There is a war against the real. It is fought in quiet places-- in our aphasias, lacunas, and distortions, where the shadows of the world live. It is fought in the shifting war zones of the earth-- Vietnam, Cambodia, Iran, Iraq, Serbia, Chechnya, Botswana, Tibet.... It is fought in the philosopher's study, the artist's loft and in the marketplace. It is a war against human decency, and it has as its target the ability of all persons to understand themselves and others as ontological realities, free of any mechanistic or purely material explanation of their origins.
Logical Positivism is a chief weapon in this war, and the distortions that have
sprung up in the bloody wake of that positivism:
1. T dualistic sciences that paint
the human being as machine.
2. T mongers of culture who sell the metaphor of the machine for human processes
and perceptions.
3 The notion that western culture could ever comprise "The End of History"
4 The notion that the real may be measured and/or sold.
We assert the following:
* Human beings are ontological beings.
*The nominalism so prevalent in the literary marketplace is pernicious in its effect because it distracts human beings from the conscious task of their own internal work.
*The highest tasks of literature are to record the individual's attempt to become humane and to witness to and record the inhumanity around them.
.*Confusion indulged allows only for the entrance of a further confusion.
. . . Any who wish to join may join, since, in the truest sense, you are already
a member. The only requirement is to undertake your work peacefully in the manner
most suited to you, regardless of how your circumstances may appear to others.
. . . .