Post-Post-Modernism

2003-10-13T21:51:00.000-07:00

Daily Victory:

Read "exploring language" 1989 - book full of essays from linguists and stuff to do with propaganda advertising and writtin, etc..... everything really.

2003-10-12T04:04:00.000-07:00

Hmm, i think i shall start announcing a sort of "Daily Victory" where I set a certain task, that has to be sorta absurd, for me to complete, for some weird inner reason i must have.

DAILY VICTORY:
*it will be to use the word "Encroachment" once or twice. Its worked its way into my concious and i have no idea what the fuck it means.
* to email Oxfam community aid abroad about that idea i had to protest against nike. I heard they (nike) are going to spray the slogan "Keep_The_Ball_Alive" around the place for their new Rugby World Cup promotion. So im thinking of going around and spraying "Keep_The_Workers_Alive" but only if nike sprays theirs first, so if i get in trouble, ill get nike in trouble with some of my *AHUM* oxford lawer freinds.(if you are an oxford trained lawer, give me a email right now) (Ohh yeah and everyone remember: shhhh dont tell nike, they like picking on protestors, i know this cause last time i protested one of the so called "protestors" was in full nike buisness suit, and convieniently about 10mins after he arrived riot police rocked up)

Click on the links at left to find out stuff about nike and workers rights. Or to know about other Oxfam community aid abroad programs, in australia, go to www.caa.org.au (i think thats it if its not give me an email)

Cya

Dan

(ps. if your in any other city and are interested in spray painting stencil stuff around the place in reaction to nike email me, or to just get involved in nike workers rights, ill put you through to Oxfam Community Aid Abroad)

2003-10-12T01:22:00.000-07:00

Politicians, University Lecturers, School Teachers, Civil Servants, Buisness People, and artists all trace their belifs and values and activities back to certain moments in history in order to show their enduring value and universality. With this justification, their ideas gain power.

Hmm, is this an all bad thing? Its easily done? But i think there are stronger ideas out there.

Perhaps people should dig knowledge that is more humanistic values rather then historical correctness, but we can only know humanistic values from previous experience, and our own subjective experience of of that word. Many people have different ideas of what humanistic values are because of their historical position.

Even this problem is now written down by me, in the past. And seems to be asserted by a noticed pattern in history, and its seemingly universiality of it.

BUT perhaps, this is just a practical stand point. A position we can assume, a sort of tool, which we can use to argue against all percieved truth. What I am saying here certainly isnt a truth, but is just a strong position, a stand point. Could this ever be justified as true? Never in this context, or perhaps in any other. Perhaps its practical to assume, there is no truth, but rather, just personal truths. Would this promote better tolerance? Indeed it would.

If people assumed the above a context for living, does it give power to the ideas of happiness, equality, freedom, expression. I think so.

Dont let power/knowledge be justified by its historical correctness. Dont be subject to it in that way. Instead assume its practicality if useful, and discard at will. This could be interesting.

Dan

2003-10-12T01:17:00.000-07:00

nietzsche once suggested, where there is meaning, it is possible to to trace the struggles, battles and violence that produced it.

2003-10-12T01:09:00.000-07:00

It seems we live in a world where knowledge is power. Before it was God like status (ie, King or Queen). Limiting knowledge, is like taxing the peasants in a feudal society so they stay poor. People of the press, you are the taxmen, be nice! (for the love of God)

