sweet effay

Given recent comments here and over at K-Punk, I have finally been goaded into responding to slinging together a few more thoughts on Cold Rationalism. Before that, though, I would just like to say that whilst I disagree profoundly with Mark (I probably wouldn’t bother reading K-Punk otherwise), I do not see any mileage in calling him a neurotic twat or whatever. Furthermore, I understand what he means by ‘punk’ and can recognize polemic when I see it.

Quotations by Mark are from this article.

One of the main points I agree with Mark about is the desirability for ‘hacking outside the human OS’ (I would prefer to say overcoming the molar boundaries of the broadly Kantian framework which the majority inhabit). However, I’m certain that we disagree on the techniques involved for doing this; not least because I’m willing to try reducing reason into a cowering heap and seeing what happens when something else takes over (just don’t do this too often kids). I would also argue that it is impossible to permanently exist satisfactorily outside the boundaries, particularly within society (consider Artaud). I am not clear about Mark’s position on this, but I get the impression that he sees it as desirable to somehow leave the human OS altogether.

Of course, one can (and probably should) apply reason to these events after the fact, but they cannot be accessed purely via reason. This is why I am not a Rationalist.

Are these processes machinic as Mark claims? Very probably, but they are outside of pure reason; even the Spinozist definition of expanded reason which Mark employs (the imagination is not a necessary source of error, as Spinoza would have it; it can also be a source of creation). We should note that psychoanalysis was founded and developed upon the study of individuals who either were, or were labelled as, irrational. Some aspects of psychoanalysis are indeed based upon theories which could be labelled machinic or fluid mechanics, but we should not forget that its major claim is the ability to heal the ‘sick’ and reintegrate them into ‘civilized’ human society. Psychoanalysis is based upon an anthropocentric and, for the most part, humanist model of the psyche (humanism to be understood as the view that humans are superior to other forms of life, possessing a uniquely instrumental relation to the world; a view often bound up with a teleological movement of human perfectibility). This is most apparent in its relationship to myth.

Mark is correct when he says that psychoanalysis ‘shows that, yes, there is something unique about human beings, but this uniqueness is above all the source of specifically human miseries’. He just neglects to mention that it also demonstrates the existence of specifically human joys.

Anyhow, the crux of my disagreement lies here:

The great Cold Rationalist lesson is that everything in the so-called personal is in fact the product of impersonal processes of cause and effect which, in principle if not in fact, could be delineated very precisely. And this act of delineation, this stepping outside the character armour that we have confused with ourselves, is what freedom is. [my emphasis]

What this is saying is that we ought to be able to delineate everything in terms of impersonal processes of cause and effect, but we cannot do so yet. This is either a statement of failure, in which case the rational thing to do would be to look outside the necessitated causal chains of Spinoza; or a strongly teleological claim for the perfectibility of science in general (not just neuroscience in particular) which is akin to an act of divination. Should such huge leaps in science be made, all well and good, but in the meantime, the evidence is simply not there to legitimize such a reductive worldview. Speaking personally [sic], I’m happy to let the physicists work on their own Philosopher’s Stone of the Grand Unified Theory of Science, and investigate other approaches in the meantime.

Of course, if I’m wrong, I’ll be happy to admit my error and convert to Rationalism (Cold or otherwise) on the very day that everything in the world can be practically demonstrated to proceed from necessitated causal chains, i.e. the day on which all the machines can be programmatically run. I’ll also be ready to concede that philosophy and psychoanalysis are completely useless.

However, to end on one last point, which I barely understand but have always been impressed by when people who do understand it have attempted to demonstrate it to me: Does not Gödel demonstrate that any formal system cannot contain the solution to every formula within it, but that one must always have recourse to a theory outside the system in order to prove such a formula? If this is the case, the chances of reducing the entire world to formulae via a Grand Unified Theory look rather slim. I don’t know enough about Gödel’s Theorem to say what its implications are for Rationalism in general.

Well, it’s all over, but the effects of ridiculous amounts of eating and drinking, combined with too much television and sleep deprivation brought on by the Little effay’s hacking cough are still having their effects.

