a thread for mundane ironists

[b]Dave Eggers

What he had was a sense that few things mattered much. That few people are to be feared. And so he now faced all such situations with a sense of exhausted resolve, and he dealt with everything head-on.[/b]

We should all be so lucky.

The work of man is done behind the back of the natural world. When nature notices, and can muster the energy, it wipes the slate clean again.

Nature goes down for the count and we follow. When it’s not the other way around.

Not many songs can fend off evil. But the right song with the right voice can be a weapon; anyone who’s listened to music through headphones while riding the subway or plowing angrily through a rush-hour sidewalk knows how it can and separate you from them, allows you to say to the teeming masses that you are this and they are that.

Me, I’ve got a million of them.

Animals howl, he had been told, to declare their existence.

Predators more often than prey of course.

What can one do with one’s hands when the camera is interested in other things?

Well, there’s that other thing, right?

His mind seemed barely tethered to his body, much less the earth.

And they were all three lost in space.

[b]so sad today

i enjoy penetration but it doesn’t make me cum: the musical![/b]

Wrong hole.

i love you but i’ve chosen masturbation

Postmodern sex as it were.

take my feelings out with the trash

Or dump them right on the landfill.

i saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by not getting texted back

Guess who is tumbling in his grave.

honk if you’re sick of your own bullshit

We need an emoji for that.

it’s rare when something isn’t a piece of shit

Not unlike easy getting harder everyday.

duplicate

[b]Timothy Snyder

Be reflective if you must be armed.[/b]

If that is actually necessary.

Separated from National Socialism by time and luck, we find it easy to dismiss Nazi ideas without contemplating how they functioned. Our forgetfulness convinces us that we are different from Nazis by shrouding the ways that we are the same.

We meaning them in particular.

But without the conformists, the great atrocities would have been impossible.

Them and the objectivists. And, okay, the nihilists.

Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. Make an effort to separate yourself from the internet. Read books.

Yeah, maybe once, he thought.

The ideal capitalism envisioned by advocates of the free market depends upon social virtues and wise policies that it does not itself generate.

And not just among the Ayn Randroids.

An important sign of the collapse of the rule of law is the rise of a paramilitary and its merger with government power.

Let’s look for that here.

[b]James D. Watson

Science seldom proceeds in the straightforward logical manner imagined by outsiders. Instead, its steps forward (and sometimes backward) are often very human events in which personalities and cultural traditions play major roles. [/b]

Either/or world, meet the neither/nor world.

The brain, is the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe.

Some clearly being more complex than others.

Take young researchers, put them together in virtual seclusion, give them an unprecedented degree of freedom and turn up the pressure by fostering competitiveness.

Tossing all the losers out on their asses.

As a young man I came to the conclusion that the church was just a bunch of fascists that supported Franco. I stopped going on Sunday mornings and watched the birds with my father instead.

Of course that’s only anecdotal.

One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.

Or [around here] a successful philosopher?

I’m basically a libertarian. I don’t want to restrict anyone from doing anything unless it’s going to harm me. I don’t want to pass a law stopping someone from smoking. It’s just too dangerous. You lose the concept of a free society.

Two words: secondhand smoke.

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“We are condemned to kill time, thus we die bit by bit.” Octavio Paz[/b]

So, sure, some conclude, let’s be done with it once and for all.

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” Andy Warhol

Or get others to.

“If you have selfish, ignorant citizens you’re going to get selfish, ignorant leaders.” George Carlin

Probably true, isn’t it?

“Humans have complicated every simple gift of the gods.” Diogenes

Not only that but they don’t even exist.

“Many are destined to reason wrongly; others, not to reason at all; and others, to persecute those who do reason.” Voltaire

And what if it all turns out to be just human nature?

“It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.” Voltaire

Or [sometimes] to keep them from coming after you.

[b]David Sedaris

…a new group, flexitarians, who eat meat if not too many people are watching.[/b]

That or smoke.

Neither were we allowed to choose what we ate. I have a friend whose seven-year-old will only consider something if it’s white. Had I tried that, my parents would have said, “You’re on,” and served me a bowl of paste, followed by joint compound, and, maybe if I was good, some semen.

And it’s not like we get to choose them.

The nice thing about crowds is that someone can throw a bottle and you don’t take it personally.

Well, unless you catch them.

The thought of killing myself had slowed me down to five miles per hour. The thought of killing someone else stopped me completely.

As it should be.

