Subject: Re: Moviegoer and despair
From: Marshall Smith (Cocasteady@AOL.COM)
Date: Mon Nov 15 1999 - 23:05:34 EST
Dear Jim:
Your epistemological assertions are interesting and I agree with most of
them, except for the implication that objects may not exist. I'm of the
kick-the-rock-and-Berkeley (sp?)-is-refuted school.
Beyond (or below) all that, my take on the objectification issue was
somewhat more simple. I was talking about the moment when someone in a state
of despair (or more accurately depression) is able to say to him or herself -
"Good God, what is going on here. I'm completely wrapped up in this
catastrophically bad state and have been for weeks, months, years. Let me
try and climb out of it." To do that, a degree of objectifying one's own
emotions, state of mind, circumstance, is essential in my opinion. And here
"objective" isn't used in any technical sense. I mean only the ability to
escape the web of bad feeling and look at oneself in an objective sense.
It's a bit like realizing and regretting you're acting like an ass while
being unable to stop yourself from doing it. I speak from experience.
I am in wholehearted agreement that objectifying others is bad. However,
objectifying aspects of one's own personality, if and when possible, is
productive and necessarily clarifying.
Marshall Smith
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Thu Jan 11 2001 - 12:52:22 EST