Tuesday, July 23, 2013

the paradox of anti-relational philosophy



The paradox of anti-relational philosophy is that it seems to rely upon social relations for its very existence.  But not all of contagion is a good thing.

After reviewing the book to the left as well as yesterday's linked article concerning the monopoly of Google (which holds true of Facebook and Twitter concerning a monopoly over social networking), it seems that a truly ecological approach to information would go beyond a "cross-platform" approach limiting itself to just two or three main networks.

We shouldn't expect one to succumb to the networks.  That is, just because an idea or figure - an individual - hasn't been subsumed by a network, its identity spread there, its shape digested by the networks' occupants, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.  In fact, because of information proliferation, the hidden or undiscovered takes on an especial integrity if one eludes the networks or voluntarily chooses to disappear from them.

Juenger's "forest fleer" comes to mind, mentioned in Eumeswil.  There is safe haven afterall - what in Juengerian flavor we might call inner emigration.

Maybe the ultimate relation is the net that I myself cast - that is, the relation which one has to "one's own" - one's own future, one's own self and the always becoming pillar of freedom that a self is.  I believe it was Max Stirner who stated that this was not only a pillar of any individual but something of the primal and inescapable relation that defines all individuals (that of self-relation).  This is the most radical form of pluralism available: all individuals are ultimate, but only ultimate because of their mutual freedom and potential for creativity (for good as well as for evil).

Agentialism of contemporary metaphysical guise is really a timeless sort of truth. 

Incidentally, Juenger referred positively to Stirner as "Saint Max."  It is highly plausible that Kierkegaard read Stirner, and we know that Kierkegaard attended Schelling's Berlin lectures which were influenced by Stirner's work.  Juenger captures this "darker" sense of what one is capable of, a sense of self-ownership developed by Stirner.  Schelling saw this kind of agency, that is, freedom understood as an indifferent power which, really, all things possess, as did Juenger, and Stirner, and Kierkegaard in his moments of despair too.