Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me? 1

I’ve been seeing –as I’m sure you are too- people taking up spirituality in various guises these days. I am still confused whether to call it spirituality, mysticism or plain religion, but I am tying to refer to the anxious (and I mean this in the medical/psychiatric sense of the term) search for some inner kernel of our soul that will, once found, will somehow trigger every possible positivity, imbue our universe with meaning, thereby enabling inner and worldly peace. Some try their luck in known practices such as meditation (in its myriad of forms), Rei-chi, Yoga, Crystals, Horoscopes, the Occult, Sufism, the Cabala, Gnosticism; the list, as you know, grows long. I am not going to go into the why’s, as I think anyone reading daily papers has, at one point or another, come upon the same self-reflexive, self-flagellating confessional as to how modern life disseminates anxiety and guilt, driven by a system built on individualism and competition, so on and so forth. The reasons are, to me, of secondary importance; however, this fascination with mysticism, or at least the act of filling all one’s ‘leisure’ life with spiritual practices indicate to me a strange and interesting object of study in itself.

(to be continued)

Philosophy according to Alan Watts

According to Alan Watts, philosophy has repeatedly asked the same five questions throughout the history of reported time. They are as follows:

(it = existence)

1. Who started it?

2. Are we going to make it?

3. Where are we going to put it?

4. Who's going to clean up?

5. Is it serious?

:))

Önemli Bir Tespit...

Arkadaşım Deniz B. şöyle bir tespitte bulundu. Görelim ne soylamış:
'Eskiden kadınla erkek birdir diye düşünürdüm. Şimdiyse eminim ki kadınlarda en az bir gen farklı. O da herhangi bir tartışmadan muhakkak galip ayrılma zorunluluğunu yaratan gen. Öyle ki bir kadına dersin, Hava ne kadar sıcak. Cevabı alırsın, Ne bekliyordun ki?'

Adana, GA...

Adana'ya 8 sene sonra yine geldim. Buradan aklımda kalanlar, üniversite yıllarımda gördüğüm inanılmaz şuh kadınlar ve yemeklerinin acı lezzetiydi. Bu gelişimde Adana'yı daha değişik görme şansım oldu. Aşırı fazla yemek yedim ve etrafı seyrettim...
İlk gözlem şu: Adana, ABD nin kırsal eyaletlerinin yavanlığını fazlasıyla örnek almış kendine. Şehir merkezi var mı belli değil. Zaten herkes sıcaktan klimalı mekanlarda durmak zorunda. Yemek desen evet harika bir hizmet ve sofra kültürü var, da burada yaşayan biri dikkat etmezse damar sertliğinden gider bir kaç on yılda... Eski evler bakımsız ve ıssız duruyorlar ki sanırım öyleler... Gezecek bir yer pek yok ve manzara diye size gösterilen yerleri gösteren üzülmesin diye ilgiyle seyrediyorsun, zira manzaralar insanın estetik kaygılarının standartlarının ne kadar düşebileceğini gösteriyor. Bu da insanların uyum konusunda ne kadar usta olduklarının bir temsili adeta. Gidilecek yerler şehrin kıyılarına yosun gibi yapışıp kalmış dev alışveriş merkezleri. Tabi ki arabayla gidiliyor. Toplu taşıma araçlarının pencerelerinin açık olması klima eksikliğine gönderme yapıyor, tabi hangi yurt evladı o otobüslere dayanabiliyorsa bence hemen komando yapılabilir...
Trendy restoranlar henüz burayı ele geçirmemiş zaten Adana sofralarının zenginliği ve lezzeti karşısında bugünün trendy fusion yemekleri ayakta kalamaz gibi geliyor bana. Ancak görünmek/göstermek işlevi görüyor sanki bu trendy kafeler...
Kahve aldım.
Yemek yedim... Hem de çok...
Sokaklarda dolaşamadım çok sıcaktı...
Hayatımda gittiğim en harika saunaya gittim, soğuk havuzda onbeş dakika kaldım bana mısın demedi, ama saunaya en fazla 7 dakika dayanabildim. Ne yaparsın kanımızın yarısı ABDli...
Gecenin bir yarısı arkadaşımla bir taksiye binip bir ocakbaşına götürmesini söyledik. Eski, pis bir mahalled iki bina arasına sıkışmış bir aralıkta harika bir lokantada patlayana kadar yedik. Müzisyenlere Kimseye Etmem Şikayet'i söylettik. Arkadaşımı Türk Sanat Musikisine döndürdüm.
Hayat güzel, yaralarımızı yalıyarak kabuk bağlamalarını bekliyoruz...

Vignette of The Week

"All speech is demand. Every demand (is) a request for love." - Lacan

Jokes from The Sublime Object of Ideology (S.Zizek, Verso:1989 /Zizek'in İdeolojinin Yüce Nesnesi'nden fıkralar

"At an art exhibition in Moscow, there is a picture showing Nadezhda Kruopskaya, Lenin's wife, in bed with a young member of the Komsomol. The title of the picture is 'Lenin in Warsaw.' A bewildered visitor asks a guide: 'But where is Lenin?' The guide replies quietly and in dignity: 'Lenin is in Warsaw.' (pg. 178)

"Moskova'da bir sanat sergisinde, Lenin'in zevcesi Nadezhda Kruopskaya'nın genç bir Komsomol üyesiyle yatakta bir fotoğrafı asılıdır. Fotoğrafın ismi 'Lenin Varşova'da'dır. Şaşkın bir ziyaretçi bir rehbere sorar: 'Peki Lenin nerede?' Rehber sessiz ama vakur, cevap verir: 'Lenin Varşova'da.'

