"A determinist standpoint - or any more up to date conception of causality which, while acknowledging the inadequacy of the old determinism, does not deny causality itself nor confer on human thought and will the divine power of being 'uncaused causes' - necessarily involves an uncompromising rejection of so-called free will and of any ethics that is contaminated by voluntarism or moralism: non ridere, non lugere neque detestari, sed intellegere! ('neither ridicule, nor grief, nor hatred, but understanding!') The study of neurosis, in particular, ought powerfully to aid us to understand that it is not possible to apply the notion of 'guilt' in the traditional moral sense to neurotic behaviour, even in its most anti-social forms. This does not mean that we abandon the struggle against all agents of oppression or tenants of privilege of whatever kind, starting with the capitalist class and its watchdogs; or that we can abstain from anger or passionate hostility towards them. But such anger is only the emotional reaction to the extraordinary improbability, if not impossibility, of persuading them to retire voluntarily from the defence of an iniquitous social order, and to the painful necessity, once an attempt of that kind has failed, of countering reactionary violence with revolutionary violence. It is also a reaction to the difficulty of initiating any revolutionary action - whether because of the strength of the dominant class or the acquiescence of the oppressed class (an important element in which is the more or less compelling temptation that each of us experiences to comply with the status quo). Anger of this kind does not involve any mythological belief that there is a range of 'free choice' for the oppressor, who might have elected to play the role of altruist and benefactor but opted instead, who knows why, for that of overlord." - Sebastiano Timpanaro, The Freudian Slip
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Is Anyone Up?
"A determinist standpoint - or any more up to date conception of causality which, while acknowledging the inadequacy of the old determinism, does not deny causality itself nor confer on human thought and will the divine power of being 'uncaused causes' - necessarily involves an uncompromising rejection of so-called free will and of any ethics that is contaminated by voluntarism or moralism: non ridere, non lugere neque detestari, sed intellegere! ('neither ridicule, nor grief, nor hatred, but understanding!') The study of neurosis, in particular, ought powerfully to aid us to understand that it is not possible to apply the notion of 'guilt' in the traditional moral sense to neurotic behaviour, even in its most anti-social forms. This does not mean that we abandon the struggle against all agents of oppression or tenants of privilege of whatever kind, starting with the capitalist class and its watchdogs; or that we can abstain from anger or passionate hostility towards them. But such anger is only the emotional reaction to the extraordinary improbability, if not impossibility, of persuading them to retire voluntarily from the defence of an iniquitous social order, and to the painful necessity, once an attempt of that kind has failed, of countering reactionary violence with revolutionary violence. It is also a reaction to the difficulty of initiating any revolutionary action - whether because of the strength of the dominant class or the acquiescence of the oppressed class (an important element in which is the more or less compelling temptation that each of us experiences to comply with the status quo). Anger of this kind does not involve any mythological belief that there is a range of 'free choice' for the oppressor, who might have elected to play the role of altruist and benefactor but opted instead, who knows why, for that of overlord." - Sebastiano Timpanaro, The Freudian Slip
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"We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality. We confuse the world as talked about, described, and measured with the world which actually is. We are sick with a fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas.”
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