oblahma

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: COMMENTS POLICY

2010-06-05T07:48:00.001-07:00

VERY AUTHORITATIVE LENIENT RULE SYSTEM WRITTEN AKIN TO A VERY VERY SERIOUS BINDING LEGAL CONTRACT: OR, THIS IS THE INTERNET, THIS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS. (NO JOKES ALLOWED EDITION)

After long, ponderous paragraphs in which many excellently expressed explications of my/your views and "thoughts" regarding the ribald behavior of other commentators' views and "thoughts" that will conflict with my/our own are deftly laid out, I then write a list of hyperserious rules which one should have en mente while engaging in the post-textual act of posting (even while texting or "txting"). In order to post a comment to this unsightly post-site, (ab)users and (non)frequent readers must adhere to this extremely draconian policy masquerading as a pliant, tolerant set of genteel guidelines expounded from a rational frame of mind willfully valorizing (and excluding a law of ludic (lawless) logic), upholding, and holding up the law of the gen(d)re :

1. You must not read this blog.

2. You must not be familiar with the topic you are commenting on.

3. Thou shalt troll.

4. Anonymity will be greatly appreciated.

5. Be a beautiful playboy model, not a fat trucker or hunchbacked academic masquerading as a beautiful playboy model.

6. Have a fluid, Protean identity.

7. Observe paradoxes; engage in dissemination; decenter heirarchico-hegemonical textual structures.

8. You must have the TV on.

9. You must be watching the "news."

10. You must do neither (8) nor (9).

11. You must do both (8) and (9) and neither (8) nor (9) yet (10) and (11), preferably simultaneously.

12. Engage in a multiplicity of styles. At once.

13. Nuncle Clause: use foul language, but language akin to the parliament of fowls and Learian foals will also be appreciated.

13. The Sciolism Clause: Use foul language, but we prefer you to also be using a thesaurus, wikipedia, and an online dictionary to increase the perspicacious gloss of your posts.

26.a. Disregard linearism.

14. You must have read less than one book of Literature* and no Philosophical texts. (No exceptions!)

15. Relatedly, you must have read a plethora of political "books," particularly those by celebrated blog "authors," and pundipshits with talk shows on cable networks, or talking heads who make many appearances on cable news shows.

16. Be naturally fractious or intractable, and vigorously engage in excoriating rants all across the vast demesne of the internet.

17. Have many opinions and little knowledge. (In fact, no knowledge is preferable, but we are not fond of ideals!)

18. Your wit must be a tedious mimetic exercise of The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert, gleaned from assiduous viewing of those mercurial pensuers. Man those guys are hilarious.

19. You must be wearing a skinny tie.

20. Glasses make you look smarter, even on the internet.

21. txting 1 sec plz

22. You must be following all your favorite "celebz" lol on teh twitterz.

23. Be promoting your personal brand generally, or some god awful "new book" you have just "written."

24. Once I save up enough $$$ I'm moving to my own dot com.

25. Don't ever let them prove you wrong.

26. How many times has bad satire on the behavior of the internet been written? +1

27. Jersey Shore mentioned, to sucker bots. The Hot TV Clause. (Subject to change.)

28. Sex in the City 2. Iron man 2. The Hot Movie Clause. (Subject to change.)

29. There will be frequent and superfluous bannings.

30. Those who are banned will be allowed back under only after a huge apology that satisfies my/our wild egomania

31. No one on the internet has an attention span this long.

32. Be enrolled in a creative writing program (oh yea, the MFA will get you published!)

*not to worry; if you have read J.M. Coetzee, Maya Angelou, any american fiction or poetry, or are enrolled in a creative writing program you are still safe and even encouraged to post!

scholarly canon?

2010-05-27T19:27:00.000-07:00

Is there such a thing as the scholarly canon? A canon of scholarship for the academic disciplines? I am particularly mindful of the humanities: classics (Latin, Greek), English, German, French, Italian, culture studies, post-colonialism, philosophy etc.

APHASIA (Or, Agaisnt Academic Blockheadism)

2010-02-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

APHASIA
(Or, Against Academic Blockheadism)

