a thread for mundane ironists

[b]C.G. Jung

A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them.[/b]

While, for some women, it’s a piece of cake.

The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul, which opens to that primeval cosmic night that was soul long before there was conscious ego and will be soul far beyond what a conscious ego could ever reach.

On the other hand, imagine him running that by Freud.

It is only the things we don’t understand that have any meaning. Man woke up in a world he did not understand, and that is why he tries to interpret it.

So, what do you think, elliptical enough?

Instead of the concrete individual, you have the names of organizations and, at the highest point, the abstract idea of the State as the principle of political reality. The moral responsibility of the individual is then inevitably replaced by the policy of the State (raison d’etat). Instead of moral and mental differentiation of the individual, you have public welfare and the raising of the living standard. The goal and meaning of individual life (which is the only real life) no longer lie in the individual development but in the policy of the State, which is thrust upon the individual from outside and consists in the execution of an abstract idea which ultimately tends to attract all life to itself. The individual is increasingly deprived of the moral decision as to how he should live his own life, and instead is ruled, fed, clothed, and educated as a social unit, accommodated in the appropriate housing unit, and amused in accordance with the standards that give pleasure and satisfaction to the masses. The rulers, in their turn, are just as much social units as the ruled, and are distinguished only by the fact they are specialized mouthpieces of State doctrine. They do not need to be personalities capable of judgment, but thoroughgoing specialists who are unusable outside their line of business. State policy decides what shall be taught and studied.

On the other hand, come on, there are any number of configurations intertwining “I” and “we”. The real conundrum revolves around what to do about “them”.

The less we understand of what our fathers and forefathers sought, the less we understand ourselves, and thus we help with all our might to rob the individual of his roots and his guiding instincts, so that he becomes a particle in the mass, ruled only by what Nietzsche called the spirit of gravity.

On the other hand, come on, there are any number of configurations intertwining “the past” and “the present”. The real conundrum revolves around what to do about “the future”.

Naturally, society has an indisputable right to protect itself against arrant subjectivisms, but, in so far as society is itself composed of de-individualized human beings, it is completely at the mercy of ruthless individualists.

Is there or is there not a post-modern rendition of this?

[b]Existential Comics

What is the meaning of life?
Sartre: to be free.
Camus: to rebel.
Kierkegaard: to have faith.
Nietzsche: to become yourself.
Beckett: I can’t remember, but it was something good.[/b]

Next up: What is the meaning of death?

People: “tell us, wise philosopher, what is the best government?”
Plato: “a monarchy.”
People: “really? who would be king?”
Plato: “ok, hear me out on this one…”

Probably not a true story.

[b]How to be an existentialist:

  1. Drink way too much.
  2. Smoke constantly.
  3. Don’t get enough sleep for ten years straight.
  4. Think the reason you feel shitty all the time is because you are, like, a really deep person.[/b]

Anyone here qualify?

Why study philosophy?
Greece: to live the good life.
England: to understand the world.
Germany: to change the world.
America: did u know philosophy grads have the highest average salaries of the humanities?

Spot the outlier?

Idealism: only my mind exists.
Materialism: only matter exists.
Dualism: both mind and matter exist.
Existentialism: god damnit, who cares? Can’t you see that we are going to die any second now?!

Well, that’s true, right?

An existentialist is someone who is in despair despite the fact that they are good looking.

Or maybe even rich.

[b]T.S. Eliot

Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.[/b]

Yet some still wield them like hammers.

Success is relative. It is what we make of the mess we have made of things.

Sure, that might be true.

Do I dare Disturb the universe?

Why not? It’s not like you asked to be born.

Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair.

Or: Where does one go from a world of despair? Somewhere on the other side of insanity.

We don’t actually fear death, we fear that no one will notice our absence, that we will disappear without a trace.

Has that ever happened to you?

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, and I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, and in short, I was afraid.

That won’t last. At least not any longer than you do.

[b]Ali Smith

But news right now is like a flock of speeded-up sheep running off the side of a cliff.[/b]

Where’s Nietzsche when you actually need him?

Nothing comic isn’t serious.

