samzdat

[samzdat]

Rousseau is superior to Locke, vastly inferior to Hobbes. That said, Rousseau died after a large dog knocked him down in the streets of Paris. Do with this information what you will.

Let us therefore begin by putting aside all the facts, for they have no bearing on the question. 

Rousseau is giving me conniptions again.

[samzdat]

Always important to point out that Nietzsche didn't want to go back to the blond beast. He visualized a way forwards. In Zarathustra: Camel (literal blond beast); dragon (Christianity; think revelation); child (whatever is next). Then again, Zarathustra's name means "with old camels" or "one who cares for old camels," so some of his views shouldn't be trusted as "the path forwards." Nietzsche explicitly considered German nationalism and anti-semitism to be ressentiment despite its tropes of "strong germanic warriors," which more or less sounds like what you're describing. He generally thought your strength was relative to the strength of the enemy/task you've set yourself to conquer. Owning the libs on twitter is not a grand task.

What is the actual difference between ressentiment and resentment?

In the Nietzschean sense, ressentiment is a special type of resentment, the hatred of the weak for the strong, in which they blame the strong for their own weaknesses. (Understandably, since the strong take advantage of the weak.) That makes the weak connive to tear down the strong through subterfuge. In Nietzsche’s stylized view of history, Judaism and Christianity are religions of ressentiment. They arose as a sort of conspiracy by the weak to bind the strong with a new sort of morality in which weakness, suffering, and asceticism are valorized, while “the strong doing what they will” goes from being the admirable way of nature to being evil. To Nietzsche, this was enervating to the human spirit; the mental traps of Judeo-Christianity prevented men from rising to greatness, which is what he really cared about. And the weak remain weak in spirit, even after they’ve cast off their putative oppressors, so nothing’s been gained.

What I was getting at in that post was something like this: much of the ~Left’s~ morality involves something like ressentiment, to the extent that people seek out axes on which they can be seen as oppressed, as they climb local incentive gradients. So far, so Nietzschean. But to the extent that the attitude of ressentiment gains power within society, there may be a reaction against it among those who feel that this “slave morality” has made them weak. A counter-ressentiment. It affiliates itself with the old, Classical virtues, with “master morality”, but psychologically it comes from the same place asthe original ressentiment: the transmutation of hatred of one’s own weaknesses into hatred of an oppressor class. (Again, somewhat understandably.) An actually strong person, in Nietzsche’s sense, wouldn’t get so outraged by what leftist journalists say on Twitter. They’d just be doing their own thing, and damn the wider culture.The vocal anti-leftists are in the same boat as the leftists, however much they pretend to be strutting about on dry land.

Those are my own thoughts. IDK if Nietzsche ever talked about anything like that. Arguably he suffered from it. (And I don’t fully endorse his thinking – his bad history and his hopeless conflation of inner and outer strength – but there are illuminating things within it. I’m also not sure how much I endorse my own thinking here, but I don’t think it’s totally off base, at least as far as the psychological similarity goes.)

[samzdat]

Who wants to beta-test a sideblog?

A while ago I put a collection of history quotes called Qohelet's Ossuary on samzdat. The idea was to slowly progress from the very beginnings up to modern times. It was kind of a personal project, inasmuch as my history sucks and it was the best way I could think of to get a more holistic sense of it all.

At the time I kind of liked the idea of an early web style single-page-gigantic-wall-of-text. That didn't work. Turns out that, in practice, it was pretty ugly and hard to navigate. Also, it was hard to provide any of the context required to make the quotes coherent in any way. So, I'm starting a sideblog that will just be history. The idea is still roughly Qohelet's Ossuary, just unfurled. The page is semi-complete, and there aren't many articles yet.

I'll still be writing samzdat at the same pace (the past few weeks I got bogged down with the one-time project of planning this. also real life), but this will be a nice outlet for writing when the samzdat essays take too much time. It's a lot quicker to just write about something I find interesting (and that someone else has done the groundwork for) than to try to argue. Also: the writing style is a bit different.

Give me suggestions. Thanks.

