Thread for mundane ironists

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602

Rachel Cusk from Outline

I would like to be a D.H. Lawrence character, living in one of his novels. The people I meet don’t even seem to have characters. And life seems so rich, when I look at it through his eyes, yet my own life very often appears sterile, like a bad patch of earth, as if nothing will grow there however hard I try.

Me? The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

What she couldn’t stand, she said, was pretence of any kind, especially the pretence of desire, wherein someone feigned the need to possess her wholly when in fact what he wanted was to use her temporarily. She herself, she said, was quite willing to use others too, but she only recognised it once they had admitted this intention in themselves.

To use or not to use? And how to tell them apart.

The worst thing, it seemed to her, was to be dealing with one version of a person when quite another version existed out of sight.

Personas we call them. On the other hand, “No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.”

Writing comes out of tension, tension between what’s inside and what’s outside.

So, in regard to this, how fractured and fragmented are you?

If a man had a nasty side to his character, she wanted to get to it immediately and confront it. She didn’t want it roaming unseen in the hinterland of the relationship: she wanted to provoke it, to draw it forth, lest it strike her when her back was turned.

Next up: the nasty side of her character.

One could make almost anything happen, if one tried hard enough, but the trying - it seemed to me – was almost always a sign that one was crossing the currents, was forcing events in a direction that they did not naturally want to go, and though you might argue that nothing could ever be accomplished without going against nature to some extent, the artificiality of that vision and its consequences had become – to put it bluntly - anathema to me.

Any events being forced here? How about events that ought to be?

603

Marshall McLuhan

In accepting an honorary degree from the University of Notre Dame a few years ago, General David Sarnoff made this statement: “We are too prone to make technological instruments the scapegoats for the sins of those who wield them. The products of modern science are not in themselves good or bad; it is the way they are used that determines their value.

Of course, he’s only paraphrasing Shane.

Today’s child is growing up absurd, because he lives in two worlds, and neither of them inclines him to grow up.

I’m still not.

In Jesus Christ, there is no distance or separation between the medium and the message: it is the one case where we can say that the medium and the message are fully one and the same.

In other words, whatever that means.

Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn’t know the first thing about either.

You first.

Politics offers yesterday’s answers to today’s questions.

Next up: tomorrow’s answers. Politics aside.

Environments are not passive wrappings, but are, rather, active processes which are invisible. The ground rules, pervasive structure, and over-all patterns of environments elude easy perception.

What, even virtually?!

604

Identity

“In the social jungle of human existence, there is no feeling of being alive without a sense of identity.” Erik Erikson

Yep, that’s what they tell me.

“You have to be willing to go to war with yourself and create a whole new identity.” David Goggins

On the other hand, look what happened to me.

“Human identity is the most fragile thing that we have, and it’s often only found in moments of truth.” Alan Rudolph

Or in moments that we think are true?

“If I ever found a place where I belonged, that in itself would be an identity crisis to me.” Mitski

So, where do I belong? Or, perhaps, more to the point, where would you put me?

“We live in a society that wants to label you with a color, sexuality, religion, or ethnicity. It divides us, but it also allows us to find pride in our identity.” Logan Browning

Next up: virtual labels?

“Spiritual identity means we are not what we do or what people say about us. And we are not what we have. We are the beloved daughters and sons of God.” Henri Nouwen

Next up: spiritual bullshit.

605

Abortion

“We’re always going to argue about abortion. It’s a hard choice and it’s controversial, and that’s why I’m pro-choice, because I want people to make their own choices.” Hillary Clinton

Well, not counting the unborn of course.

“Abortion isn’t a lesser evil, it’s a crime. Taking one life to save another, that’s what the Mafia does. It’s a crime. It’s an absolute evil.” Pope Francis

Next up: miscarriages and still births.
God’s very own abortions?

“I consider abortion to be a deeply personal and intimate issue for women and I don’t believe male legislators should even vote on the issue.” Alan K. Simpson

Well, unless, of course, one of them gets pregnant.

