The shortest interval between two points is the awareness that they are not two.
We find the same situation in the economy. On the one hand, the battered remnants of production and the real economy; on the other, the circulation of gigantic amounts of virtual capital. But the two are so disconnected that the misfortunes which beset that capital _ stock market crashes and other financial debacles _ do not bring about the collapse of real economies any more. It is the same in the political sphere: scandals, corruption and the general decline in standards have no decisive effects in a split society, where responsibility (the possibility that the two parties may respond to each other) is no longer part of the game.This paradoxical situation is in a sense beneficial: it protects civil society (what remains of it) from the vicissitudes of the political sphere, just as it protects the economy (what remains of it) from the random fluctuations of the Stock Exchange and international finance. The immunity of the one creates a reciprocal immunity in the other _ a mirror indifference. Better: real society is losing interest in the political class, while nonetheless availing itself of the spectacle. At last, then, the media have some use, and the __ociety of the spectacle_ assumes its full meaning in this fierce irony: the masses availing themselves of the spectacle of the dysfunctionings of representation through the random twists in the story of the political class__ corruption. All that remains now to the politicians is the obligation to sacrifice themselves to provide the requisite spectacle for the entertainment of the people.
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We find the same situation in the economy. On the one hand, the battered remnants of production and the real economy; on the other, the circulation of gigantic amounts of virtual capital. But the two are so disconnected that the misfortunes which beset that capital _ stock market crashes and other financial debacles _ do not bring about the collapse of real economies any more. It is the same in the political sphere: scandals, corruption and the general decline in standards have no decisive effects in a split society, where responsibility (the possibility that the two parties may respond to each other) is no longer part of the game.This paradoxical situation is in a sense beneficial: it protects civil society (what remains of it) from the vicissitudes of the political sphere, just as it protects the economy (what remains of it) from the random fluctuations of the Stock Exchange and international finance. The immunity of the one creates a reciprocal immunity in the other _ a mirror indifference. Better: real society is losing interest in the political class, while nonetheless availing itself of the spectacle. At last, then, the media have some use, and the __ociety of the spectacle_ assumes its full meaning in this fierce irony: the masses availing themselves of the spectacle of the dysfunctionings of representation through the random twists in the story of the political class__ corruption. All that remains now to the politicians is the obligation to sacrifice themselves to provide the requisite spectacle for the entertainment of the people.
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This 'web of discourses' as Robyn called it...is as much a biological product as any of the other constructions to be found in the animal world. (Clothes too, are part of the extended phenotype of Homo Sapiens almost every niche inhabited by that species.An illustrated encyclopedia of zoology should no more picture Homo Sapiens naked than it should picture Ursus arctus-the black bear- wearing a clown suit and riding a bicycle.
Doing philosophy is only a threefold or double kind of waking--being awake--consciousness.
True, the initial ideas are in general those of an individual, but the establishment of the reality and truth is in general the work of more than one person.
The New Age is not one of bells and whistles and mystical special effects. It is not a fantasy state driven by the alignments of planets or the power of crystals, nor a metaphysical rising to higher plains of consciousness by virtue of chanting esoteric mantras. It will not feature the arrival of a thunderbolt-wielding god, ready to set up a final judgment by reviving hordes of old, decayed corpses. The real New Age is a simple, but stunningly profound, awareness that one__ Self and all that one encounters are two aspects of the same, singular Essence.
I write these pieces, not to convince you of anything, nor to argue points for the purpose of proposing a new standard or a new philosophy _ and certainly not to create yet another religious movement. Rather, my purpose is simple: to communicate a new and clean perspective of life that I often refer to as Clear Awareness.