Histrionics

I can't think of any other appropriate word with which to head this particular post but I was in theatre today - for very minor surgery - and I couldn't help but exaggerate it - the last occasion I was in a hosptital theatre - and on previous occasions too - was for very differnt reasons altogether and I couldn't help but be reminded of them - and get upset - never mind the reason why I was in theatre today. What I found most odd, though, was being in a theatre when I was conscious. I have had minor (day) surgery before, when I have just been treated under local anaesthetic, but today it just seemed as if I was more aware. The procedure was finished within 20 minutes but I have to admit to missing the affects of a general aneasthetic - I not only look forward to the sensation of being pumped with anesthetic but also the prospect of a good few hours sleep!

Against Innocence

I am currently reading the above book by Andrew Shanks. I have to say that the title irritates me a little - which may not necessarily be a bad thing - it may even be intentional - but, for me, Rose's thought is far more complex than just being 'against' anything - even innocence - however much she might proclaim that she is even more invested the more innocent she sounds. I am reminded of an essay in Judaism & Modernity where Rose prefaces it with several very short lines on innocence and guilt. Unfortunately, I am bereft of my books for the time being so I do not have it to hand to simply quote but I will definitely make an effort to look it up when I am reunited with them.

Whether or not I agree with the title, though, or even the content of the book itself, is immaterial for me at the moment - what is important for me is that I am reading again, however irregularly and that my passion and love for Hegel and Kierkegaard has been, or is being, however slowly, re-ignited. Even my passion for Hegel et al has been tested by recent events - when I might have expected it to have become stronger - but it is so exciting to feel my interest being reawakened again.

Notes from a diary (in no particular order)

Wednesday 21 January 2009

First time back at University Hospital since having my last dose of chemotherapy in October. I'm waiting for an appointment for a blood test, post chemotherapy - I was worried about my bilirubin levels a few months ago - they were high - not that I really know why I was worried because they were high - and I 'wanted' reassurance that the raised level was a cumulative effect of the toxins that they had been injecting into me since March, as the medics repeatedly told me it was, i.e. I wanted evidence. Now, of course, I am petrified that they will have the same difficulty in getting blood from me as they had when I was going through chemotherapry - apparently the drugs harden the veins making it increasingly awkward for blood to be taken. Strange perhaps that GR didn't ever mention it herself - I can't imagine she didn't ever experience the same trouble - certainly she wrote about chemotherapy but from what I recall she didn't appear to elaborate on the damage the drugs do to the veins and the consequent implications of that damage, such as the difficulty in taking blood and the anxiety beforehand in having to give blood, however 'routine' a test might be. I shall have to check when I return home.

The reason I am at the hospital, proper, though, is to see the consultant surgeon (I don't feel comfortable referring to him by his first name - it feels somewhat disrespectful. Of course, I wouldn't entertain calling the nurses by their surname - this GR did acknowledge!). It is perhaps ironic but this time last year I was anticipating surgery to remove the tumours and manically purchasing the final 'essentials' before I had my mastectomy while now I am seeing the consultant to discuss cosmetic surgery. This time, I am embarassed by it all all. Last year, while I desperately didn't want the surgery - whoever would _ I was just anxious that the treatment commence. Now, though, to be discussing tatoos etc seems a little frivolous, as if I am taking up valuable time.

Rothko exhibition

In receipt of a complimentary ticket, I took the opportunity to visit the Rothko exhibition at the Tate Modern on Saturday. I am a little sceptical of the meaning that his work is said to represent - a whole industry seems to have grown out of it - but I am fascinated with our fascination of it. What intrigued/upset me most of all, though, was that of all the books that were for sale in the shop there did not appear to be one that documented the history of the Tate Modern itself.

With the new year, 2008 is, hopefully, well and truly behind me. I do indeed still have regular appointments with the oncologist - and with the surgeon - but I have to let last year be what it was and attempt to accept it and live my life again. To paraphrase Gillian Rose, my life was, of course, never in abeyance but I was barely living it beforehand either so, this year, I must begin to recapture the self that I have somehow lost along the way over the years. And a good start for me is to resume my reading - and, possibly, writing. I am not a good writer - I have never tried - I have only written in the academic style - but irrespective of whether or not I can write I intend to try. I will start by completing the posts that I began several years ago but have not yet posted. I just need to be more disciplined.

As expected, I did indeed have chemotherapy. Whether or not it was my choice is another question altogether. But I had my last dose of IV chemotheraphy on 8 October and finshed the chemotherapy pills a week later. I am still on medication and plan to be for at least the next 5 years but I doubt I will be alive in my 50s. In the meantime, I want to make good use of whatever time I have left.

I have wondered to myself why I chose to post a paragraph or two from my PhD on the experience of recognition and misrecognition - and I can only conclude that I was trying to acknowledge to myself that I was deceiving myself - that, as much as I like to think that I have overcome this disease, there is still a real possiblity that it will return, if indeed it has really left at all. I can not help but think that I am going to die of this disease - and it scares the hell out of me.

