Pragmatism and Genealogy

I'd like to begin the study of the 11th issue of Foucault Studies just for the joy of it.
Should you wish to look at the magazine itself, you can find it here:

http://ej.lib.cbs.dk/index.php/foucault-studies/issue/view/408/showToc

INTRODUCTION

Foucault and Pragmatism: Introductory Notes on Metaphilosophical Methodology

Colin Koopman, University of Oregon

ABSTRACT: Being an introduction to a special issue on the theme of ‚Foucault and Prag- matism‛ this article offers a brief set of metaphilosophical comments on the project of building bridges across familiar philosophical divides. The paper addresses questions in metaphiloso- phical methodology raised by the pairing in the issue title: What is at stake in the comparison of philosophical figures like Michel Foucault and John Dewey? What is at stake in the compa- rison of philosophical traditions such as Genealogy and Pragmatism? How can we most ef- fectively develop comparative work across the entrenched divides, which such comparative work often labors to overcome?

Keywords: Metaphilosophy, Genealogy, Pragmatism, Foucault, Dewey.

Philosophical Bridgework

The papers collected in this special issue of Foucault Studies all fit well under the heading of ‚Foucault and Pragmatism‛—but that heading itself expresses a basic disanalogy that any effort in comparative philosophy must confront. The disanalogy is rather obvious as soon as it is pointed out. Foucault is a figure, a philosopher, and a thinker. Pragmatism is an intellectu- al tradition, a philosophical milieu, and a style of thinking. What is the use of comparing the work of thought across two registers that function differently, demand different modalities of scrutiny, and which ought to be subjected to different kinds of criticism? A number of good answers to this question are implicit (and indeed quite often explicit) in the eight essays (and one review essay) that follow. In this introduction I shall briefly clarify the comparative terms of the articles that follow by describing two possible interpretations of the basic project of this issue, which is to say, two different interpretations of how one might set about the task of bringing Foucault and Pragmatism into conversation with one another. There are, of course, many other ways besides these two of launching, and then sustaining, comparative conversa- tion in philosophy. With respect to the terms here under comparison, however, these are the most obvious and probably also the most demanding and provocative routes currently avail- able.

Before describing these two basic methodological options, I would like to begin with a brief set of comments concerning the value, motivation, and justification of the comparative task itself. This special issue was constructed, and most fortunately executed, as an attempt at

Colin Koopman 2011 ISSN: 1832-5203 Foucault Studies, No. 11, pp. 3-10, February 2011

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building a bridge over a self-imposed gap. Allow me to construct an image of this. Picture, if you will, the following.

Camps of philosophers cordon themselves off from one another by drawing lines in the still sands of a breezeless desert. There they entrench, intently looking each other down from opposite sides of the line for some rather long period of time. Still sands separate steady stares. But eventually they tire of looking across the divide, and so begin to fraternize with only those philosophers in their proximity. Later they forget about the philosophers on the other side of the line, and when the occasional hawkeyed upstart or pesky defector announces the existence of a seeming country of philosophers not too far away, they retort that those on the other side of the line are not ‘real’ philosophers. They are, the upstart and the defector are told, philosophical poseurs at best, or philosophical perverts at worst. The language that is used, in fact, is exactly that contemptuous and contentious. After a generation or two, nobody remembers why the line was drawn, or what function it serves. But it is defended as vigo- rously as ever. Sometime soon thereafter, newly-indoctrinated apprentices begin asking questions that those keeping the line can barely comprehend, let alone answer. ‚Why don’t we read Deleuze here? Have you read him? He’s really interesting to me. And what about Foucault?‛ ‚Why do you insist that Quine is dry and unimportant? Have you read him? He’s really quite interesting to me. And what about Dewey?‛ Soon the line-keepers abandon their fortifications, but of course nearly everyone continues to talk only to those philosophers in their immediate proximity. The apprentices, meanwhile, begin building bridges over the li- nes in the sand. Even though they are but thin lines in a breezeless desert, nobody knows how to cross over them in the familiar manners of walking, and the only way the apprentices can manage to muster a conversation is to carefully artifice means of passage from one camp to the other. These bridges, sometimes quite garish constructions, mediate. They function as ave- nues of conversation, transaction, and mutually-informative intervention. Eventually, it is hoped, the bridges will begin to seem unnecessary, and philosophers will effortlessly walk across those tiny little lines, eventually rubbing them out with their footprints, as they stare up in wonder at the spectacular sculptures above that stand as a memorial to a not-too-distant time when all philosophers were afraid to walk paths that are now frequently trod by just about everyone.

