Социальный вопрос может быть решен "не социализмом, а только естествознанием". "Только естествознание может вести к мирному решению вопроса. Дело воскрешения вытекает не из сочувствия к угнетаемым рабочим, не из ненависти к угнетающим капиталистам, а из естественной слабости, естественного несовершенства человеческой природы, общего тем и другим, т. е. из ее смертности".<<61>>
Questions
Notes
"Коперниканское зодчество имеет ближайшее сходство с первобытным сельским прототипом архитектуры - хороводом, как мнимым солнцеводом: оно будет целым рядом хороводов, хоров воскрешенных поколений, из коих первый был бы действительный землевод, а все другие суть планетоводы, также действительные. Все эти хороводы вместе составляют движущийся уже храм, части коего суть действительно корабли, эфироезоты, электроходы, пловцы эфирного пространства, свободно движущиеся в нем, но не прерывая общения с центром, с очагом, а все вместе, влияя на центральное тело, регулируют его ходом, а с ним и ходом всей системы солнечной, всего хора, всей эскадры вселенной, флота миров - звезд. Это те хоры, которые предполагал уже осуществленными Пифагор и его школа - предшественники Коперника в древнем мире. Только коперниканская архитектура, на небесной механике основанная, может достигнуть архитектурного совершенства. Бог-Творец создает человека по своему творческому образу, как воссоздателя. Следовательно, искусство начинается вместе с человеком на земле и совершается на небе".<<66
"But he who dies in despair has lived his whole life in vain." Adorno[1]
That's why I write about myself.
1. NAKED FEAR
When Joseph Stalin was on his deathbed he called in two likely successors, to test which one of the two had a better knack for ruling the country.
He ordered two birds to be brought in and presented one bird
to each of the two candidates.
The first one grabbed the bird, but was so afraid that the
bird could free himself from his grip and fly away that he
squeezed his hand very hard, and when he opened his palm, the
bird was dead.
Seeing the disapproving look on Stalin's face and being
afraid to repeat his rival's mistake, the second candidate
loosened his grip so much that the bird freed himself and flew
away.
Comrade Stalin looked at both of them scornfully. "Bring me a bird!" he ordered.
They did.
Stalin took the bird by its legs and slowly, one by one, he
plucked all the feathers from the bird's little body.
Then he opened his palm. The bird was laying there naked,
shivering, helpless.
Stalin looked at him, smiled gently and said, "You see...
and he is even thankful for the human warmth coming out of my
palm."
2. THE CLASS WARS
An individual is the enemy, the source of privacy, the generator of property. He is always an enemy of the people. The war on him is a class struggle. Total War. Technology is the weapon.
Man represents the first nature... Really?
Let me tell you about the imperfection of the first nature
-- life is blind, it takes every chance to exist. It's wasteful.
Sun throws its energy inefficiently, everywhere. We are focused,
economical, rational. Instead of one big new artificial sun we
install billions small lights. They are there when it's needed.
Perfect God's world? Perfect for what? Unstable weather, when
floods could follow the droughts, then the blind change rules --
what is so perfect about it? First nature is brainless, not
intelligent enough to be an equal partner.
Communists were no less immigrants and revolutionaries than
Americans, they attack the nature as their class enemy. And
everything that belong to natural. They had no nationality, they
were from the future.
Forms without matter? Thoughts, with minimal corporaety. Virtuality!
Could I talk about their cruelty?
Rampant technology eliminates luxury, but not by
declaring privilege a human right; rather, it does so
by both raising the general standard of living and
cutting off the possibility of fulfillment. Adorno,
Minima Moralia (119)
In fact, raising the quality of living is the elimination of
possibility of fulfillment. So-called the Western standards of
living are the conditions of existence, which exclude the idea of
living. The complexity of the system requires your constant
attention and participation, in short -- it's working conditions.
We are working together, me and telephone, I plugged in even more
than the phone line. This little miracle made its way into my
clothes, the packet connectivity -- the cellular phone. It's
getting to my skin, it's about to become a part of my body. For
the possibility of fast and immediate connectivity with other
communists I pay a price of impossibility of privacy. I can turn
it off, but I know that this is only a break and the great law of
scheduled time will force me to turn this tool on again.
