'Estimated Prophet' is claimed by Bob Weir to have been inspired by the writings of the prophet Isaiah, who lived 700 BCE. In wondering about this connection I did a search, and, appropriately, I found a quotation from non other than Santo Jerry aka Saint Jerome (c. 342-420) on Isaiah: "He was more of an Evangelist than a Prophet, because he described all of the Mysteries of the Church of Christ so vividly that you would assume he was not prophesying about the the future, but rather was composing a history of past events." I find this to a fascinating description of a prophet, and one that seems to be completely out of the ordinary. I'm not sure there is such a description of any other prophet by any other exegetical writer! For me Saint Jerome's description of Isaiah offers a direct connection to the Sage as one who is moving in a particular manner; one whose movement is, metaphorically speaking, an expression of that backward/forward swing or groove of originary thinking that I wrote about yesterday via Reiner Schurmann. And the description of Isaiah offered by Jerome also expresses the strange temporality of that movement, which the very young Heidegger in his lecture The Concept of Time described as "running ahead to the past." (I mentioned this in my blog post from May 31st, OPM 107). Where does this strange movement move? On a strange path, for sure!
A prophet who writes a history is one who is going forward to the past, and in this sense is neither a prophet (a prognosticator) nor an evangelist (a messenger), but meditative thinker who dwells in a strange present where the strange presencing of Being is happening. Famous images of St. Jerome indicate that he was often dwelling in that location. The paintings normally depict him in his study in the throes of an intense existential contemplation, or writing descriptions of the same, and/or exegetical pieces. The paintings show him to be in that location I often call 'the threshold,' which is that time/space in-between past and future that Arendt reminds us is the nunc stans (the standing now):
All this can be gathered together by the cartographical phenomenology I am currently developing, a 'method' that discloses the existence of the hermeneutical field where this project is moving and unfolding. Here I am making a more general commentary on such fields, which are something like networks of meaning that connect a wide and seemingly disaggregated 'subject matter'. Networks establish inter-subjectivity. An example of the network's aggregation is the connection between writing I am doing today with the writing I did on this same date ten years ago with the Grateful Dead's performance of 'Estimated Prophet' on this same date (June 13) in Ventura, California, with the writings of the prophet Isaiah approximiately 2700 years ago, with the writings of St. Jerome c. 400 CE, with the depictions of Jerome in the 16th century, with the even earlier icons of the prophet, with the writings of Schurmann and Heidegger.
To understand the existence of a hermeneutical field is to map it, and such mapping is itself a technique that is under construction and development (something like the relationship between dwelling and building). OPM 120 addresses this when I write of taking "up the path of philosophy." And I turn to Heidegger's Conversation on a Country Path to illuminate the hermeneutical field and our releasement onto it: "Teacher: Then releasement would be not only a path but a movement. Scholar: Where does this strange path go? Where does the movement proper to it rest? Teacher: Where else but in that-which-regions, in relation to which relation is what it is...for the regioning which we stay everything is in the best order only if it has been no one's doing. Scientist: A mysterious region where there is nothing for which to be answerable. Teacher: Because it is the region of the word, which is answerable to itself alone."
If 'Estimated Prophet' represents the song of the Sage, then this fragment from Heidegger's piece, which is quite close to but not the actual beginning of OPM 120, might well represent the kind of dialogue that would be make up the 'script' for the 'staging' of Being and Learning. And, what's more, the line spoke by the scholar would have to be the first and last lines spoken: "Where does the strange path go?