* * * * *

"A conscript tries to evade military service by pretending to be mad. His symptom is that he compulsively checks all the paper he can lay his hands on, constantly repeating: 'That is not it!' He is sent to the military psychiatrist, in whose office he also examines all the papers lying around, including those in the wastepapaper basket, repeating all the time: 'That is not it!'The psychiatrist, finally convinced that he is really mad, gives him a written warrant releasing him from military service. The conscript casts a look at it and says cheerfully: 'That is it!' (pg. 180)

"Askere çağrılmış bir genç, askerden kaçmak için deli taklidi yapmaya girişir. Belirtisi, kompülsif bir şekilde eline geçirebildiği tüm kağıt parçalarını inceleyip, 'Bu değil!' olacaktır. Askeriyenin psikiyatristine sevk edilir; orada da çöpte bulunanlar dahil gördüğü tüm kağıt parçalarını inceler ve devamlı tekrar eder: 'Bu değil!' Psikiyatrist eninde sonunda adamın deli olduğuna kanaat getirir ve ona 'askerliğe elverişli değildir' belgesini verir. Genç adam belgeye bir bakar ve neşeyle, 'İşte bu!' der."

* * * *

"How does a man from Montenegro masturbate? He digs a hole in the ground, puts his member in it and waits for the earthquake."

"Karadağlı bir adam nasıl mastürbasyon yapar? Yerde bir delik açar, içine organını sokar ve depremi bekler."

Bir analist olacak candostuma...

Psikanalizle ilk ilgilenmeye başladığım yıllardı, sanırım 15 ya da 16 yaşındaydım. Birkaç tane Freud devirmiş, "du bakali n'olcek" gibisinden aranıyordum. Ailecek o zamanlarda İzmir Fuarı'ndaki Kitap Fuarına gitmiştik. Görür görmez atladım Yeni Başlayanlar için Lacan adlı çizgi-kitaba (bu arada bu kitapları çok tuttuğumu söylemeliyim - okurun asıl metinlere yol alması için bir giriş niteliğinde kullanıldıkça en azından). Babam sordu bu kimdir nedir diye. Anlatmaya Oidipus Kompleksinden başladım. O'na "oğlan çocuğu Anne'yi arzular, Baba önünde bir engel oluşturduğundan, sembolik olarak onu öldürmek ister" dedim, biraz da onun ilgisini çekmek, önyargılarını kaşımak için. Gerçekten entelektüel olan (ama maalesef Psikanalizle ilgilenmeyen) Babam bir an yerinde durdu, sağ elini bir Osmanlı külhanbeyi gibi kaldırdı ve "böyle heriflere bi koyacaksın bazen!" diye matrak ama bilgelik dolu bir laf etti. Babam bu konuda haklı olmayabilirdi, ama büyük adamdı vesselam!

Syntax and Sociology

Now humor me. As I was putting my daughter to bed, an idea popped up among the now mantra-like lullaby singing. One of the differences in syntax between Turkish and English concerns the position of the relative clause/sıfat-ilgi tümceciği in relation to the subject/özne. While the relative clause usually comes after the subject followed by the action it is performing through the verb in English whereas in Turkish, the clause comes before the subject, turning it into a full-blown adjective that describes it. Moreover in English, relative clauses are usually separated by the main sentence by use of punctuation, especially the comma. In Turkish though they are –again usually- attached to the subject, which waits patiently for the moment in speech to arrive at the verb-al action it sought out to perform in the first place. In English the subject and the verb announces their presence up front, foregrounding the do-er of the action and underlining what there is to be done. The image of the mighty individual, pronouncing its voluntariness and intention to take action towards the world comes to mind. On the other hand the Turkish subject is able to perform its action only after the elements relating to the subject are fully expressed.

Consider these sentences:

TR: Gönderdiğin çiçekler için teşekkür ederim.

ENG: (I) Thank you for the flowers (that/, which) you’ve sent me.

This may sound simplistic, as my attempt here is not to go into linguistic conundrums. However, as a (perhaps too big a) generalization, I think I can posit the relevance of a socio-cultural trait in this linguistic rule. In my opinion, the Turkish language/culture tries to foreground modesty, and even to a significant extent, submission to a higher authority in its usage of language. Perhaps this is why sentences with passive constructions are much favored. The subject of the action is enshrouded, blurred, and the actual verb and what it does to the world takes precedence. This idea resonates fully with Islamic precepts that foregrounds Allah’s will before everything individuals do. The word Islam itself means, “to surrender.” Therefore the subject, though possessing free will, still is under partial (or full, I still am not quite clear on this-this is I think one of the many doctrinal difficulties of Islam) control of Allah. The same goes for the submission to higher authorities. Consider the sacred position of the Caliphate or the Sultan, which can be easily found in collections of folk tales like the Tutiname, or the 1001 Nights. Now on the contrary, I think it is safe to say that Western Capitalist culture foregrounds the individual as a free agent, whose actions are mostly based on their own intentions (this is of course much challenged since the 19^th century onwards). In language use, in contrast to Turkish, English favors the use of active sentence constructions too, positing the defined/implied subject in the beginning of most sentences, clearly delineating who does what. Surrendering to Christ is also present in mostly secularized Continental and Anglo-American culture, however this surrendering I think is very different than the one in Islam, which is a concept too large to discuss in this particular piece. In any case, the said process of secularization is also an interesting point of inquiry.

