Waltzing Matilda

Today I decided to study in an Irish pub in the old town center. I realize this is an unorthodox place to work on exam preparation so allow me to elucidate the situation.

First of all, as I have mentioned repeatedly, the fine distinctions of cafe/bar/pub are quite blurred here in the Old World. The situation is quite postmodern I suppose...the neat little constructed categories of social dining have been decentered. Notice that I have been forced to identify "cafe" by alienating it from "bar." A cafe is a cafe because it is not a bar; and then I can go into a list of the characteristics, but these too are simply particular examples of positing "X" as "not Y."

Now if you follow me, the identity of the cafe derives from its opposition to "others," which it is not, and in this case the "other" in question is a bar. But, alas, we have a clear problem! In staging the opposition between the two things we demonstrate their non-discrete, interrelational nature.

In order for the cafe to be understood as a cafe, as identical to itself, its properties are to a degree defined by being not the properties of other things and by the way they affect other things. So the other things, or "objects" have entered into the "subject," and vice versa. With each new confrontation the subject and its objects flow into each other, and in reality there is no point where a "thing" is a "thing in itself" so the process of alienation and strife is perpetual. This results in each "thing" never identifying with itself through time nor standing neatly opposed to supposed "other things" ontologically. As Nietzsche says:

"The properties of things are effects on other 'things:' if one removes other 'things,' then a thing has no properties, i.e., there is no thing without other things, i.e., there is no 'thing in itself.'"

In truth, there are neither cafes nor bars, only a set of interrelated effects gathered grammatically into things and ultimately binary things. So here the binary has simply been deconstructed and we are left with bricolage, or new de-centered constructs. These bar-cafe things are just as legitimate as the cafe as opposed to the bar, in fact, they are more playful. So I was not actually studying in a pub, so much as I was studying in this particular set of effects...and if you want to really get your hair blown back consider that there is also no "I." The "I" too does not exist except as gathered effects on other things, so there is no difference between me, you, and the very chair I am sitting in! (The intimacy of this is pleasant upon reflection).

So its perfectly reasonable to study in an Irish pub. I can get my double expresso there (I am a convert, the expresso offers more bang for your buck than tea), and I can listen to those wonderful little sad Irish folk ballads. I have really developed a thing for Irish ballads and I could not resist when I walked by and heard them playing.

I usually take another book with me when I study so that I can read it as a break. I study as a break from studying! Today I brought Marx, and I had forgotten how much I enjoy reading Marx. Were it not for my studies in formal, illusory bourgeois human rights I could have studied Marx all afternoon. That is beside the point though because something colossal happened today...someone struck up conversation with me at the pub!

I have complained many times about how impersonal people are here, and how often at home you end up having great conversations with strangers at cafes. Nobody has so much as asked me for the time here...until today. This was a Copernican revolution in my Danish social experience. It was not much, and it was an Irish girl so the Danes are not off the hook yet.

She too was studying in the pub, and she asked me, "Are you studying Marx?"

I wanted to say, "No, I am actually using this book by Marx to shield the sun while I study the wood grains in the table," but I decided my acute sarcasm would have been out of place. So I said, "Well, yes and no. I am just looking over him for personal research."

She asked, "Are you into Marxist politics?"

I said, "Actually, I am looking into Marx's early philosophical essays, proto-Marxist really, to see how they fit into post-Kantian German metaphysics and attempts to approach the problem of a two-world metaphysics." I think I should have said yes or no if I wanted the conversation to proceed beyond this point.

"Sounds interesting, well, I won't bother you," she said and then she turned and left the pub (she was on her way out as it was). I was thrilled to have some social interaction! My wavering faith in humanity was restored.

One of my friends has suggested that people so often talk to me in public places when I am studying because I study "sexy philosophies" like Marx and Nietzsche (I think "sexy" here is best understood as charismatic philosophies)...Not sure this bears out empirically, but the scientist in me could not avoid the experiment. So far Marxism has the clear upper hand. I will keep you all posted...