tisdag 27 januari 2015

Stenfiskaren (Brecht)













Den store fiskaren har åter visat sig. Han sitter i sin
murkna båt och fiskar, när den första lyktan
flammar upp på morgonen och den sista slocknar på kvällen.

Byborna sitter på sluttningens grus och tittar flinande
på. Han letar efter sill, men han drar bara upp stenar.

Alla skrattar. Männen slår sig på låren, kvinnorna
håller sig för magen, barnen hoppar högt
av skratt.

När den store fiskaren drar upp sitt sköra nät och
hittar stenarna, döljer han dem inte utan sträcker ut
sin starka bruna arm, griper stenen, lyfter upp den
och visar den för de olyckliga.

- Bertolt Brecht

fredag 23 januari 2015

The fragile Absolute

I sin senaste bok "Event" diskuterar Zizek Platon och hans tanke om idévärlden som grunden för vår flyktiga och skenbara värld, men vänder på begreppen och menar att det snarare är det flyktiga som konstituerar vår värld: 

"This is why – if we return for the last time to love - love has nothing whatsoever to do with an escape into an idealized Romantic universe in which all concrete social differences magically disappear. To refer to Kierkegaard again, 'love believes everything – and yet is never to be deceived' – in contrast to the mistrust which believes nothing and is nevertheless thoroughly deceived. The person who mistrusts others is, paradoxically, in his very cynical disbelief, the victim of the most radical self-deception: as Lacan would have put it, les non-dupes errent – the cynic misses the actuality of the appearance itself, however fleeting, fragile and elusive it is, while the true believer believes appearances, in the magic dimension that 'shines through' an appearance: he sees Goodness in the other where the other himself is not aware of it. Appearance and actuality are here no longer opposed: precisely in trusting appearances, a loving person sees the other the way she effectively is, and loves her for her very foibles, not despite them.

With regard to this point the Oriental notion of the Absolute Void-Substance-Ground beneath the fragile, deceptive appearances that constitute our reality is to be opposed to the notion that it is the ordinary reality that is hard, inert and there, and it is the Absolute that is thorouhly fragile and fleeting. That is to say, what is the Absolute? Something that appears to us in fleeting experiences, say, through the gentle smile of a beautiful person, or even through the warm, caring smile of a person who otherwise may seem ugly and rude – in such miraculuos, but extremely fragile moments, another dimension transpires through our reality. As such, the Absolute is easily corroded; it all too easily slips through our fingers, and must be treated as carefully as a butterfly. In short, the Absolute is a pure Event, something that just occurs – it disappears before it even fully appears. - Slavoj Zizek (”Event”, 2014, s 89f.)