Philosophical Dialogues XXXIII
EXISTENCE AND TRANSCENDENCE III
By Franz J. T. Lee
4th July, 2000
Alienation, Alienated Labour and Emancipation
(Scene: Philosophy Seminar.)
(After
a three months absence, Coseino returned from an intergalactic
research tour; after a brief introduction, delightfully the
Philosophy Seminar continues.)
Coseino: Once more, welcome, students. It's the 4th of July. I've been an "alien" in several countries. I visited various trialogical mensions and quadralogical spheres, but, at last, I feel at home, in my element again.
Patricia: Don't worry, Professor. You are our darling
"alien". Did you bring anything
"new" with you, some gifts from faraway
places, spaces abd times?
Coseino: My dear Patricia, if you don't mind, I'm
your eviternal gift. What more fresh, fragrant and flagrant are you expecting? Anyhow, let's proceed.
Our topic
today is: How could we excel, transcend? Does
anybody have an idea?
Adam: Some time ago, veiled in a Dark Age feudalist superstructure, I thought that "transcendence" is the easiest thing in the world, especially for the pauperized "chosen people". You just give up the ghost, all expectations and aspirations. You just die, and off you go to the "promised land". You even have a choice: limbo. purgatory, heaven or hell.
Mary: Adam, that's religious or theological "transcendence".
Mahatma: Colleagues, I don't think that it's all that
simple. What would happen,
if instead of these, Nirvana, the Happy Hunting
Grounds or Hades would be
awaiting us over there? Who knows? Perhaps, even
Sartre's Nothing or Nothingness.
Coseino: But, why is the formal-logical Death, guaranteed
by spatio-temporal
parameters, so decisive for human transcendence?
In the Clouds of Magellan, I did not find these categoric inventions of the
patrian, labouring mind.
Patricia: For a very simple reason: because then we'll
have no control over
transcendence anymore, then we can't do or think
or excel anything by, of
and for ourselves anymore. As such, we are left
outside in the wintery cold,
frozen to death, eternally caught in the icy fangs
of Fate, of Destiny, of
Divine Will.
Mahatma: Folks, I think that already long ago we've
transcended all this religious
science fiction, this Platonic fairy tale. At
least, after we've studied Hegel,
Feuerbach and Marx, some faint light could be
observed at the end of the
Death Tunnel. As far as I'm concerned, from this
type of "transcendence"
I've emancipated myself decades ago already. Let's
leave this problem to
others to solve, for example, to 85% of
the total, global population. Later,
during their Second Coming, they can inform us
about the results.
Albert: I agree with you, Mahatma. Is
not Transcendence relative to Immanence, and
vice versa? Without Immanence, no Transcendence
could exist. Without
Transcendence, Immanence could not be.
Jeffrey: Albert, does this also apply to Life and
Death? Without Life, Death could not
exist; without Death, Life could not be?
Are not Life and Death two "sides" of the very same spatio-temporal thing?
They can neither be nor exist apart from each other.
Bill: This relative thing, this relativity theory
is obsolete. In this case, Einstein took
us for a ride. Any process is reversible. Life
is Life, and it could progress, or
even reverse itself. For this, we need no transcendence.
This also applies to Death.
William: I see that you are fascinated by Orgon Theory,
also about Tesla's "New
Energy". However, real, true "progress"
implies excellence, transcendence,
superation of the obsolete muff. To go in reverse,
to return to the old colonial, capitalist, imperialist,
corporate sewerage systems, this surely is not your expectation of
improving life or death conditions.
Bill: Agreed. But, why should we transcend? Can't
we solve our problems, here
and now, within this global system? Can't we reform
capitalism, make it
more liberal, more libertarian? Renew it, neo-liberalize
it?
Karl: Yes, Bill. I agree with you. At first, we have
to start where we are, here and
now. There is so much to do to improve life. In
immanence, all the
possibilities of emancipation are not yet exhausted.
There are so many
people, youth, elderly folks, who eagerly want
to improve things, want to
change the system from within. You
can find them on the Internet, in the
Library, in the Schools and Universities, in the
factories, on the streets.
Martina: Fine, So, so. D'accord, Karl. Since
years, decades, centuries, millennia,
hundreds of millennia, ever since the birth of
homo sapiens sapiens, these
lovely people have existed; forever, they've tried
to improve the world
system only from within. My only problem
is: What have been the results?
Why did slave masters, tyrants, kings, emperors,
tzars, paramount chiefs,
ayatollahs, bureaucrats, technocrats, kleptocrats,
democrats, ruling classes,
nazis, fascists, terrorists, come into existence?
About what did Orwell warn, and currently the writing is already on the wall.
Today, on the 4th of July, the Pentagon aliens will visit us again, preparing
the global entropy.
Why could all these
lovely human beings not stop the Illuminati crooks? Not
today, not a hundred millennia ago, not within
the next thousand millennia.
What's the real problem? Has it got to do with
"alienation", with transcendence?
With "change"? What kind of "change"? Spatio-temporal, formal-logical, universal
Change? Well, please keep the
"change". Let us rather talk about Relations, Bezüge".
Mahatma: And I could continue, by adding more answering
questions, by throwing
more fuel onto the epicentre of this burning crucible:
Why could the lovely
people not stop the Transatlantic Slave Trade,
the Inquisition, the "Thousand
Years Wars" in Europe, the "Opium Wars", the Drug
Industry (legal and
illegal), the First and Second World War, the
Holocaust, McCarthyism,
Racism, Colonialism, Neocolonialsm, Imperialism,
Globalization? Why were their prayers left unheard? In what a miserable world
we live, that needs prayers at all.