“No woman has an abortion for fun.” Elizabeth Joan Smith

I’ve never known one to.

“In 1973, the Roe v. Wade decision concluded that women have a constitutionally protected right to safe and legal abortions. That landmark decision wasn’t the beginning of women having abortions; it was the end of women dying from abortions.” Jan Schakowsky

Hadn’t thought of that, I’ll bet.

“Abortion is clearly wrong.” Jordan Peterson

Or: “forcing women to give birth is clearly wrong.”

606

Max Planck

“Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.”

See, I told you: the brain explaining itself?

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

Uh, going all the way back to…God?

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

In your head, perhaps, but some things never really seem to change at all. Instead, it’s either/or all the way down

Science advances one funeral at a time.

Next up: philosophy advances one…

It is not the possession of truth, but the success which attends the seeking after it, that enriches the seeker and brings happiness to him.

Any one successfully possess it here? Yes? Okay, are you happy?

All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.

Not counting those, of course, who assume the opposite.

607

Intellectuals

“When I was a seminarian, I was dazzled by a girl I met at an uncle’s wedding. I was surprised by her beauty, her intellectual brilliance… and, well, I was bowled over for quite a while.” Pope Francis

Then the parts he left out.

An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows." Dwight D. Eisenhower

Or, nowadays, a woman.

“God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It’s as simple as that.” Joseph Campbell

Let’s complicate it.

It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living." David Attenborough

Of course, he’s only paraphrasing, well, you know.

“The role of the intellectual, so it is said, is to speak truth to power. Noam Chomsky has dismissed this pious tag on two grounds. For one thing, power knows the truth already; it is just busy trying to conceal it. For another, it is not those in power who need the truth, but those they oppress.” Terry Eagleton

Amen?

“An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.” Albert Camus

Up in the clouds?

608

Max Planck

I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.

And now, Max?

New scientific ideas never spring from a communal body, however organized, but rather from the head of an individually inspired researcher who struggles with his problems in lonely thought and unites all his thought on one single point which is his whole world for the moment.

Eureka!

Experiment is the only means of knowledge at our disposal. Everything else is poetry, imagination.

…and philosophy?

As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clearheaded science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about the atoms this much: There is no matter as such! All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. . . . We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.

Unless, of course, he’s wrong, right God?

The assumption of an absolute determinism is the essential foundation of every scientific enquiry.

Unless, of course, it’s not, right God?

This is one of man’s oldest riddles. How can the independence of human volition be harmonized with the fact that we are integral parts of a universe which is subject to the rigid order of nature’s laws?

You actually resolved this, didn’t you?

609

Groucho Marx

I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.

Or: I refuse to join any club that would have you as a member.

Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them…well, I have others.

Or he could just borrow yours.

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

And, of course, practice makes perfect.

Well, Art is Art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know.

What else is there?

Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution?

I sure as shit didn’t.

One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know.

They made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

610

Stupidity

“Beauty is an enormous, unmerited gift given randomly, stupidly." Khaled Hosseini

To say the least?

“When a great genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." Jonathan Swift

Here it’s against me.
And you too?

“I feel sorry for anyone who is in a place where he feels strange and stupid.” Lois Lowry

You first.

“I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am.” Cormac McCarthy

Here? Hear! Hear!

“I used to think she was quite intelligent, in my stupidity. The reason I did was because she knew quite a lot about the theater and plays and literature and all that stuff. If somebody knows quite a lot about all those things, it takes you quite a while to find out whether they’re really stupid or not.” J.D. Salinger

Dangling conversations, let’s call them.

“I’m perfectly capable of being stupid on my own.” Leigh Bardugo

Can you say that?

611

Marshall McLuhan

A light bulb creates an environment by its mere presence.

Actually, I didn’t know that.

The price of eternal vigilance is indifference.

Things intellectuals say, right?

Art is the sole means of grace in our fallen state.

Things intellectuals say, right?

Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity.

If not over and over and over again.

The more the data banks record about each one of us, the less we exist.

In other words, if you let them.

