That was a really stimulating talk, JF and Phil and @michaelgarfield. You guys rocked it. I especially loved the dialectic at the end, between JF’s ‘ahistorical self’ and Michael’s ‘self as an evolutionary object.’ Where does the soul end and materiality begin or vice versa? I like the idea of a glass, which invites reflection, yet also suspicion (since there are always two sides to any surface). Doesn’t all glass, in some esoteric, masochistic kind of way, secretly desire to be smashed in the end? I am reminded of Dostoevsky’s (life-pivotal for me in my early 20s) Notes from the Underground, which I think brilliantly identified the poison pill within the modern project. His anti-hero writes:
"I am standing for ... my caprice, and for its being guaranteed to me when necessary..."
And why are you so firmly, so triumphantly, convinced that only the normal and the positive–in other words, only what is conducive to welfare–is for the advantage of man? Is not reason in error as regards advantage? Does not man, perhaps, love something besides well-being? Perhaps he is just as fond of suffering? Perhaps suffering is just as great a benefit to him as well-being? Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering, and that is a fact. There is no need to appeal to universal history to prove that; only ask yourself, if you are a man and have lived at all. As far as my personal opinion is concerned, to care only for well-being seems to me positively ill-bred. Whether it’s good or bad, it is sometimes very pleasant, too, to smash things. I hold no brief for suffering nor for well-being either. I am standing for … my caprice, and for its being guaranteed to me when necessary. Suffering would be out of place in vaudevilles, for instance; I know that. In the “Palace of Crystal” it is unthinkable; suffering means doubt, negation, and what would be the good of a “palace of crystal” if there could be any doubt about it? And yet I think man will never renounce real suffering, that is, destruction and chaos. Why, suffering is the sole origin of consciousness. Though I did lay it down at the beginning that consciousness is the greatest misfortune for man, yet I know man prizes it and would not give it up for any satisfaction. Consciousness, for instance, is infinitely superior to twice two makes four. Once you have mathematical certainty there is nothing left to do or to understand. There will be nothing left but to bottle up your five senses and plunge into contemplation. While if you stick to consciousness, even though the same result is attained, you can at least flog yourself at times, and that will, at any rate, liven you up. Reactionary as it is, corporal punishment is better than nothing. —
Which I think relates to why, in the end—re: your discussion of fairies—even godly beings want to be human again. Perhaps our intentionality is as or more important than our extensions?
Michael’s excellent concept of the Glass Age also brought to mind: JD’s Salinger’s famous fictional Glass family, which alludes to the Buddhist “mirror mind,” and the eldest (suicided) brother, Seymour Glass. Also: the composer Philip Glass, who I feel makes modernity ‘transparent’ to itself, auditorily, as well as synaesthetically in his filmic and operatic pieces. And let us not forget Corinthians: For now we see through a glass, darkly.
It’s also interesting to note that with advances modern material science and engineering, glass is becoming less brittle, and in this way is regarded as regaining qualities of the primal. Smooth, invisible, and yet shatter-proof and scratch-resistant. Thus we now have gorilla glass made by Corning, Inc. (formerly Corning Glass Works) which Michael mentioned.
In connection with McLuhan, I am interested in the idea that we have a media(ted) soul, which to me says that as we enact ourselves in virtual spaces, those space become animations—and emanations—of ourselves. Our physical bodies are a kind of media, as much as our subtle and digital bodies are. And so we receive and transmit on a spectrum of spiritual-material energies, through various prisms (which can also be prisons, see Dostoevsky^) of consciousness.
Lastly, I offer this bit below, which I would caption, How to philosophize with a hammer (redux).
Michelangelo Pistoletto. You may enjoy his manifesto.