Heidegger's River

As usual I have a mass of conflicting emotions. I spend a lot of time reading continental philosophy and yes, I know that might be the trouble right there, and I also spend a lot of time watching the news and trying to figure out what the hell is going on really (and only getting so far along that route). When I feel like I'm getting somewhere in comprehending the philosophy then I learn of some tragedy that incites my indignation and I wonder why I'm hiding my head in the clouds of Aristophanes when I need to be dealing with the reality of contemporary politics and the erosion of American democracy as the imperialist agenda gains ever more momentum. But then I think that no one is going to take anything labeled "imperialist" seriously and no one really cares what's happening in the world. So long as we have our Hi-Def flatscreens, wi-fi, and iPods then to hell with what's happening outside the walls of our modern Babylon. No one wants to hear it. So then I pick up another esoteric book lately arrived from Amazon and go back to trying to map the intricacies of modern philosophic thought in France. And when I get really disgusted with all of it, I turn to studying Ancient Greek conjugations and declensions. It's a way of running from it all. It puts something in my head that I can say over and over like a mantra. Not to gain enlightenment but more like some mental chewing gum.

Today, for instance, I'm thinking about Gonzales' role in firing the eight federal prosecutors and just how much he has been complicit in turning this society more and more into a police state. On the other hand, I've finished the first part of Heidegger's book about Holderlin's poem "The Ister". I'm interested in Heidegger's concept of dwelling but at the same time a little wary of the Teutonic-sounding ideas of "The River" like it could be illustrated by Frank Frazetta.

At work the big topic of conversation is why (or how) Grandmaster Flash got into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I know. I know.

Okay, so some bright person out there is bound to point out how the ultimate questions of ontology dialectically treats of our desire/fear of the Other and this, compounded with the obliteration of "the subject," has led to the Orwellian acceptance of militarism in our desire-crazed consumerist society of the spectacle.

And someone else is bound to say that I should jettison all that mumbo-jumbo and face the real world. And I have a choice of real worlds, of course: the one on Fox News or the one on CNN. And so the real world is a created thing, a bricolage, like my subject, my cherished-but-lost psyche.

I know exactly where my Greek grammar is. Right beside my bed. I can see myself under the blankets reciting paideuo, paideueis, paideuei, paideuomen, paideuete, paideuousi as the world fragments.