Argus
Light dominates at night, not during the day. Daylight is unremarkable because it is distributed evenly. Human eyes are adapted to daylight, unless they belong to guards. At night, there is much more light in the sense that there are more sources of it. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra exclaims: «Oh it's you, dark nights, create warmth from everything
glowing! Oh, only you drink milk and enjoy the nipples of light!»
A newborn, struck by the brightness of the world, is more likely to be overwhelmed by its night side, even if born in the light of day: the infant is terrified by the unusual variety of the new world. Consequently, the day is the womb, and the night is the outside world, full of dangers and diversity. The night rustles with details, and the starry sky rings with them. The night knows no absolute silence or stasis: movement is more characteristic of the constellations than of the clouds of the day. There are also more sounds phenomenologically: sounds are better distinguishable, each one separately, up to internal sounds (what is called «shabd» in yoga). During the day, they can be heard if you plug your ears, but at night they are heard anyway, these intracranial mantras, which should not be confused with tinnitus. The serenity of the clouds and the deep self-confidence of the clouds cannot compare with the continuously fierce competition of the stars. The day is static, and the night is mobile. Its instability manifests itself in predation and revelry. Events turn out to be more prominent at night. The day is limited by the law, and the night is anarchic; at night, everyone invents their own law — according to their own standards.
Although some philosophers and theologians used the concept of «logos» in the plural, the inventor of this concept, using it, spoke of a single universal law, of a certain obviousness that does not depend on circumstances and subjective position: «The waking have one common world, but the sleeping turn aside each into a world of his own.», Heraclitus asserted. This obviousness has the nature of the Sun, which illuminates everything, makes everything visible and accessible to understanding. The Sun is the mother of obviousness. The Sun is the only eye, the single Law for all. The law of the Sun is beyond opinions, it is the universal Truth — Logos. But the Sun has defamed itself, appearing as a bloody five-pointed star and a slandered left-handed swastika. The sunset of Europe, which became the worldwide sunset of objectivity, gave rise to a new state of world civilization, a state of openness that denies the possibility of a single ethics and a single ontology. This sunset has long been replaced by night — universal and uncompromising. At night, everyone lights their own way, but the Muslim and the Darwinist, walking along the roads of the night with their sacred texts as lanterns, like all other travellers, meet under the same moon, under the same stars, breathe the same air filtered by the moonlight of a new universal treaty.
Once again, I turn to Heraclitus: «It is necessary for those who speak with intelligence to hold fast to the common element of all, as a city holds fast to law, and much more strongly. For all human laws are nourished by one which is divine, and it has power so much as it will; and it suffices for all things and more than suffices».
We have parted with this universal Law, we are forced to be content with its reflection — the light of the Moon. The air that all earthly creatures breathe — its purity is ensured by the lunar law, a new treaty that is unified for all earthlings: the Moon becomes a filter thanks to which all creatures retain the ability to breathe. This new obviousness is not the intellectual obviousness of Heraclitus’ Logos, it is bodily and vital, not rational. Frogs and birds possess it on a par with humans. Therefore, we are talking about the Moon, not the Sun. The need to breathe is a directive of life, not reason. Although the implementation of this directive is provided by the mind of dominant beings. Man is doomed to domination.
Argus — the mythical hero, the many-eyed giant identified with the starry sky, whose appearance can serve as an allegory of true postmodern relativism. Hera entrusted Argus with guarding Zeus’ beloved Io, turned into a cow, but Mercury, sent by Zeus, outwitted the hero: he put Argus to sleep by telling stories about Pan. In Saturnalia, Macrobius gives an interesting interpretation of this myth: «…in this story, Argus is the firmament, studded with the gleam of stars, in which, it seems, some image of celestial eyes is contained. On the other hand, they decided that the sky is called Argus because of the brightness and speed [of movement, in Greek] — para to leuko kai tacho. And it seems that he examines the earth from above (the Egyptians, when they want to designate it with hieroglyphic letters, use the image of a cow). So, this circulation of the sky, decorated with the fires of the stars, is then considered destroyed by Mercury when the sun in the daytime, eclipsing the stars, as it were, destroys [them], by the force of its light depriving mortals of their contemplation».
Cunning Mercury tells Argus tales of Pan to put him to sleep and kill him in his sleep. In the context of the transition from the postmodern paradigm to the metamodern paradigm, this myth can be interpreted as follows: postmodern multignozticism recedes when it comes to a new long-term thought — about the forests of Pan, about overgrowth. The skeptical relativism of the all-star view must give way to a new treaty with nature. Mercury turns to the image of Pan to overcome the hesitation caused by a thousand points of view.