Take the courtly love tradition, or even the great masters of Continental literature like Dante. Today it is no secret that both these examples are hugely indebted to Ummayad-Andalusian Islam. Sufi masters of the period posit Allah as the Beloved, which can never be reached, maybe only glimpsed at, but “married to” through death. Now consider Dante’s Beatrice in La Vita Nuova, or the way the troubadours shifted these, sometimes almost erotic metaphors onto their understanding of the lover (the Knight for example), or the loved (the Princess in peril for example). There is an excellent book by Robert Briffaut on this subject if anyone is interested (The Troubadours, 1965: IUP). In this sense, the Beloved is transposed onto a mortal agent, though the fact that the Princess/Lover (as in Dante’s Beatrice) is not to be reached, although she remains a Muse for life of the agent. So, what happens then? In comes an action that again foregrounds the agent’s conscious intention towards an action that has the possibility of changing the situation to their own, worldly advantage: The slaying of the Dragon… In this way, Continental troubadour poetry not only secularizes the religious imagery employed by the Sufis, but also posits smack in the middle, an event that requires full, external action based on the agent’s intent to an endeavor in the world, whose consequences are physical…

I know all this sounds too simplistic, but neither is this a dissertation nor am I a scholar. The point is that both languages reflect and affect their own cultural evolution.

There is also the position and function of the author in both languages that helps this argument but I shouldn’t get carried further away. At least, not for now.

All criticism (negative or positive) are welcome.

letter to a father of a daughter

as for having a daughter... may allah bless every man with a daughter my friend, you are among the lucky of male mortals...
kiss her much, cuddle her frequently; make sure she knows she is loved...
don't sweat sleepless nights and long drawn out crying sessions, those will be the true moments of human existence, you will be tackling everything bu the credit crunch, thank god for that! besides we need less and less sleep as we get older... so consider it as a training session for those long nights when you're 70 and are having attacks of nostalgia...
imagine talking to her about condoms when she brings in her first horribly pubescent young man into the house, gets drunk or high for the first time; when she gets the first existential anxieties and consider yourself lucky for having the experience necessary to console her...
loveherloveherloveher
take her out often to meet the butcher, the grocer, the local video store et al. make sure she sees as many people from different walks of life as possible.
readreadread to her, they become zombiefied through tv as they grow, no matter how educational the program on tv may be...
loveherloveherloveher... if you really, truly love her, the rest will come as easy as pie. and since once you have her in your life, the opposite won't be possible, so you are set my friend, don't worry about a thing!

Arrrgh, once again

I am terribly unlucky with computers. I have probably have a history of 5-6 computers, all ceasing to function for reasons that even boggle the technicians. Once my hard disc gave a loud crack and a sound of a loose bearing hitting the casing with loud and frequent "pings" went on until I pulled the plug on it. Another time, something in the cd-rom suddenly cracked, stopping playing the cd. When I took it out of the case and turned upside down sideways, only to see flakes of the stuff of the cd coming out like snow. The cd-rom had broken the cd down to its very shards (Tuz-Buz -salt, ice-  as they say in Turkish) and somehow managed to damage my hard-drive as well. I have lost all my academic papers and creative pieces. about 80 poems, and countless translations. Do I hear back up? I've had the strangest problems there as well. Either the backup cd didn't have everything or would not open, or the files came up damaged when I transfered it onto another computer. I'm seriously starting the feel I must have some cyber-jinx energy, or god doesn't want me to write, on a computer at least. 

To end this once and for all, I bought superduper Mac Book Pro, hoping my troubles would come to an end. After all, I have friends who have been using the same mac for years without any problems. Well, 10 months in using it, suddenly the damn machine refuses to turn on. I try everything in the manuals, then take it to the technicians. They tell me its cpu board is caput. This is, apparently a terribly rare thing, as they have to order one that'll arrive in a month from the States. I thought we were in the fast age, flying all around the world in days and all. What is this one month b.s.? 

Hopefully the memory is intact, maybe there the Mac can cast its counter-spell to my jinx. Maybe this time the measly number of files left to me from my last 10 years can be saved.

So-so poem from 2 years ago which I found in my computer

And so you sprinkle

Down the hills in existing

Like flakes freeze

So dense you choke

 

First cry then whack

In q-tips your heart doth lie

I come out all teased

With angelic upbringing

 

 

 

 

 

When some do say, in life

One cries incessantly, I

Look out of necessity

To brighter days underfriend

 

Ship on a glade wave tosses

Futures and means

Dressing my salad never was heard

As eloquent as dream

 

 

 

 

Flesh of my flesh

Blood of my blood

This is what i should

Have done in your

Name

 

Drape a wall

Dig my hole

Wait to clasp

The flowers that dropped after

Your name

 

 

 

really not good, but in tribute to the occasion it was written for, I leave it be, as if it were a haiku that's written on the wind.

