In the UK, I experienced the feeling that something was wrong with the fact that most of my hero's and quality critters were not on any study program, and the teachers I spoke with looked baffled at the idea that you can pass on something that you think might be important for learning, for education and fun and lifting the spirits.
I would distinguish the difference between RAW and the Academic Philosphers by using the word 'street level, or street-wise' philosopher. RAW also fits the armchair philosopher, and even wheelchair philosopher model, for me, and will be forever be a beloved American Irish philosopher, along the current of Bishop Berkeley, O' Brien, Swift, Hamilton, Synge, Yeats, Joyce. Philosophy as art and art as philosophy. Poetry, Drama, Satire? Maybe that is partly resonsible for the RAW hush hush'?
I feel that RAW dissolves the imperialist paradigm, to go into some mighty big ideas for a mo', and remains unrecognized in Britain, maybe, in part because he has such a torrential rain of Celtic Twilight' acid it rubs up Brit' authority the wrong way, I have not heard this said much, but the question of recognition, Academic Recognition of philosophers is one I hold interest in, as, in my humble opinion... RAW and his tribes' just about wrap up the neurological relativisim of the Internet 'global village' age, with such cutting satire and explosive 'kapow' that you just feel the pull of truth-fun. Collectively, maybe some can recreate the vibe, but as an individual author, writer, philosopher, Dr. Wilson pulled it all together, at least for me. Maybe I skipped a few other philosophers?
I wish it were easier for me to create a divide between my own ideas, writing and thoughts, and my strong wish to forward the ideas and work left by Dr. Wilson. I have shrugged off the brush of being called a RAW disciple and continued the work, pulled along my this great community, without whom I maybe stuck in a bedroom in a life of books. I keep wanting to repeat simply 'Read him' and 'read him again' because RAW writes for the careful reader and the lucky re-reader, I think...
I have since moved from the UK, in part due to a lack resources to study and getting very little feedback from others outside of this here community, I had problem's simply giving the Maybelogic: DVD documentary movie to libraries, colleges and Universities. No interest, sadly. But now with youtube they can kiss the sky, the movies everywhere... and now I think where are their classes? where are the lectures? TED.com vs. Any UK university? such and such conference... and on.... Maybe in other parts of the UK I would have found better reception, but here in Amsterdam I find that the philosophy and thinking of some 'street level' philosophers can be grok'd, if only for a fleeting moment. But still, the cats are not recognized by the Academic Institutions, as far as I am aware.
Enjoy your class psyber, hope to hear more feedback and good luck with turning on your teachers to our man.
Some thoughts on RAW studies and finding a side-door entrance to the UK curriculum and the European market stall’ at the Global village.
I think RAW respected the multiculturalism, pantheism and diversity of languages and ideas of the quality critters he often referred to. Pound, Joyce, Yeats, Bruno, Vico, and Fenollosa were scribes for the McLuhan’s ‘global village’. And as I mentioned, therefore against British imperialism and centralized control of institutions, banking, education, politics, weapons.
RAW deploys ‘decentralized’ philosophy (Bruno, Joyce, Paul Levinson?) that we can trace through his fiction, his ‘holographic prose’, his speech, and through his life lived as a truly independent scholar activist journalist philosopher...
The study of Internet and Information technology, telecommunications etc,. Seems all the rage at the major learning institutions around the world, yet, where can you study ‘the tale of the tribe’? RAW’s history of ‘decentralized philosophy, and design science principles, and Neuro-linguistic relativism’ maybe one way to view it? What do Bucky, Shannon, Wiener, McLuhan... and Internet have in common?
Sharing, and the rare ability to share personal experience with a scientific method of observation, or methods, plural, maybe another thorn in RAW’s side when it comes to the education business, where text books and course work feed the Industry standards in the grey room. ‘think for yer’ self’ schmuck’ combined with ‘think for yourself, and question authority’ combined with the ‘free’ shared availability of RAW’s course work may lead to a sticky situation for many faculty staff and department heads, at some future juncture where ‘everything changes’ so obviously that only RAW and a few others will have remained weird enough to stay relative in a ‘exponentially changing’ seemingly psychedelic shared experience.
Or maybe I am dreaming and have cut myself off to live out an Invisible college’ fantasy, and to forever be stuck apart from any Institution, so to develop my independent feedback? Stephen in self inflicted Exile? A romantic, maverick, ? Whatever, with global internet communications we can all live as one University, if you like, as Wikipedia is now One university of one type of knowledge...and the power of connectivity and sharing across cultures far out reaches that of any single Institution of single corporate, sovereign entity. I think their definition as a finite entity bounds them, in many ways, whereas the Network seems to be king, not content, or cash or weapons stash. All has Changed and changed utterly’
Another of RAW’s unique and testable strokes of genius is to source and reference masses of academic material that now, due to internet search engines can still, and often does for me, turn up treasures in all sorts of nooks and cranniz’ take Ernest Fenollosa for example, I find the Fenollosa/Pound/Yeats synergy (founded in London when Mary McNeil Fenollosa passed on her late husbands notes to Ez, who was living with Yeats at the time) to be critical to the whole field of modernism, Post modernism, linguistics etc,. And have been surprised to have not found RAW anywhere in the published literature on this subject.
