Conversations with Zoot Allures.

I pray to Adrasteia that this post will not be taken the wrong way (no pun intended).

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Saul: Eating shrooms right now, been doin’ it every two weeks these last few months. Weed, I’m no longer sure about; it seems to make me too egotistical–when writing, at least. Did you see that I, too, made videos, and high ones at that? I should probably forward you my last mail to Lampert (to which he still hasn’t responded, by the way).

Saul: In my defense, I only correct you when I’m absolutely sure it’s a typo (otherwise I would be introducing caps to your writings–and no, no mushroom caps).

Zoot: as you’ve noticed i’m no longer preoccupied with using proper grammar and punctuation… especially capitalization. the caps lock is one less key i have to push when typing now. what a relief.

that’s right! mushrooms are legal there, huh? lucky you. what do you have, psilocybin or fly agaric? i ate some agaric one time and my fucking neck swelled up to the size of a football.

yeah i’ll watch your videos. i actually checked your youtube account and didn’t find anything new; the old one on being and becoming, the one on nietzsche’s BOT, and the recent one on ‘the design of overmen, etc.’

as far as the links to your posts/essays, you gotta remember, you are FAR better read than me, so many of these names/thinkers are unknown to me.

Saul: Fly agaric is very different from psilocybin mushrooms–the former is not even a real hallucinogen at all. The former was the original Rudra (Shiva), though, whereas that name was only transferred to the latter later. And no, shrooms are illegal here now, but truffles (which is just the part of the shroom that grows underground) are not…

It’s a different YouTube account.

The truffles are starting to kick in, which means it’s becoming harder to type.

Saul: You were the one who made me aware of the existence of Revleft, by the way.

Saul:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVCmSBuZFQ0[/youtube] [Oni Wytars, “Dinaresade”.]

Saul: I learned my “Shiva-dancing” from this guy:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FMGYycBAMU[/youtube] [The Doors, “The End” live at the Hollywood Bowl.]

Zoot: lol! i am [at] revleft reading your thread. it is painfully obvious that the commies there responding are perhaps in over their heads.

it was a re-reading of some of nietzsche’s stuff that shook me of my leftist sentiments. you must understand that i became the marxist that i was because i was experiencing the ‘struggle’, especially in terms of my work as the blue collar working class. my mistake was [to] surmise that i should want to solve my problem by revolutionizing the system (abolishing capitalism), while, in fact, the problem was my attitude toward the system rather than the system. nietzsche’s thoughts on the nature of the anarchist… the spirit of res[s]entiment from which the revolutionary proceeds, forced me to re-evaluate myself. i discovered that i was trying to blame the system for my suffering, while i should have changed, or adapted, to my circumstances, instead. my reorientation required a radical conversion of ideals… specifically a willingness to accept my struggle against my employer’s incompetence and the general disorganization of the free market.

in fact, when i abandoned my leftism, i replaced it with a more extreme rightist philosophy; the solution to my problem was not the abolition of capitalism, but a greater control of the economy by government. immediately you see the contradiction here, so keep in mind that the extreme center (fascism, corporatism) is neither right nor left, but a combination of both. not more freedom of the market, but less, would, i believe, solve the problem of its disorganization.

Saul: My trip has taken a turn away from that thread now, but ma-a-an, you should try to keep your ass out of jail! I think I will post this in a thread called “Conversations with Zoot Allures”.

Zoot: in theory that sounds easy, but in practice, rather difficult. my problem is, when i feel wronged by the ‘law’ and am suffering various restrictions as a result (this sex offender bullshit), i get it into my head that if i submit to the law, i’m a coward. this is a constant, internal argument i have with myself. better to revolt and risk getting caught than submit, remain free, but become a coward? in addition, i feel better when i am fighting back… i feel charged with a h[e]ightened sense of life. i have an enemy… i need an enemy to feel this way. if i don’t, i ‘turn the sword on myself’.

in any case, i don’t plan to violate any conditions of my probation. long term goals are: finish probation and move to a state in which sex offender requirements are more lenient than they are here. eventually i hope to leave the country. i have southeast asia, india, or central america in mind. these countries accept sex offender tourists in general. in india, i can stay for up to ten years on a regular visa- they have a special agreement with the US regarding travel.

Zoot: i think phoneutria is angry with me. she isn’t replying to my emails. i feel bad because what she did for me while i was locked up was extraordinary. she literally spent over a thousand dollars on me, saully. food packages, clothes, books… she even bought me a tambourine (sent in the mail to my mothers house).

this sucks man. i should wait another day or two before emailing her again.

Zoot: i’m watching your occident series.

what is fixed cross and pezer up to, anyway? and what happened to lyssuh, the womlet?