Two bricoleurs, an alphabetologist and a metaphorologist, were presenting their radical findings on the campus of Veritas, in a building dubbed Ers, where professors from Veritas often spoke from. The building looked like, and was as dark as, methionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylalanylprolylthreonylphenylalanylthreon–
ylglutaminylprolylleucylglutaminylserylvalylvalylvalylleucylglutamylglycy–
lserylthreonylalanylthreonylphenylalanylglutamylalanylhistidylisoleucylse–
rylglycylphenylalanylprolylvalylprolylglutamylvalylseryltryptophylphenyla–
lanylarginylaspartylglycylglutaminylvalylisoleucylserylthreonylserylthreo–
nylleucylprolylglycylvalylglutaminylisoleucylserylphenylalanylserylaspart–
ylglycylarginylalanyllysylleucylthreonylisoleucylprolylalanylvalylthreony–
llysylalanylasparaginylserylglycylarginyltyrosylserylleucyllysylalanylthr–
eonylasparaginylglycylserylglycylglutaminylalanylthreonylserylthreonylala–
nylglutamylleucylleucylvalyllysylalanylglutamylthreonylalanylprolylprolyl–
asparaginylphenylalanylvalylglutaminylarginylleucylglutaminylserylmethion–
ylthreonylvalylarginylglutaminylglycylserylglutaminylvalylarginylleucylgl–
utaminylvalylarginylvalylthreonylglycylisoleucylprolylasparaginylprolylva–
lylvalyllysylphenylalanyltyrosylarginylaspartylglycylalanylglutamylisoleu–
cylglutaminylserylserylleucylaspartylphenylalanylglutaminylisoleucylseryl–
glutaminylglutamylglycylaspartylleucyltyrosylserylleucylleucylisoleucylal–
anylglutamylalanyltyrosylprolylglutamylaspartylserylglycylthreonyltyrosyl–
serylvalylasparaginylalanylthreonylasparaginylserylvalylglycylarginylalan–
ylthreonylserylthreonylalanylglutamylleucylleucylvalylglutaminylglycylglu–
tamylglutamylglutamylvalylprolylalanyllysyllysylthreonyllysylthreonylisol–
eucylvalylserylthreonylalanylglutaminylisoleucylserylglutamylserylarginyl–
glutaminylthreonylarginylisoleucylglutamyllysyllysylisoleucylglutamylalan–
ylhistidylphenylalanylaspartylalanylarginylserylisoleucylalanylthreonylva–
lylglutamylmethionylvalylisoleucylaspartylglycylalanylalanylglycylglutami–
nylglutaminylleucylprolylhistidyllysylthreonylprolylprolylarginylisoleucy–
lprolylprolyllysylprolyllysylserylarginylserylprolylthreonylprolylprolyls–
erylisoleucylalanylalanyllysylalanylglutaminylleucylalanylarginylglutamin–
ylglutaminylserylprolylserylprolylisoleucylarginylhistidylserylprolylsery–
lprolylvalylarginylhistidylvalylarginylalanylprolylthreonylprolylserylpro–
lylvalylarginylserylvalylserylprolylalanylalanylarginylisoleucylserylthre–
onylserylprolylisoleucylarginylserylvalylarginylserylprolylleucylleucylme–
thionylarginyllysylthreonylglutaminylalanylserylthreonylvalylalanylthreon–
ylglycylprolylglutamylvalylprolylprolylprolyltryptophyllysylglutaminylglu–
tamylglycyltyrosylvalylalanylserylserylserylglutamylalanylglutamylmethion–
ylarginylglutamylthreonylthreonylleucylthreonylthreonylserylthreonylgluta–
minylisoleucylarginylthreonylglutamylglutamylarginyltryptophylglutamylgly–
cylarginyltyrosylglycylvalylglutaminylglutamylglutaminylvalylthreonylisol–
eucylserylglycylalanylalanylglycylalanylalanylalanylserylvalylserylalanyl–
serylalanylseryltyrosylalanylalanylglutamylalanylvalylalanylthreonylglycy–
lalanyllysylglutamylvalyllysylglutaminylaspartylalanylaspartyllysylseryla–
lanylalanylvalylalanylthreonylvalylvalylalanylalanylvalylaspartylmethiony–
lalanylarginylvalylarginylglutamylprolylvalylisoleucylserylalanylvalylglu–
tamylglutaminylthreonylalanylglutaminylarginylthreonylthreonylthreonylthr–
eonylalanylvalylhistidylisoleucylglutaminylprolylalanylglutaminylglutamyl–
glutaminylvalylarginyllysylglutamylalanylglutamyllysylthreonylalanylvalyl–
threonyllysylvalylvalylvalylalanylalanylaspartyllysylalanyllysylglutamylg–
lutaminylglutamylleucyllysylserylarginylthreonyllysylglutamylisoleucyliso–
leucylthreonylthreonyllysylglutaminylglutamylglutaminylmethionylhistidylv–
alylthreonylhistidylglutamylglutaminylisoleucylarginyllysylglutamylthreon–
ylglutamyllysylthreonylphenylalanylvalylprolyllysylvalylvalylisoleucylser–
ylalanylalanyllysylalanyllysylglutamylglutaminylglutamylthreonylarginylis–
oleucylserylglutamylglutamylisoleucylthreonyllysyllysylglutaminyllysylglu–
taminylvalylthreonylglutaminylglutamylalanylisoleucylmethionyllysylglutam–
ylthreonylarginyllysylthreonylvalylvalylprolyllysylvalylisoleucylvalylala–
nylthreonylprolyllysylvalyllysylglutamylglutaminylaspartylleucylvalylsery–
larginylglycylarginylglutamylglycylisoleucylthreonylthreonyllysylarginylg–
lutamylglutaminylvalylglutaminylisoleucylthreonylglutaminylglutamyllysylm–
ethionylarginyllysylglutamylalanylglutamyllysylthreonylalanylleucylserylt–
hreonylisoleucylalanylvalylalanylthreonylalanyllysylalanyllysylglutamylgl–
utaminylglutamylthreonylisoleucylleucylarginylthreonylarginylglutamylthre–
onylmethionylalanylthreonylarginylglutaminylglutamylglutaminylisoleucylgl–
utaminylvalylthreonylhistidylglycyllysylvalylaspartylvalylglycyllysyllysy–
lalanylglutamylalanylvalylalanylthreonylvalylvalylalanylalanylvalylaspart–
ylglutaminylalanylarginylvalylarginylglutamylprolylarginylglutamylprolylg–
lycylhistidylleucylglutamylglutamylseryltyrosylalanylglutaminylglutaminyl–
threonylthreonylleucylglutamyltyrosylglycyltyrosyllysylglutamylarginyliso–
leucylserylalanylalanyllysylvalylalanylglutamylprolylprolylglutaminylargi–
nylprolylalanylserylglutamylprolylhistidylvalylvalylprolyllysylalanylvaly–
llysylprolylarginylvalylisoleucylglutaminylalanylprolylserylglutamylthreo–
nylhistidylisoleucyllysylthreonylthreonylaspartylglutaminyllysylglycylmet–
hionylhistidylisoleucylserylserylglutaminylisoleucyllysyllysylthreonylthr–
eonylaspartylleucylthreonylthreonylglutamylarginylleucylvalylhistidylvaly–
laspartyllysylarginylprolylarginylthreonylalanylserylprolylhistidylphenyl–
alanylthreonylvalylseryllysylisoleucylserylvalylprolyllysylthreonylglutam–
ylhistidylglycyltyrosylglutamylalanylserylisoleucylalanylglycylserylalany–
lisoleucylalanylthreonylleucylglutaminyllysylglutamylleucylserylalanylthr–
eonylserylserylalanylglutaminyllysylisoleucylthreonyllysylserylvalyllysyl–
alanylprolylthreonylvalyllysylprolylserylglutamylthreonylarginylvalylargi–
nylalanylglutamylprolylthreonylprolylleucylprolylglutaminylphenylalanylpr–
olylphenylalanylalanylaspartylthreonylprolylaspartylthreonyltyrosyllysyls–
erylglutamylalanylglycylvalylglutamylvalyllysyllysylglutamylvalylglycylva–
lylserylisoleucylthreonylglycylthreonylthreonylvalylarginylglutamylglutam–
ylarginylphenylalanylglutamylvalylleucylhistidylglycylarginylglutamylalan–
yllysylvalylthreonylglutamylthreonylalanylarginylvalylprolylalanylprolylv–
alylglutamylisoleucylprolylvalylthreonylprolylprolylthreonylleucylvalylse–
rylglycylleucyllysylasparaginylvalylthreonylvalylisoleucylglutamylglycylg–
lutamylserylvalylthreonylleucylglutamylcysteinylhistidylisoleucylserylgly–
cyltyrosylprolylserylprolylthreonylvalylthreonyltryptophyltyrosylarginylg–
lutamylaspartyltyrosylglutaminylisoleucylglutamylserylserylisoleucylaspar–
tylphenylalanylglutaminylisoleucylthreonylphenylalanylglutaminylserylglyc–
ylisoleucylalanylarginylleucylmethionylisoleucylarginylglutamylalanylphen–
ylalanylalanylglutamylaspartylserylglycylarginylphenylalanylthreonylcyste–… inylserylisoleucine giant, vacuous, cave [antre]…

I will speak, therefore, of a “name.”

We must tympanize the—“name.”

Even before coming to this unnamed name, this unscripted and unnamed text, we must be aware of all that slips by unnoticed, unknown—unknownticed—when this name, or any name, is, namely, named. All the unknownticed unthings which are unsaid and unscripted or nonscripted must come-to-be. But the unthings will not (be)come, or come to be, without violence or without a fight. So let us fight back.

Cry havoc! And let loose the hounds of war!

We are cognizant that we can never truly speak this “name” or write this “name”—anytime we attempt such a feat the name will evade us, it will flee with fleeting feet away from us, will find a way away from our way. Perhaps though, we can deconstruct the name some other way. And rather, there will be no definition of a non-name or nonconcept, but there will be a de-finition, a de-fining, so that we can fīn(d) what is fine in the finite, so that the fine finite may become defined, infinite.

This deconstruction then, is unfounded. It is unfounded on a profoundly anti-foundational and as yet unsaid lack—that is to say “here”—for why “here” and not there or even over there as has often been preferred—we do not hear, certainly do not see, and cannot yet begin to locate a locale which must be low, unknownticed, understood. So much for our standing of understanding standing.

Let us begin again.

Once more into the breach dear friends!

