tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post113243098740413042..comments2024-03-28T20:04:20.286-07:00Comments on One Cʘsmos: The Logopathology of the LeftGagdad Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-1132756861577309442005-11-23T06:41:00.000-08:002005-11-23T06:41:00.000-08:00"Most people do not speak language, but are spoken..."Most people do not speak language, but are spoken by it, and thereby experience it as a restriction on their infantile omnipotence."<BR/><BR/>I don't have the technical psych. to describe this...<BR/><BR/>At a family wedding in the DC suburbs, we were regaled by a high-level civil servant (probably State Department) with all the Leftist "Bush lied" stuff. It seemed to me he was not adversary to language, but was in an instrumental relationship to both it and facts. They were in rapid-fire use, in service to repetitively downloading some state or pattern of mind -- anxiety, superiority, agitation, primal fear, resentment, rage, etc. Almost like an animal marking its territory, since the subject came up apropos of very little.<BR/><BR/>The envy was directed to his (BDS) subject matter, and perhaps his less-agitated listeners; his use of language was transparent to infantile and deranged agendas.<BR/><BR/>On the other side of infantile, liquidlifehacker can only have a better time at <EM>la table des enfants</EM>, particularly if he takes a good book with the long spoon. That's a delightful reversal -- the best people <EM>fighting</EM> to sit at the kids' table. Isn't preferring the company of children a characteristic of saints and creative geniuses?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-1132731463201887102005-11-22T23:37:00.000-08:002005-11-22T23:37:00.000-08:00you're onna roll with the "nihilist/leftistattack ...you're onna roll with the <BR/>"nihilist/leftist<BR/>attack on language" thing,Bob.<BR/><BR/>"For when language cannot make an appeal to truth, it simply becomes a mask for power."<BR/><BR/>this is something most of us have experienced at a gut level.<BR/><BR/>i would cite the <BR/>feminist "quest for 'Equality'" as an example.<BR/>allowances made for human frailty,<BR/>it was only a (short)matter <BR/>of time before the feminist project would become a naked quest for power.<BR/>'Equality' hasn't been a part of the picture for some time now,or women would be campaigning for Father's Rights...to my knowledge,<BR/>not many women are.<BR/><BR/>at a gut level,<BR/>it is also the source of<BR/>the maddening pointlessness<BR/>of holding conversations with <BR/>those who claim to venerate "ideas",<BR/>yet can't bring themselves to define terms or be consitent about them,or be consistent about the views they hold....they hug the surface...<BR/>depth frightens them,perhaps.<BR/><BR/>it also explains the tremendous shallowness of the left's <BR/>"memory hole".<BR/><BR/>they re-write history at a furious pace nowdays.<BR/><BR/>and their prononcements<BR/>are,by their own definiton<BR/>meaningless and not worth remembering,regadless of how passionate they are about them at the time.<BR/><BR/>the conversation becomes a circular vapor....and ends up back where it started without discovering anything new:their *feelings*.<BR/><BR/><BR/>perhaps that's the <BR/>"magic pill" liquidlifehacker needs...whatever they're hysterical about at the dinner table at 5:18pm,<BR/>they will have forgotten all about it at 5:33pm....<BR/><BR/>the consolation<BR/>to LLH being that it wasn't significant in the first place...<BR/>nod sagely and smile,like listening to a child explain the Magic Mountain ride at Disney World, and move on to the pumpkin pie.gumshoehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10567181585153569751noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-1132668122568857322005-11-22T06:02:00.000-08:002005-11-22T06:02:00.000-08:00Ya' can't win with the rabid Left. We may have to ...Ya' can't win with the rabid Left. We may have to simply regroup and designate cerain folks to be martyrs, that in the course of rational discussion with a Lefty, the martyr simply states that he agrees then kicks him/her in the groin and says, " I hate it when I learn that I am wrong". This play on words with any serious Lefty most likely would reduce the chance of being charged with assault.goeshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05781857563232791703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-1132642216410615962005-11-21T22:50:00.000-08:002005-11-21T22:50:00.000-08:00Thanks Bob...I will take my long spoon and sit at ...Thanks Bob...I will take my long spoon and sit at the "kiddy table" so I can corrupt the youth. <BR/><BR/>*thinking how to avoid the hemlock*LiquidLifeHackerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01949269503629475002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-1132619400276830062005-11-21T16:30:00.000-08:002005-11-21T16:30:00.000-08:00--could you do a little post on table manners with...--could you do a little post on table manners with these lefties? <BR/><BR/>Bring a long spoon, and keep your extremities close to your body, so thay can't be bitten.<BR/><BR/>Actually, it is probably best to stay as calm as possible, and to use the Socratic method to show how their ideas eventually lead them over the abyss if taken to their logical conclusion. Calmness and logic are the keys. <BR/><BR/>Even so, don't expect to get anywhere, because they won't stay calm or logical. Probably the best you can do is what Dennis Prager advises. That is, tell them up front that you are not trying to convince them of anything or change their mind, but that you just want to clarify your differences as sharply as possible--find out why they think what they think, and at opportune moments, explain why you don't think that.<BR/><BR/>--but why would one experience meaning itself as fascist?