De eeuwenlange voorsprong bij de verovering van het buiten hadden de Europeanen (…) te danken (…) aan hun vermogen zelfs op de meest afgelegen plaatsen een minimale eigen ruimte in stand te houden. De naar Europa geëxporteerde eilandbewoners verloren daar meestal al gauw hun coördinaten, terwijl de Europeanen zichzelf overal mee naar toe namen, doordat ze krachten putten uit hun schepen, hun missies, hun egotechnieken. Men zou kunnen zeggen dat de Europese landverhuizers de wereldcamping hebben uitgevonden. Waar ze ook opdoken, overal bleken ze de betere waarnemers te zijn: een waarnemer is diegene die het andere door een theorieruit bekijkt en zichzelf aan de tegenwaarneming onttrekt. Omdat ze over draagbare mentale ruiten beschikten, lagen de dienstdoende Europeanen meestal een hele dimensie van het vermogen om te beschrijven, te analyseren en te handelen op de ontdekte anderen voor. Het waren in wezen vijf vormen waarmee de aanvallers de witte ruimte sferologisch te lijf konden gaan:
— de scheepsmythologie
— de christelijke religie
— de loyaliteit jegens de de vorsten van het moederland
— het wetenschappelijke begrip van de buitenruimte
— het vertalen.

Peter Sloterdijk, Het kristalpaleis, Een filosofie van de globalisering, Boom/SUN, Amsterdam, 2006, p. 132, 133

De expansionisten, zowel in het Amerikaanse westen als op de rest van de globe, rechtvaardigen hun toetasten door middel van een impliciete theorie van de morele lacune: er schijnen tijden te zijn waarin het handelen sneller moet zijn dan de wetgeving, en in zo’n tijd leven we. Met dit argument bepleiten ze vrijspraak op grond van uitzonderlijke omstandigheden. Wat in reguliere tijden plunderaars zouden zijn, zijn in de historische lacune pioniers. Wie in streng juridische, geremde, posthistorische tijden als misdadiger zou worden aangeklaagd, geldt temidden van de turbulentie van de lopende geschiedenis als avonturier, held en missionaris.

Peter Sloterdijk, Het kristalpaleis, Een filosofie van de globalisering, Boom/SUN, Amsterdam, 2006, p. 129

William T. Vollmann, Uncentering the Earth, Copernicus and The Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres. Part of the series in which contemporary novelists write on scientific discoveries. A nice series, though I’d guess from DFW’s booklet on Infinity, better appreciated if one is fan of the novelist, than when searching for a decent book on the scientific subject. Vollmann and Copernicus strike me as an odd couple, if never seen much interest in the Physical Sciences or Astronomy in Vollmanns novels…

David Foster Wallace, Consider the Lobster. DFW-essays, or the art of the footnote and the art of digressing, extending and folding back into itself. Some already 10 yrs old.

Louis Paul Boon — deel 5 van de Verzamelde Werken, dat wil zeggen, het eerste deel dat is uitgegeven. Met Te oud voor kamperen en Menuet.

Recently read Peter Sloterdijk’s Im Weltinnenraum des Kapitals. Für eine philosophische Theorie der Globalisierung. That is to say, I read the Dutch translation which is entitled Het kristalpaleis. That is to say: I read through it, to get the gist of it, enjoying Sloterdijks prose. While reading I did not act as someone who thinks with, and critically against what he’s reading. Take this as a disclaimer for the following notes ;-)

Sloterdijk’s not really on my list of philosophers with whom I’d like to spend a lot of time, though I would like to know and understand his position. I will probably never get around to read his Sphären-trilogy.

There are some reasons to read Sloterdijk, when doing research on writing and new media. Sloterdijk often refers to writing and media — for instance when he, famously, notes that doing philosophy, or writing books, is like writing long letters to a community of friends. If you are searching for a complete philosophy of the modern and contemporary world, in which the prespective of media theory is taken into account, Sloterdijk is one of the authors that you can look into.

For me, reading Sloterdijk is mostly about getting some ‘context’.