This little story describes, in the very rough sense that is the best that can be achieved by such a depiction, the past, current, and possible future state of professional academic phi- losophy. The moral of the story can be put in a somewhat pedantic and brash idiom if need be (as sometimes is the case): the entrenched impasse between ‘Analytic’ and ‘Continental’ philosophy is now more worthless than ever. The same can, and should, be said of other stan- ding impasses perhaps less firmly entrenched but yet just as divisive. There is now more rea- son than ever to abandon the divides that separate ‘Pragmatist’ or ‘American’ philosophy from those other two constituencies just mentioned. All of these divisions are obstacles to pro- ductive philosophical work on the critical problems we face in the present, as a culture and so- ciety, as a discipline and profession, and as ethical matters we all feel the force of in intensely personal ways.

This special issue is a twofold effort according to this little story. First, it is an effort to continue building those bridges across traditional divides, according to the blueprints and

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plans that have now been in place for at least a decade or two. Second, it is an effort at lear- ning to walk across lines in a breezeless dessert without the aid of elaborate bridges, in such a way as to invite philosophical work that directly, forthrightly, and unapologetically draws on themes, topics, figures, and concepts that span artificial divisions that other philosophers continue to unproductively impose upon themselves. This little story and these two goals are not meant as a revolutionary call, a manifesto, or a program. All this is offered, much more humbly, as a description that lends some concreteness to certain efforts in philosophy that are already underway. That this work is already underway is rendered most visibly in those areas of philosophy focused on problems more than on traditions and figures: critical race theory, feminist philosophy, environmental philosophy, and many subfields in moral, social, legal, and political philosophy. It is also underway, and increasingly so, in the context of work in ‘core’ subfields which often take as their (perhaps unconscious) focus the body of work con- stituted by a tradition or a figure, or (increasingly so) traditions or figures in the plural. Fur- ther, it is underway in the context of other forms of bridgework, including most importantly cross-disciplinary engagements amongst philosophers, anthropologists, historians, sociolo- gists, and other interlocutors conversing across familiar disciplinary divides.1

It is time to gain more self-consciousness about all this work we are doing. It is my hope that this collection of papers can contribute to this increasing self-consciousness.

All articles included here were written by authors who were chosen with an eye to- ward the excellence of their philosophical scholarship, the range of their philosophical curio- sity, and above all the plurality of their own philosophical orientations. Both individually and collectively they have achieved far more than I could have hoped for. I am, as I should have expected to be, truly impressed to witness this work of their thought. Allow me, then, to ten- der an expression of gratitude to them for this work: thank you for the opportunity.

I shall not here attempt a gloss or summary of the papers that follow, as is a standard practice in introductions of this sort. In this case at least, the authors have provided their own abstracts, which the reader may consult. I have conceived of my editorial role as that of col- lection, and in many instances also that of recommendation, but not of interpretation. That is now your job, should you wish to assume it. Where the papers stand in need of interpretation, I have either asked the authors in advance of publication to clear up the difficulties in ques- tion, or I have judged these matters of interpretation appropriate to the act of reception.

