Pensées

Pensées, published in 1670, is an incomplete work by Blaise Pascal which consists of his thoughts and opinions regarding Christianity, life and human nature. Originally these pensées were to be used in a book as a justification for the Christian faith, however Pascal died before completing his work. Pensées contains many vital musings; yet the one that is most well known is Pascal’s “wager.” Section 3, entitled “Of the Necessity of the Wager,” explains this idea immensely. This idea is the issue of whether or not God exists; Pascal states that we should seek God because we have more to gain than the alternative: “I would have far more fear of being mistaken, and of finding that the Christian religion was true, than of not being mistaken in believing it true” (241 Pensées). 

Besides the section on Pascal’s “wager,” I enjoyed reading section 2 “The Misery of Man without God” because Pascal provided insight and knowledge on the human condition. Pascal starts off by stating that the misery of man without God is explained by the fact that nature is corrupt. He then says that the happiness of man with God is because there is a Redeemer. This opening statement I think foreshadows his wager in the third section because he establishes that we are wagering our happiness when deciding to seek God; one gains happiness when they live for God. Pascal wants to do far more than convince people to believe in God’s existence, he wants to challenge them to dedicate their life to Him because in doing so they will reap the benefits of eternal life. 

Here are some of my favorite of Pascal’s thoughts from section 2: 

66. One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life, and there is nothing better.

100. Man is, then, only disguise, falsehood, and hypocrisy, both in himself and in regard to others. He does not wish any one to tell him the truth; he avoids telling it to others, and all these dispositions, so removed from justice and reason, have a natural root in his heart.

102. Some vices only lay hold of us by means of others, and these, like branches, fall on removal of the trunk.

122. Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves. It is like a nation which we have provoked, but meet again after two generations. They are still Frenchmen, but not the same.

129. Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.

Regarding number 129, Francis Bacon, an English philosopher and statesman in the 1600s, wrote something similar to Pascal in his work Novum Organum. He said that “The human understanding is unquiet; it cannot stop or rest, and still presses onward, but in vain. Therefore it is that we cannot conceive of any end or limit to the world, but always as of necessity it occurs to us that there is something beyond.” Our human nature cannot rest because even after death our spirit lives on and is in motion; this is the something beyond that Bacon is referring to. Both him and Pascal are relaying their beliefs to their readers and how they should seek God. 

"The Look"

     In Sartre's ontological work Being in Nothingness, he tackles existentialism: the notion that there's a nauseousness that goes along with existence that drives us to create meaning in our lives.  If you don't have any meaning in your life, there's no point, so you might as well kill yourself. We are incomplete without meaning, without value or purpose.  By restoring meaning in life, order is returned to the world that's plagued by the "nothingness" that takes over.  Compared to the other creatures that crawl on the earth, humans have this incredible ability to make decisions and manipulate their fate.  The decisions we make in the present have a great impact on what happens to us in the future.  People are aware of this, therefore, they  have to be for themselves throughout their existence in order to create meaning in life.  

     

     All humans are a type of being, but it is no secret that some people are more successful than others, that's just the reality of our society.  More often than not, however, those people who are successful are making a spectacle of themselves; thus, they are no longer being for them, but are being for others.  What stems from this spectacle, is something Sartre calls the Look.  According to Sartre, the Look is very detrimental to one's state of being.  The Look prevents one from being for oneself because they are too busy being for others.  This results in being objectified by others who see you as a spectacle.

     But is being objectified really that bad? Sartre would give a resounding YES if he was asked that question.  The Look definitely has consequences because there is a tension between what one thinks to be true about oneself and what the look has reduced oneself to be.  This tension tricks people into thinking they have meaning and purpose when they really don't; if one creates all of one's meaning with the expense of others, the "meaning" one has attained isn't genuine. 

The Arcades Project

Walter Benjamin’s “The Arcades Project” describes the arcades, covered passageways, that were popping up everywhere throughout Paris at the beginning of the 1800s. 300 arcades used to be present in Paris, now there are only 30 in existence in the first and second arrondissements. Benjamin worked on “The Arcades Project” for a long span of time, from 1927-1940, and was never actually completed. The arcades were filled with shops, restaurants and such; they symbolized a shift into a society fixated on consuming products. 

