Posts Tagged ‘and Heidegger’
Plagiarism: Any problem to you?
Posted by: adonis49 on: April 10, 2010
Plagiarism: Any problem to you? (Apr. 6, 2010)
“Original “works in all fields (scientific or artistic) are extremely rare. In fact, originality is constantly pending until antecedent works are discovered in other languages, other dying languages, very ancient languages and myths. All works basically are borrowing processes of ideas, notions, imaginations, methods, or myths. Goethe has written something to that effect: “We always talk about originality. What would that mean? As we are born, the world around us affects us and we interact with our environment and people till we die. Then, what is my own particular world and my originality? If we could recall all that we owe to our family, relatives, community, teachers, mentors, the books we read, our predecessor and current influences, would anything remains of our knowledge and ideas that we could claim to be ours?”
Charles Baxter in “The soul thief” wrote: “Note that he never claimed the paternity of any of his ideas. He is in a kind of Artaud’s state of mind: all ideas have no origins and no sources. In applying this axiom, then anyone may claim other people’s ideas as his own. The end result is adapting to or adopting the inner lives of everyone else.”
For example, a young German girl of 18, Helene Hegemann published her first book “Axoloti Roadkill” and sold a lot of this good book; she was even nominated for the “Leipzig book fair” until the blogger Deef Pirmasens revealed that most of the content, context, and paragraphs were copied from an unknown novel “Strobo” that was published on internet by an anonymous blogger named Airen. Airen said: “I was just recounting my life problems as a therapeutic exercise to demonize my delirious state of mind.” Airen is no longer writing because he fell in love and is happily married. Hegemann is unperturbed; she said: “Originality does not exist; what exists is authenticity.” I feel that even authenticity does not apply to Helene’s case since she didn’t experience anything of the events in her novel. Helene got rich and Airen got married! Airen replied candidly: “Axoloti Roadkill would still be a super novel even without the plagiary process of texts”
Thomas Jefferson once said: “Who receives from me an idea is receiving knowledge without diminishing mine; it is as if you lighted your candle off my lighted candle: You got light and didn’t diminish my light.” There are many books describing plagiarism over the centuries. I will give a few examples. Virgil claimed that he was plainly mining the pearls out of Quintus Ennius’ dung. Brecht confessed that is was fundamentally lax in referring to authors he abundantly borrowed from. Goethe published “The divan (seat)” in 1819 that was composed of a variety of borrowed text mixtures. Elfriede Jelinek received the Nobel Prize for literature in 2008 though most of her citations were based on Holderlin, Kafka, and Heidegger. Elaine Sturtevant got famous copying artistic works of unknown but promising artists such as Duchamp, Beuys, Warhol, Stella, and Gonzalez-Torres.
In this age of internet everyone is heavily borrowing by the shovel full; we call this process “dissemination of culture and knowledge” or adopting alternative states of mind. There is nothing wrong borrowing and adopting ideas if they are useful changing your life. My problem is to not making what you borrowed part of your life, for example to making money as in marketing what is the customs or mode in order to be projected in the limelight or becoming a public figure: that would be total hypocrisy. The great artist or author is the one who plugs in relentlessly until one day he feels that he became a true artist out of sheer will, work, and energy expenditure.
Note 1: Current books on plagiarism are: David Shields in “Reality Hunger, 2007”; Marie Darrieussecq in “Police report, 2010”; Anne Fadiman in “Nothing new under the sun”; Jonathan Lethem has issued a long article on cut a paste works based on the works of Walter Benjamin “The book of passage”, Graham Rawle “Diary of an amateur photographer”, Eduardo Paolozzi “Kex”, David Shields, and Pamela Jackson.
Note 2: The topic was inspired from “Courrier International” number 1012.
How have you been “existing”?
Posted by: adonis49 on: January 21, 2010
How have you been “existing”? (Jan. 25, 2010)
The main philosophy of the last century was called “Existentialism” that Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) disseminated after WWII with the cooperation of Simone de Beauvoir who published “The second sex”. What differentiated Sartre’s existentialism from Kierkegaard, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and Heidegger is that Christianity is no longer a crutch to lean on for processing the concept to its final outcome.
In that philosophy, man and woman have no innate “nature” to fall back on. They just have to create themselves, their “natures” (their “essence”). The feeling of alienation is that mankind was created without his will and yet, he is condemned to be free for taking responsibility of his actions knowing that there are no eternal values or norms for guidance and directions. The individual has to create his set of values and his nature from actions among choices, even default choices.
That Sartre’s existentialism allied to Marxist movement (Sartre never accepted to be a member of a political party) is part of this century struggle for enjoying the freedom that we never asked for; but “man is condemned to be free” in taking responsibility of his actions simply because he is created to be conscious of his existence and his death: mankind is not “in itself” but “for itself” and an individual relies on his existence to be whatever he might otherwise be “his nature”.
For example, Stephen Hawkins, this crippled astrophysicist, grabbed the question of his interest (nature) “How the universe was created”. That Hawkins offered the Big bang theory is irrelevant to the universe or to everyday man is important philosophically. What is most important is that Hawkins must have enjoyed “the meaning of his life”. The Big Bang proposition may be accompanied by all kinds of mathematical formulas it does not make it more believable than a childish storytelling in Bibles that are so funny to kids. For example, why just one Big Bang? Is it because God must be one and only one? Anyway, how many of us seriously engaged on his journey for discovering the meaning of his life existence?
Current nuclear physicists are fundamentally pre-Socratic in their quest for the elemental matters; they want to be able to offer a satisfactory explanation of “what is matter?” This problem is thus a vital part of their “life’s philosophy”, the “essence” or an answer to the question “what is my nature”?
Existentialism was the source of modern style in writings called the “absurd”. For example, when you show the lack of coherence or meaning in life, then the reader or audience is forced to cultivate his “own meaning” of the story.
Things have changed. The world can be felt as reduced to a Town Square; instant audio-visual communications around the world is discouraging people to move out and investigate “his universe”. The Renaissance man had to travel on horses for long distances to educate his curiosity and talents.
Arne Naess disseminated the eco-philosophy which stated that western paradigm line of thinking is taking the wrong direction for a sustainable earth: Man is not in the upper chain of evolution and he has no right to destroy the other living creatures for his perceived universe.
The new wave of occultism, New Age, alternative lifestyle, mysticism, spiritualism, healing, astrology, clairvoyance, and telepathy are consequences of collecting mass “coincidental” happenings among the billion of people and which are relayed instantly on the Internet. These coincidences can be explained rationally, especially if we believe in the power of the subconscious for erratic behaviors.
The worst part is that millions are still brandishing old Books or Bibles claiming every word for “truth”; as if we are in the Dark Ages. Sciences and technologies have done serious empirical attempts to answering most of the dialectical problems in philosophy such as how the universe was started, how knowledge developed and progressed. What is outside the realm of sciences is in the domain of faith which should not be confounded with religious philosophical belief systems.
The “meaning of life” is not a solution: it is the trip, the journey to answering a single definite bothering question, a question that interest you mostly among hundreds of other pretty much non answerable questions. This trip means working toward a resolution to the question “What is my nature?” It is hard work, relentless, and tricky journey but nothing has meaning if we don’t feel the obstacles and hardships.
Adonis Diaries 