Thread for mundane ironists

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562

Marshall McLuhan

The medium is the message.

Virtually, here.

Once you see the boundaries of your environment, they are no longer the boundaries of your environment.

You tell me.

Many a good argument is ruined by some fool who knows what he is talking about.

Don’t you just hate that?

One thing about which fish know exactly nothing is water, since they have no anti-environment which would enable them to perceive the element they live in.

Sounds about right.

Art is anything you can get away with.

Not unlike philosophy here.

We look at the present through a rear view mirror. We march backwards into the future.

My guess: for better or worse.

563

Yuval Noah Harari

Does happiness really depend on self-delusion?

So far anyway.

In a world in which everything is interconnected, the supreme moral imperative becomes the imperative to know.

Someone run this by Donald Musk.

Gender is a race in which some of the runners compete only for the bronze medal.

You know who to run that by here.

Medieval crusaders believed that God and heaven provided their lives with meaning; modern liberals believe that individual free choices provide life with meaning. They are all equally delusional.

Click, of course.

The first thing you need to know about yourself is that you are not a story.

Or is that the story instead?

If you were an eighteen-year-old youth in a small village 5,000 years ago you’d probably think you were good-looking because there were only fifty other men in your village and most of them were either old, scarred and wrinkled, or still little kids. But if you are a teenager today you are a lot more likely to feel inadequate. Even if the other guys at school are an ugly lot, you don’t measure yourself against them but against the movie stars, athletes and supermodels you see all day on television, Facebook and giant billboards.

And the gals?

564

R.D. Laing

We have all been processed on Procrustean beds. At least some of us have managed to hate what they have made of us.

Objectivism as some call it.

I, for instance, regard any particular man as finite, as one who has had a beginning and who will have an end. He has been born, and he is going to die. In the meantime, he has a body that roots him to this time and this place.

Pick three:
1] historically
2] culturally
3] experientially

The scientific method is based on tampering with what would be happening if we were doing nothing to it.

In other words, it’s so deep it’s meaningless.

The cracked mind of the schizophrenic may let in light which does not enter intact minds of many sane people whose minds are closed.

Lucky bastards.

When I certify someone insane, I am not equivocating when I write that he is of unsound mind, may be dangerous to himself and others, and requires care and attention in a mental hospital. However, at the same time, I am also aware that, in my opinion, there are other people who are regarded as sane, whose minds are as radically unsound, who may be equally or more dangerous to themselves and others and whom society does not regard as psychotic and fit persons to be in a madhouse.

And now they’re running the fucking country.

If I don’t know I don’t know, I think I know.
If I don’t know I know, I think I don’t know.

Some being knotted considerably more than others, as it were.

There is something I don’t know
that I’m supposed to know.
I don’t know what it is I don’t know,
and yet I’m supposed to know,
and I feel stupid
if I seem both to not know it
and not know what it is I don’t know.
Therefore I pretend to know it.
This is nerve-racking
since I don’t know what I must pretend to know.
Therefore I pretend to know everything.

Cue Anton Chigurh?

565

Richard Yates from Revolutionary Road

if you wanted to do something absolutely honest, something true, it always turned out to be a thing that had to be done alone.

Well, almost always.

It’s a disease. Nobody thinks or feels or cares any more; nobody gets excited or believes in anything except their own comfortable little God damn mediocrity.

Well, almost nobody.

No one forgets the truth; they just get better at lying.

Even to themselves, as it turns out.

Being alone has nothing to do with how many people are around.

What, even virtually?

I still had this idea that there was a whole world of marvelous golden people somewhere, as far ahead of me as the seniors at Rye when I was in the sixth grade; people who knew everything instinctively, who made their lives work out the way they wanted without even trying, who never had to make the best of a bad job because it never occured to them to do anything less then perfectly the first time. Sort of heroic super-people, all of them beautiful and witty and calm and kind, and I always imagined that when I did find them I’d suddenly know that I Belonged among them, that I was one of them, that I’d been meant to be one of them all along, and everything in the meantime had been a mistake; and they’d know it too. I’d be like the ugly duckling among the swans.