“The Stars Are So Big, The Earth Is So Small…Stay As You Are”

Magoo?

612

Nature

“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, ‘This is what it is to be happy.’ Sylvia Plath

Next up: that fucking bell jar.

“…and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?” Vincent van Gogh

Uh, fame and fortune?

“I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.” William Shakespeare

Uh, let’s not go there?

“I like it when a flower or a little tuft of grass grows through a crack in the concrete. It’s so fuckin’ heroic.” George Carlin

Do they know that?

“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As longs as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.” Anne Frank

Many loved her but, come on.

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”
Margaret Atwood

Is it Spring where you are?

613

Abortion

“I’ve noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born.” Ronald Reagan

No, really, think about that this time.

“How come when it’s us, it’s an abortion, and when it’s a chicken, it’s an omelette?” George Carlin

Coincidence?

“I cannot understand anti-abortion arguments that centre on the sanctity of life. As a species we’ve fairly comprehensively demonstrated that we don’t believe in the sanctity of life. The shrugging acceptance of war, famine, epidemic, pain and life-long poverty shows us that, whatever we tell ourselves, we’ve made only the most feeble of efforts to really treat human life as sacred.” Caitlin Moran

Hypocrisy, let’s call it.

“It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard.” Dorothy Parker

They don’t make many like her these days.

“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.” Sarah Palin

They still make many like her these days.

“The Vatican won’t prosecute pedophile priests but I decide I’m not ready for motherhood and it’s condemnation for me? These are the same people that won’t support national condom distribution that prevents teenage pregnancy.” Sonya Renee Taylor

Straight to Hell for the lot of them.

614

Intellectuals

“An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. “Can they be brought together?” This is a practical question. We must get down to it. “I despise intelligence” really means: "I cannot bear my doubts.” Albert Camus

If only on this side of the grave?

“My favourite definition of an intellectual: ‘Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence’." Arthur C. Clarke

Though, as often as not, they don’t even know it.

“Intellect is not wisdom.” Thomas Sowell

And, for some here, it’s not even close.

“Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.” George Orwell

And even then only up in the clouds.

“Americans on the average do not trust intellectuals, but they are cowed by power and stunned by celebrity.” Viet Thanh Nguyen

And look where we are now.

“The man of action has the present, but the thinker controls the future.” Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

You know, way back when that might have actually been true.

615

Absurdity

“I can’t go on, I’ll go on.” Samuel Beckett

Though I suspect not any more.

“If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.” Albert Einstein

See I told you. Either that or I’m telling you now.

“The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.” Carl Sagan

Just for the record: List of nuclear weapons - Wikipedia

“We can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness.” Arthur Schopenhauer

Actually, I was once this optimistic myself.

“I think that God that we have created and allowed to shape our culture through, essentially Christian theology is a pretty villainous creature. I think that one of the things that male patriarchal figure has done is, allowed under it’s, his church, his wing, all kinds of corruptions and villainies to grow and fester. In the name of that God terrible wars have been waged, in the name of that God terrible sexism has been allowed to spread. There are children being born all across this world that don’t have enough food to eat because that God, at least his church, tells the mothers and fathers that they must procreate at all costs, and to prevent procreation with a condom is in contravention with his laws. Now, I don’t believe that God exists. I think that God is creation of men, by men, and for men. What has happened over the many centuries now, the better part of two thousand in fact, is that that God has been slowly and steadily accruing power. His church has been accruing power, and the men who run that church, and they are all men, are not about to give it up. If they give it up, they give up luxury, they give up comfort.” Clive Barker

Yo, William Lane Craig! You’re up!!

"We all know that any emotional bias – irrespective of truth or falsity – can be implanted by suggestion in the emotions of the young, hence the inherited traditions of an orthodox community are absolutely without evidential value… If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences. With such an honest and inflexible openness to evidence, they could not fail to receive any real truth which might be manifesting itself around them. The fact that religionists do not follow this honourable course, but cheat at their game by invoking juvenile quasi-hypnosis, is enough to destroy their pretensions in my eyes even if their absurdity were not manifest in every other direction.” H.P. Lovecraft

Any religionists here?

