On form

Come with me, traveller, for I can take you on a new journey! Or at least… come, walk with me for a bit. I am also a wanderer – see, my cloak is rugged, my coat is patchy –, on to discover! Discover what, exactly? Not so simple! Of course, it is Truth we claim to seek, but is that so? Many greats sook it yet found none, just became charlatans at best or perpetrators of the worst crimes in history at the worst. What claim do you have, not to Truth, but to difference? For surely, if you search still, you must think you know better, you have something new. If you did not, you would stay put – your cloak could be new, your coat immaculate. Tell me, what is it you really seek, under the banner of “Truth”? That banner we share with many, but what lies within will be different in most every case.

Many great people will be confused by their quest, and will be tempted at every corner to retreat, creating all sorts of externalities: fetishes, strawmen, logic-machines, all in their own image, but really, in dialectic with their unadmitted cravings. These minds identify (correctly) that in the playground of ideas the slide will be broken, the climbing-net will be torn and there will be bare nails sticking out of the deck of the wooden pirate-ship. And if one is to argue for the slide, or the climbing-net or the wooden pirate-ship, and as in the argumentation one is to become these (for it is hard not to become that which one argues for – identity comes from difference, and any difference will tend to be assumed as – or mistaken for! – identity), one must become that which is broken, which is torn and which has dangerous spikes pointing out of it. The craving: to become the argument (this a classical liberal, that a neo-Marxist), the problem: the argument’s faults become our own faults; and in reverse: our own uncertainty endangers the project of the argument! As one becomes what they believe, the temptation to forfeit Truth (as in: true intuition of that which follows) for the relief of finality and consistency grows increasing strong.

And so at this point one will renounce oneself – this frail being they recognise themselves to be cannot stand as the champion of Truth, of the Argument (be it a pirate-ship or the labour theory of value). Come forth, true champion, the academic essay! It will feature my name, but the author is from the Platonic realm: they are cold, they are logical, dispassionate, but most importantly: certain. And the alienation of the author is complete: the fetish, the strawman, the logic-machine is born, the insecurity, the uncertainty, and most tragically: true intuition is gone. Both vulnerability and honest reflection are at most distant ancestors to the content of the Piece, which is to stand all challenges and suffer all the wear and tear of critique. The author – saved; the experiment – run, the frailty continues to exist, suppressed, alienated, denied expression under the tyranny of Form!

And as I am writing this I already worry – whom do I write it for? What will they think? Who am I trying to impress? Who will care about my fragility, my petty struggle, the shaking of my arms as I carry our mutual banner – “Truth”? I can see all the daggers I just offered up on a plate, they are labelled “obscure”, “trivial”, “self-important”, “egotistical.” And the form lays my chest bare and exposed, awaiting the stab. But why can we not have a more honest form than the cold-hearted essay? Why can we not write of the impression of our minds, cast in words the direct negative of the knowledge as-it-exists in our heads? Full of misremembered references, superfluous Hegel-citations, insecure opinions, painful self-awareness. Perhaps we will learn more about what we actually have to say. Let us forget fears of judgement and find a better written form for reflection. Coherence can wait – there is beauty in reality.

So come, traveller, and speak without inhibitions, for I will not judge you – I will love you for your authenticity, for your frailty, for this renouncement of alienation.