Sound familiar?
Or, perhaps, too familiar?

Are artists and writers the only people entitled to lives of their own?

Theoretically, for example.

566

Integrity

“The real prize for living with integrity is making yourself proud." Frank Sonnenberg

Our integrity, of course, never theirs.

“If you don’t believe what you’re saying, why do you expect me to?” Frank Sonnenberg

Or else!

“Never sell your head to buy a hat” Alejandro Alex Jadad

Let’s explain that.

“Integrity is having pure intentions behind every thought and action, no matter what.” Shiva Negi

“if you’re dumb enough to actually try it.” Joe Strummer

“The corruption of our politicians, our leaders, and the heads of big corporations didn’t suddenly happen when they found themselves in influential roles; it has been an ongoing part of our everyday relationships and society for a long time.” Troy Hadeed

Just don’t call it capitalism, right IC?

“Integrity is not an afterthought. Integrity is instinctual.” Ahavel Aborishade

If only going back to Adam and Eve?

567

Philosophy

“Every time you spend money, you’re casting a vote for the kind of world you want.” Anna Lappe

That explains…lots of things?

“If the worker and his boss enjoy the same television program and visit the same resort places, if the typist is as attractively made up as the daughter of her employer, if the Negro owns a Cadillac, if they all read the same newspaper, then this assimilation indicates not the disappearance of classes, but the extent to which the needs and satisfactions that serve the preservation of the Establishment are shared by the underlying population.” Herbert Marcuse

Or, perhaps, as Lennon once encompassed it…

“Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you’re so clever and classless and free
But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see”

“Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for crisis.” Seneca

What, even here?

“The world, viewed philosophically, remains a series of slave camps, where citizens labor under the chains of illusion in the service of their masters.” Stefan Molyneux

See, didn’t I tell you?

“We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.” George Orwell

Anyone here know what that is?

“I remember growing up, saying you’re an artist it sounds pretentious but now it’s one of the only dignified things that you can call yourself. ” Marilyn Manson

Let’s run this by Evan Rachel Wood

568

Sadly, yes.

569

Luigi Pirandello

Whoever has the luck to be born a character can laugh even at death. Because a character will never die! A man will die, a writer, the instrument of creation: but what he has created will never die!

Any characters here?

We think we understand each other, but we never really do.

Let’s change that.

You should show some respect for what other people see and feel, even though it be the exact opposite of what you see and feel.

Ask me to explain this.

Life is little more than a loan shark: It exacts a very high rate of interest for the few pleasures it concedes.

If only all the way to the grave.

Nature uses human imagination to lift her work of creation to even higher levels.

A No Click world?

If only we could see in advance all the harm that can come from the good we think we are doing.

As opposed to, “If only we could see in advance all the good that can come from the bad we think we are doing.” If that’s even possible?

570

Materialism

“If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.” John Lennon

He means peace with honor of course.

“The world says: “You have needs – satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don’t hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more.” This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder." Fyodor Dostoyevsky

On the other hand, the more things change?

“Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don’t abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book." Patti Smith

My guess: not all of them.

“The only time you look in your neighbor’s bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don’t look in your neighbor’s bowl to see if you have as much as them.” Louis C.K.

Wow, that sure takes us back.

“About once or twice every month I engage in public debates with those whose pressing need it is to woo and to win the approval of supernatural beings. Very often, when I give my view that there is no supernatural dimension, and certainly not one that is only or especially available to the faithful, and that the natural world is wonderful enough—and even miraculous enough if you insist—I attract pitying looks and anxious questions. How, in that case, I am asked, do I find meaning and purpose in life? How does a mere and gross materialist, with no expectation of a life to come, decide what, if anything, is worth caring about?" Christopher Hitchens

Then the part pertaining to…oblivion?

