Sunday 7 February 2010

The thrust of thinking in Divyadaan

The other day two young philosophy students asked me a good question: why is there so much of Lonergan in Divyadaan, and why is Divyadaan against postmodernism?

Or perhaps they said: people are saying that there is too much of Lonergan, and a distaste for postmodernism.

Is there, and is it, I ask myself.

Perhaps. Naturally, also. I believe that the only way to get out of a religion or a philosophy is to either rise to the heights or plumb the depths. Only when one becomes a mystic or an adept might one arrogate to oneself the right to pass judgment.

So: plumb the depths of - whatever: Lonergan, Derrida, Heidegger, Vattimo, Rorty....

The point is to plumb the depths. The point is to read, really read, and think, allow oneself to be challenged, stimulated, provoked.

Does Divyadaan really read and think? Or is it content to mouth platitudes, commonplaces, Selbstverstaendlichkeiten?

And nothing like the original texts of thinkers to stimulate one's thinking.

We need to recover the art of reading.

Then reading would become an aesthetic experience: something that calls for leisure, in contrast to the hurry and haste to 'finish'.

Then we would have conversation, dialectic, dialogue.

Then there would be life.

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