Er ist tod

http://www.brobible.com/life/article/new-york-times-kill-baby-hitler/

So the New York Times asked folks if they would kill Hitler as a baby.

Ah but if you are a Leibnitzian, you would not kill Hitler...becasue...Hitler's existence is the Best Of All Possible Worlds.

Leibnitz would say that Hitler's existence, seen sub specie aeternitatis (from the eye of god), and with all the good that happened ex post facto, is the best of all possible worlds.

Basically, how could god make a mistake, is what Leibnitz is asking.

What if god is taken out of the picture and we are left with a human world with human actions and human choices and human fallibility?

Huh Leibnitz?

Thoughts on Don DeLillo’s White Noise (1985)

I couldn’t help but find myself comparing the end of White Noise to Camus’ The Stranger.  The terseness of the shooting scene, the insensitive harming of another with the inhumane, animalistic self-reflection…it was just very Camusian for lack of a better word. 

But the ending wasn’t the best part, not by a long shot. The weirdness of the novel, the only intimations as to deeper meaning, the fact that it made you think, made you define… “What is nature?”… These were the best parts of the book. 

A toddler that won’t speak, a maybe genius teenager who runs with an asking-for-it Guinness record attempter, a wife named “Babs,” Hitler Studies, photographic-memory-having colleagues,  a pervert colleague who hits on the aforementioned “Babs,” and of course, the airborne toxic event. 

And all of it “caged” in death (just like the snakes). Or should we say the fear of death? Just as death gives life context and delineation, death gives White Noise life and delineation. What is the airborne toxic event if not nearness to THE ownmost possibility? What is Dylar if not to push away THE ownmost possibility?  Why run the stadium stairs if not to meet THE ownmost possibility? Yes, death my friends, does it make life rare? Does it turn your years of life from a ubiquitous carbon to a rarefied diamond? 

I don’t think DeLillo knows…and that’s a good thing. That he asks in the first place is more important. Does he believe? The nuns believed, if only in a perfunctory way so that we couldn’t believe…capisce?

Is Delillo saying we need both sides of the belief coin? Maybe, just like we need both sides of life and death.

As I read the book I also couldn’t help but reflect on my undergraduate years, those years shaped by the coins with sides like Martin Heidegger and Leo Buscaglia. Heidegger taught me we are beings-unto-death facing an ownmost possibility that ends all others and Buscaglia taught me that “I don’t brood over death, I’m too busy living.”

So it’s like Delmar in O’Brother Where Art Thou?

Pete: Wait a minute. Who elected you leader of this outfit?

Ulysses Everett McGill: Well Pete, I figured it should be the one with the capacity for abstract thought. But if that ain't the consensus view, then hell, let's put it to a vote.

Pete: Suits me. I'm voting for yours truly.

Ulysses Everett McGill: Well I'm voting for yours truly too.

[Everett and Pete look at Delmar for the deciding vote]

Delmar O'Donnell: Okay... I'm with you fellas.

Life or Death?

You bet.

Good or Bad

[Context: listening to Smiley and West Podcast]

Isn’t it interesting how we bloat our own positive characteristics? I heard Nelson Mandela described as graceful and thought to myself that no one and I mean no one, would describe me as graceful. And that fits. But then the inner monologue immediately begins to defend not being graceful; “but what I lack in gracefulness I make up for with x, y, and z.”

[Extrapolation]

Well if we want to be all Leo Buscaglia about it, we can say that every person has some positive characteristics. (What would it mean to have just 1 positive characteristic?) But who is going to step up and laud the positive characteristics of Hitler or Jeffrey Dahmer, or Kirstie Alley. Kid, I kid. Kirstie was great in Woody Allen’s ‘Deconstructing Harry.’ The question remains: does every person have positive characteristics?

Or do we want to be all atomistic about it and say that some people, you know who you are, are pure evil? Not one ounce of good in these folks. Mayhem, murder, genocide, and 80’s music are left in their wake.

Is this really a grey area? Are we going to say it’s nuanced, ooooh it’s nuanced, it needs to be fleshed out as they say. It depends, you say, it’s contingent upon many, many relevant factors you say.

Oh c’mon! There are two kinds of people aren’t there? Good and bad? What is this nuance crap? Are you going to tell me people are good and sometimes do bad things? Are you going to tell me “to err is human?” Erring is one thing but making hats out of skin is another.  Again I ask, aren’t some people pure evil?

How else can you account for clogs, golf, and fox news? Kid, I kid. I love golfing in clogs.