ob[li]f(e)ious: it's about time

23 September 2006

Notes on ob(Li)fious (unpublished notes 8/5/04; amended 9/23/06):

ob(Li)fious [or ob(Li)vious] is a working title for the magazine/journal I am proposing that will attempt to define what is [really reality].

"Really reality" may serve as a guiding theme for the society that may be formed in answer to this blog. This blog may serve as a generative pool (out of many) for paper topics that may, in turn, form the proposed society's articles that will be researched and published in the proposed journal.

[graphic] note on graphic: original title design contains peculiar diacritic inventions, which I will not attempt to re-create here.

The title's concept was partially inspired by the Brazilian cinepoem "LIFE," by Decio Pignatari (1958). As a simple kinetic poem, the title ob(LI)fious is intended to suggest multiple concepts in one (e.g., superficially, it consists of the words obvious, oblivious, and life, which paradoxically seem to operate simultaneously as parts of the same whole); it is, however, a working title, as I believe it itself suggests above all else, and as such, it implies the evolution inherent in language, in consciousness, and in behavior of individuals, of communities, of cultures, of nations, and of the new emerging global community (essentially, evolution seems to shape many, if not all, constructs of human civilization, which include, in addition to those social elements listed above, which are, by no means, conclusive, concepts and paradigms that are culturally and otherwise devised). Ob(Li)fious magazine and its supporters seek to determine a new set of concepts and constructs through a continuous analytical process that involves reevaluation and deconstruction, and that promotes optimism and research (a fuller discussion of ob(Li)fious's agenda and mission statement will be the topic of a future blog).

The initial rationale I proposed for a previous working title, although perhaps vague without being depicted here, is, I think, relevant, not only since it demonstrates the flux which the visible working title still suggests, but because of the previous title's relative similarity in argument to the current one.

The following is that rationale.

Life is obvious unless we are oblivious. Restated, the oblivious are unaware of the obvious. Life equals the energy (i.e., "e" squared in the title) that one must exert in order to solve the equation that is LIFE, thereby breaking out of OBLIVION. Life is also, the title suggests, re-created by Society to be confusing, with things made wrong that should be right. . . .the purpose of the v and the f (coexisting in the previous title, where the (f) was an alternate letter in "life" contained in the title) is to demonstrate that there is reason in everything, even when it doesn't make sense (i.e., here, the reason of strange spellings in our language indicative of its evolution) and to present the challenge to keep pressing for the truth of something past when you think the answer is "because."

It seems logical that a magazine whose determined goals call for a rigorous method of discovery, and which publishes its findings and hypotheses, would have a title that embodies its science as well as its art. Of note is the idea that SCIENCE and LANGUAGE, or REASON and LANGUAGE, were traditionally inseparable according to the Humanist philosophy of the Renaissance and the alleged Age of Reason.

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LIFE

"Life," by Decio Pignari, conveys, perhaps, my favorite idea: compression and combustion (as creation), expressing concepts such as oneness and compression, while achieving simultaneously an image of evolution. Like the title of this zine, "Life" seems to operate intuitively as an asemic poem, being the thing itself that it wants to express. It conveys even more when, appropriately as a cinepoem, it is played as film reel in which the fundamental principles, the phonemes (the linguistic or fundamental one-syllable human sounds which are known as letters in written form) join together in a procession, to form one unit (word), and conveys many ideas in that central condensed byte of information. As theorists and authors such as C.G. Jung, James Joyce, and Joseph Campbell have indicated, definitely influenced by Biblical and other mythical imagery, a word, as a symbol, is the thing itself. Within its form is its concentrated essence, which it may at any time choose to leak out, thereby manifesting itself in the material world.

A Guiding Principle

Accurate information begins with a question, rather than a statement.

We can say this because a statement reinforces an existing belief and the only way beyond it is to look at it differently, from another perspective, which is why we question.

From the question comes a hypothesis as we gather information and appreciation for what we're studying. The goal is maximum appreciation, maximum analysis and maximum willingness to adjust our view in light of what is discovered in that awareness.

Further, through dialog--discussing and analyzing ideas in a nonconfrontational way, presented with trusted others--we work at seeing things from other perspectives that we could not have considered ourselves before due to the limits of subjectivity.

For instance, a paper topic may resemble the following.

paper topic:

violence in media: mass effect on society (all age groups): desensitization? intention? who's behind it?

First of all, if such a question is to be proposed as a topic to explore by the group in consideration for publication, I would suggest that the question must first be asked, "Is this a question worth exploring?" This is not to say we instantly should dismiss any proposed topic; to the contrary, appropriate consideration should be taken to determine factors such as whether the topic agrees with the intentions of the publication, and whether the available evidence on the subject could generate a thesis which would agree with the publication's theme and general purpose.

After these considerations have been made, the group would discuss the above sample topic. In this scenario, one must be careful with the question, "desensitization," since it is one that appears to be leading one to a conclusion, promoting bias. However, if one is willing to accept an alternate conclusion, and keep the process of discovery open-ended until adequate information is received that properly evaluates both or more possibilities, the question can be reasonably answered. Perhaps "desensitization" could be rethought and replaced with a word that would answer this question without promoting bias. Answering a question is the intention of this group; answering questions from a precept, bias, or any other motive than to discover the essential thing itself, will not yield the results we intend to grasp. I am, so far, encouraging the observance of a subject-object continuum, where all viewpoints are valid, though objective information may be separated from subjective experience and exposed as artificial and problematic.

The Ax Handle Story

". . .by living with them on a daily basis, I was continually struck by their profound practicality. They did not talk of doing things; they did them. One day I was walking in the forest with a man named Rafael. I mentioned that I needed a new handle for my ax. He stopped in his tracks, saying, 'ah yes,' and used his machete to cut a little hardwood tree a few steps off the path. Then he carved an impeccable handle that was to last longer than the ax itself. He spent about twenty minutes doing the bulk of the work right there in the forest and an additional twenty minutes at home doing the adjustments. Perfect work, carried out by eye alone. Up until then, I had always thought that ax handles came from hardware stores."-Jeremy Narby, The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge