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Our silly Sex, who, born like Monarchs, free,I guess what I was trying to do with that comment is ground this particular incarnation of that "decadent" mindset historically. Because, generally, you find these aestheticizing countercultures to be more or less out of step with the general premises of the culture around them; today the hipsters are the foremost representatives of the zeitgeist, if anything. But maybe that's just bullshitting.
Turn Gipsies for a meaner Liberty;
And hate Restraint, tho' but from Infamy:
That call whatever is not common Nice,
And, deaf to Nature's Rule, or Love's Advice,
Forsake the Pleasure to pursue the Vice.
To an exact Perfection they have brought
The Action Love; the Passion is forgot.
'Tis below Wit, they tell you, to admire;
And ev'n without approving they desire.
Their private Wish obeys the publick Voice,
'Twixt good and bad Whimsie decides, not Choice.
Fashions grow up for Taste, at Forms they strike
They know what they would have, not what they like;
Bovy's a beauty, if some few agree
To call him so, the rest to that degree
Affected are, that with their Ears they see.
has become one of the most important books in my life. Did I even really read it that first time? Did I deserve to check that box? Doesn't even asking that question poison your experience of literature?Awww! look, is that false humility? Amidst rhetorical questions? Isn't that precious?!
"Tricknology is not simply “plain ol’ trickery”; nor is it exemplified by your average street hustler’s con game. Tricknology denotes a much more subtle and sophisticated level of deception. The “science of trick knowledge” means the science of using respected fields of knowledge (or one’s official or expert capacity) in a cunning, devious or deceitful manner. The term “tricknology,” therefore, denotes the usage of any of the following techniques for purposes of fraud, deception, or the creation of ideological hegemony: sophistry, academic jargon, legalese, double-speak, psycho-babble, disinformation campaigns, lying with statistics, political chicanery, spin-doctoring, double-dealing, playing both sides against the middle, creating smoke-screens, subliminal advertising, media manipulation, the manufacture of consensus, etc. Of course, tricknology also includes any artifice used to divide and conquer people and any legally-sanctioned scheme employed by the wealthy to defraud poor people of their money or property ... In short, tricknology is what the oppressor uses to keep black people deceived, misdirected, misinformed, baffled, duped, confused, torn between two poles, lulled into false security or false consciousness, distracted, diverted, un-alert or preoccupied, and powerless and impoverished.
I can know what someone else is thinking, but not what I am thinking. It is correct to say "I know what you are thinking," and wrong to say "I know what I am thinking."
(A whole cloud of philosophy condensed into a drop of grammar.)
...
Let us assume there was a man who always guessed right what I was saying to myself in my thoughts. (It does not matter how he manages it.) But what is the criterion for his guessing right? Well, I am a truthful person and I confess he has guessed right.--But might I not be mistaken, can my memory not deceive me? And might it not always do so when--without lying--I express what I have thought within myself?--But now it does appear that "what went on within me" is not the point at all. (Here I am drawing a construction-line.)
- Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, IIxi
Is it me, or is this Cubeta character a pretentious fuckwit?Maybe I'm a Philistine at heart, but while I love erudition, laid on too thickly it looks to me like a self-aggrandizing display. I have the same reaction, I think, to people who too ostentatiously display anything, whether it's wealth (by throwing around references to everything they've bought) or piety (by telling us how much they pray, and how tight they are with God) or good looks, or connections or whatever.
Jessamyn closed the thread, just as I was posting this reply to him; am I mis-reading him?
PhilCubeta writes "Right back at you: Why did Erasmus write the Praise of Folly from behind the mask of Folly? Why did Pope write the Dunciad from behind the mask of Martinus Scriblerus? Why did Swift publish the Tale of the Tub with a Hack as the speaker? Why did John Gay position the Beggars Opera with an introduction by a Beggar? Why did Swift write scurrilous 'autobiographies' of condemned men and sell these bogus bio under the very gallows? "
posted by popechunk at 6:38 PM on August 1, 2008