a thread for mundane ironists

[b]Elena Epaneshnik

Sometimes, what stands between two people is the absence of a wall.[/b]

In virtual reality of course we don’t need walls.

You are only as smart as the number of people whom you’ve successfully convinced that you are an idiot.

Clearly, she’s go that back asswards.

Sometimes, ‘beauty will save the world’ sounds like a horrible threat.

Still, better beauty than philosophy.

I miss the times when proper Russian was mainly French.

Probably before we were born.

If you’re going to read a book on how to live a happier life, I suggest that you skip over all the chapters and move directly to your trash can.

That make anyone happier here?

I am not idle, I’m just passive-progressive.

Is one worse than the other?

Something, something, whatever.

Lol.

AAAAAAAhahahahahaha

[b]The two most vital philosophical questions of the Russian intelligentsia:

  1. Where does money go;

  2. Where does dust come from.[/b]

Nice catch, iam.

[b]Bob Dylan

All I can do is be me, whoever that is. [/b]

Of course he’s just paraphrasing me.

Art is the perpetual motion of illusion. The highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can you do? What else can you do for any one but inspire them?

And, if the highest purpose of philosophy is to inspire, well, that’s what we do here, right?

Sometimes you just have to bite your upper lip and put sunglasses on.

Or, sometimes, it’s other things.

The purpose of art is to stop time.

Does time know that?

I fought with my twin, the enemy within.

Not only that but it rhymes.

There is nothing so stable as change.

It just doesn’t seem so at the time.

[b]Werner Twertzog

Why can’t I be happy?
Because happiness does not exist.
Why can’t I be loved?
Because love does not exist.
What can I do?
Wait awhile, you’ll die eventually.[/b]

Let’s call folks like this the optimists.

God, if he exists, speaks to us in tweets of zero characters.

That’s true. I’ve been counting them.

I am bored with cinema. Does anyone need a 70-something warrior-poet?

Nope. But keep them coming.

Dear Americans: Your vote does not count; it never did, unless you can use a semicolon, which you can’t. And, even then, probably not.

Like that will stop them from re-electing Trump.

The more you already have lost, the more prepared you are for what is coming.

Let’s just say that I’ve lost more than you. But, sure, only if that’s true.

Generation X: your whole lives have prepared you for leadership in a crumbling civilization, while being ignored in favor of cynical opportunists.

Does that thing actually exist?

[b]Nick Cave

There’s an element to songwriting that I can’t explain, that comes from somewhere else. I can’t explain that dividing line between nothing and something that happens within a song, where you have absolutely nothing, and then suddenly you have something. It’s like the origin of the universe. [/b]

Let’s pin down that dividing line here.

Death looms large I guess because it should. It’s the one thing that we as human beings from birth have a right to. It’s the only thing we’ve really got, and I don’t mean to sound bleak about this, but it’s a unifying factor amongst us all.

Things don’t get more natural than that.

I’ve spent my life butting my head against other people’s lack of imagination.

Things don’t get more natural than that.

You don’t meet a lot of people that you really like. I don’t anyway.

Best to just stop meeting them, he thought.

There are methods to creating a mayhem that sounds different from your usual mayhem.

Of course that’s good thing, right?

My biggest fear is losing memory because memory is what we are. Your very soul and your very reason to be alive is tied up in memory.

“I” all tangled up [or deconstructed] in that brain thing.

[b]Iggy Pop

Sex may be a little more factual than love. You know whether it’s good or bad. You know whether you liked it or not. You’re not going to change your mind about it ten years later.[/b]

Sounds reasonable to me.

Onstage I’ve been hit by a grapefruit, beercans, eggs, spit, money, cigarette butts, Mandies, Quaaludes, joints, bras, panties, and a fist.

Mandies?

I’m not a singer, a walking instrument like Aretha Franklin. When you get an Iggy Pop record, you don’t get “Iggy Sings.”

Sounds like he is though.
But point taken.

I became Iggy because I had a sadistic boss at a record store. I’d been in a band called the Iguanas. And when this boss wanted to embarrass and demean me, he’d say, ‘Iggy, get me a coffee, light.’

