T U and the End of the World!

So here are yesterday's and today's advent calendar offerings: T for Thus Spake Zarusthustra and U for Unhiddenness. I know the hermeneutic process of uncovering the un-hiddenness of Being is probably a lot less simple than the image implies, but I thought it'd be nice to let Being have a bit of fun for a change!

As for the Zarashustra quotation in the top cartoon the reference is from p 77-78 of the R.J Hollingdale 1969 translation, published by Penguin in the UK. Even after having done an MA dissertation on Nietzsche I still don't feel comfortable with Thus Spake Zarasthustra as a text. It is by turns philosophically perceptive and (dare I say it!) moving, but also confusing, obscure and downright mental in parts. I may do a week of cartoons based on TSZ, just because I feel it's a text that deserves more recognition: it's very multi-faceted, and you'd be surprised how radically different it is from the popular reading of Super-Nazi-Over-Men that gets thrown around. I also think Being & Tim could have some fun with Zarasthustra's Eagle....!

Lastly, a very quick sketch dedicated to the Mayans and the collective sigh of relief we all breathed at 11.12 today when the world didn't end. The inspiration is the following Kierkegaard quotation, which may or may not be correctly attributed, coming as it does from www.goodreads.com. It certainly sounds like something Soren'd say.

“A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that's just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it's a joke.” Kierkegaard

I don't like to end on a downer, so here's a song....(those of you confused by the above sketch just skip ahead to 4.26)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0ikNY3712g

OLD SCHOOL!

Becca x

ps. I'll be away from a scanner for the next few days, so you'll have to wait 'til Sunday for V and W. I can only blame the little baby Jesus and the annual celebrations of his birth.

Being towards...er...Jeff Goldblum

Heidegger talks alot about Being-towards-Death...there was obviously some mix up at Being & Tim HQ when this meeting was arranged. That said, Jeff Goldblum is pretty cool, especially in Independence Day and Jurassic Park. I'd rather meet him than Death I think...

See you tomorrow for Day 3! Becca x

New version of Marxist Musical Chairs!

Here's another new version of an old cartoon, that's also going to be in the 2011 diary. It's a very obvious pun on the last line of the Communist Manifesto: 'Workers of the world unite: you have nothing to lose but your chains!'

Mark Steel has a very funny lecture about Marx. Check out the first part here, if you have time. It's great!

becca xo

Being & Tim 3: The Heidegger Years!

The next lot of Being & Tim cartoons have been photo-copied and enveloped for your enjoyment. This collection includes 6 Being & Tim cartoons inspired by the work of Martin Heidegger (left) (including Being-in-the-world, Tool-Being, Ready-to-hand, Naked Dasein, Being with a Big B, and Not-at-home). They're a great summary of the main themes of Being & Time! ;-)

Yeah, I know you could just print them off yourselves, but then again, how would you get your hands on the EXCLUSIVE Being & Tim Stickers that are in this pack?! That would take a LOT more planning, and at £1 a pack plus P & P it's a lot simpler just to order them straight from my email address: rasdyer@gmail.com. I could also send you Being & Tim 1 and 2 for £1 each too, as they all make great stocking fillers!

For those of you still waiting on diaries, I have nearly completed the final formatting, and will let you know as soon as they are ready for me to send,

becca xo

Coming to a cinema near you!

The return of the repressed is the process whereby repressed elements, preserved in the unconscious, tend to reappear, in consciousness or in behavior, in the shape of secondary and more or less unrecognizable "derivatives of the unconscious." Parapraxes, bungled or symptomatic actions, are examples of such derivatives.  (http://www.answers.com/topic/return-of-the-repressed#ixzz161hl3G95) Y'know Freudian Slips (not to be confused with Freudian Slippers). When you say one thing but mean you mother, and all that. Whereas Kant was all about rationality, and motorbikes, as you can see. You can see Kant in action here here and here, if you're a particular fan :-)

(This will most likely be featured in the exclusive 2011 Being & Tim handmade diary, available for order at £18 each!) 

