Intentions and interventions

Alain de Benoist can be so incisive and startling at times:


The way in which Bodin conceives of political power is only a profane transposition of the absolutist way in which God exercises His own power—and the way in which the pope rules over Christianity. This is true even though he rejects the medieval conception of power as a simple delegation of God’s authority. With Bodin, the prince is no longer content to hold power by “divine right.” By giving himself the power to make and unmake laws, he is acting in the manner of God. He constitutes, by himself, a separate whole, which dominates the social whole as God dominates the cosmos. The same goes for the absolute rectitude of the sovereign, which simply translates into the political realm the attributes of the Cartesian god, who can do all that he wills but cannot will that which is evil

From sovereignty, it is a small, surreptitious step to the notion of infallibility. In other words, Bodin desacralizes sovereignty by taking it away from God, but he resacralizes it immediately in a profane form: He leaves the monopolistic and absolute sovereignty of God in order to end up with the monopolistic and absolute power of the state. All modernity, then in its infancy, resides in this ambiguity: On the one hand, political power is becoming secular; on the other, the sovereign—henceforth identical with the state—is becoming a person endowed with an almost divine political power. This is a perfect illustration of Carl Schmitt’s thesis that “all the pregnant concepts of the modern theory of the state are theological concepts that have been secularized.”


Read the rest of his short piece The Modern Conception of Sovereignty:A Jacobin Invention. And from his Critique of Hayek:


Hayek never explains why the liberal order and the market were not "selected" as the most adequate forms of life in any society other than in the West. He also does not explain why, in other parts of the world, social order "spontaneously" evolved in other directions ... or did not evolve at all. More generally, Hayek does not seem to realize that all forms of "spontaneous" order, including those in the West, are not necessarily compatible with liberal principles. A social system can evolve "spontaneously" toward a traditional or "reactionary" order as well as toward a liberal one. It is also by arguing for the "natural character" of traditions that the counter-revolutionary school, represented mainly by Bonald and Maistre, develops its critique of liberalism and pleads for theocracy and absolute monarchy. Hayek reasons as if common sense were spontaneously liberal, which clashes with historical experience, and as if it developed autonomously, while one of the characteristics of modem society is precisely its heteronomy. It cannot be otherwise: if the rise of the liberal order is not solely explained by "natural selection," its entire system immediately collapses.


You can like him and loath him, but don't ignore him:


If one can massacre four times more people in the name of a “generous” idea than in the name of a doctrine of hate, then it may be time to mistrust generosity. Finally, the sophistry of human unhappiness is on the side of the hangman, not of the victims. To be the victim of a beautiful idea, even if corrupted, does not make one less of a victim: for the one being hung, what is the difference? When the Inquisition burned people for their own good, they were not thereby consoled. When the means are the same, the ends are blurred.



Read carefully (pdf) his Nazism And Communism: Evil Twins?

Shadi and the Shadows

A brief item(via payvand.com) informs us that Shadi Sadr, courageous attorney, women rights activist, blogger and journalist, is being denied her passport and is now barred from traveling abroad.

In her blog she has posted the (Farsi) text of an Open Letter to Mr. Khatami, the ever smiling nominal president of our Republic

Ms. Sadr writes that despite persistent attempts in the past two months, she has been unable to get straight answers to many questions about her confiscated passport. Hence, the decision to go public now. This ordeal, incidentally, and all that she might have left unsaid, helps explain why she has been blogging so infrequently.

She recounts that although she has discussed the matter with different officials of our various government agencies, she has been unable to learn why she is being denied her passport and on whose authority.

Ms. Sadr insists that Mr. Khatami, as well as those who choose to operate in the shadows, step forward and be accountable for their deeds.

Her questions are simple and sensible enough. Who is responsible for this decision? Which institution or official organ is it that has chosen to deprive her of the right to travel freely? Why is it she has not been informed of the charges (if any) against her? Why couldn't those operating in the shadows step forward to confront her openly? And subject to the laws?

Why hide if they think they are in the right? Is our national security so easily threatened by Ms. Sadr's travels?

Who's really afraid here and why?

The Commemorations

There was a huge march today in Tehran. Our Armenian citizens gathered en masse to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the methodic massacre of large numbers of Armenians throughout the Ottoman Empire.

Take the time to gain an understanding of the history of the Armenian Genocide.

And a brief piece about Armenians in Iran--a highly respected group who have contributed immensely to our civilization.

Irascible old conservative!