What after all, is a title? Is the title even entitled to itself, to its title? What claim does it have? To title is also to name, to write and inscribe. One holds titles and does not hold titles—one writes titles; we inscribe titles, and yet titles also ascribe themselves to us. Yet some things are untitled, unnamed; are denominated and denominated—they have a denomination.
Again, what does a title, which is simply a set of signs, signify? What do the signs assign and what do the signs a-sign, or asign? What is ascribed in the de-scription, or what is described, of a denomination? Who titles, names, claims, nominates? We will attempt to answer these questions (which we will later see is actually an act of questioning) but not at present, not before we go on a brief detour.

A question is now before us, present, presenting itself from outside itself. To ask a question of course is to ask for an answer, to go on a quest, to follow a course, regardless of course and of course, how coarse the course may turn out to be. The question is now before us; it at once precedes us and comes after us, it is behind us and in front of us. The question (answer) follows us, and we follow the question (answer). What follows then, will not have been a course but a discourse. And in the discourse of questing for a question do not we always find questionable answers and need to ask answers, questions, and then answer questions or answer-questions?

To be or not to be, that is the question

And the answer? Of course? What course? How coarse?

“?”

This question marks a boundary [margo] but when has a question mark ever served as a limit? This mark questions itself, believes that its question mark is questionable, marks the mark as questionable, which is to say, an answer. For do not questions mark bounds of departure—of departure? Is not a question mark a gate to the boundless, limitless? Out of bounds, we bound over boundaries into the definite boundless-out-of-bounds.

But where does the question occur, or take place? Where is its proper [propre] place, is it even allowed to take place? The question, when asked, occurs only when it does not occur, has a place only when it does not have a place, has a proper only when it does not have a proper. The space outside the place, the nonplace, is proper (improper) for the question (answer) in place. Its outside is its inside, or if we were to entitle a question (answer) it would reread like so: The Outside Is the Inside.

We can now make the nonattempt to denominate “Shakespeare.”
Let us speak clearly: What we will ask, that is to say, what will be answered, which by answer I mean, of course, to ask, and again (for here it is important to repeat, restate, even, one wishes, remark) what is to be asked, what is said to be asked (or if you like, answered), is no-thing other than, than the than itself (as opposed to the then, or the other-then being that which is the than) and in asking (answering) that other-than-ness, that being-other-than, we hope (but let us not hope in the Heideggerio-nonHegelo-Artaudinal sense) by chance (for chance in this or that sense—as we said previously—is in this (that) instance important) to (from), (i)(e)ncounter that which is normally not present, which is to say that which is normally absent or absenting itself, so to speak, or, let us rather say (even not say), especially not in ontological or epistemological terms, but, if I may here permit myself to speak in terms of a certain delimiting style, or, as is often preferred now, and is often enough de rigueur, in a deconstructive style, by which I mean in terms of a grammatology [De la grammatologie], (because it seems to announce itself, even present itself itself and at once absent itself, itself), in which (and even if it turns out it is actually not an in which but an in which that is not, or, more explicitly, not-that-which), then (than), or, besides, as we shall see (it may be possible to be or possibly be be-side that which is not, and therefore, we could be beside ourselves, which, in any event may turn out to be outside ourselves—even if it might banish us back inside, to insistence), actually, to be sure (and a certain acting is required, absent any present), what, in any event is assure—(by such an assertion I do mean to insert a-sure)—dly (delay) going to not be, or being-not, an incertain insert into the assured (which is certainly insured and even less is it insured), but, then again (but we cannot say that this, or that, might be a gain), and what we might wish to say, or speaking in the playful voice of a dancing, singing, Dionysus, it may be necessary to make a genealogy of sorts to sort out certain asymmetries of nonsystems (as they reach a horizon in which the horizonality of a horizonology arises from an always already being-horizon or being-horizonness that itself risks the horizonality of the horizon as such) and place them in the play or movement of différ—

So Let us be wary, suspicious, and let us take no-thing for granted. So much is hidden in the Bard’s name, but at the same time that it hides, it yearns to be discovered, dis-covered, that is to say, uncovered or disclosed. So let us remove this covering, this thing over something, this thing hovering so that no-thing may come about. We should be suspicious, first ov all, ov the very letters that comprise his name, namely, the very first letter of these very letters. This letter is “S.” The letter “S” is snake-like, it slithers, it crawls on its stomach through the tall grass of Western metaphysics. What is discovered here is of crucialistic importancy: “S”hakespeare is a snake in the grass, he is the serpent of phallogentricism, always already doing the dirty deed of the phallus as such. We must be on our guard now for everywhere around us is tall grass and William and his “willy” are sneaking about, (always) (al)ready to ssssstrike ussssss. But maybe the sssnake is more afraid of ussss than we are of it, as is often times the case. This brings us to another (an other) clearing [Lichtung], we are clearing the grass away. What if “S”hakespeare is afraid of us? Here we must consider not only the first letter, but first word—what does uncovering it show or reveal, but not re-veil? William shakes. To shake is to be afraid, to shake is to tremble, tremble with fear. But what is he shaking at? Why the trembling and quivering? “S”hakespeare is shaking because he is afraid of what might be discovered, or disclosed. He shakes at being shaken or undone [sollicitation]. He realizes that he might be exposed. Or, does he expose himself? We go deeper into the bush, into the thick, tall grass of the western metaphysical tradition.

By the pricking of my thumbs
Something wicked this way comes

Through this new clearing, for that is what we have been doing all along as we press along, going further and further through the bush, some-thing else is present. Even now, let us be on our guard, as we must consider another piece of this proper name: Speare. The (ap)(s)peare has (ap)(s)peared. The speare as such is now in our face. Are we surprised? This trembling phallus, this doodling cock, this no-name “♂” exposes itself, defines itself, itself. The text solicits itself to us, this phallagocentric text dangles in front of us, even lightly slaps our face and lips. Let us peer into the spear(e) that has appeared before its peers, even before appearing to itself, before itself.
At this moment in our rereading of this no-name’s nontext we can see a betrayal: what the text has yearned to be master of, has sought to dominate, oppress, and repress, press against itself in a desperate and futile attempt is the binary opposition in which the text and only the text (for nothing is outside the text) exercises, but does not exercise, a prejudice of smart to dumb, learned to ignorant. It is this opposition that must be reversed (the necessary yet insufficient reversal), the hierarchy must be toppled, upset, and stupidité must be given preference; it is vital for State interest.

We have shaken the Shakespearian text; it is no longer its own, no longer owns, it disobeys its own logic, lacks ownness. A heiarchy has been displaced, dislocated, unhinged, delimited, etc. The apostrophe has fallen. The decapitation [la décollation] of shakespeare. It is no longer Shakespeare’s but shakespeare,s. The head has fallen and the text or nontext (as it is not in this context) is now free to play:

Now is the winter of our discontent

It is no longer a text of Shakespeare, but a text from shakespeare; it is shakespeare,s. It is the not is. It is the is not. What is that? It is truth and also nontruth, untruthful truthfulness truthfully full of nontruth that is empty yet full; a thing empty of no-thing which is simply to say that a no-thing or nonthing is full. What is the meaning then? More importantly, what is the nonmeaning? The answer, which is also the question, is that the meaning nonmeaning of truthful untruth or the movement of things presently presenting themselves, beings becoming, coming to be by being let be (or as Heidegger says, letting beings be) is questionable, as any answer must be.