Oh, I've got a new post on my other blog too. Hope you like it 

becca xo

Being & Technology

Heidegger talks about Dasein and its relationship to technology quite alot. I don't think he quite meant this....

 And while we're on the subject of technology, check out this website that my brother and dad are setting up: www.carebook-dev.org.The idea is that it's a support network for patients and carers, as well as providing information and medical advice. Like Facebook, for cancer!

becca xo
(P.S Geeky favourite thing about this cartoon: Kierkegaard is on facebook chat as idle, because of what he says about idleness!! ;-) )

Tool-Being

I thought this book deserved a cartoon

Being under Erasure!

hello there. I'm sorry it's been such a dreadfully long time since I've posted anything. I think I may have mentioned somewhere that my brother has been ill, so that's been pretty horrible... Anyway, I had a few hours while watching The Empire Strikes Back to draw this little number. Being-under-Erasure is a phrase that Derrida gets from Heidegger i think, but I'm not entirely sure how the latter uses it. For Derrida it's a case of the notion of Being always being compromised by language. Either that or it's something to do with the British pop group Erasure. In fact, I'm happy to admit I am not entirely sure what Derrida means when he says it: I tend to think that his philosophy is generally to do with most things being inherently paradoxical, but apparently there's more to it than that. Anyone?

Oh, also if you like choose your own adventure stories then look at this
...just one of the many nice things I found at the Brighton Zine fest...buy it and support local artists, and maybe zombies...

beccaxo

Alvin, Simon and Theodor W. Adorno

i only just realised how long it's been since i put up a post: sorry about that, it's partly cos i've been busy, partly because I've  been doing this cartoon in COLOUR which always takes ages...

The idea of this cartoon began with changing Alvin, Simon and Theodor (the chipmunks) into Alvin, Simon and Fyodor Dostoyevsky: but it ends up working better with neo-Marxist thinker Theodor W.Adorno, not only because he does look a little like a chipmunk, but also because you can change the words of the Chipmunk's classic Alvin's Harmonica to incorporate a reference to Adorno's co-author Max Horkheimer, AND a quotation from Adorno's Minima Moralia!:                 
                                                                   

  'Every visit to the cinema, despite the utmost watchfulness, leaves me dumber and worse than before. Sociability itself is a participant in injustice, insofar as it pretends we can still talk with each other in a frozen world, and the flippant, chummy word contributes to the perpetuation of silence, insofar as the concessions to those being addressed debase the latter once more as speakers.' S. 5             

                                                        Statements like these often do just seem a bit opposed to common-sense, but i think his idea is actually pretty interesting, although my understanding of his work is not very deep. The  general idea seems to be that our language originated under different economic conditions, and the objects it referred to then, no longer exist under the economic conditions of capitalism. Most importantly, when we attempt to identify the 'free subject' described by our language, we cannot point to a real example of such a subject. Capitalism, as an economic totality, already structures our choices, so we cannot make a choice that is totally free. Either we work to pay the rent or we go and live in a squat and risk continual eviction, but we stand in relation to capitalism, not outside it.

The idea that we can't escape a legal or economic system but that we always stand in relation to it is a common one: what is interesting for Adorno is that this is a problem rooted in language. As such, we can't truthfully even describe an alternative: this is why Adorno sees the 'chummy word' as participating in injustice. Our language itself separates us from each other, because it does not really refer to the world we experience, or the person we are attempting to address.

So he would probably hate the chipmunks... oops.

beccaxo

Throwing away the ladder...

In the Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus, the book where the young Wittgenstein claimed to solve all the problems of philosophy, he includes the following elliptical remark:

''My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) (6.54)''

Not hard to see how that led to this cartoon

The Tractatus is one of my least favourite philosophical texts, mainly because I don't have a particularly ''logical'' mind: however I remain intrigued by Wittgenstein, not only his later works, but the man himself. Not only is he also quoted as saying that 'A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes,' a motto I have modestly decided to adopt for Being & Tim (!) but also, 'I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves'!!! What a guy! (Those quotes and more can be found here)

I bet he did throw like a girl though.

Species Being