But let’s not forget that the giant Argus is reborn every night. Here we are faced with the main ambivalence of the new paradigm: on the one hand, metamodernism must preserve multignozticism, Argus’ all-star view, the faceted vision gained in the era of high postmodernism; on the other hand, Mercury’s rational view forces us to accept a new universal treaty that subordinates numerous points of view to one obviousness — moonlight. Argus must fall asleep in the light of the Moon, not the Sun. Mercury is the god of profit, and it is profitable for us to preserve the generative beginning, the nature on which our economy rests, in which our physical and spiritual existence is rooted.
To look from Argus’ position means to look with all the stars at once. The closest and brightest star not only gives obviousness but also hides the night vision of infinity.
As the son of Earth (Gaia), Argus is the starry sky — in such ambivalence, the principle of μεταξύ is traced. With the concept of metaxy, Greek philosophers defined the intermediate state of all human beings, located between animals and gods. The gap between the heavenly and the earthly is an essential feature of humans. And in this context, the philosophy of metamodernism is the first truly human philosophy. Idealism and materialism avoid ambivalence, leaning towards one of the opposites, while metamodernism puts on the intermediate link: now we are interested in the vibration that arises when matter and spirit interact, manifesting the erotic interdependence of subject and object.
The figure of Argus is a metaphor for perception. Analyzing perception, we see that it always consists of a subject and an object. It is impossible to conceive of an object without a subject, since such thinking would already contain a subject, just as it is impossible to conceive of consciousness without content — such consciousness would already be something superhuman. Argus is the offspring of the Earth, the starry sky that looks at the Earth, i.e., it is a perception generated by the perceived object.
We are trying to preserve the all-star perception and faceted vision to the extent that relativism does not interfere with fulfilling the conditions of the new treaty, illuminated by the light of the Moon. If a special view of things adopted in a certain local community allows the destruction of forests and pollution of the earth with nuclear waste, this view in the new cultural-historical paradigm turns out to be outside the Law — here Argus has to retreat, fall asleep.
[1] Macrobium. Saturnalia. Yekaterinburg: Ural Publishing House, University, 2009. p. 83.
[2] F. Nietzsche Thus spake Zarathustra. Moscow: AST Publishing House, 2015. p. 127.
[3] Fragments of early Greek philosophers. Part I. From epic theocosmogonies to the emergence of atomistics. Moscow: Nauka, 1989, p. 198.
[4] Ibid., p. 197.
glowing! Oh, only you drink milk and enjoy the nipples of light!»
A newborn, struck by the brightness of the world, is more likely to be overwhelmed by its night side, even if born in the light of day: the infant is terrified by the unusual variety of the new world. Consequently, the day is the womb, and the night is the outside world, full of dangers and diversity. The night rustles with details, and the starry sky rings with them. The night knows no absolute silence or stasis: movement is more characteristic of the constellations than of the clouds of the day. There are also more sounds phenomenologically: sounds are better distinguishable, each one separately, up to internal sounds (what is called «shabd» in yoga). During the day, they can be heard if you plug your ears, but at night they are heard anyway, these intracranial mantras, which should not be confused with tinnitus. The serenity of the clouds and the deep self-confidence of the clouds cannot compare with the continuously fierce competition of the stars. The day is static, and the night is mobile. Its instability manifests itself in predation and revelry. Events turn out to be more prominent at night. The day is limited by the law, and the night is anarchic; at night, everyone invents their own law — according to their own standards.
Although some philosophers and theologians used the concept of «logos» in the plural, the inventor of this concept, using it, spoke of a single universal law, of a certain obviousness that does not depend on circumstances and subjective position: «The waking have one common world, but the sleeping turn aside each into a world of his own.», Heraclitus asserted. This obviousness has the nature of the Sun, which illuminates everything, makes everything visible and accessible to understanding. The Sun is the mother of obviousness. The Sun is the only eye, the single Law for all. The law of the Sun is beyond opinions, it is the universal Truth — Logos. But the Sun has defamed itself, appearing as a bloody five-pointed star and a slandered left-handed swastika. The sunset of Europe, which became the worldwide sunset of objectivity, gave rise to a new state of world civilization, a state of openness that denies the possibility of a single ethics and a single ontology. This sunset has long been replaced by night — universal and uncompromising. At night, everyone lights their own way, but the Muslim and the Darwinist, walking along the roads of the night with their sacred texts as lanterns, like all other travellers, meet under the same moon, under the same stars, breathe the same air filtered by the moonlight of a new universal treaty.
