Both And

Kevin Marks, inventor of the Marks marks of Googlewhacking, writes:

Thanks to Arts & Letters Daily, a couple of pieces that may throw some oblique light on lengthy meditations on how one’s personality is expressed and even formed though public writings.

One is an article by Constance Rosenblum about what it’s like to lose all your email. Having lost the past five months’ worth, I sympathize; I might as well have been told that a brain virus ate five months of memories.

The other is a review by the philosopher Thomas Nagel of a biography of Nietzsche. Writes Nagel:

This does not mean that greater self-knowledge is impossible: indeed, plunging beneath your own inner surface through both psychological and historical investigation is essential. But knowledge is not the main point. The point is to achieve a different kind of existence: to live one’s life in the full complexity of what one is, which is something much darker, more contradictory, more of a maelstrom of impulses and passions, of cruelty, ecstasy, and madness, than is apparent to the civilized being who glides on the surface and fits smoothly into the world. Because we are not animals, we are in a position to take conscious possession of ourselves in this way; but because we are socialized human beings, we tend instead to accept the superficial identities and the orderly system of beliefs that civilization has assigned to us.

You go, Nagel! The Web is an unparalleled realm for living the complexity of our social identities.

Which is a backwards way of getting at something that’s been bothering me. Remember Nietszsche’s Appolionian/Dionysian complementarity — the sedate, rational, respectful-of-limits Apollo and the wild, drunken, omni-mounting Dionysus? Having been involved in an Apollonian discourse on the nature of authenticity and self — the blogthread that’s been wending it’s way through many blogs over the past week — my inner Dionysius is getting antsy. All yin and no yang makes Jack a dull boy. Not that there’s been an overall shortage of Dionysian yang on the Web; we should be welcoming Apollo back and trying to make him feel at home. But, let’s face it, Apollo gets a bit tiresome (while Dionysus is just plain exhausting). We need to be able to say Yes to both the clear, insightful, patient and loving work of Apollo as well as the murky, felt, hasty, lusty, funny and loving work of Dionysius. Then they need to hit the road and star in a buddy movie together…

Categories: Uncategorized dw