"I don't meet that many people who are awake enough to understand what I'm doing."
She said this to me after explaining a bit about the book she's writing, in which she details the last 16 years spent seeking justice for her murdered brother and other children who've been abused by a group associated with a very well-known political figure.
Copied with gratitude from here. :-)
we're having a good time in Briankle's class, discussing Walter Benjamin, The Task of the Translator and On Language As Such. Thinking together, as it were. :-)
To be sure, we're not the only ones. Others have been thinking too. I disagree with Sarah Dudek's assertion that "Benjamin’s thoughts cannot be understood without having a closer look at his concept of language". I thought we did a good job of imagining such a separation - or was that just me in my own head? I realize as I'm invoking the royal we (!) that of course you were thinking differently than me, but I'm using the "we" in the sense of the shared discourse - what was said out loud among us during class. :-)
The rest of Dudek's thought: " -'pure language' seems a rather vague term. [Benjamin's] whole project is so remarkable because it has an all-embracing notion of language as its basis: the world is made of language and the final aim is to understand this “textus” of the world, to achieve harmony between the inadequate human languages and the language of God."
David was right on top of the mysticism, eh? :-) Cabbala more precisely than Sufi, although there does seem to be a convergence of mystical spirituality from various religious traditions.
Dudek: "Benjamin posited a universal sphere of concepts, which he called the “intellectual part”, totally self-sufficient and distinguished from the “linguistic part”. The two components of the human being are connected to some extent, but the linguistic part never covers the whole conceptual sphere."
While it's never been extremely popular, as far as I know, among the Deaf to be enamoured of gorillas learning sign language, wouldn't it turn the tables a bit if it became widespread knowledge that all language evolved from gestures?
There certainly is a different kind of (intrasubjective) phenomenological experience when one signs instead of speaking, but according to The Salk Institute argue there isn't much difference: "The capacity of brain systems to subserve language, regardless of modality, is a striking example of neuronal plasticity."
One of my students asked on Friday if we could have a fiesta at the end of the year. Of course - complete with a pinata? This seemed to throw him - is it my stereotype or his monolingualism? He used a Spanish word to convey the idea of a party. Should that necessarily have conjured up an image in my mind of a pinata? I actually had a flash of memory in that moment. We had a pinata at one of the BM's early birthdays - I think it was when she turned 4, but maybe it was her 5th. ;-)
The kids were out of control, ohmygosh I had to go wading in there and holler like a drill sargeant to keep anyone from getting clocked! It was an awful lot of fun, but the moment it began it was clear there was potential for an accident. Whoa! So, this is flashing through my mind, as I'm also wondering, how does he not associate a Spanish word with its cultural event? Is this because English has colonized the term so completely it's original semiotic relation has been severed?
Another work(ing) encounter...
I've been having more/continuing laptop stress: "there is not enough space on your startup disk to complete that operation."
I understand why folks can become convinced by the mind = computer model. Basic physics - if there is only so much room, only so much can fit. If the start-up disk is full to the limits of quantum mechanics, no room to jiggle things around and make space for that next priceless video clip. If my mind is full to the brim with whatever neurochemical reaction is playing out from memory, no room to incorporate an alternative interpretation.
thanks, Matt, for all the reassurance there's only a 1 % chance this Lacie hard drive will crash. I want at a ten-year guarantee!
"Do you know about me?!" I have a couple of "uncles". There's the fictional one, and then there's the non-biological but infinitely real one.
I met Leon Trainee at work today. He had to figure out how to answer my mundane and persistent questions: what time can I catch the bus? Will it really be there at 6:55 am? Do I choose time asleep or time with my friends?
It's all about timing. Well, and having something to say. ;-) How much of my life has been spent "out of time" with others? By far and away the bulk of it. Even many of those times when I *thought* I was "present" and "reasonable" turn out, in retrospect, to have been projections of emotional events past. Part of feeling "happy" might be the experience of moving into the temporal now with a minimal trace of the subjectively imprinted past. (Or maybe feeling happy is only possible in the "now" and in the "future" if there are glimpses of it in the "past"?)
by Eduardo Galeano.
Those who work are afraid they'll lose their jobs.
Those who don't are afraid they'll never find one.
Whoever doesn't fear hunger is afraid of eating.
Drivers are afraid of walking and pedestrians are afraid of getting run over.
Democracy is afraid of remembering and language is afraid of speaking.
Civilians fear the military, the military fears a shortage of weapons, weapons fear a shortage of wars.
It is the time of fear.
Women's fear of violent men and men's fear of fearless women.
Fear of thieves, fear of the police.
Fear of doors without locks, of time without watches, of children without television; fear of night without sleeping pills and day without pills to wake up.
Fear of crowds, fear of solitude, fear of what was and what could be, fear of dying, fear of living.
The preceding is from upside down: a primer for the looking-glass world (p. 79). If you want more: "Fear of unemployment allows a mockery to be made of labor rights."