Benjamin writes about these arcades, long after most of them were destroyed through the reconstruction of the city. He wrote about them long after their height of popularity and use largely to revisit a time of the past. He uses the image and feelings fixated to one wandering the arcades in the 19th century in order to inspire and motivate the 20th century. A book review in The New York Times titled “Art/Architecture; The Passages of Paris And of Benjamin's Mind” describes this: “For Benjamin, the 20th century is trapped inside the previous century's dream. By interpreting the dream, he hopes to rouse his contemporaries from their collective slumber. The arcade is where the dream was manufactured. Like the factories that produced the wares sold there, the arcade was an industrial machine. It relied on display, advertising, newspapers and the other new technologies of consumer manipulation.” 

The arcades were a safe haven for flâneurs; they were able to wander through the arcades. It was an escape mechanism, one could go to the arcades and use that time to think and dream. The 20th century was filled with WWI, the Great Depression, WWII and other crises. Perhaps Benjamin wanted to revitalize the 20th century by reminding society of a time where dreams were abundant; a way to enlighten the people of his time. 

An excerpt from “The Arcades Project:”

“Thus appear the arcades-first entry in the field of iron construction; thus appear the world exhibitions, whose link to the entertainment industry is significant. Also included in this order of phenomena is the experience of the flâneur, who abandons himself to the phantasmagorias of the marketplace. Corresponding to these phantasmagorias of the market, where people appear only as types, are the phantasmagorias of the interior, which are constituted by man's imperious need to leave the imprint of his private individual existence on the rooms he inhabits. As for the phantasmagoria of civilization itself, it found its champion in Haussmann and its manifest expression in his transformations of Paris.”

We can still use Benjamin’s words that described this dreamlike state of the 19th century to inspire those in the 21 century. Even though the arcades are few today, we can still live like the flâneurs who frequented them. Are there places in Paris in which you felt like a flâneur? Conscious of your surroundings and an observer of society? 

Émile Durkheim

For many people, distinguishing a field of interest as a science can often be the difference between conjecture and fact, the difference between astrology and astronomy. In the time of sociologist and anthropologist Émile Durkheim, sociology was merely a collection of thought experiments that branched off of philosophy. Durkheim, born a year after the death of positivist Auguste Comte, firmly believed in the division of intellectual fields and their establishment as distinct sciences. The question of what constitutes a science was extremely pertinent at this time, as all matters of thought were shifting from traditional belief to intellectual discovery. In France, the role of the church and traditional ideologies in perspectives of the individual, it’s role in society, and what makes societies different were beginning to wane in favor of more analytical and introspective approaches. Instead of deriving fact from a higher power, it was derived from human logic and observation. This shift in intellectual thought derives primarily from the shift in power in France from an absolute monarchy that was heavily influenced by the catholic church to the state in the form of an empire. The rule of Napoleon and the nostalgia for the Roman Empire lead a sort of intellectual revolution that favored rationality over faith.

Although Durkheim subscribed with the sentiments of the time, he also theorized that religion had an important role in holding society together. What he means by religion is not necessarily institutionalized religion that may come and go with time, but the general ways in which all religions move societies: the sacred and unexplainable, beliefs and practices, and moral community. While religion might not be the most rational way of explaining our world and our societies, it certainly does play a role in the way these societies are formed and held together. In many ways, this theory provides a much needed bridge across the schism forming in France between faith and reason, between church and state. Even today, rational minds might be prejudiced against religion without truly analyzing its impact on us as a society. Often, scientists are seen as and certainly can be unwilling to even touch matters of religion. But Durkheim understood the necessity of viewing religion under a scientific lens in order to better understand one of the most important features of society.

