Second day in Kiwiland...

When I call NZ Kiwiland I do it with love. It's sweet and cute, the place and people there are stuck close to my heart now, as everything else and...OK, I stop it, otherwise you're not going to read this in full. 
Second day in sweet Kiwiland (oooooops!!!!), yet the first full day spent in Auckland! We've decided the night before that we'd go out and have breakfast in town, which we did. At a place with an Italian name, Korean waitresses where we had English breakfast - exactly what I love in this part of the world! To my surprise, on top of our flat whites, we had this sight:

...and that's when I knew I should stop being surprised: it's their national symbol, so there would be ferns everywhere, no mistake in expecting to see it from then on.
The day was entirely ours, so obviously, we've went on a stroll, starting with the port. Not for nothing, there's a building there I wanted to see in reality since I had seen pictures with it before, the Ferry Building.

Ferry Building, Auckland NZ, side view.

View from across the street of the Ferry Building.

View of the port, near the Ferry Building.

This old Ferry Building contrasts with the architecture nearby, although, I would discover next day that there are still a few older buildings preserved in the area to keep it company, so to say. Either way, it warms my heart when I see these constructions surviving times and changes. It also tells something about the people living there.
The smartest idea of the day proved to be a boat cruise on which we embarked in the last minute, just enough to add a little drama to our walk. There was enough time though to go sit up on the deck, happy that there weren't many people there, maybe because it was a slightly windy day and the rest of people preferred to stay in the cabin and  have their warm drinks. That's not us! We face the gale, row the boat if we can, eat the pickles not the jam...for rhyme's sake! Boat cruise objective: Rangitoto Island.  It's been an offering trip, with a lot of beautiful sights to enjoy. Sadly, due time and hunger, we could not add to our stops Devonport. One day...
This cruise will be the topic of my next post. A visual log so to say, thus I won't insit now on its details since it's full of too powerful impressions still and perhaps too personal to talk of here.
I should add though about this particular day that there was more walking on the pier, fish'n chips cravings, a visit to the Fish Markets , a bit of rest and lunch, another evening walk which included a visit to an arcade that was closed yet which gave us the chance to take silly photographs. Ah, and we also entered a geek's place where we heard the list of winners after a competition they held there and which is worth mentioning as in the silence of those announcements someone shouted after a guy's name , ''SUCK IT UP!...JACQUES!''. You had to be there to hear the intonation and you'd be walking out laughing your head off. Or you can do this once you finish visiting my silly blog.

From Down Under to the Middle Earth - excerpts from a slightly belated travel log

Yes, I indeed want an 18th Century title for this one!

I'll be sharing some memories from my recent trip to New Zealand, as I've already promised to some of you.  My partner and I planned this for a while and along the way (read months) I missed some opportunities to actually accompany him in one of his job related trips there...well, until it became clear we should actually go for it and enjoy NZ together. One for business, the other for pleasure . All being clear, we've spread our  wings and threw ourselves  in the air, flopping our artificial feathers... well, no, we took a plane like all people with intact synapses, but it was worthy to think of Icarus for a second or two.

Sunshine Coast, Queensland

We left sunny Brisbane how else but in a sunny Saturday, saying good bye to the Sunshine State (where it's sunny no matter the season!), heading to a so called winter, in Auckland NZ- which proved to be fun for me, an European used to ...well, real winters. Spoiler: in my book, it was autumn there. Sunny. Remember this, it's a key word. Sunny.