Here’s a little anecdotal example of my efforts to fwd/ RAW in the UK during the summer of 2006. I was invited by the SDP (who I bumped into on the street in Birmingham) to MARXISM’ a week-long conference held a University London, featuring many speakers on varied topics, all with a socialist and pretty political oriented glossing. While on the Uni’ campus, I tried walking into SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) with the express vision of turning somebody onto RAW’s interpretation of the Fenollosa’ manuscripts etc. But, I could not even get in the door past security, sorry son, you have to have an appointment. I did however get up and speak at a number of presentations, one time reading a full chapter from the Illuminati Papers, in a weak lecture on science fiction and social activism, I thought it was weak as the guy had not even heard of RAW... but the dialectic was all over the place. Book stands were lined up with Chomsky, Zinn, Parenti, George G, Tony Benn, Che’, Banksy and Hakim Bey, but alas uncle Bob was suspiciously absent, or, I was too stoned to see his books amidst all sea TEXTZ on resistance and revolution, although I did find him in the Disinfo’ book ‘Everything you know is wrong’
So I came away from Marxism 2006 a bit miffed, but still had a fun time and met many like-minded individuals who were visiting the event, and even liked the lecturers and speakers, maybe for their rhythm and prowess on the microphone, George G. And Tony Benn are powerful orators, but, I found the Respect party and the SDP to be riddled with the same trappings as the other political alternatives like Labour and Conservative and the Liberal party, besides the obvious differences such as perceptions on foreign policy and the wars Britain is fighting, I noticed a very similar use of speech, the rhythm of the rally and the ‘Fidel’ like punch of words to shake up the masses. I enjoy the music and power of these performances, but again feel that RAW’s witty, scholarly and optimistic way of doing this would be far more effective, yes, surprise equals information.
The path to Peace is as much a labyrinth of ambiguity as the roadway to war, and I find the compressed dialectic of Joyce and RAW at least two models of a supreme Unity, by way of the Unity of opposites, producing a witty truth, unequalled anywhere else, outside of witty and wise fiction like Tom Robbins, or great satire like that of Will Self. But RAW combines that Celtic Twist’ or (spiral) with operationalist scientific methodological research language, practical Magick and psychoactive drug experimentation, and contact with Daoist, Zen, and Sufi masters over a period of 50 years... all big plus points from my perspective, that give RAW a street credibility, missing from most Academic entities.
Sir Paul Mcartney has a music school in the UK. Where is the Lennon wing to be built? I ponder....
Everything I have already put here relates to my experiences in the UK, and not America, where like how Bobby describes Delaware, the boundaries between street level philosophy, to keep pushing a term, and Academia seems blurry, San Francisco and the Bay area spill over with hip and hopeful classes and libraries and bookshops that are packed with the good stuff. I repeat, the relations between the USA and Europe in these areas of study could be much broader and open, would this be under the umbrella of American literature, American studies, the American Anarchist tradition?
I would boldly state that for me, the new philosophy might include a kind of 'constructivist prospiracy'. Conspiracy theory is just one unacknowledged 'scientific research based philosophy' when looked at from RAW-esque Multiple points of view.
The essay 'TSOG' for example, may outline his political oriented philosophy, partly as a reaction to the Tsarist paradigm he saw emerging in American, partly describing his own conspiracy theory, and partly describing the kind of forces that smashed the 60's consciousness movement and counter-culture and have been meddling in affairs both home and abroad with their guns and dope trade ever since the dirty deals made after WWII.
For example, what does it mean for humanistic psychology in the UK when we consider the Tavistock Institute and the Royal Institute for Mental Health and their history of carrying out 'MK Ultra' like experiments on unwilling test subjects? It would not be so bad if the drugs used, such as LSD, were not prohibited today by the same forces that miss-used them over fifty years ago. So I see a blockage here, and I don't see or hear of many, if any scholars and teachers (in the UK) speaking out on this subject, compared with the US that has MAPS and the Beckley foundation, plus hundreds of lobby groups and 'entheogen' campaigners. Amazing and inspiring, and often frustrating to see the lack of such organization in Europe.
So experiment and research in these areas must be done illegally, underground, and with an element of secrecy and clandestine operation. The psychological and socio-cultural effects of this prohibition' on altered states and 'taboos' in general is yet another current that flows throughout all of RAW's output...
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