This project aims to investigate the current growth in popularity of traditional eastern philosophy and practices in western developed societies. In particular, I aim to investigate how the current popularity of eastern martial arts, which I believe to be indicative of this interest, demonstrates a general trend in our heavily industrialised, materialistic society, to seek answers to epistemological and ethical questions outside of a purely rational or religious framework. Fundamentally, this trend reflects a desire to liberate ourselves from what Max Weber refers to as the ‘iron cage of bureaucracy ’ Part 1 : The condition of modernity. Part 2 : Contrasting West and East. Holism as a remedy for a fragmentary existence. Part 3 : The martial arts as philosophy in action.
Category: 2004
This project will address the transition in human mediation between self, society and world affected by the transition from religious mediation to financial mediation. The problem will be posed from the perspective of circulation and the historical consequences suspected to arise from unrestricted human interaction. Broadly speaking the project will focus on; *The framing of transgression and taboo in Hittite, Scriptural, Roman, Ecclesiastical and British Civil law *The Council of Elvira and the formulation of the principle of una cara by Basil the Great *The birth of the Bank of England and consequent transfer of value and mediation *The contemporary economic situation which, with the demand for deregulation of markets and increasing tendency toward investment in areas of low governance leaves social mediation almost entirely up to finance and credit- the promise of value rather than value itself