Increasingly at Southern airports, instead of a “good-bye” or “thank-you,” cashiers are apt to say, “Have a blessed day.” This can make you feel like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne. “Get it off me!” I always want to scream.

I hear that.

I am optimistic that things will fall into place, and one day I’ll be sitting in New York City with correct bus fare in my pocket.

Go ahead, shoot for the moon.

[b]David Bowie

All art is unstable. Its meaning is not necessarily that implied by the author. There is no authoritative voice. There are only multiple readings.[/b]

Unless of course he’s wrong. Though how likely is that?

Time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth.

Then gives you cancer, then kills you.

There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It’s always been my way of expressing what for me is inexpressible by any other means.

Music. That’s as close as anything I have ever come up with.

I re-invented my image so many times that I’m in denial that I was originally an overweight Korean woman.

From the fifth dimension.

Rock has always been the devil’s music… I believe that rock & roll is dangerous… I feel that we’re only heralding something even darker than ourselves.

And he may even actually believe it.

I never heard so many kids talk about just doing anything to be famous. I mean, yeah, fame is part of the deal when you’re a kid and you think, I wanna go into music, but everybody that I knew was really doing it because of their love for it. I don’t see so much of that anymore.

My guess: we’ll see it even less and less.

[b]Nein

Yes, Santa Claus, we’re sorry. There is a Virginia.[/b]

He means our Virgina.

Yes, Nietzsche wrote poetry. But it is often mistaken for philosophy.

Let’s list all the things mistaken for philosophy here.

Sure: the more you know about politics, the less you want to know. Yet: the less you know about ideology, the more you want to believe.

No exceptions, right?

There are lies. Damn lies. And applause.

For Don Trump he means.

The good news: Monday didn’t kill you.
The bad news: next week they’ll make it stronger.

Who here will survive?

In German it’s just called Februar. The Bundestag is still debating y.

The first part is actually true.

[b]Dashiell Hammett

The boy spoke two words, the first a short guttural verb, the second “you.”[/b]

Thanks for leaving it to our imagination.

Yes, Spade growled. And when you’re slapped you’ll take it and like it. He released Cairo’s wrist and with a thick open hand struck the side of his face three times savagely.

Of course we all have our own rendition of that.

That’s wonderful. I do like a man that tells you right out he’s looking out for himself. Don’t we all? I don’t trust a man that says he’s not. And the man that’s telling the truth when he says he’s not I distrust most of all, because he’s and ass and an ass that’s going contrary to the laws of nature.

Cynical and realistic.

I hope they don’t hang you, precious, by that sweet neck. Yes, angel, I’m gonna send you over. The chances are you’ll get off with life. That means if you’re a good girl, you’ll be out in 20 years. I’ll be waiting for you. If they hang you, I’ll always remember you.

True love back then.

But that’s the part of it I always liked. He adjusted himself to beams falling, and then no more of them fell, and he adjusted himself to them not falling.

The thick and the thin of it.

If the Old Man said something was so, then it probably was, because he was one of these cautious babies who’ll look out the window at a cloudburst and say, “It seems to be raining,” on the off-chance that somebody’s pouring water off the roof.

And it’s not like you can rule that out completely.

[b]Tara Westover

No comma, no period, no adjective or adverb was beneath his interest. He made no distinction between grammar and content, between form and substance. A poorly written sentence was a poorly conceived idea, and in his view the grammatical logic was as much in need of correction. Tell me, he would say, why have you placed this comma here? What relationship between these phrases are you hoping to establish?[/b]

Okay, fine. But you can take this too far.

But vindication has no power over guilt. No amount of anger or rage directed at others can subdue it, because guilt is never about them. Guilt is the fear of one’s own wretchedness. It has nothing to do with other people.

But [of course] only if you actually believe this. Guilt is, all after, just another existential contraption.

But sometimes I think we choose our illnesses, because they benefit us in some way.

And not just Munchausen.

I had begun to understand that we had lent our voices to a discourse whose sole purpose was to dehumanize and brutalize others—because nurturing that discourse was easier, because retaining power always feels like the way forward.

Sometimes you just stumble over backwards into this sort of thing.

For all my obsessing over the consequences of that night, I had misunderstood the vital truth: that its not affecting me, that was its effect.

Don’t expect many to understand this.

I could tolerate any form of cruelty better than kindness. Praise was a poison to me; I choked on it.

Don’t expect many to understand this.

[b]Werner Twertzog

Death is the new retirement.[/b]

Or would be for some Republicans.

Kinski appeared in 250 films, but in my five films he was the best of all, because he knew, I alone, of all those directors, was capable of murder.