Last night I dreamt that The Little House on the Flatlands was under threat of attack by al-Qaida. As a precaution, the guards from Kinnear’s house in Get Carter were positioned in the surrounding trees. Unhappily, my distrust in them proved to be correct when they started shooting at me. Whilst I was spraying them with bullets from my trusty machine pistol, al-Qaida launched a double-pronged attack on the house in a great big yellow tank, and a flatter armoured vehicle, strangely reminiscent of the Millennium Falcon, which burrowed up through the foundations. Running alongside these vehicles were the evil terrorists’ foot soldiers who, interestingly enough, turned out to be heavily armed Clangers. Flight was the only option, so I set off as fast as possible with the Clangers hot on my trail. We ended up racing through the centre of Salford, which had altered out of all recognition; in fact I recognised it as Trollope’s Barchester. Nevertheless, I could tell it was Salford as The Fall’s ‘Bingo-Master’s Break-Out!’ was booming out from all sides.

Unhappily, just as the tension was really mounting, I was awoken by yet more coughing and so will never know whether I would have had to put a bullet through Tiny Clanger’s brain; thereby causing myself years of unconscious trauma.

Hoorah the festive season is upon us again! Christmas is a very special time in the Little House on the Flatlands because not only will there be lots of Lego, but also it is the only time of year when I am sanctioned to drink martinis.

I’m keen on gin at the best of times, but I have an unhealthy passion for martinis. I used to get very excited about the correct manufacture of them but over the years have come to realize that all that bollocks about bruising the alcohol, etc. is just that - bollocks. Consequently, I have now perfected the art of martini manufacture, and it goes like this:

Buy the largest bottle of the most expensive gin that your wife will let you get away with and half-fill a large wine glass. Add a trickle of dry Martini and swirl the mixture around the glass in a vague manner. Drink contents, then repeat process until either you are summoned to eat something (switch to red wine), the gin runs out (switch to wife’s rum), or you fall unconscious, pouring contents of the glass over yourself. Olives are optional, but only in a bowl by the side of your glass; never, ever, put them in the drink.

As I said this is the only time of year I’m allowed to do this. It is accompanied every year by dire warnings as to what will happen if I ‘misbehave’. Misbehaviour is defined as getting lary with the in-laws (this has never happened, but my protests of innocence are of no avail) or vomiting, particularly in the car.

Being a mature adult and responsible parent, I am actually very good over the festive season these days. However Mrs effay refuses to forget the crimes of my youth, such as visiting her parents for Christmas; drinking a bottle of Black Bush on the journey from London to Norwich; and falling out of the car upon arrival. There was also the time when I misjudged the acid that I had taken on Christmas Eve, and found myself still completely out of it the next day. I proceeded to drink myself into delirium on vodka so that my family would have a reason for my odd behaviour.

Anyway, Happy Christmas to y’all. I hope you get what you want and not what you deserve.

We have been away visiting relatives, as you do this time of year when you’re as Oedipalized as wot the effay Tactical Nuclear Unit is. We got back yesterday, and today I had the final cast removed from my arm. Look how fast I’m typing this! Well, okay you can’t, but you get the general idea.

Lots of interesting stuff seems to have been going on: When not trying to give himself liver failure, Merrick has penned this great piece on why there are more important things to worry about than David Blunkett. Of course he’s right, but I’m still glad to see The Man with No Memory getting gip. Not quite so glad to discover that Ruth Kelly, the new Education Secretary, is allegedly a member of Opus Dei, then I remember that the rest of the Cabinet and the Shadow Cabinet are allegedly middle grade Illuminati, and I start to think perhaps she will add some much needed balance. That is, of course, unless the Vatican are Illuminati puppets as well...

Psychbloke has been busy with a very amusing ad hominem attack on Freud which is well worth checking out. Of course, as Mark K-P has taught us, ad hominem attacks count for nothing. Is this why he is supplying so much personal information for people to use against him? It’s all very confusing.

...with news of Blunkett's resignation. Only this morning I was cursing the Home Office's latest knee-jerk proclamation on knives, and this evening Arrogant Dave has walked the plank. All those chickens didn't die in vain then.

Out of all the cabinet members, I have always had a special dislike of David Blunkett. He was a bastard in education and there were cheers round here when he moved on to the Home Office. We had not appreciated that any Labour MP could be a worse Home Secretary than Jack Straw, but we soon learned.

What I've always most loathed about Blunkett is his reputation as the hard man of British politics when clearly he is nothing of the sort. Just about every piece of legislation he's put through has been a fudged mess. Whether it's the continuing immigration fiasco, reclassifying cannabis, or ID cards, everything Blunkett has done has been generally condemned by both sides on the issues, whilst he has heralded it as a common sense response which could only have been pushed through by a plain talking honest man of integrity like himself.

Will Charles Clarke be any better? We'll have to wait and see, but he hasn't been quite as bad an Education Secretary as Blunkett was.

