Freedom and judgment have one thing in common, they
are words we are using in reference to something that supresses us, even when
we believe freedom doesn’t supress. With suppression I mean anything that
questions our purpose, worth, station or valour and seek to control these
realms if they are found to be outside the accepted norms of some moral or
social law.
We find here a polarity between freedom and judgment.
I believe we all want to breathe in freedom – save for those who judge and set
the laws – that seeks to restrict. In the will to freedom and its restriction
we find the cosmic pulse of life and death, and between the beats life goes on.
And here in the offbeat – what we know as life – it is all about acting and
reacting so we can understand the soul hidden deep within the stone of
philosophical possibility.
In this offbeat we live out our lives and question
everything, but as Derrida commented knowledge is a fickle thing, because we
can never be sure that what we know really corresponds to what is, because our
participation in the cosmic drama is limited to our own very limited and infinitesimal
small drama which turns any certainty into ‘fictional forms’.
Now, I see little escape from this premise, but how we
approach this premise can make a difference, so continuing the reasoning of
Derrida and the ‘fictional form’
which is our life, I dare say this invites immense possibilities, because
fiction is rooted in life.
If we accept this premise we can see opportunity and
possibility and excel in this or we can grow weary in the illusion the premise
presents.
For the modern man, the reaction to this premise somehow
goes down to Bakunin (1814-1876) who reacted upon an archontic and tyrannical
social climate stating that:
"Let us
put our trust in the eternal spirit which destroys and annihilates only because
it is the unsearchable and eternally creative source of all life - the passion
for destruction is also a creative passion!" (Reaction in Germany, 1842)
This observation, along with Nietzsche’s’ existential
questions gave form to what we know as nihilism and nihilism is commonly
defined as:
“the belief that all values are
baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated
with extreme pessimism and a radical scepticism that condemns existence. A true
nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other
than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy (http://www.iep.utm.edu/nihilism/).”
It is certainly tempting to pursue the greater
projects of Nietzsche and Derrida in this scope, but if we limit this
potentially enormous discourse to the premise of philosophy – to be able to entertain
an idea without judging it as anything else than an exercise in ‘truth’ – we are
left with the exercise of ‘truth’. And while truth will forever be a white
dressed maiden resting in the deepest parts of a well, she still influences us
in our pursuit for meaning, freedom and judgment.
And what I see is that in this exercise, in this offbeat
between life and death, what we know as existence and our life and world light and
darkness do moves us in bitter and sweet steps in this tango we make, wanting
or not. And as we dance through our ‘fictional form’ we often raise fingers to
one another, to ourselves, to history and to ideas and things. And what happens
here in this process of multiple judgments? First off we are losing freedom but
more severely we understand our self in relation to negations and condemnations
and reactions to something that challenges our free spirit. The act of judgment
brings more judgment and restricts our social cage, because in judgment we
expose the tyranny that rules a profane society void of hope and full of greed
loosing perspective of whether this is the world we wanted or not and becomes
reactants and marionettes in that beat of death that announces the end of the beauty
of our ‘fictional form’ where we merges with the repressive and suppressive.
Oh yes, I am using broad strokes here, because every
brush is made up of single strains of hairs that together can mark the world,
for good or for bad. If the brush is stringed with reactions to the picture
made it will be tied to the present form and its freedom will be restricted. In
the same way, when you judge, you react and restrict yourself and in some cases
even invite in the restriction to shape your life, because no matter if you believe
or like the Christian mythology, the phrase in Our Lord’s Prayer do hold a
profound message:
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive them that trespass against us.
This part, do speak of judging and forgiveness so we
can be free from our own judgment and of the judgment of others and even more
from the worst judge of all, our selves. Because I believe nihilism and
antinomianism is natural for the adolescent, but as this phase is passing and
we have destroyed what needs to be destroyed and dropped our pointed fingers in
the chaos of forgetfulness we can approach this ‘fictional form’ we are and see
ourselves as we are and not in relation to what we reject or judge – and in
this a first step of freedom can be made as we realize that chaos is a myriad
of lights that seeks the original harmony.