[samzdat]

Aesthetes of tumblr: Which? (I may or may not listen to you.)

[samzdat]

I recant and relent, being but dust and ashes.

So the Book of Proverbs is about 40 pages of random advice, most of it given in short couplets. Honestly by the standards of Biblical wisdom, it’s not bad. Mostly sensible and surprisingly irreligious. One of the more readable books of the Bible, except for the repetition. Since it was knitted together from various sources a lot of the same proverbs are given over and over again, sometimes almost verbatim. Anyway, to keep myself amused, I kept a list of more or less all of the advice , condensing 40 pages down to 1. Here it is for your reading pleasure:

Seek wisdom, but God’s, not your own

Fear God

Good things come to the wise and righteous, bad things to the foolish and wicked (this very untrue notion is repeated in endless variations)

Heed advice/criticism from wise people

Avoid fools, evildoers, adulterers, prostitutes, gluttons, alcoholics, and gossips, and don’t be one yourself

Don’t trust fools with anything

Don’t pick fights with, insult, or harm others without cause

Don’t antagonize friends or family

Speak and act honestly, fairly and cautiously. Keep your word. Don’t hide your wrongdoing. Don’t flatter

Be slow to anger. Don’t hold grudges 

Don’t trust the flattery of enemies

Don’t be proud

Be loyal. Be brave

Be an honest businessman. Pay your debts

Work hard. Be frugal but not greedy

“The lazy person says, ‘There is a lion outside! I shall be killed in the streets!’” (Apparently the iron age equivalent of “the dog ate my homework”)

“As a door turns on its hinges, so does a lazy person in bed.”

Be generous to the needy and don’t take advantage of them, even if they’re your enemies

Don’t guarantee the loans of others. Don’t get involved in the disputes of others. (Cf)

Discipline your children (and slaves)

“The righteous know the needs of their animals, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.“

Stupid children are burdensome to raise

Be a well-behaved child

Happiness, peace, wisdom, righteousness, a non-nagging wife, a good reputation, etc. are all more important than wealth

It sucks to be poor

“The one who first states a case seems right, until the other comes and cross-examines.” (Fair point.)

Avoid the king’s wrath

Obey the law

Don’t tear down “ancient landmark[s]”

“Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble, or else the Lord will see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from them.” (I can’t help but notice that this is violated with impunity everywhere else in the Bible.)

Don’t take too much advantage of hospitality

“Do not answer fools according to their folly, or you will be a fool yourself. Answer fools according to their folly, or they will be wise in their own eyes.” (Solid advice for the internet age, imo. You can’t win with fools.)

“Better is open rebuke than hidden love.” (Hmm.)

“Like a maniac who shoots deadly firebrands and arrows, so is one who deceives a neighbor and says, ‘I am only joking!’“

“Whoever blesses a neighbor with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, will be counted as cursing.” (lol)

[samzdat]

"Good things come to the wise and righteous, bad things to the foolish and wicked (this very untrue notion is repeated in endless variations)."

My gut agrees that this is untrue. Then again, my gut tells me that someone who follows Proverbs is more likely to have a fulfilling life. Assuming that "wise and righteous" is following Proverbs, this seems like an obvious conflict. The third part of my gut is also pretty sure that international relations throws all of that off.

On an individual level, this is obviously false, but the Bible says as much (see: Job, also half of the rest of the Bible). Looking at aggregates within a society, wise and righteous probably isn't a terrible proxy for having a good life. Even materially, I expect better results for the brave, lawful, and hard-working than for, like, a lazy, dimwitted thief. It's an issue of scope, and it makes sense that general advice isn't going to say something like, "Yeah, this normally works, but there was that one fluke that was simply monstrous." Finally, probably reasonable that social norms pretend that they aren't totally contingent on avoiding the Assyrians. Or, well, you need them in order to fight the Assyrians, anyway, so it's probably a good idea not to shoot yourself in the foot.

edit: do I seriously have to write html for paragraph breaks in every comment? How do you people use this fucking site?

