Always changing

A society is a collection of individuals. It can be organized in a variety of different ways, and is always changing. A static society is virtually impossible, because its composition of unique individuals is always changing. Just like the atoms and molecules in our bodies are always changing - but always organized by our genes and certain processes into this thing we call "self.

Now, for the short time each of us exists, we are a unique, but dynamic collection of "hardware" and "software." Not only are the information, value and belief systems we hold constantly changing; the body and brain themselves are constantly changing. This is partly due to aging, partly due to stress, happiness and a variety of other factors we are only beginning to understand - and many others we may never understand.

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts -

- Jean-Philippe Pastor

Agreement of concept and reality with Hegel

As Hegel says, by death the species is "set free from individuality" and "shows its power" over the individual. (G.W.F. Hegel, Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences)

God alone is the true agreement of concept [Begriff] and reality [Realität]; all finite [endlichen] things involve some untruth [Unwahrheit], they have a concept and an existence [Existenz] which are incommensurable [unangemessen]. For this reason they inevitably go to ruin [zugrunde gehen], that the incommensurability [Unangemessenheit] of their concept and their existence may be evident [manifestiert]. The animal, as an individual, has its concept in the species [Gattung]; and its death [Tod] sets the species free from individuality [Einzelnheit]. [§ 24, note 2]

What is living comes to death, for its very being is a contradiction [Widerspruch]; in itself it is the general [Allgemeine], the class [Gattung], yet its immediate [unmittelbar] existence is as an individual. In death the class shows its power [Macht] over the immediate individual. [§ 221, note] .

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts-Enter Hypertextopia-PHONEREADER Library -- Jean-Philippe Pastor

Irrelevant practice of writing

Jameson relates the bourgeois attitude toward art as separate from social reality directly to the ideology of bourgeois individualism.

This ideology leads to the perception that private life is sharply distinguished from the public world of politics in a way that parallels the bourgeois tendency to treat art as a self-enclosed realm separate from the social and political world. But this perception of art does not elevate it as somehow superior to everyday reality; instead it merely renders art irrelevant, diminishing its function in life. Similarly Jameson insists that the ostensible privileging of the private over the public that is central to bourgeois individualism actually impoverishes private life by obscuring the domination of the individual by capitalism and creating a false illusion of individual autonomy.

Far from creating the strong, independent individuals mythologized by bourgeois ideology, capitalism "maims our existence as individual subjects and paralyzes our thinking".

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/
See that post with different algorithms in metabole
See the journal French Metablog with today different posts