Reading and Cognition

I think everyone will agree that the recent generations of human beings are endowed with certain perceptual peculiarities that are distinct to this age. Again probably most people will agree that the presence of television and visual media, the proliferation of computers and the web are changing children’s ways of spending leisure time. We hear more and more about the harmful effects of over-exposure to TV or the computer monitor, running parallel with the declining rate of reading in children. In addition to this, it is somewhat perplexing to notice that Turkey is right after the States in the world's highest rate in TV viewing. Considering the fact that my generation didn’t get to see a color TV or multiple channels until the mid-80’s, I remember my childhood as a more extraverted time of activity, where we spent most of our time outside with neighbors kids, inventing all sorts of different games ranging from tag to charades, from makeshift magic shows to making puppets and backdrops to produce a shadow-play for the parents and other kids. Other than that, being outside-bound for fun had other advantages as well. We were able to make friends with the community much easier, doing errands for the house like picking up groceries, running to the “bakkal” and so on. My mother felt relatively safe when I would wander out for a chore, as she knew that everyone around knew me and whose child I was. Mostly due to TV and household entertainment, as well as limited playgrounds in our urban environment, I think it is safe to say that today parents are less reluctant to let their children interact with the grocer, the butcher or the baker. These days, especially in big cities, living your childhood in healthy activity is becoming more and more difficult, as buildings get bigger and bigger, and playgrounds and parks get smaller and smaller. I can’t deny that safety has become another big concern, but outside of Istanbul, Turkey I believe, is still a safe place.  

            Coming from a reading-oriented family, one of my ambitions in child rearing is to pass along the same love of reading that my parents engendered in me.  Reading was a huge part of my childhood. After having spent hours devouring the beautiful children’s books my mother had brought from the States, I still get a familiar tingle every-time I hear a Dr. Seuss rhyme today and the images that accompany my favorite books come back to me in 3D pictures that waltz along my mind. My mother tells me that I enjoyed her reading to me so much, she would, out of fatigue, have to record her voice onto tapes and play them back to me just so I could hear my favorite book over and over again. Of course, when there is not a lot of TV around, one might say, it is easier to kill time with books. However, I believe the issue is a bit more complex.

            Years ago when I was a teacher, I remember a British educational scientist giving a seminar on how TV is harmful to children, especially in those between 0-3 years of age. Moreover, the worst harm, he claimed, was caused by commercials (which actually resonates with many parents’ complaints about their children’s TV habits). How this harm takes place is still not totally clear among the scientific community but there are some indications that point to a neural development that lacks a semantic complexity, due to an over-saturation of images emitted in high frequency intervals. The child tries to make sense of the images that are projected, but when the images are too many and too frequent, a causal relationship becomes more difficult to achieve. Hence the zombified look that children have when watching the image bombardments TV commercials produce. Consider how one minute there's an explosion on the screen, stars burst into the air, then a disembodied stick of ice-cream drifts towards the viewer with, say a dancing lion on it. Things happen so fast that the baby is not able to attach meaning or a relationship between the sequences of images. Now this may seem far-fetched at first but it seems to me no coincidence that baby channels like Baby TV or Babyfirst emit programs that change scenes slowly, almost as if they try to let the baby take in the scene with all its detail and cognitively absorbe it. A recent study states that babies perceive color in the pre-linguistic part of the brain (the right hemisphere) and that adults perceive the same colors in the linguistic part (the left hemisphere). If this is true, then a healthy transition from pre-linguistic to linguistic perception is an essential component in the child’s cognitive development in later years. In fact, what the seminar speaker suggested was that over-exposure to TV inevitably creates potential attention-deficit disorder, and a lack of concentration needed to finish a book as the children reared on TV are so used to passively watching the colorful lights whereby the imagination is stifled and meaning can not be generated due to a lack of time for neural synapses to form.

            Does this mean reading is dead? I definitely do not think so, as I witness with my child that although we do show her TV, she is much more interested in reading, as long as one of us is with her. Now, when I ask her if she wants to read a book she rushes into her bedroom in her clumsy toddler trot, grabs her favorite book (“Good Night Gorilla”) and returns holding the book out to me and uttering her favorite syllable, “boua”. Then she sits next to me with her arm draped along my leg, watching my fingers as I trace the action depicted in the words, and she joins me in emitting the animal noises that are on the pages, turning to me for approval, and cheering when I nod and smile. In other words, interaction still seems an important element in a child’s cognitive development and I believe no Sesame Street character will ever take the place of mom or dad, as long as we don’t let it.

 

Two Poems With A Funny Moon

YOUR FUNERAL, MY TRIAL

I am a crooked man
And I've walked a crooked mile
Night, the shameless widow
Doffed her weeds, in a pile
The stars all winked at me
They shamed a child
Your funeral, my trial

A thousand Marys lured me
To feathered beds and fields of clover
Bird with crooked wing cast
It's wicked shadow over
A bauble moon did mock
And trinket stars did smile
Your funeral, my trial

Here I am, little lamb...
Let all the bells in whoredom ring
All the crooked bitches that she was
(Mongers of pain)
Saw the moon
Become a fang
Your funeral, my trial

- Nick Cave (from the album of the same name)

ABOVE THE DOCK

Above the quiet dock in mid night,
Tangled in the tall mast's corded height,
Hangs the moon. What seemed so far away
Is but a child's balloon, forgotten after play.

