5 October 2008

Gösta goes Helsinki

There is a reason why Gösta does not always feel at home in Helsinki. This is the reason. He lived in Grankulla for a year, among ladies wearing furs and gentlemen with their walking sticks and cylinder hats. Grankulla was not a fun place, but the town, being the home of the capitalists of Finland, could afford a good library. Helsinki was a tad better. Gösta used to go to the movies. There were movie theatres back then. Many of them have closed down by now, swallowed by the big conglomerates. Gösta led the ascetic life. He read books. The only person he talked to was his room mate. The room mate told him stories about her home town. She told him about crazy people, people with tractor habits, communists, people living in half-built houses. They talked to each other sitting in adjacent rooms. They were too lazy to walk five meters to sit beside each other. It was almost like talking on the phone. Sometimes, Gösta misses these conversations.

"Management events". If business got its way, there would be no other events.

Helsinki is a white box. Gösta does not know what is in that box. That is also the point. He should not know. Industry is the secrets of the container.

They are building stuff in the ports. Gösta sees cranes everywhere.

This skyline depresses Gösta. Houses that look the same.

Gösta told his sister about a dream he had. He was standing by the sea. In Helsinki. He was looking at a coal powerplant. There was a great heap of coal by the powerplant. His sister told him that this might not have been a dream. Gösta does not know. They drive to the place. There is no heap of coal. Gösta feels crazy for not knowing.

There is this expression among some of Gösta's colleagues. "You should weld the shit out of that idea..." Gösta has spent a week with Wittgenstein's welders. Some ways of speaking take on a new meaning. "People don't talk like that!!!!!" (murmured in a tortured voice, a way of paraphrazing a misunderstanding of what Wittgenstein is about) "But do you know???" (murmured in a tortured voice, a paraphrase of the bewitchment of 'Know' in the realm of traditional analytic philosophy). Gösta looks at the rolling eyes of his friends. Their grunts. Their small gestures. The exasperated tone of voice. Gösta & O agree that it is silly to treat Wittgenstein as a shrine, to pay one's allegiance, to offer one's witness of the Spirit (the method). Gösta thinks 'method' is very uninteresting. Gösta gets angry. Gösta wonder what Wittgenstein would think about people who worship his Word and who quotes his texts in the spirit of religous revelation. Wittgenstein got angry about anything. He would break a window, throw chairs. Gösta desires to weld the shit out of that attitude of philosophical purity. Gösta has not the witness within himself. He is glad about not having it.

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