One thing leads to another. As the latter turns into the former, we accumulate experience, wherein the present may be understood in relation to the past, and the past in relation to the present.
Knowledge arrives from an iterative assessment of time spent.
Philosophy is the art of knowing, or how to use knowledge.
The philosophy of experience, how to use knowledge to farm the empirical present, or the formation of prismatic structures, based on the interpretation of our own lives, in relation to whatever context, through which we can bring forth learning against the challenges at hand.
As the context and challenges change, so do the shapes we form in response. Now looking in many directions, the average ego flits across any number of shapes. Humanity is poly-positional, and, across the full range of our experience, will employ a limitless number of philosophies to guide thinking, behaviour and action.
Our 'ways of knowing' are like spanners to bolts, the challenges we face give birth to their own solution, and so the mechanic develops with the machine, the farmer with the climate and the soil.
At the top of the toolbox for the average Brexiter must be the philosophy of the island, which says, within my borders, enshrined as they are by the ocean, I can control things and produce better results than if deciding across a wider area of shared interest. It assumes that the others, out there, want different things, which are not worth accommodating.
The Catalunyan republican also has a philosophy of differentiation. It says Barcelona is brilliant, and different from the rest of Spain. It doesn't make sense to make decisions that take into account the less brilliant, our neighbours and relatives, we would be better optimising only for ourselves.
Both groups of people have decided, because of their differences, that they need to establish independence from their neighbours, and to redesign their constitutions, right now. The ensuing political turmoil has left both regions vulnerable, occupied as they are with the uncertainty of the future.
Why should this have happened, with such strength, in both Britain and Catalonia? Can it be that this was 'right'? Did these humans correctly appraise their context and then pick the most useful philosophy? Or did they get it wrong and pull out a rusty hammer, when all it needed was a drop of oil?
I would have it that both of you have been infected by a malignant quixotic spirit. In the resultant fever, you looked out of your bedrooms and saw necromancers, when in fact it was only the housekeeping, and this time it wasn't them that cooked the books, you did it when you were merry.
On seeing your greatest foe lurking off to the left, you charged out of bed and tumbled down the stairs. When you come to your senses, you will see that it was all an error in the mind.1
When you’ve calmed down we will need to talk about what you’ve done. What if I was to tell you that your push for independence was backed by foreign intelligence and international crime? What if your real enemy was not your neighbour, who, though tedious, is innocent, and means the best for you, but was instead the underworld, or the deep state, which would find Europe more convenient after breaking it up into little bits?
On leaving Portugal I decided I should continue my complaint, via travel literature, and so, desiring positional strength, I decide to head for the mountains. Nipping across the border at Ayamonte, I take a bus for Seville, and there amble around for an evening, admiring the locals in their Spanish party dress, eventually feeding on eels with potatoes and fried eggs.
In the morning, I go on to Granada, which I find sitting splendidly in the April sunshine. I am immediately fond of it, and think its situation a rare pleasure. The city centre is smart and serious, but anyway relaxed, blending then into the hills behind, which in the scatter of undulations holds secrets, hidden squares with corner-bar communities, silent streets rising towards the sun, whose narrow reach along some inhospitable incline eventually yields a breathtaking view into the snow-capped mountains beyond.
Resting on an outcrop on the edge of town, overlooking the arena of the Andalusian plain, the Alhambra, in Moorish majesty, presides over the world's turning, offering a platform to watch the daily passing of nature between sunrise and sunset. I find a ledge on the hillside and give praise to life, standing still with beautiful strength against the pressure of modernity. To my left, the Alhambra, a palatial pledge to starlight, to my right, the glow of Granada, reflections of gold and crimson marking out the fall of rooftops back down to the valley below.
The next day I lug myself up to Monachil, a village that stretches itself along the banks of a mountain river, at one end leading back down to Granada, and at the other holding a gateway into the Sierra Nevada. I am delighted to arrive here, despite the weight of my suitcase, and printer, which I picked up on my way out of Portugal, and now carry around with me in a sustainable shopping bag.
