Today is the day.

Today is the day. Golden shimmer on ahead. Growing restless right now. One hour and thirty minutes until my train. From there on towards happiness.

A new life.

I've found happiness at last. Something that I knew would come. The year is drawing to an end and I can only reflect back on my time at the university as delirious. I've somehow been myself more than I have been before, I've been alone and yet I've shared. My thinking is on levels that it certainly was not before, and I've been appreciated for what I know. The history, the life, the studies.. it all comes together. I'm a force now, somehow. I'm myself and I've found myself. It's sad in some ways, realizing my own weaknesses and shortcomings in ways that I never did before. There's so much to do, but I am invigorated by the sheer greatness of the people around me. In my happiness, perhaps I can manage to be a little good.

And to top it all off.. in this beautiful city, with all of it's hopes for the future, all of it's cafés and books, professors and ideas, with all the plains of Skåne and all of the movement she is coming. And I haven't felt this touched by that thought in so long. I'm falling in love again. I just want her here, now. And never to leave again.

My wine comes with the coolest water. And that is when it is the best. This winter is like nothing else, none of the depression or destruction. Merely brightness in it's perfect chill. I'm so happy.

Short Review of Popper's Open Society and It's Enemies.

Well, the title is pretty clear on what this is, but anyway, it's going to be fun. A quick little intellectual journey anyway, let's see where it takes us.

First of all, some background facts. The book "The Open Society and It's Enemies" was written by the Austrian philosopher Karl Popper, and is now a classic in the analytical school's history of political philosophy, it's also a book that's been widely read by many others, above all statesmen of different kinds. It was first written during the second World War, and was instrumental in establishing a lot of the Western critique towards the Soviet block. It's divided into two parts, the first details Plato, then continues to Hegel and Marx.

Popper isn't exactly pulling punches, and that is sort of liberating in a way, even though it's pretty obvious that he is out to demolish anything totalitarian. Plato is treated like he is a naughty schoolboy who has fallen away from the saint of philosophy, Socrates and become a grumpy old dictator responsible for creating a long, long history of fascist intellectuals and muddling academic life to unrecognizable levels. Hegel is treated with the most disdain, and that is perhaps the best part of the book. His quotes are very illuminating as is his background facts, but he could have stopped somewhere at "Hegel is bad, a bad influence and a terribly bad philosopher who does a lot of damage" and not continue to state what a lousy person he was, how bad he is at writing or how terrible his socks smelled every morning. The Marx part is interesting and that's really why I read it. Lately I've gotten more and more interested in marxism (heh, as you might notice from some of the other posts :P) and I felt that I needed an antidote. I think Popper hits home here, too. He describes Hegel's influence on Marx, and makes note of the many terribly bad parts about Marxism.

They're of course the lack of free will or that your conscience has any meaning, ie, the dialectic of history, what Popper calls (and condems) as historicism. That there is some purpose to history, which, it of course isn't. History has been so terribly mangled as a subject, kings and war isn't what it's about and we shouldn't deceive ourselves into thinking that political repression is what we shouldn't only read about in history, but somehow worship. Brutus was more of a hero than Caesar. Julius Gaius Caesar murdered the Republic, created a totalitarian state and in his conquests he killed thousands upon thousands. Yet, Brutus has always been that enigmatic traitor, the pinnacle of everything bad. In the end, I wonder, perhaps we need a Brutus.

Popper goes on to underline the importance of our own actions, our own conscience. Again and again he upholds Marx love of freedom and his great amount of moral feeling for the oppressed masses, but also holds up what time he lived in to explain some of his ideas. And I can say that it is mostly correct here, too. It is all too easy to justify murder, war and oppression if you're trying to focus on one race, one nation or one class. And philosophers have unfortunately not been very helpful here at all. In fact, Popper goes so far as to blame much of the Nazi scourge and the Stalinists in the Soviet Union on Hegel. And he's right, I think. Romanticism has no place in philosophy. We need rational thinkers who are willing to debate rationally, and who can accept that they might be wrong.

It's a very good book (or set of books) really. It's a good way to both understand some of the totalitarian forces that exist, as well as the dangers of relativism or focus on one specific group above everything else. And it shows where the need is for change in, for one thing, the left. Poppers idea is that we should all embrace the scientific method, that we should be humanists with a respect for others and with a knowledge that we could all be very wrong. But that there really is something along the lines of truth, and that there really is such a thing as change for the better.

Yet... Popper makes a few mistakes here and there, of course. One of them is that he goes out a bit too strongly as I've said above. What was the need for totally assaulting Hegel in that fashion? In an afterword added on later he claims that it was a joke that most of his readers would get, but it felt more like an old man's angry rantings. The Plato part also feels very psychologically affected, it seems like Popper is disappointed in Plato and has a very strange view of what happened. On one hand there is the humanist, humble philosopher Socrates, and on the other is his evil, totalitarian student who takes over after him and twists everything he said. That's a really strange view, considering our lack of knowledge about the Platonic dialogues (which are false, which are Platonic and which are more Socratic, we have good guesses but not anything else). There's also a strange view of Socrates among philosophers, he is considered some sort of saint. But in reality, we know very little about him. There's nothing that says that he was such a great guy as he is upheld by philosophers and professors of the ancient world. I'm not disputing his earnest searching for truth, or the humbleness or anything else, but the dialogues were written for an audience. They were of course changed, Socrates played a -role- in them. I have trouble realizing why a group of people so hell-bent on tearing things down as philosophers haven't attacked this prejudice better.
Plato, also, might not be so malicious as Popper seems to say. The Republic is authoritarian, yes, but it also has some very progressive ideas. Mostly the feminist thoughts, as well as the emphasis on wisdom in government (there are stories about how politicians who have never been to sea were elected to command Greek fleets because of their political and rhetorical sway). Again, I can agree in general but not entirely.