For an obvious reason I love airports (dang, it's the magic gate to new places!) and it's always worth watching the crowd, without doing it on purpose. OK, I lied.  While waiting to board on our plane, some Kiwis drawn my attention. Reason: their passports. Black passports with a silver fern on it - classy and cute! It may seem a silly thing to like, but for me it was the first taste of NZ, despite the fact that I've already had a few items brought from there. It was my first encounter and it's stuck in my visual and affective memory.
That was only the beginning, as once in the plane , we had in front of us a beautiful Maori woman and her little daughter. This was wonderful since it was the first Maori I've seen in reality. I realize how childish my words seem, but so was the joy of observing all around me . Her dignified features took my eyes a few times, as much as her tattooos which shyly came  out of her short sleeves: another fern to admire! I think I napped a little and took some pictures with the sky, plus had a few traditional ''on the road-laughters" with my partner - all good, but not all can be told.
Good landing, bursting excitement and a pinch of irrational worries given the lore about NZ customs - they have a certain reputation, but I should say I found them much nicer than all rumours say. We walked accompanied by sounds of water towards customs (no lie, the airport has a sweet sound system and they are geniuses for using at max all things connected to LOTR, really well decorated wall as as well - too bad it was late at night and we hurried, otherwise I would have taken some shots). 
Back to reality, let me tell about the first customs officer we presented passports to: I was amazed by accent, thought it's rather Scottish, but it proved later on it's only the way Kiwi people talk. I'm in love with that accent now and enjoyed it every time I could hear it there. We had to meet a second custom officer as well, given that we have different nationalities me and my partner, or so I think about the reason we had to go through another filter.
Either way, since we have no bad agenda or ideas or unusual items, it went smooth, but took a while as a negative thing. Contrary to our expectations, it wasn't me he asked things to, but my partner, since he was the one who traveled many times there with business. The officer soon realized we're what we say we were and kept repeating ''I won't be keeping you here long, guys.'' or ''Is there a taxi waiting for you?''; fact is he just started his comp once we reached his desk, so it took a while for things to be processed. This guy had lovely tattos I kept staring at and since I was tired I gave him a silly answer when he asked me if I like living in Australia: 'Thank you!'' said I and a few seconds later as my neurons started functioning I added'' Yes, thank you, I like it very much.'' He must've thought I'm a bit of an idiot. He let me in, that's all that matters and like my Grandmother says ''it's not like you'll be having coffees together next day''. True. Taxi, hotel, sleep, end of day 1.
See you next post!

Bit o rant never hurt anyone... 

PREAMBLE: What do I do?!! I ask myself this while being in a break, probably a permanent one from any formal studies (not giving up on self- cultivation though). It's for the first time that I don't want to be enrolled in any form of study anymore, but do things my way; while at it, I decided to go through some popular art productions. For a change. Take off the ''thinking cape/hat/whatever'' and ..chill (I'm grinning...really??!).
 Yet...it seems that I cannot relax and empty my mind by watching films or reading books. I shouldn't wonder anymore about that, I guess I must finally accept that this is who I am and stop worrying I don't relax (i.e. forget about myself) whilst watching a film, for example...since this ''not so relaxed'' position doesn't tire me and I take pleasure in it. Ah well, of films I wish to rant a bit today, so let me roll down by the river (Lethe? :) ).

ONE: *Imagine the Imperial March as musical background*
Star Wars - surely I enjoyed the trilogy. Naturally, I've had lots of fun, admired the imagery, digested easily the simple dialogue, appreciated the artistry of film making and on the whole I loved (finally) watching it - yeah, yeah, I know, better later than never. I actually thought for a while that full relaxation worked!!!! BUT! I couldn't stop thinking of the Freudian echoes in the plot: the father complex, initially appearing in the plot in its most postmodern form - i. e.  the absence of the father).
How about the Jungian archetypes? Luke Skywalker corresponds to the archetype of the hero (which he shares with Han Solo), as much as to the Orphan; he's also a representation of the Self, his quest and individuation path being quite clearly portrayed, just as much as he chooses the Shadow exploration, not to mention his Anima, found in Princess Leia. The Sage part goes to Obi Wan Kenobi, while the Magician is our good old dear Yoda...is it hard to imagine who's the Ruler as well as the Villain figure? Good, you just won a light saber from me (to be collected imaginarily).
Hmm, if I think more I might as well shoot straight to the animal archetypes, but which in the series are replaced by...well, other types of ''people'': ''the faithful dog'' - Chewbacca (hmm, in some ways R2-D2 as well), ''the enduring horse'' - R2-D2 and ''the devious cat''- C-3PO...OK, stopping here, my wires are burning and next film is knocking an exhausted neuron already. So...

