Newsletter December 2015
December, décembre, des cendres, ashes. Remnants of a year, raw material for new beginnings. 2016, finally, spiral-like hopes: each of the times, every time anew, every time alike, and still distinct, always.
2015, year of clashes and alliances, overlapping and aligning, cosmic lures for each self onto the -isms of pessimus and relatus. Are we living the same year, again and again ?
Looping onto itself, 2015 and France, common denominators for my flinging critical creations, creaticals, meeting points of a soul with history: ignition of a destiny.
Stuttering time — this repeating year had already rehearsed over twenty times, to concur inner and outer growth and turn the tap of sap and blood through my new-age quill.
New abstracted battlefields of our world-events, offered an inner truce, tuning old sensibilities to awaited foresights: Charlie’s Face turns and looks, Around our Corner. Directionless, the ouroboros is set.
Samuel
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Charlie’s Face | Le Visage de Charlie |
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National mourning, stuttering media, flags at half-mast and unprecedented millions over hundreds of silent solidarity walks. France has been hit, where it hurts. And even its remotest members, overconfident of their patriotic detachment, must acknowledge how lively its running nerves still remain – I, too, was and am shocked… |
Deuil national, bégaiements médiatiques, drapeaux en berne et millions sans précédents pour des centaines de marches solidaires silencieuses. La France a été touchée, où ça fait mal. Et même ses membres les plus éloignés, volontiers confidents de leurs détachements patriotiques, doivent reconnaitre à quel point ses nerfs restent vifs – moi aussi, j’étais et je suis choqué… |
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Around our Corner | Aux tournants de nos angles droits |
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A moment is not intrinsically longer or shorter than a century, except in relation to an element of consciousness by which it is possible to establish its direction and measure its duration… Yet human time is the only unit of measure that we can understand. – Alain Daniélou |
Un moment n’est pas intrinsèquement plus long ou plus court qu’un siècle, sauf s’il est mis en relation avec un élément de conscience par lequel il est possible d’établir sa direction et de mesurer sa durée … Et pourtant, le temps humain est la seule unité de mesure que nous comprenons. – Alain Daniélou |
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Two Frenchmen in the Orient |
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Orientalism, Flaubert, Indiana Sam, India, Egypt, Blog, Journal
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There was everywhere amongst Orientalists the ambition to formulate their discoveries, experiences, and insights… – Edward Said, Orientalism |
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| Two Frenchmen in the Orient | The Writing Traveler | |||||
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| Imagining the Locals | On the Aesthetics of Despair | |||||
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| Genealogy of a Temptation | Ethical Adventures of an Evolutionary Theorist | |||
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Ashis Nandy, Savarkar,
Nationalism
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Evolution Theory, Elliott Sober, Sociobiology, Altruism
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“Ultimately, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar is the name of a blown-up, grotesque temptation…” (Ashis Nandy). Ashis Nandy’s words on the “father of Hindutva” are severe and unambiguous. Savarkar represents, according to the famous Indian critic, an age-old desire found in emerging countries, to model a fantasized nationalist identity as replica of unquestioned western symbols… |
“How does it matter to us?” seems to be the logical conclusion for a number of intellectual explorations. A conceptual construction or a scientific elaboration would then have their raison d’être in their capacity for implying a set of conclusions bringing a benefit … Addressing evolution theory, Elliott Sober brings this assumption to its most ambitious edge… |
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