Read from the University of Southern Maine's Glickman library group study room, PPM54 is very much a meditation that expresses the political horizon of the time when it was written, and thus there is a delay in my response to the questions posed in PPM53: How is it that we are made ready to receive the call? How are we made prepared to receive the call of Learning? Put differently, I do make an indirect response to the question by remaining consistent with the speculation that the link between learning and freedom is inextricable, and thus the call to learning, the originary turning (paideia) is spontaneous and all further turnings arise within an improvisational time and space. In turn, talk of 'preparedness' and 'being prepared' to receive the call is precariously close to something like a teleological approach. On the other hand, PPM53 takes an indirect route and focuses less on the question concerning the preparation for receiving the call, and more so on those responsible for orchestrating the 'lack' of preparation, or for the dis-orientation from learning. In turn, I focus on the unilateralism of the ones who are staging the deception in the cave. And so a highlight from PPM54 is: "Unilateralism denotes the state of being unilateral. Unilateral describes the singular vision or position of a singular being, the very singularity of a one-sided perspective. Thus it is 'relating to, or involving one side: done, made, undertaken, or shared by one of two or more persons or parties: dealing with or affecting one side of a subject.' Thus a group as much as an individual can maintain a unilateral mode of being. To be unilateral is to be limited in the most constrained formed possible. For to take or produce a singular vision is to have a final and uncompromising vision. It is the pure state of unfreedom, and thereby more severe than having no perspective, which may better describe the modality of the ignorance we identify with the prisoners in the tale."
February 13, 2014 was the 10th anniversary of the original experiment that produced 363 phenomenological mediations, published as 'Being and Learning' (Brill: 2012). Each day between Feb 2014-15, I returned to the original meditations, and my commentary is documented here. And then, again, on February 15, 2024, on the 20th anniversary of the first days of the original experiment, I revisit and comment on a daily basis, once again.
3.0 - Connected back to the grid! (I never realized how attached I was to electricity!). The 2.0 commentary more or less resonates with the 3.0 commentary I wrote yesterday, which took up the ambiguity/paradox of the question concerning "preparing" to receive the calling. Hence, on this day 10 year: "and thus the call to learning, the originary turning (paideia) is spontaneous and all further turnings arise within an improvisational time and space. In turn, talk of 'preparedness' and 'being prepared' to receive the call is precariously close to something like a teleological approach." I would reiterate that 2.0 commentary today, and do so with even more emphasis. Given where I am with the project at the moment, after the Nancy paper, I'm attentive to any teleological or metaphysical notions that might be lingering about. The project has two important logics (tropes?) that are key: the (w)hole/open/opening/abyss, and circular/circularity/turning/return/retour/de capo/repetition. But both were important themes in the original project, especially with the (re)turn (periagogē) and emptiness (How is it with the Nothing?). And the critique of the teleological was more or less central, especially on this day 20 years ago with PPM 54. I mention above in my 2.0 commentary that the writing from this and subsequent days 20 years ago was influenced by the politics of the day, or the dominant ideology of "unilateralism," which was the organizing logic of our U.S. government foreign policy. Of course, this was nothing new, and very much a continuation of the settler colonial ideology. And whereas in 2004 it was matter of US foreign policy, today we are experience a national election that features a would-be dictator: unilateralism abroad has morphed into the possibility of autocracy at home. But, again, this is a continuity of the settler colonial nor degenerated into nationalism. And that is the extent to which the current political discourses will find there way into this project. Having said that, I feel it necessary to acknowledge how autocracy as a legitimate "leadership" style has appeared within higher education, specifically in my own institution. Again, this isn't necessarily an entirely new phenomenon, but given the renewed sense of energy and feelings of empowerment amongst the faculty, those who are behaving autocratically are revealing themselves all too clearly. And this is in contrast to the past years, where an adminstrative/bureaucratic "management" of the SOE allowed for autocratic styles to remain more or less hidden. And this is why teleology is in fact precarious and not only philosophically dubious for a project that is relying heavily on spontaneity and circularity. Autocracy and dictatorship relies on a logic of destiny, teleology: all power inevitably resides in the dictator. All roads (of power) lead to the dictator. And the dictator relies on the unilateral/single gaze (attention) of the people (the staff). This is why the Allegory is inviting us to imagine and design learning that can both amplify autonomy and community, but is also warning us about the precarious nature of creating both. It's risky business, and that's why Plato concludes it by insisting the the cave-dwellers, shocked by the "ruined" state of their released comrade, would surely kill the guide who was responsible. In other words, the Allegory is infused with the dialectic and because of that is offering up a truth-telling tale, both in what it is saying and how. It is keeping it real, despite Plato's unwavering commitment to the universal and transcendent! Plato is not a pragmatist after all...it's not - the dialectic is really helpful, and allegories are super useful, they work! But the outcome is that, after all: the dialectic keeps it real, it's the logic of the blues, and, yes, allegories are super helpful, especially if you engaged in a philosophical project that leans upon the power of possibility that is realized with poetics, with making meaning.
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