Thread for mundane ironists

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382

Richard Wright from Native Son

He looked round the street and saw a sign on a building: THIS PROPERTY IS MANAGED BY THE SOUTH SIDE REAL ESTATE COMPANY. He had heard that Mr. Dalton owned the South Side Real Estate Company, and the South Side Real Estate Company owned the house in which he lived. He paid eight dollars a week for one rat-infested room.

Next up: the rats room free.

He was not concerned with whether these acts were right or wrong; they simply appealed to him as possible avenues of escape. He felt that some day there would be a black man who would whip the black people into a tight band and together they would act and end fear.

Nope. Unless you count Barry.

These conditions reflected the failures of modern civilization—the death of genuine spiritual values and traditions, the harsh ness of economic greed and exploitation, the avarice for glittering material goods that, in a culture of consumerism, ultimately possessed the possessor.

If only until the workers of the world unite.
Behind Trump?

Toward no one in the world did he feel any fear now, for he knew that fear was useless; and toward no one in the world did he feel any hate now, for he knew that hate would not help him.

Go ahead, try that yourself.

There are times, Your Honor, when reality bears features of such an impellingly moral complexion that it is impossible to follow the hewn path of expediency. There are times when life’s ends are so raveled that reason and sense cry out that we stop and gather them together again before we can proceed.

On the other hand, run that by Bigger.

He wanted suddenly to stand up and shout, telling them that he had killed a rich white girl, a girl whose family was known to all of them. Yes; if he did that a look of startled horror would come over their faces. But, no. He would not do that, even though the satisfaction would be keen. He was so greatly outnumbered that he would be arrested, tried, and executed. He wanted the keen thrill of startling them, but felt that the cost was too great. He wished that he had the power to say what he had done without fear of being arrested; he wished that he could be an idea in their minds; that his black face and the image of smothering Mary and cutting off her head and burning her could hover before their eyes as a terrible picture of reality which they could see and feel and yet not destroy. He was not satisfied with the way things stood now; he was a man who had come in sight of a goal, then had won it, and in winning it had seen just within his grasp another goal, higher, greater. He had learned to shout and had shouted and no ear had heard him.

Personas some call them.

383

Ford Madox Ford from The Good Soldier

Isn’t there any Heaven where old beautiful dances, old beautiful intimacies prolong themselves?

On Pay Per View, say?

It is a queer world and fantastic world. Why can’t people have what they want?

Again, however, it’s not getting what they need that seems all the more problematic.

Edward ought, I suppose, to have gone to the Transvaal. It would have done him a great deal of good to get killed.

That can change everything, of course.

In one’s own home it is as if little, innate sympathies draw one to particular chairs that seem to enfold one in an embrace, or take one along particular streets that seem friendly when others may be hostile. And, believe me, that feeling is a very important part of life.

Let’s imagine we’re at home here then.

You have no idea how engrossing such a profession may become. Just as the blacksmith says: ‘By hammer and hand all Art doth stand,’ just as the baker thinks that all the solar system revolves around his morning delivery of rolls, as the postmaster-general believes that he alone is the preserver of society - and surely, surely, these delusions are necessary to keep us going.

No delusions here however.
Unless I missed them.

It is queer the fantastic things that quite good people will do in order to keep up their appearance of calm pococurantism.

How far would you be willing to go?

384

Aldous Huxley from Brave New World

Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly – they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.

You know the ones.

But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.

Of course, eventually, most settle for…or cling to…comfort.

If one’s different, one’s bound to be lonely.

Me? Alone, for sure. But never lonely.

One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.

Unless, of course, you were conditioned to believe that.

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.

Like, say, the Philosophy Now Forum?

“All right then," said the savage defiantly, I’m claiming the right to be unhappy."
“Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat, the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.”
There was a long silence.
“I claim them all,” said the Savage at last.

Him too: https://youtu.be/qdxV2btupHo?si=q2JsH97rJnXVh7Hl

385

Meaning

“To reread a book is to read a different book. The reader is different. The meaning is different.” Johnny Rich

More or less?

“The world just goes along. Nothing much matters, you know? I mean really matters. but then sometimes, just for a second, you get this grace, this belief that it does matter, a whole lot.” Lucia Berlin

Grace? Let’s define it.

“Life was a revolving mystery, sometimes terrifying, sometimes maddening. But always provocative. Interesting. And although its meaning seemed beyond my grasp, it never seemed meaningless.” Christina Meldrum

Except that, essentially, it still might be.