“A lot of people get so hung up on what they can’t have that they don’t think for a second about whether they really want it.” Lionel Shriver

And suppose you do?

571

David Lynch

Within your own self is a treasury, an ocean of pure bliss, consciousness, intelligence, creativity, love, happiness, energy, and peace…within every human being. Experience that and you will begin to know yourself, which is unbounded, eternal totality.

Yeah, right.

We’re all like detectives in life. There’s something at the end of the trail that we’re all looking for.

Unless the bots beat us to it.

If you want to get one hour of good painting in, you have to have four hours of uninterrupted time.

You tell me: david lynch paintings - Google Search

It doesn’t do any good to say, ‘This is what it means.’ When you are spoon fed a film, people instantly know what it is. I like films that leave room to dream.

Next up: spoon fed philosophy.

Eraserhead is my most spiritual movie. No one understands when I say that, but it is.

I sure as shit missed that part. How about you?

These so-called bleak times are necessary to go through in order to get to a much, much better place.

Can that possibly include Trump 2.0?

572

Stupidity

“A tragedy is a tragedy, and at the bottom, all tragedies are stupid. Give me a choice and I’ll take A Midsummer Night’s Dream over Hamlet every time. Any fool with steady hands and a working set of lungs can build up a house of cards and then blow it down, but it takes a genius to make people laugh.” Stephen King

We’ll need a context, of course. Or is that always true?

What is it you most dislike? “Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition.”

Here? Let’s name names.

“Talk, talk, talk: the utter and heartbreaking stupidity of words.” William Faulkner

Tell that to the bots.

“You should never read just for “enjoyment.” Read to make yourself smarter! Less judgmental. More apt to understand your friends’ insane behavior, or better yet, your own. Pick “hard books.” Ones you have to concentrate on while reading. And for god’s sake, don’t let me ever hear you say, “I can’t read fiction. I only have time for the truth.” Fiction is the truth, fool! Ever hear of “literature”? That means fiction, too, stupid.” John Waters

Let’s run that by Conchis.

“V-Day…if you need this one day in a year to show everyone else you truly care for ‘your loved one’ I think it’s quite stupid. I hate this commercialism. It’s all artificial, and has nothing to do with real love.” Jess C Scott

Unless you’re selling the stuff.

“It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt.” Mark Twain

In other words, to post or not to post.

573

Marshall McLuhan

Most of our assumptions have outlived their uselessness.

Assuming that’s true of course.

We don’t know who discovered water, but we know it wasn’t the fish.

On the other hand, who thinks that it was?

Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery.
The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be.

Not counting all the exceptions of course.

I am an intellectual thug who has been slowly accumulating a private arsenal with every intention of using it. In a mindless age every insight takes on the character of a lethal weapon. Every man of good will is the enemy of society.

You tell me.

…the only people who have proof of their sanity are those who have been discharged from mental institutions…

Well, not counting all those who just end up in prison.

Schizophrenia may be a necessary consequence of literacy.

If you get his drift. And I actually believe that I do.
[/quote]

574

Lol! :smile:

575

Yuval Noah Harari

People rarely appreciate their ignorance, because they lock themselves inside an echo chamber of like-minded friends and self-confirming news feeds, where their beliefs are constantly reinforced and seldom challenged.

Bingo! Objectivism in a nutshell!!

Anyone who has ever dealt with the tax authorities, the educational system or any other complex bureaucracy knows that the truth hardly matters. What’s written on your form is far more important.

Maybe, but wait until Elon Trump fires them all and puts Wall Street in charge of taxes.

Earlier traditions usually formulated their theories in terms of stories. Modern science uses mathematics.

What exactly do we use here?

Christians slaughtered Christians by the millions to defend slightly different interpretations of the religion of love and compassion.

See I told you.