I can't turn off the phone in my brains, I was programmed
that way. Marx understand the kingdom of freedom as a freedom to
be a part of a society. Technology tries to make it into an
absolute freedom.... absolute slavery if your want an
independence. Frazer noticed that a primitive man was a slave of
environment in actuality and in his mind. That's why the speed of
evolution was so slow, his mind was enslaved by myriads of big
and little laws. That's our future.
.... "Христианство не есть лишь жизнепонимание, а дело искупления, которое и состоит в расширении и распространении на весь мир... Если с началом мира начинается и кончина, падение его, то вместе с человеком начинается восстание. Само вертикальное положение человека есть уже противодействие падению".<<67>>
The most surprising that the SYSTEM works! Phone rings, toilet flashes. The System.
3. NOTHING PERSONAL
"Normality is death." Adorno (56)
With a horror I live through numerous recognitions of the
communist bones in the body of my everyday American experience.
Some thoughts keep coming back to me, insisting on being thought
through. All the deaths which we call "accidents" remind me of the
Red Terror executions. They are blind like the Stalin's Great
Terror. Pick anyone, everyman from the crowd, for a public
execution. That's the logic of terror as method of governing.
There must be no logic in it, no way to understand it. Absurd is
a comrade of terror. "Proletariat coercion, in all its forms,
from executions to forced labor, is, paradoxical as it may sound,
the method of molding humanity out of the human material of the
capitalist period." (Nikolai Bukharin) Forced labor, what else
America goes through now! All must work. Don't you know?
I didn't ask for those revelations, they found me. I can't
fight them. I see it with my eyes closed. In vain I ask for
mercy. Once again I have to be a dissident, anti and
underground.... That's what my seventeen years of being American
have done to me. I try to stop myself, talk myself out of stretching
it too far. You can't equate the two! I don't. American
communization is much more powerful. You can fight the state, but
do you fight the people? What could you know? Why don't you think
about the two trails, the two bombers, two Americans? One is a
soldier, another is a scholar. They tried to answer the terror
with the terrorism....
Stalin's executions weren't personal. They were possible on
the mass scale because they weren't personal. There was no
personal guilt in executioners, the ordinary folks. Personal
responsibility became a thing of the past in political society.
We call it "pc" -- we all are victims.
The Extraordinary Commission is neither an
investigating commission nor a tribunal. It is an organ
of struggle, acting on the home front of a civil war.
It does not judge the enemy: it strikes him... We are
not carrying out war against individuals. We are
exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class. We are not
looking for evidence or witnesses to reveal deeds or
words against the Soviet power. The first question we
ask is - to what class does he belong, what are his
origins, upbringing, education or profession? These
questions define the fate of the accused. This is the
essence of the Red Terror.
M.Y. Latsis, senior official in the "All-Russian
Extraordinary Commission" (better known as the "CHEKA", or Soviet
political police)[2] has a paradoxical (dialectical) way of
thinking. Extermination of the class is always extermination of
individuals. Nazis had nothing against an individual Jew, only
against the Jews. "Nothing personal" as they say in business.
Class and origins, upbringing and education -- political
correctness is the politics of dismissal of an individual. "We
are not looking for evidence" -- the accused is sentenced.
What is the Extraordinary Commission in America? Come in,
I'll show you my American secrets. This trip is cheap, it won't
cost much, it's free. When did you last travel in your mind? We
fear ourselves. It's in there, the KGB. I am "an organ of
struggle, acting on the home front of a civil war." I am the war.
"It does not judge the enemy: it strikes him..." Why would I ran
away from myself? Why would spend my life outside of myself? You
still don't know the mystery of entertainment? You should know
that the Outside is more gentle... "This is the essence of the
Red Terror."