- T. E. Hulme (from Collected Poetical Works, 1912)

A Bold Claim

One of my imaginary PhD dissertation topic is the converging of sufism, anarchism and psychoanalysis in their formulation of a fulfilled human being. Now this might sound strange and I cannot write of such a broad idea in a few sentences but one way in which psychoanalysis is helpful to sufism is by examining sufism's insistence on the necessary relationship between teacher and pupil. Although I consider sufism as the most refined and perfected mystical tradition in all religions, this necessary relationship is open to human error, especially in the danger of an interpersonal relationship that might turn to a narcissistic exploitation on the part of the teacher. No matter how learned and "enlightened" the teacher may be, as a human being he is volatile to say the least. Submission to any human being is swimming in dangerous waters and I believe psychoanalysis may serve in keeping unconscious motives at bay in both parties. Of course both will have to tweak many a knobs to agree to converge but hey in theory at least, many things are possible...

Then again, psychoanalysis at times can use the example of the pupil that asks a zen master whether or not the tao exists and the master whacks him hard with his walking stick.
The same way my dad once responded when I was telling him about Lacan's mirror stage: "..sometimes guys like this need a good slap to come back to earth!" (whacking motion with right hand accompanies).

There is...

...madness in the air.
For a brief moment,
a waltzing scent of hospital spotlessness,
tinges the visitors with despair.

Waiting is for those who care,
Tubular insertions, jugular manipulations
and many other actions that trigger tremors under the skin,
cease to, in a day or so, to dig in.

There is something totalitarian about
hospitals and doctors that care,
one bars one's entrance to the underworld
although one might have in pocket the fare

...

Secularism and Religion - 2

Another important point between the clash of Islam and Secularism in particular is that secularism rests on the Enlightenment ideals of Science and Reason, where the naming of "things" are the determining factors of our understanding and therefore domination of them. Underlying this idea is the claim that the universe is indeed graspable, comprehensible by man's reason. Islam, Sufism to be exact, on the other hand, claims that naming is important, because Adam was in the first place given the authority to name things in creation; not in order to dominate them or reduce them to things though, but because each name also includes in its essence the trace of God, and therefore each name is a variation of God's names. Thus very simply put, knowing the universe doesn't mean grasping it in parts but seeing that in each creature, there is an essence that will be forever unknown to man, which by the way, is a mystical doctrine that is very much at the heart of all mystical strains. In this sense, religious science aims at the revelation of the the godhood in everything, also implicating that all is sacred. When one considers today's environmental problems and how Man treats human nature, one can find all sorts of contemporary mystical writing from all religious thought, touching on the relocation of the sacred and how its absence leads to domination and anthropomorphic arrogance.

Secularism and Religion

These days in Turkey one argument reigns supreme... It permeates every level of high/low culture and finds an expression from the most sophisticated to the most vulgar of mouths, transcending all boundaries of caste, color and creed. It is an argument that has been the scourge of this nation ever since it has been formed: The relationship between religion and secularism is the argument, and the gist stems from the simple, misguided and misinterpreted formula of how these two concepts are completely exclusionary, meaning you either have one or the other. You're either a secularist, or you're deeply religious. There seems to be no compromise between these two camps and although a huge majority feels left out in the debate, the argument rages on in the same vein. To some extent this is understandable and in the following lines, I'll try to elucidate why.
Secularism in this country has always been a western import, and bears the mark of an evolution of Christianity more than anything. It may look like the rise of secularism happens to the expense of Christianity, but the coming of secularism is, in my opinion, for a part, due to the historical changes that Christianity has undergone since its inception. I turn to Gianni Vattimo's collaborative work with Richard Rorty, The Future of Religion (ed. Santiago Zabala, CUP: NY, 2005) in which Vattimo (a Catholic Scholar by the way, not an atheist) claims that "secularization...is the constitutive trait of authentic religious experience." (35) Whoa! From where I stand (Turkey, Middle East, Islam), this argument is blatantly blasphemous. How can the exclusion of religious rules (Sharia) from the public sphere be in anyway connected to religious experience. According to Vattimo though, the western postmodern conception of textuality and historicity has rendered the understanding that Nietszche's call to God's death is similar to the death of Christ on the cross. In both instances, religion is primarily taken out of the hands of God, or a supreme authority and has been placed under human responsibility. God has been killed by the Church by usurping the religious experience from the people, and Christ has died in order for humans to take control of their religious destiny, to carry the responsibility of the Gospel that God has given to them. This responsibility for Vattimo, or the only transcendental signified the Scriptures have to offer, is the notion of charity and love. The practice of this responsibility can only occur in a secular public sphere where different interpretations on the same text(s) have to be in constant interchange without degenerating into a power struggle. For this, we need a religiousness that is non-metaphysical says Vattimo. That is, one that accepts that each text is historically significant in its mode of creation but not exclusionary of others when measured up to a metaphysical Truth.
Now this is all nice and well, and Vattimo, I believe, demonstrates a very reasonable and sophisticated branch of postmodern thought, without falling into the mish-mash of culturally relativistic US counterparts. But just like his insistence on the historicity of Scripture and religion, Vattimo demonstrates an interpretation of religious thought that is deeply rooted in the western metaphysical and philosophical tradition that is, alas, quite absent in Turkey. Here is the problem. Secularism in the western sense does strike an Islamic scholar as blasphemous since the Qur'an's ontological basis of being God's direct Word, delivered through Mohammad is unchallengeable to begin with. Therefore all may be text but the Qur'an is simply not just a text. The second point is that Islam stresses the importance of the meaning in re-ligio (to be re-united) more as a private matter than Christianity does. Every creature wishes to be re-united with the sacred Source it has sprung from so by default, this world serves as an intermediary stage, a stage where the flow is seemingly suspended for the creature to relocate the Source and reconnect to it (Bataille expresses this in a most succinct manner by claiming that "religion is the search for a lost intimacy"). Thus the public sphere is an impediment in a way, and it has to be re-organized so the search for the Source can be facilitated. One may ask whether the Islamic republics of our day are achieving it, and most of us will respond as no; however, that doesn't necessarily cancel out the efficacy of Sharia, as many Muslim scholars will claim that the perfect Islamic state hasn't arrived yet, in a way pointing to an utopian strain.
Thus, Turkey is seemingly at a divide that at the moment looks unbridgeable, however, just the fact that we live this divide in our daily life, shows that some sort of discussion is present and hopefully will lead to a compromise on two sides as time goes on. In my opinion, religion is useful in its preserving and delivering of tradition in the form of metaphors that may change over time but that do point to an inherent human understanding of its relationship with the whole, whatever that whole may be, thus has to be preserved in some form or another. Neither banning it nor letting it roam rampant in the hands of ecclesiastical authorities (!) is the only solution.

