I found this passage in Merleau-Ponty's The Visible and the Invisible (Evanston, IL; 1968), p. 125 I found it moving beyond compare. I offer it here, as the statement all philosophers would make to those who would decry their "incomprehensibility," but even more as an affirmation of the call of this great endeavor. To those of us who struggle in this morass of incomprehension and speechlessness, it is a reminder of the mission, and where its power resides and towards which it is directed:
"The philosopher speaks, but this is a weakness in him and an inexplicable weakness; he should keep silent, coincide in silence and rejoin in Being a philosophy that is there ready-made. But yet everything comes to pass as though he wished to put into words a certain silence he hearkens to within himself. His entire 'work' is this absurd effort. He wrote in order to state his contact with Being; he did not state it, and could not state it, since it is silence. Then he recommences...
One has to believe, then, that language is not simply the contrary of the truth, of coincidence: that there is or could be a language -- and this is what he seeks. It would be a language of which he would not be the organizer, words he would not assemble, that would combine through him by virtue of a natural intertwining of their meaning, through the occult trading of the metaphor -- where what counts is no longer the manifest meaning of each word and of each image, but the lateral relations, the kinships that are implicated in their transfers and their exchanges.... that operative language which has no need to be translated into significations and thoughts, that language-thin which counts as an arm, an action as offense and as seduction because it brings to the surface all the deep-rooted relations of the lived experience wherein it takes form, and which is the language of life and of action, but also that of literature and of poetry -- then this logos is an absolutely universal theme, it is the theme of philosophy.
... [Philosophy] is an operative language, that language that can be known only from within, through its exercise, is open upon the things called forth by the voices of silence and continues in an effort of articulation which is the Being of every being... "
...And so, we might say is the inexplicable weakness of Being itself.
Monday, December 05, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
Isaacson's "Steve Jobs," Skimmming, Skipping, not Seeing
This will not be a negative review of Isaacson's book. I promise. I offer staunch, if stingy, praise. Steve Jobs is an able and well-mannered, well written and easily read accounting, a counting up, of Jobs' life. It ably and fairly juxtaposes plusses and minuses, and properly ending up with the unavoidable conclusion: who are we to judge someone who is so touched and has so touched us. Unlike that moronic reductionist popularizer, Malcolm Gladwell, with his blinks and tipping points, Isaacson senses, honors and leaves in tact Jobs' fearsome love of what has to be created in order to be. (I refer to Gladwell's article in the November 14, 2011 issue of The New Yorker, in which he called Jobs a "tweaker." This is far closer to what Gladwell can comprehend than having anything to do with Jobs.)
Isaacson harkens back to certain themes like a stone skipping on the water's surface: Jobs' anger and abuse of people; his dogged search for simplicity; his drive to build not just marvelous products, but a lasting, strong, unique and pathbreaking company. His hippiness collides with building a corporate behemoth; his creative drive is less harnessed than vaulted into a strange arena of corporate governance; disdain for money lies fitfully beside the awareness of wealth's power.
A DEEP PULSE, A GUIDING CLUE
I felt something pulsing here, and that is to Isaacson's credit; this rather journalistic work (any chapter could have been an article in the New Yorker or Vanity Fair, if not Fortune and certainly not Forbes) did not succumb to banality; or that he is wise, loving and attentive enough to assure that "something" a "mystery" about Jobs shone, or murmured through the journalistic composure.
It comes down to this: How are we to regard Jobs' seeming cruelty when it clearly yields such formidable performances? Jobs himself says "A" players can take it, that they appreciate direct, frontal assaults on what they themselves know to be mediocre. And Jobs is cited again and again as saying his dropping acid was a gateway for him; and those who haven't done it just won't get it. This is a clue, a guiding thread, as Heidegger might say. I think this clue takes us into the deep ruminations of the (yes, French) philosophers, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Stay with me.
Why was Jobs so cruel, we ask again and again, right up to the very end? Jobs is an artist, we might say, as an excuse. And so it is. But if we conceive of artists as temperamental and emotionally stunted decorators and artisans of prettyness, we miss our chance. We have to "think different," as Jobs famously proclaimed. Artists capture, encircle and bring to us the barest wisps of what beckons and what is calling us to pay new and fresh attention. Nothing less.