<BR/><BR/>That's a very good question. Language is a double-edged sword. Although it is what rescues us from being engulfed in the senses--think of the liberation Helen Keller felt when she first learned the sign for water--language can also be experienced as a new kind of prison. Most people do not speak language, but are spoken by it, and thereby experience it as a restriction on their infantile omnipotence. Think of it as analogous to the collpase of the wave function in quantum physics, from infinite potential to particularized being. If you are something, you can no longer be everything.<BR/><BR/>I'm going to give it some more thought, because there is definitely an element of what in psychoanalysis is called an "envious" attack on language. Probably something to do with the father, who symbolically enforces the "law" of language. <BR/><BR/>--how about some helpful suggestions as to what we can do!!!!<BR/><BR/>Another good question. I try to look at things from the widest possible cosmic angle. In so doing, one can see this conflict as the latest installment of something that has been going on since the dawn of man. It's just an ongoing struggle. In the middle ages, it was between the nominalists, who believed that words only referred to specific things, vs. the realists, who believed that words referred to transcendent ideas that were real. In other words, nominalists would say that only the individual horse is real, whereas the realist would say that the individual horse is just an example of the category of horseness. <BR/><BR/>This question deserves a full post, that is, not just on the battle of ideas that are expressed through language, but the deeper battle from time immemorial on the nature of language. It would probably illuminate a lot of different conflicts.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-1132614881208292652005-11-21T15:14:00.000-08:002005-11-21T15:14:00.000-08:00Bob, all your essays are brilliant, but this one i...Bob, all your essays are brilliant, but this one is especially spot on. Your analysis of the left and their neuroses is very helpful in understanding how they operate, but how about some helpful suggestions as to what we can do!!!! It's so discouraging to hear all this nonsense day in and day out. Do you see some improvement on the horizon?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-1132605071740149362005-11-21T12:31:00.000-08:002005-11-21T12:31:00.000-08:00Beautiful! You've articualted the best arguement ...Beautiful! You've articualted the best arguement I have seen explaining just how the left distorts truths and facts (and then is rareley, if ever, called on it.) Loved your essay...should be required reading!!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-1132598813580953992005-11-21T10:46:00.000-08:002005-11-21T10:46:00.000-08:00The logophobia of the left truly is fascinating, p...The logophobia of the left truly is fascinating, particularly since it really does appear motivated by something much more fundamental than the desire to deceive voters. Nor is it restricted to the American left (cf. Derrida). I remember often being astonished in my conversations with my leftist friends in graduate school (and almost all of them were leftist), when they would make some claim, and I would challenge it, and then they would immediately retreat into taking the position that there is no truth, or that language is unstable, or that meaning is meaningless. Or my leftist friends would start out with the assertions that truth and meaning are illusions and then would try to derive leftist political positions from those assertions. And I would be left with my jaw on the floor over how an educated and intelligent person could indulge in such a trashy nihilism and involve himself in such an obvious performative contradiction. It was also fascinating to watch the contortions of intellectual leftists who followed Heidegger in their rejection of reason after the revelations of Heidegger's Nazi past became public knowledge, although most leftists simply refused to allow themselves to become aware of how deeply they were influenced by Heidegger. There must be something in this kind of nihilism that speaks very deeply to some very strong desires of a lot of people, despite the fact that I cannot understand it at all. I can understand why one might want to be free of the limitations of human nature or economics or gender, but why would one experience meaning itself as fascist?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-1132597041559055182005-11-21T10:17:00.000-08:002005-11-21T10:17:00.000-08:00Bob...with the holidays approaching and we are sud...Bob...with the holidays approaching and we are suddenly tossed like a salad in the mix of liberals and conservatives with a splash of fence sitters and God only knows the anti war cousin that might show up....could you do a little post on table manners with these lefties? How about advice on how to get the drumstick when "aunt liberal" wants it or How to avoid prewar intelligence during dessert....or how to handle cocktail hour with uncle so and so that after two drinks is going to start shouting, "Bush lied to us...Bush lied to us" .......come on Bob...help us out....give us some power pointers for etiquette through the holidays with family that we love but sometimes wonder if they were adopted from aliens! With all the political correctness going on...offending family that might have more law degrees than most can be a bit unnerving. LOL Oh I can read the headlines the after the New Year..."Investigation to probe real ingredients"..."family tricked into dessert" "Offended over pumpkin pie! All spice is more multicultured than nutmeg because there wasn't any cinnamon to be found"LiquidLifeHackerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01949269503629475002noreply@blogger.com