Zoot: sure, post any conversation betwe[e]n us… except anything i’ve said about [those musings and the like]. you are my only confidant, the only one i trust.

Saul: Any idea why she should be angry?

Saul: What would be much worse is if something bad happened to her…

Saul: We need to have a reunion with her as well. Did you have that with her at all?

Zoot: two years ago when i had just gone on the lam, she knew i was selling stolen merchandise. i think she thought the stuff was from stores rather than individual people, maybe, and that my recent post in which i explained what i was doing- breaking into cars- mighta pissed her off. i dunno. that, and she also advised that i not have anything to do with ILP (‘that shit hole’ as she called it).

Saul: She may be angry that you’re now corresponding with me instead of with her. After all, what did I ever really do for you? Send her this one scribbling of mine?

Zoot: we never really broke contact. as i said, she wrote me all the time during my incarceration, and bought me a breakfast pack every month without exception. now, suddenly, there’s radio silence between us. something i recently did, or didn’t do, pissed her off, i think.

Saul: The breaking-into-cars thing shouldn’t really surprise her, as someone posted a pic of you doing that on ILP… She may not have seen it, but even then I doubt that would surprise her. At least it didn’t surprise me.

Saul: Then again, I saw that picture, so yeah…

Saul: She may just be done with ILP, including you. We’ve failed her, man…

Zoot: i doubt it’s you. she thinks highly of you. this is what i last said to her, and haven’t heard from her since:

“so you haven’t said a word about all that’s been going on with you. how is brazil? how is your fam? are you in a house now? did you get a dog yet? come on man, talk to me. sheesh.”

when she last wrote to me while i was in jail, she had mentioned these things, but never said anything more about it.

Saul: Yeah, she’s from Brazil… Not a first-world country, that! I hope she’s not in trouble.

Zoot: a pic of me breaking into cars? where? scratches head

Zoot: well she only recently moved back there from chicago in july of 2017. i think she’s alright; really busy with [private matters, withheld]. she was having problems with [private matters, withheld].

Saul: I can’t recall; I’ll try and look it up later if you want. Maybe it was a link to a page that featured it, or maybe I did a Google search myself on the basis of what someone on ILP said had happened to you. In any case, it’s out there, on the interwebs man!

I PM’ed her of my own accord to ask her if she’s okay, and if she’s angry with you.

Saul: Shit, man…

Zoot: there are mugshots of me on the web… but surely not pics of me breaking into cars. i’m tellin’ you, saully, i was like a fucking ninja out there. only one person ever saw me, and only my shadow at that.

ninja smoke bomb

Saul: I know I’m on hallucinogens right now, but what if [speculations loosely based on withheld private info] or something?

Saul: It was a still pic from a surveillance cam.

Saul: Now that I mention it, it may have been from a carcam. Some of those are on all the time, man…

Saul: In any case, that girl [sic] really belongs to our group, and we have to make her know that–feel that.

Zoot: [withheld private info], so [speculation based on withheld private info] is an impossibility. [More withheld private info.]

a surveillance pic? hmm. i walked through that thread and found only links to news clips about me that turd had posted. that’s it. no still pics or links to still pics.

Saul: I’m pretty sure I saw a surveillance cam pic of you, not a mugshot.

Glad to hear that thing about [withheld private info]. Apparently, she comes from [a] good family, so then it’s not a third-world-country out there. But only then, man… I mean, Brazil has been on the rise, like India and China, but it’s by no means the West yet. Though I suppose the US is in many ways also a third-world-country.

Zoot: indeed. i made it clear how i felt about her. i had thought [withheld private matters] could lead to something between us, but she made it clear that would not happen. i fully understand; she’s a career oriented [private info, withheld] who probably doesn’t want to get mixed up romantically with someone like me. she’s a truly remarkable woman, though. wonderful personality, extremely intelligent, etc.

Saul: Yeah, she’s too good for you, man. A real looker, too, judging from what I saw. Not a trophy wife, but a true jewel.

Saul: That wasn’t meant to hurt you, by the way. You seem like a good guy, except perhaps the exhibitionist tendency. And she probably wouldn’t want a relationship with me, either.

Zoot: ha! i’m more beautiful tha[n] she is, but still i would mate with her. we’d make gorgeous babies. but yeah, she’s… well, not too ‘good’, but too different… or stable, would be a better way to put it. she’s of a higher class than me, a higher social strat[um].

Saul: Maybe she’s the perfect woman of whom Nietzsche said it was a higher type than the perfect man, but also a lot rarer. You and I must at least try to be perfect men, then–if only for her sake!