10 Facts About Anarchy That You Won't Believe Are True!!

We have all seen the Anarchy symbol that is widely regarded to be the letter “A”  enclosed in a circle of which can be seen as “one of the most common graffiti on the urban landscape”. Some would classify anarchy as something dangerous and even fatal for the foundations of democracy and capitalism those people would also believe in even more outlandish theories. It should be said that Anarchy has many more definitions than most people would think. Karl Marx’s workers revolution is a little more in line with the “traditional” view of anarchism, but even that is false because his ideas was simply to have a more or less peaceful worker’s revolution in which there would be a workers revolution in order to take down the “man”. In fact, one of Karl Marx’s primary influences was Proudhon himself. 

One of Proudhon’s most important books is “What is Property” in which he takes on the the idea of private property. In Proudhon’s mind “Property is Theft”, thus there are inherent problems with Capitalism and Capitalist society. America is a prime example of one of the biggest Capitalist societies in which there is also a multitude of problems that plague it. In America the majority of the economy is based on profit and debt. That is, the economy favors those who would turn a profit rather than the workers who end up working to pay off their various debts whether they be mortgages, loans or credit. Some workers end up becoming “wage slaves” living from paycheck to paycheck just to survive. And that this one of the problems with capitalist society that Proudhon would like to address. 

The idea of Capital in Capitalism only exists with a centralized government. Proudhon wanted to decentralize the government and rather than having this idea of private property being unevenly distributed, everyone would only have enough land as is necessary for each case. In addition, the profit that is generated from the workers belongs to the workers and not the “owners”. This segways into Proudhon’s anarchism being based upon the economic theory of mutualism. The cessation of the practice of private property as it is now would bring nothing but benefits to the world according to Proudhon. I feel that I sympathise with many of Proudhon's ideas in regards to the protection of workers, but not so much with mutualism.

La Belle Époque

La Belle Époque, the Beautiful Age, was an era in European history characterized by peace, affluence and optimism. There is much speculation to the start of this period. Some say it started with the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871; this event occurred around the same time that the Third Republic began. Others attribute the beginning of this period to start closer to the turn of the century. This period of time lasted until 1914 with the start of World War I.

La Belle Époque was a term coined after WWI as society was nostalgic for a time that was untouched by loss, disorder and despair. Regardless of the duration of this period, it was a time of progress in all facets of life such as in technology, art, architecture, science, literature and fashion. The advancements that are distinctive of this period coincided with similar progress that was being made throughout Europe and in the United States. Other eras that occurred around the time of La Belle Époque are Edwardian England, the “Good Years” or the Gilded Age in America and Wilhelmian Germany. While progress was being made throughout the world, Paris was regarded as the epicenter: “Yet probably no other place carries a more captivating image than does Paris during the time of extraordinary elegance and pleasure and genius.”  

The World Fair of 1889 as well as the Universal Exhibition of 1900, both of which were in Paris, were key events that marked the Belle Époque. These exhibitions displayed the architectural feats, the new inventions and discoveries of the time. The Eiffel Tower, built for the World Fair of 1889, along with the important structures of the 1900 Exhibition: the Alexandre III bridge, the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais were important symbols of progress for Paris during this time.

Another advancement that occurred in Paris during this era was transportation. Construction for an underground railway system started in the 1890s and opened to the public at the time of the Universal Exhibition. The creation of the metro system occurred around the same time as art nouveau, an artistic movement which incorporates nature and plants primarily in their work. This concept of art nouveau can be seen in the design of the entrances to the metro stations. We saw some examples of art nouveau in furniture and other materials when we are at the D’Orsay museum last Friday.

Impressionistic and Post-Impressionistic art were other art movements apparent at the time of the Belle Époque. Impressionism began in 1874 when artists such as Monet, Cezanne, Degas, Renoir, Sisley, and Pissarro decided to put on their own art exhibition that was separate from the academy. Their manner of painting was different from the previous art movements because their subject manner focused on modernity and scenes from everyday life. They disregarded antiquity and started a new technique in which they focused on capturing nature how they see it. 