"No harm comes to man from outside alone: dumbness is the objective spirit." (Adorno 138)
The emotional side of technology is neglected. You don't
think that Ted Kazynski is mad, do you? He thinks that "society
and technology are there to get him" -- because they are there to
get you. They got you, baby. The worm and precious embrace... Is
it you, daddy? Mother?
I'll never mature. The children of paradise, they are naked,
they will never fly away from home. They are ex-birds,
domesticated eagles.
...."Спасительная организация уже существует; организация эта - войско... Нужно лишь, чтобы на войска, кроме защиты от себе подобных, была бы теперь же возложена обязанность исследования и всего того, что может служить для защиты против слепых сил природы... Не уничтожение войска, этой великой силы, что и невозможно, а превращение его в естествоиспытательную силу сделает войну невозможною".<<68>>
The class war never ends, the civil war never stops. After the victory it intensifies. You may call it cultural wars or cultural revolution. With the fall of the state communism the
historical energy is transferred into American way. The West has
no political adversary to balance or to resist the communist
tendencies. We won; the last obstacle for the true communism to
triumph is gone. The Evil Empire is no more. The kingdom of
goodness swallowed it. The kiss of the comfort is bitter-sweet,
the kiss of death.
The war is in me!
"Technology is making gestures precise and brutal, and with
them men."[3] Adorno talks about the inner gesture. That's the
biomechanics of living with a machine for you. Look at our
dances. Don't you see?
.... Что же это за проект Федорова, который Вл. Соловьев считал "со времени появления христианства первым движением вперед человеческого духа по пути Христову"?
I see it. I am laying there naked, shivering, helpless... I
see this smile of humanity, no face, only a smile. "You see...
and he is even thankful for the human warmth coming out of my
palm." Thank you, thank you very much. I'm a talking bird.
"He who matures early lives in anticipation." Adorno 161
"He who integrates is lost." Adorno 240. I'm corrupted by
paradise. I used to the extraordinary, a member of this
commission which kills without a trail. If I kill myself, what do
you think I will do to you. I see you in the car coming to meet
me....
NOTES
[ draft ]
NORMAL MIRACLES
"A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature." Hume 122.
A common-sense Christianity could explain our technological
"miracles" -- they are not violations of laws of nature, but an
advancement of nature. Our innovations are based on those laws,
they are their best expression. How does this process work?
We call it "science" -- knowledge of nature. We still think
allegorically about knowledge as power, instead of giving
knowledge the full right of "physical" power. We don't really
know how to position this strange "power" within the framework of
nature. Well, knowledge is not "natural"! More, it's un-natural!
It's anti-nature. What else it could be, since it's a REFLECTION
on nature. The secrets of nature taken away from it become our
powers over nature.
Aquinas (Summa Contra Gentiles, III) says "those things are
properly called miracles which are done by divine agency beyond
the order commonly observed in nature (praeter ordinem communiter
observatum in rebus)." "God's intervention" in natural order is
the break in of the other order, the laws behind and before laws
of nature, which were created by the divine powers (first laws).
Technology is a return to the laws of creation. The difference
between the laws of creation and laws of nature "looks" like a
violation or a negation of each other order. The higher our
technology gets the more "miraculous" it looks. Telephone is a
miracle outside of the laws of the second nature (technology),
it's not "natural" and it has to be artificial and man-made. Two
people talking to each other outside of three-dimensional space
is very natural in the second (humanized) nature and impossible
outside of it. In our evolution we crossed the line between two
natures. What we humbly call "technology" is no less than a
reconstruction of the Other world. It was invisible before
because it hadn't exist.
The connection between the two orders -- ideas. A millennium
ago I would say "angels." We still think that an idea doesn't
have life of its own. We somehow forget that an idea is discovered,
i.e. existed before we recognize it. We struggle with the notion
of invention, because it's hard to admit that the blue prints for
B-52 existed all along, we simply didn't know how to see it. Even
more annoying is the thought that all the future discoveries and
innovations are patiently awaiting for us. We are not ready, we
don't know how to read God's mind.
