a thread for mundane ironists

[b]Bianco Luno

“What is so much gall in the service of?” Really, I don’t know.
Something I haven’t learned, or can’t, haunts me continually.[/b]

This reminds me of the gall put on display here from time time: “How dare you not understand and then agree with me!”

I think gall, like any other ‘humour’, should be considered innocent until proven guilty. This gets complicated in interpersonal situations. It does not follow that innocent gall means the other person is guilty. However we rarely allow gall and other humours to develop and be expressed. (rather than, say, dumped, which happens, often in a way too verbal form)

One interpersonal pattern can be that the person is really angry at themselves and the other person not getting it is reflecting back a part of themselves that is not reconciled with the ego. Sure, this does happen, and it happens here. A lot.

But we can use interpretations like this, or simple blanket judgments of gall, to gloss over the fact that gall can be right on. There may be some distortion in it. It may be the case that mixing it in with intellectual dialogue is hysterically optimistic in the extreme,
but some ideas are killing us and the planet.

So of course sometimes gall pours out.

[b]Bianco Luno

“You seem to want to side with oppressors against their victims?”
The best I can do, by way of explanation, is to note lamely that every oppressor was and will be again a victim, hard as it is for the presently oppressed to consider.
What hater would listen to what I say?
They would listen as carefully as some Nazis heard Nietzsche.
I ask you to show more discrimination than is generally expected of you or you customarily credit yourself with in polite company.
I speak up to you.
You don’t deserve it, but, in the nature of the case, I have placed myself beneath you.
The view from here you will never grow accustomed to.[/b]

And what of those who oppress by calling it something else? And what of those who believe [in all sincerity] it really is something else?
And noting how it once was and will again be the other way around seems particularly silly in this day and age.

How Hindu. I don’t think this is the case, actually.

If you mean those who hate because they are oppressed, bruno, then it might be best not to start by siding with their oppressors. This leaves a possibility they will listen. Chiding them that the oppressors have also suffered or that some cosmic balance is on the way in the future is likely not going to warm their cockles.

If you mean those who hate as oppressors, that is tough. They need to notice what they feel before they hate the oppressed, and given how those feelings will likely challenge their self-image, they are likely not going to want to go there.
So for me the only route is to ask them how it all actually feels. How does the system of oppression feel to them. Is it working, even for them? (best not to use the word oppression when asking) If they have some disatisfaction they can notice and are willing to mention, this might leave the door slightly ajar to a [future where they would be happier and less oppressive. Self-interest seems the only hope there.

Which is all of them.

Which is nearly all of them. But most know, on some level, that they are not really coming forward with their deepest imprinting - women are manipulative cunts, or whatever.

Just to clarify:

Bianco Luno is an alter ego used by Seattle philosopher Victor Munuz. The aphorisms above are taken from notebooks written in the 1990s. I came into contact with him through a letter exchange with Olivia, a friend of his.

I am merely quoting from the notebooks. This is not an actual exchange between us. It is just me reacting to what I construe to be a fellow ironist. And how he would react to that I cannot say.

If you wish to explore his thinking today [and in the manner in which philosophy is pursued academically] he can be found at the Seattle Analytic Philosophy Club. Here:

meetup.com/Seattle-Analytic- … es/boards/

I understood this, in general terms. I knew it was you quoting and reacting. I used his name in the post just to show I knew I was not responding to you.

i actually went to that site and joined earlier. I haven’t gone back and posted yet. I didn’t find a place I wanted to jump in.

Ambig? How much Camus have you been reading lately?

Sorry! Victor Munuz.

But he does remind me of Camus.

And the ironist is one who knows that their belief system is contingent…

that the only justification it can possibly hope for is that it just works,

right?

Such an epistemological ground runs risks.

But an ironist knows that it is far better to run those risks

than concede to a system.

I’m still working on Rorty’s issues with epistemological systems,

but my main issue is that they are too rigid

and stifling.

They cut off the flows of energy

that can lead to real creativity.

We find truth through discourse,

not rules.

Rules are only a means by which we find truth through discourse.

Of course, that is always dependent on those involved in the discourse following the same rules.

And there is just no way to insure that.

I think what we’re up against, Ambig, are the classicists. They’re up against what philosophy promised them what they could be. As Rorty points out: they want something that transcends history. We, on the other hand, simply want to be part of history. We both claim nihilism (me as the nihilistic perspective, you as just plain nihilism).

You think, maybe, that we are right now in the continental D-day on the beaches of the analytic?

The analytic, as it is now, is owned by global Capitalism.

Think about those among us who have attempted to stuff the classical perspective down our throats.

Whether it’s about the objective, the logical, or the scientific method, it’s always the best knowledge that money can buy.

Therein lies the importance of the nihilistic perspective.

If we push this world beyond the next creative hymen,

we prove that we are more than meat-bots.

I mean think about it:

why is psychology so dead-set on proving that we are little more than meat-bots?

why was Volchok so dead set on proving it to us if he didn’t think he stood something to gain?

why did Mo so desperately want to establish an objective standard of beauty?

Because corporations love a sure thing.

The ironist,

according to Rorty,

stands against systematization.

Sorry, ambig,

can’t figure out if I’m a pragmatist or nihilist or both.

But I’m quite sure it will all work itself out.

It always does.

But we have to participate.

Copping off of Rorty who copped off of Kuhn:

what is normal philosophy if not corporate philosophy?

We have every reason to go for abnormal philosophy.

:-"

Our ambition is quite different from their ambition.

And we have every reason to keep it that way.