Houllebecq et moi

Fransız yazar Houllebecq'in romanlarıyla bundan 6 sene evvel Les Particules Elementaires'le tanıştım ve romanı bitirene kadar elimden bırakmadım diyebilirim. O sene özellikle Fransa'da ama bütün Avrupa'da bir nevi itirafçı edebiyat diyebileceğim (Rousseau akla geliyor) bir yönde bir sürü ürün verildi. Aklımda kalan en önemlisi otobiyografik bir roman olan (nasıl oluyor denecek ama kadın yapmış işte) La Vie Sexuelle de Catherine M.
Öyle görünüyür ki Avrupa kültürel dünyası o sırada olgunluk ürünleri veren 68 kuşağından insanlarla doluydu ve bütün bu insanlar, zamanında cinsellikleri konusunda eyleme döktükleri samimiyeti şimdi de geriye dönüp bakmak için kullanıyorlardı. Hatıralar, maceralar okuyunca müthiş ama akabinde gelinen noktaya hiçbiri olumlu yaklaşamıyordu. Hepsi, eninde sonunda başta istemedikleri zengin, ailesiz ve yaşlı kimliklerine teker teker oturuyorlardı ama hiç olmazsa bununla yüzleşip hesaplaşacak ve gerektiğinde kendilerini yerebilecek kadar olgundular.
Houllebecq de böyle. Romanları tabii ki kurmaca ama ele alınan karakterler ve yaşayıp düşündükleri öylesine benzer ki, zeitgeist ı iyi yakalamış bir yazardan çok kendi dertlerine okuru ortak edyormuş hissi veriyor. Bunda yanlış birşey yok, aksine bence yeni bir edebi tarzın tohumlarını ekiyor belki de (Erje Ayden, Bukowski, Beatler vs. den etkilenmiş olabilir.) Houllebecq'in kendine, işine, toplumuna ve insanlara yabancılaşmış bireyleri paranın satın alabildiği veya zamanın onlara sunduğu bütün nimetlerden ölesiye yararlanıp sonra garip bir buruklukla kabuklarına çekilen tipler. Ama intihar edecek haysiyete de sahip değiller. Berbat addedikleri hayatı parayla renklendiriyorlar ama nafile (Burada da Martin Amis akla geliyor doğrusu ama H.'nin karakterleri daha basit daha insancıl)... Houllebecq'in hiç bahsetmediği Tanrı ve metafizik eksikliği, daha doğrusu inanç eksikliği sırıtıyor yokluklarıyla(bu tabii benim yorumum). Öte yandan Houllebecq'in insanlığın sefilliğine dair saptamaları o kadar doğru ve çağımıza uygun ki, okur, yine romanlarda yazılmasa da insan türünün aciz ve zavallılığı karşısında derin bir acıma ve sevgi uyandırmadan geçemiyor; zaten bu yüzden usta bir yazar Houllebecq. Özellikle AVrupa medeniyetinin her anlamda girdiği varoluşsal çıkmazı hiç entelektüelize etmeden müthiş bir şekilde açık ediyor. Seks bu yüzden sürekli gündemde, türümüzün hiç değişmeden kalan belki tek özelliğinden biri, ve hayatımızı yönlendiren temel aktörlerden biri libido. Libido ve onun insana etkileri, bir medeniyetin, tüm ilerleme zırvalarına rağmen hala aslında henüz fazla olgunlaşmamış insanoğuyla uğraştığını hatırlatıyor mütevazılığa bir çağrıyla (medeniyet, bastırma -repression- sayesinde gelişir der Freud)
Bu aşırı derecede kendini tekrar eden konu ve konuklar romanları değersiz kılmıyor ama itirafçı edebiyat dediğim tuhaf amorf bir alan sokuyor eserlerini. Motif diyemeyeceğimiz kadar sık kullandığı konu ve eylemler bir süre sonra H.'nin kendisine atf etmemi sağlıyor anlatılanları. Sanki karakterleri birleştir ortaya Michel çıkacak.
Şiirlerini okuyup aynı şeyleri orada gördüğüm zaman analizimden artık emin olduğumu düşündüm. Yanlış anlaşılmasın tekrarı yermiyorum sadece kurmaca olamayacak kadar sık tekrarlıyor kendini demek istiyorum. Bu da monotoni yaratan tekrardan farklı bir ontolojik boyut.