Are the "parallel worlds" also like that, with all kinds of exploitative
"super-strings" attached?
Why could these
noble peoples not save the ozone layer, not halt the accelerated extinction
of natural species, pollution
of the air, natural destruction, social perversion, human degeneration? Why suddenly should they be able to
stop these
atrocities now, in future, within
the next hundred millennia? Normally, the
proof lies in the eating of the pudding. How many
cloned ritalin tomatoes
should we still devour, until we understand
something about transcendence,
about not trying to change a rotten egg
only from within?
Karl: I cannot reply to all your questions; nevertheless,
I must say that originally,
like most of us, I also thought that "change"
can only come from within,
within the status quo, within the Empire,
the Home Land. Surely, to a certain level, this is still true. However,
thanks to our studies, to our philosophy seminar,
gradually I become aware, that
emancipation has trifferent aspects, for example, intensive and extensive
práxis, and that it is also also guided
by internal and external thought processes,
by excellent, excelling theory. Reality is multifaceted; historic realities
are not exclusively internal
processes. Sometimes, "aliens" visit us; sometimes earthly
"aliens" explore extra-historical terrain. Surely,
on the Moon and Mars bases, reality is still very earthly, very European,
Russian and American, but beyond, other transhistoric, galactic
horizons smile at us.
Coseino: Excellent, Karl; if you continue like that, then very soon I'll be deployed, unemployed!
Jeanette: But, Karl, I'm still not convinced that
there are thousands, perhaps
millions of "lovely people", out there,
still existing on this planet, who are just
waiting to be "discovered", or who are trying
to "discover" us. In this case, it
seems to me, that we are perhaps participating,
not in witch-, but rather in
alien-hunting, in "emancipator-hunting".
Surely, there are billions of nice, poor people out there, but after the age-old
physical and mental holocaust, they live in a world thousands of years behind
the moon, behind NASA, NATO and the Pentagon. Nearly the whole of Latin America
is still religious, Roman Catholic, is still in the fangs and pangs of the
Spanish Inquisition -- in all probability, for the next centuries, they will
not be emancipated from this mental conquista. And this applies to
85% of the world population too.
Martina: I also have a similar problem. If it should be true, that the global system still has emancipatory possibilities, then, surely, we still would have "hope", and might even consider to change the system ONLY from within. Perhaps one day the "wretched of the earth" would have luck, and would be able to free all mankind, and then they would introduce a just, humane and truly democratic society, in which everybody, including the grandchildren of Bill Gates, of the war mongers and mongrels, would live very happily ever after. This is the "race-horse" on which billions across the ages have betted a fortune, and today still, the "poor thing" is stumbling along, getting further and further away from "taking it all".
Coseino: That's what we call Affirmation, affirming
an asseveration, a problem.
Generally, it's what we call an action, acting,
active Práxis.
Martina: However, to avoid frustrated pipe-dreams,
we are not only lovers of absolute truths;
we also have to cater for more, for emergencies, for failures, for the
unexpected.
We cannot place
all our eggs, all our "hopes", into one basket. On the
Information Via Crucis, many highway robbers lurk
in the apocalyptic
darkness.
Now, what would
we do, if the above assertion is simply a chimera, if it is the
epicentre of mind control and ideology? Just look
around in the mass media and see exactly who favour evolution, gradual change, change from within. Note
which kind of excellence is affirmed,
which kind of 'transcendence" is allowed. The whole
thing looks very suspicious to me - what about
you? Somewhere I smell a rat,
rattishness.
Coseino: That's the Negation, negating the affirmative
asseveration.
Now you are beginning to relate, to think, to
theorize.
Alfred: Professor, does it mean that we must
first learn to affirm, then to negate,
only thereafter we could superate, transcend towards
excellence?
Coseino: You've got it! But, please, not to be accomplished only within formal-logical, spatio-temporal parameters. You could realize all that "at the same time" and in all spaces. More precisely, you affirm, you negate, you affirm and negate, then, you excel, by neither affirming nor negating, you superate, you transcend.
Patricia: Is that possible?
Mahatma: Did you ever do various things "at the same
time"? For example, looking
at a novela, stitching, smelling the odour of
burnt rice from the kitchen, and
scratching your skin, all at the "same time"?
Patricia: I didn't know that you are so "homely",
reserving specific maternal duties
for me, in perfect Nazi KKK-style. I would have
imagined that you gave
examples like seeing with the ears or finger-tips,
hearing with your nose, like
thinking, using all your senses "at the same time",
etc.
Elvis: Professor, how could I, could we, physically transcend, excel?
Martina: How could I, could we, intellectually transcend, superate?
Patricia: How could I, could we, rationally emancipate ourselves?
Indira: How could I, could we, transcend, could we
historicize ourselves, neither
physically nor intellectually nor rationally?
Coseino: In a melodic symphony, together the four
of you have answered all four
questions, and even many more. Just to formulate
these four questions
presupposes an excellent understanding of our
Science a n d Philosophy.
In our next classes we'll deal with these consecutively.
That's all for today;
enjoy the 4th of July, and don't let "someone
from 'out there' come to get
you".
(After a heavy laughter, reluctantly the class disperses.)