Zoot: no harm done. my exhibitionism resulted from a frustrated libido. i had (have) a problem with conventional dating, so this paraphilia became an outlet of expression. compl[e]mentary to my narcissism it worked to ‘get me off’, if you will. the thought of being seen by another turned me on.

gotta quit that shit though, man. gettin’ too old… and i got too many felonies now. need to find a female companion.

Saul: That may be true, but it’s my long experience that women don’t like to hear that. And sure, you’re a handsome enough fella. But we perfect (gentle)men, if we are to be that, must create a jewel together that is beyond each of us, and even all of us lumped together. We have to form a tribe, man. Fixed Cross has his own thing going on BTL; we must have such a thing of our own. Our private correspondence can be the seed of that.

Saul: Okay man, that’s good to hear. Pandora on ILP once expressed extreme horror and disgust at my saying I’ve sometimes entertained the fantasy of anal sex (with a woman, of course). I’ve never even done it, man. But yeah, I get what you['re] saying about a frustrated libido.

Zoot: i’ve said it before years ago; i’ve always wanted to establish my own group, like the vienna circle, of exceptional minds. i wanted to move beyond just internet contact… i wanted to create a commune of sorts. at one time erik was down, and i know jakob and pezer would be interested.

sounds though like you are at odds with jakob? i think that’s only a tech[ni]cal difficulty… perhaps due to some philosophical disagreements. that can be sorted out, though. consider the things you two have in common rather than what you don’t.

Saul: And no, without any strap-ons or any of that shit.

Zoot: nor have i. tried it once with [name withheld] back in 2008, but she resisted, saying it was too painful.

Saul: No, Fixed’s problem with me is that I don’t offer enough–or even anything, though I think that’s exaggerated–in return for [private matters, withheld]. I’m hoping what you and I are now starting will amend that.

Zoot: you’ll be crashing from the shrooms in the [n]ext hour. it’d be nice if you had a bowl of some good herb to smoke to take the edge off.

Saul: And we, being the perfect gentlemen that we are, don’t keep asking time and again, let alone force ourselves upon them, of course.

I’m not even sure I would want it, in real life.

Saul:I have weed, but I’m not sure I’ll use it. What I am sure about is that I’m gonna eat (only had half a granola bar, some chocolat [sic] and some peanuts today).

Zoot: thinkers at our ‘level’ would fare much better in direct conversation, since post writing of such density becomes difficult to follow and interpret. our thoughts and ideas would be better mediated in real-time discussion…

Saul: Chocolate*! Did you know the Injuns called it chocolatl, though (like peyotl and a bunch of other words)? Pure cacao is also said to enhance psychedelic trips.

Saul: I think you’re right. I’m glad you and I now have this back-and-forth going, though.

Zoot: yes, i’ve also heard dark chocolate is very good for you. it contains hard to get nutrients of some sort or another.

Saul: I know. In fact, I’ve got some 80% Brazilian chocolate right here! I usually eat the 70% variety, though (but never lower, though I could go as low as 65 or 60, I guess).

Zoot: know what else is unfortunate? the conflict between you and turd. i’ve often thought of you two in the same way nietzsche thought of hegel and schopenhauer; those two brother geniuses that constantly quarrel. shame you two can’t find a more conciliatory tone. i’m confident i could transform turd in person to person interaction, though. his aggression toward anything nietzschean is little more than hot air, i think.

Saul: Turd I really don’t trust. Though I must say it was unfair of me–I did it on purpose–to suggest that he let The Nietzsche Forum go to shit. But he’s too fucked up for me to directly engage with, I think. Good if you can get some value out of that, though.

Saul: Out of engaging with him, I mean. Have you started doing that again, these last few days?

Saul: I did post Turd’s response to my “State of the World Address” on my Facebook, by the way, under the Blake quote: “Listen to the fool’s reproach! It is a kingly title!”

Zoot: haven’t talked to turd in over two years.

i can imagine how my own relationship to him… which wasn’t bad… could distort my opinion regarding your relationship to him. i’d want to think you two could get along, but must accept that it just can’t happen. a situation where a friend would expect that a friend would get along with his other friend. this is not necessarily so, i’m afraid.

Saul: No. In fact, it reminds me of the problems in Pim Fortuyn’s political party shortly after his assassination: I remember seeing they’d brought in some Enneagram of Personality-guru to help them, and he explained how this guy was this number and therefore could be friends with that guy, but not with that other guy, and how that guy could serve as a bridge between the two. The initiative failed miserably, by the way, so maybe we shouldn’t use the Enneagram for that.

I’m still rather fuzzy about all this. Why is Zoot conveying this to you to convey to us instead of conveying it himself at ILP?