And it might actually be true.

How am I going to listen to that horrible noise I make without a gram of coke and a couple of double Jack Daniels?

You won’t hear me complaining.

My parents wanted to light my artistic candle. But over time, the definition of ‘the arts’ began to stretch. And as I got older, they suddenly realized, Oh, my God, we’re the parents of Iggy Pop.

Imagine then the parents of Tiny Tim. Or, sure, maybe, yours.

[b]Frans de Waal

The enemy of science is not religion. The true enemy is the substitution of thought, reflection, and curiosity with dogma.[/b]

Just not your own, right, Mr. Objectivist?

If we look straight and deep into a chimpanzee’s eyes, an intelligent self-assured personality looks back at us. If they are animals, what must we be?

Uh, animals too?

Friedrich Nietzsche, who famously gave us the ‘God is dead’ phrase was interested in the sources of morality. He warned that the emergence of something (whether an organ, a legal institution, or a religious ritual) is never to be confused with its acquired purpose: ‘Anything in existence, having somehow come about, is continually interpreted anew, requisitioned anew, transformed and redirected to a new purpose.’

The first ironist. Or, perhaps, the first famous one?

Perhaps it’s just me, but I am wary of any persons whose belief system is the only thing standing between them and repulsive behavior.

Not quite sure how to react to that though.

Being both more systematically brutal than chimps and more empathetic than bonobos, we are by far the most bipolar ape. Our societies are never completely peaceful, never completely competitive, never ruled by sheer selfishness, and never perfectly moral.

Let’s just live with it.

We would much rather blame nature for what we don’t like in ourselves than credit it for what we do like.

We? We being who exactly?

[b]God

Age is just a number. A number that increases by one every year until you die.[/b]

Clearly, God is a fucking genius.

If Hell existed it would be inhabited exclusively by those who thought others were going there.

Next up: If Heaven existed.

If anyone ever tells you I talked to them, tell them you talked to Me, and I told you to tell them I wasn’t talking to them, and shut up.

Try this and get back to us.

The idea that you evolved from apes is disgusting.
Isn’t it nicer to believe you all descended from one couple and their incestuous children?

Uh, let’s not go there, right?

Male nipples are unnecessary. As are males.

So, why do men have nipples?

If you think the picture of the black hole is cool, wait till next week, when you get to photograph it from the inside.

Stretched out like spaghetti we’re told.

[b]Courtney Love

If you treat a girl like a dog, she is going to piss on you.[/b]

Of course if you treat some men like a dog, they might blow you away.

Don’t be bitter and mean 'couse you don’t fit in, it’s a GIFT. Look at you. you’ve got your individuality, you don’t have the herd instinct, you can read Neitzsche and understand it. Only dumb people are happy.

Let’s call this Courtney at her finest.

On Sofia Coppola’s 16th birthday, way back in 1987, I stole a lip gloss from her Sistine Chapel of a bedroom. Years later, I left a Chanel lip gloss in the reception of the Mercer Hotel for her. You know why? I believe that you’ve got to fix your karma.

You might be imagining a more profound example of this.

Kurt had a lot of German in him. Some Irish. But no Jew. I think that if he had had a little Jew he would have fucking stuck it out.

I guess we’ll never know.

He was so gorgeous…Kurt. I don’t know how I got lucky that way.

I guess we’ll never know.

I like all the angels around because they protect me and my daughter. I mean, her Dad’s an angel.

Let’s imagine that it’s true.

[b]Barbara Kingsolver

Does a man become a revolutionary out of the belief he’s entitled to joy rather than submission?[/b]

Let’s ask the revolutionaries here.
And then the Kids.

I suppose it is in our nature, she said finally. When men fear the loss of what they know, they will follow any tyrant who promises to restore the old order.

Not easy to Trump that, is it?

High fashion has the shelf life of potato salad.

Consider:
Note, the USDA recommends that if the potato salad was held in excess of 41°F for over two hours, then discard. A couple of things to consider. Did the salad get made up and then refrigerated right away and you just have some leftover? If this is the case then it should easily last 3-4 days.

Why is it that only girls stand on the sides of their feet? As if they’re afraid to plant themselves?