A day of remembrance and parades here today on this Army Day. . We all love and adore parades. A few hours of impressive orderly marches punctuating an otherwise chaotic existence.

I've wanted to look at some of the unrest in the football stadiums and the spillover aftereffects on the outside which I promised to do a while back. But as I looked at what was on my blog one day I was suddenly filled with that absolute dread which comes with realizing I am sounding progressively more like an old, irascible conservative.

I am getting slightly antiquated for sure, but not that old yet. Then I cut down my daily news intake.

And so the question I have been trying to resolve is how I should "comprehend" various moments of "unruliness" (put mildly) living in a society for which order technically does not meaningfully translate into lawfulness in any "normal" sense of the term.

Hence the scramble to put things in (a more satisfying) context. That's why Carl Schmitt (pdf) and Agamben have become progressively more important for me fully blooming into another one of my many obsessions. I'll tell you all about it just as soon as I figure out a few more significant riddles confounding me.

Anyhow, speaking of unrest, have you followed what's been happening in our Arab-Iranian region of Khuzestan? Something about a forged letter! The Right has been accusing the Al-Jazeera, sort of. Go figure.

Make sure you find an English text of this week's Friday prayer sermon delivered by the esteemed Ayatollah Janati, the head of our famed Guardian Council. The heartwarming news of the existence of multiple secret files in the Ministry of Justice on those deemed to have sown discord (Nefagh) in our Republic.

The gentleman made it clear that the any judge will have no difficulty imposing the death penalty after examining the files and the only thing which separates many from their inevitable doom has been the considerations of expediency. (Maslehateh- Nezam)

And while we are on the subject of discontent and minorities, make sure you read this and this.

Responsibility

How much of the three million, are we going to wager, might be spent on this initiative. And what are we to make of the man's choices in life?

Now granted, I am all for letting folk out of their boxes if they decide to step out. At some point, one has to be allowed a graceful exit. But how to judge acts--any act, past and present.

With Matthew: “Woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites, for you say: ‘Had we lived in the time of our fathers, we would not have joined them in spilling the prophets’ blood’.” Or with Hannah:


For behind the unwillingness to judge what somebody did lurks the suspicion that nobody is a free agent and hence the doubt that anybody is responsible or could be expected to answer for-what he has done. The moment one raises moral issues even in passing, he will be confronted with this frightful lack of self-confidence and hence of pride, with a kind of mock-modesty that says: Who am I to judge? and means: We're all alike, equally bad, and those who try, or pretend they try, to remain halfway decent are either saints or hypocrites; in either case, they should leave us alone. hence the huge outcry the moment anyone fixes specific blame on some particular person instead of blaming all deeds or events on trends and History and dialectical movements, in short, on some mysterious necessity that works behind the back of men and bestows upon everything they do some kind of deeper meaning.


Hannah Arendt's Personal Responsibility under Dictatorship is absolutely stunning:


To put it crudely, they refused to murder, not so much because they still held fast to the Command: Thou Shalt Not Kill, but because they were unwilling to live together with a murderer - themselves. And the presupposition for this kind of judging is not a highly developed intelligence or sophistication in moral matters but merely the habit of living together explicitly with oneself, of having intercourse with oneself, that is, of being engaged in that silent dialogue between me and myself which we usually call thinking. This kind of thinking, though at the root of all philosophical thought, is not technical and does not concern theoretical problems. The dividing line between those who want to think and therefore have to judge by themselves, and those who don't, strikes across all social, cultural or educational differences. In this respect, the total moral collapse of respectable society during the Hitler-regime may teach us that not those are reliable under such circumstances who cherish values and hold fast to moral norms and standards; we know now all this can be changed overnight and all that will be left then is the habit to hold fast to something. Much more reliable will be the doubters and skeptics, not because skepticism is good or doubting wholesome, but because they are used to examine things and to make up their own minds. Best of all will be those who know only one thing for certain - that whatever else happens, as long as we live we shall have to live together with ourselves.
But how is it with the reproach of irresponsibility leveled against these few who washed their hands of what was going on all around them? I think we shall have to. admit that there exist extreme situations in which responsibility for the world, which is primarily political, cannot be assumed because political responsibility always presupposes at least a minimum of political power. Impotence, complete powerlessness is, I think, a valid excuse. Its validity is all the stronger as it seems to require a certain moral quality even to recognize powerlessness, the good will and good faith to face realities and not to live in illusions. Moreover, it is precisely in this admission of one's own impotence that a last remnant of strength and even power can still be preserved even under these desperate conditions.