Not counting knock-knock jokes of course.

So that is what history is, people and places that disappear, or are beheaded, or get damaged or nearly do, and things and places and people that get tortured and burned and so on. But this does not mean that history is not the unseen things as well.

Right, like this put’s all of that in perspective.

Maybe it’s easier to talk to someone who won’t ever actually hear what you say.

Or easier still to say nothing at all.

But now we live in a time and in a culture when mystery tends to mean something more answerable, it means a crime novel, a thriller, a drama on TV, usually one where we’ll find out - and where the whole point of reading it or watching it will be that we will find out - what happened.

True, but every once in a while [these days] it’s not a happy ending.

But I’m telling you. I swear, music. I get home, and it’s the music again. Every night I hear it playing. I don’t know what to do about it.
Have you tried dancing to it?

And then there’s always karoke.

[b]Vincent van Gogh

If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is a grass in the beginning.[/b]

Little did he know…

Art is to console those who are broken by life.

If not to break it even further.

Exaggerate the essential, leave the obvious vague.

Right, and who can’t tell the difference?

So often, a visit to a bookshop has cheered me, and reminded me that there are good things in the world.

And bookshops actually mattered back then.

I wish they would take me as I am.

With me, I wouldn’t recommend it.

Someday death will take us to another star.

How prescient is that!!

[b]Pär Lagerkvist

Bitter, too, to be forced to acknowledge in one’s heart how little love has to do with kindness.[/b]

No one forces me to of course.

Nothing is more foreign than the world of one’s childhood when one has truly left it.

Me, I’m taking it to the grave.

No, the man said, looking past him with his empty gaze, the realm of the dead isn’t anything. But to those who have been there, nothing else is anything either.

And how ironic is that?

And they are deformed though it does not show on the outside. I live only my dwarf life. I never go around tall and smooth-featured. I am ever myself, always the same, I live one life alone. I have no other being inside me. And I recognize everything within me, nothing ever comes up from my inner depths, nothing there is shrouded in mystery. Therefore I do not fear the things which frighten them, the incoherent, the unknown, the mysterious. Such things do not exist for me. There is nothing “different” about me.

Me more than you for example.

It is incomprehensible that he should want to have these futile people here, and still more incomprehensible that he should be able to sit and listen to them and their stupid chatter. I can understand that he may occasionally listen to poets reciting their verses; they can be regarded as buffoons such as are always kept at court. They laud the lofty purity of the human soul, great events and heroic feats, and there is nothing to be said against all that, particularly if their songs flatter him. Human beings need flattery; otherwise they do not fulfill their purpose, not even in their own eyes. And both the present and the past contain much that is beautiful and noble which, without due praise, would have been neither noble nor beautiful. Above all, they sing the praises of love, which is quite as it should be, for nothing else is in such need of transformation into something different. The ladies are filled with melancholy and their breasts heave with sighs; the men gaze vaguely and dreamily into space, for they all know what it is really like and realize that this must be an especially beautiful poem.

He said rambling on and on and on.

Only the gods have many destinies and need never die. They are filled with everything and experience everything. Everything - except human happiness. That they can never know and therefore they grudge it to men. Nothing makes them so evil and cruel as that men should presume to be happy and forget them for the sake of their earthly happiness.

But not your God, right?

[b]God

What doesn’t kill you makes Me try harder.[/b]

So much for omnipotence.

Sir Roger Bannister arrived in heaven in less than four minutes.

Was it faster than 3:43.13?

REMINDER: At 2am, please delete one hour from the Trump administration.

God strikes back!

The Bible is the fakest news of all.

He means their Bible of course, not yours.

I wish I believed in something.

Let’s file this one under, “don’t we all”. Or so [at times] it seems

You’re all unprecedentedly fucked.

Cryptic enough for you?

[b]Tom Stoppard

Life in a box is better than no life at all, I expect. You’d have a chance at least. You could lie there thinking: Well, at least I’m not dead.[/b]

This ring a bell for anyone?

I mean, if Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at twenty-two, the history of music would have been very different. As would the history of aviation, of course.

Let’s grapple with how different.