Having offered something of a metaphilosophical justification for this collection, I re- turn now to the issues of metaphilosophical methodology mentioned at the outset. I shall ad- dress these by describing two different approaches for building bridges between Foucault and Pragmatism. One approach involves taking up the task of comparative philosophy at the level of philosophical traditions. Another involves working comparatively at the level of individual thinkers. These two approaches are not incompatible but they are distinguishable and so I shall here treat them as analytically separate for the purposes of exposition.

1 On cross-disciplinary uses of Foucault, as well as Foucault’s status across the disciplines, see my intro- duction to another special issue on Foucault I am presently curating, tentatively entitled ‚Foucault Across the Disciplines‛ and forthcoming in the 2011 volume of History of the Human Sciences.

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Two Traditions: Genealogy & Pragmatism

In two books, one recent and one forthcoming, I have advanced an argument on behalf of a philosophical combination of genealogy and pragmatism.2              The gist of my argument, forcing myself to boil the details of hundreds of pages down to a concise but not pithy formulation, can be put as follows:

Pragmatism is best seen as a forward-facing practice of philosophical critique that looks toward the responsive reconstruction of problematic situations in which we sometimes find ourselves—pragmatism teaches us to bring solutions whenever we bring problems, to focus on the meliorative attunement to difficulties at hand, and to furnish for ourselves possibilities of improvement on the basis of resources made available to us by the wider environments, in which we sometimes find ourselves blocked and bottlenecked.

Genealogy should be seen as a historical backward-facing practice of philosophical cri- tique that looks to articulate, so as to intensify, the problematizations which condition our pos- sibilities for doing, thinking, and being in the present. Genealogy teaches us to take our pro- blems very seriously indeed so as to focus on the severity of the situations in which we often find ourselves rather than dissimulating ourselves with the promise of glib solutions.

According to these interpretations, it might seem as if pragmatism and genealogy would face us in opposite directions, and so have little ambition to truck with one another. However, such a conclusion could only be drawn too quickly. In fact, pragmatism and genea- logy stand in need of one another. Any full-scale practice of critical inquiry requires the fulfill- ment of both intellectual desiderata of reconstruction and problematization—hence critical inquiry itself calls for something like pragmatism that provides a reconstructive service as well as something like genealogy that performs a diagnostic service. To perform only one of these services is to chagrin the responsibilities we have assumed in embracing the task of thought as work. We must kick up the dust, and then work to settle it again. We must meliorate in the midst of a problem, and then look hard to see what new problems we may have inadvertently facilitated.

It is not only the case that pragmatism and genealogy stand in need of one another as traditions of critical inquiry. Going even further, we can say that they also positively invite one another. This is so insofar as both traditions train the work of thought to focus on pro- blems-and-resolutions. To put this differently, the basic categories with which both the prag- matist and the genealogist work are problems and responses, rather than, say, truth and falsity, or thesis and antithesis. Both philosophical traditions are present-centered in the mode of what R.G. Collingwood often referred to as the logic of question-and-answer. The genea-

2             See Colin Koopman, Pragmatism as Transition: Historicity and Hope in James, Dewey, and Rorty (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009) and Colin Koopman, Genealogy as Critique: Problematization and Transformation in Foucault & Others (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, forthcoming). See also my (earlier) draft review of the existing literature (through 2007) on these subjects in Colin Koopman, ‚Pragmatism and Genealogy: An Over- view of the Literature‛, unpublished at SSRN at . My project, with respect to the metaphilosophical issues discussed here, further develops work along pathways initially laid down by only a handful of others, but especially Paul Rabinow, Anthropos Today: Reflections on Modern Equipment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003) and John Stuhr, Pragmatism, Postmodernism, and the Future of Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 2003).

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logist begins in the present, with a problem inchoately sensed or felt, and works historically to expose and articulate the conditions that make the problem possible. The pragmatist also be- gins in the present, with a problem roughly sensed or perhaps already described in fine, and works with the future in mind to articulate and innovate practices that promise a resolution of the problematic situation.3

In sum, a combination of pragmatism and genealogy is exactly what is needed to accomplish what we ought to expect of ourselves as critical inquiries. Critical inquiry requires a genealogical pragmatism that knows how to diagnose as well as to anticipate, to proble- matize as well as to reconstruct.

