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Doubting Thomas

Launching Doubting Thomas II
Topic: Current Events
I've received some well-deserved criticism that my blog is too impersonal and non-descript. Well here is my answer to my critics. Today I'm launching Doubting Thomas. A new blog where I will make daily entries of a more personal character. You are all invited to join in my daily ramblings at: Doubting Thomas

Zerkalo – The Mirror
The Incompatibility of Man and Nature.
Reflections on Andrej Tarkovskij’s film,

By Thomas Ek

I’ve just finished seeing Andrej Tarkovskij’s film The Mirror. I saw it many years ago but it didn’t strike me as poetic as Stalker or as interesting philosophically and emotionally as Solyaris. Upon seeing it once again it strikes me that something is missing or that it lacks a sense of purpose. Maybe the topic of his father and his poetry and life was too close and too painful? It lacks a kind of coherence but then again most of our memories do. However, I find it infinitely more interesting this time around, and I would like to indulge in my reflections and furnish you with my uninterupted string of thoughts. Take them as you wish, give them your kind consideration and offer any comment that comes to mind.

Ignoring such prominent thematic fields like family or marital problems and Russian or Soviet history, from Pushkin via Stalin to the fear of a Chinese invasion, two topics can be extracted from the movie which Tarkovskij seems to be very concerned about:

1. The confrontation of Man and Nature as two opposing powers.

2. The continuum of time (the equation of present, future and past).

The importance of topic two can be made clear by just considering the film's overall structure: The different time levels are intertwined in an often deliberately confusing way so that it actually becomes difficult to identify them. The fact that the same actors are used to portray different characters of different time levels, Maria as Alexej’s mother and Natalya as Alexej's wife; Alexej as a child and Ignat as Alexej's son, underlines the idea of a deliberate construct. But the interconnection of time is also made visible by the recurrent theme of the so called 'déjà-vu-phenomenon': A character perceives a new situation or action as if it has already occurred before. In fact, he or she gets a notion of the predetermination of everything that happens in his or her life - a horrible thought, because then you can't change anything and have to accept willingly, whatever an obscure determinating force, has planned for you.

Let's concentrate on the last sequences in which the significance and the combination of these themes become obvious. First there is the scene where Alexej, who lives in separation from Natalya, lies in agony, overcome by an unknown disease. He just has the energy to make a last statement for posterity ("I simply wanted to be happy!"), then he retires from the world, asking to be left in peace.

But while he is on the brink of death, he still succeeds in wondrously stirring up life. He takes into his hand a moribund bird, who is lying on his bedside table, squeezes it, and then lets it go so that it can fly up into freedom.

Is it the same bird that breaks through a window glass in another scene, or that places itself on the head of that orphan boy whose parents have perished in the siege of Leningrad, as if he wanted to protect him?

The birds of "Zerkalo" seem to take up a symbolic function similar to the dogs and horses in other Tarkovskij movies (i.e.: "Nostalgia", "Solyaris", ”Stalker”): They represent a kind of link between Man and Nature; they are the gatekeepers of the unknown.

Topic one is pervasive throughout the director’s entire oeuvre.Tarkovskij seems to view Man and Nature as two opposing, incompatible powers. This becomes evident again and again, for instance when a vigorous wind repeatedly runs through grass and trees or when drumming rain drenches the landscape. Here Man can only watch in amazement, being unable to set something of equal value against the inscrutable elemental forces of a mysterious ever-present Nature.

In the closing sequence Man appears at first as if he was embedded in the womb of Nature. Maria, the future mother of Alexej, is lying dreamily in the grass when she is asked by her husband whether she prefers a boy or a girl. But instead of answering his question she is gazing into the distance, and suddenly she sees herself as grandmother, walking across woods and meadows having little Alexej (Ignat?) and his sister by the hand. Then a juvenile Maria appears again, and tears are running along her cheek, but she is smiling at the same time. It seems as if the knowledge of the unstoppable progression of human existence into a single direction (towards old age and death) makes her sad and happy at the same time. She feels grief because of the inevitable loss of youth, but she also rejoices in happy relaxation for she has made out the rules of life as such and has accepted them.

