Similar to Hank, I take a fair amount of displeasure in writing about myself. There is just something about pounding into a keyboard information that is solely about yourself that makes me feel exceedingly narcissistic. However, I will suspend my previous dispositions on the matter for a moment to introduce myself.
Hello everyone, my name is Britain Kennedy. I can best be described as a bit of Nietzsche, wrapped up in Heidegger, with a little Bataille sprinkled on top. I debate at a very small school in Arkansas named Greenwood, my history in debate has been a very solid mix of success and failure. But none of that is really relevant to what you’ll need to know from me as an author to the blog.
My history in critical literature is fairly deep, but I’d like to consider it in its youth. My post-modern virginity bubble was pricked about 5 years ago when I became fascinated with the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, starting at the book “Beyond Good and Evil”. When I started my debate career, I had no idea that post-modern philosophy was used so frequently, and when I found out, it certainly peaked my interest. I started my barrage of work on Nietzschean philosophy in relation to how it could be used in debate, and eventually expanded into other authors such as (but not at all limited to) Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Martin Heidegger, Jean Baudrillard, and, the most influential as of late, Georges Bataille. What I believe distinguishes me from most of the people who do this kind of work is the motive – while most seem to do it for the sole purpose of winning, I considered myself to be simply studying this work, and found myself living by and incorporating it into my daily thoughts shortly thereafter (don’t get me wrong though, winning is nice.) Thus, the Britain Kennedy some of you know today was born.
What will I be able to contribute to Lines of Fracture? It’s certainly a good question, I have a subtle inclination to respond “I don’t know.”, but I know that’s not entirely true. I suppose the best answer would be that I can only offer myself and my thoughts (what else is there for a human to offer?). A better question is probably “What will you be writing about?” To which the answer would be a plethora of different things, from criticisms of modern events to commentary on anything I find particularly interesting or worth sharing. I also plan on simply asking questions at times and opening the comment section to create discourse that can’t be found anywhere else. Which brings me to another point, you will notice that I pose a lot of questions in my writing, I do this because I legitimately believe the act of problematizing things is truly the best way to come about knowledge. I’m definitely not exactly identical to my colleagues here, but my political/philosophical backing is pretty similar. I avoid labels as much as I can, but I can probably be described as far-left.
As you may have already noticed, my posts will (for the most part) lack a certain fluidity to them. I’ll make it a goal to keep my posts as accurate a depiction of my mental process as I can, but there’s no promise I’ll be able to articulate it onto paper. I think this kind of project is extremely important, as it has been pointed out, philosophy is not an activity that should be held to “scholars”, as we are all scholars. It’s simply the love of knowledge, and what is there to love more?
I hope you all enjoy your stay on Lines of Fracture, you’ll be hearing more from me shortly.
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