Karlo invited me to go with him to some obscure place, to meet some obscure people, to talk about some obscure topic, that is, Blogging. Quite curiously enough, we were preoccupied with other things besides the lady in front saying some things about the 2010 election and blogging, and that is, Dostoevksy, political orientation and PoMo(God knows why he finds it hard to embrace the PoMo Condition, its the hip thing to do today). Yes, PoMo surrounded us, from the chairs, to the architecture that stands before us, which for Karlo looks like an airconditioner and for me a Pillbox(we are of course referring to the CDU building).
When asked about my insight to the subject matter, an amateur blogger that i am compared to the people around me, karlo included, I mentioned that there is an advantage in blogging about political issues, that it makes bloggers less apathetic, a portion of society less apathethic, about the current state of the Philippine condition, but it also, paves way to a "democratization of information" where so many people are enjoying the freedom to say something to the point that factual information may become blurred from Opinions.
When others where asked for their points on the topic, I could not help but notice, well actually it was karlo who noticed first, that these people seem to impose moderation in blogging with the pretense of being unbiased and non-manipulative with the use of web logs.
But Could there be a disintered point of view? Could we detach the cogito from the cogitatum, the subject that inquires to the object of inquiry? A medieval neo-thomist, Jean Poinsot considered this, and is said to be the pioneers in subject-object epistemology. And definitely, a little later on, Edmund Husserl with his Bewusstein von Etwas (consciousness-of-something) cemented phenomenonlogy in the face of Human thought. But for Husserl, one is still able to reach a presuppositionless point of view, a pure consciousness, out from what he termed transcedental epoche or bracketing.
But his student, Martin Heidegger, did not share the same view that a subject, with the use of transcendental epoche or any other tool, could reach a presuppositionless self. He considered that the subject has a fore-sight to objects, a
Vorstruktur (fore-structure of consciousness), that is, a subject imposes upon the object his presuppositions and biases, consciously or unconsciously. Freud himself would agree to this.
This idea was pursued by Hans-georg Gadamer, the person who revived the term, Hermeneutics (The art of interpretation) and added with what he calls a "historically effected consciousness" that is, a consciousness that evolves in the subject's history as it comes into reaches of the Other.
And not even the Spirit of PoMo would support the notion of an unbiased, disinterested point of view.
Deconstruction itself when uttered, totally wrecks the idea since conventions (the standards of value; in this case, moderation, journalism ethics, what is important, etc) so latent in the Structure is demolished to the ground.
So How did we fared after a night with dogmatic modernists? I dont know with him, for me, I'm glad we are living in what Confucius would say: "interesting times." Now i have said my piece on this regard, and i am done with my tea.
n.b being distinterested is not the same with being uninterested. just to clarify lest i be misinterpreted.
