The Beastie Boys (with The Roots) on Jimmy Fallon

A friend of mine,

Shane Johnson, co-wrote this muckraker’s guide to Utah in the Salt Lake City Weekly.

Dumbo's surprising responsibility

7/2/2007

It's not a genuine choice unless it's presented by our context. If I believe in a flying Elephant that's in charge of the rotation of Pluto, it isn't a personal (genuine?) belief for me. I could hold that belief or try to hold that belief if that's what I mean by "choose" a belief but what would that mean, what would it look like in life? (e.g. is it just a thought or something that comes up in passing conversation or does the belief actually demand something substantial?)

5/31/2009

RE: 7/2/2007 (Which still seems unclear.)

marketing and the genuine choice

A lot of marketing attempts to create a need and then meet it. Christianity is often presented in this way.

questionable questions

Some philosophical problems are artificial. When I work on unearthing prejudices I ask myself, "am I working on an area that's adequately personal? Does this question really matter?"

philosophical turn

For most students of philosophy a moment comes when a perspective or prejudice they've held for quite a while gets overturned. Like Hume's problem of induction hits you just right and you think, "oh great, so logic can't even help with my belief in the uniformity of nature?"

In any case, which belief gets changed isn't the point. The point is, from there on you have to face the personal fact that along with the expression I know is the expression I thought I knew (Wittgenstein). What separates philosophers from others is that they live in the perpetual possibility of the turn.

--
Q: And what of so-called philosophers?

*shrugs*

I'm just relieved I didn't limit the set to only those who perpetually pursue the turn.

the thick of calamity

Cliché Reality mottos (so far):

Facts, no matter how convincing, rarely trump a good solid dose of repetition.

Ask Better Questions. Get Better Answers.

“The wise man can pick up a grain of sand and envision a whole universe. But the stupid man will just lie down on some seaweed and roll around until he’s completely draped in it. Then he’ll stand up and go, ‘Hey, I’m Vine Man.’” -Jack Handey

"You are in quest of what is. Why on earth do you set out to walk that road with a man who has neither pace nor style?" -Michel de Montaigne

"I will unravel things as best I may. What I shall say is neither fixed nor certain: I am no Pythian Apollo; I am a little man seeking the probable through conjecture." -Montaigne

"A lot of people were opposed to it. A lot of people were for it. I myself think about it as little as possible." -Kurt Vonnegut

"No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately." -Montaigne

"There is no possible salvation for the man who feels real compassion." -Albert Camus

"Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons, It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth." -Whitman

"The longing for rest and peace must itself be thrust aside; it coincides with the acceptance of iniquity." -Camus

"I believe more and more, that God must not be judged on this earth. It is one of His sketches that has turned out badly." -Van Gogh

Wisdom is just the ability to recognize how stupid you are a bit faster.

Everything in moderation, especially ideologies.

"It is in the thick of a calamity that one gets hardened to the truth—in other words, to silence." -Albert Camus

"It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane." -Philip K. Dick

Truth is counterintuitive.

new job

So my new job has been pretty stressful and it will certainly be an uphill climb. It's got me reading Sun Tzu's The Art of War.

the wanderer and his shadow

In Charlie's new book he takes a stab at interpreting the intro and outro to Nz's The Wanderer and His Shadow. Does anyone else out there care to share their take on it? I've thought about it a few times before but I'm fairly baffled. My guess is it's one way of interpreting Nz, and not "the shallow reading" and maybe a different type of false reading but somehow he comes to grips and agreement with it and promotes a collective effort with the help of the shadow.

But really I know nothing and even that I don't know well (I'm more of a dime store nihilist). Any insights would be welcome.

on Orwell writing 1984

Just came across this interesting short biographical piece on Orwell in the Guardian.

The circumstances surrounding the writing of Nineteen Eighty-Four make a haunting narrative that helps to explain the bleakness of Orwell's dystopia. Here was an English writer, desperately sick, grappling alone with the demons of his imagination in a bleak Scottish outpost in the desolate aftermath of the second world war. The idea for Nineteen Eighty-Four, alternatively, "The Last Man in Europe", had been incubating in Orwell's mind since the Spanish civil war. His novel, which owes something to Yevgeny Zamyatin's dystopian fiction We, probably began to acquire a definitive shape during 1943-44, around the time he and his wife, Eileen adopted their only son, Richard. Orwell himself claimed that he was partly inspired by the meeting of the Allied leaders at the Tehran Conference of 1944. Isaac Deutscher, an Observer colleague, reported that Orwell was "convinced that Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt consciously plotted to divide the world" at Tehran.

(emphasis mine) h/t Arts and Letters Daily

turning the skeptical gaze inward

Elberry has a couple recent posts worth reading (again).

First, he got sick and ended up in the hospital. I hope he feels better.

Second, he wrote this short critique of old Bertrand. I really like this sentiment:

His cowardice again – he would risk prison to attack social problems (as he saw them) but he refused to discipline himself; so he acted on his lusts without hesitation or remorse. He would have done better to turn that skeptical gaze on himself, his own behavior. But then i suspect he felt his great social conscience excused him from such scrutiny.

I'm not sure the extent to which this genuinely applies to Russell but I agree that even the noblest pursuits can be devices we use to hide from ourselves.

crazy guy on the bus

There were three crazy guys on the bus with us yesterday but one was exceptional. When we got on the bus he was already talking out loud (to nobody?). He seemed intent on telling us the world is going to end with a tinge of "praise Jesus and pass the ammunition". I'll try to give a feeling for it:

The world is going to end.
Oil and gas.
The world is going to end.
Jesus is coming back soon.
The world is going to end.
I'm looking for Jesus.
See the signs; the world is going to end!
Why not start world war three? Might as well.
The world is going to end.
You probably think I need a doctor; I've already seen the doctors.
The world is going to end.

He went on and on like that for a while. He got off the bus where we did and once he got off he was looking at the sky and talked about looking for Jesus. I asked Sarah about it shortly after we passed him, "When did his world end?"