THE ARTIST'S MISSION: A SOLDIER FOR A VISION
As Deleuze and Guattari say in What is Philosophy, "It is always a question of freeing life, wherever it is imprisoned, or of tempting it into an uncertain combat." That description of the artist's mission contextualizes Jobs' ferocity to a tee. What artist's devote their lives to is akin to the mission of "The Dirty Dozen;" a life-threatening feat of daring-do. These artist's evocations, which become works for our eyes and ears and touch, are but things of air when the artist is working. How are these fantasms to break through if they are not propelled with explosive power? How are they to survive this "combat" (with mediocrity) if they are not shielded with uncompromising protectiveness? Would a mother meekly suggest that a bully might prefer to desist (like a distended Bartleby?); or would she strike out like a lion against a predator? How else is Jobs to assure these births he feels, sees, can touch and smell right THERE? "The artist is a seer, a becomer," says Deleuze-Guatarri.
Isaacson is insightful enough to capture Jobs premonition of having a short life. This soldiering for the fresh and new is an eviscerating exercise. Jobs anger requires that he summon, to his own detriment as well, these overpowering, otherworldly energies. Says Deleuze-Guattari, "What little health they possess is often too fragile, not because of their illness or neuroses, but because they have seen something in life that is too much for anyone, too much for themselves, and that has put on them the quiet mark of death."
Here we follow the clue to the end. Jobs was furious, insulting, demoniacal for what had to be fought for, and with no less fury than this.
If you can't abide Jobs' offensiveness, take your leave. But don't pander with kitsch and cuteness like a Gladwell. Better to leave and let the sting linger (as do the women I described in my blog, Leader Pathways, (leadermentoring.blogspot.com) last month).
SATURATED, INVISIBLE, FULL TO THE BRIM
One last thing: Jobs craved simplicity, thinness, near invisiblity of technology and gadgetry so that a relation, and interaction can take place. Again, Deleuze and Guattari, here quoting Virginia Woolf: "Saturate every atom, eliminate all waste, deadness, superfluity... It must include nonsense, fact, sordidty: but made transparent.... I want to put practically everything in; yet to saturate." A Cloud, perhaps?
Isaacson harkens back to certain themes like a stone skipping on the water's surface: Jobs' anger and abuse of people; his dogged search for simplicity; his drive to build not just marvelous products, but a lasting, strong, unique and pathbreaking company. His hippiness collides with building a corporate behemoth; his creative drive is less harnessed than vaulted into a strange arena of corporate governance; disdain for money lies fitfully beside the awareness of wealth's power.
A DEEP PULSE, A GUIDING CLUE
I felt something pulsing here, and that is to Isaacson's credit; this rather journalistic work (any chapter could have been an article in the New Yorker or Vanity Fair, if not Fortune and certainly not Forbes) did not succumb to banality; or that he is wise, loving and attentive enough to assure that "something" a "mystery" about Jobs shone, or murmured through the journalistic composure.
It comes down to this: How are we to regard Jobs' seeming cruelty when it clearly yields such formidable performances? Jobs himself says "A" players can take it, that they appreciate direct, frontal assaults on what they themselves know to be mediocre. And Jobs is cited again and again as saying his dropping acid was a gateway for him; and those who haven't done it just won't get it. This is a clue, a guiding thread, as Heidegger might say. I think this clue takes us into the deep ruminations of the (yes, French) philosophers, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Stay with me.
Why was Jobs so cruel, we ask again and again, right up to the very end? Jobs is an artist, we might say, as an excuse. And so it is. But if we conceive of artists as temperamental and emotionally stunted decorators and artisans of prettyness, we miss our chance. We have to "think different," as Jobs famously proclaimed. Artists capture, encircle and bring to us the barest wisps of what beckons and what is calling us to pay new and fresh attention. Nothing less.
