fire it up

in your first chapter you claim to “dispose of logocentrism.”

right, and i only need 3 pages, whereas derrida needs his entire career.

you think so?

oh yes, just look at him. he argues so rigorously against logocentrism.

harsh.

well, his style is obscene. it makes me sick. they say he was a nice guy, but some of his books are just trash.

but he’s so respected.

that’s probably more “proof” of what i just said. sartre was popular too. i’m learning to hate the french.

let’s get back to logocentrism.

logic is a fraud. it’s a myth. of course it’s useful, it’s significant, but it’s also an illusion.

how so?

those who consider themselves “logical” make an idol of the word and the method it refers to. they think they have truth on speed dial. much of western philosophy is based on proposition, debate, dialectic. call it what you will. it stems from parmenides who “proved” that motion was an illusion.

ah yes. his arguments were impressive.

they were charming. yet movement exist. to call it an illusion is exciting and all that but also absurd. he uses “logic” to show us that the obvious is untrue. he turns our reality into mere appearance, or tries to.

then plato and others took it further.

right, parmenides was a curiosity. his theory had no ethic content. plato, on the other hand, applied this “logical” method to human ethics. he “proves” to us what the ideal society is like. i think they tried it in china.

so is logic a fraud because of the way that plato used it?

logic is a fraud because it pretends to be more than just a style of persuasion. let’s remember that plato defined himself against the sophist. the sophist were just snakes to him. they used dialectic in the marketplace. they taught the rich how to win arguments, trials, etc. they taught it as rhetoric, as persuasion. but plato was a priest. he was giving us the truth. like parmenides he told us that what we thought was real were merely appearance or mask. we could use logic and intuition to find the truth behind all this. he was a sort of propositional mystic.

and after plato?

plato was contagious. a whole tradition followed after him where logic was viewed not as a style of persuasion but rather as the method that gave us “truth“. plato was perhaps inspired by pythagoras. he wanted the certainty of math to apply to the medium of logos, word. this was ridiculous to begin with. language, as soon it becomes abstract, is nothing but metaphors, which are anything but exact. logos is nothing like geometry, period.

so plato got logic taken too seriously?

right. as soon as one takes logic seriously, one is stuck with epistemology. because despite the claims of logic to provide us with truth, there was plenty of disagreement, starting with plato’s star pupil, aristotle.

are you saying that logocentrism is the attitude that logic is above persuasion.

exactly. “logic” is a myth. it’s not completely absurd of course, and formal logic has a validity comparable with math. but as soon as we deal with metaphors, logic in this higher sense deserts us. we are back to persuasion.

so western philosophy insofar as it has viewed itself as logical has been living in a dream?

right, these so called “logical” types have based themselves on a myth, for centuries. i’m not denying that epistemology has been valuable. i’m not denying that this myth of logic has been valuable. i think it has. but i also think it’s a prejudice, something that should be discovered.

so you opened your book with it.

right, to clear the air. i wanted to smack my readers awake. i was going to get into religious myth in the later chapters of course and i didn’t want their narrow minds to rest on the pretense of logic.

you think that myth has been underestimated because of logocentrism.

right. the mind of man is mythological and metaphorical. like i said, logic itself is a myth. but those in the logocentric dream aren’t aware of this. they are biased against metaphor, or think they are. as far as ethics and human purpose are concerned, religion has always been far ahead of philosophy.

that’s debatable.

well, this book is part of that debate. to me it’s clear. i’m a convert from logocentrism. with philosophy you get the categorical imperative or utilitarianism, both of which are laughable, “illogical.”

how so?

must we get into that? just think about either for 10 minutes and you will know what i mean. play the devil’s advocate. look at human history. both are absurd.

i see why the catergorical imperative is weak but what about utilitarianism.

ok, i will humor you. the happiness of the greatest number. first it denies that obvious fact of human selfishness. it’s already absurd right there. it’s a laughable sentimental idealism. second, what is human happiness? what makes us happy? once we are well fed and have a roof over our head, what then? look around, how many unhappy well-fed sheltered people do you see? quite a few. man has a “spiritual” appetite.

ok, i see what you mean. it’s not a simple thing to define human happiness.

exactly, how is “logic” going to do that? then there’s another obvious fact, that hardly anyone cares about logic. only a tiny minority concerns themselves with “logic.” “logic” is just the vanity of a bookish minority, whereas the need and enjoyment of myth is universal.