So the Book of Proverbs is about 40 pages of random advice, most of it given in short couplets. Honestly by the standards of Biblical wisdom, it’s not bad. Mostly sensible and surprisingly irreligious. One of the more readable books of the Bible, except for the repetition. Since it was knitted together from various sources a lot of the same proverbs are given over and over again, sometimes almost verbatim. Anyway, to keep myself amused, I kept a list of more or less all of the advice , condensing 40 pages down to 1. Here it is for your reading pleasure:

Seek wisdom, but God’s, not your own

Fear God

Good things come to the wise and righteous, bad things to the foolish and wicked (this very untrue notion is repeated in endless variations)

Heed advice/criticism from wise people

Avoid fools, evildoers, adulterers, prostitutes, gluttons, alcoholics, and gossips, and don’t be one yourself

Don’t trust fools with anything

Don’t pick fights with, insult, or harm others without cause

Don’t antagonize friends or family

Speak and act honestly, fairly and cautiously. Keep your word. Don’t hide your wrongdoing. Don’t flatter

Be slow to anger. Don’t hold grudges 

Don’t trust the flattery of enemies

Don’t be proud

Be loyal. Be brave

Be an honest businessman. Pay your debts

Work hard. Be frugal but not greedy

“The lazy person says, ‘There is a lion outside! I shall be killed in the streets!’” (Apparently the iron age equivalent of “the dog ate my homework”)

“As a door turns on its hinges, so does a lazy person in bed.”

Be generous to the needy and don’t take advantage of them, even if they’re your enemies

Don’t guarantee the loans of others. Don’t get involved in the disputes of others. (Cf)

Discipline your children (and slaves)

“The righteous know the needs of their animals, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.“

Stupid children are burdensome to raise

Be a well-behaved child

Happiness, peace, wisdom, righteousness, a non-nagging wife, a good reputation, etc. are all more important than wealth

It sucks to be poor

“The one who first states a case seems right, until the other comes and cross-examines.” (Fair point.)

Avoid the king’s wrath

Obey the law

Don’t tear down “ancient landmark[s]”

“Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble, or else the Lord will see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from them.” (I can’t help but notice that this is violated with impunity everywhere else in the Bible.)

Don’t take too much advantage of hospitality

“Do not answer fools according to their folly, or you will be a fool yourself. Answer fools according to their folly, or they will be wise in their own eyes.” (Solid advice for the internet age, imo. You can’t win with fools.)

“Better is open rebuke than hidden love.” (Hmm.)

“Like a maniac who shoots deadly firebrands and arrows, so is one who deceives a neighbor and says, ‘I am only joking!’“

“Whoever blesses a neighbor with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, will be counted as cursing.” (lol)

[samzdat]