Life is a gamble, at terrible odds. If it were a bet you wouldn’t take it.

Not counting the ones who are dying to.

Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, where’s it going to end?

The Big Bang 2.0?

We are tied down to a language which makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style.

Clearly a serious philosopher.

Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one, a moment, in childhood, when it first occurred to you that you don’t go on forever. It must have been shattering, stamped into one’s memory. And yet I can’t remember it.

Has anyone here actually pinned that down?

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“All I can do is be me, whoever that is.” Bob Dylan[/b]

The guy was clearly a fucking genius.

“What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.” Bob Dylan

Okay, but try doing that without money. And I’ll take his if he’s willing.

“Man is by nature a political animal.” Aristotle

By nurture too.

“When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everyone will respect you.” Lao Tzu

:laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” Gandhi

You know, historically.

“Tyranny and anarchy are never far apart.” Jeremy Bentham

I think he means it, Joker.

[b]D.H. Lawrence

But, especially in love, only counterfeit emotions exist nowadays. We have all been taught to mistrust everybody emotionally, from parents downwards, or upwards. Don’t trust anybody with your real emotions: if you’ve got any: that is the slogan of today. Trust them with your money, even, but never with your feelings. They are bound to trample on them.[/b]

Would you like me to trample on yours?

All that we know is nothing, we are merely crammed wastepaper baskets, unless we are in touch with that which laughs at all our knowing.

You can always count on me to.

For God’s sake, let us be men
not monkeys minding machines
or sitting with our tails curled
while the machine amuses us, the radio or film or gramophone.
Monkeys with a bland grin on our faces.

Or, sure, for goodness sake.

And besides, look at elder flowers and bluebells – they are a sign that pure creation takes place – even the butterfly. But humanity never gets beyond the caterpillar stage -it rots in the chrysalis, it never will have wings.It is anti-creation, like monkeys and baboons.

Let’s decide: too harsh or not harsh enough.

One watches them on the seashore, all the people, and there is something pathetic, almost wistful in them, as if they wished their lives did not add up to this scaly nullity of possession, but as if they could not escape. It is a dragon that has devoured us all: these obscene, scaly houses, this insatiable struggle and desire to possess, to possess always and in spite of everything, this need to be an owner, lest one be owned. It is too hideous and nauseating. Owners and owned, they are like the two sides of a ghastly disease.

Shall we just chalk this up to a bad mood?

She looked at him, and oh, the weariness to her, of the effort to understand another language, the weariness of hearing him, attending to him, making out who he was, as he stood there fair-bearded and alien, looking at her. She knew something of him, of his eyes. But she could not grasp him. She closed her eyes.

Or: He looked at her…

[b]Diane Ackerman

How do you retain a spirit of affection and humor in a crazed, homicidal, unpredictable society?[/b]

My guess: You don’t.

As fleeting emotions stalk it, a face can leak fear or the guilt of a forming lie.

Here, of course, we’re just scratching the surface.

There is a furnace in our cells, and when we breathe we pass the world through our bodies, brew it lightly, and turn it loose again, gently altered for having known us.

Though not yet confirmed by science.

So often loneliness comes from being out of touch with parts of oneself. We go searching for those parts in other people, but there’s a difference between feeling separate from others and separate from oneself.

The only antidote that has ever [and always] worked for me is in being my own best friend.

It began in mystery and it will end in mystery, but what a rare and beautiful country lies in between.

Right, like this is actually applicable to all of us.

Every day our life was full of thoughts of the horrible present, and even our own death.

Right, like this is actually applicable to all of us.

[b]The Dead Author

It is important to popularize philosophy so that people who didn’t used to take it seriously become convinced they were right.[/b]

Clearly, I’m doing my part.

In case you thought that the lack of women philosophers isn’t a problem: Sisyphus was a sadist who murdered his guests, plotted to kill his own brother, and sexually abused his niece, but gets remembered for having to roll a rock up a hill.

Really, I didn’t know that.

Not a conspiracy theorist, but Socrates and Plato never appear together in any of the dialogues.

Cue the serious philosophers: Any truth to this?

