E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

I have come to think that, of all the moral, ethical, religious, spiritual, and philosophical precepts, none is more extraordinary, radical, or powerful, than forgiveness. Forget love - love comes, at least sometimes, naturally. To forgive is the most difficult thing we can ever do. I don't mean to forgive someone for stepping on our big toe (though that hurts) - but to forgive the unforgivable. To forgive murder, rape, incest, hate, racism, war, slaughter, torture, evil. In the past, only kings and mighty rulers could pardon the guilty - what would otherwise be called the unpardonable. Pardoning the innocent makes no sense. The true power is to unshackle and accept the criminal, the guilty. It's an almost impossible task. It disgusts every fibre of our being, the being that calls for punishment, to destroy our enemies. It is, of course, the central idea of Christ's vision for humanity, and the promise he claims he can make on behalf of his Father. But even if one is...

On The Death of Richard Rorty Take a proposition, frere : Everything is at stake: The every and the thing . Burning. Down. Mistake This at your own inquisition. Tough-minded Rorty’s gone. The mirror of nature’s broken After a roughhouse wedding. The mind. Between. A swing. Once, a canoe went out on a lake. A paddle swerved, bringing motion Forward, like blowing will for fire. It reflected on water, as Dancing girls and boys shine A floor with their sure smoothing skitter. One figure, in the water, touched on Another, in the vessel. Who was firstly real? None. Neither. The sister of knowing is making. poem by Todd Swift

Anyone who sees Derrida , the fairly recent documentary "biography" of Jacques Derrida , is in for an essay on the difference (with or without an a) between voyeurism and homage, the clear and the opaque, and the pretentious and the sublime. Layered and edited to take full advantage of how film can mirror, copy, track, trace and inscribe, the image, the voice, the eyes, the gaze, this particular film shows the nearly-impossible: a person thinking. Or appearing to think. Derrida, as the self who is playing his Other, his image onscreen, is strikingly photogenic - a handsome, tanned, white-haired older man who is like a combination of Einstein and Sartre - sartorial yet slightly eccentric. This is a coincidence the film enjoys - he could have been ugly, and his thought might be the same - but the fact the camera "loves" him allows him to question what love, and cameras, are for. The film constantly implies division, and doubling - sometimes "Jacqui" is a d...