THE ARTIST'S MISSION: A SOLDIER FOR A VISION
As Deleuze and Guattari say in What is Philosophy, "It is always a question of freeing life, wherever it is imprisoned, or of tempting it into an uncertain combat." That description of the artist's mission contextualizes Jobs' ferocity to a tee. What artist's devote their lives to is akin to the mission of "The Dirty Dozen;" a life-threatening feat of daring-do. These artist's evocations, which become works for our eyes and ears and touch, are but things of air when the artist is working. How are these fantasms to break through if they are not propelled with explosive power? How are they to survive this "combat" (with mediocrity) if they are not shielded with uncompromising protectiveness? Would a mother meekly suggest that a bully might prefer to desist (like a distended Bartleby?); or would she strike out like a lion against a predator? How else is Jobs to assure these births he feels, sees, can touch and smell right THERE? "The artist is a seer, a becomer," says Deleuze-Guatarri.
Isaacson is insightful enough to capture Jobs premonition of having a short life. This soldiering for the fresh and new is an eviscerating exercise. Jobs anger requires that he summon, to his own detriment as well, these overpowering, otherworldly energies. Says Deleuze-Guattari, "What little health they possess is often too fragile, not because of their illness or neuroses, but because they have seen something in life that is too much for anyone, too much for themselves, and that has put on them the quiet mark of death."
Here we follow the clue to the end. Jobs was furious, insulting, demoniacal for what had to be fought for, and with no less fury than this.
If you can't abide Jobs' offensiveness, take your leave. But don't pander with kitsch and cuteness like a Gladwell. Better to leave and let the sting linger (as do the women I described in my blog, Leader Pathways, (leadermentoring.blogspot.com) last month).
SATURATED, INVISIBLE, FULL TO THE BRIM
One last thing: Jobs craved simplicity, thinness, near invisiblity of technology and gadgetry so that a relation, and interaction can take place. Again, Deleuze and Guattari, here quoting Virginia Woolf: "Saturate every atom, eliminate all waste, deadness, superfluity... It must include nonsense, fact, sordidty: but made transparent.... I want to put practically everything in; yet to saturate." A Cloud, perhaps?
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Philosophy: Alive, Over the Rainbow
In the preface to his new book, The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking caused my jaw to drop: "Philosophy is dead," he declared. He boldly, baldly asserted that it was now "science" that was leading the way to discovery and philosophy was dead.
Well ensconced in his Anglo-American academic culture, I can certainly see how Hawking feels this way. However, I would think that an astrophysicist would exhibit more caution, or at least modesty in making such comments. After all, his sciences bloomed just as Lord Kelvin was pronouncing that all the problems of physics had been solved. Except, that is, for a couple little nuisances, like Browning Motion and black box radiation. These are the two problems that subsequently opened up to Einstein's theory of Special Relativity and then the quantum physics. And these sciences have made Hawking's career possible.
But, that note aside, to a devotee of philosophy, the ignorance such a statement reveals is stunning. Let me be clear: philosophy is so far from dead, it is actively, competently, and most important, imaginatively, creatively and generatively taking up a role as momentous as that of its inaugural moments in ancient Greece -- from Thales through at least Plotinus. At that time, philosophy inaugurated the formation of a new human mode of engagement with the world: Reason. Over the course of eons, Reason went from being a mythic demand for a new human way to a functioning faculty that could be comprehended, deployed and taught as a generalized, expected and standard-bearing capability.
Now, philosophy is mapping out the rudiments for a meta-capability: the way of facultative development itself. The work that began with Hegel's noting of the procession of facultatively deployed life ways (shapes of consciousness), was developed in most explicit terms by Husserl, and then was taken up as a truly cosmic-level engagement of the human spirit by Heidegger, Levinas, Derrida, Deleuze, Blanchot, Nancy and their French brethren, this procession is now being studied as the very core of the human way. Aided by notions of self-organization and ideas of "massively collective effects" in scientific discourses, philosophy finds itself indispensible, once again.