At the end the camera traces the way of the grandmother and her grandchildren for quite a while. But again and again trees interfere and obstruct the view on the humans like gloomy barricades of foliage. Until finally both part ways and separate themselves, perhaps, irredeemably: The humans have disappeared somewhere in the distance whereas the camera shot pans into the dark impenetrability of the forest. Into the deep and dark heart of Nature.

Upcoming Projects!
Topic: Information
Upcoming Projects include:

New Art Site featuring some new artprojects.

Heimat Electronic Music site.

More information will be posted later.

//Thomas Ek

Tanizaki and Mishima
Topic: Literature
For Both, a Fulfillment in Death

It says a great deal, the fact that a pair of Japanese novelists separated by two generations should have so much in common. Junichiro Tanizaki died at the age of 79. Yukio Mishima has just turned 40. At the time of his death, Tanizaki was probably the most revered of Japanese literary elders, and Mishima is the young writer of whom it seems most likely the same thing will one day be said. In the almost 40 years that separated the literary debuts of the two men, no nation changed more rapidly than Japan; no nation seemed quicker in its eagerness to abandon the old and embrace the new; and yet one is struck most by what the two writers share.

"Diary of a Mad Old Man" appeared in 1962 in Japan, "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea" in 1963. The former is very much what its title says, save that the old man is less mad than selfish and cunning. The victim of a most elaborately documented complex of indispositions, principally neuralgic, and of an infatuation with his daughter- in-law to boot, he sets down in his diary his methods, all very subtle, of alleviating his various pains and satisfying his masochistic sexual impulses.

The novel seems to be building up to an orgastic death similar to that in Tanizaki's earlier novel, "The Key," and indeed its action demands something of the sort. Then, suddenly, the diary gives way to a nurse's and a doctor's report in which it is learned that the old man has taken a turn for the better. And that is that. The reader has a right to feel a little cheated, and to wonder what the point has been; but if the ending seems wrong there are some fine moments of cruel and bizarre comedy along the way.

Mishima's novel tells of a sailor who is lured away from the sea by a beautiful woman and whose life loses meaning as a result. At the end of the book, meaning is about to be restored, by a gang of precocious and diabolic schoolboys. Mishima stops short of his climax as Tanizaki seems to shy away from his, but in Mishima's case the withholding of the ultimate climax is put to good artistic use. The sacrifice has been prophetically enacted earlier in the book, and to go through it again would be to risk nausea. The climaxes demanded of the two books are very similar. Both ask for fulfillment in death.

There are superficial ways in which the two writers resemble each other, but it is on this deeper level that the resemblance is most striking, and that the two partake of the communion of Japanese letters. Mishima has said somewhere that the suicide · deux of lovers is the finest of Japanese inventions. He spoke half-jestingly, and of course the institution is not uniquely Japanese. But the quest for fulfillment in extinction has figured importantly in Japanese literature, and Mishima and Tanizaki have both written on and around the subject from the first.

The two resemble each other--and many of their colleagues--in another important theme: the terrible pursuit of happiness carries with it, and has as its beginning, a sense of deep deprival. In the work of Tanizaki the search was for a woman to whom a man can subject himself absolutely (the daughter-in-law is here the archetypal woman). In Mishima's case the matter is more complicated; and yet all the blood, the sadism, the hirsute, bare-fisted masculinity suggest that what is lacking, what is even missed, is war. Mishima himself is old enough to have known war but too young to have been in the fighting, and now, citizen of the most pacifist of nations, he may never have the chance.

Both novels have their brilliant moments, and both fall short of sustained brilliance. Tanizaki's comic talents have seldom been more apparent, and Mishima's narrative skill. Yet both books contain an embarrassing element of self-gratification, and both are excessively decorate. At their least satisfying as at their most, Tanizaki and Mishima are very Japanese--there has long been a notion in Japanese letters that realism demands an amassing of objects and details. Tanizaki had his expensive foreign medicines, Mishima his expensive foreign sweaters and cuff links; they must have been unrelieved hell for the translators.

