20 January 2008

"The life of the ever-present Spirit is a cycle of stages that on the one hand, co-exist side by side, but on the other hand, seems to be past. The moments which Spirit seems to have left behind, it still possesses, in the depth of its present."

--Hegel, Reason in History

Although all arguments point to the logical debunking of morality, it remains with History to maintain our ties, if for no other reason than to remind us of our precarious reality, our pivotal positioning in it, and the actions, behaviors, and choices made daily to affect it in constant re-purposing and re-positioning...

There is an amazing realization and materialization of our creative potentiality, particularly mediated by electronic technologies. At the same time, there is an incredible amount of devastation, atrocity, political crimes, and social injustice still too much with us, unchecked, untempered, and unaffected by claims of morality. Yet, as Nietzsche reminds us, at the other end of the staircase to our immorality is our morality and so too is the balance of our matter, our universe, and our creation.

Perhaps there is no easy solution to the morality issue, no matter how tempting it is to debunk it altogether. Whether you rename morality a 'science of the moral sense' as Pinker does and concentrate on multiple spheres or themas in relation to morality, or whether you examine, analyze, dissect, and define it for what it is in all attempts to replace it with a resounding will to truth, to power, and ultimately to greatness as Nietzsche does, it refuses to disappear, nor will it accept treatment in an 'all-to-neat' package. Indeed, Pinker's is too neat a treatment of the issue, while Nietzshe's is a force of passion and brilliance of lightning thoughts that rather overwhelm it so as to allow it to skim below the surface in perpetual survival...

Possible clues to this quagmire might just lie in our antimatter and the violence of our universe:

Recently, scientists have confirmed the reality of antimatter, describing it as the opposite of an electron - a positron - produced by the radiation released when stars are devoured by black holes or neutron stars (Charles Q. Choi, "Source of Mysterious Antimatter Found," Space.com, 11 January 2008). Here we learn that destruction is a powerful source of creation and from extraordinary matter, is an even greater source for antimatter.

Similarly, in a recent annual meeting of US astronomers, there was deep-seated discussion of, among other things: the constant threats to our galaxy just 47 quadrillion miles away; the violent manner in creating stars; the roaming rogue black holes; and the creation of a vocabulary to accommodate this newly discovered phenomena of our universe (Seth Borenstein, "Astronomers Describe Violent Universe," Associated Press, 11 January 2008). Here is a case of language necessarily coined and created to accommodate real and newly-discovered phenomena.

So the question remains: how long must we wait for the doxa to coin and create a language accurately reflecting and accounting for the current reality? How long before a serious examination of hyphenation, at least as a critical reflecting prism?

Although morality no longer really 'fits' in our present, it also can not be dispelled altogether. It is a very important term and concept precisely because it exists as blatant proof to thought in hyphenation - thought existing within the in-between with the remaining potentiality towards vitality and simultaneously with a heavy foot mired in the history of its past.

The universe, the galaxy, the heavenly bodies all have been above as a constant. It is our manner of looking, our perspective, and our ability to utilize some of our potentiality that allows us variegated glances at our constants and see the world of chaotic, violent, whimsical creation and the potentiality too much with us...

Ahem, hyphenation...