[lit-ideas] Re: Fw: Applied Philosophy: Apriori Conditions of the Rant
- From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 18 May 2008 14:15:07 -0230
Rusians may well agree, since family is a constitutive feature of a good (or not
misspent life) for the Russian soul. But who was it that said that nobody can be
a czar to one's maid? And why is that, after all?
Geez .. I'm old now and my memory fails me so often ...
Moving on to pork ribroast w. garlic, rosemary, sage and secret Rusian
ingredients,
Walter O.
Quoting Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
> Sent: Sunday, May 11, 2008 4:00 PM
> Subject: Re: Applied Philosophy: Apriori Conditions of the Rant
>
>
> > Thanks to Walter for being a good sport and not coming back at me angrily.
>
> > His image:
> >
> > "I will say that I have at
> > times stood in front of my mirror in the privacy of my wash closet, in the
> > absence of any and all family members, friends and pets, and with very
> > hesitant
> > and faltering steps, attempted to rant."
> >
> > brought to mind one of my favorite William Carlos Williams' poems "Danse
> > Russe". And since it's Sunday, I send it:
> >
> > If I when my wife is sleeping
> > and the baby and Kathleen
> > are sleeping
> > and the sun is a flame-white disc
> > in silken mists
> > above shining trees, --
> > if I in my north room
> > dance naked, grotesquely
> > before my mirror
> > waving my shirt round my head
> > and singing softly to myself:
> > "I am lonely, lonely,
> > I was born to be lonely,
> > I am best so!"
> > If I admire my arms, my face
> > my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
> > against the yellow drawn shades, --
> >
> > Who shall say I am not
> > the happy genius of my household?
> >
> > ******
> >
> > And yes, ranting can be great fun, but if your going to seriously compete
> > you must forgo all thought.
> > Remember that GRE question:
> >
> > Thought is to ranting as [ ]
> >
> > a. cold water is to an erection
> > b. money is to integrity
> > c. alcohol is to your liver
> > d. all of the above.
> >
> >
> > Mike Geary
> > Memphis
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
> > To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Cc: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Sent: Sunday, May 11, 2008 1:38 PM
> > Subject: Re: Applied Philosophy: Apriori Conditions of the Rant
> >
> >
> >> Confession: Recently, I have been secretly envious of those people who
> >> possess
> >> the ability, as well as the willingness and courage, to rant - to rant in
> >> public, I should add, unless of course the publicity condition is already
> >> internal to the nature of the rant as a distinct speech act. (I clearly
> >> betray
> >> my ignorance of the practice here .... of which more below.)
> >>
> >> At meetings, I'll sit there listening to some administrator
> >> and think to myself:
> >>
> >> "Wow! That must really feel great."
> >>
> >> And my hypothesis is almost always corroborated by the ranter's look of
> >> deep
> >> satisfaction and pleasure upon the end of the proffered soliloquy. And
> >> there is
> >> something almost sublime about the silence that typically follows a
> >> really good
> >> rant. .......... As if, we all recognized in the depths of our very
> >> souls, and
> >> this jointly and collectively, that we were in the hallowed presence
> >> of something .... something deeply archetypal about the nature of Dasein
> >> and the
> >> moral dignity of rationally autonomous humanity itself.
> >>
> >> Continuing on in this Augustinian communicative mode, I will say that I
> >> have at
> >> times stood in front of my mirror in the privacy of my wash closet, in
> >> the
> >> absence of any and all family members, friends and pets, and with very
> >> hesitant
> >> and faltering steps, attempted to rant. I pretend that the imaginary
> >> interlocutor in the mirror was some nutty Aristotelian, like Richard
> >> Bernstein,
> >> Richard Rorty, Gadamer, Tugendhat or Charles Taylor. And, man, would I
> >> give it
> >> to him! Straight from the hip; no holds barred.
> >>
> >> At the end of such rants, I, too, experience a deep sense of pleasure and
> >> satisfaction. It's almost orgasmic, but no cigar. I do believe the
> >> language
> >> game of the rant possesses definite phylogenic survival value on criteria
>
> >> of
> >> both natural and sexual selection. The activity itself, however, is
> >> quite
> >> strenuous and I always raise a sweat. A cool, refreshing shower and I'm
> >> fit as
> >> a fiddle for the day's encounters with ranting students, colleagues,
> >> administrators, irate publishers ... even the meter maid at the mall.
> >>
> >> But what I remain somewhat unclear on are the constitutive rules
> >> governing this
> >> language game. Can you say just anything that happens to pop into your
> >> mind at
> >> the time of the rant? Is it constitutive or only regulative that you
> >> provide no
> >> justification for the conclusions ranted? (Is the term really only a noun
>
> >> and
> >> not a verb?)
> >>
> >>
> >> One final consideration, if I may. My abilities at
> >> Habermasian reconstructive science suggest that the deployment of
> >> profanity is
> >> an apriori condition of a rant. Or am I being somewhat ethnocentric here?
