History, Philosophy, and Creating New Forms of Life

The historian Kurt Danzinger once wrote ... 

For most persons the prevailing discursive system becomes inescapable and motives, attitudes, intelligence and so on are the forms in which they experience their own subjectivity. 

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein offers ...

Try not to think of understanding as a 'mental process' at all. For that is the expression which confuses you.

The postmodernist Fred Newman then suggests ...

[We] hope to adapt people not to a sick society but to the subjectivity of history. And this adaptation is not to something other than ourselves for we are 'the other than ourselves.' This radical denial of objectivity (and all the classificatory/descriptive gobbledygook that goes with it) places both the burden and the joy of human development where it belongs -- on us as revolutionary activists.

Try creating something (a new emotion, a new way of thinking, a new dance move) right now with someone else ... try something, anything ... and let me know how it goes, ok?

Omar H. Ali, Editor
ohali@uncg.edu