Me, I don’t care about the personal stuff or the personalities probed and discussed. My only interest is in how others respond [philosophically or otherwise] to the question “how ought one to live?”

Is there a way to know this [philosophically or otherwise] such that all reasonable/rational men and women are obligated to share a particular frame of mind and/or set of behaviors?

From my frame of mind, zoot or phoneutria or jacob or pezer or turd is either an objectivist here or s/he is not.

They can either yank me up out of the philosophical hole that I’ve dug for myself or they can’t.

I hope one day that zoot does decide to come back and participate. If nothing else that’s one less Kid here.

I’m high on what I think is Cannabis Indica now, thinking things through. I do think self-valuing is not only what we humans, with our contingent rational faculties, (almost) can’t help but value as true, but (also) what, at bottom, we most _want to hold true, because we most value the idea? or because it seems to enhance our lives most, not just logically but also empirically. And the two have at least become inextricably intertwined for us: certain things have evolved to be pleasurable to us, others displeasurable. Human reason is only adequate to its environment so long as it survives, no longer. This, I realise, is circular reasoning.

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No longer high as I post this. Before I say more, I want to finish Michael Zuckert’s essay, “Why Leo Strauss is Not an Aristotelian”. Quote:

“Strauss’s ‘Epilogue’ is an attempt to encourage his fellow political scientists to withdraw their obeisance or deference to the new science, which takes its bearings from the philosophic doctrines of logical positivism and empiricism. He attempts to wean them away from the new science by both laying out an explicit alternative to it‐‐the aforementioned Aristotelian political science‐‐and by mounting a critique of the presuppositions of the new science. Strauss had on many previous occasions criticized the distinction between facts and values, which is such a large part of the foundation of the new political science.”

We can’t help to. True that is true ontologically , through repetition. Without that (repetition) the idea of eternal return would be impossible ,impossible and contrary, repetition is only feasible because of the idea of eternal return.

That is exactly why that is an ontological value, apparently closed but really wise open.

This openness brings in all kinds of ideas, even if in an a]apparently closed system.

I did not correspond with Zoot, so this is only a kind of takeoff on a stream. I do share share.

‘Repetition and Eternal Recurrence’ , L. Bergstrom

‘indeterminacy in Quine’, ‘Does ontologocal relativity work?’
The point of this paper discusses Quines’ empiricsemantic solution , and presents new sets of problems.

I added this change after the presentation of this concept , since the presentation later on is far more exhaustive a compilation.There does it is a sort of a hybrid before-afterword hypothetical presentation.

Another quote (still reading):

“Strauss emphatically rejects the modern scholarly view that the pre‐Socratic sophists originated political science. They proceeded on the basis of the distinction between nature and convention and relegated the human things proper, the just and the noble things, to the realm of convention. Accordingly they thought the only significant politically relevant knowledge was knowledge of rhetoric, for convention, being merely a persuasion, is subject to the art of persuasion. Strauss insists that even that pre‐Socratic, Hippodamus, whom Aristotle seems to identify as the first political scientist, failed to find that science, because he merely attempted to impose some broader theory of nature onto the human world. In other words, ‘he did not pay attention to the peculiar character of political things: he did not see that the political things are in a class by themselves’.
The man who apparently first saw the uniqueness of the political was Socrates, ironically because he applied to the political a general theory about nature as a whole: he asked ‘what is the political’, just as he asked of everything the ‘what is’ question. Socrates’ discovery of ‘noetic heterogeneity’ in the whole made possible his turn to the human things as human things.” (Zuckert, op.cit., quoting from Strauss’ The City and Man.)

I think this is pertinent to Zoot’s discussion with UrGod in the “The Philosophers” thread.

“Socrates and Plato endorsed the Socratic thesis that ‘human wisdom is knowledge of ignorance’. Knowledge of ignorance is not the same as pure ignorance; it is the recognition that ‘there is no knowledge of the whole but only knowledge of parts, hence only partial knowledge of parts, hence no unqualified transcending’ of this sphere of opinion. ‘Partial knowledge of the parts’ means not only that knowledge of the whole escapes us, but that the knowledge of the parts is also somehow ‘elusive’. Each part is ‘open to the whole’ in the sense that knowledge of it is subject to the uncertainty imposed by the elusiveness of the whole.” (id.)