Once again, I turn to Heraclitus: «It is necessary for those who speak with intelligence to hold fast to the common element of all, as a city holds fast to law, and much more strongly. For all human laws are nourished by one which is divine, and it has power so much as it will; and it suffices for all things and more than suffices».
We have parted with this universal Law, we are forced to be content with its reflection — the light of the Moon. The air that all earthly creatures breathe — its purity is ensured by the lunar law, a new treaty that is unified for all earthlings: the Moon becomes a filter thanks to which all creatures retain the ability to breathe. This new obviousness is not the intellectual obviousness of Heraclitus’ Logos, it is bodily and vital, not rational. Frogs and birds possess it on a par with humans. Therefore, we are talking about the Moon, not the Sun. The need to breathe is a directive of life, not reason. Although the implementation of this directive is provided by the mind of dominant beings. Man is doomed to domination.
Argus — the mythical hero, the many-eyed giant identified with the starry sky, whose appearance can serve as an allegory of true postmodern relativism. Hera entrusted Argus with guarding Zeus’ beloved Io, turned into a cow, but Mercury, sent by Zeus, outwitted the hero: he put Argus to sleep by telling stories about Pan. In Saturnalia, Macrobius gives an interesting interpretation of this myth: «…in this story, Argus is the firmament, studded with the gleam of stars, in which, it seems, some image of celestial eyes is contained. On the other hand, they decided that the sky is called Argus because of the brightness and speed [of movement, in Greek] — para to leuko kai tacho. And it seems that he examines the earth from above (the Egyptians, when they want to designate it with hieroglyphic letters, use the image of a cow). So, this circulation of the sky, decorated with the fires of the stars, is then considered destroyed by Mercury when the sun in the daytime, eclipsing the stars, as it were, destroys [them], by the force of its light depriving mortals of their contemplation».
Cunning Mercury tells Argus tales of Pan to put him to sleep and kill him in his sleep. In the context of the transition from the postmodern paradigm to the metamodern paradigm, this myth can be interpreted as follows: postmodern multignozticism recedes when it comes to a new long-term thought — about the forests of Pan, about overgrowth. The skeptical relativism of the all-star view must give way to a new treaty with nature. Mercury turns to the image of Pan to overcome the hesitation caused by a thousand points of view.
But let’s not forget that the giant Argus is reborn every night. Here we are faced with the main ambivalence of the new paradigm: on the one hand, metamodernism must preserve multignozticism, Argus’ all-star view, the faceted vision gained in the era of high postmodernism; on the other hand, Mercury’s rational view forces us to accept a new universal treaty that subordinates numerous points of view to one obviousness — moonlight. Argus must fall asleep in the light of the Moon, not the Sun. Mercury is the god of profit, and it is profitable for us to preserve the generative beginning, the nature on which our economy rests, in which our physical and spiritual existence is rooted.
To look from Argus’ position means to look with all the stars at once. The closest and brightest star not only gives obviousness but also hides the night vision of infinity.
As the son of Earth (Gaia), Argus is the starry sky — in such ambivalence, the principle of μεταξύ is traced. With the concept of metaxy, Greek philosophers defined the intermediate state of all human beings, located between animals and gods. The gap between the heavenly and the earthly is an essential feature of humans. And in this context, the philosophy of metamodernism is the first truly human philosophy. Idealism and materialism avoid ambivalence, leaning towards one of the opposites, while metamodernism puts on the intermediate link: now we are interested in the vibration that arises when matter and spirit interact, manifesting the erotic interdependence of subject and object.
The figure of Argus is a metaphor for perception. Analyzing perception, we see that it always consists of a subject and an object. It is impossible to conceive of an object without a subject, since such thinking would already contain a subject, just as it is impossible to conceive of consciousness without content — such consciousness would already be something superhuman. Argus is the offspring of the Earth, the starry sky that looks at the Earth, i.e., it is a perception generated by the perceived object.
We are trying to preserve the all-star perception and faceted vision to the extent that relativism does not interfere with fulfilling the conditions of the new treaty, illuminated by the light of the Moon. If a special view of things adopted in a certain local community allows the destruction of forests and pollution of the earth with nuclear waste, this view in the new cultural-historical paradigm turns out to be outside the Law — here Argus has to retreat, fall asleep.
[1] Macrobium. Saturnalia. Yekaterinburg: Ural Publishing House, University, 2009. p. 83.
[2] F. Nietzsche Thus spake Zarathustra. Moscow: AST Publishing House, 2015. p. 127.
[3] Fragments of early Greek philosophers. Part I. From epic theocosmogonies to the emergence of atomistics. Moscow: Nauka, 1989, p. 198.
[4] Ibid., p. 197.
