Capitalist realism: homo capitalus / homo financus

This post could be alternatively entitled, “How I learned to stop grumbling and love corporate-capitalistic architecture.” As a young boy, I would sometimes visit my father’s stock brokerage firm in 650 Fifth Avenue. I couldn’t decide whether its granite modernist facade was drab, imposing, and soulless, or somehow futuristic, even graceful and attractive. I think in general that has characterized my feelings about most post-Sixties corporate/financial office architecture — until yesterday as I wandered Hammersmith and the City of London for a few hours. I found myself taken in by some kind of obscure metaphysical charm, even sublimity. And then I realized: this stuff’s not at all dissimilar Soviet socialist realism. In fact, I’d dare even call it capitalist realism.

Protected: Aufheben in East Berlin

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Thinking of Lenin and Washington (updated)

When I left the United States three years ago, generally-speaking, two things happened to me. The change in linguistic and political environments seemed to free my internal world to some extent, allowing for a greater degree of expression and experimentation than I could ever have hoped to find in my homeland. This takes a little explanation.

One’s mother language can have an almost-pictographic quality. I first noticed this when I visited London back in October 2011. In Belgium, when confronted with a billboard advertisement or surrounded by conversations in a cafe, I can choose to understand the content or simply allow my brain to categorize it as “noise”. However, in an English-speaking environment, advertisements and conversations have an automatic effect: I literally cannot help but understand them, even if I don’t want to. My brain has a certain habit of apprehension that cannot be easily deactivated.

As for politics, the United States is a peculiar country. On the one hand, a humongous plurality of political viewpoints are allowed; on the other hand, as one moves from the fringes toward the center, this plurality dissolves into a vague but thick and bland consensus around one form or another of economic, military-industrial and social free market. While in and of itself, this doesn’t make my homeland any more peculiar than, say, Russia, speaking as an American, it is so very suffocating; indeed, it is so very disappointing.

It’s frustratingly difficult to explain exactly why it’s so disappointing. The American revolution of the ordinary was always something paradoxical, and in that paradox, powerful, capturing some truly important element of human truth, even divine truth. Moreover, there is always two sides to everything. Bush the conqueror and Obama the compromiser were somehow both exactly who they should have been and who they should have not been. I can imagine that a Confucian sage would have given his all to Bush and then to Obama — but I’m not such a sage. Somehow, the dream has not been fulfilled, and the promise has been made into a trap.

Protected: “This is the price”

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Kierkegaard, existential luck, and the multiverse

This is one of those heady moments when a lot of ideas are intersecting in my imagination at once, in this case, Kierkegaardian identity theory, the problem of “existential luck”, and a theological concern with parallel universes that, I’m cerain, most people living today would consider utterly mad. Much of what follows, as with so much else in my thoughts, comes from excavating the interests of my childhood. I should also note that I dare not go so far as to say that I truly and literally believe what I’m about to say herein; nevertheless, I also dare not go so far as to say it’s impossible, either — indeed, the whole foundation is possibility.

I think the crux issue to introduce first is the problem of existential luck. By “existential luck” I mean something very specific, very vague, and altogether fundamental to the ethical problem of moral luck: why am I seeing through these eyes, inhabiting this body in this particular sociohistorical milieu? This question is one version of that ultimate question of human existence, Why am I alive? Or: why are we, i.e., you, me, and everyone alive today, inhabiting this moment in time and space? Why do we exist at all?

Particularly if one subscribes to the monotheisms, this is a distressing moral question, as it means those of us who are Christian, Muslim, or Baha’i, as inheritors of salvific revelations that occurred at specific historical moments, are in some sense “luckier” than those who lived before the revelations. Over the years, our traditions have tried to finesse the problem in various ways. Doctrinally, though, the trend has been to rely upon divine volition: God decided. Unfortunately, I don’t think that neutralizes the problem of fortune, precisely because, as far as we know (putting side any beliefs in reincarnation), we had no influence over God’s decision — in other words, from our perspective, divine predestination and blind dumb luck, at least in this regard, are effectively, maybe even per definition, the same.

The second issue is parallel universes. There are many different conceptions of these. Andrei Linde and eternal inflation theory, for example, predicts that big bangs should be a fairly routine occurrence which generates a vast network of universes, each with different physical characteristics, and sometimes probably fragmentary variants of our own. David K. Lewis, meanwhile, proposed the actual existence of counterfactuals, or in other words, the alternate histories of science fiction authors and the thought experiments of philosophers. I’ve recently been watching the J.J. Abrams television show, Fringe, and I was a childhood fan of the show Sliders, both of which explored the Lewisian notion of parallel universes with something of a vengeance.

Overall, though, I would prefer the “tree branch” version of the multiverse, in which every choice divides into at least two directions, so that in one universe, I have decided to write this blog post, and in another, I have not.

To be clear, the tree branch theory, whatever its scientific merits or demerits, is the most interesting, and not only because it’s the most relatable. In fact, it’s actually pretty radical, because it practically reduces the concepts of choice and moment into each other, and then demands an extreme refinement of the latter concept: just how long is a moment? The answer: an infinite regress of subdivision, Xeno’s dichotomy paradox gone quantum. That therefore means, in the least, an infinity of unrealized realities, at the most, an infinity of their realizations. This is an alternative to both the Lindean view of semi-realizations or statistical variants, as well as to the Avicennian-Leibnizian notion that this universe we know is the “best of all possible iterations”, much less the Emersonian notion of necessity, as he articulates in “Fate” (to which I have tended to instinctively prefer):

“The secret of the world is, the tie between person and event. Person makes event, and event person. [...] He thinks his fate alien, because the copula is hidden. But the soul contains the event that shall befall it, for the event is only the actualization of its thoughts; and what we pray to ourselves for is always granted. The event is the print of your form. It fits you like your skin. What each does is proper to him. Events are the children of his body and mind. We learn that the soul of Fate is the soul of us, as Hafiz sings, ‘Alas! till now I had not known, My guide and fortune’s guide are one.’”

“This universe we know.” That presumes a kind of unity. Of course, you and I cannot know for certain that, at any given moment, we are inhabiting/constituting only one universe, rather than being pluralized, moment to moment, decision to decision, across an incalculable variety. Such a variety, mathematically-speaking, would resemble less a tree branch than entangled and constantly growing clumps of moss, since the huge majority of universes would profoundly resemble each other. To put it another way, if at this very moment we wanted to set out across the multiverse to find a universe significantly differentiated from the one we know (putting aside the fact that the choice to make such a pilgrimage would necessarily result in more pluralization, and perhaps thereby be defeated by Xeno’s dichotomy paradox), it would take a very long time before we would enter environments noticeably unfamiliar, i.e., when we finally begin to leave one clump of realizations and enter another.

As a religious person, the mere possibility of such a multiverse represents a huge theoretical spiritual quandary for me, not only by radicalizing the existential luck problem, but also raising questions about the ontology of the soul: to what extent are the nearly infinite iterations of myself singularly or pluralistically ensouled? In other words, is my immortal soul, whatever it is, specific to this Chris Schwartz at this moment-decision (however that moment-decision may be finely demarcated), or the underlying unity of an innumerable amount of Chris Schwartzes? The first option is terrifying, for it renders the continuity I experience between moments-decisions ontologically illusory. The second option, however, can account for continuity but not for responsibility: are all the Chris Schwartzes responsible for each other at the moment of posthumous judgement? Are they their quantum brothers’ keepers?

What awaits me this in this glorious Nawrúz?

It’s the end of the 19-Day Fast and a truly glorious Nawrúz. The sun is shining, the sky is crystal clear blue, the weather is warm, the gorgeous Flemish girls are walking around in dresses… As for the fast, it wasn’t easy, but this time around, it was a remarkably gentle yet insighful period. I had some personal struggles, but I have come through them purified. I’ve even cut my hair to signify the turn of the wheel, the start of a new cycle.

Besides focusing on my studies, both academic and religious, I also watched several movies concerning the nature of the physical and the psychosexual, particularly A Dangerous Method and Shame. It would be too long — and actually, too confessional at this juncture — to delve into the confrontation with myself that these movies initiated, but then, such a confrontation was my purpose in seeing them, and I’m glad I did. I still have a journey to walk with the bodily and the aesthetic; where it goes, I don’t know.

Moreover, a person with whom I’ve grown close during these last six months has been struggling with what can only be described as an intense emotional trauma. The encounter between us has been intense, and to be frank, quite draining of my energy (as well as hers). Nevertheless, it has served to highlight many of the deep-rooted distortions and lacunae of my own perspective, and it has deepened my resolve to, in a sense, resist myself, to not waste my energy, my thoughts, my heart, on petty ridigities and egoistic tautologies.

Meanwhile, in the outer world, between today and the first of April I shall learn the fate of my PhD application to the Central European University. I also intend to apply for some academic positions in Central Asia. Either way, I need to go East. I have grown to love the Leuven MPhil and political philosophy, as well as the philosophy of journalism. I finally feel intellectually “fitted” here in Belgium. The question is whether my academic future lies here or not. I shall endeavor to see what God wills.

What awaits me this in this glorious Nawrúz? In the least, a hurrah with the close friends and colleagues I’ve made here in Belgium. Perhaps the last hurrah, perhaps not. Masha’Allah — and whatever happens, thank You.

A prayer for Heverlee, Lommel, and Panjwayi

A truly terrible few days in Belgium and Afghanistan, from the shooting spree in Panjwayi to last night’s bus accident in Switzerland. In both tragedies, the largest number of victims were children. Several of the Belgian children were from a town right beside Leuven; I’ll be going there later, probably for the memorial. In the meantime, I would like to offer three prayers:

“O misguided ones, what sin have the little children committed?” — Baha’u’llah Lawh-i-Times

“O My Servant! Thou art even as a finely tempered sword concealed in the darkness of its sheath and its value hidden from the artificer’s knowledge. Wherefore come forth from the sheath of self and desire that thy worth may be made resplendent and manifest unto all the world.” — Baha’u’llah, Hidden Words, Persian #72

“Be not grieved at the death of that infant child, for it is placed in trust for thee before thy Lord in His great Kingdom. Verily God will bestow upon thee that whereby thy heart shall be rejoiced and thy breast shall be dilated. Verily thy Lord is compassionate and merciful!” — Abdu’l-Baha, tablet to a grieving mother

Абай, Штра́ус, и совет от моего отца.

The BBC has published my piece on Abai Kunanbaev, which I was working on while in the United States. It’s entitled, “Abai’s thoughts, Kazakh matters”, which is a play on what struck me as a very Abai-esque quote from a young Kazakh psychologist I just happened to bump into underneath Grand Central Station. The Kyrgyz version was released yesterday; still to come is the Uzbek version, and then the original English version, which I believe will come during the early summer. This is a big moment for me, as it’s not everyday one can get published on the BBC, much less in three languages and about philosophy, that perennially “un-newsy” of disciplines — alhamdulilah!

Like an excitied little boy, I shared the English copy with my close friends, colleagues, and family (I can’t distribute it publicly at the moment due to copyright). My father had the following remarks to make:

Congratulations, Chris! Heady stuff, although that’s nothing new. Reading your description of Abai as Kazakhstan’s first philosopher as a tie in to today’s independent journalists there, makes the whole piece all the more timely. Also, in my opinion, it is very well written, and I could follow it as I read it, not too obtuse although certainly intellectual. Key elements for your first direct BBC contribution. Love, Dad

Not only is this advice I will remember as I continue to seek one path of service as a public intellectual, finding a way to communicate complex and important ideas for a general audience, but it also resonates with the direction many of my thoughts have been turning in recent months.

Journalism as sacred dialogue

Today marks my third year as a member of the Baha’i Faith. To commemorate, I would like to explore something which I hope might be a positive theoretical contribution to my religious community: exploring and engaging in journalism as a fundamentally religious endeavor which, in its highest expression, constitutes a sacred dialogue. To develop this, I first need to take some time to explore the ways in which journalism, often rightly recognized as a scientific-like activity, nonetheless has, as it were, a religious soul.

The spiritual principle of detachment dictates that one give and then let go, so what follows herein is something that I am attempting to work out in such a spirit. It is also as much good spirituality as it is good academic etiquette to give credit where credit’s due: the phrase, “journalism as a sacred dialogue”, actually comes from one of my professors, Bart Pattyn, in response to my blog post, “Transcendental Journalism?”, wherein I describe my original intuition. The notion of “journalism with the soul of religion” is also inspired by recent work, as-yet unreleased, of my friend Ben Schewel into the notion of “religion with the soul of science”.

So, to get to the point: my essential thesis is that the journalist is a breed of philosopher as described by Edmund Husserl. As such, he or she can be understood as engaging in an activity that is quite surprisingly spiritual, to the point that it might even be described as in some sense mystical.

By claiming that the journalist is a Husserlian philosopher I mean that the journalist is a phenomenologist. Alternatively, my claim here can be understood that all critical intellectuals are phenomenologists when they are engaged in the study of experience, a definition that encompasses many of the “erudite” professions, from anthropologists to artists. In my view, the journalist and the philosopher are among those who are the most routinely engaged in such a study.  Either way, the journalist and the philosopher are blood siblings, although it is hard to see this from outward appearances — ironically, we must be phenomenologists to understand the deep family resemblance between them.

Without intending to do injustice to the complexity of Husserl’s thought, as I understand him, a phenomenologist is a person who “takes a step back” (“epoché“) from experience by assuming the stance of a “transcendental subject” in order to examine and report upon the former. Husserl could just as well have been describing the journalist. Now, in my experience, many secular Western journalists would prefer terminology like “neutral observer” or “spectator”, but my Islamic colleagues would agree with a Husserlian description of their work. That is because in traditional Islamic thought, going back to al-Ghazzali (“occasionalism“), there really is no such thing as a “neutral observer”; rather, there is the divine subjectivity that holds everything together and that only appears as a neutral observer because it is the perspective that bedrocks all perspectives:

“No vision can grasp Him, but His grasp is over all vision. God is above all comprehension, yet is acquainted with all things” — Qur’an 6:103

I think it noteworthy that Husserl himself has described the “step back” with spiritual terminology: “resolved to understand the world out of the spirit”, “spiritual movement”, “religious conversion”, “fundamental transformation”, “ground experience”, “un-humanize”, and “meditation”. He probably means this in the Buddhistic sense of stilling the mind, but this terminology brings with it a contemplative connotation, namely, that the stance of spectator requires a stepping outside of one’s perspective so as to examine oneself and the world more surgically and meaningfully.

We may ask: “who” is the transcendental subject? Husserl probably has in mind the Cartesian cogito (“I think, therefore I am”), which isn’t necessarily either the “I” we individually associate with, opening the possibility that it is God. I don’t know whether Husserl himself intended this (and if one reads Descartes very closely, he’s actually quite fuzzy about the relationship between the cogito and the divine), but I think the Islamic tradition makes a good case that the transcendental subject is the divine, if not the divine essence, then that aspect of the divine which is the “grasp over all vision”.

What this means, then, is that the phenomenologist — and by extension, the journalist and the philosopher — has a hugely important element of the mystical in the Heschelian or Avempacean sense of them aspiring to unite with the transcendental and absolute, thereby achieving the divine perspective, a.k.a., “objectivity” and “neutrality”. Whether they are successful and how we could assess this is an entirely different matter; what interests me here is this fundamental religiosity at the core of journalistic and philosophical work (ironically, even if the specific journalist or philosopher is a staunch atheist and opponent of religion).

Abai Kunanbaev, 1000 miles, and two continents

I love travelling, but jeeze, I’ve done a lot in a short amount of time. After my last post — a theme which, by the way, I shall be exploring at greater length in this blog in the future — I wrapped up the semester and headed to the United States for two weeks with a close Belgian friend. This was my itinerary: New York City to Philadelphia to Washington, DC to New York City to Boston (with a furlough to Manchester, New Hampshire) to New York City. That’s approximately 1000 miles, the majority of which was covered in a six-day spurt. I also backpacked through several of these cities, and by “backpacked”, I often mean running with 10 kilos strapped to my back, as I tried to make it to various appointments (I proved to be in better shape than I had realized).

It was a mixed experience. On the one hand, I was able to re-connect with many loved ones as well as several of my long-lost relatives. Once again, I felt that swinging by only once a year is simply not sufficient, particularly as my parents get older, but the inevitable frustration arises that I simply don’t have the time or money to go back every, say, six months. Frankly, I wish that I could just put all my loved ones into a suitcase and bring them back with me.

On the other hand, I was also reminded, in rather stark relief, why I’m simply happier being outside of the United States. The massive disparities in wealth and security, the extreme individualism coupled with extreme patriotism, the infrastructural decay and the post-modern yuppie condos, the insane amount of cars and obese people — and all of these phenomena mutually reinforcing, too — drove me batty within only a few days. There was also a strong feeling of powerlessness: this is just how the American system has become and shall remain, regardless of the man (or woman) in the White House.

Transcendental journalism?

“In this Day the secrets of the earth are laid bare before the eyes of men. The pages of swiftly-appearing newspapers are indeed the mirror of the world. They reflect the deeds and the pursuits of divers peoples and kindreds. They both reflect them and make them known. They are a mirror endowed with hearing, sight and speech. This is an amazing and potent phenomenon. However, it behoveth the writers thereof to be purged from the promptings of evil passions and desires and to be attired with the raiment of justice and equity. They should enquire into situations as much as possible and ascertain the facts, then set them down in writing.” — Baha’u'llah, Tarzát #6

When I was in the Alps, I had a productive conversation with a young Italian student who is doing her doctoral work at the Sorbonne. She was curious about my opinion on the “faith and reason problem” as a “religious philosopher” (i.e., a philosopher who is religious and who thinks about religion). I was surprised by my answer.

Totemism and Panopticon

This blog has been quiet for almost a month, first because I was happily secluded in the Alps for the better part of two weeks, and then because it’s examination season here in Leuven. Not only exams, but also PhD applications, grant applications (for neweurasia), and budget paperwork are all due this month. I’m somewhat frayed at the edges at the moment, as there’s not enough me (and what there is, isn’t especially great at time management).

Nevertheless, I would like to share something I have worked hard on these last few weeks for my “Media Ethics” course. Admittedly, it’s an academic Frankenstein’s monster: a paper entitled, “Totemism and Panopticon” (click on the link to read a pdf version), that fuses Foucault, Durkheim, and an immanent critique of Assange’s now well-known essay, “Conspiracy as Governance”, to explore the conflict between WikiLeaks and the United States under the Obama Administration. My use of Durkheim is key, as fundamentally I am proposing a spiritual and identity dimension to the debacle. Here’s my conclusion:

WikiLeaks as a reverse, grassroots panopticon with a peculiar ratio of liberal and democratic beliefs, a murky conception of the publics at stake in its Bolshevik-like endeavor to mobilize and transform the world, and an ambivalance between a Kantian and utilitarian understanding of the proverbial leak has collided headlong with the full totemistic power of the American national self as embodied in national security and the soldier, prompting in turn an equally Kantian response in terms of secrecy. This response is perhaps evidenced by the dogged manner in which the Obama Administration is pursuing legal action against Manning and Assange, the latter under the Espionage Act of 1917, a federal law which, as I understand it, has in mind the concept of leaking toward a specific enemy in officially declared wartime, not a general mass during what is still formally peace time (the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan never receiving formal Congressional declarations), even if that leaking occurred for journalistic-activistic-historical (much less contre panoptic) purposes. Even more remarkable — and all the more telling of the totemistic crisis at stake — was when United States Senator Joseph Lieberman expressed his confusion/disappointment on Fox News that Assange [had not yet been] tried for treason a sentiment echoed by several other pundits on the station, even though he is not a United States citizen.

My interests in monopsychism and panpsychism also extend to the notions of “mass consciousness” and “public opinion”, hence why I thought using Durkheim would be at least interesting, hopefully a bit funky and creative. The goal in the paper is to get a fix on the public ethos that Assange et al have engendered, specifically in my homeland. By the Greek term “ethos” I mean something akin to the English notions of character, disposition, and fundamental values. With respect to WikiLeaks — specifically WikiLeaks as its own variety of mass media (by dint of it being a digital entity) and as a response to and element of the broader mediascape of today — I also mean ethos along the lines of how the Greeks used the term to refer to the power of music to influence its hearer’s emotions, behaviors, and even morals.

Besides trying to find an interesting new angle to the issue, I also felt duty-bound as a Baha’i journalist to get a fix on what WikiLeaks means for me. Assange et al are a moral confrontation right at the intersection between my religiosity and my professional work. The philosopher, in an essay such as this, tries to sort out the resultant mess – although the philosopher is also torn, between Hegelian and Gandhian instincts.

Bracketing God

Much to my pleasant surprise, I’m in Milan again for Christmas, visiting my good friend Luca. It was a much longer journey here than last year, though, what with the massive general strike in Belgium coupled with an ungodly early flight, but it has been worth it, because immediately upon arriving Luca and I launched into a conversation concerning his views of what first philosophy should be, i.e., in Kantian terms, focus upon the conditions of the possibility for knowledge, and moreover, as a holistic action that does not have praxis, much less activism as its primary goal. The key concept here is Husserl’s epoché, which struck me as a theoretical tool that has vast applicability for religion.

So, here I am, in a library in Milan thinking over this while waiting for Luca to wrap up an essay for his PhD. Once more there is a feeling of fate, purposiveness, necessity. By accident, I happen to be facing the science fiction section (I just learned an Italian neologism: fantascienza), and what do they have prominently displayed there? Copies of Asimov’s Robot Series, Herbert’s Dune Series, and Lem’s Solaris, novels that speak to some of my core interests. Herbert and Lem especially leap out at me because of the difficulties I’ve been having with my would-be Lovelock paper: my professors, although they don’t want to discourage me, have doubts and misgivings about the project, and I’ve been wondering whether I shouldn’t just give it up for something more “easy” and “concrete”, say, the recent incidents in Zhanaozen and the complexities of trying to ascribe “exploitation” in a neo-patrimonial system like Kazakhstan’s. Perhaps the universe is saying with respect to Lovelock: go for it anyway; try, if not Gaia, then something about Nature. But seeing these books also makes me feel that I am somehow supposed to be here in Milan.

I want to try right now to link together several things that have been on my mind these past few months, but there are too many copper ball strands; it’s extremely difficult to see how they wind together as a single ball, and perhaps this is decidely praxis-oriented (or maybe I’m just being surprisingly Husserlian?) So, for what it’s worth, here is my thought process, in raw, literal, unprocessed form (and for those familiar with HTML, they’ll hopefully get the double entrendre implicit here in the way I’m using the blockquote function as a way to “bracket” my internal dialogue, thereby holding it up for analysis, inspection and reflection as though it were a diamond under a lamp):

Leuven, Louvain, Katholieke, Catholique — Ik weet het niet, Je ne sais pas!

Word in the Belgian press is that the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven shall be Katholieke no more — well, somewhat.

Although it’s still to be decided this week, officially, our Dutch name shall be “KU Leuven”, with the “K” no longer signifying anything (humorously, university officials like to emphasize that we shall also no longer be “K.U. Leuven”, either). Apparently, our English name shall be “The University of Leuven — KU Leuven” or “The University of Leuven (KU Leuven)”. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in terms of letterhead, website design, curriculum vitaes, etc.

This decision is part of the ongoing mixture of market- and identity-politics here in Belgium. It has been presaged by earlier identity problems (or continuities, depending on your view): previously, we were the Studium Generale Lovaniense (from our founding in 1425 to 1797), the Université d’État de Louvain (until the 1830s, with a brief closure during the Napoleonic regime), then the Université Catholique de Louvain/Universitas Catholica Lovaniensis until the political crisis of 1968 resulted in two universities with the same charter: the Flemish-Dutch Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in historical Leuven, and the Université Catholique de Louvain in the purpose-built town of Louvain-la-Neuve in southern Francophonic Belgium.

The latest change has been justified along two lines: first, that the Catholic Church is interfering with stem cell research (apparently, the change shall also entail removing the archbishop as chairman, leaving him as chancellor); and second, that the “Katholieke” adjective hurts our reputation in the United States, as it supposedly gives the wrong impression of us, i.e., that in order to have a degree from here means one must subscribe to the Catholic faith. Proponents for the change also argue that the university is becoming more and more pluralistic (that remains to be seen in some faculties, but as an official intention this is true).

A prayer for Liège

I first learned about the shooting in Liège from my friends at Demotix, who sms’d me looking for a photographer on the scene (Leuven should be no more than a half hour drive to Liège, although I’m constrained to sing trains, which during the mid-day means having to take a detour via Brussels). What quickly unfolded was a terrible story, the full nature of which remains to be deciphered but the general similarities of which — conceptually, technologically, and ethically — to the tragedy in Norway are disturbing.

Consequently, just as I did then, I want to offer a prayer, but not just one of mourning — although it is that — nor of solidarity — for it is certainly that, as well — but also of philosophical opposition:

“O My Servant! Thou art even as a finely tempered sword concealed in the darkness of its sheath and its value hidden from the artificer’s knowledge. Wherefore come forth from the sheath of self and desire that thy worth may be made resplendent and manifest unto all the world.” — Baha’u'llah, Hidden Words, Persian #72

Can Nature be exploited? Does the Universe have rights?

This has been a very odd semester, to say the least. Having turned 30, I’ve somehow become antsy; I find myself, for instance, more and more subject to the urge to write fiction, i.e., to “finally get going again” with my childhood passion (and my organization, NewEurasia, may also be taking an arts-cultural turn in its coverage during 2012-13). In terms of the intellectual themes predominating my academic life, I’m starting to move away from strictly Islamological issues and into other terrains that have long interested me, particularly the democratic/liberal theory and environmentalism.

Studying liberalism, of course, intersects with my journalistic work, so it shall come as no surprise to my readers that I’m looking into the phenomenon of “managed democracy” in contemporary Russia and Kazakhstan, and that I shall probably be approaching the topic from the perspective of Claude Lefort. It also feeds into my interests as a member of the Baha’i Faith, namely, whether global democracy is possible, indeed, whether there can be a global understanding of what it means to be “human”.

As for environmentalism, believe it or not, this actually emerges from my background in Averroism, and no, I don’t mean by way of Spinoza; again, it is by way of my childhood resources.

There is nothing to forgive

Graciously look upon Thy servant, humble and lowly at Thy door, with the glances of the eye of Thy mercy, and immerse him in the Ocean of Thine eternal grace. — Abdul-Baha

Today is the second anniversary of your suicide, and somehow, it has come easier — not because there is less to say, less to feel; no, quite the contrary, because there is too much, and all of it so beautiful.

I am the kashkúl, You are the tide

Today I turn 30. As my readers, friends and colleagues know, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Inevitably, it brings up complex feelings — mingled uncertainty and absolute confidence in one’s life choices; a sense of the elusiveness of numbers, not quite mere human inventions, not quite correspondent to the fullness of reality; noticing grey hairs appearing amidst the dark brown, reminding you of inevitability. But overall, I’m feeling good today. The kingdom of the impossible is a bit closer than it was ten years ago, but for now, the horizon’s edge quivers with invitation.

And as I pass this milestone, really, without much effort on my own, I find that I do not want to reflect about myself in an atomistic sense, but about myself in its widest, universal sense: my loved ones who constitute my being — parents and clan, siblings both of blood and spirit, dearest friends, close colleagues, mentors and guides, readers and so many of the young people of Central Asia, even enemies, and all those who have crossed my path and helped me evolve. There are too many names, too many faces, too many moments both inner and outer, so forgive me for not explicitly mentioning specific people (and, indeed, due to the nature of my work in Central Asia, perhaps it’s also a bit wise if I don’t roll out a list of identities). Know that you all are part of me, and that through you, I find You, the Divine Countenance, the supremely agapeic Source.

None of us are monads, self-enclosed wholes; we are small universes, self-enclosed non-wholes seeking completion, an ancient Turkmen carpet of inter-subjectivity and inter-essence, woven with countless threads spun from eternity. And none of us shall perish; we have been bequeathed the gift of existence by the Divine, and I dare say it is not revocable, our ontological dependence notwithstanding. Standing upon the shore, looking out across the surging vastness of being, our individual currents are flowing, yes, for only brief moments as waves cresting upon the surface before before slipping into the depths, but we shall persist, as ripples, as ebbs and flows, as the contour of the coastline, and perhaps even as the bathymetry.

All the rights and wrongs and all the joys and sorrows and all the many, many lessons glistening under the blazing golden sun and the glimmering silver moon of the Divine Essence, so far away but its heat and its light so, so close, I feel the spray of salt upon my skin, and I rejoice: I am the kashkúl, You are the tide.

What might autumn be like in the future?

In general, the period of October through December is my favorite time of year, fertile yet transitory, transitory yet perennial. Eons from now, when our world has become ancient and our sun approaches its demise, I wonder what autumn might be like, because for me, it is a uniquely terran moment, tied to the destiny of our planet. I would like to imagine a world with a year twice or thrice as long as ours and the autumns and first chills of winter stretching out for months upon months — but perhaps that would ruin the uniqueness of the season, which seems so necessarily fragile, momentary, for only then can it reach for something eternal.

I recently had to purchase a new mobile phone as my old one, after travelling across three continents in my pockets, finally gave up the ghost this past September. This device comes equipped with a very primitive camera — despite proudly being a creature of the digital era, I am no technophile, and persistent poverty reinforces the need for simplicity even in this era of the smartphone. The quality of the photographs are intriguing: a camera for the journalist this is not, but it is one for the mystic. What’s striking is the odd painting-like quality, the blurred edges from the curvature of the lens’ plastic casing, and most of all, the sharp, brilliant light. Rarely have I found photos that capture so well the sublime character of a season that finds its strength in inevitability, finality.