21.1.10

Sometimes I stretch my body's limits to see how much it will take before it revolts. I'm pretty sure its a bad thing that I can separate the cognitive and the sensible so easily, wilfully. Over the past year I have developed a very difficult relationship with my body, which is what makes reading existential phenomenology so interesting. I like to tease my body into corners. The prof teaching us Merleau-Ponty quoted Pere Ubu today, which instantly makes him even more awesome. After the lecture, my friend said somthing like "we don't talk with language games; every body has its gestures" etc. So the problem that comes to my mind, especially in the context of feminist philosophy and post-feminist theory like cyborg theory is how to reconcile phenomenology - consciousness as/of your body in-the world - with technological advancements that continue to redifine what it means to be "embodied." Although Merleau-Ponty would probably say that computer-communications are an extension of our bodies, incorporated into our bodily experience like other "habits," I'm kind of worried about the implications. Haraway and Merleau-Ponty go really well together. I guess the main question on my brain is, if my consciousness necessarily involves my body in relation to the world, what happens, phenomenologically, with internet-communications? My body cannot interact with yours, so there is always this inability to communicate, purely on a bodily level (in addition to every other theory that posits an irreconcilable divide between the subject and other). And how does this affect the subject-object dialectic? If you - reader - are never more than an object to me on the other side of a screen (because, by virtue of you being a 'conceptual/imaginary' rather than 'real' audience) how can I ever write honestly to other individuals not as objects, but as lived-body-consciousness'? I'm rambling and anxious. I feel restless like I'm waiting for something. There is way too much shit to write and research and so little time/life to do it. And (this is especially what I love about Merleau-Ponty) it is also necessary to just be in the world, to just sit down and shut-the-fuck-up. A lot of philosophy majors seem resistant to Merleau-Ponty, I think its because he is very simple. His dialectics are circular and always point back to the same simple advice for living. I like that he de-emphasizes the cognitive....(which is ironic considering his method...). Whatever, its a weird paradox.

BLAH

I'll start posting poems here soon.
To, you know, "lighten" shit up.
Although 90% of my poetry is anything but "light."

Can't you just feel the self-derision emanating from me tonight?
Sweet dreams and such. x

3 comments:

  1. Damn this is interesting. You got me craving more of the same. Don't shut the fuck up -- keep going. Meanwhile I will def check out M-P.

    ReplyDelete