He also makes some very strange analysis, such as saying that capitalism is dead because we no longer have the kind of laissez-faire bloodsucking capitalism that we had in the 19th century. He makes the claim that what the socialists wanted is done. He also makes an odd claim that overarching political effects over a society is not wanted. He makes that claim based on some idea that you should not go into individuals lives. I can't agree to those two for these reasons.

1) Capitalism is very much alive, and it's effects can be viewed through a very Marxist lens still. However, many things have changed since the German boar's days, and he would gladly admit that. Had Marx been alive today he would have sat down and analyzed the Internet, global capitalism, the UN and other similar institutions. We see the same old conflicts between capitalism and people/states/communities as before, it's evident in how we buy the raw material from the Third World cheaply, refine it in the First World and then sell it either here or back to them. It's evident in the usage of cheap, foreign labour in the southwest of the US, in the border between old East Bloc Europe and Western Europe and it's evident in how capitalist powers are stretching into India and even China. The idea that capitalism would be dead is absurd to me, it's evident wherever you go and whoever you talk to. The idea of our present monetary system is ingrained in peoples heads.

2) Popper does say that the only time this happens is when the minister of finance presents his budget. But... I cannot accept that it you cannot make overarching changes and attempts to change from a governmental level. Governments are excellent tools for social progress, whether it be welfare systems (which he don't seem to count, as he cherishes them time and time again) or if they are the kind of campaigns that sponsor for example feminism. We find the exact same thing in anti-violence, anti-segregation policies and much more. Perhaps he just doesn't like the idea of governments getting the power to affect ordinary people in such an overarching way, but I think he misses his own points. If we have an open society (ie, a fully democratic, critical and humane society) then we would see what a government was doing and be able to protest if they were to take bad actions against it's inhabitants. Without that power, however, you lose a valuable tool for social progress.

I also think he often missed the fact that the German Idealists of the 19th century weren't of his branch of philosophy. Now, I don't like the continental school of philosophy much, but it is different and it uses a different vocabulary. Marx was part of it, so was Hegel. You have to understand the language that someone is using if you're trying to figure out what they're saying. When Popper exclaims that he just doesn't understand I think he just made the mistake of not being good enough at realizing the structure and vocabulary of the continental school. But with that said, it's a very good book. It emphasis humanism, anti-historicism, rationality, the need for change, our own falliability and the horrors of any totalitarian regime, no matter what it's name or ideology is.

I wish I could say with the French people: "Regardé, la foil de anglosaxons!" (or however it would look if you were better at French than I). But I have lost my faith in that. I've lost my faith in believing that we're so much better. The French government, and with the support of it's people and media have shown us who they still are. The remnants of a pathetic nation of imperialists, cowering before a new age. Afraid that their culture and language will be lost. I wish I could easily lash out at the leaders of the three, great anglosaxon nations. Blair, Bush and Howard - not only war criminals and racists, but also dangerous, dangerous murderers. Stalin was right when he said that one murder is a tragedy, a million is a statistics. It's all blurred together so much now. Perhaps Sarkozy, Chirac or de Villepin are actually glancing over at this awesome trio, and perhaps they realize that their actions would be much the same if they were in their position. For all this talk about unity, independence and the future I wonder if the European Union will just be the same thing. If we, too, will spend our times making oh-so-sincere speeches when our enemies bleed. But enemies only exist on a metapolitical scale, they do not exist between one people and another in that way. It exists interpersonally, and it exists between governments, between groups and between organizations. But it cannot ever exist in the form of ten thousand humans against ten thousand humans, who have never seen each others faces.

"As falls the dew on quenchless sands, blood only falls on ambitions hands." Our modern society needs it's physician, and the physician needs to be all of us. In the end, there is no prophet, no organization and no newspaper that can ever take care of the problems we have today. The problem is the media, the world order, the imperial ambitions of so many nations (whether they can realize them or not), dogmatists of all stripes, anti-humanitarians and many others. Perhaps in the end, all of us. We get the government that we deserve, and that is half true.

I'd write more, but my energy fails me. It's a great deal of disappointment, a whole lot of anger, a great batch of fierceness today. A belief that we must all somehow become Kantians in one respect. That what we have today in the world is just not enough at all. That formal freedom is fucking useless, that we could chuck it on the shitheap together with laissez-faire economics. That we could live without the Ayatollah, without Reagan, without Thatcher, that we would do just fine if none of those ever came up. Stalin, gang of four, Sharon. I'm so sick of it. I'm even more sick of the fucking sycophants who wander around, shouting "freedom, freedom!" and "national sovereignity!"

Useful and not.

Half of the time I get tired of the people around me. Part of it is antisocial tendencies that are just part of me, and part of it is just how many meaningless things people go on and on about. I am sure that what is going on in their minds isn't as meaningless as the things they are talking about. But still, I get so absolutely tired of it. I feel fulfilled when I am working with the objective world, discovering what is lying around me (because we -are- discovering, we are -not- creating in the regular sense of the word). That is what is exciting, that is what is important. Science, philosophy, art, culture. It's really what matters. I don't mind talking about what is now and here, or goofing out. But after I exhausted that, I feel I must leave it. I must leave it and go and work with something that truly matters.

Don't get me wrong, I love humanity. But sometimes the individuals make me very, very tired. And I feel like they should be more than they are. I can't bear it when I feel so entirely distant from people around me. Which happens at times. But I guess it is c'est la vie. I am at least glad to know so many extraordinary people.