“For Marx, the only thing that motivates humans is money. For Freud, it’s libido. And for Schopenhauer, it is the blind metaphysical will. All are horribly wrong. More than anything, man seeks meaning in his life. And in that meaning, he seeks superiority over others.” Abhaidev

Let’s change that. You know, if that’s even possible.

“I suppose therefore that all things I see are illusions; I believe that nothing has ever existed of everything my lying memory tells me. I think I have no senses. I believe that body, shape, extension, motion, location are functions. What is there then that can be taken as true? Perhaps only this one thing, that nothing at all is certain.” Rene Descartes

He thought this, therefore it’s true?

“If you thought that science was certain - well, that is just an error on your part.” Richard P. Feynman

Next up: you thought philosophy was certain.

386

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Children do not learn that books exist, that armchairs exist, etc.,etc. - they learn to fetch books, sit in armchairs, etc.,etc. Later, questions about the existence of things do of course arise, “Is there such a thing as a unicorn?” and so on. But such a question is possible only because as a rule no corresponding question presents itself. For how does one know how to set about satisfying oneself of the existence of unicorns? How did one learn the method for determining whether something exists or not?

In other words, many believe what comforts and consoles them psychologically…unicorns all the way up to God.

The philosophical I is not the man, not the human body or the human soul of which psychology treats, but the metaphysical subject, the limit - not a part of the world.

Of course, that’s just plain commonsense these days, right?

At the basis of the whole modern view of the world lies the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena. So people stop short at natural laws as at something unassailable, as did the ancients at God and Fate.

I know that I do, he snorted.

But the ancients were clearer, in so far as they recognized one clear conclusion, whereas in the modern system it should appear as though everything were explained.

One clear conclusion about what though?

Humor is not a mood but a way of looking at the world. It is correct to say that humor was stamped out in Nazi Germany, but that does not mean that people were not in good spirits, or anything of that sort, but something much deeper and more important.

Let’s explore that distinction here.

Philosophers often behave like little children who scribble some marks on a piece of paper at random and then ask the grown-up “What’s that?” It happened like this: the grown-up had drawn pictures for the child several times and said: this is a man, this is a house, etc. And then the child makes some marks too and asks: what’s this then?

The birth of fArt?

387

Science

“It is easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of all the intoxicating existence we’ve been endowed with. But what’s life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as ours—arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don’t. Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, endure any insult, for a moment’s additional existence. Life, in short, just wants to be. Bill Bryson

Do they know that? But that’s the point right?

“Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.” Carl Sagan

And that certainly includes philosophy forums.

“Questions you cannot answer are usually far better for you than answers you cannot question.” Yuval Noah Harari

Define usually?

“It is a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you.” Bill Bryson

Slightly?

“The role played by time at the beginning of the universe is, I believe, the final key to removing the need for a Grand Designer, and revealing how the universe created itself. … Time itself must come to a stop. You can’t get to a time before the big bang, because there was no time before the big bang. We have finally found something that does not have a cause because there was no time for a cause to exist in. For me this means there is no possibility of a creator because there is no time for a creator to have existed. Since time itself began at the moment of the Big Bang, it was an event that could not have been caused or created by anyone or anything. … So when people ask me if a god created the universe, I tell them the question itself makes no sense. Time didn’t exist before the Big Bang, so there is no time for God to make the universe in. It’s like asking for directions to the edge of the Earth. The Earth is a sphere. It does not have an edge, so looking for it is a futile exercise.” Stephen W. Hawking

On the other hand: click?

“If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live.” Maurice Maeterlinck

Though I suspect that also includes women and children.

388

God

“The paradox in Christian truth is invariably due to the fact that it is the truth that exists for God. The standard of measure and the end is superhuman; and there is only one relationship possible: faith." Søren Kierkegaard

And, over and again – historically – the folly of it.

“To question the world around us and all its complexities is not blasphamy, but simply using the mind God gave us for its intended purpous. God is an artist. Artist do not create to have someone just glance and say “That is pretty.” Artist want viewers to look closer, deeper–to really see what they have created–not just glance.” Cristina Marrero

No, really, what if this does describe God? Even I might get in if that’s the case.