The scenes depicted in impressionistic paintings capture the essence of the Belle Époque as seen in pieces depicting new forms of leisure, for example Degas’s paintings of musicians and dancers, or scenes illustrating cafes and restaurants, for example Manet’s At the Café painting. Impressionistic art also expresses the idea of advancement in the industrial revoltion as seen by Monet’s The Gare Saint-Lazare paintings. An article in the Telegraph describes the Belle Époque as “a time when arts and crafts, cafés and restaurants became more and more available to a rapidly growing middle class with time and money on its hands. For them, and for the artists and architects of the time, beauty meant proportion, decorative detail, elegance.” This idea of the middle class can clearly be seen in the impressionist movement and in the paintings we saw at the D’Orsay museum during our art class.

Some quotes that further describe La Belle Époque:

“The Belle Epoque – is an era that combines a nostalgia for and preoccupation with the old regime and noblesse, while at the same time providing the seedbed for all the modernist currents that we associate with the 20th century.”

"Paris was one great party. There was a spirit of confidence, of joie de vivre, with so many things going on at the same time. Even the future king of England came to Paris to enjoy himself. It was the capital of everything. It was one big party with elements of the funfair about it."

"La belle époque was very fluid artistically; there were lots of different movements and excesses. People were saying, 'we don't know where we are going but lots of things are happening and we are going to have pleasure and fun. We may even mock ourselves, that's how fun it is.”

Where the savage ones are...

     Today, we continued our discussion about Rousseau’s philosophy on the origins of man.  While the conversation got a little heated towards the end, it was very stimulating and thought-provoking! I began to imagine a parallel universe in which we all lived in a small commune in the middle of nowhere during the 18th century.  At first, this thought seemed like a very scary thing; how could the 16 of us survive in a confined space? Who would be assigned which role? And most importantly, how would 16 people with completely different personalities live as one, cohesive unit? However, in retrospect, I do not think it would be the end of the world if that were to happen.

     According to Rousseau, humans are capable of evolving at a rapid pace; this means that humans have an ability to adapt to their surroundings.  This implies that if some apocalyptic, natural disaster type of event were to happen to us, we would be able to figure out a way to adapt—without our precious smart phones.  In his first discourse, Rousseau introduces the notion of a savage person compared to a civil person, and uses this comparison to justify his claim that civil society corrupts humankind.  The savage human predates the beginnings of civil society; there are no conflicts for this individual as all of their needs are met by nature.  The savage human only exhibits base emotions, and it it through these emotions that reason is developed.  Because the savage human leads a simplistic life, there are no complications that could make life difficult.  Rousseau argues that the savage human derives more pleasure out of life compared to the civilized person.  Since the civilized person possesses the ability to perfect their life, they become too preoccupied.  For Rousseau, perfectibility leads to misery in the lives of the civilized person.  
    
    I agree with Rousseau; modernity definitely has an impact on the quality of life one leads today.  While Rousseau isn't advocating for the return to the "natural" way of life, he still thinks that people have an obligation to correct the corruptness from within our modern life.  However, this is problematic because I'm afraid it's too late to save humanity from the corruption that we've created for ourselves.  In our generation, people are too greedy, selfish, and oblivious to their own privilege.  We live in an age when smart phones are handed out like candy--people have become too reliant on technology.   

    In my humble opinion, I find technology to be exhausting... I don't like how I have this need to have my smart phone with me all the time.  It's just one more thing I need to worry about.  Although to be frank, the majority of the time, I use my iPhone just to listen to music (you might as well glue my headphones into my ears).  I am not as concerned with checking Twitter or Facebook because those aspects of social media are extremely fake.  While they pretend to connect people, they actually push people away from each other because they create the illusion that you can "collect" people as your friends without having an legitimate conversation with them, let alone know what their favorite color is.

    It's just ridiculous; people are too busy consuming than living life. 

La Société Voltaire

After our discussion last week, I was doing some research on how Voltaire is still relevant to us today and came across an article from January in The Guardian entitled “Voltaire’s Treatise on Tolerance becomes bestseller following Paris attacks.” During the week following the Charlie Hebdo attacks, the Treatise on Tolerance by Voltaire became a popular title to read in the religion and philosophy genre. The article stated that after the Charlie Hebdo attacks, people and world leaders protested in solidarity down Boulevard Voltaire. Images of Voltaire with “Je suis Charlie” on it were circulating around the Internet and alike which further more instilled the idea of Voltaire as a symbol for freedom of expression. The Société Voltaire had some strong thoughts on the issue and proclaimed that “‘It was also Voltaire that [the killers] wanted to assassinate’, meaning the Enlightenment legacy of skeptical rationality, laicité (secularism), free-ranging curiosity and battles against censorship that he embodied.”

