This Forum is Soooooooo Tedious

Re: Rhetorical Fun in the Electoral Dark Night of the Soul

Janko, You're hilarious, sort of. Sorry if the metaphor was a little too rich for you. By oil barons, I was of course speaking figuratively about Bush's intimate (some might say incestuous) connections to Saudi oil , but of course you knew that. You just needed to ridicule slightly.

And please don't instruct on vocabularly. You don't expect it to be taken seriously, do you? Of course you don't. However, congratulations on including a mild insult to gays as part of your instructions. Positively fey, though not divine. No not divine at all.

 

Irony Filings

Sorry. It's a quote from my former (wittily, flamboyantly, but never tiresomely gay) dissertation director. I do promise you that I will never instruct you on vocabularly, whatever that may be. But the fell hand of cliche falls on gay and straight alike.
If that's an insult, it comes from the divine afflatus of the English tongue.

As Quentin Crisp once said, there's nothing more wearisome than explaining oneself when it isn't necessary.

Your metaphor was charmingly antique. (O damn! May I say "antique"?)

Ridicule slightly? Slightly? I wish I could say I was outraged, but I can't. Slightly? In this worst election season in living memory? Slightly? Gad, sir, you misunderestimate me. Slightly.

Janko Preotul
Carpathian philosophe in residence

 

magnetic fields cause them to align

Janko,

Ah, it was a personal quote from your dissertation director. Why didn’t I guess that? Silly me, I thought it was a vague put-down towards all gays with weak arguments, or that all gays, by definition, have weak arguments. Clearly, I thought about it too much. A thousand apologies.

It’s easy to tell when you’re irked, as you begin speaking in tongues. Thank you for the obtuse correction. It’s “vocabulary”. Your talent is rare. You have seized on a typo and have quickly immortalized it in the form of a put-down. Does this unflattering urge to condemn, condescend, and otherwise ridicule (slight, though it may be) make you feel a weensy bit better? I don’t feel a weensy bit worse, so it must not be a zero sum game.

Likewise, does it make you feel better to relegate emotions, and the words used to describe them, as “cliché”, merely because you have heard them before? God, how tiresome it all must be for you. “World, here this, ‘outrage’ has happened before; therefore, find yourself another emotion, or another word.” Am I forcing you into a kind of Nietzscheian eternal recurrence? You must listen to the worn out philosophies of the Sixties again? I know it was all so tedious the first time around. I will certainly put the Janko Irritability Index (JII) first the next time I feel outrage, er…indignation…er anger…(please tell me, what word can I use?)

I would add that there is one thing more wearisome than explaining yourself when it isn’t necessary: having to listen to someone tell you how wearisome it is to be explaining themselves when, as they claim, it isn’t necessary. Alas, you have forced me to do so, and it is, yes, wearisome.

“…divine afflatus of the English tongue”. Excellent, Janko, though it tilts towards the redundant (yes, I feel a weensy bit better myself). You’ll forgive me if I find something less than divine in your recent tongue waggings (though there are other past waggings, which I find quite enlightening, and though I have heard them before, I don’t classify them as cliché.)

Yes you may say “antique.” You may say any words you like, and you are free to assemble them in any order you like, whether it makes sense or not. You may even imply that you are in ecstatic cahoots with the big guy above, and I will attempt to follow along. I won’t always agree with you, but I will never tell you to stop trying, or that I’ve heard it all before. Deal?

 

Get an editor.
Go in peace.

 

JII up 50 points today.

There you go again - instructing.

Thank you. Same to you (about the peace thing).

 

Political discussion would be more interesting and more effective if there was less heat and more debate.

I don't think that any of the divisive political issues are simple and one-dimensional.

Many people have opinions on Iraq, opinions that are expressed loudly, angrily and often.

But strangely and troublingly, none of the loud mouths seems to have any real interest in the details of the cultural, political and military situation there. There's no detailed discussion of who the players are in post-Saddam Iraq, what challenges we (and they) face and how the future looks to be shaping up. There's no discussion about how the changes underway in Iraq will impact the region and the world in years to come.

Instead, everything jumps immediately to the question of whether Bush or Kerry is an asshole. The talk about Iraq reveals itself as rhetorical ammo, as nothing more than bombs to lob at the other side.

The same thing is true for every other issue of political discussion. People scream loudly about the economy, but who really thinks about business economics, international trade or about the long term changes taking place in the world? The United States faces some very real and even grave challenges, and it isn't really clear what the best response should be. But thats all obscured by the pursuit of short-term partisan advantage.

And it isn't just happening here on Degreeinfo. The same thing is visible everywhere.

I suppose writing that kind of stuff is cathartic. It's what I referred to in my last post as "venting". But venting is essentially a solitary occupation, rhetorical onanism.

What it doesn't do is communicate coherent ideas to others or convince anybody else that you are right. It doesn't further our understanding of any of the issues you touched on in passing, or suggest any specific directions that policy should take.

But divisive anger and passive apathy don't exhaust our options. Both are equally disfunctional in my opinion. Actually anger is probably a lot worse than apathy, because apathy is less apt to poison the surrounding environment.

In its own way, anger is as polluting as industrial waste. It shouts down and shuts up reasoned discourse and it can spread like a social contagion as it entices irrational responses from otherwise thoughtful people.

Partisan rhetorical wanking prevents "oil barons" and George Bushs? Right.

That's why I put myself in the "undecided" category. What so often passes for contemporary American politics isn't really a game that I care to play. And frankly, it worries me that the future of the planet is so strongly influenced by stuff like this.

 

Bill,

I appreciate your reasoned comments.

No question, there is a lot of reflexive side taking, with one side saying the other side is full of you-know-what. Many of the thread starters here use provocative stuff that just gets everyone going (myself included). Then it becomes like a scab that you can’t stop picking.

I agree, "Partisan rhetorical wanking" doesn't solve problems. I’m not sure the purpose of this forum is to actually solve problems. I assume that people are trying to do that in their lives outside of DegreeInfo. However, the discussion here often DOES get bogged down in meaningless BS about who said what in the debate, and who's an idiot, and who dodged the draft etc.

I'm more than happy to discuss and debate issues I, and others, have raised. No one (for long) wants to discuss them rationally, and yes, the debate deteriorates.

I rented Farenheit 9-11 over the weekend. Would anyone like to discuss, calmly and rationally, whether Bush’s relationship (if there is one) with Saudi oil matters? Is it possible to do this without the discussion devolving into how Michael Moore is a liar, a this, a that? I don’t know. I’m certainly willing to try.

 

Uncle Janko,

Welcome to the Tribe!