Alexander the Great was the first modern philosophy student because he quit grad school and got a real job.

Cue the serious philosophers: Any truth to this?

Cool how half of twitter, facebook, and youtube is fascists complaining that they no longer have the right to speak.

Cue the Kids: Any truth to this?

The internet often makes you forget that it’s possible to be angry without telling other people about it.

No doubt about that here, right?

[b]John Stuart Mill

No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.[/b]

Let’s file this one under, “we’re fucked”.

Persons of genius are, ex vi termini, more individual than any other people - less capable, consequently, of fitting themselves, without hurtful compression, into any of the small number of moulds which society provides in order to save its members the trouble of forming their character.

Me, if I do say so myself.

There is always need of persons not only to discover new truths, and point out when what were once truths are true no longer, but also to commence new practices, and set the example of more enlightened conduct, and better taste and sense in human life.

Not me, if I do say so myself.

It is given to no human being to stereotype a set of truths, and walk safely by their guidance with his mind’s eye closed.

Not counting of course all of the millions it is given to.

The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.

Imagine then his reaction to, among other things, Trumpworld.

The love of power and the love of liberty are in eternal antagonism.

Imagine then his reaction to, among other things, Trumpworld.

[b]Amy Chua

The fact is that Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable-even legally actionable-to Westerners. Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, “Hey fatty-lose some weight.” By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue, talking in terms of “health” and never ever mentioning the f-word, and their kids still end up in therapy for eating disorders and negative self image.[/b]

Let’s run this by the Kantians.

Western parents try to respect their children’s individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment. By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they’re capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits, and inner confidence that no one can ever take away.

Let’s connect the dots between this and, oh, I don’t know…dasein?

Unlike Western parents, reminding my child of Lord Voldemort didn’t bother me.

Anyone here actually know what the fuck that means?

What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you’re good at it.

Unless you can afford not to be.

Chinese parents believe that their kids owe them everything.

B.C. in other words. If you know what I mean…

That’s why I liked the Suzuki method of teaching piano. There are seven books, and everybody has to start with Book One. Each book includes ten to fifteen songs, and you have to go in order. Kids who practice hard get assigned new songs each week, whereas kids who don’t practice get stuck on the same song for weeks, even months, and sometimes just quit because they’re bored out of their minds.

Let’s apply this to philosophy. For example, what would be Book One?

[b]Existential Comics

Possible Democratic slogans for midterms:
“We’ll say mean things about Trump as we deregulate the banks.”
“Maybe Russian hackers are the reason you are poor?”
“Okay fine, we’ll raise the minimum wage, but no unions.”
“We promise to sell you out to the good kind of billionaires.”[/b]

Let’s call this a grim snapshot of our two-party system.

The year is 2233. A wise Philosopher King rules the Earth. Wisdom is mandatory. Also it is now legal to punch moral relativists in the face.

Can’t come soon enough, right?

I don’t know whether or not Mathematics exists entirely in our minds, but I know for a fact that authority does.

Starting, for example, on the day you are born.

Brief history of philosophy:
Platonism: wisdom
Aristotlelianism: virtue
Epicureanism: pleasure
Stoicism: perseverance
Utilitarianism: good
Kantianism: duty
Existentialism: freedom
Nihilism: no

He means NO! of course.

What they don’t tell you about bullies in school is that they can ALL be defeated by French Phenomenology. Bullies cannot stand up to the unrepentant gaze of the Other.

Someone please cue Melania.

Every Friday I have to remind myself that alcohol can do nothing to overcome my despair, only mask it for a moment, leaving me more empty than ever. Tonight I’m feelin’ lucky though.

Not unlike all the other nights.

[b]Samuel Butler

Prayers are to men as dolls are to children.[/b]

Plus God of course.

An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.

Sort of anyway.

Sensible people get the greater part of their own dying done during their own lifetime.

Let’s fill in the blanks here.

Life is like playing the violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.

Cue Virgil: youtu.be/4smgVpcFMp8

Logic is like the sword—those who appeal to it shall perish by it.

By those with bigger swords as likely as not.