The Haters Have Come At Me, They Preach Primordial Light

Not worth posting on the main blog, but too funny not to write somewhere: I have received my favorite hate mail. Nothing will ever come close. I am metaphysically weak, it appears. A gaggle of Traditionalists are trying to recruit me to their cause. It is recommended that I read Guenon and Schuon specifically, because my metaphysics is - in their phrasing - borked. I am plebbishly fooled by modern materialism, and thus all attempts at analysis so far have been useless. It's like I'm "trying to reinvent the thighmaster," which, I must admit, is a really good diss. Those who do know the True Nature of Reality are, clearly, members of an early schism in the Theosophical society. Against the haters: it would be a terrible shame if I'd already read my Evola, Guenon, Eliade. It would be an even bigger shame if I knew that Guenon and Schuon led two branches of the movement, later bitterly opposed, and thus anyone suggesting both is likely a fool. It would be the biggest of shames if I'd, in addition, read a history of Traditionallism like a month ago and receieved the invitation today ("Against the Modern World", the history, is highly recommended). The collective Unconscious is surely fickle, and/or your spies are absolute garbage at their jobs. Traditionalism is the belief that the modern world has lost sight of core spiritual doctrines - normally assumed to have been esoterically passed down by ritual orders, e.g. Freemasons, Sufis, Gymnosophists, etc. They abhor "syncretism" and prefer Perennialism - these doctrines preach the same truth, but they most be followed on their own terms. No mixing-and-matching, in other words. It was generally assumed that the West had lost its own doctrines (with the exception of a few remnants of the Knights of the Templar and Hermetic Freemasons), thus a turn towards Orientalism. It is a certainty that those Easterners have retained their spiritual practices, a truth widely understood by devout members of Ancient Secret Societies, Kombucha companies, and that guy Jeff who's, like, *really* into Kerouac. Accordingly, many of the major Traditionalists converted to Islam and/or Hinduism. Guenon really founded Traditionalism, Schuon was his closest student, Schon's life is exccellent. They had a massive falling out due to Schuon's behavior. After conversion to Islam, Schuon then spent three months (three!) with the Alawiyya Order, flasified an ijaza to found his own order (or received one for something very different, then used it to found his own order), and went back to Europe. There he was basically a new age guru for aristos - in his Sufi order, he trained them into the spiritual perfect of ancient doctrines by making up all his own ancient doctrines. Somewhere in there he was wandering down the Swiss streets, saw a statue of Mary, and had a spiritual revelation. He then incorporated Virgin Mary worship into Sufi practice, focusing on this idol he'd discovered - weird. He renamed the order the Maryamiyya order for Mary. Schuon was also a painter and a poet. As you'd expect, he wrote a lot about being the spiritual vessel of sacred truth, and painted just the same. Since he knew the Truth and no one else did, he incorporated his artistic revelations into the Order's practices: the faux-sufi artistos of Old Europe were directed to observe *Schuon's paintings* during their meditations, traditional Sufi dhikr now replaced with Schuon's poems. It gets so much better. Schuon fell in love with a teenage-to-20s girl named Madelaine (born 1915, they met some time in the early-mid 30s), but she rejected him. Bummer. Not all was lost, however, because he had a revelation that Madelaine was *actually* the Virgin Mary, and her rejection of him was meant to remind him of the Eternal Feminine that man loves always. His love was "cosmic." Never one to be anything besides a screaming self-parody, Schuon composed poems to her and *made them the core prayer of the dhikr ceremony*. This lasted for a few decades until Schuon, always interested in Native American mythology, received Black Elk Speaks as a present. He then travelled to Indiana to meet with an Anthropologist, took part in a Sun Ceremony, and decided that he had to move the core Maryamiyya Order to Indiana. They relocated, bought a big house, and syncretized their already interesting form of Islam with Schuon's vague understanding of Crow spirituality, Hinduism, sorry, "Hinduism", and a host of other spiritualities. Of course, Schuon's interpretations of his own poetry and painting were a major component. It was at this point that Schuon realized he was God. The revelation (obvious in retrospect) enabled Schuon to truly find the Primordial Truth, and put it into practice. Schuon did what any God would do: he organized a bunch of orgies and/or naked night dances on the Indiana compound, promoted "vertical marriage" with all his followers' wives and himself (figure it out), and intensified his poetic activity. It's more or less because of this that the few photos anyone has of Schuon in his older years are of him naked, save a horned Viking helmet and/or a Coachella-style "Native American Headdress", surrounded by other naked New Agers, looking for all the world like a minor character in a Roberto Bolano novel. Just so we're clear: all of these people were pursuing an ancient, secret truth, one passed down for thousands of years. They pursued this by taking part in syncretic rituals that involved banging Schuon *while reciting love poems to Schuon's long-lost teenage love*. This is only natural: the love of God, after all, must be emulated by man. Schuon is still widely popular among the new age crowd. His books are sealed away from the spiritually underdeveloped, and can only be found in the Metaphysics section of your local Barnes & Noble.

[samzdat]

This is one of the cutest things I've seen in years.

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Emil Cioran, normally:

"I react like everyone else, even like those I most despise; but I make up for it by deploring every action I commit, good or bad."

"Before being a fundamental mistake, life is a failure of taste which neither death nor even poetry succeeds in correcting."

"If disgust for the world confered sanctity of itself, I fail to see how I could avoid canonization."

