Harold Carr

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Sat, 29 Jul 2006

Ten (Possible) Reasons for the Sadness of Thought

George Steiner

My brother-in-law, Guillermo Antonio Cervi‰o-Wood, recommended George Steiner’s Ten (Possible) Reasons for the Sadness of Thought. I found his essay of that title (originally published in Salmagundi) here and here.

I can’t say I like Steiner’s writing. It seems unnecessarily convoluted. Plus, all his points were made earlier by Bataille and Bataille’s writing is much better, even in English translation. He even uses some of Bataille’s phrases (e.g., “sadness unto death,” “laid bare”).

But I did take the time to read and summarize the article.

Introduction
1 — Infinite thought cannot think everything that exists.
2 — We can’t control thought for long, and even if we could, it might be dangerous to our health.
3 — Thinking is private but common and repetitive.
4 — No absolute truth (language is inherently ambiguous).
5 — Thinking is wasteful.
6 — You can’t do everthing you think.
7 — Thought veils as much as it reveals.
8 — The veil makes it impossible to know what others are thinking.
9 — The fact that few are capable of great thought (“creativity”) conflicts with the ideal of social justice.
10 — We know (and try to escape) death.

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