I am very ambiguous about Sloterdijk. The only really good piece I read of his, is his Regels voor het Mensenpark, a text that was misinterpreted so radically that one wonders, so many years later, if some of the commentators ever read the text itself. Sloterdijk is wonderfully controversial sometimes. That is nice. But he’s also ‘bloody’ conservative in a lot of respects, especially in this book Kristalpaleis, and often in not a very provocative way.

Anyway, first of all, I still see Sloterdijk as he emerged on the scene, early eightes. He was into Baghwan at that time. Okay, people can make the wrong decision for the right reasons, but still, some of Sloterdijks conservatism has a funny smell that I cannot de-attach from the media-person he is, or was.

Second: Sloterdijk refers mainly to german philosophers and texts in Kristalpaleis, and if he refers to texts written in english of french he almost always quotes from the german translations. He is emphatically a German philosopher, a heir to Hegel and Heidegger. (Which does not mean he’s a Hegelian or Heideggerian of course. He’ too kynical for that). If Sloterdijk provocatively states (in Kristalpaleis) that there is no philosophy of Globalization, he means that there is no philosophy of Globalization in the Hegel – Heidegger – kinda – philosophy. Okay, he mentions Negri and Hardt, but hmm, there’s more than that I’d say, if one lives in another philosophy-community.

Anyway, I enjoyed reading Kristalpaleis, and the general thesis that Sloterdijk builds up is enticing enough, thanks to his great knowledge of ‘globe’-imagery and ‘globe’-metaphors. But well, then he states that with the end of Globalization, History ends. That is, again, History in the Hegelian sense — History with an (imagined) telos. Hmm, yeah, well. Of course Sloterdijk writes some good bits that sort of make you realize how much we are still attached to the old ideas, how they have not gone away, and that we still have to make an effort at remaking a philosophy for the world we are part of. That universalism cannot be thrown away so easily. It’s not that Sloterdijk wants to make the statement that History is ended, he’s concerned with designing a Philosophy for our times, and wants to do away with the misunderstandings raised and easy solutions put forward the champions of new philosophers who think we are beyond History. But he makes some sweeping statements that are, I would say, pretty damaging or, to say it differently, show what a ‘bloody/dangerous’ conservative Sloterdijk is. Near the end (I cannot find the reference now) he counteracts the idea that trade has become globalized, that we have to look at economical and environmental problems at a world level, with the fact that most of the trade does still take place between neighbouring countries. Clearly saying, we shouldn’t exaggerate the impact of globalization too much. That I think, is a damaging thought. I do not think he’s being provocative there. He simply downplays the globalized effects. His statement can be easily counteracted with quoting the beautiful passage from Richard Powers’ novel Gain in which he tries to describe the provenance (that the word?) of all the ingredients of a piece of soap (was it soap?). Which turns out to be pretty impossible and sends you on a journey all over the world.

Of course, a lot of Sloterdijks analysis of the contemporary rich world as a ‘crystal palace’ is spot on. But i’d prefer a ‘total shattering’ ;-) of that ‘crystal palace’ instead of the ironic (?), sarcastic (?) zynikal(??) resigned analysis of that condition.

Hmm, it’s not that I am dismissing Sloterdijk because he’s in the wrong side, politically, am I? Nah, I think he’s one of those writers who provoke me to disagree, while when reading better, I’d have to admit I should agree more with what he writes than I would want to.

I do not feel ‘at home’ writing english. I miss that I cannot be subtle when I’d like to be subtle. Writing english for me means that I have to make an even greater effort at begin clear. Constructing clear sentences, constructing simple sentences.

I do not mind writing ‘international english’. I am not ashamed that my english isn’t perfect, or is clearly the english of a Dutchman. The english I use is the english as lingua franca. A communication language. (And just as I can more easily understand the french spoken or written by Africans than the french of Le Monde, so I image my english is easier to understand by non-native english speakers).

I do use english because it will make the stuff I write available to people in my environment. Not all of them read dutch.

I do use english because I will report on my research in english, because it’s the lingua franca of the research community, and not all the people who might (or are) interested in my research do read dutch.