For some three years I have extolled the philosophy of the mountain, as opposed to the bog, and, now about to pick another fight with my old enemy, I find it fated that I should be here to write and distribute my protest.
What is the philosophy of the mountain?
A long time ago, in the early days of the old world, the mountains, cradle of the skies, were looked up to as home of the gods. They represented what was inaccessible in nature. In the bolts of lightning that came crashing down, the ancients saw Zeus, for whatever reason yielding almighty power.
Today, we know that lightning is the uneasy reconciliation of highly charged atmospheric particles brought together in close opposition. The resultant flow of energy through the chain of electrons, from sky to earth, once considered to be the ultimate weapon in the universe, is something that just happens, because nature doesn't know another way out.
Where I have extolled the philosophy of the mountain, it was not because I wanted to throw my force at you, but because nature left me no choice but to resist the energy sent to overcome my being.
Of my words, if ever they forked lightning, know that it was not for the flash that I wrote or spoke, but for the clean calm that came after.
The philosophy of the mountain says that in elevation one can improve both aim and impact. It says that by staying clear of the thick of things, one can achieve broad perspective, and so see more, then making analyses more extensive, if not comprehensive. It accepts that many things that happen down there are out of reach, and not worth reacting to, knowing that most will sink out of sight in the passing of a season. The philosophy of the mountain says if choosing to throw lightning around, one might as well find a safe place to sit.
In any case, even if just a fool on a hill, I had a really lovely time in Monachil. I took my salt bath at 2,500ft, not higher than all of Britain, some way below Ben Nevis, but significantly above the Shard, and so looked down upon the main fields of battle, which I was free to ignore if inclined to do so, or otherwise survey for a suitable target for the next precision air strike. After a little yoga, I would walk up into the mountains to find some inaccessible place with space enough for only one, then writing, my head happy in the open sky, of this problem or another. I might then snooze for an hour or two in the shade of some budding fig tree, and then, on waking up, enjoy a good stretch, before wandering back down to find a restaurant. In semi-slumber, I would nod contentedly as the waitress explained which of their spring vegetables they felt particularly proud of that day. Before bed, another toast, this time with Osborne sherry, my choice of charges for the brand's bull icon: easeskyst - to the earth, sea, sky and stars, that the bulls might skip or stumble to the left, and avoid the concealed blade.
The philosophy of the bull: to have confidence in overwhelming power.
The philosophy of the bullfighter: to understand the effect of a red rag, to anticipate the charge, to slit the bull's throat as it lumbers past.
The red rag is the portrayal of your neighbour, as your enemy, and captor. The problem, left behind the bulls there is a group of followers, your populations, including both sheep (finding safety in the flock) and dog (born into agitation), that will soon, on seeing you fall, find themselves stranded, and so exposed to the wolves that have encircled your flight.
I continue my fable of civil resistance. I finish my first European missive, print it, and then post it.
At the end of April, regretfully, I return to the philosophy of the wild goose: if I keep moving, my enemies will find it difficult to keep up the chase.
I take the bus from Granada to Alicante, stopping shortly, to explore the centre and seafront quickly, which I like, as anyway, what is not to like about one day on the Costa Blanca, but more for the pleasant surprise, that it does not feel as a place famous for tourism might, instead a community, an interesting city looking out onto the deepening blues of the Mediterranean. In the mountains it is still spring, but on the beach the year is turning towards summer.
From Alicante another bus to Barcelona, which is a brilliant city. It does shine brightly in comparison to most other places, and I'm sorry to say that I think you were wrong to have pushed for independence, because I don't want to upset you. I might even come to live with you when I stop, so I will give you some nice words. An industrial city transformed through ingenuity, it is both down-to-earth and dreamy. The architecture, uniquely surreal, does not bear down on its inhabitants with majesty, but instead resists interpretation, and leaves an open feeling of wonder. The city seems to sit outside of the mainstream, in which historical provenance insists on tradition, and, accordingly, it has attracted a diverse range of people, all of whom seem comfortable connecting to it in their own way. Barcelona is hot and dense, packing as much punch as it can into its stretch of land between the hills and the sea. Life then pours out onto the streets, so one sees people rather than stone.