Two Figures: Foucault & Dewey, or Foucault & James, or Foucault & Rorty, & c..

Having advanced in very capsule form my arguments about the traditions of genealogy and pragmatism as diagnostic and reconstructive respectively, allow me to turn briefly to some of the paradigmatic figures in virtue of which these traditions of thought are constructed. For here we can come to terms with a quite different comparative model in virtue of which we might relate the two terms that are the conceptual focus of this issue: Foucault and Prag- matism. A quick scan of the table of contents reveals that most (indeed on some reading, all) of the papers comprising this issue advance the comparative effort here described in terms of comparisons between philosophical figures. We have papers on Foucault and Dewey (Rabi- now, Colapietro, May, Gayman), Foucault and James (Edmonds, May, Marchetti), Foucault and Follett (Pratt), Foucault and West (Stone), and Foucault and Rorty (Malecki, May). The papers themselves can better speak than I to this second of the two comparative approaches distinguished here, but a few final comments are in order so as to further elucidate some of my own claims in the previous section.

One criticism I frequently hear of the argument sketched above about the traditions of Pragmatism and Genealogy is that both traditions, in fact, show signs of a commitment to both reconstruction and problematization. It is sometimes urged, in other words, that insofar as the critic must fulfill their charge by assuming both tasks of diagnostic problem-raising and melioristic problem-solving, then the philosopher can do this wholly within the confines of the traditions of pragmatism, or genealogy. Those who identify as pragmatists frequently urge upon me their view that Dewey is not only a reconstructor, but also a problematizer. Those who identify as genealogists frequently suggest that Foucault is not only a problematizer, but also a reconstructor. This is probably true in both instances. Nevertheless, it would betray a provincialism of taste for pragmatists to reject genealogy on these terms alone, or for genea- logists to ignore pragmatism for no other reason than the sense that they do not stand in need of resources, which they can already glean from their own tradition.

Further, there remains the question of distinguishing Dewey as thinker from Dewey as pragmatist, and Foucault as thinker from Foucault as genealogist. No doubt every thinker ex- ceeds at times (perhaps oftentimes) those traditions for which they become paradigms. Locke is not in every instance an empiricist nor is Descartes in all respects a rationalist. We construct

3 I thank Nick Dorzweiler for stimulating thoughts on the matters addressed in this paragraph.

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canons and traditions by selectively emphasizing certain elements of the great dead philo- sophers in virtue of which such construction is made possible.

Dewey was not always a pragmatist about everything. Indeed he often preferred other labels, other –isms such as instrumentalism, to name his work. Peirce firmly rejected the prag- matism label after James hijacked it. Indeed, James is the only pragmatist who seems to have been entirely comfortable with the label, with the requisite caveat that he could accept it only if he were allowed to combine it pluralistically with other –isms, including pluralism and radical empiricism. Perhaps Rorty too can be read as a pragmatist, but no pragmatist’s claim to the label was ever more contested than Rorty’s. He has been the subject of vociferous and continuous criticism of his credentials with respect to pragmatism.

Foucault was simply not always a genealogist about everything. Foucault always de- scribed himself as writing genealogies rather than as endorsing some philosophical position that might someday assume the form of an –ism. It is well known, and now widely acknow- ledged after many years of misleading though perhaps requisite dispute, that Foucault was also committed in the final years of his work to the task of transforming and reconstructing the terms of modern subjectivity. It is probably also the case that Foucault was always committed to this positive task of self-transformation. There is, to put it simply, a great deal in Foucault that cannot be squarely or easily comprehended under the rubric of genealogical diagnosis.

