philosophy — Page 4

The logic of corporatism

24 June 2014 by Tom Simon 1 Comment

Fragment of a conversation, overheard:

‘The second oddest thing about the Yintulites is that most of them volunteered to be eaten by the Imperial Dragon. You see, they were so afraid of the ordinary man-eating dragons, they could imagine no other way to protect themselves than to make friends with the Imperial Dragon. But in point of fact, the Imperial Dragon never promised to eat the other dragons, or even to eat its human servants last. It merely had power over the other dragons, because they were its offspring and its pets; and so the silly Yintulites imagined that it would use that power to benefit them.’

‘But why did they have to be eaten by any dragon? Why didn’t they just run away?’

‘That, my dear, is the first oddest thing about the Yintulites. In their minds, the best possible thing in life was to choose which dragon to be devoured by. The idea of not being eaten never occurred to them.’

Filed Under: Miscellany Tagged With: dragons, philosophy, politics, yintulites

Autonomous

16 June 2014 by Tom Simon 10 Comments

A comment I left at The Passive Voice, reproduced here for possible discussion:

Look at any dysfunctional corporate culture (and I use ‘corporate’ in the broadest sense; this applies to governments, churches, and armies as well), and there are at least two things you are certain to find:

1. Systems that are inadequate because they are autonomous. Nobody can design a set of rules to cover every possible contingency, and if they ever did, someone would immediately come up with a new contingency that the rules did not cover. (Call it Gödel’s Law of Bureaucracy.) But when the system and its rules are allowed to make the decisions, when people say to sensible proposals, ‘We can’t do that because it’s against policy,’ the whole organization becomes frozen in the way of doing things that was enshrined at the time the rules were written.

2. Systems that are autonomous because people are lazy and afraid. Rocking the boat requires effort and courage; doing anything new requires effort, courage, and creativity. It’s easier and safer to just show up, put in your hours, do your job as defined by the existing rules, and collect your pay. So people hire out bits of themselves – their employable skills, narrowly defined – and leave the rest at home: not only their courage and creativity, but their enthusiasm, their best efforts, and in too many cases, their conscience as well. How many people do things at work that they know are stupid, because they are going along to get along? How many people acquiesce in doing things that are downright wrong? If they brought their whole selves to their work, they would not do these things; but they leave behind whatever part of themselves might conflict with the system and the rules, and — we see the results.

‘When the means are autonomous, they are deadly.’ —Charles Williams.

Filed Under: Miscellany Tagged With: charles williams, economics, philosophy, society

John C. Wright: Humans and animals

15 February 2014 by Tom Simon 2 Comments

The preference among biologists is to emphasize the similarities of man to other animals, and downplay their immense and categorical differences. This is not science or religion: is it merely a slant. The glass is half empty rather than half full.

Anyone can see the similarities between humans and apes. Apes are just like humans, as both human scientists and ape scientists agree. Ape cathedrals and human cathedrals both use flying buttresses. Ape operas and human operas both use four-point harmony. Apes crap in the woods and so do humans when we cannot find a toilet, and have not taken the time to dig a latrine. The Ape-Pharaoh of Ape City wears a pshent just like Ramses II of Heliopolis.

—John C. Wright, ‘Losing Religion II’

Filed Under: Quotha Tagged With: anthropology, john c. wright, philosophy

John Ciardi defines a man

4 November 2013 by Tom Simon Leave a Comment

A man is what he does with his attention
and mine is not for sale, though I’ll take cash—
and gladly—for whatever my attention
turns to for its own sake, when I’m finished with it.

Let this be my leave offering to the ghost
of J. T. Marshall, and of twenty others
who bought me cheap, and couldn’t afford me now,
because I can’t afford to be afforded
by anyone but myself, or I’d lose the ghost
of how I live, however I make my living.

And so to my last bonus, which is the first.
Any man can learn to learn from the wise
once he can find them: but learn to learn from a fool
and all the world’s your faculty.

—John Ciardi, from the Postscript to ‘Cal Coolidge and the Co’

Filed Under: Quotha Tagged With: john ciardi, philosophy, poetry

Told by an idiot, No. 3

26 September 2013 by Tom Simon 3 Comments

You must always know exactly what your work is about. If anyone asks, you must be able to express your theme in one sentence, like this:

‘This [novel, story, poem] is about the futility of life in a post-postmodern world of transvaluated values, and the radical failure of the spirit in the face of human cruelty and cosmic despair.’

If this exact sentence does not describe your work, you are writing the wrong story. Get it right, or throw it out.

