Deep Thoughts (mostly on "politics")

[paulhope]

These are some recent (?) thoughts that I can't seem to find the time to write full-length entries on, although I would like to.

• At times it sounds like Merleau-Ponty is saying that the very ground of being, the mode in which we most are something, is when we are "geared onto the world"--oriented towards it in a way that anticipates action within

Comments

[rachiestar]

the big struggle of our century isn't going to be one class versus another, or one civilization against another. It's going to be signal versus noise

Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes.

[paulhope]

Wow! Hey! I'm so glad you agree!

[force_of_will]

One mans noise is another mans signal. Ye artists got there first. And it goes both ways as someone like, say some new lemon will tell you you don't understand either a) what you are hearing nor b)what you are saying.

But thankfully such folks will go back to Schopenhauer and we'll be reminded of how, for him, music is the purest expression of pure spirit, and so music aggregated and in general most closely represents the zeitgeist, no? And when you have to form a new method of composition, and you end up with Cage rolling dice, well, what is that spirit?

Signal and noise. Shadows and dust.

yeah, I'm stealing your space for a vent...

Back at you with the case in point

[paulhope]

"Like most antichrists, John Cage was a compelling figure. To determine that the next bit in the signal was noise--or, almost more shockingly, silence--is a terrifying leap straight into the abyss. A mad prophet telling us that the very purpose of humanity is to burn and become mere smoke."

No, I don't think that's how it worked, exactly. Because whether it was noise or silence, there was one piece of Cage's compositions that maintained that essential link to rationality: the frame. It was silence in a concert hall, with a score. Same with the dice. Same with Nam June Paik's smashed violins.

It was the right time to witness noise in a cage--the conceptualization of the irrational. To some extent, that is precisely what can prepare us for our grim futures.

But what is at stake here is a rampant, un-Caged noise erupting from a monotony of un-Caged silence. If it takes over, there will be no more Schopenhaur, no more Cages, only dust. And so we too must emerge from our frames and charge forward singing.