In recent years, as each new novel by these authors was published, one could not help wondering if the two men were becoming writers-to-formula. In the elder author's case, the development was perhaps inevitable--but cannot Mishima fight it off? Midway through the novel under review, one of the diabolic schoolboys is made to have these thoughts about the sailor: "The tone of his voice reminded Noboru of a peddler selling sundry wares while he handled them with dirty hands. Unsling a pack from your back and spread it open on the ground for all to see: one hurricane Caribbean-style--scenery along the banks of the Panama Canal--a carnival smeared in red dust from the Brazilian countryside--a tropical rainstorm flooding a village in the twinkling of an eye--bright parrots hollering beneath a dark sky. . . . No doubt about it: Ryuji did have a pack of wares." It could be an old Mishima reader responding to a new Mishima novel.

Taking all shortcomings into account, however, the essential fact is that these are two worthy novels eminently well translated. Mr. Hibbett is an accomplished veteran who has kept to his usual high standard, and Mr. Nathan a relative newcomer whose work is quite superior.

Blog This!
Topic: Current Events
The internet is a wonderful thing, we all know and acknowledge that, but I do not think we take the time to contemplate on its tremendous impact. It has changed history, communication, scientific research, even the way we look at the world today. Everything is connected in a way no one could have anticipated. Information really travels at the speed of light. Now, at the advent of blogging, because let’s face it, we are really only in the beginning of this revolution, it has already transformed journalism forever. Blogs have become a genuine newssource albeit, in some cases, a dubious one. Newsbreaking stories are often posted on the net first and in other media much much later.

It has also altered the art of debate and discussion. The elitemedia is challenged and do not yet know how to respond to this provocation. To me blogcritics.com represents the best in the world of blogs. The scope is quite staggering. Everything is expressed and discussed and nothing is withheld or repressed. No subject is too shallow or deep to not merit a blog riff. The bloggers comes from all walks of life and indeed even from different continents with different cultural, social and political affiliations. Not only do we share the passion of writing and expressing our views but common tu us all, I think, is the idea of wanting to communicate, provoke and stir up emotions and responses, simply put to be engaged in our time. That to me is the essence of blogcritics.com.

Thomas Ek
www.thomas-ek.tk

De re Absentia
Topic: Current Events
It’s been quite awhile since I posted anything. The explanations are too numerous and tedious to relate in this forum, suffice to say that I’m back. I’m very grateful for the e-mails from some of my readers. I know you were worried but here I am. As some of you already know I’ve worked indefatigable on my book and I need to devote quite a lot of my time to that effort. However, there is still time to jot down some essays. My essays are to be considered as works in progress and not as finite beings, finished once posted. I would be immensely grateful for your continued support and suggestions on improvements. At the moment I’m interested in Philosophy and Technology. I’m currently working on an essay on Language as a prosthetic as discussed by Jacques Derrida and others. I think they are wrong on some central points, which I will explain in some detail in my article. Other areas of current interest are of course music and cinema, especially the works of Takeshi Kitano.

Looking forward to hear from you all soon.

Thomas Ek

Philosophy, Terror and Democracy (updated & revised)
Topic: Philosophy
Shortly after 9/11 both Jacques Derrida and Jurgen Habermas were scheduled to lecture in New York. Despite the catastrophe and the uncertainty in the aftermathof the attack, both philosophers thought it important to appear and defend democracy.

Derrida and Habermas were the subjects of an intense and hardspoken debate during the 80's. Accusations of "German tank rhetoric" and "French irrationalism" naturally led to the placement of these philosophers at different ends of the philosophical spectrum.

The New York based philosopher Giovanna Borradori seized the moment and approached the two thinkers to a discussion about Philosophy in the age of Terror (later published under the same title). It was considered to be something of a sensation to get the two together. Since the 80's debate the philosophical world were left with Derrida's deconstruction concept and critique of logocentrism versus Habermas' rationality and passionate defence of "the modern project". At stake, some commentators said, was nothing less than the heritage of the Enlightenment.

Giovanna Borradori, however, considered those critics to be in error. Derrida's constant and indefatigable deconstruction of the key concepts of the Enlightenment aimed, not to obliterate them, but to rejuvenate them in a critical manner. His thinking has never excluded criterias such as truth and validity, according to Borradori.

What then do these two philosophers have to say after 9/11?

Borradori poses a more general question first: How does the philosophical endeavour deal with the question of politics?

