here i am again, it's been a long , long time...
my interned connection was down for a while, i moved to another house, and now that everything is settled again i'm going to start posting. let's hope it's a good start
June 16, 2008
March 18, 2008
Nietzsche: Night song
Many have heard about Nietzsche, not many have read any of his writing, and fewer still know about his poetry.
This is a crime that demands reparation…
Some might say that, to tell the truth, there seems to be poetry in most of Nietzsche’s writing, and certainly they wouldn’t be wrong, but I’m talking about this:
— What language will such a spirit speak when he speaks to himself? The language of the dithyramb. I am the inventor of the dithyramb. Listen to how Zarathustra speaks to himself before sunrise (3, 18): such emerald happiness, such divine tenderness did not have a tongue before me. Even the deepest melancholy of such a Dionysus still turns into a dithyramb. To give some indication of this, I choose the Night Song, the immortal lament at being condemned by the overabundance of light and power, by his sun-nature, not to love.
It is night: now all fountains speak louder. And my soul also is a fountain.
It is night: only now all songs of lovers awaken. And my soul also is the song of a lover.
Something unstilled, unstillable is within me, it wants to find expression. A craving for love is within me, it speaks the language of love.
Light am I: ah, that I were night! But it is my loneliness that I am girt with light!
Ah, that I were dark and nocturnal! How I would suck at the breasts of light!
And even you yourselves would I bless, you little twinkling stars and glowworms above!—and would be overjoyed with your gifts of light.
But I live in my own light, I drink back into myself the flames that break out of me.
I do not know the happiness of one who receives; and I have often dreamed that even stealing must be more blessed than receiving.
This is my poverty, that my hand never rests from giving; this is my envy, that I see waiting eyes and the illuminated nights of longing.
Oh misery of all givers! Oh darkening of my sun! Oh craving to crave! Oh ravenous hunger in satiation!
They take from me: but do I yet touch their soul? There is a cleft between giving and receiving; and the smallest cleft is the last to be bridged.
A hunger grows out of my beauty: I should like to hurt those for whom I shine, I should like to rob those to whom I give,—thus do I hunger for malice.
Withdrawing my hand when the other hand already reaches out to it; like a waterfall, which lingers even while it plunges: thus do I hunger for malice.
Such revenge my abundance plots, such spite wells up out of my loneliness.
My happiness in giving died in giving; my virtue became weary of itself in its overflow!
The danger of those who always give is that they lose their shame; the heart and hand of those who always dispense become callous from all the dispensing.
My eye no longer wells over at the shame of suppliants; my hand has become too hard for the trembling of filled hands.
Where have the tears of my eye gone and the down of my heart? Oh the loneliness of all givers! Oh the taciturnity of all who shine!
Many suns circle in barren space: to all that is dark they speak with their light—to me they are silent.
Oh this is the enmity of light toward those who shine: merciless it travels in its orbit.
In its innermost heart unjust toward those who shine, cold toward suns—thus travels every sun.
The suns travel like a storm in their orbits, they follow their inexorable will, that is their coldness.
Oh it is only you, you dark ones, you nocturnal ones, who create warmth out of that which shines! Oh only you drink milk and refreshment out of the udders of light!
Alas, ice is around me, my hand is burned by the iciness! Alas, thirst is within me, which languishes after your thirst!
It is night: alas that I must be light! And thirst for the nocturnal! And loneliness!
It is night: now my longing break out of me like a well,—for speech I long.
It is night: now all fountains speak louder. And my soul also is a fountain.
It is night: now all songs of lovers awaken. And my soul also is the song of a lover.—
What you just read is the “night song”, from Thus spoke Zarathustra, with the introduction Nietzsche gives of it in Ecce homo.
He describes the “Zarathustra” as perhaps the greatest gift ever giver to man, and talks about this dithyramb as the most felt, most suffered thing the world has seen: the suffering of a god. The suffering of Dionysus.
March 17, 2008
Last Words
What better, more honest thoughts can there be than those one has just before his death?
I looked around over the internet, and found that many great people (and many not as great people, I’m sure, but there are no records for them…) used those last seconds to give the world one last fragment of what they lived for.
Often, as for a good quote, a single phrase can tell us much more about someone than a whole book full of technical information.
So I thought I’d make my search useful and post the most interesting last words I found around, plus a few links to the websites I found them on…
"Good night." Lord Byron
"What an irreparable loss!" Auguste Comte
"It's been a long time since I've had champagne."
"My dear Schur, you remember our first talk. You promised to help me when I could no longer carry on. It is only torture now, and it has no longer any sense."
"Open the second shutter so that more light may come in."
"Only one man ever understood me. And he really didn't understand me." Hegel
"LSD, 100 micrograms I.M." Aldous Huxley
"Kill me, or else you are a murderer!" Franz Kafka
"Go on, get out! Last words are for fools who haven't said enough!" Karl Marx
"Lord help my poor soul." Edgar Allan Poe
"Bring down the curtain, the farce is played out." Rabelais
"If it had not been for these things I might live out my life talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have died unmarked, a failure, unknown. Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never in our full life could we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice and for man's understanding of man." Nicola Sacco
"Even in the valley of the shadow of death, two and two do not make six." Tolstoj
Now, now, my good man, this is no time for making enemies. Voltaire when asked by a priest to renounce Satan.