As, no doubt, he knew that Kinski was.

Completely indifferent to the “Super Bowl.”

Let alone “videos of the alabama/lsu game”.

When a tree falls in the forest, it does, of course, make a sound, because, you need to realize, it is not all about you.

I’m still not convinced.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Little good comes from bad intentions.
Intend nothing.
Just be.
Or not.

Not much that doesn’t cover.

Man is born free.
But, everywhere,
He is checking
Work-related email.

Woman too.

[b]Barbara Kingsolver

I can think of no honorable answer. Why must some of us deliberate between brands of toothpaste, while others deliberate between damp dirt and bone dust to quiet the fire of an empty stomach lining? There is nothing about the United States I can really explain to this child of another world.[/b]

Or, as others insist, USA! USA! USA!

Culture is a slingshot moved by the force of its past.

Yeah, maybe hundreds of years ago.

If you ask me, when something extraordinary shows up in your life in the middle of the night, you give it a name and make it the best home you can.

Let us know if this ever happens to you.

Sometimes I still have American dreams. I mean literally. I see microwave ovens and exercise machines and grocery store shelves with 30 brands of shampoo, and I look at these things oddly, in my dream. I stand and think, “What is all this for? What is the hunger that drives this need?” I think it’s fear. Codi, I hope you won’t be hurt by this, but I don’t think I’ll ever be going back. I don’t think I can.

Of course that’s not really an option for some of us.

He lifts her breasts, which fit perfectly into his hands, though he knows this is no promise that he gets to keep them. A million things you can’t have will fit in a human hand.

Keep them?

Insomnia’s different, I said. It was hard to explain this to people. You know the light that comes on when you open the refrigerator door? Just imagine it stays on all the time, even after you close the door. That’s what it’s like in my head. The light stays on.

A klieg light for example.

[b]Charles Krauthammer

Krauthammer’s razor (with apologies to Occam): In explaining any puzzling Washington phenomenon, always choose stupidity over conspiracy, incompetence over cunning. Anything else gives them too much credit.[/b]

Liberals one suspects more than conservatives.

To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.

In fact it’s almost nearly the other way around.

IN DEFENSE OF THE F-WORD I am sure there is a special place in heaven reserved for those who have never used the F-word. I will never get near that place.

And now he either is or is not.

The trouble when people stop believing in God is not that they thereafter believe in nothing; it is that they thereafter believe in anything. In this century, ‘anything’ has included Hitler, Stalin and Mao, authors of the great genocidal madnesses of our time.

Of course he was sort of an atheist himself.

The New York Times denounces America’s “dancing with dictators.” Guilty as charged. Dance we do. And without apology. With no more apology than Franklin Roosevelt offered when he reportedly said of Nicaragua’s Anastasio Somoza, “He may be a son of a bitch. But he’s our son of a bitch”.

He means Wall Street of course. Even if he doesn’t.

The greatest threat to a robust, autonomous civil society is the ever-growing Leviathan state and those like Obama who see it as the ultimate expression of the collective.

Well, either that or determinism.
Unless of course he’s full of shit.

[b]God

When it comes to climate change, humanity can no longer do nothing and simply ignore it. It is high time to do nothing and also panic.[/b]

And all the way to the bank for some.

Every word in the Bible is literally true. Then they start grouping themselves into sentences and you’ve got yourself a problem.

Not unlike what happens here.

You know how stupid and awful other people can be, but it might surprise you to learn how stupid and awful you can be too.

Like you haven’t already thought of that, right?

Imagine walking in on 4 million people masturbating every minute and you’ll begin to understand why I’m sick of My job.

Anyone of them you?

“Fuck you” is a whole lot more intellectually honest than “I will pray for you”.

Tell that to the starving children.

Many of the people who live in your country are morons.

Thanks. We might have never known that otherwise.

[b]Zhuangzi

You can’t discuss the ocean with a well frog - he’s limited by the space he lives in. You can’t discuss ice with a summer insect - he’s bound to a single season.[/b]

And here of course we all know the challenge of discussing anything with the Kids.

Yet the stupid believe they are awake, busily and brightly assuming they understand things, calling this man ruler, that one herdsman – how dense! Confucius and you are both dreaming! And when I say you are dreaming, I am dreaming, too. Words like these will be labeled the Supreme Swindle.

What does that tell us then about, well, anthing?

Cease striving. Then there will be transformation.

In other words, strive to cease striving and see what happens.

All men know the use of the useful, but nobody knows the use of the useless!