616

Nikola Tesla

If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.

Now, let’s put them in the right order.

I don’t care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don’t have any of their own.

Anyone here stolen mine yet?

Of all things, I liked books best.

Or, for others, burning them.

The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.

Any updates here?

The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.

Examples, please.

My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists.

“In his head”, let’s say.

617

Marshall McLuhan

“Moral indignation is a technique used to endow the idiot with dignity.”

Let’s name names. We’ll flip to see who goes first.

The modern mind, whether in its subconscious collective dream or in its intellectual citadel of vivid awareness, is a stage on which is contained and re-enacted the entire experience of the human race.

Whatever that means.

For the fragmented man creates the homogenized Western world, while oral societies are made up of people differentiated, not by their specialist skills or visible marks, but by their unique emotional mixes.

Sure, why not?

Advertising is corporate form of art and the goal is to make an effect. Every artist- any painter, any poet or musician sets out to create an effect, he sets a trap to catch somebody`s attention. That is the nature of art.

Of course, the soup cans!

…homogeneity is quite incompatible with electronic culture…

Imagine then his reaction to the internet.

I satirize at all times, and my hyperboles are as nothing compared to the events to which they refer.

Tell me about it! Here I mean.

618

Nature

“If I were a tree, I would have no reason to love a human.” Maggie Stiefvater

Let’s think of one.

“He was mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that it was everything that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant, expressing itself in movement, flying exultantly under the stars.” Jack London

Next up: the sheer surging of life here?

“Our task must be to free ourselves… by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it’s beauty.” Albert Einstein

Imagine his reaction to Elon Trump.

“The sea is emotion incarnate. It loves, hates, and weeps. It defies all attempts to capture it with words and rejects all shackles. No matter what you say about it, there is always that which you can’t.” Christopher Paolini

On the other hand: oceans filled with trash - Google Search

“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity” John Muir

Next up: acts of God.

“Nature is a haunted house–but Art–is a house that tries to be haunted.” Emily Dickinson

You tell me.

619

Sorry Biggs, reached my posting limit elsewhere.

Not just because it’s metaphysical nonsense (no two things can be equal so its premise is already null) does the ‘golden rule’ not work, but because it is literally inapplicable in a free market.

How does an employer and an employee practice the golden rule between them. If the employee were the employer, he wouldn’t give himself a raise. If the employer was the employee, he would. And yet, that’s exactly what they would be obligated to do if they wanted to ‘do unto others’.

This isn’t just some little insignificant proof that this rule is nonsense, either. It is an unresovable conflict at the heart of human interactions that makes it impossible even if it were metaphysically possible. Not that they don’t want to practice the rule but that they can’t. If they do, in principle, they go bust.

620

Nikola Tesla

If your hate could be turned into electricity, it would light up the whole world.

For starters, let’s say.

I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men.

Let’s think of one.

What we now want is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth, and the elimination of egoism and pride which is always prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife… Peace can only come as a natural consequence of universal enlightenment…”

Blah, blah, blah. And then some.

I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success . . . Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.

Just out of curiosity, has that ever happened to you?
Me neither.

One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.

So, what does that explain here?

Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine.

Let’s run this by the Grim Reaper. And God if there is one.

621

Stupidity

“All the other children at my school are stupid. Except I’m not meant to call them stupid, even though this is what they are.” Mark Haddon

Here? You first.

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” Robert J. Hanlon

Of course, for some here, it can often be both.

“Everyone has a sense of humor. If you don’t laugh at jokes, you probably laugh at opinions.” Criss Jami

Howl he means.

"I doubt you can understand the magnitude of the stupidity in your statement.” Robert Jordan,

He still doesn’t.

“Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love truth.” Joseph Joubert

Objectively as often as not.

“There are so many different kinds of stupidity, and cleverness is one of the worst.” Thomas Mann

Actually, I love clever myself.