Sunday, February 19, 2006

 

Who am I?

What do I know of what I will be, me which do not know which I am? To be which I think? I think of being so much of things! But there is such an amount of of it which thinks of being the same thing that they cannot be also numerous! A genius? In this moment Hundred thousand brains in dream, like me, for geniuses, And the history will perhaps not retain only one of them; So many conquests to come will produce only of the manure. Not, I do not believe in me. In all asylums there are patients made insane by such certainty! How would I be surer, how would be I less sure, me which do not have certainty? Not, not even in me... In how much attics and not-attics world There at this hour of genius-for-them-same is not which dreams? How many high, noble and lucid aspirations Yes, really high, noble and lucid But perhaps realizable How much will never see the light of the true sun and will find the least audience? The world is with that which is born to conquer it And not with that which dreams to be able to conquer it, even if it is right. I dreamed more than Napoleon did not conquer. I tightened on my hypothetical heart more humanities than Christ. I conceived in secrecy of philosophies that no Kant wrote. But I am, and will perhaps always remain, that of the attic. That however I do not live; I will be always that which had not been born for that; I will be always that which had provisions; I will be always that which waited until one opened to him the door with the foot of a wall without door, Who sang the song of infinite in a hen house, That which heard the voice of God at the bottom of a stopped puit. To believe in me? Not, I do not believe in nothing. That nature pours on my burning head Its sun, its rain, the wind which me décoiffe As for the remainder, that it comes, which it comes if it must come or that it does not come. Cardiac slaves of stars, We conquer the world before leaving the bed; But we wake up, it is opaque, We rise, it is foreign, We leave on our premises, it is the whole ground, More the solar system, more the Milky Way, more the Indefinite one.

 

Magical Thinking

Maybe MoveOn were on to something. In the course of putting together a syllabus for the course we're teaching, which, incidentally, begins in about 60 hours, we came across an essay from the Journal of Popular Culture called Hitler and the Occult: The Magical Thinking of Adolf Hitler (registration req'd). The author, Raymond Sickinger, argues that Hitler acted under what he calls "Magical Thinking," which is to say, he believed his instincts and intuition were "blessed," and therefore that his will must be done. We've highlighted a few quotes; see if they resonate, especially in the context of GWB's rhetoric of 'decisiveness.' We're willing to be wrong about this, but that's why comments are there."I am convinced of the strength of my brain and my resolution." -Hitler [We admit we can't recall GWB expressing trust in his mental capacities.]"Hitler's 'apparent belief in his own divine gift lends him and arrogant air of certainty which had a paralysing effect upon the suggestible minds of the Germans.'""Hitler learned not to question his way of thinking, but rather to blame those who were unfaithful to following it precisely...Hitler thought that he could lead the German people into the future, if only they would listen to and obey him."Sadly, that last quote embodies the gist of the speech Bush delivered 9/20/01, upon examination.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

 

Bigger Than Me

He is Bigger Than me and he is more humble than I

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