>
> >> How
> >> do Russians rant? Do the English EVER rant? Is Don Cherry the regulative
> >> ideal
> >> for ranters universally or is the validity of his rant relative to
> >> conceptions
> >> of the authentic life current only in highly rural and isolated Canadian
> >> communities?
> >>
> >> I eagerly await answers and further instruction from the phrantimoi
> >> amongst us.
> >>
> >> Walter O.
> >> Yes, it's snowing as I speak. (But we have lobster to die for!)
> >>
> >>
> >> Quoting Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> >>
> >>> > 1. Human reason should not be reduced to instrumental reason.
> >>>
> >>> You're right. I should be reduced to belief. At least that's what I
> >>> believe.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> > Reason can identify morally worthy ends,
> >>>
> >>> No it can't, belief can though.
> >>>
> >>> >ends possessing their own
> >>> > intrinsic value, independent of consequentialist considerations.
> >>>
> >>> Yeah, right. Like it's intrinsically wrong to lie -- even to save the
> >>> feelings of a fellow human being, truth is the intrinsic value. Hell,
> >>> it's
> >>> even wrong intrinsically to lie to save your lives of your loved ones --
>
> >>> a
> >>> lie is a lie. Yeah, right.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> > 2. I doubt that Aristotle intended to identify emotions with virtues.
> >>>
> >>> Who cares? Aristotle had his life with all it's Platonic and other
> >>> Greek
> >>> baggage -- concepts of virtue are what we derive out of our personal
> >>> histories -- I get tired of saying this -- there are no transcendental
> >>> truths telling one what is virtuous, only the individual's struggle with
>
> >>> his
> >>>
> >>> own acquired beliefs derived from his own personal history as they are
> >>> opposed to or conjoined with the beliefs of the the larger culture in
> >>> which
> >>> she finds herself immersed. Aristotle schmaristole.
> >>>
> >>> > I've always appreciated the example of paying my taxes. Regardless of
> >>> > whether I
> >>> > wish, want, desire, to pay my taxes, I have an obligation, I believe,
> >>> > to
> >>> > do so.
> >>>
> >>> Do you have an obligation to pay taxes that go to support an illegal,
> >>> unjust, immoral war? Or do you have an obligation not to do so. Is it
> >>> more
> >>>
> >>> important that schools be kept open, roads be built or that innocent
> >>> people
> >>> not be blown apart? Hard questions. What do your transcendental truths
> >>> tell you? Is it more important to go to jail for refusing to pay your
> >>> taxes
> >>>
> >>> to support an immoral war or should you pay them and stay a voice within
>
> >>> the
> >>>
> >>> community opposing the war, or pay them and keep your family out of
> >>> impoverishment? What do transcendental truths tell us about such
> >>> decision?
> >>> Nothing. But I'll tell you what my life tells me. It's a fucking
> >>> jungle
> >>> out there and you have nothing to go on but your gut, which is you and
> >>> your
> >>> history. I knew people who felt obliged to call the FBI and tell them
> >>> that
> >>> they were refusing to register with the Draft during Vietnam because
> >>> they
> >>> believed the war was so horribly wrong. They all went to jail. I
> >>> admired
> >>> them but took the middle road of working the system, just as Cheney did
> >>> and
> >>> Rumsfeld, and Bush, and Wolfowitz and Feith and how many millions of
> >>> others
> >>> who could afford it -- was it the honest, honorable, transcendental
> >>> thing to
> >>>
> >>> stay and work within the system and try to change it, or to own up to
> >>> the
> >>> fact that to do so was as dishonest as hell and therefore to turn
> >>> yourself
> >>> in to the State as an authentic human being? Transcendentally, I would
> >>> guess the latter, though that's only a guess, and to me that's almost a
> >>> selfish choice. Is it not more noble to stay out there in the world and
>
> >>> pay
> >>>
> >>> that price with the pangs of conscience? Loss of revenue but not paying
> >>> taxes are nothing compared to the guilt of paying the goddam
> >>> blood-drenched
> >>> taxes, it could be argued. Paying the price of opposition, how doe the
> >>> scales of transcendentalism weigh that? I lost two teaching jobs
> >>> preaching
> >>> against the war, but I didn't care. I hated teaching. I wanted to
> >>> teach my
> >>>
> >>> kids not to come to school. This is a nefarious institution, I came so
> >>> close to saying. It exists to make you subservient workers. It wants
> >>> to
> >>> teach you to die for rich people. Burn the schools down. These places
> >>> are
> >>> full of death, physically and spiritually and emotionally. What you'll
> >>> replace them with will probably be worse, but these institutions exist
> >>> in
> >>> opposition to your best interest. At least take control of them.
> >>>
> >>> I never said that, but I certainly thought it. Schools are expedient
> >>> ways
> >>> of committing evil culture-wide -- that's the only transcendental truth,
> >>> I'll admit to. They're also our only hope.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Mike Geary
> >>> on a rant
> >>> in Memphis.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>> To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
> >>> digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
> digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
>
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