Perhaps we may say I’ve been tending to some kind of “Custom Ontology”. I also coined the word “deuterophysics” earlier today (yesterday for me): hê deuterê physis literally means “second nature”, which is another word for “habit, custom [compare “costume”!]”. Yet shouldn’t it rather be “Custom Epistemology”? Christoph Cox writes:

"[I]s will to power an epistemological or an ontological doctrine? The answer is that it is both, or neither: both, because it offers an account of knowing and being; neither, because it collapses the rigorous distinction between subject and object, knower and known, upon which epistemology and ontology are traditionally founded.
To make sense of this we need to return to the gastronomic metaphor presented above. For Nietzsche, ‘knowing’ is ‘interpreting’ (that is, ‘taking possession of things’, ‘equalization and ordering’, ‘simplification’, ‘adjustment’, ‘schematizing’, ‘forming, shaping, and reshaping’ ‘for the purpose of intelligibility and calculation’). [Cf. WP 503, 500, 515, and 656.] And this cognitive apprehension or interpretation is simply a kind of in-gestion or in-corporation, which forms ‘the basic will’ not only of the body but also of the ‘spirit’–for ‘“the spirit” is relatively most similar to a stomach’ (BGE 229-30). [Cf. WP 501 and 510.] On this model, then, the ‘knowing subject’ is no more detached from the ‘objects’ it apprehends than the body is detached from the solids, liquids, and gases it ingests. That which ingests (the knower, the interpreter, the consumer) is not different in kind from that which is ingested (other natural material), for the latter is also a consumer and interpreter (in the extended sense) in its own right. Thus, the designations subject and object, knower and known, interpreter and interpreted, eater and eaten are relative and perspectival, since, from one point of view all matter is the former, while from another it is the latter. ‘[A]ll existence’ is ‘essentially an interpreting existence’ (GS 374), Nietzsche writes; and all knowing is a form of ‘interpreting’. That is, what things are is determined by interpretation (both by cognitive and noncognitive forms of appropriation and assimilation); and what things do is interpret (including that rarefied form we call ‘knowing’ or ‘cognition’).
In short, for Nietzsche, the natural world is fundamentally interpretive. There is no world other than the natural and nothing outside the interpretive web that constitutes this natural world. If ‘epistemology’ names the attempt to conceive of the knowing subject as prior to interpretation, the attempt to found a prior science, to view the world ‘from the outside’, then will to power (which resolutely views the world ‘from inside’) is anti-epistemological. In Richard Rorty’s formulation, it is ‘hermeneutical’, because it substitutes for the epistemological dualism of subject and object the web of ‘interpretation’, which encompasses and articulates both subjects and objects. There is only this web of interpretation; which is to say, there is only will to power: ‘This world is the will to power–and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power–and nothing besides!’ (WP 1067).

5.3.3 WILL TO POWER AS AN INTERPRETATION

This assertion of the primacy and irreducibility of interpretation can only mean that ‘will to power’ is itself an interpretation. And Nietzsche affirms it as such: ‘Supposing that this [‘will to power’] also is only interpretation–’ he writes, ‘and you will be eager enough to make this objection?–well, so much the better’ (BGE 22). Nietzsche is not a dogmatist metaphysician for whom will to power could be a transcendent Truth; nor is he a positivist for whom will to power could be founded on indubitable ‘facts’. Indeed, in the closing sections of the Genealogy, he argues that dogmatic metaphysics and positivism are secret allies, because both are motivated by the same ‘unconditional will to truth’ that demands ‘the renunciation of all interpretation’ (GM III:24). For Nietzsche, however, such renunciation is impossible and the very attempt at it antinatural.
How, then, can Nietzsche avoid vicious circularity and legitimate his claim that will to power is the best available world-interpretation? This problem of circularity confronts every philosophy that abjures foundationalism. But the circle will appear vicious only to the foundationalist who assumes that there must be some way of exiting it. For the holist, there is no such exit. But this does not mean that the holist lacks a platform for critique, for the proposal of positive views, and for the determination of value. What it does mean is that critique can only take place from within, that it must draw its resources from that which it criticizes. [The footnote at this point calls on Quine’s analogy, drawn from Neurath, that we are at sail in “a boat which […] we can rebuild only at sea while staying afloat in it” (“Natural Kinds”, in Ontological Relativity, 127), and on Derrida’s analogy, drawn from Lévi-Strauss, that we are “bricoleurs” who can only “build [… new] castles with debris” (Of Grammatology, 139).] […]" (Cox, Nietzsche: Naturalism and Interpretation, final sections.)

At this point the final section turns out to go on for longer than I thought, and it also becomes really questionable (in the “good” sense), so I’ll stop here, for now. I have to eat, anyway.

Just out of curiosity…

To the best of my knowledge, the last time that Zoot Allures visited his own forum was “Mon Apr 02, 2018 1:13 am”.

In fact, only Satyr seems to pop up there nowadays.

He’s not back in the slammer is he?