Bu da bizi H.'nin başarısının sebeplerine getiriyor:
1. Post-postmodern roman belki de böyle hızlı okunabilen (okur arttırır), bir çok ilgi uyandırıcı mevzuyu dahil edip tribünlere oynayan (seksin her türlüsü -erekte eden cinsten, uyuşturucu, rakınrol), ama self-help kitapları kadar da kendine psikanalizle uğraşan karakterlerle hem edebiyat hem de cep romanı tadında bir tür olarak oluşmakta belki de. Ölümcül uzunlukta sanatsal tasvirler yok, ama ufak, sessiz bir iki cümleyle veya tanımla bir anda verilen bir mesajın olduğunu ve üstelik bunun derinden verildiğini hissediyorsunuz; öte yandan, uzatılmış bir grup seks sahnesini okurken uyarılabiliyorsunuz. Yani edebi zevki almasını beceriyorsunuz bir de üstüne kırmızı noktalıymışçasına muzipçe okuyorsunuz kitaplarını...
2. H. aynı zamanda az bilinen rock starlığıyla tam günümüz medyasının bayılacağı bir kişilik, dolayısıyla pompalanıyor ve akabinde gerçekten satıyor. Benim düşüncem, aynı romandaki karakterleri gibi H. başarıyı buruk bir gülümsemeyle karşılayıp milyon eurolar dolmaya başlayınca da yaptırdığı bol odalı malikanesine kurulup devrimci geçmişinin kendisinde yarattığı sızıyı sakinleştiriciler ve alkolle geçirmeye çalışabilir iyice yaşlanınca. Ancak eğer edebiyat, yazarlarının nevrozlarını koşturduğu pistlerse belki de romanları sayesinde kafasındakilerden kurtulup karakterlerinin yapamadığını yapip Avrupa insanının kendini bulduğu kısır döngüden çıkacak. ne bileyim aslında uyduruyorum işte:)!

peki bu kısır döngü ne? Ya da H.'nin elinde nasıl gösteriliyor? Daha önce de belirttiğim gibi H.'nin romanları tam tanımlamıyor ama büyük etkenlerden biri Marx tarzı yabancılaşma (yine romanlarda adı konmasa da) Marx'ın tanımladığı yabancılaşmanın dört hali (başka yazı konusu) hep ama hep karakterlerin hayatında görülebilir. Çare komünist/sosyalist devrim mi? Houllebecq'in karakterleri 68 kuşağı devrimci pratiklerine rağmen turbo-kapitalist dünyamızın oluşumunu seyrederek gitgide politik anlamda, kötümser, çekingen ve apolitik olmuşlar zaten. Ya da güzel bir kadının vücudunu her tür devrime yeğleyecek insanlar.
Bir ikinci etken roman karakterlerinde hiç bir zaman olmayan inanç ve din faktörü. hatta kurumsal dinin içyüzünü öylesine iyi çözümlemiş ki... Islam'in yayılmasıyla ilgili bir-iki sayfası var ki, orijinalliği için olmasa da, sinikliği ve Swiftvari sarkazmiyla tadından yenmiyor. Metafizik ise ancak quantum fiziği seviyesinde ve tabii ki seküler bir düşünce yönelimi olarak kendine yer bulabiiyor sadece.
Çok sağlam bir yazar Houllebecq. İleride klasik olarak okunur mu bilmem ama yazarın çok ta umurunda olacağını sanmıyorum... şiddetle tavsiye ediyorum eserlerini.

p.s. adamımızın resimdeki hali ve elindeki sigaranın hali de cuk oturuyor romanlarındaki karakterlere...

I don't know if he will be read 200 years from now but he certainly rides the zeitgeist here and now!

LES IMMATERIAUX

La présence subtile, interstitielle de Dieu
A disparu.
Nous flottons maintenant dans un espace désert
Et nos corps sont a nu.

Flottant, dans la froideur d’un parking de banlieue
En face du centre commercial
Nous orientons nos torses par des mouvements souples
Vers les couples du samedi matin
Chargés d’enfants, chargés d’efforts,
Et leurs enfants se disputent en hurlant des images de
Goldorak.

THE IMMATERIALS
The subtle and interstitial presence of the Lord
Has disappeared.
We now float in a deserted space
And our bodies are naked.

Floating, in the freeze of a suburban parking lot
Across the shopping mall
We guide our torsos in supple movements
Towards the Sunday morning couples
Loaded with children, laden with effort,
And their children fight, yelling scenes from
Goldorak.