The danger is that if we invest too much in developing AI and too little in developing human consciousness, the very sophisticated artificial intelligence of computers might only serve to empower the natural stupidity of humans.

Here? I’ll name names if you will.

As Nietzsche put it, if you have a why to live, you can bear almost any how. A meaningful life can be extremely satisfying even in the midst of hardship, whereas a meaningless life is a terrible ordeal no matter how comfortable it is.

The former, yeah, sure, but the latter…?

576

Richard Yates from Revolutionary Road

Now you’ve said it. The hopeless emptiness. Hell, plenty of people are on to the emptiness part; out where I used to work, on the Coast, that’s all we ever talked about. We’d sit around talking about emptiness all night. Nobody ever said ‘hopeless,’ though; that’s where we’d chicken out. Because maybe it does take a certain amount of guts to see the emptiness, but it takes a whole hell of a lot more to see the hopelessness. And I guess when you do see the hopelessness, that’s when there’s nothing to do but take off. If you can.

Back to that again: actual options.

You want to play house, you got to have a job. You want to play very nice house, very sweet house, then you got to have a job you don’t like. Great. This is the way ninety-eight-point-nine per cent of the people work things out, so believe me, buddy, you’ve got nothing to apologize for.

Let’s hear from the other 2%.

Intelligent, thinking people could take things like this in their stride, just as they took the larger absurdities of deadly dull jobs in the city and deadly dull homes in the suburbs. Economic circumstances might force you to live in this environment, but the important thing was to keep from being contaminated. The important thing, always, was to remember who you were.

Just another wage slave as often as not.

She just happened to feel like it. Wasn’t that after all, the only reason there was?

Let’s think of others.

He had won but he didn’t feel like a winner.

What exactly did he win though?

Our ability to measure and apportion time affords an almost endless source of comfort.

And how exactly is that measured? And by who?

577

Materialism

“It is the preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.” Bertrand Russell

Next up: the lucky ones who can’t afford them?

“Nothing teaches us about the preciousness of the Creator as much as when we learn the emptiness of everything else.” Charles Spurgeon

Not to mention…oblivion?

“Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for—in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.” Ellen Goodman

The human condition. At least until the wokers of the world unite. Only next time not around Trump.

“The reality of loving God is loving him like he’s a Superhero who actually saved you from stuff rather than a Santa Claus who merely gave you some stuff.” Criss Jami

Killosophy, let’s call it.

“If money’s the God people worship, I’d rather go worship the Devil instead.” Jess C Scott

Pick two:
1] Donald Trump
2] Elon Musk
Now put them in the right order.

“Constantly exposing yourself to popular culture and the mass media will ultimately shape your reality tunnel in ways that are not necessarily conducive to achieving your Soul Purpose and Life Calling. Modern society has generally ‘lost the plot’. Slavishly following its false gods and idols makes no sense in a spiritually aware life.” Anthon St. Maarten

Remember when that didn’t include what we do?

578

Pagan

“There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.” George Gordon Byron

Next up: those who deny everything and doubt nothing.

“I understand, and not knowing how to express myself without pagan words, I’d rather remain silent” Arthur Rimbaud

Most wouldn’t listen anyway.

“…and Heaven have mercy on us all - Presbyterians and Pagans alike - for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.” Herman Melville

In other words, come Judgment Day?

“The first time I called myself a ‘Witch’ was the most magical moment of my life.” Margot Adler

And no more burning them at the stake. At least not around here. At least to the best of my knowledge.

“I know it’s late, but could you find a book for me? It’s called The Slavs: Study of Pagan Tradition by Osvintsev."
Barabas sighed dramatically. “Kate, you make me despair. Let’s try that again from the top, except this time pretend you are an alpha.”
“I don’t need a lecture. I just need the book.”
“Much better. Little more growl in the voice?”
“Barabas!”
"And we’re there. Congratulations!” Ilona Andrews

Now that’s bullshit. Unless, of course, it’s not.