Is this actually true?

Sympathizing over the behavior of men is the baking soda of women’s friendships, it seems, the thing that makes them bubble and rise.

Not unlike men sympathizing over the behavior of women. Well, if you double it.

You know reviewers, they are the wind in their own sails.

Little puffs now and then.

[b]God

Artificial intelligence isn’t a threat to humanity. Natural stupidity is.[/b]

Wow, maybe He does exist!

Next time no assholes.

That means you, Kids.

It’s a well-known fact that the world is full of stupid people, but what may surprise you is you are one of them.

Well, He is omniscient.

The biggest misconception about Me is that I give a shit.

Actually, the biggest misconception [by far] is that He exists.

You should not vaccinate your children unless you are absolutely sure you want them to live.

That won’t change their minds, of course.

I never would have made you this smart if I knew you were going to be this stupid.

What’s the bastard’s point here?

[b]Jackson Pollock

It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well.[/b]

Some of us will never understand this. I know that I don’t.

I don’t use the accident - 'cause I deny the accident.

Well, good for him.

I don’t paint nature. I am nature.

Of course we’re all nature.

Modern art to me is nothing more than the expression of contemporary aims of the age we’re living in. All cultures have had means and techniques of expressing their immediate aims – the Chinese, the Renaissance, all cultures. The thing that interests me is that today painters do not have to go to a subject matter outside of themselves. Most modern painters work from a different source, they work from within.

What does this explain? Something between everything and nothing at all.

The pictures I contemplate painting would constitute a halfway state and attempt to point out the direction of the future - without arriving there completely.

What future do we point to here?

The painter locks himself out of his own studio. And then has to break in like a thief.

How dumb is that? At least the part that’s not brilliant.

[b]Jan Mieszkowski

Philosophy 101: I know nothing
Philosophy 201: I know nothing
Philosophy 301: I know nothing
Philosophy 401: I no nothing[/b]

Philosophy 501: I know and/or no more than you

On Sunday we mourn
Schopenhauer: the death of reason
Nietzsche: the death of God
Beckett: the death of death
Camus: the high price of cigarettes

Not to mention the other six days for many. If only 52 weeks a year.

Know yourself!
Kant: “Know”?
Fichte: “Self”?
Hegel: “Your”?
Nietzsche: “!”?

Come on, really, who care what Fichte thinks.

Assistant professor: Teach like everyone’s watching
Associate professor: Teach like no one’s watching
Full professor: Teach like no one – including you – is even there

Let’s make that apllicable here.

Idealism: I am what I think
Materialism: I think what I am
Psychoanalysis: You aren’t what you think
Existentialism: You can only think what you aren’t, weren’t, and never will be

Though clearly not in that order.

English Lit: You’re meeting your archenemy on the bridge
French Lit: You’re dueling with your archenemy on the bridge
Russian Lit: You’re realizing that your archenemy on the bridge is you

American Lit: nytimes.com/books/best-sell … =Reference

[b]Martin Gardner

All mathematicians share a sense of amazement over the infinite depth and the mysterious beauty and usefulness of mathematics. [/b]

I know I would if I were one.

If God creates a world of particles and waves, dancing in obedience to mathematical and physical laws, who are we to say that he cannot make use of those laws to cover the surface of a small planet with living creatures?

Well, who are we to believe in Him?

Biographical history, as taught in our public schools, is still largely a history of boneheads; ridiculous kings and queens, paranoid political leaders, compulsive voyagers, ignorant general the flotsam and jetsam of historical currents. The men who radically altered history, the great scientists and mathematicians, are seldom mentioned, if at all.

Cue, among others, Marx and Engels. And, on the other side, Adam Smith.

The last level of metaphor in the Alice books is this: that life, viewed rationally and without illusion, appears to be a nonsense tale told by an idiot mathematician.

Your job: To make sense of this.

The universe is almost like a huge magic trick and scientists are trying to figure out how it does what it does.

There must be at least a half dozen folks here who will swear that they can tell them.

Mathematics is not only real, but it is the only reality.

Next up: the mathematics of fucking.

