Friday, October 22, 2004

Skepticism..what I'm thinking about.

In the modern age, skepticism begins with doubt as to the existence of God. It is hard to underestimate the difficulty, then, of wrapping one's contemporary imagination around a skepticism that retains complete and implicit belief in the divine, but doubts the reality of the person standing next to oneself. And yet, in its most literal sense, that is the character of Renaissance skepticism - a world peopled by God but not by other humans.

My doctoral dissertation is about the intersection between Renaissance demographics and skepticism. Oddly, skepticism in the 17th century didn't mean anything like what it means today - depending on whose version you follow (Katherine Maus or Stanley Cavell - I think they aren't incompatible), what people doubted then was not what they doubt now. When we think of skepticism in a modern sense, we think about doubt about the existence of God, or of other transcendent things, or about science vs. religion. But both versions of Renaissance skepticism accept the existence of God as foregone, and neither see a contradiction between science and faith (there wasn't one at the time). Instead, skeptics doubt either the existence of other people (ie, Cartesian skepticism, which says that you can prove that you exist and God exists, but not that everyone around you isn't a figment) or what you can know about other people (ie, what they are thinking).

I've been writing about this for several years, but it only recently has occurred to me that the Biblical story of Sarah (the forgotten part of the binding of Isaac) is as much the pre-narrative of this model of skepticism as the Oedipus story is for well, the
Oedipal complex.

If Renaissance skepticism as we have discussed it can be said to have an originating myth, we might find it in the Biblical story of Sarah, for whom the otherness of G-d and the question of the (m)aternity of her children are inextricably linked. Doubt, counting, reproduction, skepticism, all are linked across time and narrative. Stanley Cavell is right to tie skepticism to the questions raised by the paternity of children, but I would suggest that he refers only to a species of skepticism, that ultimately the act of reproduction itself is perennially tied to the question of whether the others one creates are truly real, and, perhaps, whether the act of generation, which mimics God's, is perhaps a kind of proof that we are real.

Sarah (then Sarai) is, described as barren when she is first named, and thus her infertility is tied to her identity. Sarah herself insists that G-d is at fault for her sterility, that YHWH has closed her womb. Her certainty on this point is startling Unconvinced, as she ages, that God will keep his promise to give Abraham descendents as "numerous as the stars," Sarah imagines as means of providing a child to both of them, by requiring her handmaiden to sleep with her husband, and thus get Sarah and Abraham a child. It defies imagination, given her machinations at reproduction, that Sarah could participate in the act of faith later demanded of Abraham - to which her husband is strangely quiescient.


I've always wanted to write a version of the Binding of Isaac in which God asks Sarah to sacrifice Isaac - how much fun would it be to write her reply? Abraham's gesture of complete faith could have been matched by another gesture of complete faith, for Sarah never, ever doubts the existence of God. Oh, she doubts his power - doubts that even God could open her womb in her 90s, and perhaps that God can tell whether she's lying, but she knows God is real. And she thinks God is wrong - and has the courage to say so.


Sarah doubts, as Satan in Paradise Lost does, the degree of God's power. She doubts that God is right. And she is not a wholly positive figure (her treatment of Hagar is hideous). But she is also the mother of a kind of doubt that achieves both faith and courage - one that says, "I believe that God is real, but I do not fully trust God to be always Godly?"

And can you blame her? Not only does this act of Yahweh's evoke the old Pagan Gods they attempt to differentiate themselves from, but it is done in the face of proof that this God is rather new to the divinity business, and makes errors, is subject to human persuasion (a tactic Abraham refuses to use here) and chooses unwisely. What mother, what person, what skeptic could not fail to doubt. Sadly, all the role of Sarah in this that we have is her death - the Talmud says she dies when Abraham takes her son to the mountain.

In a personal sense, I wonder, did God grow up? I speak as a person who believes in God out of a kind of visceral sense of immanence. I have always felt that there was God, since earliest childhood, known it as fact much as I know I have a tongue hair, or any other part of myself I cannot always feel. You would think that this certainty would be useful, but I haven't found it especially so. Instead, it raises more questions. Is God subject to human persuasion? Does God show interest? Are God's agendas always the right ones? Should I be a subject, or trust my own wits and will and argue? Do I emulate Abraham or Sarah when tragedy strikes, when costs are tallied?

I don't think it is any accident that I stumbled into the study of skepticism, do you?

3 comments:

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梁爵 said...