Contrast this annoying take On Evil: Interview with Alain Badiou.

The tantalizing Giorgio

Yes, Armani possibly everyday perhaps. Though for tonight I only mean Agamben:


Today/the Republic is not parliamentary. It is governmental. But from a technical point of view, what is specific for the state of exception is not so much the confusion of powers as it is the isolation of the force of law from the law itself. The state of exception defines a regime of the law within which the norm is valid but cannot be applied (since it has no force), and where acts that do not have the value of law acquire the force of law. This means, ultimately, that the force of law fluctuates as an indeterminate element that can be claimed both by the authority of the State or by a revolutionary organization. The state of exception is an anomic space in which what is at stake is a force of law without law. Such a force of law is indeed a mystical element, or rather a fiction by means of which the law attempts to make anomy a part of itself. But how should we understand such a mystical element, one by which the law survives its own effacement and acts as a pure force in the state of exception?


Read the rest of a short extracted text, State of Exception. His take on Security and Terror also.

And we have also The Time that Is Left-- enchanting meditations on the structure of messianic time.

This and That

I have added a potpourri of new links. Feel free to explore. It doesn't need repeating, but let's say it anyways: agreement is never a prerequisite although thoughtfulness is.

And my dear Polish friend and learned guide Natalia sums things up poignantly enough.

Pope's serene dignity in death was inspirational. As was his courageous, principled conduct in life. This Pope's achievements will be celebrated for years to come and his interventions scrutinized for their much needed judicious counsel.

So this Persian New Year madness is almost over but a fresh crazed surge in inflation is just beginning. The arbitrariness of it all is simply baffling. I'll present you with a sampling of our prices soon.

And I have been a bit too self indulgent of late. My friend Mr. Limitedinc chastised us recently for having been too obsessed with our favorite poet Homer. I took that as a protest about my ignoring any number of "cool" Leftist thinkers and discourses.

So I have been having fun with some odd mix of readings while mingling, traveling and exchanging gifts.

Here we go with brain teasers (some pdf): Badiou on Becket plus Hermeneutics and Honor, and Zizek on Badiou plus the problematic of public/private spheres in Islamic societies and Zizek's leftist plea for Eurocenterism and the problematic borders of the private and the public and more Zizek and the counterimages of woman circa 1800s and even more Zizek.

But a ferocious jousting with Schmitt continues to be a main preoccupation here in addition to occasional flirtations with de Benoist's notions of the political. Lots of problems to sift through. I still think Carl Schmitt is the key to unraveling this "existential threat" mystery. I just wished though that the usual suspects could let go of their demonization of Leo Strauss just long enough to seriously examine some of Mr. Schmitt's antics.

There is a limit to what can be done with limited resources. So, if no one responds to my pleas here soon, I might be forced to do another one of my jeremiads with Mr. Ledeen again as the honored villain. So, be a pal, and spare us all.

Someone? Anyone?

In Memoriam

Theresa Marie Schindler Schiavo
December 3,1963- March 31, 2005



To Posterior

Indeed I live in the dark ages!
A guileless word is an absurdity. A smooth forehead betokens
A hard heart. He who laughs
Has not yet heard
The terrible tidings.

Ah, what an age it is
When to speak of trees is almost a crime
For it is a kind of silence about injustice!
And he who walks calmly across the street,
Is he not out of reach of his friends
In trouble?

It is true: I earn my living
But, believe me, it is only an accident.
Nothing that I do entitles me to eat my fill.
By chance I was spared. (If my luck leaves me
I am lost.)

They tell me: eat and drink. Be glad you have it!
But how can I eat and drink
When my food is snatched from the hungry
And my glass of water belongs to the thirsty?
And yet I eat and drink.

I would gladly be wise.
The old books tell us what wisdom is:
Avoid the strife of the world
Live out your little time
Fearing no one
Using no violence
Returning good for evil --Not fulfillment of desire
but forgetfulness
Passes for wisdom.
I can do none of this:
Indeed I live in the dark ages!

2.

I came to the cities in a time of disorder
When hunger ruled.
I came among men in a time of uprising
And I revolted with them.
So the time passed away
Which on earth was given me.

I ate my food between massacres.
The shadow of murder lay upon my sleep.
And when I loved, I loved with indifference.
I looked upon nature with impatience.
So the time passed away
Which on earth was given me.

In my time streets led to the quicksand.
Speech betrayed me to the slaughterer.
There was little I could do. But without me
The rulers would have been more secure. This was my hope.
So the time passed away
Which on earth was given me.

3.

You, who shall emerge from the flood
In which we are sinking,
Think --
When you speak of our weaknesses,
Also of the dark time
That brought them forth.

For we went, changing our country more often than our shoes.
In the class war, despairing
When there was only injustice and no resistance.

For we knew only too well:
Even the hatred of squalor
Makes the brow grow stern.
Even anger against injustice
Makes the voice grow harsh. Alas, we
Who wished to lay the foundations of kindness
Could not ourselves be kind

But you,
when at last it comes to pass
That man can help his fellow man,
Do no judge us
Too harshly.


Bertolt Brecht

translated by H. R. Hays

The Ministry of Justice!

I'll be back soon with a note on the recent soccer riots. In the meanwhile, do check out this new book by a courageous, smart woman writer (and adorable to boot)--an attorney living in America.

A touching story of the struggles of a brave and loving Iranian family and their post revolutionary tribulations across half the globe. (links via Payvand.)

Another slightly edited repost from January 2004.

***************************************************

Visiting the Ministry of Justice in Iran is roughly akin to visiting the Ministry of Inter-Planetary Explorations in the Burkina-Faso, with the difference that I bet Ouagadougou would evoke more exotic images than the polluted, overcrowded Tehran. And so I wonder, always wonder how we have come to create such a monstrosity.

I tell myself in my more exuberant moments that if the Government were to limit its reach; if it were to somehow stop its extra-judicial activities, and if it were to lighten up and to re-evaluate the efficacy of its (failing) efforts to regulate what people can drink, wear, say or do: or with whom we may or may not associate and for what purpose, then perhaps, in due time, we the people would reciprocate by developing more of a respect for the laws and maybe-- just maybe, we would occasionally then be persuaded to observe them.

In a more open and tolerant milieu, I tell myself, it might be possible to set about seriously debating the nature of the laws and of justice, and then perhaps, we might succeed in reframing them in a manner that would make our own Ministry of Justice less of an oxymoron.

But, even then, I can’t be all that optimistic. After all, rules, principles, procedures, customs and authority –these are always contestable and contested, as they should be. There would be no social progress otherwise.

But it is one thing to agree to the need to follow them while attempting to institute change—regardless of how loudly, acrimoniously, and disorderedly we set about our task, and it is quite another never to like or follow that which even remotely resembles a “rule.”

And that, my friends, is the paradox of living in a society that attempts to regulate conduct on way too many fronts. It creates the illusion that an individual is right and courageous every time he decides to break the laws and to defy the authorities. Is there a single traffic ordinance that is not broken a million times a day here? And I suppose, traffic laws too are corrupt and corrupting!

And more sadly, such a society-- a society that tries to subsume what should by all accounts be simple private moments-- creates the fantasy that one is gallant putting a handful of goop in his hair, or that he is some embodiment of audacity playing the latest techno song loudly, and obnoxiously in his car as he drives passed other people’s houses way after midnight.

An authoritarian society allows us to play “revolutionary” by ignoring regulations and by cheating the "central power” each time we encounter a code of conduct not to our liking, and it permits us to ultimately bribe, and to corrupt the enforcers of the codes--the irony being we consistently pretend to be the aggrieved party without so much as a blink.

Ultimately though, our closed society allows us always to feel self-righteous pursuing every insignificant, petty ambition and passing craving without the slightest degree of self-reflection and with no consideration whatsoever for any of the social obligations and the duties inherent in the concept citizenship.

Nice ideas

A few more days and I'll be back to my routine. In the meanwhile, here is an interview with the Brooding Persian Nema posted on his fine blog Iranian Truth. He is planning a series involving different Iranian Bloggers with Pejman Yousefzadeh and Sima Shakhsari coming up soon. Nice idea and many thanks to Nema for his efforts.

Speaking of nice ideas, a while back Reza Nasir proposed to have folk change the name of their blogs to "Hands off Iran" on the 19th of March to signal their opposition to military intervention in their country. Obviously I've missed the actionable. But here is N's updated list of those who participated.

And the reasons why I think military intervention in Iran might be disastrous long term.

The amazing wondrous enigma

I'll be back soon. Another repost from last April.

The ancient civilization of ours occupies a region that is simply stunning in its diversity.

With the largest lake--the Caspian to the North surrounded by lush jungles, colorful pastures and farm lands and the Gulf to the South and an amazing number of rivers, water falls, and expansive Marsh lands, Iran can be quite wondrous.

