[lit-ideas] Fat and Painted Kings and Queens (resolved to twentio-six)

It was the Phil-Lit Bar & Grill, but what kind of Lit-Ideas space creeps now 
its petty pace from dawn to eternal dusk this evening?

Silly eyes gazing at the war waging above them.... Stephen Crane, from "The 
Blue Hotel" for all you "Streithähne" (argumentative roosters) at Andy's 
Going-Back-In-Again Party.

"Of course the board had been overturned, and now the whole company of cards 
was scattered over the floor, where the boots of the men trampled THE FAT AND 
PAINTED KINGS AND QUEENS AS THEY GAZED WITH THEIR SILLY EYES AT THE WAR THAT 
WAS WAGING ABOVE THEM."

Cratylus was Plato's first teacher, teaching the gospel of difference and the 
eternal flux, the sad news, the bad news of the Weeping Philosopher, Heraclitus.

Fragment (43) Homer was wrong in saying: "Would that strife might perish from 
among gods and humans!" He did not see that he was praying for the destruction 
of the universe; for, if his prayer were heard, all things would pass away. . . 
. 
Fragment (44) War is the father of all and the king of all; and some he has 
made gods and some humans, some bond and some free.

War is, difference is, the definer. This to this side, this to that. Me here, 
you there. Me *qua* here, you *qua* there. What faint hope had anyone, anytime, 
that minds, plural, mind you, could ever meet (except on the battlefield--and 
is there any other place to meet--is there any other place?)?

The dream that they, minds, could meet in words is a throwback to Plato's Ideal 
Forms: Not to worry; certainly, shadows they be, but they come together in the 
middle of the blinding sun at your back, unapproachable to you now, but heed 
your Guardians, choose, from among you, proper leaders to guide you on your 
way. They will be your Philosopher Kings.

FAT AND PAINTED KINGS AND QUEENS...GAZED WITH THEIR SILLY EYES AT THE WAR THAT 
WAS WAGING ABOVE THEM.

An advertising stunt, a promotion blitz, a jingle: The Works of Plato and the 
educational system that grew out of it. In the dialogue _Cratylus_, the mention 
of Socrates' dream of the One, the True, and the Beautiful; in _The Republic_, 
with its steps to the ideal republic and how tos to taking them, the point in 
the discussion at which, in discussing limited resources and the universal 
desire of humankind to have cooked meals, i.e. the highest living standard 
possible--Say, let's, uh, talk about our desires with our neighbors and see if 
we can MEET on some common ground and settle this equitably. And if that does 
not work...[at this point, the discourse falters, the text seems faulty, and 
the only dialogue that is three, four or five times longer than any of the 
others begins to expand...] WAR, and the necessity of preparations thereunto, 
the painting by numbers, for instance, of our FAT AND PAINTED KINGS AND QUEENS, 
a pack of cards, helplessly GAZING at the unpainted and unpaintable truth of 
the unbridgeable difference and differences--the WAR THAT WAS WAGING ABOVE THEM.

A good twentio-six to all of you,

wishes your

Richard Henninge

University of Mainz

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