The Blackberry Walk

Once faith is lost in the modern theology, that of scientific materialism, and the metaphysics which accompany, one can't help but fall into the pitfalls of German Idealism. Every German thinker, it seems, has his own system, his own metaphysics - a kind of Procrustean bed - into which the world is fitted; whether it be Kant, Hegel, Jung, Heidegger, or even in other domains like Spengler. When I began reading Spengler, my first thought was, "this reminds me of Jung". It wasn't just the Goethe simping, and the Nietzsche referencing, but it was the whole attitude with which they approached their work, through this lens of systematising and rigid metaphysics. Whether it be for Jung's psyche, or for Spengler's patterns of history, the fruit of the German Idealist tradition taste as crisp as they are sweet. And sweet their aroma has always been to me; I struggle to resist that particular excitement from discovering a new metaphysics and a new system through which to understand how the world operates. But perhaps that energetic burst is beginning to tire in me. Recently, I've been reading 'The Ancient City' by Fustal de Coulanges, where he describes how the ancient Aryans lived, based on primary sources from Greece, Rome, and India; but whilst he usually stays on the straight and narrow, extracting understanding based on sources, every now and then he ascends into a flight of fancy, systematising a new imaginary world based on what he's uncovered. This imaginary world leaves behind the previous valuable observations, not only because the points are not substantiated - which isn't too much of a crime in of itself - but because the imagination flattens the world he's uncovering. Or rather than flatten, perhaps sandpapering is a better analogy, in so far as to strip it of texture. The floating world has its place, for the floating world of anime is one of great beauty. But the floating world is a fictional world which is textureless; its block matte colours are beautiful and do dazzle, but it is the world of fiction and ideals: not one of historical truth. And that is my critique of the German Idealists: their systems strip the world of texture. In reducing every aspect of the system seemingly to their raw metaphysical elements, their systems and models only perceive a shimmering floating world which, despite at times being useful to see the world before us, is not the world before us. The world as we perceive it is fanciful, and things happen which one can't expect; the world can at times be drab and monotonous, but at others radiant and overflowing with novelty. We only serve to blind ourselves by not looking at the world before us, and only looking at the world of dream. But it isn't just a problem of blindness, for a far worse fate befalls us. On the high of idealism, the world becomes far more boring. For the man who thinks he understands everything can never be surprised.