TWO:
Blade Runner. With watching this one, I had the intense sensation of ''I know, I know! Let me say it !", only because to me it seemed obvious that the Replicants were some kind of Nietzschean Übermensch, a transition form from man to robot (which I hope it's not visionary). Moreso, staying in the same nietzscean vein, isn't it the killing of the Father (the Creator of the Nexus 6 replicants) the death of God about which the philosopher spoke about? The twilight of gods, leaving behind nothing but chaos and individuality in its struggle to identify itself and create a new world in which to fit , bla, blaaa , blaaa - that's how I've thought while watching the whole film. More blaa and bleah and blaarrgh.  But before finishing this, it's Rick Deckard turn to be tagged: postmodern hero in search of his own identity. Looks like the debate if he's a replicant himself or not, is still going on...is it? Not?
In looking for the correct spelling of Deckard, I looked on Google and surprise, surprise: I'm not the first to talk about Blade Runner in Nietzscean terms. Well done, kiddo. Now relax, it's dinner time and no replicants to take it away from you.
May the Force be with you all!

THE SHORTENED VERSION OF :

Foucault and Nietzsche on progress

Foucault and Nietzsche are the two thinkers who stand as marking figures in mapping the genealogies of unconventional phenomena, in an anti-Enlightenment vein, taking off the coat of Hegelian and Marxist thought, yet making use of historical facts to prove and to stress these important phenomena which affected the history and still continues to do so (the past exists in the present through its consequences). Both take pot shots at sacred cows, as for example Nietzsche in developing criticism on the genealogy of morals (criticizing religion, philosophers etc.), or Foucault in aiming at reason, confinement and punishment, madness or sexuality. The two are diagnosing the evolution of these phenomena and the way they have changed over time, criticizing in fact that which is called progress, in terms of power relations that affect society, seeing it as a source of regression rather than something constructive (which the word ''progress'' implies). But that is what they meet in with; in what the two differ though, and naturally so given the distance in time at which they lived and wrote their works, is that Foucault's discourse is more sociologically aimed at, whereas Nietzsche's stays in the realm of the abstract and philosophical ideas in expressing his views.

Progress, seen as a trap in which we ensnare ourselves is no strange idea for the two thinkers.

Firstly, Nietzsche shows how institutions were seen as a sign of progress in society  and how they inscribed themselves into the frame of creditor-debtor relation, using punishment as a way of keeping control, altering over time and leading to a destructiveresult which is nothing but progress; once a relation of power is established, he coins, the alteration of that relation comes with a loss of utility and the purpose for which that relation was established, fails in how it affects people: one greater power ruling over the rest doesn't equal progress (as history has shown us so many times, with deceptive results) – it leads to death/ destruction:

''(...) the “development” of a thing, a practice, or an organ has nothing to do with its progressus [progress] towards a single goal, even less is it the logical and shortest progressus reached with the least expenditure of power and resources(...) What I wanted to say is this: the partial loss of utility, decline, and degeneration, the loss of meaning, and purposiveness, in short, death, also belong to the conditions of a real progressus [progress], which always appears in the form of a will and a way to a greater power and always establishes itself at the expense of a huge number of smaller powers. The size of a “step forward” can even be estimated by a measure of everything that had to be sacrificed to it.'' (Nietzsche in the ''Second Essay: Guilt, Bad Conscience, and Related Matters'')

Secondly, Foucault bases his observations on cases throughout history, pointing out the manner in which the progress and its tools, i.e. institutions proved to play a marking role in the regression I mentioned before, although, the appeareance of these institutions was inevitable. Such is the case he discuses in ''The Great Confinement'', about the first mental institution in France (L'Hopital General), an institutional structure which reminds of Nietzsche's creditor-debtor relation and its inevitable, yet not progressive consequences :

