Concrete vs. Idealism

Anyone who has studied philosophy is aware that it is very easy for a philosopher to wander off so far into the depths of their own mind that the concrete, physical world and what is capable of being real is lost to the ideal. I'm not bashing idealism, for without it why would we strive for anything better? At one point in history a world free of slavery was an ideal and look how far we've come to accomplishing that. Granted the concrete, what is possible must also hold weight. The concrete is what is capable of happening now, or at least beginning.

What I'm getting at is that both are proper and necessary. Each holds their own place and individual importance. The philosophers I have surveyed this semester have thus far pretty much belonged to one world or the other. Take Ayn Rand who's "free man" is pure idealism and where most of her philosophies fall. On the opposite of the spectrum is Wendall Berry who lives out his life philosophy on his farm with his wife.

It was not until reading Irigaray have I found a philospher that seems to balance living deep off in her own idealism, but yet manages to find ways to bring those philosophies into concrete living. Take her writing, sometimes it comes off as nothing but rude. However upon a closer examination and a realization of her philosophy on linguistics, she is not trying to be rude, she is simply trying to be clear and use a neuter linguistic to the best of her ability. Another example is found in her dialogue with Wheeler where they discuss how living dualisticlly is possible under the right architectural design or Stone and the practice of Yoga in daily life expanding ones breath and thinking space.

Irigaray's thoughts are often thought to be radical, but for such a radical idealism one cannot deny that her idealism is matched by her concrete ideas for how people can live out that radical idealism.

The Problem of Complacency and Conventional Thinking

Have you ever looked at a stagnant body of water? Motionless. It typically is crawling with mosquitoes and other unpleasant living things, there’s scum floating on the top, probably a piece of trash or two as well, and it smells. If you close your eyes can you see it? It’s an unpleasant and almost eerie scene no matter if it’s a small puddle of left over rain water or a pond that no longer has any form of circulation.

Now imagine if that’s your life. I’m speaking metaphorically and I’m referring to an inner mental capacity that each person carries. When conventional thinking is accepted or even when complacency on any thoughts occurs that is the start of stagnation. We close ourselves off from others, become “stuck-in-our-ways” and that is when division and sexism and racism occurs. We must keep our minds and relationships fluid.

To do this we must not be like stagnant water, but moving water, much like that of a river. We must push ourselves mentally. I don’t mean that brain teasers are a daily exercise that everyone should do, but rather we must always be willing to challenge and be open to those ideas that are different from our own. By being willing to think about something that is different, whether it is an opinion, a perspective, even a religion is key to keeping ourselves fluid.

The only things that are stagnant in life are those things that are dead or dying a slow death. As we close ourselves off from the world it is a slow process in which we harden our hearts and thoughts against all things contrary to our own. Education is the greatest way to keep oneself fluid and education doesn’t have to happen in a classroom or textbook (though it can), it can also happen by meditating, prayer, or open dialogue.

To be complacent is to wish for death-not physical death, but the death of the soul and mind. That is the danger of complacency and when conventional thinking becomes accepted as fact.

Celebrating Differences

Have you ever looked around yourself and noticed something...that you are different from him, from her, from the bird in the air to the squirrel on the ground. No human whether African, American, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Female, Male, we're all different. Even identical twins have differences, no one is the same. Though I may be a mix of Scotch-Irish decent you can put me beside another of the same and we will look nothing alike.

My point is that we are all others. History has shown how our otherness has divided humanity into cultures or societies and governments. It has been the line drawn in the sand, but what we don't recognize is that even within our own culture down to our own family units we are still other to anyone is not yourself. I don't see it just along the division of Male/Female that Irigaray discusses, but I see it permeating into all of humanity. But I must say that I agree with Irigaray in that it is time to stop thinking of "other" as a crude, dirty, obscene word and as fact. And it’s a fact that can be celebrated.

Now to be able to celebrate this otherness I agree that a universal neuter language is necessary in order to see these others as a good thing. By having a truly neuter universal language (which as Irigaray would say does not exist-and I agree) then a perspective can be understood, even if we are not of the same truth. I guess my concept would take Irigaray’s idea of living dualistically to a whole new level. I think that the major divide between Male and Female is important to consider, and maybe we each do have our own truths that are separate, but I think this concept must be taken further. For are we not all vastly shaped by our family, community and culture? And within in those circles of life in which we operate are we not influenced to perceive things in a specific way? And wouldn’t that then make my truth that I seek different from that of a truth sought by a girl living in India who is my same age? I agree with Irigaray that the masculine overtones in our language greatly colors many of our patriarchal societies and needs desperately to find a new neuter voice; a voice in which the male and female voice and breath can be understood;  a voice that is about understanding and not about one over the other.

And maybe to realize that voice we need to understand that we are all other. The concept of perception and dividing lines goes past gender, past ethnicity, past family ties and all the way down until we are one and therefore other to all that we term other. Though it’s easy to end there, I don’t wish to end on a thought where one could feel isolated and alone. Rather by recognizing that we are all other and that we all still have ties to others brings back a since of community and livelihood, but think past your normal boundaries of community. For if we are all other are we not then in some way all connected to each other? It’s a beautiful and connecting thing if you think about it, even though it may seem backwards.

It's something to be celebrated.

Breathing

Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat.

What is the first thing a child must do to survive?

-Breathe in.

What is the very last thing someone does before dying?

-Take their last breath.

Breath.

It's a theme that has been repeating itself for me with every philosopher I have encountered this semester and Irigaray makes no exception to this. Breath is what connects us to life on this earth. The air we breathe is vital to our well being. That's why we talk about pollutants in the air or the alarming levels of ozone and carbon dioxide in the air, because it's vital to our survival. But breathing and the air we breathe has come to be almost a philosophy of my own.

The air that surrounds us has more meaning than just merely giving us life-it connects us. It connects you to me, Buddha to the flower he leans over and inhales the scent of, priests to incense burning, lovers lying next to each other in a bed, enemies in the heat of battle, you to a past love one who's perfume still hangs in the air of her bedroom. Air is a part of the relationships we build, form and connect with, whether they be good, bad or indifferent. Air is a life giving quality and a connector. Rob Bell in a Nooma video even explains how air connects us to the Divine. Irigaray also writes on this connection of air to the divine or even other dimensions. In her conversation with Michael Stone on "'Oneness' and 'Being-Two' in the Practice and Culture of Yoga" they discuss the importance of breathing in yoga. They take it past just the health benefits and the individual level of the literal air that is focused on being brought into the body and pushed out of the body. Irigaray and Stone talk about the air and breathing as expanding one's space in which to think and to meditate. Think about it. If one concentrates on air and air within this bubble we call the atmosphere fills every crack it can and touches/surrounds everything within this bubble is that not a lot of space one can think in? It also brings back the thoughts on connection. If air touches everything and it is vital to us all, does that not in some way connect my oneness to another oneness sitting half-way across the world, someone I've never met and probably never will within the over six billion people that fill this earth? In that matter does it not connect me, at least indirectly to each of those six billion people and let's not forget the other living things on this planet, animals, insects, plants, all breathing the same air that I do? And if it's all connected at least in a small way, then how should I think of that which is other than me? Should I not care for it? Now I'm not saying everyone should be vegan because vegetables and animals are living, but shouldn't I at least have some level of care and even respect for it all? I think Wendall Berry would agree, let's support the small farmers. All this said, the answer I would say to all the questions I just asked is yes. It's something to think about, ponder for a bit.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat.

Dialogue

I recently had the honor to sit down with Mr. Arun Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi's grandson for lunch. He was a man of few words, but his eyes seemed to hold the wisdom of the ages between the wrinkles and the smile that seemed to say that he was enthralled in his own private joke. Whether that is true, or just what I think when I look at any person who has weathered the storms of life, woman or man, I can't say. However when he did speak he spoke with kindness. At the luncheon I attended he was asked to say a few words (and few they were, I don't think the speech lasted even five minutes) and though short I find myself still pondering over some of the things he said.

"Learning not only happens in the textbooks, but in life experience." -Arun Gandhi
Isn't this true, isn't this a value that I hold dear to myself, yet one that I manage not to be able to put into words, yet Gandhi managed to?

Universities are a place of learning, a place where one comes to broaden their mind. Yet sometimes universities are the most divided. Let's leave the differences off the campus and build a community of sharing of knowledge. (Paraphrased from Gandhi's speech)
Isn't it true that when we come to college we are shaped and molded and pushed to think and experience new things in our classes (or at least I hope so). Yet when I look at the organizations on campus so many are divided not by interests, but rather by race or gender or both. Even when they claim not to be, it's sad to say they are, even ones that don't explicitly state they are. I was once encouraged by a speaker to go to a meeting where I would be the minority, and that I would be embraced with open arms--sadly the speaker was very wrong.

How can we take the simple truths that Arun Gandhi laid out in just a few brief moments and put them in to action on a university campus?

Dialogue.

In Irigaray's work Conversations her chapters are various conversations that she has had with individuals and or groups. The subject matter varies from chapter from chapter, but what I have gathered thus far in the book (and think I will continue to discover) is the importance of not only the language that we use, but the way that we use it in speaking to others. Dialogue is key to opening the pathways that will end, set aside the differences that divide us, on campus and in the world. As Irigaray also discusses (and I will only briefly mention it here, for I intend to write entire blogs on this subject) the language that we use is vital in those dialogues or conversations. Until we can use a language that will put everyone on equal ground the dialogues/conversations won't be successful. However obtaining that perfect dialogue will take some time...years to say the least, but until then we can at least start the dialogue as we work towards hopefully that language that Irigaray idolizes.

All it takes is a simple "hello" to begin.

Luce Irigaray

Luce Irigaray was born in the 1930s in Belgium. In 1955 she received a Master’s Degree from the University of Louvain. She taught high school in Brussells from 1956-1959. She went back to school to get a Master’s Degree from the University of Paris in psychology. She then worked for the Fondation Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique in Belgium; where she began as a research assistant at the Centre in Paris.

In the 1960s Irigaray participated in Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic seminars. In 1968 she received a Doctorate in Linguistics and then taught for a while at the Univeristy of Vincennes. It was in 1969 she analyzed Antionette Fouque, a feminist leader and she was intrigued. Her second Doctorate thesis, “Speculum of the Other Woman,” was shortly followed by the ending of her employment at the University of Vincennes. The phallocentric economy she condemned in her thesis would be the very one that would try to silence her.

Irigaray then moved to the feminist circles where she found an audience, though she refused to be apart of any one group. She soon became active though, participating in demonstrations and was even invited to speak at seminars and conference throughout Europe. The continuation of this led to the publishing of An Ethics of Sexual Difference, which established Irigaray as a major Continental philosopher.

Since then her works have continued to influence the feminist movement in France and Italy. She has continued to conduct research on the difference between the language of women and the language of men; that involves men and women who speak various languages.

Irigaray continues to philosophize and research and publish her thoughts. She has written 19 books in three different languages and has published numerous articles. She also continues to be heard, speaking, for as a linguist Irigaray sees the value in the spoken word, in dialogue or better put Conversations.