On Truth

If the last post was about “lying” then the next post shall be about truth, I suppose. No, that is not exactly possible. I suppose anything I try to write here will be about some form of honesty. There is a need for that now. Lying as a day-to-day activity is problematic but understandable, it is very difficult to be clear headed and truthful all the time. I think Dan Harmon made a career at the very problem of being honest to oneself, the lies we must overcome, and the painful truth we must confront.

But

The problem of truth is the heart of philosophy. Every tradition and school of philosophy has tried to attain truth in some way. That is not what I am looking for. If I was a philosopher I would be magnanimous and mighty, I just have a Bachelors in History. Honesty is quite different though. I would like you to read Michael Hardt’s essay Falsify the Currency!  For the zero people that read my post it is a good introduction for us all.

The title from the essay comes from my old pal Diogenes, the dog philosopher, the cynic who ate and masturbated in public. The man who plucked a chicken and showed it to Plato, as a bipedal animal without feathers and said, “Here is your man!” He was exiled from Sinope for debasing the currency. The Cynics and the Stoics where the sons of Socrates, philosophy is after all patriarchal for a great deal of time- except for the Epicureans. However the two schools were antagonistic towards each other, except for Parrhesia- which is frank speech.

Foucault spent the last three years of his life lecturing on this particular subject. Michael Hardt’s essay is obviously a closer reading of Foucault’s last lectures then the actual cynics or stoics. I spent a great deal of the last few years reading those lectures and Michael Hardt. That is perhaps why I am writing now.

It is a struggle to find my voice. I have all sorts of little problems here and there with my writing, but I will just continue to become clearer and clearer with each post. The voice may become fragmented or crystalize finally to a clarity unknown to me before. Though I may just fade away. Regardless I did point to an interesting article, better written then this or anything else I have written.

Next week! I will post  a story written just for here.