INTELLECTUALS, reason & al.

[j laari]

Firstly, I'd like to thank Ken for answering the question about
reason.

Unfortunately I lost your answer with several other posts almost
immediately after I had downloaded it, before making backups - for
some reason the system combined several files with one executable and
refused to work after that until I was able to make a preliminary fix
(I'm not at the 'office' at the moment) only to realise that our unix 
have some problems... But what I remember of it, I believe you
characterised the contemporary or ordinary western concept of reason
well. (I have couple of questions for you in another post.)


Then, thanks for Malgosia, who wrote:

"To me, BTW, the _Cinema_ books are the most luminous, beautiful piece
of cinema theory I have ever enountered."

I truly forgot "Cinema". It turns out to be GD's third "major work" -
and it's not only film theory but basic analysis of the 'constitution
of world'. Refreshing thing about it is that it's neither
phenomenological, nor structuralisst, nor psychoanalytical study.
Great thing about it is that GD had patience to lucidly work out his
insights and results of his analyses (unlike in seventies).


Thirdly, Ralph wrote:

"... what is rationality anyhow; what does it mean to think
rationally? And why would we want to dismiss a school of thought tout
court if it seems to be helping some people?" (...) "Now there's all
kind of rational thought. Even the Catholic Church thought it was
engaged in rational thought."

So far as my question (few days ago) about reason is concerned, I
don't find much answer in your transformation the issue of reason into
rational thought. Surely there is something else besides just
thinking?


"One would have to carefully discriminate between materialism and
objective idealism"

.. and between different kinds of materialism, too.


"What I'm most concerned about is coherence and concentration of human
mental power, self-possession and self-awareness, which must be based
upon a fundamental simplicity that underlies all complexity."

What is this fundamental simplicity?


"While the bourgeois intellectual masturbates fantasizing about
connecting with "context", the suffering billions struggle to escape
from the contexts in which they trapped and cannot see beyond. While
the bourgeois intellectual seeks to escape from his tedious, repressed
self, the struggling billions desperately seek to acquire the
"bourgeois" self they never had the opportunity to squander."

Isn't there a danger (in your discussion) to reduce theoretical (phil.
& scientific) questions into 'social positions' and, also, to
psychologise them? Isn't there a need for further elaboration of
division of labour in order to find out the instances or institutions
and structures behind, for example, repression?


"Hear?"

Loud and clear. According to some recent survey, about 70% of U.S.
citizens believe in "life after death", so I don't wonder that some of
you U.S. Americans show signs of frustration at times. However, you
shouldn't universalise your experience. Not all of us are living in
USA. We 'others' might have slightly different societal and political
problems that aren't any less real.

Yours, Jukka L