I was curious about this Société Voltaire, since I had not heard of it, and read some of their articles posted on their website. La Société Voltaire was created on May 30, 2000 on the 222^nd anniversary of the death of Voltaire. Their goal is to encourage and promote the studies, research and events regarding all things Voltaire.  Their website is very interesting since it has activities listed, bulletins and publications to read, as well as debates, surveys and publications.

One bulletin caught my eye in particular from around the time of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. The author of this article wants us to reflect on what Voltaire said in his time on the issue of religion and fanaticism as they are still a problem today. Voltaire states on the death of Marc-Antoine that “In either case the abuse of holy religion has led to a great crime. It is, therefore, of interest to the race to inquire whether religion ought to be charitable or barbaric.” The author says that in Voltaire’s point of view holy religion is characterized by the unity of people with a “sense of mutual goodwill.” This is applicative to today’s society because it is not the differences between the religious and the atheist, between the Christian and non-Christian, etc. that is an issue, but rather the line between barbarism and civilization. The barbarian is stupid and vicious. The civilized is knowledgeable, a critical thinker and exhibits tolerance. In Voltaire’s Treatise on Toleration, the allegation that Marc-Antoine was murdered by his father Jean Calas because he did not want his son to convert to Catholicism is an example of intolerance and barbarism due to differences in religious beliefs. If someone is supposed to be religious why would they commit such a crime? This religious intolerance shows the ignorance that is commonly found among people every day in society. Instead of acting upon our internal hatred for someone’s religion, we could learn from Voltaire and be accepting and just toward others and their differences in religion by fighting against barbarism.

Anger and frustration toward someone or a group of people due to their religious beliefs is not constructive for anyone. It accomplishes nothing and nothing is gained in the process. To exhibit tolerance of someone one must express a fair and objective attitude to people whose beliefs and opinions are different from their own. One must acknowledge the differences that exist and live with it. Being tolerant does not mean you agree with all of the beliefs of another religion it just means that you are respectful of them and allow them to express themselves freely in society.  As Voltaire says, “Not only is it cruel to persecute, in this brief life, those who differ from us, but I am not sure if it is not too bold to declare that they are damned eternally. It seems to me that it is not the place of the atoms of a moment, such as we are, thus to anticipate the decrees of the Creator.” We should not be in judgment of others as God will be the ultimate judge, “transport yourselves with me to the day on which all men will be judged, when God will deal with each according to his works.”

Descartes and Skepticism

Much of what Descartes discusses in his meditations is the importance of skepticism, a mindset that recognizes the limits of our senses. Descartes shows that our senses are fundamentally flawed in that they aren’t able to provide us with the truth. The might get us close, but there is no way of knowing for sure that, for example, what we see is what really exists and that we aren’t in fact dreaming some sort of elaborate dream. To use a science fiction metaphor, how do we know we aren’t simply a brain in a jar that’s being stimulated in an elaborate way that gives us the impression of corporeal existence? Although the likelihood of this is rather small, there is no way of being certain by using our senses. If something as important to our schema as corporeal form can be called into question, then even something as relatively arbitrary as the blueness of the sky must also be questioned. To Descartes, this doubt or skepticism isn’t simply recommended. It is required for intelligent thought.