"(...) the unemployed person was no longer driven away or punished; he was taken in charge, at the expense of the nation but at the cost of his individual liberty. Between him and society, an implicit system of obligation was established: he had the right to be fed, but he must accept the physical and moral constraint of confinement.''  p. 48

Foucault points out further these consequences and how their meaning in society, defining confinement in its full societal implication:

''(...)  confinement acquired another meaning. Its repressive function was combined with a new use. It was no longer merely a question of confining those out of work, but of giving work to those who had been confined and thus making them contribute to the prosperity of all. The alternation is clear: cheap manpower in the periods of full employment and high salaries; and in periods of unemployment, reabsorption of the idle and social protection against agitation and uprisings.'' (p. 51)

Just like Nietzsche he doesn't forget to point out how the church played its role in the Classical age as a tool of control, taking part alongside the hospital (mental asylums in effect, with more or less mentally ill people)  in the bourgeois ''machinery'' which sought to separate things for their own good and comfort, a city life machine in which the poor and the sick were no good (read ''useful''); institutionalising morality,exercising power through confinement with the intention of progressing the society came not without risks or repercusions which exist still. 

Works cited:

1. Foucault, M. - ''The Great Confinement'' , Madness and Civilisation, A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, Vintage Books (a division of Random House, New York)

2. Nietzsche, F.  ''Second Essay: Guilt, Bad Conscience, and Related Matters'', On the Genealogy of Morals, A Polemical Tract (  http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/Nietzsche/genealogytofc.htm)

Yet another assignment (lost track of which I posted or not - but being that the PoMo course is ending these days, I have to pay some tribute to it) ........ 

In what follows, my endeavour is to depict briefly how Ralph Waldo Emerson's self-reliance ideas inscribe in the line started by one of the marking figures of Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant. By comparing Kant's work What is Enligtenment? and Emerson's essay (on) Self-Reliance, it cannot be denied the common ground from which the two thinkers started their work (and how some of their ideas converge), nor can be ignored the step further made by Emerson in showing how  individuals can eiberate themselves from societal chains and conformity through self- trust and believing in themselves.
Enlightenment is man's leaving his self caused-immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another. Such immaturity is self caused if it is not caused by lack of intelligence, but by lack of determination and courage to use one's intelligence without being guided by another.,  coined Kant in his important work What is Enlightenment?, pointing out to the individual's strive in the cultivation of the mind and acquisition of knowledge, as important assets in becoming enlightened, in becoming free from any form of guidance (being that political, religious, etc.) and emergence out of being a ''minor'' as he called those who accept as given what other inflict as accepted teachings on them with the direct consequence of persisting in the mediocrity of imitation. Emerson meets in this respect with Kant's idea, he himself pleading for men to break from what given to them as norms and which stand against the personal nature in each of us: There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction (...) that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. In other words, both Kant and Emerson underline the importance of the self and self acknowlegment that there's only one way to feel free and rise above the social mimetic behaviours: cultivating that self (through knowledge in Kant's opinion -Sapere aude! , and by trusting oneself and one's own capacities and possibilities, as Emerson shows throughout his whole essay on self- reliance: Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.).
What is interesting though, for both thinkers, is that this cultivation of the self (despite the means they favour in achieving that) doesn't mean breaking up from society into isolation and ascetism or whatever other form of solitude, but they believe that this cultivation of the self is beneficial for the whole society: being enlightened (Kant) or nonconformist (Emerson) equals serving to better the world, to improve the way one feels and at the same time to help others understand what they have to do in the world. This means to some extent that those who trust themselves and are enlighted, serve as models in showing  ways of individual rise and eliberation, progress in the end: There will always be some people who think for themselves, even among the self-appointed guardians of the great mass who, after having thrown off the yoke of immaturity themselves, will spread about them the spirit of a reasonable estimate of their own value and of the need for every man to think for himself. (I. Kant, What is Enlightenment?) ; Emerson's position might seem a bit more radical than Kant's , but it leads to the same core idea, that a man must not conform, yet he can indeed serve as a model in his struggle (with all the adversities which shall be pouring on one who dares speak and act against the tide of his/her time): All men have my blood, and I have all men's. (...) But your isolation must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation. ; the elevation and self-awareness comes not out of selfishness, but out of the crude truth that we must stay faithful to ourselves and our inner nature  while living in the truth of this revelation, as Emerson underlines: I do this not selfishly, but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, and all men's, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. (...) the law of consciousness abides (Emerson) and it cannot be ignored. Abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey thy heart, and thou shalt reproduce the Foreworld again, says Emerson; he talks about the rebirth of a world, not of a solitude, which supports the idea from which this paragraph started.
Thus, Kantian ideas of enlightenment can be identified in Emerson's wish for men to rise above their subdued statuses and/or imposed behavior, and live according to their own personal nature and in conformity with their principles, not the ones society imposes. The two thinkers meet in their wish for men to become free  and true to themselves.
Works cited:
(1) Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Essays: First Series/Self-Reliance ( en.wikisource.org/wiki/Essays_First_Series/Self-Reiance )
(2) Kant, Immanuel - What is Enlightenment? ( ebooks.gutenberg.us/WorldeBookLibrary.com/whatenli.htm )