Whether you watch a sunrise in a high place of your choosing atop the vast Mountain chain of Zagros, or gaze at the midnight sky in a location close to one of our two large Deserts, the experience is bound to leave an indelible mark.

You will sense it almost possible to touch the stars, the moon or the sun.

Counting the shooting stars can become addictive, you know. Besides, climbing mountains or exploring caves and watching endless rows of date trees, palms or pines and violet orchards can be infinitely more preferable to dealing with nasty, obnoxious, money obsessed folk in this purported spiritual land.

The Iranian Plateau is visually sublime. Our ancestors had a knack for choosing beautiful peaks, valleys, and meadows to settle in. Unfortunately, however, we have not been as discerning in recent times in our entanglements with Nature.

So the cities that masquerade as the official faces of our culture are either devoid of character altogether or just a nasty collection of kitsch architecture.

The ostentatious abodes of the nouveau riche can be quite taxing at times-- especially since they are mostly built after what is left of our shrinking jungles are cleared to make room for these occasional weekend getaways.

Our national heritage, it seems, is also being systematically devastated by looters. Go here and use the search engine to see what happened at Jeraft. There is a vast network of smugglers slowly stealing artifacts and selling them abroad.

Every once in a while someone gets caught, but I must admit, I had no clue this was such a systematic effort, so sophisticated, well organized, financed and armed. What the future may hold is more of an enigma for me today than in the years past.

I am becoming more convinced everyday that what we need here is freedom, freedom, freedom, and more freedom. It will get terribly nasty and our society may not really recover for a long time.

It is a gamble for sure. For an authoritarian and religious society, ours is one of the most lawless and appetite driven already. People have a fetish for things and don’t mind doing whatever it takes to get what they want.

Ours is the land of the silly expectations and so I often wonder if any regime can really deliver to what we think we deserve. That said, I am convincing myself that there is no escaping the inevitable remedy.

A regime whose scruffy reach is limited to bare essentials might disappoint a majority of our entitled population, but it might offer us a chance to pause, to breathe, to learn to cooperate, and to rediscover inquisitiveness, and the joys of wonder and of discovery again.

Perhaps then, we might begin to understand that life offers great many more possibilities beyond the chance to babble incessantly, perambulate inebriated/smoke opium/do drugs, abuse others, and crave inane accumulation of objects at whatever cost.


*****************************************************************

In an informative, poignant Haaretz piece about our revered ancient Queen Esther said to be buried in the shrine in Hamadan (name derived from Persian astaar, star), scholar and writer Haideh Sahim wonders, "who will take care of our Esther?"

A very good question indeed! (link via payvand)

I am falling progressively more behind in readings which is probably why I missed Emily's witty, irreverent, soigné treatment of another one of our legendary heroes, Rostam-- one of my favorites and an inseparable companion since childhood.

Damned multiculturalism! As if we really needed one more mischievous fiend fiddling with our Pre-Islamic legends. Oh well, collision over heroes it is then and culture wars. One good turn deserves another, don't you agree? Evil Asad on various American comic superheroes.

Happy New Year

From the Brooding Persian to one and all!

May all nomads discover what they seek.

Listen to your Allergies

Curmudgeonly, Prak, might mean internalizing this to enkindle rather than jumping it. But hey, some frolic still left in this body-- so I too hopped a little



Housecleaning continues. Found again a piece I did for the Iranian.com a couple of years ago. It passes the (do I still like it) test:


Even if you have not read a word of Shakespeare, chances are that in this day and age, you have probably seen a movie rendition of the "Romeo and Juliet." In a scene as poignant as it is profound, Juliet wonders -- perched as she is on a balcony -- "what's in a name" for "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet" or as miasmic, and as deadly if, that is, you happen to suffer from a particularly acute form of an allergy.

Allergy is a disease. It discombobulates, disorients and numbs you. Your sense of normalcy is the first casualty of an allergy. It wreaks havoc on your expectations of the universe. It forces you to re-evaluate your presence in the world. In short, an allergy gets to you in ways that even Socrates, in all his eloquence and persistence, fails to do. Note that while Socrates was killed trying to make us understand that "an unexamined life is not worth living," an allergy will kill if one were to ignore the warning signs. With an allergy one's life is in peril. Bluntly put: your life will terminate if you do not examine the way you live.