“I will confess to you that, you know, one of the statements that’s been attributed to me that I’m sort of proud of is somebody said, you know, “What do we do about Osama bin Laden?” And they asked me, “Can we forgive him?” And I said, “Forgiveness is up to God. I just hope we hurry up the meeting.” And that’s the way I feel about him, really." Norman Schwarzkopf

Cue this guy: https://youtu.be/xronNwS16xc?si=eQZ0ElEas9zQkMcg
Next up: https://youtu.be/UpvAfLSkPaU?si=O0OEJzBgMx5FvAM-

“Each mind conceives God in its own way. There may be as many variation of the God figure as there are people in the world”. Bangambiki Habyarimana

Next up: uh, all the other planets?

“Now life is given in exchange for pain and fear, and that’s the basis of the whole deception. Now man is still not what he should be. There will e a new man, happy and proud. Whoever doesn’t care whether he lives or doesn’t live, he himself will be God. And that other God will no longer be.’
‘So, that other God does exist, in your opinion?’
‘He doesn’t exist, but he does exist. In the stone there’ no pain, but in the fear of the stone there is pain. God is the pain of the fear of death. Whoever conquers pain and fear will himself become God.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky

How are people actually able to convince themselves of fantastic things like this? And, more to the point, why can’t I?

“It used to be thought that Hell was a lack of God, but Hell is a lack of death.” Tom Sweterlitsch

Like that will change anything.

389

Get in?

roflmao

It’s only the ones who know how out they are who can.

The oblivious are willfully so, and their will is done.

But when the light comes on, it’s fire.

:wink:

390

god damn it why won’t any one/body believe me within an affordable context?

391

Iris Murdoch

What a queer gamble our existence is. We decide to do A instead of B and then the two roads diverge utterly and may lead in the end to heaven and to hell. Only later one sees how much and how awfully the fates differ. Yet what were the reasons for the choice? They may have been forgotten. Did one know what one was choosing? Certainly not.

In other words, the Benjamin Button Syndrome.

The theatre is an attack on mankind carried on by magic: to victimize an audience every night, to make them laugh and cry and suffer and miss their trains. Of course actors regard audiences as enemies, to be deceived, drugged, incarcerated, stupefied. This is partly because the audience is also a court against which there is no appeal.

Cue the bots?

Time, like the sea, unties all knots.

Or creates them.

Love doesn’t think like that. All right, it’s blind as a bat–’
'Bats have radar. Yours doesn’t seem to be working.

Let’s run this by Maia and her own radar.

“I think I fell in love with you when you were shouting at Romeo and Juliet, ‘Don’t touch each other!’"

You tell me.

Jealousy is perhaps the most involuntary of all strong emotions. It steals consciousness, it lies deeper than thought. It is always there, like a blackness in the eye, it discolours the world.

And all it cost me was Supannika.

392

The bots are very similar to bats, both can’t see.

1 Like
393

Death

“No, I regret nothing, all I regret is having been born, dying is such a long tiresome business I always found.” Samuel Beckett

Same for us. Only we’re basically nobodies and he was anything but.

“For to fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise without really being wise, for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For no one knows whether death may not be the greatest good that can happen to man.” Plato

Death…formally? On the other hand, there’s still this: did Plato [and all the rest of them back then] accept Jesus Christ as their own personal savior?
Right, IC?

“Leonard asks me if there’s anything I need to know before he dies, I think about it for a minute, turn to him, say what’s the meaning of life, Leonard? He laughs, says that’s an easy one, my son, it’s whatever you want it to be.” James Frey

Maybe, but I doubt that God is fooled.

“We cannot, after all, judge a biography by its length, by the number of pages in it; we must judge by the richness of the contents…Sometimes the ‘unfinisheds’ are among the most beautiful symphonies.” Viktor E. Frankl

Next up: you bring this up in the death camp.

“If this continues, if this goes on, then when I die, your memories of me will be my greatest accomplishment. Your memories will be my most lasting impressions.” David Levithan

Sure, if you actually believe this, work a bit harder on getting me to.

“I am still in the land of the dying; I shall be in the land of the living soon.” John Newton

His last words, it’s said.
Or were they?

394

*gosh

395

Oh how sharp you are, in your analogous insight of bats and bots, and their shared characteristic.

396

I should have prefixed it with, ; “both can’t see, YET

397

.
You could always amend, but to what avail…

398

Philosophy

“People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind. ” William Butler Yeats

Unless, of course, up in the clouds, that’s the only part that works.