- Michel Houllebecq (from La Poursuite de la Bonheur/The Pursuit of Happiness)
translated by m.e.
image: Goldorak

Where is the World Going To ?! :))

Peter Thiel Makes Down Payment on Libertarian Ocean Colonies
From Wired News 19 / 05 / 2008
Tired of the United States and the other 190-odd nations on Earth?
If a small team of Silicon Valley millionaires get their way, in a few years, you could have a new option for global citizenship: A permanent, quasi-sovereign nation floating in international waters.
With a $500,000 donation from PayPal founder Peter Thiel, a Google engineer and a former Sun Microsystems programmer have launched The Seasteading Institute, an organization dedicated to creating experimental ocean communities "with diverse social, political, and legal systems."
"Decades from now, those looking back at the start of the century will understand that Seasteading was an obvious step towards encouraging the development of more efficient, practical public-sector models around the world," Thiel said in a statement.
It might sound like the setting for the videogame Bioshock, but the institute isn't playing around: It plans to splash a prototype into the San Francisco Bay within the next two years, the first step toward establishing deep-water city-states, or what it calls "seasteads" -- homesteads on the high seas.
Within the pantheon of would-be utopian communities, there's a particularly rich history of people trying to live outside the nation-state paradigm out in the ocean. The most ambitious was Marshall Savage's Aquarius Project, which aimed at nothing less than the colonization of the universe. There was also Las Vegas millionaire Michael Oliver's attempt to create a new island country, the Republic of Minerva, by dredging the shallow waters near Tonga. And the Freedom Ship was to be a mile-long portable country costing about $10 billion to construct.
None of these projects has succeeded, a fact that The Seasteading Institute's founders, Google's Patri Friedman and the semi-retired Wayne Gramlich, are keenly aware of throughout the 300-page book they've written about seasteading.
Instead of starting with a grand scheme worthy of a James Bond villain, the Institute is bringing an entrepreneurial, DIY mentality to creating oceanic city-states.
"There's a history of a lot of crazy people trying this sort of thing, and the idea is to do it in a way that's not crazy," said Joe Lonsdale, the institute's chairman and a principal at Clarium Capital Management, a multibillion-dollar hedge fund.
The seasteaders want to build their first prototype for a few million dollars, by scaling down and modifying an existing off-shore oil rig design known as a "spar platform."
In essence, the seastead would consist of a reinforced concrete tube with external ballasts at the bottom that could be filled with air or water to raise or lower the living platform on top.
The spar design helps offshore platforms better withstand the onslaught of powerful ocean waves by minimizing the amount of structure that is exposed to their energy.
"You have very little cross-sectional interaction with waves [with] the spar design," Gramlich said.
The primary living space, about 300 square feet per person, would be inside the tube, but the duo envisions the top platform holding buildings, gardens, solar panels, wind turbines and (of course) satellites for internet access.
To some extent, they believe the outfittings for the seastead will be dependent on the business model, say aquaculture or tourism, that will support it and the number of people aboard.
"We're not trying to pick the one strategy because we think there will be multiple people who want one for multiple reasons," Gramlich said.
Dan Donovan, a long-time spokesman for Dominion, an energy company that operated Gulf of Mexico-based gas rigs, including Devils Tower, the world's deepest spar structure, said the group's plan wasn't too far-fetched. His company's off-shore rigs, which are much larger than the institute's planned seasteads, provided long-term housing for its workers.
"They were sort of like mobile homes. We could move them from one place to another," Donovan said. "People did live on them."
But even the institute members admit that their plans aren't far enough along to stand up to rigorous engineering scrutiny. Some engineers, Gramlich said, have been skeptical of their plan, particularly their desire to do it on the cheap.
"We have some legitimate doubting Thomases out there," Gramlich said.
But if the idea turns out to be just crazy enough that it works, Friedman, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, envisions transforming the way that government functions.
"My dad and grandfather were happy arguing their ideas and were happy influencing people through the world of ideas," Friedman said. "I see a real need for people to go out and do something and show by example."
True to his libertarian leanings, Friedman looks at the situation in market terms: the institute's modular spar platforms, he argues, would allow for the creation of far cheaper new countries out on the high-seas, driving innovation.
"Government is an industry with a really high barrier to entry," he said. "You basically need to win an election or a revolution to try a new one. That's a ridiculous barrier to entry. And it's got enormous customer lock-in. People complain about their cellphone plans that are like two years, but think of the effort that it takes to change your citizenship."
Friedman estimates that it would cost a few hundred million dollars to build a seastead for a few thousand people. With costs that low, Friedman can see constellations of cities springing up, giving people a variety of governmental choices. If misguided policies arose, citizens could simply motor to a new nation.
"You can change your government without having to leave your house," he said.
Of course, one major role of government is to provide security, which would seem to be an issue on the open sea. But Friedman's not worried about defense beyond simple firearms because he thinks pirates will lack the financial incentive to attack the seasteads.
"More sophisticated pirates will take entire container ships that have tens of millions of dollars of cargo and 10 crew [members]," he said. "On a seastead, there's a much different crew-to-movable assets ratio."
In fact, his only worry is that a government will try to come calling and force their jurisdiction upon them. Toward that end, they are planning to fly a "flag of convenience" from a country that sells them, like Panama, to provide them with protection from national navies.
"If you're not flying a flag … any country can do whatever they want to you," he said.
Even if their big idea doesn't end up panning out, their story should live on in internet lore for confirming the dream that two guys with a blog and a love of Ayn Rand can land half a million dollars to pursue their dream, no matter how off-kilter or off-grid it might seem.
"Everything changed when we got the funding," Friedman said. "Before that, it was two guys with some ideas writing a book and blogging about their ideas.... Now that we've got some funding, it's something I plan to make a full-time job out of."