Not to mention, that is why we have all levels of discussion here. All visions of ILP are not the same. Not to mention:
Perfect straightness looks bent.
Extreme skill looks clumsy.
A brilliant speech sounds like stammering.
Lao Tzu
Isn’t philosophy applied in our everyday mundane reality? I mean it’s the attitude one applies when washing the dishes with surely? Otherwise what would be the point? Also Confucius stressed relationships as being pivotal in attaining wisdom. Mundane babble is relating is it not?
A
P.S. Two days in London Gamer…that’s the blink of an eye…if I’m around I’ll buy you a coffee. I can’t imagine you’ll have time for much else.
Angel - funny you you should use that example. Bertrand Russell has a famous (well, it’s famous with me) bit on how clean a dish has to be before we can call it clean. You know, it’s never really sterile, just from ordinary washing, but we call it clean. And I might just have a different view of “clean plate” than would, oh, every woman I have ever lived with, to give an example that pops into my head. I might call “clean” a dish I am going to use myself that I would not call a dish that company uses. What Russell actually says does not necessarily support my view of the cleanliness of plates, but it at least gives me a talking point or two.
And a lot of rationalisations.
“Hey Kiddo, why so glum…?”
“Aww - I screwed up a penalty Dad - we lost the game. [size=75][sniff][/size]”
“Hahahaha - You fucking LOSER!!!”
But of course, we are all nice people, so we don’t say that. Instead we say:
“Hey Kiddo, why so glum…?”
“Aww - I screwed up a penalty Dad - we lost the game. [size=75][sniff][/size]”
“Well - The real importance of the game isn’t becoming a star, son, but inspiring ourselves in the real world to become more.”
Your words are ones of consolation are they not Bessy…? To one who has displayed some lack of ability. Nice. Comforting. But to whom…?
Gamer,
While I suspect we are barking up the same tree, I’d say it does matter how they got there. Because Pierre knows the value of this secret aquired, and platon, automaton, knows nothing of the sort. Who cares you say - but who would be more likely to throw this secret away for some bauble…?
It is the difference between Aladdin and his Mother - which gave away the lamp…?
Aren’t we banging our heads here? We are not in a contest, nor are we being graded on content or ability. We seek for our own purpose. How would you porport to strain out the weak link? A black-balling? A private ballot run by the elite? No, no… why not just use ammo. I actually know this pawn broker out in Idaho.
I never told my kids that they were fucking losers, but I also never suggested that they quit.
The first thing to be attempted is to define what language is.
Evolutionary Psychologists suggest that language is an evolutionary sophistication of the grooming process.
In apes, grooming is used to establish, and maintain relationships. It is also used to defuse conflict and reinforce previous relationships.
Language enabled simultaneous, long distance grooming and so the maintenance and establishment of multiple, broader relationships, creating the possibility for larger groups.
It also resulted in a type of alienation since grooming no longer had to be intimate and direct and could now span time and space, where the speaker or the writer can ‘groom’ individuals he/she does not know and may never meet.
The second thing to be attempted is to evaluate how our current technological world affects how communication, of all kinds, is affected.
The speed of communication and the information involved has resulted in a loss of focus.
We jump from one idea or topic to another, never delving deeper than is necessary to achieve our goals – usually social goals – and we quickly lose interest in anything prolonged.
The speed of progress and modern living places demands on our consciousness which can no longer linger over a thought too much but must quickly simplify it deal with it and move on.
In time consciousness loses the ability to focus for too long on a topic.
It skims through ideas, never going into them in any intricate way.
The mind then feeds on larger and larger simplifications, usually produced en mass and marketed through institutions reflecting a memetic ideal.
Ideas become like fast food: nourishing/filling in the short term, easy and fast but lacking in nutritional value and destructive in the long-run.
The third thing to consider is the fact that civility (civilization) is built on a level of hypocrisy many would like to deny exists.
This duplicity is not necessarily always towards the other but is mostly towards the self that must be convinced that it is what it pretends to be.
