Sunday, April 3, 2011

Swimming Timidly Into My Logical Fantasy

I was playing with Haikubes earlier tonight with my friends. I arranged the blocks to say "swimming timidly into my logical fantasy." We thought it was funny and laughed a little. My friend said it would be a good title for a blog post.

And it was funny because it actually reminded me of how I feel about my writing. I feel like I just move into it, wondering if what I'm writing makes any kind of sense, or if I have just built up a 'logical fantasy' in my head. There is undoubtedly this element of fantasy. Everything in life, all perception and opinion, must have some kind of fantasy, some kind of generalization.

But I'm working on AZI, part IV.1. It is going well. I'm moving along. Here is a snippet from the section I'm currently working on "Politics And War, Power And Violence":

'Foucault asks: what is the boundary between peace and war? If politics is the continuation of war, then does that mean that there is a war that is constantly being waged beneath the surface of peace? Is politics, and the State, a way of waging an ongoing war? Is the government constantly at war with their own people? If so, how is this war being waged? Clearly both war and politics contain an element of control and coercion that is meant to produce desirable outcomes (for political leaders). But is there a distinct difference between the way that control is achieved in war and politics? Or are they one in the same?Clausewitz defines war as “an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will” (Clausewitz, 83). Doesn’t peace contain acts of force that compel people do the will of the government? And doesn’t the government have certain domestic enemies, like criminals, and those who don’t conform to standards?'


I am getting back into the territory that I was in during 'Society's Implicit War', which I wrote between June and August of 2010, and which is my second largest project to date. Only AZI is longer than SIW.


But the notion of an implicit war is so interesting. Trying to tease out the difference between war and peace, trying to understand the role of force and violence in peace, and how that differs from the force and violence used in war.


Anyways, that is where I'm at.


Implicit war is an interesting idea. There might be a better phrase for it. But whatever.

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About Me

I spend most of my time working as a mental health professional. I have been preoccupied with philosophy, politics, healing, and many other questions for the last 15 years or so. I am currently working on putting together my study of Plato and Aristotle with contemporary work in philosophy, psychology, psychotherapy, and trauma research. I use this place primarily as a workshop for ideas. I welcome conversation with anyone working on similar problems. The major contours of my basic project have been outlined here

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