“the beginning of innocence”

One of the most horrific and unnoticed clichés perpetrated on every possible occasion is that of “the end of innocence.”

President Kennedy is assassinated– “the end of innocence.”

Vietnam goes horribly awry– “the end of innocence.”

9/11– “the end of innocence.”

A brutal bank robbery in a small town leaves three employees dead, shot execution-style– “the end of innocence.”

Copernicus, Darwin, or Freud move human consciousness away from the center of the universe– “the end of innocence.”

Some 11-year-old kid leafs through a copy of Playboy at his friend’s house– “the end of innocence.”

You see the pattern. There is always a tedious narrative of gullibility eliminated by shocking confrontation with the real truth.

Here’s my question: when is innocence supposed to begin? I’m tired of everyone always ending it.

As I have proposed elsewhere, including on the former incarnation of this blog, the growth of human knowledge is the growth of enchanted innocence, not of aloof and cynical distance. We should dump prior beliefs only to adopt still more awestruck and innocent ones.

Speaking only for myself, I care about many things such as botany, paleontology, Roman history, various sports leagues, various philosophers, and enjoy eating various spices, none of which absorb the enchanted attention of any dog or mosquito. Yet I am asked by mainstream philosophy to see my unique human greatness above these animals in my ability to adopt a transcendent standpoint of liberated critique.

This seems so implausible to me. To learn a new subject is to become fascinated by it. Anecdotes of the childlike behavior of genius (Bohr is again a magnificent example) are legion.

Perhaps even more importantly, fascinated people are the only honest ones. Cynics, to me, are “adumbrations of the pithecanthropoid and amoebal” (Lovecraft).

What charms us in other people is not sneering aloofness; this always comes off as mediocrity and resentment and even fear. No, what charms us is the innocent absorption of certain people in this or that subject matter.

This goes a long way toward explaining why, in purely characterological terms, I’ve never met a more intriguing human personality than Alphonso Lingis. His fascination with beehives, pheasants, mirrors, weightlifting, cups of coffee, and physical danger are all somewhat childlike, but by no means affected.

Perhaps the most interesting baseball player of all time was Rube Waddell, who reportedly had to be held back from leaving games whenever fire engines went by the stadium, and was easily distracted whenever the opposing team held up puppies or shiny new toys.

To be the Rube Waddell of metaphysics would be a worthy aspiration, but naturally it cannot be forced. There are numerous ways of beginning innocence rather than ending it.

philosophy in the making

All right… A nice clean blog where mostly my friends are dropping in so far.

Josh speaks:

“i dig it when you post ideas as you’re still working them out. in the least the blog should absolutely continue with that tradition to show how real philosophy is practiced. most of the time bloggers just post ruminations and qualify that what they’re posting is some kind of whimsy or nebulous notion–they claim that the ‘real’ work is under development and off limits until it’s finished. of course it’s never finished so they avoid any window of criticism, or they put up already published papers, as though some journal’s seal of approval validates them.”

I won’t promise to air all of my “real” work in real time on this blog, but I can certainly promise to give samples of philosophy-in-the-making.

restart

Welcome to the second incarnation of the OOP blog.

Comments are now shut down. My apologies to those who took the time to post thoughtful comments, but the amount of insufferable drivel leaking into the comment inboxes was getting pretty tiresome. A great flood was necessary, and now the waters have receded.

Furthermore, I’ll be reading and interacting only with fellow bloggers who have a track record of good-faith exchanges, rather than snarky point-scoring and other procrastination tactics designed to avoid the genuine work that many of them barely seem to be attempting in the first place. It is really tiring to have to deal with dozens of mouthy punks on a daily basis. What I’ve learned in the past few weeks is that I believe in democratizing access to  intellectual life, not in democratizing intellectual life itself. The blogosphere, like the billiard halls and race tracks of old, has become a hangout for a pretty unbearable, unproductive cross section of the populace.

Finally,  I think my posting rate may be a bit lower than before. I’ve been trying too hard to live up to my January post rate despite resumption of the semester in February, and it’s been cutting into too many things.

For all those who sent kind words and missed the blog after just a few hours, thanks and welcome back.