Let’s think up a useful reason for that.

When affirmation and negation came into being, Tao faded. After Tao faded, then came one-sided attachments.

Can this even be brought down to earth?

The one-legged creature is envious of the millipede; the millipede is envious of the snake; the snake is envious of the wind; the wind is envious of the eye; the eye is envious of the heart.

Must be an Eastern thing, he thought.

[b]Tristan Tzara

Dada is not modern at all, it is rather a return to a quasi-Buddhist religion of indifference. Dada puts an artificial sweetness onto things, a snow of butterflies coming out of a conjurer’s skull. Dada is stillness and does not understand the passions.[/b]

No, really, he wondered, what is Dada?

But let’s speak of art for a moment. Yes, art. I know a gentleman who makes excellent portraits. This gentleman is a camera.

Well, with a little help from his friends.

Any work of art that can be understood is the product of journalism. The rest, called literature, is a dossier of human imbecility for the guidance of future professors.

And, if you are lucky, you will never understand this.

Not the old, not the new, but the necessary.

Anyone here know what that is?

I write a manifesto and I want nothing, yet I say certain things, and in principle I am against manifestoes, as I am also against principles.

Among other things, gibberish propounded.

Thought is made in the mouth.

Lucky for us so are words.

[b]Jan Mieszkowski

I think therefore
1650: I am
1800: I create
1848: I revolt
1920: I dread
1995: I code
2015: I tweet
2019: I shouldn’t[/b]

Let’s pin down what’s next.

Greek tragedy: You tried really hard, but you’re doomed
French tragedy: You sort of tried, but you’re doomed
German tragedy: You didn’t try at all, you’re doomed, and it’s funny

Okay, so what would that make American tragedy?

Ancient Ethics: I must respect the golden mean
Enlightenment Ethics: I must respect the moral law
Modern Ethics: I can do anything as long as no one is watching
Postmodern Ethics: I can do anything as long as everyone is watching

No quibbles here from me.

How do I pay?
Kierkegaard: With your unlimited reserves of dread
Nietzsche: With your immortal soul
Beckett: $5 should cover it, no?

Pay for what?

Plato: You’re blind!
Aristotle: Get over it.
Oedipus: I’m blind!
Freud: Get over it.
Facebook: I can see!
Twitter: Get over it.

Hmm. Where do we fit in here?

Schopenhauer: Kill your ideas
Nietzsche: Kill your idols
Bataille: Kill your ideologies
Beckett: Stop pretending you know how to kill anything

With the possible exception of time, of course. Here for example.

[b]Hans Arp

While guns rumbled in the distance, we sang, painted, made collages and wrote poems with all our might. We were seeking an art based on fundamentals, to cure the madness of the age, and find a new order of things that would restore the balance between heaven and hell. [/b]

And look at us now.

Dada aimed to destroy the reasonable deceptions of man and recover the natural and unreasonable order.

Fortunately for them [and still for us] that can mean practically anything.

Often the hands grasp more quickly than the head.

Still, imagine one without the other.

Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation.

Sounds like “cha ching”.

The essence of a sculpture must enter on tip-toe, as light as animal footprints on snow.

Okay, but is that light enough?

To be full of joy when looking at an oeuvre is not a little thing.

Though it still manages to be most of us.

[b]Existential Comics

Once you read enough philosophy you start to question every ordinary thing. For example, the other day I woke up and I was feeling really energized and refreshed and I was like “this can’t be right.”[/b]

It certainly wouldn’t be with me.

Economists: “okay, first of all assume society is made up of rational actors.”
Dostoyevsky, as he drives an axe through the economist’s skull in a convoluted plan to become like Napoleon: “okay then what.”

Exactly. Then what?

Yes, billion dollar corporations own all of our media, but they are surely kept honest by their billion dollar corporate advertisers.

You gotta love democracy.

Philosophical skepticism is important to learn because then whenever you have a problem you can be like “yeah but philosophically speaking this problem probably doesn’t even exist.”

Not counting conflicting goods of course.

How to be popular in:
Elementary school: be nice to people.
Middle School: own a game console.
High school: brutally enforce a ridged social hierarchy via cruel mockery of those beneath you and deferential tribute to those above you.
College: be nice to people.

Let’s figure out why.

Imagine a society that cared as much about intellectuals as they do athletes, and every year millions tuned into the PHILOSOPHY bowl, where our greatest thinkers debated ideas.
Yeah I know…that would be boring as shit, right? Good thing it isn’t the case.

Unfortunately [as it were] he has a point.