The need to integrate more and more individual beings within a harmonious group forces a conformity towards stricter rules of relating; rules of engagement we call civility or good manners or courtesy or tolerance.
Then talking is censored and guided down particular, socially acceptable, routes where the multiplicity of the audience forces the speaker to select his/her words so as to not offend or alienate any of them.
The speaker self-censors, in accordance with politically-correct discourse, or he/she faces the consequences of his insolence or honesty.
This diminishes discourse, as trying to not offend larger and larger populations leads to skimming over topics, by offering the acceptable dogma’s line, never questioning or deconstructing the validity of what is being said and remaining on a purely superficial level.
This facilitates the grooming process without provoking a discussion that might endanger it.
The official cultural dogma is regurgitated, strengthening the belief in it with every repetition.
Satori -
I wish, just once, someone making a claim like this (“It’s worse now than it was”) would show when it was better, and how this is so. Please demonstrate that, at some period in time, people in general were smarter, more thoughful, less superficial than they are “now”. This is becoming a pet peeve of mine.
Please show some evidence to support this claim.
All you have to do is study fictional works of art and how language is used or their length.
Art, in general, exposes a superficiality as compared to the past, as it mirrors the present.
Where is today’s Shakespeare or Mozart or Michelangelo?
Where is today’s Aeschylus or Freud or Spinoza or Hegel?
Lost in a cacophony of superficial, average noise.
And most of all where are those that could appreciate them?
I didn’t say “smarter†– whatever than means to you.
Perhaps the average hasn’t changed much.
Where the difference occurs is in the higher or lower ends which are converging upon an average norm.
I just watched a BBC segment where the author who wrote ‘Fight Club’ (Chuck Palahniuk) goes into detail concerning his philosophy and ideas and world-view and I’m thinking where in American television can you get this type of in-depth exposition and discussion?
Perhaps PBS only.
All I see is pundits flinging sentences about in half-hour ‘news segments’.
That’s where ideas like ‘evil empire’ become relevant even though nobody can define what ‘evil’ is.
But what are you comparing, Satyr? The last ten years with the Elisabethan era? The past century with that time? America with Britain?
Today’s Shakespeare? When is today? Someone living at present? Is it Eugene O’Neill? Tony Kushner? Is the length of a play the worth of it? Are today’s best playwrites making movies instead? Is therefore the director simply more important than the writer? So?
Mozart was a supremely talented man, and a whore. I have heard stuff of his that is nothing but Mozarty fluff, composed to make a buck. To amuse the aristocracy. He wrote minuets - very good ones, but these are not “long” or deep. Today’s Mozart might be someone who does not use tediously repetitive forms because that is what is expected. But I still don’t know what “today” is.
John Rawls may be today’s Kant. I’d be grateful to learn that there is no today’s Hegel.
Yes, PBS. NPR. Amy Goodman. The New Yorker. The Atlantic Monthly. The Economist - it is available here, and there is no reason to duplicate it with an American version.
The veritable explosion in the 20th century, first in publishing, then in broadcast media, then in narrowcast media, has found markets that were not, before now, catered to much at all. So there is necessarily more junk - more people can afford a book and everyone has a radio.
The arts and media used to be, before this (actually, before about 1850 in print) only for the wealthy and educated. I cannot see how things are “worse”, but only that more people can access the kind of information that they want and can understand.
If you get my point.
Being an aged hippie, I’ll throw in a McCluhanism: “The medium is the message” Or is it “The medium is the massage”? Can’t remember. Anyway, same difference. I can’t see the better/worse scenario. I definitely see that things are different, but whether better or worse would depend on definition. Did things become worse when we moved from oral tradition to writing? From writing to radio? From radio to … you get the picture. One way of doing things is just another way of not doing something else. Each new medium brings new ways of communicating that supplants the old ways. Better or worse? Gains and losses? Define those terms.