so “logic” is a sort of religion.

right. a few bookish folks make an idol of “logic” which is actually a myth. others make a myth of “righteousness” that might be personified by jesus or communism. still others might make an idol of “power” and look to hitler or napolean.

hitler?

sure. don’t doubt that villains have fans. it’s exciting to be controversial. we all have a soft spot for bad guys.

there’s some truth in that.

i can’t think of many movies without a villain, nor novels or even philosophies. villains are essential.

ok, i grant you that. i grant you your point on logocentrism. let’s move onto the next chapter, the satan myth.

the satan myth is an evolution of the christ myth. christ attacked priestcraft. christ was the first protestant, as well as the first christian.

right, luther wanted to take christianity back to its roots.

right, he saw the catholic church as anti-christ, as false christ.

but how is satan derived from christ?

christ took god away from the priest and declared that the kingdom of god was within us. he abolished the law in the name of grace or love. so god is no longer the property of the theocrats. he made god personal. he made god incarnate.

still, where is the devil in this?

i’m getting there. so christ made god a spirit that dwelt within the faithful. he democratized god. at the same time, he made altruism the essence of the law. but when altruism is called into doubt, by nietzsche for instance, where are we now?

ok, i see where you’re going. so christ is god in the individual man but with a loose altruistic imperative. if you take away the altruism you just have an individual with “god” in him, which could lead to pride.

right. christ said god is love and also that god is a spirit that lives within us. so the authority of the priest is destroyed in the name of indwelling love. it’s only a step to call god “pride” instead of love, or to modify this love of others into a love of self.

but why compare this modified christ to satan?

let’s compare the two myths. christ rebelled against the organized jewish religion, which represented jehova. satan rebelled against jehova himself. christ did so in the name of love for others, or altruism. satan does so in the name of self-love, or pride. we have parallel myths here, but with a twist.

that’s true. that’s rarely noted.

it is rarely noted. we also have the greek myth of prometheus. in each case we have the individual rebel against something big and established. it also compares with david and goliath.

so god is like goliath?

right, or also the evil corporation for instance. certain romantics read paradise lost and could not help but see satan as the hero of the piece, and indeed he was. how can an omnipotent god be heroic? it’s impossible. the hero must run risks, make sacrifices. satan pursued his ideal in the face of the greatest resistance conceivable. so did prometheus. both of them took on the ultimate power. christ is a lightweight by comparison but he lived, supposedly, in the real world.

do you doubt the historical existence of christ?

i don’t know either way. he may well have existed. in any case, for us he is a myth, unless we are believers in the supernatural and all of that.

so it doesn’t matter if he existed.

not to me, not in less there really is a jehova somewhere.

which you obviously doubt.

obviously.

in your book, you side with the satan myth over the christ myth. is that correct?

to be more exact, i believe in a fusion of the myths. i absolutely reject altruism as a law. what i like about christ is his forgiveness, his lack of resentment. even nietzsche couldn’t deny this. it’s funny. nietzsche wrote a book called the anti-christ and he couldn’t help painting a beautiful portrait of christ. oh, he was critical alright, but he couldn’t help but showing how impressive a character he was. he drove home some of the beauty of the gospels. christ forgave those who were crucifying him. no one could make him hateful, petty.

i see. nietzsche certainly criticized resentment.

right. he saw christianity as founded on resentment. he said that the last christian died on the cross.

do you agree with that?

not at all. spinoza is a sort of christian. i’m sure there have been many christians who took the high road of christianity. nietzsche was simply unfair in that book. but he wasn’t his best there. he didn’t always live up to his ideal. who does? i still love nietzsche. even his faults are instructive. nietzsche is a poem.

you say you reject altruism as a law. could you explain that?

altruism as a law is already a contradiction. if we forgive because we have to, in order to get into heaven, then it’s nothing but prudence. this was jesus’s criticism of the law, except heaven was not involved. he said that the self-righteous pharisees had their reward. their reward was self-righteousness. they were obedient in order to enjoy this self-righteousness. jesus wanted a religion based on spirit, which meant spontaneous emotion. he wanted real religion, not just tradition and self-righteousness.

you say in your book that jesus was a romantic.

he was. romanticism is implicit in christ. jesus was a passionate mystic. he was not the french enlightment, which made a deity of “reason.” voltaire, for instance, blasted the church for its hypocrisy. to a large degree he did so out of love. in this he was like christ. but voltaire had science and rationality for an idol. jesus did not. the romantics were a reaction to this idolatry of reason. they did not want such a mechanical view of the universe.

