[lit-ideas] Re: Violence as Destruction of Doubt
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 19:00:56 -0500
If I believe that 'The Absolute drinks Propinquity,' or
'Colorless green ideas sleep furiously,' are meaningless, it's not
incumbent on me to say what they really mean (for I believe they mean
nothing) or to give my own explanation of some incoherent state of
affairs.
We've been through this before. "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is
not a meaningless statement. I don't know why Robert Paul persists in being
so hard-headed about this. He's invested too much energy and talent, too
many years defending rationality to admit the truth, I suppose. As I've
argued so persuasively before, "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is
not only meaningful, it has untold numbers of meaning. One, for example, is
that "Colorless green" means that the 'green' is not a reference to a color
(else it wouldn't be colorless -- see, I can too be logical) rather, that
'green' refers to envy as in "green with envy". A trope -- at the end of
its rope? So we're talking about ideas spawned by envy -- envy of what? We
don't know -- probably the author/speaker is being personificational, i.e.,
Envy Itself. As Shakespeare once said (or maybe twice -- I'm no Shakespeare
scholar) "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown." Well why doesn't he
take the crown off when he goes to bed? I've never understood that. But
that's their business. What matters is that whereas the crown-wearer is
uneasy, the man who would be king, who wants to be uneasy, that is, the
colorless green man, sleeps furiously. His envy, that churns out ideas of
usurpation in all his waking hours, that envy churns his sleep in furious
discontent. It all makes perfect sense.
And certainly the statement: "The Absolute drinks Propinquity" makes good
sense to me as well. I'm amazed that Robert Paul would include this
beautiful sentiment among his Nonsense examples. The key word here is
"drinks." I take it to mean that the more we drink the closer we feel to
all existence. The Universe becomes us, as it were -- that close. Drunk,
we all start to love everything and everyone. We fee Godlike, we feel all
encompassing. We feel the absolute in us. But maybe that's just me.
Hoping Robert Paul overcomes his addiction to rationality and throws roses
riotously to the throng. Or throws rosy thongs to the rioters. Which
reminds me, we don't have much time to get New Orleans back up an running
and fun fun fun before Mardi Gras. Good God, I hadn't thought of that.
This IS a disaster.
Mike Geary
Memphis
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