Tuesday, June 14, 2005

stoned epiphany IV

J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, god of slack.
How could we descibe what "slack" is all about?
First of all, FUCK we. I. "I" am going to describe what I personally believe "slack" is, not because of what I believe so, but because I WANT to believe so (this is not an egocentric statement, by the way: that's why I said "I", and so it rhymes):
So, carrying on: "I" will make this statement re-defining some of my four current influencing ideas and/or authors "I" am trully interested in. For that case, "I" will practise some Socratic dialectic method with them:
1. Nietzsche:
The idea of understanding the Nietzschean "eternal return" concept with the "slack" twist seems very appealing to me. Given the product of thinking the "eternal return" not in a serious but a in humorous way seems way richer to experience. The best example for this perception I have of a "slackean" understanding of the "eternal return" is explicit on the passage of "Thus spoke Zarathustra" when Zarathustra defies with amazingly naïf pride the end of existence, by sentencing: "Was that- life?' will I say unto death. 'Well! Once more!"
So, the "slackean" version of the greater man (or in Nietzsche's words, Übermensch) would be the one that dances naked, instead of the one that marches while listening to horrible martial music. Nazi "Nietzscheans" are just hilarious for the true Übermenschen.
2. Zen Buddhism:
"Slack" vs. the Zen concept of a "satori": the main problem with the Zen Buddhist traditional physical techniques to achieve "satori" - primarly of the ones "I" am aware of so far, the "samu" or "work in silence" and "zazen" - is that there is no way, at least for me, they can compare to the direct approach to the koans . "I" personally think, however, that both "samu" and "zazen" are very important daily activities people in general should keep an eye on. But, as "I" see it, direct approach to "koans" can be as equally - if not, better - satisfying as the reach of "satori" by the two traditional physical Zen activities.
3. Schizophrenia:
Diagonal break with Western clinical thought: the possesion of "slack" upsides-down the basic axioms of Western clinical science: what Western medicine calls symptoms, "I" call them superpowers. The reach of "slack", the spontaneus and not physically demanding approach of "satori", and the humorous, anti-egocentric perpection of the true Übermensch gives complete control of the so-called "schizophreniac symptoms": what was seen before as a handicap, now it is seen as a plus: thus, the voluntary exposition to such "symptoms" as glossolalia, alogia, catatonia and logorrhea can have a whole new meaning, making the whole life experience not worse, but much better rewarding for the spirit.
4. Foucault:
"I" am really into his concept of the "destruction of the subject". Some people try to make fun of his work by calling him "Nietzsche Jr." because the latter "killed" God, while the former "killed" the idea of what the Romans thought for "persona", that is, the biggest mask of Persephone of them all: the subject. Thus, "I" see the revolution on Western clinical thought of "symptoms" turning "superpowers" the same way he describes the inverse schism in his 1961 book, "Madness and Civilization". The vincule of this idea with Nietzsche, at least for "I", is obvious: it's the parallel of the Nietzschean idea of "inversion of morals". Foucault portrayed as "Nietzsche Jr." is both funny and sad.
This is for now, what "I" think "slack" is.
[links provided by http://www.wikipedia.org]

1 Comments:

Blogger Rev_StevODevO said...

PRA"BOB"

7:54 PM  

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