Let us begin again—a title now entitles itself: A Mid Summer Night’s Dream. To dream is to want and wish for a fantasy, which is a nonthing in that it is nonreal, but is also a thing in that it is real. The dream is neither true nor false, and we are neither awake nor asleep. A mist surrounds the dream which occurs amidst Summer, which itself is amid and amidst, between [entre] the Spring and the Fall, the beginning and the end. But because it is between these ends, it is also outside these ends; it is the uncertain insert, extracted and also replaced and inserted in(entre)between in the instant the text becomes insistent in this instance. Here we march along the margins of philosophy [Marges de la philosophie]. Dreams can be at any time, can even be timeless, or can be on time and being [Zur Sache des Denkens]; regardless of time and being, being and time [Sein und Zeit] are proper to an analysis or interpretation of dreams. What calls for thinking, or what is called thinking [Was heisst Denken], at present is the dissemination [La dissémination] of meaning (though not simply to be thought of as polysemy) on the way to language [Unterwegs zur Sprache] in which both writing and difference [L’écriture et la différence] and identity and difference [Identität und Differenz] can be explored. One would have to sketch, if one dreamed, not on the genealogy of morals [Zur Genealogie der Moral] but oneirically on one of dreams, or a dreamology; but such a task will not be attempted presently…
The other two professors, seated in the dark cave [antre], cognizant of the abundant use of wit, big words, and foreign language, nodded their heads in consent—there was obviously a great debate occurring and giant leaps of intellectual progress being made, even if none of them could understand it.

The two nodding shadows in the audience could not stop expressing their consent—their heads began to nod with increasing speed. Both professor T and H were nodding as fast as the two shades. The nodding became violent. The two members of the audience banged their heads on the armrests of the auditorium seats in unison. Still seated they leaned left, then right, crashing their heads into the arm rests until long, thin streaks of crimson rolled out of their ears and slid down the sides of their necks, splitting off like twigs from a tree branch. T began slamming his head into the podium: his blenched fingers grasped the sides of the wooden podium as he bent his knees and arched back so that he was staring at the ceiling. He paused for a moment, just long enough for his eyes to bulge with uncertainty, and then hurled his head against the wood podium. T’s lips puckered in pain as he planted his face against the wood, simultaneously producing a dull thud and a crisp crack of his nose-bone. Just as quickly as the pain registered, he was already arched back staring at the ceiling. A second time his head sped towards the illuminated podium, and as he lurched back to his starting stance a bloody arc of red spray and fissured yellow-gray teeth grew from the podium to his mouth. While T was slamming himself senseless—and making every blow count—H, not to be outdone, was pursuing the same objective but with a different approach. H was slamming his head into the pedestal with all the fervor of a woodpecker. H’s first hit threw the glass from their frames, whereupon the lenses were pounded to shards, which buried themselves in his forehead and eyes from his head-banging.

The lateral lashings of the audience where halted when T threw his face against the podium with such force that he summer-salted out into the audience, head-butting the two men just as they reached the peak of the ascension. The acrobatic head-butt disrupted the rhythm of the two men so that they began to slam into each other, temple to temple. Thickheaded though they were, this lasted only for a moment as the two succumbed to the accumulated blows and sank forward, faces landing with mouths gaping open and drooling in T’s crotch, who lay draped over the seat like a coat: head, back, and arms all stuffed in the seat and legs dangling down the back with crotch thrust in the air.

H’s fervor finally failed him; his battered face came to a rest at the center of the podium so that he was bent at a perfect ninety-degree angle with his arms hanging limply by his sides. The professor groaned into a puddle of wet snot, spittle, blood, and glass and began to slide backwards as he sank into unconsciousness. H’s rear led the fall, hitting the stage with such force that he bounced and sat upright for a moment before the momentum flung his arms out to either side and slammed his back against the hardwood flooring of the stage.

G.E. Lessing

2010-02-17T07:58:00.000-08:00

More Interesting Wiki Reading: G.E. Lessing.

Lessing was a poet, philosopher and critic. His theoretical and critical writings are remarkable for their often witty and ironic style and their unerring polemics. Hereby the stylistic device of dialogue met with his intention of looking at a thought from different angles and searching for elements of truth even in the arguments made by his opponents. For him this truth was never solid or something which could be owned by someone but always a process of approaching.

Relatedly: Emilia Galotti

Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet.

2010-02-17T06:51:00.000-08:00

Interesting Wiki reading: Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet.

Consume!

2010-02-17T06:48:00.000-08:00

Consume. more. media.--a cultural imperative.

regarding white chick glam rap (or, |{3$]-[a)

2010-02-08T09:46:00.000-08:00

ke$ha: or, rap is dead for black dudes but not white chicks.

Friday Expirimental Fiction!!!! (Part Title Graphics)

2009-06-18T13:47:00.000-07:00

Click to enlarge, otherwise they look lametastic.

Friday Expirimental Fiction!!!! (Part II)

2009-06-18T13:43:00.000-07:00

Note to Friends, From S. d’Lingua

My dear friends—wise men, statesmen, noblemen, and generals—I entrust this little tome to you all in hopes that you might enjoy a few laughs at the expense of many fools. I have taken my Ovid to heart, and matched meter to matter: So I present to you a text as tattered and rotten as the society it “de-picts” (I say that word with the utmost sarcasm and disdain for its unoriginal unraveler). This is a weary, ugly, frayed tapestry with more missing than showing—though it is a show of sorts. But this is the way of my age—content with no content. In short, I have given the Americans a book truly equal to themselves! (A true depiction of the Americans, however, would simply be a spectacular cover and no pages at all.) As it stands, I have four great claims, or four great waves: the greatest work of literary criticism, the longest title, the longest word, and the newest word. This, my little critique of life-styles!

TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION

As I see it, there are two sorts of introductions: one that imparts a brief message and sends the reader off on a journey of their own, and another that seeks to explain the text, assuming its reader otherwise incompetent to interpret and understand the work. I think to write an introduction of the second type would be to insult S. d’Lingua, as he himself made no such introduction, and I do not wish to voluntarily violence his work.

Literally nothing is known about d’Lingua except for the fact that he existed, and what we might wish to know of him—his personality, his wit, his friends, his family, his education etc. could only be gleaned from the short work that follows this introduction. No other information exists. So again, rather than create an image of d’Lingua here, I would wish readers to form their own image from the book, with the precaution that from beginning to end, something certainly is amiss.

A bit about the book. The language the text was privately published in is a language that rarely sees use in our time: it is rarely spoken and almost never written; indeed, some have declared that it has come to its fulfillment, or, more dramatically, its end. I myself have spent most of my life dedicated to its study—I take pride in being one of the few who still does. Finally, I have made one significant change to this text, one that I am sure d’Lingua would have been against, but I felt it was a necessary one, and one that I must elaborate on for but a brief moment, and unfortunately reveal a bit of the text’s possible deeper meaning—though I think even the dullest of minds would understand the intent. The text initially read backwards, so that there was a very visible clash at the end of the text (where the text began to read in a traditional manner, or forward), between the way things are going, the way they continue to be going, and the way one individual brave enough to go against the flow, or against the weight of things, goes. Undoubtedly, d’Lingua considered the use of this “new” direction of reading to be the ultimate in gimmickry, to evoke a reaction of disgust at such absurdity in a book, but it made one of the central points of the text, and made it quite well. However, this tactic did not spare a certain level of contempt from d’Lingua. “Any ‘author’—how little value this word has anymore—who attempts to be ‘novel’ in use of ‘neodirectional reading’ hereafter should be scorned, mocked, and generally abused as the gimmick itself has only been used with the utmost mocking, sarcasm, and contempt. There is nothing novel about these novels using pictures, colors, and different ways of reading; rather, it is a very common thing. Let us be against librarians too, for they seem common in ‘novels’ today. Today, isn’t it always the worst of days?”