Juliet's anxiety stems in part from the contradiction between a name and the reality it represents. Historical enmity between the Capulet and Montague families is an impediment to the desires unfolding in Juliet's body for a reality embodied by Romeo the lover. Juliet wonders: "what is Montague, it's not a hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man...tis his name that is Juliet's enemy."

Now, allergy is widely understood as a reaction caused by the mistaken perception of the body that an otherwise harmless substance is a threat. Once your mind perceives a substance as an invading allergen, then, the immune system tries to eliminate it in a process that makes life a living hell. Either the mind "suspects" and torments the body or the body "knows" and re-educates the mind.

The first reaction might be psychosomatic but it is no less real. What the mind thinks, the body acts on. Allergy is life writ large. Our reaction to a given "reality" -- our perception of it -- is very much linked to what that reality is named. Whether it is called Romeo or a Montague, liberty or licentiousness, a daisy cutter or an incinerator of human flesh, a martyr or a thug blowing up innocent kids, veal parmesan or butchered and mostly burned baby calf toped by her mother's milk -- names will have a lot to do with how we come to perceive a reality embodied.

So what exactly is in a name? Quite a lot actually. The development of a civilization, and her stability, literally hinges on her naming convention. The Chinese were astute enough to have observed the importance of this "name game." They called it the doctrine of the "rectification of names," many centuries ago. Confucius, in the Analects, notes the problem thus:

...if language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone; if this remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate; if justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything.

But with allergy, just as in life, nothing is that simple. In today's jargon, the life of a sign is such that the signifier and the signified are, in a complex sort of way, intertwined. A civilization, through the efforts of her court intellectuals, might promulgate self deceptive stories, but allergy makes one attentive to the fiction and the nuances. That is the thing about allergy you see.

Allergy pushes the limits of common sense. Out on the fringes of the "normal" experience, allergy dissolves the clear cut mind/body dualism. By further blurring the distinction between the names and the reality they (mis)represent, allergy forces one to become attentive to the ongoing complex power play. In a sense, in allergy the body sometimes revolts against the power of the mind by cutting through the illusions that hold our social lives together. Through allergy, the body comes to share its "wisdom" with the mind.

The body becomes sick when the social body is in turmoil and one is left with actions the possibilities of which the mind is too petrified to fathom. This might be an answer to the riddle of the peculiar symptoms exhibited by our wives, our mothers, our sisters, ourselves or our lovers these days. It might pay to look a tad more carefully into the social constitution of the malady. To make life more tolerable, then it becomes essential to examine the illusions.

Allergy is a force of nature. It is just as real, just as constant, just as powerful, and just as disruptive as a typhoon, a tornado or a blizzard. More so than in other aspects of life, with an allergy one quickly learns that it does not pay to be a hapless victim. One is forced to take charge of one's life. Sure, one consults an assorted army of the "experts," but no one is as familiar or as attentive to one's body and one's needs as oneself. Your local preacher or mullah might make you feel better, but no sense searching the voluminous chapters and verses of the Qoran or the Hadiths to find the authoritative pronouncements and the cures.

One quickly learns to abandon silly ideas about the immediate causes of an allergy. One finally comes to learn about causality. It might just so happen that there are clouds in the sky each time one has an allergy attack. But if one wants to be free of an allergy, one learns that concomitance should not be equated with causality. It might be a mere coincident that one's allergy attacks are coeval with the presence of the clouds. But this assumption too must be put to test. Subsequently, one is forced to learn to reason; to look for real causes, to experiment, to postulate, to form hypotheses, to validate assumptions and to refute.

Popular prejudices won't help one either. One quickly learns that the rehashing of a wide variety of the nauseatingly repulsive gobbledygook won't help restore health. No sense blaming the Global Jewish Conspiracy, the British Intelligence Services, the Bahais, the CIA, the Kremlin, or Paris for your allergies. You must abandon stupidity to be functional again.

And so here we go, as a friend would want, attempting to close the circle. What exactly is in a name after all? Spiritual anguish? Physical torment? The joy of discovery?

One learns in suffering through allergies that there are no easy answers in life. What masquerades as an authoritative pronouncement is often wrong. Experts are helpful, but persistently off the mark. Holy books might make you feel good, but they won't help you find the root causes.

There is no substitute for introspection, for analysis, for the exchange of experiences, for the careful examination of the problems, for an experimental approach to the proposed solutions; or for an open mind and for the freedom of inquiry and for the freedom of action and for the attentiveness to the nuances. Just as in life, our approach could literally spell out the difference between living well and dying.