Journal

Day 3

As I was walking the dog today, I was thinking about one of my favourite aspects of human nature; the fact that as human beings we are consistently inconsistent and unpredictable. In a free market economy like North America, we are more concerned than ever with predicting human desire and taste. Even now, when our patterns as consumers are captured so easily and funneled through increasingly sophisticated software, there is still only limited success. I love that life throws out red herrings. We refuse to be pigeonholed. This string of thoughts reminded me of this poem, which puts all of the above in a more poignant and engaging form. o sweet spontaneous

o sweet spontaneous earth how often have the doting                fingers of prurient philosophers pinched and poked thee , has the naughty thumb of science prodded thy           beauty     . how often have religions taken thee upon their scraggy knees squeezing and buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive gods      (but true to the incomparable couch of death thy rhythmic lover           thou answerest them only with                      spring) ee cummings This topic is also discussed in an interesting book called Against The Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk  by Peter Bernstein.

Day 2

Jean Baudrillard was interviewed today in the NYTimes Magazine. I found it quite humorous...

NYT: Isn't that kind of simplistic reasoning why people get so tired of French intellectuals?

JB: There are no more French intellectuals. What you call French intellectuals have been destroyed by the media. They talk on television, they talk to the press and they are no longer talking among themselves.

NYT: Some here feel that the study of the humanities at our universities has been damaged by the incursion of deconstruction and other French theories.

JB: That was the gift of the French. They gave Americans a language they did not need. It was like the Statue of Liberty. Nobody needs French theory.

***

Jean Baudrillard wrote an essay in "Le Monde" in November 2001 after the World Trade Centre attack. It is one of the best I have read on Terrorism. Here is an excerpt.

Terrorism is immoral. The event of the World Trade Center, this symbolic challenge is immoral, and it answers a globalization that is immoral. Then let us be immoral ourselves and, if we want to understand something, let us go somewhat beyond Good and Evil. As we have, for once, an event that challenges not only morals, but every interpretation, let us try to have the intelligence of Evil. The crucial point is precisely there: in this total counter-meaning to Good and Evil in Western philosophy, the philosophy of Enlightenment. We naively believe that the progress of the Good, its rise in all domains (sciences, techniques, democracy, human rights) correspond to a defeat of Evil. Nobody seems to understand that Good and Evil rise simultaneously, and in the same movement. The triumph of the One does not produce the erasure of the Other. Metaphysically, one considers Evil as an accident, but this axiom, embedded in all manichean fights of Good against Evil, is illusory. Good does not reduce Evil, nor vice-versa: there are both irreducible, and inextricable from each other. In fact, Good could defeat Evil only by renouncing itself, as by appropriating a global power monopoly, it creates a response of proportional violence.

The Spirit of Terrorism "Le Monde", November 2001. English translation
by Dr Rachel Bloul.

Day 1

"And so, to sum it all up, I perceive everything I say as absolutely true, and deficient in nothing whatever, and paint it all in my mind exactly as I want it to be."

Don Quixote  Volume 1, Chapter 25, pg. 157

I have created this blog to document my move to Dublin, Ireland from Vancouver, Canada. After despising the form of the personal memoir for years, due to my own angst ridden prose that filled volumes at the age of 16, I have been re inspired by blogs and by a book called The Rings of Saturn by WG Sebald. This esoteric memoir of an eccentric and curious professor rambling around the English countryside has haunted me since I opened the first page.

I leave Vancouver for Montreal on December 18 with my son Maxwell and my dog Shrub. My husband Andrew will meet us in Montreal for Christmas, then it's on to Dublin.

I have been busy for the last few weeks erasing our identity as Canadians. For tax purposes you are advised to declare yourself a Non-Resident and close bank accounts, cancel health insurance, credit cards, etc. I have just realized that this hasn't upset me in the least and I am wondering whether it should.