The text as it is, comes to us is in rough fragments. To be sure, most of the fragmentary nature of the book is intentional, as d’Lingua himself informs us, but I simply cannot imagine he meant it to be disconnected and deformed to the degree that the current and only MS is. Thus, I have done my best to place some fragments into the context where they seem to fit most obviously. On top of that, and to complicate things further, almost all of the MS is marred and extremely difficult to read, and at some points it is almost entirely illegible. Again, I have done my very best to faithfully translate the work and render it readable.

—C.S. Hand

Expirimental Fiction Friday!! (Part I)

2009-06-18T13:40:00.000-07:00

To Juvenal

Congratulations, you have won
It's a year's subscription of bad puns
And a make-shift story of concern
And to set it up before it burns

My opinions. Mmmmm mmmmm
My opinion. Mmmmm mmmmm
My opinions. Mmmmm mmmmm
My opinion. Mmmmm mmmmm

And there seems to be a problem here
And the scale of emotion seems too clear
Now they rise and fall like Wall Street stock
And they have an effect on how people talk

Opinion. Mmmmm mmmmm
Opinion. Mmmmm mmmmm
Opinion. Mmmmm mmmmm
Opinion. Mmmmm mmmmm

Congratulations, you have won
It's a year's subscription of bad puns
And a make-shift story of concern
And you set it up before it burns

Your opinion. Mmmmm mmmm
Your opinion. Mmmmm mmmm
Your opinion. Mmmmm mmmm
Your opinion. Mmmmm mmmm
Your opinions. Mmmmm mmmm

-Kurt Cobain, Opinion

Words On the Back of the DVD Where You Read About What You Are Buying

2009-06-17T15:31:00.000-07:00

What You Can Expect:

Jail Time
Scantily Clad Undergrads
More Advertisements than Content
Frequent Inactivity
Free Term Papers So U Can Stay Drunk Longer
Antipathy for Logic
Vampires
Pirates
Dictionaries
Lacerating Critiques of Bourgeois Culture
The Coolest Places for Spring Break!
Nostalgia
Perspicacious Take-Downs of Capitalism
Irony
Extras
Fan Art
Actor Commentary
Wizards
Nudes of Esoteric French Theory
WoW Guides to Earn Extra Cash!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Use of the Word "Non-" in Many Sardonic Contexts
Empathy, Solidarity, Diversity, and other Buzz Words
How to get her Unpregnant
Incredulity towards metanarratives
Cool people
Rigorous Scholarship
This List
How you, as an analytic philosopher, can talk to a girl
Disparaging arrows towards everything that moves
Deleted Scenes
More postmodernism than postmodernism can handle
Snide tee-shirts
Useless web 2.0 appz
Get your degree online in under a year!
How to be as provocative as me (heh jk thats not included)
Arpeggio guitars
Spleen
Cool memories/cool memes
Illegal Wars
Skinny Ties
Rainbows
Dry Disseminations
And much much more! (once I come up with it)

Iterable Erratic Exergue Fashioned After Facts and Supplemented Instead for an Ousted Pharmakonic-Sumploke Lisibility (Or, A Parenthetically Dissimula

2009-06-12T06:52:00.000-07:00

Iterable Erratic Exergue Fashioned After Facts and Supplemented Instead for an Ousted Pharmakonic-Sumploke Lisibility (Or, A Parenthetically Dissimulating Dissemination of a Jouissant of a Grammatological Hors-Texte et Autre-Stoffe Colon Limented Edition Exclamation Mark)

“We need a transformation of language, a transformation we can neither compel nor concoct. The transformation does not result from the fabrication of neologisms and novel phrases.”
Martin Heidegger, The Way to Language

“Excellence of diction means clarity and avoidance of banality. Now, clearest is the diction that uses standard terms, but this is banal: the poetry of Cleophon and Sthenelus exemplifies this. Impressive and above the ordinary is the diction that uses exotic language (by ‘exotic’ I mean loan words, metaphors, lengthenings, and all divergence from the standard). But if one composes entirely in this vein, the result will be either a riddle or barbarism—a riddle, if metaphors predominate; barbarism, if loan words. For this is the nature of a riddle, to attach impossibilities to a description of real things.” Aristotle, Poetics

Two quotes, one from Heidegger, one from Aristotle, will calmly and strategically open the place for our discourse, the first of its kind, into the recondite and tenebrous doctrine of the meaningless, or that which is not, for that is the task of this thinking. We will follow these axioms as closely as possible and uphold their values and intimations as sacrosanct.

“Against positivism, which halts at phenomena—‘there are only facts’—I would say: no, facts is precisely what there is not, only interpretations. We cannot establish only fact ‘in itself’: perhaps it is folly to want to do such a thing.
‘Everything is subjective’ you say; but even this is interpretation. The ‘subject’ is not something given, it is something added and invented and projected behind what there is.—Finally, is it necessary to posit an interpreter behind the interpretation? Even this is invention, hypothesis.
In so far as the word ‘knowledge’ has any meaning, the world is knowable; but it is interpretation otherwise, it has no meaning behind it, but countless meanings.—‘Perspectivism.’”
Nietzsche, Will to Power

To interpret a corps perdu. How did Derrida understand that?

This will be a[1] will to meaninglessness, a will to say nothing, which will be to say nothing, seriously;[2] (as all scholarships full of scholarnaughts are, as we will see), against Parmenides’ dic(k)tum “Never shall this force itself on us, that that which is not may be;/While you search, keep your thought far away from this path.” Indeed, we will dare to utter the sound, “that which in no way is.” A heterogeneous and dense dismantling of meaning in which meaning, bewildered by its horizon, gets all troped up and simultaneously tropes all over itself when it is said/written that “that which in no way is” or that “that which is not” is. The anxiety that meaning has exerted throughout a certain historico-phallic discourse, generally known as philosophy will now be reflected, refolded so that the anxiety of meaning will now be meaning’s anxiety. In this anxiety and anguish, in this remark, the signifier will be liberated from the signified—significantly. Yet insignificantly.[3] A will to say nothing: a comic interruption of a serious (lets be serious) discourse that has generally occupied and operated within the space under the title of scholarship. This serious discourse (lets be serious) had operated for centuries without interruption, in an ostensible unicity, in a pure auto-affection which did not seem to borrow from outside itself, without any accessory signifier or any substance of expression foreign to its own spontaneity, until first Nietzsche then Derrida arrived on the scene—writing; a serious discourse (lets be spurious) now in a comedic crisis, a stiff language now being loosened up—writhing. But when was scholarship ever taken serious? Hasn’t scholarship always “been taken” and hasn’t scholarship always taken—removed meaning from the texts it studied? And where did it cast this “meaning” (mise à l’écart)? What did it do to it/with it? Isn’t scholarship a “mere” attachment to the philosophico-phallus, just as Petronius has written? “[A] huge crowd surrounded him with applause and the most awestruck admiration. You see, he had such enormous sexual organs that you’d think the man was just an attachment to his penis.” But who has the phallus[4] (meaning) when scholarship takes the meaning, ships if off? Is meaning a fallacy, a phallus? Is it phallusy? When meaning (the phallus) falls, how does one bring it back up? Can meaning be erected once destroyed? Can the male-centric discourse of philosophy do such a thing? (Or should meaning, a meaning-fallacy, be reinterpreted according to a hymenology, a hymenated discourse intent on raising the phallacy of meaning within the context of the textual phallacy meaning—should the phallus-text become a con-text? Where is the meaning? In the phallus, in the ribald textual skirts, in its folds, in the context of rienterpretation. Meaning is a fallacy, the defining phallacy of Western Civilization. It must be troped off at all costs. Scholarship. Where is the ship of scholars going? Can it be heading somewhere, and can the being-heading of its heading be beheaded or beheld? Can meaning be held, is it beholden to anyone, or is it felicitous, éperonical?) These scholarnauts, these scholarnaughts—perhaps arrive at poetic endness in Charbdys (mettre en abyme), perhaps they met their own deconstruction in and out of a mimed heliotropic metametaphor simultaneously, or, through a reorganized or double reading writing written reading writing they were lost in a chain of signifiers and carried off to an ahegemonic negative space of an Aufhebunghole where Hegemon of Thasos endlessly and iambicly disseminates on them with a preternaturally huge phallogocentricism. And the scholarnaughts missed it. Or will miss it.[5], [6],[7],[8],[9],[10],[11],[12] Thus the missness of any missive must, according to a “logic” of that-which-is-absent (presence), forever remain fractious in any text in which it inhabits, which is all texts. That is what this will be about. But this will also be a bout with the dubious nature of aboutness, which will come about, but only once we are on the way to an aboutness that is prior to, and has priority, to what is currently being-about, being brought about (which is being-brought-about), in this about. Right about now.

