In the Hall of the Philosopher King

"You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners. Like ourselves, I replied." — Plato, The Republic

                                

How determined are we by the age in which we live? Are we all merely swept along by the current of our particular times or is it possible to mount our will against the swell and truly be an "individual"?

All epochs have a Zeitgeist, a certain “spirit of the time,” which determines the intellectual, artistic, rhetorical and fashion trends of that society. And if one wishes to have a career within said society, one must be unabashedly timely in order to be “relevant.” In other words, one must accept the prevailing forms of taste, or its not likely that anyone will care what you are doing—at least not the mass of society.

So who—or what—determines the “taste” which is deemed acceptable in any given age?

This House Is Not A Home

The early 20th century German philosopher Martin Heidegger, in his monumental work Being and Time, made the claim that “language is the house of Being.” What all he meant by this oblique statement I do not wish to delve into here, but the main point he was trying to make was the power of language for Human Beings. Language shapes our conception of the world by giving shape to our consciousness. And it is for this reason that I have created my Dictionopolis section to explore important words that we commonly use today when talking about the nature of reality, despite them having lost all meaning; or that we use as answers to the mystery of existence, when all they actually do is point to questions.

Today, the word I have chosen is Creativity.

The Specter of Perfection

"We have discovered happiness, say the last men, and blink thereby." — Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

                                

For the last 500ish years, we have been in what historians have dubbed “Modernity,” as opposed to the Middle Ages or Antiquity. And one of the single most powerful driving forces behind the events of History in our current period (although some speculate that we have now moved into Post-Modernity) has been the idea of Progress—that the past was flawed and that we are moving forward, linearly, toward something better.

Timing is Everything

"The idea that is overcome is not annihilated, only driven back or subordinated." — Nietzsche

                           

So why do I call these untimely meditations?

It doesn't seem like a very good marketing strategy to write a blog which has nothing to do with what is going on in the world today. I mean, isn't the whole point of a blog to be current and engaged; to be commenting on the latest news cycle in order to drive traffic and rack up hits? It would seem that the very nature of a blog is to be as TIMELY as possible.

And the answer to all this would be, yes—that is absolutely correct.

Thoughts Out of Season

“Sometimes it is harder to accede to a thing than it is to see its truth.” ― Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations