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Two

on the book of samuel and samizdats

Prado_-_Los_Desastres_de_la_Guerra_-_No._77_-_Que_se_rompe_la_cuerda

a late introduction

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I haven’t been writing much lately. Like many people I waffle between open hostility and absolutely crushing sadness re: Earth and its artifacts. I write better when hostile, but hostility requires an enemy, and the hopelessness of it all brought on whatever it is that other writers have other metaphors for. I tend to say “the feeling of humidity in a dry climate,” and  I trust that people who know what that means know what that means. A few readers noted it in the nihilism article, they were right. I gather this has been going around, I hope you’re all doing well. Still, it’s either break out or there’s a decent chance that I’m never going to update again. Forgive the introduction while I try to jump-start this blog again, I need to remind myself what I care about. There are many new readers since the last one, and they ask good questions, and I have thoughts and answers to write. Besides, they keep asking about the name.

Sam[]zdat is a pun on the Soviet samizdat and Sam’s data (/sæmz/ in Common Yank). The Sam in question is the prophet Samuel. The data in question is the Book of Samuel. It may as well just be called “blog,” because the name is a description of writing on the internet. Accordingly, this is less about resolving anything than just trying to draw out a couple of images.

Early Israelites were governed by judges – highly localized, tasked with interpretation of law and dispute, without the political power of neighboring kingdoms. This lead to local abuses (Samuel installs his unfit sons), but it didn’t threaten the entire people. Still, the dangers piled up, and the abuses piled up, and a kingdom serves for glory that the regional council does not. They tell God to give them a king.

The Host of Hosts makes clear what will happen:

10 Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

19 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us.”

As a side note, most of human psychology – at least the interesting parts – can be found in that passage. Continue reading “Two”

Aeon Piece

Old readers: I have a short essay in Aeon:

Whence comes nihilism, the uncanniest of all guests?

It’s something like a condensed version of the Uruk Series, and much shorter than most essays here. (I didn’t ditch this blog for other publications; I’m working on them, more posts here in a few days.)

People coming from Aeon: Hi. Thanks for reading. The Aeon essay is (kind of) a condensed form of a series I wrote here (the index of which is here), and a few odds and ends.

The most relevant pieces are this one on Seeing Like a State, this on Karl Polanyi, and this on gri-gri. All of those are much longer than the Aeon piece (and my tone is less neutral). Eventually it goes into Eric Hoffer, Christopher Lasch, and some other stuff.

I haven’t addressed Nietzsche very explicitly (although I mention him at the end of the series), nor differing conceptions of nihilism. I plan to in the future. Sorry.

At the moment, I’m writing a new series. It’s about Kant and mathematics, and how that leads into early phenomenology. The first post is here. It will likely make people with different philosophical commitments angry.

I feel like people are going to ask this, so: Qohelet’s Ossuary is intended to be a list of quotes pulled from history books. I’ve been bad about updating it.

My email is luukeep at outlook.com if anyone has questions.

Links and Thanks

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I don’t really do links pages. I did one, once, but decided against continuing it. The links that I’d post are directly taken from links pages of other blogs, which feels more than a little parasitic.

Instead, I’ll post an annual list of my favorite articles. Since it’s hard to remember all of the articles of the past year, there’s no possible way this is fully accurate, which really makes this a list of articles that left a lasting impression. It’s by no means fair or objective; most of these are personal reading habits that I’m pretty sure a lot of my readers share.

This is also not in any order. I’ll limit myself to twelve, because there are twelve months in the year and twelve is the superior number. Continue reading “Links and Thanks”

Introduction, and Baudelaire

yes, I’m aware that this manages to say both nothing and yet all too much

goya the dog

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I’ve tried and failed to write several essays (one on ethics, one on consequentialism specifically, and one on adaptive traits in religion) at this point. I needed certain tools to explain my point of view, ones in books that I haven’t written about.

I tried to write the essays without referencing these writings. They became incomprehensible. Worse: they were boring.

It’s time, then, to clear the ground.

The next [number] of posts will be about four books. Theoretically, there should be five posts – one per book and then a conclusion – but things don’t always go according to plan.

These four books represent the external side of modernity. This is not an authoritative account of the books themselves, nor of “politics”, nor of “human beings.” It’s an attempt to establish a baseline of communication. In that sense, they do make up something like an “ideology”, with two notable differences: 1) I take all four of them to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive. 2) None of them examine the underlying causes, the internal structures, whatever those are (whether metaphysical or theological or psychological).

So far as I know, none of the works explicitly draws on another. One can take that in several ways: It’s possible that they managed to arrive at similar conclusions, which I take to be a strong indication of some truth. But it’s also possible that I’m contorting their meanings to fit together. I don’t much mind either way – the reader is advised to read the books themselves regardless.

The four books which present the political or ethical aspects of nihilism are these:

Seeing Like a State – James C. Scott
The Great Transformation – Karl Polanyi
The True Believer – Eric Hoffer
The Culture of Narcissism – Christopher Lasch (and here and then here)

This list (and the accompanying introduction) will, of course, become a table of contents in the future.

Continue reading “Introduction, and Baudelaire”

Follow-up on aesthetics and information.

only makes sense with the first piece in mind/still clarifies less than I would have hoped

This is a further explication of a few things I introduced in my last essay. As such, it probably won’t make much sense without that/is not meant to stand as an actual essay. Continue reading “Follow-up on aesthetics and information.”

Four Questions

michelangelo-the-fall-and-expulsion-of-adam-and-eve-sistine-chapel1

 

A KIND OF INTRODUCTION

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There are only four questions that this blog will address. They aren’t the only questions, but they’re my questions for now.

I don’t have answers for them. I also don’t have the question part of the question. Call them problems, then. Lacking formulation, they are:

Mathematics
Comedy
The 1960s
Yes/No

I understand if this seems strange.

Continue reading “Four Questions”

Samuel’s Data

10 Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

19 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us.”

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