Could this be a literary affair? A philosopher’s liaison with lascivious Literature instead of “Logic,” “Meaning,” “Seriousness,” and “Truth”? Is this the first philosophy to have an affair?[13]—Did Plato? Did Nietzsche? Did Descartes? Did Derrida? Or is philosophy itself a literary affair, the literary affair par excellence?

As perilous interpretation,[14] this is also a perilous criticism that wants to risk reasons as well as reason, and is side-splitting, and as side-splitting, is a side-splitting reasoning, which is to say (write), of course, that it reasons sans-fondically. After the fact, After The Fact. After facts, post-truth, but neither from the beginning nor the end, comfortably within and without, the comedic space par excellence, laughing after all these closings, these ends—an opening, a disclosing along the closings of a losing-loosening, now lewd now lucid, that loses its head to end up at an open-ending, which is an upending that unpins the historico-dialectic-ontotheological discourse of science itself.[15]

In a style that carries on, a nonlinear, noncircular, vertiginous movement or transport or send-off or send-off of a send-off already sent yet which still has to be sent, that while it carries on gets carried away and carries away, and as a carrying on and carrying away a simultaneous destabilizing and reinscribing (rien-scribing), remarking for a necessary rereading. As an unweaving of weaving-ness, this is perhaps a leaving, a leaving from Being into—out-in Nonbeing. A sure departure to naught, to naughtyness, to say yes to nihilating. Very naughty.

A collection of accidental essays,[16] full of contingent or arbitrary signs and an obituary of signs orbited on and exhibited along (but not in) the expressive field by crepuscular sighs of a discipline of question whose entire discipline is now in question from within and without, which is neither within nor without. The moment of these critical productions, “where” they take place, is neither here nor there, and their reinscription (a gesture, which will be later commented upon, that will become rienscription) the Derridean gesture par excellence, is set to work to interrupt or decenter the “whereness” or locus, a central locus, of a locution that has lost its awareness of just how radically a-where theoria is. Thus such deconstruction is a-where, wryly.

To conclude, which is to begin (again), sans fin, this scholarship is a celebration of Thoth’s thought, which is to say, among other things, that it is Thothful; it is a celebration of supplemental logic, of a logic of the supplement: “The system of these traits brings into play an original kind of logic: the figure of Thoth is opposed to its other (father, sun, life, speech, origin or orient, etc.), but as that which at once supplements and supplants it. Thoth extends or opposes by repeating or replacing. By the same token, the figure of Thoth takes shape and takes its shape from the very thing it resists and substitutes for.” And, as Derrida, the obtuse, labyrinthine god of esoteric postmodern philosophemes and disrupter-god of writing’s regular spacing par excellence, writes, in a “writing that absolutely upsets all dialectics, all teleology, and all ontology” that, “In distinguishing himself from his opposite, Thoth also imitates it, becomes its sign and representative, obeys it and conforms to it, replaces it, by violence if need be.” This scholarship, like Thoth, “repeats everything in the addition of the supplement: in adding to and doubling as the sun, [it] is other than the sun and the same as it; other than the good and the same, etc.” It is “[a]lways taking a place not [its] own,… [it] has neither a proper place nor a proper name. [It’s] propriety or property is impropriety or inappropriateness, the floating indetermination that allows for substitution and play.”[17]

[1] Ibid.
[2] But what can “seriously” mean absent a being-meaningness or being-true (that is, the true being or true beingness of such an onologicalaty, however dubious) of seriousness as such? It must textually mean a series-slyness or a sly seriousness, which is always already a rewritten seriousness or a rienscription of meaning-seriousness or being-seriousness, the there-absentness of nonseriousness. Perhaps the problematic of seriousness posed as such is best ordered around the blind spot of seriousness/nonseriousness (already caught up in an hierarchy within the larger discourse of Western Philosophy itself).
[3] It is an emergence that makes the grammè appear as such (that is to say according to a new structure of nonpresence) (Of Grammatology p. 86)
[4] Are we playing with Derrida’s phallusies? Is there more than one? Is that proper? Is this proper?
[5] For more on such a notion, see “Noteworthy Structures: A Defense of the Current Hegemony of the Footnote, A Reply to H.L. Buckford’s controversial ‘Against Underwriting.’” in Journal of Historical Dialectics.
[6] Cf. “Flaubert’s Meretricious Revisions/Incisions” in W. H. Bain’s dauntless criticism of recent and current scholarship regarding the method of Flaubert’s word choice and writing habits. Particularly insightful is the chapter which speculates that Flaubert indeed discovered le mot juste, yet, to spite the bourgeois, fooled a prostitute into burning the notebook in which he had written it.
[7] One must learn to avail oneself of linearity and moreover, “reading along the line” or reading “by the book.” Perhaps now we are just beginning to be able to pose such questions no matter how systematically threatening they may appear to be.
[8] A comparison of lexicological arbitrariness in writings Plato and Nietzsche is warranted, oriented around a reading of Condillac’s Essai sur l’origine des connaissances humaines which itself should be read through Derrida’s monolithic Glas. One would thus not only read and see differently, but hear and here differently.
[9] “Verse and Dwelling: How Holderin, Rilke, and Heidegger Inspired a New Architecture,” Architecture’s Thought 7, i (Spring 2007) is illuminating in this context.
[10] Supra p. 2-3
[11] Supra p. 66-81
[12] For a scurrilous rebuke of nineteenth century nihilism see the prominently neglected Helvetius A. V. Delacroix’s Ex Nihilo: From Authentic Anxiety to Radical Meaning, which I will quote in extensio: “As one will have no doubt noticed, there is no such thing as nothing, as non-being; there is no being-meaningless or being of meaninglessness; there is only being and only meaning, and thus existence is radically valuable. Try as one might, meaning always come to be, is always produced. From what? Meaning. There is so much meaning, and meaning is so expansive and manifold, that meaning gets confused with meaning, and meaning covers meaning, which means meanings exist within meaning; if there is “nonmeaning” it is only a form of meaning, only an interpretation of meaning. Nonmeaning, nothing, nothingness, meaninglessness are failed concepts, boogymen who frightened those too scared of Being to get out of bed in Its tremendous darkness to discover Its tremendous light. As soon as there is man, there is meaning, and as there is man, there is meaning.” (p. 337)
[13] Cf. “Sin and Syntax: Kierkegaard’s florid relationship with Literature” in Logos Reconsidered.
[14] “Such a stratum of readability could eventually be translated with no loss into any language which disposes of a certain material, après le détour.” Derrida, perhaps.
[15] Obligatory.
[16] Question de temps.
[17] If the preface appears inadmissible today, it is on the contrary because no possible heading can any longer enable anticipation and recapitulation to meet and to merge with one another. To lose one’s head, no longer to know where one’s head is, such is perhaps the effect of dissemination.