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Emil Cioran on Samuel Beckett:

"The other day I noticed Beckett along one of the footpaths in the Luxembourg Gardens, reading a newspaper in a way that reminded me of one of his characters. He was seated in a chair, lost in thought, as he usually is. He looked rather unwell. I didn't dare approach him. What would I say? I like him so much but it's better that we not speak."

"f I understood correctly, Sam was displeased with the article that I had written on him. It wasn't, in fact, a very good one. But this didn't stop me from feeling chagrined, as though I had been rejected."

"Splendid, divine morning in the Luxembourg Gardens. Watching people as they came and went, I said to myself that we the living (the living!) walk this earth only for a brief time. Instead of looking at the faces of passers-by, I looked at their feet, and they all became for me only their footsteps, which went in every direction, making a disorderly dance not worth lingering on. While thinking of this, I looked up and saw Beckett, this exquisite man whose mere presence has something so salutary about it."

[samzdat]

2

Huh. I was wondering if that would happen. I'm busy writing [other thing], which means little blog activity until mid-December. This is going to be worse than the main blog, and it's likely to be pre-charity opinions. Since actually engaging charitably tends to change my opinions (btw: single strongest argument for the principle of charity I know, kindness be damned), most of this will be wrong. Also probably kind of mean and overstylized. For whatever it's worth, I like rattumblr plenty.

All of this is under status of "deep uncertainty" unless I say it isn't.

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Eric Hoffer makes an argument I find almost unimaginably disturbing. I didn't cover it well when I wrote about the True Believer. Or, perhaps, I didn't really get his point.

It goes something like this:

1) The only constant is change. Given this fact, estimating that it will all be the same in fifty years is, perhaps, the single least plausible guess.

2) Fanatics hate the present. They prefer to be unmoored. Because of this, they tend to have wild predictions about the future. More to the point, they're willing to listen to wild predictions about the future.

2a) Some of those will be right. Stopped clock principle maybe. I don't know, doesn't matter.

3) People generally against fanaticism (or at least particularly bad forms of it) tend to respond to these assertions with incredulity. "Look how crazy crazy over there is!"

3a) Whether they think things will change or not is irrelevant. All that matters is the fact that in this particular dispute they're arguing for stasis. And that matters because it's one of the few times there actually are direct disputes of fact rather than value. (Bad distinction, but bear with me)

3b) Ok, but people tend to also argue for the continuation of whatever they like. And people who are satisfied with the present tend to argue that it will continue accordingly. [insert bias here]

4) Over time, the fanatic is not merely going to look rhetorically persuasive. They're going to look genuinely correct, more grounded, more reasonable than the anti-true-believer. This is for a simple reason: they kind of are.

The end is obvious.

We might add the following: given the acceleration of the rate of change via technology, this is likely to be way faster than before.

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I don't really think this is disturbing because of "fanaticism". Most everyone is a fanatic, there is no objective center, whatever. Relativism is wrongright in equal proportions. Lord knows I have some pretty extreme beliefs.

I can imagine a decent zealot for a leader, is what I'm saying.

What this implies is that such a thing is impossible. Not because of zealotry, but because of overconfidence. Start looking like a prophet - and objectively being a prophet, it is a fact that they are in the right - and you're going to start way overestimating your connection to reality.

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Actually, I think it's kind of worse.

We think movements cut across each other based on values. They mostly agree on certain facts, their interpretation is different, more popular values win the day.

This suggests the opposite.

The values are irrelevant, the strongest tactic is fact-based, movements will capitalize on that.

Now, note the following: [your least favorite group] is mostly wrong factually. Doubly so when they start spouting off about the future. All of us agree on it, whole op-ed sections are devoted to the thesis that factually, [oppo] is stupid. They're a serious threat because they risk spreading [bad values], which changes the interpretation of those facts.

The tactic to avoid [dystopia], then, is clear: memetic defenses against values, strong push for objective facts that will, eventually, align us all with the Reason and Justice of [our side].