She makes the distinction between philosophers who are political activists, i.e. their body of work is more or less separate from their political work, and philosophers active in social criticism. Bertrand Russell and Noam Chomsky are examples of the former and Hannah Arendt, Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida of the latter. Arendt argued that the task of philosophy was to reflect on human laws and institutions, i.e. the governing principles that humans use to be able to coexist with one another, and how these change during the course of history. According to Borradori, this view has influenced Derrida and Habermas both and there is ample evidence to that effect.

In the case of Habermas it is evident that, in book after book, he has investigated and seached for the foundations of law and democracy. How do we make institutions that will be considered legitimate by the citizens. The essence of his point is that the better argument will endure in a free and open communication between citizens. Therefore the institutions must accomodate this and ensure that this communication takes place.

In the book "Philosophy in a time of Terror" it's evident that Derrida urges us all to a constant reconsideration of common notions about friendship, hospitality, justice, cosmopolitanism, tolerance, forgiveness all central themes to our political and social consciousness and to self-evaluation aimed at identifying our ethics and beliefsystem. If Habermas urges us to seek sustainable, democratic and legitimate co-operation procedures on a political level, Derrida reminds us of the radical mode in which ethical demands that appear in the meeting of two individuals. These are two perspectives that do not exclude the other but rather compliment and emphasizes their inevitable connection.

What is quite remarkable with Giovanna Borradori's book is how close the both philosophers are in their analysis of 9/11. Both obviously condemn the attack and extend their sympathy to the victims and their families but also warns of the potential demonization of the islamic world. Furthermore, they speak about the contraproductivity of military retribution, and demolish the demagogy of expressions such as "war on terrorism". Both emphasize the importance of not succumbing to simplistic analysis and empty rhetoric.

"A philosopher", says Derrida, "is someone who seeks new criteria to differentiate between the concept of "understanding" and "justification", because he believes that it's possible to understand and explain the background and causes that leads to war or terrorism without justifying it.

Habermas and Derrida, in the spirit of the best political traditions of the United States, criticize the Empire and seeks dialogue with the Republic. Habermas warns us of the dangers of unilateralism evident already before 9/11. "Not long ago", Habermas explains, " a generation of young germans, liberated by the Americans, developed an admiration of the political ideals of the nation that were instrumental in the formation of the United Nations and the tribunals of Nurenberg and Tokyo. Furthermore, the United States that once revolutionized the International Laws, now break and ignore them. The advancements made after the Second World War are now swiftly being sidelined by the Bush administration.

Democracy must become postnational and new procedures and forms of this must be developed.

I do not agree with Habermas when he vaguely answers the question of the magnitude of the 9/11 attack. He basically tries to place it in perspective to other human tragedies and deny its impact on world history. The important thing is the American sentiments and reactions and their subsequent response to it. It has already changed history and will continue to do so for a long time, therefore denying that fact is useless.

In Kant's "Eternal Peace" from 1795, he writes "The people of the Earth have now become so closely connected to one another that any violation (of human rights) are felt and experienced by all".

The truly interesting thing about "Philosophy in a Time of Terror" are not the analysis or political proposals that are formulated within it, but the view on the role of philosophy and politics that it propagates. Enlightenment and democracy are not fixed entities that lies behind us, but rather challenges ahead of us in the future. The reflections of both Derrida and Habermas after 9/11 are examples of enlightenment that are contemplative and aware of its own limitations.

Thomas Ek

Upcoming features!
Topic: Profiles
Pending entries:


* Nietzsche revisited


* Interview with Director Takeshi Kitano


* Plato was an Asshole


Also check out:

Blogcritics

Philosophy, Terror and Democracy
Topic: Philosophy
Shortly after 9/11 both Jacques Derrida and Jurgen Habermas were scheduled to lecture in New York. Despite the catastrophe and the uncertainty in the aftermath of the attack, both philosophers thought it important to appear and defend democracy.

Derrida and Habermas were the subjects of an intense and hardspoken debate during the 80's. Accusations of "German tank rhetoric" and "French irrationalism" naturally led to the placement of these philosophers at different ends of the philosophical spectrum.

