thinking thinking

before i begin:
stranger than paradise (& permanent vacation!!!)
on the criterion collection
september 4th
pre-ordered!!

so when sartre mixed politics and a life philosophy (versus a life philosophy and social responsibility) he completely went down in my books, started trying to create absolutes and make existentialism concrete. i like earlier sartre. not later. why oh why? and why do people place individualism and social responsibility as direct opposites? why must someone bent on being an individual in the more philosophical (existentialist especially) sense have to be greedy, capitalist, elitist bourgeoisies? not so not so! they always point to ayn rand, who yes, is very capitalist and very individualistic. but ms. rand is the product of a communist russia she hated. she is an extreme.

i truly believe that a working society, a progressing society, a society that can beat corporate or political corruption, needs to be made up of individuals. corporations more than ever want us to go with the flow of what everyone is doing, what product placement and advertising tell us to want. we need the people who will think for themselves, will question tradition, will question culture, will live for themselves, not be a second-hander (as rand would say) or not be in bad faith (as sartre would say). to progress we need people to look inside of themselves and create innovations in whatever field. we need people who will unhook themselves from the TV screen matrix, who will not act the part of their role in society, but be a person in society. who will remove themselves from the herd (as nietzsche would say).

and as far as altruism, i completely believe in community service, but above all i believe in education: educating the "disadvantaged", teaching them to fish and never be hungry. one reason why i love the IWW is that it was workers fighting for their own rights. Iraq Veterans Against The War (IVAW), is soldiers fighting for themselves, heck, vietnam was stopped because SOLDIERS threw off their badges. it is not the place of the advantaged (and i hate this term) in society to fight FOR the disadvantages - though i am not saying they shouldn't support their efforts - education is the best kind of help & it always will be. it helped my parents, it helped me.

i really want to read Marcel's Man Against Mass Society. but for now i am reading the feminist movements manifesta: de beauvoir's the second sex.

of course i am also in the process of finishing the dharma bums & despair.

i am also questioning whether an authentic individual can "follow one's heart". must every choice be completely conscious? i know sartre dismissed the idea of the unconscious, but instinct? if we were to advance in "existentialist psychoanalysis" maybe it would be clearer. we are the sum of the choices we make, so can't these choices become automatic in similar situations or more basically, through similar inclinations. i guess my question is, must every choice we make be concrete & come from concrete reasons? "following one's heart" often means traversing the path less travelled against all advice, which is very existentialist. but on the other hand it is an unconscious choice.

oh i love love love literature, oh i love love love to read! i i love love love to storytell.