“There’s only one day at a time here, then it’s tonight and then tomorrow will be today again.” Bob Dylan

Of course, the guy is a fucking genius.

“…songs, to me, were more important than just light entertainment. They were my preceptor and guide into some altered consciousness of reality. Some different republic, some liberated republic… whatever the case, it wasn’t that I was anti-popular culture or anything and I had no ambition to stir things up. I just thought of mainstream culture as lame as hell and a big trick. It was like the unbroken sea of frost that lay outside the window and you had to have awkward footgear to walk with.” Bob Dylan

Well, that surely explains something, right?

“Who is to decide which is the grimmer sight: withered hearts, or empty skulls?” Honoré de Balzac

Next up: withered skulls.

“I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me.” Charles Dickens

Next up: oblivion.

“He who cannot obey himself will be commanded." Friedrich Nietzsche

Imagine my plight then!

399

John Fowles from The Magus

The human race is unimportant. It is the self that must not be betrayed.
I suppose one could say that Hitler didn’t betray his self.
You are right. He did not. But millions of Germans did betray their selves. That was the tragedy. Not that one man had the courage to be evil. But that millions had not the courage to be good.

I’m way, way, way beyond this, however.

The most important questions in life can never be answered by anyone except oneself.

I’m way, way, way beyond this, however.

You wish to be liked. I wish simply to be. One day you will know what that means, perhaps. And you will smile. Not against me. But with me.

Next up: oblivion?

I acquired expensive habits and affected manners. I got a third-class degree and a first-class illusion: that I was a poet. But nothing could have been less poetic that my seeing-through-all boredom with life in general and with making a living in particular. I was too green to know that all cynicism masks a failure to cope…

Among other things, that’s bullshit.
Unless, of course, he’s right.

Liking other people is an illusion we have to cherish in ourselves if we are to live in society.

So, how am I doing here?

Men love war because it allows them to look serious. Because they imagine it is the one thing that stops women laughing at them. In it they can reduce women to the status of objects. That is the great distinction between the sexes. Men see objects, women see relationship between objects. Whether the objects love each other, need each other, match each other. It is an extra dimension of feeling we men are without and one that makes war abhorrent to all real women - and absurd. I will tell you what war is. War is a psychosis caused by an inability to see relationships. Our relationship with our fellow-men. Our relationship with our economic and historical situation. And above all our relationship to nothingness. To death.

Pick three:
1] the philosophy of war
2] the psychology of war
3] capitalism and the military industrial complex

400

Richard Wright from Native Son

…the civilization which had given birth to Bigger contained no spiritual sustenance, had created no culture which could hold and claim his allegiance and faith, had sensitized him and had left him stranded.”

That would be our civilization as well, right?

…in a boy like Bigger, young, unschooled, whose subjective life was clothed in the tattered rags of American “culture,” this primitive fear and ecstasy were naked, exposed, unprotected by religion or a framework of government or a scheme of society whose final faiths would gain his love and trust; unprotected by trade or profession, faith or belief; opened to every trivial blast of daily or hourly circumstance.

Cue the Communists?

Whether he’ll follow some gaudy, hysterical leader who’ll promise rashly to fill the void in him, or whether he’ll come to an understanding with the millions of his kindred fellow workers under trade-union or revolutionary guidance depends upon the future drift of events in America.

You tell me. In other words, before I tell you.

…the city in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries in America could be an alluring place; but it also often was, for persons without brains or money or simply good luck, a crucible in which the superficial elements of personality and civilization were quickly burned away, to reveal the animal underneath.

We’ll need an update, or course.
Care to hear mine?

As he stumbled along a high bright object caught his eyes; he looked up. Atop a building across the street, above the heads of the people, loomed a flaming cross. At once he knew that it had something to do with him. But why should they burn a cross? As he gazed at it he remembered the sweating face of the black preacher in his cell that morning talking intensely and solemnly of Jesus, of there being a cross for him, a cross for everyone, and of how the lowly Jesus had carried the cross, paving the way, showing how to die, how to love and live eternal. But he had never seen a cross burning like that one upon the roof. Were white people wanting him to love Jesus, too?

God and race and burning crosses.

How soon will someone speak the word the resentful millions will understand: the word to be, to act, to live?

Other than Donald Trump, say.

401

Look in the mirror and say it. Then look at all the other mirrors that you come across and say it to them, too.

Here, perhaps?