Of course, we worship the future -- there all our
discoveries are, there is God in His actual presence. We
departed from history and humanism for a good reason. We
understood that instead of worhipping the sun we better praise the
maker of the sun. Marx advised us to be this maker. That's why we
place us in the centre, we transfer a man into a material for
this task -- as a result of such an extreme dedication we have
so-called "de-humanization." Human is a material and a method,
both natures. I have to be self-contradictive, this duality is my
nature.
So, what does prevent me from "knowing" (reading) the book I
am writing? What is the struggle? How come I "don't know"? The
nature of not knowing is rearly discussed. This youthful pride in
knowing should be sobered up by the thought about the size of the
Unknown. The pre-modern had this respect for not-knowing.
Only technology does allow me to be Omnipresent, Omniscient
and Omnipotent. (Another 1000 years to complete this project.)
The three criteria are inter-connected: I can't be all-powerful
without being all-knowing and everywhere present.
Telephone and telegraph are cousins. Radio is only a blind
television...
Post-biological? After life! Life beyond the living...
Resurrection has to be semi-biological, dead matter must be included. It has to be mixed with life.
We have to introduce sense of will to everything, make
machines to desire. Resurrection is about feelings. Human, of
course. Mechanism of redemption, apparatus of mercy... No kidding.
Technology has no independent self-existence? Should it?
Let's turn the non-human objects into humanized subjects!
Consumption of power? Media -- redistribution of power?
Symbolic power.
We have to keep life fresh, new, not known... foreign. How?
The preservatives!
Without exceeding the speed limit, one hour driving up and I
would leave the embrace of Mother-Earth. The Cosmos is very
close. We travel this distance every day....
This constant change killed the possibility of any change.
To stop them is the only change. To change the speed of changes
is an acceleration.
TECHNIQUES OF RESURRECTION
Paradox of the postmodern (pm) -- it has to clash with itself. End of dialectics? The extreme of dialectics, mad method.
Morality of technology, it's getting "old" updated. PM
nations live on this self-negation. what about the rest of the
world where technology hasn't reach the critical mass?
Resurrection is a simple upgrading of reality. This
perfectionism, asks for constant return to the "original" -- how
about the new? How much radicalism is in our "new" electronic
products? Aha, PM has to be endless evolution?
In such an universe an individual is too conservative, too
much of a closed system. He has to be open.... Even if it has to
be done with a knife.
Technology enables man to extend himself -- and at the same
time it vivisects him. TV cuts off the rest of my body, I'm
focused on "seeing" -- we call it "watching"! Driving --
functionalism, only senses needed for operating the car.
The mechanical world excludes the feelings unknown to machines.
All this war already detected by the late modernism;
existentialists noticed that modern man lacks essence. Well, a
resurrected soul doesn't have "independence" -- its existence is
functional. Birth assumes originality, I'm a recall. Of what? Of
myself! I should view myself as an extension of myself. A car has
no essence, only presence. I'm apparatus of resurrection of --
what?
Resurrection makes everything visible, transparent....
because of technology. Technology is the (missed) link between
nature and humanity. Technology is God's actual presence?
"The power of technical control over nature made possible by
science is extended today directly to society" (56)
Nature itself is a technology. What a discovery!
Marshall McLuhan once put it, technology has reduced us to
the "sex organs of the machine world" (McLuhan, 1964: 46).1
NOTES Tech1-1
Very brief listing of Aquinas' problematics:
The substance of the angels and their substance in relation
to corporeal things (Their comparison with bodies, The place of
angels, The local movement of angels).[2]
[Here I am about to stumble; missing both theological and
scientific education.]
"For an action is properly the actuality of a power; just as
existence is the actuality of a substance or of an essence."3
* The intellect of the angels
+ His power of knowledge [6](54)
+ His medium of knowledge [7](55)
+ The objects known
o Their knowledge of immaterial things [8](56)
o Their knowledge of material things [9](57)
+ The manner whereby he knows them [10](58)
Common knowledge -- angels. Not unique?
* The will of the angels
+ The will itself [11](59)
+ Its movement, which is love [12](60); because out of
love comes every act of the appetitive faculty