In many ways, it is those who practice science who must be the most critical of the world around them. As Descartes demonstrates, we shouldn’t accept things at face value. This is especially true for scientists who strive for truth (or, most of the time, what is most likely true). There is no such thing as “proven” in science, because there is always room for doubt. Even well-established theories such as gravity are subject to this doubt, because the sweeping amount of evidence to support the existence of gravity includes evidence from observation. Thus, we can only say that it is very very very likely that gravity exists in the way we have established. To a lot of people, this is a huge turn-off from the scientific field. Even people who love science seem to get frustrated over the vague scientific language. Popular science pages such as http://www.iflscience.com/ are an example of when people who “fucking love science” can fall into media traps that play into our desire to simplify science. Don’t believe me? Good, that means you’re being skeptical. But read some headlines and you will find a lot of affirmative statements, despite science’s inability to completely confirm. Those who participate in science, or who, like me, are studying to do so, know to be wary of these sites. Without skepticism, science is inaccurate in that there is no regard for human error. It is biased in that it can be corrupted by the researcher’s desired outcome. And it is unproductive in that it no longer questions the concepts commonly accepted as truth.

You don’t have to be Descartes or a scientist to understand the purpose of skepticism. In many ways, being skeptical and questioning the world around us allows us to get the most out of our experiences. By refusing to accept things at face value, we open ourselves to a world that is much more complex and exciting. Instead of simply accepting the sky is blue because it is, understanding that the “blueness” is a small range of wavelengths of the sun’s light that are reflected off of particles in the atmosphere and travel miles to the retinas in our eyes where the light is transformed into electrical energy that follows pathways in the brain that ultimately lead us to think the word “blue” is a much more complicated way of thinking. Investigating what we observe in this way can spark questions about our world we might never had thought of. As people living in a foreign city, thinking in skeptical ways urges us to dig deeper and to never accept things the way they are. Everyday we are given new information from our Alliance professors, from Bob, from Chantal, from our host families, and from Paris. When receiving this information, our perception is clouded by personal experience and cultural predispositions. By keeping a skeptical mind, we combat our brain’s natural tendencies to simplify things. How much new and exciting experiences do we miss out on if we aren’t skeptical of all of this information?

History Will Always Repeat Itself

There can be different and unique applications of certain words, toleration is one of them. Toleration is used under different contexts and pretenses. As such, our community, state, country, church etc.. tolerates all kinds of behavior that they decide to be deviant. For example; the Church tolerates homosexuality, parents tolerate their children's behavior, the state tolerates the minority. It is very important for people to be tolerant of others so that we don’t descend into mindless persecution and accusation of others without probable and just cause.

In Voltaire's essay on toleration he examines religion, or the toleration of those who are most deeply versed in religion and succumb to all aspects of literal interpretation and superstition. That is, those who use those depicted in religious texts so that they may tighten their hold of power over their subjects. The superstition that drives people to believe in ridiculous things such as there being monsters within natural disasters and heroes who smite beasts being some sort of special human favored by God. But that is not the case, people would associate heroic deeds and genius with this fear. As Voltaire states: “The superstitious man puts poison in the most wholesome food; he is an enemy to himself and others. He believes himself the object of eternal vengeance if he eats meat on a certain day; he believes that a long, grey robe, With a pointed hood and long beard, is much more agreeable to God than a shaven face and a head that retains its hair…”. We are our own worst enemy which superstition is the fuel of condemnation of all rationality that we posses. Knowing not what is known can be a cause of superstition if we cause it to be that way.

(Voltaire didn't say this but it was wrongly credited to him)

We should not let the concept of fidelity, loyalty, religion and the like fuel the fight against ourselves. Hereby practicing toleration is the first step towards a society that doesn’t settle its problems through fighting but through other means. It is in my opinion that we won’t progress in thought without practicing toleration. Through tolerating other people's actions we may be keen to think more about the motivations and causes that affect the outcome of those peoples actions. There cannot be respect without toleration in the majority of cases. That is why Voltaire's letters of toleration are so important even today in the midst of continuous racial and religious violence that plagues our world we must be tolerant of these actions and act rationally so that we might not condemn a whole race or religious group to damnation. That is the reaction of those who do not think for themselves or those who are afraid of something being taken away from them. Practicing tolerance and respect towards others like they are your equals is something that Voltaire was a true believer in, and is an idea that is still hard for certain groups of people to comprehend. I don’t believe that we will be able to fix the past, but we can prevent history from repeating itself if we remember the past and practice toleration of other people's beliefs and mannerisms if that will prevent fighting amongst ourselves.

