What Is Antagonistic About the Entirety?

Q: What is antagonistic about the entirety? At that level, aren't all distinctions (and therefore antagonisms) unmade?

A: The entirety (Totality/Brahman) is antagonistic in the sense that it produces change. Sure, in itself the whole is eternal in some sense, but from it has been produced the subject and all the myriad systems and distinctions we see around us. Avoiding the problem of the finite emerging from the infinite (classically, there has been a problem with the self-limiting of the unlimited, or the emergence of evil from within the unchanging fundamental goodness) requires a conception of Brahman/Totality/the Unmanifest that is not really unmanifest. Well, it is, but it is at the same time always manifest, immanent within the manifest. Adi Shankara was on to this insight quite a while ago, and much later Spinoza seems to have figured it out. Substance/Brahman/whatever is not external to the universe, but is that very universe from a different perspective (or the primordial "no perspective", which is, still, a perspective).

The entirety is antagonistic in two senses: first, the phenomenal entierty (which is what I initially had in mind when I borrowed the blog title from Theodor Adorno) is quite antagonistic, as I briefly outlines previously; second, the Absolute in itself is antagonisitc in its real emanations. However, at the same time, the Absolute is also in a different sense changeless.

This contradiction should be analyzed more carefully. At first pass, there is a double meaning to the mantra "sarvam khalvidam brahma"--"all this is Brahman". First, everything's real essence, its unchanging base, is Brahman. Second, everything is Brahman--manifestation is an activity of Brahman, and only therein can Maya be based. Brahman is immanent, not separate from the universe. Brahman would exist without our perception of it, and though names and forms are socially-constructed, the immanent nature of Brahman would remain unchanged. The stuff of which names and forms are fashikoned would exist, and in this sense I remain as materialist as ever.

The universe is always changing, and therefore is always antagonistic. Brahman, which is... I don't want to say coterminous with the universe, but it sort of is, is thus antagonistic. The different levels of in-itself and for-itself and what-have-you are begging to be re-evaluated in light of all this immanentism. So maybe I'll do that.

P.S. I reserve the right to completely disown this entire post as the product of my over-caffeinated and sleep-deprived mind. Have mercy.


Picture: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ADORNO_by_LGdL.JPG