in my front-porch gourd and wait cold drink in hand to bestow bad teeth and premature diabetes and weight gain on the wee ones. I think it will be nice. I do miss the idea of seeing a large sack of Trader Joe's groceries running around drunk though.
Here is a treat for my loyal readers! Have one I insist!










Which brings us to the week in review.



Well, so this week has been a stunner. Bright flashes of elucidation. The second guessing. The kinds of broad and sweeping statements that make a good politician but not the clearest thinker. In particular there was a comment made on this blog a few post's ago which stated x things. First, I need people to bounce my ideas of off. The The City had interlocutors to the point of ad nauseum but they were at least working in the same mileau as myself. This is not imply to any local readers that I do not think you are clever or smart or worthy talking too. Hell not, not the case at all! But when I my brain is on fire about something it is simply easier when I say "Let's talk about Dewey's pragmatic conception of the subject as outlined in his "The Need for a Recovery in Philosophy" as opposed to Heidegger's in Division I of Being and Time" and have you know what I am talking about. I am also not very good at explaining myself sometimes. So not having to have the prerequisit of explaining what god forsaken mumbo-jumbo I am babbling on about allows me to let my thought go full circle and burn itself, usually without anything even closely resembling a heroic last flare of brilliance before it dies. Hardly. The poster of that comment also pointed out that possibly the lack of having someone to "bounce my ideas of off" leads to a turning inward and thus perversion of those wholesome thoughts. To this I reply: yes and no. I have been doing that but I do not necessarily need to talk to my learned colleagues from the NSSR. Though, it is awfully nice, seriously. I have failed to take into account that explaining myself to those who are not graduate students will lead me to clarify my notions and cut out the crap (and what is more pragmatic than that!). I spend my time with philosophy majors, lawyers, ambulance drivers, the occasional Harvard graduated film-studies major, and a great many other worldly people who can understand what I am talking about if I just have the paitence to take five minutes and work it out. When I am not doing this I concede I was rotting my brain and twisting and bending looking to where ideas "break." So it is time to start talking it other people and not a drunken me. I think this is best for all.
So how is the "research" going? How is my "work"? I do not know. I have an outline. I have my sources (so far): Hook, Dewey, Rorty, West, (some) James, Pierce (maybe), Menand, (Richard) Hotstadter, and god knows what else. I concise and well thought outh bunch as you can see. But then something happended: I have been goaded by both reading Cornell West and recent online discussion with an old colleague that maybe Foucault can fit in here as well. I like that odd Kantian bet that Whiz Kid from Poitiers. And of all the writers that I got over in the past 18 months Foucault is the only I still find compelling in any fashion (Heidegger can still eat a dick). But oh well...
To another topic. I have decided that on somethings I want to write "memos." Quick and concise pieces about topics that are as much for myself in clarifying and thinking as they are for conveying my thinking. My first Memo is in the works. The first one is a defense of something I am sure I am going to do: vote third party in this upcoming Presidential election. The reasons for this are as much empirically based on statistics and geography as they are "ethical." The spurring to this position was started by a note from a friend (I am going to ask for permission to reprint in its entirety here soon I hope) and, of course, reading John Dewey. Here is a taste of the ethical position I am aiming at.

"It has been shown in the last few years that democratic institutions are no guarantee for the existence of democratic individuals. The alternative is that individuals who prize their own liberties and who prize the liberties of other individuals who are democratic in thought and action, are the sole final final warrant for the the existence and endurance of democratic institutions..."

Happy Halloween!!!