Derrida, Dissemination

To tympanize philosophy--could that mean to tympanize purpose?

The "issues" that will be explored on this blog will be utterly meaningless since they are of a political nature. To the reader's suprise, I do not hate the "person" "Obama," nor the "political" version of "Obama," nor the brand name "Obama," nor even really care about what he does or does not "accomplish" in the contemptible realm of American politics, since such accomplishments are always-already nugatory, and I would honestly rather conjugate random latin verbs while observing a hyperhairy hermaphrodite play air guitar to Metallica's Enter Sandman than endure a prosaic "speech" of Oblahma's.

I am a philosopher as Plato and Nietzsche were, and will only visit upon the lower realms of politics when I am being burned by an intellectual tedium that does not allow me to explore, with the necessary temerity, the more elusive and more bountiful questions of philosophy. Alternatley, this past-time might have borne the name of The Idleness of a Philosopher.

This, therefore, will be a "literary" critique (and here all educated readers will understand a joke, for it is not possible for a politician to be literary [which I suppose will be the sport of this blog to show], unless perhaps he appears in Shakespeare) of the brand name that is commonly signaled to in the Media as "Obama." I will try not to launch any incursion into the brand name's "ideas" for I know that it/he has none, and do not wish to dignify a mere politician (or the noisome occupation itself) by engaging it on philosophical planes. Moreover, I do not understand this project to be involved with "Obama" at all, but the bourgeois event "Obama," which I have sagely rewritten as "Oblahma" for "his" voluble, untremendous "speeches" which the huge media jackoff has shockingly deemed eloquent, sophisticated, and poetic. Of course I understand such a judgement by one of the weightiest and most fatuous elements of postmodern existence to be always-already de minimus, but trying to annoint a political tool with such attributes is contrary to all good taste. I have picked up the pen in defence of Literature while the rest of the blockheads were content to see her assaulted.

I will critique the language, and the "bourgeios culture" (solecism indeed) that surrounds "Oblahma." Alternatley this blog might have borne Voltaire's golden dictum as its title, Ecrasez l'infame! which would here mean "Crush the Bourgeois!"

Notes on "[s]upreme" "[c]ourt" "[j]ustice(s)"

2009-06-04T14:55:00.000-07:00

“…I’m standing here with the New Justice of the Supreme Court, a joker of sorts who will only say that he is a Jester. So how does it feel to be the newest member of the Supreme Court?”

“This has always been a court with no kings or queens, but only fools.”

“Ok…well, you have been saying that you are going to add more to the show or, or, the spectacle that is the supreme court. How are you going to liven the show up for the viewers at home? How do you plan to make it more colorful?”

“I’m going to make it so all opinions are written in the scholarly prose of Pig Latin. And before they are finally written, they will be sung out loud while the Justices dance a jig to whatever song the lawyers and the audience inside the courtroom and the viewers at home want them to; we’ll dance around in a circle, either going left or right, according to what the audience wants.”

“Spectacular! Anything else?”

“I’m thinking about allowing members to wear red or blue robes—all of them seem to like one color more than another.”

“I see, well that certainly sounds like a racy court to me.”

“We have some very important controversies to settle. The most important and pressing of which is whether or not the smiley faces on American Online’s Instant Messenger are discriminatory because they seem to be ethnically centered on the Caucasian male perspective that has heretofore been entirely responsible for the very real and lasting prejudices and oppression that marginalized peoples the world over, but most especially in these United States, experience on a day to day basis. In addition, we will finally decide whether it is appropriate to microwave a Hot Pocket for one minute and forty-five seconds or the entire two minutes, as is recommended on the product’s box. Too, we will decide just how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop and whether or not a 10.0 rating on Hot or Not dot com is possible for anyone to achieve. Oh yea, and we are all going to wear dunce hats too. Like those big white bandage-crowns you see all the people with these days? From their swollen heads? We’re wearing them too.”

“Dunce hats? Really?”

“Of course! All justices have been big fans of the dunce diadem—I’m sure it will rest comfortably on all the members of the current court, and of those to come.”

“No one ever mentioned seeing justices from the past or present in a dunce hat before.”The Jester shrugged. “I guess no one ever noticed.”

The interviewer chuckled. “Maybe we should all get our eyes checked! But back to this deconstruction of Justice[1] and the Supreme Court…”

The Jester’s eyes narrowed. “The what?”

“The deconstruction[2]—”

“I don’t think you really know what that word means, or all that it entails.”

“Care to define it?” she said.

“Define or define?” he said.

“…Aren’t you afraid Justice might suffer under the new Court?” she said.

The Jester grabbed the microphone and shoved it up between his buttocks. Then, squinting his painted face and grimacing directly into the camera, he let loose a long, loud, fart and his butt-cheeks flapped so hard that they quivered and smacked against one another like a pair of clapping hands.

“That’s what the Court thinks of Justice.” With that, the Jester produced a small spring from his sleeve and after fastening it to the bottom of the microphone, which was still firmly lodged between his cheeks, bounced on his bottom up the stairs and into Court to hear the first of many, many, stupid arguments and meet them with many, many, stupid opinions.

[1] The language is obscure here; this part of the dialogue could easily be rendered as the following:

Jester: You still believe in Justice?

Reporter: Yes, why?

J: Justice, shouldn’t a thing like that exist at all times and all places, and for all people? Shouldn’t it be universally true? That is to say, what is just for one time and for one place and for one people must be just for all times and all places and for all peoples?

R: Yes what is Just is just for all times and all places and all peoples. And yes I believe in Justice.

J: Justice—the thing-in-itself—constant, true for all times, for all people, and for all places. Do you have any idea what this has been called before?

R: No, I do not.

J: Justice, the thing-in-itself, was called by the wisest man, indeed the greatest man our civilization has ever produced, an Idea.

R: Justice is an Idea.

J: Excellent. So if Justice is a universal, true for all times, all places, and all people, then how come wherever we look we find this is not the case; indeed we see that if anything is universal it is injustice. We see many societies, both past and present, claiming to be “Just” yet they are rife with things we deem unjust—murder, rape, theft, treachery, revenge, and slavery. Justice then, must not be true, and there must be no Idea of Justice. Do you agree, or think I have spoken wrongly?

