2011-07-24

Absurdity

Many years ago while taking my MA at a German university, I took a course in modern literature dealing with theater of the absurd. We talked a lot about absurdity that semester, and oddly enough, that in itself seemed absurd to me. After all, the world made sense, we were all going about our lives, there was tomorrow, what was the problem? In one way or another, I've been asking myself the same questions ever since ... but from the other side? When will the absurdity end?

The absurdest idea that I have to deal with is "terrorism". I mean, just look at the word: the root is "terror": abject, unwarranted fear. It doesn't matter what you are afraid of; what matters is that you are afraid. It's legitimized by the "-ism" on the end, like a system, a philosophy, a way of life. And, I suppose it is, for some ... for too many. What is it that we have to fear?

Some will say everything. Maybe they're right, but I don't think so. If you are afraid, two different groups of people have an advantage over you: those who are causing the fear, and those who know you're afraid. They are sometimes, but not always, the same groups. And, just what is it that they use to extort that fear? Property (if you don't secure it, someone will steal it), security (if you don't protect it, someone will take it away from you), or your physical well-being (we can always kill you). Well, I just don't get it. Going in the reverse direction: we're all going to die, we don't know when, so if it is as the result of some "terrorist act", what difference does it make? My security is gone the moment that someone claiming to look out for my well-being invades my privacy. Am I more secure, the more you know about me? Not really. The opposite is true. And, to any materialist, to anyone who defines himself by his possessions (which are more often than not not his or hers at all, but the lender's) ... well, what can I say?

So, in far-away Norway, in one of the most peaceful, social, balanced, low-profile places you can imagine, a right-leaning, Christian fundamentalist eliminates nearly one hundred innocent victims. Is this an act of terror? Not in the least. It is pure and simple absurdity. But ... and I think this is particularly important to note ... it's an absurdity we created. It didn't come out of the dark unknown, the secret chambers of reality to stalk and hunt us down. It came from us, from the meek who hope for all the wrong reasons that we'll inherit anything, maybe even the earth. The perpetrator wasn't some strange, other, dark-skinned, false-believing, foreign, depraved, mind-twisted, extremist. He was, in all probability, the guy next door. How absurd is that?

The point is in the end, that absurdity has become the norm. What Pynchon, Beckett, and others were telling us was as ignored as anything we've been told up until now. The sheer absurdity of our interaction with others, with those around us, with those with whom we can no longer relate because we know only what we know, with anyone who isn't me, with ... well with everyone ... is what should shock us even more than the violence this one single individual may have perpetrated.

We abhor the violence that we see, but we welcome the violence that is hidden. We put ourselves first, we envy our co-workers, covet their possessions and accomplishments, desire what they have, ignore all in need, find weakness in compassion, believe Spencer's spin on Darwinism is the way to go, reject anything greater than ourselves and firmly and doggedly believe that money can solve our problems. That all sounds like absurdity to me.

No, terrorism isn't our greatest threat. It's a red herring. What we need fear more than anything else (if we need fear anything at all) is absurdity. When do we simply say that enough is enough, just a little bit of sense couldn't hurt? We can't as long as we're afraid, but what we're afraid of is simply ourselves. How absurd is that?

2011-07-23

The Alphabet that Changed the World

Stan Tenen: The Alphabet that Changed the World: How Genesis Preserves a Science of Consciousness in Geometry and Gesture (Edited by Charles Stein. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2011; 364+xvii pp., with 223 illustrations, Editor's Preface, Author's Preface, Author's Note, 14 Appendices, Glossary, Bibliography, and Index)

This may be one of the most insightful, if not profound, books you ever read ... if you are willing to engage it honestly and openly. Tenen has taken his time bringing his findings to the public, primarily because he wanted to be sure that what he was saying has substance. Some things are simply easy to misunderstand or misinterpret, but what he has to say in this book deserves serious consideration. By his own admission his (and all of the already identified, related) research is far from complete, there is enough certainty that he is on to something, something of great significance. At any rate, now that this first, book-length, introductory text is available, it can be hoped that a continuing discussion will ensure that will shed new light on a very old subject.

The premise of the book is rather simple: the Jews have long claimed that their alphabet is sacred, and it appears that this may in fact be the case. Though simply stated, it is difficult to understand, on many levels. What is sacred? What makes something sacred? What does it mean for other things if something is sacred? The list of questions goes on and on.

The fundamental statement of the book is rather simple as well: there is a letter-level, self-referential coding in the text  of the Torah that by all appearances has been placed there deliberately. How it got there and why it was put there are questions that the book cannot and does not attempt to answer, but the fact that it is there substantiates and provides support for a number of claims about the Hebrew alphabet and the most famous text it has generated. It is here that the flood of hey-wait-a-minutes starts flowing.

Tenen takes the time to move the reader step-by-step through his process of discovery and the conclusions that he has drawn so that one can follow precisely the development of the thoughts. Everything that is stated has been checked, verified, and examined by any number of relevant subject-matter experts who agree that what he is saying is well supported. The support does not come from anyone who might have a vested interest in what he is saying being true, rather scientific, mathematic, geometric experts who would often no doubt prefer that what he is saying weren't being said.

It is, nevertheless, not a light read, by any stretch of the imagination. It takes both time and effort to grasp what is being said, and to avoid the temptation to lose oneself in where the consequences of those statements may lead. If what Tenen is saying is correct, there may be a good number of textbooks that need to be rewritten, and this in a number of fields, not the least of which are linguistics, physics, psychology, philosophy, and theology. But, much more work has to be done before we get there. This is not a story of someone trying to say, "Hey, look at me and what I found!", but rather "Hey, I found this, what do you think of it?"  For that very reason, it is well worth every minute you might spend struggling with it.