The lesson here is obvious, once you think about it: figures are not equivalent to the traditions for which they later become paradigms. It is, then, no surprise that Foucault, De- wey, James, Rorty and Nietzsche were all reconstructors and problematizers, diagnosticians and meliorists, agents of productive change as well as of unrelenting critique. This, however, does not determine our answer to two important and related questions. First, at what did they excel? Second, in virtue of what do they belong to the familiar philosophical traditions with which we so often categorize the great philosophers of the past?

Did Dewey excel at diagnosis as much as he did at reconstruction? Only the most en- trenched pragmatist would take Dewey’s rather amateurish intellectual histories as seriously as we ought to take the work of more contemporary intellectual and cultural historians (Foucault included), whose lives are (or were) lived in the archives. Dewey, of course, at- tempted something of genealogical diagnosis in many of his works. One finds a brief intellec- tual history of philosophy itself in the pages of Reconstruction in Philosophy and The Quest for Certainty. The middle chapters of The Public and Its Problems similarly take the form of a brief (all-too-brief) history of the present with respect to the conditions of political communication and interaction. Dewey was clearly committed to the work of thought known as historical di- agnosis and exemplified by genealogists from Nietzsche to Foucault and beyond. But Dewey was not as successful at this form of inquiry as he was at other modalities of philosophy. Nor did he explicitly thematize it with anywhere near the degree of clarity that he thematized thought in its reconstructive mode. Dewey knew that historical problematization was im- portant. But he knew how to show how and why reconstruction was important. The diffe- rence here is critical. For it is in virtue of this difference that we can clearly locate his primary achievement as a philosopher. It is with respect to pragmatist reconstruction that Dewey made a name, is remembered as a great philosopher, and is still read today. This is why everyone knows that Dewey is a pragmatist and only the most committed Dewey scholars

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would even suggest that Dewey can be read as a genealogist. Perhaps he can be read that way. But what is the use of such a reading other than worshipping the feet of the master at which one sits? If one wants to do genealogy (or some other form of history compatible with a pragmatist historiography), one should perfectly well admit that this is consistent with every- thing that Dewey said about pragmatism, and was in fact thoroughly encouraged by Dewey himself. This being said, one need not insist that one can learn from Dewey everything that one ought to know about genealogy. Much of the same also holds for James and Rorty, though in their case I believe that one finds a more nuanced conception of diagnosis, self- critique, and irony than one does in any of the other pragmatists. Still, that which makes them pragmatists, that in virtue of which they continue to light fires for us today, has more to do with forward-facing reconstruction than it does to do with historical-facing genealogies. To achieve the latter, those of us immersed in the works of Dewey would do well to turn to Foucault for lessons about how to construct a historical problematization of the present.

Did Foucault accomplish as much in the context of ethical reconstruction as he is in- famous for in the context of problematizing current political and epistemic formations? Before I offer my answer, I beg the reader to note the formulation of the question. The question does not pose the possibility of an indictment of Foucault’s ethics so much as it asks us to compara- tively assess the relative gravity of Foucault’s achievements. Noting the formulation, then, the answer to this question, for almost every reader of Foucault outside of self-described Foucaul- tians, is clearly negative. Foucault is known to us as a great problematizer, a great skeptic, a famously suspicious thinker who helps us to be critical of ourselves. Nobody need deny that Foucault, at least in his later work, turned his attention to the possibilities of an ethical res- ponse to the enduring problematizations of modern powers and freedoms we find ourselves enmeshed in today. Nobody need deny that Foucault’s conception of an ethics of self-trans- formative freedom promises much, especially in the midst of those modern morality systems which would ask us to reduce ethics to the formulation and following of rules, codes, and principles. Yet when it comes to specifying the specific forms that the general architecture of self-transformative freedom might take today, Foucault has offered us little more than those promises. Whether in his writings about pleasure or parrhesia, most of his readers have found Foucault’s ethics wanting when put up against his impressive diagnostic problematization of modern moral selfhood. The most compelling line of defense for Foucault’s ethics from fa- miliar charges is that they leave open the possibility of an ethical self-fashioning in the present rather than prescribing to us some particular code of action. Surely this is true, so far as it goes. And yet this insight is not Foucault’s alone. Others have gone as far as Foucault, if not further, in describing how specific practices of self-transformative freedom might offer pro- mising paths for responding to some of the more intractable problematizations that condition us today. Foucault’s importance was in his mode of diagnostic thinking, not in his accom- plishments in directly helping us to reconstruct the conditions in which we find ourselves today. For the latter, Foucault needs something like American pragmatism or Frankfurt cri- tical theory or Anglo-American analytic ethics in order that we might put him to work in pro- ductive ways that are anticipated, but not yet actualized, in his work.