We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to them.

Some lies though being the exception.

[b]Steven Moffat

People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it’s more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly…time-y wimey stuff.[/b]

Well, either one or the other.

The universe is big, its vast and complicated, and ridiculous. And sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles. And that’s the theory. Nine hundred years, never seen one yet, but this would do me.

Of course it may well be a miracle that anything exist at all.

Bow ties are cool.

Trust me: All ties are ridiculous.

Don’t blink. Don’t even blink. Blink and you’re dead. Don’t turn your back. Don’t look away. And don’t blink.

Actually, I forget the context here.

You want weapons? We’re in a library! Books! The best weapons in the world!

Maybe in a perfect world, sure.

You know when grown-ups tell you everything’s going to be fine, but you really think they’re lying to make you feel better?
Yeah…
Everything’s going to be fine.

Why not? It works almost every time.

[b]Neil Gaiman

Note for Americans and other aliens: Milton Keynes is a new city approximately halfway between London and Birmingham. It was built to be modern, efficient, healthy, and, all in all, a pleasant place to live. Many Britons find this amusing.[/b]

No, really: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Keynes
Any Brits here able to tell us why this is found amusing?

There is a madness, yes, this is true. Few mortals possess it, the willingness to step away from the protection of sanity. To walk into the wild wood of madness…

Sure, like you can just flick the switch here.

A world in which there are monsters, and ghosts, and things that want to steal your heart is a world in which there are angels, and dreams and a world in which there is hope.

Due South of the Twilight Zone there’s one. Another is just East of Eden.

Still. Four words.
And I didn’t realize it until a couple of days ago, when someone wrote in to my blog:
Dear Neil,
If you could choose a quote - either by you or another author - to be inscribed on the wall of a public library children’s area, what would it be?
Thanks!
Lynn
I pondered a bit. I’d said a lot about books and kids’ reading over the years, and other people had said things pithier and wiser than I ever could. And then it hit me, and this is what I wrote:
I’m not sure I’d put a quote up, if it was me, and I had a library wall to deface. I think I’d just remind people of the power of stories, and why they exist in the first place. I’d put up the four words that anyone telling a story wants to hear. The ones that show that it’s working, and that pages will be turned:
… and then what happened?

Or, if five words, life sucks, then you die.

I saw her chewing gum, when I was thirteen, and I fell for her like a suicide from a bridge.

What is this most likely to mean?

For some folks death is release, and for others death is an abomination, a terrible thing. But in the end, I’m there for all of them.

You know, if Death was a philosopher.

[b]Jeff VanderMeer

The effect of this cannot be understood without being there. The beauty of it cannot be understood, either, and when you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. Desolation tries to colonize you.[/b]

And [for some] how hard can that be?

That’s how the madness of the world tries to colonize you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality.

You know, until you vote him out of office.

Silence creates its own violence.

For example, when it’s not just a general description.

A circle looks at a square and sees a badly made circle.

Of course a square looks at a circle and wonders, “why didn’t I think of that?”

We all live in a kind of continuous dream, I told him. When we wake, it is because something, some event, some pinprick even, disturbs the edges of what we’ve taken as reality.

And it can come from, among other things, out of nowhere.

You could know the what of something forever and never discover the why.

Even worse [in many cases] those who think that they do.

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“All great music is contemporary. If it’s still alive and kicking, then it’s contemporary. If it fades away, it was a period piece. It had its moment, and that was it.” Steve Reich[/b]

Naturally that includes every piece of music that has ever been written.

“Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.” Frank Zappa

In other words, our deviation from the norm.

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” William Shakespeare

And not just in Hamlet.

“¿uʍop ǝpᴉsdn pǝuɹnʇ plɹoʍ ɹnoʎ ǝʌɐɥ oʇ ʎpɐǝɹ noʎ ǝɹ∀”

Let’s file this one under, “how the hell do you do that?”

“Reality is not always probable, or likely.” Jorge Luis Borges

Of course we’ll need some examples here.

“Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.” Friedrich Nietzsche

So, who can tell us the one and the only thing that Nietzsche means by this?