A prophet who writes a history is one who is going forward to the past, and in this sense is neither a prophet (a prognosticator) nor an evangelist (a messenger), but meditative thinker who dwells in a strange present where the strange presencing of Being is happening. Famous images of St. Jerome indicate that he was often dwelling in that location. The paintings normally depict him in his study in the throes of an intense existential contemplation, or writing descriptions of the same, and/or exegetical pieces. The paintings show him to be in that location I often call 'the threshold,' which is that time/space in-between past and future that Arendt reminds us is the nunc stans (the standing now):
All this can be gathered together by the cartographical phenomenology I am currently developing, a 'method' that discloses the existence of the hermeneutical field where this project is moving and unfolding. Here I am making a more general commentary on such fields, which are something like networks of meaning that connect a wide and seemingly disaggregated 'subject matter'. Networks establish inter-subjectivity. An example of the network's aggregation is the connection between writing I am doing today with the writing I did on this same date ten years ago with the Grateful Dead's performance of 'Estimated Prophet' on this same date (June 13) in Ventura, California, with the writings of the prophet Isaiah approximiately 2700 years ago, with the writings of St. Jerome c. 400 CE, with the depictions of Jerome in the 16th century, with the even earlier icons of the prophet, with the writings of Schurmann and Heidegger.
To understand the existence of a hermeneutical field is to map it, and such mapping is itself a technique that is under construction and development (something like the relationship between dwelling and building). OPM 120 addresses this when I write of taking "up the path of philosophy." And I turn to Heidegger's Conversation on a Country Path to illuminate the hermeneutical field and our releasement onto it: "Teacher: Then releasement would be not only a path but a movement. Scholar: Where does this strange path go? Where does the movement proper to it rest? Teacher: Where else but in that-which-regions, in relation to which relation is what it is...for the regioning which we stay everything is in the best order only if it has been no one's doing. Scientist: A mysterious region where there is nothing for which to be answerable. Teacher: Because it is the region of the word, which is answerable to itself alone."
If 'Estimated Prophet' represents the song of the Sage, then this fragment from Heidegger's piece, which is quite close to but not the actual beginning of OPM 120, might well represent the kind of dialogue that would be make up the 'script' for the 'staging' of Being and Learning. And, what's more, the line spoke by the scholar would have to be the first and last lines spoken: "Where does the strange path go?
3.0 (Thursday) - The image of St. Jerome in his study is timely. Last night was Jaime's middle school "completion" ceremony aka his commencement from Lincoln Middle School in Portland. St. Jerome would not be Jaime's patron, for he, Jaime, was not inspired to study, was not called to learn academically. His was an existential journey, his patron St. Anthony, the holy fool who wandered in the desert. The 2.0 commentary from this day links well with a theory I have been floating this week about Jaime and his pandemic peers. Or rather, St. Jerome's description of Isaiah resonates with the theory, specifically when he describes Isaiah as less prophet and more historian. My theory is that Jaime and his peers are walking backwards into the future. They are focused on the present with an eye to the past as they flow inevitably into the future. It's as if they constantly find themselves in the moment, a present that is no longer yesterday, and belatedly recognize the today that is different from a day ago. In some ways this may be an experience that was prompted by the year and a half of being apart from one another. But in other ways it may be that his peer group are made up of immigrant kids, many of them refugees, whose families are in many ways unsettled and longing for the homes and families they have left behind. There is also a refusal to subscribe to the narrative of manifest destiny and progress, a denial of the superiority of the Protestant work ethic. Nevertheless, the perception of time figures importantly, and it appears as if Jaime and his peers are focused on the present. In a way this is a way to maintain a connection with their childhood, which was compromised because of the pandemic. It will interesting, to say the least, to observe the next stage of his schooling.
ReplyDeleteAnother note on the commencement. It was completely detached from any connection to the State. There were no flags (U.S., Maine, Portland), no pledge or anthem. The entire ceremony was disconnected from the "public," as if the school were an island of learning unto itself. For me that was the deepest flaw of the school, and a real source of the alienation Jaime felt from it. And it causes me to question the position I have taken in this project with the learning community. My thinking is mostly rooted in a hybrid form of existentialism, and so it's not a surprise that two thirds of my current book project focus on study and the individual student in solitude, like St. Jerome. At the moment I am not convinced the learning community is in fact the ultimate outcome of a philosophical education. Indeed, at the current moment the ultimate outcome is the enactment of the principle of autonomy.