that reminds me of blake.

blake is a perfect example. he was the romantic poet who made a hero of christ. shelley went greek and chose prometheus. byron went hebrew and made a hero of cain. blake’s romanticism was just a modification of jesus. blake was something like an antinomian. with voltaire he shared a contempt for the hypocrisy of organized religion. blake also saw the similarities between christ and satan. that’s why he wrote a book like “the marriage of heaven and hell.” blake played both satan and christ as heroes, depending on his mood. for most the part he stuck with christ, though.

but he realized christ was a myth?

absolutely. he said “god only acts & is thru existing beings or men.” god only exist within individual humans. he also called god the “poetic genius.” he realized that the imagination was god, the individual human imagination. (or “the human form divine”)

it sounds like you aren’t adding much to what blake already said.

that’s true. i’m not. but blake made some questionable stylist decisions. his prophecies are badly written. he was too afraid to use the common symbols in a direct manner.

good points. no one reads his prophecies.

right. now the “marriage of heaven and hell “ is brilliant thought. it’s written well. that’s what got me into blake. but he wasn’t as explicit as he could have been. if he would have stuck to prose he would have been perhaps the greatest mystic in english. his annotations are great. i doubt he expected to publish them.

i wonder why he wasn’t more direct.

so do i. perhaps it was vanity. of course he said “ i have to create my own system or be enslaved by another man’s.”

do you think he was right about that?

not exactly. he could have written his “system” in prose. instead he was a bad imitation of milton, an influence that overpowered him.

what are his annotations like?

they are clear as ice-water, pure as fire. he lays it out. then there are also the small prose sections in his prophecies, the introductions. he should have stuck to that. his lyrics are decent but his prose is by far what’s important to me.

let’s move on to shelley.

i know less about shelley but i do know that he was an atheist altruist. i don’t think his poetry is very good. the style is wrong. it’s ethereal in a bad way. i much prefer byron.

byron is associated with satan. i know that much.

he himself is a satanic myth. you have incest and irony. you have homosexuality and womanizing. he was the equivalent of a rock star. he was handsome, charismatic, etc. he was the perfect sinister hero. the fact that he was a poet and not a general is significant.

how so?

when jesus made god something personal rather than social, military conquest was no longer that significant. we should remember beethoven, another romantic hero. certainly there was a glamour to napolean, but the priest is above the warrior, especially for the millions who will never be kings. it makes more sense to see the composer or the poet as the ultimate man. romanticism is about the subjective. we expect a more impressive subjectivity from the artist than the emperor.

and yet the roman emperors were viewed as gods.

legally and in their own minds perhaps…

but not in the people’s minds?

i’m sure they were envied, but no one seduces our subjectivities like the artist. i suppose there are exceptions. kings retain a certain glamour. but the man who is not a king will lean perhaps to the artist, who he can more easily become, who penetrates his soul, gives him his idea of beautiful.

ok, i grant you that. a king is not that “romantic “ or poetic. so byron the man was a sort of dark ideal.

right. he had some of the nature mysticism of the romantics but he also had his dark heroes, his sinister loners. then he himself was perhaps his greatest character. it’s the author of don juan that most fascinates us. it’s the ironic narrator and the unpretentious prose style that seduces us. byron makes a joke of everything, because he himself is god -- not jehova, not nature. byron bows to no ideals outside himself. not the late byron. he fought with grecian rebels, but even this he made a joke about. he played at being a freedom fighter. one suspects that it was for the adventure involved, that it appeal to his contemplation of his own image. but that’s conjecture.

you don’t interpret it as altruism.

no, not after reading his poems. he didn’t seem like a person who was burdened by duty. he was an idle rich man. war must have seemed like entertainment. i do think he valued liberty. i don’t think he would have fought on the “wrong” side. i think he was a person who acted from his sense of taste.

i suppose his money and his fame put him in an entirely different situation than a blake.

yes, and blake is not so ironic. blake is more indignant, fanatical. blake had revolutionary blood in his veins. then he was also a painter and a student of the bible and no doubt many other books. it’s significant that blake chose christ as a hero and byron chose cain. blake was less satanic, more altruistic. shelley was the same. prometheus stole fire for the sake of humanity. satan rebelled from god out envy, because christ, a human, was set above him.