I don't have a workaround for this, but it is kind of weird to note that - caveat of Hoffer being at least mostly correct - this is the surest way to usher in [scary group].

[samzdat]

1

Noh masks are designed to exaggerate expressions at different angles. The actors perform extremely careful tilts and nods of the head to produce these. 

It takes years of training to get the motions right. 

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Q: Why is modern art so fucking bad?

A: It doesn’t respect the audience, so it doesn't respect itself.

Obvious answer, next.

Q: Why does a Noh actor have to spend so long practicing?

A:

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Masks are important. Their practice is nearly a lost art, providing anonymity, pseudonymity, whatever, the internet all but killed them. The ease of a handle incentivizes a particular relation to it. I'm anon, which means I can be me better, They can't chastise me for My Thoughts. But that handle is not you. It's a mask, and it must be respected as such. Tilt the head wrong and slide into the uncanny valley. Of course people respond to one another like demons here. Everyone looks like a demon, they've failed to respect the mask, they present deformation as strength.

Q: Why is modern art so bad?

Interview with an author, any author, take your pick: "I just try to tell the truth. You know, it's subjective, sure, and I'm just trying to connect, to show them how I feel. It's me on the pages, you know."

I can imagine little else with more sneering condescension, with more moral cowardice lurking around the edges and inflicting itself on the audience. It is shameful.

The holy dictum is "Come at the king, best not miss." His retinue will tear you to pieces, watch pack animals converge on the bested challenger.

It is a good thing that the art world dies, that the public abandons it, that literature is left to screeching fools.

The general reaction means that we still have aesthetic instincts. We still see beauty, which means we see its opposite, which means

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I have no clue how to use tumblr, the UI is terrible, no you's here are the you's here, which I don't need to say because self-selection. This is sounding board for the main task (be on edge instantly), but it's a helpful sounding board. One has to learn to gesture and - if they trust in their gestures - do so publically. Or, we might say: tilt their head in a different way.

Sooner or later, I'm going to have to write about Nietzsche (I'll have to write about capitalism and Marx and markets and Kant, too, but those are different-and-identical matters). This is a shame, because Nietzsche cannot be talked about. One has to assert things, there is no way to back them up, scholars who try to do so are hilarious. "He says this thing and this other thing, there is no way to tell which he means." There is, you have to recognize the tempo, it is obvious when you do, you have to learn to read.

Kid reads Nietzsche and goes full Thrasymachus. The Truth Is There Is No Truth, Just The Will Of The Strong. Wrong, bucko. Swap a few nouns and you have a solid tween advertising campaign, Time's Person of the Year is You. If there's truth there's truth, if there isn't there isn't, we are uncertain, it is premature to determine one way or another. What's certain is that we are lying animals, that we lie to survive and, better, to thrive.

Thrasymachus is survival level, which is appropriate, go back to Will to Power. Reinterpreting base-level nature of humanity as a particular strength of your own, and, worse, as your way to gain power is not a sign of strength. It means you have none, you failed at the goal, your character is not adequate to attain power.

Turn it around, reconsider the scene: Thrasymachus inserts himself in a debate via moral outrage. Socrates, he claims, does the same as the rest of the sophists. He lies, he wins through rhetoric, but his trick is to claim truth. This is unfair, because it lets him win. The problem, according to Thrasymachus, is that all conversations are contests, there is no truth, just strength, which makes the only truth "strength." Wait, go back. "It is unfair because it is a lie that lets him win."

If Thrasymachus's argument doesn't make your skeptometer go nuclear, I don't know what to tell you. Some people find it "a harsh, Machiavellian assertion." Philosophy is beyond them, which makes poetry and fiction well beyond them. Music is presumably dark matter.

We're talking about Nietzsche, which means the first question is "What is the value of Thrasymachus's argument? What role does it play?" Or: what does it mean to claim that the strong are known by their dissimulation, and assert this as the truth? Whether it is or not is "right" is the wrong question, go back to letting Rawls best you, nothing here will help. "Harsh."