This new status may not be visible from the cloistered empircal/analytic caverns of some (especially Anglo-American) academic circles. The work being done requires a suspension in acceptance of given formulations as being end states of reality; it develops new languauge, words and grammar that pertain to states of generative cosmic life that may or may not even become "things" or "objects," and that hover on the fringes of becoming singular -- analogous to Hawking's own "event horizons" on the edges of black holes. The work of philosophy is not to make or render new objects, or prove their "existence." Instead it is now at work in addressing the forming of the human psyche itself and framing new capabilities for encountering, enduring with and bringing forth what may or may not take a place in discourse. It is now in a deep alliance with art (and the highest levels of theoretic mathematics as well), in plumbing that dynamics of that mode of "ownness," as Heidegger calls it, that rushes to singularization, in whatever form, and that may or may not make it through the vortex of becoming existent and standing among existents, as having its "being" come to be
This is a task worthy of philosophy. Not justifying, analyzing or parsing the real, but probing what is wont to become real; not demanding submission to logical gridlock, but teasing logic itself out to the most generative moments existents can endure. Far from being dead, philosophy is instead taking its place in opposition to the dead, is taking up the task of being awake. Its place, true enough, is at the edge of the horizon, where it may indeed fall off to obliteration; but if this place is over the rainbow, it is what beckons. If there is a "multiverse" it will take its place in our knowing capabilities, in our reasoning anticipations, because of where philosophy has dared to do its work.
Well ensconced in his Anglo-American academic culture, I can certainly see how Hawking feels this way. However, I would think that an astrophysicist would exhibit more caution, or at least modesty in making such comments. After all, his sciences bloomed just as Lord Kelvin was pronouncing that all the problems of physics had been solved. Except, that is, for a couple little nuisances, like Browning Motion and black box radiation. These are the two problems that subsequently opened up to Einstein's theory of Special Relativity and then the quantum physics. And these sciences have made Hawking's career possible.
But, that note aside, to a devotee of philosophy, the ignorance such a statement reveals is stunning. Let me be clear: philosophy is so far from dead, it is actively, competently, and most important, imaginatively, creatively and generatively taking up a role as momentous as that of its inaugural moments in ancient Greece -- from Thales through at least Plotinus. At that time, philosophy inaugurated the formation of a new human mode of engagement with the world: Reason. Over the course of eons, Reason went from being a mythic demand for a new human way to a functioning faculty that could be comprehended, deployed and taught as a generalized, expected and standard-bearing capability.
Now, philosophy is mapping out the rudiments for a meta-capability: the way of facultative development itself. The work that began with Hegel's noting of the procession of facultatively deployed life ways (shapes of consciousness), was developed in most explicit terms by Husserl, and then was taken up as a truly cosmic-level engagement of the human spirit by Heidegger, Levinas, Derrida, Deleuze, Blanchot, Nancy and their French brethren, this procession is now being studied as the very core of the human way. Aided by notions of self-organization and ideas of "massively collective effects" in scientific discourses, philosophy finds itself indispensible, once again.
This new status may not be visible from the cloistered empircal/analytic caverns of some (especially Anglo-American) academic circles. The work being done requires a suspension in acceptance of given formulations as being end states of reality; it develops new languauge, words and grammar that pertain to states of generative cosmic life that may or may not even become "things" or "objects," and that hover on the fringes of becoming singular -- analogous to Hawking's own "event horizons" on the edges of black holes. The work of philosophy is not to make or render new objects, or prove their "existence." Instead it is now at work in addressing the forming of the human psyche itself and framing new capabilities for encountering, enduring with and bringing forth what may or may not take a place in discourse. It is now in a deep alliance with art (and the highest levels of theoretic mathematics as well), in plumbing that dynamics of that mode of "ownness," as Heidegger calls it, that rushes to singularization, in whatever form, and that may or may not make it through the vortex of becoming existent and standing among existents, as having its "being" come to be
This is a task worthy of philosophy. Not justifying, analyzing or parsing the real, but probing what is wont to become real; not demanding submission to logical gridlock, but teasing logic itself out to the most generative moments existents can endure. Far from being dead, philosophy is instead taking its place in opposition to the dead, is taking up the task of being awake. Its place, true enough, is at the edge of the horizon, where it may indeed fall off to obliteration; but if this place is over the rainbow, it is what beckons. If there is a "multiverse" it will take its place in our knowing capabilities, in our reasoning anticipations, because of where philosophy has dared to do its work.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Being Creative: A Disadvantage?
