tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448657.post1690547152857335440..comments2023-09-30T08:07:26.165-04:00Comments on Mystical Politics: FatelessRebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17626228106192215280noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448657.post-68547583296658110322007-04-08T01:15:00.000-04:002007-04-08T01:15:00.000-04:00Yes, I've certainly thought about that as well - b...Yes, I've certainly thought about that as well - but somehow I have the feeling that I've come closer to understanding how a loved person feels (even if that's illusory) than I have to understanding what Imre Kertesz went through in the concentration camps.Rebeccahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17626228106192215280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448657.post-29463179706220810002007-04-04T18:39:00.000-04:002007-04-04T18:39:00.000-04:00"But the barrier to true understanding still remai..."But the barrier to true understanding still remains."<BR/><BR/>This is absolutely true, but in a way, this merely highlights -- I think -- the tension between <I>any</I> consciousness of a human trying to <I>completely</I> understand that of another, even those who try their best, whether to fully understand the experience of a beloved one, a lover, a parent, a child, a sibling, of any people, however close they are to another. (And much of love would seem to me to delve into seeking to best understand the consciousness of the one one loves; Douglas Hofstadter seems to have written about some of this in his latest book, <I>I Am A Strange Loop</I>.)<BR/><BR/>In a way, many of us spend much of our lives trying to achieve the greatest closeness we can to a few chosen others, out of all sorts of motives, including mutual joy, a sense of place and being understood, togetherness, companionship, someone to share with, someone whose reactions we take pleasure from, and on and on: but we're all always ultimately incomplete in our contact with others; an experience of such ultimate horror as the Holocaust, or any of its lesser or other equivalents, only exaggerates that incompleteness as an illustration, perhaps. <BR/><BR/>Perhaps not; hardly a thought I'm sure about. Just a thought.Gary Farberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02883503507068654673noreply@blogger.com