Anyway the stone is largely covered up with flags and political banners. Not red rags to bulls, but instead the commonly accepted signal for humans to charge. Seeing the city decorated in such a manner, I can understand why the push for independence happened in the way it did. In the campaign message, 'Llibertat Presos Politics', citizens are offered a false choice. The construct suggests that you must prioritise one over the other, but that was a lie designed to motivate you. You were put in a binary trap, like the fork move in a game of chess, and of course you chose freedom. If your politicians and press tell you everyday that your context is a prison, you will choose the philosophy of the freedom fighter, which says that there must be a victory over my enemy at some fundamental level, which, being critical, justifies any cost.
This context has been forced upon you, and had your politicians and press not insisted that it was so, you probably would have gone about your days quite happily, spending your time on making improvements to your life that had a clear and tangible benefit. As it was, you were blinded by an emotional construct. If there is a fundamental freedom at stake here, it is that of information. Before we can pick the best philosophy, we must understand what our context really is. We should have the right to understand what public servants, who we pay to work for us, know about the world. We do not have that right, and before we do, it will be difficult to understand what our priorities really are.
From Barcelona back to the mountains, but this time to Asturias and the Picos de Europa, the peaks first seen by sailors returning from the new world to the old. I visited Asturias as a child, and some memory of feeling close to nature calls me back. I stay for a week a little down the way from Llanes, here tracing a few miles of the Camino de Santiago trail each day to find yet another idyll to rest in. The purity of contrast between sea, beach, field, mountain and sky is an interplay that sustains its audience within the parameters of peace. Whilst here, with such a space around you, it is impossible to care about who's in charge and where. Life is not felt in the chain from one human to another, as it is in the city, and so the environment simply holds no notion that the pack of cards needs to be reshuffled.
From Llanes I go deeper into the mountains, to Las Arenas, home of cider presses and cheese makers in caves, the weather poor, the food excellent. What goes up, must come down, I accept it, and I do worry, for the harder they come, the harder they fall. Everything however is relative.
From Asturias down to San Sebastian, then back to Barcelona, and finally onto Vielha, just before the border with France, in the Val d'Aran. In the mountains once more, I note that one can also go back up.
From Spain I decide to go to Lourdes. To finish this part, we might ask what then is the context that we actually face, and consider, in which case, what use is philosophy? The point is of course that our context is one of ignorance and delusion, one in which we do not know the full range of effects to which we are exposed, and consequently, of those we recognise, we do not understand their cause, whether party policy, or corresponding marketing campaigns, or accompanying articles in the press. Neither do we understand the feelings we have in response. The power included in our context increases and guides propensity in one direction rather than another, beyond individual introspection and public scrutiny. We react to current affairs as an accurate reflection of reality, but we are wrong to do so, for in many cases here is more artifice.
Book 1, Chapter 7, Don Quixote, Cervantes: That night the housekeeper burnt all his books...
'It is so', returned Don Quixote, 'for he is a famous necromancer, and my mortal enemy, and bears me a great deal of malice; for, seeing by his art, that in spite of all his spells, in process of time I shall fight and vanquish in single combat a knight whose interest he espouses, therefore he endeavours to do me all manner of mischief; but, I dare assure him, he strives against the stream, nor can his power reverse the first decrees of fate.'
...
'But, dear uncle, what makes you run yourself into these quarrels? Had you not better stay at home, and live in peace and quietness, than go rambling up and down like a vagabond, and seeking for better bread than is made of wheat, without once so much as considering, that many go to seek wool and come home shorn themselves?'