“Professor Langdon,’ called a young man with curly hair in the back row, ‘if Masonry is not a secret society, not a corporation, and not a religion, then what is it?’
‘Well, if you were to ask a Mason, he would offer the following definition: Masonry is a system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols.’
'Sounds to me like a euphemism for “freaky cult.” ’
‘Freaky, you say?’
‘Hell yes!’ the kid said, standing up. ‘I heard what they do inside those secret buildings! Weird candlelight rituals with coffins, and nooses, and drinking wine out of skulls. Now that’s freaky!’
Langdon scanned the class. ‘Does that sound freaky to anyone else?’
‘Yes!’ they all chimed in.
Langdon feigned a sad sigh. ‘Too bad. If that’s too freaky for you, then I know you’ll never want to join my cult.’
Silence settled over the room. The student from the Women’s Center looked uneasy. ‘You’re in a cult?’
Langdon nodded and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Don’t tell anyone, but on the pagan day of the sun god Ra, I kneel at the foot of an ancient instrument of torture and consume ritualistic symbols of blood and flesh.’
The class looked horrified.
Langdon shrugged. ‘And if any of you care to join me, come to the Harvard chapel on Sunday, kneel beneath the crucifix, and take Holy Communion.’
The classroom remained silent.
Langdon winked. 'Open your minds, my friends. We all fear what we do not understand.” Dan Brown

Yep, that Dan Brown.

579

Luigi Pirandello

Whoever has the luck to be born a character can laugh even at death. Because a character will never die! A man will die, a writer, the instrument of creation: but what he has created will never die!

Of course, in the end, they all do.

We think we understand each other, but we never really do.

Like that will ever stop anyone here who thinks they understand me.

Nature uses human imagination to lift her work of creation to even higher levels.

Uh, click?

If only we could see in advance all the harm that can come from the good we think we are doing.

If only some could. For others, however, harm is the whole point.

Inevitably we construct ourselves. Let me explain. I enter this house and immediately I become what I have to become, what I can become: I construct myself. That is, I present myself to you in a form suitable to the relationship I wish to achieve with you. And, of course, you do the same with me.

Personas!

Life is full of strange absurdities, which, strangely enough, do not even need to appear plausible, since they are true.

Or, on the other hand, they are not but we believe that they are.

580

Words

“Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been.” John Greenleaf Whittier

And what might that be?

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” Rudyard Kipling

Of course?

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

Not counting mine, of course.

“A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.” Italo Calvino

Name one.

“I like good strong words that mean something…” Louisa May Alcott

Name one.

“That’s what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.” Arundhati Roy

If not flat out loathe you.

581

Gene Hackman

I was trained to be an actor, not a star. I was trained to play roles, not to deal with fame and agents and lawyers and the press.

On the other hand, most will settle for that.

Aging really costs me a lot emotionally to watch myself on-screen. I think of myself, and feel like I’m quite young, and then I look at this old man with the baggy chins and the tired eyes and the receding hairline and all that.

Then this part:

David Kepesh: I think it was Betty Davis who said old age is not for sissies. But it was Tolstoy who said the biggest surprise in a man’s life is old age. Old age sneaks up on you, and the next thing you know you’re asking yourself, I’m asking myself, why can’t an old man act his real age? How is it possible for me to still be involved in the carnal aspects of the human comedy? Because, in my head, nothing has changed.

Pick one:
1] new post
2] new thread
3] new forum
4] new universe

The difference between a hero and a coward is one step sideways.

Or, for some, a whole different planet.

I wanted to act, but I’d always been convinced that actors had to be handsome. That came from the days when Errol Flynn was my idol. I’d come out of a theater and be startled when I looked in a mirror because I didn’t look like Flynn. I felt like him.

The rest is history. If only on this side of the grave.

People in the street still call me Popeye…

Next up: what the folks in Heaven now call him. Or, sure, in Hell.