tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11511673.post964769243984977830..comments2024-01-08T11:08:42.530-05:00Comments on in-fraction: On Phantasietchittomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15603445266088083067noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11511673.post-12455315300983116152020-09-22T09:48:28.587-04:002020-09-22T09:48:28.587-04:00"The Valley-ites were fierce materialists – w..."The Valley-ites were fierce materialists – what couldn’t be measured had no meaning – yet they loathed materiality. In their view, the problems of the world, from inefficiency and inequality to morbidity and mortality, emanated from the world’s physicality, from its embodiment in torpid, inflexible, decaying stuff. The panacea was virtuality – the reinvention and redemption of society in computer code. They would build us a new Eden not from atoms but from bits. All that is solid would melt into their network. <br />....<br /><br />"What Silicon Valley sells and we buy is not transcendence but withdrawal. The screen provides a refuge, a mediated world that is more predictable, more tractable, and above all safer than the recalcitrant world of things. We flock to the virtual because the real demands too much of us." ~ Nicholas Carr for Aeontchittomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15603445266088083067noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11511673.post-74656699009337024922012-08-02T15:55:34.258-04:002012-08-02T15:55:34.258-04:00"Simulacra and Simulation is most known for i..."Simulacra and Simulation is most known for its discussion of symbols, signs, and how they relate to contemporaneity. Baudrillard claims that our current society has replaced all reality and meaning with symbols and signs, and that human experience is of a simulation of reality. Moreover, these simulacra are not merely mediations of reality, nor even deceptive mediations of reality; they are not based in a reality nor do they hide a reality, they simply hide that anything like reality is irrelevant to our current understanding of our lives. The simulacra that Baudrillard refers to are the significations and symbolism of culture and media that construct perceived reality, the acquired understanding by which our lives and shared existence is and are rendered legible; Baudrillard believed that society has become so saturated with these simulacra and our lives so saturated with the constructs of society that all meaning was being rendered meaningless by being infinitely mutable. Baudrillard called this phenomenon the "precession of simulacra"." from the Wikipedia entry "Simulacra and Simulation," which summarizes philosopher Jean Baudrillard's famous essay about reality and the hyper-real.tchittomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15603445266088083067noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11511673.post-60224947774403710392012-01-26T10:35:43.521-05:002012-01-26T10:35:43.521-05:00I didn't know that. Interesting. There was a l...I didn't know that. Interesting. There was a lot of sympathy between the Reformers and Orthodoxy, but personalities on both sides got in the way. Also, more to your point, remember that Luther was kicked out of the RCC; he didn't leave of his own accord. There's a fascinating conversation out there with you and Rebecca about what it is like for two ex-Protestants to bring up Orthodox kids. The thing about the Book of Concord is its importance as a distillation of the religious experience--intellectual and otherwise, social and in private--of the scholar-pastors of that period whose lives were literally on the line for every word. That makes bits of it such as the Augsburg Confession not only good theological and devotional reading, but swell historical reading as well.tchittomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15603445266088083067noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11511673.post-4301515043524121232012-01-25T21:39:52.991-05:002012-01-25T21:39:52.991-05:00I married a (at the time) Lutheran woman, as you m...I married a (at the time) Lutheran woman, as you may know. At one point, I flipped through the Book of Concord. My general impression—admittedly without much experience of Lutheranism—was that any Lutheran who genuinely believed everything in the Book should really be a Catholic. (Granted, that likely wouldn't've been true in Luther's day.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11511673.post-66672842058087145352012-01-13T18:06:24.524-05:002012-01-13T18:06:24.524-05:00Q: How does the Real differ from something like th...Q: How does the Real differ from something like the mindfulness of Buddhism's mindfulness of the enlightenment of the yogis?tchittomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15603445266088083067noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11511673.post-12670193391411960852012-01-13T10:09:52.452-05:002012-01-13T10:09:52.452-05:00Thank you so much for commenting, Wayne. I appreci...Thank you so much for commenting, Wayne. I appreciate your enthusiasm!tchittomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15603445266088083067noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11511673.post-18063657301422188072012-01-12T21:40:39.141-05:002012-01-12T21:40:39.141-05:00Preach it! Balm for my soul.Preach it! Balm for my soul.Wayne Larsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05121830432761462987noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11511673.post-2016459346064330552012-01-11T18:26:58.598-05:002012-01-11T18:26:58.598-05:00This post is so preachy. I can't say it is my ...This post is so preachy. I can't say it is my favorite. So allow me to qualify one thing: the liberal arts for me are a prime example of the Real. Virtue is living in the Real. Religious ecstasy, where Christianity is concerned, is an opening to things, a seeing of things, as they exist in the light of the resurrection (and I believe in this I am going in the direction of Hans Urs von Balthasar).tchittomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15603445266088083067noreply@blogger.com