I can't recommend him enough—he is sort of part literary trickster, part skeptical philosopher, and part metaphysician/guru.
But I've also been asking questions about skepticism (and how to best calibrate it, and best use it both in thinking and IRL), and also grappling with a (personal?) question.
There is a great deal of overlap between Chuang Tzu and the modern cult of negation best exemplified by Derrida and his Deconstruction machine (and also his partner in crime, Foucault, the modern Mephistopheles)—they both point to the limits of language, its inherent slipperiness, how it means different things to different people at different times in different places, how it often conceals more than it reveals etc—but when I read Chuang Tzu and other Taoists I feel a great sense of relief and liberation, a real spiritual and esthetic joy, while reading someone like Derrida makes me feel like I'm locked in a jail cell with the world's most famous con man.
I guess the difference is that the Tao pierces through language to uncover an eternal world of joy and beauty, whereas Deconstruction pierces through language to uncover "unseen power dynamics" and "capitalist oppression" and in place of joy and beauty posits life and culture as an eternal Maoist struggle session where everything and everyone gets "deconstructed" and we call the rubble left behind "liberation".
However you wield your skepticism, it's important to not have a hateful heart and not attribute the worst motives to others, or start denouncing entire cultures and groups of people. Skepticism also means deep humility, on an epistemic and personal level.
I should hand this blog over to you, since that comment encapsulates the goal I'm shooting for. The underlying beauty, joy, mystery and love that is overlooked when we give way to our fears and neuroses.
Hey i'm just glad I found you and this Stack, it's really helping me stay sane.
I don't wanna speak for you, but it looks like we've found ourselves in the same place: trying to navigate modern discourse and culture, which seems so infested w lies and toxic social pathologies, without losing our minds and (more importantly) without losing our souls.
It really requires constant vigilance and some days are better than others.
Which reminds me of a personal bugbear, when people say they're 'working through' some issue they have. They are actually never doing anything that resembles working. They're ruminating. But that is never cool to admit. Anyway, off topic I know.
Shout out to Chuang Tzu!
I can't recommend him enough—he is sort of part literary trickster, part skeptical philosopher, and part metaphysician/guru.
But I've also been asking questions about skepticism (and how to best calibrate it, and best use it both in thinking and IRL), and also grappling with a (personal?) question.
There is a great deal of overlap between Chuang Tzu and the modern cult of negation best exemplified by Derrida and his Deconstruction machine (and also his partner in crime, Foucault, the modern Mephistopheles)—they both point to the limits of language, its inherent slipperiness, how it means different things to different people at different times in different places, how it often conceals more than it reveals etc—but when I read Chuang Tzu and other Taoists I feel a great sense of relief and liberation, a real spiritual and esthetic joy, while reading someone like Derrida makes me feel like I'm locked in a jail cell with the world's most famous con man.
I guess the difference is that the Tao pierces through language to uncover an eternal world of joy and beauty, whereas Deconstruction pierces through language to uncover "unseen power dynamics" and "capitalist oppression" and in place of joy and beauty posits life and culture as an eternal Maoist struggle session where everything and everyone gets "deconstructed" and we call the rubble left behind "liberation".
However you wield your skepticism, it's important to not have a hateful heart and not attribute the worst motives to others, or start denouncing entire cultures and groups of people. Skepticism also means deep humility, on an epistemic and personal level.
Really just don't become all the things you hate!
(Easier said than done, I know)
I should hand this blog over to you, since that comment encapsulates the goal I'm shooting for. The underlying beauty, joy, mystery and love that is overlooked when we give way to our fears and neuroses.
Hey i'm just glad I found you and this Stack, it's really helping me stay sane.
I don't wanna speak for you, but it looks like we've found ourselves in the same place: trying to navigate modern discourse and culture, which seems so infested w lies and toxic social pathologies, without losing our minds and (more importantly) without losing our souls.
It really requires constant vigilance and some days are better than others.
Cheers and thanks again.
You describe 'the work'. Let's be really smug and call it that.
nothing i hate more than 'work'!
Which reminds me of a personal bugbear, when people say they're 'working through' some issue they have. They are actually never doing anything that resembles working. They're ruminating. But that is never cool to admit. Anyway, off topic I know.
I think you've drawn a good outline here of what it entails to avoid becoming a reactionary on the heterodox left.
This is encouraging - thanks!