inkbluesky

The Heart of the Matter - Complex as Productive Force

During his speech in Plato’s The Symposium, Aristophanes explains that humans were originally round, composed of two people joined together in a perfect sphere with four arms, four legs, and two faces. Unfortunately, humans grew arrogant and ambitious; as a result, Zeus punished them by cleaving them in two. Now altered from their natural form, humans yearn for their former selves: “It is from this situation, then, that love for one another developed in human beings. Love collects the halves of our original nature, and tries to make a single thing out of the two parts so as to restore our natural condition. Thus, each of us is the matching half of a human being, since we have been severed like a flatfish, two coming from one, and each part is always seeking its other half” (191d). So it is that what we call “love” is but the “desire for wholeness” (193a). Love is not, for Aristophanes, a union but a re-union/reuniting.

While Aristophanes’ account is simultaneously comedic and horrific, and consequently also absurdly ridiculous, there persists an undercurrent of some nebulous tickle, a recognition of something tangibly familiar in his myth, even now. ( the numbers in parathesis are for article footnotes)

The author refers one example as the line from Jerry McGuire “You complete me”. While many have a temptation to smirk at such blatant sentimentality we simultaneously embrace it. They use other words to describe the desire for a connection to a special someone, usually with more angst, but many pop songs are about finding the part of us we feel in missing in our singleness. When I heard earlier today that Myspace had 180 million profiles and 29,000 of them were sex offenders I couldn’t help but think of that tremendous desire to make connections. While 29,000 is a lot, it is small number in comparison to the total number of profiles. Still knowing that you might run the risk of an unpleasant cyber encounter hasn’t deterred people from using the site. The benefits obviously outweigh the negatives, partly because of our need to be part of something even if its in a realm of reality that Aristophanes could never have imagined. This isn’t the first time that technology has brought a new kind of complexity to our lives. In the play and movie  Inherit the Wind (1960) the Drummond character mentions that the telephone increased our ability to communicate, but at the price of losing some privacy. It is funny that that with every new twist in technology we bring with us concerns and  wishes that are thousands if not millions of years old. *Thanks to Ari for the inventive creation myth.

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Contempt For Gonzales 

“The department is dysfunctional. . . . Every week a new issue arises. . . . That is just decimating, Mr. Attorney General. . . . The list goes on and on. . . . Is your department functioning? . . . What credibility is left for you? . . . Do you expect us to believe that? . . . Your credibility has been breached to the point of being actionable.”

And that was just from the top Republican on the committee, Arlen Specter (Pa.). Democrats had to scramble to keep up with the ranking member’s contempt.

- Leahy asked if Gonzales would block prosecutors from prosecuting contempt-of-Congress cases. “I’m not going to answer that question,” the witness answered.

“Do you think constitutional government in the United States can survive if the president has the unilateral authority to reject congressional inquiries?” Specter pressed.

“I’m not going to answer this question.”

I don’t know, should C-Span and Fox be broadcasting this. Think of the children. Will be have a new generation of kids that answer every question with “I don’t recall” or “I refuse to answer that question,” hey if the nation’s chief law enforcement officer can do it I can too. * this part of the post has been rated S for snark.