ONE MORE, ONCE MORE...

...assignment. For some reason, I liked this one probably the best, as it had to do with literature. Again, I could have written more, but I kept short with some main ideas on the topic.

Q: Freud wrote that art was a “palliative measure” that helped people cope with suffering. Discuss his view and how it compares with the views of art or aesthetics of one of the following authors: Baudelaire, Darwin, Nietzsche, Woolf.

A:

Art as antidote or as an expression of inadequacy with the world's ways (a ''palliative measure'' as Freud names it) in the face of suffering is nothing new to men and it shall stay with men as long as mankind exists. Ever since Cro-Magnon man painted the walls of his cave, the human spirit found ways of escaping everday turmoil. There will always be prisoners to escape the cave (see Plato's ''Allegory of the Cave'') and get away from the shadows. In what follows, I'll illustrate how Sigmund Freud and Virginia Woolf's artistic visions converged into an escapist ideal, a ''palliative measure'' which leads to that which we call happiness.
Happiness is an essential pursuit of mankind if not the ultimate purpose. We all set goals in order to achieve it, dream of happy times, live the moment to reach it, immerse ourselves in activities which make us happy, hope for it, feel it when making others happy - not only these are the ways, yet the aim is one only: obtain happiness and make it last. Freud's view regarding the pursuit of happiness pleads in this direction: "(...) what the behaviour of men themselves reveals as the purpose and object of their lives, what they demand of life and wish to attain in it. The answer to this can hardly be in doubt: they seek happiness, they want to become happy and to remain so. There are two sides to this striving, a positive and a negative; it aims on the one hand at eliminating pain and discomfort, on the other at the experience of intense pleasures.'' (Civilisation and Its Discontents, 1929p.8) Pain and discomfort are rooted in three main sources of unhappiness in Freud's vision: our own bodies, the external world and the others. Having to deal with these and looking for happiness, most men find themselves caught up in the web of suffering and unhappiness, which is why, one of the ways of searching for happiness is constituted by art, search enhanced also by the pleasure principle of which Freud talked about. Furthermore, Freud pointed out the importance of this search in art for happiness as well as the innate failure which might occur when doing so, yet the perseverance cannot cease, art being one of the attributes of civilisation: ''happiness in life is sought first and foremost in the enjoyment of beauty, wherever it is to be found by our senses and our judgement, the beauty of human forms and movements, of natural objects, of landscapes, of artistic and even scientific creations. As a goal in life, this aesthetic attitude offers little protection against the menace of suffering, but is able to compensate for a great deal. The enjoyment of beauty produces a particular, mildly intoxicating kind of sensation. There is no evident use in beauty; the necessity of it for cultural purposes is not apparent, and yet civilisation could not do without it.'' (Civilisation and Its Discontents, 1929, p. 11)
What stands obviously in common with Freud's vision in Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, is the manner in which the character Lily Briscoe (a possible self-portrayal of Woolf herself) finds the happiness and fulfillment in her search of integrity and closeness with Mrs. Ramsay through painting; the intensity which leads the character to self-accomplishment and happiness comes through her art as the following lines suggest: ''She could see it all so clearly, so commandingly, what she looked it was when she took her brush in hand that the whole thing changed. It is in that moment's flight between the picture and her canvas(...)''. (V. Woolf, To the Lighthouse) that Lily grasps happiness through art, escaping her suffering caused by the relation with the outside world, with men in particular (Charles Tansley and William Bankes) and the frustration in not succeeding to paint what she sees, not capturing the essence she can perceive, as illustrated by the author: ''It was a miserable machine, an inefficient machine, she thought, the human apparatus for painting or for feeling; it always broke down at the critical moment; heroically, one must force it on.'' (V. Woolf, To the Lighthouse). Clearly, Lily wishes to be happy but it takes her ten years to finish Mrs. Ramsay's portrait, the one which raised such frustration in her creation. She didn't know when starting it that even much suffering has to be endured as ''time passes'' before she could be happy, before she would achieve happiness with a few strokes of her brush: ''(...) if a man thinks himself happy if he has merely escaped unhappiness or weathered trouble; if in general the task of avoiding pain forces that of obtaining pleasure into the background.'' (Sigmund Freud - Civilisation and Its Discontents, 1929).
 Bibliography:
(1) Freud, Sigmund - Civilisation and Its Discontents, 1929 ( archive.org/details/CivilisationAndItsDiscontents )
(2) ''Selected Works of Virginia Woolf'' ( To the Lighthouse), Wordsworth Limited Edition, 2005.