In other news: I discovered today that I can rent DVDs via Amazon. This is particularly good news as I spend a lot of time complaining that the local shop only stocks mainststream pap and not much of that either. Now I will be able to watch all those sophisticated foreign art films that you London intellectuals watch and join in educated discusions about them. Well, I would if I hadn't filled my rental list with the most trashy, exploitative films I could find. First up, Vampire Killer Barbys - Hoorah!

Mark K-P, the Metatron of Uttunul, is on top form at the minute expounding cold rationalism to the world in general, and Simon Reynolds in particular, in the wake of attending a lecture by Carlo Ginzburg which (he thinks) confirmed his suspicions of Bataille. He starts off at Hyperstition, here and here, then inexplicably legs it to his own blog to continue the fight. If it all seems a bit too heavy, you can get some comic relief from the trolls in the comment boxes. You can also watch me defend part of my claim that the entirety of Western intellectual life after 1928 owes its existence the work of Georges Bataille.

Anyhow, in case anybody out there is under the impression that I am a rationalist of some description (including a ‘Pagan Rationalist’ as some would have it), consider the following from Mark himself:

It's not as if people just put on music for no reason; they don't just get up and put on any record in an aleatory way regardless of the effect it has them. That would be 'irrational'.

I will now outline exactly how records are put on in the Little House on the Flatlands:

Preliminary Remarks
1. Storage – Vinyl and CDs are racked separately but ordered in the same way. Artists are arranged alphabetically with their releases in chronological order. Albums with multiple artists on are alphabetically racked with reference to their title. Live albums are racked according to date of concert rather than date of release. Compilations are racked according to the date of recording of the latest track therein rather than the date of release. Cassettes are currently boxed up and play no part in what follows.
2. Equipment – Record deck (slot 0) and multiplayer CD which carries five CDs (slots 1-5).

Loading Procedure
Starting at the beginning of the alphabet, play one vinyl album. Load CD player as follows: Slots 1 & 2 to contain newly acquired CD’s which have not yet been played twice in slots 1 or 2. These may be ascertained by checking list of said CDs. Unplayed CDs have a star next to them. CDs may be chosen from list but, if available, at least one must be a starred CD. Cross off CD or star as appropriate. Should list be exhausted, these slots may be filled with any item one chooses - This has never happened.
Slots 3 to 5 to contain CDs selected from racks in alphabetical order, but in such a way that each is a different artist, e.g. Aa1, Ab1, Ac1 NOT Aa1, Aa2, Aa3.

Play CDs

Reloading procedure.
CDs replaced in racks, and chronologically next album by same artist (if there is one) pulled forward in rack to mark place. Loading proceeds as before with slots 3-5 moving along the aforementioned alphabetical progression. Slot 0 is loaded strictly alphabetically, i.e. Aa1, Aa2, Aa3 NOT Aa1, Ab1, Ac1.
When this has been repeated so often that the end of the racks is reached (currently about ten weeks, but diminishing with each circuit, no matter how quickly I buy up stuff). Start again with next chronological album by each artist, handily identified by being pulled slightly forward in rack.
Repeat until record collection exhausted, then begin again.

Exceptions
In the case of multiple CD albums overrunning slot 5, hold back until the next load and fill vacancies with CDs from list of albums which have not yet been played twice in slots 1 or 2. Multiple CD or vinyl compilations can, and should, be split.
Should an album be acquired which is chronologically earlier than the point at which we are in the rack, start replaying that artist’s albums chronologically from the new album.

I rest my case

Yep, it’s that time again. More x-rays and it looks like my arm really might be joining up – Hoorah! As a reward for my bones doing what they are supposed to, I have a new cast: A cheeky little off the elbow number. I can now type with two fingers on each hand. I hope to be able to actually straighten my arm in a couple of days.

Of course what you’re all really wondering is what colour I have chosen this time. In a salute to the freedom loving people of the Ukraine, I have gone for orange. Either that or I got an orange cast because the Little effay wanted me to; you choose whichever makes me look cooler.

Speaking of children, check out K-Punk on the ethics of breeding. Is it just me, or is Mark turning into one of those miserable sods who contribute to the letters page on Teletext ;)

I was trying to avoid this, but kek-w on the joys of Hawkwind forces me to add my own two cents:

1972: I’m a small boy watching ‘Silver Machine’ on Top of the Pops; I’m not that impressed, but the grainy accompanying film of bizarre people is another matter. In the flat downstairs from us lives a band: It’s Arthur Brown and Kingdom Come. We kids live in mortal fear of his manager who used to yell at us for being noisy in the mornings; Arthur is a nice guy though. One afternoon he invites us in and plays the new Kingdom Come album and In Search of Space. I vividly remember being completely unable to wrap my head round the latter.

