The Liminalist # 147.5: The Limits of Language (with Gregory Desilet)

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Second of two-part conversation with Gregory Desilet, on cultural regression in drama, assigning guilt to technology, evolutionary intervention, the power to enact a distortion, an environmental feedback loop, hypermodernism, a bifurcation, Trump vs. Obama, the mask behind the face of Antichrist, living in the end times, seeing the Adversary, faith in the inward glance, the world as adversarial presence, Socrates’s self-examination, praising Prisoner of Infinity, rushing in to audience cults, assuming a skeptical position, boiling down experience, the past that haunts, trying on belief, a scientific approach, open skepticism, a mad scientist’s approach, the tragic trajectory, defining faith, moralism & postmodernism, Jacques Derrida, contextualism vs. radical relativism, how meaning arises, words over swords, brink of catastrophe, compelled speech laws, language as first casualty, Derrida & feminism, understanding how language works, the limits of language, the polarization of dialogue, why Derrida deserves a second look, rescuing Derrida from his legacy, sorting wheat from chaff, the difference between spoken & written word, the unconscious content of text, layers of context, zip files of meaning, an artificial boundary of sense, infinite context/finite language, totalitarian thinking, taking words out of context, words vs. images, a text-based world, liberty, fraternity, equality, purification & words, the inherent absolutism of words, an ideal off the rails the superposition of yin in yang, how to be led by ideals but not overwhelmed, Man aspires, God acts, the Jesus journey, a complicated relationship with Catholicism.

Accompanying post: Gregory Desilet Answers Jordan Peterson on Derrida.

Greg’s site.

Songs: “I’m Going Insane 2,” “Ill Take My Leave” (reprise), “15 Bistro 2” by Lee Maddeford; “Thorough Queen” by The Agrarians.