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Without Conclusion

For all that I have urged here, this is but an outline of an argument that must proceed in a fuller way elsewhere. Having only skated over the surface of that argument here, a simple but important reminder remains to be made. The biography of Foucault is not the history of ge- nealogy, nor is an episode in the history of pragmatism the entire biography of Dewey. In comparing Foucault and Dewey (or Foucault and any other figure in the pragmatist tradition), it behooves us to compliment the entire range of thought exhibited by the thinkers in question. The papers that follow, since the terms of their comparison are more at the level of figures than of traditions, perform this task excellently.

The papers collected here thus act, in at least one respect, as an excellent counterweight to some of my own prior efforts in a comparative analysis of pragmatism and genealogy. This is even the case where my comparative efforts have proceeded, using various figures (Fou- cault, Williams, Dewey, Rorty) as mouthpieces for the traditions that are the primary object of scrutiny. I hasten to issue the reminder that counterweights do not cancel one another out, so much as they balance a broader edifice that might otherwise topple. The bridges we are in the midst of building will surely be elaborate just insofar as the obstacles they must weave around are many. Counterweights, placed in the most unexpected and awkward parts of the overall architecture, will accordingly be necessary. Anyone partaking in such endeavors should be in possession of humility sufficient for fostering the pluralism that is not only the goal of such bridge-building but also the methodological means by which anything of this type may come to be constructed.

The essays collected here demonstrate that the kinds of work I have been discussing make for an immensely challenging labor. For that reason, but not only that, it is an im- mensely rewarding labor, both when we succeed on our own terms in reconstructive fashion and also when we find ourselves confronting those problems which afford real possibilities for learning. If there is any message that is common to genealogy and pragmatism it is exactly this: there is enormous value in educating ourselves about our selves. May we always con- tinue to learn after this fashion.4

Colin Koopman Department of Philosophy University of Oregon 1295 U of O; 1415 Kincaid St., PLC 338 Eugene, OR 97403 USA cwkoopman@gmail.com

4 For their comments on earlier versions of this introduction I would like to thank Elena Clare Cuffari, Nick Dorzweiler, Dirk Felleman, Sarin Marchetti, and Nathan Pai Schmitt.

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Puedo acompañarte a estar sola?

It's never too late to live

Nunca es tarde para vivir

On my daughter's thirtieth birthday

Mi cielo,

Vas a cumplir treinta años. TREINTA!!!  Con razón pensaste que habría sido bueno si hubiese ido. Y no sería bueno que te pasaras la vida cumpliendo mis mismos destinos en los cuales he pasado sola tantos cumpleaños y pensando que quizá, que quizá.....

Y entonces habré de hacerte una fiesta ese día, todo el día, prepararé una cena hermosa y te sentaré en la cabecera, pondré una torta con treinta velas y lo celebraré con aquellos con quienes pueda compartir el día hermoso en que me hiciste madre.

No es cualquier milagro entenderse mujer. Saberse creadora de vida y compartir el don con todas ellas. Cuando naciste fue para mi una experiencia cósmica: la realidad de la vida. Las palabras se deshacen en letras pero la vida es un tejido "desarmable" solo en esta dimensión. De donde tu vienes no existe esa posibilidad y todo se construye en vez de desarmarse, no de pedacitos, sino de una infinitud de realidades incuestionables. Lo que es, es. Es, fue y será, siempre y en todas partes. No se si es la edad la que nos permite ver con claridad como lo que llamamos vida no es más que el otoño de la otra realidad que llevamos dentro; la vida de ellos, tan allá arriba como aquí dentro, aquellos que llamamos Dioses pero quien sabe cuanto lo serán? También las células piensan que nosotros somos Dioses porque en relación a ellas, vivimos eternamente.

Naciste del amor. Fuiste concebida con plena consciencia de quererte viva. Quise estar con tu padre Jorge siempre y era la manera de quedarme con el estuviese donde estuviese. Es extraño que no podamos actualizar la realidad del amor ahora y que no podamos confirmar con la misma fuerza la inspiración que te alumbró pero allí esta intacta en el fondo de nuestras almas, nos sabemos tanto más allá que lo que somos capaces de actualizar.

Imagino mi cielo que estas en tu primavera, feliz de probar matrimonio, hombre y vida y me alegro tanto por ti que así sea. Los matrimonios son como los deseos de los cuentos de hadas y bien haríamos en pedir solo uno conscientes de que entre menos deseos tengamos más chance tenemos de realizarlos. No vayas a seguirme los pasos pidiendo veinte o treinta. No me asusta la colcha de retazos que ha sido mi vida cortada en pedacitos desde niña. También ellas tienen su encanto pero me gustaría que te dieras cuenta pronto de que la vida es tan solo una en esta oportunidad y que lo importante no es ser o hacer muchas cosas sino ser y hacerlas bien. Me he demorado demasiado tiempo en entender que lo único que importa es afirmar la vida y por vida quiero decir aquello que alienta nuestro acontecer aún más que nuestro acontecer mismo. Nos confunden las flores con su color haciéndonos creer que es en ellas que está la vida pero LA VIDA está en la oscura tierra que alienta sus raíces y la flor no es más que la cristalización de su magia creadora. Las raíces humanas nos son invisibles, el cordón umbilical que nos alienta no es de esta tierra hermosa, sino del cosmos que añoramos. Si pudiera compartir la soledad contigo te llevaría a los confines del universo y te regalaría de cumpleaños la distancia que hay entre cielo y tierra para que nunca te dejarás asustar por el infierno. No sabes mi amor querida lo pequeño que es el infierno y lo grande que es el cielo. El infierno nos lo inventamos nosotros de pura holgazanería. Es extraño cuanto infierno somos capaces de crear aquellos a quienes la vida nos dio tiempo para holgazanear. Pero no me dejes confundirte. No es la alegría de no ser o hacer nada lo que llamo holgazanear sino el despilfarro de hacer o hacerse daño, cuando no se sabe que cada acto de nuestra vida es toda ella, que a cada instante tenemos la oportunidad de realizarnos plenamente, dejándolo todo en libertad.

Algún día llegaremos a entender las pocas leyes que nos gobiernan y nos asombraremos sobretodo de que sean tan pocas y tan simples. Si de algo te sirve, te ofrezco esta:

Cuando mires, mira hacia arriba. Afirma la vida en la tierra. Observa los opuestos en todas las cosas y una vez que hayas detectado lo que no es, afirma lo que es: la vida. No te dejes confundir por la ley de los opuestos. Nosotros mismos somos el punto de fuga que los une.

Recuerdo el "Inventario de los treinta" que hice cuando los cumplí como si fuera ayer. Vivíamos en la 98 con tu padre Erwin y ya estábamos por separarnos. Había encontrado los libros del Sistema y quería hacer un inventario para adivinar algo sobre quien era. Algún día quizá te interese leerlo y ahora que lo pienso y te pienso en tus treinta me doy cuenta que ya haz caminado suficiente sobre la tierra para darte una idea de ella. Quiero verte cumplir 52 como yo y para entonces si vivo aún, tendré 74. Ay mi cielo, los próximos veinte años serán mis mas plenos. No corras que no hay afán pero ten la certeza de que lo que nos sobra en vitalidad a los treinta años, nos lo ganamos en profundidad a los cincuenta.