Last: Socrates gleefully replies with a gigantic parable which is explicitly false. But it is beautiful. I mean linguistically, it's gorgeous Greek, astonishing Greek. He claims, in the myth, that truth always carries the day, that it leads to the only life worth living. Note how he phrases it, the same way Plato always phrases it, the one time a real master like that slips. Not because he lacks the skill, no. Because it's fun to slip sometimes, it provokes laughter, and laughter is the balm of the gods. The Plantonic phrase is not "This is the truth." It's: "We will be better men for believing this."

Socrates, naturally, wins.

A thousand edgy undergrads scream and moan. They've read the first essay of the Genealogy, maybe even the second (definitely not the third), they know the score: "The game was rigged. Of course Socrates wins, Plato wrote the thing. It's deeply unfair! Thrasymachus was telling the truth, he was right! Socrates is naive, a coward hiding behind 'truth'."

There's a specific Nietzsche term for that reaction. Or, more accurately, the ethical character which predicates the reaction. They won't like it.

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"The point is to lie beautifully?" Not really, but even if so: that's Plato's claim, not Nietzsche's. See: Strauss.

Nietzsche's claim is harder. Approximation: Aristophanes wrote the Clouds which is theoretically about Socrates. Greek theatre, like Noh, relied on archetypical masks and exaggerated molds of contemporary figures. Tradition tells us that Socrates laughed harder than anyone when the mask was revealed, that he stood up to let all know how fine the mask's craft was. We know also that Plato adored the works of Aristophanes, despite the Apology blaming him for the trial. Socrates dies with a joke; the Symposium gives Aristophanes the prettiest speech. These are all the same as the mask.

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We are bad readers, but it is fun to talk about philosophy. Taken alone, that justifies it.

It is also good for your soul, and it tells you what that is. Plato would say: bronze, silver, gold. Which? Inaccurate, but funny. Philosophy requires no data, no historical baggage, the argument is right in front of you, there is no other, you simply must read it. It is open to your powers alone, hence its danger.

"You can assert anything in philosophy!" Only if you know how to do it well, which is a self-selecting process, which means that those who can won't. The reverse of that statement: I was conned because I cannot juggle arguments well enough to filter good from bad. The theses of philosophy are not the point, you cannot understand it from second-hand sources because you need to read the argument. No one can tell you what it means because what it means is asserted as economically as possible in the original text. See also: art.

Of course there are truths in the world. That's the point.

Philosophy is open, free, without the "rigor" imposed on physical sciences in precisely the same way a piano is free, open, "cannot be proven or disproven." One reacts to a bad musician viscerally.

Philosophy goes a good deal further, of course. It has, to use Nietzsche's term, "mocking, Dionysian laughter." It lets Thrasymachus tell the truth as hard as he can and - it lets people agree. There is a deep cruelty here. Worse, of course, is the situation of those who can't differentiate between Thrasymachus and Socrates, between them and Plato, between Theaetetus and Gorgias. It puts the bad musician on stage and lets them play. It even claps. See: philosophy departments.

The point of this is humor, of course, which is nothing to scoff at.

"It's all baseless assertion, there's no outside measure of which side is right." Stop telling me about yourself. Jesus, have some dignity.

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PDF warning, Strauss in a seminar, discussing the Apology and the poor arguments of rigid platonism:

"Now Burnet had the merit to take the Clouds much more seriously than most students. He rightly insisted on the fact that the comedy is of course not a historical report and therefore one must be cautious. The historical report would give us facts and a comedy gives us jokes. And therefore this is one special difficulty—unfortunately he goes beyond this; he says, “quote, Statements of fact are not funny, unquote.”

[Laughter] Now this is a consequence of the fact-value distinction, because “funny” is surely a predicate of value [laughter]. It may be a negative value, but still it is not neutral. And I do not know whether Burnet knew it was a consequence of the fact-value distinction, but in fact it is. Now let us briefly consider this consequence or implication of the fact-value distinction. Is it true, as Burnet asserts, that statements of fact are never funny? Is it true? It would be true if there were never funny facts. [Laughter]

We all know that there are funny facts."