The Comedy and Tragedy of Recognition and Misrecognition

Throughout her authorship Rose was at pains to develop a critical theory of society which neither exaggerated nor underestimated the power and powerlessness of the individuals who compose society to effect social change. Rose achieved this through Hegel's idea of recognition. Recognition, for Hegel, refers to the experience of misrecognition that consciousness undergoes and which Hegel's phenomenologies document. It is from out of the domination of practical reason that the experience of misrecognition, and its recognition, arises. Recognition shows how the lack of identity between both theoretical and practical reason and the natural world corresponds to real social relations. It refers to the experience of domination quickened by the affirmation of a relative identity which is itself induced by the concept of practical reason. Practical reason, or freedom, is a presupposition of modern bourgeois society which dominates theoretical reason in such a way that what is dominated remains hidden. The strength in Hegel's thought lies in his recognition of the domination of practical reason and the illusions it encourages. His phenomenologies document the experiences of natural consciousness which, unbeknownst to it, presupposes practical reason but which, in its experiences of itself, also recognises as presupposed. In this way a unity of theoretical and practical reason emerges which is not so much posited but which is recognised as an identity that already exists but about which we have to repeatedly learn.

TBC

Keep your mind in hell and despair not

It is not at all easy to say but, never able to take the line of least line resistance, I have no choice but to simply say that I have just very recently been diagonsed with invasive ductal carcinoma - it is not so easy to say things so straightforwardly! I am lucky in that this is the most common form of breast cancer. I am also fortuante to be told that I am "ER positive" (which logically means that I am both younger as well as older than I actually am) so that it should, at least, be able to be controlled, if not cured, by the now common drug, Tamoxifen. I am, of course, preparing for the worst - not quite The Will - although I have thought about what will become of my books - really forcing me to question my attachment to Hegel, Kierkegaard and Rose - but in fear that I might lose my hair - not much of it already anwyay - I went shopping for wigs today - even if my intention, intially was to just browse - and did in fact purchase one. It has been suggested to me that chemotherapy may not necessarily be necessary but this was the suggestion of a plastic surgeon and not an oncologist and, as much as I might be criticised for prejudging people, I always like to be prepared and anticipate that I will need chemotherapy and that I am, therefore, very likely to lose my hair. The only way in which I can accept this is to see it as a "fashion accessory"

Hegel's absolute relation to the absolute

"When we say of things that they are finite, we understand thereby that they not have a determinateness...but that...non-being constitutes their nature and being...They are, but the truth of this being is their end. The finite...ceases to be; and its ceasing to be is not merely a possiblity, so that it could be without ceasing to be, but the being as such of finite things is to have the germ of disease as their being-within-self: the hour of their birth is the hour of their death. The thought of the finitude of things brings this sadness with it...and in the singleness of such determination there is no longer left to things an affirmative being distinct from their destiny to perish" (Hegel, G. 1969, p. 129).

Ah, Hegel, how you have been mistreated. How could you have written this - and in the Science of Logic of all books - and still be accused of being a rationalist (as if, anyway, it was a term of abuse) and not also be a man of real feeling.

"the point is, whether in thinking of the finite one holds fast to the being of finitude and lets the transitoriness and the ceasing-to-be cease to be" (Hegel, G. 1969, p. 130).

an experiment

Fear and Trembling

Aporetic universalism

Hannah Arendt in The Origins of Totalitarianism has said that those who have lost their place in a community - politically or legally - can only articulate themselves in the private sphere and are at the mercy of friendship, sympathy and the "great and incalculable grace of love" which says "I want you to be". When I feel at a loss I to turn to my friends and those friends, who are sometimes also my enemies, are my books. Yet strangely, rather than encouraging me to withdraw further into myself - with the attendant danger of becoming Hegel's 'beautiful soul' - who is not beautiful at all - I find myself again.

TBC

Anomie

TBC

"Keep your mind in hell and despair not"

Several days ago, while I was looking for a notepad in which to write, I stumbled across an entry that I had written on a day in a June of over six years ago. For no particular reason that I can remember I read that I was feeling especially down. It occurred to me, as I was reading my observations, that, while now I very rarely sink to such depths, now instead I feel permanently low but without however recognising that I feel persistently misreable. And as I write this I am reminded of a very brief exchange I had with someone when I attempted to explain what it was - and, implicitly, why -I was intending to study by pursuing a PhD: the only answer I could give at the time was that I was intending to study Hegel's Unhappy Consciousness. As for 'why', I can only say that I had no choice. The answer was perhaps just as imcomprehensible to my inquisitor as the question was to me but not at all ironically it was noted that I had said this with a smile on my face: not a smug, knowing smile but a smile that arises out of pure happiness. The prospect of studying Hegel's Unhappy Consciousness filled me with a joy not unlike the joy I felt when I was first introduced to the psychological concept of cognitive dissonance - or the joy that I feel when I listen to a musical note that somehow sounds out of tune.

TBC

"Unutterable and nameless..."

Ironic, perhaps, that I should quote Nietzsche but still publicise myself on the world-wide web: "Unutterable and nameless is that which torments and delights my soul and is also the hunger of my belly...be too exalted for the familiarity of names: and if you have to speak of it, do not be ashamed to stammer". And a variation on the theme by Rose: "If I knew who or what I were, I would not write; I write out of those moments of anguish which are nameless". Ironic, perhaps, too, that I should spend years struggling against academia and eventually reject it because "we do not have enough command of each other's language for the exchange to be fruitful", yet return to the very discipline against which I had struggled for so long. And yet, perhaps, not so ironic at all for I was neither in nor out of academia for me to have joined it initially only to have either escaped or re-joined it later: I did not return to it for I was already there, only I didn't call it academia then and I don't have a name for it now.