R: I agree.

J: The slogan of the Supreme Court, “Equal Justice Under Law”—does that disturb you, as it disturbs me?

R: I’m not sure what you are saying.

J: The Supreme Court, would you say that its primary function is to rule on cases and controversies, and to issue “rulings” in the form of opinions?

R: Sure.

J: And these rulings, which are opinions, they are laws?

R: Yes.

J: So the Supreme Court makes law these days? Or don’t you suppose that’s what is intimated when people say they “legislate from the bench”?

R: Yes.

J: Can you recall their slogan?R: Equal Justice Under Law.

J: Right! If the Supreme Court is making laws, are they under it or over it, are they a part of the law or are they apart from the law?

R: I’m not sure.

J: When we say someone is above something—is grand, is high, is supreme—doesn’t that intimate that someone is apart from something? And don’t those words, grand, high, supreme, imply mastery? And it would be foolish to believe that someone who is master of something or exhibits mastery over something is ruled by something beneath it. Is this correct or do you disagree?

R: Oh, I agree with you.

J: So if the Supreme Court makes law—is not the Supreme Court the master of law? Does it not exhibit mastery over the law?

R: You have spoken truly.

J: And as we just said, wouldn’t it be foolish of us to believe that the Supreme Court, the master of the law, is ruled by the law, as though a slave might rule a master?

R: What you have said is correct.

J: So the Supreme Court is not ruled by the law, and is apart from the law.

R: Yes.

J: What do we call things that are not ruled, do we often say, as when scolding irresponsible children, that they are unruly?

R: Yes.

J: And something apart from another thing, what might we call that? Might we call that thing outside? And people who are outside or not a part of something, might we call them outsiders or foreigners or barbarians?

R: Yes.

J: And the Supreme Court, is it not outside of the law, insomuch as we have just said?
R: Yes.

J: So then, it seems that the Supreme Court is a bunch of unruly outlaws with no idea what they are opining about.

R: Yes, you have spoken wisely.

J: Have I? I think we have spoken wrongly when we have agreed to call these barbarians mere unruly outlaws.

R: Well I don’t see what else we might say of them.

J: What might we call someone who is outside yet makes the rules?

R: I do not know.

J: You don’t? I think we were right to call someone or something that is apart from some other thing as foreign, since it is outside.

R: Sure.

J: But these outsiders, these foreigners, make rules and rule others from afar, simply through opinions. Do you know what those kinds of people are, you fine American?
R: I know this one—Tyrants!

J: So then, we would be just in calling them foreign tyrants, since they are both foreign and ruling?

R: I agree.

J: What an odd thing that what America fought to free itself from hundreds of years ago, and paid dearly for in the price of life, now again rules, yet this time the Americans are completely unaware of their foreign masters!

J: And surely you have heard all the wise men speak about what tyrants are ruled by.
R: To be sure it’s not the Law. But if the Court is not ruled by law, what is it ruled by?

J: The answer is not obvious to you?

R: No it isn’t, and I’d like to hear what you have to say about the matter.

J: It is ruled by the fickle winds of whim and folly. Its supposed well of “wisdom” is naught but a yellow puddle filled by the idle urinating of passing cows and donkeys with blank eyes amidst a field of wet, brown, rut-ridden mud; even desperate scavengers know better than to sip from such foul waters.

R: So what should we do about them? Should we kill them?

J: This much I can tell you: when one holds their life in hand, one realizes how pathetic that life is—and gives it back. For in taking the lives of the empty, one gains nothing. Let them write opinion upon opinion until it becomes a tower of Babel; let them scribble with their thin, vengeful wrists; with every clumsy word they erect sable, twisting, mendacious, malicious, “laws” that like all tall buildings will be toppled. You should laugh: laugh at such green and fetid waste being piled up so high; laugh at such a bleached, withered, valueless existence; laugh at the mislead who still believe they lead a life of value by participating in “courts.”

R: Those don’t appear to be reasons for laughter.

J: They don’t? Notions such as Justice and Truth remain unreachable to the short pig-arms of a supreme court justice; and even if such notions fall into their pit, well what will they do then? They can no more hold them with their awkward pig-hoofs than they can enjoyably dine on them with their fat pig-snouts. Such are these foreign tyrants—not even worthy enough for the backside waste of old philosophies.

[2] If people were as careless in walking as they are in speaking, then all would have busted lips, bloody noses, and black eyes.

Prai$$$e 4 This NO TT

2009-06-04T14:14:00.000-07:00

(this product uses 100% Recycled Materials)

“This book is a deplorable monument of the extent to which intelligence and erudition can be abused. It is ripe with baneful paradoxes, indiscreet researches, audacious criticism, errors, malignity and indecency, and is temerarious, impious, scandalous, and destructive of revelation. In summa, this is contagious poison and should be burned.” –Jean Robert Tronchin

“PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE TAKE A DUMP ON MY CHEST”—Ghost of Carnap and ghost of Bertrand Russell and ghost of Kripke balls deep in the ghost of Wittgenstein who is weeping ethereal rainbows while making out with the ghost of W. V. Quine on a transgalactical text of a nontranscendental French Theory that folds and unfolds the 4th and 5th dimensions depending on the magnitude of the pelvic pulverizing Russell gives Wittgenstein.

“Fuck yes (Fuck ou(s)i(a)).”—Always already French Theory itself as such.

“htis bOok will mke u smrat.”—mtv.com

“Depth, genius, imagination, taste, reason, sensibility, philosophy, elevation, originality, nature, intellect, fancy, rectitude, facility, flexibility, precision, art, abundance, variety, fertility, warmth, magic, charm, grace, force, an eagle’s sweep of vision, vast understanding, rich instruction, excellent tone, urbanity, vivacity, delicacy, correctness, purity, clearness, elegance, harmony, brilliancy, rapidity, gaiety, pathos, sublimity, universality, perfection, indeed—behold, Derrida.” –John Searle, W.V. Quine, Cambridge University

“Fuck, I wish I had thought of this.”—Momus

BUT HOW MANY ALTGIRLS WILL THINK IM COOL IF THEY SEE ME READ THIS?—the entire readership of n+1

“You’re a bully.”—Callicles

“He practices the method of obscurantisme terroriste.”[1]—Michel Foucault

uumfg it totally r0xxsd—the twats on twitter including Ashton Kutcher

"This Blog is a malefactor who meddles in the matters of the heavens and the earth below, who makes the Worse Argument appear the Better and teaches others to follow its example."--Democracy, Slayer of Philosophers par excellence

“With Obama, you can hardly misread him, because he's so obscure. Every time you say, "He says so and so," he always says, "You misunderstood me." But if you try to figure out the correct interpretation, then that's not so easy. I once said this to Michel Foucault, who was more hostile to Obama even than I am, and Foucault said that Obama practiced the method of obscurantisme terroriste (terrorism of obscurantism). We were speaking French. And I said, "What the hell do you mean by that?" And he said, "He writes so obscurely you can't tell what he's saying, that's the obscurantism part, and then when you criticize him, he can always say, 'You didn't understand me; you're an idiot.' That's the terrorism part." And I like that. So I wrote an article about Obama. I asked Michel if it was OK if I quoted that passage, and he said yes.” –John R. Searle

[1] If you have no idea what this means in any context, you are a fucking idiot. Or John R Searle.

America Are You Free?

2009-04-01T05:09:00.000-07:00

America are you free?