I do admit that I’d rather stick to dutch. I write more easily in dutch. I have the feeling I can be more subtle. I do know better when a sentence is clear and when a sentence is unclear or unnecessarily complex. I can also more easily just ‘type on’ — something I enjoy doing — let the thoughts go from my brain straight into the fingertips so to say. I can also construct complex sentences when that might be necessary, or better.

But then: I also love to mix languages. One thing I do not understand about contemporary literature is why the condition of using multiple languages (meertaligheid) isn’t represented much better in literature. Quite a large part of the population is using multiple languages all the time. Be it because they are amongst people from different countries most of the time (me, on the Jan van Eyck, me with an Irish girlfriend), or because they are born in between two languages (say Dutch and Berber), or prefer speaking a dialect. (Anyway, it would of course limit the possible readership of a book…)

I will use both english and dutch here. I’m using WordPress, so why not use the possibilities. I will tag every post either as ‘en’ — for english — or ‘nl’ — for a post in dutch. I will also tag some posts as ‘de’, for german, and who knows I’ll get to use ‘fr’ for french, or even ‘it’ for italian… Though those categories will only pertain to quotations.

I know I have readers who do not read english. I do know that I also have readers who prefer that I use dutch. Hence I will write in dutch too.

Generally I will use english for all posts concerning my research, for subjects indirectly connected to the research, and for stuff which concern english-written sources anyway.

I will use dutch for more personal stuff, posts on cycling, and for subjects related to the Netherlands and Belgium.

Let’s see how it’ll work out.

How software softly ‘tells’ you how to write. It doesn’t impose, oh no, it just suggests… why wouldn’t you write like this, that’ll be best… don’t you think?

I do not like those suggestions.

That’s why I already have a love-hate relationship with WordPress.

‘Write Post’ suggests, softly, that I write short posts. Like of about 12 lines. The major part of the screen of my 12”-powerbook is taken by the rest of the interface (which is clear enough, no reason for severe criticism). The box for writing is 12 lines long. Of course I can write as much as I want. Of course I can change whatever I’d like to change. But that’s not the point. How many people actually change the default? And besides that: one needs room for the other elements of the interface as well.

The point is how the software (and how it is presented) programs a certain kind of writing. Short posts. Categorized. And writing a short post means that you’re trying to be concise and clear. The act of categorizing installs database-thinking. Consciously or unconsciously, maybe even secretly you are writing for an interlinked and searchable database.

Of course, that is what you are doing anyway. At least, seen from the perspective of a machine. In case you are using bloggingsoftware like WordPress, you are filling a MySQL-database with categorized data. But also if you’re doing everything by hand, old-skool, you are filling the database of the search engines.

But there is a difference (is there?) When writing old-skool in BBedit, using simple HTML, you are constructing a sequence. You are in a flux of time, writing is keeping track of time, it just goes on and on, one post comes after the other.

When using WordPress, or a similar package, your posts may be, by default, presented in a chronological way, yet when writing and categorizing the post, there is much more of a database-feeling. You store your thoughts and notes away, putting them in boxes. Feels more like filing (note: with one ‘l’).

Maybe this is a good analogy. Using WordPress is more like writing notes on filing cards and putting the cards in a box. That is a very specific way (and genre) of writing. Writing, to state that again, is for me more like a flux.

The fact that I first click ‘write post’, then write, then — inside the same interface first choose some categories and then click ‘save’ or ‘publish’, helps the feeling of ‘filing’.

What I like about blogging, (or what I used to like about blogging?) is that it stresses writing as an ongoing activity, the flux.

That does not go very well together with filling filing cards, tagging them in multiple ways, and storing them in boxes.

Anyway, in a sense this also comes down to the by now classic ‘trope’ that computer-writing (hypertext et cetera), is spatial. (Does it?)

Personal note 1: Using filing cards — as a research method — never worked out for me. I have my notebook, I have multiple text-documents in folders on my harddisk, all drafts and rough texts and quotations and copies of webpages. A ‘mess’, one that works for me.

Personal note 2: for me writing has always been an act of keeping up with time. I see it as something that flows. Hence rhythm is very important for me — in writing and reading. I can endlessly listen to jazz, freejazz, free improvisation…