Dan

2003-10-12T00:24:00.000-07:00

Perhaps an explanation for widespread prejudice is ignorance. After all, meaning is relational. Events, ideas, words and activities dont mean anything in themselfs - they only make sense when related to other events, ideas and activities. To understand the word "Man" you must relate it to other concepts, ie, child, woman, family, boy, girl, animal. The smaller the frame of reference on an issue, the lesser idea and understand of a concept you have. IE, if most peoples only experience of Islam is in terrorism, of course they will define it that way. Perhaps a way to overcome this is to get a bigger frame of reference. I challenge you to read the Koran. Or at least concider that there are a minute bunch of terrorists in the worlds biggest relegion, in the same way the IRA is a minute bunch of people in christianity, or the hindu extreamists who blow up mosques is a minute bunch. If you are really want to get an understanding for islam, visit some of these sites, www.islamworld.net, or read a book by Sayyid Qutb who is conciderd the Marx of the Islamic world, and is the underlying ideology behind Al-Queda. He philosophically makes some very interesting points in his book "In the Shade of the Quran"and it is interesting to note our underlying assumptions being western orientated then having to take on an alternate view point to read his. Mind expanding stuff. You can get that entire book here. www.islamworld.net/qutb/shade.htm

Peace

Daniel Jones

2003-10-12T00:10:00.000-07:00

hey

i was just reading a passage about what motivated foucault to write "The Order Of Things", and i thought i might share it with you.

(from Foucaults preface to the order of things)

"This book first arose out of a passage in Borges, out of the laughter that shattered, as I read the passage, all the familiar landmarks of my thought - our thought, the thought that bears the stamp of our age and our geography - breaking up all the ordered surfaces and all the planes with which we are accostomed to tame the wild profusions of existing things...This passage quotes a 'certain Chinese encyclopaedia' in which it is written that 'animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the Emperor (b) embalmed (c) tame (d) sucking pigs (e) sirens (f) fabulous (g) stray dogs (h) included in the present classification (i) frenzied (j) innumerable (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush (l) et cetera (m) having just broken the water pitcher (n) that from a long way off looks like flies'. In the wonderment of this taxonomy, the thing that... is demonstrated as the exotic charm of another system of thought, is the limitation of our own, the stark impossibility of thinking that." (1973: xv)

The Order of Things is the book in which Foucault goes on to define his concept of the "Episteme" and give a history of ideas. Foucault said that thought does not get more and more advanced rather perspectives change, and later thought is by no means more advanced the previous thought, thereby drifting away from the Darwin view of evolution as a means of a sorta historical perspective on thought.

'mazin stuff idint it!

2003-10-11T22:16:00.003-07:00

One thing that concerns me, is prejudice. Where, I ask, is the war on prejudice? Christian prejudice for muslims killed many in the Kosovo War. One mans belief influenced a nation. They did not know better.

After all, prejudice kills thousands every year. Reasonable people are caught in the short sightedness of it, by propaganda, control of the media. If the media is really concerned with loss of life, where is the war on prejudice, and the madness about it on CNN?

How many people hate islam as a result of media coverage of the war on terror? What is the reason for this? Is it the belief that islam breeds a culture of terrorism? Because i can tell you right now, this is wrong.

It is perhaps reasonable to assume this, but remember, prejudice is always reasonable, reasonable people get sucked in to reasonable assumptions. Reasonable people can believe fiction. Why? Its self justifying. A character needs no proof of its existence, it is unquestionable in its relevance to the story, its a creation. So called "Facts" are often fiction. In fact, fact, is just past tense of fiction, because at some stage humans, being people of language, must have to make a "story" up about their world, even if its scientific. IE, this person of this colour behaved here then, and then this person of that colour behaved like that then, repeat this 1000 times, therefor they must all be like that. This is obviously wrong, but people forget we are all human and the same. Even science itself can be conciderd story! Science relies on the assumption that we can discover the "nature" of an object, or the "nature" of nature. But the word "nature" is given self-justified authority.

In the same way as above, many reasonable people are filled with prejudice because on their TV screens they see pictures of people with turbans associated with terrorist activities, while people in muslim countries see pictures of George Bush when a bomb hits iraq.

The stories will continue to roll out of our television and into our heads, blinding us from reality.

We are all human.

Dan

2003-10-11T22:16:00.002-07:00

2003-10-11T22:16:00.001-07:00

2003-10-11T22:16:00.000-07:00