Pienso en tu abuela que murió a los treinta y uno y si no fuera porque ha vivido lo que le tocaba vivir de otra manera, me daría lástima pensar que no logró probar los múltiples recovecos del tiempo que yo tanto disfruto ahora. Que tal que yo hubiese huido con éxito? No creas mi cielo que el tiempo o el espacio no son lo suficientemente grandes como para no probar cada oportunidad que ofrecen. No es el cuerpo mismo una momificación del espacio-tiempo? Y lo que llamamos vida, este acontecer cotidiano de limitaciones irreales, la momificación de la eternidad en espacio-tiempo? Dice Steiner que los Egipcios momificaban a la gente para que el alma se acostumbrara al cuerpo pero creo que pronto optaremos por disolvernos aún en vida, permitiendo que la energía fluya libremente por la tierra, sin que nuestros cuerpos interrumpan la corriente. 

En este cotidiano que pretendo asumir como un altar, te envió flores para tu cumpleaños. También aceptaré que me lleves flores cuando muera porque las flores, como emulación de la magia creadora, evocan vida. Pondré treinta velas en la torta y te cantaré desde mis adentros el canto dentro del cantar. Soplaré vida al viento para que no haya necesidad de palabras y te llegue el aliento como el mismo Dios en el primer día de la creación. Te susurraré al oído: Que Vivas!

Te daré besos en las sienes como, cuando recién nacida, dormías pequeña entre mis brazos. Besos cortos, besos suaves en una piel transparente aún de cosmos. 

Cielo mío, paraíso, remanso de río, venadito, ¿que haríamos sin la posibilidad de vivir esto? La vida es el pequeño teatro en el cual los hombres aprendemos a ser padres, madres e hijos, como Pinochos juguetones que copiamos a seres supra-cósmicos y de vez en cuando ocurre algo que nos permite verlos detrás del telón, atentos a nuestro juego. Todos los seres antes de nosotros están tratando de darnos la mano para que nosotros ofrezcamos la nuestra cuando lleguen los que vienen. Es "Vida" lo que mueve el universo y no hay vida sin amor. Vivimos en un mar supra-cósmico de Consciencia, en un cielo insondable de sabiduría, en un Océano de Amor. No tengas miedo de la inmensidad de la vida y nuestra aparente pequeñez, cielo mío, El Océano late en nuestro interior furiosamente bello.

Brindo por ti y tu vida. Brindo por nosotros. Brindo por todo lo que ha sido y será. Brindo por tu marido y tu prole.

Estoy contigo. Siempre estaremos juntas.

Mamá

Assange and Amy Goodman in London

This is by far the most significant speech of our times. A speech on freedom of speech and its necessity in our world. Thank you Julian for inspiring our world to move beyond its present level of consciousness.



http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/7/5/watch_full_video_of_wikileaks_julian_assange_philosopher_slavoj_iek_with_amy_goodman

Today

In a matter of days life has turned around completely and I am again out in the world with people. It is such a pleasure! To connect to people and talk, laugh, make jokes and make fun of our selves as if nothing had ever happened and I had not been to hell and back.

I do somewhat miss the aloneness of the past two years that enabled me to study guitar, read and write all I wanted and needed to. I'll have to sort out the priorities so that that too is possible as it comes but the priority today is around the old people that need company. There is nothing more precious than "being" with others.

For those of you who come regularly, welcome. Should you ever wish to share your thoughts it would be a pleasure for me. Dialogue is the healer of societies, the constructor of communities. In the meantime, have a great day!