The New York based philosopher Giovanna Borradori seized the moment and approached the two thinkers to a discussion about Philosophy in the age of Terror (later published under the same title). It was considered to be something of a sensation to get the two together. Since the 80's debate the philosophical world were left with Derrida's deconstruction concept and critique of logocentrism versus Habermas' rationality and passionate defence of "the modern project". At stake, some commentators said, was nothing less than the heritage of the Enlightenment.

Giovanna Borradori, however, considered those critics to be in error. Derrida's constant and indefatigable deconstruction of the key concepts of the Enlightenment aimed, not to obliterate them, but to rejuvenate them in a critical manner. His thinking has never excluded criterias such as truth and validity, according to Borradori.

What then do these two philosophers have to say after 9/11?

Borradori poses a more general question first: How does the philosophical endeavour deal with the question of politics?

She makes the distinction between philosophers who are political activists, i.e. their body of work is more or less separate from their political work, and philosophers active in social criticism. Bertrand Russell and Noam Chomsky are examples of the former and Hannah Arendt, Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida of the latter. Arendt argued that the task of philosophy was to reflect on human laws and institutions, i.e. the governing principles that humans use to be able to coexist with one another, and how these change during the course of history. According to Borradori, this view has influenced Derrida and Habermas both and there is ample evidence to that effect.

In the case of Habermas it is evident that, in book after book, he has investigated and seached for the foundations of law and democracy. How do we make institutions that will be considered legitimate by the citizens. The essence of his point is that the better argument will endure in a free and open communication between citizens. Therefore the institutions must accomodate this and ensure that this communication takes place.

In the book "Philosophy in a time of Terror" it's evident that Derrida urges us all to a constant reconsideration of common notions about friendship, hospitality, justice, cosmopolitanism, tolerance, forgiveness all central themes to our political and social consciousness and to self-evaluation aimed at identifying our ethics and beliefsystems. If Habermas urges us to seek sustainable, democratic and legitimate co-operation procedures on a political level, Derrida reminds us of the radical mode in which ethical demands that appear before us in the meeting of two individuals. These are two perspectives that do not exclude the other but rather compliment and emphasizes their inevitable connection.

What is quite remarkable with Giovanna Borradori's book is how close the both philosophers are in their analysis of 9/11. Both obviously condemn the attack and extend their sympathy to the victims and their families but also warns of the potential demonization of the islamic world. Furthermore, they speak about the contraproductivity of military retribution, and demolish the demagogy of expressions such as "war on terrorism". They emphasize the importance of not succumbing to simplistic analysis and empty rhetoric.

"A philosopher", says Derrida, "is someone who seeks new criteria to differentiate between the concept of "understanding" and "justification", because he believes that it's possible to understand and explain the background and causes that leads to war or terrorism without justifying them.

Habermas and Derrida, in the spirit of the best political traditions of the United States, criticize the Empire and seeks dialogue with the Republic. Habermas warns us of the dangers of unilateralism evident already before 9/11. "Not long ago", Habermas explains, " a generation of young Germans, liberated by the Americans, developed an admiration of the political ideals of the nation that were instrumental in the formation of the United Nations and the tribunals of Nurenberg and Tokyo. Furthermore, the United States that once revolutionized the International Laws, now break and ignore them and the advancements made after the Second World War are now swiftly being sidelined by the Bush administration.

Democracy must become postnational and new procedures and forms of this must be developed argues Habermas.

I don't agree with Habemas when he vaguely answers the question of the magnitude of the 9/11 attack. He basically tries to place it in perspective to other human tragedies and deny its impact on world history. The important thing is the American sentiments and reactions and their subsequent response to it. It has already changed history and will continue to do so for a long time, it's useless to deny that fact.

In Kant's "Eternal Peace" from 1795, he writes "The people of the Earth have now become so closely connected to one another that any violation (of human rights) are felt and experienced by all".

The truly interesting thing about "Philosophy in a Time of Terror" are not the analysis or political proposals that are formulated within it, but the view on the role of philosophy and politics that it propagates. Enlightenment and democracy are not fixed entities that lies behind us, but rather challenges ahead of us in the future. The reflections of both Derrida and Habermas after 9/11 are examples of enlightenment that are contemplative and aware of its own limitations.

Thomas Ek