2020.05.16酒店小姐的基本介紹跟工作內容如果妳沒有接觸過酒店這八大行業,【酒店經紀梁曉尊】我在酒店上班的日子相信包括妳在內,很多人對這行業的第一個想法一定是:「酒店裡面酒店小姐一定有S?一定是龍蛇混雜,裡面 八大行業是哪八種行業呢?的人都是黑社會吸毒!打架、暴力脅迫女生陪睡…」等等電視上看來的畫面。
其實這跟【酒店經紀梁曉尊】所接觸的職場須知 【酒店PT 】酒店的實際情況有很大的出入。梁曉尊在酒店這行業已經有多年的經驗,到是從來沒有在如此黑暗的酒店工作過,或許妳聽人說到「酒店打工的小姐,如果客人看上了酒店小姐想帶小姐出去,公司就一定會強迫小姐出場!」而事實上就算是十幾年前的老酒店業也很少有這個情況更不用說當今Google資訊如此發達的年代,而且酒店小姐的來源幾乎掌控在酒店經紀人的情況下,如果有酒店以如此方法對小姐施以逼嚇之手段,一定會讓酒店經紀人對這家店嗤之以鼻,為了保護旗下小姐,沒有人會帶經紀小姐去那種店上班,酒店當然不會笨到為了一個小姐出場強迫小姐做她不想做的事而導致店方得罪酒店經紀人,沒有經紀人要帶小姐來這家酒店,導致這家酒店沒小姐來吸引客人,沒客人的結果就是關門大吉!
所以酒店小姐出場的方式皆是小姐的個人意願,客人想要帶小姐出場時,訪檯幹部都會問清楚客人要帶小姐去哪裡並告知小姐,只要小姐不想跟客人出去,酒店沒人能逼妳!有些酒店規定小姐出場只需陪客人到客人想去的地方,也不可能要求小姐跟客人出去就一定要S。
當然也會有小姐因為想賺取更多的收入,而跟客人私下交易自已接S,這就屬於小姐個人行為了。所以酒店小姐到酒店上班出場接S完全屬於小姐個人之行為,不必擔心說到酒店上班就一定要出場或接S的。
畢竟酒店是酒店,客人來酒店消費是要談生意、應酬、好友聚會高興一下!要的是喝酒微醺後忘記煩惱的感覺,如果他只是想解決生理問題,說真的大陸妹還比較便宜呢!!
如果妳要來酒店上班,梁曉尊是建議妳是要思考三點:
1.妳心理準備好到酒店上班了嗎?很多人誤信(也可能是自己騙自己帶著僥倖心態)網路/報紙上店家或酒店經紀人所刊登的廣告說:「免喝酒輕鬆月入數十萬…」。而事實上天底下沒有這麼好的事,如果真的免喝酒,輕輕鬆鬆就可以月入幾十萬,那我想要來酒店上班可能要抽籤決定妳有沒有這個福氣呢!!酒店經紀人也不用為了酒店一直缺小姐而努力應徵小姐的。再來是要說明一點,酒店雖說沒有這麼複雜,但是畢竟是客人來尋歡的地方,很多男人抱著花錢是大爺的心態竭盡所能在言語上汙辱妳、毛手毛腳,以灌妳喝酒為樂的客人也大有人在,這些都是酒店小姐工作上所需面對的,妳心理上做好準備了嗎?
2.有沒有找到真正專業又正派的酒店經紀人?雖然酒店這行已經透明化,不會讓妳上班時感覺像是被賣掉一樣,但是網路/報紙上偶爾還是出現有不肖酒店經紀人用毒品、放高利貸等等方式來控制小姐的新聞事件發生!所以妳有沒有找到一位正派的酒店經紀人是妳要入這行的一個重要起步!再來就是妳找的酒店經紀人有沒有足夠的酒店經驗及專業知識或者可以透過Google搜尋經紀人名稱是否有相關事業,這是妳尋找酒店經紀人有沒有能力幫妳處理事情的關鍵所在!如果妳的經紀人只會帶妳上下班、送飲料、幫妳領檯費,其它的一問三不知,就算是他人再好,我們還是要為了自己早日賺到錢脫離這行來著想,所以趕快換個經紀人吧!
3.了解自己適合哪種性質的酒店!基本上酒店可分為禮服店、便服店、制服店三種,其中的禮服跟便服都是不脫的,制服店才有在脫衣服跟秀舞。如果妳的條件不適合便服店就不要去制服店;明明是適合上便服店的條件,就不要硬要去制服店上班。
好好跟妳的酒店經紀人溝通,雖然便服店的尺度小,但是對於外貌身材是有一定的要求;而制服店雖然賺得比較多,但是妳也要尺度有到那。了解自己,明白酒店性質,跟酒店經紀人好好聊一下,妳才可以在酒店工作的這段時間裡如魚得水!。