DeCerteau "Walking in the City": Putting Down the Camera

De Certeau "Walking in the City": Putting Down the Camera

When reading Michel De Certeau's "Walking in the City," I was struck by how much the text spoke to an ongoing inner conflict that I've been experiencing as someone living in a foreign country. De Certeau discusses the difference between viewing a city from above and walking through the city. From above, one can see the city as a seemingly complete collection of its features. One can determine time of day, traffic patterns, pedestrian activity, relative location and distance of particular points, the layout of the streets, and so on and so forth. It would seem that, from a skyscraper, one can gather everything there is to know about a city. That is, until we come down from the observation deck. From the street, everything is louder, quite literally. You lack the big picture, but you gain detail. You can see different faces, the method in which people group themselves, verbal and nonverbal communication, whether time is moving quickly or slowly, and so on. The city from above and from the street are almost like alien planets, yet they are one and the same.

Living in Paris, my conflict isn't between my view from the streets and that from above. I'm not constantly at the top of the Eiffel Tower. In fact, the conflict is one that is so present in our lives we often don't even realize it's there: to photo, or not to photo. In many ways, taking a photo is a way of viewing Paris from above. From a photo, we get a sense of the state of the photographer's world at a segment in time in a particular segment of space. With the first photos, people believed that the truth was at last being accurately represented. Even today we can be moved by a photographer's ability transport us to a precise time and place. It is therefore easy to forget that when looking at a photo of Paris we are still just looking at the city from above. So how do we see Paris from the street? By putting down the camera. Like a bird's eye view, a photo is distorted. We have no third dimension nor sense of time. We also lack a sense of consciousness within the piece of time the photo represents. We lack our thoughts and emotions as well as the sensory information that we receive while simply viewing the world with the naked eye. Based on De Certeau's piece, it seems as if putting down the camera is the preferred option. As foreigner's in a new country, putting the camera away entirely is out of the question. But it is important to question whether the photos we take are worth ourselves being removed from the city. When do we snap, and when do we put it away?

1.

I grew up in a household where documentation via photos and video were extremely important. My mom once jokingly told me that if there was ever a house fire, I should try to save the cassette tapes (and, me being gullible, I believed her). Even now it seems as if she's afraid of forgetting the important moments in her family's life, and her photos are evidence of this.
One could look at the massive collection of photos at my house as a success, that my mother has certainly captured all the important moments. She need only to sit down and look at the photos to be transported to another time and place. Right?

To answer this question, let's consider the brain. Why is my mom so afraid of forgetting? We lose our memory with age, of course. But not in the way you'd think. Consider my mother twenty years from now trying to remember my 5th birthday, having forgotten many details. If her photo-taking paid off, she should simply be able look through her photographs and the memories should come rushing back. And that's how it would seem. My mother would probably begin telling the story of my 5th birthday and it would sound so complete that we probably wouldn't be able to tell that much of her story is false. Remarkably, our brains seem to have the capacity to make what's called "confabulation," or false memories. The brain doesn't like gaps in information. View a square that's missing corners and your brain will still interpret it as "square". Our memories work in a similar way. When memories are evoked, our brain activates similar pathways as when sensations (such as the smell of birthday candles or the color of the decor) were first analyzed. But from this we only get pieces of a memory and not a complete retelling. The brain must use previous knowledge and logic to try and make sense of everything. Typically, the confabulations aren't great enough for problems to arise. But problems do seem to increase in frequency and severity with age. Old or young, we are limited by the pieces of memory our brain holds onto when looking at a photo. No photo is powerful enough to truly present a complete, accurate memory.

It is in this way that photos distort the truth. Try looking at a photo you took that's at least five years old. What is it missing? What elements of the photograph seem false? How much of the memories coming back to you are true and not confabulation? The more we meditate on such questions, the smaller the scope of our photo, our bird' eye view becomes. Does that mean we stop taking photos? Certainly not. But the merit of photo-taking become a lot less urgent.

2.

So what do we miss in the short time it takes to take the photo? It can't be much, right?