Where is the next Shakespeare? He’s living in a cold water flat in New York City scribbling nonsensical shit that won’t be understood for another hundred years…
And then there is the question, “Do we need another Shakespeare?” We had one. Tony Kushner, to cite a previous example, does things with a script that Shakespeare just didn’t. So did Arthur Miller. But so did F. F. Coppolla. Sidney Lumet. Scorcese.
And we tend to forget the bad artists of the past, however in vogue they may have been at one time. But you can find them if you look hard enough.
I forgot one thing. New technological advances can make large differences. One of those differences is they make me want to tell people to stuff their cell phones up their, well, you know.
The Sad Cafe by The Eagles
Out in the shiny night, the rain
Was softly falling
The tracks that ran down the boulevard had
All been washed away
Out of the silver light, the past came softly calling
And I remember the times we spent
Inside the sad cafe
Oh, it seemed like a holy place,
Protected by amazing grace
And we would sing right out loud, the
Things we could not say
We thought we could change this world
With words like “love” and “freedom”
We were part of the lonely crowd
Inside the sad cafe
Oh, expecting to fly,
We would meet on that beautiful shore in the
Sweet by and by
Some of their dreams came true,
Some just passed away
And some of the stayed behind
Inside the sad cafe.
The clouds rolled in and hid that shore
Now that glory train, it don’t stop here no more
Now I look at the years gone by,
And wonder at the powers that be.
I don’t know why fortune smiles on some
And let’s the rest go free
Maybe the time has drawn the faces I recall
But things in this life change very slowly,
If they ever change at all
There’s no use in asking why,
It just turned out that way
So meet me at midnight baby
Inside the sad cafe.
Why don’t you meet me at midnight baby,
Inside the sad cafe.
What can I say? I AM from the suburbs.
Hey Gamer,
After many a nights spent in cerebral suffocation, juggling philosophy, alchemy and religion, Faust finally got fed up and utterly disillusioned by the futility of it all and decided to off himself. Right upon doing it, the chime of church bells fondled his heart and averted his hand, thus averting his demise. He then joined the simple folk on the street and had the best time of his life.
Bouvard and Pécuchet’s story is much simpler. They were two copyists bound together by mutual friendship: an unexpected inheritance allows them to leave their jobs for a pleasant retreat in the country-side. There they delve into the study of gardening, agronomy, literature, mnemo-technics, gymnastics, religion and philosophy – each of these cultural endeavours resulting in the same failed attempts. Like aborted foetuses. Eventually they order a wooden double desk and start copying again.
Don’t be fooled, though. Faust never did find the inner balance he sought, while Bouvard and Pécuchet were idiots. Flaubert seems to like them, maybe because they are fuelled with his own substance.
There is a certain joyful appeal in trying to imbue the whatnots of fleeting reality with the winged structures of your mind (Sir Lancelot is impressive even when wielding a kiddy sword), but mundanity taken for itself remains blissfully rooted to its own devices. Kids wielding kiddy swords are knights of their own hierarchy.
I am not implying that some are knights by default, while others are eternal toddlers (very often, one appears under the guise of the latter) – but the difference rests in the effort invested. The significance of Faust can be found in his escalation, in his upward struggle. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems that mundanity for its own sake is the resting place of a languid mind. In terms of dpi, it’s lame. Mundane is a nasty word. It suggests laxity. Where there is no effort, no sacrifice has been made. When no sacrifice has been made, nothing worthwhile has been begotten. .
Data
Portent
There are a million ways to waste time until death, and that’s not always a bad thing for some.
Satyr seems to be cherry picking examples to prove a point not related to my question, and then it veered into Shakespeare – I side with Faust apropos of nothing.
Mucius, the most apropos response yet, and warrants engagement. Namely, is Lancelot even MORE impressive when wielding a kiddy sword against enemies with “real ones?” I will disappear after September for an undetermined time. This line of discussion is the reason for my return.
As for Himself…tempting but I shall restrain myself a little bit longer and savour the silence.