THE PITFALLS OF THOUGHT and LANGUAGE have been written about by Vygotsky (“Thought and Language”), Goedel (“Goedel’s Incompleteness Theorem”), Bohm (“Implicate Order”), Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico Philosophicus”), Nietzsche (“Twilight of the Idols”) and others, … and the Pitfalls HAVEN’T GONE AWAY and, yes, we CONTINUE TO FALL INTO THEM.

 

Talking about PATHOGENS such as COVID  screws us up.  Bohm suggested that our WESTERN CULTURE use of language was infecting us with Schizophrenia and Paranoia, … and, yes, it can get scary when we WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS IMAGINE that there is a SELF-OTHER SPLIT and it is THE OTHER that is SCREWING US UP when it is really US who are SCRWING OURSELVS UP because that’s the way it HAS TO WORK because WE ARE INCLUDED in the WORLD WE ARE LOOKING OUT AT.  There is NO SUBJECT-and-OBJECT SPLIT.  As Schroedinger energetically insists; SUBJECT and OBJECT are ONLY ONE, as is he message of Modern physics and OUR OWN INTUITION.

 

And HOW DID WE FALL INTO THE TRAP OF FALLING OUT OF THAT UNDERSTANDING OF OUR INCLUSION IN THE WORLD WE ARE LOOKING OUT AT?  WHERE DID THIS IMPRESSION COME FROM THAT WE, the SUBJECT, is SPLIT OUT of the OBJECT WORLD.  Where did we get this CRAZY IDEA of DECLARING INDEPENDENCE?

 

Don’t look now, but there are a lot of US CRAZY WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS out there, waving flags and banging drums, announcing to the world (i.e. to ourselves) our own INDIVIDUAL INDEPENDENCE!

 

HOW CRAZY IS THAT?!

(more…)