To answer this question, I bring to the table a bit of my own spiritual philosophy: Buddhism. Buddhism teaches the importance of mindfulness, a state of consciousness rooted in the present. If you've ever taken yoga or meditated, you have practiced mindfulness. As conscious beings, our thoughts can be of the past, present, or future. When our thoughts are in the past, they are distorted by memory. Our brain plays tricks on us and confabulates. When our thoughts are in the future, they are distorted by lack of knowledge. No one can contemplate the future with accuracy. Thus, our thoughts are purest when they reflect the present. So what happens when we stop to take a photo? We are no longer experiencing the present moment. We are preoccupied with how the photo will look, who will like it, whether it will help us recall, etc. In the time we take to think about the future, we have missed the present experience of the moment we have just attempted to capture. The photo we are left with is of a moment we have missed entirely. Wondering what's missing from your photo? It's the experience of what the photo represents. You can't get the present back, so it's best to maximize your time with it. Not even Buddhist monks can be in the present all the time. What's important is to understand the value of being mindful, and to consider the necessity of stepping outside of the moment.

This is what we miss when we take a photo. Thus, a sort of balance must be kept between the pictures that are important for you to take and those that are excess. How often do you mindlessly snap away at something, without really knowing why? Do you often go back over a mass of photos only to discover that many of them just don't make sense, or hold little meaning? Most importantly, what did you miss when taking your pictures?

***

I've posed a lot of questions without answers, simply because I'm still answering them myself. I still struggle between the urge to document everything like my mother and the wish to experience Paris moment by moment. I've found it much easier to take pictures than to put away the camera, but more rewarding to do the latter.

We're only in Paris for a short time. Thus, we must choose wisely how we wish to spend our attention. Taking photos is important, and so is putting down the camera. It is up to us as intellectual individuals to determine when it is appropriate to do both.

Descartes and the Metaphysical of the Mind and Body

Descartes is considered by many to be the father of modern philosophy and as such his works deals with the aspects of the modernity of life. As I read an excerpt from his thoughts on the metaphysical and the dualism of the mind and body as they exist within the physical and ephemeral realms there were many times where I had to stop and think about how I view the metaphysical. For example: “... I have opportunely feed my mind from all cares [and am happily disturbed by no passions]...”, this is a description of being free through the use of your mind by your own free will which is something that I have done many times before. The reading is entirely observations about our everyday life and what we perceive within our consciousness and unconsciousness. I do agree with Descartes, that the state of being free is first and foremost in your mind and only that person which wishes to be free from the constraints of worry and passion can do so if and only if they choose to perceive it that way.

Not only is the state of freedom discussed within the very first point in the reading, just four paragraphs down Descartes takes the idea of our very body into question. That is, how do you know that you aren't dreaming right now? You could be in front of this text reading it with your own two eyes, but you may just be falling victim to your own imagination that convinces you that this reality is your own reality. There must have been some time when you were “deceived” by the illusions that your dreams presented to you, at that point it’s quite possible that you could convince yourself that you are dreaming that this reality is not your reality. These questions which Descartes posed are indeed a forbearance of the nature of the human mind. We only know the world as it is, the metaphysical is out of your reach until you see yourself as not being in the world but of the world.

(Descartes' Illustration of Dualism)

Asking these questions by themselves result in a sufficient excuse to ask more deeply profound questions. He continues these questions by going the next step and questions the existence of a “God” and even his senses, Descartes says: “...suppose that I possess no senses; I believe that body, figure, extension, motion, and place are merely fictions of my mind. What is there, then, that can be esteemed true...  there is absolutely nothing certain”. There is nothing absolute in the metaphysical world, it is what we interpret though our perception of the world around us that makes our reality. Descartes expresses with these words that:  “Perception is another attribute of the soul; but perception to is impossible without the body ”, which lies the foundation for the dualism of the mind and body. While the mind perceives the world according to the person, the body exists separately from the mind and as such acts accordingly to your perceptions. Its bring to mind that everyone experiences reality and the metaphysical in different ways. How do you experience reality, and how can you be sure that what you see is the truth?