1975: My big sister returns from university for the summer holidays. She has a new boyfriend and is looking after his record collection. I fall upon it immediately. It contains In Search of Space and Doremi Fasolatido. I decide to give Hawkwind another try and am immediately blown away. I spend the summer obsessing over the covers and 'The Hawkwind Log' while playing the albums endlessly.

It’s interesting that kek-w should mention Hawkwind and motorik together because, at this point, I thought Hawkwind were in fact German. There were three reasons for this:
1. The only other music I had ever heard with such a heavy use of electronics was all German.
2. I was also listening to Neu, courtesy of my sister’s boyfriend and Dave Brock had written the sleevenotes on the back of their first album.
3. Members of Hawkwind seemed to have and aversion to putting ‘c’s’ in their Christian names (Dikmik, Nik Turner) and I thought this must have something to do with German spelling.

1977: I’m listening to Hawkwind all the time, but only the first three albums. The only other stuff I’ve heard is from the new album: The eponymous ‘Quark Strangeness and Charm’ on Marc Bolan’s TV programme and ‘Spirit of the Age’ on the radio. Because I haven’t heard all the later rockier stuff, I still think that they’re German. On 25 September we go to see them in Croydon. I’ve got a fair idea what to expect because I’ve seen two German bands on the TV: Kraftwerk, who stand around behind synthesisers, and Tangerine Dream who sit around behind synthesisers drinking from plastic cups. The lights dim, a violin wails, and a maniac hurls himself onto the stage dressed in some sort of black robes and waving a couple of scimitars.

It takes me a couple of minutes to realize that this is not, in fact, a second support band, by which time Robert Calvert is waving the swords about four inches above the heads of the audience. I assume that they’re theatrical props until he throws them down at the end of ‘Hassan I Sahba’ and one sticks in the stage (later to be retrieved to slash up a Stars & Stripes during ‘Uncle Sam’s on Mars’). The noise is phenomenal, the lights are brain warping, and Calvert is insane (literally, although I did not realize it at the time). It’s the best gig I’ve ever seen. I saw most of the major punk bands about the same time, but nothing was a patch on this. Later I learn that they were actually much better live between ’72 and ’74; this knowledge will haunt me until the end of my days.

In the next nine years I see them thirty times whilst their recorded output gets worse and worse. Some of the gigs were amazing and some were distinctly mediocre, but the mere possibility that they might be on form keeps me going. I’m not really sure why I stopped. They’re touring at the minute. I keep thinking about going, Arthur Brown actually guests with them now, but I’m always worried that it will be a disappointment. There’s also that look in Mrs effay’s eyes whenever I suggest it...

Coming soon (if you’re unlucky): I discover Space Ritual, the greatest album ever made.

Apropos of Infinite Thought's comment on the discipline of musicians, I thought I'd share this snippet from my current reading:

Lemmy and Dikmik made extensive preparations for the gig. They stayed up for the three days leading up to it taking drugs: Dexedrine, Mandrax, acid, mescaline, more Mandrax and more speed. At the Roundhouse, for good measure, they accepted cocaine, eight Black Bombers each, and some more acid. "That wasn't particularly over the top," says Lemmy (Carol Clerk, The Saga of Hawkwind).

I hope that everybody is enjoying our beloved Home Secretary’s present discomfiture as much as I am. I’m currently offering sacrifices up to every deity I think might be of any use to ensure that things go badly for Blunkett. Obviously it would be preferable to see him drummed out of office for his programmatic erosion of civil liberties, and general stupidity (a functional biometric database in a country that can’t even come up with a standardized national police computer system – Yeah, right), but if it takes the fallout from an affair with a right wing publisher to do the trick, we should still be content. It’s like The Untouchables when Eliot Ness realizes that he’ll never get Capone for being a murdering bastard, but at least he can get a result over tax evasion.

Will there be a result here? I doubt it. However I’m pinning my hopes on the possibility that Blunkett is so obsessed with his ex-mistress and the paternity of her children that he’ll lose the plot so badly that Tony will have to ‘let him go’. Picture the scene: Desperate Dave clinging to the wall of the Palace of Westminster dressed in a Daredevil costume and waving a ‘Fathers for Justice’ banner. You’d enjoy that wouldn’t you? Me too, so it’s back to the altar with another chicken.