I can’t swear all these “last words” are original or last…, but there seem to be a certain consensus on most of them and many are quite probable, so I’ll leave it to the reader to believe or not.
Here are the links, have fun:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Last_words
http://www.sanftleben.com/Last%20Words/lastwords-r-index.html
March 14, 2008
introducing maps
The sensation i often get while browsing the internet, is of loneliness, sue to a certain lack of easily accessible "maps" to help guide the E-xplorer in his trip into information.
Like any journey, also a virtual one needs maps and guides on where to go and on the best way to get there.
The difference is that in a virtual exploration won't make you end up dead, but it might be harder to explore, given the huge amount of "maps", hints, links,... that might end up confusing you or bringing you back to the same wikipedia page over and over again.
So i thought that every now and then, it might be a good idea to post some links on specific topics, in the hope they can be of help to any virtual explorer who may need them, so here goes the first link map:
Book forums:
That's it for now, i realize it's not much of a map, but i'm sure i'll find some new links to post as time goes by, and i hope if anyone knows about other good book forums they will let us know about them. Feel free to add them in your comments
March 13, 2008
Foucault and the panopticon
Basically the panopticon is a prison. Not any prison though, it’s a deeply thought concept.
The idea comes from the philosopher Jeremy Bentham and was developed in 1785, and consists in a circular structure with its internal perimeter full of cells facing the centre.
At the centre of this structure is a tower, a “control post” with windows open on all sides, so as to permit one guard to virtually control all inmates constantly. In an even more radical view, the central control tower should be publicly accessible, allowing a “democratic” form of control and an exemplary lesson to citizens…
The concept of the panopticon is studied and analyzed very well in Michel Foucault’s Discipline and punish, a book that describes the passages that brought to our actual conception about prison, discipline and illegality. Its importance lies in the historical period that saw its birth.
The disciplinary structure of the time was still based on the one that was in use in the middle-ages, with exemplary punishments, as cruel as they were rare and publicly attended by hundreds of people, cheering and screaming. A ceremony with a strict ritual displaying the power of the king, and the fate of those who attempted to his power by defying his law, but also a surprisingly common reaction of sympathy toward the criminal and against the king’s display of power.
Reformers like Bentham and Beccaria ride the winds of change; a world who can control the population much better than a medieval king, like the one they live in, has no necessity for an exemplar punishment.
For the first time cruel and inhuman tortures start being considered unworthy of progressive and modern countries, and a reform of justice begins.
Foucault describes how this reform brought the hands of the “disciplinary power” to go deep into the flesh of our society, aiming at a form of total control, mutual control, everyone is guard and inmate at the same time, and the more the structure is diffused and has no centre, the more it’s power on the people grows.
The panoptical concept is the first attempt in this direction, it is possible to build any kind of disciplinary structure in this way: prisons, hospitals, schools, …
There’s no need to be inhuman or violent, if people know they are potentially always being controlled they will never think of acting against a power that is so invisible yet capillary. (can you smell a hint of Orwell here?)
There seems to be no alternative to this kind of phenomenon, especially since it brings control without violence, and that’s a thing many people seem to want.
But after reading Discipline and punish you can’t help feeling somewhat unsettled. The birth and growth of disciplinary power is all there…
Here are a few links to more information on this topic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon
http://foucault.info/documents/disciplineAndPunish/foucault.disciplineAndPunish.panOpticism.html
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/rant/panopticon-essay.html
March 11, 2008
another free book database
i just found this very interesting website:
http://www.fullbooks.com/
Thousands of free books to read, great books.
You don't need to download them, just open the files from the website and start reading.
The only defect (at least from my point of view), is that they are ordered alphabetically by title, making it quite hard to look for books from the same author. But apart from that a very nice website
an essay on the past and the future of publishing
A few posts ago I wrote about the website http://www.gutenberg.org and it’s huge list of free e books.
The name of the website is obviously inspired by the inventor of the modern press.
Looking around internet, I happened to stumble upon a short but very interesting essay by E.R. Beardsley entitled ”digital Gutenberg, everyperson as publisher”.
The essay is divided in two main parts.
The first is a short history of publishing techniques and the influences they (especially Gutenberg’s movable type printing) had on culture and it’s diffusion throughout the world, while the second part focuses instead on how the massive diffusion of computers, internet and professional publishing tools are influencing, and have only just begun, the way culture and information are acquired and created.
The power to generate and diffuse any information is always more in the hands of potentially everyone, or as Beardsley would probably prefer, everyperson.
According to the author, the potential effects of this new “democratic power” on the world could be just as important (or more), as Gutenberg’s revolution and I’m pretty sure, for the better and for the worse, that he’s right.
Debate on this topic should be able to make its voice be heard, as it is probably one of the current events that will have most influence on future generations, so why not start out by getting some information on it?
Here’s the link to the essay:
http://www.intangible.org/DigiGut/GutHome.html
The essay is published on:
htey describe themselves as "a nonprofit web publisher devoted tothe arts and humanities", i haven't got to look at it too well, i only read the essay i just wrote about, but it looks like an interesting resource for information.
Try looking at it and you might find more interesting things to read
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