[b]Greg Iles

God is all powerful.
God is good.
Evil exists.
You can reconcile any two of those statements, but not all three.[/b]

Unless of course God works in mysterious ways.

Let me tell you a secret, Caitlin. We’re still in the cave. It’s just bigger, and we wear nicer clothes.

Let’s call them the civilized caves.

You can’t build happiness on someone else’s pain.

You can if you don’t know [or want to know] about it.

Emotions are by nature amorphous. When confined to words, our longings and passions, our rebellions and humiliations often seem melodramatic, trivial, or even pathetic.

I know: in one ear and out the other.

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children, because they’re more certain they are their own.

That is one way to look at it.

The mills of the gods grind slowly…but they grind to dust.

Of course now there’s only one of them.

[b]Taylor Jenkins Reid

No matter how strong you are, no matter how smart you are or tough you can be, the world will find a way to break you. And when it does, the only thing you can do is hold on.[/b]

If only all the way to the grave.

Heartbreak is a loss. Divorce is a piece of paper.

Unless of course it’s both.

Just because you can live without someone doesn’t mean you want to.

Unless of course you do.

Make them pay you what they would pay a white man.

Right, as though you always can.

I think you have to have faith in people before they earn it. Otherwise it’s not faith, right?

Needless to say: some people more than others.

Be wary of men with something to prove.

More to the point [here]: Beware of the Kids with nothing to prove.

[b]Janis Joplin

You can destroy your now by worrying about tomorrow. [/b]

Of course you may not have the option not to.

The more you live, the less you die.

She was 27 the day she died.

If you’ve got a today, don’t wear it tomorrow. Tomorrow never happens. It’s all the same day.

Missed this one completely.

You know you’ve got it, if it makes you feel good.

Or [sometimes] if it makes them feel bad.

You’re only as much as you settle for. If they settle for being somebody’s dishwasher that’s their own fucking problem. If you don’t settle for that and you keep fighting it, you know, you’ll end up anything you want to be.

Though it does help to have a voice like hers.

As good as you’ve been to this world is as good as it’s gonna be right back to you.

Not actually counting this world of course.

[b]Woody Allen

You know, it’s one thing about intellectuals, they prove that you can be absolutely brilliant and have no idea what’s going on.[/b]

Not counting us of course. Aside from, well, you know.

Some drink deeply from the river of knowledge. Others only gargle.

Or piss in it.

All people know the same truth. Our lives consist of how we choose to distort it.

If you even know that you are.

I don’t know what I want, but I know what I don’t want.

I’ll take a stab at it: To fucking DIE!!!

Paranoia is knowing all the facts.

Let’s just say that I know more than you do.

The only love that lasts is unrequited love.

I’ll be taking mine to the grave.

[b]Existential Comics

Capitalism began in England around the 16th century. They immediately went on to colonize half the planet in search of new markets, committed multiple genocides, traded slaves, and engaged in constant war.
In school we learn about how communism is evil because of a famine.[/b]

Cue Phyllo?

Philosophers don’t want to admit it, but the meaning of life is quite obviously to maximize capital gains for the shareholders.

Anyone here doubt that?

Are we living in a computer simulation?
No, obviously not.
How do I know?
Because that’s stupid nerd shit, come on.

Besides, we should be so lucky.

[b]A brief history of civility and rational debate in the United States:

  • failed to gain independence.
  • failed to free the slaves.
  • failed to gain the vote for women.
  • failed to gain the 40 hour work week.
  • failed to gain civil rights.
    You can’t debate your way to freedom.[/b]

Let’s debate this.

[b]Number of times the candidate used the phrase “the immortal science of Marxism-Leninism” in their announcement speech:

Bernie: 0
Harris: 0
Warren: 0
Booker: 0
Beto: 0
Gillibrand: 0
Buttigieg: 0[/b]

No, that’s actually true. Republicans too.

Philosophy begins with the question of:
Aristotle: virtue.
Aquinas: God.
Descartes: knowledge.
Heidegger: being.
Sartre: freedom.
Wittgenstein: language.
Foucault: how many things I can shoehorn into this prison metaphor.

Over 50 that I count.