(signed)
H. Smiggy McStudge

Filed Under: Foolishness Tagged With: criticism, h. smiggy mcstudge, philosophy, writing

A note on neologisms

27 May 2013 by Tom Simon 2 Comments

Today, in a letter to John C. Wright, I fell into a digression on neologisms, and one of the possible reasons why some of them catch on and others fail. I thought it might be as well to repeat it here, and throw it open to my 3.6 Loyal Readers for discussion or demolition:

One wants names for things, not for un-things. One may need new words to express new facts, but a lie, to be effective, must be tricked out in language that the intended victim already understands.

If I discover a species of rabbit previously unknown to science, I may point at it and say, ‘That is a zeffle.’ I have done well: I have made a new name for a new thing. If anyone asks ‘What is a zeffle?’ I can appeal to the facts by showing them the animal. But if I point at a plain old-fashioned domestic rabbit, and say, ‘That is not a rabbit, but a smeerp,’ my words will not convince even the most gullible, because there is no fact to appeal to. They have no standard of ‘smeerp-hood’ in their minds, so the word does not communicate any ideas to them, not even false ones.

If I said, ‘That is not a rabbit, but a horse,’ I would at least communicate a meaning. If I were to say, ‘That is not a rabbit, but a hare,’ I would move into the realm of the plausible, where all lies must have their being if they are to prosper.

It is for this reason that the most skilful liars work not by inventing new words, but by distorting and perverting the meanings of old ones.

Filed Under: The Superversive Tagged With: philosophy, words

Mill on censorship of ideas

22 March 2013 by Tom Simon Leave a Comment

Let us suppose, therefore, that the government is entirely at one with the people, and never thinks of exerting any power of coercion unless in agreement with what it conceives to be their voice. But I deny the right of the people to exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their government. The power itself is illegitimate. The best government has no more title to it than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when in opposition to it. If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

It is necessary to consider separately these two hypotheses, each of which has a distinct branch of the argument corresponding to it. We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.

—John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Filed Under: Quotha Tagged With: censorship, john stuart mill, philosophy

The Leaden Rule

31 January 2013 by Tom Simon 12 Comments

#11 in the series, following ‘Campbell’s Cream of Fantasy’. This is the last piece in the series as originally written; an earlier version appeared on LiveJournal in June, 2006.

The process that replaces winged Pegasus with plodding Dobbin, and Tolkien’s ‘Soup’ of myth and legend with ‘Campbell’s Cream of Fantasy’, does not stop with debasing settings and motifs. It debases themes as well. The old folktales, among many other things, were wisdom literature, a thing that does not exist in any thoroughly modern society. We have a number of authors nowadays who want to create a substitute for wisdom literature; what they actually do is write books with titles like ‘The Rules of X’ or ‘Chicken Soup for the Y’. Not having much in the way of wisdom themselves, they substitute pop psychology and bumper-sticker slogans.

This is bad enough in the modern world; it is doubly bad in fantasy, for it is false to the whole atmosphere of Faërie. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Essays Tagged With: aesop, fantasy, g. k. chesterton, james branch cabell, philosophy, richard bach, terry goodkind, william blake, wisdom literature, writing

‘La libertà di pensiero’ (‘Freedom of Thought’), by Trilussa

5 January 2013 by Tom Simon Leave a Comment

Un gatto bianco, ch’era presidente
der circolo der libbero pensiero,
senti che er gatto nero,
libbero pensatore come lui,
je faceva la critica
riguardo a la politica
ch’era contraria a li principi sui.
–Giacchè nun badi a li fattacci tui,
–je disse er gatto bianco inviperito–
rassegnerai le proprie dimissioni
e uscirai dalle file der partito:
chè qui la poi pensa’ libberamente
come te pare a te, ma a condizzione
che t’associ a l’idee der presidente
e a le proposte della commissione!
–E’ vero, ho torto, ho aggito malamente. . . .–
rispose er gatto nero.
E pe’ resta’ ner libbero pensiero
da quella vorta nun penso’ piu’ gnente.

—Trilussa

A white cat, who had been made the chair-cat
Of an Association for the Freedom of Thought,
Got news that a black cat,
A member of the same Association,
Would criticize his views
For he did not agree
With the white cat’s political principles.

–Since you won’t mind your own bloody business
– said the white cat to the black one in a rage –
You will resign – out of your own free will –
And leave our Party ranks for good:
’cause here you can think freely and as you please
So long as you accept the chair-cat’s views
And the Political Commitee’s proposals!

–It’s true, I’m wrong, what I’ve done wasn’t right . . .–
the black cat answered;
And to be allowed to remain Freethinker
From then on he never thought anything again.

[Translation supplied by Fabio Paolo Barbieri]

Filed Under: Quotha Tagged With: philosophy, poetry, satire, trilussa