The Identity That Is Seen, 67
What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality. (Otto Rank, Austrian psychoanalyst and protege of Sigmund Freud)
I killed a lion on September 9, 2023, probably around midnight, I think. It was on a Saturday going on Sunday, I believe. As I remember in that dead of night, the young lion lay quietly in my lap breathing peacefully and I quite slowly but with deliberate intent pushed the sharp knife deep into the neck, just medially of the left carotid artery.
I didn’t move at all and remained awake until dawn, still grasping the knife now covered in dry blood. In the light of day I finally let go of the knife, stood up and left the room. Later in the morning as I reached for my cup of coffee, I suddenly started crying uncontrollably, a deep anguish washing over me, at a loss for what had occurred and for which I was completely and totally responsible.
Yes, Yes Thank You For Your Hope
Whereas hope is something we have, natality is something we do.
Hannah Arendt died in 1975. A historian and political philosopher, she was probably one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century. Many of her ideas may be even more relevant today and we may find out just how relevant they actually are. This should not necessarily give us any comfort. She said in her book The Origins of Totalitarianism published in 1951 that, “Desperate hope and desperate fear often seem closer to the centre of such events than balanced judgment and measured insight.”
A central theme of Arendt’s political philosophy is that the idea of hope is a dangerous roadblock or barrier “to acting courageously in dark times.” She reached the United States in 1941 having escaped Nazi Germany. She was an eclectic thinker but indelibly seared by what had happened to her country.
Arendt seemingly had little respect for the average politician and certainly the idea that good will win out over evil and all the assorted endings that we’ll somehow live happily ever after.
I suspect that she wouldn’t have thought a great deal about Mitt Romney’s latest “moment” of enlightenment when publicly declaring he would not run for the U.S. senate again, in part because he didn’t like that his Republican party was now little more than an ignorant, self-serving authoritarian cult that threatened violence if it didn’t get what it wanted … and this has been the case for some time. A profile in minuscule courage might be gleaned from the senator’s most recent announcement.
Arendt witnessed the unfolding and actual arrival of totalitarianism in Europe and saw it spreading across the globe in the 20th century. She realized that the ideas of human decency and ethical norms no longer mattered. The “law” mandated mass murder.
Natality became the essential word that Hannah Arendt claimed because to her it meant a new beginning. We do have the means to “break” from the current situation. Whereas hope, for Arendt, was an unassertive—even submissive—plea for some future outcome, the concept of natality was a call for action because it addresses what it means to exist.
Hannah Arendt (video)
For a really good essay on the ideas and philosophy of Hannah Arendt see: When Hope Is a Hindrance
The Doppelganger and The Rouletista Sat At the Bar Contemplating Each Other, the Outcome Uncertain
A movie you do want to see is entitled In & Of Itself. You’ll find it on Hulu. You won’t be disappointed. Those that have seen it on stage or in film will overwhelmingly agree. What identity do you see? What identity do you claim? Which one is the real one?
In & Of Itself (video)
The Body Double
Perhaps that’s why representations of doubles seem to surge during moments of extreme violence and change. See: To Know Yourself, Consider Your Doppelganger
The article was written by Naomi Klein.
Have you had a chance to see your doppelganger or someone that looks like someone else? Some have suggested that the transformation of societies into something quite different has contributed to this effect. Have you seen your very own double. Who is the real one?
It almost seems at times like Berlin of 1929, you might think or imagine. I was in West Berlin in 1968, then a city immersed in the “cold war,” full of spies and surrounded by the Soviet Union but, nevertheless, living on the edge of something exciting, perhaps nihilistic, yet….
The Berlin of 1929 was one of the most open and creative cities in the world at this time but slowly or perhaps not so slowly turned into the epicenter of absolute evil with—at first—only an ominous smile and a promise of something so much better, like it was once upon a time, a time long, long ago, a mythic and glorious past. This claptrap works almost everywhere doesn’t it.
Have you seen the series Babylon Berlin? If you haven’t, not to worry, because it could appear and take up residence in your own, unique hometown America. Hope springs eternal. Willkommen! Bienvenu! Who are you really?
Note: The word Rouletista is explained in In & Of Itself.