Why do we do this work with the breakout creatives? At first glance it might seem that our most creative people are singled out for promotion and honors and increased esteem.
We mentor on the basis of our four figures: mystic, artist, prophet and leader. While it is easily acknowledged that the first three figures are often viewed with suspicion, certainly leaders who are creative and "think out of the box" are valued. This is what all the popular literature about leaders tells us; this is what the great journals on management tell us.
And yet, we also mentor and support creative leaders. What do these people need from us? Why would someone have to pay special attention to these people and offer mentoring?
Here's why: In a study published recently by the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology the authors found that "expression of creative ideas may diminish judgments of leadership potential unless the charismatic leadership prototype is activated in the mind of social perceivers." The authors of the study concluded, "organizations may face a bias against selecting the most creative individuals in favor of selecting leaders who would preserve the status quo by sticking with feasible but relatively unoriginal solutions."
Cry the beloved company, I say. Think of all the innovation, creativity and more expansive and more encompassing possibilities that are going to waste.
But, you might protest, most business cannot afford innovation or new ideas, they might fail, and there goes capital down the drain. What will the shareholders think?
Why do we mentor these people? Because they are in danger of having their spirits crushed by the managerial mindset that seeks compliance and proficiency. We aren't in the business, even in our leader mentoring, of satisfying the hunger of shareholders for dividends. We are there to help people find their voice and help them step into their aspirations with the firmness and resolve that any and all change requires.
This study confirms a suspicion I have been harboring for a while now: no one wants leaders (or other creative figures for that matter). Or, to be fair, only a few really do want creative energies unleashed in their lives or their companies. As for leaders, people want others to do their dirty work for them, want others to fight the fights and move the people to do what they do not have the will to do themselves. Managers in companies want compliance and they want a jazzy, spiffy and upbeat style (charisma?) to put a happy face on it and thereby "get the most" out of people so the hard stuff, that they want done gets done.
When I hear people say that leaders "get things done," I know they don't get it, and that they would be the first to fire or pass over "creative" people who offer a different vision.
Why do we mentor these people? To keep their spirits alive and keep something alive, vital, vibrant and generative going in this life of ours. Nothing less is at stake.Creative Leaders Rejected?
We mentor on the basis of our four figures: mystic, artist, prophet and leader. While it is easily acknowledged that the first three figures are often viewed with suspicion, certainly leaders who are creative and "think out of the box" are valued. This is what all the popular literature about leaders tells us; this is what the great journals on management tell us.
And yet, we also mentor and support creative leaders. What do these people need from us? Why would someone have to pay special attention to these people and offer mentoring?
Cry the beloved company, I say. Think of all the innovation, creativity and more expansive and more encompassing possibilities that are going to waste.
But, you might protest, most business cannot afford innovation or new ideas, they might fail, and there goes capital down the drain. What will the shareholders think?
Why do we mentor these people? Because they are in danger of having their spirits crushed by the managerial mindset that seeks compliance and proficiency. We aren't in the business, even in our leader mentoring, of satisfying the hunger of shareholders for dividends. We are there to help people find their voice and help them step into their aspirations with the firmness and resolve that any and all change requires.
This study confirms a suspicion I have been harboring for a while now: no one wants leaders (or other creative figures for that matter). Or, to be fair, only a few really do want creative energies unleashed in their lives or their companies. As for leaders, people want others to do their dirty work for them, want others to fight the fights and move the people to do what they do not have the will to do themselves. Managers in companies want compliance and they want a jazzy, spiffy and upbeat style (charisma?) to put a happy face on it and thereby "get the most" out of people so the hard stuff, that they want done gets done.
When I hear people say that leaders "get things done," I know they don't get it, and that they would be the first to fire or pass over "creative" people who offer a different vision.
Why do we mentor these people? To keep their spirits alive and keep something alive, vital, vibrant and generative going in this life of ours. Nothing less is at stake.Creative Leaders Rejected?
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