BE SHORT, SCRATCH THE SURFACE OF THINGS ONLY, DON'T DARE SAY MORE, MAKE IT SIMILAR TO A STATUS ON A ROTTEN SOCIAL SITE

That could be the best description of the little text which I wrote when we got the assignment with the prompt...
Q: ''Darwin wrote that: "Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin." Compare Darwin's view of the persistent effects of the past with at least one other writer covered so far in the cours'' (I chose Nietzsche).

Let your laughter begin (wonder of anyone will actually give a 2 damn minutes in reading this): 

A: 

In meeting Darwin's idea that man inherently carries his evolutionary past within himself comes the Nietzschean concept of ''animal nature'' which all men possess. Moreso, both Darwin and Nietzsche consider that we are the product of the past, yet while the first aims at the biological evolution of the mankind, the latter examins the moral evolution of mankind, that being the point where the two thinkers differ in their approach.
A more consistent difference lays in the fact that Darwin exposes in scientific terms the long evolutionary past of humans and the laws of nature which have enabled this evolution, whereas Nietzsche takes a turn on dissecting the human soul which is the product of a millenia of repressed animal instincts , of ''internalization'' as he calls it. This self denial of our instinctual nature, leads (in Nietzsche's opinion) to ideals, to frames of morality which cage humans, tames and makes them self-sufficient within those frames; he points out that once humans have lost the contact with the nature and stopped being the part of an archaic mode of living, thus internalising all those primal ways of being, they've  lived those (lost) adventures within themselves ever since. The fate of the modern man is to have his soul as a battlefield, a place ''of adventure, a place of torture'' as Nietzsche states in his Second Treatise (''On the Genealogy of Morality''); having a conscience equals pain.  What brings the two thinkers back on the same track, mildly and unviolent expressed by Darwin, yet strongly and radically pointed by Nietzsche, is the brake from the theological frames of thinking about the evolution of men.
Despite their differences of approach, i.e. scientific with Darwin and philosophical with Nietzsche, the two authors do come about  the inate instincts we carry within us, supporting the idea of the persistent effects of the past. If we choose